Special Forces & Paramilitary Contractor | Erik Lawrence | Ep. 339

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Special Operations, coverts spionage, The Teamhouse with your hosts Jack Murphy and David Bark.

Hey, everybody, welcome to episode three three nine of The Teamhouse.

I'm Dave Park here with Jack Murphy.

Today tonight we're welcoming a good friend of ours, Eric Lawrence. Eric is former Special Forces and security contractor Extraordinary, and we're also going to talk a bit about his book, Fire Support, a Veteran's Guide to Health, healing and Life Beyond Service, which is a phenomenal reference guide for all things mental, physical, and kind of spiritual health. You know, So anyway or thanks and welcome to the show.

Yeah, I appreciate it, guys.

It's always weird to be on here where most of my buddies have already been on your couch in one way or another.

Yeah, yeah, well you're kind of they set the stage for you.

Oh right, and your joy us from the beautiful Where are you right now?

I'm out in the middle of nowhere Arizona?

Okay, looks nice.

Yeah, water fasting like a super genius in Arizona.

Yeah yeah?

How many?

How many days have you been on this water fast?

I'm on day eight right now?

Wow.

Well, I'll do it once a year and.

We will and how long will it last for you?

I'll probably get hungrier because I'm bored around day ten. Okay, Yeah, you lose all your hunger, so it's not a bad deal. But you just missed flavor.

Yeah yeah, Well we'll get into that because I know that that's kind of part of the detox and everything else that you know, you champion, Let's talk a bit about you. To start out with, what's your origin story? How did you grow up and what led you to the military?

Well, my favorite line from a Steve Martin movie, you know, I was born a poor black child, but I was born in West Virginia, you know, seventies, good rough time to grow up there, and he grew up hard and quick. So as soon as I could, I joined what we called the army and ran away from there. So, you know, it's a great place to learn all your outdoor skills and makes a Q course fairly simple at that point in time because we know what other selection courses are run right there in my backyard.

So it was a good place to grow up.

And when you went into the army, did you know about special forces or was it just you wanted to go to the army?

Well that's where I had a smart neighbor who was in the nineteenth group, and I went straight in, so I had actually never been in another unit. Was in nineteenth when I was seventeen years old, got tabbed at twenty one. He's six at twenty one, and then said I'm going.

To first group.

What year did you join?

An ecstatic about that? So again, what.

Year did you join the army? Yeah, I'm sorry, what what year was that?

Nineteen eighty seven? Oh?

Okay, okay, interesting?

So you started you went through SFAs and the QS part of second and nineteenth correct.

Yeah, it was like selection number four. There were like ham sandwiches and it was atrocious. I mean, they really hadn't figured out what they were doing yet.

Yeah.

Yeah, and so as soon as you got your long tab you pretty much bailed on the guard or and went to act and went to first group.

Yeah.

All the old guys, I mean, my whole team almost was Vietnam guys.

Yeah, they're like, get out of here. You know, this is fine, you can come back.

Yeah, you know, and you're a twenty one year old six in nineteenth group back.

In the nineties, there's nothing to do.

Yeah.

So yeah, I immediately rolled into first group there.

Yeah.

And then what was that like for you going to first group, going out to Washington State?

Yeah, I went. I loved Washington.

I was on a mountain team, which is the best spot in the world to be on a mountain team. You know, we had no money, we had no budget, but the climbing team, if they said, hey, just come back in a month or two, we would. Yeah, you know, we run out of beer money. But we we got a lot of training, in a lot of hiking, in a lot of really good mountain ops.

Yeah, because you have the whole West Coast there to work on.

Yeah.

And then I rolled over to Soot team. It's always like CQB. It really likes blowing things up. Hence why all my TBIs are helping me right now? Did that for quite all awesome? You know, great teammates obviously, And then we got tired of going to Korea every trip because second battalion in first group was the Korea battalian.

I transferred over to first in Okinawa.

Then my luck and everybody else's second battalion's luck that showed up in first battalion they changed a mission to Korea, So our first trips we're.

All just looking at each other with a glock in our mouth or a baretta in our.

Mouth, going really mind of curb here, you know, and hopefully run into it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was just fucking bad karma. Man.

In first group, there was like one battalion that was like Korea and Alaska, right, and then the other was like Thailand.

Every trip that was us.

Yeah, they had all of Asia and we had Korea, Highland, Malaysia, Indonesia, you know the nice places, right. You know, I got frost fight in first group.

It's like, how do you do that?

But yeah, and then I was on the siff there in Okinawa, which was obviously a good time. I really really did well there like that did a lot of a lot of the breaching and uh man, we really got to get smarter about breaching, which I hope they are because I spent half my times at TBI doctors.

Now, yeah, breaching is just no joke.

Yeah yeah, So.

Yeah, we'll definitely talk about about that because I think that's a big thing. You know, we we've talked about it, ah with uh Chuck O'Connor. Yeah, Chuck O'Connor, uh and Wining like uh, you know, the over pressure that none of us knew, like we we idea, we've.

All eaten like hundreds.

Yeah, we see how close we could get.

Yeah, yeah, super.

So was you know you you mentioned being on a on an S O T team and then going to sit That was pretty much a natural progression, right that so he became the SIFF.

Yeah, I mean SOT is kind of like Sephardic Light. It's the same course, just longer.

Yeah.

And obviously you got to you know, command directed mission, which was good.

I mean you know, and all your budget from there it.

All went elsewhere, you know, to progress. So it's part of you know election.

Yeah, and so what was you know from that time that you were in from UH eighty seven eighty eight, you know, through your time and you know, up in Korea and then out in oat Canallen and everything. What were aside from Korea? What were the missions? What was the mission set for first group at that time?

Was were there a real world?

A lot of FID, A lot of FID. No, we even in a SI if we'd get spun up for something. Yeah, but they had cold feet back then. They were scared to get committed.

They would make up excuses, you know, if there was a coup somewhere, we'd show up a week later.

Yeah, like okay, the team's.

Been here a week, you know, but what they're going to do? But yeah, it was just really risk averse. It was very annoying and pretty much why I wanted to get out.

And so around what year was I that you started looking at it? Now?

It was seven?

Yeah, eighty seven or no, sorry, God Blessed America ninety eight.

Yeah.

We had big mo as our battalion commander Mulholland, and I taught him some army regulations he didn't know, and he wasn't.

Too happy about it.

I found out you could if you were not going to re enlist, you could request a new ETS date. So I did that and he was not polite about that. But in a week later he signed it and he goes, you'll be back. I said, sir, I won't be back. And then after nine to eleven, I saw.

Him up in.

Uh oh, what the hell's that airfield? The big one there in Afghanistan. David, Yeah, there's told you I wouldn't come back, and he was he was giggling about it.

