Show Transcript

0:00:01 - (Kevin Lowe): It was the dead of winter and his heater had just quit. Rich Ingram, he was homeless, living in a tent beside a river in north Georgia. After about six weeks, well, he switched his mindset from surviving to thriving. Fast forward to today. Rich Ingram has served our country. Matter of fact, while in Afghanistan, he would lose his arm, but that did not stop him. No, he would go on to compete in triathlons, continuing to do amazing things, pushing his body to the limit.

0:00:39 - (Kevin Lowe): And that wasnt enough. No, he actually went back into service as an amputee. This guy is remarkable. He exhibits what it means to have raw resilience. My friend, you are about to be pumped up, encouraged and energized by my interview with Rich Ingram. This is episode 303.

0:01:06 - (Rich Ingram): Yo, are you ready to flip the script on life? Cause those bad days, they're just doors to better days. And that's exactly what we do here at grit, grace and inspiration. Your host, Kevin Lowe, he's been flipping the script on his own life, turning over 20 years of being completely blind into straight up inspiration, motivation and encouragement just for you. So kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your host, Kevin Lowe.

0:01:34 - (Kevin Lowe): What is up, my friend? Welcome back to great Grayson Inspiration. Today, I am excited beyond belief to be in the studio with a guy who has the most insane story, matter of fact, a bunch of stories, each one of them insane in their own way. But whats awesome is his personality. Rich Ingram, hes an awesome guy here to motivate you to more or less get out there and take on this day, no matter what obstacles are standing in your way.

0:02:10 - (Kevin Lowe): Now, before you dive into all of that goodness, I do want to remind you that if you are somebody at a point in your life where you're wanting a little bit more, you want to be sure that you're making the most out of every day, every second you have, and you want to be sure that the rest of 2024 is a true success. Well, this is your opportunity. I'm offering free coaching all summer long. All you have to do to sign up is text.

0:02:39 - (Kevin Lowe): Summer 2024. All one word, no spaces. Summer 2024 to the phone number 33 triple seven. That is 33 seven seven. And you will get a link to my calendar to book that free session right away. Now, before I turn it over to Rich Ingram, I do just want to give you a heads up. If you are somebody listening to this podcast, maybe in your car coming of the speakers, or maybe you got one of those Bluetooth speakers and it is being heard by everyone around you, if you have children with you.

0:03:18 - (Kevin Lowe): I do want you to understand that today's conversation does involve some adult content, especially around language. Yes, I'm talking about bad words that you probably don't want your kids to repeat. So I hope you'll keep listening, because the story he has to share is incredible. But I just wanted to give you a heads up so you're not caught off guard that there is some colorful language used in today's interview.

0:03:50 - (Kevin Lowe): With that said and that disclosure out of the way, I turn it over to the man of the hour, rich Ingram.

0:03:58 - (Rich Ingram): Raw resilience is what. So, first off, I needed, like, a framework to kind of brand what I was working on, and that's what I came up with. And the reason why is because, first and foremost, before you do anything, you have to be true to yourself. Not to sound cliche, but the first part of that framework is purpose. Finding your purpose. Because, you know, in what I do, especially in endurance sports, purpose is the true motivator when. When you're hitting a wall and literally think you have nothing left to give, purpose is what is going to make you keep going. Not willpower or any of the other executive functions in your brain, but its purpose. You know, the why.

0:04:46 - (Rich Ingram): In order to find that, you got to get raw. Because too often, we find ourselves in this culture that we're in, keeping up with the Joneses, and, you know, we're not true to ourselves. And so when we really do a dive into who we are, who, you know, taking stock of inventory of what we have, where we're at, and who we want to be, the only way that you can really get a good answer to that is by being true. And then. So that's the raw portion of it. But also, it's raw because, man, I like to think of myself as just a one layered individual, right?

