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0:50
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
0:54
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:56
Let's get into it.
0:57
All right, guys.
0:58
We've got a special guest on the podcast today.
0:59
His name is Jeremy Stalnecker.
1:00
He is an author and speaker and he is a retired Marine because you are technically never a
1:04
former Marine, but he was in the United States Marine Corps.
1:07
He was an infantry officer and an Iraq war veteran.
1:10
He also received the Navy Commendation Medal with V for Combat Valor and also he is the
1:15
co-founder and CEO of the Mighty Oaks Foundation.
1:18
We've had Chad Robashow on the podcast several times and he is the co-founder of that organization.
1:22
I really, really enjoyed our conversation today because I was on his show like two or
1:26
three years ago or something like that.
1:28
We just haven't really found the time to get him here on this podcast, but on this podcast,
1:31
we talked about Jiu Jitsu.
1:32
We talked about him and his son and that's what got him into Jiu Jitsu because his 13-year-old
1:37
son took his back and basically was about to choke him unconscious.
1:40
He's like, "Oh crap, I guess I need to get with it and get with the program."
1:43
We talked about that at the beginning, but then we talked about why the Marine Corps,
1:46
why did he want to get in, what it was like being in combat, some of the differences between
1:50
a combat veteran and somebody that never saw combat and what that looks like.
1:55
I also asked him, "Hey, if you were a 17-year-old today as opposed to back in the day, would
2:01
you join the military with all the issues we see with the wokeness in the military and
2:04
not focusing on the things that the military should be focusing on?
2:08
More worried about DEI and not really worried about lethality."
2:11
We get into a lot of that as well, but then we talk about him getting into ministry after
2:15
leaving the Marine Corps, how that led to the Mighty Oaks Foundation, what they can do
2:19
to help out veterans.
2:20
For any of you guys out there that are veterans, about to become a veteran because you're going
2:24
to be leaving the military soon or that you've got veterans that you know that are kind of
2:27
in your world that are loved ones, I would really appreciate you sticking around to kind
2:30
of talk, hear him talk more about his program to see if it would help those folks or to help
2:34
you.
2:35
Also, he has this moniker called "Marcher Die."
2:38
So towards the end of the episode, we actually get into the moniker, "Hey, where does that
2:41
come from?
2:42
How do we really use that?"
2:43
Then we flow at the end a little bit more about men's ministry versus man-friendly churches.
2:48
There were some other subjects that I can't really remember right now, but it was a very,
2:50
very fun conversation.
2:51
I think you guys will enjoy it.
2:52
So without further ado, let's get into it.
2:55
Jeremy Staleneker, welcome to "Dawn to Life of Man's Podcast."
2:58
Thanks, Kyle.
2:59
Good to be with you, man.
3:00
It's good to be with you, and I got to say it's taking us a while to pay this off because
3:03
I was on your show roughly 17 years ago, and so now we're finally taking care of this.
3:07
But right from the beginning, I think I have some issues with you personally.
3:11
It's because I don't think I can trust your judgment of human beings because you were like
3:14
really, really good friends with Chad Robocho, and he is one of the more problematic and
3:21
least impressive human beings that I know personally, so what in the world is wrong with
3:24
you?
3:25
Yeah, he's a real quiet guy.
3:26
He's very hard to get to know.
3:27
He doesn't talk to you much.
3:28
I know.
3:29
It's so frustrating.
3:30
Man, so Chad and I go back a long way, right?
3:34
And we've been through an awful lot together, and yeah, it's been one of my best friends.
3:39
Very good.
3:40
And so now, is Chad the one that got you into Jiu Jitsu?
3:44
So yes and no, that's a yes and no question.
3:46
So my son was 12 years old and he was overweight and really enjoyed playing video games.
3:53
And so, you know, at the time I was pastoring a church, and I knew that we needed to get
3:57
him into something physical.
3:58
And I'm like, man, I'm not going to do the sports thing, teams running around all weekend.
4:04
Part of it is we can't and part of it is I just don't want to set my kids down.
4:09
Both of them.
4:10
And I said, look, let's be honest.
4:11
I don't know if you should have this conversation with your 12 year old, but let's be honest,
4:14
you're not going to be a professional athlete.
4:16
Let's just be honest, right?
4:17
You're not going to be a professional basketball player or baseball player, but you need to
4:21
do something.
4:22
So what would you be interested in?
4:23
We need to get you out doing stuff.
4:25
And we had a good martial arts gym near our house.
4:30
And I didn't know a lot about Jiu Jitsu at the time.
4:32
I knew it was a thing, right?
4:33
And I had met Chad and I knew, you know, kind of what he was into, but we weren't close.
4:39
But there was a gym.
4:40
And my son said, well, I wouldn't mind trying that out.
4:43
And it was a big gym, they had Muay Thai, they had Jiu Jitsu, of course, they had boxing.
4:48
And so I knew if we paid the membership, he'd find something he wouldn't mind doing.
4:52
And we got him into that gym, crazy, crazy stories.
4:55
So I reached out to Chad and I'm like, hey, I'm getting my son into this gym.
4:57
A lot of instructors, do you know any of these people?
5:02
And the Muay Thai instructor, the kickboxing instructor, Daniel Kim, not only was kind
5:08
of, you know, world ranked and incredible kickboxing instructor, but he had trained Chad for several
5:14
of his fights.
5:15
He started out of his gym in Houston.
5:17
So that was a connection.
5:18
So my son started training at 12 and Chad goes, no, you got to be careful because he's
5:23
going to start learning stuff and he may be smaller than you, but Jiu Jitsu is really
5:27
powerful.
5:28
I'm like, it's all right.
5:30
We're rolling around in my living room one evening.
5:34
And my probably 13th this time, your old son took my back and man, I was going out.
5:41
I reached down.
5:42
I grabbed his foot.
5:43
He's barefoot.
5:44
I like, I'm going to break your toes.
5:45
I don't care.
5:46
You're going to go with me right now.
5:48
And he let go.
5:50
And I paid his medical insurance, so I'm like, it'll be fine.
5:53
He let go.
5:54
And I'm like, I need to start training.
5:56
So so Chad definitely encouraged me.
5:58
And then we all moved together, Chad and his family and my family moved to Southern California
6:03
at the same time.
6:05
And he found a gym and we got into it and that's when I started training.
6:07
So yeah, man, Jiu Jitsu for me is it's a personal thing like it is for anyone who trains, but
6:13
it's a family thing, all four of my kids have trained.
6:16
My son, that son is a police officer now.
6:20
When he was 12, we got him in just to get him to do something.
6:22
He would end up spending.
6:23
He was homeschooled at the time.
6:24
He spent four hours a day there.
6:26
He'd go through all the classes and it really shaped his life and has shaped kind of our
6:32
family dynamic.
6:33
So a long answer to your question, but yeah, Chad definitely was was instrumental.
6:37
But there were a lot of factors that got us into it and still training.
6:40
So yeah, it's awesome.
6:41
Well, I'm going to ask you follow up questions.
6:43
So it's going to be even longer because this is one of my favorite subjects to talk about.
6:46
So what the last picture I saw of you was you and your son.
6:48
I think you were both purple belts or what level are you at now?
6:51
I'm a brown belt.
6:53
He's also a brown belt.
6:54
If he trained more, he would be a black belt, but he's he's working a lot.
6:58
But yeah, brown.
6:59
Yeah.
7:00
Been trained for about 10 years.
7:01
Okay.
7:02
So obviously like I'm a walking billboard for jujitsu because you know, we constantly
7:06
talk about spiritual mental and physical resilience.
7:08
And you know, I loved baseball.
7:10
I played baseball my whole life.
7:11
It's the sport that I've played probably more than any other sport other than jujitsu.
7:15
But it's just not hard in the same way.
7:17
It's it's probably the hardest thing to do is hitting a spherical ball with a round bat
7:22
squarely.
7:23
Like that doesn't even make sense to say so it's probably one of the more difficult things
7:26
you can do.
7:27
But it's not like hard to do.
7:28
You don't really have to be resilient to be a baseball player.
7:30
You just need a lot of skill and a lot of practice.
7:33
But in terms of resilience for a kid, I mean, the confidence I've seen little kids that
7:37
were, you know, smaller bodied kids that were getting picked on and then all of a sudden
7:41
they have they start training jujitsu and so out and they're walking, you know, head
7:44
up with their shoulders back and chest out and not because they're ready for a fight.
7:48
But if a fight, not because they're picking a fight, but they are ready for a fight now.
7:52
And so the value that a kid can get from the discipline and from all that, yeah, yeah,
7:55
we get it.
7:56
But the hardest problem I have Jeremy is with adults.
7:59
Yeah.
8:00
So these are guys that are in their thirties and forties and I by now I've been training,
8:05
I've been training for this is seven years, you know, as of right now is how long I've
8:10
been training.
8:11
I've heard every excuse in the world for white guys can't do it.
8:15
I don't have time.
8:16
Well, what about the business?
8:17
Well, what if I get hurt?
8:19
You know, I just love golf too much.
8:20
Dude, I'm never going to get into a fight like dude.
8:23
I can feel carry.
8:24
I don't need to know how to fight with my body and my hands.
8:27
Like, you know, just hey, if something happens, I'll call the police.
8:29
Like, I keep hearing all of these things and it's like, yeah, there's the self defense
8:34
mechanism of it because obviously you can stop a fight in its tracks or you can end a
8:39
threat before it becomes a threat towards you.
