How Service, Faith, And History Shape A Life Of Purpose

History isn’t background noise here; it’s the compass. We open by connecting Cold War alliances to today’s fault lines, then ride along as David Kano—retired Navy Chief Hospital Corpsman—shares how “sailor first” shaped every step: enlisting three months before 9/11, stabilizing patients in Iraq’s trauma bays, and learning that prevention is power when you’re safeguarding a ship’s water, food, and heat stress programs.

From Okinawa to Al Asad, then outside the wire in Helmand as an IA, David pulls back the curtain on what high‑tempo service really asks of people. He explains why line corpsmen are the beating heart of battlefield care, how a carrier in Japan can be both the toughest and most rewarding tour, and what it takes to recalibrate in Rota, Spain where diplomacy, partnership, and patience share the stage with checklists. Making chief becomes a lesson in active communication, humility, and lifting others—anchors as identity, not ornament.

The conversation turns deeply personal with COVID, hospitalization, and the loss of a father in the same week—an inflection point that led to retirement and a new mission. David’s next chapter, Dave’s Transmissions, blends national security, economic opportunity, health affairs, education, history, and science into clear, practical writing guided by a simple credo: be good, fight evil, help people. Along the way, we trade rapid‑fire insights on parenting teenagers, choosing overseas orders, building resilience, and prioritizing in a world engineered for distraction.

If stories of service, leadership, faith, and starting over speak to you, press play. Then share this with someone who needs a steady voice, subscribe for more candid conversations, and leave a review to tell us what moment hit home for you.

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: History And Threats

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Hello, everybody that's out there listening to the sound of my voice. Hope you're all doing great. It's Gary, Gary Wise, Wise Leadership Solutions coming to you from Ocala, Florida.

Gary Wise 0:39

Hafiday, all the above, right? Uh, today I've got a very special guest here with me. He was a shipmate with me on board the USS George Washington, CVN 73 out of Yokosuka, Japan. He's a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer of the Hospital Corpsman Flavor. He goes by the name of Mr. David Kano. David, how you doing, man?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Good, Gary. Thank you, brother. How are you?

Gary Wise 1:05

I'm good, man. I'm good. Well, you know, I'm not gonna lie, I'm tired. I talked all day today in class. I'm teaching about the Korean War right now. And we went from World War II into the Cold War, and now it's the Korean War. And I'm telling the kids as I'm talking, like, look, I want you guys to understand this is communism versus us, right? And if you look at the at the world after World War II, it's when the communists really got linked up, right? The Russia, the China, the North Korea, the Cuba, right? They all started syncing up, and their first foray into making the move was Korea, right? That was their first foray. And I tell them, like, you know what? That attack, that that whole Korean peninsula problem is still of my top three major concerns for the world, right? If I look at the world through my uh my my lens of what would cause the most instability, right? And for me, number one, of course, is a terrorist threat to our country, whether foreign or domestic, doesn't matter. That's number one. Number two, of course, is the China problem. And then number three is Korea. And I tell them Korea for me, it's because it's not that we couldn't win Korea because we will. It's what does it mean? What's going on behind the scenes to cause that provocation to then become a thing? And then I said, now look at the world today, and you'll see are there still communists in the world, yes or no? And they'll say, Well, yeah. So, okay, well, think about that, right? And whether it was Korea, whether it was Vietnam, those two big, I mean, the other ones we got ourselves into, whether it was Iraq, Afghanistan, whatever it was, that was us handling war on terror or handling, you know, Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War, right? But both Vietnam and Korea was communism, right? And as I look at the world stage layout how it is today, I have a feeling the world's still gonna cut along those lines. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Uh uh Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think, and I and I love the hit, you know, the tapping into history, you know, to start the conversation because as you know, you know, a lot of my folks, you know, a lot of friends know that I've always loved history and uh especially 20th century, 20th century history. And exactly to your point, when we think about post-World War II era stuff, Korea, Vietnam, um, a lot of those alliances and in the history of those alliances still exist to a high degree, and as we still see today, but particularly China, you know, back then in the Korean War, China was really starting to flex its muscles as a future communist power, and a lot of the funding and the support, right, but basically came from from from the nate from China itself. So yeah, I think moving into today, a lot of the the alliances and the uh partnerships, so you know that that that existed back then still are present today, even though the world has evolved, like you said, different threats have manifested themselves regionally, politically throughout the world. You know, the the threats have evolved all throughout the world. There's new threats today, right? Of different sorts, but that one is still present.

Alliances Then And Now

Gary Wise 4:19

Well, and I think the alliances are actually getting uh an update, if you will. They're getting refreshed right now for the world. And what's what's really interesting about all this is when I first started this series with the kids, it was the same week China was throwing that big spectacle where they brought the North Korean leader down, they brought the Russian leader down, and they were commemorating their victory in World War II, right? And I was telling the students, like, look, everything I just taught you about World War II, where was China and Russia in any of those battles in the Pacific to take down the Japanese Empire? Not there, not existent, right? They were all occupied, they were unfortunately both China and Japan was occupied by Japan, right? They wanted us to win that war because they wanted to be liberated from the Japanese Empire because I tell them the Japanese were some bad dudes, they were freaking they were they were real, man. And it just was what it was, and but in the vacuum of power after that war, these other empires rose up, and that communist empire rose up, and there you go. Man, we we were not worried about all of that, we were focused primarily on Japan for our reasons, right? And I would say it's we felt guilty for for how the war ended, and we wanted to help best stabilize that country as they move forward, and that's for the historians to debate. But we provided the opening and the opportunity for places like China and Korea to grow. So, what I thought was interesting was how they were trying to rewrite history in the world stage as to celebrate this ending of World War II, right? We all know whose ship the paperwork was signed on, right? When the war was said and done. But we see that in the world, right? We see NATO alliances being uh questioned and or remember when the president first got into office, right, wrong, or indifferent, he told everybody, hey, y'all gotta pay your fair share to this team, right? If we're all a team, part of being a team is we all do the rules, and it's not just an American thing. And and and I bring this up just because it's how I spent my day talking with the cadets, the young Americans that are in my classroom. And you like you know, like I know, unfortunately, history is it repeats itself. And if we don't pay attention to the lessons of the past, they may come back for and haunt us in the future, you know.

Citizenship, Service, And Perspective

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Totally, yeah, we're citizens of this world, and I think that I I remember I remember starting enlisting in the Navy and years ago, and then uh you know, going through the whole Corbin Pipeline training and then studying for the very first advancement exams. I mean, going way back, you know, uh being at E3, studying for the first E4 exams. And I remember even then, even in this technical manual for the hospital corps, we're studying 85% of what is our technical rating. There was always the ship stuff, the basic military readiness stuff. Uh if I still remember my lingo, and I still remember snippets of of content that involved national security, because at the end of the, you know, bottom line is that before we became the technical specialists in our in our um NECs in the name in the Navy, we were sailors first, and the job of a sailor is to defend their nation, national security, defend, you know, we took an oath to support and defend the constitution and protect America from all enemies, domestic and foreign. And I remember some of that information, like little snippets of history and big big you know, big item stuff being in that basic military readiness manual about you know basic history. So uh it's real. And you even then, you know, like you know, you were talking about uh talking to some of the cadets, you know, we we we a lot of people have a tendency to really kind of condense themselves into their local or state or national or regional issues. You know, some people love national, international issues, some people are more about local stuff, but no matter what, every American, every person living in their house, their neighborhood, their community, their family, wherever they're at, is still a member of a bigger stage, a part of a bigger stage. I mean, uh 9-11, those folks who were walking into their places of work on September 11th, you know, they were, yeah, they were New Yorkers, they were living in Manhattan, they were working in those buildings. They may not have been thinking about world events or terror attacks. They were just doing their job, going into a place of work with plans of leaving that building at the end of the day and going back home with their families, family, community work. But though that day, those attacks was an attack on the world, on the free world. So all of us here are members of a bigger stage, I believe. And I think that to your point, that's something that we need to be telling young kids about. Yeah, pay attention to your family, your community, and your local scene, but also watch the you know, pay attention to news. You don't have to be a news junkie like all of us are like I am, but it it does help to kind of see what's going on in the world and try to connect dots and patterns, brother.

Gary Wise 9:10

Spot on, man. And you know, as we're getting ready to kick into this thing, again, I'm just I I appreciate these conversations because I don't often get the chance to be around other veterans, other people, and have these kinds of conversations because you know, I don't want everybody to know my I don't want to get too political on things, you know, because I go both sides of the of the world. I really do. Like, I'm I'm very open-minded, I very much appreciate everyone's conversation. I just hate corruption, like I'll be honest with you. Like, I do not like an unfair fight, right? Like that bothers me. I don't like when things are are wrong and they're and they're broke, but I can be, I can definitely see both sides of any situation. I know there's three sides to every situation, right? Your side, your side, and the truth, somewhere in the middle. And so, and as a as a person that served in the military, the majority of all my adult life, let's be honest, I was shaped in a space where you had to be uh ready to flex to other people's needs and or desires because I wasn't typically the most senior person in the room, right? And take your personal beliefs, put them in the pocket. You gotta go to work, bro. Do your thing and let it all. How serious is it to you? It's not that serious. Okay, then let it go. It's not worth jeopardizing a long-term relationship or making your work day any more uncomfortable than it needs to be. You know, when I first got initiated in the Chiefs mess, one of the things they pounded into us was we don't talk about religion and the mess, we don't talk about politics in the mess, right? Those are just two things that were taboo. And then as I went through my journey and my career, I found out, oh, but we did. Oh, but we did, but we did it in a way that allowed for us to have authentic conversations and not be just automatically butthurt about something that somebody says, because we can have different perspectives, right? Um, all good stuff, and and I I appreciate you you you you going about with me on that. So, brother, just so I understand, or if I remember this correctly, are you born and raised in Texas?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yes, sir. I was born in Odessa, Odessa, West Texas, and we moved, yes, I born in Odessa, and we moved to San Antonio when I was a teenager. Okay, and spent most of my teenage years, you know, uh in high school here in San Antonio before I enlisted.

Gary Wise 11:21

So when you were coming up as a teenager, you know, because again, a lot of my listeners are teenagers, a lot of my students will listen into these podcasts, and they and they're they're interested because they're trying to figure out their life, you know. And like me, you're a dad, you know, and you've got kids that are, you know, teens, adolescents, and so they're trying to figure it out. Yeah, you know, as a teenager, what was it that attracted what were you thinking about doing after high school? Were you thinking college? Were you were you thinking was military immediately an option for you?

Growing Up, Cold War Media, And Motives

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, as a teenager, ever since I was a kid and growing up into a teenager, I always had a fascination, not just history, but the United States Navy. Now, remember, I grew up in the 80s, right? I remember, you know, I was the youngest of six. My parents were Mexican immigrants, they came to the States from Mexico in 1970, and I had a group of four older sisters and one older brother. Uh, a house of eight loud Mexicans, right? And uh it was fun. It was fun because there was a lot of conversation and dialogue, a lot of animation, a lot of emotion, right? Uh, but what I what I but I had a fun childhood, I had a really good childhood because I had a great family, a fun family. And I remember, but it was during the Cold War. And I remember growing up, I watched a lot of movies. One thing about me as a kid, I did two things. I watched a lot of movies. I loved movies. Still, I'm a big movie guy, and I read a lot of books. I was always a bookworm as a kid. So I read, you know, those old rule book encyclopedias that were books. I read like the whole thing, like Bill Gates style. I don't know what it was. I just had a I just read a lot, but I watched a lot of movies, and you know, in the 80s, the Stallone, the Rambo movies, all those Chuck Norris movies. There seemed to be a Cold War theme. You know, Rambo and Rocky were always fighting against you know the Soviet Union and the bad guys, right? 007 movies, there was always a component about that. Um, and then Chuck Norris movies, things like that. So there was this maybe, maybe it shows the the the gravity of entertainment on a lot of young minds growing up, but that was kind of the theme. It was us, it was the United States versus communist, communist nations, and it it seemed to be a kind of a real threat growing up in the 80s because that was the era of the Reagan buildup. Those were conversations that occurred and stuff in the aftermath of the Vietnam syndrome, which occurred for many years. So that was kind of that was part of the psyche growing up. And and then when I became but when I became a teenager, uh, then I just kind of became a typical teenager. My I kind of developed interest in other things, right? But um bottom line, uh, there came a point when I just decided to go ahead and do it, and I decided to enlist. Uh I went to college for one year, San Antonio College in San Antonio. Yeah, and um, but I thought to myself, you know what, it would be it would be good to just enlist, you know, and at least do I was gonna my initial plan was just to do five years and get out, uh, serve my country, do the patriotic thing, be a veteran for life, you know. And and I did it, and I enlisted in May of 2001, three months before 9-11.

