August 7, 2024 • 54 mins
TripWire is honored to have Aaron Hale as our guest today. Aaron is a US Army EOD Combat Veteran, Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur, Host of Point of Impact Podcast and more.
Join us for another amazing interview with energized stories of active service, combat, healing, and his path forward.
https://linktr.ee/aaronhalepointofimpact
Join us for another amazing interview with energized stories of active service, combat, healing, and his path forward.
https://linktr.ee/aaronhalepointofimpact
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Tripwire.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We appreciate you coming back every Wednesday at four pm
Eastern time. It is Wednesday, August seventh, and we are honored,
completely honored the KGB R team and kg R A
team and myself honored to have Aaron Hale with us today. Erin,
thank you very much for joining us us on the
podcast for this interview, uh and to share some stories
(01:03):
with our with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So uh.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Let's so, I like to talk about what led people
that I interviewed, because this.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Isn't just EOD eccentric.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
And I know you and I have the the Army
EO D background, but I want to talk about what
led you to join the military? Where are you living
and talk about time in the military, and then go
from there.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, uh, it's funny. You know, both of my grandfathers
were in the military. My dad was not, uh, but
I wasn't really a I guess a military family, patriotic
middle upper midwestern suburbs of Akron, Ohio, and I was
(01:55):
living they I don't know, Rockwelly and American dream, was
going to a good public high school, had great friends
and great experience, loved life, had zero ambition. I was
just comfortable and uh and you could kind of you
(02:16):
could probably call me an all American slacker. Uh. I
I loved exactly what I was. I was living in
the now and had no plans. It was like one
of those things where I knew I was dustined for
greatness and had no plan to get there. So, uh,
you call it, call it entitled. I didn't. It wasn't
(02:37):
like a GIMMI gimme thing. It was just like, I'm
happy and I'm enjoying live. I was a b C student.
I had enough uh natural ability and talent and you know,
how to get by the uh but without having to
uh try very hard anything. And of course I on
(03:05):
BS got me the rest of the way. But that
was until I went to college. And I went to
Bolling Green State University, and immediately everybody who knew how
to work hard quickly passed me by. I just I
went for Animal House because that was sounded cool, and
(03:25):
I found I wanted to I wanted a party. Right.
It was really good. I was really social. I loved it,
and I gained my freshman fifty and I got terrible,
terrible grands. You know that happens when you forget where
your classes are. And of course that's when the university
(03:50):
and I came to a mutual understanding that I wasn't
ready for college. So, uh, three semesters and no progress later,
I found myself out of the fraternity house and out
of the out of the school, and I needed something
to do, all right. It was it was a real
(04:13):
kick in the pants.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, I just.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I didn't want to
go back to buy my hometown, and it was it
was a small town. People would know, people already knew.
But when I if I'd come home with my yell
tail between my legs and you know, moved back into
the Paris house, I don't know what it would have been.
(04:42):
It was already embarrassing. It had just been magnified. So
I actually moved out to California, and that's where my
folks were divorced. My mom was in Ohio, my my
dad was in California. I moved out with him just
to change a scene and get do some work and
(05:02):
just you know, get myself back on my feet. RH
So for about six months I was I was working hard,
I had two jobs. I was working at a hoby
surf and sport during the day, and I was working
at a restaurant cooking at night. And I was walking everywhere.
(05:22):
I was eating healthy and that it is California and
you can only holy have so much jack in the box,
you know, uh right, But in six months, I'd lost
all of that freshman fifty but no money to show
(05:43):
for it.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
All for you.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Uh, That's when I decided, Okay, I think I'm back
to zero. What do I do next? And I wanted to.
I want to, you know, find an occupation. I wanted
to do. I would to find some purpose. I want
to get those internal core values, right, you have the
(06:06):
self worth, the hard work, work, ethic, all those kind
of things. So they were even really considered the military,
except I wanted to go back to college, and you know,
the g I Bill was there, and it would also
give me those internal personal growth building values and skills, right,
(06:30):
So I started looking at you started considering it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So when and let me before we move forward, now
that we have the a little bit of the backstory
of what led you to the recruiter, uh, and you start,
you know, going down that path, uh, seek seeking for
that those core values that you were referring to, uh
in finding them in the army obviously, you know that
(06:59):
starting that path going.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Into the military.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I mean you're a you're a former EO D Army
EO D technician combat veteran. Uh, you're a keynote speaker now,
and we'll get into that part of it later. I'd
love to hear more about this like endurance run it
runner that you identify yourself as or that you still do.
(07:21):
I want to dive into that as well. Uh, but
you're an entrepreneur. These are I'm saying these things for
the audience so that way they understand where we're going
with all of this conversation. Uh, to to kind of
give your back your backstory a little bit as well,
So please continue to do you join the army?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I take it out of California then? And what year
was that?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well? You know what's funny, I what I I wouldn't
call myself a pothead.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Let's go to speak, uh.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
In high school and college. But I might have been
a digit or two off when they asked how many times?
Right at MEPs? Right? But I don't know. It's it's
hard to count but I figured on my way out
(08:16):
to California, I would uh a road trip. So I
packed my little Shibby S ten full of all my
most important worldly belongings, which was some underwear and I
don't know uh, and I drove all the way from
Cleveland to New Orleans and then all the way across
(08:36):
the United States along the ten, which is the dumbest idea,
but all the way to California, stopping at every one
of my fraternity chapters along the way, which was pretty cool.
I packed up a whole box of my bowling green
(08:58):
UH chapter T shirts and trade them along the way.
It was kind of It was fun, had a place
of crash and friendly people, brothers so smut. And then
I get to ASU decided to hang a sharp left
south across the border and then drive across northern Mexico
(09:21):
just for the fun of it, and then come back
up through Tijuana. Yeah, of course I was. I had
a little bit of weed on that whole drive, and
it was so funny. I might have had two or
three little spliffs left coming back across the border, and
(09:45):
I hadn't even bought it in Mexico, but the border
patrol caught me. They had been one and I had
to pay. It was five hundred dollars. Uh. Fine, We
went on my permanent record and that was that was
my last hurrah before I started to turn my life around.
(10:09):
But you know, I've been cooking for my entire entire
got a working life since it's up to them, and
I wanted to I wanted the Uh. When I joined
the Maiden the military, I wanted to do so.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I wanted.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I want to get the GIL so I could go
to culinary school, become a chef, gotcha. But uh, what
job would I do in the military. And I really
didn't want to be, you know, the ground pounder. I
wasn't interested in combat arms just yet. But I was
(10:53):
looking around. I had that in my mind completely rolled
out half of the branches, the Army and the Marines
because I didn't realize all the different jobs that they were.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So I looked at the Air Force in the Navy
and just I don't know why the Air Force just
had I don't know the new I think it was
growing up with that. Let the adventure begain type of thing,
the world of the adventure that wanted to be. I
love travel too, so the Navy just kind of it clicked.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Right, So yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I was just gonna say, so, did you eventually went
and saw a recruiter, but I'm assuming that you tried
to go with the Navy first.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah. I walked into the Navy recruiting office and it
was going back to the original, the previous part of
the story.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
The guy asked if I ever smoked smoked weed, and
I said, uh, yes, how long ago? Uh look at
my watch and said, uh, we might want to wait
on your analysis or in back. This was nineteen ninety nine.
(12:21):
It wasn't they don't they didn't keep them keep your
you know, the take home your analysis tests in the
recruiter office at that time. Yet. So he drove me
around to like six different pharmacies, yeah, inconvenience stores, trying
to find one of these your analysis tests. We went
(12:41):
back to the recruiter office. I peed on it, and
surprisingly enough, it came back negative. So within a couple
of days I was heading off the MEPs. And it
was funny too. I took the ASPAB and I'd scored
well enough if they were trying to get me to
(13:04):
go all sorts of different jobs like nuke tech on
the submarine. No, I saw K nineteen. No, thanks, yeah,
And I heard you guys smell funny. But uh when
I I mean, of course I was like to joke.
(13:29):
But uh, I just told him, like I have a plan.
