Identity in Christ with Retired Navy SEAL Bill Rapier

Apologia Studios

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Non -rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it.

00:07

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite? We're being delusional. Yeah, I love to jest.

00:13

Delusional, yeah. Delusional is OK in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

00:20

So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly OK. It doesn't really hurt. It's the unhop on, man.

00:26

Yeah! What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

00:37

The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

00:44

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies.

00:51

Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, pasta.

00:59

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

01:06

Take an homies and journey, so you will never be the same.

01:21

Rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. When you have no fear of the one who is in authority, then do what is good and you will receive his approval.

01:30

For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.

01:35

For he is a servant of God and avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

01:42

That's Romans 13. Y 'all, welcome up. I almost nailed it.

01:48

I almost nailed it. Sorry. Welcome to Apologia Radio. I'm very excited for this. What? It almost ended at the exact time.

01:55

Yeah, I almost. Yeah, I was just going to fade it out and I missed it. You're fired. It's OK.

02:00

I thought it was great, still. Yeah, it was good. I appreciate it. It's hard when you're trying to control all the things at once.

02:06

And wearing a vest. And wearing body armor. Why, you ask, am

02:11

I wearing body armor? Which I am sweating like crazy. It is warm in here. I am wearing body armor because we have a new sponsor,

02:19

AR500, body armor that's Armored Republic. And I'm wearing one of their vests.

02:25

I thought you got in a fight with one of the guys that are like, I'm just going to kill you. And so you're worried about your life being taken.

02:33

So I thought I'd wrap them today. Luke has a lot of grudges held against him. Yeah, obviously.

02:38

Well, I think we probably all do. But AR500 .com, like I said, very excited to be partnering with them.

02:45

Zach and I got to get a tour of their facility this week, which was really, really cool. We got to see how they make all their different levels of armor.

02:54

And so, yeah, I am wearing one of the vests. I'm wearing the steel plates, which are surprisingly very comfortable for being like 50 pounds.

03:05

They're pretty comfortable. And I've worn a couple of times out on the range. And you get used to it.

03:11

And it's not too bad. But I will tell you, I want to tell you the mission of Armored Republic.

03:18

The mission of Armored Republic is to honor Christ by equipping free men with tools of liberty necessary to preserve

03:26

God -given rights. And actually, Kyle, I'm going to pull up the website right now. Oh, you know what?

03:31

Hold on. I need to finish reading that. Sorry. In the Armored Republic, there is no king but Christ. We are free craftsmen.

03:38

Body armor is a tool of liberty. We create tools of liberty. So very excited, like I said.

03:43

Here, go ahead, Kyle. This is their website. If you guys get a chance to check out their stuff, we'll be doing more stuff with them.

03:51

They're going to be sponsors at ReformCon, which I'll talk about in a second. And we'll be talking about them a lot.

03:57

So I'm very excited to partner with them. Yeah, I would just say, order your stuff now. Because they say when our freedoms go down, people are buying land to get away if they need to, and also body armor, weapons, and stuff like that.

04:11

So what did he say when we walked through? What did David say as far as why it spiked? Because of Ukraine.

04:17

Yeah, because of the Ukraine situation. And of course, at home. Yeah, I'm sure before that, he had a few other spikes.

04:23

Yes. Like with all the. Yes. Yeah. Just stuff not being available. Yeah, right. I would say.

04:29

You know, tyranny. Exactly. But if you're going to go buy it, which you should go there and buy body armor and all the stuff they have, just do it now.

04:36

Because you might be waiting for a little bit. And they have promotions all the time. And they're actually, what's cool about them is even though they could, they're not raising their prices on stuff right now.

04:46

Because they could and really kill it. But they're actually, I just, I talked to them again on Tuesday.

04:51

And if you go to the website here, you see about the Ukraine war. They're actually supplying some armor to some Christian pastors there in Ukraine, which is kind of cool.

05:00

That's awesome. Anyways, that's why I'm wearing this today. I'm not wearing it just because.

05:07

But there's a reason. Anyways, speaking of reform time,

05:14

I'll go ahead and I'll go to that website. You can pull it up here in a second, Kyle. We announced last week that we've gone live with registration.

05:25

Here it is. And I'm very excited about ReformCon. We're going to have some really great speakers, including, of course,

05:33

Pastor Jeff, Pastor James, slash Dr. White, Joe Boot, Andrew Sandlin, John Sampson, David Bonson.

05:43

Uncle Gary? Uncle Gary can't come, though. It's all right. He's a busy guy. He'll be a new voice.

05:50

Yes. I'm excited to have him. Yeah, very excited. So right now, you can go and get the early bird tickets.

05:57

And we'll have that for a little bit longer. And then we'll go to the regular price. We've been getting a lot of questions about a hotel.

06:04

If you go to the site and look, you actually can get a sweet discount at the hotel.

06:11

Like a S -U -I -T -E discount or a S -W -E -E -T? Oh, wow.

06:18

Yep. A sweet, sweet discount. Sweet, sweet discount. So yes, you go there.

06:25

And they're book lodging. And you can get really great rates. They're giving us for the rooms there. And we've also been asked a lot about family pricing.

06:35

That is coming. So be patient. We will be offering discounts for families. So yes, very, very excited about that.

06:44

But anything else on that? Just come. Just, yeah. Come in the Hangout. Please come. Come be with us.

06:50

That is October 27th through the 29th of 2022. That is Reformation Weekend, which makes it even more cool.

06:57

Extra reformed points for that, just so you know. Yeah, we claim that weekend.

07:02

We all get tallied up. We claim that weekend. I don't know who's doing what. You know what? Reformation Weekend is ours now. Right. Yeah.

07:10

Anyways, I'm going to get right in here. To our guest, I'm very, very excited.

07:17

Obviously, we've been talking a lot about the Navy SEALs and how we've been able to get involved with helping them fight the cookie mandates.

07:25

And we've had Davis on, the lawyer that's helping us out. With that, we had

07:31

Jeremy Stalnecker a couple weeks ago from Mighty Oaks kind of talk some more along those lines.

07:39

And so Zach and I have been watching a lot of Navy SEAL interviews, as well as Pastor Jeff. And I think

07:44

Jeff sent us one probably a couple of months ago, maybe, with our guest

07:50

Bill Rapier. I'm going to bring him on here in a second. And he was on Mic Drop with Mike Ritland.

07:56

And right away, I was like, this dude's a Christian. Yeah, absolutely. And we need to get a hold of him.

08:03

And so I very quickly talked to some people that might possibly know him and got his number and was able to talk to him.

08:10

And so I am super excited to have Bill Rapier on, who you were 20 years as a

08:19

SEAL, correct? Yes, well, 20 years in the service, about 18 of them, actually.

08:24

It takes about two years to get your trident, so about 18 of it, actually, as a trident wearer.

08:30

And 10 years, or 10 deployments with DEVGRU, correct? 10 combat deployments, yes.

08:36

OK. So I'm very excited. Bill, why don't you just go ahead and tell us about yourself and what you're up to now.

08:43

And then we'll ask you lots of questions. Roger. So first off, thanks, guys, for having me on. Great to be here.

08:51

My folks were missionaries. So I grew up overseas. I lived in Germany for about eight years.

08:58

I lived in Swaziland in southern Africa for a couple of years. I would,

09:05

I guess my understanding at the time, I would say that I became a Christian at age five.

09:12

I still remember being in the back seat of a car and looking over and asking one of my buddies if he was going to heaven and then saying the sinner's prayer and then saying, well,

09:20

I am now because I said the sinner's prayer. As we can get more into theology as we continue.

09:29

But I would question how, looking back on that now,

09:35

I would kind of question that as I grow in my understanding. So I grew up in a

09:41

Christian household. Germany was an interesting place. I was actually glad when we left there and then loved

09:50

Africa. Southern Africa is awesome. Actually, for a long time, my goal in life was to move back there and just do a game farm and take people hunting and raise cows.

10:00

But we moved back from Africa when

10:06

I was 13 or 14 years old, moved to Colorado. And so that was really the first, well, the second time of going to an

10:16

English speaking school or a school stateside anyways. The first time was for about half a year.

10:22

I'd gone to a private Christian school in SoCal. So it was somewhat of a culture shock,

10:31

I would say, going to school in Colorado Springs there. Come about my junior year,

10:41

I started playing sports and started partying a little bit and kind of really fell away from being serious about my faith.

10:52

And then kind of went along that line.

10:58

You know, never renounced my faith or anything crazy, but definitely was not living my life for the

11:03

Lord. Joined the Navy the day after graduating from high school,

11:11

I shipped off to bootcamp. So did bootcamp at Great Lakes, then went to Corman A school.

11:17

So the way the Navy or the steel teams worked at the time is you had to have a trade that they thought was somewhat applicable on the periphery to the actual job of being a

11:28

SEAL. So Corman, or I guess normal speak for that would be medic, was one of those jobs.

11:35

So went to Corman A school for a few months in San Diego after bootcamp and then checked into Bud's, I think it was

11:42

Thanksgiving day of 94. Yeah, and -

11:48

Water was cold. It wasn't too bad in San Diego at the time.

11:54

That was El Nino winter. So it was, it actually, we had great surf that year. But yeah, checked in and took me longer than most to get through Bud's.

12:06

I think it was, well, I got rolled twice. So I got rolled the first time for going through training.

12:14

I got rolled for dive physics. And the funny thing here was that it wasn't, so this is post hell week.

12:23

It wasn't really the physics part of the dive physics that I had an issue with. It was the fact that I had been using a calculator for so long to do long division that I had forgotten how to do long division and we were not allowed to use calculators.

12:35

So totally failed the test. Got put into a super embarrassing remedial math course where on day one, the lady gets up on the chalkboard and she goes, this is how you add.

12:48

So it was a little bit embarrassing, but I did learn how to do long division again. And so aced my test the next time through, but still had a hard time with the runs.

12:57

That was just something post hell week. And I still don't really know exactly what was going on with me, but pre hell week, never had any issues passing any of the runs.

