Erick Horsley – MARSOC Veteran

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show, the show

where we encourage and inspire the next generation of blue

collar leaders by sharing the real stories of people who have

rejected the traditional white collar career path.

They have been there, done that, and are still out getting it

done, building success with their hands, their hustle and

their heart. Today I'm honored to have Eric

Horsley joining us. Eric is a former Marine who

served many years in MARSOC, the Marine Special Operations

Command before joining the Sheridan Sheriff's Department

and Sheridan, WY. Eric is a husband, a father and

a lover of the outdoors. Did I get that right?

Eric? You're a former Marine, not an

ex Marine. Yes, once a Marine always a

Marine. Correct?

This is a cool interview for me. Eric and I are actually third

cousins. This show focuses on blue collar

leaders, but it is really about chasing dreams and pursuing a

future outside of the traditional white collar career

track. I thought it would be super

interesting to have someone with a special operations background

on the show. That is when I realized that I

have not heard of your story in depth.

It was a little bit embarrassing for me.

I read books and purchase books and listen to podcasts about

special operators all the time. And here I have you just a few

miles down the road and I've never asked to hear your story.

So thank you guys for joining us and we'll dive right in.

So Eric, can you tell us a little bit about where you come

from? What?

What was your childhood like? Yeah, so I I was actually born

and raised in Sheridan, WY. Good family, enjoyed the

outdoors, got early on love for the outdoors.

I had a little bit of trouble in school, not that I didn't know

the material is just it really bored me.

I hated sitting in class, I hate doing that stuff.

Didn't really like math that much.

Not that I couldn't do it, I just didn't understand how it

would quite in real life, especially doing certain types

of math. And I realized early age that

just college wasn't for me. And at that time with my

generation and your generation, everybody pushed college like

you'd have to go to college, you have to go to college so you can

get a good job. And that just wasn't me.

And I knew that there were other options out there.

So I started looking into the military, found the Marine

Corps, and I decided that's what I was going to do.

When I decided that you probably around my sophomore year, that's

where I was going to go. And then I just dedicated myself

to that, made sure that I did get good grades.

That way I would be able to graduate with a diploma and get

in. And then I just went that route.

So I joined in about 2000, joined as an armor with small

arms repair technician. I thought that was going to be

really cool. It was like, man, the Marine

Corps is going to let me fix guns and teach me how to fix

guns And, and they did. But then I got put in a unit

where basically I went into a Cajun can of guns twice a day

for four years. Oh, man.

So it wasn't as fun as I was hoping, but I still enjoyed that

lifestyle. And I would hear, and there I

would. I would do a little bit of

college, then I'd lose interest in it and I'd go right back to

what I was doing in the Marine Corps and trying to just further

myself there. OK.

And I know if I remember when we were growing up, your interest

in the military started pretty early, maybe even before

sophomore year. Was there something that really

sparked that as something that you were interested in?

I think, yeah, you know, growing up in the 80s, it was that time

of the the action stars. You know, you get Arnold

Schwarzenegger and you get Bruce Willis and you get all these

great action stars and, and they just kind of built that into me

that I wanted. That's what I want to do.

I want to be in the military and do stuff like that.

Granted, the military does give you the opportunity to go to

college again, it just wasn't in my in my mind for that.

I wanted to just go in the military.

And I've always had that kind of that service mindset of doing

something for my country, doing something for my community along

those lines. And I've always enjoyed that

kind of 1. Yeah, and serving in the Marines

for 12 years and now in the Sheriff's Department, that's

exactly what you're doing, serving our community.

So thank you for your service. By the way, I've noticed, yeah,

a lot of the this shows kind of all about the non traditional

career track. But I grew up with the same

thing everybody said, get good grades, go to college, be

successful. And if you didn't do that, well,

you were destined for failure. And man were they wrong about

that. There's a lot of career tracks

that you can be very successful, serve your community, serve your

country and and build a great career.

For the kids that just college isn't their thing, school isn't

their thing. There still is a place for them.

To go. Do you agree with that?

Oh absolutely. The trades are a big one.

I have an 18 year old son and he was going to go to school to

become an electrical engineer is what he was planning on.

And then about a year ago he's he even told me he's like, I

don't know if I want to do that. I don't want to sit behind a

desk. He goes, I want to be out there

and doing stuff. So he actually wants to be an

electrician. Now he's just trying to find a

place where he can go and apprentice at.

But and he's really good at it. In fact, he's done some of the

electrical in our kitchen now. That's great.

That's awesome. But you said you settled on the

Marines pretty early on. What was it that made you settle

on the Marines versus one of the other armed forces?

I think when it comes down to it, you, if you want to do good

things, you want to do it with the best out there.

And at the time, in my mind, the Marine Corps was the best of the

branches. It was the one that challenged

you the most. It had the longest boot camp.