It wasn't a very well thought out plan, but it
was a plan, sure, And I want to I want
to be a cook in the Navy because I want
to get some O j T. Why not if I'm
going to go I'm going to do four there's a
(13:50):
maximum and go to culinary school, right. So uh, all
along the way it was so funny, uh, because I
go to the recruited I go to the basic training
in Great Lakes and they asked me they has the
whole you know division, who here has any college experience?
(14:15):
Two guys raise their hand and it came down to math,
how long? What did you do? And the other guy
had like some some community college. I went to four
year university. And you're the r PAC, the recruit chief
Petty officer. What what what is that you're in charge
(14:36):
of these eighty people?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
What?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And then they say what what's what's? Then? E C
or M O S. Right, you're training to be cook
what the same same same level of surprise I just
had in my face. They don't they don't call him
drills r D c's uh that guy had on his face.
Wait a second, we just put a book in charge
(15:01):
of these eighty guys.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Great, so go ahead, I'm sorry, please continue.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
No, that's that's that's kind of how everything in the
Navy went, right. I would get put in a position
of leadership before I felt ready, right, and I think that's, uh,
that's kind of the nature of the military now. And
it was exactly what I needed. I needed to be challenged,
(15:31):
and I grew really fast. I grew into that art
park position. Uh, and to pride in essentially, you know,
being able to march this square around. And and then
it was I got top of my class at the
A school, the cooking school, which isn't isn't isn't a
(15:56):
huge Uh. It's not like going to eat at E school.
It's Navy cooking school, which basically teaching how to not
kill people.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Ship. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
And I thought, well, I could do this. I'm not
haven't killed anybody with food yet, right, So and then
I got the.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
First I got my first first pick the way they
do Navy schools is when you do orders, they get
like a stack the twenty five students, you get a
stack of twenty five orders and top of the class
gets your pick of twenty five, where the last guy
gets handed a set of orders. Right, so I got
(16:39):
my pick of twenty five.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And there was sure duty, no, no, no, it was
flag duty in Italy, cooking for an admiral. Oh my,
that's awesome, I'm doing that. I'm going to Italy. I
want to cook for an admiral. And everybody else got
all the other twenty four orders. And then like two
days later, the senior chief at the school goes, oh, hey,
manpower comes back and they got to change the uh
(17:03):
uh rank on that billet. So we've got to take
that away from you. It's going to go into uh
e five. No wait wait, wait, waits you there are
no more orders. Where am I going? And it was
literally like he was pulling out drawers in his desk
trying to find something. What can we give you here?
(17:26):
And uh he says, how about a mine sweeper in
Corpus Christie. That doesn't At the time, that didn't really
sound like a real like a you know, uh something
for the guy who got on top of his class.
Maybe that was a little bit of that entitlement type
of thing coming back. Okay, what else you got? He goes, well,
(17:46):
we got shot duty in Italy. I like, yes, I
had my mind set on Italy. I'll take that shot duty,
not knowing that mine mine sweepers would have been pretty
cool in Texas. That's the real small ships, small crews.
You need to cook, cook real food. But uh, I
(18:06):
went to Italy and I got to get off the
plane and I got met by one of the you
know the division, you know, my sponsor. I said, what
am I going to be cooking? Like, no, no, no, no,
you don't. You don't cook on shore. And this is
a short duty. What do we do? And they didn't
tell me at cooking school that they kind of look
(18:27):
at cooks in the military in the Navy like hotel
restaurant management. And so the civilians cook on shore and
the cooks the military cooks act to do to cooks.
They run the barracks. Right, So for two years I
(18:47):
got to run the Navy lodge and the you know barracks,
the e Q, and I was again I was put
in the odd role I wasn't really comfortable with, but
I was. I was put in the maintenance department. I
became the locksmith guy, learned everything about it, and then
(19:09):
I was a go to guy, and then I ranked up.
That kind of stuff I got and it just got promoted.
And two years later that Admirals Billett came back up
and it was only forty five minutes PCs away and
I got to go cook for a three star for
a couple of years, and that was pretty cool. I
(19:32):
love that went all around the Mediterranean. It was amazing
ith it was. It was The four years in Italy
were an incredible experience as a personal growth, getting to
see the countries, all all these current countries that brought
(19:52):
border the Mediterranean, going to MWR, trips to Munich for
October Fest, pair for Valentine's Day, that kind of stuff.
It was amazing for a young young guy in his twenties.
And except when we went out to sea and all
(20:14):
of a sudden, I found myself in two were I
joined in a time of peace and all of a sudden
there's two wars going on right, and everybody's job is important.
Everybody's got a role to play. I was doing important work,
keeping the commander of the sixth Fleet and his top
(20:34):
brass fed right, cooking the food for all these receptions,
and doing my diplomatic part for relations all around you know,
the six Fleet. But I didn't feel like my skills,
my talents, my abilities were being put to the best use.
Because what happened during these first few years, I accidentally,
(20:58):
you know, I picked up those those internal goals, the
personal goals, the selfish, your the those those values that
I accidentally picked up. The external values like teamwork and
pride in being a part of something bigger than yourself
and all that kind of stuff, and having a purpose
(21:21):
that's bigger than yourself is uh, it's something that I
couldn't I couldn't ignore. And as much as I enjoyed
my job as the Admiral Chef and being stationed in Italy,
I was watching both of these wars on on TV
(21:42):
on board the ship, right. So I decided when my
time in Italy was up, I was. I got stationed
in Newport, Rhode Island, and I volunteered from there and
put me back in the barracks too. So I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
I'm doing something different, and I put in a request
(22:04):
to deploy to Afghanistan, and they have these PRTs Provincial
Reconstruction Teams, and they were taking it basically army roles
that were being backfilled with Air Force and Navy individual augmentees.
So these piecemeal detachments of from the other two services
(22:30):
to fill in for these civil affairs bases following south.
So of course I'm still cooking, but I went from
cooking for the Admiral and like thirty five of US
top brass to three hundred four hundred Ice aff troops.
(22:52):
I got you, but it was fun. I went out
to PRT for Wrang, which is way out in the
western southwest desert of Afghanistan. That's where the Taliban. I like, yeah,
you can have a yeah. Yeah, I don't want to yeah,
but uh uh. Coincidentally, there were a couple of platoons
(23:16):
of Italian Special Forces there, so I got to practice
the lingo I learned in Naples, and I got the
trade mrs for Lavazza and uh, their version of m
RI sometimes come with these little cordials, the little little
little bottles of booze.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Anyways, it was a different, different thing. I was closer
to quote unquote action. I felt like I was a
little bit more of service. But during this deployment is
when I met I really found out what EO D
was about, and I met some EOD texts and it
(23:58):
was it was funny because they were they dumped out
their gerb and they were doing uh pms uh maintenance
on their equipment. So they had all these you know,
the robots and the bomb soudes and all the tools
scattered out behind their truck. It was like a cool
guy garage sale. And uh, I just struck up a
(24:19):
conversation with these guys and learned all about the job,
and man, that was that was it. It was, you know,
that's it clicked. You know that that tight knit brotherhood,
the technical and physical aspect of the job, the fact
that their first responders on the battlefield. I'm like, boom,
that's what I need to do. So I put in
(24:41):
my request for the Navy to go from cook to
eat and it was promptly denied. I guess they liked
my my cooking too much.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
I guess yes.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But just like you had, you know, uh, brother Josh
mills On here not long ago, he had a similar thing.
It's you know, it's manpower. It's the fact that they've
got the military of the big, big Navy, big Army.
They've got a planned for you, and they've spent the
(25:16):
money training you. They don't want to spend more money
retraining or recertifying you to that kind of stuff. But
number of other things that play. Of course, the manpower.
My job rank and job MOS was undermanned, and then
(25:36):
the next rank up was overmanned. So I wasn't going anywhere,
especially not to another job. So when the deployment was over,
my contract was actually coming to an end. But I'd
already come close about eight years now, and I'd made
that decision that I wasn't going to culinary school, and
(25:57):
I wasn't. I fell in loved with the uniform in service,
and and I was I was. I was a service
member now, but and I absolutely loved. I got salt
in the veins. I love being at sea. I loved
being a sailor. But I the purpose that was was
calling me. So I let my contract expire and left
(26:22):
the Navy and went over to the Army recruiter and
I handed on my my you know, my service record,
and I said Hey, I want to go EO D.
