Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
From Combat Trauma to Healing: A Green Beret’s Story of Psychedelic Recovery
In this episode of Broken Brains, Bruce Parkman talks with retired Green Beret Pat Flatley, who shares his journey through traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and the shortcomings of traditional treatment. After years of pain, anger, and depression with little help from the VA, Pat found a breakthrough through psychedelic-assisted therapy with Ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT, supported by VETS.org.
These treatments helped him process trauma, reduce symptoms, and reconnect with his family in ways that pharmaceuticals never could. Today, Pat advocates for alternative therapies and greater awareness of repetitive brain trauma, offering hope and a path to healing for fellow veterans.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
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Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, the only national voice on the issue of repetitive brain trauma. In this show we look at repetitive head impacts from contact sports and repetitive blast exposure to our US military veterans and what these conditions are doing to the brains of these men, women, athletes and kids, and how it's causing the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country. Why is this important? Because it's not trained to our doctors, our nurses. It's not, and our kids and veterans don't even know this has been going on, despite the fact that they think that their military training, their combat experience and their practice in sports is pretty much harmless because there's no symptoms until it's kind of too late. We reach out to patients and advocates, doctors, researchers, authors and try to find all the information we can for you to become an informed advocate to take care of yourself, because, again, without this knowledge you can't make an informed decision and you must protect yourself and those that you love or take care of yourself in terms of, you know, being able to get disability or provide the treatment you need to recover.
Speaker 1:Our guest today, another amazing guest who I have known for a long time. Pat Flatley is a retired US Army Green Beret and I can just say badass because I know Pat and a passionate advocate for innovative treatment solutions for veterans. After years of enduring post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury from his time in combat, pat found limited relief through traditional methods of mostly pharmaceuticals and therapy, which is really all we get. His turning point came when he participated in a groundbreaking study using ibergaine therapy, which he credits restoring his sense of peace, clarity, purpose, probably saving his life, if you ask me. Since then, pat has become a prominent voice in the veteran community, sharing his story on various podcasts and speaking publicly about the need for alternative heating modalities. Through his advocacy, he continues to support fellow warriors in finding hope, recovery and renewed strength beyond the battlefield. Because guess what, once you take the uniform off, you know you can't. You got to go on, man. You got to find your next thing to do, man, pat. Welcome to the show, brother.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks for having me on, you know I love talking about this stuff.
Speaker 1:It's all good man. So you know, tell us a little bit about you know. Give us just the rundown in your Green Beret career man when did you start, where did you serve and where did you end up?
Speaker 2:I started at Devon's. Once I got through to Key Course I was one of the 18 X-rays. During the Gulf War they recalled a whole bunch of us ex-infantry clowns and gave us a chance to go SF. So it worked out. And then I went to Devon's, loved it. It was just cool. Devon's was, you know, a lot of skiing, a lot of winter stuff, got a lot of schools and it's always been great and then moved to Carson in 94, one of the first guys out there. We actually jumped in to go house hunting, which was pretty epic, you know, if you think about it, you know it. Just there were realtors on the drop zone waiting for us. It was a big deal.
Speaker 1:You know no way, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I went up to a guy and said hey, I just need a rental car and I'll come see you. Just give me your card and I just need a rental car. He said I'll take you to the airport. He got me to the airport and three of us went skiing for a week.
Speaker 1:The hell with the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd never skied Colorado, so I mean I wrecked a set of skis that week. It was amazing. 1994, spring break. It was a lot of fun. And then, yeah, moved out here. Well, in between that that's when the Iraq trip happened and that's when, you know, the friendly fire incident happened and I was in bad shape but moved right out here. I moved to Green Mountain Falls and my wife and I lived in a cabin and you know that was a good place to recover from. You know Right. So that first four years was really great. We moved down to town but had our kids and it was great. You know I absolutely loved Temp Group still to this day. You know it just was too fast, you know.
Speaker 1:Was that the only group you served in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, really yeah. A short stint at SWCC, that was it 18 months.
Speaker 1:So you did some time at SWCC.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at scuba school, Scuba school oh you were a scuba instructor?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was awesome Down at. Key West.
Speaker 2:Yep Bro I was just at the scuba facility last month with my wife or two months ago. Yeah, when did you teach there 9-11. I was there for 9-11. No kidding, I left C-110 in July and I got there and 9-11 happened. And what a time you know.
Speaker 1:It was like.
Speaker 2:And then you know, I'm just. You couldn't get a hold of anybody. Then too, it was like wow, I wonder if everyone, I, all my friends, just went to war, you know uh, but you know everybody was just taking off and doing this normal stuff, training and getting out there. But uh, I made eight and got out of key west pretty quick. So dude got back, took a team.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I remember, uh, you know, when I was, uh, when I was in SWCC, panama went down. I had just left 7th Group bro, and I'm sitting there in a Burger King reading the paper. I'm like God dang it. I was out at the SEER committee doing my thing.
Speaker 2:Everything I was saying with me. I just got out of the 82nd. I was in a bar lifting a beer when it said it on the TV the 82nd Airborne just struck panama and I was like I was still on leave. Basically I was on christmas leave, you know? You think about it, yeah boy you gotta, you gotta hate missing.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, god takes care of you and puts you in all the combat you want to see later on in your life, you know. So yeah, that's yeah yeah, that's you know.
Speaker 2:I'm riding a seven ton into ramadi going I I don't know anybody in this truck either I hear you man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. It's funny. I was the first class in that pool, that new pool at key west that you were. I was the first class back in 87, I think that went in that in 87 or 88, I was in that pool, man. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:You know that the old pool. They turned it into a kiddie pool and it had lily pads and little frogs, that spit water and I'd drive by it and be like what do those retirees feel like when they drive by there? And they're like I drowned in that pool.
Speaker 1:I was standing there and they're like, I drowned in that pool. I was standing there and so I took my wife in the bill and say, oh yeah, this is the scuba committee. Man, it's a really cool school, you know, I was, you know, go and we were, nobody was there and we ended up in the top floor Cause what I was looking for is all those class photos. Remember how we always took our pictures in each class? Yeah, and they had them up on the walls and I was looking for mine and this guy came. He goes can I help you? I go, what? Like my wife, I'm looking for this class. Like I think I was an ADA. He goes sir, you need to leave the building. I'm like, but I'm a retired sergeant man. He goes nah, you need to leave the building. And we got outside. He was pretty cool, but he said, yeah. I said is that the same pool? He goes that's the same pool. Uh, to it. Oh yeah, I.
Speaker 2:And I used to take guys. If retirees showed up at the gate and I had time, I'd say jump in the truck, man, I'll take you around. You know, and I'm about some cool guys, you know. They're showing me where they dug 45 rounds out of the range, uh, berm, to make weights, you're like, and that's just you know. And then jack Joplin was there. So Jack and I were good friends and I, man, I would come out of the building and him and this other guy, joe Hanson, would lift up their coffin box and that meant lunch beer. So I'd go over there and have a lunch beer with him and man, it was just, you know, two Mack Sock dudes. It was awesome, that part was good, you know.
Speaker 2:But I, I mean, living on the island wasn't great for us because we had little kids. That's not a place for kids, yeah and uh. So we were ready to come back to colorado. So it, it was cool, I made eight. And, uh, I did get a little trouble, I did, I whooped somebody down there, pretty bad, and it, it was an issue and I made eight anyway, um, and, and it was, it was the guy was an abusing students and pushing my buttons and and that was like kind of when it started because, uh, I was in germany, I ate a charge and right after that my mom, my wife and I went to fest with the kids and I couldn't be in a crowd and I was like, really, she's like, what's wrong? Wrong with you? You love stuff like this. You know, I'm like I, I, you know, and you know I mean fast. You know you got a beer in your hand, they got the coolest kid rides and I couldn't settle down. It sucked.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, I went to the dock at Key West and said, listen man, my temper's off the charts. My, I don't know why. I just got Key West. I wanted to teach this One of the guys I was teaching with. We were roommates during language school and we used to do PT three times a day, and now we're at scuba school together, we're in the locker room First week we're doing PT together, giving it to the students, and it was like, ah, let's go, this is what we wanted when we were kids. And and how? Why would I be angry? You know? Why wouldn't it? It just started like that, started chipping away at, and then once I was a team sergeant and all that stuff. I mean people there now say you never smiled, man, you, you were just always just on or fired up or angry. You know, the younger guys, the older guys knew you know the younger guys, the older guys knew he, you know a little more goofy but yeah, what a couple of bad head injuries will do, you know.
Speaker 1:So you were in the SIF right and you were in 110,.
Speaker 2:Charlie Company. Yeah, who was your sergeant major?
Speaker 1:Was it Rick Lamb back then?
Speaker 2:Rick Lamb. Yeah, he took over when I was there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Rick and I were in the Sergeant Major's Academy together. As a matter of fact, while you were there, I was taking the first troops in the well, I took the troops in the Coastal back in 98 or 99. But yeah, Rick is a great guy, but I want the audience to know that talk a little bit about being in that company. So we have companies that do a lot of close quarter combat. I mean, how many? You guys train charges all the time.
Speaker 2:Non-stop. And that was a bad one with that was a. There was a building there. It was a old German NCO club from World War II it's still, you know, and they, we, it was our shootout. So it was three floors and a basement and our troop at the time used rubber strip charges on every door. They just took it as an opportunity let's train a lot on charges and we blew so many doors in that basement and then that, you know, on those floors and it's concrete around you and guys were real loose with it, you know, really really loose with it, just always getting closer and tighter and you're like man, maybe we should be moving back.
