#142 Dale Stark - A-10 Warthog: One of the Most Feared Aircraft in History
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Dale Stark, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. It's a, man, I've been watching your Twitter for, or I guess X now, for quite a while, and I love your page. Like the wittiness in the comments and just what you post is awesome. And on top of that, it's

It's an honor to have you here. I've been wanting a pilot for a long time. And as I've been watching you, I've just been like, man, I think I would really get along with that guy. So I'm just really stoked. You're my first Air Force airplane pilot that I've had in here and hope you're the first of many.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. You're welcome. But everybody starts off with an intro. So I'm going to give your intro here real quick. Dale Stark, a retired United States Air Force A-10 pilot, prior enlisted C-17 crew chief. You have received four air medals, 13 aerial achievement medals, and four meritorious service medals.

You made it to Lieutenant Colonel and Squadron Commander during your time in the military. You flew combat missions during multiple deployments to Afghanistan in 2006, 2010,

2014 with 3,000 total flight hours. After serving nearly 22 years with the military, you finished your service to the country instructing for the Air Force in Tucson, Arizona. Since retiring, you've become a rancher and devote your time and energy into supplying the community with wholesome, locally sourced beef. You're a husband, a father of two beautiful girls, and a Christian.

Am I missing anything? That's pretty much it. I got a feeling I'm missing a lot here, but we'll get into that stuff here in a little bit. But man, I love your farm. Do you call it a farm or a ranch? You know, it's kind of the way I've generally heard it is that if you're doing primary like plants, it's farm. If you're raising livestock, it's a ranch.

But it's not like some massive Yellowstone operation. It's a single man deal, 58 acres total. And then, like you said, primarily raisin, Angus, grass fed, grass finished beef. Farm, ranch, whatever. I kind of use both terms sometimes.

homestead, whatever works for you. - So did you grow up doing that or is this like a steep learning curve for you? - I grew up around ranches a lot. My dad was like a horse trainer, a horseshoer,

a saddle maker, so, you know, in the ranching industry. And then I lived not too far from a dairy farm. One of my best friends was, you know, born and raised on this dairy farm and I would help them, you know, bucking hay in the summer. So I've been around it a lot as a kid. - Really? Well, I want to get into your ranch operation more towards the end and kind of what led you into that. But,

But first, let's get into the interview. So before we get started, two in the weeds here. Everybody gets a gift. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Oh, you have to open it right now. I came here for the gummy bears, right? That's, hey. Oh, yeah. There you go. The packaging's killer, too. Thank you. So yeah, made here in the USA. Yeah.

Some people give me shit about that because I've turned into a little bit of a health nut, but there are no healthy gummy bears. Dude, sometimes you need gummy bears. They're amazing. And they're legal in all 50 states. Not that that matters in Oregon, but hey, if you go anywhere else, those are legal.

But yeah, so let's dive into, we're going to do a full life story here. So I want to go through your childhood. It sounds like you had a traumatic experience at some point there. And so I'd like to talk about that and then we'll move into your military career and maybe some about the country and what you're doing nowadays and we'll wrap it up there. But starting off, where'd you grow up?

So I was born in a small town on the Oregon coast. So it's kind of a mainly a timber town and also lots of fishing. Those are kind of the main industries, but moved around a lot. So I think we lived in 18 houses by the time I was 18 years old. So, you know, lived in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, obviously lived in Southern California for a while. So just kind of

you know, lots of moving around. So my dad, you know... Why did you move so much? Do you know? You know, it was... The way I saw it at the time, maybe a little bit of a different era, but, you know, my dad would take a job where the job was and we would move. So whether it be seasonal work, you know, he did some logging. Like one of my first memories is

We were basically camped out all summer just outside of a logging camp near Cascade, Idaho. So, you know, living in a basically like an army tent, fishing, hunting, trapping. You guys were living in an army tent? Yes. How many brothers and sisters did you have? One brother, older than me. So just, yeah, whole summer in the woods because we had a logging job out there.

And then when that, you know, that job would come to an end or school would start, then he'd find another job. So, you know, it was just, there wasn't like all these programs and this and that. It was you working.

you went where you could get a job at that time. And that's what we did. So, you know, and then there was other things for kind of like saving money. So it'd be like, hey, you can live in this house for six months if you guys fix it up or something like that. So just, yeah, just lots of moves. Did you like living in that tent? I look back on it now as the best time of my life. Really? Yeah, I mean, we were just outside in the woods in Idaho for an entire summer, like forever.

I didn't even understand until I was in the Air Force that people didn't just have access to like thousands of acres of forest out their backyard. It was just like our birthright living in the West, you know? - Yeah. - And then later I'm in Texas, done with basic training and tech school, wanna go to the woods. And you're like, there are no, it's all private land. You gotta know somebody to go hunt or whatever it may be. - Is it like that,

everywhere out west? I mean, I can't speak to everywhere, but there's just, there's tons of like national forests, state forest, and even the lands that the timber companies own will allow you access. Me and my wife just went to Park City, Utah. We've been going out west for the past couple of years. And minus California, I love it out west. It seems like

I don't know, man. It just like, like you're saying, like you have to know if you want to go hunt or you want to be out in the woods, you either have to own the property or know somebody that owns some property and out there just, it seems like the conservation is a lot like they really took it seriously out there, but on the East coast and kind of mid Midwest, they, they didn't. And,

the outdoors just seems so much more accessible out there. It really is. And I don't really know all the history as to how that happened. It's a big place, you know, and there's a lot of terrain that's probably not necessarily ideal for development. And so, yeah, it's just, like I was saying, it's a picture of just having unlimited access to

seemed like infinity, you know? You could go anywhere, do anything, come home at dark kind of thing. So, you know, looking back, I look at it as a privilege. I think it makes you resilient. Had a real close family. So, you know, I had my brother wherever we would go. So it was fine, you know? Was your mom in the picture? Yep, my mom. Awesome. Just, it's funny, like, I can't imagine people doing what we did now.

Hey, babe, we're moving to the woods for the summer. Like, how's that going to go over? Yeah. But yeah, she's just a good sport, you know? Just like very faithful Christian. Always knew that God would provide and he always did. So it was just, I looked at it as a big adventure when I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah.

What kind of, I mean, what would you do out in the woods? What were you and your brother into? We'd just build survival forts. Like, my dad would let us go, like, sleep in these forts we had built overnight and stuff, so...

We loved Rambo, that whole kind of G.I. Joe, that whole genre. So yeah, we'd go build forts, go fishing, make little snares for rabbits and stuff, just stuff kids do. Man, that's cool. That's cool. I was talking to, I think it was, I can't remember who it was, the conversation with, but I read, went in and read, we were having the conversation on the show and he was saying that

Kids that grow up in and around nature have, I can't remember the percentage, but when it comes to like all these sicknesses and shit that are going around, ADHD, all these kind of autism, all these things, it sounds like the kids that grow up in nature that have experience out in the woods are

are a lot healthier when it comes to mental health versus kids in the city. Have you heard anything about that? - I've read things, and it makes sense to me anyway. It seems like more in line with how we have lived through most of human history. So yeah, you take a boy and make him sit in a classroom and watch screens all day or whatever it may be. I think you're kind of asking for trouble. - Yeah, yeah. Well, so,

You wound up in, was it California? Yeah, so when, I think it was sixth grade, my dad got a horseshoeing job. So that was kind of his main profession. So, you know, working on show horses, race horses. He was really good at it, so...

He got on at this place down in Southern California, which is where he grew up. And we went out there for, I think it was four years. So kind of like basically sixth grade to the start of high school. Yeah. So yeah, and that was interesting because we're mainly in like rural areas up to that point. And now we're living like near San Diego. Yeah.

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Something that I tend to do, and it started as a young age, is just get obsessed with one thing. And so I fell in love with skateboarding at that time frame. So I'd started that in Oregon a little bit, and then we moved to California, and it just took off. So I'm like...

you know, I heard like Tony Hawk. Oh, yeah. All those guys, the Bones Brigade. So I'm like, I'm watching those videos. I'm going to the skate parks every day after school all summer long, just, you know, sleeping with my skateboard in my bed, just became completely obsessed with that sport at that time. And so, you know, it was cool. Like I said, growing up in these

these kind of rural communities, which I loved and what I prefer now, obviously. But then now, you know, sixth grade, then junior high and living outside of like Hollywood and skateboarding. And I tried to take it to a pretty high level for my age at that time. Like,

I think it's kind of funny looking back now, but I was like a state champion for sponsored 14 and under. Damn, no shit. I was a California state champion. So skating with all the biggest pros, like I went out to Tony Hawk's like skate ranch in Fallbrook and all these like older pros are kind of taking me under their wing. And all these companies are just like throwing me all this free stuff. Like, uh,

Billabong. I don't know if you've seen that. They're like more of a surf company. Oh, I know who that is, yeah. So, yeah, so I'm like, I'm this kid who grew up in the country and then now I'm skateboarding in San Diego and they're just like, come to our factory. They give me like big trash bags and just say, go fill them up with whatever you want, clothing-wise. Are you serious? Like, yeah, and I mean, this is like, this is not...

anything that I have ever experienced. Yeah. For them, it's marketing. It's like, you get these kids that are good, you get pros, you get them to wear your stuff, and then it makes their, you know, I understand it now, but at the time, mine was blown, you know? Yeah. You do not strike me as a skateboarder at all. I know. That's crazy. Yeah, it was fun, you know? I just feel like you can fly. It was the time of like vert skating and ramps and

Yeah, it was just, it was a blast. - Was your brother into that too at all? - He was into it a little bit and then he was into surfing and stuff, but he didn't become nearly as like into it as I was. - Gotcha, gotcha. But you were into surfing too, correct? - Yeah, yeah. Living there in Southern California, it's kind of go hand in hand, so.

A lot of days at the beach and at the skate park. Did you get as good at surfing as you did at skateboarding? I got pretty good, but I never, my main kind of love at that time was skateboarding. And I never, I always loved surfing. I got into it a lot more in my later teenage years, like when we moved back to Oregon. But I was better at skateboarding. I just put in way more hours at it.

So if I read correctly, you had kind of a traumatic experience in your skateboarding career. Yeah, so it's kind of my first experience with what you kind of think of as like Hollywood. Oh boy. Yeah, so there are just so many creeps.

around this kind of world, right? So I got like picked up to do a Levi's commercial. So I did like- Are you serious? Yeah. So you're a model too? Yeah. This is incredible. Yeah, all these new revelations. I never thought about it like that. But so yeah, I'm like going out to LA doing-

Levi's jeans commercials, you know, skateboarding. You know, I'm just skating. Wait, did these like, were these on TV? Yeah. We can look these commercials up? I bought my first Browning 243 lever action rifle with residuals from a Levi's commercial. Oh man, I bet there's not too many people in Hollywood buying those anymore. Oh.

Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. No shit. So we could actually... I'm going to find this commercial and put it in here. Oh, that'd be hilarious. My mom has it. I don't know if... I mean, this is like...

- We'll find it. - Yeah, it's out there. - We'll find it. - It's gotta be somewhere. But yeah, so then the first kind of like really weird thing that happened in this kind of Southern California, Hollywood skateboard scene is there's this,

pro named Mark Gator Rogalski. I don't know if that name rings a bell. So he's this huge pro skater. At the time, he was probably very equivalent to, say, a Tony Hawk, Mike McGill, Bones Brigade guys. He was like a hero of mine. I'm watching him on videos. He was a

kind of the top of the food chain back then. So I'm, you know, I'm like 12, 13, 14, spending all my time at these skate parks. I'm a young amateur. He's a pro. So they, you know, they take young guys under their wing, right? So they're like, so I'm skating with all these guys. And one day I get home, I think it was from school. My parents bring me in and they're like,

you need to know something. Like, sit down, because we know you really look up to this guy. But he just turned himself in for murder. So this guy today, like 2024, is still serving out his sentence in California for murdering this woman. So there's...

There've been like documentaries on this. So there's a lot of information out there on it because it was, it was a big deal, especially in that area at that time. But the short of it was that he was like dating this girl and then he

She kind of blew him off or something. And then he went out with her friend and for whatever reason just like flipped out on her. And like the story is he murdered her with a bike lock and then stuffed her in a surfboard bag and drove her out to the desert and like buried her in a shallow grave out there. Holy shit. Yeah, so I'm like...

You know, 13, 14, I forget the exact age, but I'm young and I'm trying to like process this information of what this guy I looked up to is clearly psychotic. But yeah, so then it was just, it was kind of the first glimpse into like,

I don't know. I mean, that was pretty extreme, but just like the darkness of some of that world down there. Yeah. I started to feel that. I started to get weird, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Any sexual type trauma? Well, kind of like similarly, like around that time, there was this guy

really another weird situation. So this is kind of like, I'd say just a window into what that, not necessarily skateboarding, but just kind of that Hollywood LA kind of world was like. And I have a really hard time even talking about what happened here, but I think

A lot of guys and stuff have gone through this and they don't want to talk about it. - Well, Dale, I'm not gonna pressure you to talk about it. And the reason I ask is there are so many kids that go through this shit, you know? And I mean, it's coming out on, I mean, they're making movies about it now, you know, "The Sound of Freedom" and

And it's start, I don't know if it's hitting mainstream media, but I mean, we got the Puff Daddy thing. You got the Epstein stuff. You've got, and all, people are kind of waking up to this. There's a shocking amount of pedophiles out there. It's insane. And even in my own personal experiences with interviewing people, fortunately, I never had to go through anything like that. But I can't believe like,

no i we do the childhood stuff like i've always done like kind of a life story you know and then we hit this point where one one person i can't remember who the first one that brought it up was it may have been prime hall and then i started realizing like holy man like 50 of my guest list has been sexually traumatized

in their childhood. And so the reason I bring it up is, yeah, because there's so many kids out there that are going through this kind of stuff and they don't, I think when somebody that I'm interviewing talks about their experience and how they overcame it, and if we do go into it, I'll ask you, you know, what advice do you have for kids that are doing, that are going through that kind of situation? They don't know where to turn. And so,

That's why I'm asking. Yeah, I think it's important. And that's kind of why I brought it up in the, you know, previously is something I wanted to talk about for those kids who have gone through something like this or even adults. But what happened in my case was there was this judge. So he was kind of well-respected, like nobody thought of him as a threat, anything like that.

And there was one contest, and he said, hey, I'll pick you up. A skateboarding judge. Yeah. Not like a litigation. Yeah, exactly. I apologize. So he was a judge for these skateboarding competitions for California Amateur Skateboarding League. So he was an older gentleman and not a gentleman. He was a piece of shit, but—

Anyhow, so he had talked to my parents and there were contests every weekend, you know, and usually my mom would take me or my dad or both of them. And for this particular contest, he called, he's like, oh yeah, if you want me to take him, I can. And I'm gonna take...

these other kids as well. And then you guys can just come up the next day. Cause usually there's like a practice say on like a Friday competition on Saturday and then you go home. So usually stay one night if it's not local. So this guy picks me up and, um,

I'm, again, a similar age with this other situation. So I forget exactly, but around 13, 14, something like that. So he picks me up and then tells me, oh, we're not picking up the other kids, which is my first kind of red flag. I'm going, this is kind of weird. He's like, oh, yeah, their parents decided they're picking them up. So we're just going to go. And you knew right then something was up? It kind of like...

got my hackles up. I'm like, that's weird, you know? And I, like, thankfully, the way I was raised, I was, this could have been a lot worse, as you'll find, because I was pretty strong-willed. I wrestled when I was young. I felt physically capable, even though I was, you know, 13.

But, you know, I'm sitting here now by myself with this grown adult. And we're going to California. So, or going, I think, somewhere up near L.A. from San Diego. So we go to the hotel or go get something to eat, go to the hotel. And then he just starts drinking. So he's drinking, like, hard alcohol. And he's trying to get me to drink. Like, hey, like, just take a shot. And he's trying to, he's kind of, like, ridiculing me, like, like.

Like, oh, if you, like, what are you, a wuss? Like, you could have a drink. It's no big deal. You know what I mean? So, and I'm like, no, I'm just kind of like staying away from this guy.

So as the night progresses, he puts on porn. So there's two beds in this room. So he's on the bed. He's drunk as can be. And he puts on a porno. And then he literally just whips it out and starts like pleasuring himself. And I...

basically at that time and he's trying to tell me to come over come over there holy shit yeah so like this literally unfolded in front of me at 13 years old and I'm going like what you know I had a good family like they would have never expected anything like this I don't think that everyone crossed their mind back then you know um

In fact, I didn't even tell my parents or probably anyone until I was like 40 years old because I just put it behind me, you know, because my dad probably would have killed this guy. And I'm not exaggerating. That's what he would have done. Anyhow, so I ran into the bathroom. I slammed the door shut. I locked it. And he starts trying to

trying to get into the room, or get into the bathroom. So he's, oh, come out here, and this. And so I just, I start screaming at him, like, get the hell away from me. Get out of here. I'm screaming bloody murder at this point. And so he backs off because he's afraid probably someone's going to hear me. And then I just spent the night in the bathroom with the door locked. Wake up the next morning,

go to the contest and see my parents. And that was basically the end of it. So it wasn't like this. It could have been a lot worse is what I'm trying to say. But it was just all these things in this time are kind of happening. And it's just, it started feeling like a really kind of a dark place, a dark environment, right?

And I think my parents were sensing that as well and started thinking about getting back to Oregon at that time. Holy shit. I mean, how do you keep that in? You know, what's weird about it is I remember at the time thinking, I don't want to, like, I'm going to get in trouble if I talk about this because of, like, the porn was on.

You know what I mean? So I'm going like, ooh, like I shouldn't watch. Like it's embarrassing. And it's, you know, and you're thinking like that you are at fault somehow. I remember thinking like, I'm going to get in trouble if I talk about this for whatever it is I wasn't, you know, whatever it is that I did to be a part of this, you know, because like,

I say he put on a porn on that trip. He had like porno magazines out and stuff. So I think that these pedophiles do things to where a child feels guilty for being even a part of it. And then they use that against you. So it's like, oh, well, if you sin and you're going to get in trouble. It's kind of the feeling I have. Holy shit. Did you have to, did you have any type of...

communication or relationship with that person afterwards i mean i would see him and so the people i did tell was other kids like the other skaters and stuff and i basically just said hey stay away from that guy because he's a creep like and they're like yeah like we've had similar experiences so but nobody told their parents you know everybody just felt like uh

I don't know, just didn't wanna, it's like the child's mind doesn't wanna create all that. You're kind of like, I don't wanna have all these problems. We got enough problems. So yeah, so that it was like, again, it could have been a lot worse, but it is something that makes an impact on a young person's mind at that age. - What kept it in until you're 40?

I just buried it. You know what I mean? Like, I was just kind of like, that was weird. I felt like since I avoided this guy actually, like, putting his hands on me, I felt like nothing happened, you know? But then, you know, as you get older, you're like, no, that did have an impact in how, you know, your ability to trust people, the way, you know, it kind of,

I'd say it kind of wises you up to the ways of the world at a young age. And so after that point, I acted very differently towards people than I did before, I would say. Damn. So just like, I don't want to go there. You know, nothing happened to me. I'm just going to bury that and move on. Let me rephrase that question. What brought it out at age 40? I think, well, we can get into it, but I just think,

When you start kind of, you know, you get a little bit older and you start reflecting on your life, the things you've done, the things that have happened to you. And then you just, you just want to tell the truth. You don't want to have any secrets, you know? And so you're just like, wow, that's, you have kids too. And you're just like, that's crazy that happened to me. Like, like what a,

what a piece of shit, you know? I can't believe that there are people like that in this world that would prey on kids. And then you have your own kids and you're going, okay, like I'm not trusting anybody. Like if there's an overnight trip, I'm going. Like I trust my family. And that's the extent of it when it comes to overnight trips with my kids, right?

So that was... Do you think this shit all stemmed from that area? I don't know, man. That's a dark place. Man, I'm not going to say I have a similar experience, but I guess it's along the same lines. I was a lot older. But I remember it was when I was in Bud's, actually. But I mean, when I was in Bud's, I was like 18. And there was a group of us that went golfing at...

Admiral, I feel like it was Admiral Baker Golf Course or something up by San Diego. Are you familiar with it? Not particularly, no. Well, anyways, we had golfed and we got, there was like three or four of us. We got paired with this older guy who claimed he was an admiral. And we told him we were Bud students and all the people that I ran with were the same age. We were into drinking back then. And, and, and,

So we were drinking on the course, shooting golf with this guy. Seemed pretty cool. Invited us back to his penthouse somewhere. And I think it was like La Jolla or something. And went in there and he kept kind of the same deal. He kept shoving booze on us. And somebody found one of my buddies had found this photo album. And he pulled out the photo album. And every picture in the album was...

like older teenagers, men that were passed out, drunk, naked in his apartment. And so we've, I mean, I wouldn't really say it traumatized me by any means. But it was like, let's get the fuck out of here right now. Just a glimpse into what some of these people are like. It was like, oh shit, I hope nobody got drugged. But anyways, I mean, you know, what advice do you have for

having been through something like that, what advice do you have for kids? I would say no matter what happened, like even if you feel like you escaped the danger, you know, or something even worse happened, just talk to somebody about it. Just get it off your chest. Don't hold it in. There's no reason to. You'll just get support and hopefully prevent this from happening to someone else. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious too, I mean, is this keeps...

