Air Combat to Ground Truth: TOPGUN Insights with Dave Berke

Dave Berke is a retired US Marine Corps Officer, TOPGUN Instructor, and now a leadership instructor and speaker with Echelon Front, where he serves as Chief Development Officer. As a F/A-18 pilot, he deployed twice from the USS John C Stennis in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spent three years as an Instructor Pilot at TOPGUN where he served as the Training Officer, the senior staff pilot responsible for the conduct of the TOPGUN course. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Force.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
listening to Software Radio Special Operations, Military Nails and straight
talk with the guys in the community.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hey, what's going on. It's your main man rad right
here at soft rep Radio. And you already know who
my guest is because you've probably clicked on the link.
But first, before I introduce you to him, let me
tell you about the merch store here at software at
dot com. We have a lot of branded items. Shirts, books,
you know, coffee mugs, you know, all sorts of different
little things that say soft Rep on them. So feel

(01:04):
free to go to the soft rep dot com forward
slash merch and check out our merch store and keep
supporting us so I can keep the fireplace going. Number two,
we have a book club, And like I said, you know,
having a book. Reading the book is a gym. This
is your gym. You know. No, I go boxing all
the time, I work out all the time, I go
snowboarding all the time. I'm always doing something active with
my body, but my mind right can't let that falter.

(01:27):
So reading a book helps to grow that muscle. So
find a book, read a book, and check out soft
rep dot com Forward, slash Book hyphen Club where you
can check out all the latest grook but blah blah blah. Listen,
I'm real you can check out all the latest books
from all the operators behind the scenes here at soft
Rep who curated those things for you. That's right, I'll
say that one hundred times, no problem. Now my guest

(01:51):
is Dave Burke. He has written The Need to Lead.
Let's welcome Dave to the show. Welcome right on, man,
Dave Burke. Welcome to the show. Now I'm going to
just kind of break down a little bit about you here,
and I'm at Echelonfront dot Com, which is where you
also work as the Chief Development Officer. Currently. Dave Burke

(02:12):
is a retired US Marine Corps officer, Top Gun instructor
and now a leadership instructor and speaker with echelon Front,
where he serves as the Chief Development Officer. As an
FA eighteen pilot, he deployed twice from the USS John C.
Stennis in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He spent three years as an instructor pilot at Top Gun,
where he served as the training officer and the senior

(02:32):
staff pilot responsible for the conduct of the top gun course.
He then served as the Anglico forward air Controller supporting
the Army's first Armored Division during extensive urban combat operations
on the ground in Ramadi, Iraq in two thousand and six.
Dave led his Supporting Arms Liaison team on scores of
combat missions into the most dangerous neighborhoods and accompanied Seal

(02:52):
Task Unit Bruiser on virtually every major operation in the
Battle of Ramadi. He was the only Marine selected to
fly the F twenty two Raptor, having served as an
exchange officer at the Air Force's four to twenty second
Test and Evaluation Squadron. As a division commander, he became
the first operational pilot ever to fly and be qualified
in the F thirty five Bravo, serving as the commanding

(03:13):
Officer of the Marine corps first F thirty five Squadron
from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. You got that little
you could dial up or dial straight here so cool bro.
Dave holds both a Master's International Public Policy and an
MBA from the John Hopkins University. Upon his retirement from
the Marine Corps, Dave joined echelon Front providing unmatched experience
and a unique perspective on combat leadership, analytic decision making,

(03:35):
risk mitigation, and creating winning teams. He serves as Echelon's
Front Chief Development Officer, Echelon Front's Chief Development Officer, as
well as a leadership instructor, speaker, and strategic advisor. And
now my friend, welcome to the show again.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Dave rad That was rad Man. Good job, dude.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Hey, thanks dude. I just wanted to burn through that
and just let my listener know who we have on
the show today as well as you have. Great deal.
I just got to call that out. But I've heard
I'm sure like the quotes I'm about to tell you, you've
probably heard that before, did I quote? See, I think
you have something in here where I bet your dimples
one over. Let me see her hold on one second,
let me find it, Whitney.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Indeed, yeah, it's one of the few things. She still
likes it.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Right here, right here, okay, yep, right, okay. So, aside
from all the brass that you earned, thank you for that.
Aside from that uniform that you wore to protect us,
and you know what you thought was doing the best
thing with your life that you could do at the time.
Thank you and also for just being a normal dude
on the human beat of life.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
So had on. Man, Well, I appreciate it. This is awesome.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, you you're awesome. And and I guess what I
want to get at is you joined at how old
the Marine Corps? Right? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Well I I signed up to be a marine. My
first attempt was at seventeen, and uh, I went to
a place called MEPs. You I know what MAPS is all.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Military interesting processing? See, yeah, I showed it in.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
SEPs and they sent me away in about thirty seconds.
Because I was seventeen years old. He said, where's your
parents signature? I'm like, I don't have one. And so
my first MAPS experience, I remember it vividly up in
Los Angeles is about, like I said, thirty seconds long.
On my eighteenth birthday, I went to MEPs the second
time to get my approval and then started the process

(05:24):
to go to oster candent school. I didn'tctually get commission
util I was twenty one, but I went in as
an officer. But I was signed up and contracted as
a Marine Officer candidate at seventeen years old, so I
was pretty serious. About it at a pretty age.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
That's pretty impressive, right to get a slot for officer
candidacy at seventeen eighteen years of age, I mean you
already dialed in high school. When I joined the military,
I was twenty one and I met a seventeen year
old and I was like, how come you're driven already
at seventeen to be here? He's like, I want Alexis.
I was like, he's He's like rad I was like what.

(06:00):
He's like, how many seventeen eighteen year olds do you
know in Las Vegas because that's where he's from driving
a Lexus. I was like I don't. He's like, I
just needed to make a car payment. I was like,
what the reasons why?

