June 4, 2025 • 57 mins
Watch us on Youtube! https://youtu.be/PNAkOw3L6I4
A former Special Forces Corpsman Sniper talks about his military combat experience, reintegrating into civilian life, his brush with suicide, and how he came back from it. A sobering but inspiring story of one man’s journey to healing and wholeness.
#joerogan #podcast #mensministry #christianliving #biblestudy #cussing #charliekirk #joerogan #jasonwhitlock #fearless #menshealth #christianliving #vincevaughn #timtebow #christianmotivation #churchmemes #mensministry #promiskeepers #timtebow
A former Special Forces Corpsman Sniper talks about his military combat experience, reintegrating into civilian life, his brush with suicide, and how he came back from it. A sobering but inspiring story of one man’s journey to healing and wholeness.
#joerogan #podcast #mensministry #christianliving #biblestudy #cussing #charliekirk #joerogan #jasonwhitlock #fearless #menshealth #christianliving #vincevaughn #timtebow #christianmotivation #churchmemes #mensministry #promiskeepers #timtebow
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yo, what are you doing right now? We are gonna
get real about men's issues, who Jesus is and who
we are as men in Christ. We're gonna hear Trey, Jeremy, Michael,
and Brad break it down. These guys call themselves customs
and Christians. All right, guys, what is going on?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I like I like the Rangers and the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We've got our last stadium this year to go to.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Is that a new one or is it an old one? No,
it's a new one. We never went.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We never made it to Shay So we're going to
City Field for the Mets.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And then the whole process started.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
The first stadium was Yankee Stadium, so we're going back
to Yankees on the same Yankees. See the new Yankee Stadi.
I love that stadium and I'm old school. My three
favorite are obviously regally.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That that's it's the best.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Nineteen fourteen, then Fenway and then Dodger Stadium a couple
of years ago was fantastic because still old school. There's
no fan you know what, they call it the fan experience, you.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Know or and they got all that.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, sushi, you know what? I eating sushi at the ballpark.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
You were glad the new Yankee Stadium. It's nice though,
but and then we rate the hot dogs. The fame
Fenway Frank has been the best hot dog out of
all the stadiums. Really comes with a square bond.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I don't know how they do that, but it's a
square bond and it is an amazing hot dog. Have
you seen all the cans with people's names on them
at the Sea Stars? Kochs got everybody. They're putting all
their names and everything on them, and.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well they do that from time to time. I never
find my name.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well Michelle spelled with one out, so I never find asked,
she said, find me with my name on it, so
I got her can of monster.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Then the fight began. Michael brings it uh kind of
a crazy time today when y'all seen this, We've had
our big event with Matthew West at the King Center,
so I'm gonna say it went great. It's shaping up.
(02:12):
It's actually tomorrow night. But when you hear this, it'll
be done and we'll definitely report on it next week.
We were set to go this morning with our guest Evan,
who's joining us today. Welcome Bro and Brad was rare
and to go. Of course, Cheffy has has an issue
and he couldn't be here. That dude is working his
(02:33):
ass off right now and just being everywhere at once
and trying to be a dad and all that. So
I know there's a lot of stress going on in
his life. It's great stress to have because he's just
doing so well. But and this morning, I'm getting ready
at five am, I get a text from our brother Brad,
who is sitting over there, or sits over there all
the time, and his son, his daughter in law, is
(02:55):
in labor right now and he is on the road
with Jennifer to Jacksonville to welcome their second granddaughter. So pray,
couldn't he come? I just don't know, man, what's he
gonna do? What he does, whatever his wife tells him
to do, like we all do. We're going to jackson
were going to Jacksonville. But Brad was gracious enough to
(03:17):
come in and set up for us, and he's a
guy that does all the video work and everything else.
And just so happened that Garrett was coming in for
the big weekend and he's sitting in with us and
Brad's fancy microphone over there so glad you second time guest.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah, man, you're lucky to be back.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
We had a lot of very positive comments from last
week's episode, especially from some people who's has had some
struggles with their children and and when we don't feel joy,
how do we focus on the joy of Christ? And
we just we had some great feedback on that. We
(03:57):
appreciate you guys sending us notes, text and emails. You know,
our ministry started in twenty sixteen with four guys in
a living room that wanted to heal. And I met
this guy, Evan a couple of years ago, Evan Brockway,
and his story is what our ministry is all about.
(04:19):
And I wanted to bring him in just to talk
about it because he's got a harsh story with a
glorious ending and he's evolving. Moving back to Brevard County
after being gone for a little while. Just thanks for coming, dude,
and I'll give a little bit backstory from my end.
(04:39):
I got a call from Hudson and Gary a couple
of years ago. You were in a dark place, bro
Yeah you said that. Yeah, you were in a dark,
dark place, suicidal thoughts, depression, just had enough of the
world and those guys came alongside you quickly. Then they
(05:00):
introduced you to me with a friend of yours. And
just to see how the Lord has changed your life
in two years is so inspiring. And our ministry is
about men healing and taking off the mask and getting
real and you did in a big way. And now
you're here with us talking about it. Talk to me
about or talk to us about. And I know you
guys have some great questions of this journey to Christ.
(05:24):
For you, you special forces, I was a Navy Corman,
Navy Corman snipers. Yeah, what was life like with that?
For you? Why did you go into the military.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. I
hadn't seen much, hadn't been outside Oklahoma. I was born
in Virginia, but that was before I can remember you.
No military family or no oh grandfather, oyess. My mom
was sticking around to be close to him. Oklahoma is Oklahoma.
I mean, there's nothing there, but Brad knows.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Brad's not here. But I'm sure you sure? Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
So of course I was working at casino. I think
I was a bouncer at a bar.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
No, no, you, no, you you're six foot five two
forty looking like Adonis over HEREO point five body flight. Hey,
you know what, he's Chefy's size, but he looks different
than Cheffy. Just kidding. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The other bouncer I was working there with was he
just got out of the Navy, and he was telling
me these crazy stories of these other countries he had
seen and all this stuff he had seen, and that
kind of plane of the seed. I guess at the time,
I was dating somebody from high school, and UH decided
that I was going to go ahead and join. I
(06:41):
didn't know nothing about the Navy. I thought I was
going to be on a boat, you know, sailing around
the world. None of that happened when I joined.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
UH.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
That's when Afghanistan I was kicking off pretty heavy two
thousand and nine. Almost all the orders that were selected
out of there was Camp Pilton or Campbell June.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Infantry.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
So first thing was first. I ended up at first
time fifth Marines. That was really cool. It's like the
brothers never had. I grew up with sisters, so always
long for a brother, and the Marine Corps provides that
in a big way. I wanted more. I wanted more
than the Infantry, so I went to the Snipering Dog.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
It's rough. Do things just can't talk about.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Do you have a dude that sits besides you and
tells you how the wind's going and you dial up
the like the Shooter with Mark Wahlberg?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Is that true? I always wanted to ask somebody, do
you have a little guy next year?
Speaker 5 (07:41):
That's a little more complicated than that, Okay, but yeah,
they do teach how to calculate windage and stuff. You'd
be surprised at how smart Marine Corps snipers are. They're
they're basically the top dog infantry guys that go into
like sniper platoons and they get special missions. But that's
(08:01):
kind of what I wanted to do. I felt like
they were like the cowboys of the infantry. They had
thrown separate rules and stuff like that, and I liked
it mainly, like the appeal to it was like physical.
You know, I never thought I wanted to be a
sniper or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
But great, great group of dudes.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
First deployment, probably the one the most affected me the
most was to a place called Sang in Afghanistan in
twenty eleven. Anyone who's been in Sanging, they know exactly
what it's about. I remember when we first got there,
we thought three five had killed everybody because we weren't
seeing a lot of action. But I guess the Talban
(08:43):
are like seasonal fighters, so there was something called the
spring offensive kind of kicked off for us. And when
that started, I I can't remember a day where I
didn't see a dead body, one of your buddies, someone
from just the platoons, empty platoons, them, people crowding the crossfire, farmers, kids,
(09:05):
I mean, you name it. It's pretty brutal, and coming
home from that is it's hard. Uh you don't feel
at first, but when you look back on it, you're
like that that messed you up?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
You know, why am I killing people?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Why are all my friends dying? Kind of you know,
especially like the people that you don't think deserve to die.
I remember a firefight that we had. Multiplatoon are family
men now, but a lot of us weren't then we
were younger. And I remember a specific firefight where the
(09:46):
we lost two guys in the same firefight, just out
of my snipper team, and they were both believers in
Christ with multiple kids. You know, good good people and
you're why why them? Like, why them and why not me?
I was, you know, a degenerate.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
In your mind anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
That that was that was That was a crazy firefight.
It's we were kind of just going out there to
see what would happen. That's what a lot of our
patrols were. Just go out there and pick a fight
kind of thing. Make your presence known until rounds start going,
and then it's it's on. We went out there and
hid in the We hid in the corn sniper's you know,
(10:29):
hitting the corn for hours, didn't see anyone, and we
decided we're just pack it up, go back. Second, we
pack up, stand up, turn a corner. It was like
a pretty heavy l shape ambush. People just started dropping.
Went to the first guy. My team later, my new
team later because my old team ler got blown up
a few like a week prior to that. Another story.
(10:54):
He's dead, he's he's just like he had a shot
going in one armpit right out the other. So I'm
I'm in my head, I'm thinking enemy sniper, you know.
So I'm running back and forth, and I remember in
my head, I was just picturing this radical on me,
you know, because I'm the only one trying to move
back and forth because there was our saw gunner was
also down. But when he went down, it just looked
like he fell to the prone position. And when he
(11:15):
wasn't firing back and his head is in his rifle,
I kind of noticed, like that's not right. So running
back and forth between him and my saw gunner and
he had the same injury in and out saw. Now
I'm really thinking enemy sniper. So we call in reinforcements.
They came in, you know, missiles and m wraps and everything,
and we had to run those guys out there. But yeah,
(11:40):
you just think about every little detail, Like I remember
when I flipped over my sawgunner, like there was grass
blades on his eyeballs.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's why I knew, like, oh this guy's he's done.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
But this isn't it tough? And I've heard this is
that to recognize actually who the enemy is because they
all look alike and it's city cut you, I mean,
you're going in buildings and it's not like the wars
fought and passed where the enemy had a different uniform
on and you were out, you know, not as inner
(12:14):
city combat and you didn't know who the enemy was
at times.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Sometimes you didn't even see the enemy. They're good. I mean,
if the Taman are good, they know what they're doing.
That probably started fighting. They're like ten years old.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, they don't know anything different. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
We'd find elaborate murder holes through multiple buildings.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
That were across the street.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
They would put their p K and whatever through a
big hole and that would be adjacent to a smaller hole,
but they could still see the entire field and we
could not see them. And they would open up like
that on us all the time, and calling an air
or you know, artillery or something was like the only
way you were serving.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
How many stints did you have over there? Just that
one is saying, yeah, okay, but overall in Afghanistan fighting
or another country as well, all three deployments, But it
wasn't always in Afghanistan. Got you Now, these horrific things
that your mind, I mean, they're they're burned in your
(13:14):
memory forever. I mean they're there. While you're there, you're
probably not thinking about it. You're on autopilot, just trying
to live. Yeah, I mean, what what what were the
nights like when it was quiet?