It just continues. The problem seems to continue to get worse. I mean, you hear about the MAPs, right? Now we're calling pedophiles, well, I'm not, but some people are for this type of sexual orientation, they call it, right? And they're calling them MAPs, minor attracted persons. They're normalizing pedophilia. And...

you know guess where it's coming from oh big surprise the west coast but uh i mean i think about this as a father of you know i've got a two and a half year old and a seven month old and the problem is not getting better it's getting worse and your daughter is a little bit older but i mean what how do you

What do you tell them and what do you teach them? Do you talk about this kind of stuff? We haven't had to have any of these straightforward talks yet. But, you know, I don't want them to have an innocent childhood. Yeah. So right now, I feel like I'm the protector, as is their mother, you know. So avoiding sleepovers, I don't think they're necessarily... It's probably fine, but...

You look at where these kind of things happen to people, and a lot of times it's people they least suspect, but there is stuff like sleepovers. So I'm just avoiding those types of things. Yeah. And yeah, I think you're right. There's no end to the revolution, right? Like they always have to have some boundary to push, it seems. There's no...

limiting principle so they're making basically any form of sick perversion to be uh normalized is just hey that's that's they were born that way so who are you to say but uh i reject that and i think that's where a lot of people would draw the line and i i really hope so because uh that could never you know it's children if you can't protect children

If your society doesn't protect children, what's the point of it, right? It's crazy. It seems like there's this big movement behind it to celebrate pedophilia. And it's like, where does this shit end?

I ask myself that all the time. You know, I bring it up to my two-and-a-half-year-old. You know, we don't have talks about it, but I... There's creeps out there. This is your private parts, buddy. Yeah. You know what I mean? Nobody touches your private parts. Mom and dad, and that's it. And now, I mean, we're potty training him, and, you know, so he's still got diapers and shit, but we'll take his diaper off and he'll go...

He will literally go, my weenie in my butt, my private parts, mom and dad only. Anybody, don't touch it. And it's cool, man, because at two and a half, it's registering. You know what I mean? And I know he's going to say something if something happens, you know, already at this age. Like, he knows every single time, man, that we change his diaper.

you know, or put them in the bath. I mean, he's saying, these are my private parts, no touching. And more parents need to be doing that, you know, to plant that seed in there, I think, in my opinion. Yeah, just understanding that it's a real threat and it's from the places that you wouldn't expect and the people you wouldn't expect. So...

Yeah, just that open communication with your kids, keeping that bond. So if they do get a bad vibe about somebody, they feel comfortable telling you about it. Yeah. I mean, what was your parents' reaction when that got brought up? They were shocked. They were just like, you should have told us. They were in disbelief almost, but not really when they started thinking about it.

You know, maybe there were signs, but in real time, it never crossed their minds. Man, such a... It's dark. It is, isn't it? Yeah. No one wants to talk about it because it's so dark. Yeah. And it's especially, it seems like the worse somebody got it, then they become even obviously more traumatized and more less likely to want to talk about it and just bottle that up. Man, it's...

It's not getting any better. But let's move on. Let's move out of this subject. So did you leave California? Yeah, so freshman year, like I said, with that situation with that pro skateboarder Gator, they didn't know about this judge, but they knew. I think they could just sense, you know, and I was running with some rough kids at this time, like,

In that era, we're basically like feral kids, you know, just in the streets of San Diego on our skateboards and surfing. And, you know, a lot of those guys went on to be professionals and then burnout and ended up, you know, sadly somewhere dead or in jail or whatever, you know, it's a rough scene. Were you getting into trouble? I was getting, so my older brother was getting into more trouble, right?

So I think that's where my parents' attention was. And so I could fly under the radar and just, we did whatever we wanted, you know? What kind of trouble were you getting into, drinking or? Yeah, I think that was the first time probably that, you know, drinking just, there were, man, there were so many just crazy things.

scenarios like there's basically like surf gangs in Southern California. Like people are very localized. Really? In their surf spots. So if somebody comes there that's, um, not from there and they have bad etiquette, this is again, back in the nineties, I don't know what it's like now, but there'd be a, there'd be fistfights, you know, a lot of them in, in, uh,

just it's just a wild time you know like it's like you're not this innocent kid anymore you're everybody drinks everybody smokes weed everybody's trying to do something in hollywood like you know it's just i think my parents just generally had a sense that this is not a good healthy environment for kids yeah so like let's get back to our our small town in oregon and

you know, finish out high school out there. Makes sense. So you moved back to Oregon. What got you interested in the military? So I had an uncle. His name is Arthur Stark. And he served two tours in Vietnam. He was a crew chief on Huey's.

He tried to volunteer for a third, but apparently his command told him he was crazy and he needed to stay home. And then anyhow, so he ended up becoming a warrant officer and then a Chinook pilot in the Army Reserves, continued serving his entire life. He did 18 months in Iraq at 58 years old.

One of the most experienced helicopter pilots in the army. No shit. When was he in Iraq? The early, like the very initial invasion. This war? The G-WAT? Yeah, 03, yep. Holy shit. Yeah. Wow. At 58 years old. What a badass. He was a Vietnam, two-tour Vietnam vet. So he was just a hero to our family, a personal hero of mine. And so...

And then, like I had mentioned, I was kind of one of those dorky kids that wore camouflage from basically the time I could remember up until we moved to California. So I'd just always been interested in the military. But it wasn't something that was...

in my focus, you know? So go back to Oregon. I start wrestling. So now I'm doing the sport of wrestling and I'm surfing a bunch in Oregon there. And I'm not a great student. So I've always hated sitting down, paying attention, listening to a teacher, just really never worked for me. So they're like, oh, he's got, you know, probably has ADHD. He's

he's got all these issues. He doesn't, will not pay attention, you know. Terrible student. So I barely graduated high school. And, but I had some good friends now that I came back and had some good influences. They were going to school. And so I was like, man, I want to go to school. I don't want to,

I was like terrified of being a loser. So I was just going like, you know, you start feeling that pressure build as you're getting older, you're getting closer to graduating high school and you're going, what am I gonna do with my life? And I'm working like lots of menial jobs, like, you know, landscaping, worked at a movie theater, just like worked at a gas station, just doing these normal jobs and going like, man, like on my current trajectory,

I like, I've got nothing going for me. Like this is not gonna end. Like, you know, I'm just, I start having like anxiety attacks even like in my later teenage years. I'm just sitting there going like, feeling like I'm gonna have a heart attack sitting there at like, you know, midnight at home for no apparent reason. Just start, just start feeling that pressure. Wondering what I'm gonna do with my life. But yeah,

Anyhow, so I finished up high school and I was getting pretty good at wrestling. So I picked up a, just like a tuition scholarship at the local community college. They're starting a wrestling program. So I just, I was going to wrestle at this place called SWOC. So Southwestern Oregon Community College. So that's what I did. But my parents were more of like the old school type where after high school, it was time to get a job. So yeah.

if you want to stay at home, well, you're an adult now, so you need to start paying rent. So this became like a point of contention between us, right? So I'm going to community college. I'm wrestling. I'm surfing all the time. Any money I get, like in the summer, I'm buying like one-way ticket to Mexico City, going on these surf trips to like, you know, Puerto Escondido and Pasquales and these just like,

I'm just doing my thing, thinking I can figure this out. And my parents are going, you're just wasting your time. You know, what are you even doing? Anyhow, so we go through that for dang near about at least a solid year. And my grades are terrible. I'm drinking. I'm not wrestling that great because I'm just, my life is just kind of in shambles, you know, just terrible.

It's like a high school kid that is like stuck in neutral. You know what I mean? Like, so anyway, so I keep trying to make this happen and it's just not working and we're button heads. And eventually it's like, you know, the movies, like they talk about, they're like, you got to pay rent. You're behind. Now you're three months behind. Now I get home and all my stuff's on the porch and I figure it out. You know? Damn. Yeah.

They're like, we're, you know. That is old school. They're like, we're not gonna enable you, you know? And a lot of people criticize that technique now. They're just like, man, you gotta, you know, and I'm not kicking my girls out. They're girls, but, you know, my parents knew me well and they probably knew that I needed some motivation. And so from that point forward,

I'm trying to do the same things now. So I'm trying to go to school, trying to wrestle. And I'm living in the back of my Volvo station wagon at the beach. And, you know, couch surfing at friends' houses, like surfing and then using the showers at the beach, the beach campground, stuff like that. And just like not doing good at anything. So getting terrible grades, not wrestling great, and really not moving forward. So-

I had thought about joining the military, like right out of high school. Like it had crossed my mind. I talked to the recruiters a little bit, but I decided against it. So then now a year and a half later, I'm basically at like rock bottom. You know, you can't get much lower than living in your car. You know, I guess you could. I never became a drug addict. So how's that going for me? But, you know, and then so, yeah,

I almost joined the Marines. Like I, that was kind of my first idea. I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, these guys are badass, right? Like look at the uniforms, how sharp they are. I, you know, it was just like, okay, that could be awesome. And I remember talking to my uncle, the helicopter pilot, and he recommended I join the Air Force. And he's like, well, yeah,

You can get a technical skill. He's like, right now you're living in your car. Like, are you enjoying that? Yeah.

Wouldn't it be nice to like get the GI Bill, have a technical skill? I had talked to him about becoming a pilot, but there had been nothing in my life that would suggest that I had the capability to be a pilot. So I remember him saying though, he's like, if you decide you want to be a pilot, like we've talked about, the Air Force is all about airplanes. And he's like, yeah, the Marines, they have some airplanes, but they're all about infantry. You know, the Army-

They have helicopters, but that's not the main show. You know, same with the Navy. So he's like, if you want to have a skill that can lead to a career afterwards, if you want to even think about being a pilot, your best chances are going to be in the Air Force. So at the end of the day, talking to all the recruiters, I decided to enlist as a C-17 crew chief.

And so, like, I think I just turned, it was like December of '99. So it's like 1920. And then off I went to Lackland Air Force Base for basic training. - How long did it take you to fold once you were living in your car? When your parents said, "Get out." - I think it was around six months. - You lasted six months? - Yeah. - Nice, nice. That's longer than I would have expected.

But right on, right on. So you enlisted? Yep. So I enlisted in the Air Force and went off to basic training to be a crew chief at that time. Well, before we get into your military career, let's take a quick break. Did you know that only four companies own over 80% of the U.S. meat industry?

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This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This month is all about gratitude, and along with everyone we're thankful for, there's another person we usually don't thank enough. Ourselves. It's sometimes hard to remind ourselves that we're trying our best to make sense of everything. And in this crazy world, that is never easy. But BetterHelp can help with that. Therapy can remind us to slow down and just take stock of how far we've come on our journey, and...

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to be a crew chief or not i'm sorry not a crew chief crew chief correct yeah okay let's talk about day one in the military you just came from it sounds like kind of a uh childhood life of debauchery and uh now it's it's time for some serious discipline so how did that how'd that work yeah it was pretty natural fit so

My dad was pretty disciplined, you know, with us growing up. He had went to military school as a kid. And, you know, and then I'm just straight out of two years of college-level wrestling. So I'm as fit as you can be. I mean, we had wrestlers train really hard. You know, we had 10K Tuesday where they literally get us in the team bus, drop us 10K, you

away from practice and we would run to practice every Tuesday. So, you know, and then you're in air force basic training. So it's not going to be that tough for you in that situation. So it just like was immediately felt like almost like a relief. It was like, Oh, I can, I can be good at this. Like, I don't have to worry about money. I don't have to worry about, uh,

Where I'm going to eat next. You know, I don't have to worry about anything except for whatever the task is right in front of me. So basic training was kind of a breeze. I was an honor graduate out of BMT and then just right on to tech school from there. Just rewind it real quick. Did you have a relationship with your parents when you joined? No.

Or were you guys not speaking? We were speaking. Yeah, we were speaking, but there was a lot of bitterness. Yeah. Do you think they were...

proud of you for making the decision to go into the military? Oh, yeah. They couldn't have been more proud. I mean, they were ecstatic. They went to my basic training graduation, and they couldn't have been happier. Looking back, the tough love thing, they wanted the best for me. And they had seen so many people just kind of get stuck in that phase of life where

hey, you're done with school and you're not really progressing towards the next thing, at least, you know,

I was kind of going through the motions, but I really wasn't. I was getting terrible grades in community college. I'm kidding. These are not the brightest bulbs out of high school, and I'm getting like Ds and Cs and Fs. So it's not like I was showering myself in glory. If I had been doing great, I'm sure it would have been an entirely different story. But, you know, I'm kidding.

Terrible grades, getting home at 2 a.m. every night. So yeah, they did the tough love thing. And when I got on the path, they couldn't have been happier. Good. Yeah, so I just kind of cruised through basic training and then off to C-17 tech school.

where you learn how to be a mechanic. And I was in Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. - Okay. - Yeah, and that went pretty smooth. And that was actually the first kind of real introduction I had to the A-10. And so the nice thing about the military, which almost everybody who went in and already talks about this is it doesn't matter where you came from.

It doesn't matter your background, you know, if you had to get in with multiple waivers for being arrested. Nice. It's like, okay, you met the threshold, and now everybody starts in this same place. Yeah. And that was just such a relief because, like, when I was going to school, I remember feeling like,

you know, kind of taken on a little bit of a victim mentality. Like this isn't fair. Why do I have to work and go to school and wrestle? My friends don't have to work. Their parents are taking care of it, you know? And so you kind of get that victim mentality if you're not careful. Well, now all that doesn't matter. And

You don't have to worry about money. I feel like I was rich. It was like an E1. I'm like, wait a minute, I have no expenses and I'm getting like 400 bucks every two weeks. This is awesome. This is great. You know, so I thought it was, I really enjoyed it. It was like, if you're a very goal oriented person, it's very like mapped out for you. It's like, they give you the syllabus. Here's what we're doing.

We're all in class, the same class. Then you can study in your off time. Here's when the test is going to be. Here's what's going to be on the test. So it's just all laid out for you. And then I'm starting to stack up some wins. You know, I get the top graduate out of basic training and then tech school's going really smooth. And I start realizing like, oh, like,

Maybe this is for me, is kind of what I started feeling like. This is a good path that I'm on. What year, what time frame is this? I raised my right hand in December of 99. Okay. And then I was in the delayed entry program for, I forget, I don't know.

a couple months, so this is early 2000. - Okay, so just before September 11th. - Yeah. - So before we get to September 11th, can you, what does a crew chief do on a C-17? - So you're the, basically the chief mechanic. So you do all the servicing, you do most of the maintenance that's just kind of routine maintenance, and then you sign off on the jet

when the pilots come out and they're ready to fly. - Okay. - You're basically the lead crew chief. If there's more in-depth maintenance, then it would go to the back shop. So like the hydraulic specialist or the engine specialist or the avionics specialist or whatever that may be, but you're kind of overseeing the overall health and care of the airplane when it's not in the air.

But it's a really cool opportunity for a young person. Because, I mean, you know, I just told you where my background was, and now I'm working on this multimillion-dollar airplane. And once you get a little experience, you can go and go on the missions with the aircraft. And so now I'm traveling all over the country and all over the world. And it's a really cool experience. Nice. Nice.

So I'm not sure where to inject this into the interview, so we'll just do it now. But we're talking early 2000 timeframe. So where are you on September 11th, 2001? Okay, so I finished out my time as a crew chief. So I finished up tech school. Then I went to Charleston, South Carolina. And that's where I got picked up on an ROTC scholarship. Okay. So...

As soon as I got to my unit, so I did, like I said, great in BMT, did great in tech school, and then got a great start in Charleston. And I started realizing that, hey, maybe I could actually become a pilot.

And maybe I can get good grades if I actually go to class and pay attention. So I started knocking out classes in my off time. Still training. What kind of classes? Just basically my undergraduate stuff. Oh, so you're working, you're back in school. Yeah. So I'm trying to like...

I'm realizing, so I had this epiphany. So when we're at tech school, we're at the same base as the pilot training base, one of the pilot training bases. So I'm talking to these guys flying the T-37 and the T-38 going through pilot training. Like they're at the cafeteria, they're at the BX or whatever. And so, and they're basically spelling all this out of what it takes to become a pilot, right?

They're like, okay, here's what it is. You take the standardized test. They look at your GPA, your physical fitness test. And like anything else in the military, you can kind of reverse engineer it. So you're like, well, if I want to be competitive, here's the cut line and here's the criteria for that. And I'm going, like, I think I could do that. Like, I can get good grades if I...

have this like fire under my ass, you know? So as I'm even, before I even get to my first base, I was thinking that that's what I wanted to do, that I'm going to just take this and run with it. So I get to my first base and I just start basically after about six months, I start putting together my paperwork to go to officer training. So, yeah.

I'm working as a crew chief. Again, I'm taking these like challenge exams, these CLEP tests. So I'm studying on my own, challenging the courses. And all of a sudden they're like, okay, well, your standardized test scores were good because I, again, I just became fanatical about that goal. So I'm like, to do that, you need to be, you have to be good at your primary job. If I fail as a crew chief, this isn't going to work. But I also need to, you know, I,

I didn't have any math background to speak of. I didn't really pay attention at all in high school, so... Or really junior high either, so... I was basically building it from the ground up. But I was smart enough to figure out what I needed to do to get where I needed to be on this testing. So, like I said, they made it very clear what the test was going to be on. So you could just...

shore up those areas of your weaknesses. So when I took the aptitude test, I was like middling to slightly below average in like every area, except for pilot aptitude, I was like top 10%. No shit. Because there's like a hand-eye coordination part of it. I was always a good athlete. I maxed the physical fitness test. And then I did pretty good on every other category.

you know, for that test. So the Air Force has gotten pretty good at being able to identify the characteristics that would make you good at the job. I mean, they've been doing it for a while. So for some reason, though, they were able to identify that. And I was just really fortunate to have some good leaders at that time. There was a group commander that was just an awesome guy. I'd gone on some trips with him.

And he's just like, what do you want to do? You know, like, what are your goals? And I told him I want to be a pilot. And he's like, I think you could do it. And so I just got support early on and I just went for it. So I did everything that was required for the application and I got accepted for an ROTC scholarship. So within a year and a half,

So I'm living in my car. Year and a half later, the Air Force is cutting me loose on a full scholarship to get my undergrad. Wow. And go to pilot training. So I was- You crushed it. Yeah, I just, I like, I didn't go home. I didn't, it's hard to articulate. Like I try to tell people, like this is what I had to do to make that happen. Like, I'm going to do that. I want to do that. And then they're like, hey, do you want to go to like-

you know, chilies tonight and talk about it. And I'm like, dude, you're not getting it. Like, there's no more chilies. Like, there's no more anything. Like, you are going to, if you want to do with what I did, with the capabilities that I had, maybe someone smarter than me could have done it, done it better. But that's your new life, is studying,

working, training, sleeping. There's no more hours in the day. So I just went all in on it and it magically worked out. I mean, I think if I tried to do that,

a thousand more times, it would probably, you know, fail 999 times. Like it was just all the circumstances just lined up perfectly. It's kind of pre 9-11 too. So they would cut you loose for programs like that back then. After 9-11 hit, there was like,

a stop loss that lasted many years. So they cut me loose, um, to go back to school just right before nine 11. It was in August of 2001. Wow. So, um, I, I think it was August 18th. I separate from the air force. I joined the air force reserves while I'm a cadet. And, um,

show up at the school. At this point, I only need two years left just based on what I did pass in community college and all the challenge exams and the courses that I had done while I was in. So I'm on a two-year ROTC scholarship and I'm sitting in the cafeteria eating breakfast, getting ready to go to class and the news is on and I watch the planes impact. Wow. What was your... I mean, what's the first thought that went through your head? I just...

like wanted to kick ass. Like, I just remember thinking like, oh, like we have to go, you know, we have to go get these guys. And it just increased my motivation even more. Like, I just felt like, hey, we're under attack. There's this evil threat out there and people need to step up and do their part. And I knew that, yeah,

I just wanted to get through training as quick as possible, and I wanted to get in the fight, and that's how I felt at the time. What was your—did you have any prior experience with A-10s? You kind of brought that up. Yeah, so my crew chief fundamentals instructor— so you're basically assigned to one main instructor. He was an A-10 crew chief, and he was a Gulf War veteran,

So the whole time we're going through that course, I'm hearing stories about the A-10, you know, crushing tanks and scud hunting. And he had all these stories that were just fascinating to me. And it just...

I just, again, became kind of obsessed with the idea of flying this airplane. And the A-10 is so simple to work on. It's very straightforward. So they use that for your basic crew chief training. So say you learn about the fundamentals of a hydraulic system, per se. So you're in the classroom. Here's the reservoir. Here's the pump. Here's the lines. Here's the, you know, the different types of valves, whatever it may be.

You do the classroom instruction, and then you go out to the A-10, and you pull off the panels, and there it is. You can see it. It was designed for ease of maintenance, so it can operate in these austere environments. So it's a perfect airplane to learn the basics of being a mechanic on. So I'm sitting in the cockpit of this thing that's in the hangar for maintenance, looking through the heads-up display.

And, you know, I'm still a young guy, even though I took kind of the practical route to be a technician, thinking more of like, hey, this could lead to a job. I still wanted to be, you know, kind of rose that desire to be a warrior within me. And then, you know, he had this story of...

