Staying Faithful in the FBI | Interview with Clay Hicks - No Sanity Required

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Happy Monday, everybody.
Welcome back to NSR.
I'm so glad you guys are able totune in.
I think I mentioned previouslythat we would be dropping Clay
Hicks interviews.
He's a former FBI agent.
Um, and it's actually kind offunny.
We recorded the first episodethis summer when Clay came up as
a chaperone with his church.

(00:20):
I want to say it was like weekseven or eight of camp.
So it was like June or July,something like that.
Um, but we held on to thoseepisodes because we knew we
wanted to do a part two, and wewanted to drop them back to
back.
So I appreciate Clay's patience.
He's probably been wonderingwhen is the episode dropping?
Um, but him and Brenda, hiswife, came up here for the

(00:42):
marriage conference, which wasuh last weekend, and we recorded
a part two and possibly three.
We talked for a long time andthey were sharing some crazy
stuff, some crazy stories.
So I'm excited for you guys tohear those parts of the
interview.
Uh, but this is the part one.
This is just Clay's backgroundand his story.
Really cool guy, really faithfulguy.

(01:05):
Um, but yeah, I'm really excitedfor you guys to hear this.
So welcome to No SanityRequired.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16):
Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters,a podcast about the Bible,
culture, and stories from aroundthe globe.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26):
Uh let's so I want to start by um talking about
your you grew up in Arkansas,which did, which Adam Brown said
you could put a dome overArkansas and she could survive.
She don't need anything else.
That is 100% true.

SPEAKER_03 (01:40):
That is 100% true.
But you couldn't have a navy andyou're a navy guy.
If if you're in the dome, youdon't need a navy.
Let's build the dome.
That's it.
That's it.
Yeah, the uh the all the stuffin the north where I grew up, I
grew up in the mountains.
So when I'm down here, it feelslike home to me.
The mountains, uh, the um OzarkMountains look very much like

(02:00):
the Appalachians and the BlueRidge and all that kind of
stuff.
Um, so mountains just kind ofcall my name, but you know,
roughly the northern half of thestate um is much like this, and
then the southern half is justflat as it can be.
Um, and that's where, and totell you just sort of how

(02:20):
isolated I grew up in thenorthern northern part of
Arkansas, I didn't even knowthat the southern part down in
Stuttgart, and by the way, inArkansas, it's Stuttgart.
In Germany, it's Stuttgart.
In in Arkansas, it's Stuttgart.

SPEAKER_05 (02:32):
Oh, I've been there, I've been duck hunting Stuttgart
twice.

SPEAKER_03 (02:35):
I didn't know that like the duck hunting mecca of
the world is in southernArkansas.
Oh, yeah, buddy.
So, you know, we hunted, wehunted deer and turkey and
squirrels and whatever else.
But uh yeah, so yeah, but it'sit's it's almost like two
different states.
Is there's a huge variation ofweather and geography and all
kinds of stuff.
Um so Adam, Adam's 100% right.

(02:55):
It's uh it's a it's aninteresting place.
Um, you know, it'll be it'll besnowing four, six, eight inches
snow up in up around Harrison orwhere I'm actually from is
Valley Springs.
There's a little map dot.
And when I say map dot, I meanyou can see the coming and going
signs with one look on thehighway.

(03:16):
And uh um, but it can be snow upthere and then it can be 70
degrees in southern Arkansas.

SPEAKER_05 (03:21):
That's what North Carolina is like that, but it
goes east-west, so there's not abig variation in in temperature
unless you're getting real highelevations like up around Boone
or up in Nanahala here, it'll becold and snowy and and not
elsewhere.
But Arkansas is where NorthCarolina goes like this, you go
mountains to sea, and it's superflat on the east, and mountain

(03:41):
culture is different.
But if you turn thatnorth-south, I didn't think of
that.
You got a drastic difference,and it's it.
Yeah.
And your dad was a statetrooper.
Yeah, grandfather too.
Hey, wait, didn't you tell me?
Okay, did you tell me your dadwas connected to Clinton?
He was in Clinton's because inthat okay, what the Secret
Service does for the president,the highway patrol does for

(04:02):
governors.
Correct, correct.

SPEAKER_03 (04:04):
Yeah, a lot of times.
And each state's a littledifferent, but yeah.
Didn't he?
Wasn't he connected to the ohman.
So, so on on day one, right,they get elected, and it was
they got elected.
Right.
Bill, it was they got elected,right?
Day one, they're moving in,trucks are there, the whole
thing, right?
And um carrying stuff in.

(04:25):
And my dad was part of governorsecurity, and so um, which was a
uh uh kind of a subdivision ofof the Arkansas State Police,
that capital security, governorsecurity, and various other
things.
And so he was working there, hewas assigned there, and uh
worked for a couple of differentgovernors, and uh yeah, so they

(04:45):
they moved in on day one, and hewanted to kind of get everything
done, get everybody out thedoor, and then get the the
governor's grounds back to sortof normal state of affairs.
And so he walked out there andgrabbed a couple of boxes,
walked in, um, walked up toHillary and said, uh, Mrs.
Clinton, where where would youlike these boxes?

(05:07):
Shoved her finger in his faceand said, My name is Hillary
Rodham.
Don't call me Mrs.
Clinton, and don't you everforget it.
So that's uh this is day one.
They don't know each other fromAdam, right?

SPEAKER_05 (05:23):
And so uh She's talking to the guy that's gonna
be handling security.
Correct, correct.
The people who is a duly swornofficer, trained, like this is
not a mall cop.
No offense, no offense to themall cops listening.

SPEAKER_03 (05:38):
But true, true.
And um, so uh, you know, the daygoes on, he just puts the boxes
down right there, and he's like,you know, I need to I need to
back up because I shouldprobably not say anything right
now.
And uh restraint.
Restraint.
Yep, yep.
Discretion's a better part ofvalor, right?
Better part of valor, yep.
And uh so he uh he move he goeson about his day.

(06:02):
A little later in the day, um,they're having some friends
over, just come over, have somedinner, hang out, whatever.
And uh they they come, you know,they're they're cleared through
the through the uh securitygates, they come to the front
door, knock or something likethat.
Bill Clinton's standing near thedoor, and he opens the door.
Hey guys, come on in, you know,and how's that?
She comes and finds my dad.

(06:24):
He's back, he's back wherethey're supposed to be in their
little you know, command centerthing for the governor's
mansion.
And uh he come or she comes andfinds my dad and just reads him
the riot act about how thegovernor of the state of
Arkansas should not have toanswer his own front door.
Uh and and that, you know, itwas just just an insult to him.

(06:48):
And it wasn't long after thattill uh it was obvious that they
the two of them were not gonnasee eye to eye.
And uh she she made some callsand uh and it wasn't long before
he got transferred.
Which which which he says in theend was probably a really good
thing for everybody.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (07:06):
Hey, you I don't know that's bragging rights.
I got fired by Hillary Clinton.
That's bragging rights.
I guess I guess I mean to tothink because the flip of the
flip side of that would be, ohman, she loved me.
I was her favorite well, whatkind of dude are you if you
can't make that woman mad,something's wrong.
Um so then you you didn't gointo law enforcement initially,

(07:29):
but I'm assuming with your dad,you know, growing up as son of a
state trooper, even going intomilitary service, which is what
you initially did, which I wantto talk a little bit about what
you did there.
Um, I mean you grew up wantingto do something in the in that
line of work.

SPEAKER_03 (07:46):
Yeah, I was in I was interested in it, but it it's
interesting, you know, uh someof the stuff that y'all talk
about here all the time is isspecifically with um young
people transitioning from thoseteen years into the early um
early adulthood years, isthere's there's a transition,
right?
There's maturing and there's youknow, like Paul says, like

(08:08):
leaving the the childish thingsbehind and now now moving on to
to grown-up type stuff.
Um and so I was a very differentperson.
You know, there are people whomove into early adulthood and
then they just sort of become amore mature version of
themselves.
I became a radically differentperson between, let's say, 18

(08:32):
and we'll call it 30, right?
Um, much of that through themilitary service and all that
kind of stuff.
But I was I was not drawn tosort of the hoo-yah professions
um nearly as much.
So I had some academic ability,right?
I was at Redneck Kid in northernArkansas, and I'm just as

(08:55):
comfortable uh, you know,sitting on the porch with some
dudes with no teeth and overallsand cutting wood as I am, you
know, sitting in a in somewherein Washington, D.C.
Actually, I'm more comfortableon the front porch, actually.
But but I had some academicability and so applied myself
and uh worked hard, uh, went tothe University of Arkansas and

(09:16):
uh got a degree in mechanicalengineering.
And so I was going to be anengineer.
Uh initially, I was gonna be anF-18 pilot.
Like this was my desire.
I knew that from age 11 beforeTop Gun, before all of that,
right?
I knew I knew that's what Iwanted to do.
Whole series of things of theLord uh saying yes and no to

(09:38):
various things and directing mylife uh as he sovereignly does,
and um found out during theClinton years uh that there was
a drawdown.
And so because I was I didn't Ichose not to go to the Naval
Academy or do Naval ROTC becausethey didn't have that at the
University of Arkansas, um I uhwas eventually did well in

(10:01):
academics and then kind of gotuh recruited by the Navy nuclear
recruiters.
And so so they came knocking andum and I decided, you know what,
I I do want to do something likethis.
But it was a little bit becausethe the nuclear program within
the Navy uh was more uh therewas a little there were some

(10:24):
academics to it.
Um, and I thought, you knowwhat, even if I don't like it,
I'm gonna I'm signing up forfive years and you know I'm
young, I can do anything forfive years.
And um any anyway, that that'skind of how that eventually
transitioned.
And I went to Officer Candidschool uh in Penskola, Florida
with Marine Corps drillinstructors and all that good
stuff.

