How Service, Faith, And Family Turned A Dropout Into A Master Chief

What does it take to turn a restless teenager into a leader who can steady a room in a crisis and still laugh with his team after? Gary opens up about ten reasons he’s deeply grateful for the Navy, starting with faith and flowing through family, community, and craft. From two sons born at naval medical centers—without the crush of medical bills—to a marriage that found its footing amid deployments and long watches, the story is grounded, specific, and full of hard-won joy.

We unpack the Chiefs Mess as a true home base: not just a rank but a tribe that teaches standards, loyalty, and how to fight for your people. Gary shares how engineering and damage control became his gateway to confidence—learning to troubleshoot under pressure, mastering manuals, and finding that calm gear that changes everything. The post‑9/11 years shaped purpose as he deployed in support of the global war on terror and Iraqi operations, carrying Marines to combat and returning with fewer than he left. Pride in service lives alongside the honest work of “putting it back in the box” after tempo and loss.

The journey stretches across twelve years overseas in Yokosuka, Sasebo, and Guam, where living abroad became a family superpower—adaptability, gratitude, and a wider view of the world. Retirement at 45 reframed success: a pension and benefits that reduce pressure so he can choose purpose, teach JROTC, and build young leaders. And the education arc—from GED to associate’s, bachelor’s, and a master’s in organizational leadership—shows how tuition assistance and the GI Bill turn opportunity into generational change.

If this story resonates—service, second chances, and finding your people—tap follow, share it with someone who needs the push, and leave a review with the moment that hit you hardest. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners who are ready to lead with heart.