0:05:22 - (Rich Ingram): Maybe it's the military and me, but I don't like to beat around the bush. I like being direct. I think that what's the point in talking or speaking or saying anything if. If what's coming out of your mouth isn't true? And I think I can read through, you know, bullshit pretty quick. So that's the raw portion. And then resilience is, you know, the framework of how do we get there? How do we become resilience? Because perseverance and resilience are not the same thing. Like, dude, I'll tell you, I'm really good at taking some punches and persevering through some stuff, but resilience is coming out better on the other side, you know, and doing something.

0:06:01 - (Rich Ingram): Okay. It's great that you're getting up every time you get knocked down, but what are you doing about it to not get knocked down anymore? Right? And so that's what raw resilience is, man. It's based off of purpose, mindset, and process.

0:06:13 - (Kevin Lowe): I love it. So much more depth to that than I ever could have imagined. I love it, Mandy. So now we have a little insight into this mindset that you have today. I'm curious to figure out how you even got here to. To this one layered individual of cutting through the b's. Take me back to kind of growing up. I mean, where did you grow up? What was childhood like for you? Was it good? Was it bad? Was it something you'd care to forget?

0:06:44 - (Kevin Lowe): I would, you know, just kind of love to hear that story. Yeah.

0:06:47 - (Rich Ingram): So I had a great childhood. I actually, obviously, there's a story there. We wouldn't be talking, but, uh, you know, I was raised in a pretty affluent family. My parents met a medical school in Birmingham, Alabama. My dad started his practice in a town called Lagrange, Georgia, right on the Alabama Georgia border. But my dad, he was an outlier, and this is before that term really got popular. But he was gone when I woke up in the morning and gone when I went to bed at night.

0:07:18 - (Rich Ingram): He works seven days a week. And as I started to get into adolescent years, I started to loathe him for it, because I saw what all my other friends were doing with their fathers. You know, they were taking them to football games or tailgates or whatever, like, they drank beer, never saw my dad drink. And they took him hunting and fishing, and I didn't have access to any of that. And so as I got into my teenage years, one thing that I did have access to was booze, right? And so I became, because I was trying to, I had all this energy, like the energy of a supernova. But I just had no direction and no guidance. And so for me, and I call it chasing air, a great way to fit in or be put on a pedestal was, man, I would be a partier, and that's what I became known for, drinking and fighting, man. And that is not how I was raised. I mean, my dad, instead of buying me a baseball bat, I remember when I was, like, seven years old, he bought me the book of virtues, and.

0:08:20 - (Rich Ingram): Which is a great book for youngsters, you know, but it was not. I mean, that kind of, you know, tells you a little bit about how he was. And I got into a lot of trouble. You know, I was never into, like, drugs or anything like that. No judgment to anybody. That was. I just, you know, wasn't. And so when it came time to go to college, my parents would only let me go to one school. They would not let me go to university or anything like that because they were like, that's gonna be a waste of time, and you're gonna get in trouble. So I went to one of six senior military colleges in the country, and the one that I went to is the one that no one's ever heard of is the University of North Georgia.

0:09:00 - (Rich Ingram): And I started to get a little bit of. Of a taste of the military at that point, and I really. That's where the seed was planted of the structure and the guidance and the story there is. I quit after the first semester. I called my dad, and I was like, hey, I'm coming home. And he said, no, you're not. So I was like, I didn't really think that went through. You know, I had a whomp. We had a 1.7 gpa.

0:09:32 - (Rich Ingram): And, you know, I was majoring in physics and engineering. I was dual majoring, which. You don't take a lot of those courses in the beginning, but we had to, I guess, because we're. We would graduate with physics in three years and then engineering, too. So, nonetheless, I had a 1.7 gpa. And little did I know, a lot of kids in the dual major program had a 1.7 gpa. But I was the one that quit. And I found myself living in a tent on a creek in the North Georgia mountains in the middle of the wintertime. So cold, my heater froze.

