Army Vet Dmitry Solominsky | The Recalibrated Podcast | S01E03

Welcome to The Recalibrated. I'm your

host, Meade Kincke, and

I'm here to take us through

the journey of being in the service,

transitioning out, and

what today looks like.

Our guest, Dmitry Solominsky, served

over seven and a half years in the Army

National Guard from

infantryman to team leader.

He led an eight-man team on raids,

intelligence missions, and high-stakes

operations in Baghdad

during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Today, he is the founder of Measure Twice

Project Management, where he keeps

construction projects from

turning into circus acts.

Dmitry, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Meade, for having me. That

pretty much summarises me

in a nutshell. So now that

we've done that, we can turn it off. It's

been great. Thank you. Fantastic.

Shows wrapped, we're done. Everyone have

heard the story where

there's nothing left to hear

here. I mean, what else do you people

want? Come on now. So

let's begin with the why.

We can start there. So what drew you to

the Army National Guard?

So what drew me to the Army National

Guard? I was, to say that

I was a shit student would

be giving a compliment to shit. I

graduated in a class of

254. My GPA rank was 246. So

I was not a I was an enthusiastic student

in in the fact that I

would cut class, show

up for the exams, get high grades, anger

the professors by doing

that, and then continue

to rinse and repeat onward and forward

time and time again. And

then I you know, 9/11 happened

while I was in high school, I

happened to have the

displeasure of seeing the second

tower get hit. I also obviously had no

direction in high school as

to like college or any kind

of plans. And I was like, Oh, let me

think about joining the

Guard. And I what I what

Okay!

What I tell people is that I was the most

forward thinking, naive

17 year old ever

What I saw what college did to my

mom that was the

student debt that she took on

when she went back to school. And I

thought, hey, I'll, you

know, I'll do a weekend a month,

go away for two weeks a year as the you

know, as all the ads

say, and then, you know, get

to get to do something with my college

degree. And lo and

behold, that's, you know, kind

of not what happened. You know, I, the

unit I became a member

of was a unit in New York

City, the 69th infantry unit, very, very

historical, well

regarded unit, but that was

prior to 9/11. Not very, not very well

updated with current both

equipment and munitions,

kind of anything really that would

instill any sort, any sort

of semblance of confidence

in a military unit whatsoever.

Just imagining like, here, here's a sack

and a stick. And you boys

just pretend that you're

making a fort. You go

wild, have fun! You're great!

Basically, I mean, prior to my time

there, I heard stories of

like, guys, when they go

to drill would just take a keg with them,

you know, for the

weekend, and then just drink

all weekend. So this is the type of, you

know, but you know,

obviously, 9/11 had a massive

impact on Guard units in the US

everywhere. Sure. They became

kind of the structural backbone

for supplementation and in some cases

leading the fight while

being deployed. And then in,

you know, 2004, while going to drill, I,

you know, was reading

the paper on the way there

and found out that I was being deployed

to Iraq before I even

found out from my own unit.

So that's, that's always, yeah, that's

always a fun little.

When the post beat you, like, you know,

when you talk, oh,

drill sergeant, what are we

doing? You go like, oh,

yeah, you already know.

Basically, basically, yeah. Yeah. So it

was, it was one of these,

like, you know, aha moments.

We were, we thought we were being

deployed first to Bosnia,

then to Cape of Good Hope,

South Africa, then they

settled on the joy that is Iraq.

You know, those are three very different

locales, just to say, you

know, in case you were like

dice rolling and said, like, Oh, which

one of these? Those are

not even remotely close.

No, the way that I think that they chose

the locations was maybe

they got drunk, threw

darts at a map of the world, because

there's no real rhyme or

reason to why any three of

those places should be on

the same list for anything.

No, there's nowhere near the same

postcode. You go like,

mmm, hold on. So we have the

Boers in South Africa, maybe, okay, we

can we can... no, that...

How about the Balkans? The

Balkans will be nice this time of... No, hold

on a moment. Ah, the

desert! That's what we'll

do! The desert! That sounds way better!

I think that was it. I think that that

was kind of their, you

know, thought process when

they decided, you know, where to where to

send this unit that,

you know, still using

equipment from, you know, possibly the

Civil War in its day to

day, like, you know, weekend

drills, whatever. But, you know, they

they trained us up. We

spent about four months

in Texas. Our battalion commander was a

fun gentleman. He took

he took this deployment

personally, he had a landscaping business

that he completely

sold. And he's like, all

right, we're gonna go, we're gonna go,

we're gonna go do what we

have to do as an infantry

unit. And one of the one of the first

things he did was so we

get to Texas, and we're still

using this equipment that is probably

older than me and you

and possibly your parents

combined. And he's like, he goes to the,

you know, the one star

general of the unit we're

attached to. And he's like, hey, so if we

don't get the

equipment we need, I'll spend

the whole deployment here in Texas.

Because I'm not sending

my guys into that with, you

know, humvees that have two and a half

wheels and other things

that kind of the the joke

bit from the South Park film of like

Operation Human Shield.

And you go like, no, no, no,

that's real. Yeah. Good luck. It'll be

fine. Yeah. It's like,

what's the worst that can

happen? I mean, death. Yeah, you know,

summed up pretty quickly.

So, you know, he did that.

But you know, he also kind of let me back

up a little. So the unit we find out that

we're being deployed. And they they're

like, when we're a small

unit out of New York City.

And they kind of like, oh, well, you

know, what'd be funny is

for you guys to get attached

to a unit that you guys fought in the

Civil War. That'd be

real funny, wouldn't it? Ha ha, funny? So

we were attached to a unit that we still

have, you know, on on

the guide on banners from

our drill, we still have the names of the

battles we fought

them in. And then we and

then we were attached to them because

someone has someone has a

sense of humour somewhere.

And that's hilarious. Yeah. Let me feel

like they they needed to

get the most of it, you

know. So yeah. This just reads like, you

know, like, oh, yeah,

let's go to a Red Wings game.

There won't be any bad blood at all. No,

we'll be fine. No,

no, they completely. No

big deal. No, it's, you know, it's still

to this day, one of the

things that if you try

to envision yourself writing a script for

a show or a movie and

you try to write that

in the editors will be like, no, that's

too rich. Take that

out. No, no one are going

to believe this. Like, that's one of

those when you start

telling like ridiculous life

stories and you go, at what point did we

become like a human, like not a

caricature, but like

a real life soap opera where you go like,

oh, this is like an

episode of EastEnders.

You go, no, that's real. That's real.

That actually happened.

Yeah. I mean, at some point

you would think someone would jump in and

be like, all right, you jumped the shark

here. Let's let's let's

let's tone it down a bit.

Ever so slightly.

Yeah, let's just a little bit. Just a

tiny bit. That's fine.

Oh, I adore that.

Yeah. So we had a, you know, we managed

to find our way to Iraq.

