[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you also give people the confidence to stand up in their own communities and do something about it. I don't care if it's not their community, like, yea, you want to run for city council, that's great. You don't, and you just want to stand up and get off your ass for your family, or even for yourself. You're fat, you're sloppy, you're lazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can make a change inside yourself because you come to that realization. That's good. And for me, there's no revenue generated there. It could be a podcast. It could be one way dissemination. That impact is priceless. It's worth everything in the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's it. I mean, Phil Craft Survival, look, we're all over the map on Phil Craft Survival. We got a podcast, we got the website.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We could port you to the wetheprepare.com which is the LMS or members.americancontinency.com


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The start point is start like in this experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listening to the long form versions for free from YouTube, from podcasts and start developing an understanding of what you want. And then, you know, it's, it's, it's all over the map on like on Instagram, uh, Phil Craft Survival. My personal is mike.a.glover. Um, but every day I'm living this. One thing I haven't attracted from is consistency.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I might be making wrong business decisions, I might be jacked up in many ways, but one thing I could never be criticized for is consistency. So I wake up every single day with this on my mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in the last six years that I started this venture, I don't think I've had one day off and that's okay because that my grind is this purpose and you know, selfishly, I don't know if this is a tactic. Maybe it's done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, when we're unaware of it, but I've built a thing around me that felt and feels like the team life that I had, the culture that I came from. And I, I get the feeling in it, in here and then in your gym and this, in the people that I've met.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Parallel but also synergistic universe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gigs. Kinda learn as you go. I think early on, I almost made a mistake early on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where I was told in the diversification of all the things I was doing was too much. And I get that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you, if you looked at me, even today, I mean, there's a lot of things we got going on. But at the time, all the verticals were spread so thin that nothing was gaining traction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I was told, find one vertical, one thing, one kit, one training session, and double down on that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This whole thing that's preparedness is very diversified in the first place. I can't teach mindset without teaching physical training. I can't teach physical training without an understanding of mobility platform into your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we have to do everything at once. And so doing that was challenging because it almost broke me. I mean literally it broke me. Like I lived in my business.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, with my girlfriend for four months and we literally lived in a warehouse for four months and showered. It didn't even have a shower. It had a pump shower that we camped with. That was our living circumstance. But you make those sacrifices in business and then all of a sudden everything scaled at once and then you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so this is the place to be now. So now it's about tactics and you know, developing the right flow, uh, supply chain issues, all these things that everybody's dealing with in business. It's, it's a, it's a train wreck, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. And where are you based out of? So right now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're in Hebrew City, Utah. Uh, headquarters is there. We're standing up. Kevin Owens, a former Sniper teammate of mine who's unilaterally running, uh, Philcraft NC. Uh, he's standing that up. And then Raul Martini is my training director, has 20 subcontractors that teach all over the US. Uh, he's standing up in, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In, uh, Arizona, near Phoenix. North Anthem, uh, Arizona, which is north of Phoenix. So, we're standing up these small little verticals. Uhm, Evan Hafer, who's a buddy of mine, owns Black rifle coffee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That has given me the opportunity to sell in a display about the size of this table. Fieldcraft survival swag and, and gear that we sell for equipment. Um, and that will be in every black rifle coffee. It's in two right now being four next week being hopefully in a thousand when he's competing with Starbucks. Um, but yeah, we're all over the map, man. That's freaking awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right on. Sounds good. Mike, any closing thoughts? No, I, I just want to, uh, just take a second and just say thank you for the opportunity. I, I will, we'll say, just like I say on a lot of podcasts with guys of your caliber and your background,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you're doing something that I wish a lot of guys with our background would do. Which is uhm, get off the bench.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What you're doing is growing a business, but what you're also doing is impacting


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Young people's lives and every walk of life to do something with their lives. That's purpose. That's different than anything else that's a structure and business plan. This is an impact on culture. I think from, you know, as far back as we could record, every major battle that's been fought


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those men came from war and affected popular culture. Whether it was cutting, you know, P-51 Mustangs making hot rods, chopping Harleys, uhm, having an extreme impact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is a burden of responsibility of men like you and me that need to step up and accept that reality. The John Plasters, the John Stryker Myers of the world are the ones who affected my life and me stepping up and doing something about it. I'm not talking about just military service, I'm talking about doing something impactful for your life. And this, the books, the business,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the vertical in revenue. That's what scales the hierarchy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and, and grows, but the impact, it transcends across society. And without you, uh, without your abilities to stay in it and stay committed,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We wouldn't, we wouldn't be affecting popular culture like we are. And I think you're leading the way in that way. I'm humbled to have been on this podcast and to have the opportunity to speak to your audience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but I just want to let you know that personally. Uhm, it's a big deal. And uh, you're doing it. You did it in military service. To me, we come from similar lines. That's not the greatest impact. The greatest impact is what you're doing right now. So I appreciate it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the whole expression, the truth hurts. You know that, that's cause that's kinda common, right? So would that be an indicator of maybe a profit or, or at the very least not the correct way?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe. Isn't that at the end of the day, in a way, the indirect approach anyway? Because, you know, you say, okay, that one person, yeah, but you know, why is that one person? Because you have this years and years and years and years and years of this indirect, you know, kind of approach or whatever. And then, yeah, so you open up that little hole that, yeah, you have that direct line all day, now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Asteroid coming in, right? What was the, what was the plan? That one uh, do you watch Armageddon?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're like, hey, let's just, uh, blast it with nukes and blow it right out of the sky. Then the smart scientist is like, that's a bad idea. Everyone gets all mad, right? No, that's it. We're going to need a direct approach. Launch nukes, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kinda like your dog, right? When you feed him the heart pills. Right? Heartworm pills. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put a little, put a little, uh, piece of steak around that thing. Yea, you know, like you've been eating this food this whole time? Yea, yea, yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On our path, which includes being indirect as far as effectiveness goes. Concur? Yeah. So, let's talk with our friend, Kerry. Mmhm. And you. And I just kinda come to realize that this path is not that hard anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I'm serious. Okay. Yeah, easier. It's not easy. Oh, that's hard still. But it's easier in this way. Jocko Fuel. Boom. This is why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a sad state of affairs. So you get that. So you get it, you get the illegal, you got your thing sweet. Cool. But you pay a price. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All day, man, all day. So anyway, yes, and you get additional protein in the form of this dessert. So boom, right there, path, little bit easier. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Good news is also we got some other supporting elements, uh, for your joints, joint warfare, supercruel oil, we got stuff for your immunity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, but, but it's all true. So, you know, does that go against the whole, hey man, the path is hard, embrace the hardness? A little bit. Okay, but here's the dichotomy, you turn me on to this. Okay. It's a big deal. This is a big deal too. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the milk is the protein to help us recover from our workouts. You see what I'm saying?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, and if you're interested in a little discount, a little free shipping, a little not having to worry about remembering to make sure you're always stocked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a way it's decentralized command 2 because Pete guy's over there, they're over, they're taking over. That's their jam now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, it's true. Also, originusa.com is where you can get your American-made


