Combat Veteran Exposes The Truth About School Shootings And Security Failures

Today, we're going back to high school, but not as students. From perspectives of veterans who have dealt with tactical situations to concerned parents and staff, we're analyzing the history of school shootings with a mindset of prevention and awareness, as we look toward a safer future for America's students.

Having this discussion with me is Seth Ryan—a Marine Corps and Army Special Operations veteran turned school security advocate. Drawing from his combat experience, federal law enforcement work, and private security career, Mr. Ryan shares real-world strategies to protect students and educators from the evolving threat of school violence.

Together, we tackle hot-button issues such as whether or not teachers should be armed, how school shooter drills may actually fail students, and why most security plans are fundamentally flawed. 

Mr. Ryan introduces his “School to Embassy” initiative, inspired by his time at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, outlining layered, proactive security strategies that balance effectiveness with practicality. He explains how many school shootings, like those in Parkland, Columbine, and Sandy Hook, could have been mitigated or even prevented with proper infrastructure, surveillance, and trained guards in place.

We also address cultural issues around school shootings—how media coverage sometimes glorifies shooters, how misinformed public perceptions cloud real solutions, and why fear of controversy keeps most podcasters from touching this subject. We go beyond the politics and dig into tangible changes: using biometric safes, adding vetted armed security, increasing situational awareness, and upgrading school architecture in subtle but secure ways. 

https://www.schooltoembassyproject.com/about

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Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and we address a lot on this show. We've addressed people's personal suicide experiences, we've talked about, or we've talked about religion. We've covered sexual immorality. We've covered pretty much everything I can think of off the top of my head.

But  today's subject is something we haven't covered, which is school shootings. We've gone over a little bit in some episodes about gun laws, about, you know, society's views on guns. Uh, some  I'll call it improperly educated, you know, beliefs on guns and, and people, uh, you know, it comes down to that classic question.

Do guns kill people or do people kill people? You know, uh, we've talked about knives versus guns. We've talked about self-defense. That was a very upsetting episode, to be honest, to hear about how America treats self-defense. And you know,  a lot of people are afraid to talk about school shootings. We're not gonna be encouraging them, of course.

We're gonna be talking about prevention and awareness. And  in preparation for this episode, I was talking with somebody of mine about, you know,  most school shooters are inspired by previous ones. So it's true that  that publicity can have negative effects. But at the end of the day, the idea is gonna formulate somewhere and someone's gonna do it.

So at least by. Showing and talking about prevention and awareness, you have a much greater chance of doing good than harm compared to none at all. And we are here today with Seth Ryan, a man who is passionate about that prevention and awareness, as well as a variety of other topics that we hinted at. So I'm gonna let him introduce himself here for y'all.

But if you take a look at his website, you can see a ton of photos showing a lot of military service, not just sitting around at Port. He was out there in the action quite a bit. So Mr. Ryan, great to have you here. Great to, great to be on. Couple of nukes. Um, I really appreciate the opportunity.  Yeah. So let's start right there with, you know, your military background.

Okay. So, military background because I'm, I'm one of the strangest people you'll ever meet. Uh, I served in both the Marine Corps and Army Special Operations in the 75th range regimen in the Army. And then from there I went into law enforcement and was a street cop while I was getting my degree, hoping to get into federal law enforcement because I was working in Baghdad and in Kabul, in special ops, right next to the, uh, FBI, the Secret Service, the, uh, A TF US Marshals.

And those guys were making six figures tax free, and they didn't really have to do anything. They didn't have to get shot at. We did all the work, right? And then they swept in and, and, uh, you know, collect some evidence. And they were getting paid, you know, five, six times more than I was getting paid to be behind enemy lines.

And, you know, uh. After all of that, I was like, Hey, how do I get your job in the chow hall? And the guy's like, well, hey, get your degree and apply. So that was my plan. Uh, man, my life has been a rollercoaster ever since, though I, all those things kind of fell through. I went federal law enforcement. I saw behind the curtain and the wizard.

Not very impressive. So, uh, unfortunately, uh, I had to make a new life change there. And because my wife and I and just our relationship, I wanted to try to be able to have kids and we weren't having kids. So I went to the oil fields and lived on oil rigs for a little while in Oklahoma and Texas. And then the oil field crashed, and there I was again sitting here going with my background, what can I do?

So I finished my master's degree and moved to Tampa, Florida, and that's where I live today. And now I once again jumped ship and went back overseas to make good money to do IVF. Um, I now have an 18 month old son and IVF worked for us the very first, um, attempt. But again, I, I ended up living through some pretty crazy circumstances, all of 2020 when you guys were going through COVID in America, I was going through it at a Baghdad embassy.

Which our gates had just been burned down. We were all about to be massacred and hung off a bridge. But because of the, uh, Trump administration, green lighting, special operations to come in and snatch up the right people, uh, we are all alive today. Obviously, God is the reason we're alive. But, uh, green lighting those guys is the reason why, um, Soleimani and the men that were coming to orchestrate our, um, attack, the continued attack, um, they were killed.

They were taken out, and I made it home. I. That ended up, uh, with a, ended up going in a direction to where I ended up not complying with some things that weren't gonna be healthy for me. And now I'm home. I'm a private contractor, just, you know, helping people, uh, make their schools, their, uh, properties, big apartment complexes large, uh, HOAs safer.

And I just kind of do that while I take care of my son. And we get ready for our next IVF baby that we're putting in, in  three weeks.  Yeah. Actually already done by the time this episode comes out. Yeah. So congratulations on that. Appreciate in, in the advance, but to the past. Yeah. Uh, what I'll say is you talked about, you know, some of those higher ups, making big figures and doing less.

And we had a term in the Navy for the officers, we called them pencil pushers. Uh, they. You know, push around papers and pencils and get paid a lot more than us to do a lot less. So. Yeah. Well, I've seen that, you know, firsthand. And I've also seen those guys in the chow hall saying, how do we end up doing that?

You know? And, uh,  I don't think I could name a more American man than  Marines, army cop, federal,  and out of all the states, Texas and Florida, of course. Right, right, right. It's like you were like, what other countries envision when they hear like American military man, or just American man like you? Funny, I, I asked a girl out one time and she goes out with me and she starts asking me about myself, and I start telling her, and she's like.

You are the strangest like combination of what people think of as a rugged person. Because as a child I liked to chop down trees and so like I was, I was dragging tires up and down my gravel driveway. But that's 'cause I grew up in the eighties and nineties and there was nothing to do and I lived out in the woods.

So there was nothing to climb a tree, chop a tree, run. And like drag things around, be a mechanic like that. That's literally what I had to do as a child. So, uh, yeah, I come from a very weird and Christian, very strict, uh, Christian background too. So, you know, I did all of those things you're talking about while never drinking alcohol in my entire life.

Uh. I also, and this is one that people, if you don't know me, you, you will definitely get to know me if you follow any of my content, which is I don't curse. And that's again, because my parents, you know, beat that out of us. If we ever said anything that sounded like we were trying to get toward a curse word.

And so it just never has been in my vocabulary. And so I, I will say freak all the time, freaking, but I don't say curse words. And being in the military, especially special ops, especially the Marine Corps, especially law enforcement where everybody's functioning alcoholics every day, they're so, for me, believe that cursing makes them better leaders. 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and to be honest with you, I mean, there there's a time and a place where somebody needs cussed out. I'm just not the guy that's gonna be the one that does that. Yeah. I've always been the, the servant hearted before servant leader was a term that anybody knew. I just knew that all of the best leaders in the Bible and all the best leaders that I'd ever met.

That's how they led from the front and by showing you not by barking orders from the back and, and whipping you. So that's the type of leadership that I've always had. Um, and so, uh, what we were talking about earlier, I want to get back, you were saying, um, about the, about the school shooting. So just, just to real quick, the reason why I am so passionate about it, as you can see from my background, I have a very unique perspective on all those things because when I went to the oil fields, um, there was a time period where I was, um, had been laid off from one oil field company I was working for and went to work for another, and I was doing private contracting bodyguard work for the oil field tycoons in Oklahoma.

