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On the night of 5 October 2013, outside Kandahar, a Ranger strike force walked onto Objective Ares. Somewhere between 40 and 60 IEDs were buried across 100 meters of ground. Army EOD tech Jeff Dawson was the bomb tech on the ground with them. In this episode, SFC (Ret.) Jeff Dawson tells the whole story: growing up, picking EOD, EOD school, deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and going to work with the Ranger Regiment. He walks through the night of Objective Ares, the four who were killed, and the Distinguished Service Cross he says can't bring them back. Then the years after: the TBI he hid, the drinking between deployments, and the 2019 Ghazni deployment where a 5.56 round from his own side left him paralyzed. He talks about Walter Reed, the toe that moved, walking again, the article he asked them to change, and the ketamine and ayahuasca that helped him heal. 🎖️ In memory of 1st Lt. Jennifer M. Moreno, Sgt. Patrick C. Hawkins, Sgt. Joseph M. Peters and Pfc. Cody J. Patterson, killed at Objective Ares, Zhari District, Afghanistan, on 6 October 2013. SFC (Ret.) Jeff Dawson is a U.S. Army EOD technician who supported the 75th Ranger Regiment, earned the Distinguished Service Cross for Objective Ares in 2013, was paralyzed from the chest down by a gunshot in 2019 and walked again. His story:🎖️ Army Ordnance Corps Hall of Fame: https://goordnance.army.mil/HallOfFame/2020/2022/dawson.html📰 Task & Purpose profile: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-eod-tech-jeffrey-dawson/📸 Jeff on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffreak86/ 🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9FVi8n_TGg Sponsors: Serious supplements "For Those that Run Towards"https://go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite-dawson-podUse Code VANGUARD15 for 15% off 🔗Connect with The Vanguard Wall Podcast🏪Merch: https://go.thevanguardwall.com/merch📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: https://intel.thevanguardwall.com⚔️Join The Wall → https://youtube.com/channel/UCJ8K3O-n9Mdcxv0mtV4xdCw/join🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVanguardWall⚔️Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevanguardwallpodcast/📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569106772297📧 Connect/Sponsor: [email protected]

Nick Laidlaw enlisted in the Marine Corps to go to war. The war never came for him. So he spent the years after collecting other men's: over 1,100 first-hand accounts from more than 20 armies, both sides of nearly every war since 1939, including a Taliban fighter who later apologized to him. Then he stopped collecting from a distance and went himself. In 2022 he was talking into encircled Mariupol over Starlink, interviewing a 22-year-old Azov soldier named Anton "Pazman" Krill almost every day until Anton was killed. Nick holds his last words: "When we are relieved from here I will immediately marry my girlfriend and everything will be Ukraine." Two and a half years later, a man Nick was certain had died in Russian captivity messaged him. They met in a tea shop: "Thank you for giving me Anton back." In 2025 he rode into Pokrovsk at one in the morning in a soft-skin pickup, after a brigade deputy commander told him it was 50-50 he'd be hit going in or coming out. He went. Seven hours: the wound that started it, and the work that came out of it. ▶ Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=JNZvkcO3fsE CHAPTERS 0:00:00 Cold open 0:04:04 Eight months in the making 0:09:51 Adopted at birth, and the half of his life he knew nothing about 0:19:21 He found his biological family in six days 0:37:13 Growing up on the GWOT, and why the Marine Corps 0:47:10 Boot camp, SOI, and FAST company 0:58:07 He enlisted to have his metal tested. The war never came. 1:03:43 Getting out, and the transition nobody prepares you for 1:08:29 A Glock in the car door, and the song that stopped him 1:16:02 Battles and Beers begins 1:28:06 Kabul falls, and the people he tried to get out 1:39:14 "You are the target audience" - how propaganda really works 1:46:32 He interviewed a member of the Taliban 2:03:43 Maidan, Crimea and the Donbas: how this war started 2:27:14 What Azov actually is 2:33:02 Russia's justification, and what he says is the truth 2:53:22 Into encircled Mariupol on Starlink 2:59:01 Anton "Pazman" Krill, 22 years old 3:15:52 Standing at Anton's memorial wall with his brother 3:26:36 "What right do you have to take these stories?" 3:30:37 Bucha, from a man who lived through it 3:40:26 The Coke can in the Walmart parking lot 3:56:27 Artillery down the road. The waiter offered a refill. 4:08:51 Why he calls himself a coward 4:13:02 Ukraine's prison-release soldiers 4:41:13 The third trip: full access with the 25th Airborne 5:01:56 How an FPV strike actually happens 5:03:29 Mercy kills, and the wounded nobody comes for 5:15:14 Pokrovsk: 110,000 Russians 5:17:33 Hearing became survival 5:30:47 A mine went off next door 5:40:17 He strained drinking water through his underwear 5:58:01 The truck he was supposed to be in 6:00:29 From atheist to something else 6:27:23 American aid to Ukraine 6:52:20 What years of this has done to him 6:59:01 Close Follow Nick: Battles and Beers battlesandbeers.org · IG @nicklaidthelaw · @battles_and_beers · @zero.line.dispatch ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite-ep46-audio — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch · 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast · 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