Speaker 2:Honestly, that door charge knocks the shit out of everybody in there. But the first time they sent OSHA after Rick took over, they sent OSHA there, oh. And then the other is, the flat range was inside tunnels and you got 10, 12, 15 dudes shooting thousands of rounds into these burns, sand burns, and that dust was coming off it and lead and uh, all of that, it it. You know, it's just not good even so. And then the door charts thing. Just at that time my troop blew every door, which that's lunacy, you know, I didn't. I. I rarely had to blow doors in real combat. You know, just open them and you know so anyway, that's a good point.
Speaker 2:It really was, and my infantry guys would walk up, slide up, twist the door, handle, nod and that's it. It's open, you know, because if you blow the door charge, the whole neighborhood knows now and that's where you're going to eat the ied. So, uh, changed my mind a lot on that. That and also just that you're, you're those kids and every target. So what are you going to do? You know, are you really going to blow that door charts? You really want to do that to those kids? Man, you know, let's just kick the door and it's usually a piece of junk and then 90 I would say 85, 90 of it. That it's a.
Speaker 2:It was a was a rural house with a bunch of kids and women in the front room, the doors open because the crapper's outside, those kids are coming and going all night. The doors open and it was open almost every time You're stepping over women and kids getting in there, but I mean shotguns, uh-uh. You know, there's just kids everywhere. There's 12, 13 of them. I can't live with that. You know, let's do our best, man, you know, it's just not even wake them up. You know, sometimes we would stand, we'd walk right over them with knobs on, just stepping over all the kids sleeping on the floor and get them. The adults were always in the, the males were in the back rooms, so anyway, it was just it was 90% off combat, you know, I mean off what we trained for in the SIF. And uh, we, it was.
Speaker 2:You know, people still wanted to do that type of stuff on my later tours. And man, I mean just overcharging everything you know, and he just it's doing your, it's doing your guys in, whether you like it or not, you know so, and in that company that was it. There was no other, no other training we did. It was almost all CQB shooting and then different scenarios of that. So for three years nothing but door charges, big charges. I was a breacher and just you know, flash bangs, everything. So you know I even, you know, later a 50 cal would really rock your world. If you were too close to a .50 cal when they made those dune buggies right, remember when they cut the roofs off to humvees and stuff, yeah, .50 cal above your head, that little piece of metal would stop a lot of concussion. But you don't have it there. They took it off. So old Sweener blew my left.
Speaker 1:You know, sweener was on the box, and you know.
Speaker 2:Sweeney was on the, and you know it it's. I had stuff, I had phones or whatever on or I had foamies in, but my head was just like you know, I was like what the hell is that? Well, a 50 cal from three feet away, you know. So, uh, so, just a lot of that. And then I was in a couple of IED D's that I got close to over the time but, you know, really couldn't have trained for that.
Speaker 1:So anyway, and that's what I, when I was in C-37, you know, and I was an RST, right, I was a, I was a SFARC tech qualified, but I was on the teams and I used to see those guys go out. We had a big World War II battery called battery pratt, with three foot like this thing was like artillery shell proof and they would go in there and they would same thing, right, they'd be blowing doors, shooting guns, bullet traps, and you know, we now know that the, the, the exposure factor for being inside, with cqb, for those like 5X what you eat when you're out on a range right in the open. So you think that you train for three years in an enclosed environment and not just in a house, bro, like in concrete tunnels where that exposure is going back and forth, and that's a lot, a lot.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time I went on one of the SEAL ships, their training ships and walked around, you know, I was like, oh, you know what did you know? We got to go into the Delvani or whatever that ship is. I was like don't belong charges in here. This has got to be heinous. And all that steel and how it's bouncing off Even the metal, I'll bet that it's like a bass drum, you know, and, yeah, we should have. I don, you know, and uh, yeah, we should have.
Speaker 2:I don't know what else they could do, though, because at the time, uh, osha showed up. This was really kind of funny. The osha showed up and put all these sensors on us and we blew the door and it was my cell. We blew the front door, we went in, they we did like a quick, like two rooms, and they're like stop, stop, get out of the building. And we get out of the building. They're like they put like yellow tape. They're like this building will never no one can ever, go in this building again. We're like we used to spend the whole day in there, you know, I mean, how loose it was. The school was maybe 300 yards away, and we're blowing the main door on that thing all the time while the kids are out there. You know, like could they hear it?
Speaker 2:oh yeah it was on panzer, you know. Boom, you know. Yeah, those kids grew up, uh, you know. But so that osha said no more of this. So our shoot house is gone and everybody's pissed off and they're like maybe they just kind of helped us out, you know, saved us, yeah, said he built one of those facilities, like you see, with the big exhaust fans and everything. It's beautiful rubber floors, everything. And we they put this stuff back on us again once it was done.
Speaker 2:The same team yeah well, I don't know the same team, but I was the breacher again and we went in and, uh, as soon as we blew the door, they said get out of the building, get out of the building. So even that with the exhausts and everything, you know the ceilings have these giant fans. Uh, no, you're. You just you're taking too much when you're doing door charges inside and all that. So you know you had a lot of give what 10, 12 years of that. Where guys were, you know? And and there's a good reason for the uh, trying to shoot houses with the catwalks, with the opening at the top, you know. So at least it breathes off pretty quick. That might save our butts and entire houses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I opened. I built that safari course for 10th group back in the day because, you know, I was one of the few guys that had been. I had a whole bunch of guys in the company that had been in the SIF and so we put that course together and they built that shoot house. Yeah, it's a different environment.
Speaker 2:Now they got a bunch of stuff and I don't know. You know something? I tell these guys it all the time. I say listen, there's a reason why the old guys said you know what this CQB crap is? Stupid, let's go train somebody, and a big one. That changed me, no shit.
Speaker 2:This was in the middle of the street in Khouija, iraq. We had two CAG dudes that were working people in our town and they didn't have an assault force or anybody nearby. They were just off on their lonesome work and stuff. And they would show up and say can you kick a door? And you know, I had nine of three guys and then whatever my team guys were around and we'd go on a door all the time. Doug would go too and we'd hit doors for him.
Speaker 2:And then one night I was like man, I can't believe, you don't have anybody nearby. And he was like man, I can't believe you don't have anybody nearby. And he was like Pat, a monkey can kick a door. Man, that's what I need. I need, you know, a monkey can kick a door, I just need someone to kick the door. I need that guy inside, you know. And I was like, wow, what happened to this damn monkey. You know, holy shit, and I'm never going to be anyone's monkey, ever again. You know it was like that next time he came and asked, I said this one's gonna cost you, man. I want a bunch of c4 and flashbangs. I don't have it, uh, and and then you know, the next time, that's what I wanted, that 36 commando mission, I, I want kurds to hit the door and the other big one, not just him saying that.
Speaker 1:at first I was furious you know, at first I was like bag you know I wonder.
Speaker 2:But when I'm driving home that night I was like you know I wonder. But when I'm driving home that night I was like that guy just taught me what I needed to be taught. You know he's right, find someone else to kick these doors, because while we were doing CQB one night, uh, we got to the back room it was a wall hallway and it turned right. I met it, kicks the door. I follow him. He jumps back and pushes me out of the room, turns around. He's pushing backwards and screams no, no, no. And I'm like go, go, go. Like no, no, no, there's a leper in there. And it just was like you mean like biblical shit, it's like biblical shit, wow, you're like holy shit. And he did his medic rotation at the leper colony of Louisiana.
Speaker 1:So he actually knew what a leper looked like.
Speaker 2:Thank, God, I guess it was. I got a little little glimpse but it didn't look good. You know, he was in an advanced stage and we would all burst into that room. You know, and that was the one where I'm like, yeah, find someone else. You know, let's let the locals do this, especially if something goes bad. You know, if there's a shooting of any type, you know, if the frowns go through the wall, it hits a kid, it's on you. So, right, quickly, you can get away from doing it. Uh, you know the better.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't as fun as people think. You know, it was stressful, was stressful. I mean, I like to talk about it. I like to say, yeah, hell, yeah, it was awesome, we took down towns and stuff. But you know, during it, that was a wreck, man, you know you literally lose your cookies afterward every time if you're in charge because you have so many fire pans going at once, and then once it's like we got them, let's get off the objective, and you're just like, ah, throw up real quick, all right, let's get home.
Speaker 1:You know, get playing to start planning for the next one.
Speaker 2:Yep, and I was glad I didn't have. You know, once I was done doing it in the last one I was got shot. A dude, a, so uh, one of the dudes took him out so he well, hand in hand, just knocked the AK down, elbow struck him, laid him out one of the infantry kids and and you know it was it was you're like all right, this is, he's gone long enough. Man, you know I pulled that door open and that guy was on the other side with an AK. You know it could be your number, uh, so that that 36 came in on that.
Speaker 2:Next time, when the SIF did come, they were still wanting to kick doors, of course, right, because they hadn't been over there yet. So I made a deal with Darcy that I need two months, because since it was a seven-month mission, I need the first two months and let them do unilateral missions and kick some doors, get the piss out, you know, and see that it's not great, it's better to teach, it's just, and you know I mean guys still want to do it, of course, but yeah, I was kind of. Then, you know also the door chargers in combat, when we were in the SIF, Rick got us, we got to go out to Zerps, which was an old Russian air base, and we wrecked that place. It was fantastic. When you would blow a charge, three floors of windows would break above you and come raining down. It was a reality. Like this is real shit.
