0:00 [Music] actually welcome back to careful boys today we are continuing the story of Angel who is a former member of the Special Operations he did not make Delta is that true no nope did not make clear about that yeah so take it away brother God where did we leave off we left off with right when he's on going to rasp which is their selection yeah so um so I went to rasp in uh how much harder is rasp than like regular like uh Boot Camp or regular basic training oh extremely hard extremely hard uh it's bad like you got to do more jumping jacks like more than more than that Peres even it's um a lot of a lot of long heavy rucks a lot of um you run everywhere like what's a long
0:50 heavy Ruck so you know 55 55 lbs you know with all oh R sack yeah yeah yeah and um you run everywhere so it's like yeah you're going to work out but you got to go run to go work out and then after you get killed over there they're like okay you got to run to breakfast and then after breakfast you got to run here you're like ████ man and it's all in Boots and you're running on boots no sneakers just boots all the time yeah um and they they do team building exercises they do um mental toughness uh things now uh because social media uh rasp now has like a a YouTube channel so they they just did a video to kind of like promote you know Rangers and and cuz nowadays everything's seal this seal that right so they're like hey we got to step up our content game and so you got now get a glimpse because back then
1:41 there was there was no YouTube videos there was no so you went in there kind of dark you're like ████ what how do I train do do I run more do I do do I Ruck more do what do I do so the way I prep for it I was just like okay I know there's like certain standards like okay you got to be able to run 5 miles in less than 40 minutes so and even you already you run it like close to 40 like that's that's not good enough that's not good enough that's what Ranger regimen is it's like okay the standard is 40 and let's say you did 39 and 40 seconds they'd be like awful I did 32 minutes and I was considered in the middle that's a 6 Minute Miley for five miles holy ████ and you know and then we would have like this is what he's talking about this is the r some of the rash stuff hold on second probably some ████ I already
2:33 saw bull ████ the game not easy not easy difficult ████ what the ████ did you type to get that did ballerina to school ████ stupid no no no here it is right here I was waiting for the ad to finish valer that's an ad what the ████ no no no there was an ad on this on this one there was a this is Fort Benning I can skip ahead a little bit guy likes to his drone shots I guess Jesus go to the most replayed yeah so this kind of ████ yeah so how how long are your days is the training days like 18 hour day like how many hours of sleep do you guys get it's like a Spartan Race every day after after it's all said and done maybe
3:23 five six wow and then yeah see so all that yeah it looks like a Spartan Race every single day non stop bro that's what when my friends are like hey let's do a spawn race I'm like no good bro oh yeah bro little to no sleep they give you um Landa points where it's a it's a stake like no like 3T high so it's not like oh I can see my steak a mile away I can just walk to it it's like okay in the pitch of dark here's your coordinates map it out he's a compass come back as the sun's coming up you better come with Five Points you got x amount of time and go you're just like got to go find it map compass walking in the dark you and the next thing you know boom if you do everything correctly my stick is right there and uh we try to help each other out like with our our we call it a rubber duck so it's a it's a AR M4 but
4:14 it's rubber you like kind of smack the pole so you can hear so your buddies can hear like oh they're like kind of off and get back on oh wow that's cool yeah so I would do that i' be like oh oh sorry or I make a lot of noise or something like that but um it was you a lot of shooting a lot of shooting to the point where at the end of the day you're like ████ man I don't want to shoot anymore we shot ████ hundreds and hundreds of rounds today and the next day we got to do it again do it again but it's like that's how you become an expert right you do the basics very well over and over and over that it looks like we're doing something extra but it's not they don't teach us how to curve bullets or any of that we're just doing the basics over and over you become a master of the basics um and that's really what Special Operations is why don't these you had a curve for that would be so sick that would that would be talking about where you're like like like a John wo movie yeah yeah no wanted
5:05 yeah wanted yeah um so then I I I made it to to First Battalion and my my leadership um my my first uh my rasp is designed for people to quit too though right oh yeah yeah so how many people did you guys start with and how many did you end with uh so we like 215 and then we graduated 97 wow it's only half is gone yeah um damn what but it's to be honest get passing rasp was easier than staying in the the the standard is so high the stress is so high you can't ████ up like at all and if you ████ up sooner or later they're going to kick you out or dudes even just kind of just quit and say hey I want to I want to leave regimen cuz they think like oh I made rasp fun time starts ████ no dude you're talking about dudes who've been in the game for a long long time um deployed
