5-19-24 - Navy Seal Aaron Reed

On tonight's show, Jim interviewed Navy Seal Aaron Reed about the role of today's citizen-solders and the aspects of the war on terror. The show is a warm up for Memorial Day.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
News Radio eight forty whas welcomes youto Jim Straighter Outdoors, the area's leading
authority on hunting and fishing. JimStraighter Outdoors is brought to you by Massioak
Property's Heart Realty. For the outdoorhome of your dreams. Call Paul Thomas
at two seven zero five two fourone nine zero eight Lynden Animal Clinic,
your pet's best Friend, Sportsman's Taxidermy. Visit them at Sportsman's Taxidermy dot com.

(00:26):
An Roth Heating and Cooling, afamily owned business with over one hundred
years of experience in the Louisville area. Wildlife Habitat Solutions. Check Jim and
his team on Facebook at Wildlife HabitatSolutions and by SMI Marine. Getting your
boat back on the water in notime. To join in on the conversation,
call us at five seven one eightfour eight four inside Louisville and one

(00:49):
eight hundred four four four eight foureight four outside the Metro. Now sit
back and relax and enjoy the nexttwo hours of Jim Straighter Outdoors on news
Radio eight forty whas. Good eveningeveryone, Jim straight here, delighted to
be with you as always and I'vegot a special program tonight, folks,

(01:10):
if most of you are where,Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and
we are going to do a specialprogram for a Memorial Day. As I
often do, some really nice quotes. But it occurred to me that there's
another aspect to Memorial Day and theservice that folks provide so that we can

(01:34):
enjoy our freedoms in this country.And that is that dead men tell no
tales. So what I mean bythat is, I thought it would really
be a great idea tonight to havesomeone from the military explain the cost of
freedom from the inside out. It'ssomething you don't hear enough about and there

(01:57):
are many many aspects to it.As most of you know, I'm a
veteran myself, so I'm very passionateabout that. So in that regard,
I thought I'd get one of thebest of the best to be on the
program with me, and that's AaronReid. Aaron is a retired Navy steal
All of you aware of what SealTeam members do and have done and will

(02:19):
be doing for our country going forwards. A very special elite group of individuals,
and Aaron has served admirably for manymany years, and we're going to
talk about what it's like for thefamily of a citizen soldier. We're going
to talk about the difference between citizenssoldiers up today versus, for example,

(02:43):
draftees during the Vietnam War there whereI was in the military. So sit
back and relax. I think you'regoing to really enjoy hearing from Aaron.
He's a very unique individual and he'sgot some interesting perspectives about war and about
the folks that are engaged in terrorism, which was the war he was engaged

(03:07):
with. So we will get tothat right after the break. This break
is presented by SMI Marine. They'reeleven four hundred Westport Road. They're just
north of the Gene Sneider Goho.Send them to Maddington and staff can help
you with everything from voting problems,problems with your motor to fixing you up
with new electronics. And remember this, you never get sold by my friends

(03:31):
at SMI. And we're back,folks, and promise we're talking to Navy
Seal Aaron Reid, who serve admirablyfor many many years. And Aaron,
thank you so much for being onthe program and doing what you did to
protect our country. You have sportinggoods store now because you want to serve

(03:57):
the public in that capacity, becauseyou're very strong Second Amendment kind of.
Yeah, and you've taken another stepforward now that you're retired at Seal.
You want to serve in the KentuckyState Senate. Yes, sir, Yeah,
I'm running for Senate. I've beenrunning for a couple of years now,
got redistricted once and I'm still init. It's been a marathon of
a campaign. And you know,next coming up this Tuesday is the primary.

(04:21):
Is finally gonna come to a anend. One way or the other,
we're gonna be We're gonna begin thegame. We're gonna be doing something
different. Well, good luck toyou, sir. Thanks. The reason
we're having you on the program night, of course, is leading towards Memorial
Day, which I find to bea very heartfelt holiday. I think it's
one of the best. We gotquite very American. Yes, absolutely,

(04:46):
And I wanted folks to realize thecost that is associated with being a soldier
in today's world, which is avery very dangerous world. And we're gonna
talk all about that. I'd liketo start out, if you don't mind
by saying why you felt compelled againin a day in time when there's no

(05:09):
draft, nobody's is forced to serve, why did you feel compelled to step
forward? It was absolutely a callingthat I can't explain other than that I
was raised in a way that youknow, my dad was. He was
a marine, he was a statetrooper, and he got into the Army
National Guard here in Kentucky and healways told me, and I never forgot,

(05:29):
you know, he still says it. America is free and America is
great because good men serve, andthere's no other way to get you know,
you have to have folks that arepatriotic who want to serve their country.
And it caused you to have skinin the game. If you serve,
you know, and if you youknow, if you give something like
that to your country, it'll giveit back to you. And your whole

(05:50):
point is that we you know,it's a pure reason to defend freedom and
liberty in our country. It's It'sall I can explain. It's in your
heart, absolutely, and I understandit as a veteran myself. Yeah,
and I guess this is a goodreason that I wanted to do the problem
tonight because there's too many families,too many individuals that have been raised in

(06:15):
this modern era where there's not aconnection to the military. They don't understand
the costs. Let's talk about whyyou wanted to be a Navy seal because
Hugh, well, it's not likeyou just wake up one day and you
know, I think I'll be aNavy seal today. You know, well,
you know you as a young manwho you know, you're we're dreamers,

(06:41):
you know, Americans. You knowwe we have the ability and have
you know, it's something that asan American you want to you want to
dream big because you know, ifyou work hard enough in theory, she
don't do anything you want in thiscountry. And you know I wanted to
be At first, I wanted tobe a Marine Corps officer. You know,
my dad was a Marine. Ithought that would be awesome, and
I kind of got there was somehurdles there that that didn't work out.

(07:02):
When I was in college, Igot kind of bumped a year in the
OCS or the program they have togo to the officer selection and I got
bumped a year. And when theybumped me a year and my sophomore year,
I discovered what the Navy seals wereand I just dug into that next
thing. You know, I'm swimminga mile to a day, running like
you know, crazy. I don'trun much anymore because no one's chasing me.