We were in an area that

hadn't been that hadn't seen any

coalition forces in about

eight months. Okay. So when

we arrived, it was kind of just like a

free-for-all. There

were mortars flying in from

the sky, hitting the base. There was a

six months prior to us

getting there approximately

six months prior to us getting there. The

munitions factory for

the whole country was

basically across the street and that was

raided. Oh, wow. So like,

there, there at some point

there, there at some point

there were like, you know, rows and rows

upon heavy munitions

upon like everything from

AK rounds to large bombs.

Yeah. You're like, oh, well, let's go

shopping, "where are the frag

grenades?", and you go like, it's

all gone.

Basically, yeah. Like the remnants of it

were there. Wow. And we had

a, you know, we had a as

we did what we could with the resources

we had, we made

connections, we, you know, tried

to imbue goodwill with the local populace

and we did a good

job. We became known as,

you know, when we were in Taji, which is

about 15 miles north ish

of Baghdad proper, very

farming-based community. So when we left,

our battalion

commander, you know, had from

the, the imams basically petitioned him

to stay because we had

made things so good in

the area so much more workable, both from

a financial

perspective for the locals, but

also from a safety perspective, things

reduce the number of

mortars flying in, were mitigated,

we kind of did things a little

differently in terms of our

how we did kind of our patrols

and things of that sort. Whereas most

units that are passed

through an area, if you get

shot at, you typically speed up to evade

the, you know, to not wind up in the kill

zone. Sure. Which is common sense, I

think for most. Common

sense is not common, though.

You already know this. No, no, it's not.

And we, we kind of, we

really tried to find a

way to help the locals out, we would turn

into fire head-on,

figure out where it's coming

from, try to eliminate the threat, both

either directly or

indirectly by, you know, pinpointing

where it's coming from, and also just

trying to trace that up

the chain to higher sources

of financing as far as and as far as

like, where the weapons

are coming from, where all

this was being kind of torturing the

community, so to speak, that we were in.

Yeah, that's, I've said this a whole lot,

like where people go

like, Oh, you know, these

guys are dangerous, and this, that and

the other, and I go,

Listen, you don't know the

terror that a really, really aggressive

three-man mortar team

can unleash. Like that is

one of those things where, you know, it's

incoming, it hits, and

they're already gone.

Like, that's not you don't get to like,

Oh, where did it come?

Like, they're gone, they're

mobile. That's that's not, you don't get

to go round two on this.

Yeah, no, we you know, we, one of the

things we got to do was

we were there during the

their first elections, which was in 2000

in 2004, which was

amazing, an amazing experience

to see the onslaught of people coming out

to like, finally have some semblance of

representation. Sure. You know, we also

when Fallujah was going

on, to your point, we were

providing outer outer cordon, we were

like 15 miles, 15, 18

miles away from it. And we,

you know, I remember, we were just we

were facing Fallujah, and

I was on the .50 cal, and we

were realising that we were by this

canal. Realising that every

time that smoke would come

up, like, maybe eight to 10 miles away... Uh huh.

within, I want to say,

two minutes guaranteed,

mortars were stuck falling on our

position. Yep. And there

were a bunch of cows across the

canal. And we could tell... Oh no! we could tell

that, you know, day by

day, just how close the

mortars were getting. Because there were

no more cows. The number

of cows kept going down.

So you're going like, is it alien

abduction? You go like, no, just heavy

explosives, it's much the

other way around. But they're,

you know, the, they're

triangular. Thankfully,

thankfully, the, the

mathematics were not in their favor.

They're not, you know, you remember the

the old, like, early 1980s

game, Gorillas, where you have

the the two gorillas, and you throw the

banana and that apparently

they didn't play that game,

they would have been more more dangerous.

Had they, you know,

just video games to the

rescue. Absolutely. I mean, they would

have, you know, or, or was

maybe just a bunch of bunch of

people who were like myself didn't pay

much attention in high

school when they really should

have. And I'm thankful that they didn't,

right? I'm here today

speaking to you. Yeah,

no, it's true. Because of their

ineptitude. That's fine. So

we'll applaud them for that.

Yeah, well, we'll applaud them for that.

I do pity the cows though.

Yeah, a little bit.

You know, we, as a we were, so we were

there from '04 to '05. We were in Taji for

like, three, three to

four months, then we were in Baghdad

proper on between the green

zone and the airport patrolling

route route known as route Irish, which

was at that point, the

deadliest route in the whole

country. And, you know, we, once we

managed to kind of, you

know, do what we could along that

route, it was a, you know, it was a haven

for VBIEDs, it was a haven

for people, you know, anytime

there were VIPs, there was only one

travel speed for them in their up-armour

BMWs and SUVs, it was

like 80 miles an hour. They had kind of

run-flats, heavy, heavy

windows. Yeah, we know the story.

Yeah, run-flat. They had guys, guys like

out of doing like

cartoonish action figure action movie

things out the back of their Humvee at

the back of... Let's do a J-turn! You go like, no,

no, stop! It's not even

J-turn. They had, I remember one time

seeing a guy who had not one, but two 240

bravos at the back of

his up-armoured Humvee. I'm like, what are

you doing? Like, what are you

gonna shoot that at? What are

you gonna shoot that at? Like, you're not

Rambo. Right. But maybe they

just really, really want to

be, so that's good enough. Question mark?

Listen, you think about it,

these are the same people who,

you know, the PM private military

contractors at that point were really,

really popular. They were

paying, you know, 150, 180,000 dollars for

for a six month

contract. So people people who did

deploy the first time around in LIF one

and got out were jumping on those jobs

like, like hotcakes.

Because the first, you know, first 90 of

that was tax free. And then

you then you got to you got to

drive around like a like a one-man Rambo

and play with all the cool toys.

Literally defining soldier of fortune

where you go like,

yeah, no, it's a real thing.

Yeah, no, I mean, and you know, making

making a mockery of actual of

the actual military and then

cause giving us a lot of grief and

issues. And we do have stories now,

though. So we do. I'm gonna

trade it as you do. And so my unit, my unit

had a just an awful

deployment. We lost a lot of guys. We

Great! That sounds, that sounds excellent!

Yeah. It's it was it was a joyful time.

Okay, so let's let's back it up just just

a few degrees. So talk

about like humble beginnings as

an infantryman going from that to,

you know, team leader. Like

how how did it begin, begin for

you? You know, so I, you know, and it's

you have to go back to you have to go

back to basic when I

yeah, I, you know, I never held a gun

before in my life. I never didn't, you

know, when I joined,

I was like, what does this do? This do...

Oh, my goodness. And

this is why we have the

instructions printed on the side of

weapons and you go like, no, that's real.

Yeah, no, I listen. So I, you know, I in

basic I, you know, when I

went to go calibrate... zero my

weapon, and I wasn't hitting this, not

only was I not hitting the,

you know, the eight and a half by

11 target on the board, I wasn't hitting

the board itself, because

the I realized that I'm,

I was using the wrong eye. And the drill

sergeant basically told me to, hey,

dipshit, try using your

other eye, which... which at that point I

was like, huh, what do you mean?

