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Double AA club Podcast
EP:174 Rucking with a Torn Heart Valve: The Military Test Nobody Trains For
Owen Hallinan shares his extraordinary journey from earning "Soldier of the Cycle" in basic training to undergoing two emergency open-heart surgeries after tearing a heart valve during military training. Through this life-altering experience, Owen discovers profound spiritual meaning and a renewed appreciation for life while facing uncertainty about his military future.
• Ex-master certified personal trainer who joined the Army National Guard at age 33
• Excelled in basic training despite being significantly older than most recruits
• Selected for the prestigious Best Warrior competition team at Advanced Individual Training
• Experienced sudden, knife-like chest pain during a training ruck march
• Initially misdiagnosed with chest congestion before doctors discovered a torn heart valve
• Underwent two open-heart surgeries within 10 days, including emergency surgery when his blood pressure dropped dangerously low
• Found deeper spiritual meaning during his near-death experience
• Currently undergoing cardiac rehabilitation with plans to run a marathon within a year
• Emphasizes the importance of seeking medical attention when something feels wrong
If you're experiencing unusual symptoms, don't hesitate to see a doctor—it could save your life.
You are listening to the Double A Club and this is your host, ny Boom, and my co-host, big Daz. We'll be talking about trending topics and healthcare and basically, just as a disclaimer just to let the listeners know that this is just basically on our opinions and speculations and I hope you guys enjoy the show. Let's start off and kick off with our first topic. This is NYC Boom and this is Double A Club Podcast, and joining me here is a special guest. Introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:What's going on? Introduce yourself. My name is Owen Hallinan. I'm an ex master certified personal trainer, trained down in Orlando, florida, for about six, seven years or so, and currently I am in the service to join the Army National Guard as a patching mechanic, and so that's where we're at right now well, thank you for serving, and you know, going back to a master certified personal trainer, I met you at Gold's Gym in Orlando and we worked together there for a few years before I left.
Speaker 1:I believe that that was the first place that ever worked for that. Instead of getting a pay raise, you got a pay reduction.
Speaker 2:We got a couple of those.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people didn't like me because I was very vocal about the shit. But I was like yo, I don't want to cut my pay. That's not me, man, john, that fucker. And then just you know, I'm going to share a couple of people's story about you. You moved to the Carolinas, I believe, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I moved back home, so I'm actually from here. So I moved back home to, you know, do some cooking stuff. I'm also a certified chef. I had some years doing that and so I've done a lot of stuff like at the higher end of a career because I wanted to learn the basics and then move my way up, like we do a training that we do in the culinary field now and, you know, serving our country. So, yeah, I moved back to South Carolina culinary field now, um, in the service, and you know, serving the serving our country. So, um, yeah, I moved back to stockholm. That's where I'm at right now and, um, that's where I joined since yes, yeah and and then, um, I've been following your social media.
Speaker 1:You've been on doing a lot of boxing training and stuff like that for yourself. And then you was uh, I believe you was going through the process of joining the National Guard. Yeah, and you got admitted and started your boot camp yes so, and you're a perfectly healthy person.
Speaker 2:You're in your early 30s, 32 right yes, I'm 33 and kind of joined on the later side of the military. I wasn't going to join when I was 18 but I couldn't do it because I had some shoulder issues. Um, but 33, I was healthy as a horse and came in at my at my strongest and and joined really late in life.
Speaker 1:So, um, but joined nonetheless I mean, I don't think it really matters. I mean, they have an age cap, right, isn't it 35?
Speaker 2:35, yeah, 35 with weight, oh you're still just you.
Speaker 1:You just made it, you was, you was pretty strong. I mean you, you, how much do you weigh?
Speaker 2:Right now. Right, it's probably like 180 right now, but when I saw, when you saw me, me, I was probably about 200 almost.
Speaker 1:Almost right. I say say around 190, 195. Yeah somewhere around that and you was deadlifting close to 400 pounds.
Speaker 2:We got over that. We ended up pulling a 500 deadlift. That was recorded. So I've gotten a 500 deadlift, I've gotten a 405 squat. I can't do that anymore. I will tell you that that phase is kind of like long gone, so we just kind of sit around. I don't want to do that anymore. We do reps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you're a strong guy, you're almost, you know, kind of thinner framed and you didn't have it. There was no um, there was no red flags, any complications or anything that the the military said that made that would make them not allow you to join so when I was uh, when I signed up, when I went to meps, um MEPS, I had a red flag waiver and it was for my shoulder.
Speaker 2:This was something I had. A any red flag waivers. You are not fit to serve at all. You have to go through a waiver process, which I don't know. I think it's like an E6 to an E8 or something like that. It has to sign those papers over just to allow you to be able to go to basic training or even take the next set of steps in in the uh, in the signing process.
Speaker 2:But, um, I had a red flag waiver from my shoulder because I had shoulder surgery. Um, in high school, um from playing football and so, from you know, did my orthoscopic surgery. Um, and that was maybe 2008, we're talking, it's 2024 and so something that's you know, years behind there's still red flagging that says you're not fit to serve right now. So I just took the lady in the office like this bird. I said man, grab my hand. I picked that lady up like this and put her back down and she goes uh, soldier, picked me up in the office, soldier's fine. And so they ended up clearing me for um, for that, for that waiver. So, um, you know, I got. I got cleared for all the red flag waivers that I did have, which that was just one of them. I ended up having three of them. I can't remember what the other two were for, but I got cleared to be able to serve. So nothing that was pressing enough for me not to be able to get a waiver for. I would say that Okay.
Speaker 1:So pretty much healthy as an ox, good to go. Proved your strength Very much so. These red flags are not going to be actual red flags. They're red flags because something happened in the past.