The guy looked at it, and of course this is
two thousand and seven eight ish around there. Of course
the Army is like, EO D. Yeah, we'll take you.
(26:44):
We need we need more. Joe's uh doing doing EOD
work right. So you know I did this abridged version
of Basic for guys a little longer on the tooth.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Prior service, I went through something similar going into the
Army myself.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yes, yeah, uh it was.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
It was.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
It was this pilot program called WIRE or Transition course
I think it was called. And uh, basically it's it's
all of the technical and physical conditioning of as much
of a physical conditioning, but uh, you know, the knowledge
based part of basic training with the without the indoctrination.
(27:32):
So I mean you try to drill start and trying
to tell them, you know, as the staff sergeant or
you know, started for class to drop and give you
twenty like no, I don't rank you, dude, you know
you you drop. Uh but uh, it was like a
gentleman's version of Basic. And we got through that and
went to school or I went to you know, Phase
(27:53):
one at Redstone and then to Egglin and yeah, became
an e D technician, So it felt like a salty
dog in a different uniform. But the truth was, I
the way I look at it today is that I'm
doing to EOD and it didn't matter what uniform I
(28:17):
was wearing. There are there are definitely things I love
about being being a soldier and being in the army.
But I'm telling the d.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
The so you graduated school was now we were talking
about Josh prior to to going you know, uh live
here on on set and Josh Mills was as you
mentioned in an episode I had last last week or
the week before, but or two weeks ago. It was
(28:48):
two weeks ago. But did you go to drum? Was
at your first judy station after Egglin?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, so Josh, same time as Josh, we graduated, just
made a class or two apart. We went to the
same at the time, uh seven twenty fifth of a
drum got like I don't know, five or six sergeants,
(29:14):
all all from the schoolhouse at the same time, right,
And it was awesome because uh, you know, it was
like filling out a filling out, you know that that
rink level with a bunch of guys that all went
to school together. It was built in camaraderie and yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It's tight, that's awesome. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So you're at drum and then did which how many
deployments did you do? And which deployment was? Uh, did
you get injured?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
No?
Speaker 3 (29:53):
No, no no. So it was my second deployment, my
first as a soldier in root Tech, and it was
to Iraq and I was the fourth man, a team
sergeant on a three man team, which which is like
(30:13):
you know, the fifth wheel on a third wheel on
a date, you know. Uh, And yeah, Serge Buris was
my team later, and of course I was on the
same track as Josh where I had enough time in
service that they were pushing me like they were not undouly,
(30:34):
but they there was definitely a sense of urgency for
me to earn my team leader certification, right, And I
didn't have the benefit of coming up through EOD or
even army, so I was learning army stuff at the
same time I was learning EO D specific stuff. And
(30:56):
it's like drinking through drinking from a fire hose.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Certain Burroughs, Jeremy Burris was a great teacher, had a
great team, but it was not busy, we weren't really
very active. So first Sergeant Johnny Strickland awesome duvid h.
He saw something I don't know, but there was there
(31:25):
was opportunity for me to go over to uh Gido
and to the Sexy cell and do the triage thing.
So myself and one other of the sergeants from seven
twenty fifth uh uh Izzy Nuannas who is now on
the wall, yeah he he and I spent a few
(31:50):
months over there at Sexy and I learned a ton
there about evidence collection and uh you know, where the
evidence goes, how to how to handle it, and how
to do the storyboards and all really important stuff for
I ed collection. And at the same time I was
(32:13):
studying UXOS, I was getting into the pubs doing a
lot of that, a lot of the stuff that probably
wouldn't be doing if I were maybe out on a
fob getting getting bored. I was. I was. I was
among these officers and you know, alphabet soup kind of
(32:33):
people when I was talking to I was. I was
a different national lot. So I was learning a lot,
and I was extremely helpful on my third deployment when
I was in fact a team leader, and that was
to Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
So they just for our interview are.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
For people listening in sexy is a combined exploitation So
that's what SEXY stands for because not everybody that listens
to z O D. I wanted to throw that out there,
and we have a lot of listeners that aren't actually
even military. So combine an exploitation cell and then the
sexy cell for their benefit. You were doing basically forensics
(33:18):
collection and reverse engineering to help the teams out there
on the battlefield in what they were dealing.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
With as far as I ed is that they were
encountering and.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Alphabet soup would be your three letter agencies, agents from
the FBI atf all sorts of places. So just to
throw that out there for our listeners, Aaron appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Yeah, Well, I tell people when talking about this aspect
of the job is that we're also like the CSI
on the battlefield. Well, if there's explosive out that X
or mostly the IED's most side bombs, that kind of stuff,
we want to get quote unquote left of the bank
(34:00):
want to get ahead of these people, So we want
to find the bomb in placers, the bomb makers, the
bomb finance errors and everything between so we do that
CSI thing and we're the ones who collect it and
then we sexy is where it gets sent, and then
triage is where it separates the evidence to biometric to
(34:21):
chemical analysis, to electronic analysis and so on, and then
it goes on to all of those agencies like you mentioned.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, so that was first, Uh, that was your first deployment.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
You helped out a SEXY in Iraq? Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (34:35):
That's right. That was my my first deployment as an
EOD technician. I was a sergeant E five and uh
about that time, as I I was newly merit and
I uh my wife who was pregnant before I deployed.
(35:02):
But while on deployment, we got news that she had
a miscarriage, and instead of just going home on emergency leave,
the command figured that I basically I didn't have much
(35:24):
of a job. I wouldn't really be missed, so to speak,
and they allowed me to redeploy back home. So I
only spent a fraction of a year long deployment Iraq,
actually in Iraq, and then I came back to uh,
you know, seven fifty fourth, a legacy company, and there,
(35:50):
of course, uh not really the expected round was lost
and I got to start experiencing, start learning state side
response and for a year in the Legacy company, I
(36:11):
was immediately put into a team leader role as basically
the only sergeant. There was one sergeant first class, first
sergeant and the CEO, and that was it above me.
And then there was a handful of uh privates and
(36:32):
uh uh I think I don't know, maybe maybe one
or two ephors, but it was about it and we
were very small. We got to I got to do
give a lot of training and then it was it
(36:53):
was it was constantly learning, constantly becoming as uh the
best tech I possibly could be in a short amount
of time as I possibly could. And I did earn
my earn, you know, new qualified as a team leader,
earned that certification NIC and not. It couldn't have been
(37:15):
soon enough because our sister company, seven sixtieth was on
the road to war ready to deploy, and within a
year of coming back from Iraq, I transferred over to
seven sixtieth and took a team there and deployed back
to Afghanistan, this time as a team leader.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And where.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
So second time to Afghanistan, but first time to Afghanistan
as an EUD team leader. Where were you out of
it in Afghanistan at that time?
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I was just west of Kandahar in the Zerai district
a little, a little. We were supporting for four Cave
out of Riley and Uh, I think it was called
Bob Wilson at the time. Yeah, and uh I was
in a little village called Sea Choi, which I asked
(38:15):
an interpreter, Uh, what Choi meant and goes I think
it means cemetery. Oh wow. And that area and that
area was kind of like tombstone.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
It was very busy, very busy, lots of uh, lots
of booms and shots going off all the time. So
and and we we were we were busy.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
UH.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
For the eight months I got to spend there. UH
did a lot of work. We were across that at
that ale, a lot of uh, A lot of chopper insertions,
multi day missions on on foot dismounted all around the area.
(39:04):
I walked that whole area multiple times, and we again
putting a lot of that knowledge to work. Even though
almost everything we worked on was the same, The same
problem was.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
You know, a pressure plate with an oil jug full
of ATM homemade explosive with a nine bolt battery and
some lamp cord almost every time, but.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
They were slowly We're learning. There were a few texts
that got UH injured by by by dummies, by red herrings.
And then eight months into it, just December eighth, twenty eleven,
(40:02):
I had just gotten back to the battlefield from my
two weeks of ur and arm. Okay, I took a
late I took one of the I was one of
the latest ones to go on leave and let everybody
else go. Because in November, my firstborn was about to
(40:25):
turn one, so I got to see him birthday. I
gotta get and it was also this was November twenty first,
we had Thanksgiving on the twenty seventh, so I sell
the whole family together for Thanksgiving. I call it like
the best last page in the photo album. I got you,
(40:49):
I got you, and get back from on arm, take
take charge of the team again, get right back to work.
