SPEAKER_00 0:24

What's going on, dude? How's it been? Cold. Cold. Yeah, you're throwing bags at the airport, like what, two days a week? Two, three days a week?

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Oh no, not even that much. Let's see, it's like I do like six shifts a month.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

That's such a sweet gig. I see you guys traveling all over the place with such a great um benefit.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the I mean the only perk that people really work at the airport for.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah. Yeah, through uh all the holidays and stuff, it's like but that's just on standby though, so they're right.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah, so you have to pick and choose. So that's why we travel like with the kids being on um homeschool. Now we travel during the school year versus I mean, there's no way if you're if you're doing standby and trying to do it through the through like spring break, not happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

That's one thing I always uh commended about you is that all the vacations you do, you say nope, we're taking all our kids. Yeah. So I would ask you, like, you and your wife just go on, you're like, no, we go as a whole family. Like going to Vegas. I remember when we were working together, you guys would go on like five, six days in Vegas or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Kids, kids always go everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

That's pretty cool. Is that something that your family always did and you just carried on with that?

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Yeah, growing up, it was my parents we're not gonna pay someone to raise our kids. So it was like, you know, we go, the kids go.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

That's pretty cool. Did you guys have you guys ever done anything by yourself, you and your wife?

SPEAKER_03 1:45

No, no, we well, we went on one so-called vacation. Uh, we went to my sister's wedding in Vegas. Um, but other than that, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Was it weird not having kids?

SPEAKER_03 1:56

It was, it was weird not having the kids. I I just it it feels I don't feel comfortable with it. It's just like not knowing what the kids are doing, where the kids are at.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, yeah, no, that's true, especially with this day and age. And I guess if you leave them with family, then it's a little bit better, but oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we'll get into the travel part of it because you've you've traveled the world. You guys have seen some stuff. I want to get into that vacation you guys just took. That looked pretty sweet. So it was fun. It was like 14 days or something, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

We got a 23-day one coming up in 2027. Gosh. And that's the whole Mediterranean. We have a few, like we've got I think my dad did that one. Two back-to-back weeks in um April, and then we have the South Pacific, which is we fly into Tahiti in September, go to the Polynesian Islands, Bora Bora, and all then, then we fly out out of uh Fiji.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

And these are all cruises.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Yeah. Brie, I I took her on one cruise, and that's that's all she wrote. Yeah. Now she she's on the phone with my dad like daily, like, hey, when's the next cruise? What are we doing? Where are we going?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

And now being a travel agent, it works works out well.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

So yeah, even better. All right, dude. Well, for everybody that doesn't know you, Brock Sandy, where are you from? Court Alane, Court Lane, Idaho, North Idaho, Northern Idaho. Dang. What's it like up there, man? I've been there a couple times just for work. Um, you know, like staying at the hotel, but I've never really got to go and travel around. I know they got that, was it Sandwood, the amusement park? What's it called? Silverwood. Silverwood, Silverwood.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I was like, Sandwood. I was like, wait, what are you talking about? I was thinking of Sandy Beach. Silverwood, yeah, largest theme park in the northwest.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah, I've never been there still, but that's is that pretty much like you guys had season passes there when you lived there, pretty much?

SPEAKER_03 3:42

I mean, I worked there. That was my first job growing up. First job. I was uh there at what 13 years old. You could work there when you were younger. So uh yeah, started out working there. Um I I had passes just to the just through the working there and stuff, but uh no, it was it was a good time. Um, it's a lot bigger than it was when I was there. Um younger, I don't know. See, it's been gotta be at least 20 years since I've been there. I mean, I every time we go up there, we talk about going up there and then see the prices, and I was like, no, I'm not gonna pay to stand in line all day long. It's like going to Disneyland now.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, it's like uh I think in Utah, Lagoon's like 80 bucks a person now or something like that. I remember when I was a kid, it was like 40, and you bring a can of Coke and it was like 35 or something.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

And and of course you're there during any of the busy times. I mean, trying to get on rides, it's just it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Did you want to get a job there? Or was it something your parents were like, you need to get a job as soon as you can?

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Oh no, I would I totally wanted to get a job, and um I had been looking around, and obviously back then you could get a job younger than you can now. Like I think the ages right now is like like 15 or something. We've looked at for my son, he wants to get a job, and most of the places around here, the only places you can get is you can do fast food or you have uh or what's not Wahoos, what's the word? Roaring Springs. Roaring Springs. Yeah. You can do Roaring Springs, but um you can only do certain stuff there. Like you can work as like cleanup crew or working in the one of the little restaurant things there, but that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah. Did you do uh I just want to get into like the court d'aine life? It looks like it's a pretty big town, but I mean back when you were living there, was it was it smaller than farms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

A lot of it was farms. I used to race my motorcycle, my dirt bikes up through the farm, farm areas and up through the trees. And yeah, it's crazy. Every time I go home, it's like um there's always something new. Something new building up. It's kind of like Boise. Like everywhere you go now, anywhere they can shove a house, they're gonna put one.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, it's like uh a bunch of I see a lot of um like rich people own houses on the lake and stuff now. Oh yeah. Like one of the Idaho's most expensive houses on that lake, right? On Quarter Lane Lake.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Yeah, it's um not Hagdon. Hagdon's the one that his family like owns. They own like the whole, yeah. Yeah, it's um oh, why'd you have to put me on spot? If you wouldn't put me on spot, I would have known that. Um but yeah, it's a big white house. It's at the edge of uh the Spokane River.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah, that's crazy. I didn't realize how big that Cordelane Lake was, too. Like if you look at it on a map. Yeah, yeah. A lot of good fishing. Yeah. So what was life like growing up there? What'd you guys do?

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Oh, you know, I didn't grow up to where my parents were like. I didn't I grew we grew up in a stable family, but not like we weren't like rich by any means. So um a lot of our stuff, I mean, I was a traditional kid, spent my nights hanging out until the lights came on outside and riding around on my bike. I loved school. Oh, I loved friends at school. I didn't really like school, but you know. Um, it was it was simple, simple compared to what it is now, compared to what life is.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Were you a troublemaker as a kid?

SPEAKER_03 7:01

Yeah, oh yeah. I was not an angel by any means.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

I was uh I find that easy to believe.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Yeah, yeah. My parents would have said I'm hell on wheels for sure. And you know, I passed it along. My kids are definitely the same way. So it's just like your parents always say, like, hey, your kids are gonna be worse than you were. It's true. That's true. I believe that 100%.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

What was some of the crazy stuff you did as a kid?

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Oh, I don't know, crazy stuff. I was I was getting in trouble at school. I was uh, especially in high school, I was constantly getting kicked out of school. Not my proudest moments, but I was definitely not the kid that listened. So I was always getting suspended for something, and then I'd come home, my dad would whoop my ass.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

You back talk to people? Yeah. No, that's crazy. I know, I know.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

You would have never known that, huh?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

So you were just like, you were just shit talking, you weren't really like, yeah, I was a younger version of what I am now. You weren't like getting into fights or anything, you were just a beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

A few times, but most of my suspensions were not listening. Teachers like, hey, why aren't you in class? And I just take off running. Catch me if you can. I've seen you run here pretty dang quick. I was even faster when I was younger. I'm not fast anymore. I'm out of shape.

unknown 8:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you were growing up? Was it always in the military? No, because I mean what yeah?

SPEAKER_03 8:22

I never wanted to be in the military. Um when I was younger, I guess so. My whole dream when I was younger was to be a cop. I saw him on TV and stuff, and I was like, hey, you know, I I I could do that. Like that looks cool and stuff, you know, um, be able to wear the badge and and uh do something with my life. And I think my parents, my mom wanted me more like my dad, go into the medical field. Uh I I feel like she always wanted something bigger for me. So um, but I was I was an angry young teenager. So it was just like I when it became time, when I was in my late teens, you know, it was I wanted to get away from court allane, I wanted to get away from the rules, I wanted to go do my own thing. And uh the army, I I had one of two options I saw at that time. It was either go to go to school, go to the army. I couldn't see myself doing any more school, so I was like, the military, it is. So I uh went around. Um, the army is what gave me what I wanted. I originally wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force, and after talking to Air Force recruiters, I wasn't gonna get what I wanted. They they're like, Yeah, well, you you come can become an Air Force pilot, but you're looking at like years, years of training. I was like, no, I'm not, I'm not about that. I'm not about going back to school. So went over to the Army. Army's like, hey, you can get whatever you want. Okay. Took my ASVAB, got good scores. I don't know how, but uh got everything I wanted, and my choices were uh pretty much the the best thing I looked into was aviation, you know, mechanics, stuff like that. So I came in the aviation world, became a mechanic on helicopters. My my military trip was kind of short-lived. Um I had planned on staying in the military. Once I once I got in, um I planned on staying in. I wanted to do the full 20 and it just didn't work out that way, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Did you have a family growing up that was in the military and stuff? Or was it just you were just the first one?

SPEAKER_03 10:29

It was so um on my dad's side, yeah. My dad's stepfather um was in the military, who I'm named after. And um he was the only one really that was in the military. My dad, I mean, on my dad's side, he had his brother and some of you know, some of my my uncle's kids, but other than that, no.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

I was kind of what'd your parents think about you going to go military instead of going to college?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

I think my dad, my dad was my dad was all for it. My mom, she was kind of hesitant. You know, you see everything on the on the TV, and of course, when I joined, we were completely like balls deep in the war right now, so she didn't want to see her son die on TV. So um, she she wasn't all about that life. Um, again, I was an angry young teenager, so I was like, hey, this is cool, let me go in and shoot somebody. It wasn't all what the what my life turned out to be. And I said my military life was kind of short-lived, even though I planned on doing the full 20, and I wish I still to this day, like I look back and I wish I would have. But kids came along, wife came along, now ex-wife, and uh just turned turned my military life upside down.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

So what was the what was your first time going, not the first time, but was your what was your experience going to basic? Like, was that your first kind of people yelling in your face kind of militant kind of uh experience?

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Oh, absolutely. Um definitely not what I expected. I still remember to this day. I was on the phone with my girlfriend at the time, and we're on this bus, and I had flown from um Cordelaine, or sorry, I went uh from Court d'Alene to Spokane, and then I got on a plane, stayed at a hotel that night, got on a plane from Spokane, flew into Atlanta, and uh we took a bus from Atlanta to base, and we were sitting sitting on this bus, and again, all bunch of young kids my age, all a lot of them were cocky, like, hey, nobody's gonna be yelling at me, this, that, and the third. And I'm just like, I don't even know what to expect. But I'd seen stuff on TV, and I was like, maybe it won't be like that, you know. I was on the phone and we pulled up, and I was like, Oh, I hate, I think we're here, and the doors open. And this dude, this like five foot tall, this little black dude comes on the bus. He's one of the drill sergeants, and he starts yelling. He's like, What are you guys doing on my bus? And I was like, Man, who's this guy yelling at? And I was like, Hey, this guy's like yelling at me, and he's like, put the phones down, get off my fucking bus. And I was like, Oh man, what did I get myself into? And I get off this bus, and again, it's like one o'clock in the morning that we got there.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Yeah, so we're all tired, and I was on the phone, there's people sleeping, they're like getting up, and this guy's grabbing bags and just throwing them off the bus, and we're just like, oh, there goes my bag.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yard sale. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

So I get off the bus, and I'm like, man, I hope my stuff is marked properly. Like, all this stuff's going through my mind, and I just see bags and stuff just flying out underneath the bus. And here comes these more drill sergeants, and I swear the women were the scariest drill sergeants out there. Like, you could handle the men, but them women, you're just like, Man, I've never had a lady yell at me like this. It's like my mom, but scarier. And uh, and basic was a lot of fun though. When I got done with basic, like I was I was really proud of myself. And seeing my parents and my mom was emotional, like, I don't know if she expected me to make it through. Like, again, being being the mouthy kid that I was, I I honestly was hesitant. I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna make it through here. I'm gonna just get my ass whooped or something. I'm not sure. I wasn't sure what to expect, but no, it turned out good.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

And uh what was the roughest part of basic for you? Like that initial shock, but then after that, what was what is it like nine weeks, ten weeks, something like that?

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Uh mine at the time was eight weeks. Eight weeks, okay. Yeah, I had I think it's longer now, but it was eight weeks. It was an intense eight weeks, but um I don't really know too much about basic.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

What all do they do? Is it it's a lot of physical stuff to get you in shape and that is it any bookwork stuff, or is it all just pretty much field stuff?

SPEAKER_03 14:52

No, most of it's field for the most part, it's field stuff, and it's what they do is they break you down to build you back up. So the first beginning weeks is nothing but just doing push-ups, getting yelled at, and they just break you down to like you've you got nothing left, and then they build you back up and um you go through everything. Like I learned all about different weapon systems, and I grew up around guns, but totally different, totally different setup when you join the military. Like the different firearms that you work with. Um, I mean, you deal with grenade ranges, so you throw grenades, uh, the rocket ranges where you're shooting um AT4s and stuff like that, mock AT4s. Um, they had claymores where they you clack off a claymore to see what a claymore looks like on on a um different little targets just to see what happens. So a lot of weapon stuff um is the biggest thing. Learning weapons, learning different self-defense techniques, using like a bayonet, how to strike someone with a bayonet. Obviously, we don't use bayonets nowadays, but if you ever had to. Um a lot of the stuff is like um old school stuff, like different different types of training. It's the same stuff that they did back in the back in the day for you know, Vietnam and all that kind of stuff. Same kind of stuff. I mean, some of the weapons, some of the gear we had was super old school. Like I had old school BDU camo when I when I went through basic and um yeah, so it was it was a lot of fun. I would say the hardest hardest time that I had was trying to stay awake during the um oh, what was it, 72 hour, you had a 72-hour um ruck march that we went and did. So you're rucking to all these different stations through a 72-hour period, and you're going into like um, you know, you get into shootouts and stuff like that with your uh blanks and stuff and your rifle and you're wearing Molly gear. It's high-tech laser tag. So every time you discharge your weapon, you're shooting a blank round and you hear the pop, but it's shooting a laser out the front of it as well. And I would say that was the hardest part for me was the 72-hour, the last, and that was the last thing you did before graduation.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Is that the one where you see videos of people like sleeping and they people go and take their gun?