SPEAKER_05 (10:42):
And uh and so when you go that route, more more
academics.
I mean, you're the first part.
So after OCS, are you going tolike a nuclear college or
school?
Or what's that training looklike?
Yeah.
That was probably brutal.

SPEAKER_03 (10:57):
It looks like a kick in the face for a year straight,
is what it looks like.

SPEAKER_05 (11:00):
Um frying your brain every day.

SPEAKER_03 (11:03):
Yeah, so I was one of the not the last class, but
one of the last classes to gothrough Navy Nuclear Power
School in um in Orlando,Florida, before they moved it up
to Charleston, South Carolina.
And so I went through and it wasit was about a hundred hours a
week.
Um I went in, you know, I gotthere right around seven in the

(11:25):
morning, and I left around 10 or11 at night every single day of
the week, Monday through Friday.
Saturday I was there for abouteight hours, and then I held off
Sunday morning for for I wasjust bound and determined, pass
or fail, I was gonna hold Sundaymorning to stay in involved in
in church.
Even though I was you know onlygonna be there for six months at

(11:46):
a whack, I I knew I need to stayuh to connected with the body.

SPEAKER_05 (11:51):
Because you you followed the Lord at a young
age.

SPEAKER_03 (11:55):
I did.
I did.

SPEAKER_05 (11:56):
Through college, you were a Christian, you were
living out of Christian faith.

SPEAKER_03 (11:59):
Yep, yep.
And um, so was involved withBaptist Student Union then.
I think they call it somethingelse now.
Now they call it BCM.
Yeah, yeah.
Baptist collegiate ministry,maybe.
And um so was and was verythankful for that.
And so my the component of mytestimony, and obviously we
don't have any of theseconversations without glorifying
the Lord, but um my walk,especially through the college

(12:22):
years, was one of um blessing tobe in and around those who would
drive me toward the Lord, driveme towards Christ.
Um and so was was kind of thefirst place um that I got
exposed to the ability to teach.

(12:44):
So I kind of learned that I hadI had that ability um and
enjoyed it, enjoyed studying,enjoyed asking the why questions
when you're reading throughscripture.
Um like you were talking aboutthis morning in your sermon, you
know, about when you come tosomething in the Bible where it
has ends with a question mark,pause and answer it.
Why?

(13:04):
Why is it what does it say?
And so um, but anyway, so I Iwas I was very blessed to be
around a lot of people thatpushed me as a young man towards
the Lord.
Um my mom and dad becamebelievers when I was oh probably
around four, maybe three orfour, something like that.

(13:26):
And um, and then I followed theLord a number, you know, not too
long after, the few years afterthat.
Um I remember it uh going andtalking to Dr.
W.
O.
Vaught in his in his churchoffice, first bat or sorry,
Emmanuel Baptist in Little Rock,Arkansas, um, with his blue
carpet.
I can visualize it as as just asI'm sitting right here.

(13:48):
And so my dad wanted, he was ayoung believer at the time, and
he even then he wanted to makesure that I wasn't making a
decision just because it was theyou know, make my dad proud, or
it was the quote unquote rightthing to do, but that it was
real.
And so anyway, yeah, so so youknow, made my way through
college, went to officer campschool, got into um naval

(14:09):
nuclear power, and and I gottabe honest, man, I hated that six
months.
It it was a it was a master'sdegree in six months.
And you know, there was therewas no life, there was no, like
it was all this and nothingelse.
And um, but that was part of itwas part of the process.

(14:30):
They wanted to see uh, you know,there's there's this whole
accession process where you yougo in and in order to get into
this program, and I still thinkthey do it this way.
I'm I I can't swear to it, it'sbeen a long time, obviously, but
um so this is in 1994.
Um you know, the that you do onyou all your own paper stuff,

(14:53):
you get selected to kind of moveon in the process, and uh they
bring you to Washington, D.C.
And at the time, Naval Reactorswas in Crystal City.
Uh, it's since moved out to theNavy Yard.
Um, but uh which was aninteresting story because in the
FBI I uh I ended up going tothat that uh that scene where

(15:14):
the guy uh was active shooter inthe Navy Yard.
Oh yeah.
So it was interesting.
It was interesting standing inuh Nav C you know, Admiral's
office, having just broken hisdoor open.
Uh you know, and it just kind ofa circle of events, you know,
many years earlier.
I I interviewed before, youknow, Naval Reactors Admiral.
But anyway, that's sorry, I'mgetting off track.

(15:36):
That is wild to think about.
Yeah, yeah, we can talk aboutit.
It was it was it was a it was aday for sure.
Um but uh but yeah, they'd bringyou to Washington, D.C.
You know, you're you're 20, 21years old, whatever, you know,
just whatever tiny little bit oflife experience you have at the
time, which is not much.
And uh, you know, I'd done wellin college and and so made the

(15:58):
cut and was able to go.
And so they interview you, uh,you go before these engineers,
and every topic in your entirecollege catalog is fair game.
I don't care if it was aneconomics class or uh
thermodynamics two or a calculusthree or differential.
Yeah, I did when I took thoseclasses.

SPEAKER_05 (16:20):
Um oh, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03 (16:22):
Um anyway.
But um, but yeah, you you go andum and all of this, I'm saying
all this not to not to you knowthrow out the the cool guy
stuff, but it all of this, theLord was walking me through
things.
He had gifted me in certainways, and it wasn't because I

(16:42):
was I was anything, and thatthat that you know, I mean as
Paul said, you know, I andApollos are nothing, right?
In the same way, um it wasbecause there were people in
those environments who needed tohear the gospel.
And the Lord had sovereignlysaid, All right, you're gonna be
one of those people that arewith them uh to be in places

(17:05):
that are harder to reach for formost people.
They just don't have, you know,they just don't meet people like
that for the most part.
And so, yeah, so go through, youknow, go through the nuclear
power program, uh, then you goto prototype and you spend
another six months uh and it'srotating shift work every week
you change.
And so by the end of all that, Ihad lost 30 pounds.

(17:26):
I'd have 30 pounds to lose.
I was in shape.

SPEAKER_05 (17:28):
Are you 6'4?

SPEAKER_03 (17:29):
Yeah.
And you had you had gottenskinny.
It was skinny, yeah.
I wasn't lean and in shape, Iwas skinny.
And uh um, but got done, went tosubschool and in Groton,
Connecticut, which was great.
That was the first time wherethe tactics really came out.
And the whole nuclear programfor me was sort of a hurdle I
needed to get over because Iwanted to drive the submarine.

(17:49):
I wanted to be officer of thedeck, do the tactics, do the
warfare, you know, stuff.
The nuclear stuff was it wasokay.
But at the end of the day, Imean, let's be honest, uh, it's
a fancy way to boil water.
It's a hot rock.
Okay.
Now it's lots of complexitiesand lots of difficulties, and
you know, it's it's hightechnology, but at the end of

(18:11):
the day, the reactor just sortof sits there and boils water.
Um, but it's necessary and it'sallowed, it's allowed the
submarine force to be a trulyglobal blue water, you know,
asset.
But um, but anyway, uh got tothat.

SPEAKER_05 (18:25):
So you want to go drive submarines at 6'4.

SPEAKER_03 (18:29):
Yeah, it maybe not the best choice uh as far as how
I'm built.
Um, but uh yeah, so you know,you lay in a in a rack, they
that's what they call the thebunks on on a on a ship.
You lay in the rack, and it's uhit's uh it's you know, I'm 6'4,
and I think the the rack wasmaybe 6'2, maybe 6'3.

(18:51):
So I couldn't even like lay withlegs straight out.
Fortunately, I sleep on my side,so it wasn't a huge thing.
But it I if I laid on my back, Ihad my right arm would fall off.
It was it was just that narrow.
And so I had to interlock myfingers just to hold my arms
kind of up.
So it was to this day, if I turnover in bed, I still do a
three-point turn.

(19:12):
Hips, knees, shoulders.
So you turn over in place.

SPEAKER_05 (19:16):
Did you like when you would go get an Iraq, was it
like a short sleep?
Or you didn't have an eight-hournight?
Oh no.
It was like always short, right?

SPEAKER_03 (19:25):
Yeah, yeah.
So, so especially for the firstyear on board the sub, your your
whole goal in life is toqualify, to eventually work
through all the differentqualifications so that you
eventually get your warfare pin,your what they call your
dolphins, right?
And so uh it takes roughly ayear, some people a little
shorter, some people a littlelonger, but but you know, and

(19:47):
there is huge pressure on youfrom everybody, captain on down,
fellow junior officers, becauseif you're not qualified, you're
taking up air and food and notable to fill the watch bill and
not able to provide, you know,for the and help with the work
that's necessary.

SPEAKER_05 (20:04):
So once you're once you're qualified, you're on the
sub, how long do y'all like whenyou go out, how long you stay
underwater?
I've asked you this before, butI want people to hear this.

SPEAKER_03 (20:12):
Was it I mean it's it's different, right?
If you're talking aboutballistic missile subs, you
know, the guy the big long onesthat carry all the missiles, you
know, that kind of stuff, youknow, they may be they may be
out for somewhere betweendepending back at that time they
didn't they didn't do any portvisits.
So it was like 70 days plus orminus.
Um and then if you were a fastboat, you might hit some ports

(20:35):
depending on what yourresponsibility was on
deployment.
But if you were on certaindeployments, um it might be 90
days.
Underwater.
Underwater.
No sign.

