Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
Breaking Points and Breaking Through: One Chris Belan's Remarkable Journey
The journey from soldier to survivor is rarely straightforward, but Chris Belan's path stands as a testament to the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. Growing up in a proud Polish-Ukrainian family in Michigan, Chris carried forward his family's military tradition by joining the Army in 1987, beginning a career that would test the limits of his endurance.
When Chris volunteered for Special Forces selection, he faced one of military training's most notoriously brutal challenges. Starting with 250 candidates, only 70 would make it through the 21-day ordeal of sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, and psychological pressure. It was here that Chris developed his defining philosophy: "I'm never going to quit. They have to throw me out." That mindset would become his north star through deployments to Panama, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.
But life's hardest tests awaited him after his military service ended. At 58, Chris suffered a massive heart attack, with doctors later telling him he was "minutes away from dying." Just six weeks later, while still recovering, he lost consciousness during a motorcycle ride, crashing at 60mph and shattering his shoulder in six places. The recovery required 18 days of hospitalization and 13 months of physical therapy. Now, as his son battles stage four lymphoma, Chris applies the same unwavering resilience.
Chris's powerful message resonates beyond military service: "No matter how things go wrong or how bad anything happens, it's not permanent. You can get through it." His story reminds us that with the right mindset, humans can endure and overcome challenges far beyond what seems possible. Subscribe to hear more extraordinary stories of courage and determination that will transform your perspective on life's most difficult moments.
Today is Thursday, march 27th 2025. We're talking with Chris Beeland, who served in the United States Army and the United States Army Reserve. So good morning, chris. Good morning, good to see your smiling face. Today I had coffee, all right, I'm glad to hear that. Otherwise it might be kind of quiet on your end. So today we'll start out with some of the basics. When and when were you born?
Speaker 2:Well, that was a long time ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hopefully you can remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm right on the cusp of from being a boomer to a Gen X. So I was born June 15th 1964 in the great city of Detroit at St John's Hospital on the east side.
Speaker 1:Okay, and did you live in Detroit, or was that just where you were?
Speaker 2:For a short time, when I was young, actually lived right over by city airport. We were at Gratia and Connor, off a street called St Patrick, and from there I think it was. I think my folks first moved when a bad time in Detroit, when the riots were happening, they decided to move north, like everyone else did, uh, to the suburbs and, uh, we landed in at the time which was sterling township, which is now sterling heights.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, that's where I mainly grew up for most you know, for all intents and purposes, and it was unique and it was a great time because as a very young kid you know in the 60s watching the 70s unfold and then graduating high school at the beginning in 1982. So I think I had a normal childhood.
Speaker 1:Okay, All right, that's good Drink from the hose.
Speaker 2:Rode your bike around, all that fun stuff oh we played in the dirt disappeared for hours on end. You know that's when you know parents used to call you home for dinner. You could hear them yell. You know that's when you know parents used to call you home for dinner you could hear them yell you know, way over we were.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was kind of neat because when we first moved to Sterling it was still partially rural and it was just the start of the sprawl of the subs and you know we watched that unfold and uh, develop and change. But uh, um, so I had the taste of urban, suburban. So, um, I got, I had a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1:Okay, any brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:I have one brother, my brother Richard, um two years younger than me.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So there's a baby in your family. Yeah yeah, I was the oldest, I got away with murder. He never got away with anything, but I was the one that was always disciplined.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. So what can you tell me? Can you tell me a little bit about your parents, what they were like? Sure, can you tell me a little bit about your parents, what?
Speaker 2:they were like Sure, both my parents come from immigrant parents. Both sets of grandparents came from Europe, from Poland to Ukraine, and we had a very strong ethnic upbringing. You know part of the old world as well as the US, but it was very pro-US. There's pride of your heritage, but first and foremost, you were red-blooded, red, white and blue. You were red blooded, red, white and blue and uh, um, actually, when I moved to Sterling, it was really unique because there was an abundance of Poles and Italians and, um, for the most part, it was such a a tight mix because you know the know, the, the family values, and everybody was in church on sunday, you know, and, uh, 99.9 of them were catholics.
Speaker 2:So, uh, we had great cohesion okay yeah, sounds like a great place to grow up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. I wouldn't miss it for the world because as we as generations go, you know, you lose your heritage. You know, just by I guess you know, just by time, you know, and I, you know, I try to give my kids, you know, hey, you know where your family came from is important and the ties to that community are still very important, you know. So it was a balance. It was a really good balance.
Speaker 2:I grew up in a bilingual house so I don't speak it. I don't speak Polish as much as I have in a very long time, but you know my grandparents and my aunts and uncles, everybody, anytime we went to my grandparents, you know it was either usually it was in Polish and everything else, or when they didn't want us to hear we didn't understand, so they would switch back and forth. So it was, it's like New Yorkers in Italy, or you know the Italians, rather you know they speak, you know Italian all the time, or just anybody else. It was a great imagination, you know. I think that adds a lot to your moral compass and character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, having an immigrant family changes your perspective on probably a lot of things, and I mean, uh, you could probably pick up polish if you needed to, if you ever happen to be.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can understand it. From time to time I do. I can throw out sentences here and there, and especially when somebody's being uh derogatory to a mean, and I'll just say something. They'll just look at you in blank and not realizing that I just gave them a whole, whole string of epithets you remembered all the words you needed to remember oh, I remember. I can remember the bad words.
Speaker 2:No problem I could say well, I could be nice to you. I could go yeah, yes, just like. Which means how you doing, sir, oh well okay. I know, but it's depending how you look at pride. I have pride in the correct way, in the proper way, not in the wrong way, you know so. But you know, it is you, you know it is my heritage and it's, you know, very strong and I think it's a certain amount of pride you should have in your, in your heritage.
Speaker 1:I, my wife, comes from a greek family and there's a lot of pride in being greek, but they're oh, yeah, yeah, I had very, very american, so yeah, you know, and yeah same. Sounds very similar.
Speaker 2:I wanted to say Sterling Heights, warren, this is before Troy developed Very ethnic, you know, in in pockets and stuff and people held to their, their comfort zones. You know, and I think there was more cultural immersion back then than there is now. Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:No, it does. It does completely, so it sounds like a great childhood School went well for you.
Speaker 2:I had a regular childhood, Matter of fact, well, and I got incorrigible a little bit. I went through Utica schools up through my first year in high school and I was in a rebellious stage a little bit and my parents were having none of that so they figured figured, you're going to catholic high school thinking they're.
Speaker 2:They're going to straighten me out, you know the priests are going to do that. So I got pulled out of stevenson high school and went to uh, bishop foley, catholic in madison heights from 10th through 12th grade and that in hindsight helped me so great because I learned how to adapt to change really quick and just a different environment. And it also gave me two sets of friends because I still had my tight knit group from where I was living and then I had my group at school and it through high school. They melted together and we still have friends together. You know I have two groups of friends that became one group of friends and lifelong friendships.
Speaker 1:So you were a one man melting pot.
Speaker 2:Well, I think I don't want to say it was like a social butterfly, but I was very overt. I was a very personable person, but I still had that little I could take care of my own roughness on the side. Everyone would try to say settle down. But going to Bishop Foley straightened me out like my parents intended and it really changed probably my course of my life.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, you know, sometimes parents are right, well.
Speaker 2:I had old school parents. So, yeah, and I see a lot of problems and I have seen it for and I know you have too just that the latest generations have a lack of accountability and responsibility and ethical choices and such. You know we knew better because we were taught that and that was. We lived by that. So I instilled that in my kids, my kids, you know, even though my youngest is 20, she's at Grand Valley and my son is going to be 24. I see it in them, I see the responsibility and accountability and it pays dividends. It really does.
Speaker 1:It makes them better people it's interesting because I talk to people from all different backgrounds and all different generations and, in my experience, like every generation, thinks that that generation after them you know is is a problem. Oh yeah, you know what?
Speaker 1:I mean like like we're turning into the old guy that yells at people for being on his lawn, that kind of thing. But but I think that to your point, the back end of the latest generation, that group that's coming up now that are your kids' age, are really kind of turning things around when it comes to that. I think overall for that generation it's turning back around, I think is because parents have gotten more involved in the right ways with their kids.
Speaker 2:45 knows that, you know, generationally there was that void of no parenting. They wanted to be friends, they didn't want to parent, and that set people up for failure. For, you know, for a long time, and I think people have seen the damage and I think they want to go back to when things were right. I, that's. I'm not an optimist, I'm a realist. I, I see a slight change. It's the start of it. I'm hoping that it'll snowball and we can get back to a you know, you know, a good generation again.
Speaker 1:You know yeah, it's walking that line between being your best friend and beating you with a belt. I think there's somewhere in between that works. You know what I mean proper discipline never hurt nobody so you uh, it sounds like high school worked out for you, even though you had to move schools, and you kept your friends, did you? After graduation, did you end up joining the military like right away?
Speaker 2:No, actually it was because, because what was going on in the early eighties? I, my family, was predominantly the in the early eighties, uh, I, my family, was predominantly the automotive industry. You know, if you didn't work for Chrysler, you worked for Ford, you worked for GM and, um, we were still at the tail end of you know, uh, hot rods and cars and cars were such an important part of your teenage years and stuff, not like kids today. You know, and I had, and I was lucky I came from pretty much a blue collar family and where you repaired your own stuff and did everything, but my dad and my uncles instilled such a love for cars you know, classic cars, old cars, you know, and stuff like that, and I loved working on them.
Speaker 2:I wanted to go into automotive industry. I didn't want to work on a line or anything like that, I wanted to get more into a skill trade. I at first I thought I go, hey, I want to be an auto mechanic. And I, because I was pulling engines and transmissions and tearing cars apart, probably from 15 on. I was initially self-taught and what you know, what my family taught me and I had a natural knack for it and a love for it.
Speaker 2:Um, I love things mechanical. I don't, you know. Um, I do a lot of spatial thinking, so to speak. You know it. It came naturally, you know, and it was fun. And then it snowballed into everyone bringing their cars to me. I was doing all the majority of work and stuff and my dad goes bringing their cars to me. I was doing all the majority of work and stuff and my dad goes. At the time I was graduating in 82 and Chrysler fell through the basement, my dad didn't know if he was gonna have work anymore. He was with them for forever and things were financially dire and he goes. I can't afford to send you to college and I'm going well maybe I'll go to trade school.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'll go to trade school and he goes, I can get you into Chrysler Corporation's mechanics training program. But he says I can only help a little. He says you're going to have to student loan the rest, and that's what I did. I went to what was called MoTeC. They were in Livonia at the time, so I had to travel from Sterling Heights to Livonia every day and work on top of that. I was working in a dealership. I worked for Crest Lincoln Mercury in Sterling Heights, which was owned by Bob Ritchie, whose son is Kid Rock Kid Rock.
Speaker 2:I knew Kid Rock and his brother when they were teenagers because his dad made them come in and clean and do stuff, even though they were well off. He taught them the value of work and Kid Rock? I knew him as a snotty little 13, 14-year-old. And here I am. I'm a young, 18, 19-year-old, not far off. But I thought I was living pretty good. I was in a real job. I was going to the trade school getting valuable training and, like I said, the automotive industry. When I was finishing up MoTeC I was approached by their placement counselor saying hey, I got a job you might be interested in. I go, I got a decent job. He says this is when AMC was still before Christ, just before they bought them. He says, no, this is a very good job. I go okay, what do you got for me? He says how would you like to work in engineering as an experimental mechanic for the engineering headquarters for AMC, which was the old Kelvinator building over right on the edge of Detroit?
Speaker 3:And I go yeah, yeah, you know, I didn't care about the money.
Speaker 2:I wanted the experience and you know something to put on the resume.
Speaker 2:You know, I figured this was a closer tie, um tie to go to because I wanted to work for Chrysler and uh, so I uh, I ended up, uh getting the job and, um, I don't even think I was there six months. I was having the time of my life. They were just coming out with the Cherokee at the time. Well, the Cherokee was out but they were just transitioning to the straight six, the four liter, and at the time they had a General Motors 2.8 liter V6 in there. That was kind of anemic, but they were able to squeeze that in there and I was part of that platform that was working on it. I was having a great time. And that's when Chrysler bought AMC and they kind of dismantled the company. You know where. They got rid of everything and all their engineering and they kept you know, they kept Jeep and all their engineering and they kept.
