Unspoken Words: A Combat Veteran's Journey from Chaos to Advocacy with SFC Alexander Stewart

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Warriors fall in.
It's time for formation.
Folks, you're tuned in to theMorning Formation podcast, where
we highlight resilience,leadership, purpose-driven
warriors from all walks of life,and today's guest, he,
exemplifies the courage to fightbattles both on the battlefield
and within the mind.
Joining us today is SergeantFirst Class Alexander Stewart.

(00:22):
He's a decorated combat veteranor or current service member
correction he's a motivationalspeaker, mental health advocate
and author of Unspoken Words.
He's also served our nation inseveral different fronts
Afghanistan, iraq and Syria.
So he's faced a lot of theinvisible wounds of war and he

(00:43):
now uses his experience touplift others, helping over 27
veterans and active servicemembers who are on the verge of
suicide.
Today's conversation is aboutsurvivability, advocacy and
strength to speak unspokentruths.
Alex, thank you for joining meon the Morning Formation today.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Thanks for having me, brother.
It's really awesome to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
It's awesome to meet people.
It's really awesome to be here.
It's awesome to meet peoplelike.
It's actually awesome andrefreshing to meet people like
you that are currently inservice right now.
I almost called you a veteran,but you're not.
You're currently active duty,you're currently in boots, in
service, in uniform and you'realready doing advocacy work to
help others and I reallyappreciate the work that you're
doing.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
I appreciate it.
I had a lot of things that kindof drove me to, you know, want
to do more while I was still in,because I found that as I
waited I kept losing more andmore friends.
So I figured I'd start now.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, man, I think it's for guys like me, like I
got out at the end of 2007.
For guys like me, I got out atthe end of 2007, and things have
changed quite a bit in the last20 years with the military,
with the world, with everything.
And I think it's reallyimportant for guys like you that

(01:58):
are currently in service rightnow, especially with this new
generation coming up and fullylike their perspectives and
everything like that.
But taking it back to thebeginning, man, what initially
inspired you to enlist in themilitary?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
What year was that and what got you here?
So I enlisted in 2020, 23, 2013.
And what that was was I grew upin New York.
My father was in the military,my grandfather was in the
military and then my father'ssix brothers were in the
military, so you can very muchsay we're a military family and
I had aspirations to.
You know go to college, playsome sports something baseball,
football, something like that.

(02:43):
However, when 9-11 hit, I wasfourth, fifth grade, just a kid.
But our fire department where Ilived was 45 minutes 50 minutes
out of the city, and all of ourvolunteer firemen went in.
And now these are all thevolunteers from my town.
That means these are myfriend's dads.

(03:05):
And you know, that day I watchedas, one by one, people were
getting pulled out of schoolbecause we were, you know, close
enough that parents werepanicking and pulling us out of
school because you know you'reonly 40 minutes away.
People don't know there wasanother plane and you know that
kind of stuck.
It really did like singesomething on my brain,

(03:27):
especially because I had a goodfriend at the time I played
basketball with growing up whosefather passed away when the
tower collapsed because he wasone of those volunteer firemen
that that happened.
And then he didn't come back toschool for an entire year.

(03:48):
He was just gone and like tosee what happened because of all
of that, to see, like you know,the struggles he went through
and my other friends that losttheir dads too, it it really did
spark a fire and, as crazy asit sounds, you know, like a
little fourth grader, fifthgrader, said that's it the
second that someone tells me Ican go.
You know, do something aboutwhat happened.

(04:11):
Today I'm doing it and I toldmy family that from that day and
they thought I would just, youknow, outgrow it.
But then, when graduation came,I turned to him like, all right,
it's time I got to put my bootson ground and do my bit now.
And they gave me some pushbackbecause I graduated in 2010.

(04:31):
So I compromised, I went tocollege, you know, just to make
them happy.
And after what was it?
Two years of college.
I stopped and I was like, allright, I'm signing up now.
I did what you wanted.
College.
I stopped and I was like, allright, I'm signing up now.
I did what you wanted, I'm notwaiting anymore.
And then I, that was it.
I went in and that was kind ofbesides like the family heritage
.
That was really the drivingforce for me.

(04:53):
I don't know if you've ever meta bunch of New Yorkers, but we
really do hold grudges and, yeah, I held one for a good almost
half a little over half a decade.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, man, I was 21 when 9-11 happened and I was I
was enlisted in the armynational guard at the time.
Uh, I was legit in college,working towards my bachelor's
degree and when 9-11 happened Iwas on, I was watching tv,
hungover, because we had justpartied, because school was

(05:24):
coming back in session.
And, man, like, talk aboutchanging the face of the world
and the way we live in societyand everything.
Man, that just kickedeverything off.
When I first started serving,it was like 1998.
I went to boot camp, fortLeonard, missouri, and then now

(05:48):
all of a sudden, fast forward2001, and America's under attack
and it literally was in yourbackyard.
You lived 40 minutes outside ofNew York City.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, I did.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
And you know that's the thing is, when you signed up
for the military in 2010, wewere still involved in two very
big wars.
And even for me, like when Idecided to become an officer
after I got my bachelor's degree, I, like you, had the same deal
.
Like my dad was enlisted for 20years and he's like I want you
to go to college, then youdecide if you want to go active

(06:23):
duty, and when I graduated, Isaid, well, I'm you to go to
college, then you decide if youwant to go active duty, and
that's.
And when I graduated, I said,well, I'm going to go active
duty, I'm going to go serve agreater purpose.
So hats off to you, man, forfreaking.
Signing up in the middle of twogigantic wars Afghanistan and
Iraq knowing that you're goingto deploy at some point not if
it's when, um, and all thisbecause of what you had

(06:46):
experienced at five years old.
That's that's amazing, man, andthat's I.
I love to hear those storiesbecause that's true patriotism,
right there.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
You hear the stories from, like the world war two era
too.
You know there were, there werepeople that you know took their
own lives just because theycouldn't serve when that stuff
happened.
It's sad to say that, like youknow, when something as tragic
as those things happen, like thenation really does pull
together.
But the nation did, you saw it,I saw it.
Everybody stood together andyou know those secondary,

(07:21):
tertiary effects on, you know,even even the young population
Uh, it really did, you know, doa real driving force.
I joined with a lot of guysthat were just young when that
happened but they remembered andthat's why they all joined and
they're like it's not done yet.
We're still over there, like weneed to do our part too.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, and you served on three different fronts since
you've been in the military.
You served in Afghanistan, youserved in Iraq and you served in
Syria.
I only had been to Iraq earlyon, like when we were still in
the process of gettingup-armored stuff.
I had sandbags on my floor forquite a few months before I got

(08:01):
the up-armored stuff man.
So I'm really old.
Before I got the up-armoredstuff, man.
So I'm really old.
But can you talk to me aboutsome of your experiences in
those three different countriesand what were some of the
differences that you saw?
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I'll have to say I was that young kid.
I got married too, as I joined,like all privates do, and I had
been with the girl for threeyears.
So I was like, don't worry, I'mgonna join, I won't pick
something crazy.
I lied, I went in, I tried todo infantry and then I scored
high enough on my asthma thatthe guy's like no man, I'm

(08:35):
infantry, like you need to dosomething else.
So I was like, no, I want tofight, let me fight.
So then he like tricked andconned me into picking scout.
So, you know, he showed me thevideo with the with the dirt
bikes and the dune buggies,which actually what if people
don't know they we have.
They have them now at certainbases, but now they're getting
rid of scouts too.
So it's but um.

(08:56):
So I joined and I think it waslike two and a half months out
of basic and my wife was so madI immediately went overseas.
So I went into Afghanistan.
I was in Paktia, paktikaprovinces, over on RC East with
the Pakistan border in 2013 to14.

(09:16):
This is right after they hadshut down the Korengal.
And then, right after they hadhad, there was a we called it
Santa's sleigh, but there waslike over a 10 ton truck that
broke through a five called fivegood in Afghanistan and it was
full of HMA and it didn't blowup.

(09:37):
So, like they shut that basedown because, you know, taliban
was able to get somethingthrough the gate like that.
So then they, they, they tookus and put us in there.
And you know, right out ofbasic, uh, I'm in this little
basement like, oh, by the way,five clicks that way down the
road, um, a whole base almostjust disappeared from from the

(09:59):
map.
So it was, it was, uh, it wasan experience.
Um, I would say that I very much, you know, I I got the full
taste of the, of the military,is what I like to say.
We landed in Bagram on the veryfirst day, uh, getting off the,
the, um, we, we wrote in on 17sand, uh, we got hit with IDF,

(10:19):
like within five minutes of myboot touching the ground.
So I, right, right there and Iwas like, oh, so this is it.
And then, um, we, we did our,you know, we did our whole um
introduction to the country, allthe background briefs, all the
training, and then, um, we did ainfo like night infiltration to
our base, because of courseback then it was blackout, you

(10:41):
could only travel at night andwe were up in the mountains and
as we're flying the Chinook hasrounds ricocheting off of it and
then the door gunner is justgoing off.
So I always tell I was a drillsergeant and I tell the privates
that too I'm like.
So you know, like if you thinkI used to tell them all the time

(11:02):
, if you think you're going toget in there and it's going to
be like Call of Duty or allthese cool things or those war
movies, I told them I was like,look, I consider myself a tough
man, but that was literally myfirst year in the military and
I'd only been in the actual armyfor like two and a half, three
months and I was hyper and I wasfreaking out and I was a little

(11:23):
PFC.
And there's a staff sergeantnext to me, just like pumping
his arms, like yeah, we gotcontact the first day.
Here we go and I'm just sittingthere like please, don't,
please don't, let me go down ona helicopter before I even do
anything.
But it was an experience.
That kind of was the start ofthe deployment and then it just

(11:46):
stayed.
I would probably say, you know,I got very complacent when it
came to like idf after a while,because you know how it is,
afghanistan was just idf, idf,idf, idf and uh, we were on qrf,
we were on a bunch of guards,we were were doing the SFAT
missions protecting, you knowthe teams.

(12:07):
So we were on GA, guardianAngel, and I kind of just got
very jaded with all of that.
I would say, from thatdeployment the two things that
stuck the most were we hadinsider threat attacks and those
like you know anyone who's beenthrough them those really do

(12:28):
mess you up more than youunderstand, because you know you
trust these people.
We had a bomb threat I think itwas month seven in that we
found out, like all of thelocals that were working on our
base, they redid backgroundchecks and like I think it was
upwards of 70 plus 80 were allTaliban associated and they'd
been working on our base.
They redid background checksand, like I think it was upwards
of 70 plus 80, were all Talibanassociated and they'd been
working on our base for months.

(12:49):
And then at the very end, luckof the draw really, our platoon
swapped out like one of ourfinal missions before the rip
and another platoon went outthere and an Afghan soldier that
we had worked with for monthsturned and shot three of our
guys from the other platoon.

(13:09):
So I think, if anything, thatdeployment, I've kind of walked
away with just that one and thatwas a really big you know
damper on like my ability totrust people, especially because
you know you serve eight monthswith a coalition army and then
to have one of their dudes ontheir base, like not out and

(13:32):
about.
We were on like the AfghanRCE's basic training site for
the Afghan army and yeah, it waslike one of their, their
equivalent to S4, like theirsupply guy.
There was a request for somematerial.
He couldn't get the material intime, he didn't like how the
conversation went, so when theyleft he just picked up his AK
and sprayed.
So that one.