(07:24):
But you know, it is definitelya calling that got that gets in
your blood. And I was blessedenough to be able to serve my country
in style by being a sealed becausethat I can't think of a better way
to do it. Because you're you'reworking with the guys that you make it
into this program with these teams.Are that the best in the world,

(07:45):
you know. And I don't knowhow I made it in you know,
I gave it everything I had andGod allowed me to make it through.
And man, I walked with someheroes. You know. I've been in
hundreds of combat operations and hundreds ofclose calls that and there's probably thousands that
I don't even know about how closeit was that, you know, close
to death, you know, butyou know God brought me through it and

(08:05):
here we are, you know,here I got another calling to continue to
serve and that's what I'm doing.Yes, sir, well, you can
be very very proud of that.Talk about let's talk about some of the
costs to be a soldier, maybein particular Navy seal upon your family,

(08:30):
because I know you had tremendous familysupport. You're very grateful for it.
Oh yeah, I mean your wife, you know, go through the whole
dammit. There, I can't tellyou how many how many things that you
miss, you know, like weddings. You're like, I haven't been to
any of my I have a brotherand two sisters, never saw any of

(08:50):
them get married because I was alwayson deployment or I was on some type
of trip, you know. Inever was able to make any of those,
you know, hardly ever make anygraduation, you know, and for
anybody, it was just you missout on your family life, all the
things that people take for granted.They get to go and be at their
events for this, that and theother birthdays, Christmas, holidays, and

(09:13):
then you know that on top ofthat, you have to have a wife
who is independent and strong, andI can't. I don't. I don't
know if there's another one better thanmine. She is legit, like I
could take her to church or abar fight. Either way, We're good,
you know, she's, uh,we go to church every sun day,
so she's she grew up in church. He's actually a preacher's kid,

(09:37):
you know. So that that hadsome issues in itself because everybody, you
know, the PK's everybody they're talkingabout. But it was I was truly
blessed to find a woman like her, and she definitely held down the fort
in so many ways. You know, our kids are respectful and they have
been raised right, largely because ofmy wife. Because you know, I'm

(10:01):
going, well, you have sixchildren, Yes, sir, we have
six? Yeah, how many ofthem were infinite infants during that period?
How many were born? And whatwas that like? Yeah, so my
wife and I got married and wehad we had one son as we got
married, and then my first daughterwas actually born while I was in Iraq,

(10:24):
you know, three she was Iwas actually I was able to be
on the phone with my wife whileshe was having given birth, and that
was what's pretty interesting. But itworked out. At least I was able
to hear what was going on.You know, that was cool. But
man, you miss so much,but you know, it's it's part of
the job. You you don't reallyyou don't look back and think what a

(10:48):
waste at all it was. Itwas absolutely worth it. You know,
I'm not a pure a pure reasonfor for being in the military. You
know, you hear all these storiesabout you know, government officials with you
who are corrupted, who are doingthis, that and the other for whatever
reason, we go to war,But I can't let that come into my

(11:09):
heart and my mind, like whatare we doing this for? I you
know, I maintain that pure heartto where I believe that we are really
doing this for freedom and democracy andto defend the week. You know,
we go, we do what wedo for that reason, and that's it's
a it's a calling, and it'sit's something that any warrior that's out there

(11:31):
will know what I'm talking about.You know, I don't mean to put
you on the spot, but Ido have a question about some of recent
events that would cause you to questionthe role we played. And I'm specifically
talking about the way or withdrawal onedawn in Afghanistan. As a veteran,

(11:54):
I was extremely angry, still am. Yeah, I was totally astonished at
the stupidity of it. And Ihad General B. B. Bell and
I does together and I couldn't believehe was as mad or madder than I
was as a leader. And youserved over there, and you know the

(12:18):
kind of people we left behind.Is that not a kick in the guts?
It is there was a lot ofgood guys that we left over there,
and we just threw them to thewolves. You know, some of
our interpreters that were with us foryears, guys that you know, they
deserved, in my opinion, tocome come here and you know, enjoyed

(12:39):
the American dream. I feel likethey earned it. But you know,
it's it's not to me. Youknow, I'd love to be able to
sponsor him somehow. There's a lotof guys that I think would be great
Americans. That's one thing that Ialways I always say, is, you
know, folks that there's a lotof folks that were born in America that
just for some reason have this senseof entitlement and I don't know where that

(13:00):
came from. If they would justlook outside and see how good they have
it in the United States of America, man, they would just be the
most patriotic people ever. And yousee that every now and then when someone
who is outspoken against our country andthen they take a trip overseas and they
get dealt with by you know,other governments, and then America comes to

(13:22):
their rescue, and you know,the country that they've been dogging on comes
and saves their life and they havea quick contrast and what on their opinion?
You know, I've never asked youthis, Aaron, but uh,
do you know any of the guysthat went over there to help some of
those people have to withdraw to antyyr Seal Team six guys as a participating

(13:45):
that. There was lots of guysthat jumped on board, some nonprofits and
some other contracting companies that are outthere. But I don't know. I
haven't talked to very many guys thatthat did that. I know that there
are a lot of did that,but I wouldn't be the expert on that
one for sure. Well, butthat's another super noble cause because they don't

(14:07):
have the commitment of the government behindthem, you know the way you fellas
did you know? That's Uh?I want Delvin here for a minute into
the difference between the way wars arefought today, and we're gonna talk a
good bit about that. But here'swhat I'm talking about specifically. I was
fortunate enough to visit with and spenda good bit of time with General schwartzkof

(14:33):
after the after the war. Uh, he came here as the Grand Marshall
of the Derby Festival. So Iwas able to get out with him.
Took some fishing and you know,spend a lot of time and he's a
fisherman. Oh yeah, what itwas was unfortunately, Uh and and shooter,

(14:54):
you know he shot uh shot thatday that he came here. And
Uh. The difference that I seeand some of the perils that you don't
face. And I know we're goingto talk about this, but in that
in that war, which is fairlyrecent, you know, on the scale
of things, they didn't have theIEDs, they didn't have the kind of

(15:16):
weapons that these terrorists have today,and so many of the injuries in this
era when you served and today it'sit's some of those demolition devices and the
sophistication that these terrorists have developed.And what the General told me was we

(15:41):
fought that war in the desert onpurpose. We didn't go like you did
into Fallujah in those places. Thereis talk about that a little bit.
I mean, that's got to beso scary. It's unreal. I mean
open desert. I wouldn't want tofight America open desert they got. We
got airplanes and rockets and missiles.There's no in tanks, there's no point

(16:04):
in walking through the desert when youhave all that, there's nothing to hide
behind it, right, I couldn'timagine. You know, Fellujah was one
thing because it was that was urbancombat. You know that that was door
to door, house to house,and we were running with the Marine Corps.
It was with the Marine Corps threeto five and we were in Fallujah

(16:25):
and let's see, it was Iguess November of four, and that was
that was quite a quite an operation. It was phantom Fury too where I
was at. And we started onthe north side of the city and just
worked our way with the Marines,going house to house, door to door,
clearing out all the insurgents in Fallujahuntil until it was done. It

(16:48):
was quite quite an experience. Hada front row seat on the day.
The first day of it, wehad Cobra helicopters with the Marine Corps in
a ten eighteen Wargs from the AirForce flying through and those Cobras would come
in and and you know, wewere doing sniper operations on day one,
and as we were trying to cleanout the insurgents and soften the target for

(17:11):
the end, for the kickoff ofthe invasion, those seeing those cobras fly
over top of us and just mowingdown whatever shot at them. I couldn't
imagine shooting at one of those guysand then having to deal with those those
cannons coming down because they were theywere like weed eaters. Those guys are
hiding. Guys are hiding in palmtree grove, shooting at the helicopters and

