S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
From the little league coach to the former addict helping those still struggling, hear from people from all walks of life how they show up as a vessel for service and drive for transformational change. Hosted by Theresa Carpenter, a 29-year active duty U.S. naval officer who found service was the path to unlocking trauma and unleashing your inner potential.
S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
Battlefield to Brotherhood | Aaron Love - S.O.S. #215
What happens when a warrior who's dedicated to never leaving anyone behind is forced to witness a fellow airman lost at sea? Aaron Love's journey from elite Air Force Pararescueman to outspoken veterans advocate reveals the profound cost of service and the power of principle-based leadership.
In this raw, unfiltered conversation, Aaron takes us through his 22-year military career, from his post-9/11 enlistment to becoming part of the elite Air Force special warfare community. With remarkable candor, he shares the traumatic events that ultimately led to his medical retirement – including the heartbreaking story of combat controller Cole Condiff's training accident and how military process prevented Aaron's qualified team from attempting recovery.
"I'll be damned if I wasn't there fighting for him until the very end," Aaron reflects, revealing the deep commitment to mission that defined his service and continues to guide his civilian life. This powerful statement encapsulates the core ethos that drove him through five combat deployments and now fuels his work mentoring the next generation through podcasting and in-person training events.
The discussion ventures beyond personal storytelling as we explore the tensions between military hierarchy and operational effectiveness, the evolution of accountability in the digital age, and the crucial need for transparent leadership. Aaron's perspective on military reform balances patriotic reverence with unflinching criticism – a refreshing approach in today's polarized landscape.
Whether you're a veteran seeking connection, an active duty member navigating today's military culture, or simply someone curious about the human experience behind the uniform, this conversation offers rare insight into the mind of someone who's lived at the tip of the spear. Connect with Aaron through his "One's Ready" podcast or at upcoming events like MCON in Las Vegas to continue the conversation about service, leadership, and active citizenship.
Connect with Aaron - https://linktr.ee/aaron_loves_america?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=6cff43a8-e493-4e6a-a02f-4a68b8d162f7
Visit my website: https://thehello.llc/THERESACARPENTER
Read my writings on my blog: https://www.theresatapestries.com/
Listen to other episodes on my podcast: https://storiesofservice.buzzsprout.com
Watch episodes of my podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheresaCarpenter76
Good evening everybody, and welcome to the Stories of Service podcast. Tonight I have another amazing guest and somebody that I know we are going to have a very spicy conversation about politics, about service, about the podcast world, about creating content, about you name it, and we will talk about it. So, aaron Love, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:So Aaron and I have known each other for probably about six or seven months now, and we actually met through America's First Veterans Shout out to Jason Logren, who at the time was the CEO of this organization and America's First Veterans is a political advocacy organization that did help elect Trump to be in office, and is a wonderful, wonderful organization that really fights for America's first priorities, and so I'm very proud to be part of that organization, and so Aaron and I have kept in touch ever since then and then became friends in the process. So just such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And before I get started, as I always do, welcome to the Stories of Service podcast. Ordinary people who do extraordinary work. I am the host of Stories of Service.
Speaker 3:And to get us started, as I always do, here's an intro from my father, charlie Pickard. From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others by showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS. Stories of Service hosted by Teresa Carpenter. Hear from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.
Speaker 1:And today, as I said, we're talking with Aaron Love. He is a retired US Air Force pararescueman who dedicated 22 years of his life of service to the service to our country. Sixteen of those were as a member of the elite air force special warfare community, from five deployments to Iraq, africa and Afghanistan to leading teams during the global war on terrorism. Aaron's military career, aaron's military journey, reflects the highest standards of courage, resilience and purpose. Now, in his next chapter, he has taken that same mission first mentality and applied it to mentoring, education and purpose. Now, in his next chapter, he has taken that same mission-first mentality and applied it to mentoring, education and honest conversations through podcasts, social media and a new life built with family and faith. Welcome again, aaron.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks, Boy. That's really nice. I don't know if I'm going to live up to any of that, so we'll just have to see how the conversation goes. Oh, I think we will. I'm pretty positive that all those things are in there. But first off, as I always ask all my guests, where were you born and raised and what inspired you to join the Air?
Speaker 1:Force to begin with rod.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm just up the road in Akron, so really small town right outside of Akron, ohio. So grew up in Barberton, ohio. My dad was a fireman, my mom was a stay at home mom, oldest of six kids and like so many of our generation. You know, 2001 is what got me into the United States air force. So, you know, I was just bouncing around, yeah, you know, northeast Ohio, doing silly stuff and just being a young kid not really having direction. I tried to go to the Ohio State University and they politely asked me after two semesters to please stop coming back because my grades were so low. And I obliged because I didn't have a choice. But I was doing just, you know, looking for a direction. I never felt called to do anything. School wasn't really a thing for me. I just never really valued a four-year education from a brick and mortar. And then, you know, one Tuesday morning in September I woke up and I saw that we had been attacked and I just knew that was it.
Speaker 2:I didn't come from a military family, so to speak. Both my grandfathers were in the Navy. My dad was in the army for a short period. All of my uncles had some sort of military service behind them. But it wasn't like I was a military brat or anything. But you know, something my my grandfather, kilroy, always said is that every generation owes a debt to this great nation. And when she was attacked, I I looked at my dad and I remember that day of just saying, hey, like I think I got to go do this thing and that led me into the air force. Uh, like so many other young kids like I, I had no clue what I was doing. Uh, you know, I wanted to go to the Marines, I wanted to go to the army. I didn't know what I wanted to do at all, I just wanted to fight.
Speaker 1:Why the Air Force then?
Speaker 2:Well, my dad said hey, go check the Air Force out. And I walked in and there was a trifold pamphlet. It had a cool guy standing with a whole bunch of gear on that. On that trifold pamphlet was a pararescue legend named Michael Maltz. Mike Maltz was a beast. He was renowned in the community for just being an absolute physical specimen. Like you could not make that guy tired. And Mike Maltz was sitting there on that trifold and I was talking to the recruiter and it was funny because I had talked to the army recruiter. I was like well, I think I want to do like a special job, I don't think I want to do a regular job. And he's like well, we'll.
Speaker 2:As I was walking out, the air force guy poked his head around. He's like hey, come talk to me for a second. So he hands me the, the folder and he goes, or the trifold pamphlet and he goes hey, so what did you do in high school? And I was like well, I mean, I was a swimmer. And he goes oh, you swam, he goes. Well, I got this thing. It's called pararescue and it's super tough. I've actually never had anybody graduate. So it fails out about 90% of the people that try and the biggest problem is is is the pool and they they have a problem with swimming and they they're not good, they're not confident in the water.
Speaker 2:And I looked at them and I was like I'm totally good in the water man, like I wasn't a good swimmer in Northeast Ohio. Oddly enough, ohio is a pretty big swimming state. We've produced a ton of all Americans. It's great, it's a hub for swimming. And I wasn't competitive because of the class that I was in right. Like you know, right next door was Akron Firestone. Akron Firestone has produced something like six Olympians out of their storied history. Like they're the biggest name in Northeast Ohio and swimming. So I was nowhere near even a state level competitor, but I was still pretty good. And I looked at the time for the 500 meter swim and I was like I can do that. I was an athlete. I was a two or three sport athlete in high school. I have no problem, I can do that. So he was like, well, we'll see. I took the fitness test and I passed it and it was off to the races and it was the Air Force.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's so cool, wow, and I think that that's so interesting. What you told me about how it's just one person with a pamphlet Like for me, it was one roommate who happened to be in the Marine Corps reserves and said you should join the military. It doesn't seem like you really have anything else going on.
Speaker 2:I also ran out of options.
Speaker 1:And then it was also a guy that I was talking to or seeing at the time who was kind of like yeah, teresa, that sounds like, or Terry, that sounds like a really great idea for you. You really could use some direction like that. And at the time I was kind of sad because it kind of meant like man, this guy really doesn't like me that much.
Speaker 1:If you like throw me out to the military, but ended up being, like you know, obviously I've almost 30 years later, I'm still serving. So it ended up being a quite a great decision, but it really wasn't until those people would kind of just say, hey, you might, you might want to do this. So tell me a little bit about, like, your first, uh, few years in the air force. Was it what you expected? Were you, were you fit for it? Or were you kind of like, oh my God, there's so much BS to this. I can't believe I did this. I mean, how were you? What were you like?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, it was a little bit mix of both, right, so I was. I was so naive to it that I really didn't know what to expect. So as everything came in, I was like, oh well, this just must be normal. Like you, you have this view of what you think the military is, and my grandi and they had plenty of time and distance away from it, and so did my dad, so I didn't really have anybody that I even knew that was in the military.
