June 30, 2025

Unspoken Words: A Combat Veteran's Journey from Chaos to Advocacy with SFC Alexander Stewart

Unspoken Words: A Combat Veteran's Journey from Chaos to Advocacy with SFC Alexander Stewart

Shoot me a message! Sergeant First Class Alexander Stewart shares his powerful journey as a combat veteran serving on three different fronts while becoming a mental health advocate and author. His raw account reveals how witnessing 9/11 as a child sparked his military service and how he's now channeling combat experiences into helping others facing invisible wounds. • Inspired to enlist after witnessing the impact of 9/11 on his New York community just 45 minutes from NYC • Deployed to Afgha...

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Season 3

Shoot me a message!

Sergeant First Class Alexander Stewart shares his powerful journey as a combat veteran serving on three different fronts while becoming a mental health advocate and author. His raw account reveals how witnessing 9/11 as a child sparked his military service and how he's now channeling combat experiences into helping others facing invisible wounds.

• Inspired to enlist after witnessing the impact of 9/11 on his New York community just 45 minutes from NYC
• Deployed to Afghanistan (2013-2014), Iraq (2015), and Syria (2017), each presenting unique challenges and traumas
• Evolved his leadership style through deployments, learning that being technically proficient isn't enough without empathy
• Faced significant barriers when seeking mental health treatment despite clear PTSD symptoms
• Authored "Unspoken Words," a poetry collection giving voice to veterans who struggle to articulate their experiences
• Lost 31 military friends to suicide and now works to break stigma while still serving on active duty
• Helped over 27 veterans and service members who were contemplating suicide

If you're struggling in silence, remember: "It's completely okay to not be okay." Reach out to someone - a friend, family member, or fellow veteran. You have the courage because you've already faced challenges in uniform. One suicide a day is one too many.


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Episode Powered By Act Now Education

01:25 - Episode Introduction: Combat Veteran's Story

10:49 - 9/11's Impact and Military Enlistment

19:12 - Serving on Three Combat Fronts

40:24 - Leadership Evolution Through Deployments

01:01:56 - Confronting PTSD and Finding Help

01:24:16 - Using Poetry to Heal and Connect

01:42:00 - Breaking the Stigma and Final Thoughts

WEBVTT

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Warriors fall in.

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It's time for formation.

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Folks, you're tuned in to the Morning Formation podcast, where we highlight resilience, leadership, purpose-driven warriors from all walks of life, and today's guest, he, exemplifies the courage to fight battles both on the battlefield and within the mind.

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Joining us today is Sergeant First Class Alexander Stewart.

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He's a decorated combat veteran or or current service member correction he's a motivational speaker, mental health advocate and author of Unspoken Words.

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He's also served our nation in several different fronts Afghanistan, iraq and Syria.

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So he's faced a lot of the invisible wounds of war and he now uses his experience to uplift others, helping over 27 veterans and active service members who are on the verge of suicide.

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Today's conversation is about survivability, advocacy and strength to speak unspoken truths.

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Alex, thank you for joining me on the Morning Formation today.

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Thanks for having me, brother.

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It's really awesome to be here.

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It's awesome to meet people.

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It's really awesome to be here.

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It's awesome to meet people like.

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It's actually awesome and refreshing to meet people like you that are currently in service right now.

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I almost called you a veteran, but you're not.

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You're currently active duty, you're currently in boots, in service, in uniform and you're already doing advocacy work to help others and I really appreciate the work that you're doing.

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I appreciate it.

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I had a lot of things that kind of drove me to, you know, want to do more while I was still in, because I found that as I waited I kept losing more and more friends.

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So I figured I'd start now.

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Yeah, man, I think it's for guys like me, like I got out at the end of 2007.

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For guys like me, I got out at the end of 2007, and things have changed quite a bit in the last 20 years with the military, with the world, with everything.

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And I think it's really important for guys like you that are currently in service right now, especially with this new generation coming up and fully like their perspectives and everything like that.

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But taking it back to the beginning, man, what initially inspired you to enlist in the military?

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What year was that and what got you here?

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So I enlisted in 2020, 23, 2013.

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And what that was was I grew up in New York.

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My father was in the military, my grandfather was in the military and then my father's six brothers were in the military, so you can very much say we're a military family and I had aspirations to.

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You know go to college, play some sports something baseball, football, something like that.

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However, when 9-11 hit, I was fourth, fifth grade, just a kid.

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But our fire department where I lived was 45 minutes 50 minutes out of the city, and all of our volunteer firemen went in.

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And now these are all the volunteers from my town.

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That means these are my friend's dads.

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And you know, that day I watched as, one by one, people were getting pulled out of school because we were, you know, close enough that parents were panicking and pulling us out of school because you know you're only 40 minutes away.

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People don't know there was another plane and you know that kind of stuck.

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It really did like singe something on my brain, especially because I had a good friend at the time I played basketball with growing up whose father passed away when the tower collapsed because he was one of those volunteer firemen that that happened.

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And then he didn't come back to school for an entire year.

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He was just gone and like to see what happened because of all of that, to see, like you know, the struggles he went through and my other friends that lost their dads too, it it really did spark a fire and, as crazy as it sounds, you know, like a little fourth grader, fifth grader, said that's it the second that someone tells me I can go.

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You know, do something about what happened.

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Today I'm doing it and I told my family that from that day and they thought I would just, you know, outgrow it.

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But then, when graduation came, I turned to him like, all right, it's time I got to put my boots on ground and do my bit now.

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And they gave me some pushback because I graduated in 2010.

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So I compromised, I went to college, you know, just to make them happy.

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And after what was it?

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Two years of college.

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I stopped and I was like, all right, I'm signing up now.

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I did what you wanted.

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College.

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I stopped and I was like, all right, I'm signing up now.

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I did what you wanted, I'm not waiting anymore.

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And then I, that was it.

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I went in and that was kind of besides like the family heritage.

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That was really the driving force for me.

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I don't know if you've ever met a bunch of New Yorkers, but we really do hold grudges and, yeah, I held one for a good almost half a little over half a decade.

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Yeah, man, I was 21 when 9-11 happened and I was I was enlisted in the army national guard at the time.

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Uh, I was legit in college, working towards my bachelor's degree and when 9-11 happened I was on, I was watching tv, hungover, because we had just partied, because school was coming back in session.

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And, man, like, talk about changing the face of the world and the way we live in society and everything.

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Man, that just kicked everything off.

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When I first started serving, it was like 1998.

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I went to boot camp, fort Leonard, missouri, and then now all of a sudden, fast forward 2001, and America's under attack and it literally was in your backyard.

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You lived 40 minutes outside of New York City.

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Yeah, I did.

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And you know that's the thing is, when you signed up for the military in 2010, we were still involved in two very big wars.

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And even for me, like when I decided to become an officer after I got my bachelor's degree, I, like you, had the same deal.

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Like my dad was enlisted for 20 years and he's like I want you to go to college, then you decide if you want to go active duty, and when I graduated, I said, well, I'm you to go to college, then you decide if you want to go active duty, and that's.

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And when I graduated, I said, well, I'm going to go active duty, I'm going to go serve a greater purpose.

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So hats off to you, man, for freaking.

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Signing up in the middle of two gigantic wars Afghanistan and Iraq knowing that you're going to deploy at some point not if it's when, um, and all this because of what you had experienced at five years old.

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That's that's amazing, man, and that's I.

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I love to hear those stories because that's true patriotism, right there.

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You hear the stories from, like the world war two era too.

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You know there were, there were people that you know took their own lives just because they couldn't serve when that stuff happened.

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It's sad to say that, like you know, when something as tragic as those things happen, like the nation really does pull together.

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But the nation did, you saw it, I saw it.

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Everybody stood together and you know those secondary, tertiary effects on, you know, even even the young population Uh, it really did, you know, do a real driving force.

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I joined with a lot of guys that were just young when that happened but they remembered and that's why they all joined and they're like it's not done yet.

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We're still over there, like we need to do our part too.

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Yeah, and you served on three different fronts since you've been in the military.

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You served in Afghanistan, you served in Iraq and you served in Syria.

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I only had been to Iraq early on, like when we were still in the process of getting up-armored stuff.

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I had sandbags on my floor for quite a few months before I got the up-armored stuff man.

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So I'm really old.

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Before I got the up-armored stuff, man.

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So I'm really old.

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But can you talk to me about some of your experiences in those three different countries and what were some of the differences that you saw?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I'll have to say I was that young kid.

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I got married too, as I joined, like all privates do, and I had been with the girl for three years.

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So I was like, don't worry, I'm gonna join, I won't pick something crazy.

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I lied, I went in, I tried to do infantry and then I scored high enough on my asthma that the guy's like no man, I'm infantry, like you need to do something else.

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So I was like, no, I want to fight, let me fight.

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So then he like tricked and conned me into picking scout.

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So, you know, he showed me the video with the with the dirt bikes and the dune buggies, which actually what if people don't know they we have.

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They have them now at certain bases, but now they're getting rid of scouts too.

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So it's but um.

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So I joined and I think it was like two and a half months out of basic and my wife was so mad I immediately went overseas.

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So I went into Afghanistan.

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I was in Paktia, paktika provinces, over on RC East with the Pakistan border in 2013 to 14.

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This is right after they had shut down the Korengal.

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And then, right after they had had, there was a we called it Santa's sleigh, but there was like over a 10 ton truck that broke through a five called five good in Afghanistan and it was full of HMA and it didn't blow up.

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So, like they shut that base down because, you know, taliban was able to get something through the gate like that.

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So then they, they, they took us and put us in there.

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And you know, right out of basic, uh, I'm in this little basement like, oh, by the way, five clicks that way down the road, um, a whole base almost just disappeared from from the map.

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So it was, it was, uh, it was an experience.

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Um, I would say that I very much, you know, I I got the full taste of the, of the military, is what I like to say.

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We landed in Bagram on the very first day, uh, getting off the, the, um, we, we wrote in on 17s and, uh, we got hit with IDF, like within five minutes of my boot touching the ground.

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So I, right, right there and I was like, oh, so this is it.

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And then, um, we, we did our, you know, we did our whole um introduction to the country, all the background briefs, all the training, and then, um, we did a info like night infiltration to our base, because of course back then it was blackout, you could only travel at night and we were up in the mountains and as we're flying the Chinook has rounds ricocheting off of it and then the door gunner is just going off.

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So I always tell I was a drill sergeant and I tell the privates that too I'm like.

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So you know, like if you think I used to tell them all the time, if you think you're going to get in there and it's going to be like Call of Duty or all these cool things or those war movies, I told them I was like, look, I consider myself a tough man, but that was literally my first year in the military and I'd only been in the actual army for like two and a half, three months and I was hyper and I was freaking out and I was a little PFC.

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And there's a staff sergeant next to me, just like pumping his arms, like yeah, we got contact the first day.

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Here we go and I'm just sitting there like please, don't, please don't, let me go down on a helicopter before I even do anything.

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But it was an experience.

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That kind of was the start of the deployment and then it just stayed.

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I would probably say, you know, I got very complacent when it came to like idf after a while, because you know how it is, afghanistan was just idf, idf, idf, idf and uh, we were on qrf, we were on a bunch of guards, we were were doing the SFAT missions protecting, you know the teams.

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So we were on GA, guardian Angel, and I kind of just got very jaded with all of that.

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I would say, from that deployment the two things that stuck the most were we had insider threat attacks and those like you know anyone who's been through them those really do mess you up more than you understand, because you know you trust these people.

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We had a bomb threat I think it was month seven in that we found out, like all of the locals that were working on our base, they redid background checks and like I think it was upwards of 70 plus 80 were all Taliban associated and they'd been working on our base.

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They redid background checks and, like I think it was upwards of 70 plus 80, were all Taliban associated and they'd been working on our base for months.

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And then at the very end, luck of the draw really, our platoon swapped out like one of our final missions before the rip and another platoon went out there and an Afghan soldier that we had worked with for months turned and shot three of our guys from the other platoon.

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So I think, if anything, that deployment, I've kind of walked away with just that one and that was a really big you know damper on like my ability to trust people, especially because you know you serve eight months with a coalition army and then to have one of their dudes on their base, like not out and about.

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We were on like the Afghan RCE's basic training site for the Afghan army and yeah, it was like one of their, their equivalent to S4, like their supply guy.

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There was a request for some material.

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He couldn't get the material in time, he didn't like how the conversation went, so when they left he just picked up his AK and sprayed.

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So that one.

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And then come home.

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I was the crazy young kid.

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I waived my dwell time, signed that paper, lied to my wife, told her that they were forcing me to go back, and that's how I ended up in Baghdad in 2015, right after getting home in 14.

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And then did my stint in Baghdad With that really it's just IEDs.

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And then I would say I don't know how it was for you.

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But there's like such weird things that you would see, especially as, like the scouts, I spotted Russian helicopters being delivered to the Iraqi military, like on Biop, and I was there, I had to buy nose out.

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I was watching this.

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I'm like, hey, that plane's got a Russian flag on it.

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I was watching this.

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I'm like, hey, that plane's got a Russian flag on it.

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Then I'm watching and here come Heinz getting unloaded from the back of this.

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You know this plane and you know the base is under US protection.

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So like why are there Heinz?

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Why is there a Russian plane?

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So it was this whole thing.

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And then to later find out like, yeah, the Iraqi forces bought a bunch of Heinz off the Russians.

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So I was like, oh, okay.

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But I think for Iraq, the biggest thing was we had a Syrian refugee camp that was on the Baghdad International Airport, like by up over there, and ISIS had really just kind of started up like getting big, big, big.

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And I'd been used to IDF.

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I'd been used to.

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But we were on QRF one night and the refugee camp was under the protection of the French Foreign Legion.

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So like we can't help.

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But I had never seen what I saw that night.

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We were on QRF.

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Huge funny scenario where I'm in the gym with my lieutenant and the doc I had on the last deployment and, like some civilian, told us to get in the bunker.

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But we were on QRF but the lieutenant didn't want to listen to me so it took us time to get out there.

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The whole platoon went out without us.

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But when we got out there I had never seen like accurate indirect fire, the way I saw it on that base.

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And the crappy thing was our job as QRF was to protect, you know, the US assets.

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So we drove halfway out on the tarmac on biop and just made a screen line with our trucks and watched a refugee camp burn and like I say, I think we I can't remember now, but it was somewhere between like 58 and 63 rockets in one hour that just hit the same exact small spot and it was really kind of well, it was hard to watch because it's nighttime.

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So you just see the fire, you hear the screaming.

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You know we had to buy no, so you could look if you wanted to the screaming.

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You know we had the bino so you could look if you wanted to, and you know kind of that realization like oh, wow, like that's what we can do to, you know, to people, and that's what we've been doing.

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But I've never seen, because, you know, gwat you don't really get up against those near peers or people that are trained that way.

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But this is when a bunch of the what was it?

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The iraqi special forces joined isis.

