September 11, 2025 • 56 mins
Owen Hallinan shares his extraordinary journey from earning "Soldier of the Cycle" in basic training to undergoing two emergency open-heart surgeries after tearing a heart valve during military training. Through this life-altering experience, Owen discovers profound spiritual meaning and a renewed appreciation for life while facing uncertainty about his military future.
• Ex-master certified personal trainer who joined the Army National Guard at age 33
• Excelled in basic training despite being significantly older than most recruits
• Selected for the prestigious Best Warrior competition team at Advanced Individual Training
• Experienced sudden, knife-like chest pain during a training ruck march
• Initially misdiagnosed with chest congestion before doctors discovered a torn heart valve
• Underwent two open-heart surgeries within 10 days, including emergency surgery when his blood pressure dropped dangerously low
• Found deeper spiritual meaning during his near-death experience
• Currently undergoing cardiac rehabilitation with plans to run a marathon within a year
• Emphasizes the importance of seeking medical attention when something feels wrong
If you're experiencing unusual symptoms, don't hesitate to see a doctor—it could save your life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are listening to the Double A Club and this is
your host, ny Boom, and myco-host, big Daz.
We'll be talking about trendingtopics and healthcare and
basically, just as a disclaimerjust to let the listeners know
that this is just basically onour opinions and speculations
(00:24):
and I hope you guys enjoy theshow.
Let's start off and kick offwith our first topic.
This is NYC Boom and this isDouble A Club Podcast, and
joining me here is a specialguest.
Introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
What's going on?
Introduce yourself.
My name is Owen Hallinan.
I'm an ex master certifiedpersonal trainer, trained down
in Orlando, florida, for aboutsix, seven years or so, and
currently I am in the service tojoin the Army National Guard as
a patching mechanic, and sothat's where we're at right now
well, thank you for serving, andyou know, going back to a
(01:06):
master certified personaltrainer, I met you at Gold's Gym
in Orlando and we workedtogether there for a few years
before I left.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I believe that that was the first place that ever
worked for that.
Instead of getting a pay raise,you got a pay reduction.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We got a couple of those.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I know a lot of people didn't like me because I
was very vocal about the shit.
But I was like yo, I don't wantto cut my pay.
That's not me, man, john, thatfucker.
And then just you know, I'mgoing to share a couple of
people's story about you.
(01:56):
You moved to the Carolinas, Ibelieve, right.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, I moved back home, so I'm actually from here.
So I moved back home to, youknow, do some cooking stuff.
I'm also a certified chef.
I had some years doing that andso I've done a lot of stuff
like at the higher end of acareer because I wanted to learn
the basics and then move my wayup, like we do a training that
we do in the culinary field nowand, you know, serving our
(02:23):
country.
So, yeah, I moved back to SouthCarolina culinary field now, um
, in the service, and you know,serving the serving our country.
So, um, yeah, I moved back tostockholm.
That's where I'm at right nowand, um, that's where I joined
since yes, yeah and and then, um, I've been following your
social media.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You've been on doing a lot of boxing training and
stuff like that for yourself.
And then you was uh, I believeyou was going through the
process of joining the NationalGuard.
Yeah, and you got admitted andstarted your boot camp yes so,
and you're a perfectly healthyperson.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
You're in your early 30s, 32 right yes, I'm 33 and
kind of joined on the later sideof the military.
I wasn't going to join when Iwas 18 but I couldn't do it
because I had some shoulderissues.
Um, but 33, I was healthy as ahorse and came in at my at my
strongest and and joined reallylate in life.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So, um, but joined nonetheless I mean, I don't
think it really matters.
I mean, they have an age cap,right, isn't it 35?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
35, yeah, 35 with weight, oh you're still just you
.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You just made it, you was, you was pretty strong.
I mean you, you, how much doyou weigh?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Right now.
Right, it's probably like 180right now, but when I saw, when
you saw me, me, I was probablyabout 200 almost.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Almost right.
I say say around 190, 195.
Yeah somewhere around that andyou was deadlifting close to 400
pounds.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We got over that.
We ended up pulling a 500deadlift.
That was recorded.
So I've gotten a 500 deadlift,I've gotten a 405 squat.
I can't do that anymore.
I will tell you that that phaseis kind of like long gone, so
we just kind of sit around.
(04:12):
I don't want to do that anymore.
We do reps.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, but you're a strong guy, you're almost, you
know, kind of thinner framed andyou didn't have it.
There was no um, there was nored flags, any complications or
anything that the the militarysaid that made that would make
them not allow you to join sowhen I was uh, when I signed up,
(04:41):
when I went to meps, um MEPS, Ihad a red flag waiver and it
was for my shoulder.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
This was something I had.
A any red flag waivers.
You are not fit to serve at all.
You have to go through a waiverprocess, which I don't know.
I think it's like an E6 to anE8 or something like that.
It has to sign those papersover just to allow you to be
able to go to basic training oreven take the next set of steps
in in the uh, in the signingprocess.
But, um, I had a red flag waiverfrom my shoulder because I had
(05:07):
shoulder surgery.
Um, in high school, um fromplaying football and so, from
you know, did my orthoscopicsurgery.
Um, and that was maybe 2008,we're talking, it's 2024 and so
something that's you know, yearsbehind there's still red
flagging that says you're notfit to serve right now.
So I just took the lady in theoffice like this bird.
(05:28):
I said man, grab my hand.
I picked that lady up like thisand put her back down and she
goes uh, soldier, picked me upin the office, soldier's fine.
And so they ended up clearingme for um, for that, for that
waiver.
So, um, you know, I got.
I got cleared for all the redflag waivers that I did have,
which that was just one of them.
I ended up having three of them.
I can't remember what the othertwo were for, but I got cleared
(05:51):
to be able to serve.
So nothing that was pressingenough for me not to be able to
get a waiver for.
I would say that Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So pretty much healthy as an ox, good to go.
Proved your strength Very muchso.
These red flags are not goingto be actual red flags.
They're red flags becausesomething happened in the past.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
They're perfectly healed, ready to go yeah,
everything, everything was readyto go so you go, you enter boot
camp.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Now, right, it's boot camp is the beginning of it,
right?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
yeah, that.
Yeah, that's the first step.
I signed June 18th 2024, andwent to boot camp September 25th
.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Because I've been in the military so I don't know
this process, so you may have toeducate me more.
So boot camp is the first thingyou do, the first phase.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, it's the first phase and it is taxing.
I'm talking about all themyears of working out.
I ain't never worked out in mylife.
I don't feel like they.
We probably did.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We probably did 3 000 push-ups in the first three
days we were there um.
I would imagine it's kind ofmore like a crossfit type of
thing, but continuous it's morelike.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It's more like you've got uh children that won't stop
talking and they get you introuble for the entire time
while you're there.
And now you have to getReprimanded every single like
you turn.
You turn the corner and be likeforward March, stop March to do
push-ups.
I give you something like thatget out of bed at 3 o'clock in
the morning.
You got push-ups to do.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It's like God tell just people misbehaving and
stuff like that I'm in troublefor someone and if someone's not
doing something wrong, they'rejust gonna blame it on somebody
and just, you're going to getchewed out anyway.
I had to go through the sameshit in the academy for
corrections and the police, thatbullshit.
I was like yo fuck this.
But yeah, so you go throughboot camp.
(07:37):
Go ahead, tell us yourexperience of boot camp For
people who've never been throughit and never experienced it and
only seen the movies.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Tell us how, how, how it really is um, the first
three days were the hardest daysof our, of my entire life,
because you had to sit and justwait.
That's a military standard andit's a it's a common phrase.
You hear anybody that talksabout the military.
Ask them about sitting andwaiting.
They'll call you to getsomewhere and you're supposed to
be somewhere 15 minutes beforeand, bernie, you might be
sitting in that same spot forthree hours.
(08:08):
You ain't supposed to talk tonobody, but we had to do a lot
of sitting and waiting, and sothat was the first three days we
were there.
We got our heads shaved.
You look like knobs, likedoorknobs and stuff like that.
The only times you you movewhen you're supposed to move,
you breathe when you're supposedto breathe.
(08:28):
You do what you're supposed todo when you're supposed to.
You ate when you're supposed toeat, you sleep when you're
supposed to sleep, and and sotrying to follow.
Trying to follow that part wasnot the hard part because, again
, I'm a little bit older, butwatching the, the age gap from
somebody being older and thensomebody being younger, you know
you're almost getting likeyou're having a lot of this,
like stop doing that, stop doingthat, stop doing that, and
eventually you know, now you'rebeing rep I'm being reprimanded
(08:50):
for somebody way over theredoing the wrong thing and um,
that became the common trend ofboot camp.
That was the more or less thatwas the common thing.
So I had to look at like youknow, do I sit down and talk to
these people.
I was a lot older so I got alot of people.
They called me unc at basicallytrying.
Most of the guys that were therewere there maybe like 18 19.
One guy was 17, um, so the thenew wave of everybody coming up
(09:13):
is very, very much.
So I got a high school, youknow fresh about to go to
college.
You know using the military toget into, get into um, get, get
some college money.
But boot camp was it was a lotof consistent scheduling.
You knew exactly what you weresupposed to do.
You had a time to do everything.
(09:34):
You were told what to do, youwere told what to wear, you were
told when to go to sleep, youwere told when you were going to
be, when we go marching andstuff like that.
So you knew what was going on.
So boot camp was not hardmarching and stuff like that.
So you knew what was going on.
So boot camp was not hard.
I will say that boot camp wasjust, it was difficult,
difficulty and something beingjust hard like difficulty today
could be something very easy forme.
It could be a little bit moredifficult.
We had to do land navigation,which I've never done that
(09:57):
before, but I've used a compassand you know I got to be outside
.
I do my rednecky stuff youremember they used to call me a
bunch of redneck names back inthe gym and whatnot.
But I got to do a lot ofoutdoors so I got to shoot a lot
of guns.
I mean thank God for taxpayerdollars because we shot a lot of
ammunition, yeah, but we shot alot.
(10:18):
We did a lot of stuff outside.
We camped.
I mean we didn't necessarily dosome camping but we slept
outside a couple nights on someof our larger marches and you
know I got to learn a lot moreabout the militaristic mindset
and what goes into doing that.
Learn more about.
You know, from basics.
I could tell you all thestories that we did, but some of
(10:39):
the more important stuff is welearned a lot of teamwork, a
whole lot of teamwork, that I'ma member of a team.
Whether there's creed that wesay that says I'm an american
soldier, I'm a warrior, a memberof a team, and you learn this
mindset and just build thismindset inside you that the guy
beside you is responsible forhaving your back and I'm
supposed to be responsible forhaving his, and then vice versa,
everybody around here.
But there's some people I wouldnever want to even stand in my
(11:01):
presence that were in that samekind of space and you learn that
about these people.
But you still remember of ateam.
So how can I utilize yourassets, like what's your, your,
your asset to, for not mybenefit, for my own safety, but
the military Mary must?
Who takes care?
Basically training took care ofthose bits and pieces, like
there's some people just nevermade it Through.
A lot of people just ended upquitting, and if you quit the
(11:22):
military for basic training, youknow what they do it for you.
Yeah, of people just ended upquitting and if you quit the
military for basic training, youknow what they do for you.
No, they make you stay thewhole entire time and watch
everybody else do that stuffuntil it's time for you to go.
Which about you know, if it's a10-week basic training, you're
there for like eight or nineweeks and they hold you there.
That's what you get for quitting100.
You're thinking about joiningthe military?
(11:43):
Do not quit.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So so they say watch or they have to still do the
shit.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Stand there and watch .
Stand there and watch.
It's it's got.
I'll be honest with you, it'skind of funny.
It's kind of funny it is.
It is a little weird but it's amind game.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I see what they're trying to do it is.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
But, like you know, I don't want somebody that wants
to quit standing beside me, thatyou know where.
If you're in a firefight, Idon't want the guy beside me
saying, hey, you know what I'mdone yeah I'm done, yeah, so, um
, but it built this, this, thisgreat amount of teamwork, not
necessarily in the guy beside me, but in me, and being older, I
was able to work on um, actuallyteaching other people beside me
(12:23):
, that kind of thing, and Ibelieve that if I'm able to stay
, you know, I'd make a great NCO, I'd make a great
noncommissioned officer in themilitary to be able to take
younger people and teach them inthe process, which is something
that my drill sergeants saw inme too.