Before we go into like post nine to eleven. Like before nine to eleven, you spent some time in West Africa.

Right, Yeah.

I left first group summer of ninety eight and within two weeks I was.

In Sara Leone.

Oh okay, back then, there wasn't very many, uh special contracts like that going around, and you kind of knew everybody that was doing.

Something, you know.

After nine to eleven, every brainder brothers a pro, you know. Yeah, but uh, pre nine eleven, I bet there wasn't a hundred guys really doing work.

And I got hired on.

To help with the State Department contract where we we advised Ecamogue, which is the West African like NATO or UN who was doing the peacekeeping and fighting in Sara Leone and Liberia. So me and two other Americans we entertained ourselves there for a couple of months, you know, fighting the RF and very interesting.

A lot of lessons learned. I mean learned more there in a couple of months.

Than I did in group the whole time, because the guys we were hanging out with were executive outcomes. I mean, these guys have been fighting since the seventies and we'd be like, hey, let's do it this way, and they're like, no, we lost like twelve guys and wherever doing that fifteen years ago. Like okay, well we won't do that. I'll just shut up and sit here. And very professional. I mean I saw some of them twenty years later.

Still in wars.

Yeah.

So just great people, really great people. I'll still talk to some of them. I mean Kobs Klaus and they're in South Africa's he's he's the mur of Africa right now. But a great friend of mine. Well did that did Liberia? I mean quite a bit of work over there.

What was I have to like ask like, what was that interface like for you as a state department contractor with ostensibly or they were a South African private military contractor, because I mean officially, our government's like, no, we don't approve that, we don't like that.

But well, there was no state department in seraly On. There was probably one case officer and the three of us. That was it. One time I answered the phone and it was Madeline Albright.

I'm like, can I help you? She goes, what's going on over there?

I'm like, I handed the phone off immediately to somebody else, like I'm not explaining the War of Sara ly owned to Madeline Albright.

Yeah, there was no one there.

It was.

It was the best war I've ever been in.

Yah, it was.

You know, there was no amateurs. One time when we.

Had to go, you know, go rescue the the folks from the librarian embassy, we just showed up at the casino the night before and said who wants to make some extra money tomorrow? And uh we had French, South African, British, you name it.

It was who's who in the zoo?

The next morning at the helipad and we took a rock, drew it out on the on the hard deck and went and did it. That's the kind of guys you had back then.

Yeah, how how did you.

Guard against war tourism?

And you know guys claiming that they had been French foreign legion or this, or.

That we saw them. They wouldn't last a day or two.

Yeah, they would be gone in no time.

There were some always and they were typically French.

Yeah.

So but that was a great time. I mean it was a nine to five ward too, so that was very polite.

You know.

We had Russian cruise with them.

I am I sevens and uh they only fluid in the daytime.

And I got to ask you then to like finish the story, like how did the Liberian embassy rescue go down?

Oh?

You've seen the typical State Department employees sometimes. I remember one come running across the hard deck to you know how them I seven or in my eightes have those little steps on it. When she hit that step, I thought we were going to spark rotors. And it was just like God bless America, you know it was it was entertainment man, and we had it all secured and take care of. But uh, just she can't make some of this ship up. And uh we left the Marines, but we had to come back and get them. And

Yeah. And so.

We roll into nine to eleven and are you still kind of working under the same umbrella, the same you know, security style contract and whatnot.

Yeah. At the time, I had a security company and I had the Blackheart International Logistics Company, so I would do different Iraq in Afghanistan contracts, you know, with varying roles, a lot of protection, a lot of advising, and tons of logistical support.

That was the main, the main avenue there.

Yeah.

Yeah, we did that for years, did rifle manufacturing. We got into way too many things, but that's kind of you were chasing the dollar at the time because that was the heyday of contracting.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And so were you involved with like Afghanistan as soon he's that kicked off and then Iraq as soon as that kicked off where you kind of focused on one theater.

Yeah, I did a quick stint training up the Air Marshals. They got a whole bunch of US pistol guys to immediately go out to Arteesia and start tuning up the air marshals. So I did that for a couple of months while clearances were getting stood up. As soon as that happened, I was. I was in Afghanistan probably summer of O two and starting to do work there for a couple of years before the Iraq War kicked off. But that was the time to be there before it

When you say do you mean uh to laden with bureaucracy or do you what do you mean by taking When you say too crazy, do you mean too like laden with bureaucracy or correct?

And you could you could get away with anything at that time, you know, if you needed a badge, you made the badge next slight. You know, you just you got you got ship.

Done, you know. And then years later I'm like, we need a new war.

This is just obnoxious, you know, And you just couldn't get anything accomplished.

And I won't participate in that.

And oh hell, speaking of that, I forgot I did seven months in Haiti before that, we talk about not getting anything done.

It was groundhog day every day.

Watching the charities fleece their pockets. You know, it's just bureaucracy and corruption is to disgusting and we both all of us have seen that too many times.

Yeah, yeah, it's it was wild.

You know you mentioned like bogram and it's wild, you know seeing.

You know, Disney.

Drive for instance, go from kind of the wild West right to to people getting shoot out for not wearing safety belts and you know.

It took the entire garrison overseas.

Yeah yeah, yeah, you know first startiants out there writing speeding tickets for people on their little gators.

Like it's it's like, is this is this war?

Is what's going on here?

Well, Dave, I think that's how we want it, right right? Oh wait right, No I don't think so, right, Yeah, No, everybody just waits us out because they know our bureaucracy and bullshit we'll do or do their battle for them. Yeah, you know, never destroying it or never interrupt an enemy that's busy destroying himself.

Yeah, they just wait us out. And you and I knew that. You knew they were going to do that. Yeah, we're not good at.

U W No, we don't, we don't.

It doesn't brief well like it doesn't.

It doesn't.

The power points just don't. Uh you know, if you can't talk about how many bodies you stacked or this or that?

Who want?

Who cares about it? What village was stabilized? Are the metrics?

Yeah?

No, That's why I love SEF because we can go in there and fix all that and people not know we did it. Yeah, you know, because we'll trick them into it. I don't care how trick them, pay them whatever I need to do. But we don't have to heavy hammer them all the time. You know, all we did was make rebels. I used to stop the guys all the time for making more rebels, and we constantly would do it.

Yeah.

So, uh so you spent you know, you did Haiti, you.

Did Afghanistan, and then I'm assuming it with phi Iraq kicks off and you guys are involved in that too.

Then Yeah, almost as soon as it had kicked off, I was over there organizing that, trying to you know, work with the Brimmer administration doing all that because they were new to everything. Also, it's like we hadn't been in a war in a while.

Yeah.

Right, And I'm a big sop guy.

I love so ops So I was over there pimping how to set stuff up quick, and we already had all the logistical you know, trail figured out, so it was pretty easy.

