Boot Camp Buddies & the Bread Ride: AJ Neely Joins the Barracks Banter

In this episode of When the [ __ ] Ends, host Todd reunites with long-time friend and Marine Corps platoon mate AJ Neely. From a pair of mysterious post-it notes that kicked off their friendship to wild SOI weekends, screwball whiskey, and that unforgettable "bread ride" to a strip club — this episode is a hilarious, unfiltered trip down memory lane.

AJ shares what he’s been up to, the organizations that helped in his transition, and how Focus Marines helped shape his recovery. Expect funny stories, raw honesty, and the kind of Marine camaraderie that never fades. Buckle up — it’s loud, it's real, and it's a damn good time.

 Instagram:     https://www.instagram.com/whendoesthefkryend/
Twitter:    https://twitter.com/WDFKRYE
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLK1ho6AACjaEoQGWO2f_uQ

Transcript

[Music]

0:08

[Music] all right everybody i want to welcome

0:13

you to another episode of When the [ __ ] End um today we have another guest another another platoon mate slash

0:22

best friend that I met um we'll kind of get into the story with AJ Neely here in a little bit we'll uh talk about how we

0:29

met and some stories of just kind of [ __ ] with him you'll get to hear a lot of things that you may or may not

0:35

know about me with this guy who knows we'll see how discreet he actually is i'm looking forward to this yeah I bet

0:40

you are but uh let's actually go ahead and do what we always do first and let's take a shot of screw ball our favorite

0:45

drink hopefully one day had this first time the first time that's the best time i was saving it just for you guys

0:53

it's good

0:59

always so delicious and smooth tastes like peanut butter peanut butter whiskey what do you think

1:04

you like it tastes like peanut butter that's I think on one episode we were talking about how we tried a different one called squirrel and so it was just

1:11

it was horrible tastes like butterscotch and vodka put together yeah yeah you can adjust the microphone

1:17

in your mouth just tell them to stick the microphone in your mouth smack me upside down essentially you just need your

1:23

your I got it but uh I'm also going to run down some of the uh organizations cuz I haven't done that in a few

1:28

episodes yeah you haven't that uh really helped me out along the way uh through my recovery and along with just helping

1:36

me out on day-to-day life um we're going to start with the Joshua Chamberlain Society great organization they take St

1:42

louis veterans and bring them on for life um we've got Tunnels to Towers they build houses for injured veterans i just

1:49

saw a commercial with you in it yeah that was an old one man it was an old one you You looked young young looked

1:54

better it was like 2012 when I was I was sitting there watching i was like "Oh you know I know my uh brother-in-law you

2:00

know did some uh did some speeches for them." And then all of a sudden you popped up and I was like "Oh my god there he is." They run it on Fox News I

2:06

think that's exactly where what they were watching but uh then we got the Gary Cise Foundation they also build

2:11

houses for wounded veterans then we have the SERFI fund who helps financially

2:16

with uh Marines vets marine vets sailors airmen they're not just for Marines and

2:24

then we have uh Champ Dog Assistance i was just donated a service dog and then

2:29

I have Warfighter Engaged they build uh adaptive controllers for wounded

2:35

veterans and then I don't know if I'm missing any or not my TBI will sometimes

2:40

get in the way of remembering things i don't remember if you ran out we'll just go with it well hell Kyle you've been

2:45

here for every episode oh yeah focus Marines that was a big one actually focus i got you i'll carry on aj just

2:51

went through focus like George so we'll hear a little bit about that was that your first time was that his first time

2:57

yeah it was his first time well I mean you and George go all the time doubt the first time no I don't know if back but

3:04

yes Focus Marines uh they do a large part in helping veterans with PTSD

3:09

mainly Marines but we do take uh combat veterans and other people of other

3:15

services i'll say that very lightly because I don't really give a [ __ ] no I'm just kidding anybody that needs help

3:20

they'll take anybody but uh so we'll jump into this um AJ of course has been through Focus if he wants to talk about

3:26

that he can but uh we're going to let him talk a little bit about what he does what he's been doing what he has done

3:31

things of that nature and then we'll just start having fun with it well AJ tell us about yourself yeah that was that was a lot that was heavy uh well I

3:38

mean I feel like first things first explain how we know each other the story yeah of how we know each other it's a

3:44

All right well I'll let you explain that so I'm not jumping let's you know hold hands through it tag team i want you

3:50

guys to uh inter like do it complete each other's sentences while telling it he's fired now yeah that's quick i know

3:57

it didn't last long that is what she says you're not supposed to prompt this Kyle i caught him going through the cards one

4:04

time i was like what are you doing putting the cards together to make good ones i said that's how it works i didn't say good ones i said better compatible

4:11

ones you can't manipulate what we've got going on here well we'd get some cards and you'd be like "Well this is just an obvious choice." All right let's not get

4:17

back into this let's get to AJ aj all right so it's uh what is it early 200

4:23

early february february 2007 how cute i come home i There we were yeah there we There I was uh all signed up got my date

4:32

to go to boot camp when I come home and my mom goes "Hey this lady I work with," which is my great aunt

4:40

Linda God bless her soul her nephew oh you are for sure we got to You got to read the text message out loud now

4:47

should I feed the dog that was stupid you're fired again well that was my wife

4:53

so did she send a picture no okay you have to read the last 20 messages from your

5:00

wife out loud do you really want to no I'm kidding i was the same maybe we'll do it at the end we'll do that at the

5:05

end of the podcast you got We get to choose what we read you interrupted AJ's story

5:11

guy i apologize so there I was there you were in the living room uh no and I see

5:17

a post-it note that says uh the name Todd and then a phone number on it and in my head I'm like I'm not going to

5:23

[ __ ] call and the funny thing is is I came home one day and I had a post-it note that said call AJ and I thought to

5:29

myself I'm not [ __ ] calling that guy but little beans to us we ended up in

5:36

boot camp together and our that's how they ended up giving us their numbers is they found out that we were going into

5:41

boot camp at the same time on March 5th and they worked one desk next to each

5:46

other or something so they both knew we were going to the Marine Corps what we end up with these post-it notes and

5:52

we're both like "Fuck it i'm not calling that guy." Well then we get to boot camp and well Neilie nicely we're like in

6:00

line together and I'm like "Oh you must be that Neie guy." Turns out he wasn't that bad for the 10 seconds or so that I

6:07

got to talk to him but why was it only 10 seconds well that's Yeah they split us up right down the line and I thought

6:12

"All right that's it i'm glad I didn't call him." Well yeah because like they ended the one platoon right at Neie and

6:19

then they started me off at the next platoon so like I was sent to the next platoon there's like four platoon I

6:25

think in a training battalion yeah i don't know there was just the one I was in is all right do you even remember the

6:31

number of them no i do mine was 21 dig up the uh Yours had to have been 213 or

6:36

Yeah that was 21 or 15 if I was You were before me but anyway so then we're

6:42

[ __ ] in the clothing shop and I see him one day and I'm waving at him and I'm like "Hey we need to link up after we get out." Well we ended up [ __ ]

6:49

hanging out we didn't hang out after we got out of boot camp we ended up going to S soi together and that's when we got

6:56

stuck together again yeah i think that was the next time I saw you was he's school of infantry does do you want top

7:02

bunk or bottom bunk was the question cuz it was like kneeling nicely so we ended up top bunk bottom bunk i was like "Well

7:07

which one do you [ __ ] want?" Cuz I'll take the top i don't give a [ __ ] did you get the top yeah I had the top bunk yeah

7:13

and then that then we had a whole We were like "Okay we got to talking and figured out like all right he's all right." You know he's Oh yeah he's not

7:19

some nerd like you figure a Todd would be i know he kind of looked like a nerd you know well then I had my glasses from

7:26

a post-it note too it's like oh I'm thinking Yeah right and then uh we had this whole plan cuz he was over over 21

7:34

at the time he was under 21 yeah I was 19 so we had this plan to be battle buddies or no I was 20 you have to have

7:40

a buddy in soi okay you like go out on the weekend so we had a whole plan we counted it the math was right it's like

7:46

if neither of us speak up then they'll be forced to stick us together and we're on easy street at the beginning they're