5:56 multiple times uh and are are really good at their job so if if you're you got to keep up and as a new guy there's no like oh let the new guy kind of you know he's a new guy it's okay it's like ████ no bro you better be a quick learner how long is rasp eight weeks and then I also had to go to Airborne school because when I went in I was um I was already a sergeant right so my my uh pipeline was a little different so I had to go to pre rasp uh with 3 weeks rasp eight weeks then I had to go to Airborne school and then after Airborne school I went to master breacher course which is a um regimental Master breaching course where we blow up walls vehicles um Bank doors you know like all types of stuff and the stuff that you see in the movies where they blow like the doors off of vaults and ████ yep um so like like so the bank thing is like uh they made a a bank to Standard wall
6:48 and then if our our kind of like job was like okay breach it breach it and you know stuff like that and then we have you guys have the thing where it's like looks like a series of clay and you go like [Music] this not not quite not quite so it's not like the Italian Java but something like that um did they ever do like test you cuz like you have the Vault there and you could just blow it up but did anybody just try opening it real quick oh this guy's more Street Smart we didn't have the door we just had the wall so like go through the wall um and then C which is small unit Ranger tactics and then after that Ranger school and so I did all that within a year back to back to back to back back to back to back and the way they told me cuz I was they consider me prior service as in I'm not coming in fresh from
7:38 civilian world with the ranger contract and going through on prior service like you deployed is that what that means yeah yeah so I had already spent some time in the military so they were like hey man no offense but since you're prior service and we've had a lot of prior service guys quit you're kind of like leasing to own right now so every time I pass something I never felt like I was part of regimen because they were like bro you have to pass everything and then you get a slot so I was doing all this stuff for a year and then after I graduated Ranger school that's when I was like boom now it's done now now I'm I'm part of regiment and my um my first CH chain of command was uh s CIS um and S CIS is if a if I remember correctly he is the last person to earn the Medal of Honor so that's who I was fortunate enough to fall under and he was pouring all this which is like the highest Military Award anyone can get most people that earn it are dead yeah postly
8:28 play the video game dude we know I know that oh he oh you jump on a gr grenade or something no no no it's usually some crazy ████ though it's usually like some crazy machine gun over there this guy grabs a car door is ████ surfing on the car door while stabbing people like 20 times takes five bullets plucks them out sticks them in their eyes if you read all this is the Cat Metal of Honor stories are crazy yeah is that the cat who where there's Drone footage of him like killing a bunch of people no no no no no that that was another he's that was a guy who used to be a ranger remember correctly but yeah so go got got it in Afghanistan and he was killed in Afghanistan um but that's who who I was fortunate enough to be under and learn a lot right so so I I you know I was really didn't know him um and then I got
9:19 out and then I when I got out it was uh it was kind of like I was kicking and screaming to get out to be honest because one day get out of the Special Forces yeah get out of the military in general so you didn't from Ranger back to like regular you just got out completely got out completely um time flew you know one day I was back again at the regimental Master breacher course but not as a student now as an assistant instructor and I get a call from celis and he's like hey dude you know you're like nine months out from your ETS ETS is is when my contract ends and he's like hey are you going to reup or are you going to get out you know cuz they if you got a if you're going to get out you you you should need to start out processing a year out so you can do all these little classes and stuff like that cuz back in the day when your time was up that you just be like all right congrat thank you for your service hope you have a plan hope your civilian life goes good now trying to make you do
10:09 classes resume classes and stuff like that and so they're like you have to start etsing you know know aing and uh I was like ████ man and I'd missed the birth of my son of my daughter I I was in Afghanistan so I'd miss a lot of of of my kids my family and uh I told my wife you know I know Le she has been super supportive the entire time I was in the military she never gave me ████ she always anytime I had to go do this or do that she was like how can I help you what can I go do um and one thing I told her I was like after I missed the birth of my second kid I was like I was like I promise when AJ goes to school on his first day I will be there so you know when that that call happened I called my wife and I was like hey you know celicious I'm actually 9 months out um she's like well you know you are you going to get out like you said and and and I didn't want to I mean I'm sharpish