Gary Wise 14:10

Oh, you know what's funny about everything you just kind of brought up, similar, you and I are similar age. I was born in 77. My dad was a Vietnam veteran. Um, my grandfather was a World War II veteran. And yeah, I grew up in a household that there was concerns about the stabilization of the world, and there were concerns about Russia, and there was there was this fear that I think was embedded in them, you know, coming up in those in that generation, if you will. And my dad's generation, the Vietnam vets, they came back from war to a country that really didn't treat them well, right? And they didn't understand, you know, what did they do wrong? Because they were just so saying my dad was a sailor in the Navy who joined because of all the reasons a lot of us joined. He didn't join to go kill people, he just went to go do the thing, right? And to change his circumstance. But in our country at that time, I remember going again through Chiefs Initiation, they taught us about how the press was shifted that narrative a lot during the Vietnam conflict, yeah, much different than maybe it had in the years previously, right? Um, and of course, communication had evolved and technology had evolved and all that. So that generation uh was very, very, I would say, focused, hyper-focused on Russia. And I remember still seeing when the Berlin Wall came down. And that I was in junior high school when that happened, right? And this whole concept of well, why does that wall coming down matter and what's going on in the world? And Reagan was the president, right? And trying to figure out uh how America was gonna be on this world stage. Then the 90s came, and that was a great decade for so many things, yeah, right. I mean, and I and I thought it was interesting because I was watching uh the Secretary of War, right? As they are currently coined now, and he said he wants to re-baseline everything to the 1990 standard. And he said, I was watching that, and he said, you know, that's as good of his time of any, right? But when I dug more into that date that he picked in particular, was that in a lot of ways, at our fundamental self as a as a fighting force, as a country, even 1990, we were pretty solid as a country, right? Like as a country, not just a navy and army and air force as a country, we were pretty locked in, right? It was pretty good. I mean, yes, you had some crime or whatever it was, but it was not what it is, what it has become, and then we had a really great decade where a lot of great things happened, and then unfortunately we get attacked in 2001, right? And what we'll never know is how the world would have been different had 9-11 never happened, right? Because I remember I joined the Navy in 1997, right? So I got three about three and a half years before 9-11. Um, and so I got the chance to be in the service before 2001 and to be in the Navy and to kind of feel that, how that was. But I remember after 9-11, just this immense fear of like, we don't know who's in our country, we don't know who's a threat. And but in the service, we already knew that concern. I remember being a 20-year-old American and people asking me who was the greatest threat to our country. I'm a home on leave as a fireman from the USS Bellowed. And I'm like, look, it's it's terrorism, like we don't know where they're gonna come from. That's a concern. So we knew the threat, but we still didn't prevent them from attacking us, right? Because we just maybe we were optimistic, maybe we just were hopeful it wasn't ever gonna happen. I remember when the coal got hit, right? Yeah, that was the first big indicator, like, oh snap! Like we just had a ship get broadsided by a freaking by a big afloat IED, right? By a big afloat bomb. And then that was probably right about when you joined, yeah, and then a few months later, the actual 9-11 hit. And from that point on, it seemed like operations cycled up and technology just went with it, right? Like from the next cell phones that were like do-do, do do, do do talking to where we're at today, right? Well, it just all went together. Does that make sense?

Enlisting Before 9/11

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah, totally. Yeah, and I'm it's it's interesting that you mentioned 1990 because I'm actually in the in the middle of reading a book right now uh about the history of the Pentagon and the relationship between military officials, military leadership, and civilians. And I'm I'm still in the first couple of chapters, and part of the initial the part of the beginning of the book talks a lot about that particular area, the Gulf War, 1990. And I was about 12 years old when all that was going down. And and of course, you know, you had these colorful characters, you had you know a president, you know, George H. W. Bush at the time, following Reagan, who was probably the most in terms of in American history, because I have my lists of my favorite presidents, right? And but when it comes to H.W. Bush, he probably had the most impressive public service resume of any president in American history. And my three favorite presidents of all time are uh Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Washington, right? But and HW is probably somewhere in the top 15, but CIA director, UN ambassador, congressman, World War II pilot, vice president, ultimately president. That was just a phenomenal public service career. And the Golf War of 1990 was uh so important on so many levels because it was probably uh the most it was like a Mike Tyson first-round knockout of an opponent. It was the most spectacular U.S. military performance probably in history in terms of the speed and efficiency of what we did and how we did it and the alliances that we built up before the before the war. Uh you know, after the the famous moniker after the after the war was we finally kicked the Vietnam syndrome, so to say, because of course after Vietnam, right? And and and and I want to say something about Vietnam because I the the Vietnam generation uh is very near and dear to my heart. I think probably for more than any other reason is that they were they were the the Vietnam War outcome was not what it could have been. It was a very sad outcome, but it was not because of the warrior and the American soldier saver that fought in Vietnam. They were just as good, not better than any other generation, what they did, what they accomplished at there. It was a very it was a tough, complex war, right? But the fact of the matter is that it was just a tough rap. I mean, it was it was a very tough situation for them in the years that followed the war. But then when the Gulf War happened, you know, just people felt better overall about our military and about a lot of things. And then following the Gulf War, you know, in the 1990s, especially following the Clinton, Clinton's election, I think the nation did shift. You know, I think we started losing focus on national security. Remember 1992 election, uh Clinton's famous campaign slogan, it's the economy, you know, and and of course we had a great economic decade during the Clinton administration. Um, but then obviously going into 2000, 2001, we had the USS Cole attack. I still vividly remember the coal attack uh because the church that I was attending at the time, there was a service member who was on board whose family attended our church. So it got a lot of publicity and attention. The fact that the service member survived and they attended a church service when they came back from that attack. Um, but yeah, I I think that all these events started, you know, I was paying a lot of attention, even as a teenager, right? As an engaged teenager into world affairs, into these events uh ultimately going into um when I enlisted.

unknown 21:44

Yeah.

Gary Wise 21:45

So when you went to the recruiter and you and you were making this decision to serve your country, maybe get a chance to see a different part of the world, maybe do something different after all, because you like you did a year of college, and that wasn't really what you wanted to do. Did you know you wanted to get in the Medical field. Because you know, my dad was a corpsman. And when I joined the Navy, he was like, Don't do medicine. Don't do medicine. He also told me don't be an engineer, but that I didn't listen to that part. You know, but but did you know you wanted to get into medicine?

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Oh, great question. Uh you're making me think. You're making me really go back about that. So I I yes, I did, I was very interested in being a corpsman. I knew a little bit about the corpsman rating. Um, I didn't know everything. Uh, what I think was a little to be to be totally frank, what was kind of nerve-wracking about me, at least, and a lot of other sailors who were going to be corpsmen and fixing to go to corps school was the knowledge of the responsibility of uh being in charge of Marine Corps units. You know, because I mean I joined the Navy because I was thinking about the Navy ships, you know, uh, but 80, I would say a high percentage of hospital corpsmen when they become corpsmen, uh, some go to clinical settings like hospitals and clinics. The Corpsman rating is just so diverse. It's probably the most diverse rating, not just in the Navy, probably in the entire armed forces, right? But traditionally, percentage-wise, most corpsmen do go with uh with F-Fleet Marine Force units, Marine Corps units, some go to ships, others clinical settings. So the idea of being responsible for Marines uh was kind of something that was kind of interesting in the beginning. Um so I went to a field medical service school in Camp Pendleton, and then I started my career mostly with Marine with F-Fleet Marine Force units uh before I had a chance to go to the USS George Washington. But but yeah, to the question, yeah, medicine being a corpsman and the idea of taking care of people, healing people, um, was something that uh always had a lot of appeal and interest in me.

Choosing Corpsman: Sailor First

Gary Wise 23:37

You know what I love about that is I love when people come to the service and don't really have something specific in mind. I was a Navy recruiter for a few years, and I would always tell people like, recommend you have an open mind. The ASMAP is gonna tell us what areas you could be good at, and you don't have to do any of this forever. Yeah, if you don't like it, you can get out, you can do something different. There's different opportunities, but like I became an engineer that was turning wrenches on really expensive engineering equipment on ships, and I don't even work in my own car to this day, right? Like, I I'm good at it, I know I could do it, I have no problem learning it, but it's just it's what I did at the job, right? And I I love that you get the chance to get exposed to something that you didn't really think about, but you you you I know you were good at it because I remember working with you on the ship and you were very methodical, you were very good. I I can guarantee if I was hurt, you'd be the kind of person that would reassure me and help me get through that time while we figured it out, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Definitely, you know, Gary, and you made me think about something. I want to I want to point something out to you. Something came to heart right now when you were talking about the attitude that we come when we when we're satyrs first, right? And I took that very seriously. You know, we were taught satyrs first, cormon second, and then our technical jobs and all the other stuff third, right? And to me, I was, you know, I was talking to my knee. So my niece uh is in the process of heading out to boot camp in a couple of weeks, and she's enlisting and she's gonna be a corpsman, my niece Helena, my sister's daughter. And we had a going away for uh dinner for her about a couple of days ago, and it was a nice time, you know, before we sent her off. And and you know, a couple of folks uh shared words for her, um, and then they asked me to say a couple things to her, and I and I remember telling her, and this is just confessions, right? You know, when you retire, you can just say more and stuff. It one thing about me is interesting is I was not a very military, military type person. I was always a free spirit, an imaginary creative guy. Uh, I wasn't what you would call a typical military guy in terms of precision, structure, and discipline. I was never that kind of guy. What I was was extremely patriotic. Um, I had a very aggressive personality in terms of going and getting things done. Uh but very per but I just had a very I had a strong personality, but I was very patriotic. Uh, and I think that that helped me compensate for a lot of the deficiencies I had, typical military deficiencies, so to say, during my career. And but my heart was never a question. I always put my heart into everything, and um, I wasn't like, you know, you know, the um probably the most skilled in a lot of areas, but I definitely I believed in common sense and helping people out. Like when I was in the ship, and you know, you're you're 100% right. You know, we come we come into the Navy and we really are needs of the Navy. You know, we don't uh there's different, I think there was different philosophies that I experienced between the routes that different sailors took in terms of how to manage their career and how to interact with their environments. But I always believed this, and a lot of sailors that I work with would say this about me is that I always said, What is the mission? What is the job? What can I do? How can I put help my sailors? And that was something I I always took seriously when I was on the ship, and you know, I loved engineers because they made me the work center supervisor as a corpsman. I didn't even know what 3M was. I'll tell you, when I checked on board the USS George Washington in 2011, people were talking on the ship. You know, I'm a new, I'm a new, I'm an HM2 FMF, Iraq and Afghanistan, tours, greenside, gung ho. Yeah, and I start hearing about tag outs and 3M or pair lockers, and I'm like, I'm freaking out. Yo, I'm like, what is a tag out? You know, uh, so then I depended a lot on my engineering brothers and sisters, and you know, the guy, the guys that knew the ship. And they made me the work center supervisor. Um, but again, sailor for ship first. Hey, whatever. I I'll I'll be taking, I'll be doing my PMT job and my medical job. Hey, but now when it comes time to do maintenance, let's take care of the ship. So um, yeah, it just a passion for for service of the Navy. But I think the big the biggest thing is the patriotism, the patriotism is always there.

Gary Wise 27:39

So when you were getting ready to give her her your advice in that speech, were you just reminding her to be authentic to herself and to do it her way? Because that's kind of what I heard. And look, I will tell you that that makes a lot of sense to me because you went to Senior Listed Academy just like I did, and I remember getting exposed my first time to the Myers-Briggs type indicator test, right? And I was it was not till I was a master chief petty officer that I ever get an MBTI, right? No one ever offered that to me, right? I never got exposed to that. And I remember going through that course that I did, and I'm pretty sure it was Senior Listed Academy where I did it, yeah, and we all got these tests, and the most of us were like ESTJs, ISTJs, right? Which is it's this what the military trained us to be, right? We're almost all STJs, but then if you're these people that are like NFPs, you're you're these creatives that are in the military, and you it goes, it almost goes against your natural uh abilities or or who you're naturally are, but you're choosing to sacrifice that piece of you to be a part of this organization. And what I learned from that was as I met those people later on in my career, I would treat them much more, much kinder, right? Because when I was younger, I'd get frustrated. Like, stop daydreaming, bro. This is what we should do. Why? Like, we don't know why, we don't care, we're gonna go do the thing, right? But they're always asking the questions, right? Like, how come and why we're this way? It doesn't make sense, and yeah, and so when I learned, like, oh, there's these natural characteristics about people that just it's inherent to them, yeah. Then I can learn okay. Well, now I can learn how to better work with that person to get the best out of them. Yeah, did you find that you had leaders throughout your career that did that for you?

Leadership Without Labels

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Absolutely, yeah. Yes, 100%. And you know, I think you know, you mentioned the word sacrifice. There was a word that you used in that, you know, and it it that's definitely what I had to do because again, I'm kind of I'm just sharing, I'm being very candid about who how I really was coming in because I struggled in boot camp. You know, I was that guy that just you know, they used to make they used to joke around me when I was growing up in high school, even in a boot camp. They used to say, What happened if you cut my hands off that I developed a speech impediment because I talk so much with my hands, you know, I'm just a very expressive person. So I really struggled going through all the pipeline. Uh something was triggered, but but I but uh eventually it got to me. I got the I got the the the discipline did did I broke. They were able to break me and to rebuild me. I think probably around core school. And I think it was good because what it did is that that in the installation of the structure and the discipline that permeated my soul and brain, so to say, was so good because I think that it probably enhanced the other talents and abilities that I already had. So it was just a kind of like of an absorption and integration of new skills on top of the creativity and the communication and stuff like that. So that was good. And I welcomed that. Um, and then in field medical service school, uh, after course school is field medical service school, then even more so. I mean, we're talking about Marines, United States Marines. So I mean the discipline is on point. And um, it was funny. I my I use my imagination to kind of transform myself, you know, and I was always doing that. I I heard um the word the word I like to use is reinvention and transformation. I said, look, this is the culture, this is the environment. I always studied like actors, actors, method actors, how they transform themselves based on their environment in the script. That's kind of how I did, because I was an actor growing up in high school and stuff, and that's kind of really what I did. Okay, forget about whatever's going on, my own propensities, right? This is the environment, this is the need to transform myself. Uh, and I think that that's kind of what happened early on in my career. Um, the lead and I and I think that I had so I was blessed with so many good leaders to your to the question. So many leaders, I think, probably you know, because leaders are wise, you know. I think you know, we you the thing about you know, when when we became chiefs and senior chiefs, we saw a lot of young sailors and we saw pieces of ourselves and others when we were coming up, right? We had that understanding, and there's no doubt that when I was coming up, that I had good, solid, caring chiefs and officers that definitely looked out for me. And they probably saw a lot of kinks in me, but I think that they just saw my potential, and and and I'm just to this day, I'm so grateful. I think a lot about these people, and there's times I even call them, I call them out. I call I reach out, I just I reach out to them just telling them, hey, you know, thank you for what you did years ago.