He's like, there was this surfer guy and he flew like right over the top of us, went inverted and gave us the hang loose. And he's like, I could see his hand. That's how low they fly. Damn. And I remember just thinking like, how cool is that? Like, I mean, you're basically like, it combines everything that I loved, you know? You're like flying. So when you went to,

When you went to school, you know, with the intention to become a pilot, I mean, your intention the entire time was to be an A-10 pilot? Yeah, so once I decided that I was going down that path,

I just wanted to fly the A-10. Like I just, the airplane kind of captured me in a way that none of the others did. And then when 9-11 hit, I knew that that airplane would be critical in this war that was going to unfold. So my ROTC commander was an AC-130 guy. And so he basically laid it out. He's like, this, uh,

"Situation will impact the rest of your careers "and probably your whole lives." So he's like, "Get ready for the long war "because this is not gonna be over quick." - Yeah. - And so I knew there was gonna be a lot of ground combat. I always thought like the F-15 and then the F-22 that came out after, F-16, I always thought they were awesome. But in my mind at that point, I thought they're more oriented towards air to air.

And our generation is going to be fighting this counterinsurgency. And so if I want to contribute, I need to get into the air-to-ground game. And so, yeah, I just wanted to fly the A-10. Very cool. And it became a little unhealthy because I felt like anything other than achieving that goal was a complete failure. And if I couldn't do that, I just might as well just...

quit or die trying. Well, you had mentioned earlier that you got some laser focus. Yeah, and it's just like I watched all the documentaries, read all the books, and that's what I wanted to do. So let's fast forward through your time at school and pick up when you come back into the Air Force. Okay, so now it's finished up in two years.

So now I'm a second lieutenant in the Air Force. I'm getting ready for pilot training. So I go off to Pensacola. There was an exchange. Hold on real quick. So did you have a guarantee that if you went through school that you are guaranteed to get into the pilot program? No, I had to compete. So at the end of your junior year, you are basically track selected for a job in the Air Force. So I finished my junior year.

And now they take a combination of factors. So now same types of stuff. So your GPA, standardized test, commander's recommendation, physical fitness, and basically give you a number, you know, your overall score. And then you're rack and stacked against every other, you know, cadet that wants to be a pilot. And then there's a cut line. Everyone above it goes to pilot training. Everyone below it has to compete for something else.

So I did pretty good in ROTC. I graduated with honors now for my undergrad in history, and then off to pilot training.

So yeah, nothing's guaranteed. You always have to compete for what you're going to do. What about what type of plane you're going to fly? So how that works is pilot training is essentially split up into two parts. And it's always changing. So the way the details of how they do this. So I'm going back to my era, obviously, but

After the first phase of flight training, they put you on a track. So there's fighter-bomber track, which is you go fly the T-38, and that's for the guys that are going to be tactical. What is the T-38? The T-38 Talon is a twin-engine tandem cockpit aircraft

It's a trainer aircraft, but it looks a lot like the F-5 that you saw that they called a MiG and Top Gun, the original. So it's just basically like a 50s era fast jet. Okay. It's super hard to fly. It's got like a tiny wing. It's really fast, and you don't have any experience at that speed. But...

But yeah, so you finish up the first phase of training, and then they track select you again. So fighter-bomber, heavies, so like cargo aircraft or tankers, and then like helicopters, and then C-130s are their own track. So you're constantly being sorted as you go. And you have no input on this. You have your dream sheet. Gotcha. So the way you get what you want is you graduate higher,

And then they match that up with what's available, the needs of the Air Force. So number one guy, say he wants to fly the tactical track, go T-38s. Well, out of, say, like 35 people, there's five or six going to the fighter bomber track. So top five or six guys that have identified that that's what they want to do, go on that track, on down the line until the bottom line,

the bottom graduate gets what's remaining. What does nobody want? In my era, it was the AWACS. So the big command and control, like the giant heavy with a big radar above you. What does everybody want? It changes. The way it was for us at the very beginning of class, they're like, who wants to be a fighter pilot? And nearly everybody raised their hand. And then

Like three months later, they're like, who wants to be a fighter pilot? And like half the people raise their hand because training is very, it's very difficult. You're just getting kicked in the face every day. Like, as you know, coming from your background, like we don't have time

to pat you on the back and tell you how good you are and how much potential you have. And it's okay, you did good yesterday, but you just had a bad day. Like there's no time to talk about all the things you did right, because that's the standard, that's the expectation. So you have to have a thick skin because everything revolves around the things that you need to improve on. So yeah.

it doesn't feel good to every day just get shredded and it just breaks you down over and over and over again. And then I think a lot of people halfway through that start going, yeah, I don't know if I want this life continuing on because if you go the heavy track, it's just known as being a little more chill. Like, so this phase of my life is gonna be over and then I can continue.

travel the world and, and sure, it's an awesome career. I'm not diminishing it in any way, but not everybody wants to, again, get, keep getting kicked in the teeth for another three years. Yeah. Yeah. So then, yeah. So then about half the people still were wanted to fly fighters. And there was probably the top half of the class as you start to sort. And then that's about how it was at the end. But then it was early nine 11. I would say like,

It started, it was, I'd say traditionally in the Air Force, in that timeframe, everybody, the best guys want to fly the F-15C because that was a strictly an air-to-air platform. So it was like, that's like straight out of Top Gun, right? You just go crush MiGs. And those guys are better at what they do. So F-15 still flies, but then a lot of those guys went on to the F-22 and they'll just kill anything that moves in the sky. Like they're, they're,

uh capability is unbelievable like you would not want to face these guys in the air they're just single mission single-minded eath breed and you know the whole deal just nothing but air-to-air focused like it's just every day all day all about killing migs that's what they live for and so um

And it's a very difficult mission because if you're talking like 4v4, 4v8, there's all these little fur balls everywhere. And the guys that are good at it, they're fighting and they know where everybody else in their formation is fighting and they're tracking it like second by second. And they know exactly the right ways to de-conflict the fight, to make the right radio calls, to...

recreate what happened in the debrief to a precision that's just is mind blowing. So traditionally the very best guys wanted to go do that mission. But when 9-11 hit, then I would say there was starting to be a divergent because of the type of mission that the global war on terror was gonna bring to us. So then you had a lot more guys wanting to fly the A-10

and then the F-15E, and then the F-16, 'cause they had an air-to-ground component.

So I would say at that point, the best guys still want to fly kind of fighter attack. And then it was just varied depending on personality as far as whether they want to fly after pilot training. Interesting. Interesting. So when you get to flight school, how long is it before you're actually in a plane off the ground? It varies, but I think it's like you're waiting to start because like any –

any program that's managing a large number of people, they might not flow you in immediately. I think I sat for like two months just waiting to start. Then I wanna say at six weeks of ground school,

And I think that included some simulator time, and then you're in the air with your instructor. What's the first plane you flew? Well, they did send me to get a private pilot's license in a Cessna, kind of after, I think it was after college, but before pilot training. And then the first military plane I flew was the T-34C,

with the Navy. So I was in an exchange program. Took a handful of Navy and Marines and put them through Air Force primary training, and then a handful of Air Force guys went and trained with the Navy. How'd that feel, your first time up? Oh, it was incredible. It was like, it was almost surreal. It was like, I can't believe I actually am pulling this off.

And then you quickly snap to it because you're behind the aircraft. So they talk about just like hanging from the...

vertical stab, like things are happening before you can compute what you're supposed to do. So say there's a certain amount of tasks, even just for something simple as coming into land. So as you're on short final, you're getting ready for short final, you need to drop the flaps, you know, get below certain airspeed, drop the landing gear. You know, you're going through all these tasks

Well, now you're inside of the minimum range to get all those things done because your central processor is just bogged down. You're still thinking about what you messed up 10 minutes ago. Damn. So it just hits you like, okay, this is incredible. I can't believe I made it here. And I don't know if I'm going to be good enough to actually do this.

Because it just seems overwhelming. You're looking at all the instruments. You're behind. And it is tough, yeah. Yeah, I can't imagine. I tried to fly once at a Cessna. I ran it into the middle of the...

I didn't get very far. I ran it into the grass median at the airport, and the guy that was teaching me was like, what the fuck are you doing, man? That's so funny. I didn't know you stared with the pedals. That's a bad instructor. Hey. I was, yeah. It was, plus I don't like heights. But, so what kind of stuff were you learning in ground school?

You're just learning the systems of the aircraft. You're learning some basic aerodynamics. You're learning about aviation weather. Just going through the main emergencies for how you're going to handle these different malfunctions that can happen in the airplane.

So they say it's like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose. And that's what it feels like. So they're just blasting you with information for eight hours a day and you're trying to absorb it all. Are there like, I just want you to go through the whole timeline, you know, of your experience. You go to ground school, six weeks, then you're in your first, you're in the air for the first time in a military craft. Yeah.

Is it broken up into phases? Yeah, exactly. So there's what they call a contact phase, which is just basic of flying the aircraft, daytime, visual flight rules. So similar to kind of the stuff you'd learn in a Cessna. So just how to fly in the pattern, how to land the airplane, how to get out to the airspace, how to recover from stalls. You know, it's just the fundamentals of flying, right?

in the most kind of benign environment possible. So then you go through and there's like, it's not necessarily in this order, but there's instrument phase. So now you're learning how to fly when you can't see outside just by looking at your instruments. And there's aerobatics, formation phase, low level, and then kind of tying it all together. - So when you guys, I'd love to get a little more descriptive on each phase,

When you got like, as they continue to sort the class out, I mean, does the class get broken up or is it all the same pipeline? You're all in the same pipeline. So you're all going through

And if someone gets ahead, they'll kind of slow them down and then people catch up. And at any time throughout this process, you're three flights away from going home. So you fail a ride, you go to a progress check with your flight commander, you pass that ride,

continue on in the syllabus. You fail that ride, you're on an elimination ride with your squadron commander or someone he designated to do that for him. So it's a tremendous amount of pressure because you have this in the back of your head and you see it happen. It's just, you have a bad week and

And your hopes and dreams are gone. Damn. So you see that guy shows up Monday morning, no problems, and started to out-process Friday afternoon. What's the attrition rate like? I don't know exactly. It's not that high. I want to say like 10%, 15% when I was going through. And they have a pretty thorough vetting process, right?

So by the time you get there, you know, you probably have a pretty good GPA through college. You've done through all the standardized testing. So I think they do a pretty good job of finding the people who it's just not for. And then if you're having a hard time, they might have a community that would make sense for your skill set. So say you can barely make it through formation phase. Well...

There's aircraft you can fly that don't necessarily fly in close formation all the time. So if you're capable and you're good enough to get there and you don't quit, there's a pretty good chance they'll get you through. Okay. But when you're going through that as a student, you don't feel that. Why do planes, why do you guys fly in a formation? Okay.

There would be a lot of reasons. So they call it basic admin. It might just be getting to the target area as easy as possible. So say there's a bunch of weather and, you know,

And you're getting vectored around by air traffic control and you're leading a four ship, you might just want to bring everyone in close formation if it's really busy airspace or something. And they just fly visually off you and then everyone else deconflicting around you doesn't have to deconflict from this mass of airplanes that are all a mile and a half apart from each other. They could all be close in. So...

Yeah, so basically it's for close-in formation is for admin. And then you have tactical formations, which are obviously more spread out. And that's for employing and surviving and killing the target. Wow. So yeah, there's an endless amount of discussion on the tactics it would use.

you know, the skill set that you need to be able to employ these airplanes. What is the, I mean, how is the relationship between instructor and student? Is it like they're yelling and screaming all the time? Yeah, it just depends on the instructors. Like, it was funny. Like, I flew with, one of my first instructors was a Marine, and he's sitting behind you in the T-34, and he would just get furious. He'd grab his water bottle and throw it at the back of your head. Oh, my God.

And he would keep tally of things you screwed up and make you push the ground when you land, you know? So you land and you're sitting there like under the wing of your airplane just doing like 100 pushups or whatever he tallied up. And then some of the guys were like, they're like, man, this is like shore duty for us. Like,

This is fine. Like, here's what we're going to work on today. Like, it really came down to the individual. The Navy is way more chill in primary flight training than the Air Force. No kidding? Yeah, absolutely. The Navy is like...

It was an awesome experience. I remember a lot of the IPs are like chilling on the beach and surfing and, you know, doing their thing. What's an IP? Sorry, instructor pilot. Okay. Yeah, I'll try not to use acronyms. But yeah, so the instructor pilots, overall, they had a real big picture. You know, they're still a standard to me. Like I was saying, like if it's just, they might just have a smile on their face as they do it. Yeah.

they stab you in the guts but overall i really uh enjoyed enjoyed flying with those guys what did you find to be the most challenging part of flight school um well all of flight school so after you finish the t-34 then you're track selected as i mentioned so i'm off to the t-38 now i'm in vance air force base in oklahoma and um

I'm going flying a 150 knot prop airplane to flying a supersonic jet with a tiny wing, which the syllabus has you soloing in like six rides. So that entire program of the T-38 was excruciating. Like I have never felt that level of stress in my life. So just trying to keep up. I'm the kind of guy who has like a slow learning curve. So yeah.

there's like, there's standards, right? Like little milestones along the way, and then you hit an end of block and a check ride. So I get to the end of the block and check ride, and my learning curve keeps going and going up, and then I hit where I'm supposed to be at that, like exactly when I have to,

and then start over, like sucking. Damn. So, and in my mind, I'm like, if I don't get an A10, like I'm just, this whole thing was for nothing. You know, I don't, and like, there was literally one, there was one A10 out of my entire class. So I'm feeling like. Are you serious? So do you know, hold on.

So do you know what the slots are that you're competing for? Like when you show up to Clyde School, are they saying, we got one A10 slot, we got two C17 slots, we've got six F22 slots? You don't know exactly, but you kind of have an idea just based on the trend data. Okay. So you kind of see where it's going and you realize like...

Typically, there was one per class. A couple F-16s, F-15E, and like an F, no, sorry, a couple F-16s, F-15E, and an F-15C. That was like pretty standard. So if you have a single-minded goal of what you want to fly, you might be very disappointed because threading that needle is very difficult. So what was it like on the first sorting?

- In your class. - Yeah, so they brought us in and I think I was the first one they told. And they're just like, "Lieutenant Stark, T-38." And then right after me was my buddy, John Deloney, who went on to fly the F-15C and the F-22. And they're like, "Lieutenant Deloney, T-38." And we're just like, "Yes!" We're so stoked. It was just this huge relief.

And then they go through. They're like, T-1, T-1, T-1. There's a whole bunch of cargo aircraft to fly. And then it could, like, C-130, helicopter, and then you're done. And we're just like, well, I guess we're done. Damn. Damn. A lot of disappointment? Yeah, a little disappointment. There's some people that...

Their dad was an F4 pilot and they wanted to be a fighter pilot and it just wasn't going to happen. And they're devastated. But most people, I would say, start seeing the good in what they're going to be doing. And you kind of have an idea of where you're at in the class as you're going through. So if you're passing most of your rides and you're getting decent scores, you can look around and be like,

Well, they're not necessarily. Not everyone's making it through effortlessly. I know that's not the right word, but you're struggling, but you're still progressing on time, and that's not the case for everybody. So you start to kind of have the natural hierarchy kind of develop in the class. So there's not a ton of surprises. So you go through your first sorting, and then what happens?

So now I leave the Navy and I go out to Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma and start to fly the T-38. So that's where you get your fighter bomber pilots from. So that's six months flying the T-38. And it's basically the same syllabus that you just went through, but now it's in a much more advanced aircraft. Okay. What was your first time like going up in that? It was like...

It was devastating because it felt impossible. Like, I was like, there's no way I'm going to be able to do this. Like, the airplane was so fast, I was not able to keep up. Like, it's like CPU overload. Like, I'm still thinking about what I need to do for pre-takeoff checks, and we're 10 miles from the base. Damn. And my instructor's

basically doing everything, you know? And you've practiced it, rehearsed it, studied it a ton, been in the simulator, and it's just... It's so difficult to make that transition. And it's a really hard airplane to fly. Like, we've lost a lot of pilots in the T-38. In fact, they're getting ready to replace it with an airplane that will be much easier to fly, still prepare you to fly, you know, tactical aircraft. But it's tough, man. And if you...

Make a minor mistake, you're going to end up as a fireball at the end of the runway. So it's deadly serious. This is the one you were saying that's similar to a MiG? Yeah. Okay. So if it's so difficult, why do you think they chose that aircraft? I mean, it's been around since the 50s. So I think it's just been effective. It's like if you can fly the T-38, you can fly anything. Do you think it's a wise decision to move to an easier aircraft?

aircraft to fly? I think so. I think as we move on to more advanced fighters, they're actually not that difficult to fly. Like just the basics of taking off and landing and flying the airplane, they're extremely stable aircraft. So I think that they will be effective and it'll be a lot more effective

use of avionics that will be similar to your follow-on assignments in fighter aircraft. So yeah, I think it will work and I think it'll save a lot of people's lives. Is there any animosity within the pilot community that they're moving to an easier aircraft to fly? I don't think so. I think most, most, most people are looking at it going, it's time. That's good. It's past time. And we've all lost friends in that airplane too. And for, um,

just minor little errors, you know? Like if you forget to drop the flaps on the final turn, which guess what? Students do all the time. And you get five knots slow, the aircraft will stall.

and go nose down and impact the ground and kill you. So there's very little margin for error in that airplane. Shit. Have they already made that change? They're still flying them. I don't know exactly where they're at in the transition, but they've identified the new aircraft. It's a Boeing product, so who knows? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Probably be mini delays. Don't blow the whistle on that. You might get assassinated, right?

Yeah, I'll leave that one alone, but we'll see how that goes. Interesting. Interesting. How many sortings are there? So now you get to the, so the first big sort is after primary training. Then you go to the T-38. And then at the end of this six months, then they assign you to your actual airframe that you're going to fly for the rest of your career for the most part.

So, out of my class, it was six guys, I think. And according to our flight commanders, they really- Six pilots total in the program. Yeah. Holy shit. Out of all the Air Force. And how many years long is this training? The whole program is a year. So, every year there's like- They're starting a new class.

Every few weeks. Okay. So I'm not exactly sure what the timeline is. They vary that based on demand signal from the combat air forces, you know. But I want to say every like three to six weeks they start a new class. Shit. That's still not very many pilots a year. Yeah, I mean, you start out, you know, with 35 and now six of you are in...

this new track and out of that um it might be three it might be five usually actually get a fighter aircraft damn so is that the last phase yeah so you get done with that um then you get assigned to your the aircraft you're gonna fly all right let's not go there yet sure let's keep let's stay in training

So, I mean, what questions should I be asking you about training? No, these are all good questions. Like, the biggest thing that I have that stands out to me from this experience is just how brutally stressful it was every day. And at this point, now your instructors are looking at you like, hey, this guy's going to be on my wing, potentially in combat in a matter of months. And is he cut out for this? He's going to be in a single-seat airplane, right?

The instructor is not going to be there for you to save you. So it's all going to be you. And so they're just making sure, leaving every, you know, make sure there's no stones unturned. So if you have a weakness, there's no way to paper over it. Like, so they will find it and exploit it until you either figure it out or you go do something else.

So it's, you know, like, it's like any difficult transformation. It has, you have to be under pressure. So by the end of that program, I mean, you're, you're a very capable pilot. So six months of,

extreme stress. And I had like a terrible check ride at the very beginning of the T38 program. So I'm essentially starting the program dead last in my class. - Damn. - I'm going like, the whole time in the back of my mind, they're going, they're gonna send me to a bomber. I'm gonna get a bomber. And I did not wanna do that. So now being older,

seen a little bit more and more mature. I know that those guys go on to have great careers and do amazing things. But, you know, 22-year-old me saw that as the biggest failure ever if I couldn't go fly the A-10. Damn. So it's just tough, man. It's like, I mean, you go to bed, shut your eyes, and you're still seeing, like, radials and instruments and...

different sight pictures that you need for flying this airplane. It just, they're turning you into just like a normal person into someone who can fly a fighter by yourself. So it's difficult. - Is there, so in phase one and phase two, which we're covering right now, what, I mean, are you, is this straight up, this is how you fly the plane? Or is it, is there any engagements happening?

Like using the weapons? Not during this phase. It's basic flying. Okay. So like, again, contact, which is just taking off and landing, stalls and falls, we call it. Just learn how to recover from stalls. All your emergency procedures. Then it's aerobatics, you know, instruments, formation, low level. So that's...

It's funny because it's so difficult and then later on in your career, it's the stuff you don't even think about. You cannot be an effective fighter pilot if you're thinking about flying the airplane. So basically what you're saying is the fundamentals have to become muscle memory. Yes. It's like, for me, that would be like shooting or

You shouldn't be thinking about, okay, I can't. You're not thinking about your controls and this and that, and then I'm going to pull the trigger. It's just an extension of your body. You have to strap on the jet, and it just becomes a part of who you are. And you're thinking about, you know, fast forwarding. Now you're thinking about everything else that's going on in the battle space, and you're flying your airplane. So flying becomes flow state.

- Yeah. - Okay. - It has to. Like if you're focused inside your airplane, flying it, you can't manage the stack of all the aircraft and keep track of all the targets, threats, friendlies, artillery. Like it's just impossible. So they build this into you. So then going forward, it just becomes second nature. You do it without thinking. - How fast are you guys flying? - In the T-38, I think the standard cruise speed was 300 knots.