Mm-hmm. Um, and so I, I'm just hanging out. It wasn't like it was a rough job and nobody's out there trying to assassinate those guys right now. And definitely not back then. And, uh, so I've, I've, at that time.  I, when I was formulating my idea, what am I gonna talk about on a podcast? I had met you at a podcasting, um, event, and the advice I had been given is find a place where very few people are.

It's something that you can intelligently talk about and that you wouldn't mind talking about, you know, forever. The, the, it's something you've got expertise in and, uh, people will wanna listen. That's what you want to do. So that's what I did and that's where I started the School to Embassy project. The name comes from me working at the Baghdad Embassy.

And what I learned from living at that embassy is that the embassy itself is not a scary building at all. It's exactly the opposite. Mm-hmm. It's actually kind of a, it's very, very well constructed and you can tell the material is very stout, but that doesn't make it look scary. And they purposefully make it just look like what, look like the other buildings in the area, but much more. 

Upscale, I guess you would say, right? Not scary. That being said, if you have a suicide vest on and you open the front door and you try to open the second door, you're not getting through that door because that door locked behind you. You're locked in there and the guy sitting on the other side of the other side of that wall or staring at you, pushing the button goes, you're stuck, buddy.

You got nowhere to go. You can't kill anybody. You're done. And that's when I, I started formulating the idea, there should be rings of security within our school system. Obviously not to the level of an embassy, but rings where things can be, uh, where a person who comes to do harm is first seen, is first notifying, um, you know, somebody who can immediately react to that.

Because if you get past that ring, then you are gonna be seen by the cameras on this ring. And if you make it past that ring.  What I started looking into school shootings. There're just, there's nobody talking about this topic on a regular enough basis to me at all. And the, the main thing, the reason why I had to start the podcast was I started looking into Columbine.

I started looking into, um, the Stoneman Douglas shooting. I started looking into Sandy Hook. I started looking into Valdi. And what I found out is that all the things I thought I knew about them were flat out wrong. All the things that I had been told by the media.  Not true. And so it completely blew my mind, especially Columbine because I was in high school, I graduated in 1999, so when, when that happened, I was in high school.

This was a big deal. Like that was just every, every, every day people are talking about it. And, you know, the, the jokes were going around, who's gonna be the school shooter here? And then that was when I was friends with all kinds of people. And there was a couple kids who loved Marilyn Manson and wore trench coats.

And they were very, very good at math. I was student of the year in math, um, my senior year. And so we actually come to find out years later, we, us three were on the list that the police had formulated of who are the most likely kids to be school shooters, because they thought they're, they're loners, they don't belong in a specific club.

Anybody who talks to the Marilyn Manson kids, 'cause those guys are for sure the ones, and it was just like anybody associated with them. And then they thought anybody who gets good grades, like that's what they ran on. Anybody who happens to talk to these kids who wear face makeup and were like the most benign, like they, they weren't intimidating.

Yeah. And they certainly weren't kids who knew how to use a gun.  But that, that, I just remember that from high school. And then I started to do research and the more I read, the more I understood that I didn't understand anything. So that's where I started reaching out to the people that I had to bring on my podcast, which are  two star Marine General.

The guy who started a retired colonel, special Operations. He had worked, he had worked with everybody you can name General McCraven Admiral, all of the people that you've heard of that ran the army, that ran special operations during the war. He's been in the room with those guys. He's spent time with those guys.

So I brought him in, got his perspective, and, and what I quickly found out was that a, um,  the more you talk about the topic. Uh, the less other podcasters want to talk with you. And that's where I'm at today. Um, you are one of the few people that want to have me on the podcast. And, and again, that's why I say I really appreciate the opportunity.

Regardless of all the things I've done in my background, that doesn't mean that people are gonna just automatically bring me onto their podcast. I have to fit the demographic of their audience. And there's far too many people out there that are scared of, you know, being shadow banned, that are scared of hot button topics, is the, is the way it's been phrased to me, and that I am a.

I personally am a hot button topic, because even talking about school shootings means automatically shootings brings up guns. And the fact that you even hear the word gun, or don't even say the word gun, but if you think of the word gun on this topic, then that makes me a hot button topic and they wanna stay away from that. 

So that's where I'm at today, and it's right. But if were talking about VDSM and bestiality, they'd say we'd love to have you on the podcast. You know, it's, uh, it's a, of course, it's a, I'll say it's a politically biased where, um, if your hot button conversation is on the right rather than a left, then typically that's how it works in the podcasting industry and in news in general.

But yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong about it. You know, like I said, we're not encouraging it. And, um, I'm in the same boat as you as, um. Now I've never been told by any, you know, official police officers or anything like that, but by other students and people in my life. I've always been called school shooter.

Uh, every time I've taken an ID photo, I've been told that I either look like a serial killer, a murderer, or a school shooter. Um, I don't know, I have a serious resting face. And, um, yeah, and it's funny, uh, I've even had people tell me, uh, you know, I won't confirm or deny if I own firearms, but if I did, I'd have a lot of people say, well, that means you're gonna end up being a school shooter.

You know, it means, um, that you're this, this, and that. You know, and, and guns should only X, Y, Z, you know, and there's a lot of improper education around. And here's the thing,  I, I do support, you know, the right to bear arms, but I believe that it should be required for everyone to be educated on them, you know, and whether that's through the public school system or something else,  uh, even if you're never going to own one or shoot one, just to understand how they work, you know, safety about it.

And especially if you're gonna buy one. That's one of my issues with the constitutional carry. Like here in Georgia, you can just buy it, you know, as long as everything checks out with your background, pretty much you can buy it. There's no required safety course or anything like that. But of course, we're gonna get into some of the myth busting with school shootings, uh, in terms of,  are most of the guns legal or illegal?

You know, what kind of people do it. But I wanna start with a question. I. Going back to, you talked about making schools safer. One of the most controversial debates is, should we arm teachers? If teachers pass a background check and they're safe, you know, but that leaves a possibility. What did the teacher snaps mentally?

What if, so I'd love to know as someone who has really looked into the news articles, done a research, hosted a podcast on it, and you know, talks about this stuff. What is your personal opinion? Again, everyone, this is Mr. Ryan's personal opinion on arming teachers or having an armed guard at the school.

Two different questions, starting with the, the teachers. Yeah. Uh, well, yeah, and great question. Um, I've actually, so I was, with the job that I'm doing, I was deciding between that or being an armed guard here in Tampa for their school system because they actually have armed guards and it's not. It's not the same as like going and getting a regular security officer license, right?

You actually go through the school system. They put you through a police created Pasco County, um, school system, created this essentially miniature police training for you so that you, you know, they're already gonna bring in a, somebody who is very familiar with weapons, somebody who is a veteran of, you know, usually law enforcement and or, um, military veteran.

And so that I actually was looking into, ultimately, I just decided with this job, the reason why able to have a podcast with you in the middle of the week is because as a private contractor, I can choose when I work. And so yesterday I worked and now I'm off for the rest of the week. That's all the jobs I needed, um, this week to do for my schedule.

So, yes, uh, as far as school, um, as ar, as far as arming teachers. So we'll start there. I would say this. I'm not, I'm not a proponent that we should automatically require because there's some people out there that are very loud on the right, that are pushing, that really push for this, that we, if you're a teacher and this is their stance, if you're a teacher, you are in the position of being a shepherd.

You have to protect your flock. And that, and that's the way I've heard it phrased many times. I've heard that too. Yeah. And because a,  a teacher, if you look, if you sit down and do a personality profile of a teacher that is the exact opposite of a, of a firearm carrying police officer, detention officer, you know, uh, FBI agent, you're, it's not the same type of person.

