Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of couple of nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey. And today we have a very special guest star for you. JT money, JT go ahead and introduce yourself. Hey, what's up, man? JT money here. I am a former Marine scout sniper. And now currently I work for the government as a project manager.
I'm the vice president of the United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper Association, which is a non profit association that takes care of marine snipers and their families. And thank you for having me on, man. Of course. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we're actually going to have the link in our description for the U.
S. Marine Corps Scout Sniper Association. So go ahead and check that out. And leave a donation and definitely look into it. And JT, could you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah, so, the Scout Sniper Association, it's the only nonprofit. membership organization for Marine Scout snipers, basically in the world.
We came into existence in 1998 to support the sniper community through different types of programs, mostly trying to promote brotherhood encourage networking and professionalism. And our community is comprised of mostly people that were in direct support of sniper platoons in the Marines. So either you, you served a billet in a platoon for at least a year.
You actually went to Marine sniper school and graduated, or you deployed to combat with a platoon. We are nonpartisan nonprofit taxes charity. We're 501 three C. So fully nonprofit. And we do a lot of different things to support fallen scout snipers, their families. Um, just like an example is, say former sniper, it's fallen on hard times financially or medically, And we've, we've been able to come in and assist and pay like childcare for a year for their family or help with help people finding jobs, help people with transition helping some older, older snipers that may need help at their house.
Like their porch has fallen in getting together and having volunteers go and build a new porch or wheelchair ramp, or, a little bit of everything, man. We have sniper competitions. We host less fundraisers also. We just did a Scott Ivan event up in Orange, Massachusetts, which was pretty sweet.
So yeah, we just try to mix it up to do things that kind of encourage, encourage bonding, encourage to keep the community alive. And as men, we're tribal creatures, so you're only as strong as a tribe that's around you. So, and you really only can relate to those that have been through what you've been through.
So that's why it's important to, keep this community alive. That's really awesome I think it's really important to have something like this because sometimes, a lot of people who leave the military, it's kind of leaving a part of yourself behind and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the Marine snipers are kind of their own community within the Marines, just like when people ask me, Mr.
Whiskey, how is the Navy? I got to say, well, I can only speak on behalf of being a Nuke in the Navy because we have our own culture, our own whole gathering and it's completely different. Would you say you feel like being a sniper in the Marines is different than being a Marine in some sense?
Well, I get what you're saying and yeah, to an extent, yeah, we're a very small community inside the Marine Corps. First off the Marine Corps is the smallest branch, service. So, on top of that. You take the amount of Marines that end up becoming snipers and it's super small, man.
I think the most active school train scout snipers there's ever been at one time in the Marine Corps was probably, maybe less than 250. Okay. And that's probably at the height of OIF, so I would say today, the numbers are probably in the one hundreds.
So it's a super small community. Everybody knows everybody. It's kind of like you, I'm sure in the, in a nuclear field, everybody, anybody that came through that school or did that as a career within like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever, call it, you can find somebody that knows somebody within like A couple of text messages, and without giving away anything you're not allowed to, can you tell us a bit about the sniper school?
Is it very difficult? Is there a lot of dropouts and how is it ..Because Marine bootcamp is one of the toughest bootcamps out there already. So how's the sniper school? Is it relaxing in your training or is it like a second bootcamp? I wouldn't say it's like a second bootcamp, but it is difficult.
It's a lot of training, a lot of specialized training in the military. It's a lot of attention to detail and you can get dropped very quickly for different stuff, and I would say the attrition rate probably historically is over 60%.
For guys that start the course to graduate, there's been courses that graduated that started with 20 something people and graduated too. There's been courses that
have graduated none. I mean, so it can be tough. In order to qualify to go to sniper school in the Marine Corps, you have to be infantry first, and then basically you go and you try out for the sniper platoon with inside of a battalion. So every infantry battalion has a sniper platoon.
And that sniper platoon is this kind of its own entity inside the battalion. And basically, You're getting probably the top 1 percent of the infantry Marines that are in the battalion that are going to try out to do that because they know it's difficult. And usually when you come to try out for the sniper platoon, we have a two week indoctrination and that in doc is basically just to kick your ass for two weeks and see if you got balls or not, see if you're going to quit.
We do some different things to test your aptitude as far as like operational. But it's mostly just to see if you're a pussy or not. I mean, and then from that you may get accepted into the platoon. And then from there you start your training, basically getting ready to go to sniper school or getting ready to fill a billet within a sniper team.
And then, a few guys every year, you only have a few quotas to go to sniper school. So you have to be very selective on who you'd send because the attrition rate is so high. It's a 13 week course. So you don't wanna lose somebody from training for, 8, 9, 10 weeks and if they fail.
Right, right. I get that. And do y'all get a ribbon or a special marking on your uniform for this? No, as far as I know, we don't. In the Marines. We do have a, a secondary MOS though, so when I came in historically
the MOS designator for Scout Sniper was 8541. And then, if you're ever around the sniper community, you'll see that number a lot, 8541. People have it as their Instagram name, all this shit. But after 2006, 2007, they changed it to 0317. And that was also a secondary MOS.
Okay. So yeah, anybody past that was 0317. But you don't get any special designation or uniform. All right. Now, did you have experience with guns or sniper rifles growing up? Were you pre qualified for this school or were the Marines the first time you ever shot a gun? Yeah, actually dude, so I grew up in rural Mississippi.
Okay. And you're a product of your environment, I guess. You're a product of who you're raised by. My grandfather was a businessman and he was always slacks. And if not a suit, he was always in slacks and he was not an outdoorsman. Right. So I never had a lot of chance to do that stuff.
It was just never really something that was presented to me as a kid much. So forks was basically my life. That's all I did was play sports. Man. But I wasn't much of an outdoorsman and that's what kind of shocked a lot of people when I went in the Marines and then they're like, Oh, now you're in sniper school.
Because nobody could believe that I could go dirty being dirty for 30 days. You must be talented if you picked it up pretty well, right? Yeah. I try hard. I'm basically, anything I usually I try, I give it a hundred percent. I'm usually pretty good at anything.
I really, put my mind to, so I knew that wouldn't have an issue, but to be honest. The military was my fallback plan, I wanted to go to college and play baseball. I wanted to ride that dream out. But I realized that, in order to be successful in college, you have to know how to study and go to class, which is something I never did.
So I learned that really quick that college wasn't for me. I want to be a Navy SEAL. I want to be a Navy SEAL. A hundred percent. That was my. Mean, even in high school, I walked around a little Navy SEAL folder from the recruiting office and the, I was gung ho Navy SEAL, especially after seeing the movie Navy SEAL with Charlie Sheen, that eighties movie, right.
Oh, that was, I was hooked, man. But I had a small knee injury in football, my junior year and the fear of the unknown just kind of made me not join the Navy because I knew that if something happened to me physically and I could pass buds for some reason, And I was going to be stuck in the Navy, right, right.
You can end up with some nukes, it's two different worlds being a seal and being in the Navy, just like what you do and being regular Navy, then you fail and then you could end up painting the side of the ship. And now you're like, well, this isn't what I wanted to do. I totally understand that now.
What is the furthest you've ever shot? Like distance wise. Well my furthest ever kill was 24 26, so that's 2,426 yards. Wow. That, that is impressive. That was with the 50 cow, the Barrett, the Barrett 50 cow, the Sasser we call it. Yeah, my first ever kill in Iraq in 2006 was .