Ten years on the busiest ambulance in the City of Dallas. A downtown building that came down behind him with a mayday on the radio, and the smoke that dropped him to his knees. A New Year's Eve call in a barbershop where the crowd turned on the medics. A full cardiac code run on the floor of an airplane at 35,000 feet — the night he flew home from winning the Arnold Classic Brazil. Steve Kuclo is the first firefighter-paramedic in 45 episodes of this show. He quit automotive engineering when the industry collapsed, did two fire academies and two medic schools to get to Dallas, and spent a decade running the calls that don't leave — the pediatric ones, the ones where you did everything right and it didn't matter — while building himself into an IFBB Pro who stood on the Olympia stage at 26. Then 2020 took the identity he'd spent twenty years on, and the rebuild ran through the back row of a Dallas church, a marriage, and the regenerative-medicine clinic he runs today. He covers the firehouse — the kitchen table, the probie year, what brotherhood actually means, and the PTSD, divorce, addiction and suicide numbers the fire service doesn't talk about — and then opens the knowledge base: what steroids and TRT actually do to your blood, what actually kills bodybuilders, peptides in plain English, and the stem-cell treatment the host went through on camera. ▶ Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=ULu2tjb6QjM 🎬 The stem-cell film: youtube.com/watch?v=AeJY1uJH6BE CHAPTERS 0:00:00 How they met — one call about BPC-157 0:01:55 Ten years on the ambulance, and the Olympia stage 0:13:57 Age 14 at his first Arnold Classic 0:27:33 30,000 applicants for a couple hundred Dallas fire spots 0:35:23 The busiest ambulance in Dallas: seven calls in two hours 0:59:32 The building collapse — mayday on the radio 1:10:08 The kitchen table 1:22:28 What brotherhood actually means 1:25:50 New Year's Eve in the barbershop 1:30:55 Running a full code on a plane at 35,000 feet 2:09:02 First Olympia stage at 26 2:22:38 What steroids and TRT do to your blood 2:47:17 2020 rock bottom 2:58:33 Crying in the back row of a Dallas church 3:24:17 Stem cells 101 — where the cells come from 3:37:28 What the stem cells did — the host's own account 3:45:15 Peptides — what they are and aren't 3:53:31 BPC-157 and TB-500 4:11:26 GLPs — Ozempic, tirzepatide, retatrutide 4:40:17 TRT — what it is and isn't 4:53:14 Why "my testosterone was normal" means nothing 5:07:02 The offer — a landing page for TVW listeners 🧬 STEM CELLS · PEPTIDES · TRT — Steve's door for Vanguard Wall listeners. Fill out the intake, his clinical team reviews it, and you get a straight answer on whether it's right for you: go.thevanguardwall.com/regenx 📸 Steve: @stevekuclo · ReGenX: @regenx_ ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite-ep45-audio — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch · 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast · 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall The medical portions of this conversation document personal experience and are for informational purposes only. Not medical advice; no outcome is claimed or guaranteed. Therapies discussed are not FDA-approved. Consult a licensed physician. Disclosure: Upgraded Human ReGenX provided the host's stem-cell treatment (discussed in this episode) at no cost. This is not a paid sponsorship. The Vanguard Wall earns a referral benefit through the clinic link above. Opinions are our own.

Eleven days from going home. Fourteen months in eastern Afghanistan already behind them, bags half packed — and the order came down to build a brand-new combat outpost on the valley floor, in the low ground, in the middle of fighting season, surrounded by high ground they were forbidden to occupy. Three days later, at dawn on 13 July 2008, roughly 160 fighters hit Combat Outpost Kahler from every direction at once. Nine American paratroopers did not come home. 1SG(r) Jesse Queck was an 11 Charlie mortarman with Chosen Company at the Battle of Wanat. In six and a half hours he walks through the whole of it: a kid from a town of 8,000 on Virginia's Eastern Shore who watched the towers fall from a high school hallway and went looking for the war; four deployments; the helicopter crash that took his roommate and his mentor; and then the morning the mountain opened up. The mortar pit flooded with fire until the tube was useless. His weapons failed in his hands, so he picked up an AT4 he had never fired in his life, stepped into the open so the backblast wouldn't catch his own men, and put it into the treeline. His soldier Sergio Abad died on the ground beside him. When word came down that OP Topside had one man left alive on the radio — Ryan Pitts, who would later receive the Medal of Honor — Jesse said two words: I'm going. He climbed toward the fight everyone else was trying to survive, became the medic for the dying, and called in a B-1 by ear when he could no longer hear his own radio. That is the half of the story people tell. The other half is what happened when he came home to a dark place with no enemy in it — the drinking, the night his wife called him frantic, the survivor's guilt he carried for years over Abad, and the day the woman who raised Sergio told him: I don't blame you. I forgive you. I love you. Because Jesse will tell you a soldier dies twice — once when he falls, and again when no one says his name. Today he says those names. 