(17:33):
you'd see a tracer come out outof the grove and then the grove is
gone. They cut it like aweed whacker, yep, you know,
with those machine guns from those helicopters, and it was it was a pretty
cool front row seat, you know. I can't imagine some of the visuals.
Oh yeah, it would have tojust be incredible. What specific role
would you playing in what are youfront? I was a sniper. I

(17:56):
was we put together a task unitof snipers and communicators, seal snipers,
steal communicators, and typically two ateam would be two snipers and a jay
tack joint tactical air controller. Sothat, you know, we could we
could shoot anybody that we needed toshoot to defend the Marines, and if

(18:18):
there was anything bigger than that,we could have a We had our j
tack on call to basically, yeah, zero in with the Cobra helicopters and
we're doing rockets that we need tofire, dropping buildings. We have a
pretty good, pretty good weapons systemgoing on. That was quite a war
machine. Yes, yes, yeah, well that's that's really interesting. We'll

(18:40):
get into some of the heroin experiencesand what it's like to face that because
I've got a lot of stories there. We don't know if the program blowing
enough, well we're going to giveit a shot. Yeah, I will
promise you. Okay, all right, pardon all right, folks, we
got to go to break here.The break is presented by Mustile Property Park
Realty. Check him out an MO P H A r ke Realpeak dot

(19:03):
Com. All right, er,I thought you might george a little bit
of that music, just a littlebit on point is in America. Yes,
sir, Yes, sir. Souh we were talking there before the
break about your service. Tell meabout your first deployment and what happened there

(19:27):
and what an eye opener that musthave been in terms of yeah, oh
this is real. You learn alot, that's right, man, I
we I was with the Field DeliveryVehicle team on STV one on Hawaii and
that was my first team, andwe had a scheduled deployment and it kicked

(19:48):
off let's see, April April oftwo thousand and three was when we first
we're in country, went straight toI Rad and the war had actually kicked
off a month prior to us getthere. So the platoon that was there
before us actually got to do apretty cool mission on an oil platform that
ended up being pretty epic, andwe talked, you know, ton of

(20:10):
we talked about that for a while, you know, just a really neat
maybe seal operation where you sneak upto an oil platform and climb up and
get the bad guys and save theday. You know. It actually ended
up pretty good without getting too crazyin the details, but well how it
went well, it went well,yeah, you know, but what what
what you asked me originally was whatdid you learn? You know? And

(20:34):
I had this kind of motto thatI had given myself that I'll never be
found dead from a lack of beingable to shoot back. So I carried
way too much ammunition and ammunitions isheavy, right, and you we kind
of make fun of like swat guyswho don't have a lot of experience because
we call them swat turtles because theyhave so much gear on that they turn

(20:56):
into just turtles. I mean,they're just slow. And you know,
I've seen guys rolling up on youknow, with their sleeping bags on them,
like kind of swat. Your truckis like right over there, man,
what do you need is a sleepingbag for you know, and you
know, I think I let's see, I had about twelve mags of m
four mags on my chest and theneight more on my leg, and I

(21:18):
had two magazines taped together in mygun. You know, it was just
it was ridiculous until later on,after you do you know, more and
more missions that you go on,you start losing gear. You start taking
it off and trimming it down towhere you know, all I had was
you know, you can tell theguys that have been operating is they had
like three mags on their chest,one on the gun, and maybe one
on their belt. And then youhave a whole you know, pile of

(21:41):
them at the truck or wherever youyou know, wherever you stop. You
know, if you're going to goon a long term off you there's all
kinds of different things you do tohave stashed ammunition. But you want to
be quick, you know, andthat's that's what makes seals so tadly.
You're rolling in and out really quick, and you know, like scalpels to
But man, you learn so muchby by going to war. That's why

(22:03):
every time we have a war,you know, our medical technology improves and
all these other technologies driven by thedemands of being the best on the battlefield,
you know, innovation. These guysthat are on the battlefield as that
come back and like, man,that really is that piece of gear really
sucked? I need to I needto fix that next thing. You know,
there's a you know, there's abetter piece of there's better radios,

(22:26):
you know, like our radios whenwe first started. You probably remember in
your days, you know, abackpack for a radio. Nowadays we have
cell phones, you know, cellphone side of stuff, and you know,
they start trimming that thing down.The biggest problem is battery power and
crypto. You know, it hasto be able to be locked up so
no one can can reach in andhear what you're talking about. And that

(22:48):
stuff is heavy, unfortunately, butit's getting lighter and nowadays guys don't have
to carry as much weight, butthere's it doesn't make it any easier.
I'll tell you that what was sothe most impressive technology through your times,
So you're the ponents that you wouldshare with folks impressive technology without getting in

(23:11):
trouble for the breaking the law.And yeah, anything that was I don't
know, most of it's probably stillclassified, but I tell you, you
know, the firearms that we usedwere pretty good. You know, I
was a sniper. I had asuite of about five rifles that I would
use, and it would always bedependent on what the mission was mission set.

(23:32):
You know, if you're figuring ona long patrol, you want something
a little bit lighter. You know, I probably wouldn't go heavier than my
three oh eight, the SR twentyfive that we had. Nowadays they've switched
over to the FN SCAR and I'mnot a huge fan of SCAR. I
mean, they might have improved sinceI was there, but I really loved
that stone Er SR twenty five threeoh eight. It was basically an AR

(23:53):
ten platform man, I could drivetaxes one thousand yards, I mean easily.
Oh yeah, you know the three, the thirty caliber rifle, he's
pretty limited. And honestly, thethree O eight is not the best ballistic
round out there, but you getused to it, and you know,
just like these old timers that livein the hills, you know, they

(24:14):
have one gun their whole life.They can hit anything with it because they
practiced with it all the time andthey're shooting. You know, you can
barely you see these guys with thesights that are like, you know,
polished down to nose, but theyknow exactly where to hold and they can
they can hit a you know,knock a knock a fleaff of dogs here
at five hundred yards. You know. I had a gun named Flee Flick
or my dad that's where we gotthat one. But yeah, so I

(24:37):
had three hundred win mag. Ihad fifty calibers. You the fifties were
they were legit, they were,they were thumpers. I felt like every
time I pulled the trigger on oneof those, you know, it was
like flipping a light switch on theback of your head and you'd wake back
up. And oh time to reacquireanother tart. You know, I wish
we would have had the the barrettswith the suppressors on the new m one

(25:02):
o sevens a lot. I haveone now with a suppressor on it,
and I love it. I wishI had that in the team's You know
that's more exciting. You wan't.You won't blowing your brains out every time
you put shoot the fifty. Buttalk about that weapon a little bit fifty
cal well, well that technology.Yeah, so this new Barrett one O