It's not the same type of competency either. The person that was the best in my school at teaching me math, and the reason why I made it to student of the year was because of him.  I don't think I'd trust him with a firearm. And, and it's because he was so cerebral. He was so good at,  at taking complex things, breaking it down and making you as a, as a high school student able to understand this, that doesn't mean that he can put on a blindfold and now, uh, take apart a rifle or a pistol and put it back together, you know, in 60 seconds.

Right. That's two totally different types of people. And so that's where I would start with the conversation because there's a lot of teachers that.  Less I would the, the number of people that would shoot students by snapping versus the number of people who would accidentally shoot themselves accidentally shoot a student, accidentally shoot a gun in the, just because they're mishandling it.

Or worst case scenario, a student goes through that teacher's bag. A student thinks it's a funny game to to play a prank on the teacher and goes and gets their gun and hides it from them, but accidentally shoots themselves accidentally the gun goes off. There's a million scenarios there where that's not a good idea.

That being said, if you're a teacher who has been raised with firearms, is very comfortable with firearms, spends a lot of time training, I. I think that we should have a place where the teachers that are capable and are willing and, you know, are competent, should absolutely be allowed to do so. But it should also be very heavily in, uh, regulated as far as the school goes, of them being like, not regulated, like sitting there over looking over their shoulder, but like, hey. 

Here's a safe that's in the classroom that only, you know, the combination to. And there's a, a buddy of mine, um, that, you know, he, he had sent his son off to the seals and like, he's just a very, very grown up with guns and everything. And he has multiple kids. And he said, grown up with all these kids in the house.

This is what I have next to my bed. It's my fingerprints that go on it when my hand goes on that it opens for me only. And so I can grab my gun, it's already loaded, one's in the chamber and I can go defend my house. That something like that would be ideal to where the gun isn't being taken back and forth.

Right. And only they're gonna be able to get to it. Obviously it'd have to be bolted down 'cause somebody, some kids are gonna break into the school and try to steal the gun. Like that's the way it is, like as you, as you think that through. But I would say something like that would be a good, um. Would be a good, good, happy medium between the two because you've got teachers that really are, if I became a teacher.

I would hope that you would want me to carry a gun in that school, and it only takes one good guy with a gun to stop the bad guy if, if the, the reason why schools are being attacked is because they're the gun-free zone and everybody knows it. If, if you don't know if the teachers are armed there,  just take a look at the exact same numbers for if you don't know if somebody's carrying a concealed carry, the exact same thing, people are much less likely to go try to commit a violent crime if they don't know who's carrying a firearm.

Um, so that, that would be my answer. And having talked to teachers here in Tampa and principals, 'cause I have several friends at church that are principals as well. They, they would say, man, I, you do not understand the teachers that we have here. You don't understand how I am as a teacher. I would not trust me even if my life were, if my life were in danger, especially don't trust me with a gun because I would be fumbling and scared and freeze it.

And so again, yeah, you've gotta have somebody who knows that they're capable of handling that situation. And that's where a combat veteran or prior law enforcement who's wanting to do security, I think is the answer to that.  No, what's interesting is we never talk about non-lethal alternatives. You know, at the end of the day, we always just say either teachers are armed with guns or they're not.

We never say, what about tasers? You know, tranquilizers or, or other means of non-lethal, you know, force. So I think it's really interesting that we never have those conversations about, again, it's the same exact concerns if I'm a teacher with a taser on me, and like you said, kids are gonna be kids, whether they're middle schoolers or high schoolers.

Oh, you know, Mr. Whiskey has a taser in his belt. What if we tased him? You know, that that's how kids are. And it's, it's sad, but it's, I think you're saying that's how you were as a kid. No, no, no.  I was, I was well behaved. Uh, um, uh, I was, I was the, the. A smart loner who was on this, probably on the school shooting list, you know?

Yeah. So I was not a troublemaker, but you know, I know plenty of people who were, I, I've, I've seen people who would, like you said, even try to like, you know, break into the safe and all that stuff. I mean, it's, it's true. Yeah. You know, I know people who would say, Hey, we just gotta get the teachers, you know, hand print on it and all that stuff.

So even that is, is the thing, you know? Yeah. Trying to get the combination, trying to guess the combination, you know, whatever they, they can do. Uh, and it is just human behavior, whether it's curiosity or just the way they were, you know, brought up. So again, the same concerns with if we did non-lethal, you know, alternatives.

And it's sad that we live in a society where we need to have a third party, you know, at the schools to protect our children. But at the end of the day, acceptance is better than complaining. Right. Because that least that gets us somewhere that gets pro, you know, stuff done. And so, you know.  Let's talk about, you talk about it, it whether the teachers are armed or not.

You talk about, uh, multi-tiered security. Design for the schools layers, you know, and you, you, you brought up walls previously. Obviously schools we're not gonna be able to moat in a castle, in a bridge full of alligators, but, right. What does that look like for you based on what you've seen other schools maybe starting to implement or what you'd like to see implemented?

So, um, just because you, you mentioned the moat thing. I have to, I have to mention, when you look at some of the best protected embassies on the planet. What you see is they're some of the most beautiful, and so the, the water, having a small, and being in Florida, it's super easy because everywhere's water and people just love water here.

Like, uh, it, it, it's kind of strange to me coming from, from the, from the Midwest. 'cause we, we have big lakes and then that's it. And we had a big lake and that's it. Here everybody has a puddle in their backyard for sure. But you can use that. You build that, um, in front of an embassy and automatically you don't have to have an alligator in there.

Florida. It's automatic. There's gonna be alligators. Yeah. Legitimately who can run through that? Well, you can't. So automatically, you just essentially built a concrete wall that nobody's going through and. That's, that's the way you have to think of these things. You don't think of it as, um, you know, it, it has to be this over the top razor wire, concertina wire, spiked t uh, tip top.

Um, and if you drive through Miami, which is where I do a lot of my, uh, assessments, you see the whole neighborhood where, you know, section eight housing in, in a rough area. You already know it's a rough area when you drive through there in the middle of the day, uh, aside from the graffiti, if you see spiked, um, fences everywhere, especially the front yard, the whole thing is fenced in.

They drive their car in, they have to get out and move the, the little gate to even get in there. That's over the top, um, especially for a school. And also it creates a, it creates an environment where you are. I  wouldn't say you're, you're scared to go to school, but it's a constant reminder that you know that it is dangerous and that people are wanting to do you harm and all those things.

And although there's a whole lot of mumbo jumbo about that, that's been spread and there's a whole lot of touchy feely ideas out there. And at the end of the day, I do want my son to come back home and I don't care if there's a spiked. Right. If that was it, if that was saved, everything, if that saves every kid, then let's put up spike fences.

But that's not going to, so finding solutions such as something that looks as, as, um, you know, inviting as a big little, uh, pond, essentially. I keep calling 'em lakes here, but a, a big size little pond in front of the school on this side. And you've got, um, you know, a, if you have a roving guard that is constantly patrolling the, the property, and this is something that.

I worked for about a year and a half in a federal prison, uh, while I was trying to get the back door into the, to the big guys, the A TF, US Marshals, all that. And what I learned real quick from, um, going and, and doing the patrol on the outside to being in the tower with the rifles is that, you know, it's not one thing if you just had towers all the way around.

There's gonna be one guy who falls asleep and that's gonna be the area that they could escape from. Yeah. If, if there's just a patrol guy and there's no towers, well they can time that guy and get around. So, exactly. It has to be, uh, and, and this is what I would love to see, is  the, it's no matter what physical defenses, walls, things you put up there, we're humans we're smarter than that.

We're always gonna be able to find a way around it.  What's, what you have to do with layers is you have to have advanced warning from the exterior that people aren't aware of. Okay. And so that's where cameras  for buildings that are around the school that somebody is monitoring at all times while school is part, uh, taking place, including after hours when basketball games are going on.

