Episode 70 - The Millennials - Author Anthony Dyer

What does it take to fly into the worst moments of other people's lives, and then find your way back from your own?  Author and Air Force veteran Anthony Dyer joins us to tell that story, and it's one that will stay with you.

Born in 1982 in the small Appalachian town of Sylva, North Carolina, Anthony is a “Xennial”, that bridge generation with one foot in the GenX childhood and one in the Millennial world.  We learn about his upbringing in the heart of the Appalachian mountains before enlisting in the Air Force out of high school.  An over 20 year career in the United States Air Force would follow, which included serving as an Air Force firefighter after 9/11 for five years, as well as spending a decade as a United States Air Force Combat Special Missions Aviator.  Anthony shares some of his riveting experiences flying into high-risk missions in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones.

But the heart of this conversation is what came after the missions.  Anthony candidly shares about various challenges he faced, including loss of identity after retirement, transitioning back and forth between military operations and family life in a relatively short timeframe, and seeking help through therapy.  With his debut memoir, "Moon Child", Anthony offers the reader a journey that starts in Appalachia, and continues through the rigor of military training, the extraordinary experience of playing a vital role in combat special missions aviation, battling addiction and finding purpose in healing and helping others.  “Moon Child” is just one way in which Anthony is working to break the stigma around mental health in the military.

We know this episode will resonate with veterans, service members, first responders and anyone who works in a highly intense field, as well as anyone who simply wants to hear a story of real courage and healing.

Check Out Anthony Here:
Website: https://a.co/d/06wUCpRg 
Online Store: https://www.traitmarkermedia.com/moonchild 
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marco.brolo6?_r=1&_t=ZP-97BPB5ivP8p
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marco_brolo21?igsh=aXU0eG40dGVhNGVk 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1BW9cgFUf9/ 
X: https://x.com/anthonyp_dyer  

Anthony's memoir "Moon Child" is available now. 
Buy it here: https://amzn.to/3QzPBP3 

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https://genxadultingpodcast.com/

Questions or Comments?  Drop them in the comments, we love to hear from you!

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Transcript

GenX Adulting Podcast (00:16)
Welcome to Gen X Adulting and today we have author Anthony Dyer with us. Welcome, Anthony.

Anthony (00:22)
Thank you guys, it's a privilege and honor to be here. Thank you.

GenX Adulting Podcast (00:24)
We're so happy to have you. And our first question is always, what year were you born?

Anthony (00:30)
I was born in a nineteen eighty two.

GenX Adulting Podcast (00:32)
You are a millennial.

Anthony (00:34)
Yeah, I was actually to be honest with you, I I had to look up the the gates for like the timelines and it was like, you know, Gen X is what sixty five to ⁓ to eighty is what I saw. Then it was like eighty two, it's like you're sort of that bridge era or whatnot. So what what do they call it? Xennial, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (00:50)
Yep. You're yeah, you're a Xennial You're a Zenil. So and I Yeah, because I think I feel like the people that were born like eighty one, eighty two, eighty three can almost relate a little more to the Gen X childhood than maybe the younger millennial childhood. So it's almost like you guys, like that's why you're the Xennials because you're kind of that bridge and you have your foot in both areas.

Anthony (00:52)
Yeah, Zenny, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's that's a good way to look at it. I think too, like especially raising my my daughter and stuff, and to see what kids are into and what w how they play these days, you know, and always encourage her to, you know, get outside, you know, see the trees, see the dirt, you know, get dirty, you know, have have fun.

GenX Adulting Podcast (01:28)
Absolutely. I think they call that ⁓ in real life, like doing things in real life or they'll say go out and touch grass just to get some perspective 'cause their their life is so it's based so much on technology that just to get that balance of and you know, and you see it when people start to lose it online when they're dropping comments that they would never say to someone's face, it's like you need to get outside and get some real life.

Anthony (01:36)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's sort of ironic too, 'cause 'cause my my job now, I I do the flight simulator, this basically this this thing that moves and you recreate these moments in flight and emergencies and threats, et cetera. And basically I get to play a eighty million dollar like video game and and help train our our future, you know, air commandos and but at the same time I'm sort of contradicting myself, telling my daughter, Hey, like like this isn't, you know, this isn't what's gonna be forever. Like go outside, you know, see the earth, you know, play sports, have fun, you know, actually make friends like in person, you know. So I'm big on that sort of

GenX Adulting Podcast (02:22)
Absolutely.

Anthony (02:22)
Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (02:23)
Absolutely. A healthy balance. Now, where were you born?

Anthony (02:27)
So I was born in a small town called Sylva, North Carolina, deep in rugged Appalachian, I believe they call it, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (02:33)
Okay. And so how far back do the generations go? Was it your grandparents, your great grandparents? Like who settled there?

Anthony (02:40)
Yeah, so it was ⁓ basically what what was cool about the the book too is I got to go back and sort of look of where, you know, that side of my family comes from or or both sides really, but

so it started with Mary Dyer in ⁓ Boston and you know, she was the the Quaker martyr, if you will. And basically once that happened, you know, there was the huge ⁓ I guess like land rush, you know. And and basically that people went to Rutherford and then sort of the foothills, then they moved to you know, deep in Appalachia out western North Carolina, pretty much right after that type thing or maybe a hundred years after something like that. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (03:13)
So when you say she was a Quaker martyr, what does that mean?

Anthony (03:17)
Yeah, so like basically at the time in Boston, like there was this Protestant rule, right? And they weren't letting like the Quakers part of the colonies, from my understanding of it. And then she was like, you know what, like like this should be like basically freedom of religion is what she was getting at. Like like we deserve as you know, as much rights as anybody for what we believe. So they in the end they they hanged her, you know, for her beliefs, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (03:36)
Okay.

I was gonna say that's a really yeah, that's a pretty bold take back then. The Quakers were super strict, conservative. So so she left the Boston area and came down to Appalachia to settle, or is that how it went?

Anthony (03:43)
yeah.

No, no, so

no no so so basically like like her ⁓ you know, offspring's a family down the lines, you know, that you know, y you see this huge like land grab sort of in the foothills of of North Carolina and like like southern Virg Virginia type area and you know Appalachian in general, then then they moved even further west to where you know my my parents grew up in western North Carolina.

GenX Adulting Podcast (03:58)
Okay.

Okay, and they and but she ended up ⁓ getting hanged for her beliefs.

Anthony (04:16)
She did, yeah y yeah, and I found out there's actually a statue up there I wanna go see it one day of hers. Yeah. In in Boston, Massachusetts. Y yeah, yeah, she was hung in tried and hung there, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (04:22)
No way. Where where's the statue?

Is that where she was hung?

Was it was it mostly women, do you know?

Anthony (04:35)
To be honest with you, I d I I don't know. I think it was like she stood up for the Quaker, you know, movement i and all or and all, you know what I mean, versus the the Protestants basically not letting them into the colonies and not getting the same advantages as the Protestant believ believers would, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (04:50)
So then after she was tried and hung, ⁓ so I assume she was married 'cause she had children, correct?

Anthony (04:57)
Yeah, yeah, she was married and then yeah, and then basically I I d I don't remember if they were together in the end, but there was something happened with her husband. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but I know there was offspring and children and stuff like that eventually, you know, and and then throughout that family line, that dire name, you know, it went all the way down to to where we are in North Carolina, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (05:15)
That's amazing. So that's your paternal side, correct? So then do you know anything about your mom's side?

Anthony (05:18)
Yeah yeah, my my dad's side, yeah.

Yeah, so my my mom's as far as like that that I guess bloodline would be me happy, like the Scott Irish and you know, they married Queen and ba basically, you know, Appalachian's this melting pot of like you have the Scot Irish, like the

you know, that version of it, then there's like some German ancestry there. ⁓ not in my bloodline, but then English. And then you have like the Eastern Band of Cherokee Nation. So you know this one big melting pot of of Appalachia, you know, it's different ideas, beauty beautiful people and a lot of a lot of good food and good good folklore and good stories, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (05:54)
Now, do you know if ⁓ your paternal and maternal grandparents did they live in the same town?

Anthony (06:00)
They they did, yes. So it was Waynesville, North Carolina, and some Haywood County, if you will. And and then my my grandfather Mahie married a a lady of the last name, Queen. And I I don't know much about sort of that side of it, but but I do know my great grandmother was Willie York, which was, you know, first cousins with, you know, Alvin York, which was the World War One guy and stuff like that, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (06:22)
That's so interesting. Okay. And so how many people were in that town? What was the population?

Anthony (06:28)
man, it's it's a small town. It's you know, a few thousand, something like that. And even like Sylva to this day it's probably the biggest I've seen it and it you know, still a few thousand ish people, you know, nothing like nothing like two hundred thousand or nothing like that, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (06:41)
I l I looked it up, man. I bet that was pretty nice growing up there. It's beautiful in that part of the in the world.

Anthony (06:47)
Yeah, yeah, what what I liked about it too was, you know, if I wanted to go fishing, I I would go walk a half mile down the road to the Tu Tuckasija River, for example, and you know, just the summers were always great, just, you know, bicycling everywhere in the mountains with my friends and you know, you didn't call your neighbor, you walked over there or ran over there and hey, what are you doing? Knocked on the door and got permission to play and you know, so it was very, very tight knit community and

It's one of the things where I tell people like, like everybody knows everybody's business, you know, and that can either be a good thing or a bad thing growing up in these these small, small areas, you know what I mean?

GenX Adulting Podcast (07:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What's the nearest city to you? Is it Asheville?

Anthony (07:21)
Yeah, Asheville's about an hour west of us and Asheville's a a fun little town in itself, you know. And it is it's growing a lot too. And one time I was up there growing up and I remember they had this this ⁓ bumper sticker. I still wanna get one. It says keep Asheville weird, you know, 'cause they're yeah. Yeah. So Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (07:26)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. You know what's funny? I'm from Portland, Oregon, and I

grew up with that there is a bumper sticker keep Portland weird. It's the same it's the same type of vibe. I think Portland's gotten a little too weird, but yes, I like I like the vibe. Asheville's getting close. I don't know. I I don't know. We were there ⁓ we gosh, that was like well we drove, I'm curious ten years ago. We drove from Atlanta Metro up to Asheville. I wonder if we

Anthony (07:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (08:01)
I know we had to go sorta near where you were 'cause we went up into the smoky mountains and somehow me and our our way around over to

Anthony (08:07)
Yeah, yeah.

I I would say you did. You probably went up, you know, through the Macon, Macon County, like the the was it the north tip of Georgia that searches the north tip or south tip of North Carolina. You know, you go through there and you start seeing all those waterfalls and stuff like that. So I'd say you you probably got close, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (08:22)
Yeah.

It's absolutely beautiful. Now, do you know how your parents met?

Anthony (08:28)
I do, yeah, that they were together in Tuscola High School in Waynesville. and the only thing I know about the story is my mom would remind the whole family actually that, you know, they're at the gym, the Tuscola gym, and my dad's there and my mom comes up to him and and he says, What are you looking at? you know, there's very very very blunt, like, what are you looking at? you know, and that's pretty much at that point, you know, I know were they about a year apart, give or take.

So my dad had joined the Air Force and actually got married later when, you know, my mom got, you know, out of out of high school and stuff like that. And, you know, he spent fifteen months in the Philippines and then that was when he was stationed homeside, you know, his home base would be a Tampa McDill Air Force base, which is i influenced a lot of why I joined the Air Force and the quality of life he'd tell me about and stuff like that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (09:14)
Okay, so he joined the air f when he joined the air force, was she still in high school? Was she a little younger than him?

Anthony (09:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was about about a year younger approximately a year. And ⁓ you know, basically you know there was some waiting there and stuff like that. And, you know, he joined the Air Force and I think he did tech school and everything get his all his training done and and then once she got out of high excuse me, high school the next year they got married. And it was a picture in the snow. I know they got married in the snow and he was in his blues, little little two stripe, you airman blues. So it was a always a always a cool picture to look at.

GenX Adulting Podcast (09:40)
Ha ha

Now was that when he got back from the Philippines?

Anthony (09:46)
Y yeah, I would say yeah, that that that timeline would add up to what is it, fifteen months or so, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (09:51)
And then ⁓ did they stay did they you said he was in Tampa. Did they end up did she end up moving down there? Did they live down there?

Anthony (09:58)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. They they ended up basically once he got back from overseas, you and like that that was his home base was McDill, Tampa Air Force or McDill Air Force Base. They lived there for I don't know, three to four years after that, you know. And then he got out. And this is this is way before I was born too.

GenX Adulting Podcast (10:12)
Do you know if your mom worked during that time?

Anthony (10:15)
She did not she did not work during that time,

Actually my mom didn't start working until like, you know, I was I was a kid when she was getting her degree, her teaching degree at Western Carolina and I remember ⁓ e even one of the classes, you know, they they have to do like ⁓ these scenario type things, you know. And they brought me in as a kid and I was man five or six or something like that and you know, it's Dr. Gentra, I never never forget the professor's name and they asked me something about like, you know, where how to where where does ketchup come from? For example, right? And I think I said something dumb, like, that comes from blood, you know, just being wise, you know. But it

But yeah, I was remember my mom, she would always like no matter what, she'd be a mom and a student and always get her work done and had a really strong work ethic and I think she ended up doing like thirty thirty plus years of teaching like first grade there, Fairview Elementary School.

GenX Adulting Podcast (10:53)
Yeah.

wow.

Wow. So do you know, was she like right out of high school when they got married, like eighteen, nineteen?

Anthony (11:06)
Yeah, yeah, she was she was young, like right at eighteen, you know, and then ⁓ yeah, so it was

GenX Adulting Podcast (11:10)
And then

are you the how long were they married before they had are you the oldest?

Anthony (11:15)
I I'm the youngest, so my sister, she's four year four years older than me.

GenX Adulting Podcast (11:20)
So, do you know how long they were married before your sister was born?

Anthony (11:23)
Man, I can't do the math on it right now, but yeah, I d ⁓ it see my sister's forty was she forty eight? Yeah, so I I don't have to do the math on that, but

GenX Adulting Podcast (11:34)
Was she born in Tampa?

Anthony (11:36)
No, she was they had already got out and moved back to to Sylva, North Carolina, which is the town they settled at, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Quick Tour. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And at that point my dad was working at the what was then the telephone like like Comtel or something like that, telephone company.

GenX Adulting Podcast (11:39)
Okay. I think they okay okay. So they so he served like four or five years in Tampa, then they moved back, then they started their family.

Okay, so was he he was no longer in the air force and had transferred to a civilian job basically?

Anthony (12:00)
Correct, yeah. He'd you know, he got his GI Bill ish, whatever version of that was then and got his two year degree and then, you know, in the end ended up doing doing the phone company for a while and then worked at the the powerhouse, like up at the Nanahala powerhouse where, you know, back home there's a lot of water turbines which you know was how they generate electricity back home, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (12:19)
Okay. And so then it was your sister and you, is it just the two of you? Okay. And then growing up, I know you said you grew up in a small town and you were fishing and just get on your bike and go knock on friends' houses, which sounds like a very actually Gen X childhood. So I that's why I say I think the the older millennials had very similar childhoods. ⁓ but it doesn't sound like you were probably latchkey, right? 'Cause was your mom home during all that time?

Anthony (12:22)
Correct, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, she was home for you know, a majority of that time and then ⁓ you know, I d there was the th typical things that would happen, I'd get in some sort of trouble, right? And, you know, wa wait till your dad gets home and sure enough when dad get home you know, it was I knew it was coming, but yeah, yeah, it's ⁓ so at that point, you know, like you know, until I got older, like you know, she was with us all summer type thing as well, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (13:09)
Was your house the type of house where like everyone came over, like all your friends and stuff? Was it one of those houses? Or were you pretty much gone and then just came back like when it was getting dark?

Anthony (13:20)
Yeah, I I remember playing in the woods till it till it got dark you know, and then we'd all just just come home. And there's there's different sort of folklore and sayings like like you don't whistle at night in Appalachia, you know, and it's actually I think there's a book called that too, but but yeah, man, so we'd always get home, you know, you know, one way or another right before the the sun came down, no matter how far I thought it was away from home, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (13:39)
So I gotta ask, what what is that folklore? I've never heard of it. You haven't? No. ⁓ that's all ⁓ you Yeah. yeah. I've heard about you don't ⁓ tell me if I'm wrong. Like you don't like you said, you don't whistle, you don't look. Like if you hear something, you don't look, you just keep going. Is that am I accurate in that?

Anthony (13:58)
Y yeah, that that's pretty accurate. So th the the way it goes is like if you're in the woods by especially by yourself or just a few people, like don't whistle at night, you know, 'cause you may hear something whistle back and then you're basically inviting whatever entity that is i to you, you know what mean? You know, and there's there's all kinds of s stories like there's even like the Appalachian skinwalkers and and I married my my wife in New Mexico, which she's ⁓ from the Navajo nation, so so I see a lot of commonalities, you know, even the don't whistle at night and they you know, they

have their their version of skinwalkers which is you know pretty world famous at this point. But yeah, so there there's some commonalities there, but there's a lot of folklore and and there was little things too that, you know, I don't know the science behind it, but my grandfather would show me you ever heard of ⁓ water dowsing? Like like it's called water dowsing. I actually heard this guy talking about it ⁓ on the r on the Sean Ryan show, but you get like basically these two rods, you bend them at ninety degrees and I would use like copper, you know

GenX Adulting Podcast (14:44)
What is it?

Anthony (14:55)
clothes hangers, right? And my grandfather taught me where you could walk and when when they cross it's pretty apparent like this X and where you X when the X crosses you look down, that's where there's a water table underneath the ground there. So there's a there's even a society where people pay people to go find water using that, you know, that ⁓ that method. We even called it I think witching water at one point 'cause people don't really un truly understand how it works, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (15:06)
okay.

No, does it have to be a certain type of of metal? Did you say copper?