SPEAKER_05 (20:47):
Okay, we got time for a story.
You told us you told me a storyone time, and I don't remember.
I just remember kind of the thebasic idea where y'all spent
days seeing how close you couldget to a port.
Can you tell that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's one of the crazieststories I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_03 (21:06):
So, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not obviously not going
to say where it was.
Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_05 (21:10):
You told me because I have clearance.

SPEAKER_03 (21:11):
Yeah, I don't know where it was.

SPEAKER_05 (21:13):
He didn't tell me that.

SPEAKER_03 (21:14):
Um so we were tasked, uh, we were on we were
on deployment, and uh we I wasnewly qualified.
I had just gotten my dolphins.
I received my dolphins on the ona um on the um port kind of uh
out on the dock, really.
Uh cap assembled everybody,awarded me my dolphins, because

(21:38):
I'd I'd done everything to bequalified uh on a dock in La
Modelena, Italy.
And so that's where a sub tendersits and takes care of a lot of
the subs in the med.
And so um we got underway andwe're med is Mediterranean.

SPEAKER_05 (21:56):
That's what a sub guys say.
But for you civilians.

SPEAKER_03 (22:02):
Uh but but we were on, we were, we got going on our
on our um what we were supposedto do.
We're supposed to engage and dosome exercises and do different
things.
And so uh it was one of my firstsolo mid watches as the officer
of the deck.
And so the officer of the deck,if you're not familiar, is the
guy who is the captain's directrepresentative, signs in the

(22:22):
book, and the ship is is his,right?
He he is responsible for theeverything that goes on on the
ship.
He's driving the ship, he'sgiving, he's giving commands and
what happens and all that kindof stuff.
You're the captain's directrepresentative.
Obviously, the captain's alwaysthe captain, he he will always
be in charge.
Okay um but when he's in Iraq,he's he can't be on the con at

(22:44):
all times, right?
So anyway, so that was what Iwas doing, and it was mid-watch,
and we went to Periscope Depthuh to receive our our message
traffic, right?
Because you gotta put the littleantenna up, receive your
satellite downlink and yourmessage traffic and all that
kind of stuff.
And um, and then the radioman atthe time, it's all way more
updated these days, but at thetime, you know, we bring you a

(23:06):
clipboard of all the printed outmessages, and you would flip
through them and see if therewas anything urgent that you
needed the radioman to take itto the captain now, wake him up
in the middle of the night, heneeds to know about this now.
So I'm flipping through,flipping through, flipping
through, and I see uh flashtraffic, a message, um, and it's

(23:26):
it's an urgent uh redeploymentof our sub and where we were now
receiving mission tasking.
And so I'm like, Yep, Captain'sgotta know that.
And so, you know, I'm I made aread through all the rest of it,
got it, and um send it to him,he gets it, we rack out the nav

(23:46):
that' what you call gettingsomebody out of the rack, you
rack them out.
You know, we racked out the navand the navigator, and he came
in and we then plotted how wewere gonna change where we were
going to get to where we weresupposed to go.
So it took us took us a coupleof days to get there because we
were we were a ways away.
And um, so eventually we get onstation where we're supposed to

(24:09):
be.
And um, you know, if you've readany of the submarine books or
seen any of the stories orwhatever, um, you know, there
are there are certainauthorities given and taskings
given by the National SecurityCouncil and all of the
leadership of the U.S.
Navy uh when they're gonna go dothings um that are politically

(24:32):
sensitive, let's say, right?
And so uh this was gonna be oneof those things.
And um so we have our brief, andthis is real world.
I mean, it's it's it's you knowquite possible we're gonna have
to uh we're gonna get shot atand have to return, fire.
I mean, what we're doing at thetime.
And so anyway, we uh we get onstation and we start, we we

(24:56):
recognize this is gonna be along-term surveillance of what's
happening here.
And so we start walking our waytowards the coast, getting
closer and closer, and we'regoing incredibly slow.
We actually trimmed out, and bytrim on a submarine, you move
water around to balance and andadjust buoyancy and all kinds of

(25:18):
different things.
And we trimmed out the ship suchthat we could go half a knot,
which is like not even walkingspeed, um, through the water and
maintain certain collectioncapabilities during that time.

SPEAKER_05 (25:35):
And um You're moving through the water about like
this.

SPEAKER_03 (25:39):
Yeah.
In a in a massive space, threehundred three hundred and
sixty-foot ship.
Dang, okay.
Yeah.
And so um that 360-foot shipcomes in later with the uh with
the the training, almosttraining accident we had that
I've told y'all about.
So um but we're we're on stationand we're getting close, really

(26:03):
close.
And so on the midwatch, on anumber of mid watches, I would
actually watch dudes through theperiscope.
We had night vision capabilitieson the periscope, and I'd watch
dudes um, you know, come out onthe dock and smoke cigarettes
and do different things, andthey had no idea we were there.
Right.
I mean, we've got a 350, 60 footship, whatever.
And you're watching a guy on thedock light up a cigarette.

(26:26):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (26:28):
And how moving at that half knot speed, how long
did you move at that speed asyou were getting close to that
place?
Uh we did that for 60 days.
For sixty days inching towardsthis shoreline of this enemy

(26:48):
threat, whatever.
Yeah.
Dang.

SPEAKER_03 (26:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and so so one uh one ofthe things uh that happened
while we were doing that, so uha nuclear reactor, especially a
naval nuclear, well, all of themreally, but a naval nuclear
reactor uh has things calledcontrol rods, right?
And it's not that's not anythingspecial.
That that most all nuclearreactors have those.

(27:11):
Um and so they're basically madeout of various materials, you
know, that absorb neutrons.
And neutrons are sort oflifeblood of a of a of a nuclear
reaction for a nuclear power.
And so uh they use them,depending on what they're how
the reactor is designed, theyuse the control rods for various
different purposes.
One of which, though, is tocompletely shut the reactor

(27:32):
down.
And so if you ever hear the termscram the reactor, if you ever
heard that on a movie orsomething, what that is is that
comes from the University ofChicago, where they first built
where they built one of thefirst reactors.
Uh and they recognized theyneeded a way to control the
reaction.
Uh, and so they created thesecontrol rods, and this is this

(27:54):
is before they understoodradioactivity and contamination
and you know radiation sicknessand all that kind of stuff.
And so they had a dude thatwould climb up on top of this bl
these blocks of things they wereusing for shielding and
everything, and there was a ropetied to the control rods.
And so, in order to drop thosecontrol rods into the reactor

(28:18):
core to shut down the reaction,you had to take an axe and cut
that rope, right?
So that they drop.
And so his title was the safetycontrol rod axe man scram.

SPEAKER_05 (28:34):
That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 (28:35):
And that's where that that's where that's where
the word came from.
That's where that word comesfrom.
And so anyway, so so uh what youcan what can also happen is
there can be a malfunction whereone of those rods drops on its
own, but only one or two orwhatever, but but usually it's
one.
Well, when that happens, um it'sit it doesn't completely shut

(28:57):
down the reaction, but it doesit.
You you have very, verystringent power uh limitations
and all kinds of differentstuff.
And so you basically have toshut the reactor down.
Well, that happened to us as wewere really close.
And so now we're on what'scalled the EPM, which is the

(29:18):
electric propulsion motor.
It runs off the battery, it'sjust a big motor.
It's a backup motor.
It's a backup, yep, it's abackup.
And so uh we're running on EPMbecause you need a little speed
to keep yourself uh to keepyourself, you know, buoyant and
control how so all your controlsurfaces, you know, rudder and
everything else, has an effect.

(29:40):
Um and it's like a regular boaton the on the top.
If you're not moving, you'rejust drifting.
You're dri you're you can do therudder all you want, and it's
not gonna do anything.
Uh and so yeah, so so thathappened to us, and we're
drifting, of course, towardsland, right?
And we're running out ofelectrical power.
So I was the officer of thedeck.

(30:00):
Captain was in on the con,obviously.
Uh, and the engineer, the uhelectrical guy came in, the
chief in charge of uh of theelectrical uh capabilities on
the boat.
He's like uh Captain asked him,he's like, Chief, how how long
do we have left?
And he said, Uh sir, we have wehave about 20 minutes left on

(30:20):
EPM power, and then we'll havenothing.
We'll just be a bobber.
And uh so Captain said, Chief, Iknow you always save a little
for yourself.
How much do we really have?
And he's like, actually,Captain, I'm being honest, we
have 20 minutes.
And so we're drifting.
I mean, you know, and this isthis is gonna be a real problem.

(30:40):
So not only will there be damageto the ship if you you know you
hit rocks and and you know,whatever, uh, or wherever it is
we drift, maybe we drift intothat dock, you know.
Well, who knows?
Um, but it's gonna be aninternational incident, right?
It's gonna be a problem.
And uh so we uh we're drifting,and I to this day I remember him

(31:08):
and uh the captain uh cool as acucumber, not a bee to sweat and
uh strong believer, strongbeliever.
I learned I got I had a betterrelationship with him or a
different relationship with himwhen we actually began attending
the same church uh inFredericksburg and uh we met.

