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
Combat Pilot to Million Dollar CEO | Jeff Moss - S.O.S. #229
What does leadership look like when control disappears? We sit down with Jeff Moss—Bronze Star Army aviator, bestselling author of My Leading Edge, Pfizer veteran, and Inc. 5000 franchise owner—to trace a life built on moral courage, mentorship, and service that lasts. From piloting AH-1 Cobras in Desert Storm to refusing to field unsafe aircraft under pressure, Jeff explains how clear standards and documented truth protect people and missions. Then we pivot from the flight line to the family room: his daughter Mallory’s intractable epilepsy, two brain surgeries, and the night a hospital chaplain asked the question that reframed Jeff’s faith. If you’ve ever wondered how to carry purpose through a season that feels like autorotation, this story will meet you where you are.
We also get practical about the civilian runway—19 years inside big pharma, what most people miss about drug access, and why pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) complicate care with needless switches. Jeff opens the books on small business realities: lawfare, soaring insurance premiums, and the discipline it takes to build a values‑driven moving and junk removal company that still invests in people. Along the way, we talk tech and trust (autopilot doesn’t replace a pilot, it demands one), media skepticism, and what it means to judge less by first impressions and more by character.
Threading through it all is a simple flight plan: pre‑flight your life with mentors and values, commit on takeoff, build systems for normal flight, stay calm in autorotation, and debrief for legacy. If you care about leadership, faith, veteran transition, small business, healthcare access, or just becoming the kind of person others can trust when the air gets thin, this conversation belongs in your queue. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a lift, and leave a review to help others find the show. What part of Jeff’s story challenged you most?
📘 Jeff’s Book: My Leading Edge — Available on Amazon https://a.co/d/j0TjJ4B
✈️ Fun Fact: Jeff still flies Cobras as an airshow pilot!
Where to Find Jeff:
🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-moss-92ba6710?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
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, everyone. And tonight I am so pleased and so honored to kind of go back to the origin of the Stories of Service podcast, which was ordinary people who do extraordinary work. Now, you guys know lately that I have been doing a lot on military justice and people who have feel they've been wronged by the system. And those shows I love too. And I'm not going to stop doing those advocacy-driven podcasts. But sometimes what I really also want to do is give you these stories of inspiration. And Jeff Moss is exactly that kind of story. Jeff, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_04:I'm well. Thank you for having me, Teresa.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you so much for agreeing to come on Stories of Service Podcast. I am the host, Teresa Carpenter. And before we get started, as we always do, I'm going to play an intro from my father, Charlie Pickard.
SPEAKER_00: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. Here from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.
SPEAKER_01:Now, Jeff Moss is a Bronze Star recipient, Army veteran, and Amazon best-selling author of My Leading Edge. And I have a copy of the book right now, and I highly encourage you guys go out and get this book. It is fantastic. We're going to talk about it tonight. His story and the story of his family is one of perseverance, integrity, and transformation. From piloting AH1 Cobras during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm to leading corporate teams through nine major reorganizations and now running one of the top performing franchises in the U.S. as CEO and owner of Saw Dogs Enterprises, which is the college hunks of hauling junk and moving in Wilmington, North Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and distinguished military graduate. He built his foundation of leadership early, ranking ninth of 4,500 cadets at camp Al Al All-American, and later excelling as an aviation officer in the U.S. Army. His post-military career took him to Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, where he earned global recognition for his innovative leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. And now as a business owner, speaker, and coach, he inspires others to take action, drawing on three decades of leadership lessons from both the battlefield and the boardroom. His company made the made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing privately owned businesses in America in 2023. And his energy continues to uplift uplift teams of veterans and entrepreneurs across the nation. Welcome again, Jeff.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:So first off, oh absolutely. It's such an honor to talk to you. It really is. And as you see, these are the kinds of conversations that I really love, and I'm so honored that people like yourself get in touch with me and we get the opportunity to have these kinds of conversations. But before I get started, as I always do, I always love to know where someone was born and raised and what inspired them to join the army.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I was born and raised in a small peanut community in southwest Georgia called Plains. And we had one famous citizen there, 39th president of the United States, uh President Jimmy Carter, was my neighbor, and he and my dad uh were close personal friends. So it's an interesting life. Um dad was a my dad was a P-51 and F-86 crew chief in the Korean War. As with that generation, rarely talked about it. Uh we would, you know, find boxes of pictures and things like that. My brother served in the army for a period, small short period of time as a uh dentist when he was uh right after he got out of dental school, had two grand two uncles that were in World War II. Uh, one of them served under patent, uh, both of them heroes. And it, you know, it's not, it really wasn't a family legacy thing to join the army. It really boiled down to getting into college, uh, coming out of that small community, uh, meeting the girl of my dreams and falling in love and wanting to be more. And right, you know, I mean, that's just really the the basis of it. And that that starts everything changing for for most men as a woman comes into their life and they go, Hey, I need to get my act together.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And I and I need to make something of myself and have a career. And and boy, what a career you did have in the army. Uh did you know, and you knew right away that you wanted to do army aviation, and I know that um that was sort of like when you came in, you said, I'm gonna go aviation, and uh you you made that happen.
SPEAKER_04:It was it was the only thing I was really interested in, and you know, it was at that point I had uh, I guess we were sophomores at the University of Georgia, and frankly, most of the folks I was getting a degree in agronomy business, and my dream was to go home to Plains and take my dad's place as the director of the University of Georgia Experiment Station down there in Plains, where it's where all the agricultural scientists come in and put in their experimental plots, and dad ran that. Well, they decided that the person that to replace him would need a PhD, and I had zero interest in staying in school to get a master's or a PhD, but beyond that, most of my friends were graduating and taking jobs that were paying no better than folks graduating from high school, and we kind of we kind of see that going on right now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we do.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, Charlie Kirk was trying to make that point that if you're going to college and you don't have a specific ambition of what you want to do in a professional world, doctor, lawyer, veterinary, you know, things of that nature, you're spending six-figure plus debt to get a degree for a job that may or may not get you to where you want to be. You may not ever even be able to pay down your school debt. So I was thinking through that process, and I thought, you know, the only thing that I'm interested in doing beyond farming was I'd love to fly. I'd love helicopters. Now, to put that in perspective, when President Carter would come home from Washington, he'd fly into Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia and get on Marine One, and they would always bring Marine One in with a couple of Chinooks, and they were coming into land right over the top of our house. So the whole house would shake. So there I am as a 12-year-old kid watching that and thinking, man, it'd be it would be really cool to fly one of those things. So that that's really how it happened. Um, sophomore year of college at the University of Georgia, seeing that my degree in agronomy business was not gonna get me to where I wanted to be. And I went over and visited the Army ROTC department, and it fit like a gloves. Best decision I've ever made. I think I I mean there are very few veterans that I believe would say anything any different than that.