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the shirt or the jeans as the case may be. Also, there's belts on there. There's some cool wallets on there. Hoodies. Athletic wear. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff on there. You get what I'm saying. All made in America. All made in America. OriginUSA.com Also, good news. We have our own store.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the early days, we'll say that it's called Jocko Store. So you go to jockostore.com and this is where you can get your shirts, hats, hoodies, rash guards, this kind of stuff. Discipline equals freedom. Represent while we're on the path. So boom, not only did the path get a little bit easier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's my opinion. Oh, also we have a subscription situation as well. It's called the shirt locker. This is all the shirts that you may or may not see me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes Dave Burke, now, Kerry, wearing, where you're like, oh, I didn't see that shirt on the store.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Off the straight and narrow and more creative. That's the best way I can say it right now. Unless it's called the shirt locker, so subscribe for that one if you want.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've been giving some good advice on that one, and I'm speaking from my position, personally. That one about the uhm, 13 year old kids, right? The teacher's trying to control the class, and like sometimes they're kind of, they get kind of crazy sometimes, but it's like, man, they kind of get crazy sometimes. Like, what do I do? How do I deal with that? Man, that was a good one. That was really good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now you got Jocko there, supplements that taste good, no factor, and boom, you can just keep rolling on that path a little bit easier, a little bit more luxurious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm a military kid born, born in Brett. My dad was Marine. I'm the youngest of two. I have an older sister. My mom and dad met pretty young and got married. My dad joined the military, became a Marine and set off their path to move around every couple of years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, yeah, it was kind of like right where he just missed the draft, but yet still felt the need to serve, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, he, they, they come from a small town in Ohio where everyone kind of just stays in that same town. So I think he wanted to find something bigger, maybe more, more challenging.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wanted to serve his country. So yeah, he's a Marine. I was a military kid, moved around all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, my dad was an officer, so that means we moved every two to three years. We spent most of the time on the east coast. We lived once overseas in Okinawa. Uhm, and yeaah, I mean I went to fifteen schools before I graduated. Fifteen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I really think you could go either way. You're either out there or you're, or you're rigid. Uh, I consider myself more of like a chameleon because of that. So I can blend in in a room or I can stand out what needs to happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So growing up, moving all the time, I mean, I went to a different school, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grade, different school each year for those years. So yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so my dad, Marine, right? Quantico is a Marine Corps base. And his dad was Navy. His dad was a former SEAL. Uh, his uncle was also a SEAL. So he always wanted to be a SEAL from the time he was like 12.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But his dad had switched rates and then was kind of on the helicopter duty with the president. And so that's what brought him to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, when I went, yes, cause, you know, we're talking early nineties, but also on bass, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not in Quantico when I moved to Lejeune this was the case, but a lot of times you would have a plaque in front of your house. So my house said, there was a plaque that said, Colonel Trulese.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Out in front of our house, so you couldn't really do too much because not only, you know, could they report to your dad, they knew where you lived.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like grunge, you know, poppy type stuff. Cause what year is this? Well when I met him it was 91.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I smile because I just remember this so clearly. Sitting in the bleachers on the first day, traditional like PE coach, just like intense call and roll. And this kid was sitting in front of me. I saw the back of his head and they called Chad Wilkinson and he turned his head to the side and he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I mean, a small school, we kind of, you, you just, and being military kids, I think it was pretty natural for all of us to just be friends. There really wasn't like a cool group and a not cool group.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah. We actually, the school was a middle school and high school together. It was just in a different hall. So high school took up like one hall and a half and the middle school took up like another hall and a half. And we didn't cross paths with the middle schoolers, but we were all in the same building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, he was a year older, a sophomore. He was a sophomore, I was first. Okay. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he was pretty cool. I mean, I say there wasn't a cool group, but he was, I think he was pretty cool in high school and he was super athletic. And I mean, for anybody who's listening, he's really good looking. So, you know, he had that going for him. We were just friends, uhm, the first year or two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Soccer, primarily, uhm, I think he was on the golf team one year and I think he was the kicker for the football team one year because they just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what we did and there was a football game and then after the football game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had, you had a dance and you get dressed up and you got the like corsage and the flower and the whole thing. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, so he asked me after he got in a food fight in the cafeteria.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We went to this Mexican restaurant. I don't think it even exists anymore. I don't even know the name of it. An Aquia Harbor. Little shout out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you guys remember that movie? It's like, sexy smut movie. And I'm like, on this date, and I was like, ugh, this is awkward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I think so. I actually don't remember who was in it. I mean, this was a long, long time ago, but I just remember being like completely red, thankfully in a dark movie theater, embarrassed. So yea, so we did. We had dinner and snuck in and overrated our movie. Crazy, crazy kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I was, it was the end of my sophomore year, his junior year, and so this was 1993 when we really started dating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, we, my dad got stationed in Lejeune, so I had to leave after my sophomore year and, uh, yeaah. And that was the only time I was ever really...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pissed, honestly. Every move I'd be like, okay. You know, we didn't get family vacations, we moved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. So I was that person that's like, you wake up at five, you swim, you go to school, you swim, you swim a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so I managed to work a deal and I stayed at my best friend's house, Steph Cuddy, so I could hang out with her, but really so I could hang out with Chad. Let's be honest, I wanted-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeaah, I just hung out that summer as a lifeguard at the pool on base, through high school as a lifeguard, and I pulled butts at the shooting range. You know, like when you roll them up and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, all the high school kids, we'd just sit there like getting this little dugout with ear pro on and you'd see the bullet go and you pull the target.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Slap the sticker on it, throw it back up. That's how we spend our weekends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, our friend's dad pretty much ran the range, so I think he was like, I'm gonna make these kids do something. And so we could hang out with our friends all day on the weekend.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It makes me sound like such a nerd now that I'm saying this. I didn't do anything like super crazy in high school, but, uh, we could hang out with our friends and get paid. A little bit of money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, gotta move to Lejeune. The clock is ticking. Yep, so I moved to Lejeune, we continued dating, uh, I'm a junior, he's a senior, and he would drive down on the weekends, which was kind of a big deal, cause you know, he was fairly newly licensed, you know, and his mom and dad would let him drive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a hooptie. It was great though. And he would drive that down on the weekends and see me and then drive back. Not every weekend, but as much as he could.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, this was like a thing because my parent, my mom said to me recently, like in the last year, we had some conversations just about this, Chad and I and our youth and she said, I don't know what it was, I just, we just always knew that the relationship with you and Chad was just something different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we, so we date and then when I, so he graduates and now I'm a senior. So I, I'm a senior. He graduates high school. His mom and dad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He always kind of, I think he just always knew that's what he was going to do. It wasn't that he talked about it in excess. So he has two brothers. He's the oldest, two brothers and then a sister. And, uh, his house was just full of, you know, every classic Seal movie, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Speckop movie, you know, he had posters on his wall, uh, which I think I still have that you probably can't even find anywhere anymore, but I think it was just something he always knew that's what he was gonna do. I don't ever remember him talking about anything else. Like, oh, I might go to business school or something. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I wasn't thinking like marriage, but, but I just knew, well, wherever he is is where I want to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My senior year, he graduated. Yeah, so he moved down to Florida. And so the deal was, is he wanted to be an officer. And at that time, so he enrolled in the University of Central Florida.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bud's deal. But they were saying, hey, we're not really taking officers right now, cause


