00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to season two of the Good Stuff. I'm Ashley Shick, and I'm joined by my husband and co hosts Jacob Shick, a third generation combat marine and CEO of One Tribe Foundation.
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Speaker 2: Ashley also comes from a family rich in military history, and we've dedicated our lives to One Tribe's mission, serving veterans, first responders, and their families. We're coming to you from Dallas, so welcome.
00:00:21
Speaker 1: To Texas and joining us all season long from Los Angeles, California is our West Coast long haired friend and producer of the Good Stuff, Nick Cassolini.
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Speaker 3: And it is so good to be here. This episode is kind of a throwback to season one. Today we focus on a single guest and his story.
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Speaker 1: That guest is Cody Turner, a Purple Heart recipient, a dad of four boys, an avid runner, and a dear friend.
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Speaker 2: Cody is joining us today at a vulnerable time in his story. The very act of his being on the show right now is the epitome of courage.
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Speaker 3: Just a quick heads up, this show can explore some heavy subject matter, including talks of suicide, so listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 1: Be happier you're here again.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the good stuff.
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Speaker 3: So I'm kind of gonna ask you some questions about yourself, absolutely, and and we'll just see how this unfolds. And I don't have like a huge agenda with this thing. Okay, yeah, this, would you mind just check check check for me?
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Speaker 4: Check check check.
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Speaker 3: Okay, it's really nothing to it, but to do it. Yeah, let's just start. Would you mind telling us what your name is?
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Speaker 4: My name's Cody Turner.
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Speaker 3: Where did you grow up?
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Speaker 4: So?
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Speaker 5: I grew up in I'd say the south side of Fort Worth, the Riverside.
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Speaker 4: Area, which is where we are now see pretty much.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, my home that I grew up in is probably three to four miles from here.
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Speaker 3: Oh that's amazing.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's close.
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Speaker 3: Would you tell us a little bit about your military service.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: So whenever I got out of high school, I worked for a company just kind of did the thing, you know, and I was kind of getting in trouble and things of that nature and really didn't have a clear path direction.
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Speaker 4: On where I was heading in life.
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Speaker 5: And you know, I had talked to a few instrumental people in my life, you know, not all by my choice. Who are the people that would be maybe a few judges or whatnot, you know, saying hey, you know, what's your plan for your life? And what it really got me thinking, you know, what what I was going to do. And I just kind of felt stagnant at the time in my life, and I decided, Hey, you know, I'm going to join the military. And I just went down to her recruiter's office I believe it is over off in Halsham City, and I was like, just I want to do something that's one of the hardest things in the military, and and for me at my time, with that knowledge, that was to join the infantry. So I signed up for the infantry as eleven bravo. In that time, you were able to choose where you wanted to go. So I chose Korea because I always heard Korea was a hard place to golitary career. Lo and behold, I got Korea and you kind of go through like a filtering process and they kind of tell you where you're going to go, what unit and everything. I ended up in a unit called Tango Security Force and what that stands for. The acronym is Tactical Air Naval Ground Operations And you know, to dumb it down, what we did was we guarded a tunnel. If Korea was North Korea was to attack, all the generals would fly in there and do their thing, lo and behold. It was one of the easiest jobs that you could get in Korea. So it kind of backfired on me there.
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Speaker 3: What do you think, why were you specifically going after something as difficult as it could potentially be.
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Speaker 5: You know, I just always wanted to challenge myself. I kind of had that mentality, you know, from a young man growing up. I just felt the need to do something difficult, you know, I just wanted to challenge as simple as that. Yeah, as simple as that.
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Speaker 3: Are you comfortable talking a little bit more specifically about the things that got you in front of those judges?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean time is kind of lapsed, you know, from there as far as like dates and stuff like that. But you know, I grew up working hard, and at a young age I worked hard. You know, I did roofing, you know, at fourteen, and just kind of worked up through that. But along with that, outside of that hard work, construction work, there's a lot of drinking that took place. So I found myself drinking a lot at a young age, and that kind of continued. You know, I ran into multiple you know, minor possessions, public intoxications, things of that nature. So that's kind of how I was going, how I was. I was tracking in that in that trend to you know, with alcohol, you know, it was just as a bad thing, and at the time it felt like a great thing, you know. So I joined the military, right and like that was going to change things.
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Speaker 3: Did you think, did you have this sense of like alcohol is a part of the problem, yet.
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Speaker 5: Not at all, Not at all. I didn't think it was a problem whatsoever. I felt like I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time at that time of my life, you know, I would say. And I wasn't in Korea three days, man, and I found myself sitting on the side of a curb in Soul, Korea with a busted up head where I got hit with a whiskey bottle and ended up having to go get stitches. I was there less than a week and that was all alcohol induced. So joining the military, you know, I just didn't solve any problems to do with my drinking. I didn't know I had a problem at that time. It took a long time for me to realize I did have a problem, you know, and it just kind of I won't say it escalated from there, you know, it just you know, I didn't stop anything because of that incident.
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Speaker 4: You know, I just learned to surround.
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Speaker 5: Myself with people that I can make it back to base with.
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Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
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Speaker 3: That was your safety, that that was my safety. Was absolutely relying on someone to put you on their shoulder and get you back to bed.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, pretty much that's what we did.
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Speaker 3: So what year was that? What year did you enlist?
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Speaker 5: So when I was home on leave from basic training before I deployed to Korea, whenever I was home on leave, that's when nine to eleven happened. Wow, So it was that time timeframe that I joined.
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Speaker 3: And did you deploy to the Middle East or did you stay in Korea?
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Speaker 5: No, I stayed in Korea. I stayed in Korea.
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Speaker 4: I did not.
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Speaker 5: I didn't deploy until later in my military career because once I left Korea, I went to Fort Hood. Fort Hood is where I stayed the rest of my time of service. I signed for three years. I was stop lost to go to Iraq, and so that's when I deployed Diract.
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Speaker 3: Comfortable talking a bit, a little bit about your time there. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to hear whatever you feel good sharing.
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Speaker 4: Absolutely.
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Speaker 5: You know, we deployed Diract, we flew into Kuwait, and then from Kuwait, you know, we did kind of got everything ready from there, and then there was our unit was tasked to travel via convoy or take I believe black hawks into actual Baghdad. I was picked to beyond the transport team to pull security for the convoy and things of that nature. So we rolled into Baghdad that way, and what I remember is just getting to our fob. We were stationed at Fob Headhunter there in Baghdad, and I just remember getting there and just it was I think it was at night and they had some like tents out, and you know, we didn't really know what to expect at that time, and I just remember they're like, all right, y'are going in the tents, and I was like, in the tents, you know what I mean, Like there's buildings here, you know what I mean. But we were relieving another unit, and I stinctly remember, you know, like an order, you know, hearing the sounds of orders being fired off and whizzing in and and that was like day one in Baghdad. I was like eye opening experience, like this is real, you know. When I spent my time there, you know, we went on you know, just presence controls, uh, gate guard, different different missions that we were at tasked to do. And it wasn't until you know, and we just did the you know the war.
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Speaker 4: Games, the war things.
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Speaker 5: Right, seen a lot of a lot of wild stuff and was involved in a lot of it. I want to say about six months in where they drew some hats out of a or some names out of a hat or whatnot to go home on leave prior to deploying.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I knew I was deploying.
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Speaker 5: We would come to Fort Worth to party, right because I stationed at Fort Hood and you know, out doing what we do at the bars.
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Speaker 4: And I chased this one.
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Speaker 5: Old gal down and uh and you know, all my intentions were on one thing.
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Speaker 4: Uh.
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Speaker 5: Those those intentions didn't didn't bear true. But little did I know that was my wife. Wow, you know she questioned me about you know who I was, you know all that stuff. Well I totally lied to her and said I was a cop for Worth. Yeah, and I played that very well, very well. And I never even told her that I was deploying.
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Speaker 4: But whenever I was.
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Speaker 5: In Kuwait, one of my good buddies said, brother, you better call her and let her know, you know, spill the beans if you really like her that much. And so I did, and she took it well. And man, from that point forward, she wrote me letters. When we got to make phone calls, I'd call her. And then fast forward to that six month mark, I'd get to go home.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and your name got pulled from the hat.
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Speaker 5: Got pulled from the hat. And so I find myself on her on her doorstep. I think I was home for I can't remember if it was two weeks or thirty days or whatnot, but during that time period I proposed.
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Speaker 4: Her, Wow, yep, and how old are you, oh, man? I was.
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Speaker 5: Was I twenty maybe somewhere in that area? Wow, maybe twenty one?
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Speaker 4: Yeah?
