Natural Disaster, Preparedness
MY EXPLOSIVE JOURNEY IN THE IRAQ WAR
My Explosive Journey into the battles, the ditches and the bombs in the Iraq War, our interview with Eric Herrera.
“A true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him”, G.K. Chesterton.
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war with our Interview with Eric Herrera, with his Journey in Iraq with the United States Army is quite the adventure to say the least! Eric is now a US Army Veteran- Started as a Combat Engineer and now author of “a Bomb Hunter’s Story. A story about Eric and his unit clearing the roots through the Iraq war during 2 deployments. Very fascinating story of what military life in the Iraq war was like.
You won’t want to miss this one Y’all!! Eric shares his experience talking about how he came to join the army, what he learned from 2 deployments in Iraq clearing the roads of IED’s (Improvised Explosive Device), how he handled reintegration into civilian life and more.
So I’m very, very excited about our show today. You know, we focus on these real raw conversations for a reason with our listeners about their journey with our guests life changing event. And this was definitely a life changing event. For Eric. Your backup plan app puts your life all into one place. So for any unpredictable circumstance, I can’t even talk today, while taking that painful Aftermath out of a tragedy.
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war. What does that mean? Well, one thing you can count on is that you’re going to either get sick, get injured, get disabled, or pass away or lose everything and a tragedy or a disaster. It sounds very gruesome. But that’s life. And when you’re not prepared, that’s when things when basically when shit hits the fan, because when we have 1000 wildfires in British Columbia as of yesterday, and that, that that’s crazy because I believe they said on the news that we had 1200 all season last year. We’ve already just gotten through July. And we’re, we’re not even halfway through the season yet. So it’s crazy. And all we lost a town in British Columbia, a whole town got burned down. And these people did not even have a five minute evacuation. Notice. They basically jumped in their car and drove away while they still could. And so they lost everything. And some of them even lost their cars, as well. So some of them stayed to try to keep their homes. And it’s very scary. So I always feel that people are blessed if you’re given even a five minute evacuation notice. And listeners, what would you take with you?
If you were given five minutes? What could you grab? And what would you need for later, because all of your documents, all of your items, you know, you’re going to have insurance claims later on, you’re going to have all sorts of issues that you may need something that’s in that home, and of course was Surfside in Florida, with the condo collapse a few weeks ago, there was many deaths, and many survivors of that condo collapse as well. But they also weren’t very lucky in being able to take anything with them. So I want to, you know, really put that through to you guys that sometimes we’re not given five minutes in a car accident.
Or as Eric’s gonna tell us being blown up. You’re not given five minutes notice and say, Hey, hold on a second, I want my five minutes before anything happens. doesn’t work that way. And sometimes we have to be prepared for the unexpected, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. So let’s get this party started. I’m going to bring on Eric Herrera, and introduce him to everybody. Welcome, Eric. Thank you for having me. Oh, you’re welcome. I’m so excited for this show. As you know, I’m a military brat. And grew up for 30 years, with my dad’s years in the force in the army as well. And so I know some of the lingo only because the guys that used to dance with me would ask me who my dad was before they would dance with me. And I always used to, you know, basically, okay, let’s, let’s go, let’s not tell them the truth, because then they won’t dance with me. So, I did my time in Germany. And I understand that you did too.
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war. And I’m so excited to hear your story. Eric has been out of the military. Now. He’s a US Army veteran. He started as a combat engineer, and now an author of a bomb hunter story. Very fascinating story of what military life in Iraq War was like, you don’t want to mess this story, everybody. Eric shares his experience talking about how he came to join the army. And what he learned from his two deployments in Iraq, clearing the roads for IEDs, which are improvised explosive devices on how he handled reintegration into civilian life, which is really tough for a lot of military guys. Because you, you almost have to find what you’re good at what you know, from being in the military to what you can do in the outside world. And sometimes that’s a little bit difficult. So when private Eric Herrera began his military journey, he started at the bottom like they all do. Basic Training, gave him the courage to do things. Better basic training in military life. And I understand in the RCMP, as well as in the police force in Canada is very similar, where they really yell and scream at you. But I’m so excited to hear your story, Eric. And do you want to start from the beginning of when you first joined and tell us all how that journey went for you?
Yes, so I graduated high school in 2004. I played a lot of sports. So that team atmosphere gave me a lot of that structure. Went to Northern Illinois University. And I did participate. If you want to put it that way. I was more interested. In the party life and just hanging out with friends, I never really attended class, I ended up getting kicked out in Northern Illinois University. My mother gave me an ultimatum, go to community college, get a job, live at home. I really did not want to do that. I had a couple of friends at the time, decided to go into the military. And I decided, Hey, why don’t I go look into it as well. I didn’t want to go infantry because I knew my mother would kill me. But picking the child that I picked was probably far away worse than infantry at the time. So when you when you went into it, did you have the choice of what area you wanted to go into?
Yeah, I looked at combat engineer. But the description for combat engineer when I came in was building fortifications and clearing minefields. As a kid, I like building things. And I thought, Hey, why don’t I try that out. But when the Iraq war happened, that job description changed, because that description before was mainly for World War Two and Vietnam soldiers. When I was coming out, the military decided to use COMBAT engineers, because we knew what explosives look like, different types. So we were best suited to find IDs. Oh, cool.
There must be so much training and how they? Well, they must continue to try to hide them. Right? We’re jumping the gun here a little bit. But it’s interesting, because they must have always continued to try to trick you didn’t they?
change it up a bit. Yeah. Also, we also need called breachers.
So one of our other jobs was able to get into things. So we were trained to build certain explosives to breach obstacles. So we kind of know what to look for. That was one of the main training, but yeah, trying to trick us the different things that they would use. To build these ideas were somewhat impressive and the ingenuity behind it was a little bit scary, with fine ideas with cell phones, beepers, garage door openers, lead pressure wires, so there would be Christmas lights, maybe across the road, which would look out of place and became more evolved with fps, which were lasers that were used to detect heat. So anything that went by it, such as our vehicles would set off IEDs. How they disguise these things were quite incredible, there would be chunks taken out of the curb. So they would take a chunk of the curve out, mold the ID into the curve and place it back into it. Dead dogs would even be used to hide IDs, and Iraq, a lot of trash piles. So they would hide these trash pile, hide these IDs in the trash piles. But we were so used to being out there that we would actually memorize these trash piles. So if anything was out of place, we would actually get into it and nine times out of 10 there would be something there.
So from where the story started, you joined and you thought, hey, as as you know, guy who came out of high school, basically, that sounds like fun, I guess is what your thought was. So where did you train in the United States at one of the military basis.
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war. I did my basic training nit in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Since I’m from Chicago, it’s not too far away. It’s maybe like a 45 minute plane ride. But that’s I spent 16 weeks there. And basic training was a little rough for me because during college, I guess gained a lot of weight. So I’m talking like 6364, but I was about almost 280 pounds. So I was almost about 100 pounds from the standards of the military. But during basic training or 16 weeks, I ended up losing about 70 pounds. Yeah, cuz they work too hard. Yeah. And just I built more confidence, being in basic training. And then they gave me my decision to join a duty station. So one of them was I picked Germany and ended up in Frankfurt, Germany,
which everybody is near Frankfurt. So I did my time in Germany as well. I was just south of France. firt but used to go to the army base a lot, the American army base quite a bit. Theirs was always bigger and better than ours. Canadians never really had too much. We were always the helpers to the Americans. We were never really the even now, you know, what do we have one navy ship and a few planes? I don’t know. But we don’t have much compared to what you guys have. So it took you over to Germany for more training. I assume you were over there for twice. For once.
Yeah, so I ended up in Schweinfurth. Fall of oh five. The unit was just forming. And it was one of the last combat engineer battalions. So battalions made up maybe about 500 soldiers, usually combat engineers are distributed between squads to infantry units. But we were one of the very last combat engineer units. So a lot of soldiers from Bamberg, words Berg. Think Nurnberg as well. And us new recruits coming in from the states all came to Schweinfurth. Because that’s what they were gearing up for, for our deployment. But we kept on getting pushed back from our deployments. And it was getting a little bit weird. But there’s reasons behind that that we found out later on.
And did you do the training before you went to Iraq, then in Germany for preparation?
So yeah, the big training base in there is Hohenfelds and Griffinworth. Now, it’s a big hub for us installations. But yeah, the graphic here and Hans felts are up in the mountains. So it was a little bit nerve wracking, because every time we would go train, it’d be in the middle of winter. So it’s a negative 10 degrees and we’re training to be an environment that’s 100 plus degrees. So it was kind of hard to replicate what we would do. We’ve made best of what we had.
How about the training with keeping up with the the electrical part of what they could keep doing with these explosives? Did that assist you in Germany with trying to train for that part?
Yes, and no. A lot of ideas that we would practice with were from artillery shell rounds or mortar rounds. But the ingenuity behind it all. I mean, nobody’s even chlorine bombs, propane tank bombs. And it wasn’t until we got to Kuwait. We did some training, and we were actually trained by English and Canadian soldiers, with the equipment that we were going to have to use during our deployments.
So the Canadians do know something. So what about So you went from Germany with the training? And then you did you come back to United States and then go to Iraq? Or did you go right from Germany to Iraq, I was, I was a brand new private, so I didn’t have the time to go back. But since we got delayed more and more, there was a time period where I was able to go back for me about a week and a half before the deployment because we then ended up deployment, deploying until almost the end of summer, beginning of fall of oh seven, or about six.
Which down the road, we found out that it was more of kind of a power power deployment, the deployment would put, I guess, more accolades under higher leadership’s belts. So they were kind of forcing the deployment, which pushed the training and a lot of units weren’t prepared. My first deployment. It was named the most deadliest deployment from any European unit. Oh, it’s a little controversial thing with it all. But I explained in my book that it was more of power plays, then. reasoning, reasoning. Yeah. Um, so you flew over to Iraq, I guess. And you arrived. Did you Go somewhere else. Like, did you have a couple stops before you arrived in Iraq?
Now my duty station was Baghdad, my first deployment. So Baghdad has the large, largest base that’s there. That’s where the Baghdad airport is. And where the main hub of also Iraqi troops were, as well, that would train.
Okay. So did you go with their same training group that you were with? In Germany, too? They’re the same brothers that you worked with them?
Yes. And no, that was another thing that kind of happened with us was that we did a field rotations are usually about 60 days. So you train with the soldiers, 60 days non stop, you sleep in the same quarters, everything. And maybe a week or two before we left for Baghdad, the unit decided to move soldiers around. So the whole 60 days was almost kind of a waste about training with knowing how guys work. What are their specific jobs, that really all went out the window on a lot of us were really upset with that, then it was just another the rail and the deployment, right? It’s like having a team when you’re training with them, why wouldn’t you bring the team to go win? Right? It makes sense instead of breaking them up. And but so you arrived in Baghdad, and what happened from that point?
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war. We got attached to a unit that was there for the year. And so what would happen is that we would take over their vehicles. Being common engineers were in these specialized vehicles called RG 30. ones. There were South African vehicles that were a little bit more bond resistant. They had V shaped halls, they were kind of deteriorate, deflect shrapnel, things like that. But our main vehicle was called a buffalo I actually have a miniature model of it.
Oh, cool. Okay, so it’s like, kind of like a big Jeep poor?
No, this, this vehicle is about 20 to 30 feet high, and about 50 feet long. So I mean, on the back, you see there’s a ladder, you actually have to climb into this vehicle. So this vehicle is a lot more bomb resistant. And our main weapon as combat engineers, is this crane that we have on the front. And this crane could hold maybe about 200 to 250 pounds. So if we ever found anything that was buried, or we had to move stuff on the road, we would use this crane to move things around and make a decision on if it’s actually an ID or not. This was our main weapon. And this is what a lot of these surgeons would try to break down before anything else.
Oh, I see. So it’s kind of like the outside of a tank because it’s kind of more bomb resistant than to.
And I’m getting a little bit ahead as my second deployment came, they developed more armor for these vehicles and to help protect them more. Well, that must be kind of cool, though. Yeah, but we, we’ve seen a lot of damage that happened to these vehicles with larger explosives. So that part’s not so cool. That they said that they were bomb resistant. Most of the time that wasn’t. Oh, so that’s the way we ended up losing a couple of soldiers, my first deployment.
I’m sorry to hear that. So going back to your first deployment to Iraq, did you call the new guys anything? Because I know my dad used to. He did his time in Egypt. And he was part of the United Nations section. And they used to have a name for the newbies that came to Iraq. Did you guys have a name for newbies?
There’s different names. A lot of them are a lot of vulgar names. So yeah, it’s they would if there was new guys that actually came in while we were deployed, they would get most of the crap details or had to put in the most work because they were fresh.
So kind of like when you go to a team, the new the newbies, get all the shit jobs. I guess basically, pretty much. Yeah. So you landed in Baghdad, this must have been all very, very eye opening for you because you’re you were really new at this. What was your feeling? When we land? The first is when we landed in Kuwait. And it was the middle of the night. And they opened up the doors to the plane then nothing but sand and that he just hits you like instantly. It was like a almost like a breeze in the middle of the night. Like a furnace. Yeah. And but it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t humid. It’s just the heat of it all was just the worst part of it. So I mean, working in conditions are a little bit rough. And you’re hoping that the AC is working that day?
Yeah, well, you have a lot of uniform stuff on to so although they always say it’s better, but I don’t know how because you’re so hot underneath it when it’s so hot out. But me being a bigger guy. I was mostly the gunners for a lot of our vehicles. So I wouldn’t be on top of the vehicle with 50 cows or any other type of weaponry that we had. Only half my body’s inside. So I’m half my body’s cold and the other half was hot. But they were trying to protect gunners a lot more. And some of it got kind of ridiculous. They wanted us to put in bomb resistant suits. And me being me, I volunteered they put me in this bomb suit. And they try to put me in a gun hatch of a regular Humvee. And I couldn’t even get into it because it was just so bulky. And me being bigger, it was a lot worse. And so during both of my deployments, they kind of made us wear certain things, we had to wear more capital or pads on our shoulders, they were trying to make us wear visors like visor shields. I know my second deployment, I had to wear a harness. So I wore this huge body harness that would attach to the floor of the vehicle. So just a lot of times, these higher explosives would go off, and sometimes the gunners would be shut out of the hatch. And they would end up falling 20 feet up in the air and hitting the ground. So this harness was designed to keep me inside of the vehicle was more I’ve never really liked the harness I I still have some psychological issues with that about things being around my neck. Being close, I mean, I can’t wear sure shirt and ties because then I start sweating and hyperventilating. But for the last year and a half. I’m slowly getting out of those things.
Yeah, cuz it would kind of feel confined and claustrophobic kind of right?
Yeah, I would have to wear a neck guard with my body armor, and then having that harness, which just keep everything tight and having my helmet and everything is just a lot of it just was really uncomfortable.
me to be a robot in those cases, I guess. But they wanted you to be does it actually work? Was it ever tested.
It would restrict a lot of movements because I’d be attached. So it’s kind of like a seatbelt. So if you’re in an accident, it tightens up so you really can move. So if you really do want to move all of a sudden, you might like strain yourself a little bit in the legs. And I did that a lot trying to get up but I think it would be an impact and I get like pains in my legs all of a sudden just because of that pullback.
Right. So for everybody. I did right what a gunner is. Where do I have it now? is responsible to surveillance target acquisition and direct fire to engage the enemy. Is that right? Good. I get it right. Pretty good. Okay. So what were you ever in tanks? Did you guys ever have to do the tank thing?