And just we were literally UH grabbing a supply a
convoy from Bob Wilson out to our command out post
(41:10):
and see a Troy. I was just getting back and
they called out a right on Highway one, They've got
I got something in the road. The a n p
after National Police, UH found an item right on the
side of the road. All right, no time like the president,
Let's get to work. So you know, it tossed out
(41:33):
the robot. Uh you know, after toss the luggage off,
the robot, tossed the robot out of the truck and yeah,
pressure plate and all the same stuff right back to
the same thing, except it's uh, you know, the robot
can't get that jug out of the uh hard pack
(41:55):
and separated the components. But you know that's sexy, it's
experience of mine. I wanted to get evidence, sure, so
I did. There was no other hazard. We were still
in the lights, you know, the of Bob Wilson, and
it was it was it was dark. It was I
eight nine o'clock at night, but I was still, you know,
within the flood lights of Bob Wilson. So I jump
(42:20):
out and I've got my evidence kit and metal detector
in hand, and I started walking making my approach, and
about twenty or thirty meters from the original I d
there was a secondary device. Before I knew it, I
was getting punted into the air. The lights had gone out,
and I land on my knees and elbows and the
(42:41):
first thing I thought it was h that's what it
feels like.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Uh, I got yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
I thought I figured that my helmet had gotten pushed
over my face. That's why it was so dark. It
was so uh you know, the lights had gone. I
couldn't see. And the first thing I did, though, was
I wiggled the fingers and toes and you know, do
the functions check And everything seemed to me more or
(43:14):
less where I left it. And I reached up to
grab my helmet just to find that the whole thing
was gone. And that's what That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
No, this is bad.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
The first Sergeant's got to kill me for losing that thing.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's the first. Yeah, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But of course, of course I realized that I'd actually
taken some serious damage. I made my helmet and my
EyePro gone, and and find out that both of my
eyes were also gone. Right, it's a It also cracked
my skull. I was leaking spinal fluid right out of
my uh sinuses, out my nose.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
I mean between the stink of the the explosive and
all the grass and dirt in my face and blood,
I didn't I wasn't quite sure if I was crunching
on sand or my own teeth. So uh, I I
just started started thinking. Of course, the training kicks in
(44:15):
and like, okay, is there going to be an attack
and they're gonna start taking pot shots. Whereas you know,
the team when a team leader goes down, uh, the
team is supposed to clear a path in for the medics.
But I had I was virtually untouched from my neck down,
and I to this day, I can't quite explain that.
But you know, from a buried I d that skipped
(44:37):
the rest of my body and just hit me in
the head. And for anybody that knows me, that was
the perfect place. I was the exact perfect place to
hit me.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
But but I could I could still walk, So so
I got up and I didn't want anybody to come
into this danger zone. It don't lucid, I was. I
was conscious, and I started I started making my way
towards the back to the truck, except I couldn't see,
so I had no idea where I was going. And
(45:09):
so I'm just walking around like a zombie with my
hands in front of me, trying to get out of
the danger zone. But you know, my team, you know,
grabbed me, draped me back to the truck, medics worked
on me. If you Wilson to Candahar not that far
(45:30):
and so meta fact, chapter was touching down in fourteen minutes,
and I was. I was back at Candahar Uh for
about twenty four hours, then onto Land School, and within
forty eight hours I was at Walter Reed and trying
to trying to figure out what the hell was going
(45:51):
to happen with the rest of my life?
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Right what so, how long for our viewers?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
How long was the recovery before you were released from
Walter Reed and the Army? I guess they released you.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
At that point they were released. No, I'm here, I'm here.
Can you hear me? Oh? Okay, okay, test test.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Here there?
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Oh?
We lost you? Yeah? No, I'm still here, but you
can't hear me. I'm still here, but you can't hear me.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
So I'm sorry. Yeah, I got you. I can hear you. Yeah, okay,
can you hear me?
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Or about that?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
It's all right. I understand technology is fickle at times.
No big deal.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Blind deaf guys and technology.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
So what I was saying before you lost me? Was
how long were you at Walter Reed?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
And then what?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Uh we're and and I we're kind of getting pressed
for time, but you were at Walter Reed?
Speaker 1 (47:34):
When did we When did you get out of the army?
Speaker 2 (47:37):
And you know, we've been scrolling your your link tree
the whole time that we've been on on the on
the call tonight, we're going to have to do a
part two, Aaron. There's just so much to talk about
because I love I love your story, not what happened
to you, but I love where you've gone with your
story since it's happened to you, so real quick, how long.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Were you Walter Read? And then when did you get
off active duty? When did they release you?
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Well? This was November twenty eleven December twenty eleven, And
it was so funny because my injuries were very superficial,
except for of course the crack skull, So I wasn't
really at Walter Read for very long, okay, but there
was so much going on. You know, it's right of
(48:26):
the Beltway and all these people coming going want to
shake my hand, thank you the service, uh, and I
just I just wanted.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
To be left alone.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
I was I was mad and myself. I was. I
was mad at the world. I was. I was, I
was on this track, I was I had purpose and
I let thish rudimentary you know, I yeah the device.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
So I was so mad. But I realized very quickly,
uh that I didn't. I didn't. I didn't have a
monopoly on pain. I mean not even have this monopoly
on getting pissed off or crappy days. And I was
(49:19):
still still a soldier, I was still you know, a husband, father,
all those different roles. I wasn't responsible for just my
own life anymore because of that those external values. Because
I had given my life purpose, I was responsible to others.
(49:40):
So I couldn't just say I quit, right and you know,
you give you give you, you made you like resolved
to give yourself, allow yourself to feel the feels and
if you have a little pity party, whatever you want
to call it. And and then I was going to
get back to work. And as soon doesn't mean that say,
(50:00):
I didn't need a week of uh to feel y know,
the emotions. I didn't need an hour or fifteen minutes.
I was ready to get to work. I mean I
still had a lot of stuff to deal with the inside.
But I was there were these uh warriors up and
(50:21):
down the halls that were fighting their own fight, and
who's I had to say that my my trouble was
more difficult than theirs. So I just decided that I
was gonna If I was gonna be blind for the
rest of my life, then hobnobly the best damn blind
guy I could be.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
I love the resolve, love the resolve.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
So I was only there for about a week, am
I'm sorry, about a month and a half. And then
they went and did blind school at the VA Blind
Rebaltation Center in Augusta, and I spent about five six
months there learning how to be And finally, you know,
(51:04):
the medical process review process took about a year. So
I finally separated from service in September twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Okay, wow, that's that's quite a while. Quite a while. Well,
and I'd like.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
To like to initiate this now because I lost track
of time. I was so enveloped in your story. You're
such a good, good storyteller, Aaron, I appreciate it, sharing
your sharing what you've been through and how you got there.
We're gonna have to do a part two to this
definitely will I will get this and we'll schedule that
(51:46):
because we're going to pick up where we left off
on here and we're going to go forward from there.
But I saw you in the the I think it
was two was the last more the memorial before that.
I saw you in the EOD Warrior Foundations video that
(52:07):
their pr video that they've done for themselves, which is awesome,
by the way. I think it's fantastic they've done. They've
done so much for the community. I really love them
very much and I support them. A lot of great
people working up there or down there, I should say,
because I'm in Virginia, but I would like to I'd
like to leave us with leave us with a positive
(52:30):
quote or saying that you tend to fall back on
when you're having a rough day.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
Here's the one that always jumps to the top of
my mind every time.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Okay is.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
Someday the story of your struggle may be the blueprint
for someone else's survival.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Love it, absolutely, love it. Love it all right, Aaron,
I'm all right, we ran out of time. I will
get you back on here so we can finish this
in part two. You know, we're gonna We're definitely gonna
need to knock that out because I love having you
on here, brother, and it's been a pleasure and an honor.
(53:16):
I hope to see you physically soon, be in your presence,
soon to meet you, you know, face to face. So
with that, everybody, thank you for tuning in for today's
episode with Aaron Hale, former Army EOD technician, entrepreneur. We'll
get to that next episode. We're going to talk about
his keynote speakership and dive more into his point of
(53:41):
impact podcasts next time. This has been a wonderful time
on trip Wire today. Thank you for tuning in. As always,
God blessed. Catch us next week where we interview another
veteran for those that have served.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
God bless you Aaron, and God bless everybody that's watching today.
Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
He's all Saber
Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Tripwire.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We appreciate you coming back every Wednesday at four pm
Eastern time. It is Wednesday, August seventh, and we are honored,
completely honored the KGB R team and kg R A
team and myself honored to have Aaron Hale with us today. Erin,
thank you very much for joining us us on the
podcast for this interview, uh and to share some stories
(01:03):
with our with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So uh.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Let's so, I like to talk about what led people
that I interviewed, because this.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Isn't just EOD eccentric.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
And I know you and I have the the Army
EO D background, but I want to talk about what
led you to join the military? Where are you living
and talk about time in the military, and then go
from there.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, uh, it's funny. You know, both of my grandfathers
were in the military. My dad was not, uh, but
I wasn't really a I guess a military family, patriotic
middle upper midwestern suburbs of Akron, Ohio, and I was
(01:55):
living they I don't know, Rockwelly and American dream, was
going to a good public high school, had great friends
and great experience, loved life, had zero ambition. I was
just comfortable and uh and you could kind of you
(02:16):
could probably call me an all American slacker. Uh. I
I loved exactly what I was. I was living in
the now and had no plans. It was like one
of those things where I knew I was dustined for
greatness and had no plan to get there. So, uh,
you call it, call it entitled. I didn't. It wasn't
(02:37):
like a GIMMI gimme thing. It was just like, I'm
happy and I'm enjoying live. I was a b C student.
I had enough uh natural ability and talent and you know,
how to get by the uh but without having to
uh try very hard anything. And of course I on
(03:05):
BS got me the rest of the way. But that
was until I went to college. And I went to
Bolling Green State University, and immediately everybody who knew how
to work hard quickly passed me by. I just I
went for Animal House because that was sounded cool, and
(03:25):
I found I wanted to I wanted a party. Right.
It was really good. I was really social. I loved it,
and I gained my freshman fifty and I got terrible,
terrible grands. You know that happens when you forget where
your classes are. And of course that's when the university
(03:50):
and I came to a mutual understanding that I wasn't
ready for college. So, uh, three semesters and no progress later,
I found myself out of the fraternity house and out
of the out of the school, and I needed something
to do, all right. It was it was a real
(04:13):
kick in the pants.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, I just.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I didn't want to
go back to buy my hometown, and it was it
was a small town. People would know, people already knew.
But when I if I'd come home with my yell
tail between my legs and you know, moved back into
the Paris house, I don't know what it would have been.
(04:42):
It was already embarrassing. It had just been magnified. So
I actually moved out to California, and that's where my
folks were divorced. My mom was in Ohio, my my
dad was in California. I moved out with him just
to change a scene and get do some work and
(05:02):
just you know, get myself back on my feet. RH
So for about six months I was I was working hard,
I had two jobs. I was working at a hoby
surf and sport during the day, and I was working
at a restaurant cooking at night. And I was walking everywhere.
(05:22):
I was eating healthy and that it is California and
you can only holy have so much jack in the box,
you know, uh right, But in six months, I'd lost
all of that freshman fifty but no money to show
(05:43):
for it.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
All for you.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Uh, That's when I decided, Okay, I think I'm back
to zero. What do I do next? And I wanted to.
I want to, you know, find an occupation. I wanted
to do. I would to find some purpose. I want
to get those internal core values, right, you have the
(06:06):
self worth, the hard work, work, ethic, all those kind
of things. So they were even really considered the military,
except I wanted to go back to college, and you know,
the g I Bill was there, and it would also
give me those internal personal growth building values and skills, right,
(06:30):
So I started looking at you started considering it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So when and let me before we move forward, now
that we have the a little bit of the backstory
of what led you to the recruiter, uh, and you start,
you know, going down that path, uh, seek seeking for
that those core values that you were referring to, uh
in finding them in the army obviously, you know that
(06:59):
starting that path going.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Into the military.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I mean you're a you're a former EO D Army
EO D technician combat veteran. Uh, you're a keynote speaker now,
and we'll get into that part of it later. I'd
love to hear more about this like endurance run it
runner that you identify yourself as or that you still do.
(07:21):
I want to dive into that as well. Uh, but
you're an entrepreneur. These are I'm saying these things for
the audience so that way they understand where we're going
with all of this conversation. Uh, to to kind of
give your back your backstory a little bit as well,
So please continue to do you join the army?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I take it out of California then? And what year
was that?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well? You know what's funny, I what I I wouldn't
call myself a pothead.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Let's go to speak, uh.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
In high school and college. But I might have been
a digit or two off when they asked how many times?
Right at MEPs? Right? But I don't know. It's it's
hard to count but I figured on my way out
(08:16):
to California, I would uh a road trip. So I
packed my little Shibby S ten full of all my
most important worldly belongings, which was some underwear and I
don't know uh, and I drove all the way from
Cleveland to New Orleans and then all the way across
(08:36):
the United States along the ten, which is the dumbest idea,
but all the way to California, stopping at every one
of my fraternity chapters along the way, which was pretty cool.
I packed up a whole box of my bowling green
(08:58):
UH chapter T shirts and trade them along the way.
It was kind of It was fun, had a place
of crash and friendly people, brothers so smut. And then
I get to ASU decided to hang a sharp left
south across the border and then drive across northern Mexico
(09:21):
just for the fun of it, and then come back
up through Tijuana. Yeah, of course I was. I had
a little bit of weed on that whole drive, and
it was so funny. I might have had two or
three little spliffs left coming back across the border, and
(09:45):
I hadn't even bought it in Mexico, but the border
patrol caught me. They had been one and I had
to pay. It was five hundred dollars. Uh. Fine, We
went on my permanent record and that was that was
my last hurrah before I started to turn my life around.
(10:09):
But you know, I've been cooking for my entire entire
got a working life since it's up to them, and
I wanted to I wanted the Uh. When I joined
the Maiden the military, I wanted to do so.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I wanted.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I want to get the GIL so I could go
to culinary school, become a chef, gotcha. But uh, what
job would I do in the military. And I really
didn't want to be, you know, the ground pounder. I
wasn't interested in combat arms just yet. But I was
(10:53):
looking around. I had that in my mind completely rolled
out half of the branches, the Army and the Marines
because I didn't realize all the different jobs that they were.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So I looked at the Air Force in the Navy
and just I don't know why the Air Force just
had I don't know the new I think it was
growing up with that. Let the adventure begain type of thing,
the world of the adventure that wanted to be. I
love travel too, so the Navy just kind of it clicked.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Right, So yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I was just gonna say, so, did you eventually went
and saw a recruiter, but I'm assuming that you tried
to go with the Navy first.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah. I walked into the Navy recruiting office and it
was going back to the original, the previous part of
the story.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
The guy asked if I ever smoked smoked weed, and
I said, uh, yes, how long ago? Uh look at
my watch and said, uh, we might want to wait
on your analysis or in back. This was nineteen ninety nine.
(12:21):
It wasn't they don't they didn't keep them keep your
you know, the take home your analysis tests in the
recruiter office at that time. Yet. So he drove me
around to like six different pharmacies, yeah, inconvenience stores, trying
to find one of these your analysis tests. We went
(12:41):
back to the recruiter office. I peed on it, and
surprisingly enough, it came back negative. So within a couple
of days I was heading off the MEPs. And it
was funny too. I took the ASPAB and I'd scored
well enough if they were trying to get me to
(13:04):
go all sorts of different jobs like nuke tech on
the submarine. No, I saw K nineteen. No, thanks, yeah,
And I heard you guys smell funny. But uh when
I I mean, of course I was like to joke.
(13:29):
But uh, I just told him, like I have a plan.
It wasn't a very well thought out plan, but it
was a plan, sure, And I want to I want
to be a cook in the Navy because I want
to get some O j T. Why not if I'm
going to go I'm going to do four there's a
(13:50):
maximum and go to culinary school, right. So uh, all
along the way it was so funny, uh, because I
go to the recruited I go to the basic training
in Great Lakes and they asked me they has the
whole you know division, who here has any college experience?