7:53

like "Anyone who's over 21 needs to pick a someone that's 21." Well I waited and I was like there was only two of us that

8:00

didn't have a partner that was over 21 so then they were like "Okay well we'll pair you up with someone else that's

8:07

over 21." Well this one kid stands up and goes "I don't drink." Mormon mormon

8:12

kid so Neie ends up getting stuck with him because he's under 21 and I ended up getting stuck with Martinez God bless

8:19

his soul could barely lick a thing of English and I'm like "Holy shit." So my

8:25

first time out I end up down in LA with his family at a birthday party we'll get more into that some later date cuz I

8:31

want AJ to finish his story can we eventually get that guy on uh I doubt it i haven't heard from him in a while okay

8:37

yeah pouo i don't know ao abuo abuo yeah uh yeah so then we had to ride that out

8:44

for like a couple of weeks i did end up going to one more M Mormon mass yeah oh

8:49

he convinced you uh well you know like yeah he put up with all my nonsense for long enough i went to one it was They're

8:56

nice people a little weird for my taste but I agree then uh I don't know what happened i don't know how it worked out

9:01

they let us just decide to pick who the rules dissolved at some point like three weeks in and uh and that was kind of

9:08

that was it that was you know we were that was the end of it we ended up at hotels getting party every weekend and

9:14

then but the problem was is he had all the money i'd spend mine every [ __ ] weekend so I'd be like "No I need to borrow like 10 bucks or you're buying

9:19

the beer and the hotel and I'll pay you back."

9:25

And then yeah we get you know we ride that out not knowing where we're going after that and uh what was that like

9:31

three months or something yeah it was three months we didn't know where we were going to get stationed no one knew where they were going and uh and like

9:38

sometimes you get split up so I was like "All right well you know it's fun fun drinking." Uh what are they what were

9:43

those wait one of our favorite What were those electrolyte beers electrolyte it was like the energy beers that they were

9:50

selling spark or sparks was it sparks were they really cheap or something yeah i mean they came in talking so I mean

9:57

there's so many S soi stories that we could start getting into i would I would love to hear some you just think like okay that was it like I'm on I'm moving

10:03

on to my profession at this point but we ended up getting stationed together yeah

10:08

oh really get on a plane and we go to North Carina cut off right in the middle nope nearly

10:15

nicely we got stuck in the same boat that was the end that was the last time we'd ever get That was the last time we were ever ripped apart from each other's

10:21

arms at that point we actually probably got like smashed together into one Marine yeah well there's more stories

10:28

about that cuz our platoon sergeant was like "Neely Nicely what where are you going St louis where are you going St louis what are you similar with?" They

10:36

got us all mixed up we'll get more into that and I'm that's going to come down the line but I want to start with SOI okay some of the stories from SOI

10:42

remember the hotel when we played the commercial game and if you didn't find what we asked for you had to take a

10:47

drink barely do I remember that yeah i'm guessing you had to drink a lot oh yeah yeah well we played a game we weren't

10:53

the smartest at making rules but we played a game where it was like I would say something and you had to flip through the channels until you found it

10:59

that's right you like 30 seconds to find it on Hotel TV one time I set an umbrella and as he passes the weather

11:05

channel an umbrella goes flying across the Kativia i was like "No [ __ ] way did that just happen." Take a drink

11:12

right take a drink well I'll let you tell some of the stories yeah no that was a good one uh the sparks is what I

11:19

was reminded those they have those pedal cabs remember the cop that walked by while we were drinking on the beach oh

11:24

yeah and fish the booze back out of the trash can the cop made us throw it away

11:30

and I was like "Just wait till he leaves." And then I went He set it like really gingerly on top of the top of the trash can cuz it was opened she was like

11:36

"Open it up throw it in there." I was like "Okay." And I dropped it in there the cop left and about 5 minutes later I

11:41

was like "He's gone." All right grab it back out of there on W so were you not allowed to drink on the beach no oh okay

11:47

and plus uh they weren't all 21 but we all said we were and he was like I don't believe all to get rid of it all right

11:54

bye dodged a bullet there for that was I think that was like the last day before

12:00

we were leaving too yeah it was close also the first time we had In-N-Out and then we find out we're going to North

12:06

Carolina well let this be known i love my wife but back then I was the one who had to find the girls yeah I believe it

12:12

yeah cuz I'd walk up and down the beach and they'd be like "Go find us some girls." He'd volunteer and I could sit there and drink so that was Yeah

12:17

remember when those one girls drove us to In-N-Out Burger and then her grandma died while we were trying to get seriously died yeah and it

12:24

was like "What the [ __ ] this is our last day." And her grandma died she started crying and then that one dude came in and started crying with her and they all

12:30

loved her her grandma died oh they that was the two tears in a bucket [ __ ] guy two deers in a bucket [ __ ] guy i

12:37

forgot i don't even remember his name tell the story about the lady picking us up on the curb oh the bread ride the

12:43

bread ride yeah so this is a good Todd Todd story we are in San Diego with like

12:51

no money no just Uber didn't exist you're like calling a cab to get somewhere we had just got pushed out of

12:57

the hotel we were taking a bus back to base later that day but we had you know half a day to kill and I was like "Let's

13:04

go to the strip club." All right fine Todd let's go to 8:00 in the morning yeah cheetahs is open let's go uh I

13:10

Googled it and then we're like we're you know we get take forever for a cab yeah we don't want to spend the money he goes

13:16

"I got this." Waves someone down on the street i step out in front of traffic

13:21

yeah oh that Yeah that might have been how he waved him out i was saying it a little nicer I guess uh steps out her

13:28

and her son this is like a nice like momaged you know uh lady not not the

13:36

greatest car but I don't think she had a daughter in there maybe she did but no she had her daughter in the back seat

13:41

where do you guys need to go cuz I was sitting there next to her this guy goes "Cheers." And without batting an eye she goes "Hop in." And she said "I knows

13:48

exactly where it's at." I go "What the [ __ ] is happening there's no way this is going to work." And it sure enough it

13:56

did she was really She was super nice uh did not care at all where we were going didn't judge us and she goes "Thanks

14:01

this will get me a loaf of bread." And I was like "Oh man we should have picked up strip club and given her." You guys

14:07

gave her a couple bucks I'm assuming oh we gave her gas money we were like "We'll give you gas money." And she was like "Cool get in this will help me buy

14:13

bread for my daughter." Tipped her better than the strippers that we went to see i Yeah cuz we had to wad up the money and throw it across like there was

14:19

a there was like a moat in between the stage and the [ __ ]

14:25

throw the money at him it was horrible plus it was only like 10:00 in the morning so you get those very degrading

14:30

for everybody involved well not only to mention that we were drinking at 10:00 and before I went in I puked in the

14:36

bushes no that was the one you couldn't drink in the Right so we went next door they had like a TGI Friday and I'm

14:41

taking shots of [ __ ] Southern Comfort and before we went in I was like I got to throw up in the bushes the br you

14:47

were drinking brass balls yeah you wasted all that alcohol all that breakfast booze still drunk from the

14:54

night before that's fair san Diego remember San Diego and we're walking up

14:59

the street we were in San Diego at that time i think this was all the same weekend a lot of things happened we were walking up the street and it was uh the

15:05

parade weekend oh yeah the whole everyone in the hotel except for me and Todd was there for the

15:11

pride parade more power to him but we didn't know this and so like everyone else there thought we were part of this

15:19

another nice couple out so this guy in a sailor outfit walks up and he's like "Welcome to the parade." And I was like

15:25

"Hey we're not staying at this hotel man." I mean like you said more power to him but that wasn't our comfort zone

15:31

then yeah i But on the way there we bl we were blending in a little bit too well unfortunately we were We rode We

15:39

rode that carriage where the guy pedals the bike up the hill together so we looked like we were like together that's

15:45

like a romantic did you Did you do that because it was cheap we did that cuz I didn't want to walk up the [ __ ] hill it's like a Dumb and Dumber when you

15:50

like are they dating are they just roommates pedal us up this giant hill that's what what it was all about how

15:57

much did it cost you we don't know i don't know doesn't matter price was no option we had we had four tall boys of

16:03

Sparks well then one day we're walking up the hill in San Diego and these girls come

16:08

piling out of this apartment complex and we're like "Hey where you all headed?" They're like "Oh a bachelorette party."

