Kevin Sullivan: 21 Gun

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

Kevin Sullivan, how the hell are you doing, man?

Kevin Sullivan 00:00:05 (link to this point)

I'm doing good. It's been a it's been a few weeks since I saw you, I think.

Chris Albert 00:00:09 (link to this point)

Yeah, man.

Kevin Sullivan 00:00:09 (link to this point)

What's been so fast? I can't remember.

Chris Albert 00:00:11 (link to this point)

Week and a half. I was on your show. 21.

Kevin Sullivan 00:00:14 (link to this point)

Oh, shit.

Chris Albert 00:00:14 (link to this point)

That's right. Yeah.

Kevin Sullivan 00:00:16 (link to this point)

Yeah. Shows you how much I don't remember anything. What's what's funny is we had last night we had Jason Piccolo on, who's also a PhD, and it's like, man, we are the smart show. Come listen to us for smart people.

Chris Albert 00:00:29 (link to this point)

Yeah, man. I'm a PhD dropout. It was a that that was kind of a thing, man. Like like, I saw a lot of the stuff going on in academia that that like, all the woke stuff. Yeah.

I saw that stuff, like, coming fifteen years ago, and it really

Kevin Sullivan 00:00:43 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I went to my undergrad was at University of New Hampshire, which was I feel like and it could just been a, you know, a symptom of the nineties. I can't remember when I went there. Mid to late nineties.

And, yeah, all the PC stuff was coming through University of New Hampshire. They actually were one of the a flyer went out from them a couple years ago, and it showed, like, all this, like, ridiculous PC stuff, like, deep in the weeds of just all the crap that makes us upset these days. Mhmm. You know, that's my alma mater. That's my alma Yeah, man.

Chris Albert 00:01:17 (link to this point)

I saw yesterday, and I don't wanna get too far into this stuff, but Yeah. The new iPhone update has a pregnant man emoji.

Kevin Sullivan 00:01:27 (link to this point)

Sure. Why not? Listen, I I in the real world, I work in medicine. Okay? And you know how many pregnant men I've dealt with in my life? I can't even say it with a straight face.

Chris Albert 00:01:37 (link to this point)

Tons. Tons. Right?

Kevin Sullivan 00:01:38 (link to this point)

Tons. It's just like, okay, now who's the mom here? Because I don't know. I mean, I assume the one with the big belly and the boobs, but I have no idea.

Chris Albert 00:01:46 (link to this point)

I told my I told my girlfriend to be careful because I'm PMS ing.

So sure. Absolutely. Why not? Live your truth.

Kevin Sullivan 00:01:53 (link to this point)

Live your truth, brother.

Chris Albert 00:01:54 (link to this point)

Exactly. Well, Kevin, man, welcome to the show. I want to start by just getting a little bit into your background, talking about your service and what you're doing now and how you got to get into doing podcasting and things like that.

Kevin Sullivan 00:02:11 (link to this point)

Sure.

Chris Albert 00:02:12 (link to this point)

So let's start with like a brief synopsis of who you are, where you're coming from, where you serve, that kind of thing.

Kevin Sullivan 00:02:18 (link to this point)

All right. My name is Kevin Sullivan. I come from New Hampshire. I was in the US Air Force from 2001 to 2007. It was right before 9/11, I was bored, I had a beer gut, I was just like, what am I doing with life?

I was sitting in an office space downtown Boston, and I'm like, I'm gonna go do the military. Was literally, it was like, I'm just gonna do something different. So I went down to the recruiting office and I was like, I walked in and I have a huge family history. I think I have a picture around here somewhere of like civil war era naval members from my family. So I was like, I have to be in the Navy.

So I went up to the Navy and I was like, I want to be in the Navy, but I don't like boats. I just want to blow shit up. And he just laughed at me and he's like, yeah, that's not going to happen. So this air force guy was sitting behind him. They they kind of had, you know, air force, navy, and then marines and and what's the other one?

Army. Yeah. And so the air force guy is like, want to blow shit up? Come over here. And I was like, okay.

Why not? So he he talked me into doing a TACP, tactical air control party, the officer version. And I believe now they've changed names for the officers, like air liaison officer or whatever. It it's same sort of sort of job. So I was excited about that.

Joined, I I already got my degree, so I went to officer candidate school and halfway through officer candidate school, the the NCO who's in charge of what we call billets, your your assignment, he calls my name and I'm like, it's never good to have like a e six, e seven when you're a, I don't know what we called ourselves, cadets or something like that, call your name out. So I go up and he said, hey, you scored well on this test. Do you want to fly airplanes? And I was like, Do I have time to think about this? I have a couple of days.

And then he kind of rolled his eyes, looked at the next name on the list and called that person over. And it was basically, you have as much time till that guy gets here to figure out if this is what you want to do. And I was like, well, I get to blow shit up still? And he's like, yeah, you get to be the one that actually blows shit up. I was like, okay, let's do it.

