A Mushroom Cloud Over Small Town America | Adam B. | Ep. 441

Okay, got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south. Red to the smoke. Red to the smoke. Okay, Captain, red to the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, what a better camera to me. I made it. Captain, clear hot. Yeah, it's just a straight up conversation. Any particular place that you would feel more comfortable starting, maybe open with what you were saying about how you want to be very clear that perhaps you're not the PAO or anything like that. I'm not sure. Perhaps you're not the PAO or spokesman for your organization. Correct. Into the mic, though. Alright. Maybe start with that. We're good to go. Alright, well, just to be clear, I'm not the spokesman for my agency. Anything I say obviously doesn't represent my agency. But I do it in my own opinions and a lot of things. Yeah. How big is your agency? It's small. I work for a small agency. You know, I work for a couple big agencies. My friend Rob that you met. Him and I worked at the same time for a pretty good agency. Where'd you go through the academy? Cleveland Heights. East side of Cleveland. Which, that actual department, it's pretty big. Very busy. Quite a bit of crime, but it's run really well. So I went there. Pull that mic with you. That's right, you don't have to leave for it. Just pull the thing with you. Just try to keep it about a fist away. We're going to get there together. It's hard to say. It's a brave new world. That's funny. So yeah, that's a bigger agency. I went to the academy there. And then I relocated down to your canton. City of Alliance. Why'd you guys decide to move? So I was actually single at the time. One of my actually, my military buddies lived down there and he asked me to move down. You were a military before? Or just a military buddy? I was army. What year were you in the army? The army was 2007 to 2011. I did the tanks. I was a tanker. What part of the tank? Abrams. So actually when I was active, I was a driver, loader. Yes. I was a gunner for just a little bit, but I ended up being a gunner in the National Guard afterwards. What's the best role in Abrams? Where's the best seat? The most comfortable seat would definitely be the driver's seat. Michael, this is actually worth looking at. Pull up the interior of an Abrams. Have you ever seen the inside of a tank? Oh, it's incredible. Michael? No. Okay, stand by. Your mind's about to be blown. Actually, I was going to ask you before you pulled up the image, what position do you think the driver is in? Because they're pretty laid back. So you're pretty familiar? Yeah. Oh, they've let me up there before. Oh, they're sweet. Yeah. Today's episode is brought to you by me, Andy. Yes. Today, I get to do an ad read for something for myself. And here it is. I wrote a book. It's called Drownproof. It comes out six days from when this episode releases. And I am trying to do everything possible to make this book successful. Not because I care about any of the lists or a monetary gain that could come from that, but a lot of people put their name on this book with me, and a lot of people have supported me behind the scenes. And I want to do everything that I possibly can to make it successful. Now, I said I don't care about the lists, and those are true. The one list, though, that seems to be the most prestigious is the one that I am the most unlikely to make, because they feel that I do not align with them from a politics or moral perspective. And that is The New York Times. It is not a sales list. It is an editorial list, so they get to pick. And the only way that I have a chance at it is to be undeniable. How do you become undeniable for them? You sell enough copies that they can't ignore you. And when it comes to that list, hard covers, like this one right here, are what they count the most of. So I would humbly ask if you have gotten anything out of this podcast since its inception, please do me a favor. Head over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, whatever it may be, and pick up a hard copy. Every pre-sale counts plus the first week after the book comes out. And that is all that I can ask. I hope this book is meaningful. I hope that it's helpful. And I hope it finds its way into as many people's hands as possible. For those of you who economically can't make a purchase right now, I totally understand. Please do me a favor and help me spread the word. The goal is to be undeniable. I want to force them to put me on that list. Back to the show. Yeah, so that's a driver right there. Yeah, this is not what you would be allowed to do, Michael, so you know. You would be sitting on the outside. I don't think I'd be allowed to do any of this. No, you'd be throwing daisies off the top. You'd be picking flowers in shrub ranch. So that bar there is called the T-Bar. It actually pulls out. The one on his right hand? Directly in front of him, that white thing. So it's like a motorcycle. The throttle is like a motorcycle. And you're looking through, is that a glass? Hit the image on the right, Michael, see if you can make it bigger. So that's actually the hatch. No, not that one. Hit the image on the far right of the screen. Hit that one. Now go far right. See if you can, yeah, visit. So it looks like the hatch is actually open. So he can lift his seat up and kind of sit out. But if it's closed, what is he looking through? So when it closes, there's like, it's sitting to the side. See that little switch on the right? If you go to the right there, that little handle. So that pivots. And it shuts the hatch up top. And then you pull it down and seal it. And there's little periscopes that you actually look through. I mean, it's incredible. How about at nighttime? What's that called? DVR? So you look at your screen? Yeah, so you put like this little night vision screen in there. That's incredible. What kind of gauges we got on the left? We got tachometers, speedometers. What is the top end speed on that? I think it's 42. Well, I think it goes to like 60. It's like a driver's goal to max one of those things out. You're not a tank driver until you do that. But I think it's 42. What? Okay, so your job is legit, straight driving. I was a driver. Yeah, I was a colonel's driver. And Michael, see if you can find a schematic, like an overhead image of all the seats in an Abrams. How many people are in there? Four people. Okay, so you get driver. Who else you got? So the driver is, you know, by himself down there. Front left? Front center. He's in the turret. Or I'm sorry, in the hole of the tank. Then you have the turret. You got the tank commander. You have the loader and you have the gunner. Okay, loader is probably what it sounds like. Loading the shields. Yeah, I mean, it's a job. Yeah, you got to... I mean, it's just crazy. You can never get in one of these tanks. Yeah, so... Okay. Yeah, that little... On the center of the bottom screen, the bottom tank, go down just a little bit. That seat right there is where the loader sits. He'll pull his rounds out. He'll pull his rounds out from the right. Put him in the main gun. What does he do with the brass? It's a large shell casing, isn't it? Oh, yeah, it's about 120. So they'll actually fall under the floor and you kind of just sweep them over. Okay. And then you got the tank commander above him. So go up and... For the people who are audio only, enjoy this experience. Yeah, right? Bear with us here. Sorry, you should probably switch over now because this is awesome. We're learning about Abrams tanks. They're incredible. So that's the tank commander there. Everything the gunner can do. Who's probably right in front of him? Yeah, the gunner's right in front of him. I mean, that's the best job in the tank. When you fire it, is it a button or is it a trigger? So they're called Cadillacs. Okay. So it's like a... I guess if... It's kind of like an aircraft. You got your little... That's a Sabo round. That's what I'm talking about. It's kind of like an airplane. Michael, there it is right up there. Go to the upper left. That's the gun and that's the gunner right there. One more. God damn it, Michael. Don't make me come over there. Look at the interesting screen. This would be your position, Michael, because it has screens. Yes, it's incredible. All right. I mean, the technology in these things, I mean, it's just incredible. One of the most fascinating things to me about this is the speed with which they can hold the turrets. Like the ability for that thing to... You can keep that turret... I mean, spot on it. The thing is you are hauling... Moving around, jumping, doing anything you want. 3000 meters away, you can keep that right on a target. Or you know, 300 yards or whatever, you know. Whatever distance, but... If it's a non-tank-on-tank engagement, what are you guys really worried about in there? Is there any... I mean, I would assume maybe a large IED, a landline... So one of my gunners, when I first joined Active, he got blown up on deployment. The actual turret of the tank can separate. He had some serious problems from this. You know, when you get blown up, you actually separate. Is that by design? To maybe release over pressure? Or is that just the way it goes? I didn't tell you honestly. But I know part of his turret, you know, it's separated. Some of the turrets completely separated. Yeah, I killed the whole crew. All sorts of stuff. Can you even fathom the size of the charge it would require to do that? It's unbelievable. I mean, you're familiar with MRAPs, right? Oh yeah, absolutely. I have seen what is left over the estimate on the buried HME, which is homemade explosive in Afghanistan. It was somewhere near 1,500 pounds. It's insane. It flipped an MRAP hundreds of feet into the air. That's insane. And inverted the V-hole. It's instantly fatal. Unbelievable. And that's what the V-hole, you can overmatch that easily. The Caymans, right? Yeah, totally flat. Which is overmatch on that. It's like a humvee. Oh, it's awful. They're actually almost the opposite of a V-hole because they're flat, but then on the sides, they kind of go in. Yeah, that's the scariest thing is getting blown up in one of those. Other than that, though, is there anything out there that you guys are really worried about if you got all the hatches closed? No, that does not. It can. If it gets between the tank and the... I'm sorry, the hole and the turret. So you don't have Stephen Seagal sniping you with an RPG. Because in my experience, those things don't fly very straight. If one of those actually hits there, we're going to put that in the luck category, not the skill category. Absolutely. So other than that, I guess other tanks, that's really it, but I mean, we're refighting those other tanks right now. When you joined the army, where were you living when you joined? West of Cleveland. We'll circle back to how this all ended up, but West of Cleveland, probably 50 miles, Country Town. So I actually grew up in the city of Cleveland in this really horrible situation. I have 12 siblings. House got raided by the DEA. Oh, it's a crazy story. We all got put in foster care. And I went from like... These are blood siblings? 12 siblings. Probably, 20 dads. No, I'm just kidding. A lot more dads. Maybe 20 participants, but... Yeah, yeah, no kidding. But yeah, so... How was that growing up in that situation? I mean, it was bad. Did you know it was as bad as it was when you were in it, or do you have a better optic on it now? I think the very moment that I determined my life is not normal was when I woke up in the middle of the night, I was really hungry. My sister, Ashley, my brother Aaron, we all three woke up and we were really hungry. Where do you fall in that 12? Right about in the middle. We lost one, unfortunately. But... we woke up really hungry, and we were like, hey, let's go get some food. And we opened the fridge, and there was very limited food in there, but we took some food out, and my mother came out, and she beat us. I mean, it was so bad, but I remember getting beat, thinking, why is this happening? I want some food. Do you remember how old you were at the time? At that time, I was probably four, because that was just before. Yeah, hungry kids at four are going to go try to find food. And I remember things like gang members being in the house. You know... things I remember, like my sisters, you know... These people are, I mean, the most resilient people I've ever met in my life. I would remember things like, why is my sister leaving? Things like that. My brother, like, why is my brother always next door? Where did he get this Nintendo from? Stuff like that, and we can all obviously you know... ...connex the dots here. ...troll around conclusions here. But, you know, so I went from that, he's also a veteran. He is hands down my favorite person, other than my wife and my kids. He went to Afghanistan and did all that. I remember he, we were in the playing in the front yard one time, and a car, a drunk driver, was driving up, and my other brother, the one that passed away, grabbed him by his arm, pulled him away from this tree, just as this drunk driver hit him, but it still pinned him between the tree and the car, but the way he pulled him out, it was... Apparently if he didn't do that, my brother would have died. He pulled him out just enough to break a leg. Injured but not pinned? Yeah, exactly. Well, he was pinned, but he wasn't injured, but pinned by the leg, and started by the... Yeah, so the torso? Yeah, exactly, yeah. So that happened, and he got a bunch, my mother got a bunch of money for that, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and after that, that incident, you know, the DEA came in, and they closed the house down, put us all in foster care, and like... Individually, or did they... So this is another reason I'm probably the luckiest person on earth, and I really, truly count my blessings. Just two towns away, we went from the city to the country, like, a bunch of land. My parents took about half of us, mostly the boys, and then they took the other half. They were cousins. It was a town away, you know? Coming from Cleveland, you know, about 40 miles west, you know. Of all the things that could have happened, us getting all sent to separate homes, and this and that, you know, we were a town away. Not only that, but it was the country. Dirt bikes, four-wheelers. I mean, I still can't believe it's the times how lucky I got. But anyway, like, a lot of people in the foster care system, you know, I should go back a little bit. I did foster care for about four years. And we were kind of all in the same area, but once we got adopted four years later. But at the same family? Yeah, by the same family. That's when I really, you know, but anyway, a lot of people in those situations, you know, like who adopt children and stuff, you know, we all know what a sick world it is, what sick world it can be. A lot of people, you know, they might have bad intentions, but the people that adopted me, Andy, they were the best people I've ever met in my life. I mean, they are such good people. My mom and dad, you know, they just came in there with love, Jesus, you know, took us to church, and I just, yeah. How do you view, like, what kind of impact did that upbringing have on you as you were getting older? I mean, I know indirectly people who could describe that type of situation, and let's say there were 12, just to use the number of siblings that you have, and half of them were broken and destroyed by that situation. Yes. Maybe one or two flourished, but yeah. Lifelong, I don't know the right word. I would just, other than impact, lifelong impact given the situation that they grew up in. Yeah, so it affected, like, my sisters and my brothers. I guess they're kind of all affected the same way, but I mean, I I owed my parents, like, I owed them success, you know. I... Do you feel that way because of what they were able to provide for you, and how contrast to where you came from? 100%, yeah. And, like, they're such good people, and, like, I owed them success, like, you know, I want to talk about how this ties into my patriotism, because, like, you know, you have people out there complaining about this country, this and that, you know, poor me, I'm living, you know, on off the government, whatever. Like, this country set me up every way possible, like, I've stayed out of trouble, you know, these... The system recognized a problem with my family, you know, when we were young, and they did something about it, you know, put me in this incredible situation that, you know, my out in the country, like, anything a kid could want, you know, it just, it doesn't happen, um... There are more stories on the other side of that coin than there are, I think, than what you're describing. Exactly, yeah. 100% in, like, I just... Especially lately, like, I just... I sometimes I stop and I just think about how lucky I got in life. Yeah. Well, you can feel lucky and still complain about the things that suck. Sure, yeah. I think, and that doesn't bother me, what starts to irritate me a little bit, and then I kind of just let go of it, is when people refuse to acknowledge anything that is actually going well, or like you said. Absolutely, yeah. No. This country has a history of filling the blank, and so therefore everything about it sucks. It's like, yeah. Everything? Everything sucks? You have been places. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I just want to look at people and just... Yeah. Just call the balls and strikes, be like, hey, we're doing amazing things here, but also over here, we're an absolute train wreck, we should probably dedicate some time to that. Let's work on it. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things in my family that kind of plagues us, I would say more with my wife's family is, obviously politics, but sometimes I get frustrated because I think where I came from, where I've been in the world, and I see people out there who are really struggling, I know that feeling, and somebody might complain because they're late to work, or this or that, or their coffee's not hot enough, and sometimes I just want to stop and just go off the deep end on them, but I don't know. Do you think it helps you as a police officer with the context and empathy that you probably can have when you see other people that are just... Yeah. I have run into... I'm very good friends with a lot of law enforcement officers, and it'd be hard for us to find somebody more supportive than law enforcement than myself, but I'm also honest about some of the patterns that I see. Absolutely. One of the patterns that I see is that because of the, we'll call them population groups that officers often deal with and deal with in the nature of repeat customers. I'm not here to sugarcoat things, but what they end up, it seems like, and this is an outside perspective, I've never walked a foot in anybody else's shoes, but it jades them towards almost all of society because of the amount of time that they spend in that, and that also I think can be very dangerous as well. Absolutely. My friend Rob that you met, we met on the SWAT team together, and he was a Marine, and him and I have a lot of the same opinions on these things. I noticed that cops that are veterans, especially combat vets, in the combat arms mostly, who were really in the true military, well I shouldn't say that, but... I was going to say, you will get annihilated if combat vets... Not the true military, the true front lines, you know what I mean, the ground pounders. The ones out there, you know, kicking indoors and not sitting on a fob, getting fat. That's what I'm trying to say, but anyway... But let's be clear, a lot of those people who don't ever leave the fob, we require them to help us to prepare to do our job, right? Yes, absolutely. Everybody has a role, all services are honorable, but it's different. They all signed up. It is very different, and there's a different mentality that goes with it. But so him and I were talking about, like, those kind of cops that you see come from those aspects of the military are, I mean, it's noticeable that the level of respect they have for people, for Americans. I mean, what better job is it than, you know, being there for these people? For Americans, people you love, people that are so good to me, you know, took me out of those horrible situations. Like, what... I can't think of a better job than showing up for them, you know, at their worst. I mean, I had a... you know, I had a murder not too long ago that I was on, and there were three kids there, and I have three kids, you know, and I had this horrible domestic violence situation, and the guy ended up taking her life. Young girl, I mean... Why are all the DV stories so horrible? As soon as you said that I knew it was going to be horrible, again, based off the relationship I have with the local law enforcement, DVs are the worst. They all say the same thing. This was probably my top five worst calls I've been on. I mean, it definitely is. Um... He did this, and there were three kids there. There were three kids. Yeah. Before you go any further, let me ask you this. Was it the first instance? No. And it never is. It never is. That's why I ask, because, God damn it. It's crazy. The repetitive themes in that, or they go to a DV call, and this is obviously broad, not specific, go to a DV call, somebody gets the bracelets, then somebody doesn't want to press charges, and then two weeks later, the same thing happens again. You're speaking my language. Yeah. I don't think I'll do well. Yeah. And so here's what my friends will say. It never de-escalates. Whatever happened the last time becomes the new foundation for what is going to be the floor. You sure you want to cop before? Well, I just listen to them. Yeah, it's crazy. It all works. I'm fascinated to try to understand this, and apparently this is... there's a lot of tie over when it comes to substance abuse. Like, if people, let's say, they were deeply into alcoholism, if they relapse, it's where they were is the starting point. So it's like it edges up and it edges up, but it never goes back the other direction. It's crazy. And these are things I, if I'll go on a domestic violence call, I will say, like, listen, the majority of the time it's the man, let's call it strikes, strikes. It's usually the man being the abuser and whatnot, and I'll pull the lady aside and I'll say, listen, it's going to get worse. If you don't stop this now, do what you got to do. It's going to get worse, nine times out of ten. And they usually brush it off, you know? Yeah. Don't show up for court or, you know, don't... just... it's bad. But that one I had, that murder ended up he called and said he accidentally shot his wife. And so I was under the impression that I was first on the scene, myself actually, in a deputy so I had thought he actually did this, so I was a little empathetic, you know? Looking back more than I should have been. I wonder if he's ever heard of the five basic principles to handling a fire. Michael and I were... was that two Fridays ago? Yeah. A guy was showing his daughter his weapon and I'm like, I don't... There's a little more to that one. Well, also, again, if you follow just one of those five rules, it would probably going to be okay. Accidentally shot my wife. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, so he came out and, you know, ran out of the house and you know, I accidentally shot her, listen to that. Oh, so he was playing it up. Yeah, and I actually believed the guy for a minute. You know, the call came out, it was an accident. Pretty quickly though, I realized, you know, it was something else. Anyway, I get in there and she's laying on the floor and you know, she's dead. He actually put the pistol in her mouth and executed her, yeah, in their living room. Which for people who have never been around that, that has a signature? Yeah. Shall we say? Yeah. So yeah, that there were three kids there and I had to walk these kids out, you know. Oh, jeez. And their mother's laying there and dead on the floor, you know. What do you do there? Do you try to make sure that they don't get like line of sight? Yeah, well, that we made it pretty clear that we had other units show up and you know, kind of block it. Protect them to the bed, yeah. Yeah, exactly. They're kind of asking about it, you know. And maybe you kind of obviously brush it off there to make it less than it is. But yeah, and you know, you walk them out and then he actually just got sent so he went to prison. He's maxed out. He's never getting out. But now these three kids, I mean, they don't have mother or father, you know. Yeah. I think it's simple as like just walking away, cooling down, you know, figuring things out tomorrow, like, you know, from the female aspect, like, let's just cool down, let me separate, you know. I think more about this tomorrow, my plan. And there is help out there. I mean, it's just, it could have prevented all that. Hurt people, hurt people, man. So many people were affected by that. You know, some of these officers, you know, that, you know. And I think how you could do that job and not have a little bit of a jaded perspective, but I think it has to be reminded constantly like, hey, just so you know, not everybody is like this. It's the same thing as being overseas. You cannot, you cannot think that every, like you see a kid on a bike, or is he bringing a bomb to blow him. You cannot, to a degree, I guess it's in the back of your mind, but you will absolutely burn yourself out. You will. It happens. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So that kind of like, I wanted to talk about this too. I think things like that, you know, you see things like that, and we've seen our share of, you know, death and whatnot in military, but being here in America, it's like, it's almost, it's, it's, I think it's harder. I think that things you see overseas are worse, like, Sergeant McGee, Fritz El-Nay, when we deployed together, he got killed. That, I mean, that, go into a service for one of your brothers that, stuff, that's what was one of the worst things I ever had to do. Not even just the fact that he got killed, that fact itself is awful, but just being there with everybody that like, you know, you're burying this guy, or not burying him, but you know, having this moral form, that was awful. So that kind of stuff, you see worse things overseas, as far as, you know, trauma and whatnot and violence. Yeah, but you get to come home from those. You get to come home. You guys, and again, this is from talking to my, to my friends. They don't even recognize some time. So they're doing this, we'll be hanging out, and whatever, we're going to go up to Whitefish to go snowboarding. Like, oh yeah, I work to hit and run over there. Oh, I had, you know, and it's, I understand the, it would come off as callous to somebody who didn't understand why they describe it the way that they do, but I also understand it's a coping mechanism. They'll say things like, oh yeah, I had to scrape a kid off the sidewalk. And they don't realize what they're saying. No, no, no. And it's like, if they're around me, like, okay, like, cool, I understand what's going on. You throw somebody else in the vehicle who didn't understand their background or do they have that context? They're going to look at you like you're a complete, like, do you collect human heads? Do you wear a belt made out of skin, John? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah. That and like, where I work now, I work in a smaller agency now, and I ended up moving back, you know, towards Cleveland after my divorce. And I applied for my hometown, and they hired me right away, you know, it's the first place I applied and they hired me. So I work in my hometown, and I went to a call last year, a suicide guy took a shock on his head. I pulled up to the driveway and the guy that pulls up immediately says, you're so-and-so's brother. I don't want to say my sister's name, but he was like, you're so-and-so's brother. I'm thinking, I couldn't remember who this guy was, and turns out I knew the family, I knew the guy that did it. So we go into the shed where his head is no longer a head, and there's, you know, brain matter everywhere. It's a lot, man. Yeah, but it's also really cool working in your hometown when you do something cool, you know, and I don't know, you take care of somebody and you know, they know who you are, and you know, they can thank you, or not necessarily thank you, but they can, you can feel the appreciation more, not that I'm looking for it. You can see the impact too. You can see the impact, yeah. Totally unrelated question, but you got to be thinking about this. Yeah. Did you have any hesitation getting married based off of your upbringing? Like, did you have a, obviously, you weren't living with or largely raised by your biological mother or father, so you actually did have a good example from your parents to use your term, but did the memory of the, like, your biological mother in that situation, did that impact at all your willingness to enter into a marriage and have kids of your own? Probably. More than I'd probably like to admit, but I don't know, I just, I saw what, like, what a mother and a father shouldn't be, and I saw what they should be, so I think, like, again, like, my parents had adopted me, like, just showed me, like, the complete opposite. They showed me, like, what real love is, you know, and some I hadn't seen for the first eight years of my life, you know, and with good intentions, like, these are good country people, like, lots of land, and like I said, I lived in the ghetto of Cleveland, going to, like, this huge chunk of land with muscle cars, you know, trucks, dirt bikes, go-karts, I can't even tell you how lucky I got in life, and that's just one little portion of my life that I, you know, it's the reason I love my country so much, you know, everything I've done, I've stayed out of trouble for the most part, didn't get caught, but I'm kidding. That's how it goes as a young man. Yeah, right. My kids are not as good at it as I was. At not getting caught? Yeah, you should say I'm really lucky that I have good relationships with my girls. Yeah, seriously, that's funny. Every once in a while, I'll get a little heads up. Yeah, I'm kidding. Every once in a while, I'll give the heads up. No, I'm kidding. But I tell you what, I'm sure my parents got heads up too. Like, that's kind of the deal. You got to pay that for it a little bit. Absolutely. You cannot do that. Very conscious about that. Yeah, and you know, not everybody deserves a heads up. Like, there's things where it's like, this is a heads up issue, but also, not everybody needs to get like, manhandled and roughed up. Absolutely. Yeah, like I said, coming from the military, I have an appreciation for America, and, you know, where the patriotism come from, you think? I think it started just being on the country growing up, like dirt bikes and all that. I think my father letting me drive his old pickup truck in the yard. It was a stick shift. I was probably 12 years old. Like, this is really cool. A lot of kids don't get to do this, you know? So I think that's probably what sparked it, you know, all that. But when I joined the army, like when I was 18 and, you know, I joined the tank corps, and that's a rugged life. I mean, it's... Is that what you joined the army to do? Because this is post 9-11. How'd you land on the army in tanks? Other than obviously the M1 is. Well, I mean, I jaded. A lot of firepower. So I actually went in and I didn't know there were jobs. I didn't know you could do this. I thought you were all going to be infantry, right? So I went in there and my sister had already enlisted. She was, I think, at the 82nd at this time. Yeah, she was. She finished basic the 82nd. And she's like, don't go infantry. And I was like, oh, okay, whatever. And then my dad came, you know, the recruiters like, why don't you try tanks or something? So I was like, yeah, I'll do tanks. They've given out bonuses. 2007, the height of the war. I was like, yeah, I'll do tanks. They seem pretty cool, you know. So I signed up. I think I shipped out two weeks later. Damn. That fast track. Yeah. After I left that recruiters office when I signed those papers, I think I had my first panic deck in life. Realizing, realizing what I'd done. Crap. Yeah. I really just signed up. I'm going to go to war. You know, I'm going to... Who knows what's going to happen. So anyway, I did that and then just seeing how cool these tanks were, I just, man, I fell in love with these things. It was tough, though. I went to Korea and then I went to Iraq, too. Which is funny because when I deployed, I was sent to the infantry company. I was an infantry platoon. So that's where I met Mike, my one buddy. Actually, I met him in Korea. And we kind of went everywhere together. So what does that mean? You guys, as the tanks supported the infantry company? Yeah. They were doing this thing where like, they weren't really using tanks anymore. It wasn't quite, you know, busy enough. But so they sent all the tankers to the infantry companies. So there was a name for it. Without the tanks. Without the tanks. That's not nearly as fun. It wasn't nearly as fun, though. So yeah, I think we used the tanks twice overseas and we didn't get to fire them. We had a few instances where we had tanks on four corners. Oh. And yeah. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Were the tanks or were they Bradley's? Both. Oh, okay. Yeah. I have definitely run past an M1 in Iraq. It's like, oh, that thing's bad Chad. Oh, it's just like to see. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just incredible. You want to talk external blocking positions outward? I'm like, I actually think we're pretty good externally. Oh, dude. I tell you, those tanks are just incredible. Yeah. And the technology and those things, I mean, these Chinese tanks, these Russian tanks and all that, I mean, they couldn't shake a stick of the things. These American tankers are so motivated. I mean, so like, I would say like, let me give you an example. Like your average swat guy, like his goal, not his goal, but his, I guess his fantasy, maybe, I don't know, is like saving a hostage or, you know, an active shooter, taking him out. Like that's like, yeah, this was swat guys under the train, you know, want to save some lives, you know, in a cool tactical way. Whereas like a doctor might want to work on a, you know, transplant, save a life that way. Tankers, like they want to destroy everything. Like, my platoon sergeant, when he was in the invasion, I mean, the stories he would tell me, like, you did what to a what, like, main gun rounder, like, to who, to what, you know, like, I have seen a main gun round engage a single individual. That was probably my platoon sergeant back in the day. It was, technically it was in a building, so they could probably get away with saying they were engaging a fighting position. I don't know if there was more than one person in that fighting position. I don't know if I was, when I got there, I was like, I don't know if I'm cut out for this, not that I'm afraid to do my job, but, you know, I just, it's like, well, I want to go to heaven like I was raised as a Christian, Christian, I don't want to get too, you know, I don't want to be on, I don't want to take anybody out with a main gun around, that's what I'm trying to say, you know. But anyway, so they were, I mean, they just, everything was tanks, just lots of firepower, and you don't want to cross the tank or, you know, in combat, I mean, they will. Yeah, it's not going to be pretty. Were you thinking at all about law enforcement while you were in, or is that something you... I was not. Okay. So, after I left active in 2011, I was pretty messed up, I had some, a couple of bad experiences over there, or just in my four years of active. Yeah, enjoying my combat experiences overseas. I mean, I had a few, you know, I wasn't, obviously it wasn't, you know, a Ramadi or a Fallujah or anything when I was there. Don't get into the competitive suffering. Yeah, and the other people told me this. I hear guys, it wasn't as bad as what you did, and like, okay, first off, everybody is different, and everybody has a different, I have been in situations, call it six people for ease of math, and one egg is completely scrambled, and on the other side of that, one guy's like, what are you talking about? That was like a Tuesday. For sure. There should never be competitive suffering. Yeah, I guess I've been told that before. Yeah. I know sometimes you can't help, you know, certain things, and I was 18, and I just, I wasn't ready for some of the things I saw, like I, you know, rocket attacks. What was the stuff that stuck with you the most? Do you think the ones that had the largest impact on you? So, Sergeant McGee getting killed. Yeah. So, loss of a close friend. Were you there in that environment, or he was just somebody that he knew? He was actually, my friend Mike that you met, he was, they were at the same base, and I was, we were at a little patrol base with just our infantry company at the time. So, it happened at a base, you know, not too far away, but going to that memorial service, a couple other things that stuck out to me, like my platoon sergeant and my platoon leader at the time, and this is when I realized like, this made me very, very patriotic. When, the first time we took rockets, we were in MRAP's and we were pulling into that to the base where McGee had gotten killed and we're pulling in there and we're just dismounting, I think we're already getting ready to go get some food or something. We started taking rounds, you know, 1-0-7's or whatever they are. Just indirect