Speaker 5 (13:29):
It depends. Sometimes you're just so exhausted you get some
pretty and good sleep.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
My first firefight, I did not know we were getting
shot at. I did not know what an incoming round
sounded like. It kind of sounds like a snap or
those little fire crackers you throw on the ground. That's
kind of how it sounds. So I was like, what
is that? And they're like, get the fuck down? Like yeah,
And at first I remember my first firefight. It was hot,
(13:57):
but my like nervous whatever response. I was covered in
head to toe with sweat, like it sweated through all
my frog gear and everything, and like even my fingers,
my gloves were soaked. I had not tookn a dip
or anything. And I was just like, you made a
lot of it is you. I would look around and
if if no one else was nervous, I wasn't nervous.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Right, gotcha. You take your cues if you're a newbie,
you take your cues from those that have been there. Yeah.
So you said you you grew up and knowing about
who Jesus was. What was your church life like growing up?
Did you? I mean, I don't I don't mean the building.
I'm talking about what was your spiritual life like when
you were growing up before this, probably non existent. My
(14:44):
my parents are watching.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
My parents were alcoholics, So I get like that extremely
drunk mother pop in and you know, want to pray
once in a while. She had said she had like
in her youth, was taken advantage of in a church.
That's why she doesn't go.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But I've learned from personal experience that alcoholics lie and
will justify their addiction through any means. So true, so true.
They'll create trauma.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Right to justify their Yeah, like need to escape with alcohol.
So like my childhood, I don't know what to believe.
I just I know that my parents to this day
are probably heavy drinkers.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Every night.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Everyone we'll pray for them, for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I know that. And that left the mark with you.
You remember it vividly. It sounds like, so, so your
faith walk is a young young man. I mean, you
heard about Jesus. You just you didn't connect the dots
at all. So I get it. So you go into
the military, and you just mentioned you had all these sisters,
and Marines are great about providing a bunch of brothers.
(15:54):
So they filled the hole for you, didn't they. Yeah,
they filled the hole. Tell me about that. It's you
felt like a sensible longing. And yeah, yeah, I've always
had trouble making friends.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
I'm a pretty quiet guy normally, not really outgoing unless
you know, drinking. So, like, the good thing about the
military is it provides your friends.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
You don't have to go make friends.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
They are handed to you, like every command, this is
here with no matter if you like him or not,
You'll eventually become friends.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
When in boot camp, I had basically never seen a
black dude or Spanish or anything other than like Native Americans.
So I'd see a darker guy and I'm like, so,
which tribe are you from?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
No, Like I'm Spanish.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
It was like that's all I knew in Oklahoma. Anyone
with darker skin, they are from some tribe or something.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Well let's I'm fascinated by your story because I know
when you came, when you were I was introduced to you,
I saw this broken man. How long have you been
in the States after active service? When I discussed when
you and I met each other, how long had it been?
I got out in twenty twenty one probably, so that
was so I saw you in twenty two or three? Yeah, right,
(17:12):
And so a couple of years that coming back from
what you've been through and trying to adjust back into
society as a civilian. What's the key problems? Because we
hear a lot of stories like you, and we're a
recovery ministry. We started our Impact Warriors Project a year
(17:33):
and a half ago. We're in combination with the AVET Project. Here.
I'm hearing common themes amongst guys, but I want to
hear your take on coming back.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
What was that difficulty?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
There is a sense of loneliness that you I couldn't describe.
I'm sure every combat that like, no one understands what
I went through, and you're not going to try to
get them to understand. Like your family stubborn, like you
weren't there, so you don't matter. You know, you you
almost create your own loneliness. And I would say that
(18:07):
loneliness in that state is what is killing veterans.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
The isolation.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
You isolate yourself kind of. I mean, it's half your fault.
I would say, I'm but you don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
What else to do, Like, well, okay, when you get
off the plane, you're coming back to a wife and
a child, right, and in your mind you're thinking I'm
just going to step right in and just get a
job and get back into in the life as a civilian.
Is that what your thought was? Was it that idealistic or.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
It all kind of happened really fast for me, the
medical retirement thingy. They appointed me a jag and it
was all kind of handled going through the process, and
I was really focused on, you know, where am I
going to go next?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Like what am I going to do next? So I
started working on a degree.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
And you're not really thinking about how you're going to
transition because you're surrounded by military people anyways, you don't
really realize the difference. So when it when you actually do,
like my first avilion job, it's like a brick run
into a brick wall.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
In Let me let me ask you this. I mean,
you know you're you're sitting there for those years, what
you witness, what you experienced, the injuries you you took
and all that. You're coming back to the States. What
what does a military do to help prep you for
that transition? I have no clue. There are sources out there,
(19:42):
but you don't know. You don't know, they don't tell
you about it. It's self driven stuff. You got to
go find it or very automated. There's online courses. Oh
my god, they'll give you you saw you saw dead
babies and men split in so hey, go to one
eight hundred get over it dot com.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
And when you first come back, you are debriefed. You know,
you got your first sergeant up there, and a guy
like that, he's been to Sanging and Ramadi and Fallujah,
and it's a big joke like don't go home and
beat your wives and kill people. And everybody's laughing and like, yeah,
I wouldn't do that, you know, not me. I wouldn't,
you know. He's like, try not to drink too much.
(20:24):
Like I'm fine, you know, And the military has like
a drinking culture.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Sure, and when you.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Grew up child of alcoholics, so you have a tendency
to go there is.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
I definitely have like an addictive side to me, especially
anything that makes you feel good.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Absolutely, where did.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
You get married in all this? When you were over there?
Speaker 5 (20:46):
So I was married to someone else prior, like we
dated in high school. When I got back, as bad
as it was to turn into a divorce, and then
I met my current wife at my at another command
in Virginia's but you.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Were state side while you're married or herd? Were you
deployed it all? I deployed, gotcha? Yeah? So so you know,
I'm thinking through this journey that you're on and you
come back and things just aren't clicking. What's it like
trying to communicate with your family and friends when you
come back. Because I hear from some of the other
guys that we work with that I have a hard
(21:27):
time relating to these people. They don't want to talk
about what I experienced. I'm not sure what I should
give to them. I've been talking, I've been having a
communication system where it's automatic with people. I know, we
talked this language. I come home and we just don't connect.
Is that did you experience that as well? Or yeah?
You you start out pretty open, really open to talk
(21:49):
about it.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Just happened to you. I remember when I first visited
home after Afghanistan and my my uh, mom and dad
are like.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So, how was Iraq? I was like that that, Like
I was like sons of It's like I was on
a hammock between two palm trees, drinking a Pina colada.
What do you think I was?
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Even though like they don't know what they don't know.
They just see the news.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
They don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
I don't even know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan.
But what happened to me and what happened like all
my brothers and stuff. I took it so personally, I
was just like, you gotta be kidding me, Like yeah,
and then why didn't why don't you why didn't you recall?
It's like I have to explain, Well, there's this thing
called River City and when uh, if someone gets injured
(22:39):
or kill, they have to cut all communications because they
didn't want that to get out before the military can
tell the family, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
And that was every day. Yeah, there's no communication. Oh
my gosh, how.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Did you mean, Hudson, And how did you come to
come to Brevard?
Speaker 5 (22:57):
We were in three five together and another another foreman
friend of mine is from Maridime.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So on.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
In the transition of getting out, it was around twenty twenty.
That was when COVID was happening and we were in
California and they, I mean, they fucked that up. Back Major,
We're like we kind of agreed, like we do not
want to go, like we know there's gonna be another
COVID or something. And we don't want to be in
California when it happens, right, So we we're talking about
(23:27):
Texas for a long time. And then that other Carmen
was in the base housing there. We would hang out
and drink together and stuff, and they started talking about
Bervard County and how wonderful it was, and you know
how Florida's the last free place freeish, you know. Yeah,
and then we all kind of agreed that's what we wanted.
So me and Hudson we just made the call, like
(23:48):
we're going to Florida, and we used my last military
move and we just moved together, and yeah, Florida's free.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It's funny because Udson tells a story about he had
still had California plates on his car and he'd pull
up the stop lights and stuff and people talk him
and flip it off. He's like, hey, I'm not I've
got California plates, but I'm California.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I'm that way too.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
He's like, you, you don't want them to come over
here and make here like it was there exactly because
they will.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Don't bring your California to Florida. We just we this
guy just moved from La back here. Yeah, but I
had these values. First I wasn't you did, I was
bringing Florida to caliy. Yeah, what we were trying to do.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, but I wanted to ask, you know, and I'm
sure we'll get into a little bit more about your
journey after the military and your faith and renewal and
christ and all that. But you're going into the military
is kind of a you know, a believer that's not
really dialed in what's the what's the faith struck not
(24:57):
structure but culture, like in the Middle Terry, because I know,
everybody gets broken down and you kind of become, you know,
a little robot for the mission.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Essentially, that's what they want you to do.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
But on the on the teams, on the squads, like
what's the faith culture? Like, is there any is there
some guys that been together? How kind of prevalent is that.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Isn't they're an old saying there's no atheists in a foxhole?
That's a World War two kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
My grandpa told me that.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Yeah, so everyone everyone, that was the first time meeting
really religious people, Catholics.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
The West Coast is West Coast Marine Corps.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
It's I would say it's half backskin because it's over there.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So a lot of Catholics.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
In my In my sniper team alone, we had a
guy who was around I think it was from Arkansas,
Southern Baptist or something like that. Yeah, yeah, strong Southern Baptists,
and then the sawgunner Catholics, strong Catholic and we'd sit
down to dinner and they would go at.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
That water out there. Bro, that's a shame, but they.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
Would go at each other. But but like they loved
each other, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I remember we stopped to get supplies at a Ford
operating base and we never saw those. We were always
as sniper team moving around the little bitty pockets and
you know, never really had a bed. We get there
and he finds out there as a Catholic priest on
board and he gathers u up. That was my first
(26:30):
and only Catholic mass I went to. And he had
the priest bless our weapons and yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It was pretty cool, all right, all right, little glimmer
of hope in the desert.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Bless this weapon to kill a man.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Yeah, it's weird, but at the time I'm like, yeah,
because it was it was rough out there and whatever
you're trying to grasp something, just something to keep my sanity.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I'd be trying to grass something.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
We took a lot of l's so like that felt
like this is gonna turn the tide.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Right, you know.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
So did you find yourself getting more dialed in with
God while you're there, or or did that kind of
start they got worse.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
They got worse because the things you'll see human beings
do to each other, especially when I lost like my
team there, my songgun at the same time, the team
most religious guys on the on the team and with kids,
Like I remember walking into our hooch and my team
there had his laptop. I want to just picture with
him with his kids, and I was just like almost
(27:35):
with catatonic.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I was like, what in the like and you just
lost him?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, you have to stand on in order to get
through what you're trying to accomplish. It's because if you
start the field, do you feel like a lot of
guys I'm sure did a lot of guys break down?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
And yeah, yeah I did well.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
I could hold it together until we got back and
then once I like, when you're still out there, you're
still I'm in danger. Kind of adrenaline is still going
and then you didn't realize you're kind of safe. It
all floods in, you know, it just can't even control
your body, right.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So when you got back, things just started kind of unraveling.
