# Ep. 229 | Merryl Tengesdal | U-2 Spy Plane Pilot

An episode of [Former Action Guys Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1475060182), 25 Mar 2025, 1 h 59 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/65114442/u_2_spy_plane_pilot.mp3

Merryl Tengesdal had a dream to reach space and believed her best chance was as a Naval Aviator. She began her career flying H-60s, moved on to training students flying the T-34c and T-6a, then applied for an inter-service transfer to screen to become a U-2 spy plane pilot. Support the show https://www.jcramergraphics.com https://www.ANGLICOshop.com https://www.patreon.com/formeractionguys Merryl's sites https://merryltengesdal.com/shop-book/ https://www.youtube.com/@UC_RCb3DfyEaWv80aQlKooRg 00:00:00 J Cramer Graphics Ad 00:00:40 Intro | mIRC Chat 00:04:47 1st Deployment | 1st Females on Ship 00:10:00 I Wanted to Be an Astronaut 00:14:40 Flight School 00:19:59 Landing SH-60s in Rough Seas 00:32:24 SH-60 Roles 00:34:40 2nd Deployment | South America 00:46:58 Different Cultures 00:56:44 Applying to be a U-2 Pilot 01:01:38 U-2 Spy Plane Pilot Selection and Training 01:16:54 U-2 Pilot's Custom Space Suit 01:23:04 Operating at High-Altitude 01:32:58 First High Altitude Flight | Food During Missions 01:37:02 Foreign Navies and Life on US Ships 01:42:33 Reality Checks | Casualty Assistance Officer 01:52:46 Extreme Ross

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hey, it was Gobody. Welcome to the former GUS podcast.
[0:02] Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want to let you know
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[0:25] Speaker 1: that's the worst part about it. I remember doing it
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[0:38] Speaker 1: com and let's get to it.
[0:40] Speaker 2: Like everyone called it, merk. So back in there we are.
[0:43] Speaker 2: We recording right now.
[0:45] Speaker 1: We are recording. But I can leave this in or
[0:47] Speaker 1: take it out. You just let me know.
[0:48] Speaker 2: No, no, you can take this part out. I mean
[0:50] Speaker 2: you can leave it in, but it's just funny because
[0:53] Speaker 2: I met my husband at that point was called irc
[0:56] Speaker 2: chat back in the nineties. So when I got I
[1:00] Speaker 2: got in theater my first time and they're like merk chat,
[1:02] Speaker 2: and I'm like, this is Internet relay chat. What are
[1:05] Speaker 2: you talking about? Like people are doing stuff they're not
[1:09] Speaker 2: supposed to do in there. So it's really it's really
[1:11] Speaker 2: funny when people say merk chat because I remember it
[1:14] Speaker 2: in the nineties when I was using it to just
[1:16] Speaker 2: talk to people or maybe do things that I shouldn't
[1:20] Speaker 2: really have been trading information of sorts. Back in my
[1:23] Speaker 2: civilian days.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Before, I think that was still happening.
[1:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, so but you know my college days, I was, Yeah,
[1:35] Speaker 2: I was dabbling a little bit on the side that.
[1:37] Speaker 1: That was pre instant messenger.
[1:40] Speaker 2: It was pre instant messenger, so it was Yeah, it
[1:43] Speaker 2: was pretty cool. So when people say merkchat, I laugh.
[1:46] Speaker 2: I know this technology has been around for a long time,
[1:48] Speaker 2: but it was cool to use it in theater and
[1:52] Speaker 2: use it to pass information on it.
[1:53] Speaker 1: So yeah, I actually know. I remember actually I don't
[1:57] Speaker 1: remember the specific guy, but he was talking to some
[2:02] Speaker 1: S two girl we were in, like Marja or something
[2:05] Speaker 1: like that. I can't remember. If it was Marsa or
[2:07] Speaker 1: saying it, but I think it was Marsia. So we
[2:10] Speaker 1: were at some like outposts and he was like messaging
[2:13] Speaker 1: some S two girl or some like I think it
[2:16] Speaker 1: was a UAV pilot or some whoever you communicate with
[2:19] Speaker 1: the UAV and they would have private chats and they
[2:22] Speaker 1: met up at some point, and I was like, you're
[2:25] Speaker 1: fucking crazy, man, Like what are you? Don't you all
[2:29] Speaker 1: those are monitored, Like what are you doing? But yeah,
[2:33] Speaker 1: it's pretty funny. That's old school technology. So we'll get
[2:35] Speaker 1: into let's get into the interview. But you know, it's
[2:37] Speaker 1: funny you bring that up because I tell people right now,
[2:40] Speaker 1: I'm like, with AI is like those early days of
[2:42] Speaker 1: the Internet, Like you're talking about that I r C chat.
[2:45] Speaker 1: I always bring up the because I made one, but
[2:48] Speaker 1: like the GeoCities websites, I'm like, that's the early days
[2:51] Speaker 1: of the like you know, public usage of the Internet.
[2:54] Speaker 1: That's kind of where we're at with AI technology, and
[2:57] Speaker 1: that's where I think people ought to be, you know,
[2:59] Speaker 1: making sure that they're staying up to date with that
[3:02] Speaker 1: kind of that kind of technology.
[3:05] Speaker 2: And I so go ahead, No, No, I was gonna
[3:08] Speaker 2: say how old, are you.
[3:09] Speaker 1: I'm forty one.
[3:11] Speaker 2: Okay, so fifty three right, So I mean computers. I
[3:16] Speaker 2: tell my kids my first computer system was a pong system,
[3:20] Speaker 2: right with too little.
[3:21] Speaker 1: I remember that Atario.
[3:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, Atari Pong, and I said, I said. When I
[3:27] Speaker 2: used to chat with people online, I had a three
[3:28] Speaker 2: hundred bod modem dial up. You can hear the sounds
[3:33] Speaker 2: and then chat with some people. I remember my mom
[3:35] Speaker 2: one time was over my shoulders. Some guy was cursing
[3:38] Speaker 2: at me, like go f off, and I was like,
[3:40] Speaker 2: maybe I don't know, thirteen fourteen. And I looked at
[3:45] Speaker 2: my mom and I'm like, can I respond to this please?
[3:48] Speaker 1: That's hilarious. I like watching war games occasionally, you know,
[3:53] Speaker 1: with Matthew Broderick and stuff, because that's old school for
[3:55] Speaker 1: people that haven't seen it. That's a classic, you know, early,
[3:59] Speaker 1: very early the internet kind of movie.
[4:01] Speaker 2: Would you like to play a game?
[4:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good movie. Yeah, those early days
[4:06] Speaker 1: of the Internet with the dial up and if someone
[4:08] Speaker 1: would get someone else would pick up a phone, it
[4:10] Speaker 1: would kick you offline, and yes, you'd sit there and
[4:13] Speaker 1: wait on photos the load. It's similar to being on
[4:16] Speaker 1: the Internet on ship. That's what I tell people when
[4:18] Speaker 1: we're on CHIP, I'm like, this is how the internet
[4:20] Speaker 1: back of the day felt, you know, or three G
[4:22] Speaker 1: on your phone.
[4:24] Speaker 2: My first deployment on the ship, email would come in
[4:28] Speaker 2: in a bundle and they actually had to have your
[4:30] Speaker 2: name in the subject lone and then they would pass.
[4:32] Speaker 1: It to you.
[4:33] Speaker 2: Oh, everyone could see your email, so everyone could, like
[4:37] Speaker 2: the person who was distributing that like a mail carrier,
[4:41] Speaker 2: basically could see your emails.
[4:43] Speaker 1: That's a crazy I've never heard of that.
[4:46] Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, it was wild. I mean my first deployment,
[4:50] Speaker 2: my husband or my boyfriend at the time, we would
[4:52] Speaker 2: send each other cassette tapes with how things were going
[4:56] Speaker 2: and like play like silly music and stuff like that.
[5:00] Speaker 1: Like what year was this.
[5:03] Speaker 2: This was in ninety seven, nineteen ninety seven, So this
[5:07] Speaker 2: is before I deployed ninety seven ninety eight to the
[5:11] Speaker 2: med then to the Gulf North Arabian Gulf, and so
[5:14] Speaker 2: this was before women were they were starting to just
[5:17] Speaker 2: female modships. So I was on a ship that was
[5:19] Speaker 2: not female moded. So we were on a cruiser. We
[5:22] Speaker 2: were up next to the captain's quarters and they had
[5:26] Speaker 2: taken an office and made it there were four females
[5:29] Speaker 2: on the boat and that's that was us and we
[5:31] Speaker 2: just hung out there. So it was a pain in
[5:33] Speaker 2: the butt. And so you.
[5:35] Speaker 1: Got a birthing area though nobody gets that.
[5:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was actually dope, like you know, two racks,
[5:42] Speaker 2: four women. We had our own shower, so that was nice.
[5:48] Speaker 2: So uh yeah, my.
[5:51] Speaker 1: First time on ship was one hundred and fifteen guys,
[5:54] Speaker 1: three showers, and two toilets, and it was miserable. We
[5:58] Speaker 1: were packed in there. Three high. Yeah, some guys were
[6:00] Speaker 1: for high. I was like, I never want to do
[6:03] Speaker 1: this again.
[6:05] Speaker 2: My second long cruise deployment, I was on a frigate
[6:08] Speaker 2: and we shared bathrooms with the men because it wasn't
[6:11] Speaker 2: the modest chip and it was just guys are disgusting.
[6:14] Speaker 1: I mean, come on, we haven't our disgusting too.
[6:17] Speaker 2: It's not we are, no, but like how many times
[6:22] Speaker 2: you got to pee on the toilet seat. You're plumbing
[6:24] Speaker 2: is designed designed to actually aim at a target and
[6:28] Speaker 2: make it, and these guys would just pee everywhere.
[6:33] Speaker 1: In the morning.
[6:33] Speaker 2: It's hard in the's hard to do this and toward
[6:36] Speaker 2: I'm like, that's I'm sure, yeah, I'm like.
[6:39] Speaker 1: Just know we are also disgusted by guys like that,
[6:41] Speaker 1: like I don't want to go to a toilet that
[6:43] Speaker 1: has piss on it, Like like, ah, man, come on.
[6:48] Speaker 2: I mean women could be equally as nasty, because we
[6:50] Speaker 2: you know, we go through cycles and some women are
[6:53] Speaker 2: just gross. But I was, uh yeah, I mean on
[6:57] Speaker 2: my second deployment, we were it was kind of fun.
[7:00] Speaker 2: The guys would take showers in the morning and I'd
[7:02] Speaker 2: get up and I'd be like, hey, I gotta use
[7:03] Speaker 2: the bathroom. Stay in the shower and just use the bathroom.
[7:06] Speaker 2: It's like Ali mcbeal's style. If you remember that show,
[7:09] Speaker 2: you kind of share of it. Yeah, you just got
[7:11] Speaker 2: used to it. And you know a lot of people like,
[7:13] Speaker 2: oh women on a boat like these are from my perspective,
[7:17] Speaker 2: these are the brothers I don't want. So if I
[7:20] Speaker 2: saw naked, if I saw butt cheeks, if I saw
[7:24] Speaker 2: other body parts, I did not care. It was like, ooh,
[7:27] Speaker 2: this is awesome. It was like you, brother, you cover
[7:30] Speaker 2: up please, I can't with you.
[7:31] Speaker 1: What was the vibe like on that first deployment though,
[7:34] Speaker 1: you know, if you're like the first four on a ship.
[7:37] Speaker 2: The vibe was actually not bad. The vibe was there
[7:43] Speaker 2: are women on board. I didn't like the fact that
[7:47] Speaker 2: as a woman, I would befriend guys like this is.
[7:52] Speaker 2: Most of my men are men. I mean, most of
[7:54] Speaker 2: my friends are men, and so I don't like the
[7:58] Speaker 2: fact that if you're a friend with a dude, that
[8:01] Speaker 2: we have to be sleeping together. It's it's really annoying,
[8:05] Speaker 2: and so rumors start to spread. I was really good
[8:08] Speaker 2: friends with one of the one of the Navy lieutenants,
[8:11] Speaker 2: and rumors were spreading because we would be behind closed
[8:14] Speaker 2: doors that we were doing something inappropriate and it wasn't.
[8:17] Speaker 2: I mean, this guy was going through a divorce separation.
[8:20] Speaker 2: He was a hot mess, like emotionally, and we would
[8:23] Speaker 2: just get friends. We would we would go out in
[8:25] Speaker 2: town together, we would run together, we would do all
[8:28] Speaker 2: these things. And so it was just like that wears
[8:31] Speaker 2: a new more like the scuttle butt that goes around
[8:34] Speaker 2: because people just want a gossip to gossip.
[8:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, gossip on ship is next level.
[8:39] Speaker 2: It is it is some next it like it affected me.
[8:43] Speaker 1: Especially after port calls you run into people were like, hmmm,
[8:46] Speaker 1: what are those two doing together? Like hello, funny here.
[8:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just crazy. So my Yeah, that was that
[8:56] Speaker 2: was annoying. But I mean guys on the on the
[8:59] Speaker 2: ship were really, you know, really good people like you.
[9:03] Speaker 2: You were there to do a job and if you
[9:05] Speaker 2: did your job, there was no problem. I was part
[9:07] Speaker 2: of the air detachment. So you know, Ship's company doesn't
[9:11] Speaker 2: like the air detachment anyway because we don't pull shift,
[9:14] Speaker 2: we don't do duty, we don't do any of that stuff.
[9:16] Speaker 2: So uh and.
[9:17] Speaker 1: You get extra pay for being out on the flight deck.
[9:20] Speaker 2: We do, and so you know, we have our twelve
[9:23] Speaker 2: hour crew rested. Like you guys suck. You guys just
[9:26] Speaker 2: suck our food and our time and our birthday and
[9:29] Speaker 2: you do nothing.
[9:31] Speaker 1: That's how they feel about the Marines. When we got
[9:32] Speaker 1: off ship too, they're like.
[9:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm like, shut up. We bring mail, we
[9:36] Speaker 2: bring packs, get out of here.
[9:38] Speaker 1: We bring nothing. We bring nothing to the ship. When
[9:41] Speaker 1: the Marines roll in with a thousand people, HD, you
[9:45] Speaker 1: just see the sailors like now the child lines just
[9:49] Speaker 1: became you know, an hour long and everything. Gym times
[9:53] Speaker 1: are cut. It was uh yeah, a mutual hate.
[9:58] Speaker 2: It's okay, I love hate relish.
[10:01] Speaker 1: What made you decide to join the military, Like, what
[10:03] Speaker 1: was that driving force? And why did you choose your branch.
[10:07] Speaker 2: I chose the Navy was my first choice because at
[10:11] Speaker 2: the time I wanted to be an astronaut when I
[10:13] Speaker 2: was a kid. At the time, when I looked at
[10:17] Speaker 2: how many what type of resume astronauts had, most of
[10:21] Speaker 2: them were naval aviators. So that was my ultimate decision
[10:25] Speaker 2: was between the Navy and the Air Force. Navy flew
[10:28] Speaker 2: on boats, which were more difficult, more challenging, and I
[10:33] Speaker 2: can attest to that as opposed to a long runway.
[10:36] Speaker 2: The Navy is more you know, as sister services, we
[10:41] Speaker 2: always make fun of each other, right, So the Air
[10:45] Speaker 2: Forces it's a little more lax in the way they
[10:50] Speaker 2: deal with things. The Navy is very As a Marine
[10:53] Speaker 2: Corps person, you know, we go out to see we
[10:57] Speaker 2: do business. You could see it when I went to
[11:00] Speaker 2: Officer Cannons school in ninety four. It was funny because
[11:05] Speaker 2: we had a competition with the Air Force ots, so
[11:08] Speaker 2: we were ocs and the drill instructors Marine Corps train
[11:13] Speaker 2: you know, they were like, we're gonna prepare for this,
[11:15] Speaker 2: and when I me prepare, like every morning at five
[11:18] Speaker 2: o'clock after we did our two mile run, we were
[11:20] Speaker 2: doing three legged race and other stupid events to go
[11:25] Speaker 2: against the Air Force because we didn't. We will, yes,
[11:30] Speaker 2: we will not lose. And then when the Air Force
[11:32] Speaker 2: rolled in for this competition, they were in our chow
[11:35] Speaker 2: hall and we were doing our like walking up, squaring corners,
[11:41] Speaker 2: slapping trays to get our food, doing our whole thing
[11:44] Speaker 2: getting in and the Air Force was just kind of
[11:46] Speaker 2: be bopping in, you know, talking to each other, having fun,
[11:50] Speaker 2: getting more milk, doing all this stuff, and drill instructors
[11:53] Speaker 2: were like, you nasty, get on the floor push ups now,
[11:57] Speaker 2: Like that's how like? I like that. I like that
[12:00] Speaker 2: discipline aspect, and don't get me wrong, I love the
[12:03] Speaker 2: Air Force, but it is a different it's a different animal,
[12:09] Speaker 2: and I loved it in my later years when family
[12:11] Speaker 2: life and all that, the Air Force is a little
[12:14] Speaker 2: bit more amenable and understanding, where the Navies like get
[12:17] Speaker 2: on the boat, go fly, go, do whatever you need
[12:19] Speaker 2: to do. So I liked the Navy and that was
[12:23] Speaker 2: my first choice, so I was glad I got to
[12:25] Speaker 2: do it. I almost joined the Army in the warrant
[12:27] Speaker 2: officer program, but at the last minute I went out
[12:30] Speaker 2: to San Diego to talk to a recruiter that said
[12:32] Speaker 2: if you pass the test, we'll get you into the
[12:34] Speaker 2: Navy with a flying pilling.
[12:35] Speaker 1: That's awesome. I've heard a warn officer program is a
[12:38] Speaker 1: good program. Also, I've also heard it's not. I've heard
[12:40] Speaker 1: other people say it's almost a scam, like it takes
[12:42] Speaker 1: forever to actually become a pilot, or that you a
[12:45] Speaker 1: lot of people don't become pilots. I don't know. I've
[12:47] Speaker 1: heard good and bads, so look into it.
[12:49] Speaker 2: But I mean, I yeah, I mean I wanted to
[12:52] Speaker 2: fly jets, but I was also open to flying helicopters,
[12:55] Speaker 2: which I did both at the end of my career.
[12:59] Speaker 2: I think the warn off the program would have been
[13:01] Speaker 2: it's it looks like a great program, but you're you're
[13:06] Speaker 2: wedged into just flying helicopters. And I'm that type of
[13:09] Speaker 2: person that don't put a label on me. I want to.
[13:14] Speaker 2: I want to. I want to be as versatile as possible,
[13:18] Speaker 2: especially as an astronaut, because there's things that you may
[13:21] Speaker 2: not see, you know for the first time, and you
[13:24] Speaker 2: want to be able to bring your skill sets to
[13:28] Speaker 2: the table. So I felt that flying helicopters, I loved it,
[13:32] Speaker 2: great mission, but to be able to fly jets to
[13:36] Speaker 2: be able to fly at fixed wing aircraft with props,
[13:39] Speaker 2: to learn those different things with something that I enjoyed,
[13:42] Speaker 2: I enjoyed more.
[13:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I understand that's flying. I mean I wouldn't
[13:47] Speaker 1: want an awesome opportunity to fly anything really, you know,
[13:49] Speaker 1: and get paid to do it. Is it? So you
[13:53] Speaker 1: wanted to be an astronaut and you looked into did
[13:55] Speaker 1: you do r O You said you did r O
[13:57] Speaker 1: TC right? Or is your that competition you were talking
[13:59] Speaker 1: about in OS.