(13:55):
And then come home.
I was the crazy young kid.
I waived my dwell time, signedthat paper, lied to my wife,
told her that they were forcingme to go back, and that's how I
ended up in Baghdad in 2015,right after getting home in 14.
And then did my stint inBaghdad With that really it's
just IEDs.

(14:18):
And then I would say I don'tknow how it was for you.
But there's like such weirdthings that you would see,
especially as, like the scouts,I spotted Russian helicopters
being delivered to the Iraqimilitary, like on Biop, and I

(14:38):
was there, I had to buy nose out.
I was watching this.
I'm like, hey, that plane's gota Russian flag on it.
I was watching this.
I'm like, hey, that plane's gota Russian flag on it.
Then I'm watching and here comeHeinz getting unloaded from the
back of this.
You know this plane and youknow the base is under US
protection.
So like why are there Heinz?
Why is there a Russian plane?

(14:59):
So it was this whole thing.
And then to later find out like, yeah, the Iraqi forces bought
a bunch of Heinz off theRussians.
So I was like, oh, okay.

(15:23):
But I think for Iraq, thebiggest thing was we had a
Syrian refugee camp that was onthe Baghdad International
Airport, like by up over there,and ISIS had really just kind of
started up like getting big,big, big.
And I'd been used to IDF.
I'd been used to.
But we were on QRF one nightand the refugee camp was under
the protection of the FrenchForeign Legion.
So like we can't help.
But I had never seen what I sawthat night.
We were on QRF.
Huge funny scenario where I'min the gym with my lieutenant

(15:47):
and the doc I had on the lastdeployment and, like some
civilian, told us to get in thebunker.
But we were on QRF but thelieutenant didn't want to listen
to me so it took us time to getout there.
The whole platoon went outwithout us.
But when we got out there I hadnever seen like accurate
indirect fire, the way I saw iton that base.

(16:08):
And the crappy thing was our jobas QRF was to protect, you know
, the US assets.
So we drove halfway out on thetarmac on biop and just made a
screen line with our trucks andwatched a refugee camp burn and
like I say, I think we I can'tremember now, but it was
somewhere between like 58 and 63rockets in one hour that just

(16:31):
hit the same exact small spotand it was really kind of well,
it was hard to watch becauseit's nighttime.
So you just see the fire, youhear the screaming.
You know we had to buy no, soyou could look if you wanted to
the screaming.
You know we had the bino so youcould look if you wanted to,
and you know kind of thatrealization like oh, wow, like
that's what we can do to, youknow, to people, and that's what

(16:54):
we've been doing.
But I've never seen, because,you know, gwat you don't really
get up against those near peersor people that are trained that
way.
But this is when a bunch of thewhat was it?
The iraqi special forces joinedisis.
So now we had all these guysthat had been trained by us, by
other countries, with goodequipment, and I watched it like
, and uh, we had a mortar manlike in towers watching it too,

(17:18):
and they're like, yeah, dude,these guys are leveling bubbles,
they're doing everything right,like they're actually firing
missions and like they just tookout almost the entire camp.
And, uh, that night is also thenight that I got injured Uh,
had my entire bicep, uh, torn,so um, and I also broke three

(17:39):
fingers, but so that that thatnight kind of just stuck for me
and I came home and found outthat they were planning to go
back to Iraq in 2017.
Because I was at 10th Mountain.
So you know how 10th Mountaingoes they just deploy, deploy,
deploy.
And so I was like I need abreak, because at this point I

(18:01):
joined and then I spent 13, 14,15, 16, like on and off, I'm
like I haven't had any.
I didn't even know what MotorPool Monday was yet, because I
was always in red cycle and thendeployment and red cycle and
then deployment.
So here I was at this time I wasalready an NCO and I had never
done Motor Pool Monday.
I thought that everymaintenance day, like day, you'd

(18:23):
have a mechanic come out withthe box you know what I'm
talking about and like type inthe faults and get the parts.
They're like no, no, no.
You got to go over to theoffice and talk to the clerk.
I'm like what clerk, what areyou talking about?
But so I reenlisted and wentdown to Fort Hood because I was
like ah, fort Hood, they only goto like Korea.
And then they just got back.

(18:45):
So I'll be, I'll be good, I'mgoing to get a break, and then.
And then, when something comes,I'll go again.
And I got down there and atthat point I was a Sergeant and
I showed up and they saw me whenI was in processing and I
remember if it was Sergeant,major or First Sergeant.
But they're like hmm, you got,you have a deployment patch on.
I was like, yeah.
So they're like let me see yourERB, which is now STP.

(19:08):
They changed it again to a newname, so I handed it to him.
He's like oh, okay, you gotAfghanistan and Iraq.
I go yeah, I do.
I'm like I'm ready for a break.
And he just smiled and lookedat me.

(19:29):
He goes hey, uh, we're going tokuwait um later this year and
your dwell time ends one monthbefore we go and uh, we, we have
, uh we have missions fromkuwait.
So that was kind of our base ofoperations.
And then what they would do issending the different companies
and troops out from our unit todifferent areas to do actual
deployment stuff.
So they're like there's amission and at that time we

(19:52):
didn't really know.
It was all classified.
It's been declassified since.
But fifth group was asking forvolunteer recon elements from
first cav because we were goingto be out of Kuwait.
So our unit went into northernSyria and kind of essentially
did an entire, not even a screen.
It was more like a cover.
We didn't have the.
It was a screen but the amountof work they wanted us to do was

(20:15):
a full-on cover.
I don't need to explain that.
I'm pretty sure almosteverybody listens to your thing
if they're all feds knows what acover versus a screen and a
guard are.
But it was a small element.
It was a very, very, very smallbase and I think I always tell
people I love Afghanistan, likethose were my memories because

(20:37):
my first deployment.
But, like Syria, always stuckbecause, first off, you know
when you're regular army andsomeone's like hey, who wants to
volunteer to go help the sfguys do sf things.
Of course you know any anycombat kids like oh, me, me, me,
come on, let me, let me, I'm in.
Um, we didn't realize likegoing over there, there was no

(20:59):
base, there was no supply, therewas nothing that we were
working for group but we weren'tpart of group.
And then, like we were stillpart of First Cav but we weren't
so, and First Cav's all the wayin Kuwait.
So we're, you know we're doingour stuff.
And that was a weird scenariofor me because you know I joined

(21:24):
later.
I wasn't like you guys whereyou had the sandbags on the
ground inside your trucks andyou guys were you know, sleeping
in holes and all that.
But when we got to Syria, thetrucks were hand-me-downs from
the surge in Iraq.
They were old light armorHumvees and I was like, are you
kidding me, because this is 2017.

(21:46):
Because what they did was, youknow, the what's it?
Oh, what's it?
Oie, what do they call that?
The operational inherentequipment, the stuff you sign
for when you go downrange.
You know, we don't bring ourown trucks.
Usually there's something there.
So that's what?
Right, right, right, yeah,that's what they did.
Because the SF guys were like,oh, we need to give these guys
something.
So they grabbed a bunch of theold Humvees and gave it to us.

(22:07):
Now, they did upgrade useventually, but the reason why I
like that deployment is because, like, we didn't have a base.
We had to build it.
The whole base was made out ofHESCO barriers.
It was only like 400 meters.
You know, our was, uh, concretecylinders that we stacked on
top of each other and then putlike a piece of plywood.
It was the most janky thingever and like all of that and it

(22:31):
was kind of the full experiencethat you always wanted if you
were crazy and young and youwanted to fight.
So, no, no tent, no defect.
No, no, nothing eating mres.
Uh, we filled hundreds ofsandbags and you know, uh, one
of the one of the groups slepton a roof of a building that
they took for like three weeksbefore they could get a tent

(22:54):
from somebody.
And then, when we got, this wasin kuwait.
No, so this was over in syria.
So we went to syria.
I'm sorry, yeah, we went intoKuwait, and then that's when
they asked us for the volunteers.
So then To go into Syria.
So then when we went in there,we were up in I don't know if
you're familiar at all, butnorthern Syria, manbij.
It was a patrol base that webuilt Back in 2017, there was

(23:20):
news being put on, when Mattiswas still in office as a SEC DEF
, about Turkish soldiersshooting and engaging US
soldiers and it was like a bigthing.
We were those soldiers.
It was the weirdest rules ofengagement ever, because a NATO
ally was shooting at us andtrying to engage us and we
couldn't shoot back and it wascrazy.

(23:43):
It was a whole weird processand, like I said, that's kind of
why, like when you talk likewar-wise, I loved Syria, but
like when I talk deployment-wise, you know, like the memories,
as terrible as the stuff isright, you make memories with
your friends.
You do all these cool things.
Afghanistan was that for me,and Syria was more of like that

(24:08):
experience that you wanted whenyou signed up.
When you signed up to do combat, you wanted, hey, I want to
sleep on the ground.
I want to do this Under thestars.
Exactly, and I got to do thatand that was pretty cool,
exactly, and I got to do thatand that was pretty cool.
But I would say at the sametime, syria back then was a

(24:31):
beast.
That was when regimes startedusing sarin and gas on villages
and you know that was straightup ISIS.
Now I'd seen some from Iraq butlike, not firsthand.
The building that we stayed inwas actually a former
interrogation site that we hadtaken.

(24:52):
So I remember one day I wasdoing kind of just a presence
patrol on the outside of ourwall and we didn't even realize
it, but maybe 150, 250 metersfrom our base was a giant ditch.
You know, we just thought itwas a ditch because there's
olive groves, but it wasactually a mass grave.

(25:19):
There was a giant execution siteand there they were just bodies
with worn-out clothes who werethey, I don't know, just
civilians.
Yeah, they were civilians, weinferred, so we were put there
to protect the Kurdish.
Yeah, I'm sure you're trackinglike the whole persecution
between the Turks and the Kurds.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Guard up there and um more like a cover.
We didn't have enough tosustain a guard.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
We didn't have enough to sustain a cover, but we had
to somehow, um, but what we didis we tied ourselves in with the
local militia groups that wereup north, while the guys in a
group were down south in uhshidati, like handling business

(25:58):
against regime and everything.
So our job was one, um, keepthe Kurds from getting killed by
the, the mercs that were upthere that were supposed to take
them out.
And then two was kind of likeKLEs, but also help them
organize a flot and hold it.
And that was that weirdexperience.

(26:21):
But I'm pretty sure, because ofwhere the site was and the
location, that most of thosepeople that were in those
ditches were just Kurds thatwere being interrogated or
persecuted, but most of theskulls actually just had the one
hole in the top of the head.
And it was just shocking because, believe it or not, how good of

(26:44):
scouts were we?
But we didn't know until like amonth on ground, because we
were so busy building the insideof the base and building battle
positions and developingcasualty collection points and
all these rules of engagementand all these drills, especially
the Alamo drill.
That was our big one, and wenever really went right outside.

