Destined To Be a Soldier: The Humbling Story of Rich LaMonica

He'd be there for days, I guess, to talk about that.

But he told us how to get better.

He gave us our strong points and told us, you know, you got to keep getting up.

And that's what we did.

And that's why I learned no matter how many times you fall, you got to keep getting back up.

SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Lowdown with Kevin Lowe, the podcast shining light on the inspiring stories of ordinary people choosing to live out anything but ordinary lives.

All in the hope that you will be inspired to live out your best life.

Because this life is meant to be lived.

And this podcast is meant to inspire you to do it.

What's going on?

This is episode 120, but it's also the mark of some big changes here at the podcast.

Now, if you listened to last week's episode, episode 119, you heard a little teaser at the beginning that something big was coming up at the end of September.

Well, folks, the end of September is next week, and some big things are on the horizon.

Now you're gonna have to tune into this week's Friday episode, the solo edition of the podcast, where I'm gonna break it all down into exactly what's happening the end of September for the podcast.

All I will say is this is that today is the last day of a Wednesday edition of The Lowdown with Kevin Lowell.

You take it from there, putting the clues together, and uh, you'll just have to wait and see what comes about next week.

But as I said, be sure that you are already following the podcast so you get notified each time a new episode is released, because as I said, Friday, I'm gonna be breaking it all down for what's going on next week.

But we're not there yet.

Today is episode 120, and I'm in the studio with a killer guy.

His name is Rich Lamonica.

Rich is a killer story of giving back.

And I say that in the fact of what he's doing today.

Rich is the host of his own podcast called the Misfit Nation Podcast, where he's talking to awesome people, sharing their stories, but a big part of it is talking with guys who are veterans of the military.

Because Rich he spent a long time in the military.

He served, I believe it was 22 years in the service until finally getting out and continuing on with life.

After the service, he ended up realizing that you know what?

Life's not over, it's just getting started.

So he would go back to school, finally get that master's degree, and now the guy is just on a roll.

He's published a book in which his own daughter helped to edit.

And as I said earlier, he's hosting a tremendous podcast called Misfit Nation.

Rich is a killer guy.

I actually had an opportunity to be on his podcast as well.

So I will be sure that a link is provided for all of Rich's information in the episode show notes, but also to his podcast so you can check my interview out on his show.

Anyways, I think that's enough for me.

Let's jump on over to the man himself, Rich Lamonica.

Guys, enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_03: So I grew up in uh Jersey City, New Jersey, uh in uh basically a railroad apartment with uh two brothers and one sister, so four of us in uh basically it's a three-bedroom uh apartment.

All the rooms are directly into each other.

There's no hallway, there's just a door between each room, and then there's a living room and such, and then a kitchen.

So all three of the boys were in one room, and you know that's gonna be chaos having two boys in any area at any time.

And so I learned to fight real early in life, and uh I learned to respect my brothers, respect my sister.

But our mom and dad, they were uh strong, very strong-willed inner city woman and man.

And uh they grew up in the 40s and 50s, had my brother and sister in the 60s, and then me and my other brother is 69, 70.

So they were always hardworking and hustling to make sure that we had it better than they did when they were growing up.

We also had the values of both uh sides of our family.

My my dad's family is 100% Italian.

So and my my grandmother, grandfather, uh Nana and Nano, and they would tell us all the stories about what we're supposed to do based on our culture.

They'd show us how to cook, they'd show us how to have these huge feasts on every Sunday.

You had to have a basically a seven-course meal and you had to eat everything, or you were, you know, just in trouble.

And you know, you probably know how that is.

If you don't eat, you can't leave the table, or you're not gonna go outside and play and stuff.

But then we had our mom who's, you know, your no European mix aside, which is a lot of uh Americans had that European mix in them, and she was tough, tough as nails.

Uh, she had that Irish blood, and you didn't mess with mom.

And uh, she taught us right away that in the house she didn't care if we beat each other to death.

But once we walked outside that house, we stood up for each other.

We never went against each other and we stayed with each other all the time.

So I got to watch my mom and dad.

They my mom worked at least two jobs.

She didn't graduate high school, she went to uh kind of like the movie Greece, uh was it uh beauty school?

Yes, yeah.

She dropped out of school, went to beauty school, and she she did great doing that, but it wasn't enough to make ends meet for four children.

And so she had a lot of different jobs with while we were growing up, and including working in our cafeteria at our grammar school.