Speaker 2:And then when you blow charges in the hallway, you'd see the whole stairwell crack because it's cheaply made by the Soviets. You know the whole stairwell would break. You're like whoa, there's more to this. You know the whole wall could fall on you, things like that. So that was a really, really good lesson. You know, for all that, that there's also the hazards around you. We blew one in Romania and the whole roof slid off. It was slate and slid off and luckily we were under the and it just all broke. Oh my god, from a door charge dang.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, remember, we build, you know american buildings american buildings stay there, you know yeah, yeah, so um, and then also the same with the door charges inside, if you know, you know it's going to ring through that building. And, uh, and then also the same with the door charges inside, if you know, you know it's going to ring through that building. And then also later on at DITRA, learning about chemicals Going. I want to throw a flashbang in here. For sure, you know, there's a couple little, you know it looks like a kid's set in that spot. You can make bot with just a couple of vials, you know, or something like that. And I was like no one, we'd never covered this in the SIF, not. We should have probably every month touched down a few of those you know, yeah, so I.
Speaker 2:It was dangerous. No matter how you slice it, it was going to be dangerous. You know, and I think the amount of people we lost in the beginning too, I think people started to feel a little more serious about it too. Just, maybe be open to changing tactics a bit, just leaders' recons, stuff like that. I remember trying to tell a captain no leaders' recon on this, you've got to roll on it. You've got to roll on it. They'll know They'll not listen. Several times, three, three times in a row.
Speaker 2:You're like you're gonna keep burning these targets and then sooner or later one of them's gonna read you and get that recon team.
Speaker 1:You know so yeah, the book changes when you're actually in combat, bro. I mean it's that book. That book is that that book gets ripped up. Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know honestly, though, like the old Hal, what Hal used to always say what makes you high speed? The basics. You know what makes you high speed, the basics. And I think that's, if you look at all the guys that really did well in a big gun fight. They had basics, you know Just the basics. Really good with a gun, really good with basic patrolling, building, climbing of course, and stuff like that. They could just move and shoot combat. You know, I really think that, uh, especially machine gun guys, you know asf guy average doesn't shoot a machine gun all that much or change um cans on the run. You know right, and the guys that did really good could. So I always like to have the infantry kids out there because run.
Speaker 2:You know the guys that did really good to it.
Speaker 1:So I always like.
Speaker 2:To have the infantry kids out there, because that's you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're carrying a machine gun.
Speaker 2:Well, not only that, if you got like the 50 or the 240s, I would come out to my vehicles and they'd be like we going on a night's hunt. You know you're like, yeah, I think we are, man, we're all ready. Man, this is like 9 am. You know their guns are ready, everything's cleaned up, ready to go. You know they've got nothing else to do. I think that's the one thing I teach all the younger sf guys is go get an infantry squad, you know, if you've got a shave and get a good haircut to impress that bc and that csf, do it, because there is nothing better than having nine little badasses. Just, you know, and you don't have to yell at them, you don't. You know, and yeah, they goof up and it's funny, but just, I can't say enough about it. Most of them ended up in SF and that was the best time of my life, like, uh, from you know, just for operations. Just leading those kids was incredible.
Speaker 2:You know how many how many combat tours you end up doing uh, I only did two shorts and then I did like because, remember we shot down to iraq for a week or two when that shoot down happened, and then, uh, my first one was that, uh, five and a half months, and then the second was, the third was seven, um, yeah, and but even then, though it's kind of funny, I went out pdss and it was like gigantic, just such a gigantic gunfight shit going on on a pdss oh my god, how?
Speaker 2:how did it end up like this? You know, we were like how, you know, and I don't care if it was with my guys, but going in with a bunch of dudes you didn't know and a 36 Commando. You know they had four ADs in the parking lot before we rolled that, you know, and I'm like ooh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the scary I think the scariest thing about it was while we were driving there, they gave me a Claymore bag with a metal plate for my ribs while I drove in this Nissan truck that only did 45 miles an hour All the way we went through Fallujah, the body, and then that night we rode in, at 7 o'clock, marine trucks. The whole city was just, ah, you know shoot. And once we got up on the road they just stopped shooting. You're like, are they reloading? You know what the what's going on? You know like, why did they just ease off and back up? But you know, I think that they knew this was who comes to reinforcements, time to run, you know, uh, yeah, so there was more eerie. You know, it was like I can handle it if you shoot, but when are you gonna start? So, yeah, that was ugly, ugly night. Uh, the first time I saw a minigun light off too, you know, it was like holy shit. You know, into a car and just, wow, all right, I gotta make sure the right guy's on that thing.
Speaker 1:I bet man Gosh. I mean you've seen a lot, bro, when did you retire 07. 07. So yeah, I mean you got.
Speaker 2:When I was an acting sergeant major over there, I came back, I broke my back in Baghdad Another TBI, that was probably my 11th. And when I came back the doctor was just like, dude, you're done, you're, you know, and you often be first sergeant and then you know, it was just. There was no way. The doctor was just like, look, man, you're going to be in a wheelchair, so it's no question if you just keep doing what you're doing. And they were right, it sucked, it really sucked, because I didn't want to get out. You know, um, but you know the deal. And, and not only that too, the temper thing and the headaches and the uh back then it was in the beginning was, uh, headaches, but really get every day uh bad really, when the uh um, the dizziness Crazy, because you know, and also I went to the doc.
Speaker 2:I said the doc, I get dizzy all the time now and I've never been dizzy in my life. I don't know what it's like. Like maybe I had the bed spins when I was drunk when I was a kid once, but I don't get dizzy. I don't know what it's like. You know my spatial awareness or whatever. And now when I roll in to try and do jujitsu I get dizzy. The guy's like well, before you were kind of a freak and now you're more normal. And that's the answers I'm getting and I'm like that's not an answer I want to hear and that's kind of throughout. Right when I retired, I went for TBI clinic in DC. Nine appointments and then they lost all the paper and it was stupid stuff like square blocks and round holes and stuff. It wasn't worth going and they never did an MRI, never nothing. You know, just yeah. And then it took me 13 years before I got my TBI rating. It was 2020 before I got it.
Speaker 1:Really so when you got out, you went to the TBI clinic. Did they give you any consideration? Disability for the head trauma TBI, any of the SIF, the 11 TBIs, no migraines, that was it.
Speaker 2:They said migraines you know, 10% for migraines.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, I didn't get 100% permanent till 2020. And I had 11 TBIs on record three fractured vertebrae, two bone shoulders, my eye got messed up, my left ear got blown out, yeah, and I had to fight for 13 years to get that 100% permanent toll. I was bedridden for five months that year that I got it. I have shit bags, man. They just they really do suck balls, man, it's you know. And then my doc, I, I had an army doctor. Uh, he was an ex-army doctor, his dad was an army doctor, his grandfather was an army doctor, his son was an army doctor, is an army doctor. You know. He gave me his own phone number to you know, if you have issues, pat, you call me because you know us and we don't bitch. Those doctors and nurses were like I love this guy. You know he's busted up and screwed up and you know he doesn't bitch that much and he retired and that really, you know.
Speaker 2:But during that time, him which was we were trying everything and he was helping, but he would change the subject a lot too, because I think the VA just told him look, just change the subject when they ask about TBI, because we don't have an answer. They were just pumping me full of all these different drugs. I'd go to a psych. The psych would say take this drug, and then my doctor would prescribe it. It was hell. Then it got worse. I would have been better without any other drugs, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:But even my last trip to Afghanistan I went as a contractor a couple times there was a bunch of us in a room. Everybody had like six meds on their table XSF, cag. You know a bunch of us in a room and everybody had like six beds on their table. Yeah, every XSF keg. You know, uh, deb grew, guy Ranger, and everybody had a bunch of beds for different things. And you're like this is just, you know, it's not I, I, I. The only time I saw meds like that was you know, the elder, you, you know the elder, you know, you know what I mean. It's just never really that bag who has six pill bottles, who travels with six fill bottles?
Speaker 1:you know? No, no, man. What was the uh, the symptoms? What were your symptoms like? What were you like when you started noticing beside the headache? What about the um, you know, were you angry and, and I mean, what were you going through, man?
Speaker 2:there's no like brew, where you just let stuff go. I, I immediately lose it over everything and and it just got worse and worse, you know, and then pretty soon, it doesn't matter what you do, you know I wake. I got an incredible house, been married 33 years, my kids are, you know, perfect, never been in trouble, you know you, just, it was so awesome and I would wake up and just be like fuck world. You know, ah, this is bad, this sucks, that's uh all I would just focus on horrible shit and then it graduated to. All I would do is just, it was like a TV commercials, these keep changing it.
Speaker 2:It's all the worst things I've ever seen in my life and I couldn't get off. It. Like, saw a dead kid, couldn't get off. It Just could not, you know, get past it. I didn't hurt the kid. I would definitely hurt the person if I found him, but it just hurt me, man, it just come back and I knew it when I saw the kid, because I was already heading that way from. You know, 94 never sat right with me, you know, and nobody that was there was good for us and you know, with the shoot down, it was also the fact that they screwed us that well, no one got trouble. That's another thing. And they basically lied about a lot of it. And there was also a point where, um, to see higher, that f'd up, if you know. So the shoot down happened and everybody higher just lost their cool, you know, and, um, you know, the whole incoming chain of command and out coming outgoing chain of command got slaughtered, just got killed.
Speaker 1:Which shoot down?