And walk me through that journey a little bit. That
that time period twenty twenty one to when I met you.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
What would you started unraveling while I was in the military, gotcha?
So everyone comes back from that and you all live
in the same barracks, and you're all giving a little
bit of freedom and alcohol. And I remember there's like
I have memories, like me and a few friends are
just sitting there with like these cases of thirty beers
(28:47):
in between our legs. Well each other have our own one,
and we're just drinking them and we're not saying a word. Really,
We're just like staring at the floor drinking these beers
or something.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I mean, everyone has their own reasons. Mine was it
made me feel better, you know. And when you look
back on that, you're like, what are you doing? You know?
Speaker 5 (29:07):
And that happened a lot. I would drink alone a lot.
I didn't need people to drink with me. I would
just drink and drink and drinking, and I could be
doing anything sitting there and watch TV. I could just
be alone in the dark room and just drinking.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
But you hit it when when we first met you
at Kreiderman's. You hit You seem like you had it
all together. You have this great smile. You know you're
a and I don't have any problems. You're an amazing
looking man. I mean, you're a very urban prime.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, and I can't say that you keep that story
out of it. I've shared the story about the bourbon.
I don't care. We're sitting there eating dinner at a
great restaurant and we're there for the seat of motorcycle giveaway, right,
and we're we're eating dinner and we're engaged in conversation
and he's sitting by himself. He's sitting right next to
(29:59):
him here, and this woman walks up and she looks
at him as she excuse me, you're a very attractive man.
Would you mind I'm single? Would you mind taking my
number and calling me? She had a piece of paper,
and all he did was goes, I'm married. He didn't
say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, thanks, thanks for the attential.
She said, I'm married. Hand down. She goes oh, and
(30:20):
put her head down and walk away. So I used
to have that happened to me. Happen to me all
the time. It's usually men that do it anyway, But
I'm sorry to get off I had that, dude. My
life has been better since you're moving back here. Okay,
so but still that transition time you're drinking all the
(30:40):
beer you come home, Just get because I want to
set this up of you didn't know who you were exactly.
You didn't know who you were, so talk to me
about that.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
It's worse when you get out the military. You where
your story on your chest, you know, like every ribbon
tells us what have you done?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
What have you accomplished? Where have you been?
Speaker 5 (31:06):
And you don't have to share your story with there, buddy,
it's right there and you get that's where you get
your respect. And after a few deployments since years in,
you have the respect. I could walk into a command
anywhere brand new, instant respect even from my seniors because
I had been to places, done things that they haven't.
And that is gone the second you leave. No one
(31:29):
cares that you were this guy. You know, she lost
your identity. It's yeah, it's gone. And it's not like
it fades away. Is it's gone, and you don't know
what you deserve, what you don't deserve.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
She turned to other things, right.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Yeah, and that started in the military. The first time
I ever tried a hard drug was in the barracks.
Really yeah, everyone was doing it.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
It was normal.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
It was California too, but it was it was just
sitting there and you know, a guy in uniforms like, hey,
you want to do some cocaine, and I was like, yes,
I do, and that that's a drug that takes it
all away, you know, like you're immediately happy. You can
talk to everybody and you'll justify your reasons using it,
(32:19):
like if you're drinking a time, like well this will
sober me up. That way, I'm safe driving home.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You know. Isn't that crazy How you can lie to yourself,
yeah and believe.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
It same thing withoutcohol, like I need this to wind
down after whatever, you know, I need this.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I deserve this.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
And it's ridiculous, Like I can think back of like
how my parents would justify drinking all the time, and
I I knew at the time, like I don't ever
want to end up like that, but I did it
just there's something everyone has a like a story or trauma,
and everyone deals with it in a different way.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
And mine was alcohol and drugs. So you came back
and you get home with your wife and your child,
and those things start getting more prevalent your day to
day life. Or did you just bring it from the
military when you were living in California? Was she with
you or was she my ex wife was? Yeah, that's
(33:14):
what I'm talking about, all right, I.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Have I have a child with her as well. Yeah,
he was he was a baby at the time. I
remember the first like really bad thing I noticed was
I could not hold the baby. And that was because
there were there was I had to help hold a baby,
a dead baby, and uh and uh, you'd be surprised
(33:36):
because there's no a baby hasn't really.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Developed muscles yet. They feel almost the.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Same other than like the life and movement, squishiness and
all that stuff you can feel when like I picked
up limbs of adults, you can feel it's like there's
a squishiness to it, there's no life in it.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But with a baby it's more similar. So that would
be that was tough.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Yeah, I remember, like well, like like the it's like
a jolt of like like when I would try to
hold them, and that's like the first thing I really
like notice. But you kind of rush it off because
everyone else they don't look like they're going through anything.
Everything's like suppressed. So you'd have the worst not of
your life, the worst PTSD episode. You wake up, you
(34:21):
pick yourself up, go to work, and everyone else is
just happy.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
So you're like, oh, well, I mean I got it.
How do I how do I turn that on? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
So it's kind of you go through night and day
or I used I used to call myself like a werewolf.
Like during the day, I was one person, and once
the moon came up, completely different and the next day
I don't remember what I did that night.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Wow. Yeah. Tell me about the friction between you and
your wife.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
I can't really recall much of it. I remember, of course.
The TBI is like, my memory is really shot?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Is it really? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (34:58):
I remember she just left and she said she was
going to her brother's graduation or something like that, and
she just never came back.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
And uh, I didn't really care. You know, this is
before I met you.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
Yeah, I don't really care. And that just it just
ended and I don't speak to her at all. I honestly,
I couldn't tell you what she looks like.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Really. Yeah, it was we were together for five or
six years or.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Something, but the TBI is kind of.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
That and probably a lot of drugs the mixture. Uh yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
And then my current wife, Yeah, she's she's also left
for a time. That's when we met.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, when you and I met, that was your current wife.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
Yeah, yeah, that was that was the product of me
getting out, I guess losing my identity. We moved to
Brevard County, May Island. Uh, I'm working on my degree,
and uh, I find a job at.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
A bar, you know, not good.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Yeah, and it's it's probably like the worst bar in
the area. Like everyone knows about it. When when you
mention it, people are like like, and that was like
my jam.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
You know, there was like.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Nothing that whatever grossed them out there, Like I had
seen it, the the od flopping around the ground and
people getting really.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Messed up in the barber all and stuff. It did
not bother me a lick.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
You know, I've seen more blood than that place had
probably seen. Yeah, and it just kind of fit and
I was able to like there was a lot of
fights and I was able to handle myself really well,
and they liked it and I liked it. And free alcohol,
free drugs. It was just, I guess at the time,
(36:47):
I felt like I had an identity, like I was
the man there.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
So you didn't really get out of that that mode.
You went from one fight to another, yeah, because you
had to keep that, keep that going, you had to
keep feeding it.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And I thought, in my head, I was making pretty
good money there as a bartender, and I was getting
paid as a bouncers. So like I was bartending, fight breakout,
I'd come around bar take care of things.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I wouldn't come up against you. I'd stop, I'd stop,
I'd leave myself. Well, drunk people don't stop you. Well,
that's true.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
So I was getting paid like double under the table,
like lots of money. And you know, my wife, my
daughter Disney passes, they go Disney. They were going Disney
every week. And I was, you know, buying motorcycles. I
thought I had it together, you know, and all the
debauchery I was doing, I thought I'd justify it because
(37:47):
in my head, I was taking care of my family.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, but I wasn't there for them. You know, So
when did it start spiraling into the depression? Peace and
thinking about it, It's just time to end this thing.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
So yeah, it was one night my wife had had
enough and we had a big fight and I just
left that night, was out all night, didn't come back
in the morning, and when I came back in the morning,
she was gone and the house was like a complete disarray.
All of her stuff was gone. And yeah, I just
(38:23):
lost everything. And maybe an hour after that, I'm sitting
in my kitchen covering sweat and tears and snot, and
I got a pistol in my hand, and and I
remember I was putting that thing up against my chin,
ready to ready to just knock it out, and knocking
the door, big loud knocking the door. I go to
(38:47):
the door's Brevard count sheriff doing well when a check?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Who called it?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
My wife? Yeah? Thank god for her. Yeah, she loves you, man.
I know, I know, I know I don't deserve her. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
So I mean, even in that time, I had the idea,
you know, hey, easy way out, I'm gonna have a
shootout with sheriffs.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
That was suicide by cop. We had one of those
friend of ours.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Yeah, I ended up just going out and throwing on
the mask like I'm fine, and they left like I
was fine. I was like, all right, second chance, I'm
gonna go back in there, get this done, go back
in there.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
It took about thirty minutes. I was collect my thoughts
like what I was like, what the hell? Like?
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Who called the cops? I wasn't making noise. I found
out later it was my wife. Go go to graund
my pistol again. Knock at the door.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
It was Hudson, Hudson, where are you getting Hudson there?
Next time Hudson comes in, so I'm just blubbering mess
feeling it to him. That's when he, uh he calls
Gary and Gary Miracle. Gary is like, come.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
In tomorrow at nine am or you know, early morning.
And I'm I'm like, all right, well whatever.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Take your gun from you did good good.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
I remember when I got it back. I eventually sold it.
I was really proud of that gun. It was the
gun from John Wick.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
I always wanted to like whip it out of somebody
because of how cool it looked. But you never got anyways.
Uh So, yeah, there I am. I'm doing the same
thing in front of Gary miracle. And you know, Gary
sitting there with no warms and no legs, the biggest
smile I ever seen.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And that's when I'm like, man, I'm a sissy compared
to this guy.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
Like he told me his story and it's I'm just like, like,
my the reason I lost everything is my fault.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
And that's pretty bad in itself.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
You know when when you when everything you love is
ripped away from you and you know it's your fault.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
There you go, you know. Of course, Gary's like therapy
style is very christ based, and he got me in
to read the Bible. Had I had tried to read
the Bible before, you know, but I start off on
page one and this is not the way to go.
I mean, the first three chapters are very interesting, but
then it starts getting into thing.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, he told me start in the Gospel.
I'm very unfamiliar with the Bible. I read it and
it doesn't it makes a little sense. It doesn't make
a lot of sense. So I I'm very eager, like
I need something, I need something, help me something, you know.
Somebody helped me. So I get on it on YouTube
(41:33):
and there's very like good YouTube. Sure, animated. I watched
like an animated version of Job and it was just
and he They also explain what is going on in Job,
and I'm just like, oh my goodness, Like, so there Effie,
the other guy. He's I also how how I found him.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
We were friends.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
He was also a bouncer at the bar. A lot
of the same problems. H lost a brother very close
to him, and he turned alcohol drugs as well. I
remember I had a service in Vieira. The last part
of the message was like, I know, you know somebody
out there that needs this, like and when you leave here,
(42:11):
go find them. And I am Fie pops in my head.
And the craziest thing is I couldn't find him. And
I had to start like a local search party of
like drunkards because all I knew was the bar people.
But found him in his ex girlfriend's car, like passed out.
