185 - This Operation Was Legitimately Insane ft. Griff - Veteran's Month | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 185
02:36:29 Share

So my whole thing is if you shoot at my guys, I'm just gonna f*** them. One team, one fight. Done. I just wasn't prepared to see that. I'm with that skull. Yeah, it's called fun. Contact left. Those military guys. Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys.

Hey everyone, it has been a while since I've sat and talked to y'all. It is Veterans Day month and we have something for this month. First, just as we did in April where we raised together $110,000, we are gonna do the same for Veterans Month. The entire month of November, we are dedicating it to the amazing men and women that served this country. This is our way of saying thank you for sacrificing so much.

and answering a higher call and also helping a lot of people along the ways. Is that good? Yo, what's that shirt, Eli? There's two shirts that we are donating 100% of proceeds for. My personal favorite, Undiagnosed. And I'm Dead Inside. Nick killed this one, my boy.

100% of proceeds from these shirts are going to three veteran nonprofits. We will pick those three nonprofits throughout the month. We are doing our research and due diligence to make sure they are causes that actually make change. This is how I feel we make a difference. It is helping people and giving people a voice that they might struggle with the idea of therapy or asking for help because it's not easy. War can change you and

it adds this new layer that you approach life differently it's hard to put into words you really do appreciate life but the hyper vigilance the depression they do take a toll work can be hard on a lot of people I've lost a lot of friends in war and then I lost more friends outside of war we want to make a change so it's easier and more normal to ask for help

And I think this is how we start. Again, 100% of proceeds from these two amazing new shirts, which Nick did kill, go to this amazing cause. And then a portion of all stuff on Unsubstore will also go to that amazing cause. Also, we got some new stuff that's going to surprise a lot of y'all.

And this entire month, we are focusing on veteran stories. As the one you're about to hear with Griff and his amazing story, these are the individuals where your jaw will drop with what they've experienced and what they went through and how strong they are in persevering once they got outside of the military.

We have Medal of Honor recipient Clint Romaché coming on. We have Cappy from Task and Purpose, Habitual Line Crosser. So many people for this entire month. It's dedicated to y'all and the amazing veterans out there that deserve a pat on the back and a little bit of help. One quick thing. I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and all our hearts for this amazing community that...

that we are blessed to have. Y'all go above and beyond so much and you push us to be better versions of ourselves each and every day. We try and push ourselves harder to never disappoint y'all. That is the standard because we wanna be here without y'all.

And we know that. We work for y'all at the end of the day, not the other way around. So each and every one of you, thank you from the bottom of all our hearts for how you push us, how you make us better men, and how your support never ceases to amaze us. Thank you, each and every one of you. And now enjoy this episode because holy moly, it's freaking dope. And because I've said community so many times, cheers. Love y'all.

Almost tequila. Dude, that is amazing. You guys look cute today. Fuck off. I know. Totally not a gay couple. And then they subconsciously match today. I wish I had a defense, Eli.

I don't. You got nothing. Nope, I got nothing. Alright, well we're fucking gay then I guess. Dude, but strong and powerful. Powerfully gay. Yeah. It's like military gay right there. Is that green? God. Military grade gay. Green gay. Oh, oh, oh. Now hold hands. I notice that you're on top. Guys, we swear we love boobs. Boobs are cool. Boobs are really cool. I love boobs. They feel like bags of sand. Uh...

We are good to go. Oh yeah, we'll get this crackdown going. We got an extra. Want to make you pop that one? Yeah. Get this. Okay. Three, two, one.

Hi everyone, welcome to the Unsubscribe Podcast. I am joined today by Eli Doubletap, the head motherfucker in charge of combat flip-flops, our friend Griff, Brandon Herrera, myself, Donut Operator. Thank you for being here. Hey, it's part of the Veterans Month thingy that we're doing. Woo, Veterans Month! Yay. We're just having a veteran every day.

Well, we have you always, Brandon. It's like our fourth podcast in a row having a veteran on. Well, technically a hundredth with Brandon. Shut up. This is like the one month you're not allowed. I know, Brandon. It's like, just not this month, bro. Just of all the months. This is Brandon's month, man. I'm like, I've got a daisy chain.

Of like episodes since he's made a joke. Like, damn it, now I gotta rip it down. It's just one. It always stays at one. Yeah. Days since last. Days since Force Valor. Poor Brandon. You love it. You don't. I love you guys. I know. I hate that it became that big of a thing. We'll have to find a creative way to kill that joke.

Like it's, it's coming soon. We'll figure it out. Me and Nick had some ideas, but we've got to, we've got to wrap it up in the universe. I think I still want, I, the, my one ask is we get you a dress green top,

And then all the medals that people bring you, you have to wear throughout and add throughout the live shows. So by the end, you are that general. The general Zhukov from the death of Stalin. He just throws back the coat and it's just full of medals. Or you just keep giving his name to recruiters and they just keep calling. I had a recruiter call me yesterday like three times. Really? Yeah. Dead serious. Technically, you still could enlist.

I don't know if I can. Brandon does the military. That's the new video. They had, but he called me like, it was a Fort Bragg recruiter calling me like four times yesterday. What day do they? I don't know. I never responded. Do I, I will say they have such bad, well, it's government. They're not talking. I remember getting out, being out of the military for a year or two. You probably had it happen too. And then recruiters would call and like, Hey, you ever thought about joining the U S military son? I'm like,

I just need to fuck with him and just respond back like, you sure I can get into the Patriot Missile Program? I'm fucking welcome back. I'm so happy you're here, Griff. We've got so many cool things going on right now. It's going to be an unboxing episode. I'm really excited about this. We are going to unbox a new thing because... Oh, man. Okay, you also brought some... I brought some history, yes. Dude, I want...

I'm so pissed at that box. Actually, let me see if it got dropped off. Yours hasn't shown up yet.

I've had yours in the making for months. Oh, no. I flew it halfway around the fucking world, and we're barely missing it on this podcast. Really? I haven't been told about this, I don't think. You have not. No. This is actually, like, it's dope. When Eli doesn't tell me about things, I get kind of scared just naturally, so I don't know where this is going. When Rich doesn't tell you stuff is when you get scared. I didn't know about that. Yeah. So you guys are actually really hard to shop for.

I mean, like just really like if you guys got all the cool stuff, you guys get to go hang out with all the cool like rock stars and shoot all the guns and do all the cool things. So like, what can I get you guys? That would be unique. And so I was like sitting there and like I can't like literally I was on my way to the airport. I got this. I got you some Namia Ka'ua, some war things. We like war stuff. War things. Right. So I've recently moved to the Big Island.

And I got a Hawaiian teacher. So he's a Hawaiian historian and Hawaiian weapons maker. So all the historical Hawaiian tools, 'cause they're very like Polynesian, like born culture. And I met him because my wife's Hawaiian and we were moving to Hawaii and she's like, you gotta be less white, you know? So we gotta, we gotta get you culturally appropriated. So she like, I went down and I took a class

at the four days of aloha in washington they have this big thing so obviously i took the weapons making class and i took the the poi pounding class and my teacher there was really cool and turns out he lives on the big island he's a fellow hunter and so we made friends and we've been hunting for the last six months and uh he makes some pretty badass stuff so um trout i got you first so no come on now oh shit man

Trying to find if that got delivered. It might have actually been delivered. It's just a live trout. So I got you some Hawaiian brass knuckles. So these are tiger shark teeth. They wrap around your hand.

Like this. Dude, Trout's so happy right now. Right, so it's like it's a hammer fist with a twist, but you can slice somebody up. So you got some Hawaiian brass knuckles. Dude, I'm gonna kill somebody with these. Tiger shark teeth. Well, that's intent. Thank you. I'm not gonna kill somebody with... Thanks, man. These are cool shit. That is really cool. You made this? No, I didn't make it. No, but we made it. Actually, I could say I made it because I held onto it as he was braiding it because he had one that he had...

He was supposed to give it to his dad. I was gonna buy it. He's like, dude, this one's my dad's. I was like, how fast can we make one? So I literally held it as he was making it. You were involved in the making of it. I was involved in the making of it. That's cool as shit, dude. Thanks, man. You're welcome, man. All right, so I feel bad, Cody, because I kind of came at you pretty hard about your ostrich boots last night. Do you want to explain that at all? About why ostrich boots are bad that I didn't know? So to make ostrich leather, you have to pluck an ostrich.

and leave it bald and then it has to heal until the scabs fall off of it. Then you kill it and then you make the leather. I feel fucking terrible right now. Cody's over there at dinner last night with a single Indian tear running down his cheek. He kicked up both boots at the beginning of the night and he slowly brought them down at the end of the night. So do you know what a hypocrite is? Slightly. Who is it?

Dude, Trout's wearing his brass knuckles right now. His shark knuckles. You're going to make Trout punch me right now? From my ostrich boots? This is the most Trout thing ever, though. I love it so much.

He doesn't take them off the rest of the night. I actually do at my house if you want. So when I was doing this weapons class, he brought out Marlin bills, which they form into daggers. And I know you've been doing a lot of videos of people getting stabbed and shit. And

I was like, dude, I'm not going to make this knife. He was like, why? I was like, because I am like kind of an animal lover and I love Marlin and swordfish and things like that. And I just, I'm not going to do it. But since you've been making all the videos on stabby people, I got you a Marlin Bill Shiv. That is cool. Dude, that's a fucking Shiv. That is a Marlin Bill Shiv. Yeah.

That's the best trout. I'm probably not going to kill trout with this later. So that is a Pa'oa'ahu. That's the name of his Pa'oa'ahu. And then yours is Pu'u Le'aniho. Just shake them. Yeah. Yours is Pu'u Le'aniho. And I'm sorry to all my Kanaka brothers and sisters here if I fucked that up. So I'm sorry. I'm still learning my own level. Trout's going to type this out. That is incredibly sharp.

Yeah. Dude, that's a gangster shit. And then show I got you because I know you're the one who makes everything happen here. And a car bomb? No. So these are an OP shell necklace. So if you ever see like the videos of Hawaii and the black sand beaches and the waves crashing up on big vertical cliffs.

This is a delicacy kind of crustacean that like hangs onto those cliffs. And for the guys to get them, they put on armor and like knee pads and everything else. They have to get out at the right time. And they just send down these cliffs to pick these out. But I got you a Opehe necklace. And then I got you a weapon as well because everybody's got to have a good weapon. But this is a cattle hair pick. So you can throw a nice little hair pick in there. But if you need it, you can pull it out and ship somebody with it. That's so cool.

Yes. Show the shiver. Show the shiver. Did Brandon's deliver or no? No, it has not delivered yet.

The suspense is killing me. It should. It's really fucking good. It's so good. I'm concerned. I also get very uncomfortable with gift giving. Tell them the gift. And we'll reveal it if it gets here in time or we'll insert it. No, Eli, I believe it's your turn. I think. Okay. No, I'll do yours first. We'll close him out. Uh-oh. We still got a lot of podcasts. Dude, I couldn't be more proud of you for running for congressman.

I really think that we need good people with common sense running for office that are going to represent the needs of the everyday people, right? People who care about the rights, they care about freedom of speech. They care about taking care of their families. They want to live in a safe environment in America. And like, it's really awesome to see people like you being willing to stand up and do the right thing. I appreciate it. Not enough people do that. So I'm really proud of you for doing that. I just, I hope that whatever we did with that run inspires more people to go out and do it themselves. Yep.

So I had, I commissioned a handmade custom Afghan rug that said, let's go Brandon on it. One of one, one of one. So they literally, it's actually so fucking funny. Yeah. I it's let's go Brandon. It's a, it's a Afghan handmade tapestry. It is the only one in existence. Probably the only one in existence.

probably the only one ever to be made but that was made in a home they've like sheared the freaking goats they made the wool they tied the knots in a home and it says let's go brandon and i have you a one of one custom afghan so i know you don't know this and i don't think my friends know this i collect afghan war rugs do you no shit yeah i did not know well now you have like i straight up like my closet upstairs is full of those mother

Yeah, we started bringing them in. Like, if you want a custom one, let me know. I'll make you whatever you want. That's fucking rad, man. Well, I appreciate that. Well, thank you, dude. Thank you so much. I'm really proud of you, dude. Well done. I appreciate that. We're going to open that on camera and, like, insert it in this. It's like, yo, this is what we actually, this is what Griff got our boy.

All right. That's fucking wild. He told me that. I was like, dude, he's going to love that. I did not know about collecting Afghan war rugs. I have some of the war rugs that they made. It was like a peace kind of thing, like a symbol of peace, but there was a bunch of Afghani war rugs that were made commemorating 9-11. And if you didn't know any better, you would think it's kind of like a rub it in kind of thing, but it's straight up. It's supposed to be like a peace rug with the dove and everything on it.

But I've got a couple of those in the closet. I think I gave you one for your Hilux. If it was from Saudi Arabia, then it's rubbing. Yeah. A lot of people don't know the history behind the war rugs. So when the Soviets invaded, all of the kids went out of school and the Soviets were brutal in Afghanistan. Yeah. They like, there's still just beautiful mountain ranges. If they were in America, they would be a national park. And outside of those mountain ranges, there's just rows for miles, hundreds of miles, like white rocks that are painted and,

And that represents landmines. You just don't go past the white rocks. And so they, but before they painted those rocks, there were just kids that didn't know any better. And, you know, on one deployment, we had some kid who picked up a dud mark 19 and smacked it on a rock and he's now missing his right arm. They drug him to the front gate and we had to fucking get him to the medics and get him heloed out of there. And so unexploded ordinance is a big deal. Yeah.

They didn't have paper. They didn't have pens. They couldn't go to school because of the invasion. But what they could do is they could weave rugs in their homes. And so the women knew that they had to educate their kids and what to stay away from. So they started doing in the patterns of the landmines. I stay away from these landmines, stay away from these grenades. Hey, if you see this type of helicopter, you need to stay away from it versus this one. This is an AK. So that's how the war rugs actually got started. It was an educational thing to keep kids from getting hurt.

to tell us. And then it turned into the story of wars, right? Because that's the only thing they can do in their homes. They got, they can shear wool. They can do it all in their house. They can tie it together. And that's one thing they can do in Afghanistan. So that's the tell their story. That's really fucking cool. I didn't know that. Yeah.

God, I love cultures and how they, even as you're saying they don't have pen or paper, but this is how we get that message into the next generation of kids. Big no, no, don't go around this stuff. And then also it becomes this thing that Brandon collects or like it's wild. Yeah, but when you say, for example, we do a Brandon Herrera war rug collection.

