175. Veteran's Day w/Maj. Andrew Melander

We visit with John's cousin, Major Andrew Melander, a Green Beret on Veteran's Day.

Transcript

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I think the biggest thing for me is like, especially being a Green Beret, we always have a partner force train up to a thousand battalion you go to countries with just different cultural and religious ideologies. And you gotta figure out a way to like build a relationship immediately. Yeah. And, uh. Probably the greatest thing I've learned is just having a better appreciation of humanity. Like even guys that I fought, like I can respect'em, uh, but if you're gonna try to hurt one of my teammates, like, we're gonna hurt you first. Mm-hmm. Um, but just being fair to people and, uh, being able to put yourself in other people's shoes is probably the most important thing I've learned. Welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where once again, we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota Kindness. That it desperately needs. We're trying something new. Mm-hmm. We are on camera, not super comfortable with how huge I look on camera. There's something, but the chair looks really comfortable. I gotta say the chair is comfortable. Ill give this I, this is, this is very indicative of the actual experience we have down here, so it's cool. Yeah. I have to acknowledge Jeff has spent probably his entire weekend here setting this up. Oh my God. That is a closeup picture. Is that how my hair looks? Good, Lord, let's let remember. It's not about what we look like's not about. It's about what we're talking about. It's about the kindness. Oh my God. You're right. Okay. See. Right. Yeah. Anyway, this is not very professional, but that's okay. That's right. We're gonna do what we usually do and we're gonna talk about some things that are, uh, that are important to the community today happens to be Veterans Day. Yeah. And we have a special guest, one of my favorite veterans in the world, and I'll introduce you to him in just a second. Who? We got Steve Brown here with us. We got the, uh, the mega producer in the background there. Hello. Hi Jeff. How are you? Jeff and I almost went to blow setting this sucker up today. But we're all good now. There's a lot of tension about this gear now. There's a lot of stuff that goes into it. Production takes a lot. Production takes a lot. We hugged it out and I'm new. I'm new to all this, so thanks for the bear. Bear hug. John. Yeah, the bear, it was very uncomfortable. it is Veterans Day and we wanna do a Special Veterans Day,, uh, podcast. And I would like to bring into the program one of the people that I admire more than just about anybody in the world. couldn't be more proud of this guy. He happens to be my cousin, Andrew Lander. You hear me? I, we can hear you loud and clear. Welcome to the podcast, Andrew. Okay. Welcome to the Kindness Chronicles. So thanks guys. My cousin Andrew. Let me just tell you a little bit about my cousin Andrew. So back when Andrew was probably three or four years old, I used to take him and his brother John, out to St. Thomas with me as a vehicle for attracting girls. They were these two cute little guys, and Andrew and John were just the perfect bait for picking up girls. I didn't particularly enjoy spending time with those two guys, like bringing a puppy or something, right? Puppy. That's how you thought of it. Puppy. So shameful. Shameful. John Andrew had this, you know, he was this little toe head. Cute as can be. He was short at that point. Now he's about six foot six, so you, I can't use him for the same purposes. But anyway, Andrew, uh, and his brother John, and their sister Lily happened to be the, uh, the children of my godfather, uncle Harry, who we've had on the podcast Yeah. In the past friend of the pod. Yep. Also a very much a hero of mine and his wife Mary, who is, just a lovely person. Andrew, is in the military and I just wanna. Take it back to Andrew. How did you decide that this is something that you wanted to do? Was it something that you discovered in high school? Can you just go back and kind of describe why it was that you decided to become a person for the military? Yeah, I think I knew early on that I wanted to be a part of the military. You know, grandpa Harry served in the Army Air Corps during World War ii, and then on my mom's side, you know, her father, um, served in. Korea and, uh, world War II as an infantry officer, a utility officer, supply officer. He was a major. And, uh, you Know, her brother was killed in Vietnam. He was an infantry officer. And so you decided that, with that family heritage, I apparently was not, uh, bit by that bug. Partially due to cowardice. That's probably the most, you had a different, important, I wouldn't say that you had a different set of gifts to bring the world. That's cr nice. Thank you, Jeff. We're gonna hug that one out. I had different