(42:32):
You could smell this felt. It looked like he was
drinking for days and someone had like roofied him or something,
and I just grabbed him. I was like, there's no choice, man,
You're gonna come live with me, and we're getting sober,
and we're going to church and we're going to therapy,
and that's that's how that started. Yeah, I think he's
doing way better now. He has a very uh he's
(42:55):
very involved with the girl right now, so not a
lot of time for me.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
But I don't believe in coinsciences. How do you think
the two door knocks with somebody out there praying for you?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Do you think I think God was? He was what
he knew I needed it.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
I know the plans that I have for you, says
the Lord, to give you a future and a hope.
Everybody's got that. It's it's part of our plan with God,
whether we decide to choose it or not or two
different stories.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Definitely not a quiz.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
It's also I was having dinner with Hudson and his wife,
and his wife was like, you know what's crazy is
Hudson just took a week off work for no reason
this week, and I was like, yeah, of course, that's
like that's when you like the feeling of the Holy Spirit.
It's like just radiating and it's all coming to you
(43:45):
and you're just like, oh my goodness, like the puzzle.
This whole time, I've been so stupid or clouded or something,
some kind of something was over my eyes, and it
all hits you so hard, like every little thing will
make a tear up, every like good Christian song or
just sermon, and almost everywhere you open the Bible, it's
(44:08):
like speaking to you like like, how did they know
there's a scripture that says that I will turn your
heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
And that's exactly what happened to me. And it's and
one of the things. And I'm not going to compare
anything that I've you know, as a fireman, I still
remember things still come to my mind or the piece
people that I've rescued, the people that I've done CPR,
and people that I've got in you know, I've been
into some massive crashes and people say, well, how do
(44:38):
you deal with that? And I say, well, it wasn't
my emergency. You know, I was there to help. Do
you still see things that bother you or you have
you worked it out to where you're doing okay with
a It's.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
A lot of things, like you said, from stone to flesh,
the things that happened to you that.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
You just like like now you're like, oh my goodness,
like that was bad.
Speaker 5 (45:01):
I remember when I was living in the barracks. It's
like first day in the morning. I'm like, people are
beating on my door like I'm in big trouble or something.
It's like multiple hands. You could hear them all doors
about to come down and open it. And I'm like,
what the hell, And they're like, uh, you have to
come with this. This marine he's oding right now in
his barracks room.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
We run over there. This guy's on the floor. He
already looks like bloated. Did you guys have a narcam
not just in the barracks.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
That'll probably lead to other problems, but uh yeah. So
I go check on him and like light breathing, purple,
my holy moly. And then I check his pulse and
I could barely feel it. So I go into CPR
and as I was doing CPR this he like regurgitated
(45:51):
the most disgusting I don't know what it was, but
I'm I'm like maybe cold minutes in a CPR before
EMAS shows up, kind of push me aside. And remember
the time, I was like, dang, sucks, you know, went
back to sleep, not my problem.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
Then years later you think about that and you're like,
that's somebody's son.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
That's you know, it was a human being.
Speaker 5 (46:14):
Whatever he was going through to drive him to that
point had to be I mean, to him, it had
to be the end, you know. That's how I felt.
I was like, there's no reason to get tomorrow. You know,
like my whole world's gone and I'm the one who
made it go away, so like nothing left.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
That's a huge revelation though, and that, you know, that's
that's the road to salvation. Is the spirit works in
you where you realize how to prave you are. You
realize you know you were born that way, and you
realize your need for for Jesus right, and it creates
(46:56):
a hunger and a thirst in you to learn more,
unders stand more, understand your identity in the drugs and alcohol.
Understanding your identity isn't the the badges on your chest,
the metals on your chest. Your identity isn't wrapped up
(47:16):
in any of that. Your identity is wrapped up in
a man that died for you. Tell me a little
bit about your feelings on that. As we kind of
kind of circle up on this thing, I.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
Guess it came in phases, you know, start going to
your start reading the Bible before you before.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
You don't know Jesus. You really don't know Jesus. You
know that's that's an amen for me because there's I
see so many that I'm a Christian? Do you really
do you know him? Do you go to.
Speaker 5 (47:46):
Church one hundred times and you don't know Jesus unless
you really like get into like who he was.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
It's a revelation that you have. Yeah, and it'll make
you not because something is bad. It'll make you not
want to say and because of him, Like if he
would do that for me, I can't come with a
bottle down. So if he can do that for me,
I can't stop, you know, going out a night and
having like these rarembuctious drug drunk, lustfulfilled nights, you know,
(48:17):
like just absolute craziness. Like what does that do?
Speaker 5 (48:20):
And like if he can go through what he went through,
why can't I just not do a little thing?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
You know?
Speaker 5 (48:29):
And you know you still struggle with it, Like how
was Gary saying sin feels good?
Speaker 2 (48:37):
He say? He says, if it doesn't, you ain't doing
it right right?
Speaker 5 (48:41):
And I remember, you know, in the bar, if they'll
a group of drunk people will make you feel like
they are your brothers.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Oh yeah, you know everyone is the I love you man,
I'd do anything for you.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
And then when the alcohol is off, totally different story,
you know, And at the time you think like this
is these are my people, you know this, they care.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (49:06):
There's there's only like one man that really cared and
he'll always care.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
And that was Jesus. And you have to really realize, like.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
You sinned and you're gonna sin again, and he he's
not disgusted. He's it's probably like when your child does
something bad. You're like, you know, but it doesn't you
don't change the way you say about it, and that's
that's us, like like, yeah, you messed up, but he's
(49:39):
just he's still gonna wrap his arms around you, and
you know it's gonna be all right. And and you
don't before you know Christ, you just you think it's rules.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
You got to fall these.
Speaker 5 (49:51):
Rules, and you know, like you read the Old Testament stuff,
well God would do this and wipe out all this.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Do I really want to be?
Speaker 5 (50:01):
Like, you have to realize how small you are in
comparison to God. You know, you step on anthels all time,
don't think about it, and that's not really.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
I mean, that's not a good description, but it's just.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
Like you have to realize that you're not supposed to
understand completely. It's an unfathomable love that like you can try,
you can try and try and try, but you'll never
really understand it. And human arrogance leads us to believe
like we should know everything. Amen, you're right, we should
(50:35):
definitely know everything. Why wouldn't we know everything.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
It's like that's what I say about him all the time,
he should know everything.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
I think when it really starts a click, like you
were saying, you know, you go from worrying about being
condemned because of the sin, to the desire changing to
not sin because of what he did, like like you
were saying, you know, and it it becomes a kind
(51:06):
of flips on how you think about. You don't think
about it as like, oh, I send him, I'm going
to hell. You think about I don't even really want
to do what I was doing because I want to
please him, you know. And when it started clicking for me,
that's kind of how the thought process changed and the
desire of your heart.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
It's almost like I felt like I was taking advantage
of the life like if you had a friend and
he was always there for you, but you never paid
him back, he never thinked him and he even even
after all that, even after you did him wrong, he
was still there for you.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
And then one day you realize, like, dang.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
An, I gotta I gotta do it, get it together
for him, you know, like he's done all this for me.
Every morning I wake up and breathe, and if if
I have a roof over my head, there's people out
there who don't. You know, you have to, like you
have to be extremely grateful for the things you do have.
Even when I thought I'd lost my family, I was
still fine, Like I had food.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
To eat, I had a home, I had friends. Like
it wasn't actually the end.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
And it took me took a took a took a
minute to realize that.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Well, let's let's cook it back to you had your
revelation of Jesus. How's your relationship with your wife? Now?
It's great.
Speaker 5 (52:31):
A lot a lot of the stresses and stressful conversations
are different. It's it's all centered towards him, you know.
It's not like how are we going to do this?
Or it's or how are we going to get through this.
It's what's God's plan? Like, what's he trying to teach
us here?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
What's what's he trying to align here? So your wife, ya,
you moved to Virginia, you lived, y'all have reconcile, come
back to get her. She sees a change in you. Right?
What is she saying that your change has been? I
couldn't tell you. I remember when she was describing it
to Gary. Gary cried, all right, we got to get
(53:11):
her in here. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:14):
And that she's she's a bit way better speaker than
I am. She leads, she leads Bible size and stuff.
She's she's all in.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
But she saw a drama, dramatic change in you. That's fantastic,
fantastic the way she.
Speaker 5 (53:26):
Described as like I'm there now, Like it's not just
my physical form there, Like I am there, I'm present.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
And you're all in.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Yeah, And I guess it really dawns on you, like
who was I before?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (53:43):
I didn't like the person I once before.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
I didn't even know who he was. That's fantastic, Bro.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
I'm so glad you didn't pull that trigger. Bro, me too, too,
Glad you're here.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
I'm glad you know, Gary and Hudson called me after
that incident and I'm glad we got to be friends.
And I'm so glad you're moving back here. You're gonna
be a part of what we're doing. You're helping us
out with our big event tomorrow night, and you're putting
them at the door.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
A bouncer.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
Yeah, he's a bouncer. I don't think he's gonna have
a problem in a Christian concert. But show me your ticket. Yeah,
they said, did you bring your Bible in here? But yeah.
So I'm just just thrilled to death you're here. You
know it is because of you. And I got with
several other military guys and I don't have a military background.
But when I noticed when I was talking to you
(54:26):
and f he I'm great about coming alongside of guys.
You know, James five, confess your sins to one another
so you can heal. But I also noticed that I
don't have the language that you have in military lingo
and stuff. So what we did, and I think it's
one of the most important initiatives that we've ever done.
I surrounded myself with Tim Thomas, Garon Combe, Blonde, Mike,
(54:49):
all these guys that are military guys, And we created
this group called Impact Warriors UH in conjunction with the
a VET Project, and we get together. We've been once
a month, We're about to switch it to twice a month.
We get together in an informal setting where you can
be as transparent as you want to be about your life,
your adjustment to society, the struggles you have. Do you
(55:13):
know that there are seventy five thousand veterans in this county,
seventy five thousand in our county along and you combine
that with the active duty people at the base and
all that, you probably well over one hundred thousand people
here that are military in a county of six hundred
and fifty seven hundred thousand. So there's a big need
to come alongside you guys man and us creating that group.
(55:36):
You can check us out on our website. It talks
about the we're meeting the third Tuesday of the month.
We're about to change it to every other week or
twice a month meetings. And the guys've gotten a lot
out of it. We have ten and twelve guys show up.
We'd love for it to be more, so check us
out on the website for that at Impactmanistries dot org.
If you like this video or I loved this podcast
(55:58):
listening to Evan, our brother Evan chat and tell his story, man,
give us a light, give us a share, Share us
with your friends, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and we'd
love to hear from you. You can go to our
website and send us an email with your thoughts. If
you have a similar story to Evan, we would love
to hear that as well. And I got to get
you back on sometime, bro, Yeah, deal, deal, all right.
(56:20):
Nervous at first, dude, we're just.
Speaker 3 (56:24):
Eating wings and talking about Jesus.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
That's all we do. Man. So when I'm so glad
your story is so awesome and where you're landing and
you're still evolving, and uh, we can't wait to see
that journey and how it unfolds for you, bro, So
good stuff. Jeremy and Brad number one, Brad your new granddaddy,
So congratulations, Jeremy. Get your butt back here, bro. We
(56:47):
need you. I know you're doing some amazing work for
you and your family and the Lord and what you're doing,
but we miss you as well. Garrett, thanks for coming in,
sitting in with us until next time. I'm Trey, I'm Garretta.