Which we're gonna do now. Oh god. To me it's just cool because it's like the history of warfare. Like no matter what it is, it's very cool to me. Like in my particular-tism, I guess, is firearms. It's like to me it's cool like from the 1700s all the way to modern day. Every way it's ever been done. Like that is just so fucking cool. I'm a ghost.

What are you doing? I'm here to tell you about Ghost Bag! Is this an ad? It might be an ad. Why are you in my bedroom? I don't know, scoot over, let's talk about it. Every ghost mattress has a 20 year warranty. Some even have a 25 year warranty. And you can try them out for 101 nights, worry free. If you don't like it, just send it back. I don't like this. No hard feelings.

One of our favorite things about GhostBed is that it has cooling technology. So if you get hot at night like we do down here in Texas, it's a lifesaver. I'm uncomfortable. But you're not hot, are you? I'm uncomfortable. But you're not hot, are you? GhostBed also offers bundles so they have everything you need. Just choose one of their four mattresses and pick your bundle. Why are you doing this to me? Four mattresses! Four?

Right now, GhostBed is offering 50% off all their products. Just use code UNSUBSCRIBE at checkout or go to ghostbed.com slash unsubscribe. Please buy some ghostbed.com slash unsubscribe. I'll be under your bed if you need me.

This could get past TSA. The new $20 trillion box cutter. It did get past TSA. So my kumu, which is a Hawaiian teacher, Kapono, made all of these. And if anybody here, if you guys give him a shout out, that is Namea Kaua. So N-A underscore M-E-A underscore K-A-U-A.

It means war things in Hawaiian, but that's his Instagram. If you guys want these on your own and you want to support a Hawaiian small business, you guys can get some of these for yourself. I hope everybody does. Cause that's fucking awesome. Chase. Thank you. Put it how he spelled it. I'll take a photo of it and send it to you. So you have the proper spelling too. I love the translation is just war things. This is a joke. Fast translation. Pinterest. Just war things. Just war things. That's a good shirt. Just war things. It's pretty funny. Yeah.

But I know rangers and rangers love tomahawks. I brought your Hawaiian tomahawk. You got a tomahawk? I'm not a ranger. Swordfish bill. That's fucking dope. That is a Hawaiian war club, a swordfish bill. They would take them, dry them out, and you would cleave somebody with that thing. Holy. Or you could stab them with it. Double-sided, dude.

we are putting this in the background of this to live on the set forever holy shit brother thank you so much yeah but you guys make a lot of things happen and uh you know with the war rugs or with what we're doing right now we're about to unbox dude dude dude i appreciate that has some half to it has half to it it's got a weight to it it doesn't look like it would but it does

I will just, I got it. Yeah. If I can say one thing, it's like, thank you. First off, thank you for all these amazing gifts. And then also just for being such an amazing human, like you are the individuals that we look up to and want to partner with or create these friendships with because you understand like it's camaraderie friendship and what brotherhood should be. And like when you're looking to even business partner, it's,

like you're one of the rare breeds that's what we could surround yourself like one in a million that's what finding individuals like you in our lives is one in a million and you hold on to those because you understand like you make the best of any situation you're giving you're an amazing human and then you nothing but positivity that you bring around you and and it's it's a rare thing and we are truly blessed to

have you at this podcast table and then to call you a friend like i mean that from the bottom of my heart brother thank you dude appreciate it i appreciate you we appreciate you carving out time to sit here and talk to us and tell stories and man it's it's been a lot of fun i've enjoyed it i've really enjoyed coming down here and hanging out and learning from you guys too so it's awesome it's it's it's hard to explain to somebody how heavy that thing is and if you had any kind of arm speed getting hit in the head with that thing would be fatal yeah

absolutely fatal. It doesn't look like it should have any weight. Like, that does not look heavy. Right, but as soon as you hold it and you feel it, it's like, holy... It's bone. Cultures, how, what they use, like, they made weapons out of what they... Oh, that's cool as sh**. It is how cultures adapt to their versions of war. They're like, yo, okay, this kills stuff. Okay, let's...

Let's fight with this thing. I mean, Cain and Abel with the first rock. Yeah, bro, that could have some swing to it. If you're really mad at someone. Or stabby to it. No, I have a beautiful bracelet that if I get into an altercation with, they're going to be like, how the fuck did a guy get murdered by a shark in Texas? Sharks needed braces. Oh, yes, the famous Austin land shark.

Yeah. Oh, dude. Thank you so much. Yeah, but it's been really cool to be out in Hawaii and have a teacher and like specifically a guy who is a historian. You can ask him all the questions because everybody asks me like, oh, Hawaiian gun laws and weapons and everything else. I tell you, like Hawaiians, they have a very rebellious culture. They love their fucking guns. And if you disrespect them, they will always throw hands.

And like, so if you go to the islands, be very kind to everybody you meet. Do not mistake the Aloha for weakness. That was something you said yesterday that kind of stuck with me. That's, that's really cool. Yeah. I like that. That's good.

my my new judgment hammer your judgment hammer yeah that's like shadow box worthy oh dude that is so gangster thank you so much yeah if you ever have daughters that's the one to club somebody with because it's not like they're going to be identified the tool on csi like what clubbed him like get killed by a swordfish like what is that

He fell into the swordfish pool. Just drop him off in the ocean? Oh, he got fucking stuck by a marlin. I guess he was an avid swimmer. We have cover stories already. Take your daughter's boyfriend deep sea fishing.

Oh, no. All right, Steve Irwin. Dude. So we've had the honor actually doing talking months ago, like almost a year. No, months. We got to speed track kind of essentially for like, hey, we're going to do this. Known you're probably been wearing it for a long, long, long fucking time. And that's combat flip flops. We'll go more into you starting that that time.

entire business venture, which is a wild story. But I remember you were the only guys that's like, hey, it's built for as a better combat flip-flops. Bad for running. Worse for fighting. There it is. Bad for running. Worse for fighting. I would wear them no matter what. I can run a mile in your guys' flip-flops every day.

I have. I've been wearing you guys' stuff for maybe fucking five years. I'm so tired of people hitting us up with our AKs, like, oh, you should have Brandon Herrera wear your stuff. Yeah, I know it. I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in your videos, and he's wearing it. I've been wearing that shit before I knew. I just saw it. Your mission statement was really cool. I didn't know anybody in our crew knew you guys. I just thought, oh, that's just really neat, and you make a great product. I bought...

My first one ran it through until my dog several years ago chewed it up. I remember that. And I was very upset because it was my favorite pair of flip-flops ever. But she was too cute. I couldn't be mad at her. But I just, you know, I've been wearing your stuff. I've probably bought three or four pairs. Yeah, I know. I see it. I kind of stalk you on the backside of it. But you don't want to be that guy who's like, hey, Brandon. Because it's so weird because you guys are famous, right? And it's...

Z-list celebrities. Yeah. At Walmart, we might get recognized one time. I'll go like X minus, you know. You just never want to be like, hey, you want to collab and do this and do that? I'm just thankful you guys work. I know people will see it. And I'm like, all right, that's cool. You guys have a great company. It's a great product. Well, thank you. Yeah, dude. We, I think...

I had a couple pair of AKs and it might be, I think I was like, Brian, have you ever seen these? I think you were the reason why I found out. Yeah. And then we started doing it and other people were like, yo, these are fucking dope. I had the, I don't know if you guys. I think it was your birthday back in the day. Yep. The first trip to Texas. Yeah. I was like, yo, you should check out these flip-flops. They're really dope. Yeah.

And I also had a pair of the red. What was the red? Tuk-tuks. Dude, I had Tuk-tuks. So I make those every now and then. Those are fun. Yes. And people are like, what the fuck are those ones? I was like, yo, these are dope. Look how vibrant they are. Yeah. But then you guys released a black one. So I would introduce it to the friends. And I would always wear it. I'd beat the shit out of them. Brandon would beat the shit out of them.

of them. So we knew you had this amazing product. I was like, oh, and then finally this year we actually talked me and Brandon and I have talked about doing Chonklas for a long ass time. We're the two Mexicans. We need some Chonklas. We need some Chonklas. You guys have some up close and personal experience with Chonklas? Well, yeah. It's called childhood. Yeah.

White people had one spoons. We had chonkles. I'm never unarmed. Yeah, exactly. So, and then Cody was into shoes. And so we were like, okay, Cody loves shoes. Nick does the shoe thing. Not much of a shoe guy.

We're like, "Uh," reach out to you. We started actually talking for the first time this year, like more in actual talks. And we hopped on a call. It was like, "Hey, you know what? Maybe we combine forces and do something together."

We hopped on a call and it went extremely easy. That's when I knew I wanted to work with you. The product's really good, but then you're just positive as fuck, which is a rare thing. And you were talking about Brandon and him running for election. That was during when you were running for election because he was super positive about it.

Yeah, I remember taking it. It was very, very strange to live that dual life because it was part of, you know, I had a lot of my life focused on, you know, running for office and everything that came with that, which was most of the time like living life on the road, like throughout the district, especially since it was the biggest district in Texas. It's like I could leave my house in the morning for an event at the end of my district that wasn't, you know, until 630 in the afternoon and barely get there on time. You need a plane. Yeah.

a plane would have been very helpful during that. Yeah. Um, but I mean, it was just like so much of our time was, was spent on that. But I remember like showing up to it, to lunch meetings and, and taking time out of it and us talking about the shoe thing while we were,

Yeah. Building the idea. And then it was watching that, having that conversation. And then you and Andy streamlined that process for us. We all hopped on a call. We were like, Hey, we want to do flip flops and then choose. Cause Cody had a really good idea. It's like, Oh man, this is what police officers, Leo ones, this, this would help a lot of us with just an easy product that lasts, that you can beat the shit out of plane, uh,

but looks cool if you just want to wear on casual footwear. Yeah. And then we're adding on to those as we expand into that. He's like, next. And then,

God bless working with you guys and how fast we can implement something. It's like something's wrong or we need to change something. It's like, oh, this, this. And we get to experience this new thing, footwear, which we've never done. But making that as easy as possible. I think that's one of the benefits of working with a company whose founders are still involved in the process. Because as soon as, in my experience anyway, and I'm sure you've got the same experience just in the business sense. As soon as you lose the founder,

the original driving force behind something, everything just goes to shit. Yeah. Like people, you will never find somebody who believes in your product or your mission statement more than you do. And you can see that. Yeah. You guys still stand by it. And then it was like, Hey, this, this, and then months and months of like headache, getting through everything, fighting through it. And then we finally, the headache is chasing you to get shit done.

That is really it. That's the headache. Like this, this, here, hand it off. And then I know Andy buses.

because i'm like doing whatever it is live show what whatever aspect i'm like trying to jump to the next one pepper box was a terrible idea to launch at the same time as everything else so like hey we should do like eight businesses at once that sounds like a great great it's like just cram it all in dude just get it all over irons in the fire i like irons in the fire let's throw eight more irons in the fire this sounds great

scrambling. What is it? Eckhart Tolle, the power of now, right? You can have too much of that if you're, if you're not.

Conscious of what? Conscious of, oh yeah, power now. I'm just going to do this right now. And then you don't finish it right now. You start it right now, but then you're committed to finish it. So you have 18 different things in the fire at once. That's the power of now is the side product of Adderall. It's what it is. Because it is one of the few times I'm pretty good at having a...

decent sized workload and it's like meetings. Okay, we can structure this out. And then finally you do hit that point where it's like, oh, oh, oh, fuck. You have plates on plates on plates. And then you're thankfully a great team to action on each one. Andy, you have been fantastic to work with because it is like, here's this. Andy knows I'll send a picture and then we'll go from there. I'll be like, okay, picture. I mean, Eli, we spend a lot of time talking about it. Let's just show people what we're talking about. That's a great idea. Are you ready?

Babe, let's bring out Big Daddy. Well, bad idea. Who wants better sex? What'd you do with my wife? Don't worry about that. She's fine. The best way to get started is by going to adamandeve.com Adam and Eve is offering 50% off just about every item. And that includes free shipping plus brush processing. Where is she? Didn't I already tell you that she's fine?

Adam and Eve wants to make your life easy. Plus 100% free shipping and rush processing on your entire order. It doesn't matter how much you spend or what you buy, all of it will be sent discreetly, fast, and to you for free. Why do you keep doing this? Bring more pleasure and satisfaction into your bedroom.

Just go to adamandeve.com and select any one item. It could be an adventurous new toy or anything you desire. Just enter offer code UNSUB at checkout. That's UNSUB, U-N-S-U-B, at adamandeve.com. This discount is specific to this podcast, so be sure to use code UNSUB at checkout. 100% off free shipping and get it fast with rush processing. Code UNSUB.

So I have yet to see these. Okay, so these are still a prototype box. They're on their almost final iteration. We're just getting all the baselines done. I am, dude, fucking first off, most gangster. Like all this little work that has went into this. We put a lot of work in the box. I mean, like, it's goddamn right. It matters, right? It does. Like, it's the experience. It smells good.

I know. I'm like trying to do it service without like, okay. Give us the Vanna. Come on now. The Vanna White. Yeah. I couldn't be more proud of the team. And just like the amount of people because I've seen, I've been to the factories. I know the people that are working on them is the volume of people that get employed, the number of families that get fed. Oh, I know. Because you were edging them the whole time. Like, let's show them the fucking shoe. So those are the tiger stripes. Beauts.

It's that new smell. Dude, your team's like insane. Everyone's smelling them before they think. With the unsub on the rib. Unsub on the bottom of the shoe. The unsub tag. Yeah, the laces look tight. What do you think of the boxing? I know when you were saying that, you're like, holy shit, okay. I couldn't be happier. The sublimation, because that's the thing. People don't get it. We had to buy...

when you're printing on a fabric, like, oh, you know, so we did, so we were licensed to make cockaflaj. So we have a multicam pattern that looks like dicks. I ran a competition using your cockaflaj shoes, by the way. Thank you. Just this weekend. Yeah, appreciate that. And the very first run we did, we worked with a sublimator and they came up pink. So we had pink dick shoes that we paid for and shipped all the way up. And so sublimation, I just never understood how complicated it was to actually print something on a shoe.

but those came out chef's kiss oh my god dude i love tiger stripe like s-tier camo pattern it's one of my favorites that's why this was one of the first ones and what's crazy is we have rhodesian we have are we doing roadie prints the first one yeah oh yeah we got roadies coming in yeah so those are all during the december launch when it actually goes live but we also have that's hot cock-a-flaw shoes

How do you like those slip-ons? They were really nice, actually. I was surprised. I went the entire competition. I thought I was going to have to swap shoes at the end, but they were very good. How happy were a mom took you in a payless to get new shoes every year for school? This is payless. I know, dude. You want to smell some payless? Get in there. Get that payless. Get that payless. The BTS on Patreon was just me huffing shoes because...