We as I said before, we were the only one of the last combat engineer units. Another unit that was in the area was from Fort Hood. And they actually had combat engineers attached to their infantry unit. They weren’t really doing much with them. So they came over and helped us out and they did have Bradley tanks so they would take take them out on their missions. Our schedule was basically morning mission, afternoon mission and a night mission. So it’s three units and every two weeks we would rotate days afternoons and nights and We would do these missions, six days a week, so once a day, for maybe up to eight to 12 hours a day, and we would actually be going five miles an hour down the road, looking out the window, trying to find these IDs. A lot of units knew who we were just by our vehicles alone, but how slow we were going and most of the time, we would come across units that would come behind us, and they realize who we are. And they would stay behind us as long as they could to wherever they were going. Because they knew that we were the ones that were finding the IEDs and that they would be safe. Was there regular people around? like regular Iraqis? And in Baghdad? Yes. So I mean, it’s, they have their main centers and some suburbs and things like that. But yeah, there was constantly people around, but you don’t know where the bombs are going to be, too, you know, we don’t. So even if you’re in town, you don’t know, if you’re set up or not, there are subtle signs that we wouldn’t notice. If the area was just completely flooded with people, we knew that there was a very slim chance that there would be an IED, sometimes we’d be going down a certain road, and you notice that the people are gone, or there’s no cars driving anywhere, then you kind of know that the neighborhood knows that there’s something there. And that we have to be more vigilant.
So tell us about Did you ever see lot I might I know my dad used to come home and say there was lots of kids in the red in the middle of the road street tour, waving them down and asking them for money and food? And did you ever come across stuff like that?
And Baghdad? Yeah, there’s kids everywhere. So a lot of them asking for candy. So some of us would have bags of candy would throw some out for them. Sometimes people would ask for water would throw, they’d always go around with cases of water just in case we ever got stranded anywhere. Sometimes we’d throw them out. But I mean, a lot of the times we’re out so often that we would recognize certain people because we would see them every day. So we never really developed relationships with them. But we knew that it was more kind of a safer area, or we knew what was going on. Right? Because you’re more familiar with it. What was the Is there a worst time morning noon or night? Is there a scarier time to do that shift.
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war. Nighttime is most the most active, that’s when they’re usually going out and placed in these IDs. But real dangerous, actually, after we leave an area. So the roads have certain codes. So green is the road is completely safe. Right? The road is red, which is it’s still danger, but not so dangerous. And then there’s black where only certain units could go on black roads. And we were one of the units on black roads because we had the best equipment. So when we’re going down the road, the road does turn green, but only after 100 yards, then it turns back to red. So a lot of times after we would pass a certain area. That’s when they would place the IDS because we were gone and they think that we’re not going to come back so this is gonna be the perfect time to play something. That’s what usually happened.
Oh, they’re tricky, aren’t they? So what was your experience when you did? Did you ever have to when you found the explosive anything ever happen? With your guys like, Oh, you stay in the vehicle? Do you get out?
No, we stay in. So if we ever came across everything, we would have to make sure the area’s safe, make sure no one goes near them. And what we would have to do what we call the EOD unit. So they’re the disposal units. So they would come out and depending on where we were at, if we’re far from the base, sometimes it takes them an hour, two hours just to get to us. So as the deployment was going on, we were finding more and more ideas and we requested that these EOD units come on mission with us. And a lot of them they were really against it because they didn’t even want to be out there. But I mean, well, we’re gonna call you out here anyways, so we’ll come witness and get it over with Wayne never win more than two days without finding something our unit alone found 126 IDs. And that’s not including the ones that were fake or the one that had blown up on us. Wow. So when did you find the one that blew up on you guys? In your first deployment to Iraq or your second? My our first, so that was happening so often that me myself, I’ve been blown up twice, but a lot of my fellow soldiers have been blown up three, four times. And we’ve lost four soldiers, my first deployment, and then also a couple of others that were severely injured that couldn’t continue mission. Wow.
That’s awful, isn’t it? So what was that? Like? What was your first experience of what happened that you guys got blown up? It’s more of a, like, Did that really happen type of thing. Because then you see the flash. And then you hear the boom, like a second later. So we were so used to it that when we saw the flash, we were able to think fast enough, that would be like, Oh, shit, and then the boom comes. A lot of times, it would maybe damage our vehicle a little bit. And we would continue mission. Sometimes we would have to assess it a little bit more, or sometimes the vehicle got damaged, and we have to tow the vehicle back.
Our area was so was such a hotspot, that our unit actually had a to, to blow up policy. So if we got blown up on mission, and we had and we were fine, we continue mission. If we blew up and our vehicle was broken, we had to bring the vehicle back, and then go back out right away. Oh, no. But during that time, it’s maybe like two hours. So you add two hours on top of the mission. So if we got blown up that second time, then there say okay, you could cancel the mission and come back. You don’t have to go the rest of your life. But right. It’s it was just so bad. My first deployment, that’s when also Bush had his his surge. So he brought in maybe like 10 20,000 new troops and because and we felt that too. I mean, we we had to be out there more often because there was a units moving around more and more. And it just got real busy. Wow, geez, what were the tires like tanks then? Or like, you can’t, because otherwise the tire would normally blow up as well. Right?
Now the tanks have the tracks. So yeah, I mean, I mean, this this tire alone, maybe it comes up to my thumbs up to my chest. And I’m six foot four. So I mean, they’re they’re huge tires and way, way a ton too. So I mean, it’s it’s heavy.
Yeah, I remember as a kid, getting, we got to ride in one every summer. That was our summer treat. We got to use a tap get in a tank or something. Oh, hold on one sec. I’m gonna fix the window here.
Too much noise out there. Alright, so we only got the fun part of writing and when we didn’t have to worry about blob bombs or anything. So when you heard it, did you? You didn’t see it first, obviously. But sometimes you did pick up on it. And did you use laser and everything like that too, to find them.
So the head of the convoy would be the most the vehicle that was ahead of the Congo, we’d be most vigilant. So if they saw some suspicious, then we would stop. We would have the buffalo I showed you earlier would come up look at it. If there was nothing, then we would continue mission if there was something that we would have to call it in. Even if it was fake. We couldn’t just say, we know it’s fake. We can’t continue we have to have the EOD guys come out and check it, dispose a fake ID. But most of the times when these fake IDs would be put out there would be blatantly obvious so they just be in the middle of the road. But the main reason for that was that most of the time we were being videotaped. Later on we would we got an infantry unit came up to us and said, Hey, we found a cache and we found a lot of videos of your unit. So that razor the hairs on your back knowing that people are watching you. But at the same time we knew that we’re actually Making a difference and making an impact on a situation
did did also gonna say when you first got bombed and you were all in the vehicle, what happened to you? What did you feel like because in the blink of an eye basically that’s what happens. Like you said it goes, you see the flash and then you hear the you only have a second to think not even the first time I’ve been was blown up. I didn’t even notice it happened I I was in the back of the vehicle I was in Berlin, my lieutenants vehicle. So I was monitoring a lot of the computers that were going on. And all of a sudden I ended up on the floor and fell dust. In my lungs. I was coughing, and I just really did not realize what happened.
And then all of a sudden I’m like, Oh, crap, we just got hit. And it was us. My first reaction was to go to the front of the vehicle, because check on everybody. Because I couldn’t really see anything because of all the dust and everything grabbing grabbing the gunner driver, my LTS I everyone’s Okay, he’s a Yeah, we’re fine. But a lot of times what would happen was every, we when we get blown up, so for some reason, the comms, the communications, and that vehicle would go down. So other vehicles that we’re trying to get in contact with us couldn’t, we couldn’t they couldn’t hear us it was what happened was most of the time. So then we go through our procedures of thinking mass casualty because no one is answering. So all we see is the vehicles moving along the windows they’re trying to look in. I try to get to the back of the vehicle, because they actually fit those RG is the only way in and now was the back door. So I had to open up the back door tried to give the thumbs up as they could that were good. But a lot of the times when we did get blown up and we didn’t have any injuries, it was always the guys that would see see that. And then all of a sudden they think, okay, we better stop and all of a sudden it blows up. And that is they think like I should have called out sooner as they get kind of upset with yourselves. I would say this is like the sick part of it all is that we we actually laugh about it afterwards, even though it’s a serious situation. But that’s the only way that we can psychologically get through it. If we laugh about it later, right? That’s the only way we’re able to get through not to dwell on it. And it’s a little sickening, but that’s what we had to do.
Well, yeah, I guess that’s your life. So it’s kind of like a video game or something. like playing a video game and oh, that got me. And you laugh about it and move on, I guess. Right? Yeah, that’s the best you could do. And how was the first experience for you to you came out, okay. And everybody was alright, in the vehicle. Everyone’s alright. As I was talking about that, too, blew up blown up policy. Our vehicle was down. So we had, we had to go back and get a new vehicle. We got back to our motor pool, our medic was checking us out. He said that you want to go, you want to go to the CCP. So that’s the casualty collection point or the hospital. And we’re like, no, it’s like, I’m fine. I might just got the wind knocked out of me a little bit. Because the idea is if you actually get injured, and you go to the CCP to be treated, you’re you’re actually automatically awarded a Purple Heart. So the Purple Heart is for getting injured in wartime. And a lot guys have us in the vehicle, we did not want to do that we’re not going to I’m not I’m not going to go to the CCP for headache when there’s other guys losing their lives or limbs or anything like that. Right. So I turn that I turn that down along with the others. What was so what was so interesting about that night was is that we didn’t have any more or any art any more orgies.
So the LT had to go in a Humvee and I was kind of the odd man out because I would be kind of useless. So I told by Lt says you could go back you go back to your room and and just chill out and wait for us to come back. As they told me you know what’s there I can’t do that. Because if I do that, then the next mission I can’t go back out. So I said, I’ll go in the Buffalo. There’s an extra chair in the buffalo go in there. He says, All right, go ahead. I must have been on edge the entire night just sitting in that buffalo because we would we would find another ID later that night. And I actually got up out of my seat and ran to the back of the vehicle trying to get away from it. And the guys were like, what are you doing? Where are you going? I was like, I just had this thing where I had to get away. It was just a reflex. But yeah, it’s just that was it because you weren’t used to that vehicle. Do you think that’s it was I mean, I just got blown up maybe a couple hours earlier. I didn’t want to get blown up again. So yeah, running away from this situation? I don’t. It was like a little blackout moment that I had. Yeah. It was a little bit funny. But I mean, at the same time, it’s something that’s like, bury my head. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that the rest of the night, I was kind of like sitting on the chair. Just a little nervous. But I knew I had to be out there. Because if I didn’t go back out there, I would have been even worse wreck. Mm hmm.
Yeah. Cuz you’d be wondering, because they are your family? Aren’t they? Really? When you’re there? did what was your was did both of those bombs that hit you? Um, were they in the first deployment? Or was that in your second?
Oh, it was my my first deployment. During our first deployment, we had a lot of incidences where we did lose soldiers. We lost them on two separate times. One actually happened on Christmas Day of Oh, six. It’s still a little bit upsetting now from a lot of us, because we were actually protesting against a Why are we going out on Christmas Day? No, no other units in the area were actually out that night. And they were telling us that we had to go out there. So we were kind of what’s the point of going out there if there’s no going not going to be anybody there, right. But they insisted we had to go. And so we went. That night, we ended up getting hit by an ENFP that I told earlier. So it’s the FP is a laser that detects heat. And then these DFP is there’s like these copper route copper cylinders that are made about 12 inches in diameter. And depending on how they make it, they can be between three, four, we’ve seen some 12. But this one ended up being three, and it hit our front vehicle.
And we lost our gunner, the driver, and the TC. So the guy that was in the front of the vehicle, another soldier was in there, he ended up getting severely wounded, he ended up losing the vision in his eye and a lot of shrapnel in the arms and legs. Kind of the first. Like, this is real type of thing. Hearing that hearing over the radio, the K was really surreal. And it was just, it hits you. And I’ll never forget that hearing that over the radio. And that night I was in my LTS vehicle. So I heard a lot of the chatter between us. And the other units we were trying to get to help us. Unfortunately, we were actually kind of left out there then a lot of things happen that I explained in my book, a lot of things just kept happening, never get wrong, got the situation worse and worse. And we were calling for help and no one was helping us we were pretty much stranded out there for maybe about eight hours by yourself, trying to get people to come and help us. People either just ignored us or they made up an excuse why they couldn’t come. We’re fortunate enough to have a have an aviation unit come out and help us with security because I was also a gunner. And we only had another vehicle that had a gun on it. So me and the other gunner we have to pull it 180 degrees security. So he’s got one side I got the other so and even being at night, it was just draining just having the weight there. And like being on guard then is that being on brand making sure known columns, but this is and there’s really hardly any street lights on. The vehicle that ended up getting hit ended up catching on fire. We ran out of fire extinguishers, we couldn’t put out the fire. So for those eight hours, we actually had to watch this vehicle burn with some of our brothers inside of it. Oh, gosh, the one thing that I will never forget. And it took me so long to actually say this was the smell. Actually the smell of human flesh burning. Yeah. And just smelling that death. still hasn’t left me to this day. And it’s just something that I couldn’t save for maybe about 10 years. Yeah, writing in the book, all the emotions, I had just lifted all that pressure.
Mm hmm. It, I guess when you talk about it, it’s it helps to relieve that. But you can’t get that vision and smell out of your mind. And the powder dust I guess. And the that smell comes from that burning? Must be horrible. That’s,
yeah, so at the same time, so we used 50 caliber machine guns, the rounds are very large. And there was a lot of them inside that vehicle. So we would have to take cover because the 50 Cal rounds are going off because it was so hot. So often the vehicles making sure that we don’t get hit. And it was just it’s like you can’t win. No, it wasn’t until early on the next morning. Our first sergeant decided to save fuck this, he actually went and knocked on people’s doors saying Come with me. We’re gonna go get them. And they finally came out that morning. But the damage was so severe to that vehicle that they needed a lot of equipment to put it on a flatbed. So we’re actually there for maybe like another hour and a half of them trying to recover. And if we were probably one of the fathers out there, and we’re northeast Baghdad. So I mean, it was a long trek in going five miles an hour just to get back might have been another hour, hour and a half. Yeah. coming in. It was just the just, I was just completely drained. I mean, we really couldn’t say anything to each other. All we could do was just look at each other. And they wanted us to go in and give our reports. They had all the chaplains there. It was just, they wanted us to read to give our accounts write it down and everything. And it was just real draining. And the thing that set us off the most was our unit told us that we have to go back out there that night, that same day, go back to where it happened. And at that point, we were just we just kind of said no, we’re not doing that and fought against it. And they said, Alright, we’ll give you will give you a day rest. So they gave us a day, right? This is the next day you have to go back to that spot. And what was that purpose? Because there’s going to be more explosives, they figured it’d be more. And they wanted us to see in the daytime, what it looked like, and leaving the gate that day. I don’t think my asshole was so puckered up that it was actually hurting me. It was just I didn’t even want to go back out there. Because just going through that experience again was just horrifying.
Your whole body just like shuts down. Yeah. Did what do you think hit that truck? Was it something thrown at it? Or was it actually that the truck went over it?
It was an ENFP. So it was it was three copper cylinders about 12 inches in diameter. One ended up going through the gas tank, which ended up starting to fire. Another one went through the side and I believe another one went through through the side of where the passenger and driver were. So it ended up hitting the passenger went through him and killed the driver instantly. And that’s what we assessed from it. I see Also, during that night when we were pulling security I had my night vision. So I was surveilling the buildings and found these two big bright lights on top of one of the buildings. And I was like that’s a little weird. So I Take my thermals off, there’s actually no lights. So I put my thermals back on, but I still still see these two big, bright lights. And I’m wondering what the heck are these bright lights, all of a sudden, these lights stand up. And there’s two people, what they were doing, they were leaning over the edge, and they were pulling the wire from the ID to get rid of the evidence. So I told my lt there to combat and so I shot the two combatants. In my mind, I know I got them. But things were happening that night where one of the infantry units went to the wrong building. And they said they’d never found anything. So it was never really confirmed on this day if I got him or not. But I know in my heart that no, I gotten what’s that like shooting somebody like that? It must feel kind of good in a way. It did relieve me in some way. I don’t have any regrets from that night. And I will never have any regrets because I know what I did. And so I engage the enemy. If you asked me that question, before the military, I might have a different answer. But being in that’s something that I mean, we were trained to do. So. Yeah, really just second nature at the time.
