Recon Platoon Leader in Afghanistan | Clay Smith | Ep. 359 - The Team House

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Special Operations.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Cobert SB and I.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
The Teamhouse with your hosts Jack Murphy and David bark.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Folks, this is episode three hundred and fifty nine of
The Team House. I'm Jack here with Dave and our
guest on tonight's show is Clayton Smith. He served as
a recon platoon leader in Afghanistan, recipient of the Purple Heart.
A whole bunch of different experiences over in Afghanistan that
we'll get into. But he also works with an organization

(00:42):
called Beyond EBO Gain that is b E O N
D I b O G A I n E dot
com that's helping veterans and part of this movement of
psychedelics being used to treat veterans that are dealing with
PTSD and other ailments. And so we got a lot
to talk about. Clayton, thank you for joining us tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate
being here on behalf of the Beyond team, the Beyond
Service Team and Beyond team down in Mexico. Super appreciate
the ability to talk about the program that we're building
uh and and what we're you know, what we're doing
for veteran mental health first responders and their family members.
You know, it's it's something I try to lead with

(01:28):
is you know, we hear about twenty two a day,
and it's time to do something about it rather than
just do and.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Push ups on Facebook.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
You know, it's time to actually end or make a
significant difference in this veteran suicide.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
And you know, we'll talk about the family side of it.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
But oh, by the way, everything that the families carry.
So yeah, IM super grateful to be here. Thank you
to your viewers and your audience as well. Uh, and
I'm really excited to share what we're doing and share
a little bit about about this medicine and and the
process that that we do.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
So Clayton, I'm going to store off asking you about
personal story and how that leads into all this other
work that you're doing today. Can you tell us a
little bit about you know, your origin story and what
took you towards military service as a young man.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
So I I didn't really grow up in a military family.
I grew up very rural, small town Maine, you know,
a town of seven hundred people. I think I had
eleven kids in my elementary school class and you know,
I blue collar, blue collar entrepreneur parents and who you know,

(02:35):
worked real hard, gave gave us, you know, a good life.
Growing up one of one of six brothers and sisters,
and I was the runt of the litter.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I was the sixth of six.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
And you know, I I I ended up going to
a military college after after high school, found out that
a RTC and and you know, play an army and
doing RTC was something I was pretty good at.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Signed a contract my second year, and then in two
thousand and nine, I commissioned missions and second lieutenant. And
you know, for me, it was just it was for me,
it was about getting out of getting out of Maine,
doing something different, trying to trying to do something different
than the folks that I grew up with and and
didn't have, you know, didn't have the best high school
experience and wanted to do something different with my time.

(03:26):
And I'm also an idealist, so I thought that, you know,
that was that was a way to make the better
the world a better place, you know, keep the nine
to eleven generation veteran and and you know, I watched
nine to eleven when when I was in middle school,
and you know, I thought that you know, doing this
and raising my hand was the way to keep you know,
America safe and and made me make a positive impact

(03:47):
in the world. So so that's where that's where we
ended up putting gold bars on in two thousand and nine.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
And answered the higher calling of serving in the airborne Infantry.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah. Yeah, so I I say this is you know,
kind of to my mother's chagrin. I graduated with a
mechanical engineering degree and decided to go be an army ranger.
And she, you know, really wanted me to be you know,
in the Navy or at the Air Force and you know,
do something employable after and you know, I thought, you know,
girls might like it if I was an army ranger.

(04:19):
So that was that was the extent of the decision
making as pretty much you know, ninety five percent of
the guys that go that route.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, a tale as old as time. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
So you commission as a infantry lieutenant, what's the next
phase of your journey? I mean, they send you to
ranger school right away, right.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, So you know I didn't. I wasn't. I wasn't
a West Point guy. So all the West Pointers get
to go first, So I got to got to hang
out in limbo there at Fort Benning. So I spent
about a year and a half at Fort Benning between
you know, the Infantry school and different officer leader courses
and then finally going to ranger. All real rangers recycle,

(05:01):
so I got to take the extended day. I got
to do Darby twice as a result of my own
ego and action, So I'll own that. And then you know,
eventually after eventually I made it through and headed up
to Alaska. So my my duty station was was it
Fort Richardson up and up in Alaska with the four

(05:22):
two five?

Speaker 3 (05:25):
And correct I correct me if I'm wrong, But that
unit was like relatively new as an airborne unit, wasn't it.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah? I think they stood up in six or seven,
and it was they they had an seven deployment to
Iraq and a twenty ten deployment to Afghanistan. And I
got up there followed twenty ten right after they pretty
soon after they got back from their first Afghanistan deployment.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
You know, just I'm gonna probe a little bit more
about this, you know, do you know what the rationale
was of putting placing an airborne unit in Alaska.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Was was there like a strategic purpose for that?

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, so, I mean I certainly wasn't making decisions. My
understanding is it was the you know, we were the
only airborne unit in user Pak, so in the in
the Pacific theater, we were the only you know, because
you add one hundred and seventy third in Sentcom and
Europe and of course the eighty second, but we were,
uh so there was like we were on a two
hour QRF even for like humanitarian missions.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
So I don't know if you.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Guys remember there was the tsunami and I think it
was the Fukushima nuclear plant probably you know, disaster in Japan.
We were on a two hour recall to go to
Japan on humanitarian because we were the closest you know,
we were the closest airborne unit that could get into
the Pacific theater. So that's that's why they had us there.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
That's interesting.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
So tell us about kind of getting into your platoon,
meeting the guys, what that experience is like being a
new pl.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, so I definitely had you know, so I had
two different platoons that I had the privilege to lead.
The first one I went to a like a standard
line unit and let A let A platoon had a
great group of n c os, you know, and and
I certainly, you know, tried to do my best to
listen to the n c os in all the officer
courses and just shut up, you know, just just shut

(07:16):
up and listen. Don't go in there and try to
put your stamp on anything. You know, what the the
guys are doing that, they've been doing it for a reason.
And I had a really just solid, you know, really
my group of n c os that I came to
it for my first platoon was if you could have
you couldn't have a better group to mentor a lieutenant

(07:40):
who was you know. And and after about a month
of just showing up and saying teach me, they they
did and they schooled me up. And you know, I
wouldn't have been as successful in my career if it
wasn't for them. And then nine months later we did
our e I BS. I was one of the lieutenants
to get their e I B Expert Infantry Badge and
I was moved over to the Scout Reconnisance Platoon. So

(08:01):
there's one reconnaissance platoon in a in a I guess
in an airborne infantry battalion, and I had the privilege
to lead that. Woh, that was a different situation, man.
Like those those guys were those n c os. They
were not They didn't want to build you up. They
wanted to chew you, chew you up, and you know
you had to. It took it probably took six months

(08:23):
of proving myself day in day out. You know.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
It was, uh, can you know you.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Go for a rock march and you got to put
a forty five pound plate in your pack because got
you know, there is no way that that sergeant Fenton
is going to have a lighter ruck than I am.
And oh man, you know that was a crucible of
those guys. But they they were fiercely passionate about their soldiers,
like incredible NCOs and and once you were in their trust,

(08:50):
it was it was a team that I I I
can't believe still that I had the privilege to be
a part of. We did eighteen months of train up together,
which is abnormal for or for a lieutenant and uh,
you know in a at least a line platoon or
conventional military to have the eighteen months to train up
together and then go down range together like it was.

(09:12):
It was a it was a dream come true, and
I was exposed to so much more than I would
have normally.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
I imagine you guys doing a lot of like snowshoe
training up there.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, snowshoe a lot of You know, when you when
you jump in the winter in Alaska, you know it's
you have, especially a night jump, you have a fifty
to fifty chance you're either going to hit a snow
drift and it's going to be the softest landing of
your life, or you're going to hit the sheet of
ice that snow blew off of and it's going to
you know, it's going to hit you like a truck.

(09:44):
So a lot of that and then a lot of
cold walk back from.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
The d Z.

Speaker 5 (09:50):
You know.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
The the way we trained our our platoon and the
way we did it was, you know, even if the
rest of the Italian was getting picked up on buses,
we were walking our happy asses home and an you know,
that paid off downrange, and and it did because the
guys we really we really took the mentality of you know,
practice should be harder than the game, and and it
paid off. You know when we when we went down range,

(10:13):
because it was honestly, it was nothing. If we had
to if we had to get out and walk for
eight miles, that was it was. It was what we
were used to doing.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
So and you know, as you're going through this extensive
train up, I mean, what is the mission that you're
training for? What what are you guys being brief at
that time that you're going to go into.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, so we were we were kind of our our
platoon was on paper supposed to we're a reconnaissance element,
but we were also supposed to be a bit of
a kinetic element at the battalion commander's discretion. Uh So
we were you know, we knew we were going to
be centrally located within the battalion's AO, and we were.

(10:52):
They were kind of two. We had a sister battalion
within the brigade, and we knew that, you know, our
reconnaissance platoon and and our sister one and the other battalion,
we're going to be a mix of kinetic and a
mix of reconnaissance work, which I mean in in twenty twelve,
you know, and even more so now reconnaissance work is

(11:14):
kind of more just like train denial, using sniper teams
to do to do train denial. It wasn't you know,
we had as you guys know so much ir that
that it wasn't like we were going and just sitting
on a ridge line to see if there were trucks.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
You know, we knew there were trucks, right.

Speaker 6 (11:30):
It's also a very difficult area to do recky in
just because you know those little villages, everybody knows the train.
They're all out there walking around all the time, and
it's very hard to remain you know, you know, to
not get your not get blown.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, I mean it's not like there, you know, as
soon as those American trucks leave the gate or you know,
it's kind of hard to hide a chinook in a
in a high altitude desert when it when it's landing
on a rich line. Yeah, I get there. There is
really no such thing as a as an infiltration in
the in the classic WRECKI sense so. But a lot
of train denial, a little bit of kinetic work, that's

(12:10):
what we're that's what we were training up to do.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
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Speaker 6 (13:46):
So, in your was there also a sniper element or
were you guys the sniper element?