[14:01] Speaker 2: That was an OCS So, by the way, we totally
[14:04] Speaker 2: smoked them. So just for the record, just for the record,
[14:09] Speaker 2: the OTS people that came, they got smoked. I I
[14:16] Speaker 2: did RTC in in my at my university for two years.
[14:19] Speaker 2: I did Air Force RTC for two years and found
[14:23] Speaker 2: that that was not for me. So it kind of
[14:28] Speaker 2: solidified like, hey, I want to go Navy when I'm done.
[14:33] Speaker 1: And then you joined. You know, you got that first
[14:36] Speaker 1: first ship assignment where you're pretty excited. Were you nervous?
[14:39] Speaker 1: How'd you feel? Well, let's talk about actually before the
[14:42] Speaker 1: first ship assignment, how was the training, how was the
[14:45] Speaker 1: flight school? How was you know, getting assigned to an aircraft?
[14:50] Speaker 2: So flight training is typically about two years, a little
[14:53] Speaker 2: bit more, a little bit less depending. I did it
[14:57] Speaker 2: probably at the two year mark. School you go through
[15:02] Speaker 2: for so I can talk Navy and Air Force, so
[15:04] Speaker 2: I'm talking specifically Navy Navy flight training. You go through
[15:08] Speaker 2: primary training, you fly at that time was the T
[15:11] Speaker 2: thirty four, now it's the T six aircraft. You do
[15:16] Speaker 2: that for the first part. You do everything from basic flying,
[15:20] Speaker 2: to basic instruments, to formation basic formation flying, and then
[15:26] Speaker 2: you once you finish that, it takes about a year
[15:30] Speaker 2: six months, well six months to a year, and then
[15:36] Speaker 2: you select out of that. So whatever group is up
[15:39] Speaker 2: for selection, you compete for either jets, helos, or props
[15:44] Speaker 2: or occasionally like to seat you know, flying admirals around.
[15:51] Speaker 2: That came every once in a while. So I selected
[15:54] Speaker 2: out of my class. I did well, but I still
[15:56] Speaker 2: got helicopters. Most pilots in the Navy are helicopter pilots.
[16:02] Speaker 2: That's what they need, not as many jet pilots, so
[16:04] Speaker 2: it's okay. And then from there I went to I
[16:08] Speaker 2: was in Corpus Christi, Texas, and then I went back
[16:10] Speaker 2: to Pensacola for training in helicopters at Millington. So I
[16:15] Speaker 2: started out my flight training in Corpus Christie. You could
[16:18] Speaker 2: go to Pensacola, but I ended up going to Corpus Christie.
[16:21] Speaker 2: The only reason why I wanted to do that is
[16:23] Speaker 2: because it was easier flying to do what we call
[16:27] Speaker 2: course rules, so to get out into an area. Most
[16:29] Speaker 2: students will fail, you know, their flights because of course rules.
[16:34] Speaker 2: They'll do something stupid like, hey, you didn't at the
[16:37] Speaker 2: red barn. You didn't turn left. Well, I couldn't see
[16:40] Speaker 2: the red barn because it was cloudiet. Well, too bad,
[16:42] Speaker 2: you fail Texas. It's like you fly over the water,
[16:47] Speaker 2: you see this island, you turn.
[16:49] Speaker 1: That's pretty forward.
[16:50] Speaker 2: It's pretty straightforward. You get in your area, you call,
[16:53] Speaker 2: and then you proceed to do whatever. So that's my recommendation.
[16:57] Speaker 2: Course rules could be a killer for some students.
[17:00] Speaker 1: Before you before you've selected to a platform, when you're
[17:02] Speaker 1: doing your initial flight training, you do you earn your
[17:05] Speaker 1: private pilot's license, Is't that correct?
[17:09] Speaker 2: You don't, So I went into the Navy with zero
[17:13] Speaker 2: flight time.
[17:14] Speaker 1: Okay.
[17:14] Speaker 2: Some people come in with picker rating. Some people have
[17:19] Speaker 2: their private's license, some people have their commercials. Some people
[17:22] Speaker 2: came from the airlines, they're young, enough, you know they
[17:26] Speaker 2: go in. So I had zero flight time. Okay when
[17:29] Speaker 2: I was when I was done with my primary training,
[17:31] Speaker 2: I still didn't have anything until I finished advanced training,
[17:35] Speaker 2: which was in helicopters. Then I got my private pilot's
[17:38] Speaker 2: license in single engine fixed wing singling single engine rotary wing.
[17:43] Speaker 2: I got my commercial license in both, and I got
[17:46] Speaker 2: my instrument rating. So you come out with about four
[17:49] Speaker 2: ratings in that.
[17:50] Speaker 1: How which one did that those initial licensing? Which one
[17:54] Speaker 1: did you find it be more difficult the fix wing
[17:56] Speaker 1: or rotary wing.
[17:58] Speaker 2: I think it's apples and r as a person that
[18:01] Speaker 2: has flown jets, helos and props. Once you fly fix wing,
[18:05] Speaker 2: if you go helicopters, you could go back to fix wing.
[18:08] Speaker 2: It's not there's nothing cosmic about it. I actually think
[18:12] Speaker 2: flying helicopters helped me to get into the YouTube. The
[18:16] Speaker 2: reason why is because the helicopters are stick and rudder.
[18:19] Speaker 2: The YouTube. Believe it or not, it's a yoke, but
[18:22] Speaker 2: it's stick and rudder. Flying the U two, my altitude
[18:25] Speaker 2: aircraft suffers from adversary of effects. You actually have to
[18:30] Speaker 2: do coordinated urns. Most jet pilots fly with their feet
[18:34] Speaker 2: off the rudder pedals because of the sensitivity, and that's
[18:38] Speaker 2: kind of a downside for them flying the YouTube, they
[18:42] Speaker 2: find it more difficult. In general, I'm generalizing, so to me,
[18:47] Speaker 2: it is easy to fly fix wing. It's easy to
[18:49] Speaker 2: fly helicopters. It's just a different mindset. Helicopters. You have
[18:53] Speaker 2: a cyclic collective. It's once you learn the differences, it's
[19:00] Speaker 2: it's really not very cosmic.
[19:02] Speaker 1: Like it's funny because non pilots are just like amazed,
[19:06] Speaker 1: you know you're flying, but like whatever, it's whatever. We're
[19:09] Speaker 1: all over here, like wow, you know that's pretty wild
[19:11] Speaker 1: that you can do. You're flying all these different things.
[19:13] Speaker 1: It's such a what an incredible skill. And like hobby,
[19:16] Speaker 1: I knew Submarne pilots, some both fixed wing and rotary
[19:20] Speaker 1: wing guys that would join almost like a like you
[19:24] Speaker 1: would with a rental car agency, like a group at
[19:27] Speaker 1: an airport where you can like rent planes all the time.
[19:29] Speaker 1: They were just like, yeah, this weekend, we're gonna fly
[19:31] Speaker 1: to wherever. And I'm like, man, what a good skill
[19:33] Speaker 1: to have just to be able to pick up and
[19:34] Speaker 1: like rent a plane for the weekend and go somewhere.
[19:37] Speaker 2: It is so most people I always tell people, you
[19:40] Speaker 2: give me any type of mechanical device, I'll get in
[19:43] Speaker 2: and figure it out. Like it's just it becomes intuitive.
[19:47] Speaker 2: It's just really it's really fun. So I'm sorry, I
[19:53] Speaker 2: got a cat over here being a menace right now.
[19:55] Speaker 1: No, you're good. I don't hear it. It's when you're
[20:00] Speaker 1: when you're flying helos. Now, let's talk about because there's
[20:03] Speaker 1: some rough seas out there for the Navy, what's it
[20:06] Speaker 1: like landing a helo, you know, in some rough waters
[20:08] Speaker 1: trying to you're basically doing a controlled fall there at
[20:11] Speaker 1: the end, making sure you let go of the right time.
[20:14] Speaker 2: And it seems like yeah, so for the h so
[20:18] Speaker 2: I flew H sixties Seahawk helicopters. So I say, CHICKXI
[20:23] Speaker 2: Bravos was what I flew rough seas sea states of
[20:30] Speaker 2: four or five. It's it's a it's a big challenge.
[20:34] Speaker 2: So the big thing there when you're flying to the
[20:38] Speaker 2: back of the boat, the boat has what's called the
[20:41] Speaker 2: hars bar. So the bar it's a straight bar across
[20:44] Speaker 2: with a lighting system that tells you if you're on
[20:47] Speaker 2: glidepath below glidpath, above glidepath. So in that situation, you
[20:54] Speaker 2: could see from a distance that the ship is doing
[20:57] Speaker 2: all this. You can see the back it's doing all this,
[21:00] Speaker 2: but the horsbar is pretty stable. So that's what you
[21:04] Speaker 2: don't I don't want to say fixate on, because you
[21:06] Speaker 2: don't fixate on anything, but that's part of your scan
[21:08] Speaker 2: as you're flying the aircraft. So when you see all
[21:12] Speaker 2: the sea, you know, the sea moving and everything, you're like,
[21:16] Speaker 2: don't look at that, don't look at that. Just focus
[21:18] Speaker 2: on your instruments inside the cockpit, the horizon, the harsbar
[21:22] Speaker 2: on the ship, and as you get closer. In c
[21:26] Speaker 2: states are four or five, the sixty has what's called
[21:31] Speaker 2: there's a RAS system on there. And the RAS system
[21:34] Speaker 2: is a system that traverses the aircraft in and out
[21:39] Speaker 2: of the hangar, but it's also used to help assist
[21:43] Speaker 2: the H sixty to land. In rough sea states, the
[21:47] Speaker 2: H sixty has a probe and in that probe is
[21:50] Speaker 2: a cable that comes out and the cable can be
[21:53] Speaker 2: attached to the ship's RAS system and actually help assist
[21:57] Speaker 2: pulling the helicopter down straight into the trap. And then
[22:02] Speaker 2: the RAD system closes around the probe and then you
[22:05] Speaker 2: use that to move the aircraft inside it out. So
[22:08] Speaker 2: when you're in those high seat states, you come in
[22:12] Speaker 2: and you hover and you're getting calls from there's a
[22:17] Speaker 2: guy in what's called the LSO shack Landing Safety Officer
[22:21] Speaker 2: shack who's another pilot who's watching how you're flying in
[22:25] Speaker 2: and they're monitoring the safety of the operations. So as
[22:29] Speaker 2: you're coming in, you go to a hover I don't
[22:32] Speaker 2: remember how many feet the hover is. You got two
[22:36] Speaker 2: fire guys who are on firewatch come out. They're called
[22:39] Speaker 2: the hookup men. They get the cable from the ship.
[22:44] Speaker 2: You release the cable from your helicopter. You have an
[22:47] Speaker 2: aircrewman in the back that says the cable is touched down,
[22:49] Speaker 2: its grounded out. The hookup men come out in a
[22:53] Speaker 2: rough sea state. There's two of them holding on for
[22:55] Speaker 2: dear life. They get like pay the extra hundred bucks
[22:59] Speaker 2: a month. It's they don't get paid enough. Anyway, they
[23:04] Speaker 2: come out, they hook up the cable and then they
[23:09] Speaker 2: try to move away. As we reel the cable back
[23:12] Speaker 2: in the aircraft and get some tension on the helicopter
[23:17] Speaker 2: to the ship, and so we maneuver over the platform.
[23:22] Speaker 2: The LSO can either give us calls how we look.
[23:26] Speaker 1: Oh I think I lost you. I lost you for
[23:29] Speaker 1: a second. You said, the LSO could give you calls
[23:31] Speaker 1: on how you look.
[23:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, the LSO could give you calls how you look.
[23:35] Speaker 2: The air crewmen will be looking down. And then when
[23:38] Speaker 2: you're ready to land, you'll tell the LSO put on
[23:41] Speaker 2: tension because they can put on tension of the cable
[23:44] Speaker 2: from two thousand to four thousand pounds of force. At
[23:48] Speaker 2: that point, the hookup men are gone because they don't
[23:51] Speaker 2: need to be around for any of this. And then
[23:54] Speaker 2: you can land right in the trap. And so when
[23:57] Speaker 2: you're in, the LSO closes the trap around the aircraft
[24:00] Speaker 2: and secures it to the flight deck.
[24:03] Speaker 1: Sounds like a party.
[24:05] Speaker 2: It is a party. It's it's good. So we do traps. Also,
[24:10] Speaker 2: we could do it without a cable if it's a
[24:12] Speaker 2: good sea staate, but in rough sea states it's recommended.
[24:14] Speaker 2: We don't have to do it. So it just depends.
[24:17] Speaker 2: Because you have two hookup men coming out, it could
[24:20] Speaker 2: be really dangerous for them. So yeah, for sure, Yeah,
[24:23] Speaker 2: yeah they do. They do a great job. So that's
[24:28] Speaker 2: what it's like from a pilot perspective. It's exhilarating for me,
[24:33] Speaker 2: Like coming in to fly, especially at nighttime you're looking
[24:37] Speaker 2: at the Harst bar, you can get easily disoriented. Like
[24:40] Speaker 2: everyone's a little bit on edge. But it's exciting, Like
[24:43] Speaker 2: I love that stuff.
[24:44] Speaker 1: Yeah. In the back, I'm just like, man, they know
[24:46] Speaker 1: what they're doing, so I'm just gonna ride this out.
[24:48] Speaker 1: Here we go, you know. It's like, uh, especially we
[24:54] Speaker 1: would take off from the osprey and the way they
[24:56] Speaker 1: would like take off on the osprey on the LHD
[24:59] Speaker 1: would like lift up and then it would like get
[25:01] Speaker 1: a few feet off the deck and then like kind
[25:03] Speaker 1: of fall to the left or fall one direction and
[25:07] Speaker 1: then take off. And you're just sitting there and you
[25:09] Speaker 1: feel it lift up, and all a sudden you're like, oh,
[25:13] Speaker 1: I don't know. I never liked it.
[25:15] Speaker 2: You didn't like it. One time I was on a
[25:18] Speaker 2: A forty six. I was I had to go my
[25:21] Speaker 2: first deployment. I was in a crew a cruiser and
[25:24] Speaker 2: I was on the I was on the GW for
[25:27] Speaker 2: some reason. I don't know if it was medical or something,
[25:30] Speaker 2: and I had to take a a CH forty six
[25:33] Speaker 2: back and I was sitting back there going this aircraft
[25:38] Speaker 2: is terrible.
[25:40] Speaker 1: It was the workhorse for a long time.
[25:42] Speaker 2: I know it was, but like everything was leaking. You
[25:46] Speaker 2: couldn't see anything. As a pilot, I was like.
[25:49] Speaker 1: That's how you knew it was working.
[25:50] Speaker 2: Though.
[25:50] Speaker 1: If it was leaking oil, it's still to go.
[25:52] Speaker 2: This is true. This is true. It was definitely leaking.
[25:55] Speaker 2: So I was like, Okay, there's enough oil in the system. Great,
[25:59] Speaker 2: but it was just Oh, I like, I like my
[26:02] Speaker 2: Age sixty much better. But in the Marine Corps when
[26:04] Speaker 2: you were a pilot, they would call that SH forty
[26:07] Speaker 2: six God's aircraft. So yeahed to fly.
[26:10] Speaker 1: The sixty is is a smooth flight. I did, like
[26:13] Speaker 1: I enjoyed flying in the sixty. I enjoyed flying in
[26:17] Speaker 1: the Huey. Also, those were probably my two favorite flying
[26:19] Speaker 1: in one of those two fifty threes, I had an
[26:23] Speaker 1: incident on one where they lost like hydraulics to like
[26:26] Speaker 1: stabilize the sticks of the aircraft. Was like going all
[26:30] Speaker 1: over the place, and we were flying over water, and
[26:35] Speaker 1: that time. I was always cool with flying up until
[26:37] Speaker 1: that point, and then after that I always had that
[26:39] Speaker 1: in the back of my mind because we were flying
[26:41] Speaker 1: over water and for whatever reason, this is the only
[26:45] Speaker 1: time it ever happened. The crew chiefs didn't give us
[26:48] Speaker 1: the bottles the uh the bottle, yeah, the vest and
[26:52] Speaker 1: the bottles, and we were all like, cool, we don't
[26:54] Speaker 1: have to wear those stupid bot you know things. And
[26:57] Speaker 1: then as soon as we got feet wet over leaving
[27:00] Speaker 1: San Clemente Island, they lost like some hydraulics and the
[27:03] Speaker 1: helicopter was just all over the place, and the pilot
[27:07] Speaker 1: didn't turn around, like we literally had just gone feet wet,
[27:11] Speaker 1: he didn't turn around. He kept going and did an
[27:13] Speaker 1: emergency landing at Camp Pendleton. So he spent thirty minutes
[27:16] Speaker 1: over water, and none of us had oxygen bottles or
[27:18] Speaker 1: anything on. I was like, we got off that aircraft.
[27:21] Speaker 1: And this is when I was with Anglico and one
[27:24] Speaker 1: of my firepower control team leaders was a fifty three
[27:28] Speaker 1: pilot who was riding in the back and when we landed,
[27:30] Speaker 1: he got out and started chewing the pilot out and
[27:34] Speaker 1: then he's like, I'm calling the airwing to let them
[27:37] Speaker 1: know what you just did. Like this was crazy?
[27:40] Speaker 2: Did that guy get okay? So I didn't before I yeah,
[27:43] Speaker 2: before I judge someone. Was there a reason why he
[27:46] Speaker 2: decided to fly for thirty minutes with a hydraulic problem.
[27:51] Speaker 1: I have no idea. I just I know when we landed,
[27:55] Speaker 1: I was sitting I just remember being like, thank God,
[27:58] Speaker 1: think and I remember flying the whole way. I'm watching
[28:01] Speaker 1: the crew chief and I'm like, if this dude freaks out,
[28:03] Speaker 1: I'm gonna freak out because this is a crew chief.
[28:05] Speaker 1: Like if anybody, if he starts sweating. And then when
[28:08] Speaker 1: we landed, one of my marines was like, staff sergeant,
[28:10] Speaker 1: I was watching you, and I was like, a staff
[28:12] Speaker 1: sergeant freaks out, I'm gonna freak out. And I was like,
[28:14] Speaker 1: there's a lesson to be learned here. Everybody cool, everybody.
[28:20] Speaker 2: It's just like when there's turbulence in a commercial airplane,
[28:24] Speaker 2: look at the flight attendanc if they're just sitting and
[28:26] Speaker 2: talking on their phone, don't worry about it. Like some
[28:28] Speaker 2: people just totally freak out. And I'm like, it's turbulence,
[28:31] Speaker 2: it's cool, it's cool. Stop screaming. It's all right. But
[28:35] Speaker 2: but you're right, I don't know why the pilot would
[28:38] Speaker 2: take off, have a hydraulic problem and not come back.
[28:42] Speaker 2: That seems under intuitive. Yeah, it seems pretty basic. Is
[28:48] Speaker 2: there you know? Was there a reason? Like I always
[28:51] Speaker 2: try to give my peers, like, what was going through
[28:56] Speaker 2: your mind? What? Let's play this back again. Oh, I'm
[28:58] Speaker 2: sure he got in a lot of trouble because that
[29:00] Speaker 2: doesn't make sense, like if there's a problem on takeoff,
[29:03] Speaker 2: come back be done. Yeah, or maybe maybe he knew
[29:07] Speaker 2: it was going to happen. I don't know.
