#93 Colin Boyle - US Army Infantryman & Combat Veteran

Colin Boyle is an Infantryman in the US Army with 17 years of experience and a combat tour to Afghanistan and multiple rotations around the globe. He was born in Tazewell, VA and settled in the suburbs just outside Richmond, VA where he spent most of his time as a child and young adult. He has held many jobs, from a dishwasher at iHop to a platoon sergeant in the Army. Colin is married to his wife Meghan, and they have one son, Braxton, and two dogs, Lilly and Goose and live in Temple, TX.

🫡 My Why: I’ve seen the cost of poor leadership — how it can destroy morale, break trust, and in the worst cases, lead to lives lost, including through suicide. That’s why I’ve committed my life to helping others lead with purpose. Through Tales of Leadership, I share real stories and actionable insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons.

👉🏽Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/talesofleadership

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Tales of Leadership podcast.
This podcast is for leaders atany phase on their leadership
journey to become a morepurposeful and accountable
leader what I like to call a pal.
Join me on our journey togethertowards transformational
leadership.
All right, team, welcome backto the Tales of Leadership

(00:22):
podcast.
I'm your host, josh McMillian.
I'm an active duty Army officer, I am an Army leadership coach
and I am the founder ofMcMillian Leadership Coaching,
and I am on a mission to createa better leader, what I like to
call a purposeful, accountableleader.
My vision is to impact 1million lives by 2032, and I

(00:43):
plan to do that by sharingtransformational stories and
skills.
And then, on today's episode,I'm bringing you a
transformational leader.
I'm bringing you a purposeful,accountable leader Colin Boyle.
He is someone that I've knownhas been a part of my life now
for probably going on 14 years.

(01:04):
He is active duty still.
He's an infantryman.
He's been in the military for17 years, but he's been someone
who has been really instrumentalin my growth.
He was a team leader when I wasa platoon leader in the same
platoon in Afghanistan one ofthe most pivotal points, at

(01:25):
least in my career, of making me, forging me, shaping me into
the leader that I am today andwe kind of just go through that
journey together and honestly,this is just another reason that
I love podcasting.
I get to reconnect with, Iconsider good friends, and it's
humbling just to be able to gothrough and honor those stories

(01:48):
that we've shared together andhonor those that we've lost
together.
And Colin's a phenomenal leader, as always.
Stay to the end and I'm goingto give you what I believe my
top three takeaways from thisepisode is.
But let's go ahead and bringColin onto the show.
Colin Josh.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Welcome to the Tales of Leadership podcast.
Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, man, I know we got a chance to catch up before
and then several phone calls,but I love doing podcasting,
especially with people that I'vehad the opportunity and the
honor to serve with, and ifyou're getting a chance to see
this, we're wearing our fancynew medals.
If you want to go over thatreal quick, just so everyone

(02:34):
knows and congratulations by theway.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Thank you same.
So the Order of St Maurice is aclub for infantrymen past
present who have significantcontributions to the infantry
past present who havesignificant contributions to the
infantry, and a member has tonominate you.
In a board down at Fort Moore,georgia, at the National
Infantry Museum where all that'sheadquartered, they read
through your bio and they voteon whether or not you should be

(02:57):
inducted into the order.
And then it goes from there.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
It's a good organization.
Yeah, I remember when I gotnominated for that after my
second company command, it waslike it was an absolute honor.
I feel like I didn't do enoughto to earn it, but it was an
honor to receive it.
Same, all right.
So let's jump right in.
Dude, take the time to justintroduce yourself.
Who whoin?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
boyle, okay, well, um , a platoon sergeant in infantry
right now.
I grew up in virginia, uh, hadan older sister, small family,
huge, huge extended familythough, and I've been in the
army for 17 years.
Uh, been all over the country,all over the world.
One combat deployment, a couplerotations, and you know?
Just seeing where the futuretakes me from here.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, so you and I just for anyone who gets a
chance to listen to this we'veknown each other.
I think now what going on?
14 years, about 14 years.
I've had the honor to servewith you when I was a platoon
leader in Afghanistan and youwere one of my team leaders and

(04:13):
I knew when I went to theplatoon you were someone that I
was going to get along with,because we had the same humor.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh yeah, we clicked we have a sense of humor.
It's funny.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
So 17 years in the Army, dude, that's crazy to
think about.
How fast time has flown.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
What do you think about that?
I never thought I would be inthis long.
I mean, when I joined, I Ijoined for you know obvious
reasons.
It was uh, not too long after9-11, a few years after, and, uh
, as part of that generation,and you know, I joined just to
serve, like my grandfathers did,and I mean I just kept going
from there.
I didn't have anything going onin the civilian world that was
encouraging me to get out, soevery time I was up for

(04:52):
re-enlistment, I just keptsigning back up.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, it's.
It's crazy how, how thathappens, like when, when we're
in the, the, the military, wealways find ourselves like
getting re-enlisting, like I, Isee all, I see all of my buddies
who are enlisted finding a wayback in something.
I'm done, I'm going to get out,and then the re-enlistment

(05:17):
comes back to but hey, do youwant to stay in just a little
bit longer, another four years,another four years?

Speaker 2 (05:23):
but now you're in death, right?
Yeah, I made it to 16 yearsbefore I was in death dude.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's amazing man.
I'm glad that you chose to stayin, because I know you're a
phenomenal leader and I know thesoldiers that you've had an
opportunity to lead.
It probably would say the exactsame thing, and you're only
going to continue to be able tolead more soldiers after this,
because the next is you're goingto be a first sergeant one day,

(05:49):
which is absolutely crazy, andwhen that happens, I want to
come to your change ofresponsibility.
I don't care where it is, I'llfind a way to get there.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Okay, I'll wear my Thunder Kitty tab.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
So, before we jump into kind of your story, take
the time to define leadership.
I love having everyone on thisshow define it in terms of how
they see leadership.
But you've spent the militaryfor 17 years.
You've been groomed throughthat process, We've been on the
same deployment so we've had alot of shared experiences.
How do you define leadership inyour terms.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
I was trying to think about that going through the
questions that we were going totalk about, and I don't like the
doctrinal answers.
I don't like the black andwhite answers.
To me, leadership is like beingable to humble yourself and to
get down and get dirty with yourmen and to constantly be
searching to better yourself.

(06:46):
And no matter what that is itcould be, you know, the most
mundane thing, or it could bethe toughest challenge of your
career.
Um, just every day trying to dosomething better.
It'd be a positive influence onpeople.
Yeah, that's the answer, man.
I've had tons of great and afew bad leaders.
Not, uh, my fair share havebeen better than worse, but you

(07:08):
learn something with each onethat you have an interaction
with, and that's something Ilearned from my first team
leader in the army.
He was like you're always goingto find something bad in
somebody, but try to take alittle piece of each leader that
you have with you going forwardand then incorporate that into
your leadership.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
You know, one of the best leaders that I've had that
has left a major mark on how Ilead, is Kearns.
Oh my God, yeah, I don't want toget into it yet because we'll
get into it, but he was someonethat I have really tried to
emulate, because when I cameinto that leadership role, he

(07:44):
was the exact right person for avery immature first lieutenant
that was getting ready to takeover a platoon that was very war
wary at that point.
Dude, I don't want to jump intothat story yet.
So what drove you in to join inthe military?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
What motivated you to take the oath, join in the
military.
What motivated you to, well,take the oath?
My, I have a generational gapin military service, but my
grandfathers were both in worldwar ii.
Um, they were in the army aircorps.
One was a balter gunner b-17and the other was a pilot for a
b-24.
So I had a lot, you know,encouraging me from them to just

(08:22):
continue that service.
Honestly, I was at kind of aweird point in life.
I had a long period of, like mylater teenage years, of doing a
lot of stupid stuff and gettingin trouble.
And I actually went to amilitary school in Virginia
Beach for six months where theytake a lot of troubled youth and
they give them like a littletwo week boot camp and then you

(08:43):
can get your GED.
And, you know, after you getyour GED you go into community
service.
But you know, you live inbarracks, you press your uniform
, you know the drip, dry or, uh,stapler starch, you know, hang
them in the shower and just soakthem and then iron them where
you like, cut yourself with them.
So I had my first, like youknow, introduction to military
life there and I excelledphenomenally once I accepted it.

