Speaker 1: 0:14

Well, john, how the heck are you doing today, man George?

Speaker 2: 0:18

I am great. It's great to be on your show finally. I know we've been trying to get this together for about a year and here we are finally at Pumped. Good to see you, man.

Speaker 1: 0:25

Yeah, man, good to see you. I'm glad you're here. Anything testifying in front of Congress, traveling around putting out your second edition of your books, filming stuff, I mean we are going to dive into all that, but I figured you know, just for listeners who may not be fully familiar with you and your story, and we're going to walk through kind of some chronological events here, I figured we'd start at the beginning. Why don't you talk about where you grew up, your love of the outdoors and kind of that connection to nature that obviously you care so much about and we've seen throughout your career? So just maybe start at the beginning. Man, where'd you grow up and kind of you know who were some of your mentors guiding you in that outdoor space.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Yeah, you know George had all started. You know, in childhood I come from a family of conservationists. You know granddad was career Navy. You know nine kids on my dad's side of the family raised fishing, hunting, respect for everything in the outdoors. And then my dad my dad and my uncles primarily, were my main guidance. In fact my dad helped me get through the hunter education course in California, where I was born and raised. At nine years old, you know I could hardly hold up mom's model 50, 20 gauge but got my first deal with him after passing hunter education and the duck blind and then it was just off to the races.

Speaker 2: 1:33

You know I was the kind of guy that spent most of my time when I wasn't at school or doing part time jobs through high school and college etc. Before fishing game I got the opportunity to be a game warden. You know I wasn't going on frat trips, I wasn't hanging out on campus, I was going into the state park. I was going on ranches. I grew up with a ton of cattle ranchers that had poaching problems on their property. They ended up having cartel grows. You know there's brandings and, as you know, being down in the great state of Texas where you're at. You know I call Texas true America South and I'm up in Montana now true American North. So I think we got the North and South cut the covered brother we did. But this thing about you know I'm working with, I'm jumping ahead a little bit but the cattlemen, you know, and the cattle families that are still working ranches in the Silicon Valley foothills, which is oxymoronic. You don't think of the Silicon Valley, the tech capital of the world, having cattle ranches and a ton of wildlife and resources all over. But you do. You get out of the San Jose Bay area where I grew up, and it's nothing but rural. It's foothills, remote canyons, both my books go into it. So working around conservationists, like that, you know, working and protecting cattle ranches from poaching, from environmental destruction, but then seeing the conservation in cattlemen, the conservation in everybody that loves the outdoors, and I kind of got hooked with that and that's all I spent my time doing.

Speaker 2: 2:54

And then in 1992, halfway through grad school, I was a criminal justice major at state, kind of waiting. It was really hard to get hired. It was affirmative action impacted to become a game war to my state because you'd have like four openings and like 10,000 applicants and if you weren't a military veteran with preference points, you can only get so high up on the list. I was one of the civilians that got as high as I could and I was right on the bubble at 95% and then was able to get into an academy, with mostly veterans and other law enforcement guys changing careers in 1992 and spent, you know, all throughout California, primarily a bulk of it in the Santa Clara Silicon Valley area where I grew up as a game warden and then, much later, the team leader and the co-developer of our marijuana enforcement team are tactical unit and never really left home from that standpoint because we were statewide. But that's how it started and, man, what a blur it's been. I mean, we're talking like 35, 40 years of just there it was and it was such a just, such a blessing brother to do that.

Speaker 2: 3:53

I don't even call it a job, it's a way of life, it's in your blood, you know. And we don't do it for the money because game warrants are not paid. You know that well, comparatively speaking to other law enforcement in most states, and there's that issue going on. But we're doing it for the passion of the job we're doing because we just love wildlife, wild lands and waterways. You know, the saying my dad had was the woods are my church and that has become my saying. I think it really epitomizes where we find spirituality, where we find what's left. That's pure.

Speaker 2: 4:21

In America, all over the globe, with all the conflict we have, the divisiveness we saw this through COVID right. We saw so much fear, so much hatred of one another, just utter chaos, and I think it was a great testament, a great test in this country to see where we're lacking community. And the outdoors was such a healing thing through that, in that when depression, suicide and lockdowns were going on, more people went outside. More people that were from urban areas, that mostly walked concrete trails, were now in the woods. They were on a lake shore, you know. They were wanting to fish, hunt or just go out there and breathe and they were finding hope.

Speaker 2: 5:00

You know we had, I think, a 35 to 40% increase the year of lockdowns in hunter education, online classes being done, registered hunters, weapon purchases, people going to training, self preparedness, the survival mindset, and I always looked for the positive right, a silver lining and an ugly situation, and one thing the COVID crap show showed us is that there's hope, you know. And Mother Nature? I mean, it was Mother Nature that was a spiritual healer for everybody. So I didn't realize how important that mantra would play in later in life, especially recently. But that came right from Dad and Grandpa and, yeah, that's where it all started.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Well, I mean, you've also been somebody who's been protecting, quite literally you know our waterways, our resources and especially in California, when you were over there as Game Warden, you faced a I mean such a unique set of challenges and situations and I want to jump into that. Let's kind of talk about that day, you know, when you actually got the call that there was a waterway that wasn't running anymore, and kind of talk about this, because this is, I feel, like an integral step into what that next chapter of your career went with the marijuana enforcement or the MET right, the Marin Water Enforcement Team and like, talk about what, the kind of beginning stages of that, of when you're first learning about cartel growth in these public places and all of the destruction that that causes and so many different ways.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Yeah, it really was a big shift. It was a big career shift. I call it going from. You know, that's when I call it. The darkness started when you went from light to dark.

Speaker 2: 6:40

And not to say that the first part of the career doing traditional hook and bullet hunting, fishing, angling, streambed alteration, hunter, education tasks as a Game Warden was, you know, was any less serious, right or any less important than what we did on the MET side. Because some people, you know, confused that like okay, or you know, are you saying that? You know this is all that's going on out there and no, it's not right, not at all. But you know, when I had it, when I started my career, the biggest thing we learned in the Academy to make your name as a good Game Warden, a bedded Game Warden, was when you can go out and catch criminals that are deliberate, spotlighting, poaching deer at night under a light, when they know it's illegal, maybe behind locked gates, maybe they're baiting animals in a state where you can't bait, whatever. When you start making cases like that, you kind of you know kind of cut your teeth is a real operator, right. But on the Game Warden front, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to get back in my hometown and go behind gates where it was really going on. Animal populations were being affected, not by the people making mistakes of yeah, you know I forgot my license or I. You know I'm fishing with my daughter and I kept one fish that's half an inch too short. I mean letter of the law versus spirit of the law. Those are not intentional poachers. Those are the folks that we warn. Those are our allies. Those are part you know, everybody that's out there in the woods appreciating conservation is part of the fair green line. We may be the enforcement branch, but you what you're doing with this podcast brother, you're an integral part of the thin green line and absolutely essential and I'm grateful for that.

Speaker 2: 8:07

And one thing that was so cool about being a traditional Game Warden was that 95 plus percent of everybody I met were probably armed right, but in a good way. They were not adversaries, they were allies. We would. I would spend hours sometimes on shorelines or in deer camps talking with men and women and children that were happy to see me. Like most law enforcement, when they're knocking on your door for domestic violence or they're stopping a robbery in progress, that person isn't happy to see you and it might get very violent and we had definitely some some pretty hairy situations that could have gone deadly when I did that work.

Speaker 2: 8:42

But when I found that first growth site and realized that we have embedded criminals from another country, part of you know criminal organizations the technical term now is TCO National Criminal Organizations but in layman's terms we're talking about the cartels, whether the Mexican cartels not far from you across the border, or the Chinese, you know crime groups or whatever the case may be. We're talking about organized criminals armed making billions of dollars of profits in black market cannabis, in fentanyl, in human trafficking, in methamphetamine. I had no idea when we found that first growth site in 2004 and then, when we rated it, saw what our new you know, public enemy was. But these cartel growers armed with AK-47s showing tactical awareness, embedded in parks, with camouflage and field craft to the level that we would do in special operations, in as hunters. That changed the game. That changed the game.

Speaker 2: 9:37

And then, obviously, after that case, that my first book, war in the Woods. I see behind you. I see books there. Thanks for putting those up. Wow, of course. Of course, it's a great array you have back there, man. Thank you. I know there are other jacks, but I'm sure there's some car back in there. Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:55

No, I think actually it might have gotten replaced in there, but there's all the other stuff over here, his man. He's coming on here in a few months to talk about the new book.

Speaker 2: 10:03

Can't wait. I love it. That is a great stack man. Very, very cool Cheers. But yeah, that 04 case. I had never seen anything like it and, as I described in the first book, it kind of changed my perception of how dangerous and how dark the work we, as Game Warrens, could potentially be doing, and I also saw a lot of deficiencies in how those situations were being handled.

Speaker 2: 10:28

There was no concern for environmental reclamation as we've talked about. It was strictly raid these sites. Maybe you put a little effort into apprehending these bad guys, or you don't. You've seldomly catch anybody. You might find a gun or two. You cut some plants that have EPA toxic poisons on them that you never want to see in illegal. You don't want to see that consumed by anybody in America and you definitely don't want to confuse legitimate cannabis with this black market toxically tainted stuff that the cartels are putting out there in the black market and then destroy that and then leave the site. And as soon as we leave the site, what happens? All of that environmental destruction is there. The water diversions are still there. There's poisons leaching into the creek. There's this nerve agent, epa band carbofuran, imported directly from Mexico, because you can't use it or possess it or have it in America. That's all over a gross site. Well, clearly that's a major death to wildlife and waterways and wild lands.

Speaker 2: 11:23

Well, after we've done that raid and then in 05, we had our first gunfight where my partner Warden was shot by an AK-47, almost died in my arms. I was providing trauma, returning fire on his aggressor, two other sheriff deputies, brothers for life with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's, so that we all worked together. For the first time that day they engaged a suspect that had a sought-off shotgun trained on me in another game war that we never saw and I was literally no exaggeration half a second from not being on this conversation with you, had those guys not engaged that suspect behind cover. So the domino effect of that told me immediately that it was God's plan that we all do this. We were all men of faith on that mission and we all realized, having not worked together but haven't had enough similar training and having the right personalities together and knowing that the bad guy got one shot off, non-fatally, thankfully, even though that round went through my partner both legs and there he is bleeding out of four holes from an AK-47, 7.62 round and all the other gunfire came from us to stop the threat. And when that happened and we got out of that incident, I went okay. I thank the Lord, I prayed, I had gratitude, I walked out kissing the ground when I got off that helicopter line and realized I had a new group of brothers and also realizing that we're not in Kansas anymore Toto for our older listeners, man, I was going a different direction, that career was going to go a different direction, because now I kind of had a.

Speaker 2: 12:49

I couldn't get this threat out of my head. You know one. We were very angry. We were very, very angry that we had been ambushed and that one of ours had taken a hit and it had been the first game. We were in America, first law enforcement officer anywhere in America that had actually taken fire and been injured by a cartel grower, and it happened to be my partner and a game warden in the Silicon Freakin Valley foothills in one of the most affluent, high-paced communities you're going to see on the globe.

Speaker 2: 13:16

So it didn't add up. It didn't make any sense. A little dude, we know at the time, george, that was just the tip of the iceberg. And if these cartels weren't only embedded all throughout our county of Santa Clara. They were all over California. They were embedded in 27 other states. I did not know at the time that it went beyond cannabis, because now we got fentanyl right which, as we know, is killing over 100,000 Americans a year, being done by the same factions, whether it's Sinaloa, helisco, new Generation, whatever cartels doing that same ones doing the tainted weed right, methanphetamine, human trafficking, off the charts throughout the country, run by these same cartels. We're fighting in the woods and the child sex trafficking which, thankfully, the sound of freedom film brought so much attention to you to make it so visceral for viewers and public members of America that hadn't really seen that firsthand.