(27:09):
Also, right outside was one ofthe militia groups, like little,
not a headquarters, but like asmall base.
So we knew we were good becausethey were right there and so we
never really looked around.
But then, when we did lookaround, I remember going and
grabbing my commander and I'mlike, hey, there are bodies out

(27:31):
here, like right out here, andthey're like no, no way, no way.
You know, I was still a youngsergeant, staff sergeant at the
time, and so we went out thereand, lo and behold, there they
are.
We took the pictures, we sentit up to group like hey, we need
to get people out here.
So, you know, they flew out whothey needed to fly out.
They documented it all and didwhat they had to do.

(27:53):
Yeah, but I don't know, it'sweird.
I know that you understand it,but each place had like its own
little difference.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
You knowghanistan was one beast, iraq was another and
syria was something differentaltogether and it's so
interesting too, man, becauselike all the different
experiences that you had in thethree different countries that
you were in I mean just from mytime in the military, just from
my one one year in deployment toIraq in 2004, 2005, it's almost

(28:28):
like war is different, but it'sthe same context.
Like when you talked about likeinsider threat, like the day I
landed in Mosul was the day wegot our chow hall bombed by an
insurgent that was dressed likean iraqi soldier, like literally
went in there with a suicidevest, blew himself up, and then,

(28:48):
right after that, they tried tolaunch a bunch of indirect fire
and a bunch of direct fire intothe base to try to hit the, the
, the hospital, the cash,because they knew there would be
casualties and they were justtrying to cause all hell.
And then everything that you'retalking about, you know as far
as like going somewhere andliterally, like I've been to
places near the Syrian border,when I used to do transportation

(29:13):
out there, especially with theSF guys, there's places that I
went to.
I would step out onto the dirtand it was like stepping in snow
, but it was like nothing, butnothing but like dust.
Yeah, and like you're steppingin it and I can't even see my
boots and I'm like where's,where's the dining facility?
And oh no, all we have is alister bag.
And that's when you know whenyou're in the shit, when you're

(29:34):
like drinking out of a listerbag.
You know what I mean.
Like you don't see that shitlike anywhere, except for places
where, like it's desolate andman, like in your career you've
experienced so much, so much, um, and I, man, it's so

(29:55):
fascinating to hear like thedifferent, the different
countries and just the differenttypes of warfare.
Um, what was interesting to mewhen I was in ira, iraq, was I
was talking to someone from the101st that had been there for a
few months the year before I gotthere, and then they came back
again and they were there whileI was there and they were

(30:17):
telling me.
They were like, yeah, when wewere here last time, we were
able to take soft skin Humveesinto the city of Mosul.
It wasn't a big deal.
Now we can't do that and itseems like year after year it
changes.
Things change so much.
I don't know if you ever hadthat experience where you, like,
went to a country, left andthen came back and then saw the

(30:38):
difference of what it was before.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
I would probably say oh my God, go ahead.
No, no, you can probably say Iwouldn't really be able to, just
because I didn't really everreturn.
Besides, um, even going intoiraq we stopped, like at bagram.
So like seeing the differentdynamic in two years from like
13 when I got there to, uh, youknow, 15 when I got there, it
was, it was very different itwas more built up.

(31:06):
You know, instead of Humveesthey had the MRAPs, which I love
Gotta love the MRAPs.
You know they're lifesaversthey really are which was a nice
upgrade, but like that wasreally the only demographic I
could see.
And you know Bagram gets itsoccasional pop shots.
And you know IDF, but you knownothing deliberate, so it would

(31:29):
be hard to say.
But I totally agree with whatyou're saying too, with like the
different dynamic and knowing.
You know Afghanistan, you'refighting.
I was fighting alongside ABP andANA in Iraq.
We were fighting alongside theIraqi forces and like those guys
kind of really did appreciateus being there.
One thing I forgot to mentionbefore is because I was on the

(31:51):
security detail that protectedthe airstrip, at night the
Iraqis would bring in theirplanes and unload the bodies
from there.
I was there for the attemptedretake of felucia on there by
them and like we you know how wetook that step back and we're
like nope, this is you, you lostit, you take it back.

(32:12):
Um, I watched them unloadbodies like every night, like
hundreds of them, and what theywould do is just lay them out on
the tarmac and unload them fromthis plane and like guys that
were whole they'd bring out justby holding their arms and legs.
Guys, that were soup theybrought out in bags and like
there was that and then, butthat was still working alongside

(32:32):
like another force.
The Syria was a different thing.
Like I sat in a foxhole on aovernight OP with a 12 year old
holding an AK because hisparents were both killed just
for being kurdish in northernsyria, like, and it was
completely different.
It wasn't um, it wasn't.
I wasn't fighting, you know,alongside another military

(32:55):
trying to, you know, defendthemselves.
I was fighting with, like wehad a guy who had gangrene.
He got shot in his foot and he,like his foot was rotting off.
We called him Leonidas Don'tknow his name, but that was the
name we gave him.
Um, cause this dude isliterally walking around and he
had like one toe left.
Again, I can, I'll email youthe picture sometime after this,

(33:17):
cause I got I still got apicture of that dude's foot.
Um, but like these were, it wasdifferent.
You know you were, you werefighting alongside militias,
like small militias instead, um,and like that kind of you know,
really like clicked and it wasalso very, you know, not
devastating, but it hit home.

(33:39):
You know you're sitting.
You're sitting there with thiskid because you know you hear
the things, the things, you seethe things, but like most of the
time, you don't really get tolike actually sit and spend time
with, like these small childrenand like to have a kid and our
whole conversation.
I had to have my terp.
His name was Abe, liketranslate for me, because the

(33:59):
first thing I didn't even likecare that why he was in a hole.
He didn't ask.
I was mad because he popped ina hole.
It's 2 am and this kid'ssmoking a cigarette and we're
facing the, the, the, the, the,the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the,the, the, just me and him.

(34:20):
I'm like I'm not dying becausethis kid's being dumb.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
And.
I didn't even know he was 12.
I just there's just some kid inthere, and then then Abe told
him the kid, like, put it out,said sorry.
Then I was like what is thiskid doing here?
Then he told me the whole thing.
It was like, yeah, he's 12.
His parents were both executedfor being Christian and he had
nowhere else to go.
So he found the militia group,grabbed the uh uh weapon and

(34:46):
he's been here since.
And then I just spent the restof the night talking to this kid
, knowing he knew nothing aboutwhat I was saying, and then just
listening to him and justshaking my head and, uh, you
know, just kind of staring outat the flat.
But, um, I I've even, like,told my spouse when I got home,
out of all my memories, justsomething about that really hit.

(35:09):
And then also I got a bunch ofphotos and videos of it.
But we used to drive through theSyrian refugee camps while we
were there and like the numberof children and the lack of
adults in that area was just,you know, it was disheartening,

(35:29):
it really was.
And I don't mean like teens, Imean like kids.
And we would come up there andwe'd have people mail us care
packages with the dum-dumlollipops and all that other
stuff, but you pass those out.
We tried, we ended up givingthem to like whoever was there,
like a local national that wasthere who was old.

(35:52):
We're like here, you hand thisout because you walked out of
your truck with anything in yourhands.
You know what happens,especially like in those camps,
because there was no adultsreally to stop anything.
But I agree with you, thedynamic does change and like the
dynamics still changing, andit's only from what I've seen

(36:12):
going from 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.
Now I haven't been over.
Recently I have my old platoonwent without me because I ended
up going drill and sadly I leftbefore I could go and they
actually went back to Syria.
But what they've said and whatI've seen from all of my guys
that keep coming back is itkeeps getting worse.

(36:35):
It really does, because morehigh tech equipment's out there
now.
I mean drones were a thing in17 when I was there.
Look what just happened inUkraine the other day.
I saw that on the news and I'mlike, oh my, I don't want to go
anywhere if I don't have theyhave that Thor system, the

(36:55):
backpack that stops.
So they developed a backpackone now that stops drone signals
too, so it can jam the drones.
So I'm like I don't want to goanywhere without the the drone
jamming thing.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
But do you make me feel old man?
Because back in my day theywere trying this thing out.
It was like a warlock and theyput it in our vehicle and it
would screw up ourcommunications and it was meant
to like scramble the ieb uhsignal so they wouldn't explode
and we would run the warlock.
We don't even know if it worked, man.
If it was, if it was a thing,if what we had back then worked

(37:29):
or not, you're, you know, you.
You're still in uniform.
Um, you're not even a civilianyet.
You're still around common folkthat can share your experience,
a lot of what you've gonethrough, and I don't know how to
say this to you, but I guessjust say it to you.

(37:49):
I hope you don't struggle withfinding people of commonality,
because when you get out here inthe civilian world and you get
further away from the base, thefurther you get from the base,
the further you get away fromthe military and you're sitting
around that campfire.
No one is going to really knowwhat a bad day looks like,

(38:11):
except for you.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, no, I totally get that and I wish I could tell
you that still being in, like Ido have commonality, but I
think you can understand this.
I do have commonality, but Ithink you can understand this.
With the wars kind of dyingdown and limitations on
deployments, you go in.
It is not uncommon to see asergeant first class in combat

(38:35):
arms with no deployments.
Now, it is not, that's a thing.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Staff sergeants even more so, dude, that was it.
So like a combat patch duringmy day was like everyone had it,
everyone had gum, it was likecandy, yeah, and everyone had
combat patches, dude, everyonehad it.
And it was like now I seesomeone and I'm like where's the
combat patch?
And it's not there and I'm likeit's just so weird to me, man.
And then like people that servein the military that have never

(39:04):
been anywhere, I'm like,seriously, like when I resigned
my commission, that was the onething that the full bird asked
me.
He goes hey, did you deploy?
And I was like, yeah, Ideployed.
Okay, well, I was gonna makeyou deploy.
Everybody had that was astandard like everyone had to go
overseas, everyone had to go toIraq or Afghanistan.
And now it's like I mean, man,like I would say that your

(39:27):
experience is very rare, like tohave experienced three
different fronts in the amountof time that you've been in.
That's absolutely crazy.
And you know, I want to shiftaway from the combat experience
a little more and talk moreabout the leadership.
More about the leadership.
How do you think, with eachdeployment that you've done, how

(39:48):
do you think that shaped?

Speaker 2 (39:49):
your leadership overall?
How has it changed yourleadership and your thought
process?
Super, super good question too.
I think each each you go intothe military, you know thinking,
you know I know how to lead,even when you're young and dumb.
You're like, ah, you know, Ican do it.
And then I went dumb.
You're like, ah, you know, Icould do it.
And then I went in afghanistan,like you know, like like a
loudmouth new yorker, thinking Iknew I knew everything and

(40:12):
whatnot.
Just because I was tough, youknow, I, I could, I could max
the pt test because I could dothat.
You know I'm good and, uh, I Ilearned very, very, very quickly
that I was wrong, I was dumb, Iwas immature, and then what I
decided to do was just kind ofpay attention to the leaders,

(40:33):
good and bad, and when I wasthat private, I would analyze
every movement that a sergeant,a staff sergeant, first, first
sergeant would make, everydecision they would make.
And I'm like I like that, Idon't like that, I like that,
hate that.
And someone once I don't, Ican't even remember who told me
I think it might've been an NCOnamed Sergeant Cook, justin Cook

(40:56):
, way back in the day, but Ithink he had told me take every
little thing that you love andstart creating an image of a
leader out of that.
And then take everything youhate and then put it on like a
list in your brain of everythingyou never want to do.
And he's like because no leaderis perfect, everyone's got

(41:17):
their faults, but he's like butyou can create almost a perfect
image of a leader if you take 10or 12 leaders and combine all
their good and um.
That really kind of shaped mefor it's great advice.
Great, it shaped me forafghanistan and I left
afghanistan, came back I was acorporal and I got stuck on.

