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Jeff - Navy Seal/CIA/Firefighter/Author
69 Plays1 year ago
While most of us focus in on one career, Jeff has had at least three. It's a rather impressive list of accomplishments coming from a Navy Seal, to the CIA, to a Battalion Chief for a fire department and author. Throw in some early influences from a father and uncle who were also navy Seals as well as an innate desire to help others, and you have a pretty interesting story to tell. So, if any of these occupations interest you, this is a can't miss chat. Spoiler alert, "Don't give up no matter what".
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Music by: SnoozyBeats - Song Title - "Keep It Calm". Please check out SnoozyBeats on PixaBay for a ton of awesome content! -LINK
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction and Jeff's Background
00:00:20
Speaker
Hey folks thanks for joining me today our guest Jeff I had to write all his accomplishments down let me see here. We have navy seal we have CIA we have firefighter and now he's a battalion chief. He is an author of a fictional novel the ahava decision.
00:00:36
Speaker
He is a contributor and writer for Sandbox dot.com. He is also a co-author with his father Frank Butler and Kevin O'Connor for TC3. Tell them yourself, it's not your day to die. And he is also on the fire department honor guard.
Military Influences and SEAL Training
00:00:52
Speaker
Well, good grief, Jeff. When are you running for Pope? My goodness. Tim, you left out the most important part of my CV, which is arch nemesis of Tim Hendricks.
00:01:02
Speaker
Oh, no, no. didn't leave that out. I'm trying to ignore it. Very good. well We'll put that aside for the purposes of this podcast. Oh, well, thank you for joining me today. That's great. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. You bet. Let's start with the early story, the origins of Jeff, and give us a little snapshot about your childhood and what brought you to join the military and go from there. Yeah. All right. Well, man, you got to rewind back to a better, simpler time, notice the mid-70s. a a young, pasty, skinned, red-headed Irish-American kid was born in Augusta, Georgia. Actually, my dad was in... So it really might have to go back to my parents, because my dad was in the military. He was a Navy SEAL also, which is really how I got interested in that community. And then left that community, but stayed in the Navy and went to med school. And he was in medical school when I was born in Augusta. That's why I was born there. He was at the Medical College of Georgia.
00:01:56
Speaker
We went to Jacksonville, Florida after that, then Panama City, Florida, then Bethesda, Maryland, and then back to Florida to Pensacola, where they lived ever since. But all that was because of his medical and Navy career. So that's where I was first introduced to the Navy and did most of my school age years in Florida with a brief interlude in Maryland and graduated from high school in Pensacola and kind of got on my way from there.
00:02:24
Speaker
What, uh, so you went to college, I assume after, or did you go straight into the military after high school? Yes. So I graduated high school and got a, uh, I was awarded and a a Navy ROTC scholarship, uh, to Georgetown. So I had to apply for that scholarship and then apply to Georgetown. I had to get into both obviously to use it and then did my four years of college.
00:02:48
Speaker
during which I did a bunch of ah ah ROTC stuff where they train you how to be an officer and how to be in the Navy. And then I graduated in May of 99 and then was commissioned that same month and, uh, went out to California to SEAL training that July of 99. So that's kind of how the ROTC pipeline works. It's just one of the pipelines into the, into the Navy as an officer.
00:03:09
Speaker
You already had the Navy SEAL job in your sights. What I don't understand is when you join the military, you start as an officer if you have a four-year degree, correct? You go through an officer pipeline. so You you apply to be an officer and then they accept you or not.
00:03:26
Speaker
And then if they accept you, there's really one of three ways. there's OCS, which is officer candidate school. So they can take a ah ah civilian off the street and he can go, or she can go straight to OCS officer candidate school, or that you can go through ROTC, uh, where they pay your four years of regular college. And then you are, uh, commissioned as an officer right after that, or you can go through one of the academies, for the Navy to be the Naval Academy. And you can graduate from the Naval Academy and come out right as an officer. That's really the.
00:03:55
Speaker
And then i is a fourth way where you're enlisted first in the Navy. like just sign up, go to boot camp, you're enlisted, and then you get commissioned from your enlisted position in the Navy. So it's really four ways, I guess, to become an officer in the military.
00:04:08
Speaker
you've entered the military as an officer. How does the transition from I'm in the military, I'm an officer, I now want to go be a Navy SEAL. Is that you apply and you go through a selection process or are you hand selected or how do they kind of find the people for that unique role? So you need to, I knew I wanted to do around like eighth or ninth grade, not everybody knows that young, but so you you have to know pretty early before the selection time comes. So the selection for your, we call it a warfare specialty in the Navy. everybody is put into a community their senior year. They, they find out what their community is going to be. So my ROTC unit, you know, say it was, I don't know, 30 of us that graduated that year, maybe like 15 would be going into the surface warfare community, which was ah's driving ships. handful going into submarines, handful going into pilot.
00:05:02
Speaker
few going into Marines and then, uh, just like one of me going into SEAL training. So you, you apply for that warfare specialty and they select you to get into. So they say, yes, we're willing to accept you into buds and to SEAL training. And then you go to training. So it is, it's absolutely an application process, separate from the getting into the Navy. And it was just another application process, essentially in another selection process.
00:05:30
Speaker
So you've been selected to join that aspect of the military. What's, can you give me kind of a cliff notes version of what it's like from the beginning of I am going to be a Navy SEAL and I've been accepted into this too. I i i believe Buds is the last kind of gauntlet you have to go through. Is that correct? Buds is the first, it is the gauntlet to go through to become a SEAL. After Buds, there's a few follow on specialty sort of trainings, but you're in by then, you know, Buds is the thing that really weeds people out. Go ham, sir. I was going to say the preparation has ah ah should be starting long before you get selected. you You can't start getting ready when you get selected because you'll die. You'll never make it if you do that. I mean, I was getting ready for all four years of college with the hope and idea that I would be able to go to the training. I just had to assume I was going to make it and try really hard. And if I didn't, then I just would have been in really good shape and had, you for no reason.
