Deployment Life: Work & Family Balance

Family Reality In The Teams do you do two years then you deploy it ends up being around two years because it's like an 18mon workup is and when you get over the dev group it's different more streamline I imagine I mean the tempo's higher right I mean I had guys when I checked in unbroken 15 15 deployments back to back Jesus oh yeah how long St how long's the deployment back in 3 months and then it went to four months 15 of those back to back imagine four months never leav him never D we had a guy with uh we checked in and uh he was getting a a bronze star with V Gold Star and Lou of his 14th award damn right you know let's keep how does that work with how's that work with family most guys get divorced most guys or they just have a super gangster wife who uhuh for whatever reason it just works and they're really good at being independent and just being alone don't I don't think any wife wants that life I think they just adopt it and understand it better than most and that's how they're able to get through it but I mean just it's unfortunate because the teams are so small and you get to see the Wes like you got your click we'll say it's 25 people and one of the husbands gets killed and now there's 25 turned to 24 and they really just surround her and it's very unfortunate because I got to see it as I grew up in the teams each one of those wives was kind of waiting for their turn and slowly but surely unfortunately it did happen well look at Neil Roberts you know march2 when that happened everybody dropped on Patty really all the support you could then all those initial bodies slowly but surely started happen all of them then bouts of nothing then June 28th and all those families now they become a support system for everybody else and then August 6 and all these ones in between before you know you're like d we started with a group of 25 people in 70 80% are all gold star families now that's wild it is and it's like you just lie to yourself and say it's not going to happen to you when reality you know that you have just as good a chance as they do dying you just you don't want to believe reality is going to happen to Fear Of Dying you that's got to be a um like a weird feeling in terms of having that kind of mindset saying hey at any point in time I could be her mhm you know what I mean like my husband could go next that was my big concern with py and I don't I don't usually advertise that or talk about it that was an astronomical amount of pressure on me to not make her a two-time widow and I thought I did a pretty good job compartmentalized and not really showing it but I was terrified I didn't want to make her have to go through that again and then I didn't know she'd want to hang on CU like deployments were only getting worse and worse and then you know I'd sit in isolation and wouldn't really tell her about deployments and then she'd go out with the girls and they'd say something like oh my God is DJ okay I heard what happened she's in the dark and then you can't really have that phone call overseas to explain but now she knows so this whole time I've been telling her we're doing nothing H it's boring it's this it's that it's a bunch of admin doing something that's not the truth at all and now she knows it now you just chip away a little bit of that Tru she's like well how busy are you I'm like oh it's dead there's nothing going on well that's not what s so said you're doing it for your own good but you're doing it from for your own sanity as well I don't have come back from a super long you know ball buster of a night they have to get on some broken Skype call or some you know botch FaceTime call or some aridium and try to have this dialogue over the phone you know emotions are high you know big gaps in between time like she's trying to sleep I'm trying to wake up and you know we're trying to get these F minute little conversations and she's really trying to dive in I don't have the the time the energy or really the bandwith for it and becomes taxing D in a certain point they start to resent it to the one thing you love more than anything your dream job the whole the whole culmination of my being is this one thing this one object this one place in time and space and now she starts to hate it and a little bit disdain comes over their voice and I thought my wife was pretty good at compartmentalizing a lot of that but sometimes you just can they start to resent the place you love the most and then in turn you think it would make you resent that place but it doesn't it makes you resent home it's like life is so much easier when I'm not here life is so much easier when I'm just on the the road when I'm gone so you start to find reasons to be gone find reasons to be deployed find reasons to not have communication more than every couple days you'll get an email every day if we had text communication you get a text but outside of that we're not doing voice calls day in and day out it becomes exhausting you start to think that's the status quo and I'll be able to call every day and then I leave we go somewhere and I can't talk to you for 10 days and now your world's ended it's like I'm trying to keep your expectations very very low part of that resentment and wanting Resenting The Family to be away at all times on purpose was it just cuz you didn't want to have to handle the home front no I don't want to think about it I don't want to think about the hot water heater blew up and tree branch fell in the minivan I don't want to think about