The Truth About Veteran Suicide No One Talks About: Magnus Johnson of Mission 22

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Speaker 1: Lute force.
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Speaker 2: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails on straight talk with the guys in the community.
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Speaker 3: Hey is this thing on? I'm pretty sure it's on. What's going on? Welcome back to soft Rep Radio. I'm your host. Say it with me, rad that's right. If you have been listening for a long time, thank you so much for your return, repeat listenership. And if you're new to the program, watch out here we come. Get ready for something cool. So I've got a cool guest today. But before I introduce you to him, I want to talk about the book club. So we have the soft rep dot Com Forward slash Book hyphen Club. That is the gym for your mind. Okay, I just got back from the gym working out my physical What about the mental. Read a book, grow your brain. It's a muscle. Get smart, read a book soft rep dot Com Forward slash Book hyphen Club. Maybe this gentleman that I'm speaking to will get his book in our book club and you can check that out. But first, the merch. We have merch. You guys have been rocking it. Guys and gals, we love y'all, so you rockin the soft Rep branded cool items soft rep dot com forward slash merch. Callum, my producer will maybe put something here in between my fingers that says like store dot merch dot soft Rep soft Rep merch, go check it out, tag us in it, and let's let's just share that all over the internet because I love you guys. Thank you so much for listening. Now, without further ado, I bring you Magnus Johnson, founder of Mission twenty two dot org, sits here with me. Welcome to the show, Magnus. First of all, let's give you a clap.
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Speaker 4: Hey, thanks a lot, Thanks for having me.
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Speaker 3: Now, now, Magnus, give me a moment to read a bio that I stumbled onto. I'm just gonna tell you can correct me on this bio. Ready, we're gonna go to your LinkedIn. Here we go, Magnus Johnson's bio Green Berets, How it starts. Magnus Johnson is a former Green Beret, family man, writer and artist. He served three tours of duty, first as an Army private combat engineer in Ramadi, Iraq, and then as a Special Forces Staff Sergeant Green Beret in Afghanistan. After eight years in the service, he faced challenges transitioning back to civilian life, including post traumatic stress disorder and depression. Johnson has been awarded a Bronze Star Medal for combat actions and a Congressional record in the Indiana House of Representatives for service to country and community. He is the president and co founder of Mission twenty two, organization dedicated to increasing mental health for veterans and their families. You know what, bro, welcome to the show.
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Speaker 4: Hey, thanks a lot. Yeah, that bio is just about accurate.
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Speaker 1: There's probably a little little word things there that some people will get me on, but my wife wrote that up and it's about accurate.
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Speaker 4: It's about it's about ninety nine percent crewe.
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Speaker 3: And you're still married to the same lady that wrote this.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, still married.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, good job. Love that. I'd love to hear that. And Mission twenty two. How how many of us have not heard about Mission twenty two in the veteran community. You know, here at soft REP, we're constantly talking about awareness and you know, self help for one's you know, choices in life, and Mission twenty two is out there just trying to help bring you know, R and RS. I think what you guys call it, like resiliency and recovery. Let me think what I wrote down here, recovery allilien? Yeah, yes, exactly right, And so okay, first of all, there's so much to crack open with that. Right. How old were you when you enlisted?
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Speaker 1: Let me get that out of the way, man, twenty three twenty four. It was a delayed entry program, so I was a little bit older. Yeah, I was a little bit older, but uh, nine to eleven had happened, and I had kind of sat on it, I think for about a year.
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Speaker 4: I'm like, hey, if the war keeps.
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Speaker 1: Going, I'll join up, because I didn't know if it was going to be like pop up, go away or keep on going.
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Speaker 4: And so about a year after that happened, I entered. But it was a delayed entry program.
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Speaker 3: And you joined what was the enticing bait on the end of the fishing hook that just reeled you in? Were you a eleven bravo like an infantryman? Did you go in as a combat engineer? What was it? Exactly? Yeah?
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Speaker 4: Man, So well, what it was was nine to eleven.
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Speaker 1: I wanted, you know, I wanted to fight when I witnessed you know, I watched on the news at towers come down. I had no intention of joining the military until that moment in life, and then something inside of me kind of stirred awake once I witnessed that. And then the recruiter man, I wanted combat arms. I was looking at actually, well, I was looking at a few things. I was looking at cavscout, infantry, tanker, and and then uh, what is it?
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Speaker 4: Combat camera? The journalist That was interesting to me.
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Speaker 1: But then the recruiter man he said, uh, he said combat engineers just like infantry was C four And I was like, oh, yeah, that's me.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 1: Turned out it wasn't exactly true like that. It all depends on who you're attached to.
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Speaker 4: Uh.
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Speaker 1: But I was attached to an infantry unit in Ramadi in six so it was kind of true for me on my first tour.
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Speaker 3: But did you do attached to that unit? What was it? Like? What was it that they're like, Hey, so like a Corman gets attached to just like a you know, a Marine Corps team, like just randomly, Hey, you're a Corman in the Corman pool, You're gonna go with this unit? Is that kind of how it is for your job as well your MOS military occupation. Well this trained and then you just go with this unit. Well, for a combat engineer, you can be attacked, you know. You can be on base, building up bases, you know, you can. You can be attached to tankers, helping dig fighting positions, putting up pesco's, putting up Constantina wire. You know.
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Speaker 1: But when I was attached to the infantry in Ramadi, you know, six we were clearing routes, we were digging up cachets, looking for ied ease and then going with them on their patrols.
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Speaker 4: So it was it was pretty intense.
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Speaker 3: Is that where you shoot out that long cable from the tank and it goes out into the road and like yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, no man, I polished a few in the motor pool, but I never got to shoot one. Yeah, but yeah, it would have been cool to see that in real really.
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Speaker 3: Right, I've just seen the videos of it coming from Iraq. It's just like boom, just fire, you know, all over the road, just a big, huge explosion. But now you know, never got that chance. Crazy, So you go combat engineer and then the next step is.
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Speaker 4: So Ramadi was pretty tough. Man, it was that uh.
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Speaker 1: You know, you got Fallujah, Massoul Ramadi. Uh there, strategy in Ramadi was different than Fallujah. Instead of going door to door, it was like this containment thing. But the fighting was pretty strong. And then after that tour we took some casualties. We had we lost a few guys, and man I kind of developed some like bitterness, resentment, frustration and uh well, like in the regular army, you know, I felt like we were kind of waiting to be hit, being predictable. It just felt like I was always on my back foot and something, you know, I got ardent about becoming a.
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Speaker 4: Green Beret and going back to Iraq.
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Speaker 1: I was like, if I'm going to go back, I want to go back trained, aggressive and with people that all want to be there. And so I decided to go to a selection after I got done with Ramadi.
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Speaker 3: And so you come back to the state side, you go through selection and the qualifying course and all of that to get your green Beret.
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Speaker 1: Well, I went back to Germany and then signed all up, went to selection, found out I made it. Then I went to North Carolina, went through the Q course and became a Green break.
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Speaker 3: And became a Green Beret. Just like that, just a blink of an eye. It's like, I mean, no, no, it was. It was. It was like maybe an eighteen month course for you to have to go through.
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Speaker 4: Well as far as green Brey go.