Speaker 2:My swim coach in high school was a marine force recon guy, um, and it was funny because, you know, when we talk about water confidence and the pool stuff, this comes into play later because we would do these weird training events where you'd be like, all right, you got to jump in from this side of the pool. You, you got to go underwater, the whole team has to touch this specific part on the wall and you can't come up. Then you got to come up together. And if everybody can't do it together, then we're going to do it again. And as a high school kid with zero idea of what the outside world looked like, you know, I didn't even leave Ohio until I was like 16 years old. That is not a joke. Like I took a, I took a road trip with my grandparents across the country when I was 16 years old. That was the first time I left the state of Ohio, so I had no clue. But that, you know, played in a little bit later, so I sort of took it as it came. I was, I'm a, I have an addictive personality, so when I lean into something like I go all in. I have a relentless obsession to just do the thing Right, and I think that's what drew me to pararescue is. As soon as he was like most people fail out, I was like, well, I'm not most people, so let's see if I can, let's see if I can pass, you know, but it wasn't good. My story, if anything, is a cautionary tale for don't do it this way.
Speaker 2:So I actually, when I reported down to San Antonio, I got through basic training, no big deal, and I went over to the. It was at the time called the indoctrination course, so that was the initial selection course for the Air Force. Well, I failed that first team and I did it in the worst possible way, which is I quit. I got injured on my first team. I got through about three fourths of the way through the 10 week selection. So you know, around week seven, kind of in the beginning of the week, I had been there for a long time, I was dealing with injuries and I was emotionally, physically, spiritually immature and I was like I just don't want to do this, I don't want to be here anymore.
Speaker 2:I quit, let me go do another job in the Air Force and I found myself working as an aerospace physiologist in the Air Force, which is a really cool job. They run the altitude chamber, they run the dive chamber, they support high altitude airdrop missions. They handle oxygen equipment right for the special forces teams that are going out the back of the plane. Like when you jump from a certain altitude you need oxygen. Well, you need somebody that maintains that oxygen, make sure your stuff is working. That's the job I did. So it luckily kept me really close to that community when I would go out and I would get to support those teams and I would get to see the guys jumping out the back.
Speaker 2:That little nagging thing in me never really subsided when I would work with these teams and I saw the close camaraderie and I saw the way that they handled business. You know I'm working in a regular air force job and you know to your point about, you know the BS and whatever. So I was a young E4 at the time when I, when I cross trained back into pararescue. I just made E5. I hadn't even put it on yet and I was. I was getting kind of sick of the the large military structure. And I looked on the other side of the fence at special operations and I saw guys that could look at their boss and tell them they were wrong. And the boss would listen to him and go, hey, that's a good point. And I saw that there was a lot of flat communication, right, like you could look to the left and the right, you could hold each other accountable.
Speaker 2:Those things spoke to me and I've said this a million times. But if it wasn't for being a PJ, I don't know how well I would have done in the air force, because I I am resistant to authority. I will make you explain your authority to me, like if you tell me, like you can tell me, because I said so, and that's fine, but you have to explain to me why you said so, like I want to understand your reasoning behind it. I don't need to agree with it. Like I was a good senior nco, I didn't agree with everything the officers appointed over me ever told me to do and I would. I would hold message forward. I thought that that was important because that was a structure in which we were. We were living and working and I wanted to be a professional. But I'll tell you what I have been a thorn in many a commander's side, like even as a special operator. I kind of towed that line of just barely this side of insubordinate.
Speaker 1:But, I.
Speaker 2:I just like to think that I took it all as it came because, you know, I had the benefit of not knowing what was on the other side. I didn't know what all that stuff was like, so I was totally willing to just be seaweed and say, okay, well, if this is the thing, I guess this is the thing, this is what we're going to do, and that served me pretty well for most of my career. Sometimes, obviously, like that's not the best way to go into it with a clean slate, like sometimes having past experiences does help you out, but that was pretty much it. You know, I I felt good getting through that. First, you know, couple of years. I went back to INDOC in 2006 and then spent the rest of my time in the pipeline and then through the end of my career as a PJ.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, it's so true about special forces, and I have worked with special forces on and off throughout my career. Most specifically, I spent six months at Joint Special Operations Task Force, philippines, and that was a very insightful experience working with Army, sf and Navy SEALs down there for the Abu Sayyaf threat.
Speaker 1:And that was one of the things that really stroke me most about working with them is the no bullshit mentality, and I had been a part of Navy what I call Navy reindeer games most of my career and I would see it in various levels. As a maintainer, you'd have less of it, because either the plane is fixed or the plane is not fixed. As a surface warfare officer, if you had too many SWOs on the ship then maybe there would be a lot more drama and politics like putting you know, I don't know 15 JOs on the bridge when you really only need five.
Speaker 1:And everyone's just kind of clamoring to get their SWO pin and even if they can drive the ship or can't drive the ship and, believe me, I was definitely in the category of not really understanding how to drive the ship and, thankfully, thankfully I had a commanding officer that knew that I wanted to be a public affairs officer and saw that potential in me and said, okay, well, we know that you're going to have to pass and become a SWO and do everything that a SWO does, but we also know where your future lies.
Speaker 1:And so that's why I always say I have such a and you probably do too a mixed experience serving in the military and I never forget even though I am all for reform, I never forget the, the many wonderful people like now, admiral Brad Cooper or Admiral Joe Cahill are all the people in my career that saw the potential in me to be a Navy communicator and a storyteller and and and help me get to the path that I'm presently on now. So, even though I speak up and speak out, I never forget where I came from and I never forget those people who helped me out, and I'm sure you were in that same category.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I don't miss the circus, I miss the clowns. You know what I mean. Like I miss those guys. You know the, the men and women of of airport special operations, to the left and right of me. I was, but I was lucky enough to work in all of those and no matter what patch you were wearing, you know it's. It's the difference between a process oriented system and a product oriented system. When you're working in special operations it's a product, just like in maintenance. Maintenance is product. Is it a plane fix or is it not fixed?
Speaker 1:exactly? Is that black and white?
Speaker 2:can we fly today or can we not fly today? And if you can't fly today, you're gonna have to answer a question why special operations? Especially when you're talking about personnel recovery. Man, did you save the person or not? Did they live or did they die? Because that's what you're there to do and not to be hyperbolic.
Speaker 2:But we have a no-fail mission. Pararescuemen are the only people. The dod is calling for those highest risk missions. There's one phone that rings and it's Air Force pararescue men and combat rescue officers and we took that really seriously.
Speaker 2:But that translated into everything how you communicated, the drama that you got involved in, the politics that you had to play. All that stuff was muted because in the back of your mind you knew that that phone could ring and you'd have to go out on the hardest mission of your life that you weren't expecting. So, so, so, a lot of those other kind of like you know, stray voltage or that noise inside of the inside of your helmet really got a little bit quiet because you were just able to focus on the mission and you had a product. We have a, we have a job to do. Is the job done? And everything in between. That here's the job is the job done. It's a little bit different on the other side of the military because a lot of it is process and a lot of you especially, at the headquarters levels like you start to get to these HQ.
Speaker 1:I mean, we could probably talk for hours about that and before all of our audience, but it definitely that's what was surprising to me, even as a public affairs officer, as I started off, as you know, a young J O doing the things you know, working on the products, taking the pictures, writing the stories.
Speaker 1:And then I got into the more senior ranks and then it just became about what flag officer needed, what speech written, what media engagement I'd have to propose.
Speaker 1:That nobody wanted to do, and or what DV embark I would have to push on my ship that oh, by the way, maybe the crew wasn't as invested in this program that was faring around a bunch of community leaders and we get it like, in a big scheme of things, why we have to do it. But it was a very hard program to sell and a lot of the crew we'd have to stop everything that they were doing all the time, every day, 24, seven, to host TVs when there were missions to, you know, drop bombs on Syria, and so those were the kinds of things that like we really had to just walk this fine political line on. And one thing like you said, I definitely prefer product over process. I've always been driven by product, I've been driven by results, I've been driven by impact or outcome, and so when I was able to be in commands that allowed those things to thrive, that was where I always felt I performed my best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and your problem is you went from getting the message out to messaging and those two things are just different. Like when you start, when you get into those senior positions. My favorite thing was going to, you know, senior leader working groups, my first one. I told the story to a coworker the other day, but the first time I went to a senior leader working group I got to about Wednesday and I looked at my officer who I went with and it was my first one and I looked at him. I was like hey man, I can't help but notice we've had a bunch of conversations but there's no decisions.
