Well, good day and welcome to Pitbull 214. I am Rick Perales, a retired Air Force veteran, your host for this program. We've got a great show for you today. But before I get started, I think I need to always give my elevator speech about what is Pitbull 214. I design Pitbull 214 to help our veterans and their families. I do this two ways. One, I identify and bring on the subject matter experts for the thousands, I mean thousands, of programs out there, of resources out there, of services out there, of people out there, of organizations out there solely designated to help our veterans and their family. There are so many out there. The problem is that the veterans most often don't know about them. I can't get them all, of course, but I will keep bringing them on as I hear about them. And it's not just in the Dayton area where I live by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, it's throughout the country and truly even international. So that's the first way we do it. The second way we do it to a lesser degree is that we share stories, veteran stories, told by the veterans to veterans. Everyone likes a good war story. It helps with camaraderie for their veterans. They could connect. Many times they'll say, hey, I was there, or I flew with someone there. So I will continue to try to do those two things to make life better for our veterans. Towards that end, if you have any suggestions on either one, you have a program that's great that you'd like to get on the air, or you have a veteran with a story that is highly unusual, exciting, maybe a tearjerker, let me know about it. I'd like to make contact and get them on my show if it if it is consistent with the the show. So that was the first thing. That's what we're doing. Second, I like to always talk a little bit about our troops that are out in harm's way right now. You know, it's been six months since we started this thing with Iran, and I don't know that anyone really thought it would go this long, but it has, and it is. And um our troops are just out there every day doing the same thing. And we've we've never we can never forget about them or take them for granted. We've got to always appreciate them. When you get an opportunity, thank them and continue to say your prayers and keep them in your thoughts. Um they're doing the right thing for us. And uh whether you're for the war or against the war, it doesn't really matter. Those young men and women did not vote on that. They didn't make that decision. They're doing what they're told by our commander in chief, and that's good enough for me. Now, with that, I'd like to I'd like to uh uh just mention uh we had a um a uh retiree veteran, uh excuse me, retiree appreciation day at Wright Patterson on Friday uh last week. And it was it was wonderful. I'm gonna put a couple pictures up. Uh there were uh probably 50 vendors there um uh that had specialty item services solely for vets. It was a real good turnout. Um and I want to thank Wright Patterson for that. And I know that many bases and organizations do that. Uh my intent on my website eventually is to show those, whether they're in the Dayton Wright-Patterson area or wherever, so that anyone viewing this that is in the area and can go and wants to go will know about it. So um kudos to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, it was a sergeant's association for doing that. Now I want to bring on my next guest, and he's a special guy. Uh the guy ought to be in Hollywood. He's he's a Marine, uh served uh several tours, and he started up a company that specializes on leadership. And I think you'll really enjoy his um his um interview and and maybe get something out of it that you can take away for your future or someone else's future. I'd also like to mention that uh just today my challenge coins uh arrived. I ordered them several months ago, and as a commander and a military and as a politician, I always have uh challenge coins. I just found that they were uh very useful, uh better than a handshake or a good job, um, and and it didn't take a lot with the of course with the a formal challenge coin handshake. Um so let me show this to you, and I'll be giving it to my guest and really anyone I've run into that is helping our vets. That's a front, and this is the back if you can make that out. So happy that came in today. And um, if uh you are in the right place at the right time, maybe you'll get one of those bad boys. Um so again, we're gonna get to our uh main guest, that's uh Chris Cravins. Let me show you his book, Descent to Marine Corps Greatness. It is his story on his deployments, and it's a good one. And I think you're gonna enjoy Chris. Um he is uh a great speaker, he he's out there all the time talking about what's right and what the military did for him and and his wife Lauren. Um so with that, we'll get to Chris and then we'll be right back to talk about it. Pitbull out. Well, welcome back to Pitbull 214 Podcast. Again, I'm Rick Perales, the host of your program, and I'm an Air Force vet, and I am so pleased to have a dear friend of mine. Uh, I've talked before about uh you make a friend and four years later you run into them, and it's like you've never never missed any time. Uh this is one such person. Uh Chris Cravins is a a jar uh a Marine. I'm sorry, not a jar head. I'm not gonna say that, right?
SPEAKER_03We earned it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh and he's a dear friend. And um we actually ran into each other happenstance at a um uh function uh for a Marine who w died. Uh tell tell that tell a little bit about that, Chris.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that was the 20th anniversary of the Matt Maupin Foundation. And Matt Matt was army his dad and four of his brothers were all Marines. So uh, you know, long Marine lineage, but he was uh he was a logistician. Uh he was uh unfortunately captured in 04. Uh we found some remnants of him in 2008, and his dad since has, and as you know at the gala, they've done geez, uh you know, under just under a million dollars in scholarships in Matt's name, 38,000 care packages of those that are still downrange and on ships and just a phenomenal organization.
SPEAKER_00Making sure that our troops know that they're not forgotten. I love it. And um, you want to guess who the keynote speaker was for that event? My good friend Chris.
SPEAKER_03The worst one that got it.
SPEAKER_00I will tell you, he rocked the place, had great pictures, and you'll see some of those pictures here. And he was dressed, and I I will give the Marines this. They have the sharpest class A's in the in the military, uh, bar none. Uh and and he looked pretty sharp. You could still fit into it, that was.
SPEAKER_03Well, I didn't eat that week. I had two salads, uh some ramen noodles. I really squeezed back into that thing. But uh, but yeah, thank you. I think the Marine Corps, the good thing with them is they don't change much.
