Inerview: Dr Josh McConkey

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Our guest today is a true hero on many levels,
from serving as a surgeon in actual battlefields to navigating
socialized healthcare. He's been all over the globe and on
every sort of aircraft, yet he's still a down to
earth guy. Please give a warm and hearty counterculturewise welcome
to emergency physician, colonel and commander in the US Air
Force and best selling award winning author, doctor Josh the Conky. Welcome, Gosh, thank.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
You very much. I really appreciate you guys having me
on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
I appreciate you taking the time to be here. Your
book is what we're here to talk about. And Weight
behind the Spear be the weight behind the spirit. As
you can see, I devoured this book, really enjoyed this book.
Thank you for the copy autographed, so I feel special.
So we're gonna be talking a lot about this book.

(01:03):
But this book has so many juicy stories in it.
I think we could talk all day. But before we
get started, let's tell everybody where they can find you
on the interwebs.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, so you can go to Weight behind the Spear
dot com. So w E I g H T wait
behind the Spear dot com. We've got the socials, Instagram
it's Josh mcconkiy md on X, it's mconkie Double O seven,
and then Facebook is just Joshua Dotac.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I love the double O seven. That's awesome. Okay, all
of that time, all of those links will be on
our website, counterculture wise dot com, as well as the
audio and video versions of this which will be going everywhere.
So if you're listening to this later, drop everything, hit
like share, subscribe all the good stuff and check out

(01:54):
doctor Josh. All right, so you gave me permission to
call you by your nickname that I found in your book,
which I loved. Give me a little insight as to
where that nickname came from before I just pulled that
one out of my pocket.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
It just did the jmac you know, Josh McConkey, and
one of my residency classimates back in Akron, Ohio just
had used that a couple of times and it just
stuck as a resident that along with my Napperson Nazi
nickname that I got.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
That one, I had a bookmark there. I want to
talk about that one as well. I agree on so
many things.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Not a fan of the opiates. I've seen it kill
a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
So all right, well, doctor Josh, let's just start right
out with Well, first of all, I mean kind of
an unassuming guy here. You won the twenty twenty four
Independent Press Award your Distinguished Favorite in the Motivational category
for this book. You have a twenty year military career.
I mean, there's a lot to talk about, a lot

(02:54):
to talk about, but I just kind of want to
get out there. But I think the main thrust of
this book, besides sharing stories, the things I was most
moved by was, first of all, your experience with socialized healthcare.
You you did you meet your wife in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
We met in South Florida. My life is, you know,
Cuban background, Hispanic family, both of her parents immigrated over
from Cuba when they were kids, and just a love
for travel. She had done time with the Peace Corps,
and when I got back from Iraq, I just had
a hard time kind of readjusting back to civilian society.
And she had awesome idea. She said, Kay, let's just
let's move to New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Okay, that's how you ended up in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay, that's how we ended up in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
That is that is drastic. I mean I drug him
from Washington State to Las Vegas and then from Las
Vegas out to the middle of nowhere in Texas. But
New Zealand, that's that's a new one. Full disclosure of
My baby brother lives just outside of Sydney. So I
have been to Australia, but not New Zealand. I would love, love,
love to go there. So and it wasn't I mean
in your book you said it was because of the

(03:59):
Lord of the Ring is kind.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Of well, it's a beautiful country. So I'm a big
history nerd and movies, you know, the Jared Tolkien series.
And my wife has a minor in art and graphic designs.
She went to Florida State University and they studied the
South Pacific and just the art of the South Pacific
and that Maori culture. You know, just as it's a

(04:23):
very unique culture, you're very successful. I mean they had
a Treaty of White Tanki in eighteen forty seven and
so they're very politically active in New Zealand and it's
a huge part of that culture. So that that was
the big drop for both of us to you down
to New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's changed a lot. Yeah, it's changed a lot, after all, right,
I don't know, there's so many questions I have, I
don't even know where to start.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
So, yeah, the idea of the weight behind the sphere,
what does that? What does that come from? I think
that'd be a good story.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, the concept of the of the sphere is everybody
talks about the tip of the spear, but you're talking
about the importance of what's behind that. Give us some
insight into how you got your title and basically what
that means.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
So weight behind the spear be the weight behind the spear.
It's my personal leadership ethos. So as a military commander,
I've had a very blessed career. I've got to do
a wide variety of Army Air Force operations, special operations
with medical director for combat search and rescue, and you
work with some really amazing individuals like tip of the

(05:27):
spear type guys kicking out doors, taken out bin laden, right,
tip gets I can't do that, all right. I don't
take lives. I save lives. And for every American out there,
they have a huge part to play. Nobody expects them
to jump out of airplanes kick down doors, but they

(05:47):
can be the weight behind that tip of the spear. Coaches, teachers, volunteers, families,
you know, mentors, they sholp. They help shape this next generation,
you know, teaching them the basics of leadership and accountability,
you know, things that I think could be done a
lot better, which is why I wrote the book. But
in my life, I get some great stories in there

(06:09):
from family and coaches and my teachers that help shape
me into who I am. That's what America's best resources.
Those people, coaches, teachers, mentors, families. That's what we need
to focus more on in this country. And that's been
my leadership eat those for several years. And it was
a perfect title for the book.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, So it's and it's really poignant. What I like
about it is it's not too long, and then you
immediately know what it means, because there's been times I've
picked up a book and the titles like where did
they get this title? That it's really.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yeah, it gets to the point literally.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
You you mentioned coaches and mentors, which is something near
and dear to my heart because I used to work
with national seminars and I taught a coaching and mentorship class,
and one of the coaches you brought up was Coach K.
Sounds like he had a huge influence on you. So
let's talk a little bit about him, and you know,
you're what he did on Ellis Island because I think

(07:08):
that is just such a beautiful story.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
That story. I took notes with my fall and they
wouldn't let us record anything on that. And when you
talk about Coach K, you know, the legendary Duke basketball coach.
I mean, he's just almost a godlike figure in Duke.
So I was a professor at Duke University and I
worked at the games, the basketball games and football games
as the kind of the stadium doc. You know, you've

(07:32):
got got the kids that are drinking too, like you
got the ninety year olds, and you get stressed out
and having chest pain, so you know, just kind of
triage and send people to the er. And so I stay.
I was next to the band right in the EMS
corner and so the players and Coach K will we
run it out every game, get a high five from
Coach K. My brother Nate's a huge basketball fan, a
Duke basketball fan. We went to the Duke Michigan game

(07:54):
and he gets the high five and just a legendary figure.
He came and gave a leadership lecture to our residency class.
You know, I was a professor. We're doing recruiting, and
I thought that they were just doing some crazy recruiting stock, like,
oh boy, they're going to bring into Coach k He's
going to come in and it's just going to it's
just going to be, you know, a raw rod. And
here he came and gave a two hour leadership lecture

(08:18):
that blew my mind. I'm a huge military hours. It
was unbelievable. I scribbled so many notes and a lot
of that made that into my speech that I gave
at my assumption of command speech when I took command
because it was just that mind blowing. But then you
can actually watch that. It's on mccacky for Congress is

(08:39):
my YouTube page. You can go watch that speech I
posted on there.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
And we'll talk about your run in a bit.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah yeah, yeah. And this so the stories he gave.
You know, he's trying to pull together a team of superstars.
These guys all made thirty forty million dollars a year,
Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, you know, all these huge names.
How you pull a team like that together. I mean,
what can you tell these guys that's going to make
them buy into a team culture other than you know

(09:07):
that they're playing for their country. They want a gold medal,
but just these are the best players on the planet, right,
And Coach k tells the story of he made them
do some family research, and he made them dig back
and there, you know, however, many generations to go until
they found somebody who had come to the United States.
Because everybody's an immigrant basically, right, I'm not sure a
Native American everybody here, Yeah, yeah, everybody's an immigrant. So

(09:32):
they found that about a person. He takes them to
Ellis Island and they're looking up at the Statue of
Liberty and he just gives this amazing speech tying this
all together on that family member. What would that family
member think of watching one of their generations down the road,
one of their family that they had a part of
to come to this country for this American dream is

(09:53):
going to play for the United States of America in
the Olympics. And then he had somebody play the the
national anthem while they're looking up at the Statue of Vility.
We're just just mind blowing. And then he says when
not if, when we win that gold medal and those
chairs start rolling, and that you hear this natural anthem.