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We just don't need them. So you can go get your degree, but it's not, that's not going to work out. And so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically a year into college, he said, okay, I'm out and joined. Um, so we broke up my senior year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We spent two and a half years pretty much went by in that time, the time he was in college and my senior year. And then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My first year after graduating high school, we just didn't really speak to each other. And this was before cell phones or social media.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. And I would stay in touch with his sister, his little sister. So she's 10 years younger than him. She was pretty young. I mean, I met her when she was five, so she's pretty young, but, um, and so I always kind of knew what he was doing and I knew he joined the Navy and, you know, went to boot camp and was going to Bud's and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I really wanted to be there for his graduation of Buds, but I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And so during this time, you know, he, he goes to college, joins the military. I finished high school. My family moves to Tampa because my dad is at CENTCOM.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So his family's Orlando. My family's in Tampa. I'm going to community college.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I thought if I'm on a boat, can't get off the boat. I'm like 19 or something and we docked, we docked in New Orleans and I told my girlfriend, I was like, I'm getting off the boat. I'm going to go get on a plane and I'm just going to show up there. And she's like, okay. And then I realized I didn't have any money to get there and spend it all on the cruise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I knew he graduated, buds. And then I also knew he was coming back to Orlando. So I took a couple of days off work and just waited.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he called and said, hey, I'd really like to see you. And I was like, oh, that's cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me see if I can get off work. You know, you gotta play tough. And uhm, yeah, didn't, drove there, uhm, was super nervous. His brother, I think, opened the door. He was wrestling his other brother in the background, probably trying to play it cool and pretty much the same thing as that day on the bleachers, you know, as soon as I saw him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so he had to go, uh, this is when they were, had specific rates, your time frame probably too, so he went to the medic school. Oh, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's interesting about that, and I might mess this up a little bit, but uhm, his dad then had orders to Fort Bragg and his dad ran that school. Oh. So he went through the school that his dad was running. That's interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're, we're back, we're back. So we're back together and this is, I had 96 and so I decide because I want to be wherever he is, I'm going to go to college at Methodist, which is a really small school in Fayetteville.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I go up there for a semester. I had to do a whole presentation of my dad, my dad, right? Colonel Marine Corps. He always says when you want to do something, you better have your ducks lined up and come to me. And I did like a report and figured out how much it would cost. I got scholarships. I got different things, how much it would be paid for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really, because I just wanted to be closer to Chad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we just had, I mean, he would drive down still on the weekends. Oh, you're still dating. Yeah, he gets full credit. Yeah. And, um, but yeah, we broke up and, uh, that was just terrible because I really thought that that was probably it. I thought I probably lost him forever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, first of all, he was still in deployment. He wasn't quite home yet, and so I didn't know, and I'm in college, and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he drove down and showed up at my doorstep and I did the same thing I did in high school. I just couldn't believe he was there, you know? And, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just excited and we said to each other, I said to him before he comes, came down, if we see each other again, we're going to know like this is either going to be forever or it's just not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he came down and pretty much role reversal of when I went to Orlando and he asked me to stay an extra day, I said, do you think you could stay an extra day? And that was it. So that was, um.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I spent time down in Florida and then I worked it to graduate. I had to do an internship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I think for me, that's a better story. You know, our story, we went and got married in this guy's backyard. Nobody knew we were living in a house with team guys. I was living with him and four other team guys in a house. It was just like, that was a good weekend at Bernie's, you know, just, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, Chad's brother likes to say he remembers coming to visit and he got out of the shower and it was so disgusting. He just took a paper towel and like patted his body dry because he didn't want to use anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chad had bought it. It was a Scandinavian print. It was the tackiest, ugliest thing in literally his entire life. He still talked about that stupid sofa.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the real ones, the pictures, you know, the man and the woman, you have to decide, does he have a weapon, does he not, do I shoot him? That was when I was in our house for a little while. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, yeaah, it was, it was, uhm, such a different life back then. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't been here in forever and it took me back to one night in particular Chad drove a green jeep Cherokee. Still his favorite car. Always.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we went out with a bunch of guys and we just lifted up the back gate, you know, and just shoved them in there instead of actually, you know, this is a long time ago, forget the seatbelt, shove in there. We went to Hot Tuna. Sure enough, there was a fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got kicked out, told to leave, and I just remember running out there, throwing up the back gate, the guys getting in and we're out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're military and a military kid and you understand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just the camaraderie that can happen there and the sense of family that it can create.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was, I was really happy, and I think he was too, to have made it, to be a team guy. He was at teammate. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we, so we had a big wedding later, right? So we had a, we, I think for our family, they wanted like the bigger wedding. So in May of now we're going to go to 2000, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got married and so the boys all decided they were going to come and they rented an RV and they drove.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not only are they like a bunch of dudes and they're good looking, a couple, one of them had like a butterfly stitch on his forehead because they stopped in Savannah and got in a bar fight. So it was like so appropriate, you know? It was good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that's when I start to forget. So he's already done one deployment when he was on the ship. And then he comes back and then he did two more there. Uhm, I honestly can't remember the ones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this was like, I had to do the whole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I live there, I did my internship, then we got really married for real and oh that's right, cause he did deploy and I moved back home with my family during that second deployment. We were in the middle of like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And which was also one of the greatest times because you don't realize it at the time when you're young and you have no money and you live in an apartment, I think it was $425 a month, Pleasure House Road, Shore Drive, Chicks Beach, like where everything goes down. Just how great that is. You have nothing and you kind of need nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, there's nothing to take care of, it's an apartment. Uhm, our friend Lance Vaccaro, who passed away in 2008, he lived in the same complex, so you know, you shoot the shit with him when you see him, and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tablecloth over it, we'd eat there. I was like cooking meals in a crock pot. Terrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I've driven by that apartment a few times in the last two years and all the places we've lived in Virginia Beach, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We get married, he goes on deployment, uh, I think before he left on deployment is when I found out I was pregnant. Okay. Yeah, which was another reason that like took me home. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and this again was before we didn't have cell phones. So, you know, this,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's interesting when people are like upset because they didn't get to like FaceTime with their husband on deployment in today's world, right? Cause I would miss phone calls and then you don't know when he's going to call you again. And I have so many letters he wrote me. I'm pretty grateful for that. And so I'm in Florida, he's deployed, trying to talk to him when I can, growing a baby in my belly and all the things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he came home, so, cause I was like super newly pregnant when he left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we know we're, we're still staying in Virginia Beach. So I go up to Virginia Beach, super pregnant with my mom and buy our first house while he's gone. Sweet. Yeah. And then he came home from deployment May.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 2001 and my daughter was born in August and now he's still at teammate. He's done two deployments and yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he, so he, he gets through his deployments and for the rest of his time there, he goes to night school because he's trying to finish his degree. So he finishes his degree at ODU. We have a new baby. And then he finishes his time, uh, he was at trade ed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's such crazy. Everyone remembers where they were when that happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even think I had the ability to think about it in the scope of the military and what the military was going to do or our country was going to do to react. I just was dumbfounded. Kept trying to call him at work. Couldn't get ahold of him. He eventually showed up at the house and we just kind of looked at each other and he's like, holy shit. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean I think his plan was to just stay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At that point, I think he always wanted to just be a career seal, so whatever was gonna keep him in the game. Quite honestly, we had a conversation after our deployment that he wanted to go to Damn Neck, and I was like, no. Uhm, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even know why I said no. I, I never said no. I always like supported him and encouraged him, pushed him, but for some reason at that point I didn't want him to go. Uhm, I don't know how it would have turned out if he would have gone then, but yeah, so he, he stayed in the military, but then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause in all this, when he came home from that last deployment, I got pregnant with our son or his third deployment at eight. And, uh, that was when, so 2001, but fast forward, you know, we're in 2004 and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I'd say it's more me. We wanted something different. So Chad wanted to be a seal. He always wanted to be a door kicker. That's what he wanted to do. You know, hide in the bushes and do all the things and as military kids,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we talked about it and we were making the decision to get out of the military. So he had been in 10 years at this point and it's 2004. His son is born. He wrapped up that last deployment and we got out and moved to Raleigh, North Carolina.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was in pharmaceutical research and we just hated it from the moment we left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think most people are creatures of habit, it's my belief, right? People are creatures of habit, whether you like that habit or you don't like the habit, it's, it just is what it is. And our habit is that we are military kids, we are used to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, adversity and challenge and changing dynamics on the regular. We're used to different situations and the idea of living in the same house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The guys jumped out of the plane and they're like, you're not going to do this with your pharmaceutical dudes, you know, and I think, I think that always bugged him and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think like most of these guys, they don't want to feel like they quit, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for Chad anyway, separating from the military and not retiring, he probably felt like he wasn't finished.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah yeaah. How long did that last? There was all that. I mean, I think it lasted for about a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. Really? Yeaah, at night, you know, but then it's like, okay, we're, we're doing it though, cause, cause at the same time you see it as a challenge in some ways. You're like, am I doubting myself? Because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a project manager and I think he was eye candy for all the girls in the office. I know this because my sister-in-law works in the field too and she would tell me stories. But, um, yeah, he tell, I just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said to me, I, he came home and he's like, Sarah, I was sitting in the break room today, celebrating a baby shower, eating a pink fucking cupcake and I'm questioning my life. And you're like, okay, I don't think this is going to work. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As cool as it is to have him home every day and he had a good job. We made good money. The American dream. I mean, our house had a wraparound porch. No joke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The picket fence, I mean, by, by most standards, I don't even know if that's fair to say anymore in today's world, but it was the quote American dream, but it was not our dream.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's a dude, you know? He's a military dude. He's a knife carrying, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dude, and for him to put on a business suit and a tie every day, you just, people shouldn't be things they're not, and that's not who he was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he left the military in 2004 and we were back in the military September of 2007.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah, I, that, uhm, we also, I mean, I remember being in the living room and hearing about Red Wings and us sitting in the living room and watching it on TV and just, him just, you know, he was just sitting there, he kinda had his hands on his head and he was just, holy shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we didn't really know how that was going to play out, right? I mean, they could have just said, no, you left. But I think at the time, you know, he, he, you know, he was a team guy that had done a few deployments. He had good service, respected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They said sure, but they told him because he hadn't deployed in, you know, almost three years, he had to go back through, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of what we owned and cause there was no need to have it. We, we were going to move to California. He said if he had to go back through SQT again, he wanted to just go to a West coast team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, just so we could all be out there together and we.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I had never been there. Oh, I came out and like house hunted, tried to find an apartment for us a couple of weeks prior, but other than that, I hadn't really spent any time out here. And, and he drove a U-Haul cross country chowing down on sunflower seeds and just going like 90 and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, jacked up on caffeine and, and got there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we found this cool little, just got lucky, found this cool little apartment. Same thing, kinda like our first apartment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, this place can't be more than 800 square feet. It was two bedrooms, one bathroom. It was our entire BAH.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, my son learned to ride a two-wheeler at two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he had this little mini bike and we made friends with a guy in the bike shop and his name is, my son's Hudson and Hudson would ride in the bike shop and one day the guy's like, hey little man, come here and he swapped out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should show you a picture of this. He swapped out at the handlebars of his bike for ape hangers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he was like, he turned three and he was a three year old with this like little mini bike and these gape hanger handlebars. It was great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing I always loved about Chad is he is very good at teaching you what he knows without making you feel dumb. I think he gets a lot of that probably from his dad and the way his dad is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I think that that's a real skill and, and try to like foster your own learning while he's teaching you something. And so I think it was a really natural fit for him while he was in SQT to just be the guy that would, you know, lean into guys and say, Hey man, this is how I like rig my gear up this way. And I, you know, do this this way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it was a good experience, hopefully for the guys that were with them, you know, to have this more senior person around, but it was also good for Chad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when we were in Raleigh, Chad started doing CrossFit. This was like 2005 and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was so into CrossFit, I was so not into CrossFit. That's kind of how that played out. I remember cooking dinner one night and he said, you need to come in the garage. I got this thing called a muscle up. And I was like, ugh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Literally like just opening and I called him, didn't know Andy Stump at the time, called him up and said, Hey, can I come to your gym? And that was it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not as much as wife, uh, Jamie was teaching a lot, um, Sage Castro, Dave Castro's wife was coaching there some. Right on. It was, it was such as, you know, this was the early days, we're talking 2007.