Car Chronicles EP 25: You Always Have A Choice In How You Respond Part 2

You can tell who’s trying to level up because they bring their own food, drink water, train with intention, and stop waiting for someone to rescue them. That’s also why they get targeted. We dig into the ugly side of “jokes” and comments that are really just insecurity, and we get honest about why personal accountability feels so rare in the military and in everyday life.

We also break down how standards fall apart when nobody enforces them. From PT tests to performance reviews, the buddy system can turn real requirements into a game of favors, and one person choosing to count reps honestly can threaten the whole setup. That tension leads straight into a bigger point: if you’re never held accountable, your “achievements” don’t mean what you think they mean, and the people below you pay the price.

Then we get personal. Leonardo Akens shares what it felt like to deny the COVID vaccine, get marked and isolated, lose position, and watch his career spiral toward the end. The takeaway isn’t about winning an argument; it’s about mindset, resilience, and working through trauma without turning into someone who only complains. We close with a practical challenge: stop outsourcing your energy to caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, and build a real decompression structure with food, water, sleep, and routines.

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Transcript

Long Day And Missed Gym

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Yes sir, back on road again. Oh same day, different shift, had a double a day. Got down at the church, had to come home, let the dogs out, feed the dogs, and then head right back on out to the wedding. So for all you mother freaking people out there be complaining, I got up at four this morning and I won't get off until 11 at night. So I want to hear nothing about no complaining. You know, I wanted to go to the gym and I'm mad because I was gonna go to the gym if I didn't have to go home and let the dogs out. Because I looked up a gym down in the area of New Broncos, I'll fit down there. To just go work out there, shower change, and then go to the wedding because it's in New Broncos. But my wife's like, you gotta let the dogs out. I was like, oh my god. Alright. I guess.

Why Accountability Makes People Mad

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I kind of wanted to continue on with the conversation I was having this morning with y'all. Talking about people not taking personal accountability, responsibility for their actions. And more or less it's easier to keep it in the frame of the military, but obviously it applies to everybody, but since I spent a majority of my adult life in the military, it's easier for me to talk at it from that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

So I'm gonna keep it there for now.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

And I just want to go over some of the ways that really really made it insufferable to be around some people, and just it's normally large groups of the same type of people. So if any so if you were in the military, nine times out of ten, you can tell who were the people that took care of themselves, okay, outside of how they look. You know, they'd be carrying around a gallon jug of water, they would bring their own food to work. If they go, if they went to the shop bet, you know, after like a training scenario or something, they would get like beef jerky, protein bar. You could tell who was actually trying to better themselves. They carried themselves differently, they talked with confidence, and they were the ones who actually volunteered because they know that nobody else is gonna do it. So instead of you know wasting time and it not getting done and everybody having to go home later, they would just volunteer. So you you you can normally spot these people out, okay. So, why was it insufferable for these people to be around large groups of people? And you can probably parallel this with the civilian side if you're listening. Because there's always those people who would say, Oh, you you brought your lunch again?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Oh, why are you drinking so much water? Oh, you're eating a salad. What do you a rabbit?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Why don't you just get some fast food? Why you always get beef jerky? They would always make it a point to go out of their way to say something. And you literally have to go out of your way because you don't have to say any of that. Unfortunately, we don't live in a society where people will openly praise other people for doing something better with their lives. Like, people don't just praise you. The ones that do are the ones who are working on themselves. But nine times out of ten, it's gonna be somebody else trying to drag you down because you're doing something that they are incapable of doing. Most people, and it's sad, are incapable of bettering themselves for whatever reason they believe that their situation, their circumstance has crippled their ability to such a degree that they're just lost in existence and don't know how to do anything but complain, be miserable, and drag others down. So that's why I say it becomes insufferable because it's the same dog and pony show every single time with these people. They say something about you, they complain all the time, and they never take any