It reminds me exactly like Cody said. It's like mom taking you back to Payless to go buy shoes before school. You get that one. We got Spauldings. You have $10 limit. I just want Chucks, mom. Speaking of which, right? Oh, you guys just redesigned Chucks. Fuck you. Right? I wish Nick was here to throw the helmet on and throw the keyboard over the side because if you knew how footwear were made...

you know chucks are just like glued on the outside and guys who have worn them in our environment they blow out the sides and they fall apart often like ours are different we use actual real rubber on our outsole so they're super sticky and that's the one thing i've noticed like when you wear these shoes i mean you got to be careful when you walk up to people because they're really quiet

and you're gonna freak people out and then you get really good grip on stuff but our outsoles are actually stitched onto the uppers so that prevents that blowout that you have so they're just built better and I hate to say it but a shoe is a shoe is a shoe and like it may look similar this is way better and it has zero Communism zero communism these are the ones that I want

I want these. I'm going to get a set or two of those. The unsub camo? I think that's literally what it's called on the box. Unsub camo. All right, got it. Understood. Have you heard it? If you heard that beat, you'd be like, I've definitely heard that song. I love those so much, dude. This is so cool. The contrast of it. I don't know if the colors are coming through just right, but when you throw them on your foot...

Dude, look behind you. It's literally those two, the two lights at the base. And you look at that side and the other lights. Look at the sign. Yeah. It's just unsub colors. We're like, let's make bright, vibrant fucking shoes with a dark. I did not realize this was that dark blue leather. Andy chose that.

These shoes are the first shoes I've seen Eli actually wear in a long time. Like, unless it was a formal event. And then I try not to wear shoes. I wear my nicest pair of flip-flops. I really like the unsub down the back. That's the first time I've seen this detail. We changed that for this print. Yeah, because I think the prototypes had them up here. We changed them down to the bottom so that they show. That's your blacks. Oh, my blacks. Oh, my blacks.

Show the box. So these are still prototypes. Can I actually say that in Spanish?

Something beans. That's blowing my mind. I can't remember the word for shoes. Zopato. Zopato. Boom. The black shoes. If you look at the camera, that reflection, and then open the other side.

Show the inside. So they, yeah, there you go. All right. Oh yeah. That, that, that is a limited run box. That's like a defect collection card. Cause the unsub is upside down. Those are literally the, those are one time as we learn how to print those or they did. So they're magnet closed and you're going to have felt on the interior. So we're doing this limited run box.

You guys will know if you get those. There's 100 going out. They'll have an autograph, a challenge coin, all this stuff with these 100 autographed photo, challenge coin, maybe a couple other things just as a way to thank you. And it's going out to 100 of y'all just randomly. You might get one of those boxes. And then one of you are getting a gold ticket.

uh to win a trip to hang out with all of us we're flying you out you're gonna do dinner hang out with the guys probably brunch the next day and just uh just a good experience we'll be putting you in a hotel paying for your flight just want you guys to have a great experience or have an opportunity to come hang out with because we're part of such a a great what now eli community i personally love these because they're great jump out boy shoes oh yeah so

If you're a cop and you're wearing them with the bottom of your pants over them, they still look like nice shoes because you can still polish the ends of them.

But in the meantime, they're very comfy and you can still chase people down. I think we specifically designed these for that purpose. Yeah. It's a good police shoe. It's a good police shoe. And your command doesn't have to know that like, you know, when your pants are over that it's a, you know, it's, it's one of our shoes. And you can chase down bad people while leaving the unsurprised in the second hand.

And we took... And just for reference, when Cody built that, it was really cool to see his...

he wanted to do for all of you so we took off all badging like most companies and they allow us like you have combat flip-flops you have andy you have griff helping with this process and then cody's idea it's like hey let's actually let it where they can wear it during work and not get in trouble so we removed all marking show like all the tags we have tags like this like this that's not on those nothing on these and that's what we want to see because i like i

I have two brothers that are cops. I have a great relationship with a lot of cops in my hometown and everything else. And you see them, they're just wearing a hefty boot. It's just unnecessary. It's not breathable. It's not good for their feet. And we just wanted something that they could wear, be comfortable, lightweight, and just affordable, candidly, that actually works for them and lasts. And you guys got it. Dude, they're smooth on the inside. You're not going to get a bunch of...

blisters or anything thick soul like dude these are wide toe box yep all super wide toe box and they don't come on awesome for police work they're just light as hell you can beat the shit out of them and then what brandon even

My favorite thing, the chanclas. It's not having to break them in. Isn't one of the rare times you don't have to break in a chancla? I got mine last night and I have been wearing it since and it immediately broke in. I didn't have to do the typical wear it out for a week and then it feels like it belongs to you. This actually felt great from the first minute I put them on.

Also, we put so many details on the flip-flops. So the AK-47 has the 7.62x39 casing on it, which is one of the reasons I always fucking loved it. That and the AK leather on it. I wanted to keep the shell casing, but I wanted to put an unsubbed twist on it. So we actually built a proprietary caliber for these shoes. What is the caliber we decided to go with? 6.9x420mm. Oh!

Which is included on every single shoe. Did you know that? Nope. Did you not? I am so happy right now. I just seem to disappoint. No, I'm not disappointed. I know, but you're like... I'm like, oh, yes. 6'9 by 4'20. I'm just mad that I didn't think of it first. Fuckers. That's awesome. That makes me so happy.

And we changed the emblem. We talked about even like stuff like that where it was like shrink it by two centimeters, all those little things. It was so easy to work with and working with good graphic designers or business partners. So you guys understand the back end and what people already expect and then being able to just bounce ideas was so fucking nice. Like so nice to deal with in the business world. So not used to that.

And we just like, we try to be the easiest company to work with. I just, that's it. When somebody like, when I always think about being an entrepreneur or a business owner, when somebody calls you and you see the number on your caller ID, if your first reaction is to pick it up or do you like, Oh, do I have to answer this call? Right. And then that's it. As a small business owner, you want to be the guy that when they see your caller ID, they're like, this guy is going to solve a fucking problem for me. They're going to make life easier on me. And that's what we always aim for.

So I'm glad that these things are, they turned out spectacular way beyond anything like our whole team down in Bogota that put these all together. They've really been stretching their legs to make this all happen. And this look phenomenal. Did you guys kill it? We're so thankful. And you guys, I promise you with all these, when you start putting them on and everything, it is.

We wear them. I've been just wearing the ones for the last few months. I actually wear the shoes to the range now because they're actually comfortable. You and Brandon have been wearing these motherfuckers for years now. Yeah, I mean, that's even more for the testament. And you guys keep adapting and making them better and better because this is the ones we bought originally. And my favorite part is you guys have a very good return policy. Yeah.

That is a testament to how well you stand by your own product. Because you guys, like, people beat them up. It's an amazing return policy because you could just return any shoe at any time and they'll keep it. No, it's like if our shit falls apart, we'll make it right with you. That's it. I just want to make it right with you.

Which is why? Because, again, there's zero communism involved. You go to any other fucking manufacturer, all their shit's made in communist countries. And we're like, no, we're a veteran-owned company working with rag companies. We're putting people to work. We're putting girls in school. We're clearing landmines. We're helping veterans. Anytime you buy our product, good shit happens. Which is another reason. We literally... It was the...

The nonprofits that also are benefited from you guys doing shoes is like, yes, we're helping put Afghan children, females in school, little girls in school and actually having an education up till when it was an issue. But you were doing that up. I'm still doing it. Yeah. See, so fucking dope. Like, and then you're out there on.

When you got your first pair of shoes from combat flip-flops going on that journey we were talking about, it's like riding in a bus. This is, what, 2017? 18? When you were in the bus, you were talking about, like, it's ISIS is a problem and you're still... Oh, yeah, yeah. 17, yeah. Yeah! It was wild to be doing that. And you're like, no, we're good. How much more of a problem is that now in Afghanistan today than it was when you started? It's big. Yeah. Yeah, it's really sad. You know, we were...

really like on the come up in Afghanistan, like things were really turned on the corner. And I don't think anybody thought how bad it could get that fast. And it really has turned the corner. The country's really fallen apart. It's been with the pullout, with the pullout. It's just, it's been a super struggle, but I will tell you that like our,

factory is still kicking ass. Like it's been a struggle, but those guys are still working. We're still making chamaz. We're still making cashmere. We're still doing everything we can to put products together because we think that that's the best way to represent America. As we're going to go on with business, we're going to do it ethically. Nobody can tell us anything because I've taken $0.0 from the U S government and

It's all been funded because of our customers and people like you to make all this good shit happen. Proper patriotism and then proper...

capitalism yeah the best parts yeah that's part of it exactly it's like we get a benefit and through the individuals either that's the customer base or there's the people that want to make a difference they're the ones putting their money in it and then you're actually making that possible and then sticking by it you're not like uh a quick payout you're like nope we're gonna do this for the long run we want to see people succeed which is why i surround myself with

All y'all is because it's one of the few times I'm like, oh, they actually care about others first and foremost. It's not their own selfish interests. It's like, how do we benefit the people that support us and make this possible? Yeah. Fucking dope. Well, thank you, dude. Yeah.

All alone? Time to trim the old pubes. Hey there, beach babe! Are you ready to soak up those summer vibes and get the perfect beach bod? I don't have pants on. Yeah, I noticed. Well, you're in luck, because our friends over at Manscaped.com have you covered from head to toe. With the Performance Package 5.0 Ultra, they'll have you looking and feeling good this summer.

Trust Manscaped to unlock the confidence you need to turn heads this summer season. Join the 10 million men who already trust Manscaped and use discount code UNSUB at checkout to get 20% off your order plus free shipping. Let's make this summer your smoothest one yet. Save me.

Keep your ear and nose as tidy as your hedges with the Weed Whacker 2.0 Ear and Nose Head Trimmer. You'll be looking classy as ever. The updated Lawn Mower 5.0 Ultra Groin and Body Hair Trimmer got a summer makeover. It's waterproof now. For all those times you need to shave your groin or body hair at a pool party. So get 20% off plus free shipping using code ONSUM at manscaped.com. The summer sun is here to stay, so trust Manscaped to keep those pubes at bay.

The worst part is the goddamn internet, man. Everybody's like, oh, you're just making shit in China. Fuck you. That's gotta hurt. Chinese knockoffs. Stop. The racist stuff that people throw at us. Oh, we're making Afghanistan. Racial slur, racial slur, racial slur. Come on, man.

Like, really? You're not even saying it to be funny. Yeah. Come on. That's the worst kind. We're helping people. You putting like a little kiddos like and that's a lot of people don't understand. They have the reference of America poverty. And you're like, no, no, no. That is the poverty in America is completely different mindset. Then you are in a village. You do not have Internet access and you're trying to educate people.

Unless you go to a third world or war ridden country, you will never know that difference. Yeah. Then when anybody says the word poverty to me, I know right where I'm sitting. I'm in the back of a gun truck and I'm driving my first time South out of Bagram through Kabul. And you, you drive down these roads and there are these women and they're sitting with like six month old babies in their arms and they're in the middle of the road and

And they're holding their hands up like this, begging for food or for water or for anything because their husbands got killed in the war or whatever. And they have no employable skills and they need something. And you think to yourself, that woman probably hopes somebody's checking their cell phone. Yeah. Like imagine like, well, it's just the contextualization of $20 US per day. Yeah. What that means to you?

Oh, $600 a year is the sustainable, like what you can do for a person. 600 per year. I mean, it's crazy. It's the difference between here. We're just like, oh my God, slave wages. That shouldn't even be legal. But there, that's quite a lot. A week of our slave laborers. People are like, they balling. They're living a different lifestyle. That's less than three hours minimum wage here. Yeah. There is...

you're balling. And that's like going into houses, dirt floor. Dude, I remember going like out in those country houses or little villages and you get to see that lifestyle where it is like dirt floors. They're still cooking you naan. They bring you tea. So, and they're so happy for what they have. And you're like this fucking dope. You're super respectful. They make some of the best tea still to this day. Best weed. So good. So good. Yeah.

Everything just chopped here. Everything is good. That's what he said, everything. But you get to see that different level, and I think that's a reality check for a lot of people. Even like, Cody, you were working in some of the bad areas. And then you see what people are complaining about. You're like, I assure you. Water ain't got no taste. I don't even know what that means. I was going to ask you to explain that as well.

So, would you like me to explain this? Yeah, I want to hear it. Love it. All right, when I was a cop, we had a big snowstorm. Like, you know, most people will drive around Hellcats and shit. They can't get around. And... That's not where I thought this was going. Please continue. So, we had four-wheel drive police vehicles. They could get around. We were the only people that could drive through the city. Everything was, you know, it was a big snowstorm and everything.

And so we were picking up people in communities and taking them to the only place that was open. Thank God we had the QT. The QT was open. It's the only place open. So we would take people there. It's like, hey, we, you know, like, well, I ain't got money. And I'm like, okay, well, we'll buy you some water. We'll buy you some, like, some cold cuts. Like, you can make some sandwiches for your family and stuff. The snowstorm will be over, like, tomorrow, day after. Water ain't got no taste. Like, no, we're going to buy you water. Well, water ain't got no taste.

It's like, we're trying to help people survive. And that was the response that we got. They didn't. Oh, it was just because they didn't have a taste. They're offended. You're only going to buy us water. Yeah. Water doesn't have any taste. Yeah. That is. Do we know you would go? That's fucking. The entitlement of that is absurd. A stranger is going out of his way to help you.