(25:23):
seven's and it's it's specifically designed totake a silencer fifty cal a the souncer,
but it does dumb it down abouteighty percent maybe, and the concussion
doesn't it's not nearly as bad.Plus the one O seven's on some type
of a spring. The barrel actuallyroke rocks into the receiver and the rocks

(25:45):
back out again, so it reallysoftens it. We sell those it ops
apply actually yeah, yeah, they'reexpensive, but they're they're pretty awesome top
of the food chain. If youwant to want to get a weapon like
that, yeah, sure. So. Uh. The thing that so many
people don't realize about war and thisgoes back to your family. Okay,

(26:10):
because again I'm trying to let theaverage system know the cost to you soldiers.
I should have brought my wife inhere. She really let you know,
because you know, they're the unsungheroes of the of the military life.
I bought her a T shirt onetime and said Navy wife, toughest
job in the Navy. And youknow, she kind of laughed and she's

(26:33):
like, yeah, no, kidding, yeah, living you know. Yeah,
Well, at least to this question, don't say Courage is not the
absence of fear. Courage is facingfear. Yeah, realizing that you're afraid
and controlling yourself so that you cando what you need to do. I'd

(26:55):
like you to talk a little bitabout that, because, yeah, I
know it had to be on yourmind in a lot of situations you're involved
in. And I we're going toget home to see my family. Yeah,
And that, to me is somethingthat most folks really have trouble rapping
describe that. Describe. Fear isreal, you know, Courage is something

(27:18):
that you have to have. ButI tell you, being a Christian makes
it a whole lot easier. Youknow. I see guys that have no
faith and they don't have the samecourage. I mean, it's it's different.
You know, It's like I'm notas worried about it as as folks
that don't have don't know where they'regoing after if they don't make it,

(27:40):
you know, I mean, IIsaiah fifty four to seventeen. I've been
trying to figure out a way tothrow this in here, because this is
something that that I use a lot. You know, no weapon that has
formed against me shall prosper, andevery time that shall rise against the and
judgment that shull condemn. I meanthat's pretty pretty powerful, if you if
you believe what the Bible says.And uh plus, I had a whole

(28:03):
church in probably several churches praying forme. Every time I was over there.
I can't tell you how many roundszip past my ears. I almost
pierced my ears, and guys onmy team thought I was dead because I
was laying there trying to move sothat the guy wouldn't shoot at me again.
And I'm crawling backwards on my fingertips, you know, like real slow
inch warming back, and you know, rockets zipping by your your vehicle,

(28:26):
you know, while you're sitting thereand blows up the truck next to you.
You know, luckily it was itwasn't our truck. But so many
close calls, and you know,no one that was ever in my circle
ever got killed. We had aguy, you know, one of my
friends. He was our O IC. He lost his leg on I
E. D. And that wasa pretty epic battle that we were in.

(28:49):
I can go into that, butthe last time we got you know,
uh, let me go to break. I want to because I want
folks to hear that. And you'vegot some interesting ways of saying you know
what it's like to serve, andI want you to roll them out to
the f as well. All right, got your break here is presented by
SMI Marine. Go see it willtake great care of all of your voting

(29:14):
needs. Remember you never get sokedat SMI and you're very well familiar with
what that's all means. Yeah,and you've got some pretty unique ways of
looking at these things. Some thingsthat you quote, quotes that you feel
are important. Could you roll thoseout? And you have a couple of

(29:34):
well just look in that that songthat some gave all. I mean,
it's up to us, you know, we come back. We have a
lot of friends who are heroes,and it's up to us. It's our
duty, you know, our teammatesto sing their songs. You know,
they're they're gonna we have to,you know, tell their family and their
kids who they were. You know, it's up to us to live a

(29:56):
life worthy of their sacrifice. Andone thing I always say, is the
life worth dying for because a lotof people did. And this is that's
why America is free. Yep.You know, it's why we are the
greatest country in the world. Iswe have guys that will do this and
run into battle to do it.I mean, I have a guy.
He wasn't the seal. He wasa marine. He was a college my

(30:18):
college roommate. His name was Ericor Hume, captain the United States Marine
Corps. He was killed in nineteenJune two thousand and eight. And you
know what's what's interesting about what hewas killed is he was one of those
guys that volunteered to go on everymission, every op. He wasn't slated
to go on these on these tripsthat he was going on in Afghanistan,

(30:38):
and he was killed on ied.Their trucks got hit and they rolled out
and fought and he was killed,but and he replaced, like every trip
he went out, he replaced anothermarine as an officer. He was a
captain, you know, he wasa jatach actually jay tech on the team
there with the Marines, and hewas killed because of an I D attack

(31:02):
on their vehicle. But one thingthat he always said is a biblical quote
absent, to be absent from thebody is to be in the presence of
the Lord. And that always youknow, Yeah, but the faith that
he had, so you're talking aboutcourage, and I mean it was it
was crazy, you know. Youknow, I've seen it, you know,
in combat with you know, myteam was talking earlier in Afghanistan.

(31:26):
We were on a rooftop and atleast me and a couple other seals run
a rooftop there and we were youknow, had sporadic fire around our position
three sixty. Battle broke out becausea bunch of my guys on my team
were on a patrol and my officerin charge, Oh, I see with
Tennis stone happened to all the guysin the control stepped on an I D

(31:48):
and it blew that it blew hisfoot off. It didn't. It was
crazy because it was I don't thinkit went off full power. I think
we think that it was, youknow, kind of went low order and
this blew the front part of hisfoot off and he was hopping around.
He didn't really you know, builhim into the you know, knock him
down enough to just cut off thefront of his foot, and we got

(32:09):
him zipped up with tourniquets. Ourcormen was legit like our medical guys man
awesome. No, they're all seals. All the guys are seals yet.
And when the Taliban saw that wehad a guy down, they come in
and force. You know, theywere as completely surrounded, and that's not
always bad for us. We actually, you know, even don't think they

(32:31):
realized who we were. When theygot close enough to see the beards.
It was too late for them.But uh, you know, we were
we were engaging enemy all around us, and they knew that the helicopter was
inbound because we always have a helicoptercome in to save our guys. And
the next thing, you know,low and slow, here comes that the
helicopter coming in and they're they're shootingstopped and as the helicopter comes in all

(32:54):
of a sudden. I mean,this is what the know. Our enemy
he's wanting nothing more than to shootdown a helicopter because that's a big win
for them. So they were tryingto get position. And this is the
miracle that I witnessed with all theseRPG rounds started coming in from our enemies,
and they would they would blow upbefore they got to our helicopter.