Especially after having hurt some of your guys, you’re Yeah, you’re just like, I’m gonna get them.
And well, what trouble me most was, is that a lot of the families of the soldiers that that passed, never actually really knew what happened that night, they were told snippets, I was under the impression that they actually got to read the whole report of what happened because we had to actually write the reports, I was told that they never got any of that they just said, maybe like a brief description of what happened. And it was cause of death by ID strike. So they never really knew what happened, which kind of made me more upset and was one of the reasons why I wanted to write it. Even though I gave my account of what happened, and they didn’t want to say the truth, I’m going to tell the truth. I’ll tell you what happened. Like it or not, but as I said, you’re gonna have to answer for something a lie that you might have told, I’m not gonna lie.
Yeah. So your would have Afghanistan be kind of the same similar story as where you were,
Afghanistan would be a little bit more different. I mean, there are cities, but a lot of what was going on was in the middle of nowhere. So a lot of the ideas would be deep buried IDs. So there would be very deep under the ground. We rarely had that because we were actually on concrete streets, there might be an occasion where there might be one that they hide underneath the sewer, and hide it underneath. We’ve only had a couple of occasions where that happened. It was never really happened to us, but it did happen to some other units.
Did they ever hide something like explosives around women to draw to draw them? We never came across anything like that. We were always afraid, as I said that they would put IDs and, and dead dogs. It was kind of obvious that there was something in them because you got this dog that’s inflamed. But we were always afraid. They would put IDs under dead people. I mean, it would be a lot of occasions where we would come across civilians that were lying on the road that were killed by insurgents, or just because they talked that something or something you never know, I guess.
Yeah, that and a lot of times we would come across kids. I know an incident we came across a school yard. a sniper ended up shooting the kid in the in the playground area before school, and all the kids were standing around. One of the rules was is that US forces weren’t allowed to touch. lack of a better word dead Iraqis. It was considered in the Muslim religion that if a non Muslim touched a dead Muslim knows to consider desecrating the body. So the best we could do was report it and have the authorities come, but sometimes these bodies would be left there for maybe three days. I mean, we came across one that was there for about a week and a half. just laying there because they were too afraid to pick them up because what was happening was, if they weren’t coming, there would be a sniper there that would shoot the people that would help. It was desecrating the body being in the sun for a week and a half. So, I mean, that was a little thing that I really was against. Because I mean, I know it might be we think it’s desecrated by really, do you want your family member laying in the streets for days? Yeah. I mean, I’m just the oversight. Maybe you can look over that. But I mean, that’s what it was.
But you don’t know if they have another plan? around it, right. So sometimes, sometimes we would have to use that crane to move on, because we never knew if there was an actual ID or maybe they put their needs are a little smaller, was underneath them. So a lot of the times we had to make that hard decision to move on with the crane. And we you would see it from the people, they would get pushback because we’re moving the body like well. I mean, that’s something that we have to do. But I mean, as bad as it looks, or something we had to do, if and to keep civilians safe as well.
Right? And did you see women getting hurt to them? I guess that personally, I know. There was a how there was one house that was next to the base. And we would always honk the horn because the house was filled with women. And they would always come out and say hi, because we would see them every day. later down the road, we heard that surgeons went in there and blew the house up. We weren’t sure if the women were in there. There was also another thing there was a lot of schools were women, like high school age, girls and college too, were going to the schools, they would have a lot of security outside the schools, but then they would try to get in the schools and load them up or because you saw more and more of the women almost kind of wearing Western wear. So like skirts and blouse, and they would have their hijab on but I mean, it was more Western wear than just having the whole cloth outfit on. Yeah, a lot of people are extremists, we’re more we’re worried about that. And I mean, that’s, that’s a civil war between them. really does have nothing to do with us. But I mean, I mean, we’re all living in the same area. So we’re all affected by it.
Right. Um, so you didn’t go anywhere else. After your second deployment, you came back to the United States.
After my first deployment and came back to Germany coming back was was, was a real rough ride, it was a lot of drinking and trying to deal with another incident we had where we lost another soldier which was a good friend of mine. But the best we can do is just remember them. Remember the stories and all the good times that we couldn’t have. I had to go through a lot of medical because me engaging the enemy with my weapon. Being in these explosions and everything, I checked a lot of boxes where they forced me to go see psychologists or there’s a few funny stories that how they went through this process. That was just ridiculous. They they couldn’t make it more obvious that like, we like that there was something wrong with us or something.
No, it’s just nuts. And at that point, you’re wondering who’s crazy.
Yeah, wondering, wonder who is and I mean, I I still have constantly in statements that I that I was actually forced to go see the psychologist. But what I was seeing was guys, we’re going and that would get medication, but they weren’t themselves. They were just shells of themselves. And I told myself, I never want to be like that. I can never just be there. Just sit there and just feel nothing. So I refused a lot of medication and decided to go on my own, which was good and bad. But when I finally came home after it all it took me a while to recover. But being from that timeframe, from my first deployment to my second deployment, I had a lot of things happen to me while I was in my unit. I got switched jobs. I was being a little bit more rebellious because I didn’t like what we was happening to the military when Obama took over, and a lot of things changed in the military, I mean, I know those high standards to get in. I mean, I’m not gonna sound the super soldier. But I had my flaws, too, but I got in. But when Obama took over, it was more. They were actually letting guys in with lower requirements. And it really showed with the new guys that we ended up getting a lot of them were just, they just didn’t really fit in the whole vibe of the military. And a lot of problems happened.
They just needed numbers, I guess. Yeah, yeah, just a number to get more bodies in the seats.
But my second appointment wasn’t as harsh. As my first, I think my second deployment, we only found a few IEDs, we were in a town called Hilah. It’s maybe about an hour south of Baghdad. Hill is more famous, where Saddam Hussein had his mass graves. So the town was really decimated. And when we were there, they were really trying to rebuild it, get things back to normal. So that must have felt a lot better to not be in such a not like your first deployment where it was pretty. I mean, you hardly want to go back after that your first time, I felt more comfortable because myself, and the guy at some of the guys I served with were in leadership positions. And we felt more comfortable that we, we knew that we could get through it, we could teach the new guys how to properly do it. We’ve been through it before, and we can guide them through it. That made me feel a lot more comfortable. But at the time, I was thinking to myself, this is my last deployment, I’m not going to be re enlisting again or coming back. Right. I told myself, I’m going to do my deployment, to the best of my ability, I’m not going to slack off and say, Hey, this is my last thing. I’m going to do my job and keep everyone safe. That was my number one thing that I wanted to do. So I ended up doing my deployment. And then 2010 I decided to leave. And I came back to the States. And where did you land back in your same base again? Yeah, back in Germany. There was new leadership going on in Germany, a lot of the units were being moved to graph and beer is now a graph. And here’s the main hub for all the units that was there, because now the base that I was at was sold back to the Germans. So all the US forces are now in graphic bear in hohenfels. Right now, so they were making that transition to move every the buddy there. But I stayed in shrine for it because I was ETS, you know?
And did you have a choice of where to come back to in the States?
No, I officially left the military. I came back home here to Chicago. It was a little bit rough. I had a plan in place. But I had a lot of hearing loss. So jobs that I was lined up for I got denied I want I wanted to join the Chicago Police Department I got denied because of hearing. I tried to join TSA. Again, I got denied for hearing. So the plans that I had kind of backfired on me and I was kind of like, Oh my god, what am I gonna do now? So I did some odd jobs and says, You know what I got? I got my my GI Bill. I’ll go back to school. I decided I got my four year degree in business administration. Military paid for all of it, so I really didn’t have to worry about that. And I ended up getting a job in property management. But during those 10 years, I did struggle a lot with losing, losing my brothers. So I tried to find certain things that to cope with it. So one of the things I did is I took up fishkeeping I kept up I kept marine salt water takes its but it kept my mind off of everything else. And it was rewarding to where I get to see my fish all the time. I mean i i i even build my own tanks. Oh wow Rach, so I mean I built myself like a 506 on gallon pond by my to get bigger fish, just so just something to keep my mind off of what I had to do. But in December of 19, I actually had my final break down in my kitchen, all of the emotions that I had just came flowing out of me and I felt I felt so much better. And over the next month, I was just healing I was feeling better about myself because I wasn’t holding that stuff in. I decided, you know what, Hey, how about I make some videos on what I went through? Maybe and I’m not so social media savvy. So I wasn’t sure how I was getting those videos out there. And then the pandemic hit. And I says, you know, what, how about I just started writing. So I just started writing more. And the more I was writing, the better, I felt I didn’t have to have all that anxiety and pressure in me anymore. I was putting it on paper and leaving it there. And after I finished the book, I’ve just felt so relieved that I did not have to keep it in anymore. It’s all on paper. And that’s why I decided you know what, I’m just gonna publish, talk about it, write about it and talk about it. Good for you. That’s amazing. And because PTSD and grief in like you had it all, all wrapped up in one all on you.
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war. I know when I left the military in 2010, it was maybe 20 soldiers a day we’re taking their lives, and maybe about five years later was 21. And now this year, it’s going up to 22. Now, Oh really, the numbers going up. And now I’m seeing a lot more of We have to do something. That’s why I like to do these things to get that awareness out more because the number is going up. And it’s it’s heartbreaking. And I know there’s a lot of soldiers out there that are struggling. Yeah, that’s the thing where I tried to talk about is like you have to have, if you’re going to leave the military, you have to have that plan. And if you don’t have that plan, that’s when things really go downhill. And I was fortunate enough to recover from my plan. But a lot of soldiers are less fortunate. Well, they don’t even think of a plan to start with. So I’m gonna get out and I’ll be free of this. But then when they come back, they’re like, oh, what the hell am I gonna do you know? So it’s, it’s rough.
It’s like when people well, it’s not really like when people retire, but sort of, because they think oh, they can finally go and do this. And they can go do that. And they can travel and but then that kind of gets sick after six months, and then they’re lost to know what to do. So yeah, it Do they have a very good system for when you get out to what they can help you do. What I experienced was not really. After I left in 2010, I was an inactive reserve. So I was in the military for maybe about three years after that. But technically I wasn’t I was I would have to report like once a year saying, Hey, I’m here. So the resources that they were giving, it was just maybe like a pamphlet to say, hey, call this number. And sometimes you never even get through or they tell you they just go to the hospital. And you kind of wait six, seven months for an appointment because they’re all backed up. Yeah. And resource centers are far in between. I when I was back at college, I was going through the library, and I came across a table with the lady there that said Veteran Resource Center. And I was like, okay, maybe I should just go look at this. started talking with her. And she was telling me that their office was about seven to 10 blocks away from my house. This resource center was even there. And I was more upset about that. Because I’m like, Well, why didn’t I get the information to know that these actual resources exist?
So I ended up I went one day and they were said we could have some therapy sessions. If you want some group talks. I was like, Okay, well, I started telling my story. And I just felt completely nauseous after speaking with with the counselor, and he says, You know what, I’m not ready. I might come back some other time, but I can’t do this. I never went back. But I wish I did. But I wouldn’t have been able to have this breakthrough that I have. Right. I was more fortunate enough because I’m in Chicago. I’m in a very large city. So a lot of these Resource Centers already available. A lot of these soldiers are from these small towns in the middle of nowhere, and maybe the closest VA hospitals, maybe two, three hours away, maybe the closest resource resource centers, maybe even farther away. Yeah, that’s, that’s a kind of a double edged sword of it all just, there’s not information is not readily available.
And especially when you first come out for the first couple of years, you really need that support. And if you don’t have it, there must be a lot of suicide rates and, and screw ups of some sort.
I know the last three months of my contract, I was home. I would get a call an email almost every day to re enlist. I even had recruiters come up to my door, asking me to re enlist. That’s just like, okay, you’re keeping keep coming in and calling me to come back. But how about you call me Help me know, for a resource center. And the day, the day my contract was completely done? In 2013, I did not get a call an email or nobody ever came to my house ever again. Never. Wow. A little upsetting that actually does happen. of you. You wanna you want me to come back. But you don’t want to also want to give me the help. If I don’t want to.
Right? Yeah, it’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? Although not for that part. But I did know quite a few military men that were either in the military still in the United States or just retired. And they kept they have so many more opportunities in my in the United States and in Canada. By getting special discounts. And I mean, that doesn’t help your brain and the person you are but opportunities for their kids to go to school for less than what the average person would have to pay, or those kinds of things. Disneyland for a military person price is different. Those kinds of things. We don’t have that in Canada. I don’t, I don’t really think we’re given the or veterans or military or ex military are given much of anything. So I guess you’re a little bit further ahead than what we are but still. Yeah, maybe I’m just not aware of it. But
we have we do get that stuff something that’s nice, but I mean, nothing to help your head. Oh, another another thing they like guys that are getting out there. They’re telling. They’ll tell them all Yeah, there is a job waiting out there for you. People love to hire veterans because they’re so well disciplined. Well, that’s true. But at the same time, there’s a long line to get those jobs because every soldier that getting out is told that same thing. And yeah. It’s just you’re waiting. I mean, I even went to a couple of what do they like job conventions for veterans? I went one time, I thought it went pretty well. I talked to a lot of people never got one single call back. I talked to a bunch of other guys. I’m like, Hey, you guys get calls? Like No, no. Never got anything that was more crazy, isn’t it? dog dog and pony show of it all? Yeah, it’s just, I might have went to one other one after that. And never got another call again. Oh, my God, this is just a waste of my time. Yeah. Um, did you ever want to because you were in that shooting, kind of being a gunner? Did you? Are you still interested in going to shoot a shooting range or anything like that?
Or no, I get that question asked all the time. I’m not against guns. I mean, I have one. I think I’m more. I’m more anal about the safety portion of it. I know you saw it. Go to go to gun. I’ll go to like a range or something. And I have all that safety protocol in my head. So I just turns on like a switch on how to properly do things. Some people say they’ve never seen that site and me like I’m completely different at that moment, like something just switched on. Well, that’s, I don’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want that to happen. To me, oh, yeah, turn around and then you end up shooting me on accident as something is. Yeah. I mean, it’s fine. I, I tell people what I experienced and if I ever do it again, it’s, that’s I’m alright with it. It’s not real interest though it doesn’t really? No, it’s not No, not a big interest.
So what really makes your boat float? Now? What do you really other than your fish? What do you think really makes you happy after other than talking with me, after I had my breakdown in my kitchen, my fish in my tanks, they didn’t do it for me anymore, it became more of a job. And I lost interest in very quickly, but I had a lot of my fish for she’s three, five years. So they’ve kind of became family. And it was kind of hard for me to, to give them away. And but I mean, I have a tattoo of my favorite fish that I had over the years. So I always will have them with me, they helped me.