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Oh yeah. Is that what I woke up? So our our um motto was always always for a drill sergeant. So everything was always always for a drill sergeant every time we talked. And drill sergeant had this always forward stick, and it was this long stick, and he always had a grenade, uh, CS grenade, chemical grenade, taped to the end of it, and he'd just always walk around with it. He's like, one day you guys are gonna get this. And during the seven, two-hour ops, I'd fallen asleep, and I woke up and like my eyes were burning. I was like, man, what's going on? I'm like burning my eyes and stuff. I'm grabbing my face and I start hacking and coughing. I was like, what is going on? I finally get my eyes open and I just see this cloud just going around us. It looks like a funnel cloud just going around us. And then I realized he had popped the popped the grenade on the stick, and we're just everybody's in the center of the cloud trying to grab our weapons, like stuff was just tossed everywhere in the middle. It's like a yard sale. Everything was just tossed in the middle, and it's just like great, now I don't know where my weapon is. We all knew our serial numbers and stuff. I don't remember it now. But so I'm trying to grab my stuff, but I couldn't see much because my eyes are burning from the CS grenade going off, and yeah, that was what a way to wake up. What a way to wake up. I woke up some weird times in basic trending because you're in um just these giant bays, open bay dorms that you're uh sleeping in. You got like, I don't know, a hundred dudes in these in this bay, you're on bunk beds and like West Wing, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's literally like West Wing, just without sex offenders. And uh wake up to pounding on those old school um garbage can lids, and you know, sometimes they'd go in there and shoot off a bunch of blanks in there, start screaming and stuff. You're always getting woke up different ways.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Was there a pretty good dropout percentage?

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Do people drop out during basic, or are they just kind of no, you know, I can only speak for my group, but not for my group. We had one guy that got arrested. We did have a lot of fights in basic. So a lot again, a lot of uh alpha males got a lot of tension uh built up, and we'd get in they'd get in fist fights in in the bathrooms inside the inside of our uh bunk rooms. And so we had one guy that was arrested for that. He actually came in, he was on a program where you either uh went to jail or you joined the military, and it didn't work out so well for him.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

He ended so he got both options, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

Yeah, went to basic and then got arrested. I remember that day clearly. And um, like I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

So when you when you're going through training and all that, I mean that's I've never done it, but I did the CERT Academy, that's only 10 days. But I they've they said it's kind of like that. But it's it's kind of cool where same thing, just longer. Yeah. How how long were the smoke sessions when you would get smoked by the DIs?

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Uh it depends. It depends on how bad we screwed up. Um I I don't miss those because in the time I went, I would win in August. And so it's the in Georgia, yeah. So it's it's the heat of the summer, and there's red ants, fire ants, fire ants, yeah, fire ants everywhere. And they would bite you like and you like a drill sign, like there's an ant hill, and he's like, become friends with them. What? So I'm just like, I remember when we first got there when it was the first time we got smoked, and uh one of the guys is like, hey, drill song, there's an ant farm here, and he's like, make friends with him. And I was sitting there in my mind, I'm going, What does this dude mean? Like, he doesn't want me to put my hands down here, right? And I didn't know, I mean, I didn't grow up around red ants, so I didn't know what those things were like. And I was like, whatever. Just put your hands down there and they start biting you. You're like, Drill Sarn, these things are biting you. He's like, I guess you didn't make friends with them then. I don't know what that means. That sucked, but I I learned to just get used to that. You just try to find, hopefully, when you get smoked, you find a spot without ants all over the place. But red ants everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

On the grenade range, did you guys ever have that that classic like from comedy skits? They pull the pin and throw the or pull the grenade and pull throw the pin kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

No, that was um that was like a time that it was it was a hundred percent like you you respect where you were at. Like uh with live grenades, it's not like the TV where you it's a giant fireball, it's just a big poof of of dirt and smoke. But you know that death is on the other side of that. Like if you if you screw up, you're probably gonna die on that range. And while we were there, um, another group from a girl from another company, I don't know who she was, never met them, never saw the other company. She got her arm blown off with a grenade. So she had pulled the pin, popped the spoon on the grenade, and drill sergeants are are taught like hey if you don't throw that grenade like they just throw you on top of it and put your and use your vest use your body in a vest that that's how they do it like they gotta protect themselves so and everybody else that's at the range so yeah she wound up getting her arm blown off I don't know if she survived or what oh my gosh we had heard about it because they shut down the grenade range for a few days um so we were delayed going to the grenade range and they they tell you like you go through these um inert grenades they just have like a firecracker and I'm seeing throw it and every time you throw it you're immediately ducked down and the if you don't duck down like everybody wants to sit there and watch like hey what does this look like? And the drill science will grab you and throw you to the ground and I mean it's it's one of those things you gotta take serious. So they tell you a hundred different times like hey you hold the grenade hold it as tight as possible and you don't let go of that thing until it's time to throw it and you have proper stance so you go like this and then launch it over your shoulder so for our group we didn't have any incidents like that but like I said it was serious.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Did you guys do the CS room?

SPEAKER_03 23:08

The worst part of basic training the absolute worst part I don't care who you are that that sucks and the worst part was is going in there and you got a drill sergeant like you don't think it's gonna be that bad because you you hear how bad it is but then you go in there and the drill sergeant doesn't have a mask or anything he's huffing this stuff like it's like he's cheeching chong at a at a party and you're like what's this guy doing and you're like okay maybe it's not that bad. Then he says pull off your mask pull off your mask you're like how is this guy even breathing? You're just dying and yeah that was that was a that was a wake up call that was hell.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

What did they make you do?

SPEAKER_03 23:46

They make you recite something and then you did the soldier's creed well what you could of the soldier's creed like I mean I made it through I am an American and then just started dying. So and I was an asthmatic too I I got in the military but I was a sports induced asthmatic at the time so when I inhaled that stuff it just hit my lungs and I was just dying I mean I I was an American and I just started screaming and he just grabbed me and threw me out the door and I was like oh thank god this is over I was told the worst thing you can do is try and hold your breath because then you're just gonna take a big breath in and that's just gonna yep they say when you're when you're actually uh done with that they they teach you different techniques later on and you learn different techniques and it's just like with um OC at the prison take short shallow breaths you can't just you don't want to inhale big because you get all that stuff in your lungs and then it's over then then you're down for the count. Take small shallow breaths.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yeah I was trying to use my teeth as a filter I was like when they did it all for us. You guys did CS with yeah it wasn't as bad as your guys' because you're in a room but they just line us all up for like mob and crowd. Oh yeah and then um it's you have someone with you have someone with the shield someone with the sticks and then shields will like go down to a knee and then they'll pop like they pop like probably eight CS grenades and threw them at our feet. You're on the range so like you are getting wind and stuff so it's not as terrible as in a room but it was and they're just like trying and I was the first one on the ground so I had to wait for them to be able to go back don their masks and everything and then they tap you and you switch out right but it uh it sucked. But it is nice like they're like as soon as you're out of it it's good. So that's the nice part but it's man I don't know people say it's better than OC which it it clears out of your lungs quicker but it sucks.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Yeah it's it's more psychological than anything. Oh absolutely it's one of those things I look at that being through both that and OC and I would CS because it's done so quickly but I think it hurts worse. CS hurts your body worse than the OC does.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

And it's bad if you're sweating too because then it sticks to those sweat particles and it burns your skin. Yeah. Damn. So you get out of basic and then you have another you have additional uh advanced training right is what they call it.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Yeah yeah so originally I went in um advanced AIT training and it was just it AIT is is like a softer version of is softer version of basic training. So you still have the fundamentals you go through basic you know you guys are always in lines always in formations always marching um PT tests all the time and monthly PT tests and it's you it's basically you spend most of your time at the schoolhouse um it's a little bit uh less intense than basic so like you have chances to go off post um kind of do your own thing depending on how good you do on your PT tests and different qualifications that you do um but yeah most of your time is spent at the schoolhouse just learning learning what your job is it's advanced individual training so it's just like that it's it's like you're in school again just focusing on one subject.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

So you're going and working on helicopters then while you're in your training? Yep. Were you on one specific helicopter?

SPEAKER_03 27:12

I know they have different types but yeah yeah at the time um just on age 64 so Apaches so strictly doing all the maintenance stuff on that those are cool those are cool bird uh cool birds yeah yeah is it your fate your helmet matches up to the gun it sinks up yeah and you learn about all that stuff and so that's crazy what was your role just the engine uh no no I did everything oh really yep you you're you are trained on every part of that aircraft um you have different so like you had uh I was 15 Romeo so you worked on the airframe and everything then you had 15 Yankees and they did all the avi the electrical stuff so even though I did work on some electrical stuff they did like the electrical systems but other than that like I changed out boxes and all that stuff you guys work hand in hand um but they they do a lot more stuff with wiring whereas I did everything on the airframe you know blades engines uh rotors um the internal systems stuff like that had you ever been inside of a helicopter even on a helicopter flight before you had gone to the military yeah yeah I had been on one helicopter ride we were on vacation actually and we did a uh helicopter tour I don't remember what it was but a helicopter tour of some sort I think it was in like Hawaii or something and um went and saw one of the islands on a helicopter but other than that I mean I had no experience with helicopters just that kind of what what let your let your fire for the helicopters well you know I I tried to join his uh infantry yeah oh really yeah after I couldn't get as a pilot on planes I tried to join his infantry but I was 17 at the time mom's like my son's not gonna come home in a body bag I'm like mom you can die getting out of bed she's like yeah but I'm not gonna increase your chances I'm like okay whatever so then she's like pick something else and then she was smart because she said you know pick something that's that is gonna um help you when you get out so I was like okay and we looked at mechanics like I was always mechanically inclined like okay I can do that working on helicopters and the guys like pick which one you wanted and I ended up on Apaches and so yeah what's some what's some things about Apaches that people don't know I know there's like they say it's something about Apaches that you can't recreate it like somebody just couldn't recreate there's so many pieces like just crammed into spots like well yeah and they're the the Apache platform is redundant is redundancy so they're made so that they I mean Apaches don't usually get shot out of the sky. They're really they're pretty hard to they're like an A10 the helicopter version of an A10 like you shoot one engine the other engine can is is fine to take the whole helicopter if you uh you know take out one of the radios there's a radio on the other side that that is still working so everything has redundancies all the black boxes that that are in the helicopter there's those same black boxes on another side or somewhere else on the aircraft so you take out one you got the other one so it's it's meant to be a attack helicopters made to not be able to be taken out but that's pretty sweet.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

What was your favorite part about working on those things? Did you ever get to go flying them?

SPEAKER_03 30:37

No not in Apaches and Blackhawks yeah but not in Apaches because they're only a two seater um okay I'd heard stories about certain people being able to go on a flight with those that wasn't us.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

We weren't able to do that um so those are just like the fighter pilots it's kind of like a a fighter helicopter it's not a carrying yeah I did okay yeah yeah yeah I didn't realize that yeah yeah only two seaters you got the pilot and co-pilot um favorite part I don't know if I had a favorite part I just liked working on them I mean met a lot of cool guys in there yeah we had a good group of guys in my unit so but uh I I don't know if I had a favorite part. What's the wet what's the ammunition capacity of a Apache?

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Oh you're putting me on a spot here man is it it's like so it's got a gun is there missiles too you've got the 30 mic mic on there um and depending it it all depends on how it was set up so you see them with like two rocket pods and two missile racks on there so each missile rack holds four missiles so you can carry and again it depended it was like where I was at in Colorado we never had them full up because we were at 6,000 feet in the air so trying to get them off their ground with that much stuff on there was like near impossible.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Was that where your school was at or was that where you were based at that's where I was based. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

Colorado Springs well my first station was uh South Korea we'll get into that later but um no when you look at them I know you see like pictures of them they've got like all the missiles and stuff on there that's that's not how they would flow like even when we're in um Afghanistan and stuff like where we were at the same thing we were at like 6,000 feet we only had one rocket pod one missile rack and then you had the 30 mic mic their main weapon is the 30 mic mic that thing just shoots mini grenades. I mean when they hit the ground they blow up just like a grenade and then you had generator tips on them right uh yeah yeah yeah expl high explosive tips okay and then uh but they're armor piercing as well so they're meant to shoot at tanks and stuff like that then you had your two point was it 2.75 inch folding fin rockets that's your rocket pods and those hold if I remember right it was like 16 rockets to a pod and those have different things so you have like Willie Pete's our uh our white phosphorus you had flichette rounds high explosive rounds and smoke rounds were the main ones that they had for those and then then you had your hellfire missiles and your hellfire missiles came in tons of different variants for blowing up all sorts of different stuff airburst so dang yeah but typically we flew with four four missiles and a pot of 16 rockets and then you had I mean hundreds of rounds of 30 mic mic depending on if we had the um actual uh the extra ammunition storage in the belly of the aircraft that's sweet so how long were you stationed at at um Colorado Springs before you got in your first deployment oh so I started out in um South Korea was my first duty station I went from AIT and we were all you sitting in AIT and everybody was like hey where are you gonna go where you gonna go and I ended up what they called rock Republic of Korea and um shipped out there and never been never been over that area and it was a that was again that was a totally different world from the US to South Korea. Especially being a young kid I was I turned 18 in basic and I was probably 18 or 19 when I went to my first duty station. They send you over in a C-130 no you actually you fly over there on civilian aircraft oh really okay yeah yeah when you first go to your first duty station believe it or not you know a lot of people talk about uh being especially being aviation that you take planes and stuff everywhere it's not like that a lot of that stuff is civilian aircraft so so I get over to South Korea and I land and I didn't know a lick of that English or that that language so you land there and trying to figure out your way like you're trying to meet up with everybody like hey where do I go to meet up to get to my duty station and nobody speaking English there like again totally different world you're just trying to find someone like hey someone speaks a little bit of English that can guide me and eventually I found some like guys I was like oh hey those guys don't look Asian follow those guys they went to the right spot thank god because I had no clue where I was going and take these bus rides and from Incheon International um the bus ride I took I was stationed down in Wanju but you go to Camp Stanley first for in processing and to get all your shots and stuff and uh like a one like one an hour bus ride and you get there and do your in-processing stuff and so I was stationed I was stationed in South Korea for about a year and a half then I came um we transferred we were the first station or the first uh battalion to transfer out of 2nd infantry division from South Korea where we were where everybody was stationed for 2nd infantry division to Colorado Springs. So we arrived on Fort Carson about a year and a half later take over take over Fort Carson they have Butts Army Airfield out there and we took over Butts Army Airfield what you guys do in South Korea for a year and a half there's gotta be just training do you guys get to go off base or anything? Oh yeah I partied a lot 18 years old and obviously I wasn't 21 they don't care over there hell no and party a lot I I my liver hated me while I was over there it was just I was drunk all the time. Anytime I went off base I was hammered anytime the the bars were cheap um you you'd go you'd spend like$15 to get into this club um it was Club I Club Club I we'd go in there and you spend 15 bucks to get in there was all you could drink beer. It wasn't the best beer but it'll get you drunk. Yeah you just sit there and just pound beer all night long and yeah so yeah my liver hated me we were just constantly at bars and again we weren't supposed to they said if you're not 21 you shouldn't be drinking yeah okay the bars don't care neither do I was that a command no okay it shouldn't be this should it be is different than do not yeah absolutely and you you catch you catch like the captains and stuff off posts doing stuff they shouldn't have so you kind of like hey you turn me in I'm turning you in kind of thing like you guys come to an understanding like leave me alone I'll leave you alone and our command was pretty cool they were pretty much like don't do something that ends you up on the news because guys would end guys would end up on the news there and last thing you want to do is be getting arrested by your partner forces there. So but it happened all the time there were stabbings uh actually one of the guys I was with in my unit uh stole they uh ordered pizza and they stole the guy's pizza car and drove around town in his pizza car that they had stolen so no they never got caught they never got in trouble but they'd stole it right off base and went driving around and picked up buddies and stuff and so crazy stuff happens over there um on the on the other side of the pond.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Did you ever have any crazy stories besides just getting drunk?

