Left Of Greg 036 Col Mike Rauhut

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So, we'll just go ahead and get started. All right, so Colonel Rauhut, is that the correct pronunciation? "Rauhut." Which Greg corrected me on. I said, "Rauhut." All right, I've corrected him. So today, we've got Colonel Mike Rauhut. To get his pronunciation correctly, (he has) a long storied career. Just recently retired, over 30 years in the military: West Point grad, Naval Postgraduate School, all kinds of different commands, Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, ASCC (Assistant Chief of Staff), all kinds of stuff which we'll get into. And you wrote a book, but not about military stuff; about your family and the immigrant experience, called Solid Steps Through Shifting Sands. So really cool, a lot to talk about.

But I think we kind of start off with – we've got a previous relationship with you, especially with you and Greg, and first in particular, the Army ASAT (Advanced Situational Awareness Training) program that Greg wrote that's still on today, became a program of record. So I think Greg will start there, and then we'll get into everything from there.

So, if I just bracket this, just bracket this. Colonel, thank you so much for being on. This is a culmination of a long time, a lot of history, a lot of water under the bridge. I think back to some of the greats. General Brown, I believe, was the first one that introduced us. What a great guy, what a bunch of connections we've got there. He's from Royal Oak, Michigan. We actually grew up close to each other back then.

You not only were the champion of ASAT, getting it to the troops that needed it before deployment, you were there through all the testing. You were there to help us get funding for the training. So a lot of that great stuff. So, Brian, I'd love to talk about that. I definitely want to talk about the book because there's a lot of connections there. And Colonel, for you to know – and you're familiar with the site and the work that we're doing – the two topics that I think I want to interweave through all of the stuff we talked about is resilience, because you can build and breed and pass on resilience like a baton. And also suicide. We're coming up on Veterans Day; suicide is always heavy on my mind. We're losing a lot of law enforcement professionals and a lot of soldiers to suicide. So, Brian, if we looked at those as the four corners of the document, that's kind of the way I was going to approach today. And Brian is our host; I'm ready for anything.

Yeah, awesome. So, Colonel, we'll just go ahead with you. What was your kind of influence, what was your opinion of the ASAT program, what you thought it did for the Army, and what gravitated you to like it or endorse it?

General Brown was the commander of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at the time, and he had taken on the mission of bringing our infantry and armor resources into one location. So he was doing a lot of work integrating efforts. He was doing a lot to really look at our soldiers as a system because in the big bureaucracy, it's very difficult to compete soldier kit, soldier training. Everything is very difficult to compete against major weapon systems.

So he conceptualized this "whole soldier" approach to getting the soldiers what they needed to succeed in combat. He brought Greg down, and I still remember going in – it was a professional development session and Greg's making the presentation, and I'm listening to this and I'm thinking, "Where was this before I deployed?" Which is like top number one comment we get from guys. But I can tell you, having been an S3 (Operations Officer), and then in combat in Tikrit under Steve Russell, my battalion commander, 1-2 Infantry, part of the 4th Infantry, all of the things that we learned, we learned in contact with the enemy. And it was evolution, right? Who's going to learn and adapt quicker?

And we developed some of these skills, but what we didn't have is a framework to conceptualize them and a framework to train. As you all know, it's training and education. You can read all the books you want, but you have to have a way to bring it to fruition. And so I immediately saw in Greg's presentation that's exactly what it could deliver. So after that, I went to General Brown and I threw a concept together, saying, "Hey, I feel very passionately about this. I think we can operationalize this and bring it to soldiers." And so that's what we did, and it was a great journey. And I'm glad to see – I know having spoken to many soldiers – that it was exactly what we needed.

As part of that, we would have key leaders come to Fort Benning, and I would – what I did is, I would have a little "ahead of room" (pre-briefing). I'd bring in these visiting very important people, people that would be instrumental in bringing it to fruition and resourcing it, and I just let the soldiers talk. The soldiers that went through the training, the soldiers that we were developing as a cadre, and they're the ones that convinced all the leaders that this is something the Army needed.

I think that's important, too, to hear that, because you being at the leadership level, you were able to go, "Look, this is what the guys on the ground are saying. This is not just my opinion of it; this is what these guys are saying. If we're all on board, we should probably get this done." So what do you think specifically was it, or what was it about this program, that you went, "Hey, wait a minute, this is different"? You know what I mean? Because you have a lot of issues. I think a lot of people don't realize – I've only had insight as a fly on the wall at your level – to go, "Look, I've got all these things I have to look at." And even to put it as "a soldier as a system," people don't understand the complexity of what goes into training and education and fielding equipment, all this stuff. So there's a lot of competition for resources in there, and time is a big one, too, especially when you have a lot of multiple deployments, a high rate of turnover, all this stuff, all these factors.

Yeah, "we're fighting a war," exactly.

So what was it about this program where you did the cost-benefit analysis and said, "Okay, we've got to, let's put our money here, let's invest here?"