They saw me, you know, takingleadership roles in tasks and
taking leadership roles in ourbay where we slept in our
(12:43):
platoon, and so I was very muchso watched um and also
appreciated in in that as well,and I didn't get any
preferential treatment at allbut in that at the end of basic
training.
So we went through, uh, 10weeks of basic training, I ended
up winning an award which islike a um.
I ended up winning, like a um,an army service coin, and it was
for a soldier of the cycle.
(13:03):
So I won an award that was theum, like their top soldier out
of the whole entire battalionnot battalion, but our company
that we had and so I wasrecognized by our drill
sergeants for um, for forleadership qualities, and so, um
, what did I?
My experience of basic trainingwas that it's not.
It was not hard.
It was difficult because nowI'm having to.
(13:24):
I'm having to work with otherpeople that I've never been
working with before.
I'm having to ruck and run withother people that have never
rucked and ran before, but inthe process I'm having to, you
know, teach people how tobreathe while they're doing
certain things.
I'm teaching people how torecover and stretch when we have
those down times and stuff,because, because this is the
person supposed to have my six,they're supposed to have my back
and so, drill sergeant, theNCOs, they saw, you know, this
(13:48):
kind of stuff that I wasbringing to the table with my
platoon, specifically as youkind of work with your own
platoon, you have your owncompany of four platoons and you
know, in the end we're actuallyall in competition with each
other, but as one company tryingto build everybody up in the
process.
But I learned how to lead in adifferent capacity and something
I had no knowledge aboutwhatsoever and it was really
(14:11):
cool to do that on such a largescale.
I mean, this is the UnitedStates military.
This is the strongest, mostelite fighting force in the
whole entire world.
Regardless of what anybody elsesays, this is the strongest,
most elite fighting force in theentire world, and to be a part
of that in my MOS, which is mymilitary service operation,
which I chose to do, which is tobe an Apache mechanic to be
(14:32):
able to work with those aircraft, that's cool as crap being able
to fix something and know howto fix it, and you're being
given this opportunity to workwith equipment.
That's tens of millions ofdollars, but somebody trusts you
in doing that, because that'swhy we go to our AIT schools, so
we can learn some advanced,individualized training, and so
(14:53):
I've learned a lot from basic.
But the biggest thing I pickedup was that something that seems
hard you change your mindset.
This is just difficult.
Now I have to overcome theselittle obstacles.
Like they're little obstacles.
Like I only got 12 minutes toeat food.
Well, you better eat your foodin 12 minutes.
Well, that's not enough time.
You better figure it out.
You're told when to dosomething.
(15:14):
You're told you're told whennot to do something.
You're told what you can and wecan't do, and that's a pretty
easy concept to live off of, andwe get that stuff on a daily
basis anyway from our bosses,from our parents, um, our
friends, from our, uh,significant others and and uh,
just seeing the differentmindsets of people and the
younger generation coming upthrough, that was, um, it was
(15:37):
different, it was very different, but that was pretty.
That was pretty much myexperience at at base a lot of
running, I did a lot of pushes.
My chest got bigger, um, I gotstronger.
There too, I got more.
I probably got more mentallystrong than anything else.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
But you definitely got more mentally strong,
because it's all, it's reallymore mental than actual physical
strength have you ever stood?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
you ever stood somewhere for four hours, like
just like this, for four?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
hours, four hours, no , but I've had to stay still for
like almost 30, 40 minutes inour and if you lock your knees
you're gonna pass out.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, but that's a learn how to stand, do push-ups
and deal with younger, younger,younger folks.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So so that's so looking at the younger, the
younger soldiers, the youngermen entering the military right
Like.
What is your perception of themphysically and mentally like?
Because you have to deal withmajority?
You know probably 95 of themwere, were, were young, uh, were
really extremely young, likethere was probably not many
(16:36):
people close to your age, noteven close, not even 26 probably
out of maybe out of maybe 200people.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
in my and it's just in my company, there's probably
a thousand, there'll be eight,eight, nine hundred in our, in
our whole battalion.
But this the the age range isprobably pretty similar per
company too, but in echo company439 at fort jackson there may
have been 20 people that wereolder elder of 26 to 28 years
old and up.
(17:04):
I was on the higher end of that.
That's why they called me Yonkand one kid made a mistake,
called me Grandpa one timeMistake.
Yeah, I just emptied his camelback out.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
So your perception of our younger generation come on.
What do you think based onthese guys?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
There's a I would say there's hope in any human being
because we have this, god'sgiven us this opportunity of
free will to change how we areNow.
The military would not allowyou to be on the lower end of a
standard.
The standard is exactly whatwe're supposed to meet.
That's the baseline, which isthe standard.
(17:42):
I think the minimum score youcan have on a PT test is maybe
360.
And that's the bare minimum.
But they're requesting that youshoot for like a 420 or no a
540, which is like they love tosee this stuff right here.
But a 360 is like the minimumstandard, which is not hard to
get.
A 360.
I would say it's difficult toget a 360 if you're out of shape
(18:06):
and overweight and stuff likethat.
But basic training will buildsoldiers out of just regular
people, and it very much so.
I got to watch people just comein and just be the laziest POS
as you've ever seen in your lifeto turn into these young men,
and so basic is designed forthat capacity.
It's also used to wean out thepeople that want to quit.
(18:29):
When stuff gets difficult, theyjust want to quit and so you
don't want those people besideyou or behind you so to ask that
question at the beginning ofbasic training is one thing, to
ask it at the end is a wholeother ballgame.
Because now you have theseyoung men that have now come up,
these young women that have nowcome up and the rest of them
that quit and didn't want tocontinue.
They're all gone.
They're doing something elsewith their lives.
(18:50):
So you don't have to worryabout this person.
You know having your six orhaving your bag.
Now you just worry about thepeople beside you that wanted to
continue and go on and themilitary there.
I will tell you that the changesthe military has made um is
going to give us a strongerfighting force going forward.
Is it a different fightingforce?
Absolutely, but the standardand the way that the military
(19:11):
fights now is it is different.
We don't have people runningthrough the woods with machetes
anymore, you know guerrillawarfare type style.
We have more this.
There's more of a um uh,technological way that you know
fighting is done.
There's more drones, there'smore cameras in the sky, there's
more UASs that are flyingaround and we have more
(19:34):
opportunities to see the enemybefore they see us.
And it's not so much that we'repainted faces up in the woods
as much as we are sitting in acomfortable space, being able
comfortable space, being able towitness something you know
happen before it occurs.
And so I think the military, thegroup that's coming up, is
going to be trained by peoplethat have learned the old way
(19:54):
and the new way of training, andso they get to pass both of
these operations down to thisnew group of people.
And the new group of peoplewill both learn from the old
style and the new style.
We learn the old style kind ofat basic training and at AIT,
our advanced individualizedtraining.
We've learned the new way thisstuff is done.
So you get to see this oldstyle and this new style be both
meshed together, and now theseMCOs can now teach both of these
(20:18):
things.
So anybody that has joined themilitary and has come up through
basic training is going to bean asset to the United States
government and be an asset toour fighting force.
There's some people who arestill kids, but they will learn
over time what it takes to bethere for their battle buddies
(20:39):
and for their country.
So I like what I've seen comingup.
I do like what I've seen comingup and coming up as an older
individual.
You know I've been able to helpcorrect some things in the
process, being that we're in thesame rank too.
But be able to correct somestuff before an NCO sees
something and be able to kind ofteach and teach prosperity
towards, you know, these youngerkids before they get a chance
(21:00):
to be reprimanded.
And you know I've gotten somethank yous.
I've also gotten some f us, youknow.
But you know, at the end of it,you know it is what it is and
you know the good will, the goodwill stand out and the bad ones
will wean their ways away.
Um so, but I like where stuffis going.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I do very much so, um , like what's happening well, um
, you know, based on what youyou're you're mentioning about
the military, I thinkeverything's right, what you're
saying.
We are going into more of atechnology type of warfare.
I think that the warfare thatwill be fought physically with
the old school machetes becauseI miss the machetes is going to
(21:42):
be the special operations orspecial units or you know, I
don't want to say like it'sgoing to be SEALs, but it's
going to be special groups thatare going to be dealing with
that.
Now It'll be in smaller units,smaller companies, instead of,
like you know, big tanks andshit like that.
(22:02):
I don't think we're going to bedoing that with people actually
in it and stuff like that.
I don't think we're going to bedoing that with with, um,
people actually in it and stufflike that.
But, yeah, I mean it's, it's,it's good to see that, because
my daughter is is probably stillthinking about joining the
military, um, and she's leadingtowards the air force, if she
does do it, because she wants todo it, she's doing, she's
(22:24):
studying, she's in school frommechanical engineering, okay, so
that's what she wants to go Tocontinue her, her, her education
.
So she goes in there.
I think it'd be probably for abachelor's or master's degree,
because she's already in school,trying to finish off the two
year or four year, somethinglike that.
So not sure she might be older,she might.
(22:45):
She might be like 24 when, whenit happens so, she's gonna be
an auntie she might be.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
She might still be one of the young ones, man she
might.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
But, yeah, right, so so, yeah, so you're.
You know we're going throughthis whole thing and you, you
displayed incredible leadershipand you know, to be honest with
you, the people who are leadersunderstand that they're going to
get people who are going tolisten and comply and they're
(23:18):
going to get people who aregoing to say, fuck you, I don't
want to listen.
So that's just part ofleadership.
You know what I'm saying.
Like when I was working inGold's Gym and telling everyone
hey, this fucking John guy's acrook, I got a whole lot of fuck
yous.
It's true, I'm like bro, likeyou, really want to get paid
(23:39):
less, because I don't.
It happens that's part ofleadership.
You know what I'm saying.
Like you got accepted and nottaken personal.
So you're displaying all thisleadership and everything.
And you're near the end ofbasic training, right?
(24:00):
Or you finished basic training.
You finished basic training,you got a reward.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I'm at my advanced individualized training.
Right now I'm at Fort Eustis,virginia.
I'm not there right now I'm onconvalescent leave, but I'm
currently stationed at forteustis, virginia.
I'm not there right now I'm onconvalescent leave, but um I'm
at.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I'm currently stationed at fort eustis so what
is that training you're talkingabout?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
in advanced individualized training,
everybody that signs up has anmos and you choose your job
before you go to basic training.
And so when you're at basictraining, everybody is doing the
same stuff.
You're not doing anything thatis specific.
There's any specificity towardsyour future job.
You are doing the same push-ups, you're doing the same marches,
you're doing the sameeverything just to be able to
(24:38):
build the basic standard, andyour advanced individualized
training is a specificity schoolfor whatever your job is.
So for me, as an Apache mechanic, I'm to uh fort eustis and
langley, to uh learn how to, youknow, fix aircraft.
They don't do that at fortjackson, they don't do that at
fort benny, they don't do thatat fort linderwood.
(24:59):
They don't do that in any otherplace, they do it specifically
right there, and so I'm learninghow to fix aircraft at this, at
this spot.
So everybody that has a um, youknow, signs up for a job.
They to specific places.
So some of the people I went toAIT or went to basic training
with are at my AIT too.
There's Apache mechanics,there's Chinook mechanics,
there's people that work on thehydro side, which is like our
(25:21):
hydraulics.
There's people that work on theelectrical side, there's people
that work on the Blackhawks.
So eventually some of thosepeople may go and be officers
and fly helicopters.
They may go into the officerroute and have to go to OCS at
some point, which is officertraining school, officer
candidate school, and so rightnow I'm just learning what I'm
(25:46):
supposed to be doing for my jobin the military and this is
phase two, basically, phase two.
Essentially it would be phasetwo, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Okay, Now what happened.
So on my medical side, Tell uswhen you can tell us.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
So I can tell you about the majority of my issue.
Very healthy, coming out ofbasic training.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We just made that clear how healthy you were.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
No issues whatsoever.
When I get to AIT Berto, I'mthere for two weeks before
something.
I say two weeks before I wasthere for two days before I was
offered a position doingsomething.
You and me didn't talk aboutthis part before, but when I got
there, um, so you come withyour bags packed.
You come with your bags packedand you, you get called outside
and the drill sergeant has to gothrough all of your stuff just
(26:40):
make sure you don't haveanything that you're not
supposed to, um, no contraband.
So they open up your bags,start dumping everything out,
and you know you've got acertain allotted time frame to
be able to repack your bags andyou know you've got a certain, a
lot of time frame to be able torepack your bags.