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, well, we all have different motivations. I guess I
wasn't thinking about Alexis when I was seventeen, I know,
but I wanted an F eighteen man.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
So that's exactly right. Huh. So you achieved that, you
went in and you got commissioned.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
It kind of worked out like I had a pretty
I had a pretty narrow imagination. I don't if that's
the best way to put it. I had a very
specific imagination, like I knew exactly what I wanted to do,
So the fact that it happened at seventeen, I don't
think that's great life advice. I don't think most seventeen
year old should say I want to do this and

(06:48):
only this and be solely singular focused. But it just
it's just how it was man by fourteen fifteen years old,
Like I had this image of what that was. I
just wanted it so badly that I I really really
was just laser focusing on that and really nothing else.
And it did work out. And I feel very lucky
that it did work out, because I kind of I

(07:09):
don't know what I would have done if it didn't
work out.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Right, it just seems like you're driven, right, you just
found your path and whatever your previous life was in
you at that fourteen fifteen year old it's like you're
going to be a pilot. Yeah, you know you're going
to fly this. You're like, I'm just determined, And you
seem like you're very just determined in everything that you choose.
I mean, you're the CEO of you know, echelon front. Right,
you were top gun instructor commander over F twenty two

(07:36):
Squadron as a marine. I mean, you just really seemed
to be laser focused. So you definitely had leadership qualities.
Even as a young man.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
I definitely had drive, and that has always stayed with
me in terms of if I see something that I
really want to accomplish, I definitely commit myself to that.
Now look back, I listened to you read my resume.
I've heard it a thousand times. It's still weird to
hear because all those things happened a lot of them

(08:08):
certainly because of my drive and my focus, but so
many of those things were just also connected to good fortune,
good timing, certainly, good preparation. But drive has never really
been my problem, I my issue. I definitely have that
in me, and I learned that at a young age.
Have you want something, you got to go get it.
It doesn't happen, doesn't it fall in your lap. Things
aren't going to be given to you. And that was

(08:28):
instilled at a young age is you got to go
get after it, and I tend I tend to keep
doing that.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Was your family military as well growing up or did
you just choose that path?

Speaker 3 (08:41):
I had no military background, no relatives, no distant relatives
that I'm even aware of no connection to the military.
The random thing that happened to me is when I
was five years old, so mid to late seventies, I
think seventy seven seventy eight, when I moved to this
town called El Toro, and I think my memory is
I went there because my dad was opening up an

(09:03):
office in the area and I was moving there from
San Diego for something that in my age I had
no awareness to other than you know, my dad's work
or something along those lines. Where I moved to happened
to be a mile from Marine Corps Airstation El Toro,
the Marine Corps West Coast Fighter Base. So from about
five years old on, if I looked up in the sky,

(09:24):
there were fighter jets taking off and landing, and I
just think it just got into my bloodstream. But just
it just became part of daily life. And I would
look up and I'm like, man, f four Fantoms and
a four Skyhawks and a six's and I'm like, I
want to do that. Yeah, And that was that was
the no military nothing, It just being there and seeing
it and you know, blue angels, that kind of thing.
It just it just got on my blood.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Man. You know, I can relate with that because I
grew up as a young man. I left California. My
dad was stationed here in the eighties, and then I
came here in eighty three, and then we made home
here in Utah. But it was under hill air four
spaces flight line totally. So F sixteen's all day long,
thunderbirds flying in B one, bombers B two, you know,
the whole array of what flies at night, flying over,

(10:08):
you know, the whole thing, just always looking up. And
you know, I remember letters that my dad had write
saying hey, ever since I can remember, you've always loved aircraft,
and I can understand the air Force, and you know
it just that that that thing, you know, there's that. Yeah,
thanks dad, I guess, thanks Maria, right, And so all
I knew is at seven years old, dad had a
job in the army here and so we will left

(10:29):
California to come here, that same kind of just going
with mom and dad. Yeah, you know. So that was
eighty three. So you're like, big brother, that's cool with me.
I like that. I liked older. I love that. Now.
Now you go through, you go through growing up as
a young man, you become a marine, you go through
that whole course, and before you become an officer, you

(10:50):
go through Marine Corps boot Camp, just like all the
other Marines, so that you're considered a basic rifleman. Correct,
we went through.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
I went through something called Officer Candidate School. I had
to do it twice. The program that I was in
basically made you go after your freshman in junior year.
Every Marine officer goes through. It doesn't matter if you
become a lawyer. It doesn't matter if you become a pilot,
it doesn't matter if you become an infantry officer. But
every officer goes through some version of Officer Candidate School

(11:17):
and then another school called the Basic Schools. All the
prep that is that is unique to all services. The
Marine Corps has a program that requires all officers do that,
and that's before you go on to your job. So
I love that uniqueness about the Marine Corps. All officers
go through the same program. And again, it didn't matter.
Like I said, you could be a lawyer, you could
be an administrative officer, a tanker, a pilot, a grunt.

(11:40):
You're gonna go to OCS and you need to go
to TBS and you're gonna learn the foundations of the
Marine Corps.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
And was your drill personnel where they enlisted that were
over you in that Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
All the all the sergeant instructors at Marine ocs all
came from the Marine Corps boot camp drill field. These
guys knew what they were doing and they ran a
tight shit.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Man.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
I remember that program vividly, and it was I was.
I struggled. I definitely did, at least in the beginning.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Right, because they're probably looking at you like you're gonna
leave platoons you you think you can.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
That's exactly right, That's exactly right. We had these these
Marine staff sergeants, gunnery sergeants, Marine sergeants, all from the
Joe field, all young enlisted Marines. All know that the
quality of these brand new young officers has to be
good enough to lead them in combat. And so it
was great to have a high bar set by someone
who knew eventually they'd be the recipient of our leadership.

