 Let's talk one-on-one, one-on-one. Yeah, we gon' talk, we gon' have fun. Check it, check it, check it. It's a unique house issue, boy. E-CEO and I'm here with the lovely, amazing official, Ms. Jamaica. What's going on? Not, not even on my day I'll walk on. Man, hold up. I can't never get used to that. It's been 20 years. I still ain't figured that out. Man. That's why you know what I said. No, I really don't. I try to play like I do. I understand the other people a little better than you. What? No, you don't. We got a lot of family in this thing. It's been 20 years. Yeah. Yeah, man. That's a long time, ain't it, man? That boy like, I'm enormous, you know? So, check it, man. We got a very special guest today in the house, man. We got Mr. Antoine Bradley and Ms. Amber Macmahan. Yeah, man, you're here, man. We in the building, man. So, how's it going? Hey, man, good to be here. Good to be here, like you said. Man. Blessing. Definitely a blessing, man. So, I mean, you know, we wanted to do a show, man. Something, you know, different than what we usually do, man. We want, first of all, I want to say thank you guys for your service, you know? Thank you. Yeah, man, I mean, every time I see one, that's all I can do is just thank them, because, man, it take a different type of person to commit to something like you guys have committed to. You know what I'm saying? So, I just appreciate you guys. And believe me, you know, you guys, I'm my daughter being in the military, and I told her not to go. I told her, I said, don't you go in that military? Now, you don't need to be in that military. And I would turn and she went right to the military. I should have told her to go to the military. Yeah. Because she flipped it all the way on me, didn't she? So, guys, man, just, I want to go one at a time, right? So, Amber, I want us to just, let's talk about, you know, how you even got into the military. Go back before. Are you gonna go back? I'm sure when you was a little child growing up, you didn't want to always do this, did you? Yeah, she did. Not necessarily military in general. Okay. You know, I was all over the place. I could be an OBGYN, and I wanted to be something else and something else. I was all over, you know, we in the country. So, we're not really exposed to it. When you say country, where exactly are you from? South Hampton County, Virginia. Oh, okay. I love your accent. Thank you. I love it. Does everybody in Virginia sound like you? Most of us do. Gee, he's like nah. Some talk real fast, some talk real slow. I'm right in the middle. Oh, okay. Wow. You sound real country. Well, thank you. Like you can sing a country song. Can you sing? No. No, I ain't gonna tell nobody I can't anyway. So, how was it coming up? It was fun, you know, it was one of the things where being in South Hampton County, it's a lot of history there. It's a lot of history there. If you haven't heard of it, you know, it's when Nat Ternity has rebellion and stuff that. So, a lot of those roots are still there. However, you know, just growing up in that area, knowing everybody, especially being mixed race, you kind of feel- You have a lot of racism and- Not outright necessary, but like I said, the roots of it is still there. So, it's a lot of stuff that you won't really realize until you get older and you learn and you kind of experience life. It's a lot of stuff I didn't realize I went through until I was like, you know, in my 20s, well into the army in Texas, I was like, dang, I really did experience some stuff like this. You know, it's just stuff that don't really click. You just used to it. You know, that's your way of life. That's how you grew up. So, you grew up with a black mom, white dad or vice versa, which one? I got it right the first time. Yeah, you did. Okay, you did. And they were both there in the household with you? Separate households. Okay, so your dad wasn't there, your mom was there. Right. Okay, how was that growing up like that? Oh, man. I mean, you had the black household and you had the white household. Had the black life and you had the white life. So in a lot of, I'm sure people with mixed race that grew up mixed race can attest to, we got that switch we can turn on and off to kind of go, if I'm around white people, I got a, well, I used to have a switch I could turn on because, you know, that's what was expected of me. Right. You know, when I was around my black family, which I lived with, I grew up with. That's how it was raised. If you ask me, I got that. That's just me. You know? That's easy. Yes, yes. So the older I got, and depending on who I was talking to is when I realized I had that switch I could turn it on and off. But some people would say that they felt like they didn't fit in in either world because in the black side, they're like, well, you too light. You don't look like us. But then in the white side, you're not white enough. Yeah. So, you know, you felt like. Look at my nose. Look at my nose. It's always in the country. It's always by your nose, by your nose. And I'm just like, what about everything else? You know? I love it. The fact that, you know, you're both white, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, and that's another thing. So a lot of people like to put a label on it, you know? Right. So it's a lot of people that are mixed that only identify with one. So I'm identifying with both. Me, myself, I was raised by a black woman. I came out of a black woman. All of my documents, black, no other thing. So if you ask me what I am, I was raised to say, I'm black. Right. So that's what I identify as. That's how, you know, that's how I carry myself. That's how I carry myself. But I don't ignore the other half of me. You know, I don't ignore my other roots. You know, I know where I came from, good, bad, ugly, and all that stuff. And I just kind of embrace it all and make the best of it. You know, I am who I am. You need a lot of tuna casserole. Tuna, no, no, no, no. I was fortunate enough to be in a household with both of them. No, it's dope, man, to be able to. I mean, you know, I come from a home where my parents didn't stay together as well. So it don't just matter. It really, color or not, you know, there's things that, you know, sometimes, you know, people go their separate ways, man. And you have to be as a child ripped from one household to the next. I wrote about that, remember? Being transferred from one, one house to the next, both of the parents talking about one another, all type of stuff. You know, this is what kids go through to this day. Like, this is stuff that, this is called really, I know y'all don't wanna hear it, but it's generational curses, man, where when you start to develop this in that way, then your kids get used to giving up easy on things. They're used to not having both parents. So you're in playing now. It becomes a norm. Yeah, it becomes something that's acceptable, you know? So, and I know, cause, you know, it was hard for me starting out in a way to where I couldn't figure it out, you know? So I mean, my dad was somewhat of a player, you know? So he manipulated the ladies, you know? We had a lot of plates coming to the house, you know what I'm saying? They pull up, they drop them off, one car, one day the next day, another car, you know? She goes, yeah, he in the house, yeah, I'm gonna try a piece of this chicken. You know what I'm saying? And then it was bringing mixtapes by the house, you know, the little cassettes, you know, they drop them off for him, he liked music. Yeah, but it was me and my pops, man. You seen the letters? It was the letters after he passed, I went and opened up the house, and I had letters from all kinds of women. We read a lot of letters, man. Love letters, baby. Yeah, so I'm just telling you. Turn them back in the days, that's what they did at Rogue. We didn't have no phone to be texted back and forth, so all the evidence. I still got those letters, too. I even got letters from my mom to my dad, and they both were broke up for years. He kept everything. So, you know, the thing I say is, man, when they, when you go through that, and you start believing that's just the way it is. So when I started off early, you start off thinking that's the way you is. You play the woman, you know. I wasn't used to know, oh, I'm gonna be with her. No, no, we for to go out tonight, and she ain't going, and I'm gonna be in this town, and we going in it, that's the way you think. So, because it's established in that way, because you think that's the way it go down. But you're being taught that, right? Right, I was fortunate enough to have step-parents on both sides. That was there from a very, very young age. So, you know, all my step-siblings, my step-parents, they mom and daddy. You know, I got ma, and then I got mama. I got dad, and I got daddy. You know, they distinguish the difference. And then, siblings been there, we all was raised together, you know, since I was just a few months old. How many siblings do you have? 10 and all. 10, 10. Man, that's a trial-court place. Wow, you have a huge family. Yeah, we was all spread out. Wow. I'll fall right in the middle. But okay, because I have, because my white side is like great-great-grandfather. They ain't that great. No, they right there. So, it's back there. They right there. But I know of other family members who are like, it's their grandparents, so to say. But on the white side, when you have grandparents who are so strict on certain things like, they didn't want their daughter to date a black person and so forth, but then when the baby came in place, you know, yeah, you know, they fought a little bit, but eventually they came around. But did you ever have to face where the older generation didn't accept you at first? Not me, necessarily, or at least not, because like you said, they grew to love me. You know, I just get it from stories. Perse, you know, the struggles on such and such didn't accept such and such for a long time. And then kind of all these arguments, all these discussions, and they came around. And when I came around, I was like, oh, she's here. You know, I was like the kind of, the butter that melted everybody together, you know. So that was a blessing for me to kind of hear the stories and whatnot, kind of be the thing that broke that animosity up. That's one thing I love about children. Children have that power. When adults don't have that power to really merge people, you know, kids have that power. Absolutely. Wow, you know, it's just, you know, dope to hear that you know, you ain't too different than me, even though you got the uniform on, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm only human, you know what I'm saying? I want to talk to my guy, man, the guy. Uh-uh, I want to go, uh-uh, uh-uh, I want to go to my guy, he's sitting here waiting out for the bring-in. Okay, go ahead, go ahead. This guy here, Troy and Bradley is in the building. This is my guy, man, just meeting him. Just having, this guy's strong, you know, just being here with my guy, man. It feels good, man, you know. Brother, tell us about you, man, let us know. So, yeah. Where you from? Where you from? I'm a little bit older than her. Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit, it's a little bit, but I'm originally, I'm from Georgia. Okay. Town, Brunswick. Okay. I'm down from them parts down there. I come from a military family, so I'm like. That's all you wanted to be? Somewhere around third, fourth generation. It was more so. So it was expected of you? No. No. Nope, they were actually, I actually had opportunities to go to school right out of high school, play football and all that kind of stuff. So you played football in high school coming up. And you were good. But let's talk about before that. They said I was decent. Take him back, take him all the way back. Okay. Oh, you start going up to that school and all that. What about when you, how was your parents together? So no, no, my parents, my parents divorced and then my stepdad came in and you know, that's my, I'm Pops, my dude. So your mom and dad was military or just? So my dad was military, my stepdad was military. Okay. They were just in two different ways. My dad was in the Navy, my stepdad was in the Marines. Ah, but your mom wasn't military? My mom wasn't military. She was like that. She just got used to the military life. She's like, I'm just gonna. She did finances. Finances. And money counting and all that good stuff. Okay, okay. And so you being one that was bad cause you was bad as hell in the middle school. I know you were. I can look at you and tell. Yes, he's a big comedian. Yeah, he was not a good kid in the middle school. I can even confirm. She had to go up on a night out at that location. You know, I found a way to keep things exciting for everybody to entertain. I mean, I still graduated with a 3.5 GPA. So I was good. You did your thing. It ain't just, you know. That don't mean nothing. That don't mean nothing. I'm not shit. I am not the oldest child. I am actually in the middle. The middle child. I have an older sister and a step sister of both older than me. I have two younger sisters. One is a step sister and a sister that's younger than me. You're the only boy. I'm the only boy. That boy's spoiled. God, I do it right there. There it is right there. Boy, that boy got away with a lot of stuff. That's why he was bad up there. But he got them grades. That's how he smooth things over. Get the grades and you're good, you know what I'm saying? But, long as your marks good, you good. Yeah, my daughter do that to me. Now I hate it. She makes straight A's and she just kinda does what she wanna do in the 11th grade, just yeah, whatever. But, and then when I try to bring it up, she, I take care of my being and something. This is real. I got this daddy, I got this. Yeah, and I just kinda leave her alone because I'm like, it's working, you know? But, so when you came up, you know, did you have to go see your father and stuff and then go back over here? Did you have to do a lot of traveling? So, me and my biological had a strange relationship for a while, you know, we didn't have that kind of interaction for a while because he came out to Texas and we were still in Georgia. In Georgia? So, we would see him and talk to him periodically. Okay. You know, attentionally. You didn't come out and visit or nothing? Nah, we came out one time. Because you didn't want to? My aunt was out here. My aunt was out here, so we came out here to visit and that's when we saw him, but he had a lot of other stuff going on that we weren't able to come out and visit like that. Oh, okay, okay. Wow. So, I mean, that's dope, man, that you have now, did you ever had it? You had issues with him about that too, though. You had to have some issues. Men have issues with their daddy, so don't try to play me because I had issues with mine. I keep it for real. Yeah, yeah. Okay, go ahead. We had some points out there. That's right. I got over the way we threw hands. I told you. I knew it. Oh, wow. Because it happens. It was one of them things where, you know, he had been out of my life for a certain period and when he came back, you know, he was trying to be dad. He was like, I'm like, bro, it's too late. Uh-huh. It's too late. I'm okay. By that time I had them left, went off the basic training, came back, was getting ready for my first deployment and all that good stuff. So by that time, I'm like, bro, it's. Do you have a good relationship now? Oh, we got a wonderful relationship now. What men did it? So we ended up talking and some of the things that I've dealt with in life and we go back and forth with a lot of it and come to find out we dealt with it. We deal with a lot of the same things. So it's just, you know, we started harvesting our relationship from there. But then it was a big thing for my grandfather that me and him ended our relationship because, you know, my grandfather was my superhero growing up. Mm-hmm. So. And since all of you were military, our military coming down, they understood certain things, could have been there, done that and you were just not going through it. Pretty much. That's how it all went down. And then my grandfather made it a big deal about me and him having a relationship. And for me, if my granddaddy said it was the gospel truth, it is what it is. Because I spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up. And they were in Georgia. In Georgia. Okay. So I was always with them. If you saw my granddaddy, I was probably somewhere in the immediate vicinity. So how old were you when you mended that relationship with your dad? Probably about 28, 29. Wow. So just within the last seven, eight years. And do you see, because it took you so long, did that affect your life with your kids or with your child? I make it to where now it's just like, I wanna make sure that I'm always there for my life. Okay. That's the biggest thing. Regardless of what happens in any other way, form or fashion that, at the end of the day, she gonna always be able to say daddy was here. You know, we did the folk. She said, daddy, we going to the daddy daughter dance. Yes, we are. I was tired, but we went. You know, so I make sure that, I keep that interaction with my daughter. So you only have one. So I have a daughter and I have a son. My son is in Georgia with his dad, my stepson. But that Joe would talk to me here every day. I get a text from him in the morning, hey dad, what you doing? Ain't you supposed to be in school? Yeah, because what happens a lot of times is sometimes we tend to over compensate when it comes down to, you know, going through situations like that. So I mean, you know, you get it together somewhere. You know, at mine, it was got, you know, pretty much there was a scripture that says if any man being Christ is a new creature, old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. And I really believe that. Like, when I read that scripture, I believed I had a second chance. So that helped me to not have to be the person that I grew up seeing and being. So, and I think that was one of the most, one of the most transformative times in my life. You know what I mean? Where I had a metamorphic change and I was able to get it somewhat right. I didn't become perfect, of course, but I started to work on my character and try to change who I grew up being and what I grew up seeing. And that's what you have to do. So, I mean, there's no perfect parenting. There's no book to parenting. And there's no, I mean, that goes for our parents too. So there's a lot of forgiving that have to be done. And I think a lot of times we just take things to heart as kids, we don't know how to forgive when we become that kid again, once we see that person and what they've done to us and that unforgiveness just stems all the way back down to where it first happened at, yeah. And sometimes that's why I ask you how do you, how is it with your children? Because sometimes we unknowingly branch that same thing off into our children, whether we do it by overcompensating with what we lacked when we were younger and tend to not do the things that they really need. You know what I mean? That's what you lacked, but I don't mean that that's what they're lacking. And let me just say this, man, you know, because y'all didn't know what y'all was coming into. Y'all thought y'all would come over and talk about the or me and all of that, but let me tell you something about this show. It's really to help people. So you bring them to a common place where they can see that y'all are human first of all because sometimes we start telling our story and we don't give people the real true essence of what you had to go through to get to where you are now. So that's the part that helps the people. And so a lot of times people paint these different pictures that are not attainable because you can tell somebody to jump but they won't know how to do it unless you teach them how to jump, right? So that's the whole game, man, just giving people to lay out, hey, man, I'm human, I came from this. And you to say, hey, man, Amber, like, hey, I came from a place where I was, you know, I had a white father, I had a black mother. You know, there's a lot of people out there that go through that, you know what I mean? And I think that the mixed race, to be honest, which is bridge and gaps when it comes to racial barriers. So I thought that as a kid, I knew that that was going to be something. And, you know, for you to come from a family where it was military, but your dad was in the army too, right? My dad was in the Navy. In the Navy. Your dad was in the Navy. Okay, your stepdad was in the Marines. And you just didn't do neither one of them. Well, if you go all the way back generational wise, so we've been, my family's been in every brand. What was your daddy? I mean, your granddaddy. My grandfather, he did 32 years in the Navy. In the Navy. Wow. So your dad did what your dad? And your great-granddaddy, let me see if you can go back further. My great-granddaddy? He didn't serve. He was a railroad worker. Yeah, he came under that time. Which is funny, because it was over in the South Hampton County. Well, you know, got Andrew Coyne, you know. I got family from up in that area as well. But that's good that you know you're a generation. A lot of people don't know anything about their great-granddaddy or nothing like that. Well, you don't want to go back too far, because when you do, you start going down that rabbit hole of mental illness and all kind of stuff. And I think that's something that as a person of color, I think a lot of times we denote that a lot too much, because there are things that are in our genes and genetics and things that we, you fear things because of some of the things that was passed down to you. And I don't think people take that serious enough. You know, there was no reparations or anything for black people. But don't you think you have to know some of these things to be able to try to correct it? I don't think so. Like if you know what your great-granddaddy went through and it passed down, you know what I mean? For me, so for me looking at it from the standpoint, my grandfather did 32 years in the Navy at a time where a person of color, he was only getting one or two jobs. He was cooking or he was moving boxes. That was it. That was the job you was getting. So for me, knowing that the struggle he had to go through to get to the positions he was able to find himself in was a motivating factor for me once I got into the military because it became a thing of, yo, I can't get caught slipping because of what was done with this same name before I got here. Right. Okay, so that's what they turned into with that. Let me turn the page a little bit. Amber, I wanna know about that day when you decided I'm gonna join the Army. I mean, how old were you? Yeah, like I wanna know what gave you the audacity to say I'm gonna... Or who convinced you to do it? Nobody really convinced me. My dad was in the Army, but he never really talked about it a whole lot. He was artillery using Desert Storm. But that was one of the things. He would mention it and that'd be about it. But what... I honestly don't know. It was just, it was there. We didn't really have any recruiters in our school because we were so far out there away from everything. I think the nearest recruiting station was about an hour away. But I was class president. President of my FBLA, Future Business Leaders of America. Like that was me. I always had like that business, that CEO entrepreneurial mindset. But for some reason, that dream college that I wanted to go to, I didn't get accepted into. I got accepted into