Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! | Dark Humor Conversations On Mental Health, Trauma & Society

PTSD, Vietnam Veterans & Healing After War | Marc Wichman

• Nicholas Wichman - Mental Health Advocate • Season 1 • Episode 14

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In this episode, we dive deep into how PTSD, childhood trauma, and the chaos of coming home impact a veteran's life.

Join us for a candid conversation with Vietnam veteran and my Great Uncle, Marc Wichman, who shares his journey of combat, marriage, grief, and recovery without holding back. 

From surviving childhood abuse to choosing the military, and the intense memories of Vietnam, Marc sheds light on the challenges many veterans face when they return home. 

We explore the critical choice between therapy and prison, discussing how embracing recovery can change lives. Learn how to live with PTSD and foster connections in everyday life through routine, pet companionship, and meaningful relationships. 

Marc also reflects on the representation of war in movies, evaluating what resonates with his real-life experiences.

This episode is a powerful reminder of the strength it takes to seek help and the peace that can be built after the storm—no platitudes, just real talk.

 
If this moved you, thank a vet today and check in—then drop one support resource you trust on our Discord "The Struggle Bus." (link below)

Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! (AKA “BTMHOOI!”) is a candid mental health podcast rooted in lived experience: schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia spectrum psychosis, BPD, PTSD, trauma recovery, coping skills, and dark humor that helps make serious mental illness more understandable and human.

Hosted by Nicholas Wichman (“The DEFECTIVE Schizoaffective”) with frequent co-host Tony Medeiros (“IndyPocket”), we cover psych wards, psychiatric medication, disability, religious trauma, good therapy, bad therapy, and practical real-world coping — plus the societal and relationship issues that shape mental health every day. The goal isn’t just “fighting stigma.” It’s education, clarity, and honest conversation.

We interview everyone from everyday people to public figures, clinicians, and professionals, because mental health struggles don’t care who you are. If you’re willing to share your story or expertise, we aim to offer a safe, judgment-free space where you can speak openly — and still have some fun while doing it.

New episodes drop every other Monday at 6am EDT.

Want community and support? Join our Discord, “The Struggle Bus”: https://discord.gg/emFXKuWKNA

All links (TikTok, YouTube, Streaming, etc.): https://linktr.ee/BTMHOOI

Podcast cover art by Ryan Manning

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone. This is the podcast. You know it, you love it. Bottom Huey, featuring your wonderful, amazing, fantastic, favorite host, the Defective Schedule Effective, aka Nicholas Witchman. Today I have a very special guest. I wanted to get this gentleman on here for a very long time. He is one of my dear relatives and somebody I greatly admire and have always admired. My uncle Mark Witchman. Yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Round, round of applause. Yes. So, Mark, um truly have wanted to get you on here a long time. You you have an incredible history and learn so much in your wisdom and your experiences. And being that we are a mental health podcast, um, we definitely like to cover a lot of those um serious topics, uh, but also have a fun time while we do it. So um, yeah, I thought if you wanted to kind of give a brief introduction or however long you want to go as far as your history, because uh obviously you are a Vietnam veteran and um have had some PTSD from that and continue to have struggles with that. And um, you know, you've learned a lot from that. So I thought love for you to speak on that as detailed as you want. You can go into your war stories, you know, anything that pertains to it, and whatever detail you want to do, and we'll we'll take it from there. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, thank you, Nick. Thanks for inviting me to be on the podcast. Looking forward to doing it. Um uh I'm 79. I've been married to the same lady for 51 years. Uh I was in Vietnam in 1966 through 1968, wounded wounded in action uh during the 10th tenths of 1968. Uh came back to the States after being in the hospital in Japan with a reconstructive surgery on my legs where I got hit, and kind of tried to make a life from there after being out of the world for a while. Um, I was in the army for four years, achieved the rank of uh sergeant, platoon sergeant. But when I first went to Vietnam, I was 19 years old, spec four. Three months after arrival, I made buck sergeant and platoon squad leader.

SPEAKER_00:

Which is really fast.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it was in a time of the war when we were having a lot of losses.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And at that particular time, the gentleman above me, the buck sergeant in our squad, got hit, and our colonel always wanted to move to senior member of the squad. Uh that happened to be me at the time. Oh, okay. So I moved up. Uh I really wasn't eligible for the rank at that time. Oh, wow, okay. But they said, nope, you're going in. So um I took over a squad of 12 men. And uh that was an interesting experience at 19 years old. Yeah. Some of the guys were 45 years older than me. And we had some conversations over who was in charge once or twice. A few of them out behind the mess hall.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

To finally decide who actually was in charge.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Fortunately, I was a pretty big kid and uh well trained. So I usually uh managed to figure it out.

SPEAKER_00:

So did you have to establish that sort of in charge physically? Like physical for sense. Yes. Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, because you had to have the respect, they had to to um, they had to obey when you gave a command. You couldn't afford to have anybody that was thinking about the the order. You have to in combat units, you just have to do, you react, you don't think. Right, right. So you can't have any nonsense about it. And if you go to the the platoon sergeant above you with your problem, you're not in charge of the squad.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, fair enough. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Because you have to handle it yourself, or they you don't have a respect again.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And like Rodney Dangerfield, you know, you gotta have a split. So that's yeah, interesting. Um, we worked along the Cambodian border a lot. Half the time, I think I was in Cambodia. We never really knew because there's no signpost that said you were not wearing you in Cambodian. Yeah, one bit of jungle looks pretty much like the next in the jungle. Right. So we just uh ran search and destroy missions, and half the time, like I say, I think we were in Cambodia. Um it was an interesting time to be there, and at that particular time, it was the peak of the U.S. involvement manpower-wise. We had 500,000 in there.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

At that time, yeah. We all split up into mostly my area, it was a company-sized unit.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And we would do operations and combined with the South Vietnamese Army, which are the Arban. Okay. One time we worked with the um South Korean Army. Wow, okay. And they some crazy sons of bitches. I mean, crazy.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Those people are nuts.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But they were unbelievably good soldiers. Oh my god, yes. The V the VC was more afraid of them than anyone else.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

But one thing I will tell you, if they were on your flank, you didn't worry about that flank being turned.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

They would die to the man before they let that flank be turned. Wow. So they were outstanding soldiers, but they had some rather peculiar habits. They would take ears. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00:

String?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

And they'd string them on twine and hang them from their belts.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

And you could tell the guys that were really good killers. Good killers out there because they'd have old 10, 12 ears on.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Nazi stuff. And I assume you never saw American troops do that.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Uh one of the companies of our battalion used to nail playing cards to dead VC's head.

SPEAKER_00:

Really?

SPEAKER_03:

They take a eight penny nail and just nail it right under the forehead.

SPEAKER_00:

So they don't do it. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

They wanted the VC to know who would kill her.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow, that's and one thing that a lot of people probably wouldn't like to hear, but often, particularly in the jungle, we didn't bury people. Yeah. We tried to get our own out, but if you walked away from a firefight for five minutes, you'd never find the body again.

SPEAKER_00:

Really?

SPEAKER_03:

So a lot of the people people think are still missing, they have to they died in the bush and we couldn't find the bats.

SPEAKER_00:

So you're talking American soldiers who died. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Americans, South Vietnamese, Australia.

SPEAKER_00:

Anybody.

SPEAKER_03:

Anybody.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

We worked with some Aussies, they were crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's interesting. Um, I interviewed, we interviewed a gentleman named Chris Bryan, who's an Australian, just very passionate about his country and talks about how tough the Aussies. They were. They were good soldiers. For small country, they're yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I used to love them on the radio though, because our um our call sign was sheepdog.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And they come up and say, Sheepy dog, sheepy dog, this is we say, Oh, it's the Aussies.

SPEAKER_02:

That's funny. Oh, that is funny. I like that.

SPEAKER_03:

Sheepy Dog. But they were good troops. They were good people. Um, it was a very active period. I think uh the longest I was out for any one operation. We went out on a four-day patrol and stayed out three weeks. Oh, wow. We had supplies for four days, and half the time you couldn't get resupplied because we didn't even know where we were.

SPEAKER_00:

So, how'd you make that work?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, we lived off the landlot. Um, I'd eaten snake. I had eaten a um water black follow once and twice. Yeah, well, no livestock is safe. That was barbecue time.

SPEAKER_00:

So you almost had to learn how to hunt animals at the same time just for survival. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03:

It was um one of those types of deals. You learn quick. Uh the thing we we figured out the first four to eight weeks that you arrived in the newbie, and nobody wants to be your buddy.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Because you're the newbie. And um if you're gonna get killed, that's gonna be fine. That's usually the time frame that they the most of them get.

SPEAKER_00:

What kind of weed them out or something?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it's the the newbies are they can't see the traps. They don't like um cover has to be at least five, six inches before they see it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Um they step on things that you can after a few weeks or months, you see. Wow. But you didn't see it when like plunging traps.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And the new k new kids, you they'd be walking and they take the you start to take the step when you yank them off because there's a little piece of foliage that doesn't look like the rest of them.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

That's how you start recognizing.

SPEAKER_00:

So technically you would have been a newbie at once.

SPEAKER_03:

That was it. That's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

So, how did did you have somebody looking over your shoulders?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh he never let me go first when I was a newbie.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

He always kept me in the middle of being the squad. Okay. And being the machine gunner.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh they didn't want anything to happen to me anyway. Wow. So, and I carried the radio.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

So that was the other thing.

SPEAKER_00:

So you had you had to stick around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

They didn't want me being lost. So they they took good care of me, but they taught me. And they taught you the hard way. Uh it wasn't a gentle nudge, it was a kick in the ass.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, if you were about to do something stupid, that's exactly what would happen. You get kicked in the ass or shoved out of the way. Right. And you learn.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And a lot of the a lot of the guys would be sensitive about that.

SPEAKER_00:

There's only no place for that if you're going to survive. I mean, it's life to death.

SPEAKER_03:

And the one thing that I'd like to impress about combat soldiers is you have to trust each other. Because you can't do your job and the guy beside you's job too. Right. You have to trust that that man beside you is going to do his job.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you ever question that?

SPEAKER_03:

Not very often. Um, we had we had some kids that didn't work with us long, but you learn real quick. But if they were after four to six weeks, if they weren't learning, uh our captain would ship them out.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, he'd say, You guys aren't meant to be out in your anything. He'd ship them to the repo and uh we'd get a replacement.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Because if they didn't learn by then, right, they weren't going to.

SPEAKER_00:

So here's the thing, you know, Vietnam was a draft, right?

SPEAKER_03:

A lot of the guys were drafted. And you were not. I was volunteering.

SPEAKER_00:

You were 17?

SPEAKER_03:

17 when I went to the army.

SPEAKER_00:

Because you had to have your dad sign.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep, because my mom wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And what'd your dad say? Because I mean I've heard all these stories.

SPEAKER_03:

My dad. When mom wouldn't sign for it, we went through it over and over. And I said, okay, I'll wait till I'm 18, which is in five months. Right. I'll go anyway, and you can't do anything about it. Dad said, give me the goddamn thing, I'll sign it. And he signed it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

And mom didn't speak to him for like six months.

SPEAKER_00:

Probably a blessing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, more than likely, because my mother was, oh my god, Queen of Meat.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

She was like Corella the Bell.

SPEAKER_00:

I've heard the stories. Uh, you know, I I knew her obviously for she passed after grandpa.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, she passed in 2005.

SPEAKER_00:

And he was 2001.

SPEAKER_03:

My dad died in 1979.

SPEAKER_00:

I know he died young.

SPEAKER_03:

And uh I think she drove him to a grave because she drove him to drink.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Which was bad because my dad was a very nice man when he was sober. And when he was drunk, he was impossible.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Mean drunk.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you never knew what was gonna happen. Something he laughed at when he was sober, he blocked hand you right off the chair for him when he was drunk.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So it was a very uncertain childhood. He never knew what was coming. But um, other than that, when I went into the army, I had never fired a gun in my life.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And that turned out to be a blessing, believe it or not.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Because I didn't have to unlearn any bad habits.

SPEAKER_00:

Interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

I went to basic training and learned the army way, which was the right way. And I was a much better marksman because I didn't have to unlearn anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Just learning what I was doing. That worked out very nicely for me.

SPEAKER_00:

So you did you have any um fellow soldiers who came in who shot guns many times that were like doing it completely wrong? Absolutely. Wow. See, I wouldn't have thought about that. Yeah, I would not have thought about that.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I hunt all the time, and then and when you get to the range, I was out shooting. I'm like, I shot expert on the range. That's 225 out of 250 if to be expert in the shooting the 190s.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

And they had someone would leave their thumb up and ram it right into their eye. Right. That was before the M16s when I first went in. We were learning on M14s, okay, which has a kick like a mule.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And if you put the M14 on automatic, the instruction was you step on the swing to hold it down.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, really? It's a test.

SPEAKER_03:

First time I did it, I stepped on the swing, I went to automatic, and next thing I'm on my ass, and it's pointing to the air. It's like any aircraft, yeah. All of the same kick. Well, that wasn't ready for a kick. Wow. Now I'm sitting on my butt.

SPEAKER_00:

So you got people shooting skeet that like do shotgun. Oh, is it worse than that?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

More kick that that's a criminal.

SPEAKER_03:

Now when we switched over to the M16, now I had almost no kick at all.

SPEAKER_00:

Really? Same power power?

SPEAKER_03:

No, no. The M M14 was a 306, a 303. Okay. And the uh the M16 was a 0.25. Okay. So you're looking at the difference between 30 06 uh 22 in terms of record.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And but the weapon was much heavier. Okay. Uh your 20-round magazine or an uh M14 probably weighed six pounds.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's a lot when you're carrying everything else. Like how much pound, how much weight were you carrying when you were out on patrol?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, the PRIC 25, the radio I carried was 24 pounds. Wow. The machine gun weighed 26. Each belt weighed 14.

SPEAKER_00:

How many loaders are you correct?

unknown:

Two.

SPEAKER_03:

And then my loaders carried three cases of canisters. And then my ASPAC, which was a weird device that they gave me to carry everything else that you had, it hung down all of your behind.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And you put the radio on top of it, it weighed 32 pounds.

SPEAKER_00:

So how much did you weigh going in the army?

SPEAKER_03:

I weighed 165 pounds.

SPEAKER_00:

So you were carrying about that.

SPEAKER_03:

Now, when I came out of basic training, I went in 165 pounds, I came out 195.

SPEAKER_00:

And how long were you in basic training? It's 12 weeks. You put on what was that, 30 pounds? A muscle.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Total muscle.

SPEAKER_03:

And then I went to a dance infantry training for nine weeks and put on another 10. Wow. So I waited about 205 coming out of that. And coming out of the dance infantry training, I was waiting for my dream sheet kind of throw the dart at the board. Right. I'd like to do Jordan. Right, right. And um they come in and and the drill sergeant says, There is one man in this outfit. He has volunteered to go to airborne infantry. I'm looking around saying, Who is this fool? You say, What's your man? I want to show you your hand.

SPEAKER_00:

And you didn't?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm going, that's an all-volunteer outfit. I didn't volunteer. And he showed me a piece of paper when I'd signed it.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you actually sign it? Yeah. Or did they you signed so much stuff? Oh, I didn't know if they forked your signature because you were such a damn discipline.

SPEAKER_03:

So much stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're probably delirious from all the damn things. You're always tired. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

You don't even read it all.