00:06:26
Speaker
Okay, so that brings up a question is what if someone is listening and let's say they're in the 10th grade and they go, I want to be a Navy SEAL. Let's throw some advice out there from the physical standpoint, the mental standpoint. What are those intangibles, those soft skills that separate someone from making it versus not making it? Yeah, oh well, so it it it always has to start with a baseline of physical conditioning, which is And there's really, it's, it's pretty simple. Uh, it's simple to say and simple to categorize, but not simple to do. You have to be able to swim. You have to be able to run. You have to be able to handle your body weight, which, you know, is often called calisthenics, but like pull ups, pushups, those kinds of things. There's, there was very little, free weight stuff in the seals, but you have to be able to do all the running swimming calisthenics. and then you have to be able to do it in
00:07:19
Speaker
there's some other breath hold, water comfort. You have to be extremely comfortable in the water. So there's some ways to prepare for that. That's really the main physical preparation. and it's a lot. I mean, it took me, like I said, four years to kind of get where I was thought I had a really good chance, but then the mental preparation, ah the mental is the, is the biggest part of making it through buds. And everybody kind of says that, but they don't really get it until they get there where you literally, you have to literally go in with the,
00:07:47
Speaker
Mindset of they're either going to kill me or I'm or I'm gonna fail like I'll fail runs I'll fail swim times and and that's to me. That was a that was an acceptable not acceptable I could have swallowed that if I didn't pass everything might then I at least know like okay, I just didn't prepare enough But you have to they either gonna kill me fail me But there's no way in hell I'm going to quit like they'll have to force me out and as long as you go in with that mindset Like this is the all I'm doing the only option I have in my life, they're going to have to kill me to get me out of here. That's really it takes to make it through. I mean, it's honestly, that's, that's it. I mean, that's the, that's 98% of it. Once you've established the baseline of physical capability, you know, which, and I would, I mean, most people do that come in these days, everybody these days, because the internet is so easy to find information about SEAL training and how to prepare what it what entails, everybody kind of comes in pretty physically prepared.
00:08:40
Speaker
which I guess wasn't really the case. Like in the seventies, my dad went through, you know, people would show up and have no idea what they were getting into. Well, these days people, people know, but that's, but it's still, ah ah the attrition is still, you know, 80% because so many people quit or get hurt or just can't make those times.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm sure you can watch a video, but until you're in the middle of that, where these people control every aspect of your lives, you're without sleep, constant physical exertion, being able to focus and think under stressful situations, that's completely different than just thinking you can do it and showing up. Yeah, there's a couple great, a few great documentaries on SEAL training and some great online videos. and They They all give a ah ah good taste, but there's just no way to convey the sheer misery and the everyday sense of doom that you experience when you're in it. I mean, it's just impossible. You can't convey that on a TV screen. How do you convey on a TV screen just the
00:09:36
Speaker
constant sand in every crevice of your body that's just wearing away your soul. You know, you just can't you're in it. You just don't know. And you're like, Oh, this is what people mean by hell on earth. I get it now, you know, but that's a week long. You're kind of your hell week. Is that right? Well, hell week just five days of the six months of training. So it's definitely a huge crucible. You make it through, and buds, but there's, there's plenty of not plenty. There's a good number of people that make it through hell. We can still don't make it through the rest of the training. Cause there's a bunch of other,
00:10:03
Speaker
very difficult things that follow it. Is the sleep deprivation the biggest, I guess, is that something that people don't realize I'm not used to this? I can lift weights and run and do calisthenics and do all the stuff physically they're asking, but when I haven't slept, but I don't know how often they let you sleep very minimally over two or three days, it catches up to people and the weaknesses start to show up. No, the sleep, you don't sleep, I slept about, so your amount of sleep in hell week, hell week is, it's five days. So over that five days, I slept probably 45 minutes total. if you, if you went a bunch of races, they did, there was all kinds of like, Bud's instructors love competitions that one of the famous sayings there is it pays to be a winner. So if you say you, we had, we had this big, paddle around Coronado Island, you know, it's some long paddle. I mean, it's just a, it's a nightmare.
00:10:58
Speaker
But if you win that, you may get to sleep like 30 minutes right there at a stretch and be earned maybe even 45. And you're going to probably get max two hours of sleep over. There's still the most you're ever going to get two hours. But if you never win a race, you're always dragging in your last. You may sleep zero because you get a little bit of sleep depending on how you do. So the sleep that you're. I believe you're not legally responsible for your actions after the Wednesday of Hell Week. That's no joke. i i I believe that's what they say. is They have to be with us 24-7 after Wednesday of Hell Week because we're just zombified. so At that point, it's really just a matter of, again, I'm not going to quit. To sleep, is it sucks. yeah You absolutely want nothing
00:11:41
Speaker
but sleep, you just want to shut your eyes and do nothing else. But, uh, as long as you can just keep pushing through, but there's no, you know, there's no physical, there's no four mile time to run at the end of hell weekly. They're not expecting you to be at top physical condition during hell with, they're just expecting you to survive. but then, you know, the physical, the time to runs and swims and all happen every other week of buds and you have to pass those every week.
00:12:07
Speaker
When you made it through, how long did you sleep when you were finally released? I'm sure they give you a few days at least or a week off after you're done.
Transition to the CIA
00:12:15
Speaker
Tim, so naive. finished it. I mean, this is it seared into my brain for the rest of my life. we we We finished it about noon on Friday and we started Sunday evening. So we finished at noon on Friday. They handed me a two liter Gatorade and a whole pizza and they said,
00:12:33
Speaker
and you're confined to your barracks. And they said, go back to your room. And they said, eat the whole pizza and drink all the Gatorade. Well, I get half the people at camp because they're so tired. So I did. I ate all my pizza. I drank the whole Gatorade and I slept for, I want to say, 17 hours. I woke up a couple of times to pee, obviously.
00:12:54
Speaker
but then I did wake up and like walk right next door and in my barracks to my buddy's room, he was asleep in his bed with his opened a box of pizza on top of his chest. Ants were all over it and he was just sound asleep. And I don't think he woke up for like 20 hours. Good grief. Yeah. So he woke up the next day on Saturday. went out for a giant meal with my dad. He came, was in town and a couple of my buds classmates. And then we had Sunday off and we started back on Monday.
