October 23, 2024 • 54 mins
Today on TripWire, Staci and I, interview Retired US Army EOD Technician Joshua Salazar. Tune for great discussion and laughs. Get your TripWire On at 4 pm Eastern today!!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:39):
Good afternoon. Everybody. Is that time again? Tripwire?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Wednesday afternoon, October twenty third, Stacey, Great to see you
in the studio today.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
How is everything going in Aprilville.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
The weather's really nice too, hanging in there with a
little bit of sunshine.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
So I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
All good, good, that's fantastic. That's great. Well, I'm still
here in Virginia and mother nature still on it. She
went back on a bend another vender. So we had
eighty degree weather today even though it was like forty
seven this morning when I got up for my coffee.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
He went from that sounds like Chicago weather.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, no, I just I'm not happy about it. I
want it to be cool weather, leaves are already changing.
I can't wait to go for some drives over the weekends,
go hang out with a I'm going to hang out
with Chuck Lenoora up north and do fire pit activities
on sitt next Saturday.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So it's going to be great fight activities. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I just sit around, drink bourbon, smoke a cigar, have
a good time, you know, tell stories, sound good.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Table book fire me activities.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'm going to get a coffee book or a coffee
table book. We'll figure it out. So all right, great
to have you here, honey. We've got a great show
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Today.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
We have Joshua Salas, our former Army EOD technician retired.
He has the unfortunate experience of having to work with
me every day, and so we're gonna bring him in
and let's.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Get this party started.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Gosh, how are you.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Man, I'm doing fantastic. How are you all good?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Good? Great to see it.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And Stacey, we have two members of the Silver Fox
team from work here at on the on the call
right now.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So yep, there it is right there.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I have to take a picture.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So Josh, this is kind of like just an informal interview.
We go with what however you want to do it, Bud.
We'll start at the beginning. Let's talk about when you
were abducted by aliens when you were living in Roswell,
New Mexico.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Yeah, so I was out in the h I was
Bud in the front yard and its bright lights. I
can't do that too long with a straight face.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
So Mourner raised in Roswell, New Mexico where the aliens landed.
And uh, fortunately that was one of the things that
kind of was a good icebreaker.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Going through the military and you know all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
Of course you get razzed a little bit and basic training,
but you know that's right of passage type stuff. But
we successfully were able to remove most of the probe
out of me. I still have a little bit back there.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
So uh see me doing like a butt skewed across
the front yard. That's why I'll keep it. I'll keep
it like Pg. Thirteen. Anyways, awesome. So all school, all.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Schools like kindergarten and middle school and all that stuff
went to Roswell.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Uh and it's uh, you know, it's it's it's a
small town. It's not as small as as some people
you know, enjoy. It's about fifty thousand people.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
And then of course in the summertime at the population
ramps up to probably close to one hundred hundred and
fifteen with all the alien and observers that come out.
So so that's super fun. We didn't really know any
we didn't really give a crap about anything when we
were growing up, so we're.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Just like, yeah, whatever, aliens that's cool.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
Yeah, But anyway, from there, senior year in high school
is kind of when I realized that I hadn't really
planned anything for the future, and so I joined the army.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
There you go, it was it was better than it
was better than my alternative, which was hope something happens.
But I was one of those kids that kind of coasted.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
All the way through high school.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
I still graduated with like a three point eight and
almost zero effort.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
And I'm not saying that the pat myself on the back.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
I'm just saying that because that's just kind of how
the first part of well, the first couple of chapters
of my life turned out, was just kind of coast
and just almost effortless, you know. And then got into
the got into basic training. There I didn't I wasn't
always EOD. I started out as a Air Defense Artillery
(05:09):
personnels fourteen MIC in fourteen Sierra. So once I got
tired of humping around stinger missiles out in the desert,
that's when I was like, you know, maybe maybe driving
around in the desert's not so bad. But anyway, all
we did as a fourteen Sierra Avenger crewman was we
drove to a spot and they were still humping around
in the desert, and so I was like, this doesn't
(05:32):
get it any better?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
No, probably not. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
So I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart, which
we're still together today.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Which that's that's who lets me buy all these wonderful toys.
I mean, I even have some really cool ones here.
Not that it's like show and tell or anything.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
But but you're making a show and tell.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
I have these little guys. Yeah I can't.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
And if that's not cool enough, that one opens up
and then there's another one inside.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
But I haven't, my lord, so I don't show you that.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Where did after after you did your air defense stuff?
Where did you? So? Where did you go to boot camp?
First and foremost for for the army? Uh?
Speaker 5 (06:17):
So I did boot camp at Fort Benning, which you know,
cool guy.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
I will say this for anybody that's uh that's out there.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
If you might remember, sand Hill is not noted for
its sand content.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Correct, Uh?
Speaker 5 (06:32):
There is no sand on sand Hill?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
No?
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Uh so did uh? As a matter of fact, I
don't even know how I remember this. This is how
TBI works. Delta three four seven was my was my
basic training company.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Gotcha gotcha, how crazy is that?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And then from a defense to.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
What Yeah, so I uh I heard about this thing
called combat engineer and I was like, man, that's how
it's crazy, Like I'll be doing blueprints and like designing
bridges and stuff, and that's not what it was at all.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
It was just humping around in the woods that fort Lenner.
Speaker 8 (07:09):
Would so, uh the uh The super cool thing about
that though, is, uh, we did we did use quite
a few explosives and you know, we got to do
breaching and do stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
Now, the weird thing is once you go through EOD
school and you remember back in your combat engineer days
and you're like, how in the hell did I survive?
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Like I should be dead?
Speaker 6 (07:35):
Yeah, I guess some of the some of the extremely
unsafe things that combat engineers do.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
How does let me ask you this, how does the
combat How does being a combat engineer then translate into
EO D?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Is that like a step? Is that like a stepping stone?
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Or EO D when you're when you get to that
EO D level, is a lot of them have been
combat engineers?
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Is that I don't know exactly like a number.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I wouldn't put a percentage on it and be confident
giving you an accurate number on that. But I will
say from my experience, being a combat engineer prepared me
to work with explosives. It also bolstered a lot of
my I guess what, for lack of a better term,
called childhood background, because I was that kid that got
(08:23):
myself in trouble a little bit more than most normal
kids do.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
And so my mom actually called up my two.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Uncles who worked for themselves, and they were in the
construction industry, so she basically called them and was like, hey,
you need to put these You need to put these
boys to work before they're gonna, you know, end up
in trouble and become artiists or whatever.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So anyway, so that that's kind of where I got
a lot of my construction background.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
Which kind of translated it's kind of weird how things
work out here.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And construction is with the combat engineering.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Is that?
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Yeah, because as a as a combat engineer, you know,
aside from doing like all the rock marches and humping
around in the woods and figuring out how to you know,
make make things out of nothing, doing rope bridges and
junk like that, it's uh, it's it's a lot of
like construction y background, if you will, so you kind
of have to know how to like what you're gonna attack,
(09:22):
if you're gonna like bring a building down or something
weird like that.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, build combat engineers have the construction background just like
CBS do.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
So if anything, it definitely bolstered my construction background and
added to it the element of doing this in combat.
So you know, you can't just run the lows and
get a rope or whatever. You know, you you have
what you kind of run, what you've grown, and so
so that that kind of translated into that, and then
(09:52):
combat engineer kind of I don't want to say translated
into but it kind of helped build a foundation for.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
EOD school, not so much.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Construction stuff, but definitely with the explosive stuff. And then
also I think this is a key element, especially that
I tried to One that I tried to instill in
the students when I was an EOD instructor is critical thinking.
So a lot of times, yeah, we as the EOD guys,
we'll make fun of the combat engineers because you know,
we kind of put them out there with some of
(10:22):
the crayon eaters like the Marine Corps and places like that.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And don't get me wrong, I love the Marines. Man.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Them dudes are good at two things, breaking stuff and
killing things.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Well three eating crayons. So nobody likes the yellow crowons.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
So anyway, but yeah, so, so it kind of helped
build build a foundation for for EOD school. And and
by saying that, you know, I'm talking about critical thinking
where if you come up to a problem, you got
to be able to think your way through that problem
and be able to come out on the other side
without hurting anybody, hurting yourself or or you know, going
(10:57):
to jail.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So when I was when I was doing my little
my research, I was doing some research and Stephen de
laugh but okay, so and they were when I was
reading about it. The combat engineers are like ahead and
clear the way. They clear the ditch, they clear the fences,
they make it so the troops the people back there
can actually get to what it is they need to
(11:19):
get to. So they can't get there without the combat
engineers critically thinking about how to clear the way and
set the course.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Is that is that kind of what you did, or
that's that's.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
That's pretty close. That's pretty close to what we trained
to do.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Now, my first employment in two thousand and three as
a combat engineer, I did exactly this much of that.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But you were ready to do it.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
You're ready to do it totally, totally had the tools
and the knowledge and everything.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
The difference is that it wasn't what the mission was there.
But yeah, that's that's a lot of what they trained.
They're they're a huge.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
They're a huge, right, Yeah, a huge force multiplier and
a large element of enabling the maneuver units to be able.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
To get to where they're going.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Yeah, you know they use Bangalore's and things like that
to clear sea wire or move obstacles tn T you know,
blow up tea walls or T barriers, just blow them out.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Of the way or whatever.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, yeah, it is even having that knowledge, being able
to do it, being knowing, you know, knowing that you
have that that tool kit here, right, is amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
So how long how many years did you do that?
Speaker 5 (12:33):
I gotta do some math, real quicks. I gotta take
my shoes off. It's about.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
Let's see those about four years, Okay, about four years
and then.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
You decided you wanted to go to E O D.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Because both of you guys did that, so that was
like a whole different you had to qualify and test out, right,
I mean not yeah different.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
So for me, when I got back from my first deployment,
I got out in let's see, I got out in
March March of five, right, yeah, March of five, and
I moved back home, well closer to home anyway. I
moved to Albuquerque or Real Rancho, which is a kind
(13:23):
of a suburb of Albuquerque, New Mexico. That's where all
my family was, you know, brothers, sister's, mom and dad,
all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Uh and uh so I did that.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Started my own business was a Kingsway construction for about
two and a half years. Well, I mean it was
open longer than that, but I only did business for
about two and a half years, built some subdivisions, you know,
got some stuff under my belt. And then of course
in seven slash o eight, that's when the market kind
of fell out for the housing stuff. And I had
(13:53):
a couple of commercial jobs going, but it just wasn't
enough to keep doors open and stuff like that. So
uh that's when I decided, Uh, well, at the same
time too, where my wife was pregnant with my first son, UH,
and he had he had a couple of issues in.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Utero that were pretty serious.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
So that's when I decided, well, the self employment thing
doesn't carry good insurance. I know my boss, he has
a good heart, that's me, but I didn't didn't didn't
have the insurance coverage to back that up. So UH,
that's when we decided. I was like, well, I just
get back in the army. It wasn't that hard the
(14:32):
first time. It'll probably be a lot easier the second time.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Man was I wrong.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
So the first thing is like going and talking to
the recruiter. He's like, well, we don't want to lose you.