Anthony (15:23)
Man, I've yeah, I I use like I've seen people use copper, like the copper wires. P some people even buy rods online then you can use I believe a willow t willow like a willow type branch, you know, that but it has to be shaped in like a ⁓ like a wishbone if you will, riddle it'll point down, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (15:38)
Yeah, wow. So so growing up there, did everyone I know you said it's folklore, but are you raised to b does everyone believe it? Would you say living there?

Anthony (15:47)
yeah, man.

Yeah, yeah, they they believe it as much as me and you're just talking right here, man. It's it's that like like it's a real thing, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (15:52)
Okay. Okay.

I know someone who ⁓ they were drilling for water. They bought property, they were drilling for water, and they were down a hundred feet, couldn't hit water. They and they tried different spots. They brought someone out and did that and they found water. It it somewhat witchcraft, but No, I think that's scientific. But it's more like it's not scientific, but it worked out. I don't know. I mean this the whole skinwalkers and and the entity and all that. ⁓

Did you guys ever hear of something hap like, did anyone go missing, or did you ever hear anything where something would happen to even tourists or visitors or anything?

Anthony (16:32)
The the only thing I've I've heard was stuff like that is the Appalachian Trail, you know, which I think people start that in some I don't know, maybe New York or something like that, and they come all the way down to the part of Georgia I was telling you about. And there's people, you know, all the time go missing and vanish and they don't know what happened to but you know, it could be even nature. Who who knows, you know? And but yeah, I think there's there's a lot of folklore, but there is, you know

where science and folk lore can live in the same same world, you know. And I think there's ley lines and stuff. I've tried to understand the water dowsing thing myself. And I even heard, I think it was Randall Carson talk about it, how, you know, on the Sean Ryan show where he he same sort of scenario, they couldn't find the water, then they get this guy there in the water and it's and it was real violent when he had him do it. You know, like the X crossing, like a like you ever caught like a big fish that initial bite?

It sort of feels like that, you know, and that's how you know you got it. And but yeah, th there's something to it maybe that that we don't understand and some of that folklore, but but I think there's also some very much truth to that too, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (17:14)
Yeah.

I would assume, man, I I bet you grew up with a ton of folklore 'cause it's alive and well today, right? So growing up in it, I'm sure you heard all types of stories, probably scared the shit out of you half the time.

Anthony (17:28)
yeah.

Yeah, like there was there was guys like my dad would tell me there's there's guys that could like pray and they could take the sting out of a burn on if you guys ever heard that. Like they put hands on you to take the sting out of a burn. There's guys that could could s like whisper to your hands if you had a worse and the worst would disappear and and people believe that one like stone cold man, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (17:42)
Yeah.

Yeah. No, I believe that when I'm thinking yeah the music too, right? There's ⁓ great music that comes out of where you grew up, right?

Anthony (18:00)
Yeah, the banjo y yeah.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of banjo and there's a lot of, you know, old moonshiner stories and stuff like that. And I actually got a clip of my one one of my grand I think it was Evelyn Dyer, she was my great, great, great

grandmother and I I can send any this this news clip is pretty cool, but it says somewhere in Scots Creek where she got caught selling liquor during like nineteen twenty nine, which I'm assuming that was prohibition ish, right? And like, you know, they're all selling moonshine. And back then, you know, it's ⁓ people were poor there, man. You know, that's that that's a a w week's worth of food or whatnot, you know. So a lot of

GenX Adulting Podcast (18:22)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Anthony (18:32)
Lot

of sort of defiant attitude, you know, and there's legendary moonshiners like popcorn Sutton, you may have heard about stuff like that. But yeah, just very defiant. Hey, live by your own rules, you know, but be be ready to pay for the consequences if it happens. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (18:44)
Well, and it's probably very much still like that, right? Like the g go like that.

So that's so interesting going all the way back. So you have moonshiners in your family. Do you have anyone who played music? Like bluegrass or anything?

Anthony (18:49)
You're good.

yeah.

Not off the top of my head, I can't remember, but like you know, you definitely like even if you go back home today, there's guys that play the banjo. Ac actually one of my friends that I served in the Air Force with, he moved from Wisconsin after he got out and he lives in or he was living near Asheville before the hurricane hit, was it Helene? And he moved back towards Charlotte. But he he's a really good banjo player. He sort of f you know, took his own stuff and then fell in love with it again in in Appalachia, you know, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (19:23)
That's amazing. So growing up there, I miss would you call yourself an outdoorsman because that was just your childhood was all was outside doing all the things?

Anthony (19:32)
Y yeah, I I would say more outdoors than indoors, you I no, I I was never much of a hunter, you know, or anything like that. you know, my dad would always say the only hunting I'll do is a place to fish, you know. And we we both sort of, you know, went towards the the native brown trout fishing and stuff like that with Rapala lures and the swift waters of all the way up in the Nanahela Gorge, stuff like that. So v very much so in in that aspect, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (19:53)
Did you guys do a lot of camping?

Anthony (19:56)
Yeah, yeah, we went camping. I remember there was this place called Deep Creek ⁓ campground and

You know, there's all kinds of historical like Cherokee stuff there too. And if you ever heard the the story of like Chief Sally, you that's where the unto these hills ⁓ that drama they do in Cherokee there is it's about that, you know. Basically the the story goes he was a this this Cherokee chief, right, who basically ⁓ him and his people hit out onto these hills and he hit out in a cave. And there's actually a cave near that campground that that people can see and where some people know where it's at anyways. And he basically instead of ⁓ you know, doing the Trail of Tears moving out to Oklahoma.

a certain, you know, group of Cherokee State and he gave his life for that, which that's the story of Chief Soly, which is where you get, you know, onto these hills.

GenX Adulting Podcast (20:38)
Wow. Yeah, that's cool. That

is so cool. Yeah. I've never heard of that. That is really, really cool. I mean, it's just like Brian said, we've driven through there, ⁓ through that area, and I'm just mesmerized by the beauty of it. And ⁓ I can't imagine growing up there. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, which people go up to Oregon, Washington, and they're amazed at how beautiful it is, which I knew it was nice, but I don't think you realize how.

special where you grow up when you grow up s somewhere like that is until you leave and then you're like, I really did grow up in this magnificent part of the country and where you grew up feels like that to me. Were you but growing up there, you were you aware of how special it was?

Anthony (21:19)
I I take it for granted, to be honest with you. You know, I speaking of Washington, you know, there the roots there's the roots and wings part of my story. There's the roots where like, you know, I grew up in this small town community, these these sort of morals that my family gave me and my w my beliefs, what I truly believe in h and hold hold dear.

Then I wanted wings, you know, and that's when the Air Force let me see the world, you know, part of the that, you know, journey would be going to SEER school up in was it Fair Child, Washington, you know, up there and and you get a little bit of time off where you get to see downtown and stuff like that. And there was parts of that town and even like Tacoma even and Seattle, there's parts that remind me of like either Asheville or like, you know, my little small town called Sylva, you know. So it's it somehow always has a way, you know, to remind me of of that place, no matter how far I go.

GenX Adulting Podcast (21:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. So growing up like in elementary school and did you call junior high or middle school?

Anthony (22:11)
I wish called a middle school. So it was ⁓ ba back then it was kindergarten through eighth grade that and that's seventh and eighth, but it was all in the same area for that. Yeah, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (22:18)
We're the same okay. Were

you involved with ⁓ sports or art or clubs or theater? Like what were your interests?

Anthony (22:27)
definitely ba basketball. I loved I love basketball since a young age, you know. North Carolina's the the home of Michael Jordan, I think down near Wilmington and stuff like that. And I was in the NASCAR when I was younger, but I sort of gr grew away from that. And you know, what's what's ironic about that is I tell people the gunship, the AC one hundred, right, you're it's all based on the pylon turn, this left hand turn or over this this orbiting this target area. And so it's like NASCAR with guns. I I tell people they get kick out of that Yeah. Best way to describe that, but

GenX Adulting Podcast (22:55)
I guess I thought about that growing up in North Carolina. So basketball and r and NASCAR, but basketball's interesting 'cause you got Duke and UNC and rich histories, right? So that's interesting. You kind of gravitated towards that.

Anthony (22:56)
But yeah, it was a

I yeah, I I make a joke in the book too about how I've I've seen you know, divorces happen over Duke and you and see that that rivalry, you know. And then A aviation too, right? Kitty Hawk and the Wright brothers. It's all all started there. So we like I like to claim all three anyway, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (23:16)
Well,

True.

Yeah. So during that time, what ⁓ when did your mom start going back to school to become a teacher? Was it during your elementary, middle school years?

Anthony (23:35)
⁓ so I was five or six with that moment I was telling you about earlier with her. We'll call them practicals or whatever they call them now. And then then she started teaching naturally at the the school I was at, man. And I I remember I I would get in trouble and you know how that goes. If your mom works in a school, the teachers would take me to her first for whatever reason. But but I think it's because they knew the the embarrassment of it and I was going to catch it worse from mom before I got the you know the stiff hand of the principal, you know Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (23:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that

that probably kept I mean, were you already pretty much kept in line in school? Did you have a history of acting out or ⁓ did every 'cause everyone has eyes on you once your mom's working there, right?

Anthony (24:15)
yeah, yeah. And I I mean I I was I was dumb honestly. I I would do a lot of a lot of stupid things. Like I remember we me and my buddies, we developed this

this basically scheme to, you know, get people out of fifty cents or something. And we we didn't know what shooting crabs was, like how they call it, 'cause, you know, we were we were so dumb, we were, yeah, we're gonna shoot crabs and we'd we'd do the the dice and no matter what they'd roll, we'd manipulate to be like, yeah, we always do yeah. Stupid things like that. And I got I there a couple of times, community service a couple of times, but yeah, mom was always ⁓ she never gave up on me though, you know, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (24:47)
my gosh, so were you doing that in school?

Anthony (24:49)
W was I in school doing that? Yeah, yeah, I was.

GenX Adulting Podcast (24:51)
No, yeah, the cra

like on lunch?

Anthony (24:54)
Yeah, you how you do outside and like recess and stuff like that. And you need to get a couple of couple of dice, find a wall, you know, you're good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (24:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're awesome. The one dice. That's awesome.

And then so you said you did community service, was it because of that? Like was that your punishment?

Anthony (25:08)
Th there was yeah, that that was for I think one of them and that there was some bigger things I probably won't say say on here but but yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (25:13)
That's okay. You don't know what to say. I'm dying. That's

so funny. Okay, so then so your mom was at your K through eight school, ⁓ teaching. When she started teaching, then when after school would happen, would you just stay on campus till she was done and then go home with her? Or would you go home on your own while she was still at school?

Anthony (25:21)
Yeah.

So

so during th those years we had the after school program which was in you know, I think it was hour, hour and a half where you just play basketball, things like that in the gym and you know, hang out with your friends to catch up on I should have been catching up on work but, you know, didn't, so yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (25:42)
Okay.

Okay. How many

how many kids were in your school? Like how many in your high school graduating class?

Anthony (25:52)
So I I wanna say about three hundred in my high school graduating class, so not not too you know, too big, but it was still technically three A, I think, at the time.

GenX Adulting Podcast (25:59)
Was that like a regional high school from other like like a county one wherever you know, a lot of the small towns went to?

Anthony (26:05)
Yeah, yeah, so you had so you Fairview Elementary, you had Cullwee Valley, then you had ⁓ Scotts Creek School, and then ⁓ then sometimes a lot of the ⁓ the the kids from Cherokee area would come to our high school too. It's like they would have a choice for Cherokee High or Swain High or Smoky Mountain High School.

GenX Adulting Podcast (26:24)
Yeah, yeah, okay. So did you go to school with a lot of Native Americans?

Anthony (26:27)
I d I did, yeah. S some of my best friends to this day, you know, talk about in the book they're growing up. So a awesome people, you know, and yeah, I I tell people like, you know, you look at that culture and you r you really see the the resilience, you know, from that story I told you earlier and the the perseverance of th that people and it's it's good to keep up with those guys and ⁓ a lot of good stories with them, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (26:47)
That's awesome. That is cool. So were they on a Go ahead. Were they in New Mexico you've got reservations. I don't I'm not aware of that in North Carolina, right? Where were there reservations or are they just living free?

Anthony (26:55)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah, so so in in North Carolina specifically like twenty minutes from where I grew up you have the eastern band of Cherokee ⁓ Indian Reservation there and that's where you have the Harris Cherokee Casino and beautiful place, man. They they have elks that walk around and you know, I think I put in the book too, there's this there's a spot on the parkway and you guys may even went sort of close to it, but

GenX Adulting Podcast (27:10)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony (27:19)
This were these these lightning bugs, right? They they light up in sequence, the fireflies, the jar flies, and ⁓ people pay a lot of money to see that, man. And things like that I took for granted growing up, you know, like the beauty of that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (27:23)
Yeah.

That's funny. Yeah.

Wait, so 'cause you had lightning bugs in Jersey, but are these like special lightning bugs? You're saying that they light up differently than like the normal northeast lightning bugs? There's like a rhythm in a sense. ⁓

Anthony (27:37)
There's a

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, there's th they're communicating and I and I I can't remember exactly what each when they happen in sequence what that means, you know. Could be something like mating or something like that, for example. But there's a part in the parkway, you know, and I always tell people a a very first date good idea with if you take a girl to that part in the parkway and he sees lightning bugs in sequence, man, there's nothing more beautiful, man. You're you're in, you know. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (27:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

that's so cool. my god. So I'm gonna have to find out if we next time we're gonna go up that way, I might contact you and say, tell me exactly where we should go. I wanna move there. Well, he does want to move. I'm trying to talk her and move in the ⁓ Morgantown, West Virginia. I need to bring I said is if the kids will all come, but we have a twenty nine and a twenty-five year old and then the sixteen year old. So we a ways to she wants a compound. I want a compound and bring everybody with us. But so when when you went to high school.

Anthony (28:12)
Yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (28:30)
⁓ did you continue with basketball as your interests or did any did you do any other activities?

Anthony (28:36)
Yeah, I I did basketball and I ⁓ you know, I did all four years. I think I lettered the, you know, senior or junior senior year there at Smoky Mountain High School. Was a decent player, you know. I I wasn't good enough to go to like e i even D two, you know, but definitely played against some really good players. ⁓ there was one guy, man, he he went to Irwin High at the time, Rashad McCanson.

He ⁓ he was like two years younger than us, man, and my senior night. You know how when someone's like like that good of an athlete, like pro level, right? Like they're like light years ahead above everybody, man. I remember just seeing him dunk, man, even playing. Like that that was to us that was that was a huge deal. Somebody could dunk a basketball, you know.

But yeah, I always knew he'd go do great things and I think he ended up playing for the Timberwolves after UNC or something like that. But yeah. ⁓ but basketball's a really like a way of life. It's sort of like, you know, football in West Texas, sort of like varsity blues side thing.

GenX Adulting Podcast (29:19)
All right, cool.

No, that makes sense. I never thought about that. But I don't think you had either. The basketball would be such a big sport in that area. But now connecting the dots, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. It feels like baseball's pretty big there too, right?

Anthony (29:40)
Y yeah, we have actually Ca Cal Riley went to Smokey Mountain High School and he's ⁓ he was the home run, you know, king I think a year or two ago there for the Mariners. So yeah. Yeah, it's that's huge. Getting getting hu getting bigger too.

GenX Adulting Podcast (29:47)
Yeah.

So through high school was it was college always discussed as something you would naturally do or ⁓ was it more like when you're done with school you're gonna go to work, when you're done with school you're gonna do this or that, or did you guys not really even talk about what was gonna happen after high school?

Anthony (30:12)
So I I had took like some carpentry classes and high school and cabinet making classes just to to not do academia, you know, stuff like that. And I'm basically ⁓ you know, I get to a point where my dad, my he sees where I'm going, sort of the tr you know, nowhere. You know, I had good enough grades to graduate, but that does doesn't mean I'm gonna have a life post graduation. So he gives me that ⁓ you know, typical dad talk, you know, I don't know if this is our generational thing, but it was ti you're about to be a man, it's time to get a job, go to college or get out and

So I was like, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna join the military. I didn't know which one. And you know, you take the ASVAB tests, which you your senior year, and basically they ⁓ they take your scores and they sort of put you in a career that you they think you'd be good at based on those scores, mechanical, et cetera, you know. ⁓ basically, and then I was like, I'm gonna talk to this Navy guy and he was talking about being on a boat for six months. I was like, nah, man, that's that's not for me. And talked to an army recruiter and didn't wanna do that. And I was like, you I'm gonna talk to dad about that that quality of life for the Air Force we were I was talking about earlier, like the

the good chow halls, the T D Ys, the you know, the golf clubs, everything that comes with that that people think that is automatically that. But yeah. And there I was on my first fixed wing flight ever from ⁓ Charlotte, North Carolina, that's where Mepps was, to San Antonio, Texas for basic military training.

GenX Adulting Podcast (31:26)
So you decided to join the Air Force basically. After s ⁓ so the tests you just talked about, was that something your school gave you or was that something that when you went to figure out ⁓ which branch you wanted to join did? Or was that through school?

Anthony (31:28)
I I I did, yeah.

So so

yes, so they test you like the ⁓ I don't know, the recruiters and stuff like that. They test the actually the whole senior class, you know, and I mean I I probably didn't even take it serious. We they took us to ⁓ I think it was Southwestern Community College, just 'cause it could fit everybody in there and we you know, we took this test and it was all multiple choice and you know, basically what it is to this day they still do this to get in any branch of the military, it's called the ASVAB.

GenX Adulting Podcast (31:46)
Okay. Okay, okay.

Anthony (32:03)
like a vocational type test, you know, and you know, anything from math, you know, to and you're sort of if I remember I timed on it, but you know, mechanics is a big one, like engineering's a big one. ⁓ what you would be good at, you know, and and at the time then I had a sort of I guess what they thought was a mechanical mindset and I I didn't know what I was signing up for. And at my first five years in the Air Force, you know, I wasn't a flyer yet. I was a what you call weapons loader, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (32:27)
Mm.