So I scored a couple of details over there, you know, to run those, and you know, helped out with some other details and just you know, great guys.

I mean, you find any kind of work to stay with the bunch, you know, the guys you grew up with in the military, and if you're going to get paid to drive around with machine guns with them, it's like, sure, let's go.

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And I mean some legends, you know.

Now, it's funny to see the folks on your on your podcast once in a while. I'm like their heroes, yeah, you know, and folks have no idea what they've really done.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's interesting because I think that, you know, when I went out to the second Italian fiftieth anniversary, like one of the young Rangers there, because we've been going like five years now, right, So a young ranger is like, yeah, I watched your show all through high.

School, which is greatly to me.

Yeah, and it's like that's why I went in like listening to all these rangers and all these so you know, soft guys and their stories, and it's the way we would have eaten up, you know, the mac view sog and and you know, and the Green Beret and you know. And then he's like and I'm like, oh, that's awesome, and he goes, yeah, we haven't.

Done a single combat appointment.

I'm like, oh, dude, I'm sorry.

Sorry, man, that's hard to walk around batty in that way.

Yeah right, but but yeah, you know it, it is fascinating.

I think a lot of times.

You know, I just saw greg Burg took over. I just saw that little note.

Remember him.

He was my command sergeant major at three seven five.

Yeah, yeah, I think he just took the regiment. So what great guy.

I mean, I mean he did become the regimental sergeant major, but that was like two thousand and six or seven or something.

Oh, I might be dating. I might have hit something wrong. You know, I've been fasting, so okay, yeah for bbis.

Yeah, Sergeant Major Birch is an amazing guy, though, but he's out there. He's retired now.

Yeah good. Yeah, yeah, well yeah, it's probably true. Years I get all those years mixed up, I really do, because I still think I'm like twenty nine.

Yeah, the same, same, Yeah.

And I think another part of that is, you know, I admire people have like solid memories and remember.

A lot of very specific things.

But for me, it's like kind of like one big green blur, you.

Know, Yeah, I have to have somebody else mentioned something and then it'll spark me, you know.

Yeah, But a lot of that I tried to forget. People like you remember this guy, I'm like, nope, not at all. Yeah, damn sure, not their last names, you know.

Yeah, So what what did you like?

You know, you when you were in Afghanistan, you thought we need a new war, and then you got a new war, you got Iraq.

What was your overall impression of the.

Efforts in Afghanistan in Iraq as time progressed and as you were not only a witness but a participant in these wars.

Yeah, that's the problem.

I was going between them, and I used to always call it the Bill of two Wars because incredibly different tactics.

Right, I mean, there's things you could.

Get away with in Afghanistan you wouldn't even dare in Iraq, right, you know, you'd get a double stacked at.

Mine under you. So it was just so hard to go back.

And forth and shift gears because I considered Afghanistan as fairly civilized compared to Iraq and Syria.

So yeah, it was just we weren't we.

Weren't ready for prime time on a lot of it, you know, and uh two risk averse and there's a time and a place for that.

But when when something's got to get done, you got to hit them hard, you know.

And those were just two distinctly different wars, and they would send us back and forth between them like they were, you know, a national Guard weekends. You know, I'm like, this is not cool. And then we still didn't learn, I don't think.

And then what did you.

What was your impression And if you had one of the ro O s as they started, as they changed, as they changed, as they changed.

Yeah, well try to try to deal that with your host nation, you know. So you know, if you got your your host guys helping your on your detail, what's their idea of an r OE?

Yeah, you know, so you're you're totally.

Put in a position that I don't think is attainable or winnable. And truthfully, we just kind of ignored it, and you know, if the tree fell in the woods. I learned that in Africa.

Yeah, you know you mentioned that, like Africa was.

An interesting wake up call for you where you tried to take you know, the the s F you know, sort of SOPs into a war with warriors who had been fighting for a long period of time and they're like, no, like we tried that fifteen years ago or whatever.

How was that?

Then taking what you had learned in Africa into Afghanistan in Iraq with you know, with US service members or former US service members who were also going on you know, not r os, but SOPs developed during Vietnam and afterwards.

I think it greatly helped. I mean I was light years ahead of the guys.

Yeah.

I always used to tease them like, don't worry. I remember my first war too.

But I was boogered up in Sara Leone, you know, because I thought I knew my shit.

I was just two weeks out of group.

Yeah.

And now here's the funny part. When I was flying into Sara Leone.

I didn't know anything about it. It was two weeks. I didn't have time to do an area study or even read a book.

So I'm in ivory coast at a hotel staying to fly the next day, and I'm in a bar eating steak and I look across and I see a team over there getting littered, drinking out of the OP fund. I'm like, okay, you know, they got the little bag everybody carries the OP fund in, you know, So I see them drinking out of it. And I finished my meal and I walk over there. I'm like, where are you jackasses from? I'm like, oh, we're third group. We

And just leave.

They were on a FID there, and they left their weapons and como were ordered to And when I got there the next day, I got their weapons and como and I got in a helicopter.

I flew out to the ocean and I threw it out.

So it's the last thing I wanted there, but they left. I'm never in my life heard of such an orders. Yeah, I mean, you're you're saying that they didn't like leave it at the embassy. They left that like a teamhouse somewhere there was no embassy. Yeah, they left them with my cutout, you know. Yeah, I had won thirty sevens. I'm like, dude, I know I know how to run one thirty seven, but I know you're not allowed to leave one unattended.

So it was like it was like the gardener was maintaining positive control over the weapons and como a case officer, that's better better than I was going to say, better than nothing.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I'm like, that's PK's.

And MAG fifty eight.

I don't need American weapons in Africa, right, how are you going to feed that?

You know?

R I dumped them in the ocean. I didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Right, Wow? I mean did they did? They fly that team out commercial and that's why they couldn't travel.

Yeah, okay, well no, they see one thirty. Sorry, they see one thirty. Show them up like in the middle of the night, left their host nation.

Dude, very irritated.

Wow, And they showed up the every coast and started drinking.

As one does.

The team back in the day.

Yeah, it makes you wonder.

I mean it makes you wonder.

It makes you wonder, like because that was the State Department decision, right, that's not Yeah, nobody, nobody at the group level is saying, hey, leave your sensitive items behind.

Yeah, I've ever heard of it in my life.

Yeah, you're right, that's that's something that like the State Department decided without like considering all of the ramifications of like no, get them out right now. Yeah, yeah, you're you're probably right.

Yeah. No. It was strange every day over there. I can write a book about.

Yeah, every day. We know the best one. This is the best one on the whole trip. We're Me and my buddy were gassing up the helicopters one day over the main international airport. You know, they offload on the little stairs because they don't have the terminals. And here comes E one Marine or E two Marine walking off there with his duffel bag and his greens. I'm like, John, I think he's in the wrong place, and we go over there and get him. He thought he was.