SPEAKER_01:I agree with you. I'm I I always tell my audience all the time, you know, I may criticize some of the things. In fact, everyone knows I criticize some of the things that happened in the military, but I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. And as many things that I criticize, I could give you a hundred other things that made me who I am today, and people that I've met along the way, and experiences that I've had that are the reason I can do the things that I can do, and it's because of my military service. So I completely agree with you. There is nothing else out there that will equalize the playing field in terms of skills and ability, give you that can-do spirit, the way that you have to just pull something out of nothing to make things happen, uh, to adapt in in very dynamic circumstances, even if you're not at war, you're always in some sort of a dynamic circumstance. So you definitely had your share of those while you were serving, too.
SPEAKER_04:Have you ever stopped at this point with the perspective you now had and thought about the amount of responsibility you were given as a young Navy officer to lead these people? And you're signing for a book of equipment valued in seven-figure world, and you're in your 20s, right?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. And they're going out there and they're leading huge teams, they're doing things that no other person in on the corporate world can could ever compare to doing. And sometimes doing those, like I said, in the most stressful circumstances, deployed in austere locations. So I I think that everyone should have the opportunity and the experience of joining the military. And I think that it will do wonders for anybody, no matter what your background is. And the opportunities that I've been given for service is something I am truly grateful for. And as I go through your excellent, excellent, excellent book, My Leading Edge, An Inspired Flight of Faith, it really struck me, even in your early days while you were serving in the Army, how important it was for you to have those mentors and those people who inspired you.
SPEAKER_04:When I wrote the book, I wanted to honor all the people that had such a huge influence in my life. Um, it's you know, starting with my dad. Obviously, for those that are going to read the book, it's titled My Leading Edge is out of respect for my father. So the leading edge of the rotor blade on a helicopter or an airplane is the first thing that strikes whatever the air, you name it. So as a good parent, as a good father, he was always out there leading by example, tip of the spear attitude, good military vernacular, right? And he introduced me to his person, Jesus Christ. And I said, you know, I find Jesus to be the ultimate leading edge, but somebody's got to show you the way through life. And dad really blazed that trail, and he was the tip of the spear, he was the leading edge, but there were so many others that picked up where he left off, or picked up where my mom left off. So as we went through the book, I only I think there somebody told me that I said it's all about finding the good in people and all that. And they said, What about that that nasty major that was over on that airfield in Saudi Arabia? I said, Well, you always have to have a villain, right? So there was only one guy, but one of the points I I always want to make with folks when I'm doing leadership development, they'll they'll say, What's the difference between a good manager and a bad manager? And I'm like, Everybody's got some good in them. Sometimes you have to look a little harder, but the worst manager you ever had taught you something. Sometimes it's what not to do. I mean, but not that everybody's got some good in them. Sometimes it takes a little more effort to find it. But I really wanted to honor those folks that showed me things and then tell their story. So the book is yes, it's about my family and our experience with our daughter and my growing up in that little peanut farm community of plains. But moreover, it's to highlight all these incredible people, both in the military, outside of the military, that had such a tremendous impact on building and developing me. And I I don't I think the only way you can get there, Teresa, is to exercise perspective, to reflect back on your life and think about all the good things that have happened and all the good people that helped you get through it. And it's not a smooth sale for everybody, as we were talking about before we got on here. I believe everybody's carrying a sack of rocks. Some are heavier than others, some of them are boulders, but there is nobody that's not going through something, you know. And we always go, it's all about me. Well, actually, no, it's about you and everybody else, but focus on them and and the rest will kind of come into play.
SPEAKER_01:Well, what I also loved, Jeff, about your book is that you demonstrated very early on that you were willing to stand up and speak out. And as my audience knows, I'm a person who stands up and and speaks out. And I think I'm growing in my ability to do that even more these days when I am challenged. And you did that very early on with that major. And I believe the the the circumstances around that were that you were delivered aircraft that were not necessarily in the best condition and were not safe for flying. And you, and as an aircraft maintainer myself, I used to be an aviation electrician's mate. I do know firsthand what it's like to have that conflict between these aircraft need to fly versus are these aircraft safe to fly. And that was a pivotal moment in your career where you stood up.
SPEAKER_04:That's honestly what earned me the bronze star over there. Um, standing up to that. I had been displaced from my unit with a bunch of mechanics and maintenance test pilots to receive these aircraft on an airfield where my chain of command was not located. Um, this particular gentleman was in charge of brigade maintenance, and I had orders from my boss, uh, Lieutenant Colonel George Webb. He told me that this is what I want to see happen. Don't bring an aircraft out here if it's not fully mission capable and ready to cross the berm into Iraq and fight. And those are very clear orders. So the major's attitude was you guys are doing an in-country swap out of ECAS model cobras for the fully modernized cobras. Where are the ECAS? Why didn't you fly them to all 26 of them down here and take these 26 F models back out to the desert location? So I told him what my orders were, and he pretty much told me that those were not the orders I was going to be following, and I'd be following his. And there I am as a first lieutenant. I hadn't even made the captain's list yet. So I was a pretty senior first lieutenant at that point. But boy, you you talk about real-world conflict for a 20-something year old having a guy with with you know the egg salad on his bill, a field grade officer, trying to tell you to disobey orders. But in the end, um he got his, and there's there's funny stories in there when my captain came down and went to the brigade maintenance meeting after we had sent the, I believe they're called 2404s, if my recollection is correct, the work orders that we were writing up on the cobras. Um, I had sent them to brigade, along with the fact not only were they not mission capable, frankly, some of them were unsafe to fly. I mean, when you've got broken bolts in the head that hold the blades on, and you you know, one of your test pilot pulls it out and says, Hey LT, can I go test fly this one? Like, wow, they they were an absolute mess. And even the main the weapon systems weren't functional. We had a weapons uh, you know, a team down there, a warrant officer named Steve Stewart and his team working on the armament systems, the 20 millimeters, the rockets, the the tow missile system. It they were a mess. And I'm sitting there going, I can't disobey Colonel Webb's orders. So Captain Huzzella, my boss, came down and he had been to brigade and he came out to the airfield and he goes, Man, you are in trouble. Like, what did I do? He goes, Jeff, you you can't put stuff like that in writing, and everything I see you posting, you're right. I read I go, look, here's Teresa on LinkedIn calling it out. I said, Yeah, I had they forced me to do that, right? They were they they forced me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's what I felt with my online smear most recently. Like I was forced into having to do that. I didn't want to talk about all that stuff and and have to like, but if someone's gonna do what that person did and and I've gotta respond, I mean, that it was just one of those things where I I feel I spoke my truth, I spoke the truth, and it ultimately was the right thing to do. And you did the same thing. And thank God your leadership also had your back. That that was that that that is one thing that I have seen sadly happen where someone does stand up and speak out, but unfortunately, uh because of some strange reasons, since maybe the Obama administration, we're not sure that there have been some people that have risen to the top in the military that that sometimes are not uh very uh courageous and sometimes don't have that backbone that I remember us having in the 90s and in the early 2000s. And unfortunately, we we've lost some of that, and so our leadership sometimes doesn't have our back when we stand up. So you were very fortunate, Jeff. I was that instance and during when you served, because I can remember when I served uh as a as a junior enlisted person or even as a mid-level enlisted person, I had I had leadership just like that too, who would have our backs if we said the aircraft was unsafe to fly.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it it always starts with you know, what is our our part of this? What do we need to own? Is is any of this true, right? Right, and then then you go to the secondary level of dealing with that, but but moreover, when people are in the right, you know, we try to go down the path of did you handle the situation properly? You know, the the 24-hour hold on an email that might not should have been sent, you know, exercise some emotional intelligence, but at the end of the day, you have to do the right thing. And we can talk about everything going on in America. I mean, we just had this incident in Southport, uh, where I live, where this marine sniper with all kinds of issues murdered three people and wounded eight or more. This was just last weekend here, a mass shooting. And unfortunately, people knew about it, knew that he was capable of doing something like that, but our system did not get him the help he needed. He had been diagnosed. People say, well, he had PTSD. Well, lots of people have PTSD that are not on the edge of the envelope and about to snap. Right now, this guy had also been diagnosed with delusional disorder and schizophrenia, and he had a sniper weapon with a silencer and set on a boat off of a bar that my band plays a lot at, and he he sniped three people and you know with a silencer until people started, saw these three people drop, then panic ensues. But somebody has to have the intestinal fortitude to step out and go, enough, stop. But the attitude is let's take all the guns. No, that is that's not American.