SPEAKER_00And well, I'll tell you, um, I didn't expect to see him there. I saw him. We were already coordinating, getting him on my podcast on Pitbull 214. Uh, so it was a nice pleasure for both of us, and I uh got to say hi to his lovely wife, Lauren. And you're gonna hear more about that. I don't want to take it all away. But uh yeah, Chris Cravens is a Marine. You've already figured that out, and he has it runs a program, and we're gonna get to that. But Chris, first, what I'd like to do with my guest is have them talk a little bit about who they are, how they got there, their their youth growing up, what inspiration they had to be where they are. Why don't you share some of that with us?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yes, uh you know, absolutely. Um I uh I love being in this area. It reminds me of you know what home used to be. So I grew up until I was about nine in Bethel. So, you know, about an hour outside Cincinnati, very, very rural. Uh, we still have the Benjamin Five and Dime, which was, you know, the Walmart two-story house. Um we just uh you know about ten years ago we changed out the blinking light for the Hold on a second. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh for you folks that don't know anything about Bethel, we're talking Southwest Ohio. Yeah, okay. Just to put it in perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, and and great, great little town. Um, and actually it was uh it was kind of anchored in between really Cincinnati and a and a place even further out um east in Cincinnati called Russellville. So my dad owned two bars. He you know, he was uh he was an owner of two of these, and one was very rural, farmers rough, tough. I can remember hiding as a youth underneath the pool table as there were bar fights and trying it was the only safe place that and the one thing in the room that didn't move in a in a in a in a 90s bar fight at that time, and we were heavily saturated with um iron horsemen at the one here closer to Cincinnati. So so when you talk about who'd you grow up around, that those were kind of my people. Tough people. So you worked there too, right? I I did. I did. So my parents were divorced. Um so really my time with my dad were in the summers during summer break. Um and uh the the bar in Cincinnati, I actually lived above it, actually lived right above where we put the band on Friday and Saturday night. So not a lot of sleep from you know, whatever, uh, you know, 9 p.m. to when the cops showed up to shut us down for noise ordinance. Um but uh but yeah, I did. I mean, I was, you know, if you know the John Boehner story on the west side, I mean six, seven years old, you're wiping down tables, you're there's the old days to where we're putting empty bottles back because we got to send them back to the distributor, right? So, you know, it was uh it was it was chaos. He had big burgers in one and uh really good bar fout borer fights in the one out east, and those are just the people I was raised around.
SPEAKER_00So you were there at what ages?
SPEAKER_03Oh geez, let's say I would say probably nine to sixteen.
SPEAKER_00Okay, through high school.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, talk about high school and and school a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so uh so real culture shock, if you will. I mean, you know, I was up until about nine years old. I was I was out east, very rural, very small classes, and then came into the Turpin Anderson area in in Cincinnati. Uh, you know, so really moved to the suburbs, which was new to me. We had 30 something acres, you know, I was gone all day, and all of a sudden you're you're on a half acre and you're locked in. Um, but I wound up going to Turpin. Uh my wife went to Anderson, we're a house divided. So if anyone knows the Cincinnati region, no one cares if you went to Harbor or Yale. They want to know what high school you went to.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, there I got Auburn, Alabama. That's my same, same. I got you. For sure.
SPEAKER_03So it was uh, but you know, it was you know, I was in ninth grade, they wheeled the TV in for a lot of us, you know, in my age of, you know, 38 uh to 43 right now. Um, and we watched the planes at the towers, you know, i in ninth grade. And um I I I grew up at these establishments around a lot of very patriotic folks, but a lot that um served in Vietnam. That was that was the demographic. Um and so uh they'd always said serve, go serve your country. There's no better honor. Um and to be honest, without um maybe without 9-11, I don't know if I would have served. Um I didn't have a real tie to uniforms and uniformity and all that, but but when those planes hit I knew I was I was gonna I was gonna serve.
SPEAKER_00So uh going back a little bit, yeah, did you have any any family and the service?
SPEAKER_03So so my dad was actually in the Marines. Um he had done four years and and talk about luck. He was Vietnam era and he was a communications guy, which we know their life expectancy in Vietnam was very low. Uh he worked at the com school, he did really great through com school, and they assigned him right back to uh to Penalton at the Comm School, and he never deployed. He ate hot dogs on the beach on the weekends and taught to taught a whole bunch of unfortunate folks that were gonna be radio operators in Vietnam. Uh my grandpa was was very highly decorated, uh Army Army, okay. Army, yeah. Um, you know, landed on I think seven beachheads, Sicily all the way through. Uh, you know, I've got all his paperwork, I've got to turn it into something. Yeah, it's very cool. You know, you uh you start seeing bronze stars and multiple awards, and you know, everything's got a V on it, you're like, whoa, grandpa was the real deal. Um but uh but it was you know that was really kind of my tie. But I think it in lieu of knowing I was gonna serve overseas, I don't know if I would have just done it for the sheer patriotism and experience.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But 9-11 shook you up.
SPEAKER_039-11 shook me up.
SPEAKER_00It shook many people up.
SPEAKER_03It i it did, it did. It was uh I think it was a fire inside, especially as a young patriotic person that um that was around a lot of veterans all the time um that were called and drafted right in service. So I said, Hey, if you know, if I gotta sign up and go and do my time and you know, you just you have this anger, you know, and you don't know where to harness it. Um and uh and I found it in the Marine Corps. I I found a place to put it.
SPEAKER_00So what kind of student were you?
SPEAKER_03Terrible play sports? Terrible, I was a terrible student. Terrible So I uh so funny story, I only played one sport. And it really my I call my my mom is a single mom. I mean, I spent my summers with my dad, but my mom did the hard and heavy lifting during the school year. Uh and it was her and my sister, and we were just this trifecta. And um and yeah, so I uh I wound up going to Turpin. I I I tell people all the time my initials are CCC, Chris Carl Cravens, my foundation is three C foundation, my grade point average from kindergarten through my MBA all C's. So it's you know, but but what the military did for me is it it surrounded me with A B A and B players that I had not really been around in my life. And so that that's what I tell people. Rose they lifted me up. They lifted me up.
SPEAKER_00I'm the same way. I got through college, but but I wasn't wearing any rope around my neck. I I was wondering if they pulled the chair out for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. For sure.