Speaker 2:They're perfectly healed, ready to go yeah, everything, everything was ready to go so you go, you enter boot camp.
Speaker 1:Now, right, it's boot camp is the beginning of it, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, that. Yeah, that's the first step. I signed June 18th 2024, and went to boot camp September 25th.
Speaker 1:Because I've been in the military so I don't know this process, so you may have to educate me more. So boot camp is the first thing you do, the first phase.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the first phase and it is taxing. I'm talking about all them years of working out. I ain't never worked out in my life. I don't feel like they. We probably did.
Speaker 1:We probably did 3 000 push-ups in the first three days we were there um. I would imagine it's kind of more like a crossfit type of thing, but continuous it's more like.
Speaker 2:It's more like you've got uh children that won't stop talking and they get you in trouble for the entire time while you're there. And now you have to get Reprimanded every single like you turn. You turn the corner and be like forward March, stop March to do push-ups. I give you something like that get out of bed at 3 o'clock in the morning. You got push-ups to do.
Speaker 1:It's like God tell just people misbehaving and stuff like that I'm in trouble for someone and if someone's not doing something wrong, they're just gonna blame it on somebody and just, you're going to get chewed out anyway. I had to go through the same shit in the academy for corrections and the police, that bullshit. I was like yo fuck this. But yeah, so you go through boot camp. Go ahead, tell us your experience of boot camp For people who've never been through it and never experienced it and only seen the movies.
Speaker 2:Tell us how, how, how it really is um, the first three days were the hardest days of our, of my entire life, because you had to sit and just wait. That's a military standard and it's a it's a common phrase. You hear anybody that talks about the military. Ask them about sitting and waiting. They'll call you to get somewhere and you're supposed to be somewhere 15 minutes before and, bernie, you might be sitting in that same spot for three hours. You ain't supposed to talk to nobody, but we had to do a lot of sitting and waiting, and so that was the first three days we were there. We got our heads shaved.
Speaker 2:You look like knobs, like doorknobs and stuff like that. The only times you you move when you're supposed to move, you breathe when you're supposed to breathe. You do what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to. You ate when you're supposed to eat, you sleep when you're supposed to sleep, and and so trying to follow. Trying to follow that part was not the hard part because, again, I'm a little bit older, but watching the, the age gap from somebody being older and then somebody being younger, you know you're almost getting like you're having a lot of this, like stop doing that, stop doing that, stop doing that, and eventually you know, now you're being rep I'm being reprimanded for somebody way over there doing the wrong thing and um, that became the common trend of boot camp. That was the more or less that was the common thing. So I had to look at like you know, do I sit down and talk to these people. I was a lot older so I got a lot of people. They called me unc at basically trying.
Speaker 2:Most of the guys that were there were there maybe like 18 19. One guy was 17, um, so the the new wave of everybody coming up is very, very much. So I got a high school, you know fresh about to go to college. You know using the military to get into, get into um, get, get some college money. But boot camp was it was a lot of consistent scheduling. You knew exactly what you were supposed to do. You had a time to do everything. You were told what to do, you were told what to wear, you were told when to go to sleep, you were told when you were going to be, when we go marching and stuff like that. So you knew what was going on. So boot camp was not hard marching and stuff like that. So you knew what was going on. So boot camp was not hard. I will say that boot camp was just, it was difficult, difficulty and something being just hard like difficulty today could be something very easy for me. It could be a little bit more difficult.
Speaker 2:We had to do land navigation, which I've never done that before, but I've used a compass and you know I got to be outside. I do my rednecky stuff you remember they used to call me a bunch of redneck names back in the gym and whatnot. But I got to do a lot of outdoors so I got to shoot a lot of guns. I mean thank God for taxpayer dollars because we shot a lot of ammunition, yeah, but we shot a lot. We did a lot of stuff outside. We camped. I mean we didn't necessarily do some camping but we slept outside a couple nights on some of our larger marches and you know I got to learn a lot more about the militaristic mindset and what goes into doing that.
Speaker 2:Learn more about. You know, from basics. I could tell you all the stories that we did, but some of the more important stuff is we learned a lot of teamwork, a whole lot of teamwork, that I'm a member of a team. Whether there's creed that we say that says I'm an american soldier, I'm a warrior, a member of a team, and you learn this mindset and just build this mindset inside you that the guy beside you is responsible for having your back and I'm supposed to be responsible for having his, and then vice versa, everybody around here.
Speaker 2:But there's some people I would never want to even stand in my presence that were in that same kind of space and you learn that about these people. But you still remember of a team. So how can I utilize your assets, like what's your, your, your asset to, for not my benefit, for my own safety, but the military Mary must? Who takes care? Basically training took care of those bits and pieces, like there's some people just never made it Through. A lot of people just ended up quitting, and if you quit the military for basic training, you know what they do it for you. Yeah, of people just ended up quitting and if you quit the military for basic training, you know what they do for you. No, they make you stay the whole entire time and watch everybody else do that stuff until it's time for you to go. Which about you know, if it's a 10-week basic training, you're there for like eight or nine weeks and they hold you there.
Speaker 2:That's what you get for quitting 100. You're thinking about joining the military? Do not quit.
Speaker 1:So so they say watch or they have to still do the shit.
Speaker 2:Stand there and watch. Stand there and watch. It's it's got. I'll be honest with you, it's kind of funny. It's kind of funny it is. It is a little weird but it's a mind game.
Speaker 1:I see what they're trying to do it is.
Speaker 2:But, like you know, I don't want somebody that wants to quit standing beside me, that you know where.
