Why Your Success is Killing You: The Hero Complex

Full transcript

15,294 words · 1:24:26 runtime

00:00 Introduction: Healing, Trauma, and Self-Abandonment

0:00 hey everybody welcome back to voice for valor the podcast where we talk real with veterans about real life i'm your host mike and today's episode is one that really touched my heart i sat down with anthony a helicopter pilot who opened up about his journey in a way that i think is going to resonate with so many of you he shared everything his recent move the tough strains on his relationship with his partner chris and the healing path he's been walking what really struck me was how honest anthony gets about putting his own needs aside to make others happy he talks about growing up with childhood trauma the pressure of military life and how he fell into patterns of self-abandonment

0:49 as veterans i know a lot of us struggle with setting boundaries and dealing with our emotions anthony doesn't hold back about his avoidant tendencies or the mental health challenges he's faced since leaving service he gets real about growing up in a broken home and how that shapes his life him even before he joined the military then when you add the harsh realities of service on top of that foundation it's a recipe for some serious inner battles but this conversation isn't just about struggles anthony shares how he's finding purpose again the valuable lessons he's taking from his military experience and how he's building a life that honors both his past and his future

1:37 this episode is really what voice for valor is all about creating a space where we can share our stories learn from each other and remember that we're never alone in this journey after service so grab a coffee maybe even some tissues and join me for a real conversation about healing growth and finding your path forward let's get into it when did you when did you move into this

02:11 The Toxic Relationship and Loss of Boundaries

2:11 apartment um very very recently how about that like like a month ago okay so and you know and what ended up going down i'm taking these things out they're stupid um how do i how do i start um we've been having a very tumultuous tumultuous uh year this year it's been super hard man i mean and a lot of it is a lot of it's me you know and and the issues that i've carried since childhood um the trauma and the wounding that i've had that i've had to deal with and it seems to this year somewhat it has all come to a head and um you know i found myself um abandoning myself in a lot of ways so self-abandonment to to make sure that chris was safe and happy and i basically made

3:17 it my responsibility for her happiness and her safety and in a lot of ways i self-abandoned throughout that entire time and and lost myself and became very resentful um and it just got to the point where the toxicity became to the degree where it was just it just didn't make sense to stay together it was becoming too toxic too often i was being triggered and hijacked like man every couple days we were getting into it and after a while i just i just felt that i needed peace more than i needed anything else so i could start my own healing journey and i wasn't getting that in that relationship and that was a very stressful and demanding relationship and you know chris has gone through a lot of the her her wounding and she's worked

4:13 a lot over the years on herself and i i it was less so for me so i felt like i was always playing catch up you know and then i've been single my entire life you know i haven't had the relationships and the marriages and stuff that that chris chris has had in the past so she's just light years ahead of me in terms of and just being emotionally mature i found myself lacking um a lot of tools in my life and i've been able to do a lot of things in my life and

04:40 Childhood Roots: Broken Homes and Avoidant Coping

4:45 i've been able to manage my family as well um and i've been able to do a lot of things kind of through this relationship over the years and i'm always happy in life loving the people and like i haven't had a partner that has like ness clearly for and with that being said i just feel like like i was a massive failure on everything and i didn't have boundaries um coming into this relationship i didn't have any need for him i was single forever like you know i didn't if there was a boundary man i couldn't tell you anything about it because i i just i never paid attention Can you describe boundaries? Describe boundaries to me. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that.

5:24 Are you not allowed to ask her certain things or what do you mean by boundaries? Boundaries with, for me, it was just, I didn't have any left and right limits. You know what I mean? If somebody did something that I didn't like, disrespected Christina, disrespected me, disrespected the relationship in general, I didn't have any boundaries. So I wasn't able to speak up and say, hey, I won't stand for that. Don't do that. Whatever. What I would end up doing because I'm an anxiously avoidant person is I would end up just trying to play the nice guy and play that middle ground of trying to keep my friends happy, but also trying to keep my partner happy. And what ends up happening if you don't have boundaries, you can't tell anybody like,

6:21 I don't like X, Y, and Z. I'm not comfortable with that. Don't do that again. Blah, blah, blah. I didn't have any of that, man. Normally for me, Mike, I just would leave the situation. I would just roll out. And I mean, that's how I've done everything in my life. If things get hard in an emotional way, then I'm out. I'm out the door, man. And then with that, you don't learn boundaries and you don't learn how to say no to people. You just end up trying to please everyone. And that's always been a fault of mine. Is that I try to, I try to make everybody happy. I try to please everybody. And what ends up happening is that, you know, nobody's pleased and, and your partner doesn't feel safe and you're not

07:00 The Hero Complex: Resilience vs. Guilt

7:04 standing up and supporting your partner. And at the end of the day, like that's where I learned a hard lesson there. You know what I mean? Not standing up for, not supporting your partner is a terrible, terrible thing. And it, and it creates, it, it, it creates an environment where there it's, it's not safe and it wasn't safe for Chris for the first couple of years of our relationship because of all the baggage that I carried with me. And because of her previous trauma and wounding as well, you know, so anyway, we'd worked a lot through those things, but there was just a lot of damage done early on, man. And, and I truly feel as much as I still love Chris, as much as she still loves me, I truly feel that, that maybe

7:48 there's too much damage done overall. And I think that that's, that's ultimately what drove me out is I was trying to figure out who I was trying to figure out where I was going. I'm trying to figure out the next step in my career, trying to figure out who I am as a man, trying to figure out just my health and my mental health and my physical health. And just, it just was so much. And I'm trying to break old habits and generational pain and old trauma and wounding and all trying to do all this stuff. And I was just unable to find a groove. I was unable to find a point in our relationship where I could thrive in the relationship. And, um, you know, I, I take all the blame myself. I probably shouldn't,

8:35 but I do. Um, cause you know, it's a two-way street. We all, we all, we all come, we all come into relationships with our own baggage, but yeah, man, it just was, it was really tough this last couple, this last couple of years. And I spent a lot of time away from home, um, this, this last year doing, uh, doing military schooling. You know, I was gone for like 15 weeks and, um, it just, it was hard, man. It's hard for Christina to be home. And while I'm out, you know, doing military stuff and, um, you know, in Alabama and it came with its own, with its own, difficulties and whatnot. So anyway, ultimately the last five week course I went to, um, we didn't

09:10 The Ego Trap: Comparing Deployments and Service

9:14 survive it. And, um, I came back and basically moved out. That's why I wanted to talk to you today, brother. We are so similar. Um, I know I've shared a lot with you, but maybe not everything. And that's the point of this podcast is just, we need to talk about these things just for our own mental health and awareness and resilience. But man, I'm a people pleaser, just like you, my, my mom, I love her to the end of the earth, but she was in so many marriages and so many relationships that it created this, this barrier of trust for me. And so I just had to be a people pleaser just to, just to, just to prevent any arguments or, um, fights or dysfunctional

10:03 relationships. And I know that your background, you were living with, you know, our mutual best friends. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and Sean and his family in high school. Can you, can you talk about some of those similarities? Yeah. I mean, my mom was the same way. My mom was married four times. You know, I had various stepdads growing up. Um, and I learned how I was a middle child. So I learned how to, I learned how to people please as well. And I learned my, you know, my avoidant techniques back then too. You know, I mean, when things got tough around the house, I would just leave the house. You know,

