#6 Travis Howze - Heroic Firefighter
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Get a subscription, support the show, thank you, let's get on with it. We were all told the Superstore was on fire and we all knew that that was a horrible place to have a fire. We often referred to that as a death trap. I love you.

It's one thing when you got a dead body there that you can recognize, but when you know it's one of yours and you don't know who the fuck it is. Welcome back to the Sean Ryan Show. I want to kick things off by saying thank you for the overwhelming response we've received on Patreon since the last show. We now have over 80 videos of exclusive content for our patrons, and the live chats have been pretty cool too. Also,

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Thanks, bro. Appreciate it Roger that. See you later. And now for my next guest. He's a Marine Corps veteran, a firefighter, a police officer, a stand-up comedian, and a stand-up human, an author, and now motivational speaker. Ladies and gents, we have been looking for the perfect firefighter to bring on this show for over a year now, and we finally have found one.

He was part of the Sofa Superstore fire in Charleston, South Carolina, which is one of the deadliest fires to ever take place in the United States. He is going to tell us his story and how he moved past his inner demons. At the end of this, we have created a firefighter hat, Vigilance Elite firefighter hat, which we have for sale and are donating all of the proceeds to a firefighter charity of his choice.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Travis House. Travis House, welcome to the Sean Ryan Show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Me too. I'm excited you're here. I've been wanting to get a firefighter on for ever since I've been doing this. I've been kind of looking for someone that's a right fit, that's a firefighter. And I put a couple feelers out and it was always, they just kept sending me

this firefighter was a SEAL or this firefighter was a Marine or this. And I didn't want to focus on the veteran stuff or the mill stuff. I wanted to focus on, uh, the actual, you know, being a firefighter and, uh, because I know you guys see a lot of traumatic stuff and, and, um, I think, uh, you're another occupation that's extremely underappreciated by the general population. And, um,

So anyways, you reached out, we connected, and I think you are the perfect fit to be here. So thank you for coming. That's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me. I appreciate that. Is that a tear? Yes, it's just a little one. All right. Don't make me cry too much. No, it certainly is my pleasure to be here. I'm certainly an honor. I love what you guys do, and just to be a part of it, it means a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Well...

I did a bunch of research on you and kind of talked about that in the warm up, but you know, you got a new book out, read that, listened to your podcast. And then because I don't really know anything about being a firefighter, I did, I researched, I spent some time researching kind of a

you know, what you guys go through on the day to day type stuff and kind of the camaraderie and got as good of a feel as I think I would get by watching videos and and talking to friends. But in your background, you've had a lot of careers. Yeah. You out of high school, right out of high school, you went in the Marine Corps. Then you became a firefighter.

Then you were a police officer, firefighter again, stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, author. And then as I researched you a little bit more, I found out that you were a limousine driver. Oh, no. I was a limousine owner. A limousine owner? You didn't drive a limo? I did drive two, but—

I'll bet you had some good stories of shit that was going on in the back of that limo. So all my drivers were cops and firefighters, and I certainly have some good stories. Some stories that would make some people lose their jobs. Nice. And what I was really surprised about is I had no idea that you are a survival expert. Oh, you found that out? I did not know that. And, you know, so I want to go ahead and roll the tape of what I found. Oh, all right.

Hey, it's Travis Howells. I'm out here in the desert in Nevada. I'm a United States Marine Corps veteran, so I like to consider myself kind of a survival expert in different climates. Right now I'm going to show you just really quick how you can get water from a cactus. Just any average Joe can get water from a cactus. What you're going to do is you're going to go down to the cactus and you're going to just reach in, pull out your bottle of water,

It's perfect, man. Any of you guys can do this. Stay safe out there. Stay hydrated. Dasani. So you dug that you dug that out of the archives. I did. I did. You know, and had I not, I would still be wondering how the fuck I'm going to get water out of a cactus. You know, wind up in a desert somewhere. You know what's so funny about that video? I was doing comedy out in Laughlin, Nevada, and that was in the Grapevine Canyon. And I went out hiking one day and I was dying.

And I never really got into pumping content and all this. And I walked by this big-ass cactus. And I was thinking, man, people, you can survive off of these. And I had a bottle of water. And it was just impromptu. But what gets me is I did that video just to have fun. And the hate, if you go in the comments, these people are talking about your mother hates you. All this, like, come on, man.

Where's your sense of humor, fucker? All the keyboard commando YouTube fucking clowns. Yeah, there's some Marine you were. Like, come on. They don't teach us that shit in the Marines. We get MREs in canteens, water buffaloes with water. We don't have to go search forage for it. I mean, how low is their intelligence level to not realize that is a fucking joke?

Wait, it is a joke, right? Yeah. Look, I'm a dumb bastard. I barely got through high school, and I can understand that's a joke. So I do not understand why people can watch that and take it so seriously. But, I mean, you know. You pump content, you know. Yeah, I totally get it. But for those of you listening, you can check out his YouTube. There is a ton of...

of solid survival information on there. - Oh yeah. - That you're gonna learn a lot. - I got into that for a little while and then I got bored with it and quit doing it, man. But you know what? You might've reinvigorated me. I might need to go out and start making some survival videos again. - The naked and afraid one is-- - You saw that one too? - I saw all of them. - I forgot, man. You do research. I feel now that you were saying this, I feel like I was passing a background test for law enforcement just to get on this damn show.

But, and you know, you're a new author. And how long has your book been out? - Two months, it came out May 25th. - Right on. - Yeah. - Well, you never were into reading or writing, you said, so. - Nope. - And being a survival expert and an author, I always give everybody a gift that comes here. So I got you a little something. - What's in the box? - No peeking.

Let's see that. Let's see. Oh, sweet.

Little survival hat for you. I saw your hat the other day, and I was thinking about asking you for one, so this works out. Yeah, you know. Hey, the gummy bears. Some survival rations for you. Dude, you will never go hungry, or you'll never go without the proper calories without these. I'll keep these in my cargo pockets. Right on. And if you ever run out, you know, you can just hit the website. And there's all kinds of survival stuff on there. So if I run out of gummy bears, is it safe to ask you, do you have some? Yeah.

I got a couple. A little inside. Just a couple bags. Thank you, man. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you so much. I'll give you the box back. Everybody gives me the box back. I don't know why. I've given this box to. I can't take it on the plane. That kind of sounds weird. Let me give you my box back. I'm going to stop that conversation right now. Oh, this is cool. Thank you. And it's my color too. I'm wearing my black. And, you know, since you're a new author, I picked up a book for you.

You might want to read that. There's a really good writing style. I like that writing style that this guy used to write this book. And I know how much you like cupcakes. I love it. Did you wrap this? My wife did. Okay, I was about to say. Damn, she wrapped this in tight. Wait a second. Look at this. I got my own book for a present. Is it? I love it, man. Thank you.

Create your own light. This is awesome. Yeah. I don't even know what to say. I got my own book as a present. That was given to me by the author. And it sucks so bad you're giving it back? Well, I thought you might want to read it. This is great, man. Anyways, you can create your own light on Amazon, right? Yeah, so you can find this. That's kind of a cool surprise. Here, take it back, too. Thanks, Coach K.

Yeah, you can get it on Amazon. And it's surprisingly doing very, very well. And I say surprisingly because I wrote this book just kind of for me about all the traumatic experiences I've had and how I dealt with getting over them. I didn't expect...

to put it out there and for for to sell the way it is um but it's it's getting you know we had a conversation it's it's getting into our communities and military emergency services pretty deeply and it's getting a lot of great feedback from it so yeah appreciate the support everybody's given the book means a lot

It's a good book, and there's a lot of heart and soul in there, which is cool. I like the way you just wrote how you speak, and it's helping a lot of fucking people. And even after that, when we first spoke or messaged, I think—

You sent me the book and you were like, I don't know if you like reading or writing. I fucking hate it. And then I wound up writing a book and I was like, yeah, right. But after talking to you, I actually believe you. I fucking hate reading. It's the worst. And I hate writing. And it's actually, it's so bad that people give me something and I'm just like, I mean, I'm just, I...

I'm not going to read it, but I did. I did read that. I appreciate it. Yeah. That's it's tough. Cause people have given me books before and they're like, read my book. And I'm like, yeah, cause I don't read. Yeah. The crazy thing is that I'm a Marine and I wrote this without crayons. And I think everybody's like, well, we just got lots of pictures. Yeah. And it's like, no, there's, there's some pictures, but, uh, yeah. And the subtitles finding post-traumatic purpose. Yeah. You know, we didn't, I didn't say that. Um,

but thanks for your support. Thanks for reading it. It means a lot. My pleasure. And so, yeah, if you want to pick up the book, it's on Amazon. It also inspired me because I've been wanting to write a book and if you can do it, I can do it. So, and I mean that in a good way, but for somebody else that doesn't like to read that wrote a book, I'm like, oh, I guess it is fucking possible. So maybe I will get my ass in gear. So,

Reading that book and listening to your other podcasts, I mean, you have seen a metric fuckton of trauma in your lifetime. And a ton of it. And even without your career as a law enforcement officer and even your childhood, part of what I want to do with this podcast, I want to squash a... I guess it's not a rumor, but...

I get a ton of emails from firefighters and we kind of talked about this and it's almost like a how you measure up and the emails always start even with cops and it's I haven't fucking seen what you've seen or I can't compare to what you've seen or what you've done and I want to squash that fucking rumor right now.

I can guarantee you that you have seen a hundred times the amount of traumatic shit that I have as a firefighter. And it is every fucking day, right where you live. And, you know, one thing in the military when you're on ops and whatever, you know, we come home.

For me to go back and witness some of that stuff, I got to go to fucking Yemen. Or I got to go to Afghanistan. Or not witness, but see the locations that happen. As a firefighter or as a police officer or a whatever, a first responder, this shit's happening right in your fucking hometown. Right where you live, where your kids go to school, where your wife's going to the grocery store. And I can't even imagine how many places there are in Charleston, California,

South Carolina that you've responded to and seen traumatic shit that you have to fucking drive by every day or every week or whatever and Anyways got a little long-winded there, but I wanted to just put that out there picking up what you're putting down man It's um, no truer words and you know Like I told you no matter what background you come from whether you did 30 years in SEAL teams or you were a 20-year infantry marine army and

police officer, firefighter, this isn't a competition about who's been through more. Yeah. Unfortunately, some people do experience more than others. So I do have people that they reach out and they say, Travis, I've never experienced what you have. So I couldn't imagine. And I stop them there. I'm like, this isn't about you and me. This is just about your experiences and how you're handling your experiences with trauma and how trauma is affecting your life. Don't don't try to wear my shoes. I'm not going to try to wear yours. Yeah.

Trauma fucked me up. I was exposed to it, like you said, on a grand scale. And it was at a very early age and it just never left my life. So I've had to learn how to live and be successful with all of that going on. And it's been a hard road to hoe. Yeah. But man, I'm...

I'm in the happiest place I've ever been in my life right now. And that's what I like when I, you know, when I do these, these speeches and everything, I like to show people that no matter what is going on in your life, you too can find purpose and you, you can live a healthy and successful life again. Yeah. You just got to have the mindset to do it. Well, you're helping a, a ton of people, uh,

your book says it all like i said it's all heart and soul and uh i mean it's just awesome you know that you have found that happiness because you definitely deserve it but uh you know and and and you do that through your book and uh and your stand-up comedy and and now your motivational speaking and um anyways so now i want to dive right in uh and we're going to start with childhood but you know not just you but

your entire family on both sides is no stranger to traumatic events. And just what yesterday or the day before we were down having lunch in the kitchen and you had brought up a wallet. And we were talking about pass down items. And so, and you were worried that your daughters might not appreciate that wallet.

why don't you go ahead and tell us a story about that wallet so that wallet august 6 1944 you sean i um i've never gotten emotional talking about this i don't know why i used to i do jokes about it on stage but i guess when you're talking about the meaning of it it's a little bit different so that wallet was in my uh my grandfather's left breast pocket

And he was in the Normandy invasion. He was with the Canadian Army. That grandfather was. And they hit Juneau Beach alongside of Utah Beach and all that at the same time. I don't know what wave he was in, but he was up there in the front. From my understanding, he died when I was five. But without that wallet, I wouldn't be here. Nor would my kids wouldn't be here. So what happened was later on after that invasion, that was in June, two months later in August, wherever his unit was in Holland. And...

He took a German round to the chest and that wallet is the only reason he lived and was able to, you know, have his own family, which put me here. And I have that wallet. When you hold it up, there's a bullet hole going right through the middle of that motherfucker. And when you turn it around, you can see where the bullet changed its trajectory once it hit. And so I have that wallet with all of his war medals and everything. And it hangs on my wall underneath my medals and by my father's.

military stuff as well and I have the the original telegram that the Canadian Army sent my grandma or my great-grandmother Just says your son Earl Michaud was shot in the chest in combat Condition unknown. That's it. Oh, yeah, August 6 1944 Wow, that's all it says and it's just a reminder when I go in there and look to what what I

And not like I really need the reminder because I know, but it's just, it's, it's, it's such a special thing to me to see that and to know that my grandfather, you know, risked it all, you know, just so we could have, have a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So special. That's a, that's a hell of a pass down item, man. And I'm,

Was actually gonna say, you know if you're looking for a way to you know for that to resonate with your daughters I would just say we are did you just said it but I mean your dad wouldn't be here Was it your dad or your mom my mother your mother wouldn't be here Which means you wouldn't fucking be here, which means your daughters wouldn't be here And it's kind of crazy to think about it, you know, if it wasn't for a fucking wallet, right?

You know, wow. Well, I told you the funny part of that story. My tattoo right here, this is a big windmill, and that's one of the main symbols of Holland. My daughter's name is Holland because that's where my grandfather was shot. Damn. And these other flowers, these are poppies, my other daughter's poppy. But I used to do the joke on stage was I couldn't name my daughter Wallet because that's a dumbass name. And then I would freak out any time you saw that Capital One commercial. What's in your wallet? What's in my wallet? Holy shit.

Yeah. Well, so anyways, I wanted to bring that up. I thought that was an amazing story. And actually, I didn't realize he was in Normandy. And I actually have some beach sand from Normandy that I've been wanting to frame. I'm going to give it. I'm going to give you some of it. Oh, shit. Yeah, I'll give you some of it. Thank you, man. You know, do what you need to. I'll put it right there with this stuff. Cool. But so moving on to your childhood, you were exposed to...

some very traumatic events at a very young age. And, um, it sounds like it all kind of started with little league. Yeah. Um, I have some funny traumatic events in there when I was run over by a golf cart when I was three. And in my book, I talk about remembering very specific details and I won't, you know, I'm not going to get long winded about that, but

Trauma has a way of working its way into our brain and searing our brains like a cattle iron. You can remember very, very specific details about traumatic incidents dating back to as early as three years old for me. And I remember it

being trapped underneath a golf cart. I could tell you the names of who were there, people, I can remember specific conversations, what I was wearing, which way that golf cart was traveling, the color of the golf cart. It is insane at the things you can remember in traumatic events. - Yeah, you remember that from three years old. - Just the detail, yeah. And I put that in a book and my family and I never really talked about it. We joked about getting run over by a golf cart when I was little, but we never covered any details. And when I decided to write my book, I sat down with my mom

And I told her, you know, look, I'm going to start as early as I can remember writing about trauma. And she, she didn't think I could remember back that, that long, that long ago in my life. And I said, well, stop me if I'm wrong about the golf cart. When I got ran over, when we lived in a little trailer park, when I was growing up, she said, okay. And when I was finished telling her and my father, they were like, how do you remember that? I said, that's trauma. That's what trauma does to you. Um,

But moving on from the golf cart, so I had a normal childhood. It was great and everything, but trauma finds its way into your life sometimes. And for me, it all started when I was in Little League Baseball. One of my best friends, his father was our Little League coach. You know, I went camping with these people. I spent many, many, I spent the nights at his house, and he spent the night at my house many times. And

His dad was a tough guy, you know, and he was a hard-nosed baseball coach. Everybody wanted to play on his team kind of thing. He was a great dude, but one day my mom picks me up from school and told me that Coach had just shot my friend, his son, and then shot his wife in the face and then shot his mother-in-law in the face and turned the gun on himself and blew his brains out. And I was 11-ish around that time.