(10:15):
I want you to think of this person, and it
just it's some of the most amazing things I've ever heard,
and I wrote them. I put some of those stories
in the book that he just exudes leadership. I asked
him to write a forward for the book, and he
was not available. So I did get a hold of
the staff. I mean, it's not like I knew him well,

(10:36):
but I asked him. He was not available for the forward,
but I.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Thought that would have been fun, maybe for your next book.
Let's see, I mean that this one was so successful.
Who knows you might not even need a next book. Well,
let's talk about your run. That you're very patriotic obviously
and with things that are going. What remind me what
year it was that you ran?

Speaker 1 (10:59):
So this year is twenty twenty four. I ran in
North Carolina's thirteenth congressional district, had a packed primary. I
was one on one with the Democrat it is the
incumbent right now, one on one until about October when
they drew new lines. And then it became an R
plus seventeen district. We had thirteen people jump on the race,

(11:20):
and there was one candidate that spent twelve million dollars.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
Wanted it very badly.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
And it's hilarious. It's hilarious because she got to the
runoff that she still lost. So I didn't have that
kind of money. My dad's a railroader, My grandfather was
a railroader. My great grandfather was a railroad I was
the first mcconaukie to go to college ever in the
entire mcconuckey family. So I did not have twelve million
dollars from Daddy war Bucks to get in through the

(11:48):
congression race. But we ran a fantastic race in getting
that message out. I think a lot of people took
notice the right people, and even though we were not
successful in that, it as a platform now to really
talk about these things that really matter.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Right. So what was your platform? I'm curious to know
what I.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Had on the three s's. It was cleared as Crystal
Security Safety Service. Amen, so you talk about security, border security.
I can't tell you how many families I have sat
down and cried with and had to tell them I'm
sorry your son or your daughter, or when your parents
has died from a drug overdose. You can't secure border,
you can't stop the flow of fentanyl. Unacceptable. And as

(12:31):
an emergency physician, I can either just sit there and
beat my head against the wall every single day and
keep coding people and trying to save lives, or you
can get involved with some policy and actually do something
about that border. So just security, you know, safety, safety
for your kids. We had, We've had, you know, several
horror stories of parents here just in North Carolina outside

(12:51):
of Raleigh that have had some illicit fentanyl overdoses, and
you know those types of things. And then just the service.
You know, service matters, leadership matters. I really felt that
was probably the best qualified in this race with the
military background, national security background, emergency position. I mean, people
in North Carolina and around the country had literally entrusted

(13:11):
me with their lives every single day. I make life
and death decisions as an emergency position, and I felt
like that really mattered, and it really did. I just
didn't have twelve million dollars to blast over the airways.
So that's that's unfortunately being part of politics the hard way.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
It really stinks that money wins because that doesn't mean
that they're the best candidate.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
And in that way, your campaign was a success because
you got to people with the message. It's like you
you've said in your book, You're not always going to win,
but it's it's yeah, applying yourself and just you learn
things and you you you still can teach from it.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
So absolutely a little right, And I'm going to be
a little bold and say, you know, sometimes God puts
you where you need to be, even if you don't
think that's where you're supposed to be, and you don't
figure that out till later. So you're supposed to be
where you are right now. And most of the time,
and I've learned this the hard way, it's not for you.

(14:12):
It's you're not where you are for you. It's a
heartful of swallow.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
You know, I've got one hundred men women under my
command right now. I take a tremendous amount of pride
and it's professionally the thing that I'm most proud of.
And I keep doing It doesn't change a thing. I
keep doing what I'm doing, and God's got a plan.
We'll we just keep trucking.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, you're you're kind of an insider, and you know,
we see all the bad press about what they're doing
with you know, the diversity and all that stuff. What
what is your take? What have you seen? Because from
what I understand, the military has changed drastically and not
for the good. What's your take on that? And you
can also say I don't want to talk about it

(14:51):
because I guess.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
I guess it's a pretty poignant stories. You know, as
an active military commander, I've been. I was so concerned
I ran for Congress. So look, when you look at
our mission capabilities, our mission readiness. I got. I received
thirteen percent of my budget request for f Y twenty

(15:15):
three one three. Wow. We had two named military exercises,
we had a wing exercises, and I had been a
waitman getting ready for a deployment that ended up being
right at the end of September, and we all would
know what happened on October seventh. So I was fighting
and begging and pleading for money. I did an interview

(15:36):
for NBC at US Transcom exercise in the Pacific Northwest.
This was a huge exercise preparing us for the patient movement.
What are we gonna do with all the casualties if
and when China decides to move on Taiwan, you know
they're probably going to attack our air feeling capabilities and
in Guam. None of this is classified information, but where

(15:57):
all those.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Bodies go that wever been, it's it's pretty terrifying.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Huge exercise with the civilian hospitals around the Pacific Northwest.
This is outside of Seattle and Tacoma, along with d
O d VA National Disaster Medical System that I'm doing
this interview on NBC And the first question that they
ask is is this exercise in response to Chinese aggression
in Taiwan. I had been prepped the night before and

(16:25):
given a four page document of things I could not
talk about. I could not say the word China. So
the current administration was so concerned about hurting China's feelings
then actually telling the truth of why we're doing the
exercise and actually getting people ready for nobody wants. For
nobody wants, you know, a kinetic engagement with China. It's

(16:46):
going to be a WARLD War two level carnage, and
but we're prepping for it and you have to be ready.
And absolutely that that concerned.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Me, that they were terrifying it all.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, you don't say the word China. I feel like
in a Simpsons episode with home like, don't say China,
don't say China, China. I couldn't say the word China.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Well, they did the same thing with COVID. They they
made it a racing and had nothing to do with
with race, you know. And it's like, why are we
not telling the truth because we need to know this
and covering it up with you know, say oh, what's
racist or what not? Come on, it has nothing to
do nothing to do with race.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
And when I have there's a there's a poster when
you walk into my squadron, it's right on my door,
and have a posted in the squadron. This is my
commander's intent. The first line I this like what I
believe in, what this mission is really about. And the
first line on that is I don't care what color
you are, what religion you are, what your sexual preference is,

(17:46):
or who you think you know when you walk into
this squadron, you are based on your character and yoursalism.
And that is why I love about the United States military.
You can come from nothing and make something of yourself. Absolutely,
you know, are our chief chief when I took over,
was an African American man from Philadelphia, and then you
got a white boy from rural Nebraska, and we were

(18:08):
an awesome team. We have a fantastic squadron with great morale.
It took a year so to get that turned around
because there were some issues. That is what the military
is about. And at times I am a little bit concerned,
but that's not what it is for some of the
leadership above me.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's too bad. Can we fix it?

Speaker 3 (18:27):
It doesn't it doesn't even seem like they have your back.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, how do we fix this? I mean, can you
fix it?

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Well? For me, I'm so concerned. I ran for Congress.
I wanted to have some accountability and I want them
to sit in front of me and we'll talk about it.
Let's talk about what we're doing and why and how
we're preppling for China. I really personally had no interest
on being in Washington, d C. It's a cesspool. There's
a bunch of narcissist personality disorders, people kind of all

(18:55):
up for themselves. I really had no interest in being Washington,
d C. I am there right now at Andrew's Air
Force Face and I know what that's all about. But
but I have to somebody has to be there with
some common sense and to hold people accountable. And I
was I was hoping that was going to be me,
and I had some big plans. But we're gonna We're
gonna try it from the no direction, so hence the book,

(19:16):
and we'll keep on.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Try all right, Well.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
Who knows, maybe never give up, never say.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Maybe the notoriety from the book, which is incredible, by
the way, and I'm not just saying I'm not just
blowing smoke up your tea too. I really truly enjoyed
the book, and then he got got into it to
the point where I had to like yank it out
of his hands so I might ask for the kindle
copies from now on. So we're not fighting over a bit.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, absolutely hate it's it's all. There's an e book
and audiobook out now.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yes, and like I said, all of those links will
be on counterculturewise dot com. And besides the situation that
we're first of all, twenty six years old, I mean,
you're just a child, and you're you're an intern doctor
and being pulled and every which decision. I mark this
because I thought it was so poignant. When you were

(20:07):
first starting, you were on call in the emergency room,
and you wrote, the biggest decision I had was whether
or not to call for help. And that struck me
right between the eyes, because I am a person who
really hates asking for help, no matter how despert. And
it's really funny because Jim will like, hey, do you
need my help? I'm like, no, it's like shards of

(20:31):
glass surrounding me and you know, things flying through the air,
and I'm like, I don't need your help. When you
talk about being the weight behind the spear, all those
people are voluntarily there to help the tip of the spear.
But you're dealing with people who, like you said, are
the badasses kicking indoors and taken out the lod and whatnot.