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Transcript

Faith, Family, And Gratitude Set The Stage

Sons Born Coast To Coast And Military Medicine

Finding Belonging In The Chiefs Mess

Becoming An Engineer And Earning Confidence

Serving Through 9-11 And War Deployments

Meeting Erica And Building A Life

Twelve Years Overseas: Japan And Guam

Retirement, Pensions, And Choosing Purpose

Discovering A Calling: Leading People

Teaching JROTC And Lasting Impact

From GED To Master’s And Paying It Forward

Closing Reflections And Invitation To Connect

Gary Wise 0:28

All right, everybody, how you doing? Hop a day, good afternoon, good evening, good morning, all the above. It's Gary Wise here once again, Wise Leadership Solutions, words from the Wise. Hey, and you know, today I had a buddy that was supposed to jump on for a podcast. He wasn't able to make it. I thought about canceling, you know, because why not? But I haven't made a video by myself in quite a while. And I just figured, you know what? Take some time now to go over some things that have been on my mind, and I haven't shared it with everybody in a minute. Um, and and the premise of today's video or the point of today's video is I was gonna highlight just 10 reasons why I'm just super thankful that I joined the United States Navy. Um, I know sometimes people watch my videos or they'll see some of the things that go viral, and they may get this idea that I wasn't super proud to serve or whatever. Ladies and gentlemen, just so you know, I am proud to be a sailor. I'm proud to have been a chief petty officer of the United States Navy, proud veteran, proud to serve my community as a part of a high school junior ROTC program, proud to wear the uniform every week to this day, all the above, right? Uh yeah, there's some things that I went through on my journey that were challenging, and there's some things that I got opinions on, and it's fun to share and to give feedback, but please don't ever get it twisted. Uh, joining the United States Navy was the best decision I ever made uh for my adult life and for my family. And so without further ado, I just kind of rattled off 10 things that are just very, very important to me in my life that and they're in no significant, they're no in no special order, there's no hierarchy for this. Uh, because honestly, the hierarchy is going to be uh my my belief system, my faith, my belief in Jesus Christ, being my Lord and my savior, saving my family, saving me, and giving me the space to operate from a place of winning, right? From already being forgiven and from already being saved. So that's always going to be number one. Um, I was very blessed to grow up in a family where I was taught that my entire life, and it was very helpful to have find that over and over and over again throughout my years of service. Uh, I'm going to include in this top 10, of course, family editions. And so without further ado, again, no particular order. Here is my 10 reasons that I am just so thankful that I got the chance to serve my country. Number one, you know, my sons, I have two sons, uh, are born on opposite coasts of the country. My son Hayden was born in Naval Center, Naval Medical Center San Diego, or Balboa Naval Medical Center. So me and Erica, after we were married, we got this, we got the chance to live in San Diego, California for about seven years. Uh from 2000, I think believe, from 2003 till 2010. And that's where Hayden was born. My son Lincoln was born six and a half years later uh at Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, Virginia, which was essentially my next shore duty, if you will. So we had Hayden during that first stint uh in San Diego when I was at a float training group San Diego, when I was on the carrier team and doing all the shipwriting or whatnot. Then I went and did the USS George Washington with Erica and Hayden over New Coastal, Japan. And then we eventually got stationed in Portsmouth, Virginia. Well, Virginia Beach is where we lived. Norfolk, Virginia is where I worked at, at the senior enlisted damage control school. And it was while we were at that school in 2014 that Lincoln was born. So I've got two beautiful sons who were born coast to coast, shore duty to shore duty, right? And when people always ask us this question about where the boys are born, they always kind of chuckle or they find it interesting that we had a son born in California and a son born in Virginia. But so goes this Navy life, right? So goes this family that we built up, Erica and myself. You know, two different naval medical centers who both did great for my family. We had no complaints. They were awesome for us. Um and of course, no bills. It cost us zero dollars to have our children. And I've heard the stories about how much things can cost out in the civilian sector, especially when it comes to having a baby. I mean, truth be told, the medical insurance conversation, as I'm listening to the news, and right now the government shut down for those of you that are paying attention to those things. And supposedly there's a there's a piece of it that's about the medical insurance piece. When I retired from the service and I went to the public school system and I got hired on as a teacher, one of the things they offered to me was to purchase medical insurance through them. And I was shocked at how much civilians pay for medical insurance because as a retiree, my family is eligible for continued medical insurance through the military, through TRICARE, through our connection. And I will tell y'all, that's pennies on the dollar. So this was not in my list of my top 10, but I will add on not only did I get the opportunity for my two sons to be born coast to coast at almost no cost to my family, but to this day, our health insurance is significantly lower priced than our civilian counterparts. And I will tell you that that matters because you get hurt, you go to the doctor, you don't want to be worried about can you afford to pay for the bill. But number two, for those of you that are paying the bills, that's a significant hit. And that's money you could be investing for your retirement or money that you can put into the side for the future. You know, I heard um I heard in the news the other day they were talking about President Trump quite possibly might get rid of the personal income tax for people that make less than a certain amount of money. I heard the number that was floated was like $150,000 a year or whatever. Personally, resolve