SPEAKER_01:That's gonna make us even more unsafe, in my view. It doesn't solve the problem. And the people that want those guns are just gonna find illegal ways to get them anyway. And now you've disarmed the good ones that could protect the ones who don't have firearms training or or will not carry a firearm. I will tell you, I am so thankful, Jeff, to not live in a big city. I mean, I I know we're getting off track here, but I see what's going on right now with some of our big cities, and I just my heart breaks for the people that live in those kind of areas and and see what goes on. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I mean, and what's gonna end up happening is all these big cities at some point, people are just gonna clear out of them, and then they're gonna come to these smaller towns, like maybe you and I live in, and things are a little safer, and and then what what are we gonna have left? And that's where we have to be citizens and take our country back and stand up and say no more.
SPEAKER_04:I think that is, you know, the the quintessential moment is in a in a situation where whatever you're doing isn't working, you would think people would welcome any and all help to get things under control. But at the end of the day, people that are bent on doing evil are gonna find a way to do evil. And I remind folks that Timothy McVeigh exacted evil with diesel fuel and fertilizer for the Murrah Federal building. They are going to find a way, and we have to be vigilant and always looking with our head on a swivel for these folks because you don't know what they're gonna do. Whoever imagined somebody would fly commercial airliners into the World Trade Center until they did it, and thankfully, we've got people that are vigilant and looking and imagining what are they gonna try to do next. But yeah, all of us that served, the majority of us, I believe, are ready to fight any given day if somebody ever would dare to try to invade our country and damage us. So I think all the leadership traits that you and I are talking about, the things we learn in the military, make America great. I think it just makes our country special, and we have to reflect back again with great perspective and think about the Minutemen and what went down back in 1775, 76. I mean, can you imagine the courage it took for them to do what they did? And now we're sitting here bottled up and we can't handle much. Um, I don't know if you saw my post the other day, but uh, you know, Pete Hex has said what our job is in the military. I'm like, I agree with them 100%. We're not here to sell cookies at the at the grocery store. Yeah, and this and every silhouette I ever shot was a shape of a human being. How about you? Yeah, yeah, and part of that's on purpose to get our military focused on the fact that the enemy is the target, and if we are in a situation of war, that's your job is to be ready. Yeah, be ready and to take them out. And I remember the drill sergeants when I went through basics saying it's the shape of a silhouette to get you used to the fact that you're gonna be putting a site possibly on a human being or at least on the equipment that they're operating. So I I don't know. It I think we're in a very much a transitional state in America, and we need leaders, and we definitely need embolden folks that are gonna call stuff for what it is and not be bashful about it. And frankly, I'm trying to get better than better at that. I was I was amazed.
SPEAKER_01:I thought that was fascinating that you did 19 years at Pfizer, and so many people don't understand the the drug company world. And unfortunately, I felt like as I was reading it, I thought, wow, this is a whole nother side to to this type of industry that nobody talks about. And they took care of you, they were good to you, and absolutely they were a good company for you, and I mean the relationships you you developed with the doctors and other things. I mean, I I was really appreciative of that because I think drug salesmen get a really bad rap, and a lot of times you just see this stuff in documentaries and you don't really understand what that job entails. So I also enjoyed reading about that.
SPEAKER_04:You you want to hear a funny parallel to that. Um, I agree with you. I think that what you see on the news requires you to do your due diligence, and I'll give you a perfect example of that right now. Um, I just bought a Tesla with with autopilot, auto drives, yeah. And I gotta tell you, I love it. I love it. Okay. I hadn't I hadn't had it a week, and I'm sitting here watching the national news, and they they are running a report on Tesla saying that, oh, it's crossing railroad crossings with trains coming and some cars have been damaged, and this and that and the other. And I'm going, it tells you that it's not perfect, and you need to be attentive, and it's real simple to touch the brake or touch the button. You don't get to go in there and put that thing on auto drive and read a novel.
SPEAKER_01:No, you can't even look away. Like if I look away or I look somewhere, it'll say auto monitoring on. And then it like it like forces you to like take the thing.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, it's nothing is you can't even hold a phone, can you? You you have to be focused. So so this is the parallel. I told somebody asked me, a family member said, How did you just get so easy with this so quick? I said, Because I flew fixed-wing aircraft with autopilot. You program it, but you sit there and you pilot monitor. You do not trust that plane for one second. And you you watch everything it's doing, and it was so easy to do that with a Tesla. And frankly, the the autopilot feature in the Tesla is safer than you or I with our hands on the wheels, distracted, playing on a phone and doing all these other things. But that wasn't in that national news story.
