PATRICK MONTGOMERY | From War to Cattle (Ep. 369)

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0:37 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

0:51 Let's get into it. Our guys today, we got a special guest on the podcast. His name is

0:54 Patrick Montgomery. He's a former member of the first Ranger Battalion and that's the first of

0:59 three Ranger battalions belonging to the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment. He's also the founder and

1:04 owner of Casey cattle company. You guys have heard me talk about Casey cattle company a lot

1:08 on the show. This group, he bought their first two cows back in 2016 and they've grown it all

1:14 the way to what it is today. In this interview, we spend quite a bit of time talking about

1:18 Patrick's military career, talking about what it was like, why he decided to go into the military,

1:23 why did he choose the Rangers? Specifically why Rangers don't really get a lot of play and a lot

1:28 of people kind of talking about them and kind of why they're more so the quiet professionals

1:32 when his brother-in-law died while on deployment and how he was able to honor his brother-in-law

1:38 and his family by accompanying the body back to the United States and back to their hometown

1:44 and everything like that. We get into all the stuff and we also get into the wokeness in the

1:48 military and the pullout from Afghanistan and what that's done to veterans. Then we got into

1:53 talking about Casey cattle company like that's not normally a direct path for most people,

1:57 most people going from the military to becoming a cattle rancher and those types of things.

2:01 So how did all that happen? When did they blow up and go viral as a company and I'm going to give

2:05 you a hint? It was because of their wagyu hotdogs. Guys, that's a good time for me to mention that.

2:09 We talked about them on the show so many times. We're so thankful for this company but specifically

2:13 we're thankful for them because they are the only meat delivery service in the United States.

2:18 The subscription based service that is US military veteran owned, US military veteran operated

2:24 and all of their beef, chicken and pork products are made here in the United States of America.

2:27 That's Casey cattle company. We really like these guys. We love what they're doing. They

2:30 specialize in wagyu beef. So we're going to talk a lot about wagyu beef in this episode and I'm

2:34 not going to tell you about wagyu beef because I'm going to let Patrick do it in the latter part of

2:37 the episode but they sell everything from wagyu steaks to roast, pasture raised chicken, pasture

2:41 raised Berkshire pork, wagyu bacon, cheeseburger, bratwurst, the bratwurst are unbelievable.

2:46 And again, the world famous wagyu hot dogs that guys that just doesn't make sense that you get

2:50 to eat something that looks like a hot dog but tastes like a steak. And so they wanted to make

2:53 sure that you guys could try out their products and guys definitely go and do this. You've got

2:57 to try out their products. So go to kcattlecompany.com that will be in the show notes kcattlecompany.com

3:03 use the promo code Kyle to get 15% off your order. Again, that promo code is just my first name Kyle.

3:08 That's kyle to get 15% off your order at kcattlecompany.com. All right, guys, this is a great interview. I

3:14 really enjoyed my time with Patrick. I'm not going to keep him from you any longer. So without further

3:18 ado, let's get into it. Patrick Montgomery, welcome to a daunted life of man's podcast.

3:23 Thank you for having me on, Kyle. It's going to be a fun one today because you've got kind of

3:27 unique setup and we'll get to all of that kind of stuff because we got a lot of good stuff we're

3:30 going to get to. But I guess in terms of introduction, we got to start as broad as possible. So where

3:35 did you grow up? What was your childhood like? Give us a sense of what it was like growing up

3:39 Patrick Montgomery? Yeah, so where I'm sitting right now is about 45 minutes northwest at Kansas

3:45 City. And I was raised about 30 minutes out here. So, you know, lived in the same house from three

3:51 years old on went to school around here. Yeah, so Parkville, Missouri is my home. And you know,

3:58 we're kind of coming back to our roots, the prodigal son, if you will. Yeah, so I mean,

4:03 so you have kind of that typical Midwestern upbringing, you know, with the family and all those types of

4:08 things. But as I understand it, and you know, just forgive me, we get into heavy stuff early as much

4:12 as we can. But my my understanding is that you kind of had a rough spot in your early 20s. And it had

4:19 a lot to do with some of your your decision making and some some things that you did some kind of

4:23 knucklehead thing. So tell me a little bit about all that because I think that leads into the next

4:28 stage of your life, which we'll get into in a second. But what the heck were you doing in your

4:32 early 20s? What was wrong with you? It's probably even before that, Kyle. I'd say probably about 12

4:36 or 13, right? I definitely knucklehead, man. So, you know, the second that testosterone came on at

4:43 puberty there, you know, I didn't have a whole lot of guidance growing up. You know, as the last kid

4:48 of four and there was a pretty substantial age gap between me and my next sibling. And I think my

4:53 parents were worn out and I was their first boy. So that's that's challenging in itself, right? So

4:58 I put them through the wringer, a lot of, you know, fighting and sports and, you know, underage

5:03 drinking and the whole nine yards. And, you know, I got good grades. I got along with my

5:08 teachers. I never got in trouble in school. There's always outside of school that I got in trouble.

5:12 I was always playing courteous to people, but I was definitely a bit of a rebel.

5:17 And so the next stage of your life that I know about, because I tried to find to try to, you know,

5:24 hire a private investigator to figure out all the stuff about you and all that. But I couldn't

5:26 figure out everything about your life and put all the pieces together. But you eventually were

5:30 drawn to the military. And so we'll get into, you know, what branches you went into and all that

5:35 kind of stuff. So was that kind of your way out of some of those bad decisions was going to the

5:40 military? I guess just generically, what drew you to the military? It was kind of always my plan,

5:44 Kyle. And, you know, from about five years old on, you know, watched a Rambo and, you know, the

5:51 Rocky movies and Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and all these different action

5:56 movies. And, you know, it kind of spoke to me as a young kid that was looking for a path. And so

6:02 I was ahead of the intentions to go in the military. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do. In high

6:07 school, I thought I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. And then I had a brother-in-law who was an Army

6:13 Ranger and first battalion. He was married to my sister, who was about five years older than I was.

6:18 So when I was starting high school, he was just getting to battalion. And he kind of steered me

6:23 away from that Navy SEAL path and pushed me towards becoming an Army Ranger. And the route I was

6:29 going was actually to do the officer side. So I got a scholarship to Northwest Missouri State

6:36 University. So as a full ride, you know, in four years of college, and you get commissioned as a

6:43 second lieutenant when you get done. So real quick on that, I want to go back to the '80s movie thing

6:49 that you just talked about. And then we'll get back into the Army stuff. Because my buddy Eddie

6:53 Penny, who was, he's a retired Navy SEAL, he posted this on his Instagram, like this week.

6:57 And it was '80s superheroes. And it had like Rocky and Rambo. And it had, you know,

7:04 Arnold Schwarzenegger and, you know, the bad guy from Rocky IV. And then it had the superheroes

7:10 from 2019. And it's all the actors from the Avengers. And they're all like kind of smaller

7:15 guys with these non-defined, you know, non-muscular bodies and, you know, in their nice suits and

7:20 all that. Whereas, you know, the '80s guys, it was all the barrel-chested, like ripped out,

7:24 you know, big-time dudes, I guess. Because for me, I was born in '86. So I kind of missed

7:30 all those '80s action hero movies, because I wasn't quite old enough to watch them. And

7:34 going back now, they're kind of corny, to be honest, but they would have been awesome

7:37 if I was watching them at the time. So I guess, like, is that kind of funny for you, seeing like

7:41 how manliness quote unquote is described today, when that's kind of the heroes you grew up with?

7:46 You know, I think I like both. I like the new Marvel movies. It's different, right? Like our

7:52 cultures become a lot more sensitive to violence. And as they should be, right, violence is not

7:58 something you want people doing. But at the same time, it's just inherent in human nature.

8:01 And so, you know, we're built the way we are. And there are certain things that speak to us.