Speaker 2:If you're in a firefight, I don't want the guy beside me saying, hey, you know what I'm done yeah I'm done, yeah, so, um, but it built this, this, this great amount of teamwork, not necessarily in the guy beside me, but in me, and being older, I was able to work on um, actually teaching other people beside me, that kind of thing, and I believe that if I'm able to stay, you know, I'd make a great NCO, I'd make a great noncommissioned officer in the military to be able to take younger people and teach them in the process, which is something that my drill sergeants saw in me too. They saw me, you know, taking leadership roles in tasks and taking leadership roles in our bay where we slept in our platoon, and so I was very much so watched um and also appreciated in in that as well, and I didn't get any preferential treatment at all but in that at the end of basic training. So we went through, uh, 10 weeks of basic training, I ended up winning an award which is like a um. I ended up winning, like a um, an army service coin, and it was for a soldier of the cycle. So I won an award that was the um, like their top soldier out of the whole entire battalion not battalion, but our company that we had and so I was recognized by our drill sergeants for um, for for leadership qualities, and so, um, what did I?
Speaker 2:My experience of basic training was that it's not. It was not hard. It was difficult because now I'm having to. I'm having to work with other people that I've never been working with before. I'm having to ruck and run with other people that have never rucked and ran before, but in the process I'm having to, you know, teach people how to breathe while they're doing certain things. I'm teaching people how to recover and stretch when we have those down times and stuff, because, because this is the person supposed to have my six, they're supposed to have my back and so, drill sergeant, the NCOs, they saw, you know, this kind of stuff that I was bringing to the table with my platoon, specifically as you kind of work with your own platoon, you have your own company of four platoons and you know, in the end we're actually all in competition with each other, but as one company trying to build everybody up in the process.
Speaker 2:But I learned how to lead in a different capacity and something I had no knowledge about whatsoever and it was really cool to do that on such a large scale. I mean, this is the United States military. This is the strongest, most elite fighting force in the whole entire world. Regardless of what anybody else says, this is the strongest, most elite fighting force in the entire world, and to be a part of that in my MOS, which is my military service operation, which I chose to do, which is to be an Apache mechanic to be able to work with those aircraft, that's cool as crap being able to fix something and know how to fix it, and you're being given this opportunity to work with equipment. That's tens of millions of dollars, but somebody trusts you in doing that, because that's why we go to our AIT schools, so we can learn some advanced, individualized training, and so I've learned a lot from basic.
Speaker 2:But the biggest thing I picked up was that something that seems hard you change your mindset. This is just difficult. Now I have to overcome these little obstacles. Like they're little obstacles. Like I only got 12 minutes to eat food. Well, you better eat your food in 12 minutes. Well, that's not enough time. You better figure it out. You're told when to do something. You're told you're told when not to do something. You're told what you can and we can't do, and that's a pretty easy concept to live off of, and we get that stuff on a daily basis anyway from our bosses, from our parents, um, our friends, from our, uh, significant others and and uh, just seeing the different mindsets of people and the younger generation coming up through, that was, um, it was different, it was very different, but that was pretty. That was pretty much my experience at at base a lot of running, I did a lot of pushes. My chest got bigger, um, I got stronger. There too, I got more. I probably got more mentally strong than anything else.
Speaker 1:But you definitely got more mentally strong, because it's all, it's really more mental than actual physical strength have you ever stood?
Speaker 2:you ever stood somewhere for four hours, like just like this, for four?
Speaker 1:hours, four hours, no, but I've had to stay still for like almost 30, 40 minutes in our and if you lock your knees you're gonna pass out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's a learn how to stand, do push-ups and deal with younger, younger, younger folks.
Speaker 1:So so that's so looking at the younger, the younger soldiers, the younger men entering the military right Like. What is your perception of them physically and mentally like? Because you have to deal with majority? You know probably 95 of them were, were, were young, uh, were really extremely young, like there was probably not many people close to your age, not even close, not even 26 probably out of maybe out of maybe 200 people.
Speaker 2:in my and it's just in my company, there's probably a thousand, there'll be eight, eight, nine hundred in our, in our whole battalion. But this the the age range is probably pretty similar per company too, but in echo company 439 at fort jackson there may have been 20 people that were older elder of 26 to 28 years old and up. I was on the higher end of that. That's why they called me Yonk and one kid made a mistake, called me Grandpa one time Mistake. Yeah, I just emptied his camel back out.
Speaker 1:So your perception of our younger generation come on. What do you think based on these guys?
Speaker 2:There's a I would say there's hope in any human being because we have this, god's given us this opportunity of free will to change how we are Now. The military would not allow you to be on the lower end of a standard. The standard is exactly what we're supposed to meet. That's the baseline, which is the standard. I think the minimum score you can have on a PT test is maybe 360. And that's the bare minimum. But they're requesting that you shoot for like a 420 or no a 540, which is like they love to see this stuff right here. But a 360 is like the minimum standard, which is not hard to get. A 360. I would say it's difficult to get a 360 if you're out of shape and overweight and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But basic training will build soldiers out of just regular people, and it very much so. I got to watch people just come in and just be the laziest POS as you've ever seen in your life to turn into these young men, and so basic is designed for that capacity. It's also used to wean out the people that want to quit. When stuff gets difficult, they just want to quit and so you don't want those people beside you or behind you so to ask that question at the beginning of basic training is one thing, to ask it at the end is a whole other ballgame. Because now you have these young men that have now come up, these young women that have now come up and the rest of them that quit and didn't want to continue. They're all gone. They're doing something else with their lives. So you don't have to worry about this person. You know having your six or having your bag. Now you just worry about the people beside you that wanted to continue and go on and the military there.
Speaker 2:I will tell you that the changes the military has made um is going to give us a stronger fighting force going forward. Is it a different fighting force? Absolutely, but the standard and the way that the military fights now is it is different. We don't have people running through the woods with machetes anymore, you know guerrilla warfare type style. We have more this. There's more of a um uh, technological way that you know fighting is done. There's more drones, there's more cameras in the sky, there's more UASs that are flying around and we have more opportunities to see the enemy before they see us. And it's not so much that we're painted faces up in the woods as much as we are sitting in a comfortable space, being able comfortable space, being able to witness something you know happen before it occurs.