It doesn't have as many career paths as other branches, but I,

I wanted the challenge. OK, interesting.

And I know you said originally you became an Armor.

Did you know about MARSOC when you signed up to be a Marine?

No, at the time, in 2000, Marsoc didn't.

Exist. Oh wow.

That was just you had your Force Recon guys.

So in 2004 I came up for what we call AB Village and it's just

like an extra. So like your your recruiters,

your drill instructors, stuff like that.

I chose to actually be a combat instructor.

So I spent three years in well, it's still camp assume, but it's

a smaller camp attached to it and it's called well, it's and I

can't even remember the name of the camp now I know our small

camp that we trained the Marines on it was called Camp Devil Dog,

but it was on the New River Air Station.

We would go there. And so for three years I taught

weapons and tactics to the Marines that just got out of

boot camp. And I enjoyed being out the

field. I enjoyed doing that kind of

stuff. I enjoyed the the technical and

tactical aspect of teaching weapons and tactics and stuff

like that and I got good at it. And at that time in 2006, so it

was a three-year tour there. So from O four O 7 in 2006,

MARSOC actually got stood up. US SOCOM basically wanted a

wanted a group of greens because before they really didn't Recon

wasn't part of the US SOCOM world.

So they stood up MARSOC and so I went over there in O 7, the

second Marine Special Operations, and spent my last

five years there, absolutely loved.

Yeah. So you were probably one of the

first classes that went through MARSOC selection and training.

No, not the first. Very early on.

OK. Yeah.

And so is Recon and MARSOC still pretty distinct or have those

blended over the years? They are still separate.

SO Recon is still basically owned by the Marine Corps and

controlled by the Marine Corps and MARSOC is owned by the

Marine Corps but kind of controlled by SO and JSOC now

SO. Yeah, interesting.

Well, it's we hear stories about Delta and the Navy Seals and a

lot of the other SOCOM forces all the time.

But it seems like maybe MARSOC is the last of the quiet

professionals, as they say. I've not heard a lot.

You don't see as much about MARSOC.

Is there a reason for that or are you guys just a little bit

hydro do the best? So I mean, you're going to have

those guys in any profession that are the ones that go write

books and and tell their stories.

But the majority even in the Seals and Delta, they're still,

the majority of them are very quiet professionals.

But I think the reason either people don't hear about that

much is it's still a very new entity.

Again, it stood up in 2006 and so it's not even 20 years old

yet. And so they, I mean, you look at

Navy Seals and Delta, the Rangers and Green Berets,

they've been around for a very, very long time.

So they're, their names have gotten out there.

So it takes a while, I guess, for that notoriety to get out

there. Yeah, No vice president has

stood up and said the MARSOC guys did a great job tonight.

No, not yet. All right.

Well, I know again, we hear a lot about the Seals Delta, I

knew all about Buds and the Delta selection.

But can you tell us a little bit about MARSOC selection and

training and what is the process to get into a SOCOM unit like

that? And I'm sure things have

changed. I mean, it's been 13 years since

I've been out, but I know you go through an ANS assessment and

selection and, and during that anywhere, I think it's four to

six weeks. It's just they're doing

everything they can to destroy you.

It's and they're, they're doing things that you can't complete

physically. A lot of times it's just to see

if you mentally can stay at the game because a lot of it is that

mental fortitude, what they're looking for.

After your ANS and you get selected, you become what they

call a row and you're waiting for your, your slot to go into

ITC, which is their individual training company as they'll, and

then the pipeline for from that point where you start training

can be anywhere from six months to a year ending on what you're

doing. I mean, they have language

classes. I mean, there's other

specialties you can go through. MARSOC wasn't built as well or

as kind of like the the Green Berets or the ODA's as much as

where they have a weapon Sergeant, they have a medical

Sergeant, they have a engineer Sergeant, they have all these

different specialties within their team.

Whereas MARSOC really didn't have that.

If we had a medical guy, it was always a a Navy corpsman.

They didn't have really a weapons guy, unfortunately.

If you're an armor or a former armor, then you get to be the

weapons guy and then we'll pull what we call individual augments

from other units. So like if we needed an God guy,

we actually pull from the Greek or EOD and have them augment

over to us to be our EOD. And we had a great guy, an EOD

guy that I learned a bunch of stuff off of, really learned a

lot about explosives from him and he was extremely smart when

it came to that stuff. That's when I learned, like I

said before earlier, like I didn't really like math growing

up. I can do it.

I didn't like it. Then once I got in the green

Corps, I learned that I can actually weaponize math and I

realized, and that's pretty cool now.

So I use math and explosive. We use math and shooting all

kinds of really think cool things we can use math for.

That's awesome that's great so to the student that's in high

school doesn't want to go to college is hating math.

They still need to pay attention.