8:08 And I think we've kind of created this culture as a country, in a world where it's like, we try

8:12 to shy away from the way we're built. And it's like, man, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense

8:16 to fight biology, right? So, you know, the '80s movies definitely speak more to me than modern

8:24 culture. Yeah, it certainly would have been easier to sit your kid down in front of Rambo,

8:29 realizing that they were not going to get a bazooka and like take out, you know, some, you know,

8:35 sniper nest in Vietnam or something like that. I'm like, it was probably going to be okay

8:39 for your kid to watch that. So do you, I guess, when you look at your military career, again,

8:44 you kind of went that route and you went to the Rangers and we'll talk about the Rangers here in

8:46 a second. But do you regret going that route? Like, do you wish, does part of you wish that,

8:52 hey, you know, maybe I should have tried to be, you know, SF, or maybe I should have tried to go

8:56 to the seal ride or all that. And I'm not rank ordering them. The public loves to rank order

9:00 them, especially on the civvy side of things. But do you look back and say, like, you know,

9:04 I wonder if I could have done something else or kind of gone a different route.

9:07 Well, and I, so what I was about to say is I ended up dropping out my freshman year college

9:11 and I enlisted, right? So, you know, the outside is great for some people, but, you know, I wanted

9:18 to be the guy kicking indoors. And the second I figured out, like, hey, I'm leading a platoon,

9:22 which is, is awesome, right? But you're also doing it as a 22 year old kid that has no idea

9:27 what the hell is going on in the world and especially on the battlefield.

9:32 And so it just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And so I was like, you know,

9:35 I can do this whenever I'm a sharp guy. I can go to college if when I'm in or,

9:38 you know, further down the road, but right now there's a war to fight. So I dropped out and this

9:43 would have been in 2010 and I enlisted. And so I got to first range of Italian in 2011.

9:51 Your question, I think what people don't realize about special operations is that they all have

9:57 different mission sets. And so you kind of do your research and you figure out, hey,

10:01 which one speaks to most of me. And, you know, obviously I had the insider knowledge of speaking

10:06 to Jeremy. And of course he was pretty persuasive towards the range route. But, you know, the way

10:12 he used to put it is like, we're not finesse, right? We're not going on hostage rescue missions.

10:17 We're not, we're not, we're not SF. We're not going in and we're not helping a native army,

10:22 kind of build and train. He's like, we're hammer, right? And when there's bad dudes that need to be

10:27 killed, that's what we're doing. And he was he was spot on. I mean, I forget what the statistic is and

10:34 for range of Italian during the GWOT. But I mean, it is crazy the amount that the three

10:42 rifle battalions in range regiment held for joint special operations command for as far as missions.

10:48 It's it's absurd. Yeah, it's certainly substantial. And so I want to get into something that doesn't

10:56 always make sense to a lot of people. So there are people that get into the military because they

11:00 want the accolades. They want people to respect them. They want free college or whatever the

11:05 situation is, but they don't want to go to war. Like you were, I mean, that's when a lot of the

11:10 fighting was getting really, really hot at different points. And I'm not sure where you were deployed

11:15 at. But like you knew exactly where you were going. The moment you said, no, I'm dropping out,

11:20 I'm just going to go ahead and list, I'm going to go now. Explain that to people because that

11:24 debate based on your wiring and based on your personality and even your upbringing,

11:28 that doesn't make a lot of sense of people because it's like, man, aren't you afraid? Like you could

11:32 you could not come home. You could come home maimed. So take us through that. Yeah. So, you know,

11:36 I said I was an uncle at growing up, but I was still incredibly patriotic. Like, I love this country

11:41 and that is somewhere where my parents thrived and teaching me like, Hey, you know, you're extremely

11:46 blessed to live in this country. And so, you know, sixth grade is how old I was when the two

11:52 towers came down, right? So I remember seeing that, watching that whole thing go down. And I

11:57 remember coming home and my dad told me, you know, Hey, this is the Pearl Harbor of your generation,

12:01 like you're watching your kin die from a foreign attack. I just remember being so incredibly angry,

12:07 right? That somebody would go and strike a bunch of innocent people that had nothing to do with

12:12 the crazy things that our government does in the Middle East, you know, that led to that attack.

12:17 And I made a promise that day to God that, Hey, if I'm of the fighting age in this war still going on,

12:24 I'm gonna go do my part. And you know, I kind of took a weird path to get there, you know, 20 years

12:29 old that took me a couple years of chasing girls and and and to buy a tree to figure out, Hey,

12:34 that life's not for me. So so there's an interesting thing about 9/11. So we're recording this interview

12:41 a few weeks before it comes out. But this we just, I guess you could say celebrated. We didn't

12:45 celebrate, but we commemorated the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. And every year, Patrick,

12:51 I try to make sure that I watch the documentaries, the ones that are on Nat Geo and Discovery and

12:56 all those different things, to just remind me of what that felt like, because I was in, I was in

13:01 10th grade, I was sitting in, you know, pre AP or AP English class or something like that. And Alex

13:06 Thompson, I'll never forget it, the kid that sat in front of me in class, because he was Thompson

13:09 and I was Thompson. So we were in alphabetical order in the back of the class. And he came in and he

13:13 said, Hey, they just bombed the Pentagon. And I'm like, no, they didn't. He's like, no, no, seriously,

13:18 like America's under attack. And I made him walk up with me to the teacher, because at the time they

13:24 didn't have the televisions in the classroom, they had to wheel them in, right? And I went up to the

13:29 teacher and I was like, Hey, he just said that America's under attack. Are we under attack? And

13:33 my teacher got really calm. And she said, there's something happening right now in New York and in

13:37 Washington, DC, and just stay calm. Because this is like, you know, 11 in the morning or something

13:43 like that. And she's like, we're just gonna stay calm. We're just gonna get through the rest of

13:46 class, blah, blah, blah. But my mom worked at Fort Sill at the time. And so civil service. And so

13:52 everybody's freaking out. I remember being picked up from school in the lines to get gas. We're all

13:56 the way in into the street and all that like people were literally freaking out because we're like,

14:00 okay, if they're attacking DC, at the time that was the largest artillery base in the United States,

14:04 like are they gonna attack Fort Sill? And I remember those emotions and that anxiety. And I remember my

14:10 mom talking about moving us to Canada, just in case there was a draft because she didn't want her

14:14 boy to get drafted like, I remember all those arguments. But the I guess for for me, Patrick is

14:19 in this happen with Pearl Harbor, because I don't feel Pearl Harbor, like I feel 9/11.

14:25 Like kids today that are joining the military weren't alive when 9/11 happened. Like we're not

14:30 commemorating it in the same way. Again, we're so divided as a country. But I lament that

14:34 because like the great thing, if you can say that that came out of all that was the coalescing of

14:39 patriotism here in the United States. But man, like it's going to take a lot for for us to teach

14:45 our children. I got a two year old in the six month old to teach them, no, this is what happened.

14:49 And this is what a lot of brave young men and women decide to do immediately after they decide

14:53 to go and fight. I mean, talk to me a little bit about that because it seems like every year 9/11

14:57 is just that it's just a disememory. It's just this thing that happened. And you know, it's just who

15:01 cares. Yeah, so it last year, I did a news interview. It was right as Afghanistan was falling there. So

15:08 they did a 20 year, you know, commemoration. And then also we're talking about the fall of Afghanistan

15:14 and they had me on for that interview. And I just don't think people realize for our generation of

15:20 veterans and people that were even alive. I mean, you don't forget what exactly you were doing. I

15:25 was in home at class, right? And I remember looking over my home ex teachers computer because I was

15:30 asking her question. And you know, I saw a tear rolling down her face and I was like, Oh my gosh,

15:35 are you okay? And I remember looking at her screen and I saw the two towers. And that was kind of

15:40 how I found out about the whole thing. But I just remember, you know, and everybody that was in

15:45 Ranger Edgyman with me, right? Because you get the guys that joined for college and you get the

15:48 guys that joined for other reason. But they don't typically go to the special operations unless they

15:53 just had no idea about that. And they're they're weird like I am and and love the torture of what

15:58 that lifestyle entails. But every single one of them was there because 9/11, right? And there

16:04 wasn't seeing one of us that, you know, when we deployed that rack or Afghanistan or the many

16:09 other countries that we're deploying to now, it's like, we weren't asking ourselves about the

16:13 politics or anything else. And it was just like, Hey, we're here so that these bad guys are trying

16:18 to kill us instead of planning another 9/11. Okay, so you brought up a lot of stuff that I

16:23 want to get into. But I've been skipping my own question here that I really want to ask you just

16:27 because I was interested in other stuff. So you're making me go down all these rabbit trails. What's

16:30 your problem? But I'm sure there are a lot of misconceptions about the army and specifically

16:35 about the army Rangers. So could you, I guess, talk about what some people have as far as