Anthony (32:27)
basically

which is a way of say load toads and at that point it loaded ⁓ the strike eagle F fifteen E model and basically what it is is a three person crew that loads the bombs, missiles and air to air, air to ground, you name it on the the fighter jets.

GenX Adulting Podcast (32:42)
Okay. So you so you graduate, how much time between graduation and I mean it does Air Force do like a like again, I'm a total civilian, so I'm gonna probably simplify this, but like a basic training or a boot camp tap type thing?

Anthony (32:51)
Are you good?

Y yeah, it's used to be six weeks, now it's eight weeks. This is called ⁓ BMT basic military training and

You know, basically it's just you're getting ⁓ you know, you're learning customs and courtesies, ⁓ you're learning how to walk in a formation, what we call drill, stuff like that. You're just learning honestly just ⁓ just standards of conduct, you know, and and discipline, if you will. And a lot of us had come from areas where like, you know, there was no like rank structure. So to me, like, you know, th that was a big change in my life, you know, 'cause there's everything rolls downhill to sort of be a part of that and witness that and be on the you know the bottom of that, you know. And ⁓ just to be just to be a good area.

GenX Adulting Podcast (33:29)
Yeah.

Anthony (33:31)
you know, and all basically a good wingman concept, you know, like very team involvement, not like what c what can I do? Is what what can we, you know, we do as this team, as cliche as that sounds. But so you s you're sort of learning that that mindset and you take that with you in pretty much every job I had in the Air Force, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (33:47)
So how much time between graduation and you le and you left? Like how much time was there before you left for ⁓ training?

Anthony (33:54)
Yeah, so I graduated into May and then I went to was it ju July eighteenth of two thousand is when I left. So month and a half, two months.

GenX Adulting Podcast (34:02)
Okay, so not that long. Like and then you were out there. No, I'm just I find it interesting that you mentioned the the services were ready for you guys in your area to test you, to place you. That's gotta be that's a very rural America type of thing, I think, 'cause I don't think they're doing it down here in our metro area quite as organized like that. Yeah, that's the first I've heard of that. Yeah, same. So but I don't know because we I I think I only

Anthony (34:04)
Yeah, not n not long at all yet.

GenX Adulting Podcast (34:31)
Now there's always a service. There's always a a branch or a recruiter on the high schools, right? They're always there handing out pamphlets on career data. But this sounds a little more organized and it's a way to keep enrollment up, but also give g give guys like you an opportunity to, you know, hey, we've got something if you're interested, type of thing. That maybe aren't on like gung ho about college. Yeah, yeah.

Anthony (34:54)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and a and a lot of too. Like like I I didn't have money for college, you know, or anything like that at that time. My parents didn't either. And and it's you know, you get the GI Bill and I and I sort of for my own selfish reasons joined to be honest with you. Like like there's you know, these core values I teach in the Air Force and one of those is service before self, you know, and and I I truly didn't know what that, you know, meant 'til later in my career where I I saw that that sacrifice, that service. And and when you see that, that that changes your you know changes your life, man. You know, I mean you see our nation's very best, you know, and

someone's brother, someone's friend made the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom and that that's gonna stick with you forever, you know. So I didn't really ⁓ truly know what that was till later, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (35:35)
Yeah. So before you left, how did your parents feel about you joining? Was your dad, I assume, was he really proud that you were choosing that path?

Anthony (35:43)
He was, yeah. And he I remember he told me he's like he's like, Sonny, he's like, you what? He said, This is the way I look at it. He said, This is your decision.

But no matter what, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to see it through. At least for the I think I signed up for six years because they gave you a bonus, a small bonus or something like that. And you know, I saw money, right? And so yeah, I'll give me six years and I'll I'll do that and but yeah, ⁓ whatever that what decision was, I'm gonna have to stick with it. I'm gonna have to to get through it and you know, it's either gonna be good or bad, but either way I'm getting on the other end of that and which ended up, you know, turning into a twenty one, you know, point four year career, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (36:14)
How how was your mom about it? W was she okay with you joining?

Anthony (36:18)
Yeah, at that point it was pre nine eleven, right, and all that stuff too and ⁓ yeah, two thousand just right before it. But but yeah, sh she she and my dad both knew I n I needed some structure, I needed some discipline, I needed to

to get my priorities straight, you know, because I I wasn't going nowhere. I mean, if if I would have stayed in Appalachia, you who who knows where I'd be in a ditch or something like that. You know, we had the whole ⁓ many friends from the opioid, you know, which is sort of portrayed in that show Dope stick there. But a lot of people died of that stuff, you know, that I grew up with and it you know, and w was it there's a book, was it Demon Copperhead, right? Barbara Kingsal wrote that and and you see that picture and I think even in description, the key details, it's like, you know, er basically he was navigating

GenX Adulting Podcast (36:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. No, that that makes sense. So where did you go for training? I know you said it, but I I didn't catch that. Where did you go for training?

Anthony (37:17)
Yeah, it was a San Antonio, Texas, Lackland Air Force Base as a basic military training. And and then at that point, this is my first job in the Air Force, so I'll go over that part of it. And you went I went to Shepherd Air Force Base, which is in San Angelo, Texas, I believe. Maybe six weeks or so six or eight weeks wasn't long. And then I got to my first ⁓ the three thirty-fourth fighter squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, right back to guess what state, North Carolina. So Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (37:20)
Okay.

Did you did you become

a Spurs fan at all?

Anthony (37:45)
I I honestly I I didn't have time though. We we didn't we had like one day at the end to go out and stuff, get out of town, but yeah, I I I did not turn into a a Spurs fan. I was a lifetime Bulls fan, you know, the the nineties era, right? Of the I mean that dynasty never be there'll never be another one like that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (37:50)
Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

I'm hoping the Knicks go on a run like that. Yeah, I mean he's thrilled about last night's game. ⁓ when you went to training in Texas, was that your first time going somewhere besides North Carolina, living somewhere besides North Carolina?

Anthony (38:04)
yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, the furthest I'd ever been was to eastern Tennessee to like Pidgeot Fort is in ⁓ like Knoxville area and then Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and and that that was it. And I went to on my senior trip, we got to go out to actually leave out of Miami to go to ⁓ on a cruise to ⁓ was it Cozumel Mexico back then. You know, and that was that was one of the best weeks of my life. And that's all that was so new in me. And in a way that I guess that moment, now I think about it, sort of triggered the like, man, I wanna see the world, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (38:34)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Anthony (38:44)
And get outside of these walls of Appalachian and see what happens, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (38:44)
Mm.

Now living somewhere else for the first time like Texas, was there any moments of culture shock for you? 'Cause you're coming from such a small town and San Antonio is big, especially compared to where you came from. Did you was there were there any adjustments or were you just so busy with training you didn't even have time for any of that?

Anthony (39:06)
Yeah that

Yeah, that that's a very good point. There's really not much time at that point to even think about like cultural differences or like you're all in this this thing together, right? And that that sort of you know, in a good way beating to you like, hey, like we're all on the same team together. Like like you you know, we we all got different roots, but our you know, your wings is what makes us airmen, right? And to get to collectively together, that's what I learned, you know, in that whole process, especially in the flying world, when you get into like like special operations, the unity of, you know, your brothers and sisters beside you, that's that's what that life's all about, you know.

about not about me man. It's about making sure those those super ninjas on the ground get home to their families and especially on the if I could get into this part of it a little bit, but the when I joined the AC one thirty gunship, the 16th Special Operations Squad, and this is you know fast forward to you know 2010 era. And basically

You know, the gunship's mission is to provide that close air support for your those unconventional forces it says, like SEALs, green braids, rangers. And you know, there's letters all around that squadron where like like there's this ranger holding his baby girl. It's always my why behind the gunship, you know, and he thinks the gunship men and women for those rounds he's able to go home and see his baby girl. And you don't realize till later when you have a family, you look at those letters a lot different, man. Like that you know, you're that those guys lifelines, right? And that that responsibility, that I don't know, sense of relevance in my mind.

You know, w when that's gone, that's a hard pill to swallow and that's when a lot of the you know, a lot of the demons set in.

GenX Adulting Podcast (40:29)
Yeah, yeah. No th that makes sense. I've got a question. What does it mean to get your wings and when do you get them?

Anthony (40:35)
Yeah, so to get your wings as an aerogunner, you have back then it was called basic aero gunner. And it now they call us special missions aviators because it was basic aer now it's called b basic special missions aviator. And you graduate and they actually you know, back then they'd put your wings on. You know, I think I had an old helicopter like ⁓ MS fifty three gunner. He like tagged on me, you know. N not like you not like you would see in the movie where you're bleeding and all that. Just just enough to be like, hey, welcome, you know. And I think I think he said he said give hell, you know.

And you know, this is in 2010, so the wars the wars are still still going on at that point, you know, and it was a awesome moment. But you you really don't become a ⁓ really earn your wings, I would say, until really store your first deployment, you know. And and even leading up to that, man, I had to go talk to about three weeks in Fairchild, Washington, the survival school there. Survive was it survive, escape, res survive, evade, r resist, escape is what SEER stands for. And basically, you know, I tell people that's the best training I ever had in my life. I don't ever want to do that again. You know, I think I

I was so skinny and so hungry by the time I got done with that. I had like one abs show and I tell people it was probably the most shape I've ever been either. But ⁓ Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They they throw it out in the woods and you you're learning basic, you know, survival stuff and

GenX Adulting Podcast (41:39)
It's not like they throw you out in the woods and then they're like take it back.

Anthony (41:47)
Stuff like that. Really good training, man. ⁓ and then I had to go to water survival, which was down in Pensacola, Florida, at the Naval Air Station. They used to do it down there. And basically what that was, all that was was they would it was sort of fun. They would you're in a you know, a day in the water or whatever, you're on this boat and they parasol you up a thousand feet and they wave these flags and then you you disconnect so you're parachuting into the the Gulf of Mexico at the time. And man, I just remember there's these moments of like this

I I was trying to like use common sense a lot, right? And the the sort of getting you to use that common sense to to get through these situations and and sometimes even thinking outside the box with that. And I look over and we had these little boot wraps we had to blow up, you know, and then stay in the water, survive maybe four hours or something like that, right? It wasn't bad. And

You know, I look over and there's there's tiger sharks and stuff like that out there, right? And there there was a na a navigator, you know, we're on our our flight suits and all that, you know. And they gave us these little mini fishing kits and it was little sil it wasn't even a rod, but a little silver like casting thing, like a round shape. And so he cast out this like silver like spinner, and I know enough from fishing that they're, you know, things are attracted to light that move in the water. And

GenX Adulting Podcast (42:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Anthony (42:54)
And I was like, hey man, I like, we gotta s survive like four hours, bro. Like you don't have to go fishing right now. Like you don't get blood, then you know it comes with blood sharks. And I I think I threw them like, you across the way like a protein bar or something. But just moments like that really I look back man, that's pretty fun, you know, looking back at it and yeah, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (43:09)
Well I mean it's

super it just happened recently, right? Over in Iran. What it was like a month or six weeks ago, whatever it was, when this thing first started, the the plane got knocked down. That guy climbed up to the top of the mountain and and they rescued him. survival. Yeah. Survival.

Anthony (43:18)
yeah.

Yeah, that yeah, yeah, he he

he used he he the he used his those taxes to a T, right? He ⁓ his training and you know, I I tell people when people talk about air power, right, and the air superiority, you'll hear that term a lot. And it really what they're talking about is the presence of you know

Of America's air power over at AOR. Just the presence of, you know, deterrence and stuff like that. And what people forget about what's left of that conversation is the promise to that presence. You know, so when he went down, he had to have enough faith in his wingman, right? And his especially those Jolly Greens. You know, that was a brief part of my career, the four years on the helicopter, but the combat search and rescue crews that rescued him, man, that's that's our nation's best man. And that was the best four years of my life was just being held to that standard where those those men and women I flew with, and then the pararescue men that flying back are just phenomenal people.

GenX Adulting Podcast (43:43)
Isn't it

Anthony (44:11)
they will go to the ends of the earth. And there's a saying in Soft called humans are more important than hardware. And on that day specifically, I think we got to witness that, you know, what that really meant. So that was I'm so glad that guy used his training and got out alive. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (44:24)
Absolutely. Amazing. I was going to ask you, you said ⁓ sometimes you have to think outside the box. I mean, have you done any or do they encourage you guys to do learn meditation or learn breath work or how do you learn anything about how to control your nervous systems so you don't panic in those situations? Do do are you taught outside the box techniques or is that something that you would have to search for on your own?

Anthony (44:52)
Yeah, so that man, that's a really good question. I I've never been asked it. I'm glad glad you asked that. But so you have ⁓ air crew physiology is what it's called. And d just ⁓ some of the normal stuff you have to do. You ever heard of the it's called the chamber, right? Where they take you in this, you know, this fuselage type thing and they're depleting the oxygen out of it to where you get what you call hypoxic. And you sort of get to the point where you're pushing to the limit to where you recognize your symptoms enough to get your oxygen on a hundred percent. You know, so th that that's pretty pretty normal to

you know, to get to that point, you know, and and basically recognize, okay, I'm not thinking right. And there's there's things they'll do, like they'll give you like a sequence of cards, right? When you're getting normal 100% oxygen, right? And then and then they'll ⁓ they'll turn them over, you'll get to that point, right, to where you're hypoxic, and you're very uncomfortable, but you're trying to get you comfortable being uncomfortable, if that makes sense. And then you recognize like I can't remember what this is. Okay, I'm I'm messing up. Boom, I hit my oxygen, I can breathe. So you you're basically you know learning to to react in that calmly manner.

GenX Adulting Podcast (45:41)
Yeah.

Anthony (45:51)
I guess and that there was a training too, and this this was the wort the hardest training I ever had, and I and a lot of people don't struggle with it, but a lot of people do, and it's called the dunker. And what it is is there's this helicopter fuselage and they roll it over and you're 10-15 feet underwater. And this one was up back up at Washington in a pool, believe it or not. And they blind you, but these blacked out goggles ho excuse me, and then ⁓ they flip it over, you have a heats bottle, you have to breathe, you have five minutes of air of escape air, if you will.

And I could not find this handle for the first time, man. And I I failed and failed and failed and failed. And then, you know, by the grace of God, the guy gave me a second chance and I was able to come back. And by the time that series instructor was done with me in that moment, like like I got through that course so quick after that. Like I was very comfortable being uncomfortable. And I realized later that that's what they're trying to get you is to to make those those decisions, to do whatever you have to do. And that is sometimes thinking outside the box, you know. And I I think a good example of e even unconventional warfare, that sort of

you know, the whole point of it, you know, is to do these phenomenal things with less a small footprint, right? And like the one five millimeter, right? There there was moments where there would be a degraded mode of fire, if you will, and okay, the firing cylinder went out and there's no actuation of the think of it like a paw hitting a trigger to a you know, to make like a percussion mechanism type thing. And we'd basically get some, you know, parachute cord, five fifty cord, and then tie it to that paw and went get the red array fire call. You turn into like a flying artillery guy, so you'd fire it, you so you're

The the point is is like you you're never out of the fight. You know, you're you're sort sort of taught to think that like no matter what happens, there's people that depend on you, you know. And and and that's one thing I've I've learned with with flying, you know, you're gonna get through a lot of problems, man. There's could be emergency procedures, could be weather, it could be communication, could be whatever could go wrong wheel, 'cause that happens, you know. And that's that's the moments where, you know, I tell people just like the moon, right? That's the darkest night, that's when the moon burns the brightest and there's people that depend on you, you know, to be the very best aviator you could be.

GenX Adulting Podcast (47:49)
It's amazing because I would imagine it's a balance of having complete self awareness because you need to be aware of you said, be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So you have to be aware of yourself, to be in touch with what is happening. So you know if you're getting to the brink of something, so that you know you need to go into your toolbox, your resources, and find something inside yourself to get through it. So you have to be so self aware, but bal balancing that with.

Not having imposter syndrome, meaning what am I doing here? I can't handle this. Who am I to think I could do this? Is there is there some moment where you you like does training get the imposter syndrome out of you? Because the level of confidence and belief in yourself too has to be so deep that it can't break under pressure. You can't panic. You can't panic, but you have to also have such a confidence and belief in yourself.

That's such a mix or desperation psychologically. Like, how do you when does this all come together? I can't be in those eight weeks of training.

Anthony (48:54)
Yeah, yeah. And so so my first flight on a gunship, this is gonna illustrate how the in my opinion, how this works. So on the AC one thirty gunship, it was going so bad, what we call situational awareness, right? And basically you have all these different communicators, these radios going off. Then you're trying to hear these these three words, clear doing gaze, and all these different things are happening to you, malfunctions, you name it, it's going wrong, right? And I didn't even know where I was at at this point, my first flight. I'm sweating, man, I'm panicking, I'm nervous, and my instructor

He basically said something effective, what'd he say, You're the reason I have to brief seat belts on airliners. It it went that bad, you know. So there's some tough love with that, you know, and

And then he sees me licking my wounds and I'm I was being dumb. I was feeling sorry for myself, you know, and and not just getting over it, just moving on, right? Perseverance and he asked me, he's like, What's the most important, you know, word in a dictionary? I Man, haven't I don't even know where I'm at, bro. And he's like, Perseverance is, I want you to think about what that word really means and come back next flight, you know, rate of fight. And the next flight we actually got to go to the range here, Melrose Range in New Mexico. And once I saw that one five millimeter recoil up to forty nine inches, I was like, Man, like like this is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my li my life and realizing that

People do your family depends on you, your nation depends on you, your brothers and sisters on the ground, and the ones you fly with all depend on you. So there's ⁓ basically a a good way of putting it is they have to be able to trust you with their best friend's life, you know. And when you when you get that exception, you're like, okay, this is what it's about, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (50:20)
So it's almost like getting thinking of others is what gives you that strength. You get you're as much as you have to be self-aware, you aren't you have to let go of that and put the better cause in front of you and that's what gives you the strength and the perseverance. Is that a good way of summing it up?