all the other ones, but not that one. And you wasn't gonna settle for nothing less than just going to that one? I could have made it. I had another plan. I was like, I won't be able to straight shine it this way, but I can go this way. And I was gonna, do the Army reserves, keep working, do all the other stuff, fix what they needed me to fix so I could get in there the next year. And my mom was just kind of like, I am but I support you or whatever you do. But I think you're gonna go a different way. But I ain't gonna put it out there cause I want you to make your own decision. And I appreciate my mama for doing that. She always had my back. As long as it was a plan that made sense, she had my back. And she was like, if you're gonna do it, I support you, I'm here to help. But if you don't, I'm here to help too. Whatever you decide. And I went to MIPS, our military entry processing station in Fort Lee, Virginia. And I was in a chair and I had this whole big, big elaborate plan that I was gonna do. And I feel like God kind of pushed me and was like, I was like, let me see what you got for Act of Duty. And no lie, they gave me a list. It's like, this is what we got for Act of Duty. And I picked one and that's what it was. I called my mom, said, ma, I'm going, I'm leaving on this day. I'm full time now. She was like, I knew it. But why the Army or not the Navy, Marines or anything else? So growing up, my stepdad, who was a black man in Virginia, born and raised and everything. He was actually my seafood. So he has his own dojo in Wakefield, Virginia. Oh, you got some. Yeah, she can throw down. Yeah, she does. She's a karate kid. Oh, yeah, yeah. I started to grab you anyway when I met you. I started to bow you. But then I said, something said, don't do it. You know, don't grab anyone like that. Yeah. So from a very young age, I'm about three or four, he already had me kicking and punching it. So that discipline was already there because I've literally been doing kung fu since I was a baby. So black belt, seafood under him is assistant instructor and stuff like that. It's been there. So when I thought military, I originally went to the Marines. So my parents went in, signed a parental consent and everything I needed. I was supposed to be gone. Supposed to be a Pooley and everything like that. And my mom was like, before she goes anywhere, I want her to talk to all the other branches first. And in my head, the only other option I gave myself was the Army because I'm like, if I go military, I'm going to go all the way. Because I had the same mindset as all the other kids, you know, Marine and Army, you know, I've seen the movies. I've seen the movies. Oh, because of the movies. I've seen the movies. I'm going to do it. It's amazing. I had that mindset and a lot of people, not just kids, a lot of people do, which is actually a downfall because everybody ain't about that life. My cousin went into the Navy. Yeah. Straight out. Yeah. Well, and also in my area, there was no Navy recruiters. It was only Marine and Army. Air Force was kind of there, but it ain't that bad work. So they weren't in. So I went from the Marine office to the Army office and just the energy was kind of different. You know, I felt like I belonged. You know, they broke everything down a little bit better. You know, I got to pick my job. I got to do all kinds of stuff because that was still an option, you know, 10 years ago when I joined. And that next week, I was raising my right hand and joined the Army. It was just that kind of happened. See, when I think about people who joined the Army, I'm thinking about either troubled kids who parents can't deal with them. Like, you know what? You gonna get out of here. People always have the illusion to say that the Army gonna straighten you out. So you need to go and they gonna straighten you out because I can't deal with you. So that's where you need to go. Or people who parents were military and it just came out in generation. So you're gonna go, it's expected of you. So that's who I always feel like those are the people who joined. Now I did my research. I knew who could give me what and the benefits and everything else. So I went because one, I knew I would enjoy it. Whatever I did, I knew I could do it. Cause I had that mindset and that foundation in me already. It wasn't a really big change of life for me. You know, taking direction and stuff like that. I already had it. You know, that's how my folks ran the house that was good. You know, you tell me what to do, I'm gonna do it. Right then. You don't mess around when mom tell you to do something. You don't take your time. You get it done right there. So. You had the right mom. That was, yeah. That was easy for me. Now as far as, you know, picking jobs and stuff like that. I didn't know I would get to do it, but that was just a perk for me. That I got to pick what I did. Now I wish I did a little more research on my job, but I love my job. What did you pick? Did you pick? You didn't pick this as soon as you went in. No. No, no, no. You got to work it. You got to work it. You got to work it. You got to work it. You got to work it. I know that. What did you pick when you first went in? I was a Patriot missile operator. I was artillery. Don't you always say pity some? No. All yours? That's the name. That's the name. That's the name he ranks you doing right there. She was, that's totally different. All the way on the Antoine Fissure movie right here. Hey, so you're going to do an Air Force Fissure. I told you it was coming. Go ahead. But no, Pedro and Miss Operate. That sounds cool though. It is. It is pretty cool. Some person like you knows nothing. I'm like, ooh, that sounds like a cool job. And honestly, how they broke it down, they said you could be logistics. You can be a laundry specialist. And yes, we have a job in the Army where you can wash clothes. You can wash bed sheets. And you get paid the same amount as we do. Easy job. Kicking down doors and taking names. They could be washing clothes and make the same amount of money. I ain't lying. Wow. And they gave me that one. That was my second option. Third option, they said 14 tango. I said, what's that? They said, you blow stuff up. I want that one. I'm like, I want just like, I want that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how I'm pulling. No thought, no research. Give me that one. Knowing. So if you had done research, you wouldn't have taken that one? No. Why? Logistics gives you a lot more certifications and stuff. But I appreciate my job. I loved my job when I had it. As a 14 tango, I absolutely loved it. I always say everything happens for a reason. I chose that job for a reason. I was putting those places for a reason. I was good at what I did. I was very good. I enjoyed it. You were blowing up stuff. Hey. As one of those jobs that we have that fall into that excitement category. Cause some people just come in, like I don't really care about certifications. I just want to have fun. And the foundation of it all is the same. You might not necessarily get certifications that flip over to the civilian side. You'll have some, but not like running a warehouse and things like that. So you don't have anybody who sits now with you and like counsel you on, okay, this is why you should pick this or this is why you should pick that? I didn't then. We do that now. That's what we do now. We do that now. Yes, we do that now. Then, and especially because I made a on the spot change and it was like, go, go, go, go. One thing at MEPS, the entry process says you have all branches trying to join. We've got hundreds of people trying to push through at one time. So they don't really have time to necessarily sit there for an hour and be like, okay, this job does this, that job does that, this job does this, pros and cons, unless you don't make a decision. It's like, here you go. You gotta hurry up. But if I did it in the recruiting office with my recruiter, that's where they lay everything out. This job can give you this. You can go to these places. The likelihood of deployment is this. You know, these are the certifications that go along with it. We really break everything down. And that's where you having to control or pick your job means everything. You know, versus joining a branch and just kind of getting thrown into something or picking a branch and not knowing specifically what you're gonna do in that job. With the Army, you pick exactly what you're gonna do. You know, the 14 series is the Air Defense Artillery series, but I knew I was gonna be working on the missile launcher specifically. I was maintaining and operating that missile launcher. I wasn't in the engagement control system. I wasn't in the battery control point. I wasn't in any of that. I knew exactly the piece of equipment I was gonna do. I knew what I was gonna do. That's what I picked and that's what I did. So how long were you in that role? Nine years. Nine years. Wow. How long have you been in the military? 10. Oh, so you just come up about that thing about a year ago. Yeah, I got children and stuff. Hey. So how many children do you have? Two. Two boys. Okay, I just wanna get it for the back of you. So you have the boys and he has the girl. Yeah. Oh, you got a girl in the bucket. Girl, girl, boy. I wanna go back to my guy here, man, Antoine. He wanted to say Antoine. I think he did. Keep going that direction. Just go ahead and get it out. Yeah, yeah, no, no. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. But I just wanna say, man, thank you again for your contribution to this country. That's for you and Antoine. You just focused on all the Antwons around the world serving in the military. You know? It is. All of them. He did a good job portraying you guys because now every born of the Antwons is definitely up top now. Yeah, we. In my eyes. You gotta get a little something going on. So how was it for you? Like, I know your family, you know, they came up in a time where you've seen these guys had joined and you knew you was gonna do that. But I mean. He said he didn't know. He said he had other options as football. Yeah, he couldn't do football. I had a couple other options. Yeah, but still, you know where you had to go. Okay, you know, did you, let me ask them, did you ever go to Fort Riley? I was stationed in Fort Riley. Let's get it, man. Let's get it. 2011. I can feel it. Over there in old Fort Riley, Kansas. Yeah, I've been there, man. Loved it. Went to town right there up the street. Right down the road. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, see, we got some going here. Yeah, yeah. So what was, what did you come into the military? So my path was totally different. Washing clothes wasn't your big dog. No, no, no, your boy came in. So my path was a little bit different because I didn't come into army first. I went into the Marines. Yeah, you did say that. So I went to do, I did a couple of school visits and everything else. The last school I went to visit was actually Morehouse. Okay. Because I had the opportunity to look at the ROTC scholarship there as well as they was giving me an opportunity to possibly play football as well. Because in my mind, I was the typical high school athlete. I knew I was gonna keep going to the next level and keep going to the next level. After my visit to Morehouse, I was like, yeah, I don't know about their college stuff. Y'all actually want me to pay attention in classes and everything else, because in high school, everything came so easy to me in school that half the time I would be sleeping in the class. I would be, if it was somebody starting some in the class, I probably was somewhere associated with that. I mean, I could just, I mean, cause I get bored, I don't get bored, you know? And that was even with some of my advanced placement classes and stuff like that. I just caught on to stuff. They weren't challenging you enough. So yeah, it didn't feel like it was really challenging me. So it was just like, hey, you gotta go to college. Well, during my visit at Morehouse, I was able to go around with a couple of the students there and they were kind of showing me some of the stuff they do and they were talking about how they got to study and all that stuff. And I'm like, study, what's that? Nah, I'm good. That's not for me. So I came back home, cause this was actually during national signing day cause that's what everybody thought I was gonna sign while I was up there. And a lot of my family was just like, oh yeah, he going to college, you about to do it. Cause I'm the only one in my generation that did military. Everybody else went to school. So I got a cousin that went to MIT. My sister went to battle at the state down in Georgia. So everybody did school. I'm the only one did the military. I came back, didn't talk to nobody in my family. I had already been in talks with the Marine Corps recruiter cause this dude showed up to everything I did. Plus I was in general TC at the time. So he showed up to everything I did. So I knew him, knew him. So I just walked in his office. I said, look, I'm gonna go do this last visit. If it ain't warm and fuzzy, I'm coming back, had a paperwork ready to go. He knew you was coming back. I came back, went in there, Gunny Brown was his name. I said, Gunny, check it out. Let's do this. Signed a paperwork, didn't tell my mama nothing. How old were you at this time? Cause you signed it by yourself. I was 18. 18. He could do it. 18? Brown man status. At least I thought it was. I thought it was. Rude awakening. But I originally, so my original contract was actually to do the Marine Reserves cause I still had it in my mind that, you know, maybe if I go do this, get that discipline, get that, that focus going, then maybe I could go back and do the college thing. So cause I still had opportunities. Like I said, I still had the ability to go to some colleges. And a lot of people go to the military thinking that, okay, they gonna pay for everything. So that's the reason why I'm going. Yeah. That's what a lot of people look at it as. But for me, I knew I did not have the discipline to actually sit in college classes. I told you. And do that. Did I tell you? I know. And then I later on found out when I did my experiment with college, I spent more time on the yard than in classrooms. If it was a cookout, I knew where it was at. If it was a party? If it was a party, not only did I know where it was at, I was probably working security at it. So I, you know, hey, look, I had a lot of jobs. I had a lot of jobs. Don't judge me. Don't judge me. So I did that for a little while. And then I was like, yo, this reserve stuff is stupid. I don't want to do it. And I got taught into, hey, you can do active duty, you can do part-time active duty. They make way more money. And so they hooked me up with it, to where I got put on orders. I was working out of New Orleans for a little while. Then I was working out at Camp Pendleton over in California for a little while. Then I finally was like, yo, I done did another exact duty stuff. I'm gonna go back and play with the reserves for a little bit. Then my dad was like, well, you ain't doing nothing. You sitting around having you a good time. You need to get your real career going if you're not finna stay in the military. I was just like, I guess I'm gonna go do that. And he was like, hey, you need to go and apply. And this is my stepdad. He was a state agent in Georgia. So he was like- Are you applied where? Police departments. Oh. So I ended up being a police officer in my hometown for a couple of years. I did two years. I can tell you that guy. I did two years. Nah, I was actually, I was like, it's funny because now I've had people that I would arrest and they would thank me. Why? Cause I didn't do the other stuff. I was like, hey, look, fam, look, we can make this easy for both of us, all right? You know you messed up. You got caught. You know what that means? I'm better at my job than you are at yours. I like the way how you say it. So let's go. So I've had people and then I've had people come back and thank me and be like, hey man, you know, had you not stopped me that time, I probably would be in a worse situation right now. So, yeah. Then in 2010 came around and they was like, hey, we got to do furloughs. And I said, what's that? What's that? Yeah. They wanted me to still work 12-hour shifts. They took away overtime and it was cutting pay. And yeah, the way my life is set up, I'm like, yo, so you want me to fight crackheads? Deal with people with drama and not get the same amount of money. I was like, nah, fam, I'm good. I knew all the recruiters in the area. My original intentions was actually to go back into the Marines, when they talked to my partner who was actually recruited there, we actually deployed together, which was funny. And he was like, bro, you don't wanna do this. You don't wanna come back in. If you come back in right now, you're gonna need to the Marine Corps. And I was like, huh, it's like needs of the Marine Corps in nine times out of 10. What's that? That means just whatever job they give you, that's what you got. Oh, you have no choice. Yeah, and the brother wasn't trying to do it like that. I thought you had a choice to pick. She did. He talked to the Marines. This was with the Marines. And when he told me that, I was just like, all right, cool. I was like, you know, I'm kind of smart. I'm gonna go talk to the Air Force recruiter. The Air Force recruiter wasn't ever in the office. And when I finally did get in contact with him, they looked at me and it was like, oh, so you prior service, you was in the Marine. So do you have a degree? I was like, no. They was like, yeah, fam, we can do for you. And finally my boy, Horace, who was the recruiter for the Army. I walked in there and looked at him. I was like, Avery, can you get me in? He was like, yeah, but you probably ain't gonna get no job choices that you won't. I was like, I don't care. I get in for three years. I find a way to switch jobs. Don't worry about that. Just get me back in. He was like, all right, you sure? Yep. What did you come in as? I came into the Army as an aircraft electrician. That's a good job. I was like, that's a good job. We got those. Oh, so yeah, came in as an aircraft electrician. So that's... How long did you say three years in it? For doing an aircraft electrician, when did I get up? About seven, eight years? Eight years. Before I came to recruiting. Wow. So recruiting, let's get on that. Let's talk about the recruiting for a second. Don't do this still. I have one question. Just one question. What? Come on. You cut me last time, so it's my turn now, okay? Anyway, so because how many people actually go into the military thinking that I'm gonna pick a career that whenever I do leave the military, it'll be something useful? We preach that to everybody. We preach it to everybody. We preach it to everybody, but I've been in a couple of different areas for recruiting, I started out in Williamsburg, Virginia, then went up to Brockton, Massachusetts, down here. So I've seen different, it's a culture thing. It's what you end up seeing, it's a cultural thing. So you'll see a lot of your minority populations there. We're looking at the, what's gonna sustain me if this don't work out? What's the next best thing? You'll see more of that with the minority groups. The more fluid individuals, because I can't just say that it's a white color thing, it's just a more fluid individuals. They tend to be the ones that they just looking for some excitement. They wanna do something crazy, like jump out of perfectly good airplanes or blow stuff up and stuff like that. So that's usually where you see that difference at when it comes to that. It's a lot of cultural stuff that's involved with that. You can tell this based on how, what kind of influencers they have around them. Right, because I see a lot of people who come out and can't get a good job. That's cause they didn't take advantage of everything that was of all fuck could see. Unfortunately, not everybody that comes in this business take advantage of what's offered or when they come in, they do the right thing. My son-in-law, he actually got out here within the last year and he's a police officer. He's a police officer now. So he did it right. So he did it. That's what he wanted to do. Because he always wanted to do K-9. He's been telling me that in New York. I went up to New York, he's like, I wanna be a police officer. K-9, specifically, he said that's what I wanted to do. This was like four years ago, five years, four years ago. That sounded about right. So a lot of people will use the military as a springboard into going in law enforcement because you're going, but you did it backwards. It's easy. You're going into a similar structure. Is it easier to get into law enforcement in front of military rather than a regular Joe? In most places it is because they look at the fact that you already come in with some kind of discipline. You already got leadership training. You already got problem-solving, critical thinking, in-depth type training is what they see. Yes. Finish. Finish. Finish. Well, like I said, I really was just trying to ask you guys about just the recruiting. Okay. Okay. Some of the things that you guys see, some of the people that you got, some cases where you see some people that you help, really see them, they may have went down the wrong road or they may have had some challenges that was financially, things that could have held them back, but you guys gave them away and then you was able to see them growing and blossom into the military to where it was something that they could appreciate. Are you told some people this is not for you? Oh yeah. It's our job to pick who we want to work beside. If I go back on the line, when I say on the line, going back to doing whatever job that I originally joined to do, if I don't want to work beside you, I'm not gonna ask you to join. It's simple, is there a lot of people think, oh, we just take whoever we can get. That's not the case at all. That is not the case. One, we gotta make sure you qualify. And two, if I don't feel like I'ma trust you, if we own, you know, stuff hit the fan and I feel like you got my back, I'm not gonna ask you to join. I know people learn and they grow and stuff like that, but you can feel somebody's energy. You know, if I feel like you ain't got it all, I'm not gonna. You're not all mentally there. Mentally there, one or two, you're just doing a little too much. You just doing a little too much. You gotta know when to turn it on from turn to turn. And when you say qualifications, what qualifications do you look for in a person? Age, height and weight, your body fat percentage, education, you have to have at least a GED or a high school diploma or on the track to get one. And you gotta have one before you go to basic training. No serious law violations. We got stuff to work around, but nothing like super, super serious and nothing repetitive. Yeah, you can't have no unpaid tickets or anything like that. When you say nothing too serious, like can you tell me exactly what like, let's give me an example. So we can work like a possession of marijuana, right? We can work something like that or like unlawful carry of a weapon. You know, people get caught wrong place, wrong time. You know, some people just, you know, they get caught up with marijuana they ain't supposed to, right? So it's things like that. And you have to be drug free when you're in less. We give you drug tests and stuff like that. You have to be completely clean. You know, I know in some states it's legal now, but for us it's still not cause we still federal employees. So it's certain, certain law violations that are waiverable, some that are not like murder. Of course, some super serious stuff. But if you had like three or four, you know, possession of marijuana, something that's repetitive. You can't have went to prison and get into the military. No, that's, you know. Of course not. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Once upon a time, you know, long ago and a time before I was around, you know, they used to have it where judges would, you know, either you go to jail or you go serve. Yeah, them days is long gone. Long gone. Now you got to be like, I'm an upstanding citizen now. I made mistakes, I volunteer, I do, I do all kinds of stuff. You gotta, you gotta be on that level. I wonder if they should ever bring that back though. No, I'ma go ahead and say no. It's too much going on. It's too much going on. And you got to look at it where it's like, you know, when we are deployed and stuff, like I got to be able to count on you to do what you're supposed to do. For example, me being an aircraft electrician on a deployment, I work on a helicopter as they use to go and rescue people out of different situations. Last thing they need to worry about me doing is something crazy to where I'm not there to do that job. Right. Because now that aircraft, this aircraft came launched. Now this person that, you know, they could potentially get there in time to say they can't. Right. So it's creating a whole new situation that comes up. It's so much stuff when you overseas though, you carrying a live, you know, a weapon with live rounds. And when I say live rounds, it's a loaded weapon. You acting crazy, you got a loaded weapon in your hand. First thing you take. You know, that's, yeah, yeah. And then we take it then what? You know, and don't think that every deployment is in that kind of situation. Cause when I deploy, I've been lucky enough to go places, I could still go shopping. You know, I tell people all the time, yes, I was artillery. Yes, I was in the first job. The first combat job to open up females. However. Oh, really? I won't kick anybody's door in. I wasn't like in there in the fight. Like I did my damage from a distance. You know, that's the job that I chose. I didn't know that initially. But again, everything happens for a reason. When I learned, I was like, yes. Like I can do it, but I ain't got to all the way do it. You know? So I'm like, if you're not about that life, don't choose that. Because if you choose like an infantry job or a special forces job or something, something that requires you to be in that kind of situation, you have to have that mindset to know you need to be on all your P's and Q's when you go over there. If you can't handle a situation like that, you don't need to choose that job. And that's what we come in when it comes to that job selection, where it's like, he be like, I want infantry. Are you sure you want infantry? Are you built to be an infantryman? You know? Cause now it's, there's no gender, there's no gender roles. Right. That's what I was wanting to show. A woman can also be in everything that's open to females. Now, Rangers, everything. One of my close friends was the first black female ranger. It's, she broke down barriers for everybody. So everything is open to everybody now. So when somebody sits in my chair and they pass the ASVAP test, and they got all these great and wonderful scores and stuff like that, that job list comes up and we go to pigs and what's this, what's that, what's this, that sound fun? I'm looking at them like, that's fun, huh? You gonna have to do this, this, this, this. Is it still fun? Not to talk them out of a job, but just to be that person just to be real. I'm being real with you. You're gonna have to do this, you're gonna have to do that. You're gonna, I'm gonna tell you the good, bad, and ugly along with all the jobs. And if I don't know the job like that, I know somebody that has that job and I can call them, listen to this person, tell them about basic training, tell them about job training, tell them about your deployments, what you gotta do. What does that job entail? What do you have to do specifically from a female, person or color, whatever the case may be, just to relate to that person. And these are unfiltered people. They not recruiters, nine times out of the team, when I call them, they're really, they're still doing that job. There are some positions that females still have not entered into as yet. Oh, we've been in all of them. Everything's wide open now. I know it's wide open, but they still, okay, I don't choose this one, I don't choose this one, I choose that one. Is there any career that a woman has not entered into? We have been in all of them. They've officially been in all of them. We are in all of them. Okay. Yeah, I would just, like I said, it's just great that you guys are developing real relationships with them and not just picking anybody. But earlier when I asked you, I was just trying to pull a case where you guys follow these guys as they, when they go in, you know, some of them ever come back. That's what I was asking about, like the success story or something where these guys was able to come out of situations because the military was there for them. And they, you know, they may, y'all had been in it that long though, for it's recruiting. He has, I have, I've done all my recruiting in Dallas. Okay. So the only major really, I wouldn't even say only major, cause it's still a major. How long you been recruiting in all? In all, I'm going into my seventh year. Okay, so, so most of my first contracts are already either out of the army or they progressing out. Have any of them came back and researched you and talked to you? I've had several of them, cause several of them still stay in contact with me through social media and they'll hit me up and talk about, man, I'm so glad you helped me get out of here. That's what I was trying to do. Man, you helped me out with this, man. You helped me out with that. Some of them will still reach out to me because they saw me as a mentor and they'll just be like, hey, Sambita's what I'm looking at doing. What you think? What you think? Because you have that knowledge. Yeah, cause you've been through it. And that's dope, man. That was the part that I just was trying to pull because you know, when you go into a situation like that, I know I was 18 and I went up there and signed them papers. I was going to go in and thing, you know, they didn't take me. He sound hurt, I'm sorry. I had screws in my knees because I had a football injury and yeah, I sure was trying to, I would have been in that thing if that hadn't happened because I definitely wouldn't took the test and everything, but yeah, I would have been in it. But I was trying to get through that without thinking thought that would have got me through but it didn't. But God had a different plan for me, you know what I'm saying? And you can't have any of that. You can. It's a process. It's a process. And it's every situation is different. Every case is different. Every surgery is different, you know. And does it depend on the recruiter because if the recruiter pull in for you and now we just admit them and we gather the documents from the doctor, we got to get all your doctors notes and everything else. If you had any serious surgeries or procedures done and we send them up to another doctor. I tell all of us, I say, I'm not a doctor. I don't know what half this mean. I'm just page one, page two, page three handed to the other doctor, you know? So it depends on like your recovery process. Are you fully recovered? You know, what's the motion of like in your, in your case, you got screws in your knee. Is the motion still there? Are all your emotions still there? You know, just a snap crack of pop. Yeah, no, there ain't no pop in this town. You tried to juke me in the chair? Yeah, I did juke you. I didn't. I didn't. He kept me through with that. Yes, he did. He did. I didn't see it. So you just kind of, you know, you got to understand that I didn't go down that road, but I went down a different road and I would never change the thing that God gave me. You know, cause I went through a lot, but at the end of the day for somebody else to be able to see, you know, that they can make it through through me. So I definitely understand my path and why I was walking in purpose the whole time. So I get it. But you guys, man, definitely appreciate you for coming on the platform. You know, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you guys and they wanted to try to enlist into the army and they wanted to call, how would they do that? Man, I got social media. I got my cell phone. I got an office phone. I got an email. I got a call. Okay, well, tell us. Tell us. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. She finna leave the area. I am, I am. She finna leave the area. She headed to Georgia. Okay. You know, I'm gonna be here for a little while. However, I don't really work individual people no more. Oh, so what do you do? I run the recruiting station. Oh, okay, okay. So I got a total of six recruiters that work for me. And at any given time, each of them working with four or five people in. I'm responsible for everybody. Wow, that's great. So. And you're over it. So how does that work? You're over like Dallas? So we're broken down. There's the large spectrum, which is our brigade, which covers several states in one area. And then it starts breaking down to smaller regions. So we got down to our battalion, which is Dallas battalion, which basically we cover all of DFW, Metroplex area. Grand Prairie, Mansfield, Cedar Hill, Waxahatchie. Did she just say Waxahatchie? I like that girl. Waxahatchie. Say it again for me. Waxahatchie. Hey! Waxahatchie. My bad. We go all the way down there. So when you move to a different, cause you're going to Georgia, is that by your choice? Or they said, well, this is where you need to go. It's my choice. Oh, it is your choice. My husband and I are both active duty. So when it comes to that, they have to make sure they can move us to an area where both of us fit. Okay. So that could have been a whole another story, cause both of us in. So, you know. Yeah, that's nice. So at least y'all, I mean, that's the way my daughter in the room. She was reserved. And she wanted to go full. Did she go out of reserve? No, she's still reserved now. But she wanted you to go full, but they like, okay, didn't want both of them to be full cause they have kids. So it's like one needs to be reserved when one needs to be full. So how is that different from both of y'all are full and you have kids? Well, we didn't come in with kids. We came in straight out of high school and stuff. He was a little older than me. He's a military, military kid. So he's been all over. His, his mom and dad were both in the army specifically. Yeah. But do he know karate? No. I just don't do nothing. He watched movies. He watched the movies, but no. I had to ask that. That boy over there, he don't be doing that. I'm sorry, did you teach your kids? They have to earn it. They have to earn, same way I earned it. You know, you can't get in trouble in school, good grades, all this other stuff because the same way a coach runs a team, if you mess up at home or you mess up in school, you mess up on the team too. So in my dad always ran his like that. So when I run mine the same way, so I teach you something, but if I feel like you're gonna use it in the wrong way, I'm not gonna teach you nothing no more. You know, so if I teach you how to kick the right way and I find out you kick somebody in school, that's it, no more. It didn't prove me otherwise. Well you know, I got all my training from, you know, Mr. Miyake. Right. It's gonna be real. Wax on, wax