1SG(r) Jesse Queck survived the Battle of Wanat, 13 July 2008 — one of the fiercest small-unit fights of the Afghan war, where nine American paratroopers were killed. This is the full conversation. CHAPTERS 0:00:00 Cold Open: Wanat, July 2008 0:04:03 Growing Up on Virginia's Eastern Shore 0:12:02 September 11th in the School Hallway 0:24:47 What a Mortarman Actually Does 0:30:29 Fort Drum: The Helicopter Crash 0:41:40 French Commando School in Djibouti 0:49:09 The Smart Bomb That Hit the Helicopter 1:08:51 Route Tampa: IEDs and Complacency 1:18:01 Reenlisting for Italy and the 173rd 1:40:13 Ranch House at 3,300 Meters 1:55:32 Ranch House Overrun on the Radio 2:06:56 The Order to Build Wanat 2:14:55 Building the Outpost by Hand 2:25:34 Stand-To on 13 July 2008 2:35:26 The First RPG Hits the TOW Truck 2:42:05 Weapons Seize, Firing the AT4 2:48:32 Sergio Abad Is Hit 2:56:04 Abad's Guardian and Forgiveness 3:15:42 Volunteering to Reinforce OP Topside 3:22:11 Reaching OP Topside 3:32:31 Jonathan Ayers on the 240 3:39:25 The RPG That Wounded Him 3:49:42 The Medevac Pilots 3:58:46 Landstuhl, Vicodin, and Coming Home 4:02:35 Saying Their Names 4:14:24 Drill Sergeant: Visualizing the Range 4:31:31 Lewis-McChord and Spin Boldak 4:39:12 Ranger School at Twenty-Nine 4:53:41 Fixing a Broken Tank Company 5:08:26 Observer-Controller at the National Training Center 5:21:51 COVID, Isolation, and Drinking 5:33:03 Losing Stratton Hall 5:44:30 The Meadows and Getting Sober 6:00:07 Bob Starr and Learning Business 6:06:08 Farm Bureau and Serving Clients 6:17:40 A Message to His Kids ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite-ep44-audio — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch · 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast · 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

If you’ve read the news in the last three years, you’ve been handed two stories about AI — and they can’t both be true. Story one: the machines are coming for your job, your kid’s job, your retirement, your privacy. Story two: it’s all hype, a bubble about to pop and take your 401(k) with it. Shawn Ennis — 25 years in technology, an Auburn-trained engineer with a dozen patents, who built three companies and sold one to Oracle — sits down to take the scariest, most hyped subject on Earth and make it make sense in plain English. What AI actually is, how it works, where it’s real and where it’s a lie — then through the four doors it’s already come through in your life: your home, your privacy, your paycheck, and the battlefield. No hype, no doom. Just the truth, slow enough to use. ▶ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EbM4-LJSd4Y Follow Shawn Ennis — YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ennissh · LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnennis Tech executive Shawn Ennis sits down with The Vanguard Wall for a full-length conversation that takes artificial intelligence out of the headlines and puts it in plain English: what AI actually is and what really happens when you hit enter, whether it can take your job and the work it will never touch, the AI already running in your house, deepfakes and scams and how to protect your family, the data centers going up down the road, the AI bubble and what a pop would mean for your 401(k), what it offers a small business owner, and the machines already deciding who lives and dies on battlefields in Ukraine — plus the military AI story that never makes the news: the one that brings everybody home. A plain-English guide to the most hyped subject on Earth, from a man who spent 25 years building it. CHAPTERS 0:00 Welcome + Why This Conversation 2:02 The Two Stories You've Been Told About AI 4:05 Who Is Shawn Ennis? Before AI 7:40 The Why Guy: Where Problem-Solving Was Born 9:24 Patents, Companies, and Selling to Oracle 16:53 The Caterpillar Lesson That Changed Everything 22:07 Planting the AI Seed in a Beginner 30:38 Both Camps Have It Wrong 37:45 The Chatbot Better Than the Call Center 48:15 How AI Actually Works — No Math Degree Required 58:41 ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok — Are They the Same? 1:07:15 Data Centers: Myths and Realities 1:14:03 Where Does Your Data Actually Live? 1:16:46 AI Is Already in Your House 1:19:34 Using It More, Trusting It Less 1:25:17 The ER Story: AI and Your Health 1:40:25 Why Grown Adults Are Mean to a Machine 1:53:32 Kids, Cheating, and School in the AI Age 1:58:22 Personas, Data Brokers, and Who's Watching 2:02:32 AI Fakes, Deepfakes, and Guardrails 2:11:08 Take Your Privacy Back This Week 2:16:52 The Question That Keeps Parents Up 2:19:51 The AI Bubble and Your 401(k) 2:25:45 Data Centers, Round Two: The Backlash 2:31:10 AI for the Small Business Owner 2:40:56 Machines That Decide Who Lives and Dies 2:43:59 The Moral Floor 2:45:28 The Military AI Nobody Talks About 2:49:10 Bringing Everybody Home 2:54:29 AI Doesn't Know What's True 3:07:25 Inside Shawn's Businesses 3:26:05 Talk to It Like a Consultant 3:28:23 When AI Is the Wrong Tool 3:29:44 The Honest Reason for Hope 3:30:52 The Luckiest Moment in History 3:34:18 Shawn's Dream + Close ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch · 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast · 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

Colonel (r) Max Krupp will be the first to tell you he doesn’t tell war stories — you have to pull them out of him. Over 28 years he became the first Texas Army National Guardsman in history to earn the Green Beret, wore a Bronze Star with Valor for a single day in Kandahar Province that by rights should have killed him and the Afghan company he was advising, and was on the Army’s fast track to general — then walked away from all of it to raise cattle in Texas. This is the full conversation: the kid nobody bet on who did the hardest thing on offer every single time, then chose the quiet work. ▶ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Nsg0OY-8RhY Retired U.S. Army Colonel Max Krupp sits down with The Vanguard Wall for a full-length interview spanning 28 years of service: enlisting in the New Mexico Army National Guard at 17, Ranger School, Long Range Surveillance, and becoming the first Texas Army National Guardsman to earn the Green Beret and Special Forces tab. He walks through a 13-month Afghanistan deployment as a combat advisor embedded with an Afghan National Army company, the day in Kandahar Province that earned him a Bronze Star with Valor, the Special Forces Q Course and SERE school, commanding the only airborne infantry battalion in the Texas National Guard, and why he traded a general’s track for a one-man cattle ranch raising