13:06

Post hell week, I could not keep 11 or 1130 pace to save my life. I was so far behind the pack.

13:13

And so I got, I think it was day one of dragger dive.

13:18

So I passed hell week at first phase and then pool comp in second phase. That's the big second phase test.

13:26

And then failed a run in the morning and had to go to the basic training officer and stand in front of him.

13:33

I remember him telling me, rapier, you've got two choices and they're both bad. One is cleaning out bedpans at Balboa and the other one is going back to first phase.

13:43

And I said, well, sir, I'll take first phase. So I had to go to supply and trade in my brown t -shirt, which is probably the most coveted item in Bud's is you get your brown t -shirt after going through hell week.

13:54

So I had to trade the brown t -shirt in for a white one and then join up with class 201, which is the class that I ended up graduating with.

14:02

And it ended up working out well because the pace of the runs was slow enough still with that class that I was able to build up slowly.

14:10

And so graduated Bud's, took about a year or so to get through, then went through the dive med tech course.

14:19

So basically understanding dive physics and how to treat that from a medical perspective, then drove out and did basic army airborne school, then went to 18

14:31

Delta. So I got to go to the last class in San Antonio, which was great because San Antonio is a much better place to hang out than Fort Bragg.

14:40

Which is where everyone has gone since then. So did our medical class there and then 96 drove out and checked into SEAL Team 3.

14:51

I did a couple of years at, yeah, and if you wanna stop me at any point, let me know.

14:56

Yeah, go ahead, I'll let you. Yeah, just keep going. So I did about four years at SEAL Team 3.

15:05

While I was there, I found out about this place that people just kind of whispered about called Dev Group.

15:11

And I'd never even heard of it. And then as I started, as soon as I found out a little bit more about it,

15:16

I'm like, well, that's the place that I wanna go. Which when you're a brand new guy, you don't even say that, you just focus on being a new guy.

15:25

And that's a secret that you wanna do that someday. And so I screened for the command after my first deployment and screened positive.

15:36

And a couple of months after returning from my second deployment. So when

15:41

I say deployment, that's a whole workup and a deployment. So about a year and a half to two years for each cycle of a platoon like that, or at least that's what it was back in the late 90s.

15:53

So after returning from my second deployment, drove out to the East Coast, and then

15:59

I ended up staying at the command for the next 14 years or so until I retired.

16:05

So I retired out of there in June of 14. And I've only been back to Virginia once since then.

16:12

We basically on the day after I was officially retired, well, we'd already been living in a camper.

16:20

We'd sold our house, we'd been living in a camper for a few months. And so the day after I was officially done, we started heading

16:26

West and great adventure. It's almost eight years late. I mean, really amazing to think it's eight years and an additional three kiddos later.

16:38

And yeah, and here we are. And you have six kids? Seven. Seven. Yeah.

16:44

That's awesome. The youngest is eight months now, so. That's awesome.

16:50

How old's your oldest? 14. 14, awesome. Very, very cool. So we'll get into what you're doing now here in a minute.

16:59

So just to backtrack, I wanna ask a couple of questions. I think if I remember correctly, even though when you got rolled that first time, you didn't have to do

17:07

Hell Week again, correct? I did not have to do Hell Week twice. No, that was, Hell Week beat you up pretty bad.

17:15

So when I, yeah, both of those times that I got rolled, and then especially the second time where I did have to join back with first phase, they did not make me go through Hell Week again, which was very nice.

17:27

Yeah, seriously. So aside from the math and the running issues, what would you say are the hardest part of BUDS was?

17:35

Hands down, being cold. No, no, yeah, no, and any guy that went through a winter

17:41

Hell Week will say being cold is the worst. If you ask guys from summer Hell Week, some of them will say running with a boat on your head.

17:49

I think we barely even ran with boats on our head before Hell Week, and it was just because we had such good surf.

17:57

It was that El Nino year. So there was days when there would be six lines of surf out on the strand, and with tubes that would swallow, you know, they'd fold your

18:09

IBS in half, and everyone would disappear for a moment, and then you'd come bobbing back to the surface.

18:16

So the instructor, I mean, actually, not only the instructors enjoyed watching this, but all the SEAL teams that were out there, guys would just come out and sit on the berms and just watch us get hammered up there, because, yeah, it was actually pretty fun, like in retrospect, much more fun, you know, paddling through the surf and getting crushed than it is to run up and down the beach with a boat on your head.

18:37

Oh, seriously. So Pat, Zach is actually from San Diego, so how old would you have been? You said I was about 94?

18:44

Yep. How old would you have been? I would have been 15. So do you remember that El Nino year?

18:50

Yeah, I remember the El Nino, because it blows all the good fishing up in there, and so you can go out and catch yellowfin and bluefin and albacore, but man, that's such a blessing because the water is so much warmer, because I was thinking about you going through it during Thanksgiving time.

19:07

It would have been pretty chilly down in the 60s, but that El Nino makes everything warmer, so that was definitely a blessing for you.

19:14

That's awesome. And you actually, I was listening to some more interviews again today to refresh and remember, but you actually graduated high school early, correct?

19:23

Yeah, I was 17, so just bouncing back and forth. So the German school system, better than American school systems, at least academically, better.

19:34

So when I came to the States the first time, like I was way ahead, and then when we moved to Africa, I was way behind because I'd been,

19:44

I mean, it's embarrassing, but because I'd been at a private Christian school stateside for half a year, and it had really slacked off, so I actually got held back a year in Africa, and then had to do a bunch of tutoring and whatnot to get me back up to speed.

20:02

And then anyways, when I moved back stateside, they said, I should have entered as a freshman, but they had me take a test, and they said, well, you can come in as a sophomore, which was great.

20:14

So how old were you when you graduated Great Lakes, and were you still 17? 17, yeah. I turned 18 right before checking into BUDS, about a month before, yeah.

20:24

That's, I mean, what was that transition like? And I want to talk, I want to ask you some more questions about growing up as an

20:30

MK, but like, what was that transition like going from an MK to you're 18 years old, and you just joined

20:36

BUDS? It was, I mean, it was a big, obviously a big, big transition, but I would say a lot of it,

20:46

I had kind of shifted down a different path, away from the straight and narrow for maybe the last two years of high school.

20:58

So it wasn't a massive, it was just that a lot of the other people were doing the same stuff that I was doing.

21:04

Yeah, gotcha. So I'm really interested more in, like I said, in what it was like being an

21:12

MK. So my mom was actually an MK. My cousins were MKs, so I'm very familiar with that sort of journey and lifestyle.

21:23

So tell us more about, what was that like? I know you were in several different countries. So tell us more like what that was like just as a kid, because I heard one thing you were saying,

21:33

I think to Ritlin, where you're just like, I didn't really, I just was a kid. I was skateboarding. But then like,

21:39

I'm curious how that impacted you then once you joined the

21:45

Navy and how maybe some things you learned as an MK positively or negatively affected you once you joined the

21:53

SEALs. I would say probably the biggest shaping thing of just growing up overseas, especially when you are the only

22:07

American kid at your school, is you see things from a much more international perspective.

22:15

And then also you just, geography makes more sense to you and understanding different cultures.

22:23

I think there is, that can be a problem with if you don't leave the

22:28

States or you don't leave your state at all, like it's very, it becomes very, you think the way it is where you live is the way it is everywhere in the world.

22:39

And so that is one of the benefits of being an MK is that it was very easy to pick up, make new friends, see that things were different.

22:51

I mean, I was pretty good at picking up new accents like from different parts, like Bavaria is, they speak

22:58

German a little bit differently there as they do in Langhagen up by Hanover. It's Hochdeutsch up there, which is a little bit different German.

23:09

So doing that and then moving stateside and I remember wanting so bad to be

23:15

American. I mean, this was an interesting just aside. I remember one point thinking to myself,

23:24

I'm like, man, I've lived in Germany longer than I've ever lived in the United States. And that really bothered me because as very much part of my identity at the time was

23:34

I'm an American. And I remember making a conscious decision that I'm gonna stop thinking in German and I'm gonna think in English and I'm gonna try and speak more

23:43

English at home just because that was something that was important to me.

23:53

And so I would say that's another thing that is you're just kind of looking back on it.

23:58

They used to say this about the colonies and the British colonies that the colonists were more

24:04

British than the British were. And at least from what

24:10

I've seen, I completely agree with that. I mean, just looking at when I lived in Swaziland, it was very much, there were school uniforms and you had assemblies in the morning and you sang, you are my sunshine and there were prefects that would run around with sashes on, they got to tell you what to do.

24:32

And it was a different thing, but then also that American identity was very much a part of me.

24:40

I mean, when we lived in Swaziland, you could go as an American, I could go to the ambassador to Swaziland, I could go to his house and he just had a local indigenous guard at the gate.

24:52

And I would just say, hey, I'm an American and he would let me in and I could use the swimming pool and any of the Americans that were there could use the pool.

24:59

And so that just that sense of, hey, we're all the expats kind of hung out together and like we'd watch the football, the

25:06

Superbowl at like two o 'clock in the morning. And I didn't even,

25:12

I don't think I even understood the rules of football until like a year or two after moving to the States.

25:17

And it was just a cultural thing that, hey, we're Americans and this is what Americans do.

25:23

We're gathered with other Americans and do this. So that was definitely shaping in my life and kind of interesting,

25:32

I think, to look at it now because now I look at my identity so much more as Christ follower above everything else.

25:41

You know, I've spoken at that at, you know, once or twice for our, we do a

25:48

Independence Day celebration and just laying it out that, hey, this is, you know,

25:53

America's great, but kingdoms rise and fall and God's people continue. And so just, you know,

26:01

I think it's just interesting now looking back on it of how much, like I really had that more,

26:06

I would say more of an American identity as a, you know, kid and then as a young man than I did as looking at myself as a follower of Christ first and foremost and an

26:17

American, you know, second. Well, we're going to get into that for sure here in a little bit.

26:26

So I forgot I was gonna ask you, you said, I think you said that you got into some trouble a little bit there, your last couple of years of high school.