So I could never do anything wrong there.

It was a very short leash.

Yeah.

So those values were really instilled within within us uh to be tough and uh and to continue to be humble, stay hungry, and keep hustling throughout our whole lives.

So one day, uh there's a short story here.

I think it was uh my I was probably 10 or 11-ish, so when I was young, and uh we were coming home from school, it was a Christmas time, a Friday.

They let us out early.

And for some reason, my mom picked us up.

And that was very rare because me and my brother used to just walk ourselves home from school.

It was only about three blocks in the city.

She picked us up and we had to go home to drop stuff off because I made some crazy uh like a ice cream cone into a Christmas tree treat thing.

So she wanted to drop that off before we went shopping.

And as soon as we get to the house, we noticed that our front door is open in our apartment.

So someone had broken in and my brother rushed right in, even though he's only like 18 months older than me.

He thought he was tough.

He ran in there and he yelled to the guy, What the F you doing in our house?

And my mom tells us both to go outside, go to our neighbor, call the police.

So we listened to her.

We went outside and we went and called the police.

Well, had our neighbor call the police, but we also rallied up all our friends outside.

As the guy came out the apartment, my mom and the lady upstairs confronted him, they yelled at him, they made him pee his pants right there in the hallway.

And that's that's I mean, that's how tough mom was and how tough our neighbor's mom was.

The guy runs outside and we start pelting him with rocks.

All me and all my friends were pelting with rocks, and he starts to run, he runs right past the responding policeman.

So the policeman drives down on the motorcycle, he runs right past him and gets away.

And the cops like, where'd he go?

I said, We were like, You just run, you just effing past him, you just let him go.

And and it took a long time, but uh my dad uh was able to sort it out and find a guy, and we took care of that situation.

But it was a very uh big lesson for us to show how tough our mom was and what you need to do to stay together in conflict and in a bad situation to solve that problem and move forward.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dude.

That's I I loved this, I love this story, and and I mean, can we can we just like say it right?

I mean, like, way to go, mom.

SPEAKER_03: Like you know and everyone, neveryone knew it.

Our cousins knew it, uh all our neighbors knew don't mess with don't mess with Mrs.

Lamonica.

She was that woman, and uh we lost her in 2019, but uh we have a lot of great memories of her and and it still lives with all of us to this day.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow, wow, wow, wow.

So that's that's just really powerful.

So now, where did you have family members who served in the in the armed services?

SPEAKER_03: Definitely.

Uh I had my my grandfather was in World War II, uh, so was his brother.

And then uh my dad joined uh 58-ish, I guess.

Uh 57, 58, because he was he was 17 in 57, so 57, 58, he did his four years, got out just before Vietnam.

And uh, I mean they asked him to come back in to go to a I guess a beautiful place called Indochina to help train people, and he said, No, I have children, I have to you know take care of it because he already had my brother at the time.

He's like, No, I've done my time, that's it.

But then I guess when I was born, I was born in 70, and when I remember is like 73-ish, probably is when you start remembering things on TV.

And we're sitting watching TV and seeing war on TV, and I'm not sure if it was Vietnam or one of the battles in Israel.

And I was like, Dad, I want to be a soldier right there.

And and that was before I even knew about anything he served or anything like that.

And uh, as I grew up, I'd always talk to his friends that went to Vietnam, and they would they would come to me and just tell me all these stories, and they wouldn't talk to anyone else about those stories.

They would talk to me, and it was kind of weird that they would talk to me and not anyone else.

So I kept that in my head.

I'm gonna be a soldier, I'm gonna be a soldier.

So I went through grammar school, you know, you do all the the check the block stuff in grammar school.

Then high school, I said my goal was just to go in the military.

So I started taking all those courses just to get through high school.

So you take like uh the first couple of years you got to take the basic courses, and then the last few years I was just gonna take shop and uh how to make uh baskets, whatever, graphic arts and things like that.

And at the end of junior year, I said, Dad, I'm gonna go to recruiter.

And because I was a year ahead because of my birth date, he would have to sign for me to go in.

He said, No, you're not joining the military.

None of us have joined the military.

You need to go to college.

I said, Whoa, all right.

That's uh that's gonna be a big change for my senior year.

So instead of my senior year being a couple classes and then slacking off the whole day, I was in classes all day, taking uh all the maths I missed, all the sciences I missed, making sure I had the right Englishes so I can get into college, and then of course having to take the entrance test, this SAT in New Jersey, which I almost slept through and he woke me up with about 30 minutes to get to school and take the test.

