Army Vet John Kerkhoff | The Recalibrated Podcast | S01E02

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, John Kerkhoff, began his

service in the United States Air Force

before transitioning

to the Army, serving 20 years and leaving

as First Sergeant. John

led a recon and surveillance

squadron of over 200 soldiers, including

40 NCOs and three

officers, supporting combat

operations around the world. Today, he is

founder and CEO of Frago 22,

building powerful solutions

for veterans to succeed in work and life.

John, welcome to the show.

Well, thank you for

having me. Excited to be here.

There we go! So let's begin with the why,

you know, that little

ticky detail. What was the

initial draw for you to go, you know, to

the Air Force and then why

did you switch to the Army?

Everyone always wants to know why you

switch branches. Well, it

makes sense because usually

you go from Army to the Air Force and

here I am doing it backwards,

but that's what we do, right?

I love it. So I actually started in high

school, I was kind of

flirting with the idea of joining

and it was just kind of on the fence

about it. And actually,

when I graduated high school,

I had made a deal with my mom that I

would not join, I would

do a year of college first

before making a decision. I was not the

best kid in school, you

know, that that whole mantra

"it pays to get A's, but C's get degrees", you

know, kind of was floating with that. And

so I ended up going to community college

right out of high school,

but then 9/11 happened. So

I said, nope, mom deal's off, got to go.

And I was talking to the

recruiters, I was originally

actually supposed to join the Marines.

And so I did all the ASVAB

and stuff with the Marines and

due to a, we'll just say a "disagreement"

with my Marine recruiter, I ended up

joining the Air Force.

And went there was a metal worker for the

Air Force for a little

bit, was having a good

time. However, the job in the Air Force

didn't promote. And the

Air Force started downsizing.

And they said, Hey, look, you can get out

clean slate, you could

join the reserves. Well,

that's kind of when the height of the war

was spinning back up. I

had deployed with an Army

unit in the Air Force to support the...

some missions out there. And

when I came back, the Air Force

had they launched this thing called "blue

to green". And if you

transition to the army,

they would match any bonus army gave you

to switch. And so I said, Well,

if I'm not going to go anywhere in the

Air Force, I'll go join the

army and ended up switching

branches and picked to be a scout and

stuck with it since.

How about that. So

That's just hilarious. You're like, well,

this isn't working. We'll

go over here. What's with

this? You know, okay, sure. Why not?

Like, you just kind of sound like a

balloon floating. You

go like, well, this this seems like the

opportune time to do things.

I love that. I love it. And

opportunist is not a bad thing to have.

So let's say about this way. What about

like humble beginnings,

as far as being an infantryman? Well, I

will say this, switching

branches from the Air Force

to the Army. Yeah,

humbled you real quick, fast,

and in a hurry. Especially when you're going

from like a maintenance

job to a straight combat job.

And so yeah, there was a lot of hard

lessons I had to learn. And

there was a lot of, you know,

nuances between the branches. So those

who have been in the Air Force,

pretty much anyone who outranks

you is Sir or Ma'am. Sure. As for the

Army, it no Sir, Ma'am is

reserved for officers. And so I

had this habit having been in the Air

Force three years where

anyone who outranked me,

I was just like, Oh, yes, sir. Yes,

ma'am. And I'm not an

officer. I work for the blah blah.

I have said this so many times and and so

many stories of

exactly that where you go,

Listen, if you start calling an NCO,

sir, you will get barked

at exactly what you said of

I work for my living. This is not. And

especially like people, you

know, very polite culture,

like when you talk like South United, you

know, Southern United

States, everyone is Sir or Ma'am.

Like that's a that's a normal thing. So

you can kind of get into

that thing where you just

have it as a, you know, a thing of being

polite, a proper conversation. You go,

Hello, so and you go, Oh, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, pull it back, pull it back.

Yeah, but I had that

lesson beat out of me a lot.

That's it. It's not exactly natural.

Again, like it's a normal thing of

respect. And you go,

Yeah, but you are going to feel respect

in a different way, good sir.

Wow. You respect me while you do these

push ups until I'm tired. Understood.

So as far as the journey from

that to quality assurance evaluator

sounds a bit of a journey. How

did we get from say point A to

B to Z or something in between? So

actually, the quality

assurance evaluator was I was part of

the armour school. So those who know the

Army structure, a scout,

we fall under armour branch.

And so just it was towards the end of my

career, I had already put

in the retirement packet.