on. Yeah, I know, you know what I'm saying. And I don't ask, I don't look for it, but if it come my way, I still know how to paint defense. There you go. You know what I'm saying? There you go. You can bring in a new school, you gotta pick up your jacket. Put it on the hook. Now the new school. The new way. Okay, so, I mean, thank you guys for coming on the show. Is there, did you get everything out? I won't go into any morality. Okay, we're gonna get him back. She leaving, we'll go down to Atlanta. We go down there. It's all the same. You in Atlanta? It's all the same. No, I'm going to Hinesville. I'm going to Hinesville. Four hours. Four hours. I know, right. I'm close to Savannah. I'm close to Savannah. Okay. I'm close to Savannah. And like I said. Can we go to Atlanta all the time? Yeah, we do. Oh yeah. You don't have to be in the Georgia then. No. No, cause y'all been to Atlanta. Y'all ain't never been to Atlanta. You don't really go all the way in that thing. You gotta go south. My brother lives in Atlanta, so. But I'm saying Atlanta is all right. You know about Motree, Georgia? You know about that? I had a guy on here that was from Motree Georgia. How far is that from where you are? From where I'm originally from. Motree? We on opposite sides of the state. Oh, God. Yeah. Well, I gotta get over there where you at. What's over there? You by North Carolina? North Carolina? The part I'm from, I'm from just south of Savannah. So we about 45 minutes south from Savannah. My actual hometown is right between Savannah, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida. Man. Man, hey man, you know, like I said, man, you guys, just for you guys serving this country, man, and just doing the things that you do, man, it made me try to act. We got a, the D.F. Duck, what is that down there? Oh, that's the van. The, y'all got a place down here. The VA? The VA, yeah. I think I saw it, didn't I? They got the, the American Legion. The mother said the bar, the bar, not in there. It's down there. It's right there. I've seen the flag. And they be kicking it. Yeah. It's a good time. We always tease because you have the bar right here. We got the AA right here. And they're right next door. I asked the guy, say, are you from AA? He said, I'm from a place where we, we drinking down here. I'm like, and then one of them be like, no, I don't go, I don't drink. So you have to be careful about how you talk to the people that pay at the store. But it's so weird because a lot of people at AA are vets. Yeah. So it's like they be going back and forth, although they don't drink anymore. You know what I mean? They still go down there. So it's, we gotta talk about what they call it PTSD. We gotta talk about that because you guys are here and I don't want to miss out on the opportunity. So I was about to shut it down, but my wife has this thing. We wrote a letter one day and she said she wanted to help people that got out of the military to have a place to go so that they can, you know, know how to come back into society once they go through. Cause I heard a lot of different stories and I heard it from mainly the civilian side because I knew people who were married to military individuals. And what would happen is that they all come back home and they didn't feel comfortable talking to them because they wouldn't understand, I guess, what they went through and stuff. So they saw all of the nightmares and all of the crazy stuff and it became where, it became where they would end up stalking them and it would divorce came and, you know, all of that. And I felt like they weren't adjusted. They couldn't adjust back to society really well. So you ever seen somebody with PTSD? A lot of people at AA had PTSD. Cause there's a gentleman that I know. How you doing? You got it? Got diagnosed with it last year. They, I mean, but see, that's the truth because the officers that come here and stuff, you know, I tell officers all the time, like I feel for them because they out there looking at all this crazy stuff and then I got friends as officers, like, it's like, dang man. And how do you deal with that every day? Seeing that I have to go home to your kids and family and you know what I mean? So one of the biggest challenges you got dealing with PTSD is knowing how to communicate it. That's one of the biggest challenges that come out of it because for one, trying to explain what you've seen, where you've been and how you were doing it and everything else to somebody who never been there is just difficult to do. That's where, like I told you, like me and my dad rebuilt our relationship. That's actually part of what helped us rebuild our relationship is because he had to deal with it and he understood where I was coming from and what I had been dealing with and everything else. But does the military give you counseling? Yep. It was just, I was young and reckless. When the counseling was offered, I was like, nah, man, I don't need that. I'm good. So it's not mandatory. It wasn't, but it goes back to all the stigmatisms when they come to dealing with mental health. All right, once upon a time in the military, if you were saltmints with health for yourself, you were being soft. You weren't living up to what you're supposed to be. And it'll hold you back from what I heard. That's what I heard. And then you add into that, that cultural stigmatism that we don't know that. We don't know that. You go pray about it and you good. Right. Go to church. Go to church, go pray about it and try it that way and make some interesting choices in between, but I don't hear that. So now is it mandatory? It's, if it's identified, you can get a command referred. Usually if we identify somebody having struggles with any type of mental health, we'll encourage them to go seek the help they need to go sit down and actually talk to a counselor, go sit down and just try to figure out a better way to work through whatever it is that they're dealing with at the time. Because what I wanted to do, and I haven't done a lot of research into it yet, but you can let me know if there is a program like this already existing, just like how somebody go to prison and before they come back out in society, they go to the halfway house so that they help them with their try to get a job, where you're gonna live, blah, blah, blah, whatever. We have those. That's what I was thinking. Somewhere that you go to. It's called a Warrior Transition Unit, called WTU. Right. So, and that helps for people that are seriously injured, like physically injured, losing limbs or things like that or people that are being discharged for like mental health reasons and stuff. It's literally a transition unit. And we have transition programs for people not going through that as well to teach them how to get back into the civilian world, how to use their benefits and things like that. So, it's not mandatory, but it's one of those things that are offered that a lot of people either are unaware of or don't take advantage of. But if they take advantage of it, they literally lay everything out, Barney style. If you're going through this, you need to do this, this, this, this. If this is what you're going through, you need to do this, this, this. You know, if you don't have any of this, but you got this, you go, this, this, this, this. They lay it out step by step. I wish it was mandatory though, because a lot of people don't do it. Right. And then they'll come out and be like, well, I didn't know that I could get this benefit or I could go here. I hear it all the time. Well, that's one of the things like the Army implemented the Soldier for Life program. So, a part of when you getting ready to get out, you go through the Soldier for Life program. And that's where they highlight the different things. They sit down with you, they teach you how to do resumes and all that stuff, how to prepare for interviews, for interviews, how to, you know, set your stuff up, translate what you've done in the Army to where it makes sense for the civilian world. You can even apply for internships with Microsoft, GM, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon. It's so many, it's so many programs out there that we tell people that are talking about the Army or considering the Army about, but of course it kind of goes through one ear out the other because they're not in that position yet. Right. If they listen to what we say and they ask those questions once they're in, what programs are offered to me? Cause I don't plan on doing 20 years. When you sign up, you don't sign up for 20 years, you do small increments at a time. So, you have that control over your career, whether you want to change your job, change your location, maybe you want to go reserves or something like that. You have that control. And the ball is literally in your court, but they have to ask those questions. They have to be headstrong. That's in life, that's in life. If you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right answers. Exactly. That's everything in life. But going back to PTSD, do you have nightmares still today? Not like I used to. Not like you used to? So was it only because you spoke to your dad that helped you to overcome this or was there other things that you did? My dad, my wife being there, supporting me and everything else and working through it. And just getting to a point where it was to be able to say it was okay for me not to be okay. Cause a lot of it is you just internalize a lot of it. And then when you internalize a lot of it, just eventually you just boil over and the explosion eventually happens. And you still have triggers? Yes. So that's something that you just have to live with for the rest of your life. Does anybody actually overcome it like a hundred percent? I've not met anybody yet that has. It's just like, it's a challenge. And it is what it is when you ask me cause I just keep moving. And some people, cause I've heard some people say, some people say it doesn't affect them. They don't get PTSD. They go through it, do all of that crazy stuff, everything and they're fine. Everybody says the guy that came on here that's out of the army and he has just by four books. But here's the thing, everybody look at it. But everybody look at PTSD as just a military thing. It's not just a military thing. Not at all. They actually, you have somebody that's in a horrific car crash. They can come out with PTSD. You have somebody that, you know, they end up being a victim of some type of assault or anything like that. They end up having PTSD. Post traumatic stress, anything traumatic. But it now has become such a thing now but before it was only categorized with the military. But that's why it's big now because it's so many of us deployed during all the Afghanistan and Iraq stuff and come back and not knowing that's what it was. So now it triggered more studies, more research, more plans in order to help somebody go through it or help somebody understand how they need to cope with what they seen, what they did, how they did it. Just like mental health. Before it was mental illness. If you mentioned mental health, people like, oh, they crazy, they need to go to the nut house. Now there's a difference between mental health and mental illness. Everybody has situations with mental health because whether you were raising a single parent household and you felt like your dad didn't pay you attention, whatever and that, now boils over to how you act now. That's mental health. So it's a lot of things that bring an awareness to self care. That's what everybody's preaching now is self care. And by knowing where you're from and certain triggers is how you can fix your future, so to say, and how you react to certain things. Yeah, and that's true 100%. You're getting all the holistic healing, the spiritual awareness and things like that. And that's