He doesn't have to. You know, we were, we were, you know, the police department I worked for is like, if you're a lower end guy, you just started, you're making like, you know, you're making like $16 an hour. Hopefully it's like, we were using a lot of the times we're using our personal money to help people. And yeah, it's just like, no, I want Coke. Water ain't got no taste. Like you can't do Coke. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm trying to keep your family alive right now. Yeah, so... We can cut that out. No, no, no. It's based off of kind of where even the idea of you guys would roll into town with a bunch of money and they would give all their food away because they're like, oh, someone will run to town. But if something happens where that person can't run to town and get supplies, they're like,

we fucked up we used to we were warning the people for a month ahead of time it's like yo there's gonna be a very big drought please stop washing your cars do not wash your cars stop washing your goddamn cars still washing the cars like hey you got like a week and there's going to be a massive drought like there's going to be no water in this area is the diallo river province up to that day then drought happens and then it's like hey we don't have water like god

Damn it, guys. How many a month? What did we tell all of you not to do? And then you continued to do this. We started bringing water out and trying to offset the problem. But it's...

It's those different mindsets, depending on where you're raised, what your culture is, what's your day-to-day lifestyle. And that's something where it's like water, you, your idea of worth or a product that keeps you alive is based off of taste and flavor. Water doesn't got no taste. It's like, it doesn't keep me alive. Like you, like you were saying, you spend a couple hundred dollars a year. You can keep a person alive and keep a family alive. It's like, you know, just sometimes you deal with people. They're like, yeah, well, water ain't got no taste. I don't want water.

You have no idea how good you have. We hit this one area is again on that winter strike deployment and we're all freezing and our CMO Lee, you've met him. So he was on an outpost and he got dysentery like after he hit the ground. Right. So he's like shitting himself like in his pants as we're clearing an objective and he's

Petunia Sergeant's like, hey man, just go rest. We're going to go overnight. And he's like, oh, there's this shelter, the overhang. And so he goes and he lays down and he doesn't realize that's the Afghan toilet.

Cause it's like the overhang where all they're asking. So now he goes and lays down and just passes out and he wakes up and he's like covered in shit. Human fecal matter. And so he's like, now we're freezing in a morning and he's sick and he's like shitting himself and he's covered in crap. And he's like pulling security and doing his thing. And this little like eight year old girl walks out with this tray and

with chai and some jelly filled crackers and gives it to him and that was the best he's to this day he's like that's the best gift anybody's ever given me it's like clean water and warmth and like a shelter and that's all that we need as human beings and he was just so thankful for that and it's really disappointing to me to hear that like that's the way that cops get treated or you know when you're trying to help somebody like watering got no taste it's like man

We're trying. I think we're trying. I think everything's about intent. Yeah. It's like, you know, you're going through a tough time. I'm trying to help you. And to be spitting your face like that, it's like that's supremely disappointing. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it's... We are blessed a lot. The majority of the time, I wish a lot of people could experience a lot of a deployment. As you're saying, it's like it's earning that lifestyle or earning...

Who are you talking about? It's earned. We were just talking about... Adversity builds character. Yeah. Oh, no. It was actually the book...

Sci-fi movie. God dang it. We just talked about. Highline. Starship Troopers. Starship Troopers. It's earned. Yeah. So the sequel, Citizenship. Yes. And so everything is earned at that point. And that's your reference point because you did the service. Now you have Citizenship and you're going to appreciate a lot more because you went through that and you've seen what other people go through. Cody has a different mindset. You know what this bitch, the one that said that to me. Cody's like, I got him.

You know what? Let's do it. Let's do it. How nice people are treated here in the United States. This dude, the one that said that watering got no taste. We raided her nephew's apartment probably a week earlier. Section eight apartment apartments paid for food stamps everywhere. So like food is paid for.

There was like fucking 60 grand in cash sitting on the couch from when they had been selling crack for the past month. And like, you're like, "water ain't got no taste, we want more, Mr. Cop Man." So your nephew has 60 grand in cash, this is a free apartment, Section 8 housing, you get fucking welfare every month, like, you got your food stamps, it's like, you just, this never, it's never enough.

And then, you know, you got that girl bringing up tea and like fresh water for your boy who got shit on. That was awesome. And they were happy with that. It just drives me a little bit crazy. Sorry. I'll stop now. I'm glad that you freaking chimed up here. Good. I like it when you're animated. I don't think any of us are going to argue with that. It's just, it's annoying.

It's having that different, it's, it's, and it's a weird mindset. That's why I like the Afghan, all those people, even like you can even tell whoever it's like, oh man, they suck because X, Y, and Z. It's like, they're, they fought hard. It's like, yeah, they fought hard. And that is actually, if you were in the same situation, you would have done the same fucking thing. We all watch Star Wars and we vote for the Jedi, like the Jedi. Did we not see the irony? Exactly.

everyone at the end of the day is just like fighting for what you believe in they have very high beliefs in them they were defending something that they held value in over their property and war and just culture make a huge difference at the end of the day yeah i think the one thing i really wish is that we would go back to the days or we'd on military generals the ones that

No, literally if you were not a good general and you were not winning a war and you were not doing the right things, you were reported in the public to not serving your country correctly. And somehow after Vietnam...

that something happened in America where we don't question military leadership. And if you question them for not doing their job appropriately, for not using your resources appropriately and not accomplishing your objectives appropriately, somehow you're not patriotic. I feel like we stopped linking the results with the people in charge. Agreed. I think, yeah. I just got off the phone with an old TARP major last week.

He was the first art major that said... I've heard leadership from higher up say this. And he was like, man...

He was complaining about somebody else writing books. It was a sergeant major writing books and claiming the army, like how he led his troops and everything. He was like, I fucking hate those dudes. You know why, Cuevas? I was like, why? He was like, that was your guys' war. It wasn't ours. We were sergeant majors. We weren't at the front line. We were just telling you guys what to do. We don't get to write books about that. You don't.

You guys do because you are at the front line fighting those fights. Never heard a Sergeant Major say that before. I was like...

That's why you're a good leader, Sergeant Major. That alone separated you from everyone else that I have talked to in that status. You were the first one that was like, I didn't f***ing do a thing. I had you guys walled around me. I was protected no matter what. Sergeant Majors aren't at the front line getting shot, dying, getting blown up. That's all the younger generation leading that front. He's like, why the f*** do we have a right to write a book about that? Good leadership right there. Like, true good leadership from that. Yeah. But I...

I really wish we would go back to criticizing our military the way that we used to during World War II, Korean War in Vietnam. We spend so much money as a country on our military to not have it go right.

Anyone else, CEOs would have been held accountable for that shit. If it was a normal job, they would have been fired. Like you would have fired so many people. What is the Pentagon audit? They lost the Pentagon audit. They lost $6 trillion. It's unaccounted for with a T. A T.

- Since 2001. - Our sponsor for this video is PDS Debt because everything is really expensive right now. - I spent $400 at the grocery store and I don't even know what I got. - Milk. - He got milk. - One milk. You may be in debt right now because the economy is in shambles. - You know what also comes with debt? Stress, anxiety, existential doom.

And pay off your debt in a fraction of the time.

PDS Debt is a top-rated company on Google and has an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. They're personable. Go check out all their reviews and see how many specifically mention PDS employees by name. It's incredible. You can get a free debt analysis right now by going to pdsdebt.com slash unsub. It takes 30 seconds. Go to pdsdebt.com slash unsub. Go now! I'm going. It's fucking wild. You are one of those dudes that's...

a phenomenal lifestyle a crazy lifestyle because you're an individual that for reference like going into combat you've done the combat thing you got out of war from afghanistan and then you went back for your company to just go like find shoes at the time a little bit more complicated than that which we'll get into it but yeah like uh i like living adventurously i like traveling to far off and distant places and meeting new people shooting them

And shooting them. It gets old. Or you can just go to dinner and have a beer with them. What are the other ways? That's the right thing to do. Dinner and then shoot them. Remind me never to go to dinner with you guys. It's awesome hearing your entire experience and then starting it off. So you are the owner of Combat Flip Flops. You started that at

venture in 2016, 2017? 2009? Oh my God. Which is when it first started. Yeah. I got out in 2006. I did the standard thing that most veterans do. You get out and you get a regular job and try to be a human being, fail miserably, lose your job, fall back into like contracting because you need to make money to support your family and they send you back overseas.

It's basically my story. And, um, I need money. I'm really good at this one thing. Yeah. Uh, send me back. And, um, I ended up being over there and in my job, I was responsible for, uh, putting in clinics and contracting doctors to agencies, different other government agencies who needed people to provide medical care and equipment. So when I showed up, I had a smile and a backpack and some cash and I had to be alive when I

you know got back on the plane right so what do you do and i i'm a map guy because i was an artillery guy in the regiment and every night they have this briefing of where all the bombs were off on the previous day like all right here's where all the attacks went off and then they overlay it here's it over a month here's what it's like over three months and you see nodes and the nodes are around the u.s embassy military compounds and convoys and reporters

Those are where the three in combat zones, that's where all the shit happens around those areas. Well, if you're smart, like I'm just not going to go to those places. And where you go is where there's a local small business flourishing because the local small business owners don't let it happen on their corner. So you just stay there. And there was one time I was getting ready to like walk out of my hotel in the morning and the concierge says, Hey, Mr. Griffin, you need to go upstairs and have another cup of coffee.

And I'm like, noted. Got it. And so I went upstairs, rooftop place. And this is where all the Russian stewardesses and pilots would stay in this little hotel, kind of on the outskirts of Kabul. I'm upstairs having a drink of coffee, just kind of rescheduling a few meetings for the morning. All of a sudden, IED goes off. Coffee shakes, rumbles.

Take the last sip of it. Walk back downstairs. Am I good to go now? He's like, oh yeah, Mr. Griffin, you're good to go. Have a great day. Holy shit. So it just goes to show like the local business owners, they know when shit goes down versus our intelligence agencies and our military. So my thought was, is like, why aren't we encouraging more business? For the cost of one MRAP, we could turn around entire square blocks of cities. That's why the CIA started opening coffee shops. I wish they would.

I wish they would. That would be the more ethical thing for them to do. But that's how I got started is I was looking for a cup of coffee. So I was at a conference for the Afghan National Army. I'm a weird looking guy and I'm a dirty secret. I'm an officer, right? So yeah. And I was at this conference and it's all the old sergeant majors and the good old boys and they're selling stuff to the Afghan National Army. And I had long hair and a beard.

And nobody's talking to me. And I look across the conference way and there's somebody like you, long hair and a beard. Nobody's talking to him. And I'm like, hey man, weird knows weird. Like, what's up? And he was a Marine captain. His name is John Boyer. And he got hired to run a Afghan combat boot factory. Because a lot of people don't know this, but the US government, US taxpayer paid for a 340,000 person police force and military force in Afghanistan.

from 1700 to 340,000 in a couple years. So using the same mentality that we use in America where you want to create jobs and stability, so they need to make the boots in country, they need backpacks, but they don't have those factories. So they had a program called Afghan First, Afghan Made. The U.S. government's like, hey, Afghan business owners, if you build a factory, we're going to give these contracts... Heavy, instant, like...

That's hilarious that the American government is putting forward Afghanistan first policies because they know they work in countries. That's crazy. Isn't that right? That's just weird to think about, right? So they built these huge factories. The private business owners paid to build these factories on the bets that they're going to get government contracts to build product. And then they were taking people who didn't know how to do anything and training them to be cobblers and tailors to make boots and uniforms for the Afghan national military.

Each one of those people supported five to 13 family members. So the social impact of a factory was just massive. I met John. He's like, dude, I built this factory and I bought the most badass espresso machine in Afghanistan. Cause when you're there in country, it's nest cafe or it's tea and you're ready to shoot a motherfucker for a good cup of coffee. Like after a week, I'm like, dude, I'll be there tomorrow morning. And I walked into that factory and it changed my life.

I saw all of these people working and they took me on the tour and the guys learning to feed a sewing machine to sewing a straight line. And by the time you get to the end of it, there's hundreds of guys in a room knocking out badass combat boots that could withstand the rigors of Afghanistan, which our boot manufacturers couldn't do for years. And it was really impressive. And I asked him, I was like, hey man, what are you going to do when the war ends? And he's like, nothing, we're not going to do anything.

anything, everybody here is going to go out of work. Nobody's going to want to buy anything in Afghanistan. And I went from like inspiration to fury, like pretty quickly. And I looked down at this table and there's this combat boot sole with a flip-flop thong punched through it. I was like, it's ugly and cool. Americans will buy that shit. If I put combat on there. They'll buy it. And the longer story of it is, is that we built this huge multi-hundred thousand person military and

out of i think the number was like 60 plus percent of them were illiterate and they also grew up in a culture without shoelaces so now you're taking these kids you're training them to be a soldier and you're making them wear these combat boots but they're also islamic so they have to take their shoes on and off five times a day so if you can imagine taking your combat boots on and off five times a day it's kind of a pain in the dick

And then if you don't know how to tie shoelaces, it kind of complicates things. And you can't read the instructions to do it. Yeah. So they were losing tens of thousands of man hours per day because of fucking shoelaces. Think about that. And so he's like, hey, I'm going to solve this problem. I'm going to make a garrison style combat flip flop. And like you guys can wear. Yeah, you got in the field, wear boots. But hey, just wear these around garrison. Never took off. But except for us. And then we just started and that was it.

That's wild. I love how businesses can be made like that. Even leading up to that moment, because you can rewind, go into, for the people, what year did you join the military? 2001. 2001. Was it after or was it right before? Right before. Oh, shit. So were you in RIP during? I was in artillery training course. I was doing a fire support course and the instructor comes in, slams the back door, says, everybody shut up. We're like, what do we do?

And he turns on the TV right in time for the second plane to run into the tower. And we're like, shit, I guess we're going to war now, huh? And my girlfriend at the time worked in Manhattan. And then I heard about the Pentagon and my mom worked at a naval dental clinic. She was a dental hygienist and she worked right near the Pentagon. And I'm like, mother. So now I'm in the dark.

in Oklahoma while this is going on. And this is back from when we had the old 12-digit cell phones. Back in the day, you're trying to get a hold of people and you're getting nothing.