But I had a while ago. So the armour

school I was already at Fort

Benning. And the armour school

was like, Hey, you're a first sergeant

for an OSINT unit, you also were a drill

sergeant for an OSINT

unit once upon a time. We're revamping

the way we teach scouts and

we're going to change basic

training. Why don't you come to the armour

school? And you can help us

do that while you're riding

out the time to get out. And that's kind

of how that happened. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Gotcha. It was more the army

saw an opportunity and was like, well, we

don't want you to hold this first

sergeant slot as you

get out in the OSINT unit. So we're just

gonna let you go to the armour

school and change the way the

armour trains. Well, that kind of

steps on the like the second

part of the question I had of

like, was this something that you chose?

Or was this something you

were led to? Because usually

it's kind of a blend of both. It is. It

was a blend of both because they they

asked me if I would be

willing to do that. And I didn't want to

hold that slot for someone who's well on

their way to wanting

to full blown career. I had to turn down

the Sergeant Major

Academy, I made the OML, I had to

turn that down to drop my retirement

packet, so, I'm like, I don't want to hold

someone else's career

back just for me to ride out a time. How

altruistic of you.

Yeah, we'll go with that. Or

because it was an easier job. Look, six

of one, half a dozen of the

other, you know, you take it

how you like it. Yeah. So you amongst

some wonderful

characters have joined us on the

weekly gathering, Mission: Recalibration.

And we've kind of gone over

some stories where the theme,

whether we want it to be or not is I'm so

glad that a smartphone was

not around present to record

this. And I'll just ask, like, what's,

what's like the funniest or even like

just most ridiculous

moment that just bam comes to mind and

you go, Oh, thank

goodness, no one had a smartphone.

Well, I have one in particular, and it's

not necessarily a

smartphone moment. It's more or

less glad it wasn't recorded moment.

Fair, fair. And I think

you'll get a kick out of this. You

remember the song, "Fergalicious"? Early

2000s. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. From Fergie. Yeah. Yeah.

So there's nothing like when you

rendition it to be, "Kerkalicious", after

you call in an airstrike

that blows up a bridge, but you hot mic

it across across the squadron net,

while the aircraft on station

are part of that net. Wow.

Wow. This is like, that's one of those

things like when you talk

aviation and exactly that the

hot mic and you go, wait, I wasn't

supposed to say, "Oh, oh my goodness! Oh,

that's too much ice!

Oh, don't tell them! Don't! Oh no!" And

you go, that was keyed

open. You go, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Everyone just calm down. Put on the

captain voice. Yeah, but I was singing

like, and I'm not a singer,

right? So you don't want me singing, but

here we confirm the

mission, everything good,

battle damage, test, but here I am on the

high mic, "I'm Kerkalicious! Ah ah ah!"

Only a little bit of kind of sociopathic

tendencies. It does. It does smack of a

good scene in a film or a

telly show where you go like,

Button.

Yeah, she knows that that whole have body

awareness and know where

your hand mic button is and make

sure you're not pressing against it. And

yeah, yeah, yeah, good

times. It was slightly omitted

in this particular instance. Let's just

say it that way. Wow.

Okay. So that, I mean, that,

that counts for sure. And I guess kind of

like fast forwarding, what,

what drove your decision to,

you know, retire? Like, where were you

like nearing and just

going like, Oh, I'm just done.

Or like, was this planned or

somewhere in between there?

So it was actually, I, I, I'd kind of

been flirting with the idea a

little bit. And a lot of it was

all my mentors were always like, Hey,

listen, don't try to rush

it. Don't try to force it.

You will know when it's time, it will

like hit you like a bag of

bricks, right? And I'm like,

okay, so I'm just kind of doing my thing.

And like COVID happened

and just the way things were

shifting at Fort Benning and basic

training and all that. And finally, one

day I woke up, I'm like,

no, we're done. We're absolutely done. And I walked

in the next day, I put my stuff, and submitted it is like,

some of the stories like, so you remember

the whole COVID thing,

right? Just around the world.

Well, lost its mind. Yeah. The base

didn't have enough masks to

give these recruits coming in.

Sure. But then I'm being held responsible

that these guys don't

have masks. And I'm like,

what do you want from me? Like it got to

this point where these kids

were getting their Charlie

Browns, a brand new pack of those brown,

you know, whitey

tighties, but they're brown.