any of that because it doesn't serve me here anytime that I stop thinking about this place and I start thinking about that place it draws my bandwidth and I can't have it at least then you could look at yourself the at the end of the day when you're look in the mirror like I've exhausted all my resources I've compartment everything purposely to give myself absolute focus on this one thing you know every time I talk to you you're drawing my attention back home and it's creating this homesick feeling that I can't have and you know since I've retired I've transitioned on I've been a little more open with her about that but it's hard man it's hard when you get homesick and you're you know one month in to a four or six month deployment like I really just want to get home it's not going to go by any faster you're better off just compartmental but Walling it up don't think about it don't think about it it's hard to do is that do you consider that more of a distraction thinking about home obviously and you know I always say the James Bond methodology is the appropriate methodology you get orphans aren't married they don't have any kids there's nothing else competing with this organization nothing and I don't care if if you're a cop you're a fireman you're whatever your soul purpose of being on this planet if that's your thing it's very hard to share any of that time with anyone else because now it's a distraction even if it's distraction you love love my wife love my kids you're a distraction and it took me a long time to realize the reason they were such a distraction because I was operating on a switch and not a dial and if I would have had the ability if I would have had the conversation the dial approach you know powering it up when I can powering it down when I have to and then preserving that bandwidth so I'm not sacrificing my home for it because ultimately I'm destroying my relationship at work and now there is no balance there's just all I care about is this one thing and every time I come home you're distraction and I start to resent you well if I use that opportunity to power up to be a husband to be a father to be a better friend and I wasn't thinking about work I could have preserved my longevity a little bit longer I feel that's why we have the conversations now like use myself and the rest of the boys an example like we were operating on switches whether they'll admit it or not they were and I'm pretty open about it the best dudes I've ever seen do that job weren't the best husbands they weren't the best fathers they might be now but they weren't back then and if they say they were their line that balance is off it has to be off it has to be off for a certain period that's what I tell guys when you're laying the foundation for who you want to be in the craft that you're pursuing if you don't have any distractions you can focus that much more limit your options and N your focus and when you do that you can make some Monumental increases in your performance when there's nothing else competing with it if all only have to do is this one thing if I just have to be an operator shoot move communicate CQB jumping you know the mental focus the process the mindset the physical component if I do all of that I mitigate a lot of the risk but when I don't when I'm not thinking about that when I'm thinking about the family when I'm thinking about the mortgage or all this other stuff talk about your kid selection I've been on so many Ops and I know everybody else will they'll Echo the same thing there's a point where your kit is so uncomfortable you can't think about anything else and that's why we talk about that's your business suit man it has to fit you perfectly because if not four hours into this walk all you're thinking about is that radio digging into your side you're not thinking about the target the environmental changes the moon the wind the dogs everything else you're not thinking about any of that all you're thinking about is I cannot wait to get home and take this goddamn plate carrier off that's not where your mindset should be it's not so really just focusing on that one thing but if you have the dial approach as soon as I'm done I can power that whole thing off take a breather if I don't have a family now I'm just going to re relax just chill out for a second just buy myself a beat process everything I've done throughout the entire day now I've got to do a zoom call with my wife let's shut this person down completely all right you're only going to be on the thing for 12 minutes let's give them 100% of 12 minutes let's show them how much you really give a how much you really truly miss them crank it all the way up to 10 as soon as that phone call ends as soon as that that site call ends I power it down power back the operator and if you find that hybrid approach that dial that dial mentality I feel like that was one of the secret things that I never got exposed to until it was too late I'm not saying I would change anything because I had a phenomenal career and I was very happy with the product I was able to produce but I do regret some of the times I sacrificed my family when I had nothing but time to focus on them I couldn't the concept of a dial never even entered my conscious thought never even thought about it I was just trying to get to the finish line and the Finish Line was ultimately retirement it's like how long can I do this thing before the wheels fall off I don't want any distractions I don't want to die at you know 20 years and nine months into this