gifts. That's exactly right. Um, but you, so you decided as, as a young man, that you wanted to go into the military and you happened to get an appointment to the Naval Academy? Yep. After trying, uh, a couple times to get in. Um, academically I wasn't the greatest. I think I had probably, I've been diagnosed with a DD, um, uh, and there's some benefits to that, but also some, you know, things that aren't great, but, uh. Yeah, I ended up, uh, going to Maine Maritime for a year and Oh, that's right. Did well enough. Yep. So you ended up at the Naval Academy. What was your goal there? What was your objective when you went to the Naval Academy? initially, like I wanted to be a pilot. Like, that was my goal, like growing up Washington Top Gun and like that stuff. Um, but then like when Iraq and Afghanistan kicked off, I remember vividly like my senior year, I remember fallujah November of 2004, washing the Marines on the ground alright, I wanna be on the ground doing that. And so I ended up service selecting the Marine Corps. It also probably didn't, uh, help that you were about six foot six stuffing you into a a Yeah, a cockpit probably wasn't going to be a very comfortable adventure for you. Is there a height limit? Yes. There is. Well, so yeah, this is probably a good point too. It's like I could have flown like helicopters or rotary wing, C one thirties, but when it came to the ejection seats, my femur were too long. So I was gonna be disqualified to be a, a fighter pilot if I could even make it to that point. Wow. Hmm. So speaking along femur, this is a fun story. Em, when Andrew, were you a sophomore when you ran the Marine marathon? No, I was, uh, at the basic school in Quantico, Virginia, and uh, that's, it was 2005, so right after I got out of the Naval Academy and went to the basic school down in Quantico. And what made you decide to run the Marine Marathon? Having never run a marathon before. Do you really wanna know the story? Yeah, yeah. No, I'm just, come on. We do Andrew. So, every second lieutenant has to support the, that's at the basic school, has to support the Marine Corps marathon. And they had to wake up at 2:00 AM to go support it and they're there till they're till 6:00 PM. Or I could run it and it was free. I didn't have to pay an entrance fee and I could wake up at like five, run it and then be done. So I'm like, I'll just go run this marathon. And you had never run a marathon before? No. So guys never run a marathon before. And how old were you about Andrew? About what age? I was 23. 23, okay. 23 years old. Now I will tell you that Andrew, and I'm sure we'll have a picture of him up On our social posts. Absolutely. But Andrew, um, let me describe Andrew for you. Andrew sounds like a tall gentleman. Tall He's very tall of water. Tall. He was, uh, a, a rower. He was the captain of the rowing team. Alright. The crew team at the Naval Academy. How did you become a rower anyways? Were you weren't a rower in high school? No, it's, uh, I mean, you know, athletically I did a lot of sports, but I was never like really good at anything. I was pretty average and, uh, you were a skier. Good skier. Yeah. And so every freshman that goes through the Naval Academy of Plete summer, one day they send everyone to the boathouse and you have to pull 500 meters on the TER. And they have a certain time, like if you pull fast enough there, they try to recruit you. And so that's how I got into rowing and quite successful rowing. Absolutely. Where did your rowing career take you? Just, I think this is kind of fun. Yeah, so I did some like development camps when I was at the Naval Academy with the US team. And then, uh, you know, did my, I don't know, was it five and a half years in the Marine Corps and, um, I was 28 and I wanted to, you know, I was fast enough or I wanted to see like what I was capable of. So I ended up rowing, uh, with the US team, uh, trying to make the 2012 Olympics for from 10 to 12 did make the Olympics. But, uh, it was a fun experience for me. Wow. Yeah. That's very cool. So Andrew, let's just say Andrew is jacked and when Andrew came back home, one summer. Our neighbor, Denise McCormick, called my wife and said, oh my God, this guy just ran by my house with no shirt on. And Becky being the pervert that she is, she got on her bike and drove down, uh, Elm Street, and she got down to the, she went to go see what this guy looked like. Wow. And all of a sudden she realizes it's Cousin Andrew that she's stalking. So thanks for that. Um, she is a pervert. Hey, I thought this podcast about kindness. Yeah. We got off track here, so we're gonna get, this is a do as I say, not as I do podcast, Andrew. Good. So Andrew, tell us about your, time in the Marine Corps. Yeah. So I got, uh, stationed out in, uh, 29 Palms, California from. So every marine officer has to go through something called the basic school generally to like understand what it means to be like a