10:38 that's kind of how I did everything. It's like when things get hard, you just, you know, there was an Anthony shaped hole. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going through the door, man. I was gone. You know what I mean? And that's how I coped. Um, so I spent a lot of time, um, away from the house. I spent a lot of time surrounded by friends. They kind of, uh, substituted for the lack of a family structure that I had. Um, and you know,

11:00 Flying the Border: Danger, Rescue, and Wear and Tear

11:00 there were no attaboys at my house. You know, um, I remember my house being cold and dark and, you know, in difficult in a lot of ways, it was, it was very, um, disconnecting at my house. There was no connection. Like I didn't connect with my mother and I, I certainly didn't connect with any of my, my stepdads, you know, not until I was an adult dude that I, like, did I learn how to, um, have relationships with my stepdad, Howard, who's, who long has been passed away long ago, but, um, I never had a relationship with my dad, my real dad, you know, and that was a tumultuous thing as well. You know, I mean, I, and we can get into that whole story because that is a story in itself. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

11:46 and, um, yeah, so there was a lot of disconnection and a lot of avoidance on my side, you know, and I never saw, uh, a relationship work very well. And when my, my stepdad and my mom would fight, I never saw how they repaired things. They always did it behind closed doors. So they left us out of it, probably thinking they were doing us a service, but really, I never saw anything good come out of a relationship as, as a kid growing up, I was surrounded by broken homes and I was in a broken home. And, um, it's no wonder that, um, I have such anxious and avoidant tendencies even to this day. I mean, with all the things that, that, um, that I've seen growing up and experienced. And it's also, you know, it's,

12:29 it's somewhat of a superpower that, that amount of independence that I've developed, um, because it suited me really well through the army, you know, and 20 years in the army, it's, um, that ability to, uh, get it done at all costs and put my emotions aside. And, um, you know, you, you're, you're guys are getting killed in, in Iraq and, you know, you're, you're putting those interconditional levers to flight and you're getting after it. Um, and, uh, you know, and I, I think that that callousness, that ability to separate yourself from what's going on, um, was very difficult for me growing

13:00 The Vietnam Helmet: A Childhood Dream Ignited

13:04 up and it's been difficult in my personal life, but it's been also been very rewarding in my military career. I will say that to try to hunt the good stuff there. I mean, that's the good, that's the good part. Yeah. Um, what you're saying, it's, it's all these, these bells are ringing in my head. Um, and I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's from what you're saying, because I started talking to the chaplain at work about a year ago. And as we were, as I was sharing stories with him, he said that, Mike, you, you are not alone. You are literally fitting the profile to the T of our extremely successful military members. Some of

13:43 our, some of our most decorated veterans, whether that's combat leadership, you name it, have very similar backgrounds. And he said, I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. And he said, you know, part of that is the hero complex from the standpoint of, okay, nobody was there to save me when I was young. So I'm going to save myself. And then I'm going to put everything I can into this, this military meritocracy, because I know that I will be rewarded for the efforts I put in. Whereas before you didn't have that opportunity as a, as a young person, have you spoken to a chaplain or a

14:22 PTSD counselor? Because he, he also said, this profile that we're discussing, why we're so similar. He said, you guys will go to, you know, the ends of the earth to save people. And he said, that's also very dangerous for suicide. I can, and that's why I want to do this. That's what that's the point of this podcast is to make sure that our brothers and sisters have a voice. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I haven't, I have spoken to a chaplain and I've, I've gone, I've gone in and had various

15:00 Never Take No: The Wi-Fi Email That Changed Everything

15:02 testing for PTSD and whatnot. Matter of fact, it's, it's one of those things for me that's still ongoing at this point in time. So, um, I have not been like officially diagnosed or anything, but, um, but I know that I have some PTSD, man. I mean, like my therapist will tell you that I have PTSD, you know, and then it's, it's not only from the childhood, the tough upbringing and whatnot, but it's, it's also built upon all the things that we do in the military, you know, all the terrible things that we've had to see and experience and all the, all the really wonderful things too. I'm not saying it was all bad because of course it's not. Um, but anyway, that PTSD

15:40 point is, it's a journey for me. I feel rather guilty about it. I think is the word because I know guys who have legitimate real issues with PTSD. And I just look at it. Like it looks to me like, and it feels to me that I'm just, maybe I'm just weak. You know what I mean? And I just can't deal with it, which is just a total bunch of bullshit. You know what I mean? Cause I've dealt with so much and I can, and I can deal with so much, man. I'm highly resilient. Um, but the PTSD thing, man, is, is a strange, that's a strange thing for me. Um, and I don't really know where all my thoughts are on that. Honestly, Mike, because you know, so many of my buddies do have PTSD from terrible things that have happened to them. And I've had some pretty

16:31 terrible things happen to me too, but I've always been able to somewhat, separate myself from those memories and from those experiences. Like I don't have flashbacks. I sleep just fine at night, you know? And I know some really good friends who don't have that luxury. And so I feel a little bit guilty when the, when the VA starts talking about PTSD, when my therapist goes into it and I, and I don't know if it's, you know, um, some sort of like maybe survivor's guilt or something. I, I don't really know how to explain it, man. Other than I look at it, like for me personally, I haven't done enough in my life to be able to deal with it. I feel very guilty. I'm like, dude, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to the doctor and I'm gonna have to

17:12 go through some of this stuff, you know, and I don't know how to get it out of my mind to warrant a PTSD diagnosis. And that's saying something, man, because I've seen some really terrible shit and almost died in a helicopter, you know, more times than I can fricking count. Um, uh, you, you need to continue, you need to continue to talk to somebody because the, and I'm going to

17:30 The Recruiter's Mistake: Resilience Forged in Adversity

17:32 call them excuses. The excuses you're saying right now is the same stuff. I told my counselor the same stuff. Oh, you know, I, I wasn't actually in the shit killing people. I, I wasn't that wasn't actually you know danger close I you know my my stuff is is pales in comparison and he was like brother these are all the same excuses you guys all you every single one of you say the same thing to yourselves yeah and a lot of a lot of my um my motivation and a lot of my drive is because I'm surrounded by guys who I feel have have done more than me you know and um I'll tell you a quick story you know I mean like I've got 20 almost 20 years of service in right now you know um chief

18:21 warrant officer four got 4,000 hours of flying helicopters around everywhere all around the world you know what I mean and you'd think that'd be enough but there's still something inside me man that um that wishes I had more combat deployments that wishes I had more you know um more time in theater you know I mean I've got one I had one deployment to Iraq man you know and I volunteered to go and then I came back and volunteered to go to Afghanistan and they sent me to Korea instead so I have one tour one tour only and I've got buddies of mine that have three and four you know and like those guys are the guys who I look up to like I I don't want to feel like like I

19:00 took the job at the counter drug unit here and flew the southwest border for seven years you know and the hardest flying I've ever done in my life the most dangerous flight I've ever done in my life and supporting law enforcement out here on the border and there's still a part of me that feels like it's not enough because I didn't get another deployment I didn't get to see another deployment I didn't get to see another deployment I didn't get to see another deployment in Afghanistan you know and uh and I know it's just man it's my ego you know I've got every t-shirt in the world man I've been to every helicopter course you know I'm the standardization

