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March 17, 2024 70 mins
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(00:01):
Welcome to Stories of Special Forces OperatorsPodcast. Listen to some of the bravest
and toughest people on the planet sharetheir stories, Sit back and enjoy.

(00:24):
Welcome back everyone. Today we haveanother great guest, Kyle Lamb. He
retired from the US Army, butthat's not the whole story. As you'd
probably imagine, he has been inthe military since the age of twenty four.
He went on to serve in aspecial unit, one of the most
elite special operations unit in the military. He went on to serve there for
fifteen years, with deployments to Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq on multiple occasions.

(00:48):
He's also offered two books on topicsranging from markmanship to leadership, and
then he founded Viking Tactics, Inc. Which we're going to be talking about
as well today. So we'll talkabout his stories, what got him into
the military, his time during themilitary, share some stories there a little
bit of situational awareness for everybody andhis company Fighting Tactics. So before we
get started, folks, make sureto share, subscribe, and hit that

(01:11):
like button and go visit in FightingTactics dot com. So let's not waste
any more time. Welcome to theshow. Mister Kyle, am welcome,
sir, hey, thanks for havingme. Yeah, and one just one
tiny correction there. I went inthe army. Is I went in the
army at eighteen years old? Eighteenokay, so yeah, yeah's right.
Leeds was coming in the especially fortwenty four. Yeah, and then I
got into the unit when I wastwenty four. So it's uh, yeah,

(01:32):
time flies and you're having fun.I suppose absolutely. I guess the
free first question is I'm always curiousbecause I know when I've asked a lot
of other operators in the past,what motivated you? I hear this resonating
theme, So I guess I'll throwit out to you first. I keep
hearing Green Berain movie a lot oftimes on the John Wayne movie. Did

(01:53):
that have any impact? Was theparents? Was a discipline? What motivated
you to get in the army?Well, to get in the army It
wasn't John It wasn't John Wayne.I got in the Army just because I'd
always had been kind of a guythat liked being in the woods and firearms.
I grew up in South Dakota doinga lot of horse riding and hunting,
and I Honestly, I was probablyscared that I was going to have

(02:17):
to farm, and I'm probably nothard enough worker to be a farmer.
Those cats work really, really hard. I know my dad, he was
just He's one of the hardest workingpeople I've ever met. So at that
point I wanted adventure, and Ithought if I joined the Army, I
would get adventure. And then whenI got in the army, the green

(02:38):
beret thing then started to kind ofbite me. When I got in the
Army, I was a thirty onevictor, a tactical communications guy, and
I went to the eighty second Airborneas a paratrooper and I'd see these Special
Forces guys walking up and down theroad or running up and down the road
at Bragg there, and I waslike, man, those guys are pretty
awesome. And my wife goes,well you should try that, and I

(02:58):
said, oh, I couldn't dothat. It was well, you don't
know till you try. So theneventually I was in eighty second for about
three years and I tried out forSF went to Special Forces Assessment selection,
made that, and then the restis kind of history. So yeah,
I wish I had a cool storylike you know, John Wayne inspired me,
but real Green Berets inspired me.It wasn't a pretend dude, which

(03:23):
nothing against John Wayne, but itwas really cool to see those guys.
And there were some dudes that Ishot with on the weekends competitive shooters that
were, you know, you kindof had to pull it out of them
that they were even Special Forces guys. They just seemed like good dudes.
They like to shoot. And thenwhen I found that out, I thought,
man, I got some questions forthese guys and they were just very

(03:44):
low key, and I kind ofliked that, so it was it's a
pretty easy transition for me. Ireally enjoyed it. That's a great point.
That's one of the things that surprisesme the most to say that sorted
at this podcast a couple of monthsago. However low key most of you
are. I mean, we've bumpedinto you in the street and we piss

(04:04):
you off. It's going to bea bad day for us that day.
But we have no idea because youguys are so nice. Every time I
interview any of them, everybody's justreally cool, calm, And I don't
know if that's because of what yourskill set that you've learned, the confidence
is instilled. That's a question I'llbe asking you for sure. Is the
Kyle that went in We know theKyle that went in at eighteen the military

(04:26):
is going to be different for thosesix years. But the Kyle that went
into Special Forces. Is that guydifferent after he went through the training.
Yeah, I would say maturity iskey there. We had to mature a
little bit faster than folks that weren'tin the military. That's my opinion.
I don't know that because I havenever been a civilian until I was,

(04:48):
you know, thirty eight thirty nineyears old, But I feel like we
were more mature. And when Isay more mature, that doesn't mean that
we don't get in trouble and drinkand do crazy stuff. What I'm saying
is you would expect us to travelaround the world and do something for our
country with nobody watching us, anddo it correctly. That's you know,

(05:12):
that's a lot of weight on yourshoulders, really, And I think if
you ask those guys, you know, the other guys that you've talked with,
you know, letting down the guysin your left and your right is
probably the biggest thing you don't wantto do. So when you go out
to do something, it's not thatyou want to be a hero or anything.
It's that you don't want to letdown the men and women that are

(05:34):
on the battlefield. They're with you, and to me that I guess that's
the biggest thing. Now. Asfar as being low key, I get
pretty wound up sometimes too in certainsituations. But overall, I'm I'm a
pretty laid back dude. I liketo have a lot of fun, but
I I don't know, I don'tget I don't get wrapped around the actual

(05:56):
real quickly about things. One ofmy friends, he had been in the
unit for many years, and hewent off to do an adventure race.
And during this adventure race, theyhad these other adventure race people and there
was a had to have a femaleon their team, and they end up
really really lost badly, and hesays, hey, you got to stop.
I got to figure out where weare on the map so we can,

(06:18):
you know, get going again,and the uh, they were kind
of freaking out and they started cryingand one of them said, this is
the lowest point in my life.This is the worst time ever. And
he started laughing, and they're likewhat are you laughing about? You're terrible,
you know, And he said,well, this is nowhere near the

(06:39):
lowest point in my life. Andthey all clammed up because they're like,
what has this guy been through?We're out here freezing to death or you
know, we're lost, and hewas like, we're not going to die.
You're you're okay. You might losethe race, but whatever. Who
cares? And I still see peopleget wrapped around the axle about stuff like

(06:59):
sporting events. Who cares? Imean, it's cool, go cheer for
your team, but people lose theirminds. It's like, it's a it's
a game. It's you know,I hate to break it to Lebron James,
but that moron has to realize he'splaying a game and whether he wins
or loses doesn't do anything good foranybody in America. It doesn't protect anybody's

(07:20):
lives. It doesn't, you know, change the way Afghanis or Iraqis are
treated. It doesn't help little girlsgo to school, It doesn't give him
electricity. All it does is putmore money in his bank account. So
go play your game and shut up, dude, you know what I mean?
Just go do Go play your game. It's so fascinate You've brought that

(07:41):
up, because every podcast I do, whatever one I do, I do
a lot. I know, folks, whatever, But every podcast I do,
I change a little bit as ahuman being because of the interaction and
the changes that I've seen in myself. Just talking to you individuals who's been
through so much in Special Forces.It's phenomenal because that's exactly how I feel
now a lot of times when Ilook at a problem and I'm thinking,

(08:05):
why am I so worried about thisone? The guy I interviewed two weeks
ago, Ryan stepped on an IDand lost half his leg. Yeah,
and I'm complaining about this. Imean, I bet I could just shut
my mouth and keep moving, butyeah, it keeps popping up in my
head. You're so right about that. Well, I think you know the
other You brought up a good point. And I just wrote an article for

(08:26):
Guns and Ammo and it was forfor nine to eleven, the anniversary of
nine to eleven, and I talkedabout my children and my children they grew
up in this type of society.So my two kids act different than most
kids that are that that are theirage. Now, my daughter is thirty