They would cut them open and then create

a mask of one of them, just so like,

people would leave us alone.

And you sort of wake up on days like,

Yeah, like, what's that old, old phrase

of, you know, a lack of

planning on your part does not

constitute an emergency on mine. Where

you go. Listen, if you

wanted this, that's that's your

show. Fine. But you didn't provide us

with any of this. So yeah, great. And you

know, it wasn't just

me having that, like all of all the first

sergeants, we were all having

this battle, our sergeant majors were

having this battle. And it was just sort

of like, if no one in the

world could get these masks,

what makes you think that we're just

gonna poof? And yes, we we unicorn and

and rainbow every day.

But come on, man. Yeah, that.

Wow. Sounds sadly accurate. You know,

that whole thing of the the

joke, but not so joke of military

intelligence. And you go, we're here.

We're full circle. So that,

yeah, it kind of sounds like a

weird bad breakup, like where, you know,

the end of it. And you go

and then like, she burnt all my

clothes and you go, yeah, I'm done. I'm

good. We're good. Okay.

She tried to set me on fire.

And that's grounds for breaking up? Yes.

I well, was this the

first or the second time?

I mean, maybe the 80th time. There we go.

See, now we're talking. Oh,

so getting into a little bit

more recent. What was after you got out?

Like, what was the first moment you went,

okay, civilian life is going to be a

little bit different.

Well, I already knew that ahead of time.

The benefit was being in

that QA office, I was already

working with civilians. So I was already

kind of getting that taste

of it. But reality struck

actually, probably six months out, when I

was out already, I had

been working a job with

communications company, building data

centres. And, you know, kind of just

seeing how that was.

And I was like, yeah, I was putting

myself in this mindset,

like, hey, this is just new,

I have to get used to it. It's something

completely different. Just like when I

went into the military,

I kind of had that same mentality, right?

Just, I have to learn,

I have to understand,

I have to grow. But then just the way

they were operating, and like, as a

culture, as a corporate

culture, I'm like, this is stupid. Like,

this is even worse. Like,

at least in the military,

we all embrace the suck together out

here. Not only is

everyone embracing the suck,

but everyone's making it worse for

everyone else because now

they want to beat it into them.

Yeah, I get it. Yeah, that's one of those

things that's so funny,

because, you know, like, when I

coach and otherwise, I play both sides of

it. So I know what, you

know, corporate looks like,

I also know what military looks like, I

know what, you know,

intelligence looks like, and you go,

yeah, they do operate ever so slightly

different. Like, we can talk

about things like even just

timeliness that, you know, when you talk

corporate, it doesn't

exist. In that thing of,

you go like, well, we need to do this,

and this is the agreed upon

time, and so on and so forth.

Like, there's fluidity in this and all of

that. But you can have

things where you just like,

you get, it gets ghosted, or this gets

shoved, or like, oh, someone's on

holiday, we'll get back in

two weeks, and you go, okay, now I'm

losing my mind, two

weeks, what are we doing? Like,

I have a feeling that a lot of head

exploding stories that

are popping up in your mind,

no, this is not, this

isn't okay. So what? Most of

those stories are just like, when

leadership would do that,

like, well, you know, this,

and then when they would come back, we're

like, well, how come

this hadn't happened? Well,

you weren't here. And here's everything I did to

make this happen. Well,

you need to... no, no, no,

this ain't a meeting no more. I was here

doing my job. Like... Fair

play. Gave me zero support.

And so it no longer, it's no longer my

level of concern. And now

your level of concern to figure

out. Let me tell you something corporate

America hates when you say that.

Well, the thing about it is, it's that

it's the mindset of either like,

a lot of times, not always, but the

either what would be, you know, would be

called micromanaging,

which is like forceful hand-holding,

let's just call it is what it

is, or the like, you're a big

lad, you go do your thing. And you can

have it go either way, where

I feel like it always works

well, when you hire adults, and you say,

here are the keys, I hired

you because you're an expert,

you go do this thing. Now, if you need

help, you know where to find

me, you need to come and chat,

you need to ask me for what you need. And

I'll do what I can to make

certain that you already have

it ahead of time. But you know, you

adjust as things go. But

exactly what you're describing

is the falling apart of like, well, I

want both of them at the

same time. And you go, well, you

can't, you can either be with me or you

can not. But you don't

get to split the middle.