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So now we had all these guys that had been trained by us, by other countries, with good equipment, and I watched it like, and uh, we had a mortar man like in towers watching it too, and they're like, yeah, dude, these guys are leveling bubbles, they're doing everything right, like they're actually firing missions and like they just took out almost the entire camp.

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And, uh, that night is also the night that I got injured Uh, had my entire bicep, uh, torn, so um, and I also broke three fingers, but so that that that night kind of just stuck for me and I came home and found out that they were planning to go back to Iraq in 2017.

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Because I was at 10th Mountain.

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So you know how 10th Mountain goes they just deploy, deploy, deploy.

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And so I was like I need a break, because at this point I joined and then I spent 13, 14, 15, 16, like on and off, I'm like I haven't had any.

00:18:07.144 --> 00:18:13.372
I didn't even know what Motor Pool Monday was yet, because I was always in red cycle and then deployment and red cycle and then deployment.

00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:18.833
So here I was at this time I was already an NCO and I had never done Motor Pool Monday.

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I thought that every maintenance day, like day, you'd have a mechanic come out with the box you know what I'm talking about and like type in the faults and get the parts.

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They're like no, no, no.

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You got to go over to the office and talk to the clerk.

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I'm like what clerk, what are you talking about?

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But so I reenlisted and went down to Fort Hood because I was like ah, fort Hood, they only go to like Korea.

00:18:41.684 --> 00:18:45.981
And then they just got back.

00:18:45.981 --> 00:18:47.806
So I'll be, I'll be good, I'm going to get a break, and then.

00:18:47.806 --> 00:18:49.769
And then, when something comes, I'll go again.

00:18:49.769 --> 00:19:01.182
And I got down there and at that point I was a Sergeant and I showed up and they saw me when I was in processing and I remember if it was Sergeant, major or First Sergeant.

00:19:01.182 --> 00:19:04.506
But they're like hmm, you got, you have a deployment patch on.

00:19:04.506 --> 00:19:05.426
I was like, yeah.

00:19:05.426 --> 00:19:08.470
So they're like let me see your ERB, which is now STP.

00:19:08.470 --> 00:19:12.755
They changed it again to a new name, so I handed it to him.

00:19:12.755 --> 00:19:14.797
He's like oh, okay, you got Afghanistan and Iraq.

00:19:14.797 --> 00:19:18.505
I go yeah, I do.

00:19:18.505 --> 00:19:19.568
I'm like I'm ready for a break.

00:19:19.568 --> 00:19:29.042
And he just smiled and looked at me.

00:19:29.042 --> 00:19:36.614
He goes hey, uh, we're going to kuwait um later this year and your dwell time ends one month before we go and uh, we, we have, uh we have missions from kuwait.

00:19:36.614 --> 00:19:38.445
So that was kind of our base of operations.

00:19:38.445 --> 00:19:46.051
And then what they would do is sending the different companies and troops out from our unit to different areas to do actual deployment stuff.

00:19:46.051 --> 00:19:52.768
So they're like there's a mission and at that time we didn't really know.

00:19:52.768 --> 00:19:53.750
It was all classified.

00:19:53.750 --> 00:19:55.066
It's been declassified since.

00:19:55.220 --> 00:20:01.713
But fifth group was asking for volunteer recon elements from first cav because we were going to be out of Kuwait.

00:20:01.713 --> 00:20:09.022
So our unit went into northern Syria and kind of essentially did an entire, not even a screen.

00:20:09.022 --> 00:20:10.248
It was more like a cover.

00:20:10.248 --> 00:20:11.482
We didn't have the.

00:20:11.482 --> 00:20:16.290
It was a screen but the amount of work they wanted us to do was a full-on cover.

00:20:16.290 --> 00:20:18.705
I don't need to explain that.

00:20:18.705 --> 00:20:24.329
I'm pretty sure almost everybody listens to your thing if they're all feds knows what a cover versus a screen and a guard are.

00:20:24.329 --> 00:20:27.990
But it was a small element.

00:20:27.990 --> 00:20:38.269
It was a very, very, very small base and I think I always tell people I love Afghanistan, like those were my memories because my first deployment.

00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:48.787
But, like Syria, always stuck because, first off, you know when you're regular army and someone's like hey, who wants to volunteer to go help the sf guys do sf things.

00:20:48.787 --> 00:20:54.305
Of course you know any any combat kids like oh, me, me, me, come on, let me, let me, I'm in.

00:20:54.305 --> 00:21:09.955
Um, we didn't realize like going over there, there was no base, there was no supply, there was nothing that we were working for group but we weren't part of group.

00:21:09.955 --> 00:21:17.067
And then, like we were still part of First Cav but we weren't so, and First Cav's all the way in Kuwait.

00:21:17.067 --> 00:21:19.087
So we're, you know we're doing our stuff.

00:21:19.087 --> 00:21:24.873
And that was a weird scenario for me because you know I joined later.

00:21:24.873 --> 00:21:32.413
I wasn't like you guys where you had the sandbags on the ground inside your trucks and you guys were you know, sleeping in holes and all that.

00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:39.673
But when we got to Syria, the trucks were hand-me-downs from the surge in Iraq.

00:21:39.673 --> 00:21:46.205
They were old light armor Humvees and I was like, are you kidding me, because this is 2017.

00:21:46.205 --> 00:21:49.307
Because what they did was, you know, the what's it?

00:21:49.307 --> 00:21:49.868
Oh, what's it?

00:21:49.868 --> 00:21:51.011
Oie, what do they call that?

00:21:51.011 --> 00:21:56.252
The operational inherent equipment, the stuff you sign for when you go downrange.

00:21:56.252 --> 00:21:57.520
You know, we don't bring our own trucks.

00:21:57.520 --> 00:21:58.961
Usually there's something there.

00:21:58.961 --> 00:21:59.863
So that's what?

00:21:59.863 --> 00:22:01.084
Right, right, right, yeah, that's what they did.

00:22:01.084 --> 00:22:03.766
Because the SF guys were like, oh, we need to give these guys something.

00:22:03.766 --> 00:22:07.868
So they grabbed a bunch of the old Humvees and gave it to us.

00:22:07.909 --> 00:22:15.515
Now, they did upgrade us eventually, but the reason why I like that deployment is because, like, we didn't have a base.

00:22:15.515 --> 00:22:16.556
We had to build it.

00:22:16.556 --> 00:22:18.698
The whole base was made out of HESCO barriers.

00:22:18.698 --> 00:22:21.324
It was only like 400 meters.

00:22:21.324 --> 00:22:27.882
You know, our was, uh, concrete cylinders that we stacked on top of each other and then put like a piece of plywood.

00:22:27.882 --> 00:22:36.932
It was the most janky thing ever and like all of that and it was kind of the full experience that you always wanted if you were crazy and young and you wanted to fight.

00:22:36.932 --> 00:22:40.364
So, no, no tent, no defect.

00:22:40.364 --> 00:22:43.208
No, no, nothing eating mres.

00:22:43.208 --> 00:22:55.303
Uh, we filled hundreds of sandbags and you know, uh, one of the one of the groups slept on a roof of a building that they took for like three weeks before they could get a tent from somebody.

00:22:55.303 --> 00:22:58.049
And then, when we got, this was in kuwait.

00:22:58.190 --> 00:22:59.520
No, so this was over in syria.

00:22:59.520 --> 00:23:01.002
So we went to syria.

00:23:01.002 --> 00:23:06.332
I'm sorry, yeah, we went into Kuwait, and then that's when they asked us for the volunteers.

00:23:06.332 --> 00:23:08.154
So then To go into Syria.

00:23:08.339 --> 00:23:13.613
So then when we went in there, we were up in I don't know if you're familiar at all, but northern Syria, manbij.

00:23:13.613 --> 00:23:30.496
It was a patrol base that we built Back in 2017, there was news being put on, when Mattis was still in office as a SEC DEF, about Turkish soldiers shooting and engaging US soldiers and it was like a big thing.

00:23:30.496 --> 00:23:31.537
We were those soldiers.

00:23:31.537 --> 00:23:43.246
It was the weirdest rules of engagement ever, because a NATO ally was shooting at us and trying to engage us and we couldn't shoot back and it was crazy.

00:23:43.246 --> 00:24:00.548
It was a whole weird process and, like I said, that's kind of why, like when you talk like war-wise, I loved Syria, but like when I talk deployment-wise, you know, like the memories, as terrible as the stuff is right, you make memories with your friends.

00:24:00.548 --> 00:24:01.644
You do all these cool things.

00:24:01.644 --> 00:24:12.213
Afghanistan was that for me, and Syria was more of like that experience that you wanted when you signed up.

00:24:12.213 --> 00:24:18.230
When you signed up to do combat, you wanted, hey, I want to sleep on the ground.

00:24:18.230 --> 00:24:20.094
I want to do this Under the stars.

00:24:20.114 --> 00:24:26.922
Exactly, and I got to do that and that was pretty cool, exactly, and I got to do that and that was pretty cool.

00:24:26.922 --> 00:24:32.243
But I would say at the same time, syria back then was a beast.

00:24:32.243 --> 00:24:42.647
That was when regimes started using sarin and gas on villages and you know that was straight up ISIS.

00:24:42.647 --> 00:24:47.088
Now I'd seen some from Iraq but like, not firsthand.

00:24:47.088 --> 00:24:52.411
The building that we stayed in was actually a former interrogation site that we had taken.

00:24:52.411 --> 00:25:07.797
So I remember one day I was doing kind of just a presence patrol on the outside of our wall and we didn't even realize it, but maybe 150, 250 meters from our base was a giant ditch.

00:25:07.797 --> 00:25:12.138
You know, we just thought it was a ditch because there's olive groves, but it was actually a mass grave.

00:25:19.220 --> 00:25:23.920
There was a giant execution site and there they were just bodies with worn-out clothes who were they, I don't know, just civilians.

00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:28.403
Yeah, they were civilians, we inferred, so we were put there to protect the Kurdish.

00:25:28.403 --> 00:25:32.906
Yeah, I'm sure you're tracking like the whole persecution between the Turks and the Kurds.

00:25:32.926 --> 00:25:34.909
Guard up there and um more like a cover.

00:25:34.909 --> 00:25:35.950
We didn't have enough to sustain a guard.

00:25:35.970 --> 00:26:00.807
We didn't have enough to sustain a cover, but we had to somehow, um, but what we did is we tied ourselves in with the local militia groups that were up north, while the guys in a group were down south in uh shidati, like handling business against regime and everything.

00:26:00.807 --> 00:26:09.126
So our job was one, um, keep the Kurds from getting killed by the, the mercs that were up there that were supposed to take them out.

00:26:09.126 --> 00:26:18.214
And then two was kind of like KLEs, but also help them organize a flot and hold it.

00:26:18.214 --> 00:26:21.839
And that was that weird experience.

00:26:21.839 --> 00:26:38.412
But I'm pretty sure, because of where the site was and the location, that most of those people that were in those ditches were just Kurds that were being interrogated or persecuted, but most of the skulls actually just had the one hole in the top of the head.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:45.373
And it was just shocking because, believe it or not, how good of scouts were we?

00:26:45.373 --> 00:27:04.676
But we didn't know until like a month on ground, because we were so busy building the inside of the base and building battle positions and developing casualty collection points and all these rules of engagement and all these drills, especially the Alamo drill.

00:27:04.676 --> 00:27:09.285
That was our big one, and we never really went right outside.

00:27:09.285 --> 00:27:17.450
Also, right outside was one of the militia groups, like little, not a headquarters, but like a small base.

00:27:17.450 --> 00:27:22.722
So we knew we were good because they were right there and so we never really looked around.

00:27:22.742 --> 00:27:35.387
But then, when we did look around, I remember going and grabbing my commander and I'm like, hey, there are bodies out here, like right out here, and they're like no, no way, no way.

00:27:35.387 --> 00:27:43.834
You know, I was still a young sergeant, staff sergeant at the time, and so we went out there and, lo and behold, there they are.

00:27:43.834 --> 00:27:47.846
We took the pictures, we sent it up to group like hey, we need to get people out here.

00:27:47.846 --> 00:27:50.670
So, you know, they flew out who they needed to fly out.

00:27:50.670 --> 00:27:53.615
They documented it all and did what they had to do.

00:27:53.615 --> 00:27:57.223
Yeah, but I don't know, it's weird.

00:27:57.223 --> 00:28:03.971
I know that you understand it, but each place had like its own little difference.

00:28:04.032 --> 00:28:32.967
You knowghanistan was one beast, iraq was another and syria was something different altogether and it's so interesting too, man, because like all the different experiences that you had in the three different countries that you were in I mean just from my time in the military, just from my one one year in deployment to Iraq in 2004, 2005, it's almost like war is different, but it's the same context.

00:28:32.967 --> 00:28:59.880
Like when you talked about like insider threat, like the day I landed in Mosul was the day we got our chow hall bombed by an insurgent that was dressed like an iraqi soldier, like literally went in there with a suicide vest, blew himself up, and then, right after that, they tried to launch a bunch of indirect fire and a bunch of direct fire into the base to try to hit the, the, the hospital, the cash, because they knew there would be casualties and they were just trying to cause all hell.

00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:17.761
And then everything that you're talking about, you know as far as like going somewhere and literally, like I've been to places near the Syrian border, when I used to do transportation out there, especially with the SF guys, there's places that I went to.

00:29:17.761 --> 00:29:24.772
I would step out onto the dirt and it was like stepping in snow, but it was like nothing, but nothing but like dust.

00:29:24.993 --> 00:29:30.491
Yeah, and like you're stepping in it and I can't even see my boots and I'm like where's, where's the dining facility?

00:29:30.491 --> 00:29:32.223
And oh no, all we have is a lister bag.

00:29:32.223 --> 00:29:36.023
And that's when you know when you're in the shit, when you're like drinking out of a lister bag.

00:29:36.023 --> 00:29:36.727
You know what I mean.

00:29:36.727 --> 00:30:02.529
Like you don't see that shit like anywhere, except for places where, like it's desolate and man, like in your career you've experienced so much, so much, um, and I, man, it's so fascinating to hear like the different, the different countries and just the different types of warfare.

00:30:03.010 --> 00:30:17.512
Um, what was interesting to me when I was in ira, iraq, was I was talking to someone from the 101st that had been there for a few months the year before I got there, and then they came back again and they were there while I was there and they were telling me.

00:30:17.512 --> 00:30:22.603
They were like, yeah, when we were here last time, we were able to take soft skin Humvees into the city of Mosul.

00:30:22.603 --> 00:30:23.967
It wasn't a big deal.

00:30:23.967 --> 00:30:29.788
Now we can't do that and it seems like year after year it changes.

00:30:29.788 --> 00:30:31.231
Things change so much.

00:30:31.231 --> 00:30:40.526
I don't know if you ever had that experience where you, like, went to a country, left and then came back and then saw the difference of what it was before.

00:30:41.929 --> 00:30:43.511
I would probably say oh my God, go ahead.

00:30:43.511 --> 00:30:48.964
No, no, you can probably say I wouldn't really be able to, just because I didn't really ever return.

