February 1, 2024 • 33 mins
David C. Reed
Chief, Force Protection Training Division
Directorate of Training & Education, US Army Military Police School
Mr. David ‘DC’ Reed served as the Chief of Force Protection Training Division (FPTD) having responsibilities for three USAMPS training branches; the Law Enforcement Operations Branch, the Antiterrorism Training Branch, and the Advanced Military Working Dog Training Branch. In all, FPTD trains in excess of 7800 US Army and other DoD personnel annually. Mr. Reed is a retired career law enforcement officer and started with USAMPS in 1996 as a Special Reaction Team instructor at Ft. McClellan, AL. He is a charter member of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA), a past member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), and past member of both the Missouri Sheriffs Association and the Missouri Police Chiefs Association.
Prior to his appointment as FPTD Chief Reed was Chief of the US Army LE Operations Branch since its inception in 2003. He led the development of courses for the Military Police Corps to include the US Army Civilian Police Academy, the LE Senior Leaders course, the Conservation LE Officer course, and a broad range of special projects, including analysis of Army operations world-wide. He was the principal training and operations advisor from 2003-2019 to the DoD Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, (later Intelligence and Security) Office of Policy and Support.
Before working as a senior Army civilian, Reed was the Chief Deputy and lead Criminal Investigator of Metropolitan Moore County, Tennessee. He also served as Commander for the 17th Judicial District Major Crimes Task Force from 1993-1996, working multi-jurisdictional violent crime, white collar crime, and attorney/ medical malpractice investigations. From 1991 to 1993 he was a homicide investigator for Bedford Co. and later Metro. He started his police career with Prince George’s County Police, Maryland in 1979 and served in a variety of roles to include patrol and SWAT.
Mr. Reed retired from the US Army Reserve having been assigned to special duties with the DoD, serving from 2003-2019. He is also a veteran of the US Air Force (‘79-85) where he served as Special Agent to Specially Designated Secure Air Mission (SDSAM) aircraft including Air Force One. Reed served worldwide from Andrews AFB under President Reagan as an airborne counter threat agent for four years. He is also a veteran of the Tennessee Army National Guard where he served as a Captain of the state NGB Service Rifle Competition team.
Mr. Reed is a 1980 graduate of Prince George’s County, Maryland Police Academy and a 1985 graduate of the Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Academy. He received his Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice Administration from the University of Tennessee in 1986 and is a 1996 graduate of the Southeast Law Enforcement Conference, Leader’s Training Academy. He was a commissioned civilian police officer/deputy sheriff for 40 years in three states - Maryland, Tennessee, and Missouri.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, everybody. You're listening to and watching
Wake Up with Patty Katter. And I am your host, Patty
Katter. Today.
I have David Reed with me on theshow.
David is an Army veteran who's retired from the Army and he's
also a retired law enforcement policeman.
So hi, David. Welcome.
Hi, thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm happy that you could
(00:23):
be here finally. We've toyed with the idea for a
while, so some of my followers might have seen me post a little
bit about somebody who sent me some cool things from Air Force
One and it was David. So I'm going to go ahead and and
just let you tell my listeners alittle bit about yourself.
(00:45):
Well, you don't get to be my agewithout having more than one
life. And you know, you you wind up,
there's more than one significant event, more than one
thing. So it's kind of hard to say I am
this, and I think that's true ofeverybody.
I started out as a young man, and I wanted to join the
(01:06):
military. I wanted to be a cop.
I wanted to do those things. This was in the 70s when those
were not attractive concepts. My parents constantly dissuaded
me from this idea. But I went to college.
I did not graduate initially. It just wasn't for me.
And I wound up kind of almost sneaking off and joining at
first the Air Force. And I went into the Air Force
(01:29):
when I was, gosh, 18 years old. It was in the late 70s.
And they shipped me from Appalachia, where I was raised
up in the mountains, OK, right near the Cherokee Indian
Reservation in a town called Kalahui.
And everybody says, where's Kalahui at?
I said, well, it's near Tukasiji, Mantahela, Oconolufty,
(01:50):
you know all the big towns. So I really kind of have to I
have fun with that because thoseare all Cherokee villages, but I
would point them at where on themap and I moved from there out
to New Mexico and you talk aboutculture shock.
Suddenly it was flat, it was wide open.
You could see 9 or 10 miles downthe road and see a green
(02:11):
elevator or something like that in the distance.
So at at a fairly young age, I got a pretty, pretty good dose
of culture shock moving out to New Mexico.
But I absorbed it. I wound up loving it.
I would still love to go back out there and spend some time,
but from there I got moved to Washington, DC, another culture
shock. And as a military security
(02:36):
specialist with the Air Force, Iwound up being accepted to the
program to work on board Air Force One when first Carter,
then Reagan was president. And that probably more than
anything sort of changed the tone of my life because I mean,
it was it such powerful drama being played out.
(02:59):
You would see something on the news and I can say I know
exactly what was going on. You know, in in the background
in a minor role. I was there and I got to see a
lot of interesting stuff. But I'm I I met people like
Ronald Reagan, George Schultz, Alexander Haig flew with him
several times as security on theon the flights that they flew.
(03:22):
And my primary job of course wascounterintelligence counter
terror to protect the aircraft and of course the dignitary
while they were there. But then we secured the aircraft
once they were off doing whatever they were doing and
kept the installation secured back so that we could maintain a
very tight physical, electronic biological security around these
(03:46):
aircraft that were flying peopleall over the world.
And back then we didn't have a lot of computers, we didn't have
a lot of high technology. We depended on very tight
procedural security. I don't know what they do now,
but I know what they did then. And it was.
It would have been all but impossible to have done
something to one of those aircraft or to gain access to
(04:08):
one of those dignitaries, exceptwhen they were in foreign
countries. And that's probably when we were
the most vulnerable. I can say from that experience I
served with some of the best people that you can imagine,
some of the deepest thinkers, I mean Bob Dole, even people like
Tip O'Neill, John Towers. I remember having a couple of
(04:29):
minor conversations with him that just left me with an
impression of these people are these truly are our leaders in
that they were thought leaders, They just weren't in a position
of leadership. They were thought leaders.
Now, not all of these people hadfantastic lives, you know, after
that. But in this moment of time from
(04:49):
about 1979 to 1985, a lot of really sharp good people
coalesced. And I guess if I have one thing
that I can say about that experience other than just
anecdotally, I would tell you that I just fell in love with
(05:10):
the idea that a few good, dedicated and selfless people
could truly make a difference. And I met so many selfless
people. And one of the things that I
took away from that, and I bought this later in a gift
shop, but it was, it's just a little paperweight that has an
(05:32):
inscription. You probably can't read it.