thing I don't die like that like I I want to go 100% if they take me they take me but I don't want it to be because my mind was somewhere Prioritizing Job Over Family? else to me it worked for for you guys who have such a hyperfocused attention to your job justifying not prioritizing family how do you go about that do you from the outside looking in it looks like it's either I pay attention to my wife or I could get this dude next to me killed there's that pressure there is and it's hard it's hard to quantify and actually lay it all out it's a bunch of subtle things you end up doing that ends up putting them on the back burner it's not you wake up in the morning you go to some PowerPoint and you know your boss comes in or your troop Chief or whoever else he's like hey I don't want you thinking about family they never say that they always say the opposite put your family first happy wife happy life the whole thing the plan would be so much smoother if the home front's clean and you get that but it's not what I've seen is there a level of Truth to that to some extent there is but when you're a Million Miles Away doesn't matter if you were coming home every night and that's what a lot of people don't realizes if I just blanket everybody across the force no matter what job you do I'll just single it down to Special Operations your typical day I mean you're up at 5:00 a.m. I'd say 90% of the guys are running my exact routine wake up at 5:00 a.m. they drive in they get a lift in they eat some Chow they take a shower they go upstairs they get a briefing whatever training Evolution they do they do they train all day they go eat lunch they train again they either eat dinner on the compound or they're back home at 8:30 9:00 on a Tuesday kids are already in bed wife's already taking a shower she's watching Netflix you jump in the shower you lay down it's 10:30 you pass out by 11:00 you wake up at 5: like you're only getting an hour with them I mean there's weeks where you never see your kids it's not because you don't want to that's just a training schedule so whether you're on deployment or not it doesn't matter you're not there and a lot of times when you try to force yourself to be there you're really still thinking about work and you carry that person home with you it's like that's not who they need they don't need a platoon Chief or an operator or a fireman or a SWAT team dude right now they need a dad a lot of times you just don't have a band with to be there like I feel bad for the guys because they see the divorce rat it's climbing like I was one of those dudes I was one and I would have been one of those guys if I would have stayed on that same progression I would have lost everything you're teetering on the verge yeah talk teetering I mean I went over the edge the only reason I'm still here is because my wife packed a parachute I'm very lucky but it's hard man it's hard to uh it's hard to compartmentalize it but I think you get so good at it and guys in Special Operations are notoriously good at compartmentalization all the way through selection and training everything they do how heav is the log how cold is the water how bad is this boat suck on your head and everything else you do it's like you just learn to suck all that up and put it inside one box and you never think left or right of that you just live into the the moment soon as this is done I think about that soon as that's done I think about this over and over and over and the majority of it makes you really successful and being able to just shut it down focus on task at hand like I'm just going to get through this let's just get through it before you know it you've been doing it for 15 years you like I really haven't stopped I've really just been dragging him through this hell with me but it sucks because you love it and that's uh that's your cross to bear like it sucks it's taxs on your family but you love it so much you get addicted to it it's like a a level of selfishness to some extent yeah it's a level of selfishness that's ultimately so you can be selfless I can't give myself to everybody else if I'm thinking about you this whole time that's a heavy price yeah but it's worth it it's worth it when you get to see the Mastery actually happen you see that amount of dudes that are all seeing on the same sheet of music they're all moving non-verbal communication just they're absolute professionals and Brad Gary talked about in that interview with Sean Ryan just to be able to sit back and watch it happen I've had a couple moments in my life just whether I was on a certain position I was on a roof or on a ladder when I got to see the whole Orchestra perform in unison and it is breathtaking just to watch dudes move around react to contact and just processing information the way they move their bodies and just everything they do it's like God damn man if I could just capture that that capsula and just give it to everybody they would see they would see they' see it's worth it I just don't know how long it's repeatable for I think guys will have a better time now that the wars are kind of dying down with more like skirmishes and smaller things I think they'll have a lot better time especially if we kind of push that message dials not switches I think they'll get it there is a way to have this hybrid model in my opinion the secret to that is lean Foundation uninterrupted if I could mandate everybody if you're going to be a marso operator Ranger whatever you're going to do if your first enlistment is uninterrupted you