 You know, I right out of college bachelor's degree. I got into law enforcement. I did that for seven years and I had the kind of the idea from that point to start a crime scene cleanup company in 2005 So I did that and you know grew quite slowly and then in 2016 I decided to franchise the company and You know here we are in the middle of a pandemic and we've been able to you know grow the company and you know The third year we were in the entrepreneur franchise 500 and this year we just made ink 5,000 In number 768 so something like that. So, you know, it's been a fantastic year for growth for us You know, we just signed our 36th franchisee today. So we're growing pretty quickly and we're super excited about it So, you know, I was 19 years old and I I had no Relationship with my family. It was it was always very stressed. There was no, you know, common ground there. We didn't get along So I was effectively on my own, you know, right when I graduated high school So I knew that I would have to go into the military to be able to pay for college So I knew that if I gave them four years, they would literally give me the GI bill and it would pay for everything So I was never one of those people that you know when I grow up I want to be you know a career in the military it for me. It was a means to an end And I you know, I thought I can do anything for four years if they'll give me that, you know, that money So I I enlisted in in the army. I was looking at all the branches and The the Marine Corps required five years and I thought well, why would I do five when I can do four? And I'm still getting the same thing. So that was really the only difference why I chose the army over the Marine Corps and The Navy was never an option. I have no desire to be on a boat for six months at a time. So I went in and This was 1994 I was you know, no family support I literally had to break into my parents house to steal my birth certificate just so I could enlist because I didn't even have that So I got my birth certificate That's what they needed and went through everything got into big basic training and I actually liked it a lot I thought it was very challenging and I was learning such cool things that I would have never learned anywhere else You know and probably will never use again like you know how driving humbees and setting up claymore mines And I had never shot a gun before so that was my first time doing all that so I found it very interesting This was during the time in 1994 Bill Clinton had just passed the don't ask don't tell policy in that really when he passed that it gave me a false Confidence that I was gonna be okay because I thought that was my protection. Don't ask. Don't tell don't pursue They couldn't pursue so I Had this false confidence that I was gonna be okay I just you just keep your mouth shut you do your four years and you move on So it when I was in my unit there was there was 28 women out of 4500 there wasn't a lot and We were all housed in in different barracks and it was Giant open barracks like there was a cot every two feet So it was one of those type of things and so that you know, you're in bed You're in basic training. There's there's no privacy or anything like that. So at the end of basic training um We started getting called in to The higher ranking People and they were interrogating us and I didn't know what it was at the time But looking back it was a witch hunt So they were calling each one of us in individually and asking who the gay soldiers were and uh We're in basic training. We're 19 years old and they were intimidating these girls And They would push them and pressure them. So a lot of them would just dime out names Without any evident, you know, that was never something that was discussed without any evidence or anything like that. So They ended up getting three of us and me being one of them and uh, I'll never forget So they uh, they charge you it's it's an actual crime They charge you with the with an article 15 Um and the the penalty of it is five years in prison So they gave uh, me. I don't know about the other two. They gave me an ultimatum of Just get out and leave The chance and go to trial if you lose you get five years in prison. So initially, uh, you know being defiant as I usually am I said, no, I'm not going to take the deal Well, then they give you a military appointed lawyer. So You know, that's like a black man being uh, a jury full of kkk members. Okay, so I didn't stand a freaking chance Okay, so I was like, okay now. I see how you guys are going to stack Um, you know, and I have parents no family nothing and I'll never forget My friends pressuring me call your parents call your parents see if they'll pay for a civilian lawyer And I'll never forget I called my parents and they were taken off guard and they didn't even know I was in the military Uh in another state And I said I need a lawyer and they said for what and I said, well, they're you know, they're charging me with being gay And I'll never forget my mother says well, are you and I said well, yeah, and she said then you deserve it Oh Yeah Yeah, I was like, well that went well. Yeah That went well. Yeah, Johnny Cochran's on his way over, right? Oh Yeah, that didn't work out so good. So needless to say I knew the the odds were against me. So I just took