They usually come in pairs. So there's

okay, like make make the

else. So this one's lefty.

Oh, shit. There we go. Now he's got it.

He's got it. He's good to go.

20 something years later.

Fuck, if I would have known.

Oh, as you do. So yeah,

like I learned how to shoot. I

you know, came into my unit, my unit,

like I said, was a, you know, go to I

would just at that point,

you know, still going to drill. I

finished high school because

I finished high school as in a

shitty, shitty way. Not really giving a

rat's ass much about it. And as I was a

week away from going

to basic, I was playing basketball, and I

came down on my ankle

twisted it. Thought nothing of it,

you know, I played I played sports in

high school. So went on the

sidelines, let my ankle rest a

little, retied nice and tight. Went...

went back in, first play of

the next game came down in the

same ankle, twisted it again. Go home. By

go I mean, waddle home.

Sure. Wake up the next day,

my ankle is the size of my head. And I go

to a doctor and he's

like, and he starts laughing

at me, which is always a great sign.

You're never going to believe this, but

his his foot exploded.

So he goes to me, I've been doing this

work for 25 years. I've never seen

someone come close... as close

as you to completely shattering and

breaking most of the bones in your ankle

without actually doing

so. Like, oh, like, what does that mean

for me goes? Well, that means

for you is just you're going

to be staying off your ankle for a while.

No surgery, no

surgery, but cast and kind of

kind of professionally waddling around

with crutches. So got,

you know, postponed my

entrance into basic by forget, like

maybe, maybe a couple of months

until I until I was able to, you know,

reduce the size of my

foot... ankle to, you know,

a real human size. Yeah, as it turns out,

being an infantryman,

you're kind of on your feet a

little bit, just a little bit. So just

the tad touch. So I, you know,

I went to basic, like I said,

I went to basic experienced all of that

experienced the joys of,

you know, running through the

gas chamber. I had, I had in basic, I had

glasses that were known

as birth control glasses.

Because if a woman saw you, she stayed

away. Standard issue.

Yeah, yeah, standard issue. Which at that point,

I was like, Oh, great. They're only

the glasses are only like this thick.

Like Coke bottles would have been very

lightweight in contrast.

Yeah, I had a really strong neck after

basic from holding them up. See, the

thing about it is they

they just recognise your, your charisma

and say, prowess with women.

And they just thought, No,

we need to equalise that we can't have

and he will snatch up

everyone we can't do this. So we

need to like, you know, make him look

less like George Clooney and more and

more like, you know,

Steve Bannon. Like that, or Quasimodo, take your pick,

however you like it. So I so

you know, I kind of did that.

And then, you know, I said the glasses

point drill sergeants would be like, Hey,

we start like a 21 mile road march, is it

gonna rain on this march?

So can you tell us, you know,

can you always be always classic joke of

like, Oh, you're tall.

How's the weather up there? You

know, like that kind of thing. Basically,

like, they would I would I

would get jokes along the

lines of like, Hey, what are the lottery

numbers for next week? Huh?

Okay, that you must admit that

one's witty. Like, it is. Give credit where

where it's due. Oh, no, it's a

level up from the usual kind of

one, usual mundane like, Hey, you're

blind as a fucking bat humor.

Yeah, that was that one's

that one was highfalutin. Yes.

Yes. You know, made it through made it

through basic in one show in one piece.

Got assigned to my unit, kind of got

there. And was like, What the

fuck are we doing? You know,

because I at that point, that was my

first entry into

adulthood. Right? So like,

this is the organised chaos.

Welcome. Hello. How are you?

Yeah, welcome. Hello. How are you? Here's

your equipment that's, you

know, significantly older

than you are. Here's your, you know,

here's what we do this, here's where you

do that. And my unit

was based out of Manhattan. So like the,

they had responded to their

one of the units to respond to

9/11 at that time. And they have a, like I

said, a long storied

history of, you know,

going back to the Revolutionary War of

being on the forefront of

both just historical events,

whether they want to... Involved, shall we say

involved, I think we can

use that word to sum it up.

So I'll ask this, you went from that. And

obviously, everyone

very disappointed that

you didn't get to continue your career

being the new Larry Bird.

But with that being put aside,

sadly so, how did the growth from, you

know, infantrymen to team

leader, how was that something

that you sought out? Or was that

something that you were kind of pushed

to, or maybe a mixture of

both? Kind of more so that I was pushed

into, I never really

thought of myself as a, at that

point in my life, I never really thought

of myself as a leader of, of

anything in any way, shape or

form, like the word when looked up in a

dictionary, definitely did

not have my face, my name,

not even not even my zip code, maybe like

I just like very far

away from what I wanted.

What I sure, because I, I was a, you

know, your, you sign up for

the military at that age, you're

in a case of a guardsman, probably some

and in the case of probably

some active duty personnel,

you're, you're 18. You don't know

your ass from your elbow.

You have no, you have no clue

how the world functions. You're just, you

know, put into a unit

and told to follow orders,

told... Grown toddler is the way I would

describe it. Yes. Great. Hold

on. What's this do? And you're

like, okay, so that's, we'll just call it

the pointy pointy. That's

what's called a knife to

normal humans. You go run. Okay!

Basically, yes. It, to some extent, like

my unit and also just

my experience as like, as I grew as a, as

a person during my time, like, it's like,

it really seems like a somewhere along

the line. Someone was

like, Hey, you know,

it'd be really funny if we film a bunch

of 18, 19, 20, 21

year-olds from the inner,

from, from New York city and have them

pretend they're soldiers.

And, and it's like the stupidest

version of Candid Camera ever. Like if it

was candid camera, it

would be like the hijinks,

the stupidity, the absolute just abject,

like insanity that we went

through, that we did, things

we did, while in a Guard unit too, 'cause

it's only, you only drill

one weekend a month, right?

The rest of the time you're off doing

whatever it is that, you

know... Life things. Most young adults do,

but it kind of, it, it, it, Oh my

goodness. I'll ask this now

you've stepped on a point.

So you've joined us for Mission:

Recalibration before, and I'll

ask it here. Now that we have a

point, what are you absolutely delighted

that like smartphones

were not around to record?

Oh, I mean, um, everything.

Now that's a broad sword to swing.

Like, you know, I think that if, if

smartphones were around

during my deployment, during

kind of even the stuff that we did during

drill, I think that,

you know, there would be

not just our drill, but like just writ

large, infantrymen, I think

are, you know, one of the,

they probably be one of the reasons why

smartphones would be banned.

Right?

Oh my goodness. Oh, I have so many like

sketches and films playing

in my head and you go, and

they're all painfully

accurate. We're all watching it.

Yeah. It's, it's really, really funny how

just, you know, the

timing of it all worked out

because we recorded videos when we were

deployed on our phones that,

you know, obviously no one,

I don't, I don't, we didn't share them.

We kept them for

ourselves, but like the, you know,

we would make comments about other units.

We make comments about

people, people's driving habits.