0:10:05 - (Rich Ingram): I had a little, like, Coleman heater.

0:10:07 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, wow.

0:10:08 - (Rich Ingram): And, yeah, yeah. And, man, after about six weeks, I can't even remember, but, you know, brushing my teeth in a creek and taking showers and gas station sinks, I was like, dude, what am I doing, man? And so I went. I went to a national Guard recruiter, and I signed up. They had a program where you could enlist and then become an officer in the active duty after you graduated. And so that's what I did. And I called my dad. I'm like, dad, here's what I did.

0:10:37 - (Rich Ingram): This is January, I think I'd like to come home. And he let me, but he said, under conditions, and he said, you will read a book and write a book report every week. No television, no alcohol. You'll be in by 07:00 p.m. and you will work out and run every single day until you go to basic training in March, and he made me write out a plan. So a daily plan for the week. And at the end of every day, I'd had to write what I did, and he would initial next to us saying the plan was executed, literally.

0:11:10 - (Rich Ingram): He's that intense. And he would grade my book reports. A few weeks, like, the first few weeks are tough because I was back home in a party scene, and, you know, I had some of my friends, like, I couldn't. I can't go out, you know? But after a while, like, after a few weeks, I started loving it. I mean, I was reading way more than a book a week. And when I got to basic training, I realized without my dad ever telling me, to be successful, you have to become an outlier yourself, and you have to sacrifice.

0:11:44 - (Rich Ingram): And what he did for me for that, you know, two month period or whatever it was, was invaluable. I mean, the lesson that he taught me and how he prepared me was just. And now my dad's one of my heroes. You know, he could have done some things differently, right? But that was just his way. He didn't. He didn't know anything else. And he was willing to let me sleep in a tent next to a creek for however long to learn that lesson. And I can't thank him enough for it.

0:12:14 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. Crazy story. I want to ask you, when you describe your dad as an outlier, talk to me about what that means.

0:12:25 - (Rich Ingram): So, to me, I mean, you know, statistically, it can be anything that's outside of our normal bell curve. But he was different. And the things that he did were not the norm. They weren't lie. And. But he was. Rever is revered in that town. He is known for. He will do anything for his patients. He is known for being an expert in his field. If he is not at work directly practicing medicine with patients, he's at home studying, looking at scholarly journals, making sure that he hones his craft and his.

0:13:06 - (Rich Ingram): And so to me, if we're talking about positive outliers. Cause there are negative outliers as well. That, to me, is being strong enough and courageous enough to stand up to the status quo in our society and our culture and do what you know is the right thing. And what is going to take you to be successful, that is. That, to me, is an outlier. And, you know, a lot of people can say that, but actually, you know, when you. When you look at the real execution of what they're trying to do, you know, we end up on Netflix or whatever else, and not, you know, it's just fluff. So, you know, that's what my dad did not. He didn't come to games. He didn't come to. I mean, I was. I loved baseball more than anything. He never came to a game, I don't think, ever.

0:14:02 - (Rich Ingram): And so. But you get used to that, right? Like, again, I had a great job. My mom was at everything, and I knew that what my dad was doing was, you know, he was providing for his family. But I do see a lot of him and me now, I'm a light switch, right? I'm either all in or I'm not at all.

0:14:20 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:14:21 - (Rich Ingram): And, you know, that. That was when I got out of the military the second time. That was one of the reasons I went into oil and gas, but that was why I left oil and gas, because I was working so much. And when I got engaged, my wife saw, look, you can't be in a salary position working as much as you do. You know, if you put the same amount of effort into sales or whatever it is, I mean, your revenue is just, you know, going to quadruple.

0:14:49 - (Rich Ingram): And so that's why. That's why I left oil and gas. But. But anyways. Yeah, man. That's what kind of planted the seed with everything and my rearing. Yeah.

0:14:59 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay.

0:15:00 - (Rich Ingram): Wow.