Yeah, so yeah, but I will say, you know,

I don't want to make you

seem all doom and gloom. I did

show some really good leadership within

the corporate culture,

right? So it was, you know,

those individual really good leaders who

were like, Hey, you know, I got it. I'll

be able to help you.

I won't be here. But if you need help,

hit me up on the line or go to these

resources first. Here's

how you burn out your resources before

you come to me. So I had a few good ones

like that. And others

were just like, what do you mean? It's

daylight at nine

o'clock in the morning, like,

like, did I confuse you? Okay, so usually what

happens is the sun, you

know, it rises in one part,

and then we'll get to it. There's this

thing called photon, like

maybe, sounds like you're

making it up. I am I have been known to

ramble, you know this. So just

fabrication is what is.

Yeah. So with the things that translated

well, and maybe some

that didn't like what,

what helped you adjust? Well, my well, at

least for me, you know,

coming in as coming in as a

project manager and stuff. The one thing

I piece together really quick is that

actually the military

and the civilian culture do talk the same

thing, just in a different

vocabulary. But in the end of

the day, I know you've heard me say this

before, Meade, it's people,

time, and money, right? Whether

you're in corporate America, whether

you're in the military, like, everyone

who's above you wants to

know about people, time, and money. Like,

sure. What did you do? How did

you do it? Why did you do it?

What did it cost? As long as you can

answer those questions, like usually

people will leave you alone,

or like, Oh, hey, that was the wrong

priority. Like, well, you told me

everything's a priority.

So I made this my priority. Yes, my wife

will say this, and it's

absolutely accurate. Like if,

if everything is important, then nothing

is important. If everyone are important,

then no one are important. And that's the

whole like kind of signal

to noise ratio. If you go,

yeah, we need to prioritize this, and

some things are going to bump up as they

come, and some things

are going to diminish, and that's fine.

But you can't just say like,

everything is red, and you go,

that's not true. This is like you have

one thing that is like stressful or

affecting everyone or

this. But you need to focus on that

thing, get it out of the way, or maybe,

you know, kind of play

the other end of it of like, okay, knock

out some simple things, and

then that will lead up to the

big one because otherwise you can't

tackle it, you know. But there's a whole

I the way I describe

it is it's like, it's like a bar brawl.

It's not like in you know, in in

Hollywood and cinema and

all of that, where like, you know, one

guy punches at a time, that's not what

happens, it all comes

and jumps on you and tries to smash you

with a chair and all of

that. So if you can pull it into

a line where only one thing can kind of

go at you at once, then you

can pick it off and bits and

pieces and so on. And it sort of

assembles itself. Yeah, actually, one

thing I took, I took from the

military, revamped it for corporate

culture, when it's still essentially the

same thing, is my troops

to task. So, you know, those who I'm sure

you've heard of it, right,

where you could put a by name

for every soldier you have, where they

at, what are they doing,

right? And when I actually brought

that to the civilian side, you know, just

said, Okay, hey, here's all

my projects, here's all my

people. And here's all here's what

everyone is doing at any one given time.

Sure. When I did have

leadership coming up to me be like, well,

this is the priority. And

this is the priority. I will be

able to pull that out and be like, okay,

hey, here's all my people.

Here's what they're doing.

If you want me to prioritise this new

thing, where do I pull

that from here? So I can pull

these guys off this project to do that.

But then you lose this or I

can pull these guys or I can

move this. And then of course, I have to

make it make sense to them

people, time, money. So here's

the impact when I pull these people to go

on here, this is what you

sacrifice on this end. And then

when you start seeing their little light

bulbs turn on, they're

like, wait, what? And it's like,

yeah, that's kind of how it wasn't that

important. Oh, yeah, we'll get to that.

And that's the other... Or maybe it was!

thing is maybe they're like, hey, sure,

no longer port and pole. But

that's one of those things.

Well, yeah, like, and the thing is, like,

you already know, if you

have someone that like,

they're deeply invested in, in this

particular work, and so on,

and then you switch context,

like huge, it's kind of a weird sense of

amnesia, where you go like,

hold on, what am I working on?

What is this thing? So it's not going to

be some weird machine where

you just drop it in and it

works. That's not how humans operate. So

you need to weigh all of

those against it of like, okay,

if this is actually red, and we need to

do this now, fine, but

understand what it comes with,

you know, it just gives the whole

picture. So I love that.

And, you know, operating at chaos is kind

of what you do. So you

just make it make sense.