Speaker 2:Being in this, being in this room, is like being on a rocking chair there's a lot of motion, there's not a lot of progress. And he kind of like looked at me and he started laughing. He's like, yeah, you, you've got to read of this pretty well. Um, and that's frustrating. You know I don't need to have 10 meetings, to quote Ross Perot. I don't want to have a committee on killing snakes. I want, as we might transition into talking about politics.
Speaker 1:I think that's also what a lot of this new administration is seeing with these, and I know it's hurting a lot of people and I know it's painful for a lot of people, but that's why we're seeing a lot of people at the top being let go, where they're saying there's too many flag officers Because we have become a bloated organization that has lost their way from getting things done and seeing impact to.
Speaker 1:Let's pay attention to how the process was and let's nitpick each other, and if we didn't do things by the proper process, we'll just obsess over that all day because we really don't have a real job to do. And that's what I started to see as I got more senior, and it disillusioned me a little bit because it wasn't what I wanted to think the military stood for, and so that's been a little bit because it wasn't what I wanted to think the military was stood for, and so, uh, that's been a little interesting to me. So you go throughout your career back to you and you get to about the, the, the 20, 2022 year mark. Were you thinking to yourself I'm going to retire, or did you want to just keep on going? Or where were you at?
Speaker 2:You know. So I got to. You know I got a new assignment. My last assignment was to the 22nd Special Tactics Squadron of the 22 STS and Joint Base Lewis-McChord. I don't know if you remember what America was going through in 2019, early 2020, but it started a pretty weird time in America, both for the military and America writ large. And I was in the Pacific Northwest, so I was right down the street from Chaz and Chop.
Speaker 2:I tell a funny story. I got back from a TDY and my wife picks me up and there was a great Asian restaurant that we wanted to eat at and she was like, hey, we'll order it, we'll pick it up, and COVID had kind of just started. So it was a little bit weird. Everybody hadn't figured out the process yet. So we were going to pick it up and we're in this, this parking garage in Seattle, cause I flew into Seattle and I, you know, look around and I can't help but notice that there's just nobody out. Like windows were boarded up and nobody was on the streets in Seattle and I was like I wonder what is going on and I started to kind of get like the tinglys in the back of my neck. Um, I looked at my wife and I just asked her specifically. I was like, hey, did you follow the normal process, which means, did you bring my gun up to Seattle with me? And she was like, yeah, of course I did. And I was like, okay, cool, well, we get out of this parking garage kicked off in Seattle. So to put it in that context, like that was the time that I spent at my last assignment.
Speaker 2:I had always thought that I was going to be in for you know, 20 or 30 years. I knew that I was going to make a career out of it and I always said that you know, when I could no longer do the job, I was going to step away. And for what that meant for me is that I wanted to train and act as a teammate and as a team member. So in pararescue, you go team member and then you go element leader, then you go team leader. So I was a team leader right, fully qualified and all the things that I that I needed to do to be a team leader.
Speaker 2:And I was at a higher position at that point. I went at the two, two SES. I went from flight chief, I did a little bit of the time and like our standards and evaluations. And then I was the operations superintendent, so like the second highest enlisted dude at the squadron, which the two two had never had before. Just because they'd never had PJs before, they weren't always integrated. That's too long and too creepy to go into. But you know, I always said that if I couldn't, if I couldn't do the mission as a team member like if they called me to do a mission and I couldn't carry the heavy rock and do the hard work then I was going to step away.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, you know, in 2019, you know, after those five deployments and you know a good amount of trauma that was kind of laid on I unfortunately, within a month, I had two, you know, one very close friend of mine and another, uh, another airman lost their lives, um, in in the span of 30 days. So I was there's a again too long story but I had to go retake a formal jump master course. You can be a PJ and be a jump master as long as you work in one command, but the other command doesn't recognize the school, so then you have to go back to the other school when you go to the other command. So I ended up going to like static line jump master school in Fort Benning, georgia, as like a 20 year, you know, master sergeant or you know, close to being an E8. I think I had made E8 at the time.
Speaker 2:So I was an E7 and everybody's looking at me like what are you doing here? And I was like bro, I don't know. Like again, focus on the process and not the product. Right, you know the common sense of me going hey guys, you don't really need me to do this job. Like, I'm not going to be the jump master, I'm going to be the guy that is leading the mission. I'm going to have my young, my young hard chargers did the jump master thing and my commit chain of command at the time just was not hearing it.
Speaker 2:Um, so we're getting to go on our final event and I hear that my friend, peter Cranes, had been killed in a training accident in Boise, idaho. Um, you know Peter and I'd just seen him previously. We have an in-person draft every year in Vegas and if the guys aren't deployed, we all show up. Phoenix is happening in two weeks. We're excited about that, so I'll see all the bros right.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately we found that Peter was died and less than a month later, I was involved in an accident where we lost an airman over the Gulf of Mexico. A combat controller named Cole Condiff was in the door of a C-130 over the Gulf of Mexico and his chute prematurely fired. It ripped him from the aircraft, presumably killed him. I can say that because I was jump master one in all of the safety reports. I tried to organize a team to jump in to save Cole and our command would not let us jump between the aircraft and the people on the ground. They made the decision that it was too risky and my team of pararescuemen, who are trained, equipped and specifically employed and deployed to do things like this, dangerous things that nobody else can do, we weren't allowed to go jump save Cole and he's he's lost until this day.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, yeah, and unfortunately, like that was, that was kind of it. You know somebody, somebody once described to me that you know your, your life, the, your ability to take on trauma. It's like a cup and you can continue to fill that cup up, but there's a there's a point where it overflows and, unfortunately for me, like that was the event that led to the end of my career, because it got to the point where, you know, I was unable, I was, I was physically having panic attacks. I would help jump master. Like you know, there weren't enough jump masters at the unit, so when we were getting ready for a jump, they would stick their head in. They'd be like hey, can you come help JMPI, the guy's jump master, personnel inspection? Can you help check everybody so that they can go jump? I can do the jumps on the plane. I don't need you to fly, but I do need help getting everybody ready to go.
Speaker 2:I would get done with those events that I would go in my office. I attack because what happened? What happened if one of those dudes got hurt? What happened if something on the jump went wrong? And until everybody was on the ground and safe? I just simply wasn't able to operate and I had to be honest, um, with folks in my chain of command and with our mental health professionals, and shout out to Laura um, you know, our psych doc at the unit, um, she was great, but you know, that time period was stressful for everybody and it was just a perfect storm of events. And I just, I knew one day that I don't I don't know if I could have been that that team member that was working on that mission, and it was. It was time for me to step away. And that's what happened. That led to, you know, 2024, I worked through my medical retirement and then, in January of 2024, I just stopped going to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So tell me, um, just out of a curiosity standpoint, when a jump master uh jumps from an airplane and there's having trouble, how can people come in and and save it or mitigate it? Cause I think that's what you kind of honed in on, is the fact that you guys could have mitigated it. Can you explain what that means?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I don't think we could have mitigated the problem right Like I think it really is. There's a specific parachute which has a specific piece of equipment which, unfortunately, it's like you lean out of the aircraft which jump masters have to do all the time.
Speaker 2:When you lean out of the aircraft, it can actually catch wind and open without you opening it. It can actually pull the chute open, which is what happened to Cole. You know, the part of the process that I disagreed with is that we have we have emergency procedures for everything, and in that specific event, the first thing that you do is you try to cite what happened to the jumper. They didn't know, they just saw him leave the door. And the very next thing that you do and I wasn't the primary jump master, it's kind of hard to explain, but there was a skills competition that was going on. It was a training event. A team jumped. We were the next team that was supposed to jump.
Speaker 2:So, because it was a competition, we were trying to game the competition and I was watching that team, like where did they spot? Where did they jump out? How can we get closer? So I was paying like rapt attention to the JM to see what he was doing, because my younger JM was actually going to throw us out. So I was, I was teaching him at the same time saying hey, this is the count, this is how far off they are, this is, you know, these are your landmarks, stuff like that and then, unfortunately, the wind is is. Cole um presented his shoot to the wind. That shoot opened. It ripped him out, he impacted the aft frame of the doorway violently and then was was out of the aircraft. From that moment, right there, that jump master should have looked out the door seeing that we had a jumper away that he was not conscious underneath his chute he was actually under two chutes. It was a static line. So his reserve fired and his static line came out of the bag as he left the aircraft.