black Angus beef. A rare, honest veteran story about leadership, service, and the quiet work after the uniform comes off. CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open 2:22 Meet Max Krupp 4:36 Growing up on the El Paso border 16:03 Where the military got in his blood 19:44 Military school in Roswell 26:00 Enlisting in the National Guard at 17 40:58 Long Range Surveillance & G Company 1:07:33 Ranger School 1:17:13 The Army kills the LRS program 1:38:52 Afghanistan: the advise-and-assist mission 1:44:08 Riding with the 82nd Airborne 2:13:27 The day in Kandahar 2:26:00 Aftermath, medevac & the Apache pilots 3:05:52 The Green Beret Q Course 3:11:09 SERE school 3:46:14 ODA life: the Guam jump mission 4:34:04 Walking away from a general's star 5:19:02 Raising the beef: grass vs. grain 5:56:48 Inside the cattle business 6:28:24 Leadership: the best and the worst 6:45:11 His kids, and the through line ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

The Marine Corps turned him down at eighteen. Twenty-four years later, CSM (Ret.) Donald "Mac" McAlister retired at the very top of the enlisted ranks — a Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart, with five combat tours behind him: two in Iraq, three in Afghanistan. This is one of the most honest conversations we've ever recorded. Mac takes us from a self-described "heathen redneck" childhood in Hammond, Louisiana to carrying caskets at Arlington with The Old Guard — where he learned the lesson that made him: "none of the honors are for you; they're for the family." From the invasion of Iraq and the 82nd's biggest firefight since WWII, to October 8th, 2003 — the roadside bomb that nearly killed him, and the medical retirement he refused so he could fight his way back to war. Into the Arghandab, the valley no army in history ever held, and the men he lost pieces of himself beside. And through all of it, the demons he still carries — and the wife and daughters who saved his life. A warrior, a philosopher, and a wild card — metalhead, horror-film actor, and one of the few senior leaders of his generation still reaching back to the soldiers who once feared him and now line up to hug him. Follow Mac: Instagram @don_mcalister_aka_mac CHAPTERS 0:00:00 Cold Open 0:04:17 Meet CSM "Mac" McAlister 0:04:40 Growing Up a "Heathen Redneck" in Hammond, Louisiana 0:07:50 The Father Who Rode a Kid's Bike 15 Miles to Work 0:09:52 Expelled — and the Lesson That Made Him 0:15:24 Metallica, Metal, and Music as Therapy 0:22:49 The Warrior Bloodline — and an Uncle Lost to War 0:25:45 Suicide, Reframed 0:44:44 Basic, Airborne School & the Road to the Old Guard 0:45:35 The Old Guard — Carrying Caskets at Arlington 1:00:33 "The Funeral Isn't for the Soldier" 1:22:49 The Colonial Musket That Blew Apart 1:34:57 Hawaii and the 25th Infantry 1:59:53 9/11, Re-Enlisting for the 82nd, and Going to War 2:16:44 As Samawah — the 82nd's Biggest Firefight Since WWII 2:33:03 "I Think They're Shooting at Us" 2:52:54 Clearing the City 3:29:03 The Metallica Hat They Found in Iraq 3:32:23 October 8, 2003 — the Day That Changed Everything 3:47:21 The Photo He Posts Every October 8th 4:14:16 Coming Home — Reunited With His Unit 4:30:00 Rules of Engagement and Real Leadership 5:00:45 Into the Arghandab — the Valley No Army Could Hold 5:20:50 98 IEDs, 11 Amputees, One Company 5:50:55 Losing SSG Brunkhorst 6:27:27 Leadership Lessons Forged in Combat 7:00:00 Retirement and the Hardest Transition 7:11:06 The Intervention That Saved His Life 7:22:13 Diane — 33 Years, and the Family That Saved Him 7:27:01 His Daughters, His Grandbaby & Who He Is Now ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

Chris McCoy served in the 75th Ranger Regiment alongside Pat Tillman and speaks plainly to the cover-up of how Tillman died. He recovered bodies inside the Pentagon after 9/11, fought through the high mountains of Afghanistan, then walked off the battlefield and onto a Bering Sea crab boat — one of the deadliest jobs on Earth. He returns to The Vanguard Wall for Part 2: the war stories he’s never told, the modern face of drone combat almost no one understands, and what it actually costs to come home. His first appearance became the most-watched episode this show has ever released. This one goes further. ▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/S5H_9VieDH0 CHAPTERS 00:00 Chris Is Back — The Most-Viral Guest Returns 08:06 Recognized in the Wild — Life After the First Episode 22:06 The Pentagon After 9/11 — 28 Days at the Hole 36:22 He Stood Next to Pat Tillman 43:13 The Truth About the Cover-Up 1:09:40 Mourning Their Own — What Really Happened in the Platoon 1:24:29 Winter Strike 2003 — Sent Into the High Mountains 1:43:51 Living at Altitude — The Body Breaks Down 1:53:20 Honoring the Ones Who Didn’t Come Home 2:09:07 The First Time He Got Shot At 2:19:04 John Owens — The Hardest Man He Ever Served With 2:49:01 Do We Even Need Navy SEALs? — Redundancy in Special Ops 3:06:21 An E-4 Ranger vs. SEAL Team Six — The Warlord Capture 3:24:48 The Car Bomb — When the CNS Burns Out 3:36:32 The Book “Unseen Worlds” — Why He Wrote It 3:50:10 What a Team Actually Costs the Men In It 4:06:49 Onto a Bering Sea Crab Boat — The Deadliest Job on Earth 4:53:04 The High Seas, the Money, and the Men Who Break 5:05:20 Things You Only See at Sea — The Jellyfish Bloom 5:27:38 Becoming a Master of the Craft — Competitive Shooting 5:58:58 Six Years Inside a Drone Program — The Department of War 6:10:53 The $400 Drone That Kills a Tank — Where War Is Headed 6:27:01 Leadership, Recovery, and Coming Home 6:43:26 Why He Keeps Telling These Stories 🔗 More from Chris McCoy 📖 Book — “Unseen Worlds” (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H7Z6JMWP 🌐 Website: https://chrismccoyauthor.com 📰 Substack: https://chrismccoyauthor.substack.com 📸 Instagram: @rok275 ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