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Speaker 1: You know, I got French and engineers, so I'm not uh you know, I didn't get Farsie and Delta, so my my course is a little shorter, but you know, still the challenge. It was a challenge for me anyway, especially we we monsieur we we we we.
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Speaker 3: Actually it's so great. I love it.
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Speaker 4: I actually fail.
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Speaker 3: I was.
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Speaker 1: I recycled French, and I thought I was not going to make I was not going to become a green Bery because of language. And uh, man, I did every I did. I watched movies in French. I listened to Painted Black by the Rolling Stones they had There's this woman that sings a French version, and.
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Speaker 4: I just tried to do everything in my power. Man, and I barely made it.
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Speaker 3: So I did. I had struggles. That's amazing. And uh I was probably the French foreign legion never popped up in your mind.
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Speaker 4: It did, man. Actually, Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I mean I wasn't going to do it.
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Speaker 1: But there was a few moments when I was I entertained that romantic notion, but luckily I never I never did it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, to get to the door, knock on it. You're like, here's my passport.
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Speaker 1: Well, like I've always wanted a venture man. Like I thought the French foreign legions sound you know, obviously it's like romanticized from old movies and stuff, but it.
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Speaker 4: All sounded cool.
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Speaker 1: And then PCT hiking, the PCT, getting a gold claim, things like that always kind of attracted to me.
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Speaker 3: You know, Oh, yeah, you did look into it a little bit. I can hear that. Yeah, And so Green Beret. You know, you just have this Olympian mentality to like just persevere through you know, a marathon, to just keep pushing with a ruck that weighs eighty plus pounds, you know, up and down a mountain for seventy two hours in a stress test, you know, trying to find land navigations. You guys are constantly politicians that are placed into you know, war zones with a satellite phone, like, how's it going? You know, Oh, you want your kid to stop coughing. I can help, but you to give me like six of those guys over there to just dig this hole and then you have your medic give them some night, will You're like, hey, I.
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Speaker 1: Mean there's no doubt about it that on the teams there's brilliant men, brilliant brilliant. I don't classify myself as quite that level. I'm fortunate to be there. It's not fake humility.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 1: I had some strengths. I was very adaptable. I was never the strongest, the fastest, the smartest, but I usually kept a pretty good attitude in the field. I kind of struggled on bass, but in the field, I kept a good attitude, always willing sleep, didn't sleep. Deprivation didn't bother me much. And I liked that grind, you know, I liked I liked having odds against this and pushing, pushing, but definitely men surrounded by great men.
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Speaker 3: Great Yeah, no, agreed, And growing up in that culture with my father being a Green Beret, and you know, those guys always talk to each other with a first name basis. The only time I ever heard like, uh, Sergeant first class Ratal was like, I think he was in trouble by his major. But otherwise they were always like hey Jack, Hey, Hey Beson. You know, it was always like a first name basis in the in the teams because when they go out, they just you know, the rank matters on the base and it matters in a chain of command. But those guys seemed to just all be of the same cloth and understanding each other when they're on the teams.
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Speaker 1: Man, that's something you know, I've been out for a few years now and running businesses, being a part of businesses working with civilians, and that's something that civilians struggle with, knowing when to you know, what have to wear a win like, hey, now's the time to be you know, friends, peers.
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Speaker 4: Now are on mission.
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Speaker 1: Now we're on the X, Like, all right, now is ranked. Now's not the time to question me, Now's the time to execute. And so, you know, I've missed that. I miss being able to have that first name basis, have a friendly rapport, but then be able to go into professionalism and then when it's over bounce out to you know, it's a difficult thing to do, and that's probably one of the few cultures I've seen it actually happen where it's.
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Speaker 3: A Heckel and Gide situation or Jeckel and Hyde excuse me, where you have one dude who's trained to go on point with whatever equipment is attached to him. And then another who can you know, also coach the kid's soccer game when he's not doing that same thing.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's just this rotation of command and control of life responsibility. But then you always is our aware situational awareness, right like okay, hey it's we're on base. My captain's talking to Major so and so so like yes sir, no, sir, yes, yeah, right, yeah, you know, and you got to know when and you got to have that respect, and you got to have that maturity and you've got to you know, have the awareness.
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Speaker 3: And once you got your Green Beret Special Forces TAB the United States Special Forces, I'll call you what you are. Uh what did you then go off to do that? You can tell me, like what was your next deployment after that with the teams? Was it back to Iraq? Was it back to you know that was that your theater of operation was the Middle East?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I didn't go back to Iraq. I wanted to go back to Iraq at least I thought it. Yeah, you know that's what you were saying. Yeah, but uh no, we ended up going to Afghanistan. Uh and uh, it was. It was really interesting. I got better at my my mos you know, we had but it wasn't heavy combat. On my second tour, it was a lot of training, a lot of ranges, a few missions, but nothing like the intensity of Ramadino six.
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Speaker 4: And so the tour was short.
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Speaker 1: But I learned how to be a I forget what it's called, but basically an assistant charlie. There's like the main Charlie and the assistant charlie. I learned how to be the assistant, learned how to do my job a little better. And then after that I did another tour to Afghanistan, my third tour, and you know, that one was where I was doing my job and we were fighting and it was unconventional and it was politics. So my third and final tour was kind of the cl for me anyway, with culmination of like combat experience.
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Speaker 4: What was it called.
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Speaker 1: I forget the acronym they are running that time, but we're basically training police and army sold We were doing this like training with the police for the Afghanistan.
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Speaker 3: With the A and A the Afghan National Army and W Yeah, those guys, I forget what it had a name Man, but I forget it.
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Speaker 1: But it basically we were like training up the police in the Afghan Army to work together. But that was about a year tour and I got to do a bit of everything that I had kind of imagined. What it would be liked to be a green.
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Speaker 3: Break, did you You know, I, if I was in that position, would want to trust everybody that I'm training, but I would want to like maybe trust them from behind them, right, So like, yeah, well they're on the line, you know, you know, any any close calls with that, Well.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a close call. I think a term that a lot of green Brays use is trust but verify. That's kind of in our culture, you know, trust but verify, which is a good thing to live by.
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Speaker 3: Agreed.
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Speaker 1: We did this big connection link up where we had some NATO troops, some Afghan troops, some Afghan Army guys, and US and we were linking up to do this big operation and there was an Afghan soldier in the back of a truck.
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Speaker 4: I think it was a highlux probably, and I can't.
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Speaker 1: Remember what the rifle was, but it was a machine gun PKM or whatever it was. It was a machine gun and he was having a hard time getting it loaded or getting it something was going on where he was having a hard time, like a malfunction or something, and my Bravo hopped up in the back of the truck to help them, and the Afghan guy took that as an insult, like, you know, hey, don't get in my lane, you know, and he lifted a hamp like a hammer tool or whatever, getting ready to come down, and uh, well, well there was kind of a moment there where everything kind of got real tense and he was yelled at to stop, and uh there was like a moment where I wasn't sure if he's gone or not. Thankfully he did, and the situation, you know, cooled off, but there was a lot of tension and a lot of mistrust, and for good reason. You know, there's a lot of things that happened from from those relationships, you know, where they got people on the inside and this, that and the other. So it's complicated, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of layers and complications to it, and conflict and moments did arise sometimes out of nowhere unexpectedly.