(33:15):
I can't explain why, you know, it's like watching a miracle. And
we got him. We got,you know, mister Lieutenant Stone on the
helicopter and he took off and youknow, the helicopter made it back home
safe, and he made it homesafe, and he was he was running
on a prosthetic about six months later. But we made them pay for that

(33:35):
leg I promise you that. Youknow, they didn't realize what they were
the talent. They didn't realize whatthey were getting into when they came up
on us on that one. Butthat was another one. And then man,
I was on a I was aground force commander. As a we
had our guys under attack, andwhat we do is we switch out qrs
quick reaction forces, so one groupof the team will be on the patrol

(33:57):
and the other group standing by incase they get in trouble. So they
got hit with a with an attack. No one got killed, but they
were they were moving back to aBeefer position. I rolled in with my
trucks and my guys and while sittingon the high ground covering them, I
had a reclose rifle round almost skipoff the hood of my truck and hit
there was we had these f onefifties. It smacked into that our partner

(34:22):
forces, the Afghan local guys,and it blew. It hit dead center
in their truck and blew it probablytwo stories high, right next to my
truck. And at the same timethey hit us a bunch of machine gun
rounds and we had some Afghan guyswith machine guns in front of me,
and they got enveloped into a cloudof dust and I thought there for a
share gone. And they rolled outof the dust and one guy was completely

(34:45):
unscathed and the other guy had around right leg. But it was wasn't
even believing. They just we puta tourniquet on even three minute car and
they took off the hospital and man, the close calls that we have is
it's just crazy out tech the lordwas on your shoulder. Oh yeah all
the time, no doubt, Yeah, no doubt. All right, we've
got to go to news break here. This break is presented by Mossel Property's

(35:08):
Heart Realty. Paul Thomas is thebroker there. He's an outdoor person himself,
and he understands the properties you're lookingfor. Check out their current listings
at mop H a r T realtydot com. If you're probably aware,
we're talking with Aaron Reed Farming maystill about what it's like to serve the

(35:29):
country again. I took this opportunitytonight because we're heading towards Memorrow of day
weekend. And as I said inthe opening the show, dead Man Telling
Notels, so I wanted to havea citizen soldier on the program with me.
And Aaron certainly serves the country veryadmiably during his term and he's continuing

(35:52):
to do so. He's also runningfor Kentucky State Senate, so he's a
guy that's born in bred. Ithink it's fair to say to serve in
many capacities. Uh, Aaron,we were talking about uh friends that you
lost? Yeah what what? Whatour gut run is you had another individual

(36:16):
you wanted to mention. Well,we talked about my college. One of
my college roommates, Eric to Hume, captain of the United States Marine Corps,
he was killed. And you knowanother good buddy that I was on
the rifle team with Colin Thomas.You know he's from Warhead. You know,
Eric was from Lexington, grew upthere, and then more Colin was
he grew up in Morehead. Hisdad was a forced freecon marine commander actually,

(36:39):
and his mother was a really nicelady and she actually when we were
in college, we were on theRanger Challenge team together in the ROTC program.
Most people don't know that. Yeah, we actually were in the Army
RTC. We actually went to AirborneSchool together after our freshman year as Army
cadets. You know, me andColin Thomas. His mom stitched up our
first gilly seats. You know it'scool. But he he left school.

(37:02):
I've never been more jealous of aguy than when he left our sophomore year
to enlist in the Navy to bea seal. I wanted to go with
him so bad, but my parentswere big time. I mean, I
had a scholarship to go to theMoorhead. I was on scholarship to shoot
on the rifle team, and theyweren't going to let you know. They
taught me out of this, said, dude, just finish your school first

(37:23):
and you can do it. Youknow, that's the smart move. And
I did listen to my parents andI finished college first. But Colin went
on to you know, he becamea seal, and he was actually the
first seal I'd ever met. Afterhe made it through and came back,
I'd never known another Navy seal.I thought they were like Jedis, you
know, and that's kind of whatthey were. You know. The next

(37:44):
seal that I met was in bootcamp, you know, who gave the
test and gave us, you know, the test to go to budget training.
But Colin did about nine deployments toAfghanistan before he was killed. He
was killed in August the eighteenth oftwenty ten, and he was a dev
group stealed development group there, peoplecalled Seal Team six. But his uh,

(38:06):
his guys, he was coming inon a mission and they they landed
in a pretty hot hot zone thereand as they came off the helicopter,
they were taking fire and they hadtwo elements trying to make it as basic
as possible to keep you keep itsimple here. But basically him and his
group went off to the right tokind of zero to kind of roll around

(38:27):
and take out a machine gun nestthat was hammering his guys and they were
they had to move really quick,so they had to shoot their targets and
step over them and go to thenext one as fast as possible because there
was other guys getting killed from thismachine gun nest and in the way of
doing that, you know, hehe thought he'd killed one guy and h
as he was stepping over him tomove to the target. You know,

(38:50):
they didn't have time to mess around. They had to do quick and one
of the enemy talibans stitched him upon the side with an a K and
our plates are only on the frontback, so it didn't help him at
all. You know, he waskilled, but man, his guys,
he was rolling with some really awesomeguys and Colin nine Deployments Stephen Aistan.

(39:12):
That'sable. Yeah. See, there'sanother difference in today's and soldiers Vietnam aar.
You know, guys would do theirtour in most cases, and then
that was that talk about that differencebecause buddy, you all, I just
no wonder there's PTSD everybody. Yeah, you know, war has changed,

(39:35):
you know, but it's still youknow, hear those guys talk about it,
and you know, there's a wholelot of build up, you know,
like there's a whole lot of standingaround, hurry up and wait,
you know, this, that andthe other. And then when there's war,
when the battle starts, then it'scomplete chaos and then there's a whole
lot more weight time. But youknow, I think in that regard it's
still the same. But you know, World War two guys and the Vietnam

(39:59):
guys, they would go for ayear, you know, sometimes more than
that. My last appointment was soAfghanistan was a year long. And I
get it. But we have alot more, a lot more luxuries,
so to speak, than those guys, did, you know, especially as
a seal. You know, wewe we do a lot of flying in

(40:19):
sometimes we're we're back in more cushareas. But you know, while we're
you know, back at our basebase of operations. But man, we
get in the mix of it.It's it's pretty crazy. You know.
We've been on offs. We wetake down compounds in the middle of in
the heart of the event of ahot bed, you know, and live
in it, you know, soit goes both ways. Yeah. Uh

(40:45):
the Seal movie Long Survivor. Yeah, Marcus the Trail, talk a little
bit about that because you got history. That was Operation in the Red Ring,
you know, that was that wasThat was a miss in where a
bunch of my guys basically patrolled,they landed, you know, they got

(41:05):
dropped off the helicopter in the mountainsand patrolled in to do an SR stealth
reconsistance mission and a lot of thingswent wrong and ended up they got attacked
by an overwhelming force and uh,you know, James see, let's who
was on the ground there. Itwas Matt Axelson, Marcus Atrel, Danny
Beets, and Mike Murphy, youknow. Lieutenant Murphy, as you well

(41:29):
know, earned the middle of thehonor for that mission. And those guys
were were killed and Marcus would manageto escape and evade the enemy just barely
went through. Yeah. Absolutely,yeah, it was. It was crazy.

