DJ Todd

Cameraman: And we are rolling.

Evan: Okay. So, my name is Evan Reibsome. I'm sitting with DJ Todd. Today is, I guess, what, January the 18th

Evan: 18th and it is approximately 9:12 in the morning. And, we're gonna conduct the interview this way so you won't have to be looking directly at the camera. And, as I mentioned just a moment ago, prior to starting the film here, we're gonna have an interview today. It's basically three parts. The first part will deal with, kind of, your upbringing and a little bit of your background information. The second part will focus on your time in the military. And, then your last part will deal with your transition back to civilian life, if you are, in fact, a civilian or you're still participating in the military at all. And, it's a pretty open-ended conversation. You can take it wherever you want, and I'll just kinda follow your lead. I would say approximately an hour is basically what we're shooting for.

DJ: Perfect.

Evan: If we go over that's fine, and if it's not that long, that's fine too. But just to kind of put it in your mind that's what we're 1:00looking at.

DJ: All right.

Evan: Okay, I guess we can start, DJ, by, you could tell me where you're from and when you were born.

DJ: Great, great, yeah. I grew up in upstate New York. Town called Monroe. It's about 40 miles north of Manhattan on the Hudson River. Orange County. Right next to West Point Military Academy. Spent most of my time growing up there. I was actually born while my father was getting his Ph.D at Lehigh. So I lived in Allentown. He did some postdoc work at Ohio State, so I lived out there. I lived in Maryland, New Jersey, and then moved up to New York as I was going into the third grade. Three younger brothers. I'm a Marine. My brother directly under me is a Marine as well. He was an infantry officer. I was a helicopter pilot. And then two other brothers. One of them is in the blood industry. And the youngest, he's a New York City firefighter out of the Bronx.

Evan: Okay.

DJ: So grew up there. I guess normal upbringing. Played sports. Always interested in the military and I decided to follow my father and come to Lehigh and got my undergrad in political science. Graduated in 1998. When I graduated I took my commission as an officer in the Marine Corps. That works, is that?

Evan: Yeah, yeah. I wanted to back up a second before we get into your time at Lehigh and your time in the Marine Corps and just, you mentioned you were athletic in high school and--

DJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I played a lotta sports growing up. Baseball, hockey, track and field. Actually the track and field at Lehigh as well. Really competitive. Four boys in our family so we were pretty competitive. (laughs) Love sports. Love to play sports. I 3:00don't follow them too much, actually, but love competition and taking part in them. So I did that in high school and, like I said, I came to Lehigh and I started U track and field freshman year, and then I tore my ACL. Was out for a few years, and I was actually dropped from the Marine Corps Officer Program because of the knee. I was able to recover, make it back in the program and my senior year, I started competing again in track and field. So I got basically one year of athletics under my belt. But I did some club lacrosse here as well, too.

Evan: Were you recruited to come to Lehigh? Was that part of the-

DJ: No, no, no, no, no. I just, I just loved sports. So wanted to keep doing it. And, you know, so, my athletic career pretty much ended 4:00when I graduated and went into the Marine Corps. But actually now I do Brazilian Jujitsu. It's fun. Stay in shape. Good health wise and it's always learning. It's like playing chess. So, your mind's always working. So it's fantastic.

Evan: Just so I'm clear on my timeframe here. So, you grow up. You have three brothers, all younger. You're the oldest you said?

DJ: I'm the oldest, yup.

Evan: Okay, and, into sports. Did you hunt? Did you have a job?

DJ: No, no, no, no. I've actually never hunted. I may start this year though. But, (laughs). My cousin invited another cousin of mine and I out to Colorado to go elk hunting in October, so we may take him up on that. But, fished a lot. A lot of fishing. Love fishing. And I forgot to tell you. I was born in December 27th, 1975, so I just turned 41. But, yeah, go ahead.

Evan: So you graduated like '92, '93 is that correct?

DJ: From high school?

Evan: Yeah.

DJ: '94.

Evan: '94.

DJ: '94, yup.

Evan: And then you come to Lehigh in '94?

DJ: Yes, and I graduate in 1998.

Evan: Okay. And then how did you, You mentioned like, so you come to Lehigh and you're doing track and field. You're a poli sci major. And then, how does the Marine Corps get introduced into this equation?

DJ: So, I always had a draw to the military. My father was in the army. Both of my grandfathers were in the army. They were both in the invasion of France, D-Day. My father's father actually was a prisoner of war, North Africa. And my mother's father went from D-Day, he went to, he was in the Battle of the Bulge as well. So there's a family history there of military service. And, like I said, I joined the Marine Corps. I needed to one-up them. (laughs) Said, "I wanna be the best," so I joined the Marines. And one of my younger brothers is a Marine officer as well. We're both out now. Not on active duty anymore, but, I did about 9 1/2 years active duty. He did, I think, four years 6:00active duty and got out.

Evan: And was this something that was like ROTC? Was this a parallel track with college or was this something separate?

DJ: Kinda parallel. It was not ROTC. Lehigh did not have a naval ROTC program. So, it's called the Platoon Leaders Course. The Marine Corps has a program that college students can enter and they, at the time, I went to training in the summer of my sophomore year and junior year. So, two six-week programs, which was interesting. My junior year I'm going back to it. I'm like, "I can't believe I'm going back to training "after what I went through last summer." But, I had that goal in mind and I'd always wanted to be a Marine and, so, it was worth it. When you graduate, you accept your commission. So, graduation day I went and got my diploma, came over to main campus, at the flagpole 7:00right right up the street here, and said my oath and took my commission and became a Marine officer and then went to training in TBS after that.

Evan: So the summer when you're going in your sophomore and junior year, is that like leadership? You're learning skills of leadership?

DJ: Yeah.

Evan: Or is that physical fitness or a combination?

DJ: It's a combination. So, a lot of physical fitness involved, obviously, in that. You have to be in prime condition in order to make it through all of the exercises that we have to go through, training exercises. A lot of knowledge. You're acquiring knowledge. There's learning that's going on. Not only in the field in these exercises in terms of leadership, but academic learning as well. But, yes, a lot of leadership. So they're breaking you down and you're learning, as a group, what it takes to lead Marines and to lead Marines in combat, 8:00which every Marine officer should be able to be a platoon commander. So that's the basis of it. You learn how to take care of your people. How to put them before you. How to drive towards a goal. How to accomplish a mission. And the basic customs and courtesies that go along with that. I did two six-week programs. I think it's, now it's a one 10-week. program. It's changed over the years. I went in '96 and '97, so it's been a while.

Evan: And your family, I mean you talked about kind of rich family military tradition. Were they fairly supportive then, of you joining the Marine Corps?