Fitness Culture And Public Pushback

SPEAKER_00 6:10

action. Now, it differs in the military because in the military there are specific standards that people have to uphold. You know, you have uniform standards, 362903, quit playing, quit playing with me. Uniform standards, physical fitness standards, and a degree of etiquette when it came to certain situations. So you're more inclined to want to take care, take care of yourself. But the issue with how the PT test is set up is you get your buddies or somebody in the squadron to count your repetitions. And believe me, I've been on both sides of the coin when it comes to this. There has been people where I have literally failed them on their push-ups, on their sit-ups. I was that guy that would keep saying one, one. Well, it wasn't one. Well, actually, it may have been one, but you you know what I'm saying. I've like one, one, one, one. Clearly, they're not getting it through their head that that repetition is not counting. I've been that guy. And we need to have a conversation about that because there needs to be more people willing to hold other people accountable for their actions, because that's the only way you get better in life. If you continuously progress through your career without ever being held accountable for your actions, your achievements are literally, they don't carry as much weight because you shouldn't have ever gotten there to begin with, because you never actually passed your PT test. But because you got your buddy to count your repetitions for you, you passed. So now you got these people all together grouping up, not holding each other accountable, and these are the ones who turn in to the buddy buddy system to where now they're only letting their buddies get the back office jobs, they're only letting their buddies get the fives on their EPRs, they're only letting their buddies get the TDY orders. That's how that system is built. Because it's a collective group of people who don't hold each other accountable. All it takes to throw a wrench in that is one person willing to hold those

PT Tests And Counting Honestly

SPEAKER_00 9:00

people accountable. But unfortunately, it gets so big that sure, you can you can, and this is why a lot of people are deterred from doing it, is you can get uh one person to do it, but then they get treated like absolute crap, and they get retaliated against. Now, obviously, there is protections in place for this type of behavior, but depending on you know the squadron you're in, it really doesn't matter because I mean literally anything can be swept under the rug, bro. Anything, and this goes back to what I was saying earlier about you choose how you respond to that situation. There's a lot of things that I knew weren't gonna get solved or weren't gonna be settled in my favor because of how the leadership was set up, and I and I already go into it with that mindset, but it would go against what I believe if I didn't say something. So when you don't say anything, you know, then you feel like you betrayed yourself, and that's more damaging than what they're gonna do to you.

COVID Vaccine Refusal And Exile

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Because I've been exiled when I denied the COVID vaccine, bro, I was treated like the scarlet letter. I literally had to one, everybody had to fill out the form saying either you accepted it or you're denying it. Obviously, I felt out that I'm denying it. Once you fill out that form, you had to go to medical. You go to medical, when you walk in there, you're met by a greeter, and they ask you, what are you doing? Accepting it or denying it? And if you say accepting it, you go this route with a yellow sticker or green sticker, I can't remember which color theirs it was, and if you're denying it, you get a red sticker. So I got a red sticker, and we had to walk all the way to the back of medical. So we literally had to walk past everybody, and of course, everybody's staring at you because you got a red sticker.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Exiled.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