[29:10] Speaker 1: They said, so we just happened to have a fifty
[29:13] Speaker 1: three pilot in our team. So he was explaining afterwards.
[29:16] Speaker 1: He's like, he can still fly it, it's still fliable,
[29:20] Speaker 1: but it takes away the any kind of like assistance,
[29:25] Speaker 1: so you're fighting to stick the whole time rather than
[29:27] Speaker 1: the hydraulics assisting you and keeping a smooth flight. So
[29:31] Speaker 1: he's like, he fought it the whole way over here
[29:33] Speaker 1: for no reason, and he was pretty upset about it.
[29:36] Speaker 1: He said he was going to contact the air wing
[29:38] Speaker 1: and let them know about the incident. He's like, there
[29:42] Speaker 1: was no reason because it was a fifty three with
[29:44] Speaker 1: like twenty of us on the back of it. You
[29:46] Speaker 1: had like twenty people in the back, and he's like,
[29:47] Speaker 1: there was no reason for him to do that. It
[29:49] Speaker 1: was a weekend. I think it was like a Friday,
[29:51] Speaker 1: so everybody wanted to get home. Yeah, so get home.
[29:57] Speaker 2: Idis kills more people than anything. I mean, you look
[30:02] Speaker 2: at it, but in the fifty three, I don't know
[30:05] Speaker 2: how fifty three works. Like in a in a YouTube,
[30:08] Speaker 2: you lose hydraulics. Yeah, that's a bad day. Like you're not.
[30:13] Speaker 2: You're getting back home and conserving energy because to fight
[30:16] Speaker 2: that aircraft. If for some reason hydraulics fails and the
[30:20] Speaker 2: pitch of the nose is more than one degree's nose down,
[30:23] Speaker 2: you are ejecting. There is no doubt about it. You
[30:25] Speaker 2: cannot pull back on the force required to do what
[30:30] Speaker 2: you need to do. Yeah, you could be you can
[30:32] Speaker 2: be a weightlifter, you could do whatever. You cannot maintain
[30:36] Speaker 2: that to keep two feet off the ground to stall
[30:38] Speaker 2: the aircraft.
[30:38] Speaker 1: It's a fickle beast.
[30:40] Speaker 2: It is, it is. She will kill you very quickly,
[30:43] Speaker 2: as as slow as she goes. Speaking of.
[30:48] Speaker 1: You mentioned uh, you mentioned the oh ye that what's
[30:53] Speaker 1: your cat's name?
[30:54] Speaker 2: This is Mojo. He's like over here.
[30:58] Speaker 1: He's wondering what you're doing when you not paying attention?
[31:01] Speaker 2: Well, he's he's uh, he's very selfish. Every time I
[31:06] Speaker 2: do a podcast, he wants in.
[31:08] Speaker 1: He makes an appearance.
[31:09] Speaker 2: He makes an appearance every time. So there are brothers.
[31:13] Speaker 2: He is one of two. The other ones sitting there
[31:15] Speaker 2: looking at me Mojo and Mystic, So Mojo loves to
[31:21] Speaker 2: be loved and Mystic wants nothing to do with me.
[31:24] Speaker 2: They are both fourteen years old.
[31:27] Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, that's pretty Is that standard for a cat?
[31:30] Speaker 1: And I'm more of a dog person.
[31:35] Speaker 2: My last cat lasted to sixteen, so yeah, that's good.
[31:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew one. I knew uh something that had
[31:41] Speaker 1: a cat that was like twenty one and it looked
[31:43] Speaker 1: yeah they.
[31:45] Speaker 2: Look yes, yeah, that's like one hundred and fifteen.
[31:49] Speaker 1: My last dog he lived to be eighteen, and he
[31:52] Speaker 1: was a Lab beagle mix and he looked really bad
[31:54] Speaker 1: at the end. I probably should have had him put
[31:56] Speaker 1: down a little sooner, but or I didn't have him
[31:58] Speaker 1: put down. He passed away naturally, But I probably should
[31:59] Speaker 1: have put down. But it's just like when you've had
[32:02] Speaker 1: them that long, you know, it's like, man.
[32:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough.
[32:06] Speaker 1: Anyways, I don't want to get into that. Did you
[32:11] Speaker 1: have did you ever have?
[32:12] Speaker 2: Like in flor conversation went dark very quickly.
[32:18] Speaker 1: When when you're flying, so let's talk about you your
[32:21] Speaker 1: flying helos when did you how long did you fly
[32:24] Speaker 1: hels and when did you make a change to a
[32:26] Speaker 1: different platform.
[32:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, So I flew helos from ninety six after I
[32:31] Speaker 2: got winged to two thousand and four, so I flew
[32:34] Speaker 2: SAH sixty Bravos East Coast Lamps. I was stationed at
[32:38] Speaker 2: Naval Station Mayport for four years flying.
[32:41] Speaker 1: And you're you generally with the sixties or you generally
[32:44] Speaker 1: like kind of general aviation. I know there's a lot
[32:47] Speaker 1: of different jobs that sixties can do, counter submarine, close
[32:50] Speaker 1: air support, like all these different things. Are you expected
[32:53] Speaker 1: to do a good deal of those a specific mission?
[32:57] Speaker 2: Right? So what's great about the the sixty? So SH
[33:01] Speaker 2: sixty is anti submarine, So that was our primary mission,
[33:05] Speaker 2: anti submarine warfare, anti surface warfare, because we were able
[33:09] Speaker 2: to carry at that time, we had in Penguin missile
[33:13] Speaker 2: held fire missile, we had flear system, we could do mvgs,
[33:17] Speaker 2: we could do search and rescue like every other helicopter.
[33:20] Speaker 2: So we were always like every day was a different
[33:23] Speaker 2: type of mission. So it was a very versatile platform.
[33:28] Speaker 2: You just didn't know what was happening. So my first
[33:30] Speaker 2: deployment on the Age sixty, we were the shotgun cruiser
[33:35] Speaker 2: for the carrier the GW Battle Group. So most of
[33:40] Speaker 2: the times we were out, our missions were doing a
[33:43] Speaker 2: little bit of sub hunting, but a lot of just
[33:46] Speaker 2: packs transfers, surface reconnaissance looking at surface ships that were around,
[33:52] Speaker 2: especially when we were in the North Arabian Gulf, so
[33:55] Speaker 2: we did some KAA combat missions, we go look for smugglers.
[34:01] Speaker 2: We would do all those things and report and back.
[34:04] Speaker 2: So yeah, it was pretty interesting. And then my second
[34:09] Speaker 2: deployment was a unitas in South America. So in the
[34:14] Speaker 2: beginning we would do maybe a little bit of drug ops,
[34:17] Speaker 2: but we would work with the other countries doing submarine
[34:22] Speaker 2: operations and then we did some other classified stuff.
[34:26] Speaker 1: Was it interesting going from all water based, you know,
[34:30] Speaker 1: operations basically all water based to working in South America
[34:34] Speaker 1: and do more land based stuff shops or were you
[34:38] Speaker 1: doing counter like subs or something like that.
[34:40] Speaker 2: So yeah, so my second deployment going into South America,
[34:46] Speaker 2: a lot of port visits, so we were working with
[34:48] Speaker 2: other South American countries, doing a lot of training events.
[34:55] Speaker 2: It was basically like a boom I don't want to
[34:57] Speaker 2: say a boondoggle, but unitas trips, I mean every two
[35:00] Speaker 2: days we were pulling into a port.
[35:02] Speaker 1: So Ama.
[35:05] Speaker 2: It is, but it's not because it's very disruptive because
[35:08] Speaker 2: you can't get on a good flight schedule cycle. Like
[35:13] Speaker 2: you go off for like three days and then you
[35:14] Speaker 2: pull in Cartagena, then you go off for you know,
[35:18] Speaker 2: you stay there for two days. Then you go out
[35:20] Speaker 2: for four days, and you go to like Bogata, I
[35:23] Speaker 2: don't know wherever, and you keep going.
[35:25] Speaker 1: Everyone's screaming at you. They're like, no, what are you
[35:27] Speaker 1: talking about?
[35:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, But I like the fact my first deployment we
[35:33] Speaker 2: were out for thirty days and we pull into port
[35:36] Speaker 2: for three or two days. And so I like the
[35:41] Speaker 2: I like the if I'm working, I want to do
[35:43] Speaker 2: flight ops. I want to have a good schedule. Mistakes
[35:47] Speaker 2: happen when you're when you're just going up and down
[35:51] Speaker 2: and scheduled. Don't get me wrong, I love look. South
[35:55] Speaker 2: America is beautiful. I got to see a lot of
[35:58] Speaker 2: things I didn't understand that. I made a lot of
[36:03] Speaker 2: realizations when I was in South America. Like I understood
[36:07] Speaker 2: the concept of poverty. I understood that America is a
[36:14] Speaker 2: pretty dagone good country to live in and to protect.
[36:19] Speaker 2: I met some good people in other countries that are
[36:22] Speaker 2: trying to do the same thing. I got to go
[36:28] Speaker 2: snowboarding the first time in the Andes Mountains.
[36:31] Speaker 1: Oh wow.
[36:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to win my first we were in Argentina.
[36:35] Speaker 2: I won my first dance contest. That's another story for
[36:39] Speaker 2: another day. I you know, and a port visit like
[36:43] Speaker 2: it was a great night, Like I got to do
[36:45] Speaker 2: a lot of things and experience and have this different
[36:48] Speaker 2: perspective and so, but it was still very choppy and flying,
[36:52] Speaker 2: like if I want to fly and do the mission,
[36:54] Speaker 2: I want to, Like I want to, let's go, Let's
[36:58] Speaker 2: do the mission. Yeah, I'm a fly, I get that.
[37:01] Speaker 1: I understand that. But as someone that's not flying and
[37:04] Speaker 1: doing less cool jobs on ship, it's like, thank god,
[37:06] Speaker 1: we're getting off this thing. I remember, I was so
[37:10] Speaker 1: lucky we were in well. First off, I want to
[37:13] Speaker 1: say what you described the experience of understanding poverty for
[37:16] Speaker 1: the first time. I think a lot of people in
[37:19] Speaker 1: the military come back with that when they go to
[37:22] Speaker 1: some of these other countries, especially because when you're on
[37:26] Speaker 1: these new deployments and you're working with other countries, a
[37:29] Speaker 1: lot of times excuse me, a lot of times they'll
[37:31] Speaker 1: have a opportunity to like go volunteer at a local orphanage.
[37:37] Speaker 1: You know, you go down and play soccer with them,
[37:39] Speaker 1: or you go down and play basketball with them or
[37:40] Speaker 1: something like that. They have like a little group, a
[37:42] Speaker 1: little detachment that goes out or they do some kind
[37:44] Speaker 1: of community service and whatever country that they're visiting. And
[37:48] Speaker 1: I think once you go to some of these countries
[37:51] Speaker 1: and you see the level of poverty, like you're like,
[37:53] Speaker 1: you're talking about that's why you come back here, and
[37:56] Speaker 1: you're like, you know what, this isn't that bad. You know,
[37:58] Speaker 1: like let's everybody chill up, and like, let's understand, we're
[38:02] Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five and I can I can literally
[38:05] Speaker 1: have my phone do almost anything, bring me food, you know,
[38:10] Speaker 1: make money, like entertain me. You know, we're living in
[38:14] Speaker 1: the future and we don't realize it. I think a
[38:15] Speaker 1: lot of people don't appreciate that. And yeah, it's great. Y.
[38:20] Speaker 2: So it's and it's very interesting that even now twenty
[38:26] Speaker 2: twenty five, regardless of how you feel about the political environment, right,
[38:30] Speaker 2: we still got it. We still have it pretty good.
[38:34] Speaker 2: And people may, you know, disagree or agree with that,
[38:38] Speaker 2: but I mean to see children divvy up food that
[38:42] Speaker 2: someone has just eaten off of like brings that home
[38:45] Speaker 2: like holy cow, Like yeah, it's yeah, it's just kind
[38:50] Speaker 2: of it's eye opening. And when you come back here,
[38:55] Speaker 2: especially when you transition out of the military to civilian life,
[38:58] Speaker 2: and you see the things that people truly complain about,
[39:02] Speaker 2: and in the back of your mind, you're like, you
[39:04] Speaker 2: have no idea, you have no idea what you're complaining about.
[39:08] Speaker 2: Something that's a non issue as opposed to like choices
[39:12] Speaker 2: for survival, Like it's it's on a different level. And
[39:16] Speaker 2: I think that's one of the things when I transitioned
[39:19] Speaker 2: from the military to civilian life, it was one of
[39:23] Speaker 2: those things that was hard to get over because people
[39:25] Speaker 2: would talk about things that I could care less about,
[39:27] Speaker 2: Like I was like and it was like it was
[39:30] Speaker 2: like their whole world, and I'm like, I feel like
[39:33] Speaker 2: I feel like a foreigner on my on my own soil.
[39:37] Speaker 2: Like it's just like this is weird.
[39:38] Speaker 1: Like this is what you're worried about. If this is
[39:39] Speaker 1: your biggest concern, we're in a pretty good spot right now.
[39:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, Like your kid didn't make the comp soccer team, Okay, yeah,
[39:45] Speaker 2: you can get practiced.
[39:46] Speaker 1: This is not and this is not to like invalidate
[39:50] Speaker 1: people that are struggling, because there are people in the
[39:52] Speaker 1: US that have issues. Also, obviously we're a country of
[39:55] Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty million people or more three unit
[39:57] Speaker 1: and seventy million maybe I don't even remember, but for
[40:01] Speaker 1: the vast majority of people, they it's like you're talking
[40:05] Speaker 1: about how oppressed you are on your iPhone, you know
[40:07] Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like leave me, Like stop, you're doing
[40:10] Speaker 1: all right, you know, get get it, get it together.
[40:15] Speaker 1: I remember being in Djibouti and them telling us, like,
[40:18] Speaker 1: don't hand out any water bottles because if you do,
[40:20] Speaker 1: you're gonna be quickly surrounded by people that want water
[40:23] Speaker 1: or want food or whatever. Like you know, that's like
[40:26] Speaker 1: a people don't understand. In some of these countries, it's
[40:29] Speaker 1: an operation to bring food or medical supplies to them
[40:32] Speaker 1: because you can't just show up and start handing out
[40:35] Speaker 1: food because it becomes a riot almost. It has to
[40:37] Speaker 1: have like a it's a mission, you know what I'm saying.
[40:40] Speaker 1: It's like, and that's because of how how desperate they
[40:43] Speaker 1: are for stuff. But yeah, so that's an interesting thing.
[40:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, So in the beginning when we were South America,
[40:50] Speaker 2: like if you have money, kids would come at you
[40:53] Speaker 2: and then you give one. It was like a whole
[40:54] Speaker 2: bunch of pigeons like.
[40:55] Speaker 1: With fly yeah, exactly right.
[40:57] Speaker 2: So and like I'm from New York City, so when
[41:01] Speaker 2: someone's asking me for money as a New Yorker, I
[41:03] Speaker 2: think we're very easy to dismiss people.
[41:07] Speaker 1: Because that's what the say he does to you.
[41:10] Speaker 2: Yes, I'm sorry. It's it's like, uh, New York City.
[41:15] Speaker 2: There is some I can't there's some savagery in the way,
[41:19] Speaker 2: like if you're on the train and people are like
[41:21] Speaker 2: coming by, I need money, like no one pays attention
[41:24] Speaker 2: to them. And so I did that at first. But
[41:26] Speaker 2: then when I realized like the significance of giving a
[41:30] Speaker 2: child some coins that I don't want to say meant
[41:34] Speaker 2: nothing to me, but meant so much more to them
[41:37] Speaker 2: than it did to me, I was like, I didn't
[41:40] Speaker 2: care like the pigeons.
[41:42] Speaker 1: I don't know anybody that gave out actual money like that,
[41:44] Speaker 1: even like change. But we used to give out candy
[41:47] Speaker 1: a lot, you know, used to give out candy and
[41:48] Speaker 1: stuff to like when we're in Afghanistan and everything like that.
[41:51] Speaker 1: You're the kids wanted pins to write on stuff and
[41:55] Speaker 1: things like that. So but again you'd have to like,
[41:58] Speaker 1: you know, if there's like a one or two kids,
[42:00] Speaker 1: you could maybe give out something. But if you give
[42:02] Speaker 1: out stuff to a group, then it becomes an issue
[42:06] Speaker 1: and then you'll see kids fight other kids to get
[42:08] Speaker 1: what they got, and you know, yeah, it goes downhill quickly.
[42:13] Speaker 1: But yeah, the sound of port calls all the time.
[42:15] Speaker 1: I mean, I remember we were on the mew and
[42:18] Speaker 1: we were we were doing an exercise. I was ashore
[42:22] Speaker 1: for an exercise in Kuwait. We were working with the
[42:25] Speaker 1: Royal Marines and with the Kuwaitis and while we were ashore,
[42:31] Speaker 1: our ship got tasked with something to do some strikes
[42:34] Speaker 1: or something like that, I don't remember what it was,
[42:36] Speaker 1: and got pulled. So we were just kind of stuck
[42:38] Speaker 1: in Kuwait, which was great. It was like the ship
[42:41] Speaker 1: is gone, you know, and we were ashore doing like
[42:45] Speaker 1: close air support training with like apaches and sixties and
[42:47] Speaker 1: stuff quite a bit. And it was a good time
[42:49] Speaker 1: out there if you've ever been uh Udari range Op
[42:52] Speaker 1: ten and it was a good time compared to the ship.
[42:57] Speaker 1: But when we went back on ship a couple months later,
[43:01] Speaker 1: they hadn't they hadn't no one had been off ship
[43:03] Speaker 1: or had a port call and long enough where they
[43:05] Speaker 1: were getting a beer day on ship, and everyone was like,
[43:09] Speaker 1: we just came from the op where we're out doing
[43:11] Speaker 1: close air support. So we're all like sun baked and
[43:13] Speaker 1: like super dark, you know, like tan and everything. You
[43:16] Speaker 1: get on ship and everyone is like super pasty. You
[43:18] Speaker 1: can like see their organs through their their translucent skin
[43:22] Speaker 1: because they've been on you know, they they haven't gotten
[43:24] Speaker 1: any sun.
[43:25] Speaker 2: Alabaster skin, and and you're.
[43:28] Speaker 1: Like they were all so mad. They're like half your
[43:31] Speaker 1: marines are going on child. I'm like, dude, we were working.
[43:34] Speaker 1: Let's first off, we weren't out on vacation just because
[43:37] Speaker 1: we got a tan.
[43:39] Speaker 2: I I was so mad at my first deployment because
[43:43] Speaker 2: every time we were a day or two short of
[43:46] Speaker 2: a beer day, they pull in the port and I'm like, hey,
[43:49] Speaker 2: I want my bear day, Like let's go, I want
[43:52] Speaker 2: my beard day. Yeah, they didn't give it to us.
[43:54] Speaker 2: I was so I was so angry they were.
[43:56] Speaker 1: So they did a beer day and then the first
[43:58] Speaker 1: port after that was oh my on which is a
[44:01] Speaker 1: big sand pit. It was horrible. There was like a
[44:04] Speaker 1: dude that brought out Domino pizzas and sold them dominoes
[44:07] Speaker 1: out of the back of his car, and someone brought
[44:10] Speaker 1: a camel out to do camel rides. But I was like, man,
[44:14] Speaker 1: this is horrible. It was crazy. Oh man, that's that.