Going to Liberia.

I'm like, well, you're in Sarah Leone actually, and you can't get there from here.

So we kept him for a week, and we made him work with us.

And I would love to meet that young marine and get his story because.

It would be epic. That's why I didn't want to leave. I bet we had.

Him in civilian clothes, carrying him bag fifty eight, partying.

Every night, flying every day. I would I don't even know his name. I don't even remember his name.

He can't called me anytime, did I How did you guys manage I mean did he manage to? Obviously, like whoever was waiting for him in Liberia thought he was a wall.

We called the embassy, so you got you hooked him up. He took him later.

Yeah, we weren't going there all the time. Yeah, it was like a week, week and a half later. We made a special trip and took him to the embassy down there.

Before we evacuated it. Yeah so yeah, yeah, we we let him know.

Yeah, because we talked to the embassy all the time down there because they were scared.

That's wild.

Yeah.

I love all that kid's story. I mean, he's obviously not a.

Kid now, yeah you know no, Yeah, he's.

Forty fifty, twenty five years later, but yeah he's I bet he's a legend in the core.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. Nobody though, No, that's the thing.

Nobody's going to believe that ship at all.

That's the kind of thing people lie about all the time.

Yeah, and he's a real deal.

Yeah that's funny. Yeah, that's great that that would make like a great movie or something.

Oh. I can still see him getting off the plane right now. I mean he's comical. Both our jaws dropped. We like, what the fuck is that? It's a marine flueless?

Who to uh put a little bit of like a finger on it. I mean we had this conversation about how you learned so much from that conflict and working over there, Like what were like some specific like lessons learned that you kind of carried over into subsequent deployments. Put whether it's like operational planning or reconnaissance or tactics.

Tactics I mean helicopter use. I mean we were getting shot at all the time, and you know, we'll do a speedball.

They're like, don't you dare do a speedball?

You land, You land as quick as you can, unload debt burd and get the hell out of there, you know, And yeah, just helicopter operations under fire different than when you're not under fire.

Yeah, you need to be very competent. You need to know how the doors work, everything works, You need to know your load plan. You don't have time to sit there.

And figure it out. And that's the choppers we were using in Afghanistan too, and some in the Iraq. So I was I was a pro at the MS, Yeah, because then things can lift anything if you get a little bit of runway.

Yeah, Dmitri, our producer is asking us to talk about what a speedball is. Do you want to answer that, Eric.

Or do you want me to Well, I mean that was our resupply, a prepackage of a resupply of ammo, food and water and essentially throw it out of the helicopter.

It's usually like MRIs and water and ammunition stuffed into a Duffel bag, right, and the bird just comes down, hovers ten feet off the deck, They push it out and then they fly away.

Yeah yeah, which makes a very good target.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're like safer to land, drop it off and then take off again.

Yeah, because we had a lot of Essay seven.

Problems over there, and you know, they weren't competent, which was gold But there's always lucky.

Right, you know, right Golden beb you know.

Yeah, totally.

I mean that it was comical two or three of us could make three or four hundred of them run away, and that makes you feel good.

But you're like, wow, what if they actually knew what they were doing? Yeah, yeah, they would annihilate us.

But they were pretty much all on drugs and just savages, a lot of savagery.

Yeah, they were doing some nasty stuff at that time. You guys in the executive outcomes, guys did the world of favor by beating them back.

Unheard of. I mean, you just don't even want to know what they were going over there.

Yeah, what you know? You mentioned the m I being an airframe used in both in Africa and then in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you do you feel as though the US should have given that a harder look, especially like especially like in Afghanistan with the elevation is shoes, you know, and a lot of our birds having issues with the maintenance whatnot.

Yeah, maintenance, we had no down days, but those.

One time we needed a new engine, so they found one in a warehouse that had been in a warehouse for like ten years put it in.

One day we needed a windshield.

They flew out to a shot down helicopter, pulled the windshield off, put a new one on, and we flew off. I mean we had zero down hours. Yeah, everything's hydraulic or not hydraul cable. And they were beast. I think we should have them one hundred percent. Yeah, They're a beast and they cost.

Nothing compared to anything we have.

Yeah, and if you could fill it up and you had a little bit of runway you could take off.

Yeah, yeah, great helicopter.

So you know, was there anything in particular that happened in either Afghanistan or Iraq that that you know, you want to talk about, any cool stories, funny stories, anything that kind of like triggers you at times.

Well what triggered me was that pull out. Yeah, wow, that was astonishing. Yeah, you couldn't have done that any worse.

Yeah, you know, and I know some.

Of the people that were involved with that, you know, and I'm like, you made that decision astonishing. While we still don't have boggroom, which I hear they're going to give it back.

Who knows what.

That deal is, right, you know, just incredibly bad and I've been talking to some of the young kids that were over there during that and they're having problems, Yeah, because what they saw was atrocious. And our boys and the Tiger Stripes are the only ones that kept that airfield from falling. Yeah, and without those guys that host Nation unit there, it would have been really bad, even though it.

Was pretty horrendous.

So I try to pigeonhole all that stuff. I mean, we had great guys, but I think we lost them for no reason. You know, I've been to too many of the Arlington funerals there. I'm like, this was bullshit.

You know.

I wanted to leave Afghanistan and five because I'm like, we're done. You're not taking Afghanistan. Come on, You're an asshole to think you are. And you know I'm in to get in and get out, you know, and then just have the grids just keep sending jay dams later.

I don't care. But a lot of this stuff I think we've perpetrated.

So I'm kind of against the whole Ukraine angle and the Yemen angle and all that. I'm like, we're making messes out of the place. Yeah, I'll take their arguments on that. I'll take them to task.

I think the.

You know, the it wasn't until we had Froedzec's wife. That was the first time I think I ever heard the term moral injury.

She's going to be back to the end of the month, fantastic with a bunch of people who got the TBI legislation written into the NDAA this last year. She'll be here, unlike the like I think the twenty sixth I'll check it out. But yeah, later this month.

But and and but that was the first time I had ever heard the term moral injury. And I think that that is a very good term, or very precise term for what a lot of veterans and people involved with Afghanistan felt with that pull out.

Yeah, yeah, it's just I know you're going to have to do it, but do it like you actually are adults and you plan something.

Sure.

It was just obnoxiously embarrassing and gave everybody also green light, you know, like you can't even leave a place, you can't invade it, right right.

H D says it's April twenty fourth, is when Kate Rockline can some of the other folks who are involved in that legislation.

Will be in here and I'm sorry, Kate, like for you know, you're not you're somebody more than Rhodes ex wife.

That's just yeah, no, I get it. We couldn't recall.

Your last name, and I'm sorry for that, but but yeah, it's so.

What was so barring?

What triggers you?