Speaker 2: 14:05

And a lot of people ask me they go. Well, I'm not a marijuana consumer, my kids are never going to touch it, we're never going to, we're not going to be dabbling in the black market and I don't live anywhere near a potential growth site. So why is this an issue for me? And exactly what we just discussed I said this is an issue for all of us, every American, I feel in my opinion on this thing is this should be a domestic priority for national security. The border is always an issue close to where you're at in Texas that we're going to get into congressional testimony in a bit. But that was a big issue of why I was there and what that same congressional committee is actually doing on the border as we speak, since I testified a couple of months ago up there in DC. But the bottom line is this gets to a domestic eco-terrorism or I think, with embedded criminals that are acting with impunity right now because they're just not being fought as a priority, and I know I'm preaching to the choir. You and I have had side conversations before this show. Senator Dan Crenshaw, down in your great state, is doing amazing work of highlighting the issues, showing what's not working at the border and showing what is a national policy needs to change.

Speaker 2: 15:11

But aside from that, the problem is still there and it started for me on an environmental component of what does this tainted cannabis production do to forest? What does it do to water? What does it do to lasting effects to communities? And when you look at these EPA ban poisons, no exaggeration two tablespoons of this stuff dumped into a small creek can kill miles of every aquatic living in that channel. That's how nasty this stuff is. It's a nerve agent. It's an anticoagulant. Just a couple of drops of it put in a tuna can as an animal or person to tractant all around a growth site by the growers. I've seen a 400-pound sal black bear lick that tuna can and get just a couple drops of that in her system and 20 minutes later she's laying over frothy mouth, violent central nervous reaction and she's dead and her cub has died above her, exposed to the same poison. I mean, you're a hunter, brother, and you're doing so much good stuff on your ranch for conservation and that just infuriates you like it does me everybody else.

Speaker 2: 16:11

The fellow conservationists we get to work with, like Jim Schaake and Jack Carr and Mike Ritland and even Joe Rogan, who's become verbally said I'm part of the thin green line now I'm aware and that was the biggest blessing. I heard on his show. He's always been there but he didn't know about this issue. So fast forward, we get to book number two 10 years later and we've done three years of television with National Geographic Channel on a number one hit show, wild Justice, game Warden Reality Show about us in California, nra Patriot Profile Documentaries, a ton of news articles. I've written articles, the book has been out and 10 years later, 15 years later, people are still going.

Speaker 2: 16:48

I can't believe this is happening in our backyard, lieutenant, how do I not know about this, george, right now I'm working with Tier 1 writers that are conservationists in the 2A community on new articles on conservation and the hidden war that just learned about this incident literally and this whole reality five months ago, and they're in the industry of writing, like with my publishing outside of my publishing. Here I'm at a different one and when I look at that I go okay, we're under-representing this issue and we're all passionate about it, but we're getting bombarded with stuff proxy wars, election problems, divisiveness, all the distractions, all the distractions, man, and I think we get to a point where correct me if I'm wrong, but I think everybody just gets a little overloaded with the negativity and I get that Again. I go to the silver lining. We've never been more effective as Americans than when we unify and agree to disagree. And what I'm finding now and the one thing about this hidden war that we're fighting is the left and the right, the pro-cannabis, anti-cannabis groups, animal rights preservationists, hunting conservationists everybody agrees on this issue and everybody is outraged by it.

Speaker 2: 17:59

Legal growers that I have done talks for before we regulated in California, you know criminal outlaws basically previously to that meeting, were outraged by the way this stuff is getting done and the nastiness of this weed throughout America and wanting to join the fight. I could never imagine that people that are running from us under the old, you know pre-regulation days and you know it's handcuffs first thing and now it's hugs and handshakes hey, I'll take that. I'll take that because we got to be in this fight together Every American has to be involved and we got to put our political affiliations, our particular frame of reference, our particular lens aside and not judge and work together. But I'm actually seeing that through this particular issue, as we get the message out like we're doing today, which I'm grateful for.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Sure, well, I'm so glad that you're here to talk about this. When I first learned about what was happening I couldn't imagine. I was like wow, okay, you know, it's this localized problem in California. Perhaps you got carbofurin and it's like killing all these animals, people having to wear special suits, let the area be clear for a certain amount of time after this has been applied, before people can come in there and try to, you know, reclaim that site in any form or possibility. I know you talked at the very beginning that reclamation and remediation wasn't really there and later on it came into play, but that it was just scary. And I mean we talked about this. You know, maybe it was about a couple of years ago when I looked you up and gave you a phone call of me realizing that it's in my state of Texas too, yeah, and finding a site that you know we learned about in our local area in central Texas.

Speaker 1: 19:34

And these guys are taking, diverting water from a creek bed into a 25 foot diameter pool it's five foot high taking all that water, you know, having all sorts of different battery powered, you know, trickle out, you know sourcing for this water to have a 5,000 plan operation. And then the sheriff's like, oh yeah, we find these all the time on all these vacant lands or these corners of the pocket people can't get to. And they were, you know, very. It was just almost like laissez-faire to them. I was like, oh yeah, this happens all the time around here. Yeah, the cartel, and you can see all the different litter that they're leaving behind, all the different stuff. And those guys are walking in and I was asking him, I was like what do you guys wear when you go on these sites? You know, are you, you know kind of, you know kind of putting on something to respiration, you know breathing? And he's like, oh no, it's no big deal. And I thought to myself like I don't know if you're really aware even that you guys are going on these sites, how toxic some of this stuff is. Yeah, because you have it in. You know, there's pictures in your book. I mean, you have all sorts of golden eagles and animals, deer, elk, whatever it may be, that just come into contact, like you said, the bear. They're dead. And imagine when that's doing in their waterways. Is that leaching into our water systems?

Speaker 1: 20:41

People are, you know, I think, when they realize the destruction and the crime, what that element's going through. I mean you talked about going through areas. They had pungy pits and like toe poppers. I mean there was stuff set up to harm and they have that carbofurin all over it that could kill you almost instantly to keep people away from those sites. I mean it's like you said, armed AK guys around 24 or seven, then these growth sites and then they'd go out. I mean this has been an issue that I didn't think that it was something that affected me. It was just the localized thing and, like you said now it's probably what 30 states have evidence of this type of thing happening all around the country. It's in your backyard people. It really is right now.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Yeah, no, that spot on, brother. You're right on the money with that, and the thing about it is it's beyond 30 states now because certain states that have regulated, like California, and I always said, if you're going to regulate cannabis, please regulate it correctly. Get these organic growers rewarded for doing a good job, get it in a legalized market, make sure you break the back of the black market by not making this stuff too expensive. Whatever you need to do Right, and unfortunately, we did just the opposite. I had a little bit of pride that in my home state previous home state of California we're the weed state of the world, knowing that we grow weed for not only most of the country but other countries as well, because we're just that Mediterranean climate right, one of six in the world where you can grow from February almost December on certain years, outdoors and then indoor hoop house things like that. We're known for good wine and Kelly right Definitely known for good weed as well, and I thought this is going to be great. This is going to get all those illegal growers out of the dark. They're going to become our allies, and that's what everybody tried to do in 2016 when this started and, of course, the legal growers realized the black market's killing us. The cartels are still running with impunity. We can't make our bottom end. We're going into the red. We're being undercut by taxation, by multiple permits needed, and I mean I've literally watched some tier one conservation oriented outdoor grow sites that were like going to a nursery. That is exemplary. And they're done after two or three years because the whole system just is not protecting them to stay in the legal market. And that's the sadness of it. And when we don't continue to put penalties and stay stiff and I'm not talking about the legit cannabis grower at all, we are talking about cartel organizations, heavily funded, armed, structured, a great business model, very effective of basically saying oh, it's a misdemeanor in like the state of California. So if I have seven plants or 7,000, I might lose my plants if I'm raided. But am I going to go to jail if I don't have any other felonies there? Maybe not. It's just one of 20 operations I got going.

Speaker 2: 23:31

Other states are experiencing this Oklahoma, oregon, michigan, maine. Now all of these states that are regulating are regulating under the idea of getting revenue and making a legal market easy to access. And once money gets involved and politics get involved, I always say once those two things become the goal, especially money making at the state, county or federal level, especially on something like cannabis then we have lost the game. We're going to incentivize a black market. Cartels are going to run even hotter and they're actually increased. Since I retired.

Speaker 2: 24:05

It's become more of a problem since 2016, when that law passed, when that law was sold as stopping and breaking the back of these cartels to get them out of the weed business. So we learned very quickly and I use California as an ideal example of what we shouldn't do in other states and something I talked about in Congress as well. Regulation does matter and we have to put an enforcement priority on it. Penalties as well, education, environmental reclamation and the environmental component has to be in that equation, because whether you're a conservation or not, everybody loves fresh air, we love clean water, we love for our kids and grandkids. See what a black tail deer, a Texas mule deer, looks like, or a hog or whatever. And it's just expanded to other states and now, in the states where it does become legal, they don't have to hide in the deep forest anymore, like we primarily fought during my Met era. Now they're on rural tracks of land that you can drive to. They're in the boondocks but they're not hidden in a deep canyon in National Forest and it's hoop houses with thousands of plants that got all the EPA ban chemicals on them and there are tens of thousands of these in most counties.

Speaker 2: 25:11

Say in California that law enforcement is aggressively going after and they're kind of playing whack-a-mole.

Speaker 2: 25:17

They're barely putting a dent.

Speaker 2: 25:21

And that comes to regulation, that comes to policy and I don't play the political game but I can use what we know and what we've learned on the ground through blood, sweat and tears, literally having major physical fist, to cuff altercations with these guys that don't want to give up our canines getting stabbed with blades, blades coming out to stab us, gunfights where they want to basically dump an AK round on us and we have no choice but to defend ourselves.

Speaker 2: 25:47

I mean six gunfights before I retired, the first one we just talked about in Book One, and there were more that continued and through good training and great canine assets and being able to form a tactical unit dedicated to this is what's really kept us a lot safer, for obvious reasons, and what a blessing it was to be part of that process and to see those men still out there every day, kind of hitting that whack-a-mole but basically making a small effect dent, not because they're not putting the effort out, not because they're absolute warriors and committed and dedicated, but because the way the policies and the way the structure of the organization works when it comes to cannabis rigs. So that's something we need to talk about and I do talk about it at the end of Hidden War, especially the new addition you have in the second edition has all the mission chapters. Oh man, you got yours.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Oh yeah, I got multiples man. I got multiples Dude, man, dude. Thank you. But, they're no great gifts.

Speaker 2: 26:44

Oh, I'm glad, and one of the cool things was with the second edition of that book I'm tying into this because of the regulation change. Hidden War Edition One dropped April of 2019 at the NRA National Convention when Alley North was the president there. He was my main endorser, the first reviewer of it. Oh yeah, and really as much as Alley is a hunter and a conservationist and everything he's done in drug policy and everything in his military career, this blew him away. He's like dude. I did not know Game Wardens were going up against us now. I did not know it was that pervasive. This is complete BS. I'm not only right a blurb, I want to launch this. You got to have this published and like ready at NRA annual. Well, that was April George of 2019. Our publishing date through Caribou and that's gun digest recoil. That's my publishing group, my publisher, jim Schlender great guy, he goes. We're not set to have these ready to like.

Speaker 1: 27:34

May I go well we're going to have to make a change.

Speaker 2: 27:38

Maybe we can revamp that, and sure enough we did. And I cannot tell you what a cool launch it was at NRA annual and again, so many good people from all over the industry and civilians from all over middle America that got the book and went. Lieutenant, I had no idea. Are you kidding me? This is going on right now I go. It's been going on for 20 years, yeah, and it's just escalating. That was a big part of that.

Speaker 2: 28:00

But then the book was starting to get out there, as you know, and we met through some of that in the podcast stuff, and then we got to selling out of the first edition and having to do a second printing. Jack goes through it with multiple printings, with the terminal list series. But what I didn't want to do was just put another book out there of the same printing. I said let's update it, let's update trends, let's update what's happened in the last three and a half years, let's polish up some things. So it's not taking any of the old content out, because that's critical, it's educational, it's exciting. And so I wrote a new introduction. As you know, that kind of brought you up to speed through COVID, through the border change, through the administration, through lockdowns, what happened in America? Through divisiveness, how the cartels said cartels.