(20:53):
When are they or are they able to ask for help?
Or do we just support them and be that way?
How does that dynamic work?

Speaker 1 (21:05):
So that is the art of being a flight surgeon.
For those types of individuals. They will not ask for help.
You have to save them from themselves. They will push
themselves until they break themselves. They will push themselves until
they kill themselves. They are just trained and have a mindset,
because these these are people that have a mental makeup

(21:29):
and a physical makeup that individually like a physical makeup.
You're like, Wow, these guys are crazy Division IE ncuble
A NFL caliber athletes. And you put a mental side
of it where they're in the top one percent or
more of just what human beings can like mentally and
physically accomplish, and you put that package together, they're just

(21:52):
amazing individuals. So that there's a lot of egos and
they have a truce amount of confidence for good reason,
but they will push them themselves to their break and
you have to be there to kind of dial them
back a little bit, sometimes a little bit more authoritative
than they would like, but you have to save them
from themselves at time. Everybody has limitations, everyone has mental

(22:13):
health limitations. And so though they will rotate in and
out of some of those really high profile teams, they
can't maintain that type of operational tempo more than a
few months at a time generally, and so they'll kind
of when you talk about like your Seal Team six
and some of these really high tier one teams they
rotate in and out of that it's not something that
they can maintain for like two or three years straight.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
I always wondered about that, not mentally possible. Where did
they go?

Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, they rotate back and forth between other teams and
some other assignments. And you know, they have a skill
set that allows them to crush absolutely any task you
can possibly think of. And they're all self starters, they
all think outside the box. It's working with those types
of individuals is amazing.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
I've got this mental image of Sealed Team six and
then they rotate out to Quilteam Team five, Knitting Team eight,
you know, just you know, still serving a purpose, you know,
but croquet. Yeah, so wow. And and you know the
thing is, like you said, they have these egos, but
they're also not able to be like, hey, look at me,

(23:23):
look at what I'm doing. You know, they're just doing
it for the good of the country, too.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
Bad, the right thing.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
And they lean on each other so when they need help,
they don't. They're not afraid to ask their their their
colleagues and the people that are part of those teams.
I mean, they like your medical support. These these guys
push themselves pretty extreme and there there's a lot of
injuries that you deal with in a lot of unique
mental health aspects that take some balancing. But it's I

(23:51):
take a lot of pride in that I'm not on
that team already, those teams anymore. Obviously I'm a commander
on an aero medical staging squadron, but just the brief
times that I've got to work with them.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Okay, tell me what an air medical staging squadron.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
So this is an I'm a commander of an aeromedical
staging squadron right now, and we're based out of Andrews
Air Force Base in Washington, d C. So when you
have men and women that are injured anywhere on planet Earth,
Department of Defense, you know, any branch of service, state department,
or even sometimes US civilians, they have to be evacuated.

(24:31):
So there's medical evacuation around the planet that will get
them either back to the United States or back to
Launchital Germany where they've got higher level treatment facilities and
surgical capability. Okinawa, Japan, you know Hawaii, you know Pearl Harbor,
and so they have to be transported. So either before
they get on the aircraft or after they get off

(24:52):
that aircraft, they are held at an en route patient
staging facility and that's what we do. So we take
care of them. You know, we've got you know, a
lot of capabilities for certainly won't talk anything classified, but
numbers of individuals that allow us to take care of
them for periods of time to get them safely to
and from aircraft to go to different areas of the world.

(25:12):
And then we also have Critical Care Air Transport and
that's the mobile ICU team. So I was a part
of one of those teams, Critical Care Air Transport doctor,
so physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists, and we have amazing
equipment and backpacks that we throw on and can be
anywhere on the planet within twenty four to forty eight

(25:33):
hours taking care of people with better capabilities than most
of their world hospitals.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
So that's I had no idea this even existed.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, if you google it, go to SEACAT, c CEATT
Critical Care Air Transport Team and google that sometimes and
you see what pops up. And there's some very unique
teams that have tactical and special operations SEACAT.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
And oh videos and all kinds of things.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
It is. You know, you talk about a physician and
someone who is a little bit more of an adrenaline
junkie like I am, and with pre hospital at ems
and as an emergency doctor. This is the ultimate team.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
The logo is kind of bad.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, this mission is the best mission in the entire
Department of Defense. I firmly believe that, and it's what
motivates me every day.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah. So they took the cat and have just fantastic badges.
Most of them is the black panther panther. Why could
I not think of the word panther as the panther.
But then they did different versions of it where you
have like Simba on the on the ledge with the
plane line over, and then they have like a little

(26:45):
black kitten playing with the medical signs. They obviously you
have to have a sense of humor to do.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Oh yeah, I've got some deployment patches that I probably
can't share on the air with you.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah. And I did sense a certain sense of humor
throughout the book. I think that's what made it so
readable that you know, in the midst of just I
can't even imagine some of the things that you've seen,
you've still maintained this sense of humor at it all.
We joke because we've been through it. In the last
couple of years, and we have like this gallows humor

(27:20):
that we can joke about things that other people just
would not get.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Do you find that amongst you do have to be
careful and you learned that as a resident as well.
That I mean, you're working really long and tense hours,
thirty six hours straight. And they've changed the residency rules now,
of course, but you just lived in a hospital NonStop
for years and you're maybe cracking some jokes in between
the two of you or the three or four of

(27:44):
you that lived that lifestyle. If there's you know, patients
around or patients families, it's they don't get that sense
of humor. It's not funny. And I tried to, you know,
preface that a bit in the book on you know,
just some of the things. But you have to have
a sense of humor. It's really a defense mechanism. You
won't survive seeing the things that you see on a

(28:06):
day in and day out basis without being able to
find something to laugh about. It's not morbid, it's your
defense mechanism.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
You can't really physically take that type of stress without
having some type of release. And yeah, after is the
best medicine.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Absolutely one percent agree with that. Let's talk a little
bit more about medicine the state of the US. People
are constantly complaining about it, and since they've tried sort
of to kind of socialize it, it's my personal experience
has gone downhill like crazy. But you were dealing with
New Zealand with socialized health care as well as other places,

(28:42):
and you have a unique perspective. Well, I wouldn't say
it's unique. You have the perspective that they call us
crazy because we know that you've experienced it firsthand, and
you know that's a luxury. You know, all the socialism
and everything that they're trying for, and that the current administration,
whoever's I don't even know who's president right now. I
don't think even the president knows who's president right now.

(29:04):
And you know what the new you know, and basically
just plug her in and light her up like a
light bulb because she's never been elected, never gotten a vote,
and that you know, they're just going to install her
like a cheap toilet, just like they did the other one.
I'm sorry, I'm getting a little political, but I want
to know what your perspective is on socialized healthcare, because

(29:24):
you know that's going to be a huge push.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
And that chapter that I have in the book Bernie's Burgers.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yes that I actually have a little flag about Bernie's Burgers.
So give us, give us the synopsis of Bernie's Burger.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
So in in Bernie's World, you know, and and I
and I used I used a burger as an example.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Jim, Jim love this because he's a BURGERNI.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
And yeah, Bernie and Elizabeth, you know, they just they
love burgers and they just want to make sure that
everybody has access to burgers. But it has to be
to say burger, because you know, you wouldn't want somebody
to have like a more special burger than another person.
And you know the best way you can do that
is you can get the federal government to just involve.
And so they're going to regulate burgers and nobode else

(30:12):
can have any type of burger. There can't be any
any private burger joints that all has to be the
same burger, because that's just that's just not fair. You know,
it's about a quality. It's not about a quality of opportunity.
They want a quality of outcome where just everybody has to.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Be the same equity, equity, equity, equity and success, but
everybody gets the same burger.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
And whenever the federal government gets involved in anything like
nothing is efficient. More government regulations. Just as a physician,
the things that I've had to deal with, you know,
I'll just kind of jump into medicine again. But the
more socialized medicine gets, the less and less and less
time I physically get to talk to patients. So when

(30:54):
I started medicine in nineteen ninety nine, I talked to
the patients. I filled out of paper chart while I'm
in the room, and sixty seventy percent or more of
my time seventy five percent of my time was like
literally physically with patients, doing things, talking to them, examining.
Now it's it's just getting less and less and less.
It's all about paper. It's about electronic health records, which

(31:16):
are good to track things. But I spend eighty percent
of my time sitting behind our computer screen. God forbid,
I forget to check this box or this box on
the EKG because now I'm not going to get paid
for it. I got paid for it last week, but
this week they changed the rules again. Every office literally
has someone they hire two to three four people whose
sole job is to do nothing but chase Medicare and

(31:40):
Medicaid tales because they keep moving the goal posts. But
where you got paid for last month or this week
or yesterday is not necessarily today. They keep changing that
just to try to save money, because, just like with
the burgers, eventually inflation kicks in. We've all seen how
that's happened over the past year. Things get more expensive.
The only way you can control the costs of something

(32:02):
where a government entity is running it is to either
water down the ketchup or get lower grade quality meat
or so.