Speaker 2:From that moment, the very first thing that he should have done is send extra jumpers, and he didn't, and everybody on the aircraft froze.
Speaker 1:So when there was extra jumpers that could jump out. I'm sorry, I'm just very curious about this, and I think other people might be too. When there was extra jumpers, what? How can they save them? They can kind of align themselves in in midair to to save the person and to go down with them. Is that kind of what you're trained to do in these situations?
Speaker 2:well, you're trained to get to them, so they're. You're not going to catch somebody midair, right, like you can't do the way that the shoots work, that's not a thing, but we wouldn't have lost him like cole to this day is still missing in action, while missing in training, you know, presumed killed in training in the Gulf of Mexico, and that was one of the biggest problems that I had is that. I think you know, from seeing the event and from seeing the violent impact of the frame of the door, I do not believe that Cole survived that event. I do not believe that by the time Cole hit the water, I do not believe that he was alive, despite some PA reports that came out that, incorrectly I believe, quoted one of the air crew members that said, hey, we saw him splashing around. I disagree with that because I was looking out the window at his two chutes in that water the entire time and I saw the event happen. So I tend to disagree with that, but that's my personal opinion on that matter.
Speaker 2:But what we could have done is we could have gotten to him. The team that I had ready to go, that I wanted to jump to him, I was directing the aircraft, exactly what they need to do to put my team onto the spot where Cole was. So I don't know if we would have been able to save him, but we would have been able to recover him. Or and you know, this is kind of a sad thing that I've I've had to, I've had to make my peace with is that you know, my biggest problem here isn't that, isn't even that we didn't find Cole, it's that he shouldn't have had to die alone.
Speaker 2:And at least I don't know if I would have been able to save him. I didn't have the medical gear, we didn't have a whole lot of support. He was in the water in the Gulf of Mexico, but I'll be damned if I lost him and I'll be damned if I wasn't there fighting for him until the very end. And that's a hard thing to realize and it's unfortunately just something that I've never gotten over. It's the biggest, probably the biggest failure in my career and I've done a lot of work to. You know, obviously it's not my fault. I've gone through the grief of could I have prevented it? Should I have spoken up? Is there anything that I could have done in the process? And that's not. You can't do that to yourself.
Speaker 2:You know, once you start, once you start blaming yourself for someone else's death, there's there's no coming back. And that's one of my. One of my favorite TV shows is Scrubs. There's one of the saddest episodes of Scrubs where Dr Cox tells JD that you know, once you start blaming yourself for somebody else's death, you're done. You're done as a doctor and then, ironically, that happens exactly to Dr Cox in Scrubs.
Speaker 2:But you know, working through that trauma, you know again, it was the process that reared its ugly head. It was the aircraft, it was the aircraft commander that I couldn't. He told me the risk was too high to let me jump. Like, you have to get the aircraft approval to jump. You can't just jump out of an airplane. It's not a thing. I couldn't convince him in that moment that we were current, qualified and the absolute best team. I think they're. You know, looking back on it, I had a guy that had a silver star as a pararescueman. That was one of Cole's teammates. It was a PJ. I had two PJs that I deployed with and trained up. One of them was one of my have more than four deployments. I had five deployments. The other guy had. We had 25 deployments between the small team that wanted to jump out and save them, like we were the best shot to fix that and because of the process and because of risk aversion, unfortunately they couldn't.
Speaker 1:Let us go and I never got over that. What a story. And what a story about, like you said, about process over outcome and and and being able to see the forest through the trees, so to speak, and understand the bigger picture of what could have happened and how things sadly go wrong. And it reminds me of a lot of the issues that we've heard about with rules of engagement and the laws of armed conflict. Yeah LOAC, yeah LOAC, not SOFA, but the laws of laws of armed conflict and yeah, loac.
Speaker 2:And when people are empowered to to shoot back or to defend themselves. And if you want to talk about disillusionment, I mean, imagine you know my, my, my, if you use that as kind of like the zero hour and then going on from there, like going through the accident, reporting and watching people engage in this process where some people try to shirk, shirk responsibility. Some people weren't held accountable for what they did, so you know the, the commands, actions afterwards it was. It was terrible because I would see these reports come out or I would see something come out and I'd be like I can tell you, you know, just like that, that PAO report of oh, we saw somebody splashing, you know, after he hit the water no, you didn't, I know better Like watching and then to see that come out from the committee. You know one, somebody on a airplane and I don't want to disparage this person, but somebody on an airplane that sees some water moving and that's what they said to the person that was interviewing. I can't hold them accountable for that.
Speaker 2:It was a terrible tragedy. People misremember what they see or they mistake what they see during a tragedy like that and they have their own opinion. That's fine. But when I see a verified report coming out from the Air Force Special Operations Command that has inaccuracies and I can tell you for sure because I was there, I was physically present, I watched it happen, I was involved in it and then to see a report comes out that does not provide transparency, that does not provide accountability, to watch that process work against Cole's family. That was it, like that was. That was when I knew like I was like okay.
Speaker 1:Yep, the beginning of the end for me was the report on Brad Crozier. I mean, that was probably the when I really I don't know if you know who he is, but he was the CEO on the Theodore Roosevelt when the COVID outbreak went, uh, went down and uh I a report was rewritten to have him fired. Um and and that just it just kills me to this day that the CNO, who wanted to reinstate him, was forced by Mark Esper and by Trump at the time to rewrite the report to make it seem as though Brett Crozier could have found other ways to mitigate what he thought at the time was going to kill his sailors. And when I heard that story and I heard behind the scenes how that investigation was rewritten, it really made me distrust the military and distrust public affairs, because no PAO was able to stand up and speak out and say this is wrong, we shouldn't be changing investigations. And Brett Crozier to, to his credit, is so humble and just an amazing, amazing Patriot. I've had him on my podcast and he holds no bitterness and is still encouraging his children to fact. I think his kids serve and he's a very accomplished aviator. And then he went into the nonprofit world.
Speaker 1:But understanding how that played out and like the lack of transparency and accountability it made me lose faith in the system and that's and that's what happens. I think when we have like these kind of real egregious issues that happen in the military and we see things that happen in a certain way, we're just like, okay, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. It's still something I love and it's still these wonderful memories and it doesn't take away any of those things, but it definitely makes us see things a lot differently. So tell me a little bit about what your. You had your medical retirement and then where did you go?
Speaker 2:Well, so I retired in Vegas. So I was lucky enough. You know, during that time of of my medical retirement and going through that process, I was always looking for the next thing and I found my way to the special operators transition foundation, which is a fantastic organization that helps knuckleheads like me that never left the team, like I never got a four-year degree. I never wanted to work outside the squadron or off the teams. I always said that I got in to be a pararescueman, to work on teams and to take teams to go deploy, to kill people, break their shit, and for a pararescueman, we wanted to bring people home. That was always my number one goal was to bring more people home that shouldn't have come home. At the end of it, like that was always what I wanted to do. So I had zero appetite to play those political games and I made that clear to my chain of command. So I never got those positions. So no problem, problem fixed itself.
Speaker 1:I can relate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, when you, when you tell somebody you don't have any, any desire to do, that, that they're happy to oblige because they're they are.
Speaker 1:They're happy to take duty stations away from you. They're happy to do all kinds of things, because they realize that there's are, there's, things that you just won't do or won't.
Speaker 2:But hey, I got what I wanted I deployed as a. It's very uncommon to deploy as like a team level guy, as an e8. Like usually, when you deploy as an e8, e9, you're deploying to a jock somewhere, to a somewhere, to a tactical operations center somewhere, and you're going to be managing the entire place and doing those things. And it's kind of like going to staff meetings and talking about stuff.
Speaker 1:Talking about talking about things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talking about talking about things, not me, baby. I got an actual deployment as an EA and my friends were so jealous, they were so mad at me. They were like how did you weasel yourself into a team deployment?
Speaker 1:I was like hey, baby, I'm just a troop chief. Honestly, Aaron, I really do feel like you and I have so much in common. I honestly think that when you are somebody who, like, doesn't just play along to get along, doesn't play the game as well as others, or doesn't want to play the game the way others do, you get rewarded in some weird ways. And it's not something that you set out to do. You just know who you are and you're just not going to play certain games. And then people see it and they're like well, okay, we can't fire her. She's not breaking any rules, right?