(08:48):
two and my son is thirty,so they're a little you know, they're
they're growing up. But when theysee somebody that's injured, they don't look
at them like they're like they're different. They look at them like, yeah,
that guy got blown up and he'smissing a leg or he's disfigured,
but he's still the same person.And I think that, you know,

(09:09):
a lot of America, well alot of people in the world, that's
what we do. We see somebodywalk by that's different than us. You
know, they're missing a leg orthey're you know, you can see that
they've been injured, maybe they've beenburned badly, they're missing a hand,
whatever it might be, and youlook at him like, wow, this
guy's a freak. And what's funnyis if my kids, or me or

(09:31):
my wife we see somebody like that. If I see a dude that's missing
a leg and they kind of havethat look like they were in the military,
and even if they haven't been,I'm like, so what happened to
you? Man? And I've neverhad one of those people say none of
your business. You know, normallyI hit pretty close and the guy's like,
man, I was in Afghanistan.I'm like, oh, man,

(09:52):
I was in the military, andthen boom, we're buddies because I know
that we're from the same tribe.You know, that doesn't mean you got
to be in the military to bein that same tribe. I can right
away, I can start talking tothat person, and guess what, they'll
talk to me because I'm one ofthem. If somebody comes up, like
a news reporter or you know whatever, they're gonna have a little bit more
time, hard time getting a storyout of that cat because they're they probably

(10:18):
aren't quite they don't want to openup to that person. I guess that's
the biggest thing to say. Yeah, you don't know what kind of narrative
they're going to try to spin onit. That's kind to get scary.
And not all journalists, but alot of them. Yeah, yeah,
a lot of them make it verycomplicated for everybody. No, it's amazing.
Like I said, I've changed alot. Just the way and I
remember listening now as you're talking,reminded me also of them. I think

(10:41):
it was a huge think he wasa marine raider or recon one of the
I can't remember, and he wasjust laughing. Last year when people were
freaking out about the toilet paper,He's like, what's the matter with you?
Yeah, you know, I wasover in Afghanistan. That's like the
last thing we went looking for.Yeah. I was like, oh,

(11:01):
this is interesting. It's a differentmindset. Yeah, and I think that,
you know, that be it beingprepared, that preparedness mindset. We
my wife was looking for more toiletpaper, but we didn't. It wasn't
We never ran out, you know, and we she had bought some of
those really big roles like they wouldhave at a football stadium, and I
made a holder for these things.It was kind of it became kind of

(11:22):
a family joke. But if peoplewere really worried about being prepared, they
they bought the wrong thing. Becauselast time I checked, COVID didn't create
diarrhea, you know, maybe alittle bit, but not It wasn't terrible.
Not everybody's running around with that.So it's one of the symptoms.
I'm sure is everything's blame on COVID. Yeah, you know, it's interesting

(11:45):
because I was talking at I thinkit was actually Dutch last time I spoke
to him. We were talking abouthow almost society now we're going backwards in
a sense where we need to begoing back to nature and how to live
in those environments in case technology shouldfalter, which it has as we're seeing
sometimes now with the hackers attacking thepipeline. Hey, you don't have gas

(12:07):
anymore, you know, people freakingout and going back to the nineteen seventies
and filling up their gas tanks onlines. And you mentioned something. I
was gonna say it for later,but I just asking now before I forget.
I'm getting older. He has alittle light sight on his gun.
I can't remember the name of thetournament for him, a little beam of
light. And then but he saidhe kept the metal one on there as

(12:28):
well, the iron sight. Ithink I forgot what he called it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, his open sites yep, yeah.
But he said, how many peoplenowadays, I guess get rid of it.
Just leave the light on there.Yeah, the site. So you
have a red dot site and thenyou have a set of backup iron sights.
And when we do classes, wevery rarely have somebody that doesn't have
both sets of those sites. It'sjust in our world. It's just kind

(12:50):
of a it just makes sense todo that. Yeah. You know,
you talk about the being prepared thatwhat I get a kick out of is
up on a farm. And theoriginal survivalist was the American farmer. Because
American farmers can do they could doeverything. And even to this day,
if you look at what farmers aredoing, they're they're really not They're not

(13:13):
freaking out about anything that's going onbecause they know that they can raise food
and if they got to grind upwheat, you know, to make it's
it's not hard to grind up wheator grind up corn and kill a critter
and eat pretty well. I mean, that's really all you've got to be
able to do. And I don'tknow, I don't. It's kind of

(13:33):
funny. My wife and I bothare country bumpkins and we're both from South
Dakota, and we just don't Idon't know, we don't. We just
don't get wrapped around the axle aboutthat. I mean, I'm I am
prepared, but I don't overdo it. I guess I got plenty of guns
and ammos so that I can getwhat I need with that, I suppose,
but you know, in reality,you can, you can, you

(13:54):
can survive with what's around you prettyeasily. That's a great feeling. It's
a great feeling. Let me takeit back again. We'll go back to
your time. You went into theSpecial Force, and I don't recall or
were you a Green Beret or aRanger. I was a Green Beret.
Special Forces Yep, yep, Inever was a Ranger. Nope, there's
a rivalry there. Sounded like alittle bit. No, not really.

(14:16):
I mean, here's what I wouldsay if if I was. And I've
tried to convince a lot of theyoung people that are trying to go in
the military right now, they go, what should I do? And I
go, you should be a unassignedairborne Ranger And they're like, why,
Well, because if you go tothe Rangers, you can do everything.
If you go to the if yougo to one of the three Ranger battalions.
From there, you can go toSpecial Forces, you can go to

(14:37):
the unit you can you can doanything, and you will have the best
training. You'll be equipped very well. You will be out on the battlefield
conducting missions when a lot of unitsare not traveling and around the world doing
that. You're you're going to beemployed. And if that's what you want
to do. That's what I wouldrecommend. And I'll tell you most of
those guys have either done that orthey've went into the eighteen X ray program,

(15:00):
which is the SF baby, sothey go right into the military and
then they get in the pipeline andthey start training so they can become a
Special Forces guy as a lower enlistedindividual. That's a that's a pretty decent
route too. But if I couldgo back in time, I would have
went to the Ranger battalion. That'sthat's what I should have done. I
had no idea what I was doing, so I ended up in the eighty

(15:22):
second, which is fine too,But really I would highly recommend the Rangers.
And then when you get to guyslike like me that are in the
unit. We worked with the Rangersall the time on the battlefield, so
that's where we recruited from. Sowe recited recruited a ton of young Rangers
to come to the unit, andthey saw us operate and so they you

(15:43):
know, it was just it wasa very good relationship. Going back to
Somalia, we were there with theRangers, you know, so we had
a good relationship with the Rangers aswell. Contrary to what some stories say.
I mean all the unit dudes,the the guys at the at the
bottom, we all got along withthe rangers. You know. There was
probably some leadership issues between the twounits, but I wasn't in a leadership

(16:03):
position that I was just in afollow the leader position, you know.
I guess I'm bringing it. Onequestion I always like to ask, how
did you like seer training? Thatsucks? What? Yeah? Yeah,
the first one? All right,No, seer training. I mean it
sucks because you're you don't get toeat jow and you got to listen to

(16:23):
babies screaming, you know. Imean it's kind of it's just it's kind
of demoralizing. There. The funthing was you have your little you know,
you're trying to have these little victoriesand no matter what that is.
I remember, uh, I went. I went through that several times,
and they would do refreshers, whichI told my father in law, you
really don't need to train up tobe miserable. It comes it really comes

(16:45):
natural. But they would send usto refreshers and make you go in and
get interrogated again, and and makeyou stay in your circle and use the
techniques that they taught you, andone of those trips I got rolled in.
I was in civilian clothes, andwhen I got in there, I