the personal income tax because check, we're making a ton of money off these tariffs, but take that money instead, and for the people that need it, apply it to their health insurance so that way they can get much lower health insurance payments out of their jobs. I think that'd be great. Maybe they can figure that out, you know, as they're figuring out life. So, number one, my top 10 right reasons that I was happy to have served. I'm gonna talk about my boys and having the opportunity to have not just two sons, because I think I would have had the sons no matter what, but having them one in Virginia, one of California, and just getting that awesome experience of letting Navy medicine help support my family. All right, next up. I I moved around a lot as a kid growing up. I was adopted. I've told that a little bit on here. I'll probably tell it some more in the future. But at birth, I was born to a teenage mother. And at birth, I was giving up for adoption. Spent a month or so, I'm not even, I don't even know how long, in in the hospital. And then I went to my family. And I that's all I ever knew. I knew that I was adopted, but my parents had me for their entire my entire life. Um then my dad, when I was in kindergarten, decided he no longer my dad was a corpsman in the Navy. He gets out of the Navy because he wants to have a family. That's number one. They wouldn't let him adopt at the time because he was in the Navy. It was looked at as being not a good family fit for an adoption. This is what I was told. Uh, but he got into medicine in the civilian sector because of his corpsman ties from the Navy, and he had become a paramedic. We were living in Twella, Utah at the time, and I was in kindergarten, and my dad decided he no longer wanted to be a paramedic because he was tired of responding to calls where unfortunately bad things had happened to people. And he wanted to go get involved in computers. It was the 80s, and there was a school named DeVry, it's a it's a tech school that was down in Arizona, and my dad wanted to move down there. That significant career shift caused my family to then have to move. I essentially moved every year, every grade from kindergarten all the way through to seventh grade. And then, so again, that's seven moves, right? Kindergarten to seventh grade, different school every grade. And then during junior high school, because of my own actions and getting myself in trouble, I got shipped off to my grandma's for a grade. And then during 10th grade, I dropped out of high school, 11th grade, four high schools in a year and a half. You can do the math, right? I just wasn't the best kid, right? And when I look back on my life, I think a big piece of that was I didn't have the stability of a community, right? Of people that I knew and the people that were going to take care of me. And I was kind of always jumping in with the groups of people that maybe weren't always doing the best. Now, I'm getting to number nine. Number nine for me is the Chiefs mess in the United States Navy. And I'm and I'm looking at this from the perspective of, you know, when I was coming up as a teenager, I really wanted to be included, accepted, a part of something. And so I was looking to get involved with parts of where I was living at relatively fast. Right. So what do I got to do to earn your acceptance, get involved with the program? And then how do I put in the work to be a part of this team? Okay. Now I did that all throughout my teenage years. I'm speaking in code. For those of you that know, you're gonna know. And for the what those of don't know, just I was out there in the streets trying to be accepted and be a part of something. So when I joined the Navy, it wasn't I wasn't really thinking it all the way through, just to be honest. It was I'm a high school dropout. A lot of my friends have recently been gone to jail or gotten in trouble. I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life. And my dad was in the Navy. And I thought that what if I could do this thing to join the service and get away from home and possibly turn my life around. Thank God I got it, right? Of course, I had to get my GED, of course, I had to pass the medical stuff at MEPS, all these things that I did, and I had to get the waivers for my criminal background, all that stuff. Anyway, I joined the service and I hate it like everybody, right? If you talk to anybody who's in the first few years of the service, they're almost always gonna hate it. Um, I met my wife Erica, she gets me to love the military, she gets me to love my country. I got a lot of that for my wife. I'll talk about that someday in another video. Um, and I'm working my way through the Navy and I'm learning that hey, I want to make as much rank as possible because eventually I'll retire, and that's gonna matter in my retirement check. Cool. Then I make chief, and I didn't even plan on making chief. The year I made chief petty officer, I wasn't even up for chief, man. I took the test for LDO purposes, I wasn't up for no chief. I was I'd only been a first class petty officer for a year, just about a year. But I was a sailor of the year, I had a lot going on, and I there was a time and array waiver that the CMC got for me after I had made board for LDO, right? I went through Chief's initiation, and everything about it was for me. I loved it. It was it was something that really spoke to my soul, and my chiefs mess journey became a significant portion of the rest of my career. You know, I put on chief petty officer at nine years in the Navy. I did I served my country active duty for 25 years total, and I'm still serving as a master chief petty officer who's now a high school naval science instructor at a public high school, right? Um, that initiation process, not only did it remind me of so many things that I had gone through as a teenager, but it really appealed to me uh gaining this sense of acceptance and then seeing it continuously returned throughout the rest of my career, right? Whether it was at the Ogden where I made Chief USS Ogden, a float training group, San Diego, which was a phenomena, which it still is a phenomenal Chief's mess, right? USS George Washington, which as many shipmates as I can get from the G Dub to be on this program, I will, because we did amazing things together. You know, Surface Warfare Officer, Norfolk, uh schoolhouse, that was a great Chief's mess. That was the first Chief's mess I got to be not only a master chief in, but also a senior enlisted leader