00:30:48.964 --> 00:30:53.721
Besides, um, even going into iraq we stopped, like at bagram.

00:30:53.721 --> 00:31:05.647
So like seeing the different dynamic in two years from like 13 when I got there to, uh, you know, 15 when I got there, it was, it was very different it was more built up.

00:31:06.288 --> 00:31:11.276
You know, instead of Humvees they had the MRAPs, which I love Gotta love the MRAPs.

00:31:11.276 --> 00:31:20.529
You know they're lifesavers they really are which was a nice upgrade, but like that was really the only demographic I could see.

00:31:20.529 --> 00:31:24.307
And you know Bagram gets its occasional pop shots.

00:31:24.307 --> 00:31:30.528
And you know IDF, but you know nothing deliberate, so it would be hard to say.

00:31:30.528 --> 00:31:34.027
But I totally agree with what you're saying too, with like the different dynamic and knowing.

00:31:34.027 --> 00:31:37.314
You know Afghanistan, you're fighting.

00:31:37.380 --> 00:31:41.010
I was fighting alongside ABP and ANA in Iraq.

00:31:41.010 --> 00:31:48.483
We were fighting alongside the Iraqi forces and like those guys kind of really did appreciate us being there.

00:31:48.483 --> 00:32:01.321
One thing I forgot to mention before is because I was on the security detail that protected the airstrip, at night the Iraqis would bring in their planes and unload the bodies from there.

00:32:01.321 --> 00:32:12.181
I was there for the attempted retake of felucia on there by them and like we you know how we took that step back and we're like nope, this is you, you lost it, you take it back.

00:32:12.181 --> 00:32:26.451
Um, I watched them unload bodies like every night, like hundreds of them, and what they would do is just lay them out on the tarmac and unload them from this plane and like guys that were whole they'd bring out just by holding their arms and legs.

00:32:26.451 --> 00:32:33.644
Guys, that were soup they brought out in bags and like there was that and then, but that was still working alongside like another force.

00:32:34.420 --> 00:32:36.628
The Syria was a different thing.

00:32:36.628 --> 00:32:49.768
Like I sat in a foxhole on a overnight OP with a 12 year old holding an AK because his parents were both killed just for being kurdish in northern syria, like, and it was completely different.

00:32:49.768 --> 00:32:52.573
It wasn't um, it wasn't.

00:32:52.573 --> 00:32:57.896
I wasn't fighting, you know, alongside another military trying to, you know, defend themselves.

00:32:57.896 --> 00:33:01.541
I was fighting with, like we had a guy who had gangrene.

00:33:01.541 --> 00:33:04.944
He got shot in his foot and he, like his foot was rotting off.

00:33:04.944 --> 00:33:08.588
We called him Leonidas Don't know his name, but that was the name we gave him.

00:33:08.588 --> 00:33:14.193
Um, cause this dude is literally walking around and he had like one toe left.

00:33:14.193 --> 00:33:20.266
Again, I can, I'll email you the picture sometime after this, cause I got I still got a picture of that dude's foot.

00:33:20.847 --> 00:33:26.842
Um, but like these were, it was different.

00:33:26.842 --> 00:33:39.234
You know you were, you were fighting alongside militias, like small militias instead, um, and like that kind of you know, really like clicked and it was also very, you know, not devastating, but it hit home.

00:33:39.234 --> 00:33:40.519
You know you're sitting.

00:33:40.519 --> 00:33:55.407
You're sitting there with this kid because you know you hear the things, the things, you see the things, but like most of the time, you don't really get to like actually sit and spend time with, like these small children and like to have a kid and our whole conversation.

00:33:55.407 --> 00:33:56.249
I had to have my terp.

00:33:56.249 --> 00:34:02.892
His name was Abe, like translate for me, because the first thing I didn't even like care that why he was in a hole.

00:34:02.892 --> 00:34:03.561
He didn't ask.

00:34:03.561 --> 00:34:05.366
I was mad because he popped in a hole.

00:34:05.366 --> 00:34:20.489
It's 2 am and this kid's smoking a cigarette and we're facing the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, just me and him.

00:34:20.489 --> 00:34:22.791
I'm like I'm not dying because this kid's being dumb.

00:34:23.452 --> 00:34:23.711
Yeah.

00:34:23.913 --> 00:34:24.032
And.

00:34:26.195 --> 00:34:27.096
I didn't even know he was 12.

00:34:27.096 --> 00:34:32.070
I just there's just some kid in there, and then then Abe told him the kid, like, put it out, said sorry.

00:34:32.070 --> 00:34:33.965
Then I was like what is this kid doing here?

00:34:33.965 --> 00:34:35.190
Then he told me the whole thing.

00:34:35.190 --> 00:34:36.782
It was like, yeah, he's 12.

00:34:36.782 --> 00:34:43.128
His parents were both executed for being Christian and he had nowhere else to go.

00:34:43.128 --> 00:34:47.293
So he found the militia group, grabbed the uh uh weapon and he's been here since.

00:34:47.293 --> 00:34:58.748
And then I just spent the rest of the night talking to this kid, knowing he knew nothing about what I was saying, and then just listening to him and just shaking my head and, uh, you know, just kind of staring out at the flat.

00:34:58.748 --> 00:35:09.126
But, um, I I've even, like, told my spouse when I got home, out of all my memories, just something about that really hit.

00:35:09.126 --> 00:35:14.605
And then also I got a bunch of photos and videos of it.

00:35:14.625 --> 00:35:30.173
But we used to drive through the Syrian refugee camps while we were there and like the number of children and the lack of adults in that area was just, you know, it was disheartening, it really was.

00:35:30.173 --> 00:35:34.005
And I don't mean like teens, I mean like kids.

00:35:34.005 --> 00:35:44.128
And we would come up there and we'd have people mail us care packages with the dum-dum lollipops and all that other stuff, but you pass those out.

00:35:44.128 --> 00:35:52.110
We tried, we ended up giving them to like whoever was there, like a local national that was there who was old.

00:35:52.110 --> 00:35:57.065
We're like here, you hand this out because you walked out of your truck with anything in your hands.

00:35:57.065 --> 00:36:03.000
You know what happens, especially like in those camps, because there was no adults really to stop anything.

00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:15.432
But I agree with you, the dynamic does change and like the dynamics still changing, and it's only from what I've seen going from 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.

00:36:16.280 --> 00:36:17.184
Now I haven't been over.

00:36:17.184 --> 00:36:27.362
Recently I have my old platoon went without me because I ended up going drill and sadly I left before I could go and they actually went back to Syria.

00:36:27.362 --> 00:36:35.226
But what they've said and what I've seen from all of my guys that keep coming back is it keeps getting worse.

00:36:35.226 --> 00:36:39.840
It really does, because more high tech equipment's out there now.

00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:43.268
I mean drones were a thing in 17 when I was there.

00:36:43.268 --> 00:36:45.753
Look what just happened in Ukraine the other day.

00:36:45.753 --> 00:36:56.894
I saw that on the news and I'm like, oh my, I don't want to go anywhere if I don't have they have that Thor system, the backpack that stops.

00:36:56.894 --> 00:37:01.931
So they developed a backpack one now that stops drone signals too, so it can jam the drones.

00:37:01.931 --> 00:37:05.920
So I'm like I don't want to go anywhere without the the drone jamming thing.

00:37:06.782 --> 00:37:10.028
But do you make me feel old man?

00:37:10.028 --> 00:37:13.041
Because back in my day they were trying this thing out.

00:37:13.041 --> 00:37:25.010
It was like a warlock and they put it in our vehicle and it would screw up our communications and it was meant to like scramble the ieb uh signal so they wouldn't explode and we would run the warlock.

00:37:25.010 --> 00:37:26.661
We don't even know if it worked, man.

00:37:26.661 --> 00:37:31.998
If it was, if it was a thing, if what we had back then worked or not, you're, you know, you.

00:37:31.998 --> 00:37:33.322
You're still in uniform.

00:37:33.322 --> 00:37:36.351
Um, you're not even a civilian yet.

00:37:36.351 --> 00:37:49.764
You're still around common folk that can share your experience, a lot of what you've gone through, and I don't know how to say this to you, but I guess just say it to you.

00:37:49.764 --> 00:38:07.108
I hope you don't struggle with finding people of commonality, because when you get out here in the civilian world and you get further away from the base, the further you get from the base, the further you get away from the military and you're sitting around that campfire.

00:38:07.108 --> 00:38:11.614
No one is going to really know what a bad day looks like, except for you.

00:38:12.460 --> 00:38:24.226
Yeah, no, I totally get that and I wish I could tell you that still being in, like I do have commonality, but I think you can understand this.

00:38:24.226 --> 00:38:25.788
I do have commonality, but I think you can understand this.

00:38:25.788 --> 00:38:31.452
With the wars kind of dying down and limitations on deployments, you go in.

00:38:31.452 --> 00:38:36.255
It is not uncommon to see a sergeant first class in combat arms with no deployments.

00:38:36.255 --> 00:38:38.856
Now, it is not, that's a thing.

00:38:42.648 --> 00:38:44.460
Staff sergeants even more so, dude, that was it.

00:38:44.460 --> 00:38:53.389
So like a combat patch during my day was like everyone had it, everyone had gum, it was like candy, yeah, and everyone had combat patches, dude, everyone had it.

00:38:53.389 --> 00:38:57.690
And it was like now I see someone and I'm like where's the combat patch?

00:38:57.690 --> 00:39:01.780
And it's not there and I'm like it's just so weird to me, man.

00:39:01.780 --> 00:39:11.505
And then like people that serve in the military that have never been anywhere, I'm like, seriously, like when I resigned my commission, that was the one thing that the full bird asked me.

00:39:11.505 --> 00:39:12.646
He goes hey, did you deploy?

00:39:12.646 --> 00:39:14.007
And I was like, yeah, I deployed.

00:39:14.007 --> 00:39:15.827
Okay, well, I was gonna make you deploy.

00:39:15.927 --> 00:39:21.869
Everybody had that was a standard like everyone had to go overseas, everyone had to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

00:39:21.869 --> 00:39:34.115
And now it's like I mean, man, like I would say that your experience is very rare, like to have experienced three different fronts in the amount of time that you've been in.

00:39:34.115 --> 00:39:35.476
That's absolutely crazy.

00:39:35.476 --> 00:39:41.079
And you know, I want to shift away from the combat experience a little more and talk more about the leadership.

00:39:41.079 --> 00:39:47.541
More about the leadership.

00:39:47.541 --> 00:39:49.532
How do you think, with each deployment that you've done, how do you think that shaped?

00:39:49.552 --> 00:39:50.014
your leadership overall?

00:39:50.014 --> 00:39:51.300
How has it changed your leadership and your thought process?

00:39:51.300 --> 00:39:53.344
Super, super good question too.

00:39:55.166 --> 00:40:02.088
I think each each you go into the military, you know thinking, you know I know how to lead, even when you're young and dumb.

00:40:02.088 --> 00:40:02.972
You're like, ah, you know, I can do it.

00:40:02.972 --> 00:40:03.494
And then I went dumb.

00:40:03.494 --> 00:40:05.320
You're like, ah, you know, I could do it.

00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:13.164
And then I went in afghanistan, like you know, like like a loudmouth new yorker, thinking I knew I knew everything and whatnot.

00:40:13.164 --> 00:40:18.101
Just because I was tough, you know, I, I could, I could max the pt test because I could do that.

00:40:18.101 --> 00:40:44.974
You know I'm good and, uh, I I learned very, very, very quickly that I was wrong, I was dumb, I was immature, and then what I decided to do was just kind of pay attention to the leaders, good and bad, and when I was that private, I would analyze every movement that a sergeant, a staff sergeant, first, first sergeant would make, every decision they would make.

00:40:45.039 --> 00:40:47.985
And I'm like I like that, I don't like that, I like that, hate that.

00:40:47.985 --> 00:41:06.911
And someone once I don't, I can't even remember who told me I think it might've been an NCO named Sergeant Cook, justin Cook, way back in the day, but I think he had told me take every little thing that you love and start creating an image of a leader out of that.

00:41:06.911 --> 00:41:13.342
And then take everything you hate and then put it on like a list in your brain of everything you never want to do.

00:41:13.342 --> 00:41:25.847
And he's like because no leader is perfect, everyone's got their faults, but he's like but you can create almost a perfect image of a leader if you take 10 or 12 leaders and combine all their good and um.

00:41:25.847 --> 00:41:29.905
That really kind of shaped me for it's great advice.

00:41:30.266 --> 00:41:38.427
Great, it shaped me for afghanistan and I left afghanistan, came back I was a corporal and I got stuck on.

00:41:38.427 --> 00:41:39.650
I had a.

00:41:39.650 --> 00:41:41.853
I had this one nco who has no idea.

00:41:41.853 --> 00:41:58.686
I looked up to him because, like, I butt heads with him all the time, but he was a staff sergeant, he was 23, ranger tab, like awesome dude, and he was very abrasive, like very abrasive, but like I saw it as out of necessity.

00:41:58.686 --> 00:42:15.836
So when I got back from afghanistan and I finally, you know, put corporal on and had some stripes, that was the personality I took, because I was still too young, I didn't actually like, know, you know, and, um, I just kind of took on that abrasiveness, that abrasive personality.

00:42:15.836 --> 00:42:17.219
Everything was super serious.

00:42:17.219 --> 00:42:20.222
You know, there's no joking, no, nothing, cause that's how this guy was.

00:42:21.143 --> 00:42:31.719
And I went into Iraq with that and I slowly started figuring out that, um, that mentality, you know, didn't really work.

00:42:31.719 --> 00:42:36.735
It really didn't, um, because it wasn't you Well, it was, it's not.

00:42:36.735 --> 00:42:43.128
Even I, like you know, I have a mentality of you joined the army to do army things.

00:42:43.128 --> 00:42:51.300
So, like, whatever you feel you know you should do because of this is how we do it on the outside, well, that's great, but you're not on the outside.

00:42:51.300 --> 00:42:53.365
You gave up that right when you signed the paper.

00:42:53.365 --> 00:42:56.275
But that mentality does not work with like the newer generation.

00:42:56.275 --> 00:42:58.317
That mentality does not work with like the newer generation.

00:42:58.637 --> 00:43:04.039
Even when I was a corporal back in 2015, the kids that came in after me like they didn't.

00:43:04.039 --> 00:43:05.418
They didn't have that mentality.

00:43:05.418 --> 00:43:08.000
These kids were getting away from like the 9-11 dudes.

00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:12.621
They were just here for college, they were here for this and I realized that I went from.

00:43:12.621 --> 00:43:14.182
I was very dependable.

00:43:14.182 --> 00:43:34.690
Everyone would come to me if they needed tactics hey, how did you do this on the last deployment that you had just a year and change ago, stuff like that but if they had a personal issue or just a silly question, they avoided me like the plague and found anyone else.

00:43:34.690 --> 00:43:50.467
And I didn't really realize that until after we got back, and so then I kind of had to reshape again, and then that was that weird phase where I finally found out what the hell Motor Pool Monday was.