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Speaker 3: But and is that is that education? You know, the the the that layer. Do you learn that through the Q course? Is that like something that has to be already in you to be able to you know, separate your from like, okay, we have to like you said, layers, right, there's layers of an SF guy. It's like, are they teaching you how to be this politician or do you already have this understanding and demeanor when you go in how to work with folks like that?
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Speaker 1: Well, you know, their recruitment process is pretty elaborate, you know, their psychological tests.
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Speaker 4: I couldn't tell you who exactly they're looking for.
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Speaker 1: I can guess I've heard rumors, you know, but I think they really know what they're recruiting for. And then once they get the right recruitment, then they you know, they do the training and you do the education. But I think that they're probably pretty phenomenal at finding the profiles of people.
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Speaker 4: That they're looking for.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're good at what they do. Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And I couldn't tell you their methodology. I mean, I got some general awareness, but I don't know exactly.
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Speaker 3: It's like trying to learn the algorithm of TikTok. You're just not gonna ever know it. Yeah, he's got to post up and hope that your stuff gets seen. They're the same thing. They're like, we're just gonna let you know how you're gonna if your next step is in this classroom more exiting out this door.
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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'll tell you, man, like I grew up in a van. My dad is a musician, you know, I grew up poor.
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Speaker 3: I grew up.
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Speaker 1: I was supposed to be doing homeschool, but I didn't get to do a lot of it. And so I the psychologist said like, hey, you got a ten cylinder engine running on eight, meaning like in their psychological survey they had identified that I had the capacity, but I hadn't put the fuel in, and so they still recruited me because they thought I had a mental capacity to do it. But they also acknowledged that, you know, hey, he hasn't like gone through as much traditional academic.
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Speaker 4: Training, so they were able to kind of tease out these differences.
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Speaker 3: Wow, you know, wow, No, that's that's that's smart. I like to hear that, right, because you don't hear too much of that that conversation. It's usually like, oh, I was rocking am sixty on the back of a humby. But there's a lot of smartness. Like you said, there's brilliant people on these teams all right, whether you're being humble or not. You know you're around that. So you're gonna, you know, sponge off of those guys you know and their glasses. Okay, they wear their glasses, you know the guy you know talking about, and it's like, let me wear my glasses. Hold on me, my glasses on real quick, like, but you're the best shot on the team. Let me just put my glasses off. I just love the SF culture in that community. You know, very proud of how my father lived his life and raised us, and so I can only imagine, you know, he never brought it home. I never saw that work come home. And I'm kind of transitioning into this this this next conversation we're going to have about transitioning out of what you just did, learning all of these types of skill sets, seeing things, seeing things you can't talk about, seeing things that maybe you can't talk about that you never saw, that you never saw because you weren't there, but you were there, but you were never there. All those things in your brain and you have to live with it. Walk by your wife, every day. Hey, that's up, babe. I can't tell you anything. My dad never wanted us. My dad took stuff to the grave. I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it, you know, like to with the oath that he swore, right, I mean, that's that's just how you guys live, right. And So now that you're transitioning back from SF to stayside, you served like eight years as a Green Beret?
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Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I did four I think as regular Army and then Q course and then time as a Green Bray. So it's like two or three years as a Green Bray, a year and a half or so is the Q course, and then four years.
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Speaker 4: In the regular Army, like in between time you know, waiting or whatever.
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Speaker 3: So what was the what was the click that said, I'm just I went through all of this. You know, you've become basically like a doctor of Special Forces warfare, you know, as a Green Beret. So like, what what what is it that transitioned you to just not swear up again? Yeah? Man?
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Speaker 1: Well, so, like I was saying, you know, I grew up pretty hard, I grew up pretty poor, and so I already I already brought with me some like baggage to the military right before I even got there. And then you know, Ramadi was a kick in the kick in the ass, and I picked up some you know, PTSD, shell shock, whatever you want to call it from that, and then the you know, you went into Q course two more tours, and so I'm already kind of the skin is thin.
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Speaker 4: And then you add on that the rules of engagement are changing, the political climate's changing. It's kind of like difficult, like what are we doing? Are we winning? Is this like does this have an end?
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Speaker 3: Like?
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Speaker 1: So I started getting kind of confused on the vision and it started kind of becoming complex to me of like what's the goal, what's winning?
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Speaker 4: What are we doing?
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Speaker 1: And I got to that point and I was right around the cusp of thirty. I had given three tours. I felt like in my own heart that I had answered the call that was beckoning me with nine to eleven yes, and I felt like that was a good way to exit, you know, it was I could exit honorably. I had done the tours, I had put in the training, I had committed, I had honored my oath, and it kind of seemed like a natural point to move on.
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Speaker 4: In a way.
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Speaker 3: So I did, yeah, on your tour, on your terms. It was your terms, and that's that's chill. And so now when did you realize that you alongside with all these other folks coming home from combat and war, you know, and and the whole global war on terrorism which was twenty plus years still ongoing. I mean, as we talked today, you know, we have Middle East erupting right over there with Iran and all this, you know, I mean it's just non So I guess, you know, it's consistent, like, you know, where's the break, you know, for our veterans to like have a moment of no war. But I guess you're trained to go to war. I don't know. So when you got out, I guess my question to you is what made you feel the need to create Mission twenty two dot org.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I got out, and I think it was like the end of twenty eleven, beginning of twenty twelve, right on the CUSP, and some guys I knew started tomit suicide, started hearing about suicide, you know. And then I had some mentors of mine that were, you know, been in military a lot longer than me.
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Speaker 4: I had struggled in the military.
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Speaker 1: You know, there have been moments when I thought about it. It was around you know people, he was there, but I had kind of decompressed and I started kind of like paying attention and looking at everything. And then a guy I really respected, man, he hung himself. I don't want to say his name, because sure there's still family kind of there's still raw for them, and uh, dude, it dawned on me that that guy was asking me all because I was, like I said, I was having some struggles, struggles with alcohol and getting in trouble in this, that and the other. And he would always ask me. He's like, hey, how are you Hey? Are you doing all right? And then he asked me all the time, and I never asked him like, hey, how are you right? I was self centered. I was struggling, and I wasn't thinking about others. I was thinking about myself and how my life sucks. And this guy was always asking me. And then that was a guy that hung himself, And then that hit me, man, And then I started doing a little homework. Some of my mentor started telling me about the VA report at that time, which is twenty.
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Speaker 3: Two a day.
00:23:03
Speaker 1: I believe in twenty twelve, and I started doing some research. Man, and I was like resentful. I was like, okay, we got the global war and terror. There's no like declared victory. Suicide rates are pack are peeking up, and I'm like, well, what's what's what's a VA doing?
00:23:19
Speaker 4: What is America doing? What is the army doing?
00:23:21
Speaker 1: I'm blaming everyone, I'm looking at everything. I'm annoyed, I'm irritated, I'm frustrated, I'm entitled. And man, something came in like I looked in the mirror and I mean I didn't speak to myself, but it felt like I did. It's like, well, what are you doing about it? And the answer, you know, I had no, I had nothing, I'm not doing I'm bitching about it.