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Speaker 5: And then she said yes, So now I'm going back to Iraq. So I get deployed back Iraq, get back in country. My first mission, like real mission from getting back, was just a simple presence patrol in the morning. And so we're going through and we were just a small group of us were down there. I can't really remember how many. But our observation posts, you know, the guys sitting up watching all your movements and stuff, they didn't really have good eyes on us. And I distinctly remember the lieutenant. We were knocking on the door and people were wrapping up wanting.
00:10:32
Speaker 4: To go to lunch.
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Speaker 5: It was in the morning time, so I knew, you know, I've been through this before, and I was like, you know, we need to get out of here. We're not in a good spot. We don't have very good overwatch QR if it's X minutes out. And it was just moments after that that hell broke loose and so we were engaged by you know, small arms, fire, grenades, everything of that nature. One of our guys was pinned down pretty good it and we had called q r F to collapse to come get us, and I remember, you know, a humby pulling up and we're and these guys are being pulled back and I'm helping load the wounded in the back of a humbee when a grenade was hurled into very close proximity of that, uh humphy. So I just remember just kind of coming to making sure I had all my stuff at that time.
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Speaker 4: I realized I was wounded.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I stepped off into a nearby building to to see what was going on.
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Speaker 3: I do want to let the listeners know that when you said check to see if you had all your stuff, you pointed to your head.
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Speaker 4: Yes, my head.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have.
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Speaker 4: My kevlar and I had my weapon.
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Speaker 5: Uh, you know, that was the main thing I was making sure I had my kevlar. My weapon was number one, right and that way I had a source of uh protect fire. And so I stepped off in there and I realized, you know, I'm pretty had a pretty good wound to my left arm. You know, my whole body was riddled with trapnel. So I apply a first aid on my arm, and I step back out into the fight and we fight until QRF gets there, and then we load up and then we roll at that point and we just get out of dodge and head to the hospital.
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Speaker 3: At that point. Did everyone make it?
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Speaker 4: Everybody made it out of that? Yeah.
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Speaker 5: We had some people that were a lot worse off than I was, to say the least.
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Speaker 4: Long story short, I.
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Speaker 5: Was in country a very short period of time before I was reintroduced back to my fiance. You know, I figured it was going to be another six months or so before getting back, and and.
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Speaker 3: It sounds like you got that dose dose of difficulty you were asking for.
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Speaker 4: I did, I did? I did.
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Speaker 5: I just wish that, you know, at that time that I was able to go back. But with the way that how far we were in the deployment and the nature of you know, getting held up and all that stuff, I wasn't granted access to go back to Iraq. So the boys were coming in and so at that point I decided that, you know, it was time for me to get out.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's what I did.
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Speaker 3: We have to fit in a quick commercial break, but stick around and we'll be right back with Cody. All right, let's pick right back up with Cody. Here we go. Okay, so your fiance is Angie. Yes, why did you lie to her? I mean, I'm sort of making up my own narrative of why you did, but I actually like to hear it from from you, Like why not tell her what you were doing?
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Speaker 5: You know, just because I think I did that because of the because I really liked her, and anybody knowing me growing up, you know, I was not one of those guys that had long term reallylationships, and there's some stigma wrapped around you know, military guys, and I didn't want that to scare her away per se, So I thought lying was a better option. Yeah, so that I believe that was my basis of lying to her about who I really was.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it sounds like when you told her the truth, a part of that was explaining yourself explaining the lie. So she obviously had sympathy empathy for you like that. That made sense to her and she was willing to look past it. Basically, probably learned something about you by understanding why you lied.
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Speaker 5: Correct, Yeah, correct, Yeah, I think that was a lot to it because when I did, I do remember, you know, telling her the reasons behind it. You know, my whole thought process, you know, wrong, right and indifferent. That was my thought process wrapped around situation.
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Speaker 3: So there was rather quick time in Iraq. But I was drinking still a part of that. Were you drinking over there?
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Speaker 5: Well you weren't supposed to be drinking over there, but you know, where there's a we will find ways put it that way, right, you'll figure something. Yeah, we have interpreters and we kept it to a to a very minimum, you know, but there to say there was no drinking, it would be a pretty good lie.
00:15:22
Speaker 3: So when you came back, did you pick right back up?
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Speaker 4: I picked right back up. Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 5: When I got back and I got healed up, I was granted access to to room with somebody off post. So I teamed up with a couple of guys that had been injured, and we're back, and so we had a little apartment and and we just pretty much drank. Man, we drank a lot, and then we did just a little bit of stuff that we had to do on ardy. I guess that's what we were classified as. But drinking was huge, and that it was almost right out the gate. Yeah, to be honest with you, even whenever I got back and was you know, I when I got back and I was able to go on leave for a little bit, you know, but that the drinking continued.
00:16:06
Speaker 3: And how is your relationship with Angie progressing really quickly?
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Speaker 4: You know we got married pretty quickly. Yeah seven.
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Speaker 3: How would you describe her?
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Speaker 4: Man?
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Speaker 6: What was she like back then?
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Speaker 4: She was everything?
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Speaker 7: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: If we need to take a break, man, no, I'm good man. I knew from day one she was gonna.
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Speaker 4: Be my wife.
00:16:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, A little bar in Prs and downtown Fort Worth.
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Speaker 4: I knew. I knew at that point.
00:17:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wish I would have realized how things would play out over the years, but you don't, you know what I'm saying. So, you know, she was my everything, dude, and I think God put us together for a reason because I drug that woman through some shit.
00:17:43
Speaker 3: Well maybe we should talk about that a little bit. Yeah, So, okay, you guys got married pretty quick.
00:17:47
Speaker 5: Got married pretty quick. Didn't realize, you know, during our marriage that she was pregnant, right, So she was pregnant, and so you know, we got married. We rented a little house from her parents. It was actually a big house on a fish farm.
00:18:05
Speaker 4: You know.
00:18:06
Speaker 5: We just lived there, you know, and we ended up having Barrett. You know, life took off from there, man. And you know, I worked at the company that I worked at in high school, cleaning the shop, you know what I mean. I just went back to work for them, right, That's what I knew. Yeah, you know, I just worked all the time. You know, I worked a lot of hours. I went out of town quite a bit, just whatever I had to do to fend, you know, make for the family, you know, And I and I treated myself. I don't know if you want to call it that. It kind of drinking after work was, you know, just a release for me. It felt like that was something I was obligate or not obligated, but I had the rights to do for being, you know, because you know Angie she worked a little bit but pretty much she.
00:18:47
Speaker 4: Has a stay at home mom.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, and did. And man, her job was way harder than my job. I didn't learn that until years down the road. But you know, so, I mean I drank a lot, I worked a lot, of drink a lot. I was always there from my family, but I was there, but I don't know that I was present, and you know, from as long as I can remember, I mean, drinking was a huge part of my life.
00:19:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:19:10
Speaker 3: Was she drinking too.
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Speaker 5: She would drink, She would drink, but nothing like like I would. You know, mine was an everyday deal. Hers was you know, every couple of weeks, or a beer after work or something of that nature.
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Speaker 4: Nothing nothing like me.
00:19:25
Speaker 3: So, how was fatherhood for you in those first few years of working and drinking?
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Speaker 4: Man? Fatherhood?
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Speaker 5: You know, at that time I could kind of keep it at bay, you know, it was it was there. But I would like to say it didn't affect my fatherhood, but knowing what I know now, it did just because you know, I wasn't there a lot present for my for my son like I should have been, you know, and he you know, at that time, didn't know any difference, right, but the late nights, the long nights that she would have maybe I would be sleeping or whatnot, and didn't have that support for her that you know I should have. Yeah, looking back at it now, during the moment, I thought I was doing everything the right way.
00:20:07
Speaker 4: Sure, you know what I mean.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: Sure. So it sounds like you weren't violent in the house.
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Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, violence and things of that nature.
00:20:14
Speaker 4: Physical violence was never.
00:20:15
Speaker 5: An issue ever in my in our lives. Yeah, you know, we would bicker things of that nature, but nothing nothing crazy, you know.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: In regarding to that, well, I happened to know that you're sober. Yeah, so what led up to that? How did it? What's that part of the roller coaster ride look like?
00:20:37
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:20:38
Speaker 5: So you know my drinking, you know, from there all the way up to within say ten years of now, was just drinking, you know, just drinking, and then it like it turned.
00:20:48
Speaker 4: A little bit, right.