00:43:50.467 --> 00:43:58.007
So now, on top of that, I'm trying to find who I am as a sergeant, but also now I'm realizing I am not competent when it comes to garrison life, which was bad.

00:43:58.007 --> 00:44:02.481
So that was kind of another turning point for me leadership wise.

00:44:02.481 --> 00:44:11.900
It was one of those all right, I need to take a step back from the fighting, the aggression, all that stuff and get into the doctrine, get into the regulations, get into SOPs and all that.

00:44:11.900 --> 00:44:14.164
And I did and it really shaped who I was.

00:44:14.606 --> 00:44:32.791
And then I took all of that and finally went into the 2017 deployment with this well-rounded, like stern combat experience guy, but also like I could spit regs and rules and back up my stuff immediately.

00:44:32.791 --> 00:44:40.528
But I found out as well like that isn't enough to lead like these, especially the new soldiers.

00:44:40.528 --> 00:44:42.842
It wasn't as crazy as it sounds.

00:44:42.842 --> 00:45:01.447
It wasn't until I picked up staff sergeant and took a platoon that I finally like, found like the actual what works for me and kind of what works in general, because I still I led these guys in 2019 as a platoon serge sergeant.

00:45:01.447 --> 00:45:03.016
Some of them are out of the army, some of them are.

00:45:03.016 --> 00:45:09.016
They all still talk to me and not as a platoon sergeant anymore, like they're lifelong friends.

00:45:09.056 --> 00:45:13.695
Like I got invited to a wedding of a kid I had as a private and then I helped him get to sergeant.

00:45:13.695 --> 00:45:15.139
Then he made staff sergeant.

00:45:15.139 --> 00:45:15.940
He reclassed.

00:45:15.940 --> 00:45:24.603
I haven't seen him since 2022, but I still got an invitation in the mail and I've told myself, like that's how I know, I've kind of hit that.

00:45:24.603 --> 00:45:29.963
You know that nice rem, that's the spot.

00:45:29.963 --> 00:45:31.697
And what it was was.

00:45:31.737 --> 00:45:36.101
I realized, yes, you have to.

00:45:36.101 --> 00:45:42.947
The older combat guys need to realize that, especially the ones that are still in we yes, we do have that stuff, we have that.

00:45:42.947 --> 00:45:43.489
That.

00:45:43.489 --> 00:45:44.269
There's a difference.

00:45:44.269 --> 00:45:49.668
Like you said, our hardest day isn't what these kids are complaining about.

00:45:49.668 --> 00:45:52.175
Like you know, we're still here in the motor pool working on.

00:45:52.175 --> 00:45:54.722
It's like cool, it's like cool man.

00:45:55.202 --> 00:46:02.588
You ever have to put one of your friends in a bag and pack up his stuff or burn, burn their equipment because it's got their blood on it.

00:46:02.588 --> 00:46:04.963
It's like, no, this is not hard, this is easy.

00:46:04.963 --> 00:46:14.150
Hard is doing like an 18-hour patrol coming back sleeping for two hours and someone kicking you on your cot saying, hey, we need someone to go sit in the tower for six hours.

00:46:14.150 --> 00:46:41.804
I know you're tired, but put your stuff on Like that's rough, right, but put your stuff on like that, that that's rough Right, cause then you're in that tower, you're exhausted, but you also tell yourself, hey, if I fall asleep, this entire sector of the base is unprotected and that's on me, and so I kind of figured that out and realized that I needed to show them that I knew what I was talking about, like through action, not words, and then also show them like the way.

00:46:41.954 --> 00:47:00.295
So I showed up and you're probably going to think this is taboo as all hell, but I was a platoon sergeant and I showed up and I went to the NCO of the month board as like a senior staff sergeant taking over a platoon, like in my first month there, and I walked in and his name was Sergeant Major Flint Loved the guy.

00:47:00.295 --> 00:47:03.878
He asked me he's like what the hell are you doing here?

00:47:03.878 --> 00:47:05.298
I don't even know you.

00:47:05.298 --> 00:47:07.400
You just got here and you're a platoon sergeant.

00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:13.983
Why aren't you fixing everything to give the soldiers the leaders that I wish I had and do everything I wish I had as a private?

00:47:13.983 --> 00:47:35.710
But I'm also going to hold them to a very high standard in which I intend on sending my soldiers to the board every month and they're going to win every month.

00:47:35.710 --> 00:47:38.423
But before I do that, I'm about to win this board.

00:47:38.423 --> 00:47:41.579
Win every month, but before I do that I'm about to win this sport.

00:47:41.599 --> 00:47:45.050
So that way, when I walk down and I tell them you're going to do this and they tell me I don't have time, I can go.

00:47:45.050 --> 00:47:49.773
I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm the platoon sergeant and I have to take care of all of you guys.

00:47:49.773 --> 00:47:53.563
And somehow I'm in college and I still had time to study and win this thing.

00:47:53.563 --> 00:48:05.472
And then you know, you go ahead, you try to tell me, guy in the barracks that has nothing to do at Fort Drum, because it's the winter, that you can't study a couple of flashcards, and I even gave him the flashcards.

00:48:05.472 --> 00:48:18.307
But I realized that mentality stuck and you've heard this, everyone in the military has heard it like doing you know, succeeding in the military is doing the right thing, but with the right people, seeing you do it, I hate that, that's that's it.

00:48:18.307 --> 00:48:24.322
But with the right people seeing you do it, I hate that, that's it, but that's really it.

00:48:24.322 --> 00:48:36.760
I realize you can know all the knowledge and you can have all the experience, but you kind of have to let your guys see you stand on that hill, sometimes die on that cross for them.

00:48:39.257 --> 00:48:47.585
I did that repeatedly, like I shielded my guys from anything you could think of and then, uh, shifted it to everything.

00:48:47.585 --> 00:48:51.239
Nothing was about me, everything was about them right.

00:48:51.239 --> 00:48:55.840
Every month I would send one or two guys to like a big school, whoever was performing the most.

00:48:55.840 --> 00:48:58.009
If you won the soldier of the month board, I gave you.

00:48:58.009 --> 00:49:00.920
I put you in for a four-day with the commander, you got an award.

00:49:00.920 --> 00:49:02.784
Then I gave you whatever school you want.

00:49:02.784 --> 00:49:07.222
So like guys were trying to go to ranger air assault, so all of that stuff.

00:49:07.222 --> 00:49:19.829
But I I realized at that point, um, that you know, being the scary experienced guy, you know that's just super abrasive, isn't it anymore?

00:49:19.829 --> 00:49:22.958
And even when I put the drill hat on, I was they.

00:49:22.958 --> 00:49:31.599
They called me the reaper and they nicknamed my, my company or troop, uh, concentration camp charlie.

00:49:31.599 --> 00:49:36.108
And we were, we were over at benning and like I was mean uh I was.

00:49:36.289 --> 00:49:38.400
I don't even know how many other drills have done this recently.

00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:41.065
How many years did you, how many years were you?

00:49:41.086 --> 00:49:57.362
Two years, and in two years I sent home exactly 100 trainees Like I kept the count and the drill like any drill who served with me will tell you, yes, he kept the count and it was Was that was that hard to do Like maybe a drill will send home like 13.

00:49:57.362 --> 00:50:05.277
I sent home a hundred, whether it was like recycling them, but they did not walk across the graduation field with me.

00:50:05.277 --> 00:50:09.923
You know some of them got injured because I had a really high PT standard, but I was a weird drill.

00:50:10.726 --> 00:50:12.027
Did you get a lot of flack for that?

00:50:12.768 --> 00:50:13.329
Yes, yes.

00:50:13.409 --> 00:50:13.769
I did.

00:50:14.655 --> 00:50:14.815
You did.

00:50:14.815 --> 00:50:18.719
But I had this first surgeon and a commander who, like, saw what I was doing.

00:50:18.719 --> 00:50:25.509
I had this first surgeon and the commander who, like, saw what I was doing and they're like he's producing a product that, like his name is tied to, that he'd be proud of.

00:50:25.509 --> 00:50:26.831
But I was.

00:50:26.831 --> 00:50:29.463
I was a weird oddity on drills.

00:50:29.463 --> 00:50:35.940
Like I wasn't popular with some drills Cause, like, if you were doing pushups, cause you messed up, I'm doing them with you, cause I messed up.

00:50:35.940 --> 00:50:40.956
Cause if you're messed up, I messed up, because if you're messed up, I'm messed up Because I'm your leader and I would do that.

00:50:41.398 --> 00:50:46.141
And I think it's kind of taboo for drills, especially the combat drills, to do this.

00:50:46.141 --> 00:50:47.121
Like no, they messed up.

00:50:47.121 --> 00:50:48.382
You need to establish something.

00:50:48.382 --> 00:50:49.724
Like no, I did establish it.

00:50:49.724 --> 00:50:50.985
They are terrified of me.

00:50:50.985 --> 00:50:55.268
Every time I walk in a room it's dead silent and they all look to see if they're about to get yelled at.

00:50:55.268 --> 00:50:56.009
Get yelled at.

00:50:56.009 --> 00:51:08.019
But at the same time I always heard it like at the end at the graduations and I loved it was the privates would say crap, drill sergeant Stewart's here.

00:51:08.019 --> 00:51:15.322
So either we're going to learn some really cool shit that, like that, no one else is going to teach us because of that, or we are about to die, like it's one or the other.

00:51:15.322 --> 00:51:17.987
And I love that mentality.

00:51:18.067 --> 00:51:29.818
And now, at the same time, I've been off the trail for almost a year and change and I, you know, after the year mark or six month mark, they can try to contact you.

00:51:29.818 --> 00:51:30.981
I got kids that like.

00:51:30.981 --> 00:51:35.918
I got a kid who broke his hips that trained with me and he still talks to me, he still does.

00:51:35.918 --> 00:51:46.596
You know, all this stuff, it's, it's a cool mentality, um, and it was that mentality developed as a platoon sergeant and that's why I did get some flack for that too, as a drill.

00:51:46.596 --> 00:52:00.503
They're like, hey, man, you, you caring too much about, um, you know these kids, like you got to push them out and I, I think that's a big thing and I know you saw it too when you were, when you were, and it's still a thing now.

00:52:00.503 --> 00:52:13.369
Um, we have this big rift between the new and the old because, like I said, combat patches and combat jobs aren't they're, they're not like candy anymore.

00:52:13.510 --> 00:52:23.543
Like you go into a unit, you'll see like four or five and like each company, maybe out of the out of, like the old dudes, and even if they did do it.

00:52:23.543 --> 00:52:27.715
You know, some of these guys were like there for like the downgrade stuff.

00:52:27.715 --> 00:52:29.360
Now, some of the downgrade was terrible.

00:52:29.360 --> 00:52:36.719
I'm not trying to, you know, knock, but like other guys were like, yeah, we were there, nothing happened, and so it's.

00:52:36.719 --> 00:52:37.721
It's a different mentality.

00:52:37.721 --> 00:52:47.552
But these older guys are trying to like kind of separate themselves and like belittle and kind of, hey, these young kids don't get it.

00:52:47.552 --> 00:53:00.666
And I've noticed that like I'll butt heads with a lot of leaders and I'll tell them and I get it, because I was that way when I was young but it's like cool, it's not their fault that they didn't join when we did.

00:53:00.666 --> 00:53:01.036
They were.

00:53:01.036 --> 00:53:02.298
Some of them weren't even born yet.

00:53:02.679 --> 00:53:10.186
I'm, I'm meeting, I'm meeting kids that are in now that and it makes me sad that are like 17 years old, born in 08.

00:53:10.266 --> 00:53:20.119
And I'm like oh, oh my, you know, but but um yeah, man, I I really want to unpack everything that you just mentioned, though I think that you're a great leader.

00:53:20.119 --> 00:53:31.324
I mean, just listen to you talk and I let you just continue and go on, and I didn't interrupt you because you were so engaging when you were talking about the whole leadership thing.

00:53:31.324 --> 00:54:04.362
A lot of people don't realize that you're supposed to evolve as a leader, like everything that you talked about when you adapted that first NCO's leadership style being hard nose, hard line, and then you tried it and then you kind of took that version and then you turned it into something else, like you're, making it yours, like you're sort of like making the ingredients of Alex Stewart, you know, and Sergeant First Class Stewart, you know, and Drill Sergeant Stewart, you know you're.

00:54:04.362 --> 00:54:28.458
And I always tell people like over the years, even in the civilian world, in the government world, you know, you might run into somebody and they might be a complete asshole, and then five years later run into them again and they might have completely changed, like reinventing themselves everywhere they go, realizing that, hey, at my last position I really screwed up, really fucked up here, and people didn't like this style.

00:54:28.458 --> 00:54:32.739
So my next station, I'm going to do this better, and I'm going to try to change that better.

00:54:32.838 --> 00:54:38.960
So you're like you don't know who you're going to see or what you're going to get, and you're supposed to evolve as a leader.

00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:46.980
That's the best thing and that's what tells me that you're a good leader, because you've adapted a style that's you.

00:54:46.980 --> 00:54:58.659
You didn't just follow someone else, and this is how you're going to do it and this is how you're going to be every single time, everywhere you go, and I don't really hear a lot of people say that very often.

00:54:58.659 --> 00:55:00.786
But that's good leadership.

00:55:00.786 --> 00:55:02.139
You're supposed to do that.

00:55:02.139 --> 00:55:05.784
You're supposed to be that way, and I want to make sure that I acknowledge something really quick.

00:55:05.784 --> 00:55:08.641
So are you still married to your first wife?

00:55:08.661 --> 00:55:09.242
Yep 12 years.

00:55:09.242 --> 00:55:12.742
This year is 12 years and we went through all three deployments.

00:55:12.742 --> 00:55:14.079
We have two kids, everything.

00:55:14.239 --> 00:55:15.083
Hats off to her man.

00:55:15.083 --> 00:55:16.896
I don't want to gloss over that.

00:55:16.896 --> 00:55:21.784
I want to acknowledge that because that is a very, very hard life to.

00:55:21.784 --> 00:55:26.577
Oh yeah, and she, she dealt with like the dark too, and that's a whole another story.

00:55:27.221 --> 00:55:30.875
But uh, you know somebody that can then stick that out, and she was actually.

00:55:30.875 --> 00:55:38.675
She went through pregnancies while I was gone, like you know yeah, I felt terrible as, as you know, uh soon to be dead.

00:55:38.675 --> 00:55:39.257
Like I missed.

00:55:39.257 --> 00:55:47.429
I missed my daughter's birth by two weeks because we found out she was pregnant right before I left.

00:55:47.429 --> 00:55:59.581
I was like oh man, and she was supposed to be born like two weeks later, but she ended up having preeclampsia and some other issues, so she had to be induced.

00:56:00.255 --> 00:56:05.405
So it stopped and then I missed half of my wife's pregnancy, with my son too.