all, a lot of people say it's cliche, but I look at it as it's finally being talked about. It's finally being publicized because it's all true. Everybody has some sort of mental, mental health is mental health. If you've got a mind and you have some sort of mental up there, you gotta take care of it. You gotta be healthy up there. Whether you want it. If you've got some kind of mental. If you have the mind, you gotta take care of your mind, body, soul. That's what they always say, mind, body, soul. Yeah, yeah, so how important, I mean, I don't know if I want to ask you all this, but I guess how important is God in your lives? It's everything. So I grew up in the church. I didn't ask you that. No, I don't give nobody. Me and God, me and God have been homies for a long time. That's the part right there. Growing up in the church thing is cliche. Some people go up in church and don't know that. Oh man, that's why I asked you, do you really? I mean, cause, I mean, you know, it's things like, do you pray with your kids and your wife? Do you do the things that it take to say, hey man, I'm only human? I know you do it, cause I can tell you to have some breakthroughs. You know what I'm saying? You can feel it. Why we gotta talk about it like that though. You know, that's not a bad thing. I know it's done a lot of stuff. No, it's a great thing, but I can tell you know that you understand self-awareness is real. And I can see that you tapped into a place where you okay with being you. That's what I feel from you. You know what I mean? And you on the other hand, I mean, women have an inherent nature to love. So I know y'all already, it's something about women and God, you know? If you just, that's why a man supposed to be somewhat of a leader in a woman's life, you know? Because the woman, she already gonna tap into Jesus. You know what I'm saying? They always do. If you can read, they always round him. You know what I mean? So I mean, I just say, man, I wanted to say that part because so many people need to hear that because you gotta feel your spiritual void. You know, we talked about the other things, the mental illnesses and all the different things. I had counselors on here. And my biggest thing is, who is your counselor for real? Like, do you really know that you have somebody truly that you can go to and ain't nobody else there for you? You see what I'm saying? You gotta tap into that as well. Because counselors gotta be counseled. That's very true, that's very true. And one thing that we harp on, huge in the mental, we have chaplains and stuff, but I myself am a trained equal opportunity leader. So I teach equal opportunity classes, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, all of that stuff. Because you have to be respected no matter what realm you fall into. No matter how you pray, who you pray to, everything. I have to be aware of all of it. I have to teach it. This is why they do this. This is the root of it. That don't mean you shame them because you can't shame them. That's your brother, sister and arms. You have to respect it. Because that's how they choose to worship. Me, learning all the other religions and stuff like that, religion, spirituality, everything, going back to the African spirituality, all of it, crystals, everything, sage, all of it. I respect it all, I understand it. I love it, I love it all. I love everybody. I like that. I love everybody. I talk about that a lot as well on here. Like just being able to meet people where they are. Exactly, I love God. You might worship Buddha. You might worship Allah. Whatever, Hinduism, Nawaabuism, whatever. It's all the same. It's all rooted in the same. You just love everybody. The thing came to my mind when you were talking about equal opportunity and equal. How does transgender work with the military? Because when you have a person who is transgender, born a male and now a female and want to come into the military, he, she, or she depends on how they recognize themselves. Now, do they go to the female barracks or do they go to the male barracks? How does that all of that work in the military? They have, they go through, it's a medical process. They have to go through as well. We have to get all the medical documentation and things like that because you can identify as a male or female, but if you don't have certain steps in the transition process completed, you may identify as a female, but scientifically you're a male until XYZ is complete. So there are ways you have to be at a certain point in the process in order to be able to join. You can't just be taking hormones but haven't done anything. And if you are, we gotta get a plan and everything else, like it's a process because it's new, it's a newer thing to join the military as a transgender, however it's still possible. And has anybody joined and then wanted to be a transgender while they're already there and say, okay, I just want to switch, I want to go over here? So you've had soldiers and Marines and sailors alike that's already, that were already in that, have gone through the processes and done that transition. So they're out there. Because I was just wondering how do you start off, say you're in a male barracks right now because that's where you started off, but now I want to be a female, so I'm gonna do the surgeries while I'm in active duty or whatever, now I need to be transferred because I'm now a woman transferred over here, how does that? So I mean, we really, I mean, our barracks ain't split up, it's like dorms. Our barracks is like a college dorm building there. Everybody got a locked door to their room, so everybody had their own space in there. And the barracks are nice now, they spoiled. Yeah, we don't live that. I tell all these new people they spoiled. We don't live that old life. We don't live that old life. I tell you, you go in, the new barracks now when I initially joined is right before they started the renovation for all the Army living. They always say Air Force is the nice one, Air Force, Air Force. Even now a lot of the single-tism say Air Force is better, Air Force is. And I'm like, you have to pay attention to the upgrades now. All of the barracks in the Army have been renovated to the point where they, everybody has suites. So you have either two females to a room, two males to a room. You never share a room with the opposite gender. That's what I... But you go in and you have a shared dining area, shared bathroom, and it's a big bathroom too, like nice bathroom. And then they have their own rooms, but they're key, they have a key card. Walk-in closet. Walk-in closet. When I say that's a big closet, me and my boy put his motorcycle in his closet so we wouldn't have to train and exercise. We had to make sure nobody was gonna steal it. We was gonna be gone for a month. So we put his motorcycle, I won't say where we was at when we did that, but we put it inside the closet. And it comes, it's furnished. We're still rooming up. Yes, it's furnished. So all you gotta do is supply your own, you put your own swag on it. You make your room, your room. You put your greenery in there, whatever floats your boat. I gotta ask you all so, I haven't even get them off here, but then they keep going to me. It's so much, it's so much. It's so much. And you started off with the, we're gonna have a real conversation so people can see y'all are real people. Because most people, when they see us, they see the uniform, they're like, aw, that's a soldier, that's it. That's how people see police officers too. They don't understand, when I leave the office and I hear my friend, though, I'm like Batman. What? I'm out of this, gym shorts and a t-shirt. Crazy best stigmatism came from where every time someone see, it's really somebody in a uniform. It's not only military, we see an officer, you see a fire. It's the media. It's the media because you have to look at movies and TV shows, how do they portray the military? How do they portray the law enforcement? You remember watching the Andy Griffin show? That was my show. Andy ain't never, Andy ain't never taken the uniform off and let's see who's more efficient. Always in the barracks, always doing everything. That was not, when I get off work, I'm, I'm, I'm... I've seen you in your life. I've seen, you met me when I was out there. And when I seen you, I talked to everybody. Yeah. So it probably seemed strained on her. Do I have to, I don't need to... I don't need to, that's how people see me. I am real... But if you were in a uniform, he would still talk to you. That's it, that's it. Yeah, I'm gonna talk to you. So I was like, okay. And then I'm looking for opportunity to get somebody to subscribe. You know, I'm like, then I tell you, I'm like, you need to subscribe to Boss Talk. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he's like, it's the baddest podcast. Yeah, it's the baddest one, it's the hottest one. And then I went there, I was like, oh, yeah, I told you. She went in, she went in and looked at it. She came to me, she was like, hey. We need to get on it. Yeah, that's dope, man. We need to get on this podcast. It's growing. It's growing like crazy. I'm telling you, it's a great thing. Who did, who subscribed? Did you? He didn't subscribe. See what I mean? I subscribed. He didn't subscribe. I don't mean, I don't mean, I don't mean. Comment, subscribe, press that button. There it is. Hey, I'ma keep that, that was that, that thing phono. That was the one right there, that was the pitch. Repeat, repeat, repeat. No, I'm protecting her right in the back. All right. But the thing I want to ask is like, my ask this term is like, you guys go through a lot. I mean, we see some of those post-traumatic disorders like with military issues happening. People being murdered, all type of things. You people are human. So we've seen cases, especially here close by, I won't say where, but it's been a lot of issues, right? My daughter's up there. But anyway. I just came from there. I was just, I picked up what you were putting up. How does that affect you guys? Does it, do they implement, try to implement new rules, try to figure out different structures? To fix certain things. It's just like anything else in society. Once you start identifying that there's an issue, you start trying to tailor things in order to prevent those issues. You start, we increase the training on different stuff. So that, you know, folks are paying more attention to what's going on around them. They not just sitting there saying, oh, I'm just, I'm just here. Oh, I see this going on. I'm not going to do nothing about it. But we have all that training like Amber said, she's an EOL, I'm EOL trained as well. But we also have ones that's trained in dealing with what we call sharp, which is our sexual harassment, assault, rape prevention program. So we have all these programs and training that's out there. And one of the things I always try to tell people and get them to understand is, just cause you left the crib, don't mean what's in society ain't with you in the army. It happens. It happens no matter, we can't, we can't really control every aspect of who an individual is. We had that initial interview, the initial contact. We sit down, we talk to them throughout the process. And you know everything. Do they go through psychological? They are, when I tell you, they are drilled with questions. Yeah. And they'll ask you the same question about 10 different ways. That's what I'm wondering. We go through all of that. So it's not like, you know, hey, you're going to easily identify, yo, this person might be the- It's crazy. Right. You know, we go through a lot of that stuff. So we do implement a lot of different things in order to curtail stuff from happening to completely stop stuff from happening. So we do have those programs in place. But you know what, civilians, because