16:40 misconceptions about that whole community? Well, I think one of the few movies that's ever came

16:45 out about us was Black Hawk down right? And that was that was pretty early on in modern Ranger

16:51 history, right? Rangers have been around since the French and Indian Wars. That's actually the

16:57 tenants that we still follow are from that I have my Ranger in book right here. And the

17:01 tenants are awesome if you get a chance to look through them. But you know, going forward to modern

17:06 Ranger history, the modern three battalions, the three rifle battalions were formed in the 1970s,

17:11 right? So post Vietnam, they had all these reconnaissance rangers that they were going out and doing

17:17 awesome stuff in Laos and Cambodia. And they formed and it's been too long since I read my

17:23 Ranger history, but they formed one battalion and turned into three. But basically our job is

17:29 to be deployable anywhere in the world within 18 hours. So there's always a battalion of Rangers

17:34 that are on standby. And so, you know, Somalia, things like that, that was kind of one of our

17:41 initial conflicts, Grenada, Panama, those were a couple that led up to Somalia there. But that

17:47 movie came out and I think that just stuck with people and I'll give it to Navy SEALs, man, like

17:51 they have the best PR in the world, right? And for us, it's batted in our heads from day one that

17:58 you are a quiet professional, right? So there's not a lot of guys getting out there and talking

18:03 about what they did overseas, they're writing books and doing these things. I think it probably

18:08 needs to change just in this informational world that we're in, or else Regiments can die because

18:13 nobody knows what they do. You know, I was fortunate enough I had a group of Rangers come up from my

18:18 brother-in-law's triathlon a couple weeks ago. And we had them out to our retail store and

18:23 cooked up some beef for them. And I'm talking to these two guys, right? They're e6s, which,

18:26 you know, I got out when I was 23, right? And these guys are 26. But I just remember

18:31 a staff sergeant seems so old to me and now they're kids, right? And, you know, they've been in since

18:38 2018 and they've already done six deployments. And they're going to countries that this country

18:44 doesn't even know we're in, and they're doing more work than any other special operations group.

18:48 So I can be more proud of where they're going. I do think some things need to change as far as

18:54 the informational campaign they run. Because I get the question you just asked right there a lot.

19:00 What is a Ranger? Well, the funny thing about that is, so I'm going to go and reveal to you the

19:05 reason why I wanted to even have you on the show. It's not about the stuff we're going to talk about

19:08 later, which is going to be as delicious as you might imagine. It is the fact that I get crap for

19:13 having so many Navy SEALs on my show. And they're like, why are you only have SEALs on? Like, what

19:17 are you doing? I was like, guys, if SF dudes and Rangers and Delta, if they would write more books

19:23 and have more movies, I'd have them on. I don't know these guys exist. And so I know that that's

19:27 always kind of like a thing within the, you know, spec ops community. There's all these different

19:31 groups and they kind of have their, they're different things. But before that back in the 80s,

19:35 it was all about the green brace, right? And so people like, you have green braids now, they're

19:38 like, Oh, I would, I would never write a book. It's like, you wouldn't. It's like, you know, we

19:42 don't have to go back that far to see all the different hollywood depictions of these green

19:46 braids and, you know, all the different fairy tales and stuff about them. So for you, you didn't

19:51 spend a whole long career, you didn't do 20 years as a range or anything like that. But you did deploy,

19:56 correct? Yeah, deploy twice. And I had a, I had a, you're spot on it was a really busy time, right?

20:02 So we were winding down in Iraq, um, in 2010 there, I think that was the last time that, um,

20:08 first battalion deployed to Iraq. Um, and so we're picking back up because that's when Obama was

20:13 surging all those troops back to Afghanistan, right? So we're trying to win back all that

20:17 territory that we lost while we were focused on Iraq. Um, and so I deployed in 2011, um, and

20:23 it was really, really busy, uh, for, for the battalion at wide, um, and for the whole regiment

20:29 and the special operations community. I mean, we were going out every single night and hitting

20:33 targets and kicking indoors. Um, and you know, I was brand new 21, uh, on that first deployment.

20:38 And you know, I, I had some unfortunate stuff. So, uh, about a month into that, uh, Jeremy,

20:44 my brother-in-law, you got killed, um, and Pateka, right? So, um, I was down in Kandar. He was about

20:51 four hours north of where I was at. Um, and he, you know, he got killed doing what he loved,

20:55 leading a squad arranger. So on his eight deployment. So.

21:00 So, uh, one thing that I actually saw from, from y'all's website, um, which we'll, of course,

21:05 get into here in a bit, um, you were again deployed when, you know, Jeremy passed away. So at the age

21:10 of 26, uh, you know, your brother-in-law passed away. So killed an action on June the 14th of 2011.

21:16 But, um, you actually had the honor of bringing him home, uh, to, to his wife and son, to your

21:23 sister, uh, and your nephew. And so I guess take me a little bit through that because even people

21:28 that are deployed, even people that are deployed with family, even people that are not deployed,

21:31 that have family that are killed while on deployment or something like that, that's not always a

21:35 situation that works out to where you can actually do something like that, where you were actually,

21:40 I mean, tell me how it worked. Were you given leave in order to go do that? Like, how did all that work?

21:45 Yeah. So, and it's funny looking back with this with some, uh, a little bit more wisdom. You know,

21:50 we just passed his 11th anniversary. Um, so I'd just come back from, from a mission that my platoon

21:58 was on. Uh, and so, you know, we were always working at night. So I was getting back at probably about

22:03 three or four AM local time. Um, and I was a brand new private and being a, being a private and

22:09 regiment is, uh, interesting, right? Think about like hazing and, and, uh, paternity times about 12,

22:16 right? Um, there's way less rules. Um, so I just come back and I was doing my duties. You know,

22:23 I was prepping all our gear to, in case we went out again that night or we went out the next day,

22:27 we're, we're ready to go. And, uh, I had my squad leader, my first sergeant, my CO walk in the ready

22:32 room and asked to speak to me, which is never a good thing. He's, uh, as a brand new private. And

22:36 so I'm kind of like, oh [inaudible], you know, um, and so I walk out the door and, uh, you know, officers are

22:44 what they are. And my CEO is kind of beating around the bush. You know, do you have a brother

22:48 in law and BECO? And then the second he said that, you know, my heart just dropped. And, uh, you know,

22:54 he's beating around the bush was, which was really starting to [inaudible] me off. And, and luckily, you know,

22:58 my first sergeant, who's one of the best NCOs I ever had the pleasure of working for, um, you know,

23:02 it's like, Hey, man, I, I don't want, I don't want to lead you on any, uh, Jeremy got into

23:06 bad firefight. And, uh, he's dead. Um, he's on his way back to Bagram right now. And, uh, I, you

23:14 know, it's crazy. You like, have all these, uh, you know, aberrations of like, what, what would you

23:20 do if something like that happens? Your worst nightmare comes to reality. And, you know,

23:25 I just want completely numb, man. I didn't hear what he said after that. Uh, you know, I kind of,

23:30 the first thing that popped into my mind was because I had just talked to my sister that night

23:34 before, um, and she was back home in Kansas City seeing my family here. Um, and so the first thing

23:40 that popped into my mind was like, Oh man, they're gonna, they're going to screw up the

23:44 notification process because she's not at home. And the way that notification process works is

23:49 archaic. Um, and it's something the military really needs to improve because I screwed up a lot. Um,

23:55 so, you know, I tell my command like, Hey, my sister's not at home. She's with my parents in

23:59 Kansas City. Like let me help with this so that, you know, we can make sure she gets notified quick.

24:04 Um, they didn't, you know, and I totally respect that. I'm a brand new Ranger Ranger. They don't

24:09 know me well enough. But, um, yeah. So we, I went in, I watched the rest of the mission unfold on

24:16 ISR. Um, and it was, it was a brutal, brutal firefight. Um, you know, they ended up calling in QRF.