can lay some serious groundwork not wife not picking fences not doing this not doing that not trying to raise kids and be a Commando at the same time just focus on one thing then build from there it really gives them a look at what it's going to be imagine you marri your high school sweetheart you've never been a part for more than two weeks the whole time you've been now you join a Navy now you're gone 280 days out of the year they don't want that and as much as you thought you pre them for there's nothing for that they don't want to do that I don't blame them I got two little girls I don't want to marry anything there be gone that long and then what then they die it's like oh man you don't want that either it's like they have to be in love with the organization almost as much as you are and when you get that combo that's really when you see these marriages Excel because they'll they'll suck it up right there with you I think that's where you know I lasted a unicorn early on just for me I was just so blinded by my love of the job that yeah yeah a lot of times I just lost focus it all worked out in the end thank God are Team Is Not For Me there dudes that actually don't like they say hey mandison is not for me you do it's not very often if they do it's usually in their first their first enlistment is they'll knock out four or five years they're up for enlistment like if I'm going to jump ship I'm going to do it now if you get him to the 10e mark you've got them nobody really punches after the 10 year mark there's a couple guys and that's usually something family related kids get sick you know wife's going to divorce you and you're like do one more we out and I'm out kind of deal one more and I'm out yeah Dam that's got to be tough it is man but I think at the end of the day juice is worth the squeeze the nation deserves it the profession deserves it just got to see how far you're willing to go I think a lot it's a it's a test of mental resiliency how much am I willing to sacrifice to the organization how much am I willing to sacrifice my own personal time my family's time just for this one thing and say the majority guys the whole way whatever you need I'm in I'll do whatever it takes and somebody If Not Me Then Who you said this to me the other day they like oh thank you for your service or some and I always appreciate when people say that you don't have to say that to me I told him I was like I'll be honest I would have paid to do that job if I would have had the financial needs if they would have told me like dude it's going to cost you five 10 grand a month to do this job I would have gladly done it for free gladly I would have paid money to do it it was that fun and then there's times where it's miserable and you hate it but you have the memory of a goldfish so the times that are really really bad you com press them you suppress them drive them down you're like but think about all these times all the jumping all the shooting all the CQB and the ban and the fighting the it's just God I love this job and I think most people they have that exact same approach like talk guys in firehouses and there are times that are miserable in a firehouse dude but if you ask them on a random Tuesday how much you love being a fireman you'll watch them light up ear to ear big shitty and gly dude I love it dude there's nothing like running into a building that everybody else is running out of Amen to that dude we just had a fireman in here last week like there's something about running into a burning building when everybody else is in complete Panic running out of it you're the only one that's going to save the day yeah man yeah that's pretty cool it is cool dude yeah and I think that's part of the reason I love you because you feel important you feel like you actually matter like well if I'm not going to be there who's going to be there there's nobody well then I have to be there someone's got to be we all got to be there now it does make you feel like you're important I think the teams do a In Love With The Teams really good job of that of making you fall in love with the organization more than you you probably should and then you'll sacrifice more for it willingly like I don't care and we can get into it a little bit I had a prank get pulled on me when I was in um after I finished my first rotation and I mean d I threw everything on the table I'll do whatever it takes like well you're GNA have to do this and do that all these other you know pranks they were pulling on me I was like I'll do anything I think actually told him I was like I'll get reduced down to an E1 take my Trident leave me in the Seal team you don't have to pay me like work for free and the CO's in on he's like what the you have to pay me I'll live my parents I'll live on base I'll live at a team I don't care just whatever you want to do just don't let me leave this place they got you they got me they got me early on dude I mean I was an idealist from the very beginning I was in hookline and sinker man so but they really got you as soon as you said those words like oh they knew they had me oh Being An Idealist he's in yeah there's nobody that's ever met me while I was in it and said I wasn't an idealist like that dude loves that job yep I absolutely do love that job being an idealist as a team guy has that from the beginning has that changed as as the years pass by not while I was in I could definitely see some cultural changes that I was not on board with that I did not dig and when you find out where they're coming