(17:06):
reached and I got into that littlebox and I reached inside of my uh
my breeches, and in the thecoin pocket, I had a set of
ear plugs, and I took thoseear plugs and put them in there,
and I slept like a baby.And then whenever they'd come to get me
out, as they were unlocking thedoor, I'd pull the ear plugs out
and put them in there. AndI kept those ear plugs for the entire

(17:26):
time that I was locked up.So that was my little that was my
little victory. What did you enjoy? Did you enjoy the academic proportion?
That's what I keep hearing a lotof guys really like that apartment learning about
whatever you guys learned about the firstpart of it. Yeah, I think
you know, the survival part thatthat's fun to learn because there are things
that that I didn't know that Imean some of the I mean some of

(17:52):
some of the traps, you know, like going through there, learning that
they send us through Seer during whatwas during our our or special Forces course
or it's actually that was a survivalportion that wasn't the seer portion. But
during the survival portion, they theytaught us to do things that I'd never
really you know, just like howto how to build a figure for dead

(18:12):
fall or you know, trip wiresand things like this for and not really
for people, but for animals sothat you could try to get some chow.
Well, we got to the partwhere we had to butcher animals.
That was a cinch because I'd beenbutchering. I've been butchering animals since I
was a little kid, so thatthat wasn't a big deal. Some guys
were a little squeamish, but Ijust knew that I'd I'd done that a

(18:36):
long time, so grown up inthe farm was no problem. Yep.
Now did it switched for you?And you have to forget my ninety tay
if I don't know exactly how theorder goes, But did you You went
from Green Berets then you went andmentioned to Delta yep? And how was
that transition? And why? Well? I made that transition because as a

(18:57):
when I went through Special Forces training, they made me a eighteen ECHO,
which is Special Forces Communication Sergeant,so on an operational Detachment Alpha. You
have different specialties, so you've gota medic, you've got an engineer,
weapons specialist, you've got a commoguy. I was the como guy.
So because of my former commo background, when I went through there, they

(19:18):
sent me to Morse Code School tolearn how to do that. And then
when I got to fifth Special ForcesGroup, I had just finished Arabic Language
school. So I went right toDesert Shield Desert Storm. Wow. So
when I got there, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get on
a team. And then they said, well, you're gonna work in the
bay station because you're a como guy. And I went, wait a minute,
so did that? I got torun around the battle feel a little

(19:41):
bit, but nothing, nothing exciting. I mean it was exciting for me,
but I would find out years laterthat I hadn't seen anything, you
know. So then I came backfrom that and they said, we're gonna
put you in the special in theUH the UH based oh what they call
it, but CNE Battalion Communications andElectronics, and you're gonna you're gonna help

(20:04):
these guys over there. And Iwas like, man, I don't think
I want to do that. Iwant to. I came to Special Forces
to be a Special Forces guy.So at that point I said, well,
there's one way out of here,and I can try out for the
unit and and do that. SoI went to selection and made it,
and then went there and spent prettymuch the rest of my time. I

(20:25):
had one year I went to firstSpecial Forces Group out of the unit,
but most of the rest of mytime I was there in the unit and
did that. And it was youknow, I would say this, it's
not for everybody, but it wasdefinitely for me. I mean, all
the shooting, the physical stuff.I enjoyed that. And I wasn't like

(20:45):
a pet stud, but I wouldI could do whatever I needed to do.
But the shooting and this close quarterbattle, that was I really really
enjoyed that. And then eventually Ibecame a sniper and did that, and
and I stayed there and worked asa in the leadership there as well,
So that was it really was agood niche for me. That's awesome.
That's awesome. At least you knowwhat you wanted, it sounds like,

(21:07):
and all the way, all theway through most of the time. Can
you share one of your stories.I know you have one story you were
talking about. I can't remember whereI read it or I heard you talking
about one of the more scary moments. I guess it was in Mogadishu,
actually, if I remember correctly,any story you want to share, any
of the most stories that let's seehere. Sure you got a lot,

(21:33):
Yeah, I'll give you. I'llgive you a story that I think I
don't I normally don't tell. Imean, my war stories are normally funny.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna take youdown a funny a funny war story.
So we were in Iraq and oneof the guys found a prayer watch,
and a prayer watch it goes offthe five times a day that a

(21:56):
Muslim is supposed to pray, sothat it goes off, and I don't
know if it's what direction to face, but they got that figured out pretty
good. But this one would crowlike a chicken, and then it would
start speaking and it wasn't an Arabic. It was some I don't know what
they were saying, but it wasn'tArabic. So uh, this little watch
started becoming kind of a kind ofa party gag, and it was getting

(22:19):
hidden in different people's gear. Well, we it never ended up on my
gear. I was a troops armmajor, so they kind of left me
out of it, I guess.But I was driving across an airfield one
night in a civilian vehicle and Savilianclothes with another guy in there with me,
and all of a sudden he goesstop stop, and I'm like,
oh crap, we're you know,he saw something. We're going to get
in a fight or whatever. Andhe jumps out of the vehicle and he

(22:40):
starts tearing off all of his gearand he rips off his body armor,
and we had concealment body armors,so it took a few layers to get
to that. And he pulls itapart and he reaches in there and he's
got that little that prayer watches inthere, and he's like, I got
it. And so as we're drivingback to the other side of town to
this safe house we're staying at,he tells me but because i'd heard about

(23:02):
it, but I had, that'sthe first time i'd actually seen it.
And the other thing was I couldn'thear it because my hearing is so bad
when it would go off, Icould barely hear it, so it never
It really didn't bother me. Sonext thing, I know this, you
know, I laugh about it.Well, it starts going from one person
to the next. Well, theyend up putting it in the pistol grip
of one of the soldier's rifles,and as they're driving across town, all

(23:26):
of a sudden, this thing startsgoing off. Well they go off the
side of the road and they pullout their guns and they're trying to find
it and they find it stashed insidethe pistol grip of their rifle. Okay,
so this guy comes back, he'sthe medic, we called him head,
and he's he's like, yeah,you guys are a bunch of children
playing with this did what? Theysaid, well, where's this watch at?
And he goes, I threw itaway. That's stupid. You're like

(23:48):
a bunch of children. So theywere upset with this medic. He was
a great medic, sfmetic, justawesome dude. He says, I threw
it away, man, you justguys whatever. And there was some cussing
back and forth and some you know, trying to threaten him with his life,
but he said no, p threwit away. So probably a month

(24:11):
later during the middle of the day. Now we slept during the day and
we operated at night. During theday, these guys were all laid up
in their hoots and their bunk bedsthere, and all of a sudden,
like there was a ginormous chicken inyour room with you. This thing started
crow and going off. And whathe had done and they didn't find it.
They all jumped out of bed,where's it at? Where's it at?

(24:33):
And it was just so loud andechoing in the room. They couldn't
find it. So the next daythey were ready for it. So midday,
boom, it goes off again.And what this medic had done.
He had crawled up in the ductwork of their room, because the duct
work was big enough for a personto crawl in there. He crawled away
up in this duct work. Hehooked up an archer amplified speaker to this,

(24:53):
so it's a suction cup that goeson the back of a you know,
whatever radio or whatever you're listening to. He tape that all together and
then just left it in there andcrawled back out. So he got the
last laugh because that little archer speakermade that thing so loud. But you
know, that's one of the thingswe would do as soldiers. There's always
something funny, Always something funny happened, and I over in Iraq, same

(25:15):
thing. We came off one ofthe objectives and ends up some of the
SSEE material, the sensitive slight exploitationmaterial. They're bringing this off and I
get called in. They go,we got an issue. We found two
more people that we need to addto the target list. And I'm like,
what are you talking about. Well, we have all these pictures of

(25:37):
these two guys were after, butthere's two other people in the picture with
them, and several of these pictures, and we're going to try to get
them put on the targeting list aswell. They showed me the pictures and
the other two guys in the pictureswere myself and another buddy of mine,
completely dressed up like Arabs, andthey had laid us in on this picture.
It looked completely real. I stillhave a copy of the It just

(26:00):
it makes me laugh every time Isee it. You know, it's funny
you mentioned that, because that's oneof the things I see, the correlation
between special OT people and then homicidedetectives. You're in a world that's very
different that most people will never see. Thankfully, I think a lot of
people are thankful they're not going tohave to see it. But homicide detectives,

(26:22):
when I've talked to I've talked alot of them, you know,
they see some really crazy stuff,just like you guys, just really crazy
stuff. They have to process itsomehow, and humor is the best way
for them to be able to processthat. And a lot of times civilians
or non law enforced have no ideahow to deal with that because they're going,

(26:42):
are you sick in the head?How are you laughing? But if
you haven't been exposed to that adaily basis, it's hard to really understand
why. But they have to,and I completely get it. Yeah,
I would stories. I would say. I'm not a psychologist, but what
I would say is do act likethat keeps you from becoming sick in the
head. And by sick, Idon't mean like you're you're a weirdo.