Speaker 1:You know, they kept jeep and uh. So so what some people might not know is the amc used to make jeeps. It was amc jeep right or gbm they were there.
Speaker 2:You know they, you know they were. They absorbed willies whenever they did, back in the late 40s, early 50s or whatever.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's, that was the the origination of jeep and chrysler wanted them for the jeep products, not for, oh yeah, because it was a cash cow, yeah, and they and they really improved, as you can see they've.
Speaker 2:You know, that thing took off like a rocket well that four liter straight six was a workhorse yeah, that thing, was crazy, you know, but anyway I digress yeah so anyways. So I I kind of lost out on, you know, on that. That kind of fell through and um the um. I just went on unemployment and I get a call back from amC, not AMC but Chrysler or AMC. No, no, I'm sorry, I think yeah, because I'm sorry, I'm just thinking back.
Speaker 2:So, long ago Renault had AMC they you know that's where it was falling apart and that's when Chrysler grabbed it. So it was Renault AMC at the time. So just so I get a call back from them, they said, hey, um, we have Chrysler's keeping this open. Want to know? If you want to? You know, do component teardown you know for for what was called Component Reliability Engineering Group. It was on Farmington in.
Speaker 2:Livonia. So I'm like I go, yeah, I want to work, I don't want to be on unemployment. So I stayed there until Chrysler decided I don't think it was a year, you know they dismantled that and I was back on the street again. You know they dismantled that and I was back on the street again and I didn't want to go back to the dealership. I didn't want to do this, I didn't want. You know, typical 20-something year old right, right, you know you're getting, you're real picky about life and everything.
Speaker 2:And things were kind of stabilizing with Chrysler and my dad goes hey, I got a contact. This is when Chrysler was before they built Auburn Hills Tech Center. They still had the Highland Park Engineering and headquarters. They said I can get you in there as a contracted employee. I go yes, yeah, anything to make way, you know, get a door open to show the foot in. And I worked as a everyone still uses contracted engineering and stuff like that and technicians and stuff. Jim's still very prominent on that and uh, I came in as a um, let's see, it was energy.
Speaker 2:I was in an engineering program planning um, and it was. We had to go to all the um, uh, different various plants in the Detroit metro area and some of the outline areas and we had to get we did weights and measures of uh uh production components so they could get weights for epa certification. So but it was a job. So uh um I, you know I worked out of highland park with the team and we would go to the various um different assemblies, like uh, at the Jefferson Assembly, warren Truck, we went to Kokomo, indiana, when they saw the transmission plant, I went to St Louis, one and two assemblies. So I was traveling, living it up, having a good time, and my contract came up and they cut that department and all the technicians and they laid off 25 of us and it was a permanent layoff, it wasn't a callback right and they gave a final pay and I was kind of soul searching at that time like, oh I, you, I was always never without a job or or never sitting on my butt.
Speaker 2:You know, I always was always forward moving and it seemed like at that time the handwriting on the wall for the automotive industry was the wall for the automotive industry was downsizing, downsizing, downsizing, all this other, and the lack of opportunity was greater and greater and greater. And I always had a like of the military. I'm actually third generation. When my father came from, the grandfather came from the ukraine. When he came over here, that's how he got his citizenship uh, he enlisted in the united states army. Um, he served in world war one and uh, but you know, I'm the tail end of the family. That's why my there's a space between the timing and my dad's oldest brother two of them served in World War II. My oldest uncle served in Patton's Third Army. He was in Battle of the bulge. He's seen most of France and Belgium and that predominant area and my dad was 10 years younger than him.
Speaker 2:So then Korea kicked off in, I think the beginning of 53. And he served 53 and 54 in Korea. In Korea, so you know, the long line of serving your country started. And then I had a couple cousins that were in Vietnam. My one cousin was in the 4th Infantry, he was up in the Highlands and he was also in Cambodia and Laos, so he got to see some crazy things and he came back all in one piece.
Speaker 2:And one thing I noticed with all of them as much as they bitched about the manual theory, they loved it, you know, and there was pride and stuff, and my dad was a VFW member, so were my uncles and stuff, and just being exposed to them and their love and hate. And a couple of my friends went in. I go, you know what I might do a, you know what I'm going to do this. And I was toying between the Marine Corps and the Army and my dad goes look, if you're going to do this, you're going to carry on the family tradition. All right, we're an Army family. Oh, okay and I go. Okay and I go. I was leaning towards it, more or less, and okay. So in 87, I enlisted under the delayed entry program. I kind of wanted to be a soldier. I didn't want to be a mechanic. I didn't want to be a support person, I wanted to do basics.
Speaker 2:So I enlisted as 11 Bravo, as an infantryman with the airborne option, because I had this, this glory picture of being airborne. So not not knowing, for you know for well, of everything that's included with that.
Speaker 2:But it's a lot of work, Chris well of everything that's included with that, but it's a lot of work, chris, getting so, um, I think, yeah, I think I was 22. I think I was 22 when I enlisted I'm trying to remember um. So I enlisted as an airborne infantryman and, um, I went to fort Benning for basic and infantry school and we were one of the last cycles Fort Benning. Their training areas were divided up in two areas. One was called Sand Hill, the other one was called Harmony Church. Sand Hill was the new they called them the starships the new modern barracks and everything else and air conditioning, all that kind of crazy stuff. And I get to the processing station at Benning and we thought that Harmony Church was shut down and then we find out no, we were one of the last two cycles. I was going to Harmony Church.
Speaker 2:So I went to the real World War II barracks, the real training area, and we were so far from the flagpole. We also had the hard. Everyone says yeah, I had the hardest drill sergeants. They had more autonomy to get away with things and be the right way. I remember my senior drill was he was an old crusty E7 that served in the 173rd. He was. He jumped into Vietnam and he seemed he was. He was the gunny highway of the army, to speak he was. You know he was just as rough as you could get and you know my company paid for that going through it. But we learned right and we learned well, um. So, um my day, because we at the time it was called one station unit training, so you went through basic and your MOS training all in one shot.
Speaker 1:So MOS training was just an extension of boot camp, right, yeah, I remember the day that we switched.
Speaker 2:It was like we were training seven days that we switched. We didn't. It was like we were training, we were training seven days. I remember on sunday we were, um, we were, we were training and my, uh, my drill sergeant goes, tells us he goes. Oh yeah, by the way, you guys uh, graduated basic today. We're like what we're dirty, we're, we're in, we're in gear and we're out goofing around. They, they go. Yeah, today's the first start of infantry school.
Speaker 3:And I'm like it was you know it was a little tip.
Speaker 2:Talk about like okay, what happened there? And then it was like a few hours later they started cranking down on us like it was day one. You know they were just trying to keep us in line and everything they you know because the word got out, we they thought we were going to slack off.
Speaker 2:So they start, you know. So they put the screws to us for about three, four days and then backed it off a little bit and then we went through, you know, through, uh, the rest of our infantry training and actually the day I it was really funny the day I graduated my parents came down and some friends and stuff I went right from graduation over to airborne. They took us right over to airborne school in process and I go my parents are here, I didn't, you know. They dragged us out in the, in the, you know, in transport, and took us over there and I told my dad, I said they're taking us over to the airborne school. You know, I'll figure a way to get ahold of you or you guys come out there or whatever.
Speaker 2:But, um, they did that on purpose. The drills did. Actually, we didn't have to report because it was for my group. It was called a zero week where you're just in transition and you would start on the following week. But they dropped us off to be put on the manual labor market, for whatever, and I think there was about 15, 20 of us that got dumped off and all these parents and people that came across country to see their kids got mad Like why did you drag our kids off? And my dad goes, he says, he says, hold on, I know something about the army, it's, you know, um, we're going to the chaplain, the base chaplain's office. We're gonna, we're gonna light a fire this way?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, and so they would. So all these people there's both, I mean a ton of people went to the chaplain's office and they went in there and they got overwhelmed, like all these people are like ready to tear the building apart. And it happened that the base commander's wife was there, seeing, seen the chaplain the, the the the chaplain group and she sticks her nose out and what's going on?
Speaker 2:Right, she goes, I'll take care of this. She calls her husband and it just went work. Um, I remember I was, um, I was in the company area and we were out doing a police call and one of the black hats, the airborne instructors, come running. He says and he had a clipboard and he goes.
Speaker 2:Hey all you guys that came from a trolley company, third or the 38th over from Harmony Church, fall in, he says. He says you guys immediately got a three-day pass and everyone was, they were all nervous and were like what did we do and where's the retribution going to come? But long story short, we got out of there quick, they took us to the chaplain's office and we got released to our families for, you know, you know, for three days so, and that was the beginning of that, and that was the beginning of that. So we didn't it's not like we missed training or anything because school didn't officially, you know, start up, like I said, to the following week, you know. So we had a few days of uh, sorry for that. I got a 11 to 10 o'clock call but I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1:All right. So a good question on that, though, um. Was there a price to be paid for that three-day pass, or did it just no, no, wow, that's crazy we were told.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess when the beast commander's wife hears about, uh, some of the things that were pulled, she was mad and of course I'm sure she was a bug in and like now the cg's here and that came from them. So I think everyone was afraid to step forward or do anything or have any type of retaliation, because it comes back to it they didn't know they didn't. All they know is it. You know it came down quick like a bolt of lightning and they were just you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were scrambling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were scrambling. Yeah, so the airborne school didn't care because they didn't, you know they weren't aware of it. You know that was pulled by, you know, by the training battalion. You know by the training battalion.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure something was said and I'm sure people got called on the carpet about it, but that was my first introduction to you know how things come down, you know. You know, I experienced it firsthand and it was like it blew my mind. Went to airborne school, graduated from airborne school, I got orders for 82nd replacement. So I got assigned to the 82nd airborne. So I got assigned to the 2nd Airborne and that's where my career really started. After being in replacement I got assigned to 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which has a very historical background.
Speaker 2:Most of the Airborne started at the beginning, you know, in World War II, and they started along with the 101st and if I remember my divisional history, their first action was in started off in Sicily, the invasion of Sicily, and they went from there to England and trained up just like the 101st did for a period of time, Jumped in on D-Day from D-Day. They were, you know they moved. The next big thing was Holland Operation Market Garden, which was a joint large scale airborne invasion where they were trying to get the Germans out of Holland and taking key bridges and stuff. That was with the British First Airborne Division. It was a joint British-US and the Poles that they were with the British and that kind of gave them a kick in the butt and they also, um, they also helped, uh, break the encirclement at the bulge, for when 101st was encircled, um, and they had. They had heavy combat and it battled the bulge like everybody did and they finished the war. From that, I don't, I'm trying to remember what was the next event.
Speaker 2:I don't think anything with the 82nd, nothing happened for the 82nd, until Dominican Republic in the mid 60s when they had that coup, and from there they went to Vietnam and after Vietnam nobody did anything and they were the first ones in urgent fury. You remember Grenada? Oh yes, I remember that that was their first action in 10-plus years because the Soviet Union unwinded down and everything else and the Army downsized and everything else. When I was assigned to the 505th, I was lucky. I was assigned to, which is now.
Speaker 2:They changed the designation to a Pathfinder Detachment. It was a long-range surveillance unit I got a little taste of, and next thing, you know, we're going to Panama. I was in Panama in December of 89 when we went to go get Noriega. I was only in Army a short time and here I am, you know, expecting a peacetime Army, but that was very short-lived. We were only there 30 days, but it got me a coveted expeditionary force medal. From there I got an opportunity to try out for special forces. They had what was called special forces assessment and selection, I think it was.
Speaker 2:I should have been a little bit more prepared, but I again, just like when I joined the Army initially you know, you know I had, you know goals and stuff like that and I go, hey, if I got a chance to do this, this will be great. Not realizing the full impact of the length of training and everything that you have to give you know and trial by fire, basically. So I went through. I went through selection, which nearly killed me. My class started tell you the attrition rate for selection. My class started with 250 people and 70 of us graduated.
Speaker 1:That's quite a failure rate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well it's designed it's. The whole premise of it is to weed out and get what they're looking for. You know that's their weeding out process. Before they had selection, before they implemented it, they used to weed you out in the first phase of special forces and they said, no, this is this is counterproductive. No, this is counterproductive. We need to teach and train, not play a weeding out process. We want people ready to go to start, not have two processes going at the same time.