SPEAKER_00But I did the same thing in my career. I I found out, and and there's always those uh colonels, generals, uh chiefs uh that you look up to and say, I like that, I like his style. Yes. Or her style. Yes. Good. So uh so high school wasn't really your thing. No. And what sport was it? It was football. Football, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It was football. So I worked all the way up from Pee-Wee up until my 11th grade. And uh a buddy of mine, uh, I had only played offense one play. One play in my entire at this point, eight or nine years playing football. And uh they're like, hey Cravens, we're down a receiver, just go run across the middle and catch the ball. Well, I did it when my buddy, who I think was juicing in high school, uh, crushed me and I broke my collarbone. And at the time, one play, one play on offense, I get crushed. And I break my collarbone, and um, I'm in the delayed entry program, and they said, Hey, this has to heal almost perfect, and you can't play football your senior year. So obviously the only thing you want to do in your Pee Wee football is play, you know, your your senior year. So here I am the strategic advisor on the sideline my senior year, right? Just what a joke. Uh so I was really ready to get in the Marine Corps when I knew I couldn't play football my senior year. That was yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, you said uh delayed entry. Yeah. So talk a little bit about how you got there, the recruiting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. Uh and you know what's interesting is that every day going down Clough Pike, going to the recruiting station, which was at Eastgate at the time, uh, I had to go by a fence from where um from where Matt Maupin went to uh high school, which was Glenn Estee, which is now torn down. Uh but at the time there was a big fence, and for years while he was captured, people just kept adding pictures and yellow ribbons and and all of these things. And so, like, what a reminder for me. Like, here's a guy to an adjacent high school that got captured that is still downrange and is still captured, and we don't have him. And so to think like if I didn't have enough hate and discontent to leave Cincinnati, I had a reason to go look for someone. And uh and and I drove by that place every day to go to I probably I probably was at the recruiting station more than I was home at the time. I just you start to feel what brotherhood feels like and and having a mission and something more important, and and I pretty much lived there um until the day I shipped out.
SPEAKER_00And that was right after high school.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, oh four. Yeah, so I uh so July 7th, just after July 4th, you celebrate, you have a great time, you somehow made it through high school, and I shipped to Paris Island at the hottest time of the year.
SPEAKER_00Talk a little bit about your training and how they prepared you and and your psyche during that time.
SPEAKER_03For sure. So I was I was uberly motivated. I was um I I was excited to go. I, you know, at this point they they've been talking about it for two years. Uh guys I grew up with in the bars have been talking about it for my entire life. Um, you know, so I wind up on the island. Um and uh, you know, a lot of these guys that are coming back, these instructors have been in combat since, you know, 2001, Chiz and Four. So there's just some really hardened individuals, um, which I think is exactly what you need from your instructors. You need people that have been there and lived it and lost and understand how important the training is. Um, and uh yeah, I mean it was hell. Uh, you know, I uh I kept my head down a lot. Um, you know, my uh my uncle was in Vietnam and he said, you know, don't ever volunteer for anything. And he said, when I first got to Vietnam, they're like, hey, who can drive a Jeep? And he put his hand up like good, if you can drive a Jeep, you can push a wheelbarrow. And that's what he did for that six months. I was like, well, don't volunteer. So don't volunteer, keep my head down. You remember that. Yeah, I remember that. Yes, I still remember it. So don't volunteer, you know, volunteer. I was still volunteered a lot, but that's different. Um, but I did, I got through phenomenal drill instructors, uh, great guys. You know, you get through this 13 weeks, um, but the hard part, you're not there yet. Because going to the school of infantry, it's it's kind of like boot camp on steroids, except we all know where you're headed. Um, and uh, you know, so I wind up, I I get through this 13 weeks. Um, and at the end, if you can remember of Full Metal Jacket at the time, um, they say uh they're going down the list of military occupational skills. And in the Marine Corps, we all know it's 0311. So it's very much like that. Like if you remember in the movie, the one guy was like combat camera, and you know, gun healer and me freaks out like you're a what? Because everybody on the list is infantry, because that's what we need downrange. It's very much that. There might have been a couple guys that were smarter, maybe they were aviation techs or something, but everybody in my class was 03. Yeah, for sure. That was it. Uh you know, you get a little bit of time and then you wind up at the school of infantry, and that's that's where the rubber meets the road.
SPEAKER_00That's where And how long was that training?
SPEAKER_03Oh shoot, what were we there for about I don't know, maybe maybe another two and a half, three months at the time. Yeah. So you're 13 weeks on the island, so you know you're you know, you're you know two and a half months there, and then you're you're a month in recruiter's assistance, you come home, tell everybody how badass you are, which you're not yet, uh, and then you go to the school of infantry and they they tell you what it really takes to be a Marine.
SPEAKER_00So how how along from um infant infantry to to actually deploying.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow. So I uh you know, I get through just after December of the same year. So now graduated high school, go through boot camp, make it through SOI, the end of December. In January I get assigned to a unit um 1-6, 1st Battalion Six Marines, which I spent all of my deployments with, even with my in-between NCIS time. And then uh yeah, I think by by March we're in Fallujah.
SPEAKER_00That's your first tour.
SPEAKER_03That's my first tour.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Uh talk talk a little bit about what you saw there, what you felt, uh the Brotherhood.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um, you know, Fallujah had recently been pushed, right? So the the major push that was through Fallujah, which you know, everyone knows the Phantom Fury piece. Uh we we relieved that unit and we were really in there for the cleanup and to uh to let people that they had evacuated out of the city back in. Um so it was very uh very deserted when we first got there, which makes our job easier when, you know, you know that anyone's there is is not supposed to be there. But within, you know, just a few just a few days we started letting people back into the city and get back to their homes and get back to their lives and open their shops back up. So it was a lot of checking people, registering people, you know, we had some some technology to take photos of eyes and fingerprints and that. So we really started trying to get a database of people that are coming in. Well, if you wind up getting shot at, we can figure out who this individual is and and collect some intel on who they're tied to. Um and that was a lot, uh that was a lot of what we did. Um I was a point man in Fallujah, youngest guy there, right? So you're up front, you're you know, normally the first guy in the door. Uh, but I will say um, you know, accolades to to the squad leader, he had called me out, and I got to be a navigation man, which meant not only was I up front, but I had a map. Um so you know, when you talk about compass, when you talk about route planning, when you talk about coordinating with where the chaos is, um, I I I I I really had a vantage point I wouldn't have had as just a guy holding a big saw in the back of the formation, right? I mean, I I was every day coming back, who just got hit, where did that explode at? Where do we where do we now make our routes to see if we can't find these people that did it? So it was really it was an engaging spot for a PFC that normally doesn't have a lot of responsibility.