[44:21] Speaker 1: That's that ship life though.
[44:23] Speaker 2: You know, I love ship life. It makes you tough
[44:26] Speaker 2: and it makes you appreciate being back on shore, except
[44:31] Speaker 2: if you're in Oman. I mean we we would pull
[44:35] Speaker 2: into port into not the Ua, into Dubai, oh, Jibali,
[44:44] Speaker 2: gerbil Ali. What do they call it nowadays?
[44:47] Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
[44:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we would pull into port there.
[44:51] Speaker 1: Isn't that Saudi Arabia? No, no, not, So you're talking
[44:56] Speaker 1: about you So you're talking about Dubai.
[44:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, Dubai area.
[44:59] Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, we must have because I remember going ashore there.
[45:05] Speaker 1: I don't remember why we were there, but yeah, we
[45:06] Speaker 1: must have also because I went it's all malls.
[45:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I just remember there were there were a
[45:12] Speaker 2: lot of shipping containers, a lot of vendors that would
[45:16] Speaker 2: give you, like fake Nike stuff if you wanted to
[45:18] Speaker 2: buy all that stuff. Oh yeah, not that. I not
[45:20] Speaker 2: that I ever bought anything like that.
[45:23] Speaker 1: Being a young I got a sick watch I got
[45:26] Speaker 1: a sick watch in Hong Kong. I was in some
[45:30] Speaker 1: shady apartment at the Mark. It was like one of
[45:32] Speaker 1: those apartments where you have to knock and they peeked
[45:34] Speaker 1: through the door before they let you in, so I
[45:36] Speaker 1: got from one of the streets. It does work. It's
[45:38] Speaker 1: actually really nice. It's actually a really nice watch. But
[45:40] Speaker 1: it's like a patec or patique, however you say it.
[45:42] Speaker 1: So it's like, in reality, it'd be like a twenty
[45:44] Speaker 1: thousand dollars watch, totally fake, but it works and it
[45:48] Speaker 1: looks nice.
[45:50] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Dubai was like that at first, so I'm
[45:55] Speaker 2: sure it's changed. I was impressed that they had like
[45:58] Speaker 2: KFC there and all that, because you know, you come
[46:01] Speaker 2: from America, you think you have everything and you're like, oh, oh,
[46:04] Speaker 2: basket of Robbins is here. Awesome.
[46:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, so anything that's not like pork they have. KFC's
[46:10] Speaker 1: huge overseas, especially in like Asia too.
[46:14] Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, it was.
[46:17] Speaker 1: It tasted weird when we were in uh we went
[46:19] Speaker 1: to Malaysia and had it there and they cook it
[46:22] Speaker 1: in palm oil rather than like whatever we use here,
[46:27] Speaker 1: and it just that palm oil taste. I could not
[46:29] Speaker 1: get over it. I was like, I don't know how
[46:31] Speaker 1: you guys do this, Like this is this is kind
[46:34] Speaker 1: of wretched. I'm not gonna lie. I just couldn't do it.
[46:38] Speaker 1: I was excited. I was like, oh, kfc, cool something,
[46:40] Speaker 1: I know, you know, and then you get it and
[46:42] Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this tastes crazy.
[46:44] Speaker 2: No, yeah, yeah, I got to consider a source. South
[46:48] Speaker 2: America had a lot of good food. I'm not sure
[46:51] Speaker 2: the source, but it was good. I didn't get sick,
[46:53] Speaker 2: so I.
[46:53] Speaker 1: Was like, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean that's you know,
[46:56] Speaker 1: that was kind of the worst part. Not the worst part,
[46:58] Speaker 1: but that was one of the bad things. Is when
[47:00] Speaker 1: you go out with someone that doesn't want to try
[47:01] Speaker 1: anything local. It's like, I get it, Like maybe you
[47:04] Speaker 1: don't like seafood, I don't like seafood, maybe you don't
[47:06] Speaker 1: like whatever name your thing. But you can find like
[47:10] Speaker 1: a beef or chicken or whatever option that is a
[47:13] Speaker 1: local cuisine, you know, try a bit different, or.
[47:17] Speaker 2: A local animal. Just try it.
[47:19] Speaker 1: It's your local animal. I eat some stuff in Afghanistan.
[47:22] Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what it was. I was like, this
[47:23] Speaker 1: is probably maybe a goat. I think I'm not sure,
[47:29] Speaker 1: but you know, it was good. Right, Yeah.
[47:33] Speaker 2: I believe that I have eaten dog maybe once or
[47:35] Speaker 2: twice unknowingly, but it good, you think, so, I think,
[47:39] Speaker 2: so we're at I was an ecuador so I think's possible.
[47:43] Speaker 1: Why they do that in Ecuador.
[47:45] Speaker 2: There's a lot of dogs from my recollection, a lot
[47:48] Speaker 2: of dogs in Ecuador, a lot of free range dogs
[47:52] Speaker 2: in Ecuador.
[47:53] Speaker 1: I knew a guy who was in Vietnam and he
[47:55] Speaker 1: was like, Dude, they had like a pin like almost
[47:59] Speaker 1: like you'd have for cattle, that they had dogs that
[48:01] Speaker 1: they bred for meat. And I was like, and he's like,
[48:04] Speaker 1: it was pretty good. It's like all.
[48:06] Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I mean they said it was beef. Not
[48:11] Speaker 2: sure if it was, but you know.
[48:13] Speaker 1: I never seen beef look like that. The hell it's
[48:16] Speaker 1: ground meat, h yeah, dog burger man. You know. It's
[48:21] Speaker 1: again like we eat stuff that they would never eat
[48:23] Speaker 1: in other countries. So it's the culture things. It's like
[48:27] Speaker 1: again like we're talking about for it's like an eye
[48:28] Speaker 1: opening experience and gets to you know, see different cultures.
[48:33] Speaker 1: Especially what's cool for you is you saw probably all
[48:35] Speaker 1: the different you know, multiple different cultures in one region.
[48:38] Speaker 1: So in South America, all these different countries. You know,
[48:41] Speaker 1: it's easy to think like South America, like they all
[48:45] Speaker 1: think alike, or they all have a similar culture, and
[48:47] Speaker 1: that's you know, it's that's not true.
[48:50] Speaker 2: I found of the countries that we saw, so we
[48:53] Speaker 2: went to Columbia, which was beautiful, food was great, Ecuador,
[49:01] Speaker 2: Panama before we turned the locks over to the Panamanians.
[49:05] Speaker 2: I was very impressed by. I didn't know Panama was
[49:11] Speaker 2: so afrocentric, so a lot of Africans had come there.
[49:15] Speaker 2: So I'll be honest with you. When I got there
[49:18] Speaker 2: and I saw people my complexion, I was like, I'm home,
[49:21] Speaker 2: Like I was excited about it because I was. I
[49:24] Speaker 2: wasn't in Europe, and I was shocked, but I was
[49:26] Speaker 2: pleasantly surprised, and so it was very it was very
[49:30] Speaker 2: neat to see that, and it was interesting to see
[49:35] Speaker 2: as you went further south to Chile, just the I
[49:42] Speaker 2: guess the nativeness. You would see people who were Hispanic,
[49:46] Speaker 2: but you would see there was this blend of native
[49:51] Speaker 2: South Americans that you would see. I can't even explain it,
[49:54] Speaker 2: maybe more like slightly Asian esque in ways. So the
[50:01] Speaker 2: population changed and as we went towards the Straits of Magellan,
[50:04] Speaker 2: you would see I don't even want to say, yeah,
[50:09] Speaker 2: I don't there were not Esquimo's, but they were just
[50:13] Speaker 2: native to the region and beautiful people. And then you'd
[50:17] Speaker 2: hit Argentina, very European centric, and then you would hit
[50:21] Speaker 2: you know, Brazil, and then it was just another flavor.
[50:24] Speaker 2: So it was just I canic. It was very eclectic,
[50:29] Speaker 2: and it was it was just a beautiful thing to see.
[50:31] Speaker 2: So I loved them a lot.
[50:33] Speaker 1: Yes, that's awesome. I think a lot of people don't
[50:35] Speaker 1: realize that the United States is similar. You know, you
[50:38] Speaker 1: go to different states, there's so many different cultures and
[50:41] Speaker 1: stuff like that. I remember being in college after I
[50:43] Speaker 1: got out and one of the girls I was in
[50:46] Speaker 1: a French class or Italian class, and this girl in
[50:49] Speaker 1: my class was like, oh, the US has no culture,
[50:51] Speaker 1: and I'm like, what are you talking about. I'm like,
[50:53] Speaker 1: quit listening to haters online. I'm like, look at the South,
[50:56] Speaker 1: look at everything. I mean, look at I mean, the
[50:58] Speaker 1: culture in the United States is so vast, you know,
[51:02] Speaker 1: from the blues, comedy, the food, you know, how we
[51:06] Speaker 1: take other cultures and blend them and make you know,
[51:09] Speaker 1: our own unique like types of food and things, and
[51:12] Speaker 1: the way people speak, the way people act like it's
[51:15] Speaker 1: such an unfortunate thing, that's what people think.
[51:17] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean you go down South and you
[51:20] Speaker 2: see everything from like creole to like things that are influenced.
[51:27] Speaker 2: You know. You go to Florida, you see culture like
[51:30] Speaker 2: like Miami that's very you know, Latino culture. You go
[51:35] Speaker 2: to New Mexico, you see like a lot of Mexican
[51:38] Speaker 2: culture infused into it. California up and down, it's just different.
[51:43] Speaker 2: You go to the Midwest, it's it's different. So yeah,
[51:46] Speaker 2: there's and sometimes you'll be surprised, Like you go to Minnesota,
[51:50] Speaker 2: I think they're there are a lot of Africans in
[51:56] Speaker 2: that region that have migrated over there. Or I went
[52:00] Speaker 2: somewhere to the Twin Cities and there's a huge monk
[52:03] Speaker 2: population and I was like wow, So I went to
[52:06] Speaker 2: have some food, like to these vendors that like eat
[52:10] Speaker 2: food that's just authentic so good anyway, Yeah, yeah.
[52:15] Speaker 1: People who good food everywhere.
[52:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, people who come from other countries think we're not
[52:21] Speaker 2: uniform across there's just remember we're a melting pot in America.
[52:25] Speaker 2: Even though we fight a lot and we're.
[52:28] Speaker 1: Huge, We're the country is so massive people. You know,
[52:32] Speaker 1: we would be individual countries in Europe. Each state would
[52:34] Speaker 1: be individual countries in Europe. Yes, you know, it's such
[52:37] Speaker 1: a huge change. Like there's mountain culture in Colorado. You know,
[52:41] Speaker 1: there's I was, I was. I lived growing up. I
[52:44] Speaker 1: lived in Tennessee and Indiana both, and so I got
[52:47] Speaker 1: a little flavor of both that Midwest and Southern culture,
[52:51] Speaker 1: you know, and it's just like such a great and
[52:53] Speaker 1: I lived in the Marines, I had lived in North Carolina,
[52:56] Speaker 1: and then I lived in California, and then I stayed
[52:58] Speaker 1: out here, and so just experiencing all the different places.
[53:02] Speaker 1: You know, I'm very lucky. I really appreciate that I
[53:04] Speaker 1: got to do something like that. I really encourage other people,
[53:07] Speaker 1: you know, that vacation to one place every year, which
[53:11] Speaker 1: is cool. It's got its benefits. Maybe occasionally, you know,
[53:15] Speaker 1: drive somewhere they've never been, see something they've never seen.
[53:17] Speaker 1: Kind of kind of deal.
[53:19] Speaker 2: So yeah, I would say, if you want to change
[53:22] Speaker 2: your perspective, change your location, so go somewhere. Let's travel somewhere.
[53:28] Speaker 2: I would agree with you. I take my kids right now,
[53:31] Speaker 2: since they're twelve and ten, I want to make sure
[53:35] Speaker 2: they get that different perspective. So this year. Last year,
[53:39] Speaker 2: we were fortunate enough to take the family to New Zealand,
[53:43] Speaker 2: so it was their first time out of the country
[53:46] Speaker 2: to see New Zealand, to see the sites, to meet
[53:49] Speaker 2: New Zealand. Yeah, so I think they loved it. They
[53:52] Speaker 2: loved the different Like, I learned a lot about New Zealand.
[53:56] Speaker 2: I didn't realize that there were no natural predators there.
[53:59] Speaker 2: All birds. Europeans brought like rats and all those other
[54:03] Speaker 2: things onto the island. And a lot of their stuff
[54:06] Speaker 2: is hydro electric. So it's very it's it's very cool place.
[54:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. The like we said earlier, the city
[54:14] Speaker 1: makes you cold. Growing up in the Midwest and in
[54:17] Speaker 1: the South, you always like, you know, say hi to
[54:19] Speaker 1: people on the street. You walk by something like hey,
[54:21] Speaker 1: how you doing, you know, good morning or whatever, you
[54:23] Speaker 1: make eye contact. And then I come to San Diego
[54:26] Speaker 1: and I live in the city here and people just
[54:28] Speaker 1: won't even look at you. You'll walk right by them
[54:30] Speaker 1: and you're like eh. And after a while, and then
[54:33] Speaker 1: the homeless people and then you see you start to
[54:35] Speaker 1: see like the same group of homeless people, so you
[54:37] Speaker 1: know you're like, oh, that's frank he's always cracked out
[54:40] Speaker 1: over there, you know whatever. There's this guy like not
[54:44] Speaker 1: giving money. There's this guy over at North Park who
[54:46] Speaker 1: I've walked by a million times and he always asked
[54:49] Speaker 1: for a dollar and a couple of times, well one
[54:51] Speaker 1: time I remember specifically, he was like hitting his fentanyl
[54:54] Speaker 1: pipe and was like blowing the smoke out and he's like, oo,
[54:56] Speaker 1: can I get a dollar? As I'm going by, I'm like,
[54:58] Speaker 1: get the fuck out of here. Talking about it.
[55:02] Speaker 2: Well, see, you know that was one thing. Yeah, Midwest
[55:06] Speaker 2: South people are very friendly, but in New York that's
[55:08] Speaker 2: a sign of weakness. Like no, you have to be
[55:12] Speaker 2: unapproachable because then someone maybe with nefarious attent, will approach you.
[55:18] Speaker 2: You got to be as see.
[55:20] Speaker 1: I always try to think the best of people, you know.
[55:22] Speaker 1: I always give people the benefit that obviously you. There's
[55:25] Speaker 1: like there's like ways you can tell someone you know
[55:29] Speaker 1: that you're giving off a bad vibe or something like that.
[55:31] Speaker 1: But for the most part, I'm like, hey, you know,
[55:33] Speaker 1: if you say something until you lie to me or
[55:36] Speaker 1: I know that you're approven, like you know, scumbag, then
[55:39] Speaker 1: I'm not. I think you're probably a good person. So
[55:42] Speaker 1: I and that's you're right, that's how people get ripped off.
[55:44] Speaker 1: People like that, I think the best. Like, yeah, man,
[55:46] Speaker 1: I'll give you one hundred thousand dollars loan. Oh sure
[55:50] Speaker 1: you'll pay it back.
[55:51] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, don't don't get me wrong. New Yorkers are
[55:54] Speaker 2: great people. If you are in trouble, the New Yorkers
[55:57] Speaker 2: will come to your aid and fly. Maybe ten people
[56:02] Speaker 2: will help you, but maybe five out of ten will
[56:05] Speaker 2: additionally rob you.
[56:06] Speaker 1: So you have to be playing the odds.
[56:09] Speaker 2: You play the odds. So, but New Yorkers will always
[56:11] Speaker 2: help you when you're in need. But yeah, don't say
[56:14] Speaker 2: hi to anyone.
[56:15] Speaker 1: Just keep walking, just keep on moving, keep it moving.
[56:17] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, don't don't take a personal don't stare up
[56:21] Speaker 2: at the skyscrapers because everyone knows your tourists at that point.
[56:25] Speaker 1: I always look like a tours because I'm walking around
[56:27] Speaker 1: with a camera. I'll be walking around downtown with the
[56:30] Speaker 1: camera and stuff, and people will approach you. I'm like, dude,
[56:32] Speaker 1: I live here, man, I don't want your CD. I
[56:34] Speaker 1: appreciate it, know what I'm saying, Like, no, you just
[56:39] Speaker 1: got to donate, Like, no.
[56:41] Speaker 2: Thank you your.
[56:44] Speaker 1: So let's talk about back to the military stuff. You
[56:48] Speaker 1: at what point did you transition platforms?
[56:51] Speaker 2: So, uh, I transitioned. I was about ten years in
[56:55] Speaker 2: the Navy. My last job was at Moody Air Force Base.
[56:58] Speaker 2: I was a flight instructor, so I was a T
[57:02] Speaker 2: six instructor. The Air Force and Navy had just purchased
[57:06] Speaker 2: this aircraft jointly, so it's joint student undergraduate pilot training
[57:10] Speaker 2: and Moody Air Force Base. I trained about twenty five
[57:14] Speaker 2: Navy students a year in addition to all the Air
[57:18] Speaker 2: Force students. So at the end of my time, it
[57:20] Speaker 2: was about the ten year mark, I decided I was
[57:23] Speaker 2: going to actually get out of the military. But my
[57:27] Speaker 2: commander at the time said, hey, come over to the
[57:29] Speaker 2: Air Force check out to see what we got. Maybe
[57:31] Speaker 2: you could do fly F one seventeen you two's you
[57:35] Speaker 2: know B too, like all these different things be fifty twos.
[57:38] Speaker 2: And I said, all right, let me look. And so
[57:40] Speaker 2: the utube was something I was like, this seems like
[57:42] Speaker 2: a pretty cool platform. It reconnaissance is something that I
[57:48] Speaker 2: was used to doing. Also the fact that it was
[57:54] Speaker 2: high altitude and I wanted to be an astronaut, and
[57:57] Speaker 2: I said, this could make my resume look different than
[58:00] Speaker 2: other people. So you're flying above seventy thousand feet, you're
[58:05] Speaker 2: in a NASA spacesuit, you're doing a mission. I said, well,
[58:11] Speaker 2: all right, let's see if I let me put in
[58:14] Speaker 2: an application and see if I get picked up. So
[58:18] Speaker 2: for the YouTube program, you have to apply. You have
[58:21] Speaker 2: to have prior flight experience in another aircraft, you have
[58:24] Speaker 2: to be an instructor previously, and you have to have
[58:29] Speaker 2: a minimum flight hours. I think at that time it
[58:31] Speaker 2: was maybe I don't know, fifteen hundred flight hours, two
[58:35] Speaker 2: thousand flight hours, maybe seven hundred and fifty instructor hours.
[58:38] Speaker 2: So I applied, I got picked up for the interview
[58:41] Speaker 2: to two week interview process. I went out as a
[58:44] Speaker 2: Navy person, interviewed and I got picked up. And at
[58:48] Speaker 2: the same time, concurrently I was working in Inner Service
[58:51] Speaker 2: Transfer package to go into the Air Force. So it
[58:56] Speaker 2: is in the instructions in both the Navy and the
[58:58] Speaker 2: Air Force side. And so I got hired. And so
[59:03] Speaker 2: I initially got rejected by the Air Force to inner
[59:06] Speaker 2: service transfer, but then I had to call up a
[59:08] Speaker 2: FPC and say, hey, I got an interview with the
[59:10] Speaker 2: U two and they said, okay, well, if you get
[59:12] Speaker 2: picked up. We'll let you come into the air Force.