19:33 guy I'm an instructor pilot I'm you know instrument examiner pilot I'm all the things and for some reason or another man there's just a part of me that still eats away at me because I didn't do enough at least that's how I feel and I know you can't compute it but that's how I feel I was going to say if you had three deployments you know I'm just being devil's advocate you would compare yourself to the person with four and five deployments if you had five deployments

20:00 From 'No Chance' to Success: A Message to Young Kids

20:02 you'd compare yourself to oh well I didn't have any helicopter crashes or I feel like there's it's going to be a moving Target that goal post is going to continue to never be there you're always going to compare yourself to somebody that did a little more yeah and I I agree with you man and that that is that is that that's the proverbial carrot you know that's just hanging it's just you know there's that wins enough when it when is enough enough you know um and that's one of those things that you know I have to that I personally have to just come to terms with and none of those guys that have three combat deployments look at me like I'm I didn't do anything I mean all my buddies are you know anybody who knows me is you know there I I did

20:49 plenty you know seven years on the border was plenty man you mentioned the border uh that was one of the questions I had ready for you here was when conducting Border Patrol missions versus overseas operations how do you adapt your approach and mindset what unique challenges does each environment present yeah so flying Chinooks in Iraq we I mean we we primarily own the night you know we fly every night um doing just what we call ass and trash missions you know getting about eight hours a night flying around Iraq um supporting everybody from you know seals to you know even Delta guys and um and then just regular infantry there was a certain purpose that was inherent in the job um and it was it was great flying it was

21:46 a great time you know what I mean I had a good time in Iraq um it was difficult though I learned how to be a pilot in Iraq I was a brand new warrant officer to a line unit and I was learning how to do my craft in combat so it was a trial by fire and it was it was it was a lot of fun it

22:00 The Army Machine: Accepting You Are Expendable

22:01 was a lot of challenging good stuff and the flying of Chinook man is just you know flying a dirty D model from note was just is to dream come true man those things are just they're just fun man you know um but we had air superiority in Iraq so we never really worried about you know getting shot at we never really worried about um not coming home you know what I mean at least those days in 09 and 10. and we did get shot at and I'd have a good surface to air missile um story that that uh that I could tell you about um but uh for the most part man it was just learning the job and coming home and playing video games I mean that's literally what that whole

22:41 deployment was you know flying the border though man's completely a different story you know like I I found that my time in Iraq was me as a junior guy and I didn't know the danger when you got to the Southwest border and you started flying those missions and in the Lakota helicopter uh you found out real quick that you needed to be really good at that job you needed to learn how to fly the helicopter very well because you were constantly flying in flight regimes that were not suitable we are constantly low constantly slow constantly power limited constantly flying in in mountains that look like Afghanistan constantly getting stuff thrown at us constantly chasing dudes

23:26 around the place and then constantly having to change your mindset on a dime because the guys that you're chasing all of a sudden they run out of water and the next thing you know you're saving lives and you're and you're dragging these guys into the back of the helicopter and take them to the hospital or doing a tail-to-tail with some EMS bird or whatever so you were you were a rescue pilot and you were law enforcement and it was like being deployed a lot of ways because the flying was so dangerous all the time and um you know those were that's what you live for when you're a helicopter pod it's the best type of flying but when you get a certain amount of hours you get a few thousand hours under your belt doing that kind of stuff and

24:12 you're kind of like man like you know how many more hours do I have than me doing this like this is all every day is a roll of the dice and so after a while you kind of go hey man maybe it's time to start looking at other things maybe a little bit less dangerous than doing this and that's the kind of struggle I had in the last couple years I was there um the aircraft were aging out a little bit and we were really putting these aircraft through the ringer out there in the desert with all the off-site landings and all the dust and all the extreme heat and everything else in these in these aircraft and you got to realize these Lakota helicopters these are EMS birds on

24:47 the outside man these are hard stand to hard stand aircraft they're not meant to be doing what we were doing with them and you start getting a lot of um cracks in the tail boom you start getting you start seeing wear and tear on these aircraft that are that are that are really bad that really shouldn't be happening um and yeah so it's one of those things like I I grew up flying the border I learned real quick how serious and how dangerous that that that type of flying can be because I almost died numerous times out there on the water I mean just sheer good luck is is the only thing that saved me it was not my my heavy piloting skills you know so have you lost any

25:30 birds on the border no we have not in Arizona no no we haven't thank God you know your path to becoming a helicopter pilot was definitely not the traditional path what moment or experience from your early life sparked your dream of flying for the military I've got a great story for this Mike now I don't know if I don't know if I've ever told you this story but so my dad was dating then this is you know this is early 80s I might have been in in first grade my dad was dating a pilot who had two boys uh Jane Jane and um their dad was a pilot an army pilot in Vietnam and they had his helmet um one of the boys had his helmet and it was all shrapnel ridden and had like you

26:26 know gun bullets in it and stuff you know usual Vietnam kind of stuff and I remember being so fascinated with that helmet I took it in to show and tell one day and I I said you know hey this is you know the the my buddies this is their dad's helmet he's an army hella or used to be a helicopter pilot and that's what I'm gonna do when I when I grow up so I always had it in my mind even from earlier from that early of an age that I wanted to be a helicopter pilot and it wasn't always just in the army either but it turned out that the army was the best best place for me so yeah fast forward to even just a few years ago I got in touch with um Jay and I told

27:04 him that story about about me taking his dad's uh helmet in and he said yeah you know my old man passed away a few years ago but he was a Chinook pilot in Vietnam and I thought my God man what are the chances that I would grow up to be a Chinook pilot in the army just like his dad but that's what planted the seed it was that early on in my life and then it was a real roundabout way of getting in and I'll tell you I'll tell you this too Mike so here's another story and I'll tell I'll tell this story to anybody out there if there's one piece of advice I can give you to give any that I would give anyone it's to never take no as a kid in the army um to be a special forces guy I wanted to go be a Green Beret for a few years but

27:54 ultimately after my time was up in the Green Berets on the ODAs I wanted to put in a warrant packet to become a helicopter pilot so I always had it in my mind that I was going to end up as a helicopter so I injured my lower back um doing infantry stuff and so that that kind of ruined that career so I put in a packet for flight school but with with a bad back with a with a fractured lower back like unqualified so I had continually gone in and tried and tried and tried I put this packet in so many times talked to so many doctors and they were all said the same thing I went in and talked to this Lieutenant Colonel his last name was Parado and he said Anthony he's a specialist

28:38 Moon don't ever come into my office ever again like you are you are completely barred from putting in a warrant packet you can't go fly your back's already broken you know not broken but it's already it's already beat up just go do something else with your life you have a college degree go do that you're not going to be able to fly you're not going to be able to fly you're not going to be able to fly to do that and so I left his office and went back to uh Fort Benning and right before I jumped on to Fort Benning right before I went through the gate there's a there's there used to be a red roof in and I thought you know what I'm gonna steal the internet because remember back in the

29:10 day you would commandeer the wi-fi off of whatever you know place so I so what I did is I I said you know hey man here's my last ditch ever I'm gonna steal the wi-fi from this red roof in on my computer that I'm sitting in this car it's pouring rain outside super cold it's in the middle of winter and I stopped and I get that so I and then I I Google Aviation Medicine Fort Rucker Alabama and a number comes up I don't know who's this email goes to and this number but I shot an email to this whatever whoever this was I just so I said hey this is specialist Anthony Moon this is what I'm trying to do I have a good degree I've got you know here's my PT score blah blah blah blah