It really, the outcome sold itself, and I recognized that the return on investment, if you will, of building into these soldiers' minds a construct and a framework that they could use when they're wielding the weapons that we give them, far exceeded what we could do in any other way. We're very good – all the services are very good – at taking civilians off the street, giving them the knowledge, skills, developing the abilities to do technical things. What always lacks in that construct, particularly when you're in contact with the enemy, particularly when you're surging forces and you're trying to send people to the front, is really getting after the mind, the psychology, the physiology, equipping soldiers to know to make good decisions. And there was no framework to do that.

We would have little anecdotes, and what drew me to the program was you have these frameworks, you have these, the Trivial Pursuit pie pieces. There are different ways to look at, you know, the rules of three, like, "All right, one, hey, there's one trigger, there's two, there's three, hey, I've got to do something now." Some of these things, in combat in Tikrit, we had some soldiers and some with different backgrounds that were pretty adept at picking things and being alert. But what you're doing is, "Okay, how can I make every one of our soldiers like that guy?" How can – and the way you can do that is through this framework that gives people the ability to apply these filters to understand what's going on in their environment, and then they're really cueing on what's important so they can make a decision and they can take some action.

And Brian, one of the things is, Colonel Rauhut is not going to tell you this, but as the commander of the 197th Infantry Brigade, everything came down to his shoulders. Where the rubber hit the road, who was living, who was dying, what training was going to make it. And he ran it with equal elan to do all the other programs that he had going. And I chalk that up to Proverbs 27:17: "Iron sharpens iron; one person sharpens another." He's too humbled to tell you that he was the guy that kept pushing because there were a lot of hard times and a lot of hard days, and there were so many people that were saying, "Hey, listen, we don't have time for this." It's another rock, or a rock. "How are we going to get this done?"

And then General Odierno was there, and then the next thing you know, the Chief of Staff of the Pentagon was there, and everybody was looking over our shoulders because it was a big experiment, but it was in one of those glass balls that they put the little hamster in and was running around. So there was everybody that was waiting equally for it to win or for it to fail. And you were the last guy in line, Colonel, and so that onus was on you the entire time, and you handled the pressure perfectly.

It was a phenomenal program, but one of the things that I like is that you had a clear set of rules and a clear direction for the 197th. And we talked a lot about resilience. So resilience is a lot of things, but it's sense-making, problem-solving, adaptability, and resilience. How did you build that into the people that you had to have carry on? You trained 200,000 different soldiers and different skills in such a very short time, and they were going to combat; not all of them were coming back. And those are serious things. How did you deal with that type of pressure, and what was the best course to resilience?

So for me, it really comes down to your command philosophy, your style. And for me, partnering with my Command Sergeant Major, Command Sergeant Major Dell Byers in particular, he had been a brigade sergeant major in combat and as a battalion command sergeant major as well. So he and I both recognized the potential of that particular program.

So, as iron sharpens iron, he was definitely sharpening me. And so you have to have that battle buddy that can help you push through the obstacles that will be presented to you. The resilience that I developed, it's like a lifetime, right? It starts when you're growing up, values that are inculcated in you. You join an organization like the military, the Army in my case, and you're instilled with more values. You have multiple opportunities to develop that character that's so important in making sure that you can be resilient and you can push.

So it's difficult for me to point to any one thing. My faith was very important to me. My experiences were very important to me, and having a passion to do the right thing for the right reasons. It was kind of fun taking on the bureaucracy, because you think, it's like a little crusade to make (things) very relevant and important.

Brian, we're feeling that right now. I want to tell you, we've reached out to places like Chicago, places like Dallas, and Philly, and down in Florida, and I could spend the rest of the episode talking about how we're trying to get the fusion centers together and have a regional approach to training because law enforcement and first responders, we're asking them to do a job that they never had to do before. We're putting them in positions just like that combat corporal that's going to make a decision that's going to impact the entire agency. But we're not arming them with the training and with the architecture.

And you're saying, "Yeah, but the law is there." Yeah, I've got a copy of the Constitution on the visor of my truck, and I know the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights and the Fourth and Fourteenth and all this stuff better than most people do. But what's happening is they're asked to confront a situation that Congress ruminates on for four years, just like that dead soldier on the ground in Kabul, just like that soldier in Afghanistan. And what they're asked to do is in nanoseconds make a decision, and it's going to be looked at by experts time and time again.

So what Brian and I are hoping, and certainly Shelley and Martin and the whole organization, is we're trying to drive forward to offer law enforcement that same type of decision-making architecture. It's based on legal, moral, and ethical principles. It's artifacts and evidence in support of reasonable conclusion. Because if you see what's going on in the news, you've got decisions that are being made at that lowest level without the safety net of growing up in a certain manner, having the family leadership, having mentors in high school. We have a whole generation of kids that aren't going to do that, that are now carrying guns and wearing badges, are going forward. So to us, that's such a huge thing. Do you see that now in your transition from the military and civilian life? Is that as obvious to you?

