this is Jocko podcast number 171 with echo Charles and me Jocko Willing good evening echo good evening I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice so help me God and that is the oath of enlistment that is made by every US military member and the other day I was at a charity event for America’s mighty warriors which is an organization that was created by mrs Debbie momily the mother of Mark Lee from task unit bruiser who was the first seal killed in action in Iraq and it was a great event and it was an honor to be there and I spent some time answering questions from some of the people that had come out to the event and one of the individuals asked a question about the fact that he had served in the Marines during the 90s during a time of peace and he didn’t go into combat and he didn’t go to war and he actually felt guilty about that he felt that he hadn’t done enough and I told him the truth and the truth is that he had done what his country had asked him to do that’s what he had done and if the country had needed him to give more than he would have given more that is what the oath of enlistment is and it’s one of if not the most powerful both that a person can give because when you take that oath if you take that oath you are putting your country above all else above your family above your future above your life above yourself and with that oath when you take that oath if your country needs you to sacrifice you will sacrifice and if the country needs your time you will give it your time and if it needs even more than that then you will give it even more and the good soldier sailor Airman or marine the servicemen and women who defend this nation they will sacrifice and they will give until they have nothing left and it is my honor tonight to have someone on the podcast that has sacrificed incredibly for our great nation and yet his attitude remains completely unwavering he drives on and sets an example for everyone an example of pure fortitude and tenacity and one that fully represents the motto of the hallowed Brotherhood he will always be a part of and that’s the United States Marine Corps and they’re proud maksim Semper Fidelis always faithful been working to make this podcast happen for a long time and tonight I am grateful to have this hero with us a man by the name of Matthew Bradford Matt welcome to the show thanks for having me on Jocko this is a it’s something else to be said in front of you right now because it’s been a lot of remarkable people that’s been on this podcast and it’s a true honor to be here in front of you and echo and get the chance to meet you all yeah and I know we’ve been working on making this happen for a while so I’m glad we finally were able to you and your family on a plane flown out here where we can where we can sit down and talk for a little bit and then you can get back with your family and go have some good times go swim in the pool and spend spend the week at the happiest place on earth yes indeed and it sounds like you’re gonna have good temperatures or give me a little heads up it can be a little warm here in an I’m if you’re not careful to come out in the summertime you you’ll you’ll get baked out there in the in the in the in the Disneyland my pasty white skin and I’m hard-headed so I don’t like putting sunscreen on so I learned the hard way yeah well hopefully you guys be alright alright so let’s just go let’s go to the beginning growing up what that was like growing up in in Kentucky and Virginia what was that all about he has I was born in Petersburg Virginia my dad he worked at Fort Lee at the Defense Commissary agency and you know an early age my parents got a divorce so I moved to live with my mom in Kentucky where all of my family’s from and even today when people ask me where I’m from Kentucky is just easiest answer and you know throughout my childhood like we moved so much I learned a lot because my mom she worked paycheck to paycheck so I learned a lot about you know how to appreciate things and to be thankful for things and not expect the bigger things and you know through this I learned to just go outside and be with my friends and never expect you know big Christmas or but I knew one thing from from my mom and for my SEP dad and even my family around me the one thing they showed me and the rest of us was love and it taught me a lot about life at an early age and you know it’s it’s through all the moving around but you know in Kentucky the one thing with Kentucky is they they have a lot of their drug problems so it’s getting out playing sports and getting away from that helped out a lot and you know all of this happened in 2001 and that’s when I realized as a 9th grade and as a freshman in high school is when I felt like it was my purpose to serve this country in the military even though I was a freshman in high school said they’re watching you know the terrorist attacks go on in New York City and the Pentagon and I felt like it was my time go home and nobody was on the streets nobody was playing basketball or football or whatever the sport of the time was everybody was inside watching the news and also through that you know my wife my mom and my stepdad was going through some things as their own and and that’s when thankfully my dad stepped in and my dad said you’re coming to live with me now and that was the greatest season ever because although I love Kentucky I don’t know where I’d be at the day if my dad didn’t step in and you know pulled me towards him in Virginia and moving to Virginia after my freshman year in high school and and staying there for three years you know living right next to an army base and visit an army base daily I got the chance to see what what what the willingness to serve you know the patriotism and all this stuff and it really kind of boosts it my my motive to serve more and more so when you were when you were in Kentucky and you are a freshman had you thought about the military prior to September 11th growing up in Kentucky the only thing that I wanted to do was play basketball for the University Kentucky that’s the one thing and you know you go out on the street or you play video games which then was the old school play station and you just wanted to play basketball for Kentucky there was nothing else and 2001 happened and that’s when kind of like that it got in my mind that’s why I wanted to do and then during that time Blackhawk down come out as the movie and and I just watched that over and over again and I was like I want to be a ranger I want to serve you know then and then it went from the Army to I looked into the Air Force Special Forces and their their Special Forces is way too long because I wanted to deploy and I actually ran into the Marine Corps recruiter at Fort Lee playing basketball and he took us to Hooters and that’s where he sold me was a hooters then that’s that’s good I guess it doesn’t it doesn’t take you know for me when when the Marine Corps Recruiting is awesome and I’ve heard this fact a long time ago that the Marine Corps spends the least amount of money on recruiting as the the best results because they just have their well they have the Marine Corps they have the the Marine Corps persona behind him the the legend of the Marine Corps and that I remember you know when I was a kid there was a guy that I knew that was a drill instructor and he would he was older than me but you know occasionally he’d come home and I would just think well obviously that’s what I’m gonna do him there’s no doubt in your mind you know you just see these human beings that are above and beyond anything you’ve ever really seen before you go that’s you know when you’re ten years old and you see a Marine Corps drill instructor that’s if that’s a damn impressive sight Becky that is an impressive sight especially when you see the dress blues walk into the cafeteria at school and with all the medals and the ribbons and it’s like this is what I want to be and and because growing up like on my mom’s side my grandpa served and and on my dad’s side a lot of his fam lot of that family served in the military and I never realized the military was you know in my future but looking back on it now because I’ve been asked this question if you’ve ever if you just think it’s you know was set up for you to join the military and as many people and my family had served I kind of you know to answer the question now I thought it was my time to serve and but I mean just the Marine Corps alone it’s you know it wasn’t my first choice because I just wanted to serve but I tell you what it’s it was the greatest station ever made my life as an 18 year old you know the December of my senior year in high school going to the MEP station and you know taking that that oath and getting the date to go to boot camp to recruit training and all I had to do was just give my recruiter my diploma and get on the bus and there I go and surprisingly the first day of school the next year is when I was on a bus stepped on those yellow footprints and getting screamed at so you decided you were gonna join after September 11th and that was your freshman year then you go from Kentucky to Virginia and but you’re are you focused all time now you’re just send yep I’m going in the military as soon as I get done with high school that’s what that’s where your mindset was that was I was a at my grades were bare minimum to average just to stay on a sports team and because all I knew was to my cruder needed my diploma that was it and believe me there were some classes that I struggled with and I didn’t know if I was gonna give him that diploma or not but mainly English second semester my senior year that was but it was a it was my mind said that’s what I wanted to do I didn’t think anything about going to college I just wanted to serve in the military yeah that’s there’s something I don’t know you know I got I got a bunch of teenage kids I got two daughters and one son that are teenagers all right now and then I got a little girl but for kids these days a lot of them are programmed that what you do when you get done with high school as you go to college and this is that’s not for everybody it really is and for me it certainly wasn’t it’s something I wanted to do I was like oh I just I wish I could have joined the military when I was like 13 beautiful because I would have just been such a much better person you know so all right you you struggle a little bit in school in English apparently definitely what sports did you play I played football I played basketball a little bit and I pretty much played all sports not for school related but Little League baseball and then my wife likes to make fun of me but I played high school tennis from sophomore to senior year and I well I went out there the first practice my body that kind of like recruited me to come play and the coach was like hey how about you to just go down there employee bunch of sophomore just kind of get it out of our way and I beat him made nothing he got so mad it was so funny like walking or walking her down walking back to the other side of the courts and hearing the other players like oh my gosh he just beat he make nothing and the guy had red hair in his face was just as red as his hair and but you know like I would like junior year was the one seat on both singles and doubles and went pretty far in the district there and you know senior year was the same and it was just something that I enjoyed to do in the spring time it was a and honestly it’s very you run so much that you got to be athletic and you gotta be in shape and that helped out a lot too you know with football in the fall and then Tennyson spring and and so what year did you graduate 2005 and then you left in September of 2005 you leave for boot camp I did yep graduated in June and left in September so a couple months in between and and that’s the one thing like in high school I there was a couple of Marines a couple guys that I graduated with we graduated on Friday and they went to boot camp on Monday and they’re the ones that kind of like kind of helped me kind of really realize that the Marine Corps is what I wanted to do even though it’s kind of what I was focused on when did you when did you sign a contract at MEPs December of 2004 okay so you had a little delayed entry delayed Entry Program else is worried about what they’re gonna do after high school and you’re like I’m gonna party all summer long and I’m going to Marine Corps boot camp how much of a shock to your system was that when you got to Marine Corps boot camp the first three days was I mean it’s it it was just so much like you know of course you don’t sleep at all and it’s just this constant yelling and you’re realizing like what in the world did I do because you can only watch it on videos and then they’re sayings like okay that’s on the TV screen and it’s not real life but it was something else getting you know I guess they arranged it up every every time a bus goes through Parris Island that they’re gonna stand on the yellow footprints and mill the night and of course that’s when we got off and I was is a 12 passenger vein and I was kind of in the middle seat and I had to go through the seat belt to get out while I’m getting yelled at so I’m like choking myself with the seat belt and you know we get to the yellow footprints and it’s like you’re standing there and position of attention and it’s like your calf started tightening up and you started just like oh my gosh what did I do why did I sign this paperwork and I think the funniest thing was when we actually went on to Parris Island how this book this van from Virginia down to Parris Island eight hours just joking talking the minute we pass the gate it just got silent like standby and there was you know and then you know going back like when I because I turned 18 my senior year in August and I did a delayed Entry Program or I you know what the Maps December and when I would come home and cember and my dad was like so what you do and I was like that signed up for infantry in the Marine Corps and he was like you know what infantry does right and it’s like I do and and this is the time like at my room I had the big Marine Corps poster with the three Marines and their dress blues I think it was the guy and the female and it was like it took up the whole wall and I was I was dedicated to the Corps then and I was so excited to to raise my hand and then go to school the next day wearing my MEPs Marine Corps t-shirt I was I was like this is it I’m perfect recruit yeah you know start walking around all the Marine Corps shirts I’d go to the mall and I’d walk around my shoulders all cocked back it’s like this is it yeah that’s awesome I was trying to cuz I’ll there’s been quite a few people have joined the military from listening to the podcast and now whenever I talk about this I always try and tell them that for at least the first two weeks they’re gonna hate me they’re gonna hate the military they’re gonna a boot camp but it’s gonna seem like the worst decision I ever made I was actually a speaking on the USS George Washington in Japan in 2009 and this sailor walked up to me is like I just got fun