Speaker 2:But yeah, selection is 21 days of hell when you have regimental rangers and a lot of some hardcore people quit. It's divided up in two phases there's a team phase and there's an individual phase and a lot of land navigation and a lot of brutal tasks and stuff. It's a gut check, it's a total gut check and it is really a big psychological check and I mean from sleep deprivation to you know, you're absolutely 100% observed from the time you start to they decide to you could complete the entire 21 days and pass through it all and they have what's a final board which they decide, you know, and still not pass. There's people that have gone through it and not get selected. So through the whole time that you're there. It's really unique because there's no encouragement, there's no positive reinforcement. Actually, when you get there, you're stripped of all rank. All you have is Uncle Sam in your name and you have white engineer tape with a roster number and it was sewn to your pockets, on your pants, on the sides, and you were referred to either as trooper or as roster number, so-and-so. So they level the playing field right from the start, and this is where they can really. You know, look at you know your performance and your ability to. You know, do things by yourself or do things in a team setting. The scrutiny is really, really incredible.
Speaker 2:But they give the. They weren't instructors, but the facilitators. They were the most stone-faced, non-emotional people they had to be. They couldn't give encouragement, they couldn't tell you how you were doing, whether it was good or bad. You just had to keep going and, by the grace of God, I gave it everything I got and this is what taught this. This is actually that's where it instilled me never to quit, no matter how bad things were going, and I kept saying to myself I'm never going to quit. They have to throw me out Right Cause I'm going to give everything I got until I'm told to stop, you know, and that's what they want, you know you. You know you have to go past your limitations. You've got, you know you. You can't have comfort zones and you got to be able to continue on. And uh, that instill, in short order, perseverance to no end.
Speaker 2:Some people have it, some people do not. Not everyone has it. I don't think it can be learned. I think it it only comes from within. And that's where you know, you know it helped me find it. It helped me find it, I had it. I never realized I had it, you know, and I've used that throughout up until this day, you know, pushing through things, and as we go further, you will see where it carried me through, where you know there's nothing else that could carry me through, and I look at it as a core blessing. I look at it as a core blessing, you know, it's something I guess, it's a survival mechanism, and it teaches you not to give up, or at least exposes you to it, and it made me who I am today. You know of of having very strong attributes, you know um well, again, so do you, chris?
Speaker 1:do you think that? Um, so that selection or or instances like that? Um, you know, I think that that really reveals people's character. It doesn't build their character like when you go through something like that. That really reveals people's character. It doesn't build their character Like when you go through something like that.
Speaker 2:it really reveals who you are. Yeah, you just said it in a nutshell while I sat there and blabbed it out. I think so. I think it brings out true character and you're. You know who you are All right, are all right whereas it doesn't give you an opportunity to embellish or fake it or be lazy or any anything.
Speaker 1:that's counterproductive yeah, there's no faking your way through that selection process.
Speaker 2:It's stripping you naked and and showing you for what you are and that's just selection, true sense what's that?
Speaker 1:I say that's just selection, though that's not even that's just that's just selection that's just the iceberg yeah, I'm not even.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I don't even know. If I had that would go through the opportunity, all right. And again now after I, when I completed it, nobody knew. Um, when we came back, well, actually, the last we knew, we were going like we don't know where we're at in training because all they would do is they would post three times a day a schedule on a, on a board, in a in a common or not a common area, but in the in a parade ground area. And you had to go look at it. And you had. They gave you no, I mean, there was no direction other than what was posted, you know what time, where to be, and there was very minimal notification or whatever. So it was a. You had to be on top of it. You know you. You know you couldn't rely on cadre coming and directing you to do this or do that they this is what this was, a total check from the time you walked in and see what you were made of.
Speaker 2:You know, test your metal and uh, and you know I had responsibility, but it just amplified it that much more. You know, know, I was an E4 when I went to selection, I was a corporal. So I was just, I had enough responsibility, but not a lot, and that just pushed me. It just propelled me forward that much pushed me. It just propelled me forward that much even more. And for, by the grace of God, you know I, you know I was doing all the right things. Everyone makes minor mistakes here and there, but the thing was is I, it made me think about what I was doing next, or you know what to you know anticipate or whatever, just always trying to be on guard. You know, and that with a lack of sleep, really it really does a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we were only going on like a couple three hours sleep a day. You know they would be woken up in the middle of the night to do stuff and I there's only so much I can give away for the selection, but it's, it's, it's a guy, I mean. Even the rangers said, you know they were having nightmares of ranger school and this was just that, in a quieter way, but just this, but with a bigger psychological impact yeah, and uh and it was all by design.
Speaker 2:You know it was all it was. It was. It was all a logical reason for what they were doing. And, um, after going, um, after going through everything and all the hell and everything, um, our last, um, we we heard it through the grapevine, you know other other people going through our last event was, uh, we were going to have a I wouldn't call it a road march, it was more of a road run, yeah, and it was from Camp McCall into the outskirts of Fort Bragg, which was 38 miles, I think it was a long way.
Speaker 2:They woke us up like at 1.30 in the morning to pack all our stuff up, threw us on trucks, drove us out to I think it was at the time, I think it was Chicken Road, which was the sandiest, most hilliest continuous road. It was just horrible for the walk on. It was just horrible for the walk-on and I think the ruck weight had to be a minimum. Minimum without food and water was 65 pounds plus your weapon and by the time you had everything not too bad. You know, 80, some pounds. And we were all dropped off and given chem lights. We were putting them on our person and on our rucks.
Speaker 2:And we were told go that direction until you're told to stop and not. Well, no time hacks nothing, just get there. Yeah, so you start hoofing it and you're, and you're going.
Speaker 2:The next thing you know it's you know it's early morning, you're gone, sun's come up and you're just going and you're like when is this going to end? And this is going on for hours and hours and you're just, you're at wit's end, you're tired, you wore out, you're blistered up, you're scraped up, you're just a mess. And you know you're probably 20 pounds of muscle that you've lost over the last three weeks. And uh, um, finally, when I came in, uh, all there was was a water buffalo for those that don't know it's, it's a small trailer with with potable water. And uh had a checkpoint and Susie came in. You checked in and they said, okay, have a seat, wait for the next truck. And that's all they said.
Speaker 1:Wow Okay.
Speaker 2:So you know, after 30, some miles going all night, you know you're like. So they took us back to our barracks where we're staying. We get there. They say get cleaned up, get child, we'll have accountability at 1600. This was like at, I think, at I think 11am in the morning and nobody wanted show everyone's getting in there.
Speaker 2:You know, all they want to do is shower and rack out, and that's what I kind of did. So it was like I close my eyes and my uh, my watch goes off, my alarm goes off. You know at, you know at, uh, about 20 minutes to uh formation and I wake up. I go, I just fell asleep, you know, I just felt like I closed my eyes for a second. I hadn't, I was just out, everyone was absolutely cold. And then I'm getting out of my bunk and I can barely move. I'm just so tightened up, sore, and, and my feet were like ever, like everybody else is wearing hammers and uh, when instructors comes in going, so, uh, anyone that wants to soft shoes, because they knew everyone was tore up you know, and formation is going to be right in front of the barracks, right on the street.
Speaker 2:Okay, so they do, they do a head count and they go. We'll have another accountability after chow and for further direction. And we're like we don't have to do anything. You know, you're, you're waiting for the shoe to drop, right, right. And we're like so everyone's staying in the barracks, they're not going anywhere, they're not screwing around. You know, I'm just so. We have the last final formation and they said the board's convening and they may have questions for you. You'll be called. You know, stay in the area from now until whatever time it was. And we're all just like okay, dead silence, no one's talking, everyone's just absolutely wiped out. You know, everyone's just absolutely wiped out. And so they had another formation and some people did come and go, if they had questions or not, and it was just like one or two questions and it didn't give them any insight of what was going on. It was just like. You know, they were so ambiguous some of the questions. So you know, we get released for the for the night and to the to the morning formation, and nobody has a clue what's going on. We're like are we selected? Are we not selected. What's going on, right? So uh, uh.
Speaker 2:So first formation, we got released for for chow and they said, like I think that was like a 30 minute time period they said it I think it was at 0830 be up at this classroom and you know, in the auditorium at this time. So we all file in there, all of us, and we're all hobbling in people on crutches and stuff, you know, because they got medical attention and stuff Beat up. We looked like POWs Bad, and all the cadre and the school commander were in there and they're just stone-faced, absolutely like they were, like they were prison guards. And once everyone was in there, they closed the doors and they posted two people outside and two people inside the support personnel and the commander is just up there. He was former Delta. So we kind of up there who was? He was former Delta, so we kind of knew who he was. But he, he just had that stoic, no facial expression whatsoever, yeah.
Speaker 2:And he says he says if your roster number is called off, go to the back by the doors, take further direction from the cadre. He starts reading off the roster. It went in order at first. Then all of a sudden he starts jumping numbers around and we're going. What the hell's going on and when he's reading it off. I had such tunnel vision. I was so focused in on him, waiting for my number to get called, and I could feel the sweat start rolling down and I swear to God, I could hear everyone breathing. You know, everyone was just so. The focus and fear at the same time were there because you completed all this. Now, all of a sudden, it's like you know, but are the people being called, the one's being selected and the one staying behind? You don't know.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And he's jumping through the list and it seems like it's going forever. It's like time stopped and all of a sudden he calls the last number and he just looks at the paper and he just looks up once and he looks back down, sets the paper down just as stone-faced as you could possibly be, and then you hear the doors close and other people leave and he looks around and he pauses for like about 20 seconds.
Speaker 2:You know I'm going, you MF-er, you know, you are just doing the Jedi mind trick, right. Just doing the Jedi mind trick, right and with no emotion. He goes gentlemen, you've been selected and we just euphoria. You know everyone jumps up, yeah, you know hugging, and you're just like. You know it was the worst anxiety you could possibly have. And then at that point, and you just look around and you know all processing will be at start of business tomorrow. You guys have the afternoon off, there's no formations, you're on your own and it was like I didn't know what to do. I burned my language. I didn't know whether to shit or go blind.
Speaker 2:You know yeah uh, and we, um, we were, we were a wretched mess going through that. And now, now, now life seemed good. You know, now there was, you know the sun was shining, all this other stuff, and uh, um, uh, I was, uh, I got orders for the next. Uh, I actually went back to 82nd and first thing was my first sergeant was waiting for me coming to my hooch. All right, my hooch, all right.
Speaker 2:So my first sergeant and my you know, my platoon sergeant were in there and they're going. They got their arms crossed, you know, very un, no military bearing, and they're glaring at me. They go, they go, we're going to hate you whether you give a yes or no answer. I go, what did you pass? And you better fucking pass. Or, if you didn't pass, I got shit for you to do, right, yeah, you're a disgrace. You know, it's like damned, it was a catch 22. And I'm like I'm going like what I just went through. You guys can't even get close, Right, I go and I'm like looking at them and I'm smir. I'm going like what I just went through. You guys can't even get close right, and I'm like looking at them and I'm smirking they go. What the hell are you smirking at corporal and they put me at parade. Rest right.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, so you know, going back to the old 82nd, all right, well I go. I got got orders for the Q course and then they go, come over shake my hand and saying job well done, they go, you go. You know you're very much in the minority, because every 20 people that go there, 18 come back.
Speaker 1:So good job, it's a huge accomplishment. There's no other way.
Speaker 2:good job, it's a huge accomplishment I mean there's no other way to say it's a huge accomplishment so but yeah, they just wanted the you know, the, the typical you know they got a mess when the co-play game. You know, yeah, type stuff, yeah and uh they were, uh, oh, yeah, now they had bragging rights. You know for, you know for the other companies and stuff like that. And you know the other senior ncls are like like flipping off, like I got a winner, you got losers.
Speaker 1:You know, you know the all the silly stuff, all the, all the sibling rivalry and all the yeah, I got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and uh, uh, it was funny because we had a. When I came back after that, we had an airborne. We had a professor jump scheduled for the next day and they go no, you're not jumping. Why I want to? You know I want to jump. They go no, you're going to be ground support, You're going to be the DZSO's support, You're going to be on the DZ, I'm going. Why they go?