What's very obvious to me, my passion as a training brigade commander was to make sure that the fielded forces who were immediately deploying into combat were getting the best special skills, infantry-trained soldiers they could get. And so, in this particular case, it's 18-year-old young men and women having to make decisions in contact with the enemy, life-and-death decisions right away, who may not have had the benefit of growing up as I did. Certainly didn't have the benefit of an undergraduate degree, a graduate degree, thousands of hours invested in training. And there are things that I can think about as a thirty-something or forty-something that an 18-year-old is not going to get. And yet we require these young men and women to turn it on and off in a second, or turn the switch on, turn the switch off, to demonstrate incredible compassion one moment and then be delivering justice through those who need it the next. And that's very difficult.

And so what I see – and I've been watching the news, I'll catch this white supremacist activity that has been going on – and I saw an interview of a woman, and she had fear in her eyes. The good news is, they caught this guy. But this is a woman who's living in fear, and so that's a part of the population that has to be protected. So investing in young men and women, regardless of the type of uniform or function that they're performing, when it's the trigger as it relates to securing people and protecting people – I mean, that is going to pay in spades because you can't buy that the second the crisis comes up.

And that's what a lot of organizations are starting to realize, is that we have – you mentioned some of them, but you call it the psychology behind it, which is more just us training. We call it "training the brain," and that's the whole idea, right? What gating mechanism, an analytical framework on, "Here's how I articulate things." It's like I always tell, no matter what group we're in front of, "Hey, look, over the next whatever it is – our day, month, week, however long I'm training for – I'm about to teach you stuff you already know, just no one ever told you." And that's why it becomes so self-evident. Guys go, "Oh my God, where was this? You're telling me things..."

Because like, I take you, sir, with, like you said, over 30 years, let's take just your military experience. Even training starts from the time you're born and how you're raised and all the experiences you have. But then, like you just said, you don't look at things the same way everyone else does, and that changes over time. You become better at critical thinking, you have more experiences, more file folders. But a lot of us still didn't learn how to articulate those things. So you got guys out on the road, and that's who everyone's calling, these training guys at different departments or companies, going, "Look, you're saying what I don't know how to say. I just listened to your podcast and you're using the words that I know what you're talking about, but I didn't know how to say that." And I think that's where it comes in why people find it so self-evident.

And even in private companies, too, you start to see that push. And everyone talks about, "Hey, investing in your people," and, "really develop those people." And someone posts the quote from Steve Jobs on LinkedIn every week of, "Hey, why do we invest in our people? What if we train them and they leave?" And it says, "What if we don't train them and they stay?" That's the whole idea, right? But then it comes to, "Actually, how do you actually do that? How do you actually conceptualize that idea?"

And I've just had a past working with a major construction company. They invited me on, I spoke with this veterans network they had, and I sat there with some of their executives and they just said, "Stop, stop, stop. Can you say that again?" I said, "You know, training changes behavior. There's a difference between education and training. Hey, these are some considerations you take." And just little things that we, from our experiences, might seem self-evident, they're going, "Wait, stop, those three points, can I write that down?" Like, how you actually do that. So they're all looking how to do that.

And that's what my greatest experience is with this program in all the different domains. So it started out as achieving things for the Army, and before that, for the Marine Corps, and top-level units. This was a combat skillset, and this was your cutting-edge courses, for you, or you're in a very kinetic law enforcement role. And then it obviously has applications everywhere. And I think that goes back to the resilience portion of how we ended up doing the suicide prevention stuff with the Army up at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and a few other places, and the sexual assault/harassment. This is a people skillset. That's why I love it, is that we put all these different, we have these different domains, these different areas. We have the training, but there's this core competency that we haven't quite developed yet, and people are out there trying to figure it out. But that's what I love about the skillset. So I don't know if you have a similar experience with it, how it kind of opened up or gave you that lens or gave you a way to articulate things.

Absolutely. And that language is so important. So we've got the big slogan, "See Something, Say Something." That's great. Now, I'm not saying everyone in the nation needs to go through the course, but those that are responsible for a higher level of scrutiny and perception and have to do something with it – saying something is great, how do you process what you're seeing in the first place? And so I think for those that are charged domestically, those of us that, or those that are still serving that have to go do things overseas, you have to have that framework because it's not something that's going to come naturally: your ability to perceive the environment, assess it, get to the point where you know something needs to be done. Saying something to someone is good. "See Something, Say Something" is absolutely, I'd rather have people defaulting to saying something, that helps because this stuff is all hard. Even when you do get highly trained, it's so nuanced, it's so fluid because the environment's always changing. So it's tough. It's a lot tougher when you have no language in addition to the environment.

Colonel, you brought it up yourself. One of the things is building for became this repository of the knowledge, and I was so proud of being at Benning and being in the shadow of the three towers, not the four, and seeing those young minds attack it and the banners that they put up after going through the training, "All science all the time." And they grabbed it and took hold of it.