with my dad tell him I’m Marie and listen up they’re hearing you speak and I’m like oh gosh she didn’t give me my name did you but yeah check so you go through boot camp and you get done you and you knew your own infantry the whole time right I did I knew I was infantry and you know in 2005 like I feel like we had about 7075 recruits in our platoon and majority of them were going infantry and the funny thing is sitting in our squad bay and our senior drill instructor he was he was sitting in front of us talking to us up on the quarterdeck and he’s like I got one more class after you all and then once I’m once I’m done I’m going to ye and I’ll never see you little you little pukes again and and you kind of just like blow that off like okay cool he’s going to why I’m more than likely at East Coast marine so I’m going to say I can’t blow Jun and do my time there and hopefully never run into him but then you experience the small Marine Corps it gets a lot smaller and you know once we got the SOI graduated from there and and they told us that a select few of us from alpha company school of infantry would be going to Hawaii be stationed with second time third Marines and a select few of us was our whole company in the company next the Bravo Company hey so they they dropped us off in Hawaii and you go through there and is that normal for like a whole company from SOI to go together to a battalion somewhere I didn’t think so I thought you know you know the Marine Corps it’s like east of the Mississippi you’re pretty much gonna stay all together but I thought they would kind of disperse you out through different battalions and thankfully every but like a lot of the guys that I went to boot camp with was in the same battalion as me in Hawaii so like I create that friendship and that Brotherhood from the start of the Marine Corps and carried it with me along the way and and I was glad because you know it’s grown up in Kentucky in Virginia I didn’t want to be stationed in Lejeune or the East Coast and you know I they gave me this little wish list which I don’t think they even look at I think they just give it to you because it’s checking the box but I feel good yeah I picked okay now in Camp Pendleton is my first two choices and they pretty much put me right in the middle the difference is I always tell people a free government trip to Hawaii I mean I can’t complain about that at all uh how’s the school of infantry it was cold in North Carolina we were during that time there were so many guys going through the through infantry school and a lot of guys were just like there for a couple months three months and you know like you go to the chow hall and you got a like a ten to twenty like a snake line of rows and rows of Marines going just trying to eat chow and I was so close to actually call my recruiter to go on recruit assistance because I didn’t know how much longer I’d be here and thankfully my last name starts with a B and so so January I got selected and put an alpha company and the first three weeks is just kind of learning the whole weapon systems and working on you know going on humps and stuff and and then the next three weeks was basically out in the field the whole time doing infantry work and clearing you know learn how to clear rooms and do a lot of mount training and at this point you’re did you guys all pretty much assume you’re going through Iraq or Afghanistan 100% I mean being a name for true men in the there’s war in two countries you must have all just realized you’re a hundred percent going pretty much and and that’s the reason why I wanted to choose infantry because I wanted to blow it as quickly as I possibly could and you know two of my drill instructors were Purple Heart recipients from the Battle of Fallujah and so it’s like you kind of you kind of hear it from all the drill instructors when you’re going through recruit training that you know this is where you’re going to end up you know you go through your school and you go through your training but more than likely ninety nine percent of you are going to our rack or Afghanistan were you thinking about that like you’re on the range you’re dialing in your weapon are you thinking yourself I better pay attention right now because I might be needing this skill in a couple months when I’m overseas I don’t think it ever like crossed my mind cuz I just did what I was told to do you know and you know when it was on the rifle range or if it was like patrolling you know I try to take in as much as I possibly could and learn as I went and you know the more I learned I just you know I learned to not only teach myself but also teach those around me and stuff because I didn’t you know you only see it on the news you don’t really know what to experience and it’s it’s funny because I tried to read the book no true glory yeah and and I couldn’t really understand what Iraq was like you know from clearing rooms or patrolling down the streets urban terrain I couldn’t understand that because I wasn’t there and you know of course now when I read these books I understand because I can visualize it in my head but you know then I was just doing what I was told and I was learning as I went along and I you know I learned what I could through school of imagery and then once I got to the fleet it kind of changed a lot because we had to learn what the with our battalion and and our squad and platoon was doing there at the school of infantry did you do company sized operations of bit like clearances of villages and stuff like that we we did towards the end of school of infantry we had we had all the 11s out there and then we had the machine gunners and the mortar man was set up and and we kind of we would we would Humvee in and you know we go in and clear a couple of homes and stuff like that and but it was more of a company level it’s hard it’s hard to remember back then what it was it was the one thing in like North Carolina like where we were at training for a school of infantry it was just a lot of like machine-gun fields and a lot of like pop-up targets and those kind of ranges and then the mount town wasn’t as extensive as it was once we got to the fleet with the khaks in California so there so you would say at school of infantry you are more working on your individual infantry skills more than like working together with a platoon or company sized elements I think so because a lot of times at school of entry we did a lot of fireteam stuff okay and um you know we did a lot of hikes every every Thursday once we got back from the field but a lot of it was like this learn weapons learning how to shoot at pop-up targets and like moving targets and just kind of like learn just kind of learn the whole weapon weapons and systems and stuff every Marine is first and foremost a rifleman yeah and that’s where you become a rifleman okay so now you get assigned two to three Marines and you’re you’re heading off to Hawaii which is just coming from coming from Kentucky and then Virginia and then North Carolina and now all of a sudden you wake up here in Hawaii we were actually in the squad Bay me a gap from Georgia and the other guy from Tennessee and we were listening to Craig Morgan’s redneck Yacht Club I thinking this is what we’re gonna do when we get to Hawaii and of course I think all three of us were in different companies so we never saw each other once we got to Hawaii but you like you fly in and you get there and it’s like oh my gosh we’re in Hawaii and we get on the bus we get all our gear and we get dropped off at the battalion office and we got you know two of my seniors waiting on me and he’s like they’re basically like pulling me to the barracks just so it’s like you’re all ours now oh gosh and then you know you start hearing stories from like other the other guys that you know got there with me and how their their seniors are you know welcoming them into the the platoon what month did you get there March March of 2006 okay and so as soon as you get there so and those guys were just coming back from Afghan right they were they they were actually over there during Operation Red Wing yeah and yeah they were I think they got back February of 2006 so they were just getting back from their post deployment leave and you know once once we got there it was pretty much you got to get right into another workup and and then that workup is where you really start integrating everyone together working in platoon size elements working in company size elements it was and then that’s when we kind of they told us when we first got there everything you learned in school of entry just like lose it because now you’re gonna learn what we teach you and you know from everything from just like clearing conference rooms and barracks rooms to you know working on patrolling up the streets in Hawaii and that was the one bad thing about being stationed in Hawaii that’s a great place to be stationed but there wasn’t much to do any training and we would I mean we would literally patrol up and down the streets at k-bay Kaneohe Bay Hawaii and they had a couple of old barracks that we’d work mount’s you know we do mount training with and with sym arounds and you know we do we build a bellows which was like a little Air Force Base that they were starting to create like a mount town and that’s when we did a lot of our training in kind of our field work and now at this point are you starting to think and you got guys that are just coming back from Afghanistan are you starting to think like okay now I really need to start paying attention the reason I’m asking you these questions is because I’m trying to relate we know when I joined the Navy it was 1990 there was like I guess the Gulf War was kind of on the horizon but and it was gone so quick with that by the time I was in buzz it was all over and so even when I was doing work ups and stuff like I would always be thinking like okay I need to be good at this because someday I might need this skill but that’s a big stretch you know what I mean whereas once September 11th happened every one of these young guys that was coming in it was like oh I’m probably it wasn’t like someday I might need this skills like I’m probably gonna need this skill in the next couple months to save my life or my friends lives did you feel like that kind of intensity from yourself and from the other guys that were just coming back from overseas because I feel like the way they were kind of instructing us and teaching us this stuff and they kept relaying that any minute now that we could be called up and deploy and you start getting more serious about it and I think my attitude changed and it wasn’t more of like joking around even though I like to joke a lot but it was when it’s time to be serious it’s time to be serious and it’s time to learn you know and you know whatever weapons I was carrying around if it’s a Saul or the the the rifle the m16 you need to learn everything about that and you need to learn it too it’s T and I think that’s the one thing that I really paid more attention about and and it’s uh but it was just like you could feel it from your seniors because they they experienced like Ashley’s I experience deaths over in Afghanistan they knew what combat was like and you started understanding that this is serious now this thing you know this ain’t a video game or a joke you’re getting ready go to war and you know five six seven months or even tomorrow you never know and so everything that you need to learn here is something that you need to take serious because this is you could be had yourself in this situation when you’re in combat at what point did you know where you were deployed to that you were deploying to Iraq I felt like it was after cax and July we were in we were in KX from June to July of 2006 which is great wants to be in the deserts in California but I feel like once we got back there it was pretty much like we’re going to Iraq and and that was so we’re still in is he so fiber oh six oh six okay got it yeah I joined joined September 2005 and I was on a plane in September 2006 headed to Iraq so that’s uh one of the things I want to do in the Marine Corps as I mentioned was just I wanted to deploy and I was literally in a Marine Corps a year and I was already on a plane headed overseas and then did at what point did you know you where where in Iraq you were going that you were heading up to Haditha I think we we knew we were going to the Al Anbar in the northwestern part of our right but we were never told what city I think once we got to al Assad and we were starting to relieve three-three and hear about like what they went through and where they were at is when we started really realizing okay this is where we’re going so was when you actually got to you got in countries when you realized okay we’re going to Haditha you knew that you were gonna relieve three three you probably heard a bunch of the stories and I mean so this is so I was in I was in Ramadi at this time you know sip from the spring of Oh six until the fall of oh six so you’re we overlapped probably by about a month maybe a little bit more of when you arrived in Iraq and you flew into al-assad you said flew in al-assad and we were there basically a day and then while we were in our saw it three three was starting to pull some of their Marines out and that’s when we started interacting with them and they told us that they felt bad from what we were getting ready to get involved they lost so many Marines why they were over there and and then it’s just kind of like you hear stories of other guys in our company like basically in a firefight just to get on their fob and you know once we left alassad we we took we flew up to the Haditha dam and middle of the night and say there overnight we started loading our mags and we got in a big convoy and we we drove into edita and it was um I mean he’s like you hear the stories of Haditha from 33 and then when three one went through there stent before and and it’s just wild wild west and again you only see it on TV you never expect to be walking the same streets and you know this stuff going on but you know the first time we went out on patrol it was it was nerve-racking it was not really cuz it’s like you do this in training so much and you feel like you do it so well but now that you’re in a situation where it’s like oh gosh you know I gotta look here I gotta look here I gotta look up I gotta look down and what was your position in the platoon that was a point man Oh get some so and it was a it was fun you know as uh I think after the first firefight is when you like you kind of like okay I can do this this is good I motivate it now you know and and I was like I remember one one time we got a firefight and um before we went on patrol I was like hey I’m ready to get some I’m ready to get a firefight you know and and I didn’t know my squad leader heard this but after we got in like a two or three hour long firefight we’re walking back onto the fob and he yells at me Bradford I’m like what he’s like I’m gonna kill you like what did I do now you know if like we all come back alive you know I feel like that was a good thing but it