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, of CrossFit gyms kind of expanding. And so it was a small gym, not a lot of trainers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just, you know, I like the challenge. I like the physical challenge. I like the way my body was changing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Remember I'm a mom with two kids, so, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I get into it. And so I got the opportunity to go to my level one. Didn't want to coach people ever, never, never my plan. I just wanted to know more about it. So I went to my level one in San Diego one weekend. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bill King happened. Uh, the CEO from Damnak came to the west coast to talk to the SQT guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To explain to them down the pipeline if they want to ever, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bridge that gap and head over to seal team six. Here's kind of what you need to do. Most of those guys, when they finished SQT, as you said, they get their Trident, they go to a regular team. They've got to do two to three deployments. Um, you know, become maybe a little less green and then they can screen to go to damn next.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's when Chad went and took it upon himself to introduce himself to him and say, Hey, my name is Chad Wilkinson. Here's a little bit of my story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm going to finish this up. I'm going to go to a West coast team. And then in the future I plan on coming to screen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he just said, how about you don't and just come screen right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's just about it. I was pretty upset. I mean...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But not, right? I mean, this is our life and this is our path, but I did not want to leave. Yeah, he came home and he said, Hey, I'm going to fly to Virginia Beach next weekend and do this thing to screen. And if that's the case, we're moving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeah, yeah, we moved like with him. Like he left to go to green team. We moved back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean at that time, yeah, 2008 it was, uh, fast and furious. It was busy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I moved back to Virginia Beach, I check out, at the time there were only two other gyms in the area, and I couldn't really take my kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause this was before there were a lot of kids spaces and CrossFit gyms and there was really nowhere safe for them to be. We, we rented an apartment when we came back to Virginia beach, not knowing where we wanted to live and also not knowing if the whole green team thing was going to pan out. I think for Chad, he just was like, I don't really know. Um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he rented a garage in this apartment complex and we bought enough equipment so that we could put two people, he and I, essentially through a workout. And then my girlfriend said, well, can I come work out with you? And I was like, sure. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then that just kind of grew and grew and then we had a whole bunch of people outside of the garage one day and fast forward October, 2008, I opened my gym. So he's in green team and anybody who's listening and has lived that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very stressful, uhm, especially when, you know, you're, you're coming, you're doing all these things and you come home and you got your wife and your kids and you got to do the family man thing too. And then I go ahead to take it upon myself to start this whole business venture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, the first one? It was like twelve to thirteen hundred square feet and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just remember saying to him in the car, I was like, I need to do this because this is, this is about to take off and, and this is all I want to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he was a little worried because, you know, in our wor- his world, you live a really quiet life, and he didn't want anything that I was doing to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The interesting part about owning the gym is what you're doing is you're providing a service to people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's a very personable service. So people think they know you and what happens is your friends come and join the gym. And I had kind of established at the very beginning, like we're friends, but at the same time, this is, this is a, you know, a business and you do, if, if your team life, you don't talk about it in this gym.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It went, it was awesome. Uh, my whole hope was just to be able to cover the rent and my expenses and we exceeded that the first month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, we were still working on a lot of things though. You know, the first person that came beyond my kids and they had a little kid, I didn't know what to do with them. So I stacked up some tires and I just stuck the kid in the center of the tires. I'm like, just stay there till we're done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause it was such a small space. I look back at those pictures now. Oh man, anybody from CrossFit listening. And I do not know how someone didn't get clubbed in the head with a barbell, how close we were, but it all worked out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I mean, when he, when he was deploying, it was Iraq, Afghanistan, then it became Africa.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I knew generally, you know what country he was in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But beyond that, that's how we always operated was you do your job and I'll do my job, meaning take care of our kids when you're gone. And when you're gone, you're gone. And when you're home, you're home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know some other spouses, they share a whole lot and they, they know probably way more stories about their husband than I know. And maybe almost too much, but Chad really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and vice versa, I didn't call him and say, you know, I mean, my hot water heater busted one time in the attic and it's flooding everywhere. What's it going to do if I call him and no. So you, you know, seal wives are tough too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and we had certain like code things. I knew when he would call me and he would say, okay, I'll call you when I can and I love you. He was going out. He was going out to do stuff and I, you know, would he call me in a day? Would it be three or four days? I don't know, but I, I knew that meant he was going to be busy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When exactly that was and, and I'm going to bounce around a minute. I just had to scroll through a bunch of photos. Jason and I were working on something and through scrolling through those photos the other day, what I realized is when he really got bad, it was two years before he died.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So 2016, I can almost see it through photos, but even before that, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do know, I know some stories now since he's died that he never shared with me. In 2012 was a pretty big deployment, I guess, or crazy deployment. I don't know the best way to say that. And I think some stuff happened there. In 2014.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the, the world, the media talks, you know, Navy SEALs are big in the news now, right? Since 9-11, since May of 2011, they're all over and they're made to be larger than life and they use these words. And, and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If a guy is always told how brave and fearless and heroic and strong they are,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then he's got to believe that he's got to live that. And then on the same token, you see with our special operators, how they are, you know, quiet and how they do sit in the corner of the room and their back is always, you know, to the wall and they're always facing the door and they don't want to engage in conversation all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chalk up all those, those PTSD symptoms that people like to throw out, but it's, I think it's very easy for someone like a spouse to say, well, that's just kind of how the guys are because they have a stressful job and they're beat down. Their body's broken.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, I mean I couldn't tell you then, but it's more obvious to me now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, and again, I'm no scientist. I'm no doctor. I don't have research under my belt, but I have what I've lived and sitting in my chair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having been with this person for so long, you know, we, we, I didn't just like meet a team guy and then we got married and that's not to bust on anybody that did, but you know, I've known him almost his entire life and then to watch him through his career and then to lose him in this way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't see all these signs and symptoms prior.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have other girlfriends, widows, whose husbands took their life and they have said that their husbands expressed to them the struggle they were having and what they were thinking about and you know, their signs and symptoms and I didn't have that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's not going to be the same for everybody, we're humans, we're all different, a whole biological DNA, it might express itself differently, but if we could maybe educate people a little bit more about the toll your service takes. And uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to know that even if you're not killed in action or killed in training,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you don't die by suicide, but you've led a very active career. You are going to be impacted some more than others. And let's really have a conversation about what you might see and when is it going to be really, when is it really a problem?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, well, he was always super quiet guy, uhm, never the loudest guy in the room, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reserved, but as time goes on, he's even less. And when we first, you know, a teammate, we hung out with people and had friends. And when we first got to the command, we did that too. And then over time we just didn't, we didn't do social things. I mean, we almost never.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ever had anyone over to our house, ever. He never wanted anybody in our house. Um, he, he, and he says he likes to be home. He liked to be home with the kids and I, kind of what you mentioned. He's like, I'm with those dudes all the time. Like I don't need to go hang out with them because I've just spent, you know, a rut trip in Chicago with him and I'm home now, but it, it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What got really bad right away was asleep. And I think that that's true for a lot of the guys is that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, sleep is so valued and it's, if you think of your body, I like to think of it as a computer. And if you don't turn the computer down every once in a while and reboot boot it, it gets jacked up, right? It doesn't run well. And that's what sleep provides all of us every single night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you've got a guy who has his body hurts, I mean, Chad fell off of a ladder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, pretty high up and jacked his back up. He messed his neck up off of a couple landings that he did. He was in a helicopter crash in 98. Um, so, you know, I mean, his body, he,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I say this because I know so many of the guys are like really broken and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you add on top of that, just the mental strain of war, just deployments, you know, sleeping over and some shitty ass village compound, you know, you're listening to blasts coming in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, this is broken or I need this. Maybe, maybe that's how other spouses communicate. So now there might be stress cause they got shit going on back home with their family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's add all that onto it. And now let's add, at least for our special operators, the whole blast injury concept and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The guys that have spent time and, and I'm going to talk teams because that's what I know, but time in the teams, the last 10 to 20 years, they 100%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you got all this stuff this guy's gone through and he can't sleep?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He can't get a good night's sleep. So there's nothing helping him for his body to at least try to recover something. So his sleep went down bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah, I mean he, he did, he tried to do a lot of his own stuff, just like normal, regular remedy stuff and better sleep hygiene and then he was diagnosed with sleep apnea, which a lot of them have. So they have a CPAP machine. I mean, why are there dudes?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doesn't, isn't that weird? And then, and you know, and then what you also see in these guys is they get low testosterone and because of, you know, their adrenal glands are jacked up, their cortisol levels are jacked up and so their testosterone is jacked up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I don't know how many of them are really willing to talk about it, but I think there's a really large number of dudes in special operations that are in their thirties that are on testosterone. And they're, they're not, I can't speak for everyone. I mean, I don't think they're on it for like, they necessarily want to be Jack. They're on it because their T's really low and that's needed, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and this is where like regret comes in and just kind of, um, guilt, a lot of guilt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's really easy to sit here now and list all the things I could have done to be a better wife. Uhm, but at the time, I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chad and I, Chad and I are both the type of people that we want to work really hard at what we do and we want to be really, really freaking good at it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being married to him while there are spouses and they choose to, to whatever their route, maybe they work, maybe they stay home with their kids. Everybody gets a choice, right? And my choice was to work and go this whole fitness crossfit path. So when you're married to someone who's this Navy seal and does all these awesome things and gets these awards, I was super proud of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I also wanted my own identity, and I wanted my own success.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a lot of that driving force, truthfully, was always because I wanted him to be proud of me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he's working hard in the teams and I'm working really hard on this whole CrossFit side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, I don't think it's that I didn't want to intervene. I just kind of thought we both were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost like handling our shit, if that's fair to say. Like, okay, you're working, you're busy, you know, you're moving up, um, you know, within your troop and squadron and the whole thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm doing it over here and then we come home and we take care of our kids and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I mean, he, he really got a shorter fuse for sure. Um, and it generally wasn't with me. It, it tended to be more with our kids. He would just snap, which was really out of character for him and he would not listen. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think a lot of spouses say, you know, my husband doesn't listen to me or my wife doesn't listen to me when I'm talking, but he, it, it's like he had no idea I was talking to him and I'd be sitting right next to him and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've shared this story before, but I think it really says something that he...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, Chad, you never listen to me. Like just look at me. I need you to look at me and I need you to focus. And he said, you know what? When you talk to me, I have to look around and think, well, that's not going to kill me and that's not going to kill me. And I remember thinking, that's so weird. But now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I realize if you're kind of in this hyper state.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and, and in the pictures two years prior in the pictures when I look at it, he just had a completely different look on his face. It was almost like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like in pictures it was almost like, I'm gonna kill you. You know, like that whole like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and, and I, I tried to take it back through chunks of our life and it didn't go back as far as our childhood, but more like when we were at team eight, how he was with his fellow team guys and peers and the way that we interacted with them. And then when we got out of the military, the way that he was and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we had friends and did all the things normal couples and families do and then