(12:32):
And they held a high bar, and they held the line,
and they were really the ones adjudicating whether they felt
we were the calber to lead men like them in combat.
And I'm certainly grateful for that. They were awesome.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Was that everything you expected of like all like just
you know, as a young man going in kind of
the unknown, You're like, you know, probably gotta stay calm
and cool collected while you're getting berated and ye peteed right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
OCS was A was A was a challenge for me.
I you know, I'm this fourteen, fifteen year old kid,
all these fantasies about being the marine officer. I go
get my contract at seventeen years old. I told you
that story about getting sent away from MEPs and having
to re goo back and instead of doing the paper
with my parents, I went on my eighteenth birthday like

(13:20):
I was all in.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Well.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
After my freshman year of college, I'm eighteen and I
go to my first six weeks of offser Canada school.
I showed up there and I have very vivid memories.
You spend a couple of days like there's like this
in processing administrative part back in Quantico, and I remember
getting there looking around and I won't lie, Like my

(13:43):
thought was I made a huge mistake. I don't belong here.
These guys were bigger and tougher and strong. I remember
my platoon had Division I college athletes, former enlisted Marines
combat veterans from Desert Storm are now going through OCS,
and I'm like, I was immediately overwhelmed and I and

(14:04):
I know this sounds terrible to say, but like I
got there and I knew. I'm like, there's no way
I'm gonna get through this program. I do not belong here.
I was small, I was skinny, I was young, and
I just felt like I made it. I just bit
off more than I could chew. And the only thing
that saved me there in the beginning was we started
to do and the pt AT OCS is hard. The
Marine Corps has a very high bar for their officers.

(14:27):
I'm on my very rad my very first run, like
the first day you go on or run with your
platoon commander, and I'm by, I'm like three minutes into
this run, and I'm like, there's I can't run this fast,
Like there's no way I can do this. I am
not strong enough to do this. And as I'm thinking
about falling out of this run and quitting, like getting overwhelmed,
I saw someone in my platoon fall out of the
run and he was bigger and tougher and stronger, and

(14:51):
I remember like that was that was Hirre and he
got like annihilated by the by the staff, and it
scared me enough to be like I better keep going.
And then and like as I started thinking, like five
minutes later, I'm like, I can't keep this pace up.
Someone else would fall out. And so I got there.
And if it wasn't for me seeing all these other
people that look bigger and stronger than me quitting, I

(15:11):
don't know if I would have gotten through. Something scared
the hell out of me in them. That is what
actually allowed me to be successful. It was a surreal,
strange experience. I did not go there. I did not
show up with a ton of confidence. I kind of
felt like I was in over my head. And thank
god it worked out the way that it did. But man,
that was a tough hurdle for me at the beginning.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Well, good job on just staying focused, staying driven right
in that situation. You usually you really used like them
dropping out as your catalyst to continue to go. You're like, well, wow,
I just passed you. And I was really intimidated by
you were in combat in a desert storm, bro, and
you're like running, you know, and like you look over
there and you're like okay, guy, okay, and you're just

(15:51):
kept going that props to you. You know. The thing
about the Air Force and the Marines that I chose
the Air Force was the pull up factor. And I
was like, do I set myself up for failure or
try to set myself up for success because my whole
lifetime I have just really struggled with that pull up situation.
In the Air Force was like we don't have a
pull up and I was like this guy right here,

(16:15):
right here, right here, And so you know, I think
they might have instituted like a one pull up thing today,
but still in the Marine Corps, you gotta at least
pump out pull ups.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
So I mean, I mean, it's not just a walk
in the park, you know, the run. If you're not
committed to running already and you go in, you might
just be the guy falling aside if you're not up
trained and running and pushing yourself through that break point.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
I mean, really it's crazy, how you you know, and
injuries do occur just in that type of environment, you know,
from training all the way through the real deal. You know,
You're just I don't know if training is really the
right word. It's like, you're just living to be the
best fighter that you can be in the military. Every
single day. Everyone's like, oh, tomorrow's training. It's like, well, no,
tomorrow's just tomorrow. You just have to live through today

(17:00):
to get to tomorrow. Whatever they tell you to do tomorrow,
you're doing.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah, that's well said, man.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
You know. So, you know, as a leader of a business,
I run, I'm an entrepreneur, so I was really excited
to have you come on to the show to talk
about your leadership book. But you have so much intriguing
information behind this book, Like you know, going from Top Gun.
I mean we just talked about you getting the Marine Corps.
Then you go to Top Gun to fly F eighteen's
or whatever they're going to have you fly, you know,

(17:26):
project planes, something that has a Y in front of it, okay,
which is like I still call the F twenty two
a y F twenty two. They're like, rad it's in service. Yeah,
I'm like, oh, that's an F twenty two. You know.
But the raptor man, holy cow, that was the technology
of the future. You know, they're like, read about this.
You're gonna read about this all day long. Boot you're

(17:47):
gonna read about the F twenty two, the wif the
thirty five wasn't even on the horizon for it, And
so you know the rain was supposedly like affecting the
skin of the craft. Yeah right, you're smiling.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
I remember all those stories. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
You know. And then they came out with the F
thirty five's which you got to fly also. But the
Bravo is the Bravo able to angle, it's thrust to
hover like the Harrier.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yep, bro it's wild. It's got the three bs, a
three bearing swivel, takes that engine like it's like a
straight up Transformer man. It like rotates and spins. It
is wild. And we're talking about you know, I didn't
when I joined the Marine Corps. These things were not
even forget it, like, they weren't even aliens. Aliens aliens,
that's right. So I've gotten to do that in my career.

(18:36):
That was not even forget about not being part of
the calculus. It just wasn't even a thing when I
joined the Marine Corps. Those thoughts weren't even even in
the back recesses of my mind. So the fact that
the things happened in my career is just a wild
set of circumstances and just super lucky man.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
And you got to go through all of those different
transitions and what I call cocooning yourself like a like
a caterpillar. You go in, you cocoon yourself up for
a while, you transition into this colorful butterfly that's gonna
kick it for a while. Right. And so you know,
you've probably had a cocoon many times throughout your career
where you've just exploded into more colors, more vibrant, you know, opportunity,

(19:14):
and all the way to where echelon front is at today,
you know, another cocoon happened and you just come out
more vibrant.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, I like that description. I think it's also a
healthy way to live. You know, when I joined the
Marine Corps, you don't think ten, fifteen, twenty years down
the road. It's just not how it works. But your
description is really relevant because I was very fortunate that
a different phases in my life three four years at
a time, little chunks, I got to do these different

(19:43):
unexpected new things, learning to five, the F sixteen, learning
to getting to go to top gun, the F twenty two,
the F thirty five being a fact on the ground.
Each one of those represented that metaphor that you just
illustrated was something that I didn't expect. But I think
it keeps you, It keeps you young, it keeps you
alert and vibrant, and it keeps you on your toes.