And I don't know, when you're that young, you don't really understand the magnitude of that. Fortunately, all the other folks lived. But I just remember being really confused at an early age, like how violent this world could be. And like, what do we do with that kind of information? And it wasn't long after that, that another friend of mine was shot with a high power rifle in his chest and he was killed. His cousin shot him. Yeah. Did you ever get a reason on why that happened?

While your friend's dad fucking... You know, that's their story to tell kind of thing. But I believe it all boiled down to divorce at the end of the day. And I'm very careful in that book to not put names and to try to tell my side of it because of that. Because I wouldn't want somebody trying to tell my stories. You know, these are mine. And I just, I kind of go over it and

I'll paraphrase a little bit. So then when I was 14, you know, and they say when emergency services, a lot of people that go into military emergency services come from traumatic childhoods, whether it be, there's a very high percentage, Sean, I don't know if it's, I don't know the percentage, but it's extremely high. Whether it be sexual trauma, physical trauma, mental trauma, or actually experiencing traumatic events like my case. When I was 14, I was exposed to possible sexual trauma. I ended up taking a summer job and

with a guy that owned a construction company and he was a one-man show and he hired me and i i go over this in my book as well uh into great detail on how this man would take me to these job sites it was just he and i and he would say these very derogatory things and at 14 i didn't really understand the magnitude and i couldn't grasp what he was trying to do but what he was ultimately doing was trying to earn my trust and he would say very perverted things and

He never touched me or anything like that, but I think what he was doing, I know what he was doing was trying to earn my trust. And I was fortunate he hired another kid that I knew who was 17 years old. I knew this kid very well as well. He came onto the job and it was, then it was fun, you know, but the guy was still making the comments that he would make towards me and eventually got so uncomfortable I quit. I didn't want to work for him anymore.

And literally about three weeks after I quit, the other kid, my friend, committed suicide. Fuck. And nobody knows why. And that's only left to the imagination. I think we all know now. You know? And I don't know, man. And that was when I was 14. And I'd already experienced all of that. Yeah. And so this is becoming normal in my life now. Yeah. And so when I'm 15, I start hanging around the fire stations.

And I get brought into this brotherhood. I experience it, you know, because our middle school is right across the street from the firehouse. And I would often find myself in between bells running over just to have a conversation with the firemen. And I ended up knowing these firemen, getting to know them. I actually loved them because...

they would start breaking my balls when I'm in middle school and we're just having a good time. And I saw this family atmosphere that they had and I had a great home. I had a great family atmosphere. So it wasn't like I was looking for that because I didn't have it. I just saw these grown men fucking off at work and getting paid to do it and having a good time. And I was just drawn to it. Um, so at 15, I started hanging around there during the summers, you know, and, um, July 9th, 1993 is a date that I'll never forget. Um,

Because I was hanging out at the fire station during the summer, and this firefighter, Ronnie Bergen, runs out and says, hey, kid, you want to go on a call? I was like, yeah. Fuck yeah, I want to go on a call. Every kid wants to ride a fire truck, right? Yeah. That doesn't happen anymore because of laws and everything's in place to...

You know, cover your ass. But back then it was very loose. So I hop on the truck with Ronnie. All I knew is that we were going to a motor vehicle accident. But what I didn't realize is that was my very first call going to. And I can remember all the details because that very first call was also to the death of another firefighter. Yeah. Well, what was it like when you got on scene there? It was horrible, man. And it was something I wasn't prepared to see at 15 years old. His name was Sammy Singleton. He was...

He's also a Marine Corps veteran, and he was a brand-new firefighter, and he worked for the city next to us, and I didn't know him personally. But when I got there, what happened is there was a line of cars because there was a traffic accident ahead on a little two-lane bridge going from Beaufort, South Carolina, over to Bluffton, South Carolina. And Sammy was the last in line. He had just finished his shift, and he was coming home from work, and there was a hump in the bridge for a boat channel underneath.

And Sammy was on one side of that hump in a concrete truck, mixer truck was barreling down on them and couldn't see him. And when he came over that hump, he couldn't stop in time and he drove right over the back of Sammy's car. And his car was literally when we got there, we had to get on our knees and crawl to see it underneath. It was like it not only just drove over the top of it, but it's like it sucked it up into the frame. It was weird. And initially right away, we didn't know that it was a firefighter.

But they soon found out when they were able to pull that car free. And I was standing closer to me, about halfway from me to you, away from it the whole time while these guys were trying to get Sammy out of this car. And he was a complete mess. He was something I can't even describe, man. Yeah. And at 15 years old, when they all start passing the word that this is a firefighter, you felt this heaviness just come over the top of you. Yeah.

And you could see it affect these men, these grown men. These were men amongst men. And you could see the effect that it had on them. And I immediately had that same feeling they had. It was just heavy. And you think, you know, you're like, these are firemen. They're here to protect people. And they're out here getting killed like this. And I remember that ride back to the firehouse. It was very somber. We didn't say a word.

And I could see Ronnie's dead now, but I could see his face still driving down the road, just staring. He had this blank stare on his face. And at 15, I was trying to just understand this thing. Yeah. You know, I'm not trying to make you revisit every fucking thing that happened to you in your childhood, but I really wanted to kind of bring out, you know, how early the traumatic events started because it's such a big part of your story. And...

I also want to bring up the fact that, you know, all the shit that's going on nowadays and everybody's got a fucking excuse on why they're not successful or they can't fucking do this and they can't do that. I had a rough childhood. Shut the fuck up. You know, you're a living example of...

you didn't you grew up poor correct and there's and just 11 to 15 years old you've seen more trauma than most people will ever see in their entire life so uh you know if you can't make it happen that's on you you come up with all the excuses in the world you can think of but right here is a living example

of somebody who's dealt with traumatic events from a very early age and you're doing fucking great now.

So I wanted to kind of highlight that and put that message out there. Well, thank you. But yeah, I talk about that extensively. You know, everybody wants to wants to point the finger, but nobody wants to turn that finger around and point him at themselves. Yeah. And, you know, you always hear is you can do whatever you want, but it is there's no truer words. We we are our worst fucking enemy. Once we get inside of our own head.

That's the worst thing we can do. Anything is absolutely possible. And even after I hit the complete rock bottom, this is just scratching the surface of the stuff that I've had to go through that fucked me up later in life. And I was able to somehow turn it all around. Yeah. And, uh, and, uh, you know, fucking losers are great at finding excuses on why they're a fucking loser rather than putting the time in to figure out how to not be a loser. And, uh,

So anyways, I just wanted to bring that up and move forward now. So another thing that I kind of noticed, and I think me and you are very similar in this aspect, but going through your story, I kind of picked some things out. You were labeled class clown in middle school.

and in high school. And it kind of sounds like you didn't really appreciate, uh, that label. And in order to prove something, you joined the Marine Corps at, was it 17 years old, 18 years old, right out of high school, you're running the Marine Corps. Yeah. And, uh,

So is that, is that why you joined the Marine Corps? Uh, that has a little bit to do with it actually. I mean, it has a lot to do with it, but also grew up right across from Marine Corps bootcamp, Paris Island. And we played little league football over there and we would see those recruits getting smoked by those drill instructors. And I was always like drawn to that, not to mention a watch full metal jacket, like three or 400 fucking times. And I was like, I gotta do this. I gotta do it. Um, yeah. So I got, when I got class clown in eighth grade, I was like, all right, this is great. This is cool. And so, uh,

Was always a very fun outgoing person and that certainly carried on through high school and I became the class clown in high school But my father wasn't too happy with that. No, he was like, you know, this is this is what you do with our family name What are you gonna be a fucking comedian and lo and behold? All right But you know, yeah to try to show my father I was you know, I had I was I

Kind of a man and I could be I could be a man if I needed to be I joined the United States Marine Corps No, no, and I I had something to prove to myself. I had something to prove to him certainly Not that that he asked me to but I felt this burning desire inside You know is my father's son to show him that I'm worthy of carrying that title and I'm gonna make him fucking proud So yeah, how'd that feel when you finally did fucking amazing? Yeah, yeah, is it very proud?

Yeah, I think he's always been proud of me, man. It's just that's but that was certainly a special moment. My father's not one of those to wear his feelings on his sleeves, you know. Yeah. But yeah, he was certainly proud. Well, that's awesome. You know, would you say it played, you know, I mean, it definitely played a role in you joining. But then again, going through your book, I saw kind of like the same kind of thing.

maybe in the same wheelhouse happened again at your fire station when you wanted to do a comedy skit in front of everybody. And your friend Rob basically told you, you fucking blow, get the fuck out of here. And you took that to heart. And I'll be damned, you're doing stand-up comedy with fucking...

People like Kevin Hart. And and so anyways, I just I have that drive to and sometimes people's perception of me is what drives me when somebody says I can't do something. And it seems like you're the exact same way. Tell me I can't do something. Fuck you. Watch this. Yeah, I don't care how long it takes. Hold my beer. Motherfucker. We'll fucking get it done. It's getting done. Yeah.

And you do get it done, which is fucking awesome. There's no other way. Yep. It's a great feeling. That's fucking phenomenal. To prove people wrong like that. But so I don't want to go too much into your career as a Marine because your firefighting career is what really shines and stands out when it comes to all the different

services you've served in. And so leaving the Marine Corps, you walked right into being a firefighter, correct? Yeah, man, I got out of that. So I did four years Marine Corps infantry and then I got out in 2000 and I was always intrigued by police as well. I wanted to, I wanted to be a police officer, but I also wanted to be a fireman. And I went back to my hometown when I got out of the Marine Corps and I

Went to talk with my buddy who was on the job there, and he walked me into the chief's office, and the chief remembered me from hanging around. My nickname was Scrotum back in the day. So when I walked in, my friend said, you remember Travis? He's like, yeah, Scrotum, come on in. So it's like, oh, shit, man. Firehouse is a ball-busting-ass place. I have no idea. I never pulled my balls out. I don't know why they called me Scrotum. That's just the name that stuck.

So I was, I was known as scrotum. Uh, so he pretty much, you know, we, we had a conversation and he told me that, uh, you know, he, he had an opening and he'd like to send me to the fire Academy and everything. So that's what happened. I went to eight week fire Academy and I was on the job. I was doing it. Can you kind of, uh, I am not familiar, you know, uh, with the life of a firefighter. So can you kind of walk us through, I wouldn't say like a typical day, but, um, you know,

What's it like when you're, you know, with the boys? And I know you guys are super fucking tight. It's a brotherhood. And at least while you're in and we'll talk about that later. But, you know, can you kind of go through the feeling of when you get that call and you're at the firehouse and and, you know, it's it's something fucking real. It's it's going to be dangerous. You're going to see some some horrific stuff.

And when does that adrenaline kind of start kicking in and what's the feeling and kind of walk us through what that's like? All right, so when you typical morning when you come in at 7, 8 o'clock, you just never know what the, you know, you're on for a 24-hour shift. You never know what the day is going to bring you. As a young guy, of course, you want all the action. We all sign up to do these jobs because we want the adrenaline rushes, but over a long lengthy career.

Those adrenaline, what we call them adrenaline dumps, it's the rush of getting that hit of adrenaline. And then the call turns out to be nothing. And then it goes back down, you know, and you just you ride the highs and lows through a career. And that's what that kills a lot of people over the years, man, heart disease and gives them heart attacks. I mean, it will fuck you up. It rewires your entire fucking brain having that many adrenaline dumps. Yes, it's fucking crazy. I paint I do. I talk about a scenario one call or one day on the job where, you know,

we have multiple calls throughout the day but all of a sudden i remember one night in in my bed and uh we're asleep and you get rocked you get up you jump on the rig you're going to a hot call that you think is hot and dispatch calls says you're not needed so you're like you turn around you go back to the firehouse you back the truck in your heart rate's 190 000 beats a minute you get back in your bed you're trying to go to sleep you can't go to sleep and then you go off you finally drift off to sleep and bam you get hit again

And you're back in the truck and you're hauling ass. And it turns out to be another alarm or a call that you're not needed on. So you come back to the house. Now it's 2 o'clock in the morning. You get back in the bed. After about another hour, you finally doze off to sleep. Bam! You get hit again. This is a real call that we went on. This is an exact scenario that's in my book. It was 2-something in the morning, Christmas Eve, and we're going to a fatal vehicle wreck. We didn't know it was fatal at the time.

we pull up on scene a truck had went off the road flew through a telephone pole it was upside down there's a guy sitting next to the bumper just sitting there talking to himself there's beer cans everywhere and the song every rose has its thorn is on by poison and i would never forget that because every time i hear that song i can instantly smell this call and the reason i say smell it

is I smell the grass that they hit and threw it, it flung mud everywhere. And then I smell the alcohol and the man's breath that I had to crawl up underneath some live hot power lines to pull him out from underneath. They were about two feet off the ground and my lieutenant's yelling at me to get back. And I just went, I had tunnel vision, I just saw

a man that needed my help and I went to get him. And he had agonal breathing, all of his teeth are busted out. He has massive facial trauma. And my face is really close to his because I'm having to do a low profile drag to pull him out. And I can smell the beer emanating from his breath. So just from hearing that song, it takes me right back to that. And man, he expired right there, pissed his pants and died. So it's stuff like that. And then when you get done with that call as a firefighter,

Firemen we don't talk about this stuff. Yeah, we don't we bury it. We go back to the house You just fucking deal with it. Yeah, we gotta go get we gotta go make breakfast now Yeah, that's a typical day or you can show up and nothing happened and you're waiting all day and you're anticipating us Where's it at? Where's that? Where's the call? Where's the call and nothing ever happens? I mean, is it a good feeling?

When nothing happens? No, when something's happening, is it a good feeling? Man, so I've never done drug. I smoked marijuana twice in my whole life. But I would have to, from what I've heard about crack cocaine, I would think it's that kind of high. It's an immediate rush. And you just can't get there fast enough. And what you have to be careful of, it's the tunnel vision, like I said, because that's what gets people hurt. You've got to keep an open mind frame or mindset.

And but your world gets very narrow real quick because you're seeing this emergency call the whole way, the approach to it when you get there. And afterwards, all that goes away. That euphoric feeling that that high that you experience goes away. Do you crave it? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm trying to put myself in your guys's shoes and like.

I wasn't planning on talking about tunnel vision, but you know, it does fucking kill people. And, uh, and, uh, I never really thought about tunnel vision and, uh, and EMS or fire service capacity, but, you know, even being in a fucking gunfight, you know, if you have to be able to come off of your gun, look around, see what the fuck is going on around you. Um, and a lot of guys, um,

especially that aren't in SOF, they get that tunnel vision and it's, they're focused in on one threat that's shooting at them and they don't see the 50 other threats, you know, that are in buildings. And so I can totally relate. I know it can be hard to, you know, come off the immediate task and get a better understanding and some situational awareness of what everything, what else is going on in the big picture.