Baseball games.  That's where if you look at every school shooting, the kids are never landing in a spaceship or a helicopter on top of the roof. And then going through the building, they're coming from a distance. And e even though, um, the, the Parkland shooting, um, down here in Florida, that one, he actually got dropped off at the door by a,  um, Uber driver or Lyft driver or whatever.

That's the closest, like most of the time they parked in a parking lot and they're dressed.  They've got a rifle in their hands. They're wearing this gear. It's super obvious this person is going to commit a violent crime that should have already been seen on camera, and people should be alerted. The teachers within that school system should have already heard the alarm go off and that they should have automatically locked their doors and hid their kids.

Now, and this is the, and Parkland is one of the most.  It's one of the most perfect examples of, of how this could have played out, uh, and how it did for everybody. On the second floor, the first floor he comes in, he wasn't dressed, he gets dropped off. He had everything in a duffle bag because he had actually went and researched and learned that lesson from all those other kids who had all parked away or his coming on foot run in.

And then people saw them and they were kind of already caught. He goes into the stairwell on that one and then gets dressed in the stairwell. Well, a little kid walked in on him. I said, little kid. One of the students, a student walked in while he's getting dressed.  Why? There's not a camera in that stairwell immediately alerting exactly the law enforcement, and they're hitting the lockdown button that would've automatically saved ha, countless lives  that wasn't there.

I.  If you had dummy cameras around, you don't even if the cameras are expensive, so you only end up getting a certain number, having similar, uh, dummy cameras. And so a lot of places, a lot of businesses have some real cameras around and some dummy cameras, and you never know which ones actually working and which, which ones aren't.

That's a very good deterrent because again, you don't know which ones are and which ones aren't.  He goes into the stairwell, gets dressed, so already  he shows up with a duffle bag that, that he would've, he would've gotten past the first layer, but he's having to get dressed somewhere. That's where that second layer, a kid shows up with a duffle bag and just goes right into the bathroom.

That should raise some suspicion. The, the officer on campus should have been alerted to go check him out again. That would've saved many kids' lives.  He gets dressed, he starts shooting everybody on the first floor.  He that the kids on the second floor and the teachers on the second floor heard the shooting and so they all turned out the lights and hid out of sight of that window. 

Now a, there should have been some type of a covering and now a lot of schools do that and that's very simple, but it's very effective as well because if you can't see in, you can't see in and just dunno. He goes through the entire second floor shoots, zero people,  all their lives are saved because again, if the early warning had gone out, that's what everybody would've done.

And they, he, it's very hard to shoot people like this and kids aren't smart enough to know bullets ca how well a bullet goes through the wall, typically speaking. Right? They're, they're not thinking that far ahead.  So that's a great example. He goes up to the third floor. They didn't hear the first floor shootings 'cause they're all the way on the third floor.

And so he pulls the fire alarm, they all come out in the hallway and then it's a free for all.  So, um, one of the interesting things about that shooting too on the third floor is that the teachers when interviewed for a, um,  a documentary that I, that I listened to, and it's on Amazon, it's free. You should definitely go and watch that one because you would learn so much just about what happened in Stoneman Douglas. 

The teachers all said that he was wearing some type of a mask. Other kids said he was wearing, definitely not wearing a mask. He was wearing some type of shooting glasses.  What somebody sees in that moment can be very wide ranging. Some people saw him wearing nothing. Some saw him wearing glasses, some saw him wearing a face shield, right?

Which is it? 'cause it's not all the, the same. And he definitely didn't wear all those different combinations.  Here's the other thing. He starts shooting  and  instead of when fire alarm goes off.  Everybody pours out into the hallway. Now, prior to, it says it on the documentary, so I probably messed this up, but prior to the shooting, it was only a couple days prior to the shooting or a couple weeks, Parkland High School and Parkland, Florida,  uh, specifically was labeled by a,  a news outlet or whatever, the safest place in the state of Florida.

That school ran drills on active shooter all the time. And one of the most,  to me, the, the thing that absolutely made a, a knot in my stomach was when the teacher said over and over through the whole documentary. We had been trained on this over and over and so when it happened, I thought it was a drill. 

Every kid that while taking bullets into the child next to them still thinks this is on Valentine's Day. That is a paintball gun. This is a joke. Those are not bullets going into this kid. All that blood must be paintballs because this has to be a drill and that is something that no one has ever talked about that should give everyone pause.

If your training costs people their lives, you have to go, stop. We just implemented this. This sounded like a great idea. Here it is. In real life, this just costs people li their lives. Let's rethink this. That's where you, you have to sit back and go, okay, that's not me. Monday morning, quarterbacking, just trying to scrutinize you.

But I'm telling you, if, if I was a police officer in my training, put me in a position where I was almost killed and other police officers were killed, that thing that you taught me I would never use again in real life. This is where I think the re the, the realistic practice that they do,  man, it has to be real realistic and I, I don't believe that schools, schools are investing the least amount of money that they can.

They're doing the, the best that they can. It, it is the best that they, that they know to do. Right. What I'll tell you is when you go through bodyguard school for the Department of State,  when you go through, uh, active shooter training as a police officer, um, and then I was, as a police officer, I had a secondary job that I was contracted to help train the border patrol, uh, CBP pilots, um, on how to, uh, interact and, and, and be a, uh, be a gun toter again, because they're, they're pilots.

They almost never get into a situation where they've ever had to pull their gun anymore. They just go back and forth and get on a plane and fly around. The other guys on the ground, do all the gun toting, and that's what their job is. So they're used to it.  These guys. They wanted, uh, the, the guy that was in charge of custom border of protection was like, Hey, but what happens if, what happens if you go to, and you're, you're stopped at seven 11?

What if you're stopped at Wawa? What if you're stopped at Circle K? You're getting gas and then you see this happen? And so we ran these scenarios and we're police officers, all of us. So we put them through real, real, real world scenario. We put them through exactly what dudes had actually done to us in real life.

And or were mo, you know, several of us are combat veterans too, like the way it is in combat. And that blew some guys' minds. I mean, literally men froze with fear. And when I say froze, I mean like, uh,  uh, uh,  this is a 30 5-year-old man who is screaming like a child at the instructor who time out, time out. I don't, uh. 

And I'm like, bro, you've been in, you've been carrying a gun, you've been through the federal law enforcement academy. You've been doing this for over a decade. You've been doing this for 15 years, and you just realize that if somebody didn't even point a gun at you, they grabbed a hostage that you would freak out and just completely freeze and lose your mind.

Um, so, so when doing that type of training,  I think that would open up a lot of people's minds as to how serious they need to take this. And what I personally believe, without being at every school in America while they do this training,  whenever you, you can go look on Google at pictures for, for school shooting training.

And what you're gonna see is a lot of people laying down with, with little, you know, whatever fake blood stuff, squirted on them. And you're gonna see kids doing this, laying on the ground, smiling.  You're gonna see police officers going  in the pictures.  Yeah. Everybody knows this is a stupid checkbox.

They're going through the motions. They're trying not to get in trouble. They're, they're tired. It's the end of the day. And that's the way people are treating it. People are, yeah. Not all, not obviously. I'm sure there's some that are not. However,  the school that's gonna have a shooting next month, the month after that, the month at whatever month it is, whenever it happens next, it's gonna be at a school where they don't take it serious.

And that's an early prediction because the reason why they're doing shootings at schools is because there's people without guns and people can't defend themselves. The reason why it will again be at a school where the officer isn't prepared, where the people aren't prepared is because kids aren't stupid.

And if a kid knows that they could do a school shooting. They know that because they've probably participated in or watched. You don't think a school shooter is gonna go actively seek out and watch how they do it. You're literally, that's the other thing. We're literally giving the enemy the playbook and walking them through mm-hmm.