(14:15):
Two guys raise their hand and it came down to math,
how long? What did you do? And the other guy
had like some some community college. I went to four
year university. And you're the r PAC, the recruit chief
Petty officer. What what what is that you're in charge
(14:36):
of these eighty people?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
What?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And then they say what what's what's? Then? E C
or M O S. Right, you're training to be cook
what the same same same level of surprise I just
had in my face. They don't they don't call him
drills r D c's uh that guy had on his face.
Wait a second, we just put a book in charge
(15:01):
of these eighty guys.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Great, so go ahead, I'm sorry, please continue.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
No, that's that's that's kind of how everything in the
Navy went, right. I would get put in a position
of leadership before I felt ready, right, and I think that's, uh,
that's kind of the nature of the military now. And
it was exactly what I needed. I needed to be challenged,
(15:31):
and I grew really fast. I grew into that art
park position. Uh, and to pride in essentially, you know,
being able to march this square around. And and then
it was I got top of my class at the
A school, the cooking school, which isn't isn't isn't a
(15:56):
huge Uh. It's not like going to eat at E school.
It's Navy cooking school, which basically teaching how to not
kill people.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Ship. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
And I thought, well, I could do this. I'm not
haven't killed anybody with food yet, right, So and then
I got the.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
First I got my first first pick the way they
do Navy schools is when you do orders, they get
like a stack the twenty five students, you get a
stack of twenty five orders and top of the class
gets your pick of twenty five, where the last guy
gets handed a set of orders. Right, so I got
(16:39):
my pick of twenty five.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And there was sure duty, no, no, no, it was
flag duty in Italy, cooking for an admiral. Oh my,
that's awesome, I'm doing that. I'm going to Italy. I
want to cook for an admiral. And everybody else got
all the other twenty four orders. And then like two
days later, the senior chief at the school goes, oh, hey,
manpower comes back and they got to change the uh
(17:03):
uh rank on that billet. So we've got to take
that away from you. It's going to go into uh
e five. No wait wait, wait, waits you there are
no more orders. Where am I going? And it was
literally like he was pulling out drawers in his desk
trying to find something. What can we give you here?
(17:26):
And uh he says, how about a mine sweeper in
Corpus Christie. That doesn't At the time, that didn't really
sound like a real like a you know, uh something
for the guy who got on top of his class.
Maybe that was a little bit of that entitlement type
of thing coming back. Okay, what else you got? He goes, well,
(17:46):
we got shot duty in Italy. I like, yes, I
had my mind set on Italy. I'll take that shot duty,
not knowing that mine mine sweepers would have been pretty
cool in Texas. That's the real small ships, small crews.
You need to cook, cook real food. But uh, I
(18:06):
went to Italy and I got to get off the
plane and I got met by one of the you
know the division, you know, my sponsor. I said, what
am I going to be cooking? Like, no, no, no, no,
you don't. You don't cook on shore. And this is
a short duty. What do we do? And they didn't
tell me at cooking school that they kind of look
(18:27):
at cooks in the military in the Navy like hotel
restaurant management. And so the civilians cook on shore and
the cooks the military cooks act to do to cooks.
They run the barracks. Right, So for two years I
(18:47):
got to run the Navy lodge and the you know barracks,
the e Q, and I was again I was put
in the odd role I wasn't really comfortable with, but
I was. I was put in the maintenance department. I
became the locksmith guy, learned everything about it, and then
(19:09):
I was a go to guy, and then I ranked up.
That kind of stuff I got and it just got promoted.
And two years later that Admirals Billett came back up
and it was only forty five minutes PCs away and
I got to go cook for a three star for
a couple of years, and that was pretty cool. I
(19:32):
love that went all around the Mediterranean. It was amazing
ith it was. It was The four years in Italy
were an incredible experience as a personal growth, getting to
see the countries, all all these current countries that brought
(19:52):
border the Mediterranean, going to MWR, trips to Munich for
October Fest, pair for Valentine's Day, that kind of stuff.
It was amazing for a young young guy in his twenties.
And except when we went out to sea and all
(20:14):
of a sudden, I found myself in two were I
joined in a time of peace and all of a sudden
there's two wars going on right, and everybody's job is important.
Everybody's got a role to play. I was doing important work,
keeping the commander of the sixth Fleet and his top
(20:34):
brass fed right, cooking the food for all these receptions,
and doing my diplomatic part for relations all around you know,
the six Fleet. But I didn't feel like my skills,
my talents, my abilities were being put to the best use.
Because what happened during these first few years, I accidentally,
(20:58):
you know, I picked up those those internal goals, the
personal goals, the selfish, your the those those values that
I accidentally picked up. The external values like teamwork and
pride in being a part of something bigger than yourself
and all that kind of stuff, and having a purpose
(21:21):
that's bigger than yourself is uh, it's something that I
couldn't I couldn't ignore. And as much as I enjoyed
my job as the Admiral Chef and being stationed in Italy,
I was watching both of these wars on on TV
(21:42):
on board the ship, right. So I decided when my
time in Italy was up, I was. I got stationed
in Newport, Rhode Island, and I volunteered from there and
put me back in the barracks too. So I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
I'm doing something different, and I put in a request
(22:04):
to deploy to Afghanistan, and they have these PRTs Provincial
Reconstruction Teams, and they were taking it basically army roles
that were being backfilled with Air Force and Navy individual augmentees.
So these piecemeal detachments of from the other two services
(22:30):
to fill in for these civil affairs bases following south.
So of course I'm still cooking, but I went from
cooking for the Admiral and like thirty five of US
top brass to three hundred four hundred Ice aff troops.
(22:52):
I got you, but it was fun. I went out
to PRT for Wrang, which is way out in the
western southwest desert of Afghanistan. That's where the Taliban. I like, yeah,
you can have a yeah. Yeah, I don't want to yeah,
but uh uh. Coincidentally, there were a couple of platoons
(23:16):
of Italian Special Forces there, so I got to practice
the lingo I learned in Naples, and I got the
trade mrs for Lavazza and uh, their version of m
RI sometimes come with these little cordials, the little little
little bottles of booze.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Anyways, it was a different, different thing. I was closer
to quote unquote action. I felt like I was a
little bit more of service. But during this deployment is
when I met I really found out what EO D
was about, and I met some EOD texts and it
(23:58):
was it was funny because they were they dumped out
their gerb and they were doing uh pms uh maintenance
on their equipment. So they had all these you know,
the robots and the bomb soudes and all the tools
scattered out behind their truck. It was like a cool
guy garage sale. And uh, I just struck up a
(24:19):
conversation with these guys and learned all about the job,
and man, that was that was it. It was, you know,
that's it clicked. You know that that tight knit brotherhood,
the technical and physical aspect of the job, the fact
that their first responders on the battlefield. I'm like, boom,
that's what I need to do. So I put in
(24:41):
my request for the Navy to go from cook to
eat and it was promptly denied. I guess they liked
my my cooking too much.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
I guess yes.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But just like you had, you know, uh, brother Josh
mills On here not long ago, he had a similar thing.
It's you know, it's manpower. It's the fact that they've
got the military of the big, big Navy, big Army.
They've got a planned for you, and they've spent the
(25:16):
money training you. They don't want to spend more money
retraining or recertifying you to that kind of stuff. But
number of other things that play. Of course, the manpower.
My job rank and job MOS was undermanned, and then
(25:36):
the next rank up was overmanned. So I wasn't going anywhere,
especially not to another job. So when the deployment was over,
my contract was actually coming to an end. But I'd
already come close about eight years now, and I'd made
that decision that I wasn't going to culinary school, and
(25:57):
I wasn't. I fell in loved with the uniform in service,
and and I was I was. I was a service
member now, but and I absolutely loved. I got salt
in the veins. I love being at sea. I loved
being a sailor. But I the purpose that was was
calling me. So I let my contract expire and left
(26:22):
the Navy and went over to the Army recruiter and
I handed on my my you know, my service record,
and I said Hey, I want to go EO D.
The guy looked at it, and of course this is
two thousand and seven eight ish around there. Of course
the Army is like, EO D. Yeah, we'll take you.