SPEAKER_01:It's eliminated arguments between me and my husband because I'm not such a great driver. And now, and he has the reason reason why he got a Tesla for me, is because of the fact that he knew it was going to be safer for me to use the autopilot than it would be for me to drive. And it has it's really it's radically changed the driving experience. Uh, it's the best car I have ever driven in my entire life. And I will stay with this company for as long as they're making cars and I'm alive.
SPEAKER_04:Elon should have you and I do advertising for Tesla. I told I actually I went by the Tesla place and told them, I said, if you guys need somebody to refute what these national news stories are saying, find a pilot that trusts the car the same way he trusts the airplane, which is I'm monitoring 100%. Funny you say that though about the safety in driving. I told my wife that if you've got an elderly person who's right on the fringe and they can handle telling that car, drive me to Walmart and hit auto drive, it's safer to have the car do it than probably them do it.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:That's that's totally off topic as well. But you're you know, this this is this is great.
SPEAKER_01:Dealership today, actually. We're we're getting uh getting some uh alignment done on it, and uh so we were just there today talking to the to the service people, and and they're wonderful as always.
SPEAKER_04:I wish they hadn't dealers. I stood I stood on the um the battleship Arizona with my dad, took mom and dad to um Pearl Harbor years ago, and dad was standing there telling me about December 7th, 1941. He was out in the field with his brothers and his dad getting up hay, and they were listening to it go down on the radio. And this idiot said to his dad, Well, Mercy, when you got home from the hay field and turned on the news and saw it on TV, I mean, my gosh, how was that? Dad said, Boy, there weren't TVs in 1941. And I thought, what an idiot. Well, my dad got to see, I mean, that generation, the Korea War, World War II guys, they got to see microwave ovens, they got to see man land on the moon, they got to see all of this crazy technology all the way to a self-driving car. Imagine that.
SPEAKER_01:And when you think about that, you think it is the evolution of technology in certain lifetimes and what people have seen. But one thing that I think we are going to tra we are going to transition from, at least I'm hopeful that we will, is especially with people not having faith in the in the news media anymore, sadly. Uh that that estate, in my view, has has now failed. And now we are in a podcast generation or a citizen journalist generation generation where we trust our fellow citizen to give us news and information more than we do the professionals because they're so biased and they've been bought. And so we we're turning more to the independent voices. And what I also really want to see more of and is this massive rejection of these screens, like being able to just put these screens down and go see your fellow citizen face to face at the Rotary Club, at the Chamber of Commerce, at the whatever nonprofit organization you want to become involved with, and and do your socializing there instead of through this. Yes, we'll still have these electronic means to do the kinds of conversations that we we're doing right now, but I believe that we really got to transition away from some of these things because what they're doing is they're causing a lot of this online hate, cyberbullying, and other things that I I just don't think are are productive to society. And I think that what you've done here with your book, as I transitioned back to talking about the book, it's amazing, and it's another way to really inspire people. I mean, I felt like the the couple days or three days, it took me about three days to get through this because I just kept kept reading it all, you know, most of my days in those last two or three days. And I just felt like I got this really deep understanding of some of the things that were important to you, um, to include faith, but also family and to transition to that. I mean, you've you struggled with something with your family that was incredibly uh challenging. Uh with your daughter Mallory. Can you tell us a little bit? Little bit about that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. The the book is really divided into three sections: life before, life during, and life after. And and the the the tragic event. Our daughter got deathly ill at the just before her sixth birthday. In fact, she had her first epileptic seizure on my wife's birthday. Can you imagine? Um, you know, February the 12th, we have this first seizure that we've ever seen. And Mallory unfortunately um got really sick really fast. And we had a two-year-old son, uh, Jay, who's now an Army Apache pilot, and he's about to make the major's list. So, you know, my son followed in my footsteps, and Lord, that I didn't mean to jump all the way out there, but he and I got to fly the Dayton Air show together a couple of years ago. He was in the Apache, and I was in the Cobra, and I that is one of the highlights of my life, being able to do that. In fact, it was the first time I'd ever seen him fly the Apache. But back to the story. You've got a guy that had the tiger by the tail, everything that I ever wanted, and I dreamed of being, I was able to get it done. And then when my daughter got sick, I felt so out of control. I felt like, I mean, I had everything uh, you know, all the way down to getting those aircraft repaired and battle ready, and then getting them out to fight the Iraqis. Everything was controllable. And and gosh, you know, we men are DNA driven to want to fix everything and control everything like that. And it had just all worked out for me. I had never had anything that I just couldn't fix or figure out a methodology to make it work until my daughter got sick. And I will tell you that when you're when your child is sick, it'll bring the strongest people to their knees. There's just no way that it can affect you. You know, I've had friends that have lost their only child, and I can't imagine the level of pain that that would be. But as we went through the process of fighting Mallory's illness, which wound up four years after it started with two major rounds of brain surgery. They had to remove her left frontal lobe. A year later, they had to separate, take more of her left frontal lobe, and separate her corpus callosum, which is the they're the fibers that connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. But she had what's called Lenox gastot syndrome, and she's a three percenter. Most children are born completely debilitated, retarded, no, no ability to communicate. That's just their life. 97%. 3% of Lenox gastot children are like Mallory. Intractable epilepsy that won't respond to most drugs effectively. And she's smart, she's very intelligent. She was a straight A student until the brain surgeries, and then she still managed a year after her first brain surgery to keep a B average in school. Um, when Dr. Freed had to do the corpus challosotomy and take more of her left frontal lobe, he told us that that was going to cause her to be developmentally delayed. So Mallory's about to turn 35. Um, she's been um special needs really since she was probably about nine years old. And we have been caregivers for her for you know 29 years, theoretically. And it's uh it's hard, it's tough on parents. Well, we're never gonna be empty nesters, and you know, just when you think it's over, it's it's never over. There's always gonna be more challenges and more things. The point of the book is I I don't know how you get through this stuff if you're not grounded in some in faith. I don't know how you can look to tomorrow if you're not a person. I don't understand it because I've never known a life without it. Dad always, mom and dad always set that example for us. We were in church every Sunday, you know, we we set our blessings before every meal. We had family meals, you know, which is a rarity at home anymore. And frankly, you know, we've witnessed a disintegration of the home, you know, in fact, homes. And kids need parents, and they don't need friends, they they need parents. So as we've gone through this thing, and perspective again came up, and as I told Camille, I really I wanted to, my wife, I wanted to write this book. I started writing the manuscripts, and I would get up every morning, I'm an early riser, and I would just start writing, and the words were just flowing, and it essentially started with Life on the Peanut Farm. And oh, by the way, the the funny story, Teresa, is when Camille started helping me put it together to get it ready to be published, we were missing something, and it was November of gosh, um, 2024. I was down in Plains, Georgia, checking on my parents, and I went, took them to lunch at a restaurant in a local town about nine miles from Plains called America's. And a high school friend of mine's wife was there with him, and he introduced me to her. She looked at me and she goes, Jeff, when are you going to get this book published? I'm tired of waiting on it. And I'd never met her before. And I'm like, Oh my mercy. She goes, All your Facebook stories, all the