9 26 yards. 26 yards. Alright. And how many times were you deployed again? I ended up doing five. So pretty action packed. My, my first eight years in the Marine Corps, I was deployed over and over and over again. I came in and oh four and Iraq was really hot and jumping off.
So we, our op tempo was super high. We're basically just rotating in between, just rotating units in and out of Iraq six months on six months off. So we were always gone and deploying. I was there a lot. I feel like I spent a lot of time there. Right. Well, I'm glad you made it back safe.
I mean, that's the important thing. And actually, when I was in Texas at a bar my buddies and I Navy met a Marine and , we started talking about who was better. And we came to the compromise, the Navy makes sure we get there and the Marines make sure we get back, so, I know you've spent.
All the, yeah, all the branches do, they all got their purpose, man, right. Whatever, what's your goal and what are you looking at life? That's all it's about, man. And so you served on board Navy ships, right? So, in the Marines, we have what we call muse, the military, the Marine expeditionary units.
Right. Basically you deploy one infantry battalion with a mu and you're either in the Mediterranean or you're in the Pacific. Odd numbers go to the Pacific and even numbers go to the Med. So you've always got one out there. You've always got a Mu in the Pacific and in the Med at all times.
Do you have a choice? Do they give you like a dream sheet on which side you want to be deployed? It's based off of geographically where you're stationed at. So in the Marine Corps, you've only got three main bases that you can be stationed at for infantry. And there's only a few bases in the Marine Corps anyway.
If you join boot camp east of the Mississippi river, you're going to go to east coast, if you join west of the Mississippi river, you're more than likely going to go to camp panels, California. But yeah, so my first deployment, we went on a mute and we spent most of that deployment on the ship.
We were on the USS Austin, which is an LPD four. Right. And it's already been decommissioned. I think as soon as we got off of it, they decommissioned it. So that tells you there was a shit hole, right? I mean, I can imagine how was the galley, important question. How was the galley?
Well, I mean, the food wasn't horrible, but you know, if you've ever been on a ship, man, you're talking, you're getting in line for chow, like an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes before it even starts and just wrapping all the way through the ship, all the way out on the fucking deck. Oh, of course. For us, it was across the hangar bay.
Now, I don't know about on your ship, but I know on ours, we actually had half an hour before you could get in line. We had a time just for reactor and watch standers so we can quickly grab our food and get back on watch or do what we got to do. So that was always nice. But there was a time of conflict where no one respected that and everyone was just getting in line and they weren't enforcing it until finally it worked its way up to the captain and he was like, we need reactor to be able to do what they do.
We had like our separate, so we had like a Marine line and you had the Navy line because we had our own Marine cooks with us too. Oh, okay. It didn't matter. It was fucking. Ridiculously long. And, and because the Marines were on the ship, man, we're not, we don't have a job, so we're literally just chilling.
And so everybody's in line for chow, because that's how you keep track of the day. Like, Oh, it's breakfast. It's lunch. It's dinner. Okay. Let's go to sleep. I mean, that was me in bootcamp and everyone I was with in bootcamp. It's like. Next chow time, next chow time, next chow time.
That was the most important thing to us. And granted in bootcamp, it's don't say a word in the chow hall. Don't say a word. You sit there and you eat quietly. And I know for us, when I went to bootcamp, we would line up by height order. And then , the official like five or 10 minutes started when the last person sat down.
So because my division was full of guys who were like six, four, I mean, my tallest guy was six, seven. And me being less than six foot, I always got plenty of time to eat, but the people at the bag always had the rest of your food, but that's what we look forward to. Now, did you do any port calls that weren't, active deployments, just some leisure time to go into country for a little bit?
Yeah, we did some cool, we did, we had a cool trip. So we did a seven month tour and the first probably 30 days straight, We were just floating and we went, our first stop that we ported was in Cartagena, Spain. It was pretty sweet, but you know, nobody spoke English and that was like, if you've never traveled, that's different, especially when you're a kid, a wild teenager, just looking to party and nobody speaks English.
So, right. And they didn't know we were coming, so they weren't prepared, man. And like, when we hit there, when we hit the port, we're getting off the ship at like nine 30 in the morning. And you're talking 300 Marines, 200 Navy attacking the bars in this town. And they're like, what the fuck? And you're saying it's five o'clock somewhere.
Yeah. And we're like going in there and we're like, the bartender is looking at us like, what the fuck? And we're like Cerveza, Una, Uno Cerveza. Right. Jack Daniels. Yeah. And they're like, Jack Daniels. Okay. And they just sit the bottle in front of you. And you're like, all right, then how was the cost of everything?
Was it American money went a long way there? Or was it a more expensive port call? It sounds like, yeah, basically all of Europe back then. And essentially it was more expensive because it was, the Euro was stronger than the, let's say like then it was like a dollar 20 for a year, so, right. Cause I've got buddies who just got back from Greece and they said for 32 American dollars, they got a meal for six people and like multiple rounds of drinks and dessert. And I was like, wow, that I wish, I mean, it wasn't like that when we went, it was, yeah, but you don't notice it because first off we didn't care.
Secondly, right, we haven't touched our money. They've just been sitting in the bank. So as soon as we get off the ship, you just start spending it. And then you get, and it's the first time you ever got euros. So it looks like monopoly money. So you're not even tracking how much you're spending.
You're just giving it away. Especially the coins. You don't realize like, Hey, that's like a 5 coin, right. Cause here in America, you got pennies. It's worth a cent. Right. Throwing money away. Did y'all go to any clubs or anything like that? Oh, yeah. I mean, basically as soon as we got off, people started hitting up all any brothel.
And so every brothel in town, every club, anything that we could do and me and my little group of friends, you had a role in like a battle buddy teams. Yeah. So you had to have like at least three people with you. And so me and my little group, We would always get a cab, find like a cool cab driver and just be like, get us out of town, take us to the fucking real local shit, right. And that's what we would do. And then we always had a great time, man. But we ended up one night where we're walking around and we're kind of lost, kind of like in like a little ghetto area. And we come to a dead end and we look up and it says bright light neon sign says like Bar, Kentucky. Wow.
Definitely a fucking whorehouse. Got to be. So. We go in and of course we go in and there's like porn on all the TVs and all the girls are sitting on benches, so it was pretty cool. But, and none of these English, somebody's got gonorrhea in his mouth on that ship. Oh, on that trip. Oh. Oh dude, it was bad.
Yeah, there was like gonorrhea floating around the ship like crazy. And one of these dudes in my, in our platoon got gonorrhea in his mouth. Yeah, you gotta be careful when you. Go all the way to a dead end and get out of town and you, you find a spot like that. But I know a lot of my friends in the Navy, they were like, those are the best kind.
You got to get the, the trashiest places will have the best clothes because they're like, Well, those are the, those are the good ones because the rest of the guys aren't hitting those up. So like the big name brand ones that everybody knows where the cab drivers are going to take you.
That's where every other sailor or Marines going. Yeah. So, you want to go to the, take me to the dirty spots. Right. We actually, we get warned all the time about Thailand because they have a lot of transgenders over there apparently. And we've heard a lot of horror stories about Navy guys who, I thought they were taking a girl home and then the night went a different way, so yeah, I think.
I think I don't know if you remember you remember that story. I think a marine killed some transgender dude in like the bathroom. I haven't heard that one. Found out he had a dick or something. Hold on a second. Let me, I'm gonna look it up. I think so. I want to say, yeah, marine killed a transgender dude in the Philippines.