Speaker 5 (32:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, it never gets better. The government doesn't do anything efficiently.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
No, well, I mean other than send billions of dollars
to Ukraine. They're really efficient at that.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
And then and then eventually, you know they you know,
just someone who has some common sense, like hey, you know,
you've got Joe over here, and he worked his tail
off and he has his own plumbing business. He makes
pretty good money. Or maybe his wife works as a teacher,
all right, they have a dual income. Like hey, I
get how about how about a Sirloine stake burger. I
mean that sounds really nice. I would like to have

(32:49):
a better help. No, everybody's gotta have the same burger.
It's not fair, you know. Then you talk about the
top one percent getting stake sirtline burgers just not fair
to everybody else. It just it really kind of just
cuts it way, really what America and capitalism is all about.
And as you start taking away anybody's ability to put
themselves in a better position or work harder to have

(33:10):
some better things, they're a better quality of life, that
just it's called communism and it doesn't work. It's failed
time after time after time again. I was raised in
world western Nebraska. I came from nothing. My dad's a railroader,
and I put myself in a great position to take
care of my family. And it's because I busted my tail.
I spent every day of my life in a library

(33:32):
until about midnight for a decade of my life. And
you know, I've served our military to take a lot
of pride in that, and it really kind of shoes
who I am as a person. And that's I just
I just don't have that mentality, you know. I just
I believe in this country, and I just am concerned
that there's some of our leadership that you're trying to
take us to a direction that I'm not really very

(33:53):
comfortable with.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Right. That is a concern that's come up to is
being in the military. There's saying that you're just going
to blindly follow whatever person is in office. And you
know when they talk about I mean, this is kind
of scary waters and feel free to say I don't
want to talk about it, but they're talking about civil
war and that the current administration. I'm sorry, I was

(34:18):
going to say, the current administration feels that they're just
going to say fire on citizens that disagree with us,
and that the military is going to say, okay and
do it. And I've actually talked to an active duty
person and he said, yeah, we would, and that just
terrified me.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Just you know, I think that's what the left try.
They just saw the scare mongering stuff. It's just like
they pick up policy, just paint the most extreme, ridiculous
thing you can imagine and tear some just make up
some horror story like, oh, this is what's going to happen,
you know, if if we don't win, and that's that's
a bunch of bologneis so you know, you have to

(34:56):
follow law for orders, and I'm all about the constitution
and similiate oversight of our military is front and center,
and I one believe in that and I follow lawful orders.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yeah, and that's the key.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And so we had the Possekomatati Act, so
you cannot use federal military or policing actions. That's that's
not that's not allowed. So that's they're they're just it's
just a bunch of ridiculousness and hyperbole. They're just just
making up examples that can never happen, just trying to
scare people into that.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
It's ridiculous because I want to believe that men and
women in your position if you were told to do
that or you know, since we've been labeled insurrectionists and
all these absolutely ridiculous things. And you know, they they
tell us that we're dehumanizing people by saying, you know,
perhaps we shouldn't just open the borders and let anybody in,
anything in, and then they turn around and call us maggots.

(35:53):
It's like, uh, do you not understand what the term
dehumanizing means? You know, and you know they're so it's you.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
Know, the first step in comment.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
We're on our fifth attempt at a candidate's life. You know,
this has gotten completely out of hand, and now we're
being told, you know that even the I call him
the cabbage in Chief. I don't even know where he
is right now, but you know, there's no way that
you would ever win because we have f fifteen nukes.
It's like you are not going to nuke your own country,
you know. And it's just the rhetoric has gotten completely

(36:25):
out of hand.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
So I that violence has no place in American politics.
I mean, this is not a Central American country, all right,
this is the United States of America. We take that
to the ballot box. And I feel very confident. I
think that they have pushed things to such an extreme,
ridiculous level. I think the majority of people are just

(36:46):
gonna you know, I don't think I'm really comfortable with
going in that direction. I obviously, you know, just since
we've kind of talked a lot about you know, the
military services of Commander I don't talk too much about
my kind of like person politics, but you know that
there's no room for violence, and the rhetoric that they've
used has literally led to to assassination attempts, you know,

(37:07):
on the president of the former president of the United States.
And that's unacceptable, that that cannot happen. This is, this
is and that's that's that's regardless of your political standard.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, and that's the thing though, they're not letting up.
I mean, the very same day that happened, you you
have this press that I'm sorry, is no longer a
free press. It's just not uh literally calling him, you know,
a threat to democracy and this and that. It's like
they don't let up. And then they turn around and say, oh,
he needs to tone down the rhetoric. No, he needs
to duck. That's his job right now. Just duck, you know,

(37:42):
tone down what rhetoric you know, and it is because it's.

Speaker 4 (37:44):
Gotten way crazy out of hand.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, the well, I wanted a little bit more about
the Bernie Burgers.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, you talk about ye.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Wait times because we even hear this from our neighbors
to the north. You know, so you could have pancreatis
and you're put on a waitlist for who knows how long,
and you yourself said you saw people expire waiting for that.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Well, I want to tell people in extreme pain, you know,
if there's something truly emergent, I mean, they have to act,
and it's just grossly neggag not to although I did
see some cases like that where that would never fly
to the US because you'd get sued. But our medical
legal climate in the US is much different than everyone
else on the planet. But the wait time, so you
just look at the VA if you want to look

(38:30):
at some great examples of just socialized, completely government run
healthcare systems, look at the VA. Everyone knows that example.
It's been five ten years ago where the wait times
were getting so long for people getting specialty consultations that
they just erase the list and would keep a little
paper list and they just in the drawers. Oh oh oh,

(38:53):
they can only be on this list for three months.
It's been three months in the day. Okay, well let's
just take them off the list and put them on
the secret list and put that to hide that in
the drawer. Just ridiculous things like that.

Speaker 4 (39:02):
Yeah, it was insane, insane.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
You have to when you have socialized medicine, when the
government's putting the bill for everything and controlling everything, it
is an insane and insane cost expense. The only way
they can control that is to limit access to service,
you know, extend weight times or just deny service altogether.
And the examples that I would give people very common,

(39:25):
extremely common women over forty write up a quadrant paint
gall bladder disease happens I see. I always see one
or two of those every single shift that.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
I work, and that is insanely.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Painful, extremely painful. And the first woman I saw when
I was in Australia at Flinders University. This is an
Adelaide professor there and they have this similar healthcare model
to New Zealand's socialized medicine. This woman comes in and
she's clearly uncomfortable and she I asked how long has
this been going on? She's like three years? Like what

(39:56):
what do you What do you mean three years? She's like, well,
I've been on the weight lift to make a waitlist.
So wait a minute. Let me go talk with one
of my colleagues, one of the guys that've been there forever.
I'm like, hey, yeah, this lady says she's been waiting
for three years for a gall bladder surgery. That can't
possibly be right. I was like, oh yeah, no, as
you just say about five or six years? Five years? Are

(40:17):
you insane? If this happened in the United States of America,
she would have that out either that day or within
a day or two period. And so those types of
things socialized medicine will do, like truly emergent emergent things,
or you know, just some primary care things fairly well.
But if you have anything actually wrong or anything outside

(40:40):
the box at all and you need like a subspecialist,
you're screwed, like you are waiting for years. But if
you have the private insurance card, that same patient would
be wheeled right across the street to the private hospital
and be taken out the next day. So you know,
when berdie, when they say there's no private cysts, them

(41:00):
has to be all one government. That's ridiculous. Nobody on
planet Earth has a solely socialized healthcare. I mean not
the NHS in the UK, nowhere in Europe, nowhere in
Australia or New Zealand. There's always a private system because
there's always a group of people that have better resources
or have worked harder for what they have, They're going
to want to have something better. I mean, that's not

(41:21):
acceptable waiting for three to five years to get your
gall better out where you're excruciating and pain every time
you eat anything that's not appropriate. But because she didn't
have a white count, she wasn't feebrow, she wasn't septic.
It's just super painful. But you're just gonna have to
live with it and just be on the wait list.
That's insane. That will not fly in the ever.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
The thing about it is, there's the people who make
these decisions have no don't they're not exactly medical geniuses.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
They don't know anything about it.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
It's all about the ideal rather than the reality.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Nor do they have the health care policy that they're
advocating for. All those members of Congress have their own
little super fancy, special concierge level care. Yeah, they get
their hip replacements and the replacements Cadillac service anytime they want.
I mean yeah, So they don't even have the health
care that they're advocating for. It's not good enough for them.