provisional rifle platoon commander. So it's a six month long course. After you're done with the course, you select your military occupation specialty, and it's based on ranking within TBS and like my number one was infantry. I ended up getting it three more months. Training in Quantico and you go to like 29 Palms and some guys go to Bridgeport. Um, and then I got stationed out in 29 Palms and uh, ended up doing three deployments with Second Battalion, seventh Marines that did two to Iraq. One in. The general vicinity from oh seven to late oh seven, like around Falla place called Zon. And then I volunteered to go back three months later. cause I just really enjoyed my experience over there. It's a roller coaster ride, but, ended up, deploying over towards the Syrian border in a place called awa. the first deployment I was a rifle platoon commander. What does that mean? Second deployment. You have the platoon commander, a platoon sergeant, and then three squads. So generally it's like 42 guys. But because of what we were doing, like we plused up quite a bit and I think at one point there's maybe. 60 of us It's funny looking back on that stuff, like being a 23-year-old guy. I think I was the third oldest guy in the platoon. My platoon sergeant is 29 and my, one of my squad leaders like six months older. But, uh, it's pretty neat, like how the Marine Corps trains you like being that young. Most of the guys were like 17 to 21 years old. Wow. Babies. So you spent some time over in Iraq, you probably saw some stuff that was a little tough on the noggin. Um, yeah. How did you decide that you were gonna be done with the Marine Corps after you did that? that's a long story. Like we, I ended up doing a third deployment. We went to the South Pacific and uh, we were slated to go to Afghanistan and I took something called Marine Special Operations, selection. And I got selected. So I ordered to, uh, regime, but my battalions commander said we're going to Afghanistan. He wanted me to be the battalion jtac. So like, uh, close air support. And I had to do something called career designation, and I thought I could get my way back to marsoc. Um, what's marsoc doing? Marine Special Operations Command. Okay. and so I, I had a really good time, like I ended up being the scout Stanford platoon Commander. Uh, we went to like, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Okinawa, uh, Mount Fuji, camp Fuji. Um, I went to Wilmer recently. Does Wilmer. That's different. You were in Western Minnesota? I was in western Minnesota today, as I understand it, you. You know, spent this time in the Marine Corps. You, you mentioned that something about a sniper, patrol Sniper, something I hear Sniper and I think of, Chris Kyle. Yeah. Um, that was a good movie too. American Sniper. What did you think of the Chris Kyle movie? Just curiously, I think it was good, like being a, a scout sniper, it's not like 90% of it's about the scout aspect, the reconnaissance aspect of it. It's 10% is shooting. Uh, so great scout snipers like. Are like extremely disciplined, um, and can navigate, you know, through tough terrain and get in position. But they're generally just reporting back to higher headquarters on enemy disposition, composition and strength. Uh, so shooting's just a little part of being a scout sniper. I guess I wanna be clear like I was the platoon commander, but I was not designated a scout sniper. I just managed the team. Sure. Understood. I love the, if I can just say, yeah, a comment. Um, I love listening to military people talk about their craft, especially when they use liter words like neutralizing the enemy and things like that where it's, I don't know if, is there a reason we're such little girls listening to this? I know. Is there, is there a reason they do that, Andrew? Is it to sort of like just ob Um, I don't know. To tone down the, the rhetoric, if you will, to keep the emotion sort of clear because you've got an objective. They want you thinking in terms of your tactics and your strategy and things like that? Yeah, I mean there's there every, it's very doctrine based, so when you talk about neutralizing, that means like 10% of the objective, the enemy objective is incapacitated. Start talking about destruction. I think it's 30% incapacitated. Uh, so every word, like word's, the mean thing in the military, it's not like they just use it to. Um, to inoculate, you know, what you're talking about. And then, and then of course you use words like snafu and things like that when things aren't going well. I don't know. Yeah, that's not a doctrine term, but, uh, it's just certainly used. See, we use words on this podcast that don't mean anything. So you know what? We, we will meet in the middle. We'll meet in the middle. How many years were you in the Marine Corps? I was in from May of 2005 through September of 2010, so wow. About 63 months. And then after the Marine Corps, where did