24:22 So it was one platoon of rangers. Uh, Jeremy was the number one man leading in squad as the

24:27 assault element to go kick in some doors. Uh, there was a dude with an RPK on the roof,

24:31 first burst out of it. I mean, first round of that burst just hit him right above the

24:35 side sapper and, you know, just went right through his heart. So, um, he was down first guy. Um, and

24:41 then all hell broke loose. Uh, there was a surrounding building series on the target and the whole

24:47 thing came alive. Uh, there, there was a lot of bad guys. Um, so they ended up calling in two

24:51 platoons of rangers and they ended up calling in, um, another truth from, from Delta and, uh,

24:58 it was crazy. So they got after it that night. So we watched all that unfold. Um, and then

25:04 next morning about six a.m. I jumped on a sess now and we flew up to Bagram. Um,

25:10 and I met up with his body there. So they do like a ramp side ceremony. Um, you know, which is,

25:16 is a really cool experience looking back on it. Um, not, not something that most

25:20 people get to see or want to see, but it is really cool. Just, um, seeing the respect that,

25:26 you know, other countries paid to, to the fallen. Um, you know, the, the military,

25:31 a whole, uh, all of our allies, that was a really cool experience. So, you know,

25:35 I loaded up on a plane with them as me and one other guy. Uh, we, we flew to, to Germany and then

25:41 back home to, um, to, uh, Andrews Air Force base. So. So, uh, you can tell me to screw off if you

25:50 don't want to answer this question and it won't offend me one bit, but, uh, obviously I'm just,

25:54 you know, thinking about my audience and what they would want to know. Most people haven't

25:57 been in a situation like that. Um, you know, just earlier this summer, I went to a, uh,

26:02 police funeral for the second time. Uh, this time it was a family member that was killed while on

26:07 duty and getting to see all that behind the scenes and walking in the most quiet, you know,

26:14 procession ever with the guy leading out with the bagpipes and being lined with literally hundreds

26:19 of officers from all, all over the state, all standing at attention. Like it was something else.

26:24 And when you hear people describe what's happening on those, uh, you know, ceremonies on the tarmac

26:28 or something like that, it's similar to that. But can you take, take me through what it was like

26:33 coming home and cause of course you weren't coming home to break the news. You were just

26:37 basically accompanying the body, but you get there and you're dealing with the, the most raw,

26:43 emotions possible with people that I'm assuming you love dearly, you know, obviously your sister

26:49 and your nephew, um, but also your, your greater family. And here you are. You're still in the

26:55 military, but you're alive and, you know, they're survivors killed. There's so much in there. So

27:01 I was just seeing if you wouldn't mind, you know, taking us through what that whole thing was like.

27:04 Yeah, there's a, there's a couple, uh, big moments from that trip that, I mean, to the day I die will

27:10 stand out to me. Um, you know, the first one is, is talking to my parents the first time.

27:16 I couldn't bring myself to call my sister. I mean, I was, I was a wreck and, you know, I need to,

27:20 in my mind, I was like, I need to be strong for her because she just lost her husband. He might have

27:24 been, you know, one of my best friends, but it was her husband. Um, and so I couldn't bring myself

27:29 to call her, but I called my parents when I got to Bagram after we did the rampside ceremony. And

27:34 we had, you know, I think it was roughly 12 hours or something like that before we took off for Germany.

27:39 And, uh, that's when I figured out the notification process gets so screwed up. So they wouldn't let

27:45 me call home because nobody had been notified yet. So that's kind of way it all works. And they

27:49 wouldn't let me help, even though it's my family and I know where everybody lives and everything else.

27:53 Um, and, uh, finally talked to my folks and, you know, they'd ended up sending a notification

27:59 team to my parents' house. Well, I'm deployed to, right. Um, and so, you know, my sister had just

28:05 left. She'd, she'd already gotten on the airport. And so, you know, a, a chaplain and a, a dude in

28:10 uniform show up in my parents' house. And, you know, that this is their first appointment with me.

28:15 And so naturally, they think I'm gone. Right. So it's like, you know, I remember like talking to

28:21 them and they just broke down. And of course it's like, you know, almost like coming back from the

28:27 grave, right? Like they're just so thankful, um, which [inaudible] me off because in my mind, I'm like,

28:33 you know, I would have taken that bull and not her beat over Jeremy, but, um,

28:39 that stands out. And then they ended up notifying her in the Savannah airport, uh, right as she got

28:44 off the plane, which I think was pretty screwed up to. Um, but I remember, uh, one of Jeremy's best

28:52 friends from a, from a sister platoon, they'd, they've been raised up and, and regiment together.

28:57 And, you know, the second I got off that sess nut, you know, he, he gave me a hug and, you know,

29:01 he's, uh, really tough. So being, you know, he's doing bigger and better things now, uh, in the

29:06 military, but, you know, he handed me Jeremy's wedding ring and, you know, it's in his eight

29:10 block bag. And, um, you know, it's still got blood on it, right? And I, you know, I'm 21. And, um,

29:16 yeah, it just, it wrecked me, man. I think it, it didn't really hit me until he handed me that.

29:20 And it was like, [inaudible], um, this is real. Um, that one stands out. I think one of the cool,

29:27 I have a couple of really awesome experiences too, right? I'm talking about the negative right now,

29:31 but, um, I was flying home with the E7, uh, also a really good friend of Jeremy's. Uh, he said,

29:37 he's having his first baby, which kind of looking back at it now with that dichotomy,

29:40 like death and life, right? Like, you know, he's, I'm going home to very best friend. He's going

29:45 on to have his first kid. I almost think that's kind of cool. Um, the way that all played out. Um,

29:50 but I remember we get on the, the plane and it's just me, him, uh, the casket and then, uh,

29:57 a reporter sitting on the opposite side of the plane and I watch this reporter pull out a cell

30:03 phone and, and take a picture of the casket and, oh man, I was, I was [inaudible], right? And so, you know,

30:09 I, I lean over to him and I tell him and he's, he's about five, seven. This guy is, he's a little

30:13 dude, but, um, he's got one of those faces just, just to let you know, like, Hey man, um, you know,

30:18 you know, mess with me. And so I, I told him and he stands up and he walks over this reporter and

30:23 he just leans over and whispers something and the student's ear and the guy just all the blood

30:27 drains from his face, right? And you seem kind of fumble with his phone, pick it out and start

30:32 deleting this pictures that he, that he took. But, um, yeah, the amount of people that came out of

30:39 the woodwork when we buried Jeremy would, I mean, just like you were talking about with you,

30:44 with your, um, police officer family member. Um, you know, we, we think we don't have our stuff

30:48 together as a country, but when something like that happens, we're still very capable of coming

30:53 together and realizing like, Hey, these guys shouldn't be held responsible for the stupid

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31:28 free job today at linkedin.com slash quality. Well, let's talk a little bit about stupid

31:33 decisions of our politicians because with that, and by the way, thank you so much for sharing all

31:38 that because that's, that's family and that stuff like that. And again, I'm getting to see that

31:43 in a different way with, with the death of a police officer and kind of what the community's

31:47 doing to come around the family. But there's always the realization that at some point,

31:53 that the meal trains have ended, the prayer vigils are gone. They've cleaned up all the flowers

31:59 and all those things. And it's just the family there. And so that's what I tell people all the

32:03 time is when someone is lost tragically, like when they lose their spouse or a kid or something

32:07 like that, it's like the ministry to that family probably starts like six months after maybe a

32:13 year after, like whenever it's not in the news anymore and whether people aren't, you know,

32:17 trying to see what they could do at their gym or at their restaurant or at their business to support.

32:22 It comes way, way after that. And I know you would cosign that. But you obviously mentioned

32:27 earlier in this podcast, the pull out from Afghanistan was a little over a year ago.