the the discharge not Understanding what that meant. So I'm going through the the the exit process, which is quite lengthy. There's a medical They stripped all the clothes off of us and put us back in civilian clothes and We lost everything That we had right they give you a one-way plane ticket and then they gave me a stack of paperwork Uh, which uh on the plane I looked through and there is a discharge paper and it's stamped homosexual On the discharge paper and I thought That's really a thing like what happened to the don't ask don't tell you know and all this kind of stuff. So Needless to say, um When I was going back and applying for jobs The question on the application is have you ever been in the military and I said yes and they said Reason for discharge and I put it there And I got denied for every single job I applied for So I called that military lawyer up and I said I can't get a job And he said you were only in the service for six months. Don't put that you were ever in So I said okay, so I did it and he was right got hired by the first place You know, um, I think that defiant 18 19 year old, uh, is kind of what I was trying to prove something So they they weren't gonna help me. No one was gonna help me with with college or getting there or whatever. So My my my goal was okay. I'll all essentially torture myself for the the next four years So that I can I can get this college degree. You know, you think that's that's everything and, um, when that got derailed I thought I'm screwed. I really thought that so What I learned from that was You have to pivot You have it life is going to take you down a different road than what you planned And you can sit there and you know get up in the fetal position and cry about it Or you can pivot and take the other road and see where that takes you So when I got discharged, I thought I'm screwed. I have no way to get a job And I have no money and now I still have no education So essentially I put myself in a worse position than where I was originally um But what I did is I literally put a map of the united states on the wall And I threw it dart and it landed on Knoxville, Tennessee, and that's where I went in college Yeah, I lived there for one year so I could get residency And then I took out loans for the rest of it and I worked two jobs while I was going to school And it taught me resilience and you know looking back on that All of these events that you know individually would be catastrophic but collectively It's almost it almost takes my breath away when I really think about it how Compact they all happened within you know four or five years Um, but looking now all of these things happened for me not to me So it it created where I am today and now when you know the shit hits the fan so to speak I look look at it and go well that ain't nothing compared to what I was at before You know Homeless 19 Nowhere, you know with a discharge paper that was essentially the scarlet letter But you know the military was not kind To my community at all and you know, I don't know how it is today But it was it was bad enough that they were you know trying to discharge us based on an interrogation of rumors But what was even worse is they paraded us Around and called us the chapter 13s. So, uh, that's the that's the chapter for for that particular discharge So what it's essentially what I look at it is what's the difference between that and forcing the black community to drink out of a different fountain It's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing that it was just 1994 as opposed to 1960 Hmm Well, you know it wasn't I don't want to make it seem like it was easy and that I just you know was defined because I'll tell There was many times where I was beat up battling and uh, sometimes you just got to take a minute Or a week and sit back and think how can I pivot and how can I go a different direction? Because clearly life is not sending me this way. I was not meant to do my four years there I was meant to pivot and have a different experience And I probably wouldn't have had that experience if I hadn't have had the negative experience of the military But you know, I still cringe to this day when I hear members of the gay community say I want to go in the military and I cringe because I'm like, listen, I don't know how the atmosphere is now But I can tell you that shit was bad back then, you know, it was really really bad So this is incredible what you went through not just not having your family support, but even Being rejected there And then being an environment where you thought you were safe and clearly you weren't safe to that then setting a precedent to to Being rejected for jobs, but you're on the other side of that now. We're a successful franchise or Um, what did you learn through that those obstacles or struggles? What did you learn and what gift came out of that kind of a struggle? Wow It's remarkable But I think it's so important to talk about this because you have younger generations who have it easier Don't always remember that they do Yeah And and to know that things have changed and things are changing and even if they don't they still face discrimination They still face hardship. Yes every single one of you know, our kids go through different things But to know that you can you're just like the inner