Speaker 2:And so I think the military, the group that's coming up, is going to be trained by people that have learned the old way and the new way of training, and so they get to pass both of these operations down to this new group of people. And the new group of people will both learn from the old style and the new style. We learn the old style kind of at basic training and at AIT, our advanced individualized training. We've learned the new way this stuff is done. So you get to see this old style and this new style be both meshed together, and now these MCOs can now teach both of these things. So anybody that has joined the military and has come up through basic training is going to be an asset to the United States government and be an asset to our fighting force.
Speaker 2:There's some people who are still kids, but they will learn over time what it takes to be there for their battle buddies and for their country. So I like what I've seen coming up. I do like what I've seen coming up and coming up as an older individual. You know I've been able to help correct some things in the process, being that we're in the same rank too. But be able to correct some stuff before an NCO sees something and be able to kind of teach and teach prosperity towards, you know, these younger kids before they get a chance to be reprimanded. And you know I've gotten some thank yous. I've also gotten some f us, you know. But you know, at the end of it, you know it is what it is and you know the good will, the good will stand out and the bad ones will wean their ways away. Um so, but I like where stuff is going.
Speaker 1:I do very much so, um, like what's happening well, um, you know, based on what you you're you're mentioning about the military, I think everything's right, what you're saying. We are going into more of a technology type of warfare. I think that the warfare that will be fought physically with the old school machetes because I miss the machetes is going to be the special operations or special units or you know, I don't want to say like it's going to be SEALs, but it's going to be special groups that are going to be dealing with that. Now It'll be in smaller units, smaller companies, instead of, like you know, big tanks and shit like that. I don't think we're going to be doing that with people actually in it and stuff like that. I don't think we're going to be doing that with with, um, people actually in it and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's good to see that, because my daughter is is probably still thinking about joining the military, um, and she's leading towards the air force, if she does do it, because she wants to do it, she's doing, she's studying, she's in school from mechanical engineering, okay, so that's what she wants to go To continue her, her, her education. So she goes in there. I think it'd be probably for a bachelor's or master's degree, because she's already in school, trying to finish off the two year or four year, something like that. So not sure she might be older, she might. She might be like 24 when, when it happens so, she's gonna be an auntie she might be.
Speaker 2:She might still be one of the young ones, man she might.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, right, so so, yeah, so you're. You know we're going through this whole thing and you, you displayed incredible leadership and you know, to be honest with you, the people who are leaders understand that they're going to get people who are going to listen and comply and they're going to get people who are going to say, fuck you, I don't want to listen. So that's just part of leadership. You know what I'm saying. Like when I was working in Gold's Gym and telling everyone hey, this fucking John guy's a crook, I got a whole lot of fuck yous. It's true, I'm like bro, like you, really want to get paid less, because I don't. It happens that's part of leadership. You know what I'm saying. Like you got accepted and not taken personal. So you're displaying all this leadership and everything. And you're near the end of basic training, right? Or you finished basic training. You finished basic training, you got a reward.
Speaker 2:I'm at my advanced individualized training. Right now I'm at Fort Eustis, virginia. I'm not there right now I'm on convalescent leave, but I'm currently stationed at fort eustis, virginia. I'm not there right now I'm on convalescent leave, but um I'm at.
Speaker 1:I'm currently stationed at fort eustis so what is that training you're talking about?
Speaker 2:in advanced individualized training, everybody that signs up has an mos and you choose your job before you go to basic training. And so when you're at basic training, everybody is doing the same stuff. You're not doing anything that is specific. There's any specificity towards your future job. You are doing the same push-ups, you're doing the same marches, you're doing the same everything just to be able to build the basic standard, and your advanced individualized training is a specificity school for whatever your job is.
Speaker 2:So for me, as an Apache mechanic, I'm to uh fort eustis and langley, to uh learn how to, you know, fix aircraft. They don't do that at fort jackson, they don't do that at fort benny, they don't do that at fort linderwood. They don't do that in any other place, they do it specifically right there, and so I'm learning how to fix aircraft at this, at this spot. So everybody that has a um, you know, signs up for a job. They to specific places.
Speaker 2:So some of the people I went to AIT or went to basic training with are at my AIT too. There's Apache mechanics, there's Chinook mechanics, there's people that work on the hydro side, which is like our hydraulics. There's people that work on the electrical side, there's people that work on the Blackhawks. So eventually some of those people may go and be officers and fly helicopters. They may go into the officer route and have to go to OCS at some point, which is officer training school, officer candidate school, and so right now I'm just learning what I'm supposed to be doing for my job in the military and this is phase two, basically, phase two.
Speaker 2:Essentially it would be phase two, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, Now what happened. So on my medical side, Tell us when you can tell us.
Speaker 2:So I can tell you about the majority of my issue. Very healthy, coming out of basic training.
Speaker 1:We just made that clear how healthy you were.
Speaker 2:No issues whatsoever. When I get to AIT Berto, I'm there for two weeks before something. I say two weeks before I was there for two days before I was offered a position doing something. You and me didn't talk about this part before, but when I got there, um, so you come with your bags packed. You come with your bags packed and you, you get called outside and the drill sergeant has to go through all of your stuff just make sure you don't have anything that you're not supposed to, um, no contraband. So they open up your bags, start dumping everything out, and you know you've got a certain allotted time frame to be able to repack your bags and you know you've got a certain, a lot of time frame to be able to repack your bags. And you know so they can. So you can get everybody and go back inside so you can get to your room. And right now it probably took maybe six times for everybody to you know, six times at 30 seconds. You know they get 30 seconds. Put your stuff back in your bag.