We would, I, I, I have photos and I think

video of me under a really large overpass

just without my, without my, without my

helmet, just hanging out,

pretending I'm a pretending

I'm like a superhero being like this.

It's... Like Heisman trophy kind of thing!

Yeah. Oh my goodness!

We had, we had incidents where we had,

there was one time where

we were there in that same

kind of overpass with an area we kind of

went to occasionally to

kind of get a quick breather.

It's very, very common for other units to

use the thing. There was an

incident one time where we,

where we were, we were under there and,

and Abrams tank was rolling was, you

know, part of a convoy

of other Abrams tanks. Yeah. But it's

barrel apparently

malfunctioned and it was kind,

it was pointed directly at us. And I was

just like... Oh wow! I was like, um, I'm like,

Is that looking at me funny or is it just

me? I know. I go to my, I

go to my, my squad leader.

I'm like, Hey, uh, can we get in contact

with, uh, them? That feels ever so aggressive.

I don't like that. I don't think anyone

would. You go like, what's

that? And you go like, um,

that's a Howitzer. And you're like,

should it, should it be

pointed this direct...? No,

actually let's, let's ring them up. Let's

see. Um, did you, did

someone steal your breakfast?

Okay. Well, so like, well, what's, what's

funny, what's "funny", is like

they are, they're, they're

trained to as, as are we, like when they,

you know, when they're, when you're

traveling on a curve to

have the barrel facing the way that it

can have most, most coverage.

Sure. And it's just that the

barrel of that is significantly larger

than the barrel of the .50

cal, which I was, you know,

just by a little bit. Just a touch. Yeah.

Just a touch. And I was just like, um,

I was thinking, I'm like, think I can get

their attention. If I

start firing at them, like,

like, hello, hello. There's something

about the cycle rate of a

.50 cal because it's not,

it doesn't have a fast cycle rate. It's

a, it's very much a, dut dut dut dut dut dut

you know, like that kind of thing.

And you go, Oh, I know that

rhythm. Someone are upset!

And you think, on a, especially on

the armor, on the

armour plating of an Abrams,

like, wait, someone sneezing. Yeah, no,

that's not, that's not,

you're not doing much with... no.

Yeah. So we had like, you know, incidents

like that. And then, you know, we had,

you know, to your point about like

leadership. I learned a lot

about kind of growing into roles

by observing, observing the leaders that

I had during my deployment,

by observing other leaders,

by observing what people did and what

they didn't do. And not only

just in the military context,

but how they acted as human beings

towards the people that

they, um, that fell under their

kind of guidance. And yeah, it was a, um,

kind of a, uh, a very, very

whole, uh, wholesome learning

experience, albeit under, albeit under,

you know, interesting

scenarios of being in Iraq.

Circumstances. Yeah, exactly. Um, so

let's ask it this way then,

like with all of that leading up

to what kind of drove your decision to

retire from the military?

Um, I just felt that, you know,

it was 2009. I was in from 2001 to 2009, I

deployed in '04 to '05.

Um, I just, uh, I don't know,

a part of me really wanted to be able to

experience civilian life

without the, um, kind of, uh,

the little part in the back of my brain

being like, Oh, you have

drill coming up in two weekend...

in next month. Ah, okay. Just

done, done. Like I'm just done.

You know, I, I deployed once. It took a

lot out of me. Uh, you

know, lessons that I'm still,

you know, dealing with today, both

physically as well as emotionally. Uh,

you also learn a lot about

yourself, how you deal with stress, how

you deal with, uh, well-being and how to,

how that manifests on a day-to-day basis

and how certain people

are more meant for that than

others. And I don't, you know, begrudge

anyone that stays in. I

just felt like I had, um,

kind of a lot to offer the regular

non-military world. Yeah. Not

everyone are built the same

and it's definitely one of those things

where you go, yeah, when you talk like

ex-operators and all that kind of

stuff, those are different animals and

like we get it. And I,

I'll say I'm glad you got out. Like

that's wonderful. You

know, it's always one of those

things where you go, I ask about this,

like whether it be in

medicine or otherwise, like if

someone go to A&E or like the emergency

room and you go like, Oh,

you've had this problem for so

long. Why now? And it's, it's a stack. I

always find where you go

like, ah, I'm just done. So

There you are. Yeah, it, it, it was that it

was kind of like, I was a, you know, my,

my schedule was like my day-to-day life

schedule was insane. I was doing

drill a weekend. I was also working

full-time, going to school

full-time. So I was just like, I,

I needed to just kind of turn it off if

you will. And I was like,

Hey, I did what I needed to do.

I am enjoying the fruits of that at that

point with my education.

And I felt like, you know,

there's, there's a lot more to the world

that I could still both see

and do and contribute in a

meaningful way. So what you kind of

touched on it, but what, when

you, when you got out, like,

what was the moment like you went, okay,

civilian life is going to

be a little bit different.

So, you know, I, I got back from my

deployment in '05 and I started working

for a law firm in the

facilities department. And I, you know, I

got to see kind of, I got to

see that a lot of that kind

of dual-track lifestyle, if you will,

because I was still going

to drill, but I was still

experiencing kind of this, this world and

working for corporate

America at that point. Sure. Um,

albeit not as a, you know, not in any

fancy or crazy way, I got to

see kind of the exploits of

what corporate America falls into. And

like that included, that

included like, you know, we would

have holiday parties around the round

this time of year that would be fully

catered affairs at like

steakhouses with, you know, open bars

and literally in the literal sense, open

bars, you want Johnny

Walker blue label, you get blue label,

like, so I realised that, you

know, not that I wanted to be

a professional alcoholic, but that, you

know, the civilian world has a lot of

these avenues that I

hadn't even considered that things that

can possibly do, fall into

and, you know, kind of become. So

I think, I think realising that while,

you know, those seeds were

planted while I was still working

at the law firm, kind of just the

understanding of, Hey, there's a whole

world out there that

you know, very little of, but every,

every day I would go to work every

weekend. When I would,

when I wasn't in drill, I would, you

know, go to, go to work OT

and I would have these kind of

realisations, whether it be with my boss

at the time, or just kind

of observations that there's

stuff out there that I can do. Gotcha. So

what did not translate well?

Uh, I have, I think, I think one of the

things, I think one

of the things that, uh,

was always difficult and continued to be

was that I had these experiences in my

early twenties where

I, you know, my, were life or death,

right? And I, how, you

know, I had responsibilities

for certain things, whether it be

weaponry, equipment,

personnel that allowed me to have

these, you know, albeit very small

positions of power so that the, when I

was at the law firm,

it became, so the law firm I worked at

was, um, became the largest

firm in American history to

go bankrupt. Oh, well, that's,

that's an achievement! Yes,

yes, it is. I did not cause it.

I'm not that important. Well, that's way

more boring. Okay.

Interview's over. We're done now.