Our training  and, and that, that's the scary thought. Right. The kids that we're trying to protect are the ones that are the school shooters. They're mixed in there. You never know which one's gonna be the school shooter.  Who wants to volunteer to be a part of the school shooting training tonight. Oh, that kid's hand's going up. 

Well, you know, you, I think you like guns a little bit too much there, Mr. Whiskey, you don't get to volunteer. But I really want to help and I, I think it's important  that, of course, that kid's gonna be the one involved. And of course that kid's gonna sit there and watch them walk through exactly how they do it,  and then they're gonna literally game plan a defeat.

Exactly what you have in in mind, and that's all you've planned for. So you don't do contingencies, you don't do a bunch 'cause you don't have time for that. You know, I'm funding for that, blah, blah, blah. Right. You go through the, what's been taught to you, what your police department has come up with their plan, or you fall back on the federal training. 

At the end of the day, people will have to take this serious everywhere. And, and it has to be as, as close to, uh, pushing somebody to a, a point of failure of stress to where you are literally being shot at, with munition rounds. It hurts. And I mean, like, I've got scars still from that training and, and I've literally point blank, you know, been like, he, he pulled his gun on me and he didn't shoot.

I was like,  bro, I've got a gun pointed at you. I'm supposed to shoot you right now, but I'm not allowed to. 'cause you're too close.  I'm telling you right now, shoot me. And he's like, okay, okay. And then he shoots me and I'm like,  I had to tell a federal agent to shoot me, right? It was too close, but I didn't care at that moment.

I was like, dude, I'm, I'm covered in and stuff. It's gonna hurt, but I need to you to get this through your head. You can shoot me. And, and he, he stopped because he, it's, he, it was a game to him. He was still in game mode. And he knows that in training prior to this, the rule is you can't shoot within, you know, three feet of being that close 'cause it'll break your skin.

I was like, but I had, I knew in that moment, I was like, this guy has to get through that. Shoot me, execute me right now. I've got a gun pointed at you. You have to shoot me. I'm not gonna shoot you, but you better shoot me in any shot. But it's, it's that type of mentality. You go through the training. Prior to the tra you go through the rules of the training.

There's no rules in the real world. And so you're gonna, you're gonna have to tell people, this is how we're gonna have one shooter in here. We're gonna do this, da da da. And then they come in and that's not what it is at all. They're on another floor. They're, it's a multi, uh, it's a multi, uh, terrorist attack.

It's a multis shooter attack. Yeah. It's a follow on attack. And this is an early unfortunate prediction because kids are smart and they're eventually going to go to a point to where it's going to be Columbine, where you have two shooters instead of one, or it's gonna be three shooters. And, and heaven help us, God help us not to ever get to that point, but at some point kids are going to get other kids involved and they will.

They will buddy up and it will be a thing. Same thing that's, yeah. Pull a fire alarm to get everybody going this way. You shoot at them, you're gonna get some, but at the bottom of the stairwell where they're all funneling down, that's where I'm gonna be standing. And I've got some, uh, pipe bombs that I've built.

I've got some, I've got really the best rifle. You've got a pistol, I've got the rifle down here. And, and it's going to be a multi-level attack, not just a single, uh, individual who shoots a sh a few pop shots and then, you know, the police come and, and Right. Stop. So  unfortunately that's, that's the way it's going.

It's evolving. Um,  and it, it won't stop until kids stop idolizing the people who have come before them. And that's the media. The media keeps pushing the kid, the shooter's names,  and kids keep pushing those students, the shooter's names around. Talking about them as if they are some type of Hollywood celebrity. 

Yeah. We have the guy who recently in the news shoots, uh, the who, whoever it was the money mogul up in New York, uh, Chicago. I forget where it was now off the top of my head. But he just, you're talking about the healthcare. CEO. Yes. Healthcare, Luigi, that's what it was. Uh, I couldn't remember which. It was healthcare.

CEO. He shoots him.  They find him.  Now, what, what is that guy bombarded with?  Marriage proposals and fan mail.  What are we doing?  That's our society. How do you fix that? I mean,  you and I aren't going to, and no school is going to, when you have a society that is so twisted that a serial killer sees a. Sees themselves receiving constant adoration, constant love, constant, um, communication from all of these women that want to now be with them, people who want to interview them.

Documentaries made it made about their lives, and they look at their life, especially in high school and go, I'm nobody. I'm gonna die. A nobody. I, I, I was gonna commit suicide,  but why not be world famous? Why not be talked about and taught about for the rest of history as, as one of the big school shooters?

All I have to do is you can't be famous, be infamous, kind of thing. And I want to cut in and address a couple things you talked about, you know, in the Navy, I was a nuclear operator, and one of the thing we talk about is, you know, the reactor's always dangerous and complacency kills. You know, when you're doing a drill, it's still a live reactor.

Or even if the reactor shut down, you know, you always treat it like. Something could go terribly wrong. And that's not just reactor side, that's military side across, uh, you know, and it is supposed to be, you know, complacency kills, you know, always same, even that mindset people are supposed to have with the ocean.

You know, any day you go to the beach could be the last one. You know, you know that the ocean can always kill you with the, I I understand what you're saying with the, the lockdowns, the school shooting drills, that people become complacent. They think this is a drill. This is another drill. This is, and I know schools have tried to combat that by no longer announcing that it's a drill.

They used to announce. I know when I was growing up, it would be told if it was a drill and then at some point that changed to it can or cannot be a drill. You know, it may or may not be a drill. Um, but even then, you know, like you said, people are gonna assume it is one way or the the other, especially. 

There's, there's the whole kid mentality where if I'm trying to treat it like it's a real drill and everyone else isn't, well, now I look, now I'm outcasted. They're like, look, Mr. Whiskey's so paranoid. Or look at he's a babies treating this like it's real and everyone else is treating it like a drill, for example.

Um, so one of the things you suggested, which is you talk about hot topics and controversial, you talk about making the, the drills even more realistic. I mean, that's definitely something that a lot of parents are gonna wanna push back on, saying that's bad for the students', mental health, uh, for, you know, their social dynamics and all of that.

And then one thing you said that is so important that, that  sticks with me more than anything is  the shooters most of the time have inside information. I mean, you talked about the people we are teaching the plan of protection to may become the person who is trying to destroy that plan. Uh, you know, so  it, and I think that's pretty simple to understand, you know, but for an example, let's say, I know I don't watch football, but let's say, you know, you're, you're the quarterback.

You're going over the whole playing with the team, and then one of your guys goes and plays for the other side against you. Well, he already knows all the moves you're about to make. He just, you know, went through all of it. So just, um, how, how do we, how do we combat that? I mean, how do we combat there, there, is there any way to do that?

I mean, and you talk about realistic trading and, and  all across and, you know, talking about the glorification. Yeah. You know, I mean, people will, will say, well, we're holding them accountable. You know, we're putting their name in the news so people know. Yes. It's accountability. Uh, but you can look at any leader in history, good or bad.

And it doesn't matter what you hold him accountable to or how you punish him. I think Benito Mussolini, they hung him upside down, naked and everything. Still, people who, who glorify him, who wanna be like, and there's people who wanna be like Res, Putin, Putin, Kim Jong-Un, Trump, you know, Biden,  Reagan, it doesn't matter any, you can name any leader and there are people who are for them and people who are against them.

It doesn't matter. Good or bad. And so when you're trying to hold accountability, so that brings the question, well, do we need to punish school shooters differently? Do we need to, you know, I don't wanna say torture, that sounds awful, but do we need to  show some, is there any way to have consequences so dreadful that no one ever thinks of being a school shooter.

I mean, is there any way to even do that? Because at the end of the day, a person who is broken, like you said, has nothing to live for. If their life doesn't matter, there's nothing you can scare them with really. Right. So, uh, so couple questions there. Go back to the, um, you know, combating when we're literally teaching the children how to, um, to actually get around what we're gonna do much.