00:56:07.536 --> 00:56:13.684
Luckily, I was yeah, it's a tough life, man, like being in the military.

00:56:13.684 --> 00:56:18.547
So, like I said, man hats off to her as a military spouse for going through so much.

00:56:18.547 --> 00:56:24.181
And then, man, you've been through a lot, how many years have you been in now?

00:56:24.202 --> 00:56:26.586
yeah, I know, and you are right, I am like an anomaly.

00:56:26.586 --> 00:56:28.117
I have five years of.

00:56:28.117 --> 00:56:31.762
You know combat, just in a small, small little.

00:56:31.762 --> 00:56:37.416
And then, um, I made, I made seven and nine because that's the quickest you can make it now.

00:56:37.416 --> 00:56:41.342
Uh, because they changed the rules and I'm already on the e8 list.

00:56:42.603 --> 00:56:57.599
Uh, before I even hit 12, I was at 11 and change and uh, you're I mean you're, you're still in it and you're over here writing, writing books, um, talking about ptsd therapy, things like that.

00:56:57.599 --> 00:57:01.347
You're still in it, like you're not even out yet.

00:57:01.347 --> 00:57:06.286
And there's people that get out and they still don't even recognize that they have any issues at all.

00:57:06.286 --> 00:57:11.474
When did you first recognize that you felt like you were struggling with PTSD?

00:57:11.534 --> 00:57:14.545
So I think we all know like when we are.

00:57:14.545 --> 00:57:18.574
But at first deployment I had a little situation.

00:57:18.574 --> 00:57:41.556
My family decided to bring me to a Texas roadhouse because you know they're near every base, and it was like the first weekend I was home and you know I just met this newborn baby, which was a lot, because when you miss an entire pregnancy like you weren't there and then baby is there, like it doesn't click, exactly it didn't click right away so that was a lot.

00:57:41.998 --> 00:57:51.407
Then my family came to visit and they decided to put me in the middle of a six-person booth between two people on a saturday night in in a you know afghanistan.

00:57:51.407 --> 00:58:01.815
Now I did not after I got back from afghanistan, in in texas roadhouse and, uh, I didn't realize that like I came home with any baggage and this is just the first deployment.

00:58:01.815 --> 00:58:07.909
But the noise that day, like it just yeah, you ever you ever been in like a place?

00:58:07.909 --> 00:58:14.414
And all the noises like around you, like your family talking, it just kind of gets fuzzy.

00:58:14.414 --> 00:58:17.766
You can't hear that and all you hear is all the background noise.

00:58:17.766 --> 00:58:23.266
It just gets louder and louder and louder, like, and like it feels like your head's getting compressed.

00:58:24.007 --> 00:58:31.474
Um, I threw a fork across that restaurant, like, and I just stormed out and I told them, like put my, put my food in a to-go box, I am so sorry.

00:58:31.474 --> 00:58:39.007
And like I was, just it was too much and I left, um, and just sat outside and that was in 14.

00:58:39.007 --> 00:58:41.389
And like I just kind of brushed it off.

00:58:41.389 --> 00:58:44.844
Also, like I'm wearing my shirt, break the Stigma.

00:58:44.844 --> 00:58:56.704
I knew that that was not normal because when I was a civilian, as a young kid I volunteered at an organization for kids with disabilities for, like sports coach.

00:58:56.704 --> 00:59:17.264
I was a sports coach for, like kids with cerebral palsy, autism, asperger, like you name it, so like I was very, uh, compassionate and like it all just went away just after that first one and but, like you know, I was at drum and I was with all these hard charger dudes and they're like, yeah, it's just something wrong with you.

00:59:17.264 --> 00:59:18.697
You just keep your mouth shut.

00:59:18.697 --> 00:59:31.282
Like my best friend on that first deployment was a guy who was probably in the worst firefight that Drum had seen in years, on the previous deployment in Kandahar and their platoon lost five guys.

00:59:31.282 --> 00:59:42.226
And like, even on that deployment, like he had I don't even know how he was able to deploy, but he had like five pills he had to take every day in order to keep him level.

00:59:42.226 --> 00:59:49.168
And so I saw him and this is my closest friend.

00:59:49.168 --> 00:59:54.302
So I was like, oh, he doesn't say a damn thing, he's quiet.

00:59:54.302 --> 00:59:59.596
So I just was like I'm fine and there was that thing like it's quiet, he's.

00:59:59.596 --> 01:00:01.538
So like I just was like I'm fine and there was that thing, you know, like it's weak.

01:00:01.538 --> 01:00:05.101
And then you find out like, hey, if you go say something, especially like that, right after the deployment.

01:00:05.101 --> 01:00:09.465
I knew they'd be like well, hey, you're not going to shoot anymore, you're not going to.

01:00:09.465 --> 01:00:22.795
They take so much away from you like your whole identity, and I was afraid to even bring it up, so I left it alone, it alone.

01:00:22.815 --> 01:00:30.818
Then I went to Iraq and I came back and that time, um, my brother and I got into like a little argument over something and, uh, it ended up with like him shoving me and which is not smart for him.

01:00:30.818 --> 01:00:32.681
My father was a professional boxer.

01:00:32.681 --> 01:00:38.702
I trained for years, I used to do free, I used to train soldiers for free at drum, and he shoved me.

01:00:38.702 --> 01:00:49.682
And the next thing I knew, um, like I have him by the neck off the ground and my family is like holding me back, like trying to yank me off of them, and four people are yanking me and no one can get me off.

01:00:49.682 --> 01:00:54.862
And like then I realized what happened, you know, and uh, so that scared me too.

01:00:54.862 --> 01:00:57.896
But at the same time, still at drum, I just got back.

01:00:57.896 --> 01:01:05.641
This is only like year three and a half, four in the military, and you hear all that stuff like, yeah, you go over there, they're going to take your weapon.

01:01:05.641 --> 01:01:06.942
They're going to do this, they're going to do that.

01:01:06.942 --> 01:01:08.043
So I just avoided it.

01:01:08.043 --> 01:01:19.510
But that's why, like I said earlier, I tried to go down to Texas, like get out of the drum area, because I ended up in a weird scenario where I was in a brigade that shut down.

01:01:19.510 --> 01:01:24.233
And you know what happens when they shut you down they just move you around and the brigades rotate deployments.

01:01:24.233 --> 01:01:32.981
So I just kept ending up in the brigades that were going to deploy.

01:01:32.981 --> 01:01:35.489
So I went down to Texas and then, you know, did the same thing.

01:01:35.489 --> 01:01:40.525
I was home, but I knew, I knew something was off and I think that's why I kept signing the waiver for my dwell time.

01:01:42.818 --> 01:01:47.786
I always tell people, even if we don't say it, deployments are addicting.

01:01:47.786 --> 01:01:55.061
They really are, and we become deployment junkies and that's a weird term for it.

01:01:55.061 --> 01:01:58.541
But I always explain it this way and no one's ever disagreed with me.

01:01:58.541 --> 01:01:59.126
Deployments are easier.

01:01:59.126 --> 01:01:59.771
I think that disagreed with me.

01:01:59.771 --> 01:02:00.635
Deployments are easier.

01:02:00.635 --> 01:02:01.858
I think that's what it is.

01:02:01.858 --> 01:02:03.342
Deployments make sense.

01:02:03.342 --> 01:02:04.505
Everything makes sense.

01:02:04.505 --> 01:02:04.806
You know.

01:02:04.806 --> 01:02:09.076
You know when you're waking up, you know when you have a mission, you know what you're doing the next day.

01:02:09.076 --> 01:02:20.610
All you have to do wake up, eat, work out, if you can patrol, fight, sleep, and like it was just I, I did this.

01:02:20.992 --> 01:02:29.940
I made a mistake with those years shoved together, you know, and looking back when people talk to me like, oh, that's really cool, you got to do all that, and I always say, yeah, it was.

01:02:29.940 --> 01:02:39.423
But I didn't realize what I was doing to my head space by keeping myself in that fight, fight, fight, fight, right.

01:02:39.423 --> 01:02:44.516
So I finished 17 and I don't remember what it was.

01:02:44.516 --> 01:02:49.365
Luckily for me, I never really stuck to drinking Like that.

01:02:49.365 --> 01:02:50.527
I didn't cope that way.

01:02:50.527 --> 01:03:01.646
So I did fighting, so I would just fight, but I tried I don't know why, but I tried to walk into Behavioral Health at Hood, finally, after you know, 17.

01:03:02.255 --> 01:03:09.922
And I think it, like I said, I think it was that kid that I met and like just all the other kids, because at that point I had young kids.

01:03:09.922 --> 01:03:14.739
I had like a four-year-old and a three-year-old at that time.

01:03:14.739 --> 01:03:28.530
So it's one thing and I know most people can attest to this it's one thing when you go overseas, especially if you don't have kids because there's no association, you don't go over there and picture, oh what if that was my kids?

01:03:28.530 --> 01:03:30.152
And you don't really do it while you're there.

01:03:30.152 --> 01:03:54.557
I always tell people it's the dark and quiet when you come home from deployment that are your worst enemy, because that's where you start playing the what, what-ifs and that's where you start really like breaking down stuff that you saw and it's dangerous, right, and I think I think that was what it was I realized like man, I'm starting to really um break down some of this stuff.

01:03:54.677 --> 01:04:12.922
And syria had a really bad moment for me where I got stuck on a rooftop in about a 10 minute firefight and which was which was that was a new thing for me like a long firefight and to be stuck to and I mean and I mean like helpless stuck.

01:04:12.922 --> 01:04:24.759
We were pinned down, there was a sniper, there was a machine gun going and there was a three man dismount team advancing on us and it was just me and one other kid stuck on a roof and we got off.

01:04:24.759 --> 01:04:25.923
We got through it all.

01:04:25.923 --> 01:04:29.945
But like I think what bothered me the most was that night I went back.

01:04:30.255 --> 01:04:36.188
Luckily I had you know how you have to reserve phone time because there's only like one or two hard lines on the entire base to call home.

01:04:36.188 --> 01:04:38.360
I had my little 15-minute time slot.

01:04:38.360 --> 01:04:48.295
I said nothing to, to my wife, you know.

01:04:48.295 --> 01:04:55.739
But at the same time, like I picked up the phone and for the first time ever, I kind of said to myself like hey, you almost didn't have this conversation Like this, this almost didn't happen kind of thing.

01:04:55.739 --> 01:04:57.923
And um, when I got, home that was kind of thing.

01:04:57.943 --> 01:05:08.898
And when I got home, that was kind of just the mentality and stuff I started shifting from like you know, yeah, I'm angry and whatever happened over there, you know they deserved it too.

01:05:08.898 --> 01:05:18.126
Like seeing my kids run around and you kind of sit there and you see these kids and you think to yourself like man, me and my guys took this from somebody.

01:05:18.126 --> 01:05:21.378
Granted, you know, we had to, we were just doing what we had to do.

01:05:21.378 --> 01:05:43.425
But at the end of the day, like when you sit there and you really think, like I took this from some kid, like their dad just being around, or you know, I took a son from a dad, that kind of stuff, when you actually start playing that game with yourself, I think that's mixed with, mixed with that quiet and that dark, and that's where it just kind of sinks in.

01:05:43.425 --> 01:05:48.199
And I I tell I told people as a drill and, like I said, they thought I was taboo.

01:05:48.199 --> 01:05:52.518
I told a private because I want to go overseas, I want to do this, I want to kill people.

01:05:52.518 --> 01:05:53.139
And I look at them.

01:05:53.139 --> 01:05:55.206
I would take my hat off too and stare at him.

01:05:55.206 --> 01:05:57.516
I go look, I'm gonna tell you this right now.

01:05:57.516 --> 01:06:00.179
I wouldn't yell, i't curse, I just look him dead in the eyes and go.

01:06:00.179 --> 01:06:10.251
If you think you're going to go overseas and you're going to get into a fight and you're going to take someone else's life and it's not going to change you forever, you are dead wrong.

01:06:10.251 --> 01:06:20.596
Look at my face.

01:06:20.596 --> 01:06:26.425
Every time and every person I've ever, every person I've ever served with, who's ever been in a fight, every time you know that happens, you die a little inside.

01:06:26.425 --> 01:06:32.987
One of you does, and it doesn't matter if you pulled the trigger or not, if you were the end, but you were part of that fight.

01:06:32.987 --> 01:06:36.894
You see, because you know what we have to do, you know you have to go, you have to go get the body.

01:06:36.894 --> 01:06:40.061
There's always an investigation so you get to see the aftermath.

01:06:40.061 --> 01:06:45.594
And then you know at the time you know, look at that, yeah, we got them.

01:06:45.594 --> 01:06:48.661
Yeah, yeah, and then, but then it's those later on thoughts.

01:06:48.721 --> 01:06:54.500
So I went in to get seen because all of that started like really really getting to me.

01:06:54.500 --> 01:06:59.155
Plus, like I said, in iraq I had torn my arm and I broke three fingers.

01:06:59.155 --> 01:07:06.889
Now I got treated for the three fingers, but the Army, being the Army, tried to tell me that my torn arm was just a pulled muscle.

01:07:06.889 --> 01:07:09.422
That happened to me in 15.

01:07:09.422 --> 01:07:14.648
I went on a deployment with a torn bicep in 17 still and then came back home.

01:07:14.648 --> 01:07:24.688
So like I'm injured, right, and I finally was looking for help for the injury because, like what happened was I was a weird tear.

01:07:24.688 --> 01:07:27.123
It wasn't a normal bicep where it snaps and disappears.

01:07:27.123 --> 01:07:34.525
Mine split down the middle somehow and like it opened up kind of like a lobster tail, which is really weird to say.

01:07:34.525 --> 01:07:42.862
But so I was in a lot of pain and then I was hurt and you know I was a hard charging light calf guy.

01:07:43.976 --> 01:07:47.824
You don't get yeah, I ended up getting surgery in 2019.

01:07:48.387 --> 01:07:48.748
I had it.

01:07:48.748 --> 01:07:56.063
I had one doctor who finally listened to me and, uh, I agreed to let him like, cut me open and go in looking cause he couldn't really see it in the MRI.

01:07:56.063 --> 01:07:56.755
He saw like he said.

01:07:56.755 --> 01:08:00.163
He saw like a black dot in the muscle that shouldn't have been there.

01:08:00.163 --> 01:08:10.018
But when he went in he goes hey, if we didn't do this surgery, like you had maybe two more months before, your entire bicep would have just ripped completely in half and then it would be gone.

01:08:10.018 --> 01:08:15.998
And like the scar tissue was so old that he had to um, what is it Debris Like?

01:08:15.998 --> 01:08:21.561
I think he said he debried like an inch of muscle tissue just to get fresh tissue to stitch it together.

01:08:21.985 --> 01:08:24.167
So like right now and I don't ever.

01:08:24.411 --> 01:08:34.521
Usually I won't do it, but like if I flex my left and right arm like you see a substantial difference because, like I can't get back the you know five years of lifting that they cut out of that arm.

01:08:34.521 --> 01:08:37.238
My right arm is still as the same size.