11:00 Community you know I'm surrounded by by great people um and a great organization but I'm like damn you know I I I missed a bir of my son but I've been I did the math my son was five and I'd been Stateside for two years of that and that's State side as in just in the country not not even in the city yeah yeah yeah so I'm like ████ I was like I was like all right um so I decided to get out and I'm like I'm going to go to school to become a restur dietician because no one in my family has has gone to college and I want my family to see like yes we are hard workers so we wake up and we ████ grind it out but guess what we're smart too and we can we can do the whole book thing and this and that so I was like all right I'm going to go I'm going to get out and be a retro dietician and I got out I was going to school and I was killing it cuz when I was an active duty Ranger I was actually competing also in Muay Thai in
11:51 kickboxing the same time yeah so I got out I I found a gym classic fight team and and and I I started training there started going to school and and and I applied myself like I did in the military in high school I failed everything but I had now a certain work ethic and stuff like that so now I'm getting you know A's and B's in in college and and what do you think gave you that work work ethic my leadership uh I would say my leadership I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a a combination of of all the the mentors I've had right so I do all this stuff but this isn't like a me thing I'm just an accumulation of of of them to be honest like what they've been able to instill in you 100% um but then you know I called it the storm after after a couple weeks um all the stuff that I was kind of uh uh suppressing you know like being deployed
12:41 and and my friend pinck who who weeks before we deployed you know he's he's at my house we're having kada I'm I'm playing with his daughter is is killed you know and and I didn't cry and I didn't do anything about it because I was like bro we're still I'm still deployed I got I got to focus on this you know I'm a sergeant I I got to take care of my guys I'll deal with that later you know and then and another friend dies and then another friend gets hurt and and and and all this stuff so and then my wife she was very supportive but you know I've not been the best I was a good army dad but I wasn't a good dad and I wasn't really a good husband um because I I put my wife and kids not even second third or fourth I put them last and and because the way I would see it is like look I'm I'm I'm getting ready to go to war my job is number one my team number two to anything associated with my team so that I was
13:31 just so hyperfocused on war that they fell you know short so you almost have to cuz you're trying to stay alive yeah you H you have to you have to um but there are some moments where I could have maybe you know hey not gone out with the boys you know not taking that extra uh uh course that to be honest didn't do ████ for my career but I just wanted to be that guy like you need a guy to go I'm going um and you know I I I it was funny cuz before I got out but I called one of my friends um and I'm like hey man you're out and I heard these horror stories of veterans having a tough time and and killing themselves and then this and that I'm like hey man you've been out for like a year like what should I expect and we were close but we were we weren't that close where he can open up and and all he told me was like be ready for the storm so when I got out ████ sounds crazy I call it
14:21 the honeymoon face right you everyone's happy you're back home you know your kids are happy to see you and and I remember thinking oh you know the storm thing that that my friend was talking about doesn't apply to me and not that long it all ████ hit all all everything that I was suppressing everything my wife was not um next you know I'm I'm on the verge of getting divorced um I got out so I can be with with my wife and kids it's all the stuff you didn't get a chance to deal with huh and now it all like compiles it's all coming out it's all coming out and you know I know my wife since I was seven years old so like she's like my best friend so now I don't I'm not with my best friend I'm I'm sleeping in the futon because when I'm going to school you get paid you get good education benefits they pay for your books your tuition but they also give you a housing allowance so I was getting about 3,900 a month just to go to school but what I didn't know is that in between semesters they don't give you that so now all of a
15:12 sudden I'm like ████ I got to make money so now I'm working at a ████ assai Bowl place in between semesters getting yelled at by teenagers in Newport Beach so I'm like dude what the ████ are you doing you're sleeping on a futon do you ever just want to just kill them oh imagine all the time yeah I bet know I could choke your ████ ass face right now like this ████ country dude and you're like would you like more strawberry more strawberry kiwis yeah and um and I remember asking myself like dude what the ████ are you doing you used to be a ranger you had a house you you you were ████ 24 in the Special Operations Community the best of the best now you're sleeping in a ████ fut toown you work at a asaio place you you know you're not even with your kids and I was like ████ man like
16:02 and and I realized okay I I I I got to do something I I'm I'm I'm ████ up I got to do something so I was like you know what okay what is going on and I realized two things I had lost my purpose and a man without a purpose is a lost individual I think I lost my community MH um people call it a tribe whatever it is and so I lost both so I'm like okay and I realized like yo bro you got to handle um you got with your emotions my my emotions were kind of like everywhere and I was like all right so starting to go see a therapist I I I you know I was like okay I need to find a community so I started inviting all the um when as I was going to therapy I think gained my family back right my my so we and got an apartment and I'm like okay I needed my community and a purpose so I started inviting veterans from my martial arts gym in school I'm like hey come watch the UFC fights with me I'll