29:50 all this kind of stuff I just you know real quick quick and dirty this is what I'm trying to do this is who I am before I could power my computer down I got a reply back from then Colonel Bernstein Colonel Bernstein went on to be the two-star um ahead of all uh Aviation Medicine at Fort Rucker Alabama and he said I will sign your packet take this email to Colonel Prado right now and tell them you're in so I literally turned around went back to the hospital took my computer in to Colonel prado's office turned it around and said hey this guy right here says that he'll sign my paperwork and Prado's like that's the dude so okay like good on you you know what i mean don't ever take no for an answer

30:40 and and it was that email it was that commandeering that wi-fi that decision right there started a 20-year career in the army flying helicopters the whole time almost you know what i mean it just took one guy and so two years later i'm graduating out of the schnook course and colonel uh colonel bernstein is now general bernstein not not not four-star general but uh brigadier general bernstein and he was at fort rucker and i got together with him and uh you know and just i had a good conversation said hey thank you and you know what i mean and it was just a really really powerful few moments of him and i together because all it took is that dude just taking a chance on me and you know four thousand hours

31:28 later and you know korea and iraq and southwest border and you know what i mean and it's now now i'm just teaching students you know trying not to get those guys killed but yeah don't ever take no for any just takes one guy to say yes i know exactly what you mean i have not shared this story on the pod so i'll share it now staff sergeant rick rose was the air force recruiter in tacoma washington who was trying to get me to be a navigator and i said staff sergeant rose i want to be a pilot well there's only one pilot per class of officer training school because i was not i wasn't an academy guy i had to go through the officer training school program and he said

32:19 there's only one pilot per class so you're not going to get selected so i said okay i'll just go with um air force needs or whatever and they always need cops missileers and i i forget what the other career field was but i got missileer and he's like oh man it's awesome it's just like being a firefighter you work eight days a month the rest of the months you're yours for the for the choosing it's like okay i guess i'll deal with that that's fine oh man that's awesome um and then i go to officer training school montgomery alabama there are 20 pilots in my class who already have been selected for pilot slots out of the i think there's two or three hundred of us in the class 20 pilots and i went and talked to my flight commander while i was going

33:09 through the program and explained my story and he called up the two-star of recruiting and she came out to montgomery alabama not to purposely come talk to me but she came out to Montgomery Alabama and she met with me to hear my story and she looked at my records she looked at my scores and she's like well technically your scores are good enough to be a pilot but I can see how the recruiter you know wasn't overly ambitious towards you know getting your putting in your package and she said by the way do you have this conversation recorded and I thought why would I have this conversation recorded everything we talk about is the core values I would never think that somebody would

33:53 be dishonest about it she's like well there's nothing I can do so real sorry about that so the end of officer training school it's like it lit a fire under my ass so you know me working hard studying hard doing lifting weights doing the best I can so I end up being a distinguished graduate out of officer training school and graduate in front of multiple pilots that were in the class so I go back home to Tacoma and I'm like oh my god I'm going to be a pilot in Tacoma Washington and you have about a two-week leave period before you go off to your next school your next assignment and so I walked into Sergeant Rick Rose's office and I said well Rick there wasn't one pilot per class and I graduated in front of a bulk of those pilots

34:39 in that class as it's a distinguished graduate so I think you made a bad choice his face lost all the blood and you're supposed to do two weeks with your with your officer training school and you're supposed to do two weeks with your with your officer training school um recruiter your two weeks whatever you call it you know desk duty you're just sitting there as a as a fresh second lieutenant and he sent me to the University of Washington recruiting team because he was so embarrassed about what he did and you know I could look back and woe is me and blame him for all this stuff but man everything happens for a reason because when I went to space and

35:17 missile training talk about embracing the suck that was such a difficult program and you were just treated like like garbage during your time in the missile fields that it built this level of resilience in me that I never would have made it through pilot training if I hadn't done missile training first so there's sometimes I'm like you know what Rick maybe it's kind of good that you you know screwed me over because in reality it it gave me the resilience to succeed in pilot training later on so yeah that's the whole you know uh nothing's happening to you everything's happening for you which is a hard lesson by the way which is something I'm still learning that's well well when we were talking about relationships earlier

36:04 um my relationships in my past were very similar to yours when things got rough pack it up it's over we're done this is it and so until I met Heather you know over 21 years ago man I was never going to get married I I wanted no relationships no responsibility that's when Sean and I lived together Sean and Sam and I lived together us against the world. We're young guys doing whatever we want. I have no time for women or relationships because of that constant hurt, that lack of trust, that just fear of failure. So once again, man, you're not alone. I felt the same way. I mean, Heather is just a godsend of my life. She's the mature one that keeps me on the straight and narrow. Without her, my goodness.

36:55 Christina was a lot of the same too, man. They say, your partner's your greatest teacher, just be patient for the lessons. And I feel like I was just on a PhD program for relationships over the last four years with Christina, because she really was an incredible partner and even a more incredible teacher of just all things relationship. She's an incredible, incredible woman who I'm so grateful for, even to this day. And I mean, if there's a woman who's been a part of my life, there's ever a chance for her and I to patch some things up into the future, man. I mean, I would count myself, you know, to be the luckiest guy in the world, man. She's a real catch, man. She's a

37:39 real gem. But yeah, I was one of those kids, Mike. I was one of those kids and I didn't realize it at the time. And you know, the kids I'm talking about, it's the kids that you look at and you just go, man, that kid doesn't stand a chance. And I was that kid. And the reason I know that because I've gone back over the years and, talked to my buddies, parents, and I'm still, I'm still good friends with all my dudes from high school, man. So we all go way back middle school, you know, and so I've known their parents forever and their parents would tell you just, we never thought, we never thought you'd amount to anything. You just, you were just that kid who just didn't stand a chance and, you know, fast

38:25 forward. And it's just, you know, there there's always hope, I guess, but yeah, I was always that kid who just nobody, everybody gave up on. And so that was a big motivator for me too, man. What would you say to that middle schooler that, uh, that Anthony Moon middle schooler today, if, um, if the Anthony of today walked into that middle school and said, this is what you're going to do. This is what you're going to become. This is what you're going to be. I would tell him a few things. First of all, I would say, obviously, you know, that I loved him, right. And that I understood the weight that he was carrying and that you're going to go on and do incredibly important things, um, in service of this nation. And,

39:15 uh, it's gonna, it's going to be really, really hard, but it's all going to be worth it. And so I would just tell him, no matter what, man, just keep your chin up, you know, and you are, you're good enough. You know what I mean? You're good enough. You know, I never thought I, I never thought I was good enough to do anything, but that, that kid, that middle schooler that didn't stand a chance, that kid's good enough. What do, what can we do? I mean, that's why I'm having these conversations. I just want some middle school kid to watch this and be like, yeah, people say I'm a screw up or like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

39:55 know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't good enough or I did this wrong or, you know, my parents, they don't, they don't have any faith in me or, you know, my neighbors, my buddies at school think I'm a loser. I mean, I just want those kids to see this and, and see, and hear of your accomplishments. And guess what, what you didn't mention to that middle schooler is you only did one deployment in Iraq. So, you know, you could have been better. Yeah. The thing is, is, is I volunteered to stay in Iraq. i volunteered to go to afghanistan like you know i remember telling like just thinking to myself