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Speaker 4: And then like something in me kind of hit me again.
00:23:40
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well I could do something, you know, I could at least contribute to this.
00:23:46
Speaker 4: I could raise awareness. I could make this more of a situation that people I know about.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: It's not like in secret. And so I decided to build this big art piece in the town I lived in.
00:23:56
Speaker 4: This big sculpture.
00:23:57
Speaker 1: It's a leaf sculpture because it's like an art call any town, but they get a massive ton of tourists. So it's like a choke point.
00:24:04
Speaker 3: I love it.
00:24:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, people come to come be tourists. It's uh, it's in Nashville, Indiana. It's it's famous for fall leaves and uh millions of people come there every year. And you know, through a long story, I got I finaggled a way to do this big art installation in the middle of the town and uh you did.
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I'm good. No, I'm good in our installation inside the town.
00:24:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, well hold on, can I finish?
00:24:35
Speaker 3: Yeah? Please.
00:24:36
Speaker 4: So that's all I was going to do.
00:24:37
Speaker 1: Man, I was going to like, hey, I'm going to build this art piece with veterans, give it to the town, raise awareness of this issue, and will be good. And I had no intention of building a charity, no intention of building a national campaign, no intention of any of it. I just wanted to do something to acknowledge my friend, to not just you know, be a witness. And but in order to build that project, I had to get insurance, I had to get cash. People wouldn't give me cash without you know, having a tax deduction. And so it just turned into an organization from that.
00:25:11
Speaker 3: And so and so the whole thing became like a five oh one C three. That way, there was a tax deduction if anybody wanted to give you anything. And that's where Mission twenty two was originated, was from the leaf that you created. Yeah.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: Man, it's it's a super cool art piece, man, it really is. It's it's massive, it's beautiful, it's it's it's right in the center of town. And so from that, you know, because it was large scale, it wasn't.
00:25:35
Speaker 3: Like this little thing. It was like a can you tell me how big it is? Like, is it six feet tall? Oh?
00:25:39
Speaker 4: No, it's like thirty feet tall. At the visitors center, we.
00:25:43
Speaker 1: Got a guy who is like a like a phenomenal automobile painter, and he painted it all up. It looks like winds swirling the lead. It's it's beautiful. I mean, it's a real deal art installation. And I mean the town loves it, dude. I mean, it's it's a like.
00:25:59
Speaker 3: I see it, right, Do I see this big thing? Is this in front of a building?
00:26:04
Speaker 1: It's in front of a brown building. That's the visitor Center in Nashville, Indiana.
00:26:08
Speaker 3: And it's things to do in Nashville, Indiana. Yeah. There it is holy cow. So is that welded? Yeah, so you're a welder too.
00:26:18
Speaker 4: Well. I mean I had to learn. I had to learn how to weld. I had to learn how to do, you know, do local politics. I had to learn.
00:26:26
Speaker 1: I had to learn business. I had to learn all this stuff because of the things I wanted to do. You know, but you know, you don't want me to weld bridge. You don't want me to weld hear bridge. But I could weld smart, you know.
00:26:38
Speaker 3: You know what's funny is my business partner. We do war games here in Utah and we always go up against armored personnel carriers that drop guys off behind us. So we went in. He went into the garage with a blowtorch and a welder and he created a tank out of an Azuzu Rodeo so that we could have an armored personnel carrier that is literal. Yeah, I had to have it revend by the higher patrol as a tank. So I have it Uzu tank in Utah. I like that. What he says is he's like, you know, rad, I'm not a welder, so what's your excuse?
00:27:07
Speaker 4: Right?
00:27:08
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, because I'm like, how'd you learn to weld. He's like, well, I'm not a welder. I just took YouTube tutorial kind of like.
00:27:15
Speaker 1: Bro, the welders will get you for stolen valor if you go around saying you're a welder and you're not really a welder. Dude, Yeah, I can stick settle together.
00:27:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said, I'm not a welder, So what's your excuse? Why didn't I make what we helped? I took photos of him working, so that matters, dude.
00:27:31
Speaker 1: Have you seen that meme where there's a kid with like he's like this like redneck kid, he's got the welding helmet and he says the meme says, my dad says, if you grind.
00:27:40
Speaker 4: Your welds, you're not a welder. You're a grinder. Have you seen this?
00:27:43
Speaker 3: No? I haven't, but it makes sense. It makes sense.
00:27:48
Speaker 4: I can weld, but I'm not a welder.
00:27:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what he says. That's exactly what he says. I'm so funny and that just reminded me of it because again, here you are, and so do you draw? Are you already like a painter? Are you a Bob Ross by nature? Or like someone that threw all the time. No.
00:28:03
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm definitely like growing up in a van, growing up weird. I can see patterns, I can I can be adaptable, and I can find ways to solve problems. And art creativity solves problems that don't have answers.
00:28:20
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just really cool. I just I'm flipping back and forth. So my listener or my viewer, you're not going to see what I'm looking at because I'm on my laptop. But I've flipped over on a screen and I'm able to see it. And go check out Nashville, Indiana's art leaf sculpture by Magnus and you'll see you know exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, And that's just that's got to be very therapeutic for you to be focused on something, to be accomplished with a goal. So you said, okay, I need to get something done. What am I doing? And you went and did something and you stayed busy, and I find that, you know, the idle mind is the playground of all sorts of different types of demons that could be in our heads, you know, and they could induced by drinking, buy pills that are given by doctors that you think are Okay. It's like a doctor says, hey, here, take this prescription of you know, uh, what are they taking these days? Zoloften like you know, things like that that just are supposed to help you out. And you know, we have a thing at soft Rep Radio where we talk about thrills before pills. We want you to go out and enjoy the just go for a walk. Just go outside for a walk, you know, or go up in the mountains and try skiing, or you know, recreational therapy. If you can go to the VA and talk to your VA representative about recreational therapy versus you know, medicine. I'm not saying that all pills are bad pills. Like I'm on a resovea stat in for my heart. Hey, I take a five milligram pill at night. They're like, hey, keep the cholesterol downrad I'm like, okay, I believe in that. So I'm not saying don't do that. I'm just saying you can always ask, you know, is there something else like could I get a mountain bike instead of like a bottle of Prosa or a prozac, you know, could I I get a helmet with that? And the VA does have those resources. For vets.
00:30:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, uh, what's the opposite of death?
00:30:08
Speaker 3: You know?
00:30:08
Speaker 4: And to me it was creation?
00:30:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:30:11
Speaker 4: And what's the opposite of the end?
00:30:12
Speaker 3: You know?
00:30:13
Speaker 4: Or what is Well, it's detail the beginnings, you know.
00:30:17
Speaker 1: And so like I saw this one video where it showed like a normal person, like if you look at something, a normal person's eye sort of scans it and like, Okay, that's a chair or that's a whatever it is, you know, you just scan it, get it. Well, an artist, I will start and scan it like this and like pull out every detail, every shape, every tone, every color, every you know, and so unintentionally getting doing metal art to raise money because I would sell these pieces to pay for soaring the leaf sculpture. I had to start looking at beauty. I had to start looking at shade, depth, color. I had to start learning how to weld. I had to learn electricity, amps, jewels, vote volts, you know. I had to learn so much stuff to be able to do this one project that it was unbeknownst to me I was rewiring my brain, you know, starting to anyway.