(31:30):
So um the guy was a tacticianand um he didn't he didn't
flinch.
And uh so eventually the guys inthe back fixed the problem, got
the reactor back up, and uh bestthing in the world, if you're
the officer of the deck, whenyou hear them come across uh
come across the uh communicationsystem, you know, and say uh say

(31:54):
uh you know reactor reactorpower restored, you know, no no
propulsion limits.
And so he captain looked at me,he's like, All right, Mr.
Hicks, take us back out.
And uh so then out we go, youknow, we and then we just kept
going on station, doing ourthing.
Wow and uh but yeah, it was Ilearned a lot from that scenario

(32:16):
watching people.
I was a young guy, right?
I was I was 26 and I was theofficer of the deck.
Uh you got a billion dollarsubmarine and 140 or 50 people
on board, and and dang, howclose did you get to that?

SPEAKER_05 (32:32):
Like the dock, how close were you to it?

SPEAKER_03 (32:35):
I don't I think we were away from the dock, but I
mean we were we were hundreds ofyards.

SPEAKER_05 (32:41):
I mean you're in their back pocket, you're yeah,
you're in their living room,yeah, yeah.
Yeah dang man.
Oh, it's crazy.
And then uh you you stayed inthe Navy for eight years?
Eight years, yep.
And it w your transition out ofthe Navy, because I want to talk
about what that transitionlooked like.

(33:02):
Did you know I want to get outof this to go into the FBI?
Or I didn't.
Or were you just kind of like,my time here, I feel like it's
it, I don't want to do a career,I'm gonna wrap it up, but I'm
not sure what's next.
Yeah.
So the FBI came afterwards,yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (33:16):
So so this is this is something that uh that I
learned, you know, a lot ofpeople I think these days, and I
think we've even received somesome teaching that I don't think
I'd agree with, that that theLord is gonna somehow kind of
give you the bright shininglight of what you're supposed to
do next all the time, right?
And um, you know, and people oneof the things that comes out of

(33:41):
that is that sometimes, youknow, people get so bound up in
their decision making thatthey're they're so afraid to do
something that that they thinkmight violate the the will of
the Lord that they end up makingno decision, right?
Analysis paralysis, yes, is whatwe call that.
Yes.
And so what what I think thatthat that mindset, that

(34:02):
thinking, uh fails to take intoaccount is that that they
believe in the sovereignty ofGod over all things, right?
The earth, creation, otherpeople, you know, friends,
enemies, whatever, but they failto take into account that God is
also sovereign over you and yourdecisions.
And so if there's an A or B youknow decision to be made, if we

(34:26):
go before Him in um in faith andin honoring Him, asking Him,
recognizing and desiring to befaithful to Him, He's He's
sovereign over us, whether we dothat or or not, right?
And so those paths uh are if Hechooses to alter them, he will

(34:49):
simply alter them, right?
And that's really what happenedto me is that I wanted, I knew I
didn't want to stay, there was awhole list of reasons I didn't
want to stay in the submarineservice.
So I actually tried to lateraltransfer to naval intelligence.
Because it's like, all right,I'll take, I'll take the warfare
qualification experience andunderstanding that I have, and
I'll take it to the Intel sideof things and the intelligence

(35:10):
side of things.
They love warfare-qualifiedpeople coming over because they
they have an understanding ofwhat type of intelligence is
useful on the other end and whattype isn't.
And so I actually tried tolateral transfer twice, and the
naval intelligence crew, youknow, section was like, yeah,
absolutely, we want you.
The submarine side said, uh,nope, we have uh we have spent
too much money training you andyou don't get to move over

(35:32):
there.
I said, Well, but I'm gonna getout anyway, right?
So I'm leaving the submarineservice for the reasons I'm
leaving, and it's either leavethe Navy or take what I've
learned and and whatever I'veaccomplished and go over to the
Intel side and be of servicethere.
And they had the rules, and Isaid, All right.
So um I actually I was sittingaround funny how many decisions

(35:54):
are made around a fire.
I was sitting around a fire backat back in my dad's house, and
we had been married and and umkids um we had one at the time.
And when did y'all when did youmeet your wife?
When did you meet Brenda?
So we met in May of May?

(36:15):
May of ninety seven.

SPEAKER_05 (36:16):
So you were Navy then, not college just was in
the Navy.

SPEAKER_03 (36:19):
Correct.
Yeah, so I I graduated subschooland was assigned to Norfolk
Naval Base.
Okay.
She had been there for severalyears already.

SPEAKER_05 (36:26):
You're a Virginia girl.
But you were just there lookingfor clay.
You were looking for your knotand shining armor.

SPEAKER_03 (36:35):
Unfortunately, she got me.
Um, but yeah, we met, we met uhat uh First Baptist um Norfolk.
Okay, huge, at the time they hadthis huge singles group, and um
and they would meet, you know,meet on Sunday morning, we break
up in different Sunday schoolgroups, and then every Sunday
afternoon we go out to 80thStreet there at Virginia Beach,

(36:56):
we play volleyball, and we'd endup at people's apartments
hanging out and just just doingwhatever we were doing, you
know.
Okay.
And so that's how we met.

SPEAKER_05 (37:03):
So by this point then, y'all been married, had a
kid, had your first.

SPEAKER_03 (37:07):
Yeah, and so I'm sitting there and my dad's
asking me, he's like, Hey, whatso what do you what do you
think?
What's what's your plans?
I said, I mean, I don't know.
And uh, you know, kind of gothim caught up on everything.
And he's like, Well, what do youwhat type of stuff do you want
to do?
And so, you know, remember, I'mI'm sort of the redneck kid who
loves being in the woods andrunning to chainsaw and hunting

(37:29):
and all that kind of stuff, butalso I had this sort of academic
side to me, so I uh kind of hada foot in both worlds.
And um so he started asking somequestions.
He's like, Well, what you knowwhat it sounds like because I
wanted to use my my hands and mybody and my mind.
They're gonna do both.
And um he asked me, he's like,Well, it almost sounds like you

(37:53):
you would be a fit for lawenforcement.
And I told him, I said, I, youknow, I don't, I don't want to,
I just don't want to do, I don'twant to chase drunks and rights
tickets and all that stuff.
I'm not not at all dogging that.
Obviously, my my dad, you know,faithful service there, my
grandfather was saying.
You just don't want to do it.
It's just it just what I wasn'twhat I wanted to do.

(38:13):
And he's like, no, no, no, I'mnot talking about that.
He's like, I'm talking aboutfederal law enforcement, you
know, whether it's DEA or ATF oryou know, CBP or FBI or
whatever.
And uh so I uh I said, well, I Idon't know.
I mean, I've not really evenlooked into it all that much.
And I I had heard his storiesgrowing up of working with FBI,
working with ATF and DEA andeverybody else.

(38:36):
I I'd heard his story.
So I knew generally what theydid, but I didn't, I just didn't
really fully understand.
And so anyway, went through kindof a bunch of research at the
time and figured out that thatbased on what the FBI did, all
its sort of broad authorities,that that was something I I
would be interested in.
And so applied, um, and they hadat the time, and I think it's

(39:00):
it's different now, but it's alittle bit similar.
You apply and you go throughthis phase one, phase two kind
of process.
And phase one was at the time awritten test, and then your
actual application.
Who are you, what have you done,all that kind of stuff.
And so the FBI all almostalways, especially for agents,
wants you to come to the tablehaving already done something.

(39:22):
They want you to bring some kindof skill, some kind of
experience to the Bureau tobetter the Bureau.
And so um, you know, I had donethat, I'd been I'd been in the
Navy, been an officer in theNavy, so brought that, applied,
uh, and um I was scheduled totake my phase one test, and then

(39:43):
a hiring freeze hit.
And this was in I don't know, itwas late summer, I think it was,
something like that, of 01.
Well, September rolls around,September 11th happens, right?
September 11th, 2001.
I we were actually in Arkansasat the time.
We we haul back, you know, forfor various responsibilities

(40:06):
that that happened for that.
Uh and then December 2001 rollsaround, and the FBI now has kind
of done its initialinvestigation.
There's a whole lot of stuffstill left to do, but they start
pulling back and they starthiring.
The hiring machine happens.
And um, so December I get acall.

(40:29):
Hey, you've been deemed mostcompetitive, is one of the kind
of categories they had at thetime.
And uh, we want you to come inand uh, you know, continue on
with the process.
Yep, I want to do that.
So over the next several months,I go through phase one and phase
two.
And if anybody out there isfamiliar with the FBI's hiring
process, that is lightning fast.

(40:51):
I mean, like there are peoplethat it takes years to get
through this process.
Um, but this is the post-9-11.
You know, I was a 9-11 baby, youknow, as uh as uh as the FBI
goes.
And so um make it through theprocess, and I'm in the academy
by August.
Dang.
And so Allison, right, is bornin June.

(41:12):
Yep.
So Allison, my daughter, fromshe's a swog, she's a swole vet.
Yes, she is, yes, she is.
Um I get um, you know, we shehad just been born a couple of
months before, actually a monthand a half before.
We go out to move everybody outto Tucson, sell the house, all
that kind of stuff.
I get out of the Navy July 31st,and I am homeless and jobless,

(41:36):
but driving across the countryto get to Tucson, which is where
her parents, uh Brenda's parentswere, and they were gonna stay
there while I was in theacademy.
And I didn't even have my letteryet.
I I'm pretty sure it was coming,but I didn't have it in hand.
So sure enough, I got it.
I show up at the academy uhAugust 11th of 2002, and um at

(41:59):
kind of the FBI career begins.