We are the cousin Christians. All right, it's been a
joy getting annoy you, bro. Really seriously, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (57:08):
I love what you exude as far as your passion
and your and your joy now. So it's awesome to
see good stuff, good joy.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
We've been talking a little bit of joy, but a
lot about joy lately. The thing we need to do
it again.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
I agree,
Yo, what are you doing right now? We are gonna
get real about men's issues, who Jesus is and who
we are as men in Christ. We're gonna hear Trey, Jeremy, Michael,
and Brad break it down. These guys call themselves customs
and Christians. All right, guys, what is going on?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I like I like the Rangers and the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We've got our last stadium this year to go to.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Is that a new one or is it an old one? No,
it's a new one. We never went.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We never made it to Shay So we're going to
City Field for the Mets.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And then the whole process started.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
The first stadium was Yankee Stadium, so we're going back
to Yankees on the same Yankees. See the new Yankee Stadi.
I love that stadium and I'm old school. My three
favorite are obviously regally.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That that's it's the best.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Nineteen fourteen, then Fenway and then Dodger Stadium a couple
of years ago was fantastic because still old school. There's
no fan you know what, they call it the fan experience, you.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Know or and they got all that.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, sushi, you know what? I eating sushi at the ballpark.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
You were glad the new Yankee Stadium. It's nice though,
but and then we rate the hot dogs. The fame
Fenway Frank has been the best hot dog out of
all the stadiums. Really comes with a square bond.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I don't know how they do that, but it's a
square bond and it is an amazing hot dog. Have
you seen all the cans with people's names on them
at the Sea Stars? Kochs got everybody. They're putting all
their names and everything on them, and.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well they do that from time to time. I never
find my name.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well Michelle spelled with one out, so I never find asked,
she said, find me with my name on it, so
I got her can of monster.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Then the fight began. Michael brings it uh kind of
a crazy time today when y'all seen this, We've had
our big event with Matthew West at the King Center,
so I'm gonna say it went great. It's shaping up.
(02:12):
It's actually tomorrow night. But when you hear this, it'll
be done and we'll definitely report on it next week.
We were set to go this morning with our guest Evan,
who's joining us today. Welcome Bro and Brad was rare
and to go. Of course, Cheffy has has an issue
and he couldn't be here. That dude is working his
(02:33):
ass off right now and just being everywhere at once
and trying to be a dad and all that. So
I know there's a lot of stress going on in
his life. It's great stress to have because he's just
doing so well. But and this morning, I'm getting ready
at five am, I get a text from our brother Brad,
who is sitting over there, or sits over there all
the time, and his son, his daughter in law, is
(02:55):
in labor right now and he is on the road
with Jennifer to Jacksonville to welcome their second granddaughter. So pray,
couldn't he come? I just don't know, man, what's he
gonna do? What he does, whatever his wife tells him
to do, like we all do. We're going to jackson
were going to Jacksonville. But Brad was gracious enough to
(03:17):
come in and set up for us, and he's a
guy that does all the video work and everything else.
And just so happened that Garrett was coming in for
the big weekend and he's sitting in with us and
Brad's fancy microphone over there so glad you second time guest.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah, man, you're lucky to be back.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
We had a lot of very positive comments from last
week's episode, especially from some people who's has had some
struggles with their children and and when we don't feel joy,
how do we focus on the joy of Christ? And
we just we had some great feedback on that. We
(03:57):
appreciate you guys sending us notes, text and emails. You know,
our ministry started in twenty sixteen with four guys in
a living room that wanted to heal. And I met
this guy, Evan a couple of years ago, Evan Brockway,
and his story is what our ministry is all about.
(04:19):
And I wanted to bring him in just to talk
about it because he's got a harsh story with a
glorious ending and he's evolving. Moving back to Brevard County
after being gone for a little while. Just thanks for coming, dude,
and I'll give a little bit backstory from my end.
(04:39):
I got a call from Hudson and Gary a couple
of years ago. You were in a dark place, bro
Yeah you said that. Yeah, you were in a dark,
dark place, suicidal thoughts, depression, just had enough of the
world and those guys came alongside you quickly. Then they
(05:00):
introduced you to me with a friend of yours. And
just to see how the Lord has changed your life
in two years is so inspiring. And our ministry is
about men healing and taking off the mask and getting
real and you did in a big way. And now
you're here with us talking about it. Talk to me
about or talk to us about. And I know you
guys have some great questions of this journey to Christ.
(05:24):
For you, you special forces, I was a Navy Corman,
Navy Corman snipers. Yeah, what was life like with that?
For you? Why did you go into the military.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. I
hadn't seen much, hadn't been outside Oklahoma. I was born
in Virginia, but that was before I can remember you.
No military family or no oh grandfather, oyess. My mom
was sticking around to be close to him. Oklahoma is Oklahoma.
I mean, there's nothing there, but Brad knows.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Brad's not here. But I'm sure you sure? Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
So of course I was working at casino. I think
I was a bouncer at a bar.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
No, no, you, no, you you're six foot five two
forty looking like Adonis over HEREO point five body flight. Hey,
you know what, he's Chefy's size, but he looks different
than Cheffy. Just kidding. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The other bouncer I was working there with was he
just got out of the Navy, and he was telling
me these crazy stories of these other countries he had
seen and all this stuff he had seen, and that
kind of plane of the seed. I guess at the time,
I was dating somebody from high school, and UH decided
that I was going to go ahead and join. I
(06:41):
didn't know nothing about the Navy. I thought I was
going to be on a boat, you know, sailing around
the world. None of that happened when I joined.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
UH.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
That's when Afghanistan I was kicking off pretty heavy two
thousand and nine. Almost all the orders that were selected
out of there was Camp Pilton or Campbell June.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Infantry.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
So first thing was first. I ended up at first
time fifth Marines. That was really cool. It's like the
brothers never had. I grew up with sisters, so always
long for a brother, and the Marine Corps provides that
in a big way. I wanted more. I wanted more
than the Infantry, so I went to the Snipering Dog.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
It's rough. Do things just can't talk about.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Do you have a dude that sits besides you and
tells you how the wind's going and you dial up
the like the Shooter with Mark Wahlberg?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Is that true? I always wanted to ask somebody, do
you have a little guy next year?
Speaker 5 (07:41):
That's a little more complicated than that, Okay, but yeah,
they do teach how to calculate windage and stuff. You'd
be surprised at how smart Marine Corps snipers are. They're
they're basically the top dog infantry guys that go into
like sniper platoons and they get special missions. But that's
(08:01):
kind of what I wanted to do. I felt like
they were like the cowboys of the infantry. They had
thrown separate rules and stuff like that, and I liked
it mainly, like the appeal to it was like physical.
You know, I never thought I wanted to be a
sniper or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
But great, great group of dudes.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
First deployment, probably the one the most affected me the
most was to a place called Sang in Afghanistan in
twenty eleven. Anyone who's been in Sanging, they know exactly
what it's about. I remember when we first got there,
we thought three five had killed everybody because we weren't
seeing a lot of action. But I guess the Talban
(08:43):
are like seasonal fighters, so there was something called the
spring offensive kind of kicked off for us. And when
that started, I I can't remember a day where I
didn't see a dead body, one of your buddies, someone
from just the platoons, empty platoons, them, people crowding the crossfire, farmers, kids,
(09:05):
I mean, you name it. It's pretty brutal, and coming
home from that is it's hard. Uh you don't feel
at first, but when you look back on it, you're
like that that messed you up?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
You know, why am I killing people?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Why are all my friends dying? Kind of you know,
especially like the people that you don't think deserve to die.
I remember a firefight that we had. Multiplatoon are family
men now, but a lot of us weren't then we
were younger. And I remember a specific firefight where the
(09:46):
we lost two guys in the same firefight, just out
of my snipper team, and they were both believers in
Christ with multiple kids. You know, good good people and
you're why why them? Like, why them and why not me?
I was, you know, a degenerate.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
In your mind anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
That that was that was That was a crazy firefight.
It's we were kind of just going out there to
see what would happen. That's what a lot of our
patrols were. Just go out there and pick a fight
kind of thing. Make your presence known until rounds start going,
and then it's it's on. We went out there and
hid in the We hid in the corn sniper's you know,
(10:29):
hitting the corn for hours, didn't see anyone, and we
decided we're just pack it up, go back. Second, we
pack up, stand up, turn a corner. It was like
a pretty heavy l shape ambush. People just started dropping.
Went to the first guy. My team later, my new
team later because my old team ler got blown up
a few like a week prior to that. Another story.
(10:54):
He's dead, he's he's just like he had a shot
going in one armpit right out the other. So I'm
I'm in my head, I'm thinking enemy sniper, you know.
So I'm running back and forth, and I remember in
my head, I was just picturing this radical on me,
you know, because I'm the only one trying to move
back and forth because there was our saw gunner was
also down. But when he went down, it just looked
like he fell to the prone position. And when he
(11:15):
wasn't firing back and his head is in his rifle,
I kind of noticed, like that's not right. So running
back and forth between him and my saw gunner and
he had the same injury in and out saw. Now
I'm really thinking enemy sniper. So we call in reinforcements.
They came in, you know, missiles and m wraps and everything,
and we had to run those guys out there. But yeah,
(11:40):
you just think about every little detail, Like I remember
when I flipped over my sawgunner, like there was grass
blades on his eyeballs.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's why I knew, like, oh this guy's he's done.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
But this isn't it tough? And I've heard this is
that to recognize actually who the enemy is because they
all look alike and it's city cut you, I mean,
you're going in buildings and it's not like the wars
fought and passed where the enemy had a different uniform
on and you were out, you know, not as inner
(12:14):
city combat and you didn't know who the enemy was
at times.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Sometimes you didn't even see the enemy. They're good. I mean,
if the Taman are good, they know what they're doing.
That probably started fighting. They're like ten years old.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, they don't know anything different. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
We'd find elaborate murder holes through multiple buildings.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
That were across the street.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
They would put their p K and whatever through a
big hole and that would be adjacent to a smaller hole,
but they could still see the entire field and we
could not see them. And they would open up like
that on us all the time, and calling an air
or you know, artillery or something was like the only
way you were serving.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
How many stints did you have over there? Just that
one is saying, yeah, okay, but overall in Afghanistan fighting
or another country as well, all three deployments, But it
wasn't always in Afghanistan. Got you Now, these horrific things
that your mind, I mean, they're they're burned in your
(13:14):
memory forever. I mean they're there. While you're there, you're
probably not thinking about it. You're on autopilot, just trying
to live. Yeah, I mean, what what what were the
nights like when it was quiet?
Speaker 5 (13:29):
It depends. Sometimes you're just so exhausted you get some
pretty and good sleep.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
My first firefight, I did not know we were getting
shot at. I did not know what an incoming round
sounded like. It kind of sounds like a snap or
those little fire crackers you throw on the ground. That's
kind of how it sounds. So I was like, what
is that? And they're like, get the fuck down? Like yeah,
And at first I remember my first firefight. It was hot,
(13:57):
but my like nervous whatever response. I was covered in
head to toe with sweat, like it sweated through all
my frog gear and everything, and like even my fingers,
my gloves were soaked. I had not tookn a dip
or anything. And I was just like, you made a
lot of it is you. I would look around and
if if no one else was nervous, I wasn't nervous.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Right, gotcha. You take your cues if you're a newbie,
you take your cues from those that have been there. Yeah.