Okay, let's do one last one. What did you

need to unlearn? Let's say it that way.

Life.

Small answer. I like it.

Yeah, no, it's, it's. So the biggest

reality of it all is when you

get out, my whole adult life

was the military, minus like the three

months of community college

I did before I joined, like,

I had no benchmark or anchor to what

adult life was. Right. And,

you know, I love the military

because they, they put, they put people

in charge of multi-million dollar

machines that are made to

kill and maim and destroy. Sure. But the

military on the very same

hand as you're in charge of all

this crap and saving people's lives and

taking people's lives. But

you can't have a stove in your

barracks room because we don't trust you,

you're gonna burn the place

down like, like, and so were

you front of military? That way you get

out and everyone's like,

you're an adult, figure it out.

We don't care what the hell you're doing.

Just show up to work. You're like, wait,

what do you mean you don't care that I'm

taking PTO, you don't care

where I'm going, like, ah.

And that's, it's so much that like, I've

talked about this and I

know it, it shows, you know,

you share the same experience where with

military, and it doesn't matter what

branch, what nation,

anything like that, it's regimented, you

know, you know who, who

you're answering to, you know,

who are answering to you. And you know

what time you need to be at

places and things very much,

at least, should kind of work like a

Swiss clock. And that

whole thing of what I'll call,

"greenfield", which I deal in quite often

where you go, no, just do it.

There's no manual. And you go,

what do you mean there's no manual? Like,

I think John's head just

exploded. You go like, I get to

just make stuff up. Sure. Why not? No,

you can't just make stuff

up. There's a process to this.

All right, what's that process? I don't

know. No, I've

written it down. Just do it.

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. That's

why we like life, right?

Yeah, no, it's true, though.

So a small interjection. If you if you

all in the audience

love what you're hearing,

as much as you love what we're doing,

please smash that subscribe

button. And getting to the now,

you know, that small detail, like what is

your mission today?

What is the mission now?

So the big the mission right now, it's I

still take care of people.

I love taking care of people

at the individual level to an

organisation level. I do a lot of stuff,

building communities for

veterans to help them get that mental

health services they need,

but also to kind of revamp

the way they transition out, they get

vocational training, they get

skill sets. You know, one of

the things you start to see when people

transition out, there's an identity

crisis. And a lot of

veterans either grudgingly continue on

doing the work they did in

the military. So I use HR, for

example, right? Sure. They were an HR rep

in the military. That's

what they know. So they get out

and they think that's what they got to

stay in. Sure. And then

they do it grudgingly, they

absolutely hate life, they hate their

job, right? And it creates problem. But

then to show them that

there is a way you could actually have to

do that when you get out of

the military, you have other

options. And it's not as bad starting

over as you think it is, and kind of

breaking that stigma and

really helping the veterans. But my

favorite thing is these communities we

build, everything from

affordable housing, the Volk school, the

mental health facilities

that go with it and just taking

care of people. Oh, and on the back end,

taking care of

businesses that hire these people,

because they want quality people who are

going to do great work.

And that's what veterans do.

But you also want them to stay because

your organisation knows,

has the right culture that

veterans will thrive in. So we make it a

win win a situation. And that's how I

found my new mission

in life. And that's what I roll with. I

love that. And you know,

it's not I've said this a lot,

but it's not like things like the VA

aren't bursting at the

seams and need help to alleviate

some of this. So that I mean, it's very

noble work that you're

doing. And it's something that

needs a spotlight, you know, because

there is the sense of camaraderie, the

sense of this and the

stack of it, you know, we stick together,

I get that. And I've said

it, and I have a feeling you'll

agree, but like getting out of the

service, it kind of feels like a weird

miniature death. You go like,

what do I do now? Who am I now? What is

this thing? And even that

getting into like, okay,

well, you could be on a completely

opposite end of the globe,

and you come back and you go,

so who are my friends? What do I do? Who

do I chat to? Where am I? And it's

disorienting. And I,

you know, you can have it go well, you

can have it go really poorly. And

there's, it really does

need a big focus on, okay, let's get you

back with people and get you

incorporated and have you doing

the things that you enjoy doing. Like,

one of, you know, stories

of mine, like dealing with

things like Ex-Delta, and you talk about,

oh, well, they were in HR. Well, as it

turns out, you know,

particular individuals that are ex

operators, like, well, what

are you going to do? Probably run

security. But some of those guys are

built for that. Although, not

everyone want to get out of

the military and roll with a side arm.