Speaker 2:was this. It was 1994 when Robinson and Barkley got killed, so right before we came to Devon's, so it was April 14th 1994. Sue Uluru and I were getting on the birds and then five dudes were getting on the other birds and they bumped us off for VIPs to do this handover and they flew off and two F-15s came in and shot the birds down, shot the helicopter down. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:It was bad Because, well, first of all, we just lost our own chain of command, so that was brilliant. And then they had a major. That was a staff guy and he just sat in a chair, I guess, and was catatonic, which is fine, you know what I mean. He just lost every friend he had, and now all the guys he'd worked with for years just got wiped out and it did them in. And then my captain took charge, so he took charge of the whole country. So that was badass, yeah, and that's something to focus on. That dude just stepped up and it was funny because I remember listening to them on the radio and they were like babbling and he's just like yeah, you know, they're like you will not go to the crash site. You and he's just like yeah, you know, they're like you will not go to the crash site, you will stay put. And he was just like get a vehicle. You know, yeah, you're eight hours, we're going. And so six guys headed to the crash site, secured it, and then the rest of us waited. So they were supposed to get burns down to move us to the crash sites.
Speaker 2:The original job was CSSAR Combat, search and Rescue so we were sent down to plus up the security because Saddam said he was going to kill a Westerner. He said he would give 10 grand to anybody who could kill a Westerner. So we had this house down in Baghdad I mean down in northern Iraq, and we went down there and stayed, you know, and then it happened, so that followed over. So, yeah, just getting everybody out was a shit show. Pj's forgot the bodyguards, so and it was fucking wicked. You know they brought 12 or 26 bodies and I knew probably 18 of the people. Well, you know the door gunner was a little buddy of mine. You know the door gunner was a little buddy of mine. You know you can't go ask that Because we were going on patrols with them. You know same crews, it's just. You imagine the dream. You know I was a young E-5. I was an E-5. And you know Sulu is my sniper partner, sulu.
Speaker 2:Did you ever wonder why he's angry? That's one of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's very angry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that was his second. That was his second um funny fire. So, yeah, I'll just never forget that as long as I live. Like I'm saying I said man, this sucks to him, he goes flathead. If you're going to ever do this job for any amount of time, man, you're going to have to get used to the idea of picking up your friends. He was right, he was fucked up. As bad as it was, it was already bad.
Speaker 2:You can only imagine when the Air Force shows up and these birds, it flies right over us, it keeps going. We need to get to the crash site. Like we got too many people on the helicopters so they brought all these extra people. Uh, they brought two extra colonels, colonel on each bird and then each one had an e4 radio guy. None of them knew how to talk on a radio and, wow, once they saw their first torn apart, burned dead body, they couldn't even speak. They were like, like you know? And so then you know, transmissions are garbled and then, if you can believe this, this is just going to sound absolutely mind-blowing.
Speaker 2:Right about the middle of it, eddie Fay just reminded me of this. You know, eddie Fay, right in the middle of the mission they called down. They were like, hey, the president's loosening Click, you need to change your call sign, because our call sign was body punch, body punch, yeah. So they wanted to know because there's bodies they wanted us to change the call sign the middle of the mission. It was a mess man, it was just Once they were flying to us.
Speaker 2:Then they ran out of bags quick so we would just unload body parts, you know, from the choppers and they're trying to get them, uh, set up. You know, like, try to and these are your friends, man, you know, and it was like trying to, just as gently as you can, take this and set it down and try and get the foot there and try and feel it's wicked under headlamps. You know, yeah, and uh, yeah, I mean no consideration for us whatsoever, those people were fucking morons. You know us the way I would have treated a guy if he came back from that, you know. And uh, it's kind of funny too, administratively. It's the day or two after our Sergeant Ranger flies in and I'm up on the roof with Sue. We do sniper protection whenever choppers come in. He's like Pat, get down here you know, I get down from his ladder.
Speaker 2:He's like sign your NCOER you never even see me there. You go, you know, and he leaves. I'm like all right, cool. So I guess I probably should have said this to you. This goes to the PTSD thing. Six months before this, my brother killed my dad and killed himself Because of a priest thing.
Speaker 2:Good, so six months before the last time, and I was in Turkey when it happened, when they handed me the phone. So now, six months later, this happens and it was like, ah. So now, six months later, this happens, you know, and about three days after the NCOR incident, bruce Hoover flies down or whatever. He's like hey, flatly, you're flying home with me. And I was like why, sir Cause I now you know why, why wouldn't I stay with the guys here? He's like I don't know, you just grab it here. So I grabbed my gear and now I fly home with all the best buddies, all the dudes that are kicking the bodies back. You know, and they secured the machine guns all the 60s and it was skin on them, it was heinous.
Speaker 2:It was heinous. So we had everything we fly up to Turkey and you know C-130, center point, everything you know we're just flying out. It was just brutal, just you know, the best friends of all the dudes there just crushed. You know, just see your friends. That hurt Fucking worst.
Speaker 1:But I land and crushed.
Speaker 2:You know, just see your friends. That hurt fucking worst. But I land and I'm like all right, well, here's what happened. My mom died. That's why they're bringing me back, you know. So I'm sitting there fucking suffering. I walk in this hard man, he's tent same guy that told me my dad, my brother, would end. He goes ah, pat, yes, sign your.
Speaker 1:See who you are I fuck it up god dang, I used to hate those things, dude I just sign it.
Speaker 2:I'm like, all right, you know. And he's like, hey, you didn't have to do it, you would you? Well, it's like you know, I'm super paul and I'm like, yeah, great. And then two dudes are right there. You know them, you know one of them really well and they're rough, and he's like they're to take you out for a drink or something. They'll keep an eye on you and help you out. They're the two roughest dudes in freaking town. Of course we go out and got nuts. Oh boy, I choked an Air Force guy and got so drunk. You know, just don't let dudes like that come home and just go to a bar. You know, if you want to take more of the gb club and lock the door, that's a better idea. You know, drink them up, put them in the tent, but don't put them. Let them go to an air force bar the night after the air force.
Speaker 2:She's killed all their friends, so yeah it was kind of dipshit, you know and then good move, dude yeah, all of it.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm just waiting for a field grade, you know, um, but yeah, so it just all of it was handled really poorly, you know. And uh, shit, you know. So. So, yeah, once I got back from that they were like hey, go to carson. So that helped, you know, that helped a lot. Uh, yeah, it's kind of funny too. When I walk into formation it was a bunch of new guys there, carson, and they're all like hey, new guy, you're not on the scuba team. I was like I might be. Hey, new guy, you're not on the scuba team, I might be, you know. And then the Italian star maybe was like hey, pat just got back in that stuff, just swing by and shapes him. So that was pretty funny. These dudes are all like new guy, just went by, shapes him. So that was pretty fun.
Speaker 2:These dudes are all like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So here you are, here's later You're retiring, so 94 is there. Then you got multiple combat tours, you got all these TBIs. You've got three years in a shift blown shit up inside concrete bunkers, man, and you don't get any consideration from the VA, right? I mean, it's like and this is what I want people to understand is like the VA is just not trained in this, and now that they're learning a little bit about it and they've got codes, it's either too late for too many men that aren't here anymore or it's too late for a lot of people that are out there suffering asanas. Most of these people, except for the NICO and the TBI clinics, they weren't even aware that what you went through impacts the brain and then impacts mental health. So how did you? How did you? What was your low point? And then how did you start fighting back? Because you have made an amazing recovery, for you know you, you know representing, you know what a lot of our you know bros, you know been through man.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 2:So uh one, I low point. Um, I was at black forest fest and we were listening to blues music. There was hot rods everywhere. It was not too crowded. You know super nice crowd Having a great time Listening to a blues band. You know it was just.
Speaker 2:You know, me and my wife and F-35 went over and cut a turn the other night, was in the woods Like running down the street Fuck, like oh boy, because it just kept happening. And man was in the woods like running down the street Fuck, they're like oh boy, because it just kept happening. And man just scared the shit out of me. You know it's like. You know I'm a pretty lethal guy. Man, I'm a boxing kid. I love all that shit since I was a little kid. I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't want to hurt anybody that doesn't deserve it. And what if somebody pushed my buttons while I was in this mode or whatever? You know you're like I just lost control somehow, so scared the shit out of me. And then my dog died. You know I got a dog. He's 16 years old. I say get a dog, okay, cool, he was next to me at all times. He always woke me up during nightmares and he died and I wasn't a free fall, you know just um about that.
Speaker 2:I went and had surgery, finally fixed my back, and they fixed it and I knew I was fixed when I woke up and, man, I never wanted another painkiller and I hated those damn things. But they had me on them for 10 years. And I'm trying to, like you know, and my doc knew I hated them, you know and say, but sometimes you got to just eat one because the pain is going to kill you and drive you crazy. So it could have been that too, and it could also. Now. You know, before you should think it was just the pain, but it could also be the painkillers. So after that surgery I once I was off the painkillers and everything. I was like I'm in that shit, you know, there's like, now it's, I can't blame it on pain and painkillers and all of a sudden I'm just really in bad shape. I met a SEAL there's a SEAL buddy of mine. He pushed me. He just wouldn't stop about me going to vets. He was trying a bunch of different things because the SEALs had about 10 different things going already.
Speaker 1:The SEALs take the lead in a lot of this stuff, for sure.
Speaker 2:They did. They did on this healthcare thing. Well, they had a lot of guys killing themselves too, you know, and they're quietly. No one's talking about it, it's sad, so let's not talk about it. And so, yeah, he pushed me towards vets and had the call of my life.