fire? Yeah, indirect. And Sergeant Lechance, it was named Lieutenant Romo. As these rounds are coming in, they're standing outside. As these rounds are coming in, yelling at us to get back in our trucks. Standing there, I mean right there in Armsway, these things are hitting. They waited for every single troop to be secured before they got in their vehicles. That's the move, man. That was the moment we were outside. This is, I mean, I get goosebumps thinking about it now. Again, good people looking out for me in my life. So yeah, that happened, you know, you would roll into bases and see trucks, you know, blown to the reins. Yeah. We did some patrols with an ODA team, which is, you know, the Green Brace for those that don't know. And they would do things that were just I mean, one of them got blown up and I watched this entire crew walk out of their Humvee. Like nothing happened. I mean, I couldn't, things like that, it's like, holy shit, the US military, like this is incredible. Things we're capable of. Well, the reason I asked you, it's interesting, I've spent a lot of time talking with psychiatrists and psychologists about the human reaction distress. And first off, there is no right or wrong answer. Yeah. Right. So, and there is no reason to compare or even worry about why one thing bothers somebody or it doesn't bother somebody else. But it's interesting, it almost seems sometimes the stuff that is the most damaging broadly are the things that are totally out of your control. Meaning you're watching, it's not even necessarily directly happening to you, but you're watching something and you have no control over it so therefore you can't escape it. That's a big problem with cops, it's like not having that control over certain things. Yeah. Well, you guys don't necessarily get to choose when you encounter violence. Correct. And when you talk, when I talk to these people who are experts in this, not that it makes it better, but it seems to be that there is a lower incidence of the trauma affecting long term when you are the one who chooses and initiates it, they call it the locus of control. It's where that locus of control sits that it can have such an amazing impact. And I don't want to say positively because that's not what I mean, but it's less sticky if you are the one who are deciding, if you are deciding and in control, like I look at my old job high 90th percentile of the time I got to choose when violence was initiated or when I was exposed to it. The people that I would look at from a distance, specifically on my last deployment in 2010, I would watch these guys and their job was to mind sweep Route 1. And this is the same route where that 1,700 pounds of HME and they're just sitting in the back of vehicles with no control over anything. Oh, it's enough. And I would watch them and just look at them. And of course, I can't speak for them, but I can say from my own eyes, they looked miserable. Oh, just think about, I mean, how that affected them for life. Again, the locus of control. It's crazy. I respond to calls and like I said, my agency isn't I work in a really weird agency because it's a smaller town, but we're between our neighboring agencies, our two very busy cities with gangs and this and that. And a couple of the calls I've been on that are significant, a couple of the more significant ones that were mutual aid, so I would get called by another agency to go here, do this, you know. And like I don't know, I just I'll be honest with you, I lost my track where I was going with that. We were just talking about exposure to essentially trauma. Okay, yeah, that's true. Control of it, yeah. Well, that's perfect because some of the trauma I've been exposed to, you know, the, I tend to forget what I'm talking about sometimes. But anyway, yeah, just you know, especially working, working where you grew up, you see a lot of people that you know and this and that. Yeah. And I don't know, it's different when it's here because these are your people that these are the people that saved my life on so many different occasions, seeing them suffer and seeing, you know. So how'd you land on it as you were getting out of the military? Oh yeah, that's right. So I actually joined after active duty I joined the reserves and okay as an MP you know, horrible career move. It's a military police. See, you already had a bad gin gun. You're good. You don't have to go to the academy, right? You just walk off, you're like, I don't know if you know this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm already certified. I'm an MP now. Yeah, yeah. Is there an academy for the MP? Yeah, it's like a, the one I went to was like maybe a month long or something. Okay. It was actually pretty high speed. It was cool. Some of the things you got through the vehicle, you know, driving and all that, but so I joined like the the MP Corps as you know, in the reserves and National Guard and that was like for anybody listening, you know, watching this, I don't I don't recommend going active duty, serving with the infantry in the tank or to like a reserve MP unit because it's just you're going to be disgruntled. I mean, it's well, how often you work in two right? Is that like the one week in a month? Yeah, the one week in a month. So what were you doing in the off time? What was I doing at the time? Because I mean, you can get your pension or anything like that. So yeah, right. Well, I was working for the VA at one point. Really? What were you doing for that? I did a Arctinomenal Health Counseling Clinic. Okay. I was just like a little, you know, secretary if you will. But it was federal, so it was cool. So I did that. So I actually did 17 years total in the military before active and then the rest, you know, reserves and guard. I did 17 and I got out to politics. I mean, again, coming from the active duty combat arms to reserve National Guard MP the levels of discipline and the level of discipline and the level of the levels of discipline, you know that I don't know. You know what it is. People take it less seriously. Yeah, exactly. It becomes a weekend a month. Two weeks a year. And having said that, I was never reservist. I'm talking about again only what I see, which is a broad description. I'm not negatively talking about anybody, but I also know a bunch of people who are in the National Guard. And I'm repeating what they have told me. Yeah, it's the National Guard. I would compare it to something like the Navy. No, I'm just kidding. It's that's OK. I'm just teasing. No, it's the Navy is unique. Just because you didn't have 13 buttons on your pants, you don't have to be jealous. I did. Which is a bastard when you're hammering. You got to take a piss. Well, the duty bell too. You know, you got to handle your business and you get a call and you got to run out there. They're now I'm kidding. But anyway, see, I did that and it was just obviously, I'm a, you know, I'm a male and I like guns and I like all that and a little more on the conservative side. Socially liberal, I would say. Same. Yeah, exactly. I think that's a perfect way to be, honestly. I think most people are actually like that in the middle, more in the middle. Yeah, just leave everybody alone. I don't want to get too political, but like, if you want to do what you want, you want to get abortion, you want to do whatever you want. Do what you want to do. Don't rub it in anybody's face, you know, like. And also, don't try to force me to align with your beliefs and we're probably going to be OK because I can respect yours from a distance. You can respect mine and we're going to be all right. Absolutely. Just leave everybody alone, you know. If you want to take care, do whatever you got to do, just do it on your own. You know, it's no one's business. Anyway, so when I joined that MP unit, I got stuck with my first line leader was a female, my second, you know, her, my second line was a female, you know, another female all the way up to like the battalion commander and I firmly believe their mission was to unfortunately, I don't take care of women over men and I hate to say that, but like I said, I'm just going to tell some people like that. Yeah, yeah. There were so many instance instances where like, you know, this this man who was good at his job would just be stuck, you know, and not getting promoted or this and that and these females would just out, you know, out promote and this and that and people may know when well, life isn't fair, but also correct. Yes, inside of that system. Yeah, the people above you can have some impact on that and I would love to say that everybody in the military is altruistic and they don't align like that. That isn't the case. I would say it's probably not the majority, but I think it is also very fair and accurate to say that there are pockets of isolation where that is 100% true. I saw it and it was sick. Yeah, like this guy is so good at his job and he is a go-getter. Never late, nothing. He's always, you know, just squared away and you have a woman who isn't, but she's, you know, that also being said, I had a platoon sergeant later who was a female. Her name was Tara and she kicked ass. I mean, she was awesome. This is why I'm a fan of meritocracies. Yeah, right. I could give a shit, what's between your legs if you can meet the standard, like I am all about it. There are standards, yes. You meet him, you're good to go. She met those standards and I'm telling you, she took care of all of us and I owe a lot to her too, like that group of women before I had been accused of calling one of them the B word. As I look you in the eyes now, I didn't say it. If I said it, I would tell you I said it. I didn't say it. It's a name, whatever, not a big deal. I was under investigation for the three years because of that. Three years I couldn't go to drill. I think I've called a few hundred men that. Yeah, and they probably laughed you and called you name bad. I think it was just our opening greeting. Yeah, that or what's up bitch. Exactly. It's funny. Yeah, yeah. However, I don't think that applies equally to women. I do not think we can use said greeting. Yeah, I know. Yeah, usually in the combat arms, the worst the word, you know, the better the word, you know what I mean? Sure. Actually, if they're being kind to you, you're a little bit word that something's wrong. Exactly. Yeah, for sure. Like, why isn't anybody making fun of me? They're making fun of everybody else and being excluded. Yeah, they don't like me. It's crazy. Yeah, I'm not saying it's the healthiest environment, everybody. I'm just saying that's the way it is. They're good at their jobs. So yeah, so that happened. I was under investigation for three years because of this. And like the craziest part about it is like this woman said that I said it in front of a bunch of people and like other people were like, no, he didn't say it. Yeah. He didn't call you the B word because I didn't call you the B word. I feel like that would be a short investigation as opposed to 36 months. You would think. So in the infantry on active duty, the tank corps, they would have laughed and said, yeah, let's get real here, you know. Well, it's not how it is in the MP Corps and the National Guard. I was out for three years because of it. I ended up accepting like a LOR letter of reprimand or something because at that point, like that's not even worth it anymore, you know. It's like, you know, I'm going to get out anyway, a little piece of it. That says I call somebody a B word that I didn't, you know, I didn't actually call them that. Whatever, no big deal. So that put a bad taste in my mouth. I got out at 17 years. So, you know, whatever is what it is. But yeah, so going from that active duty combat arms to the reserves MP, I would not recommend for anybody. When did you actually go through Civilian Law Enforcement Academy? Okay, so 2016. Okay. So you were still, you were still doing the National Guard? I was still doing, yeah. And that was the thing that drew me to Law Enforcement was when I first became an MP, I was like, yeah, there's a lot of cops in this. Yeah, it's a good exposure. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. So I ended up doing that. I was the vice president of my class in the Academy and I think the only reason I was was because I had the military experience and I think my class commander, I'm sorry, my Academy commander, he had walked in at the a few times, just at the right time where he heard me like maybe mentoring somebody or... This is a staff member? Yeah, he was a captain in the police department who ran the Academy and I think they walked in at just the right time, like a few times where they heard me like maybe mentoring somebody and they thought, oh, this guy might be a leader, you know. So they ended up making me like Academy Vice President. The Academy President, she's a federal agent now, she also kicks ass and she's like, this girl, yeah, she's she's awesome. But anyway, I did that, I did some corrections at the jail in Cleveland, Ohio. How was that? That was insane. Yeah. A lot of fighting. Yes, I've heard some interesting stories about working in jails. Yeah, so I did three years on the the worst floor. Is it as bad as the stories ever? Kuy Ho County, it's... Oh, it's awful. There was a guy that got beat to death when I was there. By another inmate? By another inmate. Wow. Beat this guy to death. Yeah, oh yeah. So, but again, when it comes back to people in your life that really took care of you with good intentions, my my supervisor, a former Marine guy always looked out for me. I mean, he gave me everything I needed, you know, all the resources, that's that. So there were times like, I remember one guy, he had killed his girlfriend and his two kids. You can look this up. It's out there. Did they put you in your own cell at least if you were arrested for that? No, because it happened. I mean, there's murders. 10th floor of that jail is where I worked. I mean, there are all murders. There's people on death row. Oh, wow. There were cop killers up there that I would have conversations every day with. And I remember one time this guy, a young guy, like 25 or something, killed his girlfriend and his two kids because his girlfriend was caught at the neighbor's house, some kind of relationship. So he went and killed them all. Did he rationalize that in his own head as if like I had no other choice? The thing about, you know, where he grew up is crime, like that, murder, that culture is normal. It's not really anything big to that. Violence was the norm. Yeah, it's a norm. You should have gone to these shooting people. I mean, that's how you grew up. But anyway, I remember one time they're the biggest thing in the jailers' respect. Like, if you talk to somebody with respect, they'll generally be cool. But sometimes you just can't avoid it. Sometimes they're, you know, they're having a bad day, whatever, and they're, you know, it's bad. But anyway, I remember one time he, I said something to him, he looked at me, he said, I'm gonna kill you. And he came at me, and that supervisor I told you about came in at the exact same, I mean, the perfect time. He just happened to be checking on me at the perfect time. And this guy just stopped. Because, you know, you were a marine guy, and he had a reputation, you know, you don't mess with this guy. And came at the perfect time, and the guy just kind of like, and he was a big old dude, and he probably would have killed me. Yeah, and he came in at the right time and de-escalated things, and yeah. What happens to somebody in jail if they make that threat to the officer working there? I mean, is there, I mean, there are people in jail. Would they send them to the jail inside of the jail? Actually, yeah, it's called, I think it's called the hole. Yeah, the jail inside of the jail. Basically, you're on lockdown for the entire day, you know, because you'll have like your pods with maybe like, you'll have like a, like your common area, and then surrounded by cells, so. So I guess it can get a little bit worse. Yeah, that job, like being a corrections officer, that is hands down the worst, hardest, least, I mean, that's the worst job ever. If you were to try to write a job description that would keep 99.9% of people away, I think it would be the corrections officer in jail. Yeah, adult babysitters. I mean, it's, it's. Yeah, it's things getting thrown at them. We don't have to be specific about what it is. Let's just say it's. Yeah, it's no, yeah. Your eyes. And not even just that, like there's a political aspect to like using force on, obviously using force on humans. Yeah. I remember one time that same supervisor, this guy headbutted him. He was standing behind, my supervisor was standing behind this guy and he hit him in the head and he heard him bad. Yeah. So what I did is I came around this dude and I put my arm like this across his chest. Yeah. And I took him down. Well, on all the cameras, it looked like I was putting him in a headlock. Yeah. Which is a big no-no. Why? Lethal force, headlock. Yeah. Do you mean a choke or a headlock? These are two different things. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. A choke. Excuse me. So. Is it lethal? Yes. In law enforcement. Is it lethal? It doesn't have to be, but. I called it for like seven minutes. Yeah. But seven minutes on one person might be different than seven minutes on another person. You know, it's all different. You need to be able to render people unconscious. Yeah. No comment. Yeah. So I remember I took him to the ground, but I, you know, I had my hand. Yeah. There's a gap. Yeah. There's a gap. It wasn't an air or a blood choke. Correct. Yeah. And out of all the cameras, there was one camera that caught me not putting my hand. You know, it caught the gap. Yeah. And it saved me. Like, you know, who knows, I would have been fired. Who knows? Oh, man. Yeah. So there's that. Do you train? I started jiu-jitsu recently. Why just recently? You touch people professionally. Yeah, I know. Well, I wanted to impress you. No, I'm kidding. Do you guys train the two dudes off? What belt do you? I'm sorry. What belt are you? I don't train like that. No, no. What do you train like? Taekwondo? Aikido? I don't train my guns. Do you guys train jiu-jitsu? No. You guys are both cops, all right? He's a former infantry guy. He's a guy we're on swap together. Unbelievable. What are you going to do if you can't go lethal and your tazer doesn't work? You can see red. Try that. For the love of Christ. Rob here. I would like to say that the reason wasn't near us, GJ2 Jim Francis, 45 minutes. Yeah. At the end of the day. Trained with each other. You guys got to figure it out. Yeah. I don't think that every cop should be a black belt at all. Don't get me wrong. No. But I do think if you could get most guys to a blue belt level, it would make you guys way better. Yeah, for sure. Because you can control the vast majority of people at a blue belt. Do you, would you like to go into the whole police training and that whole thing that I just, I'm so adamant about? Okay. Yes. So Mr. Rob Tucson here, him and I were in SWAT together. I mean, he's proven, proven himself to himself, everyone else time and time again. Man has never failed. Far as from my head. It's because he hasn't wrestled yet. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He will, no. Good. That's funny. Yeah, that's funny. So. Don't get me wrong. The entire time I was in SEAL, I didn't do any GJ2 either. No, no. No. Everybody thinks that SEAL's not how to fight. I'm like, I absolutely. And when you take one down, you're like a golden god. Yeah. But yeah. Absolutely. We had overwhelming firepower and numerical superiority was our technique. Interesting. And I look back, it was so dumb. So dumb. No way. Well, I think it's a misconception. So I'm tongue in cheek. I'm fucking with you, but at the same time. Yeah. I have nowhere to fuck with you from because I didn't. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I've been in, I've been in quite a few fights in a hand. And I didn't always win. Like it's. Yeah, it's how it goes. I've gotten my, I've gotten beat up before as a cop. Like not beat, obviously. Well, there's no magic out there. You could be a black belt and all of a sudden encounter a dude who was a bare knuckle boxing champion. And let me tell you how that's going to go. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. They give you a black belt back when you're in the hospital when you wake up. Yeah. No kidding. Right. So there's a good thing about being a cop is like there's, you have a radio and you have people around that. Not all, but. No, I get it. To say. There's a safety net. There's a safety net. Yeah. Last resort. I mean, I have a firearm. Funny to use it. You know, if I'm getting choked out or something. Yeah. But obviously I have no problem using it. Oh, that's an interesting question. So if it is considered lethal force for an officer to apply that to a civilian, if a civilian tried to do that to you. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. I still would say it's not lethal, but I mean, like, yeah. Yeah. I mean. It can be, well, I mean, water can be lethal. Let's be honest. I think that's a water too. I get what they're saying, but I'm glad that it's at least a coin that cuts both directions. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, that's a good thing about like, I don't know, I guess our area, people realize that, you know, they realize things. They're not, I don't know. Generally people support us for the most part, where we're from. But yeah, so as far as like police training, you know, again, I don't, I don't represent my department or anything like that. This is, you know, my opinions. I think there's this huge like lack of training and it bothers me. I mean, it bothers me so much. What would it take to fix it? Obviously money time, I guess, but. If you guys had more money, would you be able to find more time? Is this a matter of, say facilities, like, right? Cause you could find efficiencies or whether it be additional facilities, bringing trainers to you. Yeah. I think, I just think so money obviously, but it is my firm belief. Your basic patrolmen, you know, they don't, I mean, as far as like, let's talk about their firearms. Like they don't train on them very often. They do their qualifications, you know, annually. And like, I walk around my department and I'll look at people's like, I'll see their optic on their weapon, and like it's covered in dust. I'll be okay, can we see your weapon really quick? Dust it off. Cause not only like, that's not only gonna save you, but that might save me, you know, like. Yeah. I'll take the gun out of oil, lit form, cleaned up. You may never need it, but if you do, that stuff has got to be working. It's gotta work. Yeah. And it's, there's a lot of videos out there of it, of, you know, things not working when they should. Yeah. But anyway, so I really like, it's sad to me that like, there's not enough training. And you'll see like, let's say there's like a vehicle pursuit and there's like 20 cops behind them or something. And the car crashes. What's the first thing you see? All these cops swarm this car, firearms drawn, every one of them flagging somebody like, not only that, like, and then they start shooting and there's cars driving by and, you know, it's like, you can't be doing that. Like, what if you, Yeah. It's a lot. I mean, honestly, they might be over their skis from a adrenaline perspective. I don't know what type of force on force training. And again, it comes back to the, what you're exposed to and what is reinforced is gonna inform performance in those moments. I mean, you got all the up to the level of being a SWAT officer. I guarantee you a SWAT officer in a vehicle pursuit is probably gonna have a lower heart rate, a better ability to articulate over the radio. What's going on? Better skills. And then when the car chase ends, they're gonna be more aware of those things. But what's that from? Additional training. So, yeah. So Rob, Rob Toussaint, great guy. And this is, you know, him and I made on the SWAT team. This is kind of what I want to tie into is like, I wish every patrolman could have a week of SWAT training. The things I learned in SWAT training, I mean, the discipline, the, you know, just everything you learn. I mean, it's incredible. I shouldn't say all SWAT teams are good, but like. It's at least additional training. It's additional training, you know, with a fire or with a car beam. Yep. So the team I was on, the city of Alliance, pretty renowned team, Joe Langer. Was it an ancillary duty or they have a permanent team? So it was a part-time team, but the cool part about it was, so Joe Weyer, he was the commander. He has rubbed elbows with a lot of people and, you know, it's paid off, you know? So he was able to set up this entire training facility in Alliance, Ohio, which is 60 miles south of Cleveland, near Canton, Ohio. And there's this entire, you know, training facility. I mean, it's incredible. I think their, his training program was rated two in the country recently for training facilities, city of Alliance. I mean, incredible. Do you know Tulam Ronan? I know who he is. I don't know. Okay. So I met him. He came down there to train or to do a commercial. We did commercials for Springfield Armory, which is really cool because they'd give us free guns. That is a benefit. Yeah. That was the pay for doing these commercials. Really cool. But anyway, so these, you know, incredible training facility, you know, big shoot house, long range, breaching. He was huge. Joe was huge on breaching, which, if you know, you get to an opt and you can't get inside your, you're screwed. So that kind of stuff. Well, anyway, going back to what you said about the training, the experience, commoner pressure, Rob, him and I were talking about this, you know, recently hostage guy had a knife doer, his wife's wife's throat. And he had started cutting her, Rob. And he told me he credits a lot of this to SWAT training and to Joe and, you know, the whole team. When you train so much, you don't have to think about certain things like your offset, your, you know, that he saw a threat engaged. This goes back to the, you know, not enough training because your normal patrolman wouldn't know, like, wouldn't necessarily take offset new accountability or... Does a normal patrolman train much on their carbine or where you work? Do they have carbines in their cars at least? Yeah. So my department, my department's actually really good about that. We all have carbines. We all issued our own cars. And all that's great. But like you said, like, if you're not, hey, my holdover at 25 yards or seven yards versus 50 or 100. Yeah, 200, whatever, you know. But anyway, like Rob, he knew because of all this training, the muscle memory, you know, the SWAT training, you know, paid off, you know, he's able to save this lady's life. So things like that, you know, that normal patrolman wouldn't have that training, you know, where, and I hate to say this, but a lot of patrolmen wouldn't have acted, you know? Look at you, Valde. Do you know, like... Have they actually come out and done a real full after that? Or at least law enforcement agencies getting that? Because I don't necessarily, well, I would want them to promote that far and wide. And I don't mean promote, but I mean disseminate. But I can imagine them maybe doing so at a little bit more of a sensitive level, at least inside of law enforcement. Are they honest about what happened there? And I should say more importantly, what didn't. Well, I think somebody recently, one of the officers, I think they, I don't know if they got arrested or something happened, I know that. One of the officers got arrested. I think something happened. I don't want to say they got arrested if they didn't, but something happened where... I will say this. Or they got charged or something. Some of my favorite YouTube videos are sheriffs polling police officers over at the RQ. I'll take two. First off, what kind of assholes do you have to be to pull over other people in marked police cars? Yeah, but on the flip side of that, here's the thing though, they have millions of views and I'm one of the people that I'm like, what is happening here? I have to watch this. Oh yeah. This is like what I shouldn't do. But on the flip side of that, the cops shouldn't have been doing 120 in the school zone. But, but yeah, so you've all the, what would you and I have done in this situation? I would have went in there so fast, well not so fast, but tactically. I would have, well, you run to the sound of the gun. Exactly, I wouldn't have hesitated. Yeah, I would have been excited like and we could save these children. I don't know if I would have been excited. I don't get excited in those moments. I feel a sense of obligation and duty. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have. I know what you mean. I would have been excited to save a child is what I'm saying. Yeah, but in those moments, it seems as if, and again, I've never been in a situation where there was an active shooter in a school, but it seems from the outside. Yeah. That the move is reduced the amount of time that that person or persons have access to the victims. How do you do that? You close the distance. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, like I said, the SWAT guys look forward to saving children or this and that in those kinds of situations. So, you know, things like that, like there was no excuse for those guys. I mean, I wasn't there again, but like, you got to live with yourself after that. Which is a tough one. It's a tough one, but you signed up to put yourself in harm's way. I still haven't, I haven't talked to anybody who is directly there. I've talked with some people there that were peripherally there. What they say? Well, they didn't say much. And that's why I ask, I don't know, has there ever been like a thorough debrief that was disseminated to law enforcement? One of the questions I had was, Oh, I mean, yeah, they, yeah. There's a lot of lessons learned on that. One of the questions I had was, and again, I'm not incredibly familiar with the architecture of the school. Everybody's focused on what's going on the hallway. Were there external windows that you could have like, dude, like button hook around. Like I will shoot somebody through a window. But that's maybe lack of training. You know? Yeah, and you do get, I mean, you can get front-side focuses is real. And especially if there's a collection of people there, but it mean like one outside of the box thinker who didn't want to wait in the hallway and it's like pying off on windows. Again, this is- You're telling me there wasn't one guy there that- Well, again, we're one of them. Monday morning quarterbacking the shit out of this. And I'm not trying to do that. But those are the questions that I have. Like what's the layout of this building? And that goes back to your training. You should know what every school looks like. Your SWAT teams. And at least in your municipality. That's what I'm saying. You should be going like what we did. We went to these schools. We did train. Eight walkthroughs. We trained. We did, you know, preach. We did everything in these schools so that if it came down to it, you know, we knew what the school looked like. You know? Yeah, at least you're not going in completely blind. Completely blind, yeah. Yeah, that was a shit show, man. Sad, I'm sad. You know, all those kids and- Yeah. A lot of lessons to be learned. But yeah, so I think, you know, another thing that separates, you know, the SWAT guys and patrol is like, you can, sure you can shoot somebody, whatever, but like, can you not shoot somebody? Like, can you pay attention to that little detail that, oh, I don't have to shoot this person. Or- I hope so. You know what I'm saying? And that's what I'm saying. Like that SWAT stuff is like, they show, that's what you train for. Like, I don't know, maybe the guys bolt-slock back or something, you know, that's just a little example, but maybe I could just, you know, and maybe I don't have to shoot this guy, maybe, you know. There's just things you learn, you know, the discipline and you know what not, that you wouldn't necessarily learn on patrol. So how long have you been at it now as a police officer? Say nine years, going on nine. Nine years. I work nights, full-time night shifter. Do you like that? Because you sleep all day, essentially, right? The Empire schedule? You sleep all day? You know, I have children and that's the worst part about it. It's like, you know, my kids, it's like- What are your guys' nights? Like six to six or what do you guys' nights? Right now I do, I get in at 10.30, I stay at home about six, 30. Okay. But I mean, nighttime, it's like, you don't get all the stupid calls. Like, I don't know, the neighbor disputes or just stupid things, you know. But some of the calls we get, I mean, they're good calls. Like, I've been on chases, a lot of pursuits. I recently had a pursuit, turned into a crash, you know, foot chase. You know, that kind of stuff, it's stolen cars. What did I have the other day? A pursuit that led to a fight, you know. Yeah, a lot of good calls happen at night. Not, I shouldn't say good, but you know, a lot of, activity. Activity, yeah. So, what originally got, explaining me what led you to originally leadin' out. Because I mean, I'm appreciative that we spent the time to kind of get some context to who you are in the backstory. But, of course, yeah, we got it. It's an interest. I wanna talk about this. Yeah. What happened? Cause I think people, unpack it to the best of your ability because I'm sure some people to include myself, I was aware that something had happened, right? Yes. Trained derailment, like, that's gonna make national news. That actually might make global news. I wasn't really aware of any of the, no, it was like a trained derailment. Yeah, it was. People did die, right? No, nobody died from the actual train derailment. So, obviously for those listening and whatnot, East Palestine, the train derailment. Pull this sucker up, Michael. So, I'd sent you some pictures and, I sent you, I think, my orders. I was there, no question. And I was actually an NCO. So, how did it play out for you that day? Cause you were, did that happen at night or were you not working at night? I think it happened early morning. So, I was on the phone at home with a friend and I get a notification. You know, your guard unit's been activated. And getting a guard activation. This is where Michael really earns it, you know? Yeah, yeah. Which, oh. So, the one on the far right. So, that right there, I mean that, just looking at that picture, whole, on the bottom there, yeah, look at that. I mean. Okay, so what caused this derailment? So, there was an axle on one of the trains that had some issue with it. Okay. And cameras prior, you know, a few miles down the road had caught the wheels sparking. You know. So, that's what actually ended up causing it, yeah. And you can tell that this is a cargo train for sure. So, oh man. So, just looking at this, like, I mean, it was crazy. But anyway, there was a bunch of chemicals in here that were, you know, very poisonous. Big one, vinyl chloride. Vinyl chloride? Vinyl chloride. I never heard of it. Yeah, it's no good. Whoa. Yeah. So, I was on the phone with a friend and I got the notification. Getting activated in the National Guards, like getting like a SWAT call out, or, you know. And that's usually for emergency and disaster reaction, right? Correct, yeah. Or riot control. For people who are watching this, you can tell this probably meets the criteria. Yeah, yeah. So, the BLM riots, we got activated to that too. And downtown Cleveland, stuff like that. But anyway, the big thing about this was, you know, I was on the phone with a friend and I got the activation, went to the unit. So, we were up for probably a day without sleep. And, you know, you and I, that's okay. It's not the only one. I mean, let me be clear. It's not my favorite. It sucks, but. I can function. We can function. Not my favorite. Yeah, yeah. Not looking for chances to do that at this point in my life. Correct, yeah. So, some of the other people I was with, you know, really wore down on them, not sleeping for the first day. But anyway, we get to our unit and they're like, you need to go, you guys need to go now. We hopped in humbees, we drove out here. And what did they want you to do? So, that's part of the thing. It's like. Because this is not, I mean, again, for people watching, and this is obviously, the first image is, it was on fire in the daytime. So, this is either before or after that, but this is a substantial period of time where this thing is burning. I'm gonna guess this is after, because this looks like it's grown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. I mean, what are you gonna do in a Humvee? Drive over this? So, that is how. That was the thing is like, we were MPs. I mean, the big thing here was, were the chemicals. And there were some really bad chemicals on this, in this train, and they had, apparently they had been expanding or something. That would have led to like a ridiculous explosion. So, they evacuated everybody, they called us, and they made the decision to release these chemicals in the air. Apparently the train people, you know. Are you talking about the stuff that was in the actual container? Yeah, the truck stuff. So, the decision was, instead of, if they leave it in there, it would potentially explode. So, basically reduce the, chances for gas drown. I don't know if you guys know this, but I'm basically a scientist. So, what I'm thinking is, this is like shaking up a Coke bottle, and instead of letting it go up, you're