(41:49):
It was really crazy. Is thatI was in that platoon and about
I guess a year prior my commandingofficer and Master chiefs of the of the
team there. They they asked meto trade places with another fellow who was
having some issues in the water ina platoon that was deploying six months sooner
than mine. And the guy thatreplaced me in that an alpha platoon was

(42:13):
Matt Axelson, who was on thatmission, and he took over my spot.
And I like to think that,you know, there's always you got
all these weird decisions that you lookback on your life that had a great
effect on where you would have beenit would have been, And I think
about that all the time. WhereI was supposed to be on that op

(42:35):
and you know, for whatever reason, I deployed early and a whole knew
the whole nother trajectory in life.But man puts it puts the whole thing
into perspective, that's for sure.I would say so. And I assume

(42:55):
that at times raised a lot ofmotion. It does every you know,
every Memorial Day, every every year, we have this, uh, this
CrossFit workout called the Murph, youknow, named after Mike Murphy. Yeah,
yeah, you'll heal it be thousandsof people coming up on the Moral
Day they'll be doing the Murph.It's uh, I think it's you run

(43:17):
a mile and then with body armour. Now, if you do it right,
you were a body armor. Yourun a mile, come back and
you do let's see, three hundredsquats, two hundred push ups and one
hundred pull ups, and then yourun a mile again with that body armour
on, and people are under withit. Who would do that? What
kind of exercise is that? AndI remember at the team Mike Murphy,

(43:40):
we'd all be out doing PTE,you know, on the grinder there and
Lieutenant Murphy would come out in hishis PT gear with body armor on.
Hey Murph, what are you doing? You know, we're everybody circled up
here doing pet He's like, yeah, I'm good, I'm gonna knock one
out right now. And you takeoff with this with his body I'm around

(44:00):
and we've all been doing whatever organizedpt we had set up for that day,
and he'd be, you know,doing three hundred air squads and then
you do a hundred push ups orsorry, two hundred push ups and then
one hundred pull ups and then gorun a mile again with his body on
run. So he was he wasnuts like that what I would call yeah,
I mean, he really did thatworkout people always wondered where that come

(44:21):
from, but that was he woulddo stuff like that all the time.
I'll be going event hill. It'sall over the world. I mean,
everybody does CrossFit. There's CrossFit gymsall over the country in the world,
and that every world day. That'sthe most common one is the mirth.
Now that you've heard me say that, you're gonna hear it on TV.
Now you'll see it on social mediaand people do it to remember what happened.

(44:43):
That's cool, that's really cool.Yeah, all right, I'm gonna
go a quick break. Here's presentedby as by Marine. Go see him
to take great care of all yourboating needs and remember you never get soaked
and asked him, I I don'tknow about you here those songs. Yeah,
I always like Toby Keith. Yep, yes, sir, I pay

(45:07):
that overseas. Actually, is thatright? Yeah? Sometimes I get in
trouble depending on where we were.You be driving around Saudi Arabia and playing
Toby Keith and you know you canimagine. Yeah, but you know,
American soldier today. Back to mydesire here to not let folks know what
it's like to be a citizen soldier. As opposed to you know, someone

(45:30):
that was drafted. Obviously, Ihave unbelievable respect for the draftees. That's
not what I'm talking about, butit's it's different today. A lot of
you guys did it. You didn'thave to, Yes, volunteered, obviously,
is the poet the people were fightingterrorists. These are evil, evil

(45:58):
people, Yes, talk about someof the evil things that you witnessed.
And I don't think the average personreally can comprehend how evil these people are
and the fact that they're godless typesof individuals, that there's just no limits
to their cruelty. Yeah, theyare very much in their heart and soul,

(46:23):
brainwashed so to speak, and controlledby their religion and by this hatred
that they that they've learned. Andin Fallujah, for instance, we would
we'd be on patrol and we comeup on torture chambers that they had,
and they would they would torture andmutilate and kill I'm not sure why,

(46:49):
but mentally ill people that they had, and you know, we would find
them, like some of them stillbe alive. We'd find them and we
try to rescue, try to savethem. But they would would do would
do weird things to kids. They'dhave, you know, torture and kids
and women, what kind of torturewithout you. They had them like like
you would see in a slave movie. They had them, you know,

(47:13):
chains to the wall, hanging hangingup, you know, and they'd have
these torture chambers. They had justall kinds of crazy stuff going on.
They're cutting off body parts and thisweird, this evil, straight up evil.
What what would that do to you? When you see those, well,
it definitely strengthens your your resolved toto eradicate as many of them as

(47:35):
possible. That's for sure. Youknow. You when you when you see
your enemy not as a human,it's way easier to do your job,
I'll tell you that. Because theythey just had, you're fighting more of
you know, it's it's not justflesh and blood. It's it's a spiritual
battle, just like you know,it's biblical, and you find yourself fighting

(48:00):
is pure evil, fighting the devil. What it seems like sometimes Well to
that point, today's war is sodifferent because their technology. One thing that
you and a lot of the otherveterans that I've talked to here in the
last several years have told me isthat these folks are very smart. You

(48:25):
know, a lot of the newscoverage what have you of these terrorists,
it's almost as if they're just backwardspeople that are you know, taking up
arms because that's what they do,because that's how they can, in quotes,
make a living. But that's notthe case at all, not really.

(48:45):
See in Afghanistan, for instance,a lot of people have the misconception
that we're going to war with theAfghan people, correct, and not really
the case. There are Afghans thatare fighting, but the Taliban, you
know, and they had a lotof insurgents, so the insurgeons are coming
from all the world to fight andkill Americans if possible. And one of

(49:07):
the things that I didn't realize untillater on, you know, doing study
in Afghanistan, is that they havea fighting season. You know, it's
almost like baseball season of them.You know, they in the winter months,
they come out of the mountains andthey go back home or they go
to a more warm area and theystopped fighting. You know, it's called
the fighting season. Yeah, youknow, I was in another province where

(49:29):
it wasn't as cold, and thefighting season was year around there. But
up in the mountains Afghanistan. Theydon't fight in the winter time. It's
just too much snow. You can'tmove around. And you know, there's
nearly an a lot of progress goingon. What when you were in the
high of evil. This is whatI like to call it. They're very

(49:52):
dedicated or they're not and they hadI guess what I getting that is they
have sophisticated ways fighting. Yeah,you know those I E D s and
some of that stuff. Talk aboutthat a little bit, just that that's
what would really be. It absolutelyis. The I D threat is always

(50:13):
the most scary thing. And wehave I like to say early on in
the war, we killed all thedumb ones, you know we uh,
and the smart ones survived and thoseare the ones that you really have to
worry about. And they're tough andthey've learned a lot, you know,
some of our missing fingers from blowingup, you know, learning from trial

(50:35):
and error, and uh, youknow I D makers were were very very
dangerous. You know, it's wecalled it the the Afghan sniper rifle,
you know, that was that wasthe I D. And you know,
it definitely adds a whole lot offear. One of the missions that we
went on was just because a lotof marines were getting we're stepping on I