All right. I set fire to, I set fire to a

45 story building. You

happy?!? Okay. That sounds

way cooler! Coming soon. Yes. So I spent,

uh, the law firm went

bankrupt and then like we would have,

you know, layoffs that were to kind of

happen. My boss, uh, came home from

burying his grandmother

in Puerto Rico on a Friday to them firing

him on that same Friday.

Um, and then I, I, I, I, like

my day-to-day for a year, I would go to

work not knowing if it

would be my last day. So to your

question, uh, to your question, like

what, what didn't translate

well is when I... Stability!

yeah, absolutely stability. But also when

I was interviewing for

positions in other places,

because I saw the writing on the wall.

Um, I was at that point in my late

twenties and the kind of,

um, the context of the interviews would

be like, Oh, you've done

this, this, and this. Great!

great. You've done this great. Fantastic.

This is great. Yeah.

Sorry. You're too young to lead

the department. And like, I'm like, I

have managed people. I've

managed equipment. I've,

I saw the, I basically assisted in the

merger of two historic law

firms and the consolidation

of their assets. Like you're saying I

can't run this team

because I'm too young. And see,

this is one of the things I talk about

constantly. And it's such a pain point

because when you talk

about, you know, the transition, when you

talk about, well, what

does that look like? It's,

people don't necessarily understand it

and being able to explain

who you are in a very bite size

and clear cut and understood manner. It's

not easy, you know, again,

to your point, you're like,

I've, I've overseen, you know, a hundred

men squadrons and this

and everything else. And you

go, I don't know what any of those words

mean. So it's technically speaking

English, but not exactly.

No, it's just a dialect and that... Well said! Very few

understand. And so

that part of it, you know,

was tough because I'm like, I can do the

job. It just, I happened

to be, you know, I, like,

and I've, when I was working, I was, you

know, people that I answer

to and people that answer to

me were old, you know, in some cases

older than me. And that's some cases

significantly older than

me. And that doesn't discredit my or

their abilities in any

way. It was just how the

cookie crumbled, so to speak, or it's

like, Hey, I was in the right place at

the right time. And I

made the right enough of an impression

that put me in a position

that let me get to where I was.

So yeah, I, I, you know, I, I'm thankful

for my time that I spent

at the law firm. I really,

really am. I learned a lot about

corporate structure, about,

uh, the, the joys of kissing

ass and not kissing ass. How to deal

with, uh, megalo-

maniacal partners... Politics.

Let's see. We can wrap it

up in a word. Politika. Yeah.

And, uh, I was, I was one of the last

like 30, 35 people there, uh, helped

oversee kind of the wind

down. I was let go eventually. And then,

um, you know, I really struggled. I

struggled for a while

figuring out, I applied to a bunch of

places. It wasn't getting

anything and I struggled. Um,

I, you know, I even gave some thought at

that point to maybe going

back to, maybe going back

into the military on an active duty

basis. Cause I had, at that point I had

graduated. So I could,

maybe it's thinking, maybe I'll go back

as an officer. Um, you

know, that thought crossed my

mind, but I was like, you know what, let

me, let me see what else is out there.

And I happen across,

you know, a website called Taskrabbit,

which allowed me to do

kind of the odds and ends for

other people as they moved into their

apartments, houses, office

spaces, et cetera, et cetera.

And I, you know, I gotta say it kind of

really changed my life in

many different ways. Um,

you know, cause at the law firm, I was

overseeing facilities, facilities,

projects, interior office

projects, moves, uh, et cetera. But this

allowed me to kind of create, uh, a

structure in which I

lived. I love that! Right. So I, I, I kind of used my,

um, the way that I, uh,

learn lessons in the military,

learn lessons about like, you know, being

the right place at the

right time, being on time,

knowing how to communicate with people.

And I kind of parlayed

that into, you know, a pretty

incredible journey through Taskrabbit. I

did like, you know, I was

on it for three years or so.

I did through the site. I did about

8... 900 jobs off the side.

I did about another 800 jobs.

I was like the number seven ranked person

in New York city for a while. Um... Not

bragging or anything.

No, no, you know, as somebody, somebody

who's, you know, you know, the fact that

I tell people this a

lot is like, I, people are like, Oh,

what'd you do? Well, I freelance as a

carpenter in New York

city for three years and didn't have to,

you know, and continue to

live at the life that I lived.

Right. I didn't have to move back into my

mom. I, I didn't have to make any

sacrifices on what I

was doing with friends or wasn't doing. I

just made a name for

myself. Right. I kind of dug in on

the things I was good at, uh, through

discipline, through kind

of lessons learned. My time... Well

you got to take ownership of it. Plain and simple.

Yeah. And, you know, kind

of use that and, you know,

kind of ran, ran with it, so to speak,

kind of whatever it went. I, I would

literally, there were

days and weeks would go by where I would

just, I had a, I had my old

military backpack, like 50,

55 pounds full of tools, uh, no matter.

So I'm ready for whatever.

I'd have my laptop in there.

I'd go to a coffee shop in the morning

and I just, I would bid on jobs, like,

Hey, and I would just

bid on jobs. I, I have screen, you know,

I send someone back

and I seen like there's,

there are days when I had like five or

six jobs. There are days

when I had one or two, I got to

work and, you know, some fun

environments. I got to do some fun

things. I think one of my most

memorable jobs had nothing to do with,

um, um, like carpentry at all. I, someone

posted a, a job that

they were on their wedding day and they

didn't know how to tie a

bow tie. And I bid on the job,

but I won it. And I got to like

experience going into this person's like

hotel room right before

they get married and tying their bow tie

for them. Very intimate.

Very, very intimate. And,

you know, I get to experience things

like, you know, the, the,

the most fun jobs for me were,

where the clients are happy. But like I,

where I got to expert

or I got to hang out with

the people's pets and things of that

sort. I, I've had, had, you know, the,

one of the most memorable

moments I was finishing up a job that

took like two days for

someone. And they, they had a, a

three-year-old at the time,

three-year-old boy. And he walked up to

me to tip me and in each of his

hands was a $50 bill. Okay! So, and he

gave me the $50 bill. He goes, this is

for you. Wow! This is for

you. And like things like that. Like I,

I, you know, I, I made sure

I left each client, you know,

I tried to make sure that I left each

client in a better place than they were

when they started with

me, where my personality kind of shone

through and my skills. And

yeah, you know, I did that

for three years. I kind of, then I met a

girl, realised that I

needed something a little more

stable than freelancing in New York city.

Um, emailed, I saw kind of

a, like I was with my then

girlfriend, now wife, we're going to a

doctor's appointment, ever

saw a truck. I was like, oh,

millwork, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Oh,

I can do that. You know,

blind emailed them. I was like,

Hey, I can do this. Hire me. Sure. And

wound up being a lead

installer for that company for

almost three years as well. And kind of

building on lessons that I

did lessons of things I learned

on my own. Um, you know, got to

experience working on some insane

projects where the closets cost,

you know, as much, if not more than some

houses that other people

buy. Um, and, you know, it, it,

it continued to kind of introduce me

into, uh, the accidental world I'm in.