(41:38):
I had a.
I had this one nco who has noidea.
I looked up to him because,like, I butt heads with him all
the time, but he was a staffsergeant, he was 23, ranger tab,
like awesome dude, and he wasvery abrasive, like very
abrasive, but like I saw it asout of necessity.

(41:58):
So when I got back fromafghanistan and I finally, you
know, put corporal on and hadsome stripes, that was the
personality I took, because Iwas still too young, I didn't
actually like, know, you know,and, um, I just kind of took on
that abrasiveness, that abrasivepersonality.
Everything was super serious.
You know, there's no joking, no, nothing, cause that's how this

(42:19):
guy was.
And I went into Iraq with thatand I slowly started figuring
out that, um, that mentality,you know, didn't really work.
It really didn't, um, becauseit wasn't you Well, it was, it's
not.
Even I, like you know, I have amentality of you joined the

(42:41):
army to do army things.
So, like, whatever you feel youknow you should do because of
this is how we do it on theoutside, well, that's great, but
you're not on the outside.
You gave up that right when yousigned the paper.
But that mentality does notwork with like the newer
generation.
That mentality does not workwith like the newer generation.
Even when I was a corporal backin 2015, the kids that came in

(43:01):
after me like they didn't.
They didn't have that mentality.
These kids were getting awayfrom like the 9-11 dudes.
They were just here for college, they were here for this and I
realized that I went from.
I was very dependable.
Everyone would come to me ifthey needed tactics hey, how did
you do this on the lastdeployment that you had just a

(43:23):
year and change ago, stuff likethat but if they had a personal
issue or just a silly question,they avoided me like the plague
and found anyone else.
And I didn't really realizethat until after we got back,
and so then I kind of had toreshape again, and then that was

(43:48):
that weird phase where Ifinally found out what the hell
Motor Pool Monday was.
So now, on top of that, I'mtrying to find who I am as a
sergeant, but also now I'mrealizing I am not competent
when it comes to garrison life,which was bad.
So that was kind of anotherturning point for me leadership
wise.
It was one of those all right,I need to take a step back from
the fighting, the aggression,all that stuff and get into the
doctrine, get into theregulations, get into SOPs and

(44:11):
all that.
And I did and it really shapedwho I was.
And then I took all of that andfinally went into the 2017
deployment with thiswell-rounded, like stern combat
experience guy, but also like Icould spit regs and rules and
back up my stuff immediately.

(44:32):
But I found out as well likethat isn't enough to lead like
these, especially the newsoldiers.
It wasn't as crazy as it sounds.
It wasn't until I picked upstaff sergeant and took a
platoon that I finally like,found like the actual what works
for me and kind of what worksin general, because I still I

(44:56):
led these guys in 2019 as aplatoon serge sergeant.
Some of them are out of thearmy, some of them are.
They all still talk to me andnot as a platoon sergeant
anymore, like they're lifelongfriends.
Like I got invited to a weddingof a kid I had as a private and
then I helped him get tosergeant.
Then he made staff sergeant.
He reclassed.
I haven't seen him since 2022,but I still got an invitation in

(45:19):
the mail and I've told myself,like that's how I know, I've
kind of hit that.
You know that nice rem, that'sthe spot.
And what it was was.
I realized, yes, you have to.
The older combat guys need torealize that, especially the
ones that are still in we yes,we do have that stuff, we have

(45:42):
that.
That.
There's a difference.
Like you said, our hardest dayisn't what these kids are
complaining about.
Like you know, we're still herein the motor pool working on.
It's like cool, it's like coolman.
You ever have to put one of yourfriends in a bag and pack up
his stuff or burn, burn theirequipment because it's got their
blood on it.
It's like, no, this is not hard, this is easy.

(46:04):
Hard is doing like an 18-hourpatrol coming back sleeping for
two hours and someone kickingyou on your cot saying, hey, we
need someone to go sit in thetower for six hours.
I know you're tired, but putyour stuff on Like that's rough,
right, but put your stuff onlike that, that that's rough
Right, cause then you're in thattower, you're exhausted, but
you also tell yourself, hey, ifI fall asleep, this entire
sector of the base isunprotected and that's on me,

(46:28):
and so I kind of figured thatout and realized that I needed
to show them that I knew what Iwas talking about, like through
action, not words, and then alsoshow them like the way.
So I showed up and you'reprobably going to think this is
taboo as all hell, but I was aplatoon sergeant and I showed up
and I went to the NCO of themonth board as like a senior

(46:51):
staff sergeant taking over aplatoon, like in my first month
there, and I walked in and hisname was Sergeant Major Flint
Loved the guy.
He asked me he's like what thehell are you doing here?
I don't even know you.
You just got here and you're aplatoon sergeant.
Why aren't you fixingeverything to give the soldiers
the leaders that I wish I hadand do everything I wish I had

(47:13):
as a private?
But I'm also going to hold themto a very high standard in
which I intend on sending mysoldiers to the board every
month and they're going to winevery month.

(47:35):
But before I do that, I'm aboutto win this board.
Win every month, but before Ido that I'm about to win this
sport.
So that way, when I walk downand I tell them you're going to
do this and they tell me I don'thave time, I can go.
I'm a father, I'm a husband,I'm the platoon sergeant and I
have to take care of all of youguys.
And somehow I'm in college andI still had time to study and
win this thing.
And then you know, you go ahead, you try to tell me, guy in the

(47:57):
barracks that has nothing to doat Fort Drum, because it's the
winter, that you can't study acouple of flashcards, and I even
gave him the flashcards.
But I realized that mentalitystuck and you've heard this,
everyone in the military hasheard it like doing you know,
succeeding in the military isdoing the right thing, but with
the right people, seeing you doit, I hate that, that's that's

(48:18):
it.
But with the right peopleseeing you do it, I hate that,
that's it, but that's really it.
I realize you can know all theknowledge and you can have all
the experience, but you kind ofhave to let your guys see you
stand on that hill, sometimesdie on that cross for them.

(48:39):
I did that repeatedly, like Ishielded my guys from anything
you could think of and then, uh,shifted it to everything.
Nothing was about me,everything was about them right.
Every month I would send one ortwo guys to like a big school,
whoever was performing the most.
If you won the soldier of themonth board, I gave you.
I put you in for a four-daywith the commander, you got an

(49:00):
award.
Then I gave you whatever schoolyou want.
So like guys were trying to goto ranger air assault, so all of
that stuff.
But I I realized at that point,um, that you know, being the
scary experienced guy, you knowthat's just super abrasive,
isn't it anymore?
And even when I put the drillhat on, I was they.

(49:22):
They called me the reaper andthey nicknamed my, my company or
troop, uh, concentration campcharlie.
And we were, we were over atbenning and like I was mean uh I
was.
I don't even know how many otherdrills have done this recently.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
How many years did you, how many years were you?

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Two years, and in two years I sent home exactly 100
trainees Like I kept the countand the drill like any drill who
served with me will tell you,yes, he kept the count and it
was Was that was that hard to doLike maybe a drill will send
home like 13.
I sent home a hundred, whetherit was like recycling them, but

(50:04):
they did not walk across thegraduation field with me.
You know some of them gotinjured because I had a really
high PT standard, but I was aweird drill.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Did you get a lot of flack for that?

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
I did.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
You did.
But I had this first surgeonand a commander who, like, saw
what I was doing.
I had this first surgeon andthe commander who, like, saw
what I was doing and they'relike he's producing a product
that, like his name is tied to,that he'd be proud of.
But I was.
I was a weird oddity on drills.
Like I wasn't popular with somedrills Cause, like, if you were
doing pushups, cause you messedup, I'm doing them with you,

(50:35):
cause I messed up.
Cause if you're messed up, Imessed up, because if you're
messed up, I'm messed up BecauseI'm your leader and I would do
that.
And I think it's kind of taboofor drills, especially the
combat drills, to do this.
Like no, they messed up.
You need to establish something.
Like no, I did establish it.
They are terrified of me.
Every time I walk in a roomit's dead silent and they all
look to see if they're about toget yelled at.

(50:55):
Get yelled at.
But at the same time I alwaysheard it like at the end at the
graduations and I loved it wasthe privates would say crap,
drill sergeant Stewart's here.
So either we're going to learnsome really cool shit that, like
that, no one else is going toteach us because of that, or we
are about to die, like it's oneor the other.

(51:15):
And I love that mentality.
And now, at the same time, I'vebeen off the trail for almost a
year and change and I, you know,after the year mark or six
month mark, they can try tocontact you.
I got kids that like.
I got a kid who broke his hipsthat trained with me and he
still talks to me, he still does.

(51:35):
You know, all this stuff, it's,it's a cool mentality, um, and
it was that mentality developedas a platoon sergeant and that's
why I did get some flack forthat too, as a drill.
They're like, hey, man, you,you caring too much about, um,
you know these kids, like yougot to push them out and I, I
think that's a big thing and Iknow you saw it too when you

(51:58):
were, when you were, and it'sstill a thing now.
Um, we have this big riftbetween the new and the old
because, like I said, combatpatches and combat jobs aren't
they're, they're not like candyanymore.
Like you go into a unit, you'llsee like four or five and like
each company, maybe out of theout of, like the old dudes, and

(52:21):
even if they did do it.
You know, some of these guyswere like there for like the
downgrade stuff.
Now, some of the downgrade wasterrible.
I'm not trying to, you know,knock, but like other guys were
like, yeah, we were there,nothing happened, and so it's.
It's a different mentality.
But these older guys are tryingto like kind of separate

(52:43):
themselves and like belittle andkind of, hey, these young kids
don't get it.
And I've noticed that like I'llbutt heads with a lot of
leaders and I'll tell them and Iget it, because I was that way
when I was young but it's likecool, it's not their fault that
they didn't join when we did.
They were.
Some of them weren't even bornyet.
I'm, I'm meeting, I'm meetingkids that are in now that and it

(53:06):
makes me sad that are like 17years old, born in 08.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
And I'm like oh, oh my, you know, but but um yeah,
man, I I really want to unpackeverything that you just
mentioned, though I think thatyou're a great leader.
I mean, just listen to you talkand I let you just continue and
go on, and I didn't interruptyou because you were so engaging
when you were talking about thewhole leadership thing.