16:14

And the bachelorette was pregnant we're like "Oh we don't want to be part of that." Oh man you should have still gone

16:20

no we wouldn't have gone cuz they didn't invite us it was a conversation after they had walked away oh we could have

16:26

done that but way to bring up a bad time we don't have a lot of those but don't worry I'm already fired

16:33

but all right so AJ tell us a little more about you yes well what do you want to know i'm better with answering questions i'm an open book with

16:39

questions so what have you been doing since you got out of the Marine Corps

16:45

well uh used the GI Bill to get my degree in what right in business uh

16:51

management but now you're getting your masters and No uh I just went back for fun uh to get a horiculture degree oh

16:58

yeah for anyone who doesn't know what a hor however you say that tell me i'd like to hear you try and say it i can't

17:04

say it i don't even remember what you said clap it out but well I know you can't clap it out horaulture nub it out

17:09

horiculture horiculture horiculture i was saying horiculture what is that four syllables uh four syllabs so I know

17:16

that's big for you shut the [ __ ] up it's plants okay gotcha and you just did it

17:23

just because you were bored or doing it for fun yeah there's a good program here and uh I got some property out in the

17:28

country that I want to do a little homesteading thing on so figured why not okay um and then yeah just got out of

17:36

focus which was the first like retreat thing I've ever done and how was it walk

17:41

us through your week well I won't go through i don't want this to be a focus podcast but it was uh you know

17:47

definitely something like I wasn't uh thinking that I would ever go to but

17:52

super happy that I did go this guy was pretty closed off and I he was like that before we in the Marine Corps but when

17:58

we got out he got even more closed off so I was very proud of the way that he handled it he became more open he spoke

18:04

more about what was bothering him than he usually does because if AJ is the guy

18:10

that you have to understand that when our whole platoon was going through times he was the guy that had to keep it

18:15

together and help everybody else he never helped himself so the opportunity became where we all got better that he

18:21

actually had time to go help himself and I'm very proud of the way that he keep kept an open mind and actually listened

18:27

to what Focus had to teach him is that going yeah it's going they're not getting any sound

18:34

oh darn check this real quick all right they're saying they're not getting any sound here we can pause this

18:41

hey sorry about that we're going to continue we did pause it so I'm kind of lost at where we started but we were talking about focus saying great stuff

18:47

about me yeah I was being nice actually for once to Neie so I called Neie AJ i

18:53

haven't called him Neie in a while because that was a Marine Corps thing and you try to get away from that but

18:58

you know uh so finish what you were going through about Oh yeah um you know

19:05

definitely doing the focus thing and then uh in college I started a small

19:12

single person government contracting company did you really and yeah my first contract was a t-shirt cannon

19:19

okay like they for the government yeah for an army recruiting station I believe

19:24

somewhere out of I'm not sure how much I can divulge about are you building it or are you buying it to sell to them oh no

19:31

just like a reseller okay gotcha so they can't buy it from the people that make it because those people don't sell

19:38

aren't like set up for government sales so Okay so you buy it and they sell it to them yeah uh and they like to buy

19:43

from like veteranowned companies and stuff like that so there's a lot of incentive for for that and uh sold it in

19:51

2020 took some time off and am most likely going back to it what do you mean

19:57

likely i mean I'm already out there but I didn't know if we wanted to spoiler alert todd and I are going to work together at my old company well that's

20:05

awesome so yeah yeah we'll get a little more into that further down the road when things start kicking off but right

20:10

now it's a it's a uh startup yeah that's awesome a restartup a restartup well

20:18

it's a startup of an old startup right a second startup it's a It's a reset a

20:24

second chance there's the pun boom yeah i was too uh too slow i didn't want to

20:30

get funding so I tried to like bootstrap the whole thing with savings oh yeah and that's super hard to do against

20:35

companies that have like a boatload of money so so that didn't work so the person I sold it to was able to Yeah go

20:42

out and and fund raise the right way uh so we're we're back and we're we're going to do some pretty good things I

20:48

think i don't know if his mic's working anymore

20:53

speak up uh how about now no I'm not well the bars aren't moving on the thing

20:58

i know but I can hear him try to get closer yeah i mean I didn't want to waste all that good stuff no well if you

21:04

wasted it it's over now it's not saying things once here guys all right i could hear him the whole time so AJ tell us

21:10

why you decided to join the Marine Corps oh okay uh kind of I So very similar to

21:16

you and we've talked about this before like it was one of those like in the back it's not for me AJ i know but let me This is for our guests but you ask me

21:22

a question I'm going to answer it my way all right fine um no similar similar I'm

21:28

sure to a lot of people too like always in the back of your head type of thing grand what's up Mr moscope doing a podcast sorry didn't mean to cut you off

21:33

but I am going live Twitch right now cut you off i didn't mean to i just got I got to answer that was like 3 minutes

21:39

ago got to answer him sorry unprofessionalism that I'm dealing with here is

21:44

just absurd you know have you seen Todd you know I thought like I waited that maybe you guys would have your [ __ ]

21:50

figured out by the time I got here hey Sazar you don't get to yell out to Oh I do no

21:56

this is I do this is my podcast Kyle all right back to AJ uh so where where I

22:02

just [ __ ] your whole world up um why' I join yeah why'd you join you're welcome i'm

22:07

the smartest one in the room by a mile okay good unfortunately uh no you know grandfather Marine always

22:14

had in the back of my head uh to that it was a good avenue to do

22:20

and then I was actually in college at Simo my freshman year what is Simo

22:27

southeast Missouri State okay thank you university southeast MO and then I did a year there

22:35

but like totally did not take it seriously and saw the bill at the end of

22:41

the year and I was like I am paying how much to go to like six classes oh uh how

22:46

often did you go to class not a lot i had a I had uh met someone there a girl

22:52

at the time who was a year older than me that could do a lot of my homework for me who by the way I'm gonna say when they broke up stole a lot of his C or V

22:59

DVDs which really made him angry no that wasn't that one oh that wasn't her okay never mind i had not acquired him yet uh

23:06

nice try though oh I fig but no I had some help with homework so I didn't go to class all that much uh and then yeah

23:14

was like okay this is the sign i don't want to pay for this place i don't want to be and uh signed on the dotted line like

23:21

shortly after that it's not very similar to mine at all mine included like jail time and saving private Ryan the in the

23:28

the in the background was like I always knew I was going to go you said the same thing i always wanted to be in the

23:34

military i just had things get in my way until finally I was done and I was like you know what i'm just going to go do

23:39

what I wanted to do different things got us there very I mean that's like our personality like money was my driver

23:45

like this well obviously money wasn't mine because he got like a signing bonus and I had to beg to get it well you got

23:51

to know what to ask for yeah well I knew what to ask yeah i had to ask no jail yeah yeah i was saying not jail time

23:57

yeah i had to have waivers and he got a bonus i was like "What the fuck?" The recruiter got a bonus but you know

24:03

what half of our platoon was felons most of our platoon was minus like four yeah

24:09

and then they turned into felons by the time we there were there were less cigarette smokers than there were felons

24:16

in our I think there were two people that did not smoke cigarettes they just dipped no Camaro didn't even dip no I'm

24:22

talking Yeah before when the when we joined it it was nuts but okay that's why you

24:29

joined so tell us a little bit about your Marine Corps experience like did

24:35

you like it what' you do what' you do um well you know well everybody knows that

24:40

you were with me but run them through it i mean explain it uh you know I mean I

24:47

don't know that's a that's a very open-ended question it was super eye opening you know like the day we got to

24:53

the fleet was a fun one that's a fun story cuz we're you know we don't know

24:58

anything about the Marine Corps at that point but you think you do especially you know you boot camp they church you

25:05

up you're like "All right I'm a Marine now i got my EJ." You don't know nothing and then soi you're like "All right now I'm trained in tactics you know like now

25:12

I'm I'm I'm really a infantry marine now." No no you're not you get to the fleet we get to the fleet and they were

25:18

if I'm going to remember correctly they had gotten back from a mew mhm where they had got in a lot of trouble yeah so

25:25

well no they were on they were on restriction because they were a reaction force to the weather acb or AB yeah I