Speaker 2:Lori Camper, from vets, just described everything. She's like here's what happens when you get angry. Here's what happens during the day. Here's what happens you can't get your brain off that stuff. Here's what happens when you get in the car. Here's what happens when you have nightmares. Here's what happens right after. And I'm like holy cow. She's like, know, I couldn't believe it. Everyone else was way off and it was like, wow, all right, and she asked me to to, you know, volunteer for the study. So I was like I got nothing to lose. Now, you know just, um, you know, like, when we lost billy, how we lost billy, how right, you never thought he'd done that right.
Speaker 2:I was with him the last weekend before he left for combat Me, him and Kelly and Greg Sweener went out to Johnny's and got hammered One of the best drunks I've ever had in my life. We were drinking beer and just laughing like idiots. You know just, we had the most fun time, you know. And then the next day I helped Bill with his fence out at his house. And the next time I come home I was near a few and he's looking through me. His eyes were just.
Speaker 2:I was incoming, he was out going. They'd just been in a hundred gunfights or whatever in Samara, they're just. The whole team was just staring through me. Like you, I couldn't believe it. You know how bad they looked. You know they looked like they'd been through hell and back. And but Bill, you know Bill was starting to chill out over the next two days we had a lot of time to talk and you know he's not a guy that would kill himself. He's not a guy. You know his wife made plenty of money. He, you know it, was a very resourceful guy. He was about to go do the things he wanted to do. Um, you know the rage. So the rage, just that one second of bad ideas. Right amount of alcohol. The rage hit him and killed him.
Speaker 1:And that happened. Yeah, I liked him a lot.
Speaker 2:There was probably five of them. It's just that they're losing their grip and they're angry and they don't know why, and they don't want to hurt anybody, and so they're good themselves. It's freaking horrendous.
Speaker 1:I spent the night with him in Afghanistan. He was running one of the I think it was the Commando Schoolhouse or something. It was out by the old palace and I was doing something and ended up he was like, hey, man, why don't you stay tonight? I'm like, hey, you got beer, it's Afghanistan. And he said I don't even think, I don't think we even had any. But we sat there. He just showed me, hey, this is the bunker, think we even had. I think he had any. But we sat there. He just showed me hey, this is the bunker. If we get incoming man, just sit over here, man. And we stayed up that night and talked and, uh, he was, he's a really good guy man. I was, yeah, I was, I was really broken, I was. I was sorry to see him go and and even that too.
Speaker 2:You know, like when he, uh, I was doing my nightly report I get the report, you know. And doug just called them and listen, don't send this out yet. Pat Flatley's out right near me. I'm going to go tell him myself, don't do it. And they said a lot of guys in my report. So fuck you know.
Speaker 2:But Billy Sweeney picked me up and went to Mark Hilliard's house. He had a bunch of caromas. We sat in a room and man, I put down about 30 caromas man and uh, fell asleep on the floor face down and got up, was like I'm gonna go kill a bunch of bad guys. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, freaking, wreak havoc. And you know then, about I don't know four or five hits later, you're like I don't feel any better. Kicking that guy through the wall, although it was a little bit satisfying, is not going to get better. So I kind of had a lot of those eggs in that basket. I'll get combat someday. I'll make all this right. I'll feel better about Iraq, I'll feel better about everything. Man, much to my chagrin, you're like, wow, that didn't help. And what's next?
Speaker 2:So anyway, when Lori called me and called me up and got me to go to vets. I was terrified. I was in bad shape, man, and I just couldn't keep it together at all. But even my wife and kids were like, hold on, You're going to get in a plane and fly to California and no one gets beat up on the plane, no one gets beat up in the airport. And then you're going to get in a cab or something right, and no one's going to get beat up in traffic. And I was like I got to do it, so we're just at that point. And I got to do it, so it was just we're just at that point. And uh, I got to the airport, I'm coming down the elevator escalator and there's some type of holiday going on, cause it was about 200 people in full Arab dress in the airport. Yeah, the mirrored shades, the headdresses, everything's bad, holy shit, you know it's.
Speaker 1:I run outside, I'm hiding behind this pillar at the airport.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the big bag, green beret. I hate it, man, I just didn't want to. You know, karate, chop somebody. You know you're like excuse me, sir, I'm having a water shot. You know just uh and uh. You know just the way they're dressed and everything, the smells and everything. It's Lord man, I'm back in the Middle East and I just don't want to be like no.
Speaker 2:And so I got to Stanford. It was kind of the coolest speech ever, though Trevor said this is cool. So I called Lori. I said listen, I'm flipping out, I'm hiding over in the airport. Can you get an Uber? I don't know what an Uber is.
Speaker 2:I left the house in a couple of years. I don't really Uber or anything. So she's like can you see any cabs? I'm like I'm not sure there are any cabs. I see these Uber things. And she's like here, let me call Trevor. She calls to Mexico. And I'd never talked to Trevor yet Maybe I had talked to him once about just thought, don't go on down. And he was like listen, man, fuck the study, don't worry about anything, bro. I know where you're at right now. Okay, here's what we're going to do, man. We're going to send someone out there to get you and I'm going to bring it out here.
Speaker 2:No one ever said that, no one, no, 13 years. No one ever said I'm gonna help with this, you know, and it's like the tbi thing, you're on your own, you know. That's. It's exactly how I felt the whole time, and, uh, once he said that I was like man, I'm gonna man out, man, I'm gonna man up. I'm I'm gonna man up right now, man, I'm gonna. You know to. You know what I'm going to get a dead cat. I'm going to go to Stanford, you know, because if it kills me and they find something out, you know whatever, but if I just kill myself like everybody else, then we'll get nowhere. You know, I'm getting into study. So, him saying that, though, meant everything, just because I hadn't heard it yet, I'd that, though, met everything just because I haven't heard it yet. I've never heard anybody say hey, man, you know, we're gonna get through this, it's just like oh you're trying.
Speaker 2:There's hope here, yeah. So, um, yeah, with stanford and man it was, it was tough because they were like, hey, it can be film this. You know I was giving interviews. It was like the shit I'm about to say is mean, you know, I saw some ugly, ugly, ugly things and I don't want to hurt you. I mean I've had psychs tap out. You know I'm like I can't do this. You know You're like, yeah, I know I get it. So I remember the woman there, an army of psychs to help me Work, good, so, and she was like can we film it?
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, film it.
Speaker 2:You know I'm broke Just trying to talk about all of it. You know the most heinous stuff and got through it, and then they had to do a bunch of tests and stuff like that, a couple of days of it and then an hour-long fMRI in my head and then a brain scan. All these other things that I'd never. I would never tried anything, you know. And it was really cool that an african, african girl um, she grew up, uh, and her parents grew up in africa and she was one of the researchers. She was a phd, she's working on a phd and she said you have no idea, I volunteered for this. I can't, I'm so excited. She goes there's medicines all over Africa that can help people and that's when we start investigating. So, yeah, so then, yeah, I get down to.
Speaker 2:It was me and two SEALs and we went down to Mexico and actually the first we went to San Diego. We met Amber and Marcus Capone at a restaurant. It was pretty cool because we're all looking at our shoes. You can see we're all super uncomfortable while being out. These people come in and they're all beaming, smiling, bright. It was like what's with the shiny, happy people. Man, why did six movie stars just walk in and are like hey, how's it going? And I'm like it's going pretty good. You know, I don't even know what to say. It's going horrible, but uh, they were cool. You know, they were just like. You're gonna feel better, you'll see so they had already been through the treatment.
Speaker 2:Marcus had yeah, I don't know about the others. We got a couple people that were there. They worked. And then Moose he's one of the guys down at Mexico. So, yeah, then a ranger picks you up. He was here, he actually grew up here Colorado Springs and then he was in Ranger Bat. He got treated and now he's the driver, so he picked us up and drove us down. And Moose, he's the SEAL, the counselor guy. He's great for that. He's really a good dude, just really awesome. So they drove me down. Before that, though, I did have some counseling. I had a couple weeks of counseling. Very good guy.
Speaker 2:He was an ex uh addict and just was calm and cool. I'd call him all the time when I was flipping out and he talked me down and I was really good at it uh, not many people are. And then, yeah, we get down there, met trevor, you know, and it was just same thing. You know, I'm just like trying to wow. I'm out of my house, man, I'm in Mexico, I'm in Tijuana, I'm in a house, I'm about to do a psychedelics with some people I don't even know. You know it was, you know, breathe it down, breathe it down, you know just. But yeah, we did Ibogaine and it changed everything. And I just did Ibogaine and we flew back to Stanford and they studied us and there were so many changes. They videoed me again in the interviews and it was just like it happened to somebody else. They're like tell us about April 14th. And I was like it was a bad day Before it just completely break me down. I couldn't even barely get the words out and now I can just tell you about it. You know it's, it's not great, of course it sucked, but but I can get it out and I can deal with it and I can put it away, not think about it and uh, it all worked out, you know. And they also saw huge changes in our brains on the um, on the FMRI, the connections were better. It just felt better. I mean the whole world, the two SEALs and I.
Speaker 2:As soon as we got back to the US, we went to San Diego and ate at this restaurant for breakfast. We're just sitting there laughing and smiling at each other like my back's to the door. Man, I have not worked about it, man, we just went out and had like a day you could do like a montage. We were out there golfing and top golfing, driving go-karts and drinking just you know, drinking beers and just smiling ear to ear. You know, like you feel, like I feel better, I feel like something changed.