was a you know it’s it’s fine first firefight we got into we were in the palm groves and we were walking along this compound wall and these these little trees there they’re no bigger than there no wider than a softball and then there was one no wider than a baseball and they open up from our left and so me and my team leader jumped behind the one that’s the size of a softball and he’s like hey Bradford get over there by that tree and I’m like well crap that was smaller than this one you know and and then our corpsman who was a he was a junior corpsman he had the shotgun for breaching and he laid off around and I don’t I’m pretty sure he didn’t hit the guy but the boom scared him and he took off and but it was just and of course the same day in the Marine Corps it’s just our comms went out and so the stuff that we got was kind of crap so it looks like here we are in the middle of the palm groves after a firefight and we don’t have no comms were shooting up smoke and trying to get somebody to come down there and help us you know and so what was where were you guys living in Haditha there was a fob in the middle of town that we were um that we say that that was our home it was right in the Iraqis houses and was it uh was it a platoon size element in there or a company size element in there it was a company the way that our battalion was split up the battalion commander and the headquarters was much more in the dam Haditha dam and and Haditha was the the main AO because there’s a larger city and that’s where our company was echo company and we had we had Gulf company to the south of us in Hawk Alenia and then across the river in Barre Wanda was Fox Company and and weapons company would basically go from from from aoao and about three months into the deployment our battalion commander and the headquarters detachment would come and they actually set up shop in Haditha with us once the Iraqi police Iraqi army left our fob and you know we had a we yeah there was it was a company element and we pretty much ran you know with the fourth platoon would work more with the Iraqi police Iraqi army and then the one platoon was basically set up for mobile and the other platoons would rotate back and forth between posts and patrol so it was I forgot how many days on we would be off on post duty and then you kind of rotate back and forth and when we were in Haditha our mobile unit got hit so hard that they had to change out and another platoon had to take over just because of the the snipers the indirect IDs just we lost so many guys and throughout that whole deployment the whole battalion lost 23 Marines and I think echo company lost nine Marines and a majority I think I think of all of them were within the first two or three months not to mention the Purple Heart recipients that we got from that deployment and when you were were you guys doing mostly you guys were doing almost all foot patrol out of the fob I was we were foot patrol every patrol and I actually felt safer walking the streets and I did in the vehicle and I mean we’d get in the back of a 7-ton and they’re launching grenades for the 7th I’m trying to blow us up and you know the one time that we were in a patrol with the Iraqi army we were in the old old green Humvees with an O up armor and me and my friend was sitting in the backseat was like good luck I love you brother because because if this something happens right now then we’re we’re screwed yeah the old Humvees aren’t going to take a idea hit very well no not at all and it was like I I loved being over there you know we were talking about serving this country and you know the one time that we’re in Iraq it’s like we had one big screen TV in our chow hall but we were never in a chow hall we lived in an Iraqi house and it was just our platoon and you we’re away from the news you’re away from society everything going on it was just you and your brothers and that’s one thing like today I miss more than anything it’s just being around those guys and you you you see them open up and you know when when you’re when you’re a marine brother you know gets killed or wounded like you see the emotion that it’s like you’re there for him you know when he comes to you and those are the things that I miss more about the Marine Corps and unfortunately living in Kentucky today it’s like you’re not around a Marine Corps Base and you’re you know I get to see my friends I don’t know once a year it seems like and a lot of the guys in my platoon I haven’t even seen since my injury the the how long would you guys go out patrol like what would you guys patrol for a couple hours would you guys find an objective and then head that way and then check it out and then come back did you have an objective we just doing presents patrols what was that all about we were doing a lot of meet and greets present patrols ID patrols we’d go out for two or three hours sometimes we’d actually go out and set up a patrol base in the middle of town and just stay there for a couple of nights and run patrols out of the patrol base later on the deployment our our company commander kind of made it a an objective to set up patrol bases throughout the town we had one in North Editha and one in south and then went out and kind of the I guess I’d be the the the western part of Editha and which we’d basically we’d have engineers come in and they’d build like little little fobs of these houses and actually spent Christmas of 2006 on that the patrol base up in North Editha and it was sitting there on the roof in the middle of the night eating cold turkey and ham you know and Merry Christmas bro yeah and it’s so funny because it’s like they told us there’s like oh you’re gonna have Christmas off now that didn’t last very long because here we are on patrol going up to North Editha but it was uh it was fun I enjoyed it and you know one of the some of the cool things that we did there we were we had a they believed there was a cache a in one of the islands and there was no bridge nothing to get to the island and the only way to get there was to take River rafts and I’m not gonna lie that was the one time I felt like I was a Navy SEAL going down your friends river raft and nah but it was in the middle of the night and they had a 240 on the front of it and they would you know pick us up from the bridge and we would ride up right to the that the island and we actually dug in dug in and stayed there overnight and and and I believe that was Thanksgiving in 2006 so like looking back now on the holidays on Thanksgiving to Christmas it’s like I just look back on those two moments of my life it’s like sleeping on a cold island because people look at Iraq and think it’s warm all the time but it’s pretty cold over there in the winter months and and then of course Christmas time sitting on the roof and how often when you guys get an indirect fire into your into your fob where they hit you guys with mortars a lot we got mortared about every everyday about five o’clock you know jail time and one of the times like we had a I don’t know it was like a heel it was like a big sand hill in the middle our fob we had a couple of posts up on top of it and I was actually we were on post duty and they was like Bradford won’t you bring these batteries up to a post five which is at the end of it and so I take a battery to and I’m walking down and like going down this is very steep and while I’m halfway down they start dropping mortars on us and it’s like I’m thinking to myself it’s like should I go back to the post or should I ruin and like I take off sprinting down the hill thankfully I didn’t like roll all the way down and and my team leader like when I run in there that’s like where’s Bradford and I’m like sitting there like gasping for air he let us like spring it across the you know down his big heel but um but yeah we got a we got mortared about every afternoon and and thankfully they their mortar sucked because they missed and one of the times we were actually very lucky we were in our fob we were in our house and we were all kicked back on our bunk beds and my really good friend my best friend actually was working on the hot air tank or whatever it was outside and they dropped him order like thirty feet behind our house and when that thing hit we just automatically went to our gear because it sounded like it went right through the middle of our house and he ended up taking shrapnel in the leg and thankfully that was it and that’s when I realized that you know I had to have many friends got killed when I was over there but I wasn’t you know right there listening to him scream as they pretend get on and that’s when I realized that this is real you know and not only it’s like this guy’s like fighting to put a tourniquet on and and he’s my best friend he was my roommate when I was in in our Hawaii and it really killed me thankfully that he didn’t lose a leg he come back in up a couple of weeks and he was sitting there showing us pieces of shrapnel and tell him I said he went down al saw and has some ice cream and it’s like yeah you know we’ll forget the way I felt about it you know but but it’s a you know a lot of lot of scary moments bring together the the true brothers you know and the fellowship and then how long was it was it January is when you got injured Jr 18 2007 and we were you know four months into a deployment we started kind of you know you could start hearing a little scuttlebutt about the ad Vaughn coming in you know we’re getting ready to start heading out you know that the other units coming in and I actually was speaking through my uncle on the phone that day you know we rarely got to call home and I was telling was I can you know the deployments going well you know they’re starting to talk about other guys coming in you know and and hung up the phone because we had to go to a brief and the brief was the patrol and you know unfortunately I don’t remember you at this part right here I remember all the way up till like the last minute walking down the street and as I was walking point I look out in front of me you know we’re walking along a road alongside the parallel or a phrase River it was called Park Place and we were coming up past this compound wall into this opening with bunch of palm trees and I see a white bag leaned up against the palm tree about thirty yards off to my right and as I you know a little aglaea as a suspicious item and I turned around telling my team leader to my left he was on the other side of the road and I turned around to everybody behind me and the minute I turned back around and I looked down and there was a stitch that ran perpendicular to the road and I see the wires going inside the pipe underneath the road and I was standing right on top of the pipe and I mean in a matter of seconds it exploded and sending shrapnel demise and that was the last thing I ever saw was that white bag and those wires and you know is this is laying there conscious like hearing everything going on around me my squad leader calling and QRF and you know just and I actually had the litter kit in my pack so it’s like they had to figure that out and then the whole time I was trying to stand up you know I had my left leg was it was blown off I got any have a left leg my right leg was severely damaged and would have just felt like people always ask me like what were you feeling when this was all going on and it went so quick that I don’t even think I had a chance to feel anything like I literally went from like walking down the patrol seeing something suspicious to laying on the ground looking in darkness I didn’t know if that was it if I didn’t know if I was dead and you know it’s just hearing voices around me they put me in the kit and they into a compound and you know as we’re waiting on QRF to get there you know my buddies look they’re sitting there holding my hand talking to me because you know out of our squad we probably got into the most firefights out of our whole company but was we left the fob with 12 Marines we’d always come back with tow Marines we let the enemy know that if you’re gonna mess with us we’re gonna give you everything we got more and this is the first time that we suffered any kind of casualty and laying there like you know basically fighting for my life and they’re holding my hands talking to me but they they didn’t think I would make it out of there and as QRF shows up they put me in the back of a Humvee and the last voice I heard was as I mentioned earlier the small Marine Corps was from my senior drill instructor who was a platoon sergeant in the same company said Bradford you’ll be fine and then I passed out I didn’t know if that was it I didn’t know if I was truly dead now that was the end I felt like I was only twenty years old then I felt like that was saying in my life and those are the last words I heard and you know I woke up three weeks later and from a coma you know and this is when I realized that what I truly loved to do that my true purpose in life was to serve this country wearing the uniform and it was taken from me like Here I am in the United States while my brothers are over in Iraq fighting right now I felt like a coward like it they would try to they would call me when they could and I wouldn’t want to talk to him on the phone like I would always tell me with some kind of excuse that I’m sleeping or I’m doing something just so I didn’t have to talk to him because I felt like I let him down and that it killed me and then once once my dad told me that I lost my legs that was the worst thing in the world then I just wanted to die I’d like to guilt the depression I didn’t want to live a life anymore and I always always told him like when he told me that I was like I felt like my legs were like a lizard’s tail you know it’s like they’ll grow back like you see it on the news all the time but you never expect it to happen to yourself and Here I am I didn’t care nothing about the vision I just one of my legs back because it was it was tough those first two or three weeks after getting out of ICU like I wouldn’t eat nothing I was so skinny I could barely lift my head up off the bed and the hospital band that they gave me would go all the way up to my bicep pretty much because I just wouldn’t want to eat I wanted to die like the nurses hated me like one of one of the nurses coming in like 2:00 in the morning I finally got some sleep and she kept poking me around with the needle and I literally called her a stupid idiot I’m like and and she wasn’t my nurse no more and and I felt so bad but you know it just I felt like my whole life was taken from me just from stepping in that bomb you know I knew what could happen to me and my whole point of being deployed of us I’m either gonna come home with my brothers I’m come home in a body bag there’s no in the middle and and Here I am now down this whole dark path this new road you know as a 20 year old how in the world am I gonna live my life now like I got I don’t even know what a blind guy with no legs can do at what point did you realize that you weren’t gonna be able to see anymore it was pretty much March 2nd I believe was my last surgery that they tried to