They they. Still need to pay attention some

of those things like your trigonometry and your and your

calculus and even your. Just your basic math is used

day-to-day. And then once you get into like

these specialties where you're running behind a sniper rifle

and you have to do math because I mean, math is all or sniper

rifles are all about angles. And so math plays into that.

It works really well. Yeah.

What was the most difficult part of A and S for you?

Well, and it really when it comes down to it, it's all

difficult and they they make it that way for on purpose.

They want it to be difficult, they but they want to see if you

have that mental fortitude to stay in the game, whether even

if your body's giving up on you, you're not giving up on

yourself. And then you learn a lot about

yourself and learn that you can do things that you never thought

you could do. Just could you push yourself

harder. Interesting.

That's been a theme I've been hearing from some of the

business leaders at their most proud moments.

Was that they kept pushing. They didn't give up when anybody

else would have. So it's like a trait that's

valuable in a lot of different arenas.

Well, yeah. And you look at like the Navy

Seals with their buttocks, their attrition rate is through the

roof. And it's that way for a reason.

They the things that they do are they push the body to it, the

absolute limits. But they're trying to see if the

mind can go for it. Yeah.

Is the attrition rate similar for A&S or do you guys do a

little more screening on the front end?

How does that? I don't think it's the attrition

rates is nearly as high as theirs and that could be due to

screening on the front end. It could be due to when Marsoc

first stood up, they just grabbed a bunch of guys that

were already Recon rates and shoved them into MARSOC said

hey, you're Marsoc now. So they're already kind of threw

and grandfather in. So, OK, interesting.

And they kind of had to build their program from the ground

up. Yeah, Yeah, that's a pretty

young unit. They were probably still

figuring stuff out when you got there.

Did did you get to play any role in fine tuning any of that or

did they have it pretty well there?

That's way out of my realm. OK.

Well, can you tell me a little bit about your time and service

that you said you joined MARSOC in 2007 and you enlisted in

2002? No, just 2002 thousand.

I mean it was I graduated on May 28th, I turned 18 on May 28th

and on May 29th I was in San Diego, CA.

So wow, wow, that's awesome. So where all were you stationed

and where all have you served throughout your 12 years?

So actually I was stationed on Camp Lejeune, NC my entire 12

years. I just bounced from unit to unit

within that that base, which is actually quite uncommon.

Most guys do hit California or they go to Okinawa, Japan.

I ended up just staying right there.

But I mean, I've been, I mean, if somebody wants to travel,

Uncle Sam is the cheapest way to do it.

You don't always get the best five star accommodations, but

you do get to see the world. I've been to Lisbon, Portugal,

I've been to Zaragoza, Tarragona, Barcelona, Rhoda,

Spain, I've been to Germany, I've been to South Africa, I've

been to South America. I mean, I've been to Ireland and

you get to travel and see the world.

I said it's not always the best accommodations, but it's free

so. 130 isn't quite first class. So awesome.

Well, I know one thing I always enjoy hearing about.

I'm guessing a lot of our listeners do as well.

You guys have got to be equipped with the the newest, the best,

the latest equipment. I know it's been a few years

since you got out, but can you tell us a little bit about the

the equipment you had and how you were equipped to dive into

battle? Absolutely.

So like like you said, it's been a while there.

Most of the stuff I used then was probably obsolete.

They got way better cooler stuff, but at the time it was

really cool. So like even just our regular

plate carrier. So we I had a long range US that

was for any kind of long range mission and I carried probably

about 6 rifle mags. I carried 6 pistol mags.

At the time we were using Mussok 40 Fives, which are the 1911

variant 45. We had M4A1 which are the the

Full Auto version of the M4. Most of our M fours had Daniel

Defence uppers. We had a 14 inch upper and a 10

inch upper depending on what mission set you were going into.

I know Eotech still big and they're still using them.

I love my Eotech especially just do the ease and use of that

thing. It's so easy to teach anybody to

use it. We'd have other optics like

Alcan Spectre VR, which is still a viable optic today.

Like right along with the Alcan. It's a kind of expensive optic,

but it's got a one to four power.

You just throw the lever and it's it switches from one to

four power. It's got illuminated dot,

illuminated reticle. So it was actually a nice little

tool to throw on like your 4th. Inch I I really like those

spectators. I have one.

Of those and they are very nice. If I could afford them, I'd have

one. On three Red Bull super clear

glass and then like back in the day when I was in the Mitch

helmet was like the the latest greatest and then we didn't

start getting those like the OPS core so fast helmets tell a

little bit later on, but I mean, it's nice having a good piece of

equipment that's lightweight for one and doesn't block.

So we, you know, we'll use either Peltors or we'll use like

MSAS or something like that for our, our hearing protection and

for our radios. And in the old Mitch helmets had

a hard time because they would come down over a little bit.

So it's hard to get them to fit up in there.

So the, the OPS chords were a lot nicer.