00:13:24
Speaker
So we had two days off. Now that first week after is a little lighter. yeah They do ease up a little bit, but they still get you wet and sandy and uncomfortable. You just don't do as much. there's no time to run or anything that week. The timed runs that you have, is it one specific time they're wanting you to meet, or does it change all the time or? Uh, yeah. First phase it's a four mile beach run and, uh, pants and boots, but you, but you do get to do it on hard pack sand.
00:13:49
Speaker
So it's like two miles down, two miles back. It's so, starts, the times don't sound horrible, a, like a runner or anything, or just if you had like, this was all you're doing today, the the times don't sound bad. So I want to say it was like 30 minutes in first phase. then it was down to like, and then it's 28, I think in a second phase and it's like 26 or something in third phase, um, that you have to do the four miles. So, so it ended up by themselves in a standalone world.
00:14:16
Speaker
They, they're not that difficult, but boots and pants on the beach all day long. You're doing physical activity for six straight months. It's tiring and I never failed to run. Uh, I never even came close to failing around, but I was always pretty close on swims, like busting my butt to get the swim times down. Hmm. Are you swimming in the ocean most of the time or in a pool or for these time things? oh, the time swims are always in the ocean. We did some conditioning swims in the pool, but mostly we swam in the open water.
00:14:44
Speaker
All right, so you're done with your Navy training or your SEAL training. You're a SEAL. How long did you do that for in the military before you decided I was going to leave the military and move on to to things? I only did four years. years. the I think the average SEAL is about six years. The War on Terror had just started 2001 and then the Iraq War in 2003. My major and college was international security studies, like international politics, terrorism and stuff. And i I kind of knew from a couple of years after 9-11 being in the teams that the CIA had stuff going on and that that might be a better fit for me. So I put in to go to the CIA straight from the SEALs. So it was kind of a mix between family, military life's hard on the family, especially the SEALs, and I was i newly married. and and So it was kind of a mix of
00:15:39
Speaker
wanting a little better family life balance and then wanting to use my degree. And I just thought that and work was going to be more interesting in the war on terror at the CIA at that time. So how do you apply for the CIA? I mean, is it like you just meet some guy in a parking lot somewhere and you get the application or do you just go to their website and fill it out or what's the process typically like? think there's various ways that they recruit some Um, so they'll go out to college campuses and or places and they might personally recruit depending on what their needs are. But I just applied online. I actually applied for, um, well, there was a huge hiring boom there after nine 11, obviously. so they were hiring just left and right. They hired tons of people out of the military. So I, I actually applied for both a,
00:16:26
Speaker
graduate school internship program. So my, my alternative is that I had to have a backup plan. Obviously if the CIA didn't hire me, so I applied to graduate school and the CIA at the same time. And then as part of that at the CIA, I applied for a graduate intern program. Essentially I was like, okay, if I don't get hired, I'll go to grad school and be an intern at the CIA. And that'll get me in the back door. But then I also just applied to the operations department of the CIA. so I got a phone call.
00:16:53
Speaker
I don't know why, but my brain immediately thought this was the intern program they were calling me about. I was real nonchalant and almost blew them off. I was like, wow, I haven't gotten accepted to grad school yet, so I don't really know if this is going to work out. You could tell the dude wanted to be like, hey man, this is the CIA calling you to offer you a job. Why don't you treat this seriously? It dawned on me and I was like, oh crap. I was like, are you from the operations division? He's like, yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
So I almost blew it right away by thinking I was getting a call that I wasn't getting. and then it's just a whole series of interviews and background checks and more interviews and in-person interviews and phone interviews. It's a long process to get hired there obvious reasons. Sure. When you start, do they have their own academy that they send you through like Quantico for the FBI kind of a thing? Yeah. So I got hired by the directorative operations, it was called at the time. think it's called that again now. For a while, it was called the National Clandestine Service. It's the ops section of the CIA. So they, yes, if you get hired for the DO, as we call it, go through a field training course that they put on, which is essentially like CIA 101 for CIA, clandestine CIA officers. So I went through that.
00:18:57
Speaker
after your basic, but the basic tradecraft training is really more ... It's not office training, because you're out on the street a lot doing stuff, but it's not physically demanding. It's more exploding cigars and watches and things of that nature. Right, right. How to rig up an exploding cell phone. Yeah.
00:19:18
Speaker
one question I forgot to ask you, what's the, if someone wanted to get into the, uh, the Navy and, and end up being a Navy SEAL, what kind of pay can they expect? I mean, I'm not asking for an exact quote, but can you, what's the, um, maybe, um, um, anybody can go into the, I would assume anybody can go online and look up, the pay scales for, so the pay scales are different for officers and listed.
00:19:41
Speaker
Okay. The, I don't know what an officer in the Navy starts at right now. I can't imagine it's less than like 50,000 a year for a new ensign. It could be more than that, but by the time I left the pay, the pay is really good in the SEAL team. So you get, everything you do in the military that's specialized, you kind of get paid for. So I got demolition pay, I got dive pay, hazardous duty pay, all these things on parachute pay, all on top of my, my baseline officer salary.
00:20:09
Speaker
So pay was pretty great. I never had, and obviously free medical care and when you deployed overseas, your housing was paid. I mean, you know, it's, I always tell people the military, the federal government is good job. There's lots of benefits to it. When you moved over to the CIA, was the pay in line with that or was it higher? I took a pretty big pay cut because I kind of restarted over. Like you do when you change careers, you know, you always have to start a little lower than you want to.
00:20:37
Speaker
So, but it built back up pretty quick. I'm like, I surpassed my Navy salary after maybe five years in the CIA, maybe four years, something like that. I was kind of back where I had been before, so it didn't take me too long to catch back up.
00:20:53
Speaker
Where did you spend, and I don't know how much you can talk. I obviously cut me off if I'm divulging secrets. I don't want to get a mysterious phone call in the middle of the night from this interview, but where did you spend most of your time when you were in the CA? Was it overseas, United States? My career track was called a collection management officer. It just gets real in the weeds, so I won't go too far in the weeds.