Director William Kaufman brings Man of War to The Vanguard Wall — a grounded military action thriller set on the opening morning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, starring LaMonica Garrett and out now on digital via Well Go USA. LaMonica Garrett (1883, The Lioness, The Terminal List) plays Connor, a burned-out ex-operator at the lowest point of his life when a girl he's spent years protecting calls from a Kharkiv orphanage — the morning the invasion begins. Kaufman co-wrote the film, shot it in Bulgaria with a crew he calls family, and cast real Ukrainian refugees in key roles, including a woman with an actual drone-strike scar on her face. Jason Patric reprises their collaboration from Shrapnel as Connor's ex-CIA handler. Andrew Howard (Limitless) plays Danny Sudhakov, a Ukrainian fixer and the film's moral center. Kaufman’s thesis, stated publicly and repeated in this episode: “This is not a political movie. We’re not picking sides. We don’t have a political agenda. This is a movie about people caught in the middle of war. War is ugly. It’s a monster. It eats up everything.” The film carries that through with a dual-perspective script — Connor and Danny hold opposite views on the conflict by design — and with a level of gear authenticity (Lead Devil Belts, tech adviser Max Krausz) that veteran audiences will clock in the first five minutes. Kaufman is a U.S. Army Cavalry Scout veteran and Christian filmmaker who has never lived in Los Angeles. This is Kaufman’s fourteenth feature. He’s the director behind Sinners and Saints, The Hit List, Shrapnel, The Channel, and Osiris — twenty years of work built outside Hollywood, with crews rooted in New Orleans and Sofia, Bulgaria. The press track record speaks: “Kaufman creates taut suspense and dynamic action” (Variety), “Absolutely riveting” (HFPA), “Kaufman’s movie stands out because he doesn’t miss a beat” (RogerEbert.com). Man of War is out now on digital. Watch it on Apple TV: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/man-of-war/umc.cmc.j9guu91a0zqhlj5w8osaf1u9 Follow director William Kaufman on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamkaufman_director/ ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch · 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast · 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

Seb Lavoie is the most decorated operator most people have never heard of. Over 20 years he went from a French-Canadian kid with no childhood memories to a soldier, a covert air marshal, an ERT tactical operator and team leader, a court-recognized tactical expert, and the Divisional Sergeant Major over 8,200 people — then pride cost him his leg, and faith rebuilt him. Hostage rescues, the Surrey Six gang murders, an explosive breach gone catastrophically wrong, the cost on his family, rock bottom, and the conversion that changed everything. The Vanguard Wall’s first RCMP guest and first international guest. ▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wyy01D7FYT8 CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Introduction 00:09:00 Why He Can’t Remember His Childhood 00:14:30 Growing Up French-Only in 1970s Quebec 00:19:57 Bruce Lee on a Black-and-White TV 00:23:19 From Kung Fu and Muay Thai to BJJ 00:29:36 Becoming the Bully: Juvie and a Path of Destruction 00:33:13 The Roadside Moment That Pointed Him to Policing 00:39:38 Bouncing, Labor Disputes, and the Quebec Biker Wars 00:43:59 Weekend Infantry Basic with the Van Doos 00:50:13 Why He Left the Military for Policing 00:55:25 Inside the RCMP: Canada’s National Force 01:02:45 Depot: One Academy, Paramilitary From Day One 01:17:04 Posted to Tofino Speaking No English 01:29:12 Combatives Training and the Cop He Chose to Be 01:41:50 First Time Things Went Bad on the Street 01:48:38 The Parking-Lot Talk Before a Bar Fight, Outnumbered 02:04:54 Complacency, the 501st Stop, and Soft Shifts 02:22:16 Where He Was on 9/11 and What Changed 02:27:47 Going Covert: The Air Marshal Years 02:38:06 Chasing ERT: Canada’s SWAT 02:51:17 ERT Selection and the Training Pipeline 03:01:44 First ERT Call: A Machete and Two Hostages 03:13:47 Becoming a Breacher: Explosive Entry 03:24:39 Six Executed: The Surrey Investigation 03:49:20 Maritime Tactical Ops: Taking Down a Boat 04:03:32 Stepping Up to Element Leader 04:19:30 Leaving the Team: The Cost on the Family 04:31:11 Divisional Sergeant Major for All of BC 04:39:56 Leadership Dilemmas and Delivering Bad News 05:00:09 The Decision to Retire 05:07:35 Compartment Syndrome to a Below-the-Knee Amputation 05:17:45 Finding Faith Later in Life 05:26:26 The Moment That Changed Everything 06:00:46 The Roots of Orthodox Christianity 06:23:05 Building Raven Strategik 06:35:56 Final Word: The Power of Discernment 🔗 Connect with Seb Lavoie 🌐 Raven Strategik: https://ravenstrategik.ca 📚 Books — Raven Praxis Press: https://ravenstrategik.ca/raven-praxis-press/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slavccmdr ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch · 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast · 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