Speaker 1 (13:54):
So my breakup, we had three sniper teams, so spottershoot
and a security security guy. Uh. So I had three
sniper teams. I had two rekie teams which were kind
of like six man.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Strong fire teams.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Light squads that were that were our kinetic element. Those
guys were they were they they did eighty percent kinetic,
were twenty percent reconnaissance work. And then we actually we
this was this wasn't in the MTOE. This is something
that we wanted to do and we brought in was
we had a kind of a heavy weapons team and
it wasn't a traditional infantry heavy weapons squad.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
It was five guys, so.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Kind of a team leader, squad leader, and then to
two forties and you know, they carried, they were they
they were the boys with strong backs, and it gave
us gave us a lot more tactical flexibility when we
could drop in, you know, whether we had our own
mortars with us. We had heavy guns. You know, it
just gave us a lot more flexibility. We had long guns,

(14:58):
we had two forties, we had orders, and then we
had two kinetic teams that that could go do their things.
So it was fun. Like as as an as a
platoon leader, it was what you dreamed of, like you
had all the resources and you had hard charging n
c O s and then a bunch of E one
to E fours that were really strong and vollied orders
like it was. It was the ideal situation as a

(15:20):
as a platoon leader.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
And so tell us about getting through Afghanistan, and I
believe you said earlier the mission changed.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
A little bit.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, so about two months before we before we hopped
on planes, we are AO shifted and we covered down.
There was a we went. We ended up going to
the Paktia province and there was a National Guard unit
that was there before us, and they were having some struggles.
It was like two or three years of.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
National Guard.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
AO management and they were they're having some struggles. So
we were repurposed and Big Army sent us into Paktia.
And yeah, so we we kind of had to learn
the area. We had to learn the hot spots mostly
on the fly. And then we also what we were
not prepared for at all was we.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Were the because of the because of the.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Unit getting pulled out was infantry and MP, and we
were getting like an MP or excuse me, an infantry
and airborne infantry and a replacing We actually I had
to I was the only or my platoon, our reconnaissance
platoon was the only conventional element in our FOB because
everyone else was spread out. So we had to own
a partnership with the Afghan police, the AUP, and the

(16:35):
Afghan Army and the Afghan commandos that were across the
street with the s F guys. So about six weeks
before we went down range, we figured out where we
learned we were going to be training police officers and
we had to get you know, that was not at
all in the train ups. So we had to to
get smart on r OE and and you know the
things that that you when you have to train a

(16:56):
foreign national force and also police and arm So.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Uh, tell us about your first night in combat and
what happened.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, so first night, we truly truly first day ended
up getting off the helicopters. Half foot platoon is there.
We're starting our left seat, right seat with the so
that the unit that we're replacing where we're start starting
the process. So you know, we're we're laying out inventory

(17:28):
and looking at serial numbers. And then there was a
QRF response, so we were the quick Reaction Force assigned
to our FOB for that time. And there was a
predator drone, an armed predator had crashed in Rao and
we had to go secure it, and so hoping trucks

(17:49):
and I mean, look, I did a lot of train up.
I was still a cherry lieutenant, so like, how do
you how do you get your headphone connected to the truck,
where's the combat lock? How do you? Like? Look, I was,
I was a soup sandwich leaving the gate and and
I was like, holy cow, this is real. This is
this is getting getting real. Roll out the gate and

(18:11):
we you know, I mean, the first part of the
day was very boring, and as as you guys know
and probably a lot of your listeners know, it's it's
ninety boredom with with ten percent moments of chaos.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
So we went out, we.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Secured this drone. The Air Force flew in their guys
and and also a couple other units came out to
help secure the site. Air Force flew in their people.
They cut out all the sensitive equipment. We recovered the
the missiles. Found the missiles, EO D went to go
dispose of them.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
And.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Right before EO D set off the charge to destroy
the missiles that that were recovered, there was a like
a ground shaking explosion and as it turns out, one
of our one of the units that was out there
there to recover this predator, they left early. And so

(19:05):
we had a whole route clearance package. We had EOD
and then you had us as a as the dismounted
security like we had a full convoy package that made
it out there. I mean, we were all sprinting to
get out there. We had we had our legit. We
had a logistics convoy that had to recover the drone
like we were. We were probably twenty twenty five trucks
at that point, and we were going to convoy home

(19:26):
and do a route clearance. Well a you know, this
other unit for whatever reason, they decided to leave early
and they went home the same way they came in,
and there was a three hundred and fifty pound id
UH under the road and it was the same road
that we drove in on, same road we drove in on.

(19:47):
But you know, and at least in that time, in
the area we were in, we could defeat the remote
detonated IDs. We had a way to defeat those, and
then pressure plate IDs. You could defeat those because we
had mine rollers on the front of all of our trucks.
But there was there was no way to defeat a
command wire. And so they, as we found out, they

(20:11):
ran a command wire three hundred yards away, you know,
and there was I'm sure a dude on a motorcycle
just waiting waiting for the trucks to come by, and
he knew where his culvert was, he knew his aiming points,
and the trucks were lit up with their marker lights.
And the blast crater was about six feet deep ten
feet wide. It flipped a max bro on its roof.

(20:34):
It actually flipped it twenty feet in the air. It
bounced off a kalot wall and then dropped down to
the bottom of the clot And you know, we instantly
responded to that because i mean, you had the like
the blue force tracker display and then all of a sudden,
the radio blows up and one of the icons goes
gray like you kind of know, even without knowing, you

(20:57):
kind of know what's going on. And at that point
I ended up being the the facto ground force commander,
so we had to secure the crash site. Unfortunately, there
were three American k as, there were two or three
wounded that survived, so we were having to secure secure

(21:19):
an LZ callin medovax. We were uh NAFCAN and police
are out there, so we could kick doors down and
go into buildings and try to find if we could
find the triggerman.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
It was a it was a rough night.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
It was a it was a rough night, and it
was definitely a baptism. I mean this was I was
twelve hours into sixteen hours into being on the ground
at our FOB and hooking a change to a bumper
of a of a Ford Ranger and uh going into
a Collot nods down rifle up with three of my
n c o's. So that was a hell of a

(21:55):
hell of a start to to a deployment and it
and it really it was unfortunate that it happened. It
was preventable, and it really reinforced me just how quickly
things can go wrong if you're sloppy.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
And that turned into a pretty busy deployment for you
guys after that, didn't it.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, so we were we were outside the wire. I
didn't as events happened later, I didn't. I didn't stay
as a stune leader the whole time, But our first
hundred days in country, I think we were outside the wire.
Ninety of those hundred days in some way, whether it
was multi day, single day, you know, convoys, logistical support,
we were. We were outside the wire. Yeah, ninety of

(22:42):
one hundred days.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
And you said that you had to respond to pretty
much every mascal situation in your sector that year.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Yeah. Personally, it just it just shook out. And I
don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure that I
ended up being the ground force commander for the three
major mass casualties in RC East in twenty twelve. One
was that first night with the ied, The other was

(23:12):
the day that myself and five others were awarded purple hearts,
and then the third was there was a suicide vehicle
ID in a marketplace that killed two or three Americans,
an interpreter, and about twenty local national afgcans in the market.
And I wasn't even supposed to be there. I was

(23:33):
on a convoy returning three vehicles. At that point, I
was an exo. I wasn't even leaving the wire.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
I was an exo.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
And we had to put nine guys together to go
return some trucks to a depot on the other side
of a pass. And I was gonna drive there in
a twenty vehicle thirty vehicle logistics convoy, drop off the trucks,
take a helicopter home that next day, and ended up, uh,
you know, getting ambushed in the past and destroying a truck,

(24:04):
having to fight our way out of the past and
then respond to the suicide vehicle.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
So yeah, so the so the close, the close ambush
and the s V B I E.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
D thing, it's like all connected. Yeah yeah we should Yeah, okay,
can you.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Tell us so if you're okay, tell us a little
bit more like detail about you know, running into that
ambush and the rest of the events that day.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah. So, I mean that's that day separate from when
when the purple heart. Yeah. Yeah, those those were a
couple of months apart. So after after I got my
purple heart, and because it was you know, it was
it was a result of concussion TB I. I was
moved out of my platoon leager position like I couldn't.
I could. I was medically cleared to go on patrol.

(24:49):
But it was like a month or two and I was.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
I was rotated out. So so yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Those are those are two separate incidents.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
But yeah, take us, Why don't you take us through
the SVB I D first.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, So that day that was the the SVB I
D was the was the logistics convoy where we were
turning trucks in and uh, you know, we had a
route clearance package. We had a I don't know, fuel
had to get moved by local national trucks. So we
had a we had like a twenty truck fuel convoy

(25:25):
with extra containers and food was moving and we just
jumped in that with our trucks that had to go
get turned in to the supply depot Salerno. And so
I just I grabbed. At this point, I was the
company executive officer. So I grabbed a handful of my
scouts who were they They were going on on midtor

(25:46):
leave and they were flying out of Salerno and I
and I went and sold them, well, boys, sorry, you
don't get to take a helicopter there, you got to
take an eight hour convoy. Uh glad I did. And
then a couple of a couple of the other headquarters guys.
So we we did minimal manning, minimal radios, minimal you know,
load out because everything we took there we had to
fly home with. And so we took this minimal load out.

(26:09):
And then going through the KG pass the coast Guard
does pass super windy mountain pass, get hit with an
RPG ambush our trail truck. It's like, why did they
have to pick us? Man? There is a bunch of
other ones trail trail truck RPG straight through the radiator

(26:30):
disabled pass. This the driver this might have been his
first time outside the wire driving. He was a supply
clerk and managed to get the truck kind of half
into the ditch instead of going off the cliff.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
So that was helpful.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
And then you know, I mean, dude, we were like,
it's not like we weren't prepared, but like we had
weapon systems on these trucks.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
That we had.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
There are the weapon systems that you use day and
day out, and then there's the ones that you don't.
And we were in the case that you don't. So,
you know, sometimes we had like the remote weapons system
where you stay inside the truck and use like the
video camera to aim while that went down. So I've
got one of my NCOs is on the roof of
a truck, and I mean, this is a knockdown, drag

(27:14):
out gunfight in the past, and he's on the roof,
standing on top of the turret trying to manually aim
the two forty while the guy inside squeezing the trigger.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
It was. It was chaos.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
We could only communicate with air support using theft because
we were in a hole with no radios. Satellites went down.
It was just it was just one of those things
where you just get out of there. So we hooked up,
you know, another truck came back, We laid down covering fire,
hooked up a tow rope, and then just dragged everyone
out of the pass and regroup a couple of miles

(27:43):
down the road.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
And then and then you had to get to the market. Right.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Well that was so now we're we're dragging you know,
a destroyed truck into into town.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
We've got one destroyed truck.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
We've got you know, my truck is gon ricochets and
holes in it. And you know they the like water
drug was had a bullet hole. Like. It was just
it was a firefighter, right like, So we're just limping
our asses into town.