He's like, You're gonna take the test?

I was oh yeah, it's today.

And I ran to school, I took it, somehow I passed it, and I got into uh Berkeley College in New York.

Wow.

I did that for a year, and then I went to St.

Peter's College in uh Jersey City.

Uh, if you just watched DNCAs just recently, they made it to the Elite Eight in basketball.

It was a proud moment for Peacock Nation.

Yeah.

I mean, I I played football there.

We lost every game I played uh for two years.

We were 0-14 in those two years.

It was a very humbling experience.

But this is another lesson my dad taught me.

He was there every game we were at home and always focused on what we did good.

And he told us the things we did well and how we can get better.

He never harped on the things we did bad because there were a lot of things we did bad.

He'd be there for days, I guess, to talk about that.

But he told us how to get better.

He gave us our strong points and told us, you know, you got to keep getting up.

And that's what we did.

And that's why I learned no matter how many times you fall, you got to keep getting back up.

But after after two years in college of me paying for it now, and and now I was working uh UPS from 11 o'clock at night till three o'clock in the morning to try to get them to give me some money for college.

I was just burning out.

And uh I said, Dad, that's it.

Uh I have to go in the army now.

I said, You can't stop it now.

So I joined the Army 93 active duty.

Uh 91, I joined uh reserves, 93 uh active duty.

And from 93 to 2015, I served on active duty.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Wow.

So you served for a long time.

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: Wow, 22 years.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So so I have to go back a little bit back in the story that you just shared with us.

I can only imagine that, you know, us as kids, we we have this idea in our head.

You a junior in high school, you you had it all mapped out.

I had to imagine.

I mean, obviously you have the utmost respect for for your father, but you had to be pretty mad about him telling you right off the bat, like, no, you're not going in the army, you're going to college.

SPEAKER_03: It was a disheartening moment, I guess you call it at that point.

Yes.

But my dad is my uh number one hero in my life, and uh anything he said was was basically gospel.

Yes.

When he said it, he was like he was like the Don to our family.

So he he tells you it, and uh it was something you did.

And so I was the one that was chosen to go to college.

My brother went in the navy, my oldest brother he did six years.

There was no question about college.

My sister, of course, she went to college, and because she was the girl, you know, I guess she was supposed to be the smart one go to college.

My other brother, my other brother, me and him graduated high school together, and uh I was supposed to be behind him, but I caught him, and you know, things happened in high school.

And he wasn't an educator, he wasn't gonna be a college guy, he was gonna be a basically put your hands on stuff and work guy, and that's what he does now.

He's he's great with crafts and uh technical stuff and trades.

And so I was the chosen one to go to college, and it wasn't my choice at first, and and now I'm I'm finally finishing, I finally finishing the college journey at the end of my military career.

I finally got my bachelor's degree.

So it was 22 26 years after I started college, I got my bachelor's degree.

And then that was 2015, 2020.

I got my master's, and now I'm working towards my doctorate.

SPEAKER_01: Dude, that's uh that's absolutely phenomenal.

Absolutely phenomenal.

Now, you you said when you you went to college, you ended up playing football.

Had you played football in high school?

No, not at all.

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: I played on the street.

Yes, yes.

I played street ball and uh didn't play in college in high school.

Uh I was real small when I first started uh high school.

I was about maybe four foot three or something like that until junior year.

And then I went up to about five, ten, about five, nine, five, ten when I am now over the summer.

So I was a real small dude, so I wasn't gonna last on the football field in high school that long.

I would probably get killed out there.

So I just didn't play, but I knew I could play.

And when I went to St.

Peter's, my I walked in there saying, Oh, we're having sign up for football.

So that's something cool.

That'll make college a lot more fun.

So I can hit people after I get done studying, it'd be great.

Someone did that, and that that made time fly by.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.

It reminds me of one of my favorite movies is uh Remember the Titans?

Yes, Louis Lastic.

And I feel I feel like it was a quote from that movie where one of the one of the the guys in it, he's like, he's like, Well, I figure if if I gotta go to school, I might as well be able to hit people at the same time, you know?

SPEAKER_03: So yeah, Louis Lastic.

He actually went to college right here in our town, Austin P State University.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.

Okay, that's awesome.

That is so cool.

So so now I'm kind of curious if, you know, because you then going into the army, do you feel as though being on a football team prepared you in any way for that?