kind of like give me some vision back and nothing come back from that and you know about ten more chicken got there I was still positive not beating I was moving around a lot more starting to gain weight and but you know it’s they told me that they can do the surgery but then they also told me that it’s it’s not a you know a high percentage that you’re gonna get vision back at all you know and they started kind of like talking about you know it’s live in life visually impaired and but it was it was tough it was it wasn’t you know and to me the the vision didn’t bother me much at all it was losing my legs and you know the Marine Corps you know it’s joining the Marine Corps in 2004 was the great decision in my life for the reasons like this right now because it was the Marine Corps that was there each and every day in my hospital room talking to me and helping me understand that this road that I’m getting ready to go down you know that there is the light at the end of the tunnel and not only talking about my deployment or talking about the Marine Corps but just talking about life and coming in there joking around with me and because you know looking back on it now like I’m truly fortunate and blessed to be here today because the amount of blood I lost was a body’s worth of blood my left leg was taken from me I have a piece of my small intestines taken out you know shrapnel went through both my eyes and and you know it’s just it’s truly a blessing now that’s obviously a big transition of calling it a blessing and calling your where you’re at right now a blessing from when you first you know realized your situation and you’re saying hey you you want it to die I mean that’s I mean that’s as bad as it gets what do you think it was that made you start to realize you know what alright here’s my new situation and I’m gonna I’m gonna get after it the Marines that would come in and visit me they kept reiterating that I was a Marine the nurses the corpsman even though I would fight it they never gave up on me and they still push and challenged me and I think that was the one thing that made me realize that this is just a new challenge for me you know and the one thing in the Marine Corps is to adapt and overcome I’m gonna turn to adapt to these injuries and overcome it and that’s one thing that helped me realize that there’s life outside those hospital doors because at that time when I was going through depression and guilt there was two roads I could have went down you know the self-pity the drugs alcoholism suicide but I don’t want to go down that road I didn’t want to be another statistic I want to go down the road of happiness and living my life to the fullest and proving people wrong people tell me I can’t do something that I’m gonna go out and do it I’m gonna be that blind guy with no no legs proving people wrong you know and and that’s why I always told people when I first got her as like anything you can do I can do I might do it differently but it’s gonna get done and during that time with that marine coming in that hospital room this is when I realized in my mind that this is what I want to do I want to I want to put myself in his position I want to help out other severely wounded warriors Marines soldiers sailors airmen and I begin creating these goals and these and I you know so a lot of them brought the one broad one was staying in the Marine Corps and you know but I realized that I needed these little goals first I need to learn to get out of my hospital bed I need to go from hospital bed to my wheelchair and I need to learn to eat and the once I started realizing this and I started putting my mind in the right direction then I started getting off medications I started getting off pain pills and I started getting more weight on my body and I was injured on January 18th I was in Bethesda on January 21st and by March 21st I was headed to my poly trauma center in Richmond Virginia where I would focus more on physical therapy and occupational therapy so it’s like you know I I was young and I healed quicker but once I got into my mind that I could do this then I didn’t need I didn’t want anybody slowing me down and and I you know I went through the poly trauma center and I was there for two months and by June 29th of 2007 I was sent up on my prosthetic legs for the first time and you know one of the things that I talk about what I talk to vets is I always tell them you know people say well how do we get through this and I always say you gotta find a new mission and because you know you’ve had this mission whatever that mission was whether whatever service branch you were in wherever you were fighting you had a mission and it makes your life very clear and simple because what you do every day is you try and accomplish the mission and when I when I hear were you talking about that it’s like it’s exactly that you were in a situation you had a mission boom you get blown up now you don’t have a mission anymore and now when you get you wake up in Bethesda you’re you’re in this situation you go I don’t I don’t I’m depressed I don’t want to live anymore and then someone comes in and says hey you could help and then all of a sudden boom you have a new mission and as soon as you get that new mission you go yes I can oh and by the way you you don’t think I’m gonna be able to walk you don’t think I’m gonna be able to fend for myself watch this and you know looking back an out January 18 2007 I felt like that was the day that the the Lord above looked down on me he didn’t want me to he don’t want me to go to heaven yet and he gave me he put me on a new patrol in life as you mentioned mission and that was to share my story and inspire others by living my life to the fullest and beyond my own bare minimal and I feel like that I feel like that was my new mission in life that you know we’re all brought on this earth to serve in some kind of purpose serve some mission and you know shared my story and going out doing things that I’m doing today is inspiring and motivating others not those who were injured in combat but people who are living you know a civilian life today and it truly inspires and motivates me to continue doing what I’m doing because I know that I’m inspiring somebody along the way and I always tell people if I could do inspire or motivate one person a day then that’s a job well done for me and that’s what I’m left on this earth to do and I love it you know it’s just this is what I’ve been given and I might as well accept it and move on you know improvise something that we’re always learning the marine corps and you know when I when I do speaking engagements I focus on a lot of things in the marine corps that I learned like adapt and overcome and you know the next one is lead by example which you know a lot about I’m sure and then the next one’s never quit and through it all through those three attitude is everything if you walk into any situation with a positive attitude that’s the first step to success if you think about something negatively then you’re never going to accomplish anything so when I was laying in that hospital bed there was no negative thoughts you know and I had guys one of the Marines who were actually was wounded two months before me lost a leg in Haditha would come in day and night and he would also kind of tell me it’s like alright this is what’s gonna go on you know you’re gonna get a prosthetic it’s gonna be alone you know it’s the rehabs intense but this is it you know but put one foot in front of the next and that’s what I kept living life with and when I was trying to learn how to walk in 2007 I was a as a mm PT tender scissor walk one foot in front of next and you pretty much trip over yourself and you look like an idiot but um but with vision I was going from the right wall to the left wall and my physical therapist stopped beings like Matt just stop just just walk put one foot in front of the next and I look back on that now and that’s how we live each and every day it’s like we never know what tomorrow is gonna hold or next week we just got to worry about right now in the present and that’s how I live my life right now and I never know what that next step is gonna be but I’m gonna take that step forward you know and you know I might walk around with two prosthetic legs and look darkness and the you know the face every day but tell you one thing my my toes are pointed forward and my vision on life is 20/20 and that’s what I tell people today and it’s a I love it I love it and it’s you know it’s the adrenaline the motivation to do things when you can’t see and it hurts when you run into thanks to so so the attitude of just walk that’s that’s a that’s a beautiful attitude to have just walk quit quit all this other stuff just get up walk how hard was the transition from the bed to the wheelchair to the to the prosthetics to walk and to moving on the prosthetics it really I think getting used to the prosthetics was you know basically getting my legs used to wearing prosthetics and no that was the hardest thing because like I would go to therapy every day and I would put them on and I’d walk around in therapy but they not go right back to the wheelchair and I really never never wore them more than you know a couple hours a day just because I did swim in therapy until I went to the blind school in Chicago and this gave me the opportunity where I had no chance to go back to my room and take them off so I had to wear them from 7:00 in the morning to 5:00 at night and that’s helped me strengthen up my legs and the calluses on my legs get used to wearing prosthetics and once I got back from the Blind School six months of there I was pretty much all my legs from sunrise to sunset and and that was but you know through you know setting these goals early on in my rehab like you know reenlist and the Marine Corps was the one thing that I wanted to do and so learning how to walk I focused on that more than my my blindness because I knew learning learning life you know and the dark would be a lot easier with legs and that helped out so much because I maneuver around in a wheelchair being blind and a long cane and all this stuff and I just kept running into more things but once I got on my legs and I started using a long cane and started walking around and you know I it really helped out a lot so like that’s like the ultimate form of prioritize and execute like yeah you know what okay I can’t see but I can’t walk the number one thing we reduced exactly and what you did and they like you know it’s you said get from the hospital bed to the wheelchair to the prosthetics and then go to the Blind School knock that out and once I’m at the blind school I’m learning everything from computer to independent living and that’s a six month school go to the blind school the first program is six months and that’s basically learning to live being visually impaired and you go back for computers and they got so many different programs now but I went there for basically from July to December just because I incorporated computers and with my program as well and so I spent from July to December and in Chicago so I experienced the cold weather there but you know I learned everything from you know checking emails to Braille to taking taking a subway and train all the way downtown Chicago and circling a block and even build a birdhouse when I was in Chicago and I don’t know about you but a table saw scared me when I had vision trying to cut a piece of board with no vision that that’s a little intimidating there but I didn’t lose a finger thankfully so yeah you know that that’s another thing that I’m I’m hearing about what you’re saying it’s like the way and this is something to hear all the time but the way that you’re describing it is people say oh you know you’re gonna get your big goal you know you got your big goal in the future but what you have to do is you have to set up these little goals along the way to get you there that are pointed in the right direction so your big goal is you wanted to stay in the Marine Corps be able to re-enlist in order to be able to do that you had to be able to walk you had to be able to function and so you just had to fight through these little things every single day to make progress and it’s funny because you know the way I’ve honestly described this before is like it’s like shooting when you’re looking you know you got your target that’s far off in the distance 400 meters away if you stare at that thing your vision is gonna get blurry and you’ll lose track of it so you have to focus on the front sight you’ve this front sight focus that’s what you do and that the the thing in the background you know it kind of fades a little bit but you know it’s there and then what happens is occasionally and so it’s the same thing with your goals right you have your long-term goal but that thing’s so far away sometimes it gets blurry and if you and so what you do is you focus on some little thing that’s right in front of you that you can do and then that brings you a little bit closer to the goal but occasionally those little things that are short-term you’re doing them day after day after day after day they start to grind on you and you say you know what forget it I don’t even want to do this today and that’s when you have to look up once again at your long-term goal to say wait a second I’m moving in that direction I’m trying to get there but to hear you describe these little things and by the way you’re throwing them out there like it’s no big deal like oh I just was I went from the bed to the wheelchair to the to the to the prosthetics and I went to the blind school and the next thing you know I’m making bird cages bird feeders and like I’m the the the small effort or the small task that took immense effort along the way but you know from my perspective what I see is you made each and every one of those things a mission I’m gonna do this I’m gonna do okay I can do that now cool I’m gonna do this and these are small little progressive steps but you’re making them and you’re making them every day every day you get up and you just walk walk forward and that’s the one thing with being in the Marine Corps and has really helped me out along this way is you know being organized and getting in that routine where you know you wake up each and every day it’s like okay I’m going to knock this out this is my goal for the day and you know bettering myself was one of the goals because I knew that if I couldn’t get nothing done in this life if I didn’t better myself first and you know through the early days of my recovery getting all pain pills was one of the first things that I wanted to do as well and it’s been 12 years since I last tsegga pain pill and that’s yeah I don’t you know and it’s I didn’t I didn’t want my life to you know revert back to pain pills and just you know I feel a bit of pain then then I’m gonna go get take a pill and you know I replaced that with staying busy staying active going to the gym working out and and it really helped out a lot I didn’t just you know if I felt like I got pain and I’m gonna go give it some pain you know and that’s and that and it’s the