Yeah, I'm sure the Philippines has it too. But Yeah, they tell us, be careful in Thailand they call them Thai boys and everything, but they said you can get a lot for cheap.
In fact, my grandfather, he, he went to Thailand during Vietnam and him and his buddies got a whole a mansion, a mansion with maids, with Thai girl maids who were completely like bow down their heads and like, here to serve you. For I think he said maybe 200, 300 American dollars a month for this whole man, you can do that in like, you can do that in Columbia, like Dominican Republic.
You can buy, there's packages, you can just Google it and you can find like, you rent a mansion for a week and it comes with like as many girls as you asked for and they cook, they clean and they do whatever else you want them to do basically. That's super cheap. But yeah, so listen, all right, so this is the story.
So Philippines, the ports, us Marine and transgender killing. This was in 2020. So or he got deported in 2020. Yeah. He did it in 2014. He stayed in jail in the Philippines for, I think for six years. His name was Scott Joseph Pemberton, Lance corporal Pemberton. Anyway. Yeah. Basically he was hooking up with this person and found out she was not a she and like strangled her to death.
Right, I mean, it's a bit extreme, you could've just been like, you know what, I'm going home. I don't know, that's the real, I mean, he probably still fucked her too. All right, who knows? He knows what went on. Maybe we actually, I can't remember who told me there was a petty officer in the Navy.
One of my instructors who told me they went to Singapore and Singapore has very strict laws. Like you will get fined for putting gum on the ground. They say it's a very, very clean place, but they have a lot of strict laws. And this one sailor just got drunk. And he just made a public scene, maybe, cursing, throwing profanities around, and I don't know if they fought some or not, they tied him up and beat him with wooden poles all night in prison and they kept him for days.
They wouldn't release him, which is always, that's a big issue. Now, if you got a ship. It's trying to get back on schedule and you got to stay there and try to get this guy out of jail, but they just beat the crap out of him with wooden sticks. Like other countries don't mess around with when it comes to, when you break their laws.
Yeah, it's yeah, some of those countries are crazy, man. The, I've always heard Singapore's really awesome place to visit. But my wife and I went to the Philippines, my wife is Filipino. Well, she's Filipino American. She was born in Jersey. But. Her family is from the Philippines.
So we, me and her went on just like a small vacation once. And it was pretty sweet. Everything's super cheap, man. The girls there, first off they like white dudes. And secondly, they like blonde hair, white dudes. So they were like pulling me off the street, dude, in the mall, walking up and just like grabbing my hand.
My wife be like, excuse me. No, no, I'm not. Like I'm his wife, I'm not a Filipino. They were just thinking this is some local girl that I picked up, right, we met here in D. C. So I live in, I live in the Washington D.
C. area. Okay. We met here the old fashioned way on a dating site. So, but we've been together since 2015, I moved here in 2015. And then we got together like two weeks later, been together ever since. Right. Well, I have respect for you. I can never live in the DC area just passing by.
I was like, nope. And it's just not my style. I'm more of a country guy. So the whole city and I know DC always has a lot going on. So yeah, there's a lot going on. I mean, I live actually in the Maryland side. So just like. Oh, just a few miles out of the city, but still right there.
But so, long story about how I got here, but I retired medically from the Marines in 2013. I had a bunch of different injuries that caught up with me and ended up going through the wounded warrior process and then retiring out. As I was retiring out, I also went through a divorce.
I was married before So for a couple of years there, I was in a really depressed spot because, I went from being basically in the top of my field, as far as what I was doing in the Marine Corps, my job as a sniper and, I was chief scout of the platoon.
I was team leader and all these things and respected and I knew, I had a lot of guys that I knew and. I've been to all the schools and then stuff started catching up with me and my relationship started falling apart from all the deployments. Right. That puts a strain on a relationship for sure.
Yeah. And then we started having financial issues and all these other things. And So I was kind of low for the first time in my life, went from being like on top of the world to not really knowing where I fit in, in the world and also not knowing what my future was going to hold, so I went through the winter warrior program when it were program at camp Lejeune retired out and then was kind of lost.
I didn't know what I was going to do, like go to school or what. So I ended up having a friend that lived out in Wyoming and his dad owned a little apartment building. He was like, Hey, Why don't you just come out here and live with me for free and just see what you can get in out here. There's plenty of stuff out here to do.
And if not, man, you can just travel around and, till you figure out what you want to do with your life. So I basically decided I'm going to take a year off basically of life and just go out and go travel and figure out what I wanted to do. So I went out to Wyoming and got a job working on a ranch.
Nice. And yeah, it was pretty cool, man. So I worked on a ranch. For a few months and was herding cattle, herding sheep and like taking care of all the animals and, riding ATVs around and shooting prairie dogs and it was pretty sweet. I had a good time out there and that was a good moment, good time for me because it let me basically decompress and, I would disconnect and get an idea of what I wanted to do in my life.
And at the One day my nurse case manager from Winter Warriors called me up and she was like, Hey, I don't know where you're at now, but there's a program in DC that I think you'd be perfect for. And I want you to call this guy and do an interview. And I said, okay, cool. So I called the guy up and it was for a department of veteran affairs acquisition internship program.
And basically they bring you into the government as a GS five hire you in full time. And then they put you through a three year. Paid internship program with a cohort of other veterans like yourself. You do a bunch of professional development classes, you get all the certificates and certifications you need to work for the government and to be like a contract specialist or project manager or whatever job field you choose.
Get your bachelor's degree in business, taking college classes, all that, that's pretty sweet program. And then they do it all together at one time. So it's basically like you're back in the platoon again, so. Everyone that's with you has been in the service and I'm not saying anything negative against civilians, but it's definitely a different.
Mindset and lifestyle and connection. I noticed a lot of the friends I've made being out of the service are actually active duty or also veterans, and I just find it easier to connect with them especially to work with them. I want to say veterans have a really good work ethic from what I've noticed so far compared to civilians, cause we've worked on two hours of sleep before we've worked long shifts, we've worked for little pay before, so.
It's definitely something that makes us a good worker, at least in my opinion. Yeah, I wouldn't actually say probably that veterans have a better work ethic, but I, veterans definitely have more of a suffer in silence attitude. Like, that's for sure. That's for sure. We have to do that.
So we have to do this. Let's just fucking get it done and get it over with. Like, Hey, let's not bitch and argue. Let's not bitch and argue about. Memos and emails. Let's just fucking do this shit and move on so I can go home, right? Yeah, so I think that's one thing that vets do more and also for me it's just easy to trust veterans, right?
Just because I don't know just like you said you connect more you just got more in common, right connect more they've been through some shit just like you have, they've Right, right. And I think it makes us more grateful for life too. At least is how I view it now, what I have to say.
One is that, that was a great friend you had, that they let you come out there and be with them like that. That's really awesome. Mm-Hmm. . And two. While you were discovering yourself, what did you find for other people who are lost, who are either transitioning outta military or even civilians who just.
Don't know where their life is going, especially people taking a gap year in between jobs or school. What did you find that helped you the most during that time? One thing that I think everybody really needs to do at some point in their life is take time to disconnect from the world, whether it's a weekend or two or three days a week, whatever, you shut your phones off, shut everything off.
Right. And really look at yourself. and try to figure out who you are. What is your identity? Because that's a big thing, and I think that's a big thing why people join. I think the military is because they want to have an identity and they want to feel, they want to feel connected.
