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 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, it 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 push college.

Like you 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 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 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.

Come in. 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

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

successfully, 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.

Would 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

doing stuff. So he actually wants to be an

electrician. Now he's just trying to find a

place where he can go and Prentice that and he's really

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

electrical and art in the 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, that 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 armored. 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 that to 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 there's 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 Mars stock

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

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 and write books and and tell their

stories. But the majority even in the

Seals and Delta, they're still majority of them are very quiet

professionals. But I think the reason you do

people don't care 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 the 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

gate 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 is 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 OD as 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 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 EOD 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 Marine Corps, I learned that I can

actually weaponize math and I realized a math's pretty cool

now. So I use math and explosive.

We use math and shooting all kinds of really 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

to 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 hanging ass 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 butts, 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. Is the attrition rate similar

for A&S or do you guys do a little more screening on the

front end? How does that come?

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, your MARSOC rates now.

So they're already kind of through and grandfather 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 for

yourself. 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 Defense uppers.

We had a 14 inch upper and a 10 inch upper depending on what

mission set you were going into. I know EO tech's still big and

they're still using them. I love my EO Tech especially.

Just do the ease and use of that thing and 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 radical. So it was actually a nice little

tool to throw on like your 14. Inch I I really like those

specters. I have one of those.

They are very. Nice, if I could afford them I'd

have one. On three Red Bull super clear

Glax 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 cores, those 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 of 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 was 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 had 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 you 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

48 and your Mark 13. Yeah, most of our.

So for somebody that doesn't know what is a?

Mark for 48 or a mark 30 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 like

horse scopes of a horse vision on.

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

inch or if you're going to put it 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 sweep.

They got to kind of almost choose from and mix and match

what they needed. 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 got

now. So it's a whole new generation

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

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

I keep up in law enforcement or 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 custody and

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 tac 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. Something 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.

And it was pretty basic and it's in its 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. You Jitsu still has some of the

old basic bayonet client training stuff in there.

And then they came up with a belt system through that.

And with the MCMAP 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 Brazilian 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 get bench maids and other

strata. There's another knife out there

called a striker knife. It's mainly for actually finding

landmines. It's non magnetic, non ferrous.

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 Marine Corps may

not get. But it's kind of the when you

have the Big Brother so calm that looks out for you and gives

you money, 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.

You need to 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 off 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, then you'd be right

back out training again for your next appointment.

And you'd 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. And 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 VNS 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 6 to 9 months

sometimes. I know you guys get to do a lot

of really cool training with underwater scuba and more

advanced underwater breathing apparatuses.

Of course, skydiving and Halo Laylo or any of those that were

really fun for you are really exciting.

Well, and the military is really good about sucking up on

everything. So like with your combat scuba

and stuff like that, they, you think it's really cool.

I'm going to be this scuba diver.

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

pool and punching his stomach and tying your hose in the 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, then out of Fort Bragg, NC, but they teach you

all of your, your PSD, your personal security detail so you

can 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, ramming barricades for in

reverse. They do a rollover simulator,

They do dead driver trails 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've 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. We'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 place 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?

Well, every day, you're 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 by 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're 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 light 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? No, I know 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 nothing ever happened. So it's pretty tight knit.

Group and 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.

No. Are there any mistakes that you

wish you could have avoided in your career?

I don't think so. I know I 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 build us into who we are now.

It's the lesson we've learned through throughout time.

Even those mistakes that you wish you hadn't done, they

taught you something that 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. 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 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 in story that day and he called me

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

Like I got, 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 him. 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 custom 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, it'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 that 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, and I

think the rain 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 it.

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.

Yeah, 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 absolutely 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 mean, 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 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, they're 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 a 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 9 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

a camera for it. Like 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 laugh 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 that 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 with 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 now I like Milwaukee. It's been they've been pretty

good tool 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 and 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 that?

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 waveform

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, that

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.

So when they flip their light switch, they want their lights

to come on And when 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, 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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