David Rutherford Show: From Living in His Car to A-10 Pilot: Dale Stark On A Warfighter’s Mindset

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Now it's, I have to get into pilot training. So you have to compete for that. So like no social life, no drinking. I didn't do anything that people would consider fun for that age. I had a buddy and then he called me a couple of days later. He's like, hey, do you want to go to Chili's? And I was like, dude, you don't get it. There's no more Chili's. There's no nothing. This is all I do. If I get through this program and I don't get a pilot slot because I went to Chili's one night, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. You're basically like rewiring your brain to do something kind of insane. So to do that is very painful, especially in a short period of time. So you can only do that with extreme stress. It's like the iron in the fire forging it. That's right. Dale, thank you so much for coming to Idaho and spending time with all of us. One of the things that was really fascinating to me when I first reached out to Clay, hey, I really am pondering, trying to figure out this dilemma of how do we properly influence the next generation amidst of all the turmoil that's kind of going on that we're witnessing that, you know, I think all of us are kind of walking this tightrope of trying to figure out what that means. And I remember I was like, all right, well, you know, Clay, you're there. And he's like, you know who we got to bring in? We got to bring in Dale. And I was like, yes, awesome. So I know it's out of your way, but you know, your, your opinion and your experience and your wisdom, I think is going to have a really significant impact, not only on our discussion this evening, but you know, in the grander context for young people really trying to, um, one decipher the complexities of what they're witnessing. And then the other is to, you know, to continue, I think what our greater responsibilities are post-service is to instill whatever we were able to experience ourselves in our own service into them in some way. So I appreciate you being here, man. Yeah, thanks for the invite. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So there's always this, you know, idea or this question, I think, of the moment of inspiration, right, of service. And we were joking, you know, last night about those moments, whether it was, you know, a movie or it was, you know, some SF guy or pilot that you met growing up or someone who had served who had this, you know, this aura about them that kind of you gravitated towards. So what was that piece for you growing up that, really kind of triggered the initial idea that, wow, I think service would be a cool thing. Well, I kind of, you know, grew up in the woods playing outside a lot and completely obsessed with Rambo, G.I. Joe. That was my favorite part of the interview with Sean was like describing that period in particular when you lived outside in the tent for months on that one summer. I was It's just like, my God, what a perfect idealistic experience, right? Yeah. So I just, I love the outdoors. You know, I had my survival knife. The serrated edge with the compass on the bottom. You put the matches in the fishing line. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I always was, you know, drawn to military culture. I was that weird kid who wore like camo to school, like K through third grade or so. Yeah. So, yeah, I was just always kind of drawn to it. Then fast forward, like right out of high school, pretty much broke, not great GPA, anything like that. So I looked into the military. I seriously considered the Marines. I was like, you know, Marines are badass. They are cool uniforms. Yeah, yeah. Great, great recruiting ads. Yeah, they're badass. So I almost enlisted and then I actually picked up like a tuition waiver for a wrestling scholarship at the local community college. So I decided to hang out in my hometown a little bit longer. And then over time, that just basically did not work out for me. Just not mature enough, not ready. Didn't really have any like vision for what I wanted to do. so uh my parents were kind of old school and hard ass so you know it's a thing you need to pay rent you need to contribute I felt like I was going to school and we had a conflict right so uh guess who won that conflict not you not you for sure for sure yeah so um you know come home one day all my stuff's out on the porch it's like all right you're done you need to figure it out you You know, and if I were like getting straight A's and going places, I'm sure it would have been different. For sure. But I was, you know, partying, coming home at 3 a.m., getting terrible grades in community college. So looking back, I see where they're coming from. So anyhow, you know, now I'm couch surfing at Buddy's houses, living in the back of my 79 Volvo station wagon. and put a futon mattress in there it's like clean living man yeah i just you know go to wrestling practice shower at the gym and uh i made that work for maybe six months oh wow and i was like just you know just dead rock bottom yeah you're like you're like okay does it get worse than this right right like terrible grades in community college living in your car you're like did you have a reference of success though like did you I mean because I I mean I I know in those moments where I was in kind of a similar kind of lost mentality like my reference was a reference of my of not my peers per se but it was a reference of people that were older than me right like it was a reference oh that's what I'm supposed to be doing instead of a peer reference of like oh I'm not living up to what my buddy's doing right here was did you have any of that yeah so like I had a good group of friends and they were you know off to college doing well and then I didn't want to just go get like a manual labor job you know so and but I had no skills or experience to do otherwise skate real well skating and surfing wasn't paying the bills so um yeah just just basically one of those kids it's just at rock bottom and going okay well i looked at the military a couple years ago maybe i should revisit that then that started just got that in my mind like oh look at the gi bill so it really was just um you know i'll be honest it was pre-9-11 it wasn't this like deep sense of patriotism i looked at it more of like as a means to an end yeah yeah I did too. Yeah. I would like the trying to fulfill that void that somehow wasn't being filled. Right. Like I knew I was capable of something more. I just didn't know how to pick the path to discover it in myself. And so the military was a similar thing. Yeah. And I had an uncle, Arthur Stark, who was a Huey crew chief in Vietnam, did two tours, went into the Army Reserves, became a Chinook pilot, and then was in the initial invasion in Iraq in 03. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. He's a 58-year-old, one of the most experienced Hilo pilots in the Army at the time. Oh, wow. And so I'm talking to him, and I'm kind of, you know, should I join the Army? You know, should I join the Marines? I'm just kind of looking at it, you know, like what would be the best opportunity? and he just told me I should join the Air Force. He's like, your scores are good. He's like, I've been in the Army, you know, my whole life. Listen to me, yeah. You know, and I had always been intrigued with flying. I had nothing in my background that would suggest I could ever be a pilot, grades-wise or anything else. But he explained, he's like, you know, if you're in the Marines, they have an Air Force, but it's a very small component compared to the infantry. And he's like, the Army, same thing. Army's about, you know, infantry, tanks, all that fun stuff. He's like, the aviation component is kind of an afterthought. I mean, it's important, but he's like, in the Air Force, it's all about aviation. Right. And so I looked at it kind of practically at that time. I was like, well, I could go be a crew chief, so a maintainer on C-17s, and that could give me a skill that I could do it four years, you know have the GI bill and then maybe go to school maybe do this job um and on the civilian side and have a nice career so it was really just wanting to get the heck out of my car at that time interesting yeah it's funny you know you you that I that that sense of rock bottom right and what that spark how that spark creates and how it how it how the flame grows was and your uncle obviously was able to like, like get some fuel in you and get you going. What was the thing though, that like was, that pushed you over was like, okay, this is the path I'm going to take. This is what I'm going to do. I, I'll be completely honest. I think it was just, I had no other options is how I felt. Yeah. It was, it was like, well, your, your test scores are good um no one's you know i could get a tuition waiver but i'm not a great wrestler i was good but i wasn't going to get recruited to like iowa or anything so and i had a couple shoulder injuries and i could just feel that you know coming to the end of the road on that and uh yeah i was i looked at it i could either do this and gain a skill and get the gi bill or i can um you know go do landscaping is how i felt about it right right and so what