00:21:18
Speaker
director of operations, there's different little tracks and I picked one on purpose that had, um, hi, I had the opportunity to have a little bit more time at headquarters in DC if I wanted it without any kind of penalty against me. So there's some career tracks where they just expect you to be overseas constantly one tour after another. Well, I didn't, I wanted to have the freedom to come back so that I picked a career track that was based on that. So I was, I was at headquarters, you know, the training took about a year.
From CIA to Firefighting and Writing
00:21:44
Speaker
then I was at headquarters for maybe six months or so after that learning an account, um, then deployed for a year to Afghanistan, was back for maybe five months and then deployed again to Europe, a two year tour. it was kind of, it kind of went like that where you'd be gone for a year or two and then come back and you could, depending on what I wanted, I could have stayed at headquarters for two, two straight years if I had wanted to, but then I,
00:22:10
Speaker
After my Italy tour, I left shortly after that, so I wasn't at headquarters a ton. Your time in Italy, I assume you had to learn to speak Italian. I did. I got back from Afghanistan, and they were like, hey, ah here's your Italian instructor, and you're going to spend five hours a day with him for the next three months. Good luck. Oh, my good. and learned all my Italian in three months.
00:22:33
Speaker
So you're obviously getting past a conversational level. I mean, do they teach you about accent and whatnot? So is the goal to sound like you're Italian? I mean, you don't look Italian, but. No, that's an almost impossible test. So that's called a ah native level speaker. Okay. And you can take it for years and not, and not sound native. Really the only people that ever sound native in a language means they kind of grew up with it. Like maybe they had one, you know, in this case, one Italian parent, one American parent or something like that. but The goal is really to get to a level where you can carry on sophisticated conversation about more complicated topics than where's the bathroom and which way to the people you're going to take a route. Well, I'm sure there's nuance, there's slang and things that you would need to learn to really be effective. And that stuff you really, it's almost impossible to pick that stuff up until you get to the location. Then you pick a lot of that slang and stuff up once you're there. So it'd be like moving into Missouri and as a non-native English speaker and having to learn all these weird pronunciations of towns that should be pronounced one way and really are pronounced a whole different way. Like you wouldn't know that till you got here. You know what I mean?
00:23:46
Speaker
That's kind of the same way. So you're in the CIA for, was it six or seven years? Is that right? Seven years, yeah. Seven years. What was the spark that led you to leave the CIA and then kind of how did you end up in the fire service? was, again, just family stuff like that. Shocker, the CIA life also not great for her for family life, which, you know, looking back, it was probably self-evident, but it just wasn't I could tell it it just just was real disruptive.
00:24:15
Speaker
And, uh, and then just, I had said family stuff going on. So it ended up relocating here to Missouri. And then, uh, just because of a bunch of family dynamics was decided, okay, I'm going to stay here in Missouri. Now I've got to find a job. And that literally firefighting was the only thing I, as I looked around, the only thing that I was like, well, that sounds fun. And i I'll do this for the next 30 years. though couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do. Hmm.
00:24:42
Speaker
here in Springfield, Missouri. So that's what I chose. Right on. Knowing nothing about it whatsoever. I still don't know a lot about it, Tim. Well, I would be one of those people. I know. So I had to force all your jokes, pre-empt your joke. Yeah, you cut me off at the pass there. So you joined the fire service in what year? 2012. Okay. You started as a firefighter. You went rescue, correct?
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, I came in in April 2012 with seven other dudes and all dudes in that class and then did, I want to say I promoted to rescue five years later in 2017. And you've risen up, you're currently a battalion chief. Yes, I've risen to the mighty ranks.
00:25:31
Speaker
the high summits of chiefdom. Well, it's C-Shift, so let's not get too you high on a horse, but- Go ahead and edit in a bunch of complimentary praise from me at this point in the podcast. I'll just be quiet for a second while that's surely to be done, yeah. So, you're a battalion chief, you have also written some books. Have you just always been a creative person that on the side you like to read and write and do stuff like that? Or where did the Sandbox writing and the Ahava decision and stuff, where did that originate from? Yeah, i i I started writing little stories when I was, I must have been junior high or maybe even younger.
00:26:12
Speaker
Uh, I just have this, I've always in my brain had this, have this memory of listening to it. There's a song by black Sabbath called the wizard. Okay. So take that one, maybe, ah you know, loop it in here into the podcast. We can listen to it. And then, and then it's, uh, Elton John song, rocket man, those two songs inspired me like, I don't know, 11 or 12 to write this sci-fi story. and It it was God awful. It was like three pages long. And, you know, a guy that fights a wizard in space, who knows?
00:26:40
Speaker
But I've always, uh, I just have always liked writing for whatever reason, my brain, uh, communicates better in that medium than any other. so I started, I did that. And then I'm obviously in college. I wrote a crap time. My major was a writing heavy major. And then I got out of the, seals and, or I'm sorry, I got out of the CIA. And, uh, before I got hired at the fire department had free time and started, and I would just was looking online like, okay, I need to make some money.
00:27:09
Speaker
between gigs here. And there was ah a website called software app, which is still around, was hiring former special operations people just to write articles for it, you know, like that kind of life. And there's just various topics related to that. So I was like, Oh, I can do this. And that's where I first started writing. And I probably wrote for them for seven, eight years, putting out like anywhere from like five to 10 articles a month. Just a lot of writing about seal experience. I mean, things I could write about, seal experiences and Bud's experiences and even random stuff like how to be a good dad. You know, like, have you ever seen the, the, it's funny now, but the trend of like a Navy seals guide to, you know, shaving, you know, there's always like a, there's always, there's like a Navy seals guide for everything, you know, mowing your lawn, mow your lawn, like a Navy seal. I'm not proud to say I'm kind of in the van, I was in the vanguard of that, uh, trend because that all that writing started about my time.
Co-authoring the Tactical Combat Casualty Care Book
00:28:04
Speaker
all these little articles and inspirational things. And so that that was the first professional writing I ever did. And then I do that same kind of thing for Sandbox now. And then always it had sci-fi stuff percolating in my head. So I self-published that short story. just kind of fell into it naturally.