25:32

think it's called ACB but yeah but so they were in trouble from the Miu they were on restriction which means

25:38

they got to leave after they had just gotten back from the deployment hurricane watch and they weren't allowed

25:44

to drink damn so they had just gotten lifted from restriction when we got

25:49

there the day we got there was the first day they were allowed to drink from like a long time and I remember like the

25:57

standing in formation out front of the barracks which I just found out they call like the ghetto the ghetto yeah our

26:03

side uh the 215 side and uh I just remember

26:09

beer cans and glass bottles just getting winged at us while we're in formation and then telling us like you better not

26:16

move parade or you know stand at attention did anybody get like smacked in the face i don't know cuz I was

26:21

looking straight forward and yeah you my memory is very focused you get you're

26:27

very much shocked by the culture when you get turned into the fleet you're like this isn't the boot camp that I went to okay I'm starting all over

26:34

nothing it is it is a crazy culture shock and not even that you're you know

26:40

I'm from Jefferson County Missouri which is a pretty well was at the time non it

26:46

was pretty much just white people and hillbillies and they were all pretty I'm not going to I'm not going to lie they

26:51

were all pretty racist and had their own idea about people that were of other ethnicities well when I got in the

26:56

Marine Corps it completely opened my eyes to the fact that people outside of Jefferson County never leave Jefferson

27:02

County so they don't know [ __ ] yep i was like they're very uncultured and like I

27:07

was amazed when I got home i was like you people need to leave this county more often right yeah i mean uh you know

27:16

just a was a full like restart to everything it's like okay I'm back to

27:22

square one i need to Yeah you you then become the bottom of the totem pole and you're doing [ __ ] work for at least

27:28

until you deploy and that's a long time cuz there's like what a five month work up yeah a lot of training and a lot of

27:34

training that's you know you're coming off this high at least for me like yeah you're coming off this high that you have I paid attention you know and I

27:40

thought I was as books smart as you could be um so didn't really kind of afforded me

27:47

I think to not get [ __ ] with as much but that slowly let me learn that like

27:53

no matter how good you are at your job there's a different game being played here on top of like that i didn't understand the politics and not only did

28:00

you get saved by being books smart but your roommate was 21 and could buy all of our seniors who weren't 21 alcohol

28:06

sure so that worked out too thank you very much i guess I knew that yeah uh

28:12

yeah yeah but that only bought us that bought us some time honestly that probably bought us more knocks on the door in the middle of the night than it

28:17

did last Well it bought us more knocks on the middle of the night but they knew not to come [ __ ] with us cuz I'd be like "Fuck you i'm not doing shit." I was had

28:24

a very smart mouth i got in a lot of fights yeah I believe it did you get ever get in any fights because of Todd

28:30

but our other roommate Yeah i mean I Well yeah i got brought into him and just like well okay we're all if you

28:36

know one of you [ __ ] up everybody [ __ ] up yeah cuz our roommate was not the brightest he was the one that got us in

28:42

the most yeah he thought that that's really surprising because I know Todd and Todd just is crazy yeah well like I

28:48

said I was I was I got along after about a month two months we didn't get [ __ ]

28:54

with as much cuz I became friends with a lot of the seniors and like I said I could buy them alcohol so they knew not

28:59

and then I'd end up going to the bars with them we became real good friends towards the end before we deployed but

29:04

when you first get there it's a [ __ ] shell shock because they're like because they got [ __ ] with by their seniors

29:10

and then so that's they're ready to pay it forward and they call it hazing but

29:15

it's not hazing it's just a what is the term of that uh tactical

29:22

education no not tactical education it's a right of passage that you go through

29:28

getting [ __ ] with i mean cuz on Thursdays they were it was cleaning your

29:34

barracks room and me and Neie and the other kids day field day I'm sorry knife hand we would bleach the [ __ ] out of

29:41

everything and they would come in and these [ __ ] this is good they would [ __ ] find they would have they'd be

29:47

like they'd wipe underneath your bed and they'd bring dirt on their finger and they be like I know I just I just

29:55

cleaned that impossible that you had so then you'd have to like lick the dirt off her finger or some [ __ ] it was

30:01

[ __ ] crazy start over start over so we we were cleaning into the middle of the night well we get back from

30:06

deployment come to find out these [ __ ] were wiping their hands on the dirty window sill outside before they came in or the railing or the railing

30:13

getting their fingers dirty and they go to wipe something and be like look how dirty this is clean it and be like I know I wiped that down so they [ __ ]

30:20

with your mind and your ability to sleep when you first got there like they did in boot camp but it worked you know yeah

30:26

it worked it made you realize charge and you had to do what they said well you got good at like Yeah good at cleaning

30:31

you got good at detail all those late uh armory you know cleaning sessions where they keep turning your [ __ ] back so it

30:38

had it definitely paid off but the I'm talking more about like the the

30:44

promotion politics and like the other the non infantry side of the Marine Corps which I did not think that's like

30:50

one of the reasons why I picked that MOS it's like okay this has got to be no nonsense like just if you're good at

30:55

your [ __ ] job like you're on you're good you're you're good at your job that's it that's all you have to worry about but the problem was was that there

31:02

was non-infantry men on po on barracks mixed not the barracks but on base mixed

31:07

with people who were not in the infantry and then in infantry so you would go to

31:13

the 7-day store and you'd be getting knifehanded by some lieutenant getting yelled at cuz you got holes in your

31:18

camies but you just got back from the field where you were out for two weeks and got a hole in them and then you had

31:24

to go get cleaning supplies cuz it was field day well that and even just like the inner you had you had infantry guys

31:30

that were there for their career not for their marines and like you tell you have a good idea as a boot and they take that

31:37

up the chain like it's their idea and you're like hold on like this guy's getting a promotion over some [ __ ] he just politics in it it was [ __ ]

31:44

ridiculous so that was like super eye opening and I could really get into that after my tour i went again like knowing

31:50

that we were going to Iraq and coming back like after after that Iraq deployment that was my decision where

31:56

I'm like okay if I'm a leader if I'm in a leadership position like it's only about the guys it's I don't care I don't

32:01

want a promotion if I'm not going to you know I'm not going to play that game to get it I'd rather be really [ __ ] good

32:07

at my job and we were and this is a no [ __ ] we're not I'm not lying here when I say this um our Gunny came out one time

32:15

to tell our Iraq platoon he was like you [ __ ] You're lucky that you're hot [ __ ] in the field otherwise you'd

32:21

all be NJPD right now horrible in the barracks right you guys like you guys are horrible barracks Marines but you're

32:28

good out in the field and out in the field is where you train that's your job that's what you're supposed to do yep

32:33

but I mean we're getting a little boring here with this [ __ ] maybe we should start telling more AJ stories i got one

32:40

on AJ okay tell it do you oh yeah i forgot most of We call it a half a knee

32:46

we call it a Neilie that's when you get a half a hand job he came back from from uh out with a girl one time and he was

32:52

like "Well you know I got a half a hand job." I was like "What the [ __ ] is that what's a half a hand job?" The first

32:57

might call it not a hand job so from there on we started calling it a knee so

33:02

why did you only get half a hand job then got to interrupt it by what tell us the story by uh were you sitting at

33:10

another Marine that was with her friend that finished before I did ah so they

33:16

had to leave yeah so that was it but I did get my Neilie's revenge i finished the second half and more this guy way

33:23

later on i had to borrow Nick's car to drive up to like Pennsylvania

33:28

this guy was the blockbuster of the barracks like he would rent out his DVDs all the DVDs in alphabetical come to him

33:35

and be like I want to rent he'd be like $5 and you charge them well they wouldn't bring it back if I didn't it's

33:40

more like a deposit but yeah and the same thing I'd lend them they Yeah he would try I would lend he would lend

33:45

people money and charge them interest borrow money they'd buy me drinks with my money he'd be like "You owe me $10

33:51

instead of five i'd be like "Fuck you you're getting $5 back you're my roommate and I know you too well." I'd get 10 from everyone else yeah from

33:56

everyone else i'd go out to the bar with them they I would lend them money at you drink and then they'd buy me a drink you

34:02

know until he turned 21 though he sat in the Because he didn't want to get injedded which I understand people were