So he put me in a reserve unit that was
there in UH in Albuquerque, which happened to be a
combat engineering unit. And I didn't do any combat engineer
stuff with them. I just showed up and took pet
tests and and and waited for them to retrieve my
records from this place called the archives. But you're not
(15:02):
for sure where that is. I thought it was fourteen
Parsex past the Beetlejuice car.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
But it took them.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
It took them quite quite a while to find all
my stuff. Matter of fact, my my clothing record was
still printed on the old dot matrix paper that you got.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
To yeah yeah, yeah, so really old. I know.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Odie's was probably in a stone, like a stone you gotta.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Carve it out that carbon paper that you had to
like rub on.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Oh yeah, I bet.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
But once, yeah, once.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
They got the once they got my records.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
Uh, that's when I actually got to go into the
office and he was like, all right, you're going to
pick your MS and I'm like, all right, cool and
pick something that sounds like it'd be fun. And he's like,
you only got two choices, and I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
I like, I like easy choices A or B.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
Right, So it was either eighteen X ray, which I
at that point I had in my life. I had
no idea what an eighteen X ray was. I knew
what an eighteen series was, I didn't know what eighteen
X ray was. And then he's like for eighty nine
Delta and I was like, what's that. He's like, eod
they just blow shit up. And I'm like, oh, all right,
well that sounds like fun, and uh so he goes
CLICKI glack on the computer and then he comes back
(16:21):
and he goes, well, bad news, and I was like,
what eighteen X rays out so it's just eighty nine
delta And I was like, oh all right, and that
wasn't all the bad. It was eighty nine delta as
an E four or go home. So I was like,
all right, well, I like easy choices, so let's do it.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
So I did that.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I got back in and uh, let's see, they put
me in the reserve unit from seven to oh it
was like mid O seven and mid O eight and
then uh after I got back in, uh back onto
active duty out of that reserve and it there's some
paperwork shuffling that happened there. That's the went back to
(17:00):
for Jackson to rein process back into the army. And
met up with a couple of other really great h
D guys going to EO D School as well, Chad
Staples and a couple of the folks. Yeah I know, yep,
So we're we're just setting out in the smoke pit,
you know, in the beer garden, making fun of all
the dumb.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Privates like hey, he sucks to suck, right, so yep.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
And then uh then we got you know, we got
our new uniforms and everything.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
And went on to EOD School. And I had no
idea how hard EOD School was going to be.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Like I was thinking, it's going to be your classic,
you know, Army style school where it's one hundred percent
pass raid and they just keep putting you back through
until you pass.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
They didn't. The recruiters never, like your recruiter didn't tell you.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
My recruiter didn't tell me either that it's a Navy
school on an Air Force base and that the Army
is a red headed step child at the EOD school period.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Absolutely, but I think we're the single biggest funder of that.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Yeah, I mean I spent a lot of money in
the game.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Is that how you know each other?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
No?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So, No, So I was.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I was several years ahead of him, Like so when
he was going through boot camp at Fort Benning to
go to be his uh his Air defense stuff, I
was actually stationed at Fort Benning at the EO D
Unit on the base while he's doing boot camp.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
And then.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
When he came back on active duty O seven and eight,
I was already off active duty, had two combat to
towards as EO D under my belt and I was
over back in Iraq, you know, late on a soft
based contract that was that had e O D T
O D e O D guys with it, and I
was one of the team leaders as an EOD guy.
(18:52):
So it's a lot of different We chewed a lot
of the same dirt. We did a lot of the
same things from our eu D deployments, just from time frame.
So like, uh, if like I'm I'd be a senior,
he's he would be the freshman coming in at that
time where he was going in.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, and then you.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Guys become friends. How did you guys become friends?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Actually it was the first first day at work. We
sized each other up. I was much taller than him.
He goes, that's a pretty good beard. I go, that's
a really good beard. And then we've just been kind
of friends ever since.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Is that what you guys did? Did you talk about
each other's beards other things, like circle each other and
smell each other a little bit.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of lot of a lot
of stuff going on there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Good to keep the professional community, you know, we try
we try to keep it professional.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
So, gosh, what do you like to be called the Sal?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
The Saul? Is that your So that's.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
Actually just kind of a thing I threw on Facebook
because I would regularly change yeah, just kind of regularly
change my mind because I was I.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Was an instructor at phase one, uh, you know, full disclosure. Uh.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
And the students found me on Facebook, which turned out
to be kind of a semi nightmare. You know, when
you're in you tend to do things that are not
necessarily either're kind of like, uh yeah, like.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
N C seventeen a little bit, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Yeah, And so I had I had quite a few
deployment pictures on there that were kind of in that category,
and then found and they were like.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Is this you started sell?
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And I was like, yes it is. Where did you
find that?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And they're like yes.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
So I had to go in there and scrub all
my photos and change my name and everything you know.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
About it.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
They just what do I call you?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
Josh?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I call you Josh.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, you can call me Josh. You can call me Sal.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Most people just call me Sal. That's whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Okay, So what do you do now? What is your
what is your job?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Now?
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Can you say that again kind of broke up a little.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
What is your job?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Now?
Speaker 3 (21:06):
What do you do?
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (21:07):
Okay, so right now, professionally, I am a capabilities integrator
slash doctor and writer slash whipping boy for TPO.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
E U D Okay, Okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's TPO stands for Trade Dock Proponency Office. Yeah, and
so trade dock is a command element that's in charge
of all training throughout the entire army. Okay, So TPO
is the Trade doc Proponency Office Explosive Ordinance Disposal where
(21:43):
he and I both work. I'm on the training side,
he's on the doctrine side.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
So both of you guys have are employed by the government.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Is I'm a contractor, you're.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Contractor and you're employed by the government.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Both of these jobs that you got lended themselves from
the training and experience that you got from being in service.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Correct, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
That's awesome. I think that that's a good message. You know,
there's a lot of going into the military is becoming
very and I don't want to use the word popular
because I don't want to say popular with our high
school kids when we talk about patriotism and loving our country.
I'm just happy that our next generation is finding it
(22:25):
in their hearts to feel that way. But we have
a lot of guys that are talking about you know,
I was when I was researching it. There's a lot
of forums, a lot of questions combat engineer looking at
all the different jobs out there, and everybody's always wanting
to see how those can those jobs articulate into what
they can do when they when they get out, and
it's not always clear.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
And I think when I.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Talk to recruiters around here, I'm very close with them
for what I do, you know, as the commander of
o WFW and stuff. I talk to them about when
they're going in and what they're talking about, and they're
really good at what their job is. But we've we've
all collectively said, these kids are really trying to figure
out what they can do later to articulate all these
different things they are going to learn, the kind of
(23:08):
person it's going to make them be calm, and it's
it's really it's really cool to have people like you
guys talk about these these hard, scary jobs. You know,
I was, I was a corman, so I was a medic, right,
you know, I was saving lives and that was them
my mentality. That's easy to translate that kind of a
job into oh, I'm going to be a wellness or
work in a hospital. Right, it's something like with what
(23:29):
you guys do. It's I think people should talk about
it more. I think it would get these kids more
excited about going in and doing this and then what
they can do later.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
You know, Oh yeah, absolutely, Yeah, there's a there's a
huge skill set. And I'll speak from you know, speaking
from different having what four different moss The air defender stuff,
I mean, the air defender stuff is air defender stuff.
What we picked up out of that was well, what
(23:58):
I picked up out of that was a lot of
the organization, discipline, how things are doing. There's a method
to the madness and make sure that you stay on target.
Once I got into combat engineer stuff, that's a little
more translatable and and you know, not to turn not
to ever turn anybody off and say don't do this
MS or don't do that m s. But there are
(24:20):
some that are a little more translatable into the civilian
world than than others. And I'm not saying anything bad
about air defender stuff. I've you know, there's there's some
good air defenders out there, uh, and there's actually places
for them to plug themselves in, uh into civilian world
once they get out. There's just a there's a couple
(24:40):
of different things that are a little more mainstream I
guess you could say mainstream applicable applicability to like combat
engineer and e O D.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I've got those jobs.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Yeah, absolutely, it's it's about it's about setting that goal
and then putting as much energy that you you need
to crush that goal.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
And then you set a.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Goal, take a knee for a second, you know, get
yourself some water, Splash a little moonshine on your eyes so.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
You can feel the burn, and then get back after.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It, rub some dirt on it.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yes, touching in it.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Perfect and don't forget you.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah right, okay, you and you and your Ibuprofra and Josh.
So okay, So for our.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Audience, brother, how many combat tours did you do once
you made the training?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
So you did one as.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
A combat engineer, and then how many combat tours did
you do for e O D.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
Yeah, so two, two on e O D and then
one on one on the combat engineer side.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, so three combat tours and then you uh, I'm
assuming it was after your second combat tour that you
came back and then then you were stationed up there
where we are at at Port greg Adams.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
But it was Fort Lee at the time, if I'm
not mistaken. Yeah, and you were, you were. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And so something they started up between when I went
to school and when he went to school and now
Stacey is is that they have Phase one, which is
kind of like an Army introductory course to EOD. So
that way we have a better attrition rate of students
when they go down to Eglind.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yes, yes, So like when I went through school, the
attrition rate for Army EOD was eighty three percent.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
I mean, eighty three out of one hundred would not
make it through the school. So yeah, it's not an
easy school.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
No, I wouldn't imagine that it is.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
We got you, Josh.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
He's still there, Bud, Yeah, I think he's still there.
He's moving.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I see his head move and he's looking like he
can't hear us. Can you hear us? Josh?
Speaker 6 (26:51):
Your mutual phones are coming in real broken.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well Ill, sorry about that. It's because you're in your
log cabin, sir.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Is it me, can you guys hear me?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Okay, yeah, we got you, yes, Oh okay, yeah, So
tell us about tell us about your time as the instructor,
and then where'd you go after that? At your instructor time?
Speaker 6 (27:15):
Okay, So instructor time was a little longer than usual.
I wasn't able to get out of there in PCs
one more time like I wanted to. But instructor time
was actually really great. I kind of went in with
with higher hopes than than I probably should have. But
I was like, man, I'm going to change the world. Well,
you can only change one one mind at a time.