SPEAKER_05 (42:01):
And so what I'd like to talk about, and by the way,
we've already Clay's alreadyagreed we're gonna do future
episodes with Clay and probablyget some of his family on.
Um his daughter Allison uhserved at Slow for quite a while
and been super faithful.
And but uh what I want to talkabout is it what I've learned in

(42:24):
over the years of talking toyou, I didn't realize how
involved the FBI was in GWAT.
So in the global war on terror,you I'd like to talk about the
the your career pretty earlytook you on deployments in the
special operations community asan FBI agent.

(42:46):
And those stories are awesome.
Those stories are awesome.
And so you briefly, you gave methe short version last night,
and I and I think I got it.
If you could talk about how wasit that you as an FBI agent
ended up deploying with devgroup and well, ended up
deploying with elite specialoperations units that we don't

(43:07):
have to name from the militaryside, because you're no longer
military, you're federal lawenforcement, but you're
deploying to work alongside ofspecial operations.

SPEAKER_03 (43:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (43:18):
And why was that?
And that I thought that wassuper interesting.

SPEAKER_03 (43:22):
Yeah, and and and obviously there's there's some
of it that you know can't betalked about, but but broadly,
we can talk about the the sortof the broad um involvement.
So in essence, 9-11 was a was agame changer for for any of you
know a hundred differentreasons.
But one of it was, or one of thereasons was we, the US

(43:46):
government, big we, were nowfacing an enemy that was not uh
that was not a nation state,right?
So there was there was not adeclaration of war from one
nation state onto another nationstate.
You're talking about non-stateactors who have no borders, they

(44:08):
have no affiliation, they haveno nothing.
They they've committedthemselves to obviously Al-Qaeda
at the time, and then that youknow morphs into a lot of
different versions of theAl-Qaeda, you've got Chechens
and then you've got Arabs.

SPEAKER_05 (44:21):
Yes.
It is just very diverse.

SPEAKER_03 (44:23):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so you bring in, you know,all kinds of different people.
And and the problem is that you,you know, 9-11 was obviously a
relatively small group of peoplethat affected that, but they had
this whole uh support structurebehind them who not only did

(44:43):
that, but were constantlyplanning and recruiting and uh
gaining resources and all thesedifferent things over the course
of years uh in order to affectany and all kinds of terrorist
operations.
And they had certain religiousgoals, certain political goals,
certain financial goals.
I mean, if anybody tells youthat, you know, they were uh
purely interested in religiousor or or uh you know political

(45:07):
goals, it's it's a farce.
Like they they raised money likenobody's business and um through
all kinds of different, verystandard criminal type stuff as
well.
And so um, yeah, so so the waythat that happened or the reason
that that that's important isnow you have a terrorist attack

(45:30):
inside our country perpetratedby people who are in the United
States legally, in essence, USpersons, right?
For certain, I mean that's a bigthing right now with all the Ice
RAIDs and HSI and all that kindof stuff, right?
And so that's that's a big topicright now.
But but they were in essence USpersons.
And so the the big question washow many other people are inside

(45:56):
the United States as either U.S.
citizens or US persons underunder legal definition uh that
we need to be really concernedabout, we don't know about, and
we need to, we need to, youknow, the FBI and and the
broader government needs to dosomething about.
Well, when you now have themilitary going after Al-Qaeda

(46:16):
and Afghanistan and variousplaces around the world, um what
happens if you receiveinformation while you're there,
either through an interrogationor you find it on target
somewhere or whatever, you know,collect it through various
technical means, whatever thecase is, uh, where you you
receive information that is USperson or US citizen, um the

(46:39):
source of it is them.

SPEAKER_05 (46:41):
So, okay, so for instance, uh an SF team or a
SEAL team or group from Delta,they go on target, they run an
op, they go into a compound,they get in a gunfight, and they
need to identify these peoplethat they either kill or

(47:01):
capture, and then figure out whothey are.
Do they have associations withinthe United States?
Have they been to the U.S.?
Are they people that havetraveled legally into the U.S.?
We got to figure all that outbecause we're in Afghanistan
fighting these bad guys that arethat are somehow connected.
And so now you've got an SF teamor or a group of Delta guys that

(47:23):
are like, okay, we got thisperson, we'll grab their laptop,
we'll grab here's here's acouple flip phones, um,
fingerprint at that point.
Sure.
We'll fingerprint them, and thenlet's go, but then they don't
like, okay, we got all thisstuff, but now what?
We go hand it to an FBI guythat's back at the base.
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (47:42):
So yeah, we had people, you know, who I say we,
the FBI had people who werestationed uh in Bagram, you
know, in its early days as itgrew, and then certainly out of
the embassy in Kabul um for manyof these sort of liaison type uh
responsibilities.
And so one of the programs thatthe FBI has is called the LEAGAT

(48:04):
program, legal attache.
So most everybody in the embassyis is some sort of attache, your
military attache, you know,various, you know, economics and
political and all kinds ofdifferent things.
And so uh so they were calledthe legal attache, and that was
already in existence, beenexistence for a long time,
various embassies around theworld.

(48:24):
And their main job is toessentially uh enable
investigations that arehappening from field offices and
headquarters and everything elsein the United States that have
an element in a foreign country.
And so their job is to liaisonwith uh local law enforcement,
federal law enforcement in thatintelligence community

(48:45):
organizations in that country uhin order to help facilitate all
of that.
So we had guys in Kabul, we hadguys, like I said, in Bagram and
various different places.
And so the relationship sort ofbegins by you know, they bring
back a you know a Santa Clausbag full of stuff and they dump
it on the table for the Intelguys to go through, and the
Intel guys are like, okay, whodo I attribute this phone to, or

(49:08):
this computer to or this youknow, notebook to, or whatever,
whatever it was?
Who is this guy you guyssnatched up and brought in?
What's his name?
What is you know, what are hisaffiliations, all these things.
And so it it's or or the guy'sdead.
Or the guy's dead.
And now you can't get thatinformation from him.
Sure.
So now we're collecting DNA andwe're running it through the DNA

(49:30):
uh databases and all kinds ofstuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
So it was a whole myriad ofthings.
But all of that was was verynascent in the very beginning,
right?
I mean, they were the the desirein in initially was to for you
know the various elements to gointo Afghanistan and do their
best to like cut the head off ofAl-Qaeda right out of the gate.

(49:51):
And you know, you can listen tothe stories of people who are
way closer to it than I everwas, you know, out of Torabora
and all of that kind of stuff.
You know, I'm not gonna pretendto know the details there.
Um but um but that was theinitial goal, but it turned into
a obviously a much moreprotracted uh engagement that

(50:12):
went for you know a coupledecades.
And so we got involved in thatby helping to train these guys
how to collect, how to uh youknow, pull this information in
and keep it segregated and howto how to attribute it to a
person on target if you could,um, and for a number of reasons.

(50:36):
Number one, for the intelligencevalue of it, but also were there
any follow-on investigations,right?
Because if you go through thedude's notebook or his phone or
whatever it is, and he's got ahe's got a you know a North
Carolina area code phone numberin there, why?
You know, is that just his buddywho he knew from long ago who
just happens to be in the U.S.

(50:57):
Well, you gotta answer thatquestion.
Who is he, right?
And so the military isprohibited from doing there's
certain there's a whole list andsets of rules of what they can
and they can't do and all thatkind of stuff, but there's a
line eventually that they haveto go, hey FBI, take this
because we're we've run upagainst our legal authority.
Uh and so that happened, that'swhat kind of got developed more

(51:20):
broadly in the early part.
But eventually, as we'retraining, you know, our the guys
that I knew at the time weretraining those those you know um
special ops dudes of of reallyall stripes, whether it was SF
or it was Rangers or you knowSEALs or whoever else, they were
training those guys to do that.
And eventually the guys arelike, you know what?
We are task saturated, man.

(51:42):
We only, as an SF team, forexample, maybe you got 12, maybe
you got 13 guys, and you you'vetaken down a target.
I don't I don't have people tospare to go do all this stuff.
So eventually the conversationmorphs from training us to do it
to can you guys just come out ontarget with us?

(52:03):
Right?
And as you can imagine, that wasa huge decision point for the
FBI.

SPEAKER_05 (52:07):
Because they're saying we're gonna take an
agent, he's gonna go with aDelta team, a SEAL team on an
op, on target, so that when wekill or capture people, you're
the guy then that rolls in andstarts gathering that
information from that person.

SPEAKER_03 (52:25):
Yeah, and and the reason being, you know, if
you're the if you're the specialops dude and I'm the FBI guy, we
go in and we and and and youcollect a bunch of stuff.
If that eventually comes to uh aprosecution in the United States
or in a court anywhere, you, thespecial ops guy, have to go and

(52:48):
testify.
And that's obviously we don'twant that.
We don't want that.
We don't want that, right?
So But we're good with an FBIagent going on.
That's why we exist, right?
We do stuff like that.
And and so essentially what wedid was we created a program.
And when I say we, I mean a lotof uh I walked into an already
created program, so I give givecredit to the guys that built

(53:10):
this program.
But we, the FBI, helped create aprocess where what we do all the
time, which is search warrants,we take all of that capability
and what we've learned and howto do a search warrant
efficiently and all that kind ofstuff, and then cut out all of
the fluff and be left with thereally nuts and bolts of how to

(53:31):
do it in an in order to feed theintelligence cycle.
And so that's essentially whatour role was to go out and
manage that capability with themon target.
And so, you know, uh they theywere, you know, it was their job
to do the to do the special opsstuff, and it was our job to do
this other stuff.
Um, but the the vast, vastmajority of the people that they

(53:56):
put on target with them, as youcan imagine, if you go out with
these guys, you you can't juststumble over rocks and they have
to help you all the time.

SPEAKER_05 (54:04):
You have to be able to operate with them.