(09:06):
But I got back out and I gotback into the same group of
friends that were still, youknow, just young, doing whatever
they wanted to do to have funat the time, and, yeah, it was
taking me back down that pathand I was in this weird like
niche of vietnam.
I was just I couldn't getenough, uh, vietnam material in
my hands and I read book.
It's actually this one righthere.
It's called Secret Commandos byJohn Plaster and it goes over

(09:31):
the MACV SOG unit in Vietnam,for this, the first special
forces group that ever wascreated, and just the amount of
stress and how much those menwere able to accomplish just
kind of gave me that, like youknow, ignition that fire to to
finally decide, you know, yeah,this is what I want to do do.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
I think that that is one of the things that I miss at
least now being in acquisitionsand not in the infantry anymore
directly is being around thosepeople who are filled with that
fire, the ones that will gotowards the channel the sounds
of gunfire and will chase hardthings, move to the points of
friction.
When you're around those typesof people, the exact reason of

(10:16):
why you joined, that is like oneof the best feelings in the
world and I think that's why,like you and I right, we we've
been separated for 14 years.
I don't think I've seen yousince probably 2014 10 years.
That's when I left jblm but Icould talk to you like I just
saw you yesterday, because we'vewe've shared some similar

(10:38):
experiences and we have thatsame mentality yeah, mean you
picked up the phone and pickedit up like we had just seen each
other last week.
Yeah, so you joined the army.
Walk me through that process.
What was it like?

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Some of the challenges, just first starting
off, I again I don't know ifthere was anything specifically
that was extremely hard, becauseI was active in sports when I
was younger, so it wasn't like aphysical challenge to do I was
already into athletics so I wasalready in decent shape but
probably just like being awayfrom home for the first time and

(11:15):
not having the ability to justdo whatever you want.
That was probably the hardestthing to get used to.
But honestly, like I thinkabout it a lot, I still keep in
touch with a couple of guys Iwas in basic with and I loved it
.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
I thought it was awesome that was one of the
toughest parts, at least for me,is like being away so much, at
least for my family, cause I wasmarried when we first showed up
, like just got married.
When we showed up to four, two,three and within a month, you
know we were getting on a busand we were going over to

(11:48):
Afghanistan.
That was kind of like my reallyfirst introduction outside of
all the trade off schools thatwe went through.
One thing that you are notphysically gifted at is
wrestling.
I just want to point that out.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
I knew you were going to bring this shit up.
So for those of you you want meto go and tell them now, you
can tell them now if you want.
Those of you who don't know, wegot into it before.
We went out on a patrol inKandahar and we were just, you
know, rough housing a little bit, but our cop was nothing but

(12:23):
just a big gravel parking lotwith just giant, giant rocks,
huge, and this behemoth decideshe's going to pick me up and
slam me over his shoulder ontothe rocks.
Thank god I had body armor on,but it knocked the wind out of
me and that promptly ended thefight, because he was a bigger
man than I was at the time.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, dude, I look back at that and I'm sorry but I
won.
I'll just say that.
No, I'm joking, man, thosestories, a lot of the things
that I miss.
Man, your first unit goingthrough basic training, you're
getting ready to show up to yourfirst actual assignment.

(13:07):
What, what was that?

Speaker 2 (13:08):
So I actually was supposed to be going to the 82nd
airborne at first Um when Ienlisted I had a lot of stuff in
my background so I couldn't getan 18 x-ray contract.
I had to do airborne infantry.
And so I found out midwaythrough basic training, probably
towards the end, about the oldguard.
So wife and I were boyfriend,girlfriend at the time.

(13:29):
We've been dating for probablytwo years or so and I was kind
of, you know, nervous aboutgoing away from her and getting
love so I wanted to be close.
So I actually got my orderswitched to go to Fort Myer to
go to the old guard.
So I was close to her so it wasonly a two-hour to see her on
weekends.
So that was my first unit.
I spent four and a half yearsthere.

(13:51):
I did one year in what theycall escort platoon.
Each company has a escort whereit's just mainly the marching
platoon and then they do otherstuff like that, but then they
have a caskets platoon and afiring party and I did that.
And then I tried out for theContinental Color Guard and I
did that for three years.
So that was a really coolexperience.
I got to travel all over thecountry, actually all over the

(14:12):
world doing that.
I got lucky and got to go tothe 65th anniversary of D-Day
over in Normandy.
That's awesome.
And then the Saints Colts SuperBowl was pretty legit.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Dude I had with the last guest that I had on was
Jake Larson, the 101 year oldWorld War Two veteran, and
hearing his stories because hewas part of D-Day, he planned
D-Day and then he was the NCOICof after they took the beach at
Omaha Absolutely crazy andabsolutely inspiring Just

(14:46):
hearing his stories and I'm sureyou being able to go over there
.
I didn't know that, I didn'tknow you were in the old guard
first.
That's a prestigious unit toget into, especially right as a
young soldier.
So I'm sure that that probablyinstilled in you a high level of
a standard that was set withinthe military.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, and then going to try out for one of their
specialty platoons.
Like they have a little bitmore of a high standard to
adhere to.
Everyone does there.
Just because of the focus thatyou have in the military
district of Washington area.
You know you're doingceremonies and cameras are on
you all the time.
So everyone there has a veryhigh standard of discipline.
But to elevate a little moreand try out for something that's

(15:28):
a little harder, like the tombor drill team, stuff like that,
those guys are pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, we had the honor to do the the reef laying
this past Christmas with thefamily of where we are able to
go in there with all theadditional volunteers and you
lay a reef on each one of thetombs of the soldiers, and that
was pretty memorable for thefamily at least for my daughter,
because she was able tounderstand what that meant.

(15:54):
And we went to section 60 andthat's where all the Iraq and
most of the Afghanistancasualties were.
So we were kind of walkingthrough and I was reading them
off and that that's a that's ahumbling experience and I can't
wait to take them to the tomb,to where they do a changeover,
just just to let them experienceit.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, I'm dying to take my son.
He's never been.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Dude, next time you're in the DC area I live at
Fort Belvoir.
You're always more and welcometo bring your family and stay
here.
Absolutely, that'd be awesome.
Transitioning from the oldguard did you go straight to
Tomahawks right?

Speaker 2 (16:31):
after that yeah, I was actually supposed to go to
Wainwright.
I was in airborne school and Igot orders to go to Wainwright.
Megan being in the EFMP program, we weren't allowed to leave
the continental United States,so I was offered, I think, bliss
Hood and then Lewis, and it wasDrum Hood and Lewis and we

(16:52):
chose Lewis.
I'm not going to.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
That's a good choice.
Thanks, I was in the 10thMountain too and I love the unit
.
I absolutely love it.
But, jblm, I remember when wewere doing LDAC out there and
you have a Mount Rainier in thebackground and I was doing land
navigation and I thought like Iwas on like a vacation, like
this place is absolutelybeautiful and I want to figure

(17:16):
out a way how I can get backhere.
So I spent all my collegecareer trying to get the highest
OML that I possibly could so Icould get the duty station I
wanted, which was Fort Lewis.
I am dead set on finding a wayto coming back to this place
because it looks absolutelyawesome.
That was my whole goal.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Is it that competitive for a duty station
coming out of Bullock?