That's not, they don't always want to do

that, you know, so I

love that you're offering something where

you go like, hey, we can, we

can look at a different angle,

we can figure out something different for

you. Yeah. And, and you

know what, though, the one

thing I say, and I tell people I coach

and work with all the time,

I was like, you don't believe

it can happen. I'm the perfect example

that it can happen. I went, I was a

combat job. My first

job out of there is data centers, right?

What do those two things have

in common? Absolutely nothing.

I think so. If a muldoon like me could do

it. Imagine what a smart

person can do, who's like

dedicated to get going, right. And I

mean, your Delta guys,

like, if you if you Google that,

I'm pretty sure if you Google their MOS,

it's going to come up with police,

security, and author,

because apparently everyone in Delta

Force Navy SEALs have to

write a book about everything.

Yeah. Well, that's kind of the same thing

of when you talk about

like the in technology,

like the CISO crowd, and you go like,

well, what are they required

to do? Get out, find something

corporate and get a PhD. And you go, why,

why is that the

requirements? And you go, someone

scribbled it down on a napkin somewhere.

That's what everyone else did. So

therefore, that's what

exactly. It's it's true, though. Yep. Oh,

no. Yep. But I tell you

what, though, I, you know,

there's some really cool ideas working

with some other vets

like we have just to,

to help that that that culture shift,

that mindset shift,

right? Because maybe you've

experienced it when you got out, right?

You did have that, like,

here's my service. And this is how I

identify. However, I know

that's not all me. But I don't

know what it means to be on this side of

the fence. So, you know,

imagine if like, we there

was that program that existed, that says,

Hey, I'm going to

transition you properly. Right? We

talk about the military having their

transition programs. But in

reality, like if yours was like

mine, here's 395 slides with all the

resources you might

potentially need. But you might well,

you won't need them all. But we don't

know which ones you're

like, what just happened? And

you kind of went to the the quote from my

wife again of like,

everything is important, nothing

is important. And you go, Great, I what

if this is relevant to me? And you go

like, probably three

slides, but you get to guess which ones

take a guess. Look, we're

gonna treat this like the way

the IRS treats taxes. We know what you

owe us we think it's up to

you to figure it out. And we

hope you get it right. And if you don't,

we'll bark at you. And in

a very, very loud fashion,

which one is this? Will send you an evil letter.

Which one? Not telling. Not telling.

Not telling. Oh, okay, great.

So let's do it this way. What what advice

can you give for veterans

like currently in transition?

So always find your mentor. Even if you

don't know where to

start, always start with ACP

American Corporate Partners, you get a

free year, right? As a

mentee, so they will hook you up.

You get it, you get that for your talk to

people who are already out.

And kind of, I think the best

advice I can give, especially for those

who are unsure what they're

going to do, don't start with

the job, start with your location.

Because I think that's one of the more

common destroyers of a

person's transition is they're so focused

on the job, and not where

they actually want to end up.

So they end up picking a job somewhere,

the first job out the gate, and just

like, All right, cool,

I'm stable. But now they're in a location

they don't want to be in

or absolutely hate. And it

starts this spiral where now it's like,

well, I don't want to be here, I'm

miserable and this and

that. And now I got to find something

else. And you start job

hopping. And you're still having

ended up where you wanted to be. So if

you have a good support structure,

whether it's family,

whether it's, you know, just other

veterans, you know, find out

where you want to go first,

and then start the job search from there.

Gotcha. Because the other

thing is true that you may want

to do something very specific. But if it

doesn't exist where you want to be,

there's a trade off.

Because not every job is everywhere. So

Well said. Let's

say on this one, what what's

something that he would say that if you

could like just drop it into people's

minds, like, you know,

just to kind of the Zeitgeist, the populace,

the civilians, what what

do you want them to know

about veterans now?

We're normal people

too. I love that. We're

just trying to do good things.

We're trying to help everyone out. We're

just not here to run your

life and destroy things. And

just me, but... Just you! At least you know your strengths

We're normal people like

anyone else. We have

our stories, we like to like to share

some of them. There's some

we don't want to share. And

it's just very, we're here to help. And

stop thinking of

yourself. Jerk. I love that.

Okay. What is and this is a completely

different avenue, but equally is

wonderful. I love it.