writing you do, I cannot wait to read your book. And I want you to come to my store and do a book selling. Well, I drove as I was driving home, I told Camille, I said, There's two things you need to know. One is this is what this person said, and she's right, we need to get this done. But if mom and dad pass away before we get this published, I'm gonna be very upset. I want them to know what I'm very emotional, guys. So forgive me, I have to take a break. I said, Yeah, I want them to know what they meant to me. And uh, and the best way I know to do it is to put this book in their hand. And it, I mean, we published it, we got it done in January, but Camille said, look, it I'm trying to figure out the common thread to pull it all together. And the only thing that we have that you know is been consistent our entire marriage is our faith and aviation, flying helicopters. And I said, Well, there you go. And she said, What? And I said, Let's make every chapter about flying because growing up on the farm, the chapter one is called pre-flight. So your pre-flight life are those adolescent years where you are going through your formative formative development, and your parents are teaching you values, teaching you about integrity and faith and everything else. And from there, the the last chapter is engine shutdown. So along the way, it's we're going through normal flight. Uh, when Mallory got sick, I call that chapter auto rotation, which in a helicopter, the engine has quit and we are going down. How you land has a lot to do with what you're you know, what the outcome is going to look like. And personally, I believe that if you're grounded in faith, the landing could be hard, the aircraft could be destroyed, but you know that there's something better. That's why preachers say keep your fork. Dessert's coming. There is something better after life on earth, and it's called heaven. So we we had to accept the fact early on that God had a plan for us, that He had Mallory in His hands. But I went through some stuff, Teresa, and I'm sure we're going to get into this too. Uh, just to close this, like before Mallory got sick, like in the middle of the heated battle of her brain surgeries and everything that went on. And then I had to get my life back rolling again. You know, once we finally got her to a semblance of controllability and functionability, then I had to figure out, well, what am I supposed to do now? And the latter few chapters of the book are about me getting back back in the air, back to flying and rolling that throttle up and pulling up on the collective and and making life you know tolerable again, because it's your new normal. There is no there is no normal normal. It's the new normal of parents with a handicapped special needs child that's got a lot of medical problems.
SPEAKER_01:So interestingly, and and what I also love is that you're just so open about if you go, if you read the book, there's just wonderful images of you with your family, with the helicopter, with your son, with Mallory. Just you know, I I I get to read a lot of people's books, and I'm always so humbled when I read somebody's story like this, because there's so much full circle growth that I saw through the story as well. From like your beginning with aviation and your background and sort of the strong family ties that you had that made you who you were, to the struggle you went through with your family and the and the challenges with Mallory. And then full circle, like you said, to going back to aviation and and helping in a in a civic capacity with the army. I think it was the Army Aviation Museum, and just being able to do that, and then also the franchise and and working with people who had who've had struggles themselves, and being able to mentor them and work with them. I mean, you've just you've had an extraordinary life and you have an extraordinary family. And I think that by reading it, people are just going to be inspired. And I I hope everyone picks up a copy of this book. Like I said, the two or three days that I it's an easy read. Um it's it's very it's it's it's structured really well, like I say, with like the different verses that you have from the Bible, with like you said, the way you guys did the outline with the whole trajectory of flight and then how you brought it back to that. Auto each chapter has sort of a metaphor of the flight and with what your family was going through. And I also love some of the mini stories in between, like how you got really close with the photographer who the Indian gentleman who took over and then also the reporter, and how you thought, well, this was just gonna be like a little story in the Sunday paper, and the next thing you know, it's like a front page feature, and then I think you said it played every day for a week. And I thought that's and then that led to other people writing you guys who had similar stories with their children who had these same struggles, and it was just such a full circle story.
SPEAKER_04:There, there's not there's nothing in that book that's not true, and I and I have often been accused in my life of being willing to open up my chest and show everybody the dirty laundry inside. And I thought it was important to tell all of those stories because, yeah, with with Nick, uh, if I could just share that real quick, I think it's a good life lesson. When we finally agreed to let uh these guys write the story, uh the guy that wrote the story about Mallory that turned out into a night ridder syndicated national story, named Joe Kovac, and he said, Hey, my my photojournalist Nick Oza is going to come over and take pictures, and you know, bottom line is he's gonna be with you guys a lot. Well, the first day he showed up, it looked like he lived in his car, he looked like he'd been sleeping in his clothes, just disheveled. I mean, I I I don't know. I mean, you could just picture it long black hair, just not what I expected. And then we fell in love with the guy. I mean, he he was probably one of the most wonderful human beings I had ever met in my entire life. And unfortunately, he got killed in a tragic car accident a few years ago, and they painted a mural of him. Uh, he was part, he had left Macon in Georgia, was out in Arizona, worked for the Arizona Republic. He actually won a Pulitzer Prize for photography, and they painted a mural of him on the side of a building. We were at the catalyst, we we were at the starting point of his career in journalism, but it taught me that oftentimes we judge with our eyes before we open our heart and our ears, and we really get to know people. And I'm guilty of sin. I judge Nick and I was a little scared of him. I was worried about him being around my family, you know. And then the next thing I know, it's like, when's Nick coming over? Like, where's Nick? And then he got married, and and we would meet them out in Arizona, got to meet his family, had a little girl. Just it's stuff, it's stuff like that. That once again, getting gray hair and having perspective and being able to go back and tell that story and be honest about it. The the other story that I really felt was important to tell because of what happened to me, and I don't want to give it all away, but I will just give you a snippet. That when Mallory got sick, I think another thing that happens to people of faith is we get confused because we think that because we led a life trying to be a servant leader to Christ and trying to do everything right, and just trying to be a good person, it means that you shouldn't go through hardships. And it also means that I should be able to pray things away and that God will just, Jesus, you know, He'll fix it, right? And when when we kept praying for Mallory to be healed, we did an anointing service, we did everything we could think of, I bottled up that anger pretty bad. I was angry at God and I was ashamed, which made it even worse because I didn't want mom and dad to know. I mean, it it was it was shameful how I was feeling, but nobody knew it because I was able to just put on a good face. But the night we signed the documents for Mallory to have part of her brain removed, and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. That is a horrible, horrible thing to have to agree to that your child's head's gonna be opened up and they're gonna remove part of her brain. And there's no undoing that, you know, there's no there's no reversing it going, whoops, I wish we had done not done it. In the middle of that, I have to have an emergency surgery. I wind up back at the hospital, and the night before her opera her operation, I was in the chapel at like 2 33 in the morning, and the chaplain came in there and he saved me. It gets me emotional just thinking about it because he he walked in, Teresa, and the first thing he said was, Hey, I thought I'd find you here. And I'm like, Seriously, it's 2:30 in the morning. He goes, Well, you weren't in the room with Mallory, and I I knew you would be here. And I said, How'd you know? He said, Son, it's not my first rodeo. I I deal with people going through what you're going through all the time. And he said, I gotta ask, I've got to ask you a question. I said, Okay. He said, How are you dealing with your anger toward God right now, considering your situation? And I just burst into tears.