01:08:37.238 --> 01:09:01.582
But I went into behavior, health with like, dealing with my injury and all other stuff, and I told them what was wrong and, believe it or not, and actually everyone will believe it because it's hood Well now Cavazos, but hood I went in and they told me that yes, you are showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and it sounds like you've been dealing with them for years and just haven't done anything.

01:09:01.582 --> 01:09:04.207
But we can't help you right now.

01:09:04.787 --> 01:09:05.509
And I looked at her.

01:09:05.509 --> 01:09:06.176
I was like what do you mean?

01:09:06.176 --> 01:09:06.877
You can't help me.

01:09:06.877 --> 01:09:10.996
And she told me, and I quote, you are a low risk soldier.

01:09:10.996 --> 01:09:13.283
And I looked at her and said, okay, what does that mean?

01:09:13.283 --> 01:09:16.056
So you have post-traumatic stress disorder.

01:09:16.056 --> 01:09:22.119
But you said that you won't do anything based on, like, the actions and your thoughts, because you have children.

01:09:22.119 --> 01:09:23.444
And I mentioned that, like I have kids.

01:09:23.444 --> 01:09:26.101
She's like why haven't you hurt yourself, why haven't you hurt others?

01:09:26.101 --> 01:09:27.895
I'm like I have kids, I have a wife, I have a career.

01:09:27.895 --> 01:09:28.577
I wouldn't do that.

01:09:28.577 --> 01:09:39.284
So, like they said, because you said those things, and we have so many high-risk people at fort hood, because it's such a big base, so like we don't have the capacity at this time to treat you.

01:09:39.284 --> 01:09:41.509
So I was like so what does low risk mean?

01:09:41.509 --> 01:09:51.002
Then and this is the thing I'm never going to forget this woman looked me down the eyes and says basically it means you're not going to go home, grab a gun and go shoot up a school of children.

01:09:51.002 --> 01:09:54.506
And I looked at her and I was like what?

01:09:54.506 --> 01:09:56.929
And then that was it.

01:09:56.929 --> 01:10:10.018
She kind of just brushed me off, told me she had more people to treat and asked me to be on my way and no shit, come back if you start getting to a point where you think you're going to hurt somebody else or others.

01:10:10.018 --> 01:10:27.019
It put a sour taste in my mouth for treatment, because now, after years of all this stuff and you're hearing some of the stuff I'm saying and you know, and I know what it is and they just kind of ignored me so I shut down.

01:10:27.524 --> 01:10:29.145
But what turned in?

01:10:29.145 --> 01:10:57.318
I know long story leading up to, but when I got here I'm sorry, not here, but Fort Benning to be a drill I hadn't even started on a trail yet and I had a situation and I always tell this story every time I speak with mental health my dog of like five years at the time bit my wife on her hand True blood, she's screaming and I was across the room and somehow in like and I don't remember any of it, I don't know how it happened.

01:10:57.318 --> 01:11:13.002
In like a 15 second time span my dog went from biting my wife with blood dripping down my wife's hands to me standing next to my wife and my dog halfway across the house in shock with blood dripping from his mouth and like just freaking out.

01:11:13.002 --> 01:11:28.292
And I had no idea what happened and like just freaking out and I had no idea what happened and it scared the ever-loving shit out of me and I never had that before, like I had never lost control.

01:11:28.292 --> 01:11:30.989
And I love the dog Dog's fine, he's downstairs now.

01:11:30.989 --> 01:11:38.618
But that moment my wife went from, you know, crying about the hand to crying like what did you just do?

01:11:38.618 --> 01:11:42.814
And I, I'm sitting there like that you know that nasty gut stomach feeling.

01:11:42.814 --> 01:11:44.827
You get like when, when?

01:11:44.827 --> 01:11:46.654
So I'm sitting here like what did I just do?

01:11:46.654 --> 01:11:55.907
So I got in the car and drove immediately to uh, the clinic on uh, fort Fort Benning as a drill Like.

01:11:55.926 --> 01:11:56.890
And I hadn't even started yet.

01:11:56.890 --> 01:12:01.905
And you know what happens when drills go and like try to get behavioral health, usually they'll try to take you out.

01:12:01.905 --> 01:12:06.902
And I went in and I told the front desk I'm like I need to be seen now.

01:12:06.902 --> 01:12:09.067
And they're like well, that doesn't work like that.

01:12:09.067 --> 01:12:11.090
I was like, okay, let me.

01:12:11.090 --> 01:12:17.880
Let me rephrase that Get me someone now or I'll jump over this table and you're going to have a problem.

01:12:17.880 --> 01:12:23.774
Does that sound better?

01:12:23.774 --> 01:12:25.342
Does that sound like I need to see someone now?

01:12:25.342 --> 01:12:29.007
So then they did, but we don't want to get into the process.

01:12:29.028 --> 01:12:29.349
Long story short.

01:12:29.349 --> 01:12:33.341
I talked to a civilian who wasn't a doctor, who did an intake, and then they told me okay, in a month you're going to see a doctor.

01:12:33.341 --> 01:12:36.131
So they didn't help me at all, they just wrote down notes.

01:12:36.131 --> 01:12:44.737
Then I saw the doctor a month later and the doctor's like hey, we're going to do your intake again, but I'm leaving, so you're going to get another doctor.

01:12:44.737 --> 01:12:51.672
It took me six months to finally get seen after the incident and start getting treated by my doctor.

01:12:51.672 --> 01:12:54.378
And what happened?

01:12:54.378 --> 01:13:18.900
Right, and this is why I wear the Break the stigma shirt, this is why I'm I'm talking and I'm doing all this because what I just said I'll openly admit that's pretty fucked up and part of my language, but like that whole situation, like people will look at you and look like whoa, whoa, man, like, but you don't, you know, and that hold on a second, like that's the thing about you is you're very self-aware of your situation.

01:13:19.565 --> 01:13:35.809
You don't have like the pride doesn't get in the way and your ego does has not gotten in the way of you, because a lot of times people will not admit that they have a problem because of their pride, because of their ego, yeah, because of their lack of self-awareness.

01:13:35.809 --> 01:13:38.837
But you have all that, you have all that.

01:13:38.837 --> 01:13:52.534
And, with that being said, it's almost like at times you were punished for being self-aware, like you were self-reporting, saying, hey, I need to talk to someone, and they're like, well, you're not high enough on their scale.

01:13:52.534 --> 01:14:03.917
And it's like I'm trying to avoid a car accident here, I'm trying to avoid a multi-vehicle wreck, and you're telling me that I'm not high enough on your.

01:14:03.917 --> 01:14:07.492
And it's just so funny to hear that man, it's just so funny to hear.

01:14:07.572 --> 01:14:11.386
And you, you've, I've, I've let you run this entire podcast and tell.

01:14:11.386 --> 01:14:42.537
But the reason is because, like you, you have a great story and you're very clear on what you're saying and I'm following what you're saying and there's so much that you've said that I relate to, and it's amazing that we're from different generations of this war and different generations of the military, of this war um in different generations of the military, but in a lot of ways we share the same concepts and the same experience.

01:14:42.556 --> 01:14:47.935
It's the beauty of the military and the service and like that, that brotherhood doesn't end when you take the uniform off.

01:14:47.935 --> 01:14:52.127
You know if, if you called me today and said, hey, you're in california.

01:14:52.247 --> 01:14:54.529
I'd be like, yeah, I'm in right now, what's up?

01:14:54.529 --> 01:15:23.694
And you go, hey, I need, you know this, this and this, and I need to, I'll, I'll drive, I don't care, like um, and I love that about um, the military, but you're, you're right, the self-awareness and all that, and that's kind of a big push I've been doing is trying to tell people, every time I talk, you know realizing, or as a grown adult, grown man, grown woman, what have you in the service realizing?

01:15:23.694 --> 01:15:25.618
You know, hey, I have a problem.

01:15:25.618 --> 01:15:36.432
And then going out there and seeking help for that problem, you know that's not weakness and that's actually like pure strength, weakness and that's actually like pure strength.

01:15:38.345 --> 01:15:47.171
It takes a self-aware, strong person to sit there and go I'm not okay, because, like you said, that pride gets in the way.

01:15:47.171 --> 01:15:56.873
But on top of that pride, to say that and then go, okay, I'm not okay and I need help, and then to take one more step because there is fear.

01:15:56.873 --> 01:16:03.947
There's fear of judgment, fear of career, fear of losing your identity, because that's what happens.

01:16:03.947 --> 01:16:09.171
Let's be honest, when you do do that stuff with behavioral health, we're going to take his rifle.

01:16:09.171 --> 01:16:20.846
He can't stay up with his platoon more than he can't stay up for more than what you have to get eight hours of sleep it takes away so much stuff and it removes you completely and like there's all that fear but if you

01:16:20.886 --> 01:16:34.461
can, if you can do all of that, realize that it's going to, that's going to do that, and realize you're going to, you know, have to kind of go through hell for a minute so you can get help, as crazy as it sounds, cause it shouldn't be that way.

01:16:34.461 --> 01:16:48.752
That is strength Because, like when I went and finally saw the doctor, they tried to med board me because the first doctor not my final doctor, but the first doctor wrote down that I was psychotic, that I saw things and heard voices, and that's not what I told her.

01:16:48.752 --> 01:16:50.863
I told her that I don't trust people.

01:16:50.863 --> 01:16:51.905
I'm hyper attentive.

01:16:51.905 --> 01:16:54.212
I hear things Everyone does.

01:16:54.452 --> 01:16:58.469
If you've've been overseas, you hear something in your house and you turn around like, okay, what was that?

01:16:58.469 --> 01:16:59.752
Who's like I?

01:16:59.752 --> 01:17:02.926
I told her I do that and she's like oh no, he's psychotic.

01:17:02.926 --> 01:17:03.729
We got to get rid of him.

01:17:03.729 --> 01:17:06.618
So I had to fight a med board and I'm still in.

01:17:06.618 --> 01:17:13.423
I won, thanks thanks to that captain that I ended up having as my final doctor, because she deleted that stuff from my record altogether.

01:17:13.423 --> 01:17:14.599
She's like that's this, isn't true.

01:17:14.599 --> 01:17:15.579
I don't know why they put this.

01:17:15.661 --> 01:17:18.186
deleted that stuff from my record altogether.

01:17:18.186 --> 01:17:19.369
She's like this isn't true.

01:17:19.369 --> 01:17:20.051
I don't know why they put this.

01:17:20.051 --> 01:17:38.117
I'm going to tell you honestly I know several mental health advocates and PTSD advocates out there and I haven't had the heart to tell them that you should not be an advocate because you're still in it, you still have a lot of problems yourself and you shouldn't be helping other people.

01:17:38.117 --> 01:17:47.019
If you don't even have it figured out, if the jigsaw puzzle in your head is not fucking together, then you should not be helping other people.

01:17:47.019 --> 01:17:49.113
You need to be at the right place yourself.

01:17:49.905 --> 01:17:51.993
But you are different.

01:17:51.993 --> 01:18:01.351
You are very unique in the fact of like I'm glad that you're helping, you're still in it, but yet you have your thoughts together.

01:18:01.351 --> 01:18:14.865
You're very, very much together because I'm gonna tell you, man, like there's several people that I unnamed, folks that I see on social media, and they're like I'm a mental health advocate, and then one minute they're talking about all these great things.

01:18:14.865 --> 01:18:17.171
The next minute they're talking about I these great things, the next minute they're talking about.

01:18:17.171 --> 01:18:23.693
I had an incident last weekend where I went crazy and I'm like, dude, don't help anyone else until you have it figured out up here.

01:18:23.693 --> 01:18:30.913
But you, on the other hand, you're in flight and you have it figured out.

01:18:31.956 --> 01:18:34.019
And that's the amazing thing about you, man.

01:18:34.019 --> 01:18:38.935
No, I really lucked out interviewing you because I didn't know that about you.

01:18:38.935 --> 01:18:46.572
To be honest, man, you know, I knew that you wrote a book, I knew that you're still in the military, I knew that you serve several different places, and that was about it.

01:18:46.572 --> 01:18:54.715
But to find this out is like finding like a rare gold coin, a rare gold beast.

01:18:54.715 --> 01:19:08.751
Because, um then and I'm fascinated though, man, you know, to talk about your book like what, if you had to, if you had to summarize what your book's about and who, who is your book for?

01:19:08.970 --> 01:19:14.630
So what would you say I wrote the book Um, and it's just, it's just poetry, it's a simple one.

01:19:14.630 --> 01:19:17.136
My next one's got like 100 poems that I'm working on.

01:19:17.136 --> 01:19:35.355
Right now it's not even out, but this one was just like 20 poems and it was that low period in between me trying to get treatment, to actually receiving treatment, you know, and that low period was like the darkest for me because I had that incident.

01:19:35.355 --> 01:19:36.618
I was scared, I was terrified.

01:19:36.618 --> 01:19:45.510
So what I did was I wrote down all of those thoughts from the dark and I'll call it the dark, that dark place I was talking about with you.

01:19:45.510 --> 01:19:47.435
You know where all of those thoughts.

01:19:47.435 --> 01:19:52.472
I started putting imagery, like through words, to these things.

01:19:53.375 --> 01:20:13.931
I wrote poetry about being on QRF and like the alarm going off and then someone passing away and like vividly describing, you know, putting them on the bird, packing up their stuff, and then also pointing out the fact that right after that happened, you have to go right back to sleep and act like nothing happened and go right back to it.

01:20:13.931 --> 01:20:22.832
And so I wrote all these things down and I realized that, like I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I don't have all of it together.

01:20:22.832 --> 01:20:24.516
I'll be honest.

01:20:24.516 --> 01:20:29.715
I got on the radio with a dude in December and he's like how are you doing mentally?

01:20:29.715 --> 01:20:39.927
I was like, honestly, anybody who's been through it and came out on the other side and it says they're still not struggling, they're lying, they're absolutely lying because it's never really gone.

01:20:39.927 --> 01:20:44.110
You just learn the best ways to battle your stuff.

01:20:44.671 --> 01:20:46.612
But what I wanted to do?

01:20:46.612 --> 01:20:51.914
Yeah, exactly, it's just like pain management.

01:20:51.914 --> 01:21:04.122
I wanted to create something that could create images and put words to things that normal people couldn't put words to.

01:21:04.122 --> 01:21:12.051
That's the biggest problem I've noticed with vets or active Any of us that really have issues.

01:21:12.051 --> 01:21:31.337
We struggle getting people who don't get us right, like who haven't been there and seen the same thing, to understand, and I realized that that was a key factor, and so I've lost 31 friends that I've served with in the military due to suicide.

01:21:31.337 --> 01:21:35.364
That is an ungodly number and I hate, it.

01:21:35.385 --> 01:21:37.447
You know I kind of I'll be honest, I was almost another one.

01:21:37.447 --> 01:21:38.546
That is an ungodly number and I hate it.