Speaker 2:you ain't screwing up before you leave, You're not you know, so they're trying to make sure that you know for the next 30 days I don't hurt myself and stuff like that they go. Do you want to take some? Do you want to take terminal leave? Do you want to do something? You? Know. Matter of fact, my company commander gave me a, gave me a four day pass. He says go disappear, go, just stay out of here. I don't want you doing anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they just want to make sure that you're going where you're supposed to go when you're supposed to go there, right, oh, yeah, yeah, because you know, didn't?
Speaker 2:you know? You know I was representing them and they didn't want, you know, they didn't want to send a bag of garbage over there. You know right. And uh, I'm, I remember, uh, starting the q course. Um, at the time it was three phases. They keep changing it and keep adding stuff here and there I got when I, when I reported in, we had a choice of your MOSs. You know the wishlist, just like everything else, you know, know, they fill out what you want and we'll let you know, because needs, needs of the service, come first, so we'll put you where we want to put you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I thought about it and, uh, I wanted to be a weapon sergeant because I loved weapon system stuff. I did just. And then, uh, I put commo sergeant for those for my second and demo for my third. I didn't want medic because that was. That is a brutal course, even for sf standards. Um, but um, that afternoon I get, uh, you know, I'm assigned to to the weapons branch, you know, after phase one, and I go, yes, I got what I wanted. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1:Nobody gets what they want.
Speaker 2:Basically there was only a few people. They were short commo sergeants and they pulled people. You know what they had the most of and everyone really more or less got what they wanted. And uh, everyone really more or less got what they wanted. But uh, training was uh long, very long, and uh also part of training through sf. Uh, you also go through through survival through seer and uh, you also go through your next, uh, uh, your next professional development course. You have to at least have BNOC or ANOC, which was for the enlisted Officers had a different path because they had the officer portion of the course.
Speaker 2:Officers and licits are to get word together for phase one and phase three. Phase one is all your small unit tactics, all your um direct action, all the, all the bread and butter type things, and phase two is your MOS specific. And phase three is what's called Robin Sage. It's a huge, huge unconventional warfare maneuver. Where they do it. In North Carolina they have a ton of civilians that act out and stuff it. In North Carolina they have a ton of civilians that act out and stuff it's a fictional country called Pineland. You know you're born infiltrated, you hook up with guerrillas and so forth. You're basically doing the core value of special forces, which is unconventional warfare, like it's a real problem and well, so I can kind of close this up a little bit. We don't have to go into details about all that stuff.
Speaker 2:I get through everything, I pass everything and I graduate everything I pass everything and I graduate and I was like, okay, at our regimental dinner when we got our berets the night before graduation, all the command and sergeant majors from the various groups come in, you know, be part of the regimental dinner and welcome to the regiment type thing. And our guest speaker at the time was Colonel Aaron Banks, famous for the.
Speaker 2:OSS and he was incredible on that aspect and it was here's a historical figure you read about and you get to meet him and it was really really yeah, he was really the father of Special Forces at the time. Really, really yeah, he was really the father of Special Forces at the time.
Speaker 2:You know it's like okay, you're actually here, Okay, you're part of the Brotherhood now, right, yeah, and that's where you also. They handed out where do you want to go? What you know? Where do you want to be assigned? Right, Whether you want first, third, fifth, seventh, tenth. And I really wanted 10th group. At the time 10th group wasn't at Fort Carson, they were still at Fort Evans, but they were also in Bad Tolls in Germany and I wanted Bad Tolls, I wanted to go to Germany. So, bad, I go. You know, this is it right? I want 10th Group, right.
Speaker 2:And I met the command sergeant major for 10th group and he goes uh, because I went up to him and asked him, because I was asking him about 10th group, he goes. He says, uh, you know, because we got to go through language school. And uh, he says, you know, most of languages are very difficult and all this you know, he's downplaying it a little bit, yeah, and I go um, well, and he's looking, he's, he's glaring at my name. He goes b-1, b-1, b-1 and I go. It's slavic and he goes, I go. That's the russian spelling. I said my grandfather came from ukraine, the rest of my family came from Poland. I go, I'm second generation and he goes can you speak anything? And I said I can speak Polish, and I started conversing with him a little bit. He spoke Polish, he spoke German and he spoke French. So I think he was kind of surprised because I was pronouncing more correctly some words than he was Right.
Speaker 3:Well, you grew up with it though. Well, yeah, he goes. Where'd you learn that I go, hamtramck?
Speaker 2:I said no, and he goes, write down your name and all your info and we'll see what you can do. You know, I was hoping that. You know I was greasing the right skids, right? Yeah, no doubt. Well, later that afternoon they cut orders for everybody. You know where they were going. I get seventh group. I get you know Central Latin America, south America, yeah, I go Because your Spanish is so good right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm going, I'm going. You got to be joking and I go. I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying at Fort Bragg, because 7th Group was still at Fort Bragg and I'm going like, no, I want to go to 10th Group. All my buddies that wanted to go east 1st Group got what they wanted, because they wanted Fort Lewis and a bunch of people wanted fifth group. You know, this is before Desert Storm kicked off, yeah so, and I felt kind of defeated, I go well, at least I got, I'm a weapons sergeant. I got yeah, it is what it is, you know. And I got, you know, it is what it is, you know. And so report to 7th Group. Everything is going fine.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't call it language school, but it's more of a language program. The civilians taught it. It was right at break and I did that. You know, I had, I had to take spanish. So how difficult is that, you know? And which is the easiest language to learn and stuff I was absolutely bored out of my gourd with exceptions of you know, because you know a couple spanish, you know guys.
Speaker 2:They have spanish descent, or you know, or hispanic, you know. Because you know a couple Spanish guys. They have Spanish descent, or you know, or Hispanic, you know. They're like they're doing the same thing I'm doing. They're like doing this, you know, for six weeks. And one of the guys it was funny as hell. He was actually Spanish. He was blue blood Spanish but he had blonde hair and blue eyes. He was real.
Speaker 2:He comes from, I think, spanish royalty or something or another, but he spoke Spanish his entire life and he played dumb in that class until it was time to test out and he just whizzed through a 30-minute conversation with the native speakers and they were looking at him, going like you know, proper educational Spanish. Why didn't you say anything? He goes. I don't know, you know he sandbagged it so bad. He goes. He says I wanted six weeks of nothing. I didn't want to go back to. You know I wanted to. You know, because it was you're only in class, you know about five hours and you had the afternoon to yourselves and it was like no different than going to DLI over in Monterey where they had the best of everything you know. Oh yeah, you know he was dragging his butt a little bit and I'm just like I had no idea he could speak Spanish because he never spoke it around, anybody, never spoke it with anyone that was Mexican or Puerto Rican or anything. He just he was such a sandpaker, it was unbelievable. And then he rattles it off and he goes. This is giving me publication in Spanish. I'll read it to you. I shall read it to you.
Speaker 2:They gave him some type of technical manual and he's reading educated Spanish, not common Spanish. And we had a gentleman and two ladies that were our instructors and the gentleman was he was from Puerto Rico but he was well-educated and stuff. He got so mad in his Hispanic machismo, you know, being as macho. Yeah, he was so mad at him and he was like he was giving him you know he's giving him some ethnic grief. You know like how dare you do this? Oh, no, no, no, no. All this some ethnic, you know grief. You know like how? Dare you do this all this right.
Speaker 2:And he's like where should I cut off? You know what are you gonna do? Typical e7, right? You know you can't do anything to me type attitude.
Speaker 1:So at this, at this point, you're still a corporal, or had you made sergeant?
Speaker 2:no, actually, um, I was actually, uh, e5 promotable okay, when I once, when I got into uh the school setting because I came from the 82nd into uh the special warfare center and assigned to the gfk special warfare center, they wouldn't. They held promotions until graduation, okay. So a week after I graduated I got my heart strike, I got my sergeant, which they had to do because there's actually no slots on teams in SF. It's all six, seven and eight but you can hold a slot one grade below Right and I couldn't do it as a four. That was one of the prerequisites to go to the Q course was you had to be in a promotable status or minimum E5 with a minimum time and service and everything, all the other prerequisites. So I didn't mind it. It kind of gave me an advantage, you know. You know I could play the dumb corporal a little bit, you know, or the inexperienced corporal, right. So I I exploited that.
Speaker 1:Don't let you get away with that for so long, though.
Speaker 2:Right to a point that I knew where to draw the line yeah they know. No, you're here. You know a certain, you know you have a certain level of competence, don't you? Don't you know? Don't play with us, you know so were you?
Speaker 1:were you still at seventh group when, uh, all the stuff happened in the early 90s, that was, 1990, 1991, 1991, when we went over to Kuwait the first time.
Speaker 2:Yes, matter of fact, I'll continue. Yeah, after I get out of August 90, I was just at group for a few months. I thought, you know, when things were starting to pick up and stuff like that, oh, fifth group's getting all the action, but they didn't put all the fifth group in. They had to augment Desert Shield, desert Storm, and they augmented with 3rd Group and 3 Battalions of 7th Group and I was one of the lucky ones, so to speak. To speak, we get our orders and we go to a forward operating base actually in Egypt and we're waiting to go through isolation and permission prep and everything else and what's going on? The air war is kicking off and you know when are we going in? You know, type thing. And next thing, you know, we get the warning orders come through and stuff like that, and we drew what is called SR, which is called strategic reconnaissance, and we're like, no, we want direct action or we want something we want we want something a little bit more than you know.
Speaker 2:you know than staring through optics for weeks on end and we didn't want the boring stuff.
Speaker 1:Right, you want to go do something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, we get in isolation. We, we do a mission prep, we, we're giving our brief back and we actually, where we were actually heading once we found out was up in the up by the syrian border. Now we're not where everything was really happening. We were off an MSR, we were augmenting, the Brits were in the area too, the SAS, we were scutting, so we had a, so we get inserted.
Speaker 2:We were two Air Force MH-53s inserted us in the desert and in the middle of nowhere and we had to dig spider holes and sit there with high-powered optics and, you know, keep our eyes on the main supply route, because they, they had thought that this was one of the most likely avenues that you know, once the scuds were firing, they were going to go scoot and go into, go hide in the Syrian side of the border. So we couldn't touch them, but we were there to take them before they got that far and that was. It had to be 30 or 45 days out before the actual kickoff for the ground offensive. You know when it was done and said, and when we completed our missions and come back out, I was honestly underwhelmed. I really was. I mean the short duration we did. You know we did, you know we asked for close air support and you know we had taken out several vehicles.
Speaker 2:But I did not have any close engagements and I felt robbed because I went through all this all this accumulation of you know being tipped a spear, you know, even though we were tier two, you know, it's like it's like the rug being pulled out from under you a little bit, you know, you know. But however I I mean it was all the major stuff during desert storm, with armor engagements and not a whole lot of anything. I mean, I mean it was it was a very short duration, very short action, you know, and uh, uh, and so Desert Storm came and went and I come back and I'm back in seventh group and continued advanced training. I had to go to military free fall school. That was my next adventure, which I really wanted to, anyways, and again, it always seems like I always get the short end of the stick. Uh, I got one of the last classes that were still taught in brag because they, they were just establishing, uh, the military free fall school in Arizona, near Yuma, a brand new facility away from everybody.
Speaker 2:You're not on a military, I mean just on a very small military thing and you know, one of the cats away the mice will play, type thing, and I'm like I can never get out of break. You know, yeah and uh at the time, yeah, they had they built their own wind tunnel and everything else and uh, so it was all one-stop shop in in arizona, but that wasn't online yet. So, like I said, we were one of the last classes at bragg, we were were jumping at Camp McCall, we did our stability training and our wind tunnel training. That was the only good thing, because we went to a great passenger Air Force base in Dayton. They have one and we spent a week there. And sure, send me to one of the biggest Air Force bases around, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're always thinking about TDY and you know how to have fun and stuff, but what was the next? I'm just going down the line.
Speaker 1:So this puts you in kind of close to the mid-90s, then right, you've been in for a while so my enlistment was coming up.
Speaker 2:my enlistment was coming up and I wanted to get home and get married to my fiance, who I've been putting off for a while, and I just want to take. I just want to take a break. I was thinking about doing that like assist. You know, take a six month break, come back in short break of service and I go. Oh, you know what?
Speaker 2:Then I find out there's a reserve SF unit. I go, hey, this ain't going to be so bad, I'll stay home and do this for a little bit. And I get home, get married, get done, went to 12th group Good bunch of guys. They came from all over, most of them were former active duty. It was nice, it was the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1:Just for clarification. The 12th group is the reserve unit. Then they were.