And you know so they can.
So you can get everybody and goback inside so you can get to
your room.
And right now it probably tookmaybe six times for everybody to
you know, six times at 30seconds.
(27:02):
You know they get 30 seconds.
Put your stuff back in your bag.
I did it the first go around,but a lot of people just didn't
get the memo and so every timeyou didn't meet the standard
which is what they gave you, youhad to do push-ups or go run or
something.
So the first time one of ourdrill sergeants said take a lap
around my little track, so Ijust take off and go run around
the track and come back, and Iwas the first one done, and so
(27:23):
it must have struck some kind ofidea in our drill sergeant's
head's that guy needs to be onthis, this, this team.
And so I didn't know anythingabout this.
But you know, the next day wewalk outside and uh, yeah, I get
my name called.
I was like, oh god, I must bein trouble for something.
I didn't do nothing.
But I mean, you know, you don'tget your name called unless,
unless something's going onexactly, yeah, he says uh, alan,
you've been chosen.
(27:44):
You've been chosen for I gotvoluntold to be a part of the
best warrior team, which is,it's a.
It's a prestigious honor andwhatnot to be to be uh to do
this because it's a competitionfor the best soldiers in in the
battalion company, insidebattalion.
So all the companies in thebattalion compete against one
(28:06):
another with their own bestsoldiers.
So who gets selected for thisteam?
And so it's.
You know, it's a series ofevents that you have to do,
basically just to see who thebest soldiers are.
You go through some war-typestuff.
There's an obstacle course,there's a ruck run, there's a
physical test and there's amental and there's a test where
you have to take apart, like anM249 and a 240 Bravo and an M4.
(28:29):
So there's three weapons youhave to take apart too, and so
they're just looking for thebest all-around soldiers.
And so I was there for two days, got selected for this team,
and then a month later, onJanuary, I was at January 11th.
So I got there December 5th,december 6th.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
You there.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
So you said december 6th, yeah, december 6th.
So I was, I got there december6th and on january 10th, um, we
went on another ruck, we went ona ruck run and we had a six
mile ruck we had to do and soyou got a, you know, 40 to 60
pound bag on your pack.
It depends on what you put onyour back, but you know, for all
intents and purposes andbecause it's recorded, it was a
40 pound pack that was on myback, um, but uh, I put a, you
(29:39):
know I had my bag on and, uh, myrucksack on, and we start to do
the first mile, and the firstmile was a walk and then the
second mile was going to be arun, and the moment we took a
step off on the second mile, Iremember it felt like someone
took a knife and stabbed me inmy chest and I've never
experienced that before.
I've never experiencedsomething just so acute,
(30:01):
something so painful and alsosomething I can't control.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Stop right there for a second before you did this
basic training and got to phasetwo.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Right, you was doing boxing training, you was running
, right how many miles were yourunning someday for once a week?
I would run like two.
I would run 10 miles.
I made it an effort to almostrun like three to four miles.
Every single day I was hittinga bag.
I was, you know, still workingout regularly and I never so
cardiovascular wise.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
did you never experienced this?
No, I was always.
Pause back to present time.
You're on the second mile ofthis ruck run and you're about
to take off and you feel thisstabbing pain in your chest.
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I took about 15 more steps because maybe it's just
nothing.
And I remember I felt like myairways just got completely
closed up.
I remember feeling like I wasfighting to breathe.
I remember I was feeling likemy steps just got heavier, like
my bag now weighed 100 pounds.
I felt like my chest was justcaving in like this and I
(31:08):
couldn't pinpoint what it was.
So I just I told the guy behindme, told Adrian the guy behind
me.
I said hey, man, you got to goin front of me.
And he stopped beside mebecause I was training with him
before this too, helping him dohis push-ups, do his pull-ups.
We were doing some studyingstuff and he goes what's wrong?
I said just go, just go, justgo.
You're worried about you rightnow.
I got to fall and I've neverquit on anything that was
(31:29):
physical in my life and I turnedand looked at my drill sergeant
.
I said drill sergeant, I cannotbreathe.
He goes.
Well, slow down.
He said just take some deepbreaths in your nose, out your
mouth, do some box breathing,da-da-da-da-da.
And so I tried doing that.
I thought I was having anasthma attack.
That's what it felt like,because I've never had one
before.
But that's what it felt like,and I just remember, and it felt
(31:50):
like I was having asthma attackand so I just couldn't breathe.
I would take these deep breathsand I felt like I was breathing
through a straw If I breathethrough my nose straw, breathe
through my mouth straw and Icould not get one solid breath
that was, you know, just deep atall.
I've tried to clear my clearsome mucus out and spit up some
stuff, and nothing helped.
And the soldier in me wanted toum, keep going, keep going.
(32:13):
My drill sergeant said well,what do you want to do?
He said, well, I can't.
He said I can't.
You know, we can't just walkthis whole thing.
This is a, this is an eventLike you walk, run, walk, run,
walk run.
And the group is probably aquarter mile ahead of me.
Now, at this point, and I'mlooking at the group and the
soldier in me, the one that justwon soldier of the cycle is
like you know, I want to keepgoing.
He's like do you want to quit?
I said no, and so we started,you know, taking another step,
(32:35):
but I went 15 more steps and Iwas like I can't keep going.
The soldier was going to keepgoing.
The future husband.
This had to say I got to quit.
I have to quit because I hadother people I had to look out
(32:56):
for and think about it this time, and so I stopped.
Um, they had a bus come pick meup and and, uh you know, went
back to the base and went tosick call.
The very next thing I did waswent to sick call and I remember
I was both while we waited onthat van to come and pick me up,
he uh Joe, so I was justtalking to him.
He's like you know what are youfeeling?
Right, I had to draw my bagdown.
I just feel like I can'tbreathe.
I've never experienced thispart before.
And when I say I thought I washaving an asthma attack, I
(33:16):
thought I was going to die, butasthma just sounded a whole lot
better than dying.
So I've never had anything likethat come up in my life.
It was so acute that it wasn'tsomething that kind of built up,
it was something that justhappened so fast when I tell you
(33:37):
, it's like a knife stab to mychest.
It was that's what I felt.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So that was that was January 10th when that happened
and and then you went to sickcall right, yeah, that's that's.
That's when you're gonna go seethe doctor and they're gonna
try to figure out what's goingon.
They're going to diagnose youright and what did what?
Can you tell us what the doctorshared with you?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
yeah.
So they tried to yeah.
So, um, um, when I went to sayum I went, when I went to sick
call, they thought I was havinguh, congestion.
What was having congestion?
That's what I was told that'swhat I get.
I don't know if you've ever hadchest congestion before yeah, I
(34:19):
have chest congestion.
I don't feel like that.
The sergeant is in there.
He's telling me it's chestcongestion.
I said my brother put thisstethoscope on me or something.
This is not a claritin-typething, this is something
internal.
I did the Google thing You'renot supposed to look up Google
problems but I was on the vergeof dying according to Google.
(34:42):
But come to find out that wasn'ttoo far from the truth.
So I ended up going to Sitco.
Sitco called in a chest x-rayand go to TMC1, which is our
medical clinic.
There the doctor puts astethoscope on my chest and the
chest x-ray came back completelyfine, no findings there.
But when the doctor put thestethoscope on my heart he said
I found a murmur.
Now murmurs, a lot of peoplehave murmurs and they're
(35:05):
completely fine with them.
But he ordered me to go get a—MRI, not an MRI, it was a um uh
ultrasound.
So we got an ultrasound done atthe cardiology clinic and they
found out that I had somethingcalled micro valve regurgitation
.
It's not something I came inwith with at meps.
This is something that on thatrock I tore a valve in my heart,
(35:26):
so that piercing feeling that Ifelt I tore a valve and so I
ended up having something calledas a tore valve, and so I ended
up having something called as amicro valve prolapse, which
your, your body has, thesevalves, you know these, uh,
these little flaps that allowblood to go through, come back
close off, go through, close off, close off.
And so one of them ended updoing this and so it just kept
it, just the there's like somelike rubber, almost like a
rubber band on one side, and itjust gave out, and so that's
(35:49):
what I ended up tearing andeventually, over time, um, you
know, I was supposed to go getlike what was called a mitral
valve repair and when I ended uphaving ultimately ended up
having an open heart surgeryfrom that, um, I ended up having
to get a replacement done, sothe whole valve had to be
replaced.
So what they saw and you know,just in the imagery and stuff
like that, um, they saw, they,they saw the replacement of the
(36:12):
repair was needed.
But when they went in andactually did the full-on flood
surgery, they found out I neededa whole replacement done, and
so they just did it right thereon the operating table.
And so, all from a ruck,something that felt like, you
know, just piercing pain in mychest ended up being this
life-altering decision where youknow I've got to stop rucking
or I might die.
And so I asked the doctor onthe second visit I go back.
(36:36):
I said what could have happenedif I kept going.
He said you probably were aboutto have a heart attack and he
said it probably wouldn't beenvery long after that that
somebody wouldn't be able to getto you in time, and I was like
let's thank god for this oneright here, you know so yeah
yeah, oh my god, bro, like andit's not.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
This has nothing to do with like genetics, uh
hereditary history with yourfamily.
Nothing, not at all.
Nothing like you came into this.
That was not one of the redflags nothing heart related was
a red flag.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
He was just like shoulders.
So that was it, and this issomething that happened, um,
happened at ait.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I told you today, january january 10th, and um,
that was, that was an event thatprobably changed the entire
course of my military career andthis is something so out of out
of norm like this is miraculous, because the simple fact that
this happened to you, youactually lived through it,
(37:36):
because you stopped and you madeit to the next day to go see
the doctor and everything, andthen you go through the surgery.
My heart dropped when I saw youin the surgery, in the medical
bed, surgery after surgery, anduh, you know I mean God bless
(37:57):
your wife for posting it.
You know what I'm saying, but Iwas like I felt horrible
because of the fact that I wasjust so happy for you as it.
You know I, I know you, youknow I.
I know you know I'm saying like, like I, I know you when I'm
working in girls gym, you wasalways a good dude.
You know I'm saying like you,always good people, always
(38:20):
bright, god fearing.
You know, saying you always waspositive.
You know saying there wasnothing negative anyone can
really say about you.
You know what I'm sayingabsolutely.
And I saw, you know, when youmoved to carolina and then what
happened with you, with wedidn't talk about it, but that
situation at first and you wentthrough like this little, little
(38:46):
downward spiral and then youpicked yourself up and then you
started getting back in thecooking, and then you started
boxing.
And then you picked yourself upand then you started getting
back into cooking and then youstarted boxing.
And then you met this woman andyou got married right before
you went to the military.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, so we didn't get married yet.
We're getting married in.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
December this year you proposed to her before the
military.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yes, I proposed her December 20th of last year.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I knew I had something right but something
wrong.
And then you get into themilitary and then this happened
and I'm like what the fuck bro?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, I think I'll share this piece with you.
I think there's a you know it'sour goal to determine.
You know what we need to donext in our lives.
You know, when something's notgoing right, we have to change
something.
Change promotes change and Iwill tell you this if you're not
praying, start.
If you don't believe in God,start.
Start trying to seek in someway, shape or form of what a
(39:41):
better life for you looks like.
And I remember when I startedpraying specifically over the
things in my life, I began tohave these things just brought
onto me, which is like you know,I don't believe anything that's
difficult in our lives issomething that's not of God at
all.
I don't believe that Goddoesn't put stumbling blocks in
our lives.
I think we do that whensomething becomes difficult,
something becomes taxing.
You know we can continueworking at it, but it's stupid
(40:03):
if we stay in these seasonswhere something is just
overbearing and just makes usfeel anxious and brings on
anxiety and makes us depressedand stuff like that's not things
of god, that's things of theearth.
And if we stay in those thingsand I, when I began to develop
this mentality, the militarycame on.
My uh fiancee came into my life,um, I started making more money
.
There's lots of great thingsthat came came out of that, but
I started to pray that god justgive me this um that his will be
(40:26):
done in my life specificallyand I joined the military.
Um, did something bad happen inthat?
Absolutely.
But something better is on theother side of this, because I'm
able to sit there and go throughthis.
This open heart surgery sucks,it sucks.
I had this thing that I know isthis was so great and you're
rehabbing and I can talk aboutit too, right?