was the the the the process to becoming an officer and becoming a pilot for you then yeah so i enlisted and now i'm a crew chief and as soon as i joined the military yeah like everything turned around for me immediately yeah you know i was an honor graduate out of basic training i was really fit So, you know, Air Force basic training, it's not going to be that hard. And then, you know, the military is very task oriented. Yeah. So I didn't, you know, I felt like when I was going to school, I was, you know, I was wrestling. I was doing all these things. I had a job just trying to make it make it all work. I was operating at a disadvantage, you know, like, well, my buddies don't have to do this, all this other stuff. And they can just focus on school and competing. Right. And I've got all these other issues that are making it difficult. Well, you go into the military and it doesn't matter where you came from. It doesn't matter if you're wealthy, if you're poor. You're just judged based on what you can accomplish, right? The beauty of meritocracy, the last bastion of meritocracy, right? Yeah, it really felt like, especially at that time, it was a real meritocracy. And so I started having success and that started feeding on itself. Yeah. What was the first piece of success that you felt besides the honor grad? That must have been huge, though, because that's a big deal. Like you're right in, you're unsure, and then you have that pinnacle like you're the best of this class. Like that's. Yeah. So what kind of put this in my mind was I. So after basic training, I go to Shepard Air Force Base for crew chief school. And that base also has pilot training. So when I'm at the commissary BX just out and about, I'm meeting these dudes that are, you know, not that much older than me. And they're going through pilot training. And I see the jets, you know, full afterburner takeoffs. and the t-38 and you're like it you know i thought they were like sky gods like how on earth could you get paid to do that yeah yeah and uh so i'm meeting these guys and i'm just pulling information from how do you do it you know what do you need and i'm kind of like reverse engineering it in my mind like how can i get from where i am to where they are yeah and then i just realized that it's not probable, but there is a way. There's a way to do it. It's very, you know how the military is, they make it very clear for you, right? So, hey, you want to be a pilot? Well, you need a bachelor's degree. You need to compete with your GPA. You need to take these standardized tests. You need a fitness test. You need your commander's recommendation, which means you need to be good at your current job. So I'm looking at all these things and I'm like, you know what? Like, I think I could do it if I just put all of my energy into it. And so that's basically what I did. So just get to my first base. I start studying and challenging college courses. I start taking college courses like in my off time. And now- Which is not a lot because you're a crew chief, which is incredible responsibility and timing and wrenching. I mean, like the magnitude of hours, That's the thing that I never really comprehended until I got in with people that keep these vehicles, these planes operational is so substantial. It's it was almost like, oh, my God, like it was this missing piece of logistics that was pretty overwhelming for me to even understand. Yeah. And, you know, at this phase of my life, it kind of, you know, when I was young, they actually diagnosed me with like ADD back in the day. I just couldn't pay attention, you know? Yep, yep. And so luckily it was paper records back then. So, you know, I never took the medication. Yeah, that's right. It was just like it never happened. But now like being a little autistic made me paid off because I just was 100% dialed in on work, school, physical training. Wow. And that's all I did for basically the next year and a half. Year and a half. That's how long it took. Was there any, did you have any one significant individual influence of somebody that saw this focus in you and is like, I'm going to help this young airman in any way I can help for him to achieve his journey? Yeah, you know, you look back at things and you look at how grateful you are. Because like I always say, if I tried to do this like a million times, it might work out one time. Right. Because it's just, you know, you have to be so grateful because luck, timing, hard work, everything has to converge. Yeah, that's awesome. So there was a group commander at Charleston and I got to know him through work. He was a pilot. And I was a crew chief and a flying crew chief. So I'd go on trips on occasion and stuff. And I would work really hard and I would study whenever I had any time on the airplane. I mean, I was such a bad student. I'm like, if I want to get my standardized test scores, I need to like rebuild. The basic, how to take a test. I'm teaching myself like basic algebra. I'm like, I'm like, I'm doing everything I can do to shore up these areas. And I think he saw that. My maintenance squadron commander saw that. And then after, you know, a year or so doing it, I think they just thought, hey, he's young enough. And I did take the test and I scored surprisingly well. And now my GPA is really good. I was getting straight A's, you know, because I had that focus. Yeah. A little more maturity. You know, now school seems easy because you're comparing it to working 10, 12 hour days on the flight line. Right. Right. Right. And you're like, yeah, I can sit here for 45 minutes and then do my homework. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how the the the grind of like real committed work. Right. How that what. Your perception of difficulty as a young person becomes. right it's so much more expansive once you realize oh this is what hard work is yes oh and so 45 minutes just reading a book and committing it to me oh my like that's easy i do that in my sleep so so so to speak i think the air force taught me how to study yeah and how to take tests that's cool and then you're just going like oh okay like this is not that difficult yeah it's difficult the school is very difficult when you skip all the time you just show up yeah yeah yeah totally totally but when i looked at it as a means to an end yeah i'm like this is my path to doing something cool oh wow you know i'm like i don't want to go back i want to do you know i always wanted to do something big something special something fun i didn't want to um just have a a normal mundane life nothing wrong with that but i was just kind of all or nothing so that that's kind of when i got that that's cool when was what was the moment like when you realized that you had been accepted to go to ocs and to go tour and becoming a pilot what was that oh man it was actually a terrible experience so wow i have no idea i put in my application did all the testing and one day um my squadron commander calls me in i walk in there there's a jag and the chief and he puts me at attention wow and he reads me my miranda rights and i'm sitting there going through my mind what did i go flush i'm thinking of all the terrible things i've done in my life that i got away with coming back and i'm like and i'm just going through that you know all these all these horror thoughts in my mind of what I, what I, what finally caught up with me, right? From my childhood or something. You know, I, I, I came into the air force on, I had a, a waiver for marijuana usage for getting arrested, underage drinking. I was like, I have no idea what this is, but it's not good. Um, this is, I'm, I'm, it was terrifying. And then, uh, they all just start cracking up laughing they're like no you're good uh oh my god congratulations oh my god those bastards man oh my what that's funny though like not while you're going through it obviously but like oh my god they were great yeah they were classic so was that moment uh like i mean obviously those those are the moments that even reinforce your self-confidence even deeper it's like oh no, this is where I'm supposed to be. I am supposed to achieve something like this. And so that must have, did that, did it alter what was in front of you? Because you still had to go through flight school. Like you still had to go through really complicated things and really dangerous things. And, you know, and it was not going to be easy, but it feels like that might have been a moment that shifted your perspective a little bit yeah it's a time when you're on one course and then you go off on another adventure you know it's like there's no longer i'm gonna do this for four years and go home and get a job it's like no i'm all in on this now right so and that that must have been unique too because you're right as an enlisted person you know there is this limitation or the limited nature of the service. Like, you know, it's going to come to an end, but with something like, you know, whether going in soft or going in as a pilot or whatever, like it, there's an extension that's relative to it because the boundaries seem to be taken away. So like I you know I could do 30 years as an officer in the air force and I can fly all these different platforms or I can you know the the it changes perspective Yeah. The pilot training commitment. So from the time you end pilot training, you owe 10 years. Oh, okay. So, and pilot training, depending on any delays, things like that is kind of one to two years. So yeah, you're signing up for 12 years. Plus I had two more years of college. Wow. I mean, but, you know, 10 year commitment, honestly, if you would have asked me to sign a lifelong commitment at that time, I would have done it. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me what it was like when you, when all of a sudden now you're, you're in the program, right? You're now moving forward with all those different things. How did you, what sense of your maturity, your peers around you, that must've changed dramatically. What was all that like? Yeah. So now I go back to school full time and I'm just a normal student on a full scholarship with, you know, I'm fine financially. Right. And I'm a little bit older. I've been through a little bit more, so more maturity. And now it's I have to get into pilot training. So you have to compete for that. Wow. So I tackled school just kind of how I just kept that momentum going. And so now I'm a great student because that's all I cared about. All you care about. So like no social life, no drinking. I didn't do anything that people would consider fun for that age. I had a buddy who was a maintainer and he wanted to do the same thing. He kind of saw what I was up to. So I talked to him about it, kind of told him the path, the mindset it took. And then he called me a couple of days later. He's like, hey, do you want to go to Chili's and talk about it some more? And I was like, dude, you don't get it. There's no more Chili's. There's no nothing. This is all I do. And not only, I mean, if you're smarter than me, more prepared, maybe you could do it a lot easier. I'm sure most people did. But my mindset was I'm going to leave nothing to chance. If I get through this program and I don't get a pilot slot because I went to Chili's one night, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. Wow. I just want to really talk about my incredible partnership with one of my best friends, and that's Evan Hafer and the boys over at Black Rifle Coffee. I'm so honored to be a part of their organization and just really can't thank them enough for allowing me to participate. What I want you to do is go to BlackRifleCoffee.com and I want to check out their new energy drinks. They have these incredible energy drinks that you can buy at all different kinds of stores, Walmart, Bath Sports and others. or you can go online and order. And if you want to put in your little promo code, FrogLogic20, there you get a little discount on stuff there. I highly recommend that. For me, it's my morning coffee. I am addicted to Black Rifle coffees, just black. I think the Tiger Stripe Camo definitely reels me in. The other one I love is the AK Espresso. This one right here is phenomenal. Love these, but they have so many different things that you can get at Black Rifle Coffee. You will love it. Again, when you go over blackriflecoffee.com and you're checking out, type in FrogLogic20, get your little discount quote and tell them old rutty rut rut sent you. So to all those folks out there who love coffee like I do, please do yourself a favor and go over and check out my brothers at BRCC. Oh, and we've got a cool event coming up that I'm going to be a part of. out in Vegas. It's a staccato shooting, big shooting event with BRCC. So Jordy and I are going to go out and participate in that. We'll get some good footage and maybe a couple interviews. All right. Ooh, yeah. Wow. And was that level of dedication, like, was it, was it, what was that? Was it a new experience or had you, had you had, cause I remember, you know, you talked about, like I got really into skating right and it was like that's all I did so it it sounds like you had you had always had the propensity for all in or that full commitment was it different this time was it it was that same personality trait yeah and I think if like a lot of kids with ADD now ADHD or whatever they they call it um you know you can put that energy into something that might not help you in your life yeah but yeah that that personality was always there I would just obsess about one thing right yeah so I'm sitting there in class and junior high and I'm just drawing ramps and waves and not learning anything yeah but now it's like all that mental energy is just laser focused on this one goal okay and so then now you know my commander at rtc he sees that the grades testing everything's top notch so now if you were to go back to see the people i went to high school with they wouldn't even believe it they don't even recognize you they probably thought it was the most bizarre story they'd ever heard right right Dale's a what? He's going to be a pilot? Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. That's wild. It's just, you know, you, you get a little bit more maturity and then you use those tools you have within yourself to direct it towards something productive. That's perfectly said. I love that concept, right? It's, you know, if, and again, like our responsibility to inspire young people to make harder decisions that have a greater long-term reward for them, right? Like in particular as we're referencing our service, right? And it's worth the pain up front to get what you get later on for sure. And I see a lot of that with kids that get obsessed with video games now and they're probably very difficult very complex huge like cognitive load and um and they throw everything into that and you look at those kids and you're like they actually have a ton of capability tons and if they use that that focus they harnessed it and were able to use it as it when they get a little bit older yeah to something else they want to do yeah they could crush well I agree with you. I, I, I, I believe our, our kids are so capable now and so they can absorb, it seems like they can absorb information, but then utilizing the information and a, and a physical drive towards an ambitious end, right? Like, Oh, I want to become this. And so I'm going to redirect, like you're saying, and to the steps, however many thousands it takes to get there. Right. If you can master one domain, you probably can do it elsewhere. 100%. And that's the messaging that is now starting to turn. Whereas before, if you have ADHD or you're on whatever meds or you're kind of like written off, right? And whether you go down the conspiracy theory, that was all intention. But like I watched it with my best friend growing up who was in six different high schools. He never could sit still. He was this. But then after he graduated, he went to Parris Island, became a Marine, and it changed his life. And now he owns a multimillion dollar landscape business, you know, and he he's that obsessive guy like you give him. Like he one time bought 200 acres and planted 25,000 orange trees. him and another guy you know just an animal he's an a like he won't quit you know i remember he called me and he's on his back and i'm like what's that noise he's like i'm spraying myself with the hose because i almost died from heat stroke and i'm like what are you doing he's like i'm planting 10 000 orange trees today and i'm like what like where's your crew you're like 50 i'm like what are you doing man you know but but you're right it's that it is and joe rogan's calling it like a superpower now, right? Recently he said with, with, I think the O'Connor was, but so you have now this ultra focus and you make it through college that, which must've been interesting, obviously, cause you've got that other experience, but your focus, what was the moment like where you got picked up to go to flight school? And what was that transition? Cause now like you're back with a ultra competitive arena, right? Everybody wants, is putting in everything. And so what was that like? Yeah, you know, every step up you make, it's narrowed down and the competition is tougher. Yeah. And so start pilot training, you know, you're with 30, 35 people and four or five of you might end up in a fighter. And I knew I wanted to fly the A-10 and maybe just one of you. How'd you know you wanted to fly the A-10? So when I was going through crew chief school, the first airplane that they teach you to work on is the A-10. Okay. Because it's like, it's the perfect aircraft to demonstrate how these systems work. Okay. Because say you learn about a hydraulic system, you can just pull off the panels and you're like, there's the reservoir. There's all the hydraulic lines. There's the valves, you know, and electrical system, everything like that. It's just all transparent right in front of you. And so while I'm doing that, you know, I'm sitting in the cockpit of the jet, looking through the heads up display, looking over my shoulders at the wings going like, I can't believe people get paid to fly this thing. My instructor was a A-10 crew chief. He was a Gulf War veteran. And he told this story. I don't even know if it's true, but he's talking all about the A-10s and all the great work they did. and he's like described him just as a bunch of cowboys and outcasts and they're like the redheaded stepchildren of the air force and i'm thinking of like you know pappy bowington and it just appealed to me so much that was it but the one thing he said that i don't know now if it's true he's like this guy he's a surfer he came up over our unit he flew upside down he gave us the hang loose i could like i could see his blonde hair like coming out of his helmet and his uh Yeah. The expression on his face. And and so I'm just getting this this picture in my mind of like, this is the group of people that I want to be a part of. That's my tribe. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. It's funny. You know, a lot of times the stories don't even need to be true. It's just the right timing and the right person telling it can plant that seed to where you can convert that into a lifetime of ambition. right if the story's told well enough and the story is you know and like he's talking to you right and whatever 10 true yeah whatever reason he was articulating the hang loose and he knew your background and all that is like this person will gravitate towards the power of that image and that mindset and so it must have been cool so now you're you're in flight school everybody's grinding and what what's going on next yeah so i do uh an exchange program with the navy so i do my primary flight training with the navy flying the t-34 and uh out in pensacola and met my best friend of now like 25 years john deloney who went to fly f-22s and f-15s but um and he and i kind of just buddied up right away and we're like we are gonna so once you get halfway through pilot training this track select you right so you're going fighter bomber or you're going i love those videos where the dudes are on stage and they're waiting and it shows the best it's got to be the coolest feeling ever so we're like we're not hanging out at the beach or he had my exact same mindset So we just fanatically prepared for every sortie. You know, pilot training, like a lot of elite military training, they're not there to build you up, build your self-esteem up. They don't have time to tell you about everything you did great. So it's just the debriefs are just brutal. Yeah, I bet. It's just how, and you're like, I don't know if I'm good enough. You know, you start feeling that self-doubt. creeps in yeah but you look around and you're like oh everybody feels that way and you know from the way i grew up i think i had a lot of resiliency and then from wrestling it's just you're just like okay now is the grind and now is how you're going to separate yourself by um like you know not backing down not not giving up not letting off i mean the very first day pilot training they raise their hand like who wants to be a fighter pilot and everyone raises their hand and then like three months later they're like who wants to be a fighter pilot and like half the class raises their hand wow just because they're like i don't want to get kicked in the teeth for the next 20 years that's right that's right because it never ends ever ever right and so is it is it the pressure never ends or the responsibility like what do you mean never ends the pressure so it's it's the the kind of the general understanding is if when you get to track to select and you go heavies it's going to be a little more chill like the time of um worrying about washing out which you still can i'm sure and just like like they say you know they eat their young it's just it's brutal like you know you could i've seen people like almost done with pilot training have a bad week and they're out yep and if they had gone that easier route into the heavies it'd probably be pilots right now you know so um it's just you have to ask your it's a real gut check yeah i like the way you describe that and and it's it's perpetual right like you're you're doing the gut check every day all day every minute like end of the day you're looking at your face going man i didn't do what i needed to do today i'm gonna come back stronger tomorrow right it's it's that that pressure you place upon yourself now right and that that and it did you ever feel like um it it it got away from you or it became distorted in a way where maybe that doubt did begin to overwhelm you a little bit yeah so uh i finished up t-34s And I both John and I were selected to go fighter bomber track. And, you know, that program was was difficult, but I felt like we kind of had it handled, especially by the end. And then I go fly the T-38C, which you go from 150 knot prop plane to now a supersonic jet with a tiny wing that kills a lot of people. You know, if you are coming in to land in your final turn, you forget to drop the flaps, you get a little slow, you might just stall. I mean, yeah, if you're around long enough in this community, you know, several people who've died in that airplane. Oh, wow. And so it's the real deal. You know, it's like, okay, you're going to solo in six sorties. And so they say it's like drinking from a fire hose. Right. And if you get behind, you're just, you're not, you're probably not going to be able to catch up. I mean, because the way that the training program is built, it's like for the average student, you get to an end of block, you take that check ride, and then you move on to the next block. And there's no, not much slop for you to do remedial training, you know. So you're just like hanging from the wingtips, you know, barely. And this program was the absolute most brutal experience of my life. I get to my first check ride and just bomb it. So I had come from the Navy, so I was not really yet spun up on the way the Air Force did things. And I'm just kind of getting a handle flying the jet. And I'm learning how they deal with emergency procedures and it's, and I just get absolutely crushed. So now there's six guys, right? And four of us are probably going to fly fighters and maybe one would get an A-10. And at that time, the way I saw it was I either get an A-10 or I am an abject failure and I don't want to do anything else. Wow. Just that, that kind of obsessive mindset. And so the rest of that program, um, it was just agonizing. In what way? The, the pressure, the, the, was the, was the skill set agonizing? It was difficult. It was difficult airplane to fly. Um, the, you know, you look back on it and you're like the skills you're learning are just the basics but at the time it's all new and it's going so fast and you're moving like the the the the the sheer speed alone right you're i've had it described to me as just if if you have a doubt you're too late right like here's how i'd explain it so when you there's procedures you do for every phase of flight right and like my first flight in a t-38 i'm still thinking about my pre-takeoff checks and the jet's already like in the airspace and i'm like it's like cpu overload you know like it just happens so fast like all you know all the switches you need to throw gear flaps change the radio do all this and you're like how can I ever do this? It's key. It's right. It's a, another person described like this to me, um, going from college football to pro football. It's probably similar, right? The speed is like nothing you can comprehend until you're at that speed. And then it's like, I have to figure out how to stay at this speed, right? Cognitively, right? Processing everything in, in, in not just in an effective way, but like in a, in an offensive way to where now you're, your head, yeah, you're head of the game. And so what was that process? Yeah. I mean, you're basically like rewiring your brain to do something kind of insane. So to do that is very painful, especially in a short period of time. So you can only do that with extreme stress it's like the the iron and the fire forging it right and what's interesting about this process is it like melts down everybody's ego and then i like it reveals your true self like they they find out what you're made of and if you have a weakness that you kind of papered over previously and it wasn't discovered they're going to find it and exploit it and crush you and wash you out because of it interesting like i remember for in ours they would expose like your your inability to be team centric in your focus when you were in excruciating pain and that's what they would pick at right and so you're miserable you're freezing your you know your hands are swollen and it's like they'll put a guy next to you who's worse and needs help and you're like fuck you man I'm gonna just sit over here by myself and make get through my own agony so how do they do it with you how do they induce those places to expose yeah just if you have a weakness they're gonna hammer it you're not gonna so say there's a profile and maybe you suck at one particular thing and you're not gonna get away with not like mastering it you know what i mean they're not gonna just gloss over yeah okay that's good enough there is no such thing as good enough yeah and i saw like um people who had a hard time taking feedback yeah you know i had a a really good friend i won call him out with too much details but he was like top engineering student you know honor grad cadet wing commander a whole life full of success and he got into pilot training and um he had a really hard time not being told you're great at the end of the day you know i think it really ate at him and it it bothered him so much i think the instructors started sensing it so they did it worse they did it and he couldn't sleep at night yeah and