[59:14] Speaker 2: That's what I did. That's how it worked.
[59:17] Speaker 1: That's how it worked. That's awesome, that's that's that's a
[59:20] Speaker 1: pretty interesting program and kind of I mean they I
[59:23] Speaker 1: think the forces in general are always trying to not
[59:26] Speaker 1: lose pilots, especially pilots that have a lot of experience,
[59:29] Speaker 1: because it's very easy for you know, someone especially cargo
[59:33] Speaker 1: aircraft pilots. They can move over to commercial airliners and
[59:37] Speaker 1: stuff pretty easily. Yea, and the packages to come over
[59:40] Speaker 1: there are kind of lucrative, you know, it's like, hey,
[59:42] Speaker 1: there's a So it takes a lot to keep people in.
[59:44] Speaker 1: So I mean, having those options presented to you like
[59:47] Speaker 1: maybe this maybe that I mean, at this time, were
[59:49] Speaker 1: you were you still was that? Was that your goal
[59:53] Speaker 1: still was to try to get into space or become
[59:57] Speaker 1: an astronaut or did this reignite it?
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: It? No? I look, you asked me, now I still
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: want to be an astronaut. If said, yeah, I'm still available,
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: I'm still I might have two titanium hips now, but
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: I am in good shape. It's all. It's all good,
[1:00:15] Speaker 2: just a flush.
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: One who needs needs muscle.
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: I mean, you lose muscle mass anyway. So it has
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: always been a desire for me to go into space.
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: I always wanted to be explorer. I always want to
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: do something new and challenging. I always want to test
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: my limits as a person, and so that has always
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: stayed with me even to this day. So for me,
[1:00:40] Speaker 2: being an airline pilot, I think is one of the
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: most no offense to those who fly in the military
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: and then go airlines. I think it's one of the
[1:00:48] Speaker 2: most boring things that you can ever do. Like I can't.
[1:00:52] Speaker 2: It's like being a race car driver and then getting
[1:00:55] Speaker 2: out as a race car driver and then driving for Uber.
[1:00:58] Speaker 2: The money is great, the money could be good, but
[1:01:01] Speaker 2: it's just it's not where it's at for me. I
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: can't taking passengers or packages from point A to point
[1:01:09] Speaker 2: C without breaking down at point B. It's just not
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: my thing. But some people really like it, they love it,
[1:01:15] Speaker 2: and that's that's their passion. My passion is to challenge myself,
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: fly different aircraft, go into space, explore, use all the
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: tools that I've accumulated in my lifetime to navigate me
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: for the future. So that's I love that part.
[1:01:31] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, obviously this is the platform to get
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: you excited, you know, to be doing something. You know
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: that's the next step. Right, So how how was the
[1:01:39] Speaker 1: selection process for you? And then how was the training
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: and how how did that training differ from what you'd
[1:01:45] Speaker 1: already experienced before.
[1:01:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, so the selection process for the YouTube specifically is
[1:01:50] Speaker 2: it's a two week interview. The first week you talk
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: to like commanders, You get the feel for the environment,
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: what you're going to go through, You do a claustrophobic check,
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: they do all these measurements, medical stuff. Then the second week,
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: if you pass the first week, some people don't. Some
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: people say it's not for me. And then sometimes the community,
[1:02:12] Speaker 2: the community is actually watching you and sometimes they go
[1:02:16] Speaker 2: in the community. If they say I will not deploy
[1:02:19] Speaker 2: with that person, your interviews terminated right there because you
[1:02:22] Speaker 2: have to we dead out together. So you have to
[1:02:25] Speaker 2: get along with people. And so the second week you fly.
[1:02:31] Speaker 2: You do three flights in the aircraft and they see
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: how trainable you are, so you do multiple landings, do
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: low flights only, and each flight you need to progress.
[1:02:42] Speaker 2: If you don't, they will say thank you at the
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: end of the third flight, thanks, but no thanks. And
[1:02:49] Speaker 2: if they accept you they'll say, we like to offer
[1:02:52] Speaker 2: you a job, and then you have a choice take
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: it or not. So I will tell you my first
[1:03:00] Speaker 2: flight was okay, a little rough.
[1:03:03] Speaker 1: I was.
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: Wing control was my biggest nemesis in the beginning. So
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: for those who don't know about the U two, the
[1:03:09] Speaker 2: U two has a bicycle landing gear system. Because of
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: the bicycle landing gear, you have to stall the aircraft
[1:03:16] Speaker 2: in the long wing span. You have to stall the
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: aircraft at two feet to land it. You can't do
[1:03:20] Speaker 2: it at three feet four feet. If you do, you're
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: gonna break stuff. You can't land it like a normal aircraft.
[1:03:26] Speaker 2: We're gonna bounce back up in the air at four
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: feet and then stall in. So once you land, you
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: still have to fly the wings and keep them level.
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: Most aircraft you just you know, you can let go
[1:03:38] Speaker 2: the stick at that point and do whatever. So imagine
[1:03:44] Speaker 2: being in the aircraft with a yoke, not a stick,
[1:03:47] Speaker 2: flying this aircraft, making quick adjustments, keeping it at two
[1:03:51] Speaker 2: feet to land, and then once you do that in
[1:03:54] Speaker 2: the flight to the imagine having to do that in
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: a pressure suit where it limits your view, your movement.
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: It's really claustrophobic. It's very small area, so it's not
[1:04:04] Speaker 2: for everyone. I always say, flying the U two is
[1:04:07] Speaker 2: like the land of the not quite right. You gotta
[1:04:09] Speaker 2: be a little mentally touched to sit in an aircraft.
[1:04:13] Speaker 2: For our missions typically go from nine to twelve hours,
[1:04:18] Speaker 2: sit by yourself, no bathroom, sucking out food from a tube.
[1:04:25] Speaker 2: You know, you can do number one, but you can't
[1:04:29] Speaker 2: do number two and fly this mission by yourself, and
[1:04:34] Speaker 2: then when you're you're most tired at the end of
[1:04:37] Speaker 2: the day, stall the aircraft at two feet and land.
[1:04:40] Speaker 2: Aircraft that does not like to fly low because it's
[1:04:43] Speaker 2: a long wingspan one hundred and four point eight feet
[1:04:46] Speaker 2: flies great up at altitude, but when you get down low,
[1:04:48] Speaker 2: you're just ratcheting. If you If you can imagine flying
[1:04:53] Speaker 2: up excuse me, driving a race car and you see
[1:04:56] Speaker 2: inside the car, you see the driver doing a lot
[1:04:59] Speaker 2: of it ratcheting. Same thing in the YouTube as we're flying,
[1:05:03] Speaker 2: so it's a lot of quick inputs taking it out
[1:05:05] Speaker 2: before it reacts like a helicopter. So you gotta be
[1:05:09] Speaker 2: a little touched in the head to love that stuff.
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: That's exciting to me.
[1:05:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's me, Like, that's me and all my YouTube
[1:05:17] Speaker 2: brothers and sisters out there. There's only there's eleven hundred
[1:05:20] Speaker 2: and sixteen of us in the seventy years that the
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: U two has flown, so crazy, that's crazy. Yeah, we're
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: a crazy bunch.
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: How long do you So, once you've done those three flights,
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: I assume none of those are an altitude.
[1:05:36] Speaker 2: That no, they're all yeah, they're all low flights. So
[1:05:40] Speaker 2: the first flight you go up, you learn. So in
[1:05:43] Speaker 2: any aircraft you have to learn stall characteristics, how the
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: aircraft flyes slow and how it's stalls. Those are for
[1:05:52] Speaker 2: anyone flying, those are your any aircraft future. You have
[1:05:57] Speaker 2: to understand those things. In fixed wing aircraft and helicopters
[1:06:00] Speaker 2: a little different. So you get the flight characteristic feel
[1:06:06] Speaker 2: of it. And then we go right back to the
[1:06:07] Speaker 2: pattern and you start just doing landings, different type of
[1:06:10] Speaker 2: landings over and over again, normal landings, no flat landings,
[1:06:14] Speaker 2: you do single engine, you do failure patterns over and over.
[1:06:19] Speaker 2: So they give you that information before you get there
[1:06:21] Speaker 2: for the interview, so you have to study all the
[1:06:23] Speaker 2: numbers and where you're supposed to hit. And you know
[1:06:27] Speaker 2: you're at this point in the YouTube community, you're seasoned pilot. Anyway,
[1:06:31] Speaker 2: most people have over two thousand hours, so I had
[1:06:35] Speaker 2: about twenty two twenty five hundred hours, maybe maybe more
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: than that, maybe closer now.
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: It's quite a bit for people that don't know, that's
[1:06:44] Speaker 1: a lot.
[1:06:45] Speaker 2: That's a lot. That's a lot of missions, that's a
[1:06:47] Speaker 2: lot of deployments. You know that I had two long
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: cruise deployments. I had about close to one thousand hours
[1:06:56] Speaker 2: in the T six flying students, so I had a
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: lot of flight time.
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: So that's got to be nerve wracking when you're flying students,
[1:07:03] Speaker 1: you know, never know. Yeah, I feel like that preps
[1:07:09] Speaker 1: you right for the YouTube being nervous because you're like,
[1:07:12] Speaker 1: I've already phoned with some really bad pilots.
[1:07:14] Speaker 2: So I've flown with some students that done some wild stuff.
[1:07:17] Speaker 2: Like the purpose of a flight instructor is to fly
[1:07:22] Speaker 2: with a student, prevent them from killing both of you,
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: and then teach them something along the way, like muscle
[1:07:28] Speaker 2: memory and knowledge, like if they come if I most
[1:07:33] Speaker 2: most military students they want to be there, so they
[1:07:35] Speaker 2: want to learn. It's not like civilian flying where you
[1:07:38] Speaker 2: got someone's like, oh, I feel like picking this up
[1:07:40] Speaker 2: and then wants to fight you about everything you're trying
[1:07:43] Speaker 2: to teach them. Yeah, that's why I'm not an instructor.
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: Do you think that made you after being an instructor
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: pilot like that when you moved over to the YouTube,
[1:07:50] Speaker 1: Do you think that made you a better student because
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: you understood what this guy's trying to do or what
[1:07:55] Speaker 1: this other pilot's trying to do.
[1:07:57] Speaker 2: No, I think I think most military pilots are professional
[1:08:01] Speaker 2: in that way. We don't take it personal like we
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: could be a student or an instructor. You never take
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: stuff like that personal.
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: Everyone's getting feedback.
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: Everyone is giving or getting feedback, either by another person
[1:08:17] Speaker 2: or the aircraft. So there's a point where if you
[1:08:22] Speaker 2: have too much ego, you're probably going to kill yourself
[1:08:25] Speaker 2: and the people around you. So that's why the pilot community,
[1:08:30] Speaker 2: when i've there's certain things that have happened recently since
[1:08:34] Speaker 2: the beginning of the year, like a lot of misapps
[1:08:36] Speaker 2: that have been going on where people are questioning like
[1:08:39] Speaker 2: a pilot's credentials, capabilities, how they were taught. In our community,
[1:08:46] Speaker 2: we police our own and we know that if there's
[1:08:51] Speaker 2: someone who's weak, we will get them. They will get
[1:08:54] Speaker 2: the feedback, they will get the instruction, and they will
[1:08:58] Speaker 2: get the help and either they are correct or not correctable.
[1:09:01] Speaker 2: They are not correctable, they will find another job to do,
[1:09:06] Speaker 2: or they will be taken off the flight line, or
[1:09:08] Speaker 2: they will lose their wings. I've seen it happen. I've
[1:09:12] Speaker 2: been on boards where it has happened, especially for students.
[1:09:16] Speaker 2: If they are not trainable to a point, we terminate
[1:09:20] Speaker 2: their training and they go do something else. So the
[1:09:25] Speaker 2: flight community is very serious, especially in the military field.
[1:09:29] Speaker 2: I can't speak to civilian, but they have the same
[1:09:31] Speaker 2: similar standards. We are very serious about how we train people,
[1:09:35] Speaker 2: and we would not let someone. Could you imagine as
[1:09:39] Speaker 2: an instructor, if I allowed a student who was weak
[1:09:42] Speaker 2: to go on a solo and then he crashes an
[1:09:45] Speaker 2: aircraft and kills himself, like like I can't. I would
[1:09:49] Speaker 2: never be able to Like that'd be hard to live with. Yeah,
[1:09:52] Speaker 2: So as an instructor, you always make sure your students
[1:09:55] Speaker 2: are on point, know their knowledge, know how to fly,
[1:09:58] Speaker 2: and they're safe. That's that's it. Yeah, I wouldn't let you.
[1:10:03] Speaker 2: I wouldn't let you fly solar if I thought differently,
[1:10:06] Speaker 2: And I think all military pilots are like that. You know,
[1:10:10] Speaker 2: we all fall in this spectrum. Some may be more
[1:10:13] Speaker 2: egotistical than others, some are humble, but we all like
[1:10:17] Speaker 2: flying skill wise, we all have that same basic foundations
[1:10:22] Speaker 2: so and we all think that way.
[1:10:24] Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I agree. I mean when you look
[1:10:27] Speaker 1: at it, it's life and death. It's really life and death,
[1:10:29] Speaker 1: you know, And it's kind of like what we talked
[1:10:31] Speaker 1: about earlier about people how it's frustrating sometimes listening to
[1:10:35] Speaker 1: people's issues. You know that are civilians that have never
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: done something like that. When you go from a community
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: where there's actual life and death issues, if you mess up,
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: then you know it's We have that in the Jatach community,
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: which is an extension of the air community, because it's
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: like we're dropping live ordinance. You can't you can't mess
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: that up. You know, you have to be good at that.
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: And I've done I was in a I was a
[1:11:00] Speaker 1: Jatach evaluator and I've done an evaluation for a guy
[1:11:03] Speaker 1: that graduated from TCP school. But he got to his
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: unit and I was doing his evaluations and I'm like,
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: you're just not safe, man. And I had to sit
[1:11:10] Speaker 1: down with his first sergeant and CEO and tell him
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: and be like, he's not allowed to control. He's not
[1:11:16] Speaker 1: allowed to control aircraft, he's not allowed to drop live
[1:11:18] Speaker 1: ordinates because he's just not safe. He's not safe in
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: real life, and he's not safe when we're doing sims.
[1:11:23] Speaker 1: And because he continues to be unsafe and make these issues,
[1:11:26] Speaker 1: these things, he can't because like you said, imagine if
[1:11:30] Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, whatever, he'll be okay, and then he
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: goes and drops a bomb on himself or civilians or
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: something like that. You know, like you just you can't
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: accept that that level it has you have to be good.
[1:11:43] Speaker 2: So right so, likewise as me as a pilot, like
[1:11:47] Speaker 2: I go through that same rigor right so, and I
[1:11:52] Speaker 2: and I will say this like if someone look when
[1:11:56] Speaker 2: I throughout my career in the NAVIER, the Air Force.
[1:11:59] Speaker 2: Maybe when I in the room, people thought that different things,
[1:12:02] Speaker 2: but it's not. It's like the brotherhood and sisterhood. This
[1:12:06] Speaker 2: is how it is. It doesn't matter who you are
[1:12:09] Speaker 2: because the aircraft doesn't care. The aircraftft doesn't care of
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: your gender or whatever. It doesn't your race or whatever.
[1:12:16] Speaker 2: You either put the correct inputs in to make it
[1:12:19] Speaker 2: do what you're it's supposed to do, or you don't,
[1:12:21] Speaker 2: and it will not do what you're supposed to do.
[1:12:22] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:12:23] Speaker 2: So it's just it's interesting to me how people think
[1:12:28] Speaker 2: a certain way because if you're in the military where
[1:12:33] Speaker 2: life in any type of area where you're a doctor,
[1:12:37] Speaker 2: whether you're in the military where you're jatach, it's like
[1:12:41] Speaker 2: everyone who's in the community holds those our gatekeepers in
[1:12:47] Speaker 2: the way, like we're not going to let one person
[1:12:49] Speaker 2: destroy the reputation of everyone, right, So we police our
[1:12:54] Speaker 2: own in every situation. And there are times that you
[1:12:57] Speaker 2: may make a mistake, but you can't can't make a
[1:13:00] Speaker 2: really big mistake, like you have minor things. But if
[1:13:04] Speaker 2: you're consistently underperforming, it doesn't matter who you are, you're
[1:13:08] Speaker 2: going to get removed.
[1:13:09] Speaker 1: It's just these rules are written in blood. That's how
[1:13:11] Speaker 1: it is. Yes, the rules are written in blood. And
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: and as I always tell people, you know, there were
[1:13:17] Speaker 1: guys that great dudes that I worked with that just
[1:13:20] Speaker 1: the they weren't good Jay tax, they didn't they didn't
[1:13:23] Speaker 1: pass a schoolhouse or something like that, or guys that
[1:13:26] Speaker 1: I worked with in jobs where it's like, hey, man,
[1:13:30] Speaker 1: you're not a bad person, you're just not the person
[1:13:32] Speaker 1: for this job. I'm not saying you're a bad marine.
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're a bad person. You got to
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: do something that fits your skill set and this isn't
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: you know. That's it's hard to tell somebody that because
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to hear that. I would be devastated
[1:13:46] Speaker 1: if someone came to me and told me that, you know,
[1:13:49] Speaker 1: and it's hard to tell somebody that, but you have to.
[1:13:52] Speaker 1: In those kind of communities where lives are on the line,
[1:13:54] Speaker 1: we always debrief all together. We all sit around and go, hey,
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: this was what happened on this mission, aircraft check at
[1:14:00] Speaker 1: this time, you said this, this, and this, you should
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: have said this. Everything else was good, and we go
[1:14:04] Speaker 1: through every little point and everybody hears it because we're
[1:14:06] Speaker 1: all learning because we want everyone to be better. And
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: that's the same with me, Like if someone's evaluating me,
[1:14:12] Speaker 1: we're all sitting there and everyone listens to me getting
[1:14:15] Speaker 1: you know, my own evaluation.
[1:14:17] Speaker 2: So yes, So debriefs are very important right in the
[1:14:22] Speaker 2: pilot community. Sometimes deep briefs go longer than the flight themselves,
[1:14:28] Speaker 2: because that's how in the weeds people go like, what
[1:14:32] Speaker 2: were you thinking at the time, what were you doing?
[1:14:34] Speaker 2: And I think most pilots they're able to take that criticism.
[1:14:39] Speaker 2: Most military people take that criticism because they want to
[1:14:42] Speaker 2: be better. They want to make the team stronger. And
[1:14:45] Speaker 2: I think that's an emotional intelligence piece of those who
[1:14:49] Speaker 2: are able to do that because they want to see
[1:14:51] Speaker 2: things better, run smoother, or more efficient. Because at the
[1:14:56] Speaker 2: end of the day, we have that mindset like we
[1:14:57] Speaker 2: want to win, we want to be the best.
[1:14:59] Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, I would if I made a mistake,
[1:15:03] Speaker 1: if I made a mistake on the radio or something,
[1:15:05] Speaker 1: I would think about it for weeks or months. I
[1:15:08] Speaker 1: would be sitting there doing something completely different and I
[1:15:11] Speaker 1: would think about it and be like, idiot, Like six
[1:15:14] Speaker 1: months later, idiot, I can't believe you said that, you know,
[1:15:18] Speaker 1: which is crazy, but it's like you kind of have to,
[1:15:21] Speaker 1: you know, you have to be able to beat yourself
[1:15:22] Speaker 1: up and be like ah, because it's to be better.