Just because I mean, I think of especially college football, big deal.

Coaches, I mean, total opposite of how you describe your dad, where most coaches, I mean, they're they're beating you to death, working you to death.

Did that prepare you for what you face than going into like basic training?

SPEAKER_03: Uh, just a little bit, I think.

I think going into basic training with an open mind helps you a lot better than going in there with a plan.

If you go in there knowing it, they're just gonna treat you like a dog until until they feel like you're a human again, you're you'll be fine.

And uh if you go in with any expectations above being treated like crap for the first few weeks, then you're you're gonna have a horrible day, horrible weeks, and uh drop through.

My dad gave me a lot of pointers because he, I mean, he when he went through, it was a lot different, and they can do a lot more to you in basic training.

So I was expecting that stuff when I went in.

Yes, it was way beyond that at that point.

We didn't do it before, so thank God.

But yeah, thank God for his generation.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely, definitely.

So now I I'm curious because you hear so many guys who go in to whatever branch of the military it is, and they do, you know, whatever the minimum is, like the four years or whatever.

You went for way longer than that.

Why do you think you were different than than most?

SPEAKER_03: Well, what I like to tell people is military is not for everybody.

And that can go with any career you do in life, anything you do in life, it's not for every person that goes into it.

So if you go in the military and you have that four-year plan, I want to go in, I want to get a skill, and I want to get out, do it.

Don't overstep that.

But if you go in and all of a sudden you find your tribe, you find what you want to do, you find that purpose in life, do that and stay with it until it's no longer something you're passionate about.

My first duty station was uh Fort Stewart, Georgia, and I had a great platoon sergeant there, sergeant first class Lopez, and he told us all, he said, You'll know when it's time to get out.

You'll have a gut feeling, it'll tell you to get out.

And that's what I had in 2015.

It's like a light came on.

Hey, it's time to go.

And I I got out.

I retired.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Wow.

Now, during your your time in the the services, were you deployed at all to any war zones?

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

I went to I was in combat four times.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

SPEAKER_03: So I went to Afghanistan twice and uh Iraq Kuwait twice.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Can you uh just even like an overview or if there's any specific moments, kind of unpack what that was like?

Because I mean, from my civilian point of view, I don't know that there could be any training that could fully prepare you for what you would face in actual war.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sure.

I mean, that's a great uh question for uh experiences in combat, I guess.

Uh so in 9-11 when 9-11 happened, I was already deployed.

I was already uh basically on the border of Iraq and Kuwait.

We were already there when it happened.

So it was a shock and awe to us because we had no uh there was internet wasn't really a big thing at that point.

It was the 2001, and you didn't have it overseas at that point.

So when we're told that I was already, I was out outside of our little cabal, they called it so basically a little camp for all military dudes, and we went out, we're on a patrol and we got called back in, and we thought it was a lie.

There's no way our country's at war.

There's no way a plane went to the World Trade Center.

And I kept saying that to my lieutenant because that was basically where I grew up.

I can see the World Trade Center from my backyard.

So I was like, this is personal, there's no way.

So that's not even a good joke.

Then one of my soldiers went, we had what was called the CNN tent because they always had the news on.

He went in there and he said, Sorry, it's real.

We're we're at war.

I said, man.

So we went from basically an easy, easygoing, uh basically being a speed bump in case Iraq decided to come back into Kuwait, to hey, we're the tip of the spear now.

We're the guys that are forward, and we lost our ice cream privileges and we started getting bad food, and we got a lot of ammo.

So we didn't see any uh basic shooting at that time, but we did get to push a lot of dudes up into uh into the war zone in Afghanistan from Kuwait.

So we had some pride in that.

Came back for about that, was 2001, 2003.

I went back to Iraq with the same unit, just that moved up a level and uh went to Ramadi.

Uh, if you've seen uh American Sniper, that's uh well, two of his tours were in Ramadi.

It's uh not a very good place.

Uh Jacko Willink was there as well.

It was a very hostile area.

It's basically the heart of the Sunni Triangle where uh Saddam Hussein uh had most of his adamant followers, and they hated us.

There's no better way to put it.

Every day you drive out the gate and all you hear is ding ding ding ding ding ding ding because they're shooting at you or something's hitting your vehicle.

Oh, wow.

It was kinetic the whole the whole year was kinetic there, and you learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about those who are around you.

Your question on training.