one thing and it’s just you know through it through it all I’ve learned along the way is like people told me I couldn’t do something or I can’t do it why do you want to stay in the Marine Corps you make so much more money outside of the Marine Corps I’m like well I didn’t join the Marine Corps for money you know and that’s that that I’ve used that as motivation and it got at me along this way and and you know I just pretty much just like whatever you know you think that for yourself but I know what I my mission in life is and I kept a positive attitude and people saw that and you know and once I got back from the blind school in 2009 I started getting out doing these events and the first event I actually did was something I opened my mouth up to my physical therapist and forgot all about until like two months before was the Bataan Death March in 2009 and he walked up to me he was like Oh Matt you gonna do the Bataan Death March this year right you said last year I’m like all crap and you know walked out and I did 10 miles in eight hours and that was the first like I was proud of doing ten miles in eight hours but that was the first vent first hike that I ever fell out of that I quit on so for people that don’t know the Bataan Death March is an event that they do out here and it’s it’s 26 miles right it is and they’ve got to bring up you got to wear a rock some people yeah I just work Hamill back well explain explain what what the Bataan Death March is obviously it’s to commemorate or to remember the the folks that were actually on the real Bataan Death March but what is the one that they do here this year actually was their 30th annual Bataan memorial death march in White Sands New Mexico when I did in 2009 they it’s a 26 2 long or my long marathon and then they also have a 14 mile honorary and the the 26 2 miles actually up a mountain and down a mountain and it’s it’s intense because you’re walking through the sands and a part of it is this loose sand pit and it’s a you know it’s it’s a good test especially for people with prosthetics and you know and your kind of endurance and see how far you can go and when I signed up in 2009 I’ve walked 10 miles out in eight hours and I was like alright that’s pretty proud you know it’s got hurt two years ago but then like again like I quit and then that really bugged me and I use that as motivation and it humbled me knowing that all right you know I was a good runner before I never quit on any hikes like I would always finish and then I realized that okay I’m not who I am before so I got to learn learn this way now you know and not everything’s as easy as it used to be but once once I finished like I told the lady I told my therapist I was like once I’m done I’m putting my medical board and I’m going for my reenlistment package and and I was like alright ten miles in and and that was in March of 2009 and basically August of 2009 I got my you know my ratings back of course 100% and I chose to go through the EPL D program extended but permanent limited duty and that took all the way till April 2004 the end of March of 2010 and actually today April first would been was the day that I was promoted to corporal and with a battalion commander that called me when I was in San Antonio was like hey congratulations you’re getting promoted to corporal I was like sir is this an April Fool’s joke you know it’s like and it’s a edwood but uh on April 7 2010 I reenlist it now raised my right hand and got a chance to stay in the Marine Corps for a few more years and yeah that was the greatest thing ever right there ya know that’s that’s the reason why I started off today reading that off because for you to be doing that in the condition you were in having already sacrificed and saying you know what I got more to give and I’m gonna give it and that’s the one thing like when I was mentioned lead by example one of my therapist told me you know as I go to therapy every day and I put my legs on I stand up I walk out you know just I do my own thing and he’s like Matt you don’t ever you won’t see this of course and you will never realize this but every day when you walk in here you sit down and you put your prospects on and get up and walk out people stare at you and people look at you and and that’s the right thing to lead by example you know it’s like if you wake up each and every day and you do it the right way then people will follow you know and and I’ve learned now it’s like from living my life it’s just to wake up and continue doing the right thing and people will follow and you know it’s it’s it’s something that I’ve focused a lot on it’s not being an intense yelling leader but it’s just doing it the right way and that’s something that I’ve done along the way and of course in therapy if you’re in a marine and you’re an army guy on the ground and you know what that marine out there walking is like I need to beat this guy and then you also ended up going to college right I did I did and what year did you start college I started in 2011 at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville North Carolina was once I reenlists it they asked me where I wanted to go I’m gonna go to wound away battalion East Camp Lejeune because I realized my I could help out more there and I got there and in 2011 I went on a closure trip back to Iraq and that’s when I realized that I joined the Marine Corps to deploy and I can’t deploy now but I could still share my story and I don’t have to share my story we’re in the uniform is it the Marine Corps that takes you on the closure trip it was a non-profit first Foundation and um it’s uh and actually the the episode that I went on 60 minutes aired it in 2011 okay so it’s on YouTube but uh not good nice plug watch it there but it’s uh but I learned a lot about my time in the Marine Corps and and the one thing with being a Marine is you’re always a marine and that’s a title I get to take to my grave and when I’m 85 years old I could look at my great grandkids and be like I served in the United States Marine Corps and so it’s and during that time we were starting a family and I was getting ready to take college classes so the one thing that I’m very fortunate about is everything through life like it’s each step each chapter it comes right after the next one like I never have time to sit down and think about what’s next and you know I got out in 2012 and we moved right back to Kentucky and I started taking college classes and you know am i brilliant an amazing wife you know while we’re trying to figure out where we want to live she’s like you your dream school is University Kentucky so let’s move back to there and you can go to school there and graduate there and I started taking classes there in 2014 and May of 2017 I walked across the stage at Rupp Arena and got my diploma in media arts in history and and it’s a you know not only a marine for life but a wildcat for life I felt I felt I feel fill those strange being that you know the 30 year old like kid you know partying like a 10 year old there and when the basketball team won or something like that you know I’m just that old creepy dude over there now and that’s not the youngster anymore but but it was it was fun to go back and take college classes and everything that I learned that I should have learned in high school like I’m like loved in college now when I spoke at a Child Development Center a couple months ago and the kids asked me I was like what do you think of school I’m like you know it’s I wasn’t the greatest of students in high school but actually what I loved College I love going back in reading books I love to read now and and it it just expands my mind and my knowledge on things and it’s a you know it’s good going down and sitting down with people and and you could share it worries on different things and not just something about the military but you could talk about this and this and you know it’s uh it was fun it’s do you you’re I want to just kind of jump back to your workouts a little bit and I know you post some of your workouts and on on Twitter and stuff some little shots sometimes I know you posted one the other day of you put pushing the sledge said you’re pushing that push and sled all the way up California legit do you wake you wake up every day is that the first thing you do is is trying get your workout in I try to I prefer working out in the morning but now with traveling and you know catching up hours at work I had to do it evening workouts which I I hate doing even work so I’m ready get home take my legs off but but those are the those are the I workout an evening I tried to get him in as much as I possibly can I love to workout and if not then I’ll just do it at home I got some dumbbells and curls other curls there and um but you know throughout throughout the day I’m like constantly on my legs walking around you know doing some cardio but you know I love taking shots at you there Jocko on Twitter you know and that’s a I think one of the tweets I actually mentioned to you I was like you do the squat and I’ll do the push in the sled but you know it’s like even through even through training my trainer it’s funny because I joke with him all the time I like his name’s Josh and I’m like look you’re just here to walk me from machine to machine all right I’ll tell you what I want to work out today and and I’m like if you get to the point where all right I’m getting bored doing pull-ups put some chains on me now I’ll do some pull-ups with some chains on me and something like that I’ll do some push-ups or I’ll get to the bench press and do some chains on the bench press and it’s like just something else to challenge it instead of sticking to the same old thing you know everyday thing and it’s a and you know a personal best on the bench press couple weeks ago at 260 I’m proud of that and then of course pushing the sled and but now it’s like you know I’ve learned doing the I do Spartan races and marathons and I’ve done a marathon and I did a marathon and Africa what year was but I didn’t work out or get back on the bike for a whole year and after the next marathon I was so sore for like a week and I realized like if I stay active in the gym and workout then I’m not as sore and so like a news flash yes stay in the gym and it’s a so it’s like I’ll work out as much as I possibly can because it’s like I never know what what you know this the organization I do a lot he’s events with like sometimes they’ll just call me I’m like hey you went to a Spartan Race in two weeks it’s like oh sure you know and and you know threw me sorry let me start drinking some water now and but you know it’s like through this it’s like each year I try to find something new to do and for some weird reason this year I was like I’ve got on a stationary bike because my goal is to in July I’m going to bike from Seattle to Portland it’s like a 203 mile two-day event and then my ultimate goal in August is the bike across Kentucky on a tandem bike and so I got on the stationary bike in January for the first time I got on any kind of bike in 20 years and I’m like holy smokes this is weird and it’s like my left leg like the above-the-knee side like it didn’t work so well on pedaling so I just took it off and started pedaling on my right leg and the most I’ve done with 7 5 miles in 26 minutes and I went to my trainer and I looked at my wife and I’m like this is the one thing that I feel like I’m doing normal you know I feel like I could keep up with somebody with legs and so I really enjoyed that I’m looking forward to it but um you know like last year I climbed Mount Ranier or half half of Mount Ranier and this year I’m gonna go out and summit it hopefully in July so that is a anything I can do to really like challenge myself and always I always tell my prostitutes I’m like any like I got the x3 on my left leg which is like the best of the best and I’m like my goal in life is to break this leg it’s like if I could break it then that’s the that’s a check in the box and and the Bataan Death March you are back at that thing right attacked that two weeks ago and I don’t know if you know what it feels like to run into a train but that’s what I felt like Monday afternoon but it was a the 2009 really like I mentioned it humbled me and it motivated me you know for the next ten years it’s like everything I’m gonna do I’m gonna focus on this right here like I went into the baton in 2009 and then my prosthetics wasn’t as good and or advanced as they are now so when I went out there two weeks ago I knocked it out 14 miles knocked out eight miles and we stepped off at 6:56 and by 11:20 I hit the 8 mile marker they gave me a 45 minute mile pace and I was knocked out a mile in 25 minutes and it was I don’t know if it was my knee was hurting or just the whole fact that I’m getting ready to cross the finish line but it was like I’ll get a little emotional I’m like and this is really happening you know and to go out and walk this far onto prosthetics and I tell you one thing the models are a lot longer when you can’t see that’s for sure and but um it was it was fun you know and that I was a I was out of my legs for about a week actually this last Tuesday is the first time I put my legs on for the first time so it’s a but and you know an exact because you just trash the skin my left leg had a couple of little rough spots on it and so my wife she took a picture and since my process and then she become my nurse and but not to mention this Saturday I just walked three point six five miles in a like they call it it’s a run the bluegrass in Lexington and my wife she sent me a text and she’s like yeah think about walking this you could get your wheelchair and I’ll push you like I’m not gonna get a medal sitting in a wheelchair right I’m gonna walk it or I’m not going to do it okay and so we signed up for the three point six five miles and we will finish that in an hour and 23 minutes and for some weird reason I think walking might be my thing this year too but I have to get you out and do a race with us come & get it hey I’ve been I’ve been looking into the UM what’s the that’s the Navy SEAL obstacle course oh the well you mean the one that’s in Coronado the actual obstacle course oh no no not that one I’m not that fancy yeah no I’m Marie is a de Bona frog or a bone from bone frog yeah yeah so I’ve been looking into that so all right on well I’m sure those guys will hook you up if you want to go get after it yeah I’m not big on the water and stuff they have like you know we’ll do everything else that might not be a great combination if you don’t like the water too much I’m sure they put some water to that yeah that’s a yeah that’s uh no hey what was that what was that closure trip you know speaking about emotional I had to be emotional going to going to Iraq again it was the Holt Nam when it was mentioned to me in 2011 the only image in my mind that kept popping up is like either a Blackhawk going down or c-130 or something happening because it’s like I walked away actually I was medevacked out of that country you know from from my injury so it’s like I had no good good image of that country at all and it was