(26:44):
We need we need more. Joe's uh doing doing EOD
work right. So you know I did this abridged version
of Basic for guys a little longer on the tooth.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Prior service, I went through something similar going into the
Army myself.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yes, yeah, uh it was.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
It was.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
It was this pilot program called WIRE or Transition course
I think it was called. And uh, basically it's it's
all of the technical and physical conditioning of as much
of a physical conditioning, but uh, you know, the knowledge
based part of basic training with the without the indoctrination.
(27:32):
So I mean you try to drill start and trying
to tell them, you know, as the staff sergeant or
you know, started for class to drop and give you
twenty like no, I don't rank you, dude, you know
you you drop. Uh but uh, it was like a
gentleman's version of Basic. And we got through that and
went to school or I went to you know, Phase
(27:53):
one at Redstone and then to Egglin and yeah, became
an e D technician, So it felt like a salty
dog in a different uniform. But the truth was, I
the way I look at it today is that I'm
doing to EOD and it didn't matter what uniform I
(28:17):
was wearing. There are there are definitely things I love
about being being a soldier and being in the army.
But I'm telling the d.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
The so you graduated school was now we were talking
about Josh prior to to going you know, uh live
here on on set and Josh Mills was as you
mentioned in an episode I had last last week or
the week before, but or two weeks ago. It was
(28:48):
two weeks ago. But did you go to drum? Was
at your first judy station after Egglin?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, so Josh, same time as Josh, we graduated, just
made a class or two apart. We went to the
same at the time, uh seven twenty fifth of a
drum got like I don't know, five or six sergeants,
(29:14):
all all from the schoolhouse at the same time, right,
And it was awesome because uh, you know, it was
like filling out a filling out, you know that that
rink level with a bunch of guys that all went
to school together. It was built in camaraderie and yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It's tight, that's awesome. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So you're at drum and then did which how many
deployments did you do? And which deployment was? Uh, did
you get injured?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
No?
Speaker 3 (29:53):
No, no no. So it was my second deployment, my
first as a soldier in root Tech, and it was
to Iraq and I was the fourth man, a team
sergeant on a three man team, which which is like
(30:13):
you know, the fifth wheel on a third wheel on
a date, you know. Uh, And yeah, Serge Buris was
my team later, and of course I was on the
same track as Josh where I had enough time in
service that they were pushing me like they were not undouly,
(30:34):
but they there was definitely a sense of urgency for
me to earn my team leader certification, right, And I
didn't have the benefit of coming up through EOD or
even army, so I was learning army stuff at the
same time I was learning EO D specific stuff. And
(30:56):
it's like drinking through drinking from a fire hose.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Certain Burroughs, Jeremy Burris was a great teacher, had a
great team, but it was not busy, we weren't really
very active. So first Sergeant Johnny Strickland awesome duvid h.
He saw something I don't know, but there was there
(31:25):
was opportunity for me to go over to uh Gido
and to the Sexy cell and do the triage thing.
So myself and one other of the sergeants from seven
twenty fifth uh uh Izzy Nuannas who is now on
the wall, yeah he he and I spent a few
(31:50):
months over there at Sexy and I learned a ton
there about evidence collection and uh you know, where the
evidence goes, how to how to handle it, and how
to do the storyboards and all really important stuff for
I ed collection. And at the same time I was
(32:13):
studying UXOS, I was getting into the pubs doing a
lot of that, a lot of the stuff that probably
wouldn't be doing if I were maybe out on a
fob getting getting bored. I was. I was. I was
among these officers and you know, alphabet soup kind of
(32:33):
people when I was talking to I was. I was
a different national lot. So I was learning a lot,
and I was extremely helpful on my third deployment when
I was in fact a team leader, and that was
to Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
So they just for our interview are.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
For people listening in sexy is a combined exploitation So
that's what SEXY stands for because not everybody that listens
to z O D. I wanted to throw that out there,
and we have a lot of listeners that aren't actually
even military. So combine an exploitation cell and then the
sexy cell for their benefit. You were doing basically forensics
(33:18):
collection and reverse engineering to help the teams out there
on the battlefield in what they were dealing.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
With as far as I ed is that they were
encountering and.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Alphabet soup would be your three letter agencies, agents from
the FBI atf all sorts of places. So just to
throw that out there for our listeners, Aaron appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Yeah, Well, I tell people when talking about this aspect
of the job is that we're also like the CSI
on the battlefield. Well, if there's explosive out that X
or mostly the IED's most side bombs, that kind of stuff,
we want to get quote unquote left of the bank
(34:00):
want to get ahead of these people, So we want
to find the bomb in placers, the bomb makers, the
bomb finance errors and everything between so we do that
CSI thing and we're the ones who collect it and
then we sexy is where it gets sent, and then
triage is where it separates the evidence to biometric to
(34:21):
chemical analysis, to electronic analysis and so on, and then
it goes on to all of those agencies like you mentioned.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, so that was first, Uh, that was your first deployment.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
You helped out a SEXY in Iraq? Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (34:35):
That's right. That was my my first deployment as an
EOD technician. I was a sergeant E five and uh
about that time, as I I was newly merit and
I uh my wife who was pregnant before I deployed.
(35:02):
But while on deployment, we got news that she had
a miscarriage, and instead of just going home on emergency leave,
the command figured that I basically I didn't have much
(35:24):
of a job. I wouldn't really be missed, so to speak,
and they allowed me to redeploy back home. So I
only spent a fraction of a year long deployment Iraq,
actually in Iraq, and then I came back to uh,
you know, seven fifty fourth, a legacy company, and there,
(35:50):
of course, uh not really the expected round was lost
and I got to start experiencing, start learning state side
response and for a year in the Legacy company, I
(36:11):
was immediately put into a team leader role as basically
the only sergeant. There was one sergeant first class, first
sergeant and the CEO, and that was it above me.
And then there was a handful of uh privates and
(36:32):
uh uh I think I don't know, maybe maybe one
or two ephors, but it was about it and we
were very small. We got to I got to do
give a lot of training and then it was it
(36:53):
was it was constantly learning, constantly becoming as uh the
best tech I possibly could be in a short amount
of time as I possibly could. And I did earn
my earn, you know, new qualified as a team leader,
earned that certification NIC and not. It couldn't have been
(37:15):
soon enough because our sister company, seven sixtieth was on
the road to war ready to deploy, and within a
year of coming back from Iraq, I transferred over to
seven sixtieth and took a team there and deployed back
to Afghanistan, this time as a team leader.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And where.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
So second time to Afghanistan, but first time to Afghanistan
as an EUD team leader. Where were you out of
it in Afghanistan at that time?
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I was just west of Kandahar in the Zerai district
a little, a little. We were supporting for four Cave
out of Riley and Uh, I think it was called
Bob Wilson at the time. Yeah, and uh I was
in a little village called Sea Choi, which I asked
(38:15):
an interpreter, Uh, what Choi meant and goes I think
it means cemetery. Oh wow. And that area and that
area was kind of like tombstone.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
It was very busy, very busy, lots of uh, lots
of booms and shots going off all the time. So
and and we we were we were busy.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
UH.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
For the eight months I got to spend there. UH
did a lot of work. We were across that at
that ale, a lot of uh, A lot of chopper insertions,
multi day missions on on foot dismounted all around the area.
(39:04):
I walked that whole area multiple times, and we again
putting a lot of that knowledge to work. Even though
almost everything we worked on was the same, The same
problem was.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
You know, a pressure plate with an oil jug full
of ATM homemade explosive with a nine bolt battery and
some lamp cord almost every time, but.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
They were slowly We're learning. There were a few texts
that got UH injured by by by dummies, by red herrings.
And then eight months into it, just December eighth, twenty eleven,
(40:02):
I had just gotten back to the battlefield from my
two weeks of ur and arm. Okay, I took a
late I took one of the I was one of
the latest ones to go on leave and let everybody
else go. Because in November, my firstborn was about to
(40:25):
turn one, so I got to see him birthday. I
gotta get and it was also this was November twenty first,
we had Thanksgiving on the twenty seventh, so I sell
the whole family together for Thanksgiving. I call it like
the best last page in the photo album. I got you,
(40:49):
I got you, and get back from on arm, take
take charge of the team again, get right back to work.