8:42
But then there's all the ancillary benefits of it.
8:44
But for you talking to guys that are in your world, like, how do you kind of get guys involved
8:49
in it?
8:50
Because again, the biggest one is injuries and most guys won't actually say that because
8:53
they know it makes them sound like a person.
8:54
So they're not going to be like, well, I'm scared I'm going to get hurt.
8:57
Well, yeah, the odds of you getting hurt, you know, chipping balls onto the green at
9:00
your local golf course are not very high.
9:02
But there's also no transferable value to being able to chip a wall onto the green.
9:07
It's only valuable in a golf context, whereas jujitsu is valuable inside the room and outside
9:11
the room.
9:12
So keep flowing on that a little bit more.
9:14
Yeah.
9:15
I was actually, it's funny.
9:16
I was having similar conversation last night.
9:17
There's a white belt in our gym and he's been training for a while.
9:20
He's still white belt and we were sitting against the wall talking and he's like, man, I come
9:24
in here and some days I feel like I'm doing great and some days I'm not and we went through
9:27
that.
9:28
Like, what's that saying?
9:29
You know, some days you're the hammer and some days you're the nail and I said that
9:32
to him, he started laughing and he's like, I just want to learn to defend myself.
9:35
And I said, you know, for me, this is just Jeremy talking and I was talking to him.
9:40
For me, defending myself out on the street is like at the bottom of my list of reasons
9:45
that I trained jujitsu.
9:46
And everyone thinks it's like it's about fighting and it's about this and that I'm thankful
9:51
that I feel confident and if something happened when I was out, honestly, if there's a door,
9:56
I'm going to go through it, right?
9:57
Like I'm going to avoid fighting.
9:58
I have no interest in it, but if I'm with my family or we're in a place or things happen,
10:03
I know I can handle myself and that's very important to me.
10:07
But the reason I trained jujitsu, the reasons I trained jujitsu, that's near the bottom
10:11
of the list.
10:12
Part of it was first because my kids were there and I wanted to spend time with them.
10:17
And so there are people who are adults, you know, men who are adults, like go do stuff
10:21
with your kids.
10:22
You're always talking about you don't have a connection, you don't this or the hat.
10:25
Get your kids into jujitsu.
10:27
They learn something real they can use for the rest of their lives.
10:30
They can train for the rest of their lives and you get to be there with them.
10:34
That like, honestly, my kids are getting older.
10:38
They're training kind of at their own times.
10:39
It's been harder for me to get in the gym now because I'm not going with them.
10:43
Not to me is like the most special part about jujitsu is training with people that you care
10:47
about, with people that you love.
10:48
So that's one thing.
10:50
And then the community is incredible.
10:51
If you're in a gym where the community is not incredible, go to another one.
10:54
I can recommend some.
10:55
There's some wonderful communities in the jujitsu gym.
10:58
It's so special and like it's hard to explain but you don't know these people most of the
11:04
time outside of the gym, maybe a few of them.
11:06
But the connection you have, the respect you have for each other is amazing.
11:12
And then just the doing hard things.
11:15
I do not enjoy most of the time, you know, rolling particularly with people who are younger
11:22
and faster and stronger than me.
11:25
And you put on a purple or a brown belt.
11:27
Now you have half the class trying to murder you to prove something.
11:30
Exactly.
11:31
I'm 47.
11:32
I don't care.
11:33
I'll tap.
11:34
You would have heard something.
11:35
I'm not the guy.
11:36
Right.
11:37
But it's doing hard things, man.
11:38
And it's like, okay, I got to go to class.
11:40
And I know what that means.
11:42
It's going to be physically exhausting.
11:43
It's going to be difficult.
11:44
But here's what it does.
11:46
It strikes at your pride.
11:48
This is why I think even people who say like, well, it's injury or this or that, most jujitsu
11:53
gyms are very safe.
11:54
Again, if you're in one that people are getting hurt all the time, you need to find another
11:58
gym.
11:59
Right.
12:00
Exactly.
12:01
It strikes at your pride.
12:02
That's why you don't like it because you feel like I'm a tough guy or I'm a strong guy or
12:05
I'm fit or I'm this or that.
12:07
Look, I run ultra marathons.
12:09
I feel like I'm very fit.
12:12
My cardiovascular is very strong.
12:14
I go to the gym and work out.
12:16
If you get away from a jujitsu gym for three weeks, your first role is going to trash you.
12:21
It's not the same.
12:22
Right.
12:23
And so again, in my world where I'm dealing with a lot of tough guys, a lot of veterans,
12:28
people who have done really hard things and really austere environments, they've been in
12:32
combat, I think the reason most of them don't want to train is because it's going to strike
12:37
at their pride.
12:38
They're a 13 year old kid, shred them on the mat.
12:42
But to me, that's exactly the reason you need to be in there.
12:45
Jeremy, I literally wrote down ego when you were given your first answer because it's
12:51
the hardest for the guys who are physically big, who are physically strong, who are athletically
12:56
gifted.
12:57
And I can't remember the guy that said it was just on some random reel on Instagram or
13:01
something, but it's like the problem for most guys with jujitsu is you can't just athlete
13:05
your way out of it.
13:06
That's right.
13:07
You can help with that kid that first time he picked up a football, he threw a 40 yard
13:11
spiral.
13:12
First time he picked up a basketball, three pointer swish, you know, he talked about this
13:15
kitty new growing up where he had never skateboarded and he picks up a skateboard and he starts
13:19
riding around a little bit 30 minutes later, he's kick flipping, right?
13:23
And that's a trick that guys may, you know, practice for six months or a year or longer.
13:27
Certain guys can do that.
13:28
That doesn't happen in jujitsu.
13:30
You're not going to athlete your way in taking someone down and then doing a mounted triangle.
13:35
It's just not going to happen.
13:36
You might be an explosive athlete, you might have some physical advantages where you can
13:40
explode out of an armbar or you can, you know, keep a guy from taking you down because your
13:45
hips just bounce off the mat because you're basically made a rubber.
13:48
Like I get that, but it's coming for everybody.
13:51
Like we've had some guys that were former NFL athletes, one linebacker and one safety
13:55
coming to our gym and you could see when they first started training, they were like, wait
14:00
a minute.
14:01
I am physically superior to every human being in here.
14:04
What is going on into both of these guys credit?
14:07
They kept training.
14:08
They're like, Oh boy, I have found something in my post NFL career that is like something
14:14
different.
14:15
Like this is the first time I've never been dominant in an athletic context before and
14:19
I need to go through that.
14:21
But most guys don't have that Jeremy, like most guys don't get past white belt because
14:25
they can't get past that grind.
14:27
They can't sit there in the parking lot and like just make themselves go in and goes back
14:32
to the hammer and nail thing.
14:33
Here's the thing guys, all of us are nails forever, unless your name is Gordon Ryan.
14:38
The entire planet is a hammer, right?
14:41
And even now, like, you know, I have some physical advantages over some of the guys I
14:44
train with and things like that and you know, I've been training for a long time.
14:47
So it's, I don't get in bad positions as often as I used to, but there are classes, Jeremy,
14:53
where I just get smashed and there are those kids you talked about homeschool, you know,
14:58
homeschool kids and training.
14:59
There's a kid named jet.
15:01
Yeah, exactly.
15:02
There's this kid named jet home school.
15:03
He started training jujitsu and he was like four or five years old.
15:07
And so he just got his brown belt here recently, but in for all intents and purposes, he's
15:10
17 years old.
15:11
He's a black belt.
15:12
He's done well over 300 tournament and pro matches at this point.
15:16
He beats black belts all the time.
15:18
Jeremy, I've never scored on him, like I'm like, I have a wrestling heavy style, right?
15:23
Yeah, I can get two.
15:24
You might tap me a bunch, but I can get two.
15:26
I've never scored on.
15:27
Yeah.
15:28
The other thing is if you've got an ego problem, like you're never going to be able
15:32
to train.
15:33
There was a guy that at white belt, now he's kind of a savant blue belt, so I feel better
15:36
about it.
15:37
But at white belt, I had his back as a purple belt and I left my feet in the wrong position
15:41
for a second.
15:42
He kind of did an ankle lock on me.
15:44
But if I had this ego problem, I would have gotten hurt because I wouldn't have tapped,
15:48
but instead, you know what I did, I tap and I go, crap, man, you got me.
15:52
I fell asleep for two seconds and you took advantage.
15:54
Good for you.
15:55
Yeah.
15:56
I feel like Jeremy, most guys don't have that in any other context.
16:00
They don't have that at work.
16:01
They don't have that in their relationships.
16:02
And I just like anything that we can do to get more guys into it.
16:05
I'm there for, you know, it's, it's wild too.
16:08
Like people don't get this.
16:10
If you go to like through a karate program, right, like there's testing requirements.
16:15
There's if you do these four things, then this is going to happen.
16:18
Jiu Jitsu literally is you show up on day one and you can be learning something as basic
16:23
as the guard position or something as advanced as, you know, a rubber guard or some, some
16:30
crazy like you have to go inverted and do this thing and it's day one, right?
16:35
And in most schools, I know some schools have a curriculum and they have testing requirements,
16:40
but most are not that way.
16:42
It's you're going to learn whatever's happening today.
16:44
If you have a good instructor, he can tie the techniques throughout the week or the last
16:48
couple of weeks together, you start to learn things, but you have to be committed.
16:52
And that's what's crazy.