SPEAKER_01:What a question. What a question. I mean, for him to know to ask you that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I can't tell you how many pastors, not only have I told them that, you should be asking people that question. Are you angry with God? Do you have it bottled up? Do you want to talk it out? But the bigger part is the solution. The solution was that if you go back and read about the crucifixion, Jesus said, take this cup. And and the chaplain said, Do you know what that means? He knew what was coming, and he's saying, Is there not another way we can go about this? I'm I'm I'm afraid, you know. Jesus actually sweated blood. And I've just finished reading for about the third or fourth time because I'm trying to comprehend the book, uh, the case for Christ. And part of the explanation in there is yes, you can sweat blood, your capillaries burst, if you're emotional, so emotionally upset about a situation or knowing something like that's coming, because look, it was well known what the Romans were going to do to you in a crucifixion. So Jesus is in the form of a human being on earth, and here he is saying, Take this cup. And then he said, Jeff, on top of that, in the final hours, he cried out, he didn't say it just quietly, he cried out, My God, my God, why hath thou forsaken me? And he said, If the only perfect person, and that person that we of the Christian faith follows, would question the will of his father and would scream out, hanging from the cross, why had thou forsaken me? Don't you think that his grace is sufficient to understand how you feel in your moment? And it was earth-changing for me, it was life-changing for me, and I can't tell you how many parents I've had to sit down with since that night that are going through struggles, trials, tribulations, questioning the will of God, upset, angry, and I've told them that story. So I felt I had to put it in the book, and I wanted people to be able to read it and reflect on it. And oh, by the way, to your point, as we as we wrote the book, we put in Bible verses that were coming to mind as we were going through these various phases of dealing with Mallory's illness and with our life and things that were happening. And frankly, I've got friends of the Jewish faith that I I've asked them, I you know, I'm I'm writing about my faith. This is not to question you or to put pressure on you. And they've all thanked me. I've I mean, many, many that have read the book said, you know, we really don't read the New Testament, but it was interesting to read how the Old and New Testament, you brought it out in your book, and I didn't take it in a negative way whatsoever. So we're thankful for that. I was really worried. I wanted people to know I'm telling my story, I'm telling it the way it happened, the way it affected our family, what happened to my wife and I, and our daughter and her little brother. And if it helps you and inspires you and helps you face another day or face a challenge you're going through, just always remember somebody's got it worse than you do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I really wasn't expecting to be as inspired as I was reading it. And I I you just you did an outstanding job, you and your family, putting this together the way, like I said, just telling some of the stories in here. And I think that this is like one of those books that it just needs to be on everybody everybody's bookshelf. So whatever I can do uh to spread the word, uh, I will do so. There will be many uh reels after this show. We usually do about four little snippets of of some of the clips of the of the highlight, highlight reel. And then I do a blog where we wrap up some of the highlights of the conversation. So we will definitely do what we can do on this end to make sure that people get a copy of this book because it was so inspiring. And there were so many pivotal moments where things were so difficult for you and your family, and you just rolled with whatever it was that was going to happen, whether it was losing a job, whether it was a challenge uh while at war, whether it was this challenge with your daughter. There was just so many different pivotal points uh in this, and now you're you still are are are going on and you've got this now a franchise business. And um tell me a little bit about is it a moving company? I'm not familiar with college hunks. Tell me a little bit about it. I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_04:Um two two best friends started it when they were in college back in about 2008. They were actually on the first episode of the Shark Tang, and they basically were trying to get out of working for their parents one summer, and one of them, uh, the parents had a panel van because they had a furniture store, and they said, Hey mom, can we like borrow the panel van to go haul away people's junk during the summer? And she said out loud, Well, you're a couple of college hunks, go haul some junk. They go on in there on the first episode of the Shark Tank, and then they wound up franchising this, and there's probably over two about 200 locations across the country. I have one in North Carolina and one in Georgia. Uh, I've got general managers running the business now, and I'm you know, I'm here to help them, but I'm not involved as much now in the day-to-day. We we've been in business for about eight years, but owning a private business has shown me a lot of stuff and a lot of problems. I mean, if we don't get uh this insurance situation in America under control, there will not be any small businesses ever anymore. People are suing for everything you can imagine, hurt or not hurt, you know, all these signs going down the road. If you've been injured, call this lawyer, call this lawyer. Uh it it's across the board how our insurance is so expensive. I I don't even want to tell you the number.
SPEAKER_01:But lawfare is the biggest fear to everyday average Americans. I say it all the time, even as a podcaster. Uh, I constantly wonder from a media law perspective, yeah, what I can and can't do because unfortunately, we have litigated to death every conflict instead of learning how to healthfully or deal with people face to face, we want to stick a lawyer on them, or we want to stick a letter in their face, or we want to try to take them to civil court. It's just it's gotten ridiculous.
SPEAKER_04:It is my experience over the years watching it happen to other franchise owners, watching it happen to uh I've gotten really ingrained in the small business community dealing with other business owners and all. And we are we are getting insured out of business, unfortunately. And it really boils down to the insurance companies don't want to fight accusations anymore, they just want to settle. And unfortunately, what that has led to is every little thing now you're gonna sue, knowing full and well that it won't wind up in court, the insurance company will settle. So, unfortunately, now people that are really, really hurt and really, really need help, all that's getting watered down by the not real, yeah, by false claims. And I mean, I'm I'm very much a person that believes if you're if something really happens and you're really hurt, yay. But all of this frivolous stuff that's going on is running people out of business and creating premiums that folks can't afford, and then they want to know, well, why does it cost so much to have a license insured business come to my house? Well, you want to know what my insurance premiums are every month, yeah. You've you've got to pay them or you're out of business. So right.