(42:16):
Why is it good enough for America?

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah. It's the same thing with schools. You know, all
their kids go to private schools and everything, and then
they try to make laws about education and and what
was that person said the other day? They want to
take education out of education.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
So my wife's a teacher and my mom's a teacher,
My aunt's a teacher. Both my mom and aunt have
retired in the last year or two. The stories that
they tell in public school is just mind boggling. It's
it's it's painful.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
It's Yeah. I did a lot of volunteer tutoring, and
then when the pandemic hit, I, you know, of course,
lost my career. So I went to online tutoring and
I got a lot of insight. I got to see
how the sausage is made. I've actively avoided being a
public school teacher. I totally qualified to do so. I

(43:09):
don't think I would survive in that world. And what
I see with my kids, and I have kids from
all over the continent, and what these what level of
education they're receiving. There are some really good teachers, and
I'm not saying I'm not, you know, a hashtag not all,
but the majority of these kids are just left to
their own devices. They don't understand the teacher, barely understands

(43:32):
the subject, they don't know how to teach, and they're lazy.
My goodness. I mean, during the pandemic, when everybody's at
home and everything's online, these kids didn't even get their
work graded. It's like, well, what else are the teachers doing.
They can't.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
They can't fail them. They have to give them. They
cannot physically. My mom was telling me, she's a high
school teacher. You cannot fail a kid. They can do nothing,
they can have a zero percent, have done nothing you have.
You cannot fail them.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Well, I can't tell you how many times I'll have
a kid who's been pushed into algebra who barely can
do you know, fractions or basic math, and I'll say, Okay,
let's go back and let's practice this, and I teach
them some stupid ways and little songs and whatever, and
all of a sudden, a light goes off in their eyes.
So they take something that they positively hate that they've
just been shoved along, shoved along, and they don't understand,

(44:23):
which makes them hate it more because they're never successful.
And then all of a sudden they understand a piece
of it. And I'm like, okay, and I have this
little thing I do. I can teach you algebra in
five minutes. And what I'll do is I bring the
mom in. Okay, I'm going to teach you, because even
the moms or I'm going to teach you everything you
need to know about algebra and five minutes. Then the
mom gets excited, then the kid gets excited, and it's
like it took five minutes, you know, that's all it took.

(44:46):
And the other thing that I really despise is that
a lot of teachers, and I'll use a specific example, factoring,
they'll teach you one way to do it, and that's
the way you have to do it, and I'll teach
them five ways to do it, and I'm like, which
way does your bring like the most? And every kid
is different, Every kid is different, And it's like, as
long as you get the right answer, I don't care

(45:07):
how you do it. But there's teachers out there that
if they if they decide they want to use, you know,
the Australian method or the box method, but they taught
them the snowflake method and that's the only way you're
allowed to do it. Well, you're you're just telling a
whole bunch of kids that they're the way the brain
works isn't right, or there's no options. They don't even know,
so I see.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, and common course stuff was just I couldn't do
my son's homework in third grade and I and I've
done calculus, physics. Yeah, I could not do the third
grade math.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
I couldn't answer the questions ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
I wasted.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah. Oh yeah. I have a couple of kids that
I'm brilliant, both the brothers, and I've been tutoring them forever.
So I've been tutoring one of them, the older brothers,
since he was in fourth grade. Now he's in high
school and really smart kid. I mean in fourth grade
we were doing algebra, but of course, you know, they're
in New York and have to do common core, and

(46:07):
so we've been really really pushing for the school to
challenge him. And we did get him into a Magnet
school where there's a little bit more focused on different things,
and he's into robotics and all that, so he's actually
starting to do that. But the math, oh my gosh,
he loves math. He hates math class. And it's the
way they it's so esoteric and fluffy and just it

(46:31):
doesn't make any sense. It's like, here, let me show
you how you do it. And he's like, I like
that method. Why do we have to do this? So
what we do is we do all the math. You know,
the way just basically old school math, and he gets
it and likes it. And then we go back and
we fill in all their boxes and do all their
charts and all the stupid crap that you know, the
tape charts, and oh, it's just ridiculous. Can you imagine

(46:54):
them doing that to medical school? I mean, are they
doing that? I mean.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Right, I finished med school in two thousand and three.
I'm sure there's spent a lot of changes since then.
I mean you got to have some changes, I suppose.
But I'm the old school guy. Just math is math?
Just math?

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Well, no, it's racist now did you know that math
is racist?

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Now?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
It's just has gotten ridiculous, It's absolutely ridiculous. I want
to go back to your book a little bit because
i'm sincerely. Like I said, I'm sincerely. You talk about
starting out, and this is something that I find interesting
is that a current candidate who started out with nothing
and made something of himself, and they're actually seeing that
as a bad thing. Now. I'm not sure how how

(47:38):
we do that, but apparently being successful on your own
is seen as bad in a nightmare, yeah, exactly. You
started out selling rocks and that was the very first
lesson in business and in life. And I want to
talk about rock selling because I think every kid has

(48:01):
had a similar experience. For me, it was a little
cruchede ice skate pins and you get a hard lesson.
But I think some kids just give up and they
don't get the lesson. But you got it, So give
us that lesson about selling rocks.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
So I was about five years old and my mom
lived at the end of a dirt road, so number
one location, right, Yeah, locations people are so if there's
nobody driving down the road, you're not going to sell
any rocks. So that's a most important one. That's like
just location, you know, marketing, how you're going to market
those rocks. I shined them up and I cleaned them up,

(48:41):
and there's all kinds of different sizes of the rocks,
and my mom has some great pictures and tells me
stories of that. It's oh my goodness. I was so
upset no one is buying my rocks. And I've got
a sign it's like twenty five cents and then crossed
out in the fifteen cents and then crossed out ten
to five, like nobody's buying my rocks.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Geez.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Oh, man, that's a funny story.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
So what was your lesson from the rocks location?

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah, yeah, yah yeah yeah. Target marketing, Yeah yeah, a location,
your your target market, in your audience. They have some
people want to buy. You know, nobody really wants to
buy rocks. There's no market for rocks.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
But then your next endeavor was ingenious and you actually
made some money. Got a little bit of trouble for
that one.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, the candy bars. That was in middle school.
So you know, I learned there was a there was
a market. The school stopped selling candy bars and everyone
still there was a very high demand for candy bars.
So I rode my bike, wrote it to one of
the stores, and we just put in the backpack, buying like,
you know, like six or twelve packs, you know, so
it would end up being out ten or fifteen cents

(49:44):
per bar, and then was selling them for fifty cents,
making some profit maybe maybe a dollar or two a day.
And for a kid making nothing, that is that that
is some decent money. And the principal that had to
talk with me, and I think they set up a
little sting operation should to take me down. You know,
their their thought process is a he sees like this,

(50:05):
he's probably gonna start selling drugs next or something. I
don't know, so I'm sure they had the.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Kind of is a drug, But yeah, you're got in trouble.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
They told me I couldn't sell candy bars on property,
and I was still selling them out of my locker,
and they set with a sting operation for somebody to
come over and buy a candy bar. It was, it was.
It was bizarre.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
But yeah, okay, so that was that was your first
experience with the FED covert operations there, the black market
and all that. But what was your takeaway from that?

Speaker 5 (50:36):
What was it?