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, the order of merit list, at least for when I
was in, was totally different.
So it's based on your PT score,it's based on all the
extracurricular activities.
So I joined a fraternity.
I was only active in thatfraternity for the semester,
just so I could get the pointson my OML, so I could go get

(18:03):
infantry and I could go to, to,to Lewis.
But the biggest one was yourdegree and most of a lot of my
friends would get generalstudies degrees because they
would want to.
You know a 3.5 or a higher GPA.
And I got like a three, fourdon't, don't tell anyone uh, uh
and criminal justice, which Iguess is you know, pretty,

(18:25):
pretty good.
But then the army tricked mewhen I made major and they made
me go get a systems engineeringmaster's degree.
Dude, that was painful, Ilearned, I learned a lot.
But, uh, I spent a lot of moneyon tutoring.
I figured I learned a valuablelesson that if I put my mind to
anything I can get through it.
But it's not going to be prettywhen it comes to math.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
I feel your pain.
I had to buy the Algebra forDummies book to teach myself
math when I was trying to get awarrant to take the SIF test.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, we took a modeling class, dr Palmer I'll
never forget.
He was a Marine officer whoretired, was a professor at the
Naval Postgraduate School and wewere one of the very first
acquisition cohorts to gothrough, because they wanted to
have STEM related acquisitionofficers, which me being in

(19:20):
acquisitions now and workingwithin SOCOM.
I understand why, but at thetime we all had general studies
or philosophy degrees or justthings that didn't really matter
or were relevant.
The first time that I showed upat NPS and they said that you
were getting a systemsengineering degree, I was like

(19:42):
what is happening?
I'm supposed to be getting anMBA right now.
And everyone else in the roomhad that same shock look.
So every time we would start aclass, we would set the bar for
our professors, because there'sall these really beautiful minds
Like hey, just so you know, thehighest level math anyone has
ever had in here is algebra, andlike most of the prerequisites

(20:03):
for calculus and all theseadvanced things.
So it was like, just go slow,we don't eat crayons, but we're,
you know, we're close to thatlevel.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, but we had three or four times.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
We had a Marine instructor.
He's like I don't care ifyou're in it.
This is exactly what he said Idon't care if you're mentally
fat, you're going to learn tolose weight.
And I was like, oh, and thatwas the hardest class, but him
pushing me outside of my comfortzone, at least academically.
I learned a lot from that man,but it was challenging.

(20:33):
So going through Alpha Company,did you go straight to Alpha
Company when you showed up to423?
I did Okay, yeah, and was cap.
Was captain Crabtree your?

Speaker 2 (20:47):
company commander.
No, he was my PL.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Oh, wow, okay.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Uh, it was captain loose.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
I don't think I met him.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
No, there there's a funny story, but I can't tell it
here.
I'll have to wait till we'renot being recorded to tell you
about it.
Um, but uh, no, but no, I'mhaving trouble remembering who
the company commander was.
I can see his face, but I can'tremember his name.
I know he had a reallydifficult name to pronounce,
kind of slim guy Wolfschlegel.
Yes, brandon Wolfschlegel.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yep, that's him.
Yeah, yeah, what was that like?
Because I missed all that.
I was in like, kind of becauseI missed all that.

(21:47):
I was in Ranger School and Iwas actively getting sought
after by Colonel Harkins at theto graduate.
So I knew kind of where I wasgoing when I was in the Florida
phase, because he wanted Rangerqualified lieutenants, which I
understand.
And when, when we were there,it was, it was.
It was interesting because wewe heard what you were doing.
You were going to NTC.
You were doing all thesebuildups for this deployment

(22:08):
that was going to be prettykinetic because it was part of
the surge we were going with82nd, so there was going to be a
lot of military operations thatwere happening.
I missed all of that.
What was that experience?

Speaker 2 (22:20):
like.
What was that experience like?
For me it was very intimidatingand very nerve wracking because
, coming from the old guard, Imean you know I showed up with
an EIB but besides that that'sreally all the tactical training
that I had done at the time,because you know there's no
ranges attached to Fort Meyer.
You have to actually driveabout an hour and a half south
to go to a National Guard baseAP Hill I think they've renamed

(22:45):
it now but that's where you hadto go to do any of your training
.
So it was only a few times ayear that we actually got to go
do anything and I had madesergeant by the time.
I PCS there, and so I show upas a team leader and I've gotten
none of that experience that alot of my peers did.
So for me it was extremelyintimidating because I can
remember my first live fire, myteam live fired, and do you

(23:07):
remember First Arm Powers?
Oh yeah, I remember Powers.
I remember going through thewood line trying to lead my team
and I didn't have the faintestidea of how to properly execute
it and he just stopped it andstarted screaming at me.
I can see him walking down thetrail right now behind me and he
was just yelling what is thisabortion?
And I was just like, oh my God,I'm so embarrassed but it

(23:30):
sucked, but that was.
That was that like good driveto like try to like pick up
everything as fast as I could.
And you know, we went 10 TC.
We were doing constant trainingin the field, constant
qualifications.
That's my first experience inCalifornia and that is my only
place that I'll ever go to inCalifornia.
Uh was NTC, but that was.

(23:51):
It was really intimidating andespecially because at the time
you remember uh Sarn Hoover, theplatoon Sarn, he was at SLC the
time we went to NTC.
So the uh weaselasel, youremember Kabyav?

Speaker 1 (24:06):
He was my so crazy story for Kabyav.
I'll tell you afterwards.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
but yeah, 100%, I also have a tie-in for him.
Later, too, he was the actingplatoon sergeant while we were
at NTC, so he didn't have theopportunity to do his training.
He had to step up and be theplatoon sergeant.
So not that Hoover was aunqualified leader.
The dude was a badass, but itwas just a lot of moving parts
at the time.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Cabby, believe it or not, was my squad instructor in
Ivolic.
Like he was my squad instructorin Ivolic and when I went to
ranger school he pcs'd andhappened to pcs to the exact
same company, to the exact sameplatoon that I ended up taking
while I was in afghanistan,which was it was comical in a

(24:54):
way, because I think that atleast it helped me transition,
especially and we can get tothat um at the point at which I
transitioned to take over theplatoon, because I had a
familiar face, and not just afamiliar face but a great mentor
that was able to help walk methrough that process.
But there's something that yousaid there, dude, and I want to

(25:15):
make sure I highlight.
That is that you know you werenervous walking into that job
because you felt, at least whatI've learned through this whole
coaching and leadership deepdive, that I've really been on
this journey like an impostersyndrome and all in a way.
But when you got to that unitalpha company, which renamed
erico company 423, you raise tothe level of the other people

(25:38):
around you and when you putyourself in an environment where
you have all high performersand if you're down here then you
will naturally raise to thatlevel because that's the
standard in the organizationthat you have to get to.
And not only is that thestandard you have to get there,
because you're getting ready togo to war.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, exactly Like that's something that I miss now
.
I miss now I mean, I don't miss, you know, being in a war, but
just that drive of you know,competition and the I don't know
exactly how to say it but justthe activity and everything
that's involved in the trainingof the expectations of.
If you don't get this right me,you, whoever, we may not make

(26:20):
it back.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
I think what I, what I missed so much out of that was
the purpose behind everything,and everything was purposeful.
Leading up to that, at leastfor you guys, the deployment,
the leadership, selection andlooking back on my 16 years in
the Army, that unit, alphaCompany, was a bunch of studs,

(26:46):
um, and you know the officersthat I, that I had the honor to
work with and I'll never tellfrank foss this if he ever
watches this, he's um becausehe's like the one officer that
I've ever worked with that Iknew that he was better than me,
like he was like CaptainAmerica and all the
non-commissioned officers thatwe had on our team and the team

(27:10):
leaders that we had and theindividual soldiers that we had
was just phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
I don't think I could have asked for a better group.
We were really lucky.
We had a lot of awesome,awesome leaders on both sides
officer and enlisted.
I mean you had Francis JonesKearn on both sides officer and
enlisted.
I mean you had Francis JonesKearns just in our platoon alone
.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
You need to give Jones crap, because I've been
trying to get him on this show,Because I would love to get his
take on how he thought I was asa leader, Because one of our
interactions I don't know if Ishould say this, but I will I
was very motivated and I wasvery young, full of testosterone

(27:50):
in a combat environment.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
That's an understatement.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
And we ended up getting in an argument.
And then Captain Nason at thetime Seth had a boxing area kind
of set up and he's like youknow what, let's go put on our
gloves.
He looks at me.
He's like I'm not going tofight you, I'm going to shoot
you.
Sergeant Curtis is like whoa,let's back up, guys.
At that point I just learned tolove him because he was so

(28:21):
truthful.
There was never no fulltransparency.
He said what he meant and hemeant what he said, and I love
that about him.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
He was great to have as a squad leader when I showed
up because he was so like,honest and genuine with
everything he did and, honestly,I think he only actually ever
had to yell at me twice.
I've never seen him yell.
I remember we were on a patroland I can't remember what I was
doing, but he yelled at me topull my head out of my ass.