Right. It was kind of

this accidental path. Yeah. I literally

going back to when I was in

the military, I had no idea what

I wanted to do. Even when I got out, I

had no clue. Um, so the whole thing about

it is all I can think

is like, what's your favorite arcade game

and yours is not like, Street Fighter,

It's not Double Dragon,

you're just the pinball machine.

That's all you are. Just like, Oh, just

go here. And this will

be that. And I met this guy. And have you

met James and James is

really nice. And his dog is

wonderful. Basically. Yeah. And, um, it

just kind of, you know, I, I

spent nearly three years there.

I realized that, you know, it was at that

point where I fell into more of a,

the realisation of like project

management, the ideation of like how that

could become what I do

full time. Because we were having a lot

of issues as far as just, uh,

as far as just with clients,

uh, the sites not being ready. Um,

measurements being wrong. And

I was like, Hey, I approached

my boss, the owner of the company. I was

like, Hey, how about this? I'm one of

your top installers,

pay me a little extra money. Right? I'll

go out to all the high dollar

value jobs a week beforehand,

make sure they're ready, check the

measurements, coordinate,

kind of do all these things that

no one's doing now. And, uh, I'll still

do my work, right? I am not

going to abstain from that,

but if there's a, you know, a 2 to

$300,000 job coming up,

that's going to take us, you know,

a month and a half to complete, uh, I,

you know, you want it to be

right, right? You want the client

to be happy with what they're getting.

And he bluntly replied,

no. And it was at that point,

I realized that I kind of needed to get

out and like, I, you know,

also at that point around that

time, I bought a house, moved a little

further north of the city with my wife.

Sure. And, you know,

I spent, uh, a very brief time working

for an architectural

hardware company that didn't work

out. The boss and I had kind of different

views on what work really

is. And, uh, I, you know, to

your point earlier, like a pinball

machine, I started looking for work. I

was let go from that

place, started looking for work and I

applied blind applied

again to a company that, uh,

oversaw the labour of the build out of

corporate office spaces.

So, um, you know, and jobs are

large and small, uh, you know, I wound

up, I wound up running one of their, you

know, I emailed them,

I was like, Hey, uh, and at that point I

was just happened to

come across the realisation,

Oh, here's what a project manager is.

Here's what, here's what they do. Um, and

here's how I fall into

kind of these things, these categories of

what they do. So I emailed

them and I was like, Hey,

um, I never done, I literally said, I

think I've never done

this work professionally,

but here's my background. Here's how I

can help you out and, uh,

managed to snag an interview and

the GM and the owner liked me. And you

know, that was my first

foray into kind of like project

management. How about that? Well, to

everyone listening in, if you

all are in loving what we're

doing, pardon, loving what you're hearing

as much as we are

loving what we're doing,

smash that subscribe button. And I'll ask

this at this point. Um,

you've already led into it as if

I'm just imaginarily leading you along,

but what, um, what's your

mission now? Um, so, you know,

I've spent, you know, four years at two

different companies, uh, basically

overseeing the labour

materials of large scale build-outs,

whether it be office spaces.

And then my last stop, I did,

uh, high end retail locations all over

North America. And the, the, the

construction process

is absolutely broken. It's butchered.

It's unrealistic. It's, uh,

astronomically stupid.

Everyone thinks they're the most

important person in the room. The egos

are out of hand. The

timelines are comically inept. The, um,

expectations from all parties, uh,

end-users, general contractors,

designers, uh, I just feel like they,

they all drank a lot.

And they're just in a constant state of

stupor because there's no, no, no

reasonable explanation

as to why some of these, some of these

jobs exist in today's

world. Like there's no, like,

it's just genuinely baffling like, well,

I mean, you've said

such kind words about the

construction industry. Uh, can we say

something negative instead?

Like, you know, maybe they

smell like cheese or, you know, you don't

like their shoes. Uh, I

mean, uh, the, the smells on

a job site on a construction job site

will in, in due course, if you're not

ready, might be a little

alarming. There were times there were

certain, there were certain

people. I was around on not

any of the guys I oversaw, but I was

like, holy shit, Iraq smelled better,

better than this. Like,

that's a rough cut. That is a rough cut.

Yeah. It's like, I, I, I, I

show up on job sites and I'd

have to talk to people. I'm like, Hey,

you do know that there's this wonderful

thing. It's a device.

It, it projects water out at you. It's

called the shower. It's called the

shower. And then there's

just stuff you put on, you put on your,

you know, it's even

spray. That rectangle stuff.

Yes. Yes. What's that called? I believe that's

called Oh, soap! That's the, yeah. So

that's the one, soap. And then

there's also this thing you do afterwards

when you, before you exit

the house where you put on

deodorant, it's, it's, it's magical. Like

it's, it's life-changing.

Don't tell them about clean

clothing. Baby steps,

baby steps. Oh no. So I mean,

Oh my goodness. With this ridiculous,

ridiculous journey, uh,

again, you, you, I don't care if

it sounds derogatory. Yeah. I think we've

given you a nickname of

the pinball at this point.

Like what do you have as far as advice

for those, you know, in the

service planning to get out

soon or otherwise, like what, what do you

think would, would help

them to maybe, uh, not quite

have as much fun as you. Um, I think a

big thing, a big message I

would relay is to don't, don't

pigeonhole yourself. If you're an

infantryman, consider other things. If

you're a tanker, there's

really, you know, short of like going on

a shitty discovery show,

there's very few things you can

do as a tanker. Like if you follow that

path, but there's, there's amazing

opportunities. If you

just open your mind, like no matter what

MOS you are, no matter what

you do in the service, everything

from, you know, SF Delta guys to cooks,

right? And everything in

between, there are such amazing

opportunities, especially that are

afforded to veterans. The opportunities

that the VA and other

organisations provide as far as tuition

assistance, as far as tuition guidance,

as far as, and that's

what you're having like education

guidance, right? Like the, you know, I, I

jokingly said earlier,

I was like, Hey, you know, they paid off

my, they paid off 60% of

my undergrad based off of

what I did and how long I was deployed

for. But I also, you know,

after I was let go from my last

job, I came across something called

Chapter 31, which a lot of

veterans don't know about. It's an

opportunity to kind of pursue a higher

level of education to kind

of enhance your standing. So I

got, I went and got my MBA, like there

are... There you go! Yeah,

there are things out there that,

you know, whether it be, whether they're

gate-keeped, whether

they're not as well known about

whether the impetus from the veterans

themselves isn't there to go

out and seek these things out,

there's opportunities galore, right?

There's things you can, you know,

especially now, you know,

especially nowadays with how, where kind

of we're in the shift with

technology, construction,

and all kinds of things in between the

advent of, you know, ubiquitous data

centres, the need for

personnel who can take on large scale

jobs of that sort,

like, and don't be afraid to

take a chance on something. That's the

one thing I will add is

like, there's so many things

veterans are good at on a day to day

basis. So many things that

they can do, right? It's just

a matter of being able to translate your

skills to your point earlier

into like, into the English

language, the correct dialect of the

English language. And civilian is a

slight different dialect.