he just kind of melted down and ended up self-eliminating oh wow and he went had a great career in another career field right because it wasn't for him but if there's any personality problem any selfishness ego it just it gets revealed was there was there camaraderie though was there oh yeah there's a peer support i mean you're all in this very intense high stress you know uh vetting process how did you guys support each other so yeah now we're with six six dudes yeah and we're just kind of in it together and I was still with my buddy John and we just yeah you it's like you against your team of the students against the instructors yeah yeah that's cool and and so it must have been everything from you know you leave the schoolhouse come back you guys sitting debriefing with each other what what did you do different what did you do different oh I did this did you do this what did that instructors say i mean we used to sit around for seemingly like hours to say all right if you're if you get this instructor and he starts saying and if you do this like don't do this while he's in front of you was it yeah absolutely yeah cool you're great you build a you're the best friends of your life yeah you know and then on into the a10 but all the people you train with you you have a bond with that's cool that's really cool and i think that's a component of um it's a component of the the validation that we need right because it's yeah you want obviously you want the validation of your instructors because then you pass and get to do what you want to do but it's like that peer evaluation like no man you're good like you're legit like you're good you deserve to be here you know um tell me about when you when they said all right you you're going to be an a10 pilot yeah so it's another moment of truth right my instructor or my flight commander had told me there were no a10s in my drop and he knew how bad i wanted it and you know not only did i want to fly the a10 i wanted to do close air support and so um you know i i told him that if i didn't get an a10 i was going to cross commission to the marines and i founded this because i was already planning what i was going to do if i didn't get an a10 plan b and he just laughed at me he's like yeah that is a program on the books the air force is never going to approve you i'm just seething yeah that's funny and then uh come to find out um so there's multiple pilot training bases he called another flight commander at another base and they did a swap So they gave an F-15E strike eagle to them, took their A-10, and then I found out I got to go fly the hog. So there was someone who orchestrated that for you. Yep. That's cool. That's really cool. That stroke of luck or that stroke of not, it wasn't luck because it was a conscious decision to get you where you wanted to go. What's that? That's got to feel amazing. Like somebody that moves an F-15. It's not like it's simple. You're not just like, hey, this guy's about ready to retire. You know, it's like, no, we're going to swap physical airplanes so you can go achieve this. Yeah. I mean, it was just somebody, you know, his call sign was Dragon. Great guy. He, um. Of course it was. Yeah. He just, he took the time and effort to do that. And it's something you'll never forget. You know, you'll always appreciate that. And I bet that really resonated with you as now you moved into this, like you're operational. And as you climb that proverbial ladder of responsibility too, those are the lessons you never forget, right? As you gain command, right? I guess. Yeah, you always remember the good ones and the bad ones. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, I want to be like that guy whenever I have the sway to do so. Right, that's cool. All right, so when was the moment where now they're like, all right, you're going to go to combat? And what was that like? What year was that? Yeah, so I finished A-10 school in 2005, got to my first unit in Alaska, and I get there, and no one's there because they're already in Afghanistan. Wow. So before you're combat mission ready, you do a little local spin-up. There was an instructor, stayed home. He was just deployed previously. Another great guy named Gecko, but his wife, I think, he had a new baby. So they left him at home, and it was just him, one guy at the squadron. And, um, so he trained me up and I got fully qualified and I'm just chomping at the bit to get down range. You know, nine 11 happened when I was in college and I'm just like, I just wanted to get in a fight. I'm like, this thing's going to wrap up. Right. That's what everybody felt for those first like six years. I think it was like, Oh, six, Oh seven. Everybody's like, Oh, this isn't ending. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I'm going to be the only A-10 pilot of my generation with no combat bona fides, you know. Oh, my gosh. So I'm like chomping at the bit to get down there. My commander, he's like, no, dude, you're too inexperienced. And we're already halfway through our deployment. And so just hang tight and you'll get in on the next one. And I'm just like, like, that wasn't OK with me. Yeah. And then so something happened downrange. I heard, I don't even know the details, but somebody got busted for some operation, did something wrong. And they sent his ass home. And I heard through the rumor mill that morale was low and everyone was just kind of at each other's throats, that kind of mid-deployment. Mid-deployment malaise, right? And so I'm like, I'm going to throw a Hail Mary. And I sent an email to my commander and I'm like, hey, sir, I know you said that I can't come but i've got an idea um i'm gonna get i want to get a giant cooler and i want to fill it up with alaskan salmon halibut you know elk steaks i'll deep freeze it i'll get um i'll get dry ice and we can have an alaska cookout and that was my pitch and i you know like and i you know i just i just want to get down range i'm like i'll sweep floors i'll do mission planning i i just want to participate yeah and he's he wrote back he's like all right get your ass out here how long did it take you to get the all the stuff together yeah i just like so in alaska like when you show up they give you like an alaska starter pack yeah yeah like a big box full of like alaska everything yeah and so i just went around to all everyone's house where all the deployed people and i'm like hey contribute a few yeah that's cool that's cool and so i like lugged this massive cooler from Fairbanks, Alaska, all the way down the world. Downrange. And so what was that moment like? I mean, getting on the ground, 05, you said? And now it's 06. 06. Okay, 06. And Afghanistan, it almost, because of the intensity of Fallujah, Ramadi, that the insurgency, you know, it seemed those were interesting years in Afghanistan. But You guys were still working a ton, weren't you? Yeah. I didn't employ any weapons in that deployment. It just kind of ebbed and flowed. And it was kind of like they're building up. That insurgency was growing. Right, right. And so it was kind of that transition point from, I mean, it was, I would say, well into the insurgency. But it's kind of like you're saying, you realize, oh, this is going to be a long war. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was just a great experience. I flew on the wing of the most experienced A-10 pilots. Oh, wow. Because they wanted to keep a close eye on me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the new guy. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was just incredible. I remember, you know, and it hits you too. I mean, shortly after I got there, you know, there's casualties, you know, they come in, then they do the ramp ceremony. You see the flag draped coffins, and you're like, hey, this isn't, you know, this isn't training anymore. People are depending on us. Yeah. So, yeah, it just, it hit me. And I remember like one of the first things I was informed. I was like, you know, there's a few people out there that, you know, you'll live to, you'll learn to live to love. And one of them are your A-10 pilots, right? That's what we live for. That's right. It's like that, that, those, your, your Apaches, right? Those guys that are going to. Medivac. Yeah. The medevac, you're right. The people are on those, those, those dust off birds. Like there's groups of pilots that really embody that, that the extension of, of the commitment. Right. And, and that's an important piece. Just instilled in the community from day one. From day one. It's like, we will support these guys. Yeah. You know, you kind of get that ground perspective and it's like, we're going to, we're going to support you or we're going to die trying. That's right. That's the mindset. That's so cool. So after you got back from that deployment, how soon before you ramped back up and went back over? So it was a while. So after that, I went, I got home. I finished up that tour and just training in Alaska. And then I went to South Korea, did a year out there. Okay. Just flying the DMZ. Yep. Was that interesting? Yeah, it was a great experience. Yeah, just Korea is awesome. It's a cool culture. Yeah, really. uh it's a lot of partying and drinking because everyone's there remote away from their family and so um plus the koreans drink pretty hard