SPEAKER_00:

Get it the hell out of my face.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and you just want to go bed or chow or whatever. And so off I went, jump school. Wow. Which was an experience in itself. Right. I didn't like that tower. That thing was 50 feet up in the air, and they just they dragged you up to the top and let you go.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you you always said that you were very nervous about jumping because you had to be pushed each time. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, story. Story on that one was my first jump, my first training jump. I was in the middle.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03:

And I got to the door and fruits.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And it took them, I'd say 45 seconds of powerful hand-to-hand combat to beat me off that door. And a static line jump, so it wasn't I had to pull anything and it opened a course. Right. Thank Christ. And when the next jump, I told the jump master, I said, I can't step out. He said, Don't worry about it. He said, The only thing is you're going out first because I spread that one first jump over about six miles.

SPEAKER_00:

It's that damn fast. And that means you would have I guess jeopardized your position. Absolutely. Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

So I thought he said, stand up. Check your equipment. Richmond, in the door. Boot. Out I went. Wow. And I did that every time.

SPEAKER_00:

Every time. That is intense.

SPEAKER_03:

Could not step out. It was fine afterwards.

SPEAKER_00:

So just that jump. Why do you think you couldn't step out?

SPEAKER_03:

It's just something that I keep looking at that ground and going, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00:

You ever fear heights now?

SPEAKER_03:

No. I don't like getting on the edge of buildings, but I'm not afraid of being out there.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Of course, you used to like really roller coasters for many years. I know. Because of your health, your heart conditions.

SPEAKER_03:

My heart condition's not. Right, right. But um and non, uh the jumps were lower. Right. 20. We jumped actually, we had some jumps from 1500.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

That's just enough time for it to open.

SPEAKER_00:

You had to get down the ground quick.

SPEAKER_03:

If you go into a hot LZ and you can see the winking lights along the tree line as you're coming down here. Which are your spellets going by. And you wanna you don't want to be hanging up there in the air for that shit. Right. Get on the ground and get covered. I went into a rice patty once and went up to my waist. And mud and they had to yank me out. Oh wow. I weighed so much. But um I didn't like it.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't blame you. I don't like you.

SPEAKER_03:

Then once you're on the ground, you you spread out and you uh establish your formation.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And most of our jumps were a company size. Okay. So that's 200 to 229. Okay. And you could usually do that either on one C 130 or two 123s. Okay. Which uh they were just a little short, smaller. Right. Right. And we did some out of Chinooks. I mean you have to go out four to five. But when you run on Chinooks, most of the time they land and you come out the back.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, okay. I got you. Okay.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. Helicopter assaults just coming out on the Heroes was scary because you'd be taking fire on the Heroes coming in.

SPEAKER_00:

That's just a completely different world.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh yeah. Yeah. You just believe in your own invincibility.

SPEAKER_00:

You have to.

SPEAKER_03:

And like before the operation, it was almost like the Game of Thrones. You know, what do you say to the God of Death? Not today. Yeah, today.

SPEAKER_00:

So when you're when you're on the battlefield and you're going, oh, it's whizzing by your infantry is going down. I assume you're in machine mode. You're in animal. What's your mode?

SPEAKER_03:

Your mode is automatic. You're in an automatic mode. You have been trained. And I will say the training is good enough to where you don't think, you only react. Okay. And the orders you're given, you immediately follow. Right. It's not like you think about them. It's if they say go left, you go left.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. You know, and there really is no hesitation. You are trained where that it's a boom.

SPEAKER_03:

It's it's automatic. And after the first few times in combat, it becomes even more automatic.

SPEAKER_00:

Almost instinctive, right? Yeah. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03:

And the guys that you're most listening to are your senior NCOs because they hold everything together. You only have one officer in a platoon.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Platoon officer is the only officer you have. Then you've got a platoon sergeant.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Then you have four squad leaders.

SPEAKER_00:

And you were what?

SPEAKER_03:

I was a squad. Okay. At that time. And most of your orders are given through the platoon sergeant. Okay. He's the closest to you. Okay. Now I've had to stay fairly close from the officer because I had reading.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Because they had called things in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But it was um you learn quick, or you don't learn it all in unit dead or hurt.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

The other thing I want to comment on was the so-called racial problems that you had in the home. Um, in your top units like ours, because we were all volunteers, you know, there was no draft design. You never worried about the color of the gun next to you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And if you're in some hole and people are shooting at you and the hand comes in to haul you out of that hole, you don't look to see what color it is. You take it and you go.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So it was really kind of non-existent.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, of course, in the in the US at that time, there was a ton of racial tension. Absolutely. So the war would have just kind of bite people.

SPEAKER_03:

Your draft D units there was a trend, a ton of racial tension.

SPEAKER_00:

So when you were when you were training, there wasn't a lot of that. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And the in your training platoons and all of that, there was a lot of tension. But you get into your your top units, your elite units, there's almost none of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Do you just do they essentially beat that out of you, or it's just like, no, you're if you're gonna survive, it's this.

SPEAKER_03:

And you remember what I told you, you have to trust each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So that comes before everything.

SPEAKER_03:

That's it. And in order to trust somebody, you can't care what color guy.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. He's doing his job. He's a human. He's fellow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

He's my guy. He's my buddy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And technically, you would have you would have grown up in a time of obviously a lot of racial tension in the country.

SPEAKER_03:

I grew up totally segregated. Right. Completely segregated in in uh Florida at the time when I was growing up. I went to an all-white high school. Right. I played ball against all white people. Right. I knew no black people until I went in the army.

SPEAKER_00:

Was that a shock to you?

SPEAKER_03:

It was. And I asked a lot of stupid questions to the guys in the unit. Like I asked one guy, I said, Can you guys get sunburned? And he was then shining the awn.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

They said, Oh, wait, let me get sunburned. Have you ever seen one of us who looks gray? They got a sunburn. Yeah. Oh, and I believe the hell out of it.

SPEAKER_00:

So they they kind of had fun with you with it. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You think it was big, you think it was more of a fun approach because you were genuinely curious?

SPEAKER_03:

I think so.

SPEAKER_00:

That wasn't like a a uh derogatory or condescending.

SPEAKER_03:

Because you get a sideboard and you turn red. So if you get sick, you get green. And when you're cold, you're blue. And you got the nerd called me color.

SPEAKER_00:

That's covered. Richard Bryar right there. I'm going oh that makes sense to me. Oh, that's good. I like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Okay. Well, okay. I didn't want to get into so great background. Like that was perfect. What I want to get into is sticking with the war side of things. Um, if you wouldn't mind getting into that moment of combat when you got shot and you were one of the only ones left, I would love it if you're comfortable going into detail about that to illustrate.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that was during 1068. And they hit our uh company fire base. We estimate they hit us with a regiment. About 1200 men.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, and you had we had 200.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And we held the base for three days. My primary station was the twin fifty machine guns over Mangate. That's what it was when the attack hit. And the weirdest thing when I got hit, the rounds came up because it was a tower, you had to have a hole in the floor.

SPEAKER_00:

So collapsed. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

The damn rounds came up, the holes in the floor are talking.

SPEAKER_00:

So what are the odds? Well are they astronomical?

SPEAKER_03:

And I got hit both legs, and I was so damn mad that I actually stood up. I didn't stay up, but I stood up and I went back down because I couldn't support my weight. And um I was up there for a day and a half because I couldn't get up to me. Wow. I lost my best friend trying to get up. He was a medic. And he was trying to get up to me and I hit him right in the temple when that was it. But um it was a you know, I managed to get propped up where I could still fire the weapon. And his 50s, thank God it was on a pole.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And it was 2050s, and you had browns coming in from both sides, right? But I could actually sit on a stack of sandbags and fire into it. But they brought in um after the third day, we started with 200, I think 210. At the end, we had 57 last night. When they came in, and the Air Force came in with I I think it was 10 to 12 flights. So there was no chance never got pounded the area around us while the choppers came in and evacuated. And I went from there straight to Saigon, and on the flight line is where they did the triage.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And they're laying out all the wound that are being laid out on the on the tarmac. And the doctors would come by and they'd look at your wound and they say, life threatening to the hospital, or this one can wait, or put this one on a on a um hospital plane for Japan.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's where I'm that's where you are, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

They picked me up and they brought me on. I was filthy and dirty and bloody, and they had this beautiful, clean, white, sheet-covered hospital bed on that on that plane. And the nurse was there, and she I said, I can't get it. I had the good stuff, so I don't deal with much. Right. She said, Yeah, she said, even the lights have to have a good day.

SPEAKER_00:

Give it even the lights out.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And they put me in the bed, and I said, okay, fine. They put some more good juice in me, and I went out.

SPEAKER_00:

So one thing I have to mention, just real quick, is to comment on the humor that is played into all of us. You know, you're you're a unit. You mentioned humor between you guys, not on the field. You know, that's kind of what I'm saying, but like the nerfs in you, the lights, you know. Humor is just such a healing thing. And tragedy, and of course, on the podcast, you all heard me preach that to the core, is that you know, all the censorship bullshit, and all the, you know, people. I'm not getting on that train right now, but that illustrates right there in the most dire, stressful, um, horrific times, humor still got people through.

SPEAKER_03:

It was the only thing sometimes that could get you to still through certain situations. Um I mean, like we're I can remember a couple of times I was looking really bad, and when I became the platoon sergeant, and guys says, What do we do, Sarge? I said, Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. You know, because we we all and then we manage to get out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But that's all you can do, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

What are you gonna do? You don't laugh, you'll cry. Well or die in that case. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

Some of the horrendous wounds that people get. And it's when you're trying to convince a wounded man that he's gonna make it. You know, what? And you know he wasn't gonna say, hey man, I've seen worse than this every day. You know, don't worry about it. You're gonna be okay. And he he's getting the morphine and all that kills the pain. I know, and you can see him start to glaze over, and then it's it's never as peaceful as people think it is. Dying is there's a breathing pattern that changes and a gasping. And we even today it's called the death rattle.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And your breathing becomes very erratic. Right. And uh you may take breaths after that. They're breaths that get longer further and further apart.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And then one at least at last one of them goes and they don't sing anymore. And that's it. So I said, watch it. It's tough.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And then you also have to switch gears again because you think for that guy, you gotta pay attention with living.

SPEAKER_00:

And let me ask you this. In those situations, were you more were there times you're prioritizing your own life over theirs? So you could get the mission done, or was it more about just whatever got the mission done? What was your what were the priorities in the heat about?

SPEAKER_03:

That is a real difficult question because it's you're not thinking.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I mean, it's automatic.

SPEAKER_03:

It's you're doing what you have to do to stay alive, but that is the mission.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

The mission is stay alive and take the objective.

SPEAKER_00:

And you can't complete the mission without your team.

SPEAKER_03:

And if you don't stay alive, you're not going to complete the mission. That's first prior.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And that was always what was drilled into us is you can't help us at all if you did.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Like Patton said, let the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03:

You don't want to die for your country. You can make him die.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

That's pretty much the philosophy. And there wasn't a whole lot of surrender.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

There was a program over there called Chuhoi.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And that would be a Diet Khan could throw his weapon down and go, Chuhoy. It's like, I give up and I'm gonna become one. President of the government. Most of the time we just show.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, that's one thing I know uh Saving Private Ryan showed that. And a lot of it sounded like a lot of people were either shocked by that or didn't like that. And it was almost misrepresent. I remember this. It was almost like, oh, that's misrepresented. I'm you've always said you're just you're so pissed at those goddamn people. Yeah. And you're in such heat, I imagine.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, there's also the problem that when you've been in combat for a while, you stop seeing them as human.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

They're nothing but the enemy. And you have no more compassion than stepping on a bug. It's you kill without emotion.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what they're trying to get to.

SPEAKER_03:

That's the whole point. And that's what makes you civilian dangerous. Right. And why so many veterans end up in trouble at home because they didn't have the time to decompress coming back.

SPEAKER_00:

An excellent segue.

SPEAKER_03:

And a trigger in civilian life will trigger their reaction, and somebody's dead before they even know what's happening.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's a brilliant segue, if that's okay to go to, when you unless there's something else you want to share about, because I know you've got stories go over. And they're all amazing stories. I think we could go on forever.

SPEAKER_03:

I think we could segue on to one of the biggest problems from Vietnam was when we got home. The only word I can use is abuse we received when we came home. Um I was still walking with Kane when I got to um San Francisco Airport. I'm waiting for my flight to take me across the country, and this hippie comes up. He says, Hey, Sarge, how many people you killed today? I said, You get within Kane distance, you're gonna be my first. And I meant it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So that's the kind of reaction you end up with. I had a problem in my I was out of the military after being discharged and went to college and had a registration one morning. I went to the registration table and asked this guy, the he was a student at the table. And I asked him a question, and he says, You're a big boy now, you can figure it out. And I took him off his chair and put him on the wall. So you got any doubt in your mind I can't need your life right now. And I said, I'm gonna ask you that question again. And if I don't get a civil answer, I'm gonna rip your head off and piss down your neck. And I got an answer. Yeah. So that's kind of the things that happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and if I can say it, I still see the anger in your face when you talk about it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It still pisses you the fuck off.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's almost 60 years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You don't let that shit go.

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think anybody can. Especially after you know, you hell and get pissed off of that. You know, you you sacrifice so much for your country and then you get back and you're treated like that. And you always get to be a nonbets.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Nobody was treated well. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_03:

You have to consider the the time that we're talking about, the the split in the country is very similar to what we're experiencing today in terms of ideologies. It was the the Calvert culture had just really gotten started in the 60s. And by the end of the 60s, in the 68, 69 era, it had reached its peak. Okay. And these people were so vehemently anti-war, anti-military, anti-everything government that they saw no middle ground. No middle ground, but they also didn't see they were directing their anger at the wrong people at the wrong people. They should have been directing it at politicians who sent us there and wouldn't let us win. Right. And you don't win a war by sending men up a hill to take a hill, and you lose people.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You sit up there for a week and a half and they bring you off the hill. Right. BC move right back on. Three weeks later, they send you right back up the same hill. You don't win a war then. And you hate losing men in the same real estate over and over and over. Right. And it makes you a little bigger.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because they wouldn't let us win. We could have won in 68 because we had decimated the BC and the North Vietnamese army. We had them, there was almost nothing between us and Hanoi.

SPEAKER_00:

Really?

SPEAKER_03:

We had absolutely decimated them. And they wouldn't let you win.

SPEAKER_00:

Why do you think that was? Is it what?

SPEAKER_03:

Because we weren't supposed to win.

SPEAKER_00:

I've always heard that about Vietnam.

SPEAKER_03:

The war was fought to say to the communists, we have the national will to fight a long, protracted, high-lost war, no-win situation.

SPEAKER_00:

What do you think it would have meant if we did win? What would have meant for our country? What would have meant for our stake in the world, our reputation?

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know. I wish I did because I don't think it would have lasted because the Vietnamese, well, getting one thing, they never quit.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And they wouldn't have quit this one. Right. We might have taken them out to a point where they couldn't have mounted a major uh counter-revolution for a while, but it did have come back. Right. Eventually it would have happened again. And I think we might have been smart enough not to get involved the second time. Okay. But remember, we weren't that far off from Korea, which was a same type of situation. Right. I know.

SPEAKER_00:

Korea was what, 20 years before?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh it was in the 50s. Okay. 51, 52, and the and the Vietnam conflict at its peak in 66 through 70. We were caught, we were really cutting back on our people by 70. And then it ended in the early 70s. Wow. After Nixon pulled the. But the idea that the generals had and the politicians were had, well, we'll just keep funneling war of attrition.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

And we've got more. Yeah. We'll win. And we've got more firepower. Well, that was true. And we could hold the cities. And we could keep pretty good sized areas of the country pacified. But you couldn't keep the mountains, you couldn't keep the jungles. Right. You couldn't stop the surrounding infiltration from all around the country.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

They just kept coming. They never gave up.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, what we'd have to destroy the country, right? That's all we could have done. And I would have gone. If you killed every last Vietnamese. That's what I was saying, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That the same thing would have to happen in Afghanistan during that war. You'd have to kill every Afghan in the country.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're right. And that's just not practical. Not practical.