So I always remember that. I mean, I have other Memorial tattoos on me that makes me Never forget what I went through. I mean, I people asked me about my tattoos all the time and all have stories. That’s it’s my way of expressing what I went through, and everything has a story behind it. And that’s cool. Right now it’s mainly what drives me now is getting my mental health back. The last year and a half. I’ve done tons of healing. I’m so much more at peace with myself that I suppose I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s kind of like, I don’t have that burden anymore of having to deal with it. stuck in your head. Yeah, that’s stuck in my head anymore. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Does there anything that makes you like, enjoy life now? Like is it to go fishing or camping or traveling or staying at home and it’s mainly mainly my kids. I do tons of things with my kids going on adventures and dhoop experiencing new things. We have the big aquarium here in Chicago, so we go all the time. And oh, cool. So since I don’t have my fish here, I could go see fish over there. So yeah, that’s some other hobbies try to adjust me But yeah, it’s mainly work for me. And it’s just the peace of mind is more of kind of my hobby. Now. I don’t have to dwell on things anymore. What gets me going and doing these also gets me going TO to help soldiers but mostly a lot of family members that don’t know how to help their veteran or soldier. So I try to, or husband or wife or spouse or partner or friend. Yep. Do you guys get together still then?
small group of you once in a while a lot of a lot of my friends are in different states. But we keep in contact all the time. I mean, that’s maybe one of the things, good things about Facebook. keeping in contact with all of them, helps a lot.
Did COVID really hurt your healing process?
Funny enough. I think the like everyone was panicking about being secluded inside their homes. being in the military deployed this kind of like what we all did. So it really wasn’t any of a change for me. I think I have been in that situation before we’re being secluded not being able to do things I was kind of used to it. So my mindset actually kind of helped in that way. That’s good. That’s really good. Did you have any last final notes for listeners other than getting your book? It sounds really really intriguing. So do you have a copy there?
Yeah, I do have one here. There it is. Bomb. The bomb hunter story, my life clearing the roads that I wreck.
Awesome. And it’s on Amazon, everybody. And it’s the links are down below for everybody to click on the link and you can order one yourself. It sounds very, very interesting even from a female point of view. I I’m very intrigued with, you know, just the story of it all. It’s very, very interesting. And it from being a military brat, I have to admit that it was hard to come back to to a regular civilian life. Because I didn’t fit in. I couldn’t talk about anything that I experienced because no one else would understand what I experienced. That’s what I found difficult coming back to Canada. I couldn’t just jump into university and have a whole bunch of friends. Because what I experienced, they had no idea and I had no common thing with them. So you must have experienced that bit of time where it’s hard to adjust.
Yes, friendships were really hard. That was also another thing when new soldiers that were coming in was that you didn’t want to develop these friendships, because if they did pass, I didn’t want to feel that same feeling anywhere where I lost a friend or brother or anything like that. Yeah. It was a little hard to make friendships because I still had that mindset. I’d be more standoffish. It’s a little rough.
Yeah, yeah. So everybody, um, his book is now available on Amazon. And it’s amazing, what an amazing story. I really felt like I went to a movie listening to you, I just, you know, watched a movie, and you did an awesome job of being vulnerable, and having the courage and bravery to, to really bring that out and share it with others. Because I think it’s really important. And I know how difficult it has to be for you to do that. So thank you, thank you for sharing that with all the listeners.
More things I talked about are the different trainings, there were some more incidences that happen with other soldiers that were troubling. And I know I expressed a lot of emotion here. But in there I go through just the physical grind of each of us. It’s not about me, I always say that. My story is a small chapter in a bigger book, because there’s 1000s of other stories out there that experience different things and hardships. It’s not just about me, that’s another thing I wrote it was to tell our story. Because when I tell people, I’m a combat engineer, they’re not sure what that is. And then when I tell them what I did, it’s always the the Are you crazy?
Like what the heck is wrong with you type of thing. I mean, I mean, we were even, we had a lot of VIPs come out. And we even had a few NPR reports come out on us trying to grasp and what we actually did. Actually, were a little crazy, but I mean, someone has to do the job. Well, it makes us all the world go around, I guess when we choose it, we have to stick with it. Just like if you join a team, you have to join it and put in your time, unfortunately, whether you like it or not, but it’s obviously giving you some tools to move ahead of some sort. He might not know what those are yet, but they must be going to happen at some point for you. Learn those lessons. We I hate lessons of life that were given. It’s like Why did you throw that my way? Why did you do that to me?
So I’m sure we all say that in many ways. But yeah. Well, thank you for being so open. Thank you for sharing that with the listeners. Because it’s, you know, his book is there for everybody to read it and, and really enjoy your journey through this because it sounds like it was an incredible one. And thank you for for being so open with us. Thank you for allowing me to share it. Oh, well, thank you. Well, I don’t want to end this story. Because it’s Thank you, Eric. It was it was it was awesome. And I could probably spend all afternoon talking to you some more about it. And asking more and more questions, because the more you talk, the more questions come up. So maybe we could come visit this again and maybe take a different angle on it if you’d like.
Because it’s so very, very interesting and please take a moment and share And subscribe to our channel, everybody because we’re gonna have some more awesome guests like Eric Come on our show. And you don’t want to miss them. And click on that bell I have to get my hand out Eric because this is my my hand to show and I never seem to get it right click on that bell somewhere down there subscribe, like and share. And click on that bell and I have to sing the 70 song because Ring my bell, ring my bell down below, over there somewhere. And click and subscribe. Thank you followers. Thank you subscribers, thank you. We couldn’t do the show without you. And of course with Eric no one’s Superman, so expect the unexpected. I’m sure Eric felt like he was Superman a few times in his life on that in that unit, because he must have felt like why was I still allowed to be here? When you see your other brothers have their lives taken away? And I think that’s probably one of the difficult cases of of that why question that you need to overcome. When something tragic happens you always say why, why me or why them or it’s it’s just the first thing that comes in your mind and it’s hard to get out of.
So when when you’re thinking of someone right now, listening to the show that you love and care about, please reach out to them, please pick up that phone, we still have phones, please FaceTime them, Skype them, zoom them, whatever it is go and see them. Tell them how much you love and care about them because you don’t know what tomorrow may bring. I hope we’ve inspired each and every one of you and motivated you with Eric’s story today. And thank you very much for sharing and watching and listening to our show today. And I always end our podcast and our live show with Carol Burnett. Do you know who Carol Burnett is Eric?
My Explosive Journey in the Iraq war. Oh awesome. It’s hard to not know or her isn’t it? Because she’s just such an awesome funny lady that she just makes you laugh and that’s what I try to help people with his every bad case might there’s always a silver lining in it somewhere for all of us. So I’m so glad we had this time together just to have a laugh or sing a song seems we just get started. And before you know it comes the time we have to say so long. So so long listeners Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you for my German listeners. Thank you for my audience in the United States, Canada and Ireland. You guys are kicking some ass. You guys are coming up and are listening and I have to work on my Irish accent and Swedish to Sweden, I’m gonna have to work on my Swedish accent. If you beat Ireland, I will have to say something in Swedish for you. So I will need some help with that. So thank you, everybody.
Thank you for coming on our show today. Thank you. Thank you so very, very much. And until next time, stay safe, be kind, lots of love. Bye for now. Be Kind, be safe
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Preparedness
LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY
LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY, oh why Oh why do we have to always learn the hard way!
“Once you choose HOPE, anything’s possible!”, Christopher Reeve
Hey, YOUR BACKUP PLAN TRIBE! Welcome to our awesome show our awesome podcast this week with Ms. Exceptional, beautiful guest that, of course our title is Lessons learned the hard way.
Yes, we always learn difficult lessons. And we always seem to learn them the most difficult way that there is. I’m not sure why. There must be a theory around that somewhere, of course. But if you are new here, welcome. Welcome to YOUR BACKUP PLAN TRIBE. Talking Taboo with Tina. It’s always so difficult to say, brought to you by YOUR BACKUP PLAN if you are a returning subscriber. Thank you so much for watching our shows. My name is Tina Ginn. I am an Emergency preparedness coach, a Best selling Author of in the blink of an eye.
Yes, everything happens in the blink of an eye. That’s right. Everything seems to do that. I’m a Financial expert, and an App Developer of YOUR BACKUP PLAN APP. And I’m located here in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
So welcome, say thank you so much to our United States, and Canada listeners, as well as our upcoming countries that keep on moving up the ladder, like Germany. Welcome. Welcome, German listeners. Thank you so so very much for listening, Ireland and Sweden is going to be next and I’ll be practicing whichever one beats the other one. I will be doing that accent as well. I’ll definitely need some help and guidance around that one.
So welcome, welcome. You know, we we what do we focus on on talking to boo with Tina, of course, REAL RAW conversations that are real with our listeners about the guests journey from a life changing event in their life?
LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY. Yes. So I am so excited to let you know that our guest today is going to be really delving deep into spinal cord injury. And what that looks like for individuals. It’s quite common. And I’m surprised that there isn’t more discussion around that. And I’m so thankful and blessed to be able to bring that to our listeners today to be able to hear the other side of what it’s like. Your backup plan app puts your life all in one place. So that it’s for any unpredictable circumstance. What could that be? It could be a car accident, it could be hearing the cancer word or heart attack, or stroke, or a disability or coma, or wildfire, which is just unbelievable in the Pacific Northwest, all the way from California, to Oregon to Washington State and to British Columbia and Alberta right now. It’s crazy with the amount of crazy wildfires that are going on. People are being evacuated. People are losing their homes, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, as well as I’d like to say I’m send out my prayers and my love to all those in the surf side. Condo collapse in Florida in the last month. That was a horrible, horrible tragedy.
And I would like to also put out my wishes to all those affected by the awful, awful floods that have been happening in China, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany. All around the world. It’s, it’s, it’s a crazy, crazy world out there this summer. And if I didn’t have enough with COVID, they just threw us some more stuff that we have to deal with. So I would like to move on and bring on our special guest. Your backup plan will help you put all of that stuff into one place so that it’s accessible for you when you really, really need it the most. Because you never know what the expect unexpected. Expect the unexpected, because that’s really what life is from one day to the next. So on that note, I would love to bring in Marjorie Ono’s she is from beautiful Montreal, Canada. Not very far from me, actually.
Yes. Hi, everyone.
Hi, Tina. Hi, Marjorie, I am so excited to have you on our show today. I’m just going to give everyone a little beautiful introduction from from us here. Marjorie honest, is a Ph. D is a psychologist, inspirational speaker, author and researcher from Montreal, Canada. Her expertise is working with parents with patients with I’m going to put my glasses on that will help who have intellectual disabilities. In 2012. She sustained a spinal cord injury in a car accident, mother to a 16 month old at the time, the accident and subsequent injury gave her an instant interesting perspective on parenting, and having a disability. Marjorie believes that focusing on our strengths of character can lead to living a fulfilling life. With her family, she learned to be a solution finder to make her world more accessible. Isn’t that the truth? Her memoir, with lessons learned will be published in 2022. You can follow her and listen to her inspirational speeches on her social media accounts. And they’re all linked down below in the description box. And before I forget, I didn’t mention to any new subscribers, please like, share and subscribe to our channel.
Because I always get our out our hand. Our hand is going to tell us here somewhere down below to press the subscribe button. And of course the like button. If you enjoy this broadcast, I would be happy if you could like, share and subscribe to those that you love and care about because Marjorie has a great story for us today. Where did it all start? Marjorie for you did you find in your life?
Um, well, the first thing that I would say is that I always was someone who is very active and physical. I’d love to play, you know, different sports. And I had the belief that I could achieve and do anything that I put my mind to. So you know, with just plain grit. And you could see behind me there’s a wall of inspiration and greatest part of it. And perseverance is part of it. Because I really did feel that I was someone who, you know, like a dog on a bone would just like, work through anything and achieve everything that she wanted to. And so that was my mindset. And so it happened then, you know, I turned 30 I was in a relationship. He didn’t want to have child and I really wanted to become a mom. So I’d love that man. And, you know, with grit and determination and perseverance. Realize realized that I could do it on my own. So I became a single mom by choice a few years after that. And so, you know, I mean, we talk about backup plan here. So I was I thought I had it all. And so I I was like you know I’m a single parent, I need to have a will in case I die. It needs to be super clear. Who’s going to take care of my child who’s going to you know, how he’s going to get my money, my house and so forth. So I thought I was like, you know all prepared because I knew I had my backup plan in case I died. And then when he was 16 months old after a week of super a lot of fun with my whole family and my parents cottage, I was going back to work. So back to Montreal, my son was staying a little longer with my sister and my parents. And on the way over my car had black eyes. And at the first sway I, I knew that was it, I knew I knew that day was my day to die. And at first, I felt very okay with that. I was like, You know what, we all die someday, today’s a pretty good day the sun is out, I spent a whole week have so much fun with my most favorite people in the world. My son is safe with my parents and my, my sister, you know, they’ll take care of him, and every thing will be beautiful for him. And as I set that, or thought that in my head, I realized, well hold on a second, I sort of like, created him on my own. And I had made promises, you know, in a way to him, just to say that I was going to be there to make sure that he’s safe and that he grows up, you know, fully loved. And supported.
And supported. Yep. And so I said I can die. I just can’t, I have to live. And that’s when you know, it’s really amazing how all of this goes through your mind in seconds.
Oh, quarter of second. I don’t even think that it was a few seconds. But it’s crazy. And I could go on because it was like so clear in my head. And I just know that, you know, it ended with me thinking about Thomas and saying his name. And I then lost consciousness and I was hit obviously. And I woke up according to that papers, you know, like the the file that they have from from the car accident. I woke up probably 20 minutes after the the impact. And when I woke up, I I could barely see my vision was very blurry. My hearing was very muffled. So I couldn’t like hear very much. And my legs felt like marshmallows. And I was like, I had pins and needles. And it’s funny because I mean, spoiler alert, or alert, I have a spinal cord injury. And right now as I’m talking about, like, what it was in the car, and how like my legs felt like, like pins and needles, my whole legs are right now feeling like pins and needles up to like my toes. A similar feeling that I had in the car. But um, yeah. And so then I realized that I couldn’t move or feel my arms. And that’s when I really got scared. Because I was like, Well, you know, dying, would have been okay, because I had a will. Right? So I didn’t, I wasn’t scared of dying. But then all of a sudden, I was scared of like not being able to move my arms. Because what would that mean? How, how could I take care of my son if I couldn’t move anything below my neck? And really it was below my neck. And yourself and your and myself? Yeah, exactly. But I think at that point, I was very, very focused on Thomas. And so I was like, I need to have my arms back. And like, right before the impact, I had sort of like, asked for God to live. And I’m not very spiritual. But at that time, I you know, I called on on God. And when I realized that I couldn’t move my arms, I called on God again. And I sort of said, like, you have to give me back my arms, because I need to be able to hug him. And then I said it again, you have to give me back my arms because that’s the only way I could hug him. And you have to give me back my arms because I want to raise him. And so and the last time that I asked, I said please, please give me back my arms. I’ll promise I’ll make it okay. And so I sort of made that promise of being okay. Which I have to say. I wasn’t very, very good at keeping that promise. I’m struggling every day. Certainly at the beginning was harder and there’s moments in the past 10 years because it’s been 10 years where I wasn’t able to fulfill that promise. But my arms came back. And they came back like fully so I have full strength on my arms. And I got my spine got hit in the neck, but not as severely as it got hit in the middle of my back. And that’s why, you know, below my armpits to my toes, I’m paralyzed. And that’s how it started. Really? Yeah.
When did your arm feelings start coming back right away? Or if that slowly?
No, it came back, like right away? After seeing it the fourth time? Yeah, I felt my fingers move. And right away, I said, Oh, you have to stop moving. Because obviously something really, really bad happened. And, you know, if you move, you might injure it again. And you don’t want that.
So did you? Do you know what you did? When you slip? Did you go straight forward and keep going around in a circle? Or did you go off? Or?
LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY. Yeah, I went off. So I went. So I went, there’s a sway to the left. And that’s like, often when I tell the story, that’s the first thing, it starts with a Sway on the left. And that’s when my thoughts start. And then there’s a Sway on the right. And as I suede on the right. So I knew there was a car behind me. And I knew that from before the the I hit black ice. And I knew that because I felt like they were like, really too close to me from like comfort. But I was, I was driving at 80 kilometers an hour on a road that I could go up to 90. And I knew there was a pickup truck coming the other way. Cuz I had also seen him. And then when I did the sway to the right, I realized that there was sort of like, a little hill. And so basically, my car would it would have been, it couldn’t go anywhere on the right because of sort of that hill. And what the car did is a 90 degree turn as if I was turning. And so basically the pickup truck hit exactly in the back of the car, and hit exactly where my son would have been if he had been with me. Uh huh.
And then spun you around, I guess once a year, right?
Yeah, well, I don’t know after that, because, yeah, I was unconscious. During that whole impact?
Yeah. So, um, the seat belt is supposed to save you. What do you think happened? Was it just the impact from the side that you think did it or?
Well, actually, and I can’t prove it, but my thought has always been that, because I was hit so hard. On the side, you know, like, the seat belt is there to protect you like from coming forward and backwards? To sort of hold you there. In my case, I got hit. And so the impact was on the side to side. And I believe there was also a how do we call them? airbag? Yes, on the side of my door, and an airbag in my, in the wheel. And so I think it’s a combination of all of that it was it just like, prevented me from doing a, I guess, normal movement, or it pushed me further. And the, the spine, you know, with the sort of got severed to a point or got hit that way from side to side. And our bodies not that’s meant to move that way. Right is the high impact. So yes, it’s very surprising when you see some vehicles in a car accident, and they basically walk out and then some of them don’t even look that bad and they pass away. You know, none of it really makes any sense sometimes know that. Yeah. So you just laid there and waited for the emergency to come and you didn’t wake up until they were there.
Well, actually from my memory when I, when I was in the car. And I was like getting, you know, like doing my diagnostic, in a way, I heard a man’s voice. And in my memory, this is the driver of the pickup truck. And in my memory and don’t ask me how I know, it’s maybe like things that I’ve heard but didn’t realize, I think he was sort of a paramedic, who had just finished his shift, and he was going home. And so he actually called I guess, his colleagues to come. And as I was doing the diagnostic, I could hear him sort of say, Oh, don’t worry, don’t move. I called 911. Everybody’s coming. And so I know that we were three cars. So the car behind me also got into the car accident. And he was basically sort of walking between the two cars. I don’t know, you know, I know that he’s fine. I don’t know what happened with the people, you know, in the other car. But I don’t think they were hit as badly as me. Because when, when you get hit like that in in Quebec, and my province, there’s, you know, pretty much like one trauma hospital. And so I was the only one that day, so I know that the other person, like didn’t get hit the same way. So he was telling me like not to move, and then I would come in and out of consciousness. So to prevent myself from moving, and from injuring myself further, I felt that by having my eyes close, it would prevent me from having sort of, like, you know, officially something Well, yeah, and if you see something like on the corner of your eye, you’ll want to turn your head and I didn’t want to turn my head, because I sort of figured, you know, that it had to do something with my spine. And I’m not a doctor, but, or a medical doctor. But in psychology, we do study, you know, anatomy to some extent. And so I knew that much, right? That I needed to be careful. And so when, when the firefighters and the ambulance came, I was basically sort of lying on my side in the car. So I was really like my head was resting on the passenger seat. In my car, my legs, were still on the pedals. And yeah, and then they open like the door, my door. And then they opened the passenger door. And I had an ambulance worker there. And he put sort of like something around my neck, he asked me questions, and I answered. I told them about my legs that, you know, they felt like marshmallows. And I had you know, the the arms and he was basically coaching me and sort of telling me what the other guys were doing.
They didn’t have to cut you out or anything they could pull a whole year out.
No, I think I think we had to work a bit on on the car to get you out.
Yeah. And that’s why that’s why this guy was beside my ear and sort of telling me not to worry.
Not so nice. They’re so good at what they do. I don’t know how they do it. Even even with mine, they they were I’m trying to make her laugh. They kept saying to the other guy I’m trying really hard to make like to Yeah, you change change it they’re just very very good at trying to get you to calm Yeah. and not be scared I guess.
You know, Marjorie, I it brings back all those same feelings but of course, you know they there’s nothing worse than sliding I find because you have absolutely no control. And you’re not sure what it’s going to do. You don’t know what your tires are going to do or what the road is, isn’t going to get better as you know that you’re going to keep sliding or it’s it’s just awful, awful feeling and watching basically watching your life in front of your eyes. And I think for me, I don’t know about you, but I can see how you are positioned all cockeyed in the car, of course. But this smells, I, I think you remember the sounds of the people talking, but the smells is what got me to that you can’t get that out of your mind.
Well see, that’s interesting, because in, in some of the speeches that I do, there was one, I was called Love, and it was really recounting the last those minutes that I just shared with you guys. And as I was writing the speech, I was trying to, to put in as much details as I could, so that whoever would listen to the speech would sort of like really feel like they were in the car with me. And the smell, I got nothing. Nothing, it smell nothing. It was like that sense did not exist in the car. Yet, I, I knew a lot about my eyes, I was very aware of my hearing. And of course, like anything, sensory in terms of like, my arms. And my legs what I was feeling, but nothing, nothing about the smell. So I have no idea. I don’t even know, you know, like, because I knew the firefighters were there probably to get me out of the car. So they’re the one who usually sort of destroy the car to make it open and stuff. And you know, I was there fire? I don’t know, was there gas? I have no idea. I? Yeah, smell was just not there for me.
Well, that could be a good thing. Because I’ll tell you, you can’t, you know, that smell of that. Memory in my mind is stuck in there. Yeah. And it’s kind of eerie. It’s an eerie. It’s a combination of the Arabic powder, and the motor. And that it’s a very eerie, dark smell. Yeah. And so thank goodness, you didn’t have that. Because, yeah, when you close your eyes, it’s, you know, what you would feel?
LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY. Well see, for me, it’s the wash. It’s that feeling of like that first, like losing control, that has been haunting my dreams. And that have been haunting part of my life. So, of course, after the the injury when I was ready to like, I mean, I’m talking months after, to be, you know, in a car again. You know, every time like, if there was a little bush, I like I was back in my car, reliving it, which was very difficult, because there’s a few times, you know, my dad was driving, and we were going to see my sister who lives about seven hours away from us. And it was like winter, and if there’s a little bit of wind that makes the car to just like, you know, and the tires are still like on the road. But it’s sort of like that gusts of wind just makes the car move a little bit. And I’m like back, like, if that was like my traumatic trigger. And, you know, if my mom was driving, and, you know, again, sort of that whoosh or turning left, I couldn’t turn left for like, a minute years. I think it’s just in the recent years that I can turn left when you have to cross another lane, because every time I turned left, I could see the car sort of coming. And I was like my other trigger, which was you know, that so every time that I was in Montreal, and I needed to turn left, I would just do like a roundabout in terms of like, doing blocks, turning right. Right. Right. So that I could like go to the slot that I needed to. Yeah.
Yeah, so it’s interesting. Yeah, it is. It’s funny what our brain sticks with us. And yeah, and you can’t get it out after
I get it out there. Yeah. So how long were you in the hospital for?
So I was in the hospital for a month. And then I was in rehab for five months. In the hospital, I had amazing, amazing care. For the first 10 days. I was in the ICU unit, which meant that I had a nurse, just one nurse one patient because they wanted to make sure that we breathe properly and that everything because I was I underwent surgery that evening. They had to consolidate my spine in both my neck and in my back. And so I was in surgery for about eight, nine hours. And then as you did they fuse it.
They did. Yeah, exactly. So I have about three vertebrae fused in my neck. And four in my back.
Yeah. And then you went into rehabilitation after that after you got?
Yes. And so rehab was was an interesting time because in between ICU when rehab, I had a few weeks on the floors, where there are too few nurses for too many patients. And that was like, the, there’s part where I have trauma also there. When they sat me in the wheelchair and positioned me and the pain. It was like torture, and you know, like those movies where you see like torture scenes in them, you know, middle ages, you know, and where the they tried to dismember people. That’s how I felt on the wheelchair. And they could leave me in the wheelchair for two hours, because they were doing their rounds, and they couldn’t get to me. And so you imagined that really incredible pain for that time. And so that was the hospital. And when I left the hospital, I was sort of happy because I was like, Well, maybe you know, it’s not gonna hurt as much when I’m in rehab. And I’m lucky, because yes, that’s exactly what happened. So rehab was a place where I felt I was regaining some control. So from a woman who was controlling pretty much every aspect of her life, to someone who loves controlling the car, who had no control in the hospital, all of a sudden, I was empowered again, in terms of like, figuring what’s next. And the hour that was the most precious to me was the hour that I had with my physio therapist. That was like the hour where, oh, my god, like, I would grant I would swear at him, I would like just give it all, you know, it was like back at the gym. Where, you know, he would say, you know, jump in, I would say how high obviously, he wouldn’t say jump because I couldn’t jump, but he would tell me like, okay, we’re doing pull ups and, and, you know, I have a great story actually with pull ups cuz he made me do 101 just out of pure motivation, and wanted to see what my grit was how, how far I could go. And, yeah, and so that was like my saving grace, that was like my, my precious hour.
Some of the other hours were painful, some painful in a way that I needed to go through them to grow. And so those hours were with my occupational therapist, because with her and her aid, they had to put me in situation where I would get scared or where I was scared, scared of falling or scared of facing sort of like the emptiness and I have an example where at one point, I’m sitting sort of on a on a bed. And they put Kleenex box on my feet, and they asked me to go and pick it up. I was telling them, I can’t because I can’t feel my legs. So I can’t sort of like, go forward. Because I feel like I’m going to fall and I don’t have any abs. How am I going to do that? And they said, well just figure it out pick up the plane on Xbox, and one of my biggest fear is heights. And on a trip, like years before I had like tried to conquer my my fear of heights by doing by rappelling down a 60 foot cliff. And it was exactly the same feeling I was facing like, this is like a 60 feet. Cliff that I have to go over to get that Kleenex box and oh my god, I cried like I think all the tears that I had in my body I did it because again, like they knew like I was someone very strong on grit. And that if I was put in front of a child I would sort of like, get it. But it was really, really tough. And they put me that in a situation in that situation in front of my sister. And so I didn’t want to show weak. He didn’t want to show weakness.
Yeah. And so I just, that’s hard. That was hard. You know, and so physio was great. Yeah, ot hour wasn’t so great. Well, it was great, because I could regain. That was sort of the way that I needed to regain sort of some of my autonomies that was great in that in that space. And then the set me to psychology, and that was not great. I fired my psychologist after the second hour. And oh, my whole staff said, Oh, but you need to, and I was like, Yes, I do, that there’s no going back there. And the reason why is that, I felt like my life was dark enough. And I lived my whole day, you know, my whole 24 hours was darkness all the time. Except for that hour in physio. And for the time that I had with my son, my parents were amazing. And so they would bring Thomas to me every day after his nap. And so I would see him and so those were the two, you know, sort of things in my day that were that brought lightness, everything else was like, as if we’re turning the light off. And, you know, our work, yeah, to look forward to it.
Exactly. So, but psychology, they wanted me to talk about like, the accident and what that meant, and my losses and whatever. And I was like, Fuck, no, I live my losses every single minute. Except for those two hours that I have sort of light a little bit. I’m like, I’m not doing that. I’m not like rehashing darkness over darkness. And that is something that’s profoundly important in my story, because a few years ago, so we’re talking like eight years after the accident, I learned about positive psychology. So even being a psychologist, I didn’t even realize that there’s there was sort of this thing called positive psychology. And I didn’t know about character strength either. And it’s when I started learning about that, that I realized, that is what I needed in rehab, I would have needed someone to talk to me about my strength of love, you know, I survived the car accident because I loved my son so much. And I was working so hard in physio, because I love my son so much, right, I wanted to regain as much autonomy as I could. And so that was very empowering to, to see or to feel like, Hey, I’m, you know, I have strength in me. And we all do, we all have 24 character strengths that we could tap into, when we need and every day, we actually tap into, you know, some, some of our strengths, and we each have a different profile, but it was like, very empowering for me to, to feel like, you know, my love for my son was something that could get me out of the hump. And that, you know, my love of learning could get me hope, because I was learning about all these things that I was actually powerful, or, you know, capable to tapping into.
LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY. And so it was very Yeah, it was, that was something that changed. I think, my whole perspective, your whole
outlook. My whole outlook. Yeah, I don’t know why some counselors and that sort of thing, bring up all of that. It’s like they bring it in a half to hash it over and over and over. Whereas, like you said, when you start looking at like, I always talk about when something like this happens, you feel like you’re in this horrible, dark room with no light. And I feel like I’m walking around this room trying to find something, something that’s gonna open or like you feel so trapped,
trapped blind. You’re going in blind and you don’t know. And the fact that I was a psychologist didn’t help me. You know, like, it wasn’t like because I was the One going through it, so is very different. And, you know, you mentioned serve, you don’t know why psychologists or counselors, you know, sort of do that? Well, because a good chunk of us are trained to do exactly that, you know, you deal with trauma by by talking about it by, you know, sort of going through it. Except that for me, that was way too soon. I couldn’t, I didn’t have distance from that story. And so, you know, for sure, if there was like something that I could do to change the system, I would say that psychologists who work in the acute care at that point, they need to just learn about positive psychology and use that and use those tools and just, you know, empower me and not disempower people. Hmm.
Yeah. Because I found, personally, with that same kind of story, that when you’re in it, you don’t know what’s wrong with you. You know, you just know how you feel. And all of these exterior things coming at you, whether it’s a counselor, psychologist store, rehab, you need it to be positive to be able to tap into that strength that you have, because you don’t need to be brought down anymore. You’re already in this dark space. Yeah. And that that’s what I found, anyways, that.
And for me, I felt like, my whole life had crumbled. You know, I was, I mean, it’s, it’s crazy how, like the dichotomy or like, the I had my house, I was a homeowner, I had my career I was doing, I taught in universities in two different universities. I was, you know, a manager, I was working with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I was a single parent, I mean, you couldn’t be more, you know, achieved. And because I am white and well educated, and I was able bodied, and so forth. I was pretty high on the, you know, social status, you know, stairs, yeah. And the accidents are brought me down, because that’s when I realized shit, you know, when you have a disability, you’re, you’re not so high on that status anymore. You go down a few steps, and you go down a few steps, because sometimes people don’t even acknowledge me. So I’ll take like, for example, a COVID situation where I was going to get vaccinated. And I, I had heard that I could go for my second shot. And I’m in the, you know, waiting line to get the second shot. And I have a question, because they’re pulling out people from the line. So I’m like, Well, why are they pulling up people?
I need to find out. Well, the man who was basically answering everybody’s question answered every single person’s question, he would sometimes look at me straight in the eye, and still not asked me if I had a question. Even though I had, I was in front of him for like, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And it was like I was, you know, invisible. And he could just look through me, not at me. And that was very difficult for me. And still sometimes very difficult, because I get like, Hey, I have the same values. As anybody else. I have the same, right. Why aren’t you acknowledging me and sometimes be acknowledged is also, you know, like, don’t don’t stand in my parking spot. My parking spot is there for a reason, because it’s dangerous for me to be in a wheelchair. I’m short. So cars don’t see me if they back up, they get, you know, into me very easily. Yeah. And so it’s sort of like, my parking spot is right beside the entrance for a reason. Don’t take it, you know, and I feel that there’s a lot of things that people don’t realize, and that’s why they do it. And that, you know, I hope that if they knew they would change their behavior, but so for me, it was difficult for that reason to because I felt like I couldn’t, you know, pick up my career the same way I would have. I mean, I really felt like I was destined for great things, and then the accident happened, and I really do feel like my career stopped. And, you know, maybe I’m destined to do great things, but it’s going to be different. And I think at the beginning, it was very difficult to sort of go through through all those secondary losses that you don’t imagine after an accident,
you don’t realize you have to grieve.