00:20:51
Speaker 5: You know, I had another kid, and you know, I got I got a d w I. And several times before that, you know, I went to jail for public intoxication or something of that nature, because hey, I want to stop home at a bar or something on the way home, and then I find myself in a confrontation or something at the bar, and then you know, get hauled off because I'm publicly drunk. And Angie was maybe the first time she got me out of jail. She was not She didn't bring the kids right, but I distinctly remember, you know, her picking me up from that first dw I, and she brought the kids right, like, hey, this is this is the deal, you know, And I remember just just feeling so helpless on that ride home, you know, like I let my family down, I let my work down, I let everybody down around me. And one would think that would turn your life around, right, But you know, alcohol is a rear, it's evil head. And rock bottoms can be slippery, they can be slippery, and there's always a lower one, yeah, And so I'd clean it up for a little bit and then I get right back at it, you.
00:22:01
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
00:22:01
Speaker 5: And then I think she had enough, you know, my job had enough. And I remember laying coming off of a couple of days drunk and her waking me up in bed and saying, hey, you know you're going You're going to rehab and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, you know I can't my my work. She's like, dude, that's already been taken care of. You're going where I'm going. And I just remember getting the shakes. Man, it felt like I was about to die just from just I want to say is mainly probably my ego and my pride had just been smashed. You know, I've been I've been revealed, you know, like nobody else around me knew what was going on when the whole world did. And so I ended up going into a sixty day inpatient treatment facility in Fort Worth, and man, when I got there is like, and I realized, you know, all those things had been taking place. It was almost like a fresher breath air, you know, and like, I want to get some help. And I did get some help. The place was great, right, and they showed me the things to do to stay sober and be sober. Unfortunately, man, I thought just going.
00:23:15
Speaker 4: To that I was healed.
00:23:17
Speaker 2: Yea.
00:23:17
Speaker 5: When I got out, you know, I stopped doing the work, man, I stopped going to the meetings I was supposed to go to and started lying again about my drinking. And it didn't take long, man, and I was back right back in the game, right back in the game. And April nineteenth, three and a half years ago, Man, I found myself on the side of Camp Booy, with what looks to be like the whole fourth Police Department behind me at gunpoint, asking me to get out of the vehicle, and me not wanting to get out of the vehicle. I had a gun right there into my truck. Thank god I didn't try to hide it or something like that, because they'd have thought I was going for a weapon or something. You know, I probably wouldn't be here today.
00:24:00
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker 5: I ended up getting out of the vehicle and sitting down, and I had a leatherman on my in my blue jeans. And the after the reports read that they noticed that I had a knife in my pocket and I had purple heart license plates, so they deemed me as a risk to the police officers, so they made a decision to tase me. Luckily, with the the mid grade level one. But I ended up getting tased three to four times before it came to a stop. You know, I had to go to the hospital and then ended you know, ultimately ended up back in jail. So that was my second d w I at that point. With that came some other some other charges, you know, evading to rest. Those were dropped, so no felony charges. I was hit with felonies, but they were ultimately dropped. At that point, man, that was thank god, that was my my rock bottle, man, because since that day, I've had a drink of alcohol since. And and I thank God for that day because that's what turned me around.
00:25:04
Speaker 6: Man.
00:25:04
Speaker 5: And you know, we all have choices to make, dude. And I remember that day, man. I remember the morning of that day, sitting at seven to eleven parking lot with a fifth of vodka is probably about six o'clock in the morning, and staring at a picture of my kids and my family and then staring at the vodka, and I chose.
00:25:22
Speaker 4: I chose the vodka over my family on that day.
00:25:24
Speaker 5: Man. That's the power of alcoholism and the power of alcohol what it can do to one. And you know, that's tough saying that that you choose what's in a bottle over your family, you know that you would die for. But luckily that that day was it for me and it ended the way that it did because it could have been different. Ye could have been so different. And from that day, that was the end of it, man. And I'm lucky to cap Angie through that situation, because she had all rights to leave, man, and she was probably real close to it.
00:26:00
Speaker 4: I know she was.
00:26:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, she verbalized it as she should. I just you know, something clicked in me that that, man, I got connected, you know, back into uh, getting with the right people. And you know, at that day and that timeframe is when I decided to start running to help with my uh my disease. And I haven't stopped.
00:26:22
Speaker 3: Since physically running literally going for runs.
00:26:25
Speaker 4: Literally for runs.
00:26:26
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker 4: So yeah, thank you, man. I appreciate that.
00:26:31
Speaker 5: Today will be you know, on Memorial Day three and a half years ago, I decided to honor a hero every day run a minimum of a five k and then share it to the world man, with pictures of my life and what's going on, just to to reach out to people and let them know that hey, there's a way and you know, with everything going on in the world and the obesity and the craziness, right, we need to get out of self, man, and do things for ourselves. And then also, you know, recognize those people that we love and let them know it, right, because you know, that's something that I never did, you know, back in the day, was express my feelings to another person on you know, how I felt about them and what they mean to me. And that's so important to do, man, because you don't know when those days are going to be gone. So it's just that's kind of been a staple in my life and I don't.
00:27:20
Speaker 4: Plan to quit.
00:27:23
Speaker 3: In the intro of this episode, Jake said that Cody was joining us today during a particularly vulnerable part of his story. We do have to take our final commercial break of the episode, but stick around because when we come back, we see what Jake meant and why he called Cody's being here the epitome of courage. Welcome back to the good stuff. There are two things that I would like to clarify a little bit for the coming up portion with Cody. Number One, when he says Cook's Children's, what he means is a children's hospital. Number Two, when he says Polaris Ranger. He's talking about a four wheeler, a UTV or utility task vehicle, the kind of thing you might see on a farm. Without further ado, here's our third and final act with Cody Turner. Well, I know you and Angie were blessed with another set of surprises or guess he'd be our miracles. Yeah, you talk a little bit about that.
00:28:25
Speaker 5: Absolutely, man, Absolutely, so, you know is I believe it is right around the COVID timeframe. You know, Angie wasn't feeling real great, so she went to the doctor and ended up taking it. Well, she ended up taking a pregnancy test and found out she was pregnant. I wasn't able to go to the doctor at that time because of the COVID and they're doing the whole sonogram and everything, and and the doctor said, hey.
00:28:50
Speaker 4: Does twins run in y'all's family.
00:28:51
Speaker 5: I'm like, uh no, they like they do now, brother, they do now. So we were blessed with two more beautiful boys, River and Riggs.
00:29:02
Speaker 3: And what's the age gap between them?
00:29:03
Speaker 5: And they're so so Barret's nineteen and Gunners about to be sixteen at the end of this month. They're four so twelve years from my youngest roughly. Yeah, surprises, they were surprising.
00:29:17
Speaker 3: And sorry for not keeping the math straight. But was this before your sobriety?
00:29:22
Speaker 5: April nineteenth of twenty twenty six will be four years so and they're four years now, so they're young enough to not know anything about my drinking career.
00:29:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they were born, they were born.
00:29:36
Speaker 3: Well, that's got to be a pretty big difference between the older ones who remember drunk Dad.
00:29:40
Speaker 5: It's huge, Yeah, it's huge. So yeah, or Barrett, you know, he's seen it from the beginning. Gunner, he come along and caught it most of it. He caught all the bad days.
00:29:51
Speaker 4: And so.
00:29:53
Speaker 5: You know, River and Riggs, they won't get to God willing, they won't get to see that part of me. Yeah, only through through stories and through me talking to them about it, right, because we are an open family and we don't keep no secrets.
00:30:06
Speaker 4: It's important to us.
00:30:08
Speaker 3: When your family's been through the unthinkable recently. Would you like to tell our listeners where you and I are currently recording this interview.
00:30:18
Speaker 5: Yes, So we're currently at Cooks Children's fifth floor. We've been here for roughly forty five days since August third is whenever. That morning I woke up and went on a run and.
00:30:37
Speaker 4: In the morning and.
00:30:41
Speaker 5: Told Angie, I'll be back in a little bit, just gonna go hit my five k, my daily five k, and that that I'll be back, and then she was gonna go check the cows with the with the twins on the Polaris and uh, you know, I didn't realize that day was going to be the the last day that I speak to her. Coming in from that run, I ran up on a. I seen that, you know, I'll never forget, you know, the I ran up. I remember stinkly running up the driveway and just seeing uh, our Polaris Ranger on its side, and my son Gunner in a frantic state and my son River sitting down. And I didn't really I figured there was just a wreck, but based off of the the body language of Gunner and stuff, I knew.
00:31:48
Speaker 4: Something wasn't good.
00:31:51
Speaker 5: And uh, running up on that, I Gunner was the same mom, and Mom's dead and uh, A didn't register uh completely until you know, I came around the side of the buggy and I saw, you know, my wife trapped under the vehicle and she was and she was dead and so I checked her pulse to confirm based off the vision of the the injuries there was there was you know, she was gone at that point.
00:32:28
Speaker 4: And she was and.
00:32:32
Speaker 5: So I had to focus my attention to River and Riggs. Riggs was running around with some scrapes on his face, but he was okay. And and uh, River he had he had a bad leg injury and uh he was sitting in a pile of fire ant. So I had to pick him up.