00:31:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to learn what MiG welding versus tig welding is, and like all the different. You're laughing. I don't know what that's the right.
00:31:18
Speaker 4: I think you're being funny, dude.
00:31:20
Speaker 1: No, you got tig stick, you got different rods, you got different amps.
00:31:24
Speaker 4: You know, it's a pain in the ass, you know when you know what you're doing.
00:31:27
Speaker 3: No or how the how the how, how that is going to work with the weld, with.
00:31:32
Speaker 4: The metal, with the weld in the conditions.
00:31:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, It's all I learned from watching my buddy Ajax make the tank. I was in the lab. You know, it's like watching so I call you guys iron man. It's where you go into the cave with a blowtorch and a welder and you come out You're like, you like this? You like my outfit? You know, you like my tank? Do you like my leaf? You know it's like, you know this artistic focus. I love that, right, And so I mean like everything from the beginnings of the drawing that he did on the whiteboard of the tank and how he wanted it to kind of look. You know, we still have that. It's like stained on our whiteboard from like twelve years ago. So we still have that hanging up in the garage with the war machine. So every time we look over there we can see the original design, which was on a whiteboard he drew it.
00:32:16
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta ad man. I was thinking about that. I thought, remember this while we were talking. You know, I had mentors and friends, and I did the project with a with a local artist, and I did the project with a airbrush, you know, expert sure, and I got local guys at our welders to teach me. And so just like an SF you know, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, goo with the team. And so I developed a team to do these projects. So I can't take all ownership of that because that wouldn't be true. But I definitely like orchestrated it, built the team and you know.
00:32:49
Speaker 3: Saw the mission through to completion. And again that's the same thing with us. We had a guy that was always helping Ajax hold the metal, tacking it, you know, and like they were doing it together, a skilled guy. And then I was there just taking pictures for posterity, you know.
00:33:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, making it.
00:33:03
Speaker 3: I'd be like I'd all do it a selfie with like holding the glove and the hammer, like I've done all of the work. I have to do that it's you know, so if you ever see us in our tank, just know that it's an art piece of love for the wargame community here and we draft we travel with it everywhere. Honestly, do we take out armor personnel carriers. We take out deuce and a halfs because it has a forty millimeter canon that he patented my business partner four Airsoft Wargames that shoots a forty millimeter projectile ball about one hundred yards safely, and so we'll shoot them into windows of buildings. We go to like the old George Air Force Base in California, and we clash with like eight hundred other fighters who have semi trucks with two APCs on them. Yeah, I'm like, bro, I am, I thought I was in the hobby.
00:33:49
Speaker 4: You guys are the side by side of the battlefield.
00:33:52
Speaker 3: I mean seriously, Well, yeah, and we have a we can set four inside, twelve on top and then and they all have turrets on the inside that we're up. Just look up the Utah war Machine Airsoft on Google if you're listening to this on any any platform, and you can just see the war machine itself and Ajax as the creator. I'm just I mean, honestly, it just kept him busy. He was in there for like a year creating this table.
00:34:16
Speaker 1: Well, I mean look at your excitement, Like you made it, you created it, you did it with your friends.
00:34:20
Speaker 4: It's unique.
00:34:21
Speaker 1: No one else has one. Like, so all of that is like dope. I mean, serotonin creativity. You're neuroplasticity. You know, you're solving problems and like it's done as a team and it's it's amazing and it's unique and it's yours.
00:34:32
Speaker 3: And we're mechanized as a team too. Now, So we went from being boots on the ground just fighting, you know, house to house to house to like getting rolled up to the house, jumping off of it, going inside and coming right back to it. And then and then when the armored personnels with the tracks are coming around, we can kill them take them out because we have AsSalt vehicle troop transport and we have to have infantry with us. Otherwise we're always exposed. Everybody thinks, oh the war machines coming, We're like, ah, iighty three infantry guys around me right now. Wow.
00:35:02
Speaker 4: But yeah, man, like.
00:35:05
Speaker 3: That's the power of creativity for PTSD though war games that we do I meet guys like you all the time that are in the games. You know, guys that have been there, Guys that can never go because they had asthma. Somebody who's just looking to shoulders shoulder. They get out of the military, they're like, what do I do? And they come into our war game shop and they meet me or they meet our guys and they're like, you guys, do this, this is your hobby. We're like, yeah. We go out into the desert. We're there for like eight ten hours at a time on a Saturday. We fight until two three in the morning with tracer units and all these night visions and thermal optics. I mean, what's a guy gonna do when he's got some adult money. Yeah, you know, you've worked your whole Yeah, it's like down full equipment. It is fun and it's a good way to stay in the click with somebody or be in a community and be brought back into that. You know, there's a lot of guys like yourself that I, like I said, twenty years of doing that scale of what I've done here, and I just meet people who have a good time. And I've also lost people like you have who've tried to reach out to me and say, rat, I'm not doing so good today, and I'm like, oh, you got this, you know, Zachary. And a couple days later, Zachary didn't have it no more, and I couldn't stop that, and I had to tell myself, you know, you know, freedom of choice. You have that right as a person to you know, put a tattoo on yourself, but you don't have to put it on me. You have that right to, you know, do what you want to do. Drive a kind of card, but I don't have to drive the same thing. Freedom of choice. So if you want to. If I tell somebody I love them and I've expressed to them that many times, and like we care about you and you mean things to me and you mean things to others, but they still choose their path. I can't stop that choice. I can only tell them you're going to be loved and lost at the same time.
00:36:48
Speaker 1: So well that, I mean that opens up an issue with veteran suicide, right because you've got all this awareness, which is sometimes like too much because of.
00:36:59
Speaker 4: The I agree people are talking about.
00:37:01
Speaker 1: But then if you don't talk about it, you can't introduce solutions like.
00:37:05
Speaker 3: Why didn't anybody ever talk about it? Right, Yeah, and you're always talking about it. It's like damned if you do, damned if you don't.
00:37:11
Speaker 1: So it's this really tricky thing over the last thirteen years where you know, I want to acknowledge it. In the beginning, I did want to raise awareness, but as we get further along down the road, you know, as I try to shift to solution, to programs, to all these like you know, the marketing, the branding, whatever, like, shift it more towards like community, faith are whatever. Right, I want to acknowledge the suicide, but focus on the solution. A lot of a lot of people don't like that. They want to keep hearing about the problem, you know. And so I'm constantly torn between talking about the problem but trying to get into the solution, not ruminating on the problem, you know.
00:37:51
Speaker 4: And but it's it's it's well.
00:37:54
Speaker 3: And the thing about the problem is that it's just a fraction of a moment in somebody's mind, like they might have dwell on it. I'm not going to say that's not something someone hasn't thought about it, or they're like totally saturating their mind with it and they're they're gonna go along with it. I can't stop that, but you might be able to reach the person that's you know, I don't know. I guess my dad just told me that if you had a half a second to think about it before you did it, you wouldn't have done it. He's like that, Aaron, He's like, you know, these guys that might take themselves out in life suicide, if they had a half a second to stop pulling the trigger, they would do it.