Speaker 2:I did it the first go around, but a lot of people just didn't get the memo and so every time you didn't meet the standard which is what they gave you, you had to do push-ups or go run or something. So the first time one of our drill sergeants said take a lap around my little track, so I just take off and go run around the track and come back, and I was the first one done, and so it must have struck some kind of idea in our drill sergeant's head's that guy needs to be on this, this, this team. And so I didn't know anything about this. But you know, the next day we walk outside and uh, yeah, I get my name called. I was like, oh god, I must be in trouble for something. I didn't do nothing. But I mean, you know, you don't get your name called unless, unless something's going on exactly, yeah, he says uh, alan, you've been chosen.
Speaker 2:You've been chosen for I got voluntold to be a part of the best warrior team, which is, it's a. It's a prestigious honor and whatnot to be to be uh to do this because it's a competition for the best soldiers in in the battalion company, inside battalion. So all the companies in the battalion compete against one another with their own best soldiers. So who gets selected for this team? And so it's. You know, it's a series of events that you have to do, basically just to see who the best soldiers are. You go through some war-type stuff. There's an obstacle course, there's a ruck run, there's a physical test and there's a mental and there's a test where you have to take apart, like an M249 and a 240 Bravo and an M4. So there's three weapons you have to take apart too, and so they're just looking for the best all-around soldiers. And so I was there for two days, got selected for this team, and then a month later, on January, I was at January 11th. So I got there December 5th, december 6th.
Speaker 1:You there.
Speaker 2:So you said december 6th, yeah, december 6th. So I was, I got there december 6th and on january 10th, um, we went on another ruck, we went on a ruck run and we had a six mile ruck we had to do and so you got a, you know, 40 to 60 pound bag on your pack. It depends on what you put on your back, but you know, for all intents and purposes and because it's recorded, it was a 40 pound pack that was on my back, um, but uh, I put a, you know I had my bag on and, uh, my rucksack on, and we start to do the first mile, and the first mile was a walk and then the second mile was going to be a run, and the moment we took a step off on the second mile, I remember it felt like someone took a knife and stabbed me in my chest and I've never experienced that before. I've never experienced something just so acute, something so painful and also something I can't control.
Speaker 1:Stop right there for a second before you did this basic training and got to phase two.
Speaker 2:Right, you was doing boxing training, you was running, right how many miles were you running someday for once a week? I would run like two. I would run 10 miles. I made it an effort to almost run like three to four miles. Every single day I was hitting a bag. I was, you know, still working out regularly and I never so cardiovascular wise.
Speaker 1:did you never experienced this? No, I was always. Pause back to present time. You're on the second mile of this ruck run and you're about to take off and you feel this stabbing pain in your chest. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I took about 15 more steps because maybe it's just nothing. And I remember I felt like my airways just got completely closed up. I remember feeling like I was fighting to breathe. I remember I was feeling like my steps just got heavier, like my bag now weighed 100 pounds. I felt like my chest was just caving in like this and I couldn't pinpoint what it was. So I just I told the guy behind me, told Adrian the guy behind me. I said hey, man, you got to go in front of me. And he stopped beside me because I was training with him before this too, helping him do his push-ups, do his pull-ups. We were doing some studying stuff and he goes what's wrong? I said just go, just go, just go. You're worried about you right now.
Speaker 2:I got to fall and I've never quit on anything that was physical in my life and I turned and looked at my drill sergeant. I said drill sergeant, I cannot breathe. He goes. Well, slow down. He said just take some deep breaths in your nose, out your mouth, do some box breathing, da-da-da-da-da. And so I tried doing that. I thought I was having an asthma attack. That's what it felt like, because I've never had one before. But that's what it felt like, and I just remember, and it felt like I was having asthma attack and so I just couldn't breathe. I would take these deep breaths and I felt like I was breathing through a straw If I breathe through my nose straw, breathe through my mouth straw and I could not get one solid breath that was, you know, just deep at all. I've tried to clear my clear some mucus out and spit up some stuff, and nothing helped.
Speaker 2:And the soldier in me wanted to um, keep going, keep going. My drill sergeant said well, what do you want to do? He said, well, I can't. He said I can't. You know, we can't just walk this whole thing. This is a, this is an event Like you walk, run, walk, run, walk run. And the group is probably a quarter mile ahead of me.
Speaker 2:Now, at this point, and I'm looking at the group and the soldier in me, the one that just won soldier of the cycle is like you know, I want to keep going. He's like do you want to quit? I said no, and so we started, you know, taking another step, but I went 15 more steps and I was like I can't keep going. The soldier was going to keep going. The future husband. This had to say I got to quit. I have to quit because I had other people I had to look out for and think about it this time, and so I stopped.
Speaker 2:Um, they had a bus come pick me up and and, uh you know, went back to the base and went to sick call. The very next thing I did was went to sick call and I remember I was both while we waited on that van to come and pick me up, he uh Joe, so I was just talking to him. He's like you know what are you feeling? Right, I had to draw my bag down. I just feel like I can't breathe. I've never experienced this part before. And when I say I thought I was having an asthma attack, I thought I was going to die, but asthma just sounded a whole lot better than dying. So I've never had anything like that come up in my life. It was so acute that it wasn't something that kind of built up, it was something that just happened so fast when I tell you, it's like a knife stab to my chest. It was that's what I felt.
Speaker 1:So that was that was January 10th when that happened and and then you went to sick call right, yeah, that's that's. That's when you're gonna go see the doctor and they're gonna try to figure out what's going on. They're going to diagnose you right and what did what? Can you tell us what the doctor shared with you?