Literally, that's how I went from being a ground personnel to aviation was fifteen seconds someone asked me if I wanted to do it. And so, yeah. So then my career changed drastically from that point on off to flight school and all that stuff. Yeah. That's how I look at it.

I mean, life is really like that. You're given these opportunities and if you sit around and dwell on them. Now that I'm an old man, you should dwell a little bit, right?

You should plan it out a little bit. In those days, wasn't married, I didn't have kids. I mean, it was great. So yeah. So I became a, two names, navigator, but that kinda went to the wayside and combat systems officer, electronic warfare officer, whatever it is.

I was the guy in the C-130 making sure we weren't shot down and making sure we didn't hit any mountains or anything like that. So that's crazy. Yeah.

Chris Albert 00:05:07 (link to this point)

You told me a story, and and I can't get the story out of my head.

Kevin Sullivan 00:05:12 (link to this point)

Okay.

Chris Albert 00:05:12 (link to this point)

You stopped you stopped at an airbase. It was either in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Kevin Sullivan 00:05:17 (link to this point)

Yes.

Chris Albert 00:05:18 (link to this point)

And you had to you had to take a shit. And so you're you went over to the porta potty, and they played a joke on you. They didn't tell you it had been bombed out or something like that.

Kevin Sullivan 00:05:28 (link to this point)

Yeah. It was I wanna say it was up in Mosul or Kirkuk, somewhere like that. That was the that's one of the reasons why I really liked my job in the C-130 because we weren't in the airplanes that were thirty, forty thousand feet above the action. We we were down in it. We were like fixed wing helicopters.

Yeah. That would be good way to explain it. Every airfield just hopping for teach airfield at low level, and we went up to this, little airfield somewhere up north, and, they were under sniper fire or whatever. So normally, I come out with my flashlight, and I'm like, you know, if I have to take a dump. But they, it was like just chem lights everywhere.

And I was like, I I gotta use the bathroom. And they're like, there's one about, you know, 200 meters that way. And so I've I went over to to and I'm in full kit, you know, with my my, armor and all that stuff on and weapon. And I get over there, I find it eventually. I think I had my my, flight helmet and my flight, NVGs, which aren't like ground troops because they're they're really blurry because we we tune them out to, like, I don't know, a mile.

Right? Because that's where we're looking. We're not looking anywhere close. So I make out the shape of a of a porta potty and I get over there and I take my helmet off. I take because you gotta we have one zipper.

Right? It's a one piece suit. So you gotta take everything off and thrown it on the ground. I really have to go. I open up the door, and I I sit back, and I just fall into a hole, full of, you know you know, that blue water and Yeah. And shit. And, yeah, it was one of the worst experiences. It's really where the root of my PTSD comes from to this day because it was it was pretty horrendous.

Chris Albert 00:07:03 (link to this point)

Sorry to bring it up.

Kevin Sullivan 00:07:05 (link to this point)

Yeah. No. I'm joking. It it but it it I yeah. Apparently, one of the guys was laughing when I came back, one of the army dudes, because he said, Yeah, that was hit by a mortar a few days ago.

And I think what he said was, were supposed to go to the one on the left, but how do you know? In that situation, you don't stop to look at mortar damage. You're it's just time to go to bathroom.

Chris Albert 00:07:26 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah.

That's crazy. Yeah. I couldn't imagine if that was me. And then how long did you have to fly after that?

Kevin Sullivan 00:07:33 (link to this point)

Full mission. I mean, we I don't even know most of our missions. We had like a crew time or something because they figured, let's say it was eighteen hours. I don't remember what it was, but if you go beyond eighteen hours, people tend to crash. You know, after looking at a history of how many people were flying and all this, they came up with a crew hour time.

So who knows? I just That's a funny thing about, you know, it feels like my service was just yesterday, but let's say that was 2004, 2005, man, that was 17 ago. When I was a kid, Vietnam was seventeen years ago or twenty years. I mean, that's crazy to think about. But yeah, time moves like that.

Chris Albert 00:08:13 (link to this point)

Oh, that's fucking nuts, man.

Kevin Sullivan 00:08:14 (link to this point)

And then you don't remember everything. And then everything comes into like one memory. When you're talking with your friends, you're like, oh, remember when we did this? And they're like, actually, that was Afghanistan, not Iraq. Or that was this guy, not that guy.

And that was here. And it's like, it's just one big ball of memories, and it's hard to to kinda pick them out.

Chris Albert 00:08:29 (link to this point)

That's okay, man. What so, you know, how long did you serve and and and, you know, did you did you stay in for a while, or did you did you get out, pretty quickly after after everything?

Kevin Sullivan 00:08:40 (link to this point)

After, the poop incident? Yes. It was, medical. I I was actually so because I was hard charging as in my younger years, I still wanted to blow stuff up and the C-130 I got didn't blow stuff up. So I was a little disappointed with that.