Speaker 1 (40:48):
yeah, you have to rehab that heart.
That's part of and how is thatprocess probably?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
12 weeks of rehab.
All right, I've got like 12weeks of rehab.
Yeah, I've already started it.
Um, I got off the operatingtable.
I think my surgery was april22nd.
I walked out of the hospital 10days later roughly about 10
days later or so but I had tohave two open heart surgeries.
I don't know if you knew that,but I had to have two yes yes, I
did see that One was to take aclot off my heart, which is one
(41:21):
surgery fixed a problem.
The other surgery saved myentire life.
My blood pressure went downfrom like 50 over 30.
One time it was 40 over 20.
And so I was probably a couplebreaths away from, you know,
taking my last one.
Before they have to, you know,bring the little things out to
shock you back.
Question for you, right, it wasa put up.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Well, now or after the fact of that happened, have
you had a chance to go and lookat some of the stuff that your
wife post during when you wasgoing through this?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah, I was that poor lady.
Go ahead and say the last part.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yo, she literally was almost gonna cry Online, bro,
like, yeah, like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
We share a lot.
She was breaking apart.
You know she was breaking apart.
Watching it was.
It was a different experienceseeing, um, seeing the one you
love go through something, uh,something so difficult, um, and
if it not be for our faith, Ithink a lot of this would be
very it'd be a lot harder um, Iremember uh, I'll share this,
(42:40):
this piece, with you too when Iwas on the uh, I did go back
through everything that we weposted because we I was aware of
everything that was gettingposted while I was in that,
while I was on the uh, I did goback through everything that we
we posted because we I was awareof everything that was getting
posted while I was in that,while I was in the hospital.
But, um, I remember the secondtime I had my surgery, um, I
remember my prayer changed whenI was on the table and I don't
know if you have you had surgerybefore no man, I'm very lucky
(43:01):
man you know, you know, like youknow, when people say they saw
the white light yeah I've heardthose stories
but, uh, they woke up in themiddle of the surgery.
When you're laying on theoperating table, there's this
white light right over the topof you.
It's almost like looking up andlike in this super bright light
.
So yeah, I looked up and I juststarted to smile a little bit.
I'm crying because I'm, youknow, I'm strapped to a bed, I
(43:22):
can't move.
I know they're about to cut meopen the second time I've got a
scar on my chest and whatnot andthey're about to open me up.
And I look up and I was likegolly, that's the white light
people see.
And I started to smile a littlebit.
I remember right before you know, the medicine they gave me to
kind of knock me out.
It's about to take on.
I could feel it start to gothrough my body.
I just remember I just neededthis one last time to talk to
(43:43):
God real quick.
And I can look in the room.
I'm kind of flat like this so Ican't really see anything, but
I can see there's a lady in thecorner over here and remember I
had this tear rolled down myface and I was like God, just
let your will be done in me andwhatever that looks like, let
(44:10):
your will be done in me.
And bro, our ultimate doctor,which I believe the guy was
standing there in that roomwhere he had an angel there with
me in some capacity thatgrabbed my hand and I tell you
it felt physical.
It felt physical and I remember, you know, I, just right after
I felt that I woke up and I wasin ICU again, then pulling the,
you know what I to talk about anexperience right there too.
When you wake up from surgery,from open heart surgery, they
(44:32):
have these tubes in your mouthand they're to be able to help
your lungs breathe.
You're hooked up to so manymachines and stuff like that.
You're not breathing on yourown yet, but when you come to,
there's somebody standing overthe top of you and they're
they're, they're waiting for youto you know, kind of just
become coherent.
And so I'm sitting there, I gotthese two tubes in my mouth and
(44:53):
I remember the, the, the doctoryou know, walking me through
what's going on.
Okay, you just had a secondsternotomy.
You just had a second openheart surgery.
Um, are you okay?
Do you think you can breathe onyour own right now?
I said yes for about 45 seconds.
I have to hold my breath,because when they fill your
lungs up, they put these little,there's little like sacks in
there that are inflated, but inorder for you to breathe again
(45:17):
they have to pull on them.
So they it kind of forces yourlungs to kind of, you know, try
to contract and open up and itsucks when it pulls out and that
shit hurts the phone out ofyour throat.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, it's awful, literally rip it out, but I I
one thing I bet you wascongestion free after that dude,
I, I well, I was like I wasjust kept.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
I could not breathe at all.
Yeah, but when I remember whenthey, when they came out all the
way it, it was the biggest sighof relief.
I thought I was going to diethree or four times in the
hospital.
I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
One of the best feelings ever right.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (45:55):
One of the best feelings ever.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
One of the best feelings was knowing that I was
alive after all this was saidand done, knowing that I was
alive after all this was saidand done.
It's a gift to be able to wakeup, and I will never take
another day for granted.
I will tell you that.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Do you really think that you was taken for granted,
like maybe a little bitcomplacent, but not for granted?
I mean, you would never really.
And the reason why I say thatis because, like I mean, I
listen that a lot of people canchange within the years.
You know, I'm saying that wehaven't communicated in quite
(46:35):
some time, right, but I spent agood amount of time with you for
about roughly three, four yearsI don't, he was never like that
.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
No, I can't say that.
So, taking a day for granted, Ithink what I mean, more than I
think we'll have differentviewpoints on the verb, but I
think after I say this It'll bea little bit different.
I've never experienced dyingbefore.
I've never experienced theopportunity Not the opportunity,
but the Close portion like I'vealmost died, probably a hundred
times in my life but physically, like under doctoral care, like
(47:10):
three or four times I almostdied.
But what I mean take a day forgranted is I'm not going to take
a day without waking up andthanking the Lord that I'm awake
.
I'm not going to take a daybefore I go to sleep thanking
the Lord that I was able to livethrough that day and I get the
opportunity to go to bed andrest and be able to wake up and
do it all again.
When I say taking a day forgranted is that I've taken days
away from my God, the one that'sgiven me breath in my lungs and
(47:33):
given me breath in my life.
I've taken days away from thatpart.
So my spiritual side of my lifeis very much so grown over this
timeframe.
But I've got a lot of reallygreat and amazing people in my
life, not because of the surgery, but because of who I've been
to.
You know, been to others andwho they've been to me.
(47:55):
So I've got a lot of reallygreat people around me, but I
believe these are all peoplethat God's put in my life at a
specific time for me to be thespecific individual, for the
specific thing thing, like whenwe go to AIT training.
I think AIT training wasspecifically for me to learn how
to be a better man, not abetter Apache mechanic, but to
be a better human being, to be abetter man.
Because there's this next phasein my life that's different.
(48:16):
Now I'm going to be a husband,I'm going to be a father, I'm
going to be a lot more than Iwas when I went in.
And you know, see what themilitary does with me.
They may keep me, they may letme go.
Either way, I've got an amazingopportunity ahead of me because
I've learned a lot through thisnear-death experience, which
has been great.
(48:38):
I'll be honest with you.
It's been great.
Some of it has sucked, but tobe able to be alive is a.
You know, I won't take that forgranted ever again.
I've never almost, I've neveralmost died on the operating
table.
Um, but I think I kind ofneeded that experience for
myself to see what it means tolive in a different capacity.
So, um, you look great man.
(48:58):
Hey, I appreciate that, brother, that's uh, you want to see the
scar?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
No, I don't want to see the scar, bro, I'm just
wondering, no don't show thescar, bro, it's on my chest.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I mean, I don't know if you can show it.
Yeah, no, no, no, it's on yourchest.
I'll send you a picture of it Idon't want to see it.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
That's good, that's cool.
You did enough by showing meyou with the gown.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
You didn't like the gown With your ass out.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Blue is not my color.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Blue is not my color.
No, well, man, I will tell youthis.
It's been a good.
It's been a differentexperience, like when I told you
the thing about basic training.
I think the basic training partis very much to let me look at
my daily life in a differentcapacity.
When I said people look at itas it could be hard or it could
(49:49):
be difficult, I think all of ourdays are difficult, but we can
choose to make them hard, we canchoose to make them more
difficult, or I can just takethat difficulty and I can learn
how to make this thing easier.
I can learn how to make thisthing more streamlined and more
efficient.
When I think about those words,you change the mentality behind
how you do something.
You change the way outcomeshappen.
(50:09):
You change the way that thecourse of your life is
positioned.
You change the way that youlook at a heart surgery, go from
being anxious to beingdepressed to being man.
I'm so glad that I actuallyhave breath in my lungs and I
can live, and I can tellsomebody about this as well.
You know, if anybody ever hassome kind of like indifferent
feelings in their body, go see adoctor about them.
(50:31):
I hadn't seen a doctor inprobably maybe 10 years and
that's just me throwing a numberout there but like literally
seen a doctor because I had likea sprained ankle at one point.
I've done all my rehab, I'vedone all my own, like my own
Google searches and, you know,taken the done, the holistic
approach to stuff.
But like this was somethingthat was outside of my control
(50:54):
and I'm very thankful that I wasin the military during this
time frame for when this didhappen, because I learned a
valuable lesson through that.
I may not be cut out to ruckwith, you know, 50, 60-pound
bags on my back, or 40-poundbags, as I said before.
I may not be cut out to do thatside of it anymore, but I
learned a lot in the process.
(51:15):
So that was the important partfor me.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
But yeah, Well, I mean we're going to see.
Yeah, well, I mean we're goingto see.
Well, hopefully you know yourfuture continues with the
military to figure something outwith you.
Hopefully this doesn't set youback and they can find like I
said, they can find somethingfor you to do.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Still that's not going to affect your heart, and
I mean there's plenty of jobsout there that they can put you
in.
That's not going to bestrenuous to your heart.
Yeah, there's some militarystandards that they have for
service in general and mysurgery that I had done I don't
(52:01):
think I'm overstepping anyboundaries with saying this part
but the search that I had donedoesn't have the capacity of my
job that I have right now.
It doesn't allow me to continuedoing this specific thing.
There's plenty of other jobs inthe military, but I didn't sign
up to be a front desk worker atthe base.
(52:23):
I signed up to be in a past,yeah, but sounded to be in
aviation.
That was my.
That's where, uh, that's myheart was when I started doing
this, and to have to turn aroundand do something else is, um,
that would be.
That'd make me feel a lot less.
I would tell you that.
But, um, they do have otherjobs and stuff like that
available.
But I think they address yoursituation and your condition
based off of where you're atright now with what you signed
(52:46):
up for, where you're going,because I feel, like you know,
I'd have to go back.
I I don't believe I'd have togo back and do basic training
again, but they would send me toanother ait school and, um,
I'll be honest, I don't thinkwe're doing that.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
So well, I mean, you're gonna figure out what to
do.
I mean, you got plenty ofthings to do.
You got plenty of talents.
I don't think you're not goingto be held back.
So, and like you said, no, it'smade you a better man, better
leader very much so okay thoseare.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Those are qualities you could take with you to any
job absolutely, and plus thisyear, as long as after I get
cleared, um, I will share thiswith you too is I have a plan to
uh, I'm gonna start runningagain because I wasn't supposed
to.
I wasn't supposed to be able torun, and cardiac rehab has been
going really well.
Once I finish all that, getcleared by a doctor, I got a
(53:37):
plan to be able to run amarathon, um, at the end of, by
the end of next year, um, so Igot a lot of training and stuff
to do for that.
So we're going to push this.
We're going to push theenvelope.
I got a new heart now, so I'mgood.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
And you know if the concept of training applies to
the heart, because the heart isa muscle, you can retrain that.
So who says that you can't runa marathon?
Speaker 2 (54:04):
No, we will.
I'm telling you, we will yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
I see it as doable for you.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yeah, I ain't going to win it.
I'm going to tell you I ain'tgoing to win it, but I will run
it.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Who gives a fuck if you win it, bro, you fucking
finishing that is the win, bro.
Like, seriously, let me tellyou something, bro If I do
something right, if I'm goingrunning well, I'm not going to
say running because I'm neverrunning, but but if like say,
for example, like I tell people,like I do, I did, I've done
(54:37):
shooting competitions right, I'mnot trying to win because I
can't compete with these dudesthat shoot Thousands of rounds
every week and fucking completethis 17 shot course in two
seconds, fuck that.
I'm just here just to have funand just to get some to get
(54:57):
better.
So, like me being here is justto win.
You know, like I'm not tryingto be number one and Nah, man,
it's not that.