Speaker 2 (50:37):
I mean, it seems to me like you still took
that lesson to the next level and got you to
where you are now.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Yeah. Well, I had a business in Georgetown, Texas, so
had I had a free standing emergency department that it
was a part of, and you know, just some of
those lessons about location. We had a fantastic location, you know, uh,
something that people I mean, you know, higher level quality
of care, concierge level care in an emergency department. And

(51:05):
then we marketed the heck out of it. You know,
we got out there in the communities, we did all
the school events and sponsoring and Halloween trunk retreats, and
we had an old hommy old hum vy that was
painted up with the logo for the business and drove
that thing all over town. Everyone was instantly recognizable, and

(51:25):
we had We had a really good thing going and
just unfortunately the CEO was a little crazy and starting
bezzling money.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, tell me about this madman scene that actually drove
you out of the country.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Yeah. Interesting, interesting character that this guy. He was. Gosh,
it was right. So we're making great money and on
paper I was worth a lot of money, so the
business is valued. I think he had evaluation like fifty
four million dollars ten percent of that, which for a
kid from rural Nebraska, I mean, I came from nothing.
I was forskidding.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah, this is wild.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
We just started, just some discrepancy. So there was ninety
thousand dollars for legal fees, and well, what kind of
legal fee? We don't have legal fees. He was writing
off a lawsuit through a different business of his and
then involved some sexual harassment stuff and a bunch of

(52:20):
crazy things through our business. So we were footing that
bill and then he overcharged us for payroll about one
hundred and thirty thousand there, and then towards the end
of it, he just jacked six hundred fifty thousand dollars.
To say, it was like back management expenses, So it
was a tremendous amount of money. I called them out
on it. What really brought it to a head was
I had applied for a national security position on the
National Security Council. I'm ems fellowship qualified so Bord certified

(52:45):
emergency management, disaster medicine, and there was a really cool opportunity.
So you sit down and there's a you have to
have a tea at Topsy with clearance, and there were
some questions that I clearly can't not answer because I
knew what was going on, and so I went to him,
was like, listen, I got a security planage. You can't
be doing this, and he went berserk. He tried to

(53:06):
bankrupt the company and that's when he pulled out the
six hundred and fifty thousand. He controlled the bank account
because he had majority ownership. Oh no, that's kind of
less than one on one in Texas business. You know,
if you've got the majority shares, you can really do
whatever you want. And so we filed a lawsuit to
prevent him from bankrupt in me company. He offered me
a three point four million dollar bribe to just walk away,

(53:28):
and unfortunately, I have a very I'm probably stubborn, and
I just haven'ts So I told him say, listen, like,
I'm a colonel of the United States Air Force. I
want to compromise my integrity for a single penny, you
can show it up your ass. And he got really
really upset because he's been buying people off and doing

(53:48):
non disclosure agreements for his whole career and he just
he found the one dude that would stand up to him,
and so he went berserk. He tried to bankrupt us,
and then he actually threatened my family. So I had
to bailed to Australia for a while.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
The FBI threatened to your family, Like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
You had some goon from Louisiana kind of walk out
to me one day like hey hey, Josh, you know
he know it's a lot of very scary people. You
better be careful. And I'm like, and so I had
to conceal carry permit and I had to walk, you know,
I concealed carry everywhere I went and then he started
ramping up the pressure. He starved us out. He refused
to make any distributions to like even our paychecks, you know,

(54:26):
and it just it just got super crazy. The FBI
COVID hit so that froze all the courts. We couldn't
get a court date, and the FBI was so much
tied up. They said, hey, listen, I don't think we're
gonna file charges because we're not guaranteed we'll get a conviction.
And basically basically we were screwed. Just timing like COVID
killed everything. And then he started threatening me, and I

(54:47):
was like, well, uh yeah, I was pretty upset. My
wife actually sat me down and I was like, Elsa,
I'm having some pretty scary thoughts here, like I'm not
going to put up with this kind of stuff. I'm
a military dude, and I think we probably just remove
ourselves from the situation. So, I mean, you threaten my family,
It's I take that very personal, and so we we

(55:09):
just removed ourselves from the situation. Is the act guy
wasn't helpful at all, and we just went to Australia
and he took care of themselves. I ended up losing
about five million dollars all said and done. But at
the end of the day, my family was safe and
my integrity is intact. And he's an evil dude. He'll
be in jail someday. It's just not going to help
me at all, you know. So there's bad guys. There's

(55:29):
bad guys out there. You can cry about it and
remove your life right.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Well, two questions. You moved to Australia during COVID. I
mean they got downright militant there. What experience there?

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Well, that that was? That was That was another chapter
in the book. I mean that's where you really talk
about America is the last bastion of freedom. I watched
a government shut down state to state. You couldn't even
travel from state to state. Locked people in Melbourne in
a hotel in their apartment complex for one hundred and

(56:04):
eleven days. One hundred and eleven days. They started doing
like the crazy downloading the software with GPS tracking with
facial recognition, so they could they could ping you anywhere
at any time and say, ping, hey, you've had an exposure,
scan your face and give this your GPS coordinates. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa whoa? When where oh, we can't take you.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
They went full China, full China, my wh whoa.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
So I'm just gonna scan this. So then now they
got your facial recognition. So anytime they pin your phone,
you have to scan your face so they know it's you.
And then it's got the GPS, so they know where
your phone is if you're more than like fifty meters
wherever they told you to be. And so they arrested,
no questions asked.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
That is horrifying.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
Whoa.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
And the sad thing is the people did it. They didn't.
I would have told the word of going about twelve languages.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
So that's that's where you know, for me as an American,
and there are a lot of people are kind of
looking to me to see why reaction was going to be.
And I basically the final straw was when they locked
down a grocery store in Adelaide. They had secret police
go in there and they basically made everyone proved to
the plain closed police officers that they checked into the

(57:14):
COVID tracing app when they walked into this grocery store,
and if they didn't, it was a one thousand dollars
spot fine and a ten thousand dollars. I think a
twenty thousand dollars fine for the grocery store for not
forcing people. There was no COVID in South Australia, so
they were doing it just to show that they were
the boss and you got to follow the rules and
that they could do it. And when my wife's cousin
was dying, she tried to get back with the funeral

(57:34):
and my wife is Hispanic and that family, it's everything
to her. Her cousin and her were raised together basically
like siblings because his mom died young of cancer. And
the Australian government told me that if she left the
country that they would arrest her and it would be
a sixty thousand dollars fine. And I said, hey, listen,

(57:55):
you know I'm an American citizen and I'm telling you,
I'm not asking you. She's going back. And it was
not going well with the Australian authorities, and so I
basically talked to some colleagues and I actually sent an
email out to the UC Emergency Department groups. Listen, I know,
I know, I'm just the uh, I'm just the a
whole American here, but I'm telling you, guys, you've got

(58:17):
to get your government in check. This is crazy, out
of control. Benjamin Franklin said, those who would give up,
you know, a liberty for security deserve either you can't.
I mean, I know they're they're say they're doing it
in the name of security, but they just completely they
completely newted their citizens. I would never have imagined. I

(58:38):
never actually would't even believe the stories had I not
physically been there and seen it. And this is a
this is a western civilized country. This is Australia. This
isn't North this isn't North Korea or Russia or Cuba, right,
this is Australia. And so for me personally, I feel
like America is probably one more pandemic away. You know,
people were giving up their rights so quick so easily. Listen,

(59:06):
I'm not okay with that. And so then you know,
just these these types of reasons were why I was
I was running and and and why I kind of
do what I do and wrote the book and and hey,
these are these are these are my personal beliefs. I'm
an American and I believe in freedom. So I mean
that's a bad thing. I uh, I think.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
It's I think it's not it's not a bad thing.
It's an amazing thing. And you are an American hero
and I'm so glad.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Appreciate bad things.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
We hear that we you know, you get to meet
you that that you know, you give us hope because
we don't get to hear people from people like you.
We don't get to hear that anymore, and we need to.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
We need to be emotional.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
When I started reading it, because I thought we'd pretty
much given up, and it's like, well no, there are
still some voices saying we can. We can turn this around.
It's going to take time and effort.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
We can a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Onto some of these other things. Why should teachers, family coaches,
mentors step up?

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
I know this is a crucial time, but.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
A lot of people feel hamstrung by you know, maybe
their own mental limitations, but also governmental limitations. That kind
of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Well, I mean, there's kind of dovetails on what we
were just talking about, because leadership post COVID is a
different animal, and you specifically had a talking point about
that that I'd like you to go into.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Yeah, so if we have to hand the keys to
this country over to this next generation at some point,
is that twenty years? Is that thirty years with what
we see right now, I don't know anyone who feels that, like, yes,
this generation is ready, They are ready to go. They
creally are. We shut them out of their so during

(01:00:58):
the most critical mormative years and their development, shut them
out of their schools, shout them out of their churches.
They can't communicate with each other other than over their
phones and their and their iPads. They lack a lot
of very just basic critical skills that for them to
be successful as future leaders on a world stage, it's

(01:01:22):
going to take some work. So if we don't get
involved right now, we are going to I talk with
business owners as well, because like, well, what does this
have to do with business owners? Let me tell you
so everything. Every this generation is going to be coming
to you looking for a job out of high school
or out of college. I mean, we're the basic the
college age graduates. Now, this is your COVID generation. This

(01:01:46):
is your problem, whether you know it or not, in
six months or a year, this is your problem. Do
you want to wait until it becomes your problem and
it's almost not fixable, or do you want to get
involved right now and go volunteer in your church or
your school, or go coach some little legue or soccer
or something. You just kind of teach some mentorship and
some of these basic skills have some of that involvement
now because if you wait till they're coming to you.