40:32 like i was a single guy i was hungry like send me to combat man that's like if you can't send me who the hell who the hell should go i don't have kids my parents are already passed away like i'm your guy and if i'm looking at the army and i'm just like if you can't see me and send me to combat then then just go lose every single war i'd like i don't care because here i am telling you like i'm hungry i'm ready to roll and they just always said no we you know go to go to korea or go do this or whatever you know i mean and i just after a while you just kind of like all right man well i did what i could you know and i well hopefully as you furthered along in your career you realize

41:16 the army is just a big machine man you're just a number this was nothing personal this wasn't i mean the the human resources machine cannot pick and choose who's gonna go to the next uh no the next afghanistan understand deployment yeah man no and that's that's exactly right man the um you're just a cognitive machine man you are just you're just a slot you know and that's all you are just you're filling a slot you know and the faster you recognize that and i'll tell you what uh the faster you realize and you get comfortable with the the fact that you're completely expendable um the better your life will be in the military and the army is terrible for that too man

42:00 they're really good about making sure you know that you're not that important um and the more the more that you're okay with that the better your life in that uniform will be you know what i mean i think about year six is when i was like okay i got it now i'm gonna stop being angry that the army's just so completely up all the time and then and then everything just gets better and you start just realizing that hey man i don't have to worry about this anymore you know what i mean they're gonna do what they're gonna do and i i can only control what i can control you know what i mean man you are so right i think i was around that same time that six of us were in the army and we were flying a mission to afghanistan or whatever and they were rerouting

42:43 us so we weren't going to go back to germany we were going to go to al-yud and so we're getting on the phone we got a satcom in the in the airplane and we're complaining about like we don't have the gear to go to al-yud you know we left our stuff in germany that's where we're supposed to go back to and the planning manager he's on the phone and he's like uh listen captain i am literally looking at the entire globe and there are 200 c-17s flying all over the world you are just a blip on my radar you're going to al-yud yeah and you copy that and you i'm just a blip i'm just a blip on the screen and and you know this being being at your rank and you're you know and you're at your level it's like

43:30 there are people that are seeing things at the macro things that i don't understand and you have to realize too man being a warrant officer i don't know what's going on out even outside of my freaking wheelhouse brother like i know about my helicopter and my mission that day and other than that i don't see or understand what's going on at that level and and again at that point in time and you just realize that there's there's going on that you don't realize you just have to trust the process man you got to trust those people up there just are looking out for the greater good of everybody and sometimes bro that means that you're staying you know overnight someplace that you don't want to stay overnight you know what i mean

44:09 and that's just the way it goes at the end of the day i'm just super happy i get to fly really good really good helicopters you know what i mean with some really cool on them yeah i was just i was just telling somebody the other day i said look um the thing i like about flying is the camaraderie and the cool stuff the low levels the air refueling the amazing locations we get to go to i'm like i i have absolutely zero interest in the airlines because it none of it is the fun part you don't get to pick who you fly with you just go to these major nations andwerk install it all and justgo through them and just enjoyheaded there's like nothing about it is exciting or dangerous i'm not discounting the fact look there's lots of

44:52 you know we both have lots of good friends that are their airline pilots it's it's nothing against us it's just that's that's not what that's not what excites me what excites me is helping people mentoring people leading young people helping folks make good decisions and you know that strategy you mentioned my time in the pentagon man most people hate it they're like oh my god i'm in this i'm in this pentagon and i'm just doing policy and nobody cares i'm like no you you are making changes that will impact the entire force so there's there's decisions that i've sat in on where i'm like wow this decision is going to impact the air force for 30 years this is this

45:33 is pretty cool yeah so but i i try to look at his glass half full others look at his like oh man i'm just a colonel walking walking around in this building yeah i mean it's same thing it's like you know i'm a chief warrant officer for which is you know i mean it that's up there you're pretty much untouchable it's and it's the rank that we all want to be as warrant officers you know i mean less than one percent make cw5 and most guys don't want cw5 because it's a uh it's a uh regulation policy political position at that point in time you know it takes you out of the cockpit most guys don't want it you know but but also like like you're talking about the pentagon

46:12 i mean you're surrounded you're a colonel you're full bird colonel man that's something but you are surrounded by full bird colonels you know just like me man oh we like i'm still let me put i'm surrounded by w let me give you a comparison yeah i'll give you a comparison i went out to alice's oklahoma for c17 re-qualified re-qualification training and it was me and another colonel we they gave us a car they gave us a stocked bar they gave us a stock refrigerator and asked us if we want wake-up calls they called us to see if we wanted tours of different airplanes on the flight line i mean we were treated like gods and then i go back to the pentagon and i'm in like 10 square foot cell no windows nobody gives two shits about anything of

47:01 your quality of life because like you said you're just you're just a number there i mean hello we're sharing the bathroom with four star generals so i was literally taking a leak next to my buddy general clark and i was like wow sir you're just you're just a number there i mean hello we're you don't have your own bathroom he's like not until i'm sec def i mean it's just you're just a number you're just a number in that building yeah yeah the first time i tell you what the first time i ever saw um a four stars on a guy's chest it's incredible how much how much weight that that just you know four stars is a lot man when you're dealing with a legitimate general you know um i

47:37 met general odierno in iraq when he was a four star and then i had the i had the luxury and then the new um bravo model transition um the state chose me to go up and fly the chief of national guard bureau daniel four star general daniel hokinson when he was still around so i gotta go fly awesome dude he's such a good guy just the greatest guy i i am so unbelievably lucky to have logged at 2.5 hours with that dude as my co-pilot we have the best time you know um and just what a great guy i felt so much better knowing that that dude was at at his level making decisions for guys like me i just really appreciated him great great dude yeah i just photographed a promotion a member was promoting

48:33 the colonel and general hokinson was the uh the officiant and and i said hey sir you don't know me personally but i know you're an oregon guardsman and i'm from washington state so i just said had to say hello and he's like oh my gosh and we just started chatting for a few minutes and and he was like what can i do to help and i was like look at that i'm here just taking pictures at a ceremony and you're already asking what you can do to help yeah so really solid guy just awesome guy man yeah all around really really happy really happy about that guy man such a such a good good dude so back to your iraq thing and your deployment to iraq um given your experience there what do you wish civilians

49:18 better understood about the human side of military service so i'll tell you what i think when people say thank you for your service like i know i know what they mean right we're put into harm's way you know we um it's a difficult life in a lot of ways it can be it can be very difficult um you're away from home it's a lot of training it's a lot of schooling it's just so i understand what they're talking about when they say thank you for your service and i think for me what service what it has meant for me is there is a there's a mental and i don't want to say this i don't want to say this as like it's a something that's a detriment like something that i would tell you know young men that want to be in the military i wouldn't

50:15 say this to dissuade them from joining but there's a certain amount of just stress and um maybe a mental health aspect of it that has been very challenging for me over the years um all the things that i've done all the things that i've had to see you know it comes at a at a toll to your relationships and to yourself and i would never trade it in for anything it's it is a weight that i will carry um and it's something that even i work through you know i mean i i go to therapy once a week man you know and and i and i love therapy i'm a i'm a huge proponent for for therapy and going to get help and talking to folks and stuff and i tell that to my soldiers too don't be don't be afraid to to reach out for help you know and um