In training, you shoot, but you're not shooting live rounds.

You're not shooting live rounds at each other, you're shooting blanks.

You get the smell of the round, you get the smell of the gunpowder, but nothing's coming really at you.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_03: Once you start hearing a whiz go by you and or seeing it hit something next to you, that kind of opens your eyes, opens your your spidey senses.

And I know for you, uh, when you lost your sight, all your other senses probably went a little haywar, so you were able to hear and see and smell things a lot better.

So for us out there, we were able to all of a sudden everything was opening us up.

Oh, I can smell something bad happening.

I can I sense it's about to happen.

You get these little weird feelings.

If you see someone doing something on the street, all of a sudden you know that something bad's about to happen to you in a few minutes.

So it it was a pretty uh pretty tough to deployment.

We lost, I think, 35 guys within our brigade, 65 total overall, because we had Marines with us that got attached to us when they lost a bunch as well.

Uh the largest fight was the battle for Ramadi in April of 2004, basically a week straight of nothing but straight fighting in the streets of Ramadi, all the way to uh Habania, which is just outside of Fallujah.

And you we got to see a lot of things that uh will never be erased from our minds, and a lot of smells and things like that that you can never get out of your head that what it was.

But you just gotta fight through that.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: But after that, I took basically from 2004 when I came home till 2010.

When I went back to Afghanistan, I hadn't been to war, so a lot of things changed in combat, a lot of things changed with technology in that time.

So I went from Iraq now to Afghanistan and night and day.

Uh night and day fighting.

Uh no more urban.

It's all wide open desert or fields and stuff.

So you never know what's out there.

You don't know what's around.

You're on a your head's on a swivel constantly.

There's bombs in the road, there's wires, there's pressure plates, people shooting at you.

People that will shake your hand one day, the next day they can't stand you because it's a tribal region.

And you get if you don't know the culture going in, you're not going to be successful there.

So it took a little bit to get on board with that.

And we had, I think, a hundred and a hundred and twenty-something patrols with no instance.

But on December 31st of 2010, we lost our soldier.

Uh my soldier I lost in combat was on that deployment.

You know, it was uh well, he went on to with the engineers because he was an engineer by trade.

They were clearing a compound, and uh him or lieutenant uh triggered an explosive, and he was we lost him that day.

So it was our New Year's Eve of 2010 going into 2011.

And that's when uh Misfit Nation was born, basically, at the during that deployment, because uh we called ourselves the Misfits, and then we lost him and the Misfit Nation was born.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Let me ask you this.

You know, I understand like PTSD is a big thing for men who go over men and women serving in in the in our armed services.

Did you experience that?

Do you experience that?

SPEAKER_03: In the moment, I didn't think I did.

And uh if you ask my wife, she'll say yes, she did since 2003.

But you don't see it if you you can't see yourself.

You don't know what you're doing.

You think that you're just normal because you're like everyone you were with.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_03: But I changed exponentially from the time I left in 2001 and through my deployments and everything.

It wasn't until when I came home in 2011 before my last uh combat deployment.

I went and I actually asked for help.

I said, Something's wrong with me.

I need to get help.

And I was told, hey, uh, you're a leader, you gotta get back out there and lead.

All right.

So I went about my business, I led my soldiers, I got them ready for whatever's coming next.

And then I got tabbed to go on the next deployment uh in 2012.

Uh 2000, yeah, 2012.

And uh we went to Kunar province in Afghanistan at that time, and I went in negative.

I had a negative mindset.

My mind was just racing, knowing that all my friends that I lost in combat died either on a third or fourth deployment.

So you it's like playing roulette.

There's only so many times you can spin the wheel before you're done.

And uh I knew this was my time.

I knew I was going in and I was told by my soldier, a specialist uh Sergeant Cumming, uh Chantel Watts now, Watts, she told me to get that out of my head and uh yeah, you're not that's not you, Sarant.

That's not you.

Get out there and just be positive and do your thing.

And it didn't click until two days on our new uh combat outpost, and a mortar hit behind me and came through the back of my left leg and out the front of it.

That's when I finally woke up.

I was like, man, my mindset's been horrible.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: I put the tourniquet on, I've got my two lieutenants bandaged me up, cleaned me up, had the surgery, went right back to the cop after about 32 hours from time of wounding back into action and uh against doctor's orders, but uh, I did it anyway.

And that was my eye-opener.