Speaker 4 (28:10):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
And then you know when something's wrong when you get
into town and all the doors are shut and there's
no one in the street.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
It was that, you really something's wrong.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
And and a mile later, the route clearance half mile
later the route clearance uh stopped and it was like,
you know, they called for all medics and the convoy
to come up, and it was it was, it was bad.
It was it was.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Really bad again like the the.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
It was a it was I think an MP unit
that was hit. They were totally combat and effective. You know,
we had to they they lost enough of their leadership
that they were completely combat and effective. So we had
to triage and get there. Fortunately, we were only five
miles from the actual FOB, so we were able to

(28:58):
get the wounded loaded and out. It would be quicker,
you know, we did a vehicle e back instead of
a helicopter. We got the wounded in the trucks and
and got them out of there and uh, then we
stayed and picked up the pieces, and it was it was.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
It was messy, man, it was.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
It was one of those days that you don't forget,
and you know, when you're I'll never forget.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Having to climb in. We were in matt vs.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
So they were like.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Souped up humbies. So two seats in the two seats.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
In the back, and a gunner in the middle, and
you know, I had to go in and and we
ran out of room to put the casual, you know,
the the k I A the deceased, and so I
had to climb in and tell my gunner and was like, hey, man,
I'm sorry, but you have to you know, we had
to fill these seats and you got to lift them
in there.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
And that was a that.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
Was a day you never forget. Just the complete, the
the complete, indiscriminate loss of life.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
And just to contextualize this a little bit, you're a
how old XO at this point in time?

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Twenty six, yeah, twenty six years old, and.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Your boys were like eighteen nineteen.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, man, I am in the in the yeah nine
eighteen nineteen, twenty twenty one ish.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yep, yep, yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
You know the kid, the kid that the guy that
you know had to lift those two deceased bodies into
the back of our truck. Might have been twenty one
years old, twenty two years old.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, yep, YEA.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Our first night, we had a that that first night
that I e that we were talking about and this
is this is why I'm so passionate about the work
that I'm doing as well. That that first night we
were pulling wounded and kia out of the out of
the truck that was hit with the IE, and we
got a call that we think we found were the building.

(31:00):
The trigger man we you know, ISR says, we think
we've got something. So I had to to take my
rt o my radio. My radio guy is kind of
supposed to be attached at the hip with me, and
this was his first deployment, first twelve hours being down range,
and I had to look him in the eye and say,
hey man, you got to pull these bodies out because
I have to go. And you know, I had to

(31:23):
go lead the kinetic part of it, and to leave
this guy who, you know, his only crime in life
was being really good at running a radio, and now
he's he's exposed to what what has to be an
incredibly traumatic event and the fortunately, you know that night

(31:44):
and I tried to whenever possible put my NCOs in
the shittiest spots, and and there was a lot of
respect for that, you know, mutual respect, Like they knew
I was going to take the shitty job, and I
was gonna give them the shitty job. And the guys
that were you know, privates and specialists were going to
pull security instead of pull pulled out of trucks. But
there's just sometimes there's no walking back from that, you know,

(32:05):
when you're twenty years old.

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Speaker 2 (34:34):
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Speaker 2 (34:36):
Thanks guys. Tell us about that.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Then the the urban ambush where you were awarded the
Purple Heart and so were many of your soldiers.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, that was it was tax day. Well, I'll never
forget it is April fifteenth, so you always remember his
tax day and so you know we were we were
at a point at least in twenty twelve in the
AO that we were in. You know, we we would
say that kind of all the dumb ones were dead,
the dumb terrorists were dead. You know, these guys knew

(35:10):
that we outgunned them, they knew that we could hear them,
they knew that we could see them, they knew we
could reach out and touch them. And so we were
mostly fighting, you know, an insurgency, a an i D insurgency,
and there was kind of a cadence to things, and

(35:31):
you know, we found several i DS by getting out
of the trucks and walking.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
They were waiting to blow us up.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
And that was that was really if they could, if
they could blow you up, then they'd engage. But there
there were no ambushes in the region that were not
just like i D induced. And then a firefight after
so we were again q r F and this a
neighboring cop or FOB was getting some like harassing fire.

(36:01):
So there was a PKM so like a light machine
gun was shooting at the SPOB from a building, and
so we got spun up on QRF and at that
point I was so.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
That the long version of this story.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
At that point, I was already starting to do my
replacement as EXO from platoon leader to XO, and the
guys were getting called out. Half the platoon was out
on mission and they needed to have sixteen sixteen bodies
in four trucks to be able to roll outside the
wire or twenty I forget what it was, but it
was something like that, and we had to fill the trucks.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
And so.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I was in flip flops, ranger panties and a T
shirt strapping a fifty cal onto the roof of the
truck because we didn't have enough bodies and I could
at least help the boys get outside the wire and
get out on time. So I was just on the
roof and flip flops of a Max road getting the
weapons systems hooked up and running and the guy that
was replacing me comes running up and he's like, hey,
we need like we need more, go grab your ship.

(37:05):
So I ran up to my room, threw my kid on,
and and met the trucks. You know, I was running
out the gate basically of the fob while the ramp
was down, and they you know, hop in the back
and off we go, and like we didn't have a medic,
so we grabbed the the medic platoon leader who was
an E eight Ranger or E seven at the time
Region Ranger Regiment guy who then you know, went medical.

(37:27):
So like our the back of my truck was just
like a hobbled fire team of our senior sniper team
leader are the senior Battalion fo Ford observer, myself and
then an East seven Ranger medic and uh, you know,
we're all just riding the truck like.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Shit.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Man, I was supposed to go to the gym in
an hour, like you know, because we knew how it worked.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
They they they get us.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
To come out and then we're going to drive to
where it's happening. And by the time we get there,
everyone's gonna be gone, and We're gonna get out of trucks.
I'm gonna hear it, and we're gonna, you know, do
bats and hides, and we're gonna look at all the
military age males and then everyone's gonna be gone because
as soon as those trucks leave the gate, they're they're
gonna have someone on the phone telling them they're gone.

(38:15):
So you know, it's not like we were complacent, like
we were all kidded up. We were ready to go.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
But we had seen this movie before.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
And so it wasn't like this super adrenaline like, oh,
we're gonna go get in a firefight. It was a
like those sons of bitches. I was just gonna work
out in an hour. And we get to the building
and then all of a sudden, like you know, the
popcorn starts going off on the sides of the truck.
I was like, oh shit, like shoot back. So we
you know, we the convoy goes up drives by fools

(38:48):
of ui and now we know, okay, we're we're in
a firefight. We're gonna something's going on. So we're gonna
we're gonna get out of here a dismount and you know,
see what's going on. And so and it was just
a string of really bad luck. When we turned around,
our mine roller hit us feedbump and like fell apart.
So like our lead truck is just kind of like

(39:09):
pushing the metal carcass of a mine roller down the
road and it stopped a little short, so like they
had to leave spacing for all four trucks to get
past the building. And it just so happened where the
lead truck stopped. The trail truck. The fourth truck, which
I was in, was in the kill zone and straight

(39:30):
in front of this building. And it was a three
story concrete structure, probably three It was three stories high,
probably one hundred and twenty one hundred and fifty feet long,
so a fairly large like kind of what would be
an apartment building. And we were square in the killson,
like we were dead center in the killson. Ricochet start
popping off the truck, and you know, we're in the back,

(39:52):
just like, let us out, let us out because this
goes nowhere good, like, you know, and the four of
us in the back we were, you know, we're light infantry.
Where we wanted to get in the fight, like there
was no there was. The only argument in the back
of the truck was who got to be the first
one out the door? Not who had to be the
first one out the door. And we get out, and

(40:14):
I just remember, man, like you know, those trucks are dark,
they got little little porthole windows, and it was super
bright and and I'm I'm running the ramp, so I
couldn't be the first one out. I had to be
the second one out. My fingers on the little button
to drop the ramp down, and the world just goes
super bright because the sun. And then as I'm running
down the ramp, I see the asphalt just splintering all

(40:37):
around me, and there's like little chunks of asphalt just
flying up around my feet. And uh, I remember, like
it's like oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, Like I
got to get behind cover because this is this is
way worse than what we thought. We dove in a ditch.
There was a little back hoe digging a utility ditch

(40:58):
next to the road and it was piling up dirt.
So we had a little like three foot ditch that
we could get into and our we had a gunner.
The gunner on my truck. He was he was the
newest private to the platoon. So this is you know
something he said before, like, you know, these are eighteen
nineteen year old guys. Yeah, this is the nineteen year
old guy. He was the newest member of the platoon.