It is. And, you know, you know, putting,

you know, putting bullet

points such as, you know,

I, you know, you shouldn't be putting

bullet points like if you're, and, you

know, within the SF or kind

of high speed community, like, you're not

no one's no one cares how many kills you

have, no one, no one

gives a shit. Oh, wait

confirmed? Confirmed, though?

Confirmed. Come on. You know,

depends who you ask.

Exactly.

But also like, you know, if you're, you

know, being able to translate your

abilities from your time in service is an

art form in and of itself.

Oh, goodness, yes. And just the,

I would say take chances fall into, you

know, take a dumb job for

six months after you get out

genuinely, because they you've spent, you

know, 20, 25 years in

taking orders day in and day out,

living this rigid life of structure that

many people don't, you

know, many people envision them

just following that, that time that path.

And like, you know, many

of the guys I served with

became cops or firefighters or I've said

the same kind of thing of

like, when you talk about

especially infantry, you mentioned, you know,

Delta and otherwise, and you go, yeah,

more often than not,

they're going to have a sidearm, like, and

it's, it's not a

requirement, you know, it's one of those

things where like, I always ask, well,

what brings you joy? What

makes you happy? And they

always, always look at me and they go, no

one have ever asked me that.

I'm allowed to do what I want.

You're like, I think I just exploded. And

I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm here for.

Yeah, no, it's it. I just think that the

whole, the whole kind of

stigma that's attached to certain MOSs

that's attached to certain

specialties that they continue doing that

work. Yeah. It's, you

know, we've been, you know,

with a, with a couple of year break, but

a three or four year break,

you know, we've been at war

for 20 years, right? And this country has

seen so many people

sacrifice so much of themselves,

their families, their, their time, their

energy, their well

being, and not just in the,

not just in the cases of those that are

no longer here with us, but those that

are and are carrying

so much weight, so much burden of those

that their friends that

are now no longer here.

And it feels like the general consensus

for most of the public, for whatever

reason, is like, oh,

yeah, you did that in the service. Yeah.

You go in, you know, you go

and work, work at a sheriff's

office somewhere in Arizona. Now, you get

to be a, you know, a

contractor, you get to be a soldier

of fortune, like obviously that you're

just going to do the same thing with a

different flavour. And

you go, what if they don't want to? Just

a quick question. No,

it's, I would think, you know,

to your point, some advice, I would say

when you're getting ready to

ETS and you fill out all your

paperwork, do some deep soul searching.

Do some really deep soul searching.

Figure it out, you know,

take, take a month while you're still in

and you're, you know, you're

on the cusp of getting out,

make sure all your medical paperwork is

good to go. So you're, you

have fewer issues when you get

out claiming stuff, but do some soul

searching, like really,

really dive in on who you are as a

person, what you want to do, what you

don't want to do is just as

important, if not more so than

what you do want to do. And it's a matter

of, you know, have seek

out supportive groups, right?

Seek out veterans who have gotten out,

who have completely gotten out, not

people who are on the

cusp of, but we've been out 5, 10, 15

years. The dust has

settled. Like you go like, yeah. So

what's it actually like? Yeah, it's a

thing. Yeah. Seek out opinions. Seek out

opinions from people

who had your MOS seek out opinions who

didn't have your MOS kind of to get a

full breadth picture

of what it is that you could possibly do.

'Cause you know, your time

on this planet is relatively

limited as far as I know, unless anyone

has any hacks. It's, you

know, you want to do something

that you enjoy, right? And yeah,

definitely that. The, one of

the, one of the biggest kind of

struggles, I think that I've read about

consistently is just figuring

out a path for people as they

get out. That is enjoyable, that is less

stressful in whatever capacity that

they're used to their

stress level being. And that is, you

know, if it's meaningful, great. If you

want to go after you get

out, you know, you've been in for 22

years and you want to get

out and you want to be a,

you know, a professional crocheter, then

so be it. Go do

something enjoyable. Like it's,

it'll be the change of pace. It'll, you

don't have to take orders from people who

only have a one-track mind for the most

part. And as, and I

say this more even for

a junior enlisted, then I say this more

for senior enlisted and

officer corps, because they

feel like they locked into it. They feel

like they're a locked

into it, but it's also like,

they all want to do, you know, I, I'm a

member of like

organisations and I'm a member of like,

you know, you follow stuff on Reddit and

everyone's like, Oh

yeah, I'm an officer. I have

eight years of SOF experience. Here's,

here's what my MBA profile

is going to look like here.

So I'm going to go afterwards, who gives

a shit? Honestly, I

genuinely, like it's one of the

things. It's one of the things I don't

care about what you did in

the service. I genuinely don't

care. I was like, if you're a decent

human being, that to me is

more important than any accolades

you can possibly have while you were in.

I, you know, and that

includes Audie Murphy. Like I,

like I feel you need to be a decent

person first and foremost,

right? After that, we can talk,

right? If you're, if you know how to

treat people with respect up and down, up

and down the spectrum,

everyone from the guy that collects the

garbage to the person

that sits in the C-Suite.

I'll say this a thousand times over and

this, this bears repeating

maybe sadly, so. You know,

a firm handshake, a look a man in the eye

and a hello, how are you?

That's, that's how we operate.

That's, it's plain and simple. You know,

it's one of those, if

people give you a reason to,

to be off put, if they're disrespectful,

then fine. You can take it that way.

But everything starts flat, you know?

Yeah. It's, I just

think that there's so much,

um, you know, so much out there that is

left on the table because people, uh,

veterans specifically

are fearful to take that chance to do

something. Like, like, I,

if I wouldn't have taken the

chance, like the reason I got that, um,

job at the law firm going

back is I spent six months

after I got back from my deployment

partying like a fucking

rockstar every single night.

So you're just green room at a Whitesnake

concert. You're

like, let's get into it.

Basically. And then I think there was,

there was one morning, like

six months after I got back,

my, I got home at like 06:30 in the

morning. My mom's getting

ready for work and she was like,

all right, enough of this fucking shit.

Get a job. Oh my goodness, that's

funny. I'm done. I'm done.

I'm done. Yeah. So like, yeah. And I took

a one day temp job that,

and I, I think I would,

it would happen with that a one day temp

job to move the library

from one floor to another

of this firm. I wound up working at, it

was me and four the people.

And I had a date that night.

Right. And I was like, and I was like,

you know what? I gotta get

this shit done. And I kind of

took that discipline that I learned while

I was in the service and

kind of the coordination being

like, okay, here's what we're going to do

guys. Here's how we're

going to operate this.

Take this, you guys take this. We're

going to walk this down this way,

etc. I have, I have a girl waiting for

me. So we're getting this accomplished.

No, I think I literally said that I was

like, I have a date

tonight, guys. I don't give a shit

what you guys are doing. I need to, I

need, I need this done.