Hugh Mills flew the OH-6 “Loach” as a low-level aeroscout in Vietnam — statistically the most dangerous flying job of the war. Shot down 16 times, three Silver Stars, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Purple Hearts. Author of the classic memoir Low Level Hell. 📖 Low Level Hell: https://a.co/d/0glrcnww CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Introduction — how Greg Coker connected them + “Low Level Hell” 00:02:59 Growing up across the street from Bill Clinton 00:29:49 Officer Candidate School — marching inside a dumpster 00:49:50 He promoted himself with drugstore mercury 00:52:00 Stepping off the plane — what Vietnam smelled like 01:20:23 His first mission at 20 — adjusting live artillery 01:35:49 The minigun and the grease-pencil gunsight 01:47:48 “That’s not Mr. Jones” — the burned pilot 02:07:59 Thunder Road — “orange basketballs” and getting shot down 02:14:36 The “dead” NVA officer and the map case 02:42:48 Capturing an NVA major — the tax collector (Bronze Star) 02:58:25 The Silver Star mission — an AK-47 between his pedals 03:06:00 “Bad Day for the ARPs” — 28 men vs a regiment 03:19:39 Three Purple Hearts — shot through both cheeks 03:31:43 Losing Jim Amy and Jimmy Slater 03:43:43 He landed his helicopter on a sinking plane’s wing 03:55:42 Margaret — the love he found and lost 04:26:44 The A Shau Valley — “the worst place I’ve ever been” 04:51:32 His own rocket blows off his tail rotor 05:10:31 “Where’s your hat?” — “Somewhere in Laos” 05:16:04 The rescue — the blind PJ, “I’m 701” 05:28:32 Third tour and the general — “check your grid” 05:32:51 He attacked an NVA flag from inside North Vietnam 05:46:03 Pony One Six — the name he hid for 30 years 06:03:17 His wife of 52 years 06:15:31 Why none of his pilots ever took their own life 06:21:24 My Lai — the real hero nobody remembers 06:24:54 The OSS medic who saved Ho Chi Minh 06:40:18 “The way I fought a war is gone” ⚔️ Hoplite Nutrition — serious supplements for those that run towards: go.thevanguardwall.com/hoplite — code VANGUARD15 📰 Free Weekly Intel Brief: intel.thevanguardwall.com 🏪 Merch: go.thevanguardwall.com/merch · 📸 IG: @thevanguardwallpodcast · 🎥 YouTube: @TheVanguardWall

At Tora Bora in December 2001, Gary Harrington sat on one of the closest American observation posts to Osama bin Laden — close enough, he says, to watch the bombs he was calling in streak past the ridge sideways. Then the war handed him to the CIA, and he spent the next decade hunting the same enemy from the inside. Harrington is the rare operator who wore the uniform six different ways: Marine Corps infantry officer, Marine Recon, the second officer ever to graduate the Marine Scout Sniper Instructor course, Green Beret 18-Delta Special Forces medic, Delta Force operator (ODA 572 / Task Force Dagger, Bronze Star at Tora Bora), and CIA case officer. Over nearly eight hours, he walks through the entire arc — from a poor childhood in the North Carolina mountains, to the caves of Tora Bora, to the cables of Benghazi — and the night on Black Mountain he says set the course for all of it. It's a story about war, tradecraft, and the long road home: what the job cost him, the forgiveness it took to come back, and the line he uses for both halves of his life — "I wore wolf's clothing so long, I became the wolf." In this conversation: • The 9/11 morning that turned him toward the war — and the climb to the OP above Tora Bora • Calling in strikes near bin Laden's position, the daisy cutter he says "did nothing," and why he believes the body was hidden • Nate Chapman, the first American killed in Afghanistan — and the helicopter Harrington was told not to get on • Standing up firebase Coast: warlords, duffel bags of cash, and the plot to take out Pacha Khan • Running smugglers in Iraq — and the hidden camera that confirmed Jessica Lynch • Hugging the Taliban to feel for suicide vests, and a black Toyota he walked away from two minutes before it detonated • The strike that answered the Camp Chapman bombing • Reading the Benghazi cables in real time — why he says "that was fire for effect" • Beirut, 1983: the barracks bombing, and the day he refused a U.S. ambassador's order • Delta Force selection on a broken compass — forced out on an unjust evaluation, then clawing his way back • The glowing light on Black Mountain at his lowest moment, and the words he says he heard: "Do not be afraid… I have a purpose for you" • Faith, forgiveness, meeting his wife Kim, and the mission behind Power Prudence ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00:00 Welcome & introducing Gary Harrington 0:04:55 The Inner Ring: the drive to belong to the elite 0:07:10 Appalachian poverty, moonshine & a kid written off 0:25:38 The glowing bubble on Black Mountain 0:34:23 "I get paid to work out": becoming a Marine 0:56:59 Into 2nd Recon Battalion 1:09:48 Beirut, 1983: surviving the barracks bombing 1:14:52 Scout sniper instructor & crossing to Army Special Forces 1:36:23 The road to Delta Force selection 1:46:17 Delta selection: the broken compass & "I trained less" 2:02:11 The negligent discharge — the press check he skipped 2:16:00 Kicked out of Delta — & the commander who swore to end him 2:25:21 Clawing his way back into 5th Special Forces Group 2:35:35 Yemen, Ambassador Bodine & the USS Cole report the embassy killed 2:54:43 9/11: the diner, the second plane & turning toward war 3:16:12 Tora Bora: the climb to the OP & bombs flying past sideways 3:28:11 Why Bin Laden's body was hidden — & briefing McChrystal 3:45:03 Coast & Nate Chapman: the first American killed in Afghanistan 4:01:35 Warlords, duffel bags of cash & the plot to kill Pacha Khan 4:24:39 Running smugglers in Iraq: the hidden camera & Jessica Lynch 5:07:56 Hugging the Taliban to feel for vests — disrupting a suicide-bomber cell 5:29:34 A black Toyota, two minutes from death 5:33:19 The strike that answered Camp Chapman: "Predator, party of one" 5:52:07 Reading the Benghazi cables, CIA infighting & betrayal 6:39:39 The reckoning: faith, PTSD & "I became the wolf" 7:18:39 Power Prudence, situational awareness & "we're stained glass" 🔥 Hoplite Nutrition | Code VANGUARD15 — 15% off Subscribe & Save https://hoplitenutrition.com?utm_source=buzzsprout&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=gary_ep37&utm_content=sponsor_hoplite 📲 Follow Gary Harrington (The Power of Prudence): YouTube @thepowerofprudence · IG @therealgaryh · X @GHarringtonCo · FB TheRealGaryHarrington · LinkedIn gary-harrington 📩 The Weekly SSE (free intel brief): https://intel.thevanguardwall.com 🔗 Connect with The Vanguard Wall Podcast 🎥 YouTube (watch the full video): https://www.youtube.com/@TheVanguardWall 