26:38

What kind of issues did that create for your parents who were serving as missionaries and you were fighting or drinking and partying, whatever, like did that cause issues?

26:47

I was just curious. So I was pretty good at hiding it and not being, you know, overtly rebellious.

26:54

I have apologized to my parents since then, you know, about, I mean, for lying to them.

27:00

Yeah, I mean, like I was sneaking out and, you know, drinking and whatnot. And yeah,

27:08

I was, you know, and I think part of where I maybe had a little bit of leeway was just in the fact that coming from Germany, you know, in Germany, I think you can buy beer when you're 14 and just the culture, like the pastor of the church that we were at had a full liquor cabinet, you know, but his wife thought that it was highly indecent to put on makeup.

27:35

You know, and so it's just an interesting, you know, interesting cultural thing there. So I think because of that, it was somewhat easy for me to say, oh no,

27:44

I just had like one beer and get away with it a little bit when obviously

27:50

I'd been consuming a little bit more than that. Well, just curious, so what did you, what kind of work did your parents do?

27:57

I think it sounded like you maybe were supporting local pastors maybe in the places you were at. Yeah, so my dad, he started working for, shoot,

28:06

I think when he started, it might've, it was still, I think, Overseas Crusades. The organization started in the Orient, so it was called

28:12

Oriental Crusades. And then when it started growing globally, it became

28:17

Overseas Crusades. And then when Crusades fell out of favor, it became OC International.

28:23

And then I think now it's just called OC Global. At the time when we were with them, the model was very much send the, you know, the

28:32

American missionaries overseas to work with local pastors. It wasn't like the church planting type missionary.

28:40

It was work with local pastors. That has since morphed to what

28:45

I think is a better model where it's a lot more supporting indigenous folks and with American enablers, to put it in military terms,

28:57

American enablers or pastors or teachers going over there and helping with things. And so my dad started his own thing back in the, it would've been like mid to late 90s.

29:09

He started African leadership development, and then he's been still working.

29:15

They actually moved back to, well, they moved to South Africa then when they moved back there after I joined the service.

29:22

And that was because apartheid at that regime had fallen. So they moved to South Africa and then worked a lot in Zimbabwe and now

29:33

Mozambique as well. And so they've got some orphan homes that they're helping with and then also helping develop the local pastors.

29:41

Very cool. My great -grandparents were actually, they were missionaries in Africa, Kenya, Rwanda area.

29:50

That's where my grandfather was born. And then my grandparents went to, they were in the

29:56

Belgian Congo in the 50s. That's where my mom was actually born, in the Belgian Congo. 57, they ended up having to flee because of civil war and stuff, and were not able to go back.

30:07

So I very much have a heart for Africa as well. Just curious, growing up as an MK, did you ever hear of the

30:14

Rift Valley Academy in Nairobi? Yeah, I did hear about it, yeah.

30:20

My great -grandfather helped build that, so. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, we actually have pictures. I should have had them.

30:26

I have some cool pictures of, they were there. Teddy Roosevelt was there on a safari and laid the cornerstone and stuff.

30:33

Wow. Yeah, so that's cool. That's cool that you actually - That is cool. I figured, because that's where most of the missionary kids, even today, they still use a lot of MKs, go to that school in Nairobi.

30:42

So, very cool, that's exciting. Do you guys have any questions before I move on to the next subject?

30:49

No, go ahead. So, I think one of the things I heard you say with Ritland that immediately was when

30:57

I was like, I gotta get him on. I think it's when you were, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's when you were screening for DevGuru and they asked you, when they said, well, the

31:06

Bible says, thou shalt not kill. Wasn't that when you brought that up? Oh, yeah.

31:12

So, I'm very excited to have this conversation with you. So, I heard the answer you gave him and I was like, okay, he gets it, he understands it.

31:21

So, I'm just gonna let you go with, tell us that story and your response and we'll spend some time on that.

31:27

So, I'm in front of a board, so I'm screening to go to the command and I'm in front of a board of a bunch of senior enlisted guys, a psychologist, a doctor, a couple of support people.

31:41

And they're basically, it's this horseshoe set of tables and you're sitting in the middle of it and they're asking you all sorts of different questions.

31:49

And then at one point, the psychologist said, or psychiatrist says,

31:55

I see that you say that you're religious, but the

32:02

Bible says, thou shalt not kill and you're trying to come to an organization where that might be required of you.

32:09

How do you rectify those things? And I just said, well,

32:15

David was a man after God's own heart and they wrote songs about the number of people that he killed, right?

32:23

Saul is slain as thousands and David is tens of thousands. So, I said, I don't think it will be a problem for me to do the same thing.

32:31

Right, and then I think, because I heard you tell Ritalin as well, then the word there in the Hebrew is not kill.

32:36

And that, I mean, we hear that all the time because we have a huge, obviously with an abortion now, we're trying to end abortion and the topic of the death penalty comes up a lot.

32:48

And so we hear that, well, the Bible says, you shall not kill. It's like, well, that's actually not what it says. It says, thou shall not murder.

32:54

Murder, yes. Right, and so there's a tremendous difference. And so I'd like to hear, as someone who spent 20 or 18 years as a

33:04

SEAL, like talk about that, the difference between kill and murder, because obviously that's something that affected you on a daily basis.

33:12

Hugely, yeah, so I guess for me, it was never a, it was never even a question, honestly.

33:21

Like from a young age, I was taught that murdering people, okay, I hate you, I don't like you for whatever reason,

33:27

I want your stuff, I'm jealous of you, and then killing them, that's murdering someone.

33:34

Shooting someone that is attacking your family or going to war and killing people is, that's not murder.

33:42

So to me, that was never even a thing. Like it was not until significantly later that I even met someone that I was in a

33:51

Bible study with that was absolutely a Bible -believing Christian that was actually thought that all killing was wrong, regardless of circumstance.

34:00

So yeah, just, it wasn't a thing at all. I've started teaching now and I give a mindset talk and anytime

34:11

I do a two -day class on the beginning of day two, I do a mindset talk and as part of that, we will talk about killing.

34:17

And I actually throw that Old Testament analogy out, not analogy, but I just say, hey guys, there's, how do we, is all killing wrong?

34:29

And kind of let that absorb for a minute and then say, okay, well, there's this book and in that book, there's a set of rules.

34:37

And one of those rules is thou shalt not kill. So how do we rectify that with, and I'll ask him beforehand, most of the guys are like, no, it's not always immoral to kill someone.

34:50

And then I just kind of lead down the trail of, well, the word that's used more frequently is used in the context of murder than it is in the context of just manslaughter or anything else.

35:03

The ancient Hebrew texts are, if we look at, there's plenty of examples of, if the axe head flies off and strikes your neighbor, it's this penalty.

35:14

If someone breaks in during the daytime, it's this penalty. If it's at nighttime, you can kill them. Like they had different rules and so the ancient

35:22

Hebrews had different words for killing, just like we do. So while the King James Version is not incorrect by saying thou shalt not kill, because if you murder someone, you are killing them.

35:32

However, it is more correctly translated as thou shalt not murder because not all killing is murder. And it is super important that we do wrap our head around that because if you get that wrong and coming out a little bit more from the protecting yourself side of things, if you, deep down inside, think that the taking of all life is wrong, then that could lead to hesitation and that hesitation can lead to regret because something happened that you were the guy.

36:07

You were there, you had the tools on you, you had the training, but then you were still questioning things in your mind.

36:13

That's really why... So when I talk about this, I'll talk about it in terms of willingness and it's so important to understand what our willingness is and who have thought through these hard things prior to being in a stressful situation because that is not the time to start having those, oh, is this really the right thing to do?

36:32

You have to do what we call pattern recognition, right? You see something and you don't have to go, well,

36:41

I'm seeing A and B develop. Now the ears come up and now C and D and E happen and then

36:48

F is you dying, right? We should be able to see A, B and C and then go, well, I know where this leads, so I'm just gonna go ahead and skip forward and do something to stop this from happening, right?

36:58

But you only get that by pattern recognition by actually by training for this. So back to the context of the

37:06

Bible, it is so important as followers of Christ, we need to know what this book actually says and then we need to apply it to our lives because you can't go, well,

37:19

I believe this stuff, but yeah, there is this thou shalt not kill and I'm just gonna ignore that part of it.

37:25

And you end up with a very fractured theology if you're just gonna gloss over stuff because you don't like it.

37:33

I mean, we have to look at it and go, what does it actually say? What does it actually mean? And then go from there.

37:40

It makes complete sense for them to ask you that question though, because I'm assuming you've been in situations to where if you hesitated because you felt like you were doing the wrong thing, you would probably not be here and people around you would have died as well.

37:56

Am I correct? Yeah, I mean, so at work, honestly, it was never a thing for me.

38:06

It was very much, okay, this is what the ROEs are and there were times where I did not shoot when

38:12

I could have shot and it's because I was giving people the benefit of the doubt. So it's not just, well, this is what the

38:18

ROE says and it's cut and dry and we're gonna shoot regardless. There was times when I didn't shoot because there was enough other circumstances there to where I was gonna let it play out a little bit.

38:33

But it is, yeah, you just, you have, oh, I know where I was gonna go with this.

38:40

As I have thought about this more and just realizing that I am in a position of, really,

38:48

I'm in a position of authority. When I'm sitting there and I'm talking to guys about fighting and protecting yourself and your family, the guys are gonna listen to what

38:57

I say. And so it is really, really important that I get it right. So I've become more serious.

39:06

So just because it's right to do doesn't mean that we should be nonchalant about it.

39:14

I mean, there was times where it was like, oh yeah, that was awesome. We just shot those dudes, high fives all the way around.

39:19

And it's like, God takes the shedding of blood seriously. Not that it's wrong what we were doing, but I mean,

39:28

David did not build the temple. Solomon built the temple. And my understanding is in part that was because David killed a lot of dudes.

39:36

And so I think it is really important to lay that context to say, well, it's not wrong and you shouldn't feel wrong about it either.