(20:04):
It really is a good hedge against complacency and comfort,
which are not good attributes. You don't want to be
comfortable and complacent. And then I even talked about a
little bit one of those chapters when I was talking
about my F twenty two experience, man stelf was hard.
I struggled with that, and I think in some ways
it's a really good thing to force yourself into a

(20:24):
position that you're doing something that you're not good at,
you're not comfortable with, and you're having a hard time
with later in your career, because it really forces you
to dig as deep as you can into yourself and
find that drive. And that doesn't necessarily happen if you
just keep doing the same thing over and over again.
So I got to go into that cocoon many times
throughout my.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Career correct and sometimes uncomfortability. Being uncomfortable is okay, Yeah,
it helps you to you know, kind of you know,
tell me about my feedback. That's why authors when they say, hey,
give me a comment on my book wherever you pick
it up from, so that you see what they're saying.
You can grow from those comments. It's like, hey, man,

(21:03):
you know you said you misspelled Bravo. You're like, oh,
did I Let me go look at that in the book.
Oh I did. I got caught. You know, you can
grow from that, so next time, you don't misspell Bravo. Right,
Just these little things can just help you to better
yourself as a person, let alone as a leader, which
is really what you're focused on. Just kind of like
solely born to be You're you're born to lead. You know,

(21:25):
there's just you can't deny it. My dad would always
tell me, you know, if not you, then who And
I would be like, well, I don't want to do it.
And he's like, well why not? And I'm like, well,
I don't know if I could do it. And he's like, well,
if you don't try, then why do you deny it?
And I'm like, so I attribute that conversation from my
dad to me about where I'm at today, ycause he's like,

(21:45):
if you don't try something. If you don't put yourself
out there to see if it is you, you'll never
ever know if it's you, and it may just be
what you need to do. And I'm just like, okay, Dad, Dad,
I agree.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Man, does seem like cliches. That's good life advice. Man,
it's good life advice, and avoiding discomfort doesn't. It's not normal.
We actually seek comfort, but being uncomfortable and seeking discomfort
is a good way to grow.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Man. I your dad gave some good advice. You know
who else gives good advice is Adam McRaven. Talk about
being comfortable. The man wants a made bed, so everyone
should just make the bed to be comfortable. Right. He's
he's looking for that comfort in a long, hard day.
I believe he's the one that said at the commencement
ceremony for a college a few years back, you know

(22:32):
why we make our beds at buds at Navy Seal,
why we're gonna be trained killers and hardened men to
go do jobs that no one wants to do. It's
because at the end of the day, you go back
to a made bed, you can just crawl right into
it and be like, oh, gosh, what a day.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
He's awesome. He wrote one of the on my book jacket.
He wrote one of the blurbs there and have someone
like him and his experience and his influence. Man a,
what an awesome, awesome.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Right here as a fact says raw, heart pounding and
incredibly authentic. The Need to Leave takes you from the
cockpit to the foxhole, from the boardroom to the living room,
and teaches you leadership lessons that only a guy like
Dave Burke could teach. This book will change the way
you think about leadership and will make you a better
leader in the c suite and a better person in life.
Don't forget to make your bed. He forgot, I added

(23:15):
that work. Admiral William McRaven us Navy retired also number one.
Oh he shut the front door, Number one New York
Times bestselling author of Make your Bed.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
There you go, it's in there.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
There's a small plug for you, sir, okay, I just
want to He's amazing. I should have read the whole
thing first. I would have would have made more sense
of that. But at the end of the day, making
your bed so you have something comfortable to get into
you right start off.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
With a wain too. You get up, you start productive
out of the gate, and that sets the stage for
being productive throughout the day. It's a good advice.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, it's just like the first thing you do. It's like, hey,
I'm gonna make my bed, and so I do that now,
even more so after, you know, a few years ago,
when he reminded me through that commencement speech, I was like, oh,
I'm gonna try to start making my bed every morning.
So now I make it, and my wife home from
work before me, and guess what she can do. Boom,
the beds made nice. That's what's up, right, that's what's up.
So that's what I'm thinking about here. Okay, it's not

(24:10):
so much me, it's so much she likes I made
it before I can think, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Okay.
And so as the father, as the leader of the household,
co leader with my wife, if you will, those are
just some of the things that matter, small little details
that go a long way to sustaining my business relationship

(24:30):
with my wife. Because according to the State of Utah,
we're a corporation as we're married. Right, you get a
business license, you get a marriage license, You file taxes
for your business, you file taxes for your marriage. So
I've been with her for twenty six years. I find
it to be my most successful business adventure with her.
So you know, she just tells me I'm all sorts
of green flags all the time. She's like, oh you're

(24:52):
green flags. I'm like, okay, cool, we'll roll that way.
But you know that I just want to glean off
of you, and you know, just just your man and
just who you are because of your book and what
you've done and how you are as a leader. I
think that that's awesome. And you know, did you plan
on echelon front? I mean, Jocko the Bruises squad, I
mean like this whole that's another cocoon.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, man, I didn't plan on any of this. And
and the looking back, like the sequence of events that
led to it or just kind of outlandish to think
you could anybody could ever plan for that. And you know,
I look back at my career and certainly if you
look at the resume, I got to fly these four
different airplanes and top and I had this amazing career

(25:34):
flying airplanes better than anybody, certainly better than I could
have ever imagined, well, I spent one year out of
the cockpit to be a Ford Air Controller. I wanted to.
I wanted to be a FAC and just have a
year as a fact. And it turns out the one
year that I volunteered to be a Ford Air controller,
I end up in Ramadi, Iraq, working alongside a seal

(25:56):
team that was led by Jocko Willinkin, Laif Babin. Totally
random and so we end up working really closely together.
This is in two thousand and six. I can assure
you in two thousand and six, when I'm the Ford
Air Controller my Anglica team working with Laife and Jocko's
seal team TASKI and Bruiser, there's no thought on my
mind like, hey, maybe ten years from now they'll start

(26:16):
a leadership company and write a leadership book and ask
me to join them. So the things that led to
that opportunity are so far outside of the idea of
like conscientious deliberate preparation. So when I got asked by
Laife to come join Eeschelan Front when it was just
him and Jocko, that was based on a relationship we

(26:37):
had ten years earlier from our time in Iraq, that's
the one year out of the cockpit. So to think
that like the most impactful long term thing that I
would ever do would be the one year not flying.
It's just it's so far beyond what you could ever
imagine or plan or think of. So my path echelan front,
I have no I had no idea, no thoughts, no plans.