00:38:27
Speaker 1: You've a mentor of mine said this. I didn't I didn't come up with this, but he said it. He said, Uh, there's the difference between wanting to kill yourself and not wanting to live, right, So there's this little like separating the bone from the marrow. You know, there's some people that don't want to live, and there's some people that in an instant want to.
00:38:44
Speaker 4: Take kill, you know, take their life. Yes, yeah, and uh.
00:38:47
Speaker 1: Some people can ruminate, ruminate, ruminate and like get weaker, weak or weaker, and then others it's just like this rogue wave and it overwhelms them and they respond to it and all in between, everything in between.
00:39:00
Speaker 4: It's a strangely strange thing.
00:39:01
Speaker 3: You know, I was never I guess as a young man growing up, we seem like of the same era. I'm forty eight today. But you know, doctor Kavorkian was, you know, the doctor that would go around to patients and he would record the situation so it was all on camera, and they were ridden with cancer or they had other ailments that were just like inabilitating, and they wanted to make the choice to exit this life with a doctor, not some grotesque way, not some you know, I'm gonna leave this for my kids to find downstairs, swinging kind of thing. Okay, Like respectful, you take your dog to the vet, you have to sometimes put it down. I'm just saying I was okay with Jack Kavorkian being on call to do that for patients who chose that path, that's their choice. That's just me.
00:39:49
Speaker 1: Well there's another one, right, like being a libertine, free will, suffering, reaching out. How much do you pursue somebody? What if they want to be left alone? What are their rights? What are your rights? What's you know? I mean, it's a it's a difficult, another layered situation that forces us to deal with our morals, our ethics, our values, real time in crisis. And you know my solution to that is to build in a community an environment to you know, drop as many rocks in the water to elevate it where there's good positive added, positive people, positive programs, options, and create an environment where that solution is less likely.
00:40:34
Speaker 3: You know, I love what you have on your website. Let's see here. Let me just click on it real quick. I think it's a crisis button. Like if you're in crisis at Mission twenty two dot org, if you happen to be looking there and it triggers you to think maybe you are, you know, you could reach out and there's help right there at your website. Yeah.
00:40:52
Speaker 1: I mean, like a lot of a lot of veteran organizations at VA, all that is you know, crisis, crisis, crisis.
00:40:58
Speaker 4: I wish I didn't have.
00:40:59
Speaker 1: To have that stuff on there, but you know people always reach out like, hey, you need that on there because we're not a crisis center.
00:41:04
Speaker 4: We're not a crisis organization. You know, we do long term programs for people with probably moderate PTSD, not even severe.
00:41:12
Speaker 1: And you know, you got moral injury, moderate PTSD, depression, you know, difficulty transitioning, looking for identity, purpose, like that's more Mission twenty two's niche. But you know, it's a reality that there's a lot of people in crisis all the time.
00:41:32
Speaker 3: You know what about that person that just feels guilty about things that they just dealt with. They're just guilty inside and something they thought they'd maybe replay over and over again, and they think like, I could have changed it if I've done this, I could have done this differently, And they're just yeah, guilt, guilt stricken. You know, it's like there's and it wasn't their fault and they're just tormented by this situation. I I mean, there is snowboarding. You can go snowboarding and try to like forget about that and try to stay alive on a mountain while you're sliding it forty five an hour. You know, it's like like going into the cave and trying to make your leaf and then bringing it back to fruition, trying to get rid of you know, that guilt and that demon. It's like going in and making the tank. I promise you. You know, my buddy Ajax probably has a demon, okay, and he will he's working on his tank. It's it's it's not it's not bothering him.
00:42:18
Speaker 1: The visualization I had when I started Mission twenty two and started these our projects is I kind of saw my life like a scale, but I'm in charge of the little pebbles, and I committed that I'm just going to keep dropping little pebbles on the positive side until that son of a bitch tips. Yes, you know, whether that's saying something nice, praying for somebody, being creative, saying I'm sorry, whatever it is, reading a book, saying yes instead of no, being willing to go to the you know, be willing, be humble and put in the effort, no matter how small, over time and stack that habit until that scale tips, and then now your life is surrounded with good people, good food, good friends, things to do, things that are interesting, you know. And it doesn't happen overnight. It wasn't like, oh, I went to the therapist, they gave me a.
00:43:07
Speaker 4: Pill, and I'm all better now, like that, did you know?
00:43:09
Speaker 1: And it didn't happen because I made the leaf sculpture. It wasn't like, oh, yeah, I'm all better now.
00:43:14
Speaker 3: It was consistency.
00:43:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I didn't even realize I'm how much better I'm getting until people around me are like, hey, man, it's really fun that you were here, you know, or whatever.
00:43:22
Speaker 4: But that's a time, you know, like at.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: First, yeah, that guy's fucking weird, you know. And so over time my whole landscape changed. But I was in charge of those little pebbles.
00:43:34
Speaker 3: That's right, and you were gonna be damn dude, You're like, I was gonna tip this scale with all of my pebbles and make me be me. You just took control, and I.
00:43:43
Speaker 1: Committed to the process. Yes, you know what I mean, Like, fuck it, what do I got to lose?
00:43:47
Speaker 3: What do you have to lose.
00:43:49
Speaker 1: I don't have a job, I'm out of the military. No one gives a shit, you know, Like, what do I got to lose?
00:43:54
Speaker 3: Fuck it.
00:43:55
Speaker 4: I'm gonna make art. I'm gonna say what I want to say, I'm gonna talk to.
00:43:57
Speaker 1: People, I'm gonna do things, and I'm just gonna practice making these little decisions over and over and over again.
00:44:06
Speaker 3: And pretty metal, bro, I think you're pretty metal, is what I got to f and say, Dude, I think that's like metal, like metal to the core. When I go through TSA and they're like, do you have all your metal out except for my soul. You know what I'm saying. I'm like, that's gonna go off bbbb beat, you know. So it's like you can never take that metal out of me, bro, And I feel so metal from you. Like I don't know what your dad played or how you guys traveled or what he did in a band, but yeah, you know there's a little bit of.
00:44:29
Speaker 1: That's Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams junior, you know, and he kind of put a little rock and roll to it and played on the streets.
00:44:35
Speaker 3: Man.
00:44:35
Speaker 4: He had the big drum, he had to steal guitar. He was you know, he was a street musician.
00:44:39
Speaker 1: But I love that now you just can't fucking give up, no matter how much you're getting beat down, and like that's sometimes all you can do is continue, however little, however much, and you just have to maintain that ardent face against it.
00:44:55
Speaker 3: You know that that brings me to you wrote a you have a book, right, am I correct? Thing it's called The Men We Make Yeah, correct, Yeah, it's right right, Okay, I'll look at that. So and it's cool and it's got some breakdown on the back about you and talks about you know, your history of what you've done. But you know, how long ago did you decide that I need to now be an artist with the craft of words, because that's what you've just done. Here again more art?
00:45:24
Speaker 4: Well, Uh, okay.
00:45:28
Speaker 1: When I turned eighteen, I read a book called Angela's Ashes. You ever read it or heard about it?
00:45:33
Speaker 3: I haven't. No.