Gary Wise 32:13

Awesome. And for your niece, just so like your just did I get that right? Did you just give her that advice of to be yourself and do your best? And or what what was that advice you were giving to her as you were offering your your your recommendations?

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yeah, yeah, the the biggest thing I told her, and I I mean I could have told her so much, but I wanted to I wanted to tell the biggest thing, I think the most important thing I told her was, you know, because I'm a I'm a you know a person as a person of faith, right? I said, I think that everybody has strengths and weaknesses, right? You have your strengths, some people others will have strengths, things like that. But I said, the biggest strength you have, the biggest advantage that you have is that you have people that love you and are praying for you. Yeah, and that's really kind of what I focused in. I said, like, you know, I said, I know that's how I succeeded. That was the difference maker. The fact that loved ones and family and friends were praying for me, that has been the biggest dismague. I'm a big believer in the power of prayer, and and and I and that's kind of that's essentially what I told her. I said, people are praying for you, and um, and you're gonna be okay. Because I know that like like every young sailor, every sailor is gonna go through those moments, right? Oh my god, what did I get myself into? You know, those moments of doubt. You know, she's gonna go and I and I here's the thing, because I wanted to share a lot, but I didn't. I I purposely restrained from because I wanted to experience it. I kind of wanted to go in there raw. I didn't want to give her I don't I didn't want to give her the tips because who knows, maybe I'm wrong, maybe things have changed. I don't know, but it was her experience is her own. But one thing I did I did want to share with her is that no matter what, to feel encouraged that she was being prayed for.

First Tours And The 31st MEU

Gary Wise 33:51

Yeah, that's huge, man. And I would tell you that so many people come into the especially the service, but also just life, like kids that go to college, they just they feel isolated, they feel alone, they don't, they they forget all the people that really love them and that are there for them. And I always I used to always tell the sailors, especially when they're going through hard times, I I would, I would, I'd be the guy there. I'd be the one they'd be talking to, right? And I would tell them, I say, you know, I would hope that if my son or daughter was to ever join the service, there'd be somebody like me on the other side of that country, the world, sitting with my son or daughter because I couldn't be there and helping them through this hard time. And then I would always reinforce them, and you should call your mom and dad. Like you should make a phone call home and tell them they're gonna love you, because you know how it is. These young kids get out there, start making grown decisions, right? And things go sideways and or they're in trouble or whatever it is, and it's just like you know, I tell the kids I never I almost loud by nature, right? I'm a damage control man, right? But if I'm angry, I'm very quiet because I don't want to say anything in anger that I'm gonna regret later, right? So if I'm it was when people are going through hard times, I don't know that it mattered, it's gonna make it better by being loud or being angry on top of that, right? And I remember it always catch the sailors off guard because they were so loose to me being they're so used to being loud and leading strong that when they were really going through stuff and I was super quiet and just there with them and like wanting to help them, it would always kind of throw them for the loop. And I'm like, look, there's leadership day for day, but this is serious. Like, we need to, and we're we're here for each other, we're a team, and it's gonna be okay, and we'll get through it because even if you made a bad choice, and and but just like you, I've got my faith. I fight from a place of victory, right? I've already won, right? Like, I've already got the victory, and I'm I'm not gonna lead like that always in my in my military mindset, but I'm gonna tell them it's gonna be okay, yeah. We'll get through this and and we'll figure it out. And I think that's that was probably very sage guidance for you to give to her and to remind her of that. And when you joined the military, did you come in with faith like that, or did you learn that throughout your journey? Because when I I was raised in the church, I I found Jesus again at boot camp, okay? Because it's boot camp.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

We we get closer, we get closer, we get closer to the Lord of boot camp.

Gary Wise 36:29

But I might have lost him again right after boot camp, right? So, did you come in with that level of faith off the bat, or is that something you've kind of matured into throughout your life?

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Yeah, well, definitely. Well, I mean, I had been I grew up in church like you. I I had always had faith before years before I entered. Uh, I think that military service, especially the 9-11 generation, you know, the operational tempo and just the culture and psychology, the intensity that was developing within this within the armed forces. Um I think that I definitely grew in my faith, no doubt. Um, because the you know, our Chief's Creed says it, our Chief's Creed is so great, it's so accurate, it's so it's so powerful, you know, in terms of uh it encapsulates it all. It's tough. This job wearing this uniform is no joke. The burden, the responsibility, the pressure, and I think that the pressure of active duty life uh definitely drew me closer, uh helped me grow in my faith.

Gary Wise 37:29

Okay, so when you graduated fleet or fleet marine school, you got shipped overseas to Japan, right? The Marines, and so like you, my first duty station was Sasebo, Japan aboard the USS Bellow, and the 31st Mew would deploy on board our ship, right? Yeah, we would go down to White Beach and pick the Marine, and I did that a couple ships, right? A couple I did uh three amphips throughout my career, so I'm a blue-green guy for sure. The only ship I didn't do was not blue green, was the carrier. Um, so I've got a lot of experience going down to Okinawa, going down to White Beach, picking up the Mew, yeah, embarking them. And I've taken them to Iraq before. We went there in 1998 for Desert Fox, right? When we never go to Iraq, guess what? We took him to Iraq, right? Like, I've done that. What was that like for you as a young man graduating these schools and then getting moved overseas to Japan? Were you prepared for that? Were you did you want that?

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Absolutely. I loved it. That that was I was always an adventure guy. I love since I was a kid because I read a lot of history. The ability, any every opportunity I had to get overseas assignments was I was on it. I was so excited when I found out that I was going to Okinawa, Japan. I was just thrilled. I'm I'm gonna be living across an ocean, right? For the first time. But so to me, that was thrilling. It it sounded um I felt like I was in a in an adventure novel, you know, like Robinson Crusoe or all these books, like a care. I felt like a lot being able to go overseas and to live in these nations, not just go and travel and stay at a hotel and do the tourcy thing and leave, but live in these nations and make friendships across the world with people from other nations was a dream come true. And you know, I spent the five years in Japan, the five years in Europe, three years in Spain, two years in Italy. A lot of my my career was a lot of it was overseas, and I haven't I have an awesome wife that was just good to go in terms of being down with a lot of the overseas assignments. But uh yeah, I was thrilled to to the question. I was thrilled by being in Okinawa. Um, and you know, it's funny you mentioned uh White Beach because when I got to Okinawa, I was I was assigned third Med Battalion, but I got to do one stint with the 31st Mew. And uh, you know, the same routine. I was on the Fort McHenry. Yeah. And of course, you know, we we you know, we the whole operation of being with the 31st Mew for that one particular cycle before I went back to uh medical battalion, but that was a lot of fun.

Iraq Trauma Bay: Pressure And Purpose

Gary Wise 39:45

So, and what's funny about third med is when we did the I was on Guam during the pandemic, and we had, of course, all of the operations in the Pacific going through Guam at that time. And of course, we had the USS Theodore Roosevelt that came in and they had all their sailors had to get off. And they sent up third med from Okinawa to supplement us because we did not have the facilities, we did not have the bodies to render the care that was required to that many sailors and that many people, right? And so that that was my exposure to third med. And I didn't even understand there was a difference between third med and 31st Mew at the time because I think they were all entrenched together. And they're like, no, no, third med is it's just a huge Cormant medical team available to do whatever needs to be done, right? And again, as I as I as I learned more and more about our great armed forces, and I learned a lot throughout my career, it's just so cool how how much there is available to us if you ever break glass, right? Break glass. And I think that was probably the hardest part for our generation is getting put back in the box after the glass was broke, right? Because 20 years of G WA, right? 20 years of when I train on World War II, when I train on Korea, when I train on Vietnam, none of them have 20 years of operations, yeah, right. And from 2001 till damn near 2021, it was there was something happening always and forever somewhere. Yeah, right. And it wasn't even a thought, like there's something happening, right? And I think for so many of us that especially, you know, because I deployed Iraq uh 03-04 aboard USS Ogden, 06 Ogden, um went there in '98, but that was pre-9-11. And then of course the GW times. I think that as busy as we were, it's it's anything after that's almost kind of boring, right? It's almost like what if we're not doing yeah, yeah, for sure. Right? We're not doing these operations, and I think that's where the Navy struggles, is because the Navy does not know how to turn down the the temperature a little bit, yeah and get back to a different baseline. Does that make sense? Totally. There's so much crap going on in the world that we're involved in, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

And I and I think it's a great, I mean, I that's a conversation that is so that's definitely ongoing and fascinating, no doubt, because it definitely touches on economic, political, and uh kind of social implications, you know, the um every generation of warfighters that have experienced combat or experienced the the temp, not whether it's a whether it's a combat environment or a culture of other service members that have deployed, you know, because I always thought about the GWAT, the 9-11 generation, you know, whether no matter uh whether a service member, Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, regardless of what to what capacity they were in that combat environment in different places, the fact is that for the most part, many of us were exposed uh and connected to each other. So we experience the stress and the the operational stress that other service members, because we interact with it. If somebody has had, if somebody's having issues because of multiple deployments and there's some cracks there, it's felt. You know, it's our brother and sister, they're hurting, so we feel it. We feel the hurt, we help her, we help them out, but it's always felt throughout the service. So in it in many ways, we're all in it together to one in one shape or another. And I kind of want to bring another point on, Gary. Something that's interesting, I think it's worth noting too, is you know, the one of the biggest differences between the G Wag uh the 9-11 generation after 2001 versus previous generation, specifically long wars. The World War II, Korea and Vietnam were four, three, four, five, six years. Vietnam was longer than World War II and Korea nonetheless, uh, even though casualties were dramatically higher in World War II and Vietnam than uh Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to say I I don't want to quote an inaccurate number, but I think I think we're talking about four or five thousand versus Vietnam sunk. Yeah, that was Vietnam is like sixty thousand. World War II is is over like somewhere on two hundred thousand, if I'm not mistaken. But that's also really a testament to The two things, the quality of the PPE, you know, the flak and Kevlar protection, and also just medical technology that we've had. Um so that's definitely a good thing. Uh, but it's not because the operational tempo was lighter, it was just that you know, we you know the knowledge that we had uh in order to save lives was a little bit more superior with technology.

Gary Wise 44:19

100 man, I agree. And but but I think the the the the duration, we're probably gonna be studying that for years, you know, but how the impact it had on a lot of us because again, I remember before 9-11 how it was on the ship, but the thing is uh we also didn't have SCED 3.0 on the ship. We were still writing the board on pen and paper with ink, right? So we'll never know what it would have been like if it wasn't at the war, because technology and the war just they they they they got each other faster together, right? Yeah, and they I think the war also streamlined technology development because it now the the industrial complex became a big money venture where a lot of investors came in because they could take the toys and make them even better to go out and do things, and of course, now of course we have to wean ourselves off of wanting to do those things because it's not always productive for the world for there to be never-ending challenges, right? Absolutely. Um when you were at the end of your first tour with the Marines out there or with the third med in Oki, um, was there ever a thought that you might get out?

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Absolutely, yes, there was. I I thought a lot about it. I thought about it during the first five, six, seven years. Yeah, and uh I kind of went back and forth a few times, yeah. Um, but I was actually just having a lot of fun. Uh it that that thought didn't last. Okay. Um, and one of the biggest things that happened, I think at my five-year mark was Rebecca and I were married. I was actually in Naples, Italy for two years, and her and I uh we we decided to get married. And after her and I get married, after her and I got married, and and she loved being a military wife. She was excited about you know marrying into the military. Um, and then of course be being very practical, you know, thinking about the benefits, the continuity. Uh I was moving up in rank, money was getting a little bit better, the practicality of the medical dental insurance and all the quality of life benefits for couples, uh, that those the practicality just really became uh too much. And once I yeah, like you know, like a lot of guys, once once I started once I became the second class and then went into my seventh, eighth, ninth year, then I was I was determined to make at least 20.

Line Corpsmen On The Front

Gary Wise 46:38

It was the same thing for me, man. When I met Erica and I decided I wanted to marry her, all I had going for me was the United States Navy, right? When I was gonna go ask her dad, like for his blessing to take her into my house and make her part of my family. I had a GED and I was a petty officer in the Navy, and that was what I had, bro. Like it was I landed in Clearwater, Fort Florida on recruiting duty with two sea bags and debt, right? So that was what I had, but she was like you said, she was proud to become a part of the Navy's organization to be become a part of to be attached to this thing. As I tell people, my wife taught me how to be a patriot because up until that point I was not patriotic, right? I was you know, I was doing it because it was a paycheck, right? And I was doing it because it was keeping me out of the streets. She taught me Pride Nation and all those other things, right? Now you leave Japan. Where do you go to next?

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Left Okinawal, Japan. Uh, went to Pendleton uh an Iraq deployment and then came back to Pendleton.

Gary Wise 47:42

So for that Iraq deployment, is that's where you went to the Al-Assad base?

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Is that I was at Al-Assad?

Gary Wise 47:48

Yeah, how was that for you? Like, yeah, um, I mean, because I can imagine going through core school, and these corpsmen are telling you you're going to war, you're going to war, you're going to war, right? And of course, this isn't a generation of corpsmen that maybe hasn't really gone to war, right? They've grown up talking about it, but and the corpsmen are getting busy, right? They're getting busy at that point in time, and now you're going to Iraq, and it's finally getting to be that time where you're going to be putting hands on a lot of people that are hurt. Yeah. Right. How was that stress level for you? Do you remember that experience?