(26:57):
How it worked out as fortunate, an opportunity, but really
a testament to them bringing me in. I could have
never planned on something like that.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Now is echelon front is? And echelon is a movement
of men moving to the front. Right, that's echelon front, right,
Amy hitting that right on limit. Yeah, it's like and.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Then we are at the front echelon man, we're in
the leading edge of the.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, on point, on point front. My dad would always say,
the reason why you want to be on point is
so you can duck first.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
He seeks from experience.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
I know he sees everything coming at you, see everything.
It's the guy behind you that doesn't see what's coming
at him. Thank you, I appreciate that. Yet, and he
was he had a master's in business and human manager
or human resources, and UH was working on his doctor
until he passed away from heart issues, which made me
go get my heart checked at forty. Right at forty
I'm forty eight now, and they were like, oh, you

(27:48):
got calcium build up. You got to go get this
looked at. And I had a whole bunch of different stuff.
I didn't even feel like I had anything going on.
I was like, my dad had these issues, can I
get checked out? And so it took a lot for
me to walk into the doctor's office a grown man
and say, Hey, I think I have some issues or
maybe there might be some issues with my heart. Could
you just look at me and just take my labs
and come back and read it back to me. And

(28:10):
he's like, hey, you know what, Yeah, you kind of do.
Let's get you looked at, and you know, and I'm
not trying to go on a health rant here about
getting your colonoscopy as well, but you know, I had
to get that done because there was some of that
in the family history as well. So forty years old,
I'm just kind of getting you know, checked out. And
I'm forty eight now and I feel like I've got
a good control over my health with all the doctor
check ups, So like, hey, you're doing great. Your LDLs

(28:31):
are down, your cholesterol is completely down. You don't you know,
you're doing boxing every single day. And I'm like, yes, yes,
yes I am.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
We want you around rad keep getting your stuff checked.
That's the way to do it. I'm in the same boat, man.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
It is. And I want my listener out there to know, like,
if you're thinking, like maybe you should get checked something's
in your family history, just raise your hand. I don't
know if you have insurance or not, or if you're
a veteran and you're just fearing going to the VA,
just go to the VA and just talk to someone
as an advisor at the VA and see if they
can help you get through, you know, whatever you're going
through too. It's like, amen, man, amen, you know, and
it's okay. Guys need friends that are guys to hang

(29:07):
out with. It's it's a lonely world out there these days.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
And tell them to go to the doctor, man, go
get checked out, go get checked up.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Absolutely, it's okay, it's okay. I mean, I just want
to talk to you about the F sixteen K because
I have what do you got? Flew the simulator all right?
I was loaded up with iron eagle mode. I was
flying over all of Great Salt Lake and iron Eagle
mode is every single weapon and unlike I had so
many weaponry on my aircraft. And my instructor IRA is

(29:35):
a combat navigator. I want to say it. Instructor. I
called themself. He's like, I am a combat instructor, and
I was like, yeah, that's right. Anyways, they explained to
me why I couldn't pull on the stick. They're like,
I know, you want to pull it like Red Baron
flies his plane radar, you know, but it doesn't move
at all. It's got like two pounds of pressure release

(29:56):
because in like the eighties, one of the pilots that
was trying to test it was putting like two hundred
pounds of pressure about breaking his wrist trying to like
move the aircraft because it's so sensitive to just touch. Yeah. Right,
So I mean I learned about shooting the watch. You know.
We talked about shooting the watch, right, okay, and then
we talked about My instruct is like, oh, he's going

(30:17):
to crash because it's like like terrain terrain train whatever.
It's like I'm hitting. They set up all these pirate
ships around the Great Salt Lake here in Utah where
there's an Antelope Island that's what it's called, and they
set up pirate ships all around it. I'm like, this
is just a video game, bro, Let's go. I've seen
Iron Eagle a million times. Let's go. You know. So
here I am flying and I'm like, can I dive
bomb down and throw rockets at it? And he's like valid,

(30:39):
So I do that, but they thought I was gonna crash,
but I pulled up and he's like valid. So then
it's like, well, can I go behind the guy that's
chasing me? Hit my brakes and they come down behind him.
He's like yes, So I did that all because of
the movies. The top Gun is you know what I'm saying,
Like it did. Yeah. There's a amusement park here called Lagoon.

(31:01):
It's like our Disneyland. And we were flying all over
because basically you take off from Hill Air Force Base
and you got no time to do anything except sit
on a rocket and like check all your switches and
make sure that you're flying and you're not dying, because
I mean literally there's no pitstop.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
Yeah, I did a lot of flying. We called it
the Uter the Utah Test and training ring.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yes, out at Utah, yeah, I call it Utah uter
Yeah yeah, out there and they dropped the bomb, so
you know what I'm talking about. That's only take off
from hill.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
You you didn't mention? Did they give you a walkman
to strap your leg when you're doing that? If you're
an urn ego guy, you have to have that right.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
So I'm an iron eagle guy and a flight of
the Intruder guy all right, all gone by? Oh yeah,
you know, I'm like, let's go. You know what do
you know that? I don't know? A total flight of
the intruder. He's all loading his nineteen eleven and cleaning it.
He's got his knife totally. Man.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
I love I love that book as a kid. I
love that movie.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Are you wearing? I had the book and I love
the movie. Are you wearing? Tiger stripe? Willem Dafoe.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, you never you gotta be ready, you never know.
He puts it on and he's like out ready to hunt.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
I do it for you, Sandy, I do it for you.
Oh man, that movie, that whole I mean, that's how
I grew up.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
Be visited with Alpha Mike foxtrot Man It's just a
classic scene. I know, I know it well.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
I know it well very well. Yeah, And so like
the book I was, I love that whole thing. And
so I wish I had tape cassette. I wish there
was a Chappie standing over my over my shoulder, like,
you're doing well, kid, you're doing real good. Yeah, we're
gonna get your dad out, you know dad. But I
am that son. My dad was a Green Beret, so
if anything hit home, it was iron Eagle. You know,