(28:53):
Oh, I do remember we werecutting the road from Dagobah to
the police station that we werebuilding and we all got tired
and we sat down and he got onthe radio and started screaming
at me get off my ass and do myjob dude, that mission.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
We were talking about that today.
Um, in the organization I workwith right now, one of the
platoon leaders was in um 101stand he was in afghanistan while
we were there and he heard therumors of what colonel menace
made us do and I don't careabout using his name at the time
, but clear two clicks through aminefield in front of a dozer

(29:30):
dismounted with minehounds.
Because why?
Well, I this is what I think atleast because he believed that
a dozer was more important thansoldiers lives, and I one dude.
It was rated for, I think, over500-pound blasts, multiple over
500-pound blasts.

(29:51):
And if you remember thatmission and maybe I'm like
misremembering, I remembereverything about that mission I
think we found like over 76 IEDs.
By the grace of God, no one hitan IED.
I know Kabyab almost hitseveral IEDs.
By the grace of God, no one hitan IED.
I know Cabiab almost hit severalIEDs during that and I was
sleeping on one in a pomegranatefield, like just sleeping on an

(30:14):
IED.
Do you remember Sanders?
Was that the?
Was that the deep one that wentoff and almost blew up?
Colonel Harkins, If youremember that one.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
No, he was, I think, a specialist at the time he just
got out of there, I remember,oh I remember sanders and I have
a deep respect for him, but Ican't.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah, I'm trying to remember what story here?

Speaker 2 (30:34):
well, we were.
He was part of my team becauseI had the gizmo, the little
foldable minehound that wasn'tas heavy as the other one, and
we we had found a couple of IEDsand we brought up the sappers
to come blow them up, and wewent and pulled security on this
little clot wall and then theylaid the charges and we pulled
off the wall so we could be outof the blast area and exactly

(30:58):
where we were sitting, or hadour knees, were two pressure
plates to two 40 pound jugs ofHME.
They had been there so longthat the wires had just rotted
out or something and it justdidn't go off.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Dude, I didn't know that.
Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
You know, guys from our deployment got tattoos about
that mission, right?
Really, do you rememberVillareal, the one who got shot
in the ambush?
Yeah, he has a tattoo of.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
every day is a lottery and every step is a
ticket I remember um jones andfrancis had that written right
above their cot.
So all right, here I am a brandnew.
You know, first lieutenant, I'mthe night battle captain and
I'm seeing this platooncontinuously having a bad string

(31:44):
of events.
I think the first one was thathappened.
Was it Hoover and the teamgetting hit by an IED?
Was that the first one?

Speaker 2 (31:53):
For our platoon?
Yes, Not for the company.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, walk through everything that happened to the
company before I took over.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, you had gosh.
I feel really bad dishonoringhim in this way, but I'm drawing
a blank on his name.
He stepped on an IED and hadhis leg amputated above the knee
and he did not make it.
He was in the second platoonand then we'd had multiple

(32:22):
gunfights at this point Prettymuch every day that we were
there.
We were getting in gunfightstwo or three times a day.
And then our strikers were toowide for the roads to get to the
villages, especially with thebird cages on the outside, so we
had to walk everywhere.
And, granted, we were stillripping with the 82nd at the
time, so those boys walkeverywhere they go, but it was

(32:43):
pretty kinetic.
And then we were right above theArgandog river and where our
checkpoints were, our littlestrong points, um, we had to
walk through this town.
That was like literally righton the river and they were
coming back.
We had, um, a position to theNorth above the trail, and then
they had I think it was, I thinkit was 10th Mountain.

(33:06):
It was two or three deploymentsbefore us.
They had paid this guy to leavehis compound and it was like
literally on a cliff on theriver and we had a couple of
machine gun nests on top of that.
And then right on the otherside was his Grape Rose.
And then we had a northwest,northeast position and I
remember I was in the northwestposition.
They were coming back from uhgetting resupplied and walking

(33:29):
back and somebody saw something,either close to the river and
it was like disturbed and theydidn't know what it was.
But uh hoover being the youknow ex amphibious recon, uh
bear that he is brought out hisBowie knife and starts digging
at it and it's like, oh, it'snothing.
But it turns out that was likeyou know, faint.

(33:51):
And then they had a commandwire that was ran to it.
They blew it up.
It blew shrapnel in his face,blew holes through his arms.
It got in one blast got ourplatoon sergeant, our medic and
our RTO.
All survived, luckily.
They definitely beat it prettybad.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
I think when I took over at the point, deployed with
44 soldiers and I think therewas 28 actively the one thing
that the reason I love Sandersright, they asked for volunteers
within the company because theplatoon was so mid-man they

(34:30):
couldn't even operate thestrikers and the MRAPs that we
had.
You had to ask for volunteersand Sanders was one of those
soldiers so he's always had likea special place in the car.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
I think it was one of two or three we didn't have a
lot of volunteers.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, no, I think it was three in total that actually
volunteered to come and theywere coming to at the time the
one platoon that I think washaving the most kinetic time in
Afghanistan and probably one ofthe hardest positions that they
had.
So, cop Dagobah, or, as youguys would say, dagobad um yeah,

(35:08):
so I show up.
The first interaction with thecompany was hey, captain wolf
schlegel, and, you know,lieutenant mackie is the exos,
your platoon's out at theiroutpost.
They're not going to be backfor 24 hours.
Go to their, you know,basically, barracks, their tent,

(35:29):
platoon tent, and they'll meetyou there.
In the morning and I had allnight in the barracks I found
this one dude's bunk I think hisname was Colin Boyle, and I ate
all his food that he had.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
I had a shitload of packages under that, under that
cot.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
But that was one of the most nerve-wracking times
that I had because I knew that Iwas getting ready to take over
a platoon that I met probablythree or four weeks before that.
I think it was at SergeantRod's memorial.
I'm pretty sure it was.
Was it his memorial?

Speaker 2 (36:06):
I don't think so no, I'm pretty sure you were the PL
then, or?
No no, you weren't.
No, it was still Crabtree,because I remember.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
I was literally just getting ready to take over
around that time when that eventhappened.
I remember that mission to aday because I was the one who
ended up approving it, which ina way I feel like partially at
fault, because I was the nightbattle captain and I approved
that mission to go forward.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
But I've struggled with that.
A lot of you know the what ifsand uh, you know, I don't think
there's anything that would havechanged it.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
What was crazy, um, is that I met the platoon at
that memorial and I had such a.
That was a pivotal point in mylife.
I changed completely at thattime when I was at that memorial
because beforehand and I alwaystell this story, but it's true
I was that Lieutenant that wascharging the hill and we were
soldiers.
I wanted to go win medals.
I wanted to go to 75th RangerRegiment.

(37:02):
I wanted to go win medals.
I wanted to go to 75th rangerregiment.
I wanted to go do all of thosethings and I viewed this
opportunity to make a name formyself.
But when I was at the memorial Isaw all the raw emotions from
every soldier that I was gettingready to lead and I couldn't
help but think man, I am aselfish prick because I'm

(37:24):
thinking about myself right now.
And I changed my perspectivecompletely.
It was that my goal was to geteveryone home as safe as
possible and alive.
So I always had that calculusin the back of my mind when Wolf
Schlegel would try to get us todo all the crazy missions of my

(37:46):
mind.
When, when wolf schlegel wouldtry to get us to do all the
crazy missions, I would alwayshave that in the back of my mind
with the calculus is like, okay, we're going to do this, we'll
be successful, or maybe someoneelse could probably do this
mission, but I always would havethat calculus of how can I make
decisions.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
That's going to bring everyone back on yeah, we were
fortunate enough after uh weleft dagobah that we were going
to a little less kinetic areaeach time.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah, that was after that one mission in Shershaka, I
think, or Mandazai, where webuilt that police station.
It really the deployment gotfun after that where we went to
Nalgam.
Nalgam was, I'm sorry, like Ienjoyed my time there.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
So did I.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I really did not enjoy ripping out with 82nd.
Do you remember when I shreddedthat lieutenant's property?
So we were going through?
I think it was Turner.
Turner grabs this lieutenant'sCD that has all of the property
filed for their unit, shreds it.