(01:02:07):
As a business owner, Uh, when I own my business
in Texas, this generation, oh my goodness. Uh just completely
lacks of daisical not giving two week notices. Like learning.
There was one exam all oh yeah, they showed up
and they just wouldn't think twice about it. Oh I
don't I'm gonna go to a concert. I'm not going
to show up today like they Well, so are you

(01:02:29):
quitting or you're just not showing up? Like okay, well
I guess I'm just gonna quit. Well, you have to
give us two week notice or I can't give you
a letter of reference. What's a letter of reference? If
you ever apply for a job again, I cannot give
you a letter of reference if you don't at least
give me a two week notice. Oh well, my concert
is like tonight, So I'm just not going to show
up and I quit. Okay. Six months later they called

(01:02:51):
up again. Can I get a letter of reference? Or
can I have my job? Back.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
No, no, you can't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
You wouldn't. You would give me a two week notice,
Like there's no, it's not connecting. The dots aren't connecting
for these kids. And those are just some examples, but
there's just we have a lot of work to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
And the worst thing is, yeah, they've been trained to
be narcissistic. So in his mind, you're the bad guy.
You're you're the it's your fault and they don't. Yeah, terrible,
and that's our fault. Is a generation and I'm going
to go all the way back to the boomers. First
of all, they need to let go. Okay, gen X,

(01:03:28):
we don't even exist. They just blipped right over us,
like we're not even we never were, not in anything.
They just blipped over us. And they're still hanging on.
We've got eighty ninety one hundred year old people in office.
It's like, this is ridiculous. You have to pass the
baton at some point, and they won't. And apparently the

(01:03:49):
way we were raised is well basically we raised them
and ourselves. So we're so busy just trying to keep
you know, all the balls in the air. We're like, okay,
well hopefully you know the kids will do it. But
you know, the hippies, they just we have skills, we
have no you know, we don't have the mentors that
we used to have. And I'm probably going to get

(01:04:10):
in trouble for this. But as a tutor, whenever I
have a student and I see what their aptitude or
their interest is, and I ask him, you know, you know,
what are you thinking about doing? And they tell me
what they want to do. I literally discouraged them from
going to college. I said, Okay, here's what you do.
You find somebody who is good at you know, whatever
it does you want to do under the yeah, you

(01:04:32):
find yourselves a mentorship to be an intern. You know,
forget college guys.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Have you guys hired a plumber at all in the
last couple of years.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
They're insanely And that is the exact example I used.
My sister went to high school and one of her
boyfriends that she had during that time, he didn't go
to college. He uh worked as an is not an
inter apprentice apprentice, thank you for a plumber. Okay, barely
graduated high school, but he's smart. Guy became an apprentice plumber,

(01:05:02):
learned that the trade has his own business is a millionaire.

Speaker 5 (01:05:05):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Meanwhile, American dream right there. Yeah, we own student loans
and can barely pay rent. You know, it's like, no,
think about what you want to do. And if you don't,
you know, if you don't want to be a doctor
or a lawyer, which you have to go to school for,
but you want to learn a trade and you know,
real estate, plumbing, electrical whatever, you know, railroads, family, yeah,

(01:05:29):
and God bless them. You know, the entire nation was
built by these guys do that. And that's what we
used to do. We used to have mentorships and interns
and and you know, all these things. And now it's discouraged.
Just all about college college, college, well, because all they
learn in college is white men are bad, you know,
every diversity equity blah blah blah. I mean, I graduated

(01:05:53):
from the University of Washington many years ago, and even
back then, I was up for awards and my teacher
took me aside and he goes, okay, well, you basically win,
but we can't you be the winner because it disagrees
with the politics of the school. And it was kind
of a design writing assignment. But you know, actually said,

(01:06:17):
you know something about America being good and you're not
allowed you're not allowed to say that. It was really
funny in my some of my writing classes, and I
can't remember the name of it, but you know the
classes now, they're like, you know, development something in the
women's studies of the something something something something. It's not
like math one on one anymore. It's like a six

(01:06:37):
pair long title and basically the answer for every single
question in that class, no matter what the question was,
the answer was penis. I mean literally, you know, what's
what's what's the fall of you know, national Yeah, it's
just ridiculous. It's just just men are bad. And so
these kids come out with no structure, with no knowledge

(01:07:02):
with I mean, they actually come out dumber. And that
there has been studies proving that students enter with a
certain IQ and literally come out of four years of
college with a lower IQ.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
And this is without even not even taking into account
the lack of social skills through.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Right these days.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
Yeah, and I mean we literally have students at Berkeley
praising censorship. I mean, those two are opposites.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Well, and they strapped them, they strapped them with so
much debt that they can just keep them in the
box and just control the narrative because they step outside
the box and they just they're financially owned.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
They are, they are. And whoever thought that compound interest
and student loans should go together, that is an evil
person who I hope is burning in the diary Pitzeville
because of the one thing that you should not put
compound interest on. It's its education. And yeah, so I

(01:08:03):
actually discouraged students. I think. So what as far as
your education goes, when did your doctrine and your military?
Did you get your education through the military or did
you get your military through your education? What was the
dynamic there?

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
So I had a scholarship for undergrad so it was
very blessed there. Just worked my tail off and got
a scholarship to pay for college. Went to Shattered State College,
rural Western Nebraska. Same college as Tim Walls. Oh okay,
Tim Walls was my high school teacher.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
No, yes, okay, I need to know give me some jerk, so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
Go go check out to the videos. I was on
Carl Higbee frontline. I was like, you guys, he was
my teacher in high school. That are you serious? Beyond
five o'clock? So I just gave some stories. There was
the football coach. He was my World geography teacher as
a freshman, he was sociology as a senior. And then

(01:09:03):
his wife, Gwen, was my tenth grade English teacher for
two days. Wow, has she had a life size This
is rural western Nebraska. I'm a tenth grade kid. I
don't know anything, but as a tenth grade kid, for
two days, she had a life sized cardboard cutout of
Hillary Clinton in the back of her classroom. I mean

(01:09:26):
this in nineteen ninety two, all about it. Just loves Hillary.
Like early days of indoctrination in our public school systems.
I mean, I didn't know anything. I just knew I
was extremely uncomfortable. I went to the principal of the school.
Name was Dick Bonus, and I told say, hey, I
don't think this. I don't think this is right. That
was his name, Dick, but Dick Bonus, that was his name.

(01:09:47):
He's the principal, and yeah, rest his soul that one. Yeah,
that's all right. And I just said, hey, listen, I'm
going to be in your class. I'm coming to your
office every single day because this is not appropriate. And
he put me into missus Nelson's class. So I finished
tenth grade English or the whole rest of the year
Missus Nelson's class, and so I told that story. And

(01:10:10):
you know, Tim Walls, he didn't really talk a whole
lot of politics at that time at all because it
was a football coach and he was a fantastic teacher.
I mean he really was. I really enjoyed him as
a teacher, very genuine cared about students. You know. Obviously,
I think you got to change change who you are
a little bit when you make that political jump, like
I've tried not to, but I mean you do have
to play the game. And then when he became good governor,

(01:10:33):
I've talked with lots of people from Minnesota because I
still work in the Midwest. I fly out to Omaha
and work one of their emergency apartments. There's tons of
people from Minnesota, and it's a pretty common thing. You know.
He just took a super hard left turn when he
became the governor. And I mean literally votes the votes
are in Minia. Yeah, the votes are in Miniato on his.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Own people if they were on their their front porch
after perfume, I mean I saw the videos. I was
I didn't I could not believe the story until I
witnessed it, and they want that, they want that in
the presidency.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
I mean, it's been interesting seeing I'm plastered all over
on the news networks on somebody that you've known for
thirty some years. And I met with him in twenty
seventeen at a national security conference. I was there for
the national security course for the military and then talked
with his military liaison. Hey, I'm one of his students.
And he actually talked to him for about an hour

(01:11:30):
back in twenty seventeen, and he's still well at that time.
It was pretty genuine. He remembered me. He remember my brother.
My brother was a gotten a lot of trouble. So
miss Tim Walls knew my mother extremely.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Oh dear, okay with my brother.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
But just just the politics, my goodness, I couldn't disagree more.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Do you do you think that the politics ruined him
as a person? Do you think he's still in there?