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

Just can't do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Which is one of the fallacies of war in general. Now, at World War I and II, what you did is you destroyed their will to fight. Right, right. But you didn't destroy the entire population. But these people were tired of war. Right. And that's not the same. It's different today.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, let me ask you this. Because I think it's a good question. Is when you went to Vietnam, you you um elected to go on your own, even though there was a draft. So you, if I'm not mistaken, you wanted to get the hell out of your living situation, right? That's why you went? Yep. And we can get a little bit of that later. But did you go to fight for the cause? Or you just wanted to go fight? Why did what was it really other? Was it simply just to get the hell out of your living situation?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh that was what motivated me to go in the army, but the reason I went is because I made a pledge when I took the oath that I would go where they wanted me to go and do what they wanted me to do. And the only thing I have had of value at that time was my word. And it's the thing I cherish the most even today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're I've uh now yes. What was it Lincoln who said I've never told a lie? Is that who said that? No, it was George Washington. Oh, there you go. Okay. Well, there you never said that either. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. But I mean, I I've never known you to be a dishonest, uh, manipulative person. That's one thing I've always admired about you. And of course, that's a trait my father has as well. That his father did not have, but that's a different story.

SPEAKER_03:

My brother.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I was the only military person in my family.

SPEAKER_00:

You were. And I know you always uh if I remember grandpa said he wanted to do it, but you always mentioned that he would have died immediately because of he didn't know he would have he would have lost his oh, Jerry? Yeah. My my grandfather.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, he was he was too headstrong. You were and he'd have been an officer because he had a college degree.

SPEAKER_00:

And he would probably disobey.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm sure because he thought he knew better.

SPEAKER_00:

And that you don't do that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Like I said, you the whole orders and you die.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But um, that was the main reason I went, was because I said I would.

SPEAKER_00:

So when you got there, did they even inform you of what the quote unquote goal was?

SPEAKER_03:

Or did you just go and you were kind of given these vague what happens when you when you came in country when you're brand new and they bring you in and you go to an orientation? And a lot of it was why we fight.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right, yep.

SPEAKER_03:

We're fighting to protect the South Vietnamese right to self-determination.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

We were fighting for our own reasons.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Did you fall for that? Did you fall for that narrative?

SPEAKER_03:

Um it's okay if you did.

SPEAKER_00:

At first. But then you got there.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like once you've been there long enough and what's happening, then you say we can't be to the South Vietnamese because we're throwing under the walls at the time.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Um sometimes the South Vietnamese army was your biggest threat. Because we had we had an officer come back from a he had been loaned on a officer exchange program. He went out with a South Vietnamese unit and he came back shot in the back.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

By the South by the people he had gone.

SPEAKER_00:

Because they weren't particularly well-trained soldiers.

SPEAKER_03:

And when he came back in, our colonel said, okay. Province chief, he he went and talked to the province chief who's a totally corrupt politician. Wasn't a military person in the world. Right, right. So we went out and set up an ambush, and in I'd say 12 minutes, we killed 100 harden. Wow. And then he went back to the province chief and says, if I ever have another officer killed while I was here, people, we're not gonna do it this way. I'm gonna come in here and I'm gonna hang you from the playboard. Oh wow. And he's done it too. I believe it. He was a World War II. So hard, hard, hard man. But he was a damn fun officer. Yeah. You might find this amusing. I'd been over in Vietnam for nine months and I got a draft notice. Oh, yeah. Dad sent me a draft notice from home saying, hey, you've been drafted.

SPEAKER_00:

As a joke, right? I mean, he he would have found that funny too, right?

SPEAKER_03:

It was fantastic. So why? I said, I've been drafted.

unknown:

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03:

So that would let happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Do they not record that you would mix-ups?

SPEAKER_03:

You know what happened.

SPEAKER_00:

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03:

Mix-ups happen.

SPEAKER_00:

That's interesting. I'll take care of that. That is what I like. Oh, that is funny.

SPEAKER_03:

I can go home.

SPEAKER_00:

No, sorry. Wouldn't you just go home and start again if you're drafting? I guess. That would suck.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I don't know, because I'd come back in a buck started.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, fair enough. Yeah, start. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, but it was just uh no, that's just funny. That is funny though. Well, let me ask you this, because I'd love to hear your take. I think I know the answer because we talked about it. But what movies are very accurate, because we're movie guys. What movies are very accurate about Vietnam and what are just completely off base? Or what yeah, go riff on that for a while because I know you could go on that.

SPEAKER_03:

Um the Green Brays was total fabrication.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the John Waitley. That's the John Waitley. Not surprised that's bullshit.

SPEAKER_03:

Nothing was right.

SPEAKER_00:

Just like the Conqueror.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, but essentially, not even the way they got there. Right. Was right. I mean, I mean, just totally bullshit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's Hollywood.

SPEAKER_03:

Parts of um Platoon was accurate. Okay. But it wasn't accurate for the elite units. That was accurate for your drafty main units that didn't really have the volunteers and training and the things. That was those were the kids that were drafted and brought in and thrown into the the cauldron. And a lot of that was accurate, a lot of the drug use. But like when I was platoon sergeant, because you were in an elite unit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So you would know.

SPEAKER_03:

My rule was you don't get wrecked the night before an operation. You might get wrecked other times, but you're not gonna do it. And if the guy showed up hung over or wrecked, wouldn't want him out, right? I would take him out.

SPEAKER_00:

Because he gets you killed himself.

SPEAKER_03:

And when I came back, he was gone. We shipped him out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And they all knew that. Right. You gotta be on your toes from that. But I'd say that parts of the platoon were very accurate in that sense. Apocalypse now is a fantasy. Yeah. It's fantasy. It was I saw very little of reality in that movie.

SPEAKER_00:

What about oh I mean, oh shit, I just had it. Oh, Deer Hunter.

SPEAKER_03:

Deer Hunter would be it. See, that was so personal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So it would have to be for an individual. And and I can only judge on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but your experience is brilliant.

SPEAKER_03:

And I didn't have that kind of experience, so it would be hard for me to see.

SPEAKER_00:

That's that's uh I appreciate you said that because boy, that's one of our big things on this podcast is that we we speak solely from experience, yeah, and we don't pretend to understand anybody else. We can only assume, or well, that's not the right word. Imagine. So uh I know you mentioned, and this is years ago, but you know, when John McCain was running for president. Yep. And did you you we don't get political about it, but did you agree with his policies? What you're worried about is the fact that he was in a he was captive.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

What and what that does to a person.

SPEAKER_03:

I could not vote for him because I didn't know how he would react after being a prisoner of war and being subjected to the things he had to have been subjected to. Right. And the yeah, and you just don't know. And that's why it's not about policy, there's uncertainty about how he could hold up to the stress of the situation of being president, which is high stress opposite.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, being triggered by certain things. And the the only reason I brought that up is because um to illustrate the I never heard that perspective from anybody else about McCain. Because actually, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of my family is pretty quick supportive of him, but you always had that approach. It's like, hey, maybe he's got maybe probably a great guy or whatever you want to look at it, but that aspect, you can't have that in power. Just and that's a very unique perspective that you can see. Too much in the subcommunity. Right. So that only speaks to the to the trauma and the and the long-lasting effects of war, which I was gonna segue, unless you had something you wanted to add.

SPEAKER_03:

The long-lasting effects of the thing was let's see if I can put in the words because it's not easy. Um to survive, you kind of split. You've got the non-combat human, right, and you have the combat. Right. And when you get out after war, you bury and you keep that suppressed. Now that's dangerous because that goes into your subconscious. Right. The subconscious is stupid and slow, yeah, it never gives up. Yeah, it is there nagging at you every day. Yeah. With that inside you, it you happen to get a trigger. And the trigger can be almost anything, it can be a sound, a sight, a smell.

SPEAKER_00:

Can't you agree? Well, I don't want to think you mentioned is that you the saving private ryan, the movie you can't watch.

SPEAKER_03:

That is one movie that I was gonna say the most accurate depiction of combat I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_00:

Other than the smell.

SPEAKER_03:

The only thing they couldn't give you is the smell. And I mean the smell of combat, you've got the smell of the ammunition powder being burned. You got the smell of wounds. Right. Each wound smells differently. If you're hitting the belly, you got the the intestinal smell.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You're hitting somewhere else, it's a different smell. Right. So those are the only things we couldn't give you. If they couldn't pipe that in somehow, it would have been exact combat experience.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, one thing you've always mentioned, and I always appreciate this perspective too, is that most war movies, most films when people are shot are completely inaccurate. Totally. Because you've always said you get helped in the shoulder, your arm's gone.

SPEAKER_03:

It's not uh depending on what you're hit with.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

But uh and you get hit by a uh M14 or M16 that's older line bripshow.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And how many movies, you know, these guys are still standing and all that shit.

SPEAKER_03:

And it you just don't go, oh right. Uh the other thing, like Rambo, you don't take an M60 and one arm, you keep firing. And he'd have melted the barrel down as many rounds as he put to right. Uh the M60 was a five to seven round burst. And that's how you and if you're really good, you could get out three. I never was able to get just three.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

But those kind of things were for that's for dramatic empaths.

SPEAKER_00:

Because you love movies and you love action films, especially the older ones. That's fuck the new ones, right? You're with you on that special effects, computer effects ruined everything. Did that bother you, or could you look past that and be like, okay, that that's fucking fun? Like, that's fun. Or did you have something in there that's like, you are really fucking that up?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it became laughable.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's fair. It wasn't like an offensive, it was just no, it was more like, oh come on.

SPEAKER_03:

You gotta be kidding me. Right, right. And there's all the heroics were laughable.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Now there are I'm not saying there are heroes.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh no, yeah, right. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

There's so many guys that were heroes, and there are some that are superheroes, and I don't mean I have no idea how they managed to do it myself.

SPEAKER_00:

You're not by yourself.

SPEAKER_03:

They did things that you can't even believe. Right. I've seen men that are so badly wounded, you wouldn't believe they'd be able to do anything and they still fight. Right. Right. It's incredible. And it's an inner thing per person. Right. It's nothing to do with anything. It's what's inside that individual. Right. And that's all you can, and you can't train the dam. You can train them how to do it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a spirit.

SPEAKER_03:

That's that's the spirit of, and and I'll say the Marines have the spirit, the gung-ho.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

They're probably in terms of what except for life here, you know, your special forces and your SEALs and all those kind of guys. They're unbelievably people.

SPEAKER_00:

Unit core god country, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my god. And but marines are they are based on that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

The spirit is everything.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Right, yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And uh that's one of the reasons they're one of the finest fighting units in the world. Although today's army is pretty good too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But the movie thing um gets to be kind of a joke.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's funny because the only reason I brought that up is because uh, you know, a lot of content creators out there where you get medical content creators or whatever, you know, they'll they'll watch these shows and critique them for the realism. And it's so fun to watch these guys who are professionals in the field about oh yeah, or they'll really praise something. It's like, holy shit, that's spot on. I was just curious.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, there was a movie that very few people saw that is incredibly accurate, and it was called Cross the Bayern.

SPEAKER_00:

Never heard of it myself.

SPEAKER_03:

And it was a movie about the German army on the Eastern Front, and it's a one particular unit. Okay, and it was them trying to retreat. Oh, okay. And this mass, just masses and masses of T-34s and and troops coming out, and it was probably one of the more accurate movies ever made. Really? James Colburn played a German sergeant.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, great, yeah. Yeah, what's it called again?

SPEAKER_03:

Say Cross of Iron.

SPEAKER_00:

Cross of Iron. Okay, I'll glue that shit out because I've never heard black.

SPEAKER_03:

And then there's a um there is a Russian movie that was made about Stalingrad and another one that was made about Ukraine that is incredibly accurate.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

It's hard, hard, hard watching. I can't even remember the names on the map, but the Stalingrad one was made from the Russian perspective. It's far surpassing anything I've ever seen in the world. Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And it shows the absolute desperation of that battle.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But and the the human cost.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I do know another film that uh another friend of mine years ago, um, Larry Gergen, I know you might listen to this, uh, mentioned Boys and Company C.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

To what he experienced because he was in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_03:

So that was a good movie.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So I've seen the one casualties of war?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, with uh Michael with Sean Penn and Michael J.

SPEAKER_03:

Ponds.

SPEAKER_00:

See, that's an incredibly powerful film. It's a powerful film, but just not accurate. It's not accurate. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

God, that that one gets a very powerful film, and it is a very good story.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's just the accurate story.

SPEAKER_03:

You just usually don't have that amount of latitude at that level.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. You know, saying that she was platoon, but the Sean Penn plays a sergeant who had his squad out there all by himself.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. You don't do that. Right, right. This didn't happen. Right. Now you might have a squad that's on a particular guard post for a night, but you're not wandering around all over the damn country.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Grabbing girls and hauling them off. And I'm not saying rape didn't happen. Oh, sure it did. Because it did. That was one of the things a platoon that was active.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That scene in the village was not unknown.

SPEAKER_00:

And uh Full Metal Jacket.

SPEAKER_03:

Full metal jacket was a very stylized is that what like a drill sergeant?

SPEAKER_00:

And because he actually was a drill sergeant that guy.

SPEAKER_03:

The I can't speak to the the training because I wasn't in the Marines.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

That was a Marine court. Would it be another level of intensity? Do you know? Could be. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

It could have been. Because I know they they carried a much higher level of intensity and fighting than we did. But um I think it was a fairly accurate portrayal of the unit's fight and wave. Right. That was a nasty, nasty fight.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Man, that was horrible stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, and I I know uh, you know, everybody talks about the the uh you know the first what 20 minutes that which is the you know the the training and uh private pile, you know, how he went.

SPEAKER_03:

Um well he went nuts, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I obviously he probably had a learning disability in different situations, but wasn't fit to be there. No, clearly not fit to be there. Um and I'm sure that probably happened.

SPEAKER_03:

It did. It happened a lot, and you'd sometimes get them, but remember the guys I was telling you six weeks you'd get him out.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You wouldn't have a you would never have a um bar scout right in a unit because after a few weeks you kill him. Your platoon officer would say, I can't.

SPEAKER_00:

I can't do anything with him.

SPEAKER_03:

He's got to go.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course, he could assemble a rifle faster, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

And he could probably follow orders, but the problem was is he put others in danger simply by not being able to comprehend.

SPEAKER_00:

Not being aware, yeah, yeah. And that's what Horden.

SPEAKER_03:

And you've had some, I'm sure in regular units, you've had some low quality people. But you just didn't see it where I was right. So you never had anybody who was We had some guys that were not as good as the others, but but never anybody who was so mentally unstable like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I was I was kind of curious about that. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

It was a higher level of acceptance, and a lot of it got weeded out in training.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Because you had so many more weeks of training there than you do for the regular unit. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, that made sense.

SPEAKER_03:

And if you ever went into the the special forces, the training there was just horrendous. One out of a hundred gets accepted.

SPEAKER_00:

Really? And you never had a desired pursuit, did you? Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

SPEAKER_00:

And technically, you didn't really want to be in the unit you were in. Got in there.

SPEAKER_03:

My dream shape included Germany.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So um, I mean, I know you talked about, you know, when you were in Japan, some of the nice experiences you had. Um, and you you don't have to go into detail about that if you don't want, but I know you you were treated well there, if I'm not mistaken. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

The Japanese were and still are some of the finest people in the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And when I was there, it was people would come up to you in the street to speak English. Wow. Yeah, because they seen America and they'd come up.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe we speak English with they wanted to just demonstrate it, right? As at respect, right?