DJ: Oh yes, yes. I'll say my mother didn't want me to join the Marine Corps. A lot of trepidation there. Keep in mind, we were at peace 9:00when I joined up. I went active duty in May, I think it was 22nd of 1998. That's when I took my commission. So we had a number of years before 911 happened. Realistically, it's every 10 years or so we're in a conflict as a nation. So, if you were a Marine, you're pretty sure that you're gonna be going into some type of combat or peacekeeping mission. I wasn't thinking about that then when I took it. And I don't know if my family was. But, yeah, they're very supportive, very supportive. Just some of that trepidation there a little bit. And the same with my brother as well, when he went in. Same type of support.

Evan: Okay. And, so in '98 you received your commission and I'm, again, I'm not familiar with the process with officers. But, when you 10:00receive your commission, have you gone to school at that point? Do you have an MOS?

DJ: No. Well, you know, so I, like I said before, I was a helicopter pilot. I had an aviator contract. Basically, when I joined the program, they said, "Hey, take this test. "Study for it. "Here's a stack of books about yea high." I'm like, "Yeah, I don't wanna be a pilot. "I wanna be an infantry officer." They're like, "Well, just take it and see what happens." So I didn't even study for it, but I took it, I did very well on it. And I received an aviator spot. I didn't even know this, but those are very sought after. There's very few of them. So I said, "Hey, I wanna drop it. "I don't want this." They said, "Just keep it. "Go through TBS," which is The Basic School. So, after you get your commission, officers go through The Basic School. You learn how to be an officer there. That's how you learn the customs and courtesies. It further enhances your ability to lead Marines, to be trained to be a platoon commander and to perform your duties 11:00correctly. Great training about six months in Quantico, Virginia. I remember, I started in November of 1998. I think it was January or February. We were in an exercise out in the field, a week-long exercise, and I think it was the second day. I'm sitting in a fighting hole that we had dug. It was probably about chest deep. But I had a little bench in there. It had been sleeting and raining and snowing for the past two days and water was up to my calf, and I'm like, "This is awful. "I'm definitely gonna be a pilot." Because flight school's in Pensacola, Florida, so (laughs) (Evan laughs) So, after that training concluded in June, I went down to Pensacola, Florida to start flight school. And that was fantastic. I laid on the beach all the time. Got to fly around. (both laughing)

Evan: I can understand there'd be a draw, yeah. And how long was that? So, you finished the six months TBS. That was--

DJ: Six months of TBS, The Basic School, yup.

Evan: Okay, and then you go to Pensacola you said?

DJ: Yup. Flight school in the Marine Corps has two locations. We have Pensacola, Florida and Corpus Christi, Texas. I started in Pensacola, Florida and did some training there. Then I went to Corpus Christi, Texas for primary training where you learn to fly on T-34s back then. They're different now. I think they're called JPADS now, the new aircraft that they have. But, it's about six months of training in that as well. So did those six months in Corpus Christi, Texas. Completed the course, graduated, and moved on to helicopters. To do helicopter training, that's based out of Pensacola. So I moved back to Pensacola to start helicopter training and that was about, that was about six 13:00months straight through as well. It sounds like it's only a year long, flight school. It's longer than that because there was breaks in time, where you're waiting to start training and, at one point in time, they put a number of pilots in charge of training for junior Marines, who had just arrived in Pensacola to begin flight crew training. So I did that for a few months while I was waiting to start training. So there's breaks. All in, flight school was about two years because, once I graduated from helicopter training, I went out to California, Camp Pendleton, to train in my airframe. I was a CH-46 Echo pilot, FROG pilot. And a lot of that training happened in Camp Pendleton. A lot of simulators happened in Miramar which is right outside of San Diego. I also went to SERE school. Survival, evasion, 14:00resistance escape out of North Island, and that was, I think that was a two-week course. One week in the field where you have to live with nothing in the field and they hunt you down and capture you and put you in POW camp and interrogate you. Not fun, but, some of the best training I ever got. (laughs)

Evan: Is that standard for pilots? Is that like an expectation or is that a school that you just wanted to pursue?

DJ: Well, I was assigned to that school. But there were not enough spots for every pilot to go to. It just so happened that I was given a spot and sent to it, but not every pilot went to it. Generally, that school is reserved for high-risk personnel and pilots are considered high-risk because we're flying missions, we can be behind enemy lines. In my training there were a lot of, I think, Navy SEALS, maybe Recon Marines, those type of MOSs and pilots, a lot of pilots in my training as well.

Evan: Wow. I wanna talk more about that. I just wanna back up for a second. So, just about the timeframe approximately, you finish your basic schooling in like May of '99?

DJ: I finished in, I think I finished in June.

Evan: Okay.

DJ: Yup, in June.

Evan: And then, you said there's some gaps in between. When was flight school officially over? I would imagine--

DJ: So I am, I think it was, I'm trying to think back. This is a long time ago. I think it was complete in either June or July of 2001. In fact I think it was June. End of June 2001. And then, I traveled out to Camp Pendleton. I stayed with a couple other friends of mine, pilots. One of my roommates from, actually, Pensacola. They were flying Hueys and Cobras out in Camp Pendleton. I stayed with them while I 16:00went to, it's called the RAG, replacement air group, out in Camp Pendleton. I got there, I think, in July, and I went to SERE School. I think SERE School was two-weeks long. The whole process may have taken three weeks but the actual school was two-weeks long. And then, I reported to the squadron, Knightriders HMMT-164. It's out of Camp Pendleton. So I got there and started training and that's when, and you can tell by the timeframe, that's when 911 happened. I remember waking up and getting ready, and, remember, we're on the West Coast now. So this had happened at, I think it was around just after nine o'clock on East Coast time. So that's, you're talking about, what is that, at six o'clock in the morning, or was it earlier? I think it was six o'clock in the morning West Coast time. So I had woken up. I had my 17:00flight suit on. I was ready to go out the door. And then my friend called me. And he was living just outside New York City and he's like, "Dude, turn on the news. "They're attacking us. "You gotta see it." So, I, literally, turn on the news on and I see the towers on fire, and I was like, "I gotta go." So I hopped right in my car and drove to base. Long line. Everybody was coming on the base right then. I got to the squadron, and I had a training flight that day. I was originally on my way in to do a briefing for the training flight. Training flights are canceled. We were put on call to support Los Angeles and San Diego area if there was an attack there. We would fly medevac or whatever types of missions needed. I remember all the pilots, and the pilots-in-training, were sitting in the ready room, just watching the 18:00news and everything that was happening, that was going on. No one new what was really happening, but I remember reports coming in that, "Hey, it could have come from Afghanistan. "We don't know." We didn't really know that much about Al-Qaeda at that point either, so, really dynamic environment. And then, it progressed from there. I continued training, graduated from that training which was about six months as well. And then, moved to North Carolina, New River, North Carolina, New River Air Station, which is part of the Camp Lejeune complex. And that's where I joined my squadron, which was HMM-264, the Black Knights.