00:32:53
Speaker 4: And move him and uh.
00:32:56
Speaker 5: And you know, prior to me even getting there, you know, what what had happened was the track tragic accident happened, however it may have done. And through that, Riggs had ran inside our house to wake up Gunner because Gunner was in their sleep and it was still, you know, pretty early in the morning. And Gunner came out and he was the first one on the scene and was able to make the call, you know, for help and uh and then assess the situation and and and ultimately make the decision to turn his attention to his brother and apply a field dressing with his pants that he took off to keep the to keep it.
00:33:50
Speaker 4: This best that he could. The wound.
00:33:55
Speaker 5: And you know, it was probably it was about forty minutes before any uh first responders made it. When they did, they did, you know, pretty much ran the same checkpoints that I did. And they were able to eventually get her out from underneath the vehicle and care for care for river at.
00:34:16
Speaker 4: That point and uh river was uh.
00:34:21
Speaker 5: They landed a chopper in the pasture and he was met of bac to cooks and so.
00:34:29
Speaker 4: That day.
00:34:32
Speaker 5: It will be forever burned in my head. But I just I go back and I think, you know, like, man, how you know, how does a three year old run in there and wake up his brother? And you know, and and you know, through through talks and everything, you know, you know, Angie had had said, hey, go get your brother.
00:34:55
Speaker 4: And so man, I think.
00:34:59
Speaker 5: I think that was God Man speaking through her through him two to make this situation as horrible as it is turn out with the best of outcome, and it could have been.
00:35:16
Speaker 4: Worse.
00:35:18
Speaker 5: I think that Angie did what she had to do to save to her voice in that situation, however unfolded. And I believe that to my my my soul, my core. And and so here we are now we're we're the the light at the end of the tunnel is coming upon us for River being able to get out of the hospital and move on to our next phase of.
00:35:50
Speaker 4: Healing at home.
00:35:52
Speaker 5: And and we're still working on scheduling a time for for burial of Angie. It's extremely important to me that River was able to attend and however long that took, you know, Angie's and Angie's in heaven, heaven now, and so it's important for me too that all my boys can attend the funeral and be there for their mama because I know that's what she wants.
00:36:28
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I almost feel silly asking, but like, I mean, how are you able to function currently? Like what's what?
00:36:39
Speaker 5: And that's a it's a good question.
00:36:42
Speaker 4: That's a good question. Man.
00:36:46
Speaker 5: Since getting sober three and a half years ago, Man, I made an effort to really reach out and.
00:36:59
Speaker 4: Get to know my God.
00:37:00
Speaker 5: Man, and and I thought I was connected with him, you know, about as good as one could be connected. And uh, since this accident, man, something's changed inside of me. And I don't really have words for it. But that's what's keeping me where I need to be is my higher power and that I choose God for that. And if I was to carry all the worries and the fears, and the the questions and the wis and the what if and all that on my shoulders. Man, I wouldn't be sitting here today, Brother, I'd be buried in a barstool drinking myself to death.
00:37:50
Speaker 4: Man.
00:37:50
Speaker 5: And I and I don't have to do that today, Brother, I can. I can offload that onto God man and let him carry that weight, so I don't have to carry it, man. And the support that I have been blessed with through one try foundation, through all my people that I'm connected with have I've always been on the giving side of that, connected reaching out to people and being there for them. And I'm on the other end of this now.
00:38:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker 5: And I have no words for it. Brother, It's something that it really shows me what life's about and about being there for others and taking self out of the situation. And so through this, I'm continuing to try to do that myself, right, be there for my boys and still be there for myself, right, but getting out of self, man, just being there for other people and just you know, leaning on my higher power, Man, get me through these situations and and and offloading those worries, man, because you can. You can chase the wis and the what ifs until you're just till you just run yourself in the ground, and and that doesn't get you anywhere. I'm not a I'm not a service to my kids. I'm not a service to my family. If I'm in that, in that mindset, or in that, in that situation, and I choose not to, I choose not.
00:39:25
Speaker 4: To do that.
00:39:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, do I uh do? I have bad days? No, I have bad moments that you know. I can quickly offload that and some sometimes it's easier, it's easier said than done, right, And I'm still going to be going through the grieving process for a long time. I realize that. Yeah, it's because I love her so much. Do you know too, She she was always the one that I could no matter the situation or the day that I had, I always knew she'd be there. And she's not physically anymore, but she's still here and that's what's keeping me where I need to be, and that's what's going to continue keeping me driving through this man to come out of the other end of this stronger, to be a better service to others, to let them know that no matter the situation or the whatever you're going through, you can get through it. Can't get through it alone, but you can get through it. Yeah, And that's important to me to carry that on and carry that to other people and carry that message to them, because there's so many people man that I've seen it, you know, and I still see it today, that that it just it runs them, and it runs everybody's lives around them. You know, they just drag you know, they just burn the house down because of a situation that they've been through. And and it doesn't have to be that way, man, it can be. Does it hurt? Yes, it hurts. Does it do I cry?
00:41:39
Speaker 4: Hell? Yeah? I cry? Do I get angry? Fuck?
00:41:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, I get angry. But but I can overcome that, you know. I can reach out to people, I can pray, I can, you know. And I always say, you know, faith over fear, worship over worry, man, and that that room really that really resonates uh in this situation, man, because the fears and the worries they're always there, right, But I ain't gotta I ain't gotta deal with that. That's not for me to carry, man. And and so it's just you know, knowing that believe in that and living it is, uh is what's getting me through today.
00:42:25
Speaker 3: Well, I really really have moved and appreciative of you talking to me today. And I guess just imparting like, is there just anything you want our listeners and whoever happens to be coming across this to know about Angie.
00:42:41
Speaker 5: Angie was one of the toughest, most selfless human beings that I know to day. She put others before her self in every situation, and I'm luckily I got to realize some of that before her passing. And just the just the strength and the love that she beholded for her kids and for me and for her family was beyond anything I've ever seen. So it's important to me that people recognize those people in their lives that way they can be there for them and just let them people know how much you love them. If you're going through a bad day with that person or whatnot, smash it, get over it, don't let it go to the next day, because man, you don't know when when you're when your time cards gonna get punched. Man, you know, you don't want to have regrets, You don't want to have what IF's, and you know that's you know, and that's easier said than done. But Angie, she just she she was just that person, man, that just filled everybody's soul. And I strive to carry her passion, her mindset towards those things through my life and let that help me have a driving force to continue fighting the good fight.
00:44:33
Speaker 6: Man.
00:44:34
Speaker 5: And just uh, I just pray that everybody could find somebody like her in their life, man, because if you do, you're lucky. You're lucky because most people don't.
00:44:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:44:47
Speaker 5: And and I love her, I always will. And uh, she'll always be here with us, man when where a Yeah, and.
00:45:03
Speaker 4: It's beautiful.
00:45:04
Speaker 3: So may she rest in peace. Absolutely, thank you for being on the show, man, I really appreciate it.
00:45:09
Speaker 4: Hey, thanks brother, thanks for having me.
00:45:16
Speaker 3: Hey, what's up everybody. I'm back here with Jake and Ashley And We're not gonna do our standard outro for this episode. We just wanted the memory of Angie to stay with you guys, and doing our normal outro just did not feel appropriate.
00:45:30
Speaker 1: Angie was one of the sweetest, kindest, most patient, and beautiful Texas ladies.
00:45:41
Speaker 3: Cannt miss her.
00:45:44
Speaker 1: I miss her, but I know she's still here with us and we will continue to speak her name and.
00:45:51
Speaker 4: Honor her absolutely.
00:45:53
Speaker 2: It's all we can do, and it's my hope in my prayer that everybody that listens to this episode just go love on the people that you love the most, and love on them hard, because tomorrow is not guaranteed. And I think that the one thing we spend way too frivolously without ever knowing how much we have in the bank is time. And so be intentional with your time and with the people that you love the most, because it's only for a short wall that we have them.
00:46:26
Speaker 3: So with that, we're going to end this episode with just a moment of silence and take care. We'll be back next week.
Speaker 1: Welcome to season two of the Good Stuff. I'm Ashley Shick, and I'm joined by my husband and co hosts Jacob Shick, a third generation combat marine and CEO of One Tribe Foundation.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Ashley also comes from a family rich in military history, and we've dedicated our lives to One Tribe's mission, serving veterans, first responders, and their families. We're coming to you from Dallas, so welcome.
00:00:21
Speaker 1: To Texas and joining us all season long from Los Angeles, California is our West Coast long haired friend and producer of the Good Stuff, Nick Cassolini.