The fog of war on emergency scene is the exact same. You know, it's like you said, everybody's focusing on the burning building in front of them. But what they're not looking at is the fucking power lines that the pole is also burning. And now that high power line is about to fall and land in a puddle of water because we all have water. And whoever's standing there is about to get lit the fuck up. I mean, it's stuff like that. It's the cars passing by on the street.

looking at the fire and that you're not watching the cars and the fucking dumb ass driving the car is rubbernecking and runs over a fireman. Don't think that shit doesn't happen. It happens all the time. Yeah. You know, and it's shit like that. So you have to be able to see the whole picture. What's it like in the truck on the way to the call? Um, I try to put myself in those shoes and, uh, that, uh, for me was almost maybe even, uh, more cause it's the anticipation of you, uh,

getting ready to do whatever you're going to do. And I, uh, I feel like it might be kind of similar to like us when we're in a helicopter and we're on the way to a fucking target. Um, you know, and then you get that five minutes out, you get that one minute out, 30 seconds out. And every time hack, it's just like shit. Like it's fucking going down and 30 seconds. And then you're on the ground and, uh, and, and, uh,

Sometimes things kind of, I don't want to say slow down, but you don't have fucking time to be nervous anymore. Now it's all performance. And the preparation, the mental preparation that you're giving yourself in the helo on the way to the target. What are you guys doing in the fire truck? You get in the fire truck.

When do you find out what the fuck you're responding to? So that's the million-dollar question, right? So what we're going off of, we're going off of information relayed from someone who's on scene with no emergency training, relaying that to a dispatcher who has emergency training, who in turn tries to paint a picture to us. We've been on tons of calls, and it's never like you think it is. It's usually more fucked up than you can imagine. So it's eerily quiet on the way to calls. You hear the...

We're not all high-fiving and dancing in the back of the thing. We're all getting into our assignment mode, depending on what position I'm riding in the rig, if I'm a roof guy, if I'm a vent guy. You're listening to that call, trying to what we call scene size up.

Normally the incident commander, whoever that is, the first arriving unit, tries to do a scene size up and paint you a beautiful picture of what's going on. Because now that is boots on the ground for us. That is the trained personnel, the professional who's been there, done it. And now they can paint you a Picasso of what the fuck you're coming into.

And usually you're right, you're literally right behind them and right on top of them. So you only have like a few seconds to process that information. So if I hear, you know, we have a fully involved structure, fire vented through the roof, I know, okay, I'm a vent guy on a ladder truck. We're the guys that go on the roof and cut the holes. That's out the window right now.

We don't need to do that. Put the saws up. But if you hear 25% involvement, we got people trapped. Now you're thinking, okay, instead of vent mode, I might have to go into search and rescue mode because that's what we guys on the trucks do. I'm a truck guy. We call it a truckie. And we talked about that last night. Engine company guys, they carry the hose, right? And they go in and put the fire out with water.

The truck guys, we do search and rescue and ventilation operations where we try to expel all the toxic fumes and the superheated gases from a structure. And we try to get that out to take a little pressure off the guys with the hose company that goes in to put the fire out. So there can be multiple different assignments you're going into, and it's just very chaotic when you're getting there. So everybody's usually quiet, and then when we get there, we just figure it out and we go, and it's game time.

So you're doing as much mission planning as you can on the way there? With the information that you're providing. Yeah. And you said usually it's more fucked up? Yeah, because you're going off of...

you know, information that's relayed to you by untrained professionals and they don't know really what to look for. Yeah. And be in the civilians, you know, and when you get there, it's there's usually 100 other fucking things going on. Shit. Then that that they're not saying I'm talking on a really, really good hot call. Not every single call.

Um, they just don't do a great job at painting the picture for us when it comes through dispatcher. All we know is, Hey, we got it. We got a fire. Um, that that's all we know right now. But when you get there, you find out there's more to it. And as a, it's a fucking fire. And on the backside, there's a pool, you know, and that's a threat to firemen because you can fucking drown. And that's part of that tunnel vision that I'm talking about. You're running around the back of a house, not paying attention to your asses in the bottom of the fucking pool, carrying all this gear. Yeah. You know, um,

Well, what's the first major fire that you responded to? Hmm. Been to a lot of them. I don't, yes. Not June 18th, 2007. Pick any other one, but, you know, preferably like the first major fire. I want to know, like, you know. I got it. What was the call? Did you think it was serious? And what was it like when you were...

in the fucking truck and you finally see the smoke of where you're getting ready to respond to. Does that amp you up? Yeah, certainly. The first one was a two-story house. It was an older house, probably built in the 1800s sometime around there.

We caught the call and as soon as we left the station, we got maybe a mile down the road you could see the smoke. And it was just big black smoke. This isn't white smoke like somebody burning yard debris. This is everything in the fucking world is on fire kind of smoke. And it's pushing. It's got velocity behind it, which means you've got a big raging fire that's pumping that thing. When we pull up,

It was eating the ass off of the back of this house. I mean, half of the back half of the house was fully involved. And so we start flaking hose out and we run up to the front door. And this is, I'm brand new. This is going to be my first interior attack. And I hit my knees. I'm going to put my mask on and I'm reaching out for the door just to kind of push it open to get it ahead of us. And literally as I'm reaching out for the door, the rest of the house, the flames just instantly moved forward and just what we call flashed.

when everything reaches its combustible limit at one time and it just completely out the front door out the windows and right over our heads and we're under this old time and porch and we have the hose line we're like oh now so now we have to back up there's no going into this house yeah like the whole thing's on fire now right so we back up this is the first department i worked for my hometown department which is a small department we were severely

We were very small. We only had three stations. So you didn't have a lot of manpower when stuff like this happened. And I just remember that was my first experience getting up

on top of a fire, like that close to a big, big fire. And the amount of heat that it puts off, it's overwhelming. I mean, it backed us out of there so fast. And then we were doing what we call a defensive attack and we started pulling bigger hose lines and we had to fight it from the outside. We didn't even get to get inside on that one. Yeah. Scale of one to ten, you pull up to something like that. What's your adrenaline at? Twelve. Twelve? If not higher. Yeah. Yeah. It's thumping, man. It gets fucking serious real fast. Real fast, yeah.

The problem is I think as a young guy you don't really understand the element of danger that's there. Yeah, you don't take it seriously and

I mean, you do some, you get pretty close to this thing. You hang out in places you shouldn't be hanging out in, like I'm saying. When that fire's getting out of that whole house and licking the top of the porch, this two-story porch that's over the top of you, that amount of fire, fire doubles in size every, forgive me, I know some people are going to correct me, but every like 90 seconds or something like that, fire doubles in size. And I'm not looking for statistics here, I'm just saying.

So we probably hung out under that porch play environment a little too long. Like, oh, yeah, you motherfucker. You know, you're getting after it. Like, this is what we do until it's like, hey, this shit's getting serious. We need to back up. But any time that porch could fall on top of you and kill you. Yeah. But when you're a young man, you're just getting after it. Yeah. It doesn't seem real. It seems, again, it seems very similar. You know? Yeah. You want to fucking work. That's what you train, you know, even in the teams at the agency. You know, if you're in...

a fucking gunfight, um, it sounds weird, but there's nowhere else you would rather be than right there in a fucking gunfight. And, uh, and going through your book and, uh, and, and, and listening to your content and talking to other guys, it seems like that's, uh, the exact same thing with firefighters, uh, is, is, is someone like me in a gunfight. It's,

firefighters fucking fighting fire. Like it's dangerous as fuck. You wouldn't want to be anywhere else with anyone else. And, uh, you know, you're with your fucking brothers who eventually become your family. And, uh, it's time to get some, it's time to get some, the sum is different, but it's time to get some. Yeah. That's all it is.

But you said, so is that just the younger guys that are newer or does that kind of wear off? It wears off as you get older and certainly as you start to experience a lot of the things that I started to experience later in my career because you realize just how real it is and how fucking deadly it is and how it can just change everybody's life. It's not just you. It's the people's houses. It's burning. It affects everybody, the community. It fucks people up, man. Yeah. And it's...

It's it's fun because that's what you get paid to do. And like you said you don't want to be anywhere else because that is your job That's what you sign the fuck up to do But as we get older and mature and you go through like I say the things we went through You're still there to do the job, but you just don't wish it anymore Well, we would sit around wishing and hoping for fires. Yeah after my fucking friend all my friends were killed I never wished for another fire again. Yeah, I was like if it happens I

We go and we do our job. Yeah. But I'm not coming to work all motivated, man. I hope we fucking catch one today. Yeah. I hope we fucking don't because I don't want to be looking at my dead friends' burnt bodies and looking at their faces burn off of their fucking skulls. I don't want to do that again. Yeah. But if I have to, I will. I got another question. So in combat, if somebody's killed in the line of duty,

there's an instantaneous feeling of you want to get fucking revenge and you want to go after the people that fucking killed your brother or your friend, your fucking teammate. And, you know, a lot of times it doesn't happen immediately and you have to wait. But and it might be a completely different

It might be a completely different fucking organization, you know, but you get that. Sometimes you get that feeling of like, yeah, fuck you. You got you got mine and now I'm going to fucking get yours. But you guys don't. I mean, when you lose somebody, where does that where does that rage go?

There's no get back. That's what I'm getting at. There is no get back. And it's unless somebody intentionally set a fire that killed your guys, then it's like, all right, let's go. Let's hunt this motherfucker. But then realistically, we're not in war. Yeah. We're going to be held accountable for our actions if we go.

Grab this motherfucker and kill him and anybody he fucking loves. Of course, we would have that mindset. But unfortunately, there's consequences to those actions. I guess what I'm getting at is where's the energy go? You know, it goes into a bottle and you drink it down. And it goes into this place inside of you that you try to bury it. There's no satisfaction. It's just all why, why, why, constant why's.

And it's the stacking effect of trauma. All this other trauma that you experienced stacks up. And now you take that and you put that on top of the pile too. Yeah. There's nothing you can do with it because it just keeps stacking up. Yeah. And it fucks you up over time. Yeah. I mean, I just, yeah, I was just, you know, it, it, it never leaves, you know, me. I mean, it never leaves, but you do sometimes get that sense of like, I don't know what the fuck you call it, but.

it's definitely not closure, but, um, you know, you, you, it's always with you, but you get that, I don't know, retribution maybe is the fucking word that I'm looking for. But I mean, you, you just, you guys are never going to feel that. I can't imagine you would ever, there would ever be a scenario where you're like, fuck it. You know what? Like you can't, it's a fuck. It's a thing. It's a fire. You can never make it right. And, um, I mean, that's, uh, that's, that's,

That's fucking tough to deal with. And, but I just wanted to hear, you know, from somebody that's been there. Well, we try to find, you try to find outlets, you know, like anybody, how to, how do you manage all of this stuff? And, you know, guys work out and we find hobbies and all of that. But over time, as you know, someone who's experienced this stuff, it ultimately eats all of that away. Yeah. I tell people PTSD will kill you and everything you fucking love. Yeah. Not instantly. It's a slow death.

But it'll eventually consume you and everybody too. Well, you can't get rid of it, but you can learn to live with it and still be an effective and contributing member of society. So how long were you a firefighter the first go around? First time I was a firefighter, it was three years. Three years? Yep. Three years and you decided you wanted to change your pace? Yes.

It kind of just happened. I didn't really decide it. I had a great, great career going. I was having a lot of fun doing what I love to do. By this time, I had switched fire departments. I went from the small town I grew up in to Charleston, South Carolina, which isn't a metropolitan area like New York or Chicago, but Charleston is a very old city, and there was a lot of fires back then. So we were getting more action than you could have hoped for as a young fireman. I was living the life I wanted.

And one day I was at the gym and a cop walks in and he starts bragging about being a police officer. And I was always a little curious anyway because, you know, they say cops and firefighters all have one thing in common. They both want to be firemen, right? I've heard that. You heard that? And I was the opposite. I was always really curious about being a police officer too. But I couldn't do both because of the schedule. So...

Somehow this guy talked me into doing a ride along with him. Are there people that do both? Yeah, there are. There are some that they're able to figure it out. Holy shit. But there's not many of them. Usually one or the other. Because the schedules are so stringent and they overlap too much. So I...

At the gym I was working at part-time, this cop starts bragging about being a cop and how much fun they have. And he was in the city of North Charleston, which is obviously just north of us. And it was a very violent city back then. It was fifth most violent city in the nation per capita. And the things he would tell me, I was like, man, there's no way. He said, come do a ride-along with me. And I did a ride-along, and it was over. I had it.

It's no different than if the SEALs took you for a ride alone. Or they're like, hey, or go sit on the ship in the galley. And you want to do that? You want to do this? Yeah. And it was another level of emergency services, just a side I never got to see. And I had to do it. I've always been a guy, if something interests me, I have to try it. I cannot live with the fact that I didn't try something I wanted to do.

You do, just going back, you do realize 99.9% of the fucking population would rather sit on their ass in the galley and fucking get fat. I do. Okay. I know that now. And I am with that 99%. Because of what I know about law enforcement, there's a reason why I'm like, yeah, I'd rather do that. And I support the fuck out of cops. There ain't no way in hell I'd ever do it again. Yeah. So, yeah, I gave it a go.

Sorry to interrupt you, but yeah, so you talk about kind of your career as law enforcement and you brought to light something else where you had, you were on the ground, you were getting your face beat in, then you went to a domestic call and then

You went to, uh, there was like a fucking dog disturbance or something, which was nothing. And you were trying to, and you did a very good job, paint the picture of, I'm fighting for my life in the middle of the fucking street. Somebody's beating your face and trying to kill you to a domestic violence call to, uh,

little old lady or whoever the hell it was that just was complaining about a dog Yeah, and you know you had to one you just about lost your fucking life in the middle of the street and and and How long was it until you have to listen to somebody bitch about a fucking noise complaint? minutes minutes, yeah before they call and complain to a supervisor and

Wow. So that's that's that's that's that's fucking impossible to switch that off. It's physically fucking impossible. You imagine going from like two gunfights and having to go play patty cake with a motherfucker, the mindset you're in. No. When it's time for patty cake. No, I can't.

That's what it's like. This is like being a cop. You're literally in a fight for your life. I got a guy on top of me beating me senseless, trying to take my weapon. He had it halfway out. Had it not been for another police officer, I would have died right there in that parking lot that night. And he told us he was going to blow my brains out with my weapon because he was going back to prison, all because I found cocaine on him. I didn't know this man. I didn't know who he was. I didn't know what he was capable of doing. He sucker punched me.

My knees got weak when that happens. I mean, I'm human and I fall down and before I could get up, he's on top of me, ground and pound. And he's, he's striking me in the face and I'm guarding my face. And next thing I know is I feel my whole left side or excuse me, my right side where I carry my weapon being pulled up. And what I'm trying to do is block his blows with one hand so I can stay conscious, stay in the fight and keep him from ripping my weapon off of my body with the other hand. And, uh, in good fortune that night, um,

My old training officer was literally right around the corner and he saved me. He beat the shit out of that guy, got him off of me, and we were able to get him under arrest. And within five, ten minutes, I'm on another call, going to a disturbance call or a domestic dispute call. And then when you get there, guy's clearly beat a woman. He needs to go to jail. You start locking him up. Now you're fighting the fucking wife because now you're locking her husband up. She's the one that called. Now you're fighting her. You don't have the handcuffs on him. Now he's fighting you.

And you're in the fight for your life again. Like you, now you don't want to go back to where you were. I don't want to be on my back. I'm fighting two people. I don't want anybody on top of me striking me. You finally get them both subdued because your backup arrives again in the nick of time. And they go to jail. And then a few minutes later, you're at a barking dog call. There's no time for decompression. It's a call to call to call. And pardon me if my

Fucking tone is a little off when I'm talking to you about your barking dog. Yeah, but I almost just got killed twice Yeah, and I'm not in the mood for this shit. Sorry. I didn't put my kid gloves on. Yeah, and then Before you know it you're in a supervisors office dancing on the carpet trying to explain your actions because your tone was Inappropriate. Yeah, why are you calling me for this fucking barking dog? You know me? Yeah, and when they start talking about defund the police initially, I thought it was a bad thing But you know what?