16:54
You don't like, oh, I've got it now.
16:56
No, you need to keep learning.
16:58
And then you get to the next level and there's more to learn.
17:01
There are more people, you know, in front of you, you hear black belts talk about this
17:04
all the time.
17:05
I got promoted to black belt and I feel like I'm a white belt again, because I'm starting
17:08
over with all these guys who've been training for 40 years.
17:11
And it's, it's, yeah, it's pretty insane.
17:14
And if, if you're not willing to set your ego aside, you're not going to make it.
17:17
There was a guy in our gym last night and he's been training for a couple of weeks.
17:20
I've, I've done some drilling with them and some rolling with them.
17:24
And during our, you know, our sparring, I looked up from the guy I was, I was sparring
17:29
with and he was kind of next to me.
17:32
And he was, he was going to get his arm broken.
17:34
This kid was a wrestler that he was going against.
17:37
He had him in a tight arm bar.
17:39
And this guy has been training for two weeks.
17:40
I'm sure he's a strong guy.
17:42
He's a young guy.
17:43
He's trying to hold it.
17:44
I'm like, dude, stop.
17:45
Like tap.
17:46
He's like, no, no, he doesn't have him.
17:47
No, he has it.
17:48
And he's going to break your arm.
17:49
And, and if you're not willing to set your ego aside and like reset, then you're going
17:54
to get killed.
17:55
There's so many.
17:56
Yeah.
17:57
I'm not, I'm not a jujitsu evangelist per se, but it has been, it's probably been the
18:02
most powerful thing in my life to keep me grounded and keep me coming back to learning
18:06
again.
18:07
And then I'll just tell you just practically, you know, my son, we got him in early.
18:12
All of my kids have trained, but he has trained the most.
18:16
And he started saying when he was like 13, 14, he wanted to be a police officer.
18:19
But now it became a non-negotiable and any strain, I mean, he's training five, six days
18:23
a week, right?
18:24
So he loves it.
18:25
He's in it.
18:26
Now he's out on the street as a police officer doing that work and, and I feel super confident
18:32
that he knows how to take care of himself because he does.
18:34
And so it's very, very practical, just physically and what you learn, but on the emotional and
18:40
mental and just growth, personal growth side.
18:43
Just do it.
18:44
Nobody in their cares.
18:45
Anyhow, so go do your thing and go home and live your life.
18:48
One.
18:49
Yeah, we'll put a bow on the Fujitsu thing for anybody that hates it, which by now we're
18:52
15 minutes in.
18:53
So you better just set it up.
18:54
But I will say this as I've, as I've grown kind of in a donut in some of my understanding
19:00
of leadership and just matured as a human, I don't like goal setting as much as I like
19:04
standard keeping, right?
19:06
So there's goal setting and then there's standard keeping and the, I'll set it up this way.
19:10
You'll have a guy that'll say, Hey, they probably won't do an ultra marathon.
19:14
People say, Hey, I want to do a sprint triathlon.
19:18
Okay.
19:19
It's three months from now.
19:20
It's on the calendar.
19:21
I paid my fee.
19:22
So I'm going to, I'm going to train like crazy for the next three months to do this sprint
19:25
triathlon.
19:26
So they train, train, train, they're dieting, they're getting their arrest or doing all
19:29
this stuff.
19:30
Maybe they're taking peptides.
19:31
Who knows?
19:32
And then they go and do the race.
19:33
And then you know what happens?
19:34
They take the next three months off.
19:36
And so if you look at that six months period, Jeremy, would it have been better had they
19:41
just had some sort of a standard for their physical health and cardiovascular health
19:47
and strengthen all that for six months, as opposed to train, train, train like crazy
19:50
for three months and then to take off three months and end up worse than they were at
19:55
the beginning of the process.
19:56
Yeah.
19:57
And so that's why I tell guys, like, don't set goals, have standards.
19:59
Like I don't set a goal to wake up tomorrow to go and work out my garage gym.
20:04
That's just what I do.
20:05
Yeah.
20:06
So this is kind of this weird amalgam of both things though, because the goal could be to
20:13
win the next tournament or the goal could be to train long enough to get my purple belt
20:17
or to get my black belt or to get my first stripe on my black belt.
20:20
You can set a goal, but it's the standard that keeps you coming because as an upper belt,
20:26
you know, purple, brown, black, there is an ideology that you should be of a certain certain
20:32
level against people that are vaguely like you.
20:34
So guys in their late 40s that are at this brown belt level that are roughly this size,
20:39
you should be able to have a good match with that type of person, right?
20:43
That's basically what this means.
20:44
It doesn't mean you're going to beat, you know, a 22 year old blue belt.
20:47
That was a wrestler at Oklahoma State.
20:48
Yeah.
20:49
Like that, you know, that's, that's not who you're being compared to.
20:52
But you're setting the standard of this is what I do.
20:55
It's not that I've gotten my black belt and I stopped training.
20:57
I know a couple of guys like that and it's like, gosh, like, why did you do all this trouble?
21:01
It's because they set a goal and the goal was black belt, but they didn't have a standard.
21:05
So we'll get off of that because I'm the apostle Paul for Jiu Jitsu.
21:08
I admit it, but we will get off of that.
21:10
I want to rewind the clock back 30 years or so.
21:14
So you're just some knucklehead and then you decide you want to be a professional knucklehead
21:18
and become a Marine.
21:19
So you individually, why did you want to go in the military?
21:23
Why did you pick the Marine Corps?
21:25
So, you know, I've tried to answer that question a few times.
21:28
I was raised in a pastor's home and so you see up front, right?
21:33
Like very close what that looks like, what it looks like to be a pastor, to be in ministry.
21:37
My mom and dad, our family, I guess, started a church.
21:40
And what that meant practically was my dad worked all night and then he would come home,
21:46
clean up, take care of my, my sisters and I, he homeschooled us and then he would do
21:51
all the church stuff all day, he'd get a couple hours of sleep at night and then go do the
21:54
same again, day after day.
21:57
My mom was working a full time job to kind of keep a roof over our head and food on the
22:02
table while that was all happening.
22:03
So, you know, at like 13, 14, 15 years old, that was the life we were living and I was
22:08
super proud of them.
22:10
I wasn't running from God, but I knew clearly that was not the life that I wanted to live.
22:15
Well, kind of you connect that to just things I was reading.
22:18
My dad had given me a book about a congressional on a Medal of Honor recipients and I started
22:24
reading that when I was 12, 13 years old.
22:26
So I became interested in that.
22:28
So this thought of service was certainly a part of my family, but thought of service
22:32
through the military and, and you know, what can be done, what is possible.
22:37
We had some family friends who had been in the military, one of the families who was
22:41
very close to us, Mr. Stevens, he was, I don't know how old he was when I was a kid, but
22:47
my dad would take me over there and sit me down next to his chair, he could barely walk,
22:51
but he was part of the island hopping campaign during World War II and I heard all the stories.
22:55
So just the idea of service, the idea of the military, the idea of doing something big
23:00
and important was, was drilled into me by my parents.
23:04
It was demonstrated through these books that I read and these stories that I heard.
23:07
And then honestly, and I say this sometimes joking, but, but, but honestly, I didn't know
23:11
there was another way to serve in the military other than the Marine Corps until I was like,
23:16
like in college, probably, I'm like, I know there are other services.
23:18
I know that, but like it was never an option, right?
23:22
It was always the Marine Corps.
23:23
And I thought if you are going in the military, you go in the Marine Corps and if you go in
23:26
the Marine Corps, you go into the infantry, that's just how this thing works, right?
23:30
And so that's what I did is set my life toward that, told my parents I wanted to enlist.
23:35
They said, look, you can do whatever you want, we'll support it, but you need to go to college
23:38
first.
23:39
That was very important to them.
23:40
So I went into college, I found a commissioning program that I could do while I was in college
23:46
and yeah, I was commissioned as soon as I graduated.
23:50
So yeah.
23:51
So, Marine Corps, you decide that you're going to kind of do that and from the beginning,
23:57
did you think I'm going to make a career of this?
23:59
Yeah.
24:00
You know, hey, I'm just going to do my first contract or I'm going to do, you know, 20.
24:02
What were you thinking?
24:03
Yeah, I definitely thought that was my career.
24:05
Again, when I was, I think I started talking to my parents about this, not as 14 years
24:08
old, 15 years old, my whole life had been pointing toward that.
24:11
I went to college because they made me.
24:14
It opened a door for me, which was a commission, but I thought I would, I would only ever go
24:19
into the Marine Corps and serve there as long as, you know, as long as they'd let me.
24:23
Yeah.
24:24
So Marine Corps infantry, you get your commission and then you do eventually deploy to Iraq and
24:30
saw combat.
24:31
And so talk to me.
24:32
The first thing I want to ask about is a very awkward subject for some people to say.
24:36
And I love putting people in awkward situations.
24:39
So ready, set, go.
24:40
Yeah.
24:41
Try.
24:42
Just try.
24:43
Okay.
24:44
Yeah, you're a jiu-jitsu guy.
24:45
There's no such thing anymore.
24:46
You've been mounted by a sweaty, angry man.
24:47
So it's just kind of how it goes.
24:48
Yep.
24:49
But there, there simply is a difference in kind between a member of the military that
24:56
has seen combat and a member of the military that has not seen combat or never went outside
25:01
the wire.