39:45

That's another thing that I think is a real common, it's this cultural thing now where they,

39:52

I mean, you look at any movies about killing and they're like, oh yeah, I remember my first time.

39:57

Do you ever get over it? No, the pain's always there and all this stuff. And it's like, I didn't have that.

40:03

None of the guys I worked with had that. And to some extent, it's the guys that you're working with.

40:11

And to some extent, it's thinking about things ahead of time and going, hey, well, this is not, I'm not doing something that is morally wrong, right?

40:17

It is something that is heavy, right? The taking of life is a, it is a serious consequence.

40:24

I mean, I believe that probably the majority of the people that we killed did not know

40:30

Christ and therefore are in hell. And so it is a super heavy thing, but that doesn't make it wrong.

40:38

And you shouldn't feel bad about doing something that is wrong. But also,

40:43

I think I erred on the side of just high fives all the way around, like maybe treating it a little bit too lightly, especially initially on in my career.

40:53

Later on, I would say I got more, maybe a little bit more solemn.

41:00

Yeah, maybe a little bit more. I mean, I do remember actually praying for guys, like when we're, for the enemy, when we're, like I knew that missile strikes were inbound and we were gonna be landing right after the missile strikes and like, these dudes are all gonna be dead here shortly.

41:14

And just praying. I mean, what they say to pray for the

41:19

Muslims is that God would reveal himself to them in dreams and visions, which is happening all across the

41:26

Islamic world. It's pretty amazing. Man, I'm so glad you brought that up. I'm just curious, like, how does that change your perspective when that's what you do for a living compared to like, you're working with guys that maybe are atheists or could care less.

41:45

They hate the enemy. They just wanna destroy them. You know what I mean? How does that, does that, did that affect your approach at all?

41:55

You know what I mean? Do you get what I'm asking? Like, I'm just curious how that perspective changes you. It makes you different from those that you're working with.

42:02

Yeah. I guess for one, like, let's not paint too rosy a picture of me. No, no. There was definitely some stuff where I, you know, strongly disliked the enemy.

42:13

I mean, shoot, so many of my friends have been killed by those guys. Sure. You know, it is something that I have to pray for, that God, give me a love for these people.

42:21

And, you know, and being able to say, hey, the answer is not killing them all. The answer is they need

42:28

Jesus. Right? That is the win, is to share the gospel with those people.

42:35

You know, because ultimately they're, you know, they're on a path to hell and that's really sad.

42:42

And so the true win is to share the gospel with these folks. So that is, you know,

42:48

I've had varying levels of maybe empathy or, you know, it's been something

42:55

I've struggled with, is being, you know, being upset at those people, just, you know, because a lot of my, you know, a lot of my friends aren't with us anymore.

43:06

And, you know, all of them from, you know, died at the hands of Muslims, so, you know.

43:13

Yeah, no, I appreciate that a ton. I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate your knowledge and understanding of the law of God.

43:19

That's something we talk about a lot. And, you know, you mentioned the flying axe heads and all that, like, that warms my soul.

43:28

So thank you very much. And that's, I mean, it's important. Like you said, it's important that we know what scripture says and why it says it.

43:36

And so just, I just, I love it. So I, before I transition to the next subject,

43:42

I did want to ask you, like, was it difficult at times being a

43:48

Christian and being in the seals? Like, I think it was, I watched the Cleared Hot interview with Andy, and I think he was,

43:54

I mean, you, so I think you worked a lot with him. And it seems like he was like, everyone knew you were a

44:00

Christian, but I think he made a comment, like, maybe like you were like actually wanting to talk about it. And so I'm just curious, like, was it really challenging at times to be in that community and try to live as a

44:14

Christian? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was a lot of, probably a lot of stuff that I would do differently if placed in the same situation now.

44:27

You know, there's a lot of stuff where I thought, you know, I was doing the, you know, in the world, but not of it. And, you know, where are the lines there?

44:36

But yeah, I mean, absolutely. There was a lot of things where, I mean, it was interesting, some of the going through selection,

44:45

I mean, and this was really, this was a good thing that I, a lot of times it was not getting counseled on performance.

44:51

Guys were grilling me on some of my beliefs and practices, which it was a great, you know,

44:59

I didn't really like it at the time, but, you know, looking back on it now, I'm like, man, that's awesome. If, you know, they're asking me about my faith and, you know, why

45:07

I wouldn't, or, you know, would or wouldn't do certain things. And, you know, that's much better than talking about like, why didn't you go right into this room and, you know, why were your shots low on this one or whatever?

45:24

So yeah, definitely, definitely challenging. There's definitely times where, I mean, I did spend a lot of time, especially as a younger guy, still hanging out with the guys, but just not drinking or drinking not very much.

45:41

And then, you know, once I got married, I'm like, I want to hang out with my wife. I've spent enough time with the guys.

45:47

So that kind of, yeah, it kind of went away. That reminds me,

45:52

I just thought of Proverbs 22, 29. I love this verse here, but it says, do you see a man skillful in his work?

45:59

He will stand before Kings. He will not stand before obscure men. And so, you know, you're someone who was very skilled at what he did and was at the highest level, you know, and that puts you, like it says, before Kings, and not before obscure men.

46:12

But what's cool, I love what you just said, is they weren't even questioning you about your skill. They were questioning you about your faith, which

46:19

I love that, it's awesome. So pretty, pretty cool that you bring up that verse because my wife was just quoting that verse right before I came down here because my son made a really good salad for me and I was complimenting him on it.

46:31

And she said that verse, like, you know, that he was serving well, so pretty cool.

46:40

So, okay, so I think naturally we could transition. I want to talk about Romans 13.

46:47

We get a lot of criticism being that we stand, that we're theonomous, that we stand for the law of God a lot, and, you know, we always hear like,

46:56

Romans 13, Romans 13, obey the government. And, you know, but ultimately, like, you, that's what you did, you were

47:05

God's deacon, that's the word there. You were the avenger of wrath, the sword, the punish the evildoer and to protect the innocent.

47:13

And so I'm curious because you, hearing what you said a little bit ago, you probably didn't really think about that when you were in, but now that you're out, you probably appreciate that more.

47:25

Yeah, that's, yeah, honestly, I hadn't looked at that whole lot that way.

47:40

Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know, honestly, I've never, never thought about, you know, like, you know, the whole, you know, he does not bear the sword in vain or in vain.

47:48

Like, yeah, it's interesting. Like, I'd never, I'd never looked at myself in that. I guess I'd always looked more of like local authorities, you know, your police, your sheriff's deputies.

47:57

He's like, yeah, I'd always looked at that more, but I guess, yeah, I guess,

48:02

I guess I did fall into that as well. Well, I'd love to have that conversation with you more. Yeah. Yeah.

48:08

Oh, cool. That's, that's, well, that's how I look at you. So anything on that?

48:14

Yeah, I mean, I've got a whole, go for it, dude. Jump in. I mean, he's been answering all my questions before I even get to them.

48:21

So, and the first question I had, you just asked him, but I was just thinking about all of your combat operations.

48:26

And of course, don't talk about what you can't talk about or what you don't feel comfortable with. But has there been examples of God, you just seeing

48:34

God, like, just move in a situation, just like the hand of God upon your life when you're in a sticky situation or a combat situation?

48:43

Do you have, I mean, I'm sure you have a lot of them, but maybe a couple, or? So two things kind of stand out.

48:49

One was one of the first ops that we did into Iraq in 03. And we were,

48:59

I think, a third helo in, and we were in on a 47. And they didn't get permission to drop the power until basically we were on short final,

49:10

I think. So, or the lead bird was on short final. So they took out this massive transformer and it just backlit us as the helos were coming in from the city.

49:19

So it was like the first helo came in, dropped off the blocking positions and like kind of the bad guys started waking up.

49:25

Second helo comes in and they set up, you know, a corridor for us to do the assault.

49:31

And like the guys were waking up and those guys got shot up a little bit. And then our helo comes in and we just got shot up pretty good.

49:43

Yeah, I mean, I, after, I mean, so it was, it was, you know, like something out of saving private

49:50

Ryan as far as just like sparks. And, you know, like seeing sparks in the helicopter.

49:56

I remember looking out, I was in the back, back right window on the 47, right before the ramp.

50:03

And the next thing we actually got the lead or the starboard side forward door gunner got shot in the head.

50:11

And actually that guy survived. We had two guys, two guys shot on that one. That guy survived.

50:17

One of the Rangers was shot in the gut and he ended up dying of infection a couple months later.

50:26

But we looked at the helo the next day and it's like a cartoon where if you were to draw the outline around where I was standing, that's where all the bulges were.

50:39

So yeah, that was one in Iraq. And then another one in Afghanistan in Helmand area.

50:47

I just remember like, it had been a pretty sporty op. Like at one point,

50:53

I think we were taking fire from three different sides and calling in AC 130. So big 105s going off close enough.

50:59

And this was before the amplified hearing protection. So I had no ear pro on and the 105s were going, were impacting close enough to us to where it was hurting my ears.

51:13

But on that one, we ended up doing a daytime X fill, which we would always try to not do just because the risk of force is so much higher taking off in the daytime when everyone can see you and shoot at you.

51:24

But I just remember seeing tracer fire rip, I'm on the back of the ramp, I think the lead 47 and just seeing tracer fire rip up and you couldn't see,

51:33

I couldn't tell if it was going right through the helo behind us or right behind it. We ended up going right behind the helo behind us.

51:39

But I remember praying on that one that God would protect those guys because that was, yeah.

51:47

That's amazing. So many times. So have you dealt with PTSD or not really, or is it something?

51:59

Man, I think everyone deals with some form of, with some form of it.

52:11

Whether it's being shaky or jumpy at times, or like I've definitely had that.

52:20

Whether it's having more of a propensity for some sort of a chemical dependency, like I see where a lot of guys go down those roads.

52:34

But I'd say for the most part, God has blessed me pretty strongly with, with, yeah, there's not a whole lot of stuff that I, honestly, there's nothing from work that I lose sleep over.