The thing is that when I came up with all of this, I was just a lucky guy stumbling around with 16-ounce gloves in a dark room and fell over something and had the epiphany that, "Hey, wait a minute, this stuff is already here, but if you put the recipe this way rather than this way, it tends to stick." The thing, though, is that the people that embraced it – Dell (Byers) embraced it, the sniper community on Benning embraced it, the Marines, the "Double Dogs" going forward, they embraced it. And if we can get that – for lack of a better term – that insurgency started at ground level, that's where it starts. And pardon the language, but a soldier will call out in the first few minutes, knowing that the training isn't worth it, they haven't got time for it. So whatever training that they go to...

I don't want to sound like a commercial for our training, but whatever training you're going to get, get there and understand that the better and harder and stronger and faster you are, that you can get ahead of that enemy in that "OODA loop." And you can train your family, you can be safer on the way to get fuel or go to the 7-Eleven. And that's what we're all about, is hardening. Brian put it best: "We want to soften the heart, hope in the eyes, and harden the facilities." And we want to be able to do that consistently.

But it takes something of this type, this type of temerity, this type of dedication. Colonel Rauhut and I have a lot of similarities. I was supposed to go to West Point. Primary candidacy, went down, had my interview, everything was going well for me. Then my loins took over and the next thing I had a bun in the oven, child on the way. It was off to the 11 Bravo infantry for me. Then you're from up in Hinsdale, New York. For a time, I was the Undersheriff of Hinsdale County here in Colorado. Of the 4th Infantry Division, you were with 4th Infantry Division at Berlin Brigade, and I was in the 4th ID as a young sergeant. They couldn't find my butt with both hands. There were so many things where you were the opposite side of that same coin.

Then all of a sudden, I hear, and I'm excited about the book, and my family is in this book. Everything that you wrote is about Shelley and I and how we brought up. And I bet the most common feedback you're getting is, "How did you know that story? Because that's my story too."

I think that's a good segue, obviously. Let's go and dive right into the book, because we talk about resilience and how the ASAT training course can apply to that. But another form of resilience, you've got your book, Solid Steps Through Shifting Sands, about your family who came over as immigrants, which I think that experience, obviously for everyone, as did my family from Germany, Hungary, and Ireland, that started that resilience culture, I think, in the United States, because they all had to come here and they all had to make do, and it wasn't easy. So please, tell us about the book.

So, why I wrote the book. I grew up in a home of German immigrants. My mom and dad both survived as children through World War II. And I grew up in a home hearing stories about the war, post-war Germany, what it was like living there. And I kind of took for granted growing up that, "Yeah, most people starve when they're younger. They go to the field and work for 14 hours for food." These are the types of experiences my dad was living as a young man after half his family was killed.

And so I grew up hearing these stories. And then the things in the '80s and '90s are kicking off, I'm seeing the rise of terrorism, the Iranian hostage crisis, just my bloodlust was boiling. So all of these things kind of came together. My parents, I should say, were both liberated by U.S. Army elements. They were in different towns, they were liberated by different units, but they were shown incredible compassion by U.S. Army soldiers when they didn't necessarily have to show compassion. And so, in incredibly life-changing, life-ending situations, these soldiers were going through, and they treated my parents with great compassion when they encountered them in these towns.

And so I grew up, and that was a huge motivator for me to join the Army. I was 18 years old, 17 years old, didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. So I said, "Well, let me go do this Army thing for a while." Nine years after my obligations, I certainly didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. So I joke with my kids now, who are the same age or a little older, and I tell them, "Hey, look, I'm now doing it all over again. I'm going to try to figure out what I want to do when I grow up."

But the story, it was incredible, the resilience of my parents, the hardships that they lived through. I told my dad in the '90s, "Dad, we need to write these stories down because I won't remember them. I won't remember all the details." And so I wrote this book while still in uniform, handed it out at my retirement ceremony as a way to say thanks to the U.S. as a nation and to the Army specifically. And my dad had always asked me, and my mom had always asked me, to thank the soldiers that I served with for how the soldiers treated them at the end of the war. So that's kind of the why I did the book, why I wrote the book.

And then, in terms of content, I just think it's incredible to think about how my parents' faith, the resilience – I mean, they lived through some horrific experiences in their lives, and they did not respond how many humans choose to respond (to similar) stimuli today. So they were loving people, they raised me, they treated everyone they met with dignity and respect. So I just feel very fortunate that that's the environment I got to grow up in. And fortunately, I didn't have a choice. But there are people that don't have the benefit of that; they didn't have a choice either. So I always think about those, for me in command positions in particular, 18-year-old men and women who taught them the values of the morals, the ethics, the approaches, so that when they encounter a kid, what are they doing? Or when they were encountering an Iraqi family, or pick an environment, how are those soldiers able to do, or do they have the slack in the rope to give out a little bit so they're not going to go for decisions...?