25:02
And what I mean by that is where all this kind is coming from Jeremy, a buddy of mine
25:05
was in development group for the Navy Seals and, you know, they're out every single night
25:10
on kinetic missions, you know, capture, kill missions every single night and they get back
25:14
to base on Thanksgiving night and they're all covered in, you know, other people's brain
25:18
matter and sweat and different things.
25:20
And by the time they get back, the only thing left at the Thanksgiving dinner was rolls
25:24
and butter.
25:26
And you know, they all got really, really mad that all these guys that are basically working
25:30
out the Starbucks on base or basically just cleaning out the Humvees and all that got
25:33
to eat all that stuff.
25:35
Now that was how they felt in the moment.
25:37
Obviously later they realized, look, we can't go out there and do these capture kill missions
25:40
unless these guys are taking care of our weapons when we get back.
25:44
We can care the Humvees making sure everything's working properly and so that they had that.
25:49
But there is kind of this consternation in this, you know, this push and pull between
25:54
guys that are combat veterans and guys that are just veterans veterans.
25:58
And so have you ran into that with the work that you've done as you yourself, a combat
26:02
veteran?
26:03
Yeah, for sure.
26:04
So the work we do with veterans, there is often and in the programs that we do, there
26:08
is often this idea that I don't belong here because I didn't serve in combat or I don't
26:13
belong here because I didn't deploy, particularly when you're putting, you know, not just people
26:18
who have been in combat, but people who have been in combat over 20 years, they've done
26:21
six, seven or more deployments.
26:24
The Marine Corps stayed basically to six or seven month deployments, but the Army was
26:28
doing like these 18 month deployments, right?
26:31
And they'd even have, they'd send soldiers home on leave, mid combat or combat, a theater
26:37
environment, a combat theater deployments.
26:40
And so, so there, there is, for some people who've served in the military, this idea
26:44
that, well, I didn't deploy that way.
26:45
And so, you know, we're not the same or I need to be ashamed of something.
26:50
There's, there's a lot to this question, but I'll say a couple of things.
26:53
One, if a person raises the right hand to go into the United States military and they
26:59
are willing to follow through on that responsibility.
27:02
Now this is an important part of this, right?
27:04
But they're not going to run from combat if it comes their direction.
27:06
They raise the right hand.
27:07
They say, I'm willing, I think I just raised my left hand, but you know what I mean?
27:11
Raise your right hand and, and they say, I'm willing, I'm going to go do this, whatever
27:16
that means.
27:17
And they follow through on that.
27:18
If that takes him into combat or not, there is nothing to be ashamed of.
27:22
You put yourself in a position where you could, you know, pick up a weapon and defend the
27:29
ideals that we say we defend in the military.
27:31
So, so there's nothing to be ashamed of.
27:33
So that's number one, but, but number two, there is something different between someone
27:37
who's been in combat and someone who hasn't.
27:40
But that also needs explanation as well, right?
27:42
When we talk about combat, that means different things to different people, different units,
27:47
encounter combat differently.
27:49
I went to Iraq.
27:50
We were part of the initial invasion into Iraq.
27:52
We were the first Marine infantry battalion into Iraq.
27:55
And it was very kinetic in the sense that we took a Marine infantry battalion.
28:01
The berm was breached.
28:02
We pushed through the berm and started killing guys on the other side to secure the first
28:06
objective.
28:07
We did a road march to Baghdad.
28:09
We had engagements along the way.
28:11
We had a tank platoon with us, right?
28:14
It was very much a, a kinetic combat environment.
28:18
When that ended, we came home, troops and follow on would do more of an urban type of
28:24
combat where they're sitting, you know, in urban environments and they're, they're dealing
28:28
with all this involved in that.
28:30
And so their combat looked different than mine.
28:32
There are those who did one combat deployment, which was me.
28:35
There are those who have done many other combat deployments.
28:37
Right?
28:38
So, so again, the combat experience is not the same for everyone is what I'm trying to
28:41
say.
28:42
But if you have been in an environment where you don't have control of what the enemy does,
28:48
where those trace arounds are coming back your direction, where the death of someone close
28:53
to you is imminent, that changes the way you look at the world.
28:57
And so yeah, those who've been in combat, I think, think and act and view the world differently
29:04
than those who haven't.
29:06
Hey, guys, real quick, if you're anything like me, you are constantly on the lookout
29:10
for high quality products that are actually made here in America by American hands.
29:14
The problem is that a lot of American companies have outsourced their labor overseas, so it's
29:19
an American company, but it's supporting people that don't live here.
29:22
So I've always went to partner with an American company that prioritizes America, American
29:26
workers and making all of their materials here in this country.
29:30
That's why I want to remind you that we are partnered with Origin.
29:34
Origin is an apparel company based in Maine, and they are focused on getting as much manufacturing
29:38
back to the United States as they can possibly do.
29:41
What do they make?
29:42
They make the best jujitsu geese on the planet.
29:45
And these are the only jujitsu geese that are made completely in America.
29:48
They also make jeans, yes, they're stretchy and awesome.
29:51
They also make amazing hunting gear.
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And I know you guys love your kuyu and your sicka, but those companies use overseas labor
29:58
and they don't do that to help you guys out.
30:00
They do that to increase their profit margins, origin also makes boots and work boots.
30:04
And yes, that does include still toe boots.
30:06
And in the fall of last year, they launched a line of everyday clothing, their verse of
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pants are their everyday pants, and they are just especially phenomenal.
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They also make other outdoor clothes and workout clothes and they're launching new apparel
30:16
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30:34
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30:41
And it's one of those interesting things where again, jujitsu example, like there are certain
30:45
guys, I went to a concert the other day and it was like this underground metal band, my
30:48
favorite band of all time named Zao.
30:50
And there was just this guy, how he was walking up to the line, I was like, that guy wrestled.
30:55
And then when he got closer, I saw his ears.
30:56
And so it's like, okay, he didn't get those from doing his taxes.
30:59
So you kind of feel like you know a little something about a guy like that without them
31:02
having to say something.
31:04
And there is a difference when you talk to someone that is a combat veteran that wasn't
31:08
a kinetic situation that saw death, that dealt death, like there's something different in
31:15
how they describe everything, because it's very easy for people like me who has never
31:20
raised their right hand or left hand to say that I'm going to defend this country from
31:25
enemies, foreign and domestic.
31:27
I can be poetic about war, right?
31:29
Because I've never smelled rotting flesh and in all those things in kind of this war context.
31:35
But when these guys, there's a certain level of calm, but also a certain level of anxiety
31:40
of anxiety in these guys that have done both of these situations.
31:43
And so I guess to kind of fast forward to the end of your career.
31:47
What made you decide, okay, I've done, I've done my time in the United States Marine Corps.
31:52
You know, that's it for me.
31:55
So it was a few things all at the same time.
31:57
And part of it was just ignorance.
31:58
I had, I went into the Marine Corps in 1996, did reserve time before I was commissioned.
32:04
It was just the program that I was in and then started my active duty time in 1999.
32:10
So my lead up to Iraq was all peacetime Marine Corps, became a platoon commander, did peacetime
32:18
deployments to Okinawa.
32:20
So all that happened, right?
32:21
Well, anyone who's been in a peacetime military, particularly in a leadership position, will
32:25
tell you it sucks really bad because you're not dealing with combat preparedness or readiness.
32:31
I mean, you train, you do all of that.
32:33
But so much of your time is spent dealing with DUIs and behavior issues and marriage stuff
32:39
that your Marines, in my case, are going through, like it's all that kind of stuff, right?
32:43
And so I didn't go into the Marine Corps to do that.
32:46
I did that.
32:47
And it was fine.
32:48
We were told shortly after 9/11, we were going to deploy to actually to Jika Stan in support
32:54
of the special operation stuff that was happening in Afghanistan.
32:58
We got pulled off that at the last minute.
33:00
We were told then that instead of going to Afghanistan, we're going to go back to Okinawa.
33:04
And it was during that time that I said, I can't do this anymore.
33:09
I had a wife, we had two little kids, and we were part of a very good church.
33:14
It was a church plant.
33:16
I went to church at that point in my life because I knew it was the right thing to do.
33:19
And I wanted my wife and kids to be in a good church, but started attending there.
33:24
And God used that in a great way to turn my heart toward ministry, which is something
33:28
I had said I would never do.
33:30
So I'm looking at my military career, right?
33:33
It's about to get to the end of my first contract.
33:35
I'm going to miss this war.
33:37
It's going to be over because everything was over quick in the 90s, right?
33:40
It's not going to go very long.
33:42
So if I stay in, I've missed it.
33:44
I'll probably never have another opportunity to do a combat deployment as an infantry guy.
33:48
That's what I was training for.
33:49
That's what I wanted to do.
33:51
And so there was an opportunity to go work at our church when I got out.
33:54
And so all that happened at the same time.
33:57
And then last minute, we're not going to Okinawa now.
33:59
Now we're going to Kuwait.
34:01
And then the war in Iraq started.
34:03
If I had known what that was going to look like, I would have made different decisions.
34:07
But even when we were in Iraq, we made our way to Baghdad.
34:11
And after a major engagement in the city of Baghdad on April 10th, the Battle of Baghdad,
34:16
that was our battalion as well.
34:17
When that was over, the fighting stopped.
34:21
We started to do a dismounted foot patrols in the city.
34:26
The whole environment stopped.
34:28
And so this is George Bush saying mission accomplished, right?
34:31
It was that time.