Speaker 2:And then we went up to Stanford, got tested on all the things and what I want to study. They weren't going to tell us anything, but you could see it on their faces. You know they weren't supposed to let on that there's changes, but you know you could see them, like you know, look at each other a couple of times and go, wow, that's a lot different. So, and then my scores were just my hand, eye coordination. I haven't had a headache. I've had maybe like two or three headaches just from getting dehydrated. Not no more migraines and then that's it. It's it cuts. You know you're also. The other is the big one. The big one Not enough. It's not talked about enough.
Speaker 2:Is if you've been on the painkillers, on opiates, your brain imprints that pain and that's what gets you to give it the drug right. So now it's giving you the pain, even though you're not really in pain, because it wants to draw, because you're addicted, whether you like it or not. So now all that's gone right and I felt so much better. I mean just crazy. And then my wife, kids, everybody it's just like holy shit, the difference, amazing, just night and day. Now I'm not, you know, it's not like it's a cult or anything like that, it's just that you're still you but all the bad just kind of seeped off. And the only follow-ons we have a group thing online. We talk to some guys. It's all positive and it's always about hey man, I did a hyperbaric treatment, I did this treatment and other things. Good, healthy things. They're eating what they're reading. These are guys that you know we're talking a couple of weeks ago, Integration man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it really works. I really enjoyed it. I did it for a long time. I just didn't want to be bothering them. You know, let other guys have a room and then right away, even I should read you my notes, just the notes. During that Ibogaine thing For me I got like the dream line. You know, not everyone does like suck, you know, but mine it was harsh and hard and I never want to do it again. But I got to see the people I loved. I got to see the other side, uh, got to make peace with everything, just shut it down, and it was just and just in a different way. Nothing else could do it, Nothing.
Speaker 2:Because I was at the doctor a few days ago and she was telling me about SSRIs and I said, listen, don't ever give an SSRI to a guy like me. You know. I know you've probably met a lot of men and women, you know, but don't give SSRIs, she's like. But I know people that have changed their life on them. I know this woman has said her whole life has changed because of it. I said, yep, but if you do that right, and six weeks later he might report that to you because he's trying to get better, but six weeks later there's a good 7% chance he's going to be suicidal. But I've seen it with me and I've seen it with them and with me and I've seen it with that, you know, and with me. They would put it on me.
Speaker 2:On it I'd start taking it and I'd be like, yeah, you get so shitty that you're like I, I just maybe I should be around, maybe, god what, why would I stay around? This sucks. And then you go, oh, throw these away. Let's see, you know, let's check it out. So whenever a guy tells me he's taking that, so he's taking this, he's just starting a new drug, like that, I say when did you start it? And I remember to call him.
Speaker 2:I'm like shit's hoops. I'll put it in my phone just to make sure, because I just haven't seen too many guys have success. I mean I could be wrong, but I haven't met too many guys who have had success with those types of things, whereas out of probably three or four dozen guys that I've sent probably 40 guys I've seen by now Really Only one didn't take. Some they'd say man, I might need to go back. Some are like, yeah, I'm going back. I'd say two-thirds, quit drinking. I don't want to just do anything like that ever again. The rest it's just like yeah, I'm a two or three and I'm good, that's how it should be. I'm not drinking myself.
Speaker 1:Not two or three bottles or cases.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I saw it on the ship too. A lot of it was just guys drinking fufu margaritas and stuff. I didn't see too many guys that were hitting it that hard, you know.
Speaker 1:You're right. There's a lot of guys I mean there was a couple there I worry about but there's also a lot of dudes that were. You know they were going to get their 15 a day right, because that was your limit.
Speaker 2:I'll never do that again. All the pressure, you know we we're like oh, we'll hit 15 a day. Ease Margaritas if I'm all day. Yeah and no.
Speaker 1:I don't think they're going to do it in two years, I guess. I talked to Kevin Harry at Softweek last week. They want to do it again, I said one, so I can't wait.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was see, that was another one. I never would have gone near a boat or any of that. I couldn't be in crowds at all, like at all. And now, like I don't like it, I don't like, if I know the mall is crowded, I'm not gonna be, just gonna work around it. You know I won't go, I'll go to home depot, I'll get up seven o'clock and go. You know, just, I know to work around it and I'm better at working around it, whereas before I was like I have it. Who's getting cares? You know someone would drop something and it blows. Yeah, come to like near the cashiers with cold sweat coming down. All these people looking at me like what's going on with that guy? It's like I just like to help myself. How are you?
Speaker 1:finding these cats that need you. Man, I mean, uh, you know you, you've, you've come back hard to talk to you, talk to your wife. Um, you know we, um, oh, how's that, captain that? I helped, uh, get down there he's doing a little better.
Speaker 2:I think he's still taking the old way and uh yeah, and and he's got physical issues too, but he was the only one, the only one, that's not. It scared him and it's not been as beneficial as the others and I meet guys a lot- Sometimes you just got to let it take control and a lot of guys.
Speaker 1:Well I know that with other psychedelics if you don't let the medicine work and you fight it, you're just not going to have a good time.
Speaker 2:I've heard people do it for 24 hours. Yeah, give me, let me grab that notebook. I got to read some stuff to you. Yeah, yeah good, good.
Speaker 1:Then I got this thing that turned all the way up. Man, that's it. I just want to be able to hear him. You can't turn me down, I turn it up cool.
Speaker 2:So as soon as you're done, you can lift your hand or whatever and they'll carry you to a bed how long does the treatment last?
Speaker 2:mine was about 13 hours, 12 to 13, some people longer. Usually it's about 12. So the first 3 hours Mine was about 13 hours, 12 to 13. Oh wow, some people longer. Yeah, usually it's about 12. So you know the first three hours are pretty chaotic. You know you're just lying there and just really tripping. You throw up a few times. I didn't eat a lot. The guys with me did. It went poorly. They were throwing up a lot and I had three quick ones and they have like a bowl. The last one was tie that colored and I was like, oh boy.
Speaker 1:I don't want to do that again. Is it IV, or do you drink it? Or is it IV?
Speaker 2:It's a pill form. He's got a synthetic now that he can do and it's a pill form and they go by weight. So they start with a fire ceremony and you write down on a piece of paper the things you want to get rid of, things you want to work on and sit at that fire, and then he gives you one and then he says, you know, as you start working your way towards it, and then he'll give them as you go. There's a doctor, there's a paramedic, it's a room, just a normal room, about 20 by 10. Maybe it will figure. And then they play breeding tribal music.
Speaker 2:It tends to launch it off. They made the instruments while they were on Ibogaine and they made the music while they were on Ibogaine. I bought it and they made the music while they were on iboga. So it's nuts and it's really chaotic and, you know, it's like these africans are, like, you know, over you and you're like you have a big um mascot. Uh, the coolest thing, though, as soon as I like the, I took like a third or a fourth one, and I'm starting to really feel it, and I lifted my mask and I look at the room. When I put the mask down, I could see everything perfectly. I had complete recall and I'm like, oh boy, man, this is, this is gonna be tough, and uh, so it it.
Speaker 2:Uh, the first three hours they play, play this bleedy tribal music and it's kind of chaotic. Your ears buzz. It's really kind of harsh. It could be anything, I guess, to anybody. You just breathe. During the pre-setup, they teach you how to breathe and you just breathe through it.
Speaker 2:Then, at three hours, she switched the music to this really beautiful Spanish music. It was just like wow, that's a little better. You know, and the funniest thing about it, with the tribal stuff, there was one speaker and you feel like you're surrounded man. You feel like you're surrounded by a tribe. You know that all chant. It's really something.
Speaker 2:So once she put on the Spanish music, my dog came out the wall. It was the coolest and he was like metrical, like black and gray. He came up to me, jumped on my chest. He used to wake me up from nightmares and I woke up. You never cried like that. I mean, it's almost like the cartoons when the tears are flying out of their eyes. And I'd be thankful, I mean, I'd be thankful, yeah, I mean I'd probably pour out a gallon and he went inside, kind of went inside me. I feel like I can. We're like one of us, you know, like I could feel like what he was going through when he was dying. He was still trying to protect me, you know. So it was incredible. I mean, just I so needed it, you know.
Speaker 2:But I wrote so when I was done with all this, they put me in a bed and I had a notebook and I just wrote everything down. You know that I can remember. And then he left my I don't think they do it, but my laptop was in the room, so I turned it on and went on Facebook One of the dudes from Billy's team. Right off the bat, I wrote on Facebook I just did this thing in Mexico. I feel awesome. I think I turned the corner. This is going to change my life, something like that. And this dude I get an IM. Hey, pat, is this true? Is this really? You know?
Speaker 2:And I was like yeah man, this is amazing, he's like Pat. I don't know if you remember me. And I was like yeah, man, this is amazing, he's like Pat. I don't know if you remember me. You know, and I'm like I do remember you. And he was going right there. He decided to go, he was packed and ready to put himself away. He had everything done and prepped and he changed his mind. He said you give it a shot. So he's doing awesome.
Speaker 2:I was still tripping when that happened, when I was having this conversation. He lets you have access to a computer when you're in the middle of a trip. So, and then I texted my medic. I shot my medic a message and said hey, man, I'm doing a lot better. And you know, I was real, real angry about my brother from Greece and things like that. So I was really really angry about it and I was just saying I became an atheist, whatever you want to call it. I was angry at God and during it, you know so, with my medic he's a Mormon I say, dude, you know, god just helped me, I just talked. You know, he's like what, you know, it's like I'm doing better. I'm telling you right now, man, I do believe, and it just came by. He was scheduled, he signed up for Stanford. So both of them signed up for Stanford.