52:53

Yeah. Well, and it sounds like you're, just based off of what you said before, because you understand the difference between killing and murder, you're able to actually minister to yourself.

53:09

If you do have a hard moment, you'd be able to actually like walk yourself through it and give truth to yourself instead of just like being stuck in your feelings.

53:21

Yeah, you got something to hold onto in God's word rather than if you, you know, if you're just out there, there's no foundation to anything.

53:28

There's nothing to grasp onto. But I hear it as we've been studying, you know, through different YouTube videos and watching a ton of stuff.

53:35

A lot of guys have this when they transitioned to civilian life. So they get out and then it's like, what do

53:41

I do? And a lot of guys struggle with depression, like you said, chemical dependency, but you're saying you really didn't struggle with that.

53:48

I mean, it's something that the Lord kind of preserved you from. Yeah, definitely, lots of grace.

53:56

And I think it's just grace being able to look at it and go, there's been very, very few times when, you know, guys go, oh man, do you miss it?

54:07

Every once in a while, there's like one little aspect of it that I miss. Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, you can, you look back and you think of the cool times and, you know, the good post -mission or like in, you know, you know, ramps opening and actually in y 'all state, ramps opening and amazing sunrises over, you know, over the desert and, you know, accident.

54:30

I mean, there's so many cool things, but no, there's really, there's not a whole lot of times where I miss it.

54:38

I was very much at the point where, I mean, when, so when I joined, you know,

54:45

I wasn't sure if I was going to do 20 years or five years or whatever. And I remember seeing some guys, when

54:50

I first checked into SEAL Team Three that had, they were the old guys at the time. They were the senior chiefs when, you know, when

54:56

I first got there and they'd never done anything for real. Wow. And I was terrified that that was going to be me.

55:02

And I thought, man, if I just get to do one real thing, then like, I'll be good.

55:07

Yeah. And then man, how much that has changed, you know, went from like thinking, oh, just one big mish to man, there was points where we were doing multiple, multiple hits in a day.

55:18

And if you were sitting around for more than a few hours, you're like, what the heck's going on, man?

55:23

This is lame, you know, just because that, you know, the op tempo had really, you know, had really picked up.

55:31

So you did 10 combat deployments. Do you know the number of ops you did within that?

55:36

No. Just hundreds and hundreds? Paramount. Wow. So I guess where I was going with this is by, by the time

55:45

I got married and then started having kids and then honestly part of it did play in with, with the political administration.

55:55

Like, you know, it's one of the things that really bothered me is we went from hunting Islamic extremists to VEOs, violent extremist organizations.

56:06

And to me, how can we even, if we're, it's not a nameless enemy that we're fighting, we're fighting

56:13

Muslims, right? We're fighting Muslims that truly believe what the book says, that that's the people that we were fighting.

56:19

We weren't fighting the radicalized ones. We're fighting the ones that are actually following, you know, what their book tells them to do.

56:26

Right. And I think there's a huge misunderstanding there because people go, oh no, it's just the radicals are doing this. And it's like, no, it's actually the ones that aren't doing anything or just they're

56:35

Muslims in name only, or, you know, they're not, they're the ones that aren't serious about their faith.

56:40

The ones that are serious are the ones that are fighting because that's what their book tells them to do. So when we made that, or when the administration made that shift to, hey, we're not, we're not fighting

56:51

Islamic extremists anymore. We're fighting VEOs. I'm like, I'm pretty extreme in my beliefs, you know, like how easy of a shift is that to go from, well, today it's

57:03

VEOs of an Islamic flavor. And then tomorrow it's VEOs of, you know, of a Christian.

57:08

You know, so there was some stuff there that really bothered me. It's like, if we can't name who our enemy is, how on earth are we gonna fight?

57:14

How are we gonna do a comprehensive strategy to fight that? So there was some of that. And then there was also just a lot of, and I got to do a lot of cool stuff.

57:23

I served with some of the most amazing guys, you know, some of those capable guys on the planet.

57:33

And we're not gonna win by just killing them all. That is not how we win. I think the highest and best use for my life was focusing on, you know, relationship with Christ, relationship with wife, relationship with children, and then church community.

57:52

Like that is a much, you know, to borrow the real estate term highest and best use that real estate dudes talk about.

58:02

You know, that's how you price something, highest and best use. So one of the things that I try to look at a couple of times a year is my life being, you know, highest and best use.

58:13

Am I, you know, for the king, am I doing the best of, you know, of my ability by God's grace, you know, for doing what he wants me to do.

58:24

And so, yeah, so that's a long way of saying I was ready to move on at 20 years and a month when

58:32

I retired and have, you know, really enjoy what I'm doing now, really enjoy, you know, we're in a good spot in life right now.

58:43

That's great. Just curious, I like to ask this question. Where were you at on 9 -11 and how did that affect?

58:51

I'm assuming that ramped things up pretty quickly for you. I was sitting on the quarterback actually at the command.

58:57

I had to, we had one of my, now he's a good friend of mine, a guy named Swimmer Dude, who the teams would hire, this guy was such a good swimmer.

59:06

They would hire him to teach us how to swim better. This guy swim, he swims marathons. He's done like crazy, like 50 mile races, you know, for NSW, like raising money and stuff.

59:17

Like the dude's a stud. So it was a week of us doing professional development with Swimmer Dude.

59:23

And so I had to take someone else's watch. So I was actually sitting on the quarterdeck when the first plane struck.

59:29

And then I think I got relieved and was upstairs in the team room when the second plane struck.

59:34

And then I remember being highly annoyed that I had to go back and do Swimmer Dude all afternoon because we're like, we're going to war.

59:43

And they're like, no, you're not. You're going to doing Swimmer Dude training. But yeah, it did, it ramped up pretty quick after that.

59:52

And yeah, we started spending up. And I mean, really the nation has been on a war footing pretty much ever since,

01:00:01

I mean, between all the different conflict zones now. I mean, yeah, pretty, pretty crazy.

01:00:07

How long from 9 -11 until you were in country in Iraq? To the way the rotation ended up working,

01:00:16

I didn't go to Afghanistan until July of 02. That was, almost a whole year.

01:00:24

Yeah, we went someplace else first. And then, yeah,

01:00:32

July of 02. Yeah, that was my first, July to October was my first pump over there. Crazy.

01:00:38

So I think, so going back to the identity thing, and we've talked a lot about this a lot lately.

01:00:46

Again, we had Jeremy Stahl on that ground for my deals. That's what they do is help guys when they get out.

01:00:52

Because it's obviously the number one thing that a lot of our vets struggle with is identity.

01:00:59

You were 20 years a trained killer, and you get out and praise

01:01:05

God that you had, and I think it's because you had Christ, right? You had a objective foundation.

01:01:11

But a lot of guys in that boat, they just fall apart. And that's something that's been passionate with us, and just helping guys deal with identity.

01:01:23

And so many of these interviews that I've watched, amazing stories, and then their lives fall apart when they get out.

01:01:30

And I'm just, I keep thinking like, man, I wish I could just share Christ with them. Like they need

01:01:35

Jesus. 100%, yeah. I mean, that's the most important thing. That's what we need to be doing, because that is the, you know, that's the win that matters right there.

01:01:44

Yeah, so I love the fact that, and a lot of these guys that we've been working with, they're the same boat as you were.

01:01:51

They're like, look, I'm a SEAL, but my identity's in Christ. I'm a Christian first, you know? And it's so important, and it's encouraging to me to hear you saying those things.

01:02:01

Like, look, yeah, I did all these things as a SEAL, but like, I'm a Christian first. That's my identity. And so I don't know if you wanna elaborate on that at all.

01:02:10

I think you've said a little bit on that, but I just, from my perspective, I just wanna say how much that blesses me and encourages me.

01:02:17

Well, I guess the one thing to kind of go down is just the, you know, a lot of guys say

01:02:22

God, family, country, and, but then in the next breath, they'll be like, well, you know, she married the job.

01:02:29

Like she knew what she was getting into, and versus, hey, if we truly believe that, if it truly is

01:02:36

God, family, country, and country being many, many different layers of things, but then it really should be our relationship with Christ is most important, and then next, our relationship to our spouses, and then children.

01:02:52

And then after that, you know, country, for me, country was part job, you know, part, you know, patriotism, you know, all those different levels.

01:03:01

Now I would look at it as, country is, really goes, you know, kind of church, community, county, state, friends, nation, you know, like there's differing levels of country where that falls out right there.

01:03:23

But yeah, I think it's so, I mean, it's one of the things I told my wife when we got married was that, hey, if this is too much for you, you let me know, and I will leave because, you know, when you get married, it's, you know, work is no longer the most important thing.

01:03:37

And I will tell you, like, as I look back, me going through Bud's was absolutely an idol.

01:03:43

Like, it was the most important thing for me, like, you know, whether I went to church, I mean, I wasn't going to church a whole lot, maybe like right before Hell Week or something, but not, and well,

01:03:54

I mean, it's interesting, like the, I definitely remember praying, you know, was it

01:04:00

Philippians 4, 6, 7, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, like over and over and over again, especially, you know, on some of the times where it was really cold and we're gonna have to get back in the water, just like constantly, you know, saying that verse over and over again, you know, but it's so, it's really liberating if you can actually lay out your priorities like that, because then decision -making process in life is so much simpler because you can just go, well, okay,

01:04:31

I can do this other work stuff, but this other work stuff will cause me to be in shady situations.

01:04:37

And like, well, I might make more money doing this, but then it's gonna cause problems with, you know, being away from the family and all the things that that entail, you know?

01:04:47

And so it's like, it's much easier when you can lay it out and go, well, God's most important thing is this, and then every decision, you know, or every major decision, at least base it off of that.

01:04:56

Is this going to, you know, draw me closer to God or remove me from it?

01:05:02

And then is this gonna strengthen my marriage or weaken it? Is this going to strengthen my relationship, my, you know, the impact that I can have on my children, you know?

01:05:14

I mean, and that's, it's a fine line to walk, you know, especially for, you know, for me on the training side of things now, it would be very easy to fill up the calendar and just be gone all the time.