I did get to call an air strike and that was like my one glorious moment of explosions. But beyond that, I I was gunning for special operations. I wanted to go to the AC-130 gunship. So three or four deployments in, my my commander was like, yeah, you got gunships. Congratulations. You're an air commando. I'm like, this is great. Go to c one or the, AC-130 gunship world and all this and, just have to make it through this this, deployment.

And then the rest is fuzzy. And and it's funny. Human memory so when when you think back on things and you try to remember how clear they are and you're like, oh, I remember this clearly. I remember that. That's your brain filling in gaps.

You know? Very rarely is it accurate. Even if it happened today, like someone cut you off today, you go, it was a white pickup truck. There was a guy with a blue baseball hat, but really, it could have been a woman. Your brain just says, okay, this is most likely what happened and this is what you remember.

So, I was on a mission. And I think we're going to Baghdad, but I don't remember anything before and I don't remember really anything for two weeks after that incident. What happened was and what was told to me, which has kind of become my story because they told me so much that I've retold it, and now I kind of have a memory of it, if that makes any sense. But, we were flying, into Baghdad or whatever, and either the plane did a maneuver or we hit turbulence. And I never, as a navigator, I never strapped into my my chair.

Everyone else is strapped in, even the load masters in the back. But my job was because I had so many different stations like running the the electronic countermeasures and then looking at the radar and then actually physically going up to the window and looking out and scanning for threats. So my loadmaster in the back, apparently, went off mic. No one could find me or they were calling me and I wasn't answering and they looked back and I wasn't there. And the load master went to look for me and found me unconscious at the bottom of the flight steps, kind of like like on my head with my body kind of crumpled on top.

And so he picked me up and he put me in a in a seat. And this is this is actually a memory I have because I remember being paralyzed half of my body and having no clue where I was. I mean, it was like being a kid woken up from a nap. Like, I just had no idea what was happening. They medevaced me.

They took me to, gosh, I think it was Kuwait and just put me through the ringers and they're like, we have no idea what happened to you. Now mind you, as a medical personnel, I hear this story. I'm like, oh, you banged your head. But in those days it was, we don't know what happened to you. It's gotta be PTSD.

And what's funny, I you know, you interviewed, Kegan not not long ago. Right. Same sort of thing around well, no. His was a few years after, but around the same same situation. No.

Actually, I take that back. My situation was not even freaking remotely close to that animal's

Chris Albert 00:11:44 (link to this point)

He got he got for those who haven't listened to that episode, our friend Kegan, ejected at the sound barrier and literally had his body torn apart.

Kevin Sullivan 00:11:53 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. Mine was like stubbing my toe. He just basically liquefied a skeleton. But yeah.

So anyways, they they did they put me through everything. They're like, well, with with your symptoms, we think it's PTSD. Thanks for playing medical board and you're done. Right? And so it was here's a whole shit ton of pills.

And I believed it because I didn't know. So I'm like, okay, taking my pills, feeling like garbage, being depressed even though they put me on antidepressants, pain medicine, sleep medicines, antianxiety medicines, nerve pain. I mean, the list goes on. And I just I left with a bad taste in my mouth because I had this career that I was gunning for. And within one mission, I'm now just a you just feel like you're tossed out, you know?

Because the the millet, you're a cog, you're a piece in a giant machine. Like any machine, the pieces break and you just throw them away and you start, and that's fine. Now now that I'm older, I know that. But as a a young guy, I mean, was devastating. It was absolutely devastating.

So, yeah, that's how I got out.

Chris Albert 00:12:56 (link to this point)

Were you married at the time or anything like that?

Kevin Sullivan 00:12:59 (link to this point)

I got married three months before. So I got back. I think I had six months left in my career. So I got back from that deployment, did all the medical stuff, and then I knew it was over. Mean, even my commander was like, if you can't fly, I you can't I was undeployable basically.

And it's like, he said he would fight for me to do what we call executive work. I was the wing exec. Was And it's You're just a bitch boy. You're sitting there writing people's performance reports. You're answering to the colonel.

You're doing It's just It's not a good job. I was like, sir, if I'm doing that for the rest of my career, I would rather be medically discharged. And so, he was cool with that, which I think anyone who who is operation minded, would be cool with that. So I kind of forgot what the question was that you had there, but. No.

Chris Albert 00:13:47 (link to this point)

Just, just kind of trying to figure out Oh, married. With the air force and everything like that.

Kevin Sullivan 00:13:52 (link to this point)

But Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I I ended up, because I knew my time was limited in the air force.

So I, proposed and got married fifteen years now. So it worked. That's the one that's the one career that actually stuck.

Chris Albert 00:14:06 (link to this point)

So That's awesome. That's awesome. So, like, yeah, that whole feeling of, like, just abruptly abruptly being told you're you're getting out now. And we've got a lot of friends who who who've had that happen to him. We mentioned Kegan.