(27:04):
I mean if you let this stuff, if you just sit around in a
dark room and think about all thesebad things that have happened to you,
of course it's going to eat youup. So get out of that dark
room and find like minded people andjust talk about what if you want to
talk about that because you're struggling withit, then talk about you know,
to another cop or to another militaryguy. But you know, get it,

(27:27):
get out. And I would alsosay, and this is something I've
come and I've kind of come intoin the last probably two years. You
if you are with people that don'tmake you a better person, then get
away from those people. So andI'm not telling you not to be around
military people or law enforcement or youknow, whoever that happens to be.

(27:48):
I'm just telling you to find theright positive attitude people so that you can
have a positive Outlook. You don'tjust sit around and go, oh,
woe is me? And this terribleand I'm having these bad dreams and I'm
having Hey, we all have baddreams. I hate to break it to
you, but if you've been throughall this stuff, you're gonna have dreams.

(28:10):
It's what you do with that.And at the end of the day
that or in the morning, Ishould say, you know, when you
get up, get out and dosome exercise, go to the range,
do something that puts you in adifferent place, a better place than that.
And if you see that coming on, just know how to take care
of it. And I would notrecommend personally, I wouldn't recommend going to

(28:30):
a psychologist. I would I wouldrecommend going to another person that knows what
you've been through and they might beable to help you even more. I
work some with Warrior's Heart. Abuddy of mine, Tom Spooner, start
a Warrior's Heart, and that's whatthey do there. Everybody you're talking to,
they're on the same sheet of musicwith you. So it's not you're
not going to the person with alab code and they're gonna, you know,
poke you and you know lock youin a cage that they're going to

(28:56):
treat you like with the respect thatyou deserve, and you're gonna talk about
your sues with other people that havethe same issues, and you're going to
realize that you're no different. Youknow, if you think that you're a
weirdo, guess what, I'm justas weird as you are. We just
have a different way of processing that. So let it, you know,
go to somebody and talk about it. So that's what I would say.
That's a great point. I thinka lot of times. Look that's my

(29:18):
world, right, I deal morewith criminal psychopathology. But you're absolutely right.
It's a lot of psychologists don't knowthat world of the military and don't
know what cops go through on adaily basis. You know, they see
some parts of it on TV,and that's nothing compared to what they normally
see. They don't they don't showon TV. To me, I always

(29:41):
tell people criminal minds, Law andOrder, stop to show you on TV.
A lot of this stuff is Disneylandfor their world. I mean,
the cop walks in and sees akid who's got three or four years old
and it's actually molested and abused andkilled. That you're not going to see
on TV because the average American can'thandle it. They can't process. And
for you guys in the military,some of these stories I already heard,

(30:03):
there's no way they can process it. They can barely handle saving Private Ryan.
Yeah, and I would say that, you know, I feel for
cops because of what they have tobe exposed to because and this is going
to sound bad, but I'm justgoing to say it the way the way
I feel. In the military,we bring some retribution on the bad guys

(30:25):
when when they go out and theymurder innocent women and children and innocent men
as well. Normally we get tovisit to that you know, we visit
them late at night and we bringthe retribution that they deserve. That might
be that they'd get rolled up andput in guantanamo for you know, ten
years, or they might not makeit till the next morning. Whatever.
But I think a lot of timeswith law enforcement, you know, one

(30:49):
of the struggles there is that theymay not see that that even if you
if you find a smoking gun ofthat person that molested that child, it's
going to take year, years andyears and years for their for their to
be closure on that. And theymay never have closure because that dirt bag
that did that the inhumanity to somechild, they may never be punished for

(31:12):
what they what they did. Onething I recently, I do some work
with TBI and and by TV I'mtalking about Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. They
they're a really good group of people, very respected by the other law enforcement
officers in the state because they reallytry to help them. They're not you

(31:33):
know, they don't come in heavyhanded like FBI or somebody like that.
They come in and they try tohelp. And I've tried to help a
few of those people because they just, like you've talked about, you know,
the things that they've seen. Howare they processing that? And I've
tried to just let them know that, hey, we've we've all seen some
stuff. They've probably seen way morethan I've seen. But go talk to

(31:56):
another like minded individual. Don't starttaking drugs and doing you know, crazy
stuff. Get the help that youneed. But I would say, if
they start handing you handfuls of dopeto take, that's probably not the person
that really wants to help you.I would say, go to a fellow
law enforcement officer or a military personthat's seen that, and let's talk about

(32:19):
it. I mean, let's justwhat is on your mind. And man,
you could That's what's good about beingin the military for me anyway,
When I was in you can sayanything. When my buddy started talking,
we could, we could literally sayanything, and our buddies would not alienate
us because of what we said.And I believe that in law enforcement sometimes

(32:42):
if you talk to the wrong person, you may become you may get alienated,
and that's definitely not going to helpyour cause. So choose wisely,
but choose the right person. AndI can tell you those folks, you
know, they can let their guarddown around me because they could tell me
anything. And I'm going to helpthem with their issue because I I know
that the struggles are real that they'regoing through. One of the psychologists that

(33:05):
they made me go see when Iwas getting out, they talk about hypervigilance,
and oh, wow, you youknow you must have post traumatic stress
because you're you have hypervigilance, andit's like you must be a sorry,
worthless dirt bag not to have hypervigilance. Why would you not protect your family

(33:28):
and your friends. Why would younot be looking, you know, for
escape routes. Why wouldn't you dothat? So, no, I don't
have post traumatic stress. I'm tryingto take care of my family and my
kids, my grandkids as best asI possibly can. And if that means
that I'm standing on my toes alittle bit more than you are, that
doesn't mean I'm a bad person.And I think that that stigmatism or stigma

(33:50):
that these people have tried to givesome of these military people, it's been
terrible and it's because they don't understand. They just don't get it. If
you're a cop, you under standif even if even a firefighter probably gets
it a little bit, but dahgod, military dudes there, hypervigilance is
a is a it's a way tosurvive. That's yeah, that's what you've

(34:14):
got to have in this environment thatwe're in. Look at cops, Look
what you have to do. Atleast in the military. It's it's it's
a little bit better defined, Ibelieve, because we know we kind of
know who's bad and who's good,so to speak. In law enforcement.
You're out in the public and youdon't know who your enemy is, so
man, you better be switched on. That's a great point. Our situational

(34:37):
podcast is one thing we talk aboutover and over against the distinction between hypervigilance.
I don't even like the word paranoiaceven clinically. It doesn't make any
sense to say your paranoid, becauseparanoid is completely delusional. So that's that's
a whole sized point. But hypervigilance, as you said, now has become
a negative term almost and reality nowyou're just being aware of what's around you

(34:58):
and what's going on. And intoday's world, you and I both know
the last five years things have changeda lot. Oh yeah, yeah,
this country's not a safe in someparts anymore. And if you're not paying
attention, you're going to be avictim really fast. Well, I'm really
lucky because my wife is also veryswitched on. And if for some reason

(35:19):
I have a lapse in awareness ora lapse in judgment, I mean we
all have that. I'm really luckybecause my wife is switched on and she
knows how to keep me out oftrouble. And I know what. We've
been married a long time. We'vebeen married thirty five years. Oh wow.
When she touches my arm, Iknow exactly what she means. We

(35:42):
don't have to talk. So whenshe gives me that cue, I turn
and I go with her, andthat's it. There's no court, Like,
what are you doing? No,I know that whatever she's telling me,
we need to leave right now,and we're going to do that.
Because it used to be that incertain situations, I wouldn't just go to
jail, but I'd lose my job. So get out of those situations.