Anthony (50:38)
Yeah, yeah. And I think a another good way of talking about it was like, 'cause in these situations, like my perception, right, is is is meaningless. Like there's I don't no one gets any value but me from my perception, right? But you use what we call crude resource management, get someone else's perspective. So you're getting into perception versus perspective. You get at that point thirteen different minds thinking about because sometimes it's not all black and white. You don't know exactly what's wrong. You just know something's wrong. And with collectively, with all those different lenses, you're getting the answer to that.

problem, you know, that's so yeah, it it is it's about the the group effort, it's about, you know, the way I look at it is I'm either my brother's keeper or I'm not. It's it's about them, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (51:17)
That's so it's so interesting. Well, it's a very interdependent system. Yes. And you all count on one another. And just to go back to the rescue from a few weeks ago, it that guy probably had no doubt that people were coming to help him, right? Or find him. Is that that's just how you guys operate, right? That's the the code.

Anthony (51:34)
yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and you know, the the whole Jolly Green mission set is these things we do that others may live.

And there's this whole unit, you know, dedicated to what we call personal recovery. And I and I can't remember the last time that had happened. I know General Goldfein at one point went down and he was rescued by the Jolly Greens and stuff like that. But but when I did it, it was a Castovac, right? So you're in combat, you're you're on standby for when, you know, like in our situation, guys got hit with mortars and we went and and got him out of there. But this one was different. This is like, okay, this guy's evading, like there's a lot of coordination, a lot of training that he has to remember on the worst day of his life. That's the that that was what's phenomenal about this. Imagine

GenX Adulting Podcast (52:14)
While injured.

Anthony (52:14)
⁓

yeah while injured you know people closing in right and and he knew that he had to have faith in those those jolly greens were gonna pull him out and and they did you know with with the help of ⁓ you know other you know agencies and assets and resources but yeah he he had to have that faith and he had and like you said he had to have faith in himself and going back to survival school I I'm gonna try to get this right but there's a on the board up there in in Fairchild it was like someone can last like three days without water thirty days without food but three minutes

without the wheel to survive. So you had to have that wheel, you know, the iron wheel. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (52:47)
That's interesting. It has to be like a light switch almost. Like I'm either I'm gonna survive or I'm like once you decide, you're gonna try you're gonna try to survive. But it's getting to that point of okay, this is what I'm doing, not having, not losing hope. Okay, so just to go back, ⁓ so you're eight weeks b training in San Antonio, but then you said you did six weeks somewhere else in Texas. What was that?

Anthony (52:50)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah. At that point in my career yeah,

so that was a Shepherd, that that was when I was a weapons loader. Basically you're learning the basics of learning how how to load bombs and missiles on an aircraft. And I didn't get a aircraft yet till the end of that six weeks, which was the the strike eagle, the F fifteen E, which ironically is the one we're talking about that the WISO survived out of. But that was in Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Goldsboro, North Carolina. And I was there for, you know, approximately five years or so.

GenX Adulting Podcast (53:34)
Okay, so then from Texas you go back to North Carolina. and during that time, can you describe exactly what you were doing during those years?

Anthony (53:46)
Yeah, yeah, so this was you know, I'd got there, you know, I was called a year before nine eleven. And basically ⁓ I was on midship, so I was working from ⁓ was eleven to seven AM or so. And basically you're getting the lines ready to fly the next morning, you know, and ⁓ training lines that are air to air missiles and stuff like that, and even air-to-ground bombs that are just like, you know, they'll put out smoke or something like that when they hit the target. And then so my buddy come knocking on my door, it was approximately nine A.M.

And the first plane already hit the tower, if I remember right. And we had a day room, which is like a common area. So I I didn't really have this college life, but I had a dorm life, right? So we're like the people you serve with, you get to have this common meeting area where you can cook, play cards, video games, whatever. And and it was a tube style TV, I'll never forget it. Maybe had three channels, one of those being the Armed Porsches Network, and you know, the first plane hit and we saw the second one hit. And at that point I realized like, man, this has changed America's our way of life for a while, you know.

And ⁓ I thought about what's different in those first responders DNA, right? Like those those firefighters, EMTs, those policemen that that ran in those buildings that day when everyone's running out. Like how does that happen? With that level of of selflessness, you know, and and then that was what really determined the next five years of my life, which was to become an Air Force firefighter. ⁓ which that was at

Forgot where we traded Louis F. D. DOD Fireland, d Louis F. Garland, DOD Fire Academy. That's also in Texas.

In San Angelo, Texas. And I got to do that for five years there in Charleston. And it was ⁓ it was really fun moments in the firehouse there. And you're doing Air Force firefighting, which is really geared towards the ARF. You seen those guys at the airport, they walk around those baked potato suits? Like the looks like aluminum focus, it was that for like five years, you know, and you're standing by engine runs and you do some structure fire firefighting, which I may have saw like three three structure fires in my

GenX Adulting Podcast (55:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony (55:35)
my whole you know, my whole career doing that job. But what I did get from that was a arsenal of pranks you sort of learned in the firehouse and which I later took with me on my deployments as a gunner, you know. So Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (55:45)
So so so you okay, so 911 happens, you get inspired by the firefighters that sacrifice for that. ⁓ and then you decide you want to be an Air Force firefighter. So you leave North Carolina, go back to Texas to train for that. How long was that training?

Anthony (56:05)
Well so yeah, and so let me back up a little bit. Sorry I missed this, but like you I'd ended up doing the weapons thing. So I went from Seymour Johnson to Osan, Korea for one year, short tour. And then back to Tyndall, ⁓ which is in Florida, Panama City, Florida. And so that was when I had my retraining window, the five years was up, so I could I could apply for this job and I I got it, you know, the firefight. And then I went to I believe that one's a San Angelo, Texas, Goodfellow Air Force Base.

And did that for that was a tough course, man. It was longer than six weeks. I think I was there a few months or whatnot. And I did that, then I got assigned to Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina. So I'm still sort of Carolina-ish, right? Away from home, but not too much, you know. And yeah, man, it was some awesome moments in that firehouse. yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You go down to ⁓ you know, the cobblestone roads, Market Street and the shrimp and grits all that cool stuff, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (56:45)
Yes.

Charleston's cool too, right? Did you get the town at all?

Yeah.

Pineapple fountain. Yeah, no, it's cool. So but when you're an Air Force firefighter, is that is are all the firefighters in your house Air Force? Is it like a military firehouse?

Anthony (57:03)
Yeah.

So so

it it it is a military firehouse, but some of them are GS civilians, like the GS ⁓ civilian guys. And you know, we would get guys from I mean Chicago that were in like the reserves and we'd get guys from ⁓ that were from local even guys from Boston, you know. So you get a little bit of everything there, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (57:17)
okay.

So so you would go out and fight fires just like any other fireman, like a house fire or was it on base, on base. Okay, that's what I'm trying to connect. Okay, on base. So you're still serving, but you're a firefighter on base there in Charleston. Okay, that makes sense. I'm sorry, you were gonna ask question. What's interesting to me, and this this is an ignorance thing for me, I would have assumed we I thought we sent everybody over to Afghanistan to the Middle East to fight.

Anthony (57:35)
on base. Yeah, I'll on base Yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (57:56)
after nine eleven, but that didn't happen, obviously. ⁓ how come you didn't get deployed and were you did that was that disappointing were you like, I wanna go. ⁓ that I wanna get on the front line on this.

Anthony (58:07)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you I I hadn't been deployed at that until until until I became a firefighter. But yeah, I I sort of always wanted to get in a fight and I always wanted to do more, you know. And you see this sort of theme of like me always felt like I was sitting on the sidelines, you know, for whatever reason. Luck had it at that point, you know, and and I wanted to serve my country at the highest capacity I could, you know, and and e even as a firefighter, the thing about Air Force firefighting is it it doesn't happen often. When it happens, it it's a lot of work, you know, and everything on base is is fire safe, you know. So you don't really have this structure fire every like the guys.

in Boston, what or or New York, right? And but you do get some, you know, and I I went to Bilad as a firefighter and ⁓ you know, we did some medical stuff there when people would bring people to the gate and stuff like that. And also we had my first structure fire, which was basically what it was was like this this warehouse type fire which took us all day to put out. And you know, that was the first time like Ride sort of like, okay man, I got to to do my job, I got to put the wet stuff on the hot stuff. I got to, you know, make someone's, you know

possibly last day not or worst day not their last day. So I'm sort of getting that feeling, that desire for that that need, you know. And but yeah, it was ⁓ it wasn't like you're in, you know, Chicago or New York or something like that and you're the structure fire every day. You're doing auto extrication every day. You know what I mean?

GenX Adulting Podcast (59:19)
Yeah, yeah. Did you

s did you you said you got deployed though while you were a firefighter?

Anthony (59:26)
Yeah, I went to Bilad Iraq at that point. That was roughly two thousand six ish, six, seven, something like that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (59:28)
And when was that?

And so

okay, and so that was your first deployment?

Anthony (59:37)
It it was, yeah, it Tablata Iraq, yeah. It was like six months, so it wasn't like terrible, you know. It was the old ⁓ what we call s the AEF cycles, the air expeditionary force, it was like six months rotations.

GenX Adulting Podcast (59:39)
And how long were you there?

Okay, and then after that did you come back to the States?

Anthony (59:54)
Yeah yeah, I came back to to Charleston Air Force Base and, you know, finished out my time there as a firefighter, just, you know, doing doing on base stuff and nothing too ⁓ too crazy about it. I got my EMT basic at one point but barely used it, you know, stuff like that. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:00:08)
And then after Charleston, then what was your next step?

Anthony (1:00:12)
So so this is one of my s my story really sort of picks up, gets gets interesting. 'Cause I went home on leave, you know, you get thirty days of leave in the in the military each year. And I was at a place at a pizza joint, you know, and I look out and there's this same main main street, the same road that's separated, you know, two sides of town my whole career, right? I look out and with my friends at this pizza joint and I tell p people I see the same cracks in the road, right? Same cracks been there my whole life, you know. Meaning that you look around, you know, you start seeing the same people doing the same stuff they were

ten you know, ten years ago. And then but I knew at that point, like I wanted to get off the sideline and I wanted to serve my country with the highest capacity I could. And I went back to the fire station and there was this book, man. Just lo and behold, it was called Chosen Soldier by Dick Couch, you know, and it's about the the 12 man Green Beret teams. And in the beginning of the book, this is way before Fury made this verse per you know famous, but there's the Isaiah six eight, the send me verse, right? And ⁓ I was like, man, like

I wanna do this. I wanna I wanna be on the tip of the spirit. I wanna serve the best way I can. And, you know, I think physically I realized like I couldn't be like a special operator per se, you know, but what I could do is, you know, provide them close air support from the air. And that's when I, you know, applied for the NCO Corp retraining program and there was a family member that flew, so I had a little bit of help there to be honest with you. But ⁓ I joined the sixteenth, you know, and I started fighting that gunship and you know, I didn't really know what it was to sort of get in a fight until my first, you know, real gunship mission, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:01:36)
So how long was the training for that?

Anthony (1:01:39)
Th that that one was about a year. So it was ⁓ you know, you leave and we go to that that basic aeron I told you about, or basic smile as they call it. Then you go to survival school, then you go to water survival school, then you go to the chamber I was telling you about. And then I got to my first, you know, operational base, Canon Air Force Base, which I'm near here today, you know. It's the twenty seventh Special Operations Wing and you start your training there and it takes about

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:01:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony (1:02:02)
I wanna say fourteen to twenty something like just flights to get checked out, you know, get your form eight, which is your qualification. And, you know, you start out very basic flying and very basic gun malfunctions, then you get into where you're doing everything at night, right? You know, a lot of times scanning with MVGs and again you're sort of seeing this theme of like, okay, I can do it in the daylight. I wanna get comfortable being uncomfortable because the gunship mission ⁓ you know, a lot of people know we we mostly come out at night mostly, you know. The daytime stuff does happen. Ironically my first shoot was in the daytime, but but

Yeah, you're you're you're getting these repetitions, repetitions, repetitions, you know. and one thing about repetition I've learned is like I went back to my thoughts in like this basketball camp, right? There was Lenore Ryan College. I was a kid at the time, and this this older man, this coach from there, came and he does this whole thing where he sits there and he shoots a hundred free throws, right? Like I swear a hundred. He may have may have missed one. It was it was the most incredible thing at the time I'd ever seen my whole life. And the point he made, he said the the key to success in life and anything is repetition. You know, and I and I

Sort of remember that like that's why you're having to get this these reps in because when it hits a fan, you know, that that's all you have to fall back on is your training, you know. You know, you take that guy for the other day, for example, that he probably replayed that scenario in his mind a hundred times and survival refresher. Like that way when it happens you're you have this robot type reaction to where you're like, Okay, I've been here before, I'm gonna get through this, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:03:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So during the training, I I assume you're in flight simulators a lot, right? Is that pretty

Anthony (1:03:31)
For the helicopter

side I I was, yeah, and then for the sometimes as a gunner you'd go in there and do like ⁓ there's certain things you would we would do now as small as for air to air refueling when we hit the tanker, you know. So l little things like that. But mostly as a gunner your training's like, you know, in in person. And there's gun rooms where they could ⁓ have these dummy rounds to set up malfunctions and stuff for you, but but really it doesn't click I would say 'til you get in the air and it it happens, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:03:42)
Mm-hmm.

So are you when you say gunner, are you the guy that's sitting backwards that's shooting people?

Anthony (1:04:01)
on on helicopters, yes. That was me. I was facing, you know, the windows with a fifty caliber minigun. but on the ⁓ on the gunship, what what's cool about the AC one thirty, back then we had thirteen crew members, right? Where you had, you know, the pilots all the way back to the four gunners in the back and a low master who's literally laying on his stomach looking out this bubble we had in the ramp.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:04:06)
Okay.

Anthony (1:04:19)
And you know, you having these people, thirteen crews members working simultaneously together in this this organized chaos fashion, you know, to provide this symphony of, you know, ten rounds per minute from the one five coming out. But doesn't sound like a lot, right? But you could imagine being on the other end of this basically tank shooting at you from the from tenth, you a few thousand feet in the air, you know, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:04:35)
Mm. Yeah.

Wow. I mean it's so okay while getting shot at. Right, right, right.

Anthony (1:04:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that's the golden

gunship rule too, is that always expect to be shot at when when shooting 'cause you're it the gig's up at that point, right? So

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:04:50)
Yeah.

So so you train for a year and then do you get deployed at the end of that year?

Anthony (1:04:55)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

I mean, within three weeks after my I got my my checked out, my formate, the Spectre patch, you know, and I was in Bogram, Afghanistan for multiple multiple deployments. And as a flyer, it's a little different because your deployments are sort of geared towards your flight hours, right? And so you have 90 days you can get three hundred and thirty flight hours. And if that happens, they have to like sit you down. It's there's waivers they can get for that, but it's a lot for them to get that, you know. And basically, you know, making sure you're okay mentally, physically, you just just rest in general, you know. There's crew rest, all these different rules you're you have an above.

But but yeah, it was ⁓ it was fast and furious. Three weeks later there I was in Bagram, Afghanistan for the first time.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:05:33)
So ⁓ when was that? What year was that? Your first seven or third?

Anthony (1:05:35)
That was a that was the fall

of tw fall of twenty eleven, if I remember right. About about that time frame.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:05:41)
So were you more nervous or more excited to finally apply everything you learned when you

Anthony (1:05:49)
I was I was so

so so excited. You know, I was I'd be lying if I said wasn't nervous too, you because you're flying for the first time overhead, bad guy land, you know, in combat, you know, and and the the Taliban specifically knew about the gunship, you know. I think there's like this CNN video where this this reporter's in this cave with them, and they're like, Yeah, you know, there's those drones, we're not afraid of the fascists, but that cargo aircraft, that scares us, you know. And sure enough, like clockwork, the sun goes down, and you just hear the 105 going off. And the Taliban thought they the reporter told them their positions, so they kicked them out or

But yeah, it was it was well known, you know, and they had different names for us and stuff like that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:06:20)
Mm-hmm.

Well what a menacing thing you're part of, right? You're flying overhead. They don't really have great weapons to shoot back. I don't right. Maybe small artillery, but you guys are just it's incen it's intense, I would think. You're plugging off.

Anthony (1:06:28)
Yeah.

Yeah yeah, I I wouldn't say I

like in in my opinion, I didn't have like a real surface to air threat until the ISIS conflict happened. And th th and they did have stuff that you know, could reach out and touch us if you will. But yeah, you know, they they would have AK forty sevens like probably left from the Russians or something like that. And you know, with Afghanistan there was two types of missions back then and th they would give you a pager, man, believe it or not, like a old school pager. And ⁓ we lived in these bee these B huts, these basically plywood huts and you're you know, you're putting six six to eight people in these things.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:06:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony (1:07:06)
And you know, a page will go out and there's there's basically the ones where there's a troops in contact where they they alert you, right? And you launch within, you know, 15 to 30 minutes was the contract. And you get overhead and you know and it you immediately start shooting, you know, and basically the you know, they hear your props, the the four fans of freedom we call them, and they start running because they know this, you know, what's here, right? And what's about to happen. And then but and people get, you know, they get locked up on this.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:07:07)
Mm.

Yeah.

Anthony (1:07:33)
enemy kill an actual thing. And it to me was never about that, man. Because you're making sure I got our guys get home, right? That that was everything, you know, to me. And people don't see that that side of that, you know, that brothers keeper side of that that mission. But then there's the other missions, right, where you get another beat which certain numbers meant certain things. And you would go, they're going after a heavy hitter, right? This high ranking, eight high value target. And, you know, that's when them super ninjas are going and they're gonna try to either, you know, get ⁓ get some more information, et cetera, or

You know, you know what else though.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:08:04)
So you said you guys are in like these huts, so are you not on a base when you're over there?