And then MVGS at the time we were using just dual tube your

DMVDSS. The we didn't at the time when I

was about the time I got out in 2012 when they started coming

out with those quad tubes, I never really got to play with

those very much. I got to see through them.

They're really neat, but they're really expensive and I have a

tendency to drop and break things, so I didn't get to play

with them too much. OK, yeah, some of the new stuff

they're. Coming out with.

It quad tube hybrids that do night vision and thermal bullet

thing. Right.

I I'd love to get to play with one of those, that'd be pretty

cool. Yeah, they're they're really

cool to play with. Like I said, they're extremely

expensive and I tend to break things a lot, so I didn't get to

play a lot of cool stuff sometimes.

But yeah, most of our most of our weapons were from US SOCOM

command. So like we'd have like your mark

40 eights and your Mark thirteens.

Yeah, most of our. So for somebody that doesn't

know, what is a mark for 48 or a mark?

So like a Mark 48 is a lot like an M240 machine gun.

It's just the US SOCOM version of it's a little lighter weight.

Our Mark 13 were sniper rifles at the time.

They're basically a Winchester 300 or A300 win a mag on a like

an accuracy international chassis.

They would have surefire suppressors on them.

Then usually we run like night forest scopes of a forest vision

on OK. So they had a lot of really cool

toys and then a lot of our indigenous weapons that were

from the United States Marine Corps ended up going back to

other units once we got that other stuff.

OK. Most guys at the time were

running like a PAC 16, which is just a small illuminator like a

laser has. So it has a visible laser and

has an IR laser latency under night vision.

I'm sure they've got way better stuff now, but.

Did did you have much to choose from or much say in picking your

equipment or did you kind of get what you got?

You said a lot of the guys chose that were their options.

Yeah, there were options. So basically you got issued your

suite of weapons so you can get your M4A1 with your 14 and your

10 inch barrel. And you got to decide whether

you're going to put your L or your L can on like your 14 inch

or if you're going to put on your 10 inch, you're going to

run your 10 inch all the time. If you're if you were going to

just be a a door guy, maybe that 10 inch is all you're ever going

to run. But they got their very little

suite that they got to kind of almost choose from and mix and

match what they need it. And then depending on your

specialty, if you were the machine gunner, then you would

run the M249 SAW or the the Mark 48 or something along those

lines. Snipers ran with either the well

there was a Mark 12, which is an AR version or an AR10 basically

that's just pack your eyes or they'd run that Mark 13 or

they'd have the the M1 O 7 Barrett, which is really heavy

even not always fun to carry rain the mountains of

Afghanistan, but it is a a fun weapon to shoot.

Yeah, interesting. Have you stayed up on any of the

new developments and any of the new equipment they're being

issued today? No, not so much.

Even most of the guys I was in with have now retired and gotten

out. So it's a whole new generation

in there now and I kind of lost track of that.

I do keep up now I'm in law enforcement.

I keep up in law enforcement for our equipment and stuff to go

along with. And that has to go along with a

lot of the stuff that I do anyway for our, for our office.

I hold quite a few different hats in our office, so.

OK, interesting. While while we're talking about

that with, what is your role now in the Sheriff's Office with?

Well, so I'm on the patrol division.

I just about a month ago or two months ago, I got promoted to

corporal. So now I'm one of the

supervisors. But I I'm an instructor in

custom control, which is the hand to hand stuff.

I'm an instructor in less lethal, which is all of our

impact munitions are gas. I'm an instructor.

I'm a use of force instructor. I was flexi trained use of force

instructor. I'm a flexi trained tack Med

instructor. I used to instruct Alice for the

schools, but now we have SRO, so they kind of took over that.

OK, what is Alice for somebody unfamiliar?

So Alice is kind of the instead of the old school way of there

was an incident at school, they just lock all the doors, turn

off the lights and have everybody huddle in the corner.

And they realize that that wasn't very conducive to keeping

people alive. So now they have, and this was a

couple years ago, there was a company that got stood up by a

retired police officer and it was he started Alice and Alice

was an acronym and it stood for alert.

Oh man, it's been a while. Someday you can talk.

So I got to think of what it is, but it's a it was kind of like

you run fight or run hider fight, but it gave people

options on how they planned on surviving.

So if they're going to alert lockdown, that's what L was

lockdown, lockdown, inform, evacuate or actually fight.

Then it got taken over by another company and it's a lot

harder to use that and teach it anymore because they won't allow

us to teach anybody that's not a government funded entity.

So schools, the courthouse back when Alice was just Alice, they

allowed you to teach churches, businesses and stuff like that.

And so now it's more along the lines of very school oriented.

And then I also taught tips in our office for the longest time,

which is kind of alcohol server training.

We teach bartenders and bar owners and anybody who's going

to be in the service industry for alcohol how to basically

serve responsibly to keep any kind of incident from going.