Speaker 2:he's just a pain in the ass. I would love to talk to some of my commanders, because that's probably what they would say, but like it's not that you were doing anything wrong, you were just such a pain in the ass all the time. I'm like that's fair.
Speaker 2:So you know, as I went through there and you know, back up a little bit at the same time in 2019, like while that that crazy stuff was happening, we started the ones ready project. So you know, one's ready. As a group of special operators. We started when we were in. It started off with four and now there's three of us. There's peaches, so j Jared Petras and they call him Peaches because his last name is P-I-E-T-R-A-S and, of course, in the military nobody could read that. So, like P-I-T-R-A-S, p-i-t-r-a-s Peaches, your name is Peaches now. So now he's known literally the world over as Peaches, but he's a combat controller. He just retired after 26 years in the military. And then Trent Segmiller. Trent is a special operations weather guide that they they ended up moving an entire career field, rebranding an entire career field and what we call special reconnaissance. So we started that project in 2019.
Speaker 2:And it really started from a joke. You know, one of our friends was like you know, you're, I was on a couple of different platforms answering questions. You know, peaches was on a couple of different platforms. Trent was on a couple of different platforms and we we joked that we, we all, are answering the same questions what's training like? How do you be successful at selection? What mental things are they looking for? What happens to your family? What are deployments like? What do you do when you're not deploying all this stuff? And we made a joke. We're like we're just going to start a podcast. Well, you know, fast forward. You know we're about to record episode 500.
Speaker 1:We're still answering the exact same questions.
Speaker 2:Nobody listens to your old content. We're getting the exact same questions. We laugh about it all the time. But you know, luckily we had started that right. So you know I was looking forward to leaning into content creation when I was recommended and I was accepted in Special Operators Transition Foundation or SOTIF. Those guys were great through the, the amazing work that they do in teaching me how to communicate these skills that I have no four-year degree and the military is not the civilian world Like I will tell you. You know, as a cautionary tale to people you know, even as a commander, as a chief, as an E8 or an E9 somewhere, you say oh well, I managed $7 billion of equipment and I did all this other stuff. Listen, the civilian world does not care. They care about production and you can't really tell me how you produce in that space. Well, special Operators Transition Foundation actually helped me to communicate those things and through those connections I was lucky enough to be picked up on the chief operating officer of a couple of different pyro companies. So we do close up fireworks. So think of special effects. If you've gone to a basketball game and there were flames that shoot out of something like, that's what we do so. Special effects, sparks yeah, it's super cool, completely different space, and I was lucky to get in there.
Speaker 2:But you know, as we alluded to, you know One's Ready has continued apace. We've started doing in-person training events where we, you know it's not a smoke session we're focusing on giving people the tools to train correctly, whether that's, you know, physical preparation, mental preparation. We talk to a lot of parents, we talk to a lot of folks, because every May we start joking, we're like get ready for the DMS Cause. Every May and June you get people that are graduating from high school and you know, just like us, you know they may have run out of some options and they're ready to make the military a choice. And you know, for us there's just not a whole lot of, there's, no, not a whole lot of information. It's not like, you know, a single trifold pamphlet for me is what got me. It's a different generation and it's a different way that they take in information and they need to know a lot more to make those decisions. And that's the space that we live in is we provide information. So those two projects for me have been really, really good for my transition, obviously working with some of the best friends that I've ever had in my entire life and just getting to be a knucklehead and talk on a mic about stuff. It's great. It keeps us close to the community, it keeps us close to the kids and it gives us a mission.
Speaker 2:You know, I said it before, like I don't miss the circus of the military, but I miss the clowns. Well now, all these young men and women that are trying to do something that's statistically impossible, we still have a 91% failure rate. Those people that are trying to do something impossible, they need another clown to help them. They need an older clown to teach them how to get through it and how to, how to expect these things. And that's the space that we find ourselves in. And, just like my time as an instructor, I get way more out of ones ready than I give and it's just because, like seeing people succeed, seeing people change their entire lives in order to try this, even if they go to selection and they don't pass, they spent a year of working out, cleaning up their diet, doing the right things, trying to be a better person they're better for even trying and to see that as humbling. You know when we get those messages where they're like hey, you know, I heard you on this episode talk about this thing and I thought I was the only one and I thought there was no way that they could take somebody like me. And I heard you talk and I realized that I could do it. Like humbling is the only word that I could possibly think of for that is that impact. So that's what I've been doing since just leaning in. We're going to keep crushing it. We are the thorn in Air Force's side because we are a cell phone podcast.
Speaker 2:We started when we were in right, so we had a little institutional resistance. You know, recruiters would call us super mad and they'd be like hey, do you guys think you're a better recruiter than me? Do you guys think we haven't already thought about this? And I was like, well, you know you haven't. I had I'll tell this story because it was one of my good friends actually. He called and he started giving me the business and he was like listen, do you think you're, do you think you're a better at marketing and branding? Do you think you're better at messaging and all this other stuff? And I was like you know, bud, I won't use his name, I'll call him John. So you know, john, there's one thing that I know that you don't know. That gives me a distinct advantage, and that's what one day of in doc is like.
Speaker 2:I can tell you what it's like to graduate. I can tell you what it's like to deploy. Now, I may not be the best at messaging, but if you compare me and you, I know the thing that you're just talking about. You don't know the thing that you're talking about. That's the space that we want to be. I don't want to recruit people, I want to scout people. I want to let people know, I want to sensitize them to the information. Good, bad, ugly, indifferent, I don't care. I want you to know I'm going to I. We tell people all the time about the BS. We tell people all the time about how it's not all even working in soft. I had a very good friend of mine that was at the army, tier one unit, and he would say all the time he'd be like yeah, you're still in the army. You think we don't do CBTs, you?
Speaker 2:think you think you think somebody doesn't call me about my DTS. You think that I get out of annual training to the army. You think I don't have to take a PT test and I always took that to heart. Like there's BS everywhere. There's just less of it in special operations, but I'm happy to tell them about the BS. I'm happy to be open, honest and vulnerable about the bad things, the impact on my mental health and my struggles with alcoholism while I was in all of those things. I'm happy to talk about them because if it affects one person, if it gets one person to go hey, wait a second. I've had those issues before. I think I can be better, I think I can do this thing, then it's worth it.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting talking to you like this, aaron, because I really also want to transition to your politics stuff, because this is a whole nother side to you that I think I was just seeing a lot of the stuff that you do with like America's First Vets or you do on your other I'm assuming your other is is that you?
Speaker 1:you have a you have a persona and a different image almost in this other realm than you have and I saw a little bit of it when I was researching for this show the stuff that you're doing with with the other podcast and with with air force and and just kind of talking shop about some of the training and some of that and and. But now that I'm really talking to you, I'm like, oh my gosh, there's this whole other side. But I want to get into the politics side though too.
Speaker 2:Well, don't tell anybody, I have a carefully crafted douchebag.
Speaker 1:Yes, On Instagram you come across really, really angry and aggressive Super dope, yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'm telling you, I call it, that's the, I call it like the, the, the air. You know the Dunning Kruger scale that goes like this, you know, like it's got the big, the big loop.
Speaker 2:It's like you know low, low experience, low intelligence, and then you go up and then you go back down and you end up. You know, the more that you know, the more that you figure out you don't know. I like to call that I'd be able to win you over, because a lot of I have a very funny sense of humor. I speak very bluntly, I'm very sarcastic, I tend to say what I think pretty much right away, and I use plain language, so it's funny. That's usually the feedback I get. Be like oh, I've met you and I thought you were such a dou related stuff. How did you bridge that with all the stuff that you do in the political world.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's principle based. You know what I mean. Like, I have principles that I refuse to. I refuse to leave. You know everybody's heard the statement I'm willing to die on this hill. Well, I have principles, but I'm willing to kill on those hills. Somebody's dying on this hill, but it's not going to be me, right?
Speaker 2:I love America, I love what it is, that we can do with all of our scars and all of our problems. And I can talk, if you get me going, I can talk about all the things about the admin that I don't like. There's a million things that I don't like, and I paint all politicians with the same brush. I do not like them. It's not what the framers intended. There's a reason why I have the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence that are close to my heart, that are sitting behind me, is because I really do love that, I love America, and because of those principles it's really not hard to walk that line, as long as you're transparent and you don't make yourself out to be somebody. I will not speak favorably about something I truly don't speak favorably about. That doesn't mean I speak against everything that I don't like either, because I think that there's a game afoot and politics.