People. You know, Andrew Andrew Marr, who who is special force at Green Beret, and and then all of a sudden, his brain just started failing on him and and and things like that. You know? That feeling, how did you get through that? Like, what was your next thing?

Did you find a mission immediately after that, or or did you did did you go through some some self pity and depression?

Kevin Sullivan 00:14:44 (link to this point)

What's funny is and and I'm I'm glad you brought that up because I could have. Right? I I remember specifically the first day I was a civilian. I didn't get up. I'm like, why am I gonna wake up?

I don't have anything to do. I have nowhere to be. I just laid in bed, and then I got up and I started drinking. And then I it literally, this is maybe one to two days. And then I'm like, no.

Not gonna do this. I'm not gonna come out damaged and then just follow the the typical, pity party and and go down that route. I just I just decided and instantly I wasn't gonna do that. So I was like, alright. Got down to the books and said, let's find out what I can do.

And I had no mean, I was I was trained to fly. My my undergrad degree was garbage. I mean, was a history major. I got a two six or maybe even a two five GPA. I mean, I I I had nothing.

So, a friend of mine who is a PA, I was just talking to her, she said, hey. You ever thought about being a PA? I was a firefighter before I went in, to the air force. I was firefighter EMT. And she's like, EMT background, you could you could do that.

And so I looked it up. I was like, what's a PA? And then from that point on what's funny, I didn't I'm sure half the doctors I saw in the air force were PAs. I didn't know. I didn't know what a PA was, but I was like, yeah.

This is what I'm gonna do. Why not? And so I just kinda, hunkered down, studied, took a lot of entry level jobs. I was going to, like, at one point, five different community colleges trying to get my my sciences and everything, taken care of, apply and then I applied to one school, and I was like, I hope it works. And somehow I got in.

Somehow I got in. Somehow I passed two and a half, three years of schooling, and then became a PA. So it it all it all worked out actually. And and it was a choice. I I think it was.

I mean, I know some people are in, a lot worse, places mentally because I think we lose most of our guys in that crucial zone. Right? And and you could have twenty years, you could have whatever, how many I had, six or seven years, you could have six weeks and break your leg or do something awful and and basic. No matter what is, you're going find yourself a civilian again. And there's that's that's the danger zone right there.

That's a very, that's a rough area to be in. I was just lucky. I don't know. I'm not a spiritual guy, but, I do believe in fate and everything that has happened to me from even the head injury on, has just sort of worked out if I listened to myself and I listened to, you know, my soul, my my whatever that drive is. If if you ignore it, sure, you're gonna find yourself in some issues, but I listened to it every single time and it's never steered me wrong.

Not once.

Chris Albert 00:17:25 (link to this point)

That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, I did like the I was like, I'm going get out. I'm going to wake up at eight every day. I'm going to freaking go out to the bar.

I'm going tell every girl I meet that I was a marine veteran, they're all going to want to have sex with me, all that stuff like that. And, yeah, none of that shit ever happened.

Kevin Sullivan 00:17:47 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Chris Albert 00:17:47 (link to this point)

Kind of the opposite.

Kevin Sullivan 00:17:49 (link to this point)

Right? It's it's yeah. And and that's the funny thing. I had a guy named on a a guy named Mike Liario. He was a I wanna say he was a ranger regiment, commander.

Awesome dude. And he said that to me during an interview. He said, because I used to always ask what's what advice do you have to people, on my my the way my show used to be. And he was like, just know that your career is gonna end. Whether it's and kinda like I said a few minutes ago, whether it's, you know, your third day of basic or your thirty sixth year, it's going to end and just be ready for it and have a plan.

Otherwise, especially if you're like 25, 26 and it's not your choice, and you can go down some dark areas because I mean, gosh, that's almost twenty years since I've been that age. Where would I be? Where would I be if I chose the latter? I latter. I absolutely I don't know.

I'd shudder to think because I would hate to be that person. Instead, muckled down and I got shit done. And it was a struggle because again, I was misdiagnosed with PTSD. I'm on all the medicines. I was sleeping all the time.

Had I just felt like, I mean, you've heard this story. I'm basically singing the same tune. I felt like if if you could compare me to the day I went into the air force, all piss and vinegar, to, let's say 30 when I got out, I was maybe 10% of that person, if that, maybe 5%, all the way up to like 35.

Chris Albert 00:19:21 (link to this point)

Wow.

Kevin Sullivan 00:19:21 (link to this point)

Just, yeah, it just felt like shit. I was like, I guess this is life for me now. Do you know who changed? Do you know This is kind of interesting. What changed my life and made me actually start doing this sort of thing and, advocating for veterans is I'm driving home from grad school because I I went to school like two hours away and my wife stayed in, in Raleigh.