(50:57):
d s. And we rolled intoa a village and sing in Afghanistan and
that was it was just riddled withthe the I d s. And that's
actually the one I was talking aboutearlier. My oh I see stepped on
one and caused him to lose hisleg. But you know they hardly ever,

(51:19):
they can't beat us in a ina firefight, toe to toe,
so they put these minds out.And that's really a lot of guys out
there who are p psd over it, who've lost limbs. And I'd say
that's the majority of the casualties thatour guys have inflicted. Yes, yeah,
and it's really really ugly. Imean those things are meant to Yeah,

(51:40):
Well, thank God for working dogs, you know, because those those
dogs that we had really helped.I'm like talking about those dogs a little
bit being hearing to come back frombreak. All right, folks got to
go to break. Here This breakpresented by multil Property's Heart Realty. Check
out their lists at m O Ph A R T, Real, Feet,

(52:00):
Dot, Cow and or break.There. You mentioned the service dogs
and they are so cool. Theyare talk about that. Yeah, the
fur missiles meet and sometimes they arethey uh yeah, nothing better than having

(52:22):
a good that we use the Belgianmalvas, you know, the the Dutch
shepherds. Yes, they are abottle of I mean, just a bundle
of crazy. I mean, Idon't know how you have a pet like
I keep those dogs as a petbecause you would. It's a life changing
animal, Like you have to goall in. He's your best friend literally,

(52:43):
I mean he's going to be withyou everywhere you go. But you
know, the guys are the sealsthat would basically become dog guys basically would
live with their dogs and you knowthey had to keep them at the kennel
at night, but they would thisall day be with him working. You
know, you know a dog it'sthey're they're I would say, they're not

(53:04):
perfect. You know, they're likehumans like we on a good day.
You know, we all have baddays. And as a dog handler,
you have to know if your dogis having a bad day or not.
And uh man, I mean everynow and then they miss stuff and you
really have to have to be watchingthem. But man, those dogs are

(53:27):
are the They can sniff out bombs, they can sniff out i DS.
You can send them in to geta bad guy in a building who's held
up in there. But they're justlike one of the teams. Were you
able to see him in action?Probably, Oh yeah, awesome. Describe
a little bit about a couple ofthanks. You know, in the middle
of the night, you know,you take down the compound and looking for
bad guys and you know you haveyour dog guy right there. He launches

(53:52):
the dog into the meat missile intothe house. And you know, the
easiest thing for us is if thedog can bring the bad guy out,
we don't have to go get himand risk our lives. And that happened
several times. You know, theywere they're very good at it. You
know, I never really thought ofthat. It didn't strike me this way
until you just said that, becausethat dog can smell them, That dog

(54:13):
can hear things you can't hear.That dog has killed that it really they
want to do their job like theythey want to do their job so bad
it's it's awesome. And they fitright in the seals. That's amazing.
And they have a you know,they have a lifespan that you know,

(54:35):
it's not really all that long.Like you know, they they're good for
a couple of years in service,but when they're done, you know,
they have to be retired. Andwe have programs where you know, dog
handlers can adopt the dogs that youknow, the multipurpose canines that we have.
And you know a friend of mineis sealed. Buddy of mine,
Chubbyville actually adopted his dog that hehad when we were at the teams again

(55:00):
there and he got to come andlive the life you know as just being
a pet, you know, justbeing a buddy. I was fortunate enough
at one point I was dating thegown. We were friends with her neighbor,
and uh, this woman let outthis blood curdling scream out of nowhere,
and so I immediately grabbed a gun, yeah, and went over there,

(55:22):
not knowing what I would run into. And she had come home to
a burglar. It was in thehouse she got there. Of course she
let out that screen. Well,I kind of guarded the house while the
cops were on the way. Whenthey got there, they had a shepherd
and it was an attack dog,and the officer was kind enough to let

(55:46):
me watch that and watching him juicethat dog up he's in there. Well,
honestly, I don't remember, butthat was probably pretty and boy watching
that dog puff up, you know, lay that hair up. He's all

(56:07):
business, buddy, And I can'timagine what it like to be a purple
or a terrorists knowing that. Yeah, but uh, I want to talk
a little bit about something here that'sa borough under myself. I think it

(56:28):
is perhaps for everybody that served,because it is so contrary to what we
as soldiers know instinctively. This dealwith these college kids are protesting in these
schools on behalf of Hamas. I'msorry, but these are evil people.

(56:52):
By that, I mean these Hamoscharacters, they're terrorists just like the rest.
What's your feelings about that? Icouldn't get my head around it.
And it's raw. Yeah, it'sthere's no iruciating between Palestinians and all that
talking about the Boss terrorist network absolutelyis. I mean, they're straight up

(57:15):
people. Mean they What I can'tunderstand is why people are so like these
people are becoming so anti Israel allof a sudden. You know, it's
demonic. You know, I'm avery pro Israel guy. You know,
they are one of our biggest alliesin the world, and I can't understand
people have already forgot what happened inOctober when all these Homaskays basically flew over

(57:38):
the border with gliders and just literallyslaughtered hundreds of Israelis in their homes.
And we're not talking about Israeli soldiers. We're talking about men. Yeah,
women, children's children, babies.I mean, they won't even let you
see the video of some of thatcarnage. It was, Yeah, it's

(58:00):
brutal as it gets say. Yeah, And I don't understand why it's such
a stretch that that we're going togive Israel a hard time for retaliating against
the enemy that they have for that. I mean, it's been hard for
me not to push that country intothe ocean. I mean this, they
deserve what they you know, theycame at they attacked them and slaughtered their

(58:22):
innocent people, and now they're payingthe price. And I don't understand why
that's so hard to believe. Well, it's because I think of social media
and or certain people in the mediawho put a twist on it, yea.
And what's unbelievable about it is andthis is the way I look at

(58:46):
it, and I'd like your thoughts. Don't think for a minute they won't
come here and do that to us. And there's some of those kind of
people coming across our borders. Lookat the lessons we speak, the lessons
learned for that is. You know, I thought that Israeli people had a
lot of firepower. I thought theyhad like we do in America, they
had firearms in their homes. Apparentlythat's not the case. And if we

(59:08):
use them as a lesson learned forour Second Amendment to be even more powerful
and driven driving that the need tohave the ability, you know, to
keep in bear arms. My goodness, they were slaughtering these guys, and
the ones that did have firearms.Israelis they did have firearms in their home,

(59:28):
you know. They they made thehamas Terrace pay. They piled them
up like Cord would. Well,well they should because that was making Yeah,
that wasn't warfare. Well, theythought they were going into a gun
free zone, and when they finallyfound a good guy with a gun,
the tide was turned. That's oneof the thing I'm always pushing here.
We can't we can't be having gunfree zones. We got to have our

(59:51):
citizens armed and trained. Absolutely Idon't understand why our schools are protected than
they are now. Well, wehave the SRO programs and that's something that
we need to really foster as well. The school resource officers. You know
you have police officers there. Man, A good guy with a gun is

(01:00:12):
what everyone calls when they're in trouble. You have when they're already. I
mean, that's no brainer. Absolutelywell, there's plenty of ex military and
police that would be proud to serve, proud so different what they did when
they laid their lives on the lineduring service in the military. I believe
in the last session we just passedthere's a Senate bill that got passed.