Evan: So this is, I mean, I don't know if I've ever spoken with anybody who was active duty at the time of 911. I had joined the Reservists after 911 so there was kind of a new reality, but it's interesting 'cause, as you were saying, it was kind of unclear what exactly was 19:00happening that day from a civilian perspective especially, right? It was unclear. Especially, the first plane hits, we don't know if it's an attack or a mistake. But, it's interesting in terms of, on a military base, did you feel like there was an awareness that like, this is an act of war, we are going to be going to war?

DJ: Early on, we knew, I think a commanding officer may have told us like, "Hey, we're going to war." But, initially, we didn't know what happened either. There were no, we didn't have any intelligence reports telling us that this was going to happen. We weren't even looking for this at that time. I mean, I was in training too. I was solely focusing on learning how to fly my airframe, being able to do it to the best of my ability, and making it to my squadron. And then, one of the reasons why I chose to go back to the East Coast in flight school was that, "Hey, East Coast!" And people told me I was crazy. "You don't wanna live in California?" But I'm very close to my family so I 20:00wanted to be closer to my family. And the squadrons on the East Coast got the opportunity to go on Mediterranean floats, called Med Floats, so, you'd join a MEU and you float around the Mediterranean and you go to all the ports. I'm like, "That sounds awesome." And everyone told me it was great. "This will be fun." So, that didn't happen for me, (laughs) because we ended up being at war. But, yeah, that's how it happened.

Evan: So yeah, this is a really volatile time to be in the military. Especially to be in the Marine Corps specifically, right? And then also within a helicopter unit or squadron, I expect that there's a lot of excitement. Were you enthused about the prospects of going and doing your job in a--

DJ: Yup, yeah.

Evan: combat?

DJ: I can tell you it's exciting It was exciting. You got to remember, I'm a young kid at that point. I'm 41 now. Let's see, I was probably about 25. Once I finished everything. Once I finished high school and got to my squadron. You don't know better. I can tell you, by the end 21:00of my time in the Marine Corps, after I had joined an infantry for the first time, six Marines in Ramadi, Iraq and '06 and '07. That's the Battle of Ramadi, like the worst fighting in the war. I never wanna see war again. And, looking back, it's life-changing, but when I was 25, it was exciting, and you wanna go help your country and defeat the people that are trying to destroy your country and what we stand for. That's why you join. Because you wanna support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It's very important to me. And, so I wanted to do that. I remember my brother was the same way because he was with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1/7, out of Twentynine Palms and he was in the initial invasion of Iraq pushing up to Baghdad. He was one of the first units of Marines across the bridge into Baghdad as 22:00well. He was excited by it as well. And when you're a kid, you think you're invincible. You know it's there, the threat that, hey, you could be injured or killed, but you don't really think about that. It's exciting. I wanna go do the mission. Accomplish the mission. And, generally, you don't have other responsibilities that are tying you down that you're thinking about. Like, I wasn't married, I didn't have kids. I wanted to be a Marine for most of my life, almost my whole life. Now I get to do what Marines do. But all those great stories you read about, you know, Chesty Puller, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, the Chosin Reservoir. All those things you ready about in history of the Marine Corps, now I get to take part in that. So it was exciting. As you grow and become older, your mindset shifts a little bit. And as you've 23:00experienced war and combat, and seen the things that happen, and been in that environment which is a grind, and it wears you down, and you get in a mindset when you're in combat that, hey, accomplish mission, do the mission and set everything else aside. And when you're in the moment, you can do that, but a lotta time, you're waiting around, you're planning, and it can be very frightening as well. I wasn't really ever scared in combat until I went to Ramadi. I think we left North Carolina August 28th, 2006, and I ended up coming home from Ramadi on May 19th, 2007, which, ironically, is my daughter's birthday, May 19th, 2016, but that was a life-changing experiencing and that, Ramadi, 24:00and that changed my perspective on a lot of things.

Evan: And I wanna talk about that again. I'm curious. You said the infantry you were attached to in Ramadi? Did you do anything as a helicopter pilot prior to Ramadi?

DJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry I'm focusing a lot on Ramadi, but--

Evan: No, that's fine.

DJ: But, yes, so, I joined my unit, HMM-264, at Marine Corps Air Station New River in two, actually, I showed up in January of 2002, and my unit was in Twentynine Palms at something called CAX, combined arms exercise. It's very intense training, combined arms training, so you're working with the infantry, with artillery, with all the Marine Corps units to train as a Marine Expeditionary Unit, a MEU. We were part of 25:00the 26th MEU. I literally reported to my squadron and nobody was there except the executive officer. So I show up and, fantastic, fantastic guy, Jeff Mosher, from Boston area. And I show up and he was like, he said "dog" a lot, "Hey dog, what's going on?" I reported into him and he said, "Hey, we're out in CAX. "We're going out there," you know, "a couple days. "So get yourself together and let's do it." So we showed up out there. The unit's already out there a couple weeks training and I jump right into the training with them. Now I'm out there a few months, couple months actually. I think about two months. And we were getting ready for that MEU, like I said. We ended up coming back from that and, there was a lot of other work-ups that happened. It's a long period of time to get ready for a MEU. And then we left on the 26:00MEU, I think the following, yeah, I think the following January. It's about a year work-up time. We were not involved in Afghanistan at all. Afghanistan was going on during this time, but this is when the talk about Iraq had started.

Evan: The MEU was designed to go to that?

DJ: MEUs are designed to be, they're literally the United States' 911 force. At any point in time, we'll have two MEUs, one in the Pacific, one in the Atlantic, Mediterranean area, or Persian Gulf area. And it's a floating Marine Corps unit. You're in a battle group and you have a battalion of infantry Marines. You have an aviation detachment. You have artillery. You have tanks. You have anything you could need to fight a battle. You're so close to these areas that you can deploy rapidly and get on-site, on-scene, on-land and pretty much establish a 27:00presence there, do peacekeeping, do combat operation, do any type of operations. We're trained in all of it. And then, if follow-on forces come, we already had that beachhead, and they can move in. That's the concept behind it. That's what we were training to do. We knew there was something going on with, going to happen with Iraq. A good possibility we'd be involved in that. Anyway, I think January, I maybe, it may have been February, I think it's January, think, but, we went out on the MEU. So, we left on the MEU. Think we did go into the Med first and float around a little bit. We knew stuff was going on at this point with Iraq. 'cause I can't remember when we invaded, but it might have been March.

Evan: March.