They want to feel like they have a purpose and an identity. And I think for me, the problem is once you get out, if you hold on to the identity too tight, You can never let it go and you never really make that proper transition into the civilian world. And, for me, just finding out what is my identity and letting the fact that I was a sniper in the Marine Corps not identify who I am.
Yeah, I was a sniper in the Marine Corps and it was amazing and I'm very thankful for it. But there's a lot more to me than just the fact that I was a sniper in the Marine Corps. Right. Because for a lot of people, if that's your only identity and you lose that identity, you lose yourself.
And then when you have, what else do you have, so that's one thing that I did out there was search for my identity and find out, who am I really on the inside and what do I have to offer? So after spending that time in Wyoming, what new identity did you find besides being a Marine sniper?
After this is when you became a husband and father, correct? Yes. So between those two periods in your life, what identity did you find or just an appreciation for yourself, you would say? Yeah. While you were discovering yourself, what did you find for other people who are lost, who are either transitioning outta military or even civilians who just.
Don't know where their life is going, especially people taking a gap year in between jobs or school. What did you find that helped you the most during that time? One thing that I think everybody really needs to do at some point in their life is take time to disconnect from the world, whether it's a weekend or two or three days a week, whatever, you shut your phones off, shut everything off.
Right. And really look at yourself. and try to figure out who you are. What is your identity? Because that's a big thing, and I think that's a big thing why people join. I think the military is because they want to have an identity and they want to feel connected.
They want to feel like they have a purpose and an identity. And I think for me, the problem is once you get out, if you hold on to the identity too tight, You can never let it go and you never really make that proper transition into the civilian world. And, for me, just finding out what is my identity and letting the fact that I was a sniper in the Marine Corps not identify who I am.
Yeah, I was a sniper in the Marine Corps and it was amazing and I'm very thankful for it. But there's a lot more to me than just the fact that I was a sniper in the Marine Corps. Right. Because for a lot of people, if that's your only identity and you lose that identity, you lose yourself.
And also just being honest with yourself, because it's very easy when you're in a position of leadership in something like Marines or snipers, where, you're kind of like
the king, if you're a staffing CEO and in a sniper platoon, can't nobody tell you shit, you know what I mean? And you're basically the expert in your job field. And especially if you go to schools, you get a bunch of clout, people know you, nobody messes with you, nobody like tells you what to do anymore.
You do whatever the fuck you want, basically. And then you get out and you're a small fish in a big pond again. Right. your word means something when you say it, you can tell people to do shit. They do it, like you've got worth, like you feel like you're somebody maybe, and then when you get out that all goes away.
Right. You're just an ordinary person now. And you got to work your way back up all the way again. Yeah. And I think if you hold on to that too tight, You're never going to fully transition and you're going to have issues, and I think that's the big thing that it takes for people to, you've got to release that ego.
And if you can't release the ego, then you're doomed, and like I said, not letting the fact that I was a Marine sniper identify who I am. Yeah, it was great. It was a job I did, but that's it. It was a job that I did. Now I'm moving on, because you also have to realize that, The likelihood of you making a career successful career off of being a sniper outside of the military is fucking slim to none.
Right. Of course. I mean, maybe security, but outside of that, there's not a lot of opportunities saying, Waffle House is hiring snipers now, nothing like that. Yeah. And the market is saturated with like instructors and ranges and instructor groups and all that stuff.
It's a saturated market, so basically you've gotta be able to look and find out, what other skills do I possess? And you really possess a lot of shit from your time in the military. A lot of project management stuff. You were doing that the whole time you're in the military anyway.
You don't realize it, you were doing logistics in the military if you don't realize it, you were all these different things. Also paperwork in the military. . Yeah. Paperwork, administrative work. There's tons of things that, that you can still do.
And so yeah, I just had to really think outside the box and take a leap of faith and join this program that I joined to get in the government. And the main thing I knew that I wanted out of it was it got me a bachelor's degree, but I didn't care what the degree was going to be in. As long as I got that bachelor's degree.
And then I didn't care what the job I was doing for the government, as long as I can get into the government, get in the retirement system and get into benefits, my ultimate goal was to have a wife and kids and a family. Right. Of course. And you want to be stable. Right. So it starts with making those little choices, and it's all about the choices you make that none of this was not what I wanted to do.
It wasn't appealing, but I knew it was what I needed to do to reach my end state, my end goal to be a good husband, father, and feel like I have a complete life, right. And you said two things that I want to address. So the first is you said, realize that. Being a marine sniper is a job and not who you were.
I think that's an important thing for a lot of military members is because we live there. We do that every day, all day. On weekends, on holidays. You're constantly interacting with people who do that. You don't separate it from your life instead of a job. It's a lifestyle.
But at the end of the day, you got to remember that it is just a job. You go to work and you get paid and it's not like everyone else, but that's what you have to remember. So that's important for transitioning out. And then you said you were a leader and I just wanted to know what are some difficulties you faced as a leader and any advice you could give everyone.
So for me, you're only as good as a leader as the leaders you have before you. Right. So you emulate who was leading who led you, right? So for me, to be honest with you, I didn't really have a lot of great leaders when I was in the Marines, when I was in the military, my time in the military, I had very few, like the quality leaders that I looked up to and thought this is a good leader.
Right. Same. And I think probably a lot of people can probably say that same thing. Same. And, so you're learning on the fly, and it's really difficult to be in charge or lead your peers. That also are subject matter experts or also snipers that have deployed multiple times and, it's kind of hard and especially when you've all done dirty shit together and you've all partied together and you all know each other's dirty secrets and right, they kind of don't show you that respect as much as a leader that someone who they don't know is what I've noticed in a certain extent.
I was immature too. I mean, I was immature. And we were living life in the fast lane, man. I mean, we lived every weekend like we were gonna die. Like we didn't know. Right. At any time. We deployed in six months. Six months from now, more than likely I'm gonna be dead.
So, right. I'm gonna rage this weekend and we're gonna blow our whole entire paycheck. We're going to fuck anything that walks because guess what, in three months I deploy again, or I leave for 45 days to California for training or, I get back, I'm gone for three weeks to West Virginia for training and I come back and I'm gone, so it's right.
I get that. And something I regret from the military is not spending enough time with the people thinking, well, we always have tomorrow because You can get people suddenly deployed left or right or something happens and then once y'all go your separate ways, everyone's like, yeah, you guys can stay in touch.
Our lives are so different and busy that it's really hard to stay in touch. I mean, from all the people I've met in the military, which is a lot, I've made a lot of friends, friends, like brothers in the service, but even then you only get to really stay in contact with a small handful is what I've experienced.
At least. Yeah. I mean, it's all on the, you're exactly right. And, but some of the things that also, I just want to get back to my leadership things, I don't feel like I was a good leader and that's something that I do regret.
I had a lot of things going on in my life with my relationship, my wife, all these different things. And I was just very selfish back then. And that's one thing that I do regret. My time being a leader in the snipers being like that, but I've got a lot of great friends still.
So my best friends ever. And that's just a personal thing that I regretted. It's not making the most of my time when I was in that I could have, I think a lot of people regret that when they get out, there's a lot of regrets people have when they get out of not fully being in the moment, not getting the most out of the experience could have, and not putting themself in a hundred percent like they could have, but I've got some great friends, some of my best friends ever are definitely from the military and I've got, we're super tight.