But my true like what I really like to do in the office is I

like my custody and control and I like less legal and I really

like use of force and not use of forces.

And I don't like using for some people, but I like teaching use

of force and teaching this newer generation about constitutional

use of force and and how to articulate things correctly in

your report so that it doesn't come back on you.

Later. Yeah, Yeah.

Interesting that that's something I've not heard a lot

about. Rolling back a little bit.

Is hand to hand combat training in in the Marines and in MARSOC,

is there a a particular discipline that you guys train

or practice or is it a combination?

What? What kind of training do you

guys receive on the hand to hand combat?

Yeah, so absolutely. So when I first started in 2000,

it was just the Marine Corps combat line training.

But it was pretty basic and it's in it's form.

And then I think I want to say with maybe 2002, the Marine

Corps came out with the Marine Corps Martial Arts program.

Marine Corps Martial Arts Program was a, a mixed martial

arts developed I believe by a guy named Colonel Shusko if I'm

not mistaken. Somebody can correct me if they

need to on that one. But he it was developed as a

better form of hand to hand combat because it uses all

things like Muay Thai Jiu Jitsu, still has some of the old basic

bayonet line training stuff in there.

And then they came up with the belt system through that and

with the big map system, I actually elevated all the way up

to a black belt instructor on that.

But it focuses a lot of a lot on ground fighting.

And well, First off, try not to get the ground.

But if you do get the ground, how to get off or get off the

ground and get back into the fight?

So they used a lot of that resume jujitsu and stuff like

that. Interesting.

Interesting. Going back to your equipment, is

the Marine Corps still using K bars or did you guys have

anything updated? As far as I know they're still

using K bars. I mean granted when we were in

we'd get benchmades and other strata.

There's another night out there called the striker night.

It's mainly for actually finding landmines.

It's non magnetic, non bearish. So it's I think it's like got a

copper beryllium coating on it so it doesn't create a spark.

And so there's a lot of really cool gear that we would get that

the rest of the recore may not get.

But it's kind of the when you have the Big Brother SOCOM, that

looks out for you and gives you money and you can buy nicer

stuff. Yeah, I imagine.

Seems like SOCOM guys always get the cool toys and everybody else

is left with the leftovers. So well you mentioned a little

bit about your time in the Marines and then the Sheriff's

Department. Can you tell us a little bit

what was it like coming out of the the high speed environment

and MARSOC and returning back to civilian life?

That was a difficult transition to be honest.

And it wasn't a decision I made lately.

I couldn't. I only had eight more years to

finish out my 20 and retire. But if the Octempo was so fast,

I mean you would go on a nine month deployment or a seven

month deployment. You come home for about two

weeks, get to see the family a little bit and you'd be right

back out training again for your next appointment.

And you usually, I mean you could spend anywhere from 6 to 9

months training for that next appointment and then you deploy

again. It got to the point where I was

missing so many birthdays and Christmases and Thanksgivings

and 1st like first steps, first words that I realized that it

was, it was putting a toll on my family as well, which is when we

finally made the decision. Me and my wife at the time or my

wife decided to, it was time for me to get out.

So I applied to different places.

I applied to the US Marshall Service, I applied to the CIA.

And it was one of those things that the more I started thinking

about that even I was like, man, I'm going to, I'm getting out of

this to prevent me from losing family time.

And I'm going into a profession where I'm going to lose family

time. So we made the decision, it was

about 2013 to come back to Sheridan.

And at the time I, I had to get a job on the BNSF railroad just

that that was enough to get us back to share it and get us into

a house and get us settled. But when you go like you're

talking about from that really fast-paced lifestyle to sit on a

train for 12 hours and staring out a window, it was tough.

It was really hard. And then knock to knock on BNS

out there, big multi billion dollar company, but you don't

feel like you're part of a family there.

It feels like everybody's kind of out for themselves.

There's no camaraderie anymore. So it doesn't feel like a

family. So after about three years of

that, I put in my application to the Sheriff's Office, got hired

and I get that same camaraderie that we had in that I had in the

Marine Corps. We're a big family.

We we look out for each other. It's not as fast-paced.

A lot of my time is spent on what people tend to call

frivolous calls or like a fraud call or something like that.

So you don't always get that high speed stuff, but every now

and then you get to have a little bit of fun.

Yeah, interesting. And you mentioned going on

training for six to nine months sometimes.

I know you guys get to do a lot of really cool training,

underwater scuba and more advanced underwater breathing

apparatuses. Of course, skydiving and Halo

Laylo. Any of those that were really

fun for you are really exciting. Well, and the military's really

good about sucking the fun out everything.

So like with your combat scuba and stuff like that, they you

think it's really cool. I'm going to be the scuba diver.

And then you got a guy that's rolling on the bottom of the

pool and punching his stomach and tying your hose in a knot

and turn your air off. And it's not as much fun when

they do that. But some of the classes that

even I went to in in Marsoc were just absolutely fun classes.