No, I didn’t realize I had to grieve. And so the tsunami of emotions for me, you know, happened to five years after my accident. And that’s when I really sort of like a god hit a second time. It I call it my mental health crash. So I had my car crash, and then I had my mental health crash five years later.
What do you think brought it on? This realization?
Yeah, the reality realization and the fact that I was, I mean, something was happening at work. And I realized that I couldn’t keep up. And work had been the only role that had not changed since the accident. So I held on to that role, you know, with both hands, because it was sort of like, that’s the one thing that is exactly the same, you know? And when it wasn’t possible anymore, that’s when I went, I lost everything. Yeah, that was
everything that was normal.
Everything that was normal, exactly. Yeah, quote, unquote.
Yeah. How about now? How has it shifted? Was this dark space that you went into kind of like mine?
Where he described it dark room? It’s exactly that you described it? Exactly. You know, I have a similar experience, for sure. It was exactly like you’re in a dark room, and you’re blindfolded on top of it. So there’s really like nothing that you could see.
And there’s so much fear, I found so much fear in the room, almost like if somebody had a strategy to a chair and blindfolded you and put you in this dark room. That’s kind of how you feel. Yeah. And, and you’re still trying to make it around the room, trying to find that little, little smidgen of light that you can kind of access. And one side, I was able to grab the door handle and feel that I could pull the door open and there was light in the cracks. That’s when I finally could feel like I could move towards the light. Yeah, kind of sounds kind of corny. But it is true. Yeah.
No, it’s a similar. Yeah. I think it’s very well said or well described for sure. For me, you know, that door handle was learning about positive psychology, certainly felt like, you know, there was not just light, but you know, like how you feel the sun on your skin. You know, like when it’s like worm, when it’s like springtime and gets like super warm. I mean, that’s what I felt. And I felt like maybe there was, you know, light at the end of the tunnel. And it was difficult because I had to manage like, major depression as I was still raising Thomas, and I didn’t want him to be affected more than he had already been affected. And so I was I was looking okay in front of him. And I was looking, okay, I think in front of a lot of people, not many people knew that. All the struggles that I had in my head. And for me, it was, you know, all my life. If I wanted something, I worked hard at it. And I was a hard worker. And I would get to like the goal that I had. And in this case, no matter how hard I worked, I was still paralyzed. You can change it, I couldn’t change it. There was nothing that I could do. And I remember having conversation with my physiotherapist. And he was saying to me, like, if there was one inch of a chance that you could walk, you would have been the one to make it to walking. But it was just, that’s how spine spinal cord injury works. You know, once it’s bruised, it’s bruised and doesn’t grow back. And so it’s done. You have to put your energy somewhere else or else you’re wasting it to some extent.
Because once it’s there, it’s there. You can’t It doesn’t get better or worse, I guess is how to speak. No. No. Um, What do you think that changed it? Now? What what has given you this positive outlook? Because when you felt prepared for death, you obviously weren’t prepared for this long journey. Um, and in your backup plan we talk about, are you prepared for the unexpected? You could have your house ripped away from you in a instant, you could have your body change in an instant. But did having who was paying your bills for you while you’re going through all this? Like, it’s such a difficult journey, if you’re not prepared? You know, where’s the key? Where’s the cat food? Where’s, who has the vet or, or whatever your life consists of?
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, ironically, when I had signed, you know, my mortgage for my mortgage in my house, I took in insurance, obviously. And there was one box that I forgot to tick. And that one box. Yep. And that one box, you see me coming, was in case of a severe injury. And so they couldn’t do anything. So I still have a mortgage. And, yeah, that was like a, an interesting twist of this story. I was lucky, again, enough that I have parents who just like love their children more than anything in the world. And so they moved in my house. I’m also lucky because I had work insurance in terms of my salary. So there’s, you know, there was still income coming in, which allowed to pay for, you know, all the big things. But they basically raised my child for like, the first six months when I was in rehab in the hospital. And after that, there’s a lot of bills that they paid until I was able to go back to work.
And to figure out what bills there are, I mean, that’s a challenge. That is a challenge. And again, you know, like, in Quebec, we’re lucky and it depends on you know, which province, because we have an automobile insurance that we have to take, and it’s mandatory, everybody who drives has to have that. And so, the, the society who holds the, the insurance pays for certain things. And so for sure, in comparison to any other person who has gone through spinal cord injury in a different way. I’m lucky because there are certain things like adaptations in my house that are paid for by the auto insurance, but there’s a lot of things that are not paid, and that are not considered and one of them is your parenting role. And so when I was telling, you know, the insurance, well, my, my mom comes to see me every day, she has to drive, and she has to pay for parking every day, because she brings my son every day, because my son who’s 16 months old will forget me if he doesn’t come every day, and I will, you know, I’m gonna, like it’s gonna be it for me if I’m not a mom, after all of this. And yeah, and so it was like, No, and I had to fight every, for every single thing that was related to my parenting role, I had to fight. And sometimes, you know, I stopped fighting because it was just too long. I remember when Tom is like, when to school, start school. For me to drive him to school, I needed to go into, you know, in street that is blocked off, usually.
And I went to the ombudsman of the city to ask for permission, and I was still rejected. But yeah, you can only fight for so long. And it’s really hard to fight against insurances. You know, and, I mean, in my case, I thought I had everything prepared. And then you know, it’s like you say, you have to be prepared for even the things that you don’t think of, because in all my life, I knew I could die and I need to, you know, organize my affairs for that. But I never realized that I could actually live but live differently to a point where every Everything. I mean, we had to sell my house, I had to move into a new house that we could adapt. You know, and those have cost and they have cost also for my family. I mean, my parents, you know, sold their apartment in Montreal, to be able to come and live above me so that they could, you know, take care of me and my son, if I needed to. They had to sell their cottage because nobody wanted to go back there. Certainly not me. It didn’t want to take that road again. And so there was cost there. And, you know, there’s cost in terms of like, they were both retired, but they could have been working. And then, you know, my mom was basically, you know, she was doing childcare and Marjorie care, pretty much all day, every team. Yeah. And so in a different situation where she had been working, then what would have happened, then, you know, and if I hadn’t had my parents, what would have happened to my ability to maintain custody of my child, I worked in, you know, in the system, where I advocated for parents with intellectual disabilities, and saw all the discrimination that there was in systems. And I felt like it could happen to me. You know, when I was in the hospital, I was always looking to see who was coming in my bedroom, my hospital room, because I felt like anybody could be someone from Child Welfare coming to assess if I can raise my son. And any any new professional, I felt like I also had to scrutinize a little bit to make sure that they would be the one calling child welfare. And in my head, and so I mean, I’m talking like, seven days after my accident, I had an intervention plan organized in my head. Because I had that fear was true and real about like, I’m a single parent now with a physical disability with a house that is not adapted. And so raising my child in those conditions are impossible for me, they’re even dangerous, because I can’t serve like, you know, he could go into the stairs, but I can’t, I can’t follow him, I can go pick him up.
My most fav movie:
And those are things that you don’t think about, right? Sort of how you organize things around your child. Yeah, so, you know, certainly in terms of like having a backup plan, you have to think about all those details.
Well, and unfortunately, everybody thinks it’s not going to happen to them. So they’re not going to worry about it. But my sense is, why not have the photos of every room in your house? Why not have the receipts if you have them? Why not? Put those little few documents together in one place, so that they’re all together when somebody needs them? You know, it’s all of these kinds of little things. And I’m not sure how to help people who think it’s not gonna happen. Because, of course, in our podcasts all the time we talk about something will we know something? Will you just don’t
know what, that’s right, or when or when, but we know it well. So why don’t we prepare? It’s like, you know, it’s like once you get engaged, you know, you’re going to get married. So you start preparing. Yeah. You went you book a trip, you know, you’re going on the trip so you start preparing, but we don’t talk about death. We don’t talk about sickness and we definitely don’t talk about loss and it’s an it’s really unfortunate because thank you for being so open and talking about your feelings about this horrible horrible spinal cord injury affects so many people athletes accidents you know, it airy military Yes.
And, and it’s a real change of your whole life. It truly is life changing. Totally. And a car accident can be a slight as not being able to walk the same or, but it’s the emotional part of the whole section. That’s even, like only we see things that are physical, that it’s what’s going on in your head? is even more powerful.
Yeah. I want to say like, you know, I’ve been living with a spinal cord injury for 10 years, I don’t want people to sort of like, and, you know, listening to this and sort of say, Oh, poor, her poor her, you know, it is definitely a change and definitely like it, it totally reshaped my life, and my family’s life and so forth. But, you know, I’m here and I, I’m engaged in what Thomas does, and I’m engaged in, you know, my family and what they do, and I have a lot of loving people that surround me. So I don’t want to, you know, people to sort of go and think that people with spinal cord injury can’t have beautiful fulfilling life, because that’s not true. We can’t and so, but it is, you know, sort of a huge, huge adaptation, for sure.
Absolutely. What kind of final message would you like to tell the listeners, you know, that anything can happen at any point to be prepared doesn’t make it so or make it true, it’s just because it is true. And, you know, tick all those boxes, don’t forget really verify, because that could have also a huge impact. And, you know, I think, over the, the years, we’ve we’ve gotten people aware of sort of having a will and testament, you know, in case of death, but do know that other things can happen, you know, it’s not just about dying, that we get ready for, for different things. And then the rest, you know, it makes you not have to worry about it so much. Because certainly, like, in the first six months, I couldn’t deal with any other like bad news. So it had to somehow run smoothly, and I was lucky that my dad could pick up and I mean, you know, he was able to he was a cosigner on my house, and he was a cosigner on some of like, my, my bank stuff. So, you know, that worked out smoothly. It worked out, you know, I didn’t have to like, because I was I could have been in the coma for, you know, days and months, just months. And my parents, you know, we’re we’re grieving also, and my mom didn’t sleep for like days, neither did my dad, my dad, you know, got old, faster because of the accident, I’m sure of it. And so you know, when you have to deal with somebody else’s sort of accident and so forth, and you’re the one who has to pick up sort of the slack, then the pieces, the pieces, you need to have information and sometimes, you know, having that backup plan would certainly be helpful for them.
Yeah, a family conversation, we have worksheets on just having those family conversations of not just about death, but it could be well, what kind of care would you like to have? What where would you like to live? Do you want to be staying with a family? Do you want to go into a home like, all of these different topics that can be talked about like it? You know, if you’re left alone, where would you like to live? What you know what your kids? Yeah, what? The kids? All all of those things? What what do you want it to look like? Yeah. Because it might not be that you’re not here to to answer. You might be here but still can’t answer. So Right. Yeah, thank you so very much. Thank you so very much for being open and honest and the courage to rehash this every single time. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story of if people would just listen. I think it’s taught you to be better prepared for the unexpected, but I see in you that it’s prepared you to be present in the moment. More so to treasure every precious moment. Yes. And that’s what we talk about. Yeah. Because it means everything.
Yeah. It’s a beautiful summary actually, because that’s exactly what it did. It made me grateful and appreciative. And I do notice you know, beauty, a whole lot more than I did before, and I often, you know, use the the metaphor of a high speed train that I was on before my accident. And so when you’re in the high speed train, and you look out the window, you can’t really see anything, because it’s all blurry because you go too fast, too fast. And now I’m in a little train that sort of takes its time. But I can definitely look out the window and see, you know, the beautiful scenery that’s there.
It’s like being on that San Francisco trolley. Yes, like, Oh, okay. Chicka, chicka, chicka, chicka, chicka. And then stop. Oh, I get to enjoy this and Chicka Chicka Chicka. Okay, let’s Oh, the analogies that we come up with? Oh, that’s awesome. Well, thank you. I know, Marjorie, I hope this can help someone out there listening. Because it really truly, you’re amazing. And thank you for for being you know, I’m so sorry for you having to go through all the all of this, but you’re just you’re just words of wisdom for everyone. You really are. Thank you for being that, for being like that for others.
Thank you so much for the invitation, Tina.
Oh, you’re welcome. I hope that everybody, I don’t want to give up the story. It’s it truly is. Could be a movie. Because it’s somebody’s journey through what they’ve, you know, 10 years probably doesn’t seem very long. But it’s been long enough now that you can start hopefully, seen some of the beauty of everything. Yes. And because I tell you there are times when you don’t see any beauty at all. And it’s just a matter of getting through that trauma part of it and and with all of your wisdom from you’re learning and researching, and I’m sure you have more great, better things that you’re going to be doing in life. You’re here for a reason.
Yes. Well, thank you. Absolutely. So thank you, everybody. Thank you listeners. I hope that we’ve inspired you and motivated you, with Marjorie’s beautiful story and, and that it shows that you, you too could have a unique plan. And that it’s essential that you do make whatever that looks like for you. Your backup plan app puts your life all in one place and because you don’t know Expect the unexpected, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I always end with if you’re thinking of someone right now listening to the show that you love and care about reach out. Pick up the phone, we still have those things called phones, text, Skype, zoom, whatever it is, but tell them how much you love and care about them today. Because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. So thank you my listeners love each and every one of you! Thank you my German friends. I always end with Carol Burnett because she could always make us laugh. And I’m sure you know who Carol Burnett is Marjorie. I’m so glad we had this time together just to have a laugh or sing a song seems we just get started. And before you know it comes a time we have to say so long. So long, my friends stay safe be kind. Till next time. Bye for now. stay safe be kind! Expect the Unexpected.
On our Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/wHYgHQyXZns
You can follow her, and listen to her inspirational speeches on her social media accounts, and on www.speakerslam.org Instagram: @ninjamarj
Twitter: @ninja_marj
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LinkedIn: Marjorie Aunos Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWSN…
Preparedness
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy!
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy with addictions and childhood traumas!
“A note to anyone who needs to hear it: we don’t get over it or move on from our trauma. We are forced to make space for it. We carry it. We learn to live with it. And sometimes we thrive in spite of it!”, Unknown
YOUR BACKUP PLAN APP puts your life all in one place everything that’s up in your head in case of any unpredictable circumstance while taking that painful Aftermath out of a tragedy. What does that mean?
It means that, for example, a wildfire that you have a five minute evacuation, what would you have at hand that you can take because you are truly blessed if you’re given five minute notification notification for anything, any tragedy that occurs, you have to thank everybody for allowing you to have those few minutes to grab your stuff. Because in our Florida condo collapse that was at Surfside, this past few weeks. They weren’t given any time to take anything. They were lucky to get their shoes on and run and be safe. Because that’s what happens. A car accident. You know, you don’t get time. Well, just a minute. Let me prepare for that. No, it doesn’t happen that way. So prepare for the unexpected because you don’t know what tomorrow or today will bring. So that’s what we help you with. It won’t happen. To me doesn’t happen around here because it does, you’re not Superman. And things don’t always show their light until it actually occurs. So be safe out there, be better, better prepared, check out our app if you haven’t already done so, because it can help you be better prepared for the unexpected.
And we do have a new program coming out very soon called the emerging blueprint, which will help you get better prepared if you’re not certain on how to do that. So thanks, everybody, for coming out today. Let’s get this party started. You have come here, if you see this show, or watch our show, you are here for a reason. And we have a very special guest today. And I am just going to bring him on.
Welcome. Welcome, Eric. There he is. Welcome Eric Allen, to our show today.