00:28:22
Speaker
Well, maybe you can tell me how to mow my lawn after we're done. Maybe there's a tactic I'm not doing right. Well, I wish you would have read the Navy Seals Guide to Podcasting before we start with this, because this would be much better. Hey, look, man, there's no ego here. If I need help, I'll take it. great No, I'm just kidding. You're great. You're very professional. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. I know that took a lot for you to say. I like that.
00:28:44
Speaker
The sandbox writing, I would imagine with the Navy SEAL stuff and then the CIA stuff, if do have kind of a unique perspective on foreign policy and things of that nature. And I don't really do politics here on the jobs podcast because I'm just not informed enough. But does that allow you to understand things, I guess, deeper that most folks in in in society just don't quite understand? Oh, I mean, only in the realm of, ah ah you know, special operations and international intelligence operations. Yeah. I mean, i I definitely have an insight to those things that probably most people don't have. But i i also my major was in international affairs. So just like anyone that has spent years studying a subject, you feel like you have a good baseline of knowledge. no i I try not to ever be like someone that's like, you idiot. You don't merit an opinion because anyone can have an opinion. Yeah.
00:29:35
Speaker
I occasionally will get irked when it's someone's From what I see is an uninformed opinion where they're just spout something and I'll be like, that's not really how it works. People have opinions about everything. i Policing is a perfect example. you I'm sure you and me and everybody else has an opinion on how we should do policing, but unless you're a policeman, here opinion probably is not as valid. Yeah.
00:29:57
Speaker
You know, the, let's shift gears to the book that you were a coauthor with, with your father, Frank Butler and Kevin O'Connor, tactical combat casualty care.
00:30:11
Speaker
that or TC three is the acronym I've been hearing. I listened to a really good podcast interview with your dad, stem talk. It's another podcast, these people don't know who I am, but it was released on the 16th of January of this year, season nine, episode 177, where he talks about the origins of this book and goes into really extensive detail. What give me some, how did that kind of come about? Did your dad approach you and say, Hey, this is something that happened. I really would like to document it. Or did you approach him or how did the, the storytelling in that book kind of come to be? Yeah. My whole family has lived, uh, T triple C since its inception, which my dad was like, you know, the midwife for it. He, he wrote the very first journal article and any kind of published medical journal.
00:31:00
Speaker
that coined the phrase and that coined the concept of it back in the mid nineties. And I mean, I remember a beach vacation with my dad and my uncle, like writing that article. So it's always been around and, you know, just like any, you know, you know, your dad's work, you know, if any any anyone in family knows what their dad does. So we've always lived and breathed it. And I, I had helped here and there with certain little projects. Cause I was, obviously I was in the Navy and I was trained in T triple C in the Navy. So I would give him feedback.
00:31:30
Speaker
and, uh, or tell him like, Oh, here's what we're doing. And then when I went to the CA, I was like, Hey, here's how it's being used as the CIA. And you know, we could use this part of it here. And so I kind of had been around it for a long time and had done a lots of stuff with him. Um, then it was completely his idea to write the book. His big worry was that the concepts and the, entire kind of curriculum of it would get lost at post-war, like so many things do. when the war is over, you kind of, you put all these things aside, you're like, okay, we don't need that anymore. Well, and his worry was that,
00:31:59
Speaker
It was such a, um, laborious, bureaucratic task and research task to get it all implemented, to come up with these things and to test them and to find the right things and to years of labor and battlefield, losses really that informed it all that he wanted to document it all on a book so that it wasn't lost to history. And then he knows obviously that I i he writes too, he writes journal things. So he's a, he's a really good medical journal writer. I mean, he's a brilliant guy.
00:32:27
Speaker
and knows more about this subject than anyone. So we didn't need my help at all for that, but my role was making it, uh, dumbing it down for the common person. So that was kind of what he brought me in to make it flow and have, give it some more, you know, regular style that was not a journalistic style, ah a medical journalistic style. So I would, I would send back whole paragraphs and be like, Hey man, uh, I'm an EMTB and I don't understand half this paragraph. Like I've got some medical training. So how about you tell me this in plain language?
00:32:57
Speaker
He sent back two sentences that would be like, yeah, that just means you stop bleeding inside your arm quicker if you're not cold. I'm like, okay, let's write that. That was my role was to try to make it more generally readable for a general reader. Kevin O'Connor, who is he and how does he factor into this?
00:33:17
Speaker
Kevin O'Connor is an old family friend from Special Operations Medicine Days of my dad. So he was surgeon, a medical physician at Delta the Ranger Regiment. I did a bunch of combat deployments with various sort of top secret Special Operations units. And then I don't know how, by some sort of twist of fate, he ended up in the White House Medical Office years and years ago when Obama was president. And at that time, just hit it off with Joe Biden and became his personal physician while at the White House. Well, stayed in that role in the years after the Obama presidency, kind of still took care of Biden, kept him as a patient essentially. And then when Biden was elected president, he went in back into the White House as the White House physician. he worked in the
00:34:09
Speaker
White House Medical Unit was the head physician for the president at the time we wrote the book. He obviously just left that position this year or a few weeks ago. So he's steeped in TCCC from special operations medical background and then also obviously being in the White House gives him lots of clout to get things that we thought needed to be pushed, pushed. Now, I'm not going to do the book justice by trying to dumb it down, but the general premise is the need for the two top tourniquets and hemostatic dressings. Is that a safe assumption? That's where it started. yeah The real driving force for TCCC was tourniquets. They basically figured out
00:34:52
Speaker
that did all these medical studies and figured out these big brains that and when people are being killed on the battlefield, like in war, from war injuries, a certain percentage of those fatalities on the battlefield were preventable. And of those preventable injuries, the injuries where you could actually save them, you know, if you get blown to pieces, you're obviously not saveable, but there are yeah lots of injuries that you are saveable Well, they then took those preventable and, you know, the injuries that were preventable deaths and then crafted a whole system of how to treat those preventable injuries and tourniquet bleeding to death is the main one in that group. So it it all started with that. And we were using tourniquets from like the, I mean, absurdly, like the 19th century style turn in Vietnam, we were using tourniquets that were like the civil war era tourniquets. So.