0:15:00 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. So powerful. So kind of going back to this story you were sharing, you're. You're winding down on at home boot camp before actual boot camp and.

0:15:14 - (Rich Ingram): Right, right.

0:15:15 - (Kevin Lowe): And so talk to me about when you actually went away to boot camp. How old were you at that point?

0:15:21 - (Rich Ingram): 20. No, I would have been 19. I was 19.

0:15:24 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay. Okay. Wow. So we went from living by creek in the middle of winter to going back home, being in a kind of makeshift boot camp. Now you're in boot camp. Talk to me about that experience, because from what I've seen about it on tv, on the Discovery Channel, it sounds like pure hell. But, um, I would love to. Love to hear it from you.

0:15:50 - (Rich Ingram): To me, that was one of the most amazing experiences. And I don't know how many people told me when I said I was going to base training that just blend in with everyone, don't volunteer for anything. I went the complete opposite route. I volunteered for everything. And because I was. I was physically fit and I loved it. I already kind of knew a little bit about the military because of my north Georgia experience. Like, I dipped my toes in the water, and I knew that I loved it, and I wanted the full experience.

0:16:21 - (Rich Ingram): And so, you know, coming from what I just come from, from looking from. For direction and purpose in life to now completely being in this environment that I loved. Oh, man. Dude, I was all in. And I'll tell you, I guess they call it hazing now. I don't know what basic training is like now, but, like, we. We got smoked. I mean, you know, every day they're dropping you for push ups or whatever, and my goal was to never put my knees down during a push up, to never miss any rep, to just never quit on anything. And I did it, man. I never did.

0:16:57 - (Rich Ingram): And we had the best platoons. Me and a couple other guys kind of banded together, and we led that platoon. I mean, nobody. We were the only platoon that never had anyone go to sick call. Wow. Because we. We just kind of, you know, made this environment where that was looked down upon. Like, you know, you're being soft. You're gonna miss out on training to go. To go do what? You're gonna let the team down.

0:17:21 - (Rich Ingram): To go do what? To go get band aids. And so it was really shunned, and we created. Created that. And, look, man, we did some nasty stuff. You know, one story, I had this kid. He was in the bunk, and I say, kid? He had to get, like, a waiver because he was so old. And I say, old? I'm older than he is now, but he was, like, 34, okay? And I think that's, like, the max age. You can come in, but, man, he just wants so much. And so one day, we got done with a ruck march. This is in the infantry. You know, walked everywhere. And he's like, oh, my gosh. Ingram.

0:17:55 - (Rich Ingram): Five blisters on my feet. Count them. Five. So, in the middle of the night, he was asleep. I filled up both perks. You get two boots. Two pair of boots. I filled up both boots with shaving cream. And, uh. And, you know, of course she was whining, and I was like, well, next time, you'll learn to complain about your feet. We were brutal, man. We were brutal. We. We were making some hard charging killers, for sure.

0:18:19 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely. Now, how long was basic training for, man?

0:18:23 - (Rich Ingram): I think it was 14 weeks back then, maybe, but it was all. So an infantry is all the same. So it's like, most people go to nine weeks of basic training, and then you have your whatever your specialty training is. So ours was just advanced basic training. You did more maneuvering, like tactical ground maneuvering and weapons training. The remaining, like, five weeks or six weeks, whatever it was.

0:18:48 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay. Okay. Now, when you joined the military, you're in basic training. Like, when was this, like, in comparison, like, I'm thinking, like, 911 when. When things really heated up.

0:19:00 - (Rich Ingram): Yeah. So I think I signed up. I don't. I don't need to remember the exact time, but March of 2003 was when I went to basic training. Okay. So something like that.

0:19:17 - (Kevin Lowe): You went in pretty much knowing that you would be deployed?