I'll read it to you. And it says there's no limit to
what a person can do when first you don't care who gets the
credit. And that's a quote from Ronald
Reagan. And that stuck with me.
And I was in my early 20s, so how fortunate was I to have had
(05:56):
that exposure and had to have had my eyes open both good and
bad to see good and to see evil at such a young age.
And it really changed the the asthma of my life from then on
forward. I mean I I probably carried that
with me. I was so young, I probably
(06:16):
didn't appreciate the experience.
If I could go back now in time and relive it, I might do one or
two things differently. But it it really made a huge
impression and that was probablythe first phase or stage of my
life that that set me up for therest of my life.
(06:37):
What an amazing experience. Oh my goodness, yeah.
So I set 6-7 seats away from either Ronald Reagan or Vice
President Bush or these people. And you know, we didn't chat
them up. You don't talk to these.
You know, we had a protocol brief where you don't make
conversation with them. You know, you avoid eye contact
(06:58):
where possible. If they engage you, you're
allowed to respond, but then keep it short.
And I remember one time we were with Vice President Bush and we
flew to one of the every somewhere in Montana and it was
one of the coldest spots on Earth.
And as we landed and we taxied up and it was on a military, it
(07:19):
was on an Air Force installation, I believe it was
Mausrum Air Force Base. And we all got up and started
putting our coats on. And President Bush just kind of
looked out the window and there were several general officers
standing there waiting on him. And they had a little red carpet
and they had everybody standing there.
And he just looked out there andhe said it sure is cold out
(07:39):
there and we're just like, yes, Sir.
And he says, you know, when I was in the Navy as a Lieutenant,
people like that kept me waitingfor hours.
Said yes, Sir. He said just keep the door
closed for a minute. It looks pretty cold out there.
We'll let him stand out there for a minute.
And he was doing this. And everyone around him knew he
(07:59):
was, you know, half joking. We started putting our coats and
stuff on. And he said, hey, hey, hey, if
I'm not going out there, you don't have to go out there.
And I just politely said, no, Sir, If we don't get out there,
we get in trouble. I'm sorry, Sir, but we have to
get down the stairs as quickly as possible.
He goes, well, if you're going, I'll go.
And it was just those little moments like that where you kind
(08:19):
of get the the measure of a character of a person and that
that stuck with me later. You know, a lot of people don't
realize or think about the presidents who we've we've had
and their families, the the thought process behind some of
(08:39):
the decisions that they make. But even as silly as it sounds
getting off of that airplane, you know people don't.
Think about it. Yeah.
He played golf and Reagan did not.
President Reagan was not a golfer, but he wanted to be.
And vice President Bush said, well, let's go play golf.
I'll show you what I know. And Reagan said, I've tried it
(09:01):
two or three times over the years and never stuck.
So they scheduled on a Sunday afternoon to come to Andrews Air
Force Base because it would be asecure environment where they
could play golf and not have a crowd of people around them and
all of us and also, you know, better security.
So they got out there, and I mean they, they hadn't played
five holes. And Reagan began talking to one
(09:24):
of the Secret Service people andone of his staff.
And he, he looked around and there were several of us ringing
that golf course to make sure they had, you know, a private
but also a secure environment. And Reagan just looked at
everybody and said, let's stop this.
We're ruining all these people. Sundays, all of their Sunday is
getting ruined. Let's, let's get it.
(09:45):
Let's knock this off and get outof here.
And that also kind of made an impression, 'cause you wouldn't
get that out of a lot of people today.
But again, little snippets like that lead you to understand the
depth of a person's character. And that's why I was proud to
have worked with that. And it's it's one of the one of
(10:05):
the defining moments in my life,but probably probably the one at
a young age changed how I was thinking and and doing things.
Have you documented any of thesethings so that you can pass some
of these memories down to your family?
I just. Did That's right.
That's that's one of the great things about podcasting.
(10:28):
Yeah, that's amazing. So what's one of your most?
Maybe we'll start with a humorous memory.
Do you have any humorous memories?
From those from those days, yes,I got a lot of humorous memories
from my various careers that I've had.
But from Air Force One, the one that my dad liked and my dad
(10:49):
told it, of course he was, you know, although a lifelong
Democrat, he was very proud of me.
You know, he's very proud of of this exposure.
And he liked Reagan and voted for him in the second term.
To my, you know, it is to my astonishment.
But so Dad, when he would tell the story, got embellished a
(11:10):
little bit. But the Air Force One that I
flew on and and the the aircraftthat I was on were Boeing 7 O 7
converted. They were called VC137A's and
it's different from a commercialairliner but it's a smaller
plane nowadays. They've got this big 747, I've
(11:30):
never seen it, never been on it,have no idea what they do with
that. But these were fairly small
aircraft. I mean if you look at the width
of your you know, less than the width of your living room is how
long this tube was. And it wasn't outfitted like a
commercial airliner except in the back where the press was and
in the very front, the center section of the plane was divided
up so that he had an office. He could close a wall.
(11:54):
He was a movable partition type wall that he could move to have
private conversations where theycould fold it up.
But there was open seating in this, in the center section
where the president had, he had a desk.
And for one reason or another, the latrine in the front of the
plane was closed off by the steward.
So I had to walk towards the rear of the plane.
(12:15):
And I wound up standing and justthey just happened to have this
partition open. And I'm standing there waiting
to to use latrine. And I'm standing there and
there's three or four people gathered around President
Reagan. There's a desk and there's two
or three telephones. And the red phone rings.
And so I'm like I'm just standing there, you know, I'm
not doing anything, but I can't help but notice, you know,
(12:37):
that's the red freaking phone. What is that?
This is Cold War. This is, I mean, you know, pre
Gorbachev Cold War, you know, and drop off or someone like
that who was premier of the Soviet Union.
So very much, you know, you're on the idea that we could go to
war with Russia. Red phone.
That's not good. President Reagan picked it up
(12:58):
and he says yes, yes. And he kind of waves his hand to
get everybody to stop talking. And he continues with this and
he makes a couple of little notes on a piece of paper and he
goes, how long do I have to makea decision?
I'm sitting there. I no longer had to use the
battery. What the heck?
Oh my God. And at one time I thought I'm
(13:21):
probably in the safest place on the planet.
But where's my family, you know?And all of these thoughts start
running through your, my 25 yearold mind, you know.
And he hangs up the phone and hesits there and he kind of rubs
his brow for a minute. He kind of nods to himself and
he picks up the phone, hits the button and says, I've made my
(13:42):
decision, I'll have the roast beef and that's all, you know,
about four people in that room exhaled right there because, you
know, we didn't, I didn't know what the.
Apparently the red phone was, you know, just to the kitchen or
something. But that's a story my dad liked
to tell and he embellished it a little bit.