and to help run initiations. My USS Ashland crewmates that I got the chance to serve with as a CMC. Um Seventh Fleet staff, where I was the command master chief on the staff. And then, of course, my time at Naval Base Guam, where I was the command master chief, and I got the chance to work with all of the shipmates that were there in Guam. Changed my life. Changed my life, and I saw the Navy be a better place because of that Chief's mess. Loved it. And I will tell you that I'm very thankful for that Chief's mess for that experience, for everything about us. That's my number nine, right? So number 10 was the chance to have my sons, to have them be born on different coasts, to have them be born in different naval hospitals and to just go through that entire process and not be stressed out about money. Number two, becoming a part of the Chief's mess, which truthfully, uh, for me, that mattered a lot more to me than even going through boot camp. You know, I did it just wasn't the same connection for me. I wasn't super proud to be a sailor uh when I was young. I was I was more proud to be an engineer, if that makes sense. I was a I'm an I was an engineer before I was a command command master chief. I was a damage controlman. I loved being a snipe, could care less about putting on dress uniforms. And I'm kind of still that way to this day. But when I became a Navy chief, oh man, that was a significant milestone for me in my career. All right, next up, we're gonna talk about the engineering piece. You know, when I joined the Navy, so this is my number three, this is my third one out the gate. Um, when I joined the military, I was not a person that would work on cars, I was not a person that was very handy with doing things. I just didn't do that. I was I was living in different people's houses. I didn't grow up with a dad that was always turning wrenches on cars. At most, we might do like an oil change or something like that. It wasn't anything significant. And when I joined the military, um I did not know anything about wrenching on stuff, fixing stuff, troubleshooting, mechanical things, figuring it out. When I took the ASVAB, they basically said, Hey, uh, you're not qualified for anything in the Navy except for uh undesignated seamen, airman, fireman. And this is, of course, because of my background as a teenager and the trouble that I got myself into. So I eventually became in the Navy as an undesignated fireman. But I really fell in love with engineering. I really fell in love with standing watch, casualties, standing watch in the main space, firefighting, damage control. People would be under stress, not handling it well. And I was just always good in those situations. And then the more I was given access to information, like technical manuals, books about equipment, people putting trust in me to go turn the wrench, go troubleshoot something, fix it, and then figuring it out, the more confidence I gained as a young man. And so I will tell you, because there was a lot of insecurities for me as a teenager. Like I said earlier, I was insecure about fitting in. I wasn't sure where I belonged. I'm adopted, I have all these different challenges as far as do I fit in, do I not fit in? And my family loved me. I'm not, they loved me, and I love them too. But there's still this piece that's going to kind of stick inside there and make you wonder, you know. Um, but when I got to be good as a watchstander or as an engineer or as a damage controlman, that was a game changer. I got a lot of pride in being a DC three, a DC two, a DC one, a senior chief. And it wasn't just as a sailor, but it was as a technical expert. So that that's probably, I'd say uh my my third one that I'm gonna go with here today. So, you know, first off, the boys being born coast to coast. Secondly, becoming a part of the Navy Chiefs mass, huge. Third, finding some pride in being a shipboard engineer, being a professional that could that could fix things that needed to be fixed, right? Huge. All right, uh, next up, you know, 9-11 changed the world for all for all Americans. It just if it didn't change your world, I think you got to look back on that and try to remember how life was. But September 11th, 2001 changed the world for everybody. I'll never forget I was on recruiting duty, uh, walking into the recruiting station this day. All the recruiters were in the Air Force recruiting office. They called me over there, and I got there to watch the TV screen as the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Um, from that point, uh after I finished my recruiting duty tour, I went to the USS Ogden and got the opportunity to deploy two times and directly in support of the global war on terror, earned the Operation Iraqi uh Expedition Warfare Medal. I forget what that one's called exactly. The Iraqi campaign got that one because of things that we did in support of that endeavor, took Marines to war, unfortunately came back with less Marines each time, did a bunch of operations that were sworn to secrecy back then that were really, really cool things that the Navy was doing to support the war fight, did a bunch in support of chaos and ABO and the oil terminals, and just got the chance to really go out there and represent for our country and to help. Uh I don't want to say get back, but I would just say uh uh recover from September 11th because we I think we as a whole country took a hit. And part of our recovery from that was we we had to do something about that. Um and then I got the chance to not just only serve my country during that period of time, but got the chance to serve the entirety of that operation as I went from the USS Ogden to a float training group, then out to the 7th Fleet on board the George Washington and see the China build up, see Korea, just see all these things, the rush. I remember when Rush China was first building aircraft carriers, and we were kind of laughing about it on the George Washington as it was their first carrier. Now look at where we are in 2025, right? Things have just evolved a long time, and I've had the opportunity to be on the inside of that. And through all of that, I really gained a lot of pride in being an American and being a veteran and being a part of the United States Navy, serving my country, having the chance to go be do operations that I know really mattered uh to the nation, to the Navy, to the armed forces, to my shipmates. And that's something that I will always be proud of, right? Our generation of sailor, marine, airman, uh