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
Oh, he's still in there. It's his wife. It was
just a really super political motivated one and just kind
of my person, my personal beliefs. This this is just
this is just just me. But his wife wash is
all is running to Clinton playbook so she.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
She's a dead ringer for Hillary.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Oh yeah, well, she was protege for Hillary Clinton cardboard
life size cut out of the back of the classroom
in nineteen ninety two, and she's running the Clinton playbook,
and she's she's gonna, you know, kind of pushed him
all the way to the White House. And that's There's
a lot that's come out here over the past few

(01:12:38):
months that they're probably a little surprising to me as well.
But you know, I know he was a fantastic teacher.
Uh you know, I really enjoyed having as a teacher.
I just the politics. I'm sure he has changed.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
That's too bad.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Nebraska. He's from West Point, Nebraska.

Speaker 3 (01:12:54):
Yeah, I don't know same stock right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Now that that's too bad because you know him, you know,
as a that's we talked about this earlier. Humanizing people,
you know, you find out, oh they were actually a
human being once and of course what okay, so this
is a touchy subject. What is your take on him
calling himselfself by a different rank multiple times? And you know,

(01:13:20):
they they're they're going to I don't like the take
that we're insulting his service, because that's not what's happening.
We're just saying, well, if you if you're willing, yeah,
but if you're willing to lie about that, and you know,
they they talk about stolen valor and this and that
and pretend that you were in I mean, you were
literally in places where you probably got shot out, and

(01:13:41):
he's alluded to it and pretended. And you know, just
like Biden saying that he was marching in the you know,
he never did. He was never there, he never got arrested,
you know, and people don't hear the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
But you I was, yeah, who served in combat. I've
I've carried bodybags of American heroes, you know, I pulled
them off the battlefield, put them on helicopters, you know,
cried it was really disappointed. So everybody, No, you can't
retire at a rank until you held it for three years.

(01:14:17):
And I'm sure there was kind of lots of excuses,
and he really kind of pushed that he was a
command sergeant major, the highest ranking listening guy in the
history of Congress. But I mean he retired a master sergeant.
And then just the comments of you know, all these
weapons that I carried in war, you're never in combat.
I don't discount anybody's military service. I mean, he took

(01:14:38):
the oath. I mean he he you know, signed up.
He would have died for this country if would have
been called upon. But you can't say it did things
that you didn't do. And and he capitalized on that politically,
you know, I mean he said it was a campaign
events and then he actually never did the PM the
professional military education to get to that rank, which would

(01:14:58):
have kept him from retiring rank as well. You know,
those those things, those things matter, and so that that's
kind of concerned. It's disappointing for me, but maybe there's
some reasons there. And then bailing on his bailing on
his unit a couple of months before they deployed. You know,
I'm sure there's a backstory there that that maybe we
don't know about or he doesn't talk about it. I
don't want to second guess that, but that's just not

(01:15:20):
something I would be comfortable doing myself so.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
Well, especially in a situation like this where it's so
easily disproven. His colleagues, you know, you don't you certainly
don't operate in our armed forces in a you know, you're.

Speaker 4 (01:15:38):
Not working by yourself. You're surrounded by people, and you
know it's.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
A senior level position too, like you, you cannot bail on,
or like me as a commander if we're getting shipped out,
and I'm just like, oh hey, guys, peace out. I'm
gonna I'm gonna duck out retire on this one.

Speaker 5 (01:15:54):
Like whoa, whoa, whoa whoa.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
I just personally disagree with that.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
I couldn't sure sure fair enough.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
And they're trying to say he didn't know, but he knew.
I mean he was in a position where he would
be the one who knew.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
So with the command sergeant major of the National Guard,
I guarantee.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
You yeah, he knew. Well, I don't want to talk
too much about other people. I want to bring it
back to the book before I let you go. I
thanks so much for being such a great guest. Oh
my gosh, we could talk for three hours, but we
had to turn off the AC So we're going to
start a six seed. First of all, congratulations on your

(01:16:36):
best selling book. We need multiple awards. It is, folks,
it's over. It is one heck of a read. The
stories and it are fantastic. As you can see, we
just barely barely grazed the tip of the iceberg. And
he has a lot in here about coaching, respect, American way,

(01:16:57):
why socialized. I think it has a really bad idea
that we all do that. But he doesn't get negative you.
I just want to share the very very ending and
then I'll let you have the last word. You actually
end your book with a quote from Abraham Lincoln that
we are all familiar with. But I want to read
because this book offers us hope and it gives us guide.

(01:17:22):
My biggest complaint is like, Okay, I want to fix it,
but I don't know what to do. I don't know
what to do. I mean, I see this problem, I
see this need. I want to jump in. I want
to do something, but I don't know what. You give
us some what's in here, and I hope people will
read this and extrapolate what you're trying to say here.
And the overarching idea is we need to teach our youth.

(01:17:46):
We need to mentor them, we need to guide them.
We need to be that weight that pushes them forward.
Be the weight, make them the tip, make them important,
but make them know that they are supported. So I
want to read this last quote in and I'll let
you say whatever it is you want to say, and
I'll shut up. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that

(01:18:08):
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.
That we here highly resolve that these deads shall not
have died in vain, that this nation under God shall
have a new birth of freedom, and that the government
of the people, by the people, for the people shall

(01:18:31):
not perish from the earth. November nineteenth, eighteen sixty three,
and mean were all familiar with that speech. It's just
such a great ending to the book, though, because so
many of us have been blackpilled to the point where
we think the nation is I mean, I say it
almost on a daily basis. That's it. It's over. We're
a failed nation. And you don't believe they want you

(01:18:54):
to give up. Yeah, that's true, you don't believe that.
And you you have been the tip of the spirit
so as a person who is literally the badass, the
tip of the spear, but you've also been the weight
behind it. Just give us a final thought before we
say our goodbyes. What do you most want to get

(01:19:16):
out there?

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
What you do every single day matters. You have an
impact on everybody around you. This generation needs your help,
your level of engagement. It's something different for everybody. For me,
it's been you know, I've done the military, I've been
a commander, I coached liter League soccer, I coached baseball.
You know, get involved in your schools, your churches, some

(01:19:40):
mentoring programs. This could be something different for everybody. But
just start off with the most simple thing. Sit down
with your kids. Just have dinner that night. Just sit
down to have dinner with your children, a couple of
nights a week. Life is busy. Everyone's pulled a million
different Placesgner. We've got five different events for three kids
to be to every week. Just sit down and have
dinner with your children. You let them know one that

(01:20:03):
you actually care taking that time. Two and build confidence,
and then ask them what went good? What didn't go good?
Is there some decisions that we could have made that
would make that outcome a little bit better or different?
Could we change that? You know, control what you can control.
You can't control the people, but you can control how
you react to things. Just that simple sitting down for

(01:20:23):
a family dinner means everything to your kids. So just
start right there. Just have family dinner. All you gotta do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
Oh that is great idea. Well, doctor Josh mconkey. First
of all, let's remind everybody where they can find you
on the interwebs.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
Yeah, wait, behind the Spear dot com, w E, I,
G H T wait behind the Spear dot com and
you know Instagram, X, Twitter, Facebook, all the socials and
you know, just I need your help to get this
message out. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
For having me on you bet and all of the
genuine honor and pleasure, all of those will be on
counterculturewise dot com along with the video and audio. If
you are listening, please make sure you give us a
billion star review. If you did not enjoy this interview,
just give us five stars. I mean that's insulting, but
you will settle for that. But don't do one or

(01:21:15):
two because that's you know, that's that's lazy. Do five,
like share, subscribe, past this out, get his book and
doctor Josh McConkie, you've been an amazing guest. Thank you
so much for spending an hour and a half with us,
and God bless you. God's speed and we will pray
for your family. May you always be in a position.

(01:21:37):
And if you ever run for office in Texas, I
will vote for you, so.

Speaker 4 (01:21:41):
I'll be on your campaign steps.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
I probably be out there taking the slings and arrows.
I'd be in front of the spear.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
Well, thank you so much, and I do when you
publish your next book or run for office, hit us
up again because I would love to talk to you again.
And thank you so much for saping time with us.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
Hey, thank you very much. Go bless you guys as well,
and have a great rest of the week.

Speaker 5 (01:22:06):
You too, you too.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
H wow wow wow

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