00:00:29
Speaker 3: And it is so good to be here. This episode is kind of a throwback to season one. Today we focus on a single guest and his story.
00:00:38
Speaker 1: That guest is Cody Turner, a Purple Heart recipient, a dad of four boys, an avid runner, and a dear friend.
00:00:44
Speaker 2: Cody is joining us today at a vulnerable time in his story. The very act of his being on the show right now is the epitome of courage.
00:00:52
Speaker 3: Just a quick heads up, this show can explore some heavy subject matter, including talks of suicide, so listener discretion is advised.
00:01:00
Speaker 1: Be happier you're here again.
00:01:02
Speaker 2: Welcome to the good stuff.
00:01:09
Speaker 3: So I'm kind of gonna ask you some questions about yourself, absolutely, and and we'll just see how this unfolds. And I don't have like a huge agenda with this thing. Okay, yeah, this, would you mind just check check check for me?
00:01:20
Speaker 4: Check check check.
00:01:21
Speaker 3: Okay, it's really nothing to it, but to do it. Yeah, let's just start. Would you mind telling us what your name is?
00:01:31
Speaker 4: My name's Cody Turner.
00:01:32
Speaker 3: Where did you grow up?
00:01:34
Speaker 4: So?
00:01:34
Speaker 5: I grew up in I'd say the south side of Fort Worth, the Riverside.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: Area, which is where we are now see pretty much.
00:01:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, my home that I grew up in is probably three to four miles from here.
00:01:45
Speaker 3: Oh that's amazing.
00:01:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's close.
00:01:48
Speaker 3: Would you tell us a little bit about your military service.
00:01:51
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:01:51
Speaker 5: So whenever I got out of high school, I worked for a company just kind of did the thing, you know, and I was kind of getting in trouble and things of that nature and really didn't have a clear path direction.
00:02:02
Speaker 4: On where I was heading in life.
00:02:05
Speaker 5: And you know, I had talked to a few instrumental people in my life, you know, not all by my choice. Who are the people that would be maybe a few judges or whatnot, you know, saying hey, you know, what's your plan for your life? And what it really got me thinking, you know, what what I was going to do. And I just kind of felt stagnant at the time in my life, and I decided, Hey, you know, I'm going to join the military. And I just went down to her recruiter's office I believe it is over off in Halsham City, and I was like, just I want to do something that's one of the hardest things in the military, and and for me at my time, with that knowledge, that was to join the infantry. So I signed up for the infantry as eleven bravo. In that time, you were able to choose where you wanted to go. So I chose Korea because I always heard Korea was a hard place to golitary career. Lo and behold, I got Korea and you kind of go through like a filtering process and they kind of tell you where you're going to go, what unit and everything. I ended up in a unit called Tango Security Force and what that stands for. The acronym is Tactical Air Naval Ground Operations And you know, to dumb it down, what we did was we guarded a tunnel. If Korea was North Korea was to attack, all the generals would fly in there and do their thing, lo and behold. It was one of the easiest jobs that you could get in Korea. So it kind of backfired on me there.
00:03:36
Speaker 3: What do you think, why were you specifically going after something as difficult as it could potentially be.
00:03:41
Speaker 5: You know, I just always wanted to challenge myself. I kind of had that mentality, you know, from a young man growing up. I just felt the need to do something difficult, you know, I just wanted to challenge as simple as that. Yeah, as simple as that.
00:03:57
Speaker 3: Are you comfortable talking a little bit more specifically about the things that got you in front of those judges?
00:04:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean time is kind of lapsed, you know, from there as far as like dates and stuff like that. But you know, I grew up working hard, and at a young age I worked hard. You know, I did roofing, you know, at fourteen, and just kind of worked up through that. But along with that, outside of that hard work, construction work, there's a lot of drinking that took place. So I found myself drinking a lot at a young age, and that kind of continued. You know, I ran into multiple you know, minor possessions, public intoxications, things of that nature. So that's kind of how I was going, how I was. I was tracking in that in that trend to you know, with alcohol, you know, it was just as a bad thing, and at the time it felt like a great thing, you know. So I joined the military, right and like that was going to change things.
00:04:54
Speaker 3: Did you think, did you have this sense of like alcohol is a part of the problem, yet.
00:05:00
Speaker 5: Not at all, Not at all. I didn't think it was a problem whatsoever. I felt like I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time at that time of my life, you know, I would say. And I wasn't in Korea three days, man, and I found myself sitting on the side of a curb in Soul, Korea with a busted up head where I got hit with a whiskey bottle and ended up having to go get stitches. I was there less than a week and that was all alcohol induced. So joining the military, you know, I just didn't solve any problems to do with my drinking. I didn't know I had a problem at that time. It took a long time for me to realize I did have a problem, you know, and it just kind of I won't say it escalated from there, you know, it just you know, I didn't stop anything because of that incident.
00:05:47
Speaker 4: You know, I just learned to surround.
00:05:49
Speaker 5: Myself with people that I can make it back to base with.
00:05:52
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
00:05:54
Speaker 3: That was your safety, that that was my safety. Was absolutely relying on someone to put you on their shoulder and get you back to bed.
00:06:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, pretty much that's what we did.
00:06:03
Speaker 3: So what year was that? What year did you enlist?
00:06:06
Speaker 5: So when I was home on leave from basic training before I deployed to Korea, whenever I was home on leave, that's when nine to eleven happened. Wow, So it was that time timeframe that I joined.
00:06:20
Speaker 3: And did you deploy to the Middle East or did you stay in Korea?
00:06:23
Speaker 5: No, I stayed in Korea. I stayed in Korea.
00:06:25
Speaker 4: I did not.
00:06:26
Speaker 5: I didn't deploy until later in my military career because once I left Korea, I went to Fort Hood. Fort Hood is where I stayed the rest of my time of service. I signed for three years. I was stop lost to go to Iraq, and so that's when I deployed Diract.
00:06:44
Speaker 3: Comfortable talking a bit, a little bit about your time there. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to hear whatever you feel good sharing.
00:06:50
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
00:06:51
Speaker 5: You know, we deployed Diract, we flew into Kuwait, and then from Kuwait, you know, we did kind of got everything ready from there, and then there was our unit was tasked to travel via convoy or take I believe black hawks into actual Baghdad. I was picked to beyond the transport team to pull security for the convoy and things of that nature. So we rolled into Baghdad that way, and what I remember is just getting to our fob. We were stationed at Fob Headhunter there in Baghdad, and I just remember getting there and just it was I think it was at night and they had some like tents out, and you know, we didn't really know what to expect at that time, and I just remember they're like, all right, y'are going in the tents, and I was like, in the tents, you know what I mean, Like there's buildings here, you know what I mean. But we were relieving another unit, and I stinctly remember, you know, like an order, you know, hearing the sounds of orders being fired off and whizzing in and and that was like day one in Baghdad. I was like eye opening experience, like this is real, you know. When I spent my time there, you know, we went on you know, just presence controls, uh, gate guard, different different missions that we were at tasked to do. And it wasn't until you know, and we just did the you know the war.
00:08:11
Speaker 4: Games, the war things.
00:08:12
Speaker 5: Right, seen a lot of a lot of wild stuff and was involved in a lot of it. I want to say about six months in where they drew some hats out of a or some names out of a hat or whatnot to go home on leave prior to deploying.
00:08:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, I knew I was deploying.
00:08:28
Speaker 5: We would come to Fort Worth to party, right because I stationed at Fort Hood and you know, out doing what we do at the bars.
00:08:36
Speaker 4: And I chased this one.
00:08:38
Speaker 5: Old gal down and uh and you know, all my intentions were on one thing.
00:08:43
Speaker 4: Uh.
00:08:43
Speaker 5: Those those intentions didn't didn't bear true. But little did I know that was my wife. Wow, you know she questioned me about you know who I was, you know all that stuff. Well I totally lied to her and said I was a cop for Worth. Yeah, and I played that very well, very well. And I never even told her that I was deploying.
00:09:03
Speaker 4: But whenever I was.
00:09:04
Speaker 5: In Kuwait, one of my good buddies said, brother, you better call her and let her know, you know, spill the beans if you really like her that much. And so I did, and she took it well. And man, from that point forward, she wrote me letters. When we got to make phone calls, I'd call her. And then fast forward to that six month mark, I'd get to go home.
00:09:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, and your name got pulled from the hat.
00:09:32
Speaker 5: Got pulled from the hat. And so I find myself on her on her doorstep. I think I was home for I can't remember if it was two weeks or thirty days or whatnot, but during that time period I proposed.
00:09:45
Speaker 4: Her, Wow, yep, and how old are you, oh, man? I was.
00:09:52
Speaker 5: Was I twenty maybe somewhere in that area? Wow, maybe twenty one?