I've heard a lot of people say this, when you have situations that pop up on the news and things that happen and then all of a sudden they're trying to fix it, implement, at least they implement things so that it won't happen again, people will say, but this has been happening for years. The only reason you're trying to fix it now is because it came out in the open and everybody's seeing it. Well, you have to do something. No, no, no, but if it has been happening before, that's why I'm not trying to fix it before. But that's what the funny part is, is everybody made it seem like we just started trying to do stuff or that they've just been, these programs have been around for years. They're not new. They've been around for decades. Where they just, as they grow as society changes, as the people we're dealing with changes, the people that make up the army changes, you know, obviously you gotta adjust for what you have at that point. And that's what they're always constantly doing. It's not a, the army is not a stagnant thing. It's always a change of adjustment. You know, always developing. There's new technology. At one point in time, you only had 120 career fields to choose from. Now you got over 150 career fields to choose from. So it's just, it's always something new. Man, I gotta ask this again. Like, now what was the, what did they feel about Boss Talk 101 when you first looked at it? What was the feeling? He said, he said, we the baddest around. I was like, yeah, okay. But then I went, I was like, no, they really, they really about it. They really about it. I told my husband, we gotta subscribe. So what's the thing they always say? Like, comment, subscribe, push a little bell so you get the notification. Wow, man. It's all there, man. It's all there. I just liked the fact that we did it and we was just doing it because it was a pandemic and we was trying to make sure that people didn't forget about our boutique. You know, like we're gonna get people to come in. But it involved in something. And God just said, you know what? This is what you gonna need to do. And so, you know, we're doing some different things. We have a whole another channel that we're starting up that already, it already came, you know, we have 38,000 subscribers on it as well. And it's gonna be huge once we get through. We're gonna do a remodel in here pretty quick. And yeah, you guys are gonna see some changes. So when you go down in Georgia, you still gonna see us working. That's huge. Yeah, that's big. Hopefully y'all like my business phase too. Man, hey, we with you, man. I knew that was coming. We with you, man. I love the fact that you're an entrepreneur and you're doing so much. Thank you. Yeah, so let's talk about that for a minute. What were you down there for anyway? Let's talk about that. Let's get to it. At the store, I had to get some shirts, man. For what? I had to make some shirts. Because you have all those different things about your business. What you making? You get in the building. Hey, she do a little bit of everything. I didn't like it though, because it was probably because of the, you know, things that you wanna do. You in the army, but you still, you know. I'm still a person. Yeah, you got things that you, yeah, what's that stuff you do? D-Y, whatever. D-Y. D-Y. D-Y. D-Y. Look, I don't even be doing it. So at the end of the day, I'm just looking like, really? You really wanna do that? I'm chilling like. I'm telling you. So, man, I've always been pretty crap. You know, in the country, you make stuff. You ain't got a whole lot. You just got, I really came up on a field. I came up on a farm. We had hogs. You know, we had geese. We had chicken. We had it all. We did too. So I'm telling you, didn't have much, but what we had, it was, I didn't think we, I thought we had everything. You know, we just grab stuff and make it. So that creativity has always kind of been there. My grandparents were artists on both sides. I'm talking about, could play any instrument you put in front of them, paint, carve, do whatever. They was there. My grandmother on my black side, she was a seamstress. That's how my great-grandmother, that's how she made a living. You know, so we had land, we had everything. So the creativity is like in my blood. However, during the pandemic, some of them passed away. My paternal grandmother, who was like the artist that could do everything, she passed away. And I wasn't able to make it back for the funeral because of travel restriction and everything else. But I kind of grieved in a creative way. I started refurbishing furniture. You know, I started carving stuff. I started drawing. I didn't know how to handle my grief because I couldn't get back to say goodbye. You know? So I kind of, when I picked up anything to make something, it didn't matter what it was, I kind of felt her presence around. I felt my ancestors around me and that kind of pushed me to keep going. And I just watched videos, how do I make this, how do I make that? And it just, I posted it. I was like, I found a new hobby and people wanted to buy it. And I was like, well, shoot. I'll make some more. And it just kind of evolved. And you talked about the pandemic. How did the military handle the pandemic? We was restricted just like everybody else was. Yep. It turned into a, y'all need to sit still. Y'all don't sit down somewhere. Y'all don't sit down. When we figure this thing out, then we go back to playing. Cause at one time I saw on the news, people were talking about, cause you know, just like PTSD or depression, counselors will tell you, well, you need to be in contact with people to try to get out of that depression. But then when you have the pandemic and telling you don't be in contact with people, these are people who are depressed and at home. It was causing like a lot of suicide and a lot of problems. Like how did you see a lot of that? Not with our group because we had to stay in contact. It was virtual contact, but we had to stay in contact. So we were always talking, always checking in. So that helped. We were still working in a sense. We were teleworking. We called the teleworking working from home. We were still working. So I guess keeping us busy and not just having us sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, I guess helped us a lot. The people that were, you know, in what we call regular army on the basis and stuff like that, they weren't able to telework. They had their own ways, you know, maybe they checked in from a distance and stuff like that. They had the ways where they still checked on each other daily to get accountability for each other and make sure everybody was still good to go. So they had to kind of adapt. We always adapt. I just was wondering, when you talked about a pandemic, I'm like that popped up in my head. I'm like, hmm. But I know that one of your pages that you posted. Make sure people don't know what they're staying at. You know, they ranked up in that army. Yeah, your staff sergeant, right? Get them ranked. Yep, we both staff sergeant. How important is it? Do you strive to be, like, go higher? That's the whole part of it, right? What's the highest? You want to constantly be as far as enlisted. As far as the enlisted side go, the highest you can make is a Sergeant Major. Sergeant Major. Command Sergeant Major. How much further you have to go to get to that? To that? Yeah. Yeah, further than I plan on going. No, you're going to get them 37 years in a quick plan. No, I'm coming up on 20 hard and fast. So, you know, I'm going to I've heard more years you tend to give. I've heard stories about that. About four, four, maybe five more years, and then I'm going to try that. And your wife, she's not? So my wife was actually in the Air Force. Oh, yes, she was smart. She's retired. She got out, she got stuck. Oh, we have a minute now. We just talked about that. That's what he said. That he went to go to the Air Force because he was smart. And I heard him say, whoa, then he said, yeah. He fell into the stick. And they said he fell into it. That was the statement. Right. And they found out. I found out real quick. It was just a statement. And the way in which the recruiter, trying to get over there, he was trying to tell you you weren't smart enough because that's what they told me. That's what he was saying. Because when he asked you, if you finished anything and because you didn't finish anything and you keep on quitting and going to this, they're like, no, this is not really for you. That's really what he was trying to say. Don't know what they hit me with, but, you know, look at me now. But look at her. She's, she ended up there. Yes, she did. She did 10 years in the Air Force, got out when we got married and then became an OPM and what's an OPM? Licensed Practical Nurse. Oh, okay. Or what they call it here in Texas, LVM. Anybody that come to me talking nurse, I say you're trying to get all them different letters. They all got money. The more letters you get, the more money. Yeah, I don't, I don't speak Latin. I fix, I fix. Helicopter's not people. Wow. Are we about done? Yes. Tell us, tell us your, your handle for your craft. Somebody wanted to check you out. I am by Faye, F-A-Y-E, on Instagram and Facebook. Okay. And I saw one more page that you had, you, you're a fat, fascination about cars. Oh yeah. I saw that. I'm like, you know, my favorite color is red. So when I saw that red, I'm like, I like that. Oh, you spot me out the window. Mmm. You have that page. Yes. At him he hers. Him he underscored hers. My husband is, him he underscored, he is, we got a scapegoat in the Durango. So we like Mopar, Mopar family. He's so cute. And you didn't tell us how could anybody reach y'all if, yeah, you're about to take out your car. I don't remember. But we have a, we have a station, we have a station Instagram page that kind of covers everybody and it has the individual recruiter Instagrams up there. It's at Cedar Hill Army Recruiters. Okay. And I'll make sure I leave a business card and stuff so you can type it out because it's got fancy underscores and stuff. But, and we all have a direct line, but the office line is up there. We always race to see if you can answer the phone first. So you're going to get one of us. Because y'all are super cool and y'all are super fun, so I don't see why anybody, y'all have to come and find, if you want to go to the Army, y'all have to come and find these two individuals because they're, they're going to look out for your best interest. Okay. And answer all your questions. Okay. They ain't got to look hard for me. They, they can call me directly. Okay. What's your number? You know, you know my petty bill. You know what I'm saying? Your big presence. My big presence. Six, eight, two, two, nine, zero, nine, one, five, two. Awesome. Thank you. So they can call me directly on that number or shoot me a text and y'all, we'll see what we can do. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for coming on Boss Talk 101, what a boss's talk and we just appreciate you guys. We thank you. We love you. We love you. And if you ever need us to shout out anything, do anything, we're here. If there's some kids that need help, we're here. We've been clothing kids forever. I've been here 16 years at this location. So, you know, we just hear and God, he's the one that's got us here and we just hear the help. So, and we thank you guys. Like I said, you guys, we, this is the first time we had something like this on the show. So you made it happen. You are my, I look up to you. I appreciate that. Yeah. And I can tell how you, I definitely look up to you after I learned, you know, you got that, that whole, that whole fighting thing down, you know. Thank you guys so much, man. Hey, man, it's been another great segment of Boss Talk 101, what a boss's talk. And we are.