[1:15:25] Speaker 1: You know which is good and which, So go ahead.
[1:15:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. So on the YouTube community, when we're deployed, we
[1:15:32] Speaker 2: fly once every three days because after you fly high,
[1:15:37] Speaker 2: no flying duties the next day because of the exposure
[1:15:40] Speaker 2: physiologically and we'll probably talk about that a little bit.
[1:15:43] Speaker 2: Physiologically to the altitude that you're at and the cabin pressure,
[1:15:50] Speaker 2: and so imagine you're coming into land after ten and
[1:15:54] Speaker 2: a half hour mission and you just have maybe your
[1:15:58] Speaker 2: landing is not the best. It's safe, everything is okay,
[1:16:01] Speaker 2: but you just don't have a great landing. You got
[1:16:03] Speaker 2: to think about that for the next like three days.
[1:16:06] Speaker 2: So you get back in the cockpit and you're just
[1:16:08] Speaker 2: like like an OCD person just going through every what
[1:16:12] Speaker 2: could I have done better? Why did I do this?
[1:16:13] Speaker 2: Why did I do that? Yeah, that's us.
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a that's a good way to put it.
[1:16:18] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:16:18] Speaker 1: It's just like you have to be you have to
[1:16:21] Speaker 1: be like that though. That's how you get to that level,
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: you know, because you care, you know. And that's why
[1:16:26] Speaker 1: I think a lot of people have a problem when
[1:16:27] Speaker 1: they get out of the military, because they don't find
[1:16:29] Speaker 1: something that they care about like they did to the
[1:16:31] Speaker 1: level of the job that they were doing while they
[1:16:33] Speaker 1: were in, you know, And it's almost it's almost forced
[1:16:35] Speaker 1: upon you to care, you know, because you don't want
[1:16:38] Speaker 1: to be the person that's not providing something to the team.
[1:16:43] Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to be a liability here.
[1:16:45] Speaker 1: And I think when you get out and there's not
[1:16:48] Speaker 1: really that drive anymore, there's not. So people gotta find
[1:16:51] Speaker 1: that thing that they care about now in the U two.
[1:16:55] Speaker 1: So let's say you're you're getting past all your training,
[1:16:57] Speaker 1: At what point do you get Do you get your
[1:16:59] Speaker 1: own space suit? Is this custom? Do you get to
[1:17:02] Speaker 1: keep it afterwards?
[1:17:04] Speaker 2: No? So the suit the suit runs six figures, so
[1:17:08] Speaker 2: we have two suits. Typically they during the interview process,
[1:17:14] Speaker 2: you're being fitted for the suit, so gloves, everything, everything's
[1:17:18] Speaker 2: Some people get a custom made suit, which is two
[1:17:20] Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That was many years ago.
[1:17:23] Speaker 2: It's probably more expensive now to create. The standard suit
[1:17:27] Speaker 2: is about one hundred thousand dollars. They won't let you
[1:17:30] Speaker 2: keep the suit. I may or may not have one
[1:17:34] Speaker 2: in my possession right now as on loan.
[1:17:38] Speaker 1: What do they do with them? I mean, if you don't,
[1:17:39] Speaker 1: because if they're customed to you, they're just hanging up
[1:17:43] Speaker 1: in some yeah warehouse somewhere.
[1:17:46] Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes, I know, but they don't. You know, they
[1:17:52] Speaker 2: are NASA.
[1:17:53] Speaker 1: I get all my military uniforms when I got out,
[1:17:55] Speaker 1: they're all hanging I know.
[1:17:57] Speaker 2: I know qualifies No, perhaps one day, one day, the
[1:18:05] Speaker 2: opportunity to buy it back.
[1:18:06] Speaker 1: If I mean, they're not using it, or or you
[1:18:09] Speaker 1: lobby and you get a museum, your local museum. You
[1:18:12] Speaker 1: get to put it up at a local museum so
[1:18:13] Speaker 1: you can at least go visit it all the time.
[1:18:15] Speaker 2: I'm I actually, they were gonna send my suit to, uh,
[1:18:19] Speaker 2: the African American Museum, but somehow that Yeah, but they
[1:18:26] Speaker 2: the African American Museum, they said they wanted it. But
[1:18:28] Speaker 2: then do the paperwork anyway, It'll go to a nice home.
[1:18:32] Speaker 1: That's cool. That's I mean, that's the spacesuit is awesome.
[1:18:34] Speaker 1: I mean, that's legit. You're getting fitted. You were probably like, yes,
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: I've made it. I'm getting fitted for a.
[1:18:39] Speaker 2: Space Well that and then they're like, okay, now you
[1:18:43] Speaker 2: have to sit in this one for an hour to
[1:18:45] Speaker 2: see if you freak out because you have claustrophobia. I
[1:18:48] Speaker 2: fell asleep.
[1:18:49] Speaker 1: I feel like it wouldn't be that bad and everything on.
[1:18:53] Speaker 2: Oh it's great. It was. You just hear yourself breathing.
[1:18:56] Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, that's all.
[1:19:01] Speaker 1: What was unique about it? What surprised you about having
[1:19:04] Speaker 1: a spacesuit, or like how it fit or what it did?
[1:19:10] Speaker 2: What surprised me? I'll tell you a story. I don't
[1:19:15] Speaker 2: know if it's appropriate.
[1:19:16] Speaker 1: What's your audience, like, go ahead, I think it'll be great.
[1:19:22] Speaker 2: The first time. So in the suit you can't. You
[1:19:26] Speaker 2: could do number one suit. So peing in the suit's fine.
[1:19:29] Speaker 2: So for men when they put the suit on, we
[1:19:31] Speaker 2: have what's called the ucd Urinary Collection Device for men.
[1:19:35] Speaker 2: It's basically it's basically huge size. Actually have I'll send
[1:19:39] Speaker 2: you a picture of it's huge size, like condom that
[1:19:43] Speaker 2: fits over there, jas and you cut it to size,
[1:19:48] Speaker 2: and so it has a tube when they pee in it.
[1:19:51] Speaker 2: That tube connects to your suit and connects to another
[1:19:55] Speaker 2: hoose from your suit to a collection device in the aircraft.
[1:19:59] Speaker 2: So I think a leader of urine, and so guys
[1:20:04] Speaker 2: use that. For women, we have a pad. So we
[1:20:07] Speaker 2: have a pad with a hose that connects in our
[1:20:09] Speaker 2: suit does the same thing. So we pee on the
[1:20:12] Speaker 2: pad and then we kind of increase the pressure to
[1:20:16] Speaker 2: allow flow to happen. So when you saturate the pad,
[1:20:20] Speaker 2: there's you know, suction that takes that liquid away from
[1:20:25] Speaker 2: the pad. So my first flight in the high suit,
[1:20:29] Speaker 2: my first high flight in the suit, I'm in the suit.
[1:20:33] Speaker 2: I'm really I'm excited, but I'm sweating because the suit.
[1:20:37] Speaker 2: It's like putting a plastic bag. The liner is like
[1:20:39] Speaker 2: a plastic bag around you. So if you're moving a lot,
[1:20:42] Speaker 2: you generate a lot of heat and you sweat. And
[1:20:46] Speaker 2: so I'm there and I'm excited. I'm I'm sweating. I
[1:20:51] Speaker 2: can feel all the sweat because I'm getting cold because
[1:20:53] Speaker 2: of the vent air. And when you get integrated in
[1:20:56] Speaker 2: the suit, you have what's called the You have people
[1:20:58] Speaker 2: who are called physiologists that puts you in the suit.
[1:21:00] Speaker 2: They're from the Physiological Support Squadron. They maintain the suits
[1:21:04] Speaker 2: for you. They integrate you in the aircraft, they check
[1:21:07] Speaker 2: your oxygen, they do all this stuff. So I'm being
[1:21:09] Speaker 2: integrated and as part of the integration, they have to
[1:21:13] Speaker 2: check the UCD to make sure this good airflow going through.
[1:21:17] Speaker 2: So I'm sitting in the cockpit, I'm sweating, I'm excited,
[1:21:20] Speaker 2: I'm breathing too much oxygen. The warning lights are going
[1:21:23] Speaker 2: off because I'm just I'm like like, I'm fired up.
[1:21:27] Speaker 2: I'm just so fired up, and so as the guy.
[1:21:32] Speaker 2: So everything's sweaty, including the pad for the UCD. So
[1:21:37] Speaker 2: he's like, ma'am, I'm going to check your He's yelling
[1:21:39] Speaker 2: really like He's like, I'm going to check your post
[1:21:42] Speaker 2: and make sure it's okay, and I'm like, so he
[1:21:45] Speaker 2: opens the vet. So imagine just being hot and then
[1:21:50] Speaker 2: you get a blast of cold air and the private areas.
[1:21:56] Speaker 2: So I'm with an instructor and we're on hot Mike
[1:22:00] Speaker 2: because we're talking back and forth, and then all of
[1:22:02] Speaker 2: a sudden, I let out a big like whoa like
[1:22:05] Speaker 2: I got like it was pretty shocking the blast of
[1:22:09] Speaker 2: air in that area, and he starts laughing. My instructor,
[1:22:15] Speaker 2: also known as Huggy, he just starts cracking up. There's
[1:22:18] Speaker 2: another pilot listening. Who's the mobile and we didn't talk
[1:22:21] Speaker 2: about that yet, but he's they're dying. I'm like, oh
[1:22:24] Speaker 2: my gosh, that was exhilarating. Is this what the flight's
[1:22:27] Speaker 2: going to be like? So I start just talking and
[1:22:29] Speaker 2: I'm all psyched up and he's like, Meryl.
[1:22:31] Speaker 1: You need to stop.
[1:22:32] Speaker 2: I'm like, let's go. Like I'm I'm so excited. So
[1:22:37] Speaker 2: that's yes, that's how you.
[1:22:39] Speaker 1: End up with a call sign. I said something like,
[1:22:42] Speaker 1: that's how you end up with a call sign.
[1:22:43] Speaker 2: That's how you end up with the calls. I thought
[1:22:44] Speaker 2: about that, but I didn't say anything. I was too
[1:22:47] Speaker 2: excited about the flight, and uh yeah, it was that
[1:22:51] Speaker 2: about the suit was incredibly eye opening. Everything else I
[1:22:55] Speaker 2: was cool. But the blast of cold air, yes, exciting, exciting.
[1:23:03] Speaker 1: When you're up at altitude. How are you affected by
[1:23:08] Speaker 1: radiation at all? I imagine is that part of the suits protection? Okay,
[1:23:12] Speaker 1: are you so? What's the gravity like? I mean, you're
[1:23:14] Speaker 1: not weightless at that point, right, I don't think so.
[1:23:17] Speaker 2: No, So the amount of radiation that you they sometimes
[1:23:21] Speaker 2: they had us travel with docimmeters for radiation readings, So
[1:23:25] Speaker 2: it's nothing, it's nothing out of the ordinary. You still
[1:23:29] Speaker 2: have the aircraft, you're still in a suit. So the
[1:23:32] Speaker 2: the exposure is not, from my understanding, is not that significant.
[1:23:36] Speaker 2: I had to defer to my husband, who's a physicist.
[1:23:41] Speaker 2: He specializes in like, uh, nuclear physics, so he works
[1:23:46] Speaker 2: at Lawrence Livermore Labs. So he assured me that that's
[1:23:48] Speaker 2: not the case, so I will believe him. And so, yeah,
[1:23:54] Speaker 2: there's no weightlessness. Radiation exposure is pretty normal, And the
[1:24:03] Speaker 2: only thing that's really different is the cabin altitude. At
[1:24:07] Speaker 2: the time that I was flying the U two, the
[1:24:09] Speaker 2: cabin altitude was at twenty nine close to twenty nine
[1:24:12] Speaker 2: thousand feet so Mount Everest's altitudes. So exposure to decompression
[1:24:19] Speaker 2: sickness was a real thing. It happened to a lot
[1:24:21] Speaker 2: of my friends. So because of that, we have to
[1:24:25] Speaker 2: pre breathe oxygen one hundred percent oxygen in an hour
[1:24:29] Speaker 2: before we take off.
[1:24:31] Speaker 1: What's out Like I've heard that's like gives you like
[1:24:33] Speaker 1: a head buzz almost from taking pure oxygen.
[1:24:36] Speaker 2: It's not a head buzz, but I mean.
[1:24:40] Speaker 1: Like you're more sharp or clear it I would a
[1:24:46] Speaker 1: little bit, yeah.
[1:24:49] Speaker 2: When I you do it enough. When we did missions,
[1:24:52] Speaker 2: they would give us go jails. So I don't know
[1:24:54] Speaker 2: what made me more sharp the O two or the
[1:24:57] Speaker 2: actual amphetamines they gave us so or the ability to
[1:25:03] Speaker 2: take those. You know, your body likes one hundred percent
[1:25:07] Speaker 2: oxygen more so it will off gas basically the nitrogen
[1:25:11] Speaker 2: in your system. So yeah, it's it's not that much
[1:25:15] Speaker 2: of a pick me up in my opinion, but maybe
[1:25:17] Speaker 2: I was just used to it at a certain point.
[1:25:19] Speaker 2: I never really felt any difference about that. I could
[1:25:22] Speaker 2: just tell you that I didn't really suffer from any
[1:25:25] Speaker 2: decompression issues. When you're done with a flight, that's why
[1:25:30] Speaker 2: you don't fly the next day. You're not supposed to
[1:25:32] Speaker 2: work out the next day. You should stay hydrated when
[1:25:34] Speaker 2: you fly, have good diet, you know, do all those
[1:25:38] Speaker 2: things that you're supposed to do if you're an athlete
[1:25:42] Speaker 2: type thing. So I did that. I mean, I'm really
[1:25:45] Speaker 2: into maybe as you can see, working out, So I
[1:25:48] Speaker 2: work out a lot. I lift weights quite a bit.
[1:25:52] Speaker 2: More muscle you have, you know, the better you are physically.
[1:25:59] Speaker 2: So Unfortunately, a lot of my friends during the time
[1:26:02] Speaker 2: I flew the U two, especially in missions to Afghanistan
[1:26:05] Speaker 2: in Iraq, some of them really had some serious DCS issues.
[1:26:13] Speaker 2: One of my peers almost crashed in aircraft back in
[1:26:17] Speaker 2: two thousand and I don't know it was five maybe
[1:26:20] Speaker 2: two thousand and five because he had decompression sickness, but
[1:26:25] Speaker 2: it was neurological, so he was in a bad way.
[1:26:29] Speaker 2: He ended up getting out of the military, just getting
[1:26:31] Speaker 2: medically retired.
[1:26:33] Speaker 1: Wow.
[1:26:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he suffered permanent brain damage, so that actually
[1:26:38] Speaker 2: the investigation board was out. Yeah, it was. It was bad.
[1:26:40] Speaker 2: And I have a couple of other friends that have
[1:26:42] Speaker 2: like they suffered almost like concussion type injuries, like football players.
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: Why don't they have a lower altitude for your in
[1:26:53] Speaker 1: cabin pressure.
[1:26:54] Speaker 2: Then, so they did change that. Back when I was
[1:26:57] Speaker 2: the commander at Palmdale for YouTube flight test, Locky Martin
[1:27:02] Speaker 2: lowered the cabin pressure in single seat aircraft down to
[1:27:05] Speaker 2: about fifteen thousand feet Zatan Well in the beginning. I
[1:27:12] Speaker 2: don't think they knew when they first created the YouTube,
[1:27:16] Speaker 2: but over time it was kind of cost prohibited to
[1:27:21] Speaker 2: do the modifications for the frame and structure. According to Lockey,
[1:27:25] Speaker 2: that's crazy, and they were able to reach some type of.
[1:27:29] Speaker 1: What's more, I mean, what's worse having pilots freaking you know,
[1:27:34] Speaker 1: go through these issues and then you lose them or
[1:27:36] Speaker 1: crash an aircraft. I mean, imagine crashing an aircraft during
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: a mission because of something like that. What a what
[1:27:42] Speaker 1: a dumb assessment? You know?
[1:27:44] Speaker 2: Well, we almost we almost had one, and they couldn't
[1:27:47] Speaker 2: understand because it was during the time I was flying
[1:27:49] Speaker 2: mission and so when we started doing a lot more
[1:27:53] Speaker 2: frequent missions maybe a little longer, they couldn't really pinpoint
[1:27:57] Speaker 2: because they actually did a study of U two pilots
[1:28:00] Speaker 2: and how many brain lesions that we.
[1:28:03] Speaker 1: Have, you know, not if you have them, how many
[1:28:06] Speaker 1: you have? Yeah, You're like, how many like it's it's
[1:28:14] Speaker 1: it's crazy.
[1:28:16] Speaker 2: So we all have them, like I had about I
[1:28:20] Speaker 2: was told I have about twenty. I don't know how
[1:28:22] Speaker 2: that wow. Yeah. So but some of the guys who
[1:28:25] Speaker 2: really had significant issues, they had a lot more a lot.
[1:28:31] Speaker 1: What is what causes the brain lesions? Just the altitude
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: or the.
[1:28:35] Speaker 2: Just exposure exposure to the altitude?
[1:28:37] Speaker 1: Wow.
[1:28:37] Speaker 2: So if you if you're a hiker, like if you're
[1:28:40] Speaker 2: doing like K two all the time, you probably have
[1:28:42] Speaker 2: something similar.
[1:28:43] Speaker 1: How do those affect you or do they affect you?
[1:28:45] Speaker 1: Is it just a.
[1:28:47] Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I wasn't. I didn't think I was
[1:28:50] Speaker 2: affected that much until I stopped flying the U two.
[1:28:52] Speaker 2: And it's very interesting because once once I was the
[1:28:55] Speaker 2: commander and I'm done. Of course, you know, you do
[1:28:57] Speaker 2: your command job, you're happy, and they stick your the
[1:28:59] Speaker 2: desk for a while. So I went to Right northcom
[1:29:01] Speaker 2: and worked there for three years from my joint tour
[1:29:05] Speaker 2: and six months after stopped. After I stopped flying, it
[1:29:09] Speaker 2: was I can only explain it as if I was
[1:29:14] Speaker 2: kind of in a fog, but it was lifted like things,
[1:29:18] Speaker 2: things were slightly clearer, And that's the only way I
[1:29:21] Speaker 2: can explain it. It's like, cognitively I could do things,
[1:29:26] Speaker 2: but I felt that I was slower. But after six
[1:29:29] Speaker 2: months it started feeling oh huh, it's like one of
[1:29:36] Speaker 2: those huh things are clearer, more focused. That's the only
[1:29:41] Speaker 2: way I can explain It's yes, so it's one of
[1:29:47] Speaker 2: those things you can explain, but something has changed for
[1:29:50] Speaker 2: the better. And that's how. That's how it was. My
[1:29:55] Speaker 2: friend who suffered more extensive damage. They would explain it,
[1:30:02] Speaker 2: like one of my friends said, he was driving to
[1:30:04] Speaker 2: work and he stopped. He pulled over because he forgot
[1:30:09] Speaker 2: where he was driving to. That's how bad it was.