your, uh, military career take you? Things didn't work out where I could navigate myself back to marsoc. The Marines Corps said, Hey, you're gonna go where the Marine Corps needs you. Yeah. And I was just like, if I can't go to Marsoc, I'm gonna get out. And so I knew the head coach of, uh, the US rowing team and he had me pull a couple of tests. And like after my third deployment, like two weeks later, I'm down in Oklahoma City trying to, uh. To make the US team.. Andrew, I I have a question for you. So when you did go back, you know, I know you went right from military to rowing, but, we hear oftentimes veterans have a hard time getting back into civilian life and acclimating. Did you have any issue with that? Do you have any experience with trying to adapt back to civilian life after being in the military for that long? no, I think because it was like a very team oriented sport where it was Yeah. Uh, I didn't have any challenges that way. I, I, you know, I, I still have challenges today where it's, uh, I work for a publicly traded company, so it's like, uh, sometimes it's difficult for me to understand, I don't know if I can explain it, but it's, uh, you don't even need to work for the military to under, I don't have a military background and I'm still scratching my head sometimes about public companies, so don't worry about it. But you went back into the military? Yeah, so I was looking for, to make the Olympics and I got called back for. I think the next year or two they wanted me to keep training, but uh, just culturally it wasn't like a good fit for me. It did remind me of collegiate rowing and, uh, I had aspirations of being a special operations guy. So I was looking after, I guess four weeks after I stopped in 2012, I reached out to a recruiter and I was like, too senior of a captain. So. Go active duty special forces or take selection to do that. And I didn't know there was National Guard Special Forces, uh, but there was a tryout. Um, yeah. Tell us about that. Four weeks after, so the recruiter, I'm two senior, the captain, he is like, Hey, you can go with the guard route and it, that doesn't mean as much guard's a little bit different than active duty. And so I went down to some place in Chicago and did like a, a four day, uh, think they call it SFRE, special Forces re, I don't know what it's called, SFRE. And so it's, it's a prep to see if you're capable to actually go to the special forces selection and. I was pretty fit at that time, so it wasn't like extremely challenging for me. And um, so I ended up doing that and like, I just waited about a year for my commission to get transferred over from the Marine Corps to Army. And then I did selection in August of 2013. And, and then didn't you have to try out again for this Special forces group? Yes, whether you're active duty or you're guard. So you have first group, third group, fifth group, seventh group, 10th group that are the active duties, special forces groups, and they have 19th and 20th. So I was with a two 20 and, uh, we all go to the same selection course. It's like a three week, physical training again, where the event, where they, test your, mental fortitude and physical fitness and, um, what does Thatso skills does? What does the mental fitness piece of it look like? Because I could use some of that. Uh, you can look stuff up on the internet, like SF selections three weeks long. A lot of it's like individually focused land navigation where you're out all day and night, like hitting, trying to get to a certain point. And then there's a team week where you get I don't know, like a wheel, some lashing, some pipe five, a 55 barrel, uh, or a 55 gallon drum with water in it. And you have to get it from point A to B. And so that's where they like test your ability to like, be like, uh, resourceful a teammate and, uh. Yeah. What was lashing? What the hell does that mean? Well, in, in it's lashing like that you're creating, you're, you're lashing two poles together. We learned that in scout craft. There's scout scouting. Yeah., So you were accepted into this program? Yeah. So when you, you're done, you go to something called the Special Forces Qualification Course, and based on your. Military occupation, specialty or job like? It took me two years to get through it. Uh, like medics are the longest, it takes them three years'cause they have some prep, like prior, like medical training they have to do before they actually go to the Q course. Uh, yeah. So I was down at Fort Brag for two years. And how many people are a part of this team? I don't, I think the attrition rate somewhere is around 80. Like, don't quote me on this, uh, maybe around 80, 80%, like people are attrited. So it's, it's not an easy course to go through. A lot of people just don't make it through. But once you make it, you're, you're part of a, team. So yeah. After you finish the Special Forces qualification course, you go to a ODA Operational