You know, saying that you getto a point where you just just
accomplishing it is the win,yeah, that's that's, and that's
(55:17):
where you should be, that'swhere you're at now, bro, hey,
you accomplish, hey, you can'tbe.
(55:52):
Thanks for listening to our show.
This concludes our episode andlisten up to the next episode To
follow up on what Continuingtopics and trends we have going
on, and just to continue tolisten to your boy, ny Boom, and
co-host, big Daz, and listen toour points of views and maybe
(56:14):
you can add on to it if you want.
But we'll catch you on the nextone.
Alright, have a good one.
Peace out, fellas.
You are listening to the Double A Club and this is
your host, ny Boom, and myco-host, big Daz.
We'll be talking about trendingtopics and healthcare and
basically, just as a disclaimerjust to let the listeners know
that this is just basically onour opinions and speculations
(00:24):
and I hope you guys enjoy theshow.
Let's start off and kick offwith our first topic.
This is NYC Boom and this isDouble A Club Podcast, and
joining me here is a specialguest.
Introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
What's going on?
Introduce yourself.
My name is Owen Hallinan.
I'm an ex master certifiedpersonal trainer, trained down
in Orlando, florida, for aboutsix, seven years or so, and
currently I am in the service tojoin the Army National Guard as
a patching mechanic, and sothat's where we're at right now
well, thank you for serving, andyou know, going back to a
(01:06):
master certified personaltrainer, I met you at Gold's Gym
in Orlando and we workedtogether there for a few years
before I left.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I believe that that was the first place that ever
worked for that.
Instead of getting a pay raise,you got a pay reduction.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We got a couple of those.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I know a lot of people didn't like me because I
was very vocal about the shit.
But I was like yo, I don't wantto cut my pay.
That's not me, man, john, thatfucker.
And then just you know, I'mgoing to share a couple of
people's story about you.
(01:56):
You moved to the Carolinas, Ibelieve, right.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, I moved back home, so I'm actually from here.
So I moved back home to, youknow, do some cooking stuff.
I'm also a certified chef.
I had some years doing that andso I've done a lot of stuff
like at the higher end of acareer because I wanted to learn
the basics and then move my wayup, like we do a training that
we do in the culinary field nowand, you know, serving our
(02:23):
country.
So, yeah, I moved back to SouthCarolina culinary field now, um
, in the service, and you know,serving the serving our country.
So, um, yeah, I moved back tostockholm.
That's where I'm at right nowand, um, that's where I joined
since yes, yeah and and then, um, I've been following your
social media.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You've been on doing a lot of boxing training and
stuff like that for yourself.
And then you was uh, I believeyou was going through the
process of joining the NationalGuard.
Yeah, and you got admitted andstarted your boot camp yes so,
and you're a perfectly healthyperson.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
You're in your early 30s, 32 right yes, I'm 33 and
kind of joined on the later sideof the military.
I wasn't going to join when Iwas 18 but I couldn't do it
because I had some shoulderissues.
Um, but 33, I was healthy as ahorse and came in at my at my
strongest and and joined reallylate in life.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So, um, but joined nonetheless I mean, I don't
think it really matters.
I mean, they have an age cap,right, isn't it 35?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
35, yeah, 35 with weight, oh you're still just you
.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You just made it, you was, you was pretty strong.
I mean you, you, how much doyou weigh?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Right now.
Right, it's probably like 180right now, but when I saw, when
you saw me, me, I was probablyabout 200 almost.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Almost right.
I say say around 190, 195.
Yeah somewhere around that andyou was deadlifting close to 400
pounds.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We got over that.
We ended up pulling a 500deadlift.
That was recorded.
So I've gotten a 500 deadlift,I've gotten a 405 squat.
I can't do that anymore.
I will tell you that that phaseis kind of like long gone, so
we just kind of sit around.
(04:12):
I don't want to do that anymore.
We do reps.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, but you're a strong guy, you're almost, you
know, kind of thinner framed andyou didn't have it.
There was no um, there was nored flags, any complications or
anything that the the militarysaid that made that would make
them not allow you to join sowhen I was uh, when I signed up,
(04:41):
when I went to meps, um MEPS, Ihad a red flag waiver and it
was for my shoulder.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
This was something I had.
A any red flag waivers.
You are not fit to serve at all.
You have to go through a waiverprocess, which I don't know.
I think it's like an E6 to anE8 or something like that.
It has to sign those papersover just to allow you to be
able to go to basic training oreven take the next set of steps
in in the uh, in the signingprocess.
But, um, I had a red flag waiverfrom my shoulder because I had
(05:07):
shoulder surgery.
Um, in high school, um fromplaying football and so, from
you know, did my orthoscopicsurgery.
Um, and that was maybe 2008,we're talking, it's 2024 and so
something that's you know, yearsbehind there's still red
flagging that says you're notfit to serve right now.
So I just took the lady in theoffice like this bird.
(05:28):
I said man, grab my hand.
I picked that lady up like thisand put her back down and she
goes uh, soldier, picked me upin the office, soldier's fine.
And so they ended up clearingme for um, for that, for that
waiver.
So, um, you know, I got.
I got cleared for all the redflag waivers that I did have,
which that was just one of them.
I ended up having three of them.
I can't remember what the othertwo were for, but I got cleared
(05:51):
to be able to serve.
So nothing that was pressingenough for me not to be able to
get a waiver for.
I would say that Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So pretty much healthy as an ox, good to go.
Proved your strength Very muchso.
These red flags are not goingto be actual red flags.
They're red flags becausesomething happened in the past.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
They're perfectly healed, ready to go yeah,
everything, everything was readyto go so you go, you enter boot
camp.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Now, right, it's boot camp is the beginning of it,
right?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
yeah, that.
Yeah, that's the first step.
I signed June 18th 2024, andwent to boot camp September 25th
.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Because I've been in the military so I don't know
this process, so you may have toeducate me more.
So boot camp is the first thingyou do, the first phase.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, it's the first phase and it is taxing.
I'm talking about all themyears of working out.
I ain't never worked out in mylife.
I don't feel like they.
We probably did.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We probably did 3 000 push-ups in the first three
days we were there um.
I would imagine it's kind ofmore like a crossfit type of
thing, but continuous it's morelike.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It's more like you've got uh children that won't stop
talking and they get you introuble for the entire time
while you're there.
And now you have to getReprimanded every single like
you turn.
You turn the corner and be likeforward March, stop March to do
push-ups.
I give you something like thatget out of bed at 3 o'clock in
the morning.
You got push-ups to do.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It's like God tell just people misbehaving and
stuff like that I'm in troublefor someone and if someone's not
doing something wrong, they'rejust gonna blame it on somebody
and just, you're going to getchewed out anyway.
I had to go through the sameshit in the academy for
corrections and the police, thatbullshit.
I was like yo fuck this.
But yeah, so you go throughboot camp.
(07:37):
Go ahead, tell us yourexperience of boot camp For
people who've never been throughit and never experienced it and
only seen the movies.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Tell us how, how, how it really is um, the first
three days were the hardest daysof our, of my entire life,
because you had to sit and justwait.
That's a military standard andit's a it's a common phrase.
You hear anybody that talksabout the military.
Ask them about sitting andwaiting.
They'll call you to getsomewhere and you're supposed to
be somewhere 15 minutes beforeand, bernie, you might be
sitting in that same spot forthree hours.
(08:08):
You ain't supposed to talk tonobody, but we had to do a lot
of sitting and waiting, and sothat was the first three days we
were there.
We got our heads shaved.
You look like knobs, likedoorknobs and stuff like that.
The only times you you movewhen you're supposed to move,
you breathe when you're supposedto breathe.
(08:28):
You do what you're supposed todo when you're supposed to.
You ate when you're supposed toeat, you sleep when you're
supposed to sleep, and and sotrying to follow.
Trying to follow that part wasnot the hard part because, again
, I'm a little bit older, butwatching the, the age gap from
somebody being older and thensomebody being younger, you know
you're almost getting likeyou're having a lot of this,
like stop doing that, stop doingthat, stop doing that, and
eventually you know, now you'rebeing rep I'm being reprimanded
(08:50):
for somebody way over theredoing the wrong thing and um,
that became the common trend ofboot camp.
That was the more or less thatwas the common thing.
So I had to look at like youknow, do I sit down and talk to
these people.
I was a lot older so I got alot of people.
They called me unc at basicallytrying.
Most of the guys that were therewere there maybe like 18 19.
One guy was 17, um, so the thenew wave of everybody coming up
(09:13):
is very, very much.
So I got a high school, youknow fresh about to go to
college.
You know using the military toget into, get into um, get, get
some college money.
But boot camp was it was a lotof consistent scheduling.
You knew exactly what you weresupposed to do.
You had a time to do everything.
(09:34):
You were told what to do, youwere told what to wear, you were
told when to go to sleep, youwere told when you were going to
be, when we go marching andstuff like that.
So you knew what was going on.
So boot camp was not hardmarching and stuff like that.
So you knew what was going on.
So boot camp was not hard.
I will say that boot camp wasjust, it was difficult,
difficulty and something beingjust hard like difficulty today
could be something very easy forme.
It could be a little bit moredifficult.
We had to do land navigation,which I've never done that
(09:57):
before, but I've used a compassand you know I got to be outside
.
I do my rednecky stuff youremember they used to call me a
bunch of redneck names back inthe gym and whatnot.
But I got to do a lot ofoutdoors so I got to shoot a lot
of guns.
I mean thank God for taxpayerdollars because we shot a lot of
ammunition, yeah, but we shot alot.
(10:18):
We did a lot of stuff outside.
We camped.
I mean we didn't necessarily dosome camping but we slept
outside a couple nights on someof our larger marches and you
know I got to learn a lot moreabout the militaristic mindset
and what goes into doing that.
Learn more about.
You know, from basics.
I could tell you all thestories that we did, but some of
(10:39):
the more important stuff is welearned a lot of teamwork, a
whole lot of teamwork, that I'ma member of a team.
Whether there's creed that wesay that says I'm an american
soldier, I'm a warrior, a memberof a team, and you learn this
mindset and just build thismindset inside you that the guy
beside you is responsible forhaving your back and I'm
supposed to be responsible forhaving his, and then vice versa,
everybody around here.
But there's some people I wouldnever want to even stand in my
(11:01):
presence that were in that samekind of space and you learn that
about these people.
But you still remember of ateam.
So how can I utilize yourassets, like what's your, your,
your asset to, for not mybenefit, for my own safety, but
the military Mary must?
Who takes care?
Basically training took care ofthose bits and pieces, like
there's some people just nevermade it Through.
A lot of people just ended upquitting, and if you quit the
(11:22):
military for basic training, youknow what they do it for you.
Yeah, of people just ended upquitting and if you quit the
military for basic training, youknow what they do for you.
No, they make you stay thewhole entire time and watch
everybody else do that stuffuntil it's time for you to go.
Which about you know, if it's a10-week basic training, you're
there for like eight or nineweeks and they hold you there.
That's what you get for quitting100.
You're thinking about joiningthe military?
(11:43):
Do not quit.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So so they say watch or they have to still do the
shit.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Stand there and watch .
Stand there and watch.
It's it's got.
I'll be honest with you, it'skind of funny.
It's kind of funny it is.
It is a little weird but it's amind game.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I see what they're trying to do it is.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
But, like you know, I don't want somebody that wants
to quit standing beside me, thatyou know where.
If you're in a firefight, Idon't want the guy beside me
saying, hey, you know what I'mdone yeah I'm done, yeah, so, um
, but it built this, this, thisgreat amount of teamwork, not
necessarily in the guy beside me, but in me, and being older, I
was able to work on um, actuallyteaching other people beside me
(12:23):
, that kind of thing, and Ibelieve that if I'm able to stay
, you know, I'd make a great NCO, I'd make a great
noncommissioned officer in themilitary to be able to take
younger people and teach them inthe process, which is something
that my drill sergeants saw inme too.
They saw me, you know, takingleadership roles in tasks and
taking leadership roles in ourbay where we slept in our
(12:43):
platoon, and so I was very muchso watched um and also
appreciated in in that as well,and I didn't get any
preferential treatment at allbut in that at the end of basic
training.
So we went through, uh, 10weeks of basic training, I ended
up winning an award which islike a um.
I ended up winning, like a um,an army service coin, and it was
for a soldier of the cycle.