One of your – and I've got to tell you, there was a lot of crying. Brian's going to put the book up and how to get a hold of the book and a lot of other stuff about the book. There was a story in there about your dad as a young kid, your grandfather, in building a fort and the first cigarette. And I related to that. And then I delved a little deeper into the book, and the beauty, folks, if you're listening, you're watching, the beauty is you can read it all at once or you can read a few. You can even read it in the bathroom, but some of the people have a novel there, a bedroom book. It's perfect because each chapter is so different and yet so the same that you'll either want to read ahead or read behind.

But there was a story: your dad's on his bicycle going from one town to the next, and then sees a German plane zip by, then the American plane zip by, and the explosion. And so my mom related his story to us, and sadly, she's got Alzheimer's and dementia, so trying to do the same thing, getting all the stories out of her, isn't as easy. And she tells me the story about the plane crash, and she can actually see the soldiers inside the plane, she can see the pilots and the people. And how her older sister, everybody in my mom's family died. Uncle Ernst couldn't go to war because he had some brain damage, so he stayed back. And then Uncle Oscar came back with one eye, one arm, and one leg and was never the same. And her father and three of her brothers died, never came back from the Russian front.

So I related with each of those stories, and a lot of crying and a lot of thinking, a lot of introspection. My mom had the one where her town was liberated by a group of U.S. Army soldiers, and there was a Black squad in with the white American soldiers at the time. And my mom had never seen a Black human ever in her life. And so the young girls that were with her, that were all older and everybody else was dead, they were doing the piggy with the conch shell on the island, whatever the name of that novel is (referencing Lord of the Flies), and they told my mom, "Hey, listen, you're the fattest one, and they're all cannibals, and they're going to eat you when they come in."

And so my mom hid for days, and they finally rescued her. And they had to take her to the hospital because she was afraid of the U.S. soldiers. And then she would tell me of those deep stories of compassion and how they took her under their wing, and she saw her first egg since the war had begun. And when I read your book, it all comes flooding back, and I think that there's an architecture, I think that there's a DNA in all humans that we share so much of the same story. And once we start pulling that thread, I think that's the common language. I think that's why we could communicate in Iraq and Afghanistan and Yemen and all the places that we've been, is maybe we didn't speak the language, but we could read the writing on the wall. How do you feel about that? How do you think your book resonates with everybody that wants to pick it up?

I think it certainly has a historical context of the World War II era, but in my opinion, human behavior hasn't changed since we've paraded around. And it's interesting, I've been reading through – I maintained two journals when I was in combat in Iraq: one a professional one that I've got here, and one a kind of a personal one with the more intimate feelings and emotions and stuff. And it's amazing, I haven't looked at them, how often I remark about the different Iraqis we were encountering. We all want the same things. And there are bad people out there you need to deal with.

I say in the back of the book, I talk about a Bible verse: "Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God." And I would say we went out, we would tell our soldiers, Dell (Byers) and I and Bobby Gallardo and other command sergeants major that I served with, "Hey, look, there are people out there that need killing." And that's what we're there to do, and we would go do that. But there's a whole bunch of people, a lot more people, who need helping. So protect those that need the helping.

And I want to protect a young lieutenant colonel. Now I won't bring up his name, but we had a training course that was going for Bold Quest during the time I had yet to go in for the insider threat. But there was a lot of "blue on blue" that was going on. And they called, and Mattis was still CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command), and they said, "Hey, would you come over and do your magic with this Bold Quest?" And I said, "Of course I would."

So I go over there, and about halfway through talking about people who are the same all over the world, and they all want the same things, and all you've got to do is tap into that and you'll find that you'll have a friend, you'll have an ally, and when you have a friend and you have an ally, they're less likely to want to kill you for something else. A young lieutenant colonel came up and just got all up in my face, and he couldn't believe it. "Are you really saying that these people are human like we are, and their religion...?" And I said my famous line, "Culture is only context. It doesn't matter what religion, it doesn't matter if you pray to your lava lamp in your room..."

And he just stormed out. And we have a policy: anybody storms out after getting bent out of shape, they don't come back in, because, in the real world, they go to the car, get a gun, and then they want to settle it with their fists or with a knife or a gun. And he came back, and we had enough security there. I was pretty safe on my own. At 400 pounds, I didn't have much trouble. But he came back, and he was all bent out of shape and he jammed in front of me – it's still in the office here – a copy of Vintage of Jesus. And he said that I was not right with the Lord and I was going in a different direction and started just berating me with scripture.

And I said, "Do you understand that the coin is flipped now, and you're doing exactly what their imams were doing in the worst mosque?" And in what all mosques were (not just the bad ones), but there were a couple that were arms vaults. He had lost a lot, and he had given a lot, and he lacked the ability to see the difference. He lacked the compassion to continue to lead. And it's not my job to pull him out. I took his book, I thanked him, and he never came back to the course. Now you have one of those once in a while. What do you do? You face that, Colonel, you face that. This book talks about a lot of those experiences. How do we reconcile (at) the individual level like that, or just at large?