Detachment Alpha. So 12 band team. You have a an 18 alpha, which is the, the team commander, which is what I did. You have a 180 Alpha who's a warrant officer who can, he is like the SME on fusing intelligence and operations. You have, uh, 18 Zulu, who's the team sergeant? He basically runs the team like the 18 Zulus down and in, and then the 18 alpha. We're not sure what, what I do is like up and out, and then you have. Two 18 Bravos. There are Special Forces Weapons Sergeants two 18, Charlies Special Forces Engineer Sergeants, uh, two 18 Deltas Special Forces Medics, and then two 18 Echoes. Special Forces Communication Guys. Oh my God. So Andrew, sorry, I always bring up movie references, but it's sort of how I understand maybe what's happening. So, did you ever see 13 Hours in Benghazi or the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi? 13 hours? Yeah, I've read the book, I've watched the movie. Is, is that what ultimately you wanted to do when you signed on to become a military contractor? Maybe to get deployed at some of those special missions to help around the globe? Those guys are civilians that are under contract that generally have like special operations background, but that's not a military arm. Like they get out and they go do that job. Okay. Um. There. Yeah, I, I saw that. Yeah. Like John's Krasinski character, for example, worked in insurance or something on, on in the civilian life, but then he wanted to go help so what I did, like, you know, the general like reservist or National Guard is like one week a month, two weeks a year, where sep guard is a lot more time consuming, like deploying quite a bit. Um, but it's not a hundred percent of me being dedicated to like, being a full-time military officer. Where, where did those, uh, deployments take you as part of this group? Uh, my first one, uh, it's something called JS E, so it's a little bit shorter, but I was on the border of Panama and Columbia, um, doing something called JS e Joint Combined Exchange Training. So we're working with the Panamanian Special Operations., mostly focused on counter counter narco trafficking. Um, the second one I did, I did, uh, like a full. The six month, seven month deployment, uh, did a counter ISIS submission, uh, on the border of, uh, Lebanon. Syria did another JS set to Slovakia in 2019. My most recent one was, uh, another like longer deployment, um, throughout northwest Africa doing like counter racist, counter al qa., I wanna kind of bring something together here. So, obviously Andrew, you're a, you're a dedicated career person. You know exactly what you're doing from John's perspective. You're a tall. Strapping guy, you're, you're very capable of what you'd, uh, you know, your athleticism and all that stuff. What we're interested in here, what I want to know about,'cause I don't know you, but I wanna know, given your travels, given your, your military experience, given all the people you've worked through and met and teams you've been a part of. What have you taken from this? What, what kind of nuggets are you getting about life and about, and the way to treat people Yeah. And those type of things. Like what can, what can you share with us from the kindest Chronicles perspective about, what it means to be a, a military person in a modern world? And, uh, in experiencing in a very modern, uh, military, you know, we have a lot of romantic ideals about World War II and, you know, all the past wars I just would like to know, you know, from a modern perspective, what are the nuggets you're getting from, your experience with this now that you've had a bunch of years to think about it and be a part of it? I think the biggest thing for me is like, especially being a Green Beret, so we can a 12 man ODA can train up to, like, we always have a partner force train up to a thousand battalion of, partner force people. You go to countries with just different cultural and religious ideologies. Mm-hmm. And you gotta figure out a way to like build a relationship immediately. Yeah. And, uh. Probably the greatest thing I've learned is just having a better appreciation of humanity. Like even guys that I fought, like I can respect'em, uh, but if you're gonna try to hurt one of my teammates, like, we're gonna hurt you first. Mm-hmm. Um, but just being fair to people and, uh, being able to put yourself in other people's shoes is probably the most important thing I've learned. Hmm. Yeah. I admire this guy. I know you do. And he was, he was this little punk once upon a time, and he's, in many respects, become kind of a hero, especially of the boys in my family. Mm-hmm. That's awesome. Like my, my kids look at cousin Andrew and they just are awestruck by how cool he is. And this is one you showed up one Christmas. And something had happened and you, I don't know if you were jumping out of a plane or what the deal was, but you, you lifted up your shirt and showed us like, did you land