34:32
And so when we came home, the belief was, all right, the war in Iraq is over.
34:38
So I also felt confident in like, okay, I went, I did this thing.
34:42
And it was a one time thing and it's over.
34:45
So it's time for me to move on with my life.
34:47
So it was a lot of things unfolding all at the same time.
34:49
I think God obviously directed that, but had I known that there were going to be 20 more
34:55
years of that, I would have stayed in and done something different, but God used that
34:59
in my life.
35:00
Yeah, for sure.
35:03
Before we get off the subject of the military, I've asked a lot of guys that are now out
35:06
of the military.
35:07
So some of these guys, all mostly combat veterans, I basically most of the guys that know in
35:12
that world were combat veterans, saw kinetic fighting, you know, everything from seals
35:16
and green berry's to Marine recon infantry, all that.
35:21
Several these, all these guys are proud of what they've, what they did, they're proud
35:25
of the evil that they took care of, they're proud of the meetings that they scheduled
35:31
for some of these guys with their maker.
35:33
They're proud of all those things.
35:34
What they're not proud of, almost every one of them to a tee is what has become in the
35:39
United States military, a United States military that seems to be way more concerned about
35:44
diversity, equity and inclusion and making sure that, you know, if you've got two mothers
35:49
and you're growing up in a big city that you feel comfortable to try to get into the military
35:53
to see what it can do for you, as opposed to what you can do for your country through
35:57
the military.
35:58
And many of these guys are saying like, look, I'm going to tell my kids to not go into the
36:04
military, whereas when they were, you know, still in there like, man, what an honor it
36:08
would be if I could have progeny that would want to go into the military and for these
36:12
guys that have sons, it's like, man, what if my son could also be a Navy SEAL?
36:16
What if my son could be a Marine Marine infantry and all these things?
36:21
And it's because of the wokeness that we've seen in the military and it's because we seem
36:26
to be not concerned with the two biggest tasks of the military, which is to kill people and
36:31
break stuff.
36:32
We seem to be concerned with all these other things.
36:35
What about for you?
36:36
Do if you were the age you were when you decided to go into the Marines now, would you want
36:41
to go into it?
36:42
Like, would you be disappointed if your son like wanted to no longer be a police officer
36:46
and wanted to enlist?
36:47
Like, where would you be on all these things?
36:48
Yeah.
36:49
So it's interesting, right?
36:50
He was a police officer's 23, he's young.
36:53
When he was coming up, I pushed him toward, why don't you at least go into the Marine
36:58
Corps as a reservist and you know, you can get that experience.
37:01
And so we talked a lot about that.
37:02
He didn't end up doing that.
37:03
I have another son who's 14 and actually wants to be a paramedic.
37:07
So he's decided that the Navy is a place he can get some training and he can become a
37:11
paramedic, right?
37:12
And we've had very, not confrontational, but very direct conversations about what that
37:19
looks like and why and no, me pushing my older son, there's seven years between them, me
37:25
pushing my older son into the military.
37:28
And now my younger son, seven years later, like, no, I don't think we need to do that.
37:33
Because of exactly that, there are a lot of wonderful people in the Marine Corps, a lot
37:36
of wonderful people in the military.
37:38
And I know a lot of them, but the direction at least right now at the military is going,
37:44
it scares me to think of my kids being a part of that.
37:50
Yeah, it's a very different world.
37:51
I think there are a lot of reasons for that, but it's a very, very different world than
37:54
it is today.
37:55
And it's so crazy, particularly coming up through the infantry, that was my home, right?
38:00
Like you're there to do a job.
38:03
My job is to train these guys, these young men, how to go anywhere in the world at any
38:09
time and kill bad guys.
38:12
That's our job.
38:13
It's not complicated.
38:14
That's our job.
38:16
We didn't have these conversations that are being had now.
38:18
And to think that we are looking at individuals, not from the perspective of are they capable
38:24
of doing that job, but putting so many other factors on top of it.
38:28
I mean, we could talk about women in combat, we could talk about all these factors, but
38:33
the most important thing for a combat unit is to be combat ready.
38:39
And that means they need to be trained, they need to be healthy, they need to be mentally,
38:42
physically prepared.
38:45
And we as leaders need to be in a position where we can deploy them.
38:49
Anything other than that, doesn't have a place.
38:52
And we're at the point now where it's everything other than that that we're talking about.
38:56
Well, and here's something that seems to make sense to people that are currently in
38:59
the military or to just generalize Americans that realize we have to have a standing military
39:04
of some kind.
39:06
What makes sense is we need a military to defend the homeland in case of invasion from
39:10
our north, south, east or west, we have to have that direct conflicts like, you know,
39:16
we invade Afghanistan after 9/11 to try and go get the guys.
39:20
This is all like, supposedly, but to go get the guys that perpetrated this crime on the
39:25
United States and kill thousands of our citizenry, like all that type of thing.
39:29
But what doesn't make sense to a lot of people is boots on the ground in Ukraine, so going
39:34
from a proxy war against Russia to an actual war against Russia with our 18, 19, 20, 21
39:41
year old boys going over there to fight for Ukraine.
39:45
It doesn't make sense to put boots on the ground in Taiwan, just in case China decides
39:48
they want to invade there.
39:49
There's a lot of conflicts that are kind of being bandied about that people are like,
39:54
wait, that's not for us.
39:55
And even a lot of people, I know that, you know, more patriotic Americans seem to have
39:58
a positive view of Israel and their stance in the Middle East and being the only democracy
40:03
in the Middle East, but they're the same way about that is like, man, if Iran and, you
40:10
know, Syria and Egypt, and if they all just start popping off and trying to take Israel
40:15
off the map, as they've tried to do several times over the last century or so, people
40:20
are like, that also is not my son's fight.
40:22
Like I don't want my kid over there in Israel defending all these people either.
40:26
I think that's an element of this equation too, don't you think?
40:29
Oh, 100% the role of the military is to protect American interests, role of American military
40:35
is to protect American interests at home and abroad.
40:38
And if there is not an American interest, we shouldn't be involved in that.
40:41
Now we can talk about things like democracy and freedom in that.
40:44
And I think we need to support Israel, for example.
40:47
And I think we need to, at least from a position of public acknowledgement support countries
40:54
like Ukraine.
40:55
I don't think we should be sending them money.
40:56
We could talk a lot about that.
40:58
But anyone who's fighting against tyranny, I think we need to support America.
41:02
But what fixes that problem in many ways, short of putting boots on the ground is having
41:07
a strong administration that has a clear understanding of their role in the world.
41:13
When, again, this isn't a political statement, it's just a true statement when Donald Trump,
41:18
when Ronald Reagan, we'll go back to Ronald Reagan, became president, things changed in
41:21
the world.
41:22
Iran did what Jimmy Carter could not get them to do.
41:26
Even the world things changed, even into the Soviet Union, because we had a strong president
41:30
who understood clearly his role in the world, understood that he was a leader, and the rest
41:36
of the world knew that there would be repercussions.
41:38
There would be consequences if they behaved badly.
41:41
When you have an administration in our country that is weak, the rest of the world, tyrants,
41:46
dictators, these are bullies.
41:47
These are the kids down the street who pick on little kids, right?
41:50
They're just in a bigger neighborhood.
41:52
They, when there's not someone to keep them at bay, will pick on the other kids in their
41:56
neighborhood.
41:57
And that's what we're seeing.
41:58
So a strong administration, in many ways, again, we saw this in the Trump administration,
42:01
will keep us from needing to put boots on the ground.
42:05
There are a lot of other ways we can deal with things around the world.
42:07
And so, yeah, absolutely.
42:09
The goal role of the military, the goal and role of the military is to defend American
42:14
interests.
42:15
And, you know, I could get off on a tangent here, but, and not lie about it.
42:21
I'm thankful for my service.
42:22
I'm thankful for what I was a part of in Iraq, but looking back 20 years, I don't think
42:27
we should have been in Iraq.
42:28
And I feel bad about a lot of that because we were lied to, right?
42:33
And so it's, it's clarity, it's integrity.
42:35
It's all of those things from our leadership, but we have strong leaders.
42:38
The world is a different place.
42:40
Yeah.
42:41
I mean, piece of strength is an actual thing.
42:42
Let's talk about Trump whenever they were doing negotiations with the Taliban to try to
42:45
have a organized pullout from the country over a certain period of time, as opposed to an
42:50
all of a sudden pull out so that you can have a, you know, a win, which is what the Biden
42:54
administration did.
42:55
Like it's a famous story now because it's been told by people that were in the room,
42:59
but Trump looks at the leader of the Taliban at the time, the person that was negotiating
43:03
and he says, tell him that if he harms a single, one of our military members that I'm going
43:08
to kill him through an interpreter and he's like, tell him.
43:11
And then he pulls out a picture of the guy's house and just slides it across to him and
43:15
then leaves the room.
43:16
Right.
43:17
And I was just thinking about that story, but even Ben Shapiro has told this story because
43:20
he was talking about, you know, when Trump was privately talking with Vladimir Putin and
43:25
he was basically telling Putin, like you better behave or else and Putin's basically like,
43:29
you're not going to do anything.
43:30
And Trump says, I might and just that chance, just that five, 10% chance that Trump's not
43:35
bluffing is enough to keep someone like Putin, you know, sitting on his hands.