So you said you you grew up and knowing about
who Jesus was. What was your church life like growing up?
Did you? I mean, I don't I don't mean the building.
I'm talking about what was your spiritual life like when
you were growing up before this, probably non existent. My
(14:44):
my parents are watching.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
My parents were alcoholics, So I get like that extremely
drunk mother pop in and you know, want to pray
once in a while. She had said she had like
in her youth, was taken advantage of in a church.
That's why she doesn't go.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But I've learned from personal experience that alcoholics lie and
will justify their addiction through any means. So true, so true.
They'll create trauma.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Right to justify their Yeah, like need to escape with alcohol.
So like my childhood, I don't know what to believe.
I just I know that my parents to this day
are probably heavy drinkers.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Every night.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Everyone we'll pray for them, for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I know that. And that left the mark with you.
You remember it vividly. It sounds like, so, so your
faith walk is a young young man. I mean, you
heard about Jesus. You just you didn't connect the dots
at all. So I get it. So you go into
the military, and you just mentioned you had all these sisters,
and Marines are great about providing a bunch of brothers.
(15:54):
So they filled the hole for you, didn't they. Yeah,
they filled the hole. Tell me about that. It's you
felt like a sensible longing. And yeah, yeah, I've always
had trouble making friends.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
I'm a pretty quiet guy normally, not really outgoing unless
you know, drinking. So, like, the good thing about the
military is it provides your friends.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
You don't have to go make friends.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
They are handed to you, like every command, this is
here with no matter if you like him or not,
You'll eventually become friends.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
When in boot camp, I had basically never seen a
black dude or Spanish or anything other than like Native Americans.
So I'd see a darker guy and I'm like, so,
which tribe are you from?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
No, Like I'm Spanish.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
It was like that's all I knew in Oklahoma. Anyone
with darker skin, they are from some tribe or something.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Well let's I'm fascinated by your story because I know
when you came, when you were I was introduced to you,
I saw this broken man. How long have you been
in the States after active service? When I discussed when
you and I met each other, how long had it been?
I got out in twenty twenty one probably, so that
was so I saw you in twenty two or three? Yeah, right,
(17:12):
And so a couple of years that coming back from
what you've been through and trying to adjust back into
society as a civilian. What's the key problems? Because we
hear a lot of stories like you, and we're a
recovery ministry. We started our Impact Warriors Project a year
(17:33):
and a half ago. We're in combination with the AVET Project. Here.
I'm hearing common themes amongst guys, but I want to
hear your take on coming back.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
What was that difficulty?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
There is a sense of loneliness that you I couldn't describe.
I'm sure every combat that like, no one understands what
I went through, and you're not going to try to
get them to understand. Like your family stubborn, like you
weren't there, so you don't matter. You know, you you
almost create your own loneliness. And I would say that
(18:07):
loneliness in that state is what is killing veterans.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
The isolation.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
You isolate yourself kind of. I mean, it's half your fault.
I would say, I'm but you don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
What else to do, Like, well, okay, when you get
off the plane, you're coming back to a wife and
a child, right, and in your mind you're thinking I'm
just going to step right in and just get a
job and get back into in the life as a civilian.
Is that what your thought was? Was it that idealistic or.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
It all kind of happened really fast for me, the
medical retirement thingy. They appointed me a jag and it
was all kind of handled going through the process, and
I was really focused on, you know, where am I
going to go next?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Like what am I going to do next? So I
started working on a degree.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
And you're not really thinking about how you're going to
transition because you're surrounded by military people anyways, you don't
really realize the difference. So when it when you actually do,
like my first avilion job, it's like a brick run
into a brick wall.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
In Let me let me ask you this. I mean,
you know you're you're sitting there for those years, what
you witness, what you experienced, the injuries you you took
and all that. You're coming back to the States. What
what does a military do to help prep you for
that transition? I have no clue. There are sources out there,
(19:42):
but you don't know. You don't know, they don't tell
you about it. It's self driven stuff. You got to
go find it or very automated. There's online courses. Oh
my god, they'll give you you saw you saw dead
babies and men split in so hey, go to one
eight hundred get over it dot com.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
And when you first come back, you are debriefed. You know,
you got your first sergeant up there, and a guy
like that, he's been to Sanging and Ramadi and Fallujah,
and it's a big joke like don't go home and
beat your wives and kill people. And everybody's laughing and like, yeah,
I wouldn't do that, you know, not me. I wouldn't,
you know. He's like, try not to drink too much.
(20:24):
Like I'm fine, you know, And the military has like
a drinking culture.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Sure, and when you.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Grew up child of alcoholics, so you have a tendency
to go there is.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
I definitely have like an addictive side to me, especially
anything that makes you feel good.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Absolutely, where did.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
You get married in all this? When you were over there?
Speaker 5 (20:46):
So I was married to someone else prior, like we
dated in high school. When I got back, as bad
as it was to turn into a divorce, and then
I met my current wife at my at another command
in Virginia's but you.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Were state side while you're married or herd? Were you
deployed it all? I deployed, gotcha? Yeah? So so you know,
I'm thinking through this journey that you're on and you
come back and things just aren't clicking. What's it like
trying to communicate with your family and friends when you
come back. Because I hear from some of the other
guys that we work with that I have a hard
(21:27):
time relating to these people. They don't want to talk
about what I experienced. I'm not sure what I should
give to them. I've been talking, I've been having a
communication system where it's automatic with people. I know, we
talked this language. I come home and we just don't connect.
Is that did you experience that as well? Or yeah?
You you start out pretty open, really open to talk
(21:49):
about it.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Just happened to you. I remember when I first visited
home after Afghanistan and my my uh, mom and dad
are like.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So, how was Iraq? I was like that that, Like
I was like sons of It's like I was on
a hammock between two palm trees, drinking a Pina colada.
What do you think I was?
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Even though like they don't know what they don't know.
They just see the news.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
They don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
I don't even know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan.
But what happened to me and what happened like all
my brothers and stuff. I took it so personally, I
was just like, you gotta be kidding me, Like yeah,
and then why didn't why don't you why didn't you recall?
It's like I have to explain, Well, there's this thing
called River City and when uh, if someone gets injured
(22:39):
or kill, they have to cut all communications because they
didn't want that to get out before the military can
tell the family, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
And that was every day. Yeah, there's no communication. Oh
my gosh, how.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Did you mean, Hudson, And how did you come to
come to Brevard?
Speaker 5 (22:57):
We were in three five together and another another foreman
friend of mine is from Maridime.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So on.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
In the transition of getting out, it was around twenty twenty.
That was when COVID was happening and we were in
California and they, I mean, they fucked that up. Back Major,
We're like we kind of agreed, like we do not
want to go, like we know there's gonna be another
COVID or something. And we don't want to be in
California when it happens, right, So we we're talking about
(23:27):
Texas for a long time. And then that other Carmen
was in the base housing there. We would hang out
and drink together and stuff, and they started talking about
Bervard County and how wonderful it was, and you know
how Florida's the last free place freeish, you know. Yeah,
and then we all kind of agreed that's what we wanted.
So me and Hudson we just made the call, like
(23:48):
we're going to Florida, and we used my last military
move and we just moved together, and yeah, Florida's free.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It's funny because Udson tells a story about he had
still had California plates on his car and he'd pull
up the stop lights and stuff and people talk him
and flip it off. He's like, hey, I'm not I've
got California plates, but I'm California.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I'm that way too.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
He's like, you, you don't want them to come over
here and make here like it was there exactly because
they will.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Don't bring your California to Florida. We just we this
guy just moved from La back here. Yeah, but I
had these values. First I wasn't you did, I was
bringing Florida to caliy. Yeah, what we were trying to do.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, but I wanted to ask, you know, and I'm
sure we'll get into a little bit more about your
journey after the military and your faith and renewal and
christ and all that. But you're going into the military
is kind of a you know, a believer that's not
really dialed in what's the what's the faith struck not
(24:57):
structure but culture, like in the Middle Terry, because I know,
everybody gets broken down and you kind of become, you know,
a little robot for the mission.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Essentially, that's what they want you to do.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
But on the on the teams, on the squads, like
what's the faith culture? Like, is there any is there
some guys that been together? How kind of prevalent is that.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Isn't they're an old saying there's no atheists in a foxhole?
That's a World War two kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
My grandpa told me that.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Yeah, so everyone everyone, that was the first time meeting
really religious people, Catholics.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
The West Coast is West Coast Marine Corps.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
It's I would say it's half backskin because it's over there.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So a lot of Catholics.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
In my In my sniper team alone, we had a
guy who was around I think it was from Arkansas,
Southern Baptist or something like that. Yeah, yeah, strong Southern Baptists,
and then the sawgunner Catholics, strong Catholic and we'd sit
down to dinner and they would go at.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
That water out there. Bro, that's a shame, but they.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
Would go at each other. But but like they loved
each other, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I remember we stopped to get supplies at a Ford
operating base and we never saw those. We were always
as sniper team moving around the little bitty pockets and
you know, never really had a bed. We get there
and he finds out there as a Catholic priest on
board and he gathers u up. That was my first
(26:30):
and only Catholic mass I went to. And he had
the priest bless our weapons and yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It was pretty cool, all right, all right, little glimmer
of hope in the desert.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Bless this weapon to kill a man.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Yeah, it's weird, but at the time I'm like, yeah,
because it was it was rough out there and whatever
you're trying to grasp something, just something to keep my sanity.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I'd be trying to grass something.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
We took a lot of l's so like that felt
like this is gonna turn the tide.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Right, you know.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
So did you find yourself getting more dialed in with
God while you're there, or or did that kind of
start they got worse.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
They got worse because the things you'll see human beings
do to each other, especially when I lost like my
team there, my songgun at the same time, the team
most religious guys on the on the team and with kids,
Like I remember walking into our hooch and my team
there had his laptop. I want to just picture with
him with his kids, and I was just like almost
(27:35):
with catatonic.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I was like, what in the like and you just
lost him?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, you have to stand on in order to get
through what you're trying to accomplish. It's because if you
start the field, do you feel like a lot of
guys I'm sure did a lot of guys break down?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
And yeah, yeah I did well.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
I could hold it together until we got back and
then once I like, when you're still out there, you're
still I'm in danger. Kind of adrenaline is still going
and then you didn't realize you're kind of safe. It
all floods in, you know, it just can't even control
your body, right.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So when you got back, things just started kind of unraveling.
And walk me through that journey a little bit. That
that time period twenty twenty one to when I met you.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
What would you started unraveling while I was in the military, gotcha?
So everyone comes back from that and you all live
in the same barracks, and you're all giving a little
bit of freedom and alcohol. And I remember there's like
I have memories, like me and a few friends are
just sitting there with like these cases of thirty beers
(28:47):
in between our legs. Well each other have our own one,
and we're just drinking them and we're not saying a word. Really,
We're just like staring at the floor drinking these beers
or something.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I mean, everyone has their own reasons. Mine was it
made me feel better, you know. And when you look
back on that, you're like, what are you doing? You know?