Anthony (1:08:09)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in our own sort of ⁓ compound, if you will. We were at Bogram. But yeah, you're definitely these these like plywood little little huts, you know, and basically we we'd have one Yeah, yeah, yeah. We even had I remember ⁓ sort of bunk beds at one point when we were really packed, but yeah. So Yeah, yeah, we we we would yeah, we would walk up I believe it's called the maybe the dragon de facto something like that. You'd walk off you know, go go to off our compound and go eat and stuff like that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:08:18)
They were putting a bunch of you guys into one of those?

Was there like a mess hall and stuff for okay, so

So how long how many deployments did you do over there?

Anthony (1:08:43)
So I did fourteen total deployments, you know, and then ⁓ basically majority, nine to ten of those being of course Bagram, you know, and then I did when the ISIS thing happened, we went to Kuwait at first. And then we would fly, you know, from Kuwait over Iraq and other places, and then you're looking at two and a half hours before even, you know, putting the guns online at that point and you know, then you're flying back and then what else I do at that point I went to to sixties after the ISIS trip. So then I went to East Africa twice.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:09:12)
So how long were you away from the States at a time? Were you was it like a year, two years, three years? Like how does that work?

Anthony (1:09:19)
No, it was

so it was ninety days there, ninety days back, and basically th what would happen is you're you're you're coming back and the guys, you're high five and you won't see him for ninety days, then you're gone. So there this huge, you know, back and forth. So I would say half the year, every year. And then ⁓ believe it was Admiral McCraven was the guy that was like, Okay, like we're gonna slow the ops tempo down and you know, that's when sort of these programs were developed and they

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:09:31)
Okay.

Anthony (1:09:44)
went from a one to one what we call dwell time, ninety days on, ninety days off, to like to eventually like n you know, ninety days on and like maybe a hundred and eighty days off or something like that, you know, which was a lot better, felt a lot better than the other, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:09:55)
Okay.

Okay. So how is that different then 'cause I've heard about people serving and they're gone for like a year or two years, right? So is it what you're doing that determines how long you're gone?

Anthony (1:10:09)
Yeah, I would definitely say 'cause we we were technically an enabler for like, you know, for the special operators and ⁓ so like the the army guys though, man, like God bless them, man. That they're on there twelve, what, fifteen months. The the ground pounders, right? Th those guys do a lot, a lot more time than what we do, you know. And ours is always felt sort of spoiled in a way, you know, like we're doing this ninety days and going back ninety days. But it was I enjoyed that sort of ops tempo 'cause it wasn't like

You know, you get start getting past three months, man, that's when you miss the family, you miss communicating with the family every day, all that, you know. And guys were always scared, I would see, even when ninety days, right, like guys would have a baby, get deployed, you and and get back and w wondering if their baby would recognize them. And I always feared that, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:10:50)
Yeah. Yeah. No, I and so imagining if you're gone twelve months, fifteen months, like those guys, you know. So is it when you're over there, what was cause you guys are such a force and like you were just mentioning the weaponry o that that ⁓ over in Afghanistan was nothing compared to ours. Like did you did you feel that you were ever really threatened, like your safety during that time over there?

Anthony (1:10:55)
Yeah.

N not on my Afghanistan trips, but I definitely feel like our guys would you know, you would see them get shot at and there was always like the enemy always had like a RPG or a disco or like a A K forty seven shooting at our guys. Like there was always a reason for us to be called to to be there as as insurance, right? And to make sure those guys got home.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:11:35)
They're opportunistic too, right? They chill till there's an opportunity. They're not stupid and and they take advantage of it and try to catch us by surprise. So how how long were you in if would you keep going back to Afghanistan? Did that go on for like a couple of years where Afghanistan was your main place you were going?

Anthony (1:11:52)
So

that was what, 2011 to 2015 was my last one. And then right in the beginning of twenty sixteen is when I retrained or cut trained, if you will, to a different aircraft, which was the Jolly Greens, the Pay Falk helicopters I was talking about earlier. And I did that for call it four years out at Moody Air Force Base in you know, South Georgia there, Vodasta.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:12:15)
Was that the search and rescue?

Anthony (1:12:16)
Yep yep, yep. That was the combat search and rescue, the the Casovac type stuff we did.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:12:21)
So did you rescue a lot of guys during that time?

Anthony (1:12:25)
⁓ so there was

yeah, so June eighth, twenty eighteen, we were in East Africa and ⁓ you know, we were basically holding down for for seven days of this this operation to stand by Casabat f think about like a mass casualty. You know, you're there in case that happens. You're gonna go get these guys and bring out. And naturally day six or seven of that op, ⁓ you know

I went to the toxic the Tactic Operations Center and talked to the intel lieutenant and I was like, ma'am, I like, you it's one of those situations where you eat when you can eat, sleep when you can sleep, you know, 'cause you're at a fob at that point, you know.

on these helicopters and I went back, she's Yeah, you know, always quiet, you're good, you know, and I went back as soon as I hit the top bunk, you know, and this is daytime. I think it's about three PM over there, but I hear, you know, attention on that scramble, scramble, scramble, right? And and at that point sprinted to the helicopter, longest quarter mile of my life, you know, I felt like you know, your adrenaline's pumping, so you're you're thinking about all this stuff, what it could be. And then we get there and we took off within like I think it was like three and a half to to five minutes, something like that. We were off the ground and the sort of

paint a picture of like what can go wrong in the op. We we take off, we do a right hand sort of bank and the guy on the left, he was on the the left gunner on the fifty cal super experienced guy.

And awesome aviator, man. And the Searnos was one on 50-cal machine gun, which created a runaway gun. And and basically easy way to say that was like basically without him pulling the trigger, once he armed it, it had the electric voltage, right? Where it just basically ran away. This continued to shoot. And I just see these impacts, you know, 15 feet below us. I'm like, man, we just we just took off. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. Why why are we getting shot at already, right? And I had pulled simultaneously the flare pins, and what flares are there's these huge fireballs that that come out the aircraft to protect.

Against surface-to-air missiles. And then that happened because we had put we had ⁓ basically left the cockpit doors off for weight because weight equals more gas, and which more weight you have, the more people you can pick up. And so we're on like this 13-minute flight there, and the communications were out with the ground force commander and and the the the JTEC, the guy that's gonna you know call us in and use us to strike targets with 50 calves if we had to.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:14:25)
Yes.

Anthony (1:14:32)
And so we get there, we finally get comms with ⁓ the JTAC, you know, and and basically at this point we had to fight our way in a little bit with suppression fire. So we do three or four gun patterns, and what it was was there's these twelve Al-Shabaab guys in a tree line that were shooting like the big mortars at our our Green Berets and those guys and some partner nation guys. And ⁓ they had hit, you know, one guy direct and

Basically we had three three cat alphas meaning that on our aircraft where you have an hour to get back for the golden hour. They have a higher probability of survive through surgery. And and so after a few gun runs we land on this like narrow road and like they brought the the first Green Bray in or the first American in Eagle. And basically the PJ started giving him a tracheotomy at that point and it you know, he took a direct so it was bad. You know, it's my first time sort of seeing this up close and personal and

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:15:15)
Yeah.

Anthony (1:15:20)
You know, they'd they'd put another greenberry beside me and he had a took a ⁓ eye wound, so yeah, they had it wrapped or whatnot. Then a partner nation guy came up running the aircraft and he got shot in a stomach and you know, his stomach's, you know, really bad and stuff. And so we we take back off and do some more gun runs and then they had two guys to pick up and we get back and I load my aircraft with more beans, bullets, you know, and gas and stuff like that, and tape back off and they had one like a a lesser priority to pick up you know, at that point I'd shot like pretty much half my ammo can on that tree line.

And they got him, we got back and then, you know, the ⁓ the experienced gunner, he was like, Hey Johnny, he's like, you you know, direct the the bottom of the aircraft for bullet holes and I was like, okay, cool, you know. And then I was like, Then it hit me, I like, this was this close, right? This was like this, this is real, right? And I get to the front of this aircraft and I see the the pilot and his face was white and you know, I knew what had happened and we'd lost an American at that point and again, you know, that's someone's brother, someone's son, someone's friends. So I I didn't know what those words meant till that day of sacrifice, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:16:19)
Yeah.

Yeah. Sounds in sense. It it it's I was just thinking that 'cause this sounds if I combine the time in Afghanistan to this time, we're talking nine years about.

Anthony (1:16:32)
So that would be what was that? twenty yeah, yeah, you're right. Or eleven, seven years.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:16:37)
Seven years of combat. It's during that time w and and during the ⁓ what'd you call them? The Jolly Green. The Jolly Green.

Anthony (1:16:45)
Yeah yeah, the

the Jolly Green. It's ⁓ basically this ⁓

These units were created in Vietnam and what would happen was when a pilot would go behind enemy lines and get shot down. For example, what what we saw the other day, th these two helicopters were landing, the the H threes were landing these rice patties. And by the time they went and rescued the pilot and got him on board and got him back, the enemy would get there and they would see these two green feet prints, it looks like in the rice patties. And that's where you get the green feet and the jolly greens and you know, I tell people you know I tell people man that that was the very best of my career was just flying with those men and women, most professional, most humble

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:17:10)
⁓ okay.

Anthony (1:17:19)
you know, most trusting aviators you could ever have. And the the pararescue men that fly in the back th those guys are the best in the world. Those guys will literally lay down their life to get someone out. And, you know, you you when you're around those type of men and women, man, it's it's a very humbling experience, you know, very humbling.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:17:35)
So was th the when you were with the Jolly Greens, was that also ninety days on, ninety days off, or is it a different timeline?

Anthony (1:17:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, it was a give or take ninety days on, nine of days off, you know, and we we wouldn't hit those hours close as ⁓ even close to what we'd get on gunship because you know, you're there basically in case something happens and you know, and we had gone almost, you know, at that point a long time without anything happening, and then naturally right at the end all all hell breaks loose. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:17:52)
Right.

It's probably in a weird way kind of like when you were a firefighter, you're kinda wait way more intense, but you're just waiting. And then when the th you have to be ready at any time. So for about seven years, you're you're ninety days on with this high intensity, and then you're ninety days home. How do you shift so that you can downshift and be in civilian life without that strong and like be you need to be able to be around people who aren't used to that intensity. You need to be able to

Anthony (1:18:07)
Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:18:30)
Have relationships, talk to your family, your friends without it's just such a different ⁓ you know, with your nervous system has to shift completely so you can assimilate back into civilian life and then 90 days later you're back on again. Did that take a toll or did you learn ways to kind of shift in and out of that?

Anthony (1:18:48)
So so I I learned the wrong ways to sort of to deal with that. You know, that this is where s if I'm really being honest and look back at it, this is where that first little lie I would tell myself that I can't be an alcoholic, you know, 'cause I I go over there for ninety days and I can't drink 'cause of the general order one and all that. You can't drink over there. And I was like, I can't be an alcoholic, right? And then it sort of escalated, like, way past that point, you know, and you know, and I

little things like I would have shower shoes on, every shower deployment, you know, and anybody that's been over there can tell you why, 'cause there's all kinds of nasty stuff in those showers and your athlete's foot. And you get back and you shower in your shower at your home for the first time and without showers, you it's just a hard thing to to sort of wrap your brain around. You know, like

Like I'm wondering what is normal, you know, is this this is this what I want for the rest of my life? It either way I knew I was going to, right? I'm already at the halfway point at least. So yeah, it was always a very hard thing to do. And even married life, ⁓ i and they w they would give you help. They would sort of counsel you on this stuff a as a group, you know, like, hey, like you guys have been gone for this long. Your wife's been tak or wife or husband has been taking care of everything.

You know, so sort of ease your way back into it. And there was this sort of this week of like this romantic like ⁓ what do they call it right when you get married, like a honeymoon. Yeah, yeah, the honeymoon period, right? And sort of that and then when that's over, you're sort of, you know, butting heads unintentionally because you know, my wife at that point had been doing everything while I was gone, you know, and mowing the yard, you know, being a mom, everything that comes with that, and going to school, you know, online and stuff. And I'm like, man, like I sh they're right, I need to sort of look back, see the situation.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:20:01)
Honeymoon period. Yeah.

Anthony (1:20:23)
situation for what it is and just tell I love her and appreciate her, you know, and I I wish I'd done that more.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:20:28)
Well, and d do the families get any support ⁓ with counseling or anything, ⁓ on how to is there support for the family on how to receive the service person when they're home? ⁓ or is it kind of like everyone just has to figure this out on the their own?

Anthony (1:20:48)
So it didn't start out where we had something like that, but now ⁓ you know, we have the military family

in life counseling, the implacts what they call it. And that's all part of this program w which I used a lot was called the preservation of the force and family. And and all that sort of started when Admiral Craven changed those dwell times and, you know, the humans were important hardware. We're seeing where we're trying to get to our roots here with that. And basically every squadron or these these type of units would have a psychologist, which I I used a lot and toward especially in the end of my career. And then you have a physical therapist and a physical trainer. And then there's like another impact, like a psych like a behavioral health type psychologist where

families, your wives, you know, kids could even go see if they wanted. So but yeah, th there's definitely there's things out there for us now that we didn't have, you know, forever ago.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:21:33)
I have a question though. I mean, it feels like ⁓ what you're going from intense battle to home life, home life back to intense battle. And it feels like are you going in in and out of like a PTSD type of thing? Is it is it that intense?

Anthony (1:21:52)
For me it wasn't ⁓ it like that at at first, you know, 'cause there was like this switch that I would I would turn on over there to hey, I need to perform, this is what it is, and I need to get back to my family, right? And then when I get back and I miss the r I actually missed the routine of being over there. I miss my scheduled meals. We would land and go to the child hall and be with my bros and and bras, you know, and just just hanging out and PlayStation and just all the all the

the the comedy that comes in these type of atmospheres too is i it's is priceless, man. That's your brother and sisterhood, you know. And you get back to the norm, you know, and the only way I can describe it, you seen that movie Goodfellows? You know, at the end where he goes to that I think he was technically in like Oklahoma Henry Hill, right? And he realized that that life was was over for a moment, right? Like now I'm just a normal dude. Like, you know, I mean I still train and stuff like that. But you're it's a hard thing to go from something so

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:22:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yeah.

Anthony (1:22:46)
unreal, unconventional to something so normal. And and and that's what people forget about these uncommon jobs, right? Whether it's a firefighter, cop, first responder, military person, is we're very normal men and women doing these very uncommon things. And then we're going back to being normal again. So you see that dilemma, right? That sort of inner dilemma you have.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:23:00)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Absolutely. Because you compartmentalize in order to function, but then there's always that fear that you're gonna comp compartmentalize yourself away and not be able to connect with your wife, with your husband, with your children, because you've shut everything down. So it's such a delicate balance there. When when did you meet your wife during all of this?

Anthony (1:23:20)
yeah.

So I had met her ⁓ from that last the Kuwait trip I was telling you about the ISO trip. So I'd got back and ⁓ maybe been back twelve hours just to show sort of my party life and everything. But she was going to Eastern New Mexico University to working on her bachelor's at that point. And my buddy was like, Hey, like there's some girls, we're gonna go meet at the gym at the college, we're gonna play a little three on three and there's a cookout over near sort of near the college area where he lived.

And it was more about the girls at that point than it was anything. I was like, Yeah, man, sure. And I get back and we play some basketball, man, and

And I just remember she had a very Native American like ⁓ like slang, you know, and I I sort of knew growing up from around a lot of Native Americans that the things she would say, like, if you've seen reservation dollars, there's Willie Dract is always saying like scode in, right? As in a g clever way of saying, Let's go then, or she would say, Sto this as in let let's do this, right? And this I was always in love with that culture, man, and it's how they handle things and th and their perseverance, you know, and we're on this ⁓ I I tell my wife I'm hopeless, but I'm also romantic, but we're on like this

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:24:08)
Yeah.

Mm.

Anthony (1:24:29)
this catwalk type of thing where it crosses the highway and Ron there and I remember I was hey, I like, if you don't mind me asking her, Are you Native American? She just smiled and said, Yeah. And at that point I was like I knew like I had to have her. And I was in the friend zone for a while, you know, but guys there's hope you can climb out, you know. And I would go I would go she worked at the the the bank when she could, you know, and stuff like that too. And I'd go there for her lunch breaks and be like, hey like can I take you out to eat and I'd wait two hours, you know. I was at gulbo or just I don't know, whatever you want to call that, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:24:43)
Yeah.

No, you you your actions ⁓ matched up with your words though. You you weren't all taught, you know? You your actions followed through. I think there needs to be more of that, to be honest with you, with the younger generations. But ⁓ we didn't actually track how did you end up in New Mexico?

Anthony (1:25:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so that that's when I had retrained at the aerogunner in 2010, remember? ⁓ so I'd left Charleston. And so the gunship has two two two bases, or Air Force Special Operations has two bases. You have one at Herbertville, Florida, which is near Fort Walton Beach, if you guys have been there. Then you have one in Canon, Air Air Force Base New Mexico, and Clovis, New Mexico, which is where I'm at now. So you have your your Eastern Air Commandos and you your Western. And I'd got assigned to this this gunship squadron, the one that's here, you know, in Canon.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:25:18)
Okay. Okay.

So every

time you came home from ⁓ the ninety days off, you were going back to New Mexico you were going to New Mexico during this time. All right. And then she's from New Mexico?

Anthony (1:25:46)
Cr correct, yeah.

Yeah, yes, she is. She's from up near Gallup, near the Navajo Nation up there.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:25:53)
And so how long did it take before she married you? How how many hours did you have to wait?

Anthony (1:26:00)
Yeah, I

I wanna say I was it was about six months, man, and I didn't have enough for a ring, man. And but what I did have when you leave these diplomats, ⁓ you usually stop at Shannon, Ireland.