soldier, we we will have always been the ones that that did the things that were asked of us to do. And we all we all did our things, right? Whatever your job was, you did it. And I think one of the biggest challenges we had was trying to get put back in the box again after everything was kind of said and done. I think that was hard, right? Especially after uh just that the up tempo of everything that we did. Uh, but uh that's what I'm mind. So that's what my fourth one, I believe, is just being super proud to be a global war on terror veteran, being an Iraqi campaign veteran, being a Navy veteran, being a veteran of the armed forces through a generation that helped our nation recover from the attacks of 9-11 and September 11, 2001. And let's hope we never have to go through that again because that was chaos. That that just that was that was something else, right? All right, next up, man. Um, ladies and gentlemen, the next one is my wife, Erica. Again, this is in no particular order. I just kind of jotted these things down on a piece of paper. Uh, like I told you before, I Erica is my beginning and my end. She is my alpha and my omega. Uh, so again, this this is in no particular order. I kind of put this really in the middle just because it just I didn't want I I'll I'll spend the whole time talking about Erica. I love the girl so much. That is my she is my wife, she is my friend, she is everything. And she was given to me by God. Like I have no doubt it was a blessing for me when I met my wife. When I met my wife, Erica, I was a Navy recruiter, third class petty officer. I had nothing. I had two sea bags, I had a bunch of clothes in a closet, I had a box spring and a mattress on the floor. I had nothing. I to this day I still don't know what the girl saw in me. And it was thank God, thank God that I stayed in the Navy. Because I thought about getting out. I thought about getting out. Um, I really did. It wasn't until they offered me recruiting duty that I chose to stay in. Because when it when I thought I was just gonna go to another ship, I was getting out. I was I was done. When they offered me recruiting duty, I took it and I went recruiting, and that's where I met Erica. And someday I'll tell that story in more in more depth. But she changed my life. Everything about my world changed from the minute I not only began to date Erica, but I mean I knew I was gonna marry Erica pretty much the day that I met her. I mean, this true story. Uh, I meet Erica on a Saturday at an ROTC drill competition. So at a Navy junior ROTC drill competition. I am a recruiter who is a judge. Erica is a junior college student who is there helping out her old Marine Corps junior ROTC unit that her sister's a part of, that we still compete with to this day every year at Iron Bear because Erica went to Clearwater High School and she was in Clearwater High School, Marine Corps JROTC. And it was an Admiral Farragut uh Navy prep school, if you will, down in St. Petersburg, Florida, where this competition was being held. And I met her that day, right? Um, and I talked to my dad the very next day on the phone after I met Erica, and I told him in that conversation that I think I met somebody that might be the person I'm gonna marry the very next day. And I I had met Erica on that Saturday, we'd exchanged information, but she didn't call me back until that following Monday. So that was very pretentious of me on Sunday to have that conversation. And we we met March 2nd, 2001, and we got married March 2nd, 2002. And of course, our marriage was affected by 9-11 because my best man was getting deployed on board the John F. Kennedy at the time. And so we pulled uh the wedding up to the left so he could make sure to be there for that. And but it worked out that it was our one-year anniversary, and we got married. And now here we are, you know, 2025, still together, still married from 2001 to 2025. That was a huge blessing. And if I had not, you know, joined the United States Navy, if I had not taken on the opportunity to go on that adventure, I'm I would not have been at that place at that time. And I may not have had the things that she was looking for in a potential husband and a person to share her life with. So that's the next one on the list, right? All right. Again, I can do a whole I can do a whole hour just on that on that whole conversation, but I won't, I won't bore you all with that, but that's my next one. Okay. Um my family and I, this is our my next one. This is five, right? Five. We have have had the awesome opportunity to live overseas for almost half of my military career. 12 years we lived overseas, primarily in Japan. I did Japan was my first three years. Um, and then when I got stationed on board the USS George Washington, at the time Erica was not excited to go to Japan. But I remember after there was a fire on board the George Washington, I had done the investigation. I was a part of the aircraft, Air Force's team. I got the chance to go on board the ship and just see what everything that had happened. And I remember telling Erica, like, hey, if I get the chance to get orders to a ship like the George Washington, I would make my career. That's exactly the kind of place I need to go. Well, about a year later, Erica calls me up one day. I'm on a ship doing a damage control inspection, and she's upset on the phone. And she said, Hey, some master chief just called me up because he thought my number was your number. He's about to call you now and he wants you to go to the George Washington in Japan. And she's very upset. And I was like, I didn't know there was anybody gonna call me. Well, sure enough, this master chief calls me up. He's my detailer, and he says, Hey, look, the USS George Washington contacted me directly, and they they wanted to know if you would take orders uh to the GW. And I was not yet in my window for orders at that time. It was, I was, it was early. So I called up my mentor, who was uh at Air Forces in Norfolk at the time, and and he had had something to do with it, and he basically said, Yeah, you need to terminate short duty, take the orders to the George Washington and go out and do great things. You're the guy. Um, and that's exactly what I did. And I called Erica back and I said, Hey, look, um, this is an opportunity. I think we should do it, and we get choice of coasts afterwards. We were living in San Diego, all Erica's family was on the East Coast, so we wanted to get to Virginia afterwards, and this was a way to