34:08

getting busted for underage drinking all the time but he would sit in the barracks room i'd come back on the weekends and he'd have a pile of Chinese

34:14

food on the side of his bed sitting at his computer and this [ __ ] used to wait i'd come back and lay down on my

34:20

bed he would he had the patience of a [ __ ] I don't even know what to say cuz he would wait for me to get up and

34:25

then he'd be like "Will you get me something out of the refrigerator?" Be like "How long were you waiting until I

34:30

got up to ask me that question?" Probably hours as long as it takes it

34:35

was it was probably hours but he'd be sitting there on his computer and then when he turned 21 it was on like Donkey

34:41

Kong well remember Mr robboto i was just gonna say like one of my one of my favorite stories yeah was that that was

34:49

like getting hotel cheap hotel drunk in the barracks oh yeah we decided to do it in the barracks he just wouldn't go out

34:54

on the catwalk we just got hammered in our room when we first got there and they had just given us our gear and stuff so we put on our flat jackets and

35:02

our helmets Kevlar's gas mask the whole night and we're dancing to Mr robato we got a mattress put up against the wall

35:08

cuz we were running into it earlier that night with our [ __ ] on that was Robot Wars day that was Robot Wars 2 that was

35:13

the same night yeah so we'll start we'll start with that robot Wars so I come up with this ingenious game called Robot

35:19

Wars and so it's like Rockham Sakum i was like AJ play Rockam Sakum Robots

35:25

with me he's like okay so we're you can only move your arms like the robots in Rockom Sakum Robots so we're doing that

35:31

doing that doing that and then all of a sudden I tap him in the dick and I was like "That's it." And he goes "Motherfucker." He's like "Well let's do

35:37

this to somebody else." So we started calling it Robot Wars we started calling people into our room to play this game

35:43

with us and then me and AJ were the only ones who knew the joke until after you got smacked in the dick then you were a

35:48

part of it then you were a part of So then they'd start going to go recruit yeah then it was going to try to find other people so we got all these people

35:55

coming in our room playing robot wars and it became a big thing after we got out of the milit military we found our

36:00

boots for playing robot wars and we're like "You guys know we invented that [ __ ] that's pretty awesome actually yeah

36:07

and then that led to once we were already geared up it was uh put on

36:13

Mr robato from what is that sticks no Mr robboto is Sticks yeah I think it is uh

36:18

thank you very much Mr robato domo Arato the Japanese for

36:25

uh But yeah that one was just like that was like the perfect the sweet spot of booze where we didn't talk about it and

36:32

it just came together we started dancing so nice i got a video of it sound i think one of our Maybe we can give it to

36:39

the fans somehow i don't know how we do that send it to me and I'll drop it on Instagram put it up yeah uh well I think

36:45

statute of limitations has got to be up on anything that might be uh illegal i mean we didn't kill anybody and it's

36:51

been over 10 years so yeah it's got to be run by my street attorney aren't you

36:56

the street attorney i am yeah oh shots yes let's do this the second shot of the night all right and then we're gonna

37:04

finish the Mr robato story and then we're going to do a would you rather and then we'll get into more stories because

37:10

I like I said I have a feeling this one could run very long or we might just have to have AJ back more stories i live

37:16

close enough you know be uh Yeah I could be like the Ry Lang uh to your Howard

37:21

Stern except less of a degenerate gambler well he's my Andy to the Conan O'Brien there

37:28

you go love that i can see it too Kyle yeah he keeps me on track thanks i guess he keeps me from a conference i know i

37:35

definitely know that all right so to finish up the Mr robato

37:41

story one of our seniors knocks on the door yeah that was Frank frank yeah and one

37:47

day I'm going to get him on the podcast but he ended up moving out we're real good friends he's a firefighter and I

37:53

was the minister in his wedding south Carolina now yeah you You were the minister in his wedding i was invited

37:58

but I wasn't in the wedding but we were all at his wedding a bunch of guys from our platoon and one of them well that's

38:05

another story anyway he comes in and without missing a beat he had no idea

38:10

what was going on without missing a beat jumps right in jumps right in probably blackout drunk he may not even remember

38:16

neie scoots over the door and lifts his beer up and starts making him drink it it It was perfect i mean it was great

38:22

timing you got to see this video because I laugh every time I see it it was just one of those in the moment things yeah

38:29

all right so we're going to move on to a would you rather so we can kind of mix this up instead of telling stories the whole time i mean people I don't know if

38:35

they want to hear our stories i'm sure they do i mean yeah i mean they're funny stories we'll see after Kyle i barely heard you laugh huh yes all right we got

38:44

one we're good can we Can we loop that through for all my other stuff turn turn

38:49

it into a laugh track you You just give me an indicator and I'll go "Huh?"

38:56

Okay hey would you rather take two shots of bleach or get caught with a terrorist training website in your browser history

39:03

two shots of bleach terrorist training that that that's the best case scenario for my browser history

39:12

i'm I'm going have to go with him on this because I'm not taking two shots of bleach i'll take two shots of bleach

39:18

i don't want to be known as a terrorist can we prove it let's do another that was a terrible one

39:26

and that's why I wanted to mix them up but I was like "No you can't you can't make the stars align how you can't it's

39:31

got to be organic." Go on a family vacation to a nudist resort excuse me a family vacation it

39:38

says family who's in our Oh well never mind be unable to pee without looking into

39:44

somebody else's eye i would do that one because I would do that anyway um I

39:49

would rather go to the nudest beach i'll just stay away from my family no I'll take the pee one just because they didn't have doors in boot camp so I've

39:56

already pooped making eye contact with somebody so what's the difference you know then I get to see nudas and I don't got to pee on somebody well they didn't

40:02

say pee on him but you just have to make eye contact while you pee while you pee yeah it's not i do that all the time i people in the stall next to me so it's

40:09

like I've had to poop while someone was asking me questions i'm like "Dude stop i'm trying to take a shit." They had the

40:14

stall doors off in boot camp so when you're pooping the guy across from me is staring right at you they did not in in

40:20

in any way there's no shame like they learn to take the shame away from you you go when you go in the middle of the

40:25

night you go "Why did he pick the one directly across from me there's 38 other toys there's 30 of them." And he's

40:30

trying I'm like trying to write a letter and he's like "Hey bud how you doing?" "Hey how you doing?" I'm like "I'm writing a letter." I'm pooping leave me

40:36

alone this is my time i get 30 minutes you only get so much

40:41

time at night before you want to be asleep and you take it to take a [ __ ] and be

40:47

left alone and there's some creepy guy at the stall across from me going "How you doing man?" It's like "Don't you got

40:52

something else to do?" No no he doesn't i mean 32 urinal is how you had to go pee there would you rather be forced to

40:59

remove your pants before sitting down or tongue a sumo wrestler's [ __ ] easy

41:06

pants yeah he's not taking their pants i do that anyway easy sumo wrestler i mean Harrian would pick that one easily oh I

41:12

don't know wait is it depends on the day there's no weights cuz you can't change the card they like need to make these

41:18

more specific they do okay this last one would you open your laptop in a meeting

41:25

only to discover that a porn is playing at full volume or find your significant

41:31

other on an escort site um the porn one because that's more than likely going to

41:36

happen to me at some point yeah exactly i say that's See porn one I feel like you lose money escort one gain money

41:43

right that's a good way to look at it so financially well I mean I mean it all depends on who who's at the meeting too

41:49

you know they could have been like "Wow it was like what is that website a bang bus meeting." Or you know here's the thing my wife was pregnant i used to

41:57

tell her all the time "We should make a porn that's a double fetish porn ampute and pregnant woman." Well it's a very

42:02

niche yeah i was going to say isn't that mean like there's like four people that want to watch that [ __ ] but they'll probably There's probably a ton of

42:08

people that are not going to Google it but if they came across it they would definitely hit play oh for sure there's

42:14

plenty i mean look how many people watch was it Two Girls One Cup or Sandbox that search engine optimization on porn where

42:22

it like suggests it no matter what yeah exactly i always think if I was going to make a porn it'd be six girls one quad

42:29

because I could do like one per limb and then your penis and then penis in my mouth yeah exactly i like that that's a