I shouldn't said that, But are there any light other memories that you'd care to share that maybe aren't you.

Know, as traumatic? You know, I'm sure there were good times too.

Right, Oh, yeah, it's great times.

I mean, you know, when you get to work with the guys that are solid, I mean, that's what everybody missed. Is more than any of this PTSD stuff, I think is just working with competent guys under pressure, with real world issues. You know, we're not used to just sitting around on a park bench in a park, you know, and I think that causes more of us issues than anything.

Yeah, and you know it's just big boy rules. Early.

Nowadays, I don't think the boys are having that much fun. I think there's there's too many people watching in your ears, too limited. But back early, you could actually, you know, be a professional and look at a situation and go, this is how we should handle this. To other people agree, you go and do it, and you know, there's there's nothing wrong with that. But that's that's a lot of freedom.

Yeah, nobody knows.

Yeah, yeah, when did when did things start winding down for you personally, and was there a reason.

That they did?

That was its own special nightmare.

So while I was doing all those trips, I was still running those other companies. So you talk about overtasking to deal with your own anxiety or traumas. Yeah, you know, I was working myself into the grave. And today's my son's birthday. But I remember that little jack ass one day. I sold the company in twenty thirteen, and two days later I got divorce papers and I'm like, what.

The fuck's going on here?

My son walks by, he goes, Dad, you didn't see that coming. I'm like, no, obviously, you know I supposed to hook a brother up here. Been a little busy, and yeah, it just you know, you know, it doesn't come in threes, it comes in piles sometimes. So I got out of the contracting, sold that company, and just had to had to rebuild everything.

You know.

I was a bitter man for a while. Hence you'll notice that in the book.

I admit it. But you know, there's just we didn't understand any of this. Uh I don't. I don't even like the term PTSD.

It's just when you get disappointed, you know, you don't need to know the reason you're disappointed.

But when you work like a.

Slave and then everything crumbles down, you're like how and why did that happen?

You know, But that's just the life lesson. You got to roll with it.

Yeah, and years later it makes total sense Now I have no problem with it.

You know.

It was a very hard lesson, but I learned a whole lot to help a lot of other people with.

Yeah.

For the time, I was like fucking neer ambush and just kept running from ambush to ambush.

So let's let's talk about the book a little bit.

I mean, let's if we can, let's start with your journey when you know whether, because we're talking about so many different things, right, We're talking about post amount of stress. We're talking about operator center, We're talking about not being around the guys living on the edge.

With this pure mission anymore.

We're talking about TBIs, Like there's such a morass, a stew of stuff that's combined.

How do you pull it apart?

And it's also insidious that sometimes like we don't even realize we're going through it right until somebody else, until somebody else goes hey, like that's not normal.

Yeah, these days, I can an idea guy by just looking at him.

Yeah, and I'll sity down.

I'm like, hey, talk to me and I'll get them into treatment immediately. And people I have no I don't know them from Adam, but I can I can see it like reading.

A book, just like.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's intuition or something.

I don't know, but I can see it in.

A guy's eyes. You know, they're just they're just dead, yeah, you know, and I can turn them around pretty quick. I mean I think again, I'm you know, tooting my own horn. But you know, I've always wrote books because I hate relearning something. So in all units I was in, I would write so ops that I wouldn't ask to write.

I'm like, I don't care.

You know, we're going to write the breaching sop or the I wrote a JSOP for first Battalion and the three fifty third, you know, the MG fifty threes, because I'm like, we're a joint unit. No one knows how to do repelling ops or resupply ops or jump off.

You know, we just didn't have a menu on it. I'm like, we have to have an SOP on everything. You know, and I've done tons of.

The weapons manuals because I despise the old fms with pencil drawn guns, you know, So I redid all that for a lot of the different organizations. But with this one, these were I took my notes because I don't want to recross bridges, and I just kept writing my own notes and I kept I think it kept my busy mind good to go too. But I want to be able to always hand something to somebody else if I don't have time to explain it. And this thing turned

So I just want.

Guys to have a place as a reference book to get the quick on it and then detailed search on their own.

You know, they don't have to read the whole book. They can read a couple of paragraphs.

Well, And that's I mean.

And that's the thing is that the book it's not it's not laid out like a self help book. It's it's laid out so I can go, you know, in alphabetical order, like buy, and I can go, uh, post my extress, let me look.

It up, and then a list of you know, and all all the different things.

But that's the book they should give guys when they're etsing.

I know it's a transition book.

Because in the back, I I have all the reference books I read for this. I mean I read I don't even know how many freaking books to steal this information from. So I want them to look in the back, find the book, and then go for it. But you know, I remember a marine combatant long time ago said put your TMS and fms by the bathroom, and more education through more defecation. I was like, that's moronically simple, but true.

You know.

So they're just like a one bathroom trip vignette of each subject, and you know, and that's too much.

I can't help.

You well, and honestly that that's a good point. Not to minimize this book in any way. But this book is great bathroom reading because that's because you don't there's no like, there's no where was I last time? Like whether you can just open it up and go, oh, Niasin and just start reading about Niosin and oh fuck, like this might be something I want to look in. You know, it's it's it's great for that, you know, it's a great reference.

Our guys are smart, but they still have short attention spans. Sure, you know, it was just a way of the times are right now with these damn telephones.

Sure, so yeah, I wrote it that way, you know. And I really wanted to write the real self help book, but.

I ran into so many of these that I would need to explain so much that book would have been deluded. So I wanted to write this one first and writing the other one that I actually wanted to write years ago, you know, on how I'm doing it and what I do today, what I do this week, what I do that month, you know, like sit out here and be thirsty.

So Eric, let's let's if you don't mind, let's like let's talk about like your journey.

Did you know, at what point did it come.

To your awareness that whether it was post traumatic stress, whether it was tbi's, whether it was you know, moral injury, that that something was off kilter.

Well, it was an example I saw I was like maybe.

A nineteen year old, you know, in the guard there, and one of the old Vietnam guys took me hunting one day. So we're out there hunting and I come around and I see him sitting over there on a log, just crying his eyes out.

I didn't know what the fuck was going on, so I didn't know what to do. I just pulled back, waited until he.

Settled down, you know, half an hour later, and I walked over like nothing happened.

I had no idea. I never seen anything in my life.

And he was over one hundred and first and s F guy, you know, hard, hard fighting guy, Hamburger hill guy. And I never saw it again. And then one day I took my son hunting. He was the one or two, and he fell asleep and I broke down like a bitch, like what is going on here? And that's when I started to talk to the old guys, so, hey, what the hell is going on here?

Man?

And I didn't believe him for a long time, you know, but it's just there's no there's no easy way, you know.

You're what did the old timers tell you?

Like?