do it. Um she said, okay. So we dropped papers, terminated short of the early, took the orders to the George Washington, and we went to Japan. Um, literally, I get to Japan two weeks later, I leave Erica for six months. Loan of furniture, just her and Hayden. Hayden's like two years old, and I'm gone for like six months, and we're we're we're underway out of there. Uh, but when I came back, Erica was full up to speed on Japan. She had a driver's license, she was driving, she was doing everything that she needed to be doing. And over the next, you know, two and a half years, we really fell in love. She really fell in love with Japan. And it for me was a much different experience than my first time because I had a car, I had a place to live, very different. Uh, I remember when we came back to the States from that tour and we landed in Virginia Beach. One of the first things Erica said, she was like, How fast can you get me back to Japan? Hey, figure it out. And it was two and a half years later, I terminated short duty again early. So I had dropped papers for the Command Master Chief program. And I remember I talked to that detailer. He says, All right, you're a CMC now. Congratulations. What do you want to do? And I said, Brother, I want an LST in Sasebo, Japan. And he was just like, What? People don't want that. I was like, That's what I want. I want to go to Sasebo. I want an amphib. Send me. I want to go. That's exactly what I got. Terminated shorter, went to Sasebo again. We did that for two years. And then I got the opportunity to go to Yokosuka, Japan, and be a part of the Seventh Fleet staff because a buddy of mine was currently up there at Seventh Fleet. A lot of things were going wrong in the Navy at the time. And they thought that, you know, hey, me and a couple other guys had something we can offer. And they pulled us all up there to Yokosuka. And that we got the chance to go back to Yokusuka and have that experience for another year and a half. That was amazing. And then we got the chance to go to Guam. And that was just Guam was just such a special place. We love that opportunity. So overall, we got 12 years out of 25 years to live overseas, Japan and Guam, plus we got to spend seven years in San Diego, plus two and a half years or so in Virginia Beach area. Just all good things, right? That's phenomenal duty stations. Can't complain about that. Not even a little bit, right? All right. Number six, if you're counting, right? Number six. So I am now 48 years old. I retired from the United States Navy at 45 years old. Um I wake up every morning and just for breathing, I make about 60% of my monthly income. So about 60% of my monthly income comes from my retirement check and things that I got because of my time in the service. 60% of my monthly income. Now I do make some money because I'm a high school teacher, because I work with the school and I make some money because of my leadership business. But I have a pension and I have uh checks that come in every month because of my years of service. That I that I got based off of uh everything that I went through. That's it really helps my quality of life, our quality of life as a family, especially as you go through this transition of leaving something. Because if I ladies and gentlemen, if I could have stayed in the Navy till I was 65, I might have. Right? If they if I might have too easy, right? I'm probably gonna teach high school till I'm 65, 70. I love it. I love structure, I love being a part of the team. I do not mind putting in the work. I don't I do practices for my high school kids on Friday after school. Nobody else, you know why I do that? Because no one else does it. So I can get all the kids on Friday after school, and I don't mind it because I love serving, right? The only re I mean, quite possibly one of the main reasons why I got out of the Navy at 25 years is because I knew it was coming no matter what, right? They said you've got to get out around 30, 32 years of service. So then I started looking at the door, like, well, then why am I gonna stick around to wait and miss opportunities? I might as well just get the going, right? But here I am at 45 years old or now at 48 years old, and it takes a lot of pressure off having a pension that already comes in, having access to benefits that I got from my years of service that offset the stress and the pressure of living our daily life. Now, is there challenges? Yes, definitely. Um, it was a hard 25 years. There are scars that are deep and they go fast, and it's it's tough. There is some tough times. I mean, life expectancy for a Master Chief Petty Officer uh that does 30 years of service or an E9 in any branch of the service after 30 years, it's just it's not that good. You do, your body takes a toll, your mind takes a toll, especially when you're staying so sharp for so long. It's hard. But as I work on unwinding all that, as I work on figuring out life and finding happiness, thankfully, the the number one fear is not finances. That's huge. That's huge. That's an I tell people an investment is something that when I put something in, I get a return. One of the biggest investments I've made in my life was 25 years of service to my country. And the return on that investment is financial support for the rest of my life. Now, of course, I've got to worry about whenever I pass away, my wife will not have access to all those things anymore. So I had to make decisions to support her and get a bunch of other things figured out, which I maybe I'll talk about in another in another video. But for the day to day right now, that's super good, helpful, super good. Right. And there were jobs that I was offered making significantly more money than I'm making right now, right? Significantly more money, like a lot more money. Why am I doing what I chose to do now? For peace, for passion, because I love working with people, and these kids are freaking inspiring. And I have kids and I want them to have the best high school experience possible. And because I did 25 years for my country to get the opportunity to just do the thing that I want to do with my time as a retired veteran. Huge. All right. So that is gonna be number six. Here we go. Number seven. You know, uh it's super special to find things you're good at in this world. When I talk to the students, I always want them to think about the areas that their hobbies, the things they enjoy, trying to unlock something inside of them that really brings fulfillment. You know, I like I