SPEAKER_00It's like you're back on the sideline, the football strategist, right?
SPEAKER_03100%. You know, um but uh So how long was that tour? That tour was seven months.
SPEAKER_00Did you see a lot of action? Or was it most of what you were talking about?
SPEAKER_03That was my quietest, which is crazy. People are like, oh my gosh, right, yeah, yeah. And you know, but you're you're patrolling every day, uh, but you know, we we lost our first Marine on June 14th, um, you know, just a few months after we've been there, uh Lance Corporal Klinger. Um, and ironically, you know, we talk about what the things we bring back from war, not only what we saw but what we were exposed to. Uh my buddy Ben Pelham was a corporal at the time and he kind of gave his combat eulogy. Um and we lost Ben uh two or three years later to a brain injury, actually from high radio waves talking to helicopters that we were trying to metabate. So you just the loss never really stops, right? So it's I think it's so important with the work I do now that, like, hey, there's still a lot of work to do for not just those guys that came back with with with mental trauma. There's there's a lot of exposures and a lot of things that that happened that um that that they can kill you too.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah, and it you're right. And look how long it ta it took the
SPEAKER_03No doubt.
SPEAKER_00But it's too late for a lot of our vets. Correct. So you're absolutely right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So so how many folks, uh friends, did you end up losing?
SPEAKER_03So we really only lost Klinger from Bravo Company, which was our small contingent of, you know, roughly 80 or so Marines. Uh we were very fortunate. Um we did within our AO, our area of operations. So we lived in the city. We lived in blown out buildings. We didn't go back to a base. We didn't retrograd anywhere. We when we came back home, our home were blown out houses on the outskirts of Fallujah. That that was our our operating base, if you will. And um so on my birthday, June 23rd, um, there was actually one of the largest mass casualties of female Marines that that I think we've had to date. Um and we had a suicide vehicle born IED, had slammed into the side of a convoy full of female engagement team vet teams at the time. You know, we men didn't search females, right? But females hit a lot of things and had a lot of intel that they weren't allowed to, you know, culturally speak to the male Marines. They were wonderful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's fun. Right. So so it's it's almost like today our law enforcement a woman uh officer has to uh search and do all that stuff with the women prisoner. Right. Uh you had the same thing. Same thing. So you had trucks full of uh women marine.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So they would go back to Camp Fallujah, which was a bigger, more secure area. That's where we'd triage and someone got hit, someone got shot, stepped on something, laid on a hypodermic needle from all the stuff they were shooting up before they came and shot at us, right? Their hype, if you will. They went back there, but um we didn't, you know, this was a time where we were still putting sand blags on the floor. We didn't have a lot of up armor. At the time, right, we're new to this combat space. We don't have a lot of outfitted vehicles, uh, you know, and they were in a pretty much a soft skin uh seven-ton vehicle, and and it they just slammed this vehicle into the side of the fuel tank. And how many women were uh we they wound up u losing three that day, but ultimately had seven that were very severely burned.
SPEAKER_00Oh God bless them.
SPEAKER_03That was June 23rd of 2005. I turned 19. You'll never forget that never forget that birthday.
SPEAKER_00So um uh you finished that tour. Finished that tour six six months.
SPEAKER_03Seven months.
SPEAKER_00Seven months, and and then you have how long?
SPEAKER_03Seven months, and we got pretty much seven months to come back and we're going back again.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah, so in the meantime, talk about your family.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. They're around. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not I'm so so Lauren, my best friend in the world, still is always had a big thing. She's wonderful, by the way. She's a she's amazing. Yeah, for real. She puts up with it. You should, you should, you should. Yeah, I absolutely would. It'd be a much better segment. Um, but uh, but you know, she was my best friend. You know, we're writing, we're great friends. Uh, she actually through high school was dating another guy who became a Marine. Um, he was actually with 325. She has a type. She has a type. They're really loud and annoying folks. I don't know. She could do much better, you know. I mean, maybe she just met us early. Um, but actually, you know, her husband was a was a, or not her husband, her boyfriend at the time was a great man. Um, he was with 325 Lehman Company that had lost over platoon's worth um at the same time in Haditha, which was roughly an hour and a half from where we were. So it was just a really high op tempo time. Um but you know, yeah, I came back, I tried to court her again. She said, no, I'm in the high school together.
SPEAKER_00We were in high school together. Same time. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You've known her for a while.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And her family's great.
SPEAKER_00Did you always know that you guys would end up together?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. Um, I don't I she was way out of my league like she is still now. Right. So you just always think like this isn't gonna pan out. Um, you know, and thank God it did for our kids. Uh it's the only stabilization they have. Um, but uh but she was wonderful. And you know, so I attempted to court her for this entire eight years of in the in the corn. She said, well, maybe when you get out. So, you know, she kicked that can as long as I'd let her. Um But you know, yeah, so we came back to.
SPEAKER_00You told me that you called her from so that's all my last tour.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did. I did.
SPEAKER_00And that's the You said, Hey, I'm gonna say it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. This is this is if you don't say yes now, I'm not gonna ask again. It was one of those deals.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And um and I was very fortunate.
SPEAKER_00Well, you put it out there.
SPEAKER_03I put it out there multiple times. Yeah. So I finally finally got the yes. I finally got a yes.
SPEAKER_00Uh God bless it.
SPEAKER_03So, you know, she's she's wonderful, but but you know, really, I I talk about this a lot. I came home and I didn't know I was so different. Um, I think we're all different.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I mean that's the standard.
SPEAKER_03I didn't associate with the people I played football with from Pee-We up. I didn't what they were living and doing didn't resonate with what I had just been through. So to be honest, I got home and I checked the box, but I wanted to go back down to the unit. That's where my brothers were. That's where the people that I associated with were. And so when you talk about brotherhood, if you didn't serve, you're like, oh yeah, my buddy from the football team and yeah, brother, this, but like, no. Not to this, not to this level of brotherhood.