SPEAKER_03 38:00

No I was I was really hesitant about getting in like massive trouble. Like I did stuff I wasn't supposed to like mainly drinking and stuff but it was like I I I wasn't brazen enough to go steal somebody's vehicle and stuff I mean we did we did get in trouble one time we were um on top of so we went downtown and we went and got uh this place we called it was called kairochung chicken we called it crack chicken these little chicken wings that were super good and we'd get kairochung chicken and then we'd go right next door we'd go to baskin robins well if you got baskin robins to go they'd fill the bag full of dry ice I mean yeah a young kid and you give me dry ice dumb idea so then we'd we'd get beer bottles and we'd go and drink beer and we'd go up on the roof we'd climb up onto the roof of the Baskin Robbins and we'd just stuff dry ice into the sink cover the holes and throw them and they bust glass all over the place so we'd throw those out in the middle of the road and here's cars driving by poof try it try to see if we can like throw it and have it erect right right over the top of the cars. And we got yelled at one time for that and the guy came out and he's like looking up at the roof and yelling at us shoot we gotta run but uh other than that no I I was I spent a lot of time over there snowboarding. Oh sick. Yeah yeah they didn't have it's not mountains like they do over here so a lot of it is like really it's really really icy over there so like crunchy snow oh yeah yeah it's because a lot of it's man made oh okay so but it was super icy over there so I learned how to snowboard on well I knew how to snowboard before but learning how to snowboard that was on ice and that was that was difficult snowboarding in their kind of area had a buddy yeah like night boarding at bogus yeah yeah yeah yeah so and then of course then I I came to Colorado Springs and we got the best snow ever up in Colorado I mean the places I went to I'd love to go back to Colorado any day just to go snowboarding that's good snow over there.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

That's awesome man.

SPEAKER_03 40:05

So you were there for a year and a half you go back to Colorado Springs and then you said that you got deployed again um yeah so um well I spent a lot of time just in Colorado in the springs um years on end before you deployed went over to Iraq oh you lived in okay yeah went over to I mean I saw different places Iraq Afghanistan um Qatar Kuwait Kazakhstan Manas Kazakhstan over near Russia where that's at huh you seen Borat that'd be cool I didn't get to see anybody anybody cool over there um but yeah when uh when do you have your kids in this whole thing oh i in between um oh let's see man you're putting me on the spot you're trying to remember all this stuff um I don't I can't remember it's see Braden was born in but you were still in the military when you had kids yeah yeah yeah I was I was in the military when I had kids both of them uh my two oldest kids and then um obviously when I get when I got home from Afghanistan my uh now ex-wife you know my wife at the time was like hey I I can't do any more deployments I can't do this like being a single mom raising two young kids my son was two at the time my daughter was one didn't even know who I was and it it was it was frustrating when I got home from Afghanistan she was like I I go to pick up my daughter and she was like crying like didn't know who this guy was that's holding her and uh that that kind of got to me a little bit and then when my wife at the time said hey I can't do deployments anymore I was like okay she's like it's either me or the military and I was like well I I was I was raised as a family man so it's like I'm I'm coming it's the kids it's 100% the kids so right when I got home I put in to get out and um got out she left me anyways she said I had a drinking problem when I got back and I wasn't the best husband I I will never sit there and say that I was I was the role model that I should have been I wasn't I'm in a better place now than I ever was back then and got out chased the kids and that's when I met Bree I moved down here to Boise um that's where me and my ex-wife had planned on living we were she got she was leaving Spokane I was leaving Court allane we were gonna start over fresh didn't know anybody just start over and yeah how long were those deployments when you were in the Middle East rather than 12 12 months. Oh each one 12 to 13 months like 12 months in Kuwait 12 months in but you got no skipped yeah skipped around okay but um like going to Kazakhstan then you know Afghanistan and then going from there and then like you go home on leave and you go in a to Kuwait to get home stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Oh okay um where was the best stop out of all those that you had to you had to hold over in or I don't know if you call it holdover you were probably there for Germany.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Oh really yeah yeah we went through Germany and that was a short time like I was only there for a few hours oh but yeah I I didn't get any of the cool spots like you know I talked to guys that were in that got stationed in Germany or stationed in Italy. Only place I got was South Korea and I was only there for a year and a half I would have spent I would have liked to spend more time over in South Korea.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

You want to go back?

SPEAKER_03 43:37

Oh yeah any day of the week dude that was the best seafood I've ever had yeah yeah the the I mean you'd go down to the markets there. It's not like the seafood here you go down to the market and the seafood is all live. So you just see the fish swimming in these tanks and you just go up there and like which one you want pick that one and they'll flay it right there for you and cut up sushi for you.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Oh wow super fresh is it cheap um cheaper comparative

SPEAKER_03 44:00

the states I guess yeah yeah absolutely um I'm trying to remember it wasn't I mean it wasn't like Thailand cheap but yeah yeah but it was it was definitely cheaper than the US and yeah the food was just so fresh over there and I I love Asian food so it it worked out perfect for me.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

When you were in did you ever want to go up to like any of the other like ranger school or sniper school or anything other or did you always just want to be around the helicopters?

SPEAKER_03 44:24

I did but again I was I was kind of it was hard to get in schools um when I joined um schools were hard I mean we were I was in the time where there was a lot of people going in I mean it was huge to go into the military everybody wanted to fight for what happened 9-11. I mean that's one of the first things that got me bringing into the military was seeing 9-11 like can't believe these guys did that to us like so uh that that was a big focal point in my life of of making me go into the military the thought of taking me there and um what were we on what were we just talking about oh just if you want to go to like ranger schools or any of those yeah so the schools I did I did definitely wanted to but it was hard like I said with everybody coming in it was hard to get those schools and you had to if you wanted those schools a lot of those was if you were uh gonna re-enlist you can put that in your contract of like hey I want to go to this school but okay if you re-list for this many years we'll put that in your contract that you get to go to this school yeah obviously I didn't get a chance to reenlist so I didn't I didn't uh get that option.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

How long did you do total in the military then?

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Eight years total.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

Six and a half is that is a four year contract right is that um it depends so uh for my school for for aviation you had to go in for a minimum of six years oh just because they spend so much sending you to the schools yeah and I think it was different for like infantry and stuff like that was like four years I know how like uh guys that I went in with did four years active two years national guard I did six years active which turned out to be like six and a half years active two years inactive dang did you ever get any like injuries or anything no no I was I was thankful enough that I didn't get any injuries um that's good yeah yeah I've seen some people that have had some pretty good energy injuries or or later on in life like their hearings going out or something oh yeah I have that stuff so like main most of my stuff is mental health wise um yeah oh okay yeah um so then you get out and then you move to Boise and that's where you met Bree. Yeah I moved to Boise and a friend of mine that I grew up with in Queerlaine she was living down here at the time and she told me I was like I I was new to the dating world at that like I hadn't been dated in so long and uh most of my stuff any girls I met was just like a fling like it wasn't gonna go anywhere and I was at the point of like I was I was in a dark place when I first moved down here to Boise. I was in a real dark place you know I didn't have my kids the only thing that I knew just got out of the military um so I was so used to being in the military you had they told you when to eat sleep yeah all that stuff so you're institutional institutionalized 100% institutionalized 100% and get down here and it's like you know I I haven't ever fended for myself you know my parents took care of me and then I joined the military and the military took care of me so I get down here and it's like now you got to be a big kid. I got to find a job and it's just like I haven't had a job that that I had to go look for in forever so I'm trying to do all that I'm trying to find a job still trying to figure out how I'm gonna see my kids again. You know my ex-wife at the time she wasn't letting me see the kids and I was like man this is it was just it was a hard time she wanted to try to get me to come back to her so it was like that was the only way I was going to see the kids and so this girl that uh I knew from high school Amanda she's like have you ever got on like dating apps what the hell is a dating app like oh apps that's where you find girls and I was like I thought you just go down to the bars like that's how you meet girls and tried to give the bar thing a go. Nah it didn't work you don't remember anything while you're drunk.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

It's not all you can drink beer.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

Yeah yeah it's not all you can drink yeah that stuff gets pricey here in the US so I went on one of these dating apps uh I was on like two of them one of them was plenty of fish and um I matched with like two different girls one was um I don't remember her name and then one was Brie and I had written Brie and I was like oh this is like I think this is hopeless and she I was the day I was getting ready to delete the app she wrote me back and we started talking she lived in Idaho Falls I drove up one day um to meet her in Idaho Falls it was during the holiday months going to Idaho Falls we meet for the first time and she was originally supposed to be moving here to Boise to go to BSU but the friend she was supposed to be moving with uh their mom got cancer so they couldn't move here anymore so she was trying to figure out what she was going to do and I was like well right now I've like my kids aren't here I have an open room like why don't you come move in with me and I was like I've already got all the bills paid I just got a job I just applied with um the department with uh what was it CCA yeah CCA Perksons Corporation of America at the time and this was your first time meeting her and you're like yeah if you want a room you can have it kind of thing yeah I was like you know you can move in here well it wasn't the first time we met like we had been talking for a few weeks okay but yeah the first time we met in person and she was telling me the story about how she was supposed to go there and I was like well I've got an open room like I'm easygoing she seemed chill so I was like yeah and uh she packed up her stuff moved moved in with me and never moved out and the rest is history there's a lot of history there yeah went from friend to relationship and marriage yeah how long were you guys dating before you got married oh see we got together 12 12 2013 and we got married 10 6 14 and we got married pretty quick a lot quicker than I intended to but um she met my kids for the first time fell in love with my kids my my two younger ones and um or my two older kids and we uh we just worked it out I you know the only way I was gonna get the kids is I had to have a stable environment stable relationship so we looked into getting a house and the only way we could get a house is if we got married so we got married bought a house and fought for the kids and had full custody by the time they were three years old had full custody and they were living with us full time down here so that's cool. Yeah so what was it that made you want to go and apply for a prison I didn't not in a million years so I was applying for different jobs I actually found the first job I found was I was super super promising I was going to be working for Firebird helicopters here uh right at the airport and I had contacted them went in for an interview got the job I was like perfect this is gonna be uh fire hawk helicopter is what it was uh it was perfect I was me working on helicopters doing what I know well at the time that I got the job Obama was our president and he had just sent the National Guard here that he was sending them to go deploy so um the way the way it works obviously if you're National Guard and you go to deploy the company that you were working for has to keep your job it's a legal thing. So they had all these guys that were working for Firehawk helicopters at the time and they were getting ready to go deploy. So I got the job the guy says we'll we'll worry about uh kind of how the job thing works when they get back we'll we'll figure it out I was like okay at least I'll have a job for a little bit as soon as I got the job Obama had canceled the deployment so all those guys came that were supposed to deploy got all their jobs back fire helicopter he called me one day and he's like hey this is the way it works you don't have a job anymore I was like yeah sucks suck I was like I just got this job so I went to the unemployment office because again I didn't know searching for a job I didn't know what I was doing and this lady she was a veterans coordinator there and she's like hey actually there's um some places hiring right now so I put in for some places and they just didn't fit what I was looking for and what were you looking for at that point aviation something on helicopters and stuff that's all I had known since I was younger. I mean I had a few jobs when I was younger I I worked from 13 all the way to 17 till I to up until like two days before I left for the military. Yeah so I was always always had a job I was fine working and uh so yeah I was I was looking for aviation jobs but one day she calls me in I just got home from Coe d'Alene um from seeing my family and uh she says hey can you come in and check in with me I was like yeah so I go in and check with her there happened to be Corrections Corporation of America was right there and she's like hey they're doing job interviews and jobs at the same time I was like corrections what's corrections she's like working at a prison I was like oh like being a cop she's like yeah I was like kinda cool yeah hook line and sinker they got me in yeah so I go to this interview like uh your military and I was I was dude I was looking like hell I had been I had just driven eight hours from court allane down I was tired I was in like shorts and a t-shirt and uh gave them my gave them my paperwork and stuff and they're like oh hey you were in the military and I had a good head on my shoulders at that time the only thing I had known was the military and I mean obviously my resume looked good because I'd been in the military for the last six and a half years. You can't really screw that up so uh they got me into corrections and yeah that was uh that was a different world I had no clue what I was getting into hire you on the spot pretty much yeah they hired me on the spot as long as I was able to pass a drug test did my drug test like two days after and I was in corrections.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

So you show up your first day what's that like they because they were their own private thing so they don't have a post that you have to go through anything right no and it wasn't what I expected.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

I was so I What did you think going in that it was going to be like I don't know I I honestly I didn't know I guess I didn't know what to expect but I'd seen cops and stuff on TV so I was like that's got to be like this like working at the jail and uh my first day I go in and for some reason I don't know why I was the only one that was dressed up I I always find that weird like I was in I was in like a um like a button up t a button up shirt and like I was looking good and uh everybody else that showed up was like in t-shirts shorts just and I was just like people and I was always taught like you go to a job interview you're always dressed up that was just something I was used to so I was all dressed up nobody else was and I was like what am I doing that everybody else isn't I was I was so confused and they do a tour around the prison and you hear all the doors slamming shut and stuff you're like man this is not what I was thinking this was about but I was like hey they gave me a job it it pays decent for for what I was doing so I was like I can do this and uh I remember my first day walking through the prison and these they walk into this unit and this guy's like fresh meat I was like fresh meat what are you talking about who's this dude talking to me and again I was still a young kid super mouthy so I'm firing back at these guys and they weren't having it they weren't they were not impressed with my uh firing back skills and uh first first day first day was an eye opener like just seeing I'd never been into prison before never been in like that scale of a place um totally totally different world definitely where they've put you out for your first post first post I was in what they called a gang unit at the time um it was in North Wing it was in JKL which is now I think Echo Echo yeah yeah echo so that it was all gangbangers at the time but I I caught on quick um again before I went into my first unit I was in training too so we didn't have post but it was like our own mini post at the prison. So we went through all the training like the do's and don'ts um OC training stuff like that. So we did the same thing that was in post but it was not sanctioned by the state.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

It's like your mini challenge academy or something right yeah absolutely yeah like the challenge academy right on so you're in and the thing I guess you didn't know any different but that prison they keep a staff on each tier where they didn't like on the state side.