said earlier, I love being an engineer. I love having the support and the trust and the faith of my chain of command that I can fix something or that I can troubleshoot something. Um, when I became a chief petty officer, the access or the perspective that they brought to me, what unlocked in my life was I wasn't just a good engineer. I could be good with people, right? I could make change for people that served with me and beneath me and junior to me and make their life better. And since then, from when I put on my anchors in 2006 until today, I have built a career of helping people, right? I learned my gift, my gift from God was to be able to listen to people, to work with people, to challenge people, help unlock within them what their ideas are, they're and help them break through plateaus and to go out and find uh opportunities that maybe they didn't know existed. And that fills my cup so much that when when you live in a space where you're constantly so energized, I believe you're you're walking the path that God has laid for you, right? I I tell people often the reason I I would know, or the reason I believe that I know that I'm doing the right thing is that the blessings are just so good. Right? That's how you know. And for me, this was the Navy. And when I was a teenager, I was a leader then too, but it wasn't always for the good things, right? So now here I am at 48 years old, and I just get to spend the majority of my time working with people, helping them unlock what they want to do with their life, and figuring out ways to go out and find what makes them excited to be alive and to thrive and to go out and change their world for a better place. I love doing that for sailors. Now I get to do it for young, young people in high school. This whole thing on this whole YouTube thing, or using the computer, or making these videos, it's just all part of the same thing, getting to share this energy and these ideas and these blessings that I've been given with God, whoever wants to hear it. Whoever wants to hear it. And I've been very fortunate to have help a lot of people find success. And nothing makes me happier than when I then get a chance to catch up with them later, and they're so freaking successful, and we can link it back to a conversation or an idea or a strategy session or a plan or just anything, right? Super, super exciting. And it was my plat my path from joining the service from being in the navy because in the navy, man, I got exposed to so many big big people, so many just incredible human beings. You know, I just I just did a podcast yesterday with Brian Nelson. He's somebody that really just helped me so much. I've got Ian O'Meara coming up in a future podcast. I had Jeff Brooks. I'm gonna have Terry Thomas. I can just keep on rattling off names. My, you know, and my thing with the podcast is I don't need uh, I'm not looking for for Hollywood. I want regular people that served on the deck plates that are the ones doing the big things that were that no one knows about. I want to share their stories. You know, what my vision for a leadership speaking opportunity is not to have multi-millionaire speakers. I don't need all that. We paid one time when I was in Guam for uh a master chief, retired master chief at a higher level to come to Guam. Right? We literally paid for the flight, we paid for the hotel, all this crap. And the speech that the person gave, any of us could have given that speech. And I was just thinking to myself, like, why would we spend all that money next time? Are we gonna use that money to buy more gifts for the attendees or have more money left in our coffers for other things? No longer am I going to be paying people to come speak to my community when I've got plenty of people in my community that can handle that opportunity. And they didn't they deserve that opportunity too, because that might be their opportunity that might be their big break, right? Super huge. So for my channel, my real intention, I'm not looking to get these high-level, supposed to be exceptional Master Chiefs, which I'm sure they're all great, right? Nothing against them. Some of them might if I know you personally, maybe we'll maybe we'll get down. You contact me, sure, bro. No problem. I'll have you on the show. But what's gonna impress us is not going to be your title, it's going to be the lessons you can give us along the way, right? Okay, all right. Uh here we go. So I'm getting down to the end for this video. Uh my my next reason for why I'm super thankful I joined the service and did a career. I love working with these kids. Man, I was a troubled teenager, I was an at-risk youth, ladies and gentlemen. Four high schools and a year and a half of high school and six quarters of high school, right? And in Utah, where I grew up, high school was 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. So four quarters in 10th grade and two quarters in 11th grade, and I went through four high schools, right? I was a troubled teenager, and there was not a lot of adults working with me, looking to connect with me outside. My I love my parents, but my dad was working a lot of hours. My mom just wasn't suited to handle the things I was going through. She just it was the 90s, right? And she's not from the it was just tough. It was just tough. I'll put it like that. No, no stones. I love that I love my parents, they did the best that they could. Um, but if I could have had somebody, possibly my things would have been different, right? I also in the military, you're lucky if you get 18 months with a team. You know, typically uh someone's rotating in 12 to 18 months. So you might get there and you might get the chance to build a great team. And I all my ships, all my duty stations, I've always been able to come to a command and turn it into what it needed to be. It might take me two, three years, but I got it there, right? Ashland took two years. Seventh fleet staff, it only took a year and a half. Damn, Naval Base Guam, it was done in two years, right? The worst part about MVG was having to stay there for my last year to retire. That was tough, right? Because we we had checked, we had gotten that high point at two years, but then you know, things just change and there's this life cycle of evolution, right? Uh, but in this high school environment, I get to have sustained uh impact with these students. I get to work with them from their freshman year, ninth grade, all the way till their senior year. It is amazing to watch the growth of