There's a company called Griffin Group.

They used to be down in Melbourne, FL than out of Fort

Bragg, NC, but they teach you all of your, your PSD, your

personal security detail. So you get all this evasive

driving training. So and they, they do, they put

you in a car and you're doing high speed maneuvers in an urban

area, You're doing pit maneuvers counter to the pit maneuvers

Grammy barricades for in reverse.

They do a rollover simulator, They do dead driver drills and,

and at first it sounds really cool and then you're practicing

it on this car that's on cinder blocks.

And after about two good iterations of practice, they put

you in a natural car and you're driving down some mock city and

there's mailboxes and cars flying by and all of a sudden

your driver slumps over and you got to take over the car.

That's kind of harrowing. Afraid you're not going to or

you don't want to smack into another car and kill everybody

in the car? Yeah, wow, that would be pretty

interesting. So, well, you brought up your

wife, I believe she was in the armed forces as well when you

guys first met, is that correct? Yeah, she was a Marine as well.

She was in, she was an ammo tech.

So I was in our mercy and ammo tech, guns and ammo.

We went together pretty well. You've been married 21 years

now. Congratulations.

So what was that like trying to build a marriage, build a

family, hold together a relationship when both of you

are subject to Uncle Sam's back and call?

And what did that look like? Well, for me it was a little

easier. She had just gotten, she had

finished her four year contract just as we got married.

So there wasn't that that pull to the Marine Corps for her.

What was nice though, is in I was blessed in this portion

because you get a lot of guys that do get divorces because

they're constantly gone, constantly gone and the spouse

doesn't understand and can't understand.

Whereas my wife being in the brain corps, she understood what

the life was and what I was doing and she seamlessly would

take over the the household if I was gone.

And then when I come back, not always as seamless because I had

a way of doing things. But then as I was gone, they had

their way of doing things. They had a routine that they had

built and I came into and, and it's almost like kicking their

sandcastle once I come home. So I had to learn really quickly

to just kind of let her do her thing and I'd fall into their

routine. OK, wow.

Sounds like you've handled that well.

So I know you grew up kind of aspiring to be part of the armed

forces. You dove into the Marines pretty

early in life, made that decision pretty early.

Do you have any opinions that have changed significantly as a

result of your service? And then the way that you look

at service, the way that you look at the world, that change

some. Absolutely changes your your

view of the world is completely different.

Growing up in Sharon, Wyoming, it is quite a sheltered life.

You don't get to see the world. You don't get to see what the

world's all about. Diving right into it and then

getting deployed to different, I mean Iraq, Afghanistan, going to

these different places and get to see how other people live and

what the the lifestyle cultures are there.

I think it's a really good experience for anybody that

wants to just branch out because you do learn a lot about

different cultures. You learn a lot about, I tell

the people all the time. You know, I went, I left

Wyoming, went in the Marine Corps to see the world.

And then I realized the world's not as cool as I thought it was

going to be, and that's why I came back.

That's great. That's great.

Do you ever miss it? Oh, everyday you're going to

always going to miss it. You're going to miss the, the

bonds you made with people, especially overseas.

You're going to miss the, the, I mean, you, you work with these

guys all the time. You eat, sleep, drink together,

fight together and you build pretty strong bonds to the point

where even my kids, I mean, a guy that I haven't, I've known

him better part 20 years now. He is, we haven't seen each

other for almost 10 years except for last year.

We went, we went on a trip and he was in Denver and we were in

Denver. So we met and it was like we've

never been apart. My kids called him uncle all the

time and my daughter, my oldest daughter, when she saw him in

that restaurant once, we then tell him we were going to meet

him, we go out to meet him and she just started crying because

she missed him that much. And you build these really

strong bonds with the guys and you do miss him every day.

But I've got a new life here and then and it's a good life.

And I'm doing a lot of community service here as well, which is a

very rewarding job in itself, OK.

Do you feel like most of the relationships and that bond

remained after you decided to leave?

I've heard a lot of spec OP guys talk about you know when you're

in you're all in and then you have the brotherhood but once

you decide to leave you're out of the group.

Is that the case or so? I don't feel that at all.

I mean, I can call guys from before and again, it'll pick up

like right where we left off like never happened.

So it's pretty tight knit. Group and and you said you feel

something similar at the Sheriff's Department.

I would imagine probably not nearly to that degree.

Is that accurate? Not nearly to that degree, no,

but there is a lot of camaraderie there and then we

look out for each other. I mean, a lot of times like in

Sheridan County, 2500 square miles and something we have a

minimum 2 deputies on. So we have a great day.

We have forum, not so great day may only be two covering 2500

square miles. We've got to be there for each

other, yeah. Yeah, I can imagine.

Are there any mistakes that you wish you could have avoided in

your career? I don't think so.