(41:20):
This is the first time he had been in a firefight,
first time he had been in anything like this, And
he had the only fifty calm in the fight. Because
all the other trucks were parked outside and they couldn't
really engage.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
One of the trucks could.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
And so you had four of us in a ditch,
realizing we are way outgunned like these guys. You know,
as soon as we're in the get the ditch, like
RPGs are flying over our heads. RPG hits the truck
and it hit the hit the driver's door, the passenger door,
the TC's door. So our TC has shrapnel all.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Heat because he stayed in the truck.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
TC's got shrapnel all through his kit, you know, under
his kid. He's bleeding. So the medic runs out of
the ditch. He runs out of the ditch, goes back
to the truck to plug holes. And now there's three
of us in the ditch. Thank god we had the
FO because now we had Apache's coming on stations, and
you know, so he's calling in apaches and there's you know,

(42:18):
there's two of us trying to get a suppressing fire.
Myself and my the Stiper team leader. We're trying to
suppress We've got a Pachies coming on station and who
fortunately we're in the AO because of the QRF call
and we had you know, I was like we're laying
in the ditch watching, you know, so you lay on
your back as the apaches coming. You watch these apaches

(42:40):
come come over, you know, twenty feet off the ground.
They peel off. Then you jump up and then the
RPGs just start raining back down on you. Uh. You know,
at one point everything went brown, dirts and rocks and
shit went everywhere.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
It was.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
It was the time that our medic was coming back
into the ditch and I watched him fall over and
I remember like, you stupid bastard, you can't even run,
and uh, an RPG hit so close is what happened.
I mean, there was an RPG that hit about five
feet and it hit the dirt berm in front of
us where the backo was piling the dirt for the
utility trench. And you know, that was the one that

(43:21):
that got us all pretty good as far as concussions
and shrapnel. And you know, whether it's rocks or or everyone,
everyone left that day with the tv I that was
in the ditch at that point. So uh, you know,
and I will you know, there's there's so many parts
of this. Uh. One one that needs to be mentioned
is that they're one of the guy that was in
the in the truck in the turret. So when that

(43:44):
the turret, when the truck got hit with the RPG,
the whole smoke fire suppression system goes off, and our
turret gunner fell down all the way from the you know,
he was standing up in the turret. He fell down
into the bottom of the truck. And again this said nineteen
year old kid who's in his first firefight. And it
was the it was the only it was a fifty
cow and it was the only thing that was giving

(44:06):
the four of us in the ditch any suppression and
in any way to engage or maneuver. And you know,
this kid could have laid in the in the bottom
of the truck. He just fell eight feet onto his
back and all the fire suppressions going off. He could
have absolutely done that. And the only thing he did
was he grabbed his pocket knife and he slashed all

(44:27):
the ratchet straps on the AMMO cans and threw four
ammo cans up on the roof, then crawled, you know,
climb back up and re engaged.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
And you know, that's that's valor, that's.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Bravery, and and your rank should have nothing to do
with a with a valorous Award. You know, there's four
of us that are alive because of Ian mcinty and
and his actions that day. And you know, at by
the end of it, after maybe I don't know, twenty minutes,
we had two flights of apaches went full Winchester. They
shot everything they had, rockets and rockets and and bullets,

(45:02):
and then we eventually were able to get out of
the ditch. And then it was a three hour firefight
we had. There was a Romanian special forces team with
a with an Afghan attachment that was trying to get
at the building. There was you know, us on our
own trying to get at the building from another direction.
We had two A tens come on station and went
full Winchester with everything they had UH and the and

(45:25):
these guys were like they were there to die that day.
They were they were in the building to die. And
they reinforced both sides of the building so they could
engage from either side. They had to have had hundreds
of sandbags and stuff in there. So you know, two apaches,
two or four apaches, two A tens UH, we did
our best to get in the building. The Romanians tried

(45:47):
to get in and then after a couple hours the
decision was made. You know, we we requested authorization to
drop a five hundred pound bomb, and it was it
was danger close or sure that one the first one
that dropped the detonation. Something happened with the detonation and

(46:08):
it went through the building and never detonated. And then
we dropped another from an F sixteen, another five hundred
pound bomb, and the fin broke when it released, and
it like dolphined on its way in and it missed.
You know, we were so close. It's like the Romanians

(46:28):
were here and we were here, and it you know.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
The bomb hits here. We were we were so lucky.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
And then finally they the I think the brigade commander
it might have added to have been like a general
authorized me to release a two thousand pound bomb from
a B two, and we were like, from a concussion
risk perspective, we were we were danger danger, danger close,
you know whatever the one percent PI is like, yeah,

(46:59):
we were. We were way.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Inside of it.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
So but it was effective and it certainly ended the firefight,
and it certainly ended the structural integrity of that building.
So yeah, that was you know, it was it was
one of the fondest days because we won, like we
were we were infantry men that were trained to go
do that, and it wasn't That was not the traumatic

(47:24):
day of my deployment or and I can speak for
most of the guys that were there, like that was
what we trained to do and we got to go
do it.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
You know, the other two.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Events I told you guys about, we're certainly the much
more traumatic than that day. But the part for me
that that I didn't you know that that goes into
kind of part two of this story is on the
way home, my head hurts so bad that you know,

(47:54):
I took my helmet off, I took my headphones off,
and I just rode in the back of this truck
with my hands cradling my ears because I had such
bad headache, and I thought it was just adrenaline. Like
I justified it to myself as like, oh, I mean,
you had so much adrenaline. Now it's leaving your body
and you just have a headache. And then three days

(48:16):
later I was trying to do Yeah, we took the
concussion test. I cheated, I listened to someone else's answers
and gave them as my own. And then three days later,
we're doing inventory I'm back to my job as an
XO and we're doing we're doing inventory checks and I
can't read.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
You know.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
A PFC is like, hey, Sar, do you want me
to read those numbers for you? Because because you can't read?
And that was like, oh man, I actually can't read,
like letters and numbers were confusing, and then I had
to go self report.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Wow, I guess this involves you know, you're coming back
home from Afghanistan and you know, getting out of the military.
But I'd also like to ask you about you know
that you got a purple heart for having a TV
and I mean, was that kind of like a hard
flat thing for you and the guys, because I mean,

(49:04):
like the one soldier you mentioned who had shrapnel wounds,
of course he's going to get a purple heart, but guys,
who have you know this this invisible wound? You know
that that is not readily apparent. Was that kind of
a struggle for you guys?

Speaker 1 (49:16):
We had a.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
I don't know how other like how it would go
for other people.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
We had a a paho Is captain and he did
a concussion analysis, like so three of the guys were
clearly marked a concussions.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Also a lot of the three of us also had
lung damage as well, So like we all had lung
damage from the overpressure and the chemicals, like we had
to we had to sit down. I would bring myself
and one other guy, like we would bring stools with
us for the for the four hundred meter walk to
the chow hall, because we would get winded about halfway there.

(49:56):
H So, like you know, the battalion Star Majors walking
by and your in a stool just trying to get
to the toow hall, like there's like something something's wrong there,
and and we had the like everything was documented fortunately,
and and everything was documented very clearly. So like the
administrative part of the Purple Heart process was I wouldn't

(50:18):
say any more difficult because it was it was combined
with you know, there were there were two of the
guys had shrapnel, five people had tv I s, like
three of us had lung damage. Like it was, it
kind of all just got looped into a well. They
they dropped a two thousand pounds bond that day and
watched it.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
So good good. What was was it difficult for you to.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Go and self report because I know you guys as
young army officers are like thoroughly indoctrinated.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
And but it's true of all soldiers.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
I think like no one wants to say, like, hey,
I have a problem.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yeah, I mean that's that's a part of the culture.
I wouldn't say it's it's just the the officer or
or you know, and and certainly there's a part of
it that is encouraged, exacerbated whatever you want to call
by the ranger culture. You know, my my platoon sergeant
who now is actually coaching, would beyond service as well.

(51:14):
My platoon sergeant when with the reconnaissance platoon he broke
his ankle on an insertion. We ran out of the
back of THEGE forty seven's He broke his ankle running
out of the back and I think we had a
twelve click something like that, twelve click X pill. It
was a three day mission with a twelve click X
fill to get to trucks to drive home. And no

(51:34):
one knew that he broke his ankle. He tied his
boot tighter, he just like cranked his boot.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Down and spent.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
He knew that was you know, he was a senior,
he seven, He knew it was probably his last patrol.
He knew he broke his ankle. It was his last
patrol with the boys. And so he's not coming out
of the game. He's not getting a metavac called for mean,
he's certainly not going back on that helicopter. And so
he tied his boot tight and he walked twelve clicks
and full kid on a broken ankle across the desert. Now,

(52:02):
like that mindset is how you are in your tab
It's how you you lead soldiers.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
It's how you you like.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
There is there is no.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
It's how you survive in combat.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, yeah, like you can put your body through physically, mentally, anything. Right, So,
like you take that mindset, and and the mission is
more important, like how like you are taught, the mission
is more important. It's something you believe in. It's a
part of the culture. And you know, whether my mission

(52:40):
at that point was leading soldiers or whether it was
doing serial numbers for a change of command inventory, the
mission was the mission, and and the mission was more
important than me and and and it has nothing to
do with worthiness, It has nothing to do with self esteem,
Like there's there's just a cultural part that the mission
is more important than the man. The team is more

(53:02):
important than the man, and you just execute and do
your job. So yeah, it's it's hard to self report.
And also, you know, I had a path that I
was pursuing of, you know, going the Green Beret route,
and like you don't you don't self report anything. You
need to make sure your medical is clear and you're
good to go. So you know, the only reason I

(53:24):
self reported was because I couldn't read and I and
I knew there was a bigger problem that I had
to I had to say something right.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
And after you did that, you know, what did the
out of the command respond and what kind of treatment
did you start to get?

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yeah, it was I mean we were we were in
a very remote part of Afghanistan. We didn't have like
level one or two right medical facilities. But I was
put on myself and and the other guys as well.
We were all put on like a cognitive rest, like
a ninety six hour hold for cognitive rest to assess.

(54:00):
And I, I swear to God, man, I think I
slept twenty hours a day and and I I would
wake up to go to the bathroom and to go
to the chow hall once or twice a day, and
I thought, you know, because you can't read, you can't
be on your computer, you can't you can't do anything.
And I thought, like what the hell am I going

(54:20):
to do with myself? And all I did was sleep,
you know, my my brain was trying to heal. And
then you know, and then after that, like I I
went back to work. I wasn't supposed to go outside
the wire except for you know, taking taking three trucks
to Sealerno to turn them in because I was just
going to be a day trip. And yeah, I mean

(54:41):
it was. Yeah. I would say, like command was generally supportive,
like there was no there was no like good command,
good command, like took care of the guys.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Yeah, yeah, it was good. Oh that's great.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
And then talk to us about rotating back home after
that deployment and kind of what happened next.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah, so I you know, I made the decision.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
I was.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
I was at a timeline in my career that I
had to make a decision. I had to either accept
my position into the q CORUS s FAS and the
Green Beret route or I had to get out. And
and I I was kind of long in the tooth
in the in the four or five year officer initial commitment,

(55:28):
and so I quickly made the decision that I had done.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
It was a hard decision.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
It was a hard decision because because earning a green
floppy hat was the one thing that I hadn't done yet,
and I was it was that was the one thing
in my military career that I hadn't done. But I
had worked with green bereay teams. I led Afghan commandos
on you know, kinetic patrols in in coordination with green berets.