these kids. These seniors that I've got this year were my first year freshmen. I would literally take that team of about 30, about 25, 30 cadets, and I'd put them almost pound for pound against anybody. They are amazing. And just the idea that I'm gonna be able to continue to do this for the next 20 years, that's super exciting, right? Oh, and by the way, I get to live, I'm living in my dream house. I'm living in a great community in Ocala, Florida. I have a great church, which those were my goals when I retired. I wanted to find a great church to be a part of, I wanted to find a good school system to be a teacher for my kids and to be a part of as an instructor, right? And I wanted to find a great community that I could live in, and that the house was everything that I wanted it to be for my wife or for my kids and for my future grandkids. Check, check, check. Got it all, right? Got to it at 45 years old, right? Remember when I first met Erica in 2001, all I had were two seabags to my name, and I was a damage control third-class petty officer. Not bad. Not bad, man. Not bad. Okay. Uh I think the last one for this, and I'm not sure what number I'm on right now, but this is the last one for this video. Um, I talked about, you know, four high schools and six quarters of school. When I joined the United States Navy, I had to get my GED to ship to boot camp. I literally had to go take a test and pass it. And I had no studying. I never took a prep course. I didn't do any sort of a GED course. I did do adult education because in the state of Utah, you had to get a certain number of high school credits to take the GED. So I had to go to adult education in the evenings, me at 18 years old with a bunch of 40-year-olds getting their high school diplomas to get some high school credits. Thank God I passed that test. I still don't know how I passed it, but I passed it. And when I shipped off for boot camp, I had a GED. When I retired from the United States Navy at 25 years as a command master in chief of the United States Navy, I had a master's degree in organizational leadership. I had earned my bachelor's degree in fire science. I'd earned an associate's degree in applied marine engineering. And I even got a high school diploma. I got my high school diploma at the end of my recruiting tour, an actual high school diploma. So I have a GED, a high school diploma, associate's, bachelor's, and master's degree. And I have them all on my wall in my office at the school. And I did all that for free. The Navy tuition assistance program paid for all my education, right? High school, third class petty officer, got that done. I was a chief petty officer. I started my associate's degree as a second class petty officer, and I finished it as a chief petty officer, right? I went to the GW and did my bachelor's degree on the ship underway because back in those days, everyone said in order to get rank, you needed college, right? So I banged out my bachelor's degree in fire science. I thought I was done, went to shore duty, and I was on shore duty at SWAS at Surface Warfare Officer School. And I was like, oh my God, I got so much time off. I got all this free money from Navy College program, tuition assistance that I'm not using. I felt guilty. I wanted to be the best command master chief that I could be, and I knew I was going to go into the program. So I went back to school and got that master's degree in organizational leadership just so I could be a better command master chief. That was the whole reason. Rating-related degrees. If you look at all my degrees, applied marine engineering, fire science, organizational leadership. Every piece of education I got was to help me be better at my job for service. And it was to pay the Navy back from investing in me with their tuition assistance program. But now I'm able to give both of my sons 18 months of my GI bill so they can go to school. Right? 18 months each of them. Right? Well, I give Erica a month just in case she decides she wants to go to school. We can transfer some months around. But the boys each have 18 months of college fully paid for. Plus, in the state of Florida, because of my veteran benefits, my sons don't have to pay for tuition or for books or for any of that stuff. They pretty much get to go to school for free as long as they go to a state school. Okay. Well, my oldest son is looking at becoming a firefighter for the local community or a public school teacher because, hey, he wants to serve. Dope. Let's do that, bro. We'll figure it out. We can do that at the local community college, all free, courtesy of the GI Bill and dad's veterans benefits. Huge. Huge. So again, for me to come from being a 15-year-old, 16-year-old high school dropout, from being a 19-year-old undesignated fireman with a GED to retiring from the United States Navy as first I was a damage, I was a damage control master chief, which for me that was one of my favorite accomplishments throughout my career. Making Master Chief and my source rating was huge. Nothing against the people who went the command senior chief program. It's just something about making Master Chief and your source rate and knowing you did your job so freaking good that you were put to the top 1% of your community. And then, you know, essentially walking away from it. And, you know, I left the damage control rate because honestly, I didn't want to go work on some staff duty for the rest of my career. I wanted to go back to sea, but I didn't want to go into the aircraft carrier. I wanted to go back to an LSD. I wanted to go back to a mid-sized ship and you know, do do the operations with the Marines and have fun, which is what I did. Right? Uh, and then coming out of the Navy as a command master chief, just just just, you know, so so awesome. Uh okay, so that's today's video. I appreciate anyone that listens to me or pays attention to this message. I I want y'all to understand there's always things in life we can look at. Sometimes you see a clip and you only get a piece of the story. I love my sailors, I love my Chiefs mess, I love my family, I love my students, I love everything about life. Very thankful to be here, very thankful to share this story with you all and this journey with you all. And if you have any questions, hit me up in the comment section, message me. You know, I'm just Gary Wise, out here doing my best to figure this thing out. And I hope y'all enjoyed. And if you have any questions, let me know. Thank you very much. Talk to y'all later.