01:21:38.546 --> 01:21:44.591
You know I kind of I'll be honest, I was almost another one and I realized and I sat there I'm like what was the biggest thing?

01:21:44.591 --> 01:21:48.113
And I always pitch this empathy.

01:21:48.113 --> 01:21:54.457
That's what was missing, because we all get sympathy, everyone's got sympathy for veterans.

01:21:54.457 --> 01:22:10.226
Oh, I'm sorry that you're struggling, I'm sorry you're going through that, but none of us get empathy from the people who actually matter, like the actual confirmation of understanding and feeling what you're going through and what I mean by people who actually matter.

01:22:10.226 --> 01:22:11.047
Right, because everyone matters.

01:22:11.047 --> 01:22:15.176
But it's a different thing when, like, say, your brother, like your real brother, or your spouse can sit there and go.

01:22:15.176 --> 01:22:16.918
I get it Right.

01:22:16.918 --> 01:22:21.765
And once you have that, you remove so much from the equation.

01:22:21.765 --> 01:22:27.938
Like you remove the unnecessary fights that happen between you and your spouse because they're not understanding what you're going through.

01:22:27.938 --> 01:22:42.256
You remove, you know not, you know, possibly losing touch with, like, your siblings or your parents or family members because they just think you know you're an asshole when you're not, it's just you don't know how to communicate.

01:22:42.296 --> 01:22:52.731
So what I wanted to do was I put all of my stuff down on paper and I decided I'm going to self-publish this book, because I tried publishing it and nobody, nobody, wanted it.

01:22:52.731 --> 01:22:56.261
Hey, poetry is hard and you're doing military poetry, which is even harder.

01:22:56.261 --> 01:22:59.599
And and you're doing military poetry, which is even harder, and then you're doing military poetry about behavior, health.

01:22:59.599 --> 01:23:00.784
No one's going to want to buy that.

01:23:00.784 --> 01:23:03.332
I got told that by, like all the publishers.

01:23:03.332 --> 01:23:06.086
I couldn't even get an agent to do it, so I was like screw it.

01:23:06.086 --> 01:23:09.233
I'm putting this out, not because I think I'm gonna make money.

01:23:09.233 --> 01:23:19.609
It's because, simply, I think that this is a tool that we could, you know, know, use to help people, and the poems, like I said, were written so that way.

01:23:20.591 --> 01:23:50.474
If I was somebody that was struggling and I didn't know how to put those words you know together, to say to my significant other, a family member, maybe you know, a child, maybe you're, you know, a retiree and you're in your 40s, but something happened in your service that caused you to disconnect with, maybe, your son, your daughter, something right, I wanted to create something that you could take and hand to somebody and go hey, I just want you to read this one thing.

01:23:50.474 --> 01:23:52.252
It's only 20, like 20 lines.

01:23:52.252 --> 01:24:02.189
Just please read this real quick, 20 lines, just please read this real quick.

01:24:02.189 --> 01:24:05.324
And in that act I have given voice to somebody who is struggling to get those things, and maybe it's because they're not ready to share it yet.

01:24:05.324 --> 01:24:07.208
Maybe they just don't know how to share it.

01:24:07.208 --> 01:24:09.336
Maybe they think no one's going to understand them.

01:24:10.145 --> 01:24:14.728
Right, but music, right, everyone can agree.

01:24:14.728 --> 01:24:16.048
Music is a universal language.

01:24:16.048 --> 01:24:19.971
You can hear a song in a language you don't know and you can still feel the emotion.

01:24:19.971 --> 01:24:25.395
What I think people don't realize right is poetry is the same way.

01:24:25.395 --> 01:24:27.417
It's music, but with words.

01:24:27.417 --> 01:24:29.059
There's a song for everybody.

01:24:29.059 --> 01:24:37.966
You hear one song.

01:24:37.966 --> 01:24:40.149
I know there's a song that makes you tear up, no matter what Almost every GWAC guy.

01:24:40.170 --> 01:24:45.838
If I got on right now because I have a guitar and I started playing Hero of War by Rise Against, it would strike a nerve.

01:24:45.838 --> 01:24:55.238
Every GWAC guy knows Hero of War and that song bothers them.

01:24:55.238 --> 01:24:56.586
Poetry can do the same thing.

01:24:56.586 --> 01:24:57.966
So I did it and I created it.

01:24:57.966 --> 01:25:09.917
So that way it would give a voice to people that felt unheard or unseen and give them the ability to communicate when they couldn't find the words to do so themselves.

01:25:09.917 --> 01:25:22.610
Help spouses, sons, daughters, friends, civilians who just care, really understand what's actually going on in the head right.

01:25:22.610 --> 01:25:53.444
Put them in that service member's shoes just for a second, so that way they might be able to you know, understand just for a brief moment what this person went through and the poems that I made in this book specifically, even though it's 20 of them they're all over the place, from getting attacked on an ambush from QRF to getting hit by IDF, to just the mentality of a service member, why they keep doing what they're doing.

01:25:53.585 --> 01:26:01.301
But I noticed once I made the book I had my wife draw the drawings in it and that was kind of my test.

01:26:01.301 --> 01:26:07.310
So I gave her the poems and I'd been with my wife for what was it?

01:26:07.310 --> 01:26:12.298
Almost 10 years and we never had that.

01:26:12.298 --> 01:26:14.567
I tried to explain stuff to her.

01:26:14.567 --> 01:26:19.018
We never had that situation where there was that aha moment where she really got me.

01:26:19.018 --> 01:26:24.609
I gave her one poem, just said hey, can you read this?

01:26:24.609 --> 01:26:25.332
Let me know if it's good.

01:26:25.332 --> 01:26:31.557
My wife broke down crying for like 30 minutes and just looked at me.

01:26:31.557 --> 01:26:32.609
She goes is this it?

01:26:32.609 --> 01:26:34.893
Is this how you feel?

01:26:34.893 --> 01:26:37.171
Is this what you went through?

01:26:37.171 --> 01:26:45.390
You went through all of that and I was like yeah, and I started crying, like right now I'm starting to tear up, people can make fun of me all they want.

01:26:45.390 --> 01:26:57.899
Like that moment where I could take the person that you know I love the most in this world my spouse, you know over a decade and hear from her yeah, exactly.

01:26:58.440 --> 01:27:02.454
Finally finally, you know I didn't have to say anything.

01:27:03.216 --> 01:27:08.791
And she felt everything that I've been feeling for years, you know, and that that was it.

01:27:08.791 --> 01:27:26.252
So I wanted to give that to anybody that that just needed that Cause, if I realized, and the moment, that moment and that moment was kind of the turning point for me, like I was still in a dark place, but now I wasn't by myself.

01:27:26.252 --> 01:27:35.251
I had the one person in the world that I chose to, you know, be my partner, there with me and there weren't fights.

01:27:35.251 --> 01:27:36.609
And before that there were fights.

01:27:36.609 --> 01:27:38.469
You know we all have them because they don't get it.

01:27:38.469 --> 01:27:39.551
There were never.

01:27:39.551 --> 01:27:51.365
After that day there was never an argument over me when I had, when I was having a hard day like ever, ptsd never got brought up because, you know, sometimes spouses will do that when they don't get it, they'll throw it in your face like a weapon.

01:27:51.365 --> 01:27:52.226
That never got brought up, like none of it.

01:27:52.226 --> 01:27:52.828
And it was just different.

01:27:52.828 --> 01:27:54.328
That never got brought up Like none of it.

01:27:54.328 --> 01:27:55.490
And it was just different.

01:27:56.152 --> 01:28:10.365
And I realized I'm like you know, I'm here because some, somehow I just get, like I said, I'm a loud mouth, new Yorker, I just don't care.

01:28:10.365 --> 01:28:13.229
So I'm just going to splout out everything that's on my mind and you know if you don't like it, whatever.

01:28:13.229 --> 01:28:24.981
So I put it on paper and, um, I wanted to be able to do that because I know not everybody has the confidence, or maybe they're just not at a place right now where they're, where they feel comfortable sharing it.

01:28:24.981 --> 01:28:27.273
So don't share it, I'll share it.

01:28:27.273 --> 01:28:33.055
You use my words and I've given the books hundreds of them out, for free.

01:28:33.055 --> 01:28:35.193
They're in behavioral health clinics and all that.

01:28:35.193 --> 01:28:36.369
And I talked to the doctors.

01:28:36.369 --> 01:28:45.447
Now they can't tell me full details, but I asked I'm like, hey, leave these in the rooms when they all come in, let them read them and then let them take them into the sessions.

01:28:45.447 --> 01:28:58.345
And the doctor that treated me messaged me later on and she's like yeah, I had someone come in with your book, open it up, point to one poem, and we didn't have to do the surveys and all that stuff.

01:28:58.525 --> 01:29:02.355
I knew exactly what he was feeling because he said this is where I'm at right now.

01:29:02.355 --> 01:29:03.305
Can you just read this?

01:29:03.305 --> 01:29:04.689
And that's what I wanted.

01:29:04.689 --> 01:29:13.296
I wanted to give service members and veterans that tool so that way they could communicate with other people but also give the outside a way to look in.

01:29:13.296 --> 01:29:27.372
But also give the outside a way to look in and then at the same time, you know, kind of create also a sense of the what, like you said, understanding, right, you read it.

01:29:27.372 --> 01:29:38.131
Maybe you've never met me, but now you know somebody else knows exactly what you're going through, you know, and that it's also powerful.

01:29:38.131 --> 01:29:44.913
It's like, hey, okay, I'm not crazy, I'm not alone, this is not something that's unnormal.

01:29:44.913 --> 01:29:50.471
This guy right here is literally saying everything that I feel and that's what I wanted, yeah.

01:29:52.024 --> 01:29:57.269
That's huge man JP man, how did I get you?

01:29:57.309 --> 01:29:57.850
as a guest.

01:29:57.850 --> 01:30:00.993
I mean, this is crazy.

01:30:02.426 --> 01:30:06.213
Listen, I normally don't let people run the rail like you have, dude.

01:30:06.234 --> 01:30:13.135
No, honestly, you have not been going down rabbit holes at all.

01:30:13.135 --> 01:30:25.270
You have been very clear and concise about your story and where you've gone, where you've been, where you've gone and where you're going to, and, and it's like I'm, I'm amazed on this end of the mic.

01:30:25.270 --> 01:30:30.728
I can't believe that you are still in service and you have come this far.

01:30:30.728 --> 01:30:51.997
Man, you are incredibly aware, um, and I, I've identified with so much that you've talked about man, like I didn't stop you cause you were, you were on a on a roll, um, but just, I know that there's people going to be listening to this and going, holy shit, like this guy, he knows, like he knows.

01:30:52.225 --> 01:30:57.735
And now, now I've got to check out the book, um, and alex, I definitely want to.

01:30:57.735 --> 01:31:08.284
Yeah, you know we're going on for about an hour and a half, which is way more than what I normally go, but I, I, I would like to, I would like to have you back on the show again, because I do have other questions for you.

01:31:08.284 --> 01:31:21.729
Absolutely, I definitely have to unpack a lot of what's going on in your head because you, you kind of have it figured out, appreciate that more than most.

01:31:22.029 --> 01:31:30.475
I at least I try to make it look like I do, you know, yeah well, I'm not saying you have it figured out.

01:31:30.876 --> 01:31:45.207
I'm just saying you haven't figured out more than most you know, because none of us are perfect, but you just your your mindset, your perspectives, um, your awareness, like that's stuff that more veterans need to tackle.

01:31:45.207 --> 01:31:57.368
If more veterans were to have your mindset with where you're at right now, we would have less suicides and that's that's huge man, that that's impactful and that's why I've I've just been sitting here listening.

01:31:57.389 --> 01:32:11.646
I appreciate you letting me because it's it's you know, it's one thing for me to tell people and to get out there and I've done events for you know, suicide uh found like prevention foundations and stuff, but it's hard to really get people to listen to this kind of stuff, you know.

01:32:12.368 --> 01:32:22.657
And and then there's so there's so many people doing it too, so, like you don't, well, I can't, you know you know, dude, there's so many people that are doing it that shouldn't be doing it, and I'm like you need to stop trying to help other people.

01:32:22.657 --> 01:32:26.752
You need to help yourself first, because you, your shit's not right up here.

01:32:26.752 --> 01:32:46.731
Um, so stop trying to help other people, because one minute you're talking about mental health and what you did to adapt and overcome, and then the next thing is next week you're posting something about how you are having issues and you had issues and you're gonna get rid of your social media account because you can't stay in the world.

01:32:46.731 --> 01:32:52.314
All of a sudden and it's like you, there's people there that are in it that that definitely don't belong.

01:32:52.314 --> 01:32:58.877
Man, alex man, if, if, you would be so gracious to come back on the show with me again.

01:32:58.984 --> 01:33:00.875
Absolutely, but I promise I'll be quiet.

01:33:00.875 --> 01:33:01.920
I'll be quiet next time.

01:33:01.920 --> 01:33:03.171
I have other questions.

01:33:05.086 --> 01:33:32.770
No, I don't, Honestly, I don't want you to be quiet, because that everything you said made sense and I can tell you that, even as a veteran myself, there's times where, like I, have these feelings and I have these experiences, but I can't put them in the words and it's very blurry and it's very it's just hard to describe to someone who's never had a bad day before.

01:33:32.930 --> 01:33:56.011
I guess is what I'm trying to say, and I feel like sometimes, I feel like sometimes you have to like, take your shoes off and get on the floor and play blocks with, with some of these folks that have never been in the military, never been to war, never had a bad day, and it's hard to do that when, like, yeah, your baseline is here and theirs is here, and it's that's where the frustration comes in to play man.

01:33:56.091 --> 01:34:02.556
And I'm interested to take a look at your book and to see what type of poetry you wrote, brother, I'll send you one.

01:34:02.578 --> 01:34:04.625
Don't even worry about it, I'll sign one, mail it out to you.

01:34:04.625 --> 01:34:06.011
You have that by the end of the week.

01:34:06.011 --> 01:34:07.488
You can just have one.

01:34:08.894 --> 01:34:11.150
There we go, and I'll send you a shirt.

01:34:11.150 --> 01:34:11.572
How about that?

01:34:11.572 --> 01:34:12.134
There we go.

01:34:13.270 --> 01:34:50.527
I get it no-transcript, because we weren't.

01:34:50.527 --> 01:34:53.050
We don't know what route tampa was like.

01:34:53.291 --> 01:35:09.057
You know that kind of stuff, um yep we just we, we just assumed that you had it so much better and they had built like the, the ultimate subway shop, like, but you know what I mean, like the ultimate taco bell or whatever it was.

01:35:09.118 --> 01:35:16.761
I don't know what people are talking about, but yeah yeah, but um man, what an engaging conversation this has been.

01:35:16.761 --> 01:35:26.118
I mean, it's it's been like you talking the whole time, but I have been, I, I have been like wow, like I am floored.

01:35:26.118 --> 01:35:32.176
I'm normally not like this and I'm like, holy crap man, like this guy, I appreciate that really has to be together.