Well, for me, my personal belief is there's a spiritual component to this book, and for me and my family, faith is very important. And so, for me, it's the example of Jesus Christ in living life. And so that's my solution, that's my "walk humbly with my God." But I think which is all predicated on a belief that you treat everyone with dignity and respect because they're created in their Creator's image. We're all cut from the same cloth. Some people get "jacked up" more than others perhaps, but we have to come at it from that perspective.

Brian, I think, Mike, one of the things that we would say is that I believe, I truly believe that Jesus was one of the first human behavior profiles of record, where you can actually read his stories about reading other human beings. And he and the disciples sat there with a deerskin and said, "Okay, you guys are going here, you're going here. This is how we're going to attack the problem." And that keeps me motivated. We have our little Bible buddies group that we're in touch with all the time, and I know what keeps them motivated. And your book makes it clear what kept you and your family motivated, and that's wonderful. You need that for context.

And those themes are universal through a lot of places. And you get a lot of people who don't have, maybe, a religious upbringing; they go in the military and you still have values. So I even know guys who you wouldn't expect, who were, I mean, wild, wild Marines, who did great things. You wouldn't think it, and you right now, go ask them after they've been in for 15, out for 15 now, whatever it is, and they still had their "Honor, Courage, Commitment" card. You wouldn't think that guy does, but he's like, "No, look, this is what it comes down to."

And so it kind of related a couple of these things where everything – the themes you brought up about the book, about your family, and them being treated well by the Americans – I mean, that's a huge, huge responsibility, and things we try to put on junior guys, going, "Look, you are the extension of U.S. foreign policy." That whole "strategic corporal" analogy. And look, you're going to do some, you're on the ground interacting, you don't know what that's going to lead to. That interaction right there can put someone on your side or against you, or make them go, "You know what? I want to go to the U.S." And then that person is now the next guy that wins a Nobel Prize for curing cancer. I mean, that's how it works.

And I love the title of your book, Solid Steps Through Shifting Sands. I'll let you explain how you had that, but it makes sense to me because this is how I take it, and it really reminds me of a personal story of working with and training an Iraqi commando unit. I was a young sergeant, I was maybe 24 years old at the time. I was leading a sniper team, a Marine Corps sniper team. And so I was just working with this other – we had our team as a six-man team out with this OP (Observation Post), and it was kind of like, "Hey, these Iraqi commandos, they're here, they're on loan from the Navy," or "blah blah blah, can we do something with them?" And I was like, "Yeah, let's go."

So I start talking to them. I got the interpreter, we're going to do a little bit of training and then run a little bit of night ops down along the canal that comes off the Euphrates there. And I'm talking, he said, "Hey, where are you from?" Trying to build rapport. We're joking around. And then the one that was like, "Yeah, actually, I grew up in Ramadi, over at the Northeast side," or whatever the district now, but it doesn't matter. It was, "Oh, no kidding. I've actually spent time here before," because this was – now, this story took place in about 2007. And I go, "Yeah, were you here still with your family a few years ago? I was here back in 2004." And he's like, "Oh yeah, I was still here." And it was like, "Oh, okay, well, what were you doing back then?" He's like, "Shooting at the Americans."

And I'm going, "Okay, okay, how do I end that?" There was no anger cues, there was no nothing. He just said, matter of fact, "This is what I was doing." And I went, "Man, that was a powerful, powerful moment," talking about shifting sand and having himself. But I went, it was such, it was one of the most powerful life lessons I've ever learned, because not only because this guy was legit, he was in a commando unit, which means he had passed the selection process, this wasn't just a hired off the street. He was in it to win it. And this was back during the Anbar Awakening when people had finally said, "Okay, a lot of people said we don't like the Americans here, but these other guys that the Americans are fighting are way, way worse than right, because they're killing us now, they're killing their own people. So let's get on board." And he was one of those people. But it just that's stuck with me, going, "Man, the guy shooting at you today might be fighting alongside you the next time you're here." And I was just, I mean, that's always stuck with me, it's real.

I want to throw this one at you before you go there. Brian and I are teaching in Riyadh, and then we go to Jeddah, and we've got this team that's with us to provide for our security. And we've got interpreters and cultural translators and stuff. And within the first couple of days, we didn't need it. They heard our message, they knew our message, we loved them, they loved us. It was one of my favorite teaching moments going forward because we spoke the same language.

And we're about to leave after a long, long, long time, and we made some very good friendships. And our sound guy comes up to us and speaks fluent English for the first time since our deployment. And he goes, "Hey, just wanted you guys to know what I do for a living." And he hands us these still photos of him on his cell phone, and, "Yeah, I killed a bunch of Houthis, that's what I do. I sawed off heads, I'm a sniper, I kill a bunch of people. And I was asked to keep an eye on you guys, and report back if you got to be taken off the grid, but I've got to tell you, we're friends for life, we love you guys. This is so, you welcome back, this is how to get a hold of me." Brian and I looked at each other. It was like, this guy we ate with him, we slept with him, we're with him every day. And the idea was that it was our humble approach to it and our openness, and you didn't shake our faith, and we didn't shake his. And it was never any moment that we felt afraid.