43:40
And so when you have an administration that's like, they don't even understand what peace
43:45
through strength is or what it does, it makes a lot of sense that that's not going to be
43:48
a good thing for us on the international stage and not good for the people that are having
43:52
to suffer and die in those conflicts overseas as well.
43:55
So let's kind of circle back.
43:57
You're out of the Marine Corps, you're into ministry, but at certain point, there's kind
44:02
of this hybrid of military ministry thing that comes up because you are one of the co-founders
44:08
of the mighty Oaks Foundation with Chad Robocho.
44:11
And so let's talk about that, like, how do you go from, okay, I'm out of the Marine Corps,
44:15
oh crap, maybe I shouldn't have gotten out to doing stuff where you are like helping
44:19
veterans in these day in, day out ways.
44:22
So it's crazy, right?
44:23
I left the Marine Corps, came home from Iraq 30 days later, I was out of the Marine Corps
44:26
and working on a church staff.
44:27
I mean, I can spend a whole episode talking about that.
44:31
I set you a hard time adjusting to the new role.
44:35
I didn't realize my identity was so wrapped up with who I was in the military and all
44:39
those things, right?
44:40
So I'm working on a church staff, I'm screaming at staff members who I felt like weren't maintaining
44:45
the standard, whatever the standard, I was the standard for everybody.
44:48
These guys had been to Bible college and I had just come, I mean, literally just come
44:52
back from combat in Iraq, right?
44:54
So like I'm getting thrown out of staff meetings and I'm just a complete disaster around the
44:59
church office and it was a mess.
45:02
Then I was a mess at home, again, I can spend all day talking about that.
45:05
I was eventually confronted by my pastor and by my dad and by some other people and was
45:10
able to get back up and move forward in a positive way.
45:13
But part of that for me was kind of putting my military service behind me.
45:17
I did what I went there to do, I did it well, I'm proud of that, but I didn't stay connected
45:21
to anyone.
45:22
I didn't talk to anyone that I had served with, I didn't stay connected to anyone.
45:25
So I just continued moving on.
45:28
I served at that church for about five years and then I passed her to church up in the San
45:32
Francisco area here in California for seven years and needless to say, there aren't a
45:37
lot of veterans in the San Francisco Bay area, so we had a great church.
45:40
But I just felt like that was a phase of my life and that, I don't know what God did
45:46
there, but I did that and it's over 10 years after I came back, had a guy who I served
45:52
with reach out to me, he's actually a fighter based in a mixed martial artist based in Houston.
45:58
He now owns a Gemini coaches, but at the time he was fighting and he knew Chad and reached
46:04
out to me and said, hey, I met this guy, Chad Robocho, he's starting this program called
46:08
Mighty Oaks and having a hard time getting anyone to attend, they're just getting it
46:12
off the ground and he knows that I know several guys who served and wants us to come up to
46:18
Colorado where he's getting this thing started and do a program.
46:21
So I said, all right, and that's what I did, it's weird looking back on it, I hadn't talked
46:27
any of those guys and I never felt guilty or bad per se, but I just felt like I closed
46:32
the door and walked away and I didn't think I'd ever talk to him again.
46:36
Went up there, that's where I met Chad, Mighty Oaks was just getting started and I would
46:40
go to every program after that and eventually leave the church to be a part of Mighty Oaks.
46:45
But that day or that week, I think there were 10 guys who were a part of my platoon, started
46:50
to hear stories about suicide, started to hear stories about broken homes and broken marriages,
46:55
all the stuff we hear about veterans and I had struggled and part of my struggle was
46:59
saying this is probably unique to me and so I need to put that behind me and walk away.
47:04
I had been helped but I hadn't done anything to help anyone else and I remember where we
47:09
were when these conversations were had and I remember the thought that I felt like I had
47:14
abandoned these guys, like I said, I would be there for you and in combat I was, I tried
47:19
to take care of my Marines, but then I left and I abandoned you and I put that uniform
47:26
in the closet for the last time and my service to these guys was over and I realized man,
47:32
like I've been given a gift and I know the path forward and I'm not perfect and I'm still
47:38
struggling and there are still issues that I'm dealing with in my marriage and in other
47:42
places.
47:43
I don't have it all figured out but I have the tools and more than anything, I understand
47:47
what a relationship with God looks like in this context and how that can carry you forward
47:51
and so really it was that man, it was like you still have a responsibility to these guys,
47:58
not like the military or veterans but like these guys, right?
48:02
The guys you served with and I've got to know Chad that week and you know you're kind of
48:07
joking about it but he he's super charismatic and he's he can get people to do things but
48:12
he had just accepted Christ like a year before that and he was just figuring things out and
48:18
certainly didn't know how to run a Christian program or a faith-based program and so he
48:22
said, hey, would you help me with this thing and we started working and and it went from
48:27
helping these guys to helping you know thousands over time and so yeah, I passed through the
48:33
church and did that for a while and then I think three years after I was involved with
48:38
Mighty Oaks, it just got too much and I had to make a decision and so we decided my wife
48:43
and I decided to resign the church and and do the Mighty Oaks thing full-time.
48:48
So let's talk about programmatically how Mighty Oaks operates because there are you
48:54
know because of the GWOT, there are so many different nonprofits out there now and some
48:58
for-profits that are here to help veterans and their families in a lot of different ways
49:02
and you know I help with some of them like we love full sub-honor and the things that
49:06
they do and you know love Mighty Oaks and different things.
49:09
There is a different element altogether when there is an explicitly Christian, not explicitly
49:15
spiritual because that could be avatar you know, you know, putting your ponytail on a
49:19
tree and trying to like get in touch with the roots kind of thing but like when there's
49:23
an explicitly Christian component to the things that you're doing, my buddy out of Florida
49:27
does project save your outdoors, Mike Dragotch in the end the stuff that they do and when
49:31
it's when it's out front it's very different because there's kind of like the completely
49:37
secular ones and then there's the ones where it's kind of Christian adjacent where once
49:42
you get there and then once they sit you down and you talk to the people individually you
49:45
realize they're Christians and that's why they're doing it but then basically when you
49:49
put your cross the cross in front of everything it changes the game considerably so talk to
49:54
me a little bit about that because I know between you and Chad you've had a lot of experience
49:58
with other non-profits with competing non-profits frankly so talk to me a little bit about the
50:03
difference of this being an explicitly gospel-centered, Christ-centered endeavor.
50:08
I think fundamentally the difference is that we believe that short of a relationship with
50:12
God through Christ whatever therapies, whatever techniques or habit adjustments you're making
50:18
are going to fall short.
50:20
Whatever it is you're doing eventually it has to hit the ground of faith and again that
50:24
can be a broad thing.
50:25
When I say that I mean faith, a confidence in Christ and his payment for our sin on the
50:31
cross, his death, his burial and his resurrection because he's God, defeating sin, defeating
50:35
death, defeating hell and giving new life right and because of that faith that confidence
50:40
in Christ we're able to be reconciled to God okay so that's what I mean when I say faith.
50:43
If eventually whatever you're doing doesn't hit this ground of faith, confidence in God
50:49
in a relationship with him then it's always going to fall short so there are great therapies
50:53
certainly and I wouldn't even argue that.
50:56
Medication even has a place, not the place it's been given but it has a place often and
51:02
a lot of other therapies do but what the clinical world does is they start with the clinical
51:07
therapies, the medical interventions, these things and say if eventually we need to add
51:11
faith whatever that looks like then we'll add it.
51:15
Our starting point is just different.
51:16
Our starting point is you need to have a relationship with God in order to find your identity, in
51:22
order to understand your purpose, in order to be able to move forward with confidence,
51:26
with hope and able to throw off the chains of whatever past trauma is holding you back,
51:32
you have to have a relationship with God or you can't move forward.
51:35
Now if we also at some point have to add other kinds of therapies we can do that as tools
51:41
but the hope and the help is found in a relationship with Christ and so fundamentally that's what
51:46
makes us different.
51:47
We'll add God to the other stuff that's happening, we say that God is the answer and we just
51:53
need to get people to that.
51:54
Okay, very good.
51:56
So this is the part where I basically just opened it up for you to give a commercial for
51:59
Mighty Oaks because there are a lot of folks in our audience that are veterans themselves
52:04
or are about to be veterans because they're still in the military or they have family that
52:08
is that and so who are the guys that y'all help and how is it specifically that you help
52:13
them?
52:14
So our audience would be veterans and again that's a broad category but veterans those
52:19
who have served in the military, active duty service members, we have a lot of active duty
52:22
folks who come to our programs.
52:25
First responders and again first responders is really broad, look I don't want to get
52:28
into a contest about who's a first responder, it's not, I don't mean with you but I have
52:32
people to speak out like, I'm a, you know, TSA agent, I'm my first responder I'm like,
52:37
yeah, not technically, no.
52:39
So but first responders a broad category for us and we'll have folks come and then spouses
52:44
so if you're married to one of those we would invite you to be a part of our programs.
52:48
We have what we call the legacy program, that's a five day program at one of five locations
52:52
across the country.
52:54
We cover the cost of the program for the student, we also cover the cost of travel so there's
52:57
no financial output to you to come to one of our programs.
53:01
Because we're non-clinical as I just mentioned, there's also no reporting requirements so
53:07
particularly for the active duty military folks, those with, you know, with clearances that
53:10
they're concerned about or those in the first responder community, firefighters, police officers,
53:14
we are a place that you can get help without that help then or your problems being reported
53:19
back to your command.
53:20
So if you're afraid that you're going to have to quit your job after you get this kind of
53:24
help, you don't have to.