SPEAKER_03:

And they took, I got taken pretty good care of by the Japanese police. Yeah. I got wiped out on side. I mean, dog kissing to moat them. Drunk. And essentially woke up in the middle of a 16-lane highway in the middle of Tokyo in the morning. And I'm wandering around in the media, and the uh Tokyo police came and two of the guys in SquadCart. And they came out and they didn't speak English and I didn't speak Japanese, but I do remember when they came out, and I'm standing there and I said, You can't see me, I'm a bush.

SPEAKER_00:

It's one of the few things I remember about. And they just gently through there.

SPEAKER_03:

And I had a card that said you were uh that was from my hotel.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

And I handed him the card, and he went, Oh no, it had Japanese on one side and English on the other. And he put me in the back of the car, and I thought, Well, I'm one of the Japanese Pokey.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, is that what you said? And they took me to the hotel.

SPEAKER_03:

That's pretty and turned me over to the night guy who took me upstairs and put me to bed.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's funny. That's actually pretty damn amazing. I mean, it was That is a respect. Yeah. We didn't even give you that fucking respect here.

SPEAKER_03:

We we were treated a lot better in other countries than we were.

SPEAKER_00:

I guess it was the respect for your spirit in your fight or what you were doing.

SPEAKER_03:

Maybe they knew you were it was part of that, but the other part was it was just the respect for another human being.

SPEAKER_00:

That too, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Their culture has a tremendous respect for privacy.

SPEAKER_00:

You're right. Right side of it. Which, of course, not to go on that tangent, but we've lost a lot of that. Oh, too much. Yeah. So yeah. Um, and uh yeah, so it's it's interesting that you had such a great experience there. Oh, yeah. And then you come home to that hellhole.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh so and Kenny, uh another perspective is when we went to New Zealand together, remember that? Remember how much respect we got from the New Zealanders? And that's just simply because we were Americans and what had happened in World War II. The New Zealanders were always very factory.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I mean, one thing that was fun is um I mean, you remember this too, because we went on that tour of Holliton, yeah, and that young lady, so great at what she did, you and I tipped her. And she was like, Oh, we don't normally get tips. And you remember what happened. She got a cascade of tips from everyone else. They saw us, everybody's like, Oh shit. Well, I guess we better. You know, I was like, she's over there. Oh, yeah, and she was just thrilled. She was a good picture with us.

SPEAKER_03:

And didn't she contact you after that? I got an email saying thank you. That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, come on, like lovely late.

SPEAKER_03:

Remember the the uh the uh airline steward? Yes, on flying overseas.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we were right behind the emergency room, right behind Play Tones, and you would we'd look up and there'd be two glasses of wine sticking up and the special earphones and the special earphones, and he was definitely a homosexual man that was coming on to you pretty hard.

SPEAKER_03:

But I remember telling him I've always wanted to go to your country because it's so beautiful and I'm really looking forward to it. And that's all you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, what's interesting is you know, I've not been abroad much, but I've definitely I said to talk to Chris Bryan, who's from Australia, and then a couple others and yourself who's been abroad. And the the pride and the love that that different um individuals have for their country is just a different vibe than here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You notice that? I mean, it seems like not to get on this train really, but you know, a lot of people here, it's more about the toughness and you know, we can destroy everyone. That's our pride. And you maybe there's something to that. I don't get that out of Chris Bryant or others. It's like, no, it's it's the culture, it's it's the accomplishments, it's the it's deeper than that. And I think there's kind of a beauty to that. I like that.

SPEAKER_03:

I can give you one one real quick story that'll demonstrate your point. Yeah, no. I was in Egypt and I wanted to go out to the pyramids, so I got camp with a Egyptian diagram. Okay. And he said to me, he says, uh, my country isn't much like the United States. It's so big and so powerful. I don't understand what you're saying because you have such a long culture. You you were a high culture when we were living in caves. Exactly. And you had a magnificent culture, you should be very proud of your country culture and background. Didn't say much. We got out that day at the clear mids and he says, I will wait for you.

SPEAKER_00:

And he wouldn't know what would do that.

SPEAKER_03:

And I said, No, no, I'll maybe he's I will wait for you, they will cheat you. Wow. And he was there.

SPEAKER_00:

And how long were you probably at the bear?

SPEAKER_03:

I was gone like three hours.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he was still there.

SPEAKER_03:

And the next morning he was at the hotel to pick me up. He took me to a place that the locals ate.

SPEAKER_00:

So good food.

SPEAKER_03:

So I could learn about that and explain to everybody to everybody there what it was going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Just that small acknowledgement of his country. Long-term respect goes a long way, as you know.

SPEAKER_03:

And I think we're missing a bet on that today.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, but that's not struggling for you. Because you mentioned, you know, as you know, like um, I love the story where you talk about your traveling and some assholes yelling at the flight, you know, trying to schedule a flight, and then you got first class tickets just because being free. I mean, that is kindness goes so far. It does. And I'm certainly guilty of being a bit aggressive or a bit irritable or um impatient when I shouldn't be. But I can tell you I do notice a big difference when you you're just kind and you're you know, you really just try to be like, hey, make an effort, make an effort, and sometimes it's not reciprocated. Then you can respond in kind, I guess. But um, it is interesting that I, you know, respect reads respect, hate breeds hate, love breeds love. So it is really that simple. Um, you know, that goes a long way. But um if it's okay, I definitely want to get to after the war, like more details about that. So um, you obviously mentioned with that incident with the the at the registration office with that guy. Obviously, there's a bigger story that that really leads into.

SPEAKER_03:

That was one that really turned out to be almost a salvation. Uh in college, it was a stupid game. One of my turni brothers snuck up behind me and hit me with a pad. And I blacked out. I don't remember his thing. They have to, they told me what happened. And they said I turned around and smiled and said, You're dead.

SPEAKER_00:

Smiled and said it.

SPEAKER_03:

And I was systematically ving him when the cops got there. And of course I got taken before a church. And the judge was very understanding. He says, Well, first of all, you were provoked. That was an assault. So you were provoked. So he said, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to take some psychiatric help. Or do you that's the choice? Yeah. I took psychiatric help, and it really turned a lot of my problems around. We went to, I went to about six months.

SPEAKER_00:

And dance therapy, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and this guy was very good with he had been a soldier himself. He was very good. And he got down to the crux of my problem, and it was guilt. For the things I had done. Because even though I had to do them, somewhere in the back of my being, it said, This is wrong. Right. And he came up with a solution. And he said, I'll tell you what, let's do. He says, Wrong is guilt. He says, Let's work out a payment plan. So why don't we cut off some toes? Take an episode, cut off some toes. That's crazy. That's not gonna change anything, it's just neither what you're doing. That's a great This is neither what you're doing. This is not gonna change anything either. And that's kind of when the light went on.

SPEAKER_00:

It is amazing what could just something that simple. Holy fuck.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00:

It can be something that I've had that too. Yeah, it's the most and it, you know, you may your therapist who are maybe approaching it from a million different perspectives, and the most random off it's like, oh, whoa, that hit.

SPEAKER_03:

And that somehow just bam, got light came on, and I got better. And then of course, meeting Annie. She has I would have to give her credit for literally saving it. She's a very special girl. She is the thing with her was not being a she's not a footrup or anything. She always says what she thinks. Yeah. She never keeps on and on about it. She says her peace and then she's through.

SPEAKER_00:

And she is one of the most non-judgmental, accepting people I've ever met, if not the most.

SPEAKER_03:

And she kept the home so peaceful. Oh, that's such a big deal. So peaceful, and it became my refuge from the outside world. Right. When things are so tough, and you need, you know, I guess when you work, you get into these miserable jobs sometimes you hate just because you gotta people treat you like shit. Yeah, and you're and you you're so much better than some of the people you're working for, right? And you can't get it. With that on you, you can't get ahead. And I could go home and that would be it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03:

But things did go wrong, and they did over the course of 50 years. You never played.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

She's probably been by sight.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03:

And there is another moment in the world that gets me away from it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, we've been joking about that for years.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, you would say, Oh, I don't remember who it was. Amelia Clark could show up on your doorstep, you know, like always joke that nope, I got hitting.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, you're, you know, lovely lady.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're gorgeous and all that.

SPEAKER_03:

But nope.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. And it's because And I firmly believe that's the truth, and I'm the same way that she's worth so much more. Yeah, that's right. She has she is a very special, very special woman. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, and we poured our love into animals.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah, well, I definitely want to get it.

SPEAKER_03:

All the animals that we had, and we just poured our love into them, and what you got back was pure love. Oh, yeah. You know, and that's something about animals, so she just they don't judge you.

SPEAKER_00:

No, and I'll tell you what, when I when I see you out, and you myself, but you to another level, and you see an animal, it's just an instant. Yeah, you're you're acknowledging the beauty of an animal, whether it's a cat, dog, even other animals.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um that's something, I mean, obviously, you hear people who love animals and all this stuff. And I think a lot of people do. That's not to say that, but I will say, um, and I think you know, my dad and I are on that train, not probably here level, but you know, there's no amount of money we wouldn't spend on our animals. Um, and it's part of it that a lot of people don't, let's be real, is the financial side of it. They just can't. But, you know, I think you would be in the same train we would, you know, you got to sell something to take care of your animal, you know. I mean, of course, priorities change. You know, one thing I loved saying is, you know, uh, my dog Anthony, you know, you knew her.

SPEAKER_02:

I remember her.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, best dog I've ever had by far. Just the connection was unbelievably deep. Yeah, yours was Chelsea. And the the it's just so deep. And, you know, uh, she passed, you know, one 21. And um, you know, of course, I had Max last year. And I'm, you know, I said for years, oh, Ebony's my daughter. You know, she's admittedly, Max does take the cake, obviously. It is interesting how that perspective does change. However, there is still a connection with animals. I can't survive Gotti, my dog now, as you know, with like your cats and and Chelsea and Mike and so many of your other animals. Uh you remember each one of them, and you have so many more memories of half the damn people in your life.

SPEAKER_03:

Um you know all but one are buried in our backyard?

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't know that. Is it Freddie? Fred's the only one who's not no. Um so Fred was there.

SPEAKER_03:

He's there. Uh the only one that is not there was Lucretia, and she died in Arizona.

SPEAKER_00:

So you got everybody?

SPEAKER_03:

Everybody else is in our backyard.

SPEAKER_00:

You have a little pet cemetery out there. Hope nothing. Nothing ever corrupt your yard.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome. They're all there. That's really neat.

SPEAKER_03:

But whatever they needed, whatever chance to give them a chance, we would do.

SPEAKER_00:

One one so far is you had you know cats who had about insulin that you gave them. Uh that's yourself, yeah. I used to give previous insulin shots. I mean, yourself, yeah. And of course, that means you had to establish some sort of connection with your vet. That's not something that you do.

SPEAKER_03:

And I have given my uh on several of my cats irrigation treatments to keep their kidneys clean.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, that's a great.

SPEAKER_03:

My vet and I, well, we've had the same vet for 25 years, so we're on that. She let me do a lot of treatments.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I don't they would never do that.

SPEAKER_03:

I think we built a wing of her hospital, right?

SPEAKER_00:

The bells and the witchman wing, should be a thing. No, that's there is something about the connection. Um, I I definitely lean towards dogs. I'm not a cat person, but I don't have particular critics. You know, the only cat I've ever lived with was my wife's cat Foxy, and she was not a pleasant creature. Still, what's funny is I I loathed that cat's existence when she was alive, and I cried harder than she did when she died. Can't explain it, but I did. Um, so there's just a love of just animals in there. But dogs, um, I don't remember who said this or the quote exactly, but it's dogs die, and maybe you would know it, but dogs die so young because their hearts are what is it, so full of love that thinking it can only pump for so long, or something like that. That's obviously not true, you know, biologically, but there's something to that. Um the unconditional love that dogs give you. And there's there is something uh you've met Thor, right? Dad's dog. I can tell you that that dog looks into my soul deeper than any other creature on this.

SPEAKER_03:

I think it'd be possible to take a quick break.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course. Yeah, follow us. We'll be back. I gotta take a we're back. Wait, right. Yes. Um, so yeah, talking about the love of animals and all that. There's something beautiful about that. Um so kind of to get back to your experience after the war, obviously, you went to therapy, and that was instrumental in your um your coping and and and your your life since. Yes. Um and I think I talked to you about it earlier, but you know, therapy back then was not really looked upon very fondly of that generation. And even still, your generation and even my dad's not really fond of therapy. It's it's it's something that is it's got a bad rep with that generation.

SPEAKER_03:

You gotta again think of the times. Right. In that particular time, mental illness wasn't viewed as an illness, it was viewed as a weakness. Right. And people didn't really understand, like most of us do today, that you can be mentally ill the same you can be physically ill, yep. And it is not a stigma, and it is not something that means you're weak, you're weak minded, you are weak. Will it is an illness like any other. Right. But in those days, that wasn't the case. You were like when I was growing up, men weren't supposed to show emotion. Yeah, and you were told as a little boy, uh don't cry. Men don't cry.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, sorry, but we do. Yeah, I've cried more than once. Oh, yeah. And I found it very therapeutic. It's hard as hell. It is, and I guess sometimes that's what gets you through.

SPEAKER_00:

A good cry helps a lot, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03:

But we were actually stigmatized with that. Um I once played a quarter of football with broken wrist. They taped it up. And you were supposed to just yeah. That was the way it's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I know what happened now. I think we've gone too far the other way myself.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Um the pendulum's one told point where now we're trying to baby everything. We're trying to wrap our children and never allow them any kind of hurt. Right. Which isn't good either. No. Because then you don't know how to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00:

You're right.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like participation trophies.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I'm not a fan of them.

SPEAKER_03:

The idea of a trophy is an accomplishment.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

I have learned so much more from my failures than I have ever learned from my successes.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because they taught me what not to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I agree. And that's one thing that, you know, it's pretty, you know, honestly, my dad and family instilled that pretty heavily in me. I don't think there's going to be too much difficulty getting that in Max's head either. That is going to be very much my.

SPEAKER_03:

So going back to the original premise, though, and again, the stigma. Yeah. Fortunately, because that was court ordered, it was sealed.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, so that never got out that you had it.

SPEAKER_03:

It never got out.

SPEAKER_00:

See, because of court sealed.

SPEAKER_03:

After I completed the the therapy and he signed off on me, and it was sealed, and never became part of my record at all, which was fantastic because I never had an address him.

SPEAKER_00:

And as a vet, I wonder if that would have really complicated some things. It sure could have. I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So I was very, very fortunate again, because of the uh beam court records.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. That's that's interesting. I see I didn't think about that part of it ever. I didn't thought about that.

SPEAKER_03:

So the you know, you don't have to carry the stigma on it. But nobody knows about it.

SPEAKER_00:

And what's interesting is uh you know, I've mentioned quite a bit, you know, as far as therapy or medication, the biggest thing that fucks with my head is when people know they need it, and they and they have the financial means, they have you know, whatever it is, you can do it, and you don't. Don't do it because the bullshit's sticking.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That'll give me. My thing is, don't tell anybody. You don't have to tell a damn person you're on a med. You don't have to tell a damn person you're in therapy, but get what you need.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So you can take care of yourself and by proxy goes around you.

SPEAKER_03:

And just give it a moment for men because a lot of times men are saying, Well, I can handle it. Your dad was that one. I mean, your grandfather was your grandfather was like that. He was, oh, I can handle this. I don't need any help.