42:35

great idea six girls one quad sequels we had a school with a He's getting pegged at

42:41

the same time this guy gets it he's hired again i think this is the first time I've been

42:47

hiring capabilities i do now yeah you're a guest i've appointed myself you gave him firing attorney i gave him firing

42:52

capability street attorney powers it's He is my street attorney he is my street attorney what does that mean that you're

42:57

his street attorney if you got to ask me you got to sign an NDA before I tell you right okay I'll sign it just tell us i

43:04

mean we've been through so much [ __ ] together from going out to bars drinking and getting all [ __ ] up to wartime

43:09

stories just best friends he's one of my He's He's one of the reasons that I cleaned my act up like I'm going to go

43:16

through this story if you don't mind please do man you were one of the people that tricked him it's one of our You didn't trick me it's one of our better

43:22

stories so I was going through a hard time my mind was going crazy using a lot of drugs at the time and the only person

43:29

I had trusted was him i was at a hotel your sister didn't know where I was at which is my wife by the way didn't know

43:35

where I was at she's calling Neie everybody's calling Neie i call Neie he's like "Everybody's trying to call me

43:40

where are you at i'm like I'm at a hotel but I'm not telling you which one he's like come on dude i'll come pick you up we'll go back down to the Lake of the

43:46

Ozarks we'll hang out we'll have a good time you know and he you know he's trying to get me all through that was my

43:51

plan was like let's just get him out of I don't know what the situation is but it sounds Get him out of hiding so let's

43:57

get him out of here so he got me out of hiding and we went down to the Ozarks well I ended up [ __ ] being an [ __ ] saying a bunch of [ __ ] doing a bunch of

44:03

[ __ ] he seen it next morning I wake up and he's like "Get your [ __ ] let's go." I was like "I thought we were going to

44:08

be here all week." And he's like "No get your [ __ ] let's go 3-hour car ride silence it was [ __ ] unbearable super

44:15

uncomfortable i did not know what was going on i knew I was an [ __ ] but I didn't realize that he was upset cuz

44:21

I've been an [ __ ] a lot of times yeah this was the difference but this was the difference is I get out of the [ __ ]

44:26

car and he goes "Dude I love you to death but don't [ __ ] call me until you get your [ __ ] together cuz I can't

44:32

deal with this anymore i can't be part of what you're doing." And then that's what made me decide to go to focus

44:41

because it all kind of fell together but that's what really made me decide to go to focus was that if my best friend is

44:47

[ __ ] telling me and the guy that I get [ __ ] up with all the time or used to get [ __ ] up with all the time that

44:53

I need to go change what I'm doing I'm doing something [ __ ] wrong mhm and so it changed my life

45:00

yeah it was I mean I won't go into the details of it but it was uh it warranted it yeah yeah it was me it means I'll say

45:07

it no I mean what you I Yeah you want me to say it on here or go ahead uh yeah so

45:12

we were hanging out i was trying to calm him down and he was basically like leading on that he had taken a bunch of

45:19

pills and was like "You're welcome to the party pal like I'm dying tonight

45:25

you're here to watch it." And I was like "That's super [ __ ] up." Like and so I stayed up all night like checking you

45:30

know putting my fingers under his nose like "All right he's just I was attention i figured he was full of [ __ ] i know i know him long enough but I'm

45:37

not going to take the chance exactly cuz the one time you don't he's going he's going to do it i was in a bad place man

45:42

yeah we This is after you know I'd already been to uh the hospital last one time this when I shot myself so he had

45:49

reason to believe that I was going to be all signs pointed out and that was the straw for me i was like man if we're

45:55

[ __ ] brothers like you got to I can't I don't want to be a part of helping him go down that road and I in no uncertain

46:03

terms thought that that was going to be any impact whatso like you know [ __ ] if this dude wants to party like who am I

46:08

to tell him not to well the fact that you decided to say you know and this isn't advice to do to people you have to

46:15

make sure that they're Yeah it was a very personal situation yeah it it was one of those things where I was like

46:21

this is my best friend one of the last people that I have so I better [ __ ] do something and for people out there

46:28

right now that have someone in crisis we're not saying this is the best idea to cut them off no but at some point in

46:34

their life you may have to you know just be tough love and accept the accept the

46:40

responsibilities otherwise you're an enabler yeah well and it had an impact on me as well you know like that was probably my first catalyst into like all

46:49

right like Todd's you know he's on his he's on a path that I can see myself

46:54

being on down the road so it's like if you're gonna say it to him say it to yourself right uh that's true and you

47:01

know I can't be a hypocrite exactly like uh that [ __ ] got [ __ ] tough real fast

47:08

jefferson 770 hi you guys have a great story true friendship jen Jefferson from

47:13

Focus has made it to the podcast yes she has oh she's in now oh we love you Jen i

47:19

heart you if you're happy and you know it clap clap your nubs it sounds like two people [ __ ] on a bus

47:27

yeah yeah i mean I had to put the bus in there because I had to rhyme it short bus so my favorite is also Head

47:32

shoulders knees and toes no more song no more song that's right head shoulders no more song kyle yeah now you're fired you

47:37

[ __ ] up my song we just fought to bring you back and this is what you do we just rehired you and I had to rehire

47:43

you now do you know the amount of paperwork I'm gonna have to file on the street i know if you rehire me you won't have to do any

47:51

oh man so we're looking at 40 minutes right now we can run this i I'll do it

47:56

all night let's Let's do it let's do some more let's keep going what's your favorite Todd Nicely store because we always ask that the favorite one the

48:03

most my favorite see this is hard because there's a ton there is a ton but honestly like my favorite one that I

48:09

tell I'm that I'm comfortable telling to everybody is Is it the turkey no i love

48:15

that one which I video with no sound but no it's the Valentine's Day proposal oh [ __ ] okay

48:22

tell us oh my god is this one This is one of like this he wasn't even there i wasn't even there but it doesn't in

48:28

spirit you know uh this was Valentine's Day valentine's Day we 96 yeah and uh I

48:36

had just gotten off [ __ ] duty which means I was up all night we're We're all over the place but we know that he's got

48:42

this like special day planned in Myrtle Beach myrtle Beach with which way you're

48:48

going his at the time girlfriend at the time girlfriend who is now my ex-wife yeah uh spoiler

48:55

spoilers no and uh we just hear we'll fast forward we'll

49:01

do it like a you know I don't even know why this favorite story right now so funny just it's Todd Nicely luck at its

49:08

best and cuz you told us all about like you had this whole you the one the first

49:14

time you've ever planned anything that I've by that so can you tell us what his plan was and then tell us remember the

49:20

plan sure his plan was take my girlfriend to this romantic weekend in

49:25

Myrtle Beach nice hotel room on the water and I'm going to propose to her on Valentine's Day like okay super sweet it

49:33

happened to fall on a weekend yeah it was a 96 weekend so like 96 means you had 96 hours off by the way for people

49:40

who don't understand okay there you go and uh so we hear Todd's in jail

49:48

that's the first thing you hear that's the first thing that I personally hear like Todd's arrested somebody has to drive my girlfriend had called them all

49:55

to tell them I was in jail and drive from Jacksonville North Carolina jail is

50:00

a whole another story and I'll let him tell it we'll circle back to that yeah from Jacksonville North Carolina has to

50:06

drive down to get Todd from jail in Myrtle Beach which is I don't even know six plus hours far i spent my whole 96

50:13

in [ __ ] whole plan jail so they get

50:18

back from a night of dinner and drinking whatever they're doing

50:23

and they decide they're still hungry so they order pizza no I wasn't still hungry she was still hungry she was still hungry uh I passed out we're not

50:31

holding on to that one at all are we ty no I'm still in the three Rs about that three Rs bud three Rs uh so they she

50:39

orders a pizza they cuz you know she's about to be your fiance it's your pizza too no I hadn't even proposed yet and uh

50:46

this is before the day before Valentine's Day like I'm going to propose i think the first night the night before I'm going

50:52

to propose we had gone out to the bar with a couple other people that came down with us we're drunk as [ __ ] we get

50:57

back to the hotel she's hungry she wants to eat something i said "Order a pizza." So hotel guy had put them put the wrong

51:04

room number down for them so the pizza guy showed up and I'm supposed to deliver it to whatever room room he goes