SPEAKER_03 57:06

Yes. Yeah so what was that like being because you're on there what hours at a time 16 until you get like a count time or something where 12 to 16 hours a day was our shifts and uh yeah it was it was a lot you you'd eat on the tier with the inmates like you'd just be sitting at the table just sitting there eating your lunch and using their microwaves I sometimes I use their bathrooms it just depends on on what you had going on like sometimes we'd have let depending on the the tiers and stuff they'd have a door left open for the the inmates to use bathrooms because we shut all the all the tier doors so they couldn't use they couldn't just go in and out of the rooms all day long different than uh what IDoc did. Yeah and um yeah it was I always wondered why they did it the way they did always just having one guy on a tier I mean it's it's me versus 64 82 yeah yeah yeah large number of inmates like they've got you way outnumbered and even then you had one guy on each tier and then one running pod control and that's all you had. So if anybody was coming to you they had to come off the tier onto the other tier just to help you out. But it was pretty the inmates regulated themselves pretty well back then. I mean the gangs ran the pods 100% for sure I was not in charge of anything it was it was the inmates for for sure were in charge there and uh you just had to understand just you had to get that in your mind like you know you're cool with them they're gonna be cool with you and vice versa.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Was that hard for you still happening to be a little bit hotheaded and stuff like going in did you have to get a little bit of a culture shock and change?

SPEAKER_03 58:47

A little bit but at the same time like I knew that like I I was a I was a fish in a shark world right there like you're smart enough to know you're outnumbered. Oh 100% outnumbered and even though I was a little cocky I just got in the military I was fit and in shape but these dudes were like you know three times my size so I also knew like I know when I know when I I should and shouldn't mouth off like I I know what I should and shouldn't do. So most of the time I was I was quiet when I first started um for the most part in the unit that I was at it wasn't like you were down the sex offender wing you could just make fun of them all day yeah these were actual gangbangers most of these guys had committed murder or serious crimes so it's just like hey just keep my mouth shut and they come up and talk to me I'd come up and or I'd I'd say some words to them and go about my business. For the most part I was quiet in the unit. Yeah for the most part you're just there in case something pops off and then yeah yeah I stuck to myself a lot I didn't really talk to anybody unless they came up to me first.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Did you guys have computers or anything on the units on the tiers? No.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

So you're oh man no no you had nothing to do like you couldn't have your phone out you just sit there just sit there and watch. Were you guys even uh able to have your phone back then I think we were able to have our phones but you couldn't have them out like you could have them on your person I think if I remember right we had lockers and stuff to lock our stuff up in but yeah you for the most part no you weren't supposed to have your phones out on the tier or anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

Because I remember when you were when we uh when I started IDoc they weren't allowed to have phones past the gates so and people still did yeah you know you know it happened but yeah it was it was the the same kind of thing same concept did you get on any of the teams when you were with CCA like sort or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

No I looked into it obviously because again I was in shape and stuff but sort team the sort team at the time wasn't really um looking for people and uh so I kind of just hung out I didn't there wasn't really you had the sort team and I don't know if we I don't think we had a fire team I think we just had the sort team right there. The sort team and the what do they call it um like a crisis negotiator team yeah the crisis negotiator team okay but no I never got on any of those teams so when you were working there um you said you worked there for a year and a half before the state took over right is that what you said somewhere like that uh in but yeah like a year to two years what was the biggest things that you liked better about how CCA ran it than when the state took over I like the fact that CCA was more security minded um CCA was all about security and you know you could say what you want i some people will argue this that you know CCA ran it better or the state ran it better a lot of things I could argue CCA ran it better and the fact that they were more security minded you know we had the gang separated and I know they the state didn't want to do that because it gave the inmates power and it did they had strength in numbers but the inmates are always going to have strength in numbers when it comes to cop versus inmate the inmates are always going to back each other. It doesn't matter if it's a sex offender versus this gang to another gang the gangs everybody's always going to have each other's back that's the way it works. It's cops versus robbers so but with at least with CCA like they backed the officers more like it was it was definitely when the C when the state took over they were so lax on security that it was totally different. You know when we went in with CCA you came in in the morning all your stuff went through all your stuff went through a uh what do they call it the scanner detector yeah the well you went through metal detector oh they went through like an x-ray machine yeah all your stuff went through an x-ray machine they checked all your stuff to make sure you weren't bringing anything in which the way it should be I mean you're working in a prison what do you expect um we always had a drug dog there sniffing the officer so all the officers that came through there was a drug dog nearby and he'd sniff you as you went through so just just stuff like that you know yeah stuff you didn't see with with the state the state was more relaxed and I kind of like that because they at the same time like it shouldn't be that way but you kind of respected that like hey they trust you a little bit more at the same time it shouldn't have been that way like there should still be some kind of security yeah yeah absolutely how what was the age requirement when you were SECA was it 21 or were they hiring 18 year olds? No no no it was 21 he had to be 21 when you when you went there what do you think about that when they switched it to 18 you know I it was good and bad like I thought about it I I get why they did it because we needed more people but at the same time it was like when I looked at myself like at 18 I was so immature I think at 21 I was immature so at 18 yeah I was super immature and I see some of the people that they hired at 18 I was just like it it surprised me it caught me off guard. Like some of the guys they were hiring at 18 I'm like I wouldn't trust this guy with a sharpened pencil. You're letting this guy come have my back with OC and and all these adult males and I saw the way they talked to these guys and it was just like when it when the state took over and they did do the the hiring 18 year olds some of the guys that came in you're just looking at them and the way they talked these inmates I'm just like this dude's either going to get himself killed or he's gonna get me beat up as a result of his mouth and again I kind of changed when I took over with the state I was a little more mouthy when the state took over I will say because it was it was just it was different from CCA there. When I was CCA I was stuck on the tiers so I was super quiet. State took over and you had more people there and and I don't know things changed. Was that part nice for you then when you actually got to come off the tiers and yes yeah yes it was nice it was nice to be able to roam around and not just be stuck on the tier 100% that was one thing that the state did way better than CCA being being stuck on the tier sucked.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:56

Do you think the fights went up more when you didn't have an officer always on the tier though?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

Yes yeah yes um both behind the scenes like you'd have cell fights in a cell yeah yeah because you'd you'd go out there and walk and this dude's got black eyes and you're like okay well obviously got beat up even though he said he fell in the shower um but yeah there was there was there was a lot of fights going on and when the state first took over it wasn't too bad but then they decided to start mixing everybody in and that's when fights were happening just right and left every day there was fights down there in the North Wing. Dang.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Chow Hall mix mixed sex offenders in this guy gets beat up the first day first day he gets mixed in when it was CCA was it pretty pretty um separated I know they had the West Wing and everything but like in the Hall movements they never cross pass. Never cross pass. 'Cause I feel like there was still sometimes when I first started with I Doc that you would still have West Wing and North Wing sometimes cross pass whether it was like what would they call that blood alley between the wreck and the Yep North Wing and the West Wing always Yeah. And that's where they would like intersect or something sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:03

And that was again something that the state that I don't know why. I guess I kind of understand why they did it. They want to integrate everybody, but you shouldn't do it. They had a plan. They had been doing it a lot longer than I am, a lot longer than I have. So I was like, I wasn't going to question it. I just go along with it. And they knew what they were doing. Uh even though I thought it was a bad idea. Others thought it was a bad idea. All the CCA guys thought it was a bad idea because that's not what we knew. We knew this way and our way worked. So why change it up? But they were trying to do things the way all the other prisons did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

So I kind of get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

What uh what was your favorite unit that you worked while you were there?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:46

Definitely as far as like when I first started, I would say Echo Block. What was JKL? Um, it's just because that's what I knew. I hated the sex offender units. I just opened dorms and dealing with sex offenders was just like disgusting. Like the whole units were, they weren't clean.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

There's a big thing that people think when a sex offender goes to prison, they're gonna get what they have coming to them.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

It's not that way. They live in a happy, happy, ever after sex offender unit down there. They all they all live together, so it's it's not that way. You'd you'd hope. Like, I just think about it like if something happened to one of my kids, I'd hope that dude got what was coming to him, but it's it's not that way. At least not in Idaho. I mean, they say I've I've never been to any other state's correction systems, and you know, from what I hear on online, they're like a lot of people say, Oh, hey, this guy's going to prison as a sex offender, he's gonna get beat up all day. No, it's not the way it works here in Idaho. They just live happily ever after with the rest of the sex offenders down separated. I think they should mix them all together.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

Yeah, they asked me that I was on that other podcast and they asked me why they don't, and I said, I think it's just a resources issue because they would have murders every day. Like you have to do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:03

It should just be survival of the fittest.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

Yeah, I mean, that's how it should be, but that's what I was saying is I don't think that like we have a staffing issue already. Yeah, and then you have murders all the time, and then we'd be shutting the place down. Now you gotta do port-to-port feeding and all these other things. Like it'd be like port-to port feeding sucked. Logistical nightmare. And so I think it comes down to that more than anything. I mean, obviously, too, you're it's not our responsibility to to punish them, right? That's what they always tell us.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:28

But but like you're not punishing them, the inmates are, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

But that idea that uh they're gonna get what they have coming to them is not the case. Nine, at least I've never at least in Idaho, like you said, yeah. I don't know about the other states, but I've what I've heard a lot of the other states are doing the PC stuff now too. Like they get automatically they go to a different area if they know that that's what they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:53

Unless they can unless the inmate specifically refuses protective custody, and then they're kind of like they have to sign stuff. I believe they have to I could be wrong. Don't don't fact check me on this, but um, like there was I believe there were some dropouts that like from gangs and they wanted to go back to P uh GP, right? And it's like that's I'm pretty sure they had to sign something that said that they wanted to do that, like they're refusing protective custody. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:20

They wanted to be tough, never ends well.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:23

No. So what happened when you were in the prison and they had that YFS big fight that's on YouTube? Were you in were you responding to that when that happened?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:33

No. Um, I don't even know if I was on shift that day. I'm trying to remember that's so long, so long ago, but um, I remember when it happened. I don't think I was pretty sure it was on my day off. Okay, I wasn't there for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

So what what was that all about? That was like a dropout, wasn't it like a dropout gang or dropouts and they started their own gang or something?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:54

Yeah, uh youngsters fucking society was what was YFS. I remember that. And um, yeah, it was a bunch of hasbins, wannabes, and they uh they were gonna start their own gang, and the main gangs, you know, AK's SVC said, No, you're not gonna do this. And they said, Wanna bet? Okay, if you do it, we're you're gonna get what's coming to you. And they had they had guys hiding out on the tiers, and when they rolled the doors, they came out and handled business.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

Yeah, what was it? They were in the trash cans and then the janitor closet. I remember watching that video. I'll see if if I'll figure out a way, that'll be a good learning moment how to click on um videos and attach it to this one. But this one, that was that was an interesting you know, and it it surprised me.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:44

Like when I was watching those videos, I'm like, in my mind, I'm going, How did the officers miss this? Like, but that's why there was holes and stuff drilled through the garbage cans and stuff, so you could see through them, and it's just like, but in my mind, I'm going, How did you guys not know this? Like, I I still don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:02

So what we talked on the the prison podcast about that 5'6 moment, was that the sketchiest moment you had while working in prison?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:11

Yes. Um, well, you know, I had one one other sketchy moment that I'll never forget. Um, I was working CCA. I almost got stabbed. So I was working, uh, I just started with CCA. It was like my second week actually working, not not in the so-called academy. It was just my own thing. And uh, I was working down in medical. Well, I was working in Echo Block at the time, JKL. We had a mass, so what CCA did, we had mass lockdowns, and we'd go search all the cells, cell by cell. You'd have officers, you'd have our um our what are those guys that do all the paperwork and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

Like admin?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:57

Yeah, yeah, you had all the admin guys that worked out on the tiers and stuff with us. And um, so we were going cell by cell and searching. Well, one of the gangs, the the white boys, had had a bunch of meth and they told this one guy to get rid of it. I don't even remember the inmate's name. And he consumes all these drugs. He he tries to hide it, and the only way to hide it is he consumes it. He does what he's told. So this dude's super high on meth. And they take him down to medical, they were trying to get him to detox, and uh, I was I went down there to watch him. So I'm sitting there in front of the medical doors just watching this guy just trip in balls for like three days straight. Lieutenant calls me one day, he's like, Hey, um, get someone, we got to get this guy fed. I was like, Okay. So we didn't have bean slots on the doors at the time, so we had to open up the doors to get him food. And so I called up the lieutenant, I was like, hey, there's nobody to help me. Like, do you want me to roll this door by myself? And he's like, Well, no, you have to have somebody else there. I'm like, so who do you want me to have? Come down there. He calls back and he's like, Hey, the captain said figure it out. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:10