(13:03):
So I won an award that was theum, like their top soldier out
of the whole entire battalionnot battalion, but our company
that we had and so I wasrecognized by our drill
sergeants for um, for forleadership qualities, and so, um
, what did I?
My experience of basic trainingwas that it's not.
It was not hard.
It was difficult because nowI'm having to.
(13:24):
I'm having to work with otherpeople that I've never been
working with before.
I'm having to ruck and run withother people that have never
rucked and ran before, but inthe process I'm having to, you
know, teach people how tobreathe while they're doing
certain things.
I'm teaching people how torecover and stretch when we have
those down times and stuff,because, because this is the
person supposed to have my six,they're supposed to have my back
and so, drill sergeant, theNCOs, they saw, you know, this
(13:48):
kind of stuff that I wasbringing to the table with my
platoon, specifically as youkind of work with your own
platoon, you have your owncompany of four platoons and you
know, in the end we're actuallyall in competition with each
other, but as one company tryingto build everybody up in the
process.
But I learned how to lead in adifferent capacity and something
I had no knowledge aboutwhatsoever and it was really
(14:11):
cool to do that on such a largescale.
I mean, this is the UnitedStates military.
This is the strongest, mostelite fighting force in the
whole entire world.
Regardless of what anybody elsesays, this is the strongest,
most elite fighting force in theentire world, and to be a part
of that in my MOS, which is mymilitary service operation,
which I chose to do, which is tobe an Apache mechanic to be
(14:32):
able to work with those aircraft, that's cool as crap being able
to fix something and know howto fix it, and you're being
given this opportunity to workwith equipment.
That's tens of millions ofdollars, but somebody trusts you
in doing that, because that'swhy we go to our AIT schools, so
we can learn some advanced,individualized training, and so
(14:53):
I've learned a lot from basic.
But the biggest thing I pickedup was that something that seems
hard you change your mindset.
This is just difficult.
Now I have to overcome theselittle obstacles.
Like they're little obstacles.
Like I only got 12 minutes toeat food.
Well, you better eat your foodin 12 minutes.
Well, that's not enough time.
You better figure it out.
You're told when to dosomething.
(15:14):
You're told you're told whennot to do something.
You're told what you can and wecan't do, and that's a pretty
easy concept to live off of, andwe get that stuff on a daily
basis anyway from our bosses,from our parents, um, our
friends, from our, uh,significant others and and uh,
just seeing the differentmindsets of people and the
younger generation coming upthrough, that was, um, it was
(15:37):
different, it was very different, but that was pretty.
That was pretty much myexperience at at base a lot of
running, I did a lot of pushes.
My chest got bigger, um, I gotstronger.
There too, I got more.
I probably got more mentallystrong than anything else.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
But you definitely got more mentally strong,
because it's all, it's reallymore mental than actual physical
strength have you ever stood?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
you ever stood somewhere for four hours, like
just like this, for four?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
hours, four hours, no , but I've had to stay still for
like almost 30, 40 minutes inour and if you lock your knees
you're gonna pass out.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, but that's a learn how to stand, do push-ups
and deal with younger, younger,younger folks.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So so that's so looking at the younger, the
younger soldiers, the youngermen entering the military right
Like.
What is your perception of themphysically and mentally like?
Because you have to deal withmajority?
You know probably 95 of themwere, were, were young, uh, were
really extremely young, likethere was probably not many
(16:36):
people close to your age, noteven close, not even 26 probably
out of maybe out of maybe 200people.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
in my and it's just in my company, there's probably
a thousand, there'll be eight,eight, nine hundred in our, in
our whole battalion.
But this the the age range isprobably pretty similar per
company too, but in echo company439 at fort jackson there may
have been 20 people that wereolder elder of 26 to 28 years
old and up.
(17:04):
I was on the higher end of that.
That's why they called me Yonkand one kid made a mistake,
called me Grandpa one timeMistake.
Yeah, I just emptied his camelback out.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
So your perception of our younger generation come on.
What do you think based onthese guys?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
There's a I would say there's hope in any human being
because we have this, god'sgiven us this opportunity of
free will to change how we areNow.
The military would not allowyou to be on the lower end of a
standard.
The standard is exactly whatwe're supposed to meet.
That's the baseline, which isthe standard.
(17:42):
I think the minimum score youcan have on a PT test is maybe
360.
And that's the bare minimum.
But they're requesting that youshoot for like a 420 or no a
540, which is like they love tosee this stuff right here.
But a 360 is like the minimumstandard, which is not hard to
get.
A 360.
I would say it's difficult toget a 360 if you're out of shape
(18:06):
and overweight and stuff likethat.
But basic training will buildsoldiers out of just regular
people, and it very much so.
I got to watch people just comein and just be the laziest POS
as you've ever seen in your lifeto turn into these young men,
and so basic is designed forthat capacity.
It's also used to wean out thepeople that want to quit.
(18:29):
When stuff gets difficult, theyjust want to quit and so you
don't want those people besideyou or behind you so to ask that
question at the beginning ofbasic training is one thing, to
ask it at the end is a wholeother ballgame.
Because now you have theseyoung men that have now come up,
these young women that have nowcome up and the rest of them
that quit and didn't want tocontinue.
They're all gone.
They're doing something elsewith their lives.
(18:50):
So you don't have to worryabout this person.
You know having your six orhaving your bag.
Now you just worry about thepeople beside you that wanted to
continue and go on and themilitary there.
I will tell you that the changesthe military has made um is
going to give us a strongerfighting force going forward.
Is it a different fightingforce?
Absolutely, but the standardand the way that the military
(19:11):
fights now is it is different.
We don't have people runningthrough the woods with machetes
anymore, you know guerrillawarfare type style.
We have more this.
There's more of a um uh,technological way that you know
fighting is done.
There's more drones, there'smore cameras in the sky, there's
more UASs that are flyingaround and we have more
(19:34):
opportunities to see the enemybefore they see us.
And it's not so much that we'repainted faces up in the woods
as much as we are sitting in acomfortable space, being able
comfortable space, being able towitness something you know
happen before it occurs.
And so I think the military, thegroup that's coming up, is
going to be trained by peoplethat have learned the old way
(19:54):
and the new way of training, andso they get to pass both of
these operations down to thisnew group of people.
And the new group of peoplewill both learn from the old
style and the new style.
We learn the old style kind ofat basic training and at AIT,
our advanced individualizedtraining.
We've learned the new way thisstuff is done.
So you get to see this oldstyle and this new style be both
meshed together, and now theseMCOs can now teach both of these
(20:18):
things.
So anybody that has joined themilitary and has come up through
basic training is going to bean asset to the United States
government and be an asset toour fighting force.
There's some people who arestill kids, but they will learn
over time what it takes to bethere for their battle buddies
(20:39):
and for their country.
So I like what I've seen comingup.
I do like what I've seen comingup and coming up as an older
individual.
You know I've been able to helpcorrect some things in the
process, being that we're in thesame rank too.
But be able to correct somestuff before an NCO sees
something and be able to kind ofteach and teach prosperity
towards, you know, these youngerkids before they get a chance
(21:00):
to be reprimanded.
And you know I've gotten somethank yous.
I've also gotten some f us, youknow.
But you know, at the end of it,you know it is what it is and
you know the good will, the goodwill stand out and the bad ones
will wean their ways away.
Um so, but I like where stuffis going.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I do very much so, um , like what's happening well, um
, you know, based on what youyou're you're mentioning about
the military, I thinkeverything's right, what you're
saying.
We are going into more of atechnology type of warfare.
I think that the warfare thatwill be fought physically with
the old school machetes becauseI miss the machetes is going to
(21:42):
be the special operations orspecial units or you know, I
don't want to say like it'sgoing to be SEALs, but it's
going to be special groups thatare going to be dealing with
that.
Now It'll be in smaller units,smaller companies, instead of,
like you know, big tanks andshit like that.
(22:02):
I don't think we're going to bedoing that with people actually
in it and stuff like that.
I don't think we're going to bedoing that with with, um,
people actually in it and stufflike that.
But, yeah, I mean it's, it's,it's good to see that, because
my daughter is is probably stillthinking about joining the
military, um, and she's leadingtowards the air force, if she
does do it, because she wants todo it, she's doing, she's
(22:24):
studying, she's in school frommechanical engineering, okay, so
that's what she wants to go Tocontinue her, her, her education
.
So she goes in there.
I think it'd be probably for abachelor's or master's degree,
because she's already in school,trying to finish off the two
year or four year, somethinglike that.
So not sure she might be older,she might.
(22:45):
She might be like 24 when, whenit happens so, she's gonna be
an auntie she might be.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
She might still be one of the young ones, man she
might.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
But, yeah, right, so so, yeah, so you're.
You know we're going throughthis whole thing and you, you
displayed incredible leadershipand you know, to be honest with
you, the people who are leadersunderstand that they're going to
get people who are going tolisten and comply and they're
(23:18):
going to get people who aregoing to say, fuck you, I don't
want to listen.
So that's just part ofleadership.
You know what I'm saying.
Like when I was working inGold's Gym and telling everyone
hey, this fucking John guy's acrook, I got a whole lot of fuck
yous.
It's true, I'm like bro, likeyou, really want to get paid
(23:39):
less, because I don't.
It happens that's part ofleadership.
You know what I'm saying.
Like you got accepted and nottaken personal.
So you're displaying all thisleadership and everything.
And you're near the end ofbasic training, right?
(24:00):
Or you finished basic training.
You finished basic training,you got a reward.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I'm at my advanced individualized training.
Right now I'm at Fort Eustis,virginia.
I'm not there right now I'm onconvalescent leave, but I'm
currently stationed at forteustis, virginia.
I'm not there right now I'm onconvalescent leave, but um I'm
at.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I'm currently stationed at fort eustis so what
is that training you're talkingabout?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
in advanced individualized training,
everybody that signs up has anmos and you choose your job
before you go to basic training.
And so when you're at basictraining, everybody is doing the
same stuff.
You're not doing anything thatis specific.
There's any specificity towardsyour future job.
You are doing the same push-ups, you're doing the same marches,
you're doing the sameeverything just to be able to
(24:38):
build the basic standard, andyour advanced individualized
training is a specificity schoolfor whatever your job is.
So for me, as an Apache mechanic, I'm to uh fort eustis and
langley, to uh learn how to, youknow, fix aircraft.
They don't do that at fortjackson, they don't do that at
fort benny, they don't do thatat fort linderwood.
(24:59):
They don't do that in any otherplace, they do it specifically
right there, and so I'm learninghow to fix aircraft at this, at
this spot.
So everybody that has a um, youknow, signs up for a job.
They to specific places.
So some of the people I went toAIT or went to basic training
with are at my AIT too.
There's Apache mechanics,there's Chinook mechanics,
there's people that work on thehydro side, which is like our
(25:21):
hydraulics.
There's people that work on theelectrical side, there's people
that work on the Blackhawks.
So eventually some of thosepeople may go and be officers
and fly helicopters.
They may go into the officerroute and have to go to OCS at
some point, which is officertraining school, officer
candidate school, and so rightnow I'm just learning what I'm
(25:46):
supposed to be doing for my jobin the military and this is
phase two, basically, phase two.
Essentially it would be phasetwo, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Okay, Now what happened.
So on my medical side, Tell uswhen you can tell us.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
So I can tell you about the majority of my issue.
Very healthy, coming out ofbasic training.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We just made that clear how healthy you were.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
No issues whatsoever.
When I get to AIT Berto, I'mthere for two weeks before
something.
I say two weeks before I wasthere for two days before I was
offered a position doingsomething.
You and me didn't talk aboutthis part before, but when I got
there, um, so you come withyour bags packed.
You come with your bags packedand you, you get called outside
and the drill sergeant has to gothrough all of your stuff just
(26:40):
make sure you don't haveanything that you're not
supposed to, um, no contraband.
So they open up your bags,start dumping everything out,
and you know you've got acertain allotted time frame to
be able to repack your bags andyou know you've got a certain, a
lot of time frame to be able torepack your bags.
And you know so they can.
So you can get everybody and goback inside so you can get to
your room.
And right now it probably tookmaybe six times for everybody to
you know, six times at 30seconds.
(27:02):
You know they get 30 seconds.
Put your stuff back in your bag.
I did it the first go around,but a lot of people just didn't
get the memo and so every timeyou didn't meet the standard
which is what they gave you, youhad to do push-ups or go run or
something.