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[Assistant] I don't know what they think. I don't know if they think maybe this is just me, like, what's up with me? Am I fucked up? I don't want to tell my buddies I might be a little fucked up. Or they don't want to hurt their service or they just want to ignore it and hope it'll go away. They think they'll just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But somehow we need to shift the needle a little bit to recognize


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[Assistant] You do all this training. I mean, millions of dollars are spent on these guys, you guys to train millions of dollars. And, and, you know, I mean, Chad was a sniper and free fall jump master and you know, name all the things and you took the time to teach him that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So why wouldn't you take the time to also teach them about maybe some ways that they're going to be potentially impacted after multiple years of service? It's 2021 and right now what we're about to see are people that have served their entire career post 9-11.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this suicide epidemic, it is not going away. It's only ramping up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would crush the recruitment process, wouldn't it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've known for years because of history and wars that when you go serve your country, there's a likelihood you could die. You're, you're choosing to serve.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And die potentially by your flag, but it would really crush recruitment if insert army, Navy, whoever, and you say, Hey, you want to be a seal? You want to be a green beret? You want to be a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you say, you're gonna come, you're gonna do your service, you're gonna do cool shit, you're gonna jump out of airplanes, you're gonna shoot guns, and you're gonna kill bad guys. And if you make it, by the end of it, you might also have some pretty severe mental health issues. And some brain injury. Are you good with that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's hard for them to pony up and say that because, oh man, is that going to crush our number?