Uh, that was a great point with a quarterback because that happens all the time right now in college football, and that happens a lot in college football with the coaches. And even more so because the coach not only knows what the playbook is, you could change the playbook. The coach knows the scheme, the coach knows what the point of, of how you even do this is, and so that's, that's where the difference has to lie. 

We have to teach kids so that they survive. A hundred percent. You have to teach the kids what to do. Good example. Let's go just with a very baseline example. Um, kids in Columbine, you watch documentaries. Look into that at all. If kids in Columbine had done the run, hide, fight,  many, many of those children would have lived.

Almost everybody in the library would have just ran out of the library, but they didn't. They froze out of fear because they had no idea this could ever even exist, that, that this would be a reality. And so they just hunkered down underneath a desk. So  a hundred percent. We have to make sure that kids know they could run outside of the, the door.

They could get out of the windows. Even if it's a multi-level, like Parkland's, three stories. You've gotta ha, I don't care. I gotta stop you right there with an idea because. At my school, and I've heard this at other schools, they said, do not run. If you run, we will assume you are the shooter. So what do you have to comment on that?

Because there are schools out there. I've heard that. They said, if you run, we will assume that you are part of, of the, the shooting and that you are, you know, trying to get away from the, from the police. And this was very controversial 'cause a lot of people said, listen, if there's, if I hear bullets I'm leaving and you can try to arrest me later on if you want.

And that'll be that. But I'm not sitting here like a sitting duck to get shot at. So, I mean, what you're saying that, that run, hide, fight. I, at least in my personal experience, you know, from, from my school and what I've heard other people is it's being put forth hide, run, fight. Which sounds weird, it sounds out of order, but, um, I, but that's what I grew up being taught in, in, in my school systems and what people, you know, from my generation that we're also taught.

So that's in, that's news to me, to be honest, because I have never run across anybody who's said that. Um, everything that I've, that I've found put out by, you know, the federal government, the FBI and, uh, Katherine Sch White with all of her books, right. How to Stop the Killing. Um,  um, all of it is, is in that same order.

We run first for, first and foremost, the most, uh, advantageous way that you could survive that scenario is to not be there. And so that has to be I agree. I agree a hundred percent. It has to be what we do. The, the idea that we, the, it's more important that we contain the school shooter than we let more children survive. 

From my experience.  Common sense primarily as and as well all of my by training that is, has to be one of the dumbest ideas brought about by somebody who has obviously never  had any type of training whatsoever. Military law enforcement or any experience in any capacity. You're saying the priority is, uh, you know, the survival, a shooter over saving lives, right?

Exactly. Yep. So that, that to me is, is, is insane that somebody would, with a straight face tell children when people start shooting, you need to hunker down and be a target. When he gets here, you need to stay here so you could be a hunker down, trapped.  And that's what listen to the documentaries on every, on Columbine, on, uh, Parkland, on, there's several of them.

Sandy Hook on all those, the kids who ended up there, and there's the one exception, right? Sandy Hook where the teacher hides all the kids there, tiny kids, hides them in a tiny closet  and, and, and shuts them. And then she stands outside. And when he comes to her door, she says, you know, there, there's no one in here.

It's just me. And he murders her. She gave her life for those kids. That's really the only off the top of my head, uh,  full success of all the children. Hiding. That being said, Parkland, second floor, as I mentioned, all those kids hid. He shot zero people on that floor.  Not saying that it can't happen because it can.

However, yeah.  If the kids on the third floor  had been aware of the shooting, let's say that they had heard the shooting just like the second floor,  then they had, they run,  many, many more of them would've survived than the ones that that ended up being killed. So if you just look at it, if you just went, go to each one of the school shootings and go, okay, what if they had run?

I. Well then when he pulls the fire alarm, there's not a lot of kids there. 'cause they've already started running. Now that right. Could mean they could run into him, but that also means they could only run into him in one stairwell. 'cause he's not flying through the, the floor. And when the kids went to, he was coming up the stairwell when the, some kids ran to the stairwell.

Um, some kids saw him and came back the other way. But everybody's piling in and they couldn't like, get away. And it was all confusion. He also starts shooting and because his ammo is dirty, you and I know because we shot guns before. Dirty ammo creates a cloud of, and especially if there's no fan or anything to take that away.

And everybody said that in the, in the  Parkland shooting. Um.  Uh, documentary as well is that the whole, it was like, it was a, a concert. It was just covered in cloud and they couldn't see what was going on, and that's where his gun jammed now, and this is the point, his gun jammed and he was sitting there.

Trying to clear it. And he, he's not military law enforcement, so it took him a, a good little bit of taking it out and trying to, uh, fix a jam. He probably has a, um, he probably has one that's that's stuck in the chamber and he is trying to get it back out. Yeah. So that's, that's what he was most likely doing.

And there were many, many seconds. They nobody knows for sure. Some, some with a mask, some without, so we don't know for sure. But we know that he had to take his magazine out and sit there and clear the jam, then reinsert it all that time. Everybody's running into each other and everything's going crazy.

Had they started running first before there's a cloud to confuse them before he gets up there to pull the fire. Right. So that's where if you actually just sat down and went, okay, I'm not gonna say for sure of anything, but let's, let's just mathematically figure out what would be more likely him not doing them this, him not creating the cloud of confusion.

Everybody's not running into each other. Had they run, how many more kids would've survived? So you could do that with each one of them if you'd like. However, common sense tells you it's more important for your kid to make it home to you than it is for them to identify who the shooter is. The idea that the shooter is going to go shoot all these kids everywhere and then drop his stuff and pretend to be one of the students  just happened.

That happened in Michigan.  He didn't, wasn't wearing tactical gear. He was shooting kids with a pistol. And then he, and I know this because I interviewed the lady and she was on my podcast. You should definitely listen to her episode because she had insider knowledge. She was right. Wow. She actually controlled the Facebook page for the whole town.

And that kid was trying to do that. He was gonna try to pretend like he was just a student that was a victim. Yeah. And he dumped the gun into a trash. Uh, into the trash and then sat down.  Everyone in that school already knew this kid was gonna be the school shooter. He was drawing pictures of shooting kids, shooting his teammate, his, uh, classmates were saying that he's gonna shoot people.

He's threatened. Like, come on. And like, that's the other thing. You and I both and everybody else who's ever been through high school knows there's not a whole lot of people out there that could.  That is gonna make it through the full process of becoming a school shooter and, and, and not tip be,  not be acting so strange that everybody knows there, there's wording signs and, and we're gonna get into some mental health stuff with that.

But I mean, and again, I'm not encouraging his actions at all, but if, if it were me, I would've maybe even shot myself somewhere non-lethal to, to, to cover, make it even less likely. Of course, if he had shot himself, it's gonna be like, what would he really go through the trouble? And again, I'm not encouraging, not trying to, but No, and, and that the reality is that's, that's almost not going to happen.

And here's, even if it did, it wouldn't ma somebody's gonna have seen him shooting the gun some somebody already knows. So he could do that. Oh yeah. Yeah.  He would just be in custody at the hospital and he would screw himself over. And I think kids are smart enough to know that they might squirt ketchup on their leg.

I. That again, that's not gonna fool, fool you for very long. Yeah. And at the end of the day, these kids aren't master criminals, you know? And so again, running is the most important thing. It really is to get out of there. Yeah. And if you again, have a warning system that this person's coming, that's your first layer.

And then the secondary, and I, I did skip this before, schools should have two  police trained. If, if they're not, if they're armed guardians like Texas has, or Florida, that you have a sep uh, you know, somebody who's prior law enforcement military may be retired, but they have to be physically fit. They should still be.

Uh, made to pass a PT test every single year. They're employed, not once. And you're done like all police departments that I know of, uh, in, in the Midwest, like my, like all of our departments. Right? Yeah. It's true. Every, every security, uh, officer that I've seen at schools is either over overweight or older and retired and just doing it part-time.