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Yeah, it was super high. It was it was crazy cry high. I mean, one can't explain it. And uh stress, uh, you know, it was stress because anytime that you're in a high stress environment. So I was I was in the surgical company, I was in Alasad and I was attached to Alpha Surgical Company, uh, which was a well uh fitted surgical company with a lot of capabilities. Um, but I did a lot there. I was also I worked in the trauma bay and I was also the Medadat coordinator. Being the Medadat coordinator there and also kind of switching gears a lot, as was kind of my style, you know, and kind of a way I was kind of stylized by my leadership is help them out. You know, you're a Corman, you're aggressive, you're you're you're quick on your feet, you're aggressive. So whenever patients would come in uh and would land on the Blackhawks, you know, from other places, from the shock trauma platoons or even other places, I would bring, you know, I would help bring them in and then we stabilize them, help stabilize them until and then I would leave and start prepping for the evacuation, whether they needed to go to another echelon of care, like in Baghdad or Balat, or whether they were gonna stay with us. So it was just a lot of communication, a lot of aggressive, quick, critical thinking calms, um, and a lot of pressure. Um, because um I mean, yeah, what what's most visceral, and you know, I don't know what I don't know if it's me, but I've always I feel like God gave me the ability or helped me really communicate very stressful things and the bot in a very gritty visceral way. Bottom line, it's ugly. Blood, pain, suffering, it's super ugly, and the stress is great. People break little by little, they break a lot, and then we just help each other get back, get each other back together to keep taking care of the guys that are coming in, and that just kept going and going and going. Uh, pretty much for the time that I was there at those seven, eight months.

Gary Wise 50:07

I mean, that 0304, that's a busy time, yes. Yeah, and you got to use that deployment.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

I was there from August of 04 to February of 05.

Gary Wise 50:18

Yeah, man, busy time, busy time, and it was places like I remember being uh we would be out there meals on keels, we'd be out there on the ship supporting, and we would do whatever we could do to support as well because all these different assets all supporting the fighters that are in the middle of what they're going through. Yeah, I can only imagine the the relief they would feel once they got to where you were at. And yes, they're in pain, but there's also optimism that they're gonna get through it, you know.

Preventive Medicine Explained

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Yeah, definitely. Our brothers, our brother and a lot of the brut, you know, a lot of our my fellow corps who were with the actual ground units with division units, they're going off patrols, you know, a lot of these guys, once they came to us, uh they did a lot, they did a lot of the heavy lifting because they were out there amidst the combat patrols and the actual action. So when guys, when Marines and others were injured, the Corpsmen there, the lion corpsmen were out there, and of course they did the two biggest things, which was uh on-site stabilization. And you many times they were able to get IV access. By the time they came to us, a lot of times that coroner was still with them. And I mean, the work that the nerve corpsmen are just uh crazy, uh courageous uh people who work on nerve. You know, the the uh you know doctors and nurses are smart, they're the smart people that work in the clinics, call the clinical study. The Corpsman is that crazy person that is trying to go through gunfire, do whatever it takes to save the life of that Marine when all hell is breaking out, and just be with that marine and say, I'm gonna keep you alive no matter what. You're gonna go back home, you're you what no matter how oblique it looks, that corner, that line corpsman that's out there with the Marine. And and many times what was very impressive is the fact that they were able to attain IV access, you know, because I know how hard it is to do that whenever there's a lot of movement around, whether they're in that combat situation or whether they're getting loaded on the on the tactical vehicle or on the bird in route. And by the time they come to us, when that marine is stabilized and hanging in there, and you see that coronet just bloody, beaten, sweaty, bruised, jacked up, but they did the best they could on their site, brother. That is just that that is the stuff that I will, you know, that I'll be telling stories about as an old man with probably greater greater clarity.

Gary Wise 52:25

Yeah, and you got to be proud to be a part of that community, man. I just I I think we all share in the pride in the hospital corpsman community, and and you know what I love about the corpsman, besides, of course, the fact that with the way the Marine Corps reveres them, and and the Navy also has love for them, but they're also one of the first races in the United States Navy, right? That what what was it, the uh the apothecary or whatever it was?

SPEAKER_01 52:49

It's quite a history apothecary uh loblolly boys, apothecaries we go way back.

Gary Wise 52:55

I get into that, right? Because the damage controlmen were the carpenters' mates, and they were one of the first ratings in the Navy. And when I talked to the Moses' maids, the gunner's mates, all that I understand like the Navy and Marine Corps and how we've evolved from the beginning, right? And how this team was formed from the Revolutionary War when the Marines were out there being the sharp shooters from the yard arms or being the sleeping in between the crew and the officers so that the crew didn't mutiny because you know sailors are scattering wags, right? We can we can go sideways once in a while, right? And and then we've evolved into this fighting force that does what we do now. I think it's very, very cool, and it's all a part of our genetic code, which it's all part of our of our heritage, yeah. Right, very cool. When you met Rebecca, so you said you went from Pendleton after Iraq, you then went to overseas, uh Naples, Italy for two years.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

I was a uh ambulance driver at the hospital.

Gary Wise 53:51

Did you meet her there? Did you meet her in Southern California?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Well, so she was actually she lived here in San Antonio, Texas. She was a friend of my family, she was actually a very good friend of my sister, and so it was kind of a family connection and uh kind of a funny story. Actually, I was telling somebody the story today. Um, everybody loved her, my family loved her, she was a good friend of my sister, my parents knew her, and they were wanting us to hook up because she lived here in San Antonio, so uh you know, we we had kept in touch throughout the years, uh phone calls, emails, and stuff. But uh I came down one summer of 06 for for a wedding, actually, a friend of mine who was getting married in Houston, and but I was in San Antonio for a month, and uh we just really you know really clicked took our relationship, you know, to a closer level. We we spent so much time talking, and and I just felt like I just felt God saying this was the right, this is the person for you. You need a you should get married, and not just get married and marry a good woman that's gonna that you know is gonna be the right person for you. So we we made we made the decision, we took that leap of faith and and and we got married uh in December of 06. I still had about maybe six months left to go in Naples. So I I went back to finish that tour as a geobaster just because there was only five months left uh before her and I went to San Diego together for like the first time living together as a married couple um at the school of health sciences.

Gary Wise 55:12

Very cool, man. Very cool. So you were going to be an instructor after Naples?

SPEAKER_01 55:17

No, I was actually a student. I went to be a student at Preventive Medicine School.

Gary Wise 55:21

Oh, so that's where you got involved in preventive medicine.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Yeah, yeah, that's that's when that's when I became a PMT, which was the my permanent rating for the rest of my career. Um, I I wanted to switch a kind of a change of scenery scenery, and so I became uh I went to preventive medicine school.

Gary Wise 55:37

Okay, and preventive medicine, just so I for people that are listening, yeah. Your job is to prepare to help people not get sick, right? So on the ship, for example, like my job was fire prevention, right? I would do everything in my power to prevent there from being a fire. Yeah, I would fight the fire, yeah, but if I could prevent it from ever happening, that was better. Preventive medicine. So you guys were like checking the water, you guys were the ones making sure the ship was clean the way it was supposed to be clean. Is that is that not right?

Afghanistan IA And Helmand Push

SPEAKER_01 56:08

No, 100%. Yeah, preventive medicine. So the military preventive medicine is exactly that. It's environmental health, industrial hygiene, it's the galley inspections making sure that those who are preparing the food are good to go. It's a sanit, it's a sanitized environment, healthy environment, they're properly cooking the food, make sure the water is good to go. Because if food is bad or water is bad, people get sick. And and and the essence of preventive medicine is keep people healthy because if people get sick, the mission fails. What happens if nobody in the military comes to work to do their job and people are in their sick bay? So that that that mil and preventative medicine in the military is so important. Um, you know, because it's very program-centric. Um, food, water testing, epidemiology, uh, the flu vaccines, uh, heat stress program, making sure that conditions, working conditions, that people are safe. You know, you know how it goes in the ship. In some of those engineering spaces, it gets super hot.

Gary Wise 56:59

So we it all wears you down. It all wears you down. And your guys' job, I honestly I get it. And then look again, as a damage controlman, my job was ship safety, right? I was ship shipmate self, but I was really a safety professional to make sure that we were doing toxic gas stuff right, we were doing gas free engineering was correct to make sure that everything we were doing was as safe as possible. And I was partnered with the IHO, I was partnered with, I would see you doing your dry bulb checks, making sure that they were posted up and then and doing your thing. And it's because we lived on an industrial environment, right? Like a ship is a big industrial environment. You know, I took the cadets up to Jacksonville to Mayport, the Navy base, and there is a mosquito lab there that basically studies all the different bugs and insects in the world and the and the disease that that can bring. And they were telling us, they were teaching us about how the corpsmen there helped them do all their jobs and and how important it is to prevent you know, infestations from taking out, you know, yeah. Imagine being in the swamp, right? And you got a whole bunch of bugs.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Yeah, pet pest control and entomology are actually sections of the pre Pred Med curriculum. A hundred percent. Yeah, you got to prevent, you got to keep people from getting bitten and stunned by bad critters 100%.

Gary Wise 58:21

And and it's and it's a mental health thing, right? Because you can't only deal with it so long before you go freaking crazy, right? You're gonna go nuts. So is it after that prevente school that you went to the GW?

SPEAKER_01 58:34

Uh well, I had one tour before the GW. It was at the Naval Hospital, Jacksonville, Florida. Okay. So I was there for three and a half years during, but and during those three and a half years there in the middle of that tour, I guess when I went to be an IA, an individual augmentee in Afghanistan. And I was in Afghanistan for about eight months in the middle of a Jacksonville tour.

Gary Wise 58:55

I saw that. Um did you out did you volunteer for the IA or did they pick you?

SPEAKER_01 59:01

Um, I think it was more they picked me. Um I it was kind of both, yeah, because it was it was weird, you know. They always they they would solicit and they would offer, and then to to be to be frank, there was some folks that would come up with creative reasons as to why they shouldn't or couldn't go. You know, um I I I raised my hand, yeah, send me. I mean, I'll go. You know, and and Naya, and I volunteered, you know, and Naya had just been born. Naya was only when I left Afghanistan, I missed Naya's first birthday. She was my Naya's my oldest, she was like eight months when I left. Um, and uh that the I I'll just say this that Afghanistan deployment, um, I'll just say this about that deployment. It was probably, you know, I I look at my career and I look at my best performances and my kind of my worst performances, so to say, if that makes sense. And I'll probably say that was probably the best performance of my career. That was eight months in Afghanistan, along with one year on the G dub. But the third happiest day of my life was after getting married and having the after getting married, the girls being born, and the day I came home from that deployment. Uh, that that one was kind of rough. That that that one was pretty rough.

Gary Wise 1:00:03

So, on that deployment, were you going as a prevmed tech or were you going as a cornet?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

I was I was functioning as a PMT. I was functioning as a PNT. The what was crazy about that one was because I was tagged with a partner of mine, whom I still in good touch with to this day. He's still active duty, actually. He's the chief, and actually, no, he's a senior chief now. And we were outside the wire a lot, flying everywhere, convoying everywhere. Right. And I was real, we were doing, I was doing a lot of different duties. So it was just a lot of work that we did, and it was it was a lot of a lot of danger that we were exposed to all over the place, you know, a fob hopping because we were literally traveling from fob to fob collecting samples and doing stuff. So um it was it was kind of it was pretty interesting.

Gary Wise 1:00:49

That was a tough time in Afghanistan, though, man. Because what year was that?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

It was 09.

Gary Wise 1:00:54

That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

It was the it was the initial Hellman Province push. Remember, President Obama gets elected and he refocuses on Afghanistan. So it was from April to November of 09. And that whole Hellman Province push, it was kind of an interesting environment because what was happening at the time was that it was actually in many ways, it was kind of a drug war, you know, uh, because it was a lot of DEA. I remember I was doing so many different scenes, man. I I there was stuff, and I actually worked at the centrics for a couple of weeks as a break. It really wasn't a break because I was monitoring a lot of chatting, a lot of chatter, and there was a lot of agencies out there doing agency type work, DEA, CIA type stuff, and really trying to find opium cachets along with other weapons and things out there. And it that that was a really kind of eye-opening environment because it it was there was just a lot going on down in Hellman Pro. On top of every regular work that we were doing.

The IA Dilemma For Sailors

Gary Wise 1:01:44

I agree, and I and I will tell you that that was a tough time because the war had been raging for quite a while. Bush was no longer the president, yeah, right? The rules of engagement were no longer the same, and the enemy was not the same either, right? And they had gotten smart from years of insurgencies in Iraq and wherever else. And they just it was a challenge, right? And the country had moved on, I felt like America had moved on, and but we still have boots on the ground in Afghanistan, and but it was also a lot more united. So I have a buddy of my real good friend of mine who was Navy, was a DC, he was a he was a DC-1 and then went uh army and went to get Iraq, two tours in Iraq as army. Yeah, then he went special forces and army, and he went to Afghanistan. He hated everything about Afghanistan about that same time you went because of how political it was, and the missions were so not what we what we thought we were there for, right? And then it was just so I can understand how that was a tough one, man. And and it was hard to get out of there, right? It wasn't until the last presidential run that we actually just finally extracted everybody, right? It was almost like you just it was like it was just horrible, yeah. So I get that. Um, I remember the IAs, and I had mixed feelings on IAs. I'm not even gonna lie to you, bro, because here I am, a damage control man who is trained to be a shipboard firefighter, never missed an underway, never missed a deployment. But now people are trying to convince me to volunteer to go drive trucks and be a convoy driver, right? Because, like, I'm not not like Corman. Corman, your guys' job would apply, right? But the regular sailor was getting IA to go stand brig duty or guard duty or whatever it is, and it's just like what are we doing? But yeah, you know, and it changed the navy, it changed the navy because when a lot of guys came back to the regular fleet, they didn't know how to act. It was it was almost like the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps did all those years of of Iraq, Afghanistan, and then they put back on the ships, they were like, This sucks. I don't want to be on a ship.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Yeah, totally, yeah. And and to your point, I think that was the argument that I think a lot of folks felt that it wasn't the most efficient use of talent and resources. If folks I mean, I I think there's something, you know, this that's where the schools of thought came into play, right? I came into the Navy, I remember being trained, kind of like you, coming up a certain culture. Uh, and you got to stretch yourself and you got to be a master of all and none. Whereas other folks, those different the other school thought, hey, make sure that people are doing the job they were trying to do, don't be inefficient. So I think that's what we saw a lot of the conflicts.