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[Assistant] I did the Keiko form before every deployment and I was fully.


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[Assistant] Prepared as you can be as a spouse in the world we were living in. I mean, we attended many funerals in those last 10 years that my husband might not come home. And if he doesn't come home, he's going to come home and a coffin with the flag over it. That's not what I got.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the biggest things was, well he started putting on weight and, you know, he would joke because he was over 40 and he's like, you don't love me anymore because I'm-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting heavy, which would never be the case, but uhm, he started putting on weight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what really started to happen, and pretty drastically I would say the last six months that I can look back now, is he got really puffy. His face got puffy. Almost like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This sounds terrible, like have you ever seen a fish in water that's dead and it's kind of like bloated? That's how his face got. And uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, he also, as weird as this is, I would always kind of kiss him on his temple and he didn't smell the same.


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[Assistant] And I thought, oh, that's weird. Well, I've learned since then a lot more about the way the brain's affected and to go back to that kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Systemic derailment. When you have a blast injury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know, it's a wave, right? It goes through the air and basically your brain


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what it's built to do. That's why we have a skull and that's how it's made, but it's not made to get that over and over again. So when that happens and there's swelling in the brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then it starts to affect everything else because the brain is connected to the rest of your body and, and you see where not only hormones get derailed but, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, your, your metabolism gets jacked up. So the guys start to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which would be like, you know, factoring in with your urine and different things. And that's what changes the way they smell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the puffiness is because, well sure, if he's got brain injury and there's any swelling or there's just systemic swelling in the body, it's gotta go somewhere. And so we start to notice it in the face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, I didn't know any of this stuff prior. And, and that's not to say someone listening, you, you're sitting there and you look over at your husband, you're like, my husband's face is puffy. But.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's something to be said that, uh,


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[Assistant] PTSD is a genuine thing, I believe. I also believe it's overused a lot. And this is a whole step further than PTSD.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you think about the different parts of the brain, you've got your, your limbic brain, your monkey brain deep inside. That's what tells you what's safe. Is this dangerous? This is why we don't walk into the street, right? We know that's dangerous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The prefrontal cortex kind of is, hmm, how do I feel about that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if, if the brain is affected, that's when we see them, you know, the short fuse. How do I feel? I'm angry. Uh, I'm aggressive. Maybe I'm sad, different emotions, but when it's brain injury and we've heard CTE, right? Punch drunk, NFL players, our guys get it too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our guys are getting interface astral glial scarring and that's almost like think of like a ricochet almost bullets through the brain and that's what comes from the blast injury and that's able to penetrate


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That deep monkey brain of like, is this safe for me? That's why guys make decisions that are really, really bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. So I started to see, looking back, I can see how, how he had changed. And, and I, I've shared with Jason to Chad


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Climbed Mount Aconcagua in January and of 2018. And that's, that's the second highest summit in the world. It's the highest, uh, in South America. It's in Argentina. And he went and climbed this. It's a little over 23,000 feet and I will never know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, doctor who I respect highly, she's been studying blast injuries in Kosovo soldiers since the early nineties, or at least that's who she started with. And I asked her about that and she, you know, again, she didn't test Chad's brain, but she was pretty confident that that was probably the case too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so now you've got this brain that's injured. We, what, what encourages, uh, healing in the body, blood, blood flow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? You have surgery. Okay, cool. Knee surgery once you get up, we want you to move your knee because we got to get blood flow to it because we want it to heal, right? Brain's injured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I asked her about that and she said, I said, is that something that would help? And she said, yes, but not initially after injury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, we're talking different things because you're talking about guys that have been back for a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We do see people who have a little bit exacerbated symptoms at a higher elevation. My best friend's husband, they live in Colorado. And I said to this doctor, I said, what would you say if there was a 20 year Navy seal?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Veteran who's done upwards of probably 10 deployments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without a doubt, probably does have some, some brain blast injury and lives at eight to 10,000 feet. And before I could even finish the sentence, she just shook her head. No, no. She just kept shaking her head. No. And she said, bad, bad, very bad. I'd tell him to move.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said it was really hard. Really hard, uhm.