Speaker 2:The thing about missions that I love the most it was it was almost the planning Like, of course, like the execution of the mission and doing what you're there to do. From a tactical sense, of course, that's rewarding. You know, when you're flying on a helicopter with somebody that was supposed to die and they didn't, that's awesome. There's no feeling like it in the world is delivering that patient alive and they shouldn't have been alive and the only reason they are is because they called my team. Of course, that's great, but something that I liked even more is planning for those contingencies is sitting there and going. Okay, whether it's running out to a helicopter and I'm sprinting trying to talk to my officer, be like, hey, if this happens, here's what we're going to do, if this happens, here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2:Or sometimes, where you'd have a more deliberate mission, that planning aspect, politics, is the same way. You have to look at what it is that you're looking at and say, okay, hold on, what is this? What is the expected output? How can I affect this positively? How do I get to my end state my commander's guidance and intent, essentially, and then how do I apply, especially in the political realm. How do I stick to my principles? How do I ensure that I am not wavering in the principled stand that I have? So really, in the end of it, it's really not that hard. Which is what frustrates me so much with politics is because when you see people to be like, hold on, what principle is guiding you? What are we supposed to be doing here? And I think that's why I love American First Vets so much, is it is a principle-based organization. We find things that align with our principles. We find people that align with our principles. We support, promote and help those people take their principled stand into a place that desperately needs it, which is politics.
Speaker 1:Right, and that was one of the things that really impressed me about Jason too, because I wanted. When I first talked to him on the phone about America's First Vets, I said is this a conservative, right-leaning organization? Because I wasn't really. Although I admittedly lean right of center, it doesn't mean that I want to be a MAGA. I don't want to be just every single thing that Trump says I repeat verbatim, because I'm like you. I have openly spoke out on things the administration did wrong, like the dot mil purge. As a PAO, you don't just use some AI program and decide to just discard every website, every page that had anything to do with military history. From a dot mil perspective, I mean that was just ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Or you don't remove books from the academy from a huge list. That isn't necessarily all things DEI or critical race theory, and even the recruiting numbers, the retention numbers. I get it. It reminds me of when Trump used to say we're filling the stages. Everybody was here. There's so many. I mean that's what it?
Speaker 1:reminds me of. I feel like it's such bullshit. Show me the numbers that really recruiting and retention are an all-time high, or just recruiting. I don't believe it. I don't. I know this because I lost a duty station over saying that we were lowering the standards to let in more people into the Navy, to let in more people into the Navy. So I, I I want there to be more transparency. I don't like the way the COVID mandate has been, reinstatement has been played out, but at the same time I I will say and it's hard to say this out loud I do agree that transgender service members do not, should not, serve. I do. I just don't believe in in that, and people can disagree with me about it.
Speaker 2:And now I'm going to call you an ist and a phobe and I'm going to say you're a terrible person. And now that's what we're going to do. So congratulations you just got canceled.
Speaker 1:I will be canceled, probably for saying that on a podcast, but it is the truth, you're fine.
Speaker 2:We say it all the time.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that they are some of my friends and some of those people I definitely feel they're kind people and they've served their country honorably. But I also don't believe that you are another gender just because you say you are another gender, and I don't believe, just like you shouldn't be able to cut off a limb or a leg and still serve because you have some kind of a psychological issue that says that your leg no longer should exist, I think this is along those same lines. It doesn't mean they have no dignity, it doesn't mean I don't respect them, but it does mean that that was a call that I agree with, and then I also agree with the calls towards lethality and merit-based standards, and so there are some things that I'm seeing that we're getting right, and I'll keep continuing to call out those balls and strikes and, aaron, I know you do as well.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I think the big misconception about me and like it's from the DMs, right, like everybody always DMs me, their dumbest, take on me and they're like oh, you're just such a Trump guy First. I've never said that, I've never said that and it was never one time have I been like Trump is my guy. I think he's the right president for now, in the context, in the time, and I have respect for the president of the united states of america, for the office and for the things that it means to our culture, to our history and to where we need to go in the future. I talk about this with nate from valhalla vft all the time, because he played like our dms are just absolutely unhinged. Like, if those things ever get leaked like it is, it is going to be a problem, right, um? But he always hits me on it and he's like, oh well, what about this? And he'll show me some bad thing. I'm like, yeah, that's terrible, shouldn't happen. I completely disagree with that, shouldn't happen. He's like, well, that's your guy. And I'm like, well, hold on, All politicians are the same to me, every single one of them.
Speaker 2:They are public servants, they do. I'm a private citizen. They should know nothing about me. They exert their authority derived from the will of the people, and that is what it says in the documents. I do not care who it is Now. If you want to talk about a principle-based stand, and who do, I think is better for America at this time and in this context, conservatism is the only way forward for America. When you talk about people can just decide that they should be included in the military, which is exclusionary by nature, because they said that they're a different sex no, absolutely not. There are layers and layers and layers and of course, there's nuance and of course, there's a way to package it for a 90 second reel. That would be different in a long form conversation like this one, but people never get there Right.
Speaker 2:So the big misconception about me is like oh, you're you, you were such a MAGA, you're such a Trump guy. I absolutely not. I am a conservative that loves America. I am as close to a constitutional literalist that you could possibly get, because I think the framers got it right the golden apple inside of the silver frame of the constitution and the bill of rights. They deserve to be respected and they got it pretty good, man. They got, they did. They did a whole lot of right things and they were pretty smart. Yeah, I got it that they own slaves Right. But when we start holding people to account for today's standards from 200 years ago, you're going to run into some issues here. Um, so we and we can have a nuanced conversation about that. All you'd like as well. Um, you know, but that's, I think that's a big misconception about me. They're like oh, you're such a Trump guy, absolutely.
Speaker 1:People say the same thing about me too. You don't?
Speaker 2:know how much shit.
Speaker 1:I got for the whole Hegseth thing and coming out as one of only, I think, two females who were veterans and I was active duty at the time even that was supporting his nomination. But I did my homework.
Speaker 1:I read the police report on the allegations against him, I watched the series of episodes from Megyn Kelly who's, by the way, also a lawyer in her previous life and I was 100% convinced that those allegations were baseless, and I still, to this day, feel they were baseless, and it really also got me on the path that I am on now, which is covering false allegations from all sides, and not just sexual assault or sexual harassment, but any allegation, allegations of, of of any kind just have to be uh investigated with a uh an eye towards due process and uh, in the military, our justice system has, has, has failed, has and I know you've done shows on it too it has severely failed our service members, and and that's an unfortunate reality that we live in, and it's something that I will continue to keep talking about until it gets fixed- Right, because sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Speaker 2:Again, all of these things like it's. It's right there. The first amendment allows us to address grievances with our government and we're allowed to have you know, we're allowed to convene, we're allowed to have conventions. Really, what they meant when they wrote that first amendment is that the people are allowed to get together and say, hey, tight government, we're going to disband it Because that is the will, the will of the people does so. That is how the documents are set up and the military is subject to the will of the people.
Speaker 2:It's under civilian control for a reason, and that's one of the reasons why, and for a lot of these things that I didn't like, like living in the weird alternate universe that was the COVID lockdowns in the Pacific Northwest, like I saw this to the 10th degree. You know, forced vaccinate not not forced in the sense that they held you down and put a vaccine I can tell you for sure there was a commander that I knew that would give, uh, undo, positive benefits to people that would get the vaccination. And now, knowing everything we know about that vaccination, you look back on it and you're like, oh wow, you gave that guy, you gave an entire group of people a four day weekend because they chose to take this thing. You incentivize them to take something you had no idea about.
Speaker 1:Right or no idea what was going to happen to them. In fact, I have a lead right now on a lawyer, a Marine lawyer. He's on X, he's very outspoken and his son has suffered massive COVAX injuries. And his son has suffered massive COVAX injuries.
Speaker 2:And we did a podcast with Drew Outstanding. Drew Outstanding got the vaccination against his will because he was pressured into it. He got Guillain-Barre syndrome. Guillain-barre syndrome and he was paralyzed and it medically retired him from the air. It's an amazing episode. You should go look for it. Drew Outstanding on One's Ready he tells his story how he went to the hospital he was paralyzed for six months fully paralyzed, a day after he took the vaccine.