(53:31):
A lot of people don't realizethat you're supposed to evolve
as a leader, like everythingthat you talked about when you
adapted that first NCO'sleadership style being hard nose
, hard line, and then you triedit and then you kind of took

(53:52):
that version and then you turnedit into something else, like
you're, making it yours, likeyou're sort of like making the
ingredients of Alex Stewart, youknow, and Sergeant First Class
Stewart, you know, and DrillSergeant Stewart, you know
you're.
And I always tell people likeover the years, even in the
civilian world, in thegovernment world, you know, you
might run into somebody and theymight be a complete asshole,

(54:13):
and then five years later runinto them again and they might
have completely changed, likereinventing themselves
everywhere they go, realizingthat, hey, at my last position I
really screwed up, reallyfucked up here, and people
didn't like this style.
So my next station, I'm goingto do this better, and I'm going
to try to change that better.
So you're like you don't knowwho you're going to see or what

(54:36):
you're going to get, and you'resupposed to evolve as a leader.
That's the best thing andthat's what tells me that you're
a good leader, because you'veadapted a style that's you.
You didn't just follow someoneelse, and this is how you're
going to do it and this is howyou're going to be every single
time, everywhere you go, and Idon't really hear a lot of

(54:57):
people say that very often.
But that's good leadership.
You're supposed to do that.
You're supposed to be that way,and I want to make sure that I
acknowledge something reallyquick.
So are you still married toyour first wife?

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yep 12 years.
This year is 12 years and wewent through all three
deployments.
We have two kids, everything.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Hats off to her man.
I don't want to gloss over that.
I want to acknowledge thatbecause that is a very, very
hard life to.
Oh yeah, and she, she dealtwith like the dark too, and
that's a whole another story.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
But uh, you know somebody that can then stick
that out, and she was actually.
She went through pregnancieswhile I was gone, like you know
yeah, I felt terrible as, as youknow, uh soon to be dead.
Like I missed.
I missed my daughter's birth bytwo weeks because we found out
she was pregnant right before Ileft.

(55:47):
I was like oh man, and she wassupposed to be born like two
weeks later, but she ended uphaving preeclampsia and some
other issues, so she had to beinduced.
So it stopped and then I missedhalf of my wife's pregnancy,
with my son too.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Luckily, I was yeah, it's a tough life, man, like
being in the military.
So, like I said, man hats offto her as a military spouse for
going through so much.
And then, man, you've beenthrough a lot, how many years
have you been in now?

Speaker 2 (56:24):
yeah, I know, and you are right, I am like an anomaly
.
I have five years of.
You know combat, just in asmall, small little.
And then, um, I made, I madeseven and nine because that's
the quickest you can make it now.
Uh, because they changed therules and I'm already on the e8
list.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Uh, before I even hit 12, I was at 11 and change and
uh, you're I mean you're, you'restill in it and you're over
here writing, writing books, um,talking about ptsd therapy,
things like that.
You're still in it, like you'renot even out yet.
And there's people that get outand they still don't even

(57:03):
recognize that they have anyissues at all.
When did you first recognizethat you felt like you were
struggling with PTSD?

Speaker 2 (57:11):
So I think we all know like when we are.
But at first deployment I had alittle situation.
My family decided to bring meto a Texas roadhouse because you
know they're near every base,and it was like the first
weekend I was home and you knowI just met this newborn baby,
which was a lot, because whenyou miss an entire pregnancy

(57:34):
like you weren't there and thenbaby is there, like it doesn't
click, exactly it didn't clickright away so that was a lot.
Then my family came to visit andthey decided to put me in the
middle of a six-person boothbetween two people on a saturday
night in in a you knowafghanistan.
Now I did not after I got backfrom afghanistan, in in texas

(57:55):
roadhouse and, uh, I didn'trealize that like I came home
with any baggage and this isjust the first deployment.
But the noise that day, like itjust yeah, you ever you ever
been in like a place?
And all the noises like aroundyou, like your family talking,
it just kind of gets fuzzy.
You can't hear that and all youhear is all the background

(58:17):
noise.
It just gets louder and louderand louder, like, and like it
feels like your head's gettingcompressed.
Um, I threw a fork across thatrestaurant, like, and I just
stormed out and I told them,like put my, put my food in a
to-go box, I am so sorry.
And like I was, just it was toomuch and I left, um, and just
sat outside and that was in 14.

(58:39):
And like I just kind of brushedit off.
Also, like I'm wearing my shirt, break the Stigma.
I knew that that was not normalbecause when I was a civilian,
as a young kid I volunteered atan organization for kids with
disabilities for, like sportscoach.
I was a sports coach for, likekids with cerebral palsy, autism

(58:59):
, asperger, like you name it, solike I was very, uh,
compassionate and like it alljust went away just after that
first one and but, like you know, I was at drum and I was with
all these hard charger dudes andthey're like, yeah, it's just
something wrong with you.
You just keep your mouth shut.
Like my best friend on thatfirst deployment was a guy who

(59:23):
was probably in the worstfirefight that Drum had seen in
years, on the previousdeployment in Kandahar and their
platoon lost five guys.
And like, even on thatdeployment, like he had I don't
even know how he was able todeploy, but he had like five
pills he had to take every dayin order to keep him level.
And so I saw him and this is myclosest friend.

(59:49):
So I was like, oh, he doesn'tsay a damn thing, he's quiet.
So I just was like I'm fine andthere was that thing like it's
quiet, he's.
So like I just was like I'mfine and there was that thing,
you know, like it's weak.
And then you find out like, hey, if you go say something,
especially like that, rightafter the deployment.
I knew they'd be like well, hey, you're not going to shoot
anymore, you're not going to.

(01:00:09):
They take so much away from youlike your whole identity, and I
was afraid to even bring it up,so I left it alone, it alone.
Then I went to Iraq and I cameback and that time, um, my
brother and I got into like alittle argument over something
and, uh, it ended up with likehim shoving me and which is not

(01:00:30):
smart for him.
My father was a professionalboxer.
I trained for years, I used todo free, I used to train
soldiers for free at drum, andhe shoved me.
And the next thing I knew, um,like I have him by the neck off
the ground and my family is likeholding me back, like trying to
yank me off of them, and fourpeople are yanking me and no one
can get me off.
And like then I realized whathappened, you know, and uh, so

(01:00:54):
that scared me too.
But at the same time, still atdrum, I just got back.
This is only like year threeand a half, four in the military
, and you hear all that stufflike, yeah, you go over there,
they're going to take yourweapon.
They're going to do this,they're going to do that.
So I just avoided it.
But that's why, like I saidearlier, I tried to go down to
Texas, like get out of the drumarea, because I ended up in a

(01:01:17):
weird scenario where I was in abrigade that shut down.
And you know what happens whenthey shut you down they just
move you around and the brigadesrotate deployments.
So I just kept ending up in thebrigades that were going to
deploy.
So I went down to Texas andthen, you know, did the same
thing.
I was home, but I knew, I knewsomething was off and I think

(01:01:37):
that's why I kept signing thewaiver for my dwell time.
I always tell people, even if wedon't say it, deployments are
addicting.
They really are, and we becomedeployment junkies and that's a
weird term for it.
But I always explain it thisway and no one's ever disagreed

(01:01:58):
with me.
Deployments are easier.
I think that disagreed with me.
Deployments are easier.
I think that's what it is.
Deployments make sense.
Everything makes sense.
You know.
You know when you're waking up,you know when you have a
mission, you know what you'redoing the next day.
All you have to do wake up, eat, work out, if you can patrol,
fight, sleep, and like it wasjust I, I did this.

(01:02:20):
I made a mistake with thoseyears shoved together, you know,
and looking back when peopletalk to me like, oh, that's
really cool, you got to do allthat, and I always say, yeah, it
was.
But I didn't realize what I wasdoing to my head space by
keeping myself in that fight,fight, fight, fight, right.
So I finished 17 and I don'tremember what it was.

(01:02:44):
Luckily for me, I never reallystuck to drinking Like that.
I didn't cope that way.
So I did fighting, so I wouldjust fight, but I tried I don't
know why, but I tried to walkinto Behavioral Health at Hood,
finally, after you know, 17.
And I think it, like I said, Ithink it was that kid that I met

(01:03:06):
and like just all the otherkids, because at that point I
had young kids.
I had like a four-year-old anda three-year-old at that time.
So it's one thing and I knowmost people can attest to this
it's one thing when you gooverseas, especially if you
don't have kids because there'sno association, you don't go

(01:03:26):
over there and picture, oh whatif that was my kids?
And you don't really do itwhile you're there.
I always tell people it's thedark and quiet when you come

(01:03:46):
home from deployment that areyour worst enemy, because that's
where you start playing thewhat, what-ifs and that's where
you start really like breakingdown stuff that you saw and it's
dangerous, right, and I think Ithink that was what it was I
realized like man, I'm startingto really um break down some of
this stuff.
And syria had a really badmoment for me where I got stuck
on a rooftop in about a 10minute firefight and which was
which was that was a new thingfor me like a long firefight and

(01:04:09):
to be stuck to and I mean and Imean like helpless stuck.
We were pinned down, there wasa sniper, there was a machine
gun going and there was a threeman dismount team advancing on
us and it was just me and oneother kid stuck on a roof and we
got off.
We got through it all.
But like I think what botheredme the most was that night I
went back.

(01:04:30):
Luckily I had you know how youhave to reserve phone time
because there's only like one ortwo hard lines on the entire
base to call home.
I had my little 15-minute timeslot.
I said nothing to, to my wife,you know.
But at the same time, like Ipicked up the phone and for the
first time ever, I kind of saidto myself like hey, you almost

(01:04:51):
didn't have this conversationLike this, this almost didn't
happen kind of thing.
And um, when I got, home thatwas kind of thing.
And when I got home, that waskind of just the mentality and
stuff I started shifting fromlike you know, yeah, I'm angry
and whatever happened over there, you know they deserved it too.
Like seeing my kids run aroundand you kind of sit there and

(01:05:13):
you see these kids and you thinkto yourself like man, me and my
guys took this from somebody.
Granted, you know, we had to,we were just doing what we had
to do.
But at the end of the day, likewhen you sit there and you
really think, like I took thisfrom some kid, like their dad
just being around, or you know,I took a son from a dad, that
kind of stuff, when you actuallystart playing that game with

(01:05:36):
yourself, I think that's mixedwith, mixed with that quiet and
that dark, and that's where itjust kind of sinks in.
And I I tell I told people as adrill and, like I said, they
thought I was taboo.
I told a private because I wantto go overseas, I want to do
this, I want to kill people.
And I look at them.
I would take my hat off too andstare at him.
I go look, I'm gonna tell youthis right now.

(01:05:57):
I wouldn't yell, i't curse, Ijust look him dead in the eyes
and go.
If you think you're going to gooverseas and you're going to
get into a fight and you'regoing to take someone else's
life and it's not going tochange you forever, you are dead
wrong.
Look at my face.

(01:06:20):
Every time and every personI've ever, every person I've
ever served with, who's everbeen in a fight, every time you
know that happens, you die alittle inside.
One of you does, and it doesn'tmatter if you pulled the
trigger or not, if you were theend, but you were part of that
fight.
You see, because you know whatwe have to do, you know you have
to go, you have to go get thebody.
There's always an investigationso you get to see the aftermath
.
And then you know at the timeyou know, look at that, yeah, we

(01:06:45):
got them.
Yeah, yeah, and then, but thenit's those later on thoughts.
So I went in to get seen becauseall of that started like really
really getting to me.
Plus, like I said, in iraq Ihad torn my arm and I broke
three fingers.
Now I got treated for the threefingers, but the Army, being
the Army, tried to tell me thatmy torn arm was just a pulled

(01:07:06):
muscle.
That happened to me in 15.
I went on a deployment with atorn bicep in 17 still and then
came back home.
So like I'm injured, right, andI finally was looking for help
for the injury because, likewhat happened was I was a weird
tear.
It wasn't a normal bicep whereit snaps and disappears.