Gary Wise 1:04:29

It was interesting, man. Just I think that the longer I've been in the around the military, the higher up I got, the more I was able to see how we are one team, and I think the communication, the way they communicated it was not the most effective, right? Yeah, and they weren't leveraging the years of experience, they were just, you know, do you want to go volunteer because it's gonna be a good career incentive, right? And for me, that was the wrong method, right? Yeah, right. My career is my career, but but there was a good stretch where remember they turned IA into GSA tours, yeah, and it was now incorporated into your rotation, right? And it was, I remember being a first class petty officer and being told that if I wanted to make cheap, I didn't do an IA. I was just like, Well, you know, I guess I'm not making cheap because I'm just not like at the end of the day, and by the way, I'm talking like later on in my career, I was very proud to be a sailor, but I joined the United States Navy for a reason, right? I wanted to be on the ships and to do my thing. No problem putting my life on the line for a shipmate, no problem doing the dangerous thing, but I wasn't quite sure that I trusted what the real needs were at the time, if that made sense. Yeah, um, and I felt like it wasn't promotion, it wasn't worth it for me. I mean, I always made a commitment to my wife that they'd have to ask me. I wasn't gonna just like I would never choose to go geopath, for example, right? Because and she Always went with me overseas on every one of our overseas tours. She went because we committed to be a family. And I remember when I she left when I was leaving GW, she left they opheld me on the George Washington, and they wouldn't let me go that damn shit. I love the GW for a lot of reasons, but it was a tough one, right? About three months before I did. That was hard three months, just three months. I couldn't imagine the GBs that do 24 months, right? That's a long time, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:33

Yeah. For sure.

Gary Wise 1:06:35

Um, so you come back from Afghanistan, you've got your daughter now, she's a year old, you guys are in Jacksonville. Um, why do you decide to go to the GW or to Japan? Yeah, like do you need is that not so Jacksonville's not deployable duty, even though you just deployed?

Why The Carrier: Orders To Japan

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

Yeah, no, it was short duty. It was short duty. It was it was and it was nice short duty because you know, sunny Jacksonville Florida was great, but I was up for sea duty at the time, and I was still second class. Uh, I would I would later make first class as soon as I got to the G Dub, but um I wanted to make chief as a for uh I wanted to I wanted to set myself in and what I was being told. Two reasons. I I always wanted to go to a ship, I always wanted to be ship's company. I I want to go and get my I want to go get my surface warfare and an air warfare device, and I feel that a carrier is the best way to do it. So funny story, I remember sitting in that office in Jacksonville, Florida, talking to the detailer on the phone, you know, even as a I I always call the detailers directly, and I'm talking to him and and I said, Hey man, we're talking. I said, Hey man, I really want to go ship. He's like, Hey, guess what? Man, I do I got a bill for the G, I got a bill for the George Washington right now, second class, H2 Bill. He's like, I'll give it to you right now. If you want, I'll start writing the orders. I said, Tell you what, give me one minute, give me a minute and a half. Let me call my wife, get her blessing, and I promise after I hang up with her, I'll call you back right now. Okay, I copy that. No, he's I love it, you know. So I hang up, I call back. Hey, babe, she's working at a bank of America in Jacksonville. Hey, real quick, you got to give me a yes or no, whatever you want to say. But he's offering for us to go to Yokosuka, Japan, uh uh building on the ship, and she she's all about it. I can hear the excitement. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, copy that. Love you, bye. I call him up, and then that and then that has how I got to the George Washington. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I love it, but I really wanted to go. I wanted to go to the GW. I wanted I wanted to, I wanted to experience the navy, you know. I was like, hey, I love F I love my FMF brothers and sisters, but I want to go, I want to go be I want to go to a ship.

Gary Wise 1:08:35

You know, I do know in World War II, the United States Navy had almost three and a half million people in it, right? That's how big the Navy was. I was teaching them the lesson and talk about we drew down from 3.5 million to under 800,000 in under a year after World War II. So the Navy's never gotten back to what it was World War II, right? Because if you but if you think about that generation, there was a lot of sailors in that greatest generation, right? Because the Navy was there was a lot of ships, there was a lot of things going on, it's huge, and there's a lot of pride, I have a lot of pride in being in the Navy, right? I I love being a blue-green sailor, I love being an amphib sailor, but why I wanted to go to the carrier was I kind of wanted to go to a ship that was a hundred percent navy, right? And not have because I was always on gators and working with the Marines, but we were like our main mission was to the Marines, right? Take care of the Marines, get the Marines to let it go. And I never got the chance to be like on a destroyer or a cruiser, and so, but like you, I wanted opportunity to show that I was also ready for the next level, and I kind of wanted I want to be on an aircraft carrier, I'm not even gonna lie to you. Like that was just exciting, right? Highway to the danger zone, right? Go up during the flight deck and all that, and like you, my first tour was in Japan, so I felt that pain of being a young person in Japan with no car.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

This time I got a car.

Gary Wise 1:10:14

This time I was gonna get a house on base, I was gonna be living on the ship. Oh, yeah, I was gonna have a car. I was like, oh my god, is this gonna be okay? And my wife was super nervous about going to Japan. Um, when did you get there? What month did you get there?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

Yeah, I got we got there. Rec and I got there in September of 2011. Yeah, we got there September 2011, and it was about it was a few months after the whole earthquake. Um you missed the earthquake. I was gonna ask you. Yeah, we missed the earthquake. We missed the earthquake, but you know, um, but yeah, we got there, and you know, Gary, I mean, those I the three the three years on the G dub were definitely the most challenging of my career. I I I there were times in that medical birthing in that pre-minute office, I'll tell you, there was a we had a we had a head, a bathroom next to there, and there were so many times where I would go in there for just 30 seconds and get on a knee because I was breaking in every way. I mean, they they I mean I gave I gave it 120 20 on that ship of everything in it. And I but I felt but I felt the energy of the ship, I felt the commitment, the intensity. It's just such an intense environment. But it was the most difficult tour of my career, but also the most rewarding. And and I just I loved the personalities and the characters that I worked with, and not just in medical, but the whole ship. I mean, I just I was having it every day was like a cool soap opera, you know, just all you know, because I I get there, and again, I don't know, I don't know the blue side life, you know. So I'm hearing, I don't, I'm lit, I'm learning about the 3M program and all the different departments, and and I mean it was just it was just well and you came you came after the earthquake, right?

Gary Wise 1:11:43

Yes, I will tell you, I I was I got to the ship January of two 2010, yeah, right. So I was on the ship for a year before the earthquake, and we we had done like we did like seven months underway straight without going home, yeah. And we were going, we were driving around Yukosuka, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:07

I heard the stories, I know I heard what I missed. I heard the stories that I came.

Gary Wise 1:12:10

So then we had the earthquake and all that, we were stressed, we were taxed, right? And then when you got there after the earthquake, so many things had changed because of all the rules, and like we were having to, it was just a lot that had changed after that earthquake period of time. Um, and then of course that op tempo was crazy still, right? It never goes down, right? We're either in the yard period or we're underway operational. Yeah, I used to love so medical was right across from my office. I don't even remember that. You remember?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:43

Of course, yeah, yeah. You guys were my DC, you are neighbors in your next door, you know. I'd be like yelling, hey, you got any milk over there? But yeah, damn near it really was, bro.

Gary Wise 1:12:53

It really was. I I did I what I loved about that ship was just the again, like you said, the camaraderie, the people I love being underway, the mission, but it I felt like we we would never get settled at home, right? But during the yard periods, it wasn't that bad, and and living on the ship on duty days in the yards was kind of crappy. Remember how cold that was all the home?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:16

I remember that those cold duty days of it was because we were always uh in the yards from like December to like always, and it never didn't get really warm until like April, right? Yeah, and we're getting ready to leave. Others say we're leaving, yeah.

Gary Wise 1:13:32

Yeah, you know, it was all yeah, there was a lot to that tour that of course. I mean, I I love the ship.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:38

I love we could dedicate you could we could dedicate an entire episode just on the GTA.

Gary Wise 1:13:43

Really, you could really you could so after getting ready to leave the Jordan. So was your second daughter born before Japan?

Life On GW Post‑Earthquake

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

She was born in Japan. She was she was born at the naval hospital there in January 2013, right in the middle of my tour there. She was she was born in it. It was a blessing, it was a cool situation because she was born. I was able to spend the last couple of months of Rebecca's pregnancy with her because we had just pulled in a couple months prior, and then she was born. Uh, and then like after she was born, I got to spend like the first three months of her life with her before we took off again. So the timing was good.

Gary Wise 1:14:16

Nice. Um, getting to the end of the George Washington, that's a deployable duty, that's C duty for you. Now you got two kids, you got the wife, you're a first class petty officer at this time. Um, what are you thinking about doing now at that point?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:31

Yeah, so the the G-Dub, my performance in the G dub, getting the warfare devices and and and it, you know, just having a good tour there. I feel like there was good things that happened, you know, for my career, for my family there. Um, that's really kind of what that really is what set the stage for me to eventually make chief, which I did in my next command. Okay. So um I'm sitting in the G Dub. I'm up I'm up for orders. A net mu 7, which is a small preventive medicine, preventive preventive expeditionary medical command in Rota, Spain, just opened up, which is incredible, an incredibly exotic, desirable duty station, Rota, Spain. So I remember applying for that billet and getting it and just being exhilarating being ecstatic that I got that assignment. So we ended up leaving in October of 2014. That's when I went to GW and we went to we went to Spain.

Gary Wise 1:15:20

Very cool, man. That's talk about an opportunity. I never got to go to Europe, you know. I always wanted to do Europe after GW, I was almost ready to retire. It almost killed me, yeah. Right. So I just I went to short duty after that. I needed a knee, but to go to Rota Spain, that's huge.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:38

It was it was Reg and I joke around. We say when we think about our time in Rota Spain, our blood pressure just starts to lower and drop. All we got to do, our medical, our our personal medicine is just start talking about our time in Rota because the lifestyle, the European Spanish lifestyle is so laid back. And I but I'll tell you, uh, I struggled when I first got to the command because I had too much of the G dub in me. That operational tempo, that yeah, restlessness. You know, it it was when I first and then I I I go from a five an aircraft carrier of 5,000 souls on board with a kind of op tempo in the seventh fleet to uh a command in an exotic, sleepy location like Spain with 15 people in a small command, and and and and we did great work. I mean, it was a very unique command that I went in terms of what we did and how we did it, but it was also it was also laid back in many ways because we had to blend in with the uh Spanish culture, you know, which is very relaxed and very diplomatic in many ways. So I really struggled. I it took me a few months to kind of learn to relax. I I had there were conversations between me and others leaders a day, you're not in the G dub anymore, and those were real lessons. Hey, you you know, you need to out here, you need to be mindful of your approach. You know, I know you came from an aircraft carrier, but guess what? You're not on the carrier anymore. You you need to kind of be mindful and have a little bit of self-awareness in terms of how I came off with other sailors, and and they were right. I need I needed to make that transition. Um, and then so I definitely got good advice.

Gary Wise 1:17:03

We all I can relate, we all can relate. I think that I had that same conversation at my instructor duty, I had the same conversation with myself when I retired, right?

Ashley Ries 1:17:12

Like and I almost had those conversations are ongoing.

Gary Wise 1:17:19

Again, you've been wired. I mean, I don't know about you, but I know I am exactly who they trained me to be, and I let myself be trained, like I was there for it, right? Because I said I commit myself to this thing, I wanted to go as far as possible, and part of that was keeping up with everything. Yes, and where I would struggle, and this is just being honest with you, is when when when I felt like bows were broken or not kept, then I really struggled though. Yeah, because then I would be like, But look at all the sacrifice, look at all the blood, sweat, and tears. And now you're gonna tell me that we don't play by the rules. That does not compute, you know. So happened to unwind a lot of that when I was retiring was real therapeutic. And that's I'm very thankful I got the chance to change rates and to do something different for my last few years in the Navy. Because I think if I would have walked away after the GW, I don't know how life would have gone. I needed some time to reprogram and get a little more focused on like people than because like on GW, I was a monster, right? I was you if you had a problem with the DC, man, you can expect a short ball headed dude coming through your door, like I was hitting hard because it felt like there was so much to get done, and the only way you could win was to like bowl and china chops sometimes because it was tough, right? It was so I could see you having to have those challenges and going back to pretty much a whole medical community, right? Yes, and I I used to also I left the George Washington and went to a whole engineering school, right? Where I was the senior enlisted leader, and there's nothing but engineers. Yeah, I really missed the diversity of the shit because I needed that aviate, that Airedale to say something, or the or the CS to say something. I loved having the different perspectives by just a bunch of engineers that all had group think or whatever that was. And so I could see we're going back to the medical community where a lot of the stuff is already programmed in, it's already baked in, and you got to figure out how you fit into the swim lanes, right? And here you come in as a hot run of first class off a strong tour, right? But you're also, I mean, I have a feeling there's a part of you that is wanting to be a team player, but you're also hopeful. If you don't make chief that year, what's next? Right? How do I continue to move forward? And these other first classes are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, man. You just got here, right? I I've been there too, yeah, right. And I've counseled many a first class petty officer on that challenging time, especially corpsman, because your guys' rate is so diverse and so big. There's a there's not just one way to make cheap as a hospital corpsman, yeah. Like there's like a thousand.