00:45:34
Speaker 1: It's about an Irish guy and it's like coming of age. His dad's a drunk, they're poor. Long story short, he makes it to America, he becomes a teacher, and it's a memoir. And I read it at eighteen, man, and it grabbed me. I was like, wow, this this is basically like my family's Welsh Scotch, you know.
00:45:52
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of things that kind of resonated with me.
00:45:57
Speaker 1: And so I'd always thought, man, there was like this piece of me is like, oh, you know, maybe I could do that someday. You know, I could live or I wanted work where I wanted no rules.
00:46:07
Speaker 4: I could just write. And that's something I could do anywhere, anytime, anyplace. And uh, over and over and.
00:46:13
Speaker 1: Over I would try to write and it would suck. I would try to do a story and it wasn't that good. I would try to write something, it wasn't that great. I can speak well, I can present, I can talk, I can communicate with my words, but I can't.
00:46:27
Speaker 4: I couldn't write. I couldn't write fiction or right non, I couldn't write a novel.
00:46:32
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:46:32
Speaker 4: And I tried and tried and tried, and man, my wife every time was like, it's not very good. You know, that's not very good.
00:46:39
Speaker 1: Like oh, and she'll tell you, you know, because if you read, if you read the thing in the beginning of the book.
00:46:43
Speaker 4: It's this is true, it says.
00:46:46
Speaker 3: Uh the forward.
00:46:48
Speaker 4: Yeah to my wife, who didn't tell me my writing was good until it was.
00:46:52
Speaker 1: And like everywhere of that is true, dude. And the economy sucks. America has been divided cod Facebook algorithms. It's nasty out there, you know, even in the veteran world, things are divisive, and everywhere you look like things are just kind of not what they used to be. I was laying in bed, resentful better pissed off kind of at myself, at America, at what I was doing. How I felt like I wasn't gaining, like getting good traction on a lot of my efforts, and I'd like, here's the guy the founder. Mission went too laying in bed like off and on for like two days, like having a pity party, Dude, having a pity party. Like fuck, dude, everything I'm doing is falling apart. And then something kind of clicked to me where I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna.
00:47:40
Speaker 4: Fucking do do it.
00:47:43
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna write. I'm not going to write so that it's people like it. I'm not going to write a story I think people on the left or people on the right, or veterans or anybody's gonna love. I'm just gonna write what I believe is not necessarily it's the book isn't true. But my I'm gonna write true. I'm gonna write from my heart. I'm gonna beat I'm just gonna do it. No editor, watching the whole time, critiquing myself as I'm trying to do it. And man, after years and years and years of attempting, in about four months, I was able to just go and then I was, you know, we finished. I got it edited, I got a bunch of help to you know, clean it up, and now it's out.
00:48:24
Speaker 3: It's out right now we can as of this podcast. It's out right.
00:48:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, it's it's It's a story of a boy. His name's Darren, and I tell the story twice in one iteration of the story. His parents, his family are drug abusers, abusers, alcoholics, selfish.
00:48:42
Speaker 4: Patty, greedy.
00:48:44
Speaker 1: And then I reimagine the story with the people the same characters, but they have just a smidgeon of like love and effort. They're still the same people. They still kind of come from the same background. The differences is whether or not they try. Do they try to fight their demons, Do they try to be sober? Do they try to be patient versus just being, you know, completely self centered and devoid of love? And so, you know, when you're shooting, if you're off where you know, if you're you're not dialed in, If you're off in the beginning, you're going to be off by a lot by the time you get out to target. So it's the same thing with relationships and love and our efforts with the people in our lives. If you are not putting an effort up front, by the time it impacts, it's going to be way off or it's going to hit center. And so I wanted to show that through a novel.
00:49:32
Speaker 3: I love that. I love that, and it's called The Men We Make Right by Magnus Johnson.
00:49:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, So men We Make I mean, you know, it's that old you know, nurture versus nature. A lot of you know, there's a lot of negative talk about men, about toxic masculinity, about this by that, you know, but I don't think that we really take into account our own our own lot, you know, our own effort, our own our own responsibility for as a community, how we enrich, support, lead mentor you know, young men that need it. Instead we you know, we condemn them. You're too aggressive, You're.
00:50:08
Speaker 3: You're crying, Stop crying. Where they are? What are you doing? Yeah?
00:50:12
Speaker 1: Either way, it's just like it's either over feminism, over feminized, or like brutal masculine.
00:50:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, and horrible.
00:50:20
Speaker 1: And I'm you know, hey, we got to cultivate and direct in shape, and we got to take responsibility for the men in our community because they represent us, they represent our future.
00:50:30
Speaker 3: And there is an epidemic you know, I talk with my wife and others, and there is an epidemic of male loneliness due to the Internet you know, they don't. They don't. You're not getting outside. You're not going to meet anybody at the dance club. When I grew up, we'd go to the club and like try to dance break dance to the Beastie Boys or whatever song was on the you know, I'm just saying, And there's people there and you can meet them. And so I find Airsoft to allow these young men twelve to ninety nine coming through my world and they're like Club Airsoft. I'm like, what's up, guys. They're like, hey, you're kind of a beacon rat, and I'm like, am I Am I a lighthouse for you. We'll come fight with us. Then, right, you got to get some ammo though there's Ammo on the shelf. Bring that to the cash register. I'll see you out in the battle. But again, they know me out in the battle as being the same person. I only sell the stuff because I like to keep the sport going, you know, because it makes me happy to see people happy. So therefore I'm like, well, I need to supply it. I grew up in a Green Beret armory my whole life as a little kid, with all of this stuff. My Dad's like sorry, I introduced it to you so young. I was like, I love it, Dad, why And he's like, that's why, and I'm like, oh, Dad, don't be so smart. But again he loves the idea of what we were doing before he passed. And again, right now, when you go up to my arena in Leyton and you pay twenty dollars for a four hour session, you're getting five bucks an hour to be around instructors that I've and my team have put together to run the games in there. For this fifteen, eighteen, twenty two year old who maybe gets out of school at three o'clock needs to do something that come in there, I'm like, fine, daycare for less than five bucks an hour.
00:52:12
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, dude, I mean like people aren't outside much. Most of the time is spent on a device or a screen. Cen's testosterone levels today like a twenty year old. The average testosteral level of twenty year old today is less than a six year old from the nineteen sixties. Culturally, there's these like big division where it's either men are horrible or men gotta be uh, you know, and so it's like harder and harder for them to find mentorship in a direction it's supportive and has the feminine and the masculine right, and they're getting blamed for everything.
00:52:47
Speaker 4: That's not entirely true. And like men's men are doing not as well in school.
00:52:53
Speaker 1: Death of despair, which means like drug overdose, alcohol suicide. It's a very big and problems and I believe it's started in the veteran community first. And it's like, you know, the veterans are kind of the canary and the coal mine, so to speak, this big issue that's now starting to appear, you know, everywhere at large. Yeah, and so that's not why I wrote the book, per se, but that's kind of what came out in the book adjacently to me, just trying to tell a good story.