How was? I think it's very interesting because of their generation, and they didn't have access to all the treatments we have. Right the way they looked at it or dealt with it and lived with it is maybe a little bit different than us. I'm just curious to hear what you learned from them.

It wasn't anything I would give his advice, stuck it up, it'll get better, drink ignore it.

That was horrible.

I mean they had no way to deal with it, right, you know here they had a VFW where you had cheap beers.

Well, that's a great idea.

Let's all have issues and then go drink until we're littered and not spend much.

And you know, and you know, we talk about the moral injury of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but regardless of that, we lived in an age or we live in an age where, probably because of the shame of the way Vietnam veterans were treated, everybody, regardless of whether they believe it or not, everybody is very quick to say thank you for your service. Right, So when you when you talk about when you talk about Vietnam veterans, you're talking about that wasn't a thing and they and you want

I just don't agree.

But they didn't even have that right, Yeah, no.

It had to be the worst. Yeah, I had to be the worst. But I don't like the superficial stuff.

I mean, I've had a lot of people go, Eric, what do you need?

How can I help?

Those are the supporters you need, you know, And I've been amazed by that, you know, And I've gotten a lot of my buddy's help that way.

You know.

I'll call those same people up and go, hey, I got a buddy he this has to be done, and they won't even flinch.

They just was he need?

Yeah?

You know. So it's so much better now.

And part of the pisser is, I mean there's forty five thousand veterans organizations now, so it's like where does a guy even go?

So that's the part I have to write a little better in the book. I'm going to do an annex on it. Yeah, because where does the guy start? You know?

And most of these foundations only do one thing, right, so I don't need that one thing.

They don't help you. I'm like, well that's the wrong answer.

You know. And in the front of the new edition of this I put in there like, Hey, if you're going to help guys, this is how you have to trioge it.

You know, just don't do it to feel good.

Right, So let's talk about if you you're okay talking about it, let's talk about your journey and the trioge because again we are talking about post traumatic stress and TBIs and opera like, there are so many different things going on, right, and how you know, we talked about you know, how many door breaches we've all eaten on these direct actions, uh hundreds just and and and the effect of that TBI And where does the TBI end and the post traumatic star.

And and and.

How do you pull it apart?

And how do you treat this multi not only multi symptomatic, but multi origin, right, there's multi.

Cause was complex. It was very complex. Yeah, And that's where there was no path, you know, right.

And that's where I've kind of guinea pigged myself on so many of these different modalities as kind of a reason to keep kicking, you know, because you get war out because some of these modalities, if you get them out of order, it actually is worse.

Than if you didn't do them because it gives you hope, and then it doesn't work right.

So now you're like, holy shit, I just wasted forty five days and mirk thirty minutes a day, five days a week, and I don't feel any right.

It really makes you go, who the hell's running this? You know?

So I think what I've been trying to do is to figure out a triage message method to teach guys.

I've still got my speech impediment.

But I'm going to a different brain treatment center next month for an actual whole month, So I'm still rating the trioge protocol.

But what I've learned recently, and it's it's hard to nail that, Dave.

Well, what I've discovered recently is you have to realize your consciousness, and that in my suspect, in my view of what happened is we're just put into this meat suit.

For this trip.

And I think that helped me a lot, going Okay, well, I'll get to do this again somewhere else. I hope I don't show up in Haiti or somewhere and it lets you go, Okay, I understand. Then I got to fix my reality. How do I change what's good and bad in my reality that I get to choose. And then now, how do I fix the body because we've damaged it so much reaches and SPG ninees and mortars

It doesn't fix a.

TV I in right, you know, what do you what do you see as the triage order? Because like I remember talking to one person at one point who told me that they found with veterans, the first thing they have to treat is the substance abuse because that that will kill them right off. That's the thing that's going to kill you first, right, Yeah, and then you're getting lucky.

I don't smoke, drink, I don't do any of that. You know, I'm pretty boring, but yeah, if you don't do that, you're boogered.

You can't get a guy to because you constant inflammation. And I called it daily detox. You know, we we have so many chemicals in US, or heavy metals in US, or or just shitty food. You can't get the brain to work right if it's constantly inflamed. And uh, I mean they think how many times you sucked up an RPG exhaust?

None of that's good for you, you know.

I remember a breach in Okuanaga one time where we used FLSC, which is a shape charge, but it's lead encased and it's it's vapor rises into lead. And I'm like, shouldn't we put a mask on?

And they're like, hey, shut up, new guy, just run through the breach. It's like freaking lead, it's yellow.

Right, And how many.

Two years the detox heavy metals and chemical Yeah yeah.

How many times to shoot houses?

Right?

And and like the like it's not the fumes in the toxin is aren't going anywhere.

Yeah, you bang any house, you imagine what you're gonna smell in there.

Yeah, yeah, it's astonishing. But I think detox is critical. But that is not cheap.

I mean, you have to do a blood teatox. You got to do uh, you know, your your muscle tissues, your lymphatic system. And that's where I harp in this book, the lymph system. If we can clean up the lymph system, we won't get sick, We'll be able to detox quickly people. I mean, I argue with doctors who don't even understand the links lymph system and I'm just like, whatever, you know, But that's where I start. If you can't do that,

You know, you can't function.

So how can you make a good decision on who you need to call for help when your olympic system is so out of balance you have to have somebody walk by and go, hey, stop.

Let me help you. And we're bad about that, you know that.

Yeah, Yeah, I mean it's and I think that.

For a lot of people, that all the all of the things that that is effective are also the things that keep they keep them from like, you know, getting help right that that you might have resources, so you might have people to reach out to, but they won't.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've had to intervene too many times because I wish somebody would have intervened with me and grab me by the hair. Yeah you don't, because I had tons of my buddies and your buddies to day that that we work together for years and nobody said anything. Yeah, yeah, we knew something was wrong, but we all just let everybody go.

Yeah, because we're tough guys.

And uh, I don't do that anymore. I'll set somebody down and say, hey, this is what I think. And if you blow me off, you blow me off.

If not, we start working on it. Yeah, I'll find you help.

So what was it for you? What was there a moment?

Was there a thing like like did somebody grab you?

Were you?

How did you act? What happened?

If you don't mind, I was.

I was training a great client out in Montana every summer.

I would teach shooting out there. She's like a Katherine Hepburn tight.

You know, you don't mess with her, and she come down the range one day and I was gonna do some shooting and she goes, you're not You're not okay. I said, oh, I'm fine, man.

You know.

She goes there, shut up, You're going to go see my doctor in San Francisco figured it out, and I went down there and uh.

Pull boat. You know. Whatever he needed was the order.

And it took me weeks to just start the detox program on the heavy metals and doing.

The brain evaluations and doing the you know.

My balance was boogered up, you know, the center of gravity was off. Just so many things we ignore and we we uh make up the difference and don't know that it's bad.