(56:01):
I trained local National soldiers. I'd been in firefights. I pulled,
you know, picked up pieces of people, wrote on a
lot of helicopters, jumped out of a lot of aeroplanes.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Like I felt like I had.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
I had ninety eight percent from my personal journey, ninety
eight percent of my journey, and the things that I
wanted to do were complete. I knew I wasn't going
to be a lifer, and I made the decision to
pull my packet and get out, and that I that
I was married to my wife and not the military,
and and honestly, at that point, so I like I

(56:34):
have a view of leadership where it's a sacred privilege
and you know, sometimes sometimes we fail, but leadership is
a sacred privilege and I couldn't, in clear conscience step
in front of twelve other guys on a team and
I have one hundred percent of my heart and one
hundred percent of my brain there, you know, I felt

(56:55):
like I had checked the box. And if you're not
bringing one hundred percent as a lead, then you shouldn't
be there, not not in that way, not in you know,
taking guys down range into harm's way. So so yeah,
I got out, and my wife and I traveled. We
you know, in this whole process, I'm going to a
tv I clinic on on Fort Richardson, and you know

(57:18):
there's there's a whole tv I component there where I
basically had the what I would say is kind of
the vocabulary of a seventh seventh grader, seventh or eighth grader,
short term memory of a of a goldfish, irritability like
emotional instability and irritability. My hearing was affected, and it

(57:38):
wasn't just hearing damage from you know, from from like uh,
ear drum damage. It was it was my ability to
decipher noises that were coming in. My brain would get
confused with background noises, So you know, I had a
whole collection of tv I related response. I never self

(58:02):
reported with PTSD, and I never I never you know,
despite having gone through a lot of experiences that one
would consider traumatic, I never self reported or thought that
I had PTSD. But I went through a lot of
tv I work, and then summer fallow twenty thirteen, I
was a civilian, gave my last salute and walked out

(58:22):
the door.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
And what did you do in the civilian world.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
I worked as much as I had to to travel
as much as I could. So my wife and I
we took an eighteen month we through hike the Appalachian Trail.
We lived in New Zealand. We took a long road trip,
and then we ran out of money and had to
get jobs. So I've spent most of my career in entrepreneurship, startups,
went back to grad school, got my MBA, worked a

(58:51):
lot of really cool projects, worked in tech, traveled again.
In twenty eighteen, we quit our job, sold literally everything
we owned except for two lamps because we couldn't sell
them on Facebook Marketplace, and moved into a Toyota Tacoma
and drove from Maine to the Arctic Ocean in the
Northwest Territories to Peru and a Toyota Tacoma over eighteen months.

(59:13):
Like I was, it was cool, man, it was it
was bucketless. But holy cow, did it bring up some
unresolved trauma around planning and security and your loved ones
being in harm's way in third world countries?

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (59:28):
I mean, I think like something I'd like to ask
you about is that you know, on paper, from what
you're describing on paper, you're doing great, like you're kicking ass,
You're you're exploring the world, you're getting an advanced degree,
you're working these tech jobs. But there's something else going
on beneath the surface that is kind of eating away
at you.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
It sounds like, one.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Hundred percent you could have had a better segue. Everything
on LinkedIn and Instagram was dialed. I was living a
life that I should have been fulfilled. I should have
been thrilled. I had an an incredibly loving wife who
told me and showed me that she loved me. I

(01:00:11):
had supportive friends and hobbies and everything. I should have
been happy. I should have been fulfilled. I should have
been happy, which then starts the cycle of why aren't
I have, How How damaged must I be? How broken
must I be? So this this inner monologue starts, and

(01:00:34):
I had been searching for purpose since I left the military.
I had been searching for healing. I had doing therapy
and self help. I mean, I walked six months on
the Appalachian Trail thinking I would discover who I am
and find myself and at the end I just had
some blisters and some clothes that smelled offul and and
and a ponytail, so like didn't find myself there. So

(01:00:59):
constantly doing things on paper that are supposed to be fulfilling,
things that you should be proud of, and just every
time I did something that I was supposed to be
proud of, I felt more and more hollow and more
and more empty. And then self medicated. That was you know,
that was that was where that was a portion of

(01:01:19):
where the alcoholism came in, of self medicating to not
feel that way.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
And when did that sort of like reach a breaking
point for you that you had to go and get
some additional help.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Breaking point Memorial Day weekend of twenty twenty four, So
you know, it was a it was a situation where
it was kind of like a frog and a boiling
pot of water. And you know, as you guys know,
and I'm sure many of your listeners know, alcohol is
a celebrated part of military culture. Sure, it's how we celebrate,

(01:01:55):
it's how we grieve, it's how we fill boredom, and
it's how we bond. You know, it's it's pretty much
every powerful emotion can be associated with alcohol. And I
already had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. So whether it
was familial or just me in general, I already had

(01:02:15):
an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. And then over the course
of about ten years, it started being used more to
instead of feel good, it started being used as a
tool to not feel bad. And then really the last
two years of my addiction really like the slope started
getting steeper, and then the last six months was a

(01:02:38):
true fallof And so Memorial Day weekend of twenty twenty four,
I came clean to my wife about everything, everything. And
there's there's a lot of lying, in deceit and betrayal
that goes with being married to an alcoholic, and I
came clean about about all of it, all of it

(01:02:59):
that I that I could, that I knew, And so
that was on a Sunday, and on Monday, I moved
into an airbnb as a result of my own actions,
You're right, So, like I was no longer welcome back
at the house, So my dog and I went to
an airbnb. I had had the pleasure of detoxing from
an alcoholism there. Scheduled my first call with Beyond on a Tuesday,

(01:03:22):
and I went to my first AA meeting on a Thursday.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Wow, talk about cold turkey, Jesus. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Yeah, So as far as you know, beginning the process
of your recovery, tell us about you know, AA beyond
anything else that you know helped you, you know, start
to take those steps forward.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah. So, you know, the the first thing that I
had to do was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
I had to want to change.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Like. It wasn't because my wife wanted me to change
it that point, you know, I I didn't. I didn't know,
but I had come to terms that I destroyed a
thirteen year marriage to the love of my life. My
actions were the cause of that. And you know, but
getting sober was for me. It wasn't just for her.

(01:04:17):
You know, I wanted to show up better, but I was.
It was finally, you know, it was time to change,
and I decided to change it, and it was it
could have gone the other way. I at that point
in my life, you know, I had daily suicidal ideations,
and I daily suicidal ideations, and I would have gladly

(01:04:40):
have drank myself to death like that was a that
was a happy path for me. The only thing that
kept me from doing that is I promised my wife Lindsay,
that I wouldn't kill myself, that that I would never
kill myself. And I promised her. And there were times
where I was damn close. There were times where I
was on my motorcycle, and this was a Memorial Day weekend,

(01:05:01):
which are typically harder for me. I was on the motorcycle,
my helmet was unbuckled, and I premeditated all this. When
I stopped to get gas. It was raining, and we
lived in Oregon and it was rainy Zorini Spring roads
were wet, and the plan was to lay the bike
down in a tight corner with the guardrail, pop my

(01:05:23):
helmet off as I slid, and then the rest would
be history and it would look like I forgot to
buckle my helmet. But I knew. I knew that Lindsay
would know, and I knew that she knew me well
enough to she would know. So I couldn't do it.
And I was riding helmet unbuckled into the corner, like
I identified the corner that I was going to lay

(01:05:44):
it down. So, going back to the recovery side of it,
I couldn't kill myself, even though you know, if the
relationship was over, the relationship was over. But I couldn't
kill myself and at least not yet. And I wanted
to give her answers. So I went to AA as

(01:06:07):
A as a triage. My brother, My brother, I joke,
he taught me how to be an alcoholic, and he
taught me how to get sober. So he's a couple
of years ahead of me and his sobriety. And you know,
I talked to him in the parking lot of my
first meeting and and I just went, I went all in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
And you know, detox sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Detox is not fun, and you know, owning those truths
aren't fun. But that first meeting that I went to,
there was an old timer with a lot of sobriety.
There were three of usk new guys there and there
was an old timer with a lot of sobriety, and
he got up for his share, and he looked at
us and he said, listen, no one comes here on
a winning streak, Like no one comes to AA on

(01:06:47):
a winning streak. You're all here as a result of
your own actions. And if you keep making the same choices,
you're not going to go anywhere else, and you're going
to constantly be showing up for your first meeting. And
you know, I really took that to heart, and honestly,
like that guy doesn't know that, he changed my life
forever because it took the mindset of that you keep

(01:07:09):
doing what you're doing, you're always going to be here.
So I was like, I can't keep doing what I
was doing. And then that brings in beyond. So a
good friend of mine went to this IBA gain clinic
in Mexico. This civilian guy went for a cocaine addiction,

(01:07:30):
met some veterans, I think some Navy seal guys there,
and was talking about all the benefits of iv A
gain for veterans. And he came home and he told
me you need to go, You need to go, and
I I said, oh, that sounds great. Not now, in reality,

(01:07:51):
I was terrified. I was terrified of what I was
going to find I didn't feel worthy. My problems aren't
that bad. I can get on top of this alcohol.
I knew I was alco I knew I was an
alcoholic for the two years before I got sober. I
can get on top of it myself. I can control this.
Quintin didn't. And then eventually, at rock bottom, I said, well,

(01:08:12):
screw it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
I've got nothing else to lose.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I've already lost my wife. I've got nothing else to lose.
And she told me she would wait to see who
came back from Mexico. And so thirty days after coming clean,
thirty days after getting sober, I got on airplane to
go to Mexico, and I knew almost nothing about Ivagain,

(01:08:37):
I knew almost nothing about psychedelic medicine. I didn't look
at any other clinics in the United States or in
the world other than this one that came referred to.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Me, and I just said, let's you know, let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
And you know, I'd like to say that I was
doing this for healing, that I was doing it to
grow and become a better person. In reality, I wanted
to come home with answers for my wife for why
things happened? Why did I destroy our marriage? What happened

(01:09:11):
to me? And then, you know, I knew that I
was incurable because I had been trying to solve this
with VA meds and VA therapies, and I was trying
to solve this for ten years, and I knew I
was uncurable. But at least if I could give her
the answer so she could have closure, I could then

(01:09:32):
finally go kill myself.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
And that was the plan.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
I was going down there to get her the answers
so I could go kill myself. We were okay, financially
should be fine. Everything would be okay, and finally I
would stop burdening being a burden on the people around me.
They loved me because their life would be better with
me gone.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Person. And what was the process?