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy! Thank you so much for me. It’s such an honor. I really appreciate the opportunity. Well, you’re welcome. It’s It’s awesome to have you on. I’m so excited to hear your story. Let me give you everybody our listeners a great introduction for Eric. He’s only a hop, skip and a jump away from me today. I have been to his area of Idaho, and Spokane Washington area many, many times. As I told Eric a very funny story about Spokane. And he has been married for 17 coming up to 17 years. He has an 11 and an eight year old. He is an avid avid podcaster. He is a content creator and a voiceover. And he has a super podcast all about MMA fighters for all of you.
We have a huge MPC we are I know for a fact that we have a lot of MMA fighters or people that love it, as well as wrestling. So I’m excited to hear your story about where did it all start for you, Eric, because you have you’ve really come full circle.
Yeah, it’s interesting life for sure. You know, I grew up in eastern Washington out there in tri cities. And I grew up in what I thought was a typical household. So you know, went to Sunday school, played Little League. My parents then got divorced when I was 11 years old. And I had no idea what divorce was when they told me that I had never heard of the concept before. And they got divorced. And my parents split pretty quick. And my mom got together with a man that was very physically abusive it almost immediately.
And so I remember, you know, being 11 years old watching this kid, you know, watching this guy beat up on my mom, I would be outside of the house looking through the window, and they’re arguing, and he’d be hitting her with a cordless phone. And, you know, the police would come and my mom would never press charges. I never understood that and never understood why she decided to stay with that guy. Oh, then she got pregnant. And they decided to do the smart thing and move to Stevensville Montana, which is a small town population. 1200 people there, oh, they rented five acres.
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy! And there was a house on that five acres. It was beautiful property, two pounds or two pawns. Right behind the bitterroot River, you know, really, really pretty area. But the problem was that house had three bedrooms. It was one for them, one for my brother, who was just a couple months old at the time, and one for my sister who was four years younger than me. And they said, Eric, you don’t live in the garage. I literally had half the garage to that was quote unquote, my bedroom. I had a black tarp at the end of my bed that separated my bedroom from the truck that pulled in. And my half of the garage had a fireplace. So it would keep me warm semi through the most of the night, I guess, when it would get down to negative degrees of Montana in the winters.
So I remember there was a lot of cold nights for sure. And you know, one night I was 13 years old, I was brushing my teeth wasn’t anything different than any of the night but they came home arguing. And as I was brushing my teeth, I felt my personal opinion. I felt God say man, you got to turn around and see what’s going on. And the way the house was set up was behind me was the kitchen to the pantry to the garage where I lived. And in that pantry hallway there to get to my bedroom, my bedroom door. He was on top of my mom and it was just boom, boom, boom, one shot after another just punched in the face. And like man, I gotta get this guy off. And so I snuck up behind him and I grabbed a cast iron pan and you know the heavy duty once you take with the campaign and I played Little League, I got a pretty good swing and I swung as far as I could. But the back of his head open. And I’m not laughing because of that. I’m just thinking that you thought you had a good swing. totally right. Yeah, you know, 13 years old run up. No, right.
So yeah, so I mean, I swung it as hard as I could split his head open. He turned around and he’s like what the end is he turned around I swung again. I split his forehead open. And I had swung so hard that second time I’d actually fallen over, he did not get knocked out because he was so drunk. And I remember him standing over me yelling and screaming, my mom jumps up lands, like six punches in a row bloods blocks on the wall. Cops show up, take him to jail for the night. My mom doesn’t press charges. And I was kicked out of the house at that point. So I had three months left in my freshman year of high school, so I just bounced around from friends houses and living on floors.
Why do you think she stuck around for that? Eric? Why would she want to live like that?
Yeah, it’s weird to me that, that anybody would do that. I didn’t understand it. I don’t know if it was fear, or I didn’t understand I and it’s still to this day, I have no idea. You know, after I got kicked out, that led me down this path of destruction for the next 10 years of my life. And you know, it was it was pretty insane for the next 10 years. And, you know, at that point, I, after my freshman year of high school, I moved back to live with my dad in Washington State, and he rented a house for him and I and who’d, but $20 in the cup for my lunch money for the week, hunger, man meals in the freezer and cereal milk in the house. And then he’d go stay with his girlfriend. So I would maybe see him a couple times a month in passing. But it was basically no adult supervision, no accountability.
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy! You know, he got me a bus pass so I could get to school, because I didn’t have my license at the time. And so I was getting stoned. before school, I was getting stoned. During lunch. I was getting stoned after school. And I did that all through high school. And when I was a senior in high school, I actually got arrested for having a bomb, which is now legal in the state of Washington. But in 1998, it was not. And I had to go to jail black and white chain gang outfit on bright orange slippers. still being a senior in high school, I literally wrote and wrote a note to my dad, hey, I’m staying at Danny’s house. I’ll see you tomorrow, because I knew I was only going to be gone for 24 hours. And I knew that he wouldn’t call. And so I did. I went to jail and got out the next day and told him like 10 years later that I had actually been arrested at the time. But I was on probation for a year where I could not wow, you know, smoking pot. And so what that did was enhanced my drinking. So I just started drinking, I was taking acid and mushrooms and even to the point going to the store and taking by buying a bottle of Robert tussen de m cough syrup because it had morphine in it. And it would make me hallucinate.
And it cost half of the cost of acid. So I mean, really into drugs and heavy drinking at that time. And two weeks after I graduated high school, I woke up to a note on my mirror that said you can’t comply with house rules. You have 48 hours to get out. And so at that point, I was basically homeless between ages and yeah, basically homeless again. Yeah. So between ages of 18 and 21, I moved 21 times living on couches of friends of second cousins for week here week there two days there. I had $100 in my pocket, and I moved to Seattle, Washington to get into the music business. I don’t know how to play anything. I was just like, I just want to get in the music business. I love music. So I want to figure out how to get there. And so I basically, you know, lived off of credit cards. I got my first credit card at Sears and I got a video camera so I could record my buddies playing Skate or you know, on skateboarding, and then I was like, dude, I can get this for free. I go get another credit card and it just by Tom 21. I’m $28,000 in debt and have to file bankruptcy. That doesn’t take long, right? Yeah, you know. And so it took me a couple years when I got into Seattle, but I finally did land that job with Universal Records, which was you I was just a mailroom guy. I was working at a CD store and one guy walked in that was a rep for Universal Records.
And I jokingly said, Hey, man, how do I get your job? And he goes, Oh, you got to be an intern. He got to be in college and stuff. And so I went down to the local community college and I said, How much does it cost for me to you know, go through this internship program you guys have, they’re like, Oh, 300 bucks. So I pay through the box, I get my receipt. And I go to university and I say, Look, I’m an intern never went to a single class. And I said, Look, I’m an intern. They said, Okay, perfect. You can be an intern for us. So for six months, I just showed up every day at Universal just stuffing posters. I never got paid for it. And then after six months, I had Alright, well, this guy’s committed, we’ll start hiring you. So they hired me on as the mailroom coordinator, I was tracking sales and set a meet and greets. prom was while I was at Universal and the year prior, I was managing a band. So I had this two year span, right, went to about 175 concerts and had open tabs and every single one of those concepts very heavily, living a rock star lifestyle without being a rock star. I don’t know how to play any instruments. And that was a crazy time. I mean, I would never I don’t regret any of the things that I went through, because I think it made me the person I am today. But it was a crazy rock star lifestyle for two years for sure for me, but you obviously met some perfect people along the way that changed you. Right to to control you or to give you that guidance to to know right from wrong. I guess you could say somewhere around there.
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy! Sort of Yeah, I mean, I was at so I remember there was a concert that I was at in downtown Seattle. I was in my early 20s. And there’s a music rep from another record label that was probably in her early 30s But I remember this moment so clear looking at her going, I do not want to be her age, going to concerts five nights a week and being away from a family. And it was a couple of weeks after that I got laid off my one year anniversary from Universal because of Napster. People didn’t realize that hurt the music industry actually killed the music industry very much. So at that time, and half our office got laid off and I was bottomed out also I got laid off. And I went into a deep depression. I was working at Starbucks at night, and I would get off work and go to the store, grab a six pack of beer go to my ghetto apartment, which was across the street from where Jimi Hendrix was buried there in Renton, Washington. And I would drink myself to sleep every night. And one night while I was working at Starbucks, this girl walked in and doesn’t drink coffee. And she said, hey, we’ve got this cool college aids event at our church, would you be interested in going while I was depressed? I had no friends. And she was really good looking. Absolutely. Yep, I’ll go tell me when
you no matter.
Yeah, I was like on it. So I couldn’t be right. You know, and so I got down there. And it was like this weird thing where God I believe God was planting seeds. There’s all these guys that I knew from high school, like man I haven’t seen in six years. I haven’t seen you in five years now what is what’s going on? And it was at this youth event. So I was just helping them set up and tear down and, you know, so I got there and did that. And about a month later, it was Easter 2004 I was managing a band. We went and played a concert the night before Easter, and I woke up Easter morning 2004 my buddy’s basement surrounded by probably 15 buddies, and you know all still sleeping, I woke up at five o’clock. And I felt in that moment. God just telling me, man, you’re going down this path that’s going to end your life very, very quickly if you don’t start making some changes. And I quit cold turkey drugs, drinking cigarettes right there. And I gave my life to Christ and my buddies basement. And I called that girl up, I got her voicemail and said, Hey, thank you for inviting that church event. Happy Easter, maybe I’ll see at the store. and a month later, we were dating and now she’s my wife of 17 years. Oh my gosh, yeah. That’s so cool. Yeah, we’re actually both born at exactly the same minute 1:41pm on her birth certificate seven days, every years, but the exact same minute.
Wow. It sounds like to me though, even though, you know, a lot of people could be homeless and, and there are stories about somebody bringing a homeless out of their environment, and what they can become. But with your story, it sounds like the universe really kept planting seeds to you. And you just, I mean, you flew into it. What you learnt in that music industry was probably really, really helpful for you in so many ways as well as prop. Yes. Right? Yeah,
it definitely was, and I love the connections that I had. But, you know, I got to see the perspective of, you know, if my life continues down this path, whether I have this relationship with with Christ or not, I remember that moment going. I love the music industry, and I still do to this day, I love going live concert. But I wouldn’t want to be in that five, six nights a week, like I saw a time, you know, right. I wonder why you thought that? What? What? You know, there must have been something that I don’t want this lifestyle. Yeah. Something deep inside of you.
I agree. I think I think that, you know, God has always watched over me. And I truly believe that because I grew up going to church, I think, you know, my grandma, who’s still alive today, she’s 87. She’s like four foot nine. And probably the most amazing person in my life. I spent so much time with her. And since the day I was born, and even to this day, she tells me that she prayed for me since day one. And I believe truly that her prayer kind of guided me through this life and got me to where I’m at today. And, and and maybe it was her prayer that put that thought in my mind at that concert that one night. I don’t know. But I remember that so clearly that I was like, You know what, I do want a family, I do want to have a life outside of just going to a concert every night. You know? And so I think that was what started it and I decided to make a change. And there Here we are today.
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy! Because I mean, that lifestyle is wonderful for musicians. Sure. But it can be painfully wrong. For many. Yes, because sex drugs and rock’n’roll just doesn’t mix well. Right. Yeah, exactly. It causes other issues of course. You know it look at Britney Spears. And I mean all the young people that were affected by that lifestyle early on in their lives, some how it how it changed them. Good and bad. Yeah. Not very many basically got out of that lifestyle alive. Really. Yeah, I agree. And healthy and still here to tell the story. Um, it must be Very fast moving very fast lifestyle.
It is. Yeah. And you know, before I worked at Universal, my buddy was the manager of the gorge, which I’m sure you’ve heard of there, the gorge amphitheatre out there in Washington State. And so that full summer before I worked at Universal, I had backstage passes, I had open passes free concert anytime I wanted to go down there. And again, open tab. So that was part of this, you know, party rock, like a rock star, you know, personality. You know, I think it’s, there’s, there’s musicians that can make it through that, but it’s very, very tough.
Very tough. So, I mean, you saw your mom’s boyfriend with alcohol issues. Yeah. You didn’t think it would happen to you, if you kept on doing what he was doing?
I never thought of it. I never thought about that. I all I did was Hey, you know what I am subconsciously looking back now. I was numbing the pain that I was in. You know, I was, I was ashamed. And I was embarrassed of all that crap that I’ve been through and witnessed and, you know, embarrassed of my family, or my mom, you know, not pressing charges. And I hated to tell that story. Yeah, and only a few people knew that story up until about two years ago, when I decided to go, you know, publicly released my story. I’m 41. Now I didn’t tell my story. I was 39.
Wow. Yeah. Because you can’t understand it. Of course, because you’re when you’re been through something, you’re thinking, well, what’s it like that? Was it just me? Right? Right. So yeah, it takes a while. So you got through the bankruptcy. You got out of jail. You battled those addictions? Which you turned around. You never went back? Nope. To after switching that switch? Yep. Correct. Awesome. And that that’s tough all on its own. So you. You broke the chains of divorce? Is your mom still around now then?
Yeah, both my parents are still alive. I’m not close with either my parents. You know, we moved to Idaho, because we didn’t want people just knocking on our door randomly saying, hey, surprise, we’re here. Right? You know, so, you know, my dad lives in Washington State. My mom and my sister live in Texas. And then my brother, who was the you know, from my mom and her abusive boyfriend. I don’t even know how old he is. He’s probably 26 now, and I think he lives out in the Seattle area still.
So is your mom and him still together?
No, yes.
She ended that.
She ended that a couple years after that. But you know, and she ended up getting together with another guy who was an alcoholic, which, you know, if you look at historically, I think women, you know, at least in my mom’s situation, jumped to another alcoholic situation. You know, I that and she was okay with that. And they were together for a while. And then tragically, I think he ended up passing away and now she’s living out in Texas with another with another man. I’ve never met him. But my understanding is he’s a nice guy. Oh, thank goodness. Right? Yeah.
Finally, finally break that chain for her. She does she deserve some real life too. And so, um, you were sober. You were now you’re married? And what?
From the music industry that you enjoyed so much. You really did you you have a passion of it, I’m sure inside you.
Yeah. And my dad was a big music guy. So you know, I remember being at my grandma’s house the house that my dad grew up in as a young boy and my grandma would be watching me but I’d be downstairs and putting Elvis in the eight track player. And I grew up listening to Elvis so Elvis still to this day is probably one of my favorite artists. But yeah, I mean, ever since I was his as far as back as I can remember, I’ve always loved music and mostly rock and roll and you know, my dad took me to my first concert was Richard Marx and my 13th birthday took me to see Rod Stewart so I’ve seen people Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure you must have saw Supertramp in there somewhere. I have not seen Supertramp but they would be a great live show for sure.
So what what made you go into MMA fighting that industry that that world itself from music to to that it’s kind of cool.
Totally Yeah, it’s a great question because I grew up you know, my dad was would get mike tyson fights on pay per view and boxing fights on pay per view. So I always watch that. But my dad would also rent ninja movies that they spoke no English, we would just put it in and watch it and through all these ninja fight scenes as a kid I remember watching them and you know, I didn’t understand what they’re saying. But I love the action part of it. My dad would take me to local regional wrestling matches So way back in the early day got to see Dusty Rhodes and Jake the Snake before they got big, you know, like all these regional wrestling shows and then I ended up they did take me to probably five or six WWF events. As a kid too, so always was of combat sports fan, I remember being, you know, first grade me my cousin and Prosser Washington would walk like a mile to the store and we’d go get on UHF or VHS UFC one and two, and we’d watch that as kids and like first and second grade. And so just always this big fan. And then in 2012, I’m sitting around the house like man, I, I really want to get into MMA, you know, apparel side of things, tap out was huge at the time.