Family, Births, And Sea Duty Grind

SPEAKER_01 1:20:04

And to you, and to that, to that point, it was a very my that transition was very eye-opening because I that is, I think there was a skill set that was developed, just like the GW really forged some strength more than ever before. Road to Spain was a different command, it was very cerebral, very complex because it was the environment that we were in in European command, the nature of our command, we had a very polished OIC. And a big part of that command, because it was a new command that was just gonna recently establish, we had to learn how to get along with other commands, and they had to know who we were in order to service them uh as a technical provider for certain missions, uh, combatant commands in UCOM and AFRICOM. So I I had to learn how to be diplomatic, and more than I mean, I mean, Corman naturally have to be diplomatic, they they have to have that part of their mind trained because of the clinical settings that we have to operate in, working with doctors, nurses, surgeons, maybe medicine, right? But being there, uh, it's when it I it was kind of it was very eye-opening because um that's when I also it became very apparent that uh people do have different personalities, and they and even leaders do have different preferences. You know, I I lost a lot of naivety and I became very realistic about how, well, uh you can be uh kicking butt in some place and they may love you, but that doesn't mean that they're gonna like that style everywhere you go because some leaders just have different personalities, they have different preferences, and and that's when it became very apparent in Rhoda that it was just different than the GW. And and it's really nobody's fault, you know, because you know, the GW, my chain of command gw were good to go. Rota Spain, OSC, uh the senior the SCL, they were also good to go. They had they all had very unique good skill sets, but they were just different, different environments. So that's when I really I just really had a up, I had to upskill and and and just really take elevate my thinking about a lot of things and take it to another level. And I think that was really important in preparation for making chief.

Gary Wise 1:22:01

Well, and that's emotional intelligence, right? It's recognizing what's going on in the situation where you're at, and and they not to say that they're the enemy, but in my opinion, the enemy gets a vote, right? So the other people in the room get get a vote in what's gonna happen here. If you're just a one size fits all person, you're probably not gonna be a good team player. And so and and unfortunately, I'm I am a competitive person at by nature, and so I when I look at other people, I'm like, okay, they're my competition, okay, they're not my competition, but they feel like they're my competition, yeah. Because we're all trying to be leaders, right? Yeah, yeah. When going through Chiefs initiation, that was really where I learned how to uh I tell I tell this to sailors or to people that make chief is when I was a first class petty officer, I was taking every opportunity there was, right? I was taking them all when I made chief, I learned to look to my right or to my left and say, Hey, do y'all see that opportunity? Yeah, does anybody else want that opportunity? Because I can help you, but I don't need to take it, yeah, unless I really want it, then I'll just take it. Yeah, unless I really want it, and that's you know, I made senior keeper. I'd take it, I'll take it then. Yeah, but in the chiefs mess, it was more about the collective, and which is something I really bought into when I went through initiation. You know, I was, you know, I got I tell people I was initiated to my first organization when I was 12 years old, right? So I was a little running around with my group of people, and I love being a part of a team, right? Yeah, I love that. So the Chiefs mess was my grand, that was my conclusion, right? I would never that was, but I bought into what they were selling through the initiation process because before I made chief, I didn't even know what that thing was. Like I had no clue they did initiation, I wasn't paying attention to their stuff. Yeah, I wasn't, I didn't even know how to make chief, to be honest. I I took the test for LDO purposes, right? Like, I don't know, and so now I'm going through this initiation. Like, why y'all yelling at me all the time?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:59

Right, right, right.

Gary Wise 1:24:01

I thought we were friends, I thought we were good, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:04

Why didn't it be mean to me?

Gary Wise 1:24:05

Right, it didn't, and I and then throughout the years, I would tell the new selectees, like, look, you're about to go through something that most adults do not put themselves through, and you're gonna have the opportunity to either just not care and get through it, or you might be able to hit some cool milestones or break some ceilings you didn't even see coming, as long as you trust in the process. Not now, I know not every mess is the same, and I know not everyone's gonna do for their people, like I know what I always did for my people. Every one of my initiations I made sure was they got their money's worth, yeah. They got they got what they came for, right? They're gonna walk in any chief's mess and anywhere in the world and sit down and have a cup of coffee and be like, I I live here, this is my mess. Yeah, right, no problem. Um, how was your initiation in Rota?

Rota, Spain: Recalibrating Tempo

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

It it was I I I give it on a scuff one to ten, I think I'd give it a 10, you know, and and I and I say that, and I say that because you know, I've been I've been around I after I made chief in 2015, you know, and I retired in 2022. I've been around what six, seven initiations, and but there I saw some in Rota, I saw some Dio Garcia, and then I also saw some Force in Houston. So I saw I've seen initiations in three different commands. Um, but I think the the group of personalities that were there at the time when I went there, um, one of whom was the retired force master chief of the CB community, uh Del Terrell, right? He was the actual CMC at the time there, and then there was other per there was other uh there was uh Shannon Dittlinger who was a master chief of the hospital. My uh SEO was Bill Hayden, who was uh the SEO of Nephew 7. So the group of personalities that were there, not just the leadership, but all over the place. Um I I I just I thought it was just a very impressive group of characters and personalities. And I think that's what makes an initiation exciting is when you have really interesting characters and personalities there. And um I just uh I I I guess I brought it. I really brought it. Um I I always, you know, and I can't, I really can't read other people's minds in terms of how they truly feel about me, right? Or in terms of how I my performance was, but I do feel all my heart that there was a good, there was good, there might have been a good reaction, a good feeling overall, mutual feeling. Because I thought I I really am I enjoyed every minute of it. It was fun. I enjoyed the beatings now. I was always a physical guy, so I you know, again, strengths and weaknesses, what I could never bring to the table. I didn't worry about what I couldn't bring. All I knew is this is what I can do and I can bring it. And I always brought the intensity and the physicality. And I was and I was a heck of a Cadence singer, you know. I always wonder I I read, you know, I I they said that when I sang Cadence, I gave them goosebumps, you know. I guess that's a good thing. You know, I always find if you can give people goosebumps, and that's a good thing, right? But again, Gary, no, but it it was great, and it all came down to the people, the personalities they they brought, they brought the intensity uh into the into the season. And uh I I enjoyed every second of it. I I love getting beat, I love the feeling of getting beat and and getting getting pushed beyond the limit, the feeling of getting exhausted, of being exhausted, just pushing forward.

Gary Wise 1:27:14

Well, I would tell you, FDF, for or for overseas in particular, right? Because I I was at Naval Base Guam for my last duty station, and I got the chance to be the base master chief, and so to run the initiation process there. There's something about living abroad in a community where you don't worry too much about the commute, right? And if everyone's we're all local, yeah. And you're gonna get a lot more advice when I was doing initiations like in Norfolk or when I was doing them in San Diego, it's a little harder, right? Because people are commuting an hour and a half, and it's just different.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:49

So that one to that point, Gary, I think you're yeah, 100%. And that that's another thing, too, is the families were really tied up. It was it was overseas, and it was a very again the the The location was very exotic, it was fun, it was royal to space. So the family is really tight. I I I think that my wife and my daughters had a big part of my success because people really seemed to like them a lot, especially my wife, you know, and and I sure and um the but the families were really cool. Uh so I I was just blessed to be around a lot of really cool people.

Gary Wise 1:28:18

Yep. So after Nepnu 7, is that when you go to DG?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:23

Correct. Yeah, I left Nep U7 in 2017. Then I went to the I went to DGAR for about 14 months.

Gary Wise 1:28:30

So how was that conversation with Rebecca? Because that's a guaranteed geo badge tour. Was that was that uh were you just slammed with those orders, or was there a strategy there?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:42

Yeah, that well, there was a a hope and a strategy. Uh the hope was that if I took that assignment, the way it was pitched at the time from the detail and other folks was that and actually these are his exact words. The detail, hey, you take this bill, which nobody wants to take, you take it. I guarantee you you get whatever you want afterwards, whatever you want. Exact words. And I said, Roger, that let me go out there and I'll do it 14 months. Now, I never worried about Rebecca because Rebecca was that much of a trooper. Do what you gotta do. She she she made life so easy for me and as a decision maker for my career. She, you know, which meant which meant that when we left Rhoda, she ended up going back to San Antonio with both of the girls to stay there while I was in the uh DORCE. She could have technically stayed in Rhoda and we could have figured out what we're gonna do afterwards, but she wanted to come back to uh to San Antonio because she wanted to uh kind of reconnect with her family. Her father had just passed about a year prior from cancer. Um so there was there was there was a reason there was motives for going back to San Antonio. So the offer, getting whatever you want afterwards, I took it seriously, and I go to the DGAR, right? Well, sure enough, um that detailer is no longer there. I don't know what I'm thinking. Okay, I thought I'm like part of me is like, oh, you're gonna be here forever. Maybe you're gonna talk to somebody afterwards. Well, however, nonetheless, I still I go to the D-Gar, um, and it's a good tour because while I'm there, it's just some professional wins. I get I finally get my bachelor's degree and I'm I went to SCA. But uh three billets for Fort Sam Houston opened up, which was wow. I was so excited because that's I'm coming back home to San Antonio. That opens up a lot of opportunity. So I was very happy about that. So when I put in for Fort Sam, I I was able to come back to San Antonio after DGAR.

Gary Wise 1:30:25

Okay, and so when you come back to Fort Sam Houston, that's uh what kind of what's going on down there? Is that a schoolhouse?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:32

Instructor, yeah. I was I was a preventive medicine instructor. I came back where it started.

Gary Wise 1:30:37

Okay, so you're a PMT instructor down there. And did you know when you went to Fort Sam Houston that you were gonna retire?

Making Chief And Season Lessons

SPEAKER_01 1:30:46

No, no, I I was like like a lot of like a lot of guys, Gary. Um, the goal for first class is to make chief, and then when you're chief, you want to make senior chief. I I had my goals were to go as high as the Navy could take me. That those were my goals, right? But the ultimate goal was to make master chief, and then who knows what. That was the goal. Um but kind of make a really complex long story. I'm gonna make it super short. Uh got there in 2019. Uh, command was great, great leaders, great command. They were, you know, they were taking care of me as I and I was doing my thing. Uh, but COVID happened. And when COVID happened, and a lot of my friends know about this because it was I put it out there on Facebook. Um, bottom line is that um I was actually in the best shape of my career at some point in four time because I was going to be leading PT for the season, right? And training super hard. But then uh we all started getting sick as a family from COVID. My wife got sick, my dad got sick, everybody got sick. Well, on a Wednesday, I got super sick. I went from being 100 and some odd pounds of pure muscle to like getting emaciated. That was the degree of the COVID infection and the pneumonia. Lost a lot of weight, got super sick, and I've been sick for a long time. It was looking kind of rough. I told Rebecca on a Tuesday, I need you to take me to the hospital tomorrow because I need a chest x-ray and I need some stronger medication, this symptomatics, because I can't deal with this anymore. The cough will not go away. During that time, my dad has been hospitalized for almost a week and a half, and nobody can see him. And he's probably not gonna make it, as all this is going on with me. And I go to the hospital on Wednesday, get admitted, get diagnosed with pneumonia. They discharge me on Thursday, and then my dad died on Friday. All that happened within four days. Uh, and and I tell the story to people because it was the worst part of my life. To this day, nothing will compare. That was that was hell. That was beyond hell because I was losing my dad and I was so sick, I was kind of like in a psychedelic state, if that makes sense. I'm like, what is happening to my body? That was the that was the full force of the COVID and pneumonia on me. Yeah, but I tell the story to people. I said on that Thursday morning when I woke up, I remember saying a prayer, and it was it was the ugliest hole of my life because I had a conversation with my mom, and it was when it was first, it was gonna be evident that my dad wasn't gonna make it. He did die the next day. Um, and she broke down, and here I am, and I feel like I don't have the emotional or physical energy to feel sad. That's how tapped out I am. Yet I'm gonna lose and I'm gonna lose my dad, I'm not gonna be able to see him, right? So I so I hang up a mom and I say a prayer, and I remember saying this prayer, and I said, God, what I'm going through right now, I said, don't let it get wasted. Uh how how how how can this make me a better person, a patient, more wiser, kinder person? Help me do that. Um, and the craziest thing is that in that darkest hole, I still felt incredible peace. If that makes sense, I can't describe it. It was like I felt I felt something holding me telling me it's gonna be okay. If you can hang, if you can hang through this, son, you can hang through anything. You're all right. I got you. You'll be all right, you're gonna make it. Um, and then in the days and weeks that followed after that, after conversations with family, friends, um, and the internal medicine, the docs who were evaluating me, um, the card, the inflammation and swelling of my heart and lungs was so significant that there were conversations, and that's ultimately when I decided to put my fleet reserve in um and decided to go ahead and retire. I mean, I there was a lot, it was, it was, it was a lot of thought conversation, but um, and I was healing up. I was healing up, but that it was just a really bad infection. But I said, you know what? I'm a I I'm alive, I can walk and talk. I still we still have mom. And it and it was in COVID, you know, a lot, a lot of us are just real fuzzy in so many ways. So that's when I decided to retire, and then I retired about a year and a half later. So I so I was able to dedicate that year and a half to kind of prepping for my retirement because it was a lot of medical stuff that I need to be following up with as well.