too yeah yeah and uh at that point though um i um so i had back and neck issues going back to when i was a wrestler and a skateboarder and stuff just a lot of battle damage from my age yeah and then i'm out in korea and you have all the gear you know all the survival gear harness all the stuff attached to it you've got your helmet night vision goggles and you're just getting you know as you're pulling g-forces you're getting compressed all the time yeah you're you know looking behind you pulling you know the human body is designed to do a lot of things but not what we do but not just get scrunched consummate g-forces yeah I just, the impact of it, like I've been in one ride with a friend of my father's, wealthy guy, bought two Migs when the sell off happened. Oh, cool. And got to go up in one of those things and we did like one of these 7G things like this. And afterwards I'm just like, no way, man. I was like, the impact of that as a career is so intense, right? What it does to your body. so yeah you start experiencing all those yeah so like still to this day i've got like numb fingers like and i started like so um few months into that tour like one day i go to put my flight suit on and i literally can't tie my boot and as a pilot the last thing in the world you want to do is um go to the flight dock you just avoid it because you don't want to get grounded right right but you know i put it off um in in uh korea i was a ford air controller and so um you're very useful there for all these training exercises and stuff so i was just flying my ass off so i'm having the time of my life and um but you know i flew as much as like 20 sorties in a month which is quite a bit wow yeah and uh and i'm you know my mentality i'm not gonna slow down and so my body basically one day was just like i'm done you're you i can't tie my boot how can i how can i go fly today right and uh so i went to the flight doc and they do the mris and everything and he's like oh man you've got like terrible degenerative discs and you've got this pinched nerve and all these things and yeah you're you're grounded like and it's gonna be for a while so at this time i felt like um you know i had achieved everything i ever wanted to achieve but i'm just second assigned assignment into this i'm not ready to be done yeah yeah and uh so they gave me an option they're like you can't fly an ejection seat because if you go 20 g's if you have to pull the handles you're going to be toast yeah paralyzed right yeah they're like yeah they're like it's you just can't you're not ejection seat qualified wow so i had to swallow that tough pill and they gave me two options they said you can go fly um these small isr airplanes for uh afsoc so air force special operations command and if you do that you will never come back to the a10 because that's a different magicom even if you get healthy and okay and like or you can go fly the mq9 which will fall under air combat command and if you do that um if you get can get healthy then you can apply for a waiver and try to get back to the a10 at the end of that assignment so that's what i did yeah so did my year in korea finish that out and um you know was grounded for like the last couple months which was just miserable i'm watching my buddies fly all day you want to contribute and you just feel like a piece of shit yeah it's interesting that sense of let that you're letting your team down you're letting you know and it's like you you can't help but go like i didn't do what i needed to do to take care of my body so i could not let my team down right wherever you go you go back to the place of i fail you just feel you're like you just feel weak you're like i couldn't do it but they could what's wrong with me right right so uh but then from there i went to vegas and did uh the next four years flying the mq9 how was that was that interesting was yeah the way i describe it is um it's like take all of the tasks of flying close hair support because we did very similar missions in afghanistan but strip away everything you love about it and just leave the tasks and that's what it is And that's what it is. That's what it is. It's all the checklist. It's employing weapons. It's talking on the radio. But it's not, you know, walking out to the flight line, feeling sun on your face, smelling the jet fuel, smelling the gun gas. Feeling the G's. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I never imagined it like that. I guess I never imagined that pilots, you always imagine it's some dorky kid that learned how to do it as a hobby, but it's real pilots. Yeah, well, now they have, it was a newer program at that time, and it was a high-demand asset because they did amazing work. I mean, it saved a ton of lives. All the IEDs, the rocket and placers, just general security, route clearance, like, so many lives saved. I get it now, you know. That was ramping up. And they were, at that time, they were just pulling fighter pilots, heavy pilots, bomber pilots. and they would go to squadrons and be like, you will send me six pilots and they're leaving tomorrow practically. Wait, what? So you're just some dude in your fighter squadron and you're going to fly unmanned. And now the program has evolved beyond that and they have their own training pipeline. So they don't just ruin fighter pilot's lives anymore. Whole squadrons get destroyed, right? Yeah, but I look back on that time is probably one of the most impactful times of my life because instead of deploying for four months or deploying for six months, I was in the fight with my brain for the whole tour. Four years. So I watched that war unfold for four years. Wow. And so you get really good at studying insurgency. Yeah. I mean, we could throw the sensor onto somebody walking and you can instantly see if they're walking a little suspicious or if there's a pixel sticking up out of their uh over garment it doesn't look quite right it's probably an ak-47 underneath there and let's watch them and you just you know you learn a lot about how they were attention to the details right at another level yeah yeah because you're like you don't have the distractions of the physical pain or wherever. So it becomes a derivative of how focused you can be that superpower. Oh, I'm going to get so focused. I'm going to understand their tactics, their movements, their coordination, how they fight. And then I'm going to bring everything that I've learned against that. That's really cool. Yeah. And, you know, once I accepted just getting kicked in the junk right and my ego was bruised i mean you know when you when you go from a fighter squadron to a uav squadron your your buddy's like it's like you have aids or something and they might catch it from you yeah yeah right yeah like everyone's like i don't know what happened i don't want it to happen to me yeah yeah and so it's it destroys your ego right but i quickly shifted my mindset. I was like, in the A-10, they hammer into you. It's all about the guys on the ground. It's not about you. It's about bringing Americans home, right? And I'm like, if I truly believe that, I will take everything I've learned up to this point and I will use this new tool that's been given to me and I will use it to the best of my ability. And at that time, there wasn't a ton of close air support experience in the unmanned squadrons so you know and i i just came as a forward air controller in korea with uh afghanistan experience so um before long i'm like lazing in bombs from uh f-16s controlling the stack flowing people in and out and um my squad commander is like okay you are a flight commander you're an instructor you're an evaluator like all of that at one time. He's like, you're going to do all of these things. He's like, you're going to get all these qualls and you're going to help me build this program. Build this program. Wow. And so, um, again, I just had to put the ego aside and say, it's interesting that you talk about it like that. I put the thing that's going to restrict the greatest growth I could have off to the side. And then the greatest growth comes to me naturally because that those people who are, what like like em says we're always being assessed right you're always being assessed they see your ability to subdue that thing which for most of us is always the thing that gets in the way of our greatest achievements you subdue that and then all of a sudden he's like here yeah you get everything and more in this new role and build this you know critical aspect of modern warfare yeah and you know now i'm there like we're working six on one off so six days a week um we're just so undermanned and now it's 2000 um basically 2009 through 2012 and so you know through this surge through the marines in southern afghanistan marja push heavy fighting yeah and so you know um i was in afghanistan for some of that and it was just crazy all the complex base attacks they were trying to trying to pull yep and and so it was like yeah this is uh i'm not happy about it but right now it not about me it about those guys down range yeah and you know so i accepted it but i never gave up that i wanted to go back to the A Right And so at that time they like when we got there they like we know we told you that you have an opportunity to go back to your former community And we didn't lie, but