01:05:28

And, but that would have a, it would have a positive effect on the pocketbook and it would have a negative effect on, you know, on the marriage and on the children and on, you know, ability to do really what's more important, which is, you know, how am

01:05:45

I following after Christ? Well, it's, you know, through marriage, through raising kids to know and love Jesus, and then through being involved in church, you know, doing worship stuff, doing father, son ministry, like those things are really, those are the things that have a much higher, you know, if we talk return on investment, that's the long, that's the long play right there is to do, you know, spend your life in those pursuits, vice, you know, chasing money or fame or power or any of those other things that the world tells us is important.

01:06:17

How many years were you married while, while in? Is my question.

01:06:23

So about seven and a half or so. Did that, when you got married, did that drastically change the way you approach it?

01:06:30

And I've heard guys that say like, well, once I got married and started having kids, that it made it difficult for them to, to shut that off when it was go time.

01:06:40

Like maybe they would say they would take them. I've heard Christian guys say like, I didn't pray for my wife and kids and then shut that part of my brain off essentially and focus on the work ahead.

01:06:52

So did that, how did that work for you? So I, I couldn't tell you where it is, but I know in the old

01:06:58

Testament, it talks about when, when the young men get married, they shouldn't go off to war for a year. And man,

01:07:05

I see so much wisdom now. I, you know, I did not have the luxury of doing that.

01:07:11

I got married when we were on a nine month cycle. So I was spending three months out of every nine months overseas and then three months stateside, but, but gone training.

01:07:24

And then three months we were supposed to be at home. So I basically had a six month window from coming back to, to get married, you know, to ask her dad, propose, set up a wedding, get married and then deploy again.

01:07:37

So it was pretty compressed timeline. But it, yeah.

01:07:44

So that first appointment was definitely harder for me. It was also one of the sportier deployments that, that I was on and it definitely was, was harder.

01:07:54

I would say mentally to, to work through some of that stuff than previously. And, but then also like later as I'd been married longer, it was like, it kind of got back to maybe not quite the level of ease as it was prior to being married, but not nearly as bad as right after that first deployment or right during that first deployment.

01:08:18

Yeah. I mean, I got, I got the two weeks into, so we'd been, we'd been married two months.

01:08:24

I go on deployment and I'm sitting in a tent in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and on a little

01:08:32

Panasonic Toughbook checking the, the, you know, Hotmail or whatever the, the, you know, the internet was at the time.

01:08:39

And I get a, you know, she sends a picture of a positive EPT. And so that was, you know, kiddo number one, actually found out the first four,

01:08:50

I think. I found out either overseas, like I just, either just left for deployment or one of them,

01:08:57

I was actually, I'd taken a flight to Bragg and then like I had an hour or two before the flight.

01:09:04

And so I called home and she's like, well, I picked up a test on the way home after dropping you off and guess what? So. Sounds like your wife's also quite the hero.

01:09:14

Yeah. Absolutely. She is amazing. I definitely married up. That's so awesome.

01:09:20

Well, cool. So let's just transition into what you're doing now. And man, I, I love what you're doing now.

01:09:25

And I know I was texting you like some of your training stuff actually has helped me in proficiency with my handgun.

01:09:33

So I'm appreciative of that, but talk about what you're doing now. Use this as an opportunity just to promote your company and what you're doing and the ministry you're doing and stuff like that.

01:09:43

Yeah. So we have three businesses. Our first one that we started the day after I retired is called the full name,

01:09:51

American Tactical Shooting Instruction. That very quickly, you guys just started calling it Amtac Shooting.

01:09:56

So we now have an official doing business as Amtac Shooting. That's our website, amtacshooting .com.

01:10:02

And so it's a training company. Our mission statement is to teach good Americans how to protect themselves and their families better.

01:10:09

So that is really our approach. Probably the thing that I am best at and also most passionate about is something that we call integrated combatives or pistol combatives.

01:10:21

And it's basically not just running a pistol or throwing punches or using a blade, but how to integrate all three.

01:10:33

So that's probably what I enjoy teaching the most. It's also what I generally try to get guys to do first, because when we look at the hierarchy of what are you most likely to use, well, from a training perspective, number one, awareness, number one thing that keeps us alive, then the next would be 100 % safety with your tools, right?

01:10:53

If you're unsafe with your firearm, just put it away. Go get real training, but until you can be 100 % safe, put it away.

01:11:00

The next would be making sure that when you pull the gun out, it actually goes bang, right?

01:11:06

Sounds like a really simple thing. I've watched a lot of professional guys when you put them on the timer or some sort of stress thing, pull out a gun and empty the chamber.

01:11:15

And then next would be clean drawstroke from concealment. So being able to pull your gun out, pull your pistol out from concealment.

01:11:21

And then the next two, and I put these on equal footing, would be combative weapons retention shooting.

01:11:30

So being able to throw elbows, basically grapple with your other strong hand, what we call it, while you're pulling a pistol out.

01:11:39

And then the other one is other strong hand only, blade deployment and targeting. So being able to, from my left side, right?

01:11:47

That's my other strong side, being able to produce a blade from there. So that if my right hand is busy, right?

01:11:53

I'm swimming under hooks on someone or I'm doing whatever it is, doing don't look at me concept or fingers and eye, whatever it is, if right hand is busy, left hand pulls a lethal tool.

01:12:05

If left hand is busy, right hand pulls a lethal tool. So that's kind of what, that's what

01:12:11

I probably teach the most of is those. And we've got six different specific pistol classes all with a little bit different focuses on different aspects of that.

01:12:21

Then we also teach carbine work and then also precision rifle work as well, which

01:12:27

I enjoy and I really, I enjoy teaching all that stuff. And I enjoy the variety of it as well.

01:12:33

And then, so it's turned into a really, when I first started doing this, I really didn't know if I was gonna be teaching mostly cops or military guys and just really got open doors.

01:12:44

And my normal students are, they're just, they're good guys that are professionals and in whatever their field is and they're just serious about carrying a gun.

01:12:57

And so they'll do a class with me or a class with some of the other top guys in industry. And that's just what they like to do.

01:13:05

And so a lot of these guys are extremely proficient with their tools. And yeah, so it's just kind of been a really cool,

01:13:12

I've made a ton of good friends doing this. Probably more than half the places I go, I stay at friends' houses.

01:13:19

Guys pick me up at the airport. We hang out, we get to know each other's families. It's just been a really cool environment.

01:13:28

And then I guess probably one of the coolest things is when we first did our website, we have a,

01:13:38

I think I call it primary philosophy. And I put a statement of faith on there.

01:13:44

And I wish I could say like, yeah, that was, we're gonna do that regardless. But honestly,

01:13:50

I had to think about it for a while. Like, hey, is this, you know, is, do

01:13:55

I need to be really out front with my faith or not? And I really felt convicted that no, you should,

01:14:03

I should be bold about it. You know, if we're talking about things that matter, well, that matters more than any little strategy or any little tip or trick that will keep you alive for the next 40 years, right?

01:14:15

Being right with God through his son Christ is the most important thing. So we put that statement on there and it's been a huge blessing.

01:14:24

I mean, I get a ton of guys that are believers that come to classes, but then also, I get a lot of guys that aren't believers that would probably never go to church.

01:14:33

They would never sit down and do this. And on a, you know, on any two -day class that I do, the first thing we do on day two is a mindset talk.

01:14:41

And part of the end of that mindset talk is just talking about dying well. And, you know, what's the, you know, it's a thing now in industry, dying well.

01:14:53

And industry looks at, you know, firearms protection industry looks at dying well, really in a kind of neo -pagan, dying with sword in hand, bullets in the front, nice bullets in the back type of thing, you know, charging into battle, protecting, you know, yourself or your loved ones.

01:15:09

And I just get to lay out for guys that, hey, dying well is being right with God. And knowing where you're like, just having that assurance of salvation, not because anything that I've done, but because what

01:15:23

Christ did on the cross for me is so comforting. And yeah,

01:15:29

I mean, you know, so I get to share that with guys and it's just, it's a super cool platform.

01:15:36

And, you know, and I've grown in doing this. Like, I think the first couple of mindset talks was like, at the very end, it was like, get right with God, you know?

01:15:45

And then God has really given me a, like boldness in this area. And I almost feel like they're a little mini sermons now.

01:15:52

Like, I really like to just kind of lay out Peter and, you know, what makes a guy like Peter go from where he was to, you know, upside down crucifixion, because he wasn't worthy to die the same way as Savior was.

01:16:04

Like, what changes a guy like that? And the only answer to that is the resurrection happened.

01:16:10

Like, that's the only way that people's lives are transformed. So it's just, it's been a really cool, it's been a blessing to be able to, you know, to share the gospel with guys.

01:16:22

Yeah, it's awesome. That's awesome. Hey, Kyle, can you go ahead and bring it up? I got the website up now. So it's amtakshooting .com.

01:16:29

And if you guys are interested in the different courses. So that's our training. Yeah, so that's our training company.

01:16:36

I'm sorry, I have a plug for two more as well. Then out of the, you know, one of the things

01:16:43

I've been involved in for a long time is an organization called Syoc Collie. I've gotten so much blade and fighting and mindset stuff from those guys.

01:16:54

I mean, a lot of those guys are, like, they're the guys that I go to. People at Syoc Collie, now at Jensek Collie, those are the guys that I go to for professional development.

01:17:03

And so a lot of the stuff that they are, almost all the stuff they do involves blades. And so that was something that I was teaching with.

01:17:12

And so a few years ago, I was having a conversation with one of my friends and we were just talking about, hey, wouldn't it be cool if, you know, that you had a fixed blade knife that would fit in your pocket.

01:17:25

And like, I kind of explained what I was wanting. And then, hey, talk to you later.

01:17:35

And then like two months later, a blade showed up that my buddy made for me. And then that turned into, you know, we talk about it and, you know, like every month

01:17:46

I was getting a couple more blades from him and we're just kind of going back and forth like this. And then it got to a point where I was like, man, this is really cool.

01:17:54

No one else like kind of in our tribe community was doing pocket fixed blade knives.