And probably i'm like one of the glues that kind of keeps everybody together because I reach out to people all the time Right, i'm always randomly calling or texting people i'm always trying to get people together so i've got a really diverse network of people and try to keep everybody together man and since that time in wyoming when I reflect and I took that year and I started my life over basically I changed I became a new person and Since then, my whole focus is, become financially stable, become a business professional in the government, get a good job, and then focus on being a better, a good husband and a father and a mentor to anyone that needs it.
And a good friend. And that's super important. Like I said earlier, we are tribal, men are tribal right? Like you're only as strong as a tribe you have around you. And too many men think that they can just recluse and do things on their own and hold things in and figure out problems on their own.
You just can't do it. You need other guys, other men like yourself a tribe, if you will, to be close to, to bounce things off of, man. Right. Especially while you're actively serving, cause it gets stressful out there for sure. And you need people who understand. And sometimes you need those guys who.
No, you don't want to talk about it. And you guys just go out and do something. I mean, I've definitely had a lot of shipmates come to me talking about, they want to commit suicide. And, I've spent whole nights just staying awake, talking to them, or sometimes there was a lot of times where we just go out for a drive.
It doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter how long. We just drive all throughout South Carolina, stop at the gas station for a dollar slushie and until they feel better, it's definitely something. Now, do you feel like the military helped or hindered you as you became a father and a husband, is there anything that the military taught you that helped you become the man you are today as far as a father and husband?
I think my life at Up to this point, my childhood and my military experience and, all those things have factor into who I am today, and I think that some things from the military that really helped me is just the the daily pursuit of, you just got to get it done, and like having that mindset, like just got to suck it up and do it.
And I think that's one thing now, cause do you think I want to get Well, my kids crying at 4 30 in the morning and go in there and, or do I, as bad as a man overboard in the middle of the night, you don't want to, I don't want to do their laundry. I don't want to fold clothes, do laundry.
I don't want to freaking have to prepare their separate little meal for them because they don't want to eat what we're eating. And that's for sure. Just a lot of shit, man, that you just have to do as a parent and a father, you don't want to do, and you just have to do it. And then, when they're.
Some people don't do it, you've got a lot of good parents and you've got a lot of bad parents. And I mean, that's for sure, so that's just one thing. And I just want to be able to, my goal is that when my kids are old enough to realize for themselves, who we are, who their parents are, I just want them to be proud of me and proud that, dad was always there.
Dad always provided. I want them to be able to compare any man that ever approaches them in their life to their father And if they don't meet the same standard then it's not gonna happen, so that's my goal Show them what it's like to treat a woman by treating my wife Properly and treating them properly, you know well, you know what you're saying actually it's me pretty personally because My father his goal when having kids was kind of that.
Ancient way of, I need to spread my seed and create legacies and all this stuff, but he didn't, and he wanted to have all the fun side of being a dad going out for ice cream and playing games and stuff, but he didn't want to do any of the parenting. And I remember a particular story he always told me, because my father was a proud man, proud to the point that it made him a bad father.
He had to watch me one time my mom. She had quit her job to be a stay at home mom while my dad, he was a cop for 25 years, and so he would work, but there was one time where he watched me when I was an infant, and he was so proud that he said he would never change a diaper in his life.
And when I cut myself as an infant, he drove all the way down the street and had his best friend's wife changed my diaper because he said that was below him. I think that's something really important. I don't think a lot of men are still like that. But yeah, it was definitely a mindset that if you're a dad, you should be proud to take care of your kids.
You shouldn't be like this, this is below me. This is a woman's job. I mean, some things are, yeah. One term that I also never use is babysit. Like I hate it, when I hear dudes say that, like my wife's gone to the store, so I'm babysitting. No, you're not. They're your kids. You're being a parent. Right. You're watching your kids.
There's no babysitting your own kids, that's one thing that I don't like either. And I'm so fortunate that I'm where I'm at today because, I work remote. So I work from home. I'm able to take my kids to school every day. I'm able to break, pick them up every day, make them breakfast, get them ready for school every day.
They'll do their bath time every night. And that's incredible. My dad bragged that he, Never had to take us to school or he bragged that he only maybe three times in the entire time that me and my sisters were growing up that he had to take us to the bus stop. I mean, he was proud of what he didn't have to do.
Whereas it's actually a privilege. Men have to realize, and women too, both parents have to realize that some people can't even have kids, such an amazing thing to have a kid and, to raise them and help them grow, and to complain about it is awful, and I always hate it when my parents would complain, specifically my dad, about doing parenting things, and I'm like, but You chose this, right?
You made us, and you made that commitment. And that's something you have to follow through on. And something you should be proud to follow through on. I mean, , I have a lot of respect for single parents. A lot of respect for them. Yeah, me too, man. I tell my wife that all the time, I can't imagine doing this by yourself, honey, I'll never make you do this by yourself because
it's a lot of work if you're doing it right. If you're parenting, right, it's a lot of work, it's supposed to be right. But, talking about my childhood, I didn't. So first off, I don't want to bash. I didn't want to make us into my childhood was horrible thing and bash my mom. No, no, no.
Go ahead.
Go ahead. I already bashed on my dad. I'll bash on my mom too, but I'll let you take the mom. So, my mother had me at 17. She was a teenage mom from basically a guy that she hooked up with and she got pregnant and She ended up finishing high school. We live with my grandparents and my dad was never around.
He was a wild maniac. He was a wild man, drug addict, alcoholic, and he was never around. So, and she told me that he died when I was like three or four and started asking about, Hey, where's my dad? She's like, oh, he died in a motorcycle wreck. So that's awful. Years go by. My mother was super promiscuous.
My mother was a drug addict. We moved from house to house living with a friend of hers and friend of hers. She got married to a guy had my first half sister who she's five years younger than me So, you know for the biggest part of my childhood me and my sister We're just drug around with my mom wherever she ended up and It was not a good childhood We've seen a lot of shit There were times where me and her would be taken out of our bed in the middle of night by two drunk People that wanted to fuck and use our bed, or I used to watch her get beat, like on top of her first husband, pinning her on the couch, pounding her head as hard as he can, like over and over, like 20, 30 punches.
We'll be just standing in the middle of the living room screaming. Right. I mean, as a kid, you want to do something to protect your mom, but you're a kid, I get that. Having, even to the point to where, my aunt, my mom's sister, she was young, she was only seven years older than me, so she's kind of my big sister.
But when she would come over to stay with us or whatever, she would basically have us prepare a backpack, like a go bag, like, Hey, when shit starts hitting the fan and they're fighting and screaming, grab this bag and jump out the window and go to the neighbor's house, right. That's no way to live.
Yeah. But my grandparents were always not far away. So they always made sure that we had what we needed. They always made sure our bills were paid, that we weren't going hungry. And then eventually when I got to like middle school age, I ended up moving in with my grandparents full time, just because I kind of outgrew my mom by that age.
Right. I mean, a lot of respect for grandparents who, they chose to have kids. They didn't choose for their kids to be born. And the fact that you take care of them says a lot. Yeah. Yeah, my grandparents were my best friends, man. My grandmother still alive. My grandfather unfortunately passed two years ago, but my grandmother's still alive.
I talked to her if not every day, every at least every other day. But yeah, they took care of me. And then, back to my father when I was about 10, I get a letter in the mail and it's from my dad. And My mom, I'm like, who, what is this? And she's like, Oh, well, he is still alive.