Defund them and let other people come civilians take those barking dog calls Because you don't need to be sending people that are damn near getting your faces beat in sending them to that call Yeah, that's insane. I'm with you on that You know, it's it's just in today's society. It's it's so fucking easy for people to judge and tell you how to do your fucking job and You know

Sit behind a fucking desk and, you know, cause a fucking scene when they've never taken one step in those shoes. I like that saying, people sleep peacefully at night because men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. Yeah. And it's an awesome saying because...

There are people out there who are doing violence, who are in harm's way constantly so people can live these comfortable, judgmental lives. They've never even seen a bloody fucking nose. And they're telling you how somebody should be doing something. Fuck off. Yeah, it's a fucking disgrace. But back to defunding the police, I was 100% against it too. And...

Then I thought about it and I actually had kind of the same opinion that you had. They shouldn't be responding to a fucking barking dog or a noise complaint. And unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, there always has to be fucking compromise. And if half the population is fucking pissed...

you know, about something and the other half isn't. I mean, I think there is definitely a way to fucking compromise and that would be the perfect thing because I don't think cops should be doing that anyways. And, oh, you want the fucking police to fund it? Here we go. You know, no more speeding tickets.

You know, they have fucking cameras that can do that shit. We can put a fucking camera at a red light. And then, you know what, that alleviates probably, I don't know how much, but I'm going to say, what, maybe 75% of interactions between police and, you know, the community's citizens. But then you put a camera at a red light and you put a fucking speed trap out and then everybody fucking bitches because...

It's, you know what I mean? Because, oh, that's a fucking hidden camera. That's illegal. You can't do that. And it's like, well, what the fuck do you want? You know, here we are. We just, that's a defund, right? Now we don't have to have guys on the street writing fucking speeding tickets. I'd rather just speed everywhere and get my picture taken and mail the check in. But, you know, it's, it's, people are going to fucking whine and moan no matter what, you know, is done. But,

It's never enough. And this is that coddled ass society that we live in. We have too much. Yeah. And it's just never enough. And people just want to complain until they take it all from us and strip it from us. And then they'll want to go back to the way it used to be. Yeah. So. Well, hopefully it's not coming to that. I hope not. But yeah. So it's impossible to flip that switch and go from.

I was getting ready to be murdered in the middle of the fucking street to now, can you please, can you please, you know... Put your puppy away? Yeah, put your puppy away. You're disturbing the neighbor. Put that fucking dog away! But you actually ran into...

what year was it this was 2003 to 2005 correct police officer and um and there were a lot of politics going on back then and uh you actually got fired i did from the police department best thing ever happened to me i realize that now as an old wiser man yeah not old older

Yeah, I got you know, I've never experienced a political machine before because the fire department wasn't like that when I was on the job I've heard stories now. It's a little bit more political but When I was there was just so much fun to be there But man when I transitioned from fire department where we just fucked off every single day played pranks on each other then you go to the police department and you're doing your job and you're getting in trouble for it and you get investigated for it and you get cleared for it and you still have to explain things and

It it's like no other world I can I can explain only police officers will understand what the fuck i'm talking about right now where you wake up every day And you're worried about all right Am I getting fired today? Because of something I said yesterday Something I did yesterday when I know I did the right thing. It's a matter of how you're portrayed. Um

We were very aggressive back then and not overly aggressive. We weren't violating rights and all that shit. That's not what I'm talking about. We were proactive police officers. So we went out looking for the bad guy.

And where I worked back then, there was a lot of bad guys running around. And the problem is when you interact with bad guys, they're not fucking nice to you. They're not polite to you. They try to kill you, case in point, the last conversation. You get in fights with men with guns. You know what that's like. A lot of people don't understand what that's like to have physically be in a fight with a man that has a gun. And if he gets to that gun, he's going to kill you with it. So, yeah, sometimes you throw him down a little fucking harder than...

Society would have liked you to his head bounced off the fucking concrete my bad I can't apologize for that man was gonna fucking shoot me I had to explain myself all the time and I get my chase a guy down one one afternoon He was in a stolen car. He had a stolen handgun. He had a lot of crack cocaine on him We got into a fight in a parking lot his handgun falls on the onto the concrete and I had a decision to make he was reaching for it I could have shot him I would've been justified all day and

but I didn't I holstered up and went went toe-to-toe with the man and ended up getting police officer of the month for this right and the reason I tell you this is because just a couple of months later same exact scenario happens and I'm getting fucking reprimanded for it nothing changed it's just optics I know what it looked like so I ended up what I got fired for was just something completely it was just complete bullshit I get pulled up into the deputy chief's office with my captain and the deputy chief and

And they asked if everything was okay. And I said, yes. And they said, well, you're getting into a lot of stuff out here. We just needed to check. And we want to bring the noise level down with you a little bit. So just answer your calls from here on out. And as 20, 25, 26 year old police officer, them telling you to just answer your calls and not go be proactive. It's kind of a slap in the face. That had to be demoralizing. It'd be like they taking you off of an operational unit and putting you behind a desk. That's about how it would feel.

So I walk out of there with the mindset of like, yeah, whatever, fuck y'all. And then literally 20 minutes, I'm in a goddamn fight in an alley with a guy who just tried to bail out of a car on me. And another officer found drug evidence in a car. And before I knew it,

I was getting fired for asking this officer supposedly to lie for me about where we found the drug evidence in the car. And that's another long story, but it never happened. And I was able to prove that eight years later and have that overturned. It's not like I was charged for anything, but I got fired because I was just making too much noise and I didn't listen to the higher-ups when they told me, hey, slow down. So they did. They had reason to get rid of me. What are the fucking repercussions of you...

fighting real crime? Why is that a fucking bad thing for a police department? Is the... And I hear this shit all the time. Is the brass at a police department just a bunch of fucking pussies? Or what is the fucking issue? Long and short, yeah. What happens is the brass comes up doing exactly the same things these junior officers did and now they're in positions of power. Not saying they're abusing that power, but they're in positions now where their jobs are secure and they don't want to lose their pension, their career. So now they have to

Pretty much tell other officers when they know you're doing a great job to stop doing a fucking great job. And it sucks because the city, honestly, I know I talk about this in my book where I know teams that would get into too much trouble. So what they would do is they just go sit at the Waffle House for 10 hours, their entire fucking shift, and they would only go take their calls. And in the meantime, there's crime going on everywhere.

And these officers are not in these communities. They were like fuck that we're not losing our jobs Y'all want us to be quiet? We'll be quiet and that's the result and you see it happening right now All these crime waves that are going on in cities cops are like fuck it We're not being proactive because we're going to lose our jobs. We're going to get murdered in the process Anyway, yeah, there's no point in it. No, and that's the political side of the police department that I hated It's we did a great job What what it boils down to is your supervisors are doing so much paperwork on you

And they have to do interdepartmentals. They have to justify everything you're doing on every call. And that gets old, too. So I can't blame them in a sense. I mean, you have to document, document, document, document. It gets tiresome and it gets old. Where does the fucking pressure come from, though? Is it the mayor? Are they trying to, like, scrub the crime stats? The mayor, the citizens, city council. That's where it all comes from, man. Everybody wants to keep their little position of power instead of looking at people and saying, you know what?

Shut the fuck up. These guys are doing a great job. They're out here protecting your fucking ass. And sorry if they're not doing it politely. You spit in a cop's face and he grabs you by the fucking neck and throws you down. Well, good for you. You should be fucking thrown down. You shouldn't be able to do that to the police. You know what? We've gotten so far away from, I think it all goes back to the home. There's no fucking parenting going on in these homes. And there's no respect for authority.

And all those kids have grown up now and they just expect to be able to go piss right in authority's face. And then when the authority turns around and slaps them for it, it's a big fucking deal. Like, I don't understand that. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, there are, uh, no more immediate consequences. There's still consequences. You know, we're seeing it right now in the fucking streets. It's,

The consequences that are coming from that are, you know, it'll take a minute and then the pendulum is going to swing back the other way. And it's a fucking accountability issue, too. And, you know, I hear, you know, like yourself, a lot of people are like, it's how these fucking kids were raised, these fucking millennials and blah, blah, blah. Well, who the fuck raised them?

You know what I mean? Is it the one that's sitting there fucking bitching about him? Because that's your fucking, you know, you take accountability for that, you fucking piece of shit. And nobody takes accountability anymore. It's always passed on, you know, to the, you know, shit rolls downhill.

And, uh, there's no more accountability and the fucking consequences aren't immediate. And, uh, and it's created, we're all about pay for that. What we're looking at right now, but, um, bitch about that all day too. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, it's pissing me off so much. I'm getting fucking goosebumps on the back of my neck. I can see it. I see your trigger finger moving over there. Calm down. Yep. Yep. But, um, well on that note, um,

Let's take a quick commercial break. When we come back, we're going to talk about June 18th, 2007. You know, the Sofa Superstore incident that, you know, was the second most tragic event and biggest loss of firefighters, only second to 9-11. Structural firefighters, yeah. Some wildland firefighters. It's a bigger number, but... Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

But we're going to visit that when we come back. Sometimes these episodes can be pretty long and they will always keep you on the edge of your seat. Rather than sit here and watch it alone, why don't you head over to VigilanceElite.com, buy yourself some company, and get some Vigilance Elite gummy bears. Not bad. All right, man. We're back from the break and getting ready to go into what happened on June 18, 2007.

So the Sofa Superstore fire, which claimed the lives of nine firefighters and is one of the most tragic events in American firefighter history, if I'm not mistaken. You're right. And you were a part of that and you responded to that. And you mentioned that this changed your life forever. And out of all the...

traumatic events that you've witnessed and been a part of, this is kind of what, this is the straw that broke the camel's back and kind of sent you into the downward spiral of PTSD. And then also, I watched a, I did a lot of research on this too, and it seemed to be a very

uh controversial incident and a lot of lessons learned happened from it and uh and uh and and it seems that the the men you know like yourself that that survived it are are considered legends uh in the community but i wanted to before we get going on that i kind of want to put everybody in the mindset of how how horrific this was so i want to roll the tape

So I played that to get everybody in the mindset. I wanted to know how fucking serious this is. And that was your best friend on the phone and telling his wife that he loved her. And like, I really just want to set the tone on how fucking serious and tragic this was. The day started for you at a memorial golf tournament and

I'd like to start from right there. Yeah. Yeah, the last words that you heard was my friend, my best friend, Louis Mulkey, and his last dying words as he was burning to death. It was tough to hear. June 18th, 2007 started out as a normal day for us. We certainly weren't expecting any of that. We actually all got together. I was off duty that day, and we were having a golf tournament for another friend of ours who was a firefighter who was killed four months to the day prior to

in a car accident. And that was another really good friend of mine who got me the job in Charleston, actually. - Really? - Yeah. He was one of my other best friends. I mean, it is so, paying homage to him, trying to raise some money for his family at a golf tournament, and we're doing what firemen do, and just like, you know, what SEALs do when y'all get together and cops do when they get together. We get drunk and we have a good time, and that's what that golf tournament was about. But by the end of the day,

You heard the tapes, that's what we were all thrown into. At the end of the golf tournament, everybody's phones kind of started ringing and we were all told the Sofa Superstore was on fire and we all knew that that was a horrible place to have a fire. We often referred to that as a death trap if that's one of the calls we ever had to go on. Because we, as firefighters, you pre-plan buildings. That means you find buildings in your area and it could possibly be a threat.

Or be very bad. So you had to kind of strategically plan how you would face this monster in the event that would happen. How many buildings were like that in that city? Tons of them. Tons of them? Yeah. I mean, they're everywhere. It's just old furniture stores. It's actually an old grocery store that was converted into a one-story furniture warehouse. I mean, so it was a huge...

100-something thousand square feet. Don't quote me on the square footage, but it was a big showroom and it had a big storage facility behind it, and that's where the fire started. So when we found out that that building was on fire, we all got in our cars and just went. What were you thinking on the way there? I had heard that my friend Louis was missing. You heard that before you even arrived? When you heard that it was the Sofa Superstore, did you know it was going to be fucking bad since the...

That was already pinging on everybody's radar. Well, it's like I told you earlier, it doesn't, uh, never seems real until it's real. Yeah. And, uh, she seemed like another fire. But when I heard he was missing, I had extra adrenaline kicked in and I drove faster. I broke through a police barricade with my vehicle. I mean, I didn't drive through it like smoking a bandit or anything. We just went around it and the cop was like, what the fuck? And I'm like, fuck you. I kept going. And when we got there, the building had just collapsed. So I got there right when everybody had been pulled out.

My girlfriend was driving my car at the time. My firehouse was right up the street I told her I said go to my my locker in my firehouse grab my shit and get it back to me I gotta find out what's going on. And so this time you got hundreds of firemen on scene man I mean hundreds there's probably 300 something plus people on the scene That night it was just a sea of red lights everywhere and I ran up to my buddy david griffin who was pumping He was the engineer on engine 11 and I ran up to him and I said david What do we have and he turned around he said lewis is missing and uh

He said, Travis, we got a lot more guys in there too. We don't know how many. And I was like, in that? I mean, because now the building is down and there's just fire everywhere you look. It's just fire blowing. And in Charleston Fire Department, we didn't back out of fires. We were very cowboyish and we were very prideful of the way that we did things. And we were very, very aggressive. And this is hundreds of years of tradition. And it finally caught us.

And it cost us nine guys. And I remember hearing reports of like 19 or 20 initially is what they thought. But by the time the smoke settled, it was nine. And it was nine really good dudes. And all of those dudes I knew very personally. I'd worked with every single one of them. We sat around that table breaking bread many nights, having jokes, having laughs. You knew their families.

And, uh, Lewis was, uh, just happened to be my best friend because, and I, he, I wasn't his best friend. He was one of those really cool dudes that had a lot of best friends, but he was my best friend. And, uh, he, when I started with Charleston fire, he took me under his wing and showed me the ropes and, um, I had a very special connection with him. And I didn't know by the end of the night, I still didn't know what lie ahead. I didn't know that I'd be the one next to his burnt corpse sitting there looking at him in a manner I couldn't

I can try to describe, but it's going to be hard. You did make entry. Yeah. You know, if I remember correctly, you, did you make entry and you got pulled back? Was that, was that right? Well, we went around the Delta side of the building. So when you're looking at a building, the front is alpha and then you go around clockwise. So we got to the Delta side, which is where a building would be the right side.

And we go through this place, man. It was, um, it was just twisted steel, look, spaghetti, spaghetti noodles. And it was still hot. There was still a lot of fire present. And, uh, but we had guys missing. We didn't have time to not get in there. We really wanted to find these guys. And I guess some of us thought that we were going to find them alive, but it's just not the case. There was, I think around 15 to 20 of us on the body recovery teams. We were all broken apart and put into five man teams. And we all came in from different parts of the building. And, uh,

My five-man team, we went in, and it was literally you couldn't move two or three feet, and you had to stop, and you had to figure out a way to get through the voids that were there. There'd be like a little hollow opening here, and we'd crawl through that, and the next two seconds, you're standing on what used to be the roof. So you're in it at this point, and how many guys are with you? Four other guys. And...

So just to paint a picture, because you got really descriptive in your book about the smoke, you can't see your fucking hand in front of your face, the heat. And there was nothing, and I could see how it would be easy to get disoriented and fucking lost and something like that. And you couldn't even bring a hose in with you to retrace your steps to get the fuck out. And, I mean...