Speaker 2: 28:44

The idea behind cartels as they operate, as you and I have discussed, is they thrive in a culture of chaos. That's what they know. In Mexico they're always at war, it's impoverished, it's rough down there. I've spent decades racing down on the Baja Peninsula to see those small towns where the cartels are now in. I mean, they're used to chaos. And when another country, like a first world country, like us, under law and order and all the amenities and the luxuries we're blessed to have in this great nation, they're like oh, this is easy, I can get my product with demand anywhere I want. Law enforcement is taxed, covid, there's defund, the police there's riots, there's all these issues coming down. So right now that line is thin. That thin blue line, thin green line is so tenuous it's like dental floss you have to snap. And that's what happened. The cartels got in our woods, they got in fentanyl, they got in human tract and they continued to do that both sides of the border.

Speaker 2: 29:35

I wanted to tell that story and then a fellow friend, brother, jack Carr, said absolutely, I'll write a new forward for you. And he really nailed it after understanding what we were up against as he and I met. He was not aware to the level of these environmental poisons and what these guys are doing and to the level of embeddedness they had until he got into the first book and the first edition of Hidden War when we met back several years ago. And so again, thankful to all you guys for broadcasting it. But with that forward my introduction some polished points on the chapter.

Speaker 2: 30:08

You're not just getting a reprint of the first edition, you're getting more material updated and all the old good stuff. And then I reread and we just launched on Audible. Finally we got that file up on Amazon to show that it's a different book and that's a lot easier for people. I don't know if you're noticing this, but you're a big book guy and I love how much you're into good authors and reading. But we're finding that I like a print book always. I'll take a print book to read anywhere I can, but when I'm tight on confines I'm going to kindle or I'm on Audible.

Speaker 2: 30:38

I'm listening to that Audible author, because I can do a little couple of things. And what are we doing? We're listening to books and we're listening to podcasts. We're not watching a lot of news and we're not holding a book and reading a lot. So the Audible aspect of this has been cool because it's been able for guys like you and I and the fellow authors that you're working with to just get the word out. And for me it's always been about just absolutely grateful to have the opportunity to talk about something I and all of us you and all your listeners and most Americans again, regardless of where they sit on the conservation realm are passionate about.

Speaker 2: 31:14

If they just know, I've been fighting uphill battle and hence the second book was named Hidden War, because war in the woods and Hidden War were 11 years apart and it's still like, wow, we're still on this. Why is this happening? So that's kind of where the direction we're trying to go with the new book before we go into a third book, because this stuff is so hot and proximate right now, and now I'm finding myself in the world of dealing with the fentanyl issue and discussing that and human trafficking especially. I mean that again, the cartels we fight in the woods are the same cartels. These are poly criminals. They're making billions not millions, billions of black market dollars off all of us In America. I literally call it the middleman and we're leveraged our public, our wildlife, our children. They're basically the expendable for these criminals that honestly have no concern for environment. They have no concern for humanity. They're all about money in kind of a savage way, and a lot of that I go into in the book and we're not making a judgment. We're just talking about the actions of how we are treated and how we are perceived by criminal organizations like this, and big changes have to happen and I think hopefully through with what bipartisan congressional groups are doing now, as we talked a little bit before the show, I was invited to testify in Congress in October of last year, so just a couple months ago not first time to DC doing outreach, but first time doing that. So that was a little bit of a new deal and I had about a week to put together a 12-page paper, a testimonial paper, and I was able to include photos of these new poisons, of the elements, of the Chinese element.

Speaker 2: 32:57

Now Now we find that the Chinese organized crime groups that are coming up through the borders being trafficked by the cartels, obviously with easy border crossing under the current crapshow down there, as you know, we're getting military aged males, very intelligent, very physically capable, with passports from China, in gross sites all over California and other states that are now taking over the indoor grow operation or the outdoor rural grow operations on private land, working hand in hand with the cartels for the Chinese providing precursor chemicals for meth, all the fentanyl chemicals actually working hand in hand with the Sinaloa and other factions of cartels, with everybody getting rich, with all the money being laundered in place in America, both for the Chinese and for the Mexican groups. And how is that even possible? How can that happen in America with the amount of fentanyl deaths we have, with our children being targeted, with human trafficking off the rail charts and this EPA banned poison, toxic cannabis still getting out in the black market everywhere? How are we not looking at this as an internal war that we have to win for the sake of our people? I hope we're getting there. I hope we see a change here in the near future. I think if we don't, we're going to have some really, really we don't have a lot of hope going after that.

Speaker 2: 34:17

But one thing George went testifying with that committee is, even though it was bipartisan and it was a Republican committee chair, chair from Gosar from Arizona, great guy that brought that committee together everybody resonated with the message and when I had, I had five minutes to speak and then they had 15 minutes between all of them to Q&A and up on my YouTube channel. I have all that edit so people can see exactly the questions that were asked and how unaware many of the congressmen that were from the border focusing on the border and focusing on the cartel problem for the sake of all of us wired right how unaware they were of Silicon Valley embedded in America. Environmental what are these EPA poisons? Whoa? I mean, this isn't just a border issue now, it's everywhere. And that's really what I was able to speak to. I'm very fortunate to do that and response was very positive from both sides of the fence in that natural resources committee in our US Congress. So everything like that is an opportunity to spread information and hope you get to the right influential people that can change policy, that can change film.

Speaker 2: 35:24

I think I'm a big film buff, like I'm a book buff, right, and again I'm going to talk about movies that impact us, that drive us and make us emotional. They're not necessarily feel good all the time, they're not necessarily most comfortable, but they grab us. And I'm going to go back to sound of freedom. Sound of freedom when it dropped last July and I remember it dropped on 4th of July when it finally made it, and I know you know this, but for listeners and viewers that don't, five years after making that movie, they still couldn't get that thing distributed. Why was that? What does that say about how we're trying to hold back information, or we're trying to soft sell something, or we don't want to freak people out, or we don't want to expose something that heinous? Well, there's no way we're going to make a dent in it, brother, if we don't show how dirty and rotten this is. I mean and again I might have a bias from running, working with some very violent people and seeing the dark side is so much.

Speaker 2: 36:16

But in general, when I saw that movie and I worked these same cartels and I've dealt with human trafficking integral to other cases it hasn't been a focus, definitely to the point in what Kavizel and what Tim Ballard were doing, of rescuing these kids from these islands and everything else I was in tears, I was grabbing the armrest of that recliner chair so hard I probably tore my nails off and I was just like the emotional roller coaster. I said, okay, I know this, I know this, it's just not public and this is making me want to go back in an organization and if I have time I want to jump on a 501-3C bus and go rescue children or be part of it and I'm going to do what I can to help that side of it. But the point of it is, if it's affecting me like that, americans that watch this they're going to be shocked and they're going to say this is in my backyard. And that's exactly what that movie did Think Heaven, when it went mainstream and blew up to a best seller and went over some other commercial movies. And now it's going international. And that's why I think the visual medium you just can't get the people faster in a better way, whether it's through a TV series.

Speaker 2: 37:16

And I'll take Jack and Terminal List and the new Ben Edwards prequel that's coming out. I mean fictional, but it's showing a lot of patriotic things, it's showing a lot of good stuff. Terminal List, because Chris Pratt himself, as an A-list actor playing James Rees is a conservationist, jack, of course, is a fellow hunter and conservationist, and to see Chris showing Dabbling in those scenes in the first series of Terminal List was just magic man. I knew it was coming. Jack and I had talked in our different dealings but I went. I want to see Chris pull that off and it just gives me the chills thinking about it.

Speaker 2: 37:49

But that had such a popularity and so many people viewed that and it was so quote, unquote, un-woke and it was so patriotic and it was so anti-establishment of the previous Hollywood norm for success. It kind of changed the way Americans are looking at their information and I think we're seeing a little more patriotism in it to show that the Maverick Top Guns can blow it up and show patriotism in a good light. Men can be men, women can be women. Heroes don't always wear capes. It's all of us in this mix doing good things. So I think that's the way to do it. We do it with the books, we do it with the audibles and we do it with film and scripted series and we need more of that and I think we'll get enough people pissed off and infuriated and heartbroken. I mean, dude, that movie rocked me and it rocked my family. When everybody watched I was like, wow, that's going to shake some trees now that it's and it has, it absolutely has. I mean it is.

Speaker 2: 38:45

You've seen the social media responses from big players how critical this human trafficking thing is. And if everybody makes a connection to weed, to fentanyl, to meth, to human trafficking to our children, I don't know one American you know regardless of where you sit in this, in this nation that wouldn't say oh yeah, I want to know, I want to be educated, I want response, I want a team, I want to make sure my kids are protected. I wanted a national priority and it needs to be, and I think we're going in that direction. I have hope for it.

Speaker 1: 39:12

I do too, man. I mean, we've talked about this too. We have in our family two ranches in our family on either side, my mom and my dad's side. On my mom's side we have it right about 30 miles from the border, the. We're very close and it's it is insane how many people are coming through. And you know, when I was growing up, I'd see families, you know, you'd see like a grandfather is like one shoe is blown out and he's coming up and he's hungry and thirsty and it's like, yeah, we're going to keep you alive while you're walking through You're trying to make a better life for your family. God bless you. I get it. You know we're all coming from someone else, unless we're Native American Indians.

Speaker 1: 39:46

Right, we're all we're all, it's a melting pot and it's all immigrants. Man, exactly, there's a, there's a, there's a lyric by Jack White you know who's what and who's who. You should kick yourself out. You're an immigrant too. Like in this response, everyone's like we can't let them here. It's like, now that you're here, you shut the gate. But you have to do it in a, in a systematic way that doesn't put pressures on those systems. You can't let certain types of behavior and criminal activity in and you're we're endorsing that Like you're talking about, like I remember you were, you were mentioning how, like you know, one time they like flood this one particular area, all the response comes in there to try to slow down that area.

Speaker 1: 40:24

Well, all they're doing is just that next seepage of of spots they're throwing through people through there. And I've had, you know, border patrol game warrants I've talked to in South Texas where they're saying yeah, oh yeah, last week wasn't bad. They're running groups of a hundred, you know, sometimes we're seeing like 200. I was like that's, that's good, but it's all military age men and occasionally we've seen on our game trail cameras and stuff that if there is a female, usually she has her head down. There's someone with their hand on her shoulder, walking her through the brush, you can tell she doesn't want to be there. You know for a fact that it's like it's not these families that you're seeing come across anymore. It's a whole different thing. We've got guys with backpacks that are threatening to kill people who are working on our place, in Spanish to each other. He was married to a Mexican woman. He knew what he was saying. He's like he's this white guy. He's like hey, by the way, you know, I'm armed and you're not going to take me and you're not going to take my truck. And it's like they are by any means necessary. Who knows what they got in their backpack? That could be $20 million with the fentanyl between them. And there, if they get caught, their family members are going down. They're enslaved in that traffic too. They might not even want to be there as mules, but they're having to be. Otherwise their family is being killed.

Speaker 1: 41:31

It's a ruthless thing that's happening with cartel and every single element, and I couldn't be more disgusted and sad at what we're seeing on a day to day basis. But at the same side, you know, there's two sides every coin and I couldn't be more happy that there's people like you, that are shining a spotlight on this, because you know that darkness is out there. But until we shine the light on it, do we not need that's when we see what we need to fix? And this is something that is across the entire country in different elements.

Speaker 1: 42:01

Like you said it, it started out, maybe in your awareness of you know, this illegal growth and the environmental and it impacts that it's happening and then, oh my gosh, the criminal impacts and then we're seeing this infant, all meth, all the different human struggling and, like you know, these are. Again, I'm not trying to just reiterate everything you say, but I just see it and I am wanting to make sure that people are aware and that they can do something about it, and I'm glad that you know congressmen and women who didn't even realize the levels of this issue are now being it's brought to their attention. Hopefully we can see change. And I guess that was kind of a question I wanted to ask you is like what, aside from maybe like teams that are being formed to unilaterally fight this, what are you seeing as some stepping stones and say this is successful, we're making some grounds here, or is that something that you can say?