So the first time one of ourdrill sergeants said take a lap
around my little track, so Ijust take off and go run around
the track and come back, and Iwas the first one done, and so
(27:23):
it must have struck some kind ofidea in our drill sergeant's
head's that guy needs to be onthis, this, this team.
And so I didn't know anythingabout this.
But you know, the next day wewalk outside and uh, yeah, I get
my name called.
I was like, oh god, I must bein trouble for something.
I didn't do nothing.
But I mean, you know, you don'tget your name called unless,
unless something's going onexactly, yeah, he says uh, alan,
you've been chosen.
(27:44):
You've been chosen for I gotvoluntold to be a part of the
best warrior team, which is,it's a.
It's a prestigious honor andwhatnot to be to be uh to do
this because it's a competitionfor the best soldiers in in the
battalion company, insidebattalion.
So all the companies in thebattalion compete against one
(28:06):
another with their own bestsoldiers.
So who gets selected for thisteam?
And so it's.
You know, it's a series ofevents that you have to do,
basically just to see who thebest soldiers are.
You go through some war-typestuff.
There's an obstacle course,there's a ruck run, there's a
physical test and there's amental and there's a test where
you have to take apart, like anM249 and a 240 Bravo and an M4.
(28:29):
So there's three weapons youhave to take apart too, and so
they're just looking for thebest all-around soldiers.
And so I was there for two days, got selected for this team,
and then a month later, onJanuary, I was at January 11th.
So I got there December 5th,december 6th.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
You there.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
So you said december 6th, yeah, december 6th.
So I was, I got there december6th and on january 10th, um, we
went on another ruck, we went ona ruck run and we had a six
mile ruck we had to do and soyou got a, you know, 40 to 60
pound bag on your pack.
It depends on what you put onyour back, but you know, for all
intents and purposes andbecause it's recorded, it was a
40 pound pack that was on myback, um, but uh, I put a, you
(29:39):
know I had my bag on and, uh, myrucksack on, and we start to do
the first mile, and the firstmile was a walk and then the
second mile was going to be arun, and the moment we took a
step off on the second mile, Iremember it felt like someone
took a knife and stabbed me inmy chest and I've never
experienced that before.
I've never experiencedsomething just so acute,
(30:01):
something so painful and alsosomething I can't control.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Stop right there for a second before you did this
basic training and got to phasetwo.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Right, you was doing boxing training, you was running
, right how many miles were yourunning someday for once a week?
I would run like two.
I would run 10 miles.
I made it an effort to almostrun like three to four miles.
Every single day I was hittinga bag.
I was, you know, still workingout regularly and I never so
cardiovascular wise.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
did you never experienced this?
No, I was always.
Pause back to present time.
You're on the second mile ofthis ruck run and you're about
to take off and you feel thisstabbing pain in your chest.
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I took about 15 more steps because maybe it's just
nothing.
And I remember I felt like myairways just got completely
closed up.
I remember feeling like I wasfighting to breathe.
I remember I was feeling likemy steps just got heavier, like
my bag now weighed 100 pounds.
I felt like my chest was justcaving in like this and I
(31:08):
couldn't pinpoint what it was.
So I just I told the guy behindme, told Adrian the guy behind
me.
I said hey, man, you got to goin front of me.
And he stopped beside mebecause I was training with him
before this too, helping him dohis push-ups, do his pull-ups.
We were doing some studyingstuff and he goes what's wrong?
I said just go, just go, justgo.
You're worried about you rightnow.
I got to fall and I've neverquit on anything that was
(31:29):
physical in my life and I turnedand looked at my drill sergeant
.
I said drill sergeant, I cannotbreathe.
He goes.
Well, slow down.
He said just take some deepbreaths in your nose, out your
mouth, do some box breathing,da-da-da-da-da.
And so I tried doing that.
I thought I was having anasthma attack.
That's what it felt like,because I've never had one
before.
But that's what it felt like,and I just remember, and it felt
(31:50):
like I was having asthma attackand so I just couldn't breathe.
I would take these deep breathsand I felt like I was breathing
through a straw If I breathethrough my nose straw, breathe
through my mouth straw and Icould not get one solid breath
that was, you know, just deep atall.
I've tried to clear my clearsome mucus out and spit up some
stuff, and nothing helped.
And the soldier in me wanted toum, keep going, keep going.
(32:13):
My drill sergeant said well,what do you want to do?
He said, well, I can't.
He said I can't.
You know, we can't just walkthis whole thing.
This is a, this is an eventLike you walk, run, walk, run,
walk run.
And the group is probably aquarter mile ahead of me.
Now, at this point, and I'mlooking at the group and the
soldier in me, the one that justwon soldier of the cycle is
like you know, I want to keepgoing.
He's like do you want to quit?
I said no, and so we started,you know, taking another step,
(32:35):
but I went 15 more steps and Iwas like I can't keep going.
The soldier was going to keepgoing.
The future husband.
This had to say I got to quit.
I have to quit because I hadother people I had to look out
(32:56):
for and think about it this time, and so I stopped.
Um, they had a bus come pick meup and and, uh you know, went
back to the base and went tosick call.
The very next thing I did waswent to sick call and I remember
I was both while we waited onthat van to come and pick me up,
he uh Joe, so I was justtalking to him.
He's like you know what are youfeeling?
Right, I had to draw my bagdown.
I just feel like I can'tbreathe.
I've never experienced thispart before.
And when I say I thought I washaving an asthma attack, I
(33:16):
thought I was going to die, butasthma just sounded a whole lot
better than dying.
So I've never had anything likethat come up in my life.
It was so acute that it wasn'tsomething that kind of built up,
it was something that justhappened so fast when I tell you
(33:37):
, it's like a knife stab to mychest.
It was that's what I felt.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So that was that was January 10th when that happened
and and then you went to sickcall right, yeah, that's that's.
That's when you're gonna go seethe doctor and they're gonna
try to figure out what's goingon.
They're going to diagnose youright and what did what?
Can you tell us what the doctorshared with you?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
yeah.
So they tried to yeah.
So, um, um, when I went to sayum I went, when I went to sick
call, they thought I was havinguh, congestion.
What was having congestion?
That's what I was told that'swhat I get.
I don't know if you've ever hadchest congestion before yeah, I
(34:19):
have chest congestion.
I don't feel like that.
The sergeant is in there.
He's telling me it's chestcongestion.
I said my brother put thisstethoscope on me or something.
This is not a claritin-typething, this is something
internal.
I did the Google thing You'renot supposed to look up Google
problems but I was on the vergeof dying according to Google.
(34:42):
But come to find out that wasn'ttoo far from the truth.
So I ended up going to Sitco.
Sitco called in a chest x-rayand go to TMC1, which is our
medical clinic.
There the doctor puts astethoscope on my chest and the
chest x-ray came back completelyfine, no findings there.
But when the doctor put thestethoscope on my heart he said
I found a murmur.
Now murmurs, a lot of peoplehave murmurs and they're
(35:05):
completely fine with them.
But he ordered me to go get a—MRI, not an MRI, it was a um uh
ultrasound.
So we got an ultrasound done atthe cardiology clinic and they
found out that I had somethingcalled micro valve regurgitation
.
It's not something I came inwith with at meps.
This is something that on thatrock I tore a valve in my heart,
(35:26):
so that piercing feeling that Ifelt I tore a valve and so I
ended up having something calledas a tore valve, and so I ended
up having something called as amicro valve prolapse, which
your, your body has, thesevalves, you know these, uh,
these little flaps that allowblood to go through, come back
close off, go through, close off, close off.
And so one of them ended updoing this and so it just kept
it, just the there's like somelike rubber, almost like a
rubber band on one side, and itjust gave out, and so that's
(35:49):
what I ended up tearing andeventually, over time, um, you
know, I was supposed to go getlike what was called a mitral
valve repair and when I ended uphaving ultimately ended up
having an open heart surgeryfrom that, um, I ended up having
to get a replacement done, sothe whole valve had to be
replaced.
So what they saw and you know,just in the imagery and stuff
like that, um, they saw, they,they saw the replacement of the
(36:12):
repair was needed.
But when they went in andactually did the full-on flood
surgery, they found out I neededa whole replacement done, and
so they just did it right thereon the operating table.
And so, all from a ruck,something that felt like, you
know, just piercing pain in mychest ended up being this
life-altering decision where youknow I've got to stop rucking
or I might die.
And so I asked the doctor onthe second visit I go back.
(36:36):
I said what could have happenedif I kept going.
He said you probably were aboutto have a heart attack and he
said it probably wouldn't beenvery long after that that
somebody wouldn't be able to getto you in time, and I was like
let's thank god for this oneright here, you know so yeah
yeah, oh my god, bro, like andit's not.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
This has nothing to do with like genetics, uh
hereditary history with yourfamily.
Nothing, not at all.
Nothing like you came into this.
That was not one of the redflags nothing heart related was
a red flag.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
He was just like shoulders.
So that was it, and this issomething that happened, um,
happened at ait.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I told you today, january january 10th, and um,
that was, that was an event thatprobably changed the entire
course of my military career andthis is something so out of out
of norm like this is miraculous, because the simple fact that
this happened to you, youactually lived through it,
(37:36):
because you stopped and you madeit to the next day to go see
the doctor and everything, andthen you go through the surgery.
My heart dropped when I saw youin the surgery, in the medical
bed, surgery after surgery, anduh, you know I mean God bless
(37:57):
your wife for posting it.
You know what I'm saying, but Iwas like I felt horrible
because of the fact that I wasjust so happy for you as it.
You know I, I know you, youknow I.
I know you know I'm saying like, like I, I know you when I'm
working in girls gym, you wasalways a good dude.
You know I'm saying like you,always good people, always
(38:20):
bright, god fearing.
You know, saying you always waspositive.
You know saying there wasnothing negative anyone can
really say about you.
You know what I'm sayingabsolutely.
And I saw, you know, when youmoved to carolina and then what
happened with you, with wedidn't talk about it, but that
situation at first and you wentthrough like this little, little
(38:46):
downward spiral and then youpicked yourself up and then you
started getting back in thecooking, and then you started
boxing.
And then you picked yourself upand then you started getting
back into cooking and then youstarted boxing.
And then you met this woman andyou got married right before
you went to the military.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, so we didn't get married yet.
We're getting married in.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
December this year you proposed to her before the
military.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yes, I proposed her December 20th of last year.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I knew I had something right but something
wrong.
And then you get into themilitary and then this happened
and I'm like what the fuck bro?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, I think I'll share this piece with you.
I think there's a you know it'sour goal to determine.
You know what we need to donext in our lives.
You know, when something's notgoing right, we have to change
something.
Change promotes change and Iwill tell you this if you're not
praying, start.
If you don't believe in God,start.
Start trying to seek in someway, shape or form of what a
(39:41):
better life for you looks like.
And I remember when I startedpraying specifically over the
things in my life, I began tohave these things just brought
onto me, which is like you know,I don't believe anything that's
difficult in our lives issomething that's not of God at
all.
I don't believe that Goddoesn't put stumbling blocks in
our lives.
I think we do that whensomething becomes difficult,
something becomes taxing.
You know we can continueworking at it, but it's stupid
(40:03):
if we stay in these seasonswhere something is just
overbearing and just makes usfeel anxious and brings on
anxiety and makes us depressedand stuff like that's not things
of god, that's things of theearth.
And if we stay in those thingsand I, when I began to develop
this mentality, the militarycame on.
My uh fiancee came into my life,um, I started making more money
.
There's lots of great thingsthat came came out of that, but
I started to pray that god justgive me this um that his will be
(40:26):
done in my life specificallyand I joined the military.
Um, did something bad happen inthat?
Absolutely.
But something better is on theother side of this, because I'm
able to sit there and go throughthis.
This open heart surgery sucks,it sucks.
I had this thing that I know isthis was so great and you're
rehabbing and I can talk aboutit too, right?
Speaker 1 (40:48):
yeah, you have to rehab that heart.
That's part of and how is thatprocess probably?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
12 weeks of rehab.
All right, I've got like 12weeks of rehab.
Yeah, I've already started it.
Um, I got off the operatingtable.
I think my surgery was april22nd.
I walked out of the hospital 10days later roughly about 10
days later or so but I had tohave two open heart surgeries.
I don't know if you knew that,but I had to have two yes yes, I
did see that One was to take aclot off my heart, which is one
(41:21):
surgery fixed a problem.
The other surgery saved myentire life.