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Says when you got down to this clinic, If you
can like walk us through what that you know what
that entails, because I know it's more than just you know,
taking you know, plant medicine and what that experience was like.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
For you when you got there. Yeah, so thank you. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
So as a part of that commitment to killing myself,
I knew I couldn't do it without with it. I
had to have a clear conscience, and that clear conscience
meant I had to do all of everything in front
of me at this clinic one so like that same
that same willpower and drive that you know recycled Ranger
school and painted the curb with a one inch yellow

(01:10:41):
you know, paintbrush was the same. That's the same person,
That same person was in there. So if I was
going to to kill myself with a clear conscience and
know that nothing worked on me, I had to lean
into the process one hundred percent. I didn't know that
this didn't work for me, and I couldn't just finger
drill it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
So on the flame.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Down I read, you know, I buttoned up my work
because I was still working as a tech executive. So
my my my co founders and my company gave me
the space to go do this and supported me, which
was incredibly important. I'm grateful for. You know. The only

(01:11:21):
It's funny, the only thing that didn't suffer was my work.
I let my family suffer, but I didn't let my
work suffer. What the hell is that about a lot
of alcoholics? Will we'll do that? And so I read
everything that they gave me. I went no contact with
everyone on the outside. Basically turned my phone off on

(01:11:42):
the when I arrived. And Beyond so Beyond iv A
GAIN is an iv A GAIN treatment clinic in Cancun, Mexico.
You typically go for seven to fourteen days, depending on
your treatment protocol. And Beyond is a is a mix
of Western clinical medicine and the Eastern, a more Eastern

(01:12:07):
holistic approach, and it's really like a fifty to fifty mix.
So I begain, will I again needs to be monitored,
so you do EKGs. There are effects on the heart
from my beginning, the effects that could happen from I
begin So you do EKGs.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
For your heart health.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
You'll do a lot of like blood urine tests or
urine drug tests and blood tests. You do all of
these clinical procedures. But at the same time, you're doing
daily meditations, and you're doing chakra work, and you're doing
sound healings, and you're doing you know, creative expressions, and
there's like every day there's a workshop just like a

(01:12:47):
group work workshop, and you're given a workbook. And it's
basically the way that I went down. It was a
it was a kind of a choose your own adventure
and lean into it. As hard as you want. Like,
if you want to talk to a coach, you can
talk to a coach. If you want to hide in
your room and play video games, you can hide in
your room and play video games. And and I now know,
you know it's for a reason, and you know I

(01:13:09):
self selected and I leaned in, and I went to
every therapeutic event. I went to every workshop. And you
know when I when I went to sit with this medicine.
The day that I that I went to sit with
this medicine, I was terrified. I was terrified. I wrote

(01:13:31):
a letter to my wife because I have I have
a totally normal heart, congenital heart defect that has nothing
to do with I have again and nothing to do
with how I beganin would affect a heart. But I
again ego. I was convinced that I was so special.
I was going to die. Uh So I wrote a letter,
left it on my pillow, and I walked in that
room ready to die, totally ready to die.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
But I was also going to give it my all.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
And so there's some some things with I begain. First
of all, I have again. It's a psychedelic, psychedelic experience.
It is not a recreation drug. So we think of
psychedelics and in our common colloquial am I going on

(01:14:13):
a tanta?

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
No, you're good? Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
So in our common like colloquial understanding of psychedelics, we
think of psilocybin or LSD, and typically in a recreational sense.
So it's the grateful dead, concert burning man, whatever, you know,
whatever recreational context you want to put to it, shiny colors, unicorns,
you know, woo, and it's all happy and good. It's

(01:14:38):
supposed to be all happy and good, right, So, like
that's the framing that ninety nine percent of the United
States has around the word psychedelic. So I will tell
you I've again is not a recreational experience. It is
a therapeutic experience. And it was hands down the most
profoundly positive experience in my life.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
But it wasn't recreation.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
Like you don't, no one is going to leave.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
I mean I can't say no one.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Ninety nine point nine percent of the people aren't gonna
leave an IV again journey and be like let's do
another one tomorrow, Like hell yeah, I'm hooked, Like let's
trade one addiction for another. It's just it's just not
how it works.

Speaker 3 (01:15:18):
I've remember someone saying that I've never tried it, but
that when you do eyebo GAIN, that like you have
this journey of like confronting every failure in life. And
it sounds like maybe not a very fun experience, which
maybe that's why you're saying no one would want to
do it again.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
So everyone's journey is different, and everyone's journey is different.
There are some themes so and and since standing up
this program, you know, I've had the enormous privilege to
be associated with fifty people that have gone through and
done an iv A GAIN journey as a veteran first
responder or a spouse at no cost to them as

(01:15:59):
a as a non off it and we've been able
to open these doors for fifty people now to get
access to healing. There are some common themes. First of all,
the experience. So some people will ask, like, how long
does it last for My answer to that is twelve
hours to twelve years. And that depends on you, all right,
So there's an acute clinical observation window that lasts for

(01:16:23):
twelve hours.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
In that twelve hours.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
Because that's the effect on the heart that needs to
be monitored by a clinical team. So you're in a
bed on the side of a gain journey and you
have you're hooked up to an EKG and a pulse
ox cimeter and you have an electrolyte IV drip and
it's again it's not what you would think of like
doing psilocybin or LSD, and so you're going through this experience.

(01:16:52):
The first four hours are typically maybe the more visual
some people have visuals. For me, it was it was
like watching scene of my life through like a four
K ultra HD drone footage where I wasn't having flashbacks,
but I was I was reliving impactful moments in my life.
And then typically the next eight to twenty four hours

(01:17:15):
are like a deep introspective meditative You're really malleable and
gaining understanding for things, and a lot of times like
we can process trauma through acceptance and understanding, So it's
a really helpful way if you want to dig into
those discomforts. So like for me, the first hour of
my journey, I had to come to terms with a

(01:17:39):
childhood sexual assault that I never told anyone about, and
I had to accept that and I accept the person
that perpetrated me right, and I had to accept emotional
abandonment and emotion unfilled emotional needs from like childhood and family,
and I had to accept those very painful learnings. But

(01:18:06):
the journey was done with love. So like this journey
and the story, you know, I expected it to be
twelve hours. If you guys have ever seen the like
Netflix show Stranger Things. I expected to be trapped into
the upside down for twelve hours and all of the demons,
all of the things I hated about myself, all like

(01:18:28):
it was.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Just gonna be. I had to pay a penance, I
had to get.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
Nailed to a cross to pay for my sins. Like
that's what I was taught. And what happened was I
was hugged and I was loved, and that little five
year old boy or nine year old boy was hugged
and loved and he was told that he's enough and
he was told that he's okay. And I was able
to love myself for the first time in my life.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
I was able to.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Process anxiety for the first time in my life, like
first time in my adult life. I spent my entire
life looking at how things were gonna hurt me made
me a great infantry officer. Like most dangerous course of action,
most likely course of action, contingencies for contingencies man like

(01:19:17):
made me a great infantry officer, always looking at where
things can go wrong. It makes me a great corporate
leader in the role that I have of contingency planning.
Doesn't make you a great partner, doesn't make you a
great scuff And so this anxiety of where is where
am I going to get hurt? I was able to
release that and it wasn't comfortable, like and that's really like,

(01:19:38):
it's not recreation, Like this shit is not comfortable. But
one of the things that we coach our participants is like,
you know, using a physical train, Like you go to
a heavy squat day, it's probably gonna hurt to go
to the bathsand the next day, or it's gonna hurt
to walk up and down a flight of stairs. But
you know that discomfort is gross. So why can't we

(01:19:59):
apply I like veterans and you know I can only
speak for veterans, but veterans first responders, Like there's a
mindset elite acids, same idea, like you can push your
mind and your body through any sort of discomfort like
I will walk until I pass out, but like emotional discomfort,

(01:20:24):
no way, give me a bottle of bourbon. Give me
a bottle of bourbon before I feel emotional discomfort. So
we try to coach. What we try to coach with
the eye begain is like, you will encounter some discomfort.
I hope you do, embrace it, go through it, because
like on the other side of that is where the
healing happens.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
I mean, it's unreal.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
And so tell us about coming home from the clinic
then and being reunited with your wife and what was like,
what was the next steps like in your life, because
I mean you don't you don't get cured overnight.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
Right, It's a it's a process, right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
No, So you know, I begain is not a magic pill,
and I've said it, I'll say that till I'm blue
in the face. It's a tool, and that tool is
incredibly transformative.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
But it's not a magic pill. And like you said,
you don't get cured. You don't get cured.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
What I realized is that by using this tool, I
could become the person I've always wanted to be.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
Not go back.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
It wasn't going to help me become the person I was.
I didn't want to be the person I was. I
wanted to be the person I wanted to be, and
I could use this tool to try to get there.
So on my last couple of days, I really started thinking.
So I was down there for ten days, my last
couple of days, after you stay with the medicine three times,
and after the last time, I really started feeling this

(01:21:47):
call to paying it forward because I knew that there were,
you know, soldiers of mine, and really I just wanted
to pay it forward to a couple of guys who
I knew had had some troubles from the same deployment
I went on. And so I sat down with the
CEO and co founder of Beyond, Tom Fiegel, and I said, Tom,

(01:22:08):
you know, if I were to put together, you know,
if I were to use some of my network and
venture capital and if I could raise some money, could
I bring a group of five guys down here and
I have it at a discount? And he like, straight face,
just stonefaced me. He's like no, Like all right, man,
Like you're running a business. I totally get it. And

(01:22:30):
then he was like, no, I want to treat two
hundred people a year for three but I don't know
how because I'm not a veteran and so you know
there and I wasn't the first person to think of
doing this, God though, I just fortunately have an operations
project management start up building background professionally and volunteered to

(01:22:56):
do it. So I volunteered to Tom and said, look,
can I can I help? Like, I'll work for free.
I just want to build this And my goal was
to treat to get one person access tiving. If we
could get one person access cybagain that couldn't have it.
It was called to it and couldn't have it. That
was that was enough. So I return home with this idea.