(27:38):
So as an instructor, I was able to fundamentally change
the way that that my students thought about the world
around them. And a lot of that experience came from,
you know, previous things, previous.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Moss, other experiences.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
In life, just being able to problem solve because one
of the one of the biggest, one of the biggest
challenges that I think the young soldier's face is there's
not a lot there's not a lot of them that
come through and I don't you know, by no means
is any of this derogatory, But there's not a lot
(28:15):
of them that come through with usable experience.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I can translatable experience.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Yeah, I can build on almost anything. But if you're
if you're one of those.
Speaker 6 (28:28):
People that you know, you only went outside when the
sun was shining and then the rest.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Of the time you played video.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
Games, there's not a lot I can I can build
on that. I need some kind of you know, some
kind of something, some kind of tangible skill or something
to to be able to build on. If not, then
we have to start at ground zero, which I had
to do that a couple of times, and I'm.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Not afraid of it.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
It just it definitely does take a little bit more
of your time as an instructor, and you have to
make sure you balance that with what is the rest
of the class need versus what is this one student need.
But I was able to fundamentally change the way that
they saw the world around them, even to the point where,
like you know, you always see in the movies where
the cops are shooting, they poked themselves out and exposed
(29:11):
themselves around a corner and they're shooting at a bad guy,
and the bad guy shoots back at them and the
bullets ricochet off the door jam.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
You know, I just asked the question, why not shoot
through the wall?
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Yeah, that it's sheet rock, it's sheat rocks in a
little bit of plywood. I guarantee the muzzle velocity on
your weapons system can go through that and hit that.
And people just started they just started thinking differently, you know, like,
oh my gosh, I never thought about that, Like, we're
we're trapped as human beings in our own mind based
on what we have experienced. And so if you've never
(29:44):
thought about something like that, and you've never thought about
the world around you in that light, then.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
It's completely different, completely different.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
You know, most people we view doors as a way
in or out of something, right, But what if that
door could actually be a tool as a breacher. You
could actually use that door as a tool.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
To smash the face off of anybody that's behind it.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah, into the room, and you clear the room out
with by pushing it in. I'm right there with you, brother,
I guess absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
So you just you change the way that you think
about things. And I always try to inspire and encourage
them to find more, find more, Always ask the question.
This is what I always told them whenever I was
teaching them how to identify different pieces of ordinance.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Is always ask yourself why why is that there?
Speaker 6 (30:38):
Because anytime you see a feature on a piece of ordinance,
it's there for a purpose. We don't just make things
to look cool. I mean I do, but uh, the
military doesn't pay for contractors to make, you know, one
hundred and fifty five millimeters rounds look cool. Everything that's
on the piece of ordinance, everything that's on that fuse
(31:00):
as a function. It has a purpose, and you have
to ask yourself what is the purpose?
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Is it on the front, is it on the back,
is it on the side? Why would it be there?
Speaker 6 (31:10):
Just ask the questions and you will come to an
answer that gets you pretty damn close to correct.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
And I was able to watch. I was able to watch.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
Students go from you know, not having any clue what
to do, to you know, making near perfect scores on
their tests and things like that. So and I'm not,
you know, by no means am I going like, oh
my goodness and pat myself on the back because I
don't want to hurt my shoulder.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
But being able to.
Speaker 6 (31:37):
See someone, being able to see somebody grow and be
successful in that way that will help them the rest
of their life. They will never look at the world
around them the same way. Ever, again, do you still.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Do you still teach it all? Do you still teach?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Oh? Lost?
Speaker 5 (31:57):
You guys there for a second, were you crying? Is
that why you blind?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I was crying?
Speaker 5 (32:02):
I know.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
No, Just let me ask you, do you still teach?
Are you still a teacher? An instructor at all?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (32:09):
So yeah, officially the official answer on am I still
an instructor?
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Is no?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Now, well, for a.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
While you should be. Here's here's what I want to
tell you. So I love.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
To teach and and and try to speak to people.
You're very inspiring.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I think a good teacher, somebody that should be in
that role for a lifetime, is somebody that can teach
anything and have somebody go wow, I all of a
sudden look at the world in a completely different way.
I can step outside of this comfort zone that I
thought that I had to live within and and do
all these things. And I'm just like listening to you
(32:48):
talk about EODC stuff which I really don't know anything about,
and I'm all of a sudden inspired to go do
something like write a blog or whatever, run around the block,
you know, And I think that that's really cool. And
I hope that you realize that you've got that skill,
that gift of being able to change people's lives. I
hope you never stop doing that with whatever it is
(33:09):
that you do right now.
Speaker 6 (33:11):
So so I constantly am finding little niche areas where
I can actually impart, I don't want to make myself
sound better than I am, but in part wisdom that
I've picked up along the way into people and help
them do things like that. Even to the point where, uh,
there was we had we had some foster kids for
about a year. Came from a really bad environment, and
(33:34):
we said, yeah, we'll take them. So we got them,
and uh when I got them, they were failing everything
in school. Uh, and they had no idea about, like,
you know, some of the general stuff like personal hygiene
and things like that, how to do their own laundry
and stuff. When they left here, they were passing with
a's and b's except for we had one one C.
And it was in history, which I am not good
(33:56):
at history. Like I don't even remember what I did yesterday.
I'd have to look back in my email. But anyway,
they were passing all their grades h and all their
classes they knew about personal hygiene.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
For God's sakes, everyone needs to know about personal hygiene.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
Uh, it was it was definitely a learning curve though,
but you know, it's it's it's one of those things
that requires a high level of patience, a high level
of understanding, and and also a personality, you know, personality
that that works, that works with almost everybody. I used
to call myself, I don't even know if it's a
real term. If it's not, I'd like to go ahead
(34:34):
and be the first one to use it. And and
you can plagiarize it if you want. But I used
to call myself a sociomorph. And the way the way
I kind of describe what a sociomorph is, it's not
like a sociopath, even though we all have some of
those tendencies.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
And if you don't see me after this, we'll we'll
develop some But a sociomorph is somebody who can fit
into almost eaty group of people, almost any group of people,
and be able to function as a part of the whole.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
And so you know, I saw that.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
I'll throw out my childhood because then not so much
in elementary school or even middle school, but in high school,
you know, you have your different factions, right, you have
the cowboys and the jocks, and the cheerleaders, the skaters,
the stoners, the the emo kids.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
I'm trying to think of all the other ones. I
can't remember.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
Anyway, I was able to kind of fit into almost
all those.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Groups and still have friends in them and stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
And so that's actually kind of lent itself to being
able to adapt to almost any environment out there, as
well as adapt to almost any people out there. Now,
don't get me wrong, there's still a couple of times
where I would choke somebody a little bit. Yeah, I
(35:57):
get it, you know what I mean, Yeah, because they
ate my lunch or something like that.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Yes, but those were my spaghettios.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
You can you should should not be touching those, right,
But but anyway, you know, it's it's it's one of
those things. That's it's you can't teach people that kind
of stuff. It's it's a life experience type of thing.
And and to some people it does come natural.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
You know, those those are generally like.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
Your your folks that have like the gift of gab
and and things like that, and other very social people.
The elements that could be missing out of that is,
like I said, the patience, the life experience, and the
willingness to try to fit yourself into the mold of
the person that you're trying to reshape.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
If that be right, A good deal. So what when
did you actually retire? I'm glad we're talking about all
these other things, and I'm glad sts bringing up all
these questions and expanding upon the sal that we have
here on the video with us. But so when did
(37:08):
you retire? How's how's things been with the VA? And
then you know, let's let's talk abit a little bit
about from retirement to this point real quick.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
Okay, So I retired out May of twenty twenty, so
right during COVID everything was real weird.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
And then.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
Right after that I took up a job with the
State Department out at Fort Pitt.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
It's not picking anymore. It's barfoot Fort barfoot yep.
Speaker 6 (37:41):
So we're blowing up stuff out there at the State Department,
which I did the same thing out there.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
It's just the instead of army students, we.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
Had state agent, Department of State Agents and other people
like that that we were able to help make a
difference in their life and when I say make a
differ into their life, there was one there was one
thing and Odie, I don't remember. Did I read you
that email from Lieutenant Slack?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (38:06):
Yeah, okay, that's why. That's why I do this job.
That's why I love doing this job. And I if.
Speaker 6 (38:13):
You told me tomorrow I had to go back to
trash Canisty and Land, I'd be like, hang on, let
me put a little when we put a little tiger
bahalm on my knees, I'll be.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Ready to get it.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And oh, we got to get our tactical kilts because
that's what we're doing. We're not wearing We're going back
to combat and not wearing pants this time.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Brother. Yes, that's right. It's all tactical kilts. That's right.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
And I'm probably gonna wear like a dinosaur onesie to bed, so.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Don't well, okay, that's fine. I don't. I don't fit them.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
Yeah, that'd be the weirdest thing ever.
Speaker 6 (38:45):
You could be like, yeah, so we were in the
middle of this combat zone all of a sudden, I
see this dinosaur walking over to the porta potty.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
This is the weirdest thing ever. It'd be some Army
private that's just freaking out, like, oh, all right, well
that just happened.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
So okay, So so since you got here with with
Phase one and then you retired, you were at you
were at Barfoot State Department then you yeah, but they
got back here.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, so good man, that's that's awesome for quite a while. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
So it was a it was a good year long
gig out there Department of State. And then I got
on as one of the actually I was doing Rich's job,
which Rich actually took my position when I left, as
I got on there as a contractor developing the training
and stuff, which which was actually really kind of cool
because after being an instructor of Phase one, now I'm
(39:43):
actually right in the training for Phase one, so it
kind of went full circle you think about it, which
which was actually kind of cool because I still get to,
you know, interact with a lot of the folks that
are there that they are still there, like mister.
Speaker 5 (39:58):
Markham and a couple of other folks. Ye uh.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
But being able to affect change now systematically was was amazing.
And then now as a doctrine writer slash capabilities integrator,
I'm actually affecting change globally because now we can actually
make sure that that our e D brothers and sisters
out there have the right equipment that they need hopefully
(40:20):
when they need it. I can't control time if I
do figure it out, though there's a there's a couple
of things I got to go back and fix in
the past. But it's uh, it's it's it's it's awesome
to still be able to contribute to the community, even though, uh,
you know, I'm kind of a little gray and the
beard now and a little slower standing up my eyes.