00:53:23
Speaker 3: Well, I love that. I love you for taking time to be on my show today and bring some really cool calm demeanor and some Green Beret love and ussf Airborne. You know, you're so cool. Bro. Anytime I see a guy dressed up with a blue cord on their shoulder, I just think of my dad, you know. And so it's just how it goes. And you guys represent what I feel to be the best, you know, and the best in all things, whether it was my baseball coach was a Green Beret, or my dad's medic that showed up to the house that day when he had a seizure was his own unit guy working in the city as the medic. You know, you just don't know who these guys are because they're your next door neighbor. You're you're just a You're a father, you know. I'm just I'm just saying. Most guys are like a father. They have you know, coaching going on, they have school pta to still try to attend to all while maintaining this dale pressol leiever mindset for freeing the oppressed that they're tasked with being involved with. And you guys are just just the best of the best. And I love you, I love you, I appreciate you.
00:54:27
Speaker 1: Well, dude, it was a super honor to be on your It was a big honor to beyond your show.
00:54:30
Speaker 4: Love your energy.
00:54:31
Speaker 3: Man.
00:54:32
Speaker 4: You know you're making me smile.
00:54:34
Speaker 3: You know, Oh that's great. I love that, dude.
00:54:37
Speaker 4: It was good.
00:54:38
Speaker 1: Man. It was a good experience. And I really, you know, I didn't I should have known about the book club. I hope people do that, man.
00:54:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, The thing is is what we'll do is we'll talk to guy who's my main editor at soft Rep, and then they all get behind the scenes and figure out the book club. I'll just say, a guy, let's just try to slide your book into the book club. And then the people that are already you know, our viewer that are in the book club, they can just choose it and read it.
00:55:02
Speaker 1: That'd be so awesome, because like what we were talking about, and I don't know if you got to go, if you got to go, will stop?
00:55:08
Speaker 3: Oh no, please please?
00:55:09
Speaker 1: You know, when I try to get an agent, man, most of them are looking for feminists, you know, all these other talks like it's not exactly an easy time for guy like me to publish a novel, and I it was a lot of headwind with a lot of different kind of gender politics, all this stuff. And I went ahead anyway, man, And you know, because I've always had to believe in my creative effort and if it's good, it'll stand.
00:55:36
Speaker 4: If it's not, it won't.
00:55:38
Speaker 1: And so you guys taking the time to talk to me about it, to look into it, it means a lot.
00:55:42
Speaker 4: And I really appreciate it.
00:55:44
Speaker 3: Well, I would love to exploit your book and put it out there for everybody to hear and or to read. And you know, and you should maybe do an audible if you haven't already with you doing the words you reading it, it would make just so much more of a passion piece to come from you, you know, because you wrote it. And I've read I'm a I've read novels. I'm a character, you know, I'm Chief Finn and all the Steel series from Brandon Webb and all these different books that he does. I understand reading eight hundred pages, okay over three days. It's intense. But I think that you should do it because you just would make that a great It would cross over so well to listen to you talk about it. Read your book, you know, I'll you already said you're good at talking. You said good at speaking. I don't know.
00:56:30
Speaker 4: Have you done research on It's harder than you think to do a book.
00:56:33
Speaker 3: I've done it, That's what I was saying, you voice, yes, yes, no, maybe you I tell you what you know. I read these thick books for Brandon Webb. He's our creator here. Yeah, yeah, no, no, his character is Chief Finn in all of his novels. I am the voice of all of the characters in the book because I have to read the entire book, you know, and yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'm also Chief Finn, so all these different characters have to come to life, you know. No, it's fun and that's a good way because a lot of us can listen, you know what I mean. They have their air plot in you know, they're driving in their truck across country. I get guys all the time that reach out to me. Hey, man, I'm doing the long haul and your podcast gets me through. Wait till they listen to this one. Okay, big trucker out there, listen to this podcast.
00:57:23
Speaker 1: Dude, if you like, if you liked the novel, no, you know, if you don't, that's fine, But if you do, man, like, let me know, because that's a that's a tall order for me to do another skill. Well, I'm trying to write my second book, and so I don't know if I can add another one to an audible to the plate.
00:57:38
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you just let me know. And you just got to get a guy that will record you for three days in his studio and he'll be stoked to meet you and help you read this and get a paycheck. Am I getting paid? I got all this equipment. You know, the artist the art of playing in the band is you spend like five thousand dollars on a base, amp and a bass and a car to fit it all. You have to get a minivan and then all this stuff, and then the drummer wants to play this stuff in there with you all to play a fifty dollars gig.
00:58:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's the price, dude, that's the price.
00:58:06
Speaker 3: Bro. You want to bring it to life. You want to sit there and do that. You know I'm playing high for you. Here you go. I'll play a little higher like this on the base. I don't know. You just feel like a rocker, dude, So I just want you to keep on rocking.
00:58:16
Speaker 1: I appreciate man, I had a great time. I really appreciate you having me on the show.
00:58:20
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, and we'll dissertate down below. My guy Callum, he listens to the show blindly and then he'll write up what he says the show is about. I'd love to see it because I'm like, oh, what does he think the show's about today? So he'll write it out. He'll say, Hey, this is what it's all about. So if you look at all of the photos and the dissertations below with the links, that's my guy, Callum. Thanks Callum. I appreciate you behind the scenes producing us, and you know, and to Brandon Webb and everybody out there that believe in me to run the show and having guests like you reach out and like locking it in quick and just rolling with it, I appreciate you. And if you ever want to be back on the show and talk about anything else, so much more. I'm sure that we could crack into besides just introducing you to the audience. Right, Really, we just talked a little bit about that, So please feel free to say this is your first time on, but there's more times that you're welcome back. You're a good spirit. I love to see you smile. I love if I can make you smile. Then you know, that's a good photo right there for you know, for your wife to see you smile. All right, Yeah, oh yeah, bro, Thanks to her too for being awesome and kicking your button and being there and being your beacon. I'm sure of it, dude, because my wife is mine and women in stem okay.
00:59:34
Speaker 4: Do my wife is mensa, bro, oh yeah she is. I love barely hanging on.
00:59:43
Speaker 3: The hot ones. Always love rock stars. Bro. Okay, I'm just gonna tell you right now. And they were like, what is it. I love you, babe, I love you so much. That's all I can say to mine. So well, thanks again, and I guess i'll wind down our show. I've had you for about an hour. You've been a wonderful guest, a great spirit on the show. Thanks for doing all you done for our country and in a selfless way and being a Green Beret and the best of the best airborne with honors and boom dude. You get that from me. And thanks again for being on the show. Thank you all right, And so my fans out there, listeners, go check out Mission twenty two dot org and go check out the book The Men We Make buy Magnus Johnson and please leave a review where you buy it. So if you're on Amazon and you're buying it there, leave a review, okay. And if you buy that Barnes and Noble wherever it's at, leave him a review. And if you want to reach out through Mission twenty two to see if there's a space for you, probably to help him in his mission. I'm sure that's a welcome you email, so feel free to reach out through your email to mission twenty two dot org. Hit up Magnus and his team. It's an elite team. If you go look at everybody it's involved on your website. They've all got something that they bring to the table. And that's what makes a great team is a good manager has a great team that makes them look smart. So good job looking smart. And this is rad On behalf of everybody at soft rep and the merch store.
01:01:06
Speaker 5: Say in peace, you've been listening to self rep Radia.
01:01:25
Speaker 1: Yeah,