53:25
So that's important as well.
53:29
And we start from a position of faith, as you mentioned, now it's not all about, you
53:33
know, it's not a camp, like youth camp, right, we talk about trauma, we talk about all the
53:38
things that happen in our lives and happen perhaps in combat or in your service in the
53:42
community.
53:43
We talk about all of those things, we explain all those things, but we spend the majority
53:46
of the week talking about how to find a life aligned to the life that God's called us to.
53:52
Every one of our instructors, this is important.
53:54
Every one of our instructors started as a student.
53:57
They came as a student.
53:59
Maybe they, you know, accepted Christ or they rededicated their life to Christ, whatever
54:03
the case.
54:04
They go through about a year-long leadership training process that we have and there's
54:08
a lot to that.
54:09
And then they're able to lead.
54:10
They can teach the classes, they can lead small groups, and they do all of that from
54:14
a testimonial standpoint, again, very important.
54:16
This is not me telling you what I've read that you should do.
54:19
This is me saying, hey, I know where you are because I've been there.
54:22
I've struggled the same way you're struggling.
54:23
I've dealt with a lot of the same things you're dealing with.
54:26
I don't have it all figured out, but I've started to move forward in my life and here's
54:30
how I'm going to share that with you.
54:32
That tears down a lot of these walls that people put up, no one knows what it's like to
54:35
be me, no one's struggled like me, that kind of thing.
54:38
We get past that really quick.
54:39
In fact, like our first conversation is, this is, we say this way, this is not a hug event
54:44
program.
54:45
This is a poke event in the chest program.
54:47
Like we're thankful for your service, but we're not here to say thank you for your service.
54:50
We've all served.
54:51
So we've got that out of the way, right?
54:52
If you want someone to make you a quilt or bake you cookies, that's wonderful.
54:55
That's not what this is about.
54:57
We're here to poke you in the chest and help you to get up on your feet and start moving
55:00
forward again.
55:02
And so that's really what we focus on.
55:03
We have men's programs separate from our women's programs.
55:05
We have both, but they're separate programs.
55:08
And over those five days, we just work to help you understand who God created you to
55:11
be and how to move forward in a meaningful way.
55:14
Very good guys.
55:15
Well, in the show notes, you can get all the information there.
55:17
You can go to the website and check out everything that they have going over there at Mighty
55:19
Oaks.
55:20
I highly recommend that for anybody that you feel like falls in what you just described
55:24
there.
55:25
Yeah.
55:26
So I can see it on your coffee cup, and I know it's a big moniker for you.
55:28
March or die.
55:29
Yeah.
55:30
So when people think of Jeremy, yeah, they think of Mighty Oaks and they think of the Marine
55:32
Corps, but they also think March or die.
55:35
So you got to tell our audience what is it about that, that moniker, why have you branded
55:40
your podcast in that way?
55:42
And what's the deal with that?
55:43
Yeah.
55:44
So that came from a story while we're in Iraq, and I'll give the short version.
55:50
I wrote about this in the book entitled March or die.
55:53
This is part of my podcast.
55:54
March or die.
55:55
I've also told the story there, but it has become a moniker for my life, kind of a mantra
55:59
for my life.
56:00
You have the opportunity to make a decision.
56:03
But as crazy as life may seem, you only get one or two choices.
56:06
You can stay where you are and die.
56:08
Maybe not physically, hopefully not, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, or you can do the
56:12
better thing in March.
56:13
You can put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.
56:16
Where that came from for me was an actual event.
56:18
We were, it was April 1st, April Fool's Day, 2003.
56:23
We were making our way toward an objective that we were supposed to secure.
56:26
It was a bridge on top of a canal, and we were supposed to get there and just secure
56:30
the near side, so not go over the bridge, stay on the near side so other units could
56:35
follow through.
56:36
We were given the orders to do this in the middle of the day because there were presumably
56:39
no enemy soldiers there, right, and this is military intelligence.
56:44
It's never been very good.
56:46
I was the second vehicle back in our column.
56:48
It's about 1200 Marines in a battalion, so we're stretched out over a couple of miles.
56:53
I was navigating for that unit for the battalion.
56:56
I had a lead vehicle out of security, and then my vehicle I was navigating and was on
57:01
the radio to direct the battalion to that position.
57:04
As we came around the corner, we came into this straightaway where you could see the
57:08
berm on top of the berm was the bridge.
57:10
That was our objective.
57:11
The mortar rounds started to fall around us.
57:13
Clearly, there were enemy soldiers there.
57:15
The ground around us was soft enough that those explosions were happening underground,
57:20
so the shrapnel was contained, but you still have the percussion and the smoke and everything
57:23
goes along with that.
57:24
We got closer to the bridge.
57:26
There was a machine gun position.
57:27
It was a company-sized element we found out later.
57:29
Over 100 enemy soldiers in that position that were oriented toward us and started to engage
57:35
us, and the mortar rounds continued to fall.
57:38
We fought our way through that machine gun position.
57:40
I had to make the decision to push on top of the bridge and just to figure out where
57:45
the mortars were coming from.
57:46
We weren't supposed to be there, but we were pushed on top of the bridge, got bunched up
57:50
on top of the bridge.
57:51
There was also an anti-aircraft gun there, ZSU-23-4, which is an old Soviet-era 23mm anti-aircraft
58:00
gun.
58:01
It was there, elevated to prevent our aircraft.
58:04
We got on top.
58:05
We're the threat.
58:06
They start spending our direction.
58:07
We got the mortar rounds falling around us.
58:09
We're caught in that kill zone, what people call the X of the ambush, and at that moment
58:14
in time, and this is where it all comes together, at that moment in time, a decision has to
58:18
be made.
58:19
Are we going to stay where we are and die?
58:20
We just fought through two other obstacles.
58:22
We're in a very bad position.
58:24
We don't know what's coming next, or we're going to stay where we are and die, or we're
58:27
going to get out of that kill zone and figure out where we can better engage the enemy from.
58:32
We did.
58:33
That phrase came, actually, the French Foreign Legion used that many, many years ago.
58:37
That was their moniker, "Marcher die."
58:40
The first unit I was a part of in the Marine Corps, when I was a rifle platoon commander,
58:45
that was their motto, "Marcher die," which I love it because it's Marine proof, right?
58:47
You don't have a lot of choices.
58:49
You can march or you can die.
58:52
It's crazy what you think of when people are trying to kill you.
58:54
I've had this experience a few times, but on top of that bridge, it's like, "Yeah, we've
58:57
got to get out of here.
58:58
We need to march.
58:59
We've got to get out of here."
59:01
I have a whole resiliency talk wrapped up in that and the decision process that's made
59:05
from time to time, but you find yourself in these battles you didn't expect.
59:08
We didn't expect that that day.
59:10
You may not get to pick the fight, but you definitely get to decide how you're going
59:13
to fight.
59:14
We had to fight.
59:15
The decision to do that was made many months and even years before, as we trained for a
59:19
moment like this one, so you pre-decide how you're going to deal with those engagements
59:23
that will come.
59:24
You find yourself on that X and now you have to make a decision.
59:28
Am I going to stay here and die or am I going to move on?
59:30
Then you have to make that decision.
59:32
You only have two.
59:33
As overwhelming as it may seem, you only have two.
59:35
Put one foot in front of the other, keep moving forward.
59:38
When you do, you'll learn finally that perseverance is a superpower.
59:43
Just keep pushing forward, keep pushing forward, and you'll get to where God wants you to
59:47
be.
59:48
It didn't happen on purpose.
59:51
It just became part of my thought process and how I looked at the world and I started
59:56
writing about it and talking about it, but March or die.
59:58
That's it, man.
59:59
That's all you've got.
1:00:00
Stay where you are.
1:00:01
You're going to die, but you're making the decision.
1:00:03
No one takes that power away from you or you can March.
1:00:07
There's also in line with that, and I think I've heard you explain it this way before.
1:00:11
There are people that think that they can just stay where they're at and while they make
1:00:16
their decision, it's like, no, no, no, you are either moving forward or moving backward.
1:00:20
You are not hovering in place.
1:00:22
That's just not how this works.
1:00:25
You have to make some sort of a decision and the decision to stay does not lead to good
1:00:29
things and the decision to move could lead to much better things.
1:00:33
I appreciate the way that you explained that.
1:00:35
We're getting close to time here, but I did want to talk a little bit about this because
1:00:39
you've been in ministry before on the church side.
1:00:42
You've been in ministry on the pastoral side, on the nonprofit side.
1:00:46
I want to talk generically about men's ministry because when I started Undaunted Life, it's
1:00:50
like, hey, we are a men's ministry, but then even saying it that way, I'm like, I know
1:00:53
what people are hearing when I say that because typically men's ministry is just women's ministry
1:00:58
that's repackaged for men.
1:01:00
And so you go to the U version Bible app and you scroll the men's devotionals and it's
1:01:05
as if they were written by women for women and so they attract a more feminine type of
1:01:10
man or you can tell it's like people that are just trying too hard to seem tough and
1:01:14
to seem aggro and they're just not and it's just, that's not authentic and doesn't feel
1:01:18
right.
1:01:19
Yeah.
1:01:20
And I kept Jeremy over the years.
1:01:21
I kept having guys ask me like, you know, my church doesn't have a vibrant men's ministry.
1:01:24
What can I do?
1:01:25
And how can we have a better men's ministry and blah, blah.