🏪 Merch: https://www.thevanguardwall.com ⚔️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevanguardwallpodcast/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569106772297 📧 Connect/Sponsor: [email protected] Support the show                                                               🔗 Connect with The Vanguard Wall Podcast                                                       🏪 Merch: https://www.thevanguardwall.com (code VANGUARD15)   🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVanguardWall                                            ⚔️ Patreon (early access + Discord): https://www.patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall   📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevanguardwallpodcast/                                 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569106772297   📧 Sponsor Inquiries: [email protected]                                                                                                       💪 Hoplite Nutrition — veteran-built supplements made in the U.S. Code VANGUARD15 for 15% off    Subscribe & Save → https://hoplitenutrition.com

Senior Master Sergeant Aaron Love — Air Force Pararescueman, 22 years, five combat deployments — is the first PJ ever on The Vanguard Wall. Fewer than 500 people have earned the maroon beret. The pipeline carries a 91% attrition rate — the longest special operations selection pipeline in the DoD. In 2002, Aaron quit on a pool deck at Indoc. He'd made it through Hell Night. He said three words to an instructor and walked out. What followed was five years in aerospace physiology, waiting for a cross-training window. At a poker game with PJs, his friend looked him dead in the eye: "What the hell are you doing at this table?" He went home. His wife was feeding their four-week-old daughter. She said: "Put the packet in. But don't come home unless you graduate." He graduated. In 2019, Aaron was standing four feet from the open door of a C-130 over the Gulf of Mexico when Staff Sergeant Cole Condiff was ripped from the aircraft. He ran dive operations for two days. Side-scan sonar returned two shapes that looked like parachute canopies with a body mass behind them. Divers went down. They were two boulders. Cole Condiff has never been found. ⚔️ THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORS (#sponsored #ad): 💼 Ridge — One thing to pack, five ways to power. Get 10% off @Ridge with code VANGUARD at https://ridge.com/VANGUARD #Ridgepod 💪 Hoplite Nutrition — Supplements built for veterans and operators. Code VANGUARD15 → 15% off Subscribe & Save → https://hoplitenutrition.com 🎟️ Patreon (24-hr early access + Discord): https://patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall CHAPTERS: (0:00) Cold Open: Aaron Love & The Cole Condiff Story (6:04) Aaron Joins the Show (8:34) What Is a Pararescueman? (91% Attrition Rate) (9:51) Growing Up in Barberton, Ohio (19:01) Ohio State, Factories & Hitting Rock Bottom (27:57) 9/11: "This Is My Generation's Moment" (29:05) Discovering Pararescue: The Air Force Recruiter (35:04) Air Force Basic Training: Lackland AFB (41:49) PJ Indoc 2002: Day One (49:22) Hell Night — Extended Training Day (53:32) "F*** You, I Quit." — The Decision That Cost Five Years (1:00:43) Reclassified: Aerospace Physiology & HALO Support (1:06:58) The Poker Game With PJs (1:09:33) "Pass or Don't Come Home" — His Wife's Ultimatum (1:13:00) Going Back: The Second Run at Indoc (1:40:48) Dive School & Earning the Beret (2:28:42) "The Only Spec Op You Need One Of" — PJ Identity (3:19:24) Pedro 66: Knowing the Men Who Died (3:32:45) "I Made the Decision to End My Own Life." (3:53:30) Konduz: Mike Cathcart & Dignified Transfer (4:09:00) "We Wrapped Him in the Flag Before His Brothers Walked In" (4:20:48) Are You Gonna Kill Yourself? I'll Be Awkward. (5:50:59) The Cole Condiff Stand-Down: Four Feet from the Door (6:05:30) "Get Me the F*** Out of This Aircraft" (6:21:42) Two Boulders. Cole Condiff Has Never Been Found. (6:31:55) Calling the Air Force Out in Front of 200 People (6:38:12) "I Was Hammered on the Plane Home. I Was Done." (7:16:00) Sobriety, DMT & Becoming Someone New (7:56:25) "The Black Pill Is a Lie. Have Hope." CONNECT WITH AARON LOVE: Ones Ready Podcast → onesreadypodcast.com Instagram → @aaronlovesamerica or @onesready Support the show                                                               🔗 Connect with The Vanguard Wall Podcast                                                       🏪 Merch: https://www.thevanguardwall.com (code VANGUARD15)   🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVanguardWall                                            ⚔️ Patreon (early access + Discord): https://www.patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall   📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevanguardwallpodcast/                                 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569106772297   📧 Sponsor Inquiries: [email protected]                                                                                                       💪 Hoplite Nutrition — veteran-built supplements made in the U.S. Code VANGUARD15 for 15% off    Subscribe & Save → https://hoplitenutrition.com