in a cactus or something? And I think it was just an excuse to show us your ass. I'm sorry. I think it was just an excuse to show the ladies what was going on under your shirt. But what, what happened? That was, that was quite interesting. We were, so this is before Slovakia trip. We were go, supposed to go over there and like train them. I was like on a military. Military free fall team and, uh, we're down in, I think it was Eloy, Arizona. You gotta get something that's called Level one certification. So it's like a nighttime jump with night vision goggles on oxygen masks, uh, rifle across your chest and like a hundred pound ru between your legs. And you're jumping at, I don't know, 13,000 feet. You pull at 12,000 feet and then you're under a canopy for like 30 minutes until you hit the drop zone. And my NBG shut down like immediately after my canopy opened. Night vision goggles, like I got on the ra. Yeah, I got on the radio and uh, I'm like, I had zero air wear in the ski, so I had my altimeter and my GPS, which would give me glide ratio. I made it all the way back to the drop zone. I couldn't see anything'cause it was like zero illumination and there was one tree on the drop zone and I slammed in that thing at like 25 miles an hour. Pulled like that, stick outta my stomach and broke two ribs. Oh. So for that reason, I'm out. I just, yeah, I What He said a hundred pound. Pack on you that, that right there, you're falling with a hundred pounds on top of you. Well, as I look at ourselves and these cameras, you and I both have a couple of hundred pound packs on us. Yeah. But that's a whole nother situation. Yeah. Yeah. So he shows up at Christmas and he's, been gouged in the gut. Mm-hmm. And I thought, you know what? I am not built for that kind of work. Yeah. And you're still in the military, correct. Yeah, I am. I got a year and a half left before I can retire. Okay. And as I understand, what rank are you sitting at these days? Uh, I'm a major now. Um, uh, if I'm looking at a new position, maybe I'll pick up Lieutenant Colonel before I get out, but it's not really my focus. And the thing that I think is interesting is that is your dad had mentioned something about the fact that. You wanted to stay in the field and once you make major, they start, uh, changing the rules on you a little bit. Yeah, I, uh, I just wanted to be a team leader and be the guy that jumps out of aircraft and shoot. So I turned on promotion for about four years and then finally they said, you have to pick it up or you're gonna get it out. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. How old are you now? 43. Yeah. So you're 43 and you still wanted to be jumping outta planes at 43, even though you can run into trees at 25 miles an hour. You were a different cat Andrew. Different Andrew. I was telling you not before we called you, I told John I've got a nephew that, uh, went to West Point and um Oh, nice. He, um, just graduated. He's now deployed. I think he's in, uh, right now. He's in the desert of California with no anything. He just communication and no communication, nothing. And he's leading a team, I think for 30 days or something like that. I, I don't know the full details. It's sort of classified, but, uh, he said, he said something called NTC. I know where it is. It's not too far from where I was based as a marine. Awesome. So, you know, I, I was telling John when he was growing up, he was this guy that loved army men and he, he would voluntarily go take a hammock and go sleep in the, in the woods at night just to kind of see if he could do it. And, um, were you like that? What was your, um, origin story to be interested in the military? I, I forgot to ask that at the beginning. I dunno. I've always looking for adventure, I think. Um, yeah, we're different there and, you know, yeah, we didn't, I mean, we didn't travel. Like we went to California maybe a few times as a kid because my grandparents had an apartment on Oceanside. And, but did you climb trees and pick up snakes and were you just fearless that kind of way and didn't, you know, wanted to pursue the tougher life, if you will? I'm certainly not fearless. Um. But, uh, I did a lot of different sports growing up. Like I try rock climbing, I try ski jumping. I played baseball, basketball, hockey. Um, so I just liked experiencing like new adventures and that's probably kind of the driver outside of my family or our family. John's in our family having a background on the military. I'm looking at your picture here. We've had it up on the monitor a couple times. Let me show it to the, the guys again. Um, thank you for your service. Very sincere. Thank you. I know it's, uh, like sacrifice so well as it is, uh, veteran's Day. What I admire about Andrew more than anything is, you know, he could have helped me or he did help me pick up chicks when. I was younger and he was like a young guy called him Cruiser. Hey, you know