(36:04):
You know, if people are drinkingand starting to fight, then just go
the other direction. If you thinksomehow that proves your manhood, you're probably
wrong, but it's best just tojust to go the other direction and get
out of there and you know,not end up locked up, because being
locked in a cage is not somethingI want to do again. The eighteen
Echo family over there, Yeah,you have the calm stuff down, that's

(36:29):
right. You know, it's interesting. Remind me of two things, actually
remind me. A couple of weeksago, i went down to downtown San
Diego and this guy was coming downthe street and I'm just looking. Okay,
I see it's eighty five degrees outside. He's wearing a hoodie that's bothered
me a little bit, and I'mthinking it's a little warm. I'm having
trouble with my t shirt on.And he's coming down the street and I'm

(36:51):
looking. Then he's got his handin his pocket, so I'm going,
okay, coming down the street handin your pocket. Is nobody else really
around? Is kind of bearing aroundhere. So I'm kind of looking the
person I was with, and I'mstarting to get shure eyes just to be
kind of like, you know what, you might want to turn your back
because you had a chatter back tothe person I said, you might want

(37:12):
to turn around and move a littlebit, just in case I have no
idea what this person's up to,and they were doing the I'm looking down,
looking up, looking left, lookingdown. You know, they're always
so inconspicuous, right, they don'tknow, nobody can tell. And thankfully
I think they we turned them enoughthat he just kind of walked by.
But that's one of those moments.Again we have to be paying attention and

(37:34):
back to your point, which I'veonly touched this a couple of times,
but I like to see your takes. I think you just answered it.
There was an individual the other day. I was at a bank. There
was three of us in the line. We didn't move forward for whatever reason.
We just didn't move forward when theline was moving, and the guy
just starts going off. You know, you have an idiots, why don't

(37:58):
you move? You know COVID thisyou thought. I guess we're all apparently
my COVID or something. I don'tknow what to deal with. So you
started yelling about that. And ofcourse you could handle it two ways.
You can turn on I turn aroundtelling the f off, or you can
ignore it. But I think somepeople, I think they have to defend
themselves to be a tough guy,And in reality, if it happened to

(38:19):
you, I'm pretty confident that person'she wouldn't be on the ground. I
mean he'd be on the ground.I guess my point, he wouldn't be
around very long we've happened to you. But I also think you wouldn't do
anything. You would know better tosay. I would, yeah, I
mean I wouldn't say I wouldn't cussat him, but I because I don't
believe that does any good. Thatonly elevates the situation. I'm not saying

(38:45):
I haven't done that. I'm justsaying that, you know, if that
happened to me tomorrow, I'd belike, hey, man, hey,
hey, hey, it's all right, dude, Just relax, sorry about
that, try to talk him downa little bit. And the other thing
that I do is I normally invadepeople's space at that time too, because
I want here if they want tofight, if you take their space away

(39:07):
and you put them on their heels, you immediately have an advantage. So
now, if you're a female,I'm not telling you to go up and
bump chess with this guy. That'swhat I'm not what I'm saying, but
square your body to that target,you know, and get in a fighting
stance so that if you have todo something, you can and maybe what
you have to do is run.You know what, what are you going

(39:30):
to prove if you get in afight in a bank with somebody, I
mean nothing. You're not proved.Yeah, you're not proven. You're not
proving anything there. So I wouldsay, you just I don't know.
I do like to I do liketo be close. And the reason I
say that is because if I'm close, I can react. If I'm far
away, I don't have the abilityto react. And then I would also,

(39:53):
you know, protect my tools.So I carry a gun ninety nine
percent of the time, so Iwould start blading my body correctly so that
I could, you know, getto my gun if the guy attacked me.
I would protect my tools just likea cop is taught to do.
Protect your firearm, protect you know, whatever you have on the tool side,

(40:15):
and then you know, deal withit there. But yeah, I
tell you, man, and thisis going to sound kind of ridiculous,
but most people that I've had confrontationswith end up apologizing to me because I
just I I close, I closethe distance, and I tell them,
hey, man, just I'm sorryI offend you to you. I didn't

(40:36):
mean to do that. But justjust relax a little bit, man.
And if they start getting hyped up, hey, just I've got my family
with me. Don't Let's just don'tdo that. Dude. I'm sorry whatever
I did upset you. Hey,apologize to the dude, even if you
don't believe that you did something wrong. What does it hurt to apologize to
somebody and then get out the doorand let the cops go arrest him later
when he does whatever he's going todo. And the other surprise that some

(41:01):
people don't realize is we all havebad days, don't you know. If
I know, if I have abad day and I get grumpy and somebody
comes up and they're nice to me, I have a really hard time continuing
to be grumpy, you know whatI'm saying, So treat them. Yeah,
my buddy, he runs the FreeBurma Rangers. It's an organization,

(41:22):
a Christian organization over in Thailand.They go into Burma and he says,
love everybody and then just shoot thepeople that need to be shot. And
I'm like, that's a good wayto look at it, you know.
Love everybody, But don't Loving everybodydoesn't mean that we turn our back on
them or let them do something toour family. We still are prepared.

(41:45):
We're vigilant. My buddy Trey Lawrence, he's a Special Forces officer. He
says, vigilance that's having a planto kill everyone you meet. And it's
true. You know, when you'revigilant, you you actually are sizing up
what's going on around you. Andif you're very smart, you're going to
say, Okay, this is abad situation. I'm going to get out

(42:07):
of here and go somewhere else.I don't like crowds. It briefts Well
like, Oh, I want togo downtown Nashville to the fireworks. So
we go down there. There's toomany people. We end up walking through
the crowd one time and I toldmy wife, Okay, let's go stand
over there where we can see thefireworks, but there's not a crowd.
And that's what we did. Whenwe watched the fireworks. There was nobody

(42:28):
within ten foot of us, andwe could see all the fireworks, but
we were probably a quarter mile backfrom where the crowd was at. Well
good, it was perfect. Wedidn't have to deal with any of the
crowds, and I wasn't freaked outby the crowd and nobody was bumping into
her or me, and it wasit was awesome. So make the you
know, make the right choices there. I'm really glad you said that.
Hopefully folks will hear that again,folks. Green Beret Kyle Lamb from Vikingtactics

(42:52):
dot com. So you heard itfrom him, a guy who can definitely
protect himselfs if need be, andyet he's telling you to de escalate these
situations and it's not worth it.I could completely agree. It's just not
worth it in today's world, especiallynot in front of your family either.
Yeah. I just really don't knowwho's out there anymore. Kyle, we're
gonna shift gears. Now. It'sa good segue into your work. You're

(43:14):
talking about blading your body, protectingyour gun, tell us a little bit
about Viking Viking tactics, and thentowards the end of the interview, I
definitely have a couple of questions aboutthe movie world and see what your opinion
is on that. But before weget to that Viking tactics, what's this
all about? So when I wasin the military. I like the job
of instructor, So no matter nomatter what I if I had information,

(43:39):
I wanted to pass that on toother people, and I I worked on
my instructional capabilities. In the military. I ended up being the primary shooting
instructor for the unit for a fewyears, was a sniper instructor with a
first Special Forces group for a year, So that allowed me to kind of
hone my skills as an instructor.And it does take training to become a