He reached out, he found you he wants to meet you. Wow. All right. So what happened was he had, I think he had gotten some trouble. He'd been an alcoholic and a drug addict for years. And he'd went through like an AA program and a narcotics and honest program and live in like a live in program.
And I guess part of like the 12 step program was that you need to make amends with people that you've wronged. And it led him to open up and say that he has a son out there somewhere. And he was married, he'd been married since like a year after I was born. So he'd had the same wife. And anyway, they reached out and found me.
And then basically he's been in my life ever since. He's a good guy now, a good man now. I mean he's been sober for over 30 years. Wow, that's amazing to hear. Yeah dude, I mean he's got two other daughters. And my stepmom, though, I really have to credit her for bringing that together because she's really the one that made it all happen and stayed in touch with me.
My father's not a very, he's not a very sentimental emotional guy. Now if you call him and need something, he'll do whatever you need. But if you don't call him, you're not gonna hear from him. You know what I mean? Right. And then of course, he's proud of me and he's very proud of me that I turned out how I did.
And he's told me before, he's like, I don't really have anything to tell you, man, cause you've surpassed me in life and I don't have any guidance for you, but if you need anything, let me know. You know what I mean? Right. And but yeah, so that's what drives me to be a good father.
It's the fact that I didn't have, both of my parents, right. And that's something I don't hold anything against my mom. I don't hold anything against either one of them because I've turned out great and it is what it is. I have a relationship with both of them now, and there's no hard feelings.
The only thing I can be grateful for is what I've noticed with me and, a lot of people in the military have met, have really bad childhoods. I remember my one best friend, his mom used to put out her cigarettes on him, and it has put this drive in all of us to be so much better than our parents were.
And I think that motivation and that recognition of what children need and what they, don't need, I think it's something that drives us to be better parents. And, the hope is that the next generation, they want to go through that. They'll be like, you know what, my parents were great. I want to be just like them rather than the, I don't want to be like them.
So hopefully that's a transition we can see, but, things still happen. So I'm glad you're doing well as a father. What I did want to ask was, have you ever been shot while deployed? Have you ever taken a bullet? I have not. Nope. I've been very close numerous times. I've lost numerous friends, but I've never been shot.
But I have shot numerous people, but yeah, I was just talking to my wife earlier about, we were watching like a movie. And I'm like, can you imagine you think back about your life and, I'm sitting here and my kids just went to bed. I'm sitting on the couch and my wife beside me and we're watching a movie and I'm thinking about, this time, 2 a.
m. back in 2007, me and three other young guys that have never left the country are sneaking into a Iraqi family's house in the middle of the night, taking the family hostage and using their house as a sniper hide. Yeah. To try to shoot somebody. And I was like, it's a wild thought about that, like here I am sitting here in my living room, imagine, being in that position where there's nothing you can do.
There's two in the morning, you're laying in the bed, your kids in the bed. And you hear something at the window and there's a grown man fully geared up and kitted up with a gun in your face, climbing through your window, telling you to get on the floor and shut up. And then. The next thing you know, three other men, giant men come in with guns and get your whole family and put them in one room and shut the door and tell you basically sit down and shut up.
We'll be gone in three days. We would stay there for, anywhere from 24 to 72 hours depending on what the mission help. And just thinking about like, I can imagine the shit that, they went through, like for must be in there with. Right. Paranoia. Yeah. And we didn't treat them bad though.
I always treated everybody with as much respect as I could. But we had to come. That was my mission. My mission was to take this house, set up in the upstairs bedroom, a sniper hide where we can see this certain intersection where somebody has been putting in IEDs and try to catch them and place them and smoke them.
And that was like our average mission. We do that, a couple times a week for six months straight. But one thing I did get to do to caveat on that was I had one of my interpreters write down on a mess. So I wrote down on a notepad and I said, Hey, a little message, like a greeting when I go into a house, like, Hey, We're U.
S. Marines. We need to use your house for a mission will be here no longer than the mission requires. We would treat you with respect. Please treat us with respect. We will not harm you. We're not here to hurt you. You and your family can move around your house freely, but you cannot leave the house. Please show us where any weapons and ammunition are and bring them to us.
Gather everyone in the house and put them in one room. And that's it. And So I'd have him write that on a notepad in Arabic, and then I also had him record it on a voice recorder, like, your old school little desktop recorder. And so I could just walk in the house and get the man of the house and then play it for him.
And he'd give me like a head nod, thumbs up, and then we're good to go. So that's methods like that are what we kind of use, I guess, to make it a little more peaceful. Cool. Cool. Right. Well, that's good because it could go, it could be confrontation and you could have civilian casualties and that's, that's . Well, you don't want to do anything. You don't have to. Yeah. Well, they weren't going to be much confrontation where you got four guns pointing your face at two of them. I know, I know. Do whatever the fuck they're telling you to do.
But, but yeah, I mean, this is what it was, man. And I got stories like that for days, but one, one big thing, Mr. Whiskey, that I really wanted to do this podcast for was to address something that's really been weighing on my mind and I feel like we've pretty much covered a basis of who I am, what I'm about, what I represent, these types of things, right.
But the real message I think I want to get to is the veteran suicide rate. And we've kind of talked a little bit about, people having issues and things, but over the last two weeks, I've had two guys that I know commit suicide in the last two weeks.
And one of them I talked to about a month ago, the other one I hadn't talked to in a long time, but that makes probably 20 plus, at least over 20 easily. I can't put a number on it. Right. But over 20 easily and me and other friends , have had these conversations here lately and it's been coming to the front of everybody's mind.
And we're trying to figure out, why is it that more of the veteran population is committing suicide and higher rates than other professions? Like, for instance, EMS nurses, policemen, people that also historically have Right. Right. Traumatic careers, and one thing that I think I've ruled out for vets is the fact of combat trauma, that's one thing I don't think it relates to because a lot of guys, the majority, don't really see a lot of combat and right.
I agree with that, so we can't really say it's that, but that's the first thing that people want to say, that's the first thing that people want to say if you go to a therapist. If you go to the VA, the first thing they want to say is, Oh, you must've seen shit in combat, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah. That's what you got PTSD because of this, because you went to, No, I mean, in my opinion, it's really the leadership is what. It stems down to from what I've seen on my ship and in the schools I went to. But what's your theory? I feel like you're going to present your idea on it.
Well, that's, I don't know. So that's what I'm trying to come up with, man. We're talking about it and like, is it something that's predisposed and in an individual that joins the military, is it something that's like already in them? Is it the lack of ability to cope with issues?
I'm not really sure because a lot of,
I don't know, man, it's like, well, I have a couple of things to say on that. It does, put a chill over me to think about, because Part of it, you said, is it, already something inside of them before they join? I got to say, a majority, at least from what I've seen on my ship, in my boot camp division, my school, the percentage of people who actually wanted to do the military and actually, chose it obviously, chiefs always say, well, no one forced you to sign in.
But a lot of people were there. I don't want to say against their will, but they didn't want to be there. We had guys who, someone got pregnant or they failed college or they had nothing else to do, or it was a family tradition. The amount of people I've met who said, this is what I've always wanted to do.
I'm a hearty American, very, very small percentage. And I think that's part of it is it's a life that not only they didn't want to live, but a life that they cannot leave. It's very difficult to leave. I think also a lot of the people, cause my ship had 16 suicides in about two years, a year and a half.
We had, we even had a murder, a sailor killed another sailor right off the ship. And during the school, I mean, it was about a suicide a month, sometimes more. I've actually heard Kings Bay has a pretty high suicide rate too. I've never been to that base, so I can't speak on it, but. From what I've heard is, people say, well, it was the working hours, it was the leadership.