DJ: I think it was March. And my brother's unit, like I said before, he was one of the first 1/7, they marched up there to Baghdad. We were 28:00their support. We didn't get called for a while. We were sitting in the Med. We went to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, back to the Red Sea, back to the Med. And we actually got called to go into Mosul. So we offloaded in Crete onto, a lot of gear onto C-130s. And a number of aircraft flew in through Turkey, into Northern Iraq into Mosul. I did not fly in with the initial wave. We did planning for weeks for this. Then the, I think a week into it, they said, "Hey, we're gonna send some replacement pilots out." I went out with them, so I flew a C-130 through Turkey into northern Iraq into Mosul. And then I really don't remember how long I was there. (laughs) A week or two? And they called us back and said, "Hey, we need you to go down to the Horn of Africa." So we flew our helicopters through Turkey, which is 29:00interesting. It was very cool. So, through northern Iraq, through Turkey, out to the Med. Landed on the ship and we steamed down through the Red Sea down to the Horn of Africa and we went to Djibouti. Did some training in Djibouti. We did pirate hunting off the coast there. I was a terrible pirate hunter. I never saw one of them. (laughs) But they launch us off the ship and they give you silhouettes of what the ships look like and the ship numbers. And you would look for them and you would radio in if you saw them. I don't think I ever saw one. We may have seen one of them. Like one pilot, one air crew saw one of them, but that was about it. While we were there we got a call that there's something going on in Liberia. We need you to go in there and evacuate the embassy and help the African Union peacekeeping forces there. This was 2003, so Charles Taylor, he's a war criminal, he was the President over there. He was being kicked out. He's a bad person. 30:00Very bad person. So we went in there. I had just become an Aircraft Commander at this point. Aircraft Commander's a big deal as a pilot. You can sign for the aircraft. It's your responsibility. The air crew is your responsibility. So it's a very big deal. Had just become an Aircraft Commander in Djibouti. I passed all the training. My first mission was when we first got to Liberia, we were gonna launch a mission in to get the ambassador out because, I think there were five, I don't remember how many rebel factions, but a number of rebel factions coming into the city, into Monrovia and they were closing in, taking the city, and the embassy was right on the coast, and we have to get the ambassador and his team out before the rebels get to the embassy. So, okay, I'm part of the first mission. So, but I'm Dash Two. I'm the 2nd 46. We also have a Cobra and a Huey supporting us with our executive officer is a Huey pilot. He's in the Huey. Our operations 31:00officer is the mission commander. He's leading the mission. He's in the first 46. We're sitting on the flight deck of the ship. The worst weather I've ever been in, I've ever flown in. Zero visibility. Cloud layer down to the water. We cannot see anything. So we're gonna have to fly instruments completely the entire time. So as we spin up, the OPSO radios and he says, "Hey, DJ, I'm down. "I'm shut down. "My transmission's bad. "You got the mission." So I was, remember, I had never been an Aircraft Commander and for my first time as an Aircraft Commander suddenly I have to lead the mission in to rescue the ambassador. (laughs)

Evan: Zero visibility.

DJ: Zero visibility. All on the instruments. So I was a little bit nervous there. (laughs) But, you know, we're well-trained. We know how to fly. I had a great air crew. Senior crew chiefs in there with me. One of my best friends, he was actually my copilot. And he's a great 32:00pilot as well. So we launched in. It's a little tough going in there 'cause you can't see anything. And when you're flying, you're going pretty fast. Those miles click down pretty quickly. We were about 25 miles off the coast, and I remember at three miles, he's like "Okay, three miles off, start slowing down." And you couldn't see anything. I'm just on instruments and I didn't start slowing down. So he's like, "One mile, slow down." And then, before you know it, he's like, "Half mile." And I think I was still going about 70 knots and as soon as you hit the coastline, the clouds broke, you broke outta the clouds. Embassy was right there. So my copilot, Bill is his name, I have controls. He grabbed them. Broke right and the two, the Cobra and the Huey split. I remember the XO saying, "DJ, you all right? "You need me to hold your hand down there?" I'm like, "No, I got it. "I got this." So he brought us around and we landed. Got the ambassador and his team on board. And we called back to the ship and said, "Hey, we're coming back." Our escorts were staying along the coastline as scout out 33:00for any enemy, see if anyone's out there. So we were flying back. Still the same weather. We're going back into that weather. And then both of us started getting vertigo. So I'm on the controls. We're about 300 feet. We saw kind of the mast of a ship come by and I said, "Whoop, we're gonna come up." "Let's call back to the ship and get a precision our approach into the flight deck." So we called back. Went up to a thousand feet and asked for one. They granted it, but while this is happening, I started to get vertigo. So, when you have vertigo, you really don't know what is straight and level. So, I feel like I'm straight and level. My body feels like it, but I'm actually in about a 15- to 20-degree turn, diving turn. So, my copilot says, "Hey, I have controls." Takes controls, sets us right, straight and level, then he gets vertigo and it starts falling off. I take controls back. So this is, should be a very quick flight, but it was very harrowing. So I 34:00take them back and now I started happening again. I said to my crew to, "Hey, get up here in the tunnel. Sit right here next to us, look at that altitude gyro and tell us if we're straight and level. So our crew chief is literally saying, "Hey, you're on a five-degree turn to the left, 10-degree turn, 15, come back, come back." So you're fighting your own body to come back to straight and level. Think we came up to 1500 feet trying to break out of the clouds and we got the approach after we struggled, my copilot and I struggled with vertigo, and we skidded onto the deck. The worst landing I ever did. But we survived and the ambassador ran off of there with his team. My crew chief goes, comes in the door and goes, "Gentlemen, you are fucking assholes "and get off of my aircraft." (laughing) And we got off the aircraft and said, "We're sorry about that." But we lived and we went back down and debriefed about it and what we could have done differently. I think we, our mission ended in Liberia and our MEU was over and we went back home after that. I think we spent about three months in Liberia. I 35:00think the total time we were on the MEU was seven or eight months. I can' really remember. And then, I went down to Haiti for three months after that. I think it was, it might have been April, April of 2004, supporting the United Nations down there, so a special MAGTF, A Marine Corps unit was sent down to support the United Nations and they needed aviation detachments. So my squadron literally got the call. The commanding officer called us into the ready room and said, "Hey, we're going to Haiti tomorrow. "So these are the pilots." Called us off, said, "Go home and pack your shit "'cause you're leaving tomorrow. "So, get ready. "We're gonna do the planning for you. "We'll hand you the plan when you come in in the morning. "And you're gonna fly your aircraft down the coast, "down to Haiti." So we did that. We got him down there. And we were supporting, you know there was a lot of turmoil too. I think the President was leaving. There was a lot of crime 36:00and, while we were down there, there was a pretty bad tropical storm. A lot of people were killed. So we were doing a lot of humanitarian work as well as supporting the United Nations. So I was the OPSO, Operations Officer, for the aviation detachment, for our squad, was the aviation detachment there. I did a lot of planning with the senior Marine Corps officers and with the government down there. And flew a lot of the humanitarian missions and, It wasn't necessarily combat, but we were doing peacekeeping missions where we were going after criminal organizations so, it was combat. So we did a lot of mission. And we supported a lot of those tracking down these for our snipers and for some special forces groups. And for the Chilean Special Force that is actually very good. So with them too.

Evan: Is that kind of operation tempo just to the norm? I mean, how do you do that as a--

DJ: It was the norm when I was in.