The amount of courage that takes, I mean, it doesn't, did it seem like it was even a courageous thing? It probably didn't even go through their fucking head. No, the only thing is they wanted volunteers, and a lot of guys didn't raise their hand. No shit. I think because those guys knew they didn't want what was on the inside of that building. It's not that they're less of a firefighter. I think that they just knew, I don't want to fuck with that.

man, we're here to do whatever we got to do, but there was a select group of us that did and I certainly You know often say the worst decision I ever made was going inside of that building that night But the best decision I've ever made my life was going inside of that fucking building that night and carrying them carrying them all home and

It didn't seem like anything courageous. It's just what needed to be done. You know, our guys are down. We got guys down. We got to do what we got to do. Let's push forward and go get it. So we didn't, we didn't even have fucking air packs on our back because they were all used. Yeah. So we're choking on smoke and we have what we call flash hoods. The firefighters have flash hoods. And when you put your face piece on, you pull your flash hood up and it protects the skin right here, protects your neck and your ears.

So we're choking on smoke, literally gagging on black smoke. And you can't see. You know, and you're crawling next to big flames, fires, and they have ladder companies dumping water on top of us. And in a normal fire situation, you would never be operating inside of a fire when you have tower units raining water down because they're just so powerful. It could hurt you. It could injure a firefighter, blow debris on them. It could push fire on top of them and kill them. But we had no choice. We had to go in. We had to do what needed to be done. And

It seemed like it took a long time to get to them. And once we started finding them, you would hear a team shout out, I got somebody and we would do the same. And I saw something silver and it didn't look like anything we had seen up until this point because everything was just black. And then I saw something and I went over to investigate what it was. And it was by myself. And I crawled up there on my hands and knees. And I started looking at this thing and I

I say it in my book, I was just turning my head like a curious dog, trying to figure out what the fuck is this. And I realized that it was an air pack of one of our guys. We wore silver Scott air packs. And it had busted open. It didn't look like an air pack. It was just like filleted open. And once I realized what it was, I had my hands. I looked down and I realized my hands were on the shoulders of one of our guys. And we wore black gear. It just looked like a pile of black...

Shit like debris and then I realized that I pushed back and I looked down and I realized these were his shoulders That's his back because the pack is on her back. So this his head should be right here, but there was no head There was nothing it was there was just a couple of teeth. There was no helmet. There's no skull. It was just teeth and I looked down at the opening there was an opening and there's a spinal column sticking out and I just when it got real for me and I realized cuz I've been to

calls where we had burned up kids on Christmas. I've seen burned kids. I've been to burnt people many times, but... Nothing had like that one. No. No. I realized right then, whoever's in here is dead. Whatever account that they have on the outside, every one of them is fucking dead. And I knew Lewis was in there. And we just... We had no way to tell who was who. That's one thing when you got a dead body there that you can recognize, but when you know it's one of yours and you don't know who the fuck it is. So what we had to do is...

We were tasked with not moving the bodies and just trying to identify them the best way that we could without doing too much. And what the coroner was going to do after all the smoke cleared is come in and GPS them and locate where their bodies were. So that's what we did. So this one individual, Captain Billy, was a really good dude. He'd been in fire service 30-something years. He was off Engine 19. And, um...

We ended up pulling his fire pants down and his wallet was in his pants and we, he opened it up and we saw his, his driver's license with his credit cards, man. And it was just like, God damn it. It's one thing when you're working with dead people and you have no relationship, you don't know them. Cause it's not real. You go to these things and it sucks. It fucks with you from time to time, but it's not personal. This is personal. No, there's no get back. Like we talked about and you're just like, what the fuck do I do? So, but we got a job to do, man. And,

We can't sit around too long, so we got to find more of our brothers. And we go not too far away and stumble on another one because at this point smoke's starting to lift a little bit more. As the fire got knocked down, we found Mark. And he was face down. I rolled him over. His hands were in front of his face. And it's almost like he saw the flashover that happened in that building. It's not a back draft.

That's movie shit. I mean those things happen, but flash overs happen all the time in fires and that's when everything reaches its combustible limit at the same exact time and everything just, all the superheated gases in the building go and it's just a big ball of fire and 99% of firemen that are caught in these things die because it's so quick and it's so violent. It's almost like he felt it or saw it and did like this and then turned and fell. His hands were like this, but

I didn't know it was Mark. Mark was off of my truck ladder five and I had a great relationship with Mark. We worked together many times. So we roll them. I think your bodies are still hot, man. You can still feel when you're touching them. I'm not wearing gloves at this point. And I had them, I would take them off from time to time. But every once in a while, we'd roll a guy over and you'd have your gloves off and you could feel that heat in your hands from their gear, how hot it was. And they were fucking burnt so bad.

and when i rolled mark over the best description i can give you is we have a plastic face piece right here that covers our eyes and right here is usually rubber and it's black i don't know if you've ever seen an ultrasound of a baby 3d that's what his face looked like it was baked into his mask and um he undid his coat pull his coat open and we had metal name tabs back then and it had his name right there and that's how we identified mark and we heard other teams

Yelling out that they were finding guys and you know, it sounds selfish and everything But I was so worried about Lewis, you know, all of these guys were important to me, but this is this is my dude Yeah, it's your best friend and I don't want it to be real and I want to hurry up and find everybody and I'm not wishing that it was somebody else but you can't help but in that moment to be like, please don't be my friend and Next brother we found was Brandon my team

We go into this back storage room. It's like one of the only pieces of building that was really left intact. There was a lot of smoke damage, not a lot of fire damage. Brandon was huddled down in a corner and his body was just normal. We rolled him out of this corner and he just had a cut over his eye. And what happened was Brandon ran out of air, but he got away from the fire, but he died from smoke. Damn. And he just looked peaceful, man. And his wedding invitations were in the mail.

We're still being delivered everywhere around. And he died that night. He was actually just working for somebody else. He did a buddy shift for somebody else. And it cost him his life. Damn. So Brandon was, I knew we had eight at that point. And by this time it had come through that we have nine confirmed. This is hours into the night. What's the, what?

Was the fire completely out? Was there still smoke? At this point, smoke was still there, but it was nothing like it was. I mean, we were in there for hours. So the whole fucking building came down and there was really nowhere for the smoke to go except into the atmosphere. Part of the showroom was still there, but after the bulk of the fire was knocked down, because you've got to think, fire was in all these different little pockets where the collapses were. And so once those were done, man, all the smoke pretty much dissipated and

That's why I think it took us so long to start finding guys is because there was so much smoke I really think we probably crawled over him a couple times possibly. I just didn't know it. So Now I know we have eight and some guys were in there with Brandon and I love Brandon too man And just like I want to spend some time with him do whatever we need to do But I gotta find Lewis that limousine company you talked about that I owned I drove for Lewis's wedding We had a lot of fucking fun together man. And this is actually a

the night after his anniversary. He lived one year and one day after his anniversary. So I put my helmet on and I got a job to do, man. And I was actually in a part of the building where you could stand up and I started walking out and man, I probably made it 10 or 15 feet. And I walked through what seemed to be a doorway. I'm having to relive this because it's, I can describe it to you. And when I did, as soon as I cleared that doorway, I looked to my left and he was laying right there. So I knew it was him just by looking at his skull, you know?

I didn't need confirmation. I knew because he had to he had a distinct face and even when when his skin is baked off of somebody's face you can still Recognize him and it's a sick thing to say but I've witnessed that and Lewis was on his back man And his his left leg was underneath his right his right leg was straight out and there was a piece of big-ass piece of steel across it and We ended up having to dig that out but his arms were sticking up in the air and his fucking sleeves were burnt off his fire coat and

All the skin was burned off of him and just his arm bones were sticking up. His radius and all his hands were burned off. And, uh, his head was, his head was back and his eyeballs were burned out. The fucking skin was burned off of his face and his mouth was wide open. And, uh, I just got on my knees next to him and told him how much I loved him. And the shitty thing about that is just four years prior to that, before I went to the police department, Lewis and I were on a call with engine six. And we went to a call where a man was murdered and burned to death. And, um,

He was set on fire with gasoline and Lewis was on his knees on one side of the man. His name was Rodney, this guy. And I was on my knees next to him or across from Lewis, but next to Rodney. And I remember us locking eyes during this call and just, we both had this, what the fuck moment we were thinking about, like, what the fuck is going on? Why does somebody do this as a human being? And just four years later, I'd be on my knees next to Lewis, burnt, even worse condition than that man was.

And when we rolled that man over that night, his fucking arm snapped off because it was burned so bad. And so that night when we're putting Lewis into his body bag and all of our other guys, I wanted to be very careful because I didn't want to hurt my friend. You're fucking dead and I didn't want to hurt him. So we get them all bagged up and then we get the American flags. We drape them. And then my team's tasked with carrying every single one of them out. So that's what we did. We carried them out one by one.

Sorry, man. This is real? Yeah. This is the fucking job. Yeah. I signed up for it. Sorry? I signed up for it. Didn't realize how real it would get. Yeah. How long was the chain of events up until this point? We talking all day and all night? So my shift started at 8 o'clock the next morning, and I started from inside of that building. Yeah. Yeah.

I got there around 7:30, 8 o'clock that night. Pulled a full 12 hours inside of that building. We didn't come out. We stayed in there. As soon as we were able to get in, we got in and we stayed in there all night searching and digging and cutting steel and moving heaven and earth to get these guys out. And then when we got them out, "Hey, I got a job to do. Your shift is up and we need y'all back in the firehouse." And then you got ATF and all these other FBI, everybody's coming in and investigate this thing. We need y'all on the rigs. Y'all gotta go to work. And that's the problem. Like you said, in combat,

When you leave combat, you leave it over there. We got to go and serve this same community that we just dropped nine of our own in. So we go to the firehouse, we back the rig in, and now we're there. And we lost three guys out of my house, and their fucking cell phones wouldn't stop ringing because everybody's trying to figure out. It's now made national news that nine guys are dead, but nobody knows except us who they are. And you hear these guys' phones ringing, man, and we had to go back there and shut them all off. And you know it's their families just freaking the fuck out.

We couldn't take it. And then you got fucking reporters showing up like leeches within fucking minutes trying to shove a microphone in somebody's face to find out, hey, how do you feel? How the fuck you think I feel? Yeah. You know, I'm not trying to glorify this shit. This fucking sucks. Yeah. But we got a job to do because there's other fires to go to. There's wrecks. People are fucking killing themselves. Goddamn babies are drowning in pools. And we just got to stack this on top of the other bullshit and fucking keep going. Yeah. Did they offer...

I mean, I know this is early on, but I mean, was there any, did they offer any help at all? The department? Man, I can't. So our department did the best they could with what we had at the time. We'd never, in the fire service, there had been other incidents, but not like this magnitude, I guess. And so it was kind of like a free fall to trying to figure out the best way to help guys. And they came up with some counselors really quickly. I don't know the timeline on it.

But they wanted guys, hey, man, we got these counselors for y'all. Go talk to. And of course, me being alpha male like I am, I'm like, fuck them. I was like, these motherfuckers, they've never looked at their friends like we have. They've never fucking held dead babies in their fucking arms. They've read books. Who the fuck are they to tell us how to feel and how to be? Yeah. And that was the problem. Because looking back, that was the worst fucking thing I could have ever done.

I hurt myself with that mentality and I hurt other guys around me because I would tell them to, if you go talk to anybody, you're a fucking pussy. And that's one of the biggest regrets I have because I talk about being a coward and it's not easy to say that. That's me being a coward. That's me being too manly, too macho and having too much of a fucking ego to accept the help that is available to us. We had people, licensed professionals who would listen to us. Maybe had I listened to them, I wouldn't have fucking shoved a gun down my throat and pulled the fucking trigger.

Maybe if I listened to them, I wouldn't have burned my entire fucking inner circle down to the ground, you know, but I wouldn't even give it a chance because I was too macho. The culture that I had been exposed to my entire life. And that's what I speak on now. I speak about how we're killing each other with this suck it up mentality because it's bullshit. Yeah, I understand it. Suck it up. We have to deal with certain things.

But there's nothing wrong with a suck it up while we're doing this. We got a job to do Let's go get our guys and then when we come back if it if it fucking bothers you let's talk about it because there's nothing wrong with Me and you being completely human and not being okay. It's okay to not be okay And that's what i'm trying to instill and when I speak at conferences and everything, it's okay Doesn't make you less of a man. Fuck. It makes you more of a man. Yeah

You know, it's unfortunate because that mentality is fucking through. You know, as far as I know, it's in just about every community that continuously deals with these type of events or, you know, traumatic stuff. But it is, you know, it's starting to change from, you know, guys like yourself coming out and saying like, hey,

The shit isn't right, what we've been doing for the last, you know, however many fucking years, forever. And it is starting to change, I think, and across all the services and military too. But, you know, you're spearheading it in your community and that takes a lot of fucking courage. This sucks, man, because this is what it does to you and you have to relive it.

And it's hard when these cameras shut off. And when I go get my fucking car today and I take that hour long drive to the airport, I'm alone and I've just relived this thing. And it is fucking brutal. But you know what? It's worth me doing that if it reaches one fucking person in our community or even outside. And it helps them become a better mother, father, husband, wife, child, whatever. If it helps them realize that they need help and they can go get the help they want, then fuck it. I'll relive it.

Because that's what we do. We lift people up. We don't fucking help bring them down. And I got caught in this vicious cycle of bringing people down because I was so fucked up for so long. When my whole world crumbled down on top of me right after that, when everything just started, I mean, everything just started eating shit around me. I fell into the victim mindset. And it was the whole, why me? Why me? Why me? Why have I been exposed to all this? Why have I experienced this? I got scared to go to fucking sleep at night. I was, I would cry alone.

Away from my wife. I would be in another room crying because I was afraid to go to fucking sleep Because of what was coming for me in the middle of the night I knew it yeah, and I would hide that and I'm not ashamed of that anymore. We'll get into um, we're gonna get into you know, some uh, the after effects and how it affected your life and your family life and all your your team and Everything changed your your entire fucking life. Uh forever we'll get into that in a minute, but um

A lot of controversy happened after that fire. And I'm not, I could not find why. Can you just, if you were in charge, would something have happened, would you have done anything different? No. No? I back our chief, man. And it's the way we were taught. And here's the problem. Was it the culture? It was the culture. It wasn't the chief.

he took good care of his department we had a cowboy culture and back then it was okay and it was accepted and it was expected right everybody monday morning in the fire service people monday morning quarterback this fire like you wouldn't believe i never read the niosh reports i don't care you know why because i was there yeah it doesn't matter what happened we lost nine guys we learned from that i mean i guess it does matter what happened because it's implemented change throughout the entire fire service

Um, but we were only doing what we were taught to do and which is go get it be aggressive now those guys went in there there was somebody was trapped inside of that building and It wasn't necessarily those nine guys that saved him. It was another crew, but they went in there They knew somebody was in there needed to come out They were in there after the fire shit just broke bad in an instant and there was no fucking escaping it You just couldn't get away from it. Um

Had I been in charge, since you asked, back then with the culture that we were in and the mentality and the training and how we did things, I don't see that I would have done anything differently. It was just an entire set of circumstances that led to that. Yeah.

A lot of folks were like, well, y'all didn't use enough water. You didn't have big enough hose lines. We had every fucking hose on every truck in that building. Even the little hoses that we call booster hoses. And there are people were saying we didn't have big enough supply lines. Well, that may have been true, but that's all changed since then. We went from two and a half inch supply lines to five inch supply lines. And that may be speaking over your head because if you don't understand firefighting terms, but that means getting more water to the engines that are pumping the fires, which in turn can get more water. So there's no lack of water supply.