00:09:55
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:09:56
Speaker 5: And then she said yes, So now I'm going back to Iraq. So I get deployed back Iraq, get back in country. My first mission, like real mission from getting back, was just a simple presence patrol in the morning. And so we're going through and we were just a small group of us were down there. I can't really remember how many. But our observation posts, you know, the guys sitting up watching all your movements and stuff, they didn't really have good eyes on us. And I distinctly remember the lieutenant. We were knocking on the door and people were wrapping up wanting.
00:10:32
Speaker 4: To go to lunch.
00:10:33
Speaker 5: It was in the morning time, so I knew, you know, I've been through this before, and I was like, you know, we need to get out of here. We're not in a good spot. We don't have very good overwatch QR if it's X minutes out. And it was just moments after that that hell broke loose and so we were engaged by you know, small arms, fire, grenades, everything of that nature. One of our guys was pinned down pretty good it and we had called q r F to collapse to come get us, and I remember, you know, a humby pulling up and we're and these guys are being pulled back and I'm helping load the wounded in the back of a humbee when a grenade was hurled into very close proximity of that, uh humphy. So I just remember just kind of coming to making sure I had all my stuff at that time.
00:11:23
Speaker 4: I realized I was wounded.
00:11:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, I stepped off into a nearby building to to see what was going on.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: I do want to let the listeners know that when you said check to see if you had all your stuff, you pointed to your head.
00:11:37
Speaker 4: Yes, my head.
00:11:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have.
00:11:41
Speaker 4: My kevlar and I had my weapon.
00:11:43
Speaker 5: Uh, you know, that was the main thing I was making sure I had my kevlar. My weapon was number one, right and that way I had a source of uh protect fire. And so I stepped off in there and I realized, you know, I'm pretty had a pretty good wound to my left arm. You know, my whole body was riddled with trapnel. So I apply a first aid on my arm, and I step back out into the fight and we fight until QRF gets there, and then we load up and then we roll at that point and we just get out of dodge and head to the hospital.
00:12:17
Speaker 3: At that point. Did everyone make it?
00:12:19
Speaker 4: Everybody made it out of that? Yeah.
00:12:21
Speaker 5: We had some people that were a lot worse off than I was, to say the least.
00:12:28
Speaker 4: Long story short, I.
00:12:30
Speaker 5: Was in country a very short period of time before I was reintroduced back to my fiance. You know, I figured it was going to be another six months or so before getting back, and and.
00:12:42
Speaker 3: It sounds like you got that dose dose of difficulty you were asking for.
00:12:46
Speaker 4: I did, I did? I did.
00:12:49
Speaker 5: I just wish that, you know, at that time that I was able to go back. But with the way that how far we were in the deployment and the nature of you know, getting held up and all that stuff, I wasn't granted access to go back to Iraq. So the boys were coming in and so at that point I decided that, you know, it was time for me to get out.
00:13:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's what I did.
00:13:17
Speaker 3: We have to fit in a quick commercial break, but stick around and we'll be right back with Cody. All right, let's pick right back up with Cody. Here we go. Okay, so your fiance is Angie. Yes, why did you lie to her? I mean, I'm sort of making up my own narrative of why you did, but I actually like to hear it from from you, Like why not tell her what you were doing?
00:13:48
Speaker 5: You know, just because I think I did that because of the because I really liked her, and anybody knowing me growing up, you know, I was not one of those guys that had long term reallylationships, and there's some stigma wrapped around you know, military guys, and I didn't want that to scare her away per se, So I thought lying was a better option. Yeah, so that I believe that was my basis of lying to her about who I really was.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it sounds like when you told her the truth, a part of that was explaining yourself explaining the lie. So she obviously had sympathy empathy for you like that. That made sense to her and she was willing to look past it. Basically, probably learned something about you by understanding why you lied.
00:14:39
Speaker 5: Correct, Yeah, correct, Yeah, I think that was a lot to it because when I did, I do remember, you know, telling her the reasons behind it. You know, my whole thought process, you know, wrong, right and indifferent. That was my thought process wrapped around situation.
00:14:52
Speaker 3: So there was rather quick time in Iraq. But I was drinking still a part of that. Were you drinking over there?
00:14:59
Speaker 5: Well you weren't supposed to be drinking over there, but you know, where there's a we will find ways put it that way, right, you'll figure something. Yeah, we have interpreters and we kept it to a to a very minimum, you know, but there to say there was no drinking, it would be a pretty good lie.
00:15:22
Speaker 3: So when you came back, did you pick right back up?
00:15:25
Speaker 4: I picked right back up. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:28
Speaker 5: When I got back and I got healed up, I was granted access to to room with somebody off post. So I teamed up with a couple of guys that had been injured, and we're back, and so we had a little apartment and and we just pretty much drank. Man, we drank a lot, and then we did just a little bit of stuff that we had to do on ardy. I guess that's what we were classified as. But drinking was huge, and that it was almost right out the gate. Yeah, to be honest with you, even whenever I got back and was you know, I when I got back and I was able to go on leave for a little bit, you know, but that the drinking continued.
00:16:06
Speaker 3: And how is your relationship with Angie progressing really quickly?
00:16:12
Speaker 4: You know we got married pretty quickly. Yeah seven.
00:16:15
Speaker 3: How would you describe her?
00:16:17
Speaker 4: Man?
00:16:17
Speaker 6: What was she like back then?
00:16:36
Speaker 4: She was everything?
00:16:37
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:16:50
Speaker 5: If we need to take a break, man, no, I'm good man. I knew from day one she was gonna.
00:16:57
Speaker 4: Be my wife.
00:16:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, A little bar in Prs and downtown Fort Worth.
00:17:03
Speaker 4: I knew. I knew at that point.
00:17:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wish I would have realized how things would play out over the years, but you don't, you know what I'm saying. So, you know, she was my everything, dude, and I think God put us together for a reason because I drug that woman through some shit.
00:17:43
Speaker 3: Well maybe we should talk about that a little bit. Yeah, So, okay, you guys got married pretty quick.
00:17:47
Speaker 5: Got married pretty quick. Didn't realize, you know, during our marriage that she was pregnant, right, So she was pregnant, and so you know, we got married. We rented a little house from her parents. It was actually a big house on a fish farm.
00:18:05
Speaker 4: You know.
00:18:06
Speaker 5: We just lived there, you know, and we ended up having Barrett. You know, life took off from there, man. And you know, I worked at the company that I worked at in high school, cleaning the shop, you know what I mean. I just went back to work for them, right, That's what I knew. Yeah, you know, I just worked all the time. You know, I worked a lot of hours. I went out of town quite a bit, just whatever I had to do to fend, you know, make for the family, you know, And I and I treated myself. I don't know if you want to call it that. It kind of drinking after work was, you know, just a release for me. It felt like that was something I was obligate or not obligated, but I had the rights to do for being, you know, because you know Angie she worked a little bit but pretty much she.
00:18:47
Speaker 4: Has a stay at home mom.
00:18:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, and did. And man, her job was way harder than my job. I didn't learn that until years down the road. But you know, so, I mean I drank a lot, I worked a lot, of drink a lot. I was always there from my family, but I was there, but I don't know that I was present, and you know, from as long as I can remember, I mean, drinking was a huge part of my life.
00:19:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:19:10
Speaker 3: Was she drinking too.
00:19:12
Speaker 5: She would drink, She would drink, but nothing like like I would. You know, mine was an everyday deal. Hers was you know, every couple of weeks, or a beer after work or something of that nature.
00:19:22
Speaker 4: Nothing nothing like me.
00:19:25
Speaker 3: So, how was fatherhood for you in those first few years of working and drinking?
00:19:29
Speaker 4: Man? Fatherhood?
00:19:30
Speaker 5: You know, at that time I could kind of keep it at bay, you know, it was it was there. But I would like to say it didn't affect my fatherhood, but knowing what I know now, it did just because you know, I wasn't there a lot present for my for my son like I should have been, you know, and he you know, at that time, didn't know any difference, right, but the late nights, the long nights that she would have maybe I would be sleeping or whatnot, and didn't have that support for her that you know I should have. Yeah, looking back at it now, during the moment, I thought I was doing everything the right way.
00:20:07
Speaker 4: Sure, you know what I mean.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: Sure. So it sounds like you weren't violent in the house.
00:20:11
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, violence and things of that nature.
00:20:14
Speaker 4: Physical violence was never.
00:20:15
Speaker 5: An issue ever in my in our lives. Yeah, you know, we would bicker things of that nature, but nothing nothing crazy, you know.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: In regarding to that, well, I happened to know that you're sober. Yeah, so what led up to that? How did it? What's that part of the roller coaster ride look like?