You know, it's not, it's just like as long as they have the gun, that's all that matters. But you and I both know it's more than just that. So, and, and you. And they need to be too, the, the psychological difference between you and another guy who has a gun going after one shooter. And if we both have pistols and he has a rifle, there is, right.

There's still that we found out in Valdi, there's still people that. Just aren't cut out for this work and put and, and aren't gonna go forward. He's got a rifle, I've got a pistol. I'm just gonna stay back here and watch. You're saying by having two, if one fails to do the job, hopefully the other officer will pick up this lab.

I'm saying you're much, you're much more likely. And this again is combat experience, is there's, there's a reason why two snipers go out. There's a reason why there's two. Even if you're a Ford observer and, and power numbers battle buddy mentality that, Hey, I've got, he's got my back, I've got his, yes, we can take this guy together, but if I was alone, who am I?

You know, that and, and it's, you have to overcome so much more fear if you're by yourself than if you're with one other guy. Yeah. And that, that applies to. Getting out on a dance floor. I, I don't know if you've watched any videos on that, but there's several TED Talks, uh, that I've listened to and one that was really good and it talks about, it doesn't matter what you're trying to change.

If you are at a park and you get up and you start dancing crazy,  everyone's just gonna look at you. But if there's one other person and that person is more important than the person who starts it, the second person who gets up and smiles and does what you're doing, then everybody at the park jumps up and starts acting crazy and it doing whatever you guys are doing.

And it's because it, if one other person says, or shows that what you're doing is not only, okay, it's kind of fun, we should all do this, that. Opens the flood gates. But without that second person, you're just a crazy person dancing by yourself to the park. Same thing In a scenario like that, yeah, you are going with a gun, you're al he knows where you are, you don't or he has the gun and he knows he has a plan.

He knows what you are likely gonna be doing. 'cause he was a student here, he already knows who you are and he's watched you train this over and over. So when you have two people, A, you might come up with a better plan than doing the exact same thing you already trained to do. Because this kid probably, and that's going back to the same thing we're talking about where the right.

The coach versus the quarterback who has the playbook.  These two individuals might be smart enough and should be smart enough to be coaches instead of quarterbacks. Instead of just going off the playbook like we've showed all the students we're gonna do, we're not gonna do it like that. We're gonna go a different route.

We're gonna split up and we're both gonna do it this way. Or the fact that you're both going in in different ways. The fact that you go to this stairwell instead of that one, the fact that you both, uh, you know, go to a, a specific area where he's already been identified and he's coming down and you set a trap for him, where somebody's over here making a noise, directing his attention, you come up behind him.

Right. It's common sense stuff. It's all things. Yeah. In combat, you know, terrorists would do, and that's why it's so scary to go house, to house fighting is because you're going into their turf. And when I went through Boot Marine Corps bootcamp back in 1999, we were trained on Mount, and the, the statistic they said is, you have a 80% chance of getting shot if you go into somebody else's building.

They know where all the holes are, they know where which walls to shoot through. Like you're at a disadvantage. And, and so you have to turn that on them. You have to go in so fast, so violent, because you're going on, you know, into their turf. So again, same thing with schools. We need to have two officers responding, two that are there.

And this was my thought is I understand funding and blah, blah, blah.  You have to make it. So appealing and you have to make the position of the person that's guarding your schools so highly appreciated,  and it has to actually be engaging. When I, in my school system, you were the lazy, you were the untrustworthy, you were the guy who had a terrible reputation of being, uh, of being lazy, not wanting to take calls.

So you, you know, went and pulled somebody over who didn't have a driver's license, and now you're, you're wrapped up for the next hour and a half, and now I've gotta go do a suicide, A DUI, something that's gonna take hours and hours of paperwork. Mm-hmm. Gonna, you know, just completely drain my entire day, my entire shift.

And I'm doing your work in your district. Um, you've gotta make it to where these officers are training constantly and you need them to be SWAT trained. And I don't, that doesn't mean they have to be on the SWAT team, but that means they have to be comfortable with going toward the sound of guns. That is not something that you learn as a police officer  the way that you do in the military.

The thing that I learned by being both is when you're a police officer, day one of. The police academy, you're trained. You go home at the end of the night, it does not matter what else happens. You're going home at the end of the night to your family.  That's the mentality you have. And that is a complete shift from where I come from, which is the mission is the most important.

You may not be coming home, but the last man standing is going to finish the mission. We're gonna come back and collect your bodies. We're never gonna leave you behind, but you keep going. You're not just gonna stop and start picking people up. You keep going until the mission is done because your mission is more important than your life or my life.

So if I go down, yes, help me if you can, but it, what's more important than that is stopping this terrorist from driving a cement truck full of explosives up to the capitol and blowing up the entire capitol, because that's what a mission that I went on that was more important. We have to get that guy, and it doesn't matter if all of us die, if there's one of us left, you put a bullet in that dude.

Because he is going to kill a bunch of innocent people. The same thing in, in the schools. You have to have the mentality that you are going to win and you have to have an aggressive, offensive instead of defensive as a police officer, you're defensive. You're never going to go shoot people. As a police officer, you are reacting to somebody, pulling a gun out on you and then you are returning fire.

Contrary to all the garbage, the media has tried to present police officers as being villains. They're not the villains and they're not pulling out guns and just running up and just assassinating people. They are being attacked physically, you know, beat their head into the concrete, to the point where they're about to go out and they have to pull their gun and discharge it into somebody who's actively trying to murder them.

That's not, that's not racist. That's not murder on the police officer's fault because his skin is white and the guy who's trying to murder him is black. It doesn't matter. And, and the reality is, again, the the mental shift that you have to go through, man, it's not easy to go from, you run into the gunfire to no, you go home to see your family.

This is a job. Uh, we want to be heroes, but we have to go home to see our families. It's unfortunate that sometimes you don't,  but if you have that mentality and you go into a school shooting, you're gonna get what we had at the school part. Uh, uh, Uvalde, especially where the police officers are standing there and they're listening to kids be shot and killed in a classroom that they could have.

I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and judge those guys. On, on the, the merits of exactly what they, uh, were hearing of what they right were thinking at that moment. But what I know is  kids were alive  when they first were there and they stood down and whether they were told to or not, it doesn't matter.

They sat and listened to kids being executed and they knew that was happening.  Caveat, when I was a police officer,  I had, I had  been told by another officer who had been at a, um, air Force base near where I was. Um, and, and I did a little bit of work, um, there for a couple of months and, and this guy was telling me, he's like the Air Force Security Forces guys that were here previously. 

Uh, the command was so strict on us with guns and I asked, I was like, why are they so crazy about like having three level holsters and not a, uh, not a bullet in the chamber and all these, you know, way over the top. I'm not saying those things are way over the top, but they were way over the top with like, also you have to be actively being shot at to even draw your firearm out of the holster.

That blew my mind. I was like, dude, as a police officer on the street, I pull my gun three to four times per shift.  I don't understand the people who you listened to from the old days where they never pulled their gun out of their holster and pointed it at another person their entire career. Okay. May you know, maybe Andy Griffith was real for some people, but I'm telling you, I'm not going into a house with a door wide open, pitch black in the ghetto without my gun out.

That's not happening. Yeah, so. The, the reality is it's, it's like, um,  you know, we've gotta get people  that are the, the Air Force, um, mentality there. They had an incident where that happened. A an airman who, not security forces, he was just a, one of the Air Force guys,  right. Had had guns on the base  in his home and his wife and, and uh, uh, it was either two kids or three kids.

I think it was two kids, three total. Were in there.  She's leaving him, she's divorcing him. Everybody knows it. He's depressed, he's suicidal, all these things.  He goes home early from his, from his duty.  And  the pol uh, the police were called. Security forces are called. They show up, they sit outside, there's yelling.