Like a film or a telly show or something

that is just it's so

ridiculous that you go, wow,

like that's that is just one of the

funniest things ever. Or

it's so like they just got it

painfully accurate. You go like, no,

that's what it tastes like. Like what's

what's something and

you can have many like what's something

that comes to mind. Ooo.

So, something like that's on TV,

or television, it could be a you know, a

film, any anything that comes to mind.

I don't know. I kind of default on

Super Troopers like every time there's

just something about

Super Troopers. It's so ridiculous.

But it's like, you're like, why am I

watching this? I know why

I'm watching this. I could

or actually I take that back, I'm gonna rewind.

There's one that

okay, okay, Office Space.

Both painfully accurate in their own

weird ways. And the thing about it is

that they're caricatures

of of life, but not like, okay, so you

made the chin bigger and

the nose bigger and you go but

like it still kind of looks like that,

though. Like, I mean, I think

even today, right, the Office

Space still holds true to just how

corporate runs. Sure. And it's just very

like, you're in these

cubicle farms and things are monotone.

It's like, I need you to come in on

Saturday, that'd be great.

Like, well, and, you know, that whole

like, how he goes home and he's just

miserable and he wants

to relax and, "Hey Peter man, you seen this

on Channel four?" Like, now,

I'll ask, do you think that

translates to both camps of civilian

corporate and military?

Absolutely. There we go. I think

it fits the bill for all walks of life,

right? And something, something to get

that personalities in

there just spot on and how different

people are. So how about

this? Is there a particular like

Colonel in mind or something when you

think of Lumbergh? Like, you're

like, Oh, Christ, I know that

guy. I know that guy. I'm actually gonna

tell you a story and I

hope he doesn't say I actually

actually I hope he does see this. Just don't name

names. I won't name names.

However, it will be easy to deduce who

I'm talking about for those who know.

So actually here, when

I say the Army's got joke,

the Army has jokes. So, when

I was a drill sergeant at Benning, I had

my at the time battalion commander,

right? Okay. And this is

at the time, Undercover Boss was a up and

up and popular show. So

we're talking 2011, right? Okay.

I kid you not, my battalion commander

looked and spoke with the

same eloquent eloquence and

everything like Obama. Okay, so the

running joke was we're on Undercover

Boss. And this is really

Obama, President Obama. He's gonna go,

Hi guys, I just want to see how you do.

You're right. Again,

so that was my time as a drill sergeant.

But we're gonna fast

forward. When I'm a first sergeant

back at Fort Benning towards the end of

my career. Now my

brigade commander. Again,

we're back in basic training on the same

base in the same area is the same guy.

As you do. Yeah, he and I didn't always see

eye to eye. But he was

my Lumbergh, right. Like,

Oh, okay. I'm gonna have to ask you to

come in and brief my command staff.

Oh, he sounds like great fun. That's why

we don't invite him to play. Yeah,

super intelligent guy. But man, I'm like,

him and I just we couldn't mesh well.

Like, all I can think is, you know, the

feeling of like, when you

have bubblegum and you chew it,

and like the flavor just goes away, and

you go like, it sounds

like like what this guy

kind of is to be around you go like

you're wonderfully efficient.

Ow. He's like that zebra gum.

You're like, okay. And I'm

like, too busy. You're like,

I'm over it. I mean, goodness that that

leaves the flavor

instantly. And you go like, no,

it's just wallpaper paste. How did we do

this? Yeah. Goodness.

No, that's a throw in.

Like I said, great, great, nice guy. Very

smart, very, very intelligent. Just

him and I just didn't agree on a lot of

things. And that's okay.

That's what variety is the

flavor of life, spice of life, something

in there. Something like

that. Something like that.

Listen, I don't want to sound mean, but I

would equate him to British food.

Well, here's the thing, British food can

be absolutely wretched,

or brilliant. And I don't

like I some of it, I feel like is kind of

a grudge match. Like, you

know, when you talk about like

working class food and like East End of

London and so on and all of

that. Like we have odd things

like jellied eels. And I don't know

anyone who would say, yes,

this sounds excellent. Why? No,

like it's it's aspics. It's the whole

thing of like meat in

gelatine. And you go,

did I do something wrong? Do you not like

me? Why is this like

because that's a punishment.

You go the texture alone. Why? Why would

you do this? I just don't

get it. And then, you know,

we have wonderful pastries and everything

else. So you go it swings

both ways. But I think we can

equate that to jellied eels. And I don't

I don't care one bit if I've

bothered anyone by saying so

because no, a pie and mash is delicious,

but leave the eels to be.