00:20:37
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:20:38
Speaker 5: So you know my drinking, you know, from there all the way up to within say ten years of now, was just drinking, you know, just drinking, and then it like it turned.
00:20:48
Speaker 4: A little bit, right.
00:20:51
Speaker 5: You know, I had another kid, and you know, I got I got a d w I. And several times before that, you know, I went to jail for public intoxication or something of that nature, because hey, I want to stop home at a bar or something on the way home, and then I find myself in a confrontation or something at the bar, and then you know, get hauled off because I'm publicly drunk. And Angie was maybe the first time she got me out of jail. She was not She didn't bring the kids right, but I distinctly remember, you know, her picking me up from that first dw I, and she brought the kids right, like, hey, this is this is the deal, you know, And I remember just just feeling so helpless on that ride home, you know, like I let my family down, I let my work down, I let everybody down around me. And one would think that would turn your life around, right, But you know, alcohol is a rear, it's evil head. And rock bottoms can be slippery, they can be slippery, and there's always a lower one, yeah, And so I'd clean it up for a little bit and then I get right back at it, you.
00:22:01
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
00:22:01
Speaker 5: And then I think she had enough, you know, my job had enough. And I remember laying coming off of a couple of days drunk and her waking me up in bed and saying, hey, you know you're going You're going to rehab and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, you know I can't my my work. She's like, dude, that's already been taken care of. You're going where I'm going. And I just remember getting the shakes. Man, it felt like I was about to die just from just I want to say is mainly probably my ego and my pride had just been smashed. You know, I've been I've been revealed, you know, like nobody else around me knew what was going on when the whole world did. And so I ended up going into a sixty day inpatient treatment facility in Fort Worth, and man, when I got there is like, and I realized, you know, all those things had been taking place. It was almost like a fresher breath air, you know, and like, I want to get some help. And I did get some help. The place was great, right, and they showed me the things to do to stay sober and be sober. Unfortunately, man, I thought just going.
00:23:15
Speaker 4: To that I was healed.
00:23:17
Speaker 2: Yea.
00:23:17
Speaker 5: When I got out, you know, I stopped doing the work, man, I stopped going to the meetings I was supposed to go to and started lying again about my drinking. And it didn't take long, man, and I was back right back in the game, right back in the game. And April nineteenth, three and a half years ago, Man, I found myself on the side of Camp Booy, with what looks to be like the whole fourth Police Department behind me at gunpoint, asking me to get out of the vehicle, and me not wanting to get out of the vehicle. I had a gun right there into my truck. Thank god I didn't try to hide it or something like that, because they'd have thought I was going for a weapon or something. You know, I probably wouldn't be here today.
00:24:00
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker 5: I ended up getting out of the vehicle and sitting down, and I had a leatherman on my in my blue jeans. And the after the reports read that they noticed that I had a knife in my pocket and I had purple heart license plates, so they deemed me as a risk to the police officers, so they made a decision to tase me. Luckily, with the the mid grade level one. But I ended up getting tased three to four times before it came to a stop. You know, I had to go to the hospital and then ended you know, ultimately ended up back in jail. So that was my second d w I at that point. With that came some other some other charges, you know, evading to rest. Those were dropped, so no felony charges. I was hit with felonies, but they were ultimately dropped. At that point, man, that was thank god, that was my my rock bottle, man, because since that day, I've had a drink of alcohol since. And and I thank God for that day because that's what turned me around.
00:25:04
Speaker 6: Man.
00:25:04
Speaker 5: And you know, we all have choices to make, dude. And I remember that day, man. I remember the morning of that day, sitting at seven to eleven parking lot with a fifth of vodka is probably about six o'clock in the morning, and staring at a picture of my kids and my family and then staring at the vodka, and I chose.
00:25:22
Speaker 4: I chose the vodka over my family on that day.
00:25:24
Speaker 5: Man. That's the power of alcoholism and the power of alcohol what it can do to one. And you know, that's tough saying that that you choose what's in a bottle over your family, you know that you would die for. But luckily that that day was it for me and it ended the way that it did because it could have been different. Ye could have been so different. And from that day, that was the end of it, man. And I'm lucky to cap Angie through that situation, because she had all rights to leave, man, and she was probably real close to it.
00:26:00
Speaker 4: I know she was.
00:26:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, she verbalized it as she should. I just you know, something clicked in me that that, man, I got connected, you know, back into uh, getting with the right people. And you know, at that day and that timeframe is when I decided to start running to help with my uh my disease. And I haven't stopped.
00:26:22
Speaker 3: Since physically running literally going for runs.
00:26:25
Speaker 4: Literally for runs.
00:26:26
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker 4: So yeah, thank you, man. I appreciate that.
00:26:31
Speaker 5: Today will be you know, on Memorial Day three and a half years ago, I decided to honor a hero every day run a minimum of a five k and then share it to the world man, with pictures of my life and what's going on, just to to reach out to people and let them know that hey, there's a way and you know, with everything going on in the world and the obesity and the craziness, right, we need to get out of self, man, and do things for ourselves. And then also, you know, recognize those people that we love and let them know it, right, because you know, that's something that I never did, you know, back in the day, was express my feelings to another person on you know, how I felt about them and what they mean to me. And that's so important to do, man, because you don't know when those days are going to be gone. So it's just that's kind of been a staple in my life and I don't.
00:27:20
Speaker 4: Plan to quit.
00:27:23
Speaker 3: In the intro of this episode, Jake said that Cody was joining us today during a particularly vulnerable part of his story. We do have to take our final commercial break of the episode, but stick around because when we come back, we see what Jake meant and why he called Cody's being here the epitome of courage. Welcome back to the good stuff. There are two things that I would like to clarify a little bit for the coming up portion with Cody. Number One, when he says Cook's Children's, what he means is a children's hospital. Number Two, when he says Polaris Ranger. He's talking about a four wheeler, a UTV or utility task vehicle, the kind of thing you might see on a farm. Without further ado, here's our third and final act with Cody Turner. Well, I know you and Angie were blessed with another set of surprises or guess he'd be our miracles. Yeah, you talk a little bit about that.
00:28:25
Speaker 5: Absolutely, man, Absolutely, so, you know is I believe it is right around the COVID timeframe. You know, Angie wasn't feeling real great, so she went to the doctor and ended up taking it. Well, she ended up taking a pregnancy test and found out she was pregnant. I wasn't able to go to the doctor at that time because of the COVID and they're doing the whole sonogram and everything, and and the doctor said, hey.
00:28:50
Speaker 4: Does twins run in y'all's family.
00:28:51
Speaker 5: I'm like, uh no, they like they do now, brother, they do now. So we were blessed with two more beautiful boys, River and Riggs.
00:29:02
Speaker 3: And what's the age gap between them?
00:29:03
Speaker 5: And they're so so Barret's nineteen and Gunners about to be sixteen at the end of this month. They're four so twelve years from my youngest roughly. Yeah, surprises, they were surprising.
00:29:17
Speaker 3: And sorry for not keeping the math straight. But was this before your sobriety?
00:29:22
Speaker 5: April nineteenth of twenty twenty six will be four years so and they're four years now, so they're young enough to not know anything about my drinking career.
00:29:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they were born, they were born.
00:29:36
Speaker 3: Well, that's got to be a pretty big difference between the older ones who remember drunk Dad.
00:29:40
Speaker 5: It's huge, Yeah, it's huge. So yeah, or Barrett, you know, he's seen it from the beginning. Gunner, he come along and caught it most of it. He caught all the bad days.
00:29:51
Speaker 4: And so.
00:29:53
Speaker 5: You know, River and Riggs, they won't get to God willing, they won't get to see that part of me. Yeah, only through through stories and through me talking to them about it, right, because we are an open family and we don't keep no secrets.
00:30:06
Speaker 4: It's important to us.
00:30:08
Speaker 3: When your family's been through the unthinkable recently. Would you like to tell our listeners where you and I are currently recording this interview.
00:30:18
Speaker 5: Yes, So we're currently at Cooks Children's fifth floor. We've been here for roughly forty five days since August third is whenever. That morning I woke up and went on a run and.
00:30:37
Speaker 4: In the morning and.
00:30:41
Speaker 5: Told Angie, I'll be back in a little bit, just gonna go hit my five k, my daily five k, and that that I'll be back, and then she was gonna go check the cows with the with the twins on the Polaris and uh, you know, I didn't realize that day was going to be the the last day that I speak to her. Coming in from that run, I ran up on a. I seen that, you know, I'll never forget, you know, the I ran up. I remember stinkly running up the driveway and just seeing uh, our Polaris Ranger on its side, and my son Gunner in a frantic state and my son River sitting down. And I didn't really I figured there was just a wreck, but based off of the the body language of Gunner and stuff, I knew.