It was, their personal life was so stressed and have free time. There, and there's so many things. And what I have to say is my fix for it, obviously we can't prevent it a hundred percent, but I think not only would this prevent a veteran and active duty suicides, but also it would help retention multiply is.
The branches really need to do an actual dream sheet where it's like, we want you to stay in for 20 years. How can that happen? For me, it would have been, Hey, after I go through prototype the submarine for training nuclear personnel, I want to stay there and teach for two years, which is a position available.
Then I want to go on a four year deployment to Japan or wherever. And then I want to come back and, teach at the new school for until 20 years, or, because they give you this dream sheet and you put down what you want and then you don't get it. And that's part of the living and life.
You don't want. That is very unfortunate. If you're working for a company in a civilian world and they say, Hey, you're going to have to go relocate. I mean, usually it's an option in the military. It's like, Hey, we're going to send you to a country. You don't speak the language, nothing about the culture.
And you're going to be there for a few years. And I think it takes a toll on a person. Even after they get out, you had this regret, like, man, I made the best of it, but I feel like I lost. X, Y, Z amount of years off my life, and I think at least what I did see on my ship is they started opening up a lot more to each other and talking to each other, but also became this thing where medical and all the mental health experts were just like carbon copy, rinse and repeat, no matter what you went to them with same answer, same solution it didn't really help, I think the same.
That's the same for my generation's vets. So my generation's vets, when you go to the therapist, you go to the VA, you go to anybody, they've already got you diagnosed before you walk in the door. Your diagnosis is already down on the piece of paper. And all she's doing is going through a checklist they've already written down.
And this is what we're going to do for you. Everybody's different. And right. That this is the whole thing with the military is they don't believe in individuality. It's supposed to be. We're all the same, and you'll circle on a scale of 1 to 10, have you had little pleasure in doing things, and no matter what you circle, they're just gonna say, sorry to hear that.
It's not like, well, why? Or, like, why? It's more like, alright, do you want, you can't get medicated, cause then you'll lose your rate, or at least for I know for a reactor, there's a lot of types of medication you're not allowed to be on, or they're gonna be like, we can send you to this group therapy class where we're gonna talk, teach you these coping skills that, You're like, well, I want to do these things, but I can't, and I don't know about the Marines.
You're full of shit and being a pussy and trying to get out of something. Yep. Or they'll be like, you just need breathing techniques. Like, no, I don't need to breathe. I need, I need to not be working 12 hours standing in front of a door and pointing at the radioactive sign and telling people not to go in there.
Like, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of things, man. And of course, most of all the guys that I know that have committed suicide, there's always been a couple things that are, common between them, and that's, either alcoholism, alcohol issues, drugs, finances, relationships, basically all those things, right?
So you were saying that you noticed they have a lot of We'll call them bad habits or unhealthy de stressors, especially is what we call it, we used to, because people had asked us, they were like, Hey, what do you do to de stress in the military? And a lot of people always get the answer, vaping, alcohol, women, and you got to find a healthy outlet and that's why one of the most important things as an active duty member and a veteran is finding, like you said, but also a tribe that, It's going to be a good influence, supportive tribe.
Yeah, exactly. Right. And I've had that conversation with numerous guys this week about, you've probably heard that saying, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time around. Right. And that's true, so, if you look at somebody's friendship circle, you can kind of determine what kind of person that person is, so like especially me now I just turned 40, so all my friends that are around my age now. A lot of relationships that I've had with different guys are starting to fade away because we're not growing on the same paths anymore, right? I'm continuing to try to grow and keep growing and if you don't have other people like that, that you can talk to, you can relate with that are on the same path as you.
Then it's not a mutually beneficial relationship between the guys, it's more of a drain on you than it is a positive for you, so when I'm the guy that people always calls for like advice and the mentor, who do I call? Who am I supposed to be talking to, because I need advice too.
And so that's one thing I've been doing this last year is trying to put myself around a circle of men. That's maybe has already evolved a little bit of ahead of me to where I'm kind of aspiring to go, so like people that motivate me or drive me to be better.
And. That's what I'm doing. And that's why I try to want to get on a podcast and just kind of start talking to guys and seeing where everybody's minds at and seeing, trying to help, what can I do to help with that and try to get guys to start focusing on growth, personal growth and.
Right. There's a lot of people who just stagnate while in the military. They don't want to start their life until after they get out. But waiting that long is just. It has such a big impact on you and I want to say negatively, you got to start growing while you're in and, there's a lot of people when I was on the ship, all they want to do is complain and, hate their lives and when they get home, all they want to do is sleep or never do anything and you've really got to get out and do stuff that, they say, an idle mind is the devil's workshop.
I would say, especially for military members, you need to be active, and you got to make the most of your free time. And, when you're at work, you're at work, when you're at home, you're at home and reach out to people. And my advice would be, like you said, to have that good group of people that are growing and trying to improve things, you surround yourself with is really going to make a rake.
And sometimes you don't have a choice in that in the military, which is one of the things that sucks the most, in my opinion, is your chain of command can make or break a base or a deployment for you. You could be in the best area ever, but you have the worst leadership. And I've noticed, like I said, I've only had a very small amount of leaders in the military that I really liked.
And most of them were withheld rank because they prioritize their sailors first. But those people really. looked out for us and cared for us. You've got people in the military who, just see you as, government property, like you're getting paid.
So that means we can treat you however you want. Cause you're getting paid, to be under our leadership. And that's not how it is. We're people too, with needs and feelings and, There needs to be more flexibility. Yeah, and just like what I said earlier, you're only as good as a leader as the leader you have before you, and that's a big issue with the military in general.
Right, and one of the things I hate the most I'll tell you that the leadership type that I hate the most, There are two types. One of them is, you have these people who have been in for a while and their concept of leadership is, there was ways things could be better, but they said, you guys don't have it worse than me.
So we're not going to improve anything or it could be worst, or as the Mick Pond said before, I think he got removed regarding my ship. He said, lower your standards, and we had a ship that wasn't livable and, They moved people back on and he said, lower your standards.
You're not in a foxhole. And you know what, maybe we're not in a foxhole, but you know, things can be better, why not improve it? I mean, we had enough people to support a watch bill, so we only had to do duty day, maybe every five days. Maybe every eight days, but they said, you know what we're going to do every three days and put you guys on longer watches because you know what, when I served, I had a watch paint dry on the side of the ship or going along with that leaders who say, well, I've been in longer, so I know everything, and I don't have to justify myself.
I had a master chief. Awful guy. He said to me, well, I'm a master chief. I don't have to justify anything to you. I can do or say whatever I want. It's correct. And that mentality, that. Rank justifies everything. That's the type of leadership I cannot stand. Rank that's rampant.
That's rampant in the military, man. The thing is, you Especially, You get rank from, from sucking up to people or screwing over other people. That's the way I've seen rank being granted. Either they need you and they promote you so you get a bonus, or it's Hey, we need you to, do this thing that's going to screw over the sailors and they're like, all right, whatever you say, boss.
And, teacher's pet kind of mentality. Yeah. The way you get promoted and you have longevity in the military is by almost like in the civilian world, we call it being a corporate man, like you have to basically be a yes man for the organization. And I mean, the higher only wants the guys around them.