Speaker 2: 42:54

Yeah, no, I can talk about it. And to get back to what you were experiencing, what I like about this is this is coming from you on the border right now as we speak. This is on your ranches and I, you know, in my pilot film for the thing green line film series that I run for Recoil, I know you've seen that. We were on that. We were on the Southwest Texas Mexican border for the first time in my life and it was mind blowing to see the track and this is when we had border protection. This was, this was right before pandemic lockdowns, right before the change of administration. And now being down there and seeing what you guys are experiencing now, it's you know tenfold what it was and that's probably a conservative, but showing that it's happening down there, where you're seeing it and I'm a peer in Montana and we're seeing human trafficking.

Speaker 2: 43:35

Fentanyl, meth are off the hook here in you know wilderness country that you would not think of a community necessarily be involved in that, plus California. It just reiterates it's all of our problem, right, brother? It's all of us. And what I see happening is outreach and education more than ever, more than anything, and programs to educate the masses on what we're dealing with. I'm seeing fentanyl warning signs up here in Northwestern Montana. I'm seeing them all over California. I'm seeing in other states on billboards.

Speaker 1: 44:05

Yeah, they're everywhere.

Speaker 2: 44:06

And, by the way, this is what fentanyl can do. This is the. You know what you need to have for an antidote. You know the fentanyl. You know protection kits now that are being put in schools. Human trafficking these are the signs to look for. You know if a person is making these movements, all those little. You know target indicators. We call it right, those giveaways. Kids and family should be educated on that. If you're, you know, out of view of your child and you don't have a weapon or CCW, you're not capable of defending life when you get an aggressor coming into. You know kidnap for trafficking purposes or whatever the case may be. There needs to be some change to that.

Speaker 2: 44:46

I think good policy, sensible policy on every level, and you know, obviously, my forte on what works and doesn't work is in cannabis. But fentanyl isn't any different. You know how you're going to structure that, how you're going to attack it. Methamphetamine, trafficking, crimes, all of those, maybe those are. You know you get your felonies, you're going to get some stronger convictions. It's pretty much a slam dunk the way they're scheduled. But I mean some of these states that are saying you know, was it Oregon? I believe that you know, opened all legality to all drugs and decriminalized meth and fentanyl and heroin. And they're having another. You know it's a train wreck. I mean a full on, you know bullet car derailment in that state and they're going.

Speaker 2: 45:27

What were we thinking? Well, you know what. I don't know what you were thinking and I'm never going to disparage an independent opinion because I don't want to generate any more divisiveness than we have in this country because it's going to destroy us. But I want to just say common sense, good policy and getting our policy makers fully aware. And I go back to congressional testimony of talking to open minded. You know Republicans and Democrats and even though they don't get along all the time and even though there's some, you know their headbutton like crazy, like never before in our Congress now and our Senate. We see it. It is disheartening, but what I saw that day was kind of a light bulb go off and now that same congressional committee has literally been on the border doing subcommittee work and touring and seeing every aspect of what's going on for the last month and you know, on different news channels I'm seeing the same congressmen and women that I know now that we presented to that ran that first committee we did two months ago and they're going down there and they're able to call BS on what they might be sold from a bad media source because they know the background, they know the impacts where this stuff is going deeper into the country and on an environmental standpoint and just on a public safety standpoint. So it comes honestly from just good policy and prioritization prioritization. Take policy and prioritize it. Put it in the top 10.

Speaker 2: 46:44

Dan Crenshaw talks perfectly about this. All the time. The war with the cartels has to be a number one priority, like anything we would do from an attack from a foreign invader. There's no other logical way to stop it and this can't just be a law enforcement or military response. I think, george, I think you've got to look at everything the education, the counseling, rehab centers, the counseling, because these drugs in one family tear apart. You know they can tear apart a generation, if not more.

Speaker 2: 47:15

When you have a fentanyl death and we're having fentanyl deaths in mild stomping grounds of the Silicon Valley and affluent communities of a valedictorian high school senior that's slated to go to a great school, she's got a volleyball scholarship, she plays an instrument in band, she's, you know, over a 4.0 student and she ends up taking a fentanyl pill by mistake from a friend, just as a painkiller, from, not because she's trying to get high, because she's just got, you know. You know an inflamed, swollen meniscus, let's say, because she's pounding hard as an athlete goes into her bedroom to study and go to sleep and the next morning mom can't wake her up. That happened a couple months ago to a very close friend of mine's family member and you know everyone's that I know knows somebody that experienced a fentanyl death. If you're in California and you live in a rural community around Cartel where it's Chinese, mexican or whatever weed everybody has a story of gunfire of. You know their dogs being attacked, guard dogs attacking them from other farms, their kids at risk. You know major other criminals, human trafficking going on in these grow sites.

Speaker 2: 48:25

So awareness first and then attack it as a national priority and that's how we make a change. I think we're in the. I think we're in baby steps, honestly, because the information is now there. Obviously, what we're talking about today isn't new information. The fentanyl issue now is red hot. After five years the human trafficking issue couldn't be a hotter but an item because of life's sound of freedom and now awareness that there's all these human trafficking, really what I call tactical law enforcement units throughout America doing amazing work, and they've been doing amazing work for a decade or more, but now, all of a sudden, it's yeah, we need more of this, because now people are seeing it.

Speaker 2: 49:02

So this awareness is the first sensible policy and it somehow, some way and I don't honestly know if this is even possible we got to get people at the political level in our house and our Senate agreeing to disagree and coming together for good policy. And something I do know that is happening right now that I can talk about is one of the reasons that congressional committee is down on the border is a multitude of other border control bills are coming up and they're being more protective of America. I think they're being more sensible, based on these experts that are coming in to testify in congressional hearings. And one thing I'm seeing is more and more bills are coming up and we're getting asked to go back and do more of this education, which means different congressional committees, different congressmen, different senators are starting to become aware. That's showing me that somehow, some way, we're getting past that ugly divisiveness by the parties and we're going to get somewhere to say, hey, we can agree to disagree and we can fight about this other issue later.

Speaker 2: 49:57

But you know what? Our border is flooded, the environmental impacts are coming, the nastiness of criminality that's coming across. What you're experiencing is a Texas rancher, brother. I mean everywhere, dude, there's cracks everywhere you hit it. That's the tip of the spear. Right there is Texas and any border state, and then we just see, you know, we see the shit show that follows. You know, to put it mildly, that's where. That's where it has to start, and I'm optimistic, and I think a lot will depend on what happens in November this year.

Speaker 1: 50:28

Yeah, no, I think that's going to really do. It seems like that that topic is being brought up more and more and that it's kind of being it's almost like a forced issue. That was just kind of swept under the rug before.

Speaker 1: 50:42

I mean I'll call Border Patrol and we'll be like, hey, because we coordinate with them and stuff. And like I mean, you know, me, I'm fairly involved with you know, in law enforcement knowledge and stuff. So I'm talking to these guys and hey, you know, if you guys want to come on by, we know, grab a sandwich or whatever. Maybe we got some barbecue on for at the ranch. And like, seriously, like I want to sit down, like what are you guys facing on a day to day? And there's times where he's like, hey, just so you know, for the next week, there's no one in your area. And I'm like, wait, one of the head spots of Border Patrol, like one of their main centralized units, is just down the road. And I'm like I know how many people work there. And I'm talking to him and he's like, yeah, no one's in the field. We are all over an Eagle Pass right now. We're have 10,000 people a day coming. We just for the next week, if anything happens, be mindful, keep your head on a swivel and stay protected and make sure you keep one in the chamber in case something ever happens, because we're seeing numbers and we're seeing a lot of violent offenders come through right now and I'm like what's like it? Just the sheer amazingness of like how a whole area in this county is not being serviced by our Border Patrol because of how overrun they are, how few dollars are being sent that way to really protect our border, how easy it is for people to come across. We were finding backpacks left and right and I think the number that most of the people that are coming in I mean it's, I think the number that maybe you had said it it's like $33 million a week is being transferred through the cartel by just human struggling and even though just bringing regular people coming across to try to make a better life, that money is $6,000 to $7,000 per person is the number I heard of what they're paying to get across and maybe you can verify that or not. But the idea of like how much is coming through. They're coming across full backpacks with the clothes, change clothes and just walk into the town and they have a network there to be able to take them out to major cities.

Speaker 1: 52:39

I have friends in Denver who are talking about how overrun they are and how they just there's things are bursting at the seams and unless you really are in a community that sees it firsthand. You don't know. I mean we can't keep up with just the trash on our property, just the people coming across, and that's just people. And then you talk about the environmental impacts. That's not as much in our area in South Texas but in central Texas, that illegal growth stuff, all the stuff that was there.

Speaker 1: 53:04

I'm like I don't know what our waterways are polluted with right now. I don't know what's right, but I know that left and right there's more issues that are compounding and we see it in Texas a lot more than maybe other states that you know. Some folks up in New England, my friends, are like what's it like down there? And like here's what it's really like. I don't know what you're getting reported, but it's an issue.

Speaker 1: 53:23

You know we have hundreds of people coming across our you know property on a daily basis and you know that they're all not there with the right minds. You got these guys the old backpacks. They're not carrying diapers, man, you know it's not goodwill. So, yeah, no, I mean you know we could talk to a red in the face about this. But I wanted to kind of pivot in two directions. One I heard you mention third book. Is there anything that's coming in that you can talk about that at this point, or is there? Is that just kind of something you're beginning to work on, or is there an avenue of interest that you want to kind of have a spotlight on for that third book? Or is this just kind of at the very beginning stages of?

Speaker 2: 54:02

it's beginning stages. What I can say at this point is the discussions I'm having with my great publishing team is we're going to stay on some of these issues that I'm still continuing to fight because they're relevant. But let's just say there's a lot of traditional work from the past that paved the way for the future and some cases no one's heard publicly that are mind blowing, that really led to a lot of stuff we're doing here. And one thing I can say there's going to be some really sinister twist to another faction of West Game Wardens get involved in. I'm not going to give away what that is, but it does have a lot to do with what we're discussing today and I know that's really general and that's all I can say at this point because that's fair and I want to go. I definitely want it will stay nonfiction.

Speaker 2: 54:47

I've had a lot of fellow authors and friends go. Hey, are you ever going to dive into like CJ Box who does the Joe Pickett series? He's a good friend. He's been in our Wardens Watch podcast twice now. He catalyzed the Joe Pickett TV series and went two seasons on Paramount. Thankfully they got something about Game Wardens on.

Speaker 2: 55:02

You know a scripted somewhere, but CJ just keeps mixing it up in his books and he can do that fictionally. And I've had a lot of you know CJ included, you know and these guys say, hey, you know, would you go and do something fictional? Eventually that'll probably happen, but there's still a lot of nonfictional stuff that I think will be really beneficial, not only from the thin green line perspective but just from domestic security. You know love for the outdoors and bringing kind of conservation in as some of the healing elements. So we talk about today from experiences that go, you know, way before and up through the COVID pandemic and that mess. So we're dabbling in areas like that and all have some stuff in the not too, not too distant future on that.

Speaker 1: 55:49

Yeah, Good, well, I look forward to whenever that's about to come out. We'll have to have you back on kind of announce it.

Speaker 2: 55:54

Heck, yeah, man yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:57

You also are talking a lot. I mean, let's talk about your podcasts that you've run, and Wardens Watch, thin Green Line. Let's talk a little bit about what you've done and are you still very active with that. What is it that you're kind of putting the focus on? I know you've done some filming and things. So what's in your day to day and can you maybe just kind of give people, if they haven't listened to it, what they come to expect and where they can tune into that?

Speaker 2: 56:18

Yeah, for sure. I co-host Wardens Watch podcast. The founding member of that is Wayne Saunders, lieutenant good guy out of New Hampshire. He started Wardens Watch right after retirement, before COVID started, just to have a Game Warden specific show, to tell Game Warden stories Because, again, the public loves Game Warden stories, everybody loves Game Wardens. They were pretty unified, you know, because we're kind of that animal cop that everybody digs and Wayne had been a Northwoods law alumni. He had been on that show. You know, on Animal Planet I was a wild justice guy with Nat Geo on our California show and we met at.