Marine vet Johnny Raushi joined the Corps at 17 for a free skateboard sticker. Four years later he came home broke, picked up change in a gas station parking lot, and sold his plasma twice a week to fund the first batches of a pomade he was perfecting on his stovetop. That pomade became Johnny Slicks — an 8-figure American manufacturing company employing 30+ people out of a North Carolina facility, fully U.S.-sourced. Asher and Raushi cover boot camp, the in-unit suicide that happened seconds after he walked away from his armory window, the Accutane spiral that nearly killed him, the six-day phone call with Marine Raider Nick Koumalatsos that turned a kitchen-table pomade into a brand, and his first book "23 Virtues in 23 Days" (Aug 2025). ⚔️ THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORS (#sponsored #ad): → https://ridge.com/VANGUARD #Ridgepod 💪 Hoplite Nutrition — veteran-built, made in the U.S. Code VANGUARD15 for 15% off → https://hoplitenutrition.com 🛒 TVW Merch — Built for the mission. https://thevanguardwall.com (code VANGUARD15) 🎟️ Patreon (24-hr early access + Discord): https://patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall CHAPTERS: (00:00) Welcome (03:30) Growing Up in NJ and the Poconos (11:00) Faith, Questions, and the Church (22:30) The Recruiter and a Sticker (27:00) Bootcamp and Brotherhood (37:00) Marrying Rebecca and Camp Lejeune (41:00) The M9 Pistol Eureka Moment (51:30) Deploying With BSRF-14 to Romania (1:02:00) Losing His MOS and Earning It Back (1:17:00) Suicide in the Ranks (1:22:30) Knee Injury and Leaving the Corps (1:41:00) Hair Loss and the First Pomade (2:00:00) Selling Plasma and Picking Up Change (2:14:00) Six Days With Nick Koumalatsos (2:35:00) Hurricane Florence and Moving In With Nick (2:55:00) Scaling Johnny Slicks (3:15:00) The Accutane Spiral (4:00:00) Building an 8-Figure Business (4:30:00) Leadership and EOS (5:00:00) Plant Medicine and Healing (5:45:00) Marriage and Trust (6:15:00) 23 Virtues in 23 Days (6:30:00) Closing Thoughts CONNECT WITH JOHNNY: johnnyslicks.com | IG: @johnnyslicks | @johnnyraushi Support the show                                                               🔗 Connect with The Vanguard Wall Podcast                                                       🏪 Merch: https://www.thevanguardwall.com (code VANGUARD15)   🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVanguardWall                                            ⚔️ Patreon (early access + Discord): https://www.patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall   📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevanguardwallpodcast/                                 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569106772297   📧 Sponsor Inquiries: [email protected]                                                                                                       💪 Hoplite Nutrition — veteran-built supplements made in the U.S. Code VANGUARD15 for 15% off    Subscribe & Save → https://hoplitenutrition.com

The last C-17 lifted off Kabul's runway at 11:59 PM on August 30, 2021. The man who gave the order — and made the radio call "Math Safe" that officially ended America's longest war — tells the full story for the first time. Colonel Alex Pelbath (USAF, Ret.) commanded SOUL-2, the only C-17 Special Operations unit in the world, and served as Air Mission Commander for the final flight out of Afghanistan. In this episode, he reveals the moment the Abbey Gate bomb went off, the suspected suicide bomber on his own aircraft, the Taliban press conference that Biden then agreed to, General Milley's coin he handed right back, and the bureaucratic fight that nearly grounded the last flight before it ever left the ground. Born to a first-generation American family — his grandparents fled communist Hungary through a minefield in 1956, survived a Russian soldier's mercy, and spent a year in an Austrian refugee camp before an airlift brought them to America — Pelbath's story is a 65-year generational arc that ends with him commanding the largest airlift evacuation in modern history. Over nearly 7 hours, he covers his entire career: growing up with a blind mother on a construction worker's wages, earning a last-minute wrestling scholarship to the Air Force Academy, flying 22 years of C-17 combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, a near-fatal black hole effect landing on NVGs that almost killed his crew, being hand-selected to brief the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, shaping two national defense budgets inside the Pentagon — and the full firsthand account of Kabul: the chaos, the failures of leadership, and the men and women who held it together when the generals couldn't. Now running for Congress in South Carolina's 1st District, Pelbath explains why the same broken thinking that produced Kabul is still inside the building — and what he intends to do about it. Follow Alex Pelbath 📸 Instagram: www.Instagram.com/ap_alexpelbath 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pelbathforsc/ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0utyp0-5TzeLBWoRTTgtHw 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Pelbath-for-Congress/61579768019800/ 🌐 Website: https://pelbathforcongress.com Serious supplements “For Those that Run Towards” www.hoplitenutrition.com Use Code VANGUARD15 for 15% off 🔗Connect with The Vanguard Wall Podcast 🏪Merch: https://www.thevanguardwall.com 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVanguardWall ⚔️Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevanguardwallpodcast/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569106772297 📧 Connect/Sponsor: [email protected] Support the show                                                               🔗 Connect with The Vanguard Wall Podcast                                                       🏪 Merch: https://www.thevanguardwall.com (code VANGUARD15)   🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVanguardWall                                            ⚔️ Patreon (early access + Discord): https://www.patreon.com/c/TheVanguardWall   📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevanguardwallpodcast/                                 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569106772297   📧 Sponsor Inquiries: [email protected]                                                                                                       💪 Hoplite Nutrition — veteran-built supplements made in the U.S. Code VANGUARD15 for 15% off    Subscribe & Save → https://hoplitenutrition.com