Gary Wise 1:34:26

I will tell you what, that I I you know, my dad died um in 2019, right before COVID. My mom died in 2018, right? And so my parents did not get to see me retire, they did not get to see life after the military service, right? And I'd always told them there was this optimism for a life after the service, right? I'm sure I gave your mom a little bit of peace knowing you were gonna be close to home as she was figuring out this new normal of life without your dad, right? Um, and of course, your your sisters, and and and and and I'm sure it gave your wife some some peace to know, okay, he's not leaving anymore. We're already set up here, we're already stabilized, the girls are good. And oh, by the way, you just got wrecked by this freaking evil that attacked our world, right? And it was in you, and it and thank god I let you go, right? But it was a it was probably scary for a lot of reasons. So there's never an easy time to say I'm walking away from the service, right? Because I just unfortunately I've seen very few people leave on happy terms, right? Both of them behind closed doors talking about one thing or the other, right? Yeah, something didn't go the way they wanted, or they didn't give it a thing, or whatever it was, and so what I've learned from that is it's just bittersweet, right? To transition to this next thing of life. But when you know, you know, yeah, right? When you know, you know, man. I knew my wife wanted me to stay in the Navy longer, and I was like, no, I'm done. Like, I can't do it anymore. I have got to do something else. But I also felt like God was in a way guiding me to move on. The other thing though was this is it's this is not even a faith-based thing, this is just a reality thing. If we could have stayed in the United States Armed Forces till we were 65, as long as our health and our bodies were good, probably a different conversation. Yeah, but they're telling you there's a dead, there's a job dead time if you don't make rank or if you don't get this or don't get that, and you've got to go pick rocks no matter what. So then at some point you do want to take a little bit of control because your family relies upon you to to be the one that's gonna make a determination, right? And and I think that that's where the military, if they really wanted to retain some of the best, they might get rid of that higher tenure requirement, period. Yeah, as long as people are doing great at the job and they're fully functioning and all the other things. Because you look at the you look at law enforcement, you look at fire, they don't just kick people out, they offer them the chance to retire, yeah, but they continue to serve as long as their bodies are willing. Because I'll tell you what, once I once I realize like, okay, 50's coming no matter what, 45 is as good of age as any to punch out and go do something else, right? And oh, by the way, you have to start over again in this whole other phase of life, yeah, you know, unwind it all, right? Um, what was your transition like for you? I mean, and I I also retired, I retired in 2022, so but uh but all my stuff was 2021, still coming out of COVID. What year did you actually retire?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:47

It was uh in 2022.

Gary Wise 1:37:49

Okay, so how was your retirement transition? Was it I mean, did you are you still in the same house you lived in before you retired?

Diego Garcia And Career Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 1:37:57

Uh no, no. So we when we we were living in so we moved this year, we actually built a new home this year, which I'm currently in right now. So that a lot of big moves, but the the transition itself, I think that the decision to submit the fleet reserve around the summer and early fall, which was technically about a year and a half from closer to two years from my actual retirement day, official retirement day. I was within that within that two-year mark, right? Because I submitted it like in late September. My official EAOS was August 1st, so I was within two years. But when I did it, uh, and it got approved pretty quickly, you know, because I think a lot of people understood my situation. Um, that after that, the transition was pretty smooth, actually, because you know, and the good thing was that for Sam Houston, the uh as it was instructor command, but it was like it was short command, instructor command. So there was as long as the instructor, you know, I I did my job, you know, in terms of being on the podium whenever I needed to teach, but whenever I was on the podium, the chain of command was very supportive in terms of allowing me to transition, which of course consisted of all the administrative and the medical appointments, you know, that one goes on and and does. So overall, yeah, the transition was very good. And it not just practically speaking, from all the you know, checks in the box that one does, you know, that the the skill bridges, uh, you know, the taps classes, all those things that one does, but also like on a real physical, emotional level, you know, getting to getting to kind of slowly transition away. And and and the chain of command was great. And and I think there was kind of a culture, an overall back and forth culture between everybody, whereby when people want to be treated as they people want to treat others as they want to be treated, right? So when somebody was fixing a retard, I was like, hey, bro, do it, show some love, man. Show us some love to everybody retired because when we were tired, we want the same love show to us. We we've all heard stories, right, of some folks transitioning from some places and it just being really rough. So whenever whenever somebody was getting out, you know, we we as a chat the command always try to rally and try to make it for that person and their family as as a healthy and as a peaceful as a transition as possible.

Gary Wise 1:39:55

That's awesome, man. I'm glad to hear you got that. Uh as we get ready to land this thing, right? What are you up to now, life post military service? Now it's 2025, it's been a couple years. Yeah. Are you are you fully uh are you fully on the other side now? How is that looking for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:16

I don't know. I think I had this, I think I have unfinished business with the Navy. Um, I say that very I I think that uh I I look back and I start to think that, you know, um I still got a lot to offer and give. So I did a couple of jobs when I got out, a couple of things, uh um a couple of interesting jobs, right? But the biggest thing I'm doing now is literally I just took a big leap in faith. And I got I finished a master's in public policy uh earlier this year from Liberty University. I was always interested in the political and policy arena, right? Um, I'm not a political guy by nature, but I do believe that when it comes to politics, there's a there's a saying, a person may not show interest in politics, but politics is going to show interest in them. It's gonna come get you. You know, so I think that's why I just kind of say it to people whenever they say I don't want to deal with it. I understand that, but uh I did that for a year. But now what I'm doing is I I have a website in LLC called Dave's Transmissions, and I'm essentially uh I do two things. I write, I post a lot, I do a lot of written articles on six topic areas, which are national security, economic opportunity, health affairs, education, history, and science, all of which I'm a major stakeholder in, just because I like all three. And you know, we're very intersectional people, whether we admit or not, as military personnel, because we're husbands, we're fathers, we're service members, we're invested in national security, we're invested in education as fathers and husbands. So we really are interconnected. Well, all those topic areas are something that I have a big uh I have a lot of skin in each one of those things, in which one of those. So I ride on them and I do a lot of uh very similar to kind of what you're doing, engaging conversations through uh different digital technological platforms. And and uh just started it, you know, within the last uh month. So uh I really just kind of seeing where it goes from here. Um I do want to contribute to there's other publications that I'm reaching out to to start my contributions to other publications um that are very kind of like-minded of kind of my philosophy, but yeah, that's what I'm doing now, and uh and I just God willing that you know it goes well in the weeks, the months and years to come.

Fort Sam: Teaching And COVID

Gary Wise 1:42:20

Exciting, man. I will tell you that it's just I love anything creative, I think it's a good thing. I believe God put us on this earth to create, right? Uh, there's this guy named Myron Golden. I don't know if you've ever heard of him before or not. He's on YouTube, right? He's a finance guy, but I love him because he's a creative guy, and he talks about how God created us in his image, and one of God's greatest things he ever did was to create man, right? Like God was so proud. He created us in his own image, yeah, right. And he, if we're created in God's image, then we need to create. If we're not gonna be happy if we're not creating, and you're gonna be you're gonna struggle now. We all create in our own way, yeah, right. Um, this has become my creative outlet, but my creative outlet is also just feeding into people, yeah. I love helping people identify talents and figure out how to get the best out of them to accomplish whatever mission it is they want to accomplish. When it was in the Navy, I would be able to align that with the Navy's goals so we could we could get the job done as well as meet your own personal goals. But then in life, it's just figuring out well, what do you want to do in life? And let's best shape that, let's let's let's refine it down to make it actionable and then go forward, right? So I if you're feeling a call to create something, I think you have to walk that way because God's calling you to operate in that space. And then, oh, by the way, the blessings will begin to come in because the law of attraction is going to be it's a part of the conversation too, right? I could, you know, I'm a little eclectic in my beliefs. I kind of a lot. I like to watch a lot of the ancient aliens stuff too. I'm not gonna lie, I'm interested in the whole thing, right? All right, David. Hey man, as we wrap this up, I'm gonna shoot you some rapid fire questions. Sure, and you don't need to you don't need to overthink them. Uh just do your best to send back what you got, okay? Totally, yes, sir. All right, here we go. Um, what do you think is the biggest leadership challenge you see in the world today?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:29

Distraction and overstimulation from so many sources from all over the place.

Gary Wise 1:44:34

Distraction and overstimulation. So then I guess in response to that, then to advice you would give to leaders then would be to help limit distractions and limit stimulation to the people.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:47

Well, I don't know if I don't know what the answer is. It's a great question. I think that's the issue, but I think that leaders need to prioritize, they need to really dig deep and understand what's most important and to prioritize that. I see that in the political arena. I I think that a lot of people do a lot of things instead of leading and serving the people that they're interested to serve, they do a lot of things just to kind of amp their profile and their image versus fulfilling their responsibilities. And I think that's because they're distracted. I think that we only have so much bandwidth and do to our jobs, but today's world, right? There's just so much coming all over the place. And a lot of the things that are coming are good, they're not bad things, but we just have to, I think we as leaders uh just need to be careful, you know, in terms of what's coming in.

Gary Wise 1:45:30

And to your point, man, leaders chose to be in the arena. Part of that leadership thing is to refine priorities, yes. And if you're not willing to pick a priority, you're not the leader for the job, you're not the one for the position, right? I remember to asking the chief engineer on the I struggle.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:46

I struggle with that, Gary. I'm just gonna in full candor because I struggle with that.

Gary Wise 1:45:49

Yeah, yeah. But you know what? You gotta have tools then to do it for yourself, even right. Whether it's like one of my favorite things to do is I'll write it all down. When I have a bunch of competing priorities, I'll write them all down and I'll rack and stack them from the easiest wins on top to the hardest wins on the bottom, and I'll start aligning my priorities towards the quick wins because I want to get momentum going again and I want to start gaining production while I really second guess how serious am I in accomplishing these longer-term goals? Because I know they're gonna, there's gonna be a price to pay, right? There's gonna be a cost I gotta pay if it's all gonna be a thing. But as a leader, as a as a dad, as a husband, as a man, as whatever, part of our job, like you said, is to help synthesize the overwhelming amount of things coming at us to identify what are the main areas to go after, right? And you know, and that's just it. And what's awesome though is when you're able to teach your children to teach your team members to help you with that, yeah. You know, like yo, I've been a high school ROTC instructor, this is my fourth year, so my first year freshmen for my first year are now seniors this year, brother. It's freaking amazing, yeah. They are phenomenal, right? It's like throwing red meat to the wolves. They are I've got you think about getting four years with people, bro. Yeah, we never got that in the surface. You might get 18 months with somebody, yeah. Someone's leaving, some was leaving. I got four years with these kids, they're so dialed in, man. That I I mean, yeah, today, today, they literally erased all of the goals on the board and rewrote it all in order of priority. And I'm just like, you guys are that's awesome, right? But that's the that's the training value that leaders can offer to people to give them tools to find what works for them because ultimately it's just finding the right tool, right? All you need is the right tool. I now I I don't believe you. We can have the conversation are leaders born, or are they you know, are they developed, you know, um, nature versus nurture or whatever it's gonna be? Because I can go either way on that conversation. Um, I believe it's wisdom recognizing the tools that are being offered to you to best accomplish the mission, and then don't be a gatekeeper, share that information with other people because you never know when what you say is gonna be what inspires that other person, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:48:32

For sure, absolutely and that's it, man.

Gary Wise 1:48:34

Um, okay. Next question is how can parents uh I would say best use we could use leadership skills or just what are advice you would give to parents as they work with adolescents, teens? Any advice there?

Illness, Loss, And The Decision To Retire

SPEAKER_01 1:48:51

Yeah, great question. I think that as parents working with adolescents, you know, I have two daughters, and well, uh we're all in this together, right? Parents need to support other parents. We're like a team, right? You know, I mean, in a sense of I I think well, it there's a lot that kids need, they have so many needs, and and growing up as a teenager in today's world is really tough. I think the most important thing is to uh you can always control the degree of love and affection. That's important. Don't cease the love and the affection. Uh discipline can be tough. Sometimes communication, uh uh discipline, uh patterns, those things can vary based on circumstances and environments, right? But I think that the safest and best thing one can always do to their son or daughter is always remind them and tell them that you love them. Always show them, tell them give them affection. Don't don't stop hugging on them and giving them affection, say, I love you, I love you. Um, and I think that you can always keep doing that, even though there may be, you know, tough conversations, discipline, hey, you got to get on them, do this, do that. All those things will come and go. But I I feel that, and I say that because I was something that was never short. Was something that I always took with me for my parents. They were never short on affection and positive affirmation. Yeah, they made them mistakes. My parents made them mistakes. We all make mistakes. We're going to make so many mistakes as parents, but I think that as long as we're uh reminding them that they are loved, right? I think we put them in the best position to feel secure and safe, that they can go out there and make moves, they can take risks, they can take on challenges, that they have uh layers of self-confidence that are built on, hey, no matter what the world throws me, because the world's gonna hit them. The world's gonna hit our kids in so many places. But if they feel deep inside, somewhere, there's always a place, there's places in this world in my home where I am loved. They got my back. If I break, if I break, I can go back to those places at least, and they can put help me put these pieces together. And I think that's so hard. They have to feel that we love them. So yeah, I would just say love and affection is is probably the best advice because we beat ourselves up as parents, but I think that that's no, it's hard, man.

Gary Wise 1:50:56

Parenting kids is hard, and we all have our first kid, right? And and unfortunately, I don't know about if you're if you and your wife are like this, but I can already tell the nuance of how my younger son is treated to my older son. And I was an older brother and I had a younger sister, and I used to always resent how my parents treated her differently. But hey man, they're just different strokes for different folks, right? Like as parents, you learn things, and then the kids are different, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:23

So they respond differently to different different love languages and stuff, yeah.