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[Assistant] I think he was really proud of himself for doing it, but when he came home and walked in the door, I mean he was so skinny. Just, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably, uhm, and he came in and he just said, baby, that was, that was really fricking hard. And I just didn't really ever hear him say that about anything. I was like, oh, well you did it, you know, good job. And he said, Denali's next.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We did take a family trip that June of 2018. We went to the Grand Canyon. And again, I look back at those pictures and he definitely was not there. Like he wasn't on the trip. You know what I mean? He, he was obviously there, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, we stayed in a couple different cities. We kind of jumped around Arizona for a while and, you know, we're staying in this really nice hotel and he didn't want to leave the room. You know, granted it's June in Arizona, so it is very, very hot, but, you know, he didn't really want to come down to the pool. He just wanted to sit in the room. And you're like, okay, but we're on a family vacation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One time he was sitting down by the pool and I saw him from a distance and he just was kind of like leaned over in the chair, just like zoning out. Just, he was just not there. And I said, Hey, I walked up. I said, Hey, what are you doing? And he's like, nothing. Yeah, just things like that. He just wasn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, uh, this year in 2018, I think is when it started, he switched squadrons. So he was moving around within the command and he.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember him saying, I just, I don't think this is right. I don't think this is really the path I'm supposed to be on. And again, he didn't really share a lot with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he, and I said, well, you're someone who's always accomplished every goal you've ever set for yourself. You make a goal, you go do it. So he had this goal for himself. He had, was in the process, I guess, of attaining the goal. And I said, maybe this is just the first time you change your mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you just don't want to do it. That's okay. You can, you can decide to change your mind. And he was like, well, they've spent so much time and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And money on, on doing this. And again, he didn't tell me any details and he said, he goes, I know I'm not really telling you much, but it makes me feel good to talk about it. And I was like, okay, cause if he's gonna talk, I'm going to listen. And, um.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so something was bugging him, and I don't, I don't know what, but something was really bugging him. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the things and we had them all framed years ago, but he never hung them up. And he just thought it was really weird to hang that stuff up in your house. Cause he said, what's someone's going to come in the house and it's just like, look at me and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always thought that was weird that he had to struggle with that, but yeah, he hung him up in our stairwell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To our house. So maybe like you and your wife, marriage is a compromise, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I thought, you know, almost no one comes in our house anyway. And if someone were to come in our house, the only way they would see him as if they went up our stairs, basically to our bedrooms. But in my mind, I just thought, well, at least he's hanging them up. So they're not going to get like broken or busted or anything. And, um.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He talked about hanging a Somali flag on one wall, which you would have seen when you come in the front door. And I just remember thinking that's so weird. And I thought he was really messing with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when I turned around to kind of laugh, I realized he, he was serious. He was dead serious. And he was like, yeah, I guess that's, that's dumb, huh? And I was like, well, maybe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I asked him if he was okay. I remember kneeling down in front of him and I said, are you okay? And he said, yeah, I'm okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like first feeling, it was like, he is off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's interesting and while I won't share her story, my other girlfriend will tell you, who knew that her husband was struggling, about two months prior, there was just like a switch. Two months and he was gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So for me, I think it was three weeks and he was gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think they just meet this like threshold and, and I don't know how we figure out where that is that's going to be half to left to scientists.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, but there is some threshold that happens and then the switch is flipped.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did buy it and this again is one of those post-death struggles. Uhm, when someone takes their life, you, military or not, you are left with so many questions and I think that's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, that's the beast. To not have answers. And I believed him because there is nothing I didn't tell him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I believed that if there was something he needed to tell me, he would tell me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he went into work, he had a work trip the week before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is when it gets really weird. So I had a work trip and he could drive there and he was supposed to come home on a Friday and he called me on a Thursday. They had used rental cars to go up there and he said, Hey, I'm coming home early. Can you pick me up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had to take her, I had to go get my son from a football game. So I drive him back home and he instantly comes in the house. So Chad had been doing, had a concealed carry license and he'd been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rollin' with a concealed carry, you know, when he's home around town for probably the last year or two. And again, I didn't really think much of it because, I mean, well crap, he's a team guy and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We come home and he instantly goes to the safe and gets his gun and I said, it was just kind of frantic. And I said, you realize that we're going on a school to pick up Hudson? He said, I'm not getting out of the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He just seemed uncomfortable. Uhm, I learned later that, and I don't know any details of whatever he was doing, but he was in a course and he withdrew from the course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He never like stepped down from anything I'd ever known. So that conversation about I'm not sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, that came later that night when he got home and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was on a Thursday and on Friday I had to leave to go, uh, I was working out in Raleigh. I could drive there for a seminar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And we talked about it, uh, that he needed to call his doctor cause he felt like he just needed to check in. Like maybe his testosterone was off, maybe he's something he's like, he wasn't feeling good. Earlier that week, he told me that he had some headaches and like some stomach aches. He had said he didn't feel good, which again, Chad never said, I mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if ever he said, I don't feel good. I mean, he didn't say it like that, but he would never say that to me, but he did. He didn't feel good. And so the deal was when I left, he was going to make an appointment with his doctor and he was going to make an appointment to talk to his boss about whatever his work situation was to try to figure out what his path is going to be. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I did and went to Raleigh, worked, talked to him on Saturday, uhm, and on Sunday, Kinsley called and said that dad's acting really weird and he's just laying on the landing and he's just staring at the ceiling. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just knew I had to get home, so the seminar finishes and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I get in the car as quick as I can and, and try to race home. And he called me at one point and he just said, I love you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I kind of laughed and I said, I love you too. And he's like, no, I mean, I really love you. I love you so much. I love you so much, Sarah. And he knew I loved it when he would say my name. And I said, you know, I love you too, but can I call you back? I had a really bad headache. And honestly, I was just really trying to get home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So fast forward a couple hours later, I get home and I go in the house and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's upstairs and he's rummaging below the bed for something. And I come in and he turns to me and, um, I hug him and kiss him and he kind of just like, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Collapses in my arms a little bit, so I just hug them for a second and I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just think in my mind, well I'm home now, so I'm near you, and I'm gonna try to just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't think at the time that I needed to necessarily keep you safe. I thought I just had to keep you close and, and make you feel better. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I got, I had to get a shower and I said, come talk to me while I'm in the shower. And when I went around in the bathroom to start the shower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wasn't right behind me and I looked out the door and he had just like collapsed like face first on the bed, kind of like the letter T, like arms out to the side, his head was to the side, like, like just exhaustion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, what, what are you doing? Come on, come in. And so I get in the shower and he's sitting on the bathtub and he's just had it bent over and he's got his


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's kind of like gripping his hair and I kept saying, what's wrong? You know, what's going on? And he got to talk to me and he just kept saying, I don't know. Um.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, I asked him to pass me a towel and he looked at me and he was not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wasn't there. His eyes were just like, I was just like looking straight through his eyes and I just laid down with him in bed and I just thought if I could keep him next to me then, then he would feel better. But that wasn't the case. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I woke up in the middle of the night and he was standing there, dressed, uh, looking out the window and I said, what are you doing? And he just said, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, well come lay back in bed with me. And he did. And uhm, the next morning, early, I woke up, I woke up to see just him walking out the door. I saw like the back of his shoulder leave, leave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and I, I, it's like I couldn't talk. It was like I couldn't get up. I don't know if it's just cause I was sleepy or what, or I wasn't really processing like, oh, he's leaving right now. And then I couldn't find him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked around and I thought, well, maybe he went for a walk. Maybe he went for a run. Maybe he went to go get coffee. I tried calling him. He didn't answer. I texted him. He didn't answer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Went around in my head trying, trying to figure out where he could be. I got in my car at one point and I thought I'll drive around. And then I thought, where am I? We're literally like, which direction would I drive? What's happening? Thought, well, did he leave for work? You're supposed to leave on a work trip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I figured he was also going to talk to his boss. So, you know, did he go to work? I just didn't know. I called his dad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but because he was so weird the night before, I just thought it was weird that he left and he didn't say bye. He never didn't not kiss me goodbye. Never. He actually would do this. I'd be upstairs and he'd say, okay, bye. I'll see you later. And he would slam the door in the house just to see me run down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] furiously down the steps because he knew I would get so spun up if he left and didn't kiss me goodbye. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know what I was thinking, I just know I wanted, I just wanted confirmation of where he was. And I finally called the command.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the questions she asked was, how does he feel about, and he asked, he said Chad's boss's name. And I thought that was a really weird question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because another thing I really loved about Chad is, is he really never said anything bad about people. So, you know, if he liked you or didn't like you, I didn't really know. He just, that's, that's how he walked. And I was like, I have no idea. Um, but she,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so he must have gone, and it was, it was a driving trip up the coast a little bit, so I thought okay, he was supposed to be back the next day. And, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think about that and my kids came home from school that day and they said, where's dad?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I don't believe it. But I'm trying to believe it because that's what I was told and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Monday goes by, we started demolition on our house. We were doing renovations that started that day and Tuesday comes and I went, my house sits near a lake. You can see it from my front porch and I went for a run.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and, and this is why I'm sharing, it'll make sense in a minute, but I, I went for a run and I ran past the lake, down the bike path, all around, and I was gonna sit at the lake for a minute, it's the end of October, it's Virginia Beach, the weather, the weather was really beautiful that day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I did that and dropped my son off at a friend's house. He's going to play, going to a football game. And as I was pulling back in a psych from work called and said, ma'am, your husband didn't report to muster. We're heightening the alert.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, that's bad. That's bad. That's very bad. And I pretty sure I hung up the phone on him when I got out of my car. So now where my car was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my house is on the left. And as I'm walking up to my house, the head contractor for the renovations comes out and he says, Ms. Sarah, there's two police officers at your back door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Her husband and my husband were in buds together and I said, you need to come to my house right now. And I just hung up the phone and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't know what was going on. I just thought something is like, seriously. And I went in my front door and out my back door the way the house is. And there were two cops in my garage and they were, we stood outside the door and they said, um, ma'am, do you know where your husband is?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said no, I can't find them and I haven't been able to find them and I asked them if they could move farther down into the street because we were right underneath my daughter's window and I knew that she was upstairs and I just didn't want her to be, I just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she said, you don't know that. So she screamed at him, you don't know that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he'd taken his life at that lake and he could see your house from where he was. At least that's what they tell me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, my daughter's upstairs in her room by herself and she can see and hear everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, you have to understand like logistically speaking, there's a lot of things that just don't make sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where my car was when I got out of it and that guy said the cops were at the back door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they had just found his body, I didn't see anybody over by that late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It had been like 36 hours since I couldn't find him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, and I do think he was at the lake, and this is why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We went back later and in our neighborhood so many people have cameras on their house. And there's footage of Chad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the bike path that lines that lake, uh, if you walk to it, it kind of tees. And if you go left, it takes you all the way up to the main road that cars go in and out of the neighborhood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think we f- we timed it so that-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cameras caught him walking that way. And that would have been right at the same time he would have watched our kids leave for school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I guess, I guess there was a part of me that did, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This, he, this was a little farther on in the morning. So when I first couldn't find him, I just couldn't find him. But then after a while, I think it might've been his dad that said, have you checked the safe? And so it took me a minute to try to remember the combo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I got in there and to my knowledge, all the guns were there, but apparently they weren't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To me, he had done all these really...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he, everything he did, he did well. Everything he did. And seal, you know, great