Oh, and people people will also argue and

this is a funny thing. They're like,

yo, well, you know, eels are fish, don't

you? And I'm going. See,

this is why we don't like

invite you around for pints because

you're that guy. Don't be

that guy. You're that guy.

You know, an eel is a fish, don't you?

The tuna of the sea, right?

Chicken of the sea. Oh, my Christ. Yep.

That's a name. Why not?

Someone came up with that.

Isn't that how it works? Oh, yeah.

Actually, here, I'll give

you a funny story because it's

very, very related to what you just said.

Oh, do tell. So good friend of mine,

my brother from another mother, right? Me

and this guy grew up

together. Pretty much all our lives.

We joined the Air Force together like

that's that's how long we've known each

other. Been friends.

Well, one day we were having an argument.

So there's this

vegetarian, not vegetarian girl.

There's this vegetarian vegan girl,

whatever. She was talking

about fish and fish being meat.

Right. And she wouldn't eat it because

fish was meat. So we're kind

of having this argument about

what is fish and if it's a meat or not a

meat or this and that. So my

friend, my good friend calls his

brother. So at the time, his brother was

the smartest person we

knew education wise. He had

a college degree. Right. So he said he

calls him up. "Hey Will, we're

having this discussion. Is fish

a meat?" And this guy, I kid you not.

Without skipping a beat,

is like, "No, fish is poultry."

I think we all just

collectively had a stroke just now.

"Will, Will, how could fish be poultry?"

"Oh, wait, no, hang on."

And then he just hangs up.

So I mean, this is a painfully accurate

point, if like you go, well, how do you

assess intelligence?

And you're like, well, they they have a

PhD. They must be

very clever. And you go,

if that's the yardstick that you're

measuring this against, life

is going to be rough lads.

Life is going to be rough. Now, in

fairness, we did come to find out Will

had been drinking and

was probably not in the right mind to be

answering said questions, but. Fair. I

don't know, though. I

mean, if you're putting me to is fish

poultry and I failed that

particular litmus test, maybe,

maybe I'm not equipped. We just want to

know if fish was meat. He said it's poultry.

Ladies and gentlemen, fish is poultry.

You heard it here. You heard

it here. You heard it first.

He was he was bound to be a Marine. And

we're not starting a

flame war at all. Thank you,

John. I appreciate that. That's what I'm here for.

No, no, obviously, though,

much like myself, the wall

flower. I mean, look on our American MREs

on the heater pack. Those

who have seen it, it says,

right, lean this against a rock or

something. Right. You know

why the store or something

exists there. It's true. It's true. No,

it's a it's a thing. Yeah.

And hopefully the thing is

not your leg because guess what? Those

packets get hot. What? Don't

tell them. Don't tell them.

Don't tell them. And actually, there's I

don't know if you've ever

heard of a show called Red

vs. Blue. Oh, the the the Halo based

thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The first three seasons nailed

the military spot on the arguments and

that were like everyone a

razor sharp, but all pointed in

different directions. And you go like if

you would just face the

same way in in the metaphorical

sense, you get so much accomplished.

Yeah. Well, why would you do that?

Because that would make

sense. And you cannot do that in the

military. And now now like,

see, that's the thing. If we're

making perfume and and it was like, eau,

eau de military, like, I

think we just bottled it up of

like, oh, if I could just get all of

you lined up, that's just

it. That's just in the bottle.

Yep. Well, thank you so much for coming,

John. And kind of finally,

for people looking to connect,

where where do they need to find you to

cause trouble? Always

LinkedIn, because there's no

better place to cause trouble than on

LinkedIn. There's too many

serious people on there who

Yes, yes, they're they're lost. They

can't find their own body parts.

So LinkedIn is a good one. Just look

up my name, Instagram as well.

There we go. My handle is

@comicalmanbeast. Can't mess that up.

As you would expect, no less. No less,

right? Because when you

pick something up at 12 years

old, you just stick with it. This is this

is oddly personal

details. Thank you for sharing,

John. We also are deducing where your first

address is and and the

first dog's name. So this is

Oh, hey, that weird three digit code on

that wacky three digit

code on the back of my card.

I got it. You guys

need that one too, right?

Not so much. No. Well, for all of you

enjoying this, again, you

know where to find us, and we

have plenty more

episodes coming up soon.

Cheers all.