0:19:21 - (Rich Ingram): Oh, yeah, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I remember being in it in north Georgia, and one of my buddies, like, so September 11 happened, and within two weeks, he was in the national Guard. He was actually. He was in the reserves. I'll tell you that. He was in the reserves. And he got deployed to Afghanistan. I mean, like, immediately. And I want to say we declared war on Iraq in March of 2003. Some. Somewhere around there. So, yeah, everybody. Everybody knew my drill sergeant, Kyle, he was an amazing mandeh and an amazing soldier.

0:19:54 - (Rich Ingram): So loyal. But, I mean, he was so angry because he was. He was in a senior e seven. You know, he was up for e eight. And he'd been in the 101st airborne most of his career, and he had just gotten extended for his third year of. I don't know what the term would be, drill sergeant C. And then war was declared in 101st gone. Right. And he was so mad that he couldn't go back with his guys, you know, like he had trained, because that generation, they didn't really see anything. Right. You know, you have Panama and a couple other things, I guess, but.

0:20:31 - (Rich Ingram): And I just remember admiring him so much for that. And so he. I picked him off quickly as just being a guy to emulate, you know, and follow and tell me a lot. And so I'm proud for that experience. But, yeah, everybody knew they were gone.

0:20:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. So talk to me then about deploying overseas. Where did you go? Just talk to me about that. The whole entire experience.

0:20:57 - (Rich Ingram): Yeah. So I. You know, I was in the. In the National Guard, Georgia National Guard, and we came down for orders, and sometime in 2004. So I went back to school after basic training, and we got orders. I don't know. But we reported to Fort Stewart to start training January zero five. And we had probably. I think we ended up actually deploying to Iraq beginning of May. So we had about a four month train up leading to that.

0:21:25 - (Rich Ingram): And we were in an area known as the triangle of death.

0:21:30 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, lovely.

0:21:31 - (Rich Ingram): Yeah, yeah. And so it was named for, its just. It's intense violence. Right. So from the beginning of the war to around 2007, I think after the, you know, we had the huge push in Iraq. It's Yusufiya Mamadea and Ludafia area. And that's southwest of Baghdad, maybe 30 minutes. And so we. Cause, you know, we said 30 clicks. So we were in a chicken coop in Mamadea. That's where we, what we had occupied.

0:22:01 - (Rich Ingram): And it's funny because we only had like, two females in the entire battalion, and one of them we were driving back and this is in like the first couple weeks. We're driving back to our base and we see just smoke everywhere. And we're calling, we're like, hey, you know, what's up? Do you need assistance or like, whatever. They're like, no, we're good. You know, this female had, like, somehow her hair straightener had burned down the chicken coop.

0:22:36 - (Rich Ingram): And we're like, this is why you don't have females. Which I am completely, I want everyone to know I am completely okay with females fighting for their country. That should have never been a thing. If a female male in between, I don't care. You want to go fight for what you believe in and everybody else's freedom, man, you should. I'll give you a weapon. But this particular one burned down our base. So, um, you know, wow. What, whatever.

0:23:10 - (Rich Ingram): But yeah, man, we, we, uh. I never got to live in the chicken coop anyways. Um, that's where I think the battalion commander was in there. And, and, like, the staff, his staff. So I was in a, I was in a tent when we first got there, and we're in these tents that are made for, like eight people, and there were 14 in there. We were smushed in there like sardines, man. Within the. I don't remember what day it was, but it was like within the first week, we called a five before the operating base. So it wasn't anything big, you know, like what they have in the major cities, but we, we got shelled by mortars. And it's really hard to distinguish, especially when you first get there, the difference in the sounds of an incoming round and an outgoing round, but you can tell because as soon as you hear that sound and what they do is they try and, you know, let you know when they're going to be firing, like when they're going to be firing that day or whatever it is. So you kind of know. But when that first round hits, you see everybody look at each other with wide eyes, and all it takes is one guy to grab his stuff and, I mean, you clear out of there and.