Speaker 2:yeah. So they tried to yeah. So, um, um, when I went to say um I went, when I went to sick call, they thought I was having uh, congestion. What was having congestion? That's what I was told that's what I get. I don't know if you've ever had chest congestion before yeah, I have chest congestion.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like that. The sergeant is in there. He's telling me it's chest congestion. I said my brother put this stethoscope on me or something. This is not a claritin-type thing, this is something internal. I did the Google thing You're not supposed to look up Google problems but I was on the verge of dying according to Google.
Speaker 2:But come to find out that wasn't too far from the truth. So I ended up going to Sitco. Sitco called in a chest x-ray and go to TMC1, which is our medical clinic. There the doctor puts a stethoscope on my chest and the chest x-ray came back completely fine, no findings there. But when the doctor put the stethoscope on my heart he said I found a murmur. Now murmurs, a lot of people have murmurs and they're completely fine with them. But he ordered me to go get a— MRI, not an MRI, it was a um uh ultrasound.
Speaker 2:So we got an ultrasound done at the cardiology clinic and they found out that I had something called micro valve regurgitation. It's not something I came in with with at meps. This is something that on that rock I tore a valve in my heart, so that piercing feeling that I felt I tore a valve and so I ended up having something called as a tore valve, and so I ended up having something called as a micro valve prolapse, which your, your body has, these valves, you know these, uh, these little flaps that allow blood to go through, come back close off, go through, close off, close off. And so one of them ended up doing this and so it just kept it, just the there's like some like rubber, almost like a rubber band on one side, and it just gave out, and so that's what I ended up tearing and eventually, over time, um, you know, I was supposed to go get like what was called a mitral valve repair and when I ended up having ultimately ended up having an open heart surgery from that, um, I ended up having to get a replacement done, so the whole valve had to be replaced. So what they saw and you know, just in the imagery and stuff like that, um, they saw, they, they saw the replacement of the repair was needed. But when they went in and actually did the full-on flood surgery, they found out I needed a whole replacement done, and so they just did it right there on the operating table.
Speaker 2:And so, all from a ruck, something that felt like, you know, just piercing pain in my chest ended up being this life-altering decision where you know I've got to stop rucking or I might die. And so I asked the doctor on the second visit I go back. I said what could have happened if I kept going. He said you probably were about to have a heart attack and he said it probably wouldn't been very long after that that somebody wouldn't be able to get to you in time, and I was like let's thank god for this one right here, you know so yeah yeah, oh my god, bro, like and it's not.
Speaker 1:This has nothing to do with like genetics, uh hereditary history with your family. Nothing, not at all. Nothing like you came into this. That was not one of the red flags nothing heart related was a red flag.
Speaker 2:He was just like shoulders. So that was it, and this is something that happened, um, happened at ait.
Speaker 1:I told you today, january january 10th, and um, that was, that was an event that probably changed the entire course of my military career and this is something so out of out of norm like this is miraculous, because the simple fact that this happened to you, you actually lived through it, because you stopped and you made it to the next day to go see the doctor and everything, and then you go through the surgery. My heart dropped when I saw you in the surgery, in the medical bed, surgery after surgery, and uh, you know I mean God bless your wife for posting it. You know what I'm saying, but I was like I felt horrible because of the fact that I was just so happy for you as it. You know I, I know you, you know I. I know you know I'm saying like, like I, I know you when I'm working in girls gym, you was always a good dude.
Speaker 1:You know I'm saying like you, always good people, always bright, god fearing. You know, saying you always was positive. You know saying there was nothing negative anyone can really say about you. You know what I'm saying absolutely. And I saw, you know, when you moved to carolina and then what happened with you, with we didn't talk about it, but that situation at first and you went through like this little, little downward spiral and then you picked yourself up and then you started getting back in the cooking, and then you started boxing. And then you picked yourself up and then you started getting back into cooking and then you started boxing. And then you met this woman and you got married right before you went to the military.
Speaker 2:No, so we didn't get married yet. We're getting married in.
Speaker 1:December this year you proposed to her before the military.
Speaker 2:Yes, I proposed her December 20th of last year.
Speaker 1:I knew I had something right but something wrong. And then you get into the military and then this happened and I'm like what the fuck bro?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I'll share this piece with you. I think there's a you know it's our goal to determine. You know what we need to do next in our lives. You know, when something's not going right, we have to change something. Change promotes change and I will tell you this if you're not praying, start. If you don't believe in God, start. Start trying to seek in some way, shape or form of what a better life for you looks like.
Speaker 2:And I remember when I started praying specifically over the things in my life, I began to have these things just brought onto me, which is like you know, I don't believe anything that's difficult in our lives is something that's not of God at all. I don't believe that God doesn't put stumbling blocks in our lives. I think we do that when something becomes difficult, something becomes taxing. You know we can continue working at it, but it's stupid if we stay in these seasons where something is just overbearing and just makes us feel anxious and brings on anxiety and makes us depressed and stuff like that's not things of god, that's things of the earth. And if we stay in those things and I, when I began to develop this mentality, the military came on.
Speaker 2:My uh fiancee came into my life, um, I started making more money. There's lots of great things that came came out of that, but I started to pray that god just give me this um that his will be done in my life specifically and I joined the military. Um, did something bad happen in that? Absolutely. But something better is on the other side of this, because I'm able to sit there and go through this. This open heart surgery sucks, it sucks. I had this thing that I know is this was so great and you're rehabbing and I can talk about it too, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, you have to rehab that heart. That's part of and how is that process probably?