SPEAKER_00:

I never saw him. I never saw him crying. I don't know if you did. I never did.

SPEAKER_03:

He needed therapy more than anybody I knew.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, he was a mess.

SPEAKER_03:

But he was, I can't do that. It's not many.

SPEAKER_00:

It was all bad.

SPEAKER_03:

It'll detract from me being a key man, you know. And the key man is vastly overrated.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, let me tell you, I mean, I I I I struggle with that too. You know, I I think men in general do have that. And I think it's a societal thing, and it's starting to get phased out, I think, a little bit. Um, but I'd say I got that too. Not to that fault.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's don't confuse masculinity with coping. Right. Masculinity and the good things about being in that strength, the caring-free family, right? Wanting to protect all those things being masculine. But that has nothing to do with coping with your problems. Right. Now, I've I've told you before, I think you got a shitty deal in life because of your illness. But I've also told you you can't allow that to be the sole focus of your life. You have to build a life the best you can with what you can.

SPEAKER_00:

You're right. And so far been successful.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's getting more and more difficult.

SPEAKER_03:

That's the very, very tough part of it all.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's something you have had to overcome. Uh you you had a pretty rough deal yourself, your upbringing. And if you want to get into some of that, I wouldn't hate it.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, the biggest problem I had from my childhood was never feeling loved.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Because it was, I don't know what it was. I just seemed to be the kid that my mother never really I always wondered what I did to make her dislike me so much.

SPEAKER_00:

And so you were five years younger than my grandfather.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you're seven years old. Eight years old. Eight years older than Barry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I never could figure it out. What the hell did I do? And yet I was the one she always came to when she had a problem.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

When I was an adult.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I know for money and all everything. Yeah, I remember. I remember that myself, like later. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And it was, it's so confusing.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

What did I do?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, talk about how you know you were what when you were uh eight years old, you were watching your infant brother.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because my grandfather, your brother, older brother would fuck off for a while.

SPEAKER_03:

Because they went on.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you said, what's you, what do you always say?

SPEAKER_03:

He'd be back five minutes before five to six minutes before he goes home. How he did it. It was like telepathy. Telepathy. He knew when they were coming home somehow. I don't know. I mean, I was shot there all day on my night. When I was watching, yeah, battery was like two, and I was there with him all by myself. And I hear this noise out where the oil drum was. We used to have space here. Right. Well, we had to keep full service. Nobody told me that they would come in the middle of the night. So I got dad's gun and whipped the door open and the gun, and then it was the oil gun. He was up on top of the tennis. And he jumped out of your head. And I saw that the hose was still sitting there. They could oh no.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, Christ. And see what's funny as you can laugh about that. And I know now I've cried, yeah, then, of course. You know, obviously you were physically.

SPEAKER_03:

And then Barry was a sickly child.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I knew that too.

SPEAKER_03:

So one of the big things that he had was he had a problem with regurgitating in his sleep.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

And he would throw up in the bed, and then he'd wake up, of course, and be and he's only like two, two and a half years old, so I'd have to clean him up at 10, change the bed, put on new sheets and new blankets, and I'd calm him on December. Yeah, calm him down.

SPEAKER_00:

Because was great-grandmother, was she was she even a good mother technically to them?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh she's much better to Barry than she was to any of us. Because he was the baby. But she's still emotionally neglected because it she went the total opposite direction from us, where we were kind of left to thin for yourself. He couldn't do anything for himself and equipment. Yeah. Uh until much later in life. Right. So I'm not at all sure I wouldn't have preferred the way I had it, because at least I was ready to live.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, but you began. So you're right for the world.

SPEAKER_03:

I was ready to live anyway, but but I wouldn't recommend it for any child either direction. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, and then dad was okay when he's sober, but when he drank, it was a violent counsel.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you talk about you get hit with frying pants.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Well, that was Jerry that hit with frying pants. Oh my yeah, my grandpa. I didn't I didn't get hit with one pill, I could duck faster. But I wasn't quite as stupid to say some things.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, of course, you and you and uh grandpa were really hard on each other physically. You know, it was rough. Once or twice. Yeah. And um he was a very rough and tumble guy.

SPEAKER_03:

The rest of his as long as he was handing it out.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, because no, there's a great story about my dad, you know, and you've heard this one. Yeah, we were playing, we used to play dodgeballs with basketball. And I was, you know, he passed when I was nine. Yeah. So, you know, it's probably five, six years old. And we played dodgeball basketballs in his pool, and he would drill my face with one, and I'd cry. And then I would, when he wasn't looking, I would, I one time I drilled him in the back of the head with one and he got livid. And dad was yeah, and dad said, uh-uh, because you know he had a temper. Right, but uh yeah, dad was like uh no and uh throw this shit out if you can't take it, right? And he was bad about that, and uh, you know, I I love talking about my grandfather because he was there's so many you could do a whole podcast series on stories on him, and I will tell so many that nobody knows who the hell who hasn't met him. And what's funny is I tell my wife a lot of these stories, and she's probably I don't think I would have liked him for that.

SPEAKER_03:

The stories are funny, but um which was strange because he was in one hand he was the most selfish individual I've ever known. Yeah, and on the other hand, he was one of the most generous people I've ever known.

SPEAKER_00:

Such a walking contradiction. He was a walking contradiction, walking contradiction of terms because also he could uh be the funniest man and he could be the most frustrating person, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it is interesting, and he always had it episoded, yeah. No matter what, and he felt like having a little bit of money was that's what made it yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know what I mean? That businessman mentality, and about and he was a great businessman, as far as I understand. Obviously, he did very well. Um and as you know, I mentioned, you know, and I mean my dad, you know, he he would not have done well as uh very elderly. He passed at 61. 62. He would not have done well as getting even your age, or well before that. Um in fact, you're the first witchman to make it as far as any of anybody. Yeah, you know, being almost 80, I think your grand your dad died at 61. 61.

SPEAKER_03:

And grandpa 62, and I don't know about before that, but most of my uncles were in their late 50s, yeah. So I mean we had one that lived to 80. Right. The only one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

We had a couple lamps of legends there, 80s.

SPEAKER_00:

But the the men don't we're not a longevity group, and uh, you know, dad's even starting to have some health issues. That crazy thing is he takes care of himself. And I know you, you know, you had a heart scare, I believe, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Um, I had an aneurysm. That's what I descending a order, which they caught and they pets him.

SPEAKER_00:

But then you'd be dead.

SPEAKER_03:

And while they had me open, they said I had three arteries that were 30% blocked as all. But he says, I'm in here.

SPEAKER_00:

Might as well take care of it.

SPEAKER_03:

And he bypassed them. So I never had the heart attack.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And that was like 25 years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

And you got your shit together after that.

SPEAKER_03:

And yeah. And they're diabetic.

SPEAKER_00:

And why are you diabetic?

SPEAKER_03:

Because the war was exposed to age and argy.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And now I've got all the antibodies and everything, so they know that's what did it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Last time the another that's something you can live with. Yeah. If you do the work, what you need to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's not really as hard as people make it out to be. So anything's out. You it's not that you have to stop eating. Totally doing the things you love. You just do them in moderation.

SPEAKER_00:

Moderation and be responsible and be uh you can't eat the entire 12 donuts.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Right. You have one. Yeah. And then some you have another one four or five hours later.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. That's moderate. Yeah, and uh you you've you really turned it around.

SPEAKER_03:

And I was always hopeful I didn't drink much.

SPEAKER_00:

No, you didn't drink much, you didn't smoke either, right? No, no.

SPEAKER_03:

I had one cigarette my whole life, and I asked the guy after I finished coughing, I said, Do you do this for fun?

SPEAKER_00:

Sometimes I mean really, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I never took it on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Never.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That was a silly thing in Vietnam. They used to give us three cartons of uh cigarettes a mocker.

SPEAKER_00:

You just pass them on.

SPEAKER_03:

And I would take mine and throw them in the locker. Oh, okay. And then when guys are starting to run out, I'd take them out and hand them out.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that makes a problem.

SPEAKER_03:

Some guys said, Well, you can sell those. I said, You guys will take good care of me if I give you a couple.

SPEAKER_00:

I was gonna buy it. Oh, we got some of the cigarettes.

SPEAKER_03:

I can't buy three bottles of booster. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you could buy a bottle of bourbon for$1.80 at the base commissary. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

A fifth of bourbon?

SPEAKER_03:

Fifth of bourbon for$1.80. It sounds worth a lot more than it was. Did they encourage drinking? No, they didn't encourage it, but they didn't discourage it either. Okay. Unless it interfered with you to ever show up, can't go to work because you're hungover. Because you'll go to work anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I remember one or two mornings when I spent a very miserable day because I was hung over, but I didn't dare not go.

SPEAKER_00:

You worked.

SPEAKER_03:

You performed.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't ever do it in the in the field.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

But oh man, you just don't do that. I saw guys actually get Article 15's beginning summer.

SPEAKER_00:

And what's in Article 15?

SPEAKER_03:

Article 15 is a disciplinary action that's short of a court punch.

unknown:

Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

Administrative punishment. And you can like lose a strike.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And they got so sunburned they couldn't go to work, and they called it damaging government property and took a strike away.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Purposely damaging government property.

SPEAKER_00:

You ever think about property as you as carrying something property?

SPEAKER_03:

That's that was kind of the attitude in those days.

SPEAKER_00:

And you think that's changed? Yeah. Definitely.

SPEAKER_03:

Like today the the the D ice really can't beat up on you like a different OSC. You can't push that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Now we'll carry these damn swagger sticks in me.

SPEAKER_00:

Really?

SPEAKER_03:

Hit you with those. But I don't know if it really did a city all that stands if it's just a reminder. Get your attention.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, um, sure. Yeah, you got so okay. So obviously you went to therapy and helped you ever since. What'd you learn in therapy? Like, what'd you learn to cope? How'd you cope? How do you still cope? What's your because you talk about, you know, do you think about it every day? Am I right on that? Most days.

SPEAKER_03:

Some days. Uh it's not near as many as it used to be. Um age does bring you a perspective that you didn't have before. It's now been almost 60 years. And I had an awful lot of good experiences. Good things. I've also had a lot of time to go over all the things process and get all these things. And getting out of your subconscious and into your conscious where you can deal with it. That's so important.

SPEAKER_00:

That's hard to do.

SPEAKER_03:

Because as long as it's in your subconscious, you can't deal with it.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

It's just a nag. If you can get it up into your conscious mind, then you can start making some rational thing. Right. And you have to make a settlement with yourself, right?

SPEAKER_00:

With yourself.

SPEAKER_03:

And the successful part of therapy is it allows you to make a settlement that doesn't bankrupt the company.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great, great analogy.

SPEAKER_03:

It makes you, it gives you that settlement that you don't have to sell out everything you get it. And many psychotics made the settlement when it bankrupted the company.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. No, you're right. Well, yeah, gosh, that's a good one. That's a good analogy. I don't think I've heard that one. And here's the thing therapy doesn't work if you're not suffering through it, for lack of a better word. Um, you have to go through the pain and the misery. It is absolute misery for the growth. It's just like, you know, band-aiding everything for kids. It's not unlike that. And I can tell you, you know, I'm I've been going to therapy for 15 years and I'm still uncovering things and still, you know, relapse and come back and relapse and come back. And um, it's never been, I don't go to I get my therapist now, and even in the past, you know, they're they're uh she finds it very funny because it's like she gonna work to get things out of me. It's like I'm an open book. Like I come in ready to go.

SPEAKER_03:

Um let me ask you a question. Yeah, it's good. You say you relapse. Isn't the the point to not relapse as far as you always want to relapse less each time?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that way you gain, you still gain something. Well, it's like that one step back, two steps forward, actually. It's the opposite. Yeah, is the idea.

SPEAKER_03:

And so eventually you get to a point where the relapses are small.

SPEAKER_00:

Very small. Yeah, exactly. That is the idea. Um, and uh, you know, I was on that path for many years and then went pretty damn far back to square one, around what max was one. But I'd share it then. Uh unless you want to explore it. But my thing is um the problem with like companies like BetterHelp and even much of your personal therapy today is it's all about comfort. It's all about it's okay, don't approach that. Don't worry about that. You can't fucking do that. If you're gonna have growth, and I I get on people in my life that I'm not gonna name them, but who are in therapy and you know, you're not there to hang out, you're not even there to have true comments. It's depth, it's digging, it's pain, it's getting through the shit.

SPEAKER_03:

It's making you remember things you don't want to remember.

SPEAKER_00:

You don't or making you acknowledge things about yourself that you don't want to fucking acknowledge. There are so many goddamn things I hate about myself, and honestly, as you know and many others, you know, my self-esteem's been down here forever.

SPEAKER_03:

Um one of the things that was tough for me was to acknowledge some of the horrible things I've done. Right. And face the fact that that was me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You can't blame it on another entity, you can't blame it on nope. Oh, that person, yeah, that's not me. No, that's fucking you.

SPEAKER_03:

It is exactly what it became. That was the scariest part.

SPEAKER_00:

That you became that.

SPEAKER_03:

I was that person.

SPEAKER_00:

And as you mentioned, even to Daddy, you know, you can get triggered for that person to come back. I know that scares you.

SPEAKER_03:

It always has, because given the right set of circumstances, and I'll I'll give you an example. Let's say someone broke into my house and threatened my family. There would be no hesitation. There would be no warning. Right. I would simply kill them.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I wouldn't think twice. I would give them no warning, no get out or I'll kill you, you're dead.

SPEAKER_00:

See, that that's that's interesting because you hear so many people like say that. Like, oh, there's a you come to my house, you're dead. I don't know that I buy that.

SPEAKER_03:

Most people want to talk.

SPEAKER_00:

They do. You wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_03:

Most people will talk before they shoot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's true. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

I won't.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And that is because that was you were trained that way, and that that never left. And that you're there. And it's the action. Yeah. But it's also that just you do the action.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

We are not trained that way. You don't, and civilians are. That's what the military people were dead with them.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and you, you know, you talked about, you know, you were able to come back and get acclimated to life back in the state. And frankly, you had a freaking rough go with that because of how you were treated when you came back. So you always hear the Vietnam that's how many of them succumbed to so many things. Suicide, did something.

SPEAKER_03:

And I gotta confess something one thing. When first Gulf war, you can't start getting back to that. There was a parades of adoration, and everybody was, oh, you're so great. You're goddamn jealous. I could I was happy for them, but I was so jealous that you didn't get that. Yeah. What would have happened if we had gotten that instead of what we got? How many of us would have made it?

SPEAKER_00:

So we are that didn't. So we are. And the productive members of society and educated and I mean educated others, not scholastically. I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03:

And we've got enough even today that aren't making it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because they made a huge mistake today. They keep sending them back.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You can't have six or seven deployments like they did in Afghanistan. Right. And come back to normal game and big.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You just get used to being back, then you're going back to that shithole again.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you've even hear a lot of them crazy. They don't want to be here.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that's what makes sense then. Right. The guys that we used to have come back to NAM over and over and over again. It's because that's where everything made sense. Right. They knew the rules. They knew how to live that life. They didn't know how to live back in the life.

SPEAKER_00:

And they weren't okay with the rules after that. They didn't they didn't like it. They didn't understand. They understand. The rules were different.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

This guy's in my face. I can't kill him. Over there. It's okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you know what? I and maybe I'm not alive for saying that said, correct me if I am. Somebody gets in my face, that's exactly what I want to do. But I'm not allowed. You gotta fight it. You gotta fight it. Because that's not socially acceptable. It sure isn't. But it shouldn't be in a civilized. But the animal instinct of I can say me, and I argue a lot of people, I don't think I mind saying that. Because if somebody gets in your face, you do want to. Is there a certain freedom? Even though to being over there and just knowing that you can get that fucking rage out if somebody wrongs you. I don't maybe I'm all fakes.