51:12 but there is a mental health aspect of it man that makes it very challenging because some of the things that you are asked to do come at a cost it's it's a costly profession it is it is a sacrifice of your own mental health in a lot of ways um but it's worth it it was worth it to me for the experiences that i had and and the guys and gals that were right by me and some really hairy hairy stuff and uh yeah so that's i think that's what it is that it's the sacrifice the mental health is what's been really hard on me and and the constant stress it's a stressful it's a stressful gig man you know anytime you're flying it's a stressful gig that's all there is to it i wouldn't trade it for anything if somebody said 25 years ago when

52:10 i started this journey that we we have a different path for you i i wouldn't trade it for anything i i could have made more money i i could have done different things i wouldn't trade it for anything it was the best thing for me. It's what I needed. I needed structure. I needed guidance. I needed mentorship. 100%. I needed it because I just had a lot of, like you said, baggage, a lot of immaturity. And just like you, one of my best friends growing up, his dad said, oh, you're never going to make that. You can't even follow directions. People yell at you and you get upset and get emotional. You'll never make it through that program. That was always playing in the back

52:55 of my head as I was getting yelled at or doing something in my training was him saying, you'll never make it through there. Yeah. Yeah. I was the same way. I was very, I had a degree coming out of college and I didn't know, I didn't have any direction. And a directionless Anthony is a dangerous Anthony because I needed some direction and I needed it now. And when I started looking at the military, it's exactly what it gave me. It gave me a direction and it gave me, it gave me a purpose. And it said, hey, Anthony, go from A to B and here's your equipment and freaking haul ass. And I loved that challenge. I loved that challenge and I needed it because I

53:44 needed to, I needed the initiation into manhood and the military was able to give me that. Without joining up, I would have been directionless. I would have been, I don't know, it wouldn't have given me direction and purpose when I needed it. And it gave me a challenge because like you, man, I was in great shape, man. I was hungry. I was, I was an ass kicker back in the days, but I needed to put that energy towards something bigger than just me. And that's what the military gave me. That's the beauty of it is it took a lost kid and it made him into this grizzled old man that you see right now, you know, and I'm doing so much. This last year has been really dark for me, Mike,

54:41 you know, some of the stuff that I won't get into on the pod, but the military gave me the ability to know how strong I am. And I'm so willing to get into the weeds of my own, my own psyche and my own soul to go deep and figure out who I am and to find purpose and to continue this amazing journey beyond the military. But the military was instrumental in making me who I am today. I love the fact that you were talking about purpose. I feel like, I feel like right now our, our youth are just, um, they see all these things on social media. Everybody's rich or has fancy things. And it's always this, well, I don't have that. So I'm less than, and that's why I keep saying a purpose-driven life is worth far more

55:43 than money and material things, getting up in the morning and knowing that you are part of something greater than yourself. It's it's priceless. And Heather always teases me. She's like, here he goes again. He's on a soapbox. So, you know, always recruiting kids. I'm like, damn right. Because it changed my life for the better. And every time that I have a chance to talk to a kid about what they're going to do with their life, I will say the same thing again. Yes. Have I seen dark things? Yes. Have I had to kill people? Yes. Have I done things that inside my soul hurt at times? Yes. But 98% of the time, boy, it was a bad thing. And I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.

56:24 It was worth it. And I will not change that. Yeah, man, I'm with you. I'm a broken record when it comes to, you know, talking to talking to anybody who who wants to open up about the military. And a lot of times it's it's kids from my friends, you know, and they want to talk to me because they've never served. So, hey, man, can you talk to my kid about, you know, joining the army? Absolutely. I would love to. And so here's a stat for you. So I was just in my my doing my PME, which is military education stuff. So I was in class for a bunch of weeks, you know, going to all this crap. So and one of the things is that they they they talked a lot about the recruitment

57:07 retention problem that the military has in general. And really what and I'll tell you this much. The army doesn't really have an answer for it at this moment in time. It's just too big. It's too convoluted. There's too many parts and pieces. And really, the army struggling right now on how to retain folks. So, excuse me, the biggest statistic that came out of that that really stuck with me is that in 1980, the the the up to 40% of the United States had had a person in their lives that served. So you had an uncle, a brother, you know, somebody in your family, 40% of the country had no somebody that served. Fast forward to 2020, it dropped to 12%. So what that means is that people, you know,

58:03 people don't even not only do they not understand the military life at all, they don't even have anybody to go to anymore, because they don't have an uncle that served, they don't have a brother that served or a cousin, they don't even have a friend, nobody serves anymore. So without without that, without that, without being able to go to somebody to talk to about that kind of stuff, what do you do, you just don't serve, you're scared of it. Why would I want to be a part of a machine that's going to send me off to war and do all this stuff? Because you're not getting the full story. You know, I mean, you're going to be asked to put your life on the line. Absolutely. You know

58:42 what, that is empowering. It's incredibly empowering, that I get entrusted in you say, like, we get entrusted to go fly all these dudes around in these crazy helicopters and airplanes and drop them off in the middle of frickin nowhere and that 3am and you're entrusted to go do that. Like that's, that's so powerful. That's incredible, that you're united, that your government trusts you to go do that. Sometimes I've literally flown missions before where I'm like, Oh, I'm going to go fly. Like, does the army? Do they know who the hell I am? Because I wouldn't trust me to do this. You know? Oh, yeah, I know that. I know the Tony Moon from Georgia State. It's just like, but you

59:27 know, somehow or another, man, I just Yeah, but it's been incredibly empowering, man. And you find out what you're made of, dude, real, real quick, man. And that's, that's an empowering. That's a really good thing to know as a man in today's society. You know what I mean? Like, I know what I'm worth. Yeah. You know, as the group commander down in Charlotte, North Carolina, this was during the last election when it was Biden versus Trump the first time, and North Carolina is a kind of swing state. So they were Trump was there a bunch of times. And I thought to myself, man, I'm in charge of this $2 billion flight line. And here comes Air Force One taxiing in. And, you know, the presidential candidate for

1:00:15 the United States is going to walk. down those steps and i'm in charge of this right and so that that best friend growing up whose dad said you're never gonna make it you can't handle people yelling at you and now i'm literally on this flight line where the president of the united states or you know the candidate for the president united states is gonna walk off that airplane i i've had to pinch myself a few times yeah i mean that's impressive man that's really impressive but you know so because like you said i mean you're like hey are you sure are you sure you're gonna trust me at this because do you know some of the dumb stuff i've done in my life growing up totally yeah totally you know and we're all

1:01:01 redeemable you know um and i think that's what's kind of cool man like you know i came into the army and i was able to reinvent myself i was able to invent myself you know uh and that's a pretty that's a pretty powerful thing man you know if you put a suit and tie on and you go to wall street man i don't know if you can necessarily do that my my brother-in-law very successful in the banking and the finance industry just gobs of money i wish you would give me some to help me support this podcast because it cost me about three 300 bucks an episode to make it but um he's like i don't i don't care about my money he's got a fancy place in newport beach and he's like dude i'm way more interested in what you're doing he's like you're

1:01:48 you're changing the world i'm just you know pushing pushing money around and buying businesses i was yeah i'll take your 50 million dollars and you can go fly this airplane and we'll call it good yeah so yeah i mean i just and i and i just say that as as a joke because i would never trade it man this has just been an amazing experience so one thing i had a question for you is um what's the most important lesson about leadership that you've learned from the cockpit that applies to life on the ground oh jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus man um i think the most important thing i i will tell you this as a helicopter pilot the most