And that was like a you know, with a rotator type thing. And so they had I'd bought a Claddagh Claddagh Claddagh Claddagh The Irish Claddagh Yeah, and and th and the only reason I even knew what that meant was from that firefighter movie, the one with John Travolta in it. And and ⁓ I was okay, cool, I'm maybe one day I'll make somebody a lucky lady, you or something with this. And and that's all I had. And I I asked her on a was it

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:26:11)
⁓

Mm, yep, a lot of yeah. Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Anthony (1:26:34)
Within six or seven months, something like that. It was really fast, you know. And ⁓ she said yes, you know, and I and basically I I put that ring on the right way it was supposed to go, so yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:26:38)
Okay.

Good. Good job. What what what

what year was that?

Anthony (1:26:49)
So that was that was all in in twenty fifteen, you know, going into twenty sixteen and even I had to go to to Kirtland Albuquerque for a little bit and we were, you know, I think it was that January, February, and it was on New Year's of that that day, fifteen to sixteen, that that I asked her, you know. Really drunk dude, by the way, and yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:27:06)
And then

how long until you guys got married after you asked her?

Anthony (1:27:10)
So we got married while I was doing my helicopter training in Albuquerque. It was about was that I mean that's that's four months, yeah, at that point. April April ninth, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:27:21)
Okay, so that moves pretty quick. Like you had to you had to work for those that first date or that but then once you guys were together, that now would you say that ⁓ because you were serving or in that culture, maybe things like that do move quickly because there's that impending you're leaving. You know, things need to kind of I I don't you know what I'm trying to say? Whereas for civilians, like we can take a year or two to plan the wedding, da da da. But

Anthony (1:27:23)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:27:49)
There is more of like that life on the line vibe, I guess. Urcy. Would you say that's accurate?

Anthony (1:27:54)
Yeah, I would say urgency and definitely insurance too. ⁓ you know, like the tri care you know, because you know, where we at April, right? And sh you know, she tells me very early, maybe maybe even on Fool's Day, if I remember right, just to mess with me, but she was really pregnant, you know. So it was like, okay, you know, and then so April 9th, what it was was I found a drive thru meeting a wedding place in Albuquerque and this Reverend, I was like, Hey ma'am, here's two hundred bucks, Marius. We need tri care. So you know, yeah. And but

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:27:58)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yes, yes. That makes sense. That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it.

Anthony (1:28:24)
But

what what that solidified though is that th I know she's in this for a long 'cause she's coming, you know, after I get done with training I'm going to Moody, which is in Georgia, Valdasta, Georgia there. So yeah, so I knew she was coming with we we'd already planned on that anyways, but I knew this was the guarantee as as messed up as that sounds, but I was very happy, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:28:41)
Yeah, absolutely. And so ⁓ and you said you have a daughter, correct?

Anthony (1:28:46)
I do, yeah, her name's Sullivan, and basically we knew that 'cause my wife's Native American and you know I'm ha at least half Scott Irish, right? To where like I knew that ⁓ she may have ⁓ dark eyes, right? And so in the old Gaelic or Irish language, Sullivan means dark eyes or brown eyes. So took a gamble there. Yep. She was, yep, yeah, l light brown, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:29:04)
Okay. I didn't know that. And and was she born with dark eyes? Okay.

Light brown. So that's cool. D were you able to ⁓ request that you were home during the time that your your wife was expected to give birth, or was that kind of like you didn't know?

Anthony (1:29:23)
Man

so so I when I was at Moody, I remember I flew up until like ⁓ you know, the basically the the water's about to pop type thing, you know. And ⁓ and what it was was I was even scheduled for a flight to, you know, train there at Moody and then ⁓ the water broke that morning, so it was a later flight and I was able to call him but hey my wife's having a baby. And they're really good about that and you know, and they wanna you know, you're not gonna especially right in that moment, you're not gonna deploy, you're not gonna do anything but take care of your family and your baby, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:29:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. So then you were able to be there?

Anthony (1:29:54)
Yeah, yeah, I was there to for the for the birth and everything like that. And I wanna say b back then it was like thirty or sixty days of ⁓ some f some form of paternity leave, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:30:04)
Okay, that's nice. That's nice. And then when was she born?

Anthony (1:30:07)
She was born November twenty first of was that twenty sixteen, yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So that ended October of twenty nineteen is when I finally left and came and then came back to New Mexico for my sunset tour, was what we call it. You do you know, two two to three years and retire. So like my case what, two point four or something.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:30:12)
twenty sixteen. So you're in with the Jolly Greens, like that's that time, right? 'Cause that didn't end till when?

Okay.

Okay, so you guys you said you went to Georgia, ⁓ and then you're still serving, but then you went back did she stay in Georgia the whole time you were with the Jolly Greens?

Anthony (1:30:41)
Yeah, yeah, she stayed in Georgia and then ⁓ that's where I had those those two East Africa deployments I was telling you about and then th all that was in that time frame, you know, was that twenty what that end in twenty nineteen, yeah. So and then I came back to Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:30:54)
I have a question. Okay. I'm I'm

glad you came back to the East Africa thing. I didn't want to break the flow, but I was curious, what was going on there? What what was that ⁓ that exercise?

Anthony (1:31:03)
I mean I d to be honest with you I I don't know and I I probably couldn't say if I did, but it was I know it was you know, usually with those green braids it's a foreign internal defense type mission, you know, and it could be something what we call key like key leadership engagements where they meet with like a the the the tribal leader or the leader of that area, you know, and so on and so forth and you know, but yeah, something like that I I would assume. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:31:25)
Yeah, okay.

⁓ so you get to twenty nineteen. Did you make the decision? Or was that just the natural end of that service with the Jolly Greens, or did you decide to not re up? Is that if I'm using the t the words correctly?

Anthony (1:31:42)
So so I I I re upped enough to get me to like twenty twenty one 'cause I wanted to t to at least get my twenty in, you know, and to to get my retirement benefits and you know, I'd I'd I was going through a lot and my my drinking was starting to really escalate and and I had had a injury where on the one of the trips we were doing ⁓ some basic currencies, I was doing a hoist. Long story short, I tore my pectoral major, real nasty tear and

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:31:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Anthony (1:32:06)
You know, it took me forever to get back to Fine Statis and and then when I did, I'm like, Man, like I I wanna go back to gunships, you know, this this helicopter stuff's a young man's game, you know. ⁓

I I wanna get back to what I was sort of raised in, that the gunship community, you know, and I knew like she wanted to be near her her family in New Mexico and this was a lot closer than, you know, the East Coast, right? And so I went back and we talked about it and you know, I basically said, Okay, I'll do till, you know, at least twenty twenty and then I deployed for my last time to Al-Issad Iraq in twenty twenty and it was on my my twentieth year mark, man, believe it or not, July eighteenth of twenty twenty. I was in country there and I w I wanted to do that for some reason I can't really explain but

But maybe it's pride or whatever you want to call that. And we do like this, I don't know, ninety days of a whole lot of nothing to be honest with you. Like the it was a completely different war than what I remember, right? And my sense of purpose was I could see the endings there, right? I'm already at twenty. I'm in that that window where you can call what they call hit the button. And then we may may have shot once in ninety days, but it wasn't nothing significant to what it used to be. And that, you know, in a way

I wasn't over myself, you know, I I was like, Man, like this used to be so relevant, you know, and I got back and I was like, you know what, man, like like I don't wanna do this anymore and ⁓ I hit the retirement button and once you hit that retirement button that's that's it, you know. Unless you make rank, etcetera but ⁓

I go through this phase of where like the same sort of this this ⁓ loss of identity was really building up on me, man. You know, and and you're you're doing all these things, you're getting all your paperwork ready to get out and you know, you you get to this point to where you're getting your infamous D D two fourteen, this blanket that says, Hey, this paperwork that says, Hey, I serve my, you know, country honorably for twenty one years and some change, like or it will be by then. ⁓

y you can retire honorably, right? And all the benefits that come with that, et cetera. And then you're in this office type s space scenario, this this nine to five type place and you're in there with these personelists. And no offense, those guys do an awesome job. And you're in, you know, in uniform and you realize like this isn't gonna last on this uniform, right? This cloth and you walk out that door and there's no door handle on the other end of that door. So you can walk out this machine, you can walk out this thing, right? But you can never truly get back in. was sort of like this opposite of Hotel California type moment.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:34:19)
Yeah.

Anthony (1:34:20)
like everything I was like all of that for this is what sort of popped in my head, you know, very selfish thought on my part. And and so I used that as an excuse to what was a a pint on the weekend drinking habit to turn into a ⁓ a pint a night at least, man, with sleeping pills, you name it, to go to sleep. Really abusing myself, you know, and my wife recognized that and she's like, you know, it's either the bottle or or me and your daughter, you know? And so thank God I chose them. So that was a I mean that was a good

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:34:36)
Yeah.

H how long did that go on?

Anthony (1:34:48)
What's that a good almost year at that point, you know? It I mean it it escalates, you know, and it keeps going into that. And then that that eight to twelve month mark is when finally, you know, I get to that point where she's like, get help and that's when I saw the I started doing the prolonged exposure treatment therapy with one of those s those PoT people I told you about.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:35:07)
Okay. So that's when you reached out for help from the military where they offer guidance and counseling and therapy?

Anthony (1:35:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, c and and at that point, you know, technically I'm still in I'm within that that year, right? So I'm still still in, you know. And yeah, tri care everything that comes with that. And I had a civilian SOCOM inflag, so she was really cool. And I I went in there with a chip on my shoulder and you know, and I I knew I had a problem. I knew I was going down the gutter, you know, and and I was she's like I was like, What do know about this and that? you know, something like that, me being wise and she was like, Well, she's you know, she gave me the cliche now. So you wouldn't you wouldn't ask your dentist to fix your car, right?

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:35:20)
Yeah.

Anthony (1:35:43)
I was like, okay, I I get it. I'll I'll try it, you know. And prolonged exposure therapy, you know, what you're doing, just like we're doing now, you're just conversing back and forth, right? And you get to a point where you write it out. And then they time you saying it without writing it out. So they're getting back to the root cause of that trauma, you know, which in my case was that Kastavac mission, you know, I was telling you about. And ⁓ they peel back that on you, man. And I was doing stupid things. Like I was I was timing myself going to work, you know. And they they have a really good way of sort of explaining why you're doing certain things with that mindset.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:35:46)
Yeah.

Yes.

Anthony (1:36:13)
Because like you said, I'd compartment I was constraining myself right to a time frame, to a timeline, to thinking that someone's life was on the line, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:36:21)
Yes.

Anthony (1:36:22)
it just li little things like that, you know, and and they're basically getting you comfortable again being uncomfortable, right? And she was able to get me the help and you know, with that, like there's the eight app program which is like AA if you will, while you're in the Air Force and stuff like that. And then, you know, right before I was out out, they wrote me a letter for continued help with the VA. And so I got the same sort of stuff when I went to the VA, you know, right when I left. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:36:44)
So during that year, ⁓ after you retired and all this was going on, were you working at all?

Anthony (1:36:50)
Yeah, yeah, I was I was just doing like BS like office work and like planning and stuff like that. It wasn't nothing, you know, out processing, yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:36:53)
It's a desk job. Okay. But it was still with the military it was still with the Air Force, but

it was a desk job. Okay. So it I I find it interesting when you said she helped you get comfortable with being uncomfortable, but it's almost the opposite of how they got you comfortable with being uncomfortable when you started in the military, because that was getting you comfortable with being uncomfortable under high, high stress situations. Now, as you're exiting, she's helping you get comfortable being uncomfortable with calm.

with life being content. Yeah. It's it's it's it's two different feelings of uncomfortableness at opposite ends of the spectrum. It seems like that should be mandatory almost for everyone who's retiring from the military. There everyone should receive that, it seems.

Anthony (1:37:41)
I I think so, yeah. And I've never really heard it put that way. And I I'm so glad you did. That's that's a awesome way of looking at that. They're bringing you in, you know, and then in a way just sort of letting you go, but making sure you're you're right before they let you go, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:37:54)
Yeah, it can bring you back down. Like they got you up. They gotta bring you back down. It can't you know,

I mean, ⁓ mentally, your nervous system, also because your cortisol was probably just off the charts during that whole time because you're under high stress, high stress. Well, physiologically, your body gets addicted to that. So it's almost like going through withdrawal as you're coming down into normal civilian life, your cortisol is gonna start to come down. That's shocking too. Cause even when you were home for those 90 days.

Anthony (1:38:07)
yeah. Yeah.

yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:38:22)
You're still like on hyper vigilance to some degree. Cause you're about you know you're leaving in ninety days and you have to kind of hold that that state. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I'm just thinking I I have a feeling it's easier to be it was probably easier those ninety days deployed are easier than the ninety days at home. Cause once that honeymoon week is over, like you described, now you're doing all this domestic stuff and it's not easy, right? It's almost easier to be deployed because you know not I'm gonna over ⁓

Anthony (1:38:28)
Yeah.

yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:38:51)
Simplify it. Oversimplify, but you're almost chilling and hanging out with your with your brothers and your sisters, ready to go, but you've got a lot of downtime and it's kind of boxed in. There's not a whole lot of decision making. It's you're you're just ready to go. You're ready to pounce. You come home, it's like, all right, you've got responsibilities, right? It's gotta mow the lawn, you gotta get groceries, get the kids in bed, wake up on time, all that stuff.

Anthony (1:39:12)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:39:17)
And support your wife, reconnect your wife with Reconnect with your wife. You know, I mean it's probably like reconnecting again. And I mean, that all takes ener effort, you know.

Anthony (1:39:26)
Yeah,

yeah, and that's ⁓ that's a good way, you know, like I was talking about earlier, like the routine part of being downrange w really I guess is what I'm trying to say is like just the I've normalized it. You know, this was my normal. This was what what I can expect to what's gonna happen, you know. Then, you know, the unexpected happens every now and then and I and I miss that. I don't know if it's a sense of relevance or just a camaraderie or both, you know. That was my normal.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:39:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And also

maybe the dopamine hit too, just from the, you know, the adrenaline bursts, you know, whatever that is. ⁓ well, real quick, you then you throw in the domestic life and you're now allowed to have some booze, which lets you tune out type of thing, which I could see that spiraling, what you're describing, right? But it gets real complex compared to more of a box. Yeah. With mental health and everything. I mean and I find it interesting.

Anthony (1:39:55)
yeah.

Yeah yeah.

Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:40:16)
That they had you write stuff down and then they had you say it to get to the root of what's going on. So how long did you continue with that therapy? 'Cause you said she signed off for you to continue with the VA, right?

Anthony (1:40:31)
Yeah, yeah, they they at least wrote me a memorandum 'cause it it gets weird because you don't have a VA what they call rating, a disability rating yet and and I'm I'm seeking help or I'm getting help up until that very last the one I can, you know? And ⁓

you know, multiple times. I don't even know how many times I saw her, but we really left on great terms too with this lady and really awesome person. And then she wrote me the memorandum and then I had to give that to when they do your s your your psyche bow when you get out, you know, which was I think that guy was in like Lubbock Texas, and I handed him in that and you know, and there at that point you don't know what you're gonna get. You don't even know if they're gonna give you ten percent. You know, I know a lot of people shoot for the hundred percent, but you at least want a number to where you can get free help, you know, with the VA. And that's pretty much what that ensured me at least

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:40:57)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony (1:41:14)
what I think did and then yeah man right when I just hit the ground running w right in Amarillo, Texas, I'd have to drive there to the behavioral health people and I it was s same sort of thing. But at that point, like I wasn't on meds until I went to the VA and that's when I got on the you know, the bupropary and talk about dopamine type stuff, right? And then the Prozac and the the Trizodon, you name it I you know, I'm on it. But what

What I do know about that stuff is like it holds me accountable with drinking too. It's like I know if I drink on that stuff that it it ain't gonna be good, you know, like you have a seizure. So there is that fear of that, you know. But yeah, and and as far as like that is what I was have normalized, man, was the downranged life and that that sense of relevance in a way too, like I had to get over myself, man. You know, like like, hey, this was this was a point in my life where I had a job, I did it. Now it's over, it's time to to get out and and new ⁓

beautiful things and the new mission, being the best dad I could be, the best husband I could be. That's that's what counts now, right? That's finding those exciting moments in those calm, man, that's got me a long way, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:42:17)
That's got to be such because you're right, that is truly the meaning, right? Of everything. But but you put nation and brothers and and everyone first for so long under such high stress circumstances. I it it's completely understandable that you would need help transitioning into even understanding that that was important and that was so important to our country and to everyone, but that this is also just as important.

Anthony (1:42:21)
Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:42:46)
And it's okay now that your wife and your child can be at that same level of importance, but there has to be help getting there. I mean, that's I don't see how anyone can be expected to get to that from this point to this point without support. You would it's almost impossible, I would think. That would that's just reason million, you know, the five hundred million reasons of Vietnam being such a travesty, right? Because there was no transition. And at least the VA, I think, has evolved. I have a friend who is a Marine who is in.

Afghanistan and and that kind of thing. And ⁓ there's a transition back to civilian life, I think that's better now. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's better than what it was back in Vietnam, right? At least you got help and guidance.

Anthony (1:43:29)
yeah.

Yeah, I'd I would say it's like night and day from between now and Vietnam, you know, honestly, like we we have it we have it made. I I tell guys there's all these resources we have available to to use them, you know, and and like if someone's afraid, like and getting help's contagious, I've noticed that, you know, and like if some of your friends we talk about the twenty-two a day and the suicide all the time, right? But again, like I'm either my brother's keeper or I'm not, you know, and so like and I always tell people

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:43:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony (1:44:00)
Have those four quarters over those a hundred penny. Those four people that will when you get out that will answer that phone and you will for them, without a doubt. Like no questions asked. And you'll get them the help they needed. And it's honestly been overwhelming, sort of with emails, the text, even the the reviews on Amazon for some people I used to fly with and you see this similar struggle with all this stuff. And when they get help because of your words, man, you see how far your words travel. That's a blessing, man. If one person gets help from reading that book, then to me that that's a win.