the truth changed. I remember that line. We didn't lie, but the truth changed. Oh, my God. They're like, you are now an MQ-9 asset and you need to accept it. And you're going to go and teach at the MQ-9 schoolhouse. Wow. And this is what, this is your new life. And I just, I didn't accept that, but I combined it with an insane work ethic. Yeah. And so just, again, I finished up that tour. and in another miracle in a small window they um let a couple guys go back to their former communities and now i'd let my body rest for four years yeah and i had done physical therapy and i had a bunch of injections and all that inflammation was down quite a bit and i'm like i'm feeling pretty good got a waiver and got back to the a10 oh that must have been exciting yeah right and so what was that next? I mean, now you have this breadth of experience, responsibilities, like, I mean, at what, what rank were you at this point? So now I think I'm like a senior captain, major select. So I pinned on major right around that time. Wow. So like you're now like back to where you wanted to be, but even at a more substantial level, how did you manage that? Was Is it a different, like going back to those leaders who saw in you? Like, is that what you were trying to model at that time? Or were you just really focused about getting back in that aircraft? Yeah, so I was having to kind of catch up on time lost too, you know. So being out of the jet that long, the airplane had transitioned from the A-10A model to the A-10C model. so we went from steam gauges and we had this weapons panel with like analog so you select your weapon you put the delay the you know you tune everything in right there it's like a physical switch and now it's all digital right now we have a targeting pod and gps guided munitions and all this new tech so um so getting back i went to an operational squadron and it was just like, I need to keep that focus and get my quals, get, you know, two ship, four ship and instructor pilot qualified. So I can kind of catch up to my peers who never left the airplane. Wow. Were they that much farther ahead than you were? Yeah. A lot of the guys that I had started with were now instructors, you know, and I'm like, kind of, I had a lot of experience, but I was rusty in the jet. So I had to spend a couple years just 100 focused on flying again and then again i had a great commander and um he kind of put me back on a normal career trajectory in the a10 okay so that must have felt good yeah like you had done your time right whatever that pathway is that took you out over here and now you're back on that path again that must have been i just had so many kind of miracles in my career where like it's just it's it's incredible that I was able to kind of you know I dealt with some things that I didn't want to do did them as best as I could and then overall well that's what I always try to tell guys because there's a lot of things that I fought against in my career unnecessarily because of that ego and like I tell young kids now like hey just whatever you're doing feel grateful that you get to do what you're doing and then if you do it really well at some point someone will be like hey you did really well here's your reward yeah bloom where you're planted that's right that's right that's right it's not like in retrospect it looks like it all worked out perfect if you were to live it it wouldn't have felt that way yeah you know but i think if you do put that work in it usually seems to work out that was my experience yeah So after you're back, how many more times did you deploy? Yeah, so I go back in 2014. Yeah. And now I'm, you know, flight lead. I got all the quals and stuff and got to do everything I always wanted to do. Yeah. You know, support those troops and contacts. And that was an interesting time, too, because that was like what it was during ISIS buildup. and it was, you know, kind of a shift more towards like northern and Syria and those areas. And so, but the mission for you guys doesn't change, right? It just doesn't matter what terrain it is. It's really just about that support. Troops in contact. Troops in contact. You report to it. Yeah. You get the dope. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Can you tell one story that, you know, you supported guys on the ground and then you were able to either meet those guys or meet, you know, the ground commander or whatever it was to where you could bring a face to, you know, that, that beautiful A-10 coming up behind you, right? Yeah. I mean, you, you would see the guys on occasion back at Bagram and they, they were stoked. You'd swap patches and stuff. That's cool. And just looking them in the eye, you know, you, you have that camaraderie. Yeah. That connection, right? Yeah. The link, the link that takes place, you know, I think, you know, although the, the mission sets are, are, there's a, there's, there's different, right? Obviously the path to achieve competency and those mission sets are similar, but once they overlap with each other and that, that, that dedicated support of one another, it fuses it, right? It makes it interrelational, right? To where that pure bond doesn't matter that you're in an A-10 squadron or a SEAL team or an ODA team. It's like, man, it's that brotherhood that coexists. Absolutely. Yeah, that's really cool. So how long did you get to fly before they made you become the boss and take over? It was amazing. I pretty much got to fly the rest of my career. Wow. So after that tour, I became an instructor for the new students coming in. uh out in tucson at the at the school 810 schoolhouse i just i love that assignment you know you it's like you know you see yourself and how fired up you were at that time some people didn't enjoy it they thought it was too basic yeah you know and but i loved it i'm like yeah i love teaching if we're just flying around the flagpole on their first sortie yeah that's kind of boring for me but this kid it's the first time he's ever flown this jet that's right this is awesome did you run into any kids that were like you that had been air crew and were fighting to become pilots and in that trajectory at all i don't know it's yeah i don't think i met any former crew chiefs they're they they happened i knew some like in the squadrons but it was pretty rare okay but yeah just that that's when you're telling me that that i was like that seems like it's so rare that that actually it comes to fruition i think a lot of kids or young people are like, oh, I would love to go fly. They just don't have the focus and the determination to jump through all the different hoops to get there, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think they make the application process such a pain in the ass because that's like the first level of filtering. That's right. If you're not willing to jump through all these hoops, you don't want it bad enough. You don't want it bad enough. That's cool. That's cool. And that's a critical lesson, I think that's one of the biggest lessons that could ever be taught and seems to escape so many different levels of instruction. I think in some athletics, it's easy to implement that type of filtration. But like most other places, it just doesn't exist. It's like you'll finagle your way to a position where you're meeting the minimum standard, and that's what it is. right exactly right um all right so at what point did you determine like this is it like i'm i'm i know i'm done and that's it yeah so um i ended up as a squadron commander it was of a range a training range out in florida which was cool you know it's it's not where they're going to send their commanders that are going to be future four-star generals yeah yeah but uh to even be a squadron commander from where I came from, I was very, it's impressive. I was blessed. Yeah. Yeah. That really is a, uh, there's a, uh, uh, there's gotta be a, a substantial sense of, of, um, um, gratitude that you can ascend and be in a place where they're like, Hey Dale, we're going to make you the squadron commander. It's like, it's a true, um, acknowledgement, right yeah it was it was amazing and then um you know coming near the end of that assignment is when you kind of have to make a decision are you going to continue or or do you want to start planning on your next career yeah so my uh group commander called me in and um we talked about uh going to school so air war college yeah and it's not that i was like this great officer but i think at a lot that time a lot of guys were going to the airlines yeah so he's like hey like where do you want to go to everywhere college like here are the timing the options and uh at that time i've got two young girls you know now they're growing getting a little bit older and i start to see kind of the um uh the impact all the moves you're having on them yeah you know when they're little it's not so bad can't tell now they're making friends and then you're moving again and um and COVID hit. So now the whole world is really weird. And, um, just started really thinking about what I want to do. And if you go the 06 path, you know, you're going to spend probably 10 months at school and you're going to go to staff for a year, maybe two, and then they're going to look for you in 06 command. And then you have to like wear the rank