(01:23:21):
Now my wife and I were no contract, no contact,
and I texted her that I was, you know, coming
home when I was going to land and then I
was going to go to the house and I was
going to get the RV and I was going to
be gone like just so you know, like I'll be
home in town the sem She's like, well, i'll pick
you up at the airport.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
That's surprising.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
And she picks me up at the airport and five
minutes into their drive home, she's like, can you stop,
Like can you just can you just stop talking? I
thought I was toning it down, like I well, I
was toning it down. That was even very prompt, like
I was toning it down. But the person that left

(01:24:01):
was a alcoholic, anxiety filled, depressed, suicidal ideation asshole needed himself.
The most important part is I hated myself, and the
person that came home loved myself, loved who I am,
and like even told her, I was like, look, if

(01:24:22):
we don't if we don't end up together, that's totally fine.
Can we just be friends? Like you're my best friend?
Can we just be friends? Like it's okay if you
want to be with someone else, I just want to
be your friend. And she's like, who the hell is
this person? And uh, six weeks later she went to
Beyond for her own oh wow. And she comes home

(01:24:46):
six weeks later and she knew that I was working
on this idea with the tree veterans and first responders,
and before we even discussed anything that has to do
with our personal relationship, she's like, I'll sensor most of it.
She's like, screw you, guys. This isn't just for veterans,
this is for spouses too. We deal with your bullshit.
We deal with your trauma, We deal with hiding the gun,

(01:25:09):
We deal with thinking about are we going to come
home and find you dead in the bathtub? Are we
going to find you dead in the car. And we
deal with this shit day in day out when you're
having a bad time. And this isn't just this healing
is not reserved for veterans. The families deserve it too.
And that's amazing. Are we still together? Like are we
going to be in a relationship? He's like, yeah, we'll

(01:25:31):
figure that out. So we are. And I'll tell you
that it's been an incredible journey. And if it wasn't
for Lindsay, there wouldn't be a spouse's program, and she
really championed that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:43):
And you know a big.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Part of Beyond Service is offering equal and equitable care
for spouses and family members. And we've had five husband
and wife go through on their own time, like we
do cohort genders gender cohorts, so like a group of
guys goes down, group of women goes down, but we've
had five couples now go through this process and then

(01:26:07):
it's incredible, like the healing that is needed and the
weight that is carried by the family is unimaginable and
I don't know how to explain it because I've never
felt it. But you combine that with the complete lack
of resources, so like all of these programs are for

(01:26:29):
veterans and there's not enough, and how many of them
for spouses and family?

Speaker 6 (01:26:36):
Right, And you know that that goes back to here's
something we've talked about. Something that I recognized my relationships
was that what we did in the military. You know,
we didn't have a draft. We all volunteered, and you know,
and what we did it was kind of selfish. It
was it was what we wanted to do. It was

(01:26:56):
a calling that we answered. It was for a life
we envisioned, and we left our spouses behind, you know,
and we were out there going through the stuff but
living every day.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
You know, it was what we wanted to do.

Speaker 6 (01:27:09):
And meanwhile they're at home and worrying, you know, not
knowing what's happening to us, you know, not knowing what's
going on from day to day, dealing with our bullshit
when we come back. Like it's not just the post
service life that that they have to wrestle with, but
a lot of times it's it's it's that continuum.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
Yeah, no, it started.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
You know, it started for Lindsay when I went down revenge,
you know, or even before, you know, pressure from her
family to you know, should you not get married to
this guy because what happens if he doesn't come home?
Like it's you know, the families carry so much, and
I like, I don't I don't want to compare traumas
and I don't want to compare. But I think there's

(01:27:54):
a fair argument that could be made that the families
that the adult children who grew up with dad or
mom going to war and wondering if dad or Mom's
ever going to come home, and the spouses who had
to hold the fork down at home and then how
much worse can it get when we get home, they
might need access to this and to heal more than

(01:28:15):
the veterans. Like, there's an argument that could be made.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
Yeah, it's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:28:21):
And so the veteran component of Beyond Iba game that
you've helped set up is Beyond service. And you said
you've sent like fifty people down there so far.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
So we started our first group in January and we'll
have actually this week will be our fiftieth, so our
tenth cohort, and we go in groups of five. So
you know, by the time your listeners and viewers see this, well,
we'll have put fifty people through the program. Our goal
is to do as close to one hundred as we
can this year. You know, funding, funding is certainly a

(01:28:54):
part of that to go to beyond and to sit
with this treatment as a civilian as about a fifteen
thousand dollars investment, I would say, hands down the best
investment I've ever made, bar none. But it's not cheap,
and it's because of the clinical safety.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
It's because of all the components.

Speaker 1 (01:29:14):
That go outside of the capsules and the clinical observation.
It's the coaching, it's the mentoring. Like there's a whole
ecosystem that goes with being successful long term integration. So
like we we are the probably the most structured program,

(01:29:34):
and our participants go through So our participants go through
a program, and you know, I think there's two things
that people are often missing most when they get out
of the military, and it's teamwork and structure, and we
try to offer.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
Both of those.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
So instead of going on this big experience by yourself,
you go with a team, you know, it's it's a
lot easier to run out the door of the airplane
when there's someone behind you who's going to push you out.
And then also the structures, so you have a peer
facilitator who is not a We're not therapist, and we're

(01:30:11):
not social workers, and we're not psychologists.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
It's a peer.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
It's someone like me who has sat with this medicine
who can say, hey, this was my experience. It's normaliz
things a little bit. So it's pure guided, but they
also give you homework. You have writing assignments, you have
reading assignments, you have video assignments. Like it's not a
free ride, you know, just because it doesn't cost you
anything financially besides the plane ticket. You do four weeks

(01:30:36):
of pretty intensive preparation to get ready for this experience.
You do eight days on site, and you do four
weeks of guided integration afterwards. And that's the most robust
preparation and integration program that I know of in the
in the ibanking space.

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):
You already mentioned a handful of takeaways from the Eyebo
Gain experience. Are there any others that you want to
touch upon? Uh with this topic?

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
Yeah, I mean, it's look, it's it's everyone's you know,
there's there's a couple here. Everyone has a unique experience.

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
But it's effective.

Speaker 1 (01:31:12):
Okay, so we see, you know, let's look at statistics.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
We see, you.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
Know, what's the problem. Well, the age adjusted suicide rate
for veterans is over twice the national average for non
veteran adults. We see almost two times the divorce rate
in military and veteran couples as we do in the
US standard. Twenty twenty four Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment

(01:31:40):
says that substance abuse among veterans is twenty to thirty
percent higher than the ag justin national average. Like there
is a problem, and this is it can work. It
does work for those who want to do this. So
like there's there's a couple parts here is like I
begain is not for everyone, but the fact that one's

(01:32:01):
clinically proven to work. So look up doctor Nolan Williams.
The Stanford University research that shows eighty percent, eighty percent
eliminate I believe it's elimination of moderate or severe PTSD.
Six months after sitting with ibagain, eighty percent of their
participants did not qualify for PTSD. On the p OF

(01:32:21):
I think it's PSQ nine. We do neurotransmitter testing. It's anecdotal,
but it's still data, and so it's not like brainscan.
It's it's qualitative, not anctdotal. It's qualitative research. This shows
a seventy percent increase in dopamine and serotonin reuptake a
month after sitting with this medicine. And that is that's

(01:32:45):
now across an average of about forty people who have
gone through and have been a month out of their
their treatment. Like this really works, but it's not a
magic pill. And so as we you know, right now,
I estimated of the post nine to eleven veteran community
point zero zero four percent have had access to IV.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
It's never going to.

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Be one hundred, and it doesn't have to be one hundred,
but we need to democratize access to this medicine. We've
partnered with a company Born Primitive, which is an apparel company,
and we did a fundraiser and we're trying to change
the paradigm and say to companies commercial ventures for profit
commercial ventures that instead of be a part of the movement,

(01:33:30):
be a part of the change. We don't want to
rely on philanthropic donations. We want to take companies like
Born Primitive who say, hey, we want to end veteran
suicide and do a corporate partnership to sponsor people. And
there's a cohort that's going down as a result of
their partnership. It's incredibly beneficial work. And yet it doesn't,

(01:33:55):
you know, it doesn't, it doesn't just happen overnight, like
we have to build to this. But one hundred people
this year is an incredible start, and it's it's a
drop in the bucket, and we know what we're trying
to do is get to a point where we can
you know, me having this conversation whoever listens hopefully destigmatizes
it destigmatizes psychedelics in some way.

Speaker 2 (01:34:20):
You know, we don't.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
We didn't talk about my experience because like my visuals
were unique to me, my learnings were unique to me.
If it come to be on service, I'll tell you
all about it. But like it's more of the theme
of like this healing does work and and wanting to
get that out there. But also it's not a magic pill, right,
So when we look at things like the Texas Ibagain Commission,

(01:34:43):
who you know, thank god, has committed fifty million dollars
to a private public partnership to research and hopefully get
FDA approval for I have again as a therapy. That's amazing,
but it doesn't happen in a sterile va hospital bed.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
It's not a magic pill.

Speaker 1 (01:35:05):
So we need to change the paradigm of how and
that's what we're trying to do with Beyond Service. We're
trying to set the gold standard of how this care
is given. And oh, by the way, in five years,
when the FDA does their clinical study and in collaboration
with Texas, they'll probably put twenty people through. Well at
the same time, why can't we put two thousand people

(01:35:28):
through by then? And you know, if we we have
a goal and it's it's it's a north star, but
we're like, I want to get there. Is if twenty
two veterans a day are dying from suicide, why don't
we treat twenty two people a day? Why don't we
treat six hundred and sixty people a month? Why not?