My blood pressure went downfrom like 50 over 30.
One time it was 40 over 20.
And so I was probably a couplebreaths away from, you know,
taking my last one.
Before they have to, you know,bring the little things out to
shock you back.
Question for you, right, it wasa put up.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Well, now or after the fact of that happened, have
you had a chance to go and lookat some of the stuff that your
wife post during when you wasgoing through this?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah, I was that poor lady.
Go ahead and say the last part.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yo, she literally was almost gonna cry Online, bro,
like, yeah, like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
We share a lot.
She was breaking apart.
You know she was breaking apart.
Watching it was.
It was a different experienceseeing, um, seeing the one you
love go through something, uh,something so difficult, um, and
if it not be for our faith, Ithink a lot of this would be
very it'd be a lot harder um, Iremember uh, I'll share this,
(42:40):
this piece, with you too when Iwas on the uh, I did go back
through everything that we weposted because we I was aware of
everything that was gettingposted while I was in that,
while I was on the uh, I did goback through everything that we
we posted because we I was awareof everything that was getting
posted while I was in that,while I was in the hospital.
But, um, I remember the secondtime I had my surgery, um, I
remember my prayer changed whenI was on the table and I don't
know if you have you had surgerybefore no man, I'm very lucky
(43:01):
man you know, you know, like youknow, when people say they saw
the white light yeah I've heardthose stories
but, uh, they woke up in themiddle of the surgery.
When you're laying on theoperating table, there's this
white light right over the topof you.
It's almost like looking up andlike in this super bright light
.
So yeah, I looked up and I juststarted to smile a little bit.
I'm crying because I'm, youknow, I'm strapped to a bed, I
(43:22):
can't move.
I know they're about to cut meopen the second time I've got a
scar on my chest and whatnot andthey're about to open me up.
And I look up and I was likegolly, that's the white light
people see.
And I started to smile a littlebit.
I remember right before you know, the medicine they gave me to
kind of knock me out.
It's about to take on.
I could feel it start to gothrough my body.
I just remember I just neededthis one last time to talk to
(43:43):
God real quick.
And I can look in the room.
I'm kind of flat like this so Ican't really see anything, but
I can see there's a lady in thecorner over here and remember I
had this tear rolled down myface and I was like God, just
let your will be done in me andwhatever that looks like, let
(44:10):
your will be done in me.
And bro, our ultimate doctor,which I believe the guy was
standing there in that roomwhere he had an angel there with
me in some capacity thatgrabbed my hand and I tell you
it felt physical.
It felt physical and I remember, you know, I, just right after
I felt that I woke up and I wasin ICU again, then pulling the,
you know what I to talk about anexperience right there too.
When you wake up from surgery,from open heart surgery, they
(44:32):
have these tubes in your mouthand they're to be able to help
your lungs breathe.
You're hooked up to so manymachines and stuff like that.
You're not breathing on yourown yet, but when you come to,
there's somebody standing overthe top of you and they're
they're, they're waiting for youto you know, kind of just
become coherent.
And so I'm sitting there, I gotthese two tubes in my mouth and
(44:53):
I remember the, the, the doctoryou know, walking me through
what's going on.
Okay, you just had a secondsternotomy.
You just had a second openheart surgery.
Um, are you okay?
Do you think you can breathe onyour own right now?
I said yes for about 45 seconds.
I have to hold my breath,because when they fill your
lungs up, they put these little,there's little like sacks in
there that are inflated, but inorder for you to breathe again
(45:17):
they have to pull on them.
So they it kind of forces yourlungs to kind of, you know, try
to contract and open up and itsucks when it pulls out and that
shit hurts the phone out ofyour throat.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, it's awful, literally rip it out, but I I
one thing I bet you wascongestion free after that dude,
I, I well, I was like I wasjust kept.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
I could not breathe at all.
Yeah, but when I remember whenthey, when they came out all the
way it, it was the biggest sighof relief.
I thought I was going to diethree or four times in the
hospital.
I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
One of the best feelings ever right.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (45:55):
One of the best feelings ever.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
One of the best feelings was knowing that I was
alive after all this was saidand done, knowing that I was
alive after all this was saidand done.
It's a gift to be able to wakeup, and I will never take
another day for granted.
I will tell you that.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Do you really think that you was taken for granted,
like maybe a little bitcomplacent, but not for granted?
I mean, you would never really.
And the reason why I say thatis because, like I mean, I
listen that a lot of people canchange within the years.
You know, I'm saying that wehaven't communicated in quite
(46:35):
some time, right, but I spent agood amount of time with you for
about roughly three, four yearsI don't, he was never like that
.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
No, I can't say that.
So, taking a day for granted, Ithink what I mean, more than I
think we'll have differentviewpoints on the verb, but I
think after I say this It'll bea little bit different.
I've never experienced dyingbefore.
I've never experienced theopportunity Not the opportunity,
but the Close portion like I'vealmost died, probably a hundred
times in my life but physically, like under doctoral care, like
(47:10):
three or four times I almostdied.
But what I mean take a day forgranted is I'm not going to take
a day without waking up andthanking the Lord that I'm awake
.
I'm not going to take a daybefore I go to sleep thanking
the Lord that I was able to livethrough that day and I get the
opportunity to go to bed andrest and be able to wake up and
do it all again.
When I say taking a day forgranted is that I've taken days
away from my God, the one that'sgiven me breath in my lungs and
(47:33):
given me breath in my life.
I've taken days away from thatpart.
So my spiritual side of my lifeis very much so grown over this
timeframe.
But I've got a lot of reallygreat and amazing people in my
life, not because of the surgery, but because of who I've been
to.
You know, been to others andwho they've been to me.
(47:55):
So I've got a lot of reallygreat people around me, but I
believe these are all peoplethat God's put in my life at a
specific time for me to be thespecific individual, for the
specific thing thing, like whenwe go to AIT training.
I think AIT training wasspecifically for me to learn how
to be a better man, not abetter Apache mechanic, but to
be a better human being, to be abetter man.
Because there's this next phasein my life that's different.
(48:16):
Now I'm going to be a husband,I'm going to be a father, I'm
going to be a lot more than Iwas when I went in.
And you know, see what themilitary does with me.
They may keep me, they may letme go.
Either way, I've got an amazingopportunity ahead of me because
I've learned a lot through thisnear-death experience, which
has been great.
(48:38):
I'll be honest with you.
It's been great.
Some of it has sucked, but tobe able to be alive is a.
You know, I won't take that forgranted ever again.
I've never almost, I've neveralmost died on the operating
table.
Um, but I think I kind ofneeded that experience for
myself to see what it means tolive in a different capacity.
So, um, you look great man.
(48:58):
Hey, I appreciate that, brother, that's uh, you want to see the
scar?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
No, I don't want to see the scar, bro, I'm just
wondering, no don't show thescar, bro, it's on my chest.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I mean, I don't know if you can show it.
Yeah, no, no, no, it's on yourchest.
I'll send you a picture of it Idon't want to see it.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
That's good, that's cool.
You did enough by showing meyou with the gown.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
You didn't like the gown With your ass out.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Blue is not my color.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Blue is not my color.
No, well, man, I will tell youthis.
It's been a good.
It's been a differentexperience, like when I told you
the thing about basic training.
I think the basic training partis very much to let me look at
my daily life in a differentcapacity.
When I said people look at itas it could be hard or it could
(49:49):
be difficult, I think all of ourdays are difficult, but we can
choose to make them hard, we canchoose to make them more
difficult, or I can just takethat difficulty and I can learn
how to make this thing easier.
I can learn how to make thisthing more streamlined and more
efficient.
When I think about those words,you change the mentality behind
how you do something.
You change the way outcomeshappen.
(50:09):
You change the way that thecourse of your life is
positioned.
You change the way that youlook at a heart surgery, go from
being anxious to beingdepressed to being man.
I'm so glad that I actuallyhave breath in my lungs and I
can live, and I can tellsomebody about this as well.
You know, if anybody ever hassome kind of like indifferent
feelings in their body, go see adoctor about them.
(50:31):
I hadn't seen a doctor inprobably maybe 10 years and
that's just me throwing a numberout there but like literally
seen a doctor because I had likea sprained ankle at one point.
I've done all my rehab, I'vedone all my own, like my own
Google searches and, you know,taken the done, the holistic
approach to stuff.
But like this was somethingthat was outside of my control
(50:54):
and I'm very thankful that I wasin the military during this
time frame for when this didhappen, because I learned a
valuable lesson through that.
I may not be cut out to ruckwith, you know, 50, 60-pound
bags on my back, or 40-poundbags, as I said before.
I may not be cut out to do thatside of it anymore, but I
learned a lot in the process.
(51:15):
So that was the important partfor me.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
But yeah, Well, I mean we're going to see.
Yeah, well, I mean we're goingto see.
Well, hopefully you know yourfuture continues with the
military to figure something outwith you.
Hopefully this doesn't set youback and they can find like I
said, they can find somethingfor you to do.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Still that's not going to affect your heart, and
I mean there's plenty of jobsout there that they can put you
in.
That's not going to bestrenuous to your heart.
Yeah, there's some militarystandards that they have for
service in general and mysurgery that I had done I don't
(52:01):
think I'm overstepping anyboundaries with saying this part
but the search that I had donedoesn't have the capacity of my
job that I have right now.
It doesn't allow me to continuedoing this specific thing.
There's plenty of other jobs inthe military, but I didn't sign
up to be a front desk worker atthe base.
(52:23):
I signed up to be in a past,yeah, but sounded to be in
aviation.
That was my.
That's where, uh, that's myheart was when I started doing
this, and to have to turn aroundand do something else is, um,
that would be.
That'd make me feel a lot less.
I would tell you that.
But, um, they do have otherjobs and stuff like that
available.
But I think they address yoursituation and your condition
based off of where you're atright now with what you signed
(52:46):
up for, where you're going,because I feel, like you know,
I'd have to go back.
I I don't believe I'd have togo back and do basic training
again, but they would send me toanother ait school and, um,
I'll be honest, I don't thinkwe're doing that.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
So well, I mean, you're gonna figure out what to
do.
I mean, you got plenty ofthings to do.
You got plenty of talents.
I don't think you're not goingto be held back.
So, and like you said, no, it'smade you a better man, better
leader very much so okay thoseare.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Those are qualities you could take with you to any
job absolutely, and plus thisyear, as long as after I get
cleared, um, I will share thiswith you too is I have a plan to
uh, I'm gonna start runningagain because I wasn't supposed
to.
I wasn't supposed to be able torun, and cardiac rehab has been
going really well.
Once I finish all that, getcleared by a doctor, I got a
(53:37):
plan to be able to run amarathon, um, at the end of, by
the end of next year, um, so Igot a lot of training and stuff
to do for that.
So we're going to push this.
We're going to push theenvelope.
I got a new heart now, so I'mgood.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
And you know if the concept of training applies to
the heart, because the heart isa muscle, you can retrain that.
So who says that you can't runa marathon?
Speaker 2 (54:04):
No, we will.
I'm telling you, we will yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
I see it as doable for you.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yeah, I ain't going to win it.
I'm going to tell you I ain'tgoing to win it, but I will run
it.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Who gives a fuck if you win it, bro, you fucking
finishing that is the win, bro.
Like, seriously, let me tellyou something, bro If I do
something right, if I'm goingrunning well, I'm not going to
say running because I'm neverrunning, but but if like say,
for example, like I tell people,like I do, I did, I've done
(54:37):
shooting competitions right, I'mnot trying to win because I
can't compete with these dudesthat shoot Thousands of rounds
every week and fucking completethis 17 shot course in two
seconds, fuck that.
I'm just here just to have funand just to get some to get
(54:57):
better.
So, like me being here is justto win.
You know, like I'm not tryingto be number one and Nah, man,
it's not that.
You know, saying that you getto a point where you just just
accomplishing it is the win,yeah, that's that's, and that's
(55:17):
where you should be, that'swhere you're at now, bro, hey,
you accomplish, hey, you can'tbe.
(55:52):
Thanks for listening to our show.
This concludes our episode andlisten up to the next episode To
follow up on what Continuingtopics and trends we have going
on, and just to continue tolisten to your boy, ny Boom, and
co-host, big Daz, and listen toour points of views and maybe
(56:14):
you can add on to it if you want.
But we'll catch you on the nextone.
Alright, have a good one.
Peace out, fellas.
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