That made my mindset get back on track, and that has led me to have a positive mindset uh since that point in time.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, dude, that's just crazy.

And and I look at I look at this and I can't help but but think of this situation of talking about like mindset, because you know, that that's a big thing that a lot of people we focus on is having a positive mindset.

And we think of it in terms of living our everyday lives, just waking up in our homes and going to work and and not being bummed out that you know our job sucks and and and you know, the problems going on, and and think positive.

But what a totally different perspective on how powerful it can be of you're at battle.

Right.

And and and the having your head in the right space to really protect yourself.

SPEAKER_03: Exactly.

And uh, if you're not in the right space out there, you're not only a danger to yourself, you're a danger to your brothers and sisters on your right and left.

And and uh it it's a shame that I mean it's a shame and it's a blessing that happened to me that I got wounded that helped me to realize how horrible my mind was and where I needed to go and how to be a better person, how to stay hungry, be humble, and keep hustling as I move forward to get out of that situation and uh work all the problems that we had to work during that deployment and get home.

Like I said, it's a it was a blessing and it could have been a curse to get wounded, but uh, I took it as a blessing.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

Now, you said that happened in 2012?

Yes.

But you then continued to serve another three years?

Yes, correct?

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Okay, so so what made you finally get out then in 2015, if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_03: Well, I came home from that deployment.

I kept uh doing uh platoon sergeant work, and then I went to a specialized unit.

And I just like I told you earlier, when Sergeant Lopez taught us as young soldiers, you'll know when it's time to go.

I seen it just wasn't me anymore.

I needed to do something different.

I knew there was a young generation that needed to lead this army and uh and do it well like they do.

And my time had come and gone, and it was time for me to hang them up.

My daughter is about to graduate high school, so I I timed it so I'd retire and she'd graduate high school at the same time.

We'd both go off into our next chapter of our lives.

SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Now, how was it for you after retiring from the army?

I mean, getting back into civilian life and in kind of, you know, like you said, starting a new chapter, recreating life again.

How, how was that process?

SPEAKER_03: It was a difficult process, I guess.

Uh, I thought since all the things I did, all the training I had, I would fall right into a job.

And I'd take off my uniform one day, the next day I'd be working as a civilian, basically doing the same thing.

And that didn't happen.

I was unemployed for 365 days.

So I sat home and uh did the woe is me stuff, and uh, I would drink with my dogs and watch TV.

And uh finally I got an offer and 365 days in, uh, I got hired.

And so exactly one year from retirement to getting a job.

And that was a humbling experience again for me, and uh to show that even the even as big as you think you are, you can get that punch in the gut and fall down and have to get back up.

But I just kept pushing forward and I worked at that job for about two years, and because I didn't want to be a statistic either, because most veterans who get out, no matter how many years they serve, they don't last more than a year at their first job because it's just not the same setup as the military.

It's not the structure where it things don't work the same way.

So most quit within within that first year.

So I stayed two years and moved on to another position where I'm still at now.

SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.

Wow.

What type of work did you get into?

SPEAKER_03: First, I was mentoring veterans as they uh went through what was we called the fellowship program, uh, six months of them reintegrating into their communities and giving back to their communities through a volunteer service at a nonprofit of their choice.

So, like I did six months at the Red Cross.

So, because the Red Cross does so much for the military, it does so much for everybody.

Uh, if you look at all their responses to disasters and such, and if you look at all the positives they do, they do a lot of great things.

Some people harp on the negatives of things that happen outside of our country that they they expected them to work with, but you gotta move away from that looking with all the the big picture.

So I volunteered there for about five months before I took the actual full-time job.

And then uh I had a lot of I had people from Texas all the way over to about Tennessee and then up to up through the middle, middle of the country.

That's that's who I mentored, Central U.S.

basically.

So I got to see meet a lot of other veterans and see them do amazing things throughout the country for two years.

So that was a blessing.

And then uh after that, my former first sergeant for my company asked asked me if I wanted to work where he works.

I said, heck yeah, and got me in there.

I filled out the application, did the interview process, and I started uh working there in 2018.

Uh I was doing Intel training, and now I do emerging a threat training, train soldiers to react to emerging threats that are uh on the global scale.

SPEAKER_01: Okay, dude, that that's really awesome.

Now, at what point did you decide that you wanted to go back to school?

SPEAKER_03: I think that had to be when I was at the first job and everyone there, uh there's a lot of uh younger people working there that didn't serve, but they were working with veterans, and a lot of them were always talking down about those who were not officers in the military or things like that.