Evan: Wow, that's--

DJ: Before the war it was not. So, literally, right back into Haiti. Then we came back from that and we were going to Iraq again, Al Asad Air Base, to support operations. And we did that in 2005. The beginning of 2005 we left for that. So you have very little time to breathe and it wears you down.

Evan: Mm-hmm.

DJ: It wears you down. I remember my last three years in the Marine Corps I owned a townhouse in Wilmington, North Carolina. I, literally, lived in that house for about six months. Because you're always, if you're not deployed overseas, you're at a training exercise in Twentynine Palms, California for two months. Or, Yuma, Arizona for MOTS, for two weeks at a time, or a month. Or, you're in wherever else, whatever base, doing training for two weeks to a month. So it never stops. And then you're doing training at your own base, at your own squadron area the entire time. You're getting qualifications. You're keeping your qualifications. You're doing night flying. Flying on 38:00night vision goggles, which is straining and draining as well. So it never stopped. Like I said, we went to Al Asad, did another I think it was eight months, seven or eight-month deployment. I don't remember. And that, we flew all different types of missions. Supported combat operations. Flew Marines into combat. We actually had a mission where Delta Force had found Zarqawi and they were gonna send us out there and we were gonna fly them in. We called it off at the last minute because another Delta Force unit got into a fire-fight. A lot of them were shot up. They came back with prisoners. And we were interrogating them. And if we were gonna launch to go get Zarqawi there was a good chance we were gonna lose at least one aircraft, maybe more. And we said we'd do it, but Delta Force leadership called it off at the last minute. And then we flew medevac. A lot of medevac flew into Baghdad almost every night. From Al Asad, flew into Fallujah flew into Al 39:00Taqaddum Airbase. Flew into Ramadi quite a bit. Abu Ghraib prison. I'd fly prisoners in there quite a bit.

Evan: And is that some of just the expectation that you get used to or is this your personality? I think of like units that just, their job is to patrol a certain neighborhood and they do that for six months in Iraq or Afghanistan But is seems like you're really kind of a fix-it, kinda of a--

DJ: As a pilot, that's what you do. That was the expectation. That's what our role was. We needed to support the Marines on the ground. You support the infantry. Everything the Marine Corps. Everybody who's not infantry supports infantry. And that's what your job is. And that's how we win. And that's what we did.

Evan: You're just really flexible.

DJ: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Any night or any day, it could be any one of let's say 10 different types of missions. We did reconnaissance. We flew out as a section, which is two aircraft. And we looked at different areas. Now they have drones that can do that, but I'm talking back 40:00before it was so proliferated. Look for enemy. I think I only got shot at a couple, maybe twice, when I was flying. So, you're high above it so it's not really that scary. Scary things happen when you're flying all the time, but we flew into sandstorms. Every night, I think they're called haboobs, I think from May through like the summer, there's literally a sandstorm like every day. They can have really bad sandstorms where you can't even see your hand in front of your face. You can't fly in that. You'll die. You can't even get the aircraft started. So, but, generally, they were there every day and night, there would be blowing sand where you couldn't see well and we had to fly into that quite a bit. Fly through that to accomplish the missions. So you get used to it. You really become a good pilot as well, doing that. But towards the end of my time at Al Asad, the Marine Corps sent notification to our squadron that we need two pilots to go become 41:00forward air controllers with infantry units. This is how the Marine Corps fights. Combined arms. You integrate pilots into infantry units so you can better support the Marines on the ground because you have that pilot there who understands aviation, understands how to utilize aviation assets and can talk to those aircraft 'cause they speak the same language, and get them to support those Marines on the ground. So whether it be medevac, whether it be reconnaissance, or whether it be delivering munitions onto the enemy targets and neutralizing those enemy targets, that's what I did. I volunteered to do that because I'm crazy. I knew that one of those roles was going to go to Ramadi and one would be on a MEU. So I volunteered to do it because, if you recall earlier, I said that I wanted to be an infantry officer. And I wanna drop my flight contract. I thought better of it and I'm glad I had, but I always, when you think of Marines, you think of infantry. 42:00And every Marine who's not infantry supports infantry, so I wanna be part of that infantry too. And, it was actually the most rewarding experience in my career, but it's also the toughest. So I volunteered and I became the air officer. I ran the aviation department for 1st Battalion, 6th Marines out of Camp Lejeune. Lieutenant Colonel Journey, Bill Jurney, was our commanding officer. He's now General Jurney. Amazing. The best leader I've ever had. And, so, we went, we worked up. We did all that training that I had talked about earlier. Did two months in Twentynine Palms. And then we went to Iraq, and, like I said, I think I left on August 28th, 2006 and I came home May 19th, 2007, so that was the Battle of Ramadi, part of the Battle of Ramadi. And I remember the day I got on the ground in Ramadi, we flew in at night, 43:00and I was advance party, so I was one of the first Marines there from my unit because I had to turn over that with the aviation department from 3/8 Marines. I had to learn what was going on so when the other pilots came that I oversaw in our aviation department, and my radio operators, I would know what to do. I would know how to task them out. I would know how to organize things. I had to know the lay of the land. Literally got off the helicopter. So you're flying into Ramadi. And you can see traces of like gunfire in the city. I'm like, "What did I get myself into?" So we land on the helipad, but their air officer's there to meet me. He's like, "Hey, I'm glad you're here. "Let's go to our, find your rack, drop your shit. "Let's get some chow and then get some sleep "'cause we're going on a mission tonight "and you're coming." So I was like, "Okay, Roger that." I got all my gear in order. I swapped out my ammunition. They gave us a new type of ammunition and got ready to go. Ate, slept and then, as soon as the sun went down, we went out on a pathfinder mission. We went to clear 44:00IEDs. That was scary. So, literally, I was in the United States like two days prior, three days prior. Now I'm clearing IEDs, or I'm part of a mission supporting the Marines clearing IEDs in the center of Ramadi. Like the heart of Al Qaeda and Iraq. Like the worst fighting of the war. And I was scared the entire mission. And it is a long mission. I'm talking like 10 hours. Like frightened the whole time, like, because any wire across the road could be a trigger for an IED. Any pothole could be an IED. Any pile of rubble could be an IED. Any milk carton laying there could be an IED. And their officer's telling me like this is, we got hit here, we got hit there, we lost a Marine over here, we lost two Marines over here. Watch wires like that. That could be an IED. And look we're rolling over it and, literally, your butt 45:00cheeks are clenching every time you roll over something like that. (laughs) And I'm sweating the whole time. And I get back. I must have lost 10 pounds. We get back and I'm like, "Holy cow." And he's like, "Hey, that's every night. "We do that every night. "How you feeling?" I'm like, "That was scary." And he's like, "Yeah, it doesn't stop." So that was just the start of it. And then my Marines got there and we tasked out the jobs. We supported combat operations every day and every night like that.