Speaker 2:They're deactivated. Now, in the mid-90s, just a short period of time after I got there I was there a year or two period of time after I got there, I was there a year or two Bill Clinton and I forgot the name of the Secretary of the Army decided that they were going to move all combat arms out of reserve into the Guard and vice versa versa and all the support to the reserve. They were doing that shuffle and there was two reserve SF units, the 11th and 12th group. There was two guard units, 19th and 20th, and nobody in close proximity and nobody in close proximity and they decided that they were going to deactivate 11th group and 12th group and just retain 19th and 20th group.
Speaker 2:So I was like man, just as things are looking good, right, we're folding a flag, and it was a gut punch. It's like God, this, that. And the closest unit. It was nice because the 12th group was in Selfridge and Arlington Heights, Illinois, and they had a self-man spend detachment that moved to Illinois. But the closest 19th group, I think, was towards Columbus. I go, I am not driving four hours to go to this unit back and forth. So here I am, I'm going like I got this reserve commitment, Now what am I going to do? Right, I'm going like, oh, you know, I'm like, you know, it's like you know, You're stuck. Well, just by sheer luck, you know, I found out that there was a civil affairs unit in Kalamazoo. Well, they're part of the soft community and the active duty civil affairs is all SF. You know, it's just, you know, just an offshoot, and I go well, that's that's, that's an alternate, an alternate. You know I can still, you know, I can still say and still keep my beret right, you still do your thing.
Speaker 2:So I uh I end up going to the 415 civil Civil Affairs Battalion. They were actually located at Kalamazoo Airport, right in Portage, so you know, two-hour drive from home, not a big deal. And what was nice is there's always a ton of TDY and things going on. Get orders in 95, when I'm in the civil affairs went to bosnia, oh nice. Yeah, it was fun landing in sarajevo when uh, mortars were going off and stuff like that and uh, that was uh, I'm going, oh, good, I'm not missing out on anything.
Speaker 2:Syria was a freaking mess and the hatred I mean between the Serbs and the Croats, the Bosnians, you know. You had a war basically between Muslims and Christians and everyone he had a war, basically between Muslims and Christians.
Speaker 2:Everyone asks why did everything happen? Well, when Yugoslavia split up, tito kept Yugoslavia under a tight rule and total peace. He had neighbors. Then, once he was gone and the communists fell you know it just kind you know and everyone split off. Uh, then it became warring tribes. You know back to blood feuds and crazy stuff. And, um, yeah, I, I was in bosnia, I was in croatia. Um, I was in Croatia. I loved Split Croatia on the water, over on the ocean, oh, beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful area really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I just yeah it's. I mean, actually the Balkans are scenic, it's beautiful, it's just, you know, crazy stuff. Then move forward a few years, ready to be divorced, all kinds of other stuff. My next hurrah was early in 99. I was in Germany. I was in Grafenwoehr. We were supporting first infantry division and all of a sudden, yeah, this was February of 99. All of a sudden, the whole field problem shuts down. Everyone's packing up and like what's going on? We're having a briefing Coastal just kicked off. All right, now they're going to start the air war of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, first ID is going back to Worsberg, start planning for this. We, first ID is going, you know, going back to Wurzburg, start planning for. You know, for this we're told we're going home. You know, start planning because you're supporting, you're going. So, um, um, here I'm trying to explain to my new fiance because I already had been divorced in that time and, uh, I'm like I can't tell her yet. You know, we were planning on an October wedding and I go. Well, I'm gonna be knee deep in the Balkans, you know, and I'm trying to break it in kind of slowly, so I kind of not say anything Because I was told by my command that I was earmarked for advanced party because of my tab and they want, and because I was, you know I had, you know I had combat experience and everything else and all this other stuff and they're relying on me.
Speaker 2:I go I'm just an NCO, senior NCO at that time and so I go, I kind of want to. You know, I got that edge, you know I got. Oh yeah, I want to go in there. You know, because we were going to be one of the first. It was actually they were going to put us in along with the 96th Civil Affairs, the active duty component, at the component, within weeks of each other. There wasn't going to be like a handoff like six months later or anything of the sort. You know where we're, you know, going to follow up their deployment.
Speaker 2:So we knew we were going to go in as things were rolling and I was kind of I I was selfish, I was excited about that, not sharing that with my, you know, my family or anybody else, because I don't want them to think that that might. You know, yeah, we kind of looked for those those kind of things and uh, so I kept kind of quiet about it. She goes and she's noticing that man. You keep going to the unit a lot. You know it's. I thought it's once a month. Why are you going every two weeks? I go, they need me to do this or do that, whatever's going on. And and then she goes oh, I got a wedding date and I go. Okay, here it comes. You got to say something now.
Speaker 2:Chris and I'm like she goes first week of October and I'm like, okay, okay, and I didn't want to say anything because she was so excited and everything else I didn't want to, just and I'm like I need to regroup and I need to think how I can present this at the right time. So and I'm dragging my feet because I'm waiting for orders, I'm waiting for a definitive date and stuff, and lo and behold, I get orders and hereby ordered active duty, you know, report to your unit, because I was going to be at the unit to start the ramp up and everything else and I'm going like orders come. I think it was in the may and I was was holding off. This was from February to May. I couldn't say a peep to her.
Speaker 1:Now you got to say something, though, right Now I'm forced to, I'm going live.
Speaker 2:I just got these. What's going on? What's going on? I go, I don't know, Something big is going on and I go, I go know, something big is going on and.
Speaker 2:I go, I go, it looks like you know Kosovo and all this other stuff. And she's like, ah, you know. So I dealt with that for a few days and I go we're not married, so you can't be my business fisher, you don't have benefits, I can't get separate rats and housing and all that other stuff. And I go, she goes, and she came up with the idea and I was just like, oh good, I don't have to come up with the idea. And I was just like, oh good, I don't have to come up with a harebrained idea. She goes fine, why don't we have a small backyard wedding, just family, not tell anybody, and we can have the real wedding Like we get, you know when you come back, I go perfect and, um, you know, we, we got a priest to actually do this and we had it.
Speaker 2:And then I mean then, I got my deployment orders to go to Germany, then the, you know, then the theater, you know. I think it was like two days, because we got married on the weekend. I think it was like a Tuesday. I get these orders and I'm like crap, this is fast, yeah. Then all of a sudden I called you and I go look, I just got married. You guys got to get my wife hurry up, get her dependent stuff, all this other stuff Scrambling, right, you know? Luckily she could go to TECOM and Warren to get her dependent ID card and some of her dependent stuff done, get her dependent ID card and some of her dependent stuff done. By the time it was done and said I was on the plane within six days after that and it moved fast. I was like, wow, I cut that a little too close. Another meeting yeah, we were one of the first, you know.
Speaker 2:We were in Kosovo right after the ceasefire agreement and the Serbs were pulling out and they left that place a mess and uh um, make a long story short, you know, because it's, um, it was really unique because you had over 50,000 American troops there, uh, and it was. You know, we had natal, we had NATO. We actually had not just NATO, we had because I remember the Irish being there, you know, but they came under the UN protection. It was for being multinationals and I also got to work with the Russians. That's when we were having, you know, all the cooperation you know back in, you know in, you know 99 to 2000,. You know, when everything was going good, yeah, I weaseled my way around because of course, I used my tab to get good things I wanted and do things. I actually got to go on a Russian patrol on top of BTR up near the Percival Valley and stuff Right up on the. We were right on the Serb border. I was only about 200 yards from the Serb border border, I was only about 200 yards from the surf border and we did a little I mean a little, uh, you know, a lot of, uh, cultural immersion back and forth. You know, you know the crew I was, or the, the squad I was with, of the russians. I brought a, I brought a box of MREs, you know, and I brought, I gave it to them and they just went to town. They were, it was like the best thing I could give them Right, yeah, you know, you know the the normal exchange stuff. They, you know, they loved American MREs for some reason, you know, I don't know, but they were just like I had a good time. I made. I made a lot of, a lot of things. You know, things happen.
Speaker 2:I was able to, I had a lot of free reign and I did use my position to you know, to you know, work with other units and everything else, because civil affairs is pretty wide. I mean, we're basically liaisons between you know, between a lot of different things, and I kind of I took that. In effect, I got to work with the poles, the ukrainians, the greeks, um, the brits, um, what else did we work with? I mean, the French were up and towards the north and really deal with them so much. The Foreign Legion was a lot easier to deal with than the regular French army by far. They're not stuck up like they are.
Speaker 2:But I got to have a lot of opportunities to do a lot of different things and, yeah, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was your typical SF soldier, always looking for something unique or something that nobody else can do and I'll put it in your bucket list. Unique or something that nobody else can do, and I'll put it in your bucket list. But um. Initially, kosovo was supposed to be um 180 day deployment kept getting extended, kept working.
Speaker 2:um, I was just shy of 320 some days before where I left off and start a family, yeah, and then um my son was born and we had a little problem he had, uh, he was about eight weeks old and we had to take him to the hospital. He couldn't keep anything down, it would come out of both ends constantly. So we got him in the hospital and make a long story short the specialist, we're looking at him and everything else. They were scoping him. Imagine scoping an eight-week-old baby both endoscope and posterior scopes and stuff like that. And his whole gastric system was kind of shutting down. In your intestines there's peaks and valleys which holds material in and that's how they absorb nutrients and stuff. So his entire intestinal tract, something was causing a reaction and it was flattening them out. So it was just nothing to hold anything in.
Speaker 2:And we're like, besides their cells, they diagnose them with autoimmune entropathy, with autoimmune entropathy means his immune system was attacking his gastric system. They said that the treatments aren't, you know, long-term, permanent and they're the quality of life. You know he may have to go on a bag for his life, you know, and you know that was one of the things, all kinds of crazy stuff. And then they, they said that his life expectancy is probably only going to be two years. And that was quite the bomb to drop. We were like baby systems healthy eight old baby, two months old baby right now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're like the same he'll never see a second birthday. So I decided to get out for a while. I want this, let this thing pass. There's no way I could, you know, continue on because I, you know, doing anything. So I did a break in service for a very short time and I kind of got convinced, you know, as things were progressed, you know kind of settling down a little bit. You know why don't you go IMA, or Individual Ready Reserve? You know you won't have such a commitment and so I decided to go. You know, ima, that's Individual Mobilization, augmenting and not thinking. You know all the crazy stuff that was going to go on. That's when everything else fired back up and you know the stop loss and everything else.
Speaker 2:Well, um, there was no explanation, but uh, my son started, uh, improving and he was on a feed tube for a while or, and he had a uh a few a feed tube in his chest that we would feed him intravenously. And we got to the point like his gastric system was slowly returning to normal and it wasn't by I don't know if it's because it was left to its own for a while divine intervention, I don't know. There was no medical explanation for his improvement and he actually got off the feet. We got him on a specialized formula which insurance, of course, didn't cover at the time.
Speaker 2:Of course not which was ungodly expensive it was like having two car payments for that. He starts improving really, really well. By the grace of God he recovered, so we're happy Everything's going good, just as I'm thinking about going back in the reserves, right, I was kind of toying with that idea. Afghanistan is kicking off, right, afghanistan's kicking off, right. I, you know Iraq was that short. The second second Iraq was, you know, you know was during this turbulent time and stuff like that. So I kind of like missed out on that and and I started thinking I'm going like, nah, this is going to be a fifth group thing, right, afghanistan maybe third group right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Being an IMA, being an augmentee right. Um, somehow, when I got signed up again, because I held three mls's, I had my civil affairs specialty, which was 38 alpha. I had my 18 bravo and I had my 11 bravo in that order. You know, I had my primary and I kept my 18 series as a secondary. Somehow somebody in the s shop transversed the 18 series and my um civil affairs. Well, that red flagged it. Next thing, you know, oh, you're critical short, you're ordered to active duty.
Speaker 1:Wow, so what year is this?