SPEAKER_00You wouldn't die. Don't live and bleed and die.
SPEAKER_03Um, you know, is a is a is true brotherhood.
SPEAKER_00Um you have two lovely children.
SPEAKER_03I have two great children. Yeah. Two great children. What are you doing? Amazing. Charlotte and Kennedy, a mate. Aged six and ten.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03You just want to hit pause on every, you know, at every age, you want to pause it for a reason. This is the most fun age.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I got to a point where I want to fast forward sometimes and rewind sometimes. That would be a great tool.
SPEAKER_03But they would never fully grow up because all of my friends that have kids that are gone, they just want to go back. But you get grandkids. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's not a bad gig.
SPEAKER_03I've heard well, based on my parents doing it and spoiling ours, I know it's a great gig. Right, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So they're doing well, the family's good.
SPEAKER_03They're phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00And so talk about um the second tour.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so second tour is um it's almost progressive. I would say Ramadi is right in the middle of how terrible Afghanistan was. Um so we wind up, we uh we wind up in Ramadi at the time, and I like to I like to bring this up because there's not a lot of good depictions of it, but um, most people know American Sniper, and they know Chris Kyle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, so he they were seeing Overwatch for 1st Battalion 6 Marines in Ramadi. So most of the shots he took on target were in Ramadi. Um, you know, Jocko was, you know, his podcast and whatever, he was the commander at the time. Um, Chris was with him and a bunch of other really phenomenal guys that took really great shots and could see around corners that we couldn't see. Yeah. Um we we couldn't go outside for the first four four months. Garden it, true, truly. You'd hear a shot ring out and you'd turn the corner of the body and be like, just saved your life.
SPEAKER_00100%. Right, yeah. 100%.
SPEAKER_03Um, so they were, I mean, absolutely great unit. The sniper threat was just insane. We're carrying ballistic panels around with us so we don't get shot in the face in hide sights. Um it was a tough, it was a tough deployment. I mean, we lived in the we lived, once again, not in a base, we lived in a government center right in the center of the city. Uh, we had to bulldoze bulldoze buildings down just to keep the enemy off of us from a you know, at least a block standpoint. Um, it was tough. Good friend of mine is actually uh, I know her, she's great, she's a phenomenal lady. Uh Kai Hunter, she was a cobra pilot at the time. We didn't meet till within this year, but she dropped ordinance for us there. So how amazing, right? So these people's like, thank you from above. You know, I don't know who you are, I'll probably never meet you, but thank you. Um, but that was uh that was a tough, tough deployment. Um, we had suicide bombs hitting buildings, um, the sniper threat was insane. Um, you know, we uh we just continued to push out and they would just continue to fill back. It was a hornet's nest. Ramado was a hornet's nest.
SPEAKER_00Um for my audience out there, um I talked to uh Chris and made sure he was okay because uh I want him to talk about uh things that he brought back home, memories, uh even nightmares. Uh uh not not just to drag them through it again, but I think it's important for civilians and non-combat vets to really understand some of the things that they saw daily. Uh what's Hollywood and what's real life. And so tell us a little bit about some of the uh uh situations that you ran into and and and took back and that you'll never forget, like the women in the truck.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um You know, so Ramadi, we were um you know, so we had some there were two major checkpoints that are there, they were 295 and 296, and we're really trying to run Marines and equipment right through Ramadi at the time. But I mean you're running through the center of hell. I mean, you know, it it just what it was. Um you know, and I can within a day of each other, uh I was standing post. Um, and normally what we did is we would assign where we thought there'd be the most activity to more of a senior marine, you know, but we'd like to get an NCO on that post, you know, you know, someone that's really gonna be really vigilant and can take the shot on their own when they see something happening. So the day prior to this current incident, um, you know, we used to bring hum when Humvees would get blown up, we'd take the glass out of them because it's ballistic. And what we do is we take it up to our post so we could look through it and not be exposed to sniper threats.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03So uh I'm up on this rooftop. Um, I'm a team leader at the time. I got four Marines, and the other team leader comes up, he's like, hey, you're off watch. His name was Bodner, had big stupid glasses. We used to call him BC for birth control. You know what I mean? They were awful, right? Government issued, but fortunately had them on this day. Oh, well, now they're back. Now they're back. I got two pairs of sea bags somewhere I never wore. So maybe I'm hip now. I don't know. But uh, so I you know, I'm like, hey, this is what I saw, this is what's going on in the AO, and literally I'm down the steps. We're in this blown out school in front of this major hot checkpoint where they're putting IDs in the road constantly, trying to hit trucks. And I walk down and hear this snap, and I hear this, oh, and it's Bodner who's up on the roof. And so I go back up, and right where I was looking through 15 seconds earlier and where he was standing, around from God knows how far out. I mean, hit him, what it hit him in the nose is how accurate this shot is, and it just splintered the glass. Unfortunately, he had his glasses on, and the back of that ballistic glass has some like rubberized pieces to keep the shrapnel from coming in. Some of it had broken through, um, but you know, he caught most of the shrapnel, glass shrapnel, you know, in his own glasses, fortunately. But like that was just if that glass wasn't there and we were looking out, that's a sh that's a that's instant death.
SPEAKER_00I mean that's and do you keep in touch with him?
SPEAKER_03You know, I haven't talked to Bodner in years. Um, you know what's interesting, I think.
SPEAKER_00You gotta share this with him since you're calling him out.
SPEAKER_03I will, I will. And he was real short stature, like it was tough. Like, I mean, he had a tough run in the Marine Corps.
SPEAKER_00He just got to dream about that every night.
SPEAKER_03Every day. I mean, he watched it come in.