SPEAKER_03 (54:05):
Yeah, you know, and and nobody's nobody's claiming
that we were doing the samething they were doing at the
level they were doing it, right?
We we had our capabilities andand and you know, they began to
pick people from the bureau whohad the right background and the
right experience and training.
And so because of because of alot of the tactical experience I
had in the background uh of theFBI, I was one of the guys

(54:28):
chosen.
I I didn't have anything superspecial or whatever.
I was just a vetted person whohad the right skills.

SPEAKER_05 (54:34):
And um because in another uh we won't cover this
today, but the next episode, Iwant to talk about your
stateside FBI career, but itthere was a lot of tactical
activity there.
I mean, you're going down,you're training with dev group
guys on CQB, you're using y'allare going down and they're
cross-training you on uh houseclearing and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 (54:54):
I mean it's uh Yeah, so they they didn't train us,
they're not they weren'tpermitted to train us, but
they're watching they wereallowed to facilitate our our
training and everything.

SPEAKER_05 (55:06):
So you're training yourselves they have you're
doing an internal training attheir facility, and then you can
compare notes and learn thingsfrom them.

SPEAKER_03 (55:12):
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, some of the timesit it it you know goes off into
personal conversations, and youjust sit down and you kind of
back of the napkin, like, hey,how would you solve this?

SPEAKER_05 (55:22):
You know, like like the um frag grenade story.
You tell that so Adam Brown, oneof my favorite books is the the
it's just the gospel story of aguy named Adam Brown.
I think the book's calledFearless, isn't it?
Fearless.
Adam Brown was a dude that waswith Dev Group, the SEAL Team
Six guy, but and he got killedin action.
But he has a really cool gospelstory because he came out of

(55:42):
drug addiction, and then it's anamazing book.
Uh, it's not a first militarybook, it's first, it's a it's a
gospel story.
And uh, but anyway, you youworked with Adam, y'all are
friends, you knew Adam, and soand he's crazy, and it comes
through in the book, but there'sa funny story.
He was nut.
There's a funny story from oneof those trainings that you told
last night sitting around thefire.

SPEAKER_03 (56:04):
Yeah, so so we were we were training in various
places, and and um Adam, again,they they were they were not
allowed to train us, and theyweren't.
Uh it was just sort of a a apartnership and a facilitation
type of thing.
And um so we were having someconversations and uh about you
know the results of because Iwas leading the team when we

(56:26):
were doing the training, and Iwas uh asking him to set up
certain things for me in the inthe house, and you know, we were
working our guys through sort ofa train-up cycle where you know,
starting simple and and growingand adding complexity to various
problem sets and everything.
And um so I asked him to set upa you know a particularly uh

(56:49):
gnarly one, like a complex one.
And I wanted to, you know, wehad been training for a long
time, and I wanted to see howthe guys were thinking, if they
could think through the problemset.
And um, because that's uh thatis unfortunately a misnomer that
a lot of guys or a lot of peoplehave that they think that uh
anybody that's in the tacticalrealm, you know, whether it's
law enforcement or military orspecial ops or whatever, you

(57:12):
know, is just a big monkey, youknow, carrying a carrying an
explosive charge or a breachingtool or you know, kick door in
and smash everything, right?
It's kind of like Hulk Smashtype stuff.
Um, you know, and are therepeople who are like that?
There are.
Uh, but a but a good tacticalperson, whether again, whether

(57:33):
civilian or military orwhatever, is is first a thinker.
Right?
You you never there's a saying,I was a breacher, and there was
a saying that you never breachan open door.
And the idea is think first,check the knob, might be open.
Oh, right?
Yeah, don't don't be stupid andgo, you know, go, you know,

(57:55):
full-blown hulk on somethingthat you can just open the door.
Um, and so, you know, a a good agood uh person in this realm uh
is a thinker first.
And so anyway, we're we're goingthrough this and we're we're
working through.
So Adam is is just kind ofacting as our uh what they call
an RSO or range safety officer,and he's just helping set things

(58:16):
up.
And so we're having someconversations.
We get done with this, the guysdo a good job, and I'm
debriefing, and I asked Adam,I'm like, hey man, did you I
know you're not you're nottraining us in anything, but I
I'd be I'd be interested to hearyour your thoughts.
Did you see anything that Imissed?
And we talked about what we didwell, what we didn't do well,
all that kind of stuff.
And uh he said, uh, well, andthis just kind of shows you the

(58:40):
difference in mindset and whythere are different groups, why
the why Dev Group or anybodyelse doesn't do law enforcement,
right?
They have their realm, we haveour realm.
And yes, there's overlap, butthey're not the same.
Um, and so um he said, he said,well, you know, that that

(59:02):
particular intersection whereyou had five threats all at
once, he said, uh, he's like,you know, what you can do is you
can pitch a frag into the firsttwo and uh grenade.
A grenade, yeah, frag grenadeinto the first two, and uh and
and that'll take away, you know,the two, those two threats, and
now you just got three to dealwith.

(59:22):
And I said, I said, Adam, um didyou just say pitch a frag
grenade?
And he said, uh he's like, Yeah,yeah.
I said, Adam, brother, we don'twe don't carry frag grenades.
And uh and he said, Oh, we gotwe got truckloads of them, you
know.

(59:43):
I'm like, no, Adam, you youdon't understand.
Uh and I said, I said, uh, Isaid, you you live in Virginia
Beach, right?
Yeah.
You watch Wavy TV 10 news,right?
Yeah.
It's a local local stationthere.
And he I said, Do you see theVirginia Beach police station?
Department blowing up houseslike right out of the gate.

(01:00:04):
And he's like, uh, no, I don't.
I was like, well, there's areason for that, man.
Like, we have the constitution.
Like, we we people there,there's the fourth amendment.
Like, I can't just go blow upsomebody's house because it's
convenient for me, right?
It makes my job a little safer,you know?

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:21):
And uh he's like, whoa, he's like, you guys, you
do CQB without frag grenades.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:28):
You see his brain frying a little bit.
And I'm like, yeah, man, like,like all law enforcement does.
Like, we we can't pitch fraggrenades in the house, houses of
you know, American people.
And uh he's like, wow, he'slike, your job's way harder than
ours.
I'm like, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
I don't I don't have to, youknow, halo in and you know worry

(01:00:50):
about the the Mongolian hordecoming across the mountain at
me, you know, if I stay toolong.
So uh yeah, I don't I don't knowthat.
But yeah, Adam, Adam was a greatdude.
He was a great dude, complicateddude, uh struggled in a lot of
ways throughout his life, um,both pre and post becoming a
believer, um, but was, you know,by all accounts uh a lover of

(01:01:16):
Jesus.
And and I mean there's storyafter story, and I know it to be
true, you know, where he'd beout doing what those guys do,
you know, in the middle of thenight, nods on, you know, super
cool.
And during the day, he'd bedistributing the shoes to the
kids, Afghan kids, that he uhhad called back to Atlantic

(01:01:36):
Shores Baptist Church where hewent in Virginia Beach and had
them send him shoes.
And so he was he was a he was aman, you know, you guys speak
about manhood and biblicalmanhood and all that kind of
stuff.
He was a man.
Uh there are videos I've seen ofhim uh that he showed me and
other people showed me that umyou know he'd be skipping down

(01:01:58):
the street with his kids.
I mean like full-blown skip,right?
Because it made his kids laugh.
He didn't give one whit that hewas this big, you know, dev
group operator or whatever, andhe had some kind of you know,
whatever to maintain.

SPEAKER_05 (01:02:16):
I think I told you I met, I won't say his name, but
the Lord recently crossed mypath with a dev group guy that
was a really close personalfriend of Adam's and was on the
op when Adam got killed, was oneof the guys that was working on
him when they're trying to.
If I remember in the book,they're trying to move him up
terraces, a lot of terraces overthere, yeah, while he's bleeding

(01:02:37):
out, and they're trying to,yeah.
And um that was a fascinatingconversation to talk to that
guy.
Um, but the thing I asked him toverify was did he have on his
Superman underwear?
And he did.
He's like, Yeah, man, we'recutting his stuff off.
He's shot up.
I think he got stitched up theside with an AK and like, yeah,

(01:02:58):
and he's got his Supermanunderwear.
I guess he'd wear those onTarget.
Yeah, Superman underwear.
It's awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
Um that book.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:06):
One of his last words, from what I understand
from talking to the guys thatwere there, um, was you know,
they they communicate over theradio of what's happening and
you know what uh what threatsneed to be dealt with for
whatever reason, and and it goesout, and one of his final words
was I got it.
And that was just his his thing.
Right.
And I mean that's just theattitude a lot of those guys is

(01:03:27):
uh they have committedthemselves to this life.
And um, you know, I mean, is youknow, I you and I talked about
this.
Uh uh, you know, I've known alot of those guys, and and at
the end of the day, you know, wewe unfortunately bec fortunately
or unfortunately, most peopledon't know people like that.
And unfortunately, what we endup seeing is just the book

(01:03:52):
versions or the movie versionsor the whatever, right?
And um and man, at the end ofthe day, they're people.
They're just people, right?
They yeah, they got skills,yeah, they can do some pretty
cool stuff, but they are people,right?
And they were pe they arepeople, like you said this
morning in your sermon, uh, thatwho will stand before God and

(01:04:13):
give an account.
The same as uh a little old ladywho lived in a tiny town in
wherever and lived her life.
The account is the same, right?
The Lord is not impressed withyour standing, right?
Even though we might be invarious things.
Um, but you know, we can talkabout today or some other time.