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:11

I yeah, that's again, I was brand new. I was like, What does that mean? It's like you want me to have one of the nursing staff? He's like, No, you have to have another officer. I was like, There's no officers around. He's like, Well, find somebody. I'm trying to find somebody, nothing. Finally, I called the captain. I was like, hey, I can't find anybody. He's like, have the lieutenant do it. And I was like, sir, I'm not gonna call the lieutenant and tell him to do it. You gotta call the lieutenant and tell him to do it. So lieutenant comes down, big old white boy, and uh, he was all pissed off at me. He's like, I told you to handle it, you couldn't handle it. And I was like, man, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. Like, this is my first time in medical, and I've I've been watching this guy for this was like my second day. So this guy's still tripping balls. We tell him to go to the back of the back of this cell. It goes to the back of the cell. I open up the door. This guy's got a sharpened toothbrush in one hand, and he's got, we had these like little prison pillows. They were like paper thin pillows, and he's got this thing like used as a shield. And he's like, he comes running at me yelling, and I see the weapon, and I go to slam the door. So I slammed the door, and his arm's like in the door with the the knife or his homemade poker sticking it through the door at me. And he wasn't, I mean, he was trying to stab me, but he was tripping. So, like, I knew it wasn't like anything against me. This guy didn't have anything against me. I didn't hardly even know him. Again, I was new to the area, and uh the lieutenant, I remember we opened up the door. The I didn't know what to do. The lieutenant said, open up the door. He picks this dude up with the with the weapon, gets the weapon out of his hand and just throws him. Like the lieutenant was like six foot, six foot five, like he was a good 250, 250 pounds. Like he was a big boy, so he just picks his white boy up and just throws him back in the cell. And that was the first time that I realized, like, hey, this is real. Like, but uh other than that, yeah, the five-six was definitely the the sketchiest, sketchiest moment working there. That that's something that stuck with me and Will forever. Like, I'll always remember that day as clearly as just walking out the door. Like, I remember everything I did that morning, that day, that night. Like, I'll never forget that day.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:25

Yeah, you handle that like a champ. That was uh That was luck.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:30

That was luck. I'm not gonna sit here and toot my own horn and say that was that was you know that that was luck. I uh that thing, that incident could have turned out way bad. Being stuck on that tier by myself, like if any of those guys wanted to turn on me, there would have been nothing I could do.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:47

Have you ever had anybody turn on you? You said you and Garcia, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:52

Yeah, me and Garcia. I was attacked that one time. Um, and that wasn't even aimed towards me. I just happened to be the dude that got attacked because this dude was pissed off.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:02

That was was that tier five upstairs?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:04

Yep, tier five. Uh he was uh he was a softwalk guy. Um, I don't even remember his name.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:10

Yeah, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:10

Taller, taller white boy.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:13

Um, but yeah, we went to go. He was having he was put in there with a black cellmate and he was pissed off about it. Um, I don't know why, because the softwalks, you you get put with who you get put. But he was trying to be cocky. I don't know if he was just trying to show off for the white boys. But uh we went up there, pull him out of the cell. That was the end of my day, too. That pissed me off the most. Very end of my day. Like I had like 30 minutes left on shift.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:40

Someone said it's been a quiet day.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:42

Yeah, yeah, it must have been. Yeah. And Sergeant uh Sergeant Miller said, Hey, go move this guy. Okay, no problem. So we go, we go to move him. It's like, hey, come out of the cell. And he was amped up, so I was like, I'm gonna put this dude in restraints. So Garcia was to my right. I was like, hey man, put your hands up on the wall. He did. And uh, as I went to go put him in restraints, he's still yelling at the dude in the cell, and he came off the wall. So I remember I pushed him back on the wall, and as soon as I pushed him on the wall, he turned and he turned and he swung at me, and I kind of ducked or backed up. He missed me turning, he hit Garcia, hit Garcia clean right in the face. And next thing I know, I put my feet in front of him, slammed him up against the wall, and we took him and went down the wall, but he was still fighting. Get him on the ground, and I remember Garcia hitting him several times. He was still, he had turned over on us and he was still swinging at us. He hit me once, hit Garcia a few times. Garcia hit him back a few more times. And I remember trying to call on my radio. My radio had detached, but I got a hold of it and I called. I was like, need assistance. And I remember one of the other officers, female officer that was with us, she comes climbing up the stairs to try to help us. And then you and Hasanovic, you and Hasanovic came in, and uh Sergeant Miller came in. And uh, yeah, that was that was a mess. And then one of the other officers got attacked that night. Another white boy. So it was something something going on with the white boys. I don't remember the whole thing with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:16

When that happened, is everything just like that adrenaline kick in?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:21

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:22

You're not feeling you're not feeling anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:24

No, no, 100% didn't. I mean, I felt it afterwards, like my shoulder had hurt, my he hit me in the face. It didn't that didn't hurt too bad, like it came to. I mean, I'd been in fights before, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

That was your only time though getting in a altercation with or an assault.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:43

Yeah, I never got anything like the 10 years. I mean, I can't, it doesn't really matter if I knock on one. They're not there anymore. But I was and I was surprised. I mean, my younger days, like you guys said, I was I was a mouthy little shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:55

So I'm surprised I didn't I you know there was a lot of people there that I was surprised that that didn't get attacked that more than they did, you know. There were several officers that I saw got attacked once, and I was like, I you know, I'm surprised that lasted like that happened, that should have happened a long time before, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:15

How often did you see people in there that you knew?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:20

Um quite a few, actually. There was there was a few um in West Wing. Yeah, like two or three in West Wing that was in there for drugs. And then um a couple of guys that were in the North Wing that I knew growing up, but wasn't as much as most, you know. Most of the time when I saw officers that knew people, they were from the Boise, Nampa, Caldwell area.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:46

I was from northern Idaho, and you know, I I only only knew a few.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:51

Yeah, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:52

I had cross bass with.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:54

Yeah, it was always interesting when you seen them. I remember I worked with a guy in a call center, and I seen him like first day that I started working in there, and I knew that he was on meth like when we were working on a call center and stuff, and sure enough, that's what he was in there for. But it was interesting whenever I seen someone, and then they were like always a double take, and they're like, Yeah, you never wanted to hear someone like call you by your first name, and they're like, Oh gosh. Now I gotta do paperwork. Yeah, dude, my paperwork stack was thick. Uh I had to write paperwork on like a lot of family members and just people I was working with, and see I got people from high school. Like, I knew a lot of people. I think that's something that may have helped me was that I did I did grow up with a lot of people that ended up going to prison, so maybe I looked at them like shit, that could have been me, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:38

I got lucky in that, like the people that I knew were um, I mean, there was only a couple that I knew that I had actually been friends with, and you know, the first day I was there, we're like walking the tears. We go down to West Wing, and I wasn't thinking, I was like, I don't know any sex offenders, so I'm not gonna know anybody down here. Well, little did I know it wasn't just sex vendors down there, a lot of the a lot of drug addicts were down there. And one of the guys I was like, when I when I first saw him, I was like, oh hey, that that actually makes sense. Like I knew this guy was on drugs before, and you know, made a lot of sense. And then I remember getting on the computer, and they're like, they told me not to go looking. I went on there, I was like, guys that I knew that it were trouble. I'd go to look him up and I was like, hey, I know this guy. And they're like, then when they first through I looked up, and they're like, now you have to do paperwork on this. And I was like, paperwork for what? And then after that, I was like, okay, don't look anybody else up. I'll see him as I go. And yeah, my my paperwork sack wasn't that big. Um, luckily, I probably the whole time I was there, I would say less than 10, I would say probably like five or six people that I wound up knowing, and only two that I actually had been friends with at one point in time.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

Yeah. I mean, did you ever learn anything from any of the inmates? Like for me, I learned like I've seen a lot of people mess up their lives from drinking. So that was one of the things that made me like, oh I've done some stupid shit while drinking. And I like I remember I stripped out this one dude. Um, for you could tell it's his first time everyone stripped out. It was all all you know embarrassed and stuff, and have to tell him what to do. And he's like, sorry man, this is my first time being in trouble. I've never even had a speeding ticket before. And I was like, What the hell? What do you I was like, what are you in here for? He's like, murder. I'm like, what? He's like, I I got he said I got blackout drunk, my roommate and I were drinking together. I woke up on a hospital bed, chained to the hospital bed, and the cops had told those and the cops told me I murdered my roommate. And I was like, holy shit, dude. I mean, I've heard some other things too, people you know get like DUIs and and then they hit a family or something, right? And so, like for me, that's what I learned from other inmates, is like learning from their mistakes, and then I I stopped drinking. So I just didn't know if with all your experience, if you had ever taken any takeaways from Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:56

Um not that I'm proud of this, but obviously I have I've had drinking-related incidents before. Um I've I've obviously been under the influence and driven cars, and uh yeah, definitely working at the prison changed that for me. Um seeing how many people got DUIs and ended up in prison ruined their whole life. And I looked back and going, you know, I've I've had probably more than I should have at a bar and got in the car and driven home, not thinking anything about it. Like I felt I could drive, so I got in the car and drove. And it wasn't until I worked at the prison and I saw that and I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like, you know, talking to inmates and they're like, well, I I just happened to be driving home one night and blew through a yellow light and slammed into somebody else's car and killed them. And you're just like, this guy doing something simple, just went out and hang out with some friends, had a few drinks, and uh, you know, actually a story on that. When I first joined CCA, I got arrested. Arrested right at I just got done graduating the academy. And I'd been, we went downtown to celebrate. Me and another buddy that I was working with went down to celebrate, and we had a DD. We had a designated driver, uh, it was his girlfriend. And we went downtown and started drinking. And we kind of got into like a little scuffle at a bar over his girl. Uh, this guy made some comments, and I walked out of the bar and I'd stumbled. And an officer had told me, like, hey, come over here, let's talk for a minute. I was like, No, no, no, I'm good. Put his arm on my shoulder and I turned around and swung. Didn't even know who it was that I was swinging on. I had been, when I looked at my arrest report, I had 0.26 was my alcohol, my alcohol level. So I was a small guy and I was way too drunk than way more drunk than I should have been. I swung and got my ass kicked by a bunch of officers. Woke up, and again, I didn't even know any of this. I woke up in the went out drinking at about 10 o'clock at night, woke up at 6 a.m. handcuffed to a gurney in the hospital. I woke up and I was like, what is this? Nurse comes in, she's like, hey, let me get the officer. Officer for what? And the guy comes in. I still remember the guy. I have his card in my in my wallet. Uh, I will never forget him. And he came in, he's like, hey, you know why you're why you're handcuffed? I was like, no, what's going on? He's like, had a little bit too much drink last night. I was like, I haven't been drinking in a while. And I was like, Are you sure? And he's like, Yeah. I was like, I must have been drugged or something. He's like, Well, we did toxicology report on you. He's like, we just haven't got it back yet. I was like, okay, where do we go from here? And he's like, Well, he's like, you got assault on an officer. Oh, jeez. So he's like, it's felony assault on an officer and uh misdemeanor public in talks. And I was like, oh no. Oh no, like I just graduated the police academy. He's like, Well, what were you thinking? I was like, I don't even know what's going on. So uh we talked for talked for a couple hours, and uh, because he was just sitting in there with me waiting to release me or doing whatever. He said that we were on the way to the hospital on the way to the police station when he arrested me and I threw up and he's like, I'm not dealing with this. So he just took me to the hospital to find out how drunk I was, and apparently I was way more drunk than I thought I was. And uh he after after a long talk, he actually said that he wasn't gonna file paperwork on the assault on an officer. And uh I I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:36

Was he the officer that you swung on?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:37

Yeah, yeah, he was he was one of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:40

Um, so there were five officers. I swung on one, I got tackled by five. I remember waking up like when I finally got to go to the bathroom, I walked up and they'd put a catheter in. I was peeing blood. That was the first time I'd ever had a catheter. But I walk in and I'm looking at the myself in the mirror, and I had road rash all over the side of my face, my arms, like they had whooped my ass. And I was like, hey, where's my buddy and stuff? Like, oh, well, we released him. He wasn't a part of it. I'm like, good looking out, bud. Good looking out. Me on five, and you let me, you let me go by myself. All right, good looking out.

unknown 1:27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:17

And uh finally when he released me, he's like, hey, so we had this long talk, and he's like, hey, I'll drop the assault on officer. He's like, you seem like a good guy. He's like, you just got out of the military. He's like, and I was like, I didn't mean to do what I did. And he's like, Well, you didn't hit any of us. I was like, Well, that's a positive. He's like, if that would have I I couldn't do anything about it, but he's like, it's an assault. He's like, You didn't actually hit one of us. So he's like, I won't write the paperwork on that, but he's like, I have to hit you for something. So he's like, You are getting public intox. And again, misdemeanor and a felony. I was thankful I didn't have the felony, but I didn't know what that meant. I had never had any misdemeanors before. So I was like, Man, I I don't know what that means for me. So I went home and I slept it off. I slept. For like two days straight. And uh it was the weekend. So then it's it's time to go back to work. And I was like, I don't know what this means. I don't even know if I can go back to work. So I go up to the prison, and uh nobody knew about this yet. So I went up and talked to the guy that was running it, and I was like, hey, so I think I got in trouble. He's like, Well, what do you think? I was like, Well, I did get in trouble, I got arrested. So they immediately go on to the Ada County arrest reports, and I wasn't on there. And they're like, Well, you're not on there, so it's obviously not that big. I was like, Well, they said I got too drunk, so they just took me to the hospital. And they're like, Okay, so that's why they're not on there. Like, they gave me a phone number to call, and it was the prosecutor's office. So I called the prosecutors and find out if there's anything, anything filed. And I called, and they're like, give me a minute, I don't see your name. And I was like, thankful. I was like, Oh, cool, they didn't do paperwork. They called me back like an hour, like, yeah, yeah, we definitely had paperwork on you, you got arrested. And I was like, Man, now what? So I went through the whole court proceedings. Luckily, the judge happened to be a vet too. And he told me, since it was his first time ever seeing me, he's like, if you promise me you never drink downtown again, he's like, I'm gonna drop all this stuff. He's like, You're gonna do non-court-ordered community service, which I I didn't get what that was, but it wound up just being community service on my own recognizance. He said, just go out, do 30 hours of community service. But at the time I was already volunteering at the um the I guess the old folks' home, the veterans home on on the um at the veterans hospital. So I was like, oh, perfect. I'll just do 30 hours there. I'm already doing hours there. I was like, I'll do my 30 hours, get them signed off on it, and we'll call it good. So I got that done. The judge shined off on my paperwork and they dropped all the charges. So you can still like if you look up on online, you can still find me on there, the charges on there. But the repository. Yeah, repository, but it just says dismissed. So I got lucky. I I got really lucky. It was my first time getting in trouble down here, and the judge, I mean, the officer was there, the the same officer that had arrested me, he was there. The court proceedings, and afterwards he's like, dude, you got lucky. He's like, I don't want to see you downtown ever again either. I've been downtown since, but not really drinking. Like I've had maybe one or two drinks, but for the most part, I kept my word. Like I wasn't going down there doing anything thing stupid. And you know, since then I've I've had kids, you know, I got custody of my kids and stuff, so obviously I have something to live for. Back then, I I didn't care about anything. I was so pissed off, I was so angry at the world, didn't have my kids or anything, so I didn't really care.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:40