Speaker 2:I go, yeah, but for me to go to a team, go through the train up phase, everything else, that's going to be a good period of time. Oh, yeah, yeah, I was a recall and because of, like I said, critical short, I carried a ts, um, everything else that was going on. And I'm going like, why did you call? I called they're not gonna put me in fifth group, or I'm thinking, okay, what's going on? Well, I got orders for Special Forces Command for Greg, north Carolina. Oh, so they're going to keep me stateside, right, yeah, so when was that? August 2002, august, september, somewhere around there, I can't remember. Damn, my memory's horrible. But so I get there, I'm assigned to. You know, it's a staff level and I'm like you've got to be joking. All right, I need operational level. I'm not going to sit here at a computer for four for a couple years doing all this stuff. I go, how can you become? I'm an 18 series? I'm not. I'm not a specialist, a clerk, I was Right.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's three. I was talking, you know. I go. Look, man, you got to get me out of here. Let me see what I can do. Right, let me see what I can find for you. He says you were in seventh, weren't you? I go, yeah, not third, not fifth, seventh? He goes man, do you want to go down the street to second battalion? I go. I was in 1st Battalion originally. I go, yeah, I'll go 2nd and 7th, right I?
Speaker 1:get orders.
Speaker 2:Cut, go there right. Guess what happened. I didn't think I'd be going to Afghanistan. I didn't think I'd be going to Afghanistan. October, seventh group gets the call that they need to augment fifth and third over or actually fifth in Afghanistan Great great and going great great.
Speaker 2:I'm not on the team, so I'm probably going to be stuck in a command and control element or the B detachment and I get on the command and control element which controls it's a local control of three or four teams. You're still on the you're, you're right there in the theater, you're just just a stepping stone. And so we, we do the, you know, we do the world tour to get to Afghanistan. You know, after going through the other stands and initially I was in uh, I landed in kandahar, I was at fob 72 and uh, that's a ford, uh operating base I.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you heard that term before. Yeah, I've been to one. Okay, then you know't.
Speaker 2:You know, and you know they're not fun. No, and my SOCSE that I was assigned to, you know, we're finishing up things and then we're going to go to an AOB, we're going to go to an advanced operating base and we went to 740 in Helmand, in Helmand province.
Speaker 2:So we get there, everything you know, which is about 120 clicks west of Kandahar, so it's an Indian country. I'm going. Oh, okay, good, good, you know, we get there, Everything that's going on. One of the teams got chewed up a little bit and they lost both their weapons sergeants. So they said, hey, do you want to step in until we get somebody stateside to come over, you know, for a permanent fill? You know, yeah, let me grab my shit, I'll go.
Speaker 2:oh, sorry, I didn't mean that that's okay, um, we were trying to name the fire base we went to. I can't think of it Gerisch might be fire base Gerisch. Well, anyways, I got to meet the team and teams are very clicky, extremely clicky. You know you're an outsider. Until you know, until you're proven otherwise, I said, yeah, I get it. You know I kept low key and, you know, kept everything on a good, professional, friendly level. You know, not trying to weasel my way in and you know, buddy, buddy and stuff like just that's just the way we're built, you know right, because you don't know who, you know who, what, where, when. But luckily, um, everyone was.
Speaker 2:The big thing was direct action and strategic reconnaissance, and I'm going like, not strategic reconnaissance, yeah, hey, b-1, I heard you, you were, you know you're one of those farts from, uh, from the storm, from you guys are going to be doing a strat recon mission or missions, so to speak. I'm going like, really Okay, so that was, that was. We did some direct action and of course we all know what that includes, you know, you know clearing villages and everything else. So I'm with my ODA. And then they decided they wanted to move Firebase and I'm trying to think we went to another FOB. It was off of Highway 1. I think it was FOB 72. My memory is just that highway one link Kandahar to Kabul and it was a main. It was MSRs main supply route and so we were there to keep all the undesirables there. We're trying to run from one side to the other. So that was going okay. Everything was moving along quickly, and then my replacement's coming in, or the actual replacement.
Speaker 2:So I'm going like, where am I going to go next? Or actual replacement. So I'm going like, where am I going to go next? And so I head back to our ALB 740. I'm back in there and I don't even have a hooch to set up and I get called in, they go.
Speaker 2:Hey, since you're the widget here the CAGE C-A-G, the Command Advisory Group, which is basically it's Central Intelligence, it's SF, it's a lot of hokey, pokey, spooky stuff. You know, it's a lot of hokey, pokey, spooky stuff, you know. And however they're, they report directly to theater commander accurate intel or if something's not right, because sometimes command sends what the group commander wants to hear and not what's actually going on. We were kind of like I hate the term, but we were kind of like fact checkers, go, stick our nose in something, see what's going on, you know, type thing. So I get, uh, you know, so I get to go in the command advisory group and it's small units. I, you know, I I worked with three now out of my six-man little team. Three of them were spooky Okay, one was Delta and me and another were SF. So they draw from everybody and it's quite an interesting mix.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't do direct action and stuff like that. We get into things, you know, if we get into things but we're not used in direct, you know, we're used for, you know, for intelligence, you know, and it's like wow, it was actually super, super interesting, you know. So we got sent around to different hotspots or different areas and we reported back through the chains of what we seen, what we you know, what we heard, what's factual, whatever photo whatever, to either validate or invalidate the information they had. It was like a second check, so to speak. Special operations sometimes gets like that. They're rural. It's to get a laser focus so that we don't have it. Things go wrong, right wrong information come through, you know, uh, you know, just because of the you know.
Speaker 2:You know the afghans were notoriously two-faced. You know they'd say one thing to one person, another to another. You didn't know what was going on. You know it. Just a lot of validation had to be done, and quietly you know, we were.
Speaker 2:We were just snooping and pooping quietly, we were like an investigative aspect of it, you know. But um, we always seem to get chased, you know, you know, you know, know, by a bunch of guys with AKs all the time. Well, my time with them ended and I came back home. Came back home and they wanted to know if I wanted to continue as an augmentee or if I wanted to go IRR or whatever. I said, you guys have me against my will, I'm going home, I'm done, even though I had a lot of fun. You know, I had a lot of stress, a lot of hard times, but that comes with good times. But I was tired. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was tired, I was mentally tired and I said, you know I go, I want out for a while. Maybe I'll go back in in a couple years. And after that, yeah, I was officially out January 2005.
Speaker 1:That was your last day in the Army slash Army Reserves. Yeah, is it a weird feeling putting on that uniform for the last time, like as being part of the military.
Speaker 2:It was so surreal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what I could say. It's like, yeah, at the end of the day it was like this, is it, you know? And all of a sudden it just like no more, you know, and and all of a sudden it just like no more. I'm like and I'm going like god, did I do the right thing? I know I can go back if I made a bad decision right and uh you know um, I started having. I didn't have PTSD, but I got survivor's guilt. I want to have superficial wounds.
Speaker 2:I don't have a life changing wound, you know, for the longest time. How could I go through?
Speaker 3:I got beat up tore up a little bit, you know, for the longest time.
Speaker 2:How could I go through? You know, I got beat up, tore up a little bit, but nothing, I mean nothing. That was temporary, you know, and for me it was guys that didn't come home, guys that came home and spent months in Germany because they couldn't be moved again. You know, it's like how did I not get my ticket punched? You know that's what I carry, you know. I just want to. You know, always look for an answer. I don't have an answer.
Speaker 1:There probably isn't one.
Speaker 2:At one point it was like when I first got, you know, when I finally got out, it was like, you know, when I first started having it kind of it started affecting me just a little bit, I go, maybe I need to go back, I don't know, is it unfinished business? I don't know.
Speaker 1:And my wife goes, you're done.
Speaker 2:I've struggled through this whole thing. You're home, you're done. And the rest of the family was doing the same thing, like why do you want to go back? I go. I don't know, there's a magnet attracting me. I don't have an answer. But you know, probably since we pulled out of Afghanistan. I'm fine, I have solace.
Speaker 2:It hasn't bothered me since then Now that chapter is done, you know, but it never drove me to abuse alcohol or drugs or anything. I've never done drugs, abuse alcohol or drugs or anything. I never done drugs but um, and I I'm very fortunate that I always had that never quit attitude and everything else I've always been, I've had a strong mindset and I think that's helped me, you know.
Speaker 2:I you know I where the sense of guilt came from? I I don't know. I I got no explanation for it. I have no reason for it. There's nothing, there's not one thing that's prompted me to do that, other than just like an overall sense. Yeah, yeah, Well, here we are.
Speaker 3:Thing that's prompted me to do that other than just like an overall sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was lucky and again, I was lucky that it didn't impact me enough to change or cause issues. Just every once in a while, for no apparent reason, you need you start thinking about something. But I was lucky. I've had total peace, everything that's happened. Well, actually, after the fact, I've had even some more. I had my dance with the devil twice since I came out of the Army and I think that settled the score really bad Right.
Speaker 2:Here's a little yeah, when I quit consumers 18?, 18. But anyways, three years ago I work gas construction, putting pipe in the ground and stuff like that. I came through the Veterans Program and it was a great opportunity and three years ago it was in August.
Speaker 2:We were working 12-hour days, we were doing a long stretch of just forced over, we were just getting beat up. Hot temperatures we're just ragged, worn out, tired. Hot temperatures we're just ragged, worn out, tired, and for like a couple of days it's like I'm more fatigued than I normally am. Right, I usually can go get another coffee, push through it, right. But I was. I was there was actual physical tiredness. I mean, I was doing a lot of hard work, but I'm going like man. Maybe I need a few days off or something whatever. I need a break. And I started feeling kind of crappy. I'm like not thinking much of it, just just not feeling well.
Speaker 2:Nothing's standing out. And my last I remember when I was just finishing work up on front on this one friday and I was so wiped out, tired, you know my drive home from, uh, uh, as we were working out of the Pontiac yard I live in Macomb Township, just driving down 59, just going home, only 25-minute drive, and it was like I was ready to go to sleep. I mean, I was just absolutely drained. I'm like I'm not even hungry. You know this is dinner time. You know this is, you know, almost six o'clock and I'm like I get home and I don't want to eat. I'm just, it's like sapped, totally sapped. Go to bed, figuring, yeah, I'll sleep A little. Bed Figuring, yeah. I'll sleep it off, I'll feel fine.
Speaker 2:And about 4 o'clock in the morning I was waking up and my biceps were just hurting so bad and it was like I had a little bit of indigestion. You know, I had a little tightness in my chest and stuff and I'm going like, oh, this is weird, right, and I'm trying to think I go, what did?
Speaker 2:I do at work, right, yeah? And well, at the time I was doing a lot of house piping. I was doing a lot of meter work and stuff and we were doing a lot of moves and I was doing a lot of overhead turning and twisting them. That's what I attributed it to, that's what I thought. At least that's what I was trying to justify. So I get up and I go, I'm going to take some Motrin and Tylenol, and I go, I'm going to take some Motrin and Tylenol, and I go on and I'm like crap, there's nothing. I go to the medical cabinet. There's one Motrin, one single tablet in the bottle, and I'm like I go really.
Speaker 2:I go, that ain't going to do me nothing. And there's a bottle of aspirin. I go, oh, I'm taking aspirin. So I dropped about four or five aspirin and I went and laid down and it kind of took the edge off right. It was working a little bit. So I finally get back to sleep a little bit, I wake back up about 9 am, my arms aren't as sore.
Speaker 2:There's still a lingering soreness, and it was more on one side than the other. I go, huh, that's weird, but I was still fatigued. It was like I didn't go to bed. Oh God, I go. I got to get my butt up, you know, and it was, and it was a super hot Saturday. It was supposed to be, you know, like 90 degrees by 11 AM in the morning and it was going to be when it was hot, just scorchers, I go. I got to change oil on my vehicle. God, I got to get this done.
Speaker 2:I go in the garage, I'm just trying to get everything together and the sweat's just pouring. You know, I'm going like, I know it's warm but I haven't done anything. I open the hood of my truck and I'm like I'm not doing this. I close it back up, close the garage up. I go in the house and I'm and I just lay down and I'm still sweating in the air conditioning.
Speaker 2:I go, something right and I went to get up and all of a sudden I got dizzy and I sat back down. I go, oh no, first thing that pops in my head. I've had vertigo before and it came out of nowhere. The symptoms were like vertigo and I'm the one like I go shoot, all right, go get in the shower. I'm going to go drive to Beaumont Because I know it's vertigo. That's what I thought. Yeah, I get in the shower. I feel a little better. Right, I got my equilibrium back. It kind of went away. I'm like all right.