SPEAKER_01:No, that is an interesting part of this. You know, that's an interesting part of lawfare that I haven't even really thought about. Um, as a as a podcaster, I've been hit with definitely do I have every one of my guests sign releases, for example. And I've gone back and forth about it, to be honest with you, Jeff, because I I didn't I didn't do it for a while, then I got burned, and then I started doing it for a little while, and then I realized how much trouble it was for a podcaster who makes no money, no profit, to try to set up some sort of a permissionary slip. And every time somebody comes on my show remotely, they have to sign it. I I I probably should be doing that too. But I just I want my audience to at least know that this is going to be something that if we don't get a hold of as citizens, it is just going to get out of control because it's game theory 101. Whereas it's just human nature. If people know that there's a way to game the system and there's no checks and balances to not gain the I I it's very similar to what's going on right now with the uh VA disability claims. Nobody wants to admit that's what's going on. But obviously, that is what is going on, is that there are people who are gaming the system, whether they game it there or they game it through insurance. Uh, there are going to be people who abuse the system if the system is not set up to handle those abuses.
SPEAKER_04:You're right. And it and you know, you you read in the book a number of things that I tackle, and I have realized over the years that God activates me into action by showing me something that I didn't know was going on. And I can tell you, I've worked really hard because of my background in pharmaceuticals. I understand how the system works, and pharmacy benefit managers are a problem, and they need to they need to be reined in. And I, you know, I've talked to legislators about it, and I can't get anybody on board to fight this stuff. And and I'll give you an example. I spoke to one, and this this one will resonate with you because anybody can understand this. People that have type 1 diabetes and have to take insulin, insulin's been around forever. It there's very little variability from one company's insulin to another person's company's insulin. But every year, ironically, a type 1 diabetic goes to their doctor and they're being switched from inch from company A's insulin to company B's, and next year it'll be company C's. And the way that works is called rebates. So every year the PBMs go to the pharmaceutical manufacturers and go, hey, if you want to be on formulary, make us your offer. What's the rebate going to look like? So the middle guy is getting these rebates, the the insured, the patient down at the bottom level doesn't get anything out of it. But the the biggest issue is, Teresa, that these patients and the doctors, the caregivers, have to jump through these hurdles on an annual basis because of the way the system works with pharmacy benefit managers and the stranglehold they've got on this thing. And they will say it's pharmacokinetics, it's pharmacology, it's all these big words that that mean in some disease states reality. But for drugs like insulin, that's baloney. And what we went through with Mallory was every year when they started changing her drugs or going from this formulation to that formulation with generics, we would lose SUSER control and wind up in the emergency room with her with a broken nose or a facial. You know, we lived it. And being that I worked at a manufacturer for as long as I did and know this stuff, try try to sit down with the legislator and and they'll tell you that their main focus is fundraising. If I don't pay my dues to the DNC or the RNC, then it has to come out of my pocket. And their dues are, you know, in the neighborhood of what, a quarter million dollars or something. It's ridiculous. So instead of representing we the people, they go to Washington to do what they do.
SPEAKER_01:And I've had people their party. I know.
SPEAKER_04:I know it doesn't matter about the party. It's it's it's all a it's all a power game. And instead of being focused on real issues that are affecting people in the trenches, they're up there game, gaming how to win the next election and this and that. So I'm an equal, I'm an equal party basher. I want people to represent us again. And there was a day when people voted their conscience and voted for their constituency, and it wasn't about the party line. We're all voting this way or that way, and if you don't, we're gonna cut off your funding and not support your reelection. People need to understand how this stuff really works. And I agree with you that it takes podcasters getting out there and doing it. So, in that vein, you know, with what I've seen happen to small businesses over the years, and thankfully I've learned so much. My next thing is gonna have to be to tackle this insurance reform scenario. So I've got to go to Washington and lobby, not only to try to get people to look at pharmacy benefit managers, but also look at what's going on with tort reform. And every billboard, every half mile, is call me if you've been injured. Call me if you all that's doing is causing people that aren't really hurt to go out and try to seek a claim and get paid. And it's affecting our economy, it's affecting small business. There is no way that if this keeps going the way it's going, that any small business is going to survive because they will not be able to afford the premiums for workers' cop, liability GL, truck insurance, you name it. I mean, you bump a car in a commercial vehicle, you can better believe that they're going to come at you with some kind of claim of neck injury or back. I mean, right, you you're tracking with me. It it is an epidemic that is destroying our economy, and somebody's got to do something about it. But yeah, in the in the book, I attack a lot of things. Uh, there's a long of the books in Georgia named after my daughter Mallory called Mallory's Act that basically said that a that. We were having to get an annual permit for renewal for her handicap placard, you know, for the car when she she won ambulatory in a wheelchair. And it was never easy. And finally I'd had enough of it and lost my cool at the DMV. And the woman said, Well, why don't you do something about it? And I said, You know what? I will. And it took it, yeah, it took six months, but we got the law in Georgia changed to where if a child is determined to be permanently disabled, they get that handicapped placard, they do it once, and it's over. But it shouldn't be that hard.
SPEAKER_01:No, no. We we we really do. I it's interesting, Jeff, because so many of these problems we just really do to ourselves.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because we just make things harder than they need to be. And we have too many people that, like you say, are just looking to make money and to find a way to uh exploit uh something that was set up to help people. But if there aren't controls or measures in place to uh prevent abuse, then abuse will naturally happen.
SPEAKER_04:So what happened to integrity? What happened to all these things, moral courage, all the things that we were raised with by caring parents that said if you're really hurt and something really happens and you need help, then you should get it. But there there is no telling the level of frivolous lawsuits that are going on right now in America by people that really aren't hurt, they're just trying to get paid because they don't want to go work and earn it.
SPEAKER_01:And well, absolutely it is a problem, and I think that this kind of goes back to just to bring this around full circle, is we are in serious need of leaders, leaders in our community to step up and to model good behavior. All the things that Charlie Kirk talked about uh that we are missing in in our citizenship, and we are being encouraged to go out into our communities and to find those like-minded people to come together and to build up stronger and safer communities. And and that is ultimately what I love to see on the Stories of Service Podcast are people like yourself who model that in their day-to-day life and then preach those values uh to others. So as we start to wind down the call, because I get the sense that you and I could talk forever, um I think we're aligned. Yes, yes. Um, but I definitely want people to check out your book. Uh, if they want more information, I know they can find you on LinkedIn. Uh that they can find this book also on Amazon. I have a link to it in my show notes. Is there anything else that I haven't covered or anything else that you want to do?