Yeah, and that was just scary. They were both fine, but... You didn't know. Didn't know. And then that was during... For a lot of people that don't realize, phone lines were down calling out. You're on mostly landlines at that time. You'd call and it was just outages because the influx of everyone calling. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Dude, that would have been so fucking wild. Joining, you're there, close that, and then is that when you've seen a shift in training and basic...

or during your schooling at that time and how everyone was the standard um i think people took it a lot more seriously then i uh i always wanted to go to the regiment like i that's where i wanted to go i like when i graduated school i want to be a ranger fire support officer period that was my aim so i was already in pre-ranger training i was ready to go but then they just ramped it up you know i went through ranger school got to my first conventional unit and i just walked in and told my first battalion commander is like i will do

whatever you want me to do, but as soon as I can, I'm going to drop my packet to Ranger Regiment and I just would like your signature. And he's like, all right, cool. Here's what I expect of you. And nine months later, I dropped my packet. What year was that? 2001. Okay. Yeah. And it was cool. Like everybody supported the mission. Like if you're a motivated guy in the military, you're all creaky over there. You're like fucking tisoming right now. Yeah.

doing it when I see you do this more than like three times a minute and like all right something's bothering you right now yeah okay wait okay I can live with that one I can live with that so you did what 2009 or sorry 2001 2001 graduated from college went through officer basic course went to Ranger School winter phase like you know early 2002 got to my first anyways

It is what it is, man. I went at 190 pounds, the best shape of my life. I came out at 150 pounds two months later. And then I went to 215 in two weeks. Oh, you bloated right up. I gained 65 pounds in two weeks. Jesus Christ. Dude, I...

You went during winter, so you at least got two meals. Yeah. But you're just fucking freezing. A lot of people don't understand. I can stand out in the cold. I think we talked about that the other day because cold weather gear is a big no-no for a lot of the time. So people didn't understand. It's like, oh, you just adjust to the cold. There is no... They have cold weather gear. You're not allowed to wear it. And then you just stand there and like, I'm fine. Okay.

No, I will spoon another man in a heartbeat. I got no, I got another man. Yeah. Come here. Cody. It's 90 degrees. Stop. No, you are cold. I sweat, but it's funny. Cause you know, you're an artillery guy and people kind of expect you to not be in shape and to be kind of like round.

because you're artillery right you just don't you're not infantry and I showed up my first unit and I was over I was 20 pounds heavier than I am now and I finally started running and I started losing my Ranger baby weight and my commander and they pulled me in they're like hey we need to send you to the doc like because do you have cancer or something he's like no man I'm good I'm just getting back down to it so I lost 35 pounds like in my first couple months in my unit and they were just

surprised by that Christian Bale career of weight loss yeah it was it was interesting and then um and as soon as I could I went to the I put down my packet and my my first battalion commanders you got to imagine like this is right after the invasion of Iraq so we Afghanistan and then we go to a convention unit so now we're creeping into 2003 then they did Iraq and spring of 2003

And just things are just going off in the army. Now it's like, everybody is going to war. Yeah. It's not just like green berets and the Rangers are going to go do a deployment for a year or a little bit. It's like, everybody is going. And my first battalion commander, he came out of the regiment. He was really good dude. And we had to change your command. And you know, when the new Colonel comes in, they want to go out and smoke all the lieutenants and approve their, so the new Colonel comes in and they, we're going to have like officer PT in the morning. And then he,

trains up and they go run you five miles at some like breakdick pace. And then they give you some motivational hoorah speech. And his hoorah speech is like, we're going to combat this summer. If any of you guys are thinking to go into the regiment, none of you are going to go. Don't even think about doing this. You're staying here. And I was kind of shocked. I like that was his first comment to me. Well, our change of command ceremony was that afternoon.

And Colonel Rob Choppa, the guy's the man. If you're watching this, Rob, you're fucking awesome. So we're literally, you go through the change of command ceremony and I'm shaking his hand. I'm like, grab his hand. I was like, hey, sir. He said, like, we're not going to the regiment. Like, what's going on? He's like, meet me in my office in 15 minutes. He left his change of command ceremony, drove across base, backdated my orders, send me to the regiment. No shit. That's a baller ass leader right there. That is a good leader. That was the way the army used to.

That's dope to actually do. It's like, hey, I'm going to put this thing because I made a promise to one of my guys. I'm going to make this happen. Because you would have, for reference, you would have been fucked. You would have just been like three more years just locked in. Locked in. Yeah. Not to make a pop culture reference this early, but it kind of reminds me of the beginning of Starship Troopers where he's trying to quit. And then the attack happens on Buenos Aires. And he's just like, is this your signature? Yeah.

I love that movie. It's a great fucking movie. I love that book. I always wanted to get around to reading the book because I know it's radically different because the movie's basically satire. But I've never had the chance. The book goes hard. My favorite part about that book is service equals citizenship. Oh, shit. I like that. We've got to ask Griff, though. Which girl? That's a good question. In Starship Troopers. Dizzy or? Dizzy or? Carmen. Carmen. Carmen.

Carmen. Really? Really. You just like the permanent proper. Yeah. Touch, touch. You're like, Disney's too much. It's going to be combative. She puts out on day one, though.

It's too much. It's too much. So the fact that Carmen fucks other guys. You guys are used to it. So the fact that Carmen fucks other guys is not why you're away. The first time you go away, that's not a problem for you. It's a problem for me. I'm just saying that my first response would have been, yeah, like young guy, that's what I probably would have been. I guarantee at bar. It's when you get older, you're like, okay, young, especially dizzy. We're like, yeah, or not dizzy, Carmen.

She's gorgeous. She's going to have my back. She just cheated on me. She's hot. It's fine. It's the red ticket or the red flag. It's how hot she is. Oh, you're a pilot? You make more money? Oh, okay. Yeah, but dizzy. She liked Rico the entire time. Right up until... Well, something kind of uncool happened. Spoiler for a 30-year-old movie. Right. Yeah.

Oh, that's close to 30 years old now. I hate that. Yeah, I hate that too. I look Brandon fucking 28 years old over here. I saw something this morning where it was like, it has now been as much time between current day and the early 2000s for music as

the early 2000s to the 80s. So like you listening to Nickelback is the same as your dad listening to Def Leppard. You're almost listening to Michael Jackson. I listen to Def Leppard. I listen to Def Leppard, man. I found this radio station on Spotify. It was like bands that you listen to and it put on Linkin Park and it was a female singing and I was like, this is Linkin Park? They switched. They didn't really have a choice on switching. That's very true. It was a

Kind of something uncool happened there. Maybe we should have seen that 15-year cry for help. Yeah, I know. You're just reading everything. You're like, ah, were there signs? But he made good music. That's all that matters. Keep singing, sad man. Oh, yeah, there were signs.

We got a little sidetracked on that one. That's the point of the podcast. So you're like, okay, fuck in. Boom. Actually had a good leader. Didn't get locked in with the suck for a dude, a conventional milk, just conventional for three more years. You would have, I would have lost my mind.

I would have lost it. Because you guys, like, I've seen, like, how even for you guys at RangerBet, it was always awesome to see. You get to see the different echelons. Being, like, 2ID or anything like that is down the road. But it's like, oh, man, you still had, like, to deal with some shit. But at least you got nice stuff. I remember, like, the 2004-05, you got the new barracks. We're like, holy fuck, those are dope.

These World War II barracks are really good. They have lead and poison. Dude, the asbestos? Asbestos for me! Watching you guys run all the time or adhere to your standards is like, but once you made it past that suck period...

I don't know for officer side. I remember one of my buddies, he got in and we ran into each other best buy. And I was like, dude, Campbell, how are you doing, man? He's like, they hate me. They hate me. We're at, this is the second bet. Oh yeah. He was brand new private. He just got there. He's like, they fucking hate me. I think they want me dead. Cause it wasn't even there getting supplies for them. Yeah. They told him to go do the bitch work. Yeah. So he was just like, I was like, he's like, how's your, you know, I was like, it's dope. We're, uh,

I, we just got our first, first art. It was an E four that was standing up and acting as a first art for my battalion. Dude, we had no, it was just brand new people just setting up a battalion. And then finally we had like first aren't Jones who was your second bat, right? Yep. Yep. So Jones came in, he was the first aren't cause he needed to get, uh, to get a first aren't position and hold it. And then he went to CAG, but, um,

Yeah, just remember all that and then watching the flip side of how much you guys went through. I was like, "Fucking Christ, Godspeed." Well, it's just nuts to you because I landed there in July of 2003. So, Second Bat had just gotten back from the invasion of Iraq. So, we got privates walking in with scrolls and stereo, scrolls on both shoulders. Lee, my business partner,

Bird one, chalk one on the Baghdad International Airport. He was literally, my CMO was on the first helicopter on to buy up.

No shit. Yeah. The invasion force. When you think about that, we are invading. They're on the first helicopter, first humans landing in there and taking it over. This is them landing on the airport. You're securing it. And then I think Italian 173rd jumped into northern Iraq. Okay. Northern Iraq. Yeah.

So you kind of don't know if it's going to be Normandy or, you know, just holding a gun to a secretary. That's where it could be anything. So I'm only repeating the story from hearsay because obviously I wasn't there from it. But what I do know is I got to drink a lot of Johnny Walker Blue Label. Because the first thing the Rangers did, it was they secured all of the fucking bars in the airport. They stole a fucking truck. Acquired. Acquired.

acquired what's uh what's nick's term strategically transfer equipment to an alternative location yeah and they raided every bar and back because you know saddam was actually good with christians you could drink you could go to church you could do all that other stuff so they were stocked with all the high-end liquors and alpha companies second ranger battalion went into baghdad international airport after they had cleared it and they stole all the smokes

All the booze. And we kept it. And we fucking drove it around in a truck with us for months. You protected that truck at all costs. And they brought it all the way back to our company. We had a bar and it was...

yeah you have the company bar yeah the company bar right and the first sergeant had a jump light switch in his office and like when it flipped on the jump light next to the bar door would go from red to green and everybody could roll in and just drink so that's how you keep young guys from not getting duis is just have the bar in the barracks

instead of having guys roll out into town and spend all their money, you know, and that was just it. But we drank a lot of like blue label for better part of a year. Do those stories must've been wild seeing that side where it's like, they're the ones they're like, where'd you get all this amazing stuff? We'll talk about that later offline. And they just bring it back. Cause they didn't have as many rules. This is like war war. So they're just cycling chalks out. Yes. Like, and all they're doing is they're just pushing those little green square containers that roll under the back of C-17. Just like,

plane lands a couple guys get off their boxes roll out ours just get pushed back on guys get back in the bird and we fly home you're home 72 hours later and like it gets pushed off they pick up the trucks from the battalion they drive it back and like right cool we got it all the way back sweet good holy shit yeah wild saddam was cool with all that stuff but not the gold standard so we killed him immediately yeah they have uh dude um

I forget one. Maybe Evan. I forget who. But they had the photos of them with the dump trucks of gold bars. Like, that they would find. Oh, yeah. And they would just have, like, pictures of them. Like...

And while conventional army would rotate afterwards and everything was already like picked clean at that point. Sir, we found 300 gold bars. Oh, you found 200 gold bars? Yes, sir. We found 50 gold bars. Such a shame. What are you going to do with 30 gold bars? I could probably only get 15 sold on the market.

wild time so you got back you're prepped for i dude that would have been a wild fucking time because you're like well this is going to be my first war what four months train up for you and then you're out yeah we're out so the uh in somebody's infinite wisdom they figured out that taliban fighters had a methodology because fighting in the cold sucks

Like, I don't know if you've read any military history, but like nobody likes to fight when it's cold out. And the Taliban fighters, what they would do is they would retreat to these high altitude mountain villages on the pack border. So 10,000, 11,000 feet of elevation, they would just go hang out all winter. And somebody decided they were going to send three ranger battalions from sea level to

fucking 10,000 feet of elevation in the middle of winter to go run these guys down out of their fucking safe havens. Like, no winter break for you guys. So it's called Operation Winter Strike. And it's one of two times in history where all three ranger battalions were deployed to the same area at the same time. And we did real rangering. Like, we drove the trucks as far as they would go, the Hiluxes and everything else, before armor. We didn't have any armor. We had gun trucks. We had zero. We had gun trucks, which were...

pretty cool Hummers with you know roll cages on it but they look like porcupines because we had a three 240s and a mark 19 or a 50 cal up top and then everybody was armed but like there's usually a couple saws on them so it's just it was a

What was that movie, The Last Starfighter? If you hit the button, it just spins around and shoots everything. That's what our vehicles were like. If somebody came at us, the whole thing just erupted in fire, and you're like, ah, we're good. Fuck left side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Contact left. Yeah, just death blossoms. Yeah, just death blossoms. It just fucking goes away. What was your experience with the Mark 19? Did you like it or hate it? I loved it. There's no in-between, I've found, from guys who have used it. They either love it or they hate it. I mean, I was a fire supporter, and the reason I liked him is because...

Hey, you're rolling in an A-10 or a AC-130 or a couple of helicopters, and that thing makes a huge cloud. So if somebody is like having a sad face day because they're getting hit with Mark 19 shells, but what they really don't understand is that they're going to have a whole bunch of like

chain fucking machine gun fire and or 2.75 rockets and or a 500 pound bomb or a thousand pound bomb or a 2000 pound bomb or 105 millimeter cannon fired from the sky, like right up following that. And that was the reason why I liked this because it was just such a good marking instrument. I could just create such a big dust cloud that everybody could see it up to 15,000 feet. We're like, Oh yeah, that's where we're going to fuck up right there. Let's do it. God.

a death Kim X or a Kim light. It's marking your target. Oh, thank God they missed.

And then the hand of God is coming down after you and just obliterating that entire grid square. Hypothetically speaking, because I know they probably didn't do it like this, but just imagine being in a fighting position. One round lands 50 feet away, 15 feet away. They are really bad. And it's just like, wow, okay, we're all good. Why was the round blue, full of blue chalk? Oh, man. Yeah. 2,000 pound J-Demons.

Crazy. We did 500. We did like two 500s, I think. Never dropped it too. What most people don't understand is when those things go off, it's not the shock and explosion that's going to fuck you up. It's all the shit falling down from the sky afterwards. It's so much energy. It blows shit like cars, straps of metal, windows, glass, everything like thousands of feet into the sky. And you're standing there after it goes off and you're like,

Oh, wow. That was really cool. And all of a sudden you start hearing dink, dink, dink, dink, dink. Tire. Stuff's coming down around you. It is a big boom. Damn. Fucking wild, dude. And then so, yeah, the third range, all three Ranger bats deployed to a position.

Which is wild to go from that much elevation change. You cannot train your body because it takes a week, two weeks to really climatize to a situation. And you guys don't have... Was it sea level to 11,000? Sea level. And within 72 hours, I was at 6,000 feet. And another like four days after that, we were at 11. Walking. And this is how many feet, like for reference, how far were you guys walking when you dismount?