what, John? What? You know what John? Even being a young kid, I knew what you were doing. Exactly. I know, I know you were. You exploit you Dad. I know you exploiting my, uh, but here's what's funny. I could still use him today to pick up. Yeah, it's true. You know what? Honest to God, it is funny though, him and his brother, I mean these two little punks, and they knew exactly what was up my sleeve and the best part was. They played along with it. That's awesome. Like, I think they actually got cuter when they knew it like a grift. Yeah, it was, was a total grift, a family grift. A true wing man. Yeah. That's, uh, what do you do now? So you're out in D what are you doing in dc? So I, you know, I worked for this public and traded construction company and I travel probably three weeks out of the. And so it got to a point where it's like you don't, you can live wherever you want. You just need to be near a hub. And my goal is to get back to Annapolis. I dunno if you've been there. It's a very beautiful town. Um, so I'm just kind of buying my time so I can find a place in the Annapolis area. So that's the, the plan is ultimately to live in Annapolis. Yeah. That's very cool. Annapolis, have you been to Annapolis? I have not. I actually used to sell textbooks there in one of my first jobs, believe it or not. Nerd. Of that door to door? That was, no, it was to the professors and one of you looking to buy a textbook. It was one of my favorite places to visit, but I worked for West Publishing so it wasn't completely nerdy, but Okay. Yeah. Alright. Annapolis, Maryland. Well, oh, it's just, it's just beautiful. Hey, one last question about when you were at the Naval Academy. When we took a tour of the Naval Academy, they showed a couple of things. One is that you had to jump from this high platform into a pool. I'm assuming you did that. Yeah. Yeah. So you do that second class year, junior year. It's just simulate jumping off, A ship. And so if you don't do it, then you get kicked out. So everyone has to jump off the 10 meter platform. Okay. So I would've been out. Um, and in addition to that, did you guys do the deal where you had to, you climbed the pole and tried to, like, is that at the end of freshman year? Yeah, it's called Mount Hern or Herndon, I think it's called. It's kind of funny story on that one. So they put it like all in lard and they, you have your plebe, uh, cover and your job is as a team, is to climb to the top and take off the. Sophomore, the new cover. And like I got to the top and some girl like grabbed my leg and like pulled me down. Come on. Ended up pulling up the top lard. Yeah, I, so it's, I, I didn't, I didn't care. But it looks all, it's, it's kind like the Washington Monument, not quite that tall, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Jeez. Ridiculous. And is it the, do the upperclassmen, are they the ones that are responsible for go it up with lard and all that stuff? Yeah, I mean, like generally, like every plebe has like a couple second classmen that are gonna yell at them and try to teach them discipline, but yeah, they're, I think they're the ones that put the lard on it. Well, my cousin Jeannie has a son that is a senior this year at the Naval Academy, Matthew, and, uh, nice. just a great kid. I remember. Just over the years, just a lovely, really cool family. The kids all went to St. Thomas Academy. Oh, good for you. But they went to St. Thomas Academy. Two of'em are still there, but, uh, but Matthew got into the Naval Academy and is doing very well from what I understand. At what point do they determine what you're gonna do in the core? Or in the Navy commissioning night. Right. Do they have that at the Naval Academy? Yeah. You have to do something called pre-commissioning your junior year, and then it's generally in the fall of your senior year where you service select. You get interviewed by the different branches, uh, different MLSs or whatever, and based on your order of merit, you either get what you want or you don't. An order of merit is based on what? there's academics and then military order of merit. And so you have like a combined like GPA from what I recall, and, uh, that's how you get racked and stacked. Okay. So it's not like the sorting hat from Harry Potter, not a, a. You probably didn't see that you're too busy reading books. No, I haven't seen that. Of course you haven't. You're too busy reading books and rowing and rowing. Um, well anyway, Andrew, I just want to thank you for taking the time to being, for being with us. Absolutely, admire you always have even from the time you were three. again, I am grateful that you, uh, made time to be on with us today and, uh. We're going to, uh, sign off and, uh, again, happy Veteran's Day and thank you for your service, sir. Thank you Andrew. Great meeting you, Andrew. Thank you. Yes, it fun chatting with you guys. Have a good one. Alright, off we go. See you buddy. Bye. Cool guy.