You know, and I think again, you know, we're all very normal men and women doing these very uncommon, unnatural things. It's not if it's when you need to take that tactical knee and get help. And it's okay not to be okay, but it's not okay to do nothing about it, in in my opinion. And and we are sort of all or nothing type of people, if you think about it. Like, you know, like someone asked me, like, can you go having three drinks to be social? And they know the answer to qu that question. I definitely know the answer to that question. My wife does. I can't do that. I'm not.

It's all or nothing. This opens up this gate of where I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna ask those two very embarrassing questions. Who do I owe money to and who do I need to apologize to? You know, and often it was my wife, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:45:09)
So it's interesting as far as the brotherhood, ⁓ because what it seems like what you're alluding to, at least there's a change in that the brotherhood extends past deployment, or at least it's starting to, where you guys are talking about mental health. It's okay to say I need help. It's okay to say I'm not okay. ⁓ and supporting each other. Would you say that's a relatively new phenomenon in the military life that talking about mental health is way more normalized now than ever?

Anthony (1:45:39)
I I would say it's the best it's been is the way I I would put that. 'cause we've within the last five to seven years, something like that, you know, when these programs started happening and y you you realize that the stigma's coming down, you know, g and 'cause

And also you have these leaders, right? Or leaderslash management type positions and and not just in the middle anywhere, you know, and I think when when you see those people go get help, that that's how it says, okay, this is I can get help, you know, and it's it becomes contagious. And I've noticed too like like getting someone's like, Hey, like how's it going, man, versus, hey, how are you really doing, man? There's a different way to ask that question. I mean it. You know, and and basically when you remove that stigma, then as a society we're better, man, you know, and I think that mental health should

be I know we just passed May that was Mental Health Month, but it should be advertised on every billboard that it's okay to get help and you'll realize that helping is healing a lot of times, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:46:31)
One hundred percent. One hundred percent. So you said you went to Amarillo, Texas to continue to therapy and ⁓ you were able to get meds was that coming from New Mexico to Texas? You were having to travel from to g do that?

Anthony (1:46:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

I would I would have to drive there. It's about what, two hours or so and then but they would reimburse your ⁓ you have like a almost like a travel voucher type thing. They'd reimburse your gas and stuff like that. And then they they would mail your meds, which that's that's the hard part, s the tricky part sometimes, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:46:53)
Okay.

Right. Okay, so you and that was what, like twenty twenty one you said around?

Anthony (1:47:04)
Yes, I retired one December of twenty one, you know, and then I was in therapy with within the next year, you know, tw tw January of twenty-three, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:47:12)
Okay.

I have a question on the the disability rating. There's a s there's kind of a stigma with that too, right? Is that or there used to be, is that shifted? It feels like maybe you guys wouldn't want to get a high rating, right? And but now it's okay. Go for it. Go for the hundred percent type of thing, right?

Anthony (1:47:27)
Yeah, that yeah, that is a that is a hot, really hot topic right now. A lot of stuff with that. But you know, I d the the VA math, like I don't I've tried to understand it, man, to like why they give certain things for certain things and and and the way I sort of looked at it, man, is like, hey, like this is my service, right? This is these are my problems that I have, this is what they are. I put on paper and and that was the result, you know. And like I like I'm not gonna go out of my way to to try to to change that. ⁓ first I don't wanna change it, you know. Second, like I just couldn't see myself doing

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:47:49)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony (1:47:57)
doing that, you know, and but if you know, you serve your country and like a problem now that's not manifesting, it'll manifest when you least want it to, with with with health, right? We all know that that's how it is. So I I tell people claim claim what you think that you d you deserve, man, and just don't don't hold back, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:48:06)
Yeah.

You know, it's and that's a my friend was going through that. He's like, I don't it's got like a knee pro whatever, whatever it is, foot or ankle. And I'm like, bro, you went and did something for the rest of us. You just be honest or you know, and see where how it works out. Don't feel any guilt. You're doing stuff that you protected our lifestyle here. Our way of life is something you did. You now have a knee ache. You gotta go for it. Yeah. I would say as a civilian in my shoes sitting here.

Anthony (1:48:40)
yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:48:43)
You guys deserve everything. Everything. Every you should get a hundred percent forever, even if you don't have any, you know, ailments. And I think I would speak for a lot of people here. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Yeah. And I think it needs to be talked about more.

Anthony (1:48:56)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and we appreciate that, you know, and and ⁓ the people that do understand that the wear and tear of not just the the body of the mind, you know, and appreciate you guys and and honestly just putting that message forward, you know, and hopefully guys don't hold back when they put in for those benefits that they earned, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:49:16)
I pay taxes. I'm glad to pay taxes for this. Yeah, yeah. I wish we could decide

exact where where it all goes. to go back real quick, ⁓ how did becoming a father change you?

Anthony (1:49:28)
man, I I tell people I'd be called many things, many different call signs. You know, I love saying this. And, you know, ⁓ aerial gunner. One of my my rescue call signs was Uncle Tito, which you can imagine how I got that, because I was that that drunk guy, right? All these different names and special missions aviator. But the best one I ever had was when my daughter called me dad. So that that's it.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:49:49)
Yeah, and would you say besides your wife she was motivation and you getting help?

Anthony (1:49:53)
That is my everything, yep. One hundred percent.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:49:55)
Yeah. Yeah.

Are are you guys all still together? Are you still married?

Anthony (1:49:59)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah. We're still still married and right now ⁓ my my actual wife's taking a course up in Albuquerque right now. So her and my daughter are up there and they're visiting the in laws and stuff like that. So thank you.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:50:09)
Congratulations, man, on making that

decision and having that awareness and I'm really happy for you. That's awesome. Yeah, man, that's cool.

Anthony (1:50:17)
Thank you. It it saved my life and I appreciate it. So th and thank you.

You know, your guys' platform's awesome. And ⁓ you know, I appreciate you you getting people on to to get these messages out, you know. And that's the thing about storytelling, you know, it could be a book, it could be a podcast, you know, and I think it's important if you have words in your heart, bleed them on the page, man. And with writing, I I'm not this famous author, probably never will be right. I this small little book called Moon Child Right. But at the end of the day, like if we don't tell these stories, those stories die in the sand, you know. So so get them out there. So every veteran, every person has a story.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:50:43)
Yeah. Absolutely. So w when

Anthony (1:50:46)
Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:50:47)
Absolutely. When so we're twenty twenty three. So when did you start writing Moon Child Because were you still working a desk job for the military during this whole time when you were going to Amarillo and living in New Mexico during the early twenty twenties?

Anthony (1:51:03)
No no, so I so I was until, you know, one December of twenty one and then when I, you know, did my VA thing, got my rating, started getting help in January, but I had started actually the within two weeks of of actually like my last day in the Air Force, what is that, November fifteenth is or something like that?

someone had quit a job here at Cannon on the flight simulators, a civilian contractor job. Not not a GS job, but a civilian contractor. And ⁓ it just lined up, man. The stars aligned and I jumped on it. If someone told me about it, you know, and just ⁓ put my resume in and sure enough, it worked. I got it, you know, and it's what I like about that, which I you know, I started pretty much that day and then till this day, even now, I still do that job. And then I still get to see some very rare but some of the same men and women I used to fly with and get to check on each other and

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:51:46)
that's cool.

Anthony (1:51:47)
And what I love about it, it keeps me, you know, it it gives me ⁓ a purpose again for my work, you know, my craft and you know, there there's a lot you can learn from flying, you know, and through through perseverance, you know, and I tell people, you know, these moments you get the sort of that you've had you put people in, you realize the bigger picture that like what he was saying is like an aircraft takes off against the wind, not with it. Right. So you're gonna go through some hard times, some e fees, malfunctions, you know, my psychological problems. But the the point is to

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:52:11)
Mm.

Anthony (1:52:17)
always keep flying aircraft, you know, and you get to sort of, I don't know, in your own way sort of create those scenarios to when they get down range or even if it's normal life, these things happen, you like, all right, I've been here, or at least someone's been here, I know what to do, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:52:30)
So you're

utilizing your experiences and writing scenarios for the flight simulator?

Anthony (1:52:35)
Y yeah, basically what it is is it's called a synthetic environment coordinator, which is a fancy way of saying the guy who puts in the emergencies that could come up offline, the the threats that could come up, the ⁓ the scenarios. The very like a lot of times there's no like I say, like black and white, it's you operate in the gray over there, right? Especially in USOCOM, you can imagine. And it's about basically choosing ⁓ life or death, you know, safe or unsafe. And you and you basically get c again, I I don't know why I keep saying this, but comfortable being uncomfortable, but like you're getting to that point.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:52:44)
Okay.

Anthony (1:53:05)
When it happens, you're like, you know what? I've been here, let's do this, you know, and and you see the fruits of that labor every now and then, they'll tell you about it, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:53:12)
You're absolutely utilizing your experience serving in what you do know. There's no question because like you're you're basically it is nuanced, right? It's so nuanced. And unless you've done it, there's things you can probably put into a scenario no one would know unless they'd been there. And that could be life saving for the people that are, I assume, being trained in these flight simulators, right?

Anthony (1:53:21)
yeah.

Yeah, it's it's all you know, pilots and co pilots and and what we call weapon systems officer and then combat systems officers, aerial gunners or smoths as they call us, load masters, so all the crew positions and you get to yeah, bring your your experiences and other guys I used to work with that work with me, they got, you know, some experiences too, and it's just mind blowing, you know, to to see, you know, all this this collective minds come together and make this this thing happen, you know, of air power.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:54:02)
You're you're still doing it for the greater good. That's amazing. I mean, talk about per that there's purpose there for sure. It's you're you've just extended what you were doing before in a totally different way, but it's still just as meaningful and it's still helping in the same way. I'm sorry, what were you gonna No, I was just gonna ask a technical question on the simulator. Is it the when you say, you know, I don't know, you maybe you hit a button and say we're doing this exercise, this simulation and the

crew gets in there and it's the same. Is it the same every time? Or is the simulator adapting and changes things a little bit, makes it more nuanced, so it's more maybe more realistic, not the same.

Anthony (1:54:44)
Yeah, yeah, some of the scenarios are the same, but the beauty of it is is is there's there's a lot of different ones and you can change them on the spot, on the fly, you know, through programs and and it's all virtual reality, man. It's you you can go to di so what one day I could, you know, if if we wanted to just take off at JFK, we we could do that. You know, we've done that, you know. You can even recreate the Sully mission on like the the PC twelve one or something like that, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:54:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony (1:55:06)
And and basically y you're in combat, right, you're with the guns specifically, you're you're you're getting in the situation where like

through virtual reality, through these these programs we have to to build these write these scripts and scenarios and it's it all reacts like sort of like coding, you know? And it's step, one thing triggers another, et cetera. And you're you're basically like, okay, well like when can we shoot? Right? Can we shoot now? And you I hate to say it, but you you get in that worst case scenario that where a bad shoot could happen that way, 'cause, you know, the worst thing in in close air support would be fracture, one of our own guys getting killed, right? Or even Civcat civilian gets killed. Like you don't want that. So you

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:55:23)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony (1:55:45)
you bring them to that level to when they're in that situation, they're like, Okay, let's take a second, what's really going on here before we do something, you know what I mean? So

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:55:53)
Mm-hmm.

Does that in your work, does it ever trigger you? Cause you're kind of r replaying scenarios that you were in.

Anthony (1:56:02)
It

yeah it definitely brings back some ⁓ some moments 'cause you're you're having to revisit that in some way, shape or form, you know, especially the close air support side of it. But but you know, y in the end y you've learned like, okay, like I've gotten help, I'm better, you know, I c I can do this, you know, I wanna do this because, you know, I wanna help somebody be a better be a aviator, a better navigate communicator, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:56:25)
So in a way it's also part of your healing journey.

Anthony (1:56:28)
yeah. Yeah. That's I I'm a big fan of the helping is healing and and paying it forward and I guess and maybe in this way just just paying it backwards, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:56:36)
Absolutely. So you're okay, so you're doing that. So when did you start writing?

Anthony (1:56:41)
So I I had had my some of the stuff I'd wrote for my prolonged exposure therapy and ⁓ man, what was it? ⁓ twenty I'd I'd at least had all those notes and everything and i there was this moment to where like when I would have these cravings to drink after I'd got outright, to where like

I'd be like, man, I'm I'm I want to drink so bad, I'm really starting right now. So I would force myself, 3 a.m., you name it, you know, scribble something on a notepad beside the bed, wake up in the morning, try to make sense of it all, you know. And I go through this back and forth. And then twenty twenty four I'd start really starting putting pen to paper, I would say, you know, maybe yeah, towards the end of it there.

And then I'd had at least what I thought was enough for a book, right? But it wasn't nowhere nowhere close, you know. And so I'd reached out on LinkedIn to a a war journalist named Holly McKay, ⁓ reporter, and ⁓

She responded like almost almost instantaneously. It felt like and I was in Walmart and on LinkedIn texting her and setting up an appointment and and what it was was ⁓ there was this word document that went back and forth for months, like but basically she's like really getting into like, you know, hey, what'd you mean by this, you know, and for me to like to quit talking with acronyms 'cause not everybody knows all these military acronyms. L little things like that and and then really getting into the nitty gritty of the five senses during these situations and when they happen and

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:57:52)
Yeah.

Anthony (1:57:58)
You know, there's some funny moments and there's some some dark moments, you know. And it's you know, I one of the one of the female pods I used to fly with, I think she put something on there about how like it's the only books that's ever made her laugh and cry within the same hour. So it is a relatively short read, you know, about a two hour read. But yeah, man, it it was I would say pen and pad, pen in hand to book in hand, seven, eight months or so, which is relatively fast. But it is again a sh a short read, you know, and and I had a lot of it up here and that's what the she did. She helped help me get the hard things to say and give my words teeth in a way, you

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:58:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anthony (1:58:28)
Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:58:29)
So how would you sign up s how would you sum up Moonchild? If somebody said what is Moon Child about, how would you sum that up?

Anthony (1:58:37)
Yeah, I would say Moon Child, it's ⁓ it's basically saying, Okay, these are my roots, right? Growing up in Appalachia and I was born under the full moon, so the moon has a lot of symbology and you know, it the roots part being like this tight knit community, this friends that my family, this the the the clay that molded me, right? And then it's important to know where you came from, but what's more important is w where you're going, ⁓ with your winged part of it, you know what I mean? And ⁓ it

The moon, you know, one of my favorite poems is Stay Wild Moon Child by Rita Clint, if you've ever heard that and

You know, it's it's just so symbolic. We'd be flying, you know, and and the moon was a lighthouse to me. I tell people, you're in this orbit in the darkest, you know, all night, right? So so it's easy to get like disoriented, excuse me. And then, you know, basically I would say, Okay, well the moon's on this side of the orbit. It would always be a lighthouse and get me you're at here at this time and space. This is the battlefield, this is where you are, you know, this is the moment. You know what I mean? So it was always in a way that lighthouse and it's my way home, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (1:59:36)
And so it it's from your beginning through your military service and the moon from the start to then was kind of your anchor, it sounds like. It held you down a little bit when you would start to drift.

Anthony (1:59:49)
yeah.

Yeah, I I would say it's definitely ⁓ you know, it would highlight the terrain, for example, right? It would it would let me know where threats are, you know. So yeah, it was in a way my keeper. I if we look at it like that, I've never thought about that. But yeah, it's definitely my lighthouse and my anchor is a good way to put that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:00:04)
Well, you know, growing up in Appalachia, you don't have a whole lot of light pollution, I would bet. So the moon and the stars and the Milky Way is probably beautiful. Fills the sky.

Anthony (2:00:13)
yeah.

Yeah, it it is a beautiful place. And there's a ⁓ if you ever get a chance to take the Great Smoky Mountain Rail Railroad to ⁓ to like the Nana Hala Outdoor Center, and they'll tell you there and you know there's this river, this huge gorge and there's these high trees in the mountains and that you get there about noon and and I I wanna say Nanahela in Cherokee means ⁓ you know, land of the noonday sun, which basically like the only time you could ever see the sun is when it's right at right above you at noon, you know. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:00:40)
That's cool. Yeah, cool.

So would you say that this book would definitely help anyone who has served and ⁓ especially ones who may be struggling with their mental health?

Anthony (2:00:53)
Yeah, I would say anybody that's been in these these uncommon jobs and first responder or military, that it would definitely it would let you that know that, hey ma'am, like I said, we're very normal men and women doing these very uncommon, unnatural things that it's okay to get help. And you know, it really I I wrote it for two reasons, I would say, is to to show the rest of America, hey, th these things is what this is what's going on while you're sleeping over there. And the second part, the most important part, is if one person gets help, that's that's a win.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:01:19)
Absolutely. Did your wife read it? What did she think?

Anthony (2:01:21)
yeah.

So she started crying, you know, she was sh she had read the first version before I'd sent it, you know, to the editor and publisher and and she she's like, Man, I need to work on this. It was some heart she was a harsh critic, but I'm glad she was and that's when I got a editor and yeah, it really really came to fruit, man. yeah. Yeah, they mu

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:01:39)
And have your parents read it?

And how was how the

feedback?

Anthony (2:01:45)
they they loved it, you know, and I got to go home to do a book signing back at City Lives Bookstore in Sylva There's little on the side of the mountain it's little bitty bookstore that has cats in it if you ever get chance to go there. You guys love it.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:01:55)
wow, you got to go do a book signing in your hometown at a local bookstore.

Anthony (2:01:58)
I did, yeah. It was so

awesome. Got to see people I had seen in forever, it felt like.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:02:02)
We'll absolutely

go through there. Yeah, we'll go through there, but how surreal was that to be doing a book signing in your hometown at a local bookstore?

Anthony (2:02:11)
It was emotional, re real emotional. Yeah. yeah. Friends I friends I hadn't seen in what, twenty five years, you know, twenty six years, something like that. It was friends, family, people came from all over. I just, you know, those four quarters, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:02:13)
I'm sure did you have friends come and attend and everything?