Speaker 1:It is scary. I mean I had the.
Speaker 1:I had the vaccine and then I had one booster and then I never had anything. No, I think I had a second one after that. If I remember correctly and I looked at it at the time like this is just one other vaccine of many that I've had to take throughout my career and I didn't do the research on it that I probably should have. And it pains me all the people who have been kicked out good warriors, people that are like you and me, that will actually stand up and speak out, and people who are able to live with the consequences and I say this all the time, I've said it in many shows. I mean, if you look no further than the military members who are currently on X, the veteran community and one very notable active duty, o5, rob Green who are really, really, I think, paving the way for addressing grievances.
Speaker 1:I've never seen anything like it. I mean, I've sparred with them a little bit and then questioned some of the ways in which they want to do it and and I think that's okay and I try to do it in the most polite way, but I also respect them because I think that they are showing that they're not going to back down on this issue and and the administration's paying attention. I mean, Stu Scheller responded to them, uh, directly just about a week ago, and that's what it's going to take, and just like the issues that Nathan, your friend from the Valhalla podcast, brought up with Tim Kennedy, that those things need to be addressed. I mean, it's not that people hate Tim Kennedy or don't hate him. It's that if he lied about something, is that something that the Army should take action on and do something about. Right, and it is principle right.
Speaker 2:Did you say is that something that the army should take action on and do something about? And it is principle, right it's. Did you say a thing that you didn't do in order to profit off of it? Yes or no? I think all the facts right now speak to yes, you did that. You got to pay a penalty for it. Now it's not like. That's not my community. I don't have an opinion on it. You know, we talked about Tim Kennedy. Personally, I think he's a. He's a gracious dude that has always been forthcoming of his time. He's a nice enough guy. But two things can be true at once. Nice enough guys can make terrible decisions. They have to pay a penalty for those decisions. And that's where that's where we find ourselves. And and you know, there's an entire move, you know, to the account. You know, cancel culture is gone. Accountability culture is definitely in vogue right now, and there there's going to be people on all ends of the scale.
Speaker 1:I never thought about it like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know and you know, couple that with kind of you know, politics is always downstream from culture. I think that the move that the entire culture has made away from the mainstream media to the new media of the podcast space, people that are way more free to speak their mind and they're not owned by large corporations and they're not getting these scripts that we've seen come out so many times of the same message across 30 different platforms.
Speaker 1:No one trusts that shit anymore.
Speaker 2:Nobody, and you can see it a mile away. You can see that a mile away, you know, and I think with that entire move, like, of course, there are going to be people that just go super hard in the paint and there are people that, people that I disagree with, and I think there's going to be a natural correction there, just like we saw the correction Coming out of 2024,. People do not trust the media, People do not trust big media?
Speaker 1:No, they don't, and that's why we saw people like Trump going and working the podcast circuit, and then we all Kamala Harris, wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I remember it won him the election like it run him. He went on joe rogan. Joe rogan came out the next day and endorsed him. Kamala harris couldn't make it work and wanted all these restrictions she did.
Speaker 1:She wanted people to fly to her. She wouldn't go to anybody, she wanted the pre-loaded questions. I remember sean ryan tried to get her on his show, joe rogan tried to get her on his show and he she just made it so painful and that just showed her lack of transparency really it.
Speaker 2:Well, it it did and you you watch. You know, theo Vaughn have a three hour long form conversation with Jeannie Vance.
Speaker 1:Great, great. And I was gonna say the one with Trump.
Speaker 2:I like the one with Trump, where?
Speaker 1:where Trump talked about his brother and his brother's issues with alcoholism. I mean that just humanized Trump. I mean we saw a different side to him after that conversation and I think that also helped him win the election.
Speaker 2:Those those those kinds of appearances for sure, because the long form conversation where you can talk about nuance and you can put out stuff, that's not a package soundbite and it's not what you think that people want to hear.
Speaker 2:The people want to hear you speak and I think that's why you're successful. I'd like to think it's why we're successful. Good, bad or indifferent. I'm going to tell you the truth, at least as far as I can see it, or as far as I can understand what the truth is. You know, from my specific viewpoint, I'm going to tell you what I think is the true thing. You know you may not want to hear it, you may disagree with it, that's fine. But as long as we tell an uncomfortable truth versus a comfortable lie, then I'm okay with it. And I think, as that spreads right, politics is downstream from culture, I think, is the entire culture kind of corrects back to center on a lot of those things. I think that's why you're seeing such an explosion, especially in the military community, for accountability Cause. For so long, you know, it was like the only people that were more untouchable than politics was the DOD, absolutely.
Speaker 1:You'd have.
Speaker 2:You'd have commanders commit sexual assault and they'd just get another command.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:I mean, I can't you know the? The running joke for I don't know 10 years was you know, one of your senior enlisted or your senior commanders would get fired and they'd be like, oh, had sex with a subordinate, didn't they?
Speaker 1:And like 90% of the time it was normalized, and that was the reason reason and that was the reason why the whole backlash came, where they, instead of solving the problem, they just went to the opposite side of the problem and then made it so that even people who were innocent, uh, were sadly caught up in this, in this, in this fight, instead of fixing the actual issue with having proper investigations and proper due process and proper resources on to the defense and to the prosecution. And so it is one of those things that if the military really wants to be the transparent organization that they say they are, they're going to need to start putting in some time on podcasts and on shows where they have the long form conversations and they contextualize answers. I got to give the FBI director credit, kash Patel. He was recently on Joe Rogan and said said I don't do a lot of media but I always make time to come on your show, and it was a very long form conversation. He explained a lot about some of the measures and moves that the fbi is making.
Speaker 1:Another person who's been doing really good on this lately is doug collins. I recently saw him on keegan's uh or I saw a meeting with keegan and the mandatory fun guy fun day guy.
Speaker 1:So that was good that he's trying to engage with the, with the military quote unquote influencer community, and I've also seen him also on, uh, sean Ryan. So there's there's little baby steps but, um, one of the things that I want to see and I don't know how you feel about this, but as much as I, like I said I support Hank Seth, I support his nomination, but I'm not too happy about the fact that none of his flag officers get to go on podcasts or get to put out statements or get to counter negative press. It seems like there's this I don't know what do you want to call it, but it seems like there's this veil of oh, the military must be apolitical, so they can't have opinions and they can't counter negative information, and I just don't.
Speaker 1:That doesn't sit well with me and it doesn't have to change, it doesn't endear me to those people at all like at all and and when I see like Hegseth standing out in front of Scheller and and in these like weird PR moves and I just I, I. I again have all the respect for, but I think we want more. We want to see more transparency. We want to see you sit down and really contextualize your answers by having a long form conversation where people can ask you hard questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we I mean, you know from our narrow optic here we absolutely hammer the Air Force Like we troll them all the time. They've tried multiple times to put out these podcasts, have these little coffee talks, you know, have these little like moves towards it. But it takes about two minutes and they're turning the comments off. They're doing the you know, in two weeks what we're doing.
Speaker 2:And we'll hit them up and we'll be like guys, this isn't working. Do you know why we are working and you're not? Is because we're willing to have long form podcasts where we'll talk about nuance. It's not packaged, it's not scripted. You know, you can you see the guy running the podcast asking you know. Chief master sergeant of the air force, david Flossie was on a podcast that lasted like two episodes and they stopped producing them.
Speaker 1:Oh God, yeah, they're terrible. Like red Hill had a podcast. Can you believe it? The ones who poisoned the water in Hawaii they had they had a podcast where they're talking about how great the efforts were and even though it's been proven in federal court that they-.
Speaker 2:People have too much info. People can suss it out immediately, it's so disingenuous.
Speaker 1:I mean I go on the pages of you want to get really entertained. Go on the page for the DODIG it is the most no, absolutely not it is no, please do Go on there. Dodi, it is the most it is. No, please do go go on their, do they? They just celebrated whistleblower day and they? Had, like all these different experts on there and I'm like, and it's just like do they not know their audience at all and do they not see?
Speaker 1:what's happening, and that's where I just really had to break ranks with my profession and be this black sheep, because I I saw things like what you and I are talking about and it's like I. I saw things like what you and I are talking about and it's like I. I get it like this is what they're being forced to do, this is what they culturally, this is what I grew up in the ranks and became a pao, and this is all we ever do is talk about how great we are, but that's not the culture that we're in anymore where that can fly and they haven't caught up to that.