nerve-racking it was even more nerve-racking being around like the Iraqi security forces you know they’re clearing rooms and doing mount training and here we stand with no weapons or anything like when I was in Iraq Nora he said rifles or aks and so that really kind of um it made me worried a lot but I think one of the coolest moments that that really helped me understand it was we were meeting the Iraqi security forces and they were all walking up shaking her hands and and you know good uniforms and they had a patch and one of the guys took his patch off and put it on my flak jacket and gave me a big hug and I’m like you know what this is this is it one team one fight here you know and there’s there’s bad people all over this world but there’s a lot more good people in this world too and another good and it really it it made the trip as we were flying back home we were going over Iceland and the pilot brought back this little letter and he gave it to my buddy and my buddy read it to me and said US forces have killed Osama bin Laden and I was like you know what that’s the perfect closure to a closure trip because like we all joined the military after 2001 to go after him you know to kill him and and knowing that this has then I closure trip it’s like it honestly like gave me it got me emotional I’ll just ready to go home be with my family and that that capped it off pretty well and I will say when I was in Iraq in 2006 Saddam Hussein was killed so Saddam was saying in the song bin Laden you know so it’s like why not but you know like I got so much other that closer trip I learned a lot about my life and like what the next step in my life is and look like I mentioned earlier like went back to Afghanistan in 2017 never been Afghanistan before my life but I felt like I got more out of that closure trip because going to Iraq in 2011 I was still in the Marine Corps where in the uniform everyday in Afghanistan I haven’t put the uniform on in five years and to put the uniform back on and go around and speak to soldiers about my Marine Corps career and be around the military again truly made me miss it more than anything in the world and you know the brothers that I met in the Marine Corps and in the military alone like they’re forever gonna be there you know no matter where you live out in this country they’re always going to be there for you and knowing that the you you know the the name tag across your chest United States of America that that means more to me than anything in this world and if if I was called back to serve this country again and again knowing the risk and what could happen to me then I would go back and do it all over again because these last 12 years have been truly amazing and I’ve done things that I would never thought I could do and I’ve done it differently and like through the journaling and through the adversity and it’s just it’s inspired and motivated me to come along the way and you know and it’s it’s it’s a it’s a life I love to live and even in the dark but I know one day will come and then there will be light in my eyes you know and I’ll be able to open my eyes and see every day but for right now I’m going to live my life to the fullest yeah that’s incredible do you do you ever you know I I’ll hear from people all the time oh I don’t feel like doing this today I don’t like doing I don’t want to workout today I don’t want to I don’t want to get up and do my job today you know does that would you hear that kind of thing what are your thoughts on that I know for me personally when I wake up and I don’t feel like doing something then I tried it or if I feel like I’m in a down mood then I try to keep that in in the house like I don’t want to go out into public because I don’t want people to see that like when I go out in public I want them to see happy mad you know positive but hearing people like just it’s hard to hear people complain about things these days you know and because you know I know what Iraq looked like then you know I was in Afghanistan and you know I know what happened to me and I know where I was twelve years ago and what I had to do to overcome that you know and it’s just some people just when they feel like they can’t do it they just get down in the dumps and they give up and really it’s like you gotta learn to battle through those adversities and you know at the end of the day when you put your head down in the pillow and close your eyes you wake up to a new day you know and a new day with new challenges but you got to learn to overcome those challenges because in life it’s a mountain you’re gonna continue to climb up a mountain and it’s never going to flatten out you’re constantly gonna go over any you know obstacles boulders whatever is in your way and the only way to go over it is to climb it it’s not to find an easy way around or turn around and quit you know and you got to learn to just overcome things and and honestly never give up never quit I clearly you represent that to the fullest so what are you doing right now in terms I know you’ve got a job what’s that what’s that all about so it’s funny how I got this job my last year at UK I was I had to go for an internship and the internship internship that I was going for was at the where I go hunting that and I was like okay well do that but then like people kept tagging me on Facebook about this Munawar your fellowship position that was opening up it’s like Matt you should try this out and I contacted one of my friends and and he was like hey I just show up at our office on this date and you could intern with us and then we’ll talk about the position and I show up on the first to hit our office and everybody’s like who are you like and then heated up getting kind of in trouble for this but but it was a so I you know interned there and then went through the interview in June and basically was hired on the spot and I’ve been working with the congressional office for two years doing veterans outreach you know we do some case work with veterans but truly just getting out in the district and being around veterans and kind of letting them know what kind of legislative the bills are out there that could affect them both positive and negatively I mean there’s so much out there that they need to know about and it’s been truly a joy you know getting the work a lot of Vietnam veterans and you know these are some of the happiest guys that I’ve ever met in my life for what they had to go through you know and and just hearing them walk up to me and be like because I’ve had them come just to our office in tears just to like just shake my hand or get a hug from me and stuff like that going through you know heart problems or whatever and they’re like you know what just being here and seeing you and what you’ve gone through it motivates me to continue doing what I’m doing because you’re inspiring me and it brings tears to my eyes because it’s like you know it’s as a veteran you know veterans serving veterans we need to look out for our own it doesn’t matter if it’s a job or not but you know the suicide rate right now is sad and you know we gotta learn to reach out and be with each other because we’re the only ones that trust and the only ones that will open up to each other and that’s the one thing that I’ve really you know I’ve tried at first which is very hard to keep my personal life from my work side but you know these it’s when you sit down and talk to a veteran and you share what you went through and and they share what they went through and you kind of come together and you talk about things and you you know at the end of the day that you’re helping them out just as much as they’re helping you out it truly means the world and it’s it knows that you know veterans serving veterans we need to stick together yeah there’s there’s no doubt and you’re doing all that and you’re also raising three kids three kids three amazing kids actually and uh you know my wife and I we are April 7th of be our seventh wedding anniversary so but you know it’s through it all the one thing that if I could teach anybody in life it’s teaching those kids that you know challenges are gonna come but you got to find a way life isn’t easy life’s hard and and if they could look at me and look at what I’ve gone through and what I continue to do today and use that as motivation to you know better themselves and better their lives and understand that yes I might have failed this test but you know what I’m gonna go home and I’m gonna get in the book and I wanna I’m gonna get an A on this next one and that’s all that matters and you know talk about him a little bit Nolan who’s 15 he’ll turn 16 couple of weeks a couple years ago he had a birthday party and and there’s this girl in his class her in his school that had no arms and no legs and he didn’t know her but he went up to her and gave her a birthday he invited her to his birthday and it like he come home and told me and Amanda that and that truly brought tears to our eyes because it’s like they’re they get it you know when I was their age if I saw a kid that was in you know special ed class I didn’t walk up and try to talk to him you know I felt like they were different than me and I stayed away from that but you know knowing that he walked up to a grill with no arms and no legs and was you know invited her to his birthday party truly brought tears to our eyes because it’s like again he gets it he’s growing up he’s a man right now you know and Emma she is just as mature as she is so helpful and caring and compassionate and Layla is the same thing you know she’s seven years old right now but it’s the cutest thing in the world is to hear her get around her friends and tell her stories about how I got hurt you know somehow the bad guys blew my legs off and killed me and she told her teacher that and I can only imagine what her teacher thought when I walked in the classroom you know but but it’s just you know they’re always there if I need them they’re there to help out and you know to to my wife I mean she’s truly amazing she has a job or self but she stops everything she can to get me to work me to an event me to a speaking engagement to wherever get the three kids to wherever they need to go our two girls are in horseback riding lessons right now and still she finds time to workout twice a day actually she you know nine to nine to two job and and it’s you know she’s does dinner laundry everything and then she still crawls in bed by eight o’clock at night I mean you know if there’s motivation in my life and there’s a true hero for me to look up to it’s her because she’s truly amazing and I couldn’t ask for a better wife and a better you know friend best friend role model mentor and you know if there’s any award out there to give to her than I mean that I would I would be up for not be the first one to sign on to it that’s awesome it sounds like you uh sounds like you found the perfect the perfect girl for you she is and you know throughout all this it’s you know the the hardest thing is to sit back and like appreciate it and the one thing that I truly don’t like I always cross if I cross the finish line I always look to see what’s next I don’t sit back and enjoy it and she’s there to kind of like to almost honestly Humble me a little bit and to set back and like let me remember what I went through to get to where I am today and without her I don’t know if I could live this life right now you know it’s always talked about it’s um you know it’s a tough road you know I’m I am blind I have bad days and some days I don’t want to wake up and go on but I tell you every day you know or every night I pray that maybe one day I’ll wake up and I’ll be able to see my wife and my kids and when I wake up I still look at darkness and then I go through my morning routine and I still grab my prosthetic legs and I put them on so I’m constantly reminded of January 18 2007 and I use that motivation to go on and love my family and love my kids and go out and do these extraordinary things because I’m never gonna let that guy who pushed that button and blew me up defeat me even though I don’t know where he’s at right now he’s never gonna get the sense of relief that he defeated me that day and you know while I’m going through these bad moments I mean nothing soothes the soul and make the heart feels so much better than here and your seven-year-old daughter walk into you and say hey daddy I love you alright man I don’t even know if I have anything else to say after that man that’s just that’s awesome I yeah man I think we’re good I think we’re good I think I think that’s a good place to stop man it’s just awesome to sit here and talk to you and you know hear your story I know echos got a couple things to cover what do you got echo sure do you think it and I always think about this too like you know how Matt you’re saying like you can choose to kind of go down two paths right so and it this picture starts to get kind of painted in my head when I hear like these cool stories so like I don’t know you know like if you’re it’s gonna be a bad analogy but there with we all know you’re good yeah we all know you’re good at that now so let’s say you’re trying to I don’t know like literally have an ant problem right you mean like little bugs yes yeah okay so this say you have an ant problem right so it’s it’s you against the ants right so let’s say you say okay I’m gonna set up these traps for the listen is let’s say mice if you got ant traps let’s say you put a mousetrap out for your mouse problem all right and then you know someone or a mouse comes and gets caught in the trap yeah you don’t kill it though you were trying to kill it all the mics right okay you don’t kill the mouse the mouse like somehow you mess it up though the mouse gets away so not only did you not kill them and then the mouse now goes recovers and now teaches all other mice how to get past mousetraps okay your mousetrap kind of worked against you so like just like when Matt said oh yeah that guy who pressed the button to to you know to blow up the bomb get me he did the opposite of what he was trying to do assume saying oh I see what you’re saying good he’s actually a good announcer get credit for that one not saying that Matt is a mouse I’m not saying that I’m just saying you know Confederates as the the will and fortitude and the lessons yeah most important so the guy who made the bomb kind of screwed himself yeah you know I mean in this big way yeah and it’s it’s you know kind of it’s hard to say that you just call me a mouse but you know it’s like at the end of the day it’s like you know I I look back at you altogether just being a marine you know and never quit never quit all my brothers and ever quitting on the situation it’s given to me and I’ll use you know the amputations and the blindness and all this stuff stacked against me as motivation you know and every now and then it like steers its ugly head but you know thankfully for my wife my family and you know the mindset mentality that I have right now and the friends that I’ve surrounded myself with that you know I kind of push it back and you know kick its butt yes sir indeed speaking of