1:02:44 important thing and you and i'm sure it's the same way as a c-17 pilot you need to be so far out in front of that helicopter in front of that machine that when things take a shit on you and they will real quick you need to already have a plan in place like well beyond that helicopter and so when i go out and fly i have an idea of of sort of what what that day is going to look like and i already have i'm already thinking of contingencies and you just get that stuff off it's all just experience man just because i've seen it so much that way when shit goes south i already am prepared for for what what i need to do and it needs to happen right now you know what i mean um and i communicate that to my crew like we talk

1:03:39 about these things we talk about them in crew briefs and we talk about them when we're flying um and i'm i'm way in front of the helicopter and i'm constantly asking younger guys like i see where you're going what are you going to do if x happens and they're like dude i don't know okay well then maybe let's not go do that or maybe let's come at it from a different angle you know or a different altitude or airspeed or whatever because inevitably something's going to happen something's going to go down right um and i think that on the i think on the ground if you know yourself and listen man i'm not a professional about this man i'm still learning about myself as

1:04:18 well man i'm peeling back so many layers and i think if you if you really have your purpose and you're you're leading a purpose-driven life like we're kind of just discussing then when shit goes south which inevitably it will at least you still know where you're headed you know i'm out in front of my life not all the time dude there are times where i just flat out struggle man and i'm lost but most of my life i know where i'm heading and i'm already there i just haven't got there yet but i won't walk around just aimless i'm just going to keep going i'm going to keep another chapter of my life i don't give a shit about that shit you know what i mean i'm

1:04:59 not going to let that helicopter fly me and i'm not going to let life walk all over me i'm gonna take i'm gonna take charge of that as hard as that is for me right now personally going through the shit that i'm going through right now i know that the end of the day i know where i want to go and i know where i'm gonna be it's just a matter of getting through some nasty it to get there but because i know that i'm getting there that's what it's that's what it's about and the military i've been imagine is what taught you that because that's what the military taught me oh dude i didn't learn that from from mom and dad yeah that's that's old uncle as i prepared to retire yeah as i prepared

1:05:51 to retire and i'm going through the transition program and you go to all these um these retirement prep classes on how to fill out a resume and how to construct an interview and all this stuff i had a a life coach there's a program called the commit foundation and they they help mentor senior officers that are preparing to retire and as i'm going through that program they're like bro you are not the typical guy or gal that's filling out a resume or seeking out a job so if these major companies think oh well you're a colonel in the air force and you work at the pentagon so you fit here they're like no man you are completely different you are such a resilient go-getter guy don't accept these these mid-20s

1:06:37 tier jobs just because they say that's where you fit in these large organizations so i've given the middle finger to a bunch of companies i'm like i'm not the right fit for you you're looking for a yes man that's just going to fill your mid-level management job and that's that's not me i i have gone through so many wonderful training and leadership experiences in the air force that i've got bigger and better things planned whether that's being an entrepreneur or um you know helping run a small company and build it for you or you know helping you from the ground up but dude i am not your your uh your lockheed martin or your boeing mid-level manager it's just not in me and that's because the military it gave me this confidence and this

1:07:18 ability to know that i i can do whatever i want and so yeah i see that in you as well that's that's incredibly important man and here's the thing too and i i was just i was just on a call with a with like kind of like a ted talks guy his name is scott scott fitzgerald really incredible i sat down with him for about an hour and a half on a on a zoom call he does a lot of coaching and stuff for like ceos cfos that kind of thing people pay a lot of money to have him sit down with them but i'm we have mutual friends so i ended up getting connected and he really you know he's really big and like you know hey man go get a purpose like find your purpose it's like okay

1:07:57 cool man i'll do that but secondly he was like don't let don't when you join the military you become a warrant officer and you fly helicopters don't let don't let the society tell you that that's all you can do because i what ends up happening is i start thinking i'm pigeonholed because i only know how to do one thing and that's wiggle sticks on a helicopter and he's and this is scott's an old oh-58 army helicopter pilot from way back so he's like you get so much schooling and yeah you know how to wiggle sticks but you are trained in so many other things project management management program management you you have all of these skills that you don't know but

1:08:43 when you get out in the civilian world that that those traits are going to come they're going to be really really well received in the outside world because i do sometimes go man am i going to continue to fly it's all i know how to do and scott's like no dude like you know how to do many many many many more things than you think you know how to do and i think that that's a really valuable lesson too it's not you know you're not just up flying helicopters man you are an a manager of people and of systems um as well and there's a massive amount of of of carry over that will bleed over into the civilian sector you're just it's basically just limitless man guys like us are just it it's hard to figure out what I want to do on the outside because damn

1:09:28 dude I could go do anything and be really good at it it's a matter of linking it to to a purpose because my second second life dude it's gonna be purpose driven man it's not going to be for Paychex or validation or anything it's going to be a purpose driven completely agree with you brother you know when our mutual best friend Sean took his life it it it changed something in me where I was like what am I doing am I am I here to do what others want me to do or am I here to do what I want to do and what I want to do is help save lives mentor others and be there for people it's far more important than a particular salary now granted we're in financial situations

1:10:27 here where we have the benefit of having a retirement program having a you know a disability program so we've put ourselves into an enviable position when it comes to that that 20-year reset yes but man I want that 20-year reset to make to make a difference and so I I've been offered very high value jobs and I'm like guess what I would rather have a thousand people at my funeral than a bunch of money in the bank so I'm gonna go I'm gonna go down this path yeah yeah and I I would tell you I I don't I don't think most people would would go down the path you're going down Mike so so kudos to you for for leading with your heart rather than with your pocketbook you know yeah yeah and I just like I said I don't think I would have thought

1:11:19 this way if it hadn't been for Sean taking his life it was a I think about him all the time this yeah yeah that's a real way this Christmas I wore this Christmas I wore his sweatshirt um you know everybody had their Christmas pajamas on or whatever and I I turned to Heather that morning and I said I'm gonna wear my Sean sweatshirt when the kids open presents is that all right she's like of course dude as I was wearing that sweatshirt and the kids are unwrapping stuff I was just so mad for not being here with us to be to be part of this I went through that I went through that phase two where I was really angry at him and it and it it comes out occasionally where I I still you know you just miss him so goddamn much

1:12:10 sorry you know um but yeah there there is still a little bit of uh resentment um that's surrounding that whole thing you know what I mean that was a I don't need to tell you man that was a that was a tough that was a tough one to swallow you know and uh and I missed this call you know I didn't I didn't take his call uh that the the evening that that that happened he reached out to me and um I was out to dinner with with my crew I was out in Mississippi picking up some helicopters um I just didn't have it in me to to you know I wasn't in a spot where I could I could chat with Sean at that moment and um and you know I I text them hey let me call you later and you know I

1:12:53 think he gave me a thumbs up or said hey that's cool dude or whatever and um and then that night you could you know he shot himself and uh there's some there's definitely some guilt there too you know there's some some guilt that I didn't answer that call because maybe I could have intervened somehow um and you know he he'd been struggling man for just so long um I mean and you know not to get into any of this stuff on the pod but you know he just had some real he was a very intuitive and spiritual guy in a lot of ways that I don't even think that he quite understood and and I know that that was somewhat interfering with him um and he'd been on some sort