SPEAKER_00I mean, now that sounds Hollywood.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, insane. Insane. You know, but that that post what we were doing there, thank goodness everybody was okay. But the next day, I'm down, we had this little command center, and I had a really good guy's name is Jamie Lehman. I love him to death, country as shit, owns a horse farm with another guy that we nicknamed Alabama. So these dudes, these are rough dudes anyway, right? These guys are in the right spot. Um, and they're like, Cravens, we uh come up here. I need to get a green light, which ultimately means like I knew I want to take a shot on this person. Somebody back me up, right? Somebody justify the shot. And so I run up, and sure as shit, a guy just got off the back of a scooter. And what they do is they'd keep one five five rounds, which was, you know, a pretty large round, and they would run wires from it, and they would either connect it to something to get it a cell signal. So when they saw the convoy go by, they'd call it, it would ring, and it would blow up and and hit these, you know, hit these uh, you know, these trucks. Or the other one would be they set it up on a pressure plate, they run the wire right to it, it runs over the pressure plate, and then it blasts. It's one of the two. It's radio controller, it's you know, this kinetic one. Um I don't know which one when this was because he didn't live to be able to set it up, but um, we had just gotten these DMR rifles, which is a designated marksmanship rifle. Um, we got them from the army, you know, there's not really a range you test shit at. They just hand you more weapons and you carry them out to the fight. I carried an M79 blooper from Vietnam. If you know it shot 40 mic mics, had a wood stock. Like anything they could give us that we could kill the enemy with, we were we were getting. Um and so yeah, I watched this guy get off. He's digging next to the ground, he's in the middle of this major checkpoint that we've lost way too many Marines in. I was like, yeah, take the shot. So it's click. Shit. Click. Shit. Well, at this point, like this dude's trying to get in and get out. Well, uh, when we pulled it from the armory, uh, the army takes the firing pins out. So we he was lowly out there without a firearm with a firing pin in it. Um so I raise up, I put a few shots in this guy, but I don't even remember taking the shots. You know, we I got some stupid award for doing my job, but you know, shot this guy, he drops, whatever. But like I why I'm so big on leadership is that if, you know, I failed him, right? We did not break that weapon down when we got it issued. We assumed that it worked, right? We didn't test the equipment. Um so immediately after taking those shots, I'm not worried about this guy. We'd killed plenty of people, but like I failed this Marine. You know what I mean? Like, as a leader, like I we handed him a rifle that should have worked, it didn't, and if he'd have kicked in a door and someone had been on the other side and it'd have been a click, he would have gotten killed.
SPEAKER_00But now, he's got a certain amount of responsibility.
SPEAKER_03He does, but leadership is you get a gun and you don't check it out for well, I you know, I think for sure, but I think at the end of the day, it's always the leader's responsibility for any fair.
SPEAKER_00I I agree. No, it's plenty of.
SPEAKER_03But that's where my mind went. So I think when people think like, what's the hardest part of being in combat? Like, closing with and destroying the enemy is easy. They shoot at you, you pin them to a wall, you do your job, right? And people get to live. But like those things are what keep me up at night. It's it's not, you know, those things are the loss of life for the failures that we may have had or the or the time we did we didn't have the step in front of the enemy.
SPEAKER_00Well, I th and I think that you could probably find a failure in any fatality. I think you can. I think you can. They could have so uh uh let's uh to to to round it out, yeah, what would you say was your biggest takeaways? Now you guys explain that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But but your whole time there, your whole time being a Marine, yeah, what did you learn from that? What how did it change you?
SPEAKER_03Oh, um you gotta generally love the people you lead. I mean, you gotta love 'em. I mean, you gotta know their families, you gotta know what drives them, you gotta know what they're passionate about. Um to know that Marines do the amazing things they do with the worst equipment in the worst places, making the worst pay, and they do these phenomenal things. You know, people ask why. It's because they're led well. It's because their leaders love them. Um, and that's what leadership is. Yeah, it's not a book, it's not a course, it's not a PhD in it. Um, it's getting up every day and being truly a servant leader that I am gonna do absolutely everything I can do to make the jobs easier for the people that are assigned to me. Because there's no better honor in the world than to say these people work for you and you you you you work for them. No leader has sub I hate the word subordinates. Um, there are no subordinates. If anything, the leader is subordinate to his people. Because if we don't do the jobs that we have to do to make sure the mission's completed, that's our failure. Yeah. So you gotta l you gotta you gotta love what you do.
SPEAKER_00So that uh that's a nice transition into what are you doing now? Yeah. How you took that and started the company that you have now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um so I, you know, I got out of the Marine Corps, you know, I did an Afghan tour, which was chaos as well. C combat's kind of the same no matter where you're at, but I got out, you know, in the Marine Corps, I tell them they set me up for one thing and failure. I I really thought because what they do is they lead so well and they care about their people so much. I assume that's how it was on the outside. Because I'd never see anything different. I spent, you know, almost a decade in the corps, and I just assumed that everyone loved their people and they loved to lead and they took care of their people and did the right thing. And boy, was I wrong. I spent 10 years in corporate, you know, I did what you're supposed to do. You chase titles, you know, you you hit your KPIs, you know, uh make sure that the things you invest in have a bigger ROI than what you invested in them. And I just kept getting into rooms and hearing people talk about how they weren't going to take care of their people and where we can save money and what we can augment and can we cut people out this year? And I just, after a decade ever, I was sick. I was like, I'm tired of this. Um the money didn't matter, I'll make less, I'll die with nothing. But you know, if if if my kids remember that my dad went out there and he made sure that people were leading their people better and people had better lives where they spend the majority of their time, which is at work, right? Um, they better love it. And they better have good leadership that's taken care of them because that's that's what matters.
SPEAKER_00So how do you do that now?
SPEAKER_03So I do it in two ways. I do a lot, um, I do a lot of public speaking, um, which I love which I love to do because I love to tell stories of people that are better than me. I love to I love to tell stories about A's and B's, right? As a C player, I think my only job is, you know, if I can if I can train people to for the strategy and motivate them about leadership, I hope they go on tomorrow like, I want to lead like that guy led. Or I want to lead like those people that died leading how they led, right? Because what a greater honor. We talk about how do we honor those that we lost. You go in every day and you take care of your people, because that's what they did. And they actually did it so well they lost their life doing it. Um so when people come to me like, hey, our HR folks or chief people officer think we need to do leadership, I'm not your guy. Right? I'm the guy that wakes up or or is you know, can't sleep at night because like what more can I do for my people? How can I get my mid-level and my brand new leaders to lead their people better?