kicking butt yes what do you got for us uh bath mats on the path he’s been on the path have you ever tried to Jitsu yet if you could teach a blind girl no leg to Jitsu then I’m all for yes well I’ve definitely taught blind guys Jiu Jitsu and I’ve definitely taught guys with no legs Jiu Jitsu we’ll just put them together I think you might find it easier than the Bataan Death March yes yeah no man you can definitely you can train Jiu Jitsu all day long Ryan Joe you know one of my guys who is who is blinded and I trained with him and he wrestled two in high school so he had some background but yeah you can there’s people that competitively yeah that compete oh yeah with with no vision and the no legs thing well that you just learn jujitsu is adaptable yeah so you can you can adapt it as you as you are quite good at well you know my hashtag no legs no there’s no problem so anything like anything out there I love it actually some jujitsu training we used to do that you know they say close your eyes yeah train you start back-to-back yeah yeah and if the thing is once you have have contact with the guy yep like being able to see them isn’t that much of an identity I sometimes close my eyes just yes so you sir yeah the thing with grappling is you learn well you learn to know what the other person is doing by feel hmm and you don’t really need because you can’t see what are you gonna see anyways you just like their armpit yeah whatever you seen her yeah so you don’t get to see much anyways yeah the friend I study about that strapped on his leg in Iraq I got a video of him and I grappling and it’s harder cuz like I could put him in a headlock but you know my legs I can’t do much with that but I have a video of me like tapping email because he’s like Bray bright-red that’s like well now a million people are gonna want to see that video yeah it’s a funny yeah I mean that’s the part you kind of miss is like the look of defeat you know whatever but that’s that part oh I’m gonna know the less the rest of the day and then also sent a picture to everybody that we start with so it’s out there so hopefully you’ll roll right into that you’re good athlete you got them tennis skills know I love you said that yes on the path very good you just do so when you’re doing jujitsu on this path that we’re all on by the way gonna need a key you don’t wanna get if you do ghee which I recommend butter or Jinky this is where you get your keys at or gin main comm key rash guard there’s other stuff on there but as far as keys go that’s where you get them all made in America by the way Jack oh yeah yeah that’s the big thing so little town up in Maine and all the industry was taken away from this town and we’re bringing it back we got a factory up there we got I think we’ve got but we got a bunch of people working in the factory and they’re all craftsmen craftsmen and crafts women for all that crap yeah because a lot of them are female and you know they’re they’re making all this stuff so it’s great to see that we’re trying to make America make again did you just is that you just now I shot that two teeth my brother Pete I was like hey we’re gonna make America make again because we’re trying to make America make well it’s totally happening I mean we got what danam American gonna be yeah yeah not the kind that’s the plans for the future which is good by the way find something like big future floods but that’s not a future plan that’s we like your pants but we really like actually this is happening yes bring in here no reduction yeah I think about American jeans or may were created in America created here invented here and all of a sudden they’re getting made overseas and these and there’s no Americans that are making many more well there are now yeah yeah there are now in a factory in Farmington Maine oh yeah that’s what we’re doing yes origin Maine dot-com go there gay rash guards denim joggers no it has those elements of first yeah yeah oh yeah so I’m Batman i juice in my knee out doing jujitsu yeah like the guy name popped up popped back in yeah they do that they’re skinny yes my name is Lee James Lee actually my knees are solu again with the knees I know but my knees are so loose that I I like sprained it one time so I went to the orthopedic surgeon you know check it out he’s like aw yeah you blew your ACL I was like since I really did blow my ACL 10 to 12 to like 15 years earlier my another site I knew that my knees were loose because the gut the doctor at that time was like hey you have real like I don’t know long-legged Matata no see I know that sounds funny like Long Legs I know but that’s what he said yeah anyway so I was like hey I’m sure you just didn’t say you had to yes anyway he says yeah you have loose like ligaments or whatever but this is how you know this one is blown out and this one is not as when you pull it the one that’s not blown out boom it has a tight like mmm cord at the end of it where it just stops anyway so my current orthopedic surgeon I told him that he was like okay that’s good that you told me that so he tries the other one I’d like he’s like oh yeah they’re the same like that so it’s probably not blown out but hey MRI anyway MRI boom anyway back to my story so they pop out right that’s their thing when I twist them wrong they’ll pop out sometimes they’ll pop out so much that it’ll like kind of make the cartilage swell on the outside yeah so it takes a few days so I until I can bend them all away and a pretty slice by the way nonetheless once I did that double dose joint warfare and krill oil for dates back in the game that’s that’s quick and that’s great plus we get them Molk yes additional protein you have additional protein we got the discipline girl and the discipline and we got the warrior kid milk I got to get you some warrior kid milk for your kids mat so what it is is is like do your kids like chocolate milk they do do they like do you ever have strawberry chocolate well it was it’s not strawberry milk yeah you ever have that one my Lela seven-year-old she loves strawberry milk okay so unfortunately the milk the strawberry milk that you have to give your kids is horrible for them even though it tastes delicious I guess well there is like some protein in it right there’s some nutritional value because it does have some protein because there’s milk in it yeah but you’re also laden with sugar which is not good form no man addicted oh by the way so yeah and it’s addictive so we solved this problem and we made warrior kid milk it tastes delicious I’m telling you it tastes like I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this but it tastes like the Nestle’s Quik strawberry milk you don’t I’m talking about yeah it tastes like it’s that good I’m not kidding Leila will be all over this stuff she will be stoked if they like strawberry yeah it’s really good so we’ll get you some of that and anyone else out there that wants to raise a warrior kids that doesn’t want to give your kid a bunch of actual poison mmm sugar actual poison well yeah and here’s the thing about sugar too and try rant a little thing about this but I’ve noticed this so you know how lie when you’re they’re like little babies or whatever you’ll give them like I don’t know all kinds of stuff right and let’s say you give them formula but the formulas kind of sweet in right so it’s like it’s sweet and so they’ll like it so they’ll eat it oh yeah but if you don’t give them any sweet stuff even when they grow up they’ll like yeah they won’t eat normal stuff like a unsweetened stuff you know so I’ll use myself as a small example oh no what you know the you know the like the fruit nut fruit punch but like an orange juice concentrate when you make orange juice you put orange juice concert and then you get water yes yes but how you do it is you go um it’s like a 12 ounce concentrate yeah well say we’ll say I think it’s 12 ounces put the concentrate in and then you fill that same 12 ounce container that the consumers inner with water for time okay right little did I know it was really three times that’s how much you’re supposed that’s the recommended but my mom always did the four times she was trying to save money too oh yeah used to it I was totally used to it so then later on when I found out in high school by the way that it was really three yeah I was like I can’t do the three it’s a way to sleep yeah your mom seems ain’t saved money and made you more help you know the right path yeah so think about that and when you think about that think about this Jocko has a store it’s called chocolate store so when you’re on the path you want to represent while being on the path that’s where you go you can get your t-shirts discipline equals freedom good good shirt oh the new one on the new the new good shirt yeah yeah with less and less of my head off yeah it is weird especially after a while and like you know you look in the mirror and it’s like good yeah I get the message but you got to see chocolate face or whatever and you know sometimes you’re not in the mood for that you just get the other one do you sell your t-shirts anywhere mat they’re on my website okay and we’re in the process of getting right now he’s got the cotton shirts but we’re working on you go work out shirts as well and um but yeah and that’s Matthew Bradford calm Matthew – bruh that’s right that was it I was gonna wreck myself Matthew – Radford I wouldn’t you yeah there’s there on there as well and um you can also go in there and request speaking engagements as well and book me but yeah but yeah the shirts are there and hashtag on the front of them and the hashtag on the front is no vision no legs no problem no legs no vision no problem have a prioritize different it’s it’s it’s it’s hilarious here and people just go after the hashtag it’s like no sight no legs no vision no eyes it’s like first of all I got one on uh yeah it’s uh it’s you know that’s something I come up with like a couple years ago like doing an event it’s like you know what it just kind of stuck and next thing you know here we go no legs no there’s no problem and those uh the workout shirts you’re talking about what do you what like a dry fit kind of situation and what kinda like a drought fit but then also the discipline equals freedom t-shirt the what the material all use oh yeah that’s like I really really like that material because ya feel like when I work at a get good numbers and I got the discipline equals freedom t-shirt on so SIBO yeah you know it’s one of those things rights like what do you call it now me let me ask you this if the placebo is works is it really a placebo because that’s you know we could debate that later patients we want to get somebody else in here for that one who’s gonna start telling the story about like kool-aid or something how much water goes in baby maybe anyway you wanna represent on the path Jocko store com if you see something you like get something house this house this yes lightweight hoodies oh they’re in oh I know they’re in there up there representative of quality you know little dash of fast all I’m gonna say is see Matt you’re probably down so either way no lightweight from yeah that’s living in Kentucky mm-hmm oh yeah exactly there’s more often you’re gonna need that Kentucky but it’s kind on my main you’re not gonna need that lightweight hoodie what all right well I’m gonna be merging Kevin bring one I’m gonna wear one how about that emerging camp emerging emerging yeah immersion camp the origin immersion camp we haven’t talked about that because it’s almost sold out go to ocean I know the only words you may not home if you want to go to that jujitsu camp if you want to cover that Matt let me know alright when is it again but it’s in August all right it’s uh it’s fun we do Jiu Jitsu 24 hours a day last year as well yeah yeah we did it we rocked it as good time jakka whitey you can get that as well if you can’t deadlift 8000 pounds so you might want to order it quickly because if you drink jakka whitey there’s a 100% scientific guarantee that you’ll be able to deadlift a minimum of eight thousand pounds some people are coming in higher than that which is fine you know not ugly simple no no no it’s 100% looking right you can subscribe to this podcast because echo thinks that you’ve listened to a hundred and seventy one podcast and maybe you haven’t hit subscribed yet go echo is proven right cuz in a bunch people when I made fun of you for that and want people rally to your defense there’s a whole little group that all et or different because I have a good point sometimes come on subscribe we also don’t forget about the warrior kid podcast we just released a couple more episodes stories from Uncle Jake yeah those stars I love those stories I’m gonna publish a book with those stories by the way good idea yeah I know it’s a big shocker don’t forget the warrior kids soap from Irish oats Oaks Ranch actually it’s not for kids it’s soap made by a kid but it’s not for kids it’s for humans in general yeah that need to stay clean yes also YouTube if you are interested in the video version of this podcast you want to see what Matt looks like yeah boy yeah see what chocolate looks like if you know and yeah I was explaining to Matt I’ll explain to everyone as everyone knows Eko does not sound like he looks like you know we all know that echo sounds just I’m just gonna say it echo sounds skinny and weak hey no offense but echo sounds my kids always make fun of that yes the hey no offense but I’m gonna say something so I was explaining to Matt like listen bro most people when they see echo and they meet him they go okay cool he’s not really they think themselves oh he’s not he doesn’t look like the way he sounds yeah so I had to say Matt I know you can’t see echo but he doesn’t look the way he sounds like okay cool thanks otherwise no easy you know you might have said something like you know maybe if you’re trying to put on weight like maybe echo needs alright I was like you maybe need to do some squats when I was in the hospital I had like a color every time I would make fun of somebody then they would be in the room and I didn’t know that then they’d like blue blue like what I was gonna say and like oh okay you say the color right now oh that’s good yeah actually so yeah YouTube videos there’s also echos enhanced to YouTube videos I just saw one up today yeah what up actually technically what yesterday Monday Monday those are good check out flipside canvas dot-com that’s a little company but my brother Dakota Meyer he’s making cool things to hang on your wall yeah of highest quality made in America he made one that says good if that’s a message that you that resonates with you hmm can do that he’s got one that says discipline equals freedom and by the way I didn’t really know this until the other day and then I hate to even do this because Dakota might get mad at me but he kind of takes requests so if you heard something on this podcast and you say to yourself dang when when Matt Bradford said this when Matt Bradford said just walk I mean it could not become that can but it’s like something you kind of want to put on your wall right just walk ya know if