Evan: And, I mean, such a vivid description you're giving of that job, what it was like on the ground. Just to give some context, right, I mean, this is when Iraq is collapsing, correct? I mean--

DJ: Yup.

Evan: in terms of the war effort, I mean this is really a bad time for it, right? It's prior to the surge.

DJ: So, if you remember, back in 2006, that was when everything went, we were losing a lot of men and women every day. Very pitched battles were happening. Fallujah had already happened. Ramadi was going on now. The Battle of Ramadi, I think started in June, right? Or, May or 46:00June of 2006. I think concluded in December. But, that was rough, rough. Like that was some of the worst fighting since Vietnam. 3/8 was hit hard. Hit hard. I think Navy SEAL got, When I was there, a Navy SEAL got the Congressional Medal of Honor in Ramadi, Mike Monsoor. I think that was in the end of September. But we lost, I think we lost the first three Marines in the beginning of October. Got hit by an IED. And I remember I was controlling air and one of my pilots, Clint Weber, his dad was a three-star General. He was out one of our outposts and our Marines got hit in their 7-ton. Totally destroyed. They were killed. But they sent out, Their company came from the 47:00outpost. They were running to get there to support, and because they were and started crawling all over the rubble trying to pull out whatever they could get from it. And my guys, I'm controlling the aircraft from the command center and my guy's saying like, "Run air on them now. "Shoot them now." And I'm like, "I can't." And I remember thinking while I'm watching them do this, like, "I'm gonna kill all of these guys right now. "These scumbags." But, I'm like, "What if they're a live in there "and then I run it and I kill them?" And I couldn't live with myself. So I didn't. I remember, "I can't do it." And my guy was like literally yelling at me, like, "Do it now, do it, do it! "Give me control. "I'll do it." I'm like, "No." So I had to make that call. That was tough, tough call. And then afterward, we knew afterward they were already dead. But I couldn't take that chance right there. But then, after that, I ran a lotta air, so we got them 48:00back. (laughs)

Evan: That is an intense mission. You said that happened in October?

DJ: I think it was the beginning of October. I wrote all the command chronologies for my unit. I should have reviewed them before this, but I didn't.

Evan: I was just trying to refresh my own memory. So you said, I think you got there in like August? Is that right?

DJ: Yeah, August, well, I probably set boots on deck in Ramadi, it may have been like September 1st or September 2nd. I left North Carolina 20 in October, I think. I may be off a couple days. Maybe it was October 20th when I set boots on deck. I can't remember, but you fly over. You fly into Kuwait and then you fly up to Iraq. So, you literally fly over it. It's like 19 hours down to Kuwait. You stay overnight. Then you fly up the next day into Iraq. And we flew into, I think we flew into Camp Victory in Baghdad. Yeah, and then you took helicopters over 49:00to Ramadi. 46s over to Ramadi.

Evan: I'm trying to get the timeframe right, 'cause that's very early in the deployment to lose three men.

DJ: Yeah. It was intense. We had SAFIRE events which are small arms fire events, like constantly, all day long. Those first, until December, maybe January, it was all day long, you were having SAFIRE events. Every night you were having IEDs. There's snipers all over. It was a very kinetic environment. We were engaging the enemy every day. I didn't drop ordnance all the time. It's specific instances that I did and that the requirements were met. But our Marines were engaging the enemy every day. Every day. We had patrol go out. You knew we were gonna get in contact. If you went outside the wire, you were gonna get in contact. At one point they restricted the food that would come over to us from Camp Ramadi, which is the Army's base where they had Subways and Pizza Huts and ice cream sundaes over there. We were 50:00living, our chow hole, was a bunker with sandbags all over because we would get mortared and we had MREs to eat and, well we had hot chow normally. But they restricted it to only delivering once a day and that was early in the morning because if they went during the day, they got hit with IEDs or hit with snipers and so they couldn't do it. It was too dangerous, so. Like that's the level of contact and how kinetic it was for us.

Evan: How? Can you try to explain, I mean, in terms of how do you do that every day, day in, day out? How do the Marines do, is there any downtime? I mean, is there any way to recharge your batteries--

DJ: Yeah, so it drains you, wears on you. I lost a lotta weight. I think I came home at 185 pounds. I'm not a small guy. I think I was about 215, 217 when I went over, like 6' 1". I was a stick when I came home. It's from the heat, but it's from stress too. When you're not 51:00in a mission, you're not out in the city. There's a lot of time when you're not doing much. Maybe I'm not a good example because I was on the staff. I was running the aviation. So I'm planning. Doing a lot of planning. But like you watch movies. If you have the opportunity, if you're not out at an outpost, and you're on the main base, Hurricane Point is where we were, you can talk on the phone at certain points in the day. I know it was restricted whenever we had casualties. It was, you know, communications were restricted, but for obvious reasons. There's email. There's computers. And the connectivity is not what it is now. Back then it was not what it is now. You read a lot. But it's 52:00like intense when you go out on a mission and when things start to happen. But, to recharge, you suck it up. Like, you're a Marine. We have a mission to do. And you're supporting your Marines next to you on either side of you to accomplish this mission for our country, for your Marines. So it's your responsibility to do that. So you fight through it. But it wears you down. You're exhausted. You're tired. And the, not only the stress of just the going through that every day, which it, I'll be honest, like some of it's fun. Like it's, you're never gonna get that rush again. You're doing cool stuff. You're doing stuff people make movies about. You're doing stuff that little kids wanna do when they grow up. That they wanna be that, right? I did that. It's awesome sometimes. But, it can wear you out. And it can happen, but 53:00you have to vigilant about that. You have to worry about complacency because when you become complacent, that's when you can get killed. Or you can get killed at any time, but becomes easier when you say, "Hey, you know. "I'm not gonna wear my cotton undergarments today. "I'm gonna wear this Under Armour thing. "It feels better. It's cooler." Nah, because you get hit with IED, and that stuffs gonna melt and burn right to you. That's complacency. There's other types of complacency. "Hey we're gonna cut corners on this mission. "We're gonna go down the street because it's quicker "to go to this area." That street might not be clear of IEDs. They may want you to go down that street so they have an ambush set up. You can't be complacent. You have to fight that and you have to be cognizant of it. But, to recharge yourself, it's tough, it's tough. It's knowing what your mission is, what your goal is and that you're supporting your Marines on either side of you and you're going marching towards that mission. And it's tough to come home from that in that kinetic intense environment. Literally, I 54:00came home May 19th. I think two weeks later I was on terminal leave. So I'm walking down the street with like normal people. I had no idea about the environment. And I just walked out of an environment where there were IEDs and snipers. I'm calling in the air on Al Qaeda guys and insurgents, on bad guys. Eliminating targets. And now, there's somebody honking at me from behind because I'm sitting at a stoplight too long. Or they're in a rush for whatever reason. Like, "Hey, you have no idea." Like, "Chill, there's no reason to be worried about this." And you have to deal with that. And it was tough. My transition was not easy. Part of it I put this on, it's on myself. I take full responsibility for everything. I should have thought through it a little bit better. But, it happened quickly and I didn't do it. I didn't think through it the way I needed to. But I literally went to separate, SEPS and TAPS class. It's like a two-day class. It's garbage. At 55:00least back then it was. And they're like, "All right. "Hey, you're a civilian now. "Good luck. "You're on terminal. "Good luck." I had just left two weeks prior I left the combat zone. Left Ramadi, the worst combat zone that we had, and, all right, figure it out. What are you gonna do? And all I had known my entire adult life, I was 31, was the Marine Corps. And it was combat, right? So now I have to find a job. And originally I was supposed to get out in February, but the surge happened in January and they're like, "You're staying here indefinitely." And I'll tell you, when we got that word, that was the toughest time for my now-wife. She was my girlfriend at the time. Because I remember, I was on duty in the COC. President Bush was on one of the six big flat screens we had on the wall and he was like, "We're conducting the surge. "We're gonna send this many units to Iraq, "this many people." As he says that the phone rings, I pick it up, 56:00"Captain Todd 1/6 Marines." It's like, "Hey, double dog. "This is the General. "Let me talk to the CO." Hand it over to the CO. "Sir, the General's on the phone." Just says, "Roger that, Sir." Hangs up. Turns over to me and the other officers there. "Hey, we're staying indefinitely. "Suck it up. "Go tell your Marines." (laughs) So, we had to go. I'm like, "Okay, this sucks." Went and told my Marines and then I had to call my wife, or my girlfriend at the time, and now my wife, and tell her. And she was like heartbroken. Because, you see on the news like every day what's happening in Ramadi. And I was on the, Oliver North interviewed me right before a big operation we had, on Fox News. So she saw me there on Fox News and everything and I was supposed to be coming home in like two months at that point. And, but, yeah, but it didn't work out that way. (laughs)