(44:00):
good instructor, you know, gettingyour getting your POI squared away so that
when you present it a you havea flow so the students have a better
learning experience. And then the otherpart of that is as a military guy,
it took me a few years tofigure out how to train cops because
law enforcement officers have somewhat different rulesthat they follow and how do I how

(44:23):
do I put this in a ina package that they can understand and better
yet, how do I answer theirquestions before they even ask them, so
that they don't you know, becausequite honestly, some of these guys they
want to be like, oh Icaught you, Oh I got youa you
know, like, oh, whatwe do is you know, we can't
just kill everybody like you do inthe military. Well, if you read

(44:43):
what it says about the unit Icame from, it's counter terrorist unit.
That means we're going in and doinghostage rescue. So if we just shot
everybody, you would kill the hostageand guess what that's called a failure.
So yeah, we were very sicewith our aimed fire. We use the
safeties on our guns. I mean, there's a lot of things that you

(45:06):
see in the movies that when yousee reality, it's two completely different things.
So when I got out of themilitary, I had forty two weeks
scheduled for that year to be onthe range, which is a lot of
time to train folks, but itkind of catapulted us out there to train
a lot of law enforcement military guysand some civilians as well. And then
we also had a product line thatwe had launched at the same time.

(45:29):
Some of the products I designed whenI was in the military, and we
just started to to, you know, promote those products. And then now
today we have a whole bunch ofproducts that we promote, products that I've
designed, and some of them I'vedesigned by myself. Some with other special
ops guys, some with law enforcementguys, some with hunters, and we
that's what we do. So I'vewritten three books. I've written a carving

(45:52):
book as a pistol book, andthen a leadership Leadership in the Shadows is
my latest book. We also havedone some TV. I've had my own
show on the Outdoor channel, VikingChronicles, which is now available also on
Amazon Prime. Got a podcast teamVTAC podcast, so we do talk about
some of this stuff over there aswell. Normally I'm interviewing versus being the

(46:14):
interviewed guy. But we do someleadership stuff on our YouTube channel. We
do some shooting instruction on our YouTubechannel. We also sell some DVDs and
then a gun University. You canstream our videos over there too. That's
not my company, that's another guy'scompany, but he has our Our DVDs
are available to stream there as well, So that's kind of where we're at.

(46:37):
We try to we try to solveproblems in the gear world with new
products that people haven't thought of,and we're pretty lucky because a lot of
people copy our products, which tellsme that we're probably doing the right thing.
That used to really piss me off. But now it's like, what
are you gonna do about it?You know, they're they're telling you they
can't come up with their own ideas, so they're just going to copy our

(46:59):
stuff. So that's I guess that'sa form of flattery. But I travel
around the country. I do alot of classes up at SEG Academy.
I work with SEG Sour and attheir academy, I work with Leopold Optics
Kinshop Buffers. We do some stuffwith them. We have some knives that
we've done with top Knives. We'vegot some other products that we're working on

(47:19):
right now that will be kind offun that are coming out, well,
not fun, they're good products,but it's been fun for me to design.
I like to design new equipment.So my wife and I run the
business. My wife is a CEO. I'm the chief bottle washer. And
one of the things there is thatwhat I've learned over the years in the
military is you should try to setyourself up to be successful, and to

(47:43):
do that, you've got to lookat the strengths and the weaknesses of all
the people that you're working with,and you try to employ people in the
areas where they have strength and keepthem away from the areas where they have
weakness. And that's what's been reallygood about my wife and I with our
our relationship. She's very good atwhat she does, which is managing that

(48:05):
business, making sure that the warehouseis running smoothly, making sure that all
of our bills are paid, makingsure that product is getting ordered, making
sure that she's dealing with customer serviceissues, making sure ship you know,
stuff is shipping when it's supposed toship. We shipped very quickly, so
if you ordered, if you wentonline right now and ordered something, it
would ship out of our warehouse tomorrow. Now, if you order on a
Friday, it's probably not gonna shiptill Monday, but the next business day

(48:28):
it's probably going to ship. Andthe nice thing is if it's in stock,
you'll see it's in stock and youdon't have to wait. We don't
do back order type stuff either.So staying in your lane has been something
that I had to learn a littlebit. I thought I could do some
things in the business world, butI really I'm not good at So I've
learned here in the last probably tenyears, to be better at staying in

(48:52):
my lane and doing what I amgood at, and teaching is what I'm
good at. Designing new products iswhat I'm good at. Being a spokesperson
for some of these other products,I'm good at that. So I try
to I try to be in thatrealm where I can help people. And
I'm not helping people if I'm runningthe business and worrying about the bills and
doing all that. My wife isso much more equipped to do that.

(49:15):
She's much more organized than me.So we that's what I've learned. You
know, I wrote the book onleadership, but sometimes we in our own
lives struggle with what we perceive asour expertise. And that's one of the
things I've really struggled with is tobe a leader in your family is different
than to be a leader in lawenforcement or the military, and it's way

(49:37):
more important. That's one thing thatwe in law enforcement military, we sometimes
forget that our family, well,they they really you know, they really
shouldn't. You shouldn't think, oh, I got to make sure they're first.
You absolutely, one hundred percent.Every day have got to focus on
making them first, because that's youknow, if your successful husband or wife,
or son or daughter or whatever you, you'll be successful at your job

(50:00):
too if you can, if youcan get that right. And I think
that's part of where I struggled inthe past. And I've got buddies that
still struggle with that, and Itry to help them as much as I
can too, and I still,I mean, I still have my struggles
there too. But yeah, tryingto lead your family, that's the hardest
thing I've ever done, so gotto keep doing it. It really is

(50:22):
a difficult thing, especially if youhave children, because they're not always going
to be there. Yeah, theyeventually grow up, and sometimes you don't
get the advantage of working with themand being around them as much as you
wanted. And well, it bringsme another question before we get to that.
Green Eyes and Black Rifles Warriors Guideto the Combat, car Line Carding

(50:43):
Kyle E. Lamb Book, Stayin the Fight, Warrior's Guide to the
Combat Pistol, and his newest one, Leadership in the Shadows Special Operations Soldier
Kyle lambook. Again, So,folks, which are some of the books
you can definitely I highly recommend it, liking tactics dot com where you can
find out more from about his company. I forgot the name of the podcast
Team v Tech, Team v Tech, So definitely check out that podcast.

(51:08):
Yeah, Kyle, as you mentioned, the family is one of the biggest
things too. People don't realize it, and it's interesting you mentioned it in
the sense I'm going to go wayback in our earlier parts of our conversation
talking to some individuals because one ofthe things I work a lot on and
teach is on trauma besides criminal psychopathology. And it's fascinating because one of the
things I realized is the individuals whocome out, whether it's special forces,

(51:30):
police officers, homicide protect us,whatever, the ones who had really solid
families, the one who had asupport system in and out of the families
were the ones who usually fared muchbetter coming out of some of these tough
experiences as they have in our world. We call them protective factors. So
having a supportive family of family notonly that supported you during the good times

(51:55):
but also the bad time. Sowe had challenges in life and you fell,
you came back up. As Imentioned before, I know my listeners
are pubbly sick of it. WhenI've interviewed Olympic athletes at Larry Holmes Larry
Holmes. One of the things Iused to say is I remember asking Larry,
what did you think about when yougot knocked down? Something? You
got knocked down once by Mike Tyson, and he said I thought he was

(52:15):
going to say, oh, mandone. He said, I got to
figure out how to get back upand knock him out. And to me,
I was like, wow, that'sinteresting mindset. And again one of
those signs of resilience that you learnedas a child, when you fail,
you come back up and try itagain until you win it. And just
talk about that. Family and leadershipresonated with me on that part. And

(52:39):
I think, you know, whenI tell people, yeah, I've been
married thirty five years, they thinkit's all like skipping through the daisies,
and man, it's not. It'snot that way at all. And I
would say that my wife and Ihave had some knockdown, drag out fights.
But then at the end of theday, and I'm not I mean,

(53:00):
I'm not trying to say I'm agreat person or a great dad.
That's not what I'm saying. Man, I'm struggling. And I guess what
the message I want to pass tothe people that will listen to this is
that I've been successful because of mywife and my family and my faith and
what I've done in the military andfighting through that. Whether you're fighting for

(53:23):
your family, you're fighting for yourfaith, you're fighting for your job,
whatever it might be, man,you gotta fight for it. And it's
if it's worth I mean, youtell me who has a child is not
worth fighting for. They're all worthfighting for, you know. I mean,
so don't think that you know I'msome special person. I'm not.