32:32 And that caused so many issues within the country of Afghanistan, obviously, with the entire country

32:39 under the rule of the terrorist organization, the Taliban now, the famine that's occurring in

32:44 that country, the women that are under horrific control in that country going back to Sharia law,

32:49 there's all the unbelievable other vacuums of power that were created that other countries

32:54 and other negative forces are going to be entering into because we decided to abdicate,

32:59 we decided to only do part of the process and not the full process. And you could be as anti-war

33:03 as possible. But when you're at war, at some point, you've got to finish it. And also you have to

33:08 understand that we have troops all over the world that aren't at war, they're just on call, if you

33:14 will. And we were basically in a similar situation in Afghanistan, a year and a half since the last

33:20 KIA in that country. And yet the Biden administration thought in their infinite wisdom that it would

33:26 be a great thing to pull out from there. And that caused all the issues I just talked about in the

33:29 country, but it also caused this consternation for veterans and for gold star families and for

33:35 people that lost people in Afghanistan and lost people in the global war on terror and and all

33:41 those different things. And so for you, I don't think you said that you deployed Afghanistan that

33:45 you were in Iraq. But did you have those similar feelings that a lot of those veterans had because

33:51 again, as a civilian, I'm furious because of the the people that are being violated in the country

33:57 of Afghanistan, because of how bad we looked, how weak we looked, and what that caused with,

34:02 you know, probably the Russians saying, Oh, well, I guess this administration is not going to do

34:05 anything. I guess we'll go ahead and invade Ukraine. Maybe next, it's going to be China invading Taiwan

34:10 and all that and all became because we're seen as weak. We're seen as paper tigers as Americans on

34:15 the world state. So I know I just threw a lot out there at you, but talk to me a little bit about

34:19 everything, you know, tied to the pullout from Afghanistan. Yeah, so both of my deployments were

34:24 to Afghanistan. I'm sorry. You're good. I was just in a different region from Jeremy when he got

34:29 killed there. And so it was it was incredibly tough. And a lot of things you just touched on

34:35 right there, you know, speak to my heart. And you know, this last year, I've watched a lot of

34:40 veterans that, you know, buried friends and lost limbs and carry trauma from from what they did

34:47 over there. Spiral because just what we I mean, it's the same thing we didn't Vietnam, right? And

34:52 the same thing that happened at that generation of veterans, except, you know, their country hated

34:57 them at that point. So they added even worse than we do now. But I think what drives me nuts in war

35:03 is it should be the military that makes these decisions not politicians or the state department

35:11 or anybody else, right? Like anybody as a as a e five in the military, I could have looked at

35:16 this from 30,000 feet and been like, this is gonna be a total disaster, right? We're pulling out a

35:22 Bagram, a place that we controlled and had the high ground and had barriers and and defenses set

35:27 up where we could control the situation we pulled out. And we decided to go to a downtown airport

35:33 that's surrounded by a populace that hates us. And then on top of that, we send in a group of Marines,

35:39 that's not their bread and butter, right? Like, you know, I think it was Marcus LaTrell said on

35:44 Fox News, right? As this was all playing out, like somebody needs to go to the Pentagon and open that

35:50 drawer that says break in case of emergency for securing an airfield. And you're gonna find the

35:56 75th range regiment. It's what we trained on every single training cycle was how to how to secure an

36:02 airfield. And so you just watch the stupidity. And I think I think the toughest part about all

36:07 that cows is nobody in the military that was higher up in that command stood up and said,

36:13 I'm not doing this. This is a stupid choice. It's gonna get people killed. And it was it was

36:19 incredibly frustrating to watch is, you know, watch it unfold from Fox News or CNN. And honestly,

36:25 the image is detrimental to the military. Because we still have so many conflicts going on in the

36:30 world. We're just not talking about any of them because they don't get good for the current

36:34 administration. And so I think that's pretty, pretty frustrating for me is just the lack of caring

36:42 for the guys that gave life and William to do what we did over there. And you know, it was gonna take

36:50 generations to fix Afghanistan. We all knew that. I don't know if politicians knew that, but they

36:55 kept being like, we're gonna win this in four years. It was never gonna happen. But what I never

36:59 understood is why why can't you just leave a base like Margaret there? Just our security and our

37:03 Air Force at a base in that region would have brought security to the entire country, right?

37:09 Just like Cuba, right? Like, when you have that military presence right there in your backyard,

37:14 the Taliban's gonna be a little more reluctant to go do stupid stuff. So

37:18 one, then the first attempt at this over the horizon capability that they convinced us was

37:24 going to be all they need to do, they obliterated an entire family's worth of people and killed like

37:28 seven kids, right? Because they hit the wrong Toyota. And so it's like, again, again, mistakes

37:34 happen. And as we've seen a lot of, you know, big-time military personalities say it's like,

37:39 if you don't have the stomach for collateral damage, you don't have the stomach for war.

37:42 And so obviously that's something that happens. But hearing people describe it as, hey, you know what,

37:48 we had to rip the Band-Aid off at some point. Yeah, that really sucks that we lost 13 service

37:52 members. And yeah, it really sucks that the Afghan people were falling from the airplanes and all

37:55 that. But you know, we just had to rip off the Band-Aid at some point. Again, it goes into this whole

38:00 narrative, Patrick, about the United States is not the world's police. Okay. And now I think most

38:06 Americans understand that instinctively, because it made sense to us to go to Afghanistan, to fight

38:12 against the people that did 9/11 to us, or that had anything to do with 9/11. And then you start

38:17 getting into the conspiracy theories and theories and all that and I'm not getting any of that.

38:21 But then it didn't make sense to Americans why we would send people over to a proxy war in the

38:25 Ukraine, for instance, right? Like, hey, let's go over there and fight directly against the nuclear

38:30 power that is Russia via Ukraine into all these things. So instead we're sending seemingly $40

38:36 billion every 17 seconds over there, but we can't secure our southern border. We can't buy security

38:41 guards to stand, you know, guarded our elementary schools or whatever, even though we have them at

38:45 all of our banks. But you know, talk a little bit about this America, you know, team America,

38:50 like we shouldn't be that to that force around the world. Because in my personal opinion,

38:54 and I have this, you know, sneaking suspicion you'll agree with me is when America is strong,

38:58 the world has more virtue in it. The world is safer when we are stronger.

39:03 Go. Yeah. So we're, I disagree with you is, you know, the world's police. I do agree like, hey,

39:11 we need to be agile, right? So committing conventional forces to some of these countries,

39:17 and it was our biggest issue in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our conventional forces, they didn't have

39:22 the training and there was no place for a conventional army, right? You needed to be agile,

39:26 and you didn't need these thousands of bases and millions of troops to be in these countries.

39:31 You needed an agile force in a centralized location that could go play whack-a-mole. I think it was

39:36 Obama that said that in 2012 or something like that. And he was right there. You know, we do need

39:42 to be able to jump from this country to this country and go snot, you know, cut the head off

39:48 the snake here. And we've gotten way better than it, especially as a special operations force in

39:53 general. But, you know, I think what, what drove me, what continues to drive me nuts about this country

39:59 is we give our word to people, which may not matter to politicians on the left or the right,

40:05 but it matters to me as an American that we go and do this and we tell these people, we've got

40:10 your back. And then, I mean, we left them in the wolves. And if you, it drove me nuts watching these

40:17 news anchors, talking about how the Taliban have changed and they're, you know, they're reformed

40:23 somehow. And it's just not true, right? You know, the amount of evil committed by the people in

40:30 command in that country, the Taliban forces, the Al Qaeda, the many other groups that operate in

40:36 Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, it you've never seen evil like it. And once you do see that, you

40:42 realize there's no negotiating with these people, right? You come from a place of power. You don't

40:48 come from a place of weakness. Yeah. And I know there are people that are like, they don't hate

40:51 us because they hate us. They hate us because we're there and all these different things. And everyone's

40:54 got their own argument. But what I do know for a fact, because I know people that were on the ground

40:59 there at H. Kyle, whenever all this was going down, you know, when the Marines are basically

41:03 trying to create a perimeter, but they were a perimeter inside a perimeter that was controlled

41:07 by the enemy. Okay. But they they would literally, so this is a Taliban, the reform Taliban that

41:12 wears suits and apparently speaks good English. They were literally bringing civilian women and

41:17 children and executing them right in front of Marines. Yeah. Basically, daring the Marines to

41:24 engage, right? And so because then if that happened, now we have an international incident,

41:28 right? Now we've got a firefight right outside of H. Kyle, while all the cameras in the world

41:33 are pointed on this one part of the globe and all that. And it would have been terrible. That's

41:36 exactly what they wanted. And these weren't fringe Taliban people. These weren't guys that

41:41 were operating outside of the dictates of the Taliban. These were people that are doing we're

41:44 doing exactly what they came to do. And all they wanted was to shed as much western blood as possible.

41:50 And if they needed to shed some blood of their own people that believe in the same faith that

41:53 they do, they were okay with doing that. So kind of a hard transition, but staying in the world of

41:59 military. As a civilian, I'm definitely concerned about this move of wokeness in the military to

42:07 where, you know, what it first was, it's like, okay, we're going to try to get more women into

42:11 combat roles. Like that's a good idea. We need more women to be in the spec ops community for

42:18 representation purposes, not for lethality purposes, mind you, but for representation.