16:54 buy the food I'll buy the drinks and I did that and all of a sudden I'm now I'm making friends and it's kind of hard as an adult to make friends cuz when I got out I didn't want to hang out with the old dudes that I used to hang out with right so you know that's essentially what what I was doing like hey man you want to be my friend you want to hang out drink beer and watch the UFC and I was doing that and Veterans were coming up to me being like bro like you have no idea what these events mean to me and I was like bro I do like I do I was for you is for me I'm lonely okay so come hang with me that's true though you know like I I was doing these things but it was I was getting something out of it too you know and and also it feels good to do good things and um but then my wife fast forward you know like two years and and
17:45 my wife's like look like we can't keep doing these events like we keep going negative to our account or we're barely making rent um and know and and she's like because I'm pregnant we have another baby coming in and and and we can't feed another mouth and keep doing this and I'm like ████ man she's right but but at that point I already had a community I already had you know um a purpose and this was my purpose right I would I came out and and I didn't understand when I would see veterans and they would be a fraction of what they were in the military right they had PTSD they couldn't transition and I'm like bro why is it that they can't I could right I had a little storm but I I got out of it and I continued to be successful in in life but I'm like some like ████ let me help them so that's my purpose but you know she was right I couldn't keep doing this um so I'm like
18:36 okay but at that point I already started sharing my combat footage and and I started gaining a following and then me being a pretty small guy um dudes would message me and they would and it was basically the same message it would be like hey man no offense but like you're small so how did you make it the Special Operations Community you know this is 2016 you know now there's Ras videos there's all these workout videos and but back then there was nothing so I would tell them and I would write them long ass messages like bro this is what I did you do this you do that mental toughness goes a long way and and sometimes I would be like bro writing this message again is going to take forever here's my ████ number call me and I'll tell you and that's what I did so I already had a following and anytime I would share a t-shirt or something somebody would be like oh bro is that your T-shirt I'll buy it and I'm like no it's it's it's my friend's t-shirt you can buy it here and go so I knew I like you know what maybe
19:27 I should start like a clothing company or something something and but I did I didn't even though I buy T-shirts that have like skulls on them and like guns I think that's kind of whack sometimes I'm like bro I don't want I don't want I don't want to be that I I don't want to be that guy because there's so many of them so many of them I I wanted it's all the same ████ over and over yeah and we keep buying it yeah so I was like you know and overseas I wore a skeleton gloves and a and a um skeleton bandan so I'm like you know I always havep a thing for Halloween and then one day my son Drew uh this pumpkin right here dope oh cool he drew the pumpkin and I was like you know what this is going to be the logo for my company and I made 200 stickers and this was like literally the last money I had to ████ create a Shopify and and and and and 200 ████ stickers
20:17 and I told my wife I was like look if this doesn't work I promise I'm done I'm done and but I already had a following so I was like hey who wants a sticker and within ████ an hour all 200 stickers were gone and I'm writing ████ envelopes and my wife to to Germany Italy all over the ████ us because I had an influence from military dudes you know and they're all over the world so then I was like you know what I I'll I'll I'll drop a T-shirt and and then I started going on like an bigger podcast um first like start off small then I went on on Andy stump's podcast he's been on Joe Rogan like 12 times by now um fieldcraft Mike rin's podcast Black Rifle coffee and then so then I started getting more sales and and and I was making like 10 to 15 grand a month but my purpose was never to make money it was to to do stuff for the community so I was like
21:08 well I've tried to spend money on myself it does nothing to me like for me and I'm like okay well what the ████ do I do with all this money and now now it's almost like Co time right what it is co time people losing their jobs and stuff like that so I was like ████ how do I help so I then I started buying Target gift cards and putting $400 on them and scratching off the information being like look man if you have children and or elderly and and and and you lost your job ████ here buy ████ and and I would do that and then I would drop off food at food banks that I used to ████ be there as a kid and then um because to train for the Special Operations Community you need gear and s███'s expensive a pair of boots can almost run you like $200 so I would be like hey if you have a contract send me a picture I I'll send you the money for boots and a rook sack cuz Rook sacks are kind of expensive I did that started