(38:49):
He's like what are you doing?
Oh my god.
And he write that lieutenantand I wish I remembered his name
because this was like such alittle trivial thing that he did
on the white board back thereand the cop that we had.
It's like hey, enjoyafghanistan for the next six
months.
We're going home like, okay,yeah, all right, I'm going to

(39:09):
enjoy my time.
This is way better than what wewere doing.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Honestly, now that I've been in long enough and
I've seen, like, how painfulproperty can be, yeah, I think
having to recreate a propertybook or go home, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
That would have been amazing.
He was the YUMO for an entirecompany and within 30 seconds,
all of that beautiful propertywas just stripped away from him.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Somebody's bags didn't make it till when they
got back.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
So what was your best memory from that deployment?

Speaker 2 (39:43):
From that deployment there's tons Probably like are
you talking about funny or justlike anything?
Hmm, yeah, we can go there.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Funny.
What is the funniest story fromthe deployment?

Speaker 2 (39:59):
The funniest is when we went from Dagobah to Nogum.
So Dagobah for those of you whoweren't there it was basically
like a little longer than afootball field, but it was like
a triangle and it was justnothing but HESCO barriers and
there were two GP mediums thateach one housed a platoon and a
half, or a platoon and a quarter, because we had headquarters
attached to us.
And then Nogum was a companysize cop for basically the same

(40:23):
size that we actually ended upscaling down later.
But while we were scalingeverything down back to a more
manageable size or moreappropriate size for our element
, uh, this brand new private atbasic training, uh turner, he
shows up and he's in my team andhe's running, he's like redoing
all the wires to all thejunction boxes and he, he thinks

(40:44):
he's this amateur, you know, uh, electrician and he's like I
know what I to all the junctionboxes and he thinks he's this
amateur electrician and he'slike I know what I'm doing, I
know what I'm doing, and he didnot and he plugged in the wrong
wires to the wrong junction box,fried our generator and I don't
know how long it took us to getpower back to that cop.
I think it was over a day or two.
Yeah, it was about three days,I think.
Yeah, that was the funniestthing.

(41:05):
Just look on his face when hehad to walk up and tell me what
he did.
And I just had him go get acouple of bottles of water and I
was like we're going to go overhere behind this basket so
nobody can see what's about tohappen.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
I will.
I will never forget Turner.
He he blew me away by a brandnew private of how clearly he
could communicate.
If you remember, jack Ryan wasthe lieutenant that we ripped
out with right before we weregetting ready to leave.
I can't remember what unit itwas.

(41:37):
I was in a striker with him.
We were basically doing a leftseat, right seat and we were
just driving routes so I couldget him familiar to the AO that
he was getting ready to takeover and Turner, you know, was
in the gunner seat and he was.
He was doing everything likebetter than me and I'm looking
over at this like private andI'm like you've been here like

(41:59):
three months, man, and you'vealready picked it all as sharp
as a whip Like, and I knew hewas going to be going places and
he promoted rather quickly.
I think he got out at the rankof was it E6?

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, he was a staff sergeant.
He was a drill sergeant too.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, I mean, he was a phenomenal soldier.
And again, just a testamentWhoever was doing the recruiting
for our unit was just bringingus phenomenal soldiers.
Yeah, I wish I could thank them.
So what leader had the biggestimpact on you during that
deployment?

Speaker 2 (42:35):
That's hard to pinpoint because, like we said
before, we had so many good ones, but it would probably be Derek
Kearns.
He just had this presence abouthim.
He was, you know, quiet as achurch mouse until he needed to
be the most explosive man in theroom.
And he's what do you think?
He's like five, nine, five, ten.

(42:56):
You know he's not superimposing, but he's a stocky dude
and he was just the mostintelligent person that I could
be around at the time and he wasfunny.
He was all about the boys andthat's kind of like the person
that I looked at who I wanted tobe when I became platoon
sergeant.
You know, very caring and hewas awesome.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
All right, team, let's take a quick break from
this podcast and I want topersonally invite you to our
private Facebook community thatI call Purposeful Accountable
Leaders, or PALS, and PALS is acommunity dedicated to inspiring
and developing servant leadersby sharing transformational
stories and skills Exactly whatTells the Leadership is all
about is all about my goal is tobuild a community of

(43:43):
like-minded leaders that canshare lessons learned, ask
questions and celebrate winswhen it happens.
And my mission in life is clearI will end toxic leadership by
sharing transformational storiesand skills, and you will find
countless transformationalleaders in this group, many of
them I have had the honor toserve with in the military.

(44:03):
If you want to find a communitythat can help you grow both
personally and professionally,we would love to have you.
You can simply searchPurposeful Accountable Leaders
on Facebook or click theLeadership Resources tab in the
show notes to join.
I am looking forward to seeingyou guys and continuing to grow
together on our leadershipjourney.
Back to the podcast.

(44:24):
My first interaction with Derekwas at the Memorial and I just
remember the handshake and howstoic he was and that he was
going to be the platoon sergeant.
I was like, oh man, I'm introuble.
That was my first thought tomyself and he was the world's

(44:44):
best mentor and the right personat the time.
If you, if you remember me as alieutenant, I was taken bass
with afghans with no body armorin a well outside of an area
that we just got attacked byover a hundred and some health
and fighters.
But in my mind, you know,putting myself back in young

(45:05):
Lieutenant McMillian's mind, Iwas trying to build rapport with
that platoon that we had.
So I was like what better wayto do that than just to go take
a bath with them shirtless,without any body armor in their
vehicle, because it made senseto me.
And he's like sir, I stronglyadvise against this, you're
going to die.
That was the last words that hesaid before I went out.

(45:26):
But I remember another one.
I was talking to the ANCOP andthose Marine PSYOPs teams that
we had when we were buildingthat police station out in the
middle and I remember you guyswere pointing out some of the
buildings that had holes in themand those were, you know, 40
mic, mic rounds for a priorfirefight that you guys were in.

(45:47):
But we're sitting there and westart getting a shot, a shot at
because that's when devin, ifyou remember, or um catlin, was
doing the recon by fire becauseit just didn't feel right with
like something's going to happen, and all chaos broke loose.
And here I am, by myself out inthis field, is like oh, I need
to go back in.
And I'm running and here comesDerek Kearns, sir, like a

(46:11):
disappointed father.
We need you.
And it points me to the guardtower and I jumped in it and he
was.
He was the right person at thetime to I had the right mindset.
Unfortunately, I gained it thewrong way.
To.
I had the right mindset.
Unfortunately, I gained it thewrong way, but I didn't fully
understand how to kind of carrymyself in that type of position

(46:31):
with authority.
And he was the right person atthe time.
That set me up for success and Igenerally mean this is that I
won some pretty prestigiousleadership awards as a company
commander old Dougie back thereawards as a company commander,
old Dougie back there.
I contribute all of that toDerek, all of the mentorship
that he's given me over theyears.
A hundred percent was from thatman.

(46:52):
And the crazy story is he isnow, or he was, the first
sergeant for a company that Icommanded, wolf Company 2-2
Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 10thMountain, at Fort Polk.
It is a small world and it'sfunny that we follow each other.
And if they could tell me thatI could go back to the infantry

(47:14):
and be a brigade commander andDerek Kearns, and you could be
one of my first sergeants, Iwould do it in a heartbeat.
I would leave the cushy job ofacquisitions which it's not, by
the way, but I would leaveacquisitions and I would do it
in a heartbeat.
That would be a dream job.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I hope you know.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
I'd give you gray hair.
I already have gray hair, but Iuse Rogaine.
That's a secret, let's not tellanyone.
So walk me through kind ofgetting back from the deployment
and some of the challenges thatyou had to face as a leader,
and and I'll kind of set thestage.

(47:50):
So sequestration just hit.
We had no money.
We just came back from gettingshot at basically two to three
times a day going on multiplemissions, and now there's no
outlet.
Hey, you're home, be, be withyour families.
We don't have money to go tothe range, we can't do any type
of training, just come in, dopaperwork, do some counseling

(48:14):
and you're good to go.
What kind of challenges did youface as a leader?