And it was just very realistic.

And one day he gave me this little little gel pill to put under my tongue. He goes, come back in tomorrow morning. Put that in your tongue tonight. I said, okay, I come back next day.

He goes, how you feel.

I'm like, dude, I feel really weird, and I go down through these symptoms.

And he goes, Eric, I hate to break it to you, but that's what normal feels like. I'm like, oh, okay, because when's.

The last time that happened, I'm like, I can't remember. He goes, Okay, well it's going to take a little longer, and.

Uh yeah it was really yeah yeah yeah, so that was that was about as uh just jarring.

As you can get, just just the natural bonding chemical of the brain.

Correct.

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, So that that got me on it. I mean as doctor Azolino, he's I mentioned him right up front of the book, you know, thanking him for teaching me all this stuff and putting up with me because I was a bear back then.

I mean I was rough and uh he has.

Some great modalities, but you know, he's only one man, but he has a great clinic out in San Francisco, and uh he'll tune you up quick. I mean, I just sent one of my buds out there that you know has some Dame Bramage. You don't remember the old Stay Night lab with that one, but Dame Bramage and uh, miraculous change in two weeks, just incredible improvements.

And so how did the book come about? Like you must have reached a point in your own treatment that you felt like you wanted to share some of these experiences with others, right.

Yeah, Yeah, as I said, I always write everything down, whether I publish it or not, who knows. I've got tons of books I've never published. You know, they're for me, and if I have a friend that needs that information, I'll give it to them personally. But this one I just wanted. There's so much out there, but I don't see it in one place, and I think that's annoying. So you know, I've always had a book team to

That's awesome. Where can people go to find it?

Oh? It's on Amazon. Amazon.

The book again, for those of you who may not have caught it as fire Support, A Veteran's Guide to Health, Healing and Life Beyond Service.

Uh looks like an FM.

So yeah, it's you know, it's it's very familiar territory.

For a minute, we.

Have linked right, yeah, the link will be in the description.

So of so you know, you talk about I know you you you know, I don't know if you want to talk about what we did before the show, like the thing that you felt helped you the most. But how do people pull apart or where where do they start when it comes to is this.

Post traumatic stress?

Is this TBIs?

Is this like I'm feeling like this, you know, whether it's you know, I can't get out of bed or I'm going to pull this dude out of his car, uh, you know for honking at me, like it comes in a lot of different ways, right, yeah, all that, yeah, but but mhm, where would you say people.

Start?

Men and women you know who were and.

You know civilians go through a lot of this too, maybe maybe maybe not, you know, you know, obviously they probably don't have a lot of over pressure injuries, you know, uh, you know, mixing in with that post traumatic stress.

But where do people start, like when they.

I think relationships, I mean those closest to you see it, Yeah, but they don't know what to do about it, right.

I mean I used to all the time.

I mean when I was coming back from those trips, I would always force the office to let me stay in like Romania a week or Germany for a week, so I wouldn't go straight home. Yeah, because I couldn't do it. We were going home far too quickly world War two. You know, they take a ship back, they see you in a couple of months. But nowadays, hindsight, I saw it all back then, and the folks that worked with me saw it too.

Once again.

It was it was like that Vietnam mentality of it'll workout, or you know, it's just cranky, you know, And that's not it at all, you know, it's it's it's the.

Beginning of it.

And you have to identify that and go, okay, hey, what's causing that. But if you're doing that and it's a malfunctioning Olympic system, you're not consciously doing it, right, you know. And that's why I don't fall guys for that. You know, I'm like, they're not doing that on purpose.

Who the hell would do that on purpose?

And and that's the harmful part that you know, it takes a long time to rebuild those relationships once you get better, but they have to realize you didn't wake up saying hey I'm going to be a cranky asshole today and piss everybody off.

That's just not normal. Hate to break it to you.

You know, I perfected it, but you know it wasn't on purpose.

You know.

Held the name of the company was black Heart International. You don't pick your own call signs, you know, So.

Figure that one out.

Yeah, aren't these black Heart International?

Yeah? That's my books right there? Man? Where'd you get them? Those are old ones?

Oh?

Those are ancs. That's like Model one. Yeah, that's that's the old models. Man.

Sorry, Eric, I had to plug myself back in. I love these manuals, man, Yeah, A long time ago these were like for now are there really?

Yeah?

I did all the way that you've done.

I got the RPG, the p k UH, the AK, the macarov and UH and the Dishka. These are like the best manuals out there. Man, I didn't know this was you.

They those are the ones Texas maybe right in six fucking weeks.

These are great and people can people can still find these out there?

Oh yeah, yeah, Jack, I probably got.

Forty of those now. I mean I'm down to all kinds of little.

Handbooks pan Noona and I did a bunch of the little flip hand books for like four block and all that.

Dude you used to sell the bushel.

I'm going to go look for him Texas.

Yeah, they do. You know how many copies they bought.

One set seriously takes in the same set.

Still good for folks. For folks out there, like I've been through all the fms and everything myself, and including the ones that the newer ones from Special Warfare Center, which are not bad, but those ones, the Blackhart International ones are the best, like legit full color photographs, easy to understand instructions and diagrams. That they're the best ones made. That's no bullshit.

Yeah, I just got tired of all the bad ones out there. Yeah yeah, and I'm like, you know, I have a camera watch this, and I owned all the guns because we used to teach a lot of the foreign weapons courses and uh yeah, there's great books, man, I like them. But we did a full NATO set and a full com Block set.

Yeah awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna go we get out of those. Super cool.

I'll send you some more.

Okay, what else do we want to get into?

No, so you know you're on an eight day water fast?

Tell us?

Or yeah, yeah, no, uh no, but you're on day seven or eight of a water fast. It'll last, however long? Tell like, tell us about that? Tell us, Like, in terms of what you've learned, what do you think that the top priorities are. Because you've talked about detox and you've talked about you know, all this ship and our lymphatic system and our bodies that we've been exposed to. And again like this is we're talking about veterans and

Yeah.

So yeah, I'm going to turn that book into a general pop book too.

Yeah.

I just you know, want to focus on the guys first. But all the cities are like, hey, I want this. I'm like a human is a veteran too? Sure you can use it. But my daughter had cancer when she was one. She had eye cancer. So that's when I really went down the cancer rabbit hole. So that that taught the detox and all this and that.

But fasting is the ultimate detox.

I mean your body when it's when it's not eating bullshit or any food.

It will eat up anything it doesn't need, and that's I'm hoping. Damaged parts of my brain. That's my newest guinea pig.

That's why I'm on this one because I did a spec scan, which scans and shows the active and non active parts of your brain. And I'm, like the doctor had explained it to me. If there's damaged parts are still up there and you get some type of trigger, it'll cause a cytokind storm up there to once again take over your limbic and you're kind of out of control to a point.