I'm not trying to get scientific, but those things have changed. But you know as well as I do, Sean, shitty things have to happen for better things to happen. And that's just something we have to accept. Things in the military happen, shitty things. Shitty things in law enforcement happen. That's the only way things change. Yeah. It's kind of a necessary evil. I hate to say that. Yeah. The only thing that you would go back if you could and change would be

And I mean, I understand that, but that's fucking impossible to change. And our culture was very similar. You know, I mean, as much as I hate to say it,

That's what you fucking sign up to do. And just like we talked about earlier, that's what you want to fucking do. You want to be in that. And you feel fucking invincible. I mean, how many fucking fires had you gone to prior to that? And you get that sense of invincibility and you fucking crave it.

And you especially, I mean, the culture started for you at what, 15 fucking years old. You know, you grew up in a firehouse. You left it for what, four years, four years, came right back, left it for three, two years, came right back. And so that's just fucking who you are. You know, it's it's no different than, you know, people being raised by.

You know, but that's how you were fucking raised. You grew up in it. You know, and of course, if I could change it, I would. If I could go back and say, hey, this is coming and what can we do to prevent this? I would. But what I what I know now is I cannot live in the past and do the wise. Why did this happen? Well, you know what? It fucking happened. It's called ownership and acceptance. Yeah. On the fact that it happened, accept it and press the fuck forward and do the best that you can with the life and the time that you have left. And that is.

Is what changed my life. It was that perspective, but it took a long time to fucking get there. Yeah well where i'm going with this is um, you know, uh guilt and You wouldn't have changed anything and i'm willing to bet that um Your best friend lewis wouldn't have fucking changed anything either and they died doing what they wanted to do and uh

And, you know, we were going to do a video on accepting loss and kind of moving past it. And, you know, in professions like this, a lot of times, you know, that's I'm not going to say that's how you want to go out. But the guys I know, I don't think they would have fucking gone out any other way. You don't want to go out 90 years old, somebody wiping your fucking ass and feeding you pudding. No, that's I get it. So, yeah.

I'm the same way and they're the same way. It's shitty if it happens, but go out like a fucking warrior. Yep. Doing what you were put here to fucking do. Yeah, but that's why I was bringing that up. How long did it take you to be able to talk about that? Long time. Many years to talk about it the way that I talk about it now. Yeah. Long time. Fucking decade. Yeah.

I've, I tried, I tried later on in life to talk about it and I'd shut down every time. I just couldn't do it. Yeah. But I realized at some point that my experiences may help other people too. And by me speaking about it, it may help me as well. And that it did. And that's why I do now. Yeah. You're changing the culture, man. You are changing the fucking culture. And, uh, you,

You're the only one I know that's actually doing it. That's actually out putting yourself out there. And I'll bet you get a lot of fucking hate. I do. And I'll bet you also get a lot of praise. But moving forward just a little bit, you know, when it comes to the culture on page 227 in your book. Excuse me. I don't want to butcher his name, but Captain John McGinnigal. Yes. Of Ladder 5 told me in the parking lot.

The very day that he retired and left the job after nearly 40 years, Captain John retired before June 18th, 2007, sofa superstore that claimed the lives of nine of our bravest. And this guy fucking had it right, you know. And his parting words to me before getting into his car and leaving after his final shift were, in quotes, Travis, be careful.

We're going to lose a lot of men the way we fight fire one day. We're not going to lose just one. We're going to lose multiple companies." And you say that those words still resonate with you to this day. I think about it all the time. Was he talking about the culture?

Yep, he was talking about the way we fight fire because there's one story that he told me. So Captain John versus telling me, hey, it was a nice couple years working with you, Travis. I had a lot of fun with you. That was his parting words. It was be careful.

We're going to kill a bunch of men the way that we do things. He knew it. Yeah. And he told me a story one time about an abandoned house that they were in. And he goes, he made fun of it. He's like, I don't know how the fucking house didn't fall over. And then he stepped and he goes, I know how it didn't fucking fall over. There were a goddamn hundred of us in there fucking holding it up. And that's how it didn't fall over. But what he was getting at, there was no need to be inside of this thing. And it was burning asshole to elbows and end to end, top to bottom.

And every guy was in there. And that's what it was like. You got to go get some. I talk about being on fires where we have five houses burning at one time back in the day. And everybody's in them. And there's fire everywhere. And you didn't want to be the man outside. And that's an old saying in the Charleston Fire Department. Don't get caught outside. That's the culture. Because you were considered a pussy or somebody trying to get out of the harm's way.

And as a young man, 25, 26 years old, you don't want to be that guy. You want to show everybody, I got what it takes to be here. Yeah. That's the culture. Is that culture starting to change now? I think slowly. Yeah? It's still there though. When did you see it start to turn a little bit? It was years after this fire took place with us and we had multiple regime changes.

uh, come in. Many of our older guys were either retired or they were pushed out by the new regimes that were coming in because they understood they did not favor the culture of our fire department. We were straight fucking cowboys. There is no way to put that other way to put it. And they knew the way that we did things were wrong and dangerous, extremely dangerous. Couldn't tell us that. Yeah. And it was button heads. Cause when we knew chiefs were coming in,

We butted heads with them because we still want to do it the old school way Even though we just got bit in the ass because that's the way we were trained It's like you have a pit bull who's trained to fucking fight And then you want to take him to the goddamn dog part and get mad at him when he bites the head off a fucking other dog Yeah, you know, that's who we were at the time. Yeah, not saying it was right. That's who we were and now it's a much different fire department these days It's still a great fire department and it's probably better. I mean, they're more um

productive on scenes. I mean, they have their shit wired tight now. It's done the right way. So I was just part of it at a different time. Yeah. In 2008, John Carr sounds like he took over the whole thing. Yeah. What was the morale like when he came in?

Not good because we didn't welcome outsiders. He wasn't received well at first, but he was a great man and he's a great chief. And he was actually, after he got there, he tried the best that he could, but he went downhill. He got pretty sick very quickly. He wasn't there that long, but we all started slowly to accept him because he was there to implement change. We knew that. And it wasn't like, hey, I'm going to come in and punish you guys for being who you are.

although it felt like that in a sense at first because we just were not used to a different command structure command staff yeah you know so it was we had to learn how to adapt to it yeah well i mean in a sense he's with tradition that's exactly what it was and so where we would on a on a normal response you got one engine

One ladder or two engines, one ladder truck and a battalion chief on a fire that could be three houses fucking burning. Back then, the culture was, hey, y'all better be able to handle it and not make me have to call another fucking company to come down here. Shit. And you're undermanned understaffed. And if it starts getting away from you, it was looked down upon if the fucking winds could control the fire. You know what I mean? Yeah. You get an ass ripping, piss ripping fire like that. And the battalion chief has to call somebody else.

the higher ups didn't like that they're like oh you boys couldn't put that fire out and then people would slowly start getting transferred yeah that happens too many times so you had to be aggressive man if you want to keep your spot so when car came in he changed all of that so then he i remember he changed it to your i think it's like you're getting maybe four ladders or no four engine companies two ladder companies a battalion chief and now all of a sudden at these fires we had more than enough help and it's like damn this is kind of easy now

we didn't like the change at first but then slowly started kind of taking on hey man it's kind of reducing our workload a little bit that's kind of nice well that's i mean that's good how long uh how long was he in there before uh he started implementing these changes was it like immediately no not that i remember i think it was it was a slow slow progression but we had so much turmoil going on with all the old guys like all of our old captains like the john mcginnigals and

When Chief Carr came in, everybody's like, fuck this, I'm leaving the department. And all this fear got injected into our department on what they were going to do, what they weren't going to do. So there was so much turmoil going on within the rank and file. You know, he didn't even really have to do much. We were all killing ourselves slowly inside. Damn.

But, you know, he came in and, you know, so long ago, I know he started changing SOPs slowly, but surely he changed the what we would call the initial response. He changed that up immediately. Like, hey, you guys are undermanned to way too undermanned for these calls. We need to step it up and start sending you some more units. And he would do stuff like that. They started doing training on the LDH hose, which is large diameter hose.

And I remember that pissing off a lot of the old school guys because it's five inch hose that we would have to take out and put on our trucks for bigger water supply. We didn't like that. It was honestly the smartest fucking thing you could possibly do. But we didn't like it because it's changed. Nobody likes change. Yeah. But I was only there for two and a half years after that fire. So I didn't unfortunately I didn't experience too much change. The guys now are the ones that experienced all the change, the ones that are left.

Are there still guys in? Very, very few. Very few. We lost, I want to say, roughly 100 men within the first year or two. Fuck. A huge turnover after that. I mean, you're talking 20-, 30-year guys on the jobs just saying, fuck it, I'm leaving. Damn. I mean... Well, I mean, we're talking about courage. That takes a lot of courage, too, a car coming in there and knowing. I mean, because, I mean...

That culture is, I mean, that culture is probably, I'm guessing, is somewhat in every department across the U.S. For sure, 100%. So he's coming in knowing I'm about to piss every motherfucker off out here. They're all going to hate me.

But I got to do it. And then when you're coming into a hundred plus year old fire department, who's rich in tradition and try to stir that up, that just doesn't go well. This wasn't a young fire department. I mean, this is a very, very old fire department. Yeah. So yeah, it was tough. Well, I'm glad we talked about that. And, and I think it definitely paints a picture of how fucking real things can get when it comes to being a firefighter.

And on that note, let's take another break and we'll come back and go down the downward spiral. All right. Sounds good. All right, man. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. I think this is a pretty good one. Hit pause. Go over to VigilanceElite.com. Pick yourself up one of these sweet shirts. And if you're lucky, maybe these hats will be in stock too. All right. We're back from the break again. And...

That last section was pretty tough, I know. And so now we're kind of going towards the downward spiral, what you call the downward spiral on your book. And I've heard a part, you're in a fire and you've got a guy, a new guy with you that you refer to as Sweet Onion. Yeah. And for me, it kind of sounded like this is where it started slipping the most. And you're

Your actual, I wouldn't say your performance, but you got a little more ballsy than maybe you used to be, it sounded like, in that section. And you even referred to the fact that you were running out of air. You kind of left the team. You were off on your own, didn't, you know what I mean? And then you actually had the thoughts going through your head of maybe you'll die in the fire like your best friend Lewis did. Yeah.

and found a window, opened the window, and got some fucking air. And then Sweet Onion sounded like he was kicking ass at that point. Yeah. And you got recalled three, I guess three horns is the signal. Yeah, it's called evacuation. So they'll hit three horns to make everybody back out of the building. And like I said, back in Charleston, we didn't do that. So this was new territory for us for backing out. Yeah.

Well, there's another guy on scene there who you refer to in your book as Captain Silva. Yeah, yeah, Silver. I changed his name to protect his identity, though. Yeah, well, we got him on the line here. So... Huh? We got him on the line here. So, Captain Silva? What? How's it going, Captain Silva? I'm sitting here with Travis House and...

He was talking about a call or a fire that you guys were in and in his book. And there was a new guy with him. And you guys got recalled out of the building. And I just kind of wanted to see if you guys could go over that actions on objective. Sure, sure. I came back on day. So specifically me and Travis.

No, he's got the wrong phone. He's right here. Chief Ricky! The fuck? You got what?

Yeah, and big old balls of yours. He's got the biggest balls in six counties. We call him Ricky All Balls, no shafts. How the fuck did y'all get his number? Hey, Chief, no, I was talking about that fire on Daniel Island where the townhouses were ripping and they backed us out of it. No, I'm kidding, because he pulled us out. Yeah, that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool, yeah. Sean, I had two fires mixed up on the same page now. Oh, right on. I'm glad Travis could clarify for us. He's like, I didn't go to that one. I'm like, the fuck you weren't.

I changed your name in the book to protect your identity, but the lid's blown off now. Oh, well, shit happens. Holy shit. Don't worry, Sean, I can't read. That guy has money. Neither can I. Well, I just wanted to kind of go over. We know where Travis was and what he was doing during that fire when the siren rang out for the recall to get out, and we were wondering what were you doing at that time?

That particular fire right there, I had that thing by the nozzle, so to speak. Me and a guy went in there, and we loosened it down real well. And then there was some extension. You don't understand. There was some extension, and me and the other guys went extension. And also, where were you? Were you in the truck house then? I can't remember. No, I was driving engine 16 that day, and we got called over for that thing. Yeah, if you remember, I remember a couple of things. Yeah, I do.

to be honest with you. And me and, Andy was my father. Me and Andy, we went in and we knocked it down. I mean, we beat it up pretty good. But there was some extension and I know that as they were getting into the extension, they pulled us out, Sean. And naturally, I wasn't real happy about that at all. It doesn't sound like anybody was very happy about that call. Nah, we were making good progress and all that. And that was, shut up.

before the main fire, wasn't it? No, it was after because remember, they blew those air horns to back us out and we're all old now, but they blew those air horns to back us out and we weren't used to evacuating. Remember that? That's right. We had a lot of OP's, Sean, and then during that time, that was the acclimation time for us. So as we was going through that transformation, you know, we couldn't be as aggressive as we were back in

in our old days, our heyday, so to speak. So you're right. When the horns came off and we had to come out, there was a bunch of unhappy men. We were sitting in the backyard, Travis, if I remember. Rich Mill came back there, and I started on poor old Ish. Yeah, you were letting everybody have it. I remember, because I was one of the last guys out of the building, and...

You were on engine six and you fucking let me have it. And I was like, the fuck are you yelling? You're like, God damn it, we had it. We had it by the balls, Trav. What the fuck? We don't do this shit. We don't do this shit. I just remember you coming unglued. And I was like, calm down, old man. Shit. Yeah. Yeah. They on the way to work. I don't know about on the way to work. And then I flipped your ass. Damn. On the way to work. The next shift. But anyway, yeah, Sean, that was actually a good. Unfortunately, we got pulled out, man.

Yeah, man. This is amazing, man. I love you, man. When's the last time you guys connected? I saw him at a swingers party about... That fucker's wild right here. Yeah, yeah. Sean, there was two people there, me and Travis. Yeah. Well, next time, let me know if you... And the back of your balls were bruised, not mine. Next time you do that, let me know if you need a third. I'll send somebody over. That's shady when she's like this.

Well, wow, well when is the last time you guys connected that's been a few months yeah, no, I'm yeah I don't think he believed that you were on the phone here, but I didn't I thought this was some prank then I heard his voice I was like, oh god damn. Well, that guy's a legend man. He's a legend in the fire service. So awesome. He's a fucking man. Well, I

Chief Silva? Ricky. Well, his code name was Silva in the book. Okay. Well, hey, I appreciate your time, and I really appreciate you letting us give you a call. I just wanted to reconnect you guys here and relive the good old days. But I think we'll wrap it up for now. You guys got anything you want to say? Hey, Chief Ricky, I'll call you later, all right, baby? You too. It was a pleasure. Be safe. I love you, Chief. Bye-bye. Wow.

You guys, god damn. I heard that guy's voice. I thought you were pranking. I was like, what the fuck's he doing? You thought I was fucking around? Yeah. I literally thought I had the wrong guy there for a minute. You're like, that's not him. I was like, oh shit. Well, because you were saying the wrong name because there's a code name in the book. And I was like, yeah, whatever. Yeah. And then I heard his voice. I was like, my fucking face hurts, man. Yeah. I needed that after that last session. Holy shit. You might want to check your pants.

Yeah, that guy's gold, man. He's a great human being. He's a fantastic fireman. He was on the job 30-something years. And that fire I was talking about was when he was a captain, but he later promoted to battalion chief. He was battalion chief downtown, and he was just fucking good as gold, man. God.