SPEAKER_00So so the company's name?
SPEAKER_033C Foundation. Okay. Makes it real easy.
SPEAKER_00And so what kind of people do you uh uh uh educate, uh visit, talking about seminars.
SPEAKER_03It's main, you know, it's mainly corporate, it's in pharma, it's in tech, it's in um operational components of energy companies. I mean, it's across the board. Um and I set it up as a foundation because I don't, you know, there's a lot of these Navy SEALs out there and they're charging $25,000 for a raw speech. They everybody feels real good about for an hour, but what happens the next day? Right? What, you know, do you stick around? Do you help them build leadership strategy? Do you talk about leadership principles? Do you reinforce the traits in their people? Because that's what matters. Um, you know, it's you know, I think a lot of those guys are doing, you know, I call them keynote pizza parties, like, yeah, we're checking a box. This makes us feel good, but what happens tomorrow? How are we developing leaders tomorrow? And I'm telling you right now, the when the speaker leaves, the work you do afterwards and and what you learn, that's where the work's at.
SPEAKER_00So um very clearly, uh you're cutting across the board. Correct.
SPEAKER_03Leadership's everywhere.
SPEAKER_00Do you do you did uh do any public safety talk to those folks or police officers, firefighters?
SPEAKER_03I've been so fortunate. You know, I worked with an organization for years that actually, and I I I oversaw all the LE sales. And so how awesome was it? We'd go in and talk 15 minutes for guns and we'd talk three hours about leadership, right? Um the great thing I think about about the law enforcement space, you got a bunch of prior military, right, that are coming out that are leading their junior officers the way that they led. But I think the other side is there's a really good command structure. You know what I mean? Um, but like everything, if your leaders aren't doing their jobs, it doesn't matter how much the agency makes, it doesn't matter how much you pay for training, you know, you've you you've got to be you've got to be hyper focused on on leading people well.
SPEAKER_00And that's not easy.
SPEAKER_03It's the hardest thing in the world.
SPEAKER_00It's not easy.
SPEAKER_03Because it's because it's not a it's a lifestyle. I tell people all the time leadership is a lifestyle. It's not something you turn off and walk out of the office. You're going to your you're going to your you know your people's their kids' baseball games. You're taking your teams out to dinner every opportunity that you can, you know. You're on the ground with them doing the work, right, to make sure that the things that they need to get done they are and they have the resources to do it. There's no leadership is the hardest job in the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I always I always said that a leader, uh a good leader, true leader, take that hill leader. Um you can't be iffy, you can't be wishy-washy. So you might think in your heart, I think we got a 47% chance of not doing it and 53%. But to your team, it's a hundred percent. I mean, uh so you've got you've got to always play the role too, but you don't for the team to have confidence in themselves and in you. The place of it. It's not easy.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00Uh I've been there as well. Right. And and I I'd go to sleep wondering, did I do the right thing? You know, yeah, yeah, um an article fifteen to a troop, you know, was I too hard, was I too lit? What's it what's it proved to the other members of the team? Right. Uh so w uh your company, um, you've been doing this for how long?
SPEAKER_03Um just over two years now. Oh, that all so that's it. Well, I've been leading for a long time, but um, you know, a couple years ago I said I am no longer I'm no longer gonna fight for just one organization and lead it well. I want to be able to impact as many as I can.
SPEAKER_00And and as many that wanna be impacted.
SPEAKER_03That want to be impacted.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So um after two years, what kind of results have you found? What what do you what kind of feedback are you getting?
SPEAKER_03You know what's so funny? Um what I love about my job is uh the things that I can't put on social media and the things that I can't share. And what I mean by that is I share with my wife, Lauren, and she's she's my forever advisor and motivator, but I get these emails back. Uh I just had a guy that I was doing some mentoring with that quit his company. And you know what? I I had to be honest with him, I was like, if you're not, if that company's not helping you lead better and you're not getting the resources you need to lead your team, you need to find another company, right? So, but I can't publish who that company was or who that individual was, right? I mean, this is a person that they thought was gonna stick around for another 20 years. Um, but we had our leadership conference uh in April that was right before the gala. Uh had almost 40 wonderful people.
SPEAKER_00I'm sorry, I couldn't go.
SPEAKER_03Oh, all good. No, we'll we'll catch you next year. It was absolutely amazing. I cried through the whole thing, it was super emotional. But it was eight leaders talking about how they led, and it was amazing. And I'm still getting emails all the time about Chris, um, this helped my brother. My team is all of a sudden hitting metrics, even though they had we didn't invest any more dollars, we didn't do anything else. I just took what I learned from you, and now my people are leaving their their people and we're hitting results.
SPEAKER_00For the audience, we're gonna have uh Chris's contact information as uh firm's contact information. So if you want to have him come and speak, um uh you want to tap his brain, he'll be happy. This guy, whatever it takes to help someone else, that's where he's at.
SPEAKER_02That's what we do.
SPEAKER_00Um so as we wind up, Chris, what advice? So um we have various vets, uh spouses, uh friends. Listen, it's hopefully a lot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. But Lauren's gonna watch it. Lord will be in. So we got two.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that'd double my number. So, but but what kind of advice would you so clearly you're about people and leadership, right? That's right. What kind of advice, a snippet of advice, would you give just your average person out there who might be saying, What's that have to do with me?
SPEAKER_03It's got everything to do with everyone. And you know what's funny about leadership is that it it impacts your community, it impacts how you give back, it impacts your your neighborhood and how you step up. Uh I always say I was always really good at the little things. Um I'm not a big strategy guy, I was an enlisted young guy, right? Yeah. Right. I'm a C I'm a C I'm a C average guy. But you know what, what are the little things that I can do to help someone? And in neighborhoods, it's dumb. It's it's being the one person that stops for a kid with a lemonade stand. Is that leadership? So it's the it's everybody wants a solution. What book should I read? Oh well read Simon Senex, you know, you know, you know your why, right, or whatever, you know, like you can do all that and you can read, but like if you're not in front of people and seeing how you can help them every day, leadership is helping your people. Right. Right? Right. Um but you ha you can't treat it like Jarity, you gotta treat it like your job.