42:23 And then now we have these ads that are advertising, you know, hey, you should join the military. You

42:27 know why? Because you have two mommies and we want to have as many LGBTQ people in the military as if

42:32 that makes any sense. During the month of June, we've got the Marie tweeting out an image of a

42:37 Marine helmet with rainbow bullets on the side, like that's going to get a corn fed kid from

42:41 Missouri to come out and, you know, join the military whenever they're a teenager or something.

42:46 So it concerns me that the United States military seems to be focused on diversity, equity, and

42:50 inclusion to be focused on, you know, spreading the love around and whatever things that they're

42:56 doing and not focused on what they should be focused on, which is being able to kill people

43:00 and break stuff in the most efficient way possible. So for you as a veteran, you know,

43:04 and as a person with a functioning brain, what do you think about all this?

43:07 Well, I'm fortunate to be in a place now in my life where I do get a lot of younger kids that,

43:13 hey, I'm thinking about taking this path towards the special operations and like,

43:18 can you speak to your experience? And it's a great honor that I get to speak to that.

43:24 But they do bring up this concern, right? Because there's a very specific person that's called

43:29 to do that job. And a lot of times it's a darker person that the God just created for one thing,

43:36 and that's it. It's war. And it's tough for these kids to see what's going on in the military to

43:43 hear about all this craziness. And they're like, why? And I don't have a good answer for them,

43:48 right? And I think you're seeing this in the military right now. They're asking themselves,

43:52 why is there a recruitment doubt, right? Like, why are we only meeting 55% of our quota for the

43:56 year? Well, it's like, I mean, the people that are drawn in the military are the kind of people

44:01 that want to protect this country and to hurt bad people. And I just they're marketing 101,

44:11 right? Your brand message is off point for that demographic. So.

44:15 Yeah, it's a rough thing to watch. And it's heartbreaking to me knowing so many members of the

44:21 spec ops community and to hear them say, Oh, yeah, if I were 18 years old in 2022, I would never

44:28 join the military. Like there's no way like I'm gonna go do something else. And how many good strong

44:33 patriotic young men are going to go the way of business or the way of college or the array of

44:38 just some other thing like, you know, working in some cubicle somewhere. Like that's that's what

44:43 they're going to dedicate their lives to whenever they should have gone this route. One thing that

44:47 you you've mentioned several times. And I think you mentioned earlier in the podcast how, you know,

44:51 you you made a deal with God or you made a guarantee to God that, you know, if you were able to fight,

44:56 if the fight was still going on, that you were going to get into the fight, you know, after 911,

45:00 those types of things. That's always strikes people a little bit odd. When you hear soldiers,

45:05 when you hear people that have been in war, that've been around death that have dealt death to evil

45:10 men around the globe, that these people would be devout Christians as well. And so I've had several

45:16 of them on my show and they kind of explain obviously there's a difference between killing and murder

45:20 and there's a difference between doing all these things. But the general sense I get from a lot of

45:23 these people is they don't see this dissonance, right? The schism between their faith in God,

45:29 their, their, their belief in Christ and going out there and pushing back evil up to and including

45:35 killing some bad people that are doing everything they can to destroy the image of God and other

45:40 people. So what about for you though? So how did your faith become affected by what you saw and by

45:46 what you did serving in the military? That's a convoluted question for me. And probably longer

45:53 than we had to talk about on this, this podcast, but to kind of break it up in more simple terms,

45:58 you know, I spent a lot of time as a kid reading the Bible. I was raised Catholic and

46:04 I didn't agree with that religion specifically. And, you know, I still have a lot of issues with

46:08 religion in general and just the way it tries to push men. And I think you would probably agree

46:12 with me there on some aspect. But, you know, the Old Testament's pack full of stories of warriors,

46:19 right? King David being my favorite story, right, of the Bible. And, you know, we kind of, we just

46:26 kind of throw that Old Testament out and some of the stuff that happens in there and a lot of the

46:31 churches you go to today. But it is a, I mean, it's half of the Bible, right? And so that always

46:39 spoke to me. And, you know, honestly, I never lost sleep over the things we did in war. I lost

46:46 sleep over the friends we lost, but I never lost sleep over that. Because if you met these people

46:51 that we were going after and you saw the things they were doing to other people,

46:56 there's no like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna fix this individual. No, it's just not happening,

47:04 right? Like, and so I just, I never had any issues with it. There was never like, man,

47:10 I'm going hell for the things I did. You know, we're sinners and we've absolutely done some

47:16 terrible things. I continue to do terrible things. It's just part of the being a man, right? As you're

47:21 called to some sin. But, you know, that aspect of religion, I just, I have a hard time. I remember

47:29 right as I was getting out there, I spent my last few months at Fort Riley, which

47:35 was not the best duty station I ever had. And I had an E5 that, you know,

47:40 expending his entire career, trying to dodge the point, right? And I remember he pulled me

47:45 aside and he's like, you know, I'm deeply religious and, you know, I just don't know how you deployed

47:52 and keep in mind this is still an infantryman, right? So he signed the dotted line to become

47:56 an infantryman. And he's like, I don't understand how you killed people. And he's like,

48:00 dude, what are you talking about, man? Like you signed on the dotted line to become an

48:05 infantryman in the time of war for the United States. It's like, you know, and so that whole

48:11 mindset kind of killed me. And I was a lot angry. I mean, we didn't get into that, but

48:15 I went down a pretty dark path after Jeremy got killed. We lost quite a few more guys after that.

48:20 And it was biggest reason why I got out was, you know, it was going to kill me if I stayed in. So.

48:25 Yeah, it's a rough thing. And we probably need to further that conversation with each of

48:32 us having a bourbon and a cigar in our hands. And we can talk about that further.

48:35 Because at some point, we need to talk about the fact that you did transition out of the

48:40 military. And you made the direct path that everybody makes when they leave the military,

48:44 they get into the cattle game. So I don't know if that's like the most common thing ever. But

48:50 to me, that seems fairly unique. So I know that there's a lot of detail in there. But yeah,

48:55 you got out of the military, but at some point down the line, you decided, yeah,

48:58 let's go ahead and raise cattle. So tell me how the heck that happened.

49:01 Yeah. So I had a girlfriend before I joined the military. And actually the day she broke up with

49:08 me was Dan listed and dropped out of college, right? I was really kind of only staying in for her.

49:12 And I was like, well, it sucks to be broken up. And at the same time, like, here's, here's where

49:17 I'm being called. And so I went and did that. And you know, we were still friends to do that whole

49:20 thing. And, you know, we started dating in my last year in the military. And she's like, well,

49:26 you know, reading list. And you know, I was still, I was still pretty committed to, hey, I want to

49:32 do this. It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do my whole life. But if I do it, I'm not going

49:37 back to regiment or SF for one of those. I'm going to go to go do the long walk and go to delta selection,

49:43 right? And so let's face with these two pathways of either getting out or going to do that. And I

49:51 remember going into my CEO's office and I told him this and he's like, I'll get you the paperwork.

49:55 Like that'll be what we do for your re-enlistment. And I was like, okay, here's my biggest question.

50:01 If I fail, do I come back here? And he was like, yes. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna go check

50:06 things on the civilian world. And so we, my wife was like, well, what other passions do you have?

50:13 And I was like, I don't know. Right? Like, this was the only thing I ever wanted to do in my life.

50:17 And sorry to get the dog here. Let me kick him out.

50:20 Now you're good. We love dogs here on Don't the Life of Man's podcast. All right.

50:26 And he's a perpetual mouth breather. So you would have definitely put him in your lap.

50:31 That'll make it awkward for the rest of our time here.

50:33 Seriously. And so, you know, she started asking me these questions and I was like,

50:38 I can't handle being beyond a desk for the rest of my life. And I can't handle doing the corporate

50:42 America thing. So she's like, well, what about a veterinarian? And then I was kind of like,

50:47 I do like the medicine side. You know, I had a little bit of exposure to that and the special

50:51 operations. And I enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. So I started doing some research,

50:56 and I figured out that I could pay for that college without taking down any student loans.