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:35:48):
Did you I know that you before you didn't do
a lot of research and it you know, it was
your friend who had who had done the IBA gain.
But can you at all, can you speak at all
to like a perish into like, uh, people are doing
similar things with ayahuasca or psilocybin, you know, the like.
There are clinics popping up everywhere trying to help and

(01:36:10):
tackle this problem.

Speaker 1 (01:36:13):
So there's there's no wrong way. I mean they're they're
wrong way, that's sure. They all have their place. So
so I am you know, I'll never say, oh, psilocybin
doesn't work. Still seven absolutely works and ayahuasca can you know,
does too? And five at B O d M T.
One of the benefits of ibogaine which you know, we

(01:36:35):
talked to some of the spirituality part of it, but
also there's the there's like the neurochemical part of it.
So I begains the longest period of neuroplasticity of any
of the plant medicines. Okay, So when we look at
so IV again, when you take the capsule, it metabolizes
and is stored in the body as nor ivgain as

(01:36:57):
the metabolite. Nor I gain is stored in the liver
and it's slowly released over sixty to ninety days. If
you take care of yourself and you get some sleep
and you you know, you don't drink. That's a huge
part of storing nor I begain in the liver and
it's slowly released. Nor I'VE again increases the production of
BDNF and GDNF in the brain and it is that

(01:37:22):
is one of the key parts of neuroplasticity. So people
leave I'VE again with about a sixty to day, sixty
to ninety day window of being able to learn like
you were a seven year old. Again, like your brain
becomes a sponge and if you nurture that, so like
you can whether you want to learn German start a

(01:37:44):
meditative practice. What if we want to rework trauma responses
and go through like your brain can literally learn faster
and retain learning more. So that is a unique difference
of iv A GAIN and other plant medicines. And what
we try to do is we try to like we

(01:38:07):
try to do everything we can, so we do this
preparation work so people can maximize their spiritual healing, but
then and their trauma healing and like the emotional side
of it. But then our integration work is based on
the neuroplasticity, like how do we change and the thought
process And we've got this ninety day window and how

(01:38:28):
do we make the most of it. So like there
are you know, many of these medicines are complementary, and
people will be called to different medicines at a different time.
But you know, one of the things for me that
made IV again so special is in a that ninety
day window to really like our military experience has hard

(01:38:51):
coded so many things in our brain and then to
have a ninety day window to recode our brains is
I think incredibly important to the longevity because we're trying
to build something that doesn't require a re up. We're
trying to build something that doesn't require a prescription. Like
one of our coaches sat with this medicine three years ago.

(01:39:15):
He hasn't relapsed, He hasn't gone back and sat with
it again. Like he took those learnings, made changes to
his life and is now running with it and doesn't
have to have a sustainment.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
He is his sustainment. That's what we're trying to build.
And then how does it work with.

Speaker 6 (01:39:36):
You know, so many other things, Like we had doctor
Chris free on last week talking about operator syndrome, and
it's such a compilation, right, It's not just the post
amount of stress or the blast injuries, you know, the
sleep deprivation or sleep apnea.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
You know, all these different things that line up.

Speaker 6 (01:39:56):
So how do you ensure that, like in those posts
ninety days, that there aren't other factors that may not
be you know, the sort of psychological factors or the
spiritual factors, but that they don't you know, sort of
put somebody in this neuroplasticity or you know, this kind
of phase where they don't sort of compound and you know,

(01:40:21):
uh revert people.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
Absolutely? And they may, you know, and that's where where
they're you know, we're not we're not your parents, right,
and we're not therapists, right, So we can we can
show you a roadmap and then it's up to you
whether or not you want to you want to stick
to that roadmap. So those things do come up. Four
days after coming home, I was a dumpster fire and

(01:40:45):
I'm like, where did all these good things go? I'm
falling apart and in my coach and I want all
so we have access to one on one coaching, and
my coach is like, dude, you're doing exactly what you
were doing before you went down there. You have to
do something different and that like reset the learnings from
my first AA meeting, and I was like, wait, I

(01:41:06):
can't fall back into old habits if I want to change,
So that coaching is now brought into our into our
like the stickiness, the integration, the stickiness.

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
Do a lot of work with needs.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
So you know, unknown needs are unmet needs. And I
can tell you as a thirty six year old man
or thirty seven when I went down there, I didn't
know what my needs were, right, I thought I did.
I thought it was shelter, food, security, you know whatever.
But I didn't understand my needs of community and my
needs of nature and like for needs. So we try

(01:41:44):
to do a lot of work with our participants if
they want to and if they choose to do the
work to identify needs. So that like when and it's
all and that's a tool, right, So it's a tool
to understand yourself a little bit better. So inevitably, when
all of those things you mentioned that are in the
very complex realm of operator syndrome, within the first seven days,

(01:42:06):
when you're home and you're by yourself and those things
are going to come in, do you have the tools
and a community to fall back on to navigate it.
If yes, then we might be successful.

Speaker 3 (01:42:22):
Yeah, that's fantastic, interesting Clayton, Where can people go to
find beyond eyebo gain and beyond service People who want
to get involved or or want to get the treatment themselves,
where should they look?

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
Yeah, so beyond ivagain dot com is the website. Beyond
iv A, gain, B E O, n D. Beyond ivagain
dot com slash Beyond Service is our portion right now.
We are fully booked for twenty twenty six and we
are doing everything we can to grow the program to
double our capacity for next year. So there's a there's

(01:42:59):
just a component where you have to do a medical
screening within a certain amount of time. So admissions is
closed because we have a backlog that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
Extends three months.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
But if someone goes there, you can put your information in,
submit your information, It goes to a real person, It
goes to me and other people on our team. And
as soon as we can open admissions again and we're
in that window to do the clinical questionnaires and the
clinical screenings.

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
To get people seated with the medicine.

Speaker 1 (01:43:26):
We're going to reach out and we're going to do
another round of admissions. So look, we're growing this as
fast as we can. The need greatly outstrips the demand,
and the need greatly outstrips the resources. But we've got
a team of volunteers and the team of people that
are dedicating it sounds like hyperbole, we're dedicating our lives
to doing this to open one more seat.

Speaker 2 (01:43:49):
Like that's it's still the mission.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
If we can get one more person in a bed
that needs this treatment, we're going to do it right.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
Clayton, thank you for sharing your story with us and
informing people about some of these, you know, kind of
cutting edge treatments that are coming about.

Speaker 2 (01:44:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:05):
Yeah, there's you know one thing that I I really
I really appreciate it. And I know we went you
know this is this is long form. It was fun.
We didn't have to keep everything to dense to twenty
minutes the top talking point. And I appreciate you guys
letting me ramble. You know, there's there's one thing to
kind of leave you on.

Speaker 2 (01:44:22):
And you know, our generation.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
That we share as a generation at war and you know,
not not everyone went to war, but a lot of
us did and for twenty years, and this can't be
solved with just VA prescriptions and talk therapy. We've got
to do everything. We've got to do everything for our community.

(01:44:52):
We have an entire generation of men and women who
matured their brain, fully formed their frontal cortex. We were
talking about the eighteen to twenty two year olds that
were in firefights. You know, as men, we fully form
our brains between the ages of eighteen to twenty five.
Women mature a little sooner. We have an entire generation
that fully formed their executive function, their ability to understand

(01:45:14):
emotions at war or preparing to go to war, taking
life or fearing that their life.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
Would be taken.

Speaker 1 (01:45:23):
You think we have a problem of people that don't
know how to feel love, who don't know how to
feel forgiveness. It's an epidemic and this is a tool.
It's not for everyone, but it's a tool, and there's
an entire generation of men and women who can heal
and their kids don't have to take this trauma forward.

(01:45:46):
And that's what we're trying to do, is like, if
we can teach these men and women to love and
forgive and grow me included, Like I'm patient zero, Like
I am on the same journey as everyone else, and
I am certainly not a guru. I am just paid
zero and I was there a couple of months.

Speaker 2 (01:46:01):
Before the rest.

Speaker 1 (01:46:02):
And if we can continue this work, maybe kids won't
tell the story that our generation told of our Vietnam
alcoholic dads. I didn't have one of those, but certainly
there's a lot of those stories of oh my dad
didn't talk about it. He just got drunk and yelled
at my mom. We can stop that, and this is
a tool. So thank you guys for having me on

(01:46:24):
to raise awareness and to continue this mission and hopefully
share this with a few folks who wouldn't have considered
it because it's too fringe, it's too hippie. Look, I'm
a I'm a tech executive, uh with a with a
clean haircut. Like the ship's for everyone. It's not just
it's not just hippi stock.

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
Yeah, thanks Clayton. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,
we we.

Speaker 6 (01:46:48):
Appreciate you coming on and sharing your story, your journey
and and you know in this kind of information.

Speaker 3 (01:46:55):
And we'll see all of you guys later in the week.
So thank you again, Clayton, and we'll see you then. Hey, guys,
it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for
a moment about how you can support the show. If
you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to
get a little bit more involved and help us continue
to do this, you can check out our Patreon It
is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, and for five

(01:47:19):
dollars a month, you can get access to all of
these episodes of The Teamhouse ad free. The same goes
with our affiliated podcast eyes On with Andy Milburn, Jason
Lyons mcmulroy that one you will also get all of
those episodes add free. And you support the channel and
the show, and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members

(01:47:40):
are literally what has helped this company, this small business survive,
especially during our early years, and you are what continues
to help this thing going even as we navigate the
turbulent world of YouTube advertising.

Speaker 2 (01:47:56):
So we really appreciate all of you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:47:59):
There's going to be a link down the description to
that Patreon page, and there is also going to be
a link to our new merch shop, so if you
guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise,
we got stickers and we also have patches, and I
should mention if you sign up for Patreon at ten
dollars a month, we will mail you this patch as well.

Speaker 2 (01:48:19):
So we really appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:48:22):
But they're also for sale on the merch Shop and
additionally they got t shirts up there, water bottles, a
tote bag, coffee mugs, all that good stuff, so please
go and check them out and support the show.

Speaker 2 (01:48:35):
We really appreciate it, guys. Thank you,

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Recon Platoon Leader in Afghanistan | Clay Smith | Ep. 359

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Recon Platoon Leader in Afghanistan | Clay Smith | Ep. 359