Evan: Wow.

DJ: But anyway, yeah, when I got home, you have to figure out like a job. You have to figure out what you wanna do. You have no idea. You 57:00just walked out of this and walked out of everything you've known as an adult. So you have to figure that out. And there's nothing there to help you and guide you. Unless you've been through it, you don't understand what you feel like. And everyone says like, "Thank you for your," That's awesome, man, but, like, I can't even figure out like what I wanna do. I can't even figure out where to go. I can't even figure out how to like, chill out. How not to be intense. Because, when you live in an environment like that, your adrenalin stays up. And that's a physiological response. And it takes a long time for your body to stop producing that adrenalin and let you come back down to a level attitude, right, to normal. So you can't just shut it off.

Evan: So how did that process work for you? Just a matter of time? I mean, your girlfriend helped or, was she supportive or did you have a nice network of people--?

DJ: It's time. I have a great family. Family's supportive. Friends, really supportive. I remember my wife telling me, "Dude, you can't 58:00chill out. "You gotta chill out. "You need to talk to somebody. "This is like, you're like too intense. "This is not normal to like be like this all the time." I'm like, "What are you talking about? "This is totally normal." Because it is normal for me, right, at this point. So, eventually after like months and months of not being able, just like being hyper aware and vigilant and exhausted. I couldn't rest. I was just exhausted all the time. And I finally went, I went to the VA and I'm like, "Hey, can I just talk to someone? "I need to chill out. "I need to just start thinking about "how to get myself back down to a level attitude here." And it's not like, I wasn't crazy. There was nothing like that. It's just I'm exhausted and I'm intense and normal people see it, I say normal people, like a civilian that had never 59:00been in that situation would be like, "Dude, you're a little intense for me, "a little crazy for me."

Evan: Was that a good experience? I mean the VA had some scandal about this time

DJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Evan: when they got inundated with returning like yourself, returning vets--

DJ: Yeah, so, here's what I'll say about the VA. They do the best they can with the resources that they have. There was a long backlog. I went to one of my, the local VA rep and he was able to go to the Congressman and be like, "Can we get DJ in?" I hurt my shoulder in the Marines and I got surgery on it a couple years ago. That was months for me to get through that process. I didn't get surgery through the VA. I did it privately, but, just to get like an MRI on it and everything took a while. And then went I went back in just to talk because (laughs) I was pretty intense, that happened pretty quickly actually. That wasn't that, like a week, maybe. They do a good job with what 60:00they have. They have antiquated facilities. They have antiquated systems. I don't think they have enough people. So they need to fix that. But I'll say that they do the best they can with what they have.

Evan: So this is in 2007 all this is happening? You got back

DJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is 2007, fall-winter 2007.

Evan: So what's happened between what you're describing here to where we are today in 2017?

DJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's been about 10 years.

DJ: It's a lot of information now.

DJ: A lot of information, right? My wife and I eventually got married. We didn't get married right away. But, so I went to work at General Electric. Manager of General Electric managing union teams on a production floor in upstate New York, Schenectady. Fantastic company. But, 61:00I was really secluded up there. It was just me and winters were long and cold up there. But also, my boss, the guy who ran the whole plant, he was an Army Ranger in Somalia back when Black Hawk Down happened. He was disabled from that and he would talk to me a lot. He was like, "DJ, you're crushing it here. "You're doing awesome. "But, I want you to think about getting, "you have your GI bill, getting your Master's degree." He's like, "I came here. "I left, went back to get my MBA and I came back. "I want you to get your degree. "Use it. "You can come back if you want." So eventually, that helped push me to go get my degree. So I came back to Lehigh. But, when I was doing that, It was funny. When I told him that I was leaving he was like, "All right. "I have to do this. "I have to ask you what I can do to keep you, "to get you to stay 'cause I love you here." But, he's like, "I know you're not going to because of our conversations." But, anyway, I left and 62:00I had the opportunity to be part of a startup as well. I learned more doing that than getting my MBA. I highly recommend that to people. If you could, you learn more by doing. So, I learned more about running a business, starting a business, and I learned more about myself and how I needed to change and how to make myself better starting a company than going to school and getting an MBA. Ten times more. So I did that for a little bit. My last year in school I got an opportunity to join the MBA Leadership Development program at Vanguard. So, financial services. I joined that and I got to work with some great leaders and officers there at the company. Did some great projects. I was in the international division on the Canada team. I figured out can we move into the Canadian institutional market and what those products would look like. And we moved into it. Really cool. Since then I've been running part of our retail operations division at 63:00Vanguard. So I've done that until now. I also just started working with a nonprofit and joined the board of a nonprofit where we provide clean water solutions to communities and to schools, medical clinics around the world. We have a product that we get out to them and so we're working with a foundation down in Haiti right now, Ghana, Nigeria. We have a few units in Indonesia, Panama. I'm on the board there and helping drive that forward and grow that organization right now. So, personally, my wife and I got married. She's from Brazil originally. But she's been up here since the 8th grade. We're married, live in Wynnewood and we have two kids. My son is about to turn three. Cole is his name, on February 12. And my, I have a little girl. She's seven months old, about to turn eight months. She was born May 64:0019th, 2016. Luciana is her name. We're in Wynnewood. Have my dog. He's a pit bull. Great dogs. Yeah, so it's great. Life is great.