1:13:37 of a kind of a slow deterioration man for a long time and I really did what I could to try to drag him kind of pull him forward you know because I was doing a lot of inner work myself at the time and so I was talking to him a lot about you know like ayahuasca and therapy and you know reaching out if you need help and drinking less and you just all the things man and you know Sean was you know you know him man you just if he was a hard guy to reach into like that because he's so stubborn that if he wasn't if he didn't feel it necessary to go forward and you know he just wasn't going to man you couldn't pull that guy you know what an experience though man you know somebody asked me one time how would you how would

1:14:30 you uh how would you explain Sean you know in a sentence and I just said dude I could do it in a word man he was he was an experience there's just no other way to put it man you know Heather and I don't argue often but after his death we had a pretty heated argument because um my guilt is the fact that I chose my work over 4 a.m drunk phone calls that I know we're going to take an hour to go to go through I did my job it's it's stressful it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's stressful it's go go go it's 50 60 hours a week um and that's an excuse I'm ashamed that that's an excuse and so Heather became the wingman who would stay up all night talking to him so

1:15:21 when I told her that I was going to go out to the funeral you know and be a pallbearer she she was mad at me she's like why do you get to go and I don't get to go and I can't remember she was visiting family or friends so she wasn't even in town at the time and I was just like it it hurt but it hurt because I knew that I'd been giving myself excuses to uh to not always be there to pick up the phone so good on you man because you picked up the phone more than I did and um I I always work through that guilt we all do Mike for not being there all the time we all do man I've had this conversation with every every single one of our buddies you know and uh you know

1:16:09 those conversations you know on the phone with Sean for an hour while he talked about Sean um you know drunk very drunkenly um super fun you know super entertaining but also man like just exhausting and we we've all avoided Sean's phone calls for years and years man um and you know partially because I knew that if he wasn't getting me on the line he was calling you next and if you weren't going to answer that he was going to call you know Reese and after they need to just go down his Rolodex somebody was going to answer the phone yeah you just think that night that nobody answered the phone and I think that we all all of us who cared for Sean um have have an amount of uh shame and guilt associated with not picking up the phone yeah

1:16:56 I just one of the positive takeaways from from the experience is that I think it brought us closer together you me um Heather my wife and us going out to do that kind of I I don't know what the term is that you would call it when we went out to Las Vegas and just kind of sat around for a couple days talking about him yeah but um I I think it brought us closer together at least I feel closer to you now than I did before his passing a hundred percent man 100 you know and and that's a really powerful thing you know you mean even you know uh and it's a it's a gift that Sean gave us you know uh in his passing and it it and it is a gift you know yeah it definitely made me

1:17:49 recalculate and reevaluate my own life decisions on on what's important because I have another divorce member who has a lot of suicidal tendencies and a lot of drinking and a lot of struggles and I had a conversation with him I was like dude I am not gonna have another Sean this this cannot happen you need to get help you need to talk to people you can call me you can call my wife but we cannot have another Sean I I don't know what's going on right now I've got no scientific evidence of this I just feel like social media and people looking at others through a lens of um of a fake life that everybody's happy and everybody's rich and everybody's but he's got everybody's traveling

1:18:45 and everybody's got new things like that is not true that is not real life all these people have struggles um but like I said I've got no data to back that up I just I feel like people are comparing themselves to others when they really they really should well there's a I mean the data is out there man it's it's plain as day and I don't I don't know the data but I've I've certainly heard it on all the podcasts and stuff that I've that I've you know been listening to over the years the data is certainly there man like social media is really eroding at the fabric of a lot of things in this culture it just it just is man I mean suicide numbers are going up for you know young

1:19:25 kids and women and young girls especially and guys are killing themselves at incredible rates and you know a lot of it can be tied to the introduction of the iPhone and social media man I mean it's that data is out there I I can't speak intelligently toward it because I don't know the numbers but I know in the grand scheme of things that that that data is out there it's it's sad you know and Sean had his demons though man you know he that's that you know that whole police stuff I had talked to him for years man you know he had a lot of demons man and and that police stuff was was real hard you know 18 years on the police force as a SWAT guy for 11 of those I know he

1:20:11 had seen and dealt with more than his fair share man he got dealt with a lot and he had and he had a lot a lot of trauma and wounding from um from his from younger years in his life too from him being a kid as well man you know what I mean there was some really deep-seated um trauma and wounding that Sean dealt with and he never dealt with it you know what I mean he didn't talk about it he never sought help for it um but I know it was there man him and I talked a lot many many times about it it was heartbreaking I interviewed someone else on it wasn't surprising yeah I just I I interviewed somebody else on on the force with him and I and I was just telling her I said

1:20:55 I just have such a tremendous amount of respect for you guys in the force because you just see the bottom of society every day and that would slowly um erode my faith in mankind if all I saw was problems domestic violence drug abuse criminals I mean it would just wear me down I I just have a tremendous respect for people that continue to do that mission day in and day out it's simply one of the most difficult horrific important jobs out there man I would never want it for myself I don't know if I'd be strong enough to do that job dead dead serious so yeah I don't think I would be either you know yeah well brother before before we wrap up what what's a question that I have that I have not asked that you would

1:21:51 like to share um I think I think we've talked quite a bit about the benefits of the military and you know and like we talk about it man I'm a broken record I think it's just been a wonderful wonderful 20 years and I wouldn't I would go back and do the same damn thing all over again if I could I really would um I have been learning over the last few years that the most important thing that I've ever had to do is peeling back some layers and really getting to know yourself so many people walk around this this planet man and this earth and and don't do the inner work necessary to live a purposeful happy life and I will tell you man that with the trauma and wounding that I have peeling back those layers it's the hardest thing and it's the ugliest thing that I've ever ever had to do but don't be afraid to do it because on the other end of that there is a purposeful happy life and I will tell you man that with the trauma and wounding that I have peeling back those layers it's the hardest thing and it's the ugliest thing that I've ever ever had to do but don't be afraid to do it because on the other end of that there is a purposeful happy life and I will tell you man that with the trauma and wounding that I have peeling back those layers it's the hardest thing and it's the ugliest thing that I've ever ever had to do but don't be afraid to do it because on the

1:23:00 driven and a happy life on the other end of that. And you know what? The best thing a guy can do is to not lose focus, that there's something better out there. And also, you know what, man, choose a good partner. You know, I know, I know I'm having issues with, with Chris right now, but she's the best thing that I ever did for myself. She's been supportive, loving. She's pulled me along through this journey. She's made me want to be a better person. And she's just an absolute light in my life as a partner and as a friend. So I would tell guys, choose a good partner and surround yourself with good dudes, man. Cause you're only, you know, you're the average of the

1:23:42 five closest guys you got, man. So, so choose, choose good folks, man. I like that. I'm going to, I'm going to steal that. You are the average of the five closest folks in your life. I stole it from Mark Manson. So you're welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for catching up, man. My brother. Absolutely, man. Nothing but love for you, Mike. Hopefully these give my best to Heather too, man. She's a fucking rockstar. I will. I was trying to get her on this episode. We'll get her on next time. Yeah. All right, man. Well, Hey, much love to you and the boys and Heather. Thanks for having me on Mike. I appreciate you, bud. Love you too, buddy.