Yeah, that always that always uh stuck with me when like an inmate told us the only difference between you and me is you didn't get caught.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:46

And I'm like, Oh, dude, a hundred and ten percent. I look back on some of the stuff that I did as a youth and I was like, I could have been in prison with the rest of these guys. Again, drinking and driving, just because I had had a few more drinks than I should have. And you know, if you if you kill someone just regular driving and you're not drinking, it's one thing. As soon as you have a sip of alcohol and you changes the whole whole outlook on the law, like you're now you're now a criminal just because you had a couple of drinks, even though I could have killed this dude sober.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:17

Yeah, yeah, that was another thing too. When I got my CDL for driving the bus, all of a sudden my I could get a DUI of like a 0.05.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:25

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:26

Yeah, they cut it down for CDLs.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:28

Even if you weren't driving a CDL at the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:31

Yeah, yeah. So even if I'm driving my own personal vehicle, it would be a 0.05 if you have a CDL.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:37

0.05, that could be some people a beer.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:40

Yeah, if you're like really short, it could be, yeah, yeah, exactly. So you and you wouldn't even feel it at 0.05. So you could legally like be perfectly fine to drive. You feel like you're fine, but you get you blow a 0.05 and you're you think that's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:54

Um, well, I mean now you look on it now that I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:58

I mean, if you look at like how much weight is behind a CDL, like they just have to cover that anyway, right? So whether you're on shift or not.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:05

It's true, hitting somebody with while driving a big vehicle like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:10

Bro, yeah. Sheesh, I've seen some videos, nasty stuff, man. I always think like when we were on the road going to quarterland stuff, you know, they have all those uh runaway ramps.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:20

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:20

I'm like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:22

How about you go up through Lewiston?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:23

Yeah, Lewiston, white bird grade, any of those, you know. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I can only imagine the damage that would do if they didn't have like a runaway.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:31

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:31

Just you're you're done. You're toast, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:34

Everybody in front of you, anything you hit is just gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:37

Yeah. Did you ever did you ever talk to any inmates where you thought they really weren't supposed to be in there? Like they said I didn't do what I was supposed to do, or you know, like I I didn't do what I was charged on, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:50

Yeah, you kind of take that with a grain of salt though, because you know, I can tell you any story I want right now, and it's up to you whether you're gonna believe it. So, you know, I talked to several different inmates, and you know, when they told me their story, those guys, those guys that would say, like, hey, I'm innocent, I'd immediately go get up on the computer and check them. Like, hey, I wanna I want to hear what their story was. Some of them I'm just like, nah, you're guilty. And there was there was a couple of times, I don't remember the inmates, but there was a couple of times I looked and I was like, maybe they shouldn't be in here, or their crime doesn't fit the again. Guys that were it's so hard for me to see guys in prison for DUIs. Guys serving the same sentence for DUIs as they did for touching kids. That that really that really bothered me. Like, yeah, they yeah, they had too many DUIs. Yeah, they probably got several misdemeanors before it became a felony, and then they probably got like more than one felony before they actually went to prison for it. Yeah, but it's just like when I look at a guy that's got 10 years for a DUI, and you got a get guy that's in there for sexually exploitation of a minor, and he's in there for 10 years too.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:01

You're just like, Yeah, there's there's something wrong with the judicial system here, and obviously the judicial system isn't perfect, but at the same time, like so I I remember later on in your career, once you were getting closer to getting out, you got more into being like a mentor in a mentorship program, right? Do you think that there needs to be more mentorship type of stuff in prison?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:21

Oh, absolutely, a hundred percent. Um, if we could change the way that young the younger inmates coming in, because the the problem is is when they come into prison, you got one or two options. You either click up or you don't. As a white boy coming in, again, you you like I said, one of those two options. So you either click up as a white boy or you don't, but if you don't, you're kind of like hanging out by yourself. The gangs have a lot of pressure in there. So trying to, if if they would spend more time on guys that weren't gang members, focusing on these kids coming in and going, hey, you know, you can do time without being clicked up. You can, you know, do your time, work on yourself, and maybe not commit those same mistakes. You know, I've I've I've had family members that have um gotten into trouble, just made mistakes when they were younger. And I just looked at it, maybe if I would have mentored them more when I was younger, or when as an as an adult when they were younger, that that those kind of things wouldn't have happened. So you look at it and like maybe the same thing goes for the prison standpoint. If you have kids that come in, maybe if there was more mentoring, like the prison, obviously, our our prison system is not the best. But I mean, there's there's ways that we can improve. And I think, like you said, one of those ways is having mentorship programs to try to get these guys from not re-re-committing. I feel like the prison is that you know they toss them in there and they forget about them. And there's got to be better ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:52

What what are you uh what was your roles when you were doing that?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:56

Um, I mean, I talked to a lot of young inmates coming in, and uh I had explained to several, like, hey, I could have been where you were at. I never tried to talk to the inmates like, oh, hey, you're just this piece of shit because you committed a crime. Like, again, I had been arrested downtown, and I could I almost got a felony. I mean, my life could have changed in in in seconds because I went down there and was tried to have a good time. So my my world could have been over just and just like that. So I could have been where those guys were at, and I'm thankful every day that those charges got dropped, and I changed my life as a result of that. And I just want, you know, what being a mentor there was like trying to talk to, I always tried to talk to the younger guys because I wasn't an I wasn't an older officer, I was one of the younger ones. But trying to explain to those guys, like, hey, you made a mistake, you can recover from this. Go through the programming like you're supposed to. Don't get in with the gangs, don't get into fights, just let everything slide off your back. Like most of the fights that happened in there were so stupid over stupid stuff. Like, just make sure you guys don't get involved in any of the politics and stuff, owe debt to anybody and get out and you know, change your life. Show the courts that, like, hey, I made a mistake, but I changed. This is not who I am, and you know, try to explain that to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:19

Was that rewarding for you?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:20

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, again, just going back from the fact that I could have been there, it's rewarding to think that like maybe I got into you talk to 10 different inmates. And if I just got through, click through to one one inmate and changed one inmate's mind, and and as a result, one inmate got out of prison and didn't come back. 100% rewarding. I hate seeing people go to prison. Like to ruin your life over, like you said, a DUI. I went out drinking. There were several inmates I had talked to. One that took the life of a young girl um was out there driving, wound up losing his arm. I know you know I'm talking about he only had one arm as a result of a DUI, got into a wreck and and killed a uh young girl. And he admitted to the whole thing. He was he was honest about it. And I know the the um daughter's mom forgave him. She came and did uh videos at the prison with him. And it's just like one of those. Like he he made a mistake, he knew he made a mistake, but as a result, he took a young girl's life, and you have to get over that. You either have to decide whether you're gonna get in in your mindset of like, hey, I screwed up and I can make myself better, or you're just gonna go and keep making mistakes. And you know, if you can get through to one inmate and change one inmate's life, it's it's definitely rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:41

How do you get to those people before they go in? Before they make those mistakes. Is there something like in the education system that should have more awareness brought to like you know assemblies? I remember when I was a kid, they had like the anti-bullying assemblies with the Rachel's Challenge thing. Yeah, and and they'd have more like drunk drivers coming and talking to them.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:59

And they do like um you could do more of that. I know when I was in the military, that was one thing we did in the military. So we had a lady that would uh travel around, and the one time that I got to do it, I think they should have done it more. But we had had some guys in our unit get DUIs, and as a result, this lady came in, and um they she she came in with this mangled car, this car that just been torn up, and it was her son's car. And her son's car still had the dog tags hanging from the mirror in there. And he was a soldier, she lost her son to drunk driving. And that really stuck with me. She came through and um talked with, and obviously it didn't stick to me enough because I still had drinking incidences, so clearly it didn't stick to me enough. I don't know why, but um, she came through and talked to everybody and was like, hey, this was my son's car, he was a soldier too. He got drunk one night and didn't come home. And uh yeah, I think they did more of that, especially in the high school high school years, like talk to the kids, especially when they're getting their licenses, you know, in high school, and said, you know, one mistake can change your whole life. You know, it won't click with everybody, but if you can get through at least one person, that's rewarding right there. If you can make sure one person doesn't get behind the wheel drinking, yeah, then you've won.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:23

Yeah, you never know who they're gonna pass that down to and what generations you'll affect just by that one person.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:28

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:30

Yeah, it was crazy, man. Always just seeing the the different walks of life that came into prison, you know. I remember picking up people that as soon as they turned 18, we picked them up from counties. Yeah. And they were doing there was this one kid we picked up from like I think it was Lewiston County. We picked him up on his 18th birthday. He had like killed his dad or something. He was just waiting to get tried as an adult, and then as soon as he turned 18, starting his life sentence, I'm like, oh man, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:55

And I don't even know, like, I don't even know what you say to those those kids, like I yeah, your life is over at that. I mean, some people say, Well, their life isn't over. It is at that point. You got life behind bars, your your life is over.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:10

At that point, you just need to become a mentor to other people coming in.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:13

Yeah, absolutely. Say, hey, these are mistakes I made, and as a result, I'm in prison for the rest of my life. Don't be like me.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:19

And that's a person that you need to be a mentor for other people coming in.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:23

And that's something that they need to, yeah. When those guys come in at that age, you need to you need to work on those guys and be like, hey, we need you to tell your story to these guys and be like, you're only in here for DUI or for theft or burglary. But you could be in here like me.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:39

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's uh that's huge, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:44

Um if there's drugs, they're such a huge drug problem here in the world, and I know I saw that at the prison too. A lot of guys in there for drugs, mainly meth, meth and heroin, but those guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:55

Yeah, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:56

I was talking there was um a guy, he's a big mentor of mine, and I've talked to him a lot, but he he did like 15 months in federal prison in Arizona, but now he's he's just a big mentor for inmates.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:08

What was he in there for?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:09

Fraud. He did like it was um was it like hedge fund fraud or something, didn't it? Report taxes. So it wasn't like anything crazy, but like he still, you know, is is illegal. But his big thing is a lot of times people aren't in prison for their real problem. Like, yeah, they might have a they might have got arrested for drugs, but it's because you know they might have an underlying issue somewhere else that they're coping with drugs or they're they're selling drugs because they don't know how to handle money, or like there's other things that they're the crime doesn't fit the punishment or whatever. You know what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:44

I know a lot of times when you saw guys in prison that were in there for like robbery theft, it was because they were high at the time, and they were either trying to go get money to feed their habit, right, or they were just high and weren't thinking. And same thing with me, I was under the influence of alcohol and I did something stupid as a result of it. It's one of those things that like it's hard for hard for me to see those guys in prison too, because you know, I've I've had a family member that had uh drug issues at one time, and it was just like to see them go in get to go into trouble for something that you're like, they don't want to be addicted to drugs. It just happened, it just happened that way. And now as a result, you could throw your whole life away. Same thing with drugs, and it's I think they should focus more. Idaho needs to focus more on drug addiction than just sending these guys to prison. I know it doesn't always work that way because you can send you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:40

Yeah, they gotta want it.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:42

Yeah, absolutely. You just gotta help them on that path, though, you gotta make them want it. That's another thing. I think they should take some of those drug addicts that were in in our prison and make them mentors. Like, hey, this is what I did on drugs, don't be like me.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:56

Yeah, yeah, that's that's big. So you got towards the end of your career, and then uh you don't have to go into how you left because that was pretty that was pretty uh abrupt.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:11

Not my finest moments, yeah. Um I I wasn't that's a story in itself, but I wasn't proud, necessarily proud of the way that I left, but uh it happened the way it did.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:24

And do you think it was time? Do you think your time in prison was done though?

SPEAKER_03 1:44:27

Yeah. I had wanted to leave for years. Like once the state took over and I started turning into a different person, you know, I I noticed myself, and I had had mental health issues before coming from the military. Um I don't want to just blame on the military, but you know, it's kind of thing that comes with deployments and stuff like that, seeing some of the stuff that you did, and you know going working at the prison obviously messes with your mind too. The stuff that you see there and multiple people I seen beat up, one guy stabbed, all the stuff that you see and all the stories you hear, it it it weighs on your mind, even though people say, Oh, it, oh, it doesn't, like it doesn't bother me. You may think it doesn't bother you, but in your mind it really does, it affects you. And um, I'm glad that I left when I did. It was it was definitely my time. Um, like I said, I I wasn't happy about the way that I left. I could have handled things way better than I did, but it was it was my time to leave. And since I've left, I've worked on my mental health and I've become a better person.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:31

Um Yeah, you seem a lot more calm since you left, for sure. Oh, yeah. I can attest to that.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:35

Yeah, 100%, 100%. Um, you know, being able to work with my wife now, starting the business that we did. And um, I don't work near as much as I used to. Obviously, I'm I'm on disability from the military and stuff too, but uh life has just been life has been a lot a lot better for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:55

Yeah, that's cool, man. And I think it's cool because you're you guys homeschool your kids too, so your kids spend more time with your kids. You guys do a lot of cool vacations together. And now, like you said, you guys are doing a business and you guys get to teach your kids about being entrepreneurial and not having to work for somebody else, and it's really cool. What was the time, what was the point that you guys decided you wanted to homeschool your kids?