Well, that's cool, man. Thank you for that. Yeah, you're welcome. I felt like I was back in Firehouse for a second. Good feeling, isn't it? It's amazing. Right on, man. It's that chemistry you have with certain people, you know? That's the brotherhood. That's it. That's it right there. There it is. But... I got to figure out. I got to find out how y'all made that happen after the show. You want his number? I'll give it to him. I got his number. I'm just fucking with you. This is fucking crazy. But I told you we do our research. But...

So moving out, you got in a fight. Things started fucking... Things started getting weird for you. You started going down the downward spiral. We know your mindset now in that fire. You know, we're kind of where you were at mentally, which is not a good spot to be in. And then...

What eventually ended your career in the fire service? So it was a culmination of a lot of things building up to one major incident. So you say I got in a fight. I ended up going hands-on with a lot of guys in the department over the course of two and a half years, and it's not something I'm proud of. I'm actually very embarrassed about it, but it happened, and it needs to be talked about because the reason I talk about it is you can see a shift in people's behavior. Like, we're family, and when you see somebody acting differently, something is wrong.

And nobody ever pulled me to the side to help me. Nobody ever pulled me to the side to try to figure out what was going on. What happened was this new behavior that I was taking on was just becoming normal. At the funeral for one of our guys, I got into a physical altercation on the bus. We had a bunch of buses brought in because the funerals were so big, we couldn't take everybody's cars. So they had to bring families on buses.

And firemen mixed with families. And I was on a bus with some firemen and some families, some young children, some old people. And something was said to another fireman and he threw his hat at me and kind of joking around, but kind of not. And I just stood up and slapped him and slapped him into the seat, the empty seat. And everybody witnessed it. Yeah. And this is somebody I'm supposedly love, you know, and protect. And I just did that.

In that event, everybody got up, they left the bus and I was kind of alone on the bus after that. And then after that was more of the same. I got into physical altercations at the training facility where I assaulted one of our guys that needed help. He fell down and he was having flashbacks of the fire. He was there that night too and he was screaming all of our dead guys' names. And I picked him up and started slamming him into the wall with all of his gear and I was like, "Knock it the fuck off."

When I did one of the training instructors came over and grabbed me and turned me around. And when he did, I threw him into the wall and told him, you put your fucking hands on me, I'll kill you. And then we had an academy instructor standing right there. And I looked at him and I threatened to throw him out of a window. And that was accepted and swept under the rug. And then again, behind a grocery store training one day, I slapped one of our other guys right in the face because he just came close to me and said something. And I just lashed out and hit him.

And at this time I was drinking a lot though, you know, I was I was drinking I was coming to work drunk and everything it wasn't acceptable It's it's embarrassing man But nobody it wasn't just not an issue to anybody else and it was just kind of all this was on my plate for me to deal with and to figure it out and this is what happens that he's cops and he's firemen out there they end up losing their jobs or hurting somebody else because of all the shit that they're going through yeah bring it to work and that's what I was doing I had no outlet for it and

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was I came to work one day, my house, Engine 10, Lighter 5, and we had a new guy in our house, and he put his coffee cup on our dead guy's monument. And it pissed me off. I went over there, and I grabbed it, and I shattered it on the ground, and I opened the door and told him if he wants his cup, it's in a million pieces, and if he does it again, I'll fucking kill him. And those are the words that I use, and that's how it truly felt. Yeah. And when I said that, one of my other good friends said,

Said, why are you being such an asshole? And when he did, I took that as him defending the new guy's actions and not defending our guy's honor. Yeah. And I told him if he says another word to me, I will kill him too in a minute. And he said something to me. And at that time, a bomb was lit inside of me and the fuse was about that fucking short. And when he said what he said, it's like somebody poured gasoline on that fuse and the bomb ignited and

To this day, I can't tell you what happened because I completely lost it and I'm blacked out. And I just remember being outside with my captain shaking me and I'm crying. And he just pretty much told me that I'd assaulted my entire firehouse and the cops were called and they were on the way to arrest me. Damn. And my battalion chief showed up.

And at this time I was getting mental health counseling, but it wasn't enough and I didn't do it in time. How often? Back then, I was just starting, man. So once a week, maybe once every two weeks. But I would go there and I wouldn't say shit. You were skeptical. You hadn't built the trust yet. The trust wasn't there. I would just sit there and just kind of look and not really open up. But my battalion chief and my captain knew. Nobody else knew. I was still putting down people that was getting help.

I was too ashamed to let anybody know I was doing it. I had this tough guy image that I had to put out there. I had to be a big, strong, tough guy. I couldn't show any kind of vulnerability. So my chief shows up before the cops and he told me, he says, get your counselors. They're coming here to lock you up. And that was my last day on the job. Damn. You were just portraying who you thought everybody thought you needed to be. Yeah, you're exactly right. I was like a closet homosexual in the NFL.

Seriously, you hear about it all the time. And they have to be big, strong, tough guys. And they just have this image pretending to be something they're not. And they can't come out and tell people who they really are. And that's what I was, man. I was hurt. I was injured. And I needed fucking help. But I was too afraid to say it out of judgment. Because I was surrounded by those kind of men just like me. My captain was on the body recovery team with me.

To this day, 13 years later, we haven't spoken a word about it. Nothing. Not one fucking word. Yeah. I mean, it just goes to show you how fucking toxic that culture can be. It's the same shit, you know, with what I used to do. But how long, you know, what was your family life like during this time? I mean, it sounds like you completely ruined almost all the relationships within your team, right?

What was family life like? So at that point when I left, I was still, I wasn't married yet. I just started dating my wife at the time. We had been dating for some time and that was all fine at that point because I was still a fireman doing the job. I was drinking a lot more than I normally did, but I was still a very outgoing guy. I had some problems that I was just trying to figure out on my own. She was a safe place for me.

And I shielded her from a lot of that. And unfortunately, somewhere along the line, I dropped that shield and she got heavily exposed to it. And it started affecting our family and everybody around us. And that was years later. But when I left fire department, you know, I was already doing stand-up comedy on the side for two years. It was like a part-time job for me. And I just threw myself into comedy.

The day that I left, I just threw myself into comedy and I was on the road six years straight for 40 weeks a year. And I was running from, running from what made me sick, the place that made me sick, Charleston and everything that happened there and through my career. And comedy was like that adage, laughter is the best medicine. Comedy was like my crack cocaine. It just made me feel invincible and it made me feel amazing. And I couldn't get enough of it. It's the only thing that made me feel alive.

After everything inside of me had died. I'd always been a fun outgoing guy but when the somewhere that that switch got flipped and The old me was dead and I was this new version of Travis and just soulless Human being how long did it take you for the new version 13 years 13 fucking years. Yeah Damn, man. I mean, you know just the fact that you of all the shit that you have been through and everything you've experienced and

to turn it around and become a fucking stand-up comedian is, I mean, that's like a miracle in itself. Well, it's like you, man. When you get passionate about something, I see what you do. You throw yourself into it and you give it everything you got. And that's how I am. I stopped at nothing and I created some opportunities for myself. Nothing was handed to me. I made things happen because that's what we do. And we don't make excuses. We just make shit happen.

And I did get some some decent breaks But it's because I put myself in these positions for that to happen and so comedy took off for me and it got It turned into something amazing and you know as well as I do with this whole PTSD thing and the depression the anxiety First thing we want to do is self-destruct. Yeah, you don't feel like you deserve it You don't feel like you deserve anything So I pulled the plug on it in 2016 and I just fucking walked away from it. You mentioned

Some of the things that helped you, and you very subtly mentioned... I can't remember if it was in a podcast or in your book or where I found it, but it resonated with me because one thing that I believe helped me kind of pull myself out is getting the fuck away from the community for a minute. And it seemed like the farther that I leave it, the better off I am. And then it wasn't until...

Shit, to be honest with you, it wasn't until I started this fucking show that I kind of started reconnecting with some of the guys. And, you know, I mean, I talked about going to Marcus Luttrell's with Rob and Dave and how fucking tense that was. And I hated that, to be honest with you. I couldn't fucking stand being there at first. And then, you know, and then the tension kind of wore off. But it...

Anyways, all I'm getting at is the toxicity of being around and how it helped me get better. And then to hear you say, being on the road, doing comedy, you were out of the firehouse. You weren't in Charleston. You weren't in communication with the boys. And it accelerated your recovery. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I mean, do you think that helped a lot getting out of there man? I always say when you're in a place that makes you sick, you can't get better It's like a cancer patient testing cigarettes for Marlboro or whoever you're only gonna get sicker I tried to stay a hung-on tooth and nail man But I realized when I realized I had problems and something needed to change when I finally because people ask me What made you reach out for help?

Yeah. You know, and it was me sitting in my living room, dry fire and a weapon in my mouth while I'm choking on the weapon. The barrel down my throat was slobber and drool all over it. My tears running down my face and a bottle of whiskey next to me. And then I load it and then I go to pull the trigger and I stop right where I thought it would go off. And luckily I stopped prior to it going off and I knew right then I needed help. So I got the help, but it wasn't in time. But yes, to answer your question, um,

When I got away from the fire department, things started drastically changing for me. The anxiety, I always had the nightmare shit. I still do. But that rage inside of you, it calms. So getting away from there was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I didn't want to leave like that. I wanted to stay on the job 30 years. I wanted to retire. I wanted to do the right thing for my guys, ride that rig for them. But it wasn't in the cards for me.

So I got away from there for a long time and now I'm back. And now I do a lot of work with fire departments, police departments, but I'm better now. And I'm with them at a different capacity now, you know. So I'm not completely immersed in it all the time. I can step away from it. Yeah. When did you decide to put the bottle down? The day after our wedding in 2012. No shit? Yeah, man. I got so fucked up at our wedding that...

My poor wife, she had to eat cold grits with the cab driver that took us to our hotel because her husband was passed out upstairs. Oh, shit. It was a great first night together. Oh, shit. But I had been thinking about it for a while. That was just, for me, that was just the thing. I woke up the next morning and I said, man, I don't ever want to touch this stuff again. And I haven't. Cold turkey. Done. Yeah, I looked at it and I started looking at if I'm ever going to get better.

It's going to be a long road to hoe. But I need to look at the things I can control right now that are not helping me. And the biggest one that stuck out to me was alcohol. It didn't add any positive thing in my life. Nothing. Everything that it offered me was negative. So I was like, dude, just got to go. So I quit cold turkey right then. That's awesome.

That's not easy to do. No, but it's at first, you know, the hardest part about it is now being the sober guy around all the people that are drinking. Yeah. And you're sitting there when you when you don't want to be there, like you talk about in your social anxiety posts. I get it because I don't want to fucking be here, but I have to put on this smile. And that doesn't mean I'm not contemplating fucking everybody up in this room. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's just something I've had to learn to accept and deal with. And I'd rather have that than going back home with that bottle and putting myself in a position to not be here anymore. Yeah. Well, for everybody that's listening who is from, you know, the fire service or military or police who's fucking drowning themselves in a bottle right now, and there's a lot of them, I mean, how fast after you quit drinking did...

How fast did that acceleration start to get you into a better mental state? And I'm sure your business fucking started taking off too at that point. Well, honestly, I'd love to tell you it was lightning fast, but it wasn't. It was a culmination of things because I was so fucked up. The biggest hurdle I had yet to face was ownership and acceptance of everything. Yeah. And I...

Always was asking why and it was I became the victim of like this only happens to me Why me my life is in such a horrible spot, even though I wasn't drinking I still had that mentality and that's never who I was prior to all of this. I

I was a very positive, upbeat guy. But this thing does something to you. It rewires your brain. And you have to be your own surgeon and go in and fucking reconfigure the wire. It took years of me going in and trying to rewire until I finally fixed it. And it wasn't until last year when I realized what it was. It was something as simple as how the word is perspective.

Something as simple as perceptive perspective. How do I want to view my world? Do I want to look at it through this victim? Feeling bad horrible or fucking poor poor me lens or do I want to look at it from a standpoint of look? You have this beautiful life. You have these horrible experiences Yes But you can do something with them for the greater good and you can make a positive impact on people with what you have experienced and so I chose that and the second I chose that I

It was like a light switch. Well, how the fuck did that come to you? That's funny you ask. It came to me sitting in my car with a gun in my hand ready to blow my brains out for the second time. So I quit comedy in 2016. I'd been on the road for six years. And we had a young daughter at home.

And my wife was pregnant with our second one. And by this time, I was already doing tours overseas for the troops. I was headlining major comedy clubs all over the country. I was getting on television. I was doing all these things that I loved. And I thought, hey, this is my purpose now is being a comedian. And this makes me better. But in the same token, I felt guilty for having any level of success. I don't pretend to be a household name. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I had success in my own right. And I felt horrible for it.

And then at the same token, I now have a wife and kids at home. And I felt horrible because I'm not there. And I tried to juggle the two and balance the two, and I just couldn't get it right. So I quit. I pulled the plug on comedy. And when I did, I started resenting everybody for that. I started resenting my own family.

like it was their fault that I chose to do this, you know, but I felt it's what I needed to do. And so for three years I carried that and I, I worked around home flipping houses in real estate and I was doing, doing well, but I was empty inside. I was missing something. I was craving that stage and I was too ashamed to, to even try to go back because I had bowed out and I'd pretty much accepted a defeat and this was my new life. And I was trying to force something that wasn't natural. And I was meant to be

On a comedy stage. So one day I got in my car. I just couldn't live this life anymore. I was miserable yet I have a family that loves me financially. I'm stable. I live in a fucking wonderful place and I wanted none of it I just wanted to die. All I knew was Empty and I just didn't want it anymore So I went I drove out to the to the forest on a rainy day And I was sitting out there in my truck and something happened that made me smile and uh

When it did, I hadn't smiled in a long time and I hadn't felt a sense of satisfaction or joy in a long time. And the second that happened, I threw my gun in the glove box. I said, I know what I need to do. I still have some joy left in me. And I realized it. And I said, I'm going back to work. I'm going back to get on the comedy stage. All these shitty things happen in my life. I can't fucking change it, but I'm gonna make the fucking best of it. And it starts right now. And when I did that, that's when I opened up more about speaking. And I started getting speaking engagements on mental health.

and i'd go up there and i'd cry like a baby just like i did on this show because it's very very very difficult to talk about this stuff because you have to relive it if you want it to be authentic you have to relive it yeah and i started doing that and i saw the impact that that was making and i started seeing the the responses i was getting from people was so overwhelming in our communities like man i'm going through the same thing and hearing your message made me realize i need to get help and it's touching other first responders and military families and it's i'm not saying that

I'm the cure-all, by any means. I'm not that dude. But I'm just willing to be fucking vulnerable now and share my experiences in hopes that my mistakes won't be made by others who are quickly approaching where I was. Well, it's working. I mean, you fucking put yourself out there and, you know, you're reaching a shit ton of people. So you're going to reach a shit ton more. And people are buying your book. And I know that's helping a ton of people. Yeah.

So you're doing fucking great work, man. Thank you, man. And it's said this honestly means the world to me doing what I do now, where I thought my purpose in life was comedy. But that's why I say our life is a bunch of redirecting points in our life. You think you're where you need to be, but you never know where you need to be. The universe. I'm not spiritual.

I'm not religious, but I do know the universe will stop you when it's ready and point you in a different direction. And if you fight it, that's when your life is utterly fucking miserable because it's trying to tell you, you need to go this route. This is the way you go until I stop you and turn you somewhere else. And that's what happened with comedy. It introduced me to speaking, and now I'm speaking all over, and it is a fucking wonderful feeling to be able to do what I get to do. And I couldn't be more blessed.