Speaker 2:And then I called two more guys. You know they're on the way. You know it's like it works, man, whatever it is, I don't give a shit if you think I'm crazy. I said I just feel better. Whatever it is, it just took some shit out of me, that's it, it's gone. And so I had a couple of dudes first day heading over.
Speaker 2:So anyway, here's the notes. I could see the ceiling perfectly through the blindfold. Every detail, I put that on it, every detail. They said something about I did not eat too much, oh, and then I hallucinated intensely. Someone handed me tissues. It took me a few minutes to understand why, because I was tripping so intensely. You know, I just didn't. You know, I didn't know I was crying at first, and then intense patterns. I was tripping, nothing else was here, not scary, but not fun. Bandana it was like a bandana collar, you know, like a bandana and it's a DJ visited me, curled up with me, disintegrated into me. And then the next thing this is a man that I shot in combat, peter, in the same location where I killed him. The Tigris River Told me that it was okay, said I was trying to kill you, you were a soldier, you were protecting him. And then my brother Peter, said he had snapped when he killed my father. I forgave him Forgiveness is powerful.
Speaker 2:My father really died on a weight lift. He was a vet. He appeared and he said, patrick, you let it go, let it go, let it go man Walk it over here, let it go.
Speaker 2:You know, just let it go. Let it go. Man, all good over here, let it go. You know, it's just, you can feel it, you know, just need to hear it.
Speaker 2:Saw my dad and this was pretty. I saw a small child in combat. He had a bullet hole in his head, in his forehead. I don't know who killed him, but I knew that particular instance would haunt me because I saw him sitting there in this car and I saw it. I just I knew I was going to see it the rest of my life. I already had nightmares but that's a good turbo, you know, and I just wanted to find that dude, you know. Anyway, I don't know who killed him, but I knew that the particular answer would haunt me. He was an angel.
Speaker 2:So something was flying around my head and it was kind of wild and I realized it was an angel and he was about two feet tall and he's just looking at me and smiling and there was no bullet hole. It was the kid. And I was like it's the kid, I mean full duty, just flying out of the room and I just it was amazing. You know, it was just, it was just. That's my new memory. I don't, I don't have that memory. I see it a lot more like I always have it seen like that and, uh, it really helps. So it was a couple like that. I saw billy and ricky wall and you know, I saw the night before, you know, so, like the night we were drinking beer and you know, uh, and then, like with ricky and paul, I saw ricky the night before he got killed, you know, I said he stayed up all night with me. Give me I'd reason everything. And I said, hey, ricky, thanks for if you stayed up all night with me, we met bro he kept doing that, making me laugh.
Speaker 2:I'm the same with Paul. Just give me that smile used to make me laugh in class. Fergie was like bitching at us, give me a look and make me laugh. It just made it okay, because it's my new memories. I don't see them the way the last time I saw them. It just fixed it, it just made it better. And I don't know how it works and I don't know if it works for everybody that way, but either way, I got the good ride. I know guys that have just this crazy trip and then they're better and they don't feel like I didn't understand any of it, but I'm better Because the last thing that it did, um, because all these people were popping up on the wall almost in space and coming out to me talking and um, last thing, though, that was pulling away from, and I was like no, no.
Speaker 2:And that's when I heard the god voice. You said, uh, um, you've done enough with that and um, now we're gonna make another. And my brain started to tingle and I was like it was beautiful. I mean, just, it's about three hours of that, just lying there like my brain was getting massaged. It felt so good. It felt like the evil was going out like the the scene in the green green mile when he blows the evil out. You know he sucks the evil was going out like the, the scene in the green green mile when he blows the evil out. You know he sucks the evil out, he blows it out.
Speaker 2:I just imagined it to come out of my head like that and man, and let's see, I know what this? It just it's stuck, you know. So they say. After that you have six weeks no plasticity. So we're down there a day or two after the best massage I've ever had in my life. I just never like massages and that's when we look at bones and things. But this dude just knew exactly when my shit was broke. You know other masseuses or stuff. They'll be like oh, that big scar, you know the death feels.
Speaker 2:Great, yeah, that's great so, yeah, just, everything was right again, you know. And then the same with the pain. Even though my back was fixed, they put in the titanium. I would still feel like I was in pain and now not Like it killed it, it's just. I get normal back pain if I'm bending over all day or digging or whatever, but otherwise it's's just, it's normal. And you see how bad the damage is. Those opiates, do you know? So, uh, so yeah. And then once, once the samford thing. I came home, uh, I did a few days of snooker and came home and my wife, but could not believe she, she wanted to talk to somebody and luckily vets, vets has people there. She's like how, how did this happen? So they have wives groups, which really helps. Actually, Edward Capone gets in there with them and chats with them. They're awesome people and there's not many like them in the world.
Speaker 1:They're helping a lot of folks bro.
Speaker 1:And you're helping a lot of folks, bro, and you're helping a lot of folks, man. I mean it's uh, you know, it's um, yeah, I still talk to a lot of people that don't know exists, you know, and if we we get calls where there's, like you know, those guys getting ready to eat a nine man, I call you, you know, whatever you know, I just um, you know, because they just don't know, they don't know they can, can be fit. Maybe it's not perfect, but you can be helped that there's hope and everything that's coming out of these studies on Ibogaine is just amazing. And same thing with these ayahuasca. Not a lot of people study in ayahuasca, but the same amount of people coming out are going. This helped me and that's why, you know, making it available not in Mexico is so, you know, important because you're talking about 40 dudes. You say that you sent that's 40 dudes, that you saved their families or back with themselves, or back in life, contributing, working, not, you know, stoned or you know, or drugged up or or in, you know, and suffering in silence and thinking about taking their lives. I mean you are doing an amazing job with this and it's important that your experience because that's what resonated when you came on.
Speaker 1:You came on the boat. You're like Bruce, I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you. You know, I heard that you know, you know about psychedelics and this and that. Let me tell you about what I went through and your enthusiasm and your passion. But it was your, it wasn't just, you know, being an evangelist dude. You seriously were interested in letting me know how this helped you and you. Your wife came over, she goes and she's pointing at you. She's like yep, you know I'm in all this and and you can't, you know, um, you can't deny that. You know, I didn't know a lot of your past. You know that you're telling me on the boat but, um, you know what you're, what you're helping to spread awareness of needs to happen.
Speaker 1:The seals are way ahead of our community. And then we have the problem where a lot of foundations associated with our community won't cover this right. They won't, yeah, the GBF won't touch it. I think Task Force Daga would help. I'm still making my rounds of the foundations to see who will cover these things so that we can say, all right, where's the money? Right? So when we have a guy in need, you know a lot of our bros just don't have eight grand, you know, to go down there right. And then did you do the DMT, the 5N MEO? Yeah, oh, you did that as well.
Speaker 2:I thought I was fine, you know, and Trevor. But then Trevor called and we're friends. Trevor was like listen, pat, I think you should come down, do this five, because they're gonna pay for it, you know, because you didn't. And and they, he goes, I think you need to finish this. And I was like all right, you know, because the dude didn't, he wasn't around last time and uh and man, that stuff is scary, but it was 13 minutes or whatever it was just to see other guys.
Speaker 2:And hearing a war come out of a guy when he's on it, that'll rock you to your core. It's to hear someone do the feral scream and you know it's something shitty coming out of them. And, man, they wake up and they're just like a little kid. You just want to hug everybody. You're like I'm back, I'm good, you know, and that's how I was, moose, you know. As soon as that I thought I'm okay and I did that in the UT and then sat in my chairs and Moose just put his arm off and I like home shit, like an hour, my eyes and I write a whole shit like an hour, just my eyes poured out. I felt just the rest of the shit come out, the rest of the war, you know. And when I got back, man, the driving thing was bad, really bad for me. Before I had to stop driving Get back I said I mean I could drive and that was fine.
Speaker 2:But man, after that, after DMT, everybody's like what? Just be in the right lane find something nice to listen to.
Speaker 1:You've got to put on the turn signal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great, man, you haven't driven like that since I was 17,. You know where you feel like going on a drive, but now, like after it's been a couple years, I still I have to avoid traffic, not like that bad. I mean, I'm fine with it to a point, but it will put me up Just because in Baghdad they would set up the fake IED and then when you would slow down and stop, that's when they'd hit you. And it still gets me up a little bit.
Speaker 1:I was driving to Baghdad, man when we were there. God, I hated that. The only thing worse than that was Riyadh, for crying out loud, and that's not even a combat zone. Hated driving in that town.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like Cairo 87.
Speaker 1:Oh, cairo's a mess, dude. I wouldn't even drive in Cairo. I was there with my son man and I'd take taxis, dude.
Speaker 2:But even then you're just white-knuckling the whole time. White-knuckle, it's just. There was no rules whatsoever. You know None Nine lanes of traffic on a three-lane street.
Speaker 1:It's like donkeys. What is going on here, dude, and nobody gets killed. That's the crazy thing is nobody gets killed. That's my first time out of the country.
Speaker 2:That's my first time out of the country country I was first time out of the country. I was like, wow, that's a shocker. You know, and I think all I, I think you know, if I never see another country like that again, I'll be happy, yeah well, you're living in a good town, man.