Speaker 1:And and again, I don't think hegseth or the administration or DOD is empowering the flag officers or these other lower ranking commands to do anything other than to say how great they are, and nobody. Everybody sees through it and thinks it's all a bunch of bullshit. And until that changes, you and I are just going to keep having shows and we're going to keep calling it out and calling these balls and strikes, as we, as we need to.
Speaker 2:Well, and I was laughing when you started talking about this thing. I was like, boy, I hope they don't start putting those people on podcasts because it's good content for me and I can go on and be like. You know, there's no counter narrative, right. Like I can say whatever I want.
Speaker 2:You know the current, the current commandant or superintendent I can't remember what his position title is called from USAPA. The guy's name is tony bauer fine. Tony bauer fine is an absolutely terrible leader. He was fired from socom. He got like promoted. It was again they fired him from socom.
Speaker 2:Fenton fired him out of socom and he ended up going over the air force academy. He's decimated the culture, the morale, the leadership at the air force academy. He doesn't get to go on a pot. We've invited him. I'm like, hey, come on the podcast, we talk about it. No response from him or his team because he doesn't want the smoke. The PAO will not touch it at all. They'll be like, no, you absolutely can't go on with those guys.
Speaker 2:But hey, for me it's great because I can just get out here and I can highlight every misstep. We get tons of text messages. We're very plugged in with a bunch of leaders in the air force and, and you know, we've become kind of like this we joke that we're the official, unofficial podcast of the United States air force, but but really all we are as a platform, like, if you want to get something out, if you want to say something that you can't say cause you're at work, throw me a text, I'll have a, I'll have a reel out that day, buddy, like we'll do a long-form podcast, like we'll get together, you got a, you got an issue that you need addressed. I know somebody that they can't touch and it's me, as an american citizen exercising my first amendment right to address grievances with the united states of america and the dod and what's a shame is that it would be so advantageous for them to do this like if I could talk to the cno or the chief of naval personnel or any of these people on my podcast.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't malign them, I wouldn't attack them. I just want to ask questions. I'm not going to give them softball questions.
Speaker 2:We're going to have a hard conversation for some stuff and I'm not going to let you message me, but I'll tell you what I would be respectful, I would bring. I would be like we had the chief master sergeant in the air force on not once, not twice, but three times and you can say whatever you want about Joanne Bass. People loved her, people hated her. She probably engaged too much and in the wrong way a couple of times on social media a couple of big dustups that we asked her about directly. But I'll tell you what you can say, whatever bad thing in the world that you want to say about Joanne Bass. We DM'd her a cold message. She responded back. There was no PA layer that we had to go through. There were no questions that we gave her. We told her generally what we were going to talk about and she was down for it. She came on three times.
Speaker 2:We were at a random conference, the Airlift Tanker Association. Yeah, and in the Air Force, like the Airlift Tanker Association is huge, like all the heavies go to this conference. So it's like everybody heavy's go to this con. So it's like everybody. She was there, walked past, saw that we had a booth, came up, said hi, sat down and immediately went through a 10-minute interview with us, no problem wow, so like, and again she has it can be done.
Speaker 1:That shows.
Speaker 2:It shows that it can be done. The four-star commander of amc came on our podcast to talk twice and it was the same thing. It was like, hey, mini, you want to come on the podcast? He was like, yeah, like you need to get it clear through PAO. I was like no one of them will sit in the room, but we can talk. That was it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what it should be. Those are leaders with courage and those are leaders who have a spine Courage, moral conviction and principles right.
Speaker 1:And they will have to be the norm in order to counter, uh, the negative press, because the mob's coming for them.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's, that's what I'm seeing the tim kennedy and the covid x uh people I don't know what else to say because I know they're not all organized and not all the same groups but the people that are calling for accountability with those two issues are, to me, a symptom of this larger problem that we're talking about, and they're just going to keep. It's going to keep happening. The people that want to fix the IG process uh, I could go on and on, and, unless the DOD is willing to answer questions, hard questions, and go on podcasts like yours, like mine, uh, these issues are not going to resolve. We're just going to keep talking about them. We're going to keep plastering social media, we're going to keep putting out these reels, we're going to keep doing it and, uh, I I do believe that at some point they will, they'll, they'll understand that this is the way to work ahead in a free country and in a country where we do have this freedom of speech.
Speaker 2:I think so. It's always funny to like well, we'll reach out to like squadron commanders, like friends of ours at this point, because all of our peer group now they're squadron commanders and edgecom functional managers. All these people will ask me like hey, can you come on? And they're like I don't know. And I'm like bro, we've had two CX, so we've had two senior enlisted advisors to the joint chiefs on. We've had the chief master sergeant of the air force on. We've had four star commanders of entire commands and you're telling me that some little Lieutenant Colonel can't get their PAO to come on and talk about good stuff. Come on, man. Like what are we talking about here?
Speaker 1:No, I totally get it. Well, what's next for you? As we're wrapping up the call, tell me what, what you got going on. I know you've got in con coming up and I will be there as well. So I can't wait to see you there and meet in person. But tell me tell me a little bit else what you got.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come out to MCON, that's a big one. So the military convention. So MCON is just, you know, like Comic-Con but it's MCON, but it's focused at military. So you know, not only vets but people that are still in a ton of resources show up from 501c3 nonprofits to people that are doing great. Post the senior enlisted advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ramon Colon-Lopez, the first ever Air Force guy to do it. He was one of the keynote speakers last year. It's a fantastic organization. It's great for networking. It's fantastic. It's October I want to say 25th and 26th, here in Las Vegas, so it's going to be great. So, come out to MCOM.
Speaker 2:One's Ready is going to go forth. We are going to continue to get everybody the best information good, bad and different. You know we hang our hat on being five things over at One's Ready Open, honest, vulnerable, transparent, accessible. If you need information, you hit us up. We will help you out to achieve whatever it is that you want to do. Obviously we're Air Force focused, but we've helped people get into the army and, you know, do all these other things from people that want to get into med school. Like we've got a lot of lessons there. You can follow me over at the war room. Uh, we love talking. It's, it's. You know, all four services are represented army, navy, air force, marines. Um, it's always a good show. We always have a bunch of good guests, so we're going to continue that stuff and all these things too.
Speaker 1:There's your month ready and this is the link tree and I put a link to your link tree in the show notes so people can go to that and read more about your work and see all the things that you've got going on. But, man, this has been a great conversation. We once again went a little bit over the hour, but I'm so happy to have you on and, god, like I said, we could talk forever on all these things, but anything else that I didn't cover down upon, that you just want to say as we close out the call.
Speaker 2:Now, being an American citizen is not passive. I ask everybody out there, get involved, get involved in your local government, understand what our founding documents say and just be a good person, just give a shit. If I could say that to everybody that's out there this country, for all of its good, all of its bad I know that you know, looking at the 24-hour news cycle, everybody freaks out all the time about all the terrible things. There are so many more good things that are happening in this country and in our life and we have such a bright future ahead of us 250th anniversary of the greatest country that's ever existed in the history of the world coming up next year.
Speaker 1:Be proud to be an American and be an active citizen. I love it. I love it and, yes, I agree. And if you're interested in learning how to run for office, I might want to remind you there is the Master's in Public Leadership at the University of San Francisco. I am in the class of 2027. It is an amazing program. I was just there this past weekend and I met some of the most amazing warriors who are in the program alongside me. So if you want more information about that, please hit me up. But thank you so much, aaron. I'll meet you backstage as I go full screen. But what a wonderful show, thank you.
Speaker 2:Heck yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, guys. That's it. Two for this week, two for last week. I think my camera is being a little weird, so do apologize for that, but thank you so much for sticking with me. Thank you, as always, for joining us on the Stories of Service podcast.
Speaker 1:As I always do, I'm going to close out the call. I do have some travel coming up, so I'm going to be pretty darn busy. I do go to Columbus, ohio, for the VFW National Convention this Saturday and then I will be spending the late next week in the New York City area to attend the New York City Hudson River seal swim that will benefit the Navy Seal Foundation. So I'm going there in a volunteer capacity. And then I do believe I have a bunch of other travel. I'll be on Finding your Spine podcast in a few weeks with my buddy, chase Spears, and then going back to San Francisco for college. So lots of other things. Then MCON and the Military Influencer Conference. So I have a lot of stuff going on, but I'll still be podcasting in between, so I'll see you online. As I always say to close out these calls, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other and enjoy the rest of your evening. Bye-bye now.