But, you know, that's that's thetruth.
(14:04):
And like I said, there's two or three little instances like that
that stuck with me. I have shared them with my
children. I have, you know, I got a few
souvenirs off of the plane that were there to be souvenirs to
distinguish visitors and stuff. But every time that plane
landed, they cleaned everything off the plane.
(14:25):
Every stick of gum, every roll of toilet paper, everything came
off the plane and was discarded.They never reused anything with
the idea of avoiding some sort of biological contaminant
poisoning or something like that.
We, even, not we but the stewards even would take the
seat cushions off. We had a a hospital autoclave in
the hangar and we would autoclave the China and
(14:47):
everything, sterilize it to a surgical standard before it
would go back on the plane. And then we physically sealed
the plane and it stayed sealed until it was ready to fly again.
So when, you know, pieces of China would get broken, they
would take some of the China, they'd get a new set of China
donated. They And despite at the time it
was a big controversy, people thought Nancy Reagan was
(15:11):
outfitting the White House and Air Force One to her standard at
taxpayer expense. But it was completely untrue.
It was a big controversy. It was.
You could probably Google it andstill find it.
Everything that we used was donated.
The China companies, they had tobe American based.
They would donate it. They could not use it in their
(15:33):
advertising that they had donated it.
They could say it privately. Oh, by the way, this is the same
type China that's on Air Force One.
But they couldn't use that in any advertising or marketing and
they couldn't have any brand name on the China, just that it
was made in USA. So you know plates and cups and
saucers eventually you know you don't have a complete set and
they would give that stuff away to you know dignitaries and
(15:56):
occasionally I I got a cup and asaucer and stuff like that.
I think I sent you like some of the matchbooks, you know, things
like that. That's off Reagan's Air Force
One and the play of these, the decks of card.
And this is a deck of cards, pair of deck of cards.
(16:18):
And it's got, you know, Reagan'ssignature on it and you know on
the back it's got the Presidential seal.
It's a little drawer. And when you open it up, you
know what's coming. But when you open it up and
these are sealed decks of cards that I've kept since, you know,
83 or 84, it's got Air Force Oneon it.
(16:38):
And I wonder if you can see thatif there's a reflection.
But it also has Ron. But on the back you can see
this. But joker is Congress.
That's. Great.
And I don't know if they kept that up.
I know that under President Carter they didn't.
They didn't, they didn't do that.
(16:58):
So that's probably somebody's sense of humor that that worked
there. I love that it does make you
wonder if people would be offended these days.
Oh yeah, nowadays they oh, they'd be an investigation or
something. But it was.
And you know, Reagan had a lot of members in in, especially if
you look at your history. He made friends with Tip
(17:20):
O'Neill, and although they fought like cats and dogs over
policy and stuff, when it was time to stop fighting, he would
ride with Reagan and they would share a drink together and talk
and cut up. And, you know, there was a there
was a time to make a political argument, and it was a time to
just be a human being. And and Reagan and Tip O'Neill
(17:41):
himself, who was speaker of the House at the time, made a point
of saying this. There's no other president could
have gotten done what he did with a Democratic Congress by
force of his personality. And when you were around him,
you felt the gravity, but you felt the the personality.
If it sounds like a hero, worship the guy.
(18:02):
I was 232425 years old and yeah,I probably did a little bit.
History paints a slightly different picture of his later
years in the White House. A lot of, you know, supposed
controversy and stuff. I can tell you I do not believe,
and you cannot to this day convince me that if presented
(18:23):
with the facts and in possessionof his full wit, that he would
have made any sort of dishonest or disreputable decision.
I just don't believe it. Yeah, he was definitely one of
those presidents that everybody did get along with and everybody
respected. You know, when I was growing up,
my grandma always said, you know, you don't argue about
(18:44):
politics or religion with family.
There's just no sense in arguingabout it.
You can believe what you're going to believe, but I think
that a lot of the the good old folks had that mentality of, you
know, we'll we'll argue it out, but then we can put it aside and
we can still get along so. Well, and there was a there's a
measure, there was a measure of respect.
(19:05):
We come, you know, different people can come from different
poles. And when they come together for
a conversation, if the goal is to be polite, if the goal is to
be respectful and I have a senseof respect for the person that
I'm talking, understanding I don't agree with and I may
never, I may constantly wonder how they came to those
(19:25):
conclusions. If first you decide that this is
going to be a respectful conversation, and even if the
other person doesn't follow thatI'm going to take the High Road
and stay that way, then. And and I will just tell you in
my later life where I was a military analyst and a criminal
investigator, where I did thousands of interviews over the
(19:49):
years and obviously no one across the desk or the table
from me shared my values, I don't think.
But I had people thanking me as I was sending them to jail.
And I'm not saying that to make myself sound good.
It's just that that's one of thethings that I picked up You if
(20:11):
you treat people with the respect that even they don't
believe they've earned, they'll appreciate it.
A lot of people. Secretly don't think they've
earned respect. A lot of people secretly know
things about themselves, and they're afraid that you know it.
If you let them know we're not going to go there.
Let's just keep this on an even keel.
(20:32):
You can get more out of people that way.
And you're an interviewer. You know this.
There's different types of sometimes you have to be
antagonistic with people in certain environments to get to
get to the truth. But I always tried to end it on
a note of respect, you know, as just as a human being.
And, you know, I tried to not refer to people as scum or punks
(20:55):
and stuff like that. You know, it's just let's let's
shake hands. I understand you're on a
different path. Let me know what I can do to
help you in the future. And a lot of times that just
opens people up. It it opens people.
I I think that people have, people are like a balloon and
there's pressure. If you provide an outlet,
(21:16):
they'll take it every time to relieve that pressure.
So true. So one question I have for you
is what's 1 obstacle that you'vehad?
It can be in your military community or your military
career, law enforcement or just life in general or wherever.
(21:37):
What was that one trial that really kind of sticks out to you
and how did you overcome that trial or are you still working
on it? Well, you know, you you said it
right the first time you said military commute.
I was in the Washington, DC area.
It took, it took me two hours togo 10 miles some days, you know,
so that, yeah, that was a trial I had to overcome right there.
(21:59):
You know, I know. I knew you were going to ask
something like this. And so I thought about it, and
like I said, no one gets to be my age without having more than
one life, more than one obstacle, and to pick one is the
most significant kind of hard. I've kind of broken it.
(22:19):
First of all, I think that probably what truly changed my
trajectory in life too, in addition to having the
opportunity that I had as a young man, was having children.
And it I was no longer alone. My decisions were no longer just
impactful of me. It impacted other people.