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ridiculous high GPA when he's going to night school and he has a wife and a baby and really good in sniper school and went and got his project manager


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] License certification, all that in the business world and whatever, fill in the blank, climbing mountains.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Qualifying for the crossfit games, like, insert whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I want people to recognize with your person is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they're Navy SEALs, but at the end of the day, you're just dudes. You know, you're dudes and humans and with a heart and a conscience and dads and husbands and brothers and sons and, um,


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[Assistant] Yeah, and as we've said a couple times that the guys don't want to worry the spouse, or I say spouse or first responder, like who's, who is your go-to person, right?


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[Assistant] Someone that was struggling right now, maybe they're sitting there and they're, they're, they've thought about taking their life and they say, I don't want to bother my spouse. I don't, I, I would, it would be better for her if I wasn't here and I can't speak to the relationships that people have. But sitting on this side of it.


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[Assistant] Sorry, I'm like total crier today. He didn't even give me the chance to help him.


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[Assistant] So, it's, on one hand you can say, well, he didn't want to burden you, you know, he, he just, he didn't want to cause you any worry, but, I mean, look at where I am now.


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[Assistant] Did he not think that this wouldn't like, devastate me forever? He didn't even give me the opportunity to like, try to help.


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[Assistant] Yeah. So, uh, the one thing Jason and I are partnered on is the workout in honor of my husband. We refer to it as Chad 1000 X. Again, I spoke about this at his funeral.


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[Assistant] Just cause they thought, oh, challenge, right? That's cool. A thousand step ups, 45, you know, man stuff. Let's do it. And then fast forward.


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[Assistant] There, there are many spouses like myself, Gold Star spouses and they've gone on and there's golf tournaments and there's 5Ks and there's the like, and they raise monies for different organizations. This workout specifically we want around Veterans Day because while it's Chad's face and I


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[Assistant] It has less to do with, with Chad Wilkinson and more to do about the struggle that our veterans currently have. And so why not really focus this around Veterans Day when that's what we're doing, honoring those serving and create a platform for them to talk to one another.


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[Assistant] We did this last year and it was kind of a late rollout and we're like, let's just like do this and see what happens and very, we really had no expectation and I can't even express how humbled we were by the response. And I mean, it,


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[Assistant] And then obviously we scale it and you know, you have this huge fitness background. You're well aware. Not everyone has to do the 20 inch box. Not everybody has to do that weight, but being able to go do


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[Assistant] A workout in honor of someone in our military that, that generally brings people together anyway, because they want to kind of pay their humble respects.


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[Assistant] But the potential that it could bring for people to have a conversation, whether it's you're doing the step ups and maybe you start to realize in that hour timeframe where your brain does go, what do you think about? You know?


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[Assistant] Your struggle, the person you're doing it for, the friend you lost, do you do it with a friend and you guys can talk to each other? Well, I think Jason and I have confirmed that once you get to probably about 500, you don't really talk anymore. But.


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[Assistant] The idea of doing it with a friend, the symbolism there is, to me, everybody needs somebody.


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[Assistant] December 2016 and within two years he was dead. They found seven TBIs on his brain and they laughed.


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[Assistant] That wasn't very many. One of the guys we were with had 42. He made a joke. He said, yeah, I got to walk around with a football helmet cause I can't risk falling over. The guy, you know what I mean? They can joke among each other, but it's just like seven TBIs to them wasn't very many, but you know what you can't find on all those screens? CTE or Interface Astral Glow Scarring.


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[Assistant] You know, I am an advocate of whatever you find works, if that works for you, do it. 100%, I believe it, feel it, live it.


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[Assistant] Organization that they're really doing any sort of good yet. And I don't know if they just want to talk about it and not be about it.


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[Assistant] And you know, you do all the things. I mean, there, there is a lot of assessment that happens at that place and could be potentially good.


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[Assistant] It told me almost all the things I already knew about him. As a spouse.


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[Assistant] I are, you know, they did personality tests and, and different stress tests and, I mean, yes, I don't know the scientific sleep lab study, but I could tell you his sleep is shit.


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[Assistant] They did a test where they are trying to realize, are you the guy that's gonna.


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[Assistant] I'm trying to think of the best way they said this. Basically, are you the guy that's gonna see a problem and respond right away, like rapid fire, like bull in a china shop? Are you the guy that's gonna like take a minute, assess it,


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[Assistant] And you're not going to be very fast, but it's going to be methodical and it's going to be perfect. Well, that's chat. If you would have ever watched him pack a car for a family trip, that's chat. So all the things that they did there, you know, I don't feel like it gave me any more insight than I already had. And I'm not so sure that's the case.


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[Assistant] For chat, I mean, and they do art therapy and they do dog therapy and they do music therapy.


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[Assistant] He's probably one of the few team guys that like, he didn't like dogs. Uhm, so yeah, if it works for people and they got something out of it, great, but the way I see it is it's a way for the guys to go fatten their medical records so they can punch the ticket on where their medical disability lies, which,


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[Assistant] To be totally frank as a spouse, every single one of those dudes should be 100% disabled.


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[Assistant] It's post-mortem. So same thing. Interface obstacle scarring. Right now there is no test for it. So to some degree.


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[Assistant] Those guys out there that have served multiple deployments and know you have some TBI's, you might want to almost assume that that could be in there.


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[Assistant] What, what I think could be a great way and an extension of service for some of our military is this Keiko form we fill out before the guys deploy. And, um, for listeners, it's, it's.


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[Assistant] It's, it's a form we fill out that basically says what's going to happen should your husband get killed or, or wife, your spouse gets killed and everything from who's going to show up at your door. Are they going to wear their uniform? Is it military honors? Are they buried? Are they cremated? Who's going to take your kids? All those.