01:18:00

So I kind of went to the guys that I respected and said, hey, like everyone good with me doing this.

01:18:06

And, you know, with starting a business doing this and, you know, got the thumbs up from guys. And so that's how the blade, we call it the

01:18:15

Northman. And that was the guy's name that made those first, you know, a bunch of the initial prototypes and whatnot.

01:18:23

And he actually just passed away this past September due to COVID of all things like.

01:18:31

So, yeah. So, and then that has really grown, you know, we have a couple of different models now.

01:18:38

So that's been a great business. And then we just recently started Amtech Gear as well.

01:18:43

And that's kind of for the, right now it's, you know, t -shirts, hats, beanies, stickers, patches, kind of swag stuff.

01:18:50

But the intent is to go, you know, plate carriers, backpacks, other actual gear as well in the future.

01:19:01

But that's our latest venture. I actually have it up. Kyle, I don't know if you had the pull up or not to have the amtechbladesup .com

01:19:08

looking at the Northman right now. Here, cause I'm like pretty much all Viking. So I was like, oh, I like the name

01:19:14

Northman. Cause I thought maybe that's what it meant. But apparently I was wrong. Speaking of names, I don't know how you spell your last name, but I feel like just the, you know, some people like, you know, if a kid named like Tom Burns grows up and he becomes a firefighter, everyone's like, yeah, that makes sense.

01:19:33

But rapier, I feel like it makes sense that you'd be involved in weapons training or I don't know.

01:19:40

Somewhat ironic, right? It was all built in right there for you. You had to live up to the name.

01:19:45

A rapier is a thrusting sword. Yeah. That's cool. I didn't even know that. Yeah, I think that's what they use in like fencing mostly.

01:19:54

Very cool. So yeah, I appreciate, I mean, just talking about blades real quick. You convinced me to get a fixed blade.

01:20:02

So thank you for that, sir. Cause I always carry a folded one, which I still carry as well.

01:20:07

I just use that to open stuff. But yeah, I think Zach sent me a video when you were talking about fixed blades and I was just like, yeah,

01:20:13

I should have a fixed blade. So I carry one and then, but I love that.

01:20:19

I love the Northman and that it's small that you can stick it in your pocket. Cause I know I've seen how you carry yours in your belt, but I may or may not have some overlapping flesh that makes it a little difficult to carry in my belt line.

01:20:33

So I love the fact that you can shove it in your pocket and it's not gonna, you can conceal it and no one's gonna know what's going on.

01:20:39

Most guys look at it and they think it's a folder. And I actually do. I carry the Northman on my strong side in my pocket.

01:20:45

And then I carry either a Magnus or a Minuteman on my other strong side on my belt line. And that's what

01:20:52

I would tell everyone to do. If you already carry a gun, like put the blade on your other strong side because being able to deploy a lethal tool with either hand makes you an order of magnitude harder to deal with.

01:21:03

I mean, just, it's hard to control both hands and then draw your own tools at the same time.

01:21:11

So it's a, yeah. No, I appreciate that so much. And one thing, one thing quickly,

01:21:18

I know we've been going a while here, but one thing we learned from our SEAL buddies and I've heard you say some more things is just, it's all about control and you want to evade first.

01:21:34

I think as guys, we kind of get macho and we have fantasies about someone attacking us and beating them up and stuff like that.

01:21:44

And one thing I've learned is just like, no, you want to, that's last ditch effort. You want to, and I know that's some of the training you do is like, you want to evade first.

01:21:53

But when it's go time, it's go time. But like, that's last ditch effort. It's not worth,

01:22:00

I think I heard you tell on Ritalin, like, you could do that and you could go to jail and then your family doesn't have you, or you could just take an

01:22:08

L on this one and. Yeah, take a verbal loss, I mean, and go home and eat dinner and be like, man,

01:22:15

I had such a good comeback and I thought about it 30 minutes later. Like, that your life is so much better than winning the confrontation and then paying the consequence.

01:22:28

I mean, one of the big things that I always try and put out in a class is that it is always a higher level win to win with a lower level of violence, right?

01:22:36

If you can either, whether it's talking and making a joke or buying a guy a beer, whatever it is, like,

01:22:43

I'd rather take a verbal L than burn the guy. Even if I'm, and I think the more you train, the more you're also like, there's no, well, and hopefully the older and more mature you get, there's no longer the, could

01:22:55

I take this guy or not? It's just like, okay, like, it's not, number one, there are no fair fights, right?

01:23:01

That only happens like at a wrestling match or like, you know, very much in tribe.

01:23:07

It's the only way there's going to ever be a fair fight. And hopefully as we get older and more mature, like we're not doing those anymore.

01:23:15

So you have to realize that, man, if as a guy that is carrying tools and proficient at using tools, it's incumbent on you not to get involved in any kind of altercation, because you're like, what happens if you start to lose?

01:23:30

You're like, oh, this guy's weaker and smaller than me, so I can push him around. And then he's like a really good grappler and he takes you down and goes knee on belly and starts bouncing your head off the concrete.

01:23:39

You know, at that point, it's not a bar fight anymore. At that point, it's, I'm going to die. And guys that train with and carry tools will use them at that point.

01:23:49

And so it's way better to just, hey, you know, think through that, it goes right back to that willingness piece.

01:23:55

You think through your willingness ahead of time, think through what am I willing to do under what circumstances?

01:24:01

Does this make sense? Talk about it with your wife, socialize it amongst your peers. Like, hey, if this happens, this is what we're going to do.

01:24:09

And I mean, so I think we can do that violence wise, but you know, and we should do that violence wise, but I think now with,

01:24:17

I think you could also tie that in somewhat with tyranny and...

01:24:23

Yeah, absolutely. You know, what is the correct response if this happens?

01:24:30

What are we going to do? Because the answer is probably not, you know, we're going to put our Colt plate carriers on and go start shooting people.

01:24:36

That's probably not the correct response. No, the correct response is probably some sort of non -violent...

01:24:43

Defensive posture. Maybe non -compliance. Yeah. So, you know, like, hey, make them do something to you that, you know, so we get the

01:24:53

IO basically. Like, cause you can't go first in something like that.

01:24:58

Right? You have to, you know, which is why you have to think through that willingness piece ahead of time.

01:25:05

Like, you know, and you might learn that guys around you are like, you might cut guys away because they're posturing a lot and they're saying, oh,

01:25:14

I'm going to do this if this happens. And I, and they're like, no dude, like I'm not good with, you know, cause especially when we start, you know, kind of crossing over into, you know, the protection side of things and the liberty side of things, right?

01:25:27

Not, not everyone on that side is, is believers or are believers.

01:25:32

Right. We have to look at that and go, well, you know, anything that I'm rogering up to do, like I better make sure that fits in with my theology as well.

01:25:42

Otherwise, you know, I don't have a congruent worldview. And again, you're just going to end up with regret because maybe you've got a group of guys and you've been posturing and then you get painted into a corner and it's like, no, you know, you'll get those identities, right?

01:25:57

Figure out, you know, those things through ahead of time. Yeah. I mean, it goes back to the mindset conversation is, you know, one, if you have the tools, you better know how to use them.

01:26:09

Don't just be carrying around just to carry them around. Like know how to use them. But two, like you said, like you need to think ahead and be ready to, if, you know,

01:26:18

God forbid, you are faced with a situation like that, you should know ahead of time how you're going to respond.

01:26:24

You know, you should be trained. You should think through those things. And not wait until the moment of surprise.

01:26:30

And, you know, one thing we learned a lot from our guys and you probably know the talk is, you know, our biggest enemy is our ego, right?

01:26:38

Like, you know, like put your ego to death. Like that's not the time to be showing your ego. Like. I was going to say, it kind of sounds like,

01:26:45

I mean, obviously I'm a female, but it kind of sounds like an important lesson just to learn as a man, like, but you know, just when to fight what you're willing to.

01:26:58

Don't, you know, don't just fly by the seat of your pants. Like have some, put some thought into it.

01:27:05

There is a time to step up and do it. And there's also a time to say, no, this is like, this is not the time.

01:27:11

And knowing those two, when each of those is correct is where the wisdom comes in.

01:27:18

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, that brings me to the last thing here. I know we've kept you for a while and I appreciate your time, but.

01:27:25

So you are an elder at your church and I know it's a small country church and we'll keep that name to ourselves for now, but you do a really cool ministry, which

01:27:38

I'm really excited about, with the so -called father -son ministry. Is that what you call it? Yes. And so a lot of what we just talked about is what you do in that ministry.

01:27:47

So just tell us about that and the things you do. I love what you guys are doing. So father -son ministry started when we got out here and I'd kind of gotten part of the idea from, you guys familiar with Colonel Cooper?

01:28:03

He's actually, it was an Arizona guy, like World War II vet, kind of started a lot of the practical shooting. He used to do a rant in the back of Guns &

01:28:10

Ammo Magazine. It was, you know, Colonel's or Cooper's corner. And he would just, some of his ramblings were trivial and some of them were very profound.

01:28:19

And one of the more profound ones was, what should a young man know as he grows up?

01:28:25

You know, shoot and ride hard, shoot straight, like those types of things. And so that kind of got me thinking about what should a young man know?

01:28:32

Well, obviously he should, you know, as a, with Christ follower as my primary identity, like that's, we want our boys to grow up and know and love

01:28:41

Jesus. Like that's the number one thing that we are trying to espouse within this. But then also they should be capable, right?

01:28:49

So, and one of the great ways to do that is with, you know, with grappling.

01:28:56

And then also they should know a lot of things about a lot of different topics.

01:29:03

There's a great Heinlein quote that, you know, a man should be able to change a diaper and plan an invasion and cook dinner and all these things.

01:29:10

And then he ends it with, you know, specialization is for insects. It's a great Robert Heinlein quote. And I'm butchering it there horribly.

01:29:20

But it's like, we should know a lot of things about, you know, about a lot of different topics.

01:29:26

I was woefully deficient on that. Like I didn't know anything about wiring an electrical outlet.