Speaker 2:12 weeks of rehab. All right, I've got like 12 weeks of rehab. Yeah, I've already started it. Um, I got off the operating table. I think my surgery was april 22nd. I walked out of the hospital 10 days later roughly about 10 days later or so but I had to have two open heart surgeries.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you knew that, but I had to have two yes yes, I did see that One was to take a clot off my heart, which is one surgery fixed a problem. The other surgery saved my entire life. My blood pressure went down from like 50 over 30. One time it was 40 over 20. And so I was probably a couple breaths away from, you know, taking my last one. Before they have to, you know, bring the little things out to shock you back. Question for you, right, it was a put up.
Speaker 1:Well, now or after the fact of that happened, have you had a chance to go and look at some of the stuff that your wife post during when you was going through this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was that poor lady. Go ahead and say the last part.
Speaker 1:Yo, she literally was almost gonna cry Online, bro, like, yeah, like I don't know.
Speaker 2:We share a lot. She was breaking apart. You know she was breaking apart. Watching it was. It was a different experience seeing, um, seeing the one you love go through something, uh, something so difficult, um, and if it not be for our faith, I think a lot of this would be very it'd be a lot harder um, I remember uh, I'll share this, this piece, with you too when I was on the uh, I did go back through everything that we we posted because we I was aware of everything that was getting posted while I was in that, while I was on the uh, I did go back through everything that we we posted because we I was aware of everything that was getting posted while I was in that, while I was in the hospital. But, um, I remember the second time I had my surgery, um, I remember my prayer changed when I was on the table and I don't know if you have you had surgery before no man, I'm very lucky man you know, you know, like you know, when people say they saw the white light yeah I've heard those stories
Speaker 2:but, uh, they woke up in the middle of the surgery. When you're laying on the operating table, there's this white light right over the top of you. It's almost like looking up and like in this super bright light. So yeah, I looked up and I just started to smile a little bit. I'm crying because I'm, you know, I'm strapped to a bed, I can't move. I know they're about to cut me open the second time I've got a scar on my chest and whatnot and they're about to open me up. And I look up and I was like golly, that's the white light people see. And I started to smile a little bit.
Speaker 2:I remember right before you know, the medicine they gave me to kind of knock me out. It's about to take on. I could feel it start to go through my body. I just remember I just needed this one last time to talk to God real quick. And I can look in the room. I'm kind of flat like this so I can't really see anything, but I can see there's a lady in the corner over here and remember I had this tear rolled down my face and I was like God, just let your will be done in me and whatever that looks like, let your will be done in me. And bro, our ultimate doctor, which I believe the guy was standing there in that room where he had an angel there with me in some capacity that grabbed my hand and I tell you it felt physical. It felt physical and I remember, you know, I, just right after I felt that I woke up and I was in ICU again, then pulling the, you know what I to talk about an experience right there too.
Speaker 2:When you wake up from surgery, from open heart surgery, they have these tubes in your mouth and they're to be able to help your lungs breathe. You're hooked up to so many machines and stuff like that. You're not breathing on your own yet, but when you come to, there's somebody standing over the top of you and they're they're, they're waiting for you to you know, kind of just become coherent. And so I'm sitting there, I got these two tubes in my mouth and I remember the, the, the doctor you know, walking me through what's going on.
Speaker 2:Okay, you just had a second sternotomy. You just had a second open heart surgery. Um, are you okay? Do you think you can breathe on your own right now? I said yes for about 45 seconds. I have to hold my breath, because when they fill your lungs up, they put these little, there's little like sacks in there that are inflated, but in order for you to breathe again they have to pull on them. So they it kind of forces your lungs to kind of, you know, try to contract and open up and it sucks when it pulls out and that shit hurts the phone out of your throat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's awful, literally rip it out, but I I one thing I bet you was congestion free after that dude, I, I well, I was like I was just kept.
Speaker 2:I could not breathe at all. Yeah, but when I remember when they, when they came out all the way it, it was the biggest sigh of relief. I thought I was going to die three or four times in the hospital. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1:One of the best feelings ever right.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:One of the best feelings ever.
Speaker 2:One of the best feelings was knowing that I was alive after all this was said and done, knowing that I was alive after all this was said and done. It's a gift to be able to wake up, and I will never take another day for granted. I will tell you that.
Speaker 1:Do you really think that you was taken for granted, like maybe a little bit complacent, but not for granted? I mean, you would never really. And the reason why I say that is because, like I mean, I listen that a lot of people can change within the years. You know, I'm saying that we haven't communicated in quite some time, right, but I spent a good amount of time with you for about roughly three, four years I don't, he was never like that.
Speaker 2:No, I can't say that. So, taking a day for granted, I think what I mean, more than I think we'll have different viewpoints on the verb, but I think after I say this It'll be a little bit different. I've never experienced dying before. I've never experienced the opportunity Not the opportunity, but the Close portion like I've almost died, probably a hundred times in my life but physically, like under doctoral care, like three or four times I almost died. But what I mean take a day for granted is I'm not going to take a day without waking up and thanking the Lord that I'm awake. I'm not going to take a day before I go to sleep thanking the Lord that I was able to live through that day and I get the opportunity to go to bed and rest and be able to wake up and do it all again.
Speaker 2:When I say taking a day for granted is that I've taken days away from my God, the one that's given me breath in my lungs and given me breath in my life. I've taken days away from that part. So my spiritual side of my life is very much so grown over this timeframe. But I've got a lot of really great and amazing people in my life, not because of the surgery, but because of who I've been to. You know, been to others and who they've been to me. So I've got a lot of really great people around me, but I believe these are all people that God's put in my life at a specific time for me to be the specific individual, for the specific thing thing, like when we go to AIT training. I think AIT training was specifically for me to learn how to be a better man, not a better Apache mechanic, but to be a better human being, to be a better man.