(32:35):
it's like, oh they got my.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Dad, Yeah they got yep.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
I know.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
I mean I grew up with all that same stuff, man,
all that same stuff. It's all and it's in your
That stuff gets embedded into your DNA. You don't ever
lose that. You'll carry that forever, right, I know, I'm
with you one hundred percent. I could picture all those
scenes and the drivers behind that. Those are just classic eighties,
just pop culture infusion directing your bloodstream.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
I will tell you that I did get scattered though,
all over the amusement park, so because we were doing
a few you know, you know, takeoffs and whatnot. But
my instructor was very pleased with me because I landed
and the other guy, the other guy was flying against
had to have a trap. And so he's like, he's like,
I choose rad because he landed. He's like, well, my
guy landed. He's like, yeah, but he used a wire.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
We had a saying in the F sixteen it's an
easy plane to land, but it's a hard plane to land.
Well that I hav been a good landing in F
sixteen is not an easy thing.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Well, I came down on the runway hill. I came
from the north to the south of it, and I
came in and I went all the way to the
edge of almost the fence line of hill, and my
nose or the beak of the plane was like sticking
over the grass. But I was still on the good
way and where the pedals the brakes are at the
feet just like, you're right. I mean, it's so cool, dude,

(33:52):
You're so cool. I just want to let you know,
that's a very cool thing. If you had a if
you had a baseball card of you and that was
on there, I would totally have you sign your rookie card.
You know what I'm saying, Like, sign this, bro, Wait,
wait till you see your stats. In ten years. You know,
it's like there should be that. That's a top upper deck.
If you're out there, man, you should ping these guys
and make baseball cards and get them all certified.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
They'll be calls and tell them to release some fight baseball.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Let's go Donnerus, let's go Flear, Let's get it done.
Let's go. I'm saying all your names for free because
because I love baseball. That's another reason why. So now,
in your book Leadership, you talk about some hard challenges
that you had to deal with in combat, uh, being
in charge of you know, uh, simply right simply calls

(34:40):
you over the phone and says, hey, uh, Leon's been hit, right?
Is that how it went down? Is that right?

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Okay? And you and you just say and you're like, okay,
I have to like, uh deal with this. This is
one of my guys. You know, you talk about never
having any of your guys you've been to that hospital.
I'm the Charlie medical. You know, You're I'm kind of
jumping around in your story here.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
So there's you got it.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
There's a scene in your book where you're talking and
you get a call at the talk or you're at
some command center on base and they're like, hey, hey, boss,
you know Leon's hit, I think is how it goes.
And you're like, okay, you have this chest compression. You're
trying to stay calm and cool because others are probably
looking at you and they all look to you to
be the beacon and the lighthouse, but inside, who's your lighthouse?

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, now you illustrated it well. And simple was a
Marine captain, one of the best officers I ever worked with.
If you're gonna go to combat, this is a guy
you want to go to combat with. He was a
steady rock, steady leader. We had been there deployed for
months and months and months, and his team was one

(35:42):
of the teams I was responsible for. And where I
was working like, I'm literally in my bedroom, if you
want to call it that. We had an old makeshift
Iraqi Army Airborne barracks and we just converted different rooms
to a little place to sleep, a little place to plan.
We had a little headquarters, we had an armory. It's
all very makeshift stuff. So somebody comes knocking on my door.
I was working, but it's also it was where I slept,

(36:04):
is where I mission planned, It's where I had my laptop.
I was just working on a computer, looking at like
a map for the afternoon's mission or whatever it was,
and he's like, hey, sir, you got to come get
the radio. He didn't tell me what it was, but
it was very obvious by his demeanor, the look on
his face, his tone and temperament. And as I remember
walking I don't know fifteen yards to the the op center,

(36:29):
which is really just around the corner from my room
where the radio was, I knew something was wrong. I
just didn't know what it was. And Simple was on
the other end of the radio going, hey, ser, Corporate,
Leon's been hit. You know, Chris is hit, and you know,
you don't know the magnitude of that phrase could cover
like everything from just a little a little flesh room.

(36:52):
He could have been dead, and there's that moment of well,
I need to respond to this correctly. I also didn't
know exactly the magnitude of that was. What was very
interesting about that story is I knew they were bringing
him into what we call Charlie Medical, that was the
medical facility on the base. I was on a base
called Campermodi, just on the outskirts of the city, and

(37:15):
so he's in the city. He's getting brought in. He's like, hey,
Chris has been hit. We're coming to Chariti Medical. I'm like, okay, Roger,
I'll meet you there. In the short trip from my
office to Charlie Medical, I had a follow up call
saying he was in a Bradley vehicle being transported to
Charlie med and he was stable. That was the update
to the scenario. So I went from like a little

(37:37):
bit of fear and paranoia and unknown to some confidence
like okay, good, he's stable. I'll get there. My Corman,
my medical expert, you know in the Navy, we called
him Accorman, my doc, and I he was there. We
had built a quick plan like, Okay, what he needs
is a friendly face. He needs some stability, he needs

(37:57):
some comfort that we can provide him, because we knew
he was stabilized. And so when that Bradley vehicle showed
up at Charlie Medical and the ramp came down the back,
I expected to see Chris and interact with him in
a way that might help build some of his comfort
and create this stability in this what I knew was
going to be a difficult situation because I knew he'd
been shot when he came down the ramp and I

(38:22):
was there to My plan was I kind of pick
up the stretcher he was going to kind of help
bring him down the ramp. It was immediately obvious that
that Chris was gone. And so it really that optimism
that came from that midstream report of stability was shattered.
And that is that's where I really had to work

(38:44):
on my composure the most, because it went from unknown
to good news to reality. Yeah, and then reality was
really really obviously the hardest thing I've ever had to
deal with. It's very very visual, it's very graphic. I
those images are sadly burned into my brain. That's where
the situation really sunk into me. And it dispelled the

(39:08):
myth of the optimism I was caring, like, Okay, he's breathing,
he's stable, Things is going to be all right. To
a marine that that was on my team has been killed.
That was a tough, tough moment.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
And he was out doing forward air control stuff.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah. So simple Simple was a captain. He was a
j tech. And listen, there's a small disparity army, right, Yeah, no,
he's a marine, but but the only difference is a fact.
A Ford Air controller is a is a certified controller
who's a pilot. A J TACH is the same certification,
He's just not a pilot. So on paper, were we