And I took that very seriously. I think that you know how I
(22:45):
would over how did I overcome this or how do I did I adapt to
this? As you adopt your thinking,
you're no longer allowed to takethe sharpest edge of an opinion.
I'm no longer able to push things as far as I would want
to. Maybe as from an emotional side,
I always had a buffer and I always had a safety that said
(23:06):
stop your kids are, you know, ifyou picture your kids standing
right behind you, would you, would you take this position?
You know. Yeah, I've heard that on the
reverse side. That's so funny.
You just threw me off there because I haven't heard this in
a long time. But my dad always told me, you
never know, you could turn around and I might be standing
(23:28):
there. So for you to say that I'm just
like, wow, I I haven't heard that in quite some time.
You know, so the family is 1 significant thing.
The other was that, and we didn't talk about this, but in
my civilian military career withthe Army, yeah, I was trusted at
the Pentagon level, at both DoD and DA Department of Army levels
(23:49):
to completely evolve military, police, law enforcement,
training and standards, everything from equipment to how
they organized. And all of this was post oif
one. And it started when, you know,
there was some military police in theater and they were charged
(24:10):
with setting up a police station.
And these military police lookedat him and said, well, we've
never been in one. And that's, you know, that's the
anecdote. But it led to the commandant of
the MP Corps setting me up into a position where we we now have
to recapture our core policing skill sets.
(24:32):
The MP Corps is the most adaptive of all military
regiments in the army. They do things special forces
can't do with one set of equipment and one set of
training. And so to expected to be able to
manage combat crossings of a river route reconnaissance host
nation police training prisoner you know in pernament and
(24:54):
resettlement and at the same time come home to say you know
Fort Benning and patrol the postlike a civilian police officer.
That's a broad skill set and it's the broadest skill set of
all that's required with one youknow 20 something week school.
So one of the things I was tasked with is a civilian as the
(25:16):
chief of force Protection was evolve all of the training
standards. And at as we began doing this
because the Army leads the way, next comes the Marine Corps.
You know what, This is a great idea.
Next comes the Air Force, the Navy, I don't think they've ever
got it, but well, they don't really have a military police
(25:38):
corps. The shore police are not
military police. But then you get into, you know,
DoD, the NSA, Defense, Geospatial, the Defense
Logistics Agency. They all have either military or
civilian law enforcement officers, and they were trained
to no common standard. Often even within the department
(26:02):
there was no standard. So we eventually owe from 2003
to around 2019 is how long it took.
But we wound up with a Peace Officer Standards and Training
Commissioner Post Commission modeled after State Post
Commissions that designed and developed the training and and
(26:22):
standards for policing across the DoD.
Now, OK, I've said all that likea like a resume thing.
But imagine being this dumb hillbilly from the Appalachians,
and the commandant looks at you and says, here's the mission
with very little written guidance and with a lot of help,
(26:44):
a lot of good selfless people. And and that's the thing you
don't hear enough about government employees, is the
true selflessness and the true dedication that they had to get
it right. Not all of them.
There's plenty of fat, lazy people that don't give a hoot
about anything except their own paychecks.
But the people that I had the opportunity to work with, we got
(27:08):
that done. And how did I overcome it?
Panache. Got to do it.
Got to figure it out, Got to go talk to some people, got to.
I spent a lot of time on the road.
There was one time I wasn't home.
Three days a month. I was on the road.
Let's, let's fly here, Let's go here, Let's go here.
Let's find out how they do it. And with the commandant
(27:30):
borrowing his stars, we were able to get an international
standard. How did the French police do it?
How did the British do it? How did the Italians?
How did the Russians do it? And we developed, redesigned and
re engineered the military police corps from the inside out
so that now we are the model forDoD.
(27:50):
I didn't do that by myself. I was just the guy that was
appointed to lead this effort. And I used to say this, you
know, if they say success, success has many fathers,
failure is an orphan. Now I don't know who always
going to take credit for the work we did but I knew that who
(28:12):
they had picked out as orphan that was I was predetermined.
OK let's let's put Reed in charge of it to where if it
screws up, you know he's he's the orphan that we can put all
this on. So with a lot of panache and a
lot of help we changed that and I will tell you that there were
days and you can imagine that you know I I thought I don't
(28:36):
think let me just let me just answer your question.
Gosh, I'm all over the place here.
No. I love it though.
I hope your I hope your next guest is more organized.
No, this is fantastic. These are actually David, your
stories are my favorite because I feel like I need a whole
series just with you because your stories are so vast and
(28:56):
they're so important to keep andhold on to for future
generations. And yeah, I'm going to make sure
that the show actually gets filed in the government
archives. There is a way to do that.
I'll. I'll figure it out and do it.
Yeah. There, there is.
There's just, I think that all of us, if you look back, and I
(29:18):
mean you look to me, you're veryyoung.
If you look back on your life and people look back on their
lives for the significant event like what you're you're you've
asked me to talk about. It's those moments when you're
living the most acute life, things are important.
(29:39):
You're scared of failure. You don't have everything you
need to succeed and you've got to pull it from somewhere deep
inside. You've got to surround yourself
with the right people because it's only in those most acute
moments that you really pulled your best out.
This is true in in almost every Ave. of life, but overall it's
(30:01):
moments like what I described when I was on Air Force One.
That's a no failure zone right there.
You could not fail. When I was working with these
law enforcement standards and training, policing standards for
all of DoD, you know, it was like there were a lot of really
big, important people looking atme, not because I'm important,
but because I was the guy. I was the guy that everybody
(30:23):
knew my name. And it was 0 tolerance for
failure. And I think that's when you
realize I've got up my game, I've got to do this, I've got to
get it done. Nothing's ever done perfectly,
but those are the moments that you take years later and
remember is those most acute moments in your life.
(30:44):
I think that's probably my answer to you.
Oh, true. David, thank you so much for
being on the show. I wish I had so much more time
and maybe I can have you on again.
Your stories are are really truly inspirational and this is
one of the more meaningful. All of my shows are meaning so I
(31:07):
should be careful how I word this but it's one of the more
meaningful to me personally it just because I've I've had time
to also get to know you over thelast gosh couple.
I feel like at least a year, probably more than that.
But yeah, Yeah. And it's just been a phenomenal
experience. And it's not always that you
(31:28):
just connect with somebody online.
And David and I did that and andyou are always encouraging to
the military community and to our law enforcement community,
our first responders and very loving of America and your
sacrifices that you've made overthe years, your time, your
dedication and your talents are not unnoticed.
(31:49):
So thank you so much for everything that you've done for
our country. And you know, as we head into
the the election time coming up,I won't get into the politics of
it, but I I truly believe that stories like yours need to be
out there so that our younger generation can see how it's
supposed to be done. So you've been a great example
(32:12):
and a great leader and. Those kind words, it's been my
honor to serve in those capacityand almost accidentally
sometimes to wind up in these inthese positions of
responsibility or positions of service.