Speaker 2:So I drove myself to Beaumont Troy and I live over off of Card Road and 21 mile so and not too far away, but enough and uh, as I got out of the quinder, my chest started hurting, a very sharp pain in my sternum. I'm like that's not indigestion. And, and I'm thinking anxiety, I'm not thinking of anything. Nothing's bothering me. I never had an anxiety attack. I'm thinking everything else. What is this, right?
Speaker 2:So I pull into the emergency. And they were still under COVID precautions. You know you're right. You know you can't go into an emergency. You know, until you go through the screening, right, and and there's two people in front of me getting screened and I'm looking and I'm going like, oh God, it looked like the last train to Calcutta. I've never seen Beaumont emergency that packed.
Speaker 2:The whole waiting room was packed. People were in the hall standing and I'm going like there's a 100 people here. I go, no, and I go, oh man, and my chest started hurting again. I'm like ugh. First question what brings you here? I go, I got chest pains. I mean not thinking like that. So my chest was and they're like like you got chest pains right now. Yeah, so walk me right over his triage, right and hooking me up to an ekg and doing everything right.
Speaker 2:I'm going and I'm like looking and I go, oh man, those people are going to be so mad. When you put me back in a, tell me to have a seat in the waiting room after this, you know, I was like I thought I was going to get mobbed. I'm going like, oh man, not thinking anything, right, all of a sudden the technician's not saying anything, she's just like I'll be right back. All of a sudden, two rns and um, the wheelchair commander moving real quick to go. Mr be, we're going to be taking you back right now.
Speaker 2:I go and I go. All these people are here. They're going to be mad, don't worry about them. They said don't worry about them, we'll take care of that. I go, okay, okay, whatever, and I go, I can get up, and I get up and I sit down and they're like really, and I go, I can get up, and I get up and I sit down and they're like really nervous, like I'm fine, I'm fine, and they're pushing me down real quick towards emergency and all of a sudden Beaumont's got individual emergency beds.
Speaker 2:You know, they're kind of like small rooms and they don't, they just go past a few of them and they just go past a few of them and all of a sudden I see, like you know, about eight or nine medical personnel in the crash room right, I know what a crash room is. All of a sudden they turn and I go, whoa, where are you going? Right, I go hold on. I'm like, oh my God, they're overreacting. I probably just got you know, I probably just got just got you know an ulcer or something. Yeah, and I'm in and they're, they're masked up and they're bringing everything around and I'm, and I'm like really getting unnerved. I go, I go, whoa, slow down, slow down. And the doctor goes hold on mr beeland, you're having a heart attack.
Speaker 2:I go the hell. You say they're just like looking at me, like why is he even breathing, right? And you know, all of a sudden they're trying to help me up a little bit. I go, I'm ambulatory, I can get up, and I get up right, and all of a sudden it's like, okay, you, you know, get on the bed, and you know. And they're like everything comes off, we got gone. Yeah, I go. What? Everything, underwear, everything. I go, I'm getting, I'm going wait a minute time out time out, right, let's, let's talk.
Speaker 2:And you know, the emergency doctor comes in and goes. You're having a heart attack. You don't believe it? That's fine, do what they say right there, you know, she got. She got gruff with me because I was like oh time out time out tomorrow.
Speaker 2:No, they're not wasting time. Yeah, I got gowned up, I was down, they had an iv in both arms. They they're bringing the x-rays and everything else and everything's going. And all of a sudden they're coming over and they got this little piggyback IV and the doctor says whatever drip of nitro? And I go, is that nitroglycerin? They go, yeah, and they're plugging. Is that nitroglycerin? They go, yeah, and they're plugging. I go whoa, whoa, whoa, because I know from other people nitro gives you a hell of a migraine. You know, I go.
Speaker 2:You guys are overreacting when you find I'm not having a heart attack. You know, don't say I didn't tell you so. And they're just like. You know I got an oxygen on and everything else. And they're just like. You know they got an oxygen on and everything else.
Speaker 2:I, it was. It was so bad, it was it. Just I had no other classic symptoms, like you know. You know like passing out or anything like that I was, I was fully coherent and I'm just like, and they're going a hundred miles an hour. And I'm just like, and they're going 100 miles an hour. They say cath lab is ready for them. And the doctor comes over and says you're going upstairs. Chief of cardiology's up there. They're going to put a catheter in you or what I go for what? You got some blockages and they're wheeling me out. And all of a sudden they pull out a key to the and it goes to code blue. They overrode the elevator, took me up there and there's like there's six more people. It's like a regular operating theater, except it's more intricate. The cath lab up there. And uh, um, cardiologist goes, mr velan. He says you have some blockages. We, time is the essence. We gotta get this done right now. He says I'm gonna try going through your radial artery. If not, we're going through your groin. We're gonna to prep both.
Speaker 1:all right, it's going to hurt a little bit, it's going to feel like hell but uh, just bear with it, we'll give you something to calm down.
Speaker 2:And they're just like boom, boom, boom. You know, I could feel that catheter go through my arm all the way into my chest and I'm sitting there watching it, because all the monitors they have watching it and it it was used. Surreal again is an understatement. It was like a sci-fi movie and horror movie at the same time. This thing's in me and I can feel it and I'm watching it and I'm going like I don't like this.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, knock me out.
Speaker 2:You know they what they want to keep you. Uh, they didn't want to knock you out, but what did they give me, I don't know? Something fentanyl based plus something else, whatever. It gave me a hell of a buzz, just, but I would fight it. I was, you know, I, I, you know, I fought it for to keep coherent and conscious, and I'm like they're like you should be more out than this. I go give me more right.
Speaker 2:Did they end up putting in stents then, or they they put three in uh-huh and after they were finished, I'm getting wheeled to cardiac intensive care and my wife's there. She wasn't there to begin with because her and my daughter were out shopping. When I drove myself to the hospital and didn't tell anybody, she was all peeved at me because I didn't tell her, and you know how wives can get about stuff. I know how it goes. Yeah, and well, the cardiologist came in at the same time. My wife came in and she goes why didn't you call me and all this stuff you?
Speaker 2:know Right right and the cardiologist goes. I hate to interrupt a marital spat. However, he looks at me and goes Mr Bieland, you know how lucky you are. I go. What do you mean lucky? I go, I haven't pushed, he says. He says, let me tell you something. He says your LAD, your lower, lower anterior descending that's the second largest pipe in your heart, he says, was 100 blocked. He says you were minutes away from from dying. How'd you get here with the ambulance? I go, I drove my, I drove myself here. And he goes what do you mean? You drove yourself here. You could, could have killed somebody. I go, I wasn't going nowhere. The SF mind frame I'm going to keep pushing what I did. I go, don't say that to my wife Now she's going to be on my ass.
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:God.
Speaker 2:He says you had two other blockages. I go. I have no cardiac history. I said I had a stress test two years prior. I've never had any problems. I've had elevated blood pressure because of work and I'm on the lowest dosage of I go. How could I could? Never for the life of me. You know, my diet wasn't any worse, it wasn't any, you know. And I'm like what's going on? He says, well, you got. And he says you're going to come back in about three weeks to a month.
Speaker 2:He says I, he says I just wanted to get those ones and he says you got two more that need to be done. I go and I, I'm trying to figure it out and the only thing I it's not proven and I asked the cardiologist and he really couldn't answer it, didn't want to answer it. I go. My wife forced me to get the COVID vaccine twice. I go. Is this any impact? Because I've heard of the cardio problems and everything else. And he kind of like didn't want to visit that Right, and I was like because I haven't had a problem since my heart recovered, never an episode, no cardiac. I mean, I'm fine. You know, I'm on drugs for life, but I could deal with that.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm on drugs for life, but that I could deal with that, you know. Yeah, yeah so so you know, here you are back at consumers energy working now, yeah, yeah I can add one more further to that what's that?
Speaker 2:well, I was recovering from my heart attack. For what they said? They said I was close to death. I didn't think so. I don't know. All I know is probably my guardian angels, the raving alcoholic. But six weeks after my heart attack, the week I was supposed to come back, it was actually the weekend of. I was supposed to come back on a Monday and Friday. We had a real beautiful day and everything was going good. And my buddy goes hey, you want to go for a ride, a bike ride, car lease. So I go yeah, I want to get on my motorcycle. Right, I haven't been able to get on it.
Speaker 2:And I go when do you want to do this he says well, he actually called me the day before, on thursday, so I was kind of quietly planning on doing it on a friday. But I woke up and I was kind of feeling I was still in my medication adjustment period. I'm not supposed to only six weeks after that, right, you know, um, because your body adjusts to the medication more times than that they they lower doses or they increase doses, depending. And uh, I kind of felt I didn't want to say over medicated, but kind of like that, yeah, and I was like my buddy comes over and I was like I don't know, I might call him, he goes.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on, man, it's a nice day. All right, we'll go. Right, he wanted to go to the Harley dealership in Farmington and I go. All right, so we get on the road. So we get on the road. Well, 10 minutes down the road I feel just a tad worse, right, I just feel like maybe I'll tell my buddy I'll pull up and I'll tell him We'll hit the first gas station, come off, I'm going to get a.
Speaker 2:Diet Coke or something, something to drink and he yells, he goes all right, we'll get the one on, because we're heading from 59 on Westbound 94. We're going towards 696, but we're going down 94 and I progressively feel crappier, just a little bit, and I'm doing my mental check of everything. I go, my heart's fine, our breathing's fine, just feel a lot, yeah, just whatever. I know enough that I'm going to get off my bike and go try to figure it out.
Speaker 2:Well, we're driving and we're about a mile away from our stop and all of a sudden we're both in the left lane of 94. Traffic's light not too bad. Someone's behind us. All of a sudden I feel real bad and I start getting tunnel vision. I lost my peripheral. I go, uh-oh, that means I'm going out and let me get to the thing. So as soon as they had started doing that, and when I lost my peripheral and I knew it, I go I'm going to stay awake until I can get this to the side of the road. I'm trying to get to the shoulder of 94. And all of a sudden it went like this. It was like Looney Tunes.
Speaker 3:And everything's quiet. I don't remember a and all of a sudden it went like this it was like Looney Tunes Boop and everything's quiet.
Speaker 2:I don't remember a thing. All of a sudden I could hear sirens, Like I was in a deep sleep. And all of a sudden I hear sirens and stuff like that. And all of a sudden I hear people talking and I'm like what the hell? I was just on my bike, Did I'm going like what the hell? I was just on my bike, Did I pull over and fall in the parking lot? I also opened my eyes. Two troopers are right looking on top of me and they're holding me. Buddy, don't move, You've been in an accident. And I'm blinking my eyes. I go and.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to process it. Let me exit and I go. I'm laying down, I could feel my helmet, I could feel all my gear and I'm like oh fuck, I came off my bike first. Thing I'm doing, I'm, I'm kicking, don't kick, don't, don't move your legs. I'm thinking, I'm right now, I'm just trying to see I'm, I'm not paralyzed, right well I go.
Speaker 2:Okay, I can feel my hands, I can feel my toes, I can feel my legs, everything's working. Okay, let's figure out what's going on, right. And uh, and I'm doing this a couple times because I'm like all right, triple check okay, and I don't have any pain yet or anything, I go, I go, what's going on, but they're holding me still and all of a sudden I could hear a fire truck, air brakes just go right next to us, pretty close, and the firefighters jump out.
Speaker 2:And first thing out of the one of the firefighters says, oh, thank God he's wearing a helmet, yeah Right, well, if I wasn't, I wouldn't be here. I came off, I passed out on my bike, I hit the tarmac, probably about 60 miles an hour. I was slowing down because the last thing I remember was about 65, 60.
Speaker 2:Yeah about 60 miles an hour. I was slowing down because the last thing I remember was about 65, 60, yeah, and my bike was 85 yards from where I was laying and I go, what happened? I don't know what happened. I have no, no recollection. Right, you know, I go, I was driving and now I'm laying on the ground.
Speaker 1:What happened?
Speaker 2:You know, and the worst part of it was is I'm there and they're just like they're checking my body and they bring a backboard and they're saying, don't move, they put a spine, you know a spine, a C-spine on me, you know, and they're saying, don't move, we're just going to lift you up enough to slide this board underneath you. It's going to hurt a little bit, right. So the fire, all the firefighters are like, oh, 230 pounds. You know that could be fun, right. But when Susie left it sounded like a, like a bag of bones crunchy, just. And all of a sudden mr pain visited and I thought I was going to pass out oh god, oh, and I go.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's not my back, what is it I?