00:31:48
Speaker 4: Something wasn't good.
00:31:51
Speaker 5: And uh, running up on that, I Gunner was the same mom, and Mom's dead and uh, A didn't register uh completely until you know, I came around the side of the buggy and I saw, you know, my wife trapped under the vehicle and she was and she was dead and so I checked her pulse to confirm based off the vision of the the injuries there was there was you know, she was gone at that point.
00:32:28
Speaker 4: And she was and.
00:32:32
Speaker 5: So I had to focus my attention to River and Riggs. Riggs was running around with some scrapes on his face, but he was okay. And and uh, River he had he had a bad leg injury and uh he was sitting in a pile of fire ant. So I had to pick him up.
00:32:53
Speaker 4: And move him and uh.
00:32:56
Speaker 5: And you know, prior to me even getting there, you know, what what had happened was the track tragic accident happened, however it may have done. And through that, Riggs had ran inside our house to wake up Gunner because Gunner was in their sleep and it was still, you know, pretty early in the morning. And Gunner came out and he was the first one on the scene and was able to make the call, you know, for help and uh and then assess the situation and and and ultimately make the decision to turn his attention to his brother and apply a field dressing with his pants that he took off to keep the to keep it.
00:33:50
Speaker 4: This best that he could. The wound.
00:33:55
Speaker 5: And you know, it was probably it was about forty minutes before any uh first responders made it. When they did, they did, you know, pretty much ran the same checkpoints that I did. And they were able to eventually get her out from underneath the vehicle and care for care for river at.
00:34:16
Speaker 4: That point and uh river was uh.
00:34:21
Speaker 5: They landed a chopper in the pasture and he was met of bac to cooks and so.
00:34:29
Speaker 4: That day.
00:34:32
Speaker 5: It will be forever burned in my head. But I just I go back and I think, you know, like, man, how you know, how does a three year old run in there and wake up his brother? And you know, and and you know, through through talks and everything, you know, you know, Angie had had said, hey, go get your brother.
00:34:55
Speaker 4: And so man, I think.
00:34:59
Speaker 5: I think that was God Man speaking through her through him two to make this situation as horrible as it is turn out with the best of outcome, and it could have been.
00:35:16
Speaker 4: Worse.
00:35:18
Speaker 5: I think that Angie did what she had to do to save to her voice in that situation, however unfolded. And I believe that to my my my soul, my core. And and so here we are now we're we're the the light at the end of the tunnel is coming upon us for River being able to get out of the hospital and move on to our next phase of.
00:35:50
Speaker 4: Healing at home.
00:35:52
Speaker 5: And and we're still working on scheduling a time for for burial of Angie. It's extremely important to me that River was able to attend and however long that took, you know, Angie's and Angie's in heaven, heaven now, and so it's important for me too that all my boys can attend the funeral and be there for their mama because I know that's what she wants.
00:36:28
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I almost feel silly asking, but like, I mean, how are you able to function currently? Like what's what?
00:36:39
Speaker 5: And that's a it's a good question.
00:36:42
Speaker 4: That's a good question. Man.
00:36:46
Speaker 5: Since getting sober three and a half years ago, Man, I made an effort to really reach out and.
00:36:59
Speaker 4: Get to know my God.
00:37:00
Speaker 5: Man, and and I thought I was connected with him, you know, about as good as one could be connected. And uh, since this accident, man, something's changed inside of me. And I don't really have words for it. But that's what's keeping me where I need to be is my higher power and that I choose God for that. And if I was to carry all the worries and the fears, and the the questions and the wis and the what if and all that on my shoulders. Man, I wouldn't be sitting here today, Brother, I'd be buried in a barstool drinking myself to death.
00:37:50
Speaker 4: Man.
00:37:50
Speaker 5: And I and I don't have to do that today, Brother, I can. I can offload that onto God man and let him carry that weight, so I don't have to carry it, man. And the support that I have been blessed with through one try foundation, through all my people that I'm connected with have I've always been on the giving side of that, connected reaching out to people and being there for them. And I'm on the other end of this now.
00:38:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker 5: And I have no words for it. Brother, It's something that it really shows me what life's about and about being there for others and taking self out of the situation. And so through this, I'm continuing to try to do that myself, right, be there for my boys and still be there for myself, right, but getting out of self, man, just being there for other people and just you know, leaning on my higher power, Man, get me through these situations and and and offloading those worries, man, because you can. You can chase the wis and the what ifs until you're just till you just run yourself in the ground, and and that doesn't get you anywhere. I'm not a I'm not a service to my kids. I'm not a service to my family. If I'm in that, in that mindset, or in that, in that situation, and I choose not to, I choose not.
00:39:25
Speaker 4: To do that.
00:39:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, do I uh do? I have bad days? No, I have bad moments that you know. I can quickly offload that and some sometimes it's easier, it's easier said than done, right, And I'm still going to be going through the grieving process for a long time. I realize that. Yeah, it's because I love her so much. Do you know too, She she was always the one that I could no matter the situation or the day that I had, I always knew she'd be there. And she's not physically anymore, but she's still here and that's what's keeping me where I need to be, and that's what's going to continue keeping me driving through this man to come out of the other end of this stronger, to be a better service to others, to let them know that no matter the situation or the whatever you're going through, you can get through it. Can't get through it alone, but you can get through it. Yeah, And that's important to me to carry that on and carry that to other people and carry that message to them, because there's so many people man that I've seen it, you know, and I still see it today, that that it just it runs them, and it runs everybody's lives around them. You know, they just drag you know, they just burn the house down because of a situation that they've been through. And and it doesn't have to be that way, man, it can be. Does it hurt? Yes, it hurts. Does it do I cry?
00:41:39
Speaker 4: Hell? Yeah? I cry? Do I get angry? Fuck?
00:41:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, I get angry. But but I can overcome that, you know. I can reach out to people, I can pray, I can, you know. And I always say, you know, faith over fear, worship over worry, man, and that that room really that really resonates uh in this situation, man, because the fears and the worries they're always there, right, But I ain't gotta I ain't gotta deal with that. That's not for me to carry, man. And and so it's just you know, knowing that believe in that and living it is, uh is what's getting me through today.
00:42:25
Speaker 3: Well, I really really have moved and appreciative of you talking to me today. And I guess just imparting like, is there just anything you want our listeners and whoever happens to be coming across this to know about Angie.
00:42:41
Speaker 5: Angie was one of the toughest, most selfless human beings that I know to day. She put others before her self in every situation, and I'm luckily I got to realize some of that before her passing. And just the just the strength and the love that she beholded for her kids and for me and for her family was beyond anything I've ever seen. So it's important to me that people recognize those people in their lives that way they can be there for them and just let them people know how much you love them. If you're going through a bad day with that person or whatnot, smash it, get over it, don't let it go to the next day, because man, you don't know when when you're when your time cards gonna get punched. Man, you know, you don't want to have regrets, You don't want to have what IF's, and you know that's you know, and that's easier said than done. But Angie, she just she she was just that person, man, that just filled everybody's soul. And I strive to carry her passion, her mindset towards those things through my life and let that help me have a driving force to continue fighting the good fight.
00:44:33
Speaker 6: Man.
00:44:34
Speaker 5: And just uh, I just pray that everybody could find somebody like her in their life, man, because if you do, you're lucky. You're lucky because most people don't.
00:44:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:44:47
Speaker 5: And and I love her, I always will. And uh, she'll always be here with us, man when where a Yeah, and.
00:45:03
Speaker 4: It's beautiful.
00:45:04
Speaker 3: So may she rest in peace. Absolutely, thank you for being on the show, man, I really appreciate it.
00:45:09
Speaker 4: Hey, thanks brother, thanks for having me.
00:45:16
Speaker 3: Hey, what's up everybody. I'm back here with Jake and Ashley And We're not gonna do our standard outro for this episode. We just wanted the memory of Angie to stay with you guys, and doing our normal outro just did not feel appropriate.
00:45:30
Speaker 1: Angie was one of the sweetest, kindest, most patient, and beautiful Texas ladies.
00:45:41
Speaker 3: Cannt miss her.
00:45:44
Speaker 1: I miss her, but I know she's still here with us and we will continue to speak her name and.
00:45:51
Speaker 4: Honor her absolutely.
00:45:53
Speaker 2: It's all we can do, and it's my hope in my prayer that everybody that listens to this episode just go love on the people that you love the most, and love on them hard, because tomorrow is not guaranteed. And I think that the one thing we spend way too frivolously without ever knowing how much we have in the bank is time. And so be intentional with your time and with the people that you love the most, because it's only for a short wall that we have them.
00:46:26
Speaker 3: So with that, we're going to end this episode with just a moment of silence and take care. We'll be back next week.