(01:07:27):
Mine split down the middlesomehow and like it opened up
kind of like a lobster tail,which is really weird to say.
But so I was in a lot of painand then I was hurt and you know
I was a hard charging lightcalf guy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
You don't get yeah, I ended up getting surgery in
2019.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
I had it.
I had one doctor who finallylistened to me and, uh, I agreed
to let him like, cut me openand go in looking cause he
couldn't really see it in theMRI.
He saw like he said.
He saw like a black dot in themuscle that shouldn't have been
there.
But when he went in he goes hey, if we didn't do this surgery,
like you had maybe two moremonths before, your entire bicep
would have just rippedcompletely in half and then it

(01:08:09):
would be gone.
And like the scar tissue was soold that he had to um, what is
it Debris Like?
I think he said he debried likean inch of muscle tissue just
to get fresh tissue to stitch ittogether.

Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
So like right now and I don't ever.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Usually I won't do it , but like if I flex my left and
right arm like you see asubstantial difference because,
like I can't get back the youknow five years of lifting that
they cut out of that arm.
My right arm is still as thesame size.
But I went into behavior,health with like, dealing with
my injury and all other stuff,and I told them what was wrong

(01:08:45):
and, believe it or not, andactually everyone will believe
it because it's hood Well nowCavazos, but hood I went in and
they told me that yes, you areshowing signs of post-traumatic
stress disorder and it soundslike you've been dealing with
them for years and just haven'tdone anything.
But we can't help you right now.
And I looked at her.

(01:09:05):
I was like what do you mean?
You can't help me.
And she told me, and I quote,you are a low risk soldier.
And I looked at her and said,okay, what does that mean?
So you have post-traumaticstress disorder.
But you said that you won't doanything based on, like, the
actions and your thoughts,because you have children.
And I mentioned that, like Ihave kids.
She's like why haven't you hurtyourself, why haven't you hurt

(01:09:25):
others?
I'm like I have kids, I have awife, I have a career.
I wouldn't do that.
So, like they said, because yousaid those things, and we have
so many high-risk people at forthood, because it's such a big
base, so like we don't have thecapacity at this time to treat
you.
So I was like so what does lowrisk mean?
Then and this is the thing I'mnever going to forget this woman
looked me down the eyes andsays basically it means you're

(01:09:48):
not going to go home, grab a gunand go shoot up a school of
children.
And I looked at her and I waslike what?
And then that was it.
She kind of just brushed me off, told me she had more people to
treat and asked me to be on myway and no shit, come back if
you start getting to a pointwhere you think you're going to
hurt somebody else or others.

(01:10:10):
It put a sour taste in my mouthfor treatment, because now,
after years of all this stuffand you're hearing some of the
stuff I'm saying and you know,and I know what it is and they
just kind of ignored me so Ishut down.
But what turned in?
I know long story leading up to, but when I got here I'm sorry,

(01:10:34):
not here, but Fort Benning tobe a drill I hadn't even started
on a trail yet and I had asituation and I always tell this
story every time I speak withmental health my dog of like
five years at the time bit mywife on her hand True blood,
she's screaming and I was acrossthe room and somehow in like
and I don't remember any of it,I don't know how it happened.

(01:10:57):
In like a 15 second time spanmy dog went from biting my wife
with blood dripping down mywife's hands to me standing next
to my wife and my dog halfwayacross the house in shock with
blood dripping from his mouthand like just freaking out.
And I had no idea what happenedand like just freaking out and
I had no idea what happened andit scared the ever-loving shit

(01:11:25):
out of me and I never had thatbefore, like I had never lost
control.
And I love the dog Dog's fine,he's downstairs now.
But that moment my wife wentfrom, you know, crying about the
hand to crying like what didyou just do?
And I, I'm sitting there likethat you know that nasty gut
stomach feeling.
You get like when, when?
So I'm sitting here like whatdid I just do?

(01:11:46):
So I got in the car and droveimmediately to uh, the clinic on
uh, fort Fort Benning as adrill Like.
And I hadn't even started yet.
And you know what happens whendrills go and like try to get
behavioral health, usuallythey'll try to take you out.
And I went in and I told thefront desk I'm like I need to be
seen now.

(01:12:06):
And they're like well, thatdoesn't work like that.
I was like, okay, let me.
Let me rephrase that Get mesomeone now or I'll jump over
this table and you're going tohave a problem.
Does that sound better?
Does that sound like I need tosee someone now?
So then they did, but we don'twant to get into the process.

(01:12:29):
Long story short.
I talked to a civilian whowasn't a doctor, who did an
intake, and then they told meokay, in a month you're going to
see a doctor.
So they didn't help me at all,they just wrote down notes.
Then I saw the doctor a monthlater and the doctor's like hey,
we're going to do your intakeagain, but I'm leaving, so
you're going to get anotherdoctor.
It took me six months tofinally get seen after the
incident and start gettingtreated by my doctor.

(01:12:51):
And what happened?
Right, and this is why I wearthe Break the stigma shirt, this
is why I'm I'm talking and I'mdoing all this because what I
just said I'll openly admitthat's pretty fucked up and part
of my language, but like thatwhole situation, like people
will look at you and look likewhoa, whoa, man, like, but you

(01:13:11):
don't, you know, and that holdon a second, like that's the
thing about you is you're veryself-aware of your situation.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
You don't have like the pride doesn't get in the way
and your ego does has notgotten in the way of you,
because a lot of times peoplewill not admit that they have a
problem because of their pride,because of their ego, yeah,
because of their lack ofself-awareness.
But you have all that, you haveall that.
And, with that being said, it'salmost like at times you were

(01:13:43):
punished for being self-aware,like you were self-reporting,
saying, hey, I need to talk tosomeone, and they're like, well,
you're not high enough on theirscale.
And it's like I'm trying toavoid a car accident here, I'm
trying to avoid a multi-vehiclewreck, and you're telling me
that I'm not high enough on your.

(01:14:03):
And it's just so funny to hearthat man, it's just so funny to
hear.
And you, you've, I've, I've letyou run this entire podcast and
tell.
But the reason is because, likeyou, you have a great story and
you're very clear on whatyou're saying and I'm following
what you're saying and there'sso much that you've said that I

(01:14:25):
relate to, and it's amazing thatwe're from different
generations of this war anddifferent generations of the
military, of this war um indifferent generations of the
military, but in a lot of wayswe share the same concepts and
the same experience.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
It's the beauty of the military and the service and
like that, that brotherhooddoesn't end when you take the
uniform off.
You know if, if you called metoday and said, hey, you're in
california.
I'd be like, yeah, I'm in rightnow, what's up?
And you go, hey, I need, youknow this, this and this, and I
need to, I'll, I'll drive, Idon't care, like um, and I love

(01:15:02):
that about um, the military, butyou're, you're right, the
self-awareness and all that, andthat's kind of a big push I've
been doing is trying to tellpeople, every time I talk, you
know realizing, or as a grownadult, grown man, grown woman,
what have you in the servicerealizing?

(01:15:23):
You know, hey, I have a problem.
And then going out there andseeking help for that problem,
you know that's not weakness andthat's actually like pure
strength, weakness and that'sactually like pure strength.
It takes a self-aware, strongperson to sit there and go I'm
not okay, because, like you said, that pride gets in the way.

(01:15:47):
But on top of that pride, tosay that and then go, okay, I'm
not okay and I need help, andthen to take one more step
because there is fear.
There's fear of judgment, fearof career, fear of losing your
identity, because that's whathappens.
Let's be honest, when you do dothat stuff with behavioral
health, we're going to take hisrifle.

(01:16:09):
He can't stay up with hisplatoon more than he can't stay
up for more than what you haveto get eight hours of sleep it
takes away so much stuff and itremoves you completely and like
there's all that fear but if youcan, if you can do all of that,
realize that it's going to,that's going to do that, and
realize you're going to, youknow, have to kind of go through

(01:16:29):
hell for a minute so you canget help, as crazy as it sounds,
cause it shouldn't be that way.
That is strength Because, likewhen I went and finally saw the
doctor, they tried to med boardme because the first doctor not
my final doctor, but the firstdoctor wrote down that I was
psychotic, that I saw things andheard voices, and that's not
what I told her.
I told her that I don't trustpeople.

(01:16:50):
I'm hyper attentive.
I hear things Everyone does.
If you've've been overseas, youhear something in your house and
you turn around like, okay,what was that?
Who's like I?
I told her I do that and she'slike oh no, he's psychotic.
We got to get rid of him.
So I had to fight a med boardand I'm still in.
I won, thanks thanks to thatcaptain that I ended up having
as my final doctor, because shedeleted that stuff from my

(01:17:12):
record altogether.
She's like that's this, isn'ttrue.
I don't know why they put this.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
deleted that stuff from my record altogether.
She's like this isn't true.
I don't know why they put this.
I'm going to tell you honestlyI know several mental health
advocates and PTSD advocates outthere and I haven't had the
heart to tell them that youshould not be an advocate
because you're still in it, youstill have a lot of problems

(01:17:35):
yourself and you shouldn't behelping other people.
If you don't even have itfigured out, if the jigsaw
puzzle in your head is notfucking together, then you
should not be helping otherpeople.
You need to be at the rightplace yourself.
But you are different.
You are very unique in the factof like I'm glad that you're

(01:17:56):
helping, you're still in it, butyet you have your thoughts
together.
You're very, very much togetherbecause I'm gonna tell you, man
, like there's several peoplethat I unnamed, folks that I see
on social media, and they'relike I'm a mental health
advocate, and then one minutethey're talking about all these
great things.
The next minute they're talkingabout I these great things, the

(01:18:16):
next minute they're talkingabout.
I had an incident last weekendwhere I went crazy and I'm like,
dude, don't help anyone elseuntil you have it figured out up
here.
But you, on the other hand,you're in flight and you have it
figured out.
And that's the amazing thingabout you, man.
No, I really lucked outinterviewing you because I

(01:18:37):
didn't know that about you.
To be honest, man, you know, Iknew that you wrote a book, I
knew that you're still in themilitary, I knew that you serve
several different places, andthat was about it.
But to find this out is likefinding like a rare gold coin, a
rare gold beast.
Because, um then and I'mfascinated though, man, you know

(01:19:00):
, to talk about your book likewhat, if you had to, if you had
to summarize what your book'sabout and who, who is your book
for?

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
So what would you say I wrote the book Um, and it's
just, it's just poetry, it's asimple one.
My next one's got like 100poems that I'm working on.
Right now it's not even out,but this one was just like 20
poems and it was that low periodin between me trying to get
treatment, to actually receivingtreatment, you know, and that

(01:19:29):
low period was like the darkestfor me because I had that
incident.
I was scared, I was terrified.
So what I did was I wrote downall of those thoughts from the
dark and I'll call it the dark,that dark place I was talking
about with you.
You know where all of thosethoughts.
I started putting imagery, likethrough words, to these things.