- Damn. What is that an MPH? - It's similar. There's like a minor variation. - Okay. - But then it's supersonic. So up at altitude, you can break the sound barrier. - Man. - Yeah, it's cool. - I mean, what is that like? - It's awesome. - Do you feel it?

Oh, when you break the sound barrier? No, it's funny. You just actually just see the little mock meter go and you're like, hey, I guess, cool. I've done something not everyone has done. Yeah, that's cool. My first solo in the T-38 was pretty funny. Yeah.

So, you know, you've gone through all this training and finally they're like, they give you the keys to the airplane. And they're like, the last thing they always tell you is don't do anything dumb, dangerous or different. You're going to fly this very generic profile. But what does everybody do? Go do something dumb, dangerous or different.

So I remember sitting in the, in the runway waiting to take off and just being like, I'm looking to my left and right, seeing the jets, you know, you see yourself in the mirror and you've got the visor and the oxygen mask on. You're just like, I cannot believe this is happening. And you're like, I don't know if I can land. Like, you're like, I'm okay at it with the instructor coaching me. Like, I don't know if I can pull this off. Um,

Like, smoothly, you know? And like I said, people die trying, so it's no joke.

But anyway, once you get cleared for takeoff, then it's just go time and you do what you're trained to do. And it's not so bad, but I get out to the airspace and I've got a 10,000 foot block. So that's my working airspace and I'm scheduled for like 20 minutes out there. - What does that mean? Does that mean you can't go higher than 10,000 feet? - Yeah, so your block would be like, just as an example, they might be like, your working airspace is within these like geographic confines, you have the altitude 10,000 to 20,000 feet.

And once you're established in that airspace, they'll keep all the other airplanes out of it and you can maneuver how you wish. And you're not going to have to worry about de-conflicting with other aircraft. So I get out to my working airspace.

And the first thing I do is get to the very bottom of it, put in full blower, goes like fast as humanly possible. And then just, this is something we've never done, practicing, of course. And just point the nose directly at the sky and go full aileron deflection. So now I'm just like corkscrewing. Oh my gosh, dude. And I'm like, this is like, it's like, this is awesome. Like, I can't believe I have this like Ferrari and I can do anything I want with it.

And I'm like, man, I am kicking ass right now. This is so cool. I glance at my altimeter and I'm like 5,000 feet out the top of my airspace. Oh, shit. You know, you're getting into like airline territory now. I'm like, oh, damn it. Like, this is not good. So I like rip it to idle.

pull the nose down, and now the jet is like, now I'm screaming down at the ground. And the T-38 has a tiny wing, which means it has a huge turn circle.

So when you're at speed, like the radius of the turn is ginormous, right? So now I'm like trying to dish out this turn and I'm like max performing the aircraft. I can't pull any harder and I'm just trying to dish it out. I go through the top of my block and I'm still basically vertical and I barely bring it back down to altitude right at the bottom of the floor, like 10,000 feet. And now my heart rate is racing. I'm at like 200 beats per minute and I'm just going...

I am such an idiot. I'm going to get kicked out of this program. And it's like the first solo. So I like stand the throttles up, put it in 30 degrees angle bank. And for the next like 24 minutes, I just fly this perfect circle around the airspace. Can they see you? Can they see what you're doing? Now they can see everything. Back then, not nearly as much. So they might have like a radar feed, but it's like,

you know, have latency. Yeah. And anyhow, so then I like, I bring the jet back. No issues. I walk in. First thing I do, I kind of look at the ops desk, see what they're going to say. They're like, hey, welcome back. You got another sortie in 20, you know, two hours. Get ready. And I'm like, okay, we're good. We're good. How do you not get sick doing that? I just read your corks growing up at 300 miles an hour.

And then going straight down. I don't know. I think air sickness, a lot of it's psychological. This is my view. I'm not a flight doctor, but I just refuse to get air sick. I saw people wash out because of air sickness once.

And I was just like, I'm not going to get sick. I'm just going to look outside. It's not going to happen. I think that maybe some people are more prone to it, but I think exposure, you know, it helps. So if you're flying all the time, you're used to being hot, sweaty, maneuvering, your body acclimates like it does to anything else. Can you explain the G-force effect?

Yeah, so as you turn, pull on the stick, it's just that centrifugal force is pulling you down into your seat. So, you know, if whatever your weight is, you have to times that by the number of G forces. So right now we're at 1G, right? So if we were at 10Gs, your frame would be carrying 10 times the amount of your body weight.

So as you're under G, like so as I'm pulling out of that turn, you're doing what's called an anti-G straining maneuver. So you have a G suit on, which looks like a pair of like cowboy chaps, and then they have air pockets in them. You plug that into the jet, and then it uses the pneumatic system to squeeze your legs out.

tighter and tighter, the harder you pull. So you do that in combination with an anti-G straining maneuver, which is you just flex your legs, flex your butt, flex your abdomen, and keep high pressure in your lungs. And then you just take these quick, short, choppy breaths, but the idea is you're forcing all the blood to remain in your brain so you don't lose consciousness and die 'cause you're by yourself. - Wow.

So you got to learn how to fly and fight in that environment. And that's a lot of the training is just getting, finding out who's capable of doing that and then train yourself to be able to do it. Was that hard for you to master that? It came pretty natural being like kind of a shorter, stockier guy. I think the guys that I saw that had problems pulling a lot of Gs were kind of taller and skinnier. So it's like...

I think the distance from your heart to your head has an impact, and then just your overall musculature. So if you can hold that high tension in your body, you can just force that brain, that blood up to your brain a little bit easier. - Wow. Do a lot of people go out?

- Yeah, especially in like the F-16 happens all the time. I've lost friends that way. - Oh man. - You know, they're pulling nine Gs, which is a lot. The A-10 max I think was like 7.5. But yeah, they're pulling a ton of Gs and they're right on that threshold and nobody wants to lose, right? So your vision, as you start to G out, your vision starts going tunnel vision.

blacking out around the periphery and you're just looking right down the center and then it just closes up and guys go unconscious. But like even the best guys will fly in that gray area where they're like about ready to pass out. Whoa. Do you do that? No, the A-10 being primarily air to ground was not –

I'm talking more air to air now. A-10 is more just repetitive, like you're pulling Gs off target and then off target maneuvering. So you're getting that continuous stress, but it's not like you're in a turning fight. And if you can just get your nose around, you can gun the guy or get a missile on him.

Now that's where they are under that prolonged sustained G. And like the thrust to weight ratio of those fighters is incredible. So they can just, you know, full blower, full turn and sustain that energy. So yeah, it's a pretty dynamic environment. I don't know how you do it. Even just doing elevators in a helicopter, man. Going straight up, I feel like my brain's going to go off my ass. Dude, it's so much better when you're flying yourself.

It starts to feel just like an extension of your body, right? Like it's just you and the machine merge and you're just thinking about your mission and what you're trying to do in that moment. So if I, yeah, I'd be way worse off in the back for sure. Right on. So you go through, so you get through phase two and what happens? So now I'm a...

know that I'm borderline of what I'm going to get. And essentially how it goes down is they bring you, you have an assignment night party and they bring you into the officer's club and all your friends and family are there and they bring someone up and they have different ways of doing it that are just funny, kind of make it seem funny.

but it's not, but they have like big Wheel of Fortune. And then there's your entire drop. So you get in the room and you're looking at like all the airplanes on the Wheel of Fortune, right? And they, like I said, they have many different ways of doing it. But then a guy like, they'll just call somebody up and they'll spin it and then they'll like stop it and then keep it going. You know, it's like someone's actually manipulating it and then it stops and they go,

uh grab that airplane and then spin it the next guy does and so you basically just uh get assigned where you're gonna go so uh for me um i had no idea what i was gonna get they don't tell you um and my flight commander knew how bad i wanted to fly the a-10 in fact um approaching the end of pilot training uh he had told me that there were no a-10s in the drop which was true

And I told him that I wanted to cross-commission to the Marines and fly the Harrier or the Hornet. And I told him all about this cross-commissioning program that I was gonna do if I didn't get the A-10.

In my stupid mind, I thought I could actually do that because there's an official program for transferring to other services. And he just laughed. He's like, you have a 10-year commitment. The Air Force is not going to let you join the Marines. And I'm like, I'm having nightmares that I'm not going to get what I set out to do. I...

I would have been, again, it was a lot of immaturity at the time, but that's just how I felt about it. And anyhow, I got up there and they're just like, Lieutenant Stark. And they like messed with me a little bit, showed different airplanes. And then they're like, congratulations, A-10 to Tucson, Arizona. Then it was just total relief at that point. Damn, man.

Do you get pinned or anything like that? - No, it's before you've got your wings. - Okay. - It's like maybe two weeks left. You have just a handful of sorties before you actually get your pilot wings. - So you get the A-10. How long is it before you go to Tucson? - So there's still some more training you need to do. So you go to survival school out in Spokane, Washington. And...

You go to Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals, which is another washout program. What did you think of Cirrus School? I've never talked to a pilot about Cirrus School. I loved it. You loved it? Yeah. I was like in my element, you know, like... Out of the woods? Yeah, back in the woods. I was with my buddy, my buddy John. We were kind of like combat paired together. And...

I'm a wrestler, so I'm used to not eating and cutting weight. Used to being in the woods. So I had a great time. And then like everyone else was like starving to death. And I think I kind of like relished in the suffering. It was, yeah, there's a lot. You don't want to divulge about it because it's,

when someone goes through it, you want them to have that experience unfold so they get all the training value that they need out of it. But that survival school turns into your advanced beatings or your POW internment school or whatever they're calling it. So you end up as a POW and then you go through that. And it was a great experience. I mean, just going through the full experience

range of emotions as you're thinking about all of those things

POWs who've actually went through that and the guys at the Hanoi Hilton and Japan and Germany and just going back and you're like, this is scripted. We know that they're not gonna kill us. It's not that stressful. I know when we're leaving here. So it's not the same, but you do reflect on what those guys have been through and what your

your mindset would be if you were captured. So I just thought it was a great experience. Good, good. And so then you go to some type of a fighter school? Yeah, so now you have another six-week program. It's called Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals. It's in the T-38, and it's the last, like, vetting before they actually let you go fly a fighter aircraft. So...

So that program, again, is six weeks. And now you're starting to learn tactics. So you're taking everything you learned about the fundamentals of flying, and now you're flying in tactical formations. You're learning the communications, the formations, and everything you need for all the air-to-air engagements. So that way, when you get to your first squadron, you've got the vocabulary and the basic understanding of how to set these things up. Then you're learning the basics of air-to-ground.

And, you know, so you're going through the six-week program and the way that the instructors are looking at it as now these guys are really close to get into a fighter squadron. And this is our last chance to make sure they're good to go. So then that's also, like I said, a washout program in practice.

In our era, we lost, I don't know the stats, but it was a fair amount of people. They were just getting ejected left and right. And I had such a hard time in T-38s. I was pretty stressed out about heading out there. But for some reason, just a combination of luck and timing or whatever it was, I just flew right through that program. I think I busted one ride off.

and passed the recheck and was done like two weeks before everyone else. So I was just like, life is good, man. I made it. Right on, man. So I guess at that point, you're heading to fly the A-10. Yeah, the next going out to fly the hog. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll pick up right there. If you're like me, health and wellness is extremely important to you.

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Just an incredible experience. I mean, you've been through so much. You start to maybe see the light at the end of the tunnel a little bit. Like you're actually, you just can't believe you maneuvered through this maze and ended up exactly what you had set out to do. And the training in the A-10 was just a great experience. Like the mentality was you're one of us now.

and we're going to train you how to employ this weapon system. And there are guys and gals who don't make it through that training, but it's not for lack of trying from the instructors. So you do have a little bit of relief from that constant pressure, but not a ton. But again, you just feel like you might actually make this happen now. What's it like for you now?

Like you had not wavered in what you wanted this entire time. So, I mean, just describe...

your first time climbing into that aircraft. Yeah, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Like, the A-10 is huge for, like, a tactical aircraft. If you see one next to an F-16, we used to joke that you could put the F-16 on one of our hardpoints and it would, like, work as a missile. Like, it's just a massive airplane. It looks similar size like a B-17 from the World War II era. And, uh...

Yeah, you get there and you're just, it's almost surreal. So you go through, again, ground school, simulator training, and then you hit the flight line and there's no two-seaters in this airplane. Like they made a couple and they never went operational with them. So every A-10 in the fleet is a single-seat airplane. So you go through your simulator training and then next thing you know, you're out there on your first flight by yourself.

And you have an instructor, and he's just kind of tucked in behind you the whole time. And he's there, and he's talking on the radio. And it feels similar to having him in your cockpit, but he can't take the jet from you if needed. So it's on you. But yeah, you just walk around this airplane. You see the Gau-8 Avenger. You know, you're looking at the seven barrels.

Looking at all the hard points, the titanium bathtub. What do you mean by the hard points? Oh, sorry, the hard points underneath the wing and the fuselage that hold your conventional weapons. Okay. So missiles, bombs, things of that nature. Are those all attached for your first flight? So you don't, for your first flight, you might have some like AIM-9s. You just have to have like a symmetrical, you know,

configuration. Okay. So, but there's not much on it. They depend on what you're doing. There's, there's like a couple of aim nines on it and then something to counterbalance it on the other side, if I recall correctly. But yeah, so here's like, this is actually like, is this, someone pinched me? Am I going to wake up? And this whole thing was a dream because it's just such a whirlwind. But yeah, it's, it's incredible. And then you climb up the ladder, you know,

fired up, dropped the canopy, and it's got this big bubble canopy, so you're just kind of looking over your shoulders. And you don't see a ton of the jet when you're sitting in the seat, because they want you to have really good visibility to execute the mission. So it's just, it's an incredible feeling. Like the T-38, you feel like you're in the jet. The A-10, you feel like you're sitting kind of on top of it, you know? Like the jet's just basically underneath and behind you, is how it feels.

And, yeah, and then you, again, do everything that you've been trained to do. Take the runway, get cleared for takeoff. Throttle comes forward and off you go. And, you know, get airborne, bring the gear and the flaps up and turn out into your working airspace. And you're just like, you know, maybe look over at your instructor who's now your wingman and you're like,

"Holy shit, I did this. I pulled it off. Like, if I die tomorrow, I was an A-10 pilot." I remember thinking that. I'm like, "No one can ever take this away from me." How did it maneuver? It maneuvers great. So one of the key aspects of the aircraft and its design was making it highly maneuverable. So, you know, to execute the close air support mission,

You need to have certain characteristics that enable you to do that effectively. So you need to be able to fly at low altitude. You need to have good stability at low airspeeds because you need to be able to battle track of what's going on. And then you need to be highly maneuverable so you can survive. So it's just, it's a...

After coming out of the T-38, the A-10 is just a pure dream to fly. It's got a big, straight, fat wing that creates a ton of lift. It's very forgiving. You could teach any pilot to fly the A-10. No kidding. Yeah, just as far as flying from A to B, it's a joy. Yeah, it's great to fly. So it was everything that you had hoped? Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, yeah, you're in your early 20s,

Especially like where I had come from, you're going, I kept genuinely asking myself if it was real. Like it was almost unbelievable. And then it just, yeah, I just ran with it. Are you the only student there? No. So now, so there's five pilot training bases there.

And so now you're pooled in with like, say, one or two people from all those bases. And then they'll wait a while to start a class. There's fewer A10 classes than there are pilot training classes. So once they get like a dozen students, they'll start your class. Okay.

So, yeah, so now I'm with a new group of friends and we're all starting day one in the hog together and that's a six month program until you get done and go to your first fighter squadron. - Another six months? - Yeah.

So, yeah, it was just, it was incredible. I mean, and it's, again, drinking through the fire hose. You're learning the basic maneuvers. The next thing you knew is you're doing air to air. Then you're doing air to ground. Then you're doing more complex air to ground. Then you're doing everything at night. You know, it just quickly becomes where all of those skill sets you've acquired, you

They just have to be rote and muscle memory, and you don't have time to think about it because now you're employing this airplane as a weapon system, which is a whole other ballgame. Wow. So can you go through some of the weapons that are attached to the A-10? Yeah, so the most popular and the most fun to employ is the 30mm. So it's a 7-barrel Gatling gun.

It's powered by electrical and hydraulics. So it's kind of like a throwback to some, you know, 20th century weapon is what it feels like. It's freaking awesome. Carries 1,174 rounds and it shoots 70 rounds a second. - 70 rounds a second? - Yes. - Holy shit.

There's, you can carry- - What's the math on that? How many rounds? 11? - 1174. - 1174? - The way I think about it- - 70 rounds a second. So what's that like maybe 10 seconds? - Yeah, you don't necessarily employ it like that. You don't just empty the gun. You just, you get, they call it like a combat burst. So a couple- - How many comes out in a combat burst? - As long as it takes you to say, "Die, call me, die."

And that's how we trained our students. Like, you know, you engage the... There's more that goes into it, but you roll in...

acquire the target, line up your symbology. So you have a continuously computed aim point. So it's the computers looking at the winds, your airspeed, your attitude, your altitude, the ground, and it's giving you a computerized sight that's going to tell you where those bullets impact.

And then you have something called precision attitude control. So you squeeze the trigger halfway, and the jet will lock in place to just drive a nail through that point on the ground. Shit. So it's for like killing tanks or armor, anything like that. You need to get reduced, you know, increased bullet density, reduce that dispersion. That allows you to do that. So yeah, you roll in.

acquire the target, check your parameters, you know, your dive angle, your airspeed, your altitude, things like that. Engage pack one, make any minor adjustments. Die, call me, die. Release the trigger. See impact. Pull off target. Look over your shoulder. Assess BDA. It's just awesome. Die, call me, die. That's got to be a second, right? No, I think it's more like three seconds. Oh, you say it's slow. Yeah. So that's like...

210 rounds. Yeah, that'd be a good burst, depending on the target, yeah. Holy shit.

What else? Well, last thing on the bullets is you have high-explosive incendiary rounds, which are basically like little hand grenades that explode on impact. So anti-personnel, things like that. And then we also can carry the armor-piercing incendiary, which are the depleted uranium rounds, which can punch holes in armor. So...

load out just depending on the potential targets. So it's a pretty badass weapon. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Amazing. Yeah, everyone loves the gun. So the first day you shoot the gun, it's like... I love the sound of it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then the smell is probably terrible for you, but the cordite fills the cockpit and you're just like...

I'll bet, man. Yeah. That brings the memories back. Definitely. And then what makes the A-10 or has made it so awesome at what it's done is its versatility. So, you know, it's maneuverable, survivable in these types of cast fights. Like, I believe wherever the Army can operate, wherever Apaches can operate, the A-10 can operate, it's...

Just like the AC-130. Yeah, we're not going to go in against triple-digit SAMs, but if the infantry is moving, we can be there. So you have an assortment of weapons to help meet the ground commander's intent. So I talked about the 11 hardpoints, and you can pretty much carry any conventional weapon that's in the inventory. So we carry AIM-9s for defensive purposes, so air-to-air missiles.

Usually, typically, depends on where again, but you have some sort of ECM, so like an electronic jamming pod, so you can help try to jam radars. And then you just have an assortment of like 500-pound class bombs. So like early in the GWAT, we dropped a lot of GBU-12s, laser-guided bombs. Then GBU-38s came online, so GPS-guided bombs, 500-pound class again.

And then on my last deployment, we had GBU-54s, which are laser and GPS guided. So they continuously update with what you're lasing. So they just react faster. As far as like the GBU-38s, you like program the bomb, release it, and then it'll hit that target is where GBU-54, you're continuously sending it updates even when the bomb is in flight.

And then rockets, you know, willy-peats, they call them, white phosphorus for marking targets. Just get a big white plume because as an A-10 pilot, you might need to do the forward air controller mission. So you need to get everyone else's eyes on the target area. So you might put down a couple willy-peats and everyone says, yep, contact your smoke. And you can talk them on from there. And then Maverick missiles are always fun. And now they're carrying small diameter bombs, right?

which have a massive bomb range. And we're basically like just giant bomb truck for those, can carry a ton of them. So yeah, like pretty much any conventional weapon in the inventory the A-10 can carry. - Damn, damn. - So think about a four ship of that showing up in a gunfight. It's like, it's a lot of capability. - Yeah, yeah. So you go through six months of the school, you graduate.

And then what? So now I get assigned to my first fighter squadron. So I go up to Fairbanks, Alaska, and that was my first assignment. Yeah, so load up everything I own in a short cab F-150, which is pretty awesome to think about. Yeah, just like some clothing, and that's about it.

put it in the back of my truck and off I go. And I arrived there and it's like a ghost town because everybody is in Afghanistan. And there's one guy left and he had just gotten back from a deployment. His wife was eight months pregnant or whatever it was. His name's Gecko, great guy. And he's the only one there. So he's just kind of,

keeping the lights on in the squadron, and they're welcoming me. And he's also an instructor. And when you arrive at your first squadron, you're not fully qualified yet. You have to do a local mission checkout before they finally sign you off and say you're good to go to flying combat. So they're already downrange, and I'm just dying to get down there and join them. And I talked to the commander,

And he's like, "No, it's too late. Just get settled in and you'll get in on the next rotation." And at that time I'm thinking, "This thing's going to be over and I'm going to miss out. I'm going to be the one A-10 guy from this era that has zero combat experience."