It's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. And how old is your daughter now? So she's old enough to understand like what's going on as far as you're at a book signing and what a big deal it is. That's that's cool that she's old enough to take that in.

Anthony (2:02:34)
She's ten now.

Yeah.

Yeah, and what I did was I actually put my publisher to this, but he put see if I show her picture there. Can you guys see that? that's the very that's the very back page of it, yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:02:50)
Let's see. ⁓ yeah. There

there's her light brown eyes. That's awesome. And and so and ⁓ obviously we'll put it in the show notes, but everyone can get your book, Amazon, what Barnes and Noble, everywhere you could get a book, basically.

Anthony (2:02:55)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million and Trademarket Media has its own ⁓ sort of website there. You go to the country end, you click on the flag and it'll take you to the Amazon link there.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:03:15)
That's wonderful. Now did you and your dad ever cause he served in the Air Force, you served in the Air Force, ⁓ did this book open up any conversations that maybe you had never had with him before about anything he maybe had gone through when he served?

Anthony (2:03:31)
Yeah, yeah, and and it definitely brought up the conversation of how today there's there's a lot, you know, more awareness with this sort of stuff than there was in, you know, during that Vietnam ish era, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:03:43)
Yeah. Did he serve in Vietnam?

Anthony (2:03:45)
Yeah, he so he went to the Philippines and he went to ⁓ Vietnam for very, very ⁓ short time as a c communications sergeant, like a comms guy. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:03:53)
Okay, okay.

⁓ now I know you had written in your questionnaire, ⁓ choosing better over bitter and the two wolves. What is that reference?

Anthony (2:04:06)
yeah, so the the two wolves to the roots part of my story. ⁓ so the Cherokee th and this is their their thing, not mine, and I don't want to take any credit for it. I'm gonna paraphrase the best I can. So what I've learned about the sort of tie together here. So every man or woman has the two wolves. You have one on each shoulder, right? You have a good wolf and you have a bad wolf. good wolf giving you these positive motivations to t tell you to keep going for it, give positive thoughts. You have a negative wolf.

Which is tempting you, is it's getting you to do bad things and and to get you not to believe in yourself and your your people. And then the one that wins is the one who feeds the most. And towards the ⁓ my my last my last year I lost a lung in the Air Force. That's why you sort of hear it's hard to breathe sometimes. I have a paralyzed hemodiaphragm and all that and twenty twenty and all that, you know. And I talked to a pastor, I was feeling sorry for myself and you know, and he said, Listen, Anthony, he goes, Life circumstances can make you bitter or better. He's like the choice is yours.

So you see two two ways of looking at that, you know. One I'd got from back home, one I got from a pastor over here. You know, so it's roots and wings, so

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:05:08)
Yeah, yeah, that is so interesting. What ⁓ do what happened where you lost your lungs?

Anthony (2:05:15)
So what I what I think happened, I don't know for sure, n nobody still really knows, but I it was during like, you know, COVID and all that and I had got the second the second boost, but I think I had had COVID when that happened, you know. So I think I think I got that and it just overlook like overloaded or something and it got to a point where they didn't know if it was like the phrenic nerve. But what it was was you know how your diaphragm goes up and down? My lephum was was stuck up when it crushed the lower left lobe of my lung, you know, so it was ⁓ e even walking the stairs, I like, Man, this is

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:05:36)
Yeah.

Anthony (2:05:45)
So hard right now, you know. So a lot of pulmonary function tests, a lot of sniff tests, a lot of a lot of x rays and ⁓ they tried the nebulizer stuff, it didn't didn't help it. So yeah, man, it was just just working out, trying to keep what I can, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:05:57)
So you're basically functioning with one lung?

Anthony (2:06:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and and I guess the on the the silver lining is is like you know how your right side lungs you have more space and stuff like that 'cause you have your heart on your left. So I have, you know, s what is that sixty three percent or something like that. They said total lung capacity at one point, but I was able to work on that, you know, and get it up to the low seventies at least. So which is, you know. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:06:08)
Mm.

wow. Okay.

So does that affect like can you work out still and everything?

Anthony (2:06:24)
Yeah, I I still work out and I what I'll do I'll do the treadmill. And so instead of like just taking off running, ⁓ you know, I I'll get on this incline basically like ten and put on three miles per hour and just just go, you know, until it's really hard to breathe. I'm sweating a lot and basically putting that work in to try to just keep what I have, you know. But it's at this point, you know, with the exception of me me getting long winded and I ⁓ it's apparent then, but like, you know, I can still do what I want for the most part, like physically, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:06:51)
Is it kind of like a muscle where you need to keep challenging it and utilizing? Okay. And do you do breath work?

Anthony (2:06:54)
yeah. Yeah, yeah.

No, I d I tried that, the you know, the nebulizer stuff and it it just made me feel weird and all that and but I have learned to sort of control my breathing like, you know, like s like slow like you in through the nose, out through the mouth when I'm when I'm working out at least and stuff like that. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:07:11)
Right. I'll tell you I

we I wouldn't have known. So just so you know, it didn't it didn't affect any way that you've come across. So just so you know. Yeah, we had absolutely no I had no idea. I I did mean to ask you, when you were first serving, did you get your college degree?

Anthony (2:07:16)
Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it.

So I I got my two year just it's called the community college of the Air Force in aviation operations and and what that is for an enlisted person, ⁓ your job like in my job gave me so many college credits already, right? Where I just had to basically do my my core cut classes, if you will, and I was able to get my my two year degree. And it's sort of a funny story when when I had first joined the Air Force and I'm starting to work on this, ⁓ before I could take college, even at I think it was like Goldsburg Community College, something like that.

Back then they made you take a college placement exam, you know, and and my my scores were so low that the lady said something like, Man, like like this is where a fifth grader reads, like this is where you're at, pretty much what she said, you know. I don't know how true that was, she was joking, but I I had to do like this book report, you know, and and me being me, you know, just like when I would do accelerated reader growing up, I think I watched where like the red fern grows or something. I did a book report and then I was able to take college and the the irony in all that's that you I still read on the fifth grade level and you know, but somehow got a book.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:07:58)
Mm.

Yeah.

Anthony (2:08:25)
So I I'll take that, you know. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:08:27)
Now you're a published author. I mean, that's just it's that's amazing.

What a great bookend, right? Like that's where you started and look where you are now, and then everything in between. It's it's really phenomenal. Did you have any any questions before I asked my last question? I don't know. I got a bunch, but I I just find you remarkable. absolutely. The the one the one thing I was thinking about earlier was ⁓ when you you said you were over there.

Anthony (2:08:33)
yeah.

Thank you guys.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:08:55)
in I think it was Afghanistan or maybe East Africa and it kinda calmed down and you may be shot once in ninety days. I do think that's a testament to you and your brothers and the military just doing a killer job and eliminating a threat over there. And again, I'm I'm so appreciative of you guys. The w our lives here are phenomenal because of guys like you who sign up 'cause I wouldn't I don't it's not in in me to do it, right? But man, I so appreciate

You guys in in you guys doing that for us. Absolutely.

Anthony (2:09:28)
We we we appreciate people like you, you know, and I I tell without people like you, you know, ⁓ you guys make it all worthwhile, you know. And that's what, you know, you're living the best American lives you can, you know, and you're you're getting these stories out and you do it very well and you know, I've watched a few of your shorts and everything like that and what was the one the last lady ⁓ you guys were talking about dementia or something like that, you know, and it brought me back to some memories and you guys do a really good job of getting these situations in America that need to be talked about out and and

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:09:50)
Yeah, yeah.

Anthony (2:09:58)
You guys make it all worthwhile. Thank you.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:10:00)
well, thank you. I mean, it's that that means a lot coming from you. But I ⁓ just to back up what Brian's saying, I there's so much crap out there in the media. ⁓ but you know, boots on the ground, regular people. I don't know anyone who doesn't support the military and isn't in awe of what you guys do and isn't eternally grateful, you know, and our and we are all raising our children to understand that too. And I think that's so important to our American culture.

⁓ so just just to reaffirm that at least in our where we live and in our world, ⁓ you know, we are just we love you guys and we're so grateful for everything. The sacrif it is sacrifice, sacrifice of your bodies, your mental health, your family sacrifice, your spouses, your children. And and we know, like we know it's not just us, like

people know. Well we don't know because what you can go through is so horrific. Right. We don't know no. But we can only imagine. Yeah, but we then we can try to assimilate it and appreciate it and And we try to honor it. Yeah, and honor it's a good way to put it. We have a big flagpole in the front yard and we have flag yeah, we try to do what we can to s to just say we we we recognize, I guess. We recognize Actually you'd love this we put up a twenty foot ⁓ flagpole. We're ready for the fourth. Yep, just honor the two hundred and fiftieth birthday, you know, but

Anthony (2:11:20)
That's awesome. ⁓ man. Yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:11:24)
You know.

We

will we will, but you know, it's so I hope you guys all know that though. 'Cause I'm sure with all the noise it can get lost.

Anthony (2:11:37)
Yeah, yeah, we we do and we we very much appreciate, you know, people like yourselves, you know, who understand and who have our back, you know. And it's it's always nice to know that that someone cares and appreciates and and understands the, you know, and nothing that I've done but the the cost of freedom that guys that didn't make it back and you know, and God bless you both and and thank you.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:11:53)
Yes.

Thank you. And and God always bless you and your family, please. And please thank your wife. I meant to ask. What is she getting her degree in?

Anthony (2:12:02)
So she's actually got her biology. She's she's got her master's in biology now. And she teaches ⁓ she teaches here locally. It's seventh grade life science, which is ⁓ you remember we used to do biology, we dissect the frog and all that. That basically that's I think that's what they're calling that life science or something like that now. But yeah, she's she loves it and she's she's really doing good. And I was there for her evaluation because it like the ironically another practical I got to observe my wife teaching. Yeah, and it was it was good to be there and just to see the just a blessing, the rock she's been.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:12:06)
wow.

Yeah.

Well, she's a middle school teacher. That's a special person to deal with that that age. I'm really happy. I don't know. That might compare to you serving over in Afghanistan. Yeah, right. That's a crazy age. Yeah, absolutely. Or you can't I was just gonna say I'm real happy for you that you she gave you the ultimatum, you made the right choice and you're still working through it. It's awesome. It's it's really an inspiration. Yeah, for sure.

Anthony (2:12:35)
Yeah.

yeah. Yeah. It's ⁓ it's it's I it's eye opening, I'll say that for sure.

⁓ yeah. Ca constant c constant

work in progress and we we're only landed takeoff again.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:13:04)
Yeah. And that's marriage, right? I tell people there's good days, bad days, good weeks, bad weeks, good years, bad years. That's marriage. And we've been together almost 33 years or something. And there were times I've said there's been bad years, and people look at me like I'm crazy, but I'm like, that's marriage. And I think what it really comes down to is friendship. And if you have that friendship as a foundation, you can get through anything, you know. So and you guys have gotten through a lot.

Anthony (2:13:07)
yeah.

yeah.

yeah.

yeah, and I think even my dad told me this 'cause he he's been j just like you guys and it's so unheard of this day and age, you know, and fifty something was I don't know how many years, a long time now. You know, him and my mom and I asked him what the key was and he like, you know, if I could summon up two words, he was like compromise and respect, you know. So I always always try to think of those two words. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:13:40)
Wow Wow.

Yes.

So true. Now was the last time you were home was for your your book signing?

Anthony (2:13:56)
So that was July of what last year and then I went home to a ⁓ I went to a basically a Panthers game and then to a Hornets game, which was when was it? I'm gonna think of Hornets game. Was that February, March timepremia?

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:14:09)
So do you go home fairly regularly, like a couple?

Anthony (2:14:11)
I I

I do now, but th there was a long time where I I didn't, you know, from you know, just the way the way it worked out and stuff, but yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:14:17)
Yeah.

Well there's yeah there's no pro sports in New Mexico, which is in the college, the football teams, they've had success in basketball years and years ago, I think, but I don't think they do too well in football.

Anthony (2:14:21)
Yeah, you're right about that. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we so we actually we didn't break five hundred last year, but we still made the playoffs and I was I was at the game where so Charlotte played Tampa Bay and I was I I went all out, man. I went on Ticketmaster and I got the you know, closest seats I could afford anyway. And it was it was eye opening how different it is being in that arena, you know, and it's just just to feel that vibe, you know, of that game and everything was that was that was a dopamine release in itself, you know, just being there for that.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:14:53)
yeah.

In Tampa or in up in Charlotte?

Anthony (2:15:00)
No, and

and so it was the one where they played in Charlotte and I I know they played not too long after that, Tampa again in in Tampa, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:15:07)
Yeah. Have you heard of Billy Strings?

So he's he's like bluegrass. ⁓ you have to check him out. Well, yeah, I mean yeah. So Doc Watson's from the hills of North North Carolina, I think, right? And Billy's not I don't know, idle, but he he plays a lot of Doc Watson songs, huge influence. So he's bluegrass and and other things. And rock. Like bluegrass rock. But you should check out Billy Strings. We'll go to Asheville a bit, Nashville ⁓ plays that that area.

Anthony (2:15:16)
Okay.

Yeah, I'll I I'll check that out, you know.

Awesome.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:15:39)
Yeah, yeah. You I'm

sure that you have friends or family who know who know about Billy Strings. Yeah, I know Brian's gonna grab his sticker. Brian's obsessed with Billy Strings. So we try to we try to see him. But he's he definitely has been influenced heavily by your air where you came from. So okay, do you have any more questions? I'm good. Okay. So my last question is always where do you see yourself in five years?

Anthony (2:15:43)
yeah.

Ha ha ha.

Awesome.

I see myself ⁓ just this constantly just being a work in progress, you know, hopefully s with a couple other projects out, you know. ⁓ that possibly coming out soon, but yeah, that and hopefully with another another book. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:16:17)
Okay.

I think that's wonderful. And and to and to keep on the path that you're on and keep being an inspiration. Like you said, not just for ⁓ people who serve, but first responders, anyone who finds themselves, you know, healthcare workers, especially ER, emergency medicine, especially ordinary people doing extraordinary jobs. Yep, absolutely. You know, so you're you're such an example of that. And the fact that you're using your voice to the degree where you wrote a book that can reach

Anthony (2:16:32)
yeah. yeah.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:16:47)
masses and help them. ⁓ it's just such a testament to your healing journey too, just how far you've come. And and also what you do for a living, you continue to help people. So I I mean, I I don't have enough words to even bring light to how impressed I am by you. And I know that sounds so trite, but I'm impressed by just the fact of what you did for our country. But then to

come out and acknowledge, hey, I'm I'm struggling here, with your wife's help, obviously. and to be open to therapy and to be open to saving yourself. And then to take that and expand it to help others, it's just phenomenal. And I really, really hope ⁓ more people who serve hear your story and read your book because it's so needed. And and and people like firemen, policemen, ⁓

and people who are under such high stress jobs. ⁓ we can't thank you enough for coming on and being so open and sharing your story with us, but with our listeners, because I know it's gonna help people. And ⁓ that's the ultimate goal with why we do what we do. So thank you.

Anthony (2:18:03)
Thank you, I appreciate it. And i if I could sum it up, you know, and and talk about getting better and everything, ever try to get better every day. You know, the other day I I I saw Viola Davis, she gets on stage and she gets us awarded and rightfully so, right? And you know, she says that there's a quote that goes, The very defin definition of hell is your last day on earth. The person you became is the person you could have become. You know, so if you want something go get it and don't ever settle for for just not being the best version of yourself, if that makes sense. So

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:18:32)
Absolutely. Absolutely. One last thing, it's w what you were saying, ⁓ I have a friend we've we've talked about doing like a leadership type of what is leadership? And I think you're personifying leadership ⁓ in in your lifestyle and and the decisions you've made and and ⁓ find it interesting. It's not the quote unquote traditional leadership, but it's leadership. It's awesome.

Anthony (2:18:55)
Yeah, I think empathy goes a long way in leadership. I've I've noticed that from from from the great from the great ones, right? Like, you know, if it you'll realize real quick when you have a leader, someone in that spot, if they have empathy, you know, and if and if they have empathy, that there's mutual respect there is what that tells me. And empathy is the cornerstone of trust as we all know. So you definitely that's what a great leader is, is very empathetic, you know.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:19:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Absolutely. And you had talked about if leaders show that they're getting help, then it will encourage others to search it out. And you are one of those leaders doing that. That's what made me think of it is your ability to have the humility and the grace to say I'm I'm not work it's not working real I've I need help. I need help. I need I want to get help. That's leadership in that in a very un unconventional sense. And it gives others the permission to makes it okay. Search for help. And

Anthony (2:19:45)
Thank you.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:19:45)
And to help them be be comfortable with being uncomfortable in the calm. Yeah. You know. So again, thank you.

Anthony (2:19:50)
yeah. Yeah, thank you guys.

It's been a real privilege and honor to be here. And this this was a good one. This one this one just I I don't say this often, but this this one felt right. Thank you guys.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:20:00)
Thank

you. Thank you for entrusting us with your with your story. So, ⁓ and for our listeners, ⁓ Anthony Dyer, the book is Moon Child. We'll have in our notes everywhere you can find him, ⁓ where you can find Moon Child, and ⁓ you can leave any questions or comments on the socials and he'll see them. And as always, if you have any questions or comments for us, please leave them. We love to hear from you. And again, thank you, Anthony, for your time and your story.

Anthony (2:20:27)
Th thank you guys.

GenX Adulting Podcast (2:20:29)
No, it it means

so much. And and this is actually going to be released either right before, right after the fourth. And I feel that that's so perfect. So I'm I I I the timing is just it wasn't planned that way, but it's absolutely now we gotta make it happen. Well, no, it will happen. Hey, I wore my shirt. It's gonna happen. So thank you again. Thank you. And thank you to our listeners. And we will see you next time. Bye.

Anthony (2:20:36)
Awesome. Thank you guys.

I love it. Thank you guys. Thank you.