I know I've made mistakes and you always look back and then I

wish I hadn't done that. But then again, I think it's

every mistake we make, every success we have is what builds

us into who we are now. It's the lessons we've learned

through throughout time. Even those mistakes that you

wish you hadn't done, they taught you something.

Then there's the only thing I could say that I wish I'd have

done is I wish I'd have gone hand to Mars like a little

sooner. But then again, had I not done

that, I may never met my wife and I wouldn't have my 3 kids

now and my granddaughter. And so it's one of those things

that you look back and you think about it, but in the long run,

every mistake we made taught us something.

OK, interesting. So if you could choose to do it

again, would you still go on that career track and join the

Marines and MARSOC? Yep, 100% I would.

I would sign those papers again. Awesome.

What about it your kids, if, if your son decided he wanted to

serve in the armed forces or specifically if he was looking

at SOCOM, what advice would you give to him or what you would

you have to say to him? The biggest thing I'd always

tell him is just they're going to put you through things that

you don't think you can physically do and you may not

physically be able to do them. Just keep trying to the till

everything fails. As long as they see that that

mental fortitude and that that not that never quit mindset

they'll they'll do fine in that world.

OK. Would you worry about them going

into? That world, they always worry.

I mean, you worry about your kids, even when they're they get

their first driver's license and start driving their car.

And my son, when he first started driving his car to that

very first day, he was going to be driving himself somewhere.

I was like, hey, be careful of this, be careful of this.

Be careful. I know dad, I know.

And so I was patrolling up and story that day and he called me

like, hey, I'm, I'm in the ditch.

I was like, Oh yeah, how'd you get there?

And he goes, it's really slippery out.

And it's like, and I told you it was going to be slippery.

So you always worry about your kids.

And if he chose that career path, I'd be there to support

him. But yes, you worry.

About them, OK, that's some pretty quick reinforcement

there. It seems like my kids never

learned quite that fast. You talked a lot about being

pushed to your limits, being pushed fat past your physical

limits. What is it that gives you the

drive or the motivation to dig deep and keep going in those

instances? For me, it's that it's that

challenge. I want the challenge.

I want to show people that I can do it.

And nowadays, now that I've got my family, I do almost

everything I do, I do for my family.

We, we talk about it all the time.

We're training new cops up, especially in testing control.

I mean, that can be kind of scary.

It's like you're in a fight on the ground and in every fight

you're in, there's a gun in that fight that's yours.

And if they get a hold of your gun.

So we teach cops like just never give up.

You don't, you can't lose, you have to go home.

And so my family drives a lot of my my thought process now on how

I get things done and how I'm going to go.

I know in in law enforcement and military and especially in

SOCOM, it's pretty rare to come out of a career like that

without some lasting or significant injuries.

Do you have any effects that you're still suffering from, or

were you lucky enough to get out of one piece?

Oh no, we all have them. I think for every year you're in

the military, your body age is 5.

So I've got that angle, bad knees, bad back, that shoulder,

my sinuses are shot. And so there's there's a lot of

stuff that goes wrong with your body and I think it's a lot of

it is that pushing. You're constantly pushing your

body to its limit and beyond its limit sometime, and it wasn't

meant to do that all the time. OK.

Do you think outside of the the Marine Corps and specifically

MARSOC, I remember you as a go go go person.

They kind of like to push the limits.

Do you think that's something inherent in you or is that

something that the the Marines instilled in you?

You know, I can, I think it's kind of both.

So I've always had that, that attitude, like you said, I think

the Marine is just kind of sharpened it and honed it and

it's that kind of attitude and that kind of that, that drive.

I don't know if that's something you can really teach.

I think it just has to be there. You can.

You can mold it and like I said, hold it and shape it, but I

don't think you can make it appear somebody have it has to

be in that person already. Yeah.

So somebody without that is probably not going to be real

successful in a special operations career track.

Probably won't do the greatest. No.

OK. All right.

Well, this is one of my favorite questions.

Are you a person of some sort of faith tradition?

And if so, how is that shaped your leadership journey and and

your career track? Is that slowing decisions you've

made? Yeah, so I, I grew up going to

church and I'm, I'm very, I'm very secure in my faith.

And I think a lot of that also has helped me throughout my time

because I'm in the Marine Corps. They have, when you join, they

have their honor, courage, commitment, you know, and they

talk about that. And I think it's extremely

important for people, especially when you come from like a faith

background or you have faith, to remember why you do the things

you do and not to ever let yourself stray off that path.

So that integrity that you have is there because you do the

right thing, even nobody's looking because somebody's

always look. And later on in life or later on

that in the afterlife, I'm going to have to answer for the things

I've done. And I want to make sure that

I've got some pretty good answers on the board.

I don't want to have to stand there and try to justify

something that wasn't quite the right thing to do.