[1:30:13] Speaker 2: And so another friend of mine, she became the wing
[1:30:20] Speaker 2: commander at Bill. She actually pulled herself out of flying
[1:30:23] Speaker 2: because there were things that were wrong that she really
[1:30:27] Speaker 2: couldn't quantify. But there was issues that she was having
[1:30:32] Speaker 2: just remembering certain words, doing certain things. So I get it.
[1:30:37] Speaker 2: I understand why I just was not affected as you know, severely.
[1:30:44] Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I think you hear that similar kind
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: of stories from from people that have like hit an
[1:30:50] Speaker 1: ID or something to have like a TBI, the drasatic
[1:30:53] Speaker 1: brain injury, same kind of thing. Like there, I had
[1:30:58] Speaker 1: a slight I mean nowhere or anything like that where
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: I forget stuff all the time. I'll have to write
[1:31:03] Speaker 1: stuff down. I really lean on using my calendar to
[1:31:07] Speaker 1: remember stuff. I was never hit by an ID. Put
[1:31:11] Speaker 1: that out there. I was. The worst that I ever
[1:31:14] Speaker 1: had was when I was in the back blast of
[1:31:15] Speaker 1: an SPG nine, which is like a Recoilleiss rifle, and
[1:31:18] Speaker 1: that about knocked me out. And I don't know, it's
[1:31:23] Speaker 1: just like you hear from guys that and girls that
[1:31:26] Speaker 1: have like a lot of exposure or they hit like
[1:31:29] Speaker 1: really bad ID, you know, and similar kind of issues,
[1:31:33] Speaker 1: memory problems things. I don't know. That's crazy that you
[1:31:38] Speaker 1: guys can get better though you know that it kind
[1:31:41] Speaker 1: of I imagine you'll never get back to where you
[1:31:43] Speaker 1: were previously before all the brain leasions.
[1:31:46] Speaker 2: But well yet, so I think brain leads just stay
[1:31:51] Speaker 2: with you. They don't know the long term effects. And
[1:31:54] Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I got to. You know, kids
[1:31:56] Speaker 2: of the preteens, and right now they're sucking my whole
[1:31:59] Speaker 2: life force. So I can't tell the difference.
[1:32:02] Speaker 1: You's got my brain right now, I know.
[1:32:06] Speaker 2: I just know I have to be five steps ahead
[1:32:08] Speaker 2: of them, which I am. So once they start out smarting.
[1:32:12] Speaker 1: Don't think I've lost my edge yet.
[1:32:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, I lost my edge.
[1:32:15] Speaker 1: I have a teenage son. I know what you're talking about.
[1:32:18] Speaker 2: Oh, how old is he?
[1:32:19] Speaker 1: He just turned eighteen? Well in October he turned eighteen,
[1:32:22] Speaker 1: so he's about to graduate high school and you know,
[1:32:27] Speaker 1: move on. Yeah. Now I'm in the like trying to
[1:32:32] Speaker 1: give him some life advice, and I've made it very clear,
[1:32:34] Speaker 1: like nothing I can say. You can do whatever you
[1:32:37] Speaker 1: want now because you're eighteen, but you know, you really
[1:32:40] Speaker 1: got to understand that there's consequences for little things that
[1:32:43] Speaker 1: before wouldn't have mattered. You know. I'm like, know who
[1:32:47] Speaker 1: you're hanging out with, know where you're going, kind of
[1:32:49] Speaker 1: deal because those those are things. But anyways, we'll get
[1:32:53] Speaker 1: back to I want to talk. I want to ask,
[1:32:55] Speaker 1: and we go down to the Dad route. What was
[1:32:58] Speaker 1: it like on that first high altitude flight just looking
[1:33:01] Speaker 1: out the cockpit and seeing the view? I mean, that
[1:33:03] Speaker 1: has to have been amazing.
[1:33:06] Speaker 2: It was Okay, after I stopped breathing so hard, I
[1:33:10] Speaker 2: fogged up my canopy. So like the first flight, because
[1:33:15] Speaker 2: you're so excited, you fog it up. So it took
[1:33:19] Speaker 2: about an hour to kind of like I could see,
[1:33:22] Speaker 2: but you can see the curvature of the Earth. You
[1:33:25] Speaker 2: can see the sky starting to get darker. It was
[1:33:29] Speaker 2: a daytime flight, so it was just really I was
[1:33:32] Speaker 2: with an instructor. The first two high flights. You go
[1:33:34] Speaker 2: in an instructor, and then after that you're solo the
[1:33:37] Speaker 2: rest of the time, so that's crazy. Yeah, it was
[1:33:42] Speaker 2: just cool, Like I got to try tube food for
[1:33:45] Speaker 2: the first time.
[1:33:47] Speaker 1: What's the best and worst tube food? There's got to
[1:33:50] Speaker 1: be a good one and a bad one.
[1:33:51] Speaker 2: Right, So they've changed some of the stuff since I've left.
[1:33:55] Speaker 2: I used to love caramel pudding that they took off,
[1:33:59] Speaker 2: and then I tried to stick with a vegetarian pasta,
[1:34:01] Speaker 2: which they took away too. The worst used to be
[1:34:07] Speaker 2: it was either Manhattan or New England. It was Manhattan
[1:34:09] Speaker 2: clam chowder. I don't know who the hell thought of that.
[1:34:13] Speaker 2: That is the worst. I've never even I've cracked it
[1:34:16] Speaker 2: open just to pource them out to see what they looked.
[1:34:19] Speaker 1: Like an at seventy thousand feet.
[1:34:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, horrendous caffeated pudding was cool. That was two hundred,
[1:34:29] Speaker 2: two hundred milligrams of caffeine in the two nice recently
[1:34:34] Speaker 2: since I left. They have like hash browns and bacon,
[1:34:38] Speaker 2: mac and cheese, or mac and cheese with caffeine, apple pie,
[1:34:43] Speaker 2: apple pie with.
[1:34:44] Speaker 1: Caffeine, caffeinated mac and cheese.
[1:34:46] Speaker 2: What a it's called jazzy mac.
[1:34:49] Speaker 1: The Marine Corps had picked that one up.
[1:34:51] Speaker 2: Ah, they they'd be like I was gonna say, they
[1:34:53] Speaker 2: conuna be like caged animals, but they used to.
[1:34:56] Speaker 1: They used to give us some like an apple sauce
[1:34:58] Speaker 1: pack and some of them more would have like apple
[1:35:00] Speaker 1: sauce with caffeine in it. And then they had these
[1:35:04] Speaker 1: chocolate covered espresso beans. They called them like buzz beans
[1:35:08] Speaker 1: or something like that.
[1:35:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, if you gave the Marine Corps a caffeine the pudding,
[1:35:14] Speaker 2: they would be unhinged twigs. I mean, it's like having
[1:35:19] Speaker 2: celsius enough.
[1:35:20] Speaker 1: Well, honestly that's probably yeah. We I'd drink a pot
[1:35:27] Speaker 1: of coffee a day by myself, you know, I think
[1:35:29] Speaker 1: we used to. We used to run through coffee, especially
[1:35:32] Speaker 1: long days on the op. You know, a coff Having
[1:35:36] Speaker 1: coffee in some some former fashion was a must. I
[1:35:40] Speaker 1: used to bring out a French press and someone someone
[1:35:42] Speaker 1: else would bring out a what's it called. It's like
[1:35:46] Speaker 1: a camping stove to boil water, and then I'd have
[1:35:49] Speaker 1: the French press and I'd bring a bag of coffee
[1:35:53] Speaker 1: beans and I had a little hand grinder. I actually
[1:35:55] Speaker 1: started at it. I started doing that on ship because
[1:35:59] Speaker 1: they would never have coffee on the on the mess deck,
[1:36:03] Speaker 1: I'm like, how do we not have coffee? How are
[1:36:06] Speaker 1: we on a ship and we have no coffee? And
[1:36:09] Speaker 1: there were and sometimes it'd be like, we'll make it, sorry,
[1:36:11] Speaker 1: and then they maybe they would make it, or they'd
[1:36:14] Speaker 1: make it like garbage. It was just I got so
[1:36:16] Speaker 1: tired of it. So when I was on ship, I
[1:36:18] Speaker 1: got an Amazon and I ordered a ten pound bag
[1:36:21] Speaker 1: of coffee beans, a hand grinder so I didn't have
[1:36:23] Speaker 1: to use electricity, and a French press, and I would
[1:36:27] Speaker 1: just be up in my office and I would grind
[1:36:30] Speaker 1: out some beans and someone else would want a cup
[1:36:32] Speaker 1: of coffee. I'd be like, go clean the French press
[1:36:34] Speaker 1: out and get some fresh water and we'll have coffee.
[1:36:37] Speaker 2: And it was just like, you should have started Starbucks
[1:36:40] Speaker 2: on the ship. You could have made out.
[1:36:41] Speaker 1: I probably could have. Actually after I people saw me
[1:36:44] Speaker 1: doing it, and then French press had started popping up.
[1:36:47] Speaker 1: More people started doing it because I explained. I was like, yeah,
[1:36:49] Speaker 1: I just got a handgrinder and the beans from Amazon,
[1:36:52] Speaker 1: and like I didn't. I kind of wanted to start
[1:36:56] Speaker 1: a coffee thing, a coffee business, but that's like a
[1:36:58] Speaker 1: so so brovette. It's very much a veteran thing to do.
[1:37:02] Speaker 1: But I'm like, I actually did love making good coffee,
[1:37:05] Speaker 1: you know, like when we were out in the field
[1:37:06] Speaker 1: or something. The Brits loved it too. If you were
[1:37:08] Speaker 1: out in the field with the Brits and you bust
[1:37:10] Speaker 1: out and they'd be like, oh, make a cup, you know.
[1:37:12] Speaker 2: Like did they have the alcohol?
[1:37:15] Speaker 1: No? Not not when I did any kind of work
[1:37:18] Speaker 1: with them. We didn't. They do on their ships they
[1:37:20] Speaker 1: do have alcohol, though I was never on any of
[1:37:23] Speaker 1: their ships, though from what I understand, they have a
[1:37:26] Speaker 1: bar on their ship. Were there allowed? Oh have you
[1:37:28] Speaker 1: been on a British ship?
[1:37:31] Speaker 2: I've been on just other ships. Uh yeah, everyone like America,
[1:37:37] Speaker 2: we don't do it right. They like to party.
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't allow that on our ships.
[1:37:43] Speaker 2: No, they don't.
[1:37:45] Speaker 1: You get yeah, and you get the what is it
[1:37:47] Speaker 1: steel picnic if you're at sea for too long, get
[1:37:49] Speaker 1: your two beers or whatever. Miserable stuff.
[1:37:52] Speaker 2: But did you, did you ever do swim call?
[1:37:56] Speaker 1: No, I don't think they ever did it while I
[1:37:58] Speaker 1: was on ship. Actually they they did. They may have.
[1:38:04] Speaker 1: They probably did it while we were ashore, because we
[1:38:06] Speaker 1: were ashore for at least sixty days. I mean they
[1:38:09] Speaker 1: were on ship for almost three months straight without ever
[1:38:13] Speaker 1: seeing a port. So I'm sure at some point they
[1:38:16] Speaker 1: did something like that for him, because you know, insanity
[1:38:20] Speaker 1: will start to ensue for people that don't know who've
[1:38:22] Speaker 1: never been on ship. It is not you honestly have
[1:38:26] Speaker 1: to tell unless you work on the flight deck or
[1:38:28] Speaker 1: something like that. You have to remind yourself to go
[1:38:31] Speaker 1: outside and get sunlight because it's very easy to just
[1:38:34] Speaker 1: be on ship and never emerge from the skin of
[1:38:37] Speaker 1: the ship and it's like, have I been outside today?
[1:38:40] Speaker 1: I need You have to kind of set that in
[1:38:41] Speaker 1: your schedule to like get outside and get fifteen minutes
[1:38:44] Speaker 1: of sun because everybody starts going insane, like, oh, it's
[1:38:51] Speaker 1: so miserable.
[1:38:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, but I did. I did a swim call once.
[1:38:56] Speaker 1: It's fun. Was it what was it off of? Was
[1:39:02] Speaker 1: it off the So I think if we would have
[1:39:04] Speaker 1: done it, they probably would have done it in the
[1:39:05] Speaker 1: weld deck because we had a well deck on the LHD.
[1:39:09] Speaker 1: We were you guys doing off the side of the
[1:39:12] Speaker 1: ship or off the back?
[1:39:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, we were doing off the back of the ship.
[1:39:16] Speaker 2: Was it in the cruiser? Almost?
[1:39:19] Speaker 1: Cruisers and destroyers I've heard have the best deployments because
[1:39:22] Speaker 1: they can't be at sea as long, so they get
[1:39:24] Speaker 1: they get more port calls.
[1:39:26] Speaker 2: No, we were with the shotgun crew. We were the
[1:39:28] Speaker 2: shotgun cruiser for the GW battle.
[1:39:31] Speaker 1: What is that? What does a shotgun cruiser mean?
[1:39:33] Speaker 2: So that means we follow the carrier everywhere, like where
[1:39:38] Speaker 2: the if someone breaks to the defense, we are like
[1:39:41] Speaker 2: the final like we are the most equipped to handle
[1:39:45] Speaker 2: anyone coming. We probably at that time had the most
[1:39:48] Speaker 2: missiles of anywhere. That's why they sent us. That's why
[1:39:52] Speaker 2: they sent the battle group up to the North Arabian Golf.
[1:39:54] Speaker 2: This was during a time where Saddam was just being
[1:39:57] Speaker 2: a just being jackknife about something. He didn't want to
[1:40:01] Speaker 2: sign some agreement, so they shipped us all. We were
[1:40:05] Speaker 2: supposed to be in the Mediterranean for four months. After
[1:40:08] Speaker 2: a month after we got there, across the Atlantic, we
[1:40:11] Speaker 2: did two port visits and they shipped us right out there.
[1:40:14] Speaker 2: And so yeah, I just remember we were the one thing.
[1:40:22] Speaker 2: He wasn't signing something. He un till twelve o'clock to
[1:40:24] Speaker 2: do it, and we were ready to fire on him.
[1:40:28] Speaker 2: And we were all on the flight deck. Came geared up,
[1:40:32] Speaker 2: ready to go, ready to rock and roll.
[1:40:34] Speaker 1: That's crazy, It's crazy.
[1:40:36] Speaker 2: I was just I was sitting there. I was sitting
[1:40:38] Speaker 2: there like, bro, what are you doing?
[1:40:41] Speaker 1: I was so mad. I was like, I was like,
[1:40:44] Speaker 1: sign it?
[1:40:47] Speaker 2: What does nonsense? Do? You know?
[1:40:49] Speaker 1: What's wild about stuff like that? And it's easy to
[1:40:53] Speaker 1: look back and be like, oh, you know, like that
[1:40:55] Speaker 1: was crazy, But at the time, you don't know what's
[1:40:58] Speaker 1: about to happen. And when you're putting on like a
[1:41:00] Speaker 1: kimsuit for real, there's no way to be like, oh,
[1:41:04] Speaker 1: this is funny haha. Now it's like, oh, what are
[1:41:06] Speaker 1: we getting? What are we getting into right now? Like
[1:41:08] Speaker 1: this is about to be get real real fast.
[1:41:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, you're thinking like, okay, if if the cruiser fires,
[1:41:15] Speaker 2: like what are we going to be doing? Like in
[1:41:17] Speaker 2: my mind, I'm like, okay, it's a pilot. What does
[1:41:19] Speaker 2: this mean? What is what is going to happen?
[1:41:21] Speaker 1: How many?
[1:41:22] Speaker 2: How many strikes are we going to do? What are
[1:41:23] Speaker 2: we launch it? So yeah, but now yeah, I'm just like,
[1:41:27] Speaker 2: damn it, Sadam Hussein, what why.
[1:41:29] Speaker 1: It makes me? It makes me think about the ships
[1:41:33] Speaker 1: that are over off of like Yemen right now. Yes,
[1:41:37] Speaker 1: they're actually shooting down like anti shit missiles and drones
[1:41:42] Speaker 1: and stuff. And I remember, I remember on our deployments
[1:41:45] Speaker 1: we would always do you know, general quarters drills and
[1:41:48] Speaker 1: stuff like that, and for the Marines that means go
[1:41:50] Speaker 1: to your birthing area and just chill all the navy
[1:41:52] Speaker 1: desert thing and you'd sit there and you'd hear like
[1:41:55] Speaker 1: simulated impact left side in thirty seconds or something like that,
[1:42:00] Speaker 1: and they would be like counting, you know, as if
[1:42:02] Speaker 1: you're taking incoming missiles. And I'm like, that's to have
[1:42:06] Speaker 1: that actually be happening is wild to be in a
[1:42:10] Speaker 1: ship and being like, oh shit, please don't hit us, please,
[1:42:12] Speaker 1: don't hit us, please, and then you hear that it
[1:42:14] Speaker 1: got shot down or something like. I mean, it's easy
[1:42:18] Speaker 1: to be like, oh yeah, they shot them all down,
[1:42:19] Speaker 1: no big deal, But the people on those ships are
[1:42:22] Speaker 1: going through some roller coasters of emotions right there when
[1:42:26] Speaker 1: that's happening.
[1:42:27] Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, I mean it's when you know, flying over
[1:42:35] Speaker 2: like Afghanistan Iraq talking to you guys and saying do
[1:42:38] Speaker 2: you need anything, Hey, we just intercepted some transmissions that
[1:42:44] Speaker 2: this and this are going to happen, or hey check
[1:42:46] Speaker 2: this and this is within what the accuracy? You know,
[1:42:50] Speaker 2: I'm flying around and every so often I'm like, if
[1:42:53] Speaker 2: I lose an engine here, this is going to really suck.
[1:42:55] Speaker 2: If I lose my only engine, this is going to
[1:42:57] Speaker 2: really suck. Which area would I go? Oh, oh, I
[1:43:01] Speaker 2: don't want to be here this long? Like, you know,
[1:43:04] Speaker 2: there were times where you know, if you landed, you know,
[1:43:09] Speaker 2: in this in the sandbox somewhere, you're like, which tribe
[1:43:15] Speaker 2: is going to kill me the quickest? Like you know,
[1:43:18] Speaker 2: you you thought about those things, and yeah, the the
[1:43:22] Speaker 2: mental gymnastics that you go through a little bit like
[1:43:25] Speaker 2: oh and I make sure everything was taken care of
[1:43:29] Speaker 2: before doing all this. It's that's a real thing. So
[1:43:32] Speaker 2: whether you're in the boat, whether you're in the plane,
[1:43:34] Speaker 2: whether you're with the mew, like, it's just one of
[1:43:38] Speaker 2: those you know, you love doing what you're doing, but
[1:43:43] Speaker 2: you think about like it's it's gotten real real quick,
[1:43:48] Speaker 2: and it's like, oh, now what do I do? And
[1:43:50] Speaker 2: then once it's done. You kind of laughed on like,
[1:43:52] Speaker 2: oh that was fun.
[1:43:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, you get those reality checks, you know.
[1:43:55] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:43:55] Speaker 1: I always always think about like when we would get
[1:43:58] Speaker 1: ready for deployment. Uh, we'd have Basicallygal come down and
[1:44:01] Speaker 1: give us a class and then everybody had to fill
[1:44:04] Speaker 1: out their will. And I'm like, he's eighteen or nineteen
[1:44:07] Speaker 1: year old. Kids like this is probably the first time
[1:44:10] Speaker 1: they're like wait, hold on, you know, like yeah, like
[1:44:13] Speaker 1: what a what a reality check? Right, Like, hey, make
[1:44:15] Speaker 1: sure your family gets what's due to them, make sure
[1:44:18] Speaker 1: you fill out the will and and you know, and
[1:44:20] Speaker 1: all this stuff, and it's like wow. You know, for
[1:44:22] Speaker 1: some kids, that's probably the first time they're like, oh shit,
[1:44:25] Speaker 1: this is about to get real.