(01:04:34):
But there that I've had someopportunities, some unique
opportunities in the middle of afirefight to present the gospel
to people.

SPEAKER_05 (01:04:40):
And that's that's where I want to land this
episode.
Um, so yes, that's a perfectsegue.
I you saying that, it alwaysmakes me think these guys kind
of have the same aura asprofessional athletes.
Yeah, yes, there's always a lotof comparisons of that.
And you think um don't matter ifyou win Super Bowls or
championships, you're gonnastand before the Lord and give

(01:05:02):
an account for what you did withwhat he gave you.
And um and it's appointed underman wants to die.
And I believe Adam Brown's deathwas appointed, you know,
somehow, somehow that works intothe sovereign hand of God.
He's the one that stood up, ranacross that wall, got in that
tree or whatever, trying to dealwith the threat.
No, and there's a good chanceI'm gonna ready to get shot.

(01:05:22):
And he just went.
But at the end of the day, hestands before the Lord under the
blood of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:27):
So there are a number of guys that I I never I
didn't know them.
I knew I knew guys that werearound them, but there are guys
online right now, um, some ofthe former dev group guys that
are, you know, kind of doingsome of the podcast stuff, um,
who are now believers because ofAdam.
Wow.

SPEAKER_05 (01:05:44):
Wow.
Yeah, so let's let's shift intothat.
Let's talk about that.
Like, because you know, we'refirst and foremost a podcast
about the Bible, gospel stories.
I mean, you know NSR, you knowSWO.
You're as you and your familyare as relationally invested in
this ministry as anybody.

(01:06:04):
You have a daughter that wementioned earlier, Allison,
who's served faithfully here,not just at SWO, but in our
Pinwell Tutoring program, hasbeen really deep into some
situations and there's deeppartnership.
And so I I love sitting aroundthe fire.
I know where your heart isbefore the Lord.
And so we have first this strongbrotherhood in Christ.

(01:06:26):
So then when we get around thefire, we don't always have to
talk about Jesus.
We can spend three hours of mesaying, tell another story, tell
another story.
And I do want to tell more ofthose as we have you come back.
Um and I do there's one story Iwant to end with today that that
you've told.
But before we get to that, I'dlike to shift towards how did
you use, and I mean, there wasyour work that was stateside and

(01:06:52):
your work that was downrangewhen you were deployed.
So maybe for today we go there,what you mentioned a while ago.
Talk about how you used thosesituations and moments and
relationships to just faithfullycarry the gospel, which is a
reminder that Jesus puts peoplein every line of work in every
field, and there's a remnantthat he's dispersing into the

(01:07:16):
dark places.
And so what were some of thoseexperiences like?

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:19):
Yeah.
So um, for the vast majority ofmy adult life, I have either
been the only Christian whereverI was, or or maybe one other,
you know, that that was off tothe side somewhere.
Um and it didn't take long as ayoung adult into my late 20s,

(01:07:46):
you know, to realize that um Iam not special.
I'm not here because I'mspecial.
I'm not here because the Lordlooked down and went, oh, you
know, I could really use him.
He's got all these talents,right?
Because I don't.
All right.
I'm just I'm just some redneckkid from northern Arkansas that

(01:08:06):
had a little bit of ability thatthat the Lord gave me.
I didn't develop this ability.
But at the end of the day, ourjob, right?
People always talk about sort ofwhat they what they want to
know, the hidden will of God.
What's the will of God for mylife?
What's the will of God for mylife?
Well, the will of God for yourlife is spelled out quite
clearly, right?

(01:08:27):
Love the Lord your God with allyour heart, mind, soul, and
strength.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus was very clear about that.
All the rest of the law andprophets hang on those those
two.
And so that is God's will foryour life.
The hidden part is the hiddenpart.
Roll with it, right?
The Lord is sovereign, he willdirect your paths.

(01:08:49):
And um I I began to learn thatmore and more the older I got.
And and the when you know, mytime in the Navy, obviously,
you're down there on a sub andyou're in this, you know, tin
can for you know maybe a coupleof months or 30 days or whatever
it is, and there is opportunity.

(01:09:10):
You want to talk about peoplewatching you?
No, you don't get watched anycloser than living with people.
Literally, you know, I'msleeping, you know, beside guys,
and they're two feet from me,right?
And and we're eating together,we're working together, and
we're sleeping together, andwe're hanging out in a wardroom
and watching movies or talkingor whatever, you know.
And um and so the idea or theunder not the idea, but the

(01:09:39):
understanding grew over timethat my job is not to be a naval
officer.
My job is not to be uh an FBIagent.
Yeah, those are the things thatthat that the Lord has placed me
in.
Got it.
My job is to glorify Christhere, right?
And to and to have conversationsand do what I can to bring them

(01:10:04):
to Christ as well, right?
The Lord saves, it is his it heis sovereign over salvation just
like he's sovereign over theuniverse.
Uh, but it is my job bycommandment of the Master
Himself that I am to speak thename of Christ and glorify him
in everything and in every way.
And so, you know, did I do thatperfectly or effectively?

(01:10:26):
Not a chance, not a chance.
Blew so many opportunities, youknow.
Um but all the while the Lordwas faithful in my weakness, in
my failings.
And he will bring who he willbring to his salvation.
But but my role was to live in away first and foremost that

(01:10:49):
honored him and to proclaim hisname um without shame, right?
You're talking about thismorning.
Um and so that was that wasreally where I where where you
know if anybody knew me acrossthose times, uh and at this
point in my life, I honestlydon't care so much that they

(01:11:10):
think that I was good at this orthat or the other.
Of course, I want to do th dothe job in a way that honors the
Lord, of course.
But at the really what I want toknow is is did I did I honor the
Lord in front of them?
Right.
And so that kind of came about,you know, talking about the
story that you that you uhreferenced.

(01:11:31):
That came about uh and reallykind of came to a head in a
situation that I there's no wayyou could predict it, right?
I'm literally sitting in, youcan look it up.
So if you you know on YouTube,the Marines go into Marja in
Afghanistan, the Hellmanprovince of Afghanistan, in uh,
I forget what month it was,maybe August or September,

(01:11:52):
something like that of 09.
Well, we had been there, we Iwas attached to to a special ops
element.
We had been there, uh, therewere three different special ops
groups, four actually specialops groups that were kind of
came together with a whole bunchof different assets, and we went
into a place uh that hadn't beengone into in a long time.

(01:12:14):
And it was an IED factory, itwas it was uh a money uh
generating place for opium andheroin and all kinds of stuff.
And so we spent five days uhbasically fighting it out there.
Um and during one of those days,um, there were guys that I had

(01:12:34):
been talking to on the team thatI was embedded with, and um, you
know, just trying to be faithfuland and and live in front of
them, you know, and there werethings that they were doing uh
that I needed to say, amen, I'ma part of that, you know, as far
as just sort of faithfulness toyour wife, various different
things.

(01:12:55):
And so um that carried weight,and people began to notice
things that that I didn't evenreally know they were noticing.
And uh this kind of came to ahead with one of the guys um
where I'm sitting in the middleof this fight.
It's a gunfight.
This is a gunfight.
And I mean in the middle of thisin the middle of a gunfight.

(01:13:18):
Yeah, I mean, there's we'regetting shot at with AKs and
PKM.

SPEAKER_05 (01:13:22):
We're gonna talk about Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:23):
And and uh, you know, there were several RPGs
that went over.
There was some there was somemortar fire and some different
things, you know, and um and andand this story is not about the
Huya.
The Huyah is irrelevant.
Right, right.
And so um It's not irrelevant,it's pretty cool.
But but I know what you'resaying.
Well, but it I mean it hassomething to do with the story

(01:13:44):
because I'm sitting theretalking to him, and he is, I
mean, he is the stereotypicalimage of what you would think of
of you know some Studley specialops dude.
I mean, he's got arms the sizeof a cannon, you know, and
they're taste added up to hisneck, big full-blown man beard
down to the middle of his chest,you know, and he is a he is a

(01:14:06):
you know, he's a dude.
Yeah, I mean, as as the Britsmight stay, he say, he is a
right stud.
And um, so we're talking, and wehad been talking, and um, you
know, I was I was really kind ofcoming to the culmination and
said, hey man, what if if you ifyou and I died right now, and I

(01:14:28):
was able to point to to an RPGtrail that went right over our
heads.
Yeah, I'm not right over, Idon't make it sound more.
You can see it though.
Well, I can see it.
And I was able to point to thatand say, that RPG right there,
it lands right in the middle ofus, and it kills both of us
instantly.
You don't even get anopportunity to think.
Do you meet the Lord of theuniverse um as his friend, as

(01:14:54):
his child, or as his enemy?
What is it?
Because because you don't knowthe day of your death, right?
And as you mentioned earlier,it's appointed a man wants to
die and then judgment.
And so, so what is what is yourstanding before the Lord?
And so it was it was that kindof stuff, and it by that time in

(01:15:16):
my life I'd I'd I'd reallyfully, fully, more fully
realized I was here to glorifythe Lord.
I wasn't here to do stuff, evenif it was cool guy stuff and it
was fun, it was awesome, and allthat kind of stuff, which you
know, there were a lot that wasa lot of good things.
But at the end of the day, I'mnot gonna stand before the Lord

(01:15:37):
and He's gonna ask me, Hey, sotell me about all the cool
things you did as an FBI agent,right?
My life doesn't impress him inthe slightest.
Uh my job is did I live a lifethat glorified him and obeyed
his commands?
Right, Jesus said, If you loveme, you will obey my commands.
And and did I do that, right?
And so that that particular timetalking to him, and he

(01:16:00):
eventually becomes a believer,right?
And so um, you know, that thatwas that was of all the stuff uh
that happened in Afghanistan,uh, that is the part I'm most
happy about.
Yeah, you know, and and youknow, and at the end of the day,
I mean anybody listening to thisor whatever, honestly, it man,

(01:16:21):
it doesn't matter what job youhave or what your profession is
and everything, we got to getaway from this world's garbage
uh message that says you arethis and you're only this,
right?
But this guy, this guy, we'regonna raise him up on a
pedestal, or he's whatever,right?
Fill in the blank.