like, shh, and you let, you just diffuse the, just a lot bigger scale. I feel like I need to be wearing a white coat for this right now. I'm figuring this out. This would be a very large Coke bottle. But yeah, so all these really bad chemicals, and I think. But they made the decision to release them. To release, yeah. So, one of the chemicals was vinyl chloride, and it's really poisonous. It's really bad. And I was standing there, so they, let's go back a couple of days. When I first got there, they had us stationed around the town. Don't let anybody in. And there were people coming up to us, like, I don't know. And protective gear, did you guys have gas masks on? There are so many things to this that were just so screwed up. They called the MPs, when they should have called the chemical guys. You know, the chemical battalion, which we have. Yeah, this is like an NBR, nuclear, biological, radiological. And they sent us here, and half of us had pro masks, gas masks, for those that don't know, which I don't know what it would have done, but who knows? At least a piece of mine, you know? They told us right away, don't wear those things. You don't want to scare people. Like, well, people probably are already scared. They told us don't wear them. And I'm like. And this is the National Guard telling you that? National Guard telling us that. Well, I think the city, or the village, whatever it is, I think they told the National Guard, like, hey, I don't think you guys should. Don't wear protective equipment, because it might scare others. Might scare others. Others, yeah. And I don't think they wanted pictures of troops and masks. Okay. Yeah, so right away, I was like, geez. So that sucks. So we had gone there, and we were kind of stationed around the town with local police, or, you know, sheriffs, highway patrol. Yes, just working, essentially a perimeter. A perimeter, yeah. Actually, at one point, I was pretty deep into the town. And I remember people would, it's almost like they snuck in, you know? And they'd be like, hey, my dog's in there. Like, can I get my dog? Like, dude, go get your dog. Like, you're a grown man. Yeah. Go get your dog, you know? Go get what you need. I'm not here to, you know, trample on anybody's rights. Like, yeah, but anyway. So I think after the second day, or I can't quite remember, they made that decision to release these chemicals. And that list of chemicals I sent you, like, from what I was told, only about half of those came out to the public. I can't confirm that or not, but some of those chemicals were used, I think in World War I, as like some kind of like chemical agents or something. If you do this. How did they release them? Like, what's the mechanism to do that? I think they had explosives. I think that blew holes into the train. I can't quite... So they, somebody went up, if they used that, somebody, either a robot or somebody had to go up and implant those. Oh, absolutely. Holy cow. Yeah, yeah. So, as they made this decision to release these chemicals, there was probably like 20 policemen and 20 guardsmen standing maybe 200 yards from this site. And I actually drove, I got lost at one point, and we drove right next to these trains before it was released. Okay. And I think I sent you that video too, of like the train wreck, like right here. And we're like, what the heck? Cause, you know, we weren't allowed to be there. So we were kind of scared. We turned around anyway. How far had they told you to stay away from it? They never really told us like, how far to stay away from it. They just, they made it clear that this was not good. Okay. So anyway, we're about 200 yards right before they make this decision to release. We got all these policemen and these guardsmen standing there and we weren't ready. Like, we thought it would be a little longer before they actually released it. Next thing you know, we watched this mushroom cloud just go up in the sky of this black smoke. And this mushroom cloud, I mean, it looks like, just thinking about it, seeing pictures of it. It's like, Find this mushroom cloud if you can, Michael. I sent some good pictures from my personal phone too. If you have it, you can airdrop into him as well too. Yeah. I mean, it was awful. Yeah. Find him an airdrop him if you can, cause we can pull a few people see. It'll help paint the visual picture. Yeah. I like to turn this back on. When they released them, I mean, we talking like fireball mushroom cloud. So. Oh, Michael, go to the second video on the right. Yeah. Like a mushroom cloud of Ohio trade, derailment, explosion, sparks the start of controlled. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. See the explosion. Okay. So that was not accidental. This was a controlled. Oh yeah. Controlled explosion. I wonder if you can see where we are at this point. Yeah. I don't know. There you go. There's the black mushroom cloud you're talking about. So I watched this happen live from maybe a couple hundred yards out. Look at that thing working towards the trees on the left hand side. Where we are. Holy cow. So I mean, imagine seeing this with your naked eyes, like in front of you. So we see this, right? 30 seconds later, we get this, just this taste of chemicals. And then the only thing I can really compare it to, do you remember like being a kid, did you ever put like a quarter in your mouth or something or? Yeah. Did you ever look at nine volt? Yeah. Right? Michael, have you ever looked at nine volt battery? Yeah. Actually, that's a pretty good. Pretty good. I just want to make sure that children are still the same. Yeah. We have no respect for warnings or reasonability of any kind. I'm glad to see that your generation hasn't evolved past my own. Geez. I'll be honest to you. I don't know how to airdrop. That's all right. I actually mean, we found, I think, you probably need an even better example of that. Yeah. Who owned this train? North, Folk, Southern. So this is a private company. Yeah. So very, very large private company. Transporting chemicals, obviously. Through, yeah. Where was the destination for this? I can tell you. I mean, I know some chemicals obviously in combination, yeah, they can become really dangerous. And of course, nobody ever expects this to happen. But this is like a normal thing. This wasn't like some DOD assigned train taking. Yeah. This was just a private company. Okay. Okay. Transporting these chemicals. Did they set the explosions? I believe the train company hired contractors or whoever to detonate this. But I've also heard, and like I said, I don't want to like, I wouldn't say this unless I had some pretty good sources, but like I heard things like they did it without telling the city or, you know, without coming to an agreement. Yeah. And so again, what were they butting up against? They thought it was going to explode anyway. So it's better to have it be a controlled on there. Control debt instead of a catastrophic. Which is fair if that's really the case. Well, that's also assuming that your controlled detonation doesn't expand accidentally to an uncontrolled one. I mean, I have a little bit more experience with explosives than most people. It's an art form more than a science. Yeah. It's crazy. Just looking at it. I mean, it's... That mushroom crab was unbelievable. Oh yeah. So we watched this cloud go up, right? And then we get this taste. And they had told us basically to hold the line there. Yeah. So... I'm assuming you guys had to have been downwind. Oh, I mean, I don't think it mattered at that point. Because it was going everywhere. They went everywhere, yeah. So we get this taste. And I remember like, it's like putting a, we're looking at a nine-pole battery. And everybody at the same time was like, you know, you got this taste and your eyes started to burn. Your skin was burning. And somebody made the decision. I think it was a trooper like, we're not staying here. We're leaving because they had told us to kind of hold that line. Yeah. It might already be too late though, man. Yeah. So... And were you still operating in a National Guard capacity? National Guard, yeah. Because this was 2023. But you were co-located with law enforcement as well? Yeah. It was like a joint mutual law. Mutual aid kind of thing. I just tried to figure out where your chain of command would follow. Okay. So there were people complaining. I mean, like eyes burning. I mean, me too. I mean, it was bad. You know, itchy skin. And if you remember seeing some of the pictures of all the dead wildlife in the river, do you remember that? No, Michael, start pulling up this stuff. What are you even doing over there? Yeah, yeah. Poorly. So they were like... As per... There were like fish. They were, if you would like tap the river, the little streams and all that there, they were like covered in oil and like chemicals. So all these animals, this wildlife, you know, they had died. And a lot of the villagers were just like, I know brain cancer was a thing. After? Yeah. People were getting sick, like very sick. I, a week later, so I remember feeling right away how crappy I felt. Yeah. And... So you guys decided like, hey, we're gonna move. And then what did the... We moved maybe a couple of miles away. Yeah. And what did the National Guard pull you guys back? Probably a few hours later, we all went back to kind of like our posts. And were like, was there the fire department out there? Were they managing this at all? Yeah, the fire department was out there, but it's a small town. So, you know, they did what they could. And they, I mean, the fire department, they were... Yeah, I mean, they were busy. They were doing the right thing, doing everything they could. But anyway, like we ended up coming back and stayed for maybe four or five more days, kind of like in the area. Everybody was complaining. I mean, you could look at people's eyes and just see like, they weren't the right color. Like there were people's, just weird yellow, red. Like jaundiced almost? Yeah, almost, yeah, yeah. And like, these are people like under me that like, I care about like my soldiers and stuff. And like, oh, it was so bad. Just people like serving their country, like trying to get through college or, you know, they didn't have to mean to go to college. So they joined the military, you know, doing the right thing, you know? So, you know that. And then like, I remember, so the guy in charge was General Harris. And he was, he, I give that man credit because he was there on the ground with us. He was there, I had conversations with this guy. Like, I give him credit for being there. He didn't have to be there. He, I think he ended up like pushing a reporter and getting a fight with a reporter or something. It's a pretty rough look. Yeah, yeah, for general. But like I said, I give him credit. Like he was, he walked down the ground zero with me and my people and he stayed there. And he hung out with us and made sure we were okay for the most part. Anyway, so that happened. And I'd say about a week later is when things really started getting weird. Myself especially. I got a feeling in my stomach. And I called a couple of friends up and I was okay. Some's not right. I had some headaches. I had some minor vision problems. And this is back at home now, no longer still. Back at home. Yeah. I had some minor vision problems and stuff. And it kind of just like a week later is really like, I kind of just hit and started hurting my stomach. And I called one of my like medic friends or something and I told him and they said, you keep an eye on that, you know? And if you look online and some of the doctors that I've talked to said like, there's a direct link between like appendicitis and chemical exposure and you know, that kind of thing. So I was like, okay, whatever, you know, it'll go away. You know? So it starts getting worse and worse. And I was doing some training and I told the medic like, hey, something's really wrong with me with my stomach. And I described what was going on. And they were like, you need to go to the hospital like right now. I think your appendix is going to explode. So like now I can't be whatever. So they're like, no, you need to go. So I ended up going whatever. And the doctors like this thing, your appendix needs to come out right now. Yeah, they don't seem to mess around with that particular one. No, I guess it's pretty. If you get there late, well, I, I don't know if people know this. I am not a doctor. No. I don't practice. Well, I'm not a practicing doctor. Not a practicing doctor. I could do some things, but. But I have heard that if the old appendix bursts, whatever's in there. It's important. And I'm not going to lie. I don't actually know exactly what the appendix does. I think it's a filter. I think so. But whatever's in there, if it were to burst and start spreading out in your body, it'll kill you. It's real, real bad. And I think that's why they treat it so seriously. Yeah, do. Yeah. Cause people have, have died from this, you know, from burst appendix. So I get to the hospital, the emergency room, and they're like, it's coming out now. Yeah. And like I wasn't preparing to go into surgery when I got there, or on the way there. And one of my friends, he, you know, he was there with me, awesome guy Ian. He, you know, stayed there with me and they took it out. And I was in the hospital for a few days. And it started getting, so they took that out and it started getting even weirder. I mean, ask Rob and Mike, like, if I drink something, I have to, like maybe an hour later or so, or a couple hours later, whatever, like if I drink a full beverage, like, I will pee nonstop, but I'm not peeing. I just have that sensation. Not like pee a little bit, nonstop every five minutes for, for hours. And like, it all feels this from that, like it's from the left side of my body. It's really weird. It's plagued me, like on the airplane, like we're getting ready to take off. I'm like, no, I need to pee. Like I told them, I'm like, guys, like, I'm so sorry. It's embarrassing. And it's humiliating, like, to like dude, you need to go to the bathroom. Like, go. I mean, it's neither of those things for clarity. No, not at all. No, but it's not. Yeah. You, I mean, you're dealing with some of the super real. It might look like, maybe just start with inconvenience. It's just inconvenient. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not, it shouldn't be embarrassing. Like don't. Yeah, it's just like, I don't know. You're putting that pressure on yourself. Yeah, I suppose, but, you know, I thought only my grandfather, you know, peed every five minutes. Yeah, did he stand next to this freaking mushroom cloud that's still up? Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like, you only control so much, man. I know, I know. But yeah, so we're like getting ready to take off. And I'm like, I gotta go to the bathroom. Like, stand there for three minutes, haven't peed yet. You know, like finally I go, the fight of time is like glaring at me. Like I'm sorry. But anyway, so that, and then like, just this, I'm getting ready to go back to the doctor. They're all, they're all tracking all this, my doctor. And you know, they're getting ready to do what, what they gotta do, I don't know tests and all that. So like, it just, I've had this feeling in my body ever since then. And like, I'm not, I'm not scared for me. Like, if something happens, if I get cancer, who knows what could happen. And I don't make it like, it sucks. But like, I'm terrified for my kids. Yeah. Like, Andy, I'm terrified for my kids. Like my 13 year old boy, like he has a stepfather, awesome guy, like just a solid man in his life. But my two younger kids, my four year old, my six year old, like they don't have a, you know, awesome stepdad do anything for them, you know, they have me and like, I'm sorry. And I'm terrified for them. I don't know what's gonna happen because people are dying from this. Like they're getting cancer. So I was gonna say, have you talked to anybody else who has had either a similar symptom or other people that were exposed? Like what do they deal with? So a lot of the people that were there that are still in the guard are afraid to like say anything. Because you know, they're in the guard, like, they don't want to come back to them professionally. Me, like I'm out of the guard. Yeah. I don't give a shit. I don't care. This all ties back into like, those people that were really good to me in that small town is like these people, you know, these small town people that like, they deserve answers. These people got screwed over so bad. Like they got checks for, you know, whatever 20,000 or whatever the, but what's that gonna do? I wonder how they come up with that number. Me too. Cause yeah. I've, I mean, I've watched, my wife is horrified by the documentaries that I like to watch because not a single one of them is about anything good. And, Those are the good ones. I like to watch crime ones. And I tell them, like, I have to get on this case. She's like, that was solved 10 years ago. I'm like, yeah, but not by me. Like the guy's dead. And I'm like, is he though? That's funny. Yeah. Do you ever watch those like cold case, you know? I can't get into the cold case one. I like like the Jeffrey Dahmer stuff. Oh yeah. But in a couple of them I've watched it, they start talking about settlements. Yeah. And it seems to be that to a lot of large corporations, well, maybe that's not correct to say, to some corporations. Today's episode is brought to you by me, Andy. Yes. Today I get to do an ad read for something for myself. And here it is. I wrote a book. It's called Drownproof. It comes out six days from when this episode releases. And I am trying to do everything possible to make this book successful. Not because I care about any of the lists or a monetary gain that could come from that, but a lot of people put their name on this book with me and a lot of people have supported me behind the scenes. And I wanna do everything that I possibly can to make it successful. Now I said, I don't care about the lists and those are true. The one list though, that seems to be the most prestigious is the one that I'm the most unlikely to make because they feel that I do not align with them from a politics or moral perspective. And that is the New York Times. It is not a sales list. It is an editorial list. So they get to pick. And the only way that I have a chance at it is to be undeniable. How do you become undeniable for them? You sell enough copies that they can't ignore you. And when it comes to that list, hard covers like this one right here, are what they count the most of. So I would humbly ask, if you have gotten anything out of this podcast since its inception, please do me a favor. Head over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, whatever it may be, and pick up a hard copy. Every presale counts plus the first week after the book comes out. And that is all that