Yeah, that stuff happens all the time with us.

Greg, you use the word humility, and I think that in so many ways that's what we really lack in large measure today. We somehow conflate humility with timidity or something. We don't understand the discipline and the strength that it takes to really exercise that humility, to consider other people's views and perspectives. And I think that's one of the things that, again, I'm so thankful to be blessed growing up in a home where I saw that demonstrated. I heard stories of it being demonstrated toward us. So those things were just kind of second nature. Like, "Everybody's like that." It took me a while to realize not everybody's like that. That was completely by accident, I was just very fortunate to be born and raised in a loving home with parents that taught me right from wrong. And then to join an organization where it was purpose-driven, it's selfless, it's laying down your life for others. And so that to me, for 34 years, (was) incredible satisfaction. And I'm looking forward to seeing how the next call comes up because this is the next chapter in your book.

Anybody that's listening, get a copy of this book. And the great thing about it is it's a fantastic tabletop read, like I said. But the cool thing is the chapters are so small that even a Neanderthal like me can read it. Brian read it. I didn't have to look up a lot of stuff, which is very helpful. And the cool thing is that I use it as a discussion starter sometimes. When I'm sitting around with somebody and I have a few minutes at the airport or a plane, I'll throw it out there and I'll say, "I was reading this story about..." and I'll use your experiences. And it's so funny to me how many people share those experiences.

Brian's family, Chicago Irish. Do you get what I'm saying? And me, first-generation German. My mom and my aunt, we used to nickname the "Twin Towers" well before the September 11th attack. And all we spoke was German at home. And if you've ever seen those Christmas shows about the Heat Miser and the Cold Miser, that's exactly what my mom, Irmgard, and my Aunt Elfrieda looked like. And so when I first went to school, they saw it thought I had a speech problem because I was translating everything in English into the pidgin English for my mom and aunt. Now my dad's from Sevierville, Tennessee, from a little place called Dixville Notch, and it's a little "stinkin' creek holler" area. And my dad's got the worst Southern accent that you've ever heard, and then he's got all these little phrases that he would use like, "That dog don't hunt."

So I'm a product of first-generation German and first-generation Tennessee. So in school, they're giving me Ritalin and then a funnel, and they're trying to explain to me, like a "throw rug" was "throw rug," "jumbo" was "jumbo." And so I didn't know the difference. And when you don't know the difference, you need a guide. And so for morality, you need a guide. So the Bible is a great guide, your book's a great guide, your leadership style is a great guide. Legal, moral, and ethical mean something to us, but you can't always do it on your own. So we like to – hey, all we offer is a free service where people can read and talk to other like-minded people, and then we do the training.

What you did with your book was cathartic, I'm sure. But what you also did with your book is you gave somebody a point on a map. You have a big semi-truck covered with this tarp, and it's all white, and you gave them a dot, and you said, "Okay, this is a starting point." I truly appreciate that.

So I want to throw one out there, and Brian, I'm so excited to see Mike, and I apologize, I'm kind of going off of your schedule. Suicide. What do we do? Brian and I, Brian, Shelley, and I, and a lot of great folks, worked at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. We worked into a program that got picked up by the Navy. We still speak on suicide prevention, and Brian said it so eloquently earlier: all the cues are the same. Finding a bad guy, finding a meth lab, and finding somebody that wants to kill themselves, that has the fascination or the ideation – it's all the same skill. Once you tune in that laser flashlight, you'll be able to find it.

But what do we do, Mike? How do we get these soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and especially our law enforcement professionals to stop killing themselves?

So there are two levels I'll address this at. One is all of the things you just described, we've got to keep doing. We've got to. It's giving people the ability to perceive and understand what other people are going through, empathize enough to talk to them directly, bring it up. So we've made great strides in trying to help other people recognize those challenges that people are going through, to give them that empathy and the sympathy to care enough to not worry about what they're doing, but say, "What's going on in this other person's life? Maybe I can help."

I will say, though, I think there's a whole – to me, it's the leadership. It's not down to the battle buddy level. This is all hard. You can't say battalion commanders and sergeants major aren't walking around looking at every soldier. There's no way that can happen. One of the challenges we have is, we're a secular organization. The military is a secular organization. But we've got some real problems socially in our country where it's very difficult to address some of these "heart" issues because we've taken some things off the plate. You can't talk about – and I'm not suggesting you do this – you don't proselytize to your soldiers.