00:35:43
Speaker
a bit, that's kind of was the driving force. Like, Hey, let's get an effective tourniquet. Let's put it on every single soldier, airman, Marine, sailor that's in harm's way. And, and we will instantly save this many lives. And it, but it all bore out exactly how they wanted it to. I mean, they did end up saving lives. And so there was the, that was the biggest driver. And then hemostatic dressings is another way to stop bleeding. So you ex sanguination to use the big word for bleeding to death. That is the leading cause of preventable death on the battlefield and those two methods were the main way of taking care of that problem. it goes to airway also and sucking chest wounds there's other injuries that they are also treating, but those were how it started.
00:36:25
Speaker
obviously saving one life, it's worth it. But was there a certain percentage or was there a random number? Like, you know, we could save 10%, 15% of people just by applying this simple and rather inexpensive tourniquet device or? Yeah. It's because we want to help people in general. It's just a better practice. No, it was a, it it was a, and I don't profess to be a expert on the numbers, but the numbers are out there. It was a certain percentage of preventable deaths.
00:36:54
Speaker
that were saved and have been saved by tourniquets. So that they really just aimed, they had, you know, everything's data-based and medical innovation, you know, to get a new medical device, you have to base it on data. Do we need this? What is it? How is effective is it? And they, so there was big, and that's some of the unsung heroes of T triple C were the people that did these big tourniquet studies and did these big studies. They were like, yeah, this, there was a guy that the ranger regiment was a, was a, was a real innovator in adopting early adopters of T triple C.
00:37:24
Speaker
And they aggressively use tourniquets. And I think their number that they documented, don't quote me on it, was around 3000 lives they had saved with tourniquet use, know, from here and the period of like 2001 to, you know, 2020
Innovations in Military Medical Gear
00:37:37
Speaker
or something. It was a lot. I mean, it's, it's a percentage of all those injuries. I mean, the percentage is bared out, essentially. Yeah. That's a substantial number. Right. Yeah. Well, it's for something that's so simple. I mean, it's a simple device. Anybody could put it on.
00:37:50
Speaker
I don't know where I got this rattling around in my head, but for some reason I remember there was a branch of the military that was impregnating tourniquets into the uniforms. I don't know if that has fully been done. I know they were talking about doing it, so whether or not those are effective, I don't know. I haven't seen that recent. That'd be real recent literature.
00:38:10
Speaker
I haven't seen. So that's an innovation. They all carry them. Another a junctional, I mean, I'll just not get super nerdy, but junctional tourniquets, when you get a gunshot wound to the groin, your listener's made it. I know there's tons of vessels in the groin, blood vessels, and it's really hard to stop that bleeding. So for years, they've been trying to get a tourniquet that's a groin tourniquet. Essentially, and that's actually closer now than ever has been So kind of innovations impregnated in the uniform and the junctionals, they continue apace because really smart people are putting time and effort towards it, which is all part of the reason he wanted to write the book and say, hey, we've still got a ways to go you make this permanent and effective. When you have an idea like that and they want to implement something such as the turnigants in the uniforms, is that something that you will typically see in the special forces first before it's more widespread?
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah, it absolutely is. And that's a bureaucratic function and also a cultural mindset. So the the special operations community and that especially that especially the more secretive part of it has a little bit more free reign, bureaucratically speaking, money-wise, to go purchase things and to try things that the regular military just can't do through their supply system, essentially. boils down to that. It's just a lot easier for them to go just say like, Hey, this, uh, piece of gear looks pretty awesome. We're going to buy it and test it out. And then if it works, we'll, we'll start using it. And then like anything else, people that work around the special operations community start seeing that gear and start thinking like, Oh, that's pretty nifty. Like, Oh, look, you should get that. And then it just kind of percolates out from there. So it is, it is a kind of a testing and evaluation, section of the military in that way. And it always has been really.
00:39:59
Speaker
The title of the book that you co-wrote with your dad and Kevin O'Connor, it was Tell Them Yourself, It's Not Your Day to Die. um And that was based on the story of Tactical Combat Casualty Care or TC3. Where did that title, do you know where the title came about? That's pretty specific of the title.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was a, uh, medic on the battlefield and the, one of the, he was treating a victim, a gunshot wound, or I think it was a gunshot wound. And the, and the, and the classic, you see the movies and war movies and stuff and it really happens. the guy who's thought he was about to die basically said, tell my family, I love them. Like, Hey, tell my wife and kids, I love them. And you know, I died doing what I love. You know, one of those, those kinds of things.
00:40:45
Speaker
And so the medic answered back, now tell them yourself, you can tell them yourself, we're going to save you. That's where it came from. The title came from. Yeah. that was a real story that I think it Kevin O'Connor was the one that came up with, I know it was him that came up with it. I just don't remember who the person was he was talking about, but he was knew that story and we all agreed. It took us a long time to come up with a title. That was like, we spent a long time on it and we all kind of agreed. Well, like, this is really good. Let's use this. And it kind of conveys the whole sense of the book is getting
00:41:13
Speaker
people that are injured on the battlefield back home to their families was really what we wanted to do. Your dad started this back in the 90s, so this was decades from start to finish of this whole TC3 thing. He was recently awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by the United States government, the White House, and the President. That is correct, yeah, for a lifetime of service. Yeah, that's pretty big deal. i They don't give that one out very often, do they?
00:41:40
Speaker
No, it's like the Presidential Medal of Freedom. so There's two civilian awards that the president can give out, and the Medal of Freedom is one, and the Citizens Medal is the other. It's really just up to the president and how often he wants to give them out.
Career Advice and Resilience
00:41:52
Speaker
There's no set number every year. Well, I haven't gotten in mine mine for podcasting just yet, but in the day now, I'm sure that'll- I'm sure the invite is in the mail. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's sitting in the post office in Cassville.
00:42:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So let's kind of shift gears and talk about some some tactics or some advice that you would give folks as far as the soft skills. If someone wanted to get into the military and they wanted to be in special forces, if someone wanted to take the CIA route, if someone wants to get into the fire service, are there a few character traits or skill sets that they need to develop that will allow them to most likely be successful in any of those? I mean, there's some similarities there.