I can ask. I hope this book is meaningful. I hope that it's helpful. And I hope it finds its way into as many people's hands as possible. For those of you who economically can't make a purchase right now, I totally understand. Please do me a favor and help me spread the word. The goal is to be undeniable. I wanna force them to put me on that list. Back to the show. At the end of the day, we are a mathematical formula. What is the likelihood of being sued by the number of people multiplied by the likely payout versus insurance premiums, insurance payout. And that's how they come down to, it seems the check that these people would be given, and let's say they're getting 20 grand and their life is stripped of a decade and a half. Absolutely. And what are they gonna do with these properties that are like covered in chemicals? Well, it depends on the first offer. Are they even honest about what? The train or the train people? That's what I'm saying. Have they come out and openly talked about, A, what is happening there, or B, the damage that has caused the long-term effects? Yeah, somewhat, but nobody's gonna admit. They're not gonna admit how. Yeah, cause they don't want the liability. They don't want the liability. Yeah. And some of these people, these small town people, the people that adopted me, they're all good people just trying to get by. And now their entire life is just uprooted. I mean, a lot of these people can't afford to move. So you were saying when you reached out over email, I didn't catch it when Joe was talking about this, but you also said the vice president. Rogan? Rogan was, yeah. But they didn't actually advance as well, VP. They just got his guy involved in this as well. Oh yeah, he took an interest for sure. Rightfully so. I mean, there were a lot of people that took an interest in this that don't know the things, didn't see the things I saw, didn't know the things that I know. Did Joe just happen to see it on the news and he talked about it? I mean, it went national, it went international actually. But yeah, I remember watching his show and they were talking about it. I'm like, dude, I saw this, I was there. Yeah, what did Vance say about it? I know he was pretty upset about it. I think actually Trump just wrote, the Trump, not Trump, but the Trump administration just wrote a check to these people, to the village or the town. I think it was like 10 million bucks, which is something, but it's not gonna fix these people's lives. But I remember they were just really disappointed that from my experience, this is my opinion, the objective of these people was to get the tracks back up, get the train running. Both the train people? Quick as possible, it's money, everything's money. So I think they wanted to get everything cleaned up and going again. You don't have trains moving, you lose money. I hope that if those people did get checks, that if they cashed them, they didn't lose their ability to hold people accountable in the process. Well, they would have signed. I didn't sign anything. I'll talk about it all. Yeah, I don't care. And that's what sucks, right? Because depending on who you are, there's a number of a dollar amount that might get you, like, you know what, this whole amazing impact in my life now, and you don't even know what you might be signing way in the future. Who knows if I get cancer next year? Who knows? My kids, they're screwed. Well, are they doing additional screening on you and other people that have been exposed to this? So no. Well, not through the VA anyhow, or through private doctors. Because it's like, there hasn't been a train in a realm like this to this level, I mean. And it's too soon to know the actual, all the effects, I guess. But I do know people were getting brain cancer and... How long ago was this, by the way? This was 2013, 2023. Okay, so three years ago. My one friend that was there, or that lived in the town, his dog died, just like, I don't know where his dog died, and they wrote him a check to shut him up. Yeah, 20 something thousand. I mean, I want to tell people not to take that check, but I'm in no place to tell anybody how to live their life. I won't take it. If you cash that thing, you might be... You lose it. You might be giving away more than you realize. Yeah, you know what? And like I said, I'm here for the people that don't have a voice. I was there, I was in the front lines of the stuff. Of all the things I've seen in the military, throughout my time in the military, some of those graphic things that disturbed me, I would say this is up there. So I was just so disturbed by this. How long did they keep the town out of this area? How long what? How long did they keep the people who lived here out of this area? Because I mean, even just looking at this, sure, you put the fire out. Yeah. Okay. You got a little bit of what I'm gonna call a cleanup project. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I don't know how you clean things like this. I mean, we're talking like massive vehicles, cranes and stuff like that. Yeah. Do you know how long it was? I think that's the fire chief. I think that was in the mayor. Okay, holy cow, that is an amazing image. I'm telling you, I saw this with my own eyes and being as close as we were to this. Oh yeah, this probably does nothing to the justice of in your own eyes. I mean, I wish I could just being there and tasting those chemicals and the repercussions. The aftermath of this. I just like, there's things happening in me that I can't explain. That guy was awesome, the fire chief. How could you even tell he's a fire chief? Has nothing to do with the end of our search? It's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing. He's just wanted to stay in a type of his own. That's the signature. Oh yeah. It's true. I'll see people out in public with a clean haircut. Yeah. I'm like, I know what he does. Okay, so liver problem, all that stuff. I feel that now. Yeah. Like I said. When you get checked, what do they tell you? Like are they doing blood draws? How are they trying to assess what's going on? So what happened was recently it's been getting a lot worse and that's when I called my doctor again and said, hey, I really need to get seen. She no longer works where she works. So last week they said, hey, we're gonna set you up with a new doctor. One that specializes in this kind of stuff and some other urology I think it is. Yeah. Who's paying for all this? VA. Okay. So originally they should have paid my medical bills. They didn't. I ended up paying them. Some of the ones I had from the ER and stuff, but you would think they would have reached out to, hey, maybe I'll, maybe we'll pay your bills. But anyway, your medical bills, but whatever. So all this stuff happened and like, I haven't been right since. And I wouldn't lie to you. Like this has truly affected my physically and not even that just like mentally. Like if I'm in my patrol car and like, I drink a coffee or something like, I have to go pee all the time. And I don't know what it is. It's something down there. Yeah. And obviously something, this is something that you weren't experiencing before. No, not at all. Right. Yeah. So again, I mean, I don't, causality is a bitch, but I mean, and I'm also not Sherlock Holmes, but I can kind of draw some breadcrumbs here. Yeah, for sure. And like this was, I don't know. It was just, it was bad. What memory loss? I mean, these guys just the other day or this morning or yesterday, asked me the most simple thing or, you know, my wife does it too. Like I just cannot remember simple things. Yeah. Like things that, how could you forget something like that? What is the company? And by that, I mean the company that was either managing or facilitating the train. What have they said? Like everything's good. We did clean up. Like what's their stance on this? They know that they screwed up. They know how bad this was, but you know, again, they're paying people off maybe not to talk. Michael, can you look up the name of the train company? I think it's Northfolk. Yeah. Can you then also do some Google searching to see if you can find where they're at on this? Like if they paid out, has there been a loss? Yeah, there was a $600 million settlement. To who though? I think it was anybody who was in the area could go get a piece of that money. Yeah, but 20 grand times that's a lot to get to 600 million. Yeah. Well, I think part of it was like, I don't know, maybe testing or something. I don't know. Yeah, 600 million. Hell gets where Green Court has declined to hear a challenge. Yeah. Suck on that one. Class action settlement between Northfolk Southern and the residents and businesses affected by the February 2023. So yeah, it's about three years ago, East Palestine, Ohio train door. The decision leaves in place the 2024 settlement for individuals within 20 miles of the site, covering property, businesses, and personal injury claims. So are you, you can be a part of this? Well, actually resident because you just happened to be there, right? So there were a lot of first responders getting, they were writing checks to first responders. Me, however, they never told any of us about this. So like my chain of command and all that, none of us knew about this. When I finally found out, I was like, hey, let me call these guys because I'm affected. I think I missed it by like two months and they basically told me to screw off. It was a two year window, which is like, if you either do the right thing or you would think two months it wouldn't have mattered on something like this, but you think they would have been decent about it. But yeah, if you think about it like this, like $20,000 of somebody living in small town America, barely getting by, 20 grand's a lot of money. Yes, I mean, 20 grand is a lot of money regardless of who you are. Yeah, regardless, but somebody trying to get by, a quick 20,000 is probably something they haven't seen in a long, you know, if ever, of course they're gonna take it. A federal judge ruled that Norfolk Southern alone is responsible for the cleanup costs, rejecting attempts to shift liability to the manufacturers of the chemicals or owners of the rail cars. So they were obviously just leasing space or renting space and stuff. Man, what a nightmare. Yeah, I mean, there's so many things that like, I've reached out a bunch of the troops that were there and they sent me, I mean, things that like, if people knew about these things, like they would just be disgusted. I mean, one of the, this young girl, 18, 19 in the guard, she got really sick too. Her eyes were burning so bad and she said she couldn't see. She lost her vision for a little while. She was having a hard time seeing things. Yeah. You know, clearly anyway. You know, stuff like that and, I don't know, just the fact that like, did we actually need to be there? We didn't do anything that law enforcement didn't, you know, didn't do. We were basically standing with a, you know, cop car the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, I don't mind serving my country, obviously, but like things like this, like, like, why was this gonna affect me? Like, I'm gonna die serving my country. I'm gonna die like, you know, doing something. Yeah, they may not have known necessarily exactly what to do with you guys. I'm sure they got a call before knowing, I mean, I would imagine that National Guard got activated before they knew the contents of what was inside of the train. So actually, I think, no, no, they knew right away. Then how could they not send you guys out there in CBR gear? That's part of my problem here is that they had chemical battalions that they could have sent out there. They sent us there with, you know, ill-equipped. Yeah. Like, we didn't have anything. Half of us had pro masks or gas masks, but like I said, they told us not to wear them. There were just so many things here that like, were just so messed up about it. I mean, the aftermath, you know. What would you like to see fixed or changed? Honestly, like those people in that town, like they deserve, you know, they should be taken care of. It wasn't their fault. Yeah. They're hardworking people getting by, you know, barely getting by, you know. I feel like Norfolk Southern would say, well, we did take care of them. What's the saying? It's paying for East Palestine, a high train to Ramlet, cleanup and recover with costs exceeding one billion. The company agreed to 310 million federal sentiment with EPA and DOJ for cleanup, environmental monitoring, and health services. I don't necessarily know what that means on the health services side, but I would hope that's money that's put aside that could specifically deal with the people who were put in your position. Yeah. So I know that a lot of people there, they got, you know, they got their little, their checks, their little checks, I guess, you know, compared to billions of dollars. You know, like I said, offering somebody a check for 10, 20,000, you know, who probably have never seen that money, they're gonna take it, of course, you know. And this is where this stuff gets fascinating. So Michael just pulled up something here. What's up? Norfolk Southern has actively lobbied to weaken the bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2023, which I'm gonna assume Michael, this came in after the... Okay. Otherwise that's really odd timing. Proposed, oh yeah, proposed following the East Palestine-Ohio disaster, but I should just finish the sentence a minute. You know, it all comes together. If you actually read it all together. Yeah. I think a vice president Vance actually, I think this might have been his, or he did something, some kind of act. The company, along with other Rail industry actors, has spent millions to fight regulations on train length, inspections, and mandatory two-person crews. Key details on lobbying efforts targeting legislation is lobbied against the Safety Act itself, which is aimed to improve hazardous material safety and detection technology. The company significantly increases lobbying expenditures following the Feb 2023 train to Rime, spending 1.9 million in Washington in just six months. Same thing, we just mentioned the two-person crews, backdoor pressure reports indicate the company has worked behind closed doors to eliminate the two-door safety protections in proposed legislation. Even after public scrutiny, the company continued to push against new regulations, including hiring new firms to lobby during congressional scrutiny and merger reviews. Why does it have to be like that when you pull back the curbs? Isn't that crazy? I mean, I don't... It's sick. I would love to see a representative from that organization explain those things while in this next breath explaining to me how they actually care about safety. You care about safety. You don't want to happen again. Explain to me these actions and show me how these two are intrinsically tied. It's just, it's insanity. It's money, it's profit. Yeah, it really is. I mean, obviously they cared more about the money than the people. I mean, because like I said, these people probably got a chunk of change and then it's too late. They signed their lives away. So what are you gonna do for yourself, person? Because again, I mean, I love the idea and the reason I wanted to have you come on is to bring more awareness to people that might be caught up in this. And I'm assuming that anybody in that area knows that there is money that is available. I think it's over with. I think there was a two-year window for settlements. If you want to... Can you look that up, Michael? Yeah, if you wanted, and there's even a phone number that some of us have called. Yeah. And they basically told us... That is so crazy that they would, I mean... Yeah. Okay, I guess, well, pardon me, I understand where that comes from. Like you don't want to say 20 years. Yeah, two years, that's nothing. Two years, I mean, maybe a little bit of middle ground. Somebody in between? Look at the effects I'm having now, like three years later, I'm starting to have some, you know. I can also see a world where, in that same mathematical formula they say, what's the likelihood? What's the long-end tail for symptoms to arrive? Three to four years? Okay, cool, let's put a two-year window on this. Oh, for sure. I would hate to think that humans are like that. But they are. But you know damn well that somebody somewhere is running that math and saying, what's the number we can put up here that's not gonna raise anybody's alarm, but we might end up cutting off the tail endability for people to apply for that. What'd you find, Michael? Oh yeah. It says... Well, Google AI wasn't very helpful. All it said was you may still be able to claim, so I'm trying to... Okay. Yeah, I called them. A couple of my buddies called them too, and they basically told me to skewer off. Well, here's my advice on that. Don't stop calling, call a different number, call somebody else. You know who you need to get hold of too in issues like this? Vice President Vance? That would probably not be a bad idea. I have no ability to help you with that, but I don't think he's listening. I think he's got other stuff going on. Probably trying to plan how he's gonna run in 2028. Yeah, no kidding. This is where, in my opinion, this is the role of elected officials at the local level and at the state level. This is where you start going and talking to senators and congressmen because they might not be able to do anything, but sometimes they can apply at least the... This is what I wanna believe, right? And people wanna believe that they can actually serve the people that elected them and apply pressure somewhere, so people like yourself can actually get the answers or help that you need. Yeah, honestly, yeah. I mean, there's so many things that I can't do that I love hunting. I love bow hunting, sitting in a tree, obviously. Sitting in a tree with a bow and there's things that it's affected me like, I don't wanna say vision, but headaches and, I can't focus like I used to. And it took me a long time to, after those issues from service, like from active duty, it took me a long, long time of panic attacks, anxiety attacks and to get a baseline to where I was okay and I was able to become a police officer and do all this stuff. It took me a long time, but now it's like, I'm having issues from this stuff that like, I can't do certain things I like to do. August 2024 deadline, you've gotta be shitting me. Yeah, 20, yeah. And so I probably called and let's say about two months after that, and they basically told me now. Although the settlement was approved in September of 2024, appeals delayed payments, which are now expected to begin in early to mid 2026. Yeah. Defect cure deadline for individuals who filed claims and received notification about defects or missing information, a deadline of December 4th. So that's passed last year was said to correct those. Final settlement approved the Supreme Court rejected a final challenge to this. Okay, so the Supreme Court is holding to what it is. Yeah. Well, there is a number at the bottom. Yeah, you know what? Yeah. I'd be curious if- And EastPalestineTrainSettlement.com. Let's just see if one of them reach out and like try to make this somewhat right. Not necessarily me, but like some of those people like under me like just their kids. Nobody's going to, from at least the train company is going to reach out and try to make this right. Yeah, that's a shame. Well, they probably have been advised by lawyers that the company itself can't do anything. I'm sure they have intermediaries that are handling this. Yeah, that makes sense. Right, they're probably going to have a law firm that's going to be the go between in between the two. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, a direct connection. But what I would say is this, man, like what you've already described and the words that you have about your kids, do not stop banging on that door and elevate this to the highest level that you can. I'll go with size I need to. I'm afraid I'll talk, I don't care. What, I mean, how close is it starting to get where it might impact your job as a law enforcement? What's the question? What's the threshold? Like what's the threshold? Is it your department say you tell us, or is there a line where it gets that they're going to make the call for you? It'd probably be me telling them, which like, it doesn't affect me, my ability to like, I don't know, what it affects is my ability to like, not mentally, but like I said, physically, from running hot to a call and I have to pee right now. Well, yeah, it impacts your concentration at a very minimum. I can't just stop at somebody's house like, okay, do you mind if I use your restroom really quick? You know, I mean. I don't know if you know this, you're in a cop car, pop the door open and just stand there and whiz it out. Then I'll be on CNN. I'm not saying do that in front of somebody's house, maybe on a deserted road somewhere. Hey, I gotta go, I gotta go. Yeah, just hop out of your car like right in front of school. That's not what I'm saying, right? Like, there are other options. But yeah, like there has been times where I've been on calls. Even something serious is like a body, like a dead body, and I have to go to the bathroom. Like I have to leave the scene. And I'm like lead investigator on that call, you know, primary responder, or you know, first officer respond. And like, so it's mine, the scene's mine. Wait now I'm like a coroner or you know, the transport company and I'll be like, you know, I'll call somebody else. Can you please come to the scene and like, hang out while I go. So what's your personal line in the scene? Where are you gonna, Where is your line in the scene where you're gonna call it and say, hey, this is actually negatively impacting my job and I can't do it to the ability that I want? Well, I would say this would be a big step because you know, I hope people see this. Oh, not necessarily not being able to do my job, but I'm hoping that once I start getting, you know, answers medically, they'll you know, be able to help me out. I mean, though, what would it take for you to go to your leadership and say, hey? Oh, yeah. I am now worried that I'm not gonna be able to do my job to my ability. Like how close to that are you? I wouldn't say I'm close to that. I mean, it's having to like go to the bathroom. Like it's not having to take a pee isn't like the end of the world right now. Yeah, but that's where it's at right now. Okay, good point. So if it gets worse. Yeah, I know this is just the start. And like right now the system might morph into a, and that system, the symptom might morph into a different symptom. If it gets to the point where I'm going to embarrass my department or embarrass myself or not be able to help somebody who needs help, like that's what I'm gonna be. I mean, that's, I don't know what I would do because I love being there for people. The Americans man, best people on earth, as far as, I love Americans. And if I'm not able to be there for them, when I need to be there, it's gonna be a tough pill to swallow. Has thinking about your mortality or having it thrown in your face just due to uncertainty changes away? So what do you look at parenting and how you interact with your kids? Yeah, I would say what changed that the most. Like at family gatherings and stuff, I don't like being around kids. And the reason for that would be, I have a hard time holding kids. Really? My children sometimes, yeah. But it took me a long time. And the reason that is, where it was in the military of father and his son, they were killed. And I was young and I didn't necessarily know what to do medically. And they were, the medics were taking care of our guys. And I was there with this kid and I'm holding this kid and it didn't dawn on me. Like I said, I'm not ashamed to admit, at the time I froze, I didn't know what to do. I didn't say I froze, but I didn't know what to do when this kid ended up dying. So what I did was I kind of just held this kid. The last thing his father saw, and he probably saw was the US military, responsible for their lives. Responsible, yes, but think about what you were doing in those final moments. You weren't trying to hurt your child. Well, I don't wanna go, correct. Yeah, I don't wanna go to too much deal tale about that. That one's a pretty tough one. But holding this kid and then, I ended up with three sons myself. So there was a long time where it was really hard to like hold my kids, because I just, there's this dead kid there. I would see him. So like family gatherings and stuff like that. I kind of just try to stay away from kids. Still? Yeah. You talking to anybody about this? Yeah, I talked to Rob, I talked to Mike about it. No, I mean a professional, your friends. Yeah, counseling, yeah. But like, stuff like that is just, that's really what affected me more so than this. I don't know where this is gonna go like you said, you would think after, I was finally able to get to a point after all that happened where I was like, I was okay, I could wrestle with my kids and do all this. But then now it's like, I got this whole trauma of this stuff. Just affecting so many aspects of my life, you know, medically. So what are you focusing on? Because the trauma aspect and the unknown, you can't control. So what are you trying to focus on to give yourself some level of a true north on your compass right now? So I like doing outdoor stuff, my kids. I don't wanna say I spoil my kids, but I kind of do. We all kind of do. Yeah, four wheelers, they're nice. And then we tell them that we're not going, but they deserve it. Yeah, they deserve it, yeah. Even it's like, I didn't get this, so yeah. But you know what, my, their mothers, two different mothers, they will never be able to say, I'm a bad father. Because I take care of my kids, you know, I'm always there for them. But we do that stuff, I love hunting. I almost got this trophy buck. I mean, I was so close, I was watching it. I sent it, pictured both of them. You know, it'd be on camera, this huge buck. I mean, the two days before season ended, we were allowed to hunt half an hour after sunset in Ohio. And I saw it, maybe a hundred yards out. And it was just kind of walking and walking, but it was too dark. And that was like my chance, but like I said, I had to follow the law. Yeah. So yeah, I love hunting, outdoor stuff. I play guitar, I love country music. I play country music. My friend Joe Bova, him and I, you know, we write music and country music. We play out and stuff. And my family, my wife, we, I've really, truly have a good life, especially where I came from. There have been so many people in my life. Swack, Commander Joe, my current boss, these guys. So many people in my life that like, didn't need to be there for me, but they were there. Like they just led me on the right, you know what I mean? Led me on the right path through my career, my childhood, you know, even now, like there's people in my life that just, they have such good intentions and like they're genuine people. Like where would I be without these people, you know? Yeah, it's crazy. What, what are you doing to make sure? I mean, I don't often like to focus on worst case scenario, but you have to take a look at it. Of course. You have a bunch of unknown in front of you, so we can probably find a middle ground. I don't have to say it's worst case scenario, but what are you focusing on to make sure? How old are your kids now? Four, six and 13. Okay, that's a broad stretch. Boys, maybe they're cool, cool kids. I mean, I think for me in times of uncertainty, what I can do is I can focus on things that I can control. And this one, I don't want to speak for you, but it sounds like you want to leave a legacy of some kind for your kids. And I don't know if you're thinking about that at all, but I would throw it back at your court and say that is definitely one thing that you can control and start focusing on. And that can be everything. I mean, honestly, that's one of the cool things about podcasts. It's one of the reasons why I like having shows with my dad. Not from a legacy perspective, but it's a time capsule because he's 142, you know, probably will make it to 143, but in the lap of life, he's passed halfway, safe to say. And the ability to be able to look back. Came quick too. Yeah, but the ability to be able to look back and hear that voice, I don't have anything like that with my mom. I have no ability to reach back and view and experience or hear her voice again. And I wish I would have. How was that? How did that with your mother? What's the story about? Oh, no way. Yeah, second time she was a survivor. She outlived everybody in her cancer survivor group. And then I don't know how much you know about cancer as you're coming through the treatments. It's they're kind of on top of you. And then it's like every six months screening, every year screening, every two years screening at a certain point they're like, dude, you're good. Or you're bad. Well, I mean, maybe just if you're coming from that, just keep getting screened every once in a while because it was a cervical cancer that metastasized and toward lungs. Oh my goodness. Survivability rate very, very low. I used to mistakenly say it was non-smokers, lung cancer, but my sister corrected it. But, you know. Were they Christian? Or was she a Christian? Your mother? Because you are, aren't you? I, not yet. At best would say I'm agnostic. Really? I do not know. I totally support people having any level of faith that they want to. I'm envious of the people that can have faith, but I can't fake it. So I don't know if my mom would have considered herself to be a Christian. I actually, she took us to Sunday school when we were younger. Oh yeah, nice. But guess what? That doesn't mean shit when it comes to me. Yeah, no. I don't go to church. I'm saved. Yeah. I have a relationship with Jesus, but I don't go to church. I don't think you have to. I think my job is my church. Yeah, and I think a lot of people put too much emphasis on time spent in a place as if it's purifying. And it's like, oh yeah, because on the other six days, 23 hours, I could be a total douche. Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm no saint, believe me. I don't think you have to be. I think that's where the tenets of religion. I don't know where she was with her faith when she passed. Well, you know. That's the big thing in my opinion about, you know, Christianity is like Jesus, I mean, he has grace. And I don't want to get too spiritual or anything. But you feel, don't get me wrong, man. I am envious of people that have that level of faith. I just refuse to say that I do when I don't because I don't want to fake it. And what I have landed on saying is, maybe it's just not my time. Yeah, I mean, do you, in my honest opinion, like I've seen how things work out in my life. I shouldn't be where I am. I mean, I have a beautiful wife, successful. Or you're right where you should be. Or maybe I'm here, I should be. But the chances, likeness of where I am in my life from where I came from, there were so many, like I said, so many people that just gave me that little nudge or gave me a chance, my SWAT commander, you know, just so many people. But anyway, I'm convinced, you know, Jesus is real. Just the things he's done for me. You know, I lost a brother from an overdose 2018. So coming from, you know, as a police officer, seeing, you know, rushing out of work to go to the hospital where my brother is, you know, laying on a bed, dying. So apparently there was like one little spot of his brain working. But seeing my brother, like it was like an exorcist on a hospital bed, crazy. Like the way he was moving? Yeah, so apparently there was one little piece of his brain working that he was just like freaking out, but he was obviously brain dead. Yeah, well, you've been around enough people at the end. They move more than people would expect. Yeah. The electrical system. That's what I was, it was. Yeah, unless you, it's the play way to say this, unless you completely shut off the electrical system. There are often inputs. There are, it's weird. It's such a weird thing. What did he overdose from? Fetanol, you know, he struggled. And I had helped him get out of jail, which sucks sometimes. Yeah. I called the prosecutor's office and I spoke to them and they said, I'll tell you what we'll do. If he can pay this fine, we'll let him out. And like, I kind of, I hold responsibility in a way because like him and I went, we were on bad terms. He's doing drugs, I'm a cop, like. Stuff. Yeah, like high school quarterback, like just athlete of all athletes. He was so good at everything. So anyway, we kind of went two separate ways. But before he passed, I got him out of jail, I picked him up and we sat in the car and him and I talked and. Cop car? No, no, no. I was gonna say you put him in front of the back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I let him drive. Like, listen, we're gonna sit in the car but you're in the back. Yeah, sorry dude. That's funny. So yeah, we had a good conversation. We made up and I'm so glad him and I got to make up. And you know, we laughed. And you know, he ended up passing away later. But yeah, like, honestly, I don't remember what else was going on with that either. Well, let me throw this out there. Because I have situations in my life where I feel, I think it's a self-imposed sense of guilt. So I'll give you another optic on this. Had you not done that for your brother, which he probably still was gonna use drugs anyway. He would have, yeah. And he ended up dying. You might regret for the rest of your life that you didn't. Probably no painless way to walk through that for us. Thank you, Andy. I got that last time with them to make up. You know, thank you for saying that. You know what I mean? No, it's like, there's no, life isn't about perfection, man. It's about doing the best we can. Absolutely. Yeah, honestly though, like, it's been a ride, but I'm beyond happy with my life. Other than this, like these little things like this, like where I am in my life now, I just, you know, that's what I said. I know Jesus is real, like he led me here. We live in a world where you don't have to wonder if you want to that your kids have things to remember you by. If you're uncertain about your future, as weird as this sounds, you don't have to go on podcasts, but did you could pick up a GoPro or a laptop? And you could have any conversation you want to with your kids and save it. And that might help you a little bit with the worrisome nature of the unknown. Because fear of the unknown, it sucks, man. It's awful. Yeah, I'm just saying, it's, you know, the mean for legacy to make sure that you have that worrisome, start trending in a direction where you become even more worried, man. You could live, we live in a world where you could live, leave. I mean, I guess you could like writing a letter with a quill back in the old days or whatever leaves to do it under. And under the lantern, but there's things you could do. Yeah, no, I have like, I have some expensive like, Gibson Custom Shop guitars, like, you know, I have an old truck that, you know, these are like American things that, like I have a lot of pride in my country. You know, things that I plan on my children having someday and like, just, you know, watching my sons like watch me play guitar or work on my truck, you know, my other son helping me, like they just, they love it. It's so special. And I take pictures and my oldest son's like, why are you always taking pictures? Like, I promise you will thank me one day, you know. Leave some stuff or record some stuff with your voice too. Yeah, it's weird to say, well, maybe it's not weird to say, maybe it's totally natural. I wish I could hear my mom's voice again. Yeah. I don't know how, I don't know if I would handle it well because maybe it would be a little bit too much, but I don't even have the option. No like voice mails or recordings or anything? I, like phone messages. Switching phones a few years after she died. I accidentally. Deleted them? No, I accidentally found the last one that I had from her and it wasn't labeled properly. I'm like, what is this? And I hid it and it was her voice. That one jarred me mostly because I didn't know what was coming, but in the process of moving through phones over the time, I don't have anything left as a recording. That's awful. It is, but you have the ability to make sure that that never happens with your own kids. Yeah, thank you. You can leave that legacy and you can make sure, again, let's, I mean, again, so now we're like, absolute worst case scenario. Let's go on the other side. Shit's all gonna work itself out, right? But you'll still never regret having done those things. Take a few minutes per day. Dude, pull your phone out and tell your kids, obviously they're not there. Try not to do it through tears because it's tough. Yeah, I'm a tough time thinking about it, talking about it. Talk to them every day, man. Talk to them every day. I try to. Yeah. I mean on the phone too. Oh, on the phone. Like record a video of yourself five minutes every day. Just telling them something that you appreciate about them and who they are. Because if it does go absolute worst case scenario, they will cherish those things for the rest of their life. Absolutely. My two youngest are, I mean, they're autistic. They're high functioning. But they're, you know, they understand, they know what's going on, but they just have a hard time talking sometimes. But I took my oldest son and we picked them up there today. And I think this was one of the top five moments of my life, watching my youngest son. Actually, I just told my other son, you know how special this was to