And As I'm driving home, I'm listening to Joe Rogan talk to a gentleman named Andrew Marr and a guy named Doctor Mark Gordon. I'm listening to it, I'm like, holy shit, this guy's story sounds really, really familiar.

Chris Albert 00:19:58 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Kevin Sullivan 00:19:59 (link to this point)

And I listened to it, and then I went home, and I re listened to it, and I listened to it again. I've probably I've probably listened to that episode, I don't know how many times in my life.

Chris Albert 00:20:07 (link to this point)

Mhmm.

Kevin Sullivan 00:20:07 (link to this point)

And I started putting those changes that I heard from from him, you know, quit drinking as I'm having a non carb beer right now. But I, you know, I quit doing all the stuff that was not healthy for me. Quit wheat, quit basically went paleoketo, meditation, started putting all these like, I wanna say like anti inflammatory literally and for the soul, like just trying to and I got to probably 50%. I was up about 50% to the guy I was, when I went in. And think about it, I mean, it's like a 300% increase in how I felt. I was like, man, I am onto something here.

And then, and then I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna reach out to Andrew and say, hey, help. So I did, and he got me enrolled with doctor Gordon. And, man, that protocol got me to 98%. And I'll give the 2% just because I'm in my forties now.

They can have that 2%. Air Force, they could take that. I'm 98% of where I was back then and it's it's incredible off every single medicine. I don't take any medicines for the supplements that Doctor Gordon has me on.

And and yeah.

Chris Albert 00:21:14 (link to this point)

Well, it's crazy, man, because, like, you know, I remember being, like, 19 years old and being able to stay up, like, three days in a row and friggin, you know, being able to train and being able to do to do all that stuff on top of drinking. And then, you know, when I started hitting my my probably my late twenties, early thirties, I started slowing down a whole lot, You know? Like, just just tired all the time, moody, frigging getting depressed, like like, just dealing with it. And I think, you know, what happens with a lot of guys is they get so used to that that that is their baseline. And they don't know anything else anymore.

And I think that when you go through something like what you went through and you get the veil lifted off from over your eyes, it's shocking how much better you feel when you start treating your body better you start taking care of yourself.

How much more energy you have for things like your wife and your kids and for life in general. I think one of the problems with a lot of guys is when we're young, we're not really present a lot of the time, particularly us swine. A lot of us were just eager to get the hell out, but we forget to be present and actually enjoy it and remember that we're there with a lot of our friends and things like that. And that translates over to yourself in the civilian world. You're still sitting there and you're waiting for something.

You don't know quite what you're waiting for and you're not present. When you have that energy, you can be present, you can enjoy life, you can take control of life and actually plan things out and and go for things that you still wanna do. You know?

Kevin Sullivan 00:23:04 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. And just and and a lot of people well, there's a couple things there that that is interesting, and and I've really picked this up since I started practicing medicine a while ago. Now it's almost a decade. But, so you get someone that feels like shit.

Right? One thing and I can't remember who I heard this from, but, he was speaking of women, but I think men can fall easily into this as well. Picture a child, small child. Right? And in my case, let's picture my daughter.

The shit that people tell themselves every day, you're a piece of shit. You can't do this. You're crap. You're garbage. You're too fat.

You're too slow. You're too ugly. You're too whatever it is. And and, I would say 98% of people that are listening right now and around the world have spoken to themselves like this. Would you ever speak to your daughter or son or nephew or whatever in that tone?

No. You wouldn't. Why? Because it would be devastating to that child. Then why the hell do you do it to yourself?

Right? Why do you do that to yourself? So you start your day off. You look in the mirror, and I and I picture just one of my patients. Right?

Right now, obese, you know, female, 52 years old, angry at herself, angry at the world. And what makes her feel better? She goes downstairs and eats a doughnut. Boom. Endorphin rush.

I feel I feel good for maybe five to ten minutes. As she gets in the car, she starts dipping again. Oh, I hate myself. I hate myself. Pulls into a a window.

You know? Like, food comes magically through my window and gets a giant milkshake coffee drink. Boom. She feels good again. Oh, this is great.

Endorphin rush. Gets to work. Feels like And it's a it's a repeating cycle. And it's it's basically an overdose of drugs that's that's, shooting endorphin into their body. And to convince people, right, that you might have to go through two years, three years, Whatever the amount of pain is, you're gonna have to remove that drug, and you're gonna have to go through withdrawal, and you're going to have to face the shit that you are self medicating against.

But on the other end, I guarantee you, you're going to feel like a better person. You're gonna wake up feeling refreshed. You're gonna, be able to walk upstairs without being out of breath. Your knees won't hurt. That's such a hard thing to get into people, to tell them.

Because guess what? When you take away that doughnut or that coffee drink or whatever, they're still gonna wake up in the morning, look at themselves in the mirror, and call themselves a piece of shit, and now they don't have their drug to recover from it. And it's it's and and veterans easily fall into that category. I see so many veterans that, are are drinking too much, eating too much, just doing everything they can to tamp down that inner voice, and and it's it's tragic. And the the then the answer is or the question is, how do you change that?