It would be anywhere between like we would do anywhere between like five to 12 miles a day in the mountains. And then, and then in the snow, it was snowing at that elevation. And so I remember we got to, we drove from Bagram to a Sada bad and then,

Then we drove to Nongalam, which is now Fall Blessing. And we're there like, oh, dude, these mountains are big. And me and my JTAC, Sandy Lopez, we were sitting there looking at the terrain of where we're going. I'm like, dude, this is steep. Like, I think it's like neither one of us are going to be both asleep at the same time. So like, let's just we're going to ditch one of our sleeping bags because we had to carry all of our batteries for the week. And we had to have all of our radios to talk to aircraft. And it's like, OK, how are we going to shave weight between the two of us?

so that way we can walk up and down these hills. And we ended up getting, driving, going up this mountain and it dumped like feet of snow on us. And we found this goat hut right at like 11,000 feet and literally six inches of goat shit on the bottom of it. The thing's like, we're creeping to get in there. And we're like, I guess we're staying in the goat hut for the next day or two until things are good. And, you know, we lay out the sleeping bag and

He's sleeping and I'm sleeping and we're just freezing. And somebody goes like, dude, the commander said, let's start a fire. And so we're like, oh, yeah. So somebody goes out and we're like getting the snow off all the wood. We're finding dry pieces of wood. And somebody starts a small fire in this little goat hut. The smoke floats up, hits the lid. And you know, like when you're inside an enclosed space and you can see a layer of smoke, 10,000 spiders minimum.

Descending out of the roof of the goat hut. Oh, fuck. Fuck!

-Pletuda screaming rangers. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

for like the next day god so we could get out of there oh it was so horrible yeah that was uh that was a good one and then for like you're walking this much distance as you're saying like cutting weight you're still walking with how much how many pounds on you

the combat was 35 pounds like give or take but if you're doing multiple days that can that increase i had two embedders and a uh and a 117 so i was carrying 40 pounds of radio and battery and 40 pounds of radio just alone before my weapon and ammo and my cold weather gear and my sleeping stuff like that's just radios do my job

those ammo guns all those little things start stacking up so fast and this was before like all the gucci gear you gotta remember we were still in like we were wearing um bdu tops so the green bdu top and we were in chocolate chip bottoms because that was the best color combo this is prior to multicam

- Yeah, this is- - This is pre-multicam. 'Cause you look like a bush when you wear like the desert bottom with a jungle top, you actually kind of blend in better. It really works. - I've never thought about that. - Interesting. - It literally would look like a Christmas tree or a tree or a bush because it's green up top and then brown. - And then ground green. - Yeah, it works. And so that was the camo that we were using at the time.

And like, this is the best we had was like Daner cold weather boots. And I'll never fucking forget. Like we're up there freezing. We had the wool, the old green wool inserts inside the leather fast rub gloves. And that was all that we had. That was it. And we landed on a helicopter one night and we cleared this valley. And I remember like sleeping in this barn on a big pile of shuck corn. And I am cuddled next to my JTAC. I am like pulling him in. I am hemorrhaging. I am so cold. And I'm like,

hemorrhaging like just releasing I say hemorrhaging I'm seizing whatever I'm like I'm releasing inside my jay tech you're you're so cold that your back hurts because you're shivering so hard and uh the next morning this 47 comes like rolling up the valley and we're like what are they gonna bring what are they gonna bring and they rolled in and they kicked out a couple duffel bags and

And this is back in the day when guys would call up with a credit card and they'd go, "Hey man, we need like 200 pairs of fucking gloves from the local REI. And we need them driven to this airfield right now." And they would put them on a C-17 and they would be on their way to country immediately. That's what happened is they bought OR gaiters and OR gloves from Outdoor Research.

Yeah, OR was huge at that. They still are the best glove manufacturers. And we actually could move our fingers during the day to actually work our radios and move our weapons and do our jobs. That's why I'm just like, they're an Uber. Ditching everything and then bouncing. When we were so high elevation, the helicopters couldn't land. They had to keep a forward momentum.

You know, to get in and get out of the valley and then turn around and get back out. And they were just like kicking it off as they rolled. Why couldn't they land? We were at so high elevation. I think we were like 11,500 feet. Because I don't know. What about the elevation prohibited that from landing? It's the thin air. Yeah, thin air. And I think how the gas, like the motor. It's that. It's like very rich or it starts...

the air is thinner so you gotta yeah and so it starts running leaner and at there you hit that point where then it just will like taking off is not a thing you can do once you land kind of gas is firing how it's firing everything is just at that point so they have to do like come in right and we were at the range limitation where they would stop and get fuel they would climb to elevation fly out and they were like we're like right at the fringes of where they could get to us they drop it and turn back around and fly out wild times so what did they drop off

outdoor research gloves and gators yeah and then yeah oh this is the best thing ever put some on my feet dude yeah it was weird uh when i got back jordan wong one of my racing buddies um he was cmo of outdoor research when i said i was like oh fuck your gears thank you overseas we use this

And if we were allowed to, he was like, oh, cool, man. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. But we were so far out that we were buying all of a village's winter rations from them.

so we would roll you have a platoon of rangers rolling into an afghan village with like 50 or 60 people in it and they've got all of their rice and stuff stored for the winter and we're like all right here dude here's a few thousand dollars oh and they're selling it they're just they're immediately they're selling it to you but you realize like they don't have food for backup they don't have backup that's what they got but they don't care because they know how much they can go into town they'll just send somebody in like in a week great and they'll go get more which is fine

but i'll never forget we came back from patrol one day and we walked into the hut that we were staying in and there was a sheep like running around like oh super cute right and i just pick it up and i got this photo of me like holding this sheep next to my buddy and i set it down and it runs around the corner and the guy's hot it was we called him grizzly adams and he looked like grizzly adams and afghan grizzly adams and he had this christmas knit sweater

that probably got donated by somebody in America to Goodwill. And he grabbed the sheep, opened the front door, 18 inches past the front step, slit the sheep's throat, blood everywhere, cuts its head off, drags it back inside the house. And I've never seen an animal skin this way, but he cut around the butthole and then he took his hand and then he shoved his hand between the finger and the meat. And he like worked his way all the way around. And then he like pulled it out like a sock and

and then like hands it to his wife to cook no soap no clean water anywhere didn't clip his fingernails whatever right and then like that's what we're eating with him for dinner that night nah and that's how you got your first case of dysentery how many times have you had i've had it twice no that trip i got my i thought i was gonna die i uh

we were coming back we were we were actually going home so this is at the very tail end of the deployment we made it all the way back from all of these like harrowing adventures up in the mountains yay fun so we're in a soda bad it's kind of warm and i'm like walking back to the truck and there's my jtac bustle like on the ground in the fetal position with his pants down around his knees and a pool of behind him on the ground and he's

I can't stop shooting. That's just Eli. Anytime he eats cheese. Every time we're on Cody's cooking show, he's like, today we're eating dairy plus more dairy. I don't do that on purpose. I wouldn't know. We need to have an exclusive episode of Let Him Cook where it's just the after action where it's just Eli and Cody's backyard behind a tree profusely.

I'm so glad toilet paper is so that it turns red when you know you're done. Um...

Down and out. Just down and out. I call the medic and I'm like, hey, what do we need to do? So we load him full of like Phenogren and Imodium, right? We get him to stop trapping himself. We give him the anti-nausea pills and he was our driver in our truck. So it was the JTAC, the commander, the RTO and myself, the four of us in a Hilux and we were driving from Assadabad to Bagram and this is like the trip we got to make to go home for Christmas. You fit four guys in a Hilux? Yeah. Nice. How long of a drive was that? Oh,

12 hours. It's wild you're doing that. It's not up on you or anything. Nothing. There's no armor. Cody, imagine you're in a war zone in your Hilux. He has a Hilux with a 50 cal. I got an 81 Hilux. Atta boy. So I'm like, all right, fuck it. I'll drive. And so we leave us out of that. And then we were driving. And then I'm starting to feel like a little bit not well. The tingle. The tingle, right? And I'm starting to feel like in the back of my jaw. And I'm like...

right we have one of those before we pull into java about anytime you pull into a city you're automatically you're going to stop outside the outskirts you're going to make sure all the drivers are secure you're going to check all the weapons you're going to do everything else before you go into an area where you might make contact and i look at my commander i'm like sir like i'm going to tell you like i think i'm about to be non-mission capable i don't think

that I'm going to be able to drive this vehicle. And my commander at the time, he was an asshole. He was the worst commander I've ever had in my entire life. He was my first company commander in the Ridge Regiment. He was a dick. They fell up. Yeah. And this guy was so bad. We'd be on patrol and he'd just sit there and tell me shit about me that he hated about me. He was just not a good person.

and motivating yeah really like he's not a good dude and uh he almost got cleaned off the side of a uh a mountain by like this rock when you want somebody oh yeah rockets falling like no there was a huge boulder falling like big

right i'm watching this motherfucker come down the hill and it's about to hit my commander and i'm like fuck yes this is awesome you're like i am not yelling out to say watch out he does love me and like

And the commander like turns to the side, the rock sails between me and the RTO and the RTO. And I both hated this guy and like it fucking sails between us. And the only thing that was like, there's a 1500 pound rock that just sailed past us at 40 miles an hour. And we were just disappointed. It didn't clean our commander off the side of the mountain. And so he starts yelling at me and I'm like, sir, like I'm telling you, I'm not going to make it like not a good drive. And he's,

So he's got to drive, right? So a commander driving. Gross. Yeah, gross. And so I'm riding a shotgun. The RTO is behind me. The JTAC is in the back corner. And he's just finally starting to wake up from his issues. And when you drive into Jalalabad from Asadabad, the first place you hit is the meat market.

It's where they hang the meat like on the side of the road for days. And there's that smell. Flies and everything. And you still buy the meat. You still buy it. And there's that smell. It's just that it's like they throw the intestines out in the back and you got all the fucking skin and all the stuff rotting. And I realize the first section of town that you hit on your way in that hits me. And I am out to my waist, out of the high locks, heaving, doing everything that I can.

to keep myself from shitting myself and my rto has got the window he's got his window down too and i'm heaving it up looking at him and he's just laughing at me and i'm like you and i get to jellalabad we pull into the airbase they load me full of fenugreek and imodium too they throw me in the back and then i don't remember the most of that drive on the way back but we finally we we made it to to bogger me i think we went through the um

God, what is that pass between Bagram and JVAD? But it's one of those weird switchback-y ones. Yeah. Snake roads. Death. I kind of woke up in the middle of there and I'm looking over like, I don't want to go off that and die. What's the Jake Gyllenhaal movie that just came out with the Terp? The fuck? The Guy Ritchie movie. Yeah. The Covenant? Covenant. Covenant. That's what you were. You were the Covenant coming in and out of consciousness as they're driving you. They're like, you're going to make it, Ted.

I hurt so bad though. God, it's wild. Yeah. So then like we were home and it's that back in then it's just so weird because this is before post-traumatic stress disorder or TBI or any of that, all of those things. And, you know, we literally drove the trucks in, cleaned them up, did our AR, handed off to a different battalion, got in our C-17 and literally I was sitting on my couch 24 hours later.

Do that. Fuck the guy who invented PTSD. It was so much better. Man. Why did he create that? And that's what's wild. It is that fast of a turnaround where you're, there is no decompression or like, ah, let me normalize myself. So you're just there at home on your couch with family, not with family, with friends. And you're like,

I think we talked about this on the podcast before. We're talking about just like the Roman wars and things where like people would go to war, they'd see a lot of death, they'd see their friends die.

And then they would have a several week walk home, several months where they are walking home with their boys and kind of like coming down from that before they get home versus just stepping off a fucking plane. Yeah. You get to connect with your friends. You get that decompression period for months. You get to talk to your buddies. You get to mourn the death together. And then you get to celebrate. You have like that entire process through months of walking home from like a bloody battle. And this is...

Go get the milk. And you're like, I don't trust anyone right now. Who'd have thunk it? Technology accidentally makes our lives worse in unseen ways before. That's crazy. There was a guy that talked about that one time. Revolution. It was a giant mistake or something like that. He was a big fan of voting by mail.

How was that? Like, that's a really good bringing up that. Was that so weird out the gate trying to explain it or relate to your girlfriend or family at the time? It was my fiancé and then...

We learned that I'm not allowed to drive for the first two weeks when I get home. Fucking aggressive watching for a side. You go underneath an overpass and you immediately jank a lane over so that nobody hooks a grenade down on top of you. You pull up in front of stoplights and somebody pulls up beside you. I'm reaching for a gun. That you don't have. That you don't have and you're just reaching for it. It's an automatic thing. Then we're like, I need to not drive.

And you go into, it's weird having that mind because you're like, where is it? And it takes, you have to, it's a process. It was like, oh yeah, I don't have that. And you don't need that. I think I don't need that. Taper down almost or does association slowly goes away. Yeah. It slowly goes away. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it just takes you a while. Cause you're just so,

Anytime you roll outside the gate, you're just hyper-focused on everything. You can't let it go. You're in a vehicle, you might die any second. Hypervigilant. Hypervigilant, yeah. And you get home, it's like, okay, I...

I can let this go. I can let this go. And it just gets there over time. But that was the first deployment where I learned that I'm not allowed to drive for the first two weeks when I get home. And what's crazy is you're like, I'm comfortable and I've healed. And then back into war. Immediately. And you're like, I'm better. A cute army commercial. Yeah.

Was she at least understanding through that whole thing? She was in the army as well. Oh, okay. Yeah, so she understood. But it's like, again, this is early on in the war where...

you know i knew i was deploying and we couldn't say anything to anybody right so you know we went to a halloween party you know we dressed up and everything else i tucked her into bed drunk at night and everything else and then i got up at two in the morning and i went to the unit and i was gone yeah that oh yeah that was during like there is no heads up because you don't talk to anybody about it you know you're going you can't tell anybody what you're doing imagine you can't tell your girlfriend that you're going to be gone when

You straight up couldn't. Oh, fuck. Like, you can't mention anything. Like, hey, guys, we're leaving in a month. You're doing all your train-ups. You're getting all your briefs. You can't say anything to anybody. God, even day before. Nothing. You're like, hey, I got to go to work. Or, hey, good night. Because that was that time where it was like OPSEC was the most important thing. Well, fucking with the higher tier echelon, like, they actually treated it proper. It wasn't Joe Schmoe. But you're like, hey, I work.