51:09

"Nobody's standing there there must be squatters." He's knocking on He's knocking on their door and we're sleeping we fell asleep drunk they think

51:16

it's They're squatting in the room and you can probably pick it up from here with They think we're squatting and

51:22

whatnot she ordered a [ __ ] spinach pizza i went to jail over a That's my favorite part it's a spinach pizza okay

51:30

so the cops knock on the door and they're like "Hey you guys are squatting in this room." And I'm like "No we're not i checked in." Well the [ __ ]

51:36

put down that we were on the bottom floor and on 112 instead of two he gave us the key to 212 so we went to 212 we

51:44

went in so he thinks we're squatting in the room the cops come they ask for my ID and stuff well come to find out I had

51:51

already joined the Marine Corps because my buddy the long story I will get into that later this is

51:57

a year and a half into the Marine Corps and there's a warrant out for my arrest

52:03

and I even told the cops I said "I can't have a warrant out for my arrest i'm in the Marine Corps and in order to get in the Marine Corps they run you background

52:10

check." He goes "There's a warrant out for your arrest in Jefferson County from 2004." I'm like "What the fuck?" So

52:16

apparently the state had brought up charges on me they're like "Listen we won't take you in if they won't come get

52:22

you like you'll just get a slap on the wrist and a ticket and we have to let you go if they won't expedite you." I said "Oh [ __ ] it's county." Remember

52:30

it's a holiday weekend holiday weekend so they're putting me in jail anyway and I can't see until Monday until same yeah

52:36

so it ruined my whole weekend but yeah Jefferson County said they were going to come exite me so they automatically slap

52:43

handcuffs off me at one point I thought about jumping over the rail and running down the beach they would have never

52:48

caught me because it was two fat guys but I was like "No just just don't just do it take what you got to do and do

52:54

it." But I spent my whole instead of getting to propose to my girlfriend i ended up having to spend a [ __ ]

53:00

weekend in jail monday was a holiday too so I had to wait till Tuesday in jail

53:06

with a bunch of [ __ ] gangbangers and people bragging about what they do and I'm like "Dude just leave me alone i'm

53:11

on a 5-year-old charge." And he's like fasttracked to being somebody in the in our unit i'm trying to get my [ __ ]

53:18

together and all of a sudden I'm in [ __ ] jail my first sergeant had to explain to my officers and all my

53:23

company that it wasn't my mom had to go down to Jefferson County courts and get it all [ __ ] straightened out and then

53:29

they finally released me on [ __ ] whatever it was but the funny thing is is I I'm getting my bail hearing okay

53:37

I'm getting my bail hearing and I'm sitting in front of the judge and this lady next to me has [ __ ] frauded

53:42

people out of $5 million worth of money and her bail was only $100,000 she gets

53:47

to me she's like "Fugitive from justice $500,000." I'm like I stood up and I go

53:53

"This [ __ ] stole a million dollars from people and I was pissed." She goes "Order in the court." I was like "What

53:58

the fuck?" My wife calls AJ and is like "We need $50,000 to get out." He goes "Oh bail okay that'll be five." She goes

54:05

"No that's with bail." So it was [ __ ] Normally it's like 1% of what they tell

54:11

you but it was bad yeah i go "Well we So did you got out on bail then?" No no I

54:17

got out yeah cuz they wrongfully arrested me on a warrant that shouldn't have been there okay so I was say what

54:23

what was the charge for and what was what was not right about it like thirdderee burglary seconddegree assault

54:30

it was from like a high school fight it was from a fight right before I joined the military with one of my friends and

54:36

he called the cops on me and I ended up beating him up in his house so they called it burglary cuz I wasn't supposed

54:41

to be in his house but yet my brother lived there and refused to say "Okay

54:47

well I allowed him in." So I ended up with burglary and assault so that's my

54:52

favorite story because at this time like Todd and I were we were brothers you

54:57

know like fully fully on friends at this point and like like he knew my family I knew his family and so I think that it's

55:04

my favorite because my family was like "Hey how's Todd?" And I got to say "Oh he's in jail." "Oh he was about to

55:09

propose but let me tell you the story." something i just like it was just one of those like perfect moments where I got

55:16

to tell all of them and they're all just dying laughing so I like to talk about this because AJ put it the best way of

55:23

focus like we had a core four of Yeah which George was one of them george was

55:28

me and your best friend as well so if you listen to the George Gettis episode know that me AJ and George all hung out

55:34

together we were inseparable along with Nick Han god rest his soul no longer with us but I think I've talked about

55:41

that on a couple other podcasts or maybe I haven't even but I'd like to talk about them together maybe get me you and

55:47

George on one neck episode cuz I could tell a ton of stories about Nick oh my good yeah we

55:55

might have to do that for Mama Han i think she would love that one yeah I'd like that i'd like to do that i would like to do that too just to reminisce i

56:00

think that would be amazing maybe uh look at this man stuff's happening it's happening real fast it's always just

56:06

happening weird well so stay tuned for that one folks we'll have to maybe I don't know if

56:13

George would fly out for that we'll make it work plan a weekend i can fly out cuz

56:18

we'll go down to the wall too that I was talking about in Murcales so ladies and gentlemen there you've heard of the

56:23

Vietnam wall right yes of course well in Merc Illinois there is an actual wall

56:29

made for the middle or the Middle East conflicts only mhm so it's guys that

56:35

were in Kuwait Iraq Afghanistan so it's kind of like the Vietnam War but it has all the names of

56:41

the guys of the Middle East wars and it was very emotional to go next to but

56:48

very um how do you say soothing cathartic

56:53

cathartic I guess you could say because there's a river behind it and so instead of the dead silence while you're there

56:59

you hear the river behind it which helps with the thoughts and the the calmness of all of it but I didn't you know I'll

57:07

talk more about that on another I keep saying that i know you do it all the time but leaving them leave him wanting more right yeah i got to leave them

57:13

hanging exactly unlike my wiener was it like the the old bat Adam West Batman it's like tune in next week for next

57:19

week pow pow kabang the Riddler's at it again

57:26

so we used to have this thing where we'd hang out in AJ's driveway okay oh yeah in the military tell a little bit about

57:31

that well I mean that's that pretty much sums it up sums it up we sat in the

57:37

driveway drinking just watching cars drill by that sounds funny he lives in Kirkwood right across from a church okay

57:44

so yeah they have to drive slow we just pop a cooler well because we So I guess

57:49

it doesn't make as much sense to everyone else but when we'd be we'd do post together a lot like in Afghanistan

57:55

and stuff uh when we could because he was in a different squad in charge but we could work our way in we'd take you

58:02

know we'd take the late shift uh we take the shift together late shift away from the guys so that way they could sleep

58:08

and we would be up on post just how was your day cuz you know we were in different squads but in the same platoon

58:14

so we would take the opportunity to try to catch up then that's awesome yeah got to keep the roommate the grieving alive

58:20

you know and uh a lot of it was like talking about when we get home yeah when we get home and that was one of the big

58:26

like when we get home he What was that song you liked some song that was about drinking in a driveway i don't know uh

58:34

it's one of those Who's a band that sang that rehab song oh uh uh Bartender yeah

58:42

the bartender one uh they I think it was Rehab yeah rehab's the name of the name of the band

58:48

bartender's the song everybody's probably listening to the podcast going rehab rehab it is yeah well it's Todd

58:55

music so I don't Well I did end up doing it in my power electric chair I think yeah no we brought you We got you we

59:01

drank uh Bullfrog in the driveway for those of you who don't know what Bullfrog is I'll let AJ explain it

59:08

garbage can of It's just a bunch of liquor sugar and Kool-Aid mixed into a

59:13

[ __ ] cooler it's actually Well yeah give them the recipe you pour out a 2

59:18

liter of Mountain Dew to the top of the label you dump in a packet of Kool-Aid and then you fill it with Everclear up

59:24

back to the top okay bullfrog it's dangerous i kind of don't try it no I don't disclaimer no disclaimer the

59:31

street attorney like candy and 151 Everclear will [ __ ] you up oh dude i

59:37

know when you're old it's gross you'll have two cups within a matter of 15 minutes cuz they're good as [ __ ] and

59:43

then you're going "Oh [ __ ] the rest of my night's gonna be blackout juice that's what it's blackout everybody knows a different version of blackout

59:50

juice." Yeah but we drank that in the parking lot and it was that was just I guess it was a big moment cuz it was like we didn't think that was going to

59:56

happen after making those plans so I want to make this clearly abundant to everybody that's listening so me AJ

1:00:03

George and Nick Hand were all the core four we were very very very good friends well AJ and George almost lost two of

1:00:10

their best friends and one more they didn't think I was going to make it so think about that well two of your best

1:00:15

friends almost die in one war one at the beginning and one at the end that's going to take a toll on you me you and

1:00:21

George put Nick on the helicopter yeah me him and then Nick on the helicopter to send him home and then after I got

1:00:28

hit they were like George and I George and I put you on the helicopter they were like "We're going to live together."