SPEAKER_03:

No, you're not. See, it is a sense of freedom because it's now acceptable. You're no longer responsible for your most base emotions.

SPEAKER_00:

Animalistic, the primal.

SPEAKER_03:

It is a primal instinct. You're praised for it. And no award. You are rewarded. I get ranked. Right. Because I had a uh 50 kilometers machine gunner. I was one of the first to ever open up. You know, and it was I got a 50 kilomet, and I got a stripe, and I got more money, and I got praised, and everybody's, hey, he's a great guy. He's a terrific soldier.

SPEAKER_00:

Soldier.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so you And when you were over there, how did that make you feel when you got that?

SPEAKER_03:

You know, I could do things over there that they'd never let me do back here.

SPEAKER_00:

So you felt like a badass. You felt like I did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I really did.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's nothing wrong with that. Now, one thing I want to mention that it's okay because that you know you have a purple heart.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You don't you mention that you don't really care about it.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's that's not what it's about.

SPEAKER_03:

It's something the name.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Like I said, when they brought it to me and they brought me the bronze star, like uh, my aunt, my question was, what's this for? And the guy said for surviving. And I said, bad I couldn't stop.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, because yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And then I forgot all about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's like today you were uh you were wondering, like, yeah, I don't even know what happened to that.

unknown:

Yeah, I didn't.

SPEAKER_00:

We have it. Like you gave us your medals, but like the fact that it seems like a lot of veterans are pretty proud of that. It's not that they shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't think they shouldn't be. It's just it's it's almost like a badge of honor that they need.

SPEAKER_00:

And you don't need that, they need that value.

SPEAKER_03:

You don't need that validation to make them feel better about what they did, what they did, and who they are and what they stand for. I don't need that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, okay, so let me ask you. So obviously you wear your hat in public, you know, you you and you don't do that necessarily to let me maybe I'm wrong. You do that so people know that you're a veteran? You do it just to represent that that existed. What's your what's your why do you wear that hat?

SPEAKER_03:

Are you When I first started wearing it? It was an act of defiance. Okay. Because I didn't start wearing it until after the Gulf War.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, that's many years later.

SPEAKER_03:

Because that's when all these people were coming back, and like I said, uh it was an F U. It was kind of yeah, in your face.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I was doing it, you got 18 months. Fuck you, dude. Yeah, don't uh don't tell me about your your tough time anymore. Yeah, and that was it was a defiance. Now it's a SA different, and it's kind of like the teenager uh I had problems with once in my neighborhood, and I I told the kid I said I was more badass than you will ever be. And I'm still more badass than you will ever be. Yeah, so don't get in my face, boy. Yeah, or you'll end up with teeth on the sidewalk. Yeah, you know, and it's really just a statement of yeah, I know what it was. I I've been there, yeah, done that, got the t-shirt.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, got the yep.

SPEAKER_03:

And that it's it's I don't really care if people acknowledge, but it is a long-awaited acknowledgement when they did.

SPEAKER_00:

And you didn't get it when you probably needed it the most.

SPEAKER_03:

But now it's so many people now are trying to make up for the and many good people doing that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I can tell you, I mean, I'm out with you, and I noticed a lot of people come up to you, and I love it. I love it when you see another veteran, and you guys can just talk about it. And you're like, I was in this unit, this is my experience. That's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_03:

And the way we talk to each other, the Vietnam vets, is when you meet another one and they're wearing their hat, and you go over and say, Welcome home, brother.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I've seen that.

SPEAKER_03:

That's what we use.

SPEAKER_00:

That is really cool, and that's what it's welcome. Yeah, you didn't know. You didn't get that fucking welcome, you got it now.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's what's so special when people do it today. And it means so much more to us than maybe even to many of the others.

SPEAKER_00:

Probably, as it should.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and I've been on cruises where I've had kids that are in the military today come and say, you guys were Yeah, you had so much work. You were the best. You know, we would you guess got screwed, and we know it, and everyone else knows it, but we think you were the best, you know, and that's that really gets you.

SPEAKER_00:

That's got you.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh yeah. It's a healer, too. It's healed. It has to be.

SPEAKER_00:

It has to be. And I'm glad that this fucking country finally came around to that.

SPEAKER_03:

When did you notice the change? When'd you notice the change in the Gulf War?

SPEAKER_00:

Because after the Gulf War, you you started getting product records.

SPEAKER_03:

We started getting the people suddenly say, Well, Jesus, we're giving all this recognition. These guys come at home. They were really there six, seven weeks. And all these Vietnam vets are homeless and helpless. Right. Hopeless. And we didn't give them anything. Right. And they started recognizing that. And that's when it really really started happening, was in the 90s.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know what is interesting is that you know, I worked at a, I can't name this place, but I worked at a mental health facility as a recreational therapist for about four months with Tony, my uh you know, co-host that Delph says on here. And um we had so many Vietnam bats come through that were so messed up. And a lot of them were homeless, violent, defiant, drug, drug was the big one. It's fucking sad, man. It is.

SPEAKER_03:

They're trying to kill my pain.

SPEAKER_00:

Kill themselves.

SPEAKER_03:

They didn't want to live anymore. You get enough pain, you don't want to live anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, right here.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I know you've been there.

SPEAKER_00:

I am there.

SPEAKER_03:

And and I've been there.

SPEAKER_00:

So there was a point you weren't getting there, right? Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_03:

Wasn't gonna let it get to better. Just that damn stubborn. That's I mean, that's the honest to God truth, is I'm not gonna let this ruin the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_00:

Whatever everything you've been through. If you made it through that war and you were damn near killed many times, and you've had plenty of things since you're not gonna take your own damn life. That's special.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I have a great deal to look for. Yeah, I love living now. And last I've been retired 18 years, right? And I have had the best damn time.

SPEAKER_00:

You have.

SPEAKER_03:

I've been loved every damn minute.

SPEAKER_00:

I I distinctly remember you when you were tired.

SPEAKER_03:

You just wonderful.

SPEAKER_00:

I remember your wife, Ann, was so timid about it and not say, I'm gonna like this, and it was pretty damn quick. She was on your train.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. Because I was cooking every night. Yeah. And you come home to work, uh-huh. Dinner be ready. Yep, uh-huh. Because I wasn't working, right? And I was doing a lot of the stuff around the house. But sometimes, just for example, I would get up with her when she went to work because she worked for five years after I retired.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And I'd drive down to Disney World for the afternoon.

SPEAKER_00:

Just have lunch, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Have lunch and go on a couple of attractions, be back in time to cook dinner. We live that close. Right. And just that freedom to do that was just so fantastic.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, here's the thing. I mean, you've been incredibly smart with your money, your investments. You're not a lavish spender or liver, and it pays off. You are able to have a comfortable retirement.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I don't know how many are gonna get that now. I think there's many reasons for that. It's a public world.

SPEAKER_03:

One of the things you is a guarantee pensions on almost. Well, that's not.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're not either. I think I know policemen get it. So yeah. So but I don't care, yeah. But I know like uh uh Ford, for instance. Uh because on now.

SPEAKER_03:

And the biggest problem 401k is people spend it before they ever retire.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, sometimes you might have to. You might have to pull from it, and then you lose a huge percentage of it. But it is, I am so glad you were able to do that.

SPEAKER_03:

And I well again, that's a great deal. That's Annie.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Which incredible money.

SPEAKER_03:

You taught me how to uh savings, you know, budget, budget.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

How to avoid impulse spending, yeah. Impulse buying, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Even Annie is an incredibly wise person, and the reason I want to mention that specifically about you and Annie is that you are equals in your relationship.

SPEAKER_03:

There's no boss in our home.

SPEAKER_00:

There is no boss in your home. I've never heard you guys have a yelling argument. It sounds like you never have.

SPEAKER_03:

We've been married so long we haven't membered. And she'll look at me sometimes and say, Argument 26.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. No, that is a beautiful relationship. And I can simply say Katie and I have been like that so far. We've never had a yelling match, we don't have that dynamic. I don't see that in any of my other friends' relationships. And well, I've always that's been model for me, though.

SPEAKER_03:

One thing I say about being married to someone is words are easy to say but hard to take back. So think carefully before you say them.

SPEAKER_00:

And you don't want to say that to the person that means And this is the person that loves you, and you're gonna be the rest of your life with.

SPEAKER_03:

And like I told my daughter when she told me you're gonna have to choose between your wife and your daughter. And I said, Don't make me do that because you're gonna lose every time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I guarantee you.

SPEAKER_00:

I told my mother that I know you probably straight out. I said, Well, you're I know your grandmother would try to pull that shit on you all the time.

SPEAKER_03:

I said, you make me make right stories, you're gonna lie. Yeah, I'll walk away and never talk to you again.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and with with Annie and even with Katie, it's it's I know when you came back from the war, you were a hot mess. Oh my god. You had to be really fucking tough to live with and deal with. Likewise over here. You know, my mental illness and my relapses and my whatever struggles, and that one was a saint for putting up with me. Now, here's the thing, you and I both reciprocate. We worship's probably not the right word. I don't like using that word.

SPEAKER_03:

But what we respect them and honor them more than well, after 51 years, I guarantee you she's earned it. Oh, yeah. She's earned respect. Yeah. And like I I could never hurt her. Yeah. You can't hurt the person you love.

SPEAKER_02:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

No, if you love the person. I don't understand people that do that. That's totally these people who well, I just lost my temper. No, no, no, no. That doesn't come.

SPEAKER_00:

No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_03:

You do not hurt people you love. No. You don't hurt children.

SPEAKER_00:

No, never.

SPEAKER_03:

You don't hurt animals. Well, anything helpless, you they're there to protect.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Not to hurt. And like a child doesn't have to be my blood for me to help and protect them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well you've adopted many people in your life.

SPEAKER_03:

And I love them just as much as if they'd been born to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And that's a beautiful thing. Uh blood doesn't have doesn't have to be.

SPEAKER_03:

And it shouldn't be.

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

That's why I said people that adopt and make those and treat those children just as their child, regardless of anything else. That is a magnificent thing to do for a child.

SPEAKER_00:

It absolutely is. And boy, we probably need more of that, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. Because you got a lot of children out there who have nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

And of course, they make the adoption process impossible.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it's and there's something to that. There's some people that should not be parents. Oh, no, that's for sure. That's for sure. And you gotta weed those out because they those are the ones that will take those children and do some serious damage.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're right. No, you're right on that.

SPEAKER_03:

So that's that on the other side of that business, I understand. Oh, that's true, yeah. Because I worked for the Department of Children and Family's before I became an emergency operations officer.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's right. Gosh, you you were the emergency operations of Florida?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, 15 counties in Northeast Florida.

SPEAKER_00:

And you were there during Katrina. Hurricane Katrina.

SPEAKER_03:

I was also there during Andrew.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

I went down for six six weeks in Andrew. Are you how old when you did that? Let me see. Uh went to work for the state at 42. Okay. And I left when I was 59. And Andrew was 2000, I believe. Okay. So I was probably in my early 50s.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's the time we retired from?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Seven days a week, sometimes 20 hours a day.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. When you're responding, you're when you're on your managing of emergency responders.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. You're the events pressure. You're handling logistics, you're handling search and rescue. Supplies. You're handling um resources. Resources. You're putting people in refugee camps. Right. You're providing all of the things they have to have. You're managing firefighters, police, you name it. All of it's all coordinated. And you have a management team, and the guy in charge is the incident command officer.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And I had been an incident command officer like on fires.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh when we had the fires in 2006.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

I was an incident command officer in uh uh Bavard County and place a burning to the ground.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

We were bringing people in from Saraways, California, into Jacksonville with their trucks, and they would come off the airplanes, the military aircraft, and be taken straight to the pyro. Oh wow. And you you'd have to rotate the crews through, and you have to make sure they're fed and watered and have to rest.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. And you can get in yourself.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, it was horrendous. But there's nothing more rewarding.

SPEAKER_00:

And would I would I be okay to say that probably your time in the war made it possible for you to do that guy?

SPEAKER_03:

It gave you how do you put it? Um gave you a background of that kind of stress level.

SPEAKER_00:

And that discipline.

SPEAKER_03:

That discipline to maintain your focus. Because you get in focus a little like somebody else. Right. That's in emergency management.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. We worked with rescue dogs. Okay. And the rescue dogs were unbelievable animals. They would literally work themselves to death.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you mentioned that.

SPEAKER_03:

Work them for eight hours and you pull them off the line and bring another crew of dogs in because you have to take them back, water them, feed them, make them rest.

SPEAKER_00:

Or they'll kill themselves.

SPEAKER_03:

They will work themselves to death. Now the cadaver dogs are totally different. Okay. They are very laid back. When a rescue dog indicates it's frantic, it's right here.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

This is the spot. Come quick.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

When a cadaver dog finds a body, it's um there's somebody here. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're finding a dead dog. Yeah. That's when you need the like the the frantic ones like find somebody alive and get the hell over here.

SPEAKER_03:

And the cadaver dogs are, yeah, um right in here. You'll find somebody, you dig down a little way. The others are trying to dig down to them.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Right there.

SPEAKER_00:

One of them killed himself.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing how to heart of a dog.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So that's some a parallel to the combat situations, the emergency management operations. Yeah. The first responders are incredible people. You think about the fire and police. When everyone's running away, they're running towards they're running in. And that takes special people.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, let me tell you this. Um, I've not known anybody personally that, but you know, Dad um has had people in the apartments. You know, he manages apartments, and he's had a couple emergency responders, I believe even a friend of his in the past, that um would tell the stories. Like, you know, on the highway when people get hit, it's explosions. I mean, it's explosives. You know this too. Um, but to kind of, and I loved injecting this point just as much as I can, is he said they would have the most fucked up humor about it. And it's all to cope with the insanity they've seen.

SPEAKER_03:

That's one of the reasons why first responders only work 20 to 25 years. I can't take it anymore.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I did 19 years.

SPEAKER_00:

On top of that, you had four years of people.

SPEAKER_03:

That was that was as much as I can have.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I remember going to Ann and said, if I retire, can we make it? And she says, You bet your ass we can't.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, money money wise, right?

SPEAKER_03:

He says, You bet your ass you can. And I want you to quit tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00:

And you did.

SPEAKER_03:

And I retired two weeks later.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's funny is didn't they come back to you and try to give you that same job or pay you more or some shit?

SPEAKER_03:

It was uh I remember what it was two years later. Two years later, I got a call and I said, Well, uh, we'd like for you to come back and rewrite our manual. It's gotten out of date. I said, Okay, it will be um uh labor contract. I want a three months guarantee, I want$1,500 a week, I want an office with computer and free writing. Well, we were hoping you'd do it voluntarily. So let me think about that for a minute. Uh no. Just that fast. Would you have actually done it if they gave you all those things? Well, I might have. Really? Three months. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, that kind of money. That's worth it for three months. Three months.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. But the the absolute bulk. That's we thought you might want to come back and volunteer.

SPEAKER_00:

That's not volunteer work. No, that's that's a hard concept work. And that's a Big job. That's important. It's a big job. Wow. That's pretty positive.

SPEAKER_03:

And then since I've been retired, I've had more job offers than I've ever done a lot. Job applications I put in 20 years ago are just are coming through. I will still get. Are you still interested? No, no, I'm now in my 70s. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and what kind of jobs?

SPEAKER_03:

Almost all management type positions and uh particularly in emergency management. City of Jacksonville offered me their city emergency position just five years ago when I was 74. Are you still interested? No. Is that because they can't find anyway? Uh it must be.