Speaker 5 (29:07):
And that happened a lot. I would drink alone a lot.
I didn't need people to drink with me. I would
just drink and drink and drinking, and I could be
doing anything sitting there and watch TV. I could just
be alone in the dark room and just drinking.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
But you hit it when when we first met you
at Kreiderman's. You hit You seem like you had it
all together. You have this great smile. You know you're
a and I don't have any problems. You're an amazing
looking man. I mean, you're a very urban prime.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, and I can't say that you keep that story
out of it. I've shared the story about the bourbon.
I don't care. We're sitting there eating dinner at a
great restaurant and we're there for the seat of motorcycle giveaway, right,
and we're we're eating dinner and we're engaged in conversation
and he's sitting by himself. He's sitting right next to
(29:59):
him here, and this woman walks up and she looks
at him as she excuse me, you're a very attractive man.
Would you mind I'm single? Would you mind taking my
number and calling me? She had a piece of paper,
and all he did was goes, I'm married. He didn't
say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, thanks, thanks for the attential.
She said, I'm married. Hand down. She goes oh, and
(30:20):
put her head down and walk away. So I used
to have that happened to me. Happen to me all
the time. It's usually men that do it anyway, But
I'm sorry to get off I had that, dude. My
life has been better since you're moving back here. Okay,
so but still that transition time you're drinking all the
(30:40):
beer you come home, Just get because I want to
set this up of you didn't know who you were exactly.
You didn't know who you were, so talk to me
about that.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
It's worse when you get out the military. You where
your story on your chest, you know, like every ribbon
tells us what have you done?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
What have you accomplished? Where have you been?
Speaker 5 (31:06):
And you don't have to share your story with there, buddy,
it's right there and you get that's where you get
your respect. And after a few deployments since years in,
you have the respect. I could walk into a command
anywhere brand new, instant respect even from my seniors because
I had been to places, done things that they haven't.
And that is gone the second you leave. No one
(31:29):
cares that you were this guy. You know, she lost
your identity. It's yeah, it's gone. And it's not like
it fades away. Is it's gone, and you don't know
what you deserve, what you don't deserve.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
She turned to other things, right.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Yeah, and that started in the military. The first time
I ever tried a hard drug was in the barracks.
Really yeah, everyone was doing it.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
It was normal.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
It was California too, but it was it was just
sitting there and you know, a guy in uniforms like, hey,
you want to do some cocaine, and I was like, yes,
I do, and that that's a drug that takes it
all away, you know, like you're immediately happy. You can
talk to everybody and you'll justify your reasons using it,
(32:19):
like if you're drinking a time, like well this will
sober me up. That way, I'm safe driving home.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You know. Isn't that crazy How you can lie to yourself,
yeah and believe.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
It same thing withoutcohol, like I need this to wind
down after whatever, you know, I need this.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I deserve this.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
And it's ridiculous, Like I can think back of like
how my parents would justify drinking all the time, and
I I knew at the time, like I don't ever
want to end up like that, but I did it
just there's something everyone has a like a story or trauma,
and everyone deals with it in a different way.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
And mine was alcohol and drugs. So you came back
and you get home with your wife and your child,
and those things start getting more prevalent your day to
day life. Or did you just bring it from the
military when you were living in California? Was she with
you or was she my ex wife was? Yeah, that's
(33:14):
what I'm talking about, all right, I.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Have I have a child with her as well. Yeah,
he was he was a baby at the time. I
remember the first like really bad thing I noticed was
I could not hold the baby. And that was because
there were there was I had to help hold a baby,
a dead baby, and uh and uh, you'd be surprised
(33:36):
because there's no a baby hasn't really.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Developed muscles yet. They feel almost the.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Same other than like the life and movement, squishiness and
all that stuff you can feel when like I picked
up limbs of adults, you can feel it's like there's
a squishiness to it, there's no life in it.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But with a baby it's more similar. So that would
be that was tough.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Yeah, I remember, like well, like like the it's like
a jolt of like like when I would try to
hold them, and that's like the first thing I really
like notice. But you kind of rush it off because
everyone else they don't look like they're going through anything.
Everything's like suppressed. So you'd have the worst not of
your life, the worst PTSD episode. You wake up, you
(34:21):
pick yourself up, go to work, and everyone else is
just happy.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
So you're like, oh, well, I mean I got it.
How do I how do I turn that on? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
So it's kind of you go through night and day
or I used I used to call myself like a werewolf.
Like during the day, I was one person, and once
the moon came up, completely different and the next day
I don't remember what I did that night.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Wow. Yeah. Tell me about the friction between you and
your wife.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
I can't really recall much of it. I remember, of course.
The TBI is like, my memory is really shot?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Is it really? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (34:58):
I remember she just left and she said she was
going to her brother's graduation or something like that, and
she just never came back.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
And uh, I didn't really care. You know, this is
before I met you.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
Yeah, I don't really care. And that just it just
ended and I don't speak to her at all. I honestly,
I couldn't tell you what she looks like.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Really. Yeah, it was we were together for five or
six years or.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Something, but the TBI is kind of.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
That and probably a lot of drugs the mixture. Uh yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
And then my current wife, Yeah, she's she's also left
for a time. That's when we met.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, when you and I met, that was your current wife.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
Yeah, yeah, that was that was the product of me
getting out, I guess losing my identity. We moved to
Brevard County, May Island. Uh, I'm working on my degree,
and uh, I find a job at.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
A bar, you know, not good.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Yeah, and it's it's probably like the worst bar in
the area. Like everyone knows about it. When when you
mention it, people are like like, and that was like
my jam.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
You know, there was like.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Nothing that whatever grossed them out there, Like I had
seen it, the the od flopping around the ground and
people getting really.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Messed up in the barber all and stuff. It did
not bother me a lick.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
You know, I've seen more blood than that place had
probably seen. Yeah, and it just kind of fit and
I was able to like there was a lot of
fights and I was able to handle myself really well,
and they liked it and I liked it. And free alcohol,
free drugs. It was just, I guess at the time,
(36:47):
I felt like I had an identity, like I was
the man there.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
So you didn't really get out of that that mode.
You went from one fight to another, yeah, because you
had to keep that, keep that going, you had to
keep feeding it.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And I thought, in my head, I was making pretty
good money there as a bartender, and I was getting
paid as a bouncers. So like I was bartending, fight breakout,
I'd come around bar take care of things.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I wouldn't come up against you. I'd stop, I'd stop,
I'd leave myself. Well, drunk people don't stop you. Well,
that's true.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
So I was getting paid like double under the table,
like lots of money. And you know, my wife, my
daughter Disney passes, they go Disney. They were going Disney
every week. And I was, you know, buying motorcycles. I
thought I had it together, you know, and all the
debauchery I was doing, I thought I'd justify it because
(37:47):
in my head, I was taking care of my family.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, but I wasn't there for them. You know, So
when did it start spiraling into the depression? Peace and
thinking about it, It's just time to end this thing.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
So yeah, it was one night my wife had had
enough and we had a big fight and I just
left that night, was out all night, didn't come back
in the morning, and when I came back in the morning,
she was gone and the house was like a complete disarray.
All of her stuff was gone. And yeah, I just
(38:23):
lost everything. And maybe an hour after that, I'm sitting
in my kitchen covering sweat and tears and snot, and
I got a pistol in my hand, and and I
remember I was putting that thing up against my chin,
ready to ready to just knock it out, and knocking
the door, big loud knocking the door. I go to
(38:47):
the door's Brevard count sheriff doing well when a check?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Who called it?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
My wife? Yeah? Thank god for her. Yeah, she loves you, man.
I know, I know, I know I don't deserve her. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
So I mean, even in that time, I had the idea,
you know, hey, easy way out, I'm gonna have a
shootout with sheriffs.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
That was suicide by cop. We had one of those
friend of ours.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Yeah, I ended up just going out and throwing on
the mask like I'm fine, and they left like I
was fine. I was like, all right, second chance, I'm
gonna go back in there, get this done, go back
in there.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
It took about thirty minutes. I was collect my thoughts
like what I was like, what the hell? Like?
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Who called the cops? I wasn't making noise. I found
out later it was my wife. Go go to graund
my pistol again. Knock at the door.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
It was Hudson, Hudson, where are you getting Hudson there?
Next time Hudson comes in, so I'm just blubbering mess
feeling it to him. That's when he, uh he calls
Gary and Gary Miracle. Gary is like, come.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
In tomorrow at nine am or you know, early morning.
And I'm I'm like, all right, well whatever.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Take your gun from you did good good.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
I remember when I got it back. I eventually sold it.
I was really proud of that gun. It was the
gun from John Wick.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
I always wanted to like whip it out of somebody
because of how cool it looked. But you never got anyways.
Uh So, yeah, there I am. I'm doing the same
thing in front of Gary miracle. And you know, Gary
sitting there with no warms and no legs, the biggest
smile I ever seen.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And that's when I'm like, man, I'm a sissy compared
to this guy.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
Like he told me his story and it's I'm just like, like,
my the reason I lost everything is my fault.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
And that's pretty bad in itself.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
You know when when you when everything you love is
ripped away from you and you know it's your fault.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
There you go, you know. Of course, Gary's like therapy
style is very christ based, and he got me in
to read the Bible. Had I had tried to read
the Bible before, you know, but I start off on
page one and this is not the way to go.
I mean, the first three chapters are very interesting, but
then it starts getting into thing.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, he told me start in the Gospel.
I'm very unfamiliar with the Bible. I read it and
it doesn't it makes a little sense. It doesn't make
a lot of sense. So I I'm very eager, like
I need something, I need something, help me something, you know.
Somebody helped me. So I get on it on YouTube
(41:33):
and there's very like good YouTube. Sure, animated. I watched
like an animated version of Job and it was just
and he They also explain what is going on in Job,
and I'm just like, oh my goodness, Like, so there Effie,
the other guy. He's I also how how I found him.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
We were friends.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
He was also a bouncer at the bar. A lot
of the same problems. H lost a brother very close
to him, and he turned alcohol drugs as well. I
remember I had a service in Vieira. The last part
of the message was like, I know, you know somebody
out there that needs this, like and when you leave here,
(42:11):
go find them. And I am Fie pops in my head.
And the craziest thing is I couldn't find him. And
I had to start like a local search party of
like drunkards because all I knew was the bar people.
But found him in his ex girlfriend's car, like passed out.
(42:32):
You could smell this felt. It looked like he was
drinking for days and someone had like roofied him or something,
and I just grabbed him. I was like, there's no choice, man,
You're gonna come live with me, and we're getting sober,
and we're going to church and we're going to therapy,
and that's that's how that started. Yeah, I think he's
doing way better now. He has a very uh he's
(42:55):
very involved with the girl right now, so not a
lot of time for me.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
But I don't believe in coinsciences. How do you think
the two door knocks with somebody out there praying for you?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Do you think I think God was? He was what
he knew I needed it.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
I know the plans that I have for you, says
the Lord, to give you a future and a hope.