01:29:32

I didn't know how to weld. I didn't know how to do plumbing stuff. There's so much stuff that I was deficient on when

01:29:39

I left home. And so just looking at what, you know, I want my boys to be better than me when they leave the home.

01:29:48

So the idea was, okay, this whole thing, we want our boys to know and love Jesus. We want them to be capable men, right?

01:29:55

So that is, you know, we're doing jujitsu all the time. We've done boxing blocks. We've done other striking blocks.

01:30:02

We've done, you know, weeks long shooting blocks where that's all we're doing is shooting.

01:30:07

But so a normal day would, the way it started a normal day would go, or evening, we would start with jujitsu for 45 minutes to an hour.

01:30:19

Then we do a 15 to 20 minute Bible lesson and then have another 45 minutes to an hour of life skill at the end of it.

01:30:26

Anything from, we've butchered hogs. We've, you know, it's fairly regular.

01:30:32

The boys will build fires, do shelters, go on hikes, change the oil, get a vehicle on stock, like just like man skills that you should be able to do.

01:30:44

And so that has been, so we've changed it a little bit. Cause that kind of, that format was ending up being about three hours, you know, with younger boys and especially in the winter time, like we weren't getting out of there until after nine sometimes.

01:30:58

So we've changed the format a little bit. And now generally we'll do one of the things, you know? So tonight we're going to do, we'll meet, we'll generally, we pray first and then we'll say the

01:31:12

Pledge of Allegiance after we pray. And that was an important thing that, you know, just right from the get -go,

01:31:19

God is a head of country. So, you know, like that's the order.

01:31:25

And then, so we're going to go for a hike later today and then, or it'll be this evening. And then we'll probably do some sort of fire test with the boys as well.

01:31:34

So we've got some newer boys that haven't done it yet. So that just involves, they get a ferro rod and a single Vaseline -soaked cotton ball and they have to get a sustainable fire going.

01:31:43

So, you know, three inch branches going. And if they do that, then we buy them a cool ferro rod that they can use to, you know, to get the fire going.

01:31:53

So yeah, it's, well, they'll probably all need the cotton balls today, but if it's drier out, then we take the cotton balls away and they've got to find their own, you know, primary tender to use.

01:32:06

So that's just been a cool thing. And then, so the idea was, you know, originally it would be kind of a missional type thing and that the training would be cool enough so that even non -believers would come and then, you know, air quotes, suffer through the gospel in the middle of it.

01:32:22

That's why we put the gospel in the middle so you couldn't show up late or leave early and miss that part.

01:32:28

But it's really, most of the guys are believers that come.

01:32:34

So it has been much more of a, it's almost been like a Bible study. And I would say it's been every bit as good for the men that are there.

01:32:43

And, you know, initially I was thinking it's mostly for the boys, but it's been huge for them. It's been huge for me. I mean,

01:32:48

I went, when we first started our old pastor, I'm like, you know,

01:32:55

I'm good doing the jujitsu and the life skill, but like maybe every, you know, every other month

01:33:01

I can do the Bible lesson. Cause it was like a really big deal for me to, you know, to sit down and it was just hard, hard to do.

01:33:09

And then, you know, by God's grace, it has gotten significantly easier.

01:33:14

And now, you know, now I just feel like this stuff jumps out at me. Like, you know, this morning I was, I was reading, you know, the 10 commandments just in prep for this.

01:33:22

And there's a couple of things that just jumped out at me. And I'm like, that's like, we're going to talk about the law and then grace.

01:33:30

Like, that's what we're going to do tonight. So yeah, it's been, it's been a great, it's been super cool to, to, to do that.

01:33:40

And we're actually, I feel like we, we need, so we've got one, one of my friends is, has a chapter of father son mystery going on in New Hampshire right now.

01:33:50

We've had at various times, we had one down in Atlanta going for a little while. We had one in Washington going on for a while.

01:33:57

I feel like there's a huge need for doing this. And I feel like at some point we're probably going to do some sort of 501c3 with, with father son.

01:34:09

You should. With the idea of kind of train the trainer model. That's one of the other things with our new, with the

01:34:16

Amtac training center, that was one of these, we're building a structure where guys can train and, you know, live and whatnot.

01:34:23

And so it's one of the things we've been thinking and praying through there is, is could we do father son ministry camps there where,

01:34:31

Hey, you come, you come with your boys and it's going to be a time of, you know, getting to know

01:34:37

God more, having, you know, focus teaching times, focus worship times. But then also like we're gonna shoot guns and we're going to fight.

01:34:45

And you guys are going to go in the woods and build stuff and navigate and like do cool man stuff.

01:34:52

But with a, you know, a Christ centered focused. So yeah, you guys can be praying about that cause

01:35:00

I'm still not a hundred percent exactly what that looks.

01:35:05

You know, I feel like when, when, when it's go time, I will know a hundred percent, like this is what we need to do.

01:35:12

And I'm not quite, we're not quite there yet. Like the, it's the momentum is building. And so, yeah, so that's father son ministry in a nutshell right there.

01:35:22

I love it, man. And we didn't even mention you got, you actually live off grid now. So you've probably had to learn a lot of those actual skills you're teaching just to survive on a daily basis.

01:35:32

Yeah, I mean, our, our only heat sources would. So, I mean, that's, you know, every, every morning when

01:35:39

I get up in the basically October through about April, I'm lighting a fire and we keep that fire going during the colder months all, all day long.

01:35:51

Are you chopping all your own wood too? Oh no. No, it's, no,

01:35:57

I mean. That's crazy. There's not enough hours, not enough hours in the day. It's, I, so as,

01:36:02

I mean, just as a business thing, like I've learned that it's, it is more like I'm capable of doing it.

01:36:10

I have done it. I will still do it if we have down trees and I need to chop them up anyways. I'll cut them up into rounds and then now

01:36:17

I'll have the boys split it. I was gonna say, yeah, when you have kids, you don't have to chop them anymore.

01:36:23

They're getting old enough to do it, but it's honestly, it's just been a, you know, if I look at the amount of time involved for me to put up five or six cords of wood versus what am

01:36:33

I not doing while I'm doing that? Yeah, sure. You know, be it, you know, making phone calls, talking to guys, you know, doing another course.

01:36:40

It's just, it, it makes more sense dollars wise. Sure. Yeah. To buy the wood.

01:36:45

Right. It's kind of the bottom line. Well, I love that you're doing that. We, we do a similar thing here, just not as cool. Not like, not even in the same realm as cool, but like do some stuff.

01:36:54

Ours is pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Actually. That's next level. Yeah, that's next level, yeah. Because Zach and I, we're, we're like carpenters by trade or whatever.

01:37:02

So we're actually going to be doing one with the boys where we're teaching them like how to frame a wall. That's awesome.

01:37:07

Yeah. We call it biblical manhood training. That's so vital to teach the boys how to do that stuff.

01:37:15

And it, I mean, to teach some men how to do that stuff too. Yeah, exactly. Right. Just, we got to figure out how to teach them how to dress a hog.

01:37:21

That's gotta be like, then we're next level. Yeah. But we're not there yet. I'll just, I'll go buy a pig.

01:37:27

Yeah. Somewhere. YouTube. Man, I, I so appreciate you,

01:37:33

Bill. And this just having you on today. Do you guys have any other questions you want to ask them I know we're running out of time on our own in here.

01:37:40

So, all right, man. Well, I appreciate it. And we'll talk some more. I know we talked about some stuff offline that we could do in the future.

01:37:48

So love to have you on again sometime. And yeah, God bless you, man. I'm so encouraged by what you're doing.

01:37:54

Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for having me on guys. Appreciate it. Yeah. Our pleasure. Oh, that was awesome.

01:38:03

Joy's like, whatever. I'm just kidding. She loved it. Zach and I are like, yeah, we're like boys over here.

01:38:09

Yeah. Some of the, some of the SEAL military episodes are getting a little manly.

01:38:16

Yeah. But you know. Yeah. Well, that's why we have you on here to bring some balance. Yeah. So, well, you guys, thank you again, always so much for your support.

01:38:26

You, you keep the lights on. We don't have to chop wood to keep this place heated. So that's cool. We thank you, you guys for helping us pay the bills.

01:38:35

Doing this off -grid might be a little. It'd be a little tricky. A little difficult. A little tricky.

01:38:40

A little tricky, so. I've done these before and had the power go out on me. Oh no. Now it's, the kids know, like, you know, and Mariah knows, like, she can't run laundry.

01:38:50

Yeah. Or run the dishwasher or anything else that might be a high draw when

01:38:56

I'm doing a podcast because obviously we can't have the power going out. Because as soon as the power goes out, like five seconds later, the internet goes out.

01:39:03

Oh, right. Right. That's hilarious. See, that's, but that's what I'm talking about.

01:39:09

So thank you. Well, I will say one thing that we've learned from our Steel Buddies, it's been kind of our mantra, stay hard.

01:39:16

Get hard, stay hard. Get hard, stay hard. And so we're very thankful for that mindset. I mean, it's really, this year has been difficult.

01:39:22

Yeah. It's been a difficult year and that's definitely helped us stay the course. So, so yeah.

01:39:30

Joy, you stay lady. I don't know. Stay mama. Stay feminine. Get feminine.

01:39:36

Stay feminine. But the rest of you is. If you want to talk about a real message for today's culture, there you go.

01:39:46

So as a reminder, next week is our rally in Colorado in Denver. Pastor Jeff will be out there for that on Saturday the 2nd and for our bill there to end abortion in Colorado.

01:39:59

And then we will be in Louisiana on April 30th for our bill there as well.

01:40:05

So you guys can, if you're in the areas, please come help support those bills there.

01:40:10

Absolutely. I think that's all I got. So. Yeah, awesome work you guys are doing on that.

01:40:17

The anti -abortion stuff, by the way. Thank you, brother. Well done. Thank you. I appreciate that a ton. That blesses me for sure.

01:40:24

So Pastor Zach. See you later, alligators. Go to AR500, ARRepublic, and buy some stuff from them.