For me, it's Chuck and Matt flying out tonight. Because they're a big no-no. We're flying out of this airport into this airport? Yeah. Which is wild. You just get a good night, family. Dude, that's wild to me. I've never even heard of that level of OPSEC. I mean, because everybody that I know at least has talked about it in that, I guess, context before.

They knew when it was happening and they could tell their families and stuff. I mean, that's just later on because we're always in the war. There's always a special operations unit there. It doesn't matter because there's always one there. But before there wasn't. And so which units went where mattered because we thought the enemy cared.

Yeah, and then that was when you have the covering patches, anything like that. And we didn't wear unit patches. That's wild. This is that time because it is adapting to that military and it takes you, especially for the army, it takes years to start adopting. It's like, oh, this doesn't matter as much as we thought. OPSEC, for the tribes, they're not...

Because you're implementing near-peer OPSEC for somebody who is not near-peer. Yeah, like a modern fight against China versus that, where it's like, no, they're just going to live their tribal life to defend the fuck out of that. But you don't know that at that time. You're just like, hey, I'm out. And then you're overseas in, what, 72 hours? 72 hours later, yeah. So I was home. On ground. Yeah, so when I got home from that deployment,

my fiance at the time told me that she got orders to go to iraq for a year so that was like christmas and then she deployed the first week of january what was her uh she was an intelligence okay yeah and you know she comes back like three weeks later pregnant so it's like so like holidays everything else so it's just like my kid you know everything else so she

Came back like immediately. And I was like, well, I hate to tell you this, but like I'm leaving again. Yeah. So it's like we got to get married real quick. We got married and then I left like three days later and I was gone for another three months. You know, we were down in the Coast District on Salerno. And so we were doing like the whole like pack border thing.

against the Taliban creeping across and everything else. And that was the first time we were really understanding how, I think we kind of understood before, but now we were really thinking about how Pakistan was fucking with us and like funding guys back and forth across the border. So we were doing a lot of like cross border work. And that was a high adventure deployment. That was a good time. What was one of the craziest things that happened during that one? Yeah.

we had this one objective that had like a tower on it and they told us that there was a dishka in the tower

And for people who don't know, a Dishka is a 12.7 millimeter, like, fuck you up gun. I've always wanted to fire one. I've never gotten to fire one. I've always wanted to fire one. Do you want to? I've always wanted to fire a Dishka. Can we do that in December? Yeah, dude. Please. I need to finish repairing mine, but I've got one. I've never shot it. Because whoever rebuilt it was just a shithead. I've always wanted to fire one. Like, when I got FU money and I can go back to Afghanistan, I'm like, we're getting a Dishka. Right? Like, you're going back to Afghanistan. We're going to get, like, a...

and I'm going to go have fun for a day. Like as much ammo as I can buy, I'm going to... Put some goats out there. Yeah, give me a cow. Let's go. And I've always wanted to fight because I've seen them lined up against us. We've captured tons of them and I'm like, that looks like a badass gun.

Especially when you realize it's like a World War II thing. But they work. It doesn't matter. I was about to say, yeah, we know a guy. He used to disco one time. Yeah. He was like, what? You've never killed somebody with a disco hook? No, dog. What? What the hell?

He sold that publicly. Yeah. I wasn't sure about that either. He had these superhero names. Oh, we're using our made-up names. Yeah. That's how I know the level of friendship. It's like, oh, they used his superhero name. Okay. If you come down, you're coming back in December? Oh, yeah. I'll try to have the Dishka back up for you. You want to know my favorite part about the Dishka? Please. At least owning one in the United States.

the uh one of the only types of ammo that's available for that because 12 7 by 108 is just it's barely not 50 cal where like it's it's just not interchangeable but it's almost identical uh one of the only brands where you can still get it is just old stuff i think it's like tula made but the brand that uh that actually sold it commercially to the public was uh chris kyle commemorative ammunition

I swear to fucking God, hand on the Bible, that is 100% a fact. So all of my 12-7 ammo comes in 10 round boxes with Chris Kyle's face on it. That's wild. That's the only ammo they brought to this. I'm like, did you guys not think about this when you did it? Or just, all right, whatever, man. Here's your money. So we're looking at this tower. We're looking at it. And again, I'm not an infantry guy. I'm an artillery guy. So my whole thing is if you shoot at my guys, I'm just going to fuck your whole world up.

I will bring everything that the DoD has to offer to bear and I will give you generational fucking pain. I will make sure your grandkids feel this. And so I had fucking AC-130, 2A10s. I had cobras on standby. I'm like, if this thing lights up, I am going to decimate this fucking grid square.

And we got dogs and everything else. And we fast rope on top of this compound to get the guy. And like, literally we come off the rope and there's a guy sleeping on a cot right outside of his home. We run up and we just grab the dude and we pick him up and we're like, fuck, this is him.

Like it's the guy. And like, there's a 47. There's still guys dropping off a rope a hundred feet above him. And you caught the first, the guy. The guy was like right there. And the first sergeant grabs him and he's like, this is the dude. But we're still securing the objective.

And now all I'm worried about is this fucking tower. Right. And I'm just like creeping around the building. I'm getting eyes on it. Like all the aircraft are looking at it. All the gunships are just ready to launch this thing and like the next dimension. And there's no activity, like no thermal, no nothing. We're like, fuck, send the dog. Right. Dog rolls in. Dog's in there for a bit. Dog comes out with a hand in his mouth. Hand.

it was a mausoleum for all of like their dead family members and stuff oh and the dog went in there and ripped a freaking hand off a skeleton and brought it back out we're all standing there like staring at the dog we're like good good boy good boy like all right guys sorry like call them like the older aircraft like all right i guess we're good here like the rest of you guys can go home like stand by for ex-phil like we're good to go there that's why he was the only dude there

No, there was a couple other family members and everything else, but he was the top dog that we were after. And he just, and these guys, they just, they're asleep. They literally land a helicopter like on top of their house and they don't hear it. It's so weird. It's crazy. That's why I catch them sleeping for reference to half.

The first aren't the one on hands on like, hey, this is the guy is wild. That's wild. No clearing of the little village or anything. You're just like grabbing like, oh, shit. Literally off the rope. You turn and you see a guy sleeping right there, like 10 steps away.

grabs him pulls him up it's like oh crap this is the guy right and rangers are going past him into the house and everything else getting everything else done and then we're still clearing the outbuildings there's a camel like floating around somewhere you know just a good time yeah god that is what i just love the stories is uh it's the most interesting part we're talking about um i mean you've lived a crazy life i always like hearing the different experiences because

You guys did a lot more direct action race. That's all we did. Yeah. We only did a handful of those. Or we would be attached to SAS or something. We ran with them a couple times and Green Berets. But very rarely it was like, hey, here's the guy. We'd pull up, grab, snag, bounce. That's all you guys did. And a lot of times you did what? Vehicles. How many times were you in Little Birds? All the time.

All the time. We didn't do the Little Bird stuff until we were in Iraq. So I came back from that deployment and we lost a dude during that deployment. It was pretty traumatic. And came back, I was home for a month, had my honeymoon. My wife was six months pregnant. And then I'm gone again. And then we're back to Afghanistan and we were in the TST mission, which is the time-sensitive target.

so we were at bagram with all of like the gunships and the fighter pilots and everything else and we were like if there's any top tier bad dude that picks up in country that we like get signal on where they're at doesn't matter where they're at where the crew to go get them and that was a really cool mission because a lot of times we just sit around for a week and like all of a sudden somebody pops

And then you're all the assets, all the A-10 pilots, all the gunship crew, you're all standing next to one another, which is a much different experience than most other guys get. Cause you get to know the navigator, you get to talk to them. But when they pull up on the radio, you now have a relationship with them because you eat dinner with them every night. It's, it's much, there's, there's a rapport being built. Yeah. And it's the guys in the sky and they know you, and now they care about you on the ground because they, they know you by voice.

And it's much different. And they know, oh, hey, this is the younger fire, you know, FO. So they're, they work with them on the ground because younger guys, it's complicated. You're dealing with a slow moving AC-130 gun trip, hanging left-hand circles. And then you get an A-10 that might check out. And then you got an F-16 and they have different capabilities. And the young guys just don't know what the pilots are. So they pull them in and like, we'll go sit in the aircraft. And the

The pilot's sitting as like, Hey man, when you tell me this, I'm literally flying 400 miles an hour and I'm looking at this screen. And it gives the young guy a reference to go, okay, now I need to know how I need to describe it to the pilot in order to be able to do my job better, which is, which is really cool. That was a environment that I was really thankful to be in because it was the best team effort in special operations that I'd ever been in. Fuck yeah.

And so we get this one objective and it's like north of Cal, so it's near the pack border. And my JTAC, so the JTAC is the Air Force guy, because this is before Army guys are allowed to drop bombs off of Air Force planes. So I was in the first wave of guys that was actually certified for that in the GWAT. Before you always had to have an Air Force guy with you to say like the JTAC to say, yeah, Air Force plane, this is cool. This Army guy is calling in this bomb.

And, uh, yeah. So like his name's Sandy, he's my daughter's godfather. Like they could see as we would friends like forever. And, uh, we always used to think like, you know, what snacks are we going to bring for the way back? So every night, like it was his job or my job, his job or my job. And my thing on deployments is like his wife always sent him candy. So I'd always like raid his hooch and steal all those jelly bellies.

One team, one fight. And so we hit the subjective and it's a really steep terrain and you know, the Rangers and the, I think it's fine now, but like back then it was, you know, you always have Rangers working with like a tier one group. So it's either the Navy guys or their army guys. And on this deployment, we were working with a Navy guys and there's always animosity between army and Navy. And so this is one of those things where, um,

We go in and we're going to do an objective, but we're going to plant a listening device right on the objective. And so we put, you know, a hundred guys at risk to go, you know, foe hit an objective to go plant a listening device. Well, if an Afghan guy has got seven things, if there's eight, he's going to notice, right?

kind of deal. Right. And then you got to go in like a couple weeks later to go recover it, to hear what it's got to say. Cause this is before like all of it. Muhammad, when will it get flat screen? Yeah. She's trying to plan an extra object. Like,

And again, guys. Who left on the goat? Stranger. These Americans are so nice. And so this is one of the missions where we went in to like go recover a listening device. And we fly in, we go hit the objective, we grab the garage, we grab the listening device, but it's so steep. We had to fast rope in because the helicopters can't land and

And then like now we're kind of scrambling around the objective because sometimes you just got to chase guys between houses and the units are kind of spread out and you got to tell the helicopters where to come in at. And we were the last group of dudes to get picked up because we were on the steepest terrain. And the Black Sea platoon sergeant, Brian Stover, total badass, former RRDI came in, was our platoon sergeant.

And he runs up to me. He's this just huge dude. And he's like, I'm going to bring this helicopter in. And he's like, you got him on the radio? Like, yeah, I got him on the radio. And he pulls my mic out of the, like he pulls my mic from my headset out and he plugs his in and he keys my mic. So he's talking to the helicopter on his radio and I'm not hearing what's going on. And all of a sudden I see this 47 coming at me and then it turns around.

backwards and then the tailgate ramp lands on top of this ledge I'm standing against. And he like unplugs it. He's like, sir. And he grabs me and he throws me up the wall. I was like, get on the fucking helicopter. All right. So I scramble into the back of the bird and there's the tube

minigun guys out of the side door. There's an ATV in the center and you're piling a bunch of dudes in there. So I go and I jump and I'm sitting on the ATV like holding the handlebars. Yeah, because everyone's stacking around. We're stacking around. So I'm between the minigunners and then

under night vision when those rotors are going around there's a lot of Ferris material in the dirt and the the rotors hit him and you can see that flash like sparkles under your nons and I'm I'm looking out the side and I'm like oh yeah there's the sparkles and then I look down the back and the crew chief of the

freaking helicopter the pilot's name was andy i know that for sure but the crew chief was like hanging out the back and he's like yeah a little more a little more because as more guys get in it the helicopter starts like weighing down so he's got to apply more throttle to get it back up and the rear rotor of this freaking 47 was like this is the ledge this is the rotor

They had like literally a foot and a half of distance off the rock wall. And I'm changing and it's changing because Rangers are just jumping in. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Little and like pilot cucumber. Fucking cool.

a little bit more. He can't see what's going on. He's like, yep, yep, yep, that's it. A little more. And then as soon as everybody's good, the sweet hops on, we got everybody, the whole helicopter like falls off the side of the mountain. And one of those like, I'm so glad that I'm hanging on to the freaking, like the ATV. You're the only person there who's got oh shit hands. Yeah, that was a, that was a moment for sure. And then Brandon's face during that story is like,

Like he's worried. Spoiler alert. I know he's fine. It's still dude. It's like a movie. That's crazy man. That was one of the I had to unclench and let go of the seat.

Out of my culo. I was pinched into that seat. I love how you use one word in Spanish and you look straight at me. Culo. Hello, Mexican man. It's very inclusive. I appreciate it. You must speak Spanish. Un poquito.

No. So that was great. And then we got like six months off. Right. And that was the first time, like after that deployment. So you do three on, three off, three on, one off, three on. And we had just a weird rotation where we were always just like cycling through. But by this time, our fourth deployment, I had really realized that the Rangers were just professional fucking kidnappers.

Like Nick does this, he's got that army rangers, you know, like, oh, if you're going to decide to be a problem, you're not going to be a problem. That could not be any more true. And so now they sent us to Northern Iraq. How do you describe it? It's like the sharpest blunt object. Yeah. Yeah. It's the sharpest blunt object ever. Yeah. When people ask me about like rangers or versus Navy SEALs, like, dude, SEALs are great.

I got a lot of great seal friends. They're awesome. Like their mission set is tremendous. You know, what they do is they're like a surgical, like a surgeon's role of tools. If you need something very specific done in our reconnaissance, all these types of jobs, they're great. Rangers were like a dump truck full of sledgehammers. That's I've always heard Rangers can unroll ball bearings. If you give a Ranger two ball bearings and tell him to cross the street before he gets to the other side, he'll eat one and break the other.

That is fucking true. That's just it. It's a hell of a mission statement. Yeah. Yeah. Me hungry. Me broke other. And so then we get to Iraq and this is the first time that we got to work with the army tier one guys. And I will have to say that was a world of difference. What was the biggest shift for you? The biggest shift is they actually talked to us.

build a good rapport. Yeah. And it was, you know, Kyle lamb Viking tactics. So he was the Kyle's one. I love Kyle's one of my favorite humans, Kyle.