Everybody's got that. It's it's part of our plan with God,
whether we decide to choose it or not or two
different stories.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Definitely not a quiz.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
It's also I was having dinner with Hudson and his wife,
and his wife was like, you know what's crazy is
Hudson just took a week off work for no reason
this week, and I was like, yeah, of course, that's
like that's when you like the feeling of the Holy Spirit.
It's like just radiating and it's all coming to you
(43:45):
and you're just like, oh my goodness, like the puzzle.
This whole time, I've been so stupid or clouded or something,
some kind of something was over my eyes, and it
all hits you so hard, like every little thing will
make a tear up, every like good Christian song or
just sermon, and almost everywhere you open the Bible, it's
(44:08):
like speaking to you like like, how did they know
there's a scripture that says that I will turn your
heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
And that's exactly what happened to me. And it's and
one of the things. And I'm not going to compare
anything that I've you know, as a fireman, I still
remember things still come to my mind or the piece
people that I've rescued, the people that I've done CPR,
and people that I've got in you know, I've been
into some massive crashes and people say, well, how do
(44:38):
you deal with that? And I say, well, it wasn't
my emergency. You know, I was there to help. Do
you still see things that bother you or you have
you worked it out to where you're doing okay with
a It's.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
A lot of things, like you said, from stone to flesh,
the things that happened to you that.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
You just like like now you're like, oh my goodness,
like that was bad.
Speaker 5 (45:01):
I remember when I was living in the barracks. It's
like first day in the morning. I'm like, people are
beating on my door like I'm in big trouble or something.
It's like multiple hands. You could hear them all doors
about to come down and open it. And I'm like,
what the hell, And they're like, uh, you have to
come with this. This marine he's oding right now in
his barracks room.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
We run over there. This guy's on the floor. He
already looks like bloated. Did you guys have a narcam
not just in the barracks.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
That'll probably lead to other problems, but uh yeah. So
I go check on him and like light breathing, purple,
my holy moly. And then I check his pulse and
I could barely feel it. So I go into CPR
and as I was doing CPR this he like regurgitated
(45:51):
the most disgusting I don't know what it was, but
I'm I'm like maybe cold minutes in a CPR before
EMAS shows up, kind of push me aside. And remember
the time, I was like, dang, sucks, you know, went
back to sleep, not my problem.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
Then years later you think about that and you're like,
that's somebody's son.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
That's you know, it was a human being.
Speaker 5 (46:14):
Whatever he was going through to drive him to that
point had to be I mean, to him, it had
to be the end, you know. That's how I felt.
I was like, there's no reason to get tomorrow. You know,
like my whole world's gone and I'm the one who
made it go away, so like nothing left.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
That's a huge revelation though, and that, you know, that's
that's the road to salvation. Is the spirit works in
you where you realize how to prave you are. You
realize you know you were born that way, and you
realize your need for for Jesus right, and it creates
(46:56):
a hunger and a thirst in you to learn more,
unders stand more, understand your identity in the drugs and alcohol.
Understanding your identity isn't the the badges on your chest,
the metals on your chest. Your identity isn't wrapped up
(47:16):
in any of that. Your identity is wrapped up in
a man that died for you. Tell me a little
bit about your feelings on that. As we kind of
kind of circle up on this thing, I.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
Guess it came in phases, you know, start going to
your start reading the Bible before you before.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
You don't know Jesus. You really don't know Jesus. You
know that's that's an amen for me because there's I
see so many that I'm a Christian? Do you really
do you know him? Do you go to.
Speaker 5 (47:46):
Church one hundred times and you don't know Jesus unless
you really like get into like who he was.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
It's a revelation that you have. Yeah, and it'll make
you not because something is bad. It'll make you not
want to say and because of him, Like if he
would do that for me, I can't come with a
bottle down. So if he can do that for me,
I can't stop, you know, going out a night and
having like these rarembuctious drug drunk, lustfulfilled nights, you know,
(48:17):
like just absolute craziness. Like what does that do?
Speaker 5 (48:20):
And like if he can go through what he went through,
why can't I just not do a little thing?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
You know?
Speaker 5 (48:29):
And you know you still struggle with it, Like how
was Gary saying sin feels good?
Speaker 2 (48:37):
He say? He says, if it doesn't, you ain't doing
it right right?
Speaker 5 (48:41):
And I remember, you know, in the bar, if they'll
a group of drunk people will make you feel like
they are your brothers.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Oh yeah, you know everyone is the I love you man,
I'd do anything for you.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
And then when the alcohol is off, totally different story,
you know, And at the time you think like this
is these are my people, you know this, they care.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (49:06):
There's there's only like one man that really cared and
he'll always care.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
And that was Jesus. And you have to really realize, like.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
You sinned and you're gonna sin again, and he he's
not disgusted. He's it's probably like when your child does
something bad. You're like, you know, but it doesn't you
don't change the way you say about it, and that's
that's us, like like, yeah, you messed up, but he's
(49:39):
just he's still gonna wrap his arms around you, and
you know it's gonna be all right. And and you
don't before you know Christ, you just you think it's rules.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
You got to fall these.
Speaker 5 (49:51):
Rules, and you know, like you read the Old Testament stuff,
well God would do this and wipe out all this.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Do I really want to be?
Speaker 5 (50:01):
Like, you have to realize how small you are in
comparison to God. You know, you step on anthels all time,
don't think about it, and that's not really.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
I mean, that's not a good description, but it's just.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
Like you have to realize that you're not supposed to
understand completely. It's an unfathomable love that like you can try,
you can try and try and try, but you'll never
really understand it. And human arrogance leads us to believe
like we should know everything. Amen, you're right, we should
(50:35):
definitely know everything. Why wouldn't we know everything.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
It's like that's what I say about him all the time,
he should know everything.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
I think when it really starts a click, like you
were saying, you know, you go from worrying about being
condemned because of the sin, to the desire changing to
not sin because of what he did, like like you
were saying, you know, and it it becomes a kind
(51:06):
of flips on how you think about. You don't think
about it as like, oh, I send him, I'm going
to hell. You think about I don't even really want
to do what I was doing because I want to
please him, you know. And when it started clicking for me,
that's kind of how the thought process changed and the
desire of your heart.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
It's almost like I felt like I was taking advantage
of the life like if you had a friend and
he was always there for you, but you never paid
him back, he never thinked him and he even even
after all that, even after you did him wrong, he
was still there for you.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
And then one day you realize, like, dang.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
An, I gotta I gotta do it, get it together
for him, you know, like he's done all this for me.
Every morning I wake up and breathe, and if if
I have a roof over my head, there's people out
there who don't. You know, you have to, like you
have to be extremely grateful for the things you do have.
Even when I thought I'd lost my family, I was
still fine, Like I had food.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
To eat, I had a home, I had friends. Like
it wasn't actually the end.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
And it took me took a took a took a
minute to realize that.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Well, let's let's cook it back to you had your
revelation of Jesus. How's your relationship with your wife? Now?
It's great.
Speaker 5 (52:31):
A lot a lot of the stresses and stressful conversations
are different. It's it's all centered towards him, you know.
It's not like how are we going to do this?
Or it's or how are we going to get through this.
It's what's God's plan? Like, what's he trying to teach
us here?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
What's what's he trying to align here? So your wife, ya,
you moved to Virginia, you lived, y'all have reconcile, come
back to get her. She sees a change in you. Right?
What is she saying that your change has been? I
couldn't tell you. I remember when she was describing it
to Gary. Gary cried, all right, we got to get
(53:11):
her in here. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:14):
And that she's she's a bit way better speaker than
I am. She leads, she leads Bible size and stuff.
She's she's all in.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
But she saw a drama, dramatic change in you. That's fantastic,
fantastic the way she.
Speaker 5 (53:26):
Described as like I'm there now, Like it's not just
my physical form there, Like I am there, I'm present.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
And you're all in.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Yeah, And I guess it really dawns on you, like
who was I before?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (53:43):
I didn't like the person I once before.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
I didn't even know who he was. That's fantastic, Bro.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
I'm so glad you didn't pull that trigger. Bro, me too, too,
Glad you're here.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
I'm glad you know, Gary and Hudson called me after
that incident and I'm glad we got to be friends.
And I'm so glad you're moving back here. You're gonna
be a part of what we're doing. You're helping us
out with our big event tomorrow night, and you're putting
them at the door.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
A bouncer.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
Yeah, he's a bouncer. I don't think he's gonna have
a problem in a Christian concert. But show me your ticket. Yeah,
they said, did you bring your Bible in here? But yeah.
So I'm just just thrilled to death you're here. You
know it is because of you. And I got with
several other military guys and I don't have a military background.
But when I noticed when I was talking to you
(54:26):
and f he I'm great about coming alongside of guys.
You know, James five, confess your sins to one another
so you can heal. But I also noticed that I
don't have the language that you have in military lingo
and stuff. So what we did, and I think it's
one of the most important initiatives that we've ever done.
I surrounded myself with Tim Thomas, Garon Combe, Blonde, Mike,
(54:49):
all these guys that are military guys, And we created
this group called Impact Warriors UH in conjunction with the
a VET Project, and we get together. We've been once
a month, We're about to switch it to twice a month.
We get together in an informal setting where you can
be as transparent as you want to be about your life,
your adjustment to society, the struggles you have. Do you
(55:13):
know that there are seventy five thousand veterans in this county,
seventy five thousand in our county along and you combine
that with the active duty people at the base and
all that, you probably well over one hundred thousand people
here that are military in a county of six hundred
and fifty seven hundred thousand. So there's a big need
to come alongside you guys man and us creating that group.
(55:36):
You can check us out on our website. It talks
about the we're meeting the third Tuesday of the month.
We're about to change it to every other week or
twice a month meetings. And the guys've gotten a lot
out of it. We have ten and twelve guys show up.
We'd love for it to be more, so check us
out on the website for that at Impactmanistries dot org.
If you like this video or I loved this podcast
(55:58):
listening to Evan, our brother Evan chat and tell his story, man,
give us a light, give us a share, Share us
with your friends, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and we'd
love to hear from you. You can go to our
website and send us an email with your thoughts. If
you have a similar story to Evan, we would love
to hear that as well. And I got to get
you back on sometime, bro, Yeah, deal, deal, all right.
(56:20):
Nervous at first, dude, we're just.
Speaker 3 (56:24):
Eating wings and talking about Jesus.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
That's all we do. Man. So when I'm so glad
your story is so awesome and where you're landing and
you're still evolving, and uh, we can't wait to see
that journey and how it unfolds for you, bro, So
good stuff. Jeremy and Brad number one, Brad your new granddaddy,
So congratulations, Jeremy. Get your butt back here, bro. We
(56:47):
need you. I know you're doing some amazing work for
you and your family and the Lord and what you're doing,
but we miss you as well. Garrett, thanks for coming in,
sitting in with us until next time. I'm Trey, I'm Garretta.
We are the cousin Christians. All right, it's been a
joy getting annoy you, bro. Really seriously, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (57:08):
I love what you exude as far as your passion
and your and your joy now. So it's awesome to
see good stuff, good joy.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
We've been talking a little bit of joy, but a
lot about joy lately. The thing we need to do
it again.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
I agree,
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