51:01 And so that was the path that I fully committed, right? So I shadowed my last six months. I was

51:07 in the military at a clinic in at Fort Riley there, a veterinarian clinic. I got some exposure there,

51:14 fell in love with it. Went back to school at University of Missouri, doing their animal science

51:20 pre-bed program. And I only wanted to do the large animal side. And then I kind of figured

51:27 out it's really tough to make a living a more large animal side of veterinary medicine,

51:32 at least justifying the amount of money that you pay for that school. So

51:35 about three, two years into my program there, I got a job at a small animal clinic. I was like,

51:44 I just can't do this, man. You're doing neuter space and cleaning teeth all day. And it's like,

51:48 it just isn't up my hour. And so I changed paths again. I was like, well, I told my wife,

51:57 she would have to be the breadwinner for a couple of years while I made it through my

52:00 undergrad here. And so it's time for me to go get a job. So I started sending my resume out.

52:05 At this point, I'm in my second or last semester of my undergrad. So I started sending my resume out

52:11 to a bunch of different corporate America jobs in Kansas City. And I ended up getting

52:19 interviewed a really good company for basically a security position. They were all over the world,

52:25 so they needed people that went and consulted on, hey, is this a hard target or a soft target? And

52:30 the last question they asked me in the interview was, do you have any questions for us? And my

52:39 question was, what do you spend the majority of your day doing? Because I'm still confused

52:43 unlike what this job actually intended. And the guy was kind of taken back by it. And he's like,

52:50 you know, honestly, we spend most of our days convincing corporate that they were worth the

52:54 money and they spend on us. I just, you know, the air kind of fell out of my lungs. And I remember

53:02 driving back to Columbia. And I called my wife and I was like, I am lost. I like, I can't do this.

53:09 Like, I feel like I'm selling off her paycheck. And like, I'm coming from this job that I loved.

53:14 And at this point, I'm starting to have some serious regrets about getting out.

53:17 And, you know, I spent two or three days kind of chewing on it. And I remember coming home from

53:23 class one day and she came home from work. And I was like, I'm a starter business. And she's like,

53:28 okay, like your degrees in animal science, you didn't even take an economics class. Like,

53:34 what do you know about business? I was like, I don't know, I'll figure it out. And I go, I did,

53:38 right? So I spent a couple weeks chewing on it. And I came up with this business plan for Casey

53:41 Candle Company, which essentially it was bringing Wagyu beef to the Midwest was kind of where we

53:45 started. And nobody knew what the hell Wagyu beef was in 2016 when I started the company.

53:50 And so it's been a wild ride, you know, kind of coming from that to this and looking back on it,

53:56 and man, I've been incredibly blessed. And it's been a wild ride.

53:59 Well, people still don't know what Wagyu beef is. So how about you break it down for us? Because

54:04 I've been talking about on my show for a few weeks, but I'm not the expert. So give us the run down.

54:09 So Wagyu beef just means black cow in Japanese. If people always think of that,

54:13 Kobe beef and Akiushi, Akiushi just means red cow in Japanese. And then a Kobe is wagyu beef

54:20 that's raised in a specific region of Kobe, Japan, where they have to meet a certain grading

54:26 standard. So go ahead and get all that out the door real quick. Because those are a couple of

54:31 the questions I get right off the bat. It is a breed of cattle. It's not the way you raise them.

54:35 It is it is a breed of cattle. Basically, the breed has two mutations, one of which allows for a

54:40 tremendous amount of inch muscular fat, which is marbling the good stuff you want to see in a steak.

54:45 And the second of those mutations is basically the melting temperature of that fat's about 20

54:48 degrees less. So you get a much more buttery flavor when you eat the steak.

54:54 So tell kind of give us like the bird's eye view difference of like, okay, is the life any

55:01 different for for the cattle? Like if they're of that particular breed, you'd basically treat

55:06 them the same? Because everyone starts getting into, you know, grass fed or grass finished or

55:10 grain or blah, blah, blah, and all these everything. So kind of give us a process of what y'all do

55:14 in terms of raising these cattle on your land. Woodell answered quite a few of those questions.

55:18 Questions, Kyle is going through why it's so expensive. People would ask like, why is it so

55:23 expensive? There's three reasons. The first of which, it's an incredibly small breed of cattle.

55:28 So you're getting less meat per animal. The second reason is the animals are incredibly expensive.

55:33 The genetics are all hold up. You know, the best genetics are all hold up in Japan still.

55:38 And so we had some genetics come over in the 1980s to America, which is essentially where the

55:44 whole herd originated. And so you're still paying, you know, anywhere from five to 10 times the amount

55:52 that you would for a traditional heifer, bowl or whatever it may be that you're buying. The third

55:58 reason is they feed out way slower, right? So you're harvesting, say an Angus, a commercial

56:04 Angus at roughly 18 months, about the earliest you can go with a F1 or F2, which is, you know,

56:12 50% Angus, 50% Wagyu or 75% Wagyu, 25% Angus is 24 months. If you're doing full blood,

56:20 which we do do some of that as well, full blood and pure bread, I mean, you're bringing those

56:23 things up to 30, 32 months. So that that's the biggest reason they're so expensive. As far as

56:28 lifestyle and husbandry out here, there's definitely some things you got to look out for and do

56:32 differently than one of those being because it originated from such a small genetic pool. There's

56:38 a lot of inbreeding in Wagyu. So you got to make sure you're not breeding brothers to sisters and

56:43 that kind of thing. So the out here, we take really good care of the animals. We have a couple

56:51 other ranches in the Midwest that we work with, and we make sure they all follow those same

56:54 husbandry skills. You know, no hormones. The only time we give antibiotics is when an animal's sick,

57:00 because I don't believe an animal should die because you don't want us to give it a shot.

57:04 And yeah, so that's kind of the download on Wagyu beef. Okay, so now we need to talk

57:14 about Wagyu hot dogs. Okay, because I was under the impression that no matter what,

57:19 it's all the stuff at the bottom of the barrel that they just kind of mushed together and put

57:24 into a hot dog. Guys, do not go to Google right now. Do not go to YouTube and type in how do they

57:30 make hot dogs? I'm telling you, don't do it. And I know most of you are going to go do it right

57:33 now. Don't do it. It's the worst thing ever. You'll never eat another hot dog. But you guys, I guess

57:37 you could say blew up and you kind of went viral because a few years ago, food and wine.com food

57:42 and wine magazine, they said that you were hot dogs, your Wagyu beef hot dogs tasted like a steak,

57:48 like it tastes like a tube steak or whatever. So I can cosign that because when I made them,

57:53 I'm like, okay, when I'm seeing with my eyes and what, you know, I'm tasting in my mouth and all

57:59 that, that I'm, this isn't making sense to me. Like, because I know it's kind of hot dog shaped,

58:04 but it definitely tastes more like a steak. So take me through like, I didn't even know

58:08 Wagyu hot dogs was a thing until I was turned on to Casey cattle company. So explain that whole

58:12 thing to me. Yeah. So, you know, started the company 2016, our first half year sales was 2017. We

58:18 really focused on that restaurant market for that first year and a half. And it was a total

58:23 flop. We were just too early to the market and that restaurant business is really tough. So we

58:28 were failing, right? And the biggest thing the military taught me in business is to be able to

58:32 adapt, right? So we did, and we switched that direct to consumer model. We got some awesome press

58:36 right off the bat, right? Today's show, Forbes, New York Times picked us up. I wrote about our

58:41 product. We wrote about Wagyu, but there's no sustainable business model there yet. We sent

58:49 a pack of hot dogs, which we created because all of our money was sitting in ground beef in the

58:53 freezers. The stakes were flying off the shelves, but you know, and the ground beef was selling an

58:58 equal ratio, but that's not how the animals designed, right? So we came up with these hot dogs as kind

59:03 of a further process item in the hopes that they would catch on and become popular hands down our

59:09 or seller, right? Total flop. And so we weren't, we were going to discontinue them after this batch.

59:16 So food and wine asked for a package and I was like, sure, why not? I think I had 30 left in stock

59:21 and I sent them a pack and we never heard anything back from them. It was like three or four months,

59:26 and it's like a random, it was August 1st, 2019, and I'm over at a neighbor's house helping them

59:33 build some fence and my phone just starts blowing up, right? I have Shopify, so I get all the orders

59:39 on my phone. And I'm like, what is going on, right? Like, I'm talking, you know, at this point,

59:44 we're doing maybe 10, 15 shipments a week. And I get 10 orders in like 30 seconds. And I'm like,

59:53 hey, neighbor, I got to go and get somewhere where I have like better cell phone reception. So we

1:00:00 had a PR firm that we had hired. I called them and they're like, I don't think anything came out.