0:24:17 - (Rich Ingram): And so first round hit. We ran to a bunker. You know, it's just like this biggest upside down you. The concrete with sandbags all over it. Second round hits, and we just hear screams and that. I don't know if these guys, like, a couple of these guys had on, you know. Cause back then, we had, like, DVD players. Maybe they were listening to music. I don't know. But, you know, one of the toughest things to do is to stay put in that bunker when you're hearing screaming, and.

0:24:48 - (Rich Ingram): Because you could just be another casualty, right? So we waited there and for the all clear, and as soon as we got all clear, we knew my platoon's job was to go get these guys. You know, we had the technology that would tell us where. Where the rounds came from, and so everybody ran, picked up their gear, and we took off to our vehicles, jumping over the carnage from that round that hit that tent two tenths away from ours. Just. I mean, blood is on the ground, the canvas of the tent.

0:25:21 - (Rich Ingram): One casualty was killed, and we run to our vehicles, we get in our Humvees, and we get to the location, and I hear Ingram take point. And this was, like, our first real deal, right, without the other unit helping us and stuff. And so I had waited, like, my entire life for that moment, right? And it was exhilarating, and I can't describe the feelings, but we're in this open field. I'm the point man, and it's nothing but 18, 1921, 20 year old guys, kids, everybody falls in line after everything we had just seen, and now we're walking through this field, wondering if we're going to take more fire, direct or indirect, step on a mine, get into a firefight, whatever it is.

0:26:11 - (Rich Ingram): Everybody executed just exactly as we had trained. And I know what. What was going on in everyone's mind. You know, no one had ever seen blood like we had just seen. Nobody had ever been in this situation up to this point of, hey, like, I could literally die in the next 2 seconds. But we. We found these dudes, and now, I don't know if they were the ones that did it or not, because they're pretty stupid to sit around that long, but, um, you know, I found some guys, and we are our first team. We laid it down, what's called a support by fire position, and the team that's behind us came around, enveloped them, and then we. We created a, you know, a security perimeter around these dudes, and we captured them and took them back, and. But the reason I tell that story is, is because it was a battle drill that had been rehearsed not until it was gotten right, but it was rehearsed until we couldn't get it wrong.

0:27:07 - (Rich Ingram): And from everything that we had just seen in all that, whether it be anxiety or whatever other emotions were going on, thoughts in our heads, everyone executed that battle drill flawlessly. They were in the right positions at the right time. They knew how to move. And that gave us, that gave my unit the validation that we needed to know that we were going to be okay in this deployment. It gave us the validation we needed to know that we could trust in our leaders to lead us to going back home.

0:27:42 - (Rich Ingram): And it's no different in the civilian world and how we can posture ourselves to live resilient lives, but we have to work at it and we have to. We have to train what I call our battle drills to get there. But that, that was, that was our 1st. 1st, like, few days in Iraq was, hey, welcome. And so, you know, it was just kind of an indication of what was going to come. But it emboldened my love for soldiering. I had an amazing time. I volunteered for every single mission I could, and I just, I loved it. I loved it.

0:28:21 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. Tell me, what is the difference, or if there even is a difference between you were in the National Guard versus, say, somebody who's in the army?

0:28:32 - (Rich Ingram): So, you know, I mean, the National Guard, we were. The first unit that was added is so Rumsfeld, back at that time, he started what is called an r four gen cycle. And so it's a cycle to where all the units. So let's say 82nd active duty unit at the time, these units deploy in brigades. And so in the 82nd, okay, you're going to deploy one year, twelve months. You get twelve months back home, but then you're going to go again in twelve months.

0:29:04 - (Rich Ingram): And so for multiple years, active duty army was on a twelve month, basically a two year cycle. Well, during that time, Rumsfeld added the National Guard to that cycle to where it was every four years. And so what ended up happening after? So my brigade was the first one to kind of start that. But you still had some cherry guys in there because up to that point, they, nobody wanted really deployed before. But after that deployment, that was in 2005.