(39:44):
have the same level of capabilities. Simple was a j TACK.
I was a fact essentially the same thing, and I
split up my teams and all of us were all
doing the same thing. Chris was Simple as radio operator,
so he was there on a rooftop supporting Simple in
this overwatched position where we're suppor army maneuver units, and
he was the on site radio operator as Simple as

(40:04):
the on site JTAC. And I was there with my team.
They had relieved us just a few hours earlier. I
was on site, same location, top of Cup Cup Iron,
in the exact same spot he was spot, yeah, just
that morning, just that morning, so I had a very
clear understanding of where they were, what they were doing,
what the mission they were supporting. And the timing obviously

(40:26):
was such that he was there on site on the
rooftop when that happened. I had been there just that morning.
I was back planning for his relief to go back
out to the same location that evening or the next day,
worst day obviously in my career, a really tough scenario
and one that I can recall very vividly because of
the sequence that led to me understanding what was happening,

(40:48):
and of course everything changed from there.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, everything, your whole dynamic, your whole mentality, probably moving
forward because now you're you have a lot of military
personnel stay stoic, and they stay like, you know, hey,
I can't let this affect me. But I mean we're
only like you said, it's it's in your head. It's
only going to affect us. You just can't let that
be shown. So you're dealing with this for the for

(41:12):
the immediate moment, Yeah, but then all of a sudden,
the really out the reality hits you again. Probably where
you're at, You're like, I'm in Ramadi, I'm in Iraq,
I'm running this. I have to take care of all
these other personnel to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
Let's go find the guy.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, there's certainly there is certainly some of that. There's
no question there is this sense of wanting reconciliation and
wanting that.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
You know.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
The thing that's interesting about what when it happened. It
was the summer is June twentieth, the height of the summer.
It was the pace was blistering. It was just NonStop.
And I think it's both good and bad in the
sense that we were so busy that we really none
of us had any choice but to just we had

(42:06):
to get back to work. And I think the hardest
part is the time that we spent trying to recognize
and honor him and give him the send off that
he deserved. He was the first Anglico marine killed in Iraq,
and so it was something that none of us had
experienced in the past, only none of us that my
unit had gone through. But the war didn't stop for us.

(42:29):
The summer didn't cool off for us, The environment, the
need for us to help other units, none of that changed.
And so in some sense, the thing that helps is
that you have no choice but to compartmentalize that because
the support you're providing is still needed. And by the way,
what Chris would have wanted us to do is carry
on with our mission. That's what Chris would have wanted.

(42:51):
So you go do that and you listen. There were moments,
I believe me, I remember calling my wife to tell
her what happened, and there are moments where I had breakdowns. No,
I don't want to dispel the idea that I was
some sort of stoic warrior, but in large part that
stayed in its own place until I came home. Is

(43:12):
when I really had to unpack and wrestle with that
because we had to do our job. Chris knew and
would have wanted us to do our job, and so
we did our job. And it really wasn't until after
I came home from that deployment did I really have
to grapple with the long term impact of that experience.
There was certainly a moment there the fold that we
took the next day off, you know, we send him

(43:33):
on his way. We try to honor him as best
we could. But the war didn't stop. The war didn't
stop for us when we lost some raid, and for
the hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people that experienced
the same thing, the war didn't stop for them either.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
No, it just had The show must go on if
you will, uh, you know from that from that from
your perspective, it has to. You're you're you're doing that job.
That's that's what you have to do. The war could
stop if it could, but it's not, so therefore you
have to continue to put your rest forward every time.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Well, thanks for sharing some of that emotional story right there.
I felt that emotion in the book when I was
reading that, and so I just wanted to bring that
up and just you know, and just say that war
is hell. You know, there is loss of life and
friends and suffering that does happen while trying to protect
people for to live and be able to vote and
have a democracy. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
Right, Well, I'm glad you brought it up. And I
wrote that chapter for a reason. This is talking about
him is a chance for me to keep his memory
alive and keep his legacy alive. So I'm grateful that
you picked that segment in the book to talk about
with me today because it's a chance for me to
talk about him and I miss him, and that's.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Why I wanted to bring it up.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Mom. Yeah, I'm so glad you did. Man. I appreciate
it very much.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
You're very welcome into his family if they do take
a listen to this or whoever listens to this in
the future.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
His mom Kat absolutely will one hundred.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah, and now and now. A cute thing that you
did is we were able to convince the mother of
your child to name him after him. You're like, I
got the name usually. I'm like, my names were all
thrown around and she won. Well.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
I always knew that I wanted to find a way
to honor his name. My wife actually had the idea
to use Chris Leon's last name as my son's middle name,
so she gets the credit for the creativity. I had
a sense of wanting to honor him. I didn't know
exactly how, And when my son was born, she's the
one that came up with the name Matthew Leon and
I'm like, this is perfect, perfect, So she gets the

(45:34):
credit for that.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
There you go, And that's very cool, very cool of
you to honor him as well. You know, I think
that you are very cool, bro, and there is so
much more to you than just an hour would ever
give me to talk to you. And in your book
The Need to Lead, you can learn about a top
guns instructor's lessons on how leadership solves every challenge. You know.

(45:57):
It's not about the alternate plaque in the ladies all
the time, although.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
Although that's where they hang it though, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
That is, and I heard there is one there after
the movie. I heard that there is one from another
friend of mine that was top Gun. He's like, there's
actually an alternate plaque in the deny any of this? Yes, oh, yes, yes, yeah?
What was your call sign? Can I ask that? Ye? Please?
Was Chip? Super?