01:35:32.216 --> 01:35:33.567
Like man, I should probably stop.

01:35:33.567 --> 01:35:36.351
I don't know if I'm doing too much or no, no, no, no.

01:35:36.492 --> 01:35:37.113
I shit.

01:35:37.113 --> 01:35:43.208
If I thought, if I thought you were going down a rabbit hole, I would have stopped you, I would have stopped you.

01:35:43.208 --> 01:35:44.331
I've had that before.

01:35:44.331 --> 01:35:46.534
No dude, this has been awesome, man.

01:35:46.815 --> 01:35:58.118
Um, but I do want to I do want to chop it off, because it's only going on almost two hours now and I want to have you back on the show again, but I I want to before before we finish this up, because you did get a chance to talk about your book.

01:35:58.118 --> 01:36:06.876
For any listener out there that's heard your story for the last hour and a half or so and they're currently struggling in silence.

01:36:06.876 --> 01:36:09.100
What would you say to them right now?

01:36:09.386 --> 01:36:14.096
The first thing that people need to realize is it's completely okay to not be okay.

01:36:14.096 --> 01:36:18.604
That's something that we as a society need to start realizing.

01:36:18.604 --> 01:36:33.731
Like, nobody is a hundred percent all the time, you know, and if you keep yourself in that and as JP says, you know, I'll quote JP If you surround yourself with chaos and keep yourself in chaos, cause that's what keeps you distracted.

01:36:33.731 --> 01:36:37.345
What happens when the chaos is done and I love that he says that.

01:36:37.345 --> 01:36:48.015
It is so true, you know, if you don't address it, if you don't, you know, just takes that time to admit to yourself that you're not okay.

01:36:48.015 --> 01:36:53.476
Maybe you're not ready to seek out, but at least give yourself that, have that self-awareness and admit you're not okay.

01:36:53.476 --> 01:37:01.641
Eventually it will, you know, catch up to you and when it does because you decided to put it off and put it off, put it off.

01:37:01.641 --> 01:37:09.689
When it finally hits you, it's going to hit you almost a hundred times harder than it would have if you just, you know, would have just taken it.

01:37:09.689 --> 01:37:11.673
And it is a big step, you know.

01:37:11.673 --> 01:37:17.435
But at the same time, there are people out there, people out there that get it.

01:37:17.435 --> 01:37:23.234
There really are, and there are places you can go and you don't have to talk to a doctor, you don't have to.

01:37:23.234 --> 01:37:28.518
There are vet groups of just vets who get together and talk about this stuff.

01:37:28.518 --> 01:37:34.076
There are people like me, there's people like you out there that are just here.

01:37:34.076 --> 01:37:35.194
You could reach out to us on anything and we'll respond.

01:37:35.194 --> 01:37:35.882
I respond to people who are struggling on Instagram out there.

01:37:35.882 --> 01:37:36.145
You know, that are just here.

01:37:36.145 --> 01:37:36.711
You could reach out to us on anything and we'll respond.

01:37:36.711 --> 01:37:43.551
I respond to people who are struggling on, you know, instagram and I'll be like, hey, you know I'm not a doctor, right, they're like, yeah, but I don't want to talk to a doctor.

01:37:43.551 --> 01:37:46.265
I was like, okay, then you know.

01:37:46.386 --> 01:37:55.516
But just, I challenge anybody that is struggling, you know, to have that self-awareness to admit something is wrong.

01:37:55.516 --> 01:38:00.527
And then I challenge you to have the courage because you do.

01:38:00.527 --> 01:38:07.226
You have it because you were in the same place, I was, you had the boots on, you did it.

01:38:07.226 --> 01:38:08.529
I know that it's there.

01:38:08.529 --> 01:38:10.634
It's just a different kind.

01:38:10.634 --> 01:38:15.770
It takes a whole different kind of courage to you know, put yourself out there and be vulnerable.

01:38:15.770 --> 01:38:25.453
But I challenge you to do that, not just for your sake, but for the sake of everybody around you that you surround yourself with in your life that love you and like, need you here?

01:38:25.453 --> 01:38:35.572
Because if you don't, you you know I don't want to speculate, but you never know what's going to happen if you just let those, those demons fester.

01:38:35.572 --> 01:38:46.609
And you know, someday you just might not be ready to tackle them and you and you might just have that one day where you're just not strong enough anymore to put up with it.

01:38:46.609 --> 01:38:49.457
And you know, I don't want that, you don't want that.

01:38:49.457 --> 01:38:50.305
None of us want that.

01:38:50.726 --> 01:38:54.594
My biggest thing I always say is one one a day is way too many.

01:38:54.594 --> 01:39:00.646
You know, I don't want to hear, I don't want another phone call.

01:39:00.646 --> 01:39:02.310
I'm done, I can't do it anymore.

01:39:02.310 --> 01:39:02.671
You know.

01:39:02.671 --> 01:39:04.676
I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.

01:39:04.676 --> 01:39:06.389
Anyone who listens knows what I'm talking about.

01:39:06.389 --> 01:39:07.149
I'm tired of it.

01:39:07.149 --> 01:39:10.478
So just, it's okay, it really is.

01:39:10.478 --> 01:39:24.534
Seek anybody, a friend, a family member, just talk, let them know, and if they don't understand, make them understand and then from there just move forward.

01:39:24.534 --> 01:39:28.373
That's pretty much all I can really say.

01:39:28.373 --> 01:39:29.195
Yeah, man.

01:39:29.324 --> 01:39:31.453
I mean, how do I say this?

01:39:31.453 --> 01:39:33.293
It's scary.

01:39:33.293 --> 01:39:41.078
Suicide is scary Because you might think that you are resilient enough not to do something like that.

01:39:41.078 --> 01:39:44.734
But some of the most resilient people I've known have killed themselves.

01:39:45.115 --> 01:39:46.470
Yeah, no, that's it.

01:39:46.470 --> 01:39:57.614
I mean, I always use Chester Bedingfield or Robin Williams as an example, because everyone knows them, but they shocked the world.

01:39:57.614 --> 01:40:01.613
But then, if you look back, there were signs.

01:40:01.875 --> 01:40:24.493
There really were, yeah, and you know there's people who present the strongest fronts are usually the ones that are hurting the most Right earlier, um you, you said something along the lines of, like, going back to a place.

01:40:24.533 --> 01:40:35.729
Um of you didn't say it exactly, but you said going back to a place of like fear, anxiety, stress yeah, is not a cool thing to do, and it's the one thing that I've learned over the fucking years is the guys that are actually were in the shit that actually did stuff.

01:40:35.729 --> 01:40:39.037
Don Don't talk about it because it's not.

01:40:39.037 --> 01:40:40.219
It's not.

01:40:40.219 --> 01:40:46.594
And I noticed this difference between, like the people that didn't go to, that didn't go to war, versus people that went to war.

01:40:47.167 --> 01:41:05.752
And you've got this like this tactical mentality where it's like you, you you want to talk about like killing and you will talk about like firefights and all this other shit, but like to me, like I don't like to go back to that place, I don't like to talk about that stuff.

01:41:05.752 --> 01:41:12.216
That doesn't define me as a man, it doesn't define me as who I am, what I've done and things like that.

01:41:12.216 --> 01:41:15.796
But the guys that do, sometimes I'm like, did you really do anything?

01:41:15.796 --> 01:41:16.886
Things like that.

01:41:16.886 --> 01:41:26.188
But the guys that do, sometimes I'm like did you really do anything or are you because I know for me, like the guys that were actually like going door to door, kicking in doors, doing fucking scary shit, they don't, they don't go back to that place the other side of that very easy.

01:41:26.630 --> 01:41:29.440
That might just be someone who can't get it's.

01:41:29.600 --> 01:41:32.811
It's that's like the high school football player who's still living in high school.

01:41:32.811 --> 01:41:33.654
It's the same thing.

01:41:33.654 --> 01:41:34.858
So it could be the flip.

01:41:34.858 --> 01:41:37.083
It could be the guy that's all they know.

01:41:37.104 --> 01:41:37.385
Yeah, it's true.

01:41:37.725 --> 01:41:38.951
And especially if it's a vet.

01:41:38.951 --> 01:41:43.536
True, that might be the last time that they feel they're like they've had any kind of value, so they cling to it.

01:41:43.536 --> 01:41:59.929
Oh yeah, so like it's a weird, I get it too I say that I always tell like privates five seconds.

01:41:59.948 --> 01:42:02.057
I promise you didn't do anything, so I get it but uh, yeah, yeah, or you're right, I have seen the other side.

01:42:02.057 --> 01:42:04.046
You did this and like that's why I love jp, because his big thing is cool.

01:42:04.046 --> 01:42:04.988
You did it, now what?

01:42:04.988 --> 01:42:15.444
And then, and um, I, I keep, I should do an advertisement for him, right, like have a sign up, but uh, but, that, that's, that's exactly it, like that's, that's kind of that thing is.

01:42:15.444 --> 01:42:26.416
They have that mentality like I did this, I did this, like all right, cool, thank you, no, um I met him through another guy that I was helping, like uh, doing a different podcast.

01:42:26.837 --> 01:42:27.399
I met him.

01:42:27.399 --> 01:42:28.243
That's kind of.

01:42:28.243 --> 01:42:35.930
They found the books and then from there they just they talked to me about my book and then I've just been helping them build their stuff up, helping me.

01:42:35.930 --> 01:42:41.762
I'm a big guy when it comes to as I rise, I want others to rise with me.

01:42:41.762 --> 01:42:43.969
Whether they do the same for me, that's whatever.

01:42:43.969 --> 01:42:56.051
But if I find veteran podcasters, authors, I'll give them everything that I've experienced in the last two years and try to help them build their stuff, because that's what we're supposed to do.

01:42:56.051 --> 01:43:00.394
It doesn't stop that you, you, you're supposed to take care of each other that's it.

01:43:00.533 --> 01:43:18.134
Yeah, sometimes I think, um, in the civilian world, that can be almost a disabler for a lot of us veterans, because we're so, we're so interested in god and country and the greater good and like taking care of the community, whereas, like a lot of people that are rich, all they give a shit about is themselves.

01:43:18.134 --> 01:43:31.291
All they care about is like their own selfishness and like what can I do to like get myself to the next level, versus like what can I do to get my friends and my community and the people that I respect, how can I bring them with me?

01:43:31.291 --> 01:43:44.081
And so it's one thing that I've learned over the years like the difference between like veterans, service members, especially those that served during during war, versus like a business person that's never been in the military before.

01:43:44.081 --> 01:43:49.957
And that's the one thing that I see the differences as far as behavior and personality wise.

01:43:49.957 --> 01:43:55.051
It's been fascinating talking to you, man, and I definitely want to have you on the show Absolutely.

01:43:55.345 --> 01:43:57.654
I have a bunch of questions on here that I want to ask you.

01:43:57.654 --> 01:44:05.751
But, alex man, I'm going to go ahead and round this podcast out for now, but I'm going to have you back on the show again for sure.

01:44:05.751 --> 01:44:15.171
You know, your story is just is more than just one about survival, but it's about impact leadership, choosing your purpose.

01:44:15.171 --> 01:44:16.728
But it's about impact leadership, choosing your purpose.

01:44:16.728 --> 01:44:29.006
You know, thank you for continuing to support our military, even though you're currently in the uniform right now and helping.

01:44:29.006 --> 01:44:32.764
You're helping people that are ahead of you, that are out and have been veterans, and you're still in service right now, which is kind of weird, but I think is great.

01:44:32.764 --> 01:44:34.006
But I think is great.

01:44:34.006 --> 01:44:41.819
And for people listening out there, make sure you check out Alex's powerful book Unspoken Words the Thoughts.

01:44:41.819 --> 01:44:46.404
It's on Amazon and I'll make sure that I put the link for Amazon on here as well.

01:44:46.404 --> 01:44:48.284
Right now, I'm just on Facebook and Instagram.

01:44:48.284 --> 01:44:49.541
What social media platforms are you on?

01:44:49.643 --> 01:44:56.119
Alex Alexander R Stewart, author and speaker for Facebook, and then just Alexander R Stewart on Instagram but all my stuff.

01:44:56.119 --> 01:44:57.948
Stewart on Instagram, but all my stuff's on there.

01:44:57.948 --> 01:45:03.426
I even have some of my poems on there, some of the other shows I've done and stuff like that.

01:45:03.426 --> 01:45:08.847
So, and if anyone needs to talk to somebody who read my stuff or you just want to reach out, reach out.

01:45:08.847 --> 01:45:20.661
I'm so tied into different networks now that, like, I can get you to people that, like you know organizations that are full of just vets that want to help you, not doctors or anything Like.

01:45:20.661 --> 01:45:21.985
I'm not trying to force you into something.

01:45:21.985 --> 01:45:24.533
So if anyone needs something, just find me.

01:45:24.533 --> 01:45:26.277
I'm always going to answer.

01:45:26.505 --> 01:45:28.612
Man, you are serving your purpose.

01:45:28.612 --> 01:45:31.686
You were, you were meant to be a soldier, that's for damn sure.

01:45:31.686 --> 01:45:38.859
I mean, even in your short time, uh, serving in the military, you deployed three different times in a short amount of time.

01:45:38.859 --> 01:45:51.269
You're a drill instructor, so you literally have helped thousands and thousands of people, young adults, grow and become even stronger humans and man.

01:45:51.269 --> 01:45:53.094
It's only been 12 years for you.

01:45:53.094 --> 01:45:53.716
That's it.

01:45:53.716 --> 01:45:54.868
That's it 12 years.

01:45:54.868 --> 01:45:55.212
I appreciate it.

01:45:55.212 --> 01:45:55.837
People serve 20.

01:45:55.858 --> 01:45:56.100
12 years.

01:45:56.100 --> 01:45:56.645
I appreciate it.

01:45:56.645 --> 01:45:57.748
People serve 20, 30 years.

01:45:57.748 --> 01:45:58.632
Thank you for having me.

01:46:00.805 --> 01:46:02.252
You're a fascinating man, dude.

01:46:02.252 --> 01:46:04.390
No, you're a fascinating man.

01:46:04.390 --> 01:46:05.569
I'm going to have you back on the show again.

01:46:05.569 --> 01:46:07.573
I've got a bunch of other questions here I want to ask you.

01:46:07.573 --> 01:46:19.327
But thank you, alex, it's been a pleasure talking to you and we'll have you on.

01:46:19.327 --> 01:46:20.490
And for everyone else out there, make sure you follow Alex.

01:46:20.490 --> 01:46:21.975
I'll make sure that I post his book at the bottom at the show description.

01:46:21.975 --> 01:46:24.484
If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're listening to this, an audio podcast, just scroll down to the bottom.

01:46:24.484 --> 01:46:28.935
You'll see the links down there to follow Alex and then also purchase his book.

01:46:28.935 --> 01:46:36.701
And for everyone else out there, as always, I want you to stay tuned, stay focused and stay motivated.

01:46:36.701 --> 01:46:38.923
Warriors fall out.