Speaker 1:So how do people you know that are listening right now? Right, they've listened to your story, right? A lot of combat, a lot of commitment, a lot of service, a lot of dedication to our country all All right, like it a lot. You're one of our heroes, bro. You've been through a lot, just like all of us, right? Nobody likes to pat themselves on the back. I got it. But you know, you paid a price. You paid a price for that service and now you know you fought your way back, just like the fighter that you are. You didn't give up on your family, you didn't give up on yourself, bro, and you're here, you're back, you're on this. How do people find out about this? I mean, is it Vets? Is that where they go to find out more? Yep.
Speaker 2:Vetsorg, so it's Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, and I think now there's probably five or six different organizations doing it, doing different things, and it ends up with Trevor at Ambio Clinic. If you want to do, skip vets and go to Ambio Clinic, that's Trevor Miller, m-i-l-l-a-r. I love the guy. I can't say enough about him. He saves people all the time and he's just you know you, once you meet him, you just get it, you just he's, he's there to help you, he's not, you know, um. So that's also, as an organization, amazing. Uh, a counselor can really help with the breathing, and even just that there's. It's not just send you right to mexico. If they have something lesser, they gauge where you're at. Maybe this will help them or maybe this other treatment, a local treatment or something like that, because if you don't need to send them to Mexico, you don't need to.
Speaker 2:Me, within a few minutes of talking to a guy, I know whether he needs to go or not where he's at. And it's just crazy because just guys would call me and I had 13 friends commit suicide over all these years two best friends, my best buddy in the military, my best civilian buddy and I couldn't talk either of them down. And now I just recognize it so much better. And even with other people, like I've had people say I was going to kill myself last night, and I say I know, I know because I was going to get you know, it's just whether you like it or not and whether you want to hear it or not, you're considering things because you just don't, you don't want to ruin everybody else's life and you feel like you are, you feel like you just can't get out, you're never going to come up and out of this. So then, once I was up and out of it, I always think I was well-built enough to where guys were like I knew that guy in the war. He loved the war.
Speaker 2:How the hell would he get crazy, you know. So he's not a pussy and I'm not a pussy. Let's go, you know. And that's what't be. And we saw it when guys asked for help back in the day. They'd be judged and not well. And some of the baddest dudes I know some of the baddest dudes in 10th group calling you know they had trouble. It's not natural to shoot to gun down a bunch of people, it's not. And then, after you've gun down to a bunch of people, you go to the child, people pat you on the back. You know, and it's, it's what we dreamed of as kids to be the the guy. But then, when you're the guy, you go. Wow, man, I not sure about my list.
Speaker 2:This is kind of tough. You need a price to pay, man, and and and that's when it works and then that they can get through the VFWs and the American Legion. They just gave them bars and they drank off the PTSD. I think with our generation there's more head injuries and I think that's the big one that's killing guys, not so much the PTSD we have friends but it's that one that the friend can't face and that's the head injuries.
Speaker 1:But it's that one that the friend can't face and that's the head of jams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do believe that repetitive blast exposure, tbis, ieds that all contributes to not just psychological trauma but you've got physiological damage that, if it's not healed and I don't know what Iboga has done I know that these psychedelics make the brain work and it makes the brain build.
Speaker 1:You know new ways of communicating, new ways of bypassing scarring and damage and I think that's another aspect of these drugs that's so appealing is that they're helping the brain heal, on top of getting rid of all this moral baggage that we carry from our childhood and carry from our military experience and what we've done to other human beings. Right, we got to get through all that and once you can learn to forgive and love yourself, man, I mean, you are on the way and I think treatments like this, you know, for guys that were in your position, like I've had my challenges, nothing close to what you've been through, bro, you know I mean I've fallen apart, I had to put myself back together, but you know it wasn't at, you know, at your level, and this is what you know. There's there's tears of you know of of treatment and I think at your stage where you were, when people are saying I don't want to be here, no more, and people love them and they we got to keep them here.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's good to know that there's something like this that's available to these men and women that are just done. You know, and I think, um your testimony to that, bro, and it's awesome. You know, with with the answer to those like with me, it was like I just want to go up on a mountain and stay there, just be away from everybody and not ruin everybody's life. You know, and and that's it sucks and it's not. It wasn't me. We always had the big parties, we had battalion-sized parties at our house in security 10th group.
Speaker 1:Bro, that's what the boat was. I think the boat did a lot for a lot of guys, just finding each other in that boat and saying, hey, dude, it's been like 20 years right, or whatever it is, sure has.
Speaker 2:And that's what I liked about it most, I think, just as you walked around and you saw dudes you hadn't seen in 10, 12 years and you would just fall right into it right away and start calling his name, amen, like it was two weeks ago, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it was. And I met a bunch of guys out there who had gone, you know, and you could see how much better they were doing. And yeah, I was really glad with that. That was awesome because I went to the one here for a little bit, walked around a little bit, but there was a lot of people. It was just, you know, I wasn't comfortable downtown. So, yeah, I stopped in for maybe an hour, hour and a half and then headed home. You just do the Irish goodbye every time, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, there was no safer boat on the planet that day. With what 800?
Speaker 2:green berets on it Right yeah, ain't nobody messing with that boat, really? Yeah, my wife and I just had a great time throughout.
Speaker 1:So many couples did. My wife and I had a blast dude. We met some new friends, you know. Yeah, We'll do it again, dude. Well, bro, thank you so much for coming on the show, brother.
Speaker 2:This has been an amazing journey.
Speaker 1:And I really, you know I've always respected you. I appreciate your service, your time, but your devotion to yourself and your family. So so cool man and I think so many people need to hear this man. So we're going to push this out. I'm going to. You know, I'm not going to be pushing you out, other than when I get a phone call and somebody needs to hear about Pat Fatley. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to advertise you all over the place unless you want. But we will push out vetsorg.
Speaker 1:But you tell me, you know where you know we can help you get where you need to go in your mission in life, right, as an advocate.
Speaker 1:You know, obviously, you know, get you on some speaking tours or whatever it is man, anything, because these are the stories that resonate with people. We got to start funding this stuff and helping vets and these other organizations pay for this, because these guys, you know, when it comes down to, we all signed the line, we all did our time, we all did our job and we all got hurt and this country should be covering us for that. Dude, you shouldn't have to spend 13 years to get your 100%. You shouldn't be having 11 TBIs and combat tours and you know. And then a history of sub-concussive trauma and get you know and get disability from migraines. I mean, we are overlooking you know so much stuff. And then all the people that aren't here, bro, we need to go back and look and see what their military service did to their brains. It's too late, but we can look at their DD-214s and we can make some really strong, you know.
Speaker 2:All the way back to, you know, from the SIF days on. You know, I remember my first door charge in SOT school. I was behind the shield and I went damn, you know wow, Back in my day we didn't even have shields, bro.
Speaker 1:The shield was the number one guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think that was the only time I'd have a shield. I think that was the first one in SOT and then never again. It's almost always first number one man. You're like dude. I love you, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:The guys that like to eat the charge. They were always the number one guy. They couldn't keep them from the front of that stack, dude. They just loved being up there, man.
Speaker 2:You know, we all know, and but you, you check those dudes all the way back to like 90, some of the dudes that were calm, cool, and all of a sudden after the shift time they're kind of angry. I saw him a lot and I've had falling out, falling out with guys I was friends with, just because we had a big argument over something stupid. And then years later I would after especially at the time I can't call or email Look, I don't know how we fell out, but you know, blame it me too, you know, and just we should talk. And just because you see it too, and guys that didn't go to Iraq, they got out just before. It's five, six years of door charges. You need to be watching for them too.
Speaker 2:So I mean obviously they could get the same or just as bad an injury from a door charge as they did in combat, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, in the end it's still a trauma man. If they were in a SIF and they did you know they did SOT. They were the range safety officer or the master breacher, for you know I mean cripes. You know taking out, you know boxes of AT-4s and shooting them until your brains are flowing out of your ears. Or you know chucking grenades because you got to burn them up. You know all that stuff, dude. You know.
Speaker 2:I mean, I remember somebody saying how many AT-4s have you shot in a day? I'm like could be two or three. I was like a truckload one day. You know it was me and four dudes. You know, get rid of all those rockets now.
Speaker 1:Don't take them back, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, of course, double hearing protection. But man, I went to the range about six months ago and they were shooting AT4s and I stayed about 200 yards back and I was still like, oh yeah, all right, that explains a lot.
Speaker 1:They can keep those things, man. Hey, folks, another amazing episode of Broken Brains man with another American hero, pat Flatley. Cannot thank you enough for spending the time with us today. Look, I remember the Summit on Repetitive Brain Health is September 3rd and 4th of this year here in Tampa, southdale, maybe road one half mile away from McDill, at the Special Forces Team House. We've got an amazing lineup of speakers and people and attendees, food, a little bit of drinking and networking. We're going to have those MAC Awards for giving out this year, very well-covered. We're looking for suggestions for who should get those.
Speaker 1:And don't forget, go to our website, get that free book, become Informed on Repetitive Head Impacts, on how to protect your children, how to look after yourself if you played a lot of contact sports, and download our app on the Apple and Google Store, our Head Smart app. So, like us, friend us, support us, friend us, support us. You know, spend us around. Man. We're here to help people and the more people that know about this issue and hear stories of guys like Pat, the more awareness and change that we can make in addressing these issues. So thank you so much, bruce Parkman, your host. You only got one brain brain. Take care of it, because it's all you are. Take care, we'll see you next time on broken brains. Thank you.