(40:42):
I gotta go like this to make them focuses for
a second. I'm not gonna need glasses though yet.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
So well, one thing at a time, right, Yeah, yeah,
you never know.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I mean yeah, it's like when you're a kid, you know,
and you close your eyes and you see those little
floaty things and they just float right by you, and
you're like, what they.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I think I just saw a floating thing. I don't
know what that was.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
I don't don't have to stay tuned, but you know.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I gotta.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
I gotta say, Stacy, hit it right on the head
man with with what you're talking about or what you
to recap what you were talking about as far as
connecting with the students, and they're really influencing an existence,
like you're you're molding the clay to begin with, because
they just got through boot camp and they're going to
Phase one that could set the precedence for their entire
career moving forward if they.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Make it through EOD.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So, I mean, Stacy was absolutely on point with that,
and you're really you're really.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Having good with it. I should have told you that before.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
But most of the time when we're hanging out, when
we have times to go have cigarettes and stuff for
it's uh, you know, deack gas rebuilt, freaking joking about
stuff or whatever, telling funny stories. Tell tell Stacy what
happened with your son with the motorcycle. That's just one
of those stories that will never get old. This is hilarious.
Speaker 5 (41:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
So we're putting together a motorcycle in the garage and
I was trying to get the coil mounted and then
for a reason I may never know if I if
I can control time, I might go back and ask.
But he hits the kick start and I'm holding the
coil in my hand, and so all of a sudden,
I'm just like.
Speaker 5 (42:21):
You know, I don't know how many vaults of electricity,
but it was in the millions. I want to say,
but you.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Got all of them? How many? You got all of them, every.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Last one of them.
Speaker 6 (42:33):
And I ain't no quitter, but I definitely had to
take a knee. I definitely had taken Electricity is not fun.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
No, So, Stacy, I don't know if they do this
where you're so in federal buildings nowadays, instead of freaking
CPR and stuff like that, they've got all these it's
the A D things, right. Yeah, So for us, for
us in the office, we're always joking around. It's like,
oh ship, uh Rich's got a paper cut, grab the paddles.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
To Maximum. Yeah, oh my god. It's just it's we
get work done. I promise we get work done. But
it's it's, uh yeah, it's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
So he liked Transformers right like Maximum. Okay, after we.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Get off here, I'm gonna send I don't know if
I follow you on Instagram or not yet, but I'm
gonna send Stephen this this amazing video that I had
posted the Mustang Marine posted it. Who I follow and
and this is it's about the guy the voice of
Maximus Prime and how he.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Developed that voice. I think you saw when I had posted.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
That, Yes, and something his father had told him that
made him come up with that voice.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
You'll think it's super cool. I'm gonna say it was.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It was his marine brother who went to Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great video.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
The video is awesome. I don't know if you've seen it,
but I'll send it to Steve and have it. Have
you have you see it? It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, absolutely, I've got I've got access to him.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
I'll send it to.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Okay, cool, Yeah, Josh, what's that? You can follow me
on Instagram? Are you you're on Instagram?
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Right?
Speaker 9 (44:24):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (44:25):
Yeah, we'll say a light yet I got so, I'm
not gonna lie. Full disclosure. I got on Instagram to
Instagram stock somebody who was causing problems for a family member.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
So that's the only reason I actually have an Instagram.
I have no idea how to use it.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
On Facebook. Yeah, yeah, he's on Facebook.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
Yeah, I'm definitely on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
And when I see him next to the office, Stacy,
when I see him next at the office, I'll make
sure that one of our breaks that I get him
on there and he'll follow you.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
So thank you. I got we got you, we got you.
She's leading the way for us.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Man. You know, I'm telling you, she's just she's she's
doing freaking amazing things up there in Aperville.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
So yeah, that sounds I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Oh yeah, as soon as soon as we're done here,
she's got to go to coordinate like a Turkey raffle.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Because I know that sounds much.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
It sounds funny when you say that, but let me
just tell you it's one of our biggest fundraisers are
It's I mean, we have, like, you know, five hundred
people that roll through there at the public and it's
we have to raise money so we can give it
back to the community to support the veteran community.
Speaker 5 (45:38):
So we got to raise it.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
And this is I wasn't poking. I wasn't poking.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Well, so I'm not poking fun I've been to the
Turkey Raffles in the past when I was up there
living with Dad for a while, and I mean the
energy is just insane. I love all the things that
you guys do. You're doing great work up there, so.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
All the wattions and it's yeah, it's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, absolutely busy for the greater good. Yes, agreed.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
We've been trying to organize a TPO car wash. That
way we can fund our next bomb suit. But I
don't know if there's many people that would pay to
see Odie and some UDTs or me and like a
little bikini top.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
Do you need me to do you need me to
get some of my girls together and shuttle down there?
Speaker 5 (46:23):
We might agree thing doesn't come through.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I mean I do know some people.
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Well, uh, we'll put a trip wire sponsor sponsors on
the back of the bomb suit.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I think fell where God fell all the way off.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
I know, I think we could we could work out something.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
We could probably really make this a big, big opportunity.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
You know, we building coach. I coached bikini competitors.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
So oh, dag out, Okay, my roster, Josh, my roster
rolls deep.
Speaker 6 (47:00):
Okay, Yeah, maybe you could coach me one of these days.
I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a big dude.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
I don't know what I'm doing there.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
There's been some days where the email stops working and
I'm just over there.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Like.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
I don't know where he went.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
I don't know if he's going to have to call
back in or well, he was asking you a question
about the VA. Was there something about the VA that
you that he wanted you to talk about? Steven, you
were asking him about the VA?
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I got I got a big gorilla pause and small keys,
and I accidently knocked myself out of.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
The car wash.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So, you know, come on now, we'll have to talk
offline about that, because I'm sure we can do some
sponsorship and make that really work.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Work. It's work. It's worth out here down here. Just
so before cell phones, there was one time I was
in a tutu. But I'm not doing it again. I'm
not doing it again.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
I love that story. You've told it to me three
times in the past.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
I love the story because I'm come on, it's just
hilarious that a six foot two freaking yes.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Okay, Well, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring it.
I'm sorry to traumatize you with my two two story.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I think we have we have four minutes, Yes.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
I know, right, Well, I just so I always like
to know, Josh, how has your interaction with the VA been,
if you want to try and sum that up real quick.
Speaker 6 (48:26):
Yeah, yeah, so I've been I've never I haven't had
a problem with the VA I mean, if I was
going to complain about something, the only thing I could
actually complain about would be the fact that, uh, when
you do have to make an appointment, they're so booked
out that that's a little bit far in the future.
So the VA here has been absolutely fantastic. I haven't
(48:48):
used it as much as I should, uh, because there's
definitely some dark roads that you can go down talking
to like the behavioral health people and stuff that, like,
it's just not fun, uh, and I'm definitely glutton for punishment.
I'll probably go, you know, hit the kickstart again while
I'm holding the coil for fun, But talking to talking
to people about like your feelings is not.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah, yeah, I know, I get it.
Speaker 6 (49:11):
So that's why I said I haven't used it as but.
Speaker 5 (49:16):
Yes you do.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
I know.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah, I'm the same way. I'm a gluod for to
help you.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
But it's also a trigger. You know, it's you've got it.
You have to face it, and it's hard.
Speaker 5 (49:27):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 6 (49:29):
Well, it's definitely something that's uh, doesn't doesn't personal opinion
doesn't quite fit in a professional setting. It it fits
more around a couple of dude bros uh and some
dude chicks around a fire pit drinking a couple of
cold adult sodie pops.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (49:49):
And you're handing out some demons, you know, talking to
somebody in a in a sterile environment who's never experienced
some of those things, and not say anything bad about them,
but it loves some of its.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
It could be problematic at times. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Business, that's just therapy around the fire pit.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, exactly, more awful visits.
Speaker 6 (50:11):
We just Yeah, the person that you talked in the office,
there's nothing wrong with them.
Speaker 5 (50:16):
They're professional, they went to school to get right.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
It is the energy vibe, it is.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (50:21):
But how do you articulate something like being in a
two and a half hour long firefight to somebody like that.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
In a one hour Yeah you can't, so uh Josh,
real quick, last last tidbit from you, sir, and then
we're going to wrap this up and again on behalf
of Stacy, myself and our producer Skywatcher and the kg
r A family. I want to really thank you for
joining us this evening, but I need one motivational quote
(50:51):
from you, sir, and then we're going to freaking kick
this down.
Speaker 6 (50:55):
Okay, let me see. I'll try to keep it, try
to keep it good. Here one motivational quote, Okay, I
got one. You have to know who you are to
know where you're going.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
That's a good one. I like that.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
Yeah, that's driven me for that's driven me for a
long time. Know who you are so that you know
where you're going.
Speaker 6 (51:23):
Because if if you know who you are, you know
where you came from, then you know what you got
to do and you know which direction you got to go.
If you don't know who you are, those are the
people that wander around in life forever figuring out who
they're at.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
You know, where they're supposed to be going, what they're
supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (51:40):
I was lucky enough to get plugged in early enough
to figure out where I can actually make a difference.
Speaker 5 (51:46):
And make a change. And you know, Odie liked that
letter I read.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
To you from Lieutenant Slack, like that lap line there
where it said we brought everybody back from the deployment
that we left with that right there was validation for
almost my.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Entire military career.
Speaker 6 (52:02):
Everything had set me up to that point, and then
as soon as I read that letter, I was like,
you know what I could be.
Speaker 5 (52:09):
I could be out tomorrow and I would be I
would feel like I did it.
Speaker 6 (52:13):
I made a difference. I made a difference, you know.
But everything else has been icing on the cake. Running
into people who are like, man, do you remember me,
and I'm like, yeah, you're that one guy and they're like, yeah,
you were a instructor in phase one and I was like,
oh yeah, phase one.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
I almost forgot Yeah.
Speaker 6 (52:30):
And you know, they say, like, you really said some
stuff that changed the way I thought about things and
changed my outlook.
Speaker 5 (52:36):
You're the reason I made it through you D school
blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (52:39):
You know, I had one student actually call me and
wanted me to go pin their badge on them.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
So you know, that's awesome.
Speaker 5 (52:44):
That's awesome. D My kid figured out what a twenty
four hour tournam Burne was.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Yeah, I guess package. I really appreciate your times and
I today, Josh, thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (52:59):
Brother.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Good to I'll see it at the office when I'm
doing my class next week. We'll check in, uh Stacy,
any any goodbyes.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
I'm just I'm honored to meet you.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
I think you're really cool. I think that you've got
so many gifts and so much to offer. I hope
you realize how fantastic you really are.
Speaker 9 (53:17):
I'll let my wife know because until now, I just
have a lot of projects in the garage, and I
make and I make all the time.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
It's a good yeah, good, Well, it's good meeting you.
Speaker 5 (53:32):
If you're if you're ever in this neck of the woods,
I'll buy you a beer and some anduggies.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah. We got we got a car walk to figure out.
We'll figure that out.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
That's another project.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Ye all right, guys on behalf of myself and everybody
with the k g R A family. Thank you very
much for tuning in the trip wire this evening. God blessed,
stay safe and we'll catch you next week, same time.