Speaker 3 (46:24):
You know, awesome, very flattering call sign. I managed to
chip my two front teeth in flight school. I knocked
my own teeth out with a g suit hose. And
if you know the movie Dumb and Dumber, where you
know Jim Carrey's character, I had both my front teeth
were chipped, just like the movie.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
And uh.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
I spent about a week walking around the squadron in Kingsville,
Texas when it happened, waiting to get the Navy dentist
to fix my teeth and listen, Chip was about the
best outcome I could have had. There were some much
worst alternatives of what it looks like to walk around
a hole in your face, and I I got. I
think I dodged a bullet with how bad it could

(47:01):
have been. But when you knock your own teeth out
and chip your own teeth, you're gonna get a call
sign out of it. So I was chipped my whole career.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I usually tell folks when you get a call sign,
it's not the one you choose yourself.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
And it's not a good thing. It's a cool story.
It's I knock my own teeth out, it's not a
good story.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah. And then it's Chip and they always are calling it.
They're always like chuckling with They're saying your name, like Chip,
do you copy over? We know how you got your
call sign. You're like, that's right, yes, sir, no problem.
Like my last name Radel, it's always butchered. So they
call me rad because it's rattle. It's like I didn't
choose that, that's my name name.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
Man, I want to I wish someone to call me rad.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
I know right, I'll just live up to it now.
That's all I tell people. They're always like rad name rad.
I'm like, that's new. Usually it's dradal dradl Dradel because
it rhymes with radel radl Radel. So we'll go with
we'll go with that. Like, now, what is on the
horizon for you? Just your book and uh a movie
deal or an athlete series. The Life of Dave.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Well the book is out. It's been out for a
little bit overwhell you know. Came out late October, so
obviously I don't know how long it is when people
are listening to this at this.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Moment, but the book was a perfect timing.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
It's an awesome experience. I'm super grateful with a huge
response and and just super grateful for this, the massive
audience that was it was so well received. I'm so
so soked for that. Our company, Echelon Front, actually did
a movie on YouTube. Uh, we had our audio vision
video team did this incredible movie that kind of aligns

(48:38):
with with the experiences in the book. So if anybody
wants to watch or listen or read it, it's out there.
You can certainly get it. That's what's curry right now.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
What's is it on echelon Front's YouTube.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Go to YouTube and go to YouTube and type in
Dave Burke or go to the YouTube echelon Front page.
It's all there. If you got if you got an
extra forty five minutes, you can watch basically my life story.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
On I love that. I love that, I love that
in this book. Right here there's a picture of all
of the Echelon Front crew standing right here. It says
I have been lucky to be with Jocko, Leif and
Echelon Front from nearly the beginning. It has been an
honor to serve as the chief development officer and to
help contribute to the growth of what once was a

(49:19):
four person team into what is now the world's premier
leadership consultancy. Yeah. I mean wow, that's really cool, bro,
And I'm so happy to have you on the show today.
You've you know, I always like to meet people that
make me a better person. By your smile, It's true.
Just a little bit I'll glean off of you, Okay.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
I appreciate it, man. That means a lot. And Echelon
Front is an awesome company. We are helping the world.
We're helping people become better leaders. We're taking our lessons
and our mistakes and packaging them in a way that
people can learn from that and apply it in their
own lives. So get to be a part of a
company that Leif and Jocko started all these years ago
and create positive impact in the world. Man, you cannot
do better than that. When you leave the military, you're

(49:58):
always looking for something where you can find meaning and
value and impact on what you do and belief in
that and Echelan Front. You cannot get a bit be
in a better place than I am to find a
way to positively impact the world.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Man.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
So I appreciate your words and I'm very lucky to
be doing this.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Let me let me ask you something as we kind
of finalize our conversation. If a veteran or someone out
there listening to this is like, hey, maybe I can
contribute to echelon Front. You know while I flew you
know F eighteens or you know, is there room for
growth for these guys to look you up and see
if there's positions available? Is there like veteran outreach always

(50:36):
for me?

Speaker 3 (50:37):
And they should they should email me or go to
What they should do is go to echelonfront dot com.
Go to the like you know, I think it says
like about us or whatever.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Just click on.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
Just send me an email.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Yeah, right, I'll put I'll put it.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Out right now for all the world to hear my email.
Write this down. It's David echelonfront dot com.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
We are not hard to find. So if you want
to get ahold of Dave, you can email me.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Easy day, Dave at echelonfront dot com. Okay, I'm doing it.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
If you can't remember that, then maybe they shouldn't be
reaching out.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
That's true story, true story. I usually tell people that
want to work at my wargame shop, I'm like, well,
send me an email and a headshot with your resume.
And they're like why, and I was like, because I said,
that's what I want. I want to I'm like, because
I want to see you make an email, send an attachment,
and I want to see who I'm talking to. So

(51:32):
send me those things and then I'll look at your resume.
I know that you can know. It's like you can
do the simple functions. You can make an email, send
an attachment, you got a photo, and you wrote a resume. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Just good advice.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Thank you, thank you, and and I'm sure that you
have so much more. And You're welcome back on the
show anytime that you feel like, Hey, rad I'd love
to come back. We didn't talk about chapter twelve or
we didn't talk about this, and I'd really like to
talk about leadership and how to calm yourself down and
how to calm while you're freaking out. You know that
kind of thing I have.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
I've learned that the art of looking calm when you're
freaking out. I can talk about that anytime, So I
appreciate it. Man, if you'd have me back on, we
can definitely find time. I'd love to.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
I appreciate that. And so I just want to say
thank you again to Dave Burke who wrote The Need
to Lead. All right, and I'm really stoked have had
you on the show, one of my top five guests.
I just want to tell you that just from your
smile and your demeanor and the whole the whole aura,
and just how you grew up and just your age range,
I don't know, man, You're just a cool dude. And

(52:35):
if you if you want to look at the back
of his book just to let you know, you know,
Andrew Houberman PhD gave him a word Jack car Jack
dear number one the terminal list you know on the
back of here, and then General and Admiral McRaven. So
go check out The Need to Lead. Tell him rat
set you from soft reph and again it's echelon front dot.

(53:01):
The Need to Lead is the book. If you're gonna
buy it online at Amazon, leave a review down below
for the author to glean over. Okay, thanks dude, And
with that said, dude, if you need a job, hit
up Dave at echelonfront dot com and on. Behalf of
dave On, behalf of Brandon web On, behalf of calum
My producer on, behalf of the merch store that you

(53:21):
guys support, and our book club and humanity. This is
rad saying peace.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
You've been listening to surf Red Radia