Speaker 2: 56:54

It was right after I retired, right after the first edition Hidmore dropped, and I was actually giving a talk to just a group of chiefs of all the different states fishing Game Warden chiefs, and Wayne happened to be there with international wildlife crime stoppers with his booth. I set up my book booth. I'm going to go speak to the chiefs on the Hidmore issue because I have a pretty dynamic PowerPoint presentation for agencies or civilian groups that want to see this. Sure, I go in a little deeper than the book. I have ones just for, you know, law enforcement groups that go into the trends, the safety protocol, the officer involved shooting debriefs, because I debrief about four of the six OISs or gunfights we've been in for training value, lessons learned and how they went.

Speaker 2: 57:33

But I can get into the weeds really, really deep, you know, with LE groups and I was basically doing that for this chiefs group and then Wayne had me interviewed as a guest on Warden's Watch. That day I didn't even know about Warden's Watch and we love talking. It got into the whole Hidmore issue which he did not deal with in New Hampshire and then a couple weeks later we started talking. He goes, man, it'd be really cool if. How'd you feel about co-hosting, because you've got the whole West Coast and you know you're national now and the reach is growing and you know you got Rogan and Ritland and Jack and everybody you know working together.

Speaker 1: 58:07

Yeah, all the R's.

Speaker 2: 58:08

Yeah, it is. It's all the R's.

Speaker 1: 58:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 58:10

Steven and his meat eater crew and I said, yeah, let's try this out. So we just started through COVID co-hosting and honestly I'm way too underwater with other things to co-host every Warden's Watch episode, because Wayne will do those in real time on the East Coast. He'll do it at a trade show or he'll do it remotely, but I will jump on as many of those as I can. We always do thin green line together because we kind of started that one together in COVID, thinking you know what. We're sitting around in lockdown, we're not twilling our thumbs but we have a lot of frustration with the issues going on. Why don't we start something called the thin green line that we can bring in non-game rooms? We can bring in any conservation we want.

Speaker 2: 58:48

Jack Hart was one of our first guests, you know. We can bring in Ed Calderon, we can bring in Oliver North, who doesn't do podcasts, and I got Colonel North on and we had longer than he's ever talking about podcasts and one of the greatest conversations ever. Barry Kirch you know my friend from the band Shine Down I'm close to. He's a drummer but he's a conservationist. He has a deer lease. You know he's an outdoor culinary cook. I mean, he's completely. That band is wired right when it comes to love for the outdoors and wildlands. I didn't know that. So we've had a lot of really good guests. We've been able to mix it up. We can have musicians, we can have athletes, we can have actors, we can have novelists you know people like that. We can have biologists. We can have, you know, seal Team guys. We can have other military factions, and we've done that. And that's where thin green line goes, and we usually put out about one episode a month.

Speaker 2: 59:35

With us it's not so much quantity but quality. Right, finding the right guests and then getting our schedules to align. We've got some really cool ones dropping that we just put in the can. And basically, if you just go to wardenswatchcom or you look it up on Apple Spotify, we're on every platform it's free to listen to. We have a Patreon type deal if you want to see video content or get you know behind the scenes footage. We have the triple threat pack option where you get a, you get a hidden war book personalized. You get one of my trailblazer folders, one of the blades that I know you're really familiar with. It's my EDC man, I know man.

Speaker 1: 1:00:09

I'm honored, I know Every day.

Speaker 2: 1:00:11

And not just you. You've pushed them out into the community. You got a little battle contingent, so I got to say thanks.

Speaker 1: 1:00:15

Big time. You're welcome. Well, we go to the ranch man and there's four dudes there. We've got the same knife. So one of my buddy, matthew Mitchell, he's got the M M on his. This one's marked over here to make sure. I'm telling you, man, it's the best thing I have, a knife lover and I'm, you know, I got two, that's like in case I leave one in the truck. I got another one, man. They are wonderful knives. Well, let's jump into that for a second too, man. Let's talk about V knives and about the trailblazer and exactly what's going on. I know there's some new knives that came out recently. Why don't you just lay it out for folks, where they can go and learn more about it? And you know, I think I'll just kind of preference this with the idea. It's like you designed that knife with your buddy based on all the things that you wish you could have in one knife when you were on the force, correct?

Speaker 2: 1:01:02

That's the best way to say it, and I got to give a big shout out to Mike Bellacamp, who's the founder CEO of V knives, and you know Mikey's been in the game since you know, running the Spyderco factory in Golden Colorado in his 20s. Way back when I started my career in the early 90s, we happened to get introduced at the perfect time Didn't know anything about each other, literally seven days after I retired from operations at the end of 2018, before Christmas. He's a rock and roll guitar player, metal guy writing an album right now, been in bands growing up I got to talk about that because you're a music guy too. You were quite the shredder yourself.

Speaker 1: 1:01:35

Yeah, I've been following you, brother.

Speaker 2: 1:01:37

That's awesome, george, but but the thing was, when Mike and I hit it off, he goes dude, I had no idea about you Game Wardens doing this. I'm all about the thin green line and how to. Let's design your signature knife. I'm like, ok, let's do this. I mean I haven't designed a knife before. I've been a knife guy. I've carried like 30, 30 different blades.

Speaker 1: 1:01:56

you know I probably have at a time, different blades, yeah not all at the same time.

Speaker 2: 1:02:01

But yeah, we, he took my initial design that had the glass breaker, that had the seat belt harness cutter, that had a drop point blade that's easy to deploy fast Yet it's not a switch blade so it's legal in all the states. But it's a drop point so you can skin, gut and do field craft. But you can also fight or defend if you need to lanyard loop. All those things you need on a folder, right. So I have the original draft is on you know sketch paper with a sketch pencil that I can kind of move around like an art piece and it's a very robust looking drawing. I'll just say that sometime I'll share it. And actually Mike just gave me back the original drawing. That's now on my fire, safe, because we've got this chronology of designing the shades together. And the thing that was just great is he looked at it and goes OK, I see where you're going with this. He goes that is a really, really hardy, robust stew to baker. Let's put some Ferrari into it. I went, you know, and he's a rock and roll guy and V-Knives just has a great, great edge with good quality. I'm like I like this guy already. He's a big Rush fan. He knew Rush I'm a Rush fan, very influential growing up, but all the other metal bands that we grew up in were of that same generation, like you. So we ended up talking music and playing guitars more. Me listen to him shred the first meeting that we ever did anything on the CAD drafter, and then we finally designed the knife on the second meeting and that's what the Trailblazer that you carry has morphed into.

Speaker 2: 1:03:17

And then, two years later, last winter actually the winter before last over New Year's weekend hanging out here in Montana, he was spending some time and you know we just we had been talking about a fixed blade series, specifically a fixed blade survival blade that you can hunt, fish, survive, chop, cut, build, lean, twos with, whatever. And that was the main thing a lot of my people wanted. They said, hey, are you going to do a fixed blade line? I said eventually, yes, well, now we're finally designing it. But in the process of designing that, mike also said hey, I'm getting a lot of you know, I'm getting a lot of inquiries about a small fixed blade, a possible go to backup knife for law enforcement and military, and ironically I had been getting those same questions, but I said we're probably only going to do one, because I don't want, you know, I want to over tax the system. I mean we have a whole, you know, a big lineage of new products coming out and I didn't feel very. I thought that would be a little too much in the trailblazer for the moment. But Mike said no, I think we got to go for it. Now we should do two knives.

Speaker 2: 1:04:18

And so that's how the trailblazer full size, fixed, and then the Delta blade came out and the Delta is just that little go to, you know, drop point fixed blade with the removable thin green line scale handles skeletonized underneath. It's in a kayak sheath. It's become my carry field knife for hunting especially. But it, you know, put it on your short haul harness. If you're an operator, you got to cut yourself out of a helicopter harness or cut yourself from a line swift water rescue, you name it. I mean it's just a good little fixed blade. And the full size trailblazer is five inch blade, robust, you know, the tang on the back is a quarter inch nut driver for the glass breaker and you've got a built in sharpener in the sheath. I mean Mike thinks of stuff like that that other companies don't do and on a fixed blade you can sharpen every blade you have from any manufacturer as long as you have that fixed blade sheath somewhere close. So they've been real popular man, where we're sold out of most everything for first run. We're going to be going into our third run of trailblazer folders that we're on the third year of those and we're almost sold out of the line of fixed blades. I think I'm down to two deltas and they're gone and we made the mistake of only making a thousand of those blades. Our distributors got 70% of them and between what I got from the company from my side of the royalties and what Mike's selling out of our retail store and through our factory, I can't get any more deltas for another year and I have a handful left and I'm going, oh man. So we're definitely going to make more next time. But yeah, just a real right minded company, a true friend and brother.

Speaker 2: 1:05:52

I mentioned his album because I know we got the music and we're going to talk about music. But he told me years ago he said I've been in bands off and on for a lot of years but it's been my dream, my bucket list by the time I'm 50, I need to make a metal album of original stuff that I'm going to write. Bring a band together and tour with this thing and he goes. And what I'm thinking is I want you to write, co-write the lyrics with me for a song called Hidden War and we'll write the music and then we'll make that kind of probably the first single we release, because we want to get that message out. And I got to sing in the studio with him a month and a half ago to do the backing vocals and harmonies on a song that he wrote the music for. That we wrote the lyrics for together. And it's such a treat, man, it's an honor and it is badass. I teased it a month or so ago. It's almost it's all mixed, it's all it's going to drop soon. You'll definitely be in that loop. People have access to it. I'll put up the lyrics and people can see what it's about. But that's been a fun project.

Speaker 2: 1:06:48

You know sharing the music, the other songs on the album that I've heard so far, because about six of the 12 that are written and produced are mind-blowingly cool. You know Calvacade that goes back to Our Forces Storm in the Beaches of Normandy and what the Nazi regime personified and how it's written musically and how it's written lyrically. You know that as a musician, when you find the music to match your lyrics and you set that emotional tone, you got a hit on your hands. If they just completely symbiotically, are synonymous, you know, and that's what he did with Hidden War, it's what he did with Calvacade, it's what he did with Drift and Scarecrow and I'm only throwing out a couple names of this album. But it's really good stuff. There's going to be some videos to it. There's going to be some Hidden War video to the Hidden War song. That's going to show the stuff that we're fighting. That's going to show the poisons. It's going to show what America's facing. And I think you know we talked about cinema and we talked about TV Music.

Speaker 2: 1:07:44

Music gets to people. In the band I'm in right now, area 56, our little, you know classic rock cover band up here in Northwest Montana, our bassist Seth, fantastic bassist, completely different politically backgrounds, didn't know about this issue. All the guys got books when I met him from the actually the first edition of Hidden War, they got way back in the day. And now second edition and it's just neat seeing musicians gravitate to doing songs that are going to have a little bit deeper meaning than just a feel good, hard rock, ballad, you know, soft, slow song, dance. Whatever you're looking for, I like something that hits hard, and it hits hard either emotionally in a sensitive way or it hits hard emotionally in a passionate oh man, we got to. We got to change something. You know and I can't tell you how much positives we're getting from you know all the critiques that we're having out early and we're getting a lot of critiques for like Hidden War and Calvacate and things like that.

Speaker 2: 1:08:39

But music is magic, man, and it's been. That's been a real sidebar for me. That's been absolutely a blessing and a way to get out of all the darkness of the law enforcement job I did for so long and even to be constantly reminded of it when we do stuff like this, because it didn't end for me in retirement. Obviously, the kind of the landscape got a lot bigger for me from the standpoint of outreach and now you know the pen has become mightier in the sword. I'm not, you know, pushing a, you know piston driven 308 POF with my boys anymore, and I miss them every day, sure, but I know being able to talk freely, be able to put the message out, being able not to disparage anybody. Disparage no state, disparage no political realm. Let people learn for themselves. Talk about what's really going on on the ground.

Speaker 2: 1:09:22

And when I was employed in an operator, there's no way I could have done this second book, there's no way I could have been on these podcasts, there's no way I could have hosted a podcast. There's no way I could have made a feature film or a documentary, the other things that are in the works, and that's just. That's a very, very fortunate place to be, but I don't take it lightly. You know I don't take it lightly and sometimes it gets a little maniacal. So when I can go, rock out and in fact later on, you'll appreciate this man.