So boom, once we got so once you get done with that, you go back to your squadron, and when I went back to my squadron, there was only two of us that were denying the COVID vaccine. Everybody else was getting it. So, what do you think they did? They stripped me of my position of squad lead, gave that to somebody else, and I was basically just hired help for the next eight months. We had multiple meetings. We met with every single last BDG commander: 821, 822, 823, 824, all of the commanders and their chiefs in one room, and there was eight of us in total from the BDG that were denying it. We all met in one room, and they just started I'm not gonna say going in on us, but they just started grilling us about, you know, first that one of the chiefs, I think he was from the 823 or 824, I can't remember. No, he wasn't from the 823, that was our squadron. I think he was in front of 824, one of the other ones. And he was in a hospital for six months because he got COVID and had a bad experience with it. And in my head, I wasn't worried about it because I take care of myself. So you see how we go back to this? He was fat. Okay, so clearly he didn't take care of himself, so his immune system was more compromised. So I was not ever afraid of getting COVID. So when he was telling his story, I didn't have any sympathy for him because you don't take care of yourself. But he told us his story, how he spent six months in the hospital in intensive care and then rehabilitation, and not then he came back, obviously. So it's like they were trying to scare us into getting it, saying that it's gonna be a black mark on your career, you know, you're gonna get Article 15, you're gonna get a court martial, you're gonna get a dishonorable. They were saying everything under the sun to try to make us get this COVID vaccine. And then after that meeting, they give you another opportunity to change your mind. And I was like, no, bro, I'm not getting the vaccine. And then I had to have a meeting with my own commander, and then my commander tried to scare me into getting the vaccine. He's like, Oh, why don't I want to get it? I was like, I was like, I dude, I don't want to get something simply because I don't want to get it, and I shouldn't have to get it because I don't want to get it. Like, I don't believe you should be forced to take anything. Unless it's like I don't even know you would have to present me with a situation that was gonna potentially, if you don't take this, that the population of the world was gonna go extinct, or something to that extent, which is how they were making out COVID to be. And come to find out, you know, 99.7% survivable. So the only people that were afraid of COVID were the ones who were brainwashed or the ones who are immunologically compromised. So he tried to convince me to get in. And I told him no. And then I was after that, I was blacklisted in the squadron, couldn't go to the shopette, couldn't go to certain places on base unless you had the COVID vaccine, couldn't go on any TDYs, and I took away a lot of privileges to anybody who didn't have the COVID vaccine. So I know what it feels like to be exiled because I have been exiled. But how I responded and chose to respond to that situation was to not be mad, to not be upset, and to just understand that this is the path that I chose and that I'm going to stand my ground and do what's necessary for myself. Because unfortunately, and I hate saying this, but one of the people that I went through tech school with died from the COVID vaccine. He was in A2-4, and he was my homeboy in tech school, and then after tech school, we parted ways went to different bases, obviously, and then we met back up at the BDG, and he died from the COVID vaccine. So it was one of those things where it's like, well, not he didn't die from the COVID vaccine, he died from COVID. It was one of those things where it's like I weighed out the pros and the cons. Could I die from COVID? Sure. Could I die from the vaccine? Sure. But I want to take my risk with my immune system being strong and getting COVID and surviving it, then taking a vaccine on your origin. And let's not even get into all the effects that the vaccine has caused now. And don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-vax. You get the vaccine if you want to. I got I've had I have hella vaccines. I got all six anthrax. I got smallpox, hep B, hep A, hep C. But that COVID vaccine just didn't stay right with me. And I'm glad I didn't get it. So

Choosing Pride Over Bitterness

SPEAKER_00 18:35

yeah. So what what I say I say all of that because it I chose to respond to the situation even as my entire Air Force career career spiraled around the drain and was coming to an end, and it was inevitable. I still chose to try to be in high spirits. I wasn't disgruntled. I wasn't taking it out on anybody, I didn't fall into addiction. I still showed up to work on time, I still mentored the airmen, I still helped people out when they needed it. I still did everything in my power that I could do to try to help those beneath me get further in their career, utilizing the knowledge that I had to help them. I was writing awards before I got out.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

And through all of that, my career was coming to an end.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So this is why I get I think is Jada the right word? When I hear about people who go through experiences and continue to use what they go through to let it affect how they react to things today. I got kicked out in 2022, May May 21st, 2022. That was four years ago.

unknown 20:23

Right?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Yeah, four years ago, almost five years ago, I got kicked out. And I don't let I I still to this day, even though I got kicked out, I still tell people, hey, you should enlist in the Air Force. It'll be the best thing you ever did. You get schooling, you get benefits, you get a stable career. Because I don't let what they did to me overshadow the benefits and how well my life has turned out because of the Air Force. So when you're able to separate the good and the bad, well, that guy almost crashed. When you're able to separate the good and the bad and make a rational decision about a situation, that's how you know that you're overcoming that trauma. You would be a fool to think that I wasn't mad for what they did to me. I was very upset, and that anger showed behind scenes. I've already talked about this. I've already talked about it. But then I worked through that, I opened the whole getting kicked out experience, and I calmed down. But people aren't taking the time to work through their trauma. People aren't doing the necessary steps to get better. People aren't taking accountability and responsibility for their choices that they make. So to get at the heart of the argument, are you or are you not responsible for the choices that you make? That's literally what it boils down to. Because I could have chose to be mad, angry, disgruntled. Oh, I'm getting kicked out anyways. Why should I have to work? Or I'm getting kicked out anyways. Why should I help anybody? They're kicking me out. Why do I care about the Air Force? 13 years in my service going down the train. I don't care about them. I don't care to help any of these other people. I could have, I could have done that. But I chose not to because I wanted to make light of the situation. I wanted to be positive. I wanted to stay in high spirits. I wanted to be optimistic. Because that's how I always am. And I don't want to let one situation that's out of my control. Well, I mean, technically it was in my control. But that was in out of my control. Was it in out of my control? We're gonna use out of my control.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Determine my outlook on life. But there were moments when I was mentally weak.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

And there was moments when it got to me that I had to take a minute to assess the damage that had actually happened. Because I just tried to move past it.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

I didn't sit with it.