And so I'm pretty bummed about that and I'm thinking about what I can do. - What year is this? - This is early 2000, so I, early 2006. - Okay. - So I graduated in 2005, get there in 2006. So I go through my local checkout with Gecko and everything goes fine.

And something happened downrange that I still am not completely privy to, but there was, I don't, again, I don't know exactly what happened, but I think somebody screwed something up and got sent home and morale was low. They had been there a while and it was just kind of a lull in the deployment. And I talked to my commander and I had a proposal and I was like, hey, if you,

let me come out, I will bring a giant cooler full of like frozen halibut, salmon, you know, whatever like I can do to kind of bring some fresh energy to the squadron. We're gonna have a big barbecue and it'll be awesome. And he thinks about it and he gets back to me. He's like, okay, let's do it. Like, get your butt out here. So yeah.

So I get this giant cooler and I fill it up with like all the halibut and salmon I could find. Pack it with dry ice and off I go to Afghanistan. So my first flight in the A-10 that was not on a grade sheet, meaning was not part of an official syllabus, was actually in theater, which was pretty cool. But yeah,

Anyhow, before we even get there, to get to Afghanistan as a single, they call it a singleton by yourself, is kind of a chore because as a squadron goes, they have airlift, tanker, bring all the people, the pilots flying, the extra pilots just flying the airlift, whatever it may be. And you all just arrive and get it spun up and start operating. But all that I did is I had orders to Bagram

And I had to figure out how to get there once I got in theater. - Where were you headed? - I was headed to Bagram from Alaska. So I finally- - That's where you were going in theater? - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, that was my final destination. So I get to like,

I think it was Manus, is that right? So it was like one of the staging bases back in the day. And like everywhere I stop along this way, along this journey, I'm like, I go find the kitchen and like refreeze this giant ass pain that I'm bringing with me now.

Yeah, so... And, like, I get stuck midway. Like, they just didn't have any airlift going in at that time. So I'm, like, spending all my days at the terminal waiting to get there. And I finally...

I finally make it to Bagram and I show up and I'm like, I'm exhausted. Like I haven't slept, I haven't got a good night's sleep since I left. I'm like pale, bloodshot eyes. Like, and I just kind of like straggling with my cooler and I'm like, ah, I made it. Like I'm here. And the guy at the duty desk, a guy named Neo, he looks at me, he's like, oh, you're that new guy?

He's like, "Hey, I got a job for you. We need you to go do a maintenance engine run." And I'm going like, "Well, I've never done that particular check in the A-10. Like, what is it?" And he's like, "Oh, it's easy. Like, you'll be fine. Just follow the checklist." And then I'm like, "I'm a former crew chief. I should be able to figure it out, right?" And so I haven't even been in theater

like an hour and I just grab my helmet and I walk out to the airplane to go help him out and do this maintenance engine run. And some crew chief walks out of the crew chief shack and he looks like he's like 12 years old, okay? This guy is super young. And I talked to him and he's like, yeah, I've never done this particular check either. And he's like, but my NCO told me that I'd be fine if we just run the checklist.

So that should have been my red flag to like go in and tell them this is not a good idea. But we press on, of course. And so-

We're working our way through this checklist, which neither of us really understood. And there comes to this point in the checklist when you test these engine governors. So they have a system in the A10 where you can throw the fuel flow switches and get excess thrust for an emergency situation. And so what that does is it basically disables the engine temp governors automatically.

So it increases the thrust by like 20%. Okay, so there's a whole bunch of things you're supposed to do, which I understand now, before you run this check to make sure you're in a safe position and nothing bad happens, which we did not do. So we shouldn't have actually been doing this come to find out. So he says, the next thing you do is push the throttles up to max,

then engage the fuel flow switches. They'll snap back into normal range and then bring the throttles to idle. And I'm like, that's like an awful lot of thrust here on the ground, just in parking. So I have them read it to me again and we talk about it and I go, okay, I'm going to do it and I'm just going to be really fast. Okay, so like, because I know this is going to, this engine temperature is going to rise rapidly and as long as I get it,

We should be fine. I mean, it's in the checklist, right? So...

So mind you, I haven't even met the commander in person. I had just walked into the squadron and here I am doing this check that I'd never had previously. So I get ready to go. I push the throttles all the way to max. I'm trying to be slow and deliberate about it. And the engine temps just spike faster than I had ever seen because I had never pushed the throttles up with

with that setting, and the jet jumps the chocks, slides forward, and the crew chief has to run and dive out of the way, and I almost killed him. - Holy shit. - And I had been, like I said, I'd been in theater, like not at all. And so now I have to call up to ground control and request taxi back.

all the way back to parking. And I don't even have a call sign because I wasn't even planning on flying. So I've been in theater again. I just got there. I'm making a complete ass of myself. And I'm going, I'm thinking to myself, okay, like he's okay. I didn't hit the aircraft in front of me and I'm getting sent home. Like that's what's going through my mind. I'm getting sent home on day one of this deployment. Holy shit.

So anyhow, I request taxi back. I don't have a call sign. So I'm like, what's the tail number? I'm like, aircraft 069 request taxi back to parking. And they're like, aircraft 069, where are you at? I'm like, just forward of my parking spot. Like everybody's confused. They're like, okay, go ahead. So I whip around, park,

and walk back into the squadron and I go back to the duty desk. I'm like, "Where's the commander? I need to talk to him right now." Thankfully, the commander is one of the greatest leaders I ever had the pleasure to work for in my career. But I explained to him what happened and he's just like, "What are you talking about?"

And we go out to the flight line and there's this giant like tire streaks on the ramp. And then he's like, he like thinks about it. And he's like, okay, here's what we're going to do. He's like, you're going to brief the squadron on what happened, like what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how to avoid that in the future. So I did that. And then, yeah.

Q-tip's like, okay, you can fly in theater, but you're flying with me because I'm not too sure about this guy. Yeah. So anyhow, so I bring that up because...

Everyone, every fighter pilot has a call sign, right? So in the movies, a call sign is something cool, right? In real life, it's something embarrassing. It's something you screwed up. And it's something to make fun of you because that's more fun. So I got the call sign pork chop because I...

I porked up a chop check because that was the, that's what they called that particular check because you chop the throttles back. So then I, you know, for the rest of my next 20 years, the rest of my career, I was known as Porkchop for that story. Nice.

So did you mess it up or was it a, did they mess up the checklist? Yeah, like there was a variety, like most mishaps, thankfully it wasn't, didn't become a mishap, but it's like error on top of error on top of error. And that particular checklist was meant to be run, um,

One engine at a time while you're on the runway preparing for takeoff as a functional check pilot, as a maintenance pilot, which I went on later to do in my career. So I got a full scope of what you're supposed to do. But young, dumb me, of course, just...

Thought we could figure it out. So anyhow, lesson there is if you are asked to do something that you don't really understand, especially if it involves giant airplanes and fuel and weapons, just don't do it. Oh, shit. You're better off saying no. Welcome to Afghanistan. Yeah. I legit thought I was getting sent home on day one. Because if you screw something up in theater, that's the MO. They send you home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. So did you fly that trip? Yeah, so I went on to fly. I flew with some amazing pilots. A lot of these guys had experience in the Gulf War. And I was a wingman at this point. So your role as the wingman is to support your flight lead. And he's closely monitoring you, especially as an experienced flight lead. So yeah.

Yeah, that deployment was cool. I caught in the tail end of it and flew on the wing of some of the best pilots in the Air Force and got to learn directly from them how to get the job done. Any combat? I never shot the gun on that deployment. So...

Wingman, his primary role is vis, calm, and lastly, firepower. So as my flight lead would employ, I would be in a position to monitor the situation. There's areas where you can't see underneath your aircraft. So you develop tactics to where when he exposes himself, so to speak, you are in position to monitor those threat areas and then call out anyone shooting at him. So I was able to...

just, again, being positioned to monitor and observe and learn really is what I was doing. Who were you working with the most? Like on the ground? You know, it was in 06. It was a variety of places. I would say for the most part, we were working up near the border over, like we called it Nixon's nose on the map. But yeah,

I'm trying to blank on the region, but just up by the Pakistan border where all the foreign fighters were starting to flow in. Coast? Yeah, definitely up in there. And it was much less of a... I got to see it as a part of kind of getting oriented in the airspace, but we weren't going to, like, southern Afghanistan nearly that much in that deployment. Did the flight lead get any combat? Yeah, yeah, I got to support...

support some shooters. What units were you working with the most? I'm not sure. Are you talking about like the ground units? Yeah, you're working with SEALs, Green Berets. So the way that on that deployment, I worked with conventional forces mainly. And so the way that it worked was

is like an inexperienced guy, you're most likely gonna fly for me in the day and you're gonna just report, they call it like X-CAS. A lot of times it would be just go look for like, you know, scan routes, whatever it may be. - Oh, okay. - Look for like mortar emplacements. - So you're kind of picking fights.

Not really a fight, but you're taking people out. You're basically... Like a reconnaissance? You're waiting. You're just airborne to wait to respond to a troops in contact. Okay. So...

And that deployment was the first time that I get the call. You hear the mic key on the radio. You hear the kind of scared voice. You hear the gunfire. And then you realize, oh, damn, this is what we're trained to do. So it was a lot of conventional forces. Again, I didn't fly at night on that deployment. But just like, hey, this convoy is being engaged from...

this hillside or whatever and they're stuck here or whatever and they're shooting it out and go try to find and fix and target that enemy position. So a lot of stuff like that. Let's talk about, I mean, what did it feel like for you being on your first real world mission, operation?

Again, it's just another thing of like, this is, I can't believe this is happening. You know, you're like seeing Roberts Ridge, you know, you're seeing Tora Bora, you're seeing all these places, you know, so now we're, you know, several years after 9-11 and then you're seeing it with your own eyes. Man. You know, you're doing what you've been trained to do, which is support the guys on the ground. So it felt really good to, yeah,

you could help them break contact just by your presence. So they're in a gunfight, they may even be taking casualties and you show up and they break contact 'cause you're there and they're able to get them out, you know? Or you're able to provide cover for CASAVAC or whatever needs to be done. So, you know, and you just start realizing the reality of the situation too. You see the losses, having the ramp ceremonies,

the base getting targeted with indirect fire. And you're just like, wow, this is actually happening. This is not just something that I've been training for. We're actually doing it. And I actually, I love being deployed because no paperwork, no grade sheets. The briefs were very truncated. They kept them short and sweet, all about what you're going to do that day.

And it was just all about flying. Are you guys up there every day? As a pilot? So no, you're not up there every day, maybe every other day. And it just really depends on your role in the squadron. So like every pilot has an extra duty. So like as a new wingman, I'm working in the mission planning cell. So I'm building all the products for when I'm not flying, I'm building all the products for people who are flying. So they can wake up, show up,

You've got their DTC, which is just like a cartridge with all their different points of interest. You can upload that information into your system. So you're getting everything ready for their mission. You're getting their mission data cards ready, their fuel plan, and just everything all dialed in so when the pilots show up,

and just hand them all their stuff. So all they have to do is kind of look it over, talk to their wingman about what they're doing that day, and then go fly. Is there different... How do I say this? Is there... Are there A-10 pilots that are attached to conventional units and A-10 pilots that are attached to SOCOM and A-10 pilots attached to JSOC? Are they different? Yeah, not...

And it changed throughout as the war went on. So on that first deployment, there were like the most experienced pilots, kind of like our weapons officers and some of their hand-selected guys that were also like instructors or four-ship flight leads, like very experienced. And they flew like all the night missions. Gotcha. Like, you know, all the pre-planned missions.

supports for the raids and things like that. Okay. Yeah, and then everybody else just flew the line. Okay, so one's kind of like, would I be correct if I said one is kind of like a loitering

Like there's conventional units out and you're just loitering, waiting for something, waiting for a need? Yeah, exactly. You're trying to be proactive. Okay. You've got to find those threats. But you're essentially there to respond to anyone who takes contact in theater. And then for the other guys, they're in the, like, a seal position.

task in its briefing yeah so that's how it was uh early in the war so um and then they would basically brief up like the entire op you know and be a part of it and there would be like specific guys assigned to that okay role that were like i said very experienced but then like when i was there in 2014 um

it had changed quite a bit. And it was like, hey, if you're combat ready and you're on the, you know, your mission overlaps with this mission, you're flying that. So it was kind of a different, everyone was prepared for it because by that time the squadrons had evolved to kind of meet the needs downrange. So then if you're a fully qualified pilot,

"combat ready wingman, you need to be ready for that mission." So it would be whoever was scheduled at that time would be a part of that mission. - Okay, interesting, interesting. So you took, so what happened after that deployment? - So go back to Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks and just go back to like life of a normal A-10 pilot, which is just training essentially.

So going to flags in Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, lots of travel and just some of the best flying I ever had in my life. I mean, like the airspace in Alaska is just unbelievable. You know, it was really, really pretty wild because now I've got, you know, some more experience under my belt. I'm flying without...

that immediate oversight. I get my Ford air controller qualification quickly after that deployment. So, I mean, it was incredible. So Ford air controller is...

It's another qualification for an A-10 pilot. So what that mission is, are you familiar with like a JTAC? Yeah. Or TAC-P or whatever. So you guys go through a JTAC course? Yeah, so you become qualified pilots

to give clearance to release ordnance from the air. - Okay. - So, and this goes way back, you know, they really developed this during Vietnam with like the OV-10s and then the F-100 fast facts. But so yeah, you're going out there, checking in with the guys on the ground, getting everything sorted, finding,

building the nine lines, then bringing in support fighters. And you're flying this single ship a lot of the times, maybe a wingman, um,

and then getting their eyes on and flowing them in, getting them to destroy the targets and then flow out. And so you can just orchestrate this giant symphony of destruction. - Would you, real quick, 'cause there's gonna be a lot of people in the audience that don't know what a JTAC or a TACP is, could you describe that? - Yeah, so they're like Air Force guys who are embedded with Army units and they are the air experts.

What they do is they kind of provide that common language between the guys on the ground and the guys in the air. And so they're supposed to be competent in both worlds, so they can get your eyes on target and give you clearance to release ordnance in the ground commander's battle space. So does that...

Does that make sense? - Makes perfect sense. It's a-- - For the-- - Yeah, it's more like with us in a SEAL team, it would be a SEAL that's a communicator that's trained to talk to you guys, you know? And I guess they know. I didn't go to JTAC or TACP or anything, but-- - I employed for a SEAL JTAC once and like, I was like blown away by those guys.

In a good way or a bad way? No, it was good. The guy stood out to me. He was there in this running gunfight, and he sent me a perfect nine line. He was shooting with one hand and talking on the radio and running and sent me a nine line. Damn. Could you see it happening? Yeah, I was watching him. Man, that's crazy. And I was like, this guy is a badass. What was that up?

I don't remember. So a lot of our engagements there, it's so different than when you hear them tell the stories of the ground ops where it's like build up and then execution and then this or that goes wrong and then they make it back and then the debrief or whatever it is. A lot of ours is just we're out there flying XCAS and

- What's X-CAS? - Oh, sorry, like alert for close hair support. Meaning you're just, you don't have any specific tasking. - You're loitering. - You're loitering, you're waiting for something to happen. And then you get the call and you just go to it. So I might not know the full depth of the operation. - Gotcha. - I just know that this team is in a running gunfight and they want some 30 millimeter on that.

on that enemy like PKM position, you know? So that's what a lot of our engagements looked like. Interesting. Very interesting. I'm sorry, I lost, we're back home, Fairbanks. Yeah. So it was just one of the best times of my life. So I'm like, I'm just flying my ass off. I think I look at my logbook, I have some months where I was getting like 21 sorties.

in a month, which is flying almost every day. - Damn. - So I'm just flying my ass off. I'm getting much better at the job of being an A-10 pilot. Great friends.

Just, like, seeing the most amazing sights, like flying in the Alaska range. I mean... That's got to be incredible. It was so cool. We had this giant map of the entire state of Alaska. And if you ever saw, like, a herd of, like, caribou, you know, you'd go plot it on the map and put the date. So we just had, like...

Just had the entire state like dialed in, you know? You're like- Man, that's cool. It was awesome. You know, they always say there's nothing like your first fighter squadron. There's, you know, there is something about being brand new and that first exposure to this new world. And it lived up to everything I had hoped for. Where do you go from here? So from there, I went to Korea. Korea? Korea, yep. Why did you go to Korea?

There's a permanent base of permanently assigned squadron of A-10s at Osan Air Base. So it's just a one-year tour, and it's just normal part of an A-10 pilot progression, you know, good bang out of Europe, Korea.

And from there? And then from Korea? Yeah. Oh, well, there's some noteworthy in Korea. Oh, is there? Well, a little bit. I mean, so Korea is like...

Sorry, I meant, you made it kind of sound like a... Just fly through Korea. Yeah, like some type of career development, just a check in the box. No, I was flying out there. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, no worries. It's just that there's like five active duty A-10 squadrons at the time. One of them was Korea. Okay. So if you want to stay in the jet, you got to volunteer for Korea. So...

like people enjoy it, but it's not like a choice assignment. So you finish up a normal, you know, like Alaska, some stateside, go do a year of Korea and then come back to the community, something else. But anyhow, so I do a year out at Osan. And I'm, again, I'm now like a first lieutenant and I'm flying like,

Flying like crazy. And this is when I first started having like back and neck issues from a lot of from wrestling and training hard and skateboarding and all that stuff. It's like I always had problems.

like issues even before I joined the military. And then it's just like all these sorties with all these gear, I'm starting to like have these symptoms that I'm trying to deal with. Before you, can you just get in? Because that's something I'd never thought of when we were talking at breakfast this morning is the physical stuff that you guys deal with inside that cockpit. I mean, I had...

No idea. Yeah, so, you know, the human body is very resilient and it adapts to a lot of different stressors. But, you know, we're basically built to like run, jump, lift, hinge, press. There's all these movements that the human body is designed to do. Something it's not designed to do is just be smushed over and over again

you know, year after year. So most every fighter pilot ends up with some, you know, back and neck issues if they've been in the jet for a period of time. So I had some neck and back issues before I joined even. They were nothing to speak of, but it would just be like, oh, I threw my back out and missed a tournament or whatever it may be. But now, you know, you're wearing the helmet. And

Later, you're wearing the helmet-mounted cueing system, which has these electronics and a monocle over your eye so you can see things on the data link when you look over the rail and down on the ground. But all this adds weight to the helmet. You know, you have a visor. At night, you have the night vision goggles and all the brackets and stuff that go for those attachments. So you're adding a lot of weight to your nugget, you know? And then now the demands of flying is you're constantly...

under G. So you're, you know, say you're, I don't know what it weighs, but say your 10-pound helmet under seven Gs now weighs 70 pounds. Yeah, and if you're flying 20 sorties a month and you've already have back and neck issues and now you're pulling, you know,

you know, hard on the aircraft off target over and over again, you're looking behind you. So you're, you're twisted and then you're being compressed. It just, it's going to bring out any issues there. So the short of my career assignment is I'm trucking along, flying, flying,

nonstop there. There's exercises and I'm having a great time, but I'm starting to get like numbness in my hands, starting to kind of lock up. And like the number one rule of fighter pilots is you never talk to a flight doctor, you know, because you don't want to lose your flight status. So I'm anyhow, so that assignment was,

I'm like halfway through and one morning I'm getting ready to fly. I go to tie my boot and I'm literally just stuck in position. I'm like, I'm completely locked up. I can't move. And I'm like, I can't, I can't fly today. So pull myself off the schedule, talk to the commander. And he's like, he's like, Ben, you're going to have to get this checked out. So, yeah.

go to a flight doc, get a scan. And they're like, oh yeah, you've got like terrible degenerative discs and you've got all these issues. And I think at that time he said something about if I eject, it's going to cause all these problems. So that basically right there was grounded from flying the hog about halfway through that assignment. So now I'm sitting there going, okay, I...

You know, was doing exactly what I wanted to do. And now I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to fly an ejection seat aircraft again. That had to be pretty devastating. Yeah, talk about going from a high to a low, you know. And you're like, what am I going to go be like a logistics officer? I still have a 10-year pilot training commitment. And I'm like, I don't know, four years into it or whatever it was. So yeah, I just went from...

I felt like the ultimate high being on just, you know, you start to build up your, so many things came down to luck and timing. But up to that point, everything had worked out exactly as I had hoped. So you just start to think that that's how the world is just going to bend to your favor on everything. And then all of a sudden it's just all, it's all gone, you know? So then I had a choice as to,

They're like, this is not going to be a short-term thing. So you're not permanently disqualified, but you're disqualified for now from flying fighter aircraft, basically anything with an ejection seat. So they're like, you got to figure out what you want to do. And so

At that time, they needed people to go fly like small ISR aircraft for AFSOC, so Air Force Special Operations Command. But I was told if you do that, you will never come back to the A-10 because it's a different major command and it's a one-way street. You're not going to go to AFSOC and then come back to Air Combat Command. It just doesn't work that way.

And so alternatively, they said you can take this assignment to Vegas flying the MQ-9 doing the unmanned stuff. Is that the Predator? The Reaper. The Reaper. The follow-on to the Predator. So that's what I chose to do. So finished up my year in Korea. So that's not AFSOC? They have... I'll just...