So I would say that it's a confusing time.
(32:32):
These are confusing time, especially for young people.
So thank you for being the bullypulpit or the broadcaster to let
people know there's there, thereis a light, there is a way,
there is a path that, yeah, it may seem sometimes, you know,
not necessarily now, but in politically or in our country or
(32:53):
in the world that times are dark.
But try to put it in perspective.
I mean, my dad lived through World War 2.
You know how much more serious was that than things are now.
So there is a way ahead. We can do it.
But like I said, it takes a little bit of selflessness, it
takes a little bit of dedicationand some panache.
But. Thank you very.
(33:14):
Much for having me. Thank you and thank you
everybody for listening. Please be sure to share this
show, especially with your if you're listening and you have
kids or grandkids. I think that it this one's a
really important one. And David, they kept it clean
for us today. I don't even think we had one
cuss word. So thank you, David.
I. Didn't realize I was famous for
(33:36):
that, but maybe. Yeah, I mean now I was thinking
a lot of times you know there's a slip up here or there once in
a while I I even slip up and this is a great show for all
audiences. So thank you.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks everybody.
Take. Care.
Thank you. You too.
Hello, everybody. You're listening to and watching
Wake Up with Patty Katter. And I am your host, Patty
Katter. Today.
I have David Reed with me on theshow.
David is an Army veteran who's retired from the Army and he's
also a retired law enforcement policeman.
So hi, David. Welcome.
Hi, thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm happy that you could
(00:23):
be here finally. We've toyed with the idea for a
while, so some of my followers might have seen me post a little
bit about somebody who sent me some cool things from Air Force
One and it was David. So I'm going to go ahead and and
just let you tell my listeners alittle bit about yourself.
(00:45):
Well, you don't get to be my agewithout having more than one
life. And you know, you you wind up,
there's more than one significant event, more than one
thing. So it's kind of hard to say I am
this, and I think that's true ofeverybody.
I started out as a young man, and I wanted to join the
(01:06):
military. I wanted to be a cop.
I wanted to do those things. This was in the 70s when those
were not attractive concepts. My parents constantly dissuaded
me from this idea. But I went to college.
I did not graduate initially. It just wasn't for me.
And I wound up kind of almost sneaking off and joining at
first the Air Force. And I went into the Air Force
(01:29):
when I was, gosh, 18 years old. It was in the late 70s.
And they shipped me from Appalachia, where I was raised
up in the mountains, OK, right near the Cherokee Indian
Reservation in a town called Kalahui.
And everybody says, where's Kalahui at?
I said, well, it's near Tukasiji, Mantahela, Oconolufty,
(01:50):
you know all the big towns. So I really kind of have to I
have fun with that because thoseare all Cherokee villages, but I
would point them at where on themap and I moved from there out
to New Mexico and you talk aboutculture shock.
Suddenly it was flat, it was wide open.
You could see 9 or 10 miles downthe road and see a green
(02:11):
elevator or something like that in the distance.
So at at a fairly young age, I got a pretty, pretty good dose
of culture shock moving out to New Mexico.
But I absorbed it. I wound up loving it.
I would still love to go back out there and spend some time,
but from there I got moved to Washington, DC, another culture
shock. And as a military security
(02:36):
specialist with the Air Force, Iwound up being accepted to the
program to work on board Air Force One when first Carter,
then Reagan was president. And that probably more than
anything sort of changed the tone of my life because I mean,
it was it such powerful drama being played out.
(02:59):
You would see something on the news and I can say I know
exactly what was going on. You know, in in the background
in a minor role. I was there and I got to see a
lot of interesting stuff. But I'm I I met people like
Ronald Reagan, George Schultz, Alexander Haig flew with him
several times as security on theon the flights that they flew.
(03:22):
And my primary job of course wascounterintelligence counter
terror to protect the aircraft and of course the dignitary
while they were there. But then we secured the aircraft
once they were off doing whatever they were doing and
kept the installation secured back so that we could maintain a
very tight physical, electronic biological security around these
(03:46):
aircraft that were flying peopleall over the world.
And back then we didn't have a lot of computers, we didn't have
a lot of high technology. We depended on very tight
procedural security. I don't know what they do now,
but I know what they did then. And it was.
It would have been all but impossible to have done
something to one of those aircraft or to gain access to
(04:08):
one of those dignitaries, exceptwhen they were in foreign
countries. And that's probably when we were
the most vulnerable. I can say from that experience I
served with some of the best people that you can imagine,
some of the deepest thinkers, I mean Bob Dole, even people like
Tip O'Neill, John Towers. I remember having a couple of
(04:29):
minor conversations with him that just left me with an
impression of these people are these truly are our leaders in
that they were thought leaders, They just weren't in a position
of leadership. They were thought leaders.
Now, not all of these people hadfantastic lives, you know, after
that. But in this moment of time from
(04:49):
about 1979 to 1985, a lot of really sharp good people
coalesced. And I guess if I have one thing
that I can say about that experience other than just
anecdotally, I would tell you that I just fell in love with
(05:10):
the idea that a few good, dedicated and selfless people
could truly make a difference. And I met so many selfless
people. And one of the things that I
took away from that, and I bought this later in a gift
shop, but it was, it's just a little paperweight that has an
(05:32):
inscription. You probably can't read it.
I'll read it to you. And it says there's no limit to
what a person can do when first you don't care who gets the
credit. And that's a quote from Ronald
Reagan. And that stuck with me.
And I was in my early 20s, so how fortunate was I to have had
(05:56):
that exposure and had to have had my eyes open both good and
bad to see good and to see evil at such a young age.
And it really changed the the asthma of my life from then on
forward. I mean I I probably carried that
with me. I was so young, I probably
(06:16):
didn't appreciate the experience.
If I could go back now in time and relive it, I might do one or
two things differently. But it it really made a huge
impression and that was probablythe first phase or stage of my
life that that set me up for therest of my life.
(06:37):
What an amazing experience. Oh my goodness, yeah.
So I set 6-7 seats away from either Ronald Reagan or Vice
President Bush or these people. And you know, we didn't chat
them up. You don't talk to these.
You know, we had a protocol brief where you don't make
conversation with them. You know, you avoid eye contact
(06:58):
where possible. If they engage you, you're
allowed to respond, but then keep it short.
And I remember one time we were with Vice President Bush and we
flew to one of the every somewhere in Montana and it was
one of the coldest spots on Earth.
And as we landed and we taxied up and it was on a military, it
(07:19):
was on an Air Force installation, I believe it was
Mausrum Air Force Base. And we all got up and started
putting our coats on. And President Bush just kind of
looked out the window and there were several general officers
standing there waiting on him. And they had a little red carpet
and they had everybody standing there.