Speaker 2: 1:09:48

So we gigged up until our 2023 gig season went right up to a Halloween gig at a local venue that we're going to play four times this year Just a great spot in Troy, montana, and normally we do a New Year's Eve gig. And this year the host venue that we normally do a New Year's Eve gig had to close down for a rebuild and a remodel and couldn't host a big party because we get a pretty good crowd, so we didn't have a New Year's Eve gig. It expanded after an amazing final gig on October 26, late Saturday night and I had not seen my band brothers here at home until this last Saturday for our first woodshed season and we did that first woodshed rehearsal where and in woodshed. Like you know, being in a rock and roll band, I mean we play 45 songs a night and they're from all over the board. You know we play a four hour set.

Speaker 2: 1:10:36

We never I mean sometimes we end up staying longer into a quasi-fist set. It's ridiculous, and every year we wanna keep it fresh. So we all get like a pick or two of like what's the go-to dream song you wanna play, even if it's not a top 100 billboard classic rock song. Play something fresh. You know, for me it was Shine Down Daylight last year. Daylight was such a pivotal song when I was with the boys and saw them play it live last April in Spokane when they launched their arena tour, I went, you know, for a band that's playing classics from Ozzy to Blue Easter, colt to Rush, you know, to Metallica, to, you know, three Doors Down, to Collective Soul, and I'm just scratching, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:11:16

Yeah, yeah, there's just some of the. Yeah, you mentioned Dozens and dozens. Yeah, you mentioned Jack. I mean we do. You know Seven Nation Army. I mean we do a ton of stuff, but a song like you bring in something that's so new and so fresh and so maybe a sensitive side, and the crowd loved it.

Speaker 2: 1:11:33

And we made a really unique version because we don't have a classic piano player in the band. I'm a keyboard guy but I'm not gonna play like Eric Bastas who wrote that song you know the Miracle man there but we actually took the guitars in the bass and recreated our bassist and lead guitar player, our playing the piano part. Josh is covering Barry's drum part, I'm singing Brett's vocals and we're doing it all in a particular key where it's kind of a stripped down version, sort of it still has a rock element and it's gone over really well. And we and we and this and we're on eight new songs. We went through four of them this last weekend and we got Darnier ready to perform them in one rehearsal. That's how solid these guys are. They, we all get it and like, oh, wow, he wants another Rush song. I wanna do a Slayer song. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna compromise here. So yeah, it's been good, it's been good and we're the rehearsals are starting. We're playing eight shows for sure this year.

Speaker 2: 1:12:29

We're getting asked to do more, like you being so busy with ranch and farm and everything you got going with your, your projects. We could do 20 plus gigs a year. We get that many inquiries up here and none of us have the bandwidth for it. And I'm probably the worst because I'm not here at home enough. Right, because I'm on the road doing what we're doing and that's that's always the priority. But you know this is coming out in our music and my band brothers, man Mike, josh and Seth, are just fantastic, true brothers to realize, hey, we really believe in your message. We know you're gonna be gone a lot. We love what you're doing and whatever we can do to you know kind of support that in our music and, you know, with crowds and we have a lot of fun on stage and it's been a real good journey. It's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 1:13:12

No, it's amazing, man. You guys are so much fun. I definitely encourage everyone to go check it out. There's some great videos you posted. Maybe we can highlight a couple here and send some links down below on that Cause you guys are fun, man. They're a great band, all of you.

Speaker 1: 1:13:25

Musicianship it's really great to see. I always kind of joke about this too. Is that one of these days all of us are gonna form like some super group tour thing or something like that? You know it's like all the different people I meet throughout you know chatting, and you find out someone so is a musician plays with this little cover band or they sit in with this group over here. You know, whatever it may be, whether it's just singing or a moniker you know there's tons of musicians that are playing out there and it's neat to have that as a medium of a message and, like you said too, a good release too. So I mean, I was just gonna, before we dive into the next. You know I wanna talk about the documentary full length things you're mentioning there a second ago, but I wanted to kind of find out when you first started playing in bands. Like when does that is?

Speaker 1: 1:14:05

this a high school thing, or is it like you know, or like college years, or when did you kind of jump in and find this as an element of your life, that you've been able to keep going for so long?

Speaker 2: 1:14:16

You know what, man? That's a question that's never been asked and bear with me, it's gonna be a little long-winded story Go for it.

Speaker 1: 1:14:21

Where are you? And then?

Speaker 2: 1:14:23

I gotta talk about my bandmates and how I got into this band and how that was right after retirement and you'll relate being in a band. But before we say any of that, we gotta get you up here during gig season to come hang at a show, meet the guys, celebrate, do some stuff with us, cause that invite is there, oh.

Speaker 1: 1:14:40

I'm coming. I'll cash that invite in man. I'll bring some pecan pie from Texas or something that it'll knock your socks off out there, some hot sauce or something.

Speaker 2: 1:14:49

Dude, the guys will lose their minds for that. But yeah, let's do that. But yeah, it kind of started in junior high. I was a wind instrument player in symphonic bands, so I was playing the clarinet of all things, and like I think it was actually fifth grade I started. I was always a big music fan. My mom and dad were into all the classics, all the. You know a lot of bluegrass, a lot of country, a lot of rock and roll. I mean I have the vinyl collection that I've inherited from you know both my mom and dad, who've long since passed of. You know early Eagles albums. You know Bluestre Cole, everything from Rita Coolidge, willie Nelson, linda Ronstadt, and then you know into Fleetwood Mac and all the way up to the classics you and I, you know, are about yeah. So I yeah, I started with wind instruments and got into high school marching band around other things and we started. It was a really, really good marching band, a band that was winning like national championships after I graduated. That happened after I graduated.

Speaker 1: 1:15:46

But we were winning state.

Speaker 2: 1:15:47

You inspired them. Yeah. Yeah, I just wasn't there at the right time because I was not, I was not the top dog there, but it was really interesting. It was fun learning that to choreograph you know an arduous physical exertion, set and play at the same time. And then I, you know, I got pulled into like trumpet and baritone in some jazz bands for a while. In the meantime I'm growing up in junior high and high school being a Rush fanatic, being a Metallica fanatic, really liking a lot of those. Those bands that you know hit us around junior high.

Speaker 2: 1:16:21

And my sister was also a big eighties, big hair girl and go into every rock show you know with her fiance and stuff, and she wanted to be a bit. She wanted to be a guitarist. So she got a, a Charvel, a really nice Charvel, you know a Jackson bass. She got the amp. My uncle's, a really good musician, set her all up in his music store and she knew around on it for a while and then didn't do much with it. Then she got into college and just got immersed and we were just two years apart. We're both criminal justice majors at San Jose State. She's two years younger than me. She just retired five years ago from a 20 year career as a captain at San Jose Fire. Wow yeah, she was fired from the urban search and rescue on the ground up, you know, with the guys, and had a good career. But we got to a point where she wasn't playing this bass.

Speaker 2: 1:17:06

And I remember we were at a party with my brother and my brother had a friend named Steve Erickson who literally could pick up a guitar and play like Joe Satriani, george Lintz, eric Johnson, you name it. He was the guy I mean, and he was doing this in high school and at these parties Steve would be there with just an amp and a drum machine throwing down a 4-4 kick and just shred and we'd be mesmerized and we'd sit there and just watch him go from Eddie Van Halen riffs to a melodic like Satch riff and then with his whammy bar. You know, george Lintz, we do some docking in the band, we're big docking fans. He was just tearing it up and a good friend and a couple of years younger than me and I remember one night he said doesn't Laura have a bass? My sister, isn't there a bass around that new bass she got I go, yeah, I think so. I think it's back in her closet. He goes dude, let's get that out. You should play that, I go. I don't play bass, I barely picked up a guitar, like ever. He goes oh no, your musical dude, I'll show you a couple notes and you know, you hit four, basically four notes. It'll be. You know, just throw me four chord notes and I'm gonna play up that all night. And I plugged that thing in and I just threw him down. Some ass. In simple, I'm on the E, maybe I'll do an F, sharp. Now I'm doing a D and he would just change with me being the virtuoso that he was.

Speaker 2: 1:18:20

Which Mike? Our guitarist? Scenario 56, george Mike LaFoum. I call him Captain 2.5 because he's rhythm guitar, lead guitar, lead singer, sometimes always a harmonizer, you know, and he always jokes like Star Trek I'm giving it all, she got Captain, I got no more, and so I go, you're 2.5. And that's become his nickname on the band. But Mike reminds me of Steve when he was young, and so Steve is just shredding and I'm throwing down this stuff and I wish we had recorded it, or it was before the era of smartphones, so magic was coming out of his guitar ass in basics, of me just trying to sort of read and change it. But he goes dude, start learning that thing, we need to work on this.

Speaker 2: 1:19:00

And pretty soon I started playing that bass a lot and my sister wasn't playing it. I had borrowed it and I had one of the MacLCs Macintosh first color box little computer from San Jose State that I'd been writing all my papers on. And now she needed it. And she goes hey, can I use your LC? I go hey, I got a plan. I'm gonna trade you the whole system for your bass and amp. She's like I don't know if I can let it go.

Speaker 2: 1:19:23

I go you really playing that thing? You haven't played it for years. She goes no, it's a good trade because you're playing it. I need things and we'll both have them in the family. So I got that guitar and then I just started jamming and playing by ear and learning notes and bass clap. I've been a treble clef player before in symphonic stuff but, and I played competently. But I've never been a bass player like Seth is or like somebody you'd see on the bands we like definitely not a Kenny Lee. And at times we're doing something by Rush right now that we're working on that. I'm not gonna give away where it's a bass lead and Seth is like, oh man, this is too much. I'm like no, it's not you got this, you got this man Because he's that good.

Speaker 2: 1:20:03

But anyway, I started playing that and then I ended up going like we'd have like these retirement parties for Game Wardens or for Park Rangers and I would do solo sets over, basically, you know, like karaoke music, but I'd sing and do the bass line for like a nine or 10 song set and people liked it and it was weird you know I'm doing that, but it was a way to start and I played at some DEA retirement parties for some headsheds and did some solo stuff. And then in 2013, when I started the whole met thing with some other people and that was all ramping up and my dad was, you know, on his last leg because he passed that summer right after I soloed the Baja 500, right before we started the met team. So it was bittersweet. The best things, most pivotal things that could happen in life, happened in 2013, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. So this is another blessing and yet I lost my dad and my ex-pop and law within two months of each other. So that's one of those years that you just look back on, you know, and it breaks your heart and it elates your soul Like I've been blessed by the man above and so many. I can't believe this is all happening.

Speaker 2: 1:21:10

Here we are, but that year Josh Moore, who is a residential and commercial painter in this area of Montana and one of the best, he's been the painter for my family, the contractors, all the family builds we've done on the spread for like 20 years and I get introduced to him, cause I got to bring him in. Cause we're remodeling my dad's cabin. We're making a memorial cabin after he's passed. He was really close to my dad and he's going. You know, we just started a new band man and it's great, dudes. It's called area 56. Like, what's that mean? He goes. Well, we're the 56, smallest county of Montana and we got the Yeti Sauce Squatch being seen all over. We got the Northern Lights, we got UFOs, so we want to put a little air. We thought not make it a. It's not that freaky. Not Joe Rogan in the alien level, but Joe, joe will relate to this. So area 56 and it's all green and creepy and I'm like I dig that man, that's cool, he goes. Yeah, we got a lot of guys, but I know you play and you should come out and try out. I mean you're going to be here, I go. I go, dude. I'm only here part time. I'm in California for another six years of residency. I just started this crazy unit. I'm going to be immersed, I said. But if you guys are still together and I'm going to retire, it's a dream to be in a band with home boys like you. So fast forward to New Year's Eve 2018. I've been retired 20 days.