(53:45):
I'm a dirt bag just like everyother SF guy out there. I'm very
lucky that my wife stuck with methrough all the rough times, and I'm
sure that we'll have more rough timesto come. So it's been a it's
been an advent sure for her.I keep telling her she needs to write
a book because her book would beway more interesting than mine. But yeah,

(54:08):
you know, it's it's I'm notgonna beat the dead horse, but
yeah, take care of your familyand and and whatever that is. Like
I talked about faith, I mean, that's something I've struggled with too.
And you know, if you don'thave that, I feel sorry for you.
But I do have that, andthat's helped me through some of the
really tough times too. That's true. I can't have a lot of individuals.

(54:31):
And it's interesting because when you talkedabout vigilance earlier, there's a lot
of awareness and I'm noticing with alot of you guys, there's not only
did you have to be really awareof your environment and other people, but
a lot of you have translated backinto your family. Being aware of when
you're impacting your wife or your childrenin a negative way like we all do.

(54:52):
You don't have to be special forcesor anything like that to do that.
We could impact them negatively all thetime. But being aware when we're
affecting them in a negative sense andsay, hey, what's wrong? Did
I do something that I say something? Or are you going through a tough
time? What's happening right now?And just being noticing them when they're down

(55:12):
and out, Yeah, yeah,yeah, And that's sometime that's hard and
get we get bullheaded. We comehome and we're throwing stuff and we don't
want to talk about because we've hada crappy day. Well what's crappier staying
at home with the kids and changingdiapers all day or going out and doing
what we do. DoD God,I'd much rather go get shot at than
sit around the house and have tochange diapers every day. And I'm not

(55:34):
saying that that I'm not minimizing whatthey do. That's the way more important
job than being in the military,being a mother, being a father.
That's way more important than any ofthat other stuff. So you know,
that's the hand that rocks the cruel, the hand that rocks the cradle rules
the world. Right there you go. You know, in our last few

(55:54):
minutes together, I could be hereall day with you, but you got
work to do and I got workto do. Well, what I wanted
to ask you, I always liketo get your perspectives on the news and
nothing news really but the movie worldin Hollywood, because it gain is a
really weird oppression. When I talkedto cops before, I asked him,
hey, do you think dirty Harryhelped, They're like, well, not

(56:16):
anymore. Maybe forty fifty years ago. Yeah, And now I look back
and I see Rambo, right eventhough so the salon's still making movies a
ninety or whatever he is, andhe's doing a great job. But Rambo
is another one that kind of gavea different impression about green Berets, even
though he was being bullied and harassed, if you want to use today's terminology

(56:39):
by that cop in the very firstmovie. Yeah, but you know,
we see movies like that, Wesee movies like Apocalypse now, way back
when, things of that nature.What do you think about Hollywood's depiction of
the military. Do you think?Is it so so? First Blood?

(57:00):
That was a great movie, andthere was so Jack Carr, the writer
is a good friend of mine,and I didn't under I didn't even understand
what was going on there. AndI didn't even know that in the David
Morel book that was written. Youknow, Rambo dies at the end of
that. So in that movie,they actually tested two different endings, one

(57:23):
he died and one he lived.And I guess they realized that it'd be
better if he lived because they couldmake another eighty five. You know.
I guess Rambo conquers Alzheimer's or whatever. You know. I think in the
last movie. I'm trying to rememberif he died in the last movie or
not. But anyway, he beatthe cartels the last movie. Okay,

(57:43):
there we go. It's that firstmovie was very I don't know if inspirational
is the word for me, butI love that movie and to this day,
I did a thing with Black RifleCoffee a while back where we watched
that movie and we did a veteran'srehaction. I'm telling you, that is
a that is such a realistic movie. Other than a couple of the things

(58:05):
where they were shooting eight laws orat fours or whatever they were shooting in
there, that might have been alittle bit fictitious, but overall it was
a pretty a pretty realistic movie.Now it ended with that movie. The
rest of them they were just overthe top. And I haven't even seen
all the other all the other movies, but I think that I'm gonna I'm
gonna skip ahead to what's the nameof the movie, The guy with all

(58:32):
the fancy gun handling skills? Yeah, yeah, Wick, Okay, So
here's what I would say about that. That guy has actually trained very hard
to be able to handle weapons alittle bit more realistically. Now, John
Granted, yeah, granted, whathe's doing in that movie is is fictitious.

(58:53):
However, it's it's way better thansome of the other movies that you
see out there that where guys arehandling guns and you can tell they've never
they've never handled a gun. Somy hat's off to him for going out
and getting the training. We havea guy that works with fighting tactics.
He also works with Flear, aguy named Chili Palmer, and he that's

(59:14):
not his real name, but that'swhat he goes by, Chili Palmer.
He does some stuff with movies andtrains the actors how to be how to
handle their weapons correctly. And whenyou see a movie that he's worked on,
it makes a big difference. Soit's kind of nice to see that
he went from being a special Operationssergeant major like myself and very good good

(59:37):
friend of mine. Like I mean, I'm tighter with him than I am
with any of my my real family, you know what I mean. So
he's he's he is truly my brother, and he's he's working on his second
movie now, which is Gray Man, So it's that. Yeah, So
he's been working on that, andit just tells me that it's going to

(59:58):
be a good movie because he's gonnagoing to handle guns the way that a
real you know, in a copor a military guy sees it to be,
Like, yeah, that's you know, that's realistic. So I don't
know if if I answered your questionor not there, but well you did.
It was actually a fascinating answers.I've never heard that depiction of Rambo
before, and I really don't haveObviously, you have to understand, I

(01:00:19):
think most people are starting to getthe chest of it that these movies don't
represent reality. But some people,especially twenty years ago, they didn't.
They just thought, oh, watchGreen Berets stuff. But I look at
it now, like you mentioned,if you take back and look at it
again, there's a lot of skillsets that he has that are really beneficial
that he showed people if you getstuck out of the forest somewhere, how
to survive, how to find foodand water and shelter and do these things.