(01:16:43):
And we we we fail to understandagain, as you mentioned this
morning, you addressed a lot ofthis stuff, and a lot of this
stuff comes out of Romans,obviously, and Romans eight is
really sort of a pinnacle ofthat.
But you know, you move intoRomans 9 and he and and Paul
starts asking the question,you're like, Who are you to
question to question the Lord?

(01:17:03):
Right?
And and and he's he's he'sreferencing the fact that that
uh whatever the Lord values,that's what we're to value.
Right?
And and you know, the Biblemany, many times throughout
scripture talks about himraising up kings and taking them

(01:17:23):
down, raising up nations andtaking them down.
They're they are they're raisedup and they're taken down like
he puts on a robe.
It's nothing.
It's nothing.
Um, and so really gaining abetter and better, and obviously
I'm still like everybody else,I'm still scratching and clawing
to understand, but gaining abetter understanding of the

(01:17:46):
sovereignty and the overarchingmagnificence of the great God
that we serve.
Yeah, buddy.
Um takes a lot of that stuffthat people elevate and turn
into really super cool guysstuff.
And hey man, I mean, you hearsome of the stories from these
guys, and they're super cool.
Like they do some crazy stuff.

(01:18:07):
But at the end of the day,they're just they're people.
They're people, they're peoplewho need the Lord, need
salvation, uh, in the exact sameway as every single other person
who has ever lived on the faceof this planet.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:20):
Man, that's good.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:22):
I want to stop right there, but I want a bonus story.
So the one story you told abouta certain group of operators who
will be unnamed, um, and acertain group of tier one
helicopter pilots who will beunnamed doing those hostage
extract uh maneuvers out of acar.

(01:18:45):
Can you tell that?

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:46):
Yeah, it's it, you know, it's it's not my story,
it's a buddy of mine's story.
Um, but these are guys youworked alongside of as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And uh so so they were they weredoing some some you know some
different stuff together and uhuh this is years ago now.
And um, you know, there they'reany number of of problem sets

(01:19:09):
that you have to address and beplanned for and ready for, you
know, and then there's there'sthings that you just have to
make decisions on the fly about,um, because you can't plan for
everything.
Um and so that's why they pickthinkers, you know.
But anyway, so so they weredoing uh some some hostage
rescue type training.
Um and the particular scenariois you know, if you've got uh a

(01:19:32):
hostage being driven down theroad um in a car, how do you
engage that car with filled withhostage takers and a hostage,
right?
Because if it's just bad guys,you can you can you know eat it
up with a machine gun, you know,uh one of those um um Dylan mini

(01:19:55):
arrow, you know, cannons andeverything, just chew the thing
to pieces if it's just a bunchof bad guys, launch a missile at
it.
I mean, there's a lot ofdifferent things the military
has and it's it's arsenal.
Um but if you got a hostage inthere, you can't do that, right?
Those things, those things areoff the table.
How do you then rescue thishostage and not get a bunch of
operators shot, and mostimportantly, not get your get

(01:20:17):
your hostage shot or or blown upor whatever else.
And so anyway, they uh they puthim, he was an FBI guy, they put
him as the hostage.
And he was in the back middlekind of seat of this vehicle
that they were in.
And uh so they had dudes thatwere in some little birds, I
think it were little birds atthe time.
Um, and uh they would fly above,right?

(01:20:41):
Because you can't fly down lowbecause you'd be seen, and then
and then you know, now yourhostage has a potential of being
hurt or killed.
And so they they like flew abovethis thing and essentially just
nosed those little birdsstraight over and dropped down.
And, you know, one would be onthe side, one would be, you

(01:21:02):
know, behind, and all thesedifferent things.
And by the time the first thinganybody knew is that uh little
little semination paint pellets,you know, that you shoot in
training, are hitting the sideof the driver's window, taking
him out, and then the guy in thefront as well.
So these guys are notionallykilled.

SPEAKER_05 (01:21:22):
From a helicopter, from a little bird.

SPEAKER_03 (01:21:24):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, these guys, look, asmuch as I just said that, you
know, they'll stand before Godand God won't be oppressed.
I'm impressed.
I'm impressed.
Right.
They do some, they do pretty,pretty, pretty wicked stuff.
And um, but anyway, you know,before anybody knows anything,
these guys are notionallykilled.
And so the vehicle, you know,rolls to a stop.

(01:21:48):
And and but at the same time,there's another bird that drops
down right behind.
Dudes jump off on the back ofthe vehicle, all the back glass
explodes all at once.
And my buddy said, I didn't knowwhat was happening, I just kind
of felt the car jolt andeverything.
And he said, All the glassaround me explodes.
And he said, Before I knew it, Iwas getting yoked right out of

(01:22:10):
the back windshield, thrown on ahelicopter, and we were off.
And he said, It happened sofast, I just I didn't even know
what to think.
And uh he said, he said, Ilooked at one of the dudes on on
the helicopter, one of the guysthat grabbed me and threw me in,
one of the operators.
And the guy looked at him and hesaid, We're pretty good at this.

SPEAKER_05 (01:22:32):
So anyway, it's uh it's you know that, ladies and
gentlemen, is why we celebrateFreedom Friday at SWO, which is
what today is, and that's why wesay America.
It's good, it's good to be anAmerican.
Listen, I'm proud to be anAmerican.
I'm thankful that a sovereignGod made me an American, but I'm

(01:22:55):
proud of it.
I ain't no shame.
I'm a I'm I'm proud and I'm I'mthankful.
Um so the next time we we gettogether, I've got notes already
made.
I really want to get into someof the psychological side of
some stuff we've talked abouteven last night with the bell
curve of of of fear and responseand and because I think there's

(01:23:15):
some cool spiritual applicationto that.
Yeah, for sure.
For now, what I'd like to do isgo eat.
I'm gonna buy lunch.
I'm all about eating.
I'm hungry.
And uh man, I'm so glad you cameon here.
When I asked Allison probably amonth ago, hey, when when your
folks are down, you think yourdad'll let me interview him for
NSR?
She said, Oh yeah, absolutely.
Clay is a master storyteller,and I I've set for hours and I

(01:23:36):
love I'm a storyteller, and sobut it is rare that I get
together with someone and Idon't tell stories, I just
listen.
You're one of the guys, youHank, Hank Parker Jr., who you
know Hank tells the beststories.
Hank's a phenomenal storyteller,and he's been on NSR.
But you but that's two peoplethat when I get together with
y'all, and I just three or fourother guys in my life that I'm

(01:23:59):
just like, uh, I'm gonna shut upand listen.
And it is so enjoyable.
Um, but most important, you're abrother in Christ.
And yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 (01:24:06):
I'm just grateful.
So well, hopefully next timewe'll also be able to talk a
little bit about um, you know,maybe have Brenda and Allison on
talking about because there's awhole other side of this, right?
Yeah, that's what I want to do.
Yes, there's a whole there's awhole family side of this that
that is that is a lot, you know.
Everybody gets the the glam andthe glory, and they get books
written about them and they geton pod pack podcasts and all

(01:24:27):
that jazz.
Um, but there is there is aharder job.

SPEAKER_05 (01:24:32):
Yes.
Yeah.
My little has always said thepeople she's most impressed with
is the wives of men who deploy,who stay faithful, who stay in
the fight spiritually.
And I do I I want to have themon because I just recently we've
got an episode that we recentlyrecorded and filmed.
Um I don't know which episodehere will come out first, but of

(01:24:56):
of a first responder and and thecrisis in their marriage, and
that wife's faithfulness is whatsaved that marriage.
And um it shouldn't have it shesaved it.
I mean, God through her herfaithfulness to the Lord drove
her faithfulness to her husband.
And see, I definitely want tohighlight that because I think I
think that's a message thatdoesn't get shared because all

(01:25:17):
those guys that get that getheroized and glorified, and we
they are heroes, we shouldcelebrate them, but almost to a
man, they've been throughdivorce, sometimes multiple
divorces, marriages don't last,families disintegrate because of
what this job demands.
And in order for it to succeed,it takes a a wife who is

(01:25:37):
committed to the gospel and tothe the sacred covenant of
marriage, as well as a husbandwho is.
So yes, I want to do that.
Absolutely.
Uh, this Lord will and if if Godtarries and we, you know, the
Bible says, don't say we'regonna do this, we're gonna do
that.
Say if the Lord wills, we will.
If the Lord wills, uh allows usto be here and healthy, this
will be the first of many andmultiple uh episodes we'll have

(01:26:00):
you on.
So we'll have them on.
It'll be awesome.
So all right, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:26:06):
Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required.
Please take a moment tosubscribe and leave a rating.
It really helps.
Visit us at swoutfitters.com tosee all of our programming and
resources.
And we'll see you next week onNo Sanity Required.

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Staying Faithful in the FBI | Interview with Clay Hicks

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Staying Faithful in the FBI | Interview with Clay Hicks