Speaker 5 (53:56):
All right, rock on, brother,
Good afternoon. Everybody. Is that time again? Tripwire?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Wednesday afternoon, October twenty third, Stacey, Great to see you
in the studio today.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
How is everything going in Aprilville.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
The weather's really nice too, hanging in there with a
little bit of sunshine.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
So I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
All good, good, that's fantastic. That's great. Well, I'm still
here in Virginia and mother nature still on it. She
went back on a bend another vender. So we had
eighty degree weather today even though it was like forty
seven this morning when I got up for my coffee.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
He went from that sounds like Chicago weather.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, no, I just I'm not happy about it. I
want it to be cool weather, leaves are already changing.
I can't wait to go for some drives over the weekends,
go hang out with a I'm going to hang out
with Chuck Lenoora up north and do fire pit activities
on sitt next Saturday.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So it's going to be great fight activities. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I just sit around, drink bourbon, smoke a cigar, have
a good time, you know, tell stories, sound good.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Table book fire me activities.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'm going to get a coffee book or a coffee
table book. We'll figure it out. So all right, great
to have you here, honey. We've got a great show
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Today.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
We have Joshua Salas, our former Army EOD technician retired.
He has the unfortunate experience of having to work with
me every day, and so we're gonna bring him in
and let's.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Get this party started.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Gosh, how are you.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Man, I'm doing fantastic. How are you all good?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Good? Great to see it.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And Stacey, we have two members of the Silver Fox
team from work here at on the on the call
right now.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So yep, there it is right there.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I have to take a picture.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So Josh, this is kind of like just an informal interview.
We go with what however you want to do it, Bud.
We'll start at the beginning. Let's talk about when you
were abducted by aliens when you were living in Roswell,
New Mexico.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Yeah, so I was out in the h I was
Bud in the front yard and its bright lights. I
can't do that too long with a straight face.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
So Mourner raised in Roswell, New Mexico where the aliens landed.
And uh, fortunately that was one of the things that
kind of was a good icebreaker.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Going through the military and you know all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
Of course you get razzed a little bit and basic training,
but you know that's right of passage type stuff. But
we successfully were able to remove most of the probe
out of me. I still have a little bit back there.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
So uh see me doing like a butt skewed across
the front yard. That's why I'll keep it. I'll keep
it like Pg. Thirteen. Anyways, awesome. So all school, all.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Schools like kindergarten and middle school and all that stuff
went to Roswell.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Uh and it's uh, you know, it's it's it's a
small town. It's not as small as as some people
you know, enjoy. It's about fifty thousand people.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
And then of course in the summertime at the population
ramps up to probably close to one hundred hundred and
fifteen with all the alien and observers that come out.
So so that's super fun. We didn't really know any
we didn't really give a crap about anything when we
were growing up, so we're.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Just like, yeah, whatever, aliens that's cool.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
Yeah, But anyway, from there, senior year in high school
is kind of when I realized that I hadn't really
planned anything for the future, and so I joined the army.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
There you go, it was it was better than it
was better than my alternative, which was hope something happens.
But I was one of those kids that kind of coasted.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
All the way through high school.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
I still graduated with like a three point eight and
almost zero effort.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
And I'm not saying that the pat myself on the back.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
I'm just saying that because that's just kind of how
the first part of well, the first couple of chapters
of my life turned out, was just kind of coast
and just almost effortless, you know. And then got into
the got into basic training. There I didn't I wasn't
always EOD. I started out as a Air Defense Artillery
(05:09):
personnels fourteen MIC in fourteen Sierra. So once I got
tired of humping around stinger missiles out in the desert,
that's when I was like, you know, maybe maybe driving
around in the desert's not so bad. But anyway, all
we did as a fourteen Sierra Avenger crewman was we
drove to a spot and they were still humping around
in the desert, and so I was like, this doesn't
(05:32):
get it any better?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
No, probably not. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
So I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart, which
we're still together today.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Which that's that's who lets me buy all these wonderful toys.
I mean, I even have some really cool ones here.
Not that it's like show and tell or anything.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
But but you're making a show and tell.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
I have these little guys. Yeah I can't.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
And if that's not cool enough, that one opens up
and then there's another one inside.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
But I haven't, my lord, so I don't show you that.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Where did after after you did your air defense stuff?
Where did you? So? Where did you go to boot camp?
First and foremost for for the army? Uh?
Speaker 5 (06:17):
So I did boot camp at Fort Benning, which you know,
cool guy.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
I will say this for anybody that's uh that's out there.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
If you might remember, sand Hill is not noted for
its sand content.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Correct, Uh?
Speaker 5 (06:32):
There is no sand on sand Hill?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
No?
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Uh so did uh? As a matter of fact, I
don't even know how I remember this. This is how
TBI works. Delta three four seven was my was my
basic training company.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Gotcha gotcha, how crazy is that?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And then from a defense to.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
What Yeah, so I uh I heard about this thing
called combat engineer and I was like, man, that's how
it's crazy, Like I'll be doing blueprints and like designing
bridges and stuff, and that's not what it was at all.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
It was just humping around in the woods that fort Lenner.
Speaker 8 (07:09):
Would so, uh the uh The super cool thing about
that though, is, uh, we did we did use quite
a few explosives and you know, we got to do
breaching and do stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
Now, the weird thing is once you go through EOD
school and you remember back in your combat engineer days
and you're like, how in the hell did I survive?
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Like I should be dead?
Speaker 6 (07:35):
Yeah, I guess some of the some of the extremely
unsafe things that combat engineers do.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
How does let me ask you this, how does the
combat How does being a combat engineer then translate into
EO D?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Is that like a step? Is that like a stepping stone?
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Or EO D when you're when you get to that
EO D level, is a lot of them have been
combat engineers?
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Is that I don't know exactly like a number.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I wouldn't put a percentage on it and be confident
giving you an accurate number on that. But I will
say from my experience, being a combat engineer prepared me
to work with explosives. It also bolstered a lot of
my I guess what, for lack of a better term,
called childhood background, because I was that kid that got
(08:23):
myself in trouble a little bit more than most normal
kids do.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
And so my mom actually called up my two.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Uncles who worked for themselves, and they were in the
construction industry, so she basically called them and was like, hey,
you need to put these You need to put these
boys to work before they're gonna, you know, end up
in trouble and become artiists or whatever.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So anyway, so that that's kind of where I got
a lot of my construction background.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
Which kind of translated it's kind of weird how things
work out here.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And construction is with the combat engineering.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Is that?
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Yeah, because as a as a combat engineer, you know,
aside from doing like all the rock marches and humping
around in the woods and figuring out how to you know,
make make things out of nothing, doing rope bridges and
junk like that, it's uh, it's it's a lot of
like construction y background, if you will, so you kind
of have to know how to like what you're gonna attack,
(09:22):
if you're gonna like bring a building down or something
weird like that.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, build combat engineers have the construction background just like
CBS do.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
So if anything, it definitely bolstered my construction background and
added to it the element of doing this in combat.
So you know, you can't just run the lows and
get a rope or whatever. You know, you you have
what you kind of run, what you've grown, and so
so that that kind of translated into that, and then
(09:52):
combat engineer kind of I don't want to say translated
into but it kind of helped build a foundation for.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
EOD school, not so much.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Construction stuff, but definitely with the explosive stuff. And then
also I think this is a key element, especially that
I tried to One that I tried to instill in
the students when I was an EOD instructor is critical thinking.
So a lot of times, yeah, we as the EOD guys,
we'll make fun of the combat engineers because you know,
we kind of put them out there with some of
(10:22):
the crayon eaters like the Marine Corps and places like that.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And don't get me wrong, I love the Marines. Man.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Them dudes are good at two things, breaking stuff and
killing things.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Well three eating crayons. So nobody likes the yellow crowons.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
So anyway, but yeah, so, so it kind of helped
build build a foundation for for EOD school. And and
by saying that, you know, I'm talking about critical thinking
where if you come up to a problem, you got
to be able to think your way through that problem
and be able to come out on the other side
without hurting anybody, hurting yourself or or you know, going
(10:57):
to jail.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So when I was when I was doing my little
my research, I was doing some research and Stephen de
laugh but okay, so and they were when I was
reading about it. The combat engineers are like ahead and
clear the way. They clear the ditch, they clear the fences,
they make it so the troops the people back there
can actually get to what it is they need to
(11:19):
get to. So they can't get there without the combat
engineers critically thinking about how to clear the way and
set the course.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Is that is that kind of what you did, or
that's that's.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
That's pretty close. That's pretty close to what we trained
to do.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Now, my first employment in two thousand and three as
a combat engineer, I did exactly this much of that.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But you were ready to do it.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
You're ready to do it totally, totally had the tools
and the knowledge and everything.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
The difference is that it wasn't what the mission was there.
But yeah, that's that's a lot of what they trained.
They're they're a huge.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
They're a huge, right, Yeah, a huge force multiplier and
a large element of enabling the maneuver units to be able.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
To get to where they're going.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Yeah, you know they use Bangalore's and things like that
to clear sea wire or move obstacles tn T you know,
blow up tea walls or T barriers, just blow them out.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Of the way or whatever.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, yeah, it is even having that knowledge, being able
to do it, being knowing, you know, knowing that you
have that that tool kit here, right, is amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
So how long how many years did you do that?
Speaker 5 (12:33):
I gotta do some math, real quicks. I gotta take
my shoes off. It's about.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
Let's see those about four years, Okay, about four years
and then.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
You decided you wanted to go to E O D.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Because both of you guys did that, so that was
like a whole different you had to qualify and test out, right,
I mean not yeah different.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
So for me, when I got back from my first deployment,
I got out in let's see, I got out in
March March of five, right, yeah, March of five, and
I moved back home, well closer to home anyway. I
moved to Albuquerque or Real Rancho, which is a kind
(13:23):
of a suburb of Albuquerque, New Mexico. That's where all
my family was, you know, brothers, sister's, mom and dad,
all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Uh and uh so I did that.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Started my own business was a Kingsway construction for about
two and a half years. Well, I mean it was
open longer than that, but I only did business for
about two and a half years, built some subdivisions, you know,
got some stuff under my belt. And then of course
in seven slash o eight, that's when the market kind
of fell out for the housing stuff. And I had
(13:53):
a couple of commercial jobs going, but it just wasn't
enough to keep doors open and stuff like that. So
uh that's when I decided, Uh, well, at the same
time too, where my wife was pregnant with my first son, UH,
and he had he had a couple of issues in.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Utero that were pretty serious.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
So that's when I decided, well, the self employment thing
doesn't carry good insurance. I know my boss, he has
a good heart, that's me, but I didn't didn't didn't
have the insurance coverage to back that up. So UH,
that's when we decided. I was like, well, I just
get back in the army. It wasn't that hard the
(14:32):
first time. It'll probably be a lot easier the second time.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Man was I wrong.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
So the first thing is like going and talking to
the recruiter. He's like, well, we don't want to lose you.