Speaker 2 (48:19):
at your level, keeping them busy on something
that was pertinent to keepingthem ready in case we had to go
back now I had a feeling that wewouldn't because once we got
back, we got tasked with thebattalion, or actually I think
it was the installation, gottasked with pacific pathways, so
they would no longer be doingcombat rotations, they were
going to be go doing uh partnertraining with the uh armies of

(48:43):
like indones, indonesia and allthat area, but just keeping them
focused and not like doingthings that were going to get
them in trouble because they hadall this energy coming back and
they, you know, we did thelittle trips, remember?
We went skiing.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Dude, that was the worst experience.
I got a story for that, but goahead.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Just having something for them to do, because we knew
that we probably wouldn't begoing back to Afghanistan, and
just keeping them training andtrying to get them to want to do
something extra.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
You guys totally deserve that ski trip, by the
way.
So in the military, there is anMWR fund that you can tap into.
There is an MWR fund that youcan tap into.
And if anyone's listening tothis and you're a platoon leader
, you're a company commander,you have morale fund every
single year that no one everuses.
They will pay for one event andit's.
You go skydiving, you can godeep sea fishing, you can go to

(49:38):
amusement park with your platoon, your formation, you can go to
a professional paintball range,you can go rent out a campground
and pontoon boats for the day.
You have that funds availableto you, so use it.
So if anyone listens to thisand you're a company commander,
you have it, find it.
But we went to Stevens Pass.
Never skied a day in my life.
But I had the mindset.
You know, I'm Ranger qualified,I'm airborne qualified, I own

(49:59):
this world, I just come backfrom a deployment, I'm going to
the top.
So I went to the top and I went10,000 feet up and then I had
no concept of what the differentcolors were between you know
black, blue, double black.
So it's me and Kearns.
We're up the top.
He, he finally gives up on meabout 30 minutes.
He's like, sir, I'll see youdown at the bottom.
I was like sure, see you downat the bottom, because I kept

(50:22):
just falling.
And not only did I fall, Icouldn't figure out how to stop.
So when I got to a certainspeed, the only thing I knew
what to do was just like, oh,plf, and then my ski would go
off and it would go in the deepsnow.
And I was like skiing is stupid.
I don't know why anyone doesthis.
This is absolutely miserable.
And it took me four hours toget off the mountain the first

(50:44):
time, and I think it was wetLake, uh, and Travis down at the
bottom.
And they're like, sir, are youhaving a good time?
I was like no, I'm done, youguys go have fun.
I'll see you in a little bit.
I have a really funny picture ofyou from that day, with you

(51:05):
holding your little ski pole outlike this, like onward boys,
and that was like I think, afteryou finally came down, y'all
have to find it and send it toyou.
Yeah, man, that's funny.
But I think the biggestchallenge that I faced, at least
as the platoon leader one Ididn't want to go be an XO, I
wanted to stay and be a platoon.
That's one of the hardestthings of at least that I've
experienced throughout themilitary is you.

(51:25):
You work in an organization.
You get the honor and privilegeto lead the, the world's the,
the nation's treasure and Ireally mean that is that what is
the greatest resource that wehave?
It is our men and women whovolunteer as a fighting force.
We live in a professional, allvolunteer fighting force.

(51:46):
That's what the army is, andit's absolutely incredible and
it's true.
I didn't want to transition togo be an XO, so I was doing
everything in my power to stayand I and I won there for a
while, cause it was like 15, 15weeks.
I just kept coming up withexcuses of why I needed to stay
and and convincing or captainwolfschweigel to keep me.
But one of the things that Istruggled with the most was

(52:08):
trying to to keep everyonedirected the right way and there
was a lot of soldiers at thetime that were getting out.
If um devin, if you remember hewas getting out because of a
poor leadership, how many leveldrove him to kind of get out?
He was a phenomenal soldier.
I wanted to keep him in andthat kind of created a tipping

(52:28):
point, at least in my mind.
You know, pete right, petegetting out.
I feel that I've totally failedhim and I'll never forget.
You know, derrick and I aresitting in there and we were
counseling him because he's like, hey, I want to get out and
pete, you know, being from utah,being a mormon, uh, playing
heavy metal, death music, beinglike one of the best guitar

(52:50):
players in the world, theworld's best rto his plan
getting out, transitioning, washe wanted to go be a guitar
player and derek and I justlooked at each other as like
it's dangerous and we know it'sdangerous and and we tried to
talk him out of it.
But I just didn't do a good job.
I could have done a better joband I think if I would have been

(53:12):
more intentional, at leastknowing what I know now, with
regret every day, one of thethings that I feel that I
personally felt as a leader.
But that was one of my biggeststruggles of when we first came
back was making sure that wewould maintain transitioning

(53:35):
soldiers out of the military,but have a plan and I think
emotionally and mentally,maturity wise, I failed you guys
at that point.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
It's, it's really hard being, you know, a young
adult at a college.
You know, yeah, you've gonethrough this, this training, and
you had the expectation of youare the one in charge, you're
the one who makes the rightdecisions.
But I mean, I think about itnow.
I have so many soldiers thathave been in my platoon that
have transitioned out and, as Ithink about it, like I don't

(54:13):
feel that I have prepared themor given them the right counsel
and mentorship, because we'repulled in so many different
directions, especially at just aplatoon level, it's almost
impossible to foresee like, didI do enough or did I do the
right thing?
Here?
I mean, especially if you everget the pleasure of serving in

(54:33):
an ABCT as an infantryman.
It's 10 times worse because nowthe priority is vehicles and
then you also have thatunderlying priority of your
discounts.
So it's it's hard to manage andit's something that you know if
you ever put together like alittle leader, you know quick

(54:54):
book of like things that youneed to look at.
That's something that I thinkoften gets overlooked.
Is doing the right thing.
You know gets overlooked isdoing the right thing.
You know one, thanking them, uh, properly, you know, giving
them the proper award that theyuh have earned.
Um, you know, maybe give them alittle goodbye gift and uh just
making sure that they are setup for success, whether it be

(55:16):
just information or whatever,and then checking up on them.
I've done a very poor job, Ibelieve, in my eyes, uh keeping
in touch with people that havetransitioned out.
You find them here and there onFacebook, but there's so many
people that I'd love toreconnect with that I've lost
contact with.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
I think that's one of the hardest things, man is that
you're only one person right,and I finally realized that is
that we all have times, talentsand treasures.
How we use those and if it'spurposeful, can make a much
bigger impact.
And that's honestly one of thereasons that I started this
podcast, because I've hadphenomenal leadership in my life

(55:58):
.
I've worked with amazing peoplethat have shaped me into who I
am today.
I've worked with amazing peoplethat have shaped me into who I
am today, and maybe one of yourguys' stories will save
someone's life, create a betterleader who will create an
atmosphere and a culture thatwill save someone's life.
That's the whole purpose ofthis.
That's the whole purpose of thepodcast is because I want

(56:19):
inspiring leaders like you Ialways call purposeful,
accountable leaders pals toshare their story and to bring
light into this world, becausethere's enough darkness and I'm
tired of it.
I'm going to start bringingsome light.
So where are you at right nowon your leadership journey?

Speaker 2 (56:36):
I'm nearing the end, sadly.
You know it depends on how longI decide to stay in, but I just
finished my time as a platoonsergeant.
I actually rip out the nextcouple of weeks and then I'll be
transitioning.
Congratulations, by the way,thank you, it went by fast, you

(56:56):
know.
Two years.
You think it's a long time, andthen you look back on it and
it's gone in the blink of an eye.
But hopefully I will pick up,master Sergeant, and eventually
get a company of my own.
I don't know if I really wantthat job I've seen the stress of
a First Sergeant but I think itwould be fun.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Okay, I'll tell you why you need that job.
Because what you just said, youdon't want the job.
A lot of people who chase thatis because they chase it for
title.
They want the authority and thepower that comes with it.
You don't want that, but youwill make a phenomenal leader
and that's exactly why you needto stay in and you need to be a
first sergeant, because you'regoing to make so many soldiers'

(57:31):
lives 10 times better.
And I'll tell you this is thatyour humor and I don't think I
have it in here, but the plaquethat you turd nuggets gave me
when I left 1st PlatoonPaleosaurus I don't know if you
remember that nickname that youguys gave- me, uh-huh I think I
think it was jones who gave methat nickname because I had
really big legs and tiny littlebaby arms like t-rex, huge

(57:51):
thighs.
I don't know how you found pantsuh, every time I see that
plaque and I walk by it, itbrings me joy when I that's
awesome.
So you've been in the army now17 years.
You've seen the culture kind ofchange.
Yeah, what do you think?
Some of the the traits andcharacteristics that are lacking

(58:15):
in young leaders today in themilitary drive and ambition for
the biggest ones that stand out.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Um, and I don't know, like you know, we we said we
had like the cream of the cropof like leaders and soldiers on
every level that were on thatdeployment and, um, I just I'd
see a lot of guys and they, theyhave various reasons for why
they join.
All of them good, but I don'tsee as much competitiveness to

(58:45):
be, you know, number one or besuccessful with the younger
generation that's coming in, andI think that it is a shift in
culture and it's going to be abig challenge for the Army
moving forward, because we'realready at the smallest serving
force.
Since what?
1941 or 40?
Yeah, the smallest servingforce since what?