me, but he opens the door and he says, oh my God, my son, I don't wanna say his name is here. And he lit up to see my oldest son. And that was hands down, I mean, top five moments of my life, watching him scream, you know, my other son's name. So excited to see him. That's a great thing, man. That was incredible. Do you have any relationship at all with your biological parents? Yeah, kind of. I'll see them every now and then. Yeah. Hopefully not in a professional capacity. I'm waiting on the day. No, I choose not to, out of respect to my parents, you know, my adopted parents. Have you forgiven your biological parents? I have forgiven, it was hard. Yeah. They did the worst thing you could do to children. They gave them away, you know. Parents aren't perfect, man. But things like that, I mean. Yeah, oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not excusing anybody's behavior. But I remember, I had an opposite upbringing of yours. And even my own self, like when you're first. Why don't you tell me more about it? No, I'm kidding. Down the middle of it. Trust me, it wasn't like a grand slam. It was like right down the middle of it. Like we're hitting, yeah, it was nice. I mean, if we're being honest. But it's like hitting doubles all day long, right? Like we're not talking like grand slams. I wasn't flying to Turks and Caicos in a Gulf Stream. Not that I actually. But. You were loved. Yeah. I remember when I was young though too, I thought my parents were perfect. Yeah, of course. Because they were the centers of my universe. And now that I'm a parent myself, I have a lot more grace for my parents. That's the point I'm getting to. Oh, for sure. Yeah, and it doesn't, trust me. Your parents' behavior, I'm not trying to excuse that at all. But it is interesting when you become a parent yourself, you're like, oh, this was just two people walking around in flesh suits doing the best they could possibly do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, both their mothers. I was married to the two younger ones' mother. I wasn't married to my first. But again, great relationships. I mean, well, I mean, if you give one of them the house and everything else, they tend to like you a little more. But. Not always. Well, that's true, yeah. I learned this about fathers going through like divorces and you know, that kind of stuff, custody. If you're there for your kids, you do the best you can to be there for your kids. Like, no one can take that from you. You know what I mean? Like they might be able to take your visitation temporarily or they may be able to make accusations and stop certain court proceedings or just, you know, we know how women can be, we know how men can be, whatever. But I've learned that I was always there for my kids. I always made an effort to see them. And I have great relationships with both of the moms because of that. I did everything I could to be there for my kids. That's good to hear, man. They couldn't take it from me. Yeah, the relationship with the other parents, I would say, or having a good one after going through that thing I would say is more abnormal than normal, it seems like, contentious, like amicable, but contentious seems to be normal or being chased with a knife. Yeah, right? Yeah, that's a nice, no, yeah. Like I said, I've so many good people in my life and just the head grace, you know what I mean? That's one of the reasons I'm a Christian. I believe in Jesus because so many loving people I've brushed elbows with and I don't know. I have a lot of good things going on, you know? I'm glad that you can still focus on that with all the unknowns that are going on. Where would you wanna direct the attention from us sitting down today towards? Do you wanna have people educate themselves more about what happened? Would you want somebody in public office to pay more attention to what's going on, perhaps the first responders and DOD component of this? What would your goal be? I want, or hope I should say. Yeah, right, the hope. I feel like these people, I mean, they were just, no pun intended, railroaded. Yeah. You know, they were too soon. Too soon, yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry, residents. It's never too soon. Yeah, I'm on your side, Lee. Yeah, no, I think they need to be taken care of. The same people, the same type of people that took care of me when I was adopted, like, you know, they need to be taken care of, the same kind of people, you know? Yeah, and money isn't necessarily equating to taking care of people. Yeah, it's not necessarily money, just, I don't know, they were screwed in so many ways and like, even these troops, like, they were screwed over too with their health and I will literally talk to anybody that wants to hear about it. I mean, there's other things I haven't told you about, you know, that have happened, that are disturbing. I'll talk, I don't care. What else has happened? I have a list on my phone from a bunch of people, things people sent me. There's something to do with like, they made it for the guardsmen, I think they made it like a workers comp claim because it was like state orders or something. I did not know how any of that stuff worked. I still don't, yeah, it was super weird. So they couldn't file for like benefits or something through the VA, like being affected by this. I don't know, because they're taking care of me or at least they will. But there was something like, it was workers comp, so they couldn't claim something or I don't know. Perhaps guardrail them from being able to access other programs, maybe how they categorize it. Like I said, it's on my phone. I don't quite remember exactly what that issue was. But a lot of people complaining about their health, like burning skin, this, that. I'm like, it's been three years and people are still like suffering, just villagers. I would say speak up for those people out there listening. If you're in the DOD and you were worried about coming forward after being exposed to a chemical, don't necessarily, I mean, if you want a whistleblower, go ahead, I don't know the mechanisms to do that, but address it with your chain of command. As a first step, as you should, if you're in the military and if they are not open to that, then you can start talking about things outside of that where you can get additional help. How do you feel about like, I guess we've all seen like our coworkers or our management do something shady, kind of like this. Like some of them didn't pull their weight. I mean, you're okay with just whistleblowing, I mean, how do you feel about all that? I mean, doing the right things, doing the right thing. Whistleblowing the. If you're still in active service, I mean, something like this. I mean, it exists for a reason, right? And not an expert in this by any stretch, but from my understanding, it is an ability for somebody who doesn't feel safe or protected to go to their chain of command, to go outside of it, right? If they feel like that they would be punished by their chain of command for even addressing it. I would always say in a perfect world, which this doesn't exist, but the appropriate procedure would be you have a supportive chain of command that can be receptive to anything. So you would go to them with what you have experienced and what you're feeling, they will address it. Not everybody lives in that world. And I don't necessarily know why somebody in the National Guard would try to shut down anybody underneath them, getting the care that they need, especially if it's associated with an activation. But yeah, I mean, if you've watched other people try that and they're punitively crushed, I think that's exactly why something. Would exist like that. Would exist, but if that's not the case and you don't feel that way, I think your first step should be to try to address with the chain of command. You have to read the train in front of you. So it's tough because I'm not in any of those situations. I have no problem with whistleblowing though. As long as it, you know what I mean, but like also try to address it to the channels it exists. It shouldn't always be the first step, but it should always be an option available if you find yourself in one of those situations. Yeah, for sure. Like I said, I'll talk, I don't care. Yeah. What are they gonna come after me? I don't know. They might, but I don't necessarily what they would say. More than anything, I want you to make sure you get, like check it out. The health, yeah. Yeah, and get healthy. Yeah, I'm working on it now. Like I said, they called me the other day to tell me that doctor left. So I got a new doctor apparently. Well, hopefully the records are at least passed over. You know what I mean? They can get where you left off. What do you want to close it out with, man? What do you want people to know? I don't know. I guess like there's people out there that care, I guess. Like, I mean, this is all, this went all the way up to president of the United States. I mean, just people that care. And I guess like, I don't know. Those people that saved my life, you know, growing up are like, I feel like are the same kind of people. And like, that's why I feel compelled to, you know. Yeah, to speak up. Speak up, yeah. I just, I just want accountability, I guess. These people, they need to be taken more, you know, better care of. Yeah, what sucks is that the trained companies can just say, yeah, we did take care of them. We spent $1 million on that. And like I said, you know, just because you put a monetary amount on a check, doesn't necessarily mean, especially if they're still living in exactly the same place. So I mean, do you think there should be paying the medical bills and all that, you know, separate from a check? Man, I'm so far outside of knowledge when it comes to that. You might as well ask me why the space shuttle doesn't explode when it takes off. Yeah, sometimes. I just think a lot of times it's more than money. I mean, people, especially the litigious society, I think a lot of that, the tail end of that is people probably looking for a check, but a check doesn't solve everything. I mean, I don't understand any of the chemicals that spilled there, but I bet you that they have a long tail and how long that they are in place for. I mean, to me, let's say that it has long-term consequences. To me, true accountability from the trade organization, whoever a court decided was accountable. Be like, you lift and shift those people and you make sure that their lives aren't even more negatively impacted. And then you put a check on top of that as well too, right? So I guess that goes to all come down to money, but it's what you do with the money. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. I don't know. It's crazy, crazy world. It is. Stay on top of your medical issues, if you will, for your kids. Got something to worry before you leave. Oh, I got something for you too in the car. Yeah, well, your car's not here, is it? Oh, it's across the street. That's for you. No way. You two don't get anything. Yep. I was literally telling them I want to stop and... This is their redacted knife. No way. Hopefully, you guys, if you were a carry-on only getting here, I will mail it to you. And by that, I mean, Michael does that. Well, but... We may or may not brought... Oh, you're going to have to check anyway, yeah. So you're good. We brought some protection. Yeah. Man, that's incredible. Don't cut your hand. There you go. I've had a couple people who haven't been able to figure out how to get a knife out of a sheath, and I just wonder what they did when they were children. This is incredible. Wow. Yeah. It's got the podcast logo laser etched on there, so you are good to go, man. That is incredible. Wow. Talk to me about plans while you're in Montana, because I know you guys... How long you guys here for? A few days. We all took off work and... The mountains are a good reset. Yeah. Topography here, not the same where you're from. I was in Wyoming last summer. OK. We did the rodeo three nights. We did hiking, all that stuff. A lot of we ride horses back home. We love horses. So you guys talked about glacier. What else you got playing? Glacier. I would like to go to Yellowstone. How far is that from here? A few hours? Michael? Yeah, it's pretty far. It's probably a few hours. Eight hours? Five or six hours. Five or six. I mean, that's not... Yeah, maybe eight, yeah. That's awful. Glacier is going to give you a... That's incredible. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. Glacier is going to give you about the same stuff as Yellowstone. Yeah. Yeah. What about wildlife? What do you got around here? Other than... We got some stuff. Some elk and... We got the same stuff, Glacier. Well, we don't have any bison, do we? Not in the park, no. Yeah. That people try to pet or put their children on. Are they like around here? Free. There's a bison ranch around here. Yeah. But it's all private, obviously. Yeah. I'm an American, man. That's my animal. I would say Yellowstone probably has more wildlife, given its size. Glacier is going to have... They will have elk, though. It'll have moose. It'll have bears, both black and gris. I think the gris are still hibernating. Actually, all the bears are still hibernating. I don't know if I would drive eight hours. It depends on how much car time you guys want to have. You guys have... Are you pretty strict around here about hunting, as far as seasons and all that? Yeah, everywhere in the US is strict like that. So that's what I thought. So that's what I thought. Hold on. Let me explain. Let me explain. Where is this question going? So in Ohio, it's very strict, as far as your weapons and all that. Apparently, in Michigan, it's not. You can get 10 doe tags. Yeah, but during season? Well, yeah, during season. I mean, I shouldn't say that. That was a stupid question. As far as weapons and all that kind of stuff, is it pretty open or is it strict in that aspect, I should have said? So very strict on tags, specifically sex of the animal and type of animal. Some of the animals are a draw like antelope. Well, there's fishing game is going out there and they're determining how many tags we're going to get. So it can be draws, but yeah, they are very specific, actually. There's specific times for bows, specific time for black powder, specific time for kids, specific time for firearm. I don't know what kind of limitation they put on firearms. But they use ARs and all that. It's that there's no specific caliber limitations. So that's what I'm talking about. In Ohio, it's pretty, you can't hunt deer with ARs. It's probably not the best round for a deer. It's probably not the best round, but I use a 450 bushmaster when I'm not using my bow. There's only a week of gun season anyway, other than muzzle loader. I bet it sounds like Gettysburg. Yeah, it does. Opening morning. Yeah. Oh, it's insane. You're pro. We have a, well, my uncle and they have a nice piece of property. Yeah. I'm the only one that hunts there. That's where that monster was. Yeah. You can hear, I mean, yeah, Gettysburg, exactly. Yeah, when you only got a week, you kind of got to get it in. You'd have about 60, depending on if you started in bow season, you'd have 60 to 90 days to hunt if you went all the way through for rifle as well. Because you can go hunt in rifle season. You just have to start wearing a vest. Yep. That's the story behind every vest. I know, right? I've had some stories. I've had a huge tree fall on me while, well, almost falling me in my blind. Really? Talk about luck. And this would have been my buddies at work responding to my body. Yeah. I was in a blind and I, I, about text my wife, but I didn't think I needed to. I was going to say, hey, case tree falls on me, you know? Yeah. Check on me. Was it just a dead tree that fell or was it wind? Yeah. Well, it was really windy. Yeah. And of the entire property. I was on the cornfield in the wood line. You know, I was just in it in a blind. I heard a crack and I sprinted out of that blind as fast as I could. And on my way out, this huge tree fell and it brushed my shoulder. It crushed my steel chair. Wow. Oh yeah, I have pictures of this. It's crazy. It landed on the ground, huge tree. So I would have been dead, but I managed to just squeak out of there in time. Almost fell out of a stand. I was wearing a harness. Thank you, gosh. You know, a few months ago and actually during gun season with the 450 right by my head and I'm trying to hold onto this stand. And oh, man, it was wild. Yeah. Always wear the harness. Always use the safety line in those things. There's just so many stories. So important. Yeah. That harness. Yeah, people falling out, breaking their necks. For sure. Yeah. All right, boys. Let's get you out of here and let you enjoy Montana. What do you guys have planned for dinner tonight? I can give you some reservation. Yeah. Please. Michael, what do you think? DeSoto grill? DeSoto is always like, it's like they're probably down. Where are you guys staying? Where are we staying? How far is it? Right up the road here. Red line. Red line. I don't think it's red line. Did you guys walk or drive? We drove. We flew to the airport. Got a rental. I figured that much. Yeah. I figured you didn't walk here. We actually flew the airplane. It's right outside here. Yeah. We've only got eight minutes from here. OK, so you're up north. OK. DeSoto grill is what I would recommend for you guys tonight. They have like elk sausage, elk platters, and game platters. Yeah, let's do it. If you go there and you don't eat the cornbread, I am not sure you're living life appropriately. You need to try the cornbread. They're going to try to give it to you with everything that you order. The answer is yes. OK. It is good. Interesting. Where else, Michael, what would you recommend? DeSoto. Mercantile's good. Mercantile good. What is it called? The mercantile. Mercantile. That'd be good for like, it's a little bit of a higher end restaurant. If you guys want to go up into Whitefish, I don't go up there often. I don't. Whitefish has a really good Italian restaurant, the brussoes, except it's pretty expensive. Yeah. They have Jalisco's. Mexican restaurant. Whitefish has a lot of really good restaurants. Did I interrupt? Are you the guy who had that big revolt or that big? The Constitution. Yeah, that was you. Oh, the Constitution. That was awesome. Yeah. I do. He doesn't have a permit for that. Yeah. He's like, I was so desperate, we want to let him try to fire that thing. Oh my goodness. I'll have you psyched to see. Yeah, yeah. Just one time, make sure there are several GoPros on everything. That's incredible. I will drop off what I have for you, maybe at the store. Yeah, just tell them at the store that it's for me and they'll take it back downstairs for you. Awesome. Cool. Well, I'll get you guys out of here. Yeah, I appreciate it. Right on. Appreciate it, man. Yeah, absolutely. Yep.