Love you, buddy. Did he make you throw a rock with the left hand? No. It's one of his favorite things. It's now part of his Viking tactical. And we go hang out with anyone. He's like, oh, yeah, hey. Especially tier one guys. Like, oh, yeah, by the way, I'm going to record this video. I need you to throw something. Cool. He puts it in the left hand. It's like, you're right-handed? He's like, yeah. No, yeah, I'm right-handed. Okay, throw it with your left hand.

no matter what, you look like a bitch. He has this compilation. The hardest dude's trying to throw it with their left hand. He's like, thank you. That's all I wanted. Kyle was amazing. We got to interact with him and he was just a tremendous leader. A lot of those guys from that army unit, they come out of the Rangers and so they have a lot of rapport. Sometimes they know guys and they're like, look, young Rangers, you don't know this.

I'll never forget because I remember rangers hitting objectives. We're fast. And he goes, you guys are so slow. You guys are doing things right, but you're just so slow. But they would take us out during the day and they would work with us. And that was a huge difference of what the Navy guys never did. And we...

up Northern Iraq. If there was anything in Northern Iraq, you were gone. You done fucked up son. We crushed Northern Iraq for that period. And this was that time when YouTube really started taking off, right? The videos and being uploaded to the internet. So I don't know if you guys remember that, that contractor little bird that went down where it was in the glades where they

Al Qaeda capture that dude and then they stood him up right and then they gunned him down right in front of everybody and then they displayed that to the world that would that happened like on our deployment no shit and we're like okay let's now really fuck up shit you're around you're going to find out and uh we did not around that deployment and like like the

The assets that we had on station, the team that we had, the leadership that we had, we got a new Ranger battalion commander and he was just phenomenal. And this is how phenomenal the guy is. And like, I wrote this down. I put a star next to it as the skull fuck PowerPoint. This is a PowerPoint I'd actually stay tuned into. So, you know, Bill Gates did not have this in mind when he was creating Microsoft PowerPoint at all. So, yeah.

You have a talk, a tactical operations center, and the commander sits at the center, and then you have his right and left-hand man, then it goes around in a circle, and you have all the displays with the UAV feeds on it and stuff. Can you grab me one while you're up there, please? Yes, what would you like? A beer. A beer? Yeah. And we were just kind of getting our rhythm with this new battalion commander of how things were working and with Kyle. Thank you, sir. But we're now getting to meet all of the different...

The units. So we're working with different pilots now. And so we're working with the AH-6 pilots, which are the MD-500s with the miniguns and the rockets on the side of them. All right. So we had that's what the Alpha Company 160th. And then we have the MH-6 pilots, which are the ones you were wearing in your shirt earlier with the platforms on the side. So those are the B company guys that fly us around to chase squirters. And then we had we have to have maneuver helicopters. You guys know what a DAP is?

No. It's a direct action penetrator. So me. Yeah. Yeah. You. Yes. Okay. So it's a, it's a, it's the U S military's most bad-ass Blackhawk. So what they do, it's like, just imagine Skywolf on steroids or whatever that show was from the eighties. So it's a Blackhawk with big wings on it. And it's got two 19 shot rocket pods, a Mark 19 grenade launcher, and usually like a couple of mini guns, like a triple barrel to kill it.

And the purpose of that platform is when you invade a country, these things fly like 15 feet off the ground and they roll in and they look out all of the surface to air missile sites, all the SAM sites, all the radars. So these guys like skim and load to the ground and they are loaded for bear. And if you're popping a radar or you get a SAM missile, they're going to fuck your

your shit up it's bothering me i don't know the name you're talking about airwolf or something like that what was it airwolf okay yeah you're gonna have to watch how long have the daps been used just like since the start of the invasion or yeah they were yeah they've been around since the late 90s i guess no shit maybe maybe even older that sounds rad as

dude i didn't know what that was yeah and like the first time like i had no idea i was a branger fire supporters like oh we get like little birds and gunships and then we showed up for to the 160th to do a training down there and do our familiarization get to meet all the pilots and the platforms and they're like this thing rolls in i'm like oh my god like that is a sad face day for somebody and uh i don't have to steal that a sad face sad face day and um

I just reckon I'm not feeling very live, laugh, love today. Yeah, not very much. But they didn't have enough helicopters because now we're like late 2005. And so now we got both wars like rolling at speed. And now all the special operations units, all the Navy SEALs, all the Raiders, all of the special forces group were all like rotating at speed. And there's only so many helicopters and pilots trained at that level. So now we're getting really stressed out.

And unfortunately what they had to do is we needed lift helicopters to move us around. So what they did is they neutered the daps. They made them transport for us. So they took the wings and the guns off of them. And that is the most emasculating thing you could do to a dap pilot is to take their guns off because they had to carry us for weight. Oh, okay. So they're just mad now. Now they're mad. Are they just kind of like taking it out on you guys?

No, no. It was an inter-rivalry between the pilots because now the AH-6 pilots, the little bird pilots are like, yeah, we're the fucking badass ones. Those guys kill more people than cancer. Little bird pilots. They're done. And so we're going around and when a new battalion comes in, like you got all the new staff officers and everybody else, but usually they don't rotate all the units over at once. So that way you get some sort of like overlap.

And the first night you get there, there's a PowerPoint brief and it's like, Hey sir, you know, we've got this many little birds. Here's what we're carrying for ordinance. Here's our flight time. Here's this, here's our pilots. Here's everything that we can do. And you know, just basic capabilities brief. And the little bird chief, chief Meehan, his name was Meat is what we called him. He's a big freaking dude. You could barely cram him into a little bird, but he was the best pilot I have ever seen.

And he gave the brief, very professional, sits down. And then the DAT pilot gets up, Captain Brown, Matt Brown was his name. And he stands up and he gives the brief and he thinks he's going to be funny. And he's like, you know, I just want to say on behalf of the 160th and the mighty little bird, you want to say thank you. And do you guys remember that ringtone from the 90s? Like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bong, bong.

- What is it called? - Blue frog. - Crazy frog. - And so that's like, everybody makes fun of the little bird. Cause it just sounds like. - It's the go-kart of the sky. - Yeah, it's the go-kart of the sky, right? And so everybody kind of giggles and laugh at Chief Meehan.

quietly like sits there right on carries on so every night everybody's got to give like their capabilities or status you've got something down you got to work on it like what your priorities are blah blah and so chief mehan says hey yes i want to just say like i want to thank you know captain brown for inspiring us and getting just getting a little bit of you know respect for one another and which is why we just wanted to say what we think of dapps and uh and

it fires up with the same PowerPoint. Then all of a sudden it fades into this girl absolutely getting skull. Makeup running down the face, whole mess Pac-Man. And then this guy pulls this monster dong out, whaps her across the face, comes on her face, and then it fades in, daps suck.

And here you have this CW5 standing there just completely professional. Big pilot mustache. Big dude. He just sits down. And everybody in the talk is just... Commander Cool as a Cucumber. Next slide. Let's go. This story gets better.

So like as, uh, you know, one team, one fight, like, no, nope. Moving on. Right. And that was back in the day. That's how the army used to be. You can joke about shit. Nobody cared. Right. It was fun. You guys were killing people on a nightly basis. You could have some liberties with how you're going to live life and everything else. And so, uh,

war was proper war was proper back then it used to be a proper country but so as a as a as a ranger fire supporter you're always bringing in new privates right there are always new fire supporters coming in and they've like you got some kid coming in from california or oregon or tennessee or whatever and you're having to explain to them hey man here's what a little bird is and they're like huh and they just got out of rasp and they just don't know what they're doing their basic artillery fire support and you're

Here's what a DAP is. Here's what a gunship is. And so then you have all these PowerPoint slides before you go work with them and they have to memorize all the stats and statistics and all these other things. So you're always, whenever you're on these deployments and you get to meet the guys, you download the briefs. And so I just downloaded the little bird brief and I just had it on my like unclassified drive, get out of the army.

a couple years later uh my wife or now my ex-wife at the time she went to work for a outdoor company that was supplying stuff to the military and they were going down to the special operations conference down in tampa and there's a company out of seattle and she's got her assistant weather who's like this really good dude but he's just not into the military he doesn't know stuff and they're on a plane flying between seattle and tampa

And she's like, okay, we're going to meet with, you know, green berets. We're going to meet with the Rangers. We're going to meet with the 160th. And like, here's their, what they do. And so she opens, like does all these slides and she rolls through the fucking little bird slide. And they're in a plane side by side, laptop up volume on high. Next slide. The entire plane looks at her.

Like, co-workers might. Dude, the call that I got when she got off that airplane. Gold. Gold. That's why she's an ex now. Yeah. Yeah. The guys are, babe. Those military guys. Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys. This is the stories I love because it is showing, like, even in war, even, like, in direct action missions or things like that.

how wars at that time, they still took it like we made the best of it. They made the best of it. You made the best of it because you made, that's how a lot of it saving your, your mindset or saving your like depression, PTSD. That's how you got through that stuff is because you're like, man, why we can take this serious and it would destroy everyone. If everyone just focused on all the negative instead, it's like,

let's put a skull fucking video on during this. Let's get home. Let's joke about it. It might be a little bit of a chicken and egg problem there. Yeah. I don't know if that was the intent, but it certainly was the outcome. That's all I do. It's, it's awesome. And always refreshing. I came out with you guys because that in a,

speaking for individuals out there, it is that different mindset. It's like, hey, look, you have a bunch of trauma. This is how we handled it. And look, successful business owners, you're happy. No one would knew running into you on a day-to-day basis. It's like, oh yeah, not the dude to fuck with. But it is something because how you carry yourself, like the positivity you bring with it. And still you went through like some of the worst somebody go through, but you and the people around you made it a,

positive experience of humor laughter and then making the best of it. Yeah, the dark humor it gets us through. People just don't understand it unless you've been there like cops get it like Gallows humor is the best thing ever. Yeah, because that's the only way you can make it levity like you walk into a situation and that would traumatize most people and everybody's staring at it but all of a sudden you hear somebody crack a joke and you're like

okay, we can get through this. We can get centered and make this right. Everyone makes the joke. It starts with one and then you get to watch it expand. When we had... Oh, dang it.

Jody on when we had Jody on that was a cliche. Yeah, I had Jody cliche on watching how we went and we're like, whoa, and then he is the one that led the forefront on. We didn't know what you did. Yeah, we were trying to be gentle with like, whatever the true, you know, the traumatic experience he went through. And then he just off the bat.

Started being gallows as fuck with it. So we were like, okay, if homeboy that's went through all this can make these jokes, and then we start blighting. As soon as you realize, like, all right, you're the one who's willing to make the joke. All right, we'll pile on, but it's...

You don't know how to handle that very early on because you want to be as respectful as possible. Because the guy had gone through a lot, clearly, from a young age. But the minute he ripped those first couple jokes, the discomfort in the room immediately went away. And you see how positive they are and what they're doing in life, which is that you could...

be the, like you could have this, it could be what holds you back or soul crushing experience and then seeing him turn it into a light and laughter about it. Same for like these stories that a lot of people, you flip side of somebody's PTSD version of,

The helicopter's blades, like the rear rotor's almost touching. Like, it's almost touching. We almost died. And instead you're laughing about that fucking thing. I'm like, all right. Like, I'm alive. Like, everything is... You look at the pilot and he's like, yep, it's fine. Cool. Cool. Okay, I don't...

Okay, he ain't stressed. I'm not stressed. Meanwhile, in 2024, people would be talking about their PTSD experience from sitting next to the person watching the PowerPoint on their fucking laptop on a plane. Like, I just wasn't prepared to see that. Someone got skull fucked. People need a hard knock. Yeah, it's called fun. Someone got fun fucked. They look like they're having a great time. At least one of them is. Yeah.

Nine out of ten. Nine out of ten. Nine out of ten people enjoy gangbangs. I got to use the restroom. Get it. Oh, my God. I love just like the stories. Just how good people. What is it? Don't take life so fucking seriously because nobody gets out alive. Yep. Yeah.

You can make the worst of a situation or you can make the best. And then I guarantee people look up to you when you went through that shit, whether it's Cody, whether it's you, whether it's Griff. They look up to those experiences and then they see. If this is a competition, I'm bowing out. Yeah. But it's still you. It's making the best of stressful situations and how you guys handle it or approach it. It's refreshing. It's fun.

instead of the victim mindset was like oh this is really hard yeah laughter then overcoming that and then people like holy fuck that's a dude i want to listen to follow you can very easily maybe this is a thing to say but in my opinion you can very easily judge somebody by what they consider to be traumatic i i don't think it's i agree completely on that

Because we are. I know you don't, it's the whole thing. You're not supposed to compare trauma. But when I hear people talk about certain traumatic things, it's like, oh, you were, you were misgendered. Yeah. It is that I stare into like oblivion. You're like that stretched. I'll put that at one out of 10. I'll put that at maybe a one and a half. We'll pump it up a half point for you.

I don't think you should be crying about it. You said gay. That traumatized me. It's not your trauma to joke about, Cody. It's not my trauma to joke about. It's like, it's just, how weak do you have to be that words can hurt you? Yeah, you're like, oh, you heard hard. From somebody you don't know. Still hilarious to hear out loud. Yeah. I gotta bounce out of here, though. Oh, shit. We'll close out real quick. I'm 15 minutes past where I gotta leave. Oh, well, fuck. Yeah.

Close out with this. We'll do after show with Mr. Trout. Cody, can you close this out? We'll ask you where we can find. Bye, everyone. Thanks for joining us here on the unsubscribe podcast. I was joined today by Eli Double Tap Griff from Combat Flip Flops. Our boy Brandon Herrera, myself, Donut Operator. If you want to join the app show, we'll be on Patreon. In the meantime, where can we find you at Combat Flip Flops? That's it.

Combat flip-flops one word? That's it. Combat flip-flops one word. Easy. We'll put it right here, and then you can check out unsub fucking shoes or whatever here. I'll just give you all the credits. Mr. Brandon has to go. He has a political thingy to do. Are we allowed to say that? You can say that. We'll see where that goes. Now stab him with it, Cody.

He just say he's a politician now. Yeah. That will pass a metal detector, by the way. I know. That's like. Hard to explain. Right. It's going to be the funniest one ever. Oh, God. Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