(01:19:53):
I wrote poetry about being onQRF and like the alarm going off
and then someone passing awayand like vividly describing, you
know, putting them on the bird,packing up their stuff, and
then also pointing out the factthat right after that happened,
you have to go right back tosleep and act like nothing
happened and go right back to it.

(01:20:13):
And so I wrote all these thingsdown and I realized that, like
I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I don'thave all of it together.
I'll be honest.
I got on the radio with a dudein December and he's like how
are you doing mentally?
I was like, honestly, anybodywho's been through it and came
out on the other side and itsays they're still not

(01:20:34):
struggling, they're lying,they're absolutely lying because
it's never really gone.
You just learn the best ways tobattle your stuff.
But what I wanted to do?
Yeah, exactly, it's just likepain management.
I wanted to create somethingthat could create images and put

(01:20:57):
words to things that normalpeople couldn't put words to.
That's the biggest problem I'venoticed with vets or active Any
of us that really have issues.
We struggle getting people whodon't get us right, like who

(01:21:18):
haven't been there and seen thesame thing, to understand, and I
realized that that was a keyfactor, and so I've lost 31
friends that I've served with inthe military due to suicide.
That is an ungodly number and Ihate, it.
You know I kind of I'll behonest, I was almost another one
.
That is an ungodly number and Ihate it.

(01:21:38):
You know I kind of I'll behonest, I was almost another one
and I realized and I sat thereI'm like what was the biggest
thing?
And I always pitch this empathy.
That's what was missing,because we all get sympathy,
everyone's got sympathy forveterans.
Oh, I'm sorry that you'restruggling, I'm sorry you're
going through that, but none ofus get empathy from the people

(01:21:59):
who actually matter, like theactual confirmation of
understanding and feeling whatyou're going through and what I
mean by people who actuallymatter.
Right, because everyone matters.
But it's a different thing when, like, say, your brother, like
your real brother, or yourspouse can sit there and go.
I get it Right.
And once you have that, youremove so much from the equation

(01:22:21):
.
Like you remove the unnecessaryfights that happen between you
and your spouse because they'renot understanding what you're
going through.
You remove, you know not, youknow, possibly losing touch with
, like, your siblings or yourparents or family members
because they just think you knowyou're an asshole when you're
not, it's just you don't knowhow to communicate.

(01:22:42):
So what I wanted to do was I putall of my stuff down on paper
and I decided I'm going toself-publish this book, because
I tried publishing it and nobody, nobody, wanted it.
Hey, poetry is hard and you'redoing military poetry, which is
even harder.
And and you're doing militarypoetry, which is even harder,
and then you're doing militarypoetry about behavior, health.
No one's going to want to buythat.
I got told that by, like allthe publishers.

(01:23:03):
I couldn't even get an agent todo it, so I was like screw it.
I'm putting this out, notbecause I think I'm gonna make
money.
It's because, simply, I thinkthat this is a tool that we
could, you know, know, use tohelp people, and the poems, like
I said, were written so thatway.
If I was somebody that wasstruggling and I didn't know how

(01:23:24):
to put those words you knowtogether, to say to my
significant other, a familymember, maybe you know, a child,
maybe you're, you know, aretiree and you're in your 40s,
but something happened in yourservice that caused you to
disconnect with, maybe, your son, your daughter, something right
, I wanted to create somethingthat you could take and hand to

(01:23:46):
somebody and go hey, I just wantyou to read this one thing.
It's only 20, like 20 lines.
Just please read this realquick, 20 lines, just please
read this real quick.
And in that act I have givenvoice to somebody who is
struggling to get those things,and maybe it's because they're
not ready to share it yet.
Maybe they just don't know howto share it.

(01:24:07):
Maybe they think no one's goingto understand them.
Right, but music, right,everyone can agree.
Music is a universal language.
You can hear a song in alanguage you don't know and you
can still feel the emotion.
What I think people don'trealize right is poetry is the
same way.
It's music, but with words.

(01:24:27):
There's a song for everybody.
You hear one song.
I know there's a song thatmakes you tear up, no matter
what Almost every GWAC guy.
If I got on right now because Ihave a guitar and I started
playing Hero of War by RiseAgainst, it would strike a nerve
.
Every GWAC guy knows Hero ofWar and that song bothers them.

(01:24:55):
Poetry can do the same thing.
So I did it and I created it.
So that way it would give avoice to people that felt
unheard or unseen and give themthe ability to communicate when
they couldn't find the words todo so themselves.
Help spouses, sons, daughters,friends, civilians who just care

(01:25:16):
, really understand what'sactually going on in the head
right.
Put them in that servicemember's shoes just for a second
, so that way they might be ableto you know, understand just
for a brief moment what thisperson went through and the
poems that I made in this bookspecifically, even though it's

(01:25:39):
20 of them they're all over theplace, from getting attacked on
an ambush from QRF to gettinghit by IDF, to just the
mentality of a service member,why they keep doing what they're
doing.
But I noticed once I made thebook I had my wife draw the
drawings in it and that was kindof my test.

(01:26:01):
So I gave her the poems and I'dbeen with my wife for what was
it?
Almost 10 years and we neverhad that.
I tried to explain stuff to her.
We never had that situationwhere there was that aha moment
where she really got me.
I gave her one poem, just saidhey, can you read this?

(01:26:24):
Let me know if it's good.
My wife broke down crying forlike 30 minutes and just looked
at me.
She goes is this it?
Is this how you feel?
Is this what you went through?
You went through all of thatand I was like yeah, and I
started crying, like right nowI'm starting to tear up, people
can make fun of me all they want.

(01:26:45):
Like that moment where I couldtake the person that you know I
love the most in this world myspouse, you know over a decade
and hear from her yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
Finally finally, you know I didn't have to say
anything.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
And she felt everything that I've been
feeling for years, you know, andthat that was it.
So I wanted to give that toanybody that that just needed
that Cause, if I realized, andthe moment, that moment and that
moment was kind of the turningpoint for me, like I was still
in a dark place, but now Iwasn't by myself.

(01:27:26):
I had the one person in theworld that I chose to, you know,
be my partner, there with meand there weren't fights.
And before that there werefights.
You know we all have thembecause they don't get it.
There were never.
After that day there was neveran argument over me when I had,
when I was having a hard daylike ever, ptsd never got

(01:27:47):
brought up because, you know,sometimes spouses will do that
when they don't get it, they'llthrow it in your face like a
weapon.
That never got brought up, likenone of it.
And it was just different.
That never got brought up Likenone of it.
And it was just different.
And I realized I'm like you know, I'm here because some, somehow
I just get, like I said, I'm aloud mouth, new Yorker, I just

(01:28:10):
don't care.
So I'm just going to splout outeverything that's on my mind
and you know if you don't likeit, whatever.
So I put it on paper and, um, Iwanted to be able to do that
because I know not everybody hasthe confidence, or maybe
they're just not at a placeright now where they're, where
they feel comfortable sharing it.
So don't share it, I'll shareit.
You use my words and I've giventhe books hundreds of them out,

(01:28:32):
for free.
They're in behavioral healthclinics and all that.
And I talked to the doctors.
Now they can't tell me fulldetails, but I asked I'm like,
hey, leave these in the roomswhen they all come in, let them
read them and then let them takethem into the sessions.
And the doctor that treated memessaged me later on and she's
like yeah, I had someone come inwith your book, open it up,

(01:28:53):
point to one poem, and we didn'thave to do the surveys and all
that stuff.
I knew exactly what he wasfeeling because he said this is
where I'm at right now.
Can you just read this?
And that's what I wanted.
I wanted to give servicemembers and veterans that tool
so that way they couldcommunicate with other people
but also give the outside a wayto look in.

(01:29:13):
But also give the outside a wayto look in and then at the same
time, you know, kind of createalso a sense of the what, like
you said, understanding, right,you read it.
Maybe you've never met me, butnow you know somebody else knows
exactly what you're goingthrough, you know, and that it's

(01:29:37):
also powerful.
It's like, hey, okay, I'm notcrazy, I'm not alone, this is
not something that's unnormal.
This guy right here isliterally saying everything that
I feel and that's what I wanted, yeah.
That's huge man JP man, how didI get you?

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
as a guest.
I mean, this is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:30:02):
Listen, I normally don't let people run the rail
like you have, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
No, honestly, you have not been going down rabbit
holes at all.
You have been very clear andconcise about your story and
where you've gone, where you'vebeen, where you've gone and
where you're going to, and, andit's like I'm, I'm amazed on
this end of the mic.
I can't believe that you arestill in service and you have

(01:30:29):
come this far.
Man, you are incredibly aware,um, and I, I've identified with
so much that you've talked aboutman, like I didn't stop you
cause you were, you were on a ona roll, um, but just, I know
that there's people going to belistening to this and going,
holy shit, like this guy, heknows, like he knows.

(01:30:52):
And now, now I've got to checkout the book, um, and alex, I
definitely want to.
Yeah, you know we're going onfor about an hour and a half,
which is way more than what Inormally go, but I, I, I would
like to, I would like to haveyou back on the show again,
because I do have otherquestions for you.
Absolutely, I definitely haveto unpack a lot of what's going

(01:31:13):
on in your head because you, youkind of have it figured out,
appreciate that more than most.

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
I at least I try to make it look like I do, you know
, yeah well, I'm not saying youhave it figured out.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
I'm just saying you haven't figured out more than
most you know, because none ofus are perfect, but you just
your your mindset, yourperspectives, um, your awareness
, like that's stuff that moreveterans need to tackle.
If more veterans were to haveyour mindset with where you're
at right now, we would have lesssuicides and that's that's huge

(01:31:54):
man, that that's impactful andthat's why I've I've just been
sitting here listening.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
I appreciate you letting me because it's it's you
know, it's one thing for me totell people and to get out there
and I've done events for youknow, suicide uh found like
prevention foundations and stuff, but it's hard to really get
people to listen to this kind ofstuff, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
And and then there's so there's so many people doing
it too, so, like you don't, well, I can't, you know you know,
dude, there's so many peoplethat are doing it that shouldn't
be doing it, and I'm like youneed to stop trying to help
other people.
You need to help yourself first, because you, your shit's not
right up here.
Um, so stop trying to helpother people, because one minute
you're talking about mentalhealth and what you did to adapt

(01:32:34):
and overcome, and then the nextthing is next week you're
posting something about how youare having issues and you had
issues and you're gonna get ridof your social media account
because you can't stay in theworld.
All of a sudden and it's likeyou, there's people there that
are in it that that definitelydon't belong.
Man, alex man, if, if, youwould be so gracious to come

(01:32:57):
back on the show with me again.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
Absolutely, but I promise I'll be quiet.
I'll be quiet next time.
I have other questions.