I couldn't tell you. I've been doing this for a decade. I failed a million times. I couldn't tell you.

Chris Albert 00:25:51 (link to this point)

No. That's you're dead on with that. You're dead on with that. I mean, it's crazy. It's I think, you know, a lot of ways, physical activity has been my thing.

You know, that that kind of took took that over. But you can get too far into that too.

Kevin Sullivan 00:26:07 (link to this point)

Oh, absolutely.

Chris Albert 00:26:08 (link to this point)

Yeah. It it'll kill you if you if you do too much of it. But Mhmm. Me about the 21 gun podcast. When did you start doing that?

And and, you know, how how did you get to where you are now? You guys have been really successful, and and it is a great show. How'd that start?

Kevin Sullivan 00:26:27 (link to this point)

So probably gosh. Let me look. Maybe four years ago. I had done other podcasts. I I like you, I I, stuck my toes in a comedy back before I joined the air force.

I just always like to create. I'm a creative person. Medicine doesn't really give you a chance to create. So I was like, let's just try podcasting. This is before it was really that big.

And I had fun. I look back at the time, I'm like, what am I doing? I might've made enough money to keep the podcast going, but it was a lot of work for what I thought was little outcome. But what I ended up doing was putting myself through, basically a master's course in how to talk with people, how to ask questions, how to read body language, and how to interview. And so, I did a couple of shows and then I I kind of put that to rest, and a friend of mine was going to Bourbiz.

It's a great organization, b o u r b I z. Check them out. They have, kind of veteran networking things around. And so part of me was like, let's just go to Bourbiz. Let's just see what this is all about.

There was, again, like I said at the beginning, my soul was saying, Go here. And I listened and I didn't want to go because, you know, at the time I was into my recovery from, you know, the PTSD misdiagnosis, I call it, and getting off my medicines, but I still had some issues, right? And that's a whole can of worms I'm still working on, but I didn't like going into crowds, I didn't like, you know, rubbing elbows with people, just was totally not what I wanted to do, but I sucked it up and I did it anyways. And I went up there and I met Donny O'Malley who is from VET TV.

Chris Albert 00:27:59 (link to this point)

Yep.

Kevin Sullivan 00:28:00 (link to this point)

And I had a good conversation with him, a man named Dan Mallard, who is with, the Irreverent Warriors, kind of a married group, VET TV and Irreverent Warriors, and they told me about their mission, what they do, and I looked and they didn't have a podcast. And so I came home and I started writing down ideas and and, you know, trying to figure out what kind of show would work for them. Did a couple pilot episodes and pitched it to them. I said, hey, this is 21 gun. Basically, we're we're highlighting the lives of veterans who, you know, just everyday veterans who chose life instead of a bullet or drinking themselves to death or whatever.

And they said, Go with it. And so they gave me the job. I ended up being the podcast for the Irreverent Warriors, side of things. We did that for three years. COVID hit.

COVID got a little wonky because what happened So the Irreverent Warriors, their main thing is that they bring veterans out of isolation, right? If you're home by yourself and then you're not amongst the people that you know and speak your language, then that's where bad things happen, isolation. And so suddenly the whole world was isolated and it's like, what do we do with these veterans? So, I had a guy that was helping me out in the studio, Jeremy Walton. I said, let's start doing live shows and having them chime in and basically make it their show.

We were just having random dudes hop on. People would It was like a party each week. It was great and it worked out fantastic. But then politically things start getting a little wonky out there, which we kind of alluded to at the very beginning of the show. And so we started speaking freely along that avenue.

Irreverent Warrior is a great organization, but, you know, they're they're trying to raise money and they're a big organization and we didn't want to screw anything up with them. I didn't want to get them canceled, you know, for saying something because I I was going to censor anything anybody's going to say. And so we just parted ways. Said, you know what? It's probably best that we do our own thing.

We brought on an EOD guy named Frank Easterling. We pitched the show to my childhood hero, Anthony Cumia. They're just a random situation thing. Again, listen to what your soul is telling you. And somehow I was like, I'm going pitch a show to these guys on Compound Media, which this isn't on purpose. Was just I happened to be wearing the shirt.

And I pitched my show to to Anthony Cumia of Opie and Anthony, and he loved it, and they brought us on board. And so I had to, like, within two weeks, go from just being a goofy let's have fun to actually be a professional podcast and, you know, LLC and become a business and and all that. But it's been great. We've had a lot of fun, met some really cool people, learned a lot, you know, going from amateur to pro about production and all that. And it's been fun.

It's a great show. We have we have, it's behind a paywall, which is it's it's, you know, good and bad. It's bad because, you know, I can't just be like, hey, go check out our show, but it's good because it gives us somewhat of a level of protection to speak freely because we don't say anything. I know for a fact everything I say is not negative. It's not hateful. It's not racist. It's not homophobic.