The police stand down though. They stay there. They don't go in.  He comes out brandishing a weapon.  They do not.  Pull their guns out because they, under orders of their, their management, their, their, uh, higher ups are not allowed to pull their gun out until he starts shooting at them,  not even shooting in the air.

And again, this is, this is the way it was relayed to me by somebody who was working as security forces when it happened and knew firsthand.  And he said those guys literally sat there and listened to him, execute his wife, execute his two children, and then commit suicide.  It was still a half, they had already been dead for half an hour.

Everyone was dead for half an hour before the, the tactical team showed up to go inside the door with a shield  and then they were allowed to pull their guns out. But that's only the tactical team. If you're standing outside, you're not pulling your gun out. Hmm. And, and, and that type of mentality costs innocent people their lives.

Those kids shouldn't, d shouldn't have died that day. Those, yeah. Security forces. Men should have pulled their guns and stopped him right. Where he was. They, he knew he was threatening murder. He was gonna kill himself. He's gonna kill his wife. Uh,  they didn't, they didn't know that he was gonna kill his kids.

But you have to assume that in that scenario. Right? Right. So that, that's a good example of what  can happen when you're training law enforcement. The way that we still train law enforcement today and what you just said is, has blown my mind that a, anybody would tell students that they should hide first and then run second. 

That, that is so stupid and going to, it's not stupid. It's, I mean, that, that should be, that person should be held accountable for any lost lives. That would happen under their watch. And, and that's a big part of it. We have to start holding people that are making stupid decisions and completely illogical, not tactical.

And, and that just goes back to you can't put that kind of a person in charge. You have a lot of people in decision making  authority and in decision making powers that are being given to mayors, to councilmen, to all these people, and, and they're just making up things. Great. You watch UFC, right? You mentioned that before a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. Joe Rogan talks about it all the time. And the, and the, the p the referees. Yeah,  I'm sure Hayden, because he makes fun of how, how absolutely ignorant the idea that you can't bring an elbow straight down, but you can bring an elbow down from the side and you see these guys with these big, huge gashes in their head from where a guy brings all his weight down from a, from a side elbow, but, but not straight down.

Because, because people break bricks that way. And you're going,  what?  Buil? Yeah. Watch a YouTube video of somebody breaking  a couple bricks with their elbow one way, and then, then just goes, oh, but it's okay the other way. It's that type of thing. It's, we ha that's what we have. We have people who have no,  who have no business having that type of authority and decision making, and they have this hubris, this belief that they're just gonna make these decisions 'cause it makes sense to them. 

There should be checks and balances. There has to be somebody who has tactical experience and Right expertise that has a trunk card that steps in and goes, that's gonna cost lives. I'm not gonna do it. And again, and that's where  I got,  well, we need a third party, you know, organization, whether it's part of the government or not, that is in charge of implementing school security and making these systems, people who can prioritize in a logical way, what's gonna save the most lives and, and stuff like that.

But unfortunately, it's kind of like each school is, is up to their own decision making to some degree. And then whether, you know, the state's involved or not, or the mayor, or the council, whoever, you know, influences that, you know, unfortunately, it's not like a, there's no federal standard, there's no state standard.

It's kind of schools are in charge of themselves. And then as a result. Like you just said, sometimes people who shouldn't be in charge of making decisions like that get put into that place of power. Yeah. But that being said, we have gone, uh, quite a bit of time here. So I do want to have you on again to talk about something we didn't get into too much, which is the mental health aspect of school shootings.

Yeah. Are there any mental health programs we can implement mandatorily that will prevent this? So I do wanna get into that as well as some more school design with you on another episode. Okay. And then of course, another episode dedicated just to your military experience and talk about military mental health, military politics.

'cause we've done that on the show a few times. And um, yeah, given what you did over there, what you saw and what we spoke about before we started recording here, I know that will be a very interest episode on us some, but for today we've gone quite a bit into detail about school shooting prevention and awareness, like you said.

Um, one of the biggest issues around it, one is that people don't want to talk about it, uh, for whatever reason. And two. When it is, you know, put into the media, people are just seeing headlines. People are getting misconstrued ideas, whether it's fake news, whether it's social media spreading misinformation or you know, things are covered up over or uncovered, you know, over time.

But it's just that first initial reaction. And then once it's out of the headlines, people don't look further into it. Whatever happened with X, Y, Z, right? So there's a lot of misconceptions around it from mental health, from student ideology to, you know, gun and gun laws and gun control to security implementation.

And even like what we ended with here, which is how should we train? How should we drill? How should we, who should we have in charge of these, you know, decisions? So.  Mr. Seth Ryan, I appreciate what you do and like you, you mentioned your podcast. I know you're going through some possible rebranding, but we're gonna have the current website, uh, you know, in a description below, and I'll be keeping that up to date as you, you know, make changes with that.

But for now, we'll have school to embassy project.com, the description below, so people can find out more if they're, they wanna listen to your podcast, where you do more specifics on school shootings and all of that. Or just reach out to you and see what you're doing and get more information on that. So we'll have that in a description below for everyone.

And it is something important to think about, you know, especially all of us who are parents or want to be parents and are gonna have our children in the school systems. You know, like you said, do we want people, do we want children going to schools? And the people in charge are saying, well, capturing the, the shooter is more important than, you know, protecting our, our, our children at the end of the day.

Yeah. Uh, no one cares about our children more than us. So it's up to us to have these conversations and make sure we can enact that change.  And one thing I wanna leave you with that, that you just said, because I think it's important with all the conversation we just had is at the end of the day, yet you're right.

It it, it falls on you as the parent to go to the school and just to dig. Like they're gonna tell you what their, is it run, hide, fight? Is it run, is it fight, run, hide? Is it They're gonna tell you, they should be able to tell you what their plan is and, and you should do that research on your own before you go putting your kid in that school system.

And I know that recently there's been a lot of talk from Washington about people being able to put their students, their kids in, into a different school system if they so choose. And that opens a whole new ball game because a lot of P parents unfortunately have been just kind of, this is where we live.

This is the school system. This is the school district. Choose. That's works. Yeah. And now you, you might have a choice and, and that might not even be coming from dc it might have already happened. You just have to check in your area and do a little bit of research. And that might be the difference between sending your kid to a school that is much more minded toward keeping your kids alive versus making sure we get that shooter, you know, and, and that, that I think is really important.

Um, as I mentioned, just, uh, as you mentioned the rebrand. I have so many different topics that I want to cover, and my, myself and my wife are going through the IVF process, um, now for a second time, first time successfully. Um, and so my wife, like I say, should be, should be pregnant in the next couple of months here.

Um, but one of the topics that I am very passionate about and I've been working in the background of, is anti-human trafficking. Uh, as a matter of fact, earlier today, I went and dropped off like four boxes and two huge trash sack full of clothes for women who are victims of human trafficking, who are now being taught how to write a resume, how to do, uh, job applications online and how to prepare for, have life after that interviews and, and get them self-reliant, able to get back into job on their feet and.

We have in Tampa, there's a safety, it's called Safe, SAFE Alliance of 20 over 20 companies that are all nonprofits who all help in anti-trafficking. And I just recorded a podcast of a guy who actually rescued a girl, um, in Malaysia. Wow. He was an Embassy Marine and he, he helped, uh, rescue a girl. She had just been kidnapped.

She had never been trafficked and they actually got her before she was ever trafficked. So it was a Right. It's the, it's the story that, that they should make some little miniature movie about. That's what I'm gonna be going toward as well as sharing my IVF. And then that's where I'll be sharing just about my background and any questions people have.

I really want to have a dialogue with people and continuing this conversation with you is, is awesome. And I will always have the website for the school shootings and I will still continue as I get quality people to talk about it, on, to talk about school shootings as well. So both of those will run simultaneously.