SPEAKER_00:

Or is it just because you're damn good at what you did?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I don't know. It's just fighting people now. Well, you know, that is that's people have this incredible sense of entitlement if they do want the job.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, I mean there's no paying your dues anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

No, no. It's just right into your well, I want starting 200,000 a year. Yeah, right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, hell, I've I'm 32. I've had I've never had a job where I just walked into.

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that is expected, you know. And I've been known to hate on Gen Z pretty hard.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, for me, it's more millennials.

SPEAKER_00:

So my my generation.

SPEAKER_03:

Millennials have been trying to change.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, Gen Z is Well, you're probably going to begin to understand Gen Z.

SPEAKER_03:

Although Candace is Gen Z, but she's not the typical Gen Z. She's probably Gen Z, too. She's 27.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So yeah, she'd be on the older side of Gen Z, but I'm on the young side of millennials.

SPEAKER_03:

Um although she was born 98.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I'm 92. So I've definitely been guilty of hate on younger generations. I'd argue maybe most generations hate on the and often I think the younger generations hate on the ones before it. Oh, yeah. Um, I've never been hating on the older. Uh I see it and I see the work and all that shit.

SPEAKER_03:

But well, let me let me tell you one thing, man. You may be surprised or not. I think the baby boomers, my generation, were shitty parents. I really did. Yeah. We screwed up big time. And we created the millennium and we made life way too easy. Yeah. And it was a boom time, and there was a lot of money coming in, and a lot of stability, and we spoiled these kids' rock. Yeah. They didn't have to work for anything. Right. And then they per perpetuated that even further with the Xers.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So they were totally entitled. Right. And they made it even worse for the next generation.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's that's trickling down. It's a trickle down there.

SPEAKER_03:

And I will say that you'd be more an Xer than a I'm yeah, I'm only uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um my brother would still be a millennial.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

He'd be told that because dad would be an exer, right?

SPEAKER_03:

I think so.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But anyway, what's interesting is like, and I'm not saying we're unique in this, but my family doesn't go by that. I've always been a damn hard worker. Dad certainly was.

SPEAKER_03:

It's always individuals that are gonna be different.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But I think that is a family trait that can change things too. Um you know, I I don't I think witchmen's are pretty damn hard workers.

SPEAKER_02:

Can be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, you were, and uh grandpa certainly was. He's messed, but dad, Mike, Uncle Mike, yeah, absolutely. So I I do think that can still be around. And uh I certainly struggle to watch social media and all that shit about you know um people bitching about those things. Um and that's not to say we don't have it, this world's not getting harder in many ways, too, but you know, we're causing a lot of our problems. That's the whole thing. Um but uh to kind of move forward a little bit is your philosophy on death. Because I definitely wanted to get into that because I'll let you share it and then we can we can chat about it.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it's very simple. I am not gonna waste one minute of life worrying about dying. Not afraid of dying. Dying is part of living. I've been close to it too many times tonight worrying me. Like I said, every morning I get up and say, not today. Yeah, and I'm not going to worry about it. Uh when it comes, I've had a good run. I've enjoyed it, I've had a hell of a time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I think that relieves so much pressure.

SPEAKER_00:

It has to.

SPEAKER_03:

Because you don't sweat it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And you know it's coming, and I'm getting much closer to it now than I ever have.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. You only get closer.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, and the the point of it is people tell me, well, you know, you got another good 10 years. I'm 10 years is not 10 years is gone like that. But I don't find that to be comforting, or it's neither a comfort nor a pressure. I guess when you've lived the full life, too. Yeah. You've lived life almost to the maximum. You've taken it to the edge sometimes. It gets to a point where, okay, when it comes it's here. But if you spend a lot of time worrying about it, you're just gonna make it worse. Yeah. My daughter is more afraid of dying than anything I've ever, any person I've ever done. And she's pushing herself to die.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. With her lifestyle and her her way of living. And it's it's just such a waste.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_03:

Life is a precious gift. You only get one unless reincarnation's true.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

I hope next time I come back as Elon Musk. Enough money to make some difference. To make a real difference in the world. But still, I look at it and say, you've got one to live, you might as well let you get.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I could say uh, as you know, talk uh, I have to think of reasons not to.

SPEAKER_03:

And I can think of two.

SPEAKER_00:

I think of reasons to be here. Of course, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

I can think of two very good ones right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Katie and Max, absolutely. And I latch onto that one. I think why I have to latch on to. You know, I've got some extenuating circumstances. Um But you know, it is an interesting, it's a brilliant, that's a really neat perspective. And uh, I could say that, you know, I I do know some quite a few elderly that are really afraid of dying. Yes. And do you validate that? It's so personal.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and that's I I guess that's yeah, you do really I do think think about this for a second. If you've never faced death, it's this gigantic mystery. Right. And when you have seen death, yeah, you begin to understand that it's gonna come when it comes. It could be tonight, I could die in a bit, or tomorrow morning a plane could fall out while I'm driving home or a wreck, or there's no guarantees you have right now. Yesterday's gone, tomorrow isn't here yet. Live today. Yeah. And let tomorrow take care of itself.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that is the ultimate way of looking at it.

SPEAKER_03:

You plan. Well, you have to plan for the future. Just don't make sure you live tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, just don't doubt that it's gonna happen necessarily.

SPEAKER_03:

Don't put things off till tomorrow week because you may never get there.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

So do today and love today and enjoy life today. And when tomorrow comes, enjoy that and take a look at that day. But I really do think it's a good thing to say, not today. Yeah, not gonna die today.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, a big thing was that you know, with like AA, uh yeah, or even I've been trained when I've hit those lows. Yes, make a promise to somebody you're just not gonna do it today, right? And that is enough, by the way.

SPEAKER_03:

If somebody's an honorable person, which I try to be, the alcoholic vows, I will not drink today.

SPEAKER_00:

Today, I can't promise in the future on one, yes, but today I can.

SPEAKER_03:

And one day at a time, yeah. And uh if you can do that, you'll live a lot longer.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, take water pressure off your body. That's that'll be body. I wasn't your soul with it.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean and what is it that keeps you alive? It's not everything from outside. What keeps you alive is what you are inside, right? And can you okay, it's tough, but I can handle tough today. Right. I can make it through today. Right. And then tomorrow comes and we'll see what happens. Right. Right. I'll make it through today. And that's from in here.

SPEAKER_00:

Let me ask you this, and this isn't probably gonna be a tough question for you. And I honestly it's gonna sound way my hope it is. You know my grandmother did. Yes. How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_03:

It's tragic for one thing, because I believe she was mentally off. And the person inside could no longer deal with the pain outside.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's such suicide is such a personal decision. It's hard for me to say they were wrong or they shouldn't have done this or they should have done that, because I'm not living in their situation. Right. I can only speak for what I did.

SPEAKER_00:

And your perspective, of course, is that you know, the time that have one more pick me up and knock me down kind of thing, and and find reason today. And and has that been your philosophy forever?

SPEAKER_03:

For a very long time. Okay. Remember the the aneurysm could have killed me.

SPEAKER_00:

And could you still be hit by an aneurysm? Huh? That could you still be hit by an aneurysm? Does that no, no, they fixed it.

SPEAKER_03:

Aneurism is a ballooning of an order. Right. It balloons out and it booms. And on the descending of an order, right by your heart, you bleed out in about a minute.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you can't really survive it.

SPEAKER_03:

You could be on the operating table and die.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's my thought.

SPEAKER_03:

So when it caught it, they immediately fixed it. Uh they took that section out of mine and replaced it.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, you gotta with an artery for my leg.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. And it's it oversowed it, it's been perfect. Right. Had no trouble with it in the last almost 20 years. Right. But I would have been sitting at my desk one day and just fall over there.

SPEAKER_00:

And you ever think about that?

SPEAKER_03:

Sure. And the way it was caught was so it's so against the odds.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

I went in for a normal test. Only instead of doing the usual stress test, they did a PET scan. And when he came back from the PET scan, he says, You know, there's something there. So, but I don't know what it is. And then they found it. And he said, I want to do a heart count on Monday.

SPEAKER_00:

This was a pride. Oh, that's okay. So they knew something was up.

SPEAKER_03:

They put me in the hospital Monday morning and they did the heart cat. And you know, you have to lay in those days, you laid there with a weight on the where they went into your arteries and went all the way up. Right. Checked everything. I'm laying there with the thing on, and he comes in and he says, Well, we found a little something there. He said, Do you have a surgeon? I said, Actually, I do, because I had the surgeon that had worked on my mother. And saw the best in Jacksonville, so I gave him a name.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

He said, Okay, well I'll we'll see you in a little bit. I still thought I was just gonna be discharged. About an hour later, the surgeon walked in. I never forget his name, it was Dr. Winters. Yeah. He comes in and says, you know, he says, we got a thing that we we can fix. He said, I've had a cancellation tomorrow. Uh-huh. He says, I'll probably I may not get another cancellation for weeks. Okay. So I want to go in and fix this tomorrow. Did you know what it worked? No. They didn't tell you? No. They just said it's something that needs to be fixed soon. But let's get it done and get it over.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, Jesus, you know. He says, if I'll let you go home tonight, what are you going to do? So I'm going to lay on the couch and pet my cats. He says, Okay, then I wish you'd do anything but that. Next morning I was at 6:30. I was on the operating table at 7:30. And I came out of the surgery and was recovery, and then went to my room after recovery. And they were getting ready to discharge me five days later. And he says, uh, well, we can tell you what was going on. So if you had a 0.88 millimeter uh aneurysm, and you're descending it over. Ready to blow. So the only thing that saved your life was you have low blood pressure. Wow. I've always had low blood pressure. He says then um if it had blown on the table, we couldn't save you. He says, and uh while I was in there, I fixed these blocked arteries. They weren't bad, but he says, I don't want to open you up again in 10 years. Right. So I just did them now. So I never had a heart attack.

SPEAKER_00:

You were suffering it taken care of. I mean, our family's architecture is pretty bad.

SPEAKER_03:

Because he ended up with the blocked artery 10 years after that, and you could have had the heart attack, as it is I never had. Wow. And my heart today is tripping. Very good. Yeah. My doctor today says, I don't know what's going to kill you, but it ain't gonna be your heart. I really don't know. He says, You're in better shape than I am, and you're 25 years older. Yeah, there's something to that.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, the wonder is your your mind is as sharp as there was, and that is exercise of the mind. Yeah, you read, you write, you research, you you keep active.

SPEAKER_03:

And you learn.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

The big secret to keeping your mind sharp as you age is to continue to learn, to associate with younger people, to take in new ideas that may not be things you had thought of before, to try and determine what makes them think the way they do.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'll tell you one that you're a very youthful spirit. Two, you love young people. Oh, I'm hoping. Yeah, you don't act so life. Uh-huh. They are life.

SPEAKER_03:

They're the promise of life.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that little boy that I've been seeing so much of in the last two days. He's the promise of life. Yeah. Brand new. He's learning everything that he can learn. It's so exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, like your great nephew who's gonna interview you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Or your be your parents in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. Now that won't be as in-depth as it's he's got a school project, but uh no.

SPEAKER_00:

And that that you know, that's not what this isn't scholastic. Um, it's all about experience. But what was gonna share is um, you know, you mentioned you don't really understand the, I guess, the the ramifications of death, would that be the right word? Unless you faced it.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it makes you more familiar.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I was gonna say is reduced disappear. Right. I'm not afraid of death at all.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_00:

But the reason why I'm not is because I almost died twice. Yeah. I mean, both my two last two suicide attempts were close. You know, I hung myself and I ended up on the floor because I slipped off the shirt that I tied. And the second one, that gun clicked. And what's interesting is that um, as I mentioned to you before, is that when that gun clicked, it wasn't like a it was a okay. It was that nonchalant, it was that nonchalant of a response. And like you and I talk about my grandmother, is that I hate her for that she did that.

SPEAKER_03:

And I understand that too.

SPEAKER_00:

But my god, I do understand it. Yes. Because I've I've had so many people like, oh, I don't understand why she did that. It's like you guys don't have a fucking clue. I 100% get it.

SPEAKER_03:

They're paying that too much.

SPEAKER_00:

And let me tell you, this is, and I don't know if I said it on the podcast, but I've definitely told people that I admire her that she did it. Because it does take a strength. It's not a fucking weakness.

SPEAKER_03:

It is not but it is a surrender.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

That's that's one thing you do have to recognize it's it's not a weakness, and it is a conscious decision. It is, but it's a decision brought on by more than an individual can bear. Yeah. And so it is a surrender to the pain, surrender to the hopelessness, yeah. Surrender to the feeling that nothing matters anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Nothing matters and nothing will get better, and nothing will get better. And that's the one thing I have been able to latch on to my life is things do get better. They often do go back. But I I do always hold on to that it gets better. Of course, I have Katie and Max, that nothing's gonna keep me around if that doesn't. But again, it is one of those things, if I'm candid, that you know, it is I keep saying it's kind of like, well, today I'm not gonna do it. I don't promise I won't do it in the future. I never have. I won't. I don't foresee it happening. But I don't know what's gonna knock my ass down. I don't know. But kind of on that is your perspective just period, not only on death, and I don't we don't really have time to get into it this time because I know it's getting toward the end, but uh I don't really know your perspective on religion anymore and what that means for you in death, and we don't need to get into it.

SPEAKER_03:

Um I'll just simply say that I don't believe there's an all-powerful spirit dividing out of life. I think it's up to each person. And that's and that those that believe believe and it gives them something. I don't care.

SPEAKER_00:

That's exactly my thing, too.

SPEAKER_03:

Like your brother and his family are deeply religious, and I have respect for that because and the reason I had respect is they tried to live it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, yeah, but that's the fact.

SPEAKER_03:

Not typical spots, they try to live it.

SPEAKER_00:

And of course, that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03:

But I don't have anything at all in a super I don't either. And um I don't listen afterward if there's any.

SPEAKER_00:

Let me ask you this, because this is a perspective I have that many aren't crazy about, but I totally believe this is. If I die and I just rot in the ground and that's it, I'm okay with that. That's comforting. Me too. That is peace. Absolutely. That is not bothering me. In fact, there's a part of me that prefers that that's it.

SPEAKER_03:

I actually don't have any.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't have any expectations. I don't either.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know what's there. My thought is I'll find out. And if it's nothing, I'm not gonna know that either.

SPEAKER_00:

You're not gonna know it. I know. That just means there's comfort. There's comfort in that to me.

SPEAKER_03:

Everything's done. So it's done.

SPEAKER_00:

It's done.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm sure as hell not gonna be hurt because you don't feel anything that you're totally out of it.

SPEAKER_00:

And I do, you know, there's I like the idea of like a transference of energy. That's any theory to me. You know, when you die, your energy just changes into something else.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, do you remember Defending Your Life? I love that. One of the best movies I've ever seen, and it is Albert Roges. It is kind of a template of what could possibly happen. And it had nothing to do with religion.

SPEAKER_00:

No, it's the universe, right?

SPEAKER_03:

You know, and who knows? I I don't know. We don't.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's why it's a great mystery, and we'll find out. And we all find out, and I guess that's I really don't want to go down this rabbit hole because I could rant about this for hours and I have. Is I think the worst thing about religion to me is that to me it's a man-made construct. And to try to put these strict rules and labels and all that shit is only diminishing what it's about anyway. You gotta come to this shit on your own and to label it Christian God, you know, all but I think you're totally ruining what it's actually meant to do. Probably meant to be.

SPEAKER_03:

Probably.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know right all the way. Um, but I was just kind of curious on a very base level where you're at with that.