SPEAKER_00You know, um uh the the impact of a good leader that cares about their people, uh I'll never forget my uh my command, um walking down the hall and seeing Staff Sergeant Jones and saying, Hey, how's your your boy doing? How do you do in a football game last week, right? And and I swear they walk away and they think, Wow, he knows about right?
SPEAKER_03And that guy's gonna follow you. And that guy's gonna do his job because.
SPEAKER_00How much work did that take? None. I mean, I had to get out of my office. Right. Right? Right, right.
SPEAKER_03But how but how great it is as a leader, and I always tell people, just like charitable work, you get more out of it than they do. Absolutely. There's no when I talk to individuals and and they want to follow me, I'm the one getting the most return out of this. The feeling that you get when your people succeed, when they rise above you, right? When they go out and do amazing things and you were just a small stepping stone and they're great monumental things they don't accomplish, that's more of a win for you. I say I lead people well because I'm selfish, right? Because I love to see people succeed and far get by where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's better to give than receive. No doubt. No doubt. Listen, this has been great. Any last final words?
SPEAKER_03What do I have?
SPEAKER_00That's perfect. Roger that. Thanks so much, Chris. Yeah. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that. Um I I won't call him a jarhead. This guy's got something going on. And his uh family's wonderful, and you know, I think I think he's a lot like me. Uh and one thing that uh I always did was when I became a leader, uh I mean an official leader, I was like you, I was always a leader of you know the the guys at the but when I became a leader, you have to act like a leader, and a leader doesn't say no a whole lot. Uh when I was a mayor, I never said no. If they asked me to come speak at Memorial Day, I I wouldn't say no unless I had to say no because it was a conflict. Because no is the easy way out. Um I until recently when I got out politics, I never enjoyed the Fourth of July because I was always in parades, uh, you know, doing my job, right? Um and that's what leaders they have to be there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they gotta you gotta show up and you and you gotta be available. Um and you gotta it's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle and it's a hard one. But boy, is it rewarding? Boy, is it rewarding?
SPEAKER_00And I'll tell you, one thing that you said uh it shows is uh the youth pick it up, your kids. It becomes your legacy. Yeah, and what a what better legacy could you have?
SPEAKER_03Nothing better.
SPEAKER_00I love you.
SPEAKER_03Nothing better. Love you too.
SPEAKER_00Great, thank you. We'll be right back. Pit bull out. Well, I hope you enjoyed Chris in our interview. He's a very uh unique person, uh very wise for his young age and um has a lot of good things to share. And he's not shy about doing that, i if you couldn't tell. And uh I think he does a marvelous job at uh letting people know uh what it's like to be a Marine, what it's like to be a Marine in battle, and what you can take away from it. Um great interview. Um and Chris, I thank you. Um and I um I also always am uh so appreciative when I see a Marine, just how closely knit the Marines are. That makes sense. Uh they are arguably the uh most dangerous service uh and they have to depend on their uh colleagues uh probably more than any other service, but boy, they are tight, and I really love seeing that. And they look sharp in their class A's. I gotta give them that too, the the best class A's in the the services. Um so uh Chris, thank you again, and I wish you and Lauren all the best. Keep doing what you're doing, brother, and I'll um gonna run into you soon at one of these events. Um I also want to uh mention a little bit about the website. I um started this podcast with uh using YouTube, uh, but there's so much more to share. And I started a website thanks to my buddy Chris uh Chris Johnson um Chris Johnson who um who made this website for me uh uh just because he thought I could use it. Uh thank you, Chris. Um but the website is gonna be a um a uh uh fountain of information uh for veterans. It will have all of my videos, all my podcasts, both video and audio only. It will have a photo gallery, um uh and which will include videos. It will have um, and I mentioned this earlier earlier, an event uh uh tab that will tell you the events coming up um mainly here in the Dayton Wright Pat area, but anyone that gives me something I'll put on there. It will have resources, probably the biggest part. I'll talk about a program to help vets, but I can only share so much in 30, 45 minutes. Uh they'll have the information for that program, the numbers, the website, and a little spill about that. By the way, I want to give a big shout out to Brian Julitz. Um, Brian Julitz uh was episode nine, and he did the big fish. And I want to I want to show you. Is that me? I hope you can see that. It's a great organization. If you haven't listened to that video, it'll be worth your time. But the the website uh is gonna be full of everything that you'll ever need. It also has a place where you can let me know if you'd like to be on my show and what you have to offer. Uh so check it out www.uhpitbull.com. I made it real easy. And let me know what you think, and let me know if it's not navigating right or something's not working, because it's still in the al uh the beta phase, and we'll get it all fixed here very soon. Um and lastly, I want to, as I always do, um give a shout out to my next guest, Jerry Lynn Maples. Uh, she was uh supposed to be on the program um several weeks ago, but uh the situation was that um I'd waited so long since we taped her and she was gonna uh air, be aired, that uh some of the stuff was OBE, overcome by events. And so I thought we could do it again because she's always got something going on for the vets in her family and military in their family to help them out, whether it's a food drive uh where they give them all kinds of food and household uh necessities away, or it's events, a baseball game. It's a real special program. Uh Blue Star Families, and it's uh she runs the Southwest uh division for Blue Star Families here in Ohio. Uh does a great job. So uh please look forward to joining me with uh Jerry Lynn here in another couple weeks. With that, I want to say God bless you. Thank you for joining me, and uh I'm out.
SPEAKER_01The world's always coming to an end. Don't let it scare you out of living. Look at me, mom I get so large. A little baby boy, did it escape poverty, did it, hit the lottery, did it.
unknownI let all these boys do the rap in me. I'm a man and my word, I live it. Every day I say thank you. Every day I give thanks, every day's thanksgiving. Living is giving introduce mass call to a new culture, winning every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every year. I'm here.
SPEAKER_01Just live your life like France, and not you're your way and have no fear.