0:29:35 - (Rich Ingram): Those guys, the same guys that I was with, they deployed again in 2009. So now you have a lot more experienced and, you know, just a lot more war veterans to, you know, lead your people. But the National Guard, I mean, look, National Guard is tough, man, especially nowadays. I mean, my buddy's on his fourth deployment with the National Guard. Now, granted, it's not a combat deployment. I think they're in Kosovo.

0:30:00 - (Rich Ingram): But, you know, those guys, they're used to this life of being with their. Their soldiers and everything in this environment, and then they go back home and they go work at. Go back to work at the pharmacy, you know, and it's completely different than. And look, don't get me wrong. The active duty has it difficult as well. And I'm not taking anything away from it because I've been on both sides. I was in active duty when I went back in as an officer.

0:30:25 - (Rich Ingram): But with active duty, you're still with your same people, you know? Cause you're in the Georgia National Guard, and a lot of those people are around where you are, but they're not in your everyday lives. When you go back home in active duty, you're still in the everyday lives of all those people for the most part. Now, you do start to cycle out, but I won't get into that. So. But that's the main difference, you know, Matt, at the time, active duty was way more trained than we were. That's why we had a five month, four month train up before we left.

0:30:54 - (Rich Ingram): And because apparently in the Gulf, in the first Gulf war, whenever that was in the nineties, the 48th brigade failed and did not deploy. So you have to go to the national training center. And basically you get signed off on that. Hey, you are ready to go to a combat zone. And the 48th Georgia National Guard Brigade went out to the National Training center, and they did not pass. They were that jacked up where they weren't even allowed to deploy.

0:31:25 - (Rich Ingram): That's gotta be pretty bad, man, because when you're at war, it's like, hey, give us bodies, dude. Oh, yeah. So, wow.

0:31:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. Okay. Wow. Okay. So thank you for kind of diving into that little, you know, offshoot there just to clear up my confusion and to kind of make that all make sense. So, of course, there obviously came a point in your deployment when things didn't go right for you, and that's obviously a big part of our story today, is kind of this pivot point. Will you walk me through that day?

0:32:07 - (Rich Ingram): Yeah. So we were on a four vehicle reconnaissance patrol, and so we were a reconnaissance unit. So we were kind of the odds and ears of the battalion. We would set up. We call them Lpop's observation listening posts. Observation posts take a long gun, like sniper rifle. And so we're just reporting back. So that's our main objective. So we also did presence patrols and stuff. So up to that point, as I said, I volunteered for every. I mean, I love this. I mean, this was my jam. I was in my element. And so that day, I was the rear gunner on a four vehicle home v patrol. So this is before we had the large, mine resistant ambush protective vehicle. So, you know, half the gunner's body is outside of the vehicle.

0:32:54 - (Rich Ingram): And these are, you know, not heavily protected vehicles. And so I had a 50 caliber machine gun, man, so much firepower, I bet. Yeah, it is. I, oh, my gosh, I have. Anyways, won't get into that. And so, like, every time I'm on the gun, man, I'm just, you know, I'm thinking about what could go wrong, looking for gaps, whatever it may be, where things could happen. And I'm envisioning a fight, right? Like, hey, this is what I need to do here, here, there. What, what I'm going to do next if this happens.

0:33:30 - (Rich Ingram): And then my vehicle hits a roadside bomb. And, you know, this entire deployment, I'm wanting these fights that are almost like validation and proof for me, because all you look at history and the fights that these guys, our fathers and grandfathers were in in Vietnam and world War two, and, I mean, just the sheer perseverance of them to continue going, like, in Normandy just under extreme conditions, and they, they won.

0:34:01 - (Rich Ingram): And so I think part of that was what I wanted to prove to myself, that I want to be in that position. So the fact that I got hit by roadside bombs, just not how I envisioned. And so when that, when it happened, the Humvee was subsequently catapulted in