SPEAKER_03 1:46:14

Uh COVID.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:15

Was it okay?

SPEAKER_03 1:46:16

COVID, COVID really messed with everything. Um, the biggest thing for us was what during when COVID started, it was like we never knew when our kids were going to school. So they turned it to like hybrid, but before they did hybrid, it was like all right, kids are going to school one day. Well, now a kid in their class got sick, or a kid from another class got sick, so now everybody's out of school. Well, kids aren't getting education. I mean, they spent half their year not getting, not learning anything, so we were trying to do stuff at home. And while we were doing stuff at home, it came to a point of like, we're already teaching our kids when we just teach them everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:53

And uh, we're not on a curriculum, like a hardcore curriculum where we're teaching them everything. So my kids are kind of like on a hybrid learning, they have teachers, but they're homeschooled. But anytime they need help, they can contact their teachers and their teachers will help them through stuff. So I'm not actually the teacher, but at the same time, I am. So I help them with school. Like um we were doing an assignment yesterday, doing having the kids write a paper on our last vacation on um a shipwreck that they went and went and snorkeled at. And they're doing a on a thing, uh a whole paper on the shipwreck and during a World War II shipwreck and how it happened and how it became a snorkeling destination and stuff like that. So we get to teach our kids um the same thing on vacation. When we go on vacation, uh they're learning different cultures. Every time we go to a different place, they're learning different cultures. Like we went to Jamaica and they got to see how people live in Jamaica, especially after the hurricane. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:55

What do you think of some of the downfalls from public school that you've seen now that you've seen the other side of homeschool?

SPEAKER_03 1:48:02

Well, you go into public school just like I did. Um, you learn bad habits at public school.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:07

Again, you like what they're exposed to.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:09

Yeah, 100%. And I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Like I do look back on the fact that my kids haven't gone to public school in their older years. You know, my kids are in high school now. Uh, two of my kids are in high school. And now looking at it, like they're not getting the whole experience I did. And some of that experience I think they need to see, you know, you need to see the kids that get in trouble, so you know to learn from it. Now I'm having to teach my kids like on my background, like, hey, I've seen guys in prison for simple things for DUI to stabbing somebody, and this is what you should and shouldn't do. You know, try to stay out of trouble. They don't get that hands-on learning of seeing the kids do that in class, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:53

Yeah. That's a small trade-off for them possibly being the one on the other end of a stabbing or something, too. Absolutely. Or that they could have been the one that's getting sold the drugs or yeah, you know, things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:03

So I look at it, I have more control at home um over the curriculum, is a big thing. I I get to teach them what I think they need to learn versus, you know, when you look at it, you didn't realize how much time you spent at school doing absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:18

That real I we really realized that a lot during COVID when their whole schoolwork would be done in like three hours.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:24

For the whole day. And I'm like, what are you guys doing for the other three, four hours you're at school?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:28

I know you guys got lunch and they're in recess and stuff, but what are you guys doing? Are we just having a babysitter?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:33

Yeah. But then yeah, you look back on you're like, when it when I look at the stuff that they were learning, and I'm like, I I'm teaching the kids in this short of a period of time. And it makes you think, look back on like, what exactly were you guys doing at school? And I was at school too. I've been at school. You watching like videos, but a lot of that stuff is you look back on it, it's pointless. They're never gonna use it again. So now when I teach the kids, I teach them stuff like we're teaching um my my daughter's in a class. About money, money type stuff. So today my wife was gonna put a budget for our family of five and say you need to go, you're gonna get online and go order groceries for a family of five. You get X amount of money and you need to do it for the week. So I want you know, teaching my kids taxes, stuff like that, stuff that they're gonna have to learn. Yeah, really, but they don't teach. Yeah, they don't teach it in school. Like, why don't we teach that kind of stuff? Why don't we teach kids how to do taxes? But instead, you teach me all about the government, which no offense, but 90% of the stuff about government, unless you get into politics, you're never gonna use anyways.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:39

So many stuff I learned on politics, and I'm pretty heavily into politics. I like watching, watching, you know, where the world's going, but most people don't.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:47

So that's not stuff you're learning about. You're learning about stuff that happened a long time ago, or stuff that's like deep politics that you don't need to know about, like you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:56

So I think they're also well when you look back at like what the education system was when it started, like in the industrial age or whatever, back when you they were pretty much just teaching you how to be a worker, yes, giving you a 15-minute break every two hours, a lunch break, another 15 hour, and then that's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:14

And we don't do that anymore, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:16

But that's how they were doing is like you're just creating the the factory worker, yeah. And they just that's the same system we still use today. I'm not saying that education isn't a bad thing, I just think that I seen a huge difference when I put my kids back into public school this year and they were homeschooled, and then they go back, and now their attitudes are like way worse. And I'm like, what am I exposing you to, you know? Yeah, and then I I look at my kids' uh spelling test, she brings the home near a day and it says 100%. I'm like, good job, you know. And I'm looking at it, I'm like, that word's spelled wrong. What am I and my wife's like that's not the first time this has happened? I'm like, what are well so what are we what are we doing? Like, I I'm not saying that teachers don't make mistakes every once in a while, and they got like, you know, a lot of kids, they got a big caseload, as we would say, right? So but I'm like that my biggest thing while we put our kids into public school or pulled them for public school one year. One was the COVID, we've seen how much time is wasted, and two is like let's make this something that they like to do, and not something that is just, you know, just because that's what they're telling. Like, if you like to cook, we're gonna make all your curriculum around like your fractions now and everything are gonna be around cooking, and and you're gonna understand why it's a it's very important for you to get the right measurements down, and your math has to be correct when you're doing these things, and you're gonna see automatically that feedback loop, you're like, oh, I messed this up, and where did I make a mistake? Rather than like, oh, you just missed number three, you know. And the big thing for me too is that report cards would come home and I knew my daughter was struggling with math, like, pretty good, struggling, and it said standards met, like on their on the report card. It was like standards exceed, standards met, standards below, or whatever, right? But it was like standards met. I'm like, what are you guys' standards? I know she's struggling. And you're saying standards are met?

SPEAKER_03 1:53:03

But they just have a standard for everybody. I mean, you got so many kids they're doing on it. Yeah, they don't know each individual kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:12

How have your kids like the homeschooling since they've made the switch?

SPEAKER_03 1:53:15

We've talked about our kids going back to public school and they're they said no.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:19

Like you you do miss out on several things that I did when I went to public school. I mean, you miss out on prom and stuff like that. Um, my kids do the the school that they go to, I forgot what it's called. But the school that they go to, like they have times where all the kids from the school meet up together. Like they'll go to the park and all the kids can meet up together.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:42

So like a co-op, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:53:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but they see each other on the courses. Like sometimes they have classes, like a Zoom call. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all the kids are on there. Most of them are just bouncing off the walls, but especially my youngest kids' classes. I mean, but the teenagers can go out and see each other and stuff, and that's nice. We haven't really partaken that much in those because we're usually gone or busy. I mean, we do travel a lot, and um so they have stuff like that, but they do miss out when you look at it, they miss out on a lot of stuff like prom homecoming, stuff like that that you won't get to see. But then I look back on it, like, did that matter really that much to me? Like, all that meant is I was getting in trouble those nights. Exactly. I mean, you know, you go to prom and mommy didn't hear this on here, but I mean, what did you do at prom? Well, I danced a little bit and that one got hammered afterwards, yeah. Like doing stuff that you shouldn't have that could have got you in trouble anyways. Like, yeah, nothing good happens after 10 o'clock at night. Going to Kegers in in high school, and it's just like the stuff that you shouldn't do. And yeah, that made me who I am, but at the same time, like I want better for my kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:57

Yeah. I feel like it makes them more it makes them more uh gosh, I can't even talk today. It's like they're more prepared for the real world. Yeah. When you're doing homeschool, because like you said, they're already doing stuff around like curriculum around the things that they're already doing. Like you guys make it a part of their life instead of like here's your main school, like 80% of the time now, let's go have a life over here. You're having your 80% of your life, and let's make education around what you already like to do. It's gonna stick a lot better if you're doing it that way anyway.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:25

Yeah, and I need my kids to do that because again, growing up, um, I don't blame this on my parents at all, but like obviously going to public school, you didn't you didn't learn about taxes and stuff like that. Well, then you know, I I joined the military and you gotta start doing your taxes, and she's like, I have no clue what I'm doing. Calling mom, like, hey, what do I do? And she's trying to explain this over the phone, and it's just like, why don't they teach you this in school?

SPEAKER_01 1:55:50

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:51

Stuff that you know you're gonna you know you're gonna have to use, but instead you're teaching me stuff that I know I'm never gonna use.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:58

It's crazy. So now you're going and being a gunsmith.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:05

What's that about?

SPEAKER_03 1:56:06

Almost done graduating.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:07

What made you want to do that?

SPEAKER_03 1:56:09

Oh. So I had got when I when I left the prison, actually, before I left the prison, I was going to school to become a radiology tech.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:18

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:20

And uh started doing that. Realized that that was too hard to do that schooling. I mean, I know people do it, but trying to do that schooling while working at the prison as much as I worked. You know, all those shifts that you had, extra shifts you had to work, mandatory overtime and stuff. And it got to the point where I couldn't handle that, so I dropped out of that school. When I left the prison, I was kind of wondering what I was gonna do. And I went into the airline industry. And I do, I love the airline industry, getting ready, being able to fly and do more things, travel with the family, it just wasn't fulfilled. Like there was days that I would be like, you know, I need to do something that's more. So I was looking at things to do, and I got on the internet one day, and I was actually I was on Facebook, and this thing popped up like, Hey, ever thought about doing a gunsmith? And I was like, I love guns, like I love everything about guns, shooting them, feeling them, uh, working on them, tearing them apart, putting them back together, different types of ammunition. I was like, I could be a gunsmith, but I had never thought about that. You know, I'd never thought about any schooling nearby, so I clicked on this link and it brought me to SDI, Snoring Desert Institute, which I'm now involved with. Um I'm on my second year of it, getting ready to graduate here, here and after this semester. And uh clicked on it and they're like, hey, you know, it was free, free to go. The military paid me, not only did they pay for my schooling for my GI bill, because I had the 9-11 GI bill, but they also paid, paid for me to go. So they paid they paid for the schooling and then they pay me a stipend to live off of because I'm not working as much. I'm going to school. So I was like, hey, I could do this. So got online, got it all worked out, and started doing the courses, and it's been a lot of fun. I've learned a lot. Um, I wish I could learn more. I wish the schooling had more in-depth um some of the stuff I've learned a lot. There's some stuff that I wish I had learned more of and to work on. Like um, I graduate here in the end of February, March, March time, February, March time frame. That went by quick. I know, two years. Like when I looked at it, I was like, I I still feel like I just started the other day. But I'm gonna take another five months of handgun courses. Um, I've already got that lined up. I've just got to sign the paperwork on it. I'm gonna do the five months of handgun courses once I'm done with this. And I've done rifles, shotguns. Um, I just got done building a 308 AR that they sent me in the mail. Um, just built that, what, three days ago? No, I built it on Monday. Got that done with. Um, I built a flint lock uh percussion cap rifle, built that. I'm just browning the barrel on that, and I'm done with that. So I've built all these different weapons that they pay for you. I mean, well, the government pays for, somebody's paying for to go to the do these courses, and then the handgun courses, they send you three different handguns that you get to build and and take apart. So pretty stoked for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:28

What does it entail when you're building? Are you milling them out and things like that?

SPEAKER_03 1:59:31

Or no, so that's again, which uh I wish I would get more in depth into, but you don't in these courses. Um, no, they send you um all the lowers and stuff all torn apart, so you just put all the parts back together, which I had already had experience in AR building, anyways. Um, I don't know what the handgun courses are gonna entail.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:54

Man, that's tough, honestly. Like, I took an AR armory course, and I I was I struggled the most out of everybody in that course. Not like because what they did is I took everything apart in pieces, put them in their own little piles. This was their guns, so they didn't care. But I put them in little little piles, you know, to put them back together, and I knew that. What this dude does is he comes and grabs like a handful of your stuff, handful of hitters, a handful of everybody's, and puts it in a bucket and then just puts it all on the table and says, put your guns back together. Dude, I struggled so freaking bad because all the springs start to look the same, but they're like millimeters apart, like different sizes, and I'm like putting the wrong spring in places, and then it won't work and it won't. Dude, I was so frustrated. Blake Anderson was with me and he had to help me like calm down, and like I was just like, dude, I can't figure this out. I so like kudos to gunsmiths and like knowing every little spring, because it's way harder than just like a because you can just drop a whole you know trigger assembly in, that's fine. But when you gotta take that apart and everything's laid out, and then they mix it all in a bucket and you gotta know the differences in each spring. Kudos.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:57

And just think ARs are the easiest ones to do, too.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, what is it? I think the hardest ones I've heard is 1911s.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:04

1911s, so certain ones. So if you look at like Kimber, the Kimber 1911s, those things have so many parts.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:11

I mean, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:13

I mean, Glocks are nice, glocks are easy.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:15

Glocks are easy. I mean, uh it's it's like an AR, everything's module. You just pull out the whole trigger. It's like what 13 13 pieces on a you pull out the whole trigger assembly and put a whole new trigger assembly in, it's just like that. And now they've got fancy stuff like with ARs, just drop-in triggers. Like you have the old mill spec triggers that you got the two three different springs and the three different action parts. And uh now you just got a drop-in trigger, it's just in a little box and you just drop it in, you know?

SPEAKER_00 2:01:44

So what's been some of the crazy stuff that you've learned that you would have never thought about that had to do with gunsmithing?