Speaker 2: 1:22:26

They're having a New Year's Eve gig at the VFW center in Troy Montana big veteran celebration. It's like 10 below. I'm up here. They're like yep, you're going to play a song. The guys are going to meet you that night. I go what? What's going on here? And they play. And now I sing it.

Speaker 2: 1:22:42

But one Rush song in set two New World man. That resonates off the signals album with everybody. It's a good message, fun. And they go yeah, we want you to sing the Rush song, so get ready. I said, ok, so I'm finding karaoke versions of it. I'm getting through my mic system again. I haven't really played or done anything in a band in five years and I just keep hammering on it.

Speaker 2: 1:23:05

And I probably sang that song a couple hundred times in the two weeks leading up to it. And then I went in to the center and everyone's dancing and they are in the very first part of set one and they're rocking away and I'm like holy crap, these guys are good, these guys are really good. I mean the technicalities, the music we play, the different songs. I went OK. And then Josh is back there. Ok, we got our good friend John. He's up here, just retired from law enforcement and he's going to get up here and sing. I'm like I'm not doing it and I do this like oh, is he punkin' out? And then I got a kick from a family member and said you sang this thing like 300 times in front of us. You're getting up there, you're not punkin'. And I went up and jumped on it and sang it. And Mike normally sings it and guitars it and we were just eye to eye all night having a good time. And then we officially said hello's after that. I mean I had not even met these guys yet, george, and it was magical, it was a great night.

Speaker 2: 1:24:04

Then I started just coming to practices and hanging out. I'd sing like one song with them and then go watch, and then this and that and bring other ones from their previous set list from years before and somehow I just, we had a talk one day, like three months in before the next gig season started, to go. I think John's in the band, is John in the band? And I go, am I in the band? And they're like yeah, you're in the band, it's official. But then they're like but now you have to be a lead singer because, dude, those guys were singing 40 songs collectively between the three of them a night and playing all their instruments as three piece. And you know now that I'm the lead singer and sing 70% of every song we sing in a night. We're toast at the end of it. You know in a good way.

Speaker 2: 1:24:49

But now you know when you're playing a really technical part you know this from musicianship when you're playing that technical as a guitar player and you're singing a lead vocal for, like an Aussie song, let's say, or something crazy, you know you're going to play well because you're good, because you're rehearsed, but you're not necessarily going to play at your best. When someone else is singing a lead and you come in at a harmony right and now and now everybody's just tighter. Yeah. So Josh, on his technical drum part and singing from his drum kit, I took a lot of songs he used to sing because I mean, it was a tough road, and then we kind of expanded our sound a little bit like songs. They previously didn't have synthesizers and keyboards that had parts. Now I became a keyboard player and learned the synthesizer, and Seth is a programmer for samples. So I'm playing with that kid. I've got an alternate percussion setup to assist Josh when a song needs cowbell or it needs a vibroslap or it needs a rain stick and he can't do it all you know and sing it. So anyway, long windedly, that's how it morphed and I joined them, well, technically, at the end of that night.

Speaker 2: 1:25:49

And we're going on to our sixth year and we're going to 11 years of Area 56 and our hundredth gig was actually on New Year's last year and they said so we'll be together for 10 years. We'll have 100 gigs. Maybe it's time to take a break. We got a lot of family stuff going elderly family, you know this and that and we were. We were potentially going to give it a rest last year and not in a negative way, right, just from the standpoint of our lead guitarist and my good friend Mike. You know his his pop had just died or he was close to passing away. There were a lot of transitions and family changes and seeing your kids do well in high school, it was just getting a lot.

Speaker 2: 1:26:26

And I was on the road a lot I am by design. I mean I don't have the family restrictions anymore, but you know. But then we started having so much fun. We were calling it our farewell tour, secretly and not telling the public. And then we were having rehearsals and we were George, we were jamming more lights out than we ever had with the most complicated new set list.

Speaker 2: 1:26:44

Pearl Jam comes in, you know, queensrack, we're playing Silent Lucidity, we're playing Jeremy, we're playing Shine Down, we're doing all these songs we would have never done as a three piece and we would not have done them three or four years prior with me in the band. We just weren't ready but we had the most fun. And you know, by those last couple of shows I'm starting to hear yeah, I think we got to do like. I think we had to do like six or eight or these next year. We're like all right, so it's not going anywhere. Yeah, we're having fun, Everybody's fresh, we're having fun and we're just looking forward to a really good gig season.

Speaker 2: 1:27:15

But again, that's just been God's timing on everything and, you know, putting us in face with good people. You know, had I not had that connection I mean I was roaming around here in Montana for 20 something plus years through my entire career, knowing I'd live here one day, but being a California resident and loving my job down there and I never rented any of these guys it had been not the family connection and Josh and I bonding over that moment when my dad passed and happy to cross paths when he was actually painting the house and I happened to be here and loving this guy and listening to music and dissecting stuff on the on the itin. We're just like okay, and it just became a real great opportunity. And now it's. It's been a lot of fun, been a lot of fun and a lot of people have a lot of fun at these.

Speaker 2: 1:27:59

We have a big summer festival, a place called Happys Inn. We play to about 2000 people for a little mountain band. That is enormous, right, and they do a city size one hour firework show at the end under the and they they run the tallest flag, biggest flag in Montana, above their resort and their casino and their restaurant and their store. That's in an area around McGregor Lake where everyone's camping and fishing, and halfway between our town and the big flathead Valley of like Calispell and Glacier Park, and yeah, it's a big show, and then we do a bunch of smaller shows, you know, but they're all just good people. You know good people. So come, come see us, man, hang out, jam with us.

Speaker 1: 1:28:38

Oh, I'm in, man, I am in. We'll have to lock in some dates and such too. No, that's phenomenal when you're not doing that. I mean I guess I want to go into two areas. Let's first ask about, like because we, you just wrapped up your hunting season for the most part, I know you know some turkeys are on the way and I know you're a turkey man, but talk me through about what the fall was like for you. What are some highlights that you have? Can some stories you share, and maybe what?

Speaker 2: 1:29:06

you got in the freezer, yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that, because what you're doing down on your ranch and we met way back in the day over one of my podcast appearances and you said you got to come down here. You got Texas White Till thing going on and I love that. We need to make that happen, but it was, it was a good season. I didn't harvest a buck here simply because I'm targeting three monsters that I've put up on social media anonymously not showing locations for obvious reasons and I've just been watching these Goliath Timber White Tail that by far there there are nemesis up here in Norris Lane, my uncles, my uncle and my dad. You know my uncles have been and my dad have been my mentors and until you shoot, you know, a true timber buck in millions of public mountain dense timber acres. You know, in our wilderness areas and you get that. You know we call it a five point here, western Count, but that real mature 10 point you would say in the East that's, you know, a six, seven year old buck and defeated, never been. Until you get one of those you don't quite join the club and oh, five, that happened after eight days. You know, put my climber, stand up every day in an area we had marked and put a lot of research into. And I really credit my uncle especially for being that mentor. You know, he's the ninja in the woods. He's that guy that was super silent, red wind perfectly. Taught me to fly fish, taught me to stock. I learned more stocking tactics effective in loud timber country than I ever picked up in a sniper school no disparaging any of the schools I was in or that I taught, but I got more of that inherent, you know, miserable weather, miserable condition, wind changes from him. And now I'm kind of going after that. You know I just I don't want to shoot anything small, I want really mature bucks up here.

Speaker 2: 1:30:50

I get, you know, the wild hogs down in Cali, the true Russian razors that were actually working on a conservation story for one of the NRA publications right now, because the cattle families down there that I've been close to that. I'm down there, you know, watching their properties for trespass grows but also dealing with invasive hogs that are, you know, taking out all that habitat and grassland that don't only impact their cattle but they impact the tuli elk. And I'm in that part where I grew up on these ranches that have the smallest, smallest sized elk species that we have in America but also the smallest population. There's like 4,000 of these animals and they only exist in certain parts of California and they're magnificent and they're all over these ranches that I'm going after these massive Russian boars and then dealing with these coyotes that have not been called, they have not been hunted, they have not had pressure and they're taken out. Calves, you know by the numbers, both. You know potentially elk calves but definitely you know beef cattle and I've just been really falling back in love with that.

Speaker 2: 1:31:56

When I have the time, if I'm working on the West Coast, I'm in there every afternoon, morning that I can, and doing it all on foot man and doing the long range stuff, bringing back the sniper stuff and dealing with the new guns I shoot and Ulterra arms. I got to give them a shout out. They've been my rifle sponsor, you know, since retirement and that 300 PRC is a little faithful. It is. I mean, it's a good Texas gun for about anything down there. But they built me a 6.5 Creedmoor and also a 33 nozzleer. When I eventually draw that brown bear tag to do that feature Nice and those guns are just amazing and being able to put them to work all the time, given the generosity and support I have from a company like that, and really show that it's not just about conservation.

Speaker 2: 1:32:33

Field a table, which is everything and you know it's all important, but we're getting into legitimate depredation issues for habitat endangered species and really, really threatened species like the Tule elk, literally in the Silicon Valley foothills release grows were it makes no sense.

Speaker 2: 1:32:51

So we're actually I'm working with a good writer, karen Hunter, who's with Athlon Outdoors and runs Secure it Safe kind of a marketing media. We're going to be doing an article on the absolute contradiction of how can you have this sensitive wildlife like Tule elk in the Silicon Valley foothills and have a coyote population next to an urban tech capital that's doing so much damage to these calves of native species, wildlife species and our beef cattle. And how does the cattle industry fit in conservation? Most people think beef cows they're just, you know, crapping up in the streams, they're tearing up waterways. But when you look at how grazing is done, when it's done ethically and effectively, they're actually enhancing wildlife habitat in their practice. And people that don't, that aren't on the conservation side, necessarily don't really understand that. And it's not disparaging anybody, but you got to just show it because they haven't been exposed to it.

Speaker 1: 1:33:49

Sure you don't know what to do.

Speaker 2: 1:33:51

Yeah, and we're going to expose this in the stuff I'm doing when I'm on the West Coast in an article for American Hunter that's going to really lay this out to all the masses. That will read it in whatever state and whatever city and go wow, this is crazy. You know, from a 400 pound true Russian razor that isn't a feral mix hogs that were literally brought over by the Hewlett Packard Foundation in the ranch and I'm next to the Hewlett Packard Ranch, that's where I operate they're great people, they're massive, but they brought over six wild hogs, two Russian boars and four sows in 1963. And you should see what happened to that part of California. But when I'm shooting hogs, it's none of this feral, weird mixed pigs, it's these big razorback, stout, shoulder, gristle plate.

Speaker 2: 1:34:32

You've seen some of the photos. Yeah, I posted a few and the coyotes look like winter dogs that are eaten, drive through at McDonald's up here in Montana all day long. They're monstrous dogs, they're getting no pressure and then I'm seeing them in the cities. So that's what's been the good stuff. But we ended up with ended up with some hog meat, ended up with some deer meat, ended up with two nice turkeys fall and spring last year.

Speaker 2: 1:34:57

And then I'm just waiting on a brown bear tag to go up and do a little film up there and go after the big brown bear and talk about predation issues up there and also dive in with experts on the cartel, fentanyl and methamphetamine and human trafficking issue going in overdrive all around Alaska especially, and how remote Alaska say a Fogknock Island or Kodiak, where I'm going to be is affected by the cartel threat. I always want to bring in an element of what do we need to be careful of, as well as we tell a conservation story on my thing Reline Film Series and that's kind of where we're going. That's just a hard tag to draw. It's been three years in the making, so we'll see.

Speaker 1: 1:35:32

Oh, good luck, Hope you get that. Man and I love how you talk about you kind of do like one big major video each year, right? Wasn't that always your goal? I mean, are you kind of doing some more? And from that one, what else is on the horizon, Because I know that you filmed a lot last year and what are we looking to see as far as that kind of feature coming out?