So he put me in a reserve unit that was
there in UH in Albuquerque, which happened to be a
combat engineering unit. And I didn't do any combat engineer
stuff with them. I just showed up and took pet
tests and and and waited for them to retrieve my
records from this place called the archives. But you're not
(15:02):
for sure where that is. I thought it was fourteen
Parsex past the Beetlejuice car.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
But it took them.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
It took them quite quite a while to find all
my stuff. Matter of fact, my my clothing record was
still printed on the old dot matrix paper that you got.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
To yeah yeah, yeah, so really old. I know.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Odie's was probably in a stone, like a stone you gotta.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Carve it out that carbon paper that you had to
like rub on.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Oh yeah, I bet.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
But once, yeah, once.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
They got the once they got my records.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
Uh, that's when I actually got to go into the
office and he was like, all right, you're going to
pick your MS and I'm like, all right, cool and
pick something that sounds like it'd be fun. And he's like,
you only got two choices, and I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
I like, I like easy choices A or B.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
Right, So it was either eighteen X ray, which I
at that point I had in my life. I had
no idea what an eighteen X ray was. I knew
what an eighteen series was, I didn't know what eighteen
X ray was. And then he's like for eighty nine
Delta and I was like, what's that. He's like, eod
they just blow shit up. And I'm like, oh, all right,
well that sounds like fun, and uh so he goes
CLICKI glack on the computer and then he comes back
(16:21):
and he goes, well, bad news, and I was like,
what eighteen X rays out so it's just eighty nine
delta And I was like, oh all right, and that
wasn't all the bad. It was eighty nine delta as
an E four or go home. So I was like,
all right, well, I like easy choices, so let's do it.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
So I did that.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I got back in and uh, let's see, they put
me in the reserve unit from seven to oh it
was like mid O seven and mid O eight and
then uh after I got back in, uh back onto
active duty out of that reserve and it there's some
paperwork shuffling that happened there. That's the went back to
(17:00):
for Jackson to rein process back into the army. And
met up with a couple of other really great h
D guys going to EO D School as well, Chad
Staples and a couple of the folks. Yeah I know, yep,
So we're we're just setting out in the smoke pit,
you know, in the beer garden, making fun of all
the dumb.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Privates like hey, he sucks to suck, right, so yep.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
And then uh then we got you know, we got
our new uniforms and everything.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
And went on to EOD School. And I had no
idea how hard EOD School was going to be.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Like I was thinking, it's going to be your classic,
you know, Army style school where it's one hundred percent
pass raid and they just keep putting you back through
until you pass.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
They didn't. The recruiters never, like your recruiter didn't tell you.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
My recruiter didn't tell me either that it's a Navy
school on an Air Force base and that the Army
is a red headed step child at the EOD school period.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Absolutely, but I think we're the single biggest funder of that.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Yeah, I mean I spent a lot of money in
the game.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Is that how you know each other?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
No?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So, No, So I was.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I was several years ahead of him, Like so when
he was going through boot camp at Fort Benning to
go to be his uh his Air defense stuff, I
was actually stationed at Fort Benning at the EO D
Unit on the base while he's doing boot camp.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
And then.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
When he came back on active duty O seven and eight,
I was already off active duty, had two combat to
towards as EO D under my belt and I was
over back in Iraq, you know, late on a soft
based contract that was that had e O D T
O D e O D guys with it, and I
was one of the team leaders as an EOD guy.
(18:52):
So it's a lot of different We chewed a lot
of the same dirt. We did a lot of the
same things from our eu D deployments, just from time frame.
So like, uh, if like I'm I'd be a senior,
he's he would be the freshman coming in at that
time where he was going in.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, and then you.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Guys become friends. How did you guys become friends?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Actually it was the first first day at work. We
sized each other up. I was much taller than him.
He goes, that's a pretty good beard. I go, that's
a really good beard. And then we've just been kind
of friends ever since.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Is that what you guys did? Did you talk about
each other's beards other things, like circle each other and
smell each other a little bit.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of lot of a lot
of stuff going on there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Good to keep the professional community, you know, we try
we try to keep it professional.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
So, gosh, what do you like to be called the Sal?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
The Saul? Is that your So that's.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
Actually just kind of a thing I threw on Facebook
because I would regularly change yeah, just kind of regularly
change my mind because I was I.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Was an instructor at phase one, uh, you know, full disclosure. Uh.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
And the students found me on Facebook, which turned out
to be kind of a semi nightmare. You know, when
you're in you tend to do things that are not
necessarily either're kind of like, uh yeah, like.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
N C seventeen a little bit, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Yeah, And so I had I had quite a few
deployment pictures on there that were kind of in that category,
and then found and they were like.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Is this you started sell?
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And I was like, yes it is. Where did you
find that?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And they're like yes.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
So I had to go in there and scrub all
my photos and change my name and everything you know.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
About it.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
They just what do I call you?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
Josh?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I call you Josh.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, you can call me Josh. You can call me Sal.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Most people just call me Sal. That's whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Okay, So what do you do now? What is your
what is your job?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Now?
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Can you say that again kind of broke up a little.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
What is your job?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Now?
Speaker 3 (21:06):
What do you do?
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (21:07):
Okay, so right now, professionally, I am a capabilities integrator
slash doctor and writer slash whipping boy for TPO.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
E U D Okay, Okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's TPO stands for Trade Dock Proponency Office. Yeah, and
so trade dock is a command element that's in charge
of all training throughout the entire army. Okay, So TPO
is the Trade doc Proponency Office Explosive Ordinance Disposal where
(21:43):
he and I both work. I'm on the training side,
he's on the doctrine side.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
So both of you guys have are employed by the government.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Is I'm a contractor, you're.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Contractor and you're employed by the government.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Both of these jobs that you got lended themselves from
the training and experience that you got from being in service.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Correct, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
That's awesome. I think that that's a good message. You know,
there's a lot of going into the military is becoming
very and I don't want to use the word popular
because I don't want to say popular with our high
school kids when we talk about patriotism and loving our country.
I'm just happy that our next generation is finding it
(22:25):
in their hearts to feel that way. But we have
a lot of guys that are talking about you know,
I was when I was researching it. There's a lot
of forums, a lot of questions combat engineer looking at
all the different jobs out there, and everybody's always wanting
to see how those can those jobs articulate into what
they can do when they when they get out, and
it's not always clear.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
And I think when I.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Talk to recruiters around here, I'm very close with them
for what I do, you know, as the commander of
o WFW and stuff. I talk to them about when
they're going in and what they're talking about, and they're
really good at what their job is. But we've we've
all collectively said, these kids are really trying to figure
out what they can do later to articulate all these
different things they are going to learn, the kind of
(23:08):
person it's going to make them be calm, and it's
it's really it's really cool to have people like you
guys talk about these these hard, scary jobs. You know,
I was, I was a corman, so I was a medic, right,
you know, I was saving lives and that was them
my mentality. That's easy to translate that kind of a
job into oh, I'm going to be a wellness or
work in a hospital. Right, it's something like with what
(23:29):
you guys do. It's I think people should talk about
it more. I think it would get these kids more
excited about going in and doing this and then what
they can do later.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
You know, Oh yeah, absolutely, Yeah, there's a there's a
huge skill set. And I'll speak from you know, speaking
from different having what four different moss The air defender stuff,
I mean, the air defender stuff is air defender stuff.
What we picked up out of that was well, what
(23:58):
I picked up out of that was a lot of
the organization, discipline, how things are doing. There's a method
to the madness and make sure that you stay on target.
Once I got into combat engineer stuff, that's a little
more translatable and and you know, not to turn not
to ever turn anybody off and say don't do this
MS or don't do that m s. But there are
(24:20):
some that are a little more translatable into the civilian
world than than others. And I'm not saying anything bad
about air defender stuff. I've you know, there's there's some
good air defenders out there, uh, and there's actually places
for them to plug themselves in, uh into civilian world
once they get out. There's just a there's a couple
(24:40):
of different things that are a little more mainstream I
guess you could say mainstream applicable applicability to like combat
engineer and e O D.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I've got those jobs.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Yeah, absolutely, it's it's about it's about setting that goal
and then putting as much energy that you you need
to crush that goal.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
And then you set a.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Goal, take a knee for a second, you know, get
yourself some water, Splash a little moonshine on your eyes so.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
You can feel the burn, and then get back after.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It, rub some dirt on it.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yes, touching in it.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Perfect and don't forget you.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah right, okay, you and you and your Ibuprofra and Josh.
So okay, So for our.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Audience, brother, how many combat tours did you do once
you made the training?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
So you did one as.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
A combat engineer, and then how many combat tours did
you do for e O D.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
Yeah, so two, two on e O D and then
one on one on the combat engineer side.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, so three combat tours and then you uh, I'm
assuming it was after your second combat tour that you
came back and then then you were stationed up there
where we are at at Port greg Adams.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
But it was Fort Lee at the time, if I'm
not mistaken. Yeah, and you were, you were. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And so something they started up between when I went
to school and when he went to school and now
Stacey is is that they have Phase one, which is
kind of like an Army introductory course to EOD. So
that way we have a better attrition rate of students
when they go down to Eglind.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yes, yes, So like when I went through school, the
attrition rate for Army EOD was eighty three percent.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
I mean, eighty three out of one hundred would not
make it through the school. So yeah, it's not an
easy school.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
No, I wouldn't imagine that it is.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
We got you, Josh.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
He's still there, Bud, Yeah, I think he's still there.
He's moving.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I see his head move and he's looking like he
can't hear us. Can you hear us? Josh?
Speaker 6 (26:51):
Your mutual phones are coming in real broken.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well Ill, sorry about that. It's because you're in your
log cabin, sir.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Is it me, can you guys hear me?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Okay, yeah, we got you, yes, Oh okay, yeah, So
tell us about tell us about your time as the instructor,
and then where'd you go after that? At your instructor time?
Speaker 6 (27:15):
Okay, So instructor time was a little longer than usual.
I wasn't able to get out of there in PCs
one more time like I wanted to. But instructor time
was actually really great. I kind of went in with
with higher hopes than than I probably should have. But
I was like, man, I'm going to change the world. Well,
you can only change one one mind at a time.