21:59 doing more bigger events um and and I was just throwing it all back to to to the community and and so the company is is called OG pumpkin we saw rashguards t-shirts stickers and and then it's it really blew up to the point where we have almost 800 people with an OG pumpkin tattoo design on them and that skull ████ you know and people believe in in in the mission cuz changing the logo to Trump kids now in skulls are out and um and we're talking um dudes from the Special Operations Community dude from special operat community in other countries doctors even coast guards even the Coast Guard I'm pretty sure out with the co then the Coast Guard that has a ████ that's what I wanted to do so I could chill on the boat and go back home yep and Day drink
22:51 every day go that's awesome and that's actually how I met Mike Mike odow who's who's the founder of defense strategies group who's also my boss and and and he's my friend um because on one podcast somebody was like Hey we're we're former Special Operation guys we work at at this one company and I'm like damn dude I've not shot in a long time I just been going to school and going to the gym and and and competing I'm like I I miss shooting so I went there and man my wife could have told you I sounded like a kid like a little kid when I came back meeting your friends again I was like there was this guy and that guy and we did this and we did that and I was so ████ happy like I'm happy at the gym I was happy with the dudes I met at school like school is cool but like that is my passion that's my community that's my people so I'm like ████ yeah and I met and who was the instructor at the course Mike so him and I became friends
23:42 and and and then I realized that at the the course it was a vehicle course where we they bought cars and we shot from inside and around them and how to fight around Vehicles that's so fun and what I realized is that there's there's the driver and the passenger and when you run drills that's the Max people that you can have in the car so then you had like 14 people waiting on the side talking having a good time and I saw that they were becoming friends and and socializing because sometimes I would invite people and they' be like bro I don't watch the UFC and I was like it's not about the UFC it's just about hanging out and so some of them would be hesitant but what veteran is not is would not be hesitant be like hey you want to shoot out of ████ cars so then two years ago I ran like ████ eight of those and they each cost me anywhere from um5 to $10,000 and I would invite veterans and be like ████ we're going to ████ buy three cars we're going to shoot out of them I have a taco guy I'm a s lady a
24:34 juice bar ████ I threw everything on there because I again I didn't create OG pumpkin to get ████ Rich out of that it was because I was in a dark place I needed a community I needed to keep my purpose um so then when Mike decided to start defense strategies group uh that's where actually where I met Dawn too one one of the first times that company that I first worked at kind of fell apart Mike started a company and he had basically tryouts he invited all the Special Operation guys he need within the community and he was want to see not only who kept up with their skills skills you can regain but who would mesh kind of well and after not two guys who didn't make Delta would probably get along pretty good yeah we can talk about that a lot corner by themselves keep talking about that for a while so then after that I got the call and he's like hey man you want to be part of DSG and I was like dude ████ yeah um so that was
25:26 four years ago and now we're about to open a training facility in Bly Hills wow we we have the the soft opening Monday the the big opening is August 1st we've trained triple letter agencies SWAT teams PDS civilians uh we were on the Stallone show we trained the Stallone show for the we were the premier season episode for season 2 uh I've been on worked with National Geographic History Channel because of of DSG and all the shows that you used to watch yeah that's cool that's sick that's really cool and you know my started defense strategy to give us a job but also like that was like his OGG pumpkin he was like man I need I'm missing something I when I shoot I'm at the range I like it uh I make cool people and so now DSG to me doesn't feel like work it feels like I get to hang around ████ around with my friends and we teach people you know life-saving
26:18 skills um so that's kind of basically where I'm at and and and and I've met great people you know um um you you met Mike Mike was on here Don was on here uh Cameron sure be Cameron is an entertaining guy he just his Netflix show just dropped you know a couple weeks ago um Benji uh Benji uh who maybe you know him Benji manibog he's in Israel right now right yeah he's a dude his wife is who I donated a kidy to oh wow and um you know so now now I'm I'm in a good place you know I've been in a good place so now that's what but what Mike and I do is not only we teach people surviving skills but like we're showing veterans like hey man there's a there's a future once you get out you know you you'll have to work uh there might be some some dark moments but but
27:09 you can make it happen that's which is why now more than ever as much as Mike used to talk ████ on me about being on social media too much now he's on it and sharing cuz he realizes I saw him shouting out all his camera guys too you know um but yeah man well dope appreciate you man thanks for sharing that's awesome damn that's awesome dude y yeah
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