00:42:38
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Soft skills. ah Yeah, absolutely. They're all very different careers, but I've probably said it to you before, but I've told lots of people that they're also all very similar and that they have a really well-defined mission. The people that tend to gravitate towards them are sort of service oriented or mission oriented. People that want to feel like they're accomplishing things.
00:43:01
Speaker
I'm in life. that that I feel like that's been the case for all three of those. And and take a high degree of motivation, just self-motivation. And you don't get a lot of, I mean, and insert you funny fire department joke here, but but you don't get a lot of people that come into those careers that are like, oh, here I am. I'm just kind of here to coast. I mean, they they they may get to that point later in their careers, they get jaded, but they all join up in all three of those fields to make a difference and to either help people or help the country or serve the country or serve the community, the local community. And so that's the main thing. It's really just a, you know, everybody I think kind of knows, if they have that burning desire to kind of serve, like, I think that's just something that you're almost born with. I don't know that that's something you can learn. You can certainly see it, exemplified in other people, you know, and be like, Oh, I'd like to do that. They seem to really enjoy their life and their career. Uh, but was the main thing is just the motivation to,
00:43:54
Speaker
want to do a job like that where you're not going to work for the paycheck, God knows, every day. you There's something else that's driving you to... don't And I don't And I don't mean to denigrate people that do make a large paycheck and work in finance or something. Some people love my brothers in finance and absolutely loves it and it's his passion. So part of it's knowing yourself, you your own passion is. And then i i do I would say one of the main uh, things you have to develop is once you decide, okay, this is my passion. You've just got to go for it with everything you have and just be like, that's what I'm going to do. And no one's going to stop me. I'm going to, I'm going to master all the things I need to master to become this one thing. And, and not ever, there's, I think there's plenty of people in life that tell you, you can't do things, you know, like ah I, I can't even count how many times in college.
00:44:40
Speaker
people would ask like, Oh, what are you going to like people that weren't in the, even in ROTC or just regular college students. What are you going to do and the Navy? I'll be like, Oh, I want to be a seal. And they would just look at me like you idiot. You're, you're like a buck 60, you know, no tan. Uh, you don't look like a Hollywood seal, Charlie Sheen or any of that stuff. Like no chance. I mean, but every single person, almost that I would tell that to be like, okay, whatever, man. You know, I might as well have been saying I'm going to go, I'm going to be a professional wrestler.
00:45:06
Speaker
Right. They just would look at you like, but you can't let that... you If you let other people's doubt become your doubt, then obviously you're never going to make it in life. So that was a big part of it, just self-motivation and almost having a you you know a super belief in your own, at least desire. It doesn't mean you're not going to fail. but I've failed at plenty of things, but you at least have to have the desire to try. you Well parlaying that into the next question is I always ask what's your advice on dealing with failure because
00:45:35
Speaker
You know, we all make mistakes. Sometimes they're big ones. Sometimes they're little ones. I would imagine in military, if you make a mistake, you, they beat it into your head with endless running and pushups where you can't help never forget it. Uh, or you'll never forget it. But when you get older in the CIA, how was failure dealt with in the fire department? I'm familiar with it, but right. Yeah. Well, so I, I almost failed out of buds. I had a horrible, uh, sinus infection, uh, during first phase.
00:46:03
Speaker
So it didn't and I was able to fight through it meds and whatever and it was fine but except for this one thing we had to do called drown proofing where they tie you up your feet and your hands and you jump in the pool and you do this all these series of tasks while you're all tied up in the water so you have to like swim down and back and then bob up and down and pick up a mask with your mouth and then do a somersault all these stupid things just to make sure you're comfortable and the water. Essentially tying you up and throwing your feet and hands up and throwing you in the water is a pretty good way to make sure you're comfortable in the water. And I and am, I was even that time and I still am, but I couldn't breathe out of my nose. And so I had the part where I had this mask in my mouth and had to do these somersaults. If you drop the mask at any point, like you fail that part and you have to go back down and get it or you run out of time or whatever, well, they only give you multiple
00:46:53
Speaker
You know, a few chances and buds to do all these things that you have to do, like the 50 meter underwater swim and the, obstacle course times, you have to make those times and they give you a couple of chances. And if you don't, they just, they roll you out or, or they kick you out. They roll you back, meaning, meaning you start with the next class or they kick you out. So I was on my final attempt, uh, for this thing. Cause I just couldn't, I couldn't breathe. I was like, I'm not, I cannot do this. And I was like, F it. I'm just going to do it. And I'll just.
00:47:22
Speaker
inhale a bunch of water and just drown and it'll be fine. I got at least a little died trying and I somehow miraculously did it, but it was still like I was like, there was two of us that needed, you know, three opportunities to pass. Like everybody else passed on their first or second, you know, so that the two of us, that was towards the end of first phase. We had a couple of weeks left and for those last two weeks,
00:47:43
Speaker
They made both of us wear a life jacket all day, every day, 24 all day. We had to wear it, run around with life jackets on just because we had, you know what I mean? Like they're like, these guys can't do it. You know, like, and it was, so you're, it's essentially wearing a thing that says failure, you know, across your chest with a bunch of dudes that you're trying to be like classmates. but So it's good in the sense that it does teach you like, you know, everybody fails at something in life. I don't care who you are. If you're the most successful person in the world,
00:48:11
Speaker
you have failures to look at and you just have to learn from them and like embrace them and be like, well, yep, that sucked. And now how am I
Family Legacy and Mentorship
00:48:18
Speaker
going to avoid that next time? and And if it's a big failure, like say I had failed out of buds, like I was mentally prepared for that. you Obviously I wasn't going to quit, but say I just failed out. um There was already a part of my brain that was like, okay, you gave it everything you had, you tried your hardest, you did your best and you didn't make it. Like I wasn't going to, you know what I mean? I wasn't going to have some sort of existential come apart. I mean, I would have been upset, but you also, you have to be kind of, you have to give yourself some forgiveness, I think, in life. You're not going to have succeeded everything. No one is. And if you let that make you scared to try things, then you're never going to succeed in great things. And at the same time, if you do fail in some of those, you just got to accept it. I'm like a Zen philosopher, Tim.