there’s something like that hit up the code on Twitter and say hey Dakota wouldn’t it be cool if there was a canvas that said just walk you might have to put like a requests like a section like this yeah to filter that one out yeah it’s true yeah there’s some good stuff on there I went through it and was like looking out this good man and I’m not really an artsy guy as far as hanging art on the wall you ever been in a hotel yeah it’s like a picture of like a cabin you know and I see yeah they were doing you know trying to make you feel cozy but it’s like why this is a random picture of it no but yeah you get that that good one that we have that yes okay I can kind of get down with this even just the looks alone for sure and then you got another layer the good aesthetically pleasing yeah it was good and there’s layers and layers exactly right we’re gonna talk about layers in quite some time use the layer top you did but you know hey men probably my fault also psychological warfare if you don’t know what that is it’s an album with tracks of Jocko getting you getting us getting all of us through our moments of weakness whatever they may be so check out that one that’s unlike a Amazon mp3 spot where you get mp3s you understand all that stuff that’s where you get it’s really good also on it so if you’re expanding your home Jim still which we all are that’s an ongoing thing I understand get your kettle bells rings what else these mesas and clubs really good for your creative type workouts unless you unless you want to keep a boring work I like chocolate I mean that’s look I’m creating for your workout for that I’d like to do the same thing do you vary it up all the time I get things I like going back to like I love doing bench press and um pull-ups and dips but I do like changing up every now and then but you were talking big-time about the chains I love chains it’s kind of like legit isn’t it yeah yes it’s kind of dope like looking to when one like while you’re working out with them but what that does is it offers this kind of offsetting like weight to you and to what you’re doing it’s yeah it’s good especially when you change would you do my pull-ups too they’re hard but yeah love making my workouts even harder than it really is yeah that’s alright you go wait use the weight Rob John says but yeah that’s where you go on it calm actually you know what here how’s this the perfect mix morning mix or pre-workout mix like before jiu-jitsu be so on it has these uh it’s their minerals or electrolyte minerals and mix that two scoops of Discipline water and if you know I put a 5-hour energy everyone said oh I don’t want to like a boost or whatever but all you need those minerals the discipline water and oh that’s when you take like your crayon all that stuff boom perfect mix interesting yeah try that one hey guy I I got a bunch of books too striking the Dragons I got these books through I brought these up for your kids too no miking the Dragons little kids book lessons for everyone way the warrior kid and marks mission those are for like kids that want to be on the path and there’s a new one coming out it’s called where there’s a will yeah dot dot dot that’s what it’s called this phone equals freedom Field Manual if you want the audio of that it’s also on Amazon Google Play iTunes mp3 platforms extreme ownership first book I wrote with my brother LAIV babban follow-up to that as the dichotomy of leadership we got a chalan front which is leadership consultancy and what we do is work with businesses to solve problems through leadership go to echelon front comm for details we got the muster coming up May 23rd and 24th in Chicago September 19th and 20th and Denver and December 4th and 5th and Sydney you came to the monster Matt I did last year and um Washington DC really liked it I loved it I loved going there and thank you and ly for inviting me to join you all it was awesome to have you there did you relate or did you recognize the leadership lessons it’s amazing like like because you don’t think about it too much but you know it’s it’s different terminology but it all means the same and I love how like prioritize and execute and all this stuff you know to going back to the military side of it and it kind of keeps you back in the fight a little bit and so I do go back to work and like all right this is how you should lead you know and you know it’s weird to I I was I always think about leadership it’s always in my head and I always think about military stuff and actually I was listening to you talk about getting blown up and you were talking about how you guys had good dispersion and what that means is you’re separate from each other that way if something blows up or you get hit with a mortar or even machine-gun fire if everyone’s too close together then you get multiple wounded so you have to you have to have spacing now obviously there’s a dichotomy because if you have too much spacing then you can’t see each other you can’t help each other you can’t get to each other and you can’t communicate with each other so there’s a dichotomy but we used to use this real simple corrective statement and it’s real simple one jump mm-hmm don’t bunch up don’t bunch up like if you see guys patrolling and they like one guy hits a little bit of an obstacle and so it takes him a couple extra seconds to get over you fast forward that times eight guys and all of a sudden there’s five guys sitting on this obstacle they’re trying to get through it hey guess where the enemy puts a landmine they put it by that obstacles they know you’re gonna get punched up you’re in a gunfight and you see yeah there’s a little piece of cover or sometimes is not even covered but everyone just you get the instincts that yes we’re closer were were safe yeah and so he I was when I was running training always be saying don’t bunch up don’t bunch up now how does that apply the leadership I can extend a as I was working out as a matter of fact don’t bunt jump on leadership what does that mean that means if you’re leading echo mhm I need to let you lead I don’t need to come in there and lead to I’m gonna get right up and bunch up on you so when someone steps up and takes leadership don’t bunch up let him give me some space let him move and follow him and there’s nothing wrong with that so these things that I learned in the military that Matt learned in the military when you when you look at them from a leadership perspective outside the military they still apply so if you want to learn about some of that stuff come to the monster extreme ownership comm for details EF online maybe you can’t come to the mustard maybe you’re too busy maybe you don’t have that much money right maybe you can’t get the time off maybe you can’t travel that far there’s a bunch of reasons and we know that and we don’t like that we don’t so what what we did is we made EF online it is online interactive leadership training it’s it’s me and the rest of the echelon front team showing you teaching you about the principles of leadership that we learned in combat and it’s available right now if you want to go check it out EF online com and finally we’ve got EF overwatch which is us connecting leaders from the military from Special Operations from combat aviation and we’re connecting them with companies in the civilian sector at need leaders and this is one thing I’ve started to say is when people people always ask well I want to hire the right person how do I do it hire the leader you don’t want to hire somebody that has experience as a leader you just because someone is good at some technical thing doesn’t mean that they’re gonna be good at leadership it doesn’t work that way yeah so you it’s better to hire somebody that has leadership capability rather than empty and then you take that person that has leadership capability and you teach them what they need to know about the industry that you’re in so you could have somebody that was in the Special Forces and you say oh I’m gonna hire them to run this communications sales group he doesn’t know anything about communication sales group I’ll tell you what though you give him like a month and a half digging in deep he’ll learn everything he’s got to know anything to apply the leadership things that he knows from his military service into that position and he’s gonna win he’s gonna make it happen yeah and what I realized that do it it’s not to be confused with boss like Liam when you say people in leadership experiences your boss not they won’t roll in and be like I’m the boss now since I was special for you no no it’s not that because I’m humble cuz yeah we’re only bringing people in through EF from through EF overwatch we’re only bringing people in that understand the principles we talked about in extremo yeah which none of that has to do with being a boss yeah I have a thing where I had knowing my wife one of the most annoying things that I could do to her is I’ll act like I’m not listening to anyone no one can have any influence on me whatsoever and so she had some conference thing that I was supposed to go to and she’s sending me these you know she’s sending me like hey we’re supposed to be there at 6 o’clock I’m like I’ll show up when I want to yeah and then my little daughter she always takes my wife’s side because she hasn’t quite figured out my sense of humor yet and so my dog was like dad you need to do what mom says you need to go wouldn’t you know she said 6 o’clock and I was like they’re not the boss of me so my little daughter is all mad at me for luma then she realized I was joking now she goes dad’s not serious dad’s not sir he’s kidding and now now I’ve gone too far where you know my clean your room she’s like how you’re just kidding not jokes and you know joke’s on you so hey if you want to hang around with us a little bit more you can find all of us virtually on the interwebs so Matt is you already here his website Matthew – Matthew – Bradford I think that’s right Matt Matthew oh and there’s also two T’s is that a thing there are two ways to spell Matthew or am I just dumped uh-uh well does it always have to tease that’s the common way okay you know yeah I won’t I won’t emphasize it I thought I had an exercise that there was two T’s in there yeah so Matthew – Bradford comm is where you can check out Matt for t-shirts for booking him as a speaker for seeing what he’s up to he’s also Bionic Matt five number five bionic spelled wrong with the kid with a K I wanted to be young and hip when I created it you know yeah that screams young and hip yeah for sure they’re an age I got to keep beyond you know yes so and and Matt’s post and all if you if you want to if you’re feeling sorry for yourself at all check out in and follow Bionic spell to the K Matt number five listen number five for as my football number yeah and and if you want think about a graduate high school note five so there’s also uh my wife just created it here recently to a new Facebook public page no legs no vision no problem – okay we’ve been kind of posting stuff on what we’re doing and also kind of other you know amputees and stuff like that and also since you’re young and hip you also have your Graham your hands – oh yeah don’t forget about your Instagram what the the fight thing what that is people and oh is like a few leagues you’re doing about there you need to Instagram comes like I’m blind I don’t need to look at pictures she was like she’s like okay well on your Instagram council when people yell at Mina’s like how could you don’t follow you on Instagram is like we need to go talk on there’s what you need to do the next 10 post you put on Instagram all black all black and be like hey what up I’m at Bradford here you can you see what I’m talking about that’s not long look at this beautiful view of the ocean right in California doesn’t look nice hey get off your ass and go do something oh I’m back in Kentucky look it’s rich the fall that’s the spring time here comes the green grass this is what it looks like to me okay get a grip on reality get out there and live your lives no sir you got to do that I’ll talk to Amanda that’s the most I could get her on board with the program she’ll be all for that no that’d be awesome we’ll make it go viral learn that expression which part the viral part the viral Lake make it go viral okay and then that fur for your for your Instagram page is M underscore Bradford underscore USMC I’m glad you got that down yeah oh I wrote it down cuz when I found it I was like cool I’m gonna put out the word and then I’m gonna tell you to post a bunch of black pictures and then on that and so the public will is the public Facebook again it’s just no legs no vision no problem awesome and of course on all those platforms echo is that echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willy echo you got anything else no sir thank you Matt great to meet you thank you so much that goes it’s nice meeting you too any any closing thoughts Matt I just really appreciate Chako you all having me on your podcast and you know the the friendship that we started last May you know I look forward to it continuing the future and stuff and you know for everybody out there listening you know when when life gets tough just remember that one day at a time and you put your head down and close your eyes and the next day will will be over or the the old day will be over and the new day will be there so just push on better yourself go to the gym work out love life and enjoy everything that we have to offer here in the United States awesome and and thanks to everyone that has served in serving in our military and I started off this podcast by reading the oath that you all swore to defend us so thank you all out there in our military for taking and keeping that oath and obviously Matt thank you so much for taking that oath for taking that oath twice for keeping that oath despite everything that had been put in front of you thank you for your service and your sacrifice and thanks for coming to talk to us also police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs correctional officers border patrol first responders and that includes dispatchers that are staying calm on the phone on the radio to get people the help that they need when they need it thanks to all of you for protecting us as well we owe you all a debt of gratitude and to everyone else that’s listening I’m gonna take a quote from Matt Bradford’s Twitter and it says this to walk this earth blind is not the same as having no vision to walk by faith unchanged by the hand dealt is to live life as a visionary and to love life as humans were meant seek never settle inspire never complain rise never stay down no legs no vision no problem and let’s face it if Matt Bradford can do what he does if he can keep pushing and keep driving and keep finding new missions and successfully executing those missions if he can wake up every day and say no legs no vision no problem if he can have the vision he has and the heart that he has then all of us can stop complaining and we go get after it and until next time this is Matt and echo and Jocko out
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