Stop Using Trauma As A Weapon

SPEAKER_00 24:22

So when this guy is in my comments section airing out his feelings about what happened to him, it's like, bro, I do not care. Bad stuff happens to all of us. There was only 8,000 of us, 8, like 600 of us, kicked out of the military for that 9 COVID. I'm among the very few that that happened to. So I know all about bad stuff happening to you in your career. So I don't want to hear your sob story. If I was able to overcome getting kicked out of the military for denying the COVID vaccine, then you should be able to overcome whatever small little petty bull crap that, oh, my squadron and beat us down into the dirt, treated the airmen like dirt. Yeah, that happened to all of us. Is it right? No. Does it happen? Yes. Is it gonna keep on happening? Yes. There ain't nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do about it is choose how you react to the situation. Are you gonna stand by what you believe in and fight, knowing that there's nothing's gonna change, or are you just gonna give in, let them beat you down, and be disgruntled about it? If you're not gonna choose one of those options, I don't want to hear your complaints. Because I don't care, bro. I got bigger fish to fry when it comes to my TikTok. I'm trying to help people who are in the military feel better, look better, and perform better. So I don't need a crybaby in my comment section. Woe is me. My squadron beat me down. Okay, and did you have to wear a red sticker and walk around medical like a freaking outcast? Yeah, probably not.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Holy crap, bro.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Did you have to get a freaking LOR signed by your wing commander? Yeah, probably not. Like, bro, it it it just it just blows my mind that, and this is why I get so annoyed with these mother freakers who think that they're special. You ain't special, bro. You're not special. None of us are special. I'm I'm one of 8,000 people to get kicked out for denying the COVID. Guess what? That's 8,000 other people that have been through what I went through. So guess what? That makes me not special. You're talking about there was suicides in your unit, DUIs in your unit, mother freaker, our security forces. We had a mother freaking bench on Bay Shore at McDeal called the Suicide Bench. Because people would go sit on that bench and kill themselves. DUIs. We had people showing up the guard mount drunk getting arrested at guard mount. Like, bro, you're not an exception to the rule because my unit treated me bad. I had to watch my boy get arrested at golf one because he fell asleep while we were outside checking traffic and the flight chief came in the back door. I had to watch another one of my boys get arrested because he left his gun in the break room, not in the weapons rack. I had to watch my homegirl and Bogram Afghanistan get arrested because she left her nine mil in the goddamn bathroom in the porta party. You ain't the only one that's going through stuff, bro. So I get tired of hearing y'all talk about what was me. Weeboo weeboo. And then you want to come at the person that's trying to help people get better. You ever wonder why your life feels more complex

Routines Beat Caffeine And Nicotine

SPEAKER_00 29:25

and more stressful than it really is? Because you let all this bull crap get to you because you don't have any way to modulate. You don't have a decompression structure. You probably don't have a morning routine, you probably don't have a beddown routine, you're probably skipping breakfast, you're probably surviving on caffeine, surviving on nicotine, you probably don't go to the gym, you probably only do squadron PT, and even then you probably do it only at 50% and you only ever push yourself. And then you probably eat fast food, or you're probably one of these people that eat at the at the exchange, you're probably one of these people that get Anthony's pizza at the freaking shop at go out on the weekends, drink and party. You probably got a freaking crappy relationship with your spouse, and you're probably disgruntled at work and nobody likes you. And then you wonder why your life feels so goddamn cam complex.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