And he just looked out there andhe said it sure is cold out
(07:39):
there and we're just like, yes, Sir.
And he says, you know, when I was in the Navy as a Lieutenant,
people like that kept me waitingfor hours.
Said yes, Sir. He said just keep the door
closed for a minute. It looks pretty cold out there.
We'll let him stand out there for a minute.
And he was doing this. And everyone around him knew he
(07:59):
was, you know, half joking. We started putting our coats and
stuff on. And he said, hey, hey, hey, if
I'm not going out there, you don't have to go out there.
And I just politely said, no, Sir, If we don't get out there,
we get in trouble. I'm sorry, Sir, but we have to
get down the stairs as quickly as possible.
He goes, well, if you're going, I'll go.
And it was just those little moments like that where you kind
(08:19):
of get the the measure of a character of a person and that
that stuck with me later. You know, a lot of people don't
realize or think about the presidents who we've we've had
and their families, the the thought process behind some of
(08:39):
the decisions that they make. But even as silly as it sounds
getting off of that airplane, you know people don't.
Think about it. Yeah.
He played golf and Reagan did not.
President Reagan was not a golfer, but he wanted to be.
And vice President Bush said, well, let's go play golf.
I'll show you what I know. And Reagan said, I've tried it
(09:01):
two or three times over the years and never stuck.
So they scheduled on a Sunday afternoon to come to Andrews Air
Force Base because it would be asecure environment where they
could play golf and not have a crowd of people around them and
all of us and also, you know, better security.
So they got out there, and I mean they, they hadn't played
five holes. And Reagan began talking to one
(09:24):
of the Secret Service people andone of his staff.
And he, he looked around and there were several of us ringing
that golf course to make sure they had, you know, a private
but also a secure environment. And Reagan just looked at
everybody and said, let's stop this.
We're ruining all these people. Sundays, all of their Sunday is
getting ruined. Let's, let's get it.
(09:45):
Let's knock this off and get outof here.
And that also kind of made an impression, 'cause you wouldn't
get that out of a lot of people today.
But again, little snippets like that lead you to understand the
depth of a person's character. And that's why I was proud to
have worked with that. And it's it's one of the one of
(10:05):
the defining moments in my life,but probably probably the one at
a young age changed how I was thinking and and doing things.
Have you documented any of thesethings so that you can pass some
of these memories down to your family?
I just. Did That's right.
That's that's one of the great things about podcasting.
(10:28):
Yeah, that's amazing. So what's one of your most?
Maybe we'll start with a humorous memory.
Do you have any humorous memories?
From those from those days, yes,I got a lot of humorous memories
from my various careers that I've had.
But from Air Force One, the one that my dad liked and my dad
(10:49):
told it, of course he was, you know, although a lifelong
Democrat, he was very proud of me.
You know, he's very proud of of this exposure.
And he liked Reagan and voted for him in the second term.
To my, you know, it is to my astonishment.
But so Dad, when he would tell the story, got embellished a
(11:10):
little bit. But the Air Force One that I
flew on and and the the aircraftthat I was on were Boeing 7 O 7
converted. They were called VC137A's and
it's different from a commercialairliner but it's a smaller
plane nowadays. They've got this big 747, I've
(11:30):
never seen it, never been on it,have no idea what they do with
that. But these were fairly small
aircraft. I mean if you look at the width
of your you know, less than the width of your living room is how
long this tube was. And it wasn't outfitted like a
commercial airliner except in the back where the press was and
in the very front, the center section of the plane was divided
up so that he had an office. He could close a wall.
(11:54):
He was a movable partition type wall that he could move to have
private conversations where theycould fold it up.
But there was open seating in this, in the center section
where the president had, he had a desk.
And for one reason or another, the latrine in the front of the
plane was closed off by the steward.
So I had to walk towards the rear of the plane.
(12:15):
And I wound up standing and justthey just happened to have this
partition open. And I'm standing there waiting
to to use latrine. And I'm standing there and
there's three or four people gathered around President
Reagan. There's a desk and there's two
or three telephones. And the red phone rings.
And so I'm like I'm just standing there, you know, I'm
not doing anything, but I can't help but notice, you know,
(12:37):
that's the red freaking phone. What is that?
This is Cold War. This is, I mean, you know, pre
Gorbachev Cold War, you know, and drop off or someone like
that who was premier of the Soviet Union.
So very much, you know, you're on the idea that we could go to
war with Russia. Red phone.
That's not good. President Reagan picked it up
(12:58):
and he says yes, yes. And he kind of waves his hand to
get everybody to stop talking. And he continues with this and
he makes a couple of little notes on a piece of paper and he
goes, how long do I have to makea decision?
I'm sitting there. I no longer had to use the
battery. What the heck?
Oh my God. And at one time I thought I'm
(13:21):
probably in the safest place on the planet.
But where's my family, you know?And all of these thoughts start
running through your, my 25 yearold mind, you know.
And he hangs up the phone and hesits there and he kind of rubs
his brow for a minute. He kind of nods to himself and
he picks up the phone, hits the button and says, I've made my
(13:42):
decision, I'll have the roast beef and that's all, you know,
about four people in that room exhaled right there because, you
know, we didn't, I didn't know what the.
Apparently the red phone was, you know, just to the kitchen or
something. But that's a story my dad liked
to tell and he embellished it a little bit.
But, you know, that's that's thetruth.
(14:04):
And like I said, there's two or three little instances like that
that stuck with me. I have shared them with my
children. I have, you know, I got a few
souvenirs off of the plane that were there to be souvenirs to
distinguish visitors and stuff. But every time that plane
landed, they cleaned everything off the plane.
(14:25):
Every stick of gum, every roll of toilet paper, everything came
off the plane and was discarded.They never reused anything with
the idea of avoiding some sort of biological contaminant
poisoning or something like that.
We, even, not we but the stewards even would take the
seat cushions off. We had a a hospital autoclave in
the hangar and we would autoclave the China and
(14:47):
everything, sterilize it to a surgical standard before it
would go back on the plane. And then we physically sealed
the plane and it stayed sealed until it was ready to fly again.
So when, you know, pieces of China would get broken, they
would take some of the China, they'd get a new set of China
donated. They And despite at the time it
was a big controversy, people thought Nancy Reagan was
(15:11):
outfitting the White House and Air Force One to her standard at
taxpayer expense. But it was completely untrue.
It was a big controversy. It was.
You could probably Google it andstill find it.
Everything that we used was donated.
The China companies, they had tobe American based.
They would donate it. They could not use it in their
(15:33):
advertising that they had donated it.