1:01:26
And I would keep getting invited to speak at these events that they were calling men's
1:01:30
ministry and it was their once a year thing for men where they make chili or smokes a
1:01:38
meat and they bring in a guy like me to yell at their people and tell them that they suck
1:01:42
and then then it's just like, all right, we'll see you guys next year.
1:01:45
Yeah.
1:01:46
And so I stopped talking about men's ministry and I started focusing on what it takes to
1:01:50
be a man friendly church.
1:01:53
So it's very different, but it's like most of the time when men walk into a church, especially
1:01:58
men that are kind of, you know, rougher around the edges or like things like jujitsu and fighting
1:02:02
and combat and things like that, their minds will be a blinking neon sign outside the church
1:02:06
saying, this isn't for you.
1:02:08
Like this is for the women and the children, the ministry, the ministry opportunities, the
1:02:13
volunteer opportunities, the mission opportunities are going to ping way more feminine.
1:02:17
And if that's not you, it is what it is.
1:02:19
The music is going to be more so homo erotic, more so like emotionalism as opposed to like
1:02:24
singing to the God of the universe as if he's the God of the universe.
1:02:28
And the sermon content is going to be a little bit more Ted talky with a little bit of practical
1:02:32
Bible verses that you can sprinkle over the top.
1:02:34
So it's more life lessons and not, you know, exegesis of the scripture and all that.
1:02:38
And most men are like, ah, these people don't even need me.
1:02:41
I'll go somewhere where I'm needed.
1:02:43
And so I'm trying to encourage new men like, Hey, worship leaders, think about the men
1:02:49
in the audience, think about the men in the congregation, rather, and think about why they're
1:02:53
not singing.
1:02:54
Is it the way you're presenting yourself?
1:02:56
Is it the lyrical content and what's being sung?
1:02:58
Is it the key that you're singing in that the man can't hit for the pastor?
1:03:03
Is this content going to invigorate the heart of a man?
1:03:06
Because it's like it's not the mom that keeps the family in church.
1:03:09
It helps raise the children to be believers as well.
1:03:13
It's a dedicated father that is dedicated to discipleship and catacizing their entire
1:03:17
family and performing headship of their household.
1:03:21
So what is your experience and your opinion on that because you've seen this thing that
1:03:25
I'm talking about basically from all sides of the issue?
1:03:29
I have.
1:03:30
And you know, I've talked about this too.
1:03:32
You've even a lot of what you talk about has helped me think through some of this.
1:03:35
But it's interesting because I think we're told like something like 70% of churchgoers
1:03:40
or women, something like that.
1:03:41
I don't know if that's exactly right.
1:03:42
But it's a lot, right?
1:03:43
And if you look around your normal church on a Sunday morning, you'll, you go, Oh, I
1:03:47
didn't notice this, but, but that's true.
1:03:50
Even if you're in a church that doesn't, you know, necessarily per their faith statement
1:03:55
believe that women should be pastors, most of the leadership in the church would be women
1:03:59
as well.
1:04:00
Right?
1:04:01
And so, like, well, you can't stand and preach, but you can do everything else.
1:04:03
I'm not saying this right or wrong.
1:04:05
I'm just saying if you look at who's leading the church, who's attending the church, who's
1:04:08
guiding what happens to the church in a lot of churches.
1:04:11
And again, a lot of research would say in most churches, it's women.
1:04:15
So then there's almost like this over correction, right?
1:04:17
But then there are people who are like, I want to make a church for men.
1:04:21
And if women want to come along and they can, well, then you get into like this silly, like,
1:04:24
if you don't, you know, if you're not an MMA fighter, if you're not a hunter, or if you're
1:04:29
not this or that, if you don't like, you know, swords and carry three guns, then you don't
1:04:33
fit here because that's what a man is, right?
1:04:35
Like, well, that's not what a man is either.
1:04:38
And so my opinion and where I feel the most comfortable is funny.
1:04:42
I was preaching at a church a couple of months ago and it wasn't even on men's topics or
1:04:46
anything else.
1:04:47
And then I came up to me afterwards like, man, the way you preach is just so, I mean, you
1:04:50
pause like it's just so masculine talking about what's preaching the truth of the word
1:04:55
of God.
1:04:56
Robert Lewis is an author, he writes a lot to men and he said, you know, real men reject
1:05:01
passivity, accept responsibility and lead courageously.
1:05:06
And to me, that's what a man is.
1:05:07
It's not a style per se.
1:05:09
It's not a thing that you do.
1:05:11
Some people love you, Jitsu and others don't.
1:05:13
It's, it's doing hard things.
1:05:15
It's being responsible for the family that God has given to you.
1:05:18
It's leading that family.
1:05:20
It's leading in a society and a culture that is pushing you down and saying that you have
1:05:24
no place and you have no voice.
1:05:27
It's understanding what God's word says, which means you study it and you know what it says.
1:05:32
And then it's responding to what it says.
1:05:34
It's doing what God has called you to do.
1:05:37
It's doing those hard things.
1:05:38
And man, why it's so hard for churches to call men to do that, why we take a middle ground
1:05:46
and it's like, well, you know, men and women are basically the same and we're, we're basically,
1:05:52
I just don't understand that messaging because it's not biblical messaging.
1:05:56
And so I think where a pastor needs to be and where a church needs to be is asking the question,
1:06:00
what is the role of men?
1:06:01
What is the role of women biblically and how do we help the men and women in our church
1:06:04
express that if we would do that, then we would see men being men and stepping up.
1:06:11
And it is, it's crazy to me that that's not just the normal, even if you look at the New
1:06:17
Testament examples, right, you look at the church of the New Testament, it's strong men
1:06:20
being strong men.
1:06:21
I don't know if they ate raw meat or not, but I know they stared down some very powerful
1:06:26
people and did so with a strong backbone that there were a lot of people watching who after
1:06:32
the death of those martyrs who stood those people down went out and changed the world.
1:06:36
And we need to be those kind of men and we become so complacent and so comfortable and
1:06:41
a pastor needs to call men to to action and getting away from that.
1:06:46
Well, part of the problem, Jeremy, is we're taking our cues from culture.
1:06:49
And so much of the modern church has accepted its position and has downstream from culture.
1:06:54
And so if you're downstream from culture, you will be more egalitarian than complimentary
1:06:58
in because that's what the culture is, it's well, anything a man can do, a woman can do.
1:07:03
And the reality is, is if that is not a biblical ethic, that is a cultural ethic.
1:07:07
And so the biblical ethic is men and women are created equal in the sight of God and in
1:07:13
his image, but they don't have the same role and purpose.
1:07:16
And so, but that is anathema to culture.
1:07:18
Like you couldn't possibly say that you're telling me a woman can't be the CEO, you're
1:07:21
telling me the woman can't do this, you're telling me that you start getting into those
1:07:25
conversations.
1:07:26
And so that's where I think a lot of modern pastors have really screwed the pooch is because
1:07:30
what they do is that they they figure out what five week series they want to do.
1:07:36
They want to figure out what life lessons they want you to walk away with.
1:07:40
And then they start thinking about the scripture they want to apply to how to be a better person.
1:07:45
But it's like, guys, this isn't how to win friends and influence people.
1:07:48
Like this is the gospel being taking to every people group and to the ends of the earth,
1:07:53
so that, you know, Christ could gather his, his flock as it were.
1:07:58
And so that's the thing that I think for a lot of guys is the same to your point that
1:08:02
you made about the aggro guys where if you don't eat beef jerky, have a four-wheel drive
1:08:06
truck covered in mud and kill animals on the regular, that you're not a man either.
1:08:09
That's also being downstream from culture, because that is like caricature machismo and
1:08:15
all that.
1:08:16
And some of those things in and of themselves are not wrong.
1:08:18
But as my pastor, buddy, Joby Martin would say, those things make you awesome.
1:08:21
They don't make you a man.
1:08:23
And so I think that that's, that's very applicable here.
1:08:25
And so man, we've, we've done it out of a lot of different conversations here and talked
1:08:29
about a lot of different things, but I can't think of anything else to ask you actually.
1:08:32
I have a lot more things I could ask you, but we don't have all the time in the day.
1:08:35
But that is all for me.
1:08:36
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:08:37
No, man.
1:08:38
I appreciate it.
1:08:39
Thanks for the work that you do and for being a clear voice for a lot of men who need
1:08:43
it.
1:08:44
All right, Jeremy.
1:08:45
Appreciate you.
1:08:46
We'll see you next time.
1:08:47
There you go guys.
1:08:48
I hope you enjoyed my time with Jeremy, but before we let you go, we are going to do a quick
1:08:50
resilience boost.
1:08:51
At Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
1:08:54
forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:08:56
Two links I've got for you today.
1:08:57
A link to Jeremy's website.
1:08:58
So you can check out his podcasts, his books, all of his speaking opportunities there.
1:09:02
And also a link to the Mighty Oaks website.
1:09:04
Thank you for listening to this podcast.
1:09:05
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
1:09:08
star review.
1:09:09
If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, shoot me an email to info
1:09:13
at undonton.life.
1:09:15
That's I N F O at undonton.life.
1:09:17
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
1:09:20
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:09:23
Just go to www.undonton.life and as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
1:09:28
us to use their music for our content.
1:09:30
The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album
1:09:34
on Face Down Records.
1:09:35
The links are in the description.
1:09:37
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:09:39
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:09:46
You're seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:10:16
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