But suicide is a problem. What about pornography? There are things that whittle away, any kind of addiction. And we know so much more about the science of all these things now. And so there are so many of these things, but we've got these band-aid solutions for things. Like, we've got something for an alcoholic, but what about the people that are addicted to porn that are out there? And then so what do we do about suicide? How do we address these very, these are "why" questions: "Why am I here?" Yes, we have cultural values that we can point to that could be spiritual, but even if they're not spiritual, there are values that we have to point to. But it's still going to take that human touch and that interaction where people don't feel that they're all alone and there's no hope.

And you brought up a couple great (points) because I'm kind of in this domain a lot too, just trying to help guys out. I work with a couple of nonprofits and some other stuff we're trying to do as it grows, comprehensive stuff. But you brought up a number of things that whether it's spiritual or not, there's certain values, there's a – you said the word "addiction" which is perfect because there's science behind that. So I'm going, "Look, this is not just – despite what you may think of these different issues, I don't care. There's an issue that needs to be addressed." So there are different ways to do that, and that comes down to that empathy we have for each other. And being like you said, leadership, which means I've got to take responsibility and I have to lead by example and go, "Look, these are some of the issues."

Just recently worked and met with a great – I don't want to say his name, he's still active duty, a very high-level Sergeant Major. But he did the same thing: he went to his small unit that he's a part of and said, "All right, guys, I'm going to lead by example. You know what? I'm making it mandatory that you have to go in and talk to the therapist once a quarter. You don't have to say anything, but you mandatory have to go in there." So he's like, "I'll start. I figured I'll just go in there and sit for 15 minutes." He goes, "Two and a half hours later I come out, and I went home and apologized to my wife." But he goes, "You don't see it when you're in it, when it's that close to you, when you're so close." And especially in the military, what is it? It's "go-go-go," it's "train to fight," it's "we got this." We miss a lot of that stuff.

So what you're talking about is all things at all levels. It's not just a leadership, it's a battle buddy issue, but it goes all the way to the Pentagon. To General Dana Petard, we're going to have General Petard on in a week talking about his novel. And he was instrumental in getting ASAT down in Texas and the pre-deployment troops. And General Petard, when he made his comments about suicide, it was after walking out of a guy that killed himself in front of his kids. And it was a very trying moment, and he was emotional about it, and it was the end of his career for all intents and purposes.

And we've seen that too. And we've had people that yank me with the shepherd's crook off the stage and say, "Don't go to say that. You can talk about child trafficking, but you can't talk about child pornography. You can talk about gun violence, but Hollywood can proselytize about it," using your word. "But then those same actors are in the next movie where they're using automatic weapons." And this dichotomous relationship is what's killing our youth because they don't have a clear message. It's confusing. And listen, the last thing you want to do when you're confused is to drink or to isolate yourself even further. And that's exactly the types of things that are happening, is that we don't know that we're not the only ones with these issues.

So sometimes destigmatizing and talking about it, bringing it up there, and you know what? We're not great, and we're not really good at the message yet, and we've been talking about suicide professionally since 2010. And we're still making mistakes, and we still get "spanked" where somebody says, "Oh, don't use those words." And it's like the school shooting where they go, "No, you can't talk about the shooter." Look, we're all in the dark swinging, but we know something's got to be done. But the more we talk about it, the more we bring that issue to light, the more we tell somebody, "Go to the VA, get help, call the line."

Brian, you're exactly right. When you're talking about talking about it, it makes it easier. We all have those demons. We all have those things that don't go away. And I can still drive around at night and look in my rearview mirror and see the cage on the scout car and the deceased person behind you, and waking up with those night terrors. So there's a way, and it gets easier. And it's like going through life, your family faced so many trials, as do many families. Writing about it, talking about it, painting pottery, whatever it is to get over that, we have to do a better job to reach out because when somebody wants to say something, a lot of times we're tuning out, and then it's too late.

You've got to shine the light of day on these things. Avoidance doesn't work. I don't care what the problem you're trying to solve. It is not a good solution, and it's not an app, it's not going to be solved with an app, and it's not going to be solved with a video game, no matter how hard they try. It's people, it's about people.

And that's why we stress, Mike, still to this day, in-person training. And there are so many portals out there where we don't have to go anywhere. As a matter of fact, we're using one now: a podcast is a way of virtually studying material. But that human touch, that clear light of day, that transparency, that open stuff that you get into small groups in that room with the soldiers or with the first responders, that's magic. You can't put a price on that.

Well, we, I think that's a good spot to wrap on, but we definitely appreciate you coming on here, sir. Everyone out there, I'll post all the links on everything, but Solid Steps Through Shifting Sands, pick up the book. I'm sure you can find it everywhere, but I'll post links to where they can get it when I post up the podcast. So we appreciate it. Thanks for your time and appreciate you coming on, sir. Colonel, will you come back in the future?

Absolutely. And Greg, just to all your listeners out there, particularly those still serving in uniform or having served in uniform, on behalf of my family to the U.S. and to our military, and to everyone who serves other people: just thank you so much. My family thanks you.

Thanks, Colonel. Thank you, sir.