And just we were literally UH grabbing a supply a
convoy from Bob Wilson out to our command out post
(41:10):
and see a Troy. I was just getting back and
they called out a right on Highway one, They've got
I got something in the road. The a n p
after National Police, UH found an item right on the
side of the road. All right, no time like the president,
Let's get to work. So you know, it tossed out
(41:33):
the robot. Uh you know, after toss the luggage off,
the robot, tossed the robot out of the truck and yeah,
pressure plate and all the same stuff right back to
the same thing, except it's uh, you know, the robot
can't get that jug out of the uh hard pack
(41:55):
and separated the components. But you know that's sexy, it's
experience of mine. I wanted to get evidence, sure, so
I did. There was no other hazard. We were still
in the lights, you know, the of Bob Wilson, and
it was it was it was dark. It was I
eight nine o'clock at night, but I was still, you know,
within the flood lights of Bob Wilson. So I jump
(42:20):
out and I've got my evidence kit and metal detector
in hand, and I started walking making my approach, and
about twenty or thirty meters from the original I d
there was a secondary device. Before I knew it, I
was getting punted into the air. The lights had gone out,
and I land on my knees and elbows and the
(42:41):
first thing I thought it was h that's what it
feels like.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Uh, I got yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
I thought I figured that my helmet had gotten pushed
over my face. That's why it was so dark. It
was so uh you know, the lights had gone. I
couldn't see. And the first thing I did, though, was
I wiggled the fingers and toes and you know, do
the functions check And everything seemed to me more or
(43:14):
less where I left it. And I reached up to
grab my helmet just to find that the whole thing
was gone. And that's what That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
No, this is bad.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
The first Sergeant's got to kill me for losing that thing.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's the first. Yeah, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But of course, of course I realized that I'd actually
taken some serious damage. I made my helmet and my
EyePro gone, and and find out that both of my
eyes were also gone. Right, it's a It also cracked
my skull. I was leaking spinal fluid right out of
my uh sinuses, out my nose.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
I mean between the stink of the the explosive and
all the grass and dirt in my face and blood,
I didn't I wasn't quite sure if I was crunching
on sand or my own teeth. So uh, I I
just started started thinking. Of course, the training kicks in
(44:15):
and like, okay, is there going to be an attack
and they're gonna start taking pot shots. Whereas you know,
the team when a team leader goes down, uh, the
team is supposed to clear a path in for the medics.
But I had I was virtually untouched from my neck down,
and I to this day, I can't quite explain that.
But you know, from a buried I d that skipped
(44:37):
the rest of my body and just hit me in
the head. And for anybody that knows me, that was
the perfect place. I was the exact perfect place to
hit me.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
But but I could I could still walk, So so
I got up and I didn't want anybody to come
into this danger zone. It don't lucid, I was. I
was conscious, and I started I started making my way
towards the back to the truck, except I couldn't see,
so I had no idea where I was going. And
(45:09):
so I'm just walking around like a zombie with my
hands in front of me, trying to get out of
the danger zone. But you know, my team, you know,
grabbed me, draped me back to the truck, medics worked
on me. If you Wilson to Candahar not that far
(45:30):
and so meta fact, chapter was touching down in fourteen minutes,
and I was. I was back at Candahar Uh for
about twenty four hours, then onto Land School, and within
forty eight hours I was at Walter Reed and trying
to trying to figure out what the hell was going
(45:51):
to happen with the rest of my life?
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Right what so, how long for our viewers?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
How long was the recovery before you were released from
Walter Reed and the Army? I guess they released you.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
At that point they were released. No, I'm here, I'm here.
Can you hear me? Oh? Okay, okay, test test.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Here there?
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Oh?
We lost you? Yeah? No, I'm still here, but you
can't hear me. I'm still here, but you can't hear me.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
So I'm sorry. Yeah, I got you. I can hear you. Yeah, okay,
can you hear me?
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Or about that?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
It's all right. I understand technology is fickle at times.
No big deal.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Blind deaf guys and technology.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
So what I was saying before you lost me? Was
how long were you at Walter Reed?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
And then what?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Uh we're and and I we're kind of getting pressed
for time, but you were at Walter Reed?
Speaker 1 (47:34):
When did we When did you get out of the army?
Speaker 2 (47:37):
And you know, we've been scrolling your your link tree
the whole time that we've been on on the on
the call tonight, we're going to have to do a
part two, Aaron. There's just so much to talk about
because I love I love your story, not what happened
to you, but I love where you've gone with your
story since it's happened to you, so real quick, how long.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Were you Walter Read? And then when did you get
off active duty? When did they release you?
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Well? This was November twenty eleven December twenty eleven, And
it was so funny because my injuries were very superficial,
except for of course the crack skull, So I wasn't
really at Walter Read for very long, okay, but there
was so much going on. You know, it's right of
(48:26):
the Beltway and all these people coming going want to
shake my hand, thank you the service, uh, and I
just I just wanted.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
To be left alone.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
I was I was mad and myself. I was. I
was mad at the world. I was. I was, I
was on this track, I was I had purpose and
I let thish rudimentary you know, I yeah the device.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
So I was so mad. But I realized very quickly,
uh that I didn't. I didn't. I didn't have a
monopoly on pain. I mean not even have this monopoly
on getting pissed off or crappy days. And I was
(49:19):
still still a soldier, I was still you know, a husband, father,
all those different roles. I wasn't responsible for just my
own life anymore because of that those external values. Because
I had given my life purpose, I was responsible to others.
(49:40):
So I couldn't just say I quit, right and you know,
you give you give you, you made you like resolved
to give yourself, allow yourself to feel the feels and
if you have a little pity party, whatever you want
to call it. And and then I was going to
get back to work. And as soon doesn't mean that say,
(50:00):
I didn't need a week of uh to feel y know,
the emotions. I didn't need an hour or fifteen minutes.
I was ready to get to work. I mean I
still had a lot of stuff to deal with the inside.
But I was there were these uh warriors up and
(50:21):
down the halls that were fighting their own fight, and
who's I had to say that my my trouble was
more difficult than theirs. So I just decided that I
was gonna If I was gonna be blind for the
rest of my life, then hobnobly the best damn blind
guy I could be.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
I love the resolve, love the resolve.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
So I was only there for about a week, am
I'm sorry, about a month and a half. And then
they went and did blind school at the VA Blind
Rebaltation Center in Augusta, and I spent about five six
months there learning how to be And finally, you know,
(51:04):
the medical process review process took about a year. So
I finally separated from service in September twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Okay, wow, that's that's quite a while. Quite a while. Well,
and I'd like.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
To like to initiate this now because I lost track
of time. I was so enveloped in your story. You're
such a good, good storyteller, Aaron, I appreciate it, sharing
your sharing what you've been through and how you got there.
We're gonna have to do a part two to this
definitely will I will get this and we'll schedule that
(51:46):
because we're going to pick up where we left off
on here and we're going to go forward from there.
But I saw you in the the I think it
was two was the last more the memorial before that.
I saw you in the EOD Warrior Foundations video that
(52:07):
their pr video that they've done for themselves, which is awesome,
by the way. I think it's fantastic they've done. They've
done so much for the community. I really love them
very much and I support them. A lot of great
people working up there or down there, I should say,
because I'm in Virginia, but I would like to I'd
like to leave us with leave us with a positive
(52:30):
quote or saying that you tend to fall back on
when you're having a rough day.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
Here's the one that always jumps to the top of
my mind every time.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Okay is.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
Someday the story of your struggle may be the blueprint
for someone else's survival.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Love it, absolutely, love it. Love it all right, Aaron,
I'm all right, we ran out of time. I will
get you back on here so we can finish this
in part two. You know, we're gonna We're definitely gonna
need to knock that out because I love having you
on here, brother, and it's been a pleasure and an honor.
(53:16):
I hope to see you physically soon, be in your presence,
soon to meet you, you know, face to face. So
with that, everybody, thank you for tuning in for today's
episode with Aaron Hale, former Army EOD technician, entrepreneur. We'll
get to that next episode. We're going to talk about
his keynote speakership and dive more into his point of
(53:41):
impact podcasts next time. This has been a wonderful time
on trip Wire today. Thank you for tuning in. As always,
God blessed. Catch us next week where we interview another
veteran for those that have served.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
God bless you Aaron, and God bless everybody that's watching today.
Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
He's all Saber
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