It's not transphobic. You know, whatever phobic you can put on there. It's absolutely not. But in today's day and age, you could say anything, and they can just be like, don't like you, so we're gonna turn that into something awful. And, that always concerns me. This modern age of speaking and being on social media and making content, man, I it's always in the back of your mind that someone's gonna misconstrue something you say. So it just gives us a little bit of breathing room over there.

It's kinda like, it can be free and not really worry too much about it.

Chris Albert 00:31:38 (link to this point)

Yeah. No. That's awesome. Being able to do that is great.

Kevin Sullivan 00:31:41 (link to this point)

Oh, it's it's awesome.

Chris Albert 00:31:43 (link to this point)

You you're also in the coffee business now. Right? Yeah.

Kevin Sullivan 00:31:48 (link to this point)

Dude, I'm like I don't know. Somehow, I have a time machine, and what I do is I I dilate time. So you might have, like, what we call a twenty four hour day. I managed to get like thirty six hours out of every single day. I still don't know how I do it. But yeah, we, twenty, 22 Sierra Coffee, the coffee company was made before my podcast. So the twenty one to twenty two screws me up all the time. But, yeah, we roast coffee. We use specialty grade beanstopped beans you can have on the face of the earth. They're better than a common veteran owned coffee company. I won't name them, but they use premium grade to step low hours. The cool thing about 22 Sierra is we donate.

I mean, that's the thing. I'm still connected to Irreverent Warriors. We donate money to them. $3 out of every bag we sell, we send to either Grunt Style. We're we're partnered with Grunt Style.

We're partnered with Burn Pits 360. We're partnered with Round Cari I always say this one wrong. Round Canopy parachuting team, and then of course, Irreverent Warrior. So it's like those those extra hours you have in the day, we're just giving back again. And, you know, my wife's involved, my kids are involved, and it just feels great.

You know? We're not we're not there to make, basically our profits go into, giving back to these nonprofits. I love it. I love it. Oh, and look, look at this.

I just happen to have this is our police one. Hold the line.

Chris Albert 00:33:10 (link to this point)

That's awesome. Delicious.

Kevin Sullivan 00:33:11 (link to this point)

Yeah. We got a Nice. We there's our Irreverent Warriors. We'll we'll actually when we partner with people, we'll make a bag for them. So we have, like, our Silkies bag.

We have just random stuff too. But yeah. Lots of fun with that.

Chris Albert 00:33:23 (link to this point)

That's really cool, man. You know, one more question about the podcast here. So so now that you're working with like like Compound Media, do they have like producers and things like that that work with you? Or is it like you're pretty much free reign on your own and and and all that kind of stuff?

Kevin Sullivan 00:33:42 (link to this point)

It's been great because content wise, we're we're we're left free to do what we want to do.

Chris Albert 00:33:47 (link to this point)

Uh-huh.

Kevin Sullivan 00:33:48 (link to this point)

Production wise, yeah, I work with a producer that's actually been in the business for like thirty years. I listened to Opie and Anthony when was like 19 years old. I remember hearing this dude on the radio. His name's Eric Nagel. And he like, so I'll submit my stuff and he'll be like, hey, try to do this and try to do that.

And he's just made it better, you know, to because when you're creating and that's what podcasting pretty much is, people with no experience going in and just trying something. And it's trial and error, trial and error. Yeah. And I can't tell you how many times I've failed, and every failure leads to a little bit more success. To have the pros say, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a little cheat code here.

Don't do this. Do this. It's been awesome. It's been really cool. It's That's awesome.

It's a total trip because like I said, these are people, Anthony and Eric are people that I heard on the radio since I was working construction in college, banging nails, listening to on WAAF. And now it's like, I'm sure I have five texts in the room now about what's going on today, and it's just surreal. A lot of fun. And then here's the other thing, and this might come with that, and you're probably dealing with that. You know, when you're a content creator, when you're a comic, when you're whatever you do, everything you do is shit.

People will tell you, Hey man, your stuff's awesome. You're like, It sucks, Sucks. I can't you never feel happy with what you put out.

Chris Albert 00:35:06 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Kevin Sullivan 00:35:07 (link to this point)

And I'm like, do these guys know I suck? My show sucks, but somehow they keep stringing me along? Alright. If that's what they want. Yeah.

It's been crazy.

Chris Albert 00:35:16 (link to this point)

Yeah. No, I definitely go through that on a regular basis with the show, with my comedy, with with everything I do. It's it's with

Kevin Sullivan 00:35:24 (link to this point)

my job. Yeah, man. It's part of this world. You'll never be. And if you are happy with it, it probably actually sucks.

Chris Albert 00:35:30 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. No. Exactly. Exactly.

Well, cool, man. Really glad to have you on. Anything else you wanna get out there to the audience, while you're here?