Cause I think it was an hourly,

hourly, hourly job. And the guys are

trying to milk it. And I

was like... Ah, that makes sense.

I was like, I, I'm going to fly. Not

today. I was like, so I, you know, and

you know, I fell into

this career path by complete accent. I

had my, my, my undergrad degree. If I

tell you the full title,

you might go and laugh yourself off

screen. My, my undergrad

degree is in deviant behavior.

And social control. Well, I mean that

kind of tracks though with

project management. Let's,

let's be fair. It does. It does. But it's

also tracks with being

in the construction trade.

True. But it's one of these things where

I would tell people that

all the time, it's like,

yeah, this is basically a psych major. So

yeah, I mean, that's kind

of, you know, take chances,

make mistakes. Also, like... How about

this? Let's, let's go from there and say,

on the civilian side,

on the, on the populace, on the people

side of things, what, what

do you want them to know now?

That, uh, veterans are not a monolith,

right? We're not, uh, we're we make

mistakes. There's a lot

of shitty people who are veterans, right?

I understand being

thankful for people's service,

right? But also I think it needs to be

more, uh, individualized than that,

right? You can't just

paint the whole veteran community as some

kind of, Oh, we're all

wonderful and lovely people,

right? As much, as much so in the

civilian side, right?

Sure. Um, but also like, we,

we've experienced things that so few

people have, um, the,

everything from, you know,

spending years away from our families,

uh, being, uh, being vigilant

beyond all vigilance about our

day to day lives, uh, as we, as we go out

on patrols, as we go out

on missions, as we do things

in the field. So give grace to veterans,

right? Give grace to, uh,

people that work for you who

are veterans because they, there are so

many people who are

suffering silently and don't have the

ability or community to allow that to be

projected in a meaningful

way that if accidents happen,

if mistakes happen, don't once again,

don't brush the whole veteran community

into don't lump them

into like, Oh, you know, these guys just

make mistakes. These gals

make mistakes. It's, you

know, it's, um, and, you know, be

inquisitive, but in a meaningful way

about service, right? Not,

not just like the typical, Oh, did you,

did you kill anyone?

I think you just, you defined the, uh,

the like ex-agency, ex-

military, uh, like you,

oh, you're a standup comedian. Tell me a

joke. And you go like,

please don't lead line with that.

That's a bad lead line. Yeah. Um, no,

absolutely. It's, you

know, it take, you know, take,

get to know them, get to know veterans,

get to know people in your community,

whether it be through

work, whether it be your neighbor,

whether it be, you know, through a

religious institution,

whatever the case may be, whether it be

the guy who, you know, shows

up to the bar every month and

leaves a drink on undrank because he's

doing it for his buddies,

like get to know these people,

because they have stories they have. And

through those

conversations, through those experiences,

you'll make bonds, you'll create

opportunities. Cause a lot of what

happens is one thing leads

to another in conversation before you

know it, you're figuring out how that

veteran can help you

grow your business. You're figuring out

how you can apply something

that you learned from that,

you know, in a, in a context, or you come

across an idea where that

veteran can thrive. So I think

being able to have those conversations to

genuinely inquire about what service,

what drove them to service stories,

stories are everything. It's,

it's, it's, it's the important

thing that'll help break down barriers

because I feel like

there's so many kind of fake,

quote unquote barriers between the

civilian and the veteran

population. It's like, no, we're,

we're both the same. We just, you know,

have, and to have an additional set of

stories that we did,

because we wanted to, whether we wanted

to continue our, you

know, our name heritage,

whether we wanted to try new things,

whether we wanted to go play

Rambo for a couple of years,

whether we wanted to get a sick payday,

like whether we want to

test ourselves for those that

go into like, you know, sure, SEAL, Delta,

Ranger, SF teams, right? Like

things or PJ teams, like the,

all these things. Yeah. Some, some

particular men have an affliction with

like, well, you know,

this circulation thing is too fun. How

about we try hypothermia and

you go like, I think SEALs is

for you. I think we have a boat for you.

Do you enjoy water? How

much do you enjoy water? Like,

I think you're going to regret those

words, but you know, we can leave it at that. So all

excellent. Now let's bring it

back a little bit more on the ridiculous

or accurate. What's a,

a telly show or a film or

anything in between that is either is so,

is so bad it's good or

painfully accurate or just hilarious.

Like what's something that stands out to

you as far as regarding military life?

I think Jarhead for me, just the one, you

know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, having, having, having

read the book and then having watched

the, the movie, which

was a fairly decent kind of

portrayal of, of that life, but also

seeing just the, just the, some of the,

the mundane situations

that they found themselves in, just being

like, yep, yep, this is,

this is fucking accurate. Like

you can, I can, I can think back to

opportunity scenarios where I

was like, you know, why is it

that, you know, formation is at, you

know, 0730. Why the fuck are we getting

ready at 0430? Like,

what, why? There's a three hour gap here.

And you go like, have you, have you

mopped a mess hall twice? And you go,

I... zmm, hmm. Okay. We

did it. So we, so it's funny,

we did something in, in Kuwait... Okay. Which I

think that like, it's, I,

we call that, so we cleaned

up the area where we were staying before

we, you know, drove north into Iraq.

Sure. But they, they

gave it the silliest name. They give it

the name. Oh, do tell. They gave it the

name, hands across Kuwait.

So we went full blown 1980s, but in the

desert. Okay, great.

So, so, so, so we lined up in a line

like, uh, and then we

policed trash in Kuwait in the area

where we lived. But like the name they

gave it is just like,

what, what is going on? Like,

like I thought it was at that point. It

was at that point where I was like,

yep, Jarhead was accurate. See, this is

one of those things where I

feel like if there was like

drone cameras, this would have been one

of those things where going

back to the smartphone thing

of like, there's no way that's real.

That's AI slop. I don't

believe that one, but you're like,

no, they really are. They're like holding

hands like children and

looking for rubbish in the

desert. And you go, did I, did I have a

stroke? Is this, no, no, I,

like while we were doing it,

while we were doing it, I was just, I, I

like me and my guys were

just like, like, like it,

we literally thought like we were being

Punk'd. Ashton Kutcher

was going to pop out like,

Like, gotcha! is this really what we're having an

infantry unit do in Iraq in Kuwait? Oh! Like,

like... Oh, that's so funny! Are you going to give us brooms

too? So that we could

brush sand like the dead,

like from one end of the, like, oh no.

Oh, so what's it like being, you know,

MI5, MI6 and you go,

it's not this, it's not, this isn't

exactly James Bond. Like Q is

not giving me the watch with,

you know, the laser in it and you go

like, um, did you see that

leaf? Ah, it's hot out here.

Yeah, basically. That leaf, that leaf

wasn't here 20 minutes

ago. Please get rid of it.

Okay. It's very, very problematic. Quick

question. Where did the leaf in the

desert come from? You

like don't ask questions, boy. It's like,

it's one of these things

I just, you know, you take

the sum of all the experiences of, you

know, during my deployment

predominantly. And I'm just like,