Yeah. They know we're going to do process, whatever their agenda is. Right. And ride along with it. And that's awful because then you never get leaders who want to enact change. The thing is I had a sailor once he was at his 10 year mark. So he was halfway to retirement. And he's like, why don't you just stay?
And he goes, no, and he, had a whole list of reasons. Why not? Why not to reenlist? And, someone said, well, why don't you stay in and become the change you want to see? And he said, look, there's always someone above you and the people who want to enact change, just don't get promoted.
Like we said, you had this constant recirculation of leaders, promoting people to replace them with the same ideals, so that's the issue I've seen, is this constant recirculation of, yeah. The same mentality. And so there is no change to the people who want change. They say, you know what, I'm not going to deal with this.
I'm going to go start a new life and be, make more money and be treated better and not have all these additional responsibilities. Yeah. A lot of guys, basically everybody I know got out, but right. I've got a few guys that are still in, they're making full careers out of it.
But they either got themself to a specific duty, where they're not really affected by the hierarchy as much, or they've just kind of been able to pick and choose and get in the right positions so that they can deal with the bullshit, but.
Right. But yeah, it's what would you like to see changed with the leadership in the military? I don't know, man, the problem is nowadays society overall is changing. Culture's changing, so Right. Leadership overall in the future. I don't even know what it's gonna look like.
I mean, I have to agree, and I don't even know. Like, don't know. And especially with, and minor year military experiences are completely night and day, because like it's so different from when I was in and when you're in now, when you just got out, I agree.
You just got out. That's part of, and that's part of the issue is a lot of the leaders, these senior chiefs and master chiefs who have been in for 10, 20, 30 years, they think so differently than all the newer generation of sailors. And I think part of the issue too is, The military, because it's hurting numbers wise, is lowering standards and it's letting, I think they just allowed now, I don't remember which branch, maybe it was Air Force or Navy, just allowed single digit ASVAB scores to, to get in and lowering the physical standards and lowering all this stuff and giving out bonuses for basic rates.
And I think the issue with that is, The people who are coming in now and do what they work, work their way up. I'm not saying, people who aren't as intelligent or people who aren't as physically fit can't be leaders. But I think it is something important. And they're letting people come in with all these waivers for criminal actions or drug offenses or stuff like this.
That really, changes the environment. So I have to agree. Like you said, when you weren't in, when I was in, it's totally different and even the people coming in now that there was fresh recruits who came to my ship and they were so different from me just after a few years of the military and a lot of that is, like you said, society's changing.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's for the better. I would say no. Yeah. It's bad, man. And in some terms. Yeah. But, you got to take the good with the bad. You're going to come across some great people in the military that are leaders, and you're going to come across some crappy ones.
And you have to be able to have enough common sense to shift through the bullshit and pick the traits from the ones you like, and disregard everybody else. And my whole first couple of years, I was a machine gunner. So I came into infantry, I was a machine gunner and our senior Marines in machine guns.
Were a bunch of lazy turds. I mean, they were the the epitome of turd. All of them are on the way out. They were only doing like four years. So this is like their third year. This is their last, like a little deployment. They didn't want to do shit. They were out of shape. They didn't PT no motivation.
They were all alcoholics. Right. And that's part of the issue. People who are like, I just want to get this over with. I just want to do this, do my time and get out. They had this minimum standard mentality. But for me, I was able to read through all that bullshit and know like, okay, these guys are turds.
It's obvious. So therefore I'm going to help with my peers that came in with me and we're not going to really focus on them. We're not going to take what they say to heart. We're going to work on being as good as we can. And as soon as I got a chance, I went and tried out for snipers to go be around better people, better quality Marines.
And even those guys I got, I don't hold anything against them either, because they didn't know what they were doing. Their leadership before them was just like that. They were just doing what they, all they knew how to do. Right. They were in their early 20s and just didn't really know, I mean, everybody, people forget that, you're basically a fucking kid.
That's so true. I mean, even these nuclear operators, we're 18, 19, 20. I mean, everyone joined in the military, unless They failed college or we had a few people who went to college first and didn't go officer. Most of them are fresh out of high school. I mean, we had people, this is all they have ever known.
But one thing I wanted to say that is important for anyone going to a new duty station or joining the military is making your own opinion because you're gonna get to your ship or your base or wherever you're going. And there's going to be so many people who just are, they vomit negativity all over you.
Right, but you have to make your own opinion. Anything is what you make out of it, man. It doesn't matter what kind of shit sandwich you're served You know you can make the best out of any situation and that is Definitely true and anytime you check into any new job new unit anything you're gonna have those people that are in that office that are going to be searching out for somebody To join the ranks of their fucking bullshit and right don't you can't get sucked into it, you know You that's true, but but yeah, man, well, I'm, I'm glad that, we got to have this chat, man.
And, right, JT, I'd like to thank you for being on the show. What I'd like to say is we'd love for you to come back after you've, explored yourself a bit more in the world out there and, let us know what you find about veterans and active duty and what other people have expressed in what you think is really going on.
And again, the link for the United States Marine Corps Sniper Association, you can find that in the bio in the description under the podcast. It's a nonprofit, please support. And, thank you for your service, JT, for going out there and helping keep America safe. As corny as it is to say from one service member to another, I do have a lot of respect for what you did.
You've already, told us that, that short story about taking over that house. You said you have a hundred more like them. So I know you. Some rough moments out there for sure. And yeah, not just you, but all your friends and everyone else who went out there. Yeah, we did a lot, man, but I signed up for that.
I signed up right for nine 11, just to go and myself on the front line. And that's why that's what I did. And, I think that I said, thanks. Thanks for having me on the show. And I just wanted to get my message out there and I'm still trying to work on my message, man.
And I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to address it, I want to keep the conversation going about veteran suicide. And , I want to steer the conversation away from having the diagnosis upfront of PTSD. Because there's a lot more that's going on with these people, with these vets that are killing himself and active duty, it's not PTSD related.
And of course we got officers, we got enlisted, we got, all kinds of ranks. You've got admin, you've got anywhere from admin personnel to combat operators. It doesn't discriminate. Right. So , that's my mission is to try to figure out, what can we do?
And I think it's going to start with while you're on active duty, like, what can we do, what can the active duty military do to try to help prevent. You know what, even before that bootcamping and recruiters got to get on making sure these candidates are qualified for this, and sometimes you don't know till they get out there, but it's something That needs to be looked at.
Yeah. A lot of people are shitheads before they even come in, and then, once they come in, , just like you said, they serve their time screaming and crying and moaning, they get out and then they go right back to the same shit and then they never really embrace what the military is meant to do for you is to change your life, right. We've lost a lot of the honor and American pride, not only as a country and a society, but also military wise. And that's something we need to get back. I think, more military members need to realize that it is a privilege to serve the country and it is an honor. And if they take pride in what they do, it'll help motivate them to be better and to put in their best.
But part of that falls back on the way society views the military, the way the leaders treat us. And, all of that really plays a part into that. That's something we need to change for the better so that our members going out there feel supported, feel like they're doing something great and want to stay in and the leaders really need to work on that.
Yeah, man. I agree. You got my info, brother. If you ever need anything, you hit me up, man. And I'm proud of you for doing your podcast, doing your thing. And let me know if there's any, everything I can do to help you, man. Of course. And thank you. And please continue to. Being contact and be a mentor and an advisor and a leader to all the other veterans who reach out to you, definitely continue to help support us for sure, dude.
I appreciate it, man. Yep. Have a good night, man. Take it easy.