(27:38):
So as an instructor, I was able to fundamentally change
the way that that my students thought about the world
around them. And a lot of that experience came from,
you know, previous things, previous.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Moss, other experiences.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
In life, just being able to problem solve because one
of the one of the biggest, one of the biggest
challenges that I think the young soldier's face is there's
not a lot there's not a lot of them that
come through and I don't you know, by no means
is any of this derogatory, But there's not a lot
(28:15):
of them that come through with usable experience.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I can translatable experience.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Yeah, I can build on almost anything. But if you're
if you're one of those.
Speaker 6 (28:28):
People that you know, you only went outside when the
sun was shining and then the rest.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Of the time you played video.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
Games, there's not a lot I can I can build
on that. I need some kind of you know, some
kind of something, some kind of tangible skill or something
to to be able to build on. If not, then
we have to start at ground zero, which I had
to do that a couple of times, and I'm.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Not afraid of it.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
It just it definitely does take a little bit more
of your time as an instructor, and you have to
make sure you balance that with what is the rest
of the class need versus what is this one student need.
But I was able to fundamentally change the way that
they saw the world around them, even to the point where,
like you know, you always see in the movies where
the cops are shooting, they poked themselves out and exposed
(29:11):
themselves around a corner and they're shooting at a bad guy,
and the bad guy shoots back at them and the
bullets ricochet off the door jam.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
You know, I just asked the question, why not shoot
through the wall?
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Yeah, that it's sheet rock, it's sheat rocks in a
little bit of plywood. I guarantee the muzzle velocity on
your weapons system can go through that and hit that.
And people just started they just started thinking differently, you know, like,
oh my gosh, I never thought about that, Like, we're
we're trapped as human beings in our own mind based
on what we have experienced. And so if you've never
(29:44):
thought about something like that, and you've never thought about
the world around you in that light, then.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
It's completely different, completely different.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
You know, most people we view doors as a way
in or out of something, right, But what if that
door could actually be a tool as a breacher. You
could actually use that door as a tool.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
To smash the face off of anybody that's behind it.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah, into the room, and you clear the room out
with by pushing it in. I'm right there with you, brother,
I guess absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
So you just you change the way that you think
about things. And I always try to inspire and encourage
them to find more, find more, Always ask the question.
This is what I always told them whenever I was
teaching them how to identify different pieces of ordinance.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Is always ask yourself why why is that there?
Speaker 6 (30:38):
Because anytime you see a feature on a piece of ordinance,
it's there for a purpose. We don't just make things
to look cool. I mean I do, but uh, the
military doesn't pay for contractors to make, you know, one
hundred and fifty five millimeters rounds look cool. Everything that's
on the piece of ordinance, everything that's on that fuse
(31:00):
as a function. It has a purpose, and you have
to ask yourself what is the purpose?
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Is it on the front, is it on the back,
is it on the side? Why would it be there?
Speaker 6 (31:10):
Just ask the questions and you will come to an
answer that gets you pretty damn close to correct.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
And I was able to watch. I was able to watch.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
Students go from you know, not having any clue what
to do, to you know, making near perfect scores on
their tests and things like that. So and I'm not,
you know, by no means am I going like, oh
my goodness and pat myself on the back because I
don't want to hurt my shoulder.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
But being able to.
Speaker 6 (31:37):
See someone, being able to see somebody grow and be
successful in that way that will help them the rest
of their life. They will never look at the world
around them the same way. Ever, again, do you still.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Do you still teach it all? Do you still teach?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Oh? Lost?
Speaker 5 (31:57):
You guys there for a second, were you crying? Is
that why you blind?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I was crying?
Speaker 5 (32:02):
I know.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
No, Just let me ask you, do you still teach?
Are you still a teacher? An instructor at all?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (32:09):
So yeah, officially the official answer on am I still
an instructor?
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Is no?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Now, well, for a.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
While you should be. Here's here's what I want to
tell you. So I love.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
To teach and and and try to speak to people.
You're very inspiring.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I think a good teacher, somebody that should be in
that role for a lifetime, is somebody that can teach
anything and have somebody go wow, I all of a
sudden look at the world in a completely different way.
I can step outside of this comfort zone that I
thought that I had to live within and and do
all these things. And I'm just like listening to you
(32:48):
talk about EODC stuff which I really don't know anything about,
and I'm all of a sudden inspired to go do
something like write a blog or whatever, run around the block,
you know, And I think that that's really cool. And
I hope that you realize that you've got that skill,
that gift of being able to change people's lives. I
hope you never stop doing that with whatever it is
(33:09):
that you do right now.
Speaker 6 (33:11):
So so I constantly am finding little niche areas where
I can actually impart, I don't want to make myself
sound better than I am, but in part wisdom that
I've picked up along the way into people and help
them do things like that. Even to the point where, uh,
there was we had we had some foster kids for
about a year. Came from a really bad environment, and
(33:34):
we said, yeah, we'll take them. So we got them,
and uh when I got them, they were failing everything
in school. Uh, and they had no idea about, like,
you know, some of the general stuff like personal hygiene
and things like that, how to do their own laundry
and stuff. When they left here, they were passing with
a's and b's except for we had one one C.
And it was in history, which I am not good
(33:56):
at history. Like I don't even remember what I did yesterday.
I'd have to look back in my email. But anyway,
they were passing all their grades h and all their
classes they knew about personal hygiene.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
For God's sakes, everyone needs to know about personal hygiene.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
Uh, it was it was definitely a learning curve though,
but you know, it's it's it's one of those things
that requires a high level of patience, a high level
of understanding, and and also a personality, you know, personality
that that works, that works with almost everybody. I used
to call myself, I don't even know if it's a
real term. If it's not, I'd like to go ahead
(34:34):
and be the first one to use it. And and
you can plagiarize it if you want. But I used
to call myself a sociomorph. And the way the way
I kind of describe what a sociomorph is, it's not
like a sociopath, even though we all have some of
those tendencies.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
And if you don't see me after this, we'll we'll
develop some But a sociomorph is somebody who can fit
into almost eaty group of people, almost any group of people,
and be able to function as a part of the whole.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
And so you know, I saw that.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
I'll throw out my childhood because then not so much
in elementary school or even middle school, but in high school,
you know, you have your different factions, right, you have
the cowboys and the jocks, and the cheerleaders, the skaters,
the stoners, the the emo kids.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
I'm trying to think of all the other ones. I
can't remember.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
Anyway, I was able to kind of fit into almost
all those.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Groups and still have friends in them and stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
And so that's actually kind of lent itself to being
able to adapt to almost any environment out there, as
well as adapt to almost any people out there. Now,
don't get me wrong, there's still a couple of times
where I would choke somebody a little bit. Yeah, I
(35:57):
get it, you know what I mean, Yeah, because they
ate my lunch or something like that.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Yes, but those were my spaghettios.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
You can you should should not be touching those, right,
But but anyway, you know, it's it's it's one of
those things. That's it's you can't teach people that kind
of stuff. It's it's a life experience type of thing.
And and to some people it does come natural.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
You know, those those are generally like.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
Your your folks that have like the gift of gab
and and things like that, and other very social people.
The elements that could be missing out of that is,
like I said, the patience, the life experience, and the
willingness to try to fit yourself into the mold of
the person that you're trying to reshape.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
If that be right, A good deal. So what when
did you actually retire? I'm glad we're talking about all
these other things, and I'm glad sts bringing up all
these questions and expanding upon the sal that we have
here on the video with us. But so when did
(37:08):
you retire? How's how's things been with the VA? And
then you know, let's let's talk abit a little bit
about from retirement to this point real quick.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
Okay, So I retired out May of twenty twenty, so
right during COVID everything was real weird.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
And then.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
Right after that I took up a job with the
State Department out at Fort Pitt.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
It's not picking anymore. It's barfoot Fort barfoot yep.
Speaker 6 (37:41):
So we're blowing up stuff out there at the State Department,
which I did the same thing out there.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
It's just the instead of army students, we.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
Had state agent, Department of State Agents and other people
like that that we were able to help make a
difference in their life and when I say make a
differ into their life, there was one there was one
thing and Odie, I don't remember. Did I read you
that email from Lieutenant Slack?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (38:06):
Yeah, okay, that's why. That's why I do this job.
That's why I love doing this job. And I if.
Speaker 6 (38:13):
You told me tomorrow I had to go back to
trash Canisty and Land, I'd be like, hang on, let
me put a little when we put a little tiger
bahalm on my knees, I'll be.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Ready to get it.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And oh, we got to get our tactical kilts because
that's what we're doing. We're not wearing We're going back
to combat and not wearing pants this time.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Brother. Yes, that's right. It's all tactical kilts. That's right.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
And I'm probably gonna wear like a dinosaur onesie to bed, so.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Don't well, okay, that's fine. I don't. I don't fit them.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
Yeah, that'd be the weirdest thing ever.
Speaker 6 (38:45):
You could be like, yeah, so we were in the
middle of this combat zone all of a sudden, I
see this dinosaur walking over to the porta potty.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
This is the weirdest thing ever. It'd be some Army
private that's just freaking out, like, oh, all right, well
that just happened.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
So okay, So so since you got here with with
Phase one and then you retired, you were at you
were at Barfoot State Department then you yeah, but they
got back here.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, so good man, that's that's awesome for quite a while. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
So it was a it was a good year long
gig out there Department of State. And then I got
on as one of the actually I was doing Rich's job,
which Rich actually took my position when I left, as
I got on there as a contractor developing the training
and stuff, which which was actually really kind of cool
because after being an instructor of Phase one, now I'm
(39:43):
actually right in the training for Phase one, so it
kind of went full circle you think about it, which
which was actually kind of cool because I still get to,
you know, interact with a lot of the folks that
are there that they are still there, like mister.
Speaker 5 (39:58):
Markham and a couple of other folks. Ye uh.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
But being able to affect change now systematically was was amazing.
And then now as a doctrine writer slash capabilities integrator,
I'm actually affecting change globally because now we can actually
make sure that that our e D brothers and sisters
out there have the right equipment that they need hopefully
(40:20):
when they need it. I can't control time if I
do figure it out, though there's a there's a couple
of things I got to go back and fix in
the past. But it's uh, it's it's it's it's awesome
to still be able to contribute to the community, even though, uh,
you know, I'm kind of a little gray and the
beard now and a little slower standing up my eyes.