That's awesome. Just going back just a little bit, we talked about the addiction to adrenaline and we were kind of talking the other night about I asked you, I said, how do you I was asking, how do you get your fix now of adrenaline? I still have to fucking have it. And and, you know, I get it in various ways. But comedy, jumping up in front of people on a stage and doing comedy is

You had said kind of filled that void. And do you still have that now? With comedy, yeah. It's not as big of a shot of adrenaline as it used to be, but it's still there because you are 100% at other people's mercy.

And it feels good. It's like, all right, let's get this thing going. Right. And it's the whole make me laugh, motherfucker. And it's like, all right, let's go. And you never know what you're getting. Comedy's wild, man. It can get pretty wild out there. And with speaking, not so much, because when you go to speak, it's not people obviously don't want you to suck.

but it's a nice, quiet, calm crowd. And you don't have drunk people out there like with this whole prove it mentality. So speaking, the adrenaline is not there. Comedy, you still feel, you still feel the pee pee about to come out sometimes, you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I think I've been thinking a lot about, you know, uh, cause I know you told me that you don't get the same adrenaline rush as you, uh, speaking as you do with the comedy or definitely not fighting fires. But, um,

Just kind of thinking on it, how many people do you think you maybe have saved as a firefighter? Like pulling a baby out of a fire, pulling a woman out of a man. I don't know. How many people do you think you've saved? Have you ever thought about that? No, I've never thought about it because you think about ones you couldn't. Yeah. That's the truth. I've been involved in some stuff, and that's helped some people. But those are...

i don't know i mean i hope that those folks go on to become wonderful people and do wonderful things in their lives but it's it's ones that you can't get back to stick with you let me rephrase that what is it like when you do save somebody and you know they would have died if you had not responded what's that feeling like it's amazing do you get that feeling now

When you get an email or somebody pulls you aside after the show. I mean, because now you're helping thousands and thousands and thousands of fucking people. And so you might not be getting your adrenaline fix, but you're getting that. You're getting another fix. I don't know what the hell you would call it. Satisfaction. Yeah. Yeah. So that is a very good way to word that. I didn't realize when I first started speaking the power of.

this thing had. I knew that we had problems in our communities. You know, you hear it all the time, firefighters, suicides, police suicides, and military. Military has been addressed for years and years and years, maybe not as much as it needs to, but it's no secret the military has PTSD problems. Over the last few years, law enforcement, emergency services have hit the forefront too, where they were kind of left in the cold for a little while, and people are starting to realize, hey,

They might be just as if not more severely fucked up than the military now because they live it for 30 fucking years day in day out and they never get to leave it. So I knew what I had to say was important, but I had no idea at the magnitude of it. And when I started, it got addicting because yeah, people come out of the woodworks and they want to share what they've experienced and they want to share the, so many people are like, Hey man, because of your story,

I realized I'm messed up and I need to get help to help my family too. And I've gotten, we've talked about this, about the emails that come through and it's an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that I can't explain. And it's, I look at my life and I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be because of everything that's happened. And I feel like now all of that stuff may have happened because maybe I am strong enough to weather it all and to package it up.

own it and accept it and do something positive with it yeah and i'm just taking a day at a time it's pretty fucking fulfilling isn't it it's amazing but uh well you're doing great now and uh i don't want to keep going down the dark road so i want to take a break and uh and when we come back we just got a quick thing and then we're gonna wrap it up okay

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Let's get on with it. All right, man. So once again, we are back from the break. We're going to wrap it up here pretty soon. But, you know, since you are in the business of helping fellow firefighters and police and mill and everything like that, I have a personal friend who works for Boca Raton Fire Rescue. And his name is Mike Sklark. He's getting ready to

He's putting in for retirement, getting ready to open up the next chapter of his life. And I know he's seen a lot of fucked up shit too. In fact, one thing that comes to my mind is I remember going out to breakfast with him when I lived in Florida. We used to go to breakfast together all the time. And he responded to a call on an overpass saying,

And I can't remember the specifics of who it was. I think he was a I think he might have been a truck driver, a tow truck driver. But he fucking fell off the damn overpass and, you know, fucking died right there. And an hour later, he's sitting there eating breakfast with me and his wife. And I think Katie was there, too.

And I remember thinking while we were eating breakfast, I was like, Jesus Christ, man. Like, how is this dude fucking kind of keeping it together? You know, playing, playing husband and, and, you know, I'm just looking at him like, how the fuck are you pulling this shit off? You know, that's some heavy shit. Um, so anyways, uh, he's getting ready to retire and I, uh, called him and told him that you were coming out here and, and, uh,

and who you are, and I know he's been researching you. And so I think he's got a question for you, and I thought maybe a transitioning firefighter coming out of the service, opening up his new chapter. I mean, who better to, you know, ask than you? Okay. Hey, Mike, you on here? Hey, thanks for having me. It's an honor to be speaking with the two of you today. Well, thanks for coming on, man. Pleasure's mine, Mike. But I have...

Travis here, and we're getting ready to wrap it up, and so the floor is yours, man. Hey, first of all, I'd like to say, Travis, you got a great interview over there. Been around and put it on that he didn't have high respect for, brother, so welcome. Thank you. Hey, I just have to apologize. I would like to have read your whole book. I just got it yesterday afternoon, but I've only got about 20 pages left. That's amazing. I'm just...

in a way that an individual can actually open up like that because a lot of us can't and uh very impressed very impressed thank you man you've uh you've had quite a journey it looks like along the way some of us seem to be magnets for stuff yeah and you seem to be one of those magnets my uh my hat's off to you well thank you so much i really appreciate your support bro i do have a question for you sure um

Since you've written your book and you've started doing comedy, it seems like you've really opened up and exposed these issues, not just in the fire service, police service, you know, also in the military and the day-to-day stress that gets to people. Do you get a call from somebody saying, hey, I need help and I don't know where to start?

I don't receive too many phone calls, but I get a ton of emails and inboxes, whether it be Instagram or Facebook. And now it's gotten to the point where sometimes it's multiple times a day. And it's usually brothers and sisters in the services. And I've actually experienced many of them are from actual family members of those individuals.

So it's one of those things that, you know, I think when people hear it, they realize there's more of us out there and we don't have to sit here and shoulder all of this on our own. So it happens pretty frequently. Wow, that's pretty impactful. When I was reading your book, I see your friends with Jeremy Hurd. Yeah, I know Jeremy well.

So here's what's funny. I'm a face person. I'm not a name person. So when I read his name in your book, I'm like, well, let me look him up. And I knew his face right away because he did something for me and I've only met him once. So you talk about that light bulb that comes on? Yes, sir. For years, when somebody's at a critical time, whether it's your family, somebody else's family, sometimes it's just showing up and being there for that person or that family, whatever they might need.

For years, I could describe it, but I didn't have a name for it. And a friend of a co-worker had passed away, and he was there. And he and I had a great conversation and everything, and I explained to him what I was feeling. He goes, oh, that's called the Ministry of Presence. And I said, ma'am, thank you so much. I have been looking for a name for that for the last 15 years, and very impactful.

Man, that's good stuff, man. Again, I'm blown away. Like you said, I see some people get it, some people don't. It's about relationships. I think that's what it all boils down to. That's exactly right. And unfortunately for so many of us, we ruin those relationships before we ever get to really...

build them and strengthen them to to the you know, the best ability that we can and Unfortunately in my case, I'm certainly speaking for me. I've ruined a lot of those and I've spending a lot of time repairing them now Yeah, I'll tell you I'm really happy that you've come out ahead in recent years There have been a lot of brothers and sisters that haven't you know, and they've fallen just you know by their own hand and It's tough. It's tough for all of us in the community to shoulder but uh, I

Man, I can't tell you. I'm going to work guys on to your book and really help try to get the word out there. I don't think it's as common as a lot of people think. People understand there's more support out there for them, but just phenomenal. Well, I appreciate that, bud. It means the world, and that's what it's about. It's about leaning on one another, helping one another out, whether that means putting the right literature in front of guys, turning them on to someone who is talking about it openly and vulnerably.

to show them that, Hey, you too, you know, you hear this guy's story. Maybe it's not mine. Maybe it's somebody else's, but we gotta be, we, we, we preach the word brotherhood and Sean and I were talking about this. It sounds a lot cooler than what it really is sometimes because sometimes it doesn't exist. We want it to, but in order for that to exist, we really got to lift one another up and that's where it starts. Starts with, with, with lifting each other up. Yeah. Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head right there. Um,

I think in a lot of industries, they don't... It's hard. Most people just go to a job every day. They work that job for eight hours, they come home. They don't actually live with the people. When you live with a crew or you have a job or you're extended and you depend that much on somebody, whether it's your life or just anything in the day-to-day where you're instrumental in each other's lives like that, there's that tight bond that forms. And it's no joke. It's no joke.

Yeah, it's an unexplainable bond that if you haven't lived it, you just don't know. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, absolutely. And so you've also spoken at FDIC. That's a huge room. Well, I haven't spoken at FDIC. I performed comedy events there, and I have another one coming up in 2021, and it's for the actual Firefighter Cancer Support Network. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, another big issue facing a lot of us these days. Yeah, it is. And that's why it's, you know, cancer, it's getting the best of a lot of us. And, you know, we don't, we just don't know from the way that I was brought up in the fire service. We did, we did everything wrong. And at some point,

It inevitably catches up with many of us, and that's why I took a real hard look at myself and said, I'm going to make the most of the time that I have left, however much that may be, and I'm going to put my pride to the side and start opening up about this stuff and talking about it, and hopefully it makes a difference. And I'm so pleased to be a part of the Firefighter Cancer Support Network for four years now, doing shows for them to help our brothers and sisters. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Thank you for all you do. Really appreciate it.

Thank you for what you do, man.

Yeah. Well, it does, man. I appreciate your service. And like you say, when people thank me for mine, honestly, it is the pleasure of my life. It really has been. So as you transition out, man, I wish you nothing but the best in your transition out. And I hope you turn the page and have a wonderful, wonderful retirement, bro. Thank you, man. I really appreciate it. Hey, again, thank you guys for having me today. It's been amazing. Yeah, Mike, when are you going back to work? I go back tomorrow.

All right, man. Stay safe, brother. Be safe out there. Thank you so much, guys. Take care. Thanks. You too. Bye-bye. You guys in this phone already. What's that? You guys in this phone. Yeah. Well, thanks for taking that call. I mean, it's my pleasure. He's a good friend of mine, and I know he is really...

He's I think he's scared of, you know, leaving the community and what it's going to be like putting that behind him. And we've talked several times about it. And so I just thought you're paving the way, you know. It's scary because it doesn't have to be the end, you know. Yeah. And for me, it was hard when I left. I left on not on my own terms.

And it was just the end. But it doesn't have to be. Our book, I like to think our life is a book with multiple chapters. It's not just one chapter. Being in the fire service, being in the SEAL teams, being police officers, that's just one chapter, no matter how thin or thick it is. At some point, it's going to end. And you can't let that define who you are as a human being. And that's what crushes people at the end. And that's what puts these folks in danger.

These positions where they feel like they have nothing left because they let that job define them and now they had they had this emptiness inside But I'm telling you I've had that same emptiness and you just have to go and create Your own light. Yeah. Well, you're doing a hell of a job at paving the way man. I you really are and

On that note, I want to kind of wrap this thing up. And, but I just, you know, I just want to say, you know, you're the first mill guy or the first non-mill guy, even though you are a mill guy, but we didn't focus on that. And, and I wasn't a hundred percent sure how this was going to go. And, but when I announced that you were coming on the show, just, you know, for just so you know what,

your own or saying about you, we got a shit ton of emails, messages, comments, and everybody, a ton of people know who you are. A lot of people are calling you a legend in the fire community. And it's just been a real honor to, you know, pull your story out of you and have you sit in that fucking chair, man. Like,

That's heavy words, man. And thank you. But legend, I don't know about that. I've walked amongst legends. Ricky Williams is one that you fucking talk to. I'm just trying to do what I feel is right in my heart to help guys and girls stay in the fight as long as they can. And I can't thank you enough for having me on your platform, for sharing this with me. I know you said a lot of bad motherfuckers have sat in this chair. And I told you that. I'm not one of them. Yeah, you are. I feel like...

Feel like I'm staining this chair. So you might be I've seen the dudes you've had on this show and I'm you know And it's an honor to sit here. It really is with you with your crew with your wife your family So thank you and thank you for having me. Yeah, you're welcome and you

Taking a compliment is not a fucking easy task. It's almost like a joke, right? Yeah. If you can take a... If you can take a dick, you can take a joke. That's exactly right. But I did want to say a couple other things. And we at Vigilance Elite have given...

a ton to the veteran community. Donations, connections, all kinds of stuff we gave to the law enforcement community. I actually made a piece of apparel and donated all the proceeds back to law enforcement.

And I've been really wanting to do something for the fire community as well. But, you know, unfortunately, as time goes on, I have lost faith in just about every fucking nonprofit out there. There's only one that I actually vouch for anymore. So what I'd like to do is I'm going to make a fire service hat, the thin red line hat.

Which by the time this airs, it'll be out. So the link's up top. You can click the link, buy the hat. I'm going to give you all the proceeds from the hat. So I don't know how many we're going to make yet, but I'm going to give you all the proceeds. I don't know a good organization to donate it to, but I want to give you the proceeds and...

you do with it what you think is necessary, whether it's donating to a nonprofit or buying as many of those books that you wrote as you can and get them at every fucking fire station in the country. Whatever you think you need to do, all I ask is just tell us where it went and if there have been any results.

So I just you know, I think you're a stand-up motherfucker, dude I know it takes balls to do what you're doing paving the way like that and I just want to help so we're gonna have that done. I don't even know what to say because Like I told you before when we were just chatting nobody's ever done anything for me You know like to help do what I do and I just told you downstairs Everything I do is by myself

i will certainly put that to use to do some good in these communities and i can't thank you enough from the bottom of my heart for real i i have some ideas and we can talk about that um but wow that's that's tremendous man cool thank you you're welcome i'm just gonna need some help designing it i don't wanna uh i don't wanna put anything on it that shouldn't be on there but uh but yeah the design will be catered uh 100 towards

uh your community so thank you that'll be awesome and they'll certainly appreciate the out of it man cool we'll make sure that that it goes to the right places i know you will and uh with that being said if somebody wanted to reach you on social media your website how do they get a hold of you is it do they still call uh 9-1-1 or just yeah you just call 9-1-1

No, it's pretty simple man. Just it's my name. It's my website Travis Howells h o w z e.com But I'm asking everybody because when I quit comedy I deleted most of my social media So I've been a pain in the ass to rebuild it and I'm asking folks to inundate Instagram I'm just focusing on Instagram. So give me a follow and

Instagram at Travis Howells h-o-w-z-e I'd really appreciate the fuck out of it because the more people that I can get in my corner the more we can spread this message and hopefully help some folks out you know that's what it's all about yeah and if they want to buy your book yeah so if they want to buy my book create your own light it's it's available on Amazon

Amazon kind of fluctuates on the price. They'll drop it on sale sometimes. You just go click the link and grab it. It's getting a ton of great reviews. I'm surprised at the amount of books that have been sold. And like I said in the beginning, I didn't expect this. And it's doing tremendously well. And I just believe it's because it's such a specific message for our communities that no one's talked about it. And it's time. It's much needed and long overdue.

So you can go to Amazon and grab that. That's the best place. Right on, man. Well, keep paving the way and doing good things. And best of luck to you. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Finding suitable mental health medications can be a challenge. The gene site test may help. Did you know that genetics can play an important role in gaining insight on how a person may respond to various medications? Understanding this may help reduce medication trial and error.

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