SPEAKER_03:

But um sometimes I think of it as a crutch, I remember people that have never had anything, they have this hope that why not move on to the something's better. It's gonna be one be okay. Yeah. Or it justifies their saying I runs to a religion is you guys that's all a powerful being who makes everything, knows everything, sees everything, but he can't handle money. He almost needs money. I mean, really, think about it. What is a church telling you, bro? You need money. God's God need money for, he can make anything he wants. I just can't understand that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and the churches don't pay taxes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Churches don't pay taxes.

SPEAKER_03:

So I'm just kind of like, well, that's really weird.

SPEAKER_00:

That's really weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So there's so many holes in the story. We'll all go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, don't, because I, man, that's a bad one for me. Um because I'm the point, you it sounds like, and by the way, I can also respect people who follow it. And by the way, follow it. Yes. There's not many people who do that. It's always, you know, oh, I'm this, and you're totally going against it. I have people that gets me.

SPEAKER_03:

On Sunday they're holier than now. The rest of the week they've cut their grandmother's heart out with a double feeling for their buck.

SPEAKER_00:

I can't stand that. But what I was gonna Yeah, oh, it's so true. Um, but uh what I will say is um I do respect those who can comfortably follow it.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I do, even if I never get there, and I don't think I will. And here's the thing also with Max, he's got a lot of Christians around him. And I even believe this as far as his sexuality. What I believe is that, and I'm good at still this, and people got a brick wall to go through if they think they're gonna try to influence him to be a Christian, to be this, to be that. I love exposing him. Hey, this is available to you, it's also available to not be. And I want to give him the option. That's part of growing up and being coming to who you want to be genuinely deeply personal decision. It sure is, and unfortunately, I know a billion people in my life who it was forced on, and they rejected it because of that. That's a big reason they rejected it. Or they never were just given the opportunity to have the fucking conversation about it. It's it's all about it's almost believing for the sake of believing.

SPEAKER_03:

And they they try to scare you into it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like, oh, if you don't believe, you'll go to hell. Give me a break.

SPEAKER_03:

Doesn't get any worse than some parts of the United States. Amen. Have you been to Jacksonville, Mississippi?

SPEAKER_00:

But that's exactly it. Is is I but it I I the same thing with gender and and sexual orientation is I'm not going to I don't even know if you know this, but when I was like in my early teens, I went through a phase where I didn't know where I stood. I was bicycle. I was bicurius. What dad didn't do because he handled that so well. He I know what made him probably a little uncomfortable. And I gotta be honest, I don't want Max to be a homosexual. The only reason I say that, it's not because of who he is, it's because I know what he's gonna have to deal with mostly. That's all it is. That's all it is. Being a I don't mind saying being a man that I wouldn't prefer my son. I'm not gonna deny that, but I will support him 100% whatever direction he goes.

SPEAKER_03:

The only thing that I have an issue with is, and we'll take the trans thing just as an example. If they wish to believe that they are that's fine. Yeah, don't ask me to join in the delusion.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a big one. Leave me out of it. That's a big one.

SPEAKER_03:

Just leave me out of it. If you don't, I don't ask people their sexual organization. Why do you have to tell them? I don't care, and I don't care what your pronouns are.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_03:

I had a I had a uh waiter say my pronouns are they and them. And I said, Well, my name's Mark, my pronouns are I don't give a fuck.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, damn it, that's such a hard one because it comes down to your identity.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And you want to be solid in your identity and you want to be understood and accepted in your identity. Here's the thing, and I maybe this isn't a fair, because boy did I get dinged. You know, I I had a video on TikTok that I compared mental illness to cancer. What people didn't understand because they didn't watch the fucking thing fully is that I wasn't comparing the symptoms, it was how I was perceived in society. Yes, both illnesses. They're both terminal illnesses. That's all I was doing, and how they perceived in society. Yeah, that's all I was doing. So, and I also did one, and that got a ton of backlash. Got 40,000 views, ton of backlash, big conversations in the comments. I did one where I compare homosexuality to mental illness. Same numbers, no backlash. Not a single person got on there and questioned it. I don't understand why that was okay. Because what is the big thing in social media right now?

SPEAKER_03:

Sexual identity.

SPEAKER_00:

Why the hell was that okay? I don't get it. But what's funny?

SPEAKER_03:

It's people are also afraid of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And you have different cultural impacts on that. I'll be honest in the deep south, it's a whole lot different than it is in India. In India, in California, New York.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it's totally different. It's encouraged for one thing.

SPEAKER_03:

That all goes back to like that's my only thing, is it's a deeply personal thing, and I don't want to be involved.

SPEAKER_00:

I agree. And that's exactly where I go with Max.

SPEAKER_03:

Is that one other example? Go ahead. I had a uh we had a guy that worked the desk in our jobs. He was gay. One day I was going over to the Duncan Donuts, which is right on the corner from the gym's festival. Would you like some? He says, You know, I'm gay. I said, they didn't ask you to sleep with me. I asked you if you wanted a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00:

And you hit the nail on the head with that story.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Or a person.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you want a cup of coffee? It's no different than colors. Yeah. It's just you're a person. And I acknowledge you as a person.

SPEAKER_03:

We had another one. The girl was she didn't look it, but she was half-black. Okay. And she was a very dependable girl, and we've used her as cat center. It's the first time I asked her, would you like to come and sip? I'll pay you this much to sip our cats. And she says, Well, you do know I'm half-black. I said, Does that mean he won't look after the cats? Would you take care of the cats? She said, Well, of course I will. I said, That's all I need to know.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't need to know that you were half black. I don't care. Yeah. But I'd be I'd be staying in your house.

unknown:

Why?

SPEAKER_00:

It's because of, I assume, yeah, the reputation that the black people have for free criminals. It doesn't matter. It's just like this. Here's the thing, and maybe it's not fair. You know, I don't go around saying, hi, I'm Nick, I'm schizoaffective. Now on social media, that is my presence because that's what I'm doing to advocate for mental illness and mental health. But I was out there kind of, I was in Soly in Walmart one day and I'm walking around. And I'm thinking to myself, not a single person here knows that I'm mentally ill. No one gives a shit either. And I'm just like, there's a beauty in that. Absolutely. Because I can just be who the fuck I am and not have to, nobody's like, look at that ill guy. Or look at that middle. You know, there's nothing. It's you are who you are. I don't understand why I can't be that way with sexuality because when you call attention to it, that's the big so aggressively, and you have to fucking accept me. That's your problem right there.

SPEAKER_03:

No, I could save probably 90% of homosexuals, lesbians, trans, if they didn't tell you you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. Now you do have the flamers who they act so gay that there's no possible way you couldn't know. But I think that's okay too. Yeah, but it is a in-your-face kind of thing, which I tend to just ignore. And that's okay. Yep, that's fine. Ignoring's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But just that's not for me.

SPEAKER_03:

I just don't want to be bothered.

SPEAKER_00:

You don't want to troll in your face. Yeah. And that's still making me homotopic. No, give me a fucking break on that, because that's the way they'll go to it. Well, you're just, you know, that you're against it. It's like, no, it's like racism, too, it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Mixed marriage, remember like 25 years ago, mixed marriage was ready. And I had a black man who lived with a married to a white woman. And he says, How do you feel about that? I said, It's her choice, your good luck, and none of my business. Yeah. That's how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're like, you're for you of your generation, actually, to have some of these viewpoints is pretty rare.

SPEAKER_03:

It's just that's the way I feel about it.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's pretty rare.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I've always been wanting to mind my own business. Yeah. My neighbor down the street's a nice little fellow. He smokes marijuana in his garage on the weekends. And he's got his garage door open, you walk out how you smell it. He's a nice little guy. He bothers no one, he does nothing. They came around with a petition to get him thrown out of the neighborhood by handsome. Because they have off my property. He can smoke any damn thing he wants to in his garage and hurt my business.

SPEAKER_00:

And the thing is, it's like I fully believe her if you're not hurting anybody, you're not hurting yourself, no matter what that is, who gives a shit? And if you're and I I equate with if you're not rubbing it in others' faces, because then you're inconveniencing others.

SPEAKER_03:

My favorite expression is not my service, not my monkeys.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I don't really care what you do in your home as long as you're not hurting anybody or not taking the little kids. Right. I don't care. You can play whatever games you want, it doesn't matter to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I'm going to say my whole perspective with this podcast and everything I do on socials is it's not to throw this in people's faces. It's not. I don't have that approach to it. It's to educate, it's to help understand, it's to help validate. It's also to let people know it's okay to be you, whoever you are, whatever you got going on. It's absolutely okay to be you. You shouldn't have to apologize for being you. And you can fuck anybody who judges you for it.

SPEAKER_03:

Remember what I told you, though, right? You're unique.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You're the only you there is. Right. And the only responsibility now is to be best you when possibly. Yeah, you're right. And that has nothing to do with me.

SPEAKER_00:

No, you're right.

SPEAKER_03:

And I can't make you be the best person you want.

SPEAKER_00:

No, that's on that's on the individual.

SPEAKER_03:

And you decide what you want to be, and that you go do it. But don't try to drag me into it.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Well, the other thing, the other thing you said that is also great advice that more people need to hear is don't compare yourself to others. Your achievements, your life, your whatever that is, that plays into your unique. All that's going to do is disappoint you. And I'll tell you what, I'm guilty of that too of fault. And I know you said you have, I think we've all been. But I think you're at the point now. You're just like, nope, I'm completely settled in who I am and what I've accomplished. You know, I compare myself consistently to my brothers because of their money, their houses, their possessions, their fans.

SPEAKER_03:

There's also their normals. Yeah. You're a lot of things, Mick, but you're not normal. Okay, and I'm not saying that as an insult. That's not interrogatory thing. It's just true. You're a unique, special individual, and no one knows like you do what that means. Right. And to compare yourself to anyone else is to shortchange yourself. Right. Because you have a whole different set of circumstances to deal with. And how you deal with those circumstances, that's what makes you a success. Right. Not money, not normalcy, not the family.

SPEAKER_00:

What is normalcy? Surviving. Surviving is enough for me.

SPEAKER_03:

That is an accomplishment.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's one thing that dad has always been good about is you know, in someone in my situation, surviving is a big fucking deal.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a big thing. And I will say, um, one thing that I don't know if I mentioned on here, but you were there, if you remember, when I came out about this. Yes. You were there when they picked me up from school. Yes. You were there the first time this came out. You and mom, dad. Mom wasn't there. She's worked. You and mom, dad, and Christopher. And we had like it was practically net returned. And I went, did I go inpatient when you were there? Okay, my first and I was old stuff. That's right. And you saw me off from the hospital. And that's when my true recovery happened because I'd attempted before then.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So you were there for that. And one thing that we definitely talk about a lot in the New Zealand cruise is that you and I identified on a different level than most because yet you saw you saw so much shit in Vietnam. And I haven't seen that in real life. But what I hallucinate is pretty horrific. And but there's something you understand differently with that than many others. I haven't seen it in real life, so I haven't I don't have that connection to it. I'll pretend to. But the imagery itself.

SPEAKER_03:

I cannot imagine the horrific images that the human mind could create when it's off.

SPEAKER_00:

And a mind only is it when it's balances off, when it's own controls. Have you heard of the game Mortal Kombat anymore? Mortal Kombat, have you heard of that game? Yes. Okay, you know the fatalities, you know. That's Katie's the one who came up with that. That's what I see. 24-7. It's pale white faceless men doing that constantly. The other thing, of course, is is I always say the the auditory is way worse. The commanding, the the self-deprecating, what they tell me to do to everybody, my child, my wife, you, me. 24-7, they're non-conversational. I can't tell them to shut the fuck up. It does no good. And I even talked to my doctor recently, my psychiatrist, and I have a particularly negative symptom with this. It is particularly dark and negative, more than most. I'm kind of trying to dissect why that is.

SPEAKER_03:

Um it must be horribly frightening to understand that that voice is part of you. It is. And it is all of those things that are not the human part of you, the good part of you. It's everything that's based.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's all coming from the part of you that there's no control on.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't have to.

SPEAKER_03:

It's no control on any of us. But we don't have that constantly.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's enough. That's why, you know, it is hard for me to suffer through this all the damn time. And it's hard to fight it off. And as I mentioned before, I've never been once inclined to take it out on somebody else. As I mentioned, when I took that gun to school, it wasn't a public school, it was to myself to make that statement. I guess it was to be seen. Whatever the fuck that means.

SPEAKER_03:

But that's gotta be spite me.

SPEAKER_00:

What's interesting is um I you know much about the shadow cell theory, Carl Young's. Yeah, love that fucking theory. Because what's interesting is that we did an episode about it. I haven't posted it yet. But Tony and I talking about it is it is not hard for me to acknowledge that shadow cell because I'm bombarded with it every second of every day. And it's there, it is yeah, everybody's got it, and nobody wants to fucking acknowledge it.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's that I can't deny it. The rest of school when we think of fantasies and all of us do it. Yeah, everybody, and sometimes like when you're really pissed at somebody, you think of a thing to see how what you do to them. And and but in your case, it's much more real.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's constant. It's not something I could be like, oh you know, because people do that. So I get that out of there. Yeah, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_03:

That doesn't work that way. No, do the do the medications help them out?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh they no. Um, I will say when I go off of them, um The symptoms exact are exacerbated a little bit, but very little. Honestly, would I need medicated what I'm really struggling with right now is a bipolar. That's what's because my bipolar is more out of whack than it's been in my entire life, and I don't know how to fucking cope with it.

SPEAKER_03:

And they're they're not finding the dense to balance.

SPEAKER_00:

Here's the issue is that with the schizophrenic side of things, you can't treat my bipolar the same way you would treat me. I understand because I can't be on lithium. There's medical marijuana as a thing for bipolar. I can't do it because of the so I schizoaffectives. Trying to balance the two conditions against the other.

SPEAKER_03:

And sometimes the medications counteract each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, if you treat the bipolar, it exacerbates the schizophrenic symptoms, vice versa. So it is finding that perfect cocktail. And I never really found it. A lot of it's come from just perseverance and self. Well, you know what's funny is for years, and I'm talking years, in fact, probably till fucking six months ago. Um, I was thinking, I've said this for years. I've said, you know, if they could take these symptoms away, I don't know that I'd want to have because I wouldn't know what to do with myself. And I'm just like talking to Katie and I think back to before I was medicated and I was a star student. I was a great athlete. I was trying to be the next Uncle Mike at Triton if you I was trying to get my picture on the wall next to his. And then of course, when that all imploded, I gained a shit ton of weight. I got cloudy, wasn't academically or physically what I was. And I gotta tell you, I look back and I'm like, God, if I didn't have this, what would I be capable of? But now that again plays into this. I'm just like, well, goddamn, if I could get rid of it now, maybe I could get some of that back. And what's interesting too is Katie and I were even talking, you know, and you know, they're obviously doing experiments to see what works. And like Lord's 10 years ago, if they'd had some sort of trial run of something, I'd have been on that table in 10 seconds. Like, try it on me. But now we got Katie and Max, and I said, I need probably about 90% assurance that this would do it. But yeah, so anyway, I think that was really good to hear a lot of what you had to say, and I think that's gonna benefit a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03:

So well, I hope so. And uh thank you for taking the time.

SPEAKER_00:

No, I'm glad you did this. You've you've been somebody I wanted on here for a long time. So anyway, uh, this is Uncle Mark. So signing off, guys. Take care, and this is uh Nick Witchman, aka the defective schizo effective from Beat the Mental Health Out of It. And you know, we say don't look to the bottle, the knife, or the gun. Look for the soul you'll become. Stay tuned for the next episode, guys. Thanks for listening.

Contributor

Tony

Co-host

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