1:00:04 And it's about a 10 minute drive from there to back to my house. And in that time period,

1:00:08 we had about 200 orders roll in. And so by the time I get back to my house, I fire up my laptop

1:00:15 and I refresh our website. And there's 150,000 people on my website. I mean, we were getting

1:00:20 maybe 100 people a week before that. And so we watched 12,000 orders roll in and a 24 hour time

1:00:28 period. And it was one and a half of us that worked at the company at that point, right? It was me

1:00:33 and I had one part time employee. My wife still had a full time job. And so I'm telling my wife,

1:00:38 I'm like, this isn't the kill us. Like death by growth is a real thing. Like, I think I should

1:00:42 turn off the website. And she's like, don't you dare. And so I didn't. And, you know, we figured

1:00:50 out is where, you know, I had all these business mentors, they're like, Oh, just like, you know,

1:00:55 don't tell your customers what's going on, blah, blah. And I was like, I'm not going to do that.

1:00:58 That's not who we are. We're transparent. We, you know, we're honest with what we do. So I sent

1:01:01 an email to everybody that was trying to order and had ordered and was just like, Hey, you know,

1:01:07 we're a small company. There's one and a half of us that work here. If you want these hot dogs,

1:01:11 they're going to take eight to 12 weeks to ship out to you. If you don't, just send an email back

1:01:15 and I'll cancel your order. And so, you know, majority of people are, you know, we're, we only

1:01:21 hear about the bad, right? And the media, but it's like, you know, I'm talking people from California

1:01:26 to New York. They were like, this is awesome for you. We're so glad that your business is a success.

1:01:31 Awesome. And they waited eight to 12 weeks and they came back and became repeat purchaser. So,

1:01:35 that's so awesome. Because like, you always hear those stories. Well, actually, you don't always

1:01:39 hear those stories. Like a lot of times you'll hear the story. If there's a New York Times bestselling

1:01:43 book that goes along with it or maybe they were on Shark Tank or something like that. So it's kind

1:01:46 of good to see something like that happen to you guys because like they'd all started with

1:01:50 those little blessings where it's like they, they asked for it. They didn't have to ask for it. And

1:01:54 then they do it and then they write the story on it. And it was a glowing story, not a glowing

1:01:58 failure and all those types of things. So before we wrap up to the end here, I got to ask you,

1:02:02 in your opinion, what is the best cut of beef? Okay. And then what is the most underrated cut

1:02:08 of beef? Because I think a lot of people like, Oh, you know, it is a tomahawk or boning ribeye or

1:02:12 whatever thing or fillet. So what do you think is the best cut of beef in your opinion? And then

1:02:16 also what is the most underrated cut of beef? The thing that people ignore and they should.

1:02:18 Okay. My favorite cut of beef is a hanger steak. And the

1:02:25 preface I'm going to give to that is don't order from us. There's not a

1:02:29 liquid difference between a wagyu hanger steak and one you get from your butcher. I'm a terrible

1:02:34 sales guy, but don't order from us. It has on our website that it's my favorite cut. And so

1:02:39 they're perpetually sold out. But we charge an arm and a leg for them and they're way cheaper

1:02:44 to butcher. So go there to buy them. The most underrated cut is a chuck eye steak, at least a

1:02:50 wagyu chuck eye steak. They are fantastic. They're well marbled. And if you're a medium top top

1:02:59 medium, like probably you should be a medium rare person on that steak. It is going to eat

1:03:04 better than a top cereal and every day of the week. So I just made one of those a couple of days

1:03:09 ago from you guys. And I made it for lunch, which it's awesome that you can just like have steak

1:03:13 for lunch because that's usually like a dinner and a nice jacket, kind of a kind of a thing.

1:03:17 But yeah, I did. I do it in my cast iron skillet. And so I I do it as hot as possible at the beginning

1:03:21 and then I kind of sear every side, turn it down, throw a bunch of butter in there, keep kind of

1:03:25 putting up there, get it to medium. I actually get it to rare and then pull it off and it kind of

1:03:30 finishes to medium rare and all that. And it was absolutely awesome. But I know you listen to the

1:03:34 show. So I know that you know that this is coming. So at the end of some of my interviews, I like

1:03:38 to do a segment called what would you say to someone that said? And so that is for anyone that's

1:03:42 listening to this that hasn't heard of that segment. This is lightning round. So I'm going to throw

1:03:45 out statements. What would you say to someone that said, I'm going to fill in the blank and

1:03:50 you have 30 seconds maximum to give me your answer regardless of what I'm talking about. So it's

1:03:54 meat and potatoes only, which is obviously appropriate for this conversation. So you up for it? Let's do

1:03:59 it. All right, let's get into the first one. What would you say to someone that said, I hate the USA?

1:04:03 I would say what country's better?

1:04:06 That'd be a good question to ask for sure. What would you say to someone that said,

1:04:11 I don't mind store bought meat. Meat is meat. If it's in your price range, I would tell you to

1:04:19 find a local farmer. It doesn't have to be wagyu beef, but just the husbandry of having it outside

1:04:23 of feedlot is going to make a huge difference from a grocery store. All right, next one here.

1:04:28 What would you say to someone that said, the United States's time as the dominant power in the world

1:04:33 will soon be at an end? I think we're seeing that across the world, right? It's not just the United

1:04:38 States. It's a globalization problem. And I think we're starting to see that pendulum swing the way

1:04:43 with the majority starting to speak out. And the dog is back because they knew I was going to ask

1:04:48 this next question. What would you say to someone that said, I can't afford wagyu? I would tell you

1:04:54 if you can't afford it, don't buy it. Hey, fair enough. Well, okay, now that he's made his second

1:04:59 appearance on the podcast, you're going to have to tell us the dog's name. It's a he's a farm dog

1:05:04 and a total knuckle that man. Look at that. Well, hey, he's fine by me. You keep him there. We got a

1:05:08 few more questions. Oh, what would you say to someone that said, our sons and daughters shouldn't

1:05:13 fight in these never ending wars? Man, that's a tough one. I would tell you that the military

1:05:21 and fighting in wars gives you perspective that you would never be able to gain outside of that.

1:05:26 It's certainly true of anyone that I know that served. All right, a few more left. What would you

1:05:31 say to someone that said, I'm a vegan. I would tell you where's your hand coming from? I don't want

1:05:36 to hear me get BBS. It's not coming from those little pills that you're buying from the fancy

1:05:42 food store. All right, next to here. What would you say to someone that said, meat is murder?

1:05:46 I would tell you that we're omnivores and that it's just the way the animal kingdom works.

1:05:54 All right, last question of the day, what would you say to someone that said, God bless the USA.

1:05:59 I would say spot on right on. And I give them one of these. Yep. Amen. Amen. And amen. Well, man,

1:06:04 we've talked about a lot of stuff here. I appreciate you giving us all the time today, but that's all

1:06:07 for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? No, God, I appreciate you having

1:06:11 me on man. Absolutely. Patrick Montgomery. Thank you for coming on on Daunted Life, a man's podcast.

1:06:15 Thank you. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Patrick Montgomery. But before

1:06:20 I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Add in Daunted Life, permission is equipping

1:06:23 men to push back darkness with content that forwards to spiritual mental and physical resilience.

1:06:27 And don't forget to support the sponsor today. Show Casey cattle company, go to kc cattle company

1:06:30 dot com. That's kc cattle company dot com. Use the promo code Kyle to get 15% off your order.

1:06:35 Again, the promo code is just my first name, Kyle kyle for 15% off your order at kc cattle company

1:06:40 dot com. And that is the link I've got for you in the show notes today. Go to kc cattle company

1:06:44 dot com. Check them out. Give them your support. Thank you guys so much for listening to the show.

1:06:47 Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five star review.

1:06:51 If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, you shoot me an email to info

1:06:55 at undonton.life. That's INFO at undonton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and

1:07:00 check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this

1:07:03 coming your way. Just go to www dot undonton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band August

1:07:08 Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for our content. The musical in this podcast is our

1:07:11 song cutting the ties, which is off their 10th anniversary re recording of their album Leveler.

1:07:15 The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness,

1:07:21 keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:07:51 [Music]