So I wanted to prove them anyone can get these degrees, and so I I went and went and got my master's through Georgetown University in disaster and emergency management.

And uh someone there told me that one of my freshers said, Hey, you I think this is where you should stop because you're not an academic, you you won't make it through PhD.

So I took that as a challenge.

I said, challenge accepted, and and I was still angry that I hadn't walked across the stage because I was supposed to walk across the stage for that, but COVID happened, so they cut that out.

So I said, I'm gonna go for it.

And Liberty University accepted me, and I'm about uh a little more than halfway through my PhD right now.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, dude, that is, I mean, quite the accomplishment, man.

That's that's absolutely phenomenal, dude.

And I had a few hours left in my week, I had to do something.

Yeah, exactly.

Fill your time a little bit.

Yeah.

So now at some point then I know.

Tell me about this book that you've written.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, sure, yeah.

The 13-step guide to success.

This also happened in uh 2020 to 2021 time frame.

During the the rise of COVID and uh all the negativity in the world, every month I would write a post on Facebook at the end of the month.

Congratulations, you made it to the end of this level of Jumanji.

Now we'll move it to this level.

So at the end of uh 2020, my daughter's like, you need to put that into a book, all the stuff you wrote.

So uh I said, okay, I'll do that.

So it took uh all of 2021 to compile it and had her edit it.

She was published right out of high school with her first book called The Unexpected.

And oh wow.

I used her as my editor because that's when she got her degree in creative writing.

So for about two months we went back and forth editing it in December of 2021, it was published.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow.

That is so, dude, that's so incredible.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was a great feeling.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I bet.

Absolutely.

That's so cool.

So now you made mention earlier about how Misfit Nation came to be.

Talk to me a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_03: Sure, yeah.

So when I uh got to Afghanistan in 2010, I left Korea in the end of May of 2010, and the unit I was going to was already in Afghanistan.

So I got to Fort Campbell, and 60 days later, I met them in Afghanistan.

So my original platoon was already split up to a bunch of different platoons because they needed people to need to get things going and get things working the proper way.

And then there was a platoon called the Quick Reaction Force and Force Protection Platoon that was made up of all the people from other sections, basically the Isle of the Misfit toys.

People from all different uh job titles, all different platoons, all different companies that were dolls meshed together.

And they called themselves the Isle of the Misfit Toys.

We had a metal piece on our wall called the Misfits, and we'd go out and everyone said it's gonna be a tough job, and all we did was we became one family, and the misfits rose.

We lost Sergeant Beckerman, like I said, December 31st, and we came home April of 2011, and we've stayed tight ever since.

And the Misfit Nation was was a growing force throughout the time.

We stayed close to each other, we look out for each other every holiday, every anniversary of the passing.

We talk to each other, make sure everyone's okay.

And then also at the end of uh 2020, you know, well, I had so much uh so much time in my hands.

Uh starting a PhD.

I said, you know what?

I want to start a podcast.

I got about eight hours left in the week.

How much time can a podcast start?

So I called a couple of them and said, Would you be my first guest?

So my first show has uh Chris Wamhoff and Raymond Bird, two uh the Misfits that were really close with me in Afghanistan.

I have them on there, and we have great conversation if you get to listen to the first episode of the Misfit Nation.

And uh and that just started right there.

We're a hundred and I think yesterday 165th episode came out.

So it's a pretty uh pretty good momentum right now.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dude, that's that's absolutely phenomenal.

So now, what is the majority of the content of the the type of people that you're interviewing on the show?

SPEAKER_03: Well, at first it was gonna be just veterans.

Okay.

We spoke about PTSD earlier and uh soldiers uh when uh men and women coming back from uh combat or even they have incidents here in the States, traumatic incidents, they have to get this stuff off their chest and tell their story.

So that's what that was my goal to have them come out, come on a show, tell their story, come out and just let the world know what they went through and make them be able to exhale and get that pressure off their chest.

And then a couple of them said, Hey, we need other things like we need to know how to write a book, how to become a musician, how to succeed as an entrepreneur, how to get into corporate America, how to be a leader in uh the civilian world.

So now I have guests from all those walks of life coming on, giving them tips and tricks on how to make that uh mindset change, to be resilient, to write a book, to get in the music industry.

So it's a cornucopia, very diverse group of guests I have on now.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, dude, I absolutely love it.