1:00:33

So I mean as as rough and raw as it sounds that we're saying it like it doesn't mean anything with emotion

1:00:40

that's a [ __ ] pretty heavy weight to carry yep i'll never forget when I was sitting in the bed and I was like "Give me a phone i'm calling my guys." And

1:00:47

they got to talk to me on the sat that was huge yeah we when I woke up so that

1:00:52

was like one of the proud like when I was laying in the hospital bed I got to

1:00:58

call them while they were still deployed but then I found out the date they were coming home and I was like I'm going to that my doctors were like you can't you

1:01:05

can't you can't i said if you don't [ __ ] let me I'm going to rip these tubes out and I will find a way to get

1:01:10

there well they found a way to get me there to make sure I was home when those guys got off the plane and got back to the [ __ ] base dude and that was epic

1:01:18

i remember that moment man like stepping off the bus and there's Todd and you're like no [ __ ] [ __ ] or was was he like

1:01:26

in like a bed or like Yeah like a high tech [ __ ] robot chair but like again

1:01:31

like the last we really knew like I I put him on the helicopter and I go that's that's it like I touched my buddy

1:01:37

like I touched Nick like see you later you're gone like uh you know just carry on no one thought I was dead carry on

1:01:43

yeah like I died three times uh he Yeah so So we were right just not that that means anything but yeah you were right

1:01:50

but but we were right um no but uh No so that was like a huge and he

1:01:58

was one of the first people I remember seeing like stepping up like not family not anything else like Oh [ __ ] oh I made

1:02:03

sure I was [ __ ] that phone call was big too cuz that was we were like still in the compound they were still in

1:02:09

combat where it Yeah in the same compound we all left from and uh so to be able to talk to him and

1:02:18

Okab was a base that I actually built or help mainly helped build Yeah well I

1:02:23

took over the place to build the compound and then his squad came down to help help me build it we made it better

1:02:28

a lot of Yeah go [ __ ] yourself that's why you slept in [ __ ] T-shirt island or city whatever the hell you tent city

1:02:34

tent city yeah get it right yeah well I had the house and they got tents

1:02:41

but no like you know it being the end of the deployment and it was it was rough and that being you know like again a lot

1:02:47

of I feel like we were the core four but like we were fun as [ __ ] at least in my recollection of it so a lot of people

1:02:53

like hang out with us and we took the boots under our wing as well so it was a huge shock to the group so to have him

1:03:01

call and like okay he's [ __ ] breathing well that's the main thing he's talking [ __ ] again this is good i

1:03:07

think it was better for the Boots than it was for you and George and when I say boots I that means younger generation of

1:03:13

guys because believe it or not they all kind of looked up to us and we're still friends with a lot of

1:03:20

them that's why like I can't fall apart now like two of four are two of four are gone you got to hold your [ __ ] together

1:03:26

right or these kids are going to fall apart so So let's end this on a funny story totally um we're going to go with

1:03:34

I want you to tell the turkey story oh yeah the turkey store all right yeah turkey store is great and we can upload

1:03:39

a soundless video to this maybe this is a soundless video if the sound was there it'd be even better so there we are

1:03:47

let's round it out you know started like we ended it so there we are i'm uh I'm elbow deep in this turkey in a in the

1:03:54

middle of a compound we had taken over but why are we cutting up a turkey well we're hungry we have no food except for

1:04:00

a cooked or uncooked turkey uncooked it was alive i just ended this turkey you just killed

1:04:06

with two i had two chickens and a turkey that I was cleaning on this uh stone okay well have you ever like cleaned

1:04:13

chicken or turkey before this i'm familiar with I was just making Sure no good

1:04:19

question uh well you're still hot you're still employed no I already fired him

1:04:24

well he's back but on thin ice he's on He's on one more reprimand uh and so I'm

1:04:31

sitting there i'm I'm like gutting and cleaning this turkey in like a hand pump well and uh Todd comes in it's like a

1:04:39

scene out of the office but like the office Afghanistan because he was running a vehicle checkpoint that day up

1:04:47

at the bazaar with no bazaar is a market and they uh they give you like

1:04:52

a a window marker type of deal basically like a stamp for a car was it the penis

1:04:57

one this is the penis yeah shut up the penis incident so I asked these guys I said "Put draw something on the car so I

1:05:04

know these vehicles have been checked when they come through." So George told this story by the way he told the story why he's telling the story okay so

1:05:12

I was not there for the actual penises mhm but so here I am like trying to feed

1:05:18

uh you know the squad that's keeping this war alive that's winning this war

1:05:23

oh [ __ ] don't get me going so I'm I'm skinning this turkey and Todd comes in and he's just like

1:05:29

"Uh today was rough." And I'm like "What happened bud?" He's like "They just kept drawing dicks on all the cars and the

1:05:36

commands up my ass because of it." And they're writing like "My sister loves dick and

1:05:42

all." And I'm I'm like plucking you know gizzards and and yeah feathers out of

1:05:48

this thing complaining to turkey i'm just complaining about my day like we're husband and wife and I'm just like "Oh

1:05:53

that was such a rough day sounds rough yeah you know at this point we've had like you know fishy and you know tons of

1:06:00

firefights but that was a a man just all these dicks on these windows and the

1:06:05

commands really up my ass about it and I'm like I hear you bud that must be rough he's gutting a turkey he's like "Yeah that sucks." Commiserating how I

1:06:12

can with him yeah i wish we had the audio to that one so you got it on recording i have a video of it and you

1:06:18

can see how casual it looks and you can see how distraught I am i'm like "Oh it's his worst day there the worst day

1:06:25

i've been in many firefights but this was my worst day apparently according to the video that was the one he also has

1:06:30

video of my birthday oh that is for a different podcast ladies and gentlemen oh man that's for that one we need to

1:06:37

consult an actual attorney for No that's definitely past the uh I'd still like to

1:06:43

check for my own and I would never I would never uh press charges so there's nothing they can do that's join Todd

1:06:50

unless they tell me it's join only fans if you want exclusive access to I have no only fans oh Jesus so you have a

1:06:57

video for it i I cannot confirm or deny that possible deniability there all

1:07:04

right ladies and gentlemen we're going to end that there um we're going to have AJ back i'll have to listen to this

1:07:09

podcast again to know what stories we told because me and him have so many stories what our friendship's been since

1:07:15

2007 so I mean we do everything we can together when we can together so I mean

1:07:21

I look at him with love when I tell him that I love you buddy i love you too buddy hope to be back i want to keep uh

1:07:27

humiliating you as much as I can i mean you could be like my second I could I could start a couch over there and just

1:07:32

start collecting people to interch

1:07:37

[Laughter] all right ladies and gentlemen we're going to call that a night uh Kyle run

1:07:43

down the list of Well you can find us on Instagram uh Twitter and YouTube on when

1:07:50

does [ __ ] end and I'm going to look up today [ __ ] is FK R Y by the way yeah which we're in the middle of

1:07:56

getting trademarked hell yeah we are why'd you tell them the trade secret though i mean what if somebody else beat

1:08:02

it it's already filed somebody's going to beat you to it yep it's they're going to beat us anyway everybody have a great

1:08:07

day what do you got to say AJ what's your ending thought and tune in next time and penises

1:08:15

that's for next episode

1:08:25

[Music]

1:08:35

[Music]

1:08:42

[Music]

1:08:51

heat

1:08:59

[Music]