Speaker 1 (59:04):
1941 or 40?
Yeah, it's I.
When I was a company commander,I took over my first company, I
think, in like 2018, um, andthen I know 2017, and then I
took over my next company in2018 and I remember at that time
like man.
The army has changed, um, atleast since I was a lieutenant,
and like, looking back at it now, after COVID, the Army has

(59:26):
changed so much that it's almostunrecognizable To when I was a
company commander in 2019,that's how fast it's changed,
and I think COVID has amplifiedthat, at least in my mind.
Yeah, how is?

Speaker 2 (59:40):
that on the ground in my mind, yeah, how is that on
the ground?
Oh, it's difficult because youknow a lot of these soldiers
that went through basic and youknow they took away the shark
attack.
Uh, for those who don't know,like when you come off the bus
first day of basic training, yougot like 11 team drill
sergeants just all in your facejust screaming at you non-stop.
You know, put the bag up, takeyou know, put it down, pick it

(01:00:01):
up, put it over your head.
Just hours of that and that'slike you're like shocking
introduction to the military.
Um, and it's gotten a littlesofter.
And you know a lot of thesoldiers that I've seen and it's
not all of them.
I don't want to, you know, yeah, put a moniker on them, but a
lot of them have difficulty withauthority.

(01:00:22):
They have trouble havingsomeone tell them that either a
they're wrong or they've made amistake, or this is the better
way to do it, and it's.
it's a hard barrier to breakdown and you got to find your
way to do it.
And the bigger challenge is youhave to do it with each one,
because each one has a differentway that they're going to get

(01:00:43):
through to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
You hit a nail on the head, man, at least what I've
seen clear communication, andeach person has a different way
of being communicated to, and inthe military, at least in the
infantry, it's a melting pot.
We had what refugees within ourplatoon?
When I was an accompanycommander, I had people all the

(01:01:07):
way from haiti to nebraska.
And that's what makes us great,because we have that diversity.
And diversity is great when youcome from different walks of
life, because you look atproblems differently, you solve
problems differently, and that'swhat makes a great organization
great.
Is that creativity, thatinnovation, and that's why the
military is so innovative.

(01:01:27):
Look at wetlick.
That dude built a freakingcatapult when we were doing rotc
range and I couldn't find himfor four hours one day and
sergeant kearns and I werelooking for that dude everywhere
.
He built a two standardcatapult like legit catapult
that was firing like 10 poundrocks and I can't remember, but

(01:01:50):
I think it was like firing himlike 50 feet.
It's like you did this in fourhours.
Yeah, I just you know I hadsome time together yeah, I just
threw it together.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
I was like he made you know he's the most creative
person that I've ever seen thecouches that he made and we
would put sleeping pads on themfor cushions.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
He made that deployment.
He ran all the equipment, hebuilt all the garden towers.
He was the most handy man inthe world.
Yeah, dude, that dude, he was awild man.
I love him.
So let's kind of thinklong-term.
Where do you want to go five,10 years from now?
Where's Colin Boyle?

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Most likely out of the Army.
I would say 10 years definitely.
But I'm actually strugglingwith that now because my wife
and I have been talking about itand we're at three years till I
can retire and we've been hereat Fort Cabezas for three years
now, or a little over, and it'sgone by really fast.
We're both getting a littlenervous of what do I want to do,

(01:02:51):
or what do we want to do.
Where do we want to go?
I think I want to probably stayclose to the DOD, maybe be a
contractor or do some GS work orsomething like that.
I don't know, I'm looking forsomething that will keep me busy
, maybe be like a contractor ordo some GS work or something
like that.
But, um, I don't know, I'mlooking for something that will
keep me busy.
Um, I don't like riding a desk,I like to be out and moving
around.
So I don't know, maybe I'll beone of those old guys in range

(01:03:12):
control that pull up and uh,tell you to pick up brass.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
I think I got to.
We'll talk after this.
I after this, I think I got agood path for you of what you
could do, and I'll tell you thatyour skills and a lot of
infantry soldiers don'tunderstand this.
Your skills translate sobeautifully to the rest of the
world because your leadershipcapacity and leadership is the

(01:03:36):
one thing that cannot be taught.
It takes time, it takesfrequency, it takes rough
experiences to kind of forgethose.
And what you have went throughand all the different
experiences you went through,that is gold to companies and
organizations.
Company it does, absolutelydoes, and it doesn't matter if

(01:04:05):
you have the business acumen torun a company, because that's
not necessarily your job, right,because you're the leader,
you're building the vision,you're guiding the team and
you're taking them on the path,or you're an underlining leader
and you're executing someone'svision with purpose.
So the last question I'd loveto ask you before we get to our
final show segment is whatadvice would you give a new

(01:04:28):
soldier that's getting ready tostart their career?

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
It's challenging so many different ways I can go.
Take the biggest risks that youwant to take early on in your
career and don't have anyhesitation't be afraid of it.
I think I missed the biggestopportunity of going to ranger
school when I was young and Iwas very afraid of it because
you know, uh, like I said, Imean I got my eib, but I only I

(01:04:55):
was.
I think it was a miracle that Ipassed nightland, that um, but
that was what scared me wasgoing.
I didn't think I would failphysically, but I wasn't
confident with one of the gatedevents and I, I had a ticket, uh
, we went down and did the bestrange of competition colors, um,
two years in a row, and thebrigade uh, or the fourth RTB,

(01:05:19):
uh commander and SAR major gaveus these little business cards.
You call a number.
You don't have to wait on ATARs, you don't have to wait on OML.
You get a slot in the nextschool, the next class state,
and I had that for years and Inever, ever called it because I
was nervous about failing.
And that's probably the bestthing that you can do is to be

(01:05:41):
afraid of failure, but don't letit keep you from doing things
because, yeah, you're going tofail, but I really wish I had
went when I was younger.
I eventually did get down there.
I went twice in 2019, rightbefore COVID happened, but I
think just because I waited solong and I'd gotten some more

(01:06:03):
mileage on my body and also Idon't think my head was 100% in
it.
But if you wait to take thosechances, you may miss the prime
opportunity to go.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
That's great man.
When I'm going through mymaster's program, I really had a
pivot within my mindset is thata lot of people chase hard.
Why do people chase hard thingsand certain people avoid it?
And it's nerves, it's it's thethey're afraid to fail.
What happens if you fail?

(01:06:34):
What's the worst case scenario?
If you were, would have went toranger school and you know 2010
, 2009, 2008,.
Whatever that would have been.
What was the worst casescenario?
You recycle, you go back toyour unit, but you gave a try,
and in engineering, every singlething fails, but there's a
concept of fail fast and failsmall.

(01:06:56):
That's the key Fail fast, failsmall, then iterate, build upon
that, get better and get betterand get better.
And that's how success is built.
It's built on the mountain offailures, micro failures.
But you have to understand that.
And if you were to go in lifeand just win every single time

(01:07:17):
when you do something, thatwould be boring.
It's it's kind of it's kind offun to have the challenge at
least.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
Yeah, that's great advice.
Sometimes being a loser has itsadvantages too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Well, not at wrestling man, I missed you.
It's time for our final showsegment that I like to call the
Killer Bees.
These are the same fourquestions that I ask every guest
on the Tales of Leadershippodcast Be brief, be brilliant,

(01:07:51):
be present and be gone.
Question one so what do youbelieve separates a good leader
from a great leader?