Speaker 2:moved my legs, so it's not my legs. And then then all of a sudden, my, my, my whole left side hurt and my shoulder and back. I go, fuck, I go. You know too much pain to think rationally. What's going on? Right, I'm going, oh my god. And then so they, they put me in the ambulance and they're like where am I going? Where am I going? They said you're going to a level one trauma. Uh, you're going to mclaren mount, clements, they're only two miles away. Okay, I felt every expansion joint, every bump, every rock. I felt every grain of dirt on the freeway, on the road, going in the park. It was like it was constant.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, just like Then to make matters worse oh, just like.
Speaker 2:oh, then make matters worse. Once I get there, the orthopedic asked me he's like he says, as they're examining me, what happened. I said, well, I got to tell you one thing. First I passed out. Oh, by the way, I had a heart attack six weeks ago. I'm on this, I'm on these drugs, so now cardiac has to come in. They've got to exam me and them right.
Speaker 2:And as they're figuring out what they're going to do, the orthopedic surgeon comes to me and goes. He says I'm not going to be able to operate on you for 72 hours. I'm telling you right now we're going to be able to plan what we want to do and how to do it. But he says you know you're on the thinner. Everything you'll bleed out If I cut you and what I got to do there's going to be a lot of blood. He says you'll be going through blood left, right. He says there's a. He says there's more than a chance I could that you could bleed out and I'm going like well, that's just great.
Speaker 2:I mean, I got to sit in a bed for three days, yep, before you start fixing stuff, and because their cardiac had to call Beaumont and converse with Beaumont back and forth. Well, in the meantime, they're sending me to go get scanned, full body scans and everything else Right. Every single time they lifted me up and put me down. You, I thought I was going to pass out again. I got scanned eight times, head to toe, every single square inch, and they wouldn't. You know. They kept that spine on and in my helmet until until neurology said, yeah, you know he's good. And then the orthopedic said, yeah, his neck's fine, or all this other stuff. Finally, that comes off and they cut my brand-new jacket off. I told them that, of course. No, no, you got. No, I'm like Iron man. I wonder if I can find the picture. My scapula was broken in six pieces. I had internal damage. I had all the ribs on my right side broken, plus tissue damage.
Speaker 1:So you're lucky to be alive at this point, yeah, again, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I didn't even get shot at how long were you and my wife was just livid with me. You tried doing this twice in two months and I'm like, I'm going like probably should elicit I go there I go, they I go. Somebody doesn't want me yet. Yeah, you know how can you say that how? Can you be so casual? I go, I'm grateful I'm here, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna freak out about it so how long were you in the hospital for this?
Speaker 1:18 days okay, and then you're off work for a little while too, I would imagine yeah, I was off for a couple months.
Speaker 2:I couldn't and I had 13 months of physical therapy. I got 85% of my range of motion back. It's taken a long time. I still can't feel my shoulder I have because of the nerve damage. Well, it's like a giant boomerang on my back. It goes from the corner of my shoulder to the center of my back and then down, I guess, to get to all your scapula and stuff.
Speaker 2:You know they take all that muscle out like a filet and they flip it out and they and they do, and they do additional damage because the amount of nerves that are in there.
Speaker 1:Takes a while for that to come back.
Speaker 2:If it comes, comes back if it comes back at all yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you survived that, and clearly you survived your wife's wrath after that oh, let me tell you something to this day she's still.
Speaker 2:You know, if, if I got, if I got a picture of a motorcycle out, she's. She knows, I'm gonna get another motorcycle eventually. I'm just I'm just not doing it because my daughter's in school and it costs too much yeah, but I have I'm. I mean where the hell's that picture at. It's got to be here. I got a couple of x-ray pictures.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're going to love this. Yeah, don't show me any gross pictures.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'll see if I can oh yeah, you see all the screws.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's a mess. Wow, that's just my armpit.
Speaker 1:Here's the whole thing.
Speaker 2:You must have a lot of fun going through the metal detector at the airport um, oh, when I flew to the bahamas a couple years ago, um, oh yeah, tsa, like I go go to the scanner, you're gonna see what's what's in here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's my, here's my medical card.
Speaker 2:And they're. They're usually pretty stoic, you know, not really you know. And the girl, the girl that was scanning me, she goes, she. All I heard out of her was oh my God, I go, I go, I go. I don't think I need a medical card for that. She goes, no bye.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:So I seen enough Go.
Speaker 2:But you're back to work, and you're working now and yeah, unfortunately that that that motorcycle crash prevented me from doing my job in gas construction. So, however, there was a silver lining in it, because when I first came out, because I lost fine motor skill to my left arm, I mean, I had basic motor skills, but just fine touch and everything else. I just didn't have that. It was just too rich, I couldn't operate equipment, I didn't have strength on that side. But I took the pathway to least resistance and I said, well, maybe I'll be a field leader, so I became a supervisor. Maybe I'll be a field leader, so I became a supervisor. And then my wife says you're getting too old for all this stuff. I did turn 60 this year. So I, mentally, now physically, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's one of the good things. So I you know this. I worked at Consumers Energy. I think the one good thing that I can say about them is that if you can't do one job, a lot of times they'll find a job for you, like they don't just kick you to the curb because you couldn't be a gas construction person anymore. There was a job for you. I know they can't do that 100% of the time, but I've seen them do it a lot was a job for you.
Speaker 2:I know they can't do that 100 of the time, but I've seen them do it a lot. Well, I, I had good rapport and I had, you know, I was, you know all, you know all my supervision and stuff. They were like, and the union were like hey, you're a crew lead, just run a crew. I said, yeah, but I still got to do things and stuff like that. I go, I'm not going to be sitting in a pickup truck with a set of prints all day or just walk around telling people to do. I go, I'm a hands-on type person, I go. It's not fair to them, it's not fair to me because I'm just a mouthpiece. At that point I'm not, I have no worth. At that point I'm not, I'm not, I have no worth. At that point, anybody can do that. And at the time my senior field leader goes hey, do you want to be an upgrade right now, until you decide what you want to do? I said Sure. So he, he extended an olive branch really quick and the union was, you know, they were pretty, they were supportive, they knew I wasn't making a switch because, you know, for money or for not leaving the union for that reason right, but because I had a real reason. You know I had. You know, basically I'm an invalid at that point.
Speaker 2:But however, since then and like I said, I use that never quit attitude. That's what got me through additional stuff like this. And people go why haven't you got? I would have been in therapy. I don't need it, I have no need for it because I'm not in a bad spot, I'm in a good spot. I wake up every morning. Thank God for another day. Go do what I need to do. I don't dwell on what has happened. I don't look for fault. I don't look for anything that's done and over with. I don't look for fault. I don't look for anything that's stunning over with. I got to look to tomorrow. I got to worry about my daughter getting married or not.
Speaker 2:One day yeah, one day. No, whatever it's all that stuff. They had. One last caveat not with me, I'm dealing with my son. My 23-year-old son has stage four lymphoma. He's in chemotherapy. So we're back to another know life lessons.
Speaker 1:So how's he doing?
Speaker 2:He's doing all right. He's got my perseverance, which I'm glad I taught him. He's doing well. For for going he's just completed his seventh round. He has to go. For going. He's just completed his seventh round. He has to go. He can't do outpatient chemotherapy because one of his chemotherapies takes um four days and it's 24 hour drip. So he's got to go in the hospital for for five days at a time, every two weeks, every three, every third week rather, and he's, he's kind of beat up, you know, but he's doing well, you know. He's spiritually, physically or mentally, he's doing really good. Physically he's, you know, got this, you know, got all the side effects and stuff. He's got no hair, no eyebrows, you know. Got all the side effects and stuff. He's got no hair, no eyebrows. He's all puffed up from steroids and his wonky appetite. But he's got an appetite, thank god.
Speaker 2:Um he had uh we found it by accident back in november or actually october. Um he complained he had a lump under his arm. So I said go to the doctor, see what you got. Maybe it might be bacterial or something or another.
Speaker 2:So they give him some steroids and some antibiotics. He goes back and it didn't get any smaller, it got actually larger and more firm. It didn't get any smaller, it got actually larger and more firm. And the doctor goes you're going for a biopsy. So I went with him, go get a biopsy. And the surgeon wanted to do the exam and then do the biopsy. He examines him and he goes. He says I'm not going to biopsy it, I'm taking it out. Okay, we're getting ready for deer season.
Speaker 2:We're going to be going. We're going hunting. At the beginning of the week that was Thursday, we were going Wednesday and he goes. He says I'm going to have my people check my schedule. I'm in surgery tomorrow and Monday. He says I want to get you in either tomorrow or Monday, so wait for the call and you know from the office and we'll get this done. Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, now they call back within 20 minutes of us getting home. Oh, you're scheduled for tomorrow at this time. That's perfect, and I'm thinking this will be one and done. Right, you know, we can still go hunting and that's what he's thinking, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, super simple, right? We're just going to do this, so I actually went for an outpatient.
Speaker 2:He comes back out and, uh, super simple, right, we're just going to do this and then go. So I actually went for an outpatient. He comes back out and you know I look and I'm going like he's got a five-inch scar, like this, underneath his arm. I'm like holy crap. You know surgeon comes in and he goes. I removed his whole lymph node. He says it was, it was not looking good, so I wanted to make sure I got everything that I needed to get out of it. It's going to pathology. We'll have results, probably within the next seven days.
Speaker 2:I'm going like I'm going like and he says he goes just from the observation. He says I'm very concerned. He says I can't make a determination until I get the pathology results. But I'm very concerned just based on my observation. And I'm like concerned just based on my observation, and I'm like that's not good. So that was Friday afternoon and I'm going. And Tuesday, the day before we're going hunting, he calls back in the afternoon. I was home because we're getting ready to leave to go up north. My son answers his phone. It's the doctor and my son half the time talks with it on speakerphone, walks through the house type thing. I always yell at him, I go turn that off. But this one time I didn't want him to turn it off. And the doctor says are you driving or operating anything right now? He goes no, no, why? It's just, do you have a place? You can have a seat? And my son goes why? And I go boy, what was going? Something not good coming, yeah and he tells my son this is alex.
Speaker 2:Um pathology report comes back, you have cancer, and it was like, oh, here we go, oh, no other traum, trauma around the bend. But I'm like okay, and um, it just it snowballed real quick. He was, yeah, this uh this holiday season, he, he was lucky, he came home, uh, a couple days before, uh, christmas, so we were able to be at home for Christmas, you know, in between. So they found two large masses, one between his kidney and his bladder, another one up on his hip, in the bone on the hip, and a couple other spots in the bone on the hip and a couple other spots. But it was aggressive, large cell lymphoma. They were kind of surprised because usually you get it a little bit older, not as young, but it's a very aggressive form. So they wanted to start treatment as fast as possible, which they did, and we had good news two weeks ago, 10 days ago, because they re-scanned them and stuff.
Speaker 2:His masses have shrunk significantly, so we're on the right track. So they think he's going to be totally treatable. So we got a little bit of relief I just have. I'm still always waiting for the shoe to drop, you know, type thing. Wait and see, you know I go. I know it's good news. I'm not celebrating until it's final, you know, until he, the doctor, says he's cancer free. You know, I just hold that in reserve. It's just. I've been through a lot of disappointment, yeah, a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:but oh my God, we talked over.
Speaker 1:I didn't just look, We've been talking for a couple hours now, but yeah, so. So, before we wrap up, first of all we'll be certainly thinking about your son and your family. Um, absolutely. Um. It has been amazing getting to talk with you and hearing all about your life and your history and you know things you've done and things you've gone through. You know, as we wrap up our talk today, I always ask the same question at the end. I think I know you know the answer might be close to being.
Speaker 2:When I ask this of you, when people are listening to this years from now, when neither one of us are here. What message would you like to leave people with? No matter how things go wrong or how bad anything happens, it's not permanent. You can get through it. You have to. There's no reason. Don't retreat. Don't crawl into a hole. Don't abuse things. Got it out, never quit. That's my success.
Speaker 1:I hope I can share that and I hope others can take advantage of that. Absolutely. Thanks again for taking the time out today to talk with me. Oh, you're welcome, it's my pleasure.