And I just I I love the whole like principle behind it.

And and I what I love is because it's it's really built on community.

This this group that you became a part of, the the misfits, which I just think is absolutely freaking awesome in itself.

Just uh really, really cool.

SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.

Uh I know all the Misfit Nation will appreciate that as well.

They're all hard chargers, all doing great things for God and country still.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

So now I am curious, how many of you who served together have stayed in touch then?

SPEAKER_03: Uh, there's a good group of us that stayed together.

Uh stayed in touch, it's probably I'd say 20 or 30 of us that still stay in contact uh pretty regularly.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's really awesome, dude.

That's really awesome.

Well, man, so so cool to just hear your story.

Uh, you know, man, I have I have the most utmost respect for you, for anybody willing to literally give the ultimate, you know, sacrifice of the of their life of to serve and be willing to die for our country, you know, because I mean, like I said, I mean, dude, I mean, it I it's scary walking around like some city streets, much less being over in Afghanistan, Iraq.

And I mean, you know, so I mean, I look at you and I'm like, I'm like, you get it, dude.

I am so glad we got guys brave enough, crazy enough as you to do this stuff to keep us safe.

SPEAKER_03: So there's a lot more to me, and uh, I'm just one of many, and I'm sure there's many more out there that will do the same.

Yeah.

If you ask any one of them, they don't do it for uh anything other than their brother and sister that are next to them.

And that's that's the thing.

Like you say, community.

We like call your your tribe is I think that's the buzzword now.

You have to have your tribe.

Yep.

Once you find that tribe or tribe of tribes, it's it's an amazing feeling.

And it it helps you have find that purpose to keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, I would love to end with one last question on the topic of moving forward.

What is it for you that has you moving forward?

Do you have any plans for the future?

I mean, my goodness, I mean, you you've got all this extra time.

I I would think that you might be thinking about adding something else to it.

I mean, there's got to be another like 10 minutes left in the day.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, of course there's always an extra couple minutes in there.

Who needs sleep?

You know, we exactly.

We used to used to joke around here that you know you sleep when you're dead, because I mean that's the you'll have the most peaceful sleep at that point, you know, cost in turn.

So exactly.

But in the near future, I want to continue to advocate for veterans and uh help them get the help they need and help them get their voices heard, and uh served their purpose.

So so many veterans are are stuck by themselves or stuck from themselves and can't get out of their own way.

If we can take down that barrier to let them know that hey, you are appreciated and hey, you need to get out there and share your story, or hey, you need to add what you do or what your skills are to the rest of the world, that'd be a win for us.

Also, writing a couple more books, uh just toying around with them right now and with the help of my daughter, of course.

And they should be out by the end of this year, and those will be fictional books.

The 13 Step Guide to Success, of course, is basically uh how to get out of your own way book.

It's not uh how to succeed in business, it's how to be a successful human.

And uh uh I suggest everyone, if you want to pick it up, it's on Amazon, of course, or you can go to our website, themisfitnation.com.

It's on there along with our swag, and you can see all of our shows on there.

SPEAKER_01: All right, fantastic.

I will be sure that all of that is linked inside of the episode show notes.

Rich, dude, thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you for for being part of my podcast, and I appreciate it, man.

SPEAKER_03: Uh, Kevin, it was great, uh, great to be invited on the show and low down.

And uh I had a great time here.

I can't wait to flip the mic and talk to you in uh, I think a couple weeks.

Exactly, exactly, man.

SPEAKER_01: Well, that sounds good.

And uh, for you listening today, you know, I hope that you've enjoyed just this awesome guy here on the podcast, another guy who's, you know, I don't know, inspiring us to just live up to the best version of ourselves.

And I think a big part of that is serving others.

He did the ultimate, he served our country.

And I feel like that's just deserves the most utmost respect.

But remember that you can do little things in your life.

It's being nice, it's doing something for people, it's giving, you know, rather than receiving.

And, you know, I feel like this interview with with Rich today is just a reminder of that.

And I would encourage you to go out into the world and try to make it not just a good life for you, but a good life for everyone else.

Because uh, you know, if we can all strive to be a little bit better humans, then it makes this world a little bit better place to live.

Until next week, this is the lowdown with Kevin Lowe.

And that's the lowdown with Kevin Lowe.

I hope today's episode inspired you, motivated you, and excited you to get out and enjoy life, no matter what obstacles may be standing in the way.