I'll leave it at there are multiple MAJCOMs that fly these airplanes. And so I flew Air Combat Command, MQ-9s, essentially doing the same mission I was doing in the A-10. But instead of... Do you know who you were flying for? I was, I mean, we could get into it. I was flying for pretty much...

Anything that was going on in Afghanistan for four years. Holy shit. Six days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. No, no, I didn't. I was flying for, I was doing Air Force missions. Oh, good. Yeah, so. Does the agency have their own, do you not want to talk about this? Yeah, I don't. I watched a lot of kill TV at the agency. I wonder if you were in the control room. Yeah, probably.

- Maybe, maybe not, huh? - - Roger that. - So yeah, it's funny I describe this like, they're like, "What was it like to go from the A10 to the MQ-9?" And I was like, "Well, one, it was devastating, and two, what I realized was it was very similar. Just strip away everything that I liked about

and being an Air Force officer and pilot. So you don't get to fly. You don't get to shoot the gun. You don't get to smell the gun gas in the cockpit. All your former friends,

treat you like you have some communicable disease because they don't want to catch whatever you have for whatever, you know, fate or whatever, however you ended up, you know, here flying these unmanned aircraft. Because at that time they were severely undermanned and they were just randomly grabbing people from all over the Air Force and sending them there. So yeah, it was just like, it was pretty, it was like,

At first, it was very devastating, miserable. And then I kind of... So is it that the adrenaline's gone? Yeah. Is that what it is? And when you are flying the A-10, just stepping out to the aircraft, you've got the helmet bag over your shoulder. You see the jets, the sun's beating on your skin, like...

And then you're in the airplane, the canopy's up, you're just looking around as you taxi out and get ready to fly. You just feel like a badass. You feel like King Kong. And you're just, in theory, you're hoping there's a gunfight so you can show up and just wreck shop, right? That's the mentality. And then you go from that to...

It's like the opposite species. Now you're like this cave dweller that lives underground. It's like dark and you're staring at computer screens and there's nothing cool about it. There's nothing fun. There's nothing glorious or glamorous. Like it's just work, you know? It just stripped away everything that I enjoyed about flying and you still have the tasks, but that's it.

But, you know, I quickly realized, like, so in the 18 community we talk about, it's all about the guy on the ground. It's all about the guy on the ground. Like, it's not about you. It's about the guy on the ground. And I realized that this was an opportunity to prove to myself that I actually believed in that. Because at that point, it's not about you at all. And, but you, I was like, I still have this

this tool and I'm still in the same stack. I was talking to my buddies on the radio. I was hearing some of the, you know, all the same call signs from when I was in theater. And just now I'm controlling this aircraft remotely from Vegas, you know? So, and then you learn a lot about insurgency because, you know, as an A-10 guy, say you go deploy,

Deployment started at four months and they went up to six months. Say you do one of those every three years, you're probably going to have an instructor duty, staff duty, something like that. So you might do a couple of those throughout your career. Well, now I'm in theater six days a week in my brain, 12 hours a day for four years. You know what I mean? So you get really good at...

actually carrying out that mission of protecting the guys on the ground. Man, that's interesting because, not to inject myself here, but I wanted to have this discussion with you because when I was in the... I left the SEAL teams in 2006. I did one enlistment, very short pump. But RJ techs were always... Because that was right around the time where drones were coming online more and more, at least from my perspective. But...

There was always a lot of discussion about having A-10s, Apaches, and our guys would go meet the Apaches and meet you guys before an operation and get that face-to-face kind of personal relationship building. And then as the war went on and more and more drones came online, there was always a big fear like we don't have...

we don't have that personal relationship where it's where we just met Dale, you know, and he knows like, oh fuck, that's Sean and his team on the ground down there that are getting the shit knocked out of them, you know? And, and when it came to drones, it was, we lost the personal touch, you know? And, and,

I mean, what did you, what were your feelings like as a pilot about that? Yeah, it was really a mixed bag at the time because it became like, we called it the land of the broken toys. So, you know, you might, as your SEAL team, you might get a guy who was six months ago an A-10 forward air controller that can speak your language,

can control the stack is going to make this very easy for you. In fact, I might even build you the nine line you can read back to me. You know what I mean? But on the flip side, you might get a guy who has been flying the AWACS for 10 years who never upgraded to aircraft commander because they weren't quite sure of his capabilities. They didn't know what to do with them. So they're like, hey, let's send them to

let's send them to this unmanned community. And they just needed so many people. I mean, they were sending, they would just send out a requirement to fighter squadrons and just say, you will send us three men

on this next VML, or even right now, because it was such a high-demand asset. So everybody was just throwing bodies at this program. And yeah, so the product at that time especially was just varied widely. And so what I felt like my responsibility was to make

do everything in my power to ensure that myself and everybody around me, so my squadron, was as capable as possible. And we didn't lose track. You know, try to kind of instill that same mindset of like, hey, this isn't about us. Like, if you find that IED emplacer before the convoy gets there,

that's everyone in that MRAP going home to their family instead of just ending up, you know, in a pile of frag on the side of the road. So just trying to get that mindset to people that never really wanted to be a technical operator, it was very tough. I mean, even for you, it's got to be tough to realize the...

the i don't know the complexity of the situation being able to visualize it out of your cockpit and see see what's happening on the ground versus i mean it sounds like you're looking through the soda straw sounds like call of duty at the unmanned i mean it's got to be hard to visualize and have a personal connection and realize like

those are fucking lives down there. Those little, I mean, white figures that are moving around, those are our people. And I mean, it's gotta be weird, right? - Yeah, I mean, there's so many weird aspects to it of modern war, you know, like being engaged in a firefight, you know, your brain is there. Your body is in a freaking shipping container in the desert.

You're done. And then 15 minutes later, you're home with your wife. Do you realize that the stakes are as high as they are when you're flying an unmanned aircraft? I never forgot that. And we'll talk about getting back to the A-10, which...

When I left the A-10, they said, you'll have a chance of getting back. This is because every A-10 pilot has to do a career broadening assignment. And they're like, this is your, they call it alpha tour. They're like, this is your alpha tour and you are welcome back to the community. So we're not ejecting you from the community, which can happen, you know? But then when I got there, the commander's like,

Hey, guys, like, I know they didn't lie, but the truth changed is what we were told. I remember that line specifically. It said, now you're one of us. Like, get comfortable here. This is your new major weapon system. So, Porkchop, you are not a 10 pilot. You're now an MQ-9 pilot.

And that's just a fact. So, you know, you can cry about it, but get over it. And we got a job to do. So they told us we would not go back. This is a new, they're not treating it like extra duty. This is a new platform and it will need improvement.

like permanent party. And that's what they told us when we got there. So now I'm sitting there going, okay, like I'm done, you know? Like I'm never getting back to the hog and I'm looking at my commitment going, okay, I've got like five years left or whatever it was and going, okay, I'm just gonna finish out and separate at the end of that time. But yeah, it was kind of devastating in that regard. But when it came to executing the mission,

I just felt like I needed to throw myself into this job because there are like,

countless Americans in harm's way. And if we do our job well, if I train the people around me, so they like almost immediately make me like an instructor pilot, an evaluator pilot, a flight commander. So they're like, we need leadership here. We need some supervision. And anyone with any tactical background needs to step up and fill that role. So

- Damn, that's a big responsibility. - Yeah, so now you're like a young captain and you're just, I mean, there are a lot of weapons getting sent down range by people who are not fighter pilots, who are not trained to do this and making that top cut every step of the way. It's just everybody. And they might not even want to be there.

And, but you know what, like I said, it's, they're still Americans in harm's way. And what, and this is not the tool I'd prefer to be doing the job in. I'd rather be in my hog, but this is what they've given me. And if this is, you know, this is what I, this is what I have, I'm going to use it to the best of my, my ability. And I did that, you know, I went there and I, I,

Basically, all I did at that assignment was just work and sleep. We were severely undermanned on the leadership side. And I just flew or sat operations supervisor for nearly four years straight, six days a week. So was flying an unmanned aircraft your first engagement with an enemy combatant? Yep. I mean...

Can you describe your first engagement? Yeah. Your first kill. So we got rolled to a tick. So like I was saying, it looked very similar to the missions that we were doing downrange in the A-10. It was just another capability. You know what I mean? Like, it was just another option. So...

the A-10s could only go so far. And so I'm Air Force flying Air Force missions. You're just another asset that's available. So I'm doing similar things. We're like route scanning, this and that. We get rolled to a TIC. A TIC is a Troops in Contact. Sorry, Troops in Contact. So there's a gunfight. And we were the closest asset. And they send us over there. And they give us...

general you know do all the things you do in the hog it's just now you're remotely connected but you're still on the radio and now you're looking through a soda straw of the targeting pod uh instead of looking over the rail and having a targeting pod so uh just a different asset altogether but uh really at the end of the day you're servicing targets for americans so um

So that's what we did. So we get rolled two troops in contact. There was like a machine gun position where they were getting shot from. And they give us general coordinates of where it's coming from. And we start scanning. Who's we? So this is now a two-person aircraft, okay? So you have a sensor operator that sits next to you. So in the A-10, I'm my own sensor operator, right? I control the targeting pod. Now...

I fly the airplane, I control the weapon systems, and the sensor operator controls the sensor or the targeting pod, if you will. So we, you know, now, so now instead of, and it's insanely frustrating because I would rather do it myself. And you're going, okay, look here, look there, look there. And, you know, and the more experience they get, there's some of them were awesome and they would do what you wanted to do before you could even say it out loud. But yeah, so they just, you know,

get to that general area, you start searching, and then next thing you know, you find a couple guys. There was one PKM. I still remember the image. There's two guys, and they're just shooting at the friendlies. They're laying in a prone position. So we get a nine line, select GBU-12, and roll in.

and put a GB-12 right on the target. Damn. What's a GB-12? 500-pound laser got a bomb. Did you get any satisfaction out of that? Yeah, I mean, I got... It's like, it's mixed feelings. It's like, I got satisfaction knowing that our guys made it home. Like, so I didn't have any kind of moral qualms with it. It's...

I would much rather physically be there because it feels kind of like there is a part of you, like there's, you know, killing at a distance has been, it's been a feature of warfare since the beginning of time. Since someone figured out you could throw a rock at somebody, right? Then spears, then, you know, archers, you know, automatic weapons all the way to, you know,

you know, aircraft and then drones. So it's just an advancement in warfare. But yeah, you feel kind of like a coward, like taking life, sitting thousands of miles away. I never thought about that. I didn't. At the time, and how I kind of framed it to my people, you know, and to myself was, hey, we've got a choice to make. This is not morally ambiguous because...

These guys are fighting each other and they're actively engaged against Americans and it's them or it's our guys. So that's an easy choice for me. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure those Americans come home safe. So again, I try to frame it like it's not about us. It's about the guys on the ground.

And, you know, in doing so, we became very effective. Like, I look back on that four years, and it was probably the most important four years of my entire career because the number of threats that we neutralized was just, it's uncountable. I mean, things that people never even knew about, like,

You've killed that many people. I'm saying just the whole squadron, you know, but I wouldn't even begin to count. Wow. But you're just, I mean, four years straight, six days a week, 10, 12. Are you killing like every day? No. You might go months or month without nothing. You know, there's fighting season. It might be quiet for a long period of time. But...

It ebbs and flows, you know, with, like, who's the commander. Like, remember the surge in, like, 2000? Was it when Petraeus took over from McChrystal and brought in all the Marines into South Afghanistan? Yeah. Like, it was just nonstop then, you know, but then it quieted down again after that. Were you flying then? Yeah. Every day. You may have... I'm sure there's...

Tons of overlap. Yeah. We got overrun in a safe house in Lashkar Gah, and there was like, I can't remember, like 100 Taliban fighters on the other side of the river delivering any bills at all. Yeah. Right on. Wow. It was gnarly. Like, if you, I mean, if you... Man, that's fucking crazy, man. It's a small world. Does that, I mean...

Can you talk about some more of these missions? Let's talk about maybe anything that sticks out. Yeah, I mean, you see some dark shit, you know, like one, actually, we'll talk about a mission supporting Marines in southern Afghanistan during the surge. You know, I'm flying the MQ-9. We get rolled two troops in contact. And this is, you know, it's kind of rural down there, but there's a lot of development, you know.

And I find the enemy shooting the Marines. And again, they've got an automatic weapon and they're just at the side. There's eight guys and they're just at the side of this vehicle.

it's like this compound, you know, all those little, everyone has a house and then this big mud fence around it. So they're on the outside of this big mud fence and they're just kind of like, they'd have like one guy leaning around the corner, just wailing at the Marines. So I see that and they're taking pretty effective fire. Like we need to serve as his target now. So yeah.

get a nine line, decide to put a Hellfire missile on it and swing around so it's like parallel to this wall. Put the Hellfire right down at the very first point on that wall where the first person was. And then all of the frag of that missile kind of bounces off the wall, does this like vortex and just fires down the wall.

dust settles and this is daytime mission. We switch over to like the daytime camera and it's just like the guns go quiet. So it was just them shooting at the Marines and it's just like a freaking pile of body parts. Okay. And that's, you know, if you've seen war, that's like, it's not something completely uncommon. But afterwards,

It's kind of quiet, you know, and then I see this figure come out of the adjacent building and it looks like an old lady. She has like a walking stick and you can kind of see her hunched over and she leaves the house, leaves the compound and she's just moving all the parts around. And I'm thinking she's probably looking to see if there's anyone alive. That was my best guess, seeing what was going on.

And, you know, nothing happened to her. The Marines eventually sent a team out to go do a battle damage assessment, and she went back in. But it just, you know, you just see the actual real impact of war on these people's lives. Yeah. You know, it's like, I don't know, we can get into it, but you're going...

You're looking at just the morality of us being there in the first place now, this many years after 9/11. You're like, most of these fighters, would they even know anything about 9/11? Or are they just fighting the people that are in their country? I'm starting to ask myself some of these questions. And this woman, these civilians, they're just caught in the crossfire. So just something to think about.

before we get engaged in these conflicts overseas. It's like, what does this actually look like on the ground? Because it's not a video game. It's not a movie. In the real world, it's much uglier, much more gray area. You were thinking that at the time, or is this later? I remember being kind of, some of the things I saw just kind of screwing with my mind a little bit, but it took a lot of time to reflect on it.

Man, that's interesting because I've always, I've heard that, and please don't judge me, you know, but, because I'm a ground guy and I don't fucking know. But I've heard about drone pilots talking about PTSD and the impacts of war and stuff. And I never, I mean, I'm not going to, I never said anything negative about it, but I did always wonder like,

How can that even be? Like, it's so far away. You're half a world away. And does it even, that's why I'm asking, you know, does it even feel real? There's no personal connection. It feels very real because your mind is there. In my experience, again, I would never discount anybody's claims of PTSD. But in my experience, it wasn't the guys that were doing it.

most of the engagements that were having those issues. - Gotcha. I'm not discounting, I don't wanna say that. It was more curiosity. - There was a lot of things that happened and you're going, it was like pretty quick ticket out of there. Anyway, like I'll just leave it at that. - What do you mean?

Yeah, so if you didn't want to do that job, whether you're an intel troop or you just weren't liking the schedule, the lifestyle was pretty miserable because we were severely undermanned. I see what you're doing. And it was just kind of like, again, I would never point the finger at any individual, but it was well known within the community that people would...

have a escape route, if you will. Gotcha. It's a ticket out. It's a ticket out, yeah. Is it a ticket out back to the old unit, or is it just a ticket out? Just a ticket out. Yeah, you could be. People would just... You know, I'm looking at my five-year service commitment left, and I'm like, well, I'm done, you know? Yeah, yeah. Man, this is...

I got to be honest with you, this is just as interesting to me as the A-10 stuff. I thought it might be because you see a lot of it on the news. You hear a lot about it, but most everything I heard about on the news, I feel like it's a lot of things that are false. What? You don't believe the news? I mean, I can't speak to every...

unmanned engagement that ever existed. But there's this kind of like this theme of like, oh, they just use unmanned assets to target like civilian weddings and shit like that. You know what I mean? And it's like, I never saw anything like that. I mean, it was an Air Force unit supporting the guys on the ground.

That's what we did. You know, like we engaged combatants that were engaging our guys. So like, I can't speak to whatever else ever happened, you know, in the history of these unmanned assets, but it was very clear in our unit who we were supporting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wonder, I mean, like the USAID worker that got killed,

During the withdrawal that the Biden administration told us was, what are those, ISIS fighters? Do you remember this? Yes. And that was a drone strike, correct? Yeah, and it hit that family, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that's like... Another lie from the media. Yeah, that's all they do is lie, right? Yeah, and the White House. Yeah, whatever...

Whatever fits the narrative at the time is usually what they say. Do you think we should have... Well, do you think we should have been there in Afghanistan or Iraq? I think we had... I think Iraq, no. I think there's so many... You look at Iraq now and it's like, are we better off without Saddam? Like, it's like...

strategically, geopolitically. So you look at Saddam was basically a counterbalance to Iran and we let them kind of go at it, right? And it would have kept Iran from gaining too much power. And now basically Iran controls Iraq. So how can that be seen as a success? Not to mention all the lives lost and it was sold on completely untrue money.

of WMDs. So I think that one's a clear no. And then Afghanistan, I mean, they did harbor Al-Qaeda. And so I think that was justified. But I mean, pretty much the war was won by like 2003. And then big army comes in. It gets turned into this giant army

forever war that I think was used to help people get promotions and to make a lot of money. And everyone just said they played their part. They said what they were supposed to say to the American people when it was clearly untrue to anyone who was there. And 20 years later, you know, they pull out in shame, just this complete debacle of

still makes me sick to think about. And then we immediately shift gears to, oh yeah, actually the Taliban wasn't so bad. It's these ISIS-K guys are the real threat. - Yeah. - And you're like, okay, but we've been fighting these guys for 20 years. - Yeah. Now we're sending them $80 million a week. - Yeah. - I don't know if we'll still be sending that by the time this interview airs, but 'cause it's in the House now, now it's on to the Senate.

to shut that shit down but it's unbelievable to trust our government at all no any aspect of it no i think all they do i think something happens organically or inorganically and they just look at it how how can we spin this to uh further our own interests so so 9-11 happens and um

Then we go into Afghanistan, we go into Iraq. I mean, you look at like all the money that was made and it's just, I don't know. It's just hard to articulate the level of like rage that I have for these people that just lied to us for so long. I mean, we all have friends whose kids, you know, grew up without a dad forever.

And this was like 10 years into the war, 15 years in the war. Abbey Gate, 20 years later. It's like, why? Like we all knew. Anyone who knew anything about that war knew that the strategy that they were employing was going nowhere. I mean, that was obvious to the youngest private. And then-

The four-star general goes and briefs Congress and says everything's great. The ANA and the ANP, you know, Afghan National Army, National Police, they're getting up to speed. They're going to be ready to go. You know, they basically had the same talking points for 20 years. You get that. You know, there's a lot of careerism because, you know, they're dressing up.

like Patton and all these generals, but really they're acting more like empty suits, you know, saying whatever it is that kind of the powers that be want them to say. And then they get that combat command tour, go on, get promoted, and then eventually end up at Raytheon or on the board of some defense contractor. So you just look at it and you realize that there were a lot of interests involved

in that entire war that had nothing to do with what they were telling the public. It's crazy how many sellouts this country produces. It's just everybody up there is a fucking sellout. It's like that four-star pension isn't good enough. You need more. Greed, man. Yeah. American greed. It's sad to see. Hopefully there's... I mean, even looking back,

I mean, there's so many things that you can kind of piece together. Like you were talking about southern Afghanistan. We were talking about southern Afghanistan and the big push down in Lash and Marja. And, I mean, Marja was supposed to be the second biggest offensive force since Fallujah. And I remember when Obama came out with those ROEs, it was for the Marine infantry, at least, was...

Because I was at the agency down there when that was all happening. And I remember when those ROEs came out, they were saying that if you get shot at and they drop their weapon, you're not allowed to engage. Yeah. And at that point, it's like, what the fuck are we doing here? Like, why are you chopping our guy's legs out from under him? Like, you're not even...

I wouldn't send him outside the wire. That's what I'm saying. You know, second of all, like it makes it impossible for him to complete the mission or you strip him of all confidence because now they're all worried that their superior is going to send them to jail if they dime him out that a guy dropped a... I mean, what? What if he drops his weapon while you're shooting him? I mean, what? Yeah, I remember...

