don’t know what happened. They stopped recording. I didn’t do anything. So we got Padua and the Tudors. What is this about? “Students of law, exiles, tourists and intelligentsias, students of medicine and natural philosophy.” So this one kind of sounds, I mean, it’s going to be deep and no pictures, so that’s kind of boring, but it should be decent. We’ll put it to the side too. See, I’m trying to tell you to get a box, you never know. Obviously this is going too, but we’re not going to do that one. Storm in a, can’t talk today. Storm in a Teacup, the Physics of Everyday Life. All right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. “What goes up must come down.” I’m already liking that one. No, I’m just kidding. But yeah, it goes in the back pile, we will talk about that one.
Then we have Harry Potter, which we’re not doing the Harry Potter. I am one of those few people in this world that has never, ever attempted or had the desire to read Harry Potter. So I’m sorry if I offended you, if you’re a true, avid Harry Potter fan. I’ve never been one to believe in magic too much. I believe in the guy that gets up on Houdini, I like that, but wizards and witches and all that, no, not really. I think I’ve watched, when they’re on TV, I’ve seen a couple of them, but never [inaudible 00:01:51] man. So look, we basically [inaudible 00:01:54] box and discuss the whole box so that’s not really what I want to do. You saw how many boxes we have back there. There’s no way we’re going to get through all this continuously, every book in the boxes, right? We’re never going to get through, but this is interesting.
Reassessing the Presidency, right? Let me read what it says. “The rise of the executive state and the decline of freedom.” That is what I want to read about. That sounds really interesting. Just because we’ve already been talking in this one and we’ve got to combine the other video. That’s going to be more than what I want to discuss at this particular moment. Why? Because we’re going to go through more than just a couple of pictures on there. So we were doing Among Heroes, right?
See if we see anything interesting in here. “All the events of this book are true and are described herein to the best of my recollection, the names of the heroes in this book are real, however, some connected names have been changed to protect the identities of people incidental to these stories of the friends who are still in active duty. I have at all times sought to avoid disclosing particular methods and other sensitive mission-related information, and this book was submitted to the Department of Defense for full review prior to publication. As much as possible stories of my friends and their exploits have been compiled in full collaboration and partnership with family members.”
So what do we have? Are we starting at four? Here we go. “Introduction, superhero Mike Bearden, Daredevil Dave Scott, quiet professional Matt, and visionary John, rough men standing by and everyone’s best friend.” What is this, Among Heroes. So this is Brandon Webb with John David. Well, he doesn’t even mention himself. Do we want to learn about the daredevil, the visionary, the quiet professional, the superhero, everyone’s friend, or the rough men? Let’s go visionary. I know you guys probably think of Daredevil, but I want to see what is a visionary to Brandon Wire, and why are we discussing visionaries and war? So that’s why I’m choosing that.
What does this even mean? 113. Okay. A little story. So let me read for a couple of minutes. “In July, 2006, 18 months after making chief and resting command of the NSW sniper course from Harvey Clayton’s hand, I left the US armed services and faced the question every spec ops warrior must face sooner or later.” What now? “Once you’re trained for years to become part of the world’s most elite fighting force, then spend long stretches in the thick of some of the most dangerous conflicts on the globe, what do you do for an encore? Getting out of the service wasn’t an easy choice. I had put in nearly 14 years of active service in the Navy, sticking it out for another six would buy me a decent retirement package. I had colleagues who couldn’t believe I would even think about walking away with only a few years to go.”
“Some were actually angry at me, which surprised me. What did they think? I was somehow letting them down? But I’d put the Navy and the teams ahead of my wife and kids for too many years. Marriage and being part of the teams is not an easy mix. The day our first child was born I was in the Persian Gulf, headed for terrorist hideouts in the caves of Afghanistan. I didn’t even meet my son until he was six months old. When our second came along, I was constantly on the road, developing and teaching advanced courses to sniper students, and those long months away were tough on our relationship. The birth of our third was only weeks away and I was worried that our marriage was being pulled to the breaking point. It was time to put family first. I had to leave the teams.”
“The question was, and do what? For a lot of us in the spec ops world, it can be a tough transition after years of being in either combat or in training for combat. It feels strange to conform to the diktats and behaviors of the civilian workplace. It’s not necessarily hard to get work, and there are plenty of private sector firms who are anxious to hire people with the knowledge, expertise and skill sets of every Navy Seal. It’s just hard to adapt to what others think of a normal work situation.”
I’m not going to read the whole story because I’m going to give you the summary. This whole thing is the visionary about Jim, and we’ve talked nothing about him. But here’s Jim, or John Zim.
“I met John Zim in the late nineties when we both had just completed our respective [inaudible 00:07:36] class, and joined team three. I was standing in the middle of the class in advanced diving techniques where an instructor gave a safety brief, something about how to avoid getting sucked into giant turbines and turned into fish food. When I heard a Clint Eastwood voice rasp quietly behind me, “Everyone has to die someday,” I cranked my neck just enough to look back, half expecting a scowling man with no name chewing on a [inaudible 00:08:05]. Instead I found myself eyeballing a [inaudible 00:08:10] town head cracking a faint smile, a piece of human nature [inaudible 00:08:15] learning the teams.”
“The more times a guy spends in the water, the dryer his sense of humor. John and I were both Southern California surfers and we hit it off right away. If your picture of a Navy Seal is a big chiseled pro football type of rippling muscles and a fuck you glare, then you never would have pegged John for a Seal. A slender 5’11 with sandy blonde hair, an oval face, an affable smile and quiet confidence, he looked like your average skinny surf bro.”
“He was a competitive swimmer almost before he could walk. His first swim meet at age five,” okay, so… Great. I mean, this is great. It will be fun to read by myself. However, me reading the entire story to you right now is kind of pointless because we’re not learning too much of anything. However…
What is this talking about? We’re talking about a company and things. I will be reading this and I’ll give you a nice little summary and after. So if you are interested in Navy Seals and Jim Rim, or John Zim, then I’m right there for you. I will be able to give you a nice summary of him and the visionary and what he was talking about. But reading the whole story to you, it’s just not going to work.