SPEAKER_03 2:01:49

Oh, it has to do with like not really building, but like, so uh I had this rifle, Shenandoah rifle. It's a flint lock rifle, and you're doing all the woodworking on it. So it just comes with I mean, it comes with a stock, the whole stock and rifle assembly, but there's been nothing done to it. So you gotta carve out all the individual parts so you can put the pieces into it. You know, the flint lock and stuff, it's not there. You have to carve all that stuff out, so it's called inleting. You put this inleting ink around the um trigger assembly and then you stick it against there, and then when you pull it off, it leaves a little markings on there. You have to trim all that stuff out with with uh files and stuff. That was difficult. I like woodworking, I've always been good with woodworking, but that was difficult because again, if you're off by you know less than an eighth of an inch, now that thing is wobbling in there. So you have to do it. You're just trimming up like little slivers at a time to make sure that thing fits in there just perfect. If it fits in there too tight, it won't work. Fits in there too loosely, it won't work. And you know what they say, you can take off so much wood, but you can't put the wood back on there.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:00

So luckily I did I got it right the first time. But um, you know, other kids in my class, like the teacher written me, and she's like, I'm surprised you got this. She's like, most people don't get this. And she's like, usually they just ruin the rifle, and you only get one chance at it. So, and like a lot of the stuff I don't have the tools for. I didn't have a drill press, so I'm free-handing with a with a regular drill, and I got it correct the first time. And I remember writing the teacher, I was like, I don't know how I did this. She's like, You did an incredible job. And I was like, It's luck. It was pure luck. I'm I'm not gonna sit here and toot my own horn and say it was skill because it wasn't. I got lucky on on a lot of the stuff that I did, and because I didn't have the tools that I needed to. So, but I think that's gonna make me a better gunsmith in the end. Of like, now I know what I can do. Like, yeah, it's gonna be difficult, but I've done it before. So if I if I've done this before, I can do that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:52

Yeah, absolutely. What about on the legal side of it? I remember we were talking to you a little bit, and you were telling me just I think you were in the law portion of this whole thing, and like you can't work on other people's guns or something. What was some of the stuff on that that you've learned that's kind of interesting?

SPEAKER_03 2:04:05

So I'm I'm actually in the process once I graduate, I'm gonna get an FFL and open up my own business. And the FFL process is is is uh is a big step. Um, so the way it works legally is it's kind of like a gray area. So you're being a buddy of mine. If I if you gave me your rifle, I guess I could work on it, but once I get an FFL, I can't do that. So now I have to do all the paperwork on it. And technically, so if I'm doing it for a business, so like if I started my own business right now, I could not take your weapon unless I had an FFL. Technically, you should not be working on someone's weapon unless you have an FFL. Because now I'm taking that rifle for you from you and putting it in my possession. It's now mine. For the time I have it, it is mine. Anything I do on it, it it's anything that happens to it is is is my fault. So if I was to trim that thing, your trigger up and make that a fully automatic weapon, that comes back on me. So there's got to be like a paper trail kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:03

Oh, right on.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:04

So, but yeah, you're so that's the the legal, there's a lot of legal stuff that I had no clue. Like, I didn't know that. I've I've worked on people's firearms before, and little did I know you're actually supposed to have an FFL to be doing that.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:17

Dang. What are you when you open up your own place? What are you gonna like want to specialize in? Is it just working on others' guns, or you want to make your own um like kind of so kind of kits, or is that not something you want to talk about yet?

SPEAKER_03 2:05:30

No, um definitely so. I um I want to specialize in AR and AK platform builds. Um, they both ARs have had my attention since I was younger. You know, I played my dad, my dad has an original uh Colt AR-15. Um, got the triangle stocks, like old school style, like Vietnam, the same ones they had in Vietnam, just not automatic. And that's where I really got into guns, was from my dad. And then um, I got into a lot more than he did. Um growing up, I liked everything guns. So the AR is really what stuck with me. Um, I like building them, there's so many different parts to them, and they're so modular. You know, you can put in a lower from this one and an upper from this one, different brands, and a trigger assembly and a buffer assembly, and all the pieces go together and it makes one complete rifle. And you could have 10 different brands of parts in there, and they they work out seamlessly. And then um, I was into the military, I got obviously that fed my addiction even more into ARs, and then I got into AKs. Um, obviously, overseas you get to play with AKs and get to see those. So that that got my attention too, and got back, bought my first AK, um, a nine mil AK, a Vitzniv cologne from Palmetto State Armory. And that's where I love for AKs, just really got to me. And I like the different, you know, the they're piston-driven versus the gas-driven and the the different parts of those. So when I get done with school, I definitely want to um open up a gun shop focusing on gunsmithing shop focusing on AR and AK platforms. Um, I'll probably do more than that. Like I have looked about like doing jigs and stuff for 80% lowers and making my own. I would like to help out the gun industry and maybe come up with something new, come up with my own thing. Um, probably more parts for AR or AK platform. Again, stuff that I want to focus on. Um I don't know. I got a lot of things in my mind, and I don't know if they'll go anywhere, or maybe I'll end up a millionaire one day building my own gun parts. That'd be sick.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:42

That'd be sweet. Yeah. How long does it take to get an FFL?

SPEAKER_03 2:07:45

I suppose it should only take like a couple of months, max. Like, because once I the hardest part um with getting an FFL is mainly getting business. So they don't want just it's not just everybody has an FFL. So the way I looked at it when I talked to the ATF is basically if I have a business, a business plan, it's easier to get an FFL because there's a reason to have an FFL. Because not they don't want just like I said, everybody that every you know, every dude having an FFL and just having guns shipped all over the place. So once I get the business name, which I've come up with a couple of different business names, I gotta see if those are gonna pan out. You gotta look at the if there's other names or those things. Yeah, like trademarks and stuff, yeah. So I gotta look into that, but I've come up with a few different names.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:31

Um that's sick, man. So by the end of the year, you think you should have that all up and running? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Dude, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:38

I'll have it done for sure by the end of the year. I'm hoping mid-year.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:41

That's awesome. You guys have a great entrepreneurial spirit between you and your wife. Uh I think you guys will do that.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:46

That that came from her, yeah. You know, when I I didn't have the entrepreneurial uh side uh until I met her, and she got into making cups, and then one thing led to another. And you know, I got my youngest is an entrepreneur, he's starting his own hat business now. And yeah, that's awesome. Jumped jumped jumped from family member to family member now.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:12

Well, that's cool that you guys are setting the groundwork for them, though, you know, because they could have just seen you guys not doing anything, and then they would have known, but you guys took that step, and it's not been easy. I know that being a business owner myself now. Like it's there's a lot of times you're like, what the heck am I doing? Yeah, why why am I doing this? Yeah, you just gotta keep pushing, man. I mean, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:34

Yeah, and you're doing good too. You got the old podcast thing going, and now you got your workout program going and yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:42

I don't know. I I don't know why I would have ever started a podcast. If you would have asked me when we were working together in G Block where I would have been in five years from then.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:49

I'd never seen you as a gym bro either.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:52

No, never, never and I don't I don't still consider myself like a gym bro. I just know I need to do it for my own mental health. Yeah, like the the gym we were talking about mental health earlier, like the gym for me was the most therapeutic thing I've ever had, and I've had hundreds of thousands of dollars in psychologists throughout my whole life from being like in five years old starting there, like you know, not my adult life, I didn't really do any psychologist stuff, but but like the gym man for me was just the mental clarity I got. Like, I there's three out of five days a week that I don't feel like going to the gym, man. I'm not I'm not like I don't live for it. I but I know how much of a an impact it's had on me and it's changed my life, so that's why I decided to go fully into the gym areas just to help other like parents. It's not even like I'm not I'm not gonna be a bodybuilding coach, but like if you can shed 20, 30 pounds and just see the self-confidence you feel, now you're gonna be passing that off to your kids as anything else in life. Passing those things off to your kids is really huge to me, like breaking those generational curses and setting up the generations to come. I think that's what really drives me. It's not not to do with the muscles.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:00

That's that's just a byproduct, but especially being chaos, you know, you got all your kids going on.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:06

Yeah, exactly. Like I've seen those videos of parents that can't protect their kids, right? They're like you see the stroller rolling down the hill and it's going into the street, and they're like trying to run after a trip, right? And it's it's funny, but it's also sad, and somebody else has to run and like save the kid. And like as a parent, that is the scariest thing to me is to not be able to protect my kids. Right. And I think that should be the scariest thing for any parent, is like to be thinking of that. Like, what if I were to watch my kid die because I wasn't quick enough or I was in shape, or I I didn't have the endurance to like keep, you know, if they're like yeah, whatever it is. So to me, it's like it's once you become a parent, that's not even an option. Like you have to be able to at least sprint 50 yards without stopping, you know, like be able to catch your kids, and especially, I mean, we both have autistic kids, like you know they're they're I shouldn't say unstable, but you don't know what they're gonna do next.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:59

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:00

Know what I mean? So it's like it's bro.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:02

And your kid's crazier than mine.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:04

Yeah. Yeah. So that's like for me. I'm not a gym bro. I just I just see the benefits of fitness. I'm a fitness bro, not a gym bro. You know, I think there's a difference, but uh hopefully I don't know. But yeah, the podcasting actually it's funny because Coeur d'Alene was where that mindset shift changed for me. I went up on that AR Armory course. Um Blake and I did the day, and then after I had a tea time to go do the floating green, it was like four o'clock in the afternoon, like the last tea time they had. And um my back was hurting me. I didn't want to go, but I was like, I don't know when I'm gonna get back up to Cord Elaine and have this opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:42

Did you bring clubs with you?

SPEAKER_00 2:12:43

I did. Yeah. We took our own car, it was like a state vehicle, so we just Oh, okay. And I went and played the the uh what's the other one? The casino that you have to pass to get to Court Alane.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:57

Oh, Quarterline Casino.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:59

Yeah, what's it called uh there's a what's the name of it though?

SPEAKER_03 2:13:02

What's the name of what?

SPEAKER_00 2:13:03

The the golf cours there.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:04

Oh, that I don't know. I don't know much about golfing at all.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:07

Anyway, it's uh I think it's a bird. I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, floating Raven, Circling Raven. That's what it's called. Okay, so we went, I went and played, we went there the day, the the morning. We go up, I drop Blake off at the hotel, I go back 30 minutes and play circling raven, amazing course. There was nobody out there, it was just me. It was perfect. So the next day we do our armory course. I drop Blake off at the hotel again, and I go to in town, you know, the whatever it's called, the circling raven, or not circling raven, the floating green course.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:40

Was it just their it's just quarter lane resort, I think, right? Yeah. So they pair me with this two some, and they're both like high-end bankers, I think, out of Montana. We're really cool dudes, and we're playing, and I was just like, I'm thinking about going into business one day. What's some advice you guys would give me? And they said, Don't quit, it's gonna be hard, and you're gonna want to quit. Just don't quit, keep going. And build relationships. You don't know what the relationships will do for you in a business. And I think I took that to heart when I was thinking about like just hearing people's stories. I was like, what a better way to build a relationship than to hear people's stories and then also learn from their mistakes that they made along the way. And then I was like, all right, let's start a podcast.

SPEAKER_03 2:14:26

That that's true now that you mentioned that of like um since we've since we've gotten into business, like making business relationships with people that I would have never thought like some of the relationships we have built with people that have taken us to where we're at now has been it's just been crazy. Like I never would have thought that I would have I would have never met these people if it wasn't for the business. And it's taken us, growing us where we're at now. Like, you know, we met some people through the VA and wound up gotten a VA contract and did some stuff with saw different soccer clubs in Meridian High School. So just meeting people wound up being people are like, oh, actually, you know, we make a cut for somebody and then they take it to somebody else, and then that person calls us, like, hey, I need this for my business. And yeah, you know, now we're doing clothing and everything else, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:16

Yeah, give a quick plug, like tell everybody what you guys do, and I'll clip those up so you guys can put it out on your stuff.

SPEAKER_03 2:15:21

So right now it's the company's called Treasure Valley Crafting. Um, we started out doing tumblers, epoxy, and then we got into laser engraving and we do laser engraving stuff, and then we got into clothing, and now we're uh blown up, do clothing lines for different companies, and um laser engraving. That's yeah, laser engraving, do some stuff for soccer clubs and um do all sorts of laser engraving for all sorts of different companies now.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:49

Different hoodies for fitness companies, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:15:52

Fitness companies, yeah. I mean, if you can think of it, we can put it on a sweatshirt or a cup.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:58

Yeah, they're really good. I've I've used them since I've started having any merch, so I've always been with another another one of my buddies does it, and then uh you got us in with a few different companies, yeah. Yeah, a lot of people have been pleased with it, so yeah, definitely check them out. You guys got um social media? I don't know if does it treasure value one or is it just Breeze?

SPEAKER_03 2:16:18

No, it's Treasure Valley Crafting. We've got a uh oh, we got Instagram now. I think we've got the TikTok page working up. I do I do marketing for them. We're working on the Instagram or the TikTok part, but we've got a Facebook page, and once we get bigger, we'll we'll get other stuff going. But we're just trying to grow the company right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:37

Sick. I'll tag you guys in it so that they can go in.

SPEAKER_03 2:16:39

It's been difficult. It's been uh yeah, there's been some moments that I'm just like, why are we doing this? But then it all pays out. We you know, we get slow times like we're in a slow season right now, it's just after the holidays, so people got all their holiday stuff done. So we're at a real slow time right now. We're hoping it picks up again.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:55

Yeah. Yeah, but you guys got a plan for that too, because then there's times where you guys are just slammed. I remember those times where you guys are like every single weekend you were gone, or it'd be even like a couple events a week, you would have to switch.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:07

So it was hard with our traveling because you know we'd have to put on there, we don't have any employees yet. And we've we've looked at employees during our heavier months that maybe haven't employees, especially like when we travel, because we've got people that uh clients that need stuff, and we're traveling, it's just like we can't do anything. So, with this last vacation we were on, we're like, hey, we got to find some employees, and we've we've got we got some ideas on some employees that um we'll probably work on when it comes to those busy months.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:35

Yeah, you got kids, those are great employees.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:37

Yeah, and my like I said, my youngest, he's now started his own hat brand, and that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:45

I don't know, um, I don't know if I've seen those. I'll have to check that out.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:49

Yeah, yeah. He hasn't hasn't put them out. He has them for himself, and he made one for my um my other son and his friend.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:57

So he's well make sure when he does it, I'll share it, you know. That's cool. I always want to support other people, especially kids. That's cool. You can start getting that. Maybe I'll go on shark tank one day.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:07

Maybe that'd be cool. I'd love to see him on on TV one day.

SPEAKER_00 2:18:11

Right. All right, Brock. Well, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. Absolutely, it's been good.