They could say it privately. Oh, by the way, this is the same
type China that's on Air Force One.
But they couldn't use that in any advertising or marketing and
they couldn't have any brand name on the China, just that it
was made in USA. So you know plates and cups and
saucers eventually you know you don't have a complete set and
they would give that stuff away to you know dignitaries and
(15:56):
occasionally I I got a cup and asaucer and stuff like that.
I think I sent you like some of the matchbooks, you know, things
like that. That's off Reagan's Air Force
One and the play of these, the decks of card.
And this is a deck of cards, pair of deck of cards.
(16:18):
And it's got, you know, Reagan'ssignature on it and you know on
the back it's got the Presidential seal.
It's a little drawer. And when you open it up, you
know what's coming. But when you open it up and
these are sealed decks of cards that I've kept since, you know,
83 or 84, it's got Air Force Oneon it.
(16:38):
And I wonder if you can see thatif there's a reflection.
But it also has Ron. But on the back you can see
this. But joker is Congress.
That's. Great.
And I don't know if they kept that up.
I know that under President Carter they didn't.
They didn't, they didn't do that.
(16:58):
So that's probably somebody's sense of humor that that worked
there. I love that it does make you
wonder if people would be offended these days.
Oh yeah, nowadays they oh, they'd be an investigation or
something. But it was.
And you know, Reagan had a lot of members in in, especially if
you look at your history. He made friends with Tip
(17:20):
O'Neill, and although they fought like cats and dogs over
policy and stuff, when it was time to stop fighting, he would
ride with Reagan and they would share a drink together and talk
and cut up. And, you know, there was a there
was a time to make a political argument, and it was a time to
just be a human being. And and Reagan and Tip O'Neill
(17:41):
himself, who was speaker of the House at the time, made a point
of saying this. There's no other president could
have gotten done what he did with a Democratic Congress by
force of his personality. And when you were around him,
you felt the gravity, but you felt the the personality.
If it sounds like a hero, worship the guy.
(18:02):
I was 232425 years old and yeah,I probably did a little bit.
History paints a slightly different picture of his later
years in the White House. A lot of, you know, supposed
controversy and stuff. I can tell you I do not believe,
and you cannot to this day convince me that if presented
(18:23):
with the facts and in possessionof his full wit, that he would
have made any sort of dishonest or disreputable decision.
I just don't believe it. Yeah, he was definitely one of
those presidents that everybody did get along with and everybody
respected. You know, when I was growing up,
my grandma always said, you know, you don't argue about
(18:44):
politics or religion with family.
There's just no sense in arguingabout it.
You can believe what you're going to believe, but I think
that a lot of the the good old folks had that mentality of, you
know, we'll we'll argue it out, but then we can put it aside and
we can still get along so. Well, and there was a there's a
measure, there was a measure of respect.
(19:05):
We come, you know, different people can come from different
poles. And when they come together for
a conversation, if the goal is to be polite, if the goal is to
be respectful and I have a senseof respect for the person that
I'm talking, understanding I don't agree with and I may
never, I may constantly wonder how they came to those
(19:25):
conclusions. If first you decide that this is
going to be a respectful conversation, and even if the
other person doesn't follow thatI'm going to take the High Road
and stay that way, then. And and I will just tell you in
my later life where I was a military analyst and a criminal
investigator, where I did thousands of interviews over the
(19:49):
years and obviously no one across the desk or the table
from me shared my values, I don't think.
But I had people thanking me as I was sending them to jail.
And I'm not saying that to make myself sound good.
It's just that that's one of thethings that I picked up You if
(20:11):
you treat people with the respect that even they don't
believe they've earned, they'll appreciate it.
A lot of people. Secretly don't think they've
earned respect. A lot of people secretly know
things about themselves, and they're afraid that you know it.
If you let them know we're not going to go there.
Let's just keep this on an even keel.
(20:32):
You can get more out of people that way.
And you're an interviewer. You know this.
There's different types of sometimes you have to be
antagonistic with people in certain environments to get to
get to the truth. But I always tried to end it on
a note of respect, you know, as just as a human being.
And, you know, I tried to not refer to people as scum or punks
(20:55):
and stuff like that. You know, it's just let's let's
shake hands. I understand you're on a
different path. Let me know what I can do to
help you in the future. And a lot of times that just
opens people up. It it opens people.
I I think that people have, people are like a balloon and
there's pressure. If you provide an outlet,
(21:16):
they'll take it every time to relieve that pressure.
So true. So one question I have for you
is what's 1 obstacle that you'vehad?
It can be in your military community or your military
career, law enforcement or just life in general or wherever.
(21:37):
What was that one trial that really kind of sticks out to you
and how did you overcome that trial or are you still working
on it? Well, you know, you you said it
right the first time you said military commute.
I was in the Washington, DC area.
It took, it took me two hours togo 10 miles some days, you know,
so that, yeah, that was a trial I had to overcome right there.
(21:59):
You know, I know. I knew you were going to ask
something like this. And so I thought about it, and
like I said, no one gets to be my age without having more than
one life, more than one obstacle, and to pick one is the
most significant kind of hard. I've kind of broken it.
(22:19):
First of all, I think that probably what truly changed my
trajectory in life too, in addition to having the
opportunity that I had as a young man, was having children.
And it I was no longer alone. My decisions were no longer just
impactful of me. It impacted other people.
And I took that very seriously. I think that you know how I
(22:45):
would over how did I overcome this or how do I did I adapt to
this? As you adopt your thinking,
you're no longer allowed to takethe sharpest edge of an opinion.
I'm no longer able to push things as far as I would want
to. Maybe as from an emotional side,
I always had a buffer and I always had a safety that said
(23:06):
stop your kids are, you know, ifyou picture your kids standing
right behind you, would you, would you take this position?
You know. Yeah, I've heard that on the
reverse side. That's so funny.
You just threw me off there because I haven't heard this in
a long time. But my dad always told me, you
never know, you could turn around and I might be standing
(23:28):
there. So for you to say that I'm just
like, wow, I I haven't heard that in quite some time.
You know, so the family is 1 significant thing.
The other was that, and we didn't talk about this, but in
my civilian military career withthe Army, yeah, I was trusted at
the Pentagon level, at both DoD and DA Department of Army levels
(23:49):
to completely evolve military, police, law enforcement,
training and standards, everything from equipment to how
they organized. And all of this was post oif
one. And it started when, you know,
there was some military police in theater and they were charged
(24:10):
with setting up a police station.
And these military police lookedat him and said, well, we've
never been in one. And that's, you know, that's the
anecdote. But it led to the commandant of
the MP Corps setting me up into a position where we we now have
to recapture our core policing skill sets.