for, I think two years before you can retire in it so i'm like this is like a five-year commitment yeah i'm like i can get out at the end of my commitment and um uh and they're still relatively young and they can have a normal childhood still so that was really the deciding factor did you ever have the contemplation like because it seems to me like the and what i'm interpreting as you briefly described this is like man the the the principle the defining principle drive was to get in that aircraft and fly it yeah it was not to move into an 06 or run a command or get to the pentagon or the you know any of that yeah it doesn't seem like that i had accomplished everything i ever dreamed of now um and so yeah i never was motivated by rank or position and so the thought of um kind of you know once you get above 05 it's kind of more political gamesmanship and yeah it just didn't appeal to me and i honestly am probably a pretty pretty crappy staff officer i hate making powerpoints and slaving away at the screen budgets yeah i like willed myself to do it as squadron commander just to do right by my people yeah but it wasn't a natural fit and so i think for a lot of reasons I just knew it was time it was time yeah so often I think you know there's a there's a long-term focus that had been that's always a it seems to always float around veterans which is the idea of the transition and the idea of like what next and how do I, how do I separate from this mindset, you know? And, and then I would imagine in, in, in where you got to, like, it's so intense and it's so critical and it's so, there's such a profound, it's such a significant asset to the mission, right? So you're there, you're there and you're engaged and you're teaching and you're flying. And then all of a sudden, you know you separate you kind of have that and it lingers it lingers and then it just starts to fade off and goes into this other space what was that what was that like for you so like post retirement yeah yeah yeah still kind of going through it yeah right it's not that long in the window for sure i was like man he's still kind of there right yeah it's a tough it's a you know it's it's great. Yeah. I mean, I feel like at the end of my career, I was kind of like a spent round. Yeah. Kind of physically, emotionally. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just done. You know, I didn't have anything left. Well, the focus, the main, the maintain of that focus that you talked about in the beginning of the mindset shift. No, this is my life, you know, and Clay had talked about it. It's a lifestyle. You are all in on this lifestyle and you're going to live it. You're going to live it the best that you can live it and you're going to stick with it as long as you can. And then the exhaustion that inevitably presents itself, because for me, they always manifest my physical limitations that emerged, right? Or the, you know, the, the, whether it was the TBI or whatever it might've been, right? It was like, man, there's some aspects of that that I'm, I can't run from anymore. And so did you begin to experience some of the decline of focus or the fatigue or all those other things? I think so. I mean, kind of the way I describe it is, have you ever ran with someone who's just way more fit than you, right? Yeah, yeah. So like they're running and they're at 140 beats per minute and you're at like 170 beats per minute. so for me to keep up in this career field with like the capabilities i brought to the table i was running at like 170 beats per minute right for 20 years yeah yeah where people that were just smarter and more capable were at like 140 yeah probably better than me still yeah and so yeah by the after 20 years i was freaking trashed right and um i couldn't couldn't do it anymore so as you know you know we moved back home moved out to Oregon and I think it took me like six to nine months before I even realized how much stress I was holding on to yeah like oh I don't my phone's not gonna ring and I'm gonna have to go get my crap and get going you know what I mean like you're just so wired into a certain way of thinking yeah and so uh you know I still still I'm working on just kind of adapting to my, my new life. Well, what we, what we do is we, I think there's a lot of guys that have a tendency to replace that stress for another stress. And so, you know, you've got a working farm, you know, you, you're, you log, right. You're raising children, right. You're staying active, right. You've got this, you know, whether you want to believe it or not, substantial presence on social media and influence now, although I hate that word, but like it's, you know, there's a role that all of that has given you and into this new space is that you find yourself, and we talked a little bit about some of the opportunities that have been presented to you recently and, you know, the, the how that would get you back to something similar to the old lifestyle but then you also realize the power and the gratitude of of what you do have and the pace that you're in control of now so yeah you know they always try to bring you back right more opportunities come up yeah they want to suck you back in every time yeah um you know now i'm just really focusing on like having like a good life is made up of a whole bunch of good days stacked together right so instead of getting um kind of you know thinking too far in the future and well maybe i can do this and make this much money that's insane right like it's like well no like can i wake up spend time with my family feed my animals go surfing come home do some work yeah you know spend so you hang out with my friends who I've been friends with since high school. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I'm just trying to be more intentional. Yeah. I think, um, when I took off on that journey, I like shut out huge portions of my, my brain, you know what I mean? And it was just single focus on this one thing. And then you get done and you start to kind of unpack, you know, more issues that maybe you're running from when you started when you're 19. That's right. So now I'm just kind of just like the kids say, touch grass, right? Get regrounded. Yeah. But yeah, we do. I think type A personality, you have a tendency to keep striving, right? Fill it with some new ambition. Right. Yeah. And to be honest, I haven't fully figured out what that's going to look like, you know? I mean, from my perspective of just, I mean, very limited understanding I have of you, but what I'm able to interpret, you know, is like, man, you are doing those things. You are able to, you know, sit there and appreciate, right, what you have and what you get to have because of what you earned before. and now like the choice is yours as to what's going to take place tomorrow or today or whatever you know and that's powerful yeah you know now i'm working with my dad and his leather shop i can't by the way i cannot wait to order i want to order like two of those belts before you go it's cool you know it's like um it's it's i feel like what i'm doing right now when in a decade I'm going to look back and say that was time well spent. So that's that's really my focus. That's awesome. And one last question, because I would be letting down our entire surfing community if I didn't ask. Why is surfing so important to you and what does it help you? What does it help you do in the grander context of your life? Yeah. So surfing is the one thing I've pretty much held on to my entire life, you know, other than when I was in the Air Force. But, you know, my dad taught me how to surf when I was a little kid. And and then we still surf together now. And it's just it's it's hard to explain. You sound like the guy from, you know, Spicoli. When you talk about it. This is so Bodhi. Thank you, Bodhi. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, man, you just it's literally is the greatest, I think, thing you can do. I mean, you're immersed in the ocean, which is filled with minerals. Right. and you're absorbing them in your skin you're getting that sunlight in your eyes and you're just riding the energy of the ocean and it like you're not thinking about the past you're not thinking about the future you're just locked in yeah yeah and then when you're waiting for the sets you're having good conversations with your buddies and uh you know i think a lot of middle age guys as you get older um a lot of times it's just work you know family responsibilities a lot of your friendships fall by the wayside and uh you know a lot of maybe the physical things you do getting out of your mind and getting into your body you just kind of can let those things go too so surfing is just my outlet for um for all of that and and what's great about is it's super low impact you know there's no you don't see many like 40 year old skateboarders no they're out there but 50 or 60 yeah right tony's the freak out there right right yeah so but you like i surf all the time with guys in their 70s and even older yeah um because you land in the water so it's something you can do the rest of your life so yeah i love it that's awesome well dale thank you so much and i'm looking forward to tonight man all right thanks Thanks for having me, brother. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.