Speaker 2:Because there's this next phase in my life that's different. Now I'm going to be a husband, I'm going to be a father, I'm going to be a lot more than I was when I went in. And you know, see what the military does with me. They may keep me, they may let me go. Either way, I've got an amazing opportunity ahead of me because I've learned a lot through this near-death experience, which has been great. I'll be honest with you. It's been great. Some of it has sucked, but to be able to be alive is a. You know, I won't take that for granted ever again. I've never almost, I've never almost died on the operating table. Um, but I think I kind of needed that experience for myself to see what it means to live in a different capacity. So, um, you look great man. Hey, I appreciate that, brother, that's uh, you want to see the scar?
Speaker 1:No, I don't want to see the scar, bro, I'm just wondering, no don't show the scar, bro, it's on my chest.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know if you can show it. Yeah, no, no, no, it's on your chest. I'll send you a picture of it I don't want to see it.
Speaker 1:That's good, that's cool. You did enough by showing me you with the gown.
Speaker 2:You didn't like the gown With your ass out.
Speaker 1:Blue is not my color.
Speaker 2:Blue is not my color. No, well, man, I will tell you this. It's been a good. It's been a different experience, like when I told you the thing about basic training. I think the basic training part is very much to let me look at my daily life in a different capacity. When I said people look at it as it could be hard or it could be difficult, I think all of our days are difficult, but we can choose to make them hard, we can choose to make them more difficult, or I can just take that difficulty and I can learn how to make this thing easier. I can learn how to make this thing more streamlined and more efficient.
Speaker 2:When I think about those words, you change the mentality behind how you do something. You change the way outcomes happen. You change the way that the course of your life is positioned. You change the way that you look at a heart surgery, go from being anxious to being depressed to being man. I'm so glad that I actually have breath in my lungs and I can live, and I can tell somebody about this as well. You know, if anybody ever has some kind of like indifferent feelings in their body, go see a doctor about them.
Speaker 2:I hadn't seen a doctor in probably maybe 10 years and that's just me throwing a number out there but like literally seen a doctor because I had like a sprained ankle at one point. I've done all my rehab, I've done all my own, like my own Google searches and, you know, taken the done, the holistic approach to stuff. But like this was something that was outside of my control and I'm very thankful that I was in the military during this time frame for when this did happen, because I learned a valuable lesson through that. I may not be cut out to ruck with, you know, 50, 60-pound bags on my back, or 40-pound bags, as I said before. I may not be cut out to do that side of it anymore, but I learned a lot in the process. So that was the important part for me.
Speaker 1:But yeah, Well, I mean we're going to see. Yeah, well, I mean we're going to see. Well, hopefully you know your future continues with the military to figure something out with you. Hopefully this doesn't set you back and they can find like I said, they can find something for you to do.
Speaker 2:Still that's not going to affect your heart, and I mean there's plenty of jobs out there that they can put you in. That's not going to be strenuous to your heart. Yeah, there's some military standards that they have for service in general and my surgery that I had done I don't think I'm overstepping any boundaries with saying this part but the search that I had done doesn't have the capacity of my job that I have right now. It doesn't allow me to continue doing this specific thing. There's plenty of other jobs in the military, but I didn't sign up to be a front desk worker at the base.
Speaker 2:I signed up to be in a past, yeah, but sounded to be in aviation. That was my. That's where, uh, that's my heart was when I started doing this, and to have to turn around and do something else is, um, that would be. That'd make me feel a lot less. I would tell you that. But, um, they do have other jobs and stuff like that available. But I think they address your situation and your condition based off of where you're at right now with what you signed up for, where you're going, because I feel, like you know, I'd have to go back. I I don't believe I'd have to go back and do basic training again, but they would send me to another ait school and, um, I'll be honest, I don't think we're doing that.
Speaker 1:So well, I mean, you're gonna figure out what to do. I mean, you got plenty of things to do. You got plenty of talents. I don't think you're not going to be held back. So, and like you said, no, it's made you a better man, better leader very much so okay those are.
Speaker 2:Those are qualities you could take with you to any job absolutely, and plus this year, as long as after I get cleared, um, I will share this with you too is I have a plan to uh, I'm gonna start running again because I wasn't supposed to. I wasn't supposed to be able to run, and cardiac rehab has been going really well. Once I finish all that, get cleared by a doctor, I got a plan to be able to run a marathon, um, at the end of, by the end of next year, um, so I got a lot of training and stuff to do for that. So we're going to push this. We're going to push the envelope. I got a new heart now, so I'm good.
Speaker 1:And you know if the concept of training applies to the heart, because the heart is a muscle, you can retrain that. So who says that you can't run a marathon?
Speaker 2:No, we will. I'm telling you, we will yeah.
Speaker 1:I see it as doable for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I ain't going to win it. I'm going to tell you I ain't going to win it, but I will run it.
Speaker 1:Who gives a fuck if you win it, bro, you fucking finishing that is the win, bro. Like, seriously, let me tell you something, bro If I do something right, if I'm going running well, I'm not going to say running because I'm never running, but but if like say, for example, like I tell people, like I do, I did, I've done shooting competitions right, I'm not trying to win because I can't compete with these dudes that shoot Thousands of rounds every week and fucking complete this 17 shot course in two seconds, fuck that. I'm just here just to have fun and just to get some to get better. So, like me being here is just to win. You know, like I'm not trying to be number one and Nah, man, it's not that. You know, saying that you get to a point where you just just accomplishing it is the win, yeah, that's that's, and that's where you should be, that's where you're at now, bro, hey, you accomplish, hey, you can't be.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to our show. This concludes our episode and listen up to the next episode To follow up on what Continuing topics and trends we have going on, and just to continue to listen to your boy, ny Boom, and co-host, big Daz, and listen to our points of views and maybe you can add on to it if you want. But we'll catch you on the next one. Alright, have a good one. Peace out, fellas.