So I talked my wife, she came up with the name top rated MMA. And then we said, How do we make ourselves different, we launched as a 100%, American made MMA apparel company, there might have been one other company that was doing that at the time. And then we wanted to be able to give back so we reached out to Brian Stan’s organization, Brian standard used to fight the UFC, started an organization called hire heroes, USA, which helps veterans and their families transition into the workplace. Sorry, my camera just flipped off there for a second. But they help transition veterans and their families back into the workplace for free. And so we give back 20% or excuse me, 25% of all the money that I generate through affiliate links on my website, I give back to that organization. So just always been a fan. So top rated may started as a pro company. And then in 2015, I got bored with it. I literally put an ad in Craigslist and said who wants to buy this company. And one guy called me up one of the offered me 1000 bucks or 3000 bucks or something like that. But I realized in that call that I wasn’t ready to quit. And so I spent the next year just kind of barely getting by with the company and then launched in 2017 as the top rated MMA show, and now we are 238 episodes into this thing. And 100 episodes on my other podcast and humbly considered the number one MMA podcast out here in the Northwest. Oh, that’s awesome. Thank you. Like you know that that’s, that’s and so you have the apparel obviously still then you have the whole works.
Yeah. I do it all myself now. So I made a lot of business mistakes bought inventory like crazy and you know, ended up donated a bunch. But yeah, I just I do my own onesie. twosie now, yeah, well, that you have to find what works. And, and I mean, the printing industry itself for clothing has changed so much throughout the years in the last five years, especially. Totally. So everybody in the printing industry has have had to change that world of whatever that looks like. What kind of people have you had on your show?
So I talk with a lot of up and coming amateur fighters and early pro fighters because I like to get these guys that are what’s their mindset, like my initial quest, I guess when I started the podcast was why do you want to get into cage you got punched in the face? And that was my question to all of them when I started, you know. And really I’ve heard everything from I did karate and wrestling and transition MMA. Do I have a federal offense and I can’t get a real job, but I can go fight somebody and get food on my table for my kids. And so I love those stories of hearing people why they want to do that. So I have all the anyone from up and coming amateurs are the pros. I’ve been able to speak with Ken Shamrock twice. A lot of the guys that are in the UFC today have been on my show, you know, both on the Ultimate Fighter right now, Brady heinsohn. I forget now and that his opponent they’re fighting next week. They were both on my show. And so you know both of those guys, Josh Ryan houses name. But yeah, both those guys have been on my show. They’re both from here in Spokane area. And so it’s been cool to see these early fighters, then now get it into the Big Show. And so I love talking with early up and coming fighters and I talk with fighters all over the world. It’s been fun.
And they all have their stories to write.
OVERCOMING and Leaving a Legacy! Yeah, they all have their stories. So I love to ask them, you know, Hey, where did you grow up? And what was childhood like for you? You know, and a lot of times I hear that, you know, they had good childhoods. And then I hear some that are like, man, I had a horrible childhood, my parents got divorced, and they were addicted to drugs. And I got my way out of it. And now I’m changing my mindset of how to do that and how to provide for my own family. And so I love those stories. I love to you know, talk about like real fighters real stories is kind of what I talk about. And, you know, over to the entrepreneurship podcast, the same thing I asked the entrepreneurs like, why do you want to get punched in the face? Hopefully not physically. But as an entrepreneur, we get punched in the face all the time with nose rejections and failures, and how do we get through that? And so I that’s what my entrepreneurship side of stuff talks about kind of the same thing as being in the cage, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I have a very special quote that I say in most of my podcasts, and just talking about your backup plan. And do you know what Mike Tyson’s quote is, by the way, everybody feels tough until you get punched in the face or something like that. Something like that. I don’t think I don’t think I got that quote correctly, but I think it’s something very similar. like everyone’s tough until you get everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Yes. by Mike Tyson. Yeah, absolutely. Isn’t that the truth? So much so, because we, you know, with your backup plan, I do talk to some people and say, you know, I have a will, and I have some life insurance. And I have my house insurance, and I have my medical, you know, I have a plan. And I say, you don’t know you don’t have a plan until you get punched in the face. Yes. And then you realize that what I had wasn’t what I wanted, in the first place. Or that I didn’t understand what I had in the first place. Right? Yeah. So that’s what what we’re all about is me trying to help people understand what they have and what they need. Because they may not understand what they need. Just like an MMA fighting. If you don’t know that you have to fight a certain way and hold up your fists in front of yourself. You’re gonna get knocked out. Yes, it won’t take long. Right before somebody punches you. Yeah. in the wrong place. Yeah, exactly.
Yes. Right.
So, um, what kind of fun stories do you think you’ve come across that would be I mean, I always revert back to Ken Shamrock story. Cuz, you know, that guy, he’s, he’s done. Like, he got adopted as a very young kid. But he’s always want he’s always been a fighter. Right? Like, you know, having him on a show on my show and hearing his story of like, having to fight kids at the school yard that were like, you know, three, four grades older than him, you know, and getting stabbed when it was a young kid to I mean, just crazy, crazy story. And, you know, I think he broke his back or his neck at one point, you know, and then he was in the WWF.
And he was doing the UFC. And he’s, you know, I think he was on Impact Wrestling for a while, like, the way that he can, like, present himself is just the solid dude, and probably one of the nicest guys that have ever got to talk to you. And the fact that I got to talk to him twice, was just mind blowing to me, because he’s just such a great genuine guy. And what he’s got going on with valor Belden Bare Knuckle coming up soon later this year, it’s his his own promotion, Bare Knuckle fighting. I think he’s got a really solid plan for moving forward. You know, he’s just such a great, great guy. One day, I talked to Ken Shamrock. And then an hour later, I thought, I talked to Ed, my lead who’s like, my virtual mentor guy. And it was like the best day ever, I had so much information that was given to me that day, it was just unbelievable.
I find it so interesting. Because when you speak to these types of people and like yourself, there’s so much business involved in that whole mentality of strength, and focus, and being aggressive enough to get your point across and being aggressive enough in the ring to get what you want done. Yeah. Because it obviously isn’t just go in there and be a brute. There’s there’s mental technical things to it, just like hitting a ball in baseball. Yep. It’s so very interesting how business all comes out of this and how it’s formed you as, as people, just like hockey and baseball, and you know, that kind of training. So you’re very lucky to have been involved in that kind of stuff. I’m sure musicians find it that way, too. Because they have to have that mentality as well.
Yeah, you know, a lot of the overall theme, I think, when I talk with entrepreneurs and fighters is one, they got to be dedicated and committed to what they’re doing. You know that what are they doing what they’re passionate about? And are they committed to it. And for me, I wake up at 4pm, six days a week to work on my goal. You know, it doesn’t matter how late I stay up on Friday night, I’m still waking up at 4am on Saturday. And I might have to take a nap on Saturday, but I’m getting up at 4am no matter what, because I committed myself to do that. And so that allows me to get upstairs to work on editing to reach out to guests to, you know, put shows out do voiceover work and practice speaking and things like that. And so I think overall, whether you’re in the cage or you’re an entrepreneur, you have to have those that committed and dedication and keep fighting for what you’re passionate about.
Yeah. What do you think these fighters that you’ve come across? What do you think, change their lives that this is what they want to do? Is there a component that’s similar in all of them? I think all right. I think the overall theme that I’ve heard from MMA fighters come on the show is the reason they want to do that is because they want to push the limits of their body. And really, it’s like, how can we do this? Like, a lot of them, like, they love to get into the cage and just fight. And I’ve had guys say, if there’s ever a fighter that tells you they’re not scared to get in that cage, they’re lying to you. Because backstage I asked them, like, What? Where do you feel it before you walk out to a cage, knowing you’re gonna get locked into a cage? There’s a door behind you, it’s gonna shut there’s another guy or girl across the cage for me that wants to physically hurt you. Yeah, you know, what’s the mindset going into that and a lot of like, you know what, once you’ve like trained, then in, that’s what you’re passionate about. The pain, they don’t feel it during the fight. And they know 99% of the time. It’s not anything personal. It’s both of them doing their job. And you’ll see it after the fight. I love the respect that fighters have for each other. After the fight. It’s handshakes, it’s hugs, man, thank you for this. Thank you for that. They both grow stronger, win or lose. And I love that aspect of it of the fighting. Yeah, but watching them fight and getting knockout and stuff like that is fun. But I love the mutual respect that comes out of fighting.
Do you think the mental strength is the winner?
A lot of times, yes, yep. You have to be mentally stronger. And really, whoever is mentally stronger in that fight is going to win that. Absolutely. And in a fight anybody, anything can happen, right? But I think the mental, the more mental stronger person is going to win that fight.
And being involved in softball, like I was, as a softball Mom, I realize that going up to bat wasn’t all technical. I mean, it definitely is knowing the sweet spot of the bat and, and how you stand and all that fun stuff. Sure, but it’s the mental game. Yes. I played baseball for 10 years. And, you know, I coach Little League now. And it’s, it’s it is a mental battle when you get up to bat. You know, I remember being in Montana, and I was playing for the all star team up there. And there’s a kid that during the league, his name was Toto, and this guy being 13 years old, he was an Indian guy. And he threw like 80 miles an hour at 13 years old. I mean, very, very fast. One of the kids that was I went to school with got hit in the head by him. And it actually like made him go half blind, and one of his eyes and I was like, when I get up to bat against this guy, and the catcher is like, here comes a fastball, tell me exactly what’s coming. I’m shaking. I’m like, I don’t want to get beat by this guy. And I only had a bat against him two times over two seasons, and he walked me both times. And then when I made all stars, we were teammates, and he’s the nicest guy ever, but I would never want to get beaten by a hit by that guy. By pitch for that guy.
Well, the girls were funny too, because sometimes the pitchers would come up and they were twice, you know, their size. Sure. And everybody be like, Oh, God, I don’t want to get up to bat with that. You know, I hope I get locked. And it’s just such a wrong mentality to have. And you go up to bat? Absolutely. Because it’s all mind focus. And that. Who cares? Who’s pitching to you? Who cares? Yep. It’s just the ball coming at you. From whatever arm? Absolutely. Right. So I guess it’s like that in the cage. It’s whatever somebody looks like, or makes you feel intimidated? Or? I guess it’s like that in the business world, too. So there you go. Yep. Exactly. So um, now that you’re married and have kids and what is? Have you ever thought of your backup plan? Because, you know, your backup plan isn’t just for wills and life insurance. It’s you have a podcast? What do you want to have happen to your podcast? If something happened to you tomorrow?
You know, that’s a great question. Because I don’t think that I’ve planned for my podcast, what happens when I’m gone? You know, I’ve always just go, like, I’m gonna run this thing until I’m not passionate about it anymore. And, you know, if, for some reason I wasn’t here tomorrow, the podcast would go away, you know. And I hope that in the short time that I’ve been able to put out podcasts and put out shows and connect with people, and share my story, that I’m impacting one person, at least, you know, that’s a personal goal of mine. If I wake up and open my eyes, there’s when number one I jump out of bed, make a bed, there’s two wins and 15 seconds, it’s gonna be an awesome day. But then my next goal is to make sure that one person virtually or in person gets a smile on their face from me. And so if I can do that every single day, then that’s that’s the goal. But, you know, backup plans, I have the life insurance, but I didn’t think about it till I was in my early 30s. And I started have kids, and I was like, What if I wasn’t here? Yeah, damn, I better get my stuff organized. Right? Yeah. So you know, you know, I started getting smarter financially after I filed bankruptcy. And I started, you know, realizing that I do need to have that financial backup plan for my wife and my kids. If for some reason I’m not here, you know, and things like that. So yeah, I mean, I think we’re good to go on. Life backup plan, but in regards to my show, I’m gonna run it as far as I can. And if for some reason, I’m not here one day, then it’s probably because I’m not here one day.
But you see, just by me mentioning to someone like you, yeah, there’s going to be other listeners that I feel passionate about helping to that. I want you to think it’s going to come up in your mind at some point and say, Hey, you know, Tina was right. I should be thinking about who do I want to give this to? Who do I want to have continue it? You know, maybe it’s your wife, maybe it’s somebody different? Maybe? You know what, even if I was incapable, but still living, what would I want have happen? Right? To that show? Yep. Because it’s part of you. It’s part of your life. Yes. Just like your life itself. And yeah, that’s see I’ve made a change, hopefully, was somebody listening today to start thinking about their blog, their podcasts, their website, their other stream of income that they have coming in? You know, it could all disappear after they’re gone? Yes, totally. So why not? Why not have it have a plan in place? So Oh, that’s awesome. Thank you so very much. Do you have any last notes for our listeners, I just want to thank you for the opportunity and the honor to be on your show. This was amazing. You’re a great host, and people definitely need to be listened to your show.
Oh, thank you. And you’re so sweet. I I just I don’t know what to say. Thank you so very much. Um, yeah, I hope somebody you know, this is why we do our shows. This is why we get up in the morning. And this is why I find great people like you to come on our shows because you never know what’s gonna come around the corner. You don’t know who’s gonna listen to something and say, hey, that’s my life. Or maybe I should you know, that your mom’s story or, or your story about being a kid and that instance. It’s, it’s awesome. It’s, it’s an awesome enlightenment for people. So thank you very much for sharing it and being open. And having the courage to, to bring it to the forefront. Absolutely. Thank you. And so everybody, it’s that time I, I would love to talk to Eric some more. He’s, he’s so great to listen to. And he has so many great people that he’s also interviewed. So thank you so very, very much for our story today. It’s been great. If you are, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe because Eric’s notes are all down
my hand. I love that head.
That’s always going the wrong way. And down here in the corner, somewhere there, subscribe. And like and click on the bell because you have to ring my bell ring my bell, down there below. Don’t forget, I hope we’ve inspired you and motivated you guys to Eric’s story. It was fantastic, inspiring. He’s such a great, cool guy. And remember, nobody’s Superman in this world. Everybody has a story. So expect the unexpected. And if you are listening to the show right now, and you have someone in your mind, that you would like to reach out to and tell them how much you love and care about them. Please pick up that phone, send them a text, call them on FaceTime, zoom, Skype, you name it. We’ve got all the technical stuff now. Do it because you don’t know what tomorrow may bring. I hope that you can also look at start thinking about your unique plan. And I hope it’s giving you some inspiration and motivation to what Eric has told you about life and all the things that’s happened to him. And I thank you for sharing your time with us and watching and I love each and every one of you and I always end and Carol Burnett. I think you still know who Carol Burnett is right, Eric? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Carol Burnett, such a beautiful, beautiful comedian in this world. And I love I love her so dearly. I’m so glad we had this time together. Just to have a laugh or sing a song seems we just get started. And before you know it comes a time we have to say so. Long. So long, everybody. It was great having you on board with our show today. Thank you click on that bell, like, share and follow. Thank you, Eric, for coming on. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thanks so much. Bye for now. Stay safe- Be Kind!
#childhood #addictions #mma #depression #mentalhealth “For every wound there is a scar, and every scar tells a story. A story that says, I survived!”, Fr Craig Scott
Our interview on Talking Taboo with Tina and Erik Allen, will be his story of breaking those chains of divorce, abuse, complicated childhood issues, a broken home, and of course addictions. Erik has many scars but is here to tell us his story!
https://anchor.fm/yourbackupplan/episodes/OVERCOMING–LEAVING-A-LEGACY-e1571m5
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChmg7TGt9jLkGLRj0bhwNoA/videos
Let’s go Erik! You can reach Erik at: Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/ErikAllenMedia
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Website – https://www.erikallenmedia.com/
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