(24:32):
The MP Corps is the most adaptive of all military
regiments in the army. They do things special forces
can't do with one set of equipment and one set of
training. And so to expected to be able to
manage combat crossings of a river route reconnaissance host
nation police training prisoner you know in pernament and
(24:54):
resettlement and at the same time come home to say you know
Fort Benning and patrol the postlike a civilian police officer.
That's a broad skill set and it's the broadest skill set of
all that's required with one youknow 20 something week school.
So one of the things I was tasked with is a civilian as the
(25:16):
chief of force Protection was evolve all of the training
standards. And at as we began doing this
because the Army leads the way, next comes the Marine Corps.
You know what, This is a great idea.
Next comes the Air Force, the Navy, I don't think they've ever
got it, but well, they don't really have a military police
(25:38):
corps. The shore police are not
military police. But then you get into, you know,
DoD, the NSA, Defense, Geospatial, the Defense
Logistics Agency. They all have either military or
civilian law enforcement officers, and they were trained
to no common standard. Often even within the department
(26:02):
there was no standard. So we eventually owe from 2003
to around 2019 is how long it took.
But we wound up with a Peace Officer Standards and Training
Commissioner Post Commission modeled after State Post
Commissions that designed and developed the training and and
(26:22):
standards for policing across the DoD.
Now, OK, I've said all that likea like a resume thing.
But imagine being this dumb hillbilly from the Appalachians,
and the commandant looks at you and says, here's the mission
with very little written guidance and with a lot of help,
(26:44):
a lot of good selfless people. And and that's the thing you
don't hear enough about government employees, is the
true selflessness and the true dedication that they had to get
it right. Not all of them.
There's plenty of fat, lazy people that don't give a hoot
about anything except their own paychecks.
But the people that I had the opportunity to work with, we got
(27:08):
that done. And how did I overcome it?
Panache. Got to do it.
Got to figure it out, Got to go talk to some people, got to.
I spent a lot of time on the road.
There was one time I wasn't home.
Three days a month. I was on the road.
Let's, let's fly here, Let's go here, Let's go here.
Let's find out how they do it. And with the commandant
(27:30):
borrowing his stars, we were able to get an international
standard. How did the French police do it?
How did the British do it? How did the Italians?
How did the Russians do it? And we developed, redesigned and
re engineered the military police corps from the inside out
so that now we are the model forDoD.
(27:50):
I didn't do that by myself. I was just the guy that was
appointed to lead this effort. And I used to say this, you
know, if they say success, success has many fathers,
failure is an orphan. Now I don't know who always
going to take credit for the work we did but I knew that who
(28:12):
they had picked out as orphan that was I was predetermined.
OK let's let's put Reed in charge of it to where if it
screws up, you know he's he's the orphan that we can put all
this on. So with a lot of panache and a
lot of help we changed that and I will tell you that there were
days and you can imagine that you know I I thought I don't
(28:36):
think let me just let me just answer your question.
Gosh, I'm all over the place here.
No. I love it though.
I hope your I hope your next guest is more organized.
No, this is fantastic. These are actually David, your
stories are my favorite because I feel like I need a whole
series just with you because your stories are so vast and
(28:56):
they're so important to keep andhold on to for future
generations. And yeah, I'm going to make sure
that the show actually gets filed in the government
archives. There is a way to do that.
I'll. I'll figure it out and do it.
Yeah. There, there is.
There's just, I think that all of us, if you look back, and I
(29:18):
mean you look to me, you're veryyoung.
If you look back on your life and people look back on their
lives for the significant event like what you're you're you've
asked me to talk about. It's those moments when you're
living the most acute life, things are important.
(29:39):
You're scared of failure. You don't have everything you
need to succeed and you've got to pull it from somewhere deep
inside. You've got to surround yourself
with the right people because it's only in those most acute
moments that you really pulled your best out.
This is true in in almost every Ave. of life, but overall it's
(30:01):
moments like what I described when I was on Air Force One.
That's a no failure zone right there.
You could not fail. When I was working with these
law enforcement standards and training, policing standards for
all of DoD, you know, it was like there were a lot of really
big, important people looking atme, not because I'm important,
but because I was the guy. I was the guy that everybody
(30:23):
knew my name. And it was 0 tolerance for
failure. And I think that's when you
realize I've got up my game, I've got to do this, I've got to
get it done. Nothing's ever done perfectly,
but those are the moments that you take years later and
remember is those most acute moments in your life.
(30:44):
I think that's probably my answer to you.
Oh, true. David, thank you so much for
being on the show. I wish I had so much more time
and maybe I can have you on again.
Your stories are are really truly inspirational and this is
one of the more meaningful. All of my shows are meaning so I
(31:07):
should be careful how I word this but it's one of the more
meaningful to me personally it just because I've I've had time
to also get to know you over thelast gosh couple.
I feel like at least a year, probably more than that.
But yeah, Yeah. And it's just been a phenomenal
experience. And it's not always that you
(31:28):
just connect with somebody online.
And David and I did that and andyou are always encouraging to
the military community and to our law enforcement community,
our first responders and very loving of America and your
sacrifices that you've made overthe years, your time, your
dedication and your talents are not unnoticed.
(31:49):
So thank you so much for everything that you've done for
our country. And you know, as we head into
the the election time coming up,I won't get into the politics of
it, but I I truly believe that stories like yours need to be
out there so that our younger generation can see how it's
supposed to be done. So you've been a great example
(32:12):
and a great leader and. Those kind words, it's been my
honor to serve in those capacityand almost accidentally
sometimes to wind up in these inthese positions of
responsibility or positions of service.
So I would say that it's a confusing time.
(32:32):
These are confusing time, especially for young people.
So thank you for being the bullypulpit or the broadcaster to let
people know there's there, thereis a light, there is a way,
there is a path that, yeah, it may seem sometimes, you know,
not necessarily now, but in politically or in our country or
(32:53):
in the world that times are dark.
But try to put it in perspective.
I mean, my dad lived through World War 2.
You know how much more serious was that than things are now.
So there is a way ahead. We can do it.
But like I said, it takes a little bit of selflessness, it
takes a little bit of dedicationand some panache.
But. Thank you very.
(33:14):
Much for having me. Thank you and thank you
everybody for listening. Please be sure to share this
show, especially with your if you're listening and you have
kids or grandkids. I think that it this one's a
really important one. And David, they kept it clean
for us today. I don't even think we had one
cuss word. So thank you, David.
I. Didn't realize I was famous for
(33:36):
that, but maybe. Yeah, I mean now I was thinking
a lot of times you know there's a slip up here or there once in
a while I I even slip up and this is a great show for all
audiences. So thank you.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks everybody.
Take. Care.
Thank you. You too.
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