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
You know the picture of the men pulling the block
with leader on it pointing, andthen the other one with him in
the front, that that doing thosetypes of things, if it, if it
looks like it's going to bedifficult or dirty or not fun,
or I'm above that, I don't haveto do that anymore.
Having been with people thathave done that and then having

(01:08:21):
leaders that get down and do itwith you, you build so much more
loyalty and trust by doing itwith them rather than telling
them to go do it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Yeah, dude, I love that Deeds not words.
I had a battalion commandertell me that one time.
Deeds are more important thanwords, but when you can align
those two, it's powerful.
So question two what is oneresource that you would
recommend to our listeners?

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
For young personnel in the Army.
It's ATN, army Training Network, and specifically the CAR
Central Army Registry.
I believe it was you or DaveTaylor that showed me that as a
young NCO Dave Taylor thatshowed me that as a young NCO

(01:09:07):
and it has every resource thatyou can think of for any type of
mission individual, collectivetraining.
It gives you a breakdown of howto do it and then your go and
no-go criteria.
It's a step-by-step way to doit and you can take it from a
team leader level all the way upto a brigade commander with how
far to go down the rabbit holeof executing tasks.
It's amazing and I wish I'dknown about it when I was a

(01:09:28):
brand new sergeant.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
That's awesome, All right.
So number three if you couldgive your younger self a piece
of advice, what would it be?

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
and why have fun, but don't have too much fun.
I think I spent a little toomuch of my younger years having
too much fun and it just itcreates habits that aren't easy
to break and it's not really funlater in life.
So enjoy yourself, but keep acap on it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
I love that.
All right, last one.
So if this story resonates withsomeone out there and someone
wants to reach out to you, whatis the best way to find you or
add value to you?

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
You can find me on Facebook or Instagram and then,
obviously, reach out through you.
I don't have anything specific.
I don't even remember if I'm onLinkedIn anymore it's been so
long since I logged into thatbut that's the easiest way to
get a hold of me.
Okay, or just follow TaylorGlitter For those who don't know
.
Well, do you remember what Idid to Kearns when he?

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
left.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
That was epic.
I have Glitter all over hisoffice.
I still have pictures of that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
You have, was it Jack Nicholson?

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
pictures 20 headshots of Burt Reynolds, jack
Nicholson, nicholas Cage andSean Connery.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
And then you put an air horn underneath his chair.
So when he sat down it lockedand the air horn just went and
it worked perfectly.
Yeah, that was epic.
I'll have to find that pictureand I have it somewhere.
That was a good one.
I have it if you don't, Colinit's been an absolute honor to
get to catch up with you again.

(01:11:10):
It's crazy that it's alreadybeen over an hour and I feel
that I could have kept going,but I tried to cap it off out of
respect to your time, so yourwife doesn't hate me, thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
No, thank you for having me on here.
It was an honor to to bethought of to be on your show.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Yeah, I couldn't think of a better person.
Brother, have a great night youtoo.
All right, team, it's time forour after action review.
What a great episode with Colin, a great friend, and we spent
probably another 20 minutes whenwe got off just continuing to

(01:11:46):
catch up.
Really a phenomenal leader, andI hope that you reach out to
him and do me a favor shoot hima personal message on Facebook
or Instagram and tell him tostay in the army so he can be a
first sergeant, because soldiersneed him to be their leader.

(01:12:07):
I'm telling you right nowthat's how great he is and
that's the, at least where I puthim on in my mind.
If I could go back and be asoldier, starting all over, or
if my son or my daughter wasgoing to be a soldier, I would
want him to be their firstsergeant.

(01:12:28):
So what are the top threetakeaways that I took from this
show?
At least, the first one waschasing hard things.
Life is full of verychallenging environments.
Full of very challengingenvironments, situations.

(01:12:49):
We're always going to findourselves put in the corner of,
where we are afraid to takeaction because we're afraid to
fail.
But failing is just part of it.
You know, dave Ramsey talksabout everyone that we always
look up to that is on top of themountain.
They're on top of the mountainfrom all the different steps
that they've had to take and allthe different failures that

(01:13:10):
they built along the way, andI'd shared a story of mine of.
In engineering, we have a quotefell small and fell fast, so we
can iterate, become better,build upon our failures, and we
never truly fail if we don'tstop trying to better ourselves.
And that's what life is.
That's what leadership is.

(01:13:31):
It's a continuous fight, everysingle day, to be a better
leader, and if you can do that,then you're winning the fight,
and that's the whole purposeChase hard things, grow yourself
and stretch yourself.
The next one that I wrote downwas fighting imposter syndrome,

(01:13:53):
and he talked about that fromthe standpoint that he was
nervous when he wastransitioning from the old guard
to Alpha Company, 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment.
That company was getting readyto go to war in Afghanistan the
final surge in 2012.
And he was in a trade-offorganization for all intents and

(01:14:16):
purposes, or a training unitbefore being able, as a team
leader.
To just walk into a leadershiprole and not fully understand
what you're doing is verychallenging.
But how did he overcome that?
He overcame that by elevatinghis performance to the leaders

(01:14:38):
that were around him.
And that's the most importantthing Wherever you're at right
now, if you feel inadequate, areyou around superior people to
you, of whatever job you'redoing or whatever you find
yourself doing, even if it'ssports.
That's good, because that meansyou're growing, that means

(01:14:58):
you're stretching yourself.
And my daughter had a wrestlingmatch this weekend and she
ended up getting third place,which is absolutely phenomenal.
But she wrestled much hardercompetition and she's harder on
herself because she thinks shehas to win every single match.
But the harder the wrestlingmatch is, the better she is

(01:15:20):
going to be, because shedominates everyone at her
practice and she's not growing.
But when she gets in thosesituations of where she finds
herself being nervous, thatmeans she cares number one, but
also, too, that means thecompetition is higher, and if
the competition is higher, thatmeans you're going to be better.
You're going to grow.
The final key takeaway that Ihave is take a little bit from

(01:15:44):
each leader that you have andthat's a theme throughout my
leadership, especially myleadership coaching is that take
time to think on all thedifferent leaders that you've
had in your past.
Which ones did you like?
Which ones did you respect?
Why did you like them?
Why did you respect them andpull those threads together to

(01:16:07):
help you be the better leaderthat you are today?
And Brene Brown, in her bookthat I just finished reading,
dare to Lead, talks about corevalues, and are they aspired or
are they practiced?
When you find what your corevalues are, they're most likely
going to be coming from otherleaders or organizations that
you have.
Find what you want to practicein your life.

(01:16:30):
Not aspire, but practice inyour life, and that's key.
If you have poor leaders, donot continue down that path.
Understand what they did andwhy it was bad in your eyes and
figure out a better way.
One of the most powerful jobsthat I had was when I was an
observer coach trainer at FortPolk, louisiana.

(01:16:53):
I got an opportunity to see 18different company command teams
before I was able to take overmy company and I was able to
shape my TTPs or tactics,techniques and procedures, my
standard operating procedures,sops, before I walked into my
company, and I believe that thatset me up for success to

(01:17:13):
ultimately win the DouglasMacArthur Award and all these
other prestigious awards thatreally don't mean anything,
because it wasn't me who earnedthose.
It was the men and women that Iled.
They did all the work.
I unfortunately got all thepraise and I didn't really fully
grasp or understand that atthat time.
But understand, you need totake a little bit from each

(01:17:34):
leader that you've led, andwe've talked about this in a
previous episode of having aleader book.
Have a leader book.
If a leader does something thatyou like or you don't like,
write it down, Capture yourthought at that moment and then
you can always go back andreflect on it.
All right, team, do me a favor.
If you like this episode, I'mgoing to ask you to do three

(01:17:55):
things.
Number one share it.
Number two follow me on anysocial media platform that
you're listening to this.
Make sure that you leave me areview and support the channel,
and you can do that by going toMcMillianLeadershipCoachingcom
or TalesOfLeadership backslashBuzzsproutcom, and you'll find
ways to support the channels inthere and also on

(01:18:18):
McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom.
I write additional blog articlesand I have additional blogs for
this specific episode, so ifyou want to go back and wanted
to take notes, you'll be able tofind the one page article for
this.
That summarizes this entirepodcast episode for you.
Why?
Because I want to provide asmuch content to you as possible

(01:18:41):
to arm you with the tools to bethe leader that this world needs
.
As always, I'm your host, joshMcMillian, saying every day is a
gift.
Don't waste yours.
I'll see you next time.