(40:42):
I gotta go like this to make them focuses for
a second. I'm not gonna need glasses though yet.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
So well, one thing at a time, right, Yeah, yeah,
you never know.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I mean yeah, it's like when you're a kid, you know,
and you close your eyes and you see those little
floaty things and they just float right by you, and
you're like, what they.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I think I just saw a floating thing. I don't
know what that was.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
I don't don't have to stay tuned, but you know.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I gotta.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
I gotta say, Stacy, hit it right on the head
man with with what you're talking about or what you
to recap what you were talking about as far as
connecting with the students, and they're really influencing an existence,
like you're you're molding the clay to begin with, because
they just got through boot camp and they're going to
Phase one that could set the precedence for their entire
career moving forward if they.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Make it through EOD.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So, I mean, Stacy was absolutely on point with that,
and you're really you're really.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Having good with it. I should have told you that before.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
But most of the time when we're hanging out, when
we have times to go have cigarettes and stuff for
it's uh, you know, deack gas rebuilt, freaking joking about
stuff or whatever, telling funny stories. Tell tell Stacy what
happened with your son with the motorcycle. That's just one
of those stories that will never get old. This is hilarious.
Speaker 5 (41:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
So we're putting together a motorcycle in the garage and
I was trying to get the coil mounted and then
for a reason I may never know if I if
I can control time, I might go back and ask.
But he hits the kick start and I'm holding the
coil in my hand, and so all of a sudden,
I'm just like.
Speaker 5 (42:21):
You know, I don't know how many vaults of electricity,
but it was in the millions. I want to say,
but you.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Got all of them? How many? You got all of them, every.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Last one of them.
Speaker 6 (42:33):
And I ain't no quitter, but I definitely had to
take a knee. I definitely had taken Electricity is not fun.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
No, So, Stacy, I don't know if they do this
where you're so in federal buildings nowadays, instead of freaking
CPR and stuff like that, they've got all these it's
the A D things, right. Yeah, So for us, for
us in the office, we're always joking around. It's like,
oh ship, uh Rich's got a paper cut, grab the paddles.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
To Maximum. Yeah, oh my god. It's just it's we
get work done. I promise we get work done. But
it's it's, uh yeah, it's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
So he liked Transformers right like Maximum. Okay, after we.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Get off here, I'm gonna send I don't know if
I follow you on Instagram or not yet, but I'm
gonna send Stephen this this amazing video that I had
posted the Mustang Marine posted it. Who I follow and
and this is it's about the guy the voice of
Maximus Prime and how he.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Developed that voice. I think you saw when I had posted.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
That, Yes, and something his father had told him that
made him come up with that voice.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
You'll think it's super cool. I'm gonna say it was.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It was his marine brother who went to Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great video.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
The video is awesome. I don't know if you've seen it,
but I'll send it to Steve and have it. Have
you have you see it? It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, absolutely, I've got I've got access to him.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
I'll send it to.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Okay, cool, Yeah, Josh, what's that? You can follow me
on Instagram? Are you you're on Instagram?
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Right?
Speaker 9 (44:24):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (44:25):
Yeah, we'll say a light yet I got so, I'm
not gonna lie. Full disclosure. I got on Instagram to
Instagram stock somebody who was causing problems for a family member.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
So that's the only reason I actually have an Instagram.
I have no idea how to use it.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
On Facebook. Yeah, yeah, he's on Facebook.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
Yeah, I'm definitely on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
And when I see him next to the office, Stacy,
when I see him next at the office, I'll make
sure that one of our breaks that I get him
on there and he'll follow you.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
So thank you. I got we got you, we got you.
She's leading the way for us.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Man. You know, I'm telling you, she's just she's she's
doing freaking amazing things up there in Aperville.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
So yeah, that sounds I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Oh yeah, as soon as soon as we're done here,
she's got to go to coordinate like a Turkey raffle.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Because I know that sounds much.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
It sounds funny when you say that, but let me
just tell you it's one of our biggest fundraisers are
It's I mean, we have, like, you know, five hundred
people that roll through there at the public and it's
we have to raise money so we can give it
back to the community to support the veteran community.
Speaker 5 (45:38):
So we got to raise it.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
And this is I wasn't poking. I wasn't poking.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Well, so I'm not poking fun I've been to the
Turkey Raffles in the past when I was up there
living with Dad for a while, and I mean the
energy is just insane. I love all the things that
you guys do. You're doing great work up there, so.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
All the wattions and it's yeah, it's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, absolutely busy for the greater good. Yes, agreed.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
We've been trying to organize a TPO car wash. That
way we can fund our next bomb suit. But I
don't know if there's many people that would pay to
see Odie and some UDTs or me and like a
little bikini top.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
Do you need me to do you need me to
get some of my girls together and shuttle down there?
Speaker 5 (46:23):
We might agree thing doesn't come through.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I mean I do know some people.
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Well, uh, we'll put a trip wire sponsor sponsors on
the back of the bomb suit.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I think fell where God fell all the way off.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
I know, I think we could we could work out something.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
We could probably really make this a big, big opportunity.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
You know, we building coach. I coached bikini competitors.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
So oh, dag out, Okay, my roster, Josh, my roster
rolls deep.
Speaker 6 (47:00):
Okay, Yeah, maybe you could coach me one of these days.
I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a big dude.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
I don't know what I'm doing there.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
There's been some days where the email stops working and
I'm just over there.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Like.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
I don't know where he went.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
I don't know if he's going to have to call
back in or well, he was asking you a question
about the VA. Was there something about the VA that
you that he wanted you to talk about? Steven, you
were asking him about the VA?
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I got I got a big gorilla pause and small keys,
and I accidently knocked myself out of.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
The car wash.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So, you know, come on now, we'll have to talk
offline about that, because I'm sure we can do some
sponsorship and make that really work.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Work. It's work. It's worth out here down here. Just
so before cell phones, there was one time I was
in a tutu. But I'm not doing it again. I'm
not doing it again.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
I love that story. You've told it to me three
times in the past.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
I love the story because I'm come on, it's just
hilarious that a six foot two freaking yes.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Okay, Well, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring it.
I'm sorry to traumatize you with my two two story.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I think we have we have four minutes, Yes.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
I know, right, Well, I just so I always like
to know, Josh, how has your interaction with the VA been,
if you want to try and sum that up real quick.
Speaker 6 (48:26):
Yeah, yeah, so I've been I've never I haven't had
a problem with the VA I mean, if I was
going to complain about something, the only thing I could
actually complain about would be the fact that, uh, when
you do have to make an appointment, they're so booked
out that that's a little bit far in the future.
So the VA here has been absolutely fantastic. I haven't
(48:48):
used it as much as I should, uh, because there's
definitely some dark roads that you can go down talking
to like the behavioral health people and stuff that, like,
it's just not fun, uh, and I'm definitely glutton for punishment.
I'll probably go, you know, hit the kickstart again while
I'm holding the coil for fun, But talking to talking
to people about like your feelings is not.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah, yeah, I know, I get it.
Speaker 6 (49:11):
So that's why I said I haven't used it as but.
Speaker 5 (49:16):
Yes you do.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
I know.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah, I'm the same way. I'm a gluod for to
help you.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
But it's also a trigger. You know, it's you've got it.
You have to face it, and it's hard.
Speaker 5 (49:27):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 6 (49:29):
Well, it's definitely something that's uh, doesn't doesn't personal opinion
doesn't quite fit in a professional setting. It it fits
more around a couple of dude bros uh and some
dude chicks around a fire pit drinking a couple of
cold adult sodie pops.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (49:49):
And you're handing out some demons, you know, talking to
somebody in a in a sterile environment who's never experienced
some of those things, and not say anything bad about them,
but it loves some of its.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
It could be problematic at times. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Business, that's just therapy around the fire pit.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, exactly, more awful visits.
Speaker 6 (50:11):
We just Yeah, the person that you talked in the office,
there's nothing wrong with them.
Speaker 5 (50:16):
They're professional, they went to school to get right.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
It is the energy vibe, it is.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (50:21):
But how do you articulate something like being in a
two and a half hour long firefight to somebody like that.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
In a one hour Yeah you can't, so uh Josh,
real quick, last last tidbit from you, sir, and then
we're going to wrap this up and again on behalf
of Stacy, myself and our producer Skywatcher and the kg
r A family. I want to really thank you for
joining us this evening, but I need one motivational quote
(50:51):
from you, sir, and then we're going to freaking kick
this down.
Speaker 6 (50:55):
Okay, let me see. I'll try to keep it, try
to keep it good. Here one motivational quote, Okay, I
got one. You have to know who you are to
know where you're going.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
That's a good one. I like that.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
Yeah, that's driven me for that's driven me for a
long time. Know who you are so that you know
where you're going.
Speaker 6 (51:23):
Because if if you know who you are, you know
where you came from, then you know what you got
to do and you know which direction you got to go.
If you don't know who you are, those are the
people that wander around in life forever figuring out who
they're at.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
You know, where they're supposed to be going, what they're
supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (51:40):
I was lucky enough to get plugged in early enough
to figure out where I can actually make a difference.
Speaker 5 (51:46):
And make a change. And you know, Odie liked that
letter I read.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
To you from Lieutenant Slack, like that lap line there
where it said we brought everybody back from the deployment
that we left with that right there was validation for
almost my.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Entire military career.
Speaker 6 (52:02):
Everything had set me up to that point, and then
as soon as I read that letter, I was like,
you know what I could be.
Speaker 5 (52:09):
I could be out tomorrow and I would be I
would feel like I did it.
Speaker 6 (52:13):
I made a difference. I made a difference, you know.
But everything else has been icing on the cake. Running
into people who are like, man, do you remember me,
and I'm like, yeah, you're that one guy and they're like, yeah,
you were a instructor in phase one and I was like,
oh yeah, phase one.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
I almost forgot Yeah.
Speaker 6 (52:30):
And you know, they say, like, you really said some
stuff that changed the way I thought about things and
changed my outlook.
Speaker 5 (52:36):
You're the reason I made it through you D school
blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (52:39):
You know, I had one student actually call me and
wanted me to go pin their badge on them.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
So you know, that's awesome.
Speaker 5 (52:44):
That's awesome. D My kid figured out what a twenty
four hour tournam Burne was.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Yeah, I guess package. I really appreciate your times and
I today, Josh, thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (52:59):
Brother.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Good to I'll see it at the office when I'm
doing my class next week. We'll check in, uh Stacy,
any any goodbyes.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
I'm just I'm honored to meet you.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
I think you're really cool. I think that you've got
so many gifts and so much to offer. I hope
you realize how fantastic you really are.
Speaker 9 (53:17):
I'll let my wife know because until now, I just
have a lot of projects in the garage, and I
make and I make all the time.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
It's a good yeah, good, Well, it's good meeting you.
Speaker 5 (53:32):
If you're if you're ever in this neck of the woods,
I'll buy you a beer and some anduggies.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah. We got we got a car walk to figure out.
We'll figure that out.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
That's another project.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Ye all right, guys on behalf of myself and everybody
with the k g R A family. Thank you very
much for tuning in the trip wire this evening. God blessed,
stay safe and we'll catch you next week, same time.
Speaker 5 (53:56):
All right, rock on, brother,
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