[1:44:27] Speaker 2: You know, it's time to put your big boy, big
[1:44:29] Speaker 2: girl pants on, because it's like you, I don't know
[1:44:33] Speaker 2: if you've ever have had to be on the other
[1:44:35] Speaker 2: end to tell a parent that their no son or
[1:44:39] Speaker 2: daughter is being on or you know, has you know
[1:44:43] Speaker 2: or is deceased. But yeah, it doesn't feel good either.
[1:44:46] Speaker 1: Have you done that? You've had to do that, I've
[1:44:48] Speaker 1: done that.
[1:44:48] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:44:49] Speaker 1: God, that's got to be the toughest, toughest job in
[1:44:52] Speaker 1: the military.
[1:44:52] Speaker 2: It was yeah, it was one of those things where
[1:44:56] Speaker 2: it was unexpected. I was a commander down at Palmdale
[1:45:00] Speaker 2: and the jurisdiction that the I forgot what the service
[1:45:07] Speaker 2: is called. They go as far south as you know,
[1:45:11] Speaker 2: not San Diego, but they went pretty far south. And
[1:45:14] Speaker 2: I got a call like, hey, we need you to
[1:45:16] Speaker 2: go tell a family that their son died in training
[1:45:22] Speaker 2: up at Effie Warren. So I was like, oh, okay,
[1:45:28] Speaker 2: so you know, you go with the group, you go
[1:45:30] Speaker 2: with the chaplain, you go with a group of people,
[1:45:32] Speaker 2: you're dressed up in your blues. You go there and
[1:45:35] Speaker 2: you look for the family. And so yeah, it was terrible,
[1:45:38] Speaker 2: Like it's just to tell a mom that they're eighteen
[1:45:41] Speaker 2: year old.
[1:45:43] Speaker 1: You know, I wouldn't be able to do it. I'd
[1:45:45] Speaker 1: be balling the whole time.
[1:45:48] Speaker 2: It's hard, I will tell you. When I came back home,
[1:45:50] Speaker 2: I sat in my office and had some whiskey at
[1:45:53] Speaker 2: the end, because it's just you could tell, like you
[1:45:57] Speaker 2: can only tell the family what happened and how it happened.
[1:46:02] Speaker 2: That's all you could tell them. You can't tell them
[1:46:03] Speaker 2: anything about arrangements, body or anything. But you could tell
[1:46:09] Speaker 2: Like when I did it with the mom because had
[1:46:11] Speaker 2: I had to be the one to tell them because
[1:46:13] Speaker 2: I was the more senior person you could tell. I
[1:46:17] Speaker 2: don't the mom was just thinking about maybe the last
[1:46:22] Speaker 2: interactions she had with her son or conversations that were had.
[1:46:27] Speaker 2: You could see her mind working in ways that was
[1:46:30] Speaker 2: just awful. Like I would never want that on anyone.
[1:46:34] Speaker 2: So when you're in a situation where you're the tip
[1:46:38] Speaker 2: of the spear or you're doing the mission, like the
[1:46:42] Speaker 2: whole end to end process. Yeah, you're out there doing it,
[1:46:46] Speaker 2: you don't think of the ramifications, especially when you're eighteen
[1:46:49] Speaker 2: or nineteen, of what it means to give the ultimate
[1:46:52] Speaker 2: sacrifice until you're there and you're like, well, crap, this
[1:46:58] Speaker 2: might be it. It's a it's a huge wake up call.
[1:47:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely. It's tough. It's it's a real world job.
[1:47:08] Speaker 1: It's I don't know, it's dealing with that would be rough,
[1:47:15] Speaker 1: dealing with that, doing the family notifications? What do we
[1:47:18] Speaker 1: I can't remember what we called it. There was a
[1:47:19] Speaker 1: whole If you were selected for that, I think you
[1:47:22] Speaker 1: had to do it for like six months or something.
[1:47:24] Speaker 1: And then this was like for officers. I think there
[1:47:27] Speaker 1: might have been some staff NCOs that had to do
[1:47:29] Speaker 1: it as well. But they put you through like training
[1:47:31] Speaker 1: and everything, and then when a call like that comes out,
[1:47:34] Speaker 1: it's that's that becomes your only focus. Like everything else
[1:47:38] Speaker 1: gets now put aside until you're the liaison between the
[1:47:42] Speaker 1: family and the military, until everything is settled. And I'm
[1:47:46] Speaker 1: just like, man, that's gotta be just not I mean,
[1:47:51] Speaker 1: somebody's got to do it. But and I think it's
[1:47:53] Speaker 1: better than you know, you're seeing like the old war movies,
[1:47:56] Speaker 1: how they would send like a telegram or something to
[1:47:58] Speaker 1: tell the family. Yeah, that's crazy.
[1:48:01] Speaker 2: So I don't mean to lie, but that that is
[1:48:04] Speaker 2: very insensitive, so.
[1:48:07] Speaker 1: To say the least, I would say very insensitive. Oh
[1:48:10] Speaker 1: by the way, those telegram here, But yeah, yeah, that's
[1:48:15] Speaker 1: that's tough. But you know.
[1:48:18] Speaker 2: That's but it's part of the job. You know, I
[1:48:20] Speaker 2: as a commander, so it's part of it's part of command.
[1:48:23] Speaker 2: You know, you come to that understanding that as a commander,
[1:48:30] Speaker 2: it wasn't my people at that point, but you're in
[1:48:32] Speaker 2: charge of people's lives. You're in charge of the words
[1:48:35] Speaker 2: you say matter, how you conduct yourself matters, And so
[1:48:40] Speaker 2: I could be a commander that's unhinged and do things
[1:48:44] Speaker 2: however I want and not care about the impact of
[1:48:47] Speaker 2: other people. But I think if you want to be
[1:48:51] Speaker 2: a good leader, you have to understand that and be
[1:48:53] Speaker 2: able to take on the fact that you're gonna have
[1:48:55] Speaker 2: to tell some people, family members, civilians, some awful things,
[1:49:00] Speaker 2: things that have happened, and how do you how do
[1:49:04] Speaker 2: you convey that message with empathy and compassion? And you know,
[1:49:11] Speaker 2: that was something that I didn't want to do, but
[1:49:13] Speaker 2: I'm I wish I didn't have to do, but I'm
[1:49:16] Speaker 2: glad I did it because it taught me so much
[1:49:18] Speaker 2: about who I am as a person, as a leader,
[1:49:22] Speaker 2: and how to do that better.
[1:49:24] Speaker 1: So, yeah, and it probably helps you understand the impacts,
[1:49:29] Speaker 1: especially as a commander, the impacts of decisions you know, yes,
[1:49:33] Speaker 1: that you make and how could it? How can this?
[1:49:37] Speaker 1: How could things have gone differently? Or you know, it's
[1:49:41] Speaker 1: that's the real world consequences of you know, I don't
[1:49:44] Speaker 1: know these specific circumstance, but sometimes it's the real world
[1:49:47] Speaker 1: consequences of bad decision making and by either the individual
[1:49:52] Speaker 1: to command or whatever. Yeah, it's unfortunate. The first person
[1:49:56] Speaker 1: I knew that died in the military was a kid
[1:49:58] Speaker 1: I went to boot camp with, and then I was
[1:50:01] Speaker 1: in MS training and then my MS training got held
[1:50:04] Speaker 1: back because my now ex was pregnant and I went
[1:50:08] Speaker 1: home for that for my son to be born, and
[1:50:12] Speaker 1: I came back and then he graduated like a month
[1:50:15] Speaker 1: before me or something like that. And then I got
[1:50:18] Speaker 1: to the fleet. I got to my first unit, and
[1:50:20] Speaker 1: I saw and his like best friend that had gone
[1:50:24] Speaker 1: through boot camp, he was in his platoon, had gone
[1:50:26] Speaker 1: through in MOS school and then they'd gone to the
[1:50:28] Speaker 1: fleet together. And he's like, hey, Mande, you hear about Bailey.
[1:50:30] Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, man, where's he at? You know,
[1:50:31] Speaker 1: I'm like looking around. He's like he died, dude, And
[1:50:33] Speaker 1: I'm like what. He's like, yeah, man, he died and
[1:50:36] Speaker 1: during a field up, during a training evolution. I'm like,
[1:50:39] Speaker 1: you know, And that was like the first like holy crap, man,
[1:50:42] Speaker 1: you know.
[1:50:43] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there your first I get that. The first
[1:50:49] Speaker 2: person who dies, like in your sphere of military, it's
[1:50:56] Speaker 2: it's a little jarring because, especially if they're the same
[1:50:58] Speaker 2: age as you, you realize that, like this is this
[1:51:03] Speaker 2: is not a game. This is something serious and it
[1:51:06] Speaker 2: can happen at any time. Get your act together and
[1:51:10] Speaker 2: make sure everything is done correctly. So yeah, I get that.
[1:51:15] Speaker 2: I understand that.
[1:51:15] Speaker 1: Like we said before, the rules are written in blood.
[1:51:17] Speaker 1: It really reinforces why we do things the way we
[1:51:20] Speaker 1: do them, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's whatever,
[1:51:23] Speaker 1: there's a reason why. And yeah there's sometimes there's overbearing rules,
[1:51:27] Speaker 1: but almost always when it comes to safety. For a
[1:51:31] Speaker 1: lot of most almost every rule there's an incident you
[1:51:35] Speaker 1: can look back to and go, we do this because
[1:51:37] Speaker 1: this happened and this person was killed, or this group
[1:51:40] Speaker 1: was injured, or this thing was destroyed. You know, there's
[1:51:44] Speaker 1: a reason why. A lot of it's not just you
[1:51:47] Speaker 1: know because.
[1:51:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, so and the military. In the pilot world, when
[1:51:53] Speaker 2: you have procedures, you have notes, warnings, and cautions, so
[1:51:58] Speaker 2: notes is something too, no cautions because typically damage to
[1:52:05] Speaker 2: aircraft has occurred, and warnings someone has died, So where
[1:52:11] Speaker 2: someone can really die or you can destroy aircraft and people,
[1:52:16] Speaker 2: So yes, joining you know, definitely in blood. It's it's
[1:52:23] Speaker 2: it's an eye opener.
[1:52:26] Speaker 1: Well, I've really enjoyed our conversation. This has been really
[1:52:30] Speaker 1: interesting and fascinating, and I have probably a million other questions,
[1:52:34] Speaker 1: but I wanted to go too long, so we'll have
[1:52:36] Speaker 1: to do something later on if you if you'd like two, Yeah,
[1:52:39] Speaker 1: we'll have to do something later on because I know,
[1:52:42] Speaker 1: I know between me and I'm sure other people will
[1:52:43] Speaker 1: have questions too. I've just you know, I started following
[1:52:48] Speaker 1: you may I think they follow your page. You may
[1:52:50] Speaker 1: know a guy called Extreme ross On And that's like
[1:52:55] Speaker 1: the first like photos and everything that I really enjoyed
[1:52:58] Speaker 1: of like the U two. And it's always been kind
[1:53:00] Speaker 1: of a fascinating job. And I've never seen like the
[1:53:04] Speaker 1: way he was showing photos from it. I was like, Wow,
[1:53:06] Speaker 1: that's really crazy if they allow him to do that.
[1:53:08] Speaker 1: But and the views are awesome, So which is kind
[1:53:12] Speaker 1: of where I led to me to you, and then
[1:53:13] Speaker 1: I'm you know, so I really appreciate you coming on
[1:53:16] Speaker 1: you know him.
[1:53:17] Speaker 2: Oh that's my all. I'm gonna tell you some quick,
[1:53:21] Speaker 2: dirty stories. There's a reason why he's called extreme because
[1:53:26] Speaker 2: he does things to the extreme. We get to trouble.
[1:53:29] Speaker 2: So I think on two occasions he he was my
[1:53:35] Speaker 2: relief in the YouTube community. So he come out and
[1:53:39] Speaker 2: you know, just the first time was in Cypress. We
[1:53:42] Speaker 2: were in Cypress, so he came to relieve me. And
[1:53:44] Speaker 2: I saw, Hey, Ross, what's up. So we have a
[1:53:46] Speaker 2: couple of days of overturn together and then I leave
[1:53:49] Speaker 2: and I look at him and I look at Denny eyes.
[1:53:51] Speaker 2: I'm like, don't you dare get in trouble while you're
[1:53:54] Speaker 2: out here? Said, don't get any crap. He's like, yeah, yeah, Meryl,
[1:53:58] Speaker 2: I got it. Yeah. I don't know if it was
[1:54:04] Speaker 2: two weeks later or a week later. He got sat
[1:54:07] Speaker 2: home because he wrote he wrote an email that went
[1:54:13] Speaker 2: around the world, and when I mean around the world,
[1:54:15] Speaker 2: and left Cyprus, hit the West Coast, ended up at
[1:54:19] Speaker 2: the Pentagon, and came back from the Pentagon telling him
[1:54:23] Speaker 2: to get home because he was gonna get his butt chewed.
[1:54:25] Speaker 2: So you got to ask him the story. It's a
[1:54:28] Speaker 2: great story. And then when I saw him, I looked
[1:54:31] Speaker 2: at him. I said, what did I say to you?
[1:54:33] Speaker 2: He goes, I know, Meryl. He's like, he's like, oh no.
[1:54:38] Speaker 2: Fast forward. I'm in the desert and he's relieving me again,
[1:54:45] Speaker 2: and we relieve. When we're talking. I'm like, bro, don't
[1:54:49] Speaker 2: you get in any bleep in trouble. He's like, I'm
[1:54:51] Speaker 2: not gonna get in trouble for for real. I think
[1:54:56] Speaker 2: he got in trouble on his way back home, missed
[1:55:00] Speaker 2: the flight coming home because they were in Dubai, and
[1:55:04] Speaker 2: then they went and ended up going skiing in Dubai
[1:55:07] Speaker 2: and missed their flying some stupid and so he got
[1:55:11] Speaker 2: in trouble again. And I mean he he got.
[1:55:15] Speaker 1: He was enjoying his time.
[1:55:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, he came home and I'm like, bro, you're a
[1:55:19] Speaker 2: hot mess. But in all seriousness, he's he's a really
[1:55:22] Speaker 2: good friend of mine. You'll see some stuff on my
[1:55:26] Speaker 2: Instagram at Dragon l seven eight eight, you know, shameless
[1:55:30] Speaker 2: plug some of his pictures because he does photography and
[1:55:33] Speaker 2: he does drone shots. So we live, I mean we
[1:55:37] Speaker 2: live like ten minutes fifteen minutes from each other. Our
[1:55:39] Speaker 2: kids are about the same age.
[1:55:40] Speaker 1: So I've actually asked him to even come on the show.
[1:55:43] Speaker 1: I just his page somehow led me to your page
[1:55:47] Speaker 1: and I was like, let's do that. You know, That's
[1:55:48] Speaker 1: why I sent you a message. It was just I
[1:55:50] Speaker 1: don't because I thought, I guess I thought he was
[1:55:52] Speaker 1: still doing it. So I was like, well, I'm not
[1:55:53] Speaker 1: going to ask somebody that's the airlines.
[1:55:57] Speaker 2: Oh so yeah he is. He did Dad at three
[1:56:01] Speaker 2: and uh, his oldest sons are twins and so yeah,
[1:56:07] Speaker 2: he's no, he's extreme. His call sign for a reason. Extreme. Yeah,
[1:56:11] Speaker 2: he's a hot mess.
[1:56:14] Speaker 1: Oh go ahead, sorry, Yeah he does some.
[1:56:15] Speaker 2: Crazy stuff, gets in trouble. I'm here for it though.
[1:56:19] Speaker 1: That's good, And people want to take a look at
[1:56:21] Speaker 1: his page if you want to see some really cool
[1:56:22] Speaker 1: photography from the U two. He's got some really good
[1:56:25] Speaker 1: images on there. It's extreme ross. So go ahead. Your
[1:56:28] Speaker 1: website is going to be in the show description, so
[1:56:30] Speaker 1: everybody can go and check that out if they want to.
[1:56:32] Speaker 1: If they want to go check out your website. Where
[1:56:34] Speaker 1: else would you like people to find yacht? You mentioned Instagram?
[1:56:38] Speaker 2: Instagram dragon Lady seven eight eight because I'm the seven
[1:56:40] Speaker 2: hundredth and eighty eighth pilot. Nice dragon Lady. Because of
[1:56:45] Speaker 2: the shirt you could check out my merch because I
[1:56:48] Speaker 2: was on Tough as Nails UH season two and so
[1:56:53] Speaker 2: this was this was the shirt that I wore, so
[1:56:56] Speaker 2: it was designed by another Air Force cat then at
[1:57:00] Speaker 2: the time, Dana LaBelle the show like the shirt and
[1:57:04] Speaker 2: when they first introduced me to the show, like they
[1:57:08] Speaker 2: zoomed in on my boobs and I saw the shirt
[1:57:11] Speaker 2: logo and I'm like, we got to sell this and
[1:57:13] Speaker 2: do something so partial, like not partial. All proceeds that
[1:57:17] Speaker 2: we make off the shirt goes to Mission twenty two
[1:57:19] Speaker 2: Veterans Organization.
[1:57:20] Speaker 1: Awesome.
[1:57:20] Speaker 2: So yeah. So so with that, on the show, they
[1:57:25] Speaker 2: kept calling me the Dragon Lady, which is the name
[1:57:27] Speaker 2: of the aircraft, but it's I've kind of kind of
[1:57:30] Speaker 2: distinguished it. Yeah, I fly the Dragon ly but I'm
[1:57:33] Speaker 2: pilot number seven eighty eight Ross. Yeah, so Ross is
[1:57:36] Speaker 2: I think he's probably pilot number seven seven ninety something
[1:57:42] Speaker 2: like we're very close. Yeah, I was like, you new guy. No,
[1:57:47] Speaker 2: we trained around the same time. So yeah. And then
[1:57:51] Speaker 2: if you're doing LinkedIn because you're a professional, I'm Merril Tengkestol,
[1:57:56] Speaker 2: subscribe on my YouTube because I don't have a lot
[1:57:58] Speaker 2: of people following me. I do motivational stuff speak.
[1:58:01] Speaker 1: I'll put a link to your YouTube channel in my
[1:58:03] Speaker 1: description too, so people can check that out as well hopefully.
[1:58:05] Speaker 2: Yeah. I just yeah, I do some motivational stuff talk
[1:58:09] Speaker 2: or I interview some people, sometimes really short interviews about
[1:58:13] Speaker 2: aviation or just uplifting things that people do.
[1:58:16] Speaker 1: That's good. I like the positive feedback to the community.
[1:58:19] Speaker 1: That's great. That's a that's good stuff. Everybody. You can
[1:58:22] Speaker 1: check my stuff out Former Action Guys and Former Action
[1:58:25] Speaker 1: News on Instagram. Uh, my website is jacremographics dot com
[1:58:29] Speaker 1: and that's it. I really appreciate you coming on.
[1:58:31] Speaker 2: Thank you for having me

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