Speaker 2: 1:35:50

Yeah, we got a couple things, some I can talk about just in general for now yeah, yeah yeah, Basically we started filming last year for the Callsign Trailblazer documentary, slash Hiddenmore documentary, and then the Riders and Actors strike started and it shut everything down because people we were thinking we could continue pushing through the documentary, but when you start to bring in reenactments, you're using actors for that. Even a non-scripted documentary has an issue there. I mean, we couldn't even have Mustafa Speaks, who plays Nate Romanowski on the Joe Pickett series on. He was wanting to do our podcast for the longest time. Then the strike happened. He couldn't even do a podcast appearance and then that we just got him on the show about a month ago when everything lifted.

Speaker 2: 1:36:30

Well, now that things are lifted, we're back on for documentary production. There was a feature film in the works. It has not been green light. It's in development right now for Hiddenmore. What I can say is we have an amazing writer, three amazing producers involved in it. That's what I'll say for now and let's just say the story is going to be more than I could have expected. More than I could have expected because this writer and these producers are wired right. They completely get it.

Speaker 2: 1:36:57

I think it's going to complement everything we stand for on the conservation front and it's not going to water down the real threats from these cartels that we have out there. It's going to be painfully honest and it's going to get a little more personal than I thought it would to deal with some of the different challenges just to get this team built and the things that were happening with losses in family, what I think is one of the best things I was ever blessed to do during my operational career. So I'll have more on that as we develop, but really really good blessings in the work. So 2024, it's going to be a busy year, but I'm going to make time for this and I got to apologize because we've been trying to get this on for the better part of the year. So I'm grateful for your patience. Brother, I appreciate all you're doing. Keep it up, and someday I got to get down on your ranch and play a little bit and look at your program, because it's really exemplary, really impressive.

Speaker 1: 1:37:52

Cheers. Well, thank you, man. Well, that offer is always open Love to have you, love to share what we got out there and, like suit, you got going on. I appreciate all that you're educating and entertaining on the music side too, but everything that you're putting out there and that you're sharing with the world you have great guests on when you've had your podcast. There's so much that I have learned through following you and your journey and your writings. Your books are second to none. I think they open up something that people really need to see and I mean I find them to be fascinating left and right. Like I said, I've given these as gifts, the V-Knives that you created. Everything around there has been. So you know I'm blessed to just kind of be a part of this journey and learn. I was excited because you never know what month you're going to announce the next big thing, man. So everyone should stay tuned and follow your page and we'll give them a location on where to do that in a second and follow the journey.

Speaker 1: 1:38:44

But you know when we talk about all these different things you've been a part of, you know your amazing career and service and thank you for that as well, and I just wanted to know. You know I've asked a lot of guests about their legacy and I was really curious about how you view your own personal and professional legacy. You've uncovered so much, you've shared so much with your books and just through your time and your service and what you've seen and gained more than that and I wanted to hear about what you think you know. As far as that idea of legacy man, what do you hope that you leave behind? How do you want to be remembered? And, like I said, in a professional and a personal side of life, yeah, I think.

Speaker 2: 1:39:26

I'll go. I'll go, but I'll go personal first and I think I just want to honor the legacy of my mom and my dad. You know my mom passed it 47 years old back in 93, like literally when I was just in my early 20s, start my career, and I'll tell you what man she was a best friend, she was a confidant, and the years I did have with her she always spoke from From the heart, of generosity, and she had a couple of rules. She said you know, never, never, have an empty plate for a guest. She said if there's anything worth doing you need you need to do the best. It's worth overdoing. And that was before. It was even you know a movie line. That was her saying. Yeah, it truly was, and I didn't know how impactful that would be later in my career. But yeah, she, dad was the same way you know. They both said find something you're passionate about and do it to the best of your ability. And whatever you do passionately, do it to make a difference for better, make people better, make people happy, make people safer.

Speaker 2: 1:40:28

And and it was kind of embedded in a service history anyway, my dad was Army National Guard and and reserves, granddad was career Navy. All my uncles served, my dad served, and if they, if they didn't serve in the military, they were law enforcement guys, right or or gals. So I kind of had that. That public service was going to be a part of me at some point. I didn't know if it was going to be a military journey, I didn't know if it was going to be domestic law enforcement I was going to. I was going to start my career as an engineer Directly out of college because I knew as a civil engineer I could do outdoor type stuff, I could make a decent living for my family. We had grown up, you know, with very limited resources and thankfully I found that game warden by mistake on that winter hike, you know. Back, I know we didn't talk about it, but it's, it's in the intro. Yeah, I told the story a few times.

Speaker 2: 1:41:15

Yeah, sure, um, and you know, and that's when I was going the engineering route and and looking at the ROTC special forces bill that they had, which they did for Green Berets, and that's where I was going Until I met that game warden and realized this is something I need to do now and I need to serve domestically because it just it. I was so impassioned by the outdoors. They were healing, they were motivating. All of my trail runs, my long distance and in my endurance sports happened in Henry Coast State Park, even if I wasn't hunting, and it gave me the strength to do what I do today, you know, and have gotten through, I think successfully, and and and I'm still here to talk about it with you because we had a lot of close calls, as you can imagine but basically, pay it forward, you know, do something for the greater good and and just be rewarded for yourself.

Speaker 2: 1:42:03

So everything I do is Really for the message. It's really for protecting wildlife, resources and public safety. I love our country, I absolutely love the blessings we have. I will never disparage another nation, but I've been all over the world and I can say, even in our worst day, we've never had something better and my legacy is to be that person to say it's worth fighting for, to protect, be good to everybody around you. You know, be humble, be a simple man. And one of the songs I brought to the band that we had to play two seasons ago and it was my mom's message be a simple man. And and Skinner got it right shine down, did it great. Whoever's covered that. I can't tell you how emotional I get on stage and the crowd gets when we talk about that and I always tribute that to my mother, who died so early, and my dad's legacy. And that's on the personal. That's a little bit of personal and professional. I think it kind of kind of answers it both. Did I get it right?

Speaker 1: 1:43:01

Did I get my legacy right? No, you, it does, man. I mean, it starts the family there too. But I think you know your history of your family being. You know people of service, men and women, and you know to be. Then you wanting to be a part of something and giving back, and you found your calling. You found the thing that you really felt was right for you at that time and then to see where that career took you and the things that you know, the unexpected. I bet you never could have written out this journey.

Speaker 1: 1:43:29

No way, sense of what it, what it came through. And you know this illegal growth, the cartel and the influence. And now here you are. You know If you would have told your 22 year old self then hey, by the way, you're gonna be testifying to Congress and you know, talking to them about these issues, you would have been like what you know, yeah, yeah, and you're gonna be playing in a very nice, successful rock band. But you know, like those things, that you never know where your journey is gonna take. But you know, as long as I think you stick to you, know your core beliefs, you're honoring yourself, your family, and you know you're wanting to give back and you stay true and trying to be a better person each day. No matter what it is you're gonna do. You're gonna leave behind something that's going to be monumental and you know everything you've done. I mean it's.

Speaker 1: 1:44:18

I always think about these kinds of things to like podcast, right, there's like a little nugget of our timeline that we've left behind. You know you being a podcast or two like, and then you look at your books and then you know your musical recordings and things that people can sit back. There's a certain point in time where your life lives on through that echoing Continuation of all the things that you've produced and been a part of. How many articles have you written? I mean, it's all there for us to go through and you know, I'm Again, I'm just, I'm honored to have you on here and to talk to you about this and I I I appreciate the legacy you live and I appreciate all that you're doing right now and sharing with you know, my listeners and Friends and family.

Speaker 1: 1:44:56

You've been a very important person, my life man and I'm just so thankful to All the things that you're doing and putting out in the world and it's just a great thing to be on the journey of and you always got my support. There's anything I can ever do to you know, help, accentuate or, you know, throw the spotlight on what you got going. We're gonna get you back on here and throw that out there. So I just want to say thank you and, for those who are wanting to learn more about what you got going, we give us websites, your social handles, your podcast. It's like kind of give a little review of everything so people can dive in and jump in where they want.

Speaker 2: 1:45:26

You bet we'll start with website George and, by the way, honored to be here, brother, thank you for having me and and I look forward to just continuing the process. Man, this has been an amazingly fun conversation. I appreciate it. You can reach me my websites just John Norris comm, john and or s comm. It has most of the updates with books and TV and projects teaching speaking. I do speak all over the country on these issues. If everybody, anybody wants that, I'm gonna be on the road a lot March and April. Multiple states, with law enforcement teams primarily, but civilian groups as well, conservation groups. I'm on Instagram at John Norris, john and or s. There's a lot of posers trying to steal my content. So look for the blue check, because I got fortunately got that blue check recently Because I had a lot of people being scammed by my, by some faker out there being asked for money and all kinds of goofy stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:46:17

So I remember getting one of those. Yeah, they're like yeah, I'm arresting any money. I'm like oh really.

Speaker 2: 1:46:24

Yeah, good luck with that. I was like that's funny, You're the second John Norris account.

Speaker 1: 1:46:27

You're not the real one. Yeah, remember, there's something like. That was crazy.

Speaker 2: 1:46:31

No, it really happens, man. And on Facebook, same thing. Just joh, joh, and and or s. The thing you'll see is on my link tree. It'll get you to my recoil TV films, part of recoil TV. Also, my youtube channel is just the thing green line John Norris youtube channel, and it has everything from full films to documentaries and news pieces to product testing of the, the very gracious sponsors I get to work with, and, and some diversity there, and I Encourage anybody to reach out.

Speaker 2: 1:47:01

If you have anything you want to know about going into the game or career More on the cartel issue, more on the issues we face in America, anything I can help in any way, please email me and you'll get to my email. It's trailblazer413 at yahoocom, but you'll get to it through the website as well, and I can't tell you how many kids and how many adults I'm hearing from that have gone into the career. I know that I've never met from other countries, other states, or people that I've, you know, worked with growing up as an instructor, as a warden, that are now behind me. You know being doing the best job they possibly can and I'm glad to help out and answer questions, so reach out to me that way as well.

Speaker 1: 1:47:41

Well, and are you still doing tactical training as well?

Speaker 2: 1:47:44

right now, I'm doing a little bit of it. Okay, that was another level.

Speaker 1: 1:47:48

Before that. I wanted to make sure I mentioned I mean that we could be sitting here for five hours like talking about all the different things but I just if you're still involved with that I wanted to just have you give a plug on that and what what people can expect when you know through your fire.

Speaker 2: 1:48:01

Yeah, that's, I'm glad you brought that up, george, and I do have that on my website, especially as a tactical training element. I will do I can. I can pull off about four classes a year, between one-on-one up to one-on-four, and I'll do them on the west coast in certain conditions and certain ranches I've access to Excuse me, and also up here in Montana and it's a. It's a two-day Pistol and carbine combination. There's some wilderness trauma medicine involved or it can be just one weapon for a day and then you can go to the long gun from the car, from the pistol.

Speaker 2: 1:48:34

But I work from the basics and you know, work you right up to being the best Prepared person you can to be your first self, you know your first responder for feel conditions, whether you live in an urban or rural environment, and also going over all the legalities of being prepared to what will happen if you ever have to execute deadly force for defense or also bring in those weapon skills To subsist under the conservation model. I teach that as well and inquiries can come through direct message on Instagram or Facebook or you can email me as well if you're interested in that. And we have a lot of fun in those classes and I don't do a ton of them because of the schedule, sure, but I make sure I I can do them enough to stay current and fresh out there, and, you know, while I'm in training myself with other groups. So good stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:49:17

Well, hey, once again, everyone, make sure you go check out those links. There's so much to explore and you know whether it's it. However, we do this. I want to get some books from you and give them away to our listeners will do away everything. Follow your pages. We'll talk the details about that, but there will be a giveaway of some sort whether I'm you know getting from you or maybe we'll figure out what kind of combination of stuff. But I want to do something to where people can get a chance to really jump in. Make sure you guys are ordering a hidden war, the second edition, the forward by Jack Carr. It's phenomenal. I love this and I know that there's more things that are on the horizon. Can't wait to have you on to chat about all those and just to see all these amazing projects unfold. Thank you once again, john, for joining me and it's been a pleasure and honor. I can't wait to do this in person.

Speaker 2: 1:50:04

Right on, brothers. Look forward to seeing you, look forward to the next one and keep up the good work.

Speaker 1: 1:50:08

Cheers thank you, thank you you.