Gary Wise 1:51:28

But I a lot of times I think when I ask this question of my guests, and I'm hoping that the kids that are listening to these shows that they take it into consideration and that they understand that they're hopefully their parents to mean the best, they're doing the best, and we can all give each other some grace, right? Yeah, as we get, and I think what you said, you know, is we're all in this together. Um, yeah, you know, I I'm not the guy that says at 18 years old my kids gotta get out, you know. I I think that I kind of learned this from being abroad and seeing other cultures, is that we can all win as long as we're contributing and we're all appreciating the contribution, we're not taking advantage of anybody, right? Yeah, I think, and I think Americans, especially West or Western culture, we're kind of losing this whole familial thing because we're like, oh, you got to get out and go figure it out on your own. Well, that's not always the best thing, right? All right, let's go. What's the next question I got for? That's a good answer, though. Um, what's one piece of advice you would give to somebody struggling in an organization that they feel like doesn't have their best interests in mind?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:34

Well, I think that's great, another really good one. I think that in my experience, from what I've seen, right? From folk, because that's very common. A lot of people will feel that way, very marginalized in some environments. Uh, I think that what I would tell that person is really just be patient with themselves because based on the situation and circumstances, whether they're in a job that they don't like, they feel that they don't they're not being taken care of, right? Definitely just find somebody to communicate with, find somebody you can trust and talk to about your situation. Um, because obviously you can't trust everybody with that information, especially those who maybe mistreating you. But find a trusted source, find a good friend that you can share and put that out there too, and try your best to try to be very careful about getting good advice. Find people that you admire and try to get advice from those that you admire, right? Because I think that a lot of people are gonna be quick to give their advice about what to do. But sometimes those situations are tough. I think work, I think for a young worker working in any organization, a young person, especially younger or whatever, sometimes we go into places and some workplaces and environments, some organizations are tough, and not because people are trying to get you, but because people are self-interested, you know. And I think that, you know, and I've always believed that, you know, I I tell that to my daughters, and sometimes I say, baby, people don't wake up trying to hurt you, it's just people are people, they screw up. And sometimes you're the we're the we're the you know, we pay the price. But yeah, um, so I think that that's what I would tell that person is show a lot of grace to themselves, find somebody to really share and communicate with, uh, and then before they make any major decisions, uh, really think carefully. Because even if they make a wrong decision, you know, even if you make wrong decisions, it's okay. Just try to practice thinking through things. I've always felt that a person needs to practice uh the habit of thinking through things and then make a decision. Even if the decision isn't the best one, but you made a decision and you at least thought through it. And and I think that if you're doing that most of the time, I feel that that's gonna mitigate um from really making a bad one. You can make a kind of a uh may not be the best decision, but at least you didn't really screw it up. But and I so I just think really kind of thinking through things and then communicating. Yeah, that that's that's sort of but yeah, that that's that's I think that's really common, Gary. You know, that way it's very common, man.

Creating After Service: Dave’s Transmissions

Gary Wise 1:54:55

You know, I think it's just you know, don't be too hard on yourself. Some of the some of the worst criticisms we give to ourselves in our own head, right? Totally, and and sometimes you just gotta change that self-talk, and you've got to get out of that space where you're obsessing about the negativity, because unfortunately, the law of attraction is still applying. If you're obsessing about that negative, unfortunately, it's gonna start coming to you because the universe is gonna think that's what you want. Yeah, yeah. You gotta let that totally hard. Like you said, talking with somebody about it is critical because uh, if you can get it out of you by sharing the load with somebody else to win, it's just the one other thing I would tell them is the thing is not everyone though needs to know your stuff, right? You gotta be selective about who you share with because it hurts if somebody breaks your trust, right? Um, and I've unfortunately I've seen that way too many times throughout my life on this earth, and I talk to the kids about that often. Like, just I'm glad you got someone, but just not everyone needs to know your business, right? Um for sure. All right, here a little faster. We're on the ship, it's Saturday night. Are you looking forward to the pizza or the wings?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:10

I'm a carbs guy, so I like pizza.

Gary Wise 1:56:13

You like pizza, okay? All right, I need somebody to go to the birthing. I need someone to go to the working party. Which one do you want?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:20

I'm sorry, repeat that, Gary.

Gary Wise 1:56:21

I need someone to go clean the birthing, or I need someone to go to the working party. Which one do you want?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:26

Ah, I think the working party. I always kind of enjoy I always enjoy the tempo of the working party. I think you get better, I think you get better jokes during the working party. You do, yeah.

Gary Wise 1:56:35

All right, hey, we're gonna watch a movie in the Chiefs mess. Would you rather watch De Niro or Pacino? Pacino, Pacino, okay. Yeah, looking back on your career, did you have a favorite duty station?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:49

Uh, I think the funnest was Rota Spain. Uh okay, I think the funnest, yeah, definitely Road of Spain.

Gary Wise 1:56:54

Tough one to be, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:56

It's a tough one.

Gary Wise 1:56:59

Okay, looking back on your career, did you have a favorite Liber?

SPEAKER_01 1:57:06

Well, uh, Liberty Ports were big on the G dub, and I think on the G dub, I I think I think Singapore was probably our favorite, my favorite.

Gary Wise 1:57:14

I mean Singapore is hard to beat, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:16

Between Singapore and Hong Kong, uh, I think Singapore was my favorite.

Gary Wise 1:57:19

Truth be told, I could see my wife and I going to Singapore for like three months and like getting an Airbnb and just hanging out. I can see Australia too, right? Like, because it's easy to get around. English is, I mean, it's just and it's just super safe, and I loved it there, so I could see that. Um, looking back on your career, what was the hardest qualification you had to achieve?

SPEAKER_01 1:57:41

Uh, the most difficult qualification, I think, in terms of what I had to go through to get it, was probably my first warfare device, the the FMF warfare device. Okay, yeah, that's gone. It was it was it was tough. I I I I almost quit. It was, it was, it was, I I kept failing. Um to I had to pay, I had to take the test twice, and then we had to go through obstacle courses in the practical apps of going through this land navigation, and I and I and I it took me like three times until I finally passed it. Uh but then I finally passed it. But it was tough at the time, but thank God when I finally and when I passed it, I was super excited because it was my first one.

Gary Wise 1:58:13

That's awesome. Yep. All right. Um, if you were gonna give someone advice, would you tell them to go overseas or stateside?

SPEAKER_01 1:58:24

Oh, they ask me, I'm gonna tell them overseas. Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, like every sailor has what's going on in their mind, their family situation, they they know their situation better than anybody, but I've always been a proponent. Hey, you're in the navy, bro. Like, go go out there, see, see stuff, right? Go overseas and and broaden your perspective and your horizon, things like that.

Gary Wise 1:58:46

I'm with you, man. I get it. Trust me, I did a lot of overseas time, and truthfully, I just liked it because it was simpler, yeah. Right? It was a simpler life. I didn't have to worry about all the chaos that was going on back home, and commute to work was simple, right? And we're going to the exchange of the commissaries, pretty simple, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:04

Oh, yeah. The AFN network, remember the AFN network?

Gary Wise 1:59:08

Saved a lot of money, yeah. Oh, yeah, a lot of money. Yeah, overseas cola, the cola didn't hurt either. No, no, not at all. All right, did you have a do you have a favorite movie series? Uh, The Godfathers, The Godfathers, awesome. Um, would you rather be independent or on a team?

SPEAKER_01 1:59:31

Man, that's a tough one. But I think I think by oh my gosh, I say 50-50 on that one. I say 50-50 on that one because uh I think it's if there's a as a there's a very sophisticated answer to that, but to keep it short, I'm by nature I'm becoming more independent. I I see the value in independent thought, if that makes sense. That's something I'm taking very seriously, but I but I but I love being on a team, I love working with people too. So I guess the answers there's a time for both, and I see like on my life, there's gonna be a time for both. I'm gonna need teams in my life, and then I'm there's there's times where I just I'm gonna have to make I'm gonna have to go solo.

Faith, Creativity, And Calling

Gary Wise 2:00:08

I I will tell you, brother, that so there's nothing harder than chief and chiefs, right? And the best chiefs messes I've ever been a part of were a bunch of individuals who chose to be a collective, right? Oh, yeah, that's it, but every one of them could be the leader given the right moment. And my role as the CMC was to recognize which one was the best one to lead for that particular role and throw them the opportunity and have everybody else back them up, right? And and share the wealth, right? Share the wealth, share, throw the red, share the red meat with everyone. Because I used to tell my chiefs that I tell this to my cadets, there's enough room for everyone to eat at the table, and we all win if we don't care who gets the credit, right? So let's not worry about trust in the process, you gotta trust in the mess, trust in the process, right? It's when people lose that trust, they get nervous, right? Yeah, or they start to feel like uh their time's not being value added. Okay, do you have a personal leadership philosophy?

SPEAKER_01 2:01:08

I think I put it, um, it's my mission statement in Dave's transmissions. It's real simple. Be good, fight evil, help people. Very simple. Yeah, it's very it's very, very, very simple.

Gary Wise 2:01:21

I get I can get behind that for sure. Okay, so in the Navy Chiefs mess, we have deck plate leadership, institutional technical expertise, professionalism, character, loyalty, active communication, and a sense of heritage. Those were our mission, vision, and guiding principles as Navy Chiefs, right? I I use these all the time to this day. I've used them for my own business. I've kind of synthesized them to be applicable to the civilian sector. Um, out of those, which one's your favorite?

SPEAKER_01 2:01:57

Um, I think I like active communication. I'm seeing a lot of value in that. Um, I I it's funny because I always and I look at patterns throughout my career. I think professionalism was always what they ranked highest on me whenever I was rated throughout my career. I just noticed that that was always a pattern. But I think active comms, they're all great. I love Death Club leadership, but I think active comms is something that I'm shh I'm really bought into at this point in my life moving forward.

Gary Wise 2:02:24

Okay, I love it. All right, would you rather lead or follow?

SPEAKER_01 2:02:30

To be totally candid, lead. I'm supposed to be a nice, I'm supposed to be a good guy and say, Well, I'll follow when I need to and lead. I like leading, bro.

Gary Wise 2:02:40

I get it, man. I you know what they did my assessment when I was going through CLT school, they're men, they do a bunch of different things, right? And they say the challenge you're gonna have is that you don't care about any of the credit, but you think you always need to be the leader because you want the team to win, and you feel like you're always the best guy for the job. And they're like, so be careful with that. I was like, and they were not wrong, but it's also you know what? I I am more than happy to give someone else the opportunity if they can convince me they they're more prepared or more energized than I am because that's what I've always felt was a challenge, right? You give someone an opportunity to leave, but then they don't bring the right energy or whatever it is, but that's tough. Um, all right, brother, that is it. You have any saved rounds or alibis?

Rapid‑Fire: Leadership And Parenting

SPEAKER_01 2:03:24

Um, I want to share one quick C story, you know, a quick one about the G dub. And I'm I want to say I said this one at my retirement ceremony. It was the last story that I told before I gave homage to my dad, and I closed it out. Um, and it was very impressive. I was uh the the stress was palpable on the ship because we were getting ready for three of my inspection, and there was a sail, there was a spot check. The senior chief spot checking a junior sailor, and the stress was you could feel it in the air, how stressed that sailor was. We're talking about sleep deprivation, stress, you know, the kind of stuff I feel. And the senior chief uh is spot checking him, hard, crusty senior chief from the air department, uh, spot checking our corpsman. And I'm watching it, and it's rough, it's late at night, it's like 11 at night, and he's sweating. You can just picture it. Yeah, and the see and all of a sudden, and I never see this. Was so cool. Senior Chief says, Stop, time out here. He said, Let me tell you something. And he asks the coroner, you're nervous, you're stressed, and he done lie. Yes, yes, senior chief. You know, and I it's almost like his eyes got watery by just giving it by hearing an honest question and giving an honest answer. The senior chief tells him, I'm gonna tell you something right now. Um, whether you pass or fail this thing, one thing's for sure. When you're done with this, you're probably gonna go take a shower and hit the rack, go to bed, right? Yes, all right. Just remember that if you pass this thing, you're gonna go take a shower and hit the rack. If you fail, you're gonna pass this thing. You're gonna take a shower and hit the rack. Either way, you're gonna take care of yourself afterwards and you're gonna move on. Tomorrow's gonna be another day. Yeah, and you could almost feel the stress break into place. The kid, like he and he got he like he got like a little smile, like a little bit of relaxation. Like and he it, you know, it was the coolest thing. Well, he finished his spot check, passed the spot check, went to bed that night. And that that right there was one of the best examples of I think the kind of leadership that you just of all the leadership examples, I just thought that was so cool that he did that. He gave that Seder with encouraging words that made him relax, feel better about tomorrow, and accomplish the mission. And I just feel like I was blessed to be around those kinds of leaders uh during my career.

Gary Wise 2:05:24

Definitely, man. Well, David, man, I appreciate you taking the time to share your stories with us and to share your history and your heritage. And I really hope I'm looking forward to watching your success. If you ever need anything, feel free to hit a brother up. I'm out here doing my thing in Florida and uh take care of yourself, okay, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:42

Thanks, brother. Like, same to you. I mean, I I I really appreciate what you got going on here. I love it, and I know you're gonna also do great things. Continue, you're gonna continue doing great things as well. Keep these conversations up.

Gary Wise 2:05:52

Definitely, man. Well, thank you very much, everybody. If you liked our conversation, like, subscribe, and Dave, make sure I got your information so I can put it in the notes for the videos so I can make sure we get the word out there, okay? Definitely.