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
No, I don't, Honestly , I don't want you to be quiet,
because that everything you saidmade sense and I can tell you
that, even as a veteran myself,there's times where, like I,
have these feelings and I havethese experiences, but I can't
put them in the words and it'svery blurry and it's very it's

(01:33:27):
just hard to describe to someonewho's never had a bad day
before.
I guess is what I'm trying tosay, and I feel like sometimes,
I feel like sometimes you haveto like, take your shoes off and
get on the floor and playblocks with, with some of these
folks that have never been inthe military, never been to war,
never had a bad day, and it'shard to do that when, like, yeah

(01:33:48):
, your baseline is here andtheirs is here, and it's that's
where the frustration comes into play man.
And I'm interested to take alook at your book and to see
what type of poetry you wrote,brother, I'll send you one.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
Don't even worry about it, I'll sign one, mail it
out to you.
You have that by the end of theweek.
You can just have one.

Speaker 1 (01:34:08):
There we go, and I'll send you a shirt.
How about that?
There we go.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
I get it no-transcript, because we

(01:34:50):
weren't.
We don't know what route tampawas like.

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
You know that kind of stuff, um yep we just we, we
just assumed that you had it somuch better and they had built
like the, the ultimate subwayshop, like, but you know what I
mean, like the ultimate tacobell or whatever it was.
I don't know what people aretalking about, but yeah yeah,
but um man, what an engagingconversation this has been.

(01:35:16):
I mean, it's it's been like youtalking the whole time, but I
have been, I, I have been likewow, like I am floored.
I'm normally not like this andI'm like, holy crap man, like
this guy, I appreciate thatreally has to be together.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
Like man, I should probably stop.
I don't know if I'm doing toomuch or no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:35:36):
I shit.
If I thought, if I thought youwere going down a rabbit hole, I
would have stopped you, I wouldhave stopped you.
I've had that before.
No dude, this has been awesome,man.
Um, but I do want to I do wantto chop it off, because it's
only going on almost two hoursnow and I want to have you back
on the show again, but I I wantto before before we finish this
up, because you did get a chanceto talk about your book.

(01:35:58):
For any listener out therethat's heard your story for the
last hour and a half or so andthey're currently struggling in
silence.
What would you say to themright now?

Speaker 2 (01:36:09):
The first thing that people need to realize is it's
completely okay to not be okay.
That's something that we as asociety need to start realizing.
Like, nobody is a hundredpercent all the time, you know,
and if you keep yourself in thatand as JP says, you know, I'll
quote JP If you surroundyourself with chaos and keep

(01:36:31):
yourself in chaos, cause that'swhat keeps you distracted.
What happens when the chaos isdone and I love that he says
that.
It is so true, you know, if youdon't address it, if you don't,
you know, just takes that timeto admit to yourself that you're
not okay.
Maybe you're not ready to seekout, but at least give yourself
that, have that self-awarenessand admit you're not okay.

(01:36:53):
Eventually it will, you know,catch up to you and when it does
because you decided to put itoff and put it off, put it off.
When it finally hits you, it'sgoing to hit you almost a
hundred times harder than itwould have if you just, you know
, would have just taken it.
And it is a big step, you know.
But at the same time, there arepeople out there, people out

(01:37:16):
there that get it.
There really are, and there areplaces you can go and you don't
have to talk to a doctor, youdon't have to.
There are vet groups of justvets who get together and talk
about this stuff.
There are people like me,there's people like you out
there that are just here.
You could reach out to us onanything and we'll respond.
I respond to people who arestruggling on Instagram out
there.
You know, that are just here.
You could reach out to us onanything and we'll respond.

(01:37:36):
I respond to people who arestruggling on, you know,
instagram and I'll be like, hey,you know I'm not a doctor,
right, they're like, yeah, but Idon't want to talk to a doctor.
I was like, okay, then you know.
But just, I challenge anybodythat is struggling, you know, to
have that self-awareness toadmit something is wrong.
And then I challenge you tohave the courage because you do.

(01:38:00):
You have it because you were inthe same place, I was, you had
the boots on, you did it.
I know that it's there.
It's just a different kind.
It takes a whole different kindof courage to you know, put
yourself out there and bevulnerable.
But I challenge you to do that,not just for your sake, but for
the sake of everybody aroundyou that you surround yourself

(01:38:22):
with in your life that love youand like, need you here?
Because if you don't, you youknow I don't want to speculate,
but you never know what's goingto happen if you just let those,
those demons fester.
And you know, someday you justmight not be ready to tackle
them and you and you might justhave that one day where you're

(01:38:43):
just not strong enough anymoreto put up with it.
And you know, I don't want that, you don't want that.
None of us want that.
My biggest thing I always say isone one a day is way too many.
You know, I don't want to hear,I don't want another phone call
.
I'm done, I can't do it anymore.
You know.
I'm sure you know exactly whatI'm talking about.

(01:39:04):
Anyone who listens knows whatI'm talking about.
I'm tired of it.
So just, it's okay, it reallyis.
Seek anybody, a friend, afamily member, just talk, let
them know, and if they don'tunderstand, make them understand
and then from there just moveforward.
That's pretty much all I canreally say.

(01:39:28):
Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
I mean, how do I say this?
It's scary.
Suicide is scary Because youmight think that you are
resilient enough not to dosomething like that.
But some of the most resilientpeople I've known have killed
themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:39:45):
Yeah, no, that's it.
I mean, I always use ChesterBedingfield or Robin Williams as
an example, because everyoneknows them, but they shocked the
world.
But then, if you look back,there were signs.

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
There really were, yeah, and you know there's
people who present the strongestfronts are usually the ones
that are hurting the most Rightearlier, um you, you said

(01:40:23):
something along the lines of,like, going back to a place.
Um of you didn't say it exactly,but you said going back to a
place of like fear, anxiety,stress yeah, is not a cool thing
to do, and it's the one thingthat I've learned over the
fucking years is the guys thatare actually were in the shit
that actually did stuff.
Don Don't talk about it becauseit's not.
It's not.
And I noticed this differencebetween, like the people that
didn't go to, that didn't go towar, versus people that went to

(01:40:46):
war.
And you've got this like thistactical mentality where it's
like you, you you want to talkabout like killing and you will
talk about like firefights andall this other shit, but like to
me, like I don't like to goback to that place, I don't like
to talk about that stuff.
That doesn't define me as a man, it doesn't define me as who I

(01:41:10):
am, what I've done and thingslike that.
But the guys that do, sometimesI'm like, did you really do
anything?
Things like that.
But the guys that do, sometimesI'm like did you really do
anything or are you because Iknow for me, like the guys that
were actually like going door todoor, kicking in doors, doing
fucking scary shit, they don't,they don't go back to that place
the other side of that veryeasy.
That might just be someone whocan't get it's.

Speaker 2 (01:41:29):
It's that's like the high school football player
who's still living in highschool.
It's the same thing.
So it could be the flip.
It could be the guy that's allthey know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:37):
Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
And especially if it's a vet.
True, that might be the lasttime that they feel they're like
they've had any kind of value,so they cling to it.
Oh yeah, so like it's a weird,I get it too I say that I always

(01:41:59):
tell like privates five seconds.
I promise you didn't do anything, so I get it but uh, yeah, yeah
, or you're right, I have seenthe other side.
You did this and like that'swhy I love jp, because his big
thing is cool.
You did it, now what?
And then, and um, I, I keep, Ishould do an advertisement for
him, right, like have a sign up,but uh, but, that, that's,
that's exactly it, like that's,that's kind of that thing is.
They have that mentality like Idid this, I did this, like all
right, cool, thank you, no, um Imet him through another guy

(01:42:23):
that I was helping, like uh,doing a different podcast.
I met him.
That's kind of.
They found the books and thenfrom there they just they talked
to me about my book and thenI've just been helping them
build their stuff up, helping me.
I'm a big guy when it comes toas I rise, I want others to rise
with me.
Whether they do the same for me, that's whatever.

(01:42:43):
But if I find veteranpodcasters, authors, I'll give
them everything that I'veexperienced in the last two
years and try to help them buildtheir stuff, because that's
what we're supposed to do.
It doesn't stop that you, you,you're supposed to take care of
each other that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:00):
Yeah, sometimes I think, um, in the civilian world
, that can be almost a disablerfor a lot of us veterans,
because we're so, we're sointerested in god and country
and the greater good and liketaking care of the community,
whereas, like a lot of peoplethat are rich, all they give a
shit about is themselves.
All they care about is liketheir own selfishness and like

(01:43:21):
what can I do to like get myselfto the next level, versus like
what can I do to get my friendsand my community and the people
that I respect, how can I bringthem with me?
And so it's one thing that I'velearned over the years like the
difference between likeveterans, service members,
especially those that servedduring during war, versus like a

(01:43:41):
business person that's neverbeen in the military before.
And that's the one thing that Isee the differences as far as
behavior and personality wise.
It's been fascinating talkingto you, man, and I definitely
want to have you on the showAbsolutely.
I have a bunch of questions onhere that I want to ask you.
But, alex man, I'm going to goahead and round this podcast out

(01:44:03):
for now, but I'm going to haveyou back on the show again for
sure.
You know, your story is just ismore than just one about
survival, but it's about impactleadership, choosing your
purpose.
But it's about impactleadership, choosing your
purpose.
You know, thank you forcontinuing to support our
military, even though you'recurrently in the uniform right
now and helping.

(01:44:29):
You're helping people that areahead of you, that are out and
have been veterans, and you'restill in service right now,
which is kind of weird, but Ithink is great.
But I think is great.
And for people listening outthere, make sure you check out
Alex's powerful book UnspokenWords the Thoughts.
It's on Amazon and I'll makesure that I put the link for
Amazon on here as well.
Right now, I'm just on Facebookand Instagram.
What social media platforms areyou on?

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
Alex Alexander R Stewart, author and speaker for
Facebook, and then justAlexander R Stewart on Instagram
but all my stuff.
Stewart on Instagram, but allmy stuff's on there.
I even have some of my poems onthere, some of the other shows
I've done and stuff like that.
So, and if anyone needs to talkto somebody who read my stuff
or you just want to reach out,reach out.
I'm so tied into differentnetworks now that, like, I can

(01:45:12):
get you to people that, like youknow organizations that are
full of just vets that want tohelp you, not doctors or
anything Like.
I'm not trying to force youinto something.
So if anyone needs something,just find me.
I'm always going to answer.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
Man, you are serving your purpose.
You were, you were meant to bea soldier, that's for damn sure.
I mean, even in your short time, uh, serving in the military,
you deployed three differenttimes in a short amount of time.
You're a drill instructor, soyou literally have helped
thousands and thousands ofpeople, young adults, grow and

(01:45:47):
become even stronger humans andman.
It's only been 12 years for you.
That's it.
That's it 12 years.
I appreciate it.
People serve 20.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
12 years.
I appreciate it.
People serve 20, 30 years.
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:46:00):
You're a fascinating man, dude.
No, you're a fascinating man.
I'm going to have you back onthe show again.
I've got a bunch of otherquestions here I want to ask you
.
But thank you, alex, it's beena pleasure talking to you and
we'll have you on.
And for everyone else out there, make sure you follow Alex.
I'll make sure that I post hisbook at the bottom at the show

(01:46:21):
description.
If you're watching this onYouTube, if you're listening to
this, an audio podcast, justscroll down to the bottom.
You'll see the links down thereto follow Alex and then also
purchase his book.
And for everyone else out there, as always, I want you to stay
tuned, stay focused and staymotivated.
Warriors fall out.

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