SPEAKER_04:It's all it's on Audible and it's also available on Kindle. So three different forms, formats. Uh yeah, I mean, the the only thing that we haven't talked about is we got the book published. Uh, I got it into mom and dad's hands. Uh, they both passed away. Dad passed away about a month after the book published. Mom died about four months later. And in the middle of all of this, uh, Mallory got sick again and is now facing a liver transplant. So when we published the book, little did we know that once again God was using this process to prepare us for the next thing. And that that was that to write the book, we had to go back and relive a lot of stuff. But interestingly, this time I didn't get angry with God because of that conversation I had with that chaplain. I understand what's going on and of interest. Um, we now live in North Carolina. We're at Duke. Duke has great care, they're taking really phenomenal care of Maori. But we're sitting there in the hospital dealing with this, and I looked at my wife and I said, now we know why we moved to North Carolina, why I had a job transfer bring me to North Carolina. Little did we know that we needed Duke because they're one of the best transplant centers in the country. Little did we know. I mean, you can't see, you don't have a crystal ball, but if you just sit back and look at everything that's happened in your life, and if you're a person of faith, you realize there was a reason God put that person in your path. There's a reason I found you on LinkedIn and said, Hey Teresa, can I mail you a copy of my book? And then here we sit. There, there's a reason everything I believe happens and it won't be perfect. In fact, a lot of times it's it's harder for people of faith because of what I described. You're going through a tough time and you wonder why God won't fix it. And life just doesn't work that way. I mean, look at what happened to Charlie. Uh, one thing Charlie said that I guess a few weeks before he died, I mean, all these people coming out saying he's a bigot and a racist and all this, they haven't dug they haven't really listened to his message. They haven't, they haven't done a deep dive, they've heard these sound bites which are totally out of context and not real. Charlie opened up his heart and his arms lovingly to people. And I can tell you, when he sat down with Bill Mar, Bill, Bill, the the show Bill taped right after Charlie got killed, he was almost in tears over it. He was talking about he goes, he was sitting in that chair right there a week ago, and then he sat down with Gavin Newsom. My point is, people that are diametrically politically.
SPEAKER_01:He would sit with anybody and and talk to them, and they would respect him afterwards. 100%. Even if they didn't agree on the same issue. 100%. It was so beautiful, and that was what was so heartbreaking, too, about me being kicked out of the military influence. Not to make this about me, but that was what was so disappointing is that the day that I was the day after I was kicked out, that very day before, that was one of my main messages on the on the stage that I was on, the pray deck stage was we need to have conversations where people who don't align on certain issues can come to the table and we can talk through these issues. And I was hopeful that Curtis Riggs, the founder of Military Influencer, would give me an opportunity to have those discussions. I've sent him an email, I've tried to reach out to him, he hasn't responded. And it's just it's really sad. The whole thing is so sad to me. Um, I'm still to this day. I mean, my the smear just happened two weeks ago, and it's just it's so sad the way it went down. And it there was no reason for it. No reason. I I I it came from left field. I had no idea it was coming. And uh I I can only it's just unfortunate. And it it's just a sign of our times that we just can't have these respectful conversations with people who don't see things the same way. And I just hope one day that we can get back to that.
SPEAKER_04:Well, there's here's a message I I would love for your listeners to hear from me. I think the majority of us are actually in the middle. We're not far left and we're not far right, we're all right here in the middle. And if we could get to a point where we could have a civil discourse and agree that there are people in our country that need help and deserve that help, but we also have to agree there are people that are taking advantage of our system that need to be rooted out and told to go get a job like everybody else. There, there are so many things that honest people can get to, but it's gonna take politicians being more focused on doing what's right for America than how do I get re-elected necessarily? How do I how am I going to be different? And folks look at me and go, Jeff, you should run for office, you should do it. I'm not the right person for that, but I will absolutely sit down and have a conversation with anybody that's open to it. When he sits down with Bill Marr, they're totally diametrically opposed from the standpoint of politics, and Bill is an admitted atheist, and Charlie Kirk is sitting there totally honoring him, answering his question.
SPEAKER_01:He's did the same thing with people who are transgender, he's done the same thing with people who are very aligned with the more left-leaning politics. He's done that several times over. I've watched so many of his dialogues, and I think that every community needs to model that and needs to have space, safe spaces for respectful discourse with people that you don't agree with. And the rules have to be that people stay kind, they stay respectful, and they listen to one another. I believe it's possible.
SPEAKER_04:I do I said here after I learned about him, because I didn't know him very well, unfortunately. I I wish I had known about him a lot sooner than I did. But after um he got killed, and I really did a deep dive, as you and I were saying, I didn't just take the sound bites, I went and really listened to this guy. And all I could think of, he's got it more together as a 31-year-old, not only politically but spiritually, than I do as a 60-year-old. But here's what I what what I really want you to think about. I wanted to order one of his shirts, and my wife came in and she said, What do you think? And I can just see it on your face. And I said, I really want to order one of Charlie's shirts, and I can't, I can't push the button to do it. She said, Why? And I said, Because I've got all these thoughts going through my mind. She goes what? And I said, Well, one, I'm a business owner, and half the people in America don't agree with his political beliefs. There are people that don't believe agree with his religious beliefs, and if I get seen out in public wearing this shirt, it could hurt our business. You know, it could hurt. Yeah, I mean, what a what a thought to go through your mind. Second of all, I don't want to wear this shirt and be walking down the street and get beat up, stabbed, shot, whatever, because somebody hated Charlie Kirk enough that they're willing to hurt me and take me from my family. And then there was a third thing that I don't recall, but I said, the fact that I'm having to sit here and think about all of this is disturbing and sad. The next day I ordered the shirt, and when it comes in, I'm gonna wear it because he Charlie Kirk deserves that from me. And a 31-year-old challenged this old guy to think about that kind of thing, but isn't it a sad state of affairs in America where you're afraid to go wear a shirt or to speak out because somebody might hurt you?
SPEAKER_01:Well, when I was on the pray deck stage, I wanted to do a moment of silence to honor Charlie Kirk, and I was successfully told that the organizers of the Military Influencer Conference would not support that. And I thought that that was really sad. And and it is it's just it it really is. I went to a vigil uh for Charlie Kirk in Biloxi right before um I traveled to Atlanta, and I was so moved by what I was seeing people talking about that I I spoke for a couple of minutes and it gave my and gave gave sort of my my perspective on on what I'm doing online and how I hope that just the small little corner of the internet we can have these uh respectful discussions. But I really appreciate you, Jeff, and I appreciate your time and coming on the podcast where everybody checks out this book. Uh I can't thank you enough. I'm gonna go full screen to say goodbye to my audience, but I just and I'll meet you backstage to say goodbye to you. But thank you so much for it.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor and a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. All right, guys, that wraps up tonight's podcast. I do have one more tomorrow. I'll be having uh Irwin, um very, very difficult name to pronounce. I won't try to do it right now without having read it, but he is a proponent and advocate for reforming the family advocacy program within the military, which unfortunately does not always abide by our due process protections, which unfortunately has hurt many service members through the family court process. So we'll be diving deep into that issue. And I hope you guys can tune in. And as I always close out these calls, thank you so much for joining us. Please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and enjoy the rest of your evening. Bye bye now.