That's where these people have these super issues.

But I'm thinking, well, through autophagy, if we can eat those up, they.

Won't be there, right.

So I'm kind of sucking this up to see if I can make some of that go away on my next brain scan, right because I'm getting one next month.

So that's as I said, I guinea pig myself all the time.

And particularly what I mean if we're talking about other parts of the body, you know, autophogy is one thing. When we're talking about the brain though, in neuroplasticity and the idea of the brain can totally create new pathways than the brain, Like autophogy in the brain potentially is great, potentially has a greater result than anywhere in the body.

Right correct, Yeah, yeah, And I mean we all have fat we don't need, but we all have scar tissue, we all have any everybody has some kind of cancer tumors in They may be microscopic, but you know you can.

Eat those upright, what do your mind? Had breast cancer and I put him on a pretty rigid.

Two month thing and by the time he got to the surgery, the tumors were gone. Yeah, they still butchered him. I'm like, okay, good job. But no, I've got some modalities that people were like crazy about. You know, the radio frequency stuff. Totally believe in it. I've seen it work. The royal rife machines totally works. You can kill most diseases and cancers with the frequency. That's a Havana syndrome and all this. They're like, oh, we don't know what it is. And I'm like, you liars.

We invented this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we invented all that.

But detox, man, I mean, fasting is I mean, it clears your mind. I mean my mind gets hyperactive when after day three or four.

It kills all the parasites in you. It was like, what parasites?

I'm like your dog and cats get parasite medicine, right, yeah? Or why are you special? So no, I feel light years better after a fast. Yeah, it's just good to do as a maintenance.

You know.

Someone told me, and I was pretty skeptical of what he told me, But now I'm listening to you. Maybe he was onto something that fasting is actually a way to head off Alzheimer's disease.

Of course I think so.

Yeah.

I think it's because you have a detoxed enough and you've got black up in there.

What you know? I totally think so. It's people who's never deailed. Why does it happened later in life?

Right?

Accumulation? We are a filter.

Our whole body is a host a system of filters. If you never clean a filter and your car's seventy five years old, how's it going to run on.

A racky gas? It's no brainer. I totally believe it, especially considering that.

For many of us, half the food that we eat isn't even food, it's not.

Even real record.

You have to change that you got to eat a whole food man. Yeah, yeah, I I you know, we all love it, but it's not good for us. We have to eat the whole foods.

Don't go to the inside of the grocery store, stick to the edges, call to day. Treat it like fuel, man, don't treat it like entertainment. Yeah, and uh there go straight Korean. You can't be Dead's about as keto as you can get. But just think of yourselves as filters. You know, you do a liver flush, you do you know this and that when you see the results, you got to go. Man, that's something's got to be there. You know, there's just no way that's good for me if I don't clean it out, you know.

I mean, we can get great grotesque into this. I have many examples. But you know you've got to do that spiritually too. With some of these plant meds. You know, I was I've never done any opened my life, and then I went straight to ayahuasca, like holy shit.

You know, jumping right in. Yeah, and that got rid of a lot of stuff. You have no idea what it is, you know, past traumas and this and that, And I saw things that broaden the horizon, you know, and then when you get into d MT, that's.

Where you're going to learn your consciousness.

I mean, I wouldn't believe people of what I discovered doing that, and it helped immensely, immensely, But you got to go to the proper practitioners.

You know. You can't be just making this ship up and.

It can't just be out a rave somewhere.

Yeah, pretty sure.

Yeah, it's fascinating stuff.

I mean.

So, in addition to the book, is there are you on social media? Is there any place people can follow you follow your work?

Not really, I mean I'm on Instagram, but just to pimp the book.

I loathe all that stuff. No, I don't keep up on any of that stuff, but I'm on there per se.

But I still have the websites, you know, for the books. And somebody does.

Want something done that they want to pay enough to do it, I'll do it.

Yeah.

Just working on healing and helping other people right now. I've started a foundation. Really haven't got it running too hard yet, but I kind of get tired of some of these foundations that will only do certain things for guys when they need five other things, right.

You know.

So when I get money in there and a guy needs five things, I get him five things.

Yeah, you know, not just well we only do this one.

I'm like, well, that's not going to work. So that's kind of like what I'm up to right now. And it's I haven't really had time because I've been dealing with a bunch of my TVI stuff. And but as I get time, I'll do a lot more of that.

Yeah, And the book is on Amazon and there'll be a linked down the description h for anyone wants to check that out. Anything else we want to jump into.

No, Eric, it's been awesome.

Man, It's it's you know, Yeah, I appreciate it. No, we we do in New York one day. I'm not a fan of New York, but I'd like to see you guys.

Yeah, man, please do. We'd love to have you. I'm not a fan of New York either. Soon.

I remember.

I got a couple of right, Yeah, we've had a couple of youwer questions for you, Eric.

Ohn't not that bad from Matt What is your proudest moment in your life?

And thanks for coming on today?

He said, Oh man, there's a couple of them. But obviously can't bring them up here. But I learned they're like, hey, we we just briefed the Poters on what you guys did, And I'm like, what's a Poters? And that's how he'll Billy I was back in the day. So I mean, there's some great ones, but you know, not for this podcast, but one day maybe.

All right, one more question.

What's it like building and selling a government contracting company.

Well, I would have done it a lot differently.

I would have had a board of advisors, and I would have cashed out ten times more. But back then I was so hardheaded and so correct that I didn't listen to a lot of smart people. I did, okay, but you know I could have done ten times, you know. I mean just look at Mike Nolder at Blackwater or Blackhawk. Mike had a great team. I mean, he was always one to answer the phone if he called, and he'd tell you anything.

You need to hear.

But he cashed out at one hundred and eighty, you know, and a great guy doing it. He didn't have to cut throats, he didn't have to, you know, be corrupt, ran a good business. But he had really good advisors, so you know, hindsight crystal clear. I didn't have enough smart guys going. Eric stopped doing that.

Well, that's that's it all done on questions. I hope people will go and check out the book. I have to go and start like searching for your manuals again now that I know that they're all out there.

Thank you.

Eric, really appreciate this interview.

Yeah, no, thanks for dragging me out to do it, because I was kind of dragging my.

Feet a little bit on me.

Well you come through New York, we'd love to have you. You come on in here and we shoot the shit a bit.

Yeah. I got to see if I got any warrants up there first, but yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you might want to check that out.

I know some people, well we'll probably maybe we can fix those.

Yeah, please, thanks for having me guys.

Yeah, thank you brother. We deeply appreciate you, man, And thanks everyone who joined us tonight. And we'll see all of you guys next time. We got two episodes coming up on Wednesday. I don't know how they're going to be released do. We'll have to work on that, but we got more coming for you working hard over here, so like and subscribe. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how