00:49:02
Speaker
I've always said that about you. I know. That's a common refrain, but I hear a lot. There's other things I say about you, but it's not broadcastable. I don't know if I conveyed that well enough, but yeah, you just got to be willing to accept it. No, you did. Your early influence, you said you knew from a pretty early age that you wanted to be a Navy SEAL. was your father's influence or do you have other family members? as It seems like in the fire service, like my dad was a fireman, my uncle was a fireman, you it's just kind of a generational thing. Is the Navy SEAL line, is that the same or do you have a lot of people just come out of left field and go like, I'm going to do that? I don't think it's as common in the SEALs to have a bunch of family members, but that being said, it is somewhat common because I'm the fifth, I'm one of five in my family.
00:49:49
Speaker
before me, there was, there was already three before me. So yes, that helps quite a bit. Cause I essentially, I knew, okay, these three guys that I know can do it. I know those guys, they're, they're nothing special. You know, that's my dad. And so like, that in a sense, that was great. Cause I, I didn't see them as supermen. Um, like everyone around me did. So I would always hear like my friends or other people, like at the Naval hospital in Pensacola, where my dad worked, I would go in there occasionally for whatever reason to visit him or something. And.
00:50:15
Speaker
But it was always like this reverential, like, oh, he wears a sealed trident. Like that guy was a Navy seal. And I was always what, why are these people so worked up about this? So like, I had never had that sense of awe, that a lot of people have about any, you know, anything like someone that, uh, wants to be a, like a professional baseball player. I'm sure if you come from, you know, if you're Bo Jackson or Mark McGuire's kid,
00:50:39
Speaker
It seems much less daunting to you because you've probably heard the stories about how you get to that point when it takes, the pitfalls. A lot of it wasn't a mystery to me. it It was quite helpful, yes. But there's plenty of people, the great majority just come as the first ones in their family and just go for it. That's, in a sense, much more impressive than me coming from a family that knew all about it and had lots of inside knowledge.
00:51:02
Speaker
It seems more achievable when you're raised around folks that have done it and you know them well. It's like, oh, all right. Well, you can do it as opposed to this mystique that it does have. I mean, that's not everybody can do it. So it's certainly something that we should hold up and honor, but. Right. And also, though, in one sense,
00:51:21
Speaker
I also knew how hellish it was going to be, so I didn't get the benefit of the not knowing. My dad would be like, you're going to be real cold. You read get that, right? like like My uncle, that was almost what got him, and it gets most people the cold. The cold just is unbearable to some people. and I knew that was going to be miserable, so I you had that to look forward to for five years. You've got five family members. Is that a record?
00:51:44
Speaker
I think it is a record. I believe we're sitting in the in lead. I think there's one other family with four, but I don't know that for sure. they nippy heels? is Sorry. I have no idea. I don't even know who it is. I don't stay that close. community is so insular. and isn't People just don't really know that stuff. Some people do, and then I've just heard tell that that we have the most at this point. Well, who else besides your father and your uncle and you?
00:52:07
Speaker
My dad's cousin was the first one to go through, and then my dad, and then my uncle, and then me, and then my cousin as as active duty SEAL now. Oh, cool. Yeah. He's the only active duty guy we have. But you know, there's other chances to him. There's still more out there, which always Butler's running around everywhere.
Personal Dreams and Humorous Exchanges
00:52:30
Speaker
Would you say that your dad was main mentor for someone that shaped your early career, or did you have some other people when you got away from your dad and into the military where you're kind of forging your own path? Did you have some mentors that stepped up and kind of guided you or gave you some really good advice besides that, of course? Yeah, right. You notwithstanding. The military part of it, my dad and uncle definitely and helped me the most and kind of taught me the ropes.
00:52:56
Speaker
But the CIA, I didn't know. ah i didn't know. ah I had never had a single ah member of my family or anyone part of that. So that was kind of me on my own. I did meet obviously people there that were mentors. Absolutely. That helped me out and taught me the ropes there. But then in the fire service, same thing. I didn't have anything to draw on other than just the people around me. So I think mentors are very important and great, but you just got to make them and you got almost kind of, you know how it is. You got to choose who you're going to emulate and Yeah. More, almost more importantly, who you're not going to emulate. Sure. Well, some people can teach you a lot of stuff, but just usually about what not to do. Right. The lightning rods. Was there a, was there another career? I mean, you've had three essentially, and then the four, if you count the author, uh, side of things, but is, is there a career that you always thought, you know, that would be really fun or have you done what you feel you were born to do? No, I was a hundred percent born to be a singer songwriter.
00:53:53
Speaker
and a famous musician. Seriously, if if I had that talent, and I've tried writing songs and I play the guitar and I'm okay, but if I had that talent, would have been choice number one from the get go. Well, if Polka makes a resurgence. Oh no. Why would you do that to me? I don't play Polka. No.
00:54:14
Speaker
more of a soft rock guy, Tim. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Full country. Yeah. The tender side of the Navy seals. Yeah. That's right.
Conclusion and Book Availability
00:54:22
Speaker
So your books, the ah HAVA decision and the book that you co-wrote, those can be found on Amazon there. Are they Kindle and hardback or both? Yeah, you can get all of those in Kindle, hardback, softback. You can also get the tell them yourself on the joint special operation medical website, JSON. they They're actually the publishers of it, Breakaway Media, but it's available on Amazon as well. Okay. Very cool. Hey. Yeah. I was looking forward to this interview. You've got a pretty unique story and it's always nice to talk with you even though you're sometimes... kind
00:55:00
Speaker
I don't think you really mean it's always nice to talk to me, Tim. I feel like that's a platitude right now. Well, I know your love language is rather aggressive, so let's put it that way. It does all come from a place of love. I know. I ah thoroughly enjoyed talking today. Well, thanks for your time, Jeff. I really appreciate it, I will see you next shift. That's right. I'll see you soon. All right, buddy. Have a good day. Thanks, Tim. See you. Bye.