I think it was Mark Crystal who gave this speech. He's like, it's the bullet you don't fire that will win the war. And it was supposed to be some like, you know, guru. Yeah. Like strategy, some like, you know, some strategy to a level that us Americans

normal people could never understand. I'm like, if that's the case, again, why send anyone outside the wire? Yeah. Oh, well, we're going to go do community engagement. It's like, okay, we're all dressed up like stormtroopers in a tribal society and we're going to turn them into like a Jeffersonian democracy. Like, this is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. And, you know, I think they kept trying to build it up like, oh, they have a plan. There's...

just stay the course. They have a plan and eventually, I mean, maybe I'm a slow learner, but after like a decade and a half, you're like, there is no plan. This is the plan. It's just to keep the contracts going and then keep getting promoted. It's sad, man. It's, our standing in the world is just, I feel like it's completely shot. I think people, I think other countries just protect, just lie to

They don't want to challenge because of the repercussions, because we are so powerful and the rest of the world hates us. I mean, I don't even... I hate fucking saying this shit, but... Yeah, it's depressing. I just feel like we're the bad guys. Yeah, like, what good was done from that? Like, I mean, we're...

the people were fighting over there again like i think the vast majority of them had no concept of 9 11 and like a lot of them were like teenagers pulled from madrasas in pakistan that were given you know five bucks and some opium and said hey go put on this suicide vest and walk into you know go find someone in uniform and blow it up it's just it's like

I don't know, a lot of these people that just seem to want us to go to war everywhere have no actual firsthand experience of what it looks like. That shit makes me so fucking angry. It does. And then I couldn't believe how fast they shifted from the global war on terror to Ukraine. Yeah. And I know, you know, Putin invaded Ukraine.

But I also remember when Putin invaded Crimea in 2014, and it was hardly a news cycle. And they called me suspicious, but I remember thinking, like, they're just going to shut down all these contracts? I remember thinking that. Like, there's so much money being made in Afghanistan. I mean, I got invited. This is kind of weird. I got invited to the Raytheon plant,

Oh, really? To celebrate the 1,000th laser Maverick coming off the production line. Because in my 2014 deployment, I had fired some laser Mavericks in combat. So they're like, we want a combat vet who's fired this missile in theater to be at the ceremony. So we go there and get a tour of the facility and everything.

Anyhow, I just remember thinking, like after the Afghanistan thing going, there's a lot of, I was actually surprised they did it. And I was like, there's a lot of money going all over the place for these contracts. Like, so are they just going to get shut down now? Like, is that going to be, are we shifting gears into some new economy? Is something else going to happen? And then it was like clockwork. Then the Ukraine thing hit.

And then, of course, this time, unlike 2014, now it's the biggest thing on the news, and it's something that we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars for. And then you're like, oh, yeah, those, you know, not to be a cynic, but all those contracts are just keep on rolling. Ukraine could have been a simple real estate purchase. Those people didn't want to be a part of that anyways. Yeah. Russia wanted it. That could have been a very simple real estate transaction.

Seems like that's not what they wanted. Yeah. They wanted it to drag out. Yeah. I wonder how long it will drag out. I wonder who's going to dismantle what we know today as the U.S. Because getting... That's one of the new things that I want to do with this show is start going around and getting the perspective of us from the rest of the world and not what the fucking media tells us. I think that would be very interesting. Yeah. And what's crazy is...

I rarely meet people in real life who think we should be involved all over the world. And I don't know, maybe that's my bubble. But for some reason, no matter who we vote for, we get like Liz Cheney's foreign policy. Yeah. There's like no way out of it. I don't think it's the American people driving this. They consistently try to vote their way out of these forever wars. I mean, Obama...

2008 campaign ran on, you know, getting out of these stupid wars. Trump ran on getting out of the wars. You know, it's like everybody runs on disengagement because that's what the, that's what I think what most people want. But it just never happens. Well, that's depressing, but let's get, let's get, let's get back to your career. So,

You do four years at the, what was the program called? I was at the 42nd Attack Squadron. Okay. Just flying MQ-9s in Vegas. Were you just flying Afghanistan or were you flying Yemen? Just Afghanistan. I did another deployment to Afghanistan during that time. And yeah, I mean, I learned a lot about insurgency during that tour. And as I got back to the A-10, I think it helped me quite a bit.

in kind of unexpected ways. But if you're staring at the battle space and on the radio for four years straight, you're gonna see and learn a lot about how the enemy operates their behavior. I got to the point where I could see the way somebody was walking and the way like,

their tunic laid over their arm and be like, that guy's got an AK. And it's like, if you're looking at it right now, it would look like a little pixel poking up maybe, you know? And you're like, I can just tell he's not walking like a civilian. You watch, watch. Sure enough, as soon as he gets a chance, pulls it out, starts walking.

to take a shot at friendlies. So you got really good at studying the enemy and just looking at their normal patterns of life and things that just did not make sense. So you just, yeah, see that stuff, report it up to the guys on the ground. And I know for a fact that we saved just untold American lives.

you know during that tour so no you know no regrets i guess that's what got out in store for me you very likely saved my ass but um man that's uh that's interesting it's real that stuff is just really interesting because i've never talked to a drone pilot at least not knowingly yeah so and i've always had these questions about you know what's what's i mean what's it like to to kill from

thousands and thousands i mean half a world away you know and and you described it perfectly so thank you but on that note let's take a break and then when we get back we'll pick up uh back at the a10 absolutely i'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on vigilance elite patreon our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show and their support allows us to keep doing what we do

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Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan show if you haven't already Please take a minute head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan show a review We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show All right, Dale, we're back from the break. What were we talking? Do you remember it's all blending in? Yeah more corruption but

It'll come to me. So, but anyways, back to your story. So we wrapped up the M9 tour. M9? MQ-9. MQ-9, excuse me. Fascinating stuff, by the way. Thank you for sharing that. And so you're going back to rotation with the A-10. Yeah, so that whole time I was flying the MQ-9,

they were saying, "You're never going back." And I just kind of didn't accept that. And again, I think God was looking out for me again, because as I approached the end of that tour, they were gonna send me to the MQ-9 schoolhouse to be an instructor. And I've never been one to hold my true thoughts, you know? And I just told my commander, like, "I absolutely do not want to do that."

I want to get back to the A-10. You know, that whole time I'm in Vegas, probably the first time in my life I'm giving my body a rest because, you know, high school wrestling at a high level is really tough on your body. Cutting weight, training really hard, then two years of collegiate wrestling, and then into flying. And it was just...

you know, it was just nice to get a break physically. And I did physical therapy. I had some sort of different kind of shots and stuff, like spinal shots. And I started feeling much better. Like I was getting the feeling back in my hands and stuff.

And anyhow, so he's like, well, like, you got to get a waiver to get back to the hog, a medical waiver and this and that. But he wasn't completely, like, closed down to it. And I think it made a big impact that I gave my all during that assignment. If I had just, you know, phoned it in, there would have been zero chance. But, I mean...

I did everything I could do during that four years to contribute to the mission. And he knew it and he wanted to get me what I wanted after that. So anyhow, went through the medical process and they granted me a waiver to return to fly. And my former director of ops from Alaska is now the wing commander at an A-10 base.

And so I'm just like throwing Hail Marys. I'm like, Hey sir, trying to get back to the A-10. Uh, if there's any chance, like if there's any spot for me anywhere, like I will, I will be the, you know, squadron cleaning guy. Like I will do any extra duty. I will deploy immediately. Like whatever you need, I will, you'll never hear a complaint from me. I just want to get back to the hog. And, um,

They like made an exception and let me go back to the A-10. And so I didn't have to go be an instructor in the MQ-9. I made it back to the hog. So from there, I went to back to Tucson and went to the Bulldogs at the 354th Fighter Squadron and just kind of try to pick up where I left off. What was it like being back? It was awesome. You know, like I was... Was it like riding a bike? Yeah.

I got back into it quicker than I would have thought. I went through a retraining course and it was just awesome because now I'm going through something similar to like the initial qualification, but I had like several years experience flying the A-10. So it was not difficult. Had anything changed, new technology? Yeah. So I had flown the A-10A model when I had left and it was all like steam gauges, right?

in the jet just looked like a Cessna you would fly, like an old Cessna. You know, like you had this weapons control panel where you would literally analog scroll in what weapon you wanted, how many, you press the button, the timing for the release sequence, it was all analog.

And while I was gone, they had upgraded to the A-10C model and everything was digital. So now you have like these multifunction displays, GPS with like moving map displays. Some new weapons had come online that I hadn't been trained on. But, you know, flying the jet, doing the mission. And then all the avionics were very intuitive. So I picked it up pretty quick. And yeah, from there, yeah.

I did a couple years in the squadron, started upgrading again, so getting my flight lead, four-ship flight lead qualification, eventually upgraded to instructor and evaluator. So just kind of like caught up on the time I had missed when I was gone. Then first daughter's born around this time too, so now I'm back in the jet and the family's growing, so...

It was similar to my first assignment in that it just, nothing but fond memories, you know. It was almost like I had another shot at a first assignment. And yeah, it was fantastic. So you had your daughter. How did you meet your wife? Okay, yeah. So I've known Amanda since the fourth grade. Since fourth grade? Yeah.

We grew up together. You know, I was moving around a bunch, so we kind of lost contact. But then when I was in Alaska, she's amazing. She has a master's degree in chemistry from Vanderbilt, and she had gotten a job teaching in the Bay Area. And we were...

we were closing down the squadron. Like that squadron I was at in Alaska was shutting the doors. And so we were taking all of our jets and transferring them to this base in Utah that refurbishes them and then was going to send them out to other units. Anyhow, so I'm flying jets back to the continental U.S. fairly frequently by myself, like singletons.

And then I'm routing all my flights with the longest delays possible in the Bay Area where she was. So I could have an excuse to go see her and meet up with her and stuff. So I'd be like, yeah, I've got a 22-hour layover in the Bay Area. She's like, well, that sounds like the worst flight ever. That's like a red eye. And then, yeah, anyhow, so I kept doing that. And we just...

We just hit it off again, you know, kind of reconnected since high school. Then she came out to Korea because she was teaching chemistry at the time. So she came out there for the summer and then got married in Vegas. So quick background on my lovely bride. And you guys have been married for how long? 15 years now. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. I did not love being single. Like being married is amazing. So with all...

And she's been through all the deployments or a lot of deployments? Yeah, we started talking when I just got back from my first deployment in Alaska. Okay. So switching gears and then we'll get back to you, Tim. What do you think is the secret to a successful marriage? That's a good question. I think, you know, like being married is really easy, right?

before you have kids, right? So just found that out. So yeah, when like, we just had so much fun together, you know, like it to me being married to her was is just, I love it. Like she's, I'm so happy with her. Like, we're just a good team. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, wow, I'm really excited that she likes me enough to marry me. Yeah.

Like one of those situations, you know? She's beautiful, smart, loyal. We grew up in the same place, you know? So have shared background. And so being married to her, I would say it's easy. And then the kids come along, you know? And neither of my girls slept at all for like two years straight.

Like, just hard sleepers. And we were so paranoid. We're, like, following all the rules. Like, oh, no co-sleeping. And they have to be on their back. They can't be on their side. Or, you know, whatever it is. We're, like, freaked out following all the rules. Now, if we could go back, we probably wouldn't follow none of those rules. It was just too hard. Like, it just...

It was hard. So, um, introducing kids definitely adds challenges because now all your focus is on, for me, it was like my career and then my kids and then my wife is really what was happening. And, uh,

You know, I think if your wife is unhappy, she might not necessarily tell you, but you can feel it, you know? And it's like when you're working 70 hours a week and then you have kids, then you're not sleeping. And then any spare time is, you know, if you're like doing anything else and, you know, you're kind of not putting your family, you're not prioritizing correctly, which we can get to later about what I'm doing now. But yeah.

Yeah, I think we definitely had struggles when I'm starting to deploy again. You know, we have kids. And even when you're home station in a fighter squadron, you might go TDY, a temporary duty, like a training exercise. You might be leaving 10 times a year. And those training workups might be two weeks, three weeks long. So it's just, it's a demanding career field, obviously. Yeah.

But so to wrap this up, what makes a happy marriage? I think you have to reprioritize. Should be wife first and then kids. And then, you know, your kids are gonna be as happy as possible if you and your wife are getting along. So if you're getting along with your wife, everything's gonna fall into place after that. So it's just being deliberate. And I still work at that, but it's like, okay, we're gonna go on a date someday.

We're going to spend time with just you and I, no distractions, and try to do that regularly. Just make that time a priority, and then she'll feel that you care about her, and then she'll be happy, and your life will be good. That's great advice, man. Thank you. Thank you. And congratulations on 15 years. Is there a high divorce rate as a pilot?

I mean, I don't know the stats, but from anecdotally, yes. Yeah, I would say. I could see that. It's brutal. And that's why I love her so much too. Like she was just rock solid through my entire career and supported me 100%. So it's like she deserves that attention, you know? Yeah. Well, back to the A-10. Yeah. So...

Do you deploy again as an A-10 pilot? Yeah, so now I've been back for a good period of time, a couple years, and I really wanted to get back in the fight. You know, I deployed as a young wingman, again, just kind of been to some troops in contact and some interesting situations, but really not fully engaged, you know. Then deployed in the MQ-9, so it's like I really want to

get in the mix and hog again. And so I was able to jump in on a deployment with the 303rd Fighter Squadron. It's a reserve unit out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. And they were going to Afghanistan and they had like two empty billets that they wanted active duty to fill. And so I saw that and I volunteered.

And so I got to jump back in on another deployment in 2014. And yeah, that trip was incredible because that unit was highly experienced. So being a reserve unit, they're full of like just some of the most experienced pilots in the Air Force. Like some of them had been there for decades. Like I flew with a guy, Karl Marx, has like...

More 8, 10 hours than anyone ever will. No one will ever catch him. It's like 7,000 hours. He's a machine. He destroyed, I want to say, 27 armor pieces in the first Gulf War as a lieutenant. Damn. And then flew the entire GWAT. And he's still flying right now. He'll be probably the last one to climb off the ladder when they're done. Damn. But yeah, so I'm flying with these just incredible...

incredible people in Afghanistan that 2014 deployment. And yeah, it was just a great trip. Just did the mission, flew for like seven months, did nothing but fly. Flight lead? Yeah, yeah. I was a flight lead now. And yeah, I'm just engaged. Engagements? More engagements, yeah. Now I finally get to do the job in the hog. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about

Let's talk about your first kill in the A-10. We talked about it in the drone. Let's talk about it here. Okay, so we're supporting this troops in contact over by, I want to say, Fob right again up in north, forgive me, northeastern Afghanistan, kind of north of Nixon's nose on the border. And so we report to this tech company

check in, give them our loadout, our time on station, and start getting the dope on what's going on in the ground situation. And as soon as we show up, there's like these little birds, you know, the, I'm sorry, not little birds, the Kiowas. You know, they shoot like, they're tiny little helicopters, and the pilots are such badasses. Like,

And so they're like, they're out of munitions and they're like shooting it out. Are you serious? Yeah. They're shooting. They're in like M4 out the door. They're like straight up cowboys. They're in a firefight. Like I'm, I'm overhead watching these guys like shoot it out. And he's like, like shooting his right. He's just, is a, you know, mag dumping out the door at this enemy fighting position. And, uh,

We get them on the horn and I'm like, oh dude, I'm gonna put a 500 pound bomb right on it, right? But I gotta get them to move away. And they're like, they're not having it 'cause they're like, they're just shooting it out with these guys, man. That's what they're-- - That's what they wanna do. - That's what they wanted to do. I mean, I have so much respect for those guys. Like they just get in the mix.

But anyway, finally it was real basic. I fixed the enemy position.

Got them outside of the bomb frag range, so like a safe distance, and they just came in medium altitude and put a 500-pound bomb and silenced the guns. I'll bet that would do it. Yeah. Yeah, and then there were quite a few more employments on that trip. It was pretty active at that time. I mean, how did that feel compared to the drone? Yeah, it's just like...

Like I said, the tasks were very similar. Like, hey, you got to get in bomb range. You got to be flying a specific heading and airspeed. You got to get in the window, you know, pickle the bomb off and lays it into the target. So the tasks were very similar. But in this case, it was a GPS guided bomb. So it just went to the coordinates. But it just...

When you're physically there in the firefight, it makes a difference. Yeah. It just, you know, you feel like King Kong again. You're like, I can't believe, you just have all this firepower at your fingertips. And then, you know, these guys are harming my guys. They're hurting them. And now I'm just going to make them go away. You know, and that's, and you're just like, what do I want to select? What makes sense for this tactical situation? Yeah.

And then you just do it and guns go quiet and everyone's happy. What about, have you ever flown a mission where you went Winchester? Winchester for the audience means out of ammunition. I never did in theater. I may have gotten pretty close, but...

I've never been in a situation where I needed bullets. I've gotten close to being Winchester, but I don't think I fully emptied the gun. Well, let's talk about that specific one.

moment in time? Yeah, so all these situations are very similar because that's basically what we do. And in this case, I think it was like we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere and we're seeing muzzle flashes from a tree line, but you can't really pinpoint the point of origin. You're just like, I know that that's an enemy position and they're ambushing these friendlies who are pinned down

And you might want to like, there's a whole variety of factors on weapon selection. Like you might not want to put a bomb there because of collateral damage concerns. You know, again, there's just so many factors of what you decide. But in this case, we're like, let's just strafe the tree line until these guys can break contact and keep moving. And so Wingman and I just kind of set up like, we call it like a race car pattern.

to ship and just did multiple passes on this tree line until pretty quickly they broke contact and blasted out of there. So yeah, this is like more like suppressive fire at this point. - Gotcha. Which weapon system do you like utilizing the most on the A-10? - It's gotta be the gun. - The gun? - Yeah, and then second would be Maverick missiles, but the gun is awesome. - Can you talk about that, another experience?

Yeah. So it was funny. I was flying with Carl, this legend. And like, you know, at this point, I'm like, I think I'm a major. He's a lieutenant colonel, but...

He's just, he's such a legend that I'm like, okay, I don't want to embarrass myself. You know, so I'm acting like a lieutenant when he's like a general officer or something, you know? Like, sir, how do you like your coffee? Like, hey, we get to fly together. I just don't, I want to...

I don't want to lose his respect, you know? - Yeah. - So he's like just professional all the way down, very little expression. Here's our mission. Here's what we're doing. I'm flying on his wing and we're going to support an infill, you know, and it's at night now and we're out there and he needs gas. So he goes to the tanker and then this, of course, this thing just pops off with him gone.

And he's like, damn, you porkchop, wait for me. I don't know if he actually said that, but you could tell he was like, he's like, where are you at? What's going on? He's just like, he's getting to the tanker and wants to get back as fast as he can because he hadn't shot a laser Maverick yet on that trip. He hadn't had the opportunity to. So anyhow, I knew that because we had talked about it.

And I'm like, "I know exactly what we're gonna do. Like, I'm gonna set up this attack." And the ground commander requested a laser Maverick for this particular target. And I just set it up to where he rolled off the tanker,

And then I was wheeled up around the target. And then he just came in, got a good spot on the laser energy, got it within proper range, rifled off the Maverick. And then I provided the terminal guidance and we crushed the target. And then came back around and strafed the follow-up targets together. Damn. It was like...

Like, it was awesome. - That's badass, man. - Oh, and then on the way back, Carl, like, now, it was so cool, 'cause now we're like best buddies. He's like, "Porkchop, that was awesome!" Like, he dropped the stoic warrior for just like, just a few minutes. - That's awesome, man. - Yeah.

So was that your final deployment? Yeah, that was my final deployment. My daughter was born like just prior to that. So I want to say she was like, I don't know, four months old when I left. And by the time I got back, she was like a year old.

And so, and I had volunteered for that deployment and promised my wife, like, if I get sent, you know, I'm happy to go, but I won't volunteer. Like I won't, you know, force the issue. - You won't chase it. - Yeah. I'm like, I've done everything I ever set out to do in this jet times 10, you know? So I'm happy with what I've done.

And yeah, so I get back from that deployment and I pick up my first instructor assignment in the same location, which was cool. So we didn't have to move. So I moved from the operational squadron over to the training squadron. And so now serving as an instructor for those new pilots coming straight out of pilot training. So yeah.

kind of full circle from where I started now. How'd that, I mean, were you a tough instructor? I think I was kind of a Santa Claus. Really? I just, I don't know. I held the standard because, you know, what the Air Force needs is competent, you know, proficient A-10 pilots. Yeah.

But they were, I feel like they were pretty damn good. They worked their ass off and they'd been through so much that, I mean, maybe, I don't know. I didn't feel like I had to be a hard ass. I just had to uphold the standard. So when you went to instructor duty, it was, you were, it was...

They've been through all the phases. Now it's the A-10 pilots. Yeah. So, like, I got to fly with students on their very first flight in the A-10. That has to be pretty cool to see. It was awesome. I, like, some people scoff at instructor duty, but it was one of my favorite times in the Air Force. Like, they're just, they're so excited about every mission. I mean, some people, you know, it's like early in the phase, you're not doing anything particularly exciting. You're just excited.

flying around the flagpole, getting them familiar with the jet. But to them, it's exciting because it's brand new. So I thought it was awesome. It was very rewarding. - When did you separate from the military? - So I basically did that for a while. I stayed on as an instructor and then I became the director of ops for the training squadron. So writing the syllabus and things like that.

And then I got picked up for squadron command out at Avon Park in Florida. And that's a training facility. So it's not where they send their future four stars, you know, but like for a guy like me that was prior enlisted and made it back to the hog, it was, it was a,

great honor, you know, so just run this, uh, this basically the training compound for exercises, did that for a couple of years and then came back to Tucson and, uh,

I was able to stay flying during that assignment, came back to Tucson, taught for a while. And then at the end of that, again, it was just more kind of like neck and back issues, kind of coming back, doing a lot of staff work. And at that point just decided that I was basically done and ready to hit the door. - Yeah, you had mentioned at breakfast that you know when you're done without a doubt. - Yeah.