(01:00:34):
I believe it was Max Senator MaxWise, his bill on the guardian program
that allows former military and law enforcementto to be guardians at the schools.
I'm not sure the actual details rightnow, but I know that it did
make some good ground and that's that'sdefinitely some good steps forward, believe.
All right, guys, another quickbreak here. This break is presented by

(01:00:58):
S in my Marine. Go see, I'm going to take great care of
all your marine needs and remember it'llnever get soaked. By Tim Addington and
his staff. It s to mymarine, Like I guess a lot of
baby Still when you retired left service, you're still were driven by a need

(01:01:19):
to serve. Yeah, so youfor your you morphed into being OPS Supply
and your love of Second Amendment.What you spoke to about a need for
folks to be able to protect themselves. And you want to talk a little
bit about that and why you startedthat business. Well, you know,

(01:01:43):
I actually have three fire and business. I got OP Supply and Simpsonville Op
Supply and Louisville at the Little Armory, and then I have Codiac Coating,
which is a SERR code application shop. It's all has to do firearms.
I was doing a company. Iwas really in training folks, training the
SWAT team guys and Milk law enforcementguys on some basic tactics and shooting techniques,

(01:02:05):
and I just love it. Iwas a professional three gun shooter for
several years with Remington and Bushmaster,and that was awesome. I actually started
my gun shop off supply on thewinnings that I had put together. You
know, I won guns shooting inthe three gun circuit really and yeah,
I actually filled my store with ARfifteens and pistols. It wasn't huge,

(01:02:25):
but it was you know, probablyone hundred and grand worth of you know,
over the couple of years that Iworth the guns worth of firearms.
And I kept all the cool ones, you know, the ones that really
mess the real trophies. But yeah, it was you know, it was
awesome. You know, I've beenblessed and that that's been very, very
satisfying for you. Yeah, Imean, I know how deep Second Amendment

(01:02:49):
it is. I've been a lifetimemember of the NRA, and I joined
the National Association for Gun Rights,which is it's an organization does everything you
thought the NA was always doing.You know, the NRA is big.
You know, they got a lotof stuff going on. I'm not faulting
them at all, but you know, they kind of got sidetracked with a
few things. And the National Associatesfor Gun Rights is really a kick and

(01:03:12):
tail. Okay, cool Now serviceagain is it's just in your DNA.
It is, And I do againwant to give a shout out to your
dad, Chuck Reid. He's afriend of mine. So if you guys
have seen today and yesterday a guyflying around with an airplane that says read

(01:03:32):
for Kentucky Senate. That was mydad and a friend of his Indiana that
actually flew over the PGA a coupleof times because that's in their flight pattern,
you know, getting back and forthfrom Henry County, Shelby County,
Anderson County, which is the county'sin my election district for the Senate that
I'm the Senate seat. Say itagain, is Shelby, Shelby County,
Henry County, Anderson County, alittle bit of Jefferson. It's the Jay

(01:03:55):
Town part of Jefferson. Yes,sir, Yeah, why where you called
to go into politics? Because it'sa little different animal than other things,
but it is also attracts people wholike to serve. Yeah, I know
that's at the core for you.But why are you running my three pillars

(01:04:18):
for? When I explain why I'mrunning his faith, family, and freedom
and you know, my faith inGod. You know it's deep. It's
been my whole life and it's keptme out of you know, on a
path. You know, I usethe Bible verse. You know, He's
a lamp into my feet and alie into my path, and he guides
me on everything that I do.You know, Ronald Reagan even said,

(01:04:40):
if we ever forget we're one nationunder God, will be a nation gune
under And I always for that becausehe's right, you know. And then
there's my family, my wife andsix kids, and you know they're a
big part of my I mean,they're my life. They're my anchor.
And that leads just to freedom.The reason why, you know freedom.
Proverbs says a good man leaves aninheritance for his children's children. And you

(01:05:04):
know, if I'm lucky enough orblessed enough to pass on a multi medion
dollar bank account to them, thatwould be awesome. But if they don't
have freedom and liberty to grow upto spend that money or whatever it is
that that you know they get inheritedto. But you know, to be
able to hunt and fish and beAmericans. That's what I'm doing this for

(01:05:24):
for our kids. Well, I'mreally excited you're running because I know how
much you appreciate our outdo heritage andwhat it meant in your former view.
Speak to that a little bit herebefore My dad's going. He's guided me
and taking me on so many huntsas a kid, you know, and
we I grew up, you know, squirrel hunting, deer hunting, groundhog

(01:05:45):
hunting. Man, it just evolvedinto what it is today. You know,
I wish I had more time totake my kids hunting more. It's
never enough. You know. Mylittle boys love fishing. You know,
my boy Bo Bridger of the twoyoungest, they are fishing fanatics. Bridger
goes through a fishing pole about herBow goes through a fishing pole about once

(01:06:08):
a month. You know, hewears them out, he runs out.
He's catching bass and bluegill constantly,and it's a trip. You'll see it
on our Facebook page sometime we postedup he just he's the luckiest fish amount
they I've ever seen. He's seven. Really, he'll go down there and
wear them out. All these myolder kids, their their friends come over

(01:06:31):
to the pond and fish because wehave a pretty good little fishing area there.
And then Bow walks out there,seven year old with you know,
the goofy is looking set up.You can imagine, you know, you
go there and starts out angling everybody. What in the world that's cool?
Well, everybody's got their touch,you know. Oh, yeah, you've
got a daughter you're really proud of. Yeah, Maddie she's gonna she's defending

(01:06:56):
her state championship this year, youknow, on election night on Tuesday.
It's a regional championship. So I'llbe running for Senate and she'll be defending
her regional championship at the exact sametime before she goes to the state.
Cool. Yeah, how do folkslearn more about you? Well? Read
for ky dot com is the ourwebsite. Read fl r ky dot com,

(01:07:20):
and then you know on Facebook,Aaron read for Kentucky Senate is what
I put stuff on every day.And if you really want to know what's
going on in the election with meor in the campaign, check in on
that for sure. Man. It'sbeen awesome. We had Bagdad Days yesterday
and Bagdad County Kentucky, and thenCampbellsburg Days and then you know, bouncing

(01:07:43):
up all the pork Chop dinners.It's been off and meeting and seeing all
the folks I grew up with.This is where I'm from. Yep.
Wel, thank you so much foryour service all the way around, and
good luck to you going forward,partner, God bless thank you. Be
careful out there, polks, andI bush you as well.