So I live a lot of my life just remembering that even though I

think nobody's watching, there's always somebody's watching.

And I've got to answer to that, OK?

Have there been any difficult decisions that you regret?

I wouldn't say that there's any difficult decisions now.

Me and my wife got married a little faster.

I wish I could get rid of the bigger wedding like she wanted.

We kind of we're in a crunch and had to do it quick, but.

Two Marines imagine. That Yep Yep 2 Marines.

There are two witnesses and the justice for the peace.

But to this day, I wish I could still get to get rid of that big

wedding. And one of these days, once we

maybe the kids are out, maybe we'll do a renewing our vows

together in a in that bigger fashion where where she kind of

deserves that. So.

Awesome, that's great to hear. Sounds like after 21 years

you're still very much in love with your wife and and

connected. Do you have?

I mean. Like you said, it's rare to come

out of the, especially the special operations community

with a relationship still intact.

Do do you have any advice for a young married guy, or maybe

specifically somebody that's in the?

Armed forces, yeah, not just armed forces, but even in, in,

in like anybody. The biggest thing is, is when

it's your spouse show vulnerability.

You don't always have to be the, the tough guy in the room.

They need to be able to see that, that you trust them enough

to be vulnerable in front of them.

And most relation, I mean relationships build up my trust.

My wife's been an amazing supporter of me throughout my,

my career and my varying career. She's always supported me.

She's always been there. When I applied to the CIA, she

knew that we may be moving up to DC and she knew that I'd also be

away again 6 to nine months out of the year.

She was with me on that. So it's my turn after we kind of

settled back down and shared and I realized it was my turn to

support her on her endeavors. So whenever she got a a new

hobby like photography, I fired the camera for it, right, Get

her the the software for it, just kind of push her and

support her and her endeavors as well now.

And I think that's a lot of marriages.

You may get support on one side, but not on the other.

As long as there's mutual support, I think that marriages

are going to last and then that mutual trust.

Yeah, that's great. I love what you had to say about

vulnerability there. When you're fighting the enemy,

you got to be the tough guy who you go home to your wife.

You don't have to be the toughest guy in the room.

Anymore, you don't have to be. In fact, my wife's probably

tougher than I am. I I wouldn't doubt that she's a

strong lady. So well, a question we ask on

every show. I know you're you're not in the

trades but maybe you have an opinion If you have to pick a

favorite power tool, what brand are you going with?

So used to have DeWalt, used to run DeWalt all the time and I

had the DeWalt with the big heavy 18 Volt.

Like trying to take screws out your arm gets tired you have to

hold your arm with. Couple years ago me and my son

decided that it was time to get rid of the old arcade to all try

to find a newer 1 and we did a lot of research.

We ended up going to Milwaukee, so I actually use a lot of

Milwaukee now. OK.

And he does too, and he loves them and he's, like I said, he's

trying to go into the trade. So a lot of the stuff that I get

him for his birthday and Christmas now, I buy him a lot

of electrical tools and I buy him the things that he needs for

that. Even though he hasn't started

any kind of an apprenticeship yet, I try to support, support

all my kids and what they do. Yeah, but no, I like Milwaukee.

It's been, they've been pretty good tools.

So. Far big red it is.

That's I think that's probably our winner thus far.

We've had a few DeWalt guys on the show, but Milwaukee seems to

be taking over. We've talked about a few

different career tracks. I know you have a few 3 kids,

right? Three kids and various ages,

when they're looking at their future in their career, do you

encourage them or push them any One Direction into you talked

about the trades, maybe a more traditional college career track

or military. Do you have any opinion or

direction that you push them? I don't, I don't push them as

far as once they decide what they want to do, I never push

them. I do maybe like the way for him

here and there, like my son when he wanted to go into be an

electrical engineer, I learned as much as I could about

electrical engineer. It seems like a lot of what they

do is they they build the grid on paper and then somebody else

builds it, builds it. When he decided he wanted to be

an electrician, he was worried I was going to be upset that he

wasn't going to college. And I told him like, look, man,

I was like the three trains you can never go wrong with because

there's always going to be a job no matter which state you ever

move into is like HVAC, plumbing and electrical.

Like when it's cold outside, people want it warm inside.

When it's hot outside, people want it cool inside.

When they flip their lights switch, they want their lights

to come on and they turn on their boss if they want water to

come out. And like soon as they even do a

trade as like you can get paid while you're learning it as like

you'll never come. You'll never have any college

debt that you have to worry about.

I was like, and you'll always have a job and like you may be

making 6 figures a year once you get up in there.

And I was like, you won't be turning power off to the guys

that didn't do it, a college degree and and now have a bunch

of debt and can't find a job because their degree doesn't

equate to the real world in a job.

Yeah, awesome. Cool.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

This has been a pleasure for me and thank you guys for joining

us here on From the Ground Up show.

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