Evan: Living the dream.

DJ: Yeah, it's fantastic.

Evan: I have two more questions.

DJ: Sure.

Evan: The first one is, what you're doing, what you're describing, this rich life that you have after the Marine Corps really engaging life and it sounds wonderful in terms of the nonprofit you work for and Vanguard and the experiences you've had. Did your experience in the Marine Corps prepare you for that? Do you see a correlations between these two?

DJ: Yeah, yeah. The military trains the best leaders in the world. That's the best leadership training, hands down, you can get. Corporate 65:00organizations talk about making leaders, training leaders, all this great training and initiatives they have. It all pales in comparison. In terms of personal accountability, making decisions, speed of decisions, you can't beat what you get in the military. Civilian world's a different animal. You have to learn the customs and courtesies of civilian life. That's hard. Because you go from a certain mindset, depending on how long you spend in the military, kinda really determines how inundated you've become with it, how absorbed into that mindset you are. I was in almost 10 years. It's pretty, actually longer if you count my time going through officer, kinda like 13 years. It's pretty ingrained in me. It's a lot different from somebody who spent 3 1/2 years or 4 years in. But, it prepared me to deal with adversity to never quit, determination, which is all necessary to be successful in life. And I think it prepares you better than anywhere 66:00else and anything else. Because you see things and go through things and build teams that nobody else can even comprehend. So, like I did mention though, you have to become aware of how to function and what the culture is like outside of that. And you have to be open to it. You can't be closed-minded, thinking that I know better because I've done this. You haven't done anything in life compared to what I've done. No one cares. No one cares. You need to accept their points of view. Accept people's points of view 'cause everyone has a valid point of view. You need to be open and understanding of that. I think the most important thing for people transitioning too, is to understand that you had this great mission in the military. Okay, that book is closed on part of your life. You can always be a part of it, but you're 67:00not running those missions anymore. You're not part of that exact mission anymore. You have to find something that you feel passionate about and you can put yourself behind. So you can replace that with this. Because if you don't, you're gonna be lost and you're gonna meander around and you're not gonna feel content. And I'll be honest. Financial services, that's not my thing. Like Vanguard, I don't think Vanguard's my place where I'm gonna stay. It's because what drives me, what's important to me. Like the water stuff I'm doing, that's awesome. And, you're like, you're helping people. You're driving change. I'm part of something. I'm able to take action. Make decisive, be decisive, make decisions. Drive it forward. And I like to win. And I'm gonna make us win. It's harder to do that in a big organization. But, you need to change your mindset when you come out. You need to flip that mindset. If you don't do that, if you don't change that, 68:00you're gonna have a hard time. And I had a hard time at the start because it was hard for me to do that. But it's over time, it's getting experiences and it's talking to other people who've been through what I've been through. My first couple years out, I didn't really talk to any, I didn't know anybody else who'd been, aside from my brother that had gone through this before. Now there's like lots of resources out there where you could can with veterans who've gone through it before and you could talk through things and I can say to someone, and I do this on my own, I've talked to vets and helped get them ready for interviews and how to think about things differently. Like, "Hey bro, I went through the same thing "and this is what I found. "That's great what you're doing. "You might also think about it this way too "and add that to your toolbox there. "That can help you out a lot too just from what I've seen." And that's really helpful, I think.

Evan: That's great advice. My last question is, it's kind of a big question and it might be a two-part question and it's that you have this 69:00rich tradition where your father served in the military, your younger brother served in the military, your grandfathers served in the military. And yet, I'm wondering, hearing you describe this, that you have a son and a daughter of your own. And, you said that you've changed. That Ramadi changed you as a person in terms of you, you're 25, maybe and you're feeling invincible and now you're 41 and your experiences have changed you, changed your perspective. One is, would you be excited for your children to join the military and follow in that tradition? And two, we think of this video, high school students could see it. Is there advice that you could give them in terms of, from a 41-year-old perspective who's gone through this experience, that maybe an 18-year-old might not have?

DJ: So, I'll talk about my kids first. Yeah, I would support them. It made me the person who I am. And I love who I am. It gives you this 70:00unique perspective that you can't get anywhere else. You can't go to Lehigh and get this. You can't to to UPenn. You can't go to Harvard and get this. You can't go anywhere and get this, except for the military. You have a great mission where you change the world and you help our country. And you support and defend the Constitution. It's going to make you a better person in terms of responsibility, in terms of mission. Gonna make you a more enriched, and give you a more enriched and fulfilled life. But it's dangerous and you have to weigh that. But I want you to do, I want them to do what they love and if that's what they want to do, I'm gonna support them. But, I'm gonna be, I know what could happen 'cause I've seen it. And I know the life that they'll probably live if they go through it. So I'll always be scared and nervous, but I would 100% support them in their decision. I'll never push them to do anything. I'm not that type of like psycho sports 71:00dad or you have to do this or do that. They can do what they want. They can take from my experiences or what they've read about and seen and make their own decisions. But I would hundred percent support them and I think my son will wanna be a Marine Corps aviator because he's obsessed with it. I mean he's only three, but, anyway. I love the Marine Corps. I love the military. And I love what it did for me. So, yes, I would support them. From a high school kid's perspective, think about what I said. Think about how it enriches you and gives you those experiences. Think about how it opens doors for you. You have to think about what people and how many people have been, are veterans. 72:00What they've been able to accomplish based on that. You look at Fred Smith. He founded Fed Ex. He's a Marine aviator. I think he was a Huey pilot. I think a disproportionate amount of Fortune 500 executives and CEOs are military. There's a fantastic network of military people around the country, around the world, who, just because you're a veteran, they're gonna help you out. If a veteran comes up to me and asks me for help I'm gonna help them. You're my brother, you're my sister. I don't care where you came from. What you do now. We're family. I'm gonna help you. So think about what you get with that. Think about the mission that you do. Think about the skills you get. The opportunities you're gonna get. You're gonna get, your schooling's gonna be paid for. And all the education you're gonna get in the military too. It's a great opportunity. But you also have to think about your family and is my family okay with this? Is it gonna put me in 73:00a good position? Is it gonna put my family in a good position in terms of where we are now? And is it something that I truly want? It needs to be a calling. I guess you could join the Air Force. I'm just joking, but (laughs) I know with the Marine Corps it's more of a calling. You don't just join the Marine Corps. You have to want to be a Marine. I wanted to be a Marine since I was a little kid. If it's not your calling, you're not gonna be able to put forth your heart into it and you're not gonna be successful 'cause it's the hardest thing you'll ever do, hands down. I mean other things could be hard, but it's a very hard, very, very hard life and, but you are gonna be a hundred times better for it when you come out.