You're just you're you're miserable to be around. Nobody likes you, and the people that do like you, they really tolerate you. And then they talk about you behind your back.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Like I've met so many of these people, so many of you in my career. You you're freaking malingerers, and you're you're an answer to your unit because you don't think you should change, and you let your situation dictate how you act. So if you're discriminated, well, I'm gonna make everybody else feel like crap. That's how you act, like a freaking child. So when I'm trying to help people get better, you want to be in my comment section talking about whoa is me. How is that helping anybody get better by talking about your personal experience? That doesn't even address the point that I made. The point that I made is that it doesn't matter 24-hour shift, 12-hour shift, 16-hour shift, eight-hour shift, 48-hour shift. None of that matters. You do not need caffeine. You need food, water, and oxygen. That is all we need.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Everything else is a want.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

I don't understand why this is such a complicated matter. I'm trying to help people kick the nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, drug addiction. I hope you're not addicted to drugs in the military. Nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol addiction to help you feel better, to fix the underlying root cause as to why you feel like absolute crap when you wake up in the morning, wake up exhausted, go throughout your day, tired as hell, crash when you get home, crash at work on your lunch break. Your blood sugar looks like a mother freaking roller coaster. Can't sleep at night, anxiety, insomnia, stomach problems. I'm trying to help people resolve this so they can feel better and perform better and have a happier life, not feeling like the walls are closing in because they can't find anybody to talk to them to help them decompress because everywhere they turn, there's a mother freaker like you who woe is me and is making everybody else around them miserable.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

So I'm trying to help people.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

So if you're not trying to help people, don't comment on videos unless it's going to help people. But the military is always about eating their own. They're like, oh, a veteran out. Why do you care? I don't need to be in the military to care about helping military members. Regardless if I'm in or out, I want our military to be efficient. And in general, I want people to be healthy and happy. Because healthy and happy people make overall society better. That's what you want. Better, better society. Not miserable society, not insufferable people who only yap about their issues and never act. So if you're gonna be a yapper, stay out of my comment section because I don't want to hear it. Okay? So when I'm trying to help people get better, why are you coming at me? Because it's triggered something in you, something that you couldn't do, because you had to resort to the caffeine, you had to resort to the alcohol, you had to resort to the nicotine. You had to find something to latch on to to drown the pain because you couldn't deal with it. So don't get mad at me when I'm trying to help people get out from underneath that pain so they don't have to just deal with it, so they can overcome it, so they can work through the trauma and actually heal those wounds and get better so they don't get triggered when a guy on the internet is trying to help people. And all honesty, man, it's just it's really sad that these people who are out now or in the military, there it's just like some of your frontal lobes have just disintegrated from how much trauma you hold on to that you can't actually form rational thoughts. And then it makes it seem like you're a crazy person. Because why would you ever argue with somebody who's trying to help people get better? If you want to argue with me, then argue the point that I made. Don't bring your emotions into it. Because it's not about emotions. If you need caffeine on a 24-hour shift or 16-hour shift or an eight-hour shift, it's not an emotional conversation. If you want to have a whether is caffeine helpful to keep somebody awake, then yes. But do you need it? No. See how simple that is? So I don't need to hear about how your squadron was beating you down and how you had three suicides in a conversation about caffeine. So I don't know how I don't understand why they had to get so way off point and they always had to bring their woe was me into it, but I don't want to hear it.

Where To Follow And How To Comment

SPEAKER_00 37:08

So, anyways, uh go follow my TikTok. It's Leonardo underscore Akens, a K-E-N-S. It's my first and last name, and you can see what I'm talking about, and actually get some help. Uh please, if you're gonna comment, watch the whole video, read the caption, then comment. If you don't do that, so yeah. I know I went off on a little rampage there for a second, but bro, I'm just getting so tired of it because these people are just dragging society down because they they don't have anything to offer outside of their own misery. And yeah.

Motorcycle Weaving Rant And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Yeah, see, this is exactly why I cannot stand people who ride motorcycles. If you ride a motorcycle and you're one of these traffic weavers, I don't like you. Because y'all will be the first one to say, watch out for motorcycles, but y'all wouldn't weave in and out of traffic and drive down the center line. But we gotta watch out for y'all. Yeah, okay. Let me get off here, bro, because now I'm all worked up. I'm about to have to stand out here and just wait. Alright, man. If y'all like this episode, don't forget to like, comment, and share and leave that five star review. See ya.