Kevin Sullivan 00:35:40 (link to this point)

Why don't you if you guys ever wanna check out, 22 Sierra Coffee, head over to 22sierracoffee.com and use, I'll give you guys this. It's for my podcast. But if you use 21 gun, just use the number two one gun. You save 10%, off off, all our products. And like I say, it's what I like about it and what I always say because we plug the the coffee on our show is like every sip you you're taking like, we all drink coffee and, every sip you're taking, you're like, I'm giving back.

Right? You you literally are giving back and we just have a lot of fun with that. So yeah, head over there and get a discount, try it out. If you'd like it, let me know. I'm easy to find, just go 21 gun podcast and all my shit pops up.

I'm sure my email and all that stuff. But yeah, that's really it. Keep the what's that saying? Keep your nose to the grindstone. Never understood

Chris Albert 00:36:28 (link to this point)

Your nose to the grindstone.

Kevin Sullivan 00:36:30 (link to this point)

Yep. Yeah. Exactly. To your soul. Listen to your soul, Warrior Soul.

Agoge.

Chris Albert 00:36:35 (link to this point)

Agoge.

Agoge. I don't even know how to pronounce that, to be honest with you.

Kevin Sullivan 00:36:41 (link to this point)

Yeah. Man, it's like the older I get, there was a time where I'd be like, Warrior Soul, like, are you meditating? You nerd. Now I'm like, dude, every night I'm trying to reach that level of psychedelic state and and pierce the veil of reality and find out what's going on in this world and realizing everything that we're experiencing is just based on these five senses, they're I don't know. We could go down a whole other rabbit hole with that one.

Chris Albert 00:37:08 (link to this point)

No. It's funny because when I when I first started the show, right before I started, I was trying to figure out a name for the show. Don't like Warrior, you know, like Warrior Dragon. No. That's not gonna work. Warrior this.

Warrior Soul. Yeah. And then

Kevin Sullivan 00:37:23 (link to this point)

That's a good one. I like it.

Chris Albert 00:37:24 (link to this point)

Yeah. When I first started it, everybody thought it was the the the heavy metal band or not that it was like the eighties hairband Warrior Soul.

Kevin Sullivan 00:37:30 (link to this point)

I never even heard of them. Now I got go check them out.

Chris Albert 00:37:33 (link to this point)

Yeah, they're they're like an eighties hairband, but

Kevin Sullivan 00:37:35 (link to this point)

Okay.

Chris Albert 00:37:37 (link to this point)

Yeah, that's funny the way that we we racked out together in a tent down in Texas a few weeks ago, doing some awesome stuff down there at the 4x4x48 Foundation. That was just an awesome weekend. It's been great getting to know you and great hearing your story. I really love everything you're doing out there, man. It's great when people can get out there and be an example for this community and, you know, not eat a bullet or not not, you know, do all the freaking shit that people think veterans do, but but, you know, be who we really are, you know, which is a group of leaders who who are out there creating things and trying to make this country better, and and I I applaud you for that.

Kevin Sullivan 00:38:21 (link to this point)

Oh, well, thank you. And and I applaud you too, sir, for doing doing all the stuff that you're doing. I mean, getting stories out, you never know that I heard Andrew Marr's story so many years ago, and that the hope is that someone else will hear, like, when you came on our show. It just it you know, one person reaches, and you're like, oh, shit. All this is worth it.

Every bit of it's worth it.

Chris Albert 00:38:40 (link to this point)

100%, man. 100%. So everybody out there, definitely get out there and check out the 21 gun podcast. How the it's behind a paywall. How how much does it cost?

How do you get there and stuff like that?

Kevin Sullivan 00:38:53 (link to this point)

I have I I gotta look because I'm I'm still new with I should know their subscription service and all that. They have discount codes that are on my Twitter page if you do, 21 gun podcast. Again, you don't have to spell it out. It's just 21 gun podcast. But, yeah, I wanna say it's like $79 a year or something like that, which what I tell people is like, you you just don't buy that extra large latte from Starbucks once a week or once a day and boom, it's paid for.

And yeah, there's a lot of good guys over there, a lot of comics, lot of New York City comics. Anthony's a legend. If you guys don't know who Anthony is from Opie and Anthony, he's a legend. His show is great and, yeah, lots of great people and we have fun.

Chris Albert 00:39:35 (link to this point)

Then check out 22sierracoffee. What's the web's web handle for that again?

Kevin Sullivan 00:39:39 (link to this point)

22sierracoffee.com.

Chris Albert 00:39:41 (link to this point)

Awesome. Awesome. I'm gonna get me some of that too. Yeah. Yeah, dude.

I I love good coffee. And to everybody out there, man, you know, I hope I hope you got a lot out of this episode. I hope that you guys are are are gonna keep pushing forward, keep pushing through, and, you know, we'll be back at you next week with another awesome episode. This is Chris and Kevin, and we are out.