(01:00:44):
And he was doing all that stuffin the movie. Now. You
know, earlier you said, didwatching the Green Berets did that have any
influence on you joined the military?Well, watching Rambo First Blood did not
influence I don't really think it influencedme joining the military. But I'm going
to tell you that movie man thatmotivated me. I mean, I see

(01:01:08):
this guy and I'm like, Okay, I'm not gonna take steroids and get
all jacked up like Sylvester Stallone.However, the cool knife that he had,
that Jimmy Lyle knife, which I'veonly seen one of those in person
in real life ever, and thatwas in Saudi Arabia, and it was
a female MP that had that knife. Her dad had gotten that knife,

(01:01:34):
I believe, for And I sawthat knife and I was like, is
that a Jimmy Lyle knife? Andshe goes, how'd you know that?
And I said, Rambo, thatis the knife. That is the real
knife. Jimmy Lyle is long sincepassed away, but it's interesting to see
that. I mean, now,I'm making knives. I've been forging knives
and tomahawks for the last few years, really getting into it and studying all

(01:01:57):
this stuff. And I still whenI see that knife, that's one of
my It's one of the most unrealisticknives you could ever own. But that's
a really cool knife. So anunconscious influence on you, yeah, I
guess so. I mean, it'syeah, it's kind of crazy. But
I'm during a psycho psychoanalysis of KyleLamb today, folks. You know,
one of the I got one morething on movies. Of course. Actually

(01:02:19):
I wanted to ask about black HawkDown, but go ahead, and that's
what I was gonna actually talk about. Perfect. So I have had a
whole bunch of soldiers and former soldiersthat have talked to me, have have
told me, they're like, Idon't know if I should tell you this
or not, but the movie blackHawk Down was was one of the reasons

(01:02:39):
I joined the military. And it'sbeen a bunch of guys that have told
me that. Wow. And Ihad nothing to do with Blackhawk Down.
I mean, I was there forthe real mission, but for the movie,
I had nothing to do with that. But to me, it's it.
They did something right that you wouldinspire these men to join the military,

(01:03:04):
and I'm sure it inspired some womento do it as well. I
haven't met the woman that has toldme that, but I've met a bunch
of these young men that have toldme that. And now, you know,
and some of them have went inand served their twenty years and now
they're out and their inspiration was thatmovie. So that's you know, that's
to me, that's kind of coolto be somehow associated with that. The
movie is a movie it's not.It's not a documentary. So if you

(01:03:31):
say, oh, what was itlike there, it wasn't like that.
It was different than that. Butit from what I've heard, it's pretty
good movie. I saw it onetime with some of the guys I've served
with over there, and I reallydon't have a desire to see it again.
But I you know, from everybodyI've talked to, they say it's

(01:03:51):
a pretty good movie. Now,Saving Private Ryan another great movie. I
believe there are a few of those. A Bridge to Far are another great
movie, and that kind of goesback to my eighty second history being in
the five or fourth Parachute Infantry Regiment. Those are the guys that what was
his name? Fonda, Peter HenryFonda? What's the young guy? Is

(01:04:18):
it Fonda? What's the what moviewas it? It was A Bridge too
Far? Bridge too Far? Okay, I'll look for it. I'll tell
you what. I'm trying to rememberthe guys. What the guy's name is
it? Is it? I can'tremember. Maybe he's not a Fonda.
I thought he was a Fonda.Let's see A Bridge too Far. We're

(01:04:38):
looking it up, folks, andyou're probably yelling at this at the podcast
right now. Yeah, they're tellingdamn, Robert, I got James Cohn,
I got Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford,
Robert Redford, that's it. He'snot a boy. Robert Redford is going
to be pissed that I called hima fond. I mean, I was

(01:05:00):
probably think of his political views,so I was probably thinking of Jane Fonda.
That's how let's not go there.Anyway, that's a that's a really
uh breathtake. It's a it's asad movie if you know the real history,
because we got our butts kicked there. But it's it's uh, it's

(01:05:21):
a great that is a great movie. It's an old movie, but it's
it's one worth worth checking out.So anyway, I'll definitely tell people to
catch that one, because I knowwe're always looking to get people to be
able to how would you say catcha movie that's more depicts more reality.
It's one of our big things.That's what we're trying to do. And
actually, next kind of funnyuse nextweek, I think we have a guy.

(01:05:45):
I'm not a guy, but formermac v sock. That awesome.
Yeah, so we wanted to showa little bit about that. John Meyer,
I think his nickname was Tilt orsomething if I remember correctly, on
the military. Super nice guy.So I can't wait to learn about that.
Well, you kind of answered thequestion about my clock down because I
was getting ready to ask you inthe sense of that. I know,

(01:06:06):
I asked Dan Shilling. We talkedabout him before the show, and it
was the movie itself was just intense. I mean, you just can't relax.
The first five minutes is quiet,and then the rest of the movie
just doesn't stop. So I knewthat probably wasn't necessarily exactly what happened there,

(01:06:28):
but yeah, he definitely he showeda good side of Mogadishue and his
experiences there and what he saw andwhat he went through. So intense stuff.
And again, I thank you verymuch for your service and if you're
doing that for us, we trulyappreciate it. Yes, sir, I
guess my last couple of the thingshere were getting ready to wrap up.
We talked about Hollywood, by theway, because I think we were similar

(01:06:51):
ages. Do you remember Paladin Paladinthe Cowboy movie? Yeah, I don't
know if I'm not sure if I'veever done. Yeah, I probably have
seen it, but it obviously didn'tstick with me. I was a I
did like John Wayne's westerns and GlennEastwood's westerns. Oh, gun Smoke,

(01:07:12):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, MattDlon and uh well, So I was
just telling a buddy of mine thisthe other day. So my son is
named Lucas, and he's named afterLucas McCain. So that was Rifleman.
The Rifleman had a gun that didn'texist in the time period when that was
made. I mean supposedly, that'swhat they say. So I'm trying to

(01:07:35):
remember what his real name was.Connors, Yeah, Chuck Connors. He
so he had that lever gun andyou know, he could do all this
fancy work with it. But supposedlythat lever gun was not the right gun
for that period that they were tryingto portray. I also, and it
was funny. I just saw thesemovies the other day. I saw,

(01:07:55):
or not movies, but shows.I saw Matt Dillon, Gun Smoke.
I saw The Riflemen and Bonanza Bonanza. There you go, Bonanza one.
If you look at Lorne Green andHaas, I forget what his real name

(01:08:17):
is. And then the other guythat was on lor Engles Wilder. Yeah,
Michael Landon. You watch these guysride their horses. They know how
to ride a horse. It's notyou know in some of the movies now
when you see it. Very rarelydo you see a horse in a movie
these days, unless you watch somethingthat's made in China. They still use
a lot of horses in their movies. The Mulan is one of the kind

(01:08:41):
of a kid a kids well,it's a very violent kids show. They
have great horse scenes in there,and I believe that was filmed in China.
But yeah, I really like thehorseman part of it. When you
see John Wayne riding a horse,he looked like he knew what he was
doing. When you saw any ofthose the two boys or the dad in
Bonanza, they looked like they knewwhat they're doing. Chuck Connors, I

(01:09:05):
can't remember those guys. Yeah,I remember, Oh yeah, I remember
Wanted with Steven Queen. He hadthat really cool whatever the gun he had
sought out shotgun thing. Yeah,yeah, that was bizarre, fascinating stuff.
You can be here all day talkingabout Memory Lane. A lot of
cool movies back then. Yeah,I think that you make me think about

(01:09:25):
the old Cowboy. Yeah. Ithink the last Cowboy movie that I really
enjoyed was Tombstone. Yeah, Idon't think I've watched that more than one
hundred and fifty times. I don'tknow what it is about that movie.
Yeah, you know, and themy buddy Skinner. He he told me
to read a certain book about Wyattbecause Wyatt Earp was actually kind of a

(01:09:45):
not a not probably a very goodperson. But uh, that movie is
amazing. Yeah, amazing. Oh, they did such such a good job
with those characters. Absolutely, mister, it's been a pleasure and honor having
you here today. Thank you somuch for taking the time. Yeah,
thanks for having me. This hasbeen a lot of fun. And yeah,

(01:10:09):
for all the men and women outthere serving, whether they're you know,
whatever you're doing to serve. Hey, America loves you for that,
and just stop watching the news,just listen to the good people that are
out on the streets. They loveyou, so keep doing what you're doing.
Absolutely, absolutely again, folks.Kyle Lamb from Vikings Tactics Viking Tactics

(01:10:30):
dot Com definitely go check it out. We talked about three of his books,
Green Eyes and Black rifles stay inthe fight and the most recent leadership
in the Shadows Special Operations Soldier KmyleLamb folks make sure to share, like
and hit that subscribe button.
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