from you realize the people that are pushing that are not idealists you are not here for the right reasons you might think what you're doing for the organization is good but if the majority don't you're trying to change something that's not broken Brad Gary in that interview he said something was very profound and I've heard people say it like this before but he said culture eats strategy for breakfast every day and it's true you can have the best strategy in the world you have the best operational plan you can have the best method for reshaping the force and getting them to be whatever you want them to be but if it goes against the culture of the core organization it'll always be met with resistance it'll never be taken on board and that is so true you see guys more often than not their officers that come in for a very short stint and they want to change everything and it'll be something like haircuts shaves who wants you in a uniform every day Monday through Friday why just because they can and they slowly start to chip away with your organization like when we were at Team 10 they came by you know everybody had a bar in the team and stuff like that you know posttop you get back at 10 p.m. and dudes want to drink a beer and you'd be surprised how many times you get done with a super late evolution in the entire team minus one or two dudes they stay back there for 3 or 4 hours drinking beer chewing Copenhagen talking about how bad it sucked how cold it was how miserable it is and people just sleep in a cage you gave you back at 5:00 a.m. it's like we genuinely love to just be around each other and when people try to disturb that it really ruins the whole thing so we had a dude come through the East Coast teams and he's like I want all the bars out we're not doing it anymore I want every bar ripped out of here I mean they spent thousands of dollarss their own personal money why do you want the bars out he's like I don't like that culture this culture has been here for a long time dude and they're not getting DUIs they're not fist fighting they're drinking a beer after a super long hard training Evolution that was very very dangerous everything's done all the guns are put up everything's accounted for all the radios are put up let the boys have a beer the boys have a beer and chill out and when you stop doing that it really takes the culture and the unit cohesion and you start to break it apart and when people don't adopt that culture and they don't try to Foster and try to make this one big loving team to me I think it just you start to lose the secret sauce that is the SEAL Teams like you should be embracing that you should be you should have unconditional love for everybody in that team and how do you do it team time grab a gallon of Starbucks and sit down at the table and just talk just be around the boys the more you're around the boys the more fluid your movements become what happened to at a bar they uh they started tearing it down and they ripped out all the booze and they called it a breakfast nook and they mounted a a microwave on it and they put in plates um coffee cups saucers flat wear so when he came in the next time he said it's where we eat our breakfast that guy since rolled out a new guy came in and out to bargain how long was he in there two years damn people want to come in make their stamp on something it's like I get it dude I get it like somebody messes up and you got to have a kneejerk reaction but there is nothing that special operations hate more than a knee-jerk reaction from a guy who wasn't there it's like somebody does something stupid he's like everybody cut your hair shave your faces put on dress uniforms we didn't do anything yeah we're all doing it huh I don't like that nobody else does either it's one of those things you try to constrain and unconstrained force and it really makes you feel like you're in a cage now and that's why people join Special Operations you don't want to be in a cage we be able to grow out a beard we put my hands in my pockets and you know be on first name basis with my officers that are at my peer level like I'll call you sir I'll salute you when I have to but at the end of the day your name's Bill dude like we went through buds together we went through all these training blocks together like I've known you for 15 years dude at the end of day I should be able to walk in your office outside of all these people and just have a normal conversation and some people that's just not their way and it never really flows right I'm sure um is it safe to assume that do doesn't end well for those officers well it depends if uh if the officers ahead of them are of that same mindset they Captain Brad Geary usually Fleet up really really fast but they're not really well received by the enlisted which is always an issue that's why you know I don't want to keep harping on Brad saying but if you guys haven't watched that uh that Sean Ryan episode I'd highly encourage you it's probably the best leadership podcast you're going to ever watch and that's what Brad was really good about doing is being one of the people like I'm just a dude like you I'm just trying to figure it out man you guys been doing longer than me you have more experience than me just help me be a better top cover for you and there's nobody that's ever worked with him that will say anything otherwise he's great he's a grooms in my wedding he's he's a phenomenal human right we had more people like him we'd be in a much better spot yeah super smart very well respected