Was there anything in particular that, I mean, you're fresh out. You got out on 2023. Yeah. I mean, so, yeah, there was a few factors. Like, first and foremost, I was just kind of physically spent. Like, I was a spent force. Like, from all the back and neck issues, I went, like,

I went so long, I couldn't even feel half my hand. They put me on pain meds. We were doing different things to try to eke out a few more months. You know what I mean? - Yeah. - Just kind of like, what am I doing? I fly one sortie and for the next week, I can't even rotate my neck. The Air Force is gonna move on just fine without me, you know?

So I just, I was just feeling it. And then the Air Force was changing too now. So, you know, I had come in, I think I said I enlisted December 99, you know, so we're like over 20 years later now. And, you know, I was a squadron commander during COVID, during all the riots, you know, during the, you know,

the Trump presidency, you know, all the Russia collusion, hoax narrative. And it's just going like, what are we doing as a country? Like, this is not what I signed up for. Like, you know, we all believe in this, like, you know, this colorblind meritocracy. Like, you put in the work, this institution will...

give you the ability to reach your potential. You know, America needs war fighters. And if you are willing to do what it takes, no matter, you know, what you look like, where you came from, we're going to give you that opportunity. And I actually remember, so it was like 2020, riots kicked off, and the chief of staff of the Air Force put out a video. This guy, C.Q. Brown. And I was like, oh, great. Like,

he's going to be kind of a reassuring voice, you know? Like, I figured we're all kind of wired the same way. And he was going to put out a great statement about how this is a great country, and I was looking forward to hearing it, you know? And then I listened to his video, and I don't know if it's just the way I interpreted it, but it was like not at all what I was expecting. It was like kind of that...

I don't know, woke race communism, grievance kind of mindset about how awful, you know, his career was and how everyone was racist. And I don't know, maybe I'm over-reading into it, but I'm just going like, can't we hear like a unifying voice, not more grievance, you know? Yeah. And so just stuff like that's happening and I'm basically just over it. Yeah. I'm going like,

The whole DEI thing is just so toxic for the military. It's like if you start injecting this quotas and requirements and this and that, it completely diverges from the institution that I love, which I truly believe. And every commander I ever served with was DEI.

and they didn't care who you were, like where you came from, what the color of your skin was. They didn't care about any of that. And if you were good, like you were gonna be respected and you were gonna get all the opportunities. And it just felt like they were shifting to something else, you know? Just kind of a combination of all that. I remember talking to my commander when I was, my group commander when I was a squadron commander,

about going to Air War College. And it's not that I'm some fantastic officer, but I think so many people were separating that they had a lot of slots available. It's just like, hey, what do you want to do for school? So if you go to Air War College, it's kind of get your ticket punched at 06 and group command. And I talked to my wife about it, and it's just like,

I don't want to do this. I don't want to move every 10 months physically over it. And I don't even know what the hell our leadership is saying on half of this stuff. So I just decided it was time for us to go. And, uh,

So told him I was going to get out. And then that's why I was able to get back to Tucson and picked up another instructor tour, which is at that point is basically you're saying, hey, I'm not on the path to promotion and I'm just waiting to get out. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I can't imagine, you know, I talk to guys that are still in and like guys like yourself and women who have recently retired and man, the morale is,

It just seems like it's at an all-time low, you know? They can't get anyone to join. I mean, it's like, how hard should it be to get young men to come shoot guns and fly airplanes and hang out with their friends? I mean, it's awesome. I think I want everybody to have that opportunity if they want it. But it's making it so divisive. Yeah. Well, I mean...

There's so many agendas, it seems like, being shoved down everybody's throat. I mean, I get asked that all the time. I'm sure you do too, probably, on social. You know, you got young adults asking if I would serve in the military now or should they serve. And that's a tough question for me. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I don't really agree with anything we're doing.

And I don't agree with any of the agendas coming out. I mean, why are we talking about sexual preference in a warfighting machine? Why is that relevant? It's not.

Why does it keep getting brought up? - Dude, I remember going to MacDill Air Force Base in the summer of 2020 for a medical appointment and in the hospital were all these flyers and signs up that had like the LGBTQIA flag with like the BLM fist superimposed on the front of it. And thinking like, how is this acceptable? This is like far left,

you know, divisive political imagery. But in the military I served, prided itself on being nonpartisan, being neutral. We serve the American people, you know? Like, we're not... You leave your politics at home. You weren't even allowed to speak out about that kind of shit if I remember correctly. I mean, it's been a long time. I left in 06. I came in during Don't Ask, Don't Tell. But, I mean...

What are your thoughts when people ask that question? You know, I've thought about it a lot. And I think I would be giving bad advice if I talked to a guy just like me and shut him down and told him, you can't do this because now it's ruined. And then it's like, what are you supposed to do? Kid living in his car that has...

you know, tons of ambition, but no direction. And it's like, fly these jets, do these things. It's like, do it. If me telling you not to do it would have stopped you, you probably weren't going to make it anyway. But go do it and serve honorably. And we're going to need people that have that experience. And we're going to need good people because hopefully this madness ends and

reasonable people take charge again. So go do it and do the best you can and serve with honor and don't do anything that violates your conscience. I mean, one thing they teach us all, I hope they're still teaching it, is that you are not to fall unlawful orders, you know? So just know that we might be going into an era where that's actually relevant, you know? So

I would say do it. I mean, there's amazing benefits. I had the time of my life. I had so much fun. I served with the most amazing people. And I want that to be an opportunity for young people to continue doing. So I say, if you want to do it, go do it. But just know that there may come a time where you have to actually do

uh stand up and say no i'm not doing that yeah that's good advice you know i i tell them if you like the direction that the country's going going and starve them out kind of thing if you do when you get up there to the ranks hold your ground man like don't fold like all these other fucking upper brass i mean look at look at she's and then i'd also tell them i say you know there's a lot of

Nothing's ever what you think it is, in my experience. And you're not joining the military that you probably think you are. And times have changed. And, you know, and man, it's just, it's really disheartening. It breaks my heart to see what everything is turning into. And, you know, a lot of there's the argument about, and I get it, it bothers me too, you know, the, well, we have to have a military system.

Who's going to defend the country? Well, we have a Second Amendment. And so if this country gets invaded, guess what? We're all in the fucking military now, buddy. And there's a lot of guns in this country. And there's a lot of people that know how to use them. And it would be extremely hard for somebody to invade. Yeah, I don't think it's feasible. At least with today's technology. I don't either, you know. I see where you're coming from, and

kind of my darker angels just wanna say, tell everybody to starve the beast. Don't send your kids to die for pedophile rights in Uganda or whatever the latest thing they're sanctioning someone for.

Yeah, so I... Is that a thing? There was this recent event where Uganda passed a law that was deemed anti-LGBT. And in that included, I think, capital punishment for pedophiles, which is a pretty good law. Seems appropriate to me. Yeah.

But then there was like massive outrage from D.C., from the left and the right, and they got like sanctioned for it as a violation of human rights. Sanctioned from, what did we get from Uganda? Some sort of aid. Oh. I mean, I'm out of my wheelhouse here, but it's like, you just see, what are our values? What do we, is it hard work, treating people fairly, or is it, let's go spread the word?

Gay rights overseas, that's the only thing I see. I mean, like... Utilate children. Yeah. Rip them from their homes. Let them make a decision that's going to affect the rest of their life when they can't even smoke a fucking cigarette until they're 18 or drink a beer until they're 21. Like, that's our value system? That's what it is now. If that's the case, like, what's the point of any of this, right? Like...

Why would anyone sacrifice to prop that up? I don't know. So you moved to Oregon. Yep. And now you're working a branch. How's that learning curve? It's awesome, man. You know, we've talked about the kind of demands of military life, all these moves, you know. And as I'm moving around at the end of my career, I'm watching my oldest daughter grow

go from this like the brightest light full of joy and happiness to kind of like shutting down, you know? Like we move from Tucson to Florida and then she makes new friends.

And then my beautiful Sarah comes along and she makes friends. And they're like, we're getting into a good routine there, but it's a two-year assignment. Then it's the third move for my oldest, Holly, back to Tucson. But now everybody's gone that she knew then. And I just see her kind of...

shutting down. Like she didn't, you know, at this time she's like seven, eight years old. She doesn't want to make new friends. She's not being outgoing. She's kind of lashing out at mom and it's difficult. And I'm going like, man, like every child is different, right? But I see this child is not going to do well with this lifestyle and we got to do something different. And so I'm

I started looking at this going like, okay, do I want to do the airlines? Do I want to go, you know, the Air Force paid for me to get an MBA. So do I want to go to corporate America? Like, what am I going to do? It's basically a blank slate. It's like graduating high school again, right? And I'm looking at all the time away, all the long days from my family and thinking like,

My wife was successful. I'm doing pretty good together. We don't need a ton of money to make it, so why don't we do something where we can really just pour into these kids and invest in our family and completely off the beaten path. So I decided to forego airlines, forego corporate America, and we bought...

an old dairy farm that hadn't been operational in like 30 years, all overgrown with briars and alders and barn was leaking and, but there was, it was still there. And I just decided to step off onto this journey of transforming this property that had just kind of gone into disarray back into a functional cattle ranch. So yeah,

Yeah, just been a lot of time, you know, working outside, homeschooling the kids. So building fences, you know, planting grass, trimming trees, clearing out brush, you know, doing roofing. Just manual work outside. And that's basically what I've been doing since I got out. Is that therapeutic for you? Oh, it's amazing. I just...

I don't know. I think it took me at least, you know, six to nine months to even begin to understand the amount of stress I was under on active duty. And yeah, it's just reconnecting with nature, you know. Yeah. You're just outside every day. You kind of live by the natural conditions. Like, it's like, okay, what's the rain looking like?

What's the temperature? What's the sun exposure? How's my grass going to do? Also, back surfing. So what's the swell look like? You're surfing again? Yeah. Nice, man. Nothing like I did when I was younger, but taking my girls out surfing, going with my dad. He was always a surfer. Damn, that's awesome. So, yeah, it's just, it's like, it's a chance to take each day and maximize it for what's important to me. Are you...

Like I said, I've been following you for a while on X. And man, you posted 4th of July, Independence Day. You posted a photo of your daughter, one of your daughters. What is that, a 22? That's a 22 mag. Yeah, walking in the creek barefoot. How old is she there? Seven. Seven years old. I think the caption was like,

the European mind can't fathom this level of freedom or something. I was like, holy shit, that is amazing. That is so fucking American. It's awesome. But are you guys like, are you 100% self-sufficient out there? I mean, we are still connected to the power grid and we still go to the grocery store. We probably, I don't know, produce 80, 90% of the calories we eat.

Just from, I do Angus, grass-fed, grass-finished beef. So it's really difficult to fully comprehend what you're eating, even if you shop at the highest end, natural grocers or whatever it may be.

You can't really know exactly what you're putting in your body, what you're putting in your kid's body, unless you raise that food from the ground up. So yeah, to just, you know, see a calf born and watch it grow and, you know, process steers and put it in the freezer and make, you know, feed it to your family. It's just, it's the most rewarding feeling ever.

Are you guys growing too? Yeah, we have a huge garden, but just for personal use. Greenhouse? Yeah, we got a greenhouse. Man, like you guys got it made out there. Yeah, it's a little slice of paradise. It looks amazing. And it makes me jealous every time I see you post a picture of your property. But yeah, you know, with the homeschool thing, I mean, we're thinking about doing homeschooling

but it's always this like issue of, you know, are the kids going to be socialized enough? And so somebody who's going, who's doing it, I mean, what, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, you've, you look pretty isolated out there. Yeah. We're, we're not too far from civilization. You know, it's like, it's within, you know, you be in civilization in 30 minutes, so it's not crazy, but, um, um,

Yeah, it's something you have to think about and I think plan for. I honestly think moving around in the military every couple of years is probably harder on kids and socially than homeschooling. And homeschooling now looks very different than it did like when we were kids because so many people are doing it. You set up these cohorts filled with homeschoolers that have like

similar values. You know, we're all Christians. We all want to raise our kids with good Christian values. And they meet once a week. And that day looks a lot like a traditional classroom. So they're in there with, I think they're,

It's growing so fast. Where do you do it? Is it like move around to people's property? No, a really awesome family that's done really well in real estate just bought a property and completely renovated it for the school. And it's just like a community resource now for homeschoolers. No kidding. Yeah, it's amazing. And like my wife was a, you know, like we said, she went to Vanderbilt. She taught chemistry and she teaches chemistry

chemistry course there to like all the kids who are like junior high, high school age. And then there's just amazingly talented people there. So I would say homeschool nowadays looks a lot more, it's like merges homeschool and traditional school. It's just on your own terms. That's interesting. You know, I had this, I mean, we're a little way, actually we're not far out now, but we had a

several families over to our house that all have kids around the same age. And I had this idea where it sounds like very similar, where except we would all pitch in. And because everybody's concerned about what the public schools are teaching now and the private schools and who's coming. And like in this state, we have this wave, ungodly amount of people from California, Illinois, New York. They're all moving here.

And it's raising a lot of concerns. I mean, some of these neighborhoods around here, 60% of the people in some of these neighborhoods are California. This is Tennessee. Oh my gosh. It's driving all of the locals out of here. None of them can afford to live here anymore. And we're not talking, we're even talking like well-to-do young professionals. Can't afford a house? Yeah, like attorneys. Like we have a friend who's in an,

a newer attorney who's built a hell of a business and she's got to move out of here because they can't afford it anymore. But anyways, all this influx of people moving from all these states that are completely upside down, it's raised a lot of concern to people that have our type of values. And I'm just curious what you think of this. I had this

idea where we get a bunch of like-minded family friends together who have kids around the same age and we all pitch in money to buy a piece of real estate. So it turns into a

Everybody has skin in the game. It's a real estate investment. You turn that investment into a school. It's not a business. It's a real estate investment that just so happens to be where we homeschool all of our kids. And

And everybody, like I said, everybody pitches in. We all pitch in. We get a teacher. And then everybody has different expertise. We've got a finance guy. We've got healthcare professionals. We've got businessmen. We've got entrepreneurs. You know, we've got all these...

all these specialties that don't get, especially how to manage money. Look at what the fuck is going on in this. Nobody can manage their own money. Everybody's drowning in debt because they don't know any better. And then at the end, the investment liquidates and the equity gets divvied back up into the percentage that you pitched in.

I think that's a great idea. Do you know Tucker Max? Have you ever seen him? Is that the guy that... Is that the I hope they serve beer in hell guy? Yeah. He is so cool. Do you know him? I know him. I'm going to introduce you guys. No way. Are you shitting me? He's come full circle. He is like... You would be shocked with this guy. He has a bunch of kids. He raises sheep.

And he did exactly what you're talking about. They like bought or built a school with a bunch of like-minded families. I think he may be writing a book on it now on like what he's doing now. But yeah, he's hilarious and just a really cool person. But they basically did that. It sounds similar to what we did and it works really well. And I think the demand signal will be off the roof, you know, because-

Everyone's looking at the public school system, even in the so-called good school systems. And even in some of the reddest areas in the country, the public school systems are little propaganda-making machines. And I don't know, everything we just did and assumed was normal for our childhoods. I think we're all coming to the realization like,

oh, you can't trust that these people are giving your kids proper education and values. And I mean, my, if you're like,

Socially, I think our kids are fine. They do swimming, they do theater, they do all kinds of stuff in the community. And then academically, they're like off the charts. So when you get that one-on-one time, plus my wife's amazing, but you don't have to slow down if they need to move on and you don't need to...

If they need extra work on some area, you don't just skip it. You make sure they understand it. So, I mean, my oldest, when she took her last, she took like this, I think it's called the Stanford 10. It's a standardized test.

And then they like categorize what is your equivalent grade average. She was in first grade and they rated her in like 10.5 for her like overall academic achievement. So it's like... I don't know what that means, 10.5. So it's saying she's basically like a sophomore in high school. Are you fucking serious? Yeah.

What? Yeah. I mean, she's very intelligent. Holy shit, dude. When she was seven, she read every Raoul Dahl book. She's a reader. And my youngest is amazing, too. They're killing it. They're going to be so far ahead academically. I mean, I do their math.

just to give my wife a break because she was doing all of it for the whole time. And then this year I took over the math. So, and I enjoy it. And not only is it kind of fun to teach them math, but you're bonding because you're giving them

like an hour of direct one-on-one attention. And it's just you and them, and you're working through these problems. And, you know, they're not always into it, and you got to motivate them and get them moving. But it's just an incredible experience. How do you teach them both at the same time? So how we do it is, and we've done it different ways. Used to be my wife just did it all. And then what we've evolved to is...

My wife does, like she does all the like core curriculum and while she's doing, teaching one of the girls, I'll teach the other one math and then we'll switch. Oh, okay. Yeah. And you can knock it out in a short amount of time. Like if you do like two hours of focused work every day, that is probably more than they're getting in eight hours at a public school with all the waiting and the disruptive children and

All the other issues, it's these little mini prisons, you know, creating factory workers or whatever it's tailored for when it was derived. But yeah, you just do that focused work for a couple hours. You do all kinds of other activities that are educational, like taking care of animals, taking care of a garden, etc.

I've taken my girls flying. So if they want to, I'm an instructor. They can be certified pilots before they get their driver's licenses. I like how you disqualified yourself. I mean, I am an instructor. I can teach it. I know. I can do it. Oh, my gosh. So like...

I can teach him how to fly a Cessna. But yeah, so you're like, you have the core curriculum, which is a classical education, which is like what you think of, what you thought every student was learning, like the classics and basic math, like sentence structure, all this stuff is like what you're actually working on. And then outside of that is just like, what are their interests? Like,

singing lessons, piano lessons, swimming, all that stuff is just, that could be considered school, but it's just kind of extracurricular stuff. - Yeah. I mean, I wanna teach my kid how to run a business, you know, and like both of my kids, like I can't wait. I don't wanna skip any steps, but I mean, it seems to me that you can make homeschool whatever you want it to be. - Oh yeah.

Think about all the experiences you have in your life. Like you're a Navy SEAL. All the other things you did after that, started a business from the ground up, all this knowledge and all these lessons learned, all the mistakes you made that you wish you could have avoided. And I just had this epiphany. It was like,

If you don't take the time to communicate that to your children, they're not going to learn it through osmosis. They're not going to learn it magically. Like it just, you need to take your time and spend that time with them and teach them. And it's like, when we're out feeding animals every morning, we're just talking about life, you know, like, and what they're going through and, you know, who they're fighting with and who's bugging them and who, you know, whatever it may be.

And it's an opportunity just to bond with them, you know? So I just had this epiphany at the end of my career, 'cause we don't talk about this a lot, but a military career, you know, people always thank me for my service or thank you for your service. And it's like, I had a great time. I did exactly what I wanted. Like I had so much fun.

uh, thank my wife. You know, like the, the family is the one who I think sacrifices the most for our high speed careers. And, um,

And I just had this epiphany. I'm like, they're not going to know about anything I did or care if we don't have a relationship. And so how you build a relationship is you are deliberate about it and you spend time with them and then you can teach them the things that you've learned in your life. But if you fail to do that, don't be surprised when

You lose that bond and, I mean, we've all seen it a million times, you know, and then off they go into the world without that anchor. Yeah. You know? That's very true. Is there anything we should cover that I haven't touched on? No, I think we hammered it all. I do have one more question. It has to do with your wife. But, you know, being out there...

raising and growing your own food, raising and growing two little girls, homeschooling them, all that land to take care of. How do you find time to get on a date with just your wife? Does that happen? Yeah. So thankfully, we've got parents that live there. And so they're so great. You know, they're

As they get into their, you know, 70s, they just want to spend as much time as possible with those little girls. So they go over there once a week and allows us to get a date. So you just have to prioritize it. And if you have a farm, which you'll find out if you do this, like the work never ends. Like you could work on it forever.

24-7. You could have a whole crew and the work would never get done because it's unending. So what I decided was like, where's good enough? And then I'm going to schedule work. You know, there's things you have to do, like feed the animals and stuff like that. But that's not that big of a deal. It's just a morning routine, you know? And then you just have to decide how much time you want to invest into additional projects. So you're like, okay, I'm going to work out in this field

X amount of hours today, and then I'm going to be done at four. And then you just stick to it. So you just have to understand that the work will never be done. Do what you can and then move on with your life. Sounds like a business. But thank you for that advice. And I know I'm going to wind up doing that at some point in time, hopefully sooner than later. But yeah,

Well, Dale, man, it was, I'm so glad we met. And it was an honor to interview you and get your life story and your experience as a pilot in combat. And I know you're coming out of the website and you're selling beef. And so all of that will be linked below. But man, just God bless you. And I just wish you and your family the best.

Thanks for having me. It was awesome. Hey, it's Rich Eisen here. Join me and my compadre, Chris Brockman, every Monday on the Overreaction Monday podcast. Rich, Jameis has taken the Browns to the playoffs. Dude, why can't they win seven, eight games to finish the year? Why not? I'm not saying it's no why not, but this is a definitive statement that's clearly an overreaction and it's perfect fodder for a show like this one. I appreciate you coming out of the gate hot.

Come react or overreact with us. Overreaction Monday, wherever you listen. It's game over. Over, man.