Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: 4, 3, 2, 1.
Welcome to Battle Ready. I'm Ricky Chavez. On this show, we're going to take a look at what it takes to lead. When the stakes are real, the plan changes and, and the people are counting on you. Today we're exploring lessons from military aviation service and the stories that shape the lifetime of a leadership. You know. Our guest today is joining us, his name is Mitch Taco Bell, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and a pilot who went out to fly commercially. He's also the host of Tall Tales with Taco Bell, a podcast featuring military voices and aviation stories and the experience people carry long after their service. Mitch, welcome to the show.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Hey Ricky, thank you so much for letting me join you. This is a fantastic opportunity to hang out with a fellow vet who's moving and shaking.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: I love it, you know, and I listen to you say I'm moving and shaking. I think you've done a lot more moving and shaking than I have. I mean, being a Marine, right? You know, and good lord.
So tell me about, tell me about where you're from. Where are you originally from?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: From, Well, I call Virginia home, but I moved back down to Texas once I got out of the marine Corps in 98 off active duty. So I'm a Texan now. You know, I wasn't born here, but I got here as fast I could. But then again, you know, from Virginia, we always joke and said to be a Virginian, either by birth, marriage or adoption, or even one's mother's son side is a introduction to any state union, passport to any country in the world and a benediction from above.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: You know, it's funny you say here I, I got here 98 also, right?
But the military sent me here, right? My wife came here kicking and screaming, didn't want to come and now she's like I'll never leave. So it is about the north coming down to Texas and it just putting in those routes.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: You know, I, I went through flight school in Corpus Christi, Texas and I absolutely loved Corpus. I fell in love with that place. Had a Jet Ski you could drive right up on the beach, pull the Jet Ski off the truck, throw it in the, in the surf and go jump waves. I mean, I love Texas and everybody was friendly. I used to see all the bumper stickers that would say Texas friendly spoken here.
You know, you're driving down the road on a two lane road, you come upon somebody's bumper and all of a sudden I notice the guy pulls over and drifts over onto the shoulder. Rocks are spitting up the whole nine yards. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I pass the guy and he waves.
I thought, oh, that was kind of cool. So I pull up on the next guy, he does the same thing. And I go, now that's actually really cool. The guy just pulled over for me. And then as I'm driving down, some guy pulls up on my tail. And I just pulled over, put my blinker on, pulled over to the shoulder. I'm bumping around, and the guy passed me. I wave, he waved at me. And I thought, Texas, friendly spoken here. I love Texas.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: You know, it's funny because, you know, I. My last job in corporate America, I was a director of HR up and I commuted from Houston to Boston, right? And I can remember walking around in the different warehouses because I was in a. In a transportation company.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: And.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: And I'd be like, hi, hey, how are you guys doing together? And they're like, what do you want?
You know, that's like, that's so different than down here.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Right?
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Down here, they're going to make you sit down and talk. And I remember when I first came in recruiting command, you know, one of the guys says, listen, man, they're going to tell you to sit down and sit and let's have a talk for a spell. I'm like, what the hell does that mean?
They're going to talk, you're going to know everything.
Gotta have a lot of patience with that, right? But they're so friendly.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: So let me ask you this. What first drew you to the Marine Corps and into aviation?
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Two part question. So aviation wise, my uncle was a Rio in the F14, stationed with the mighty puking dogs VFA or VF143 in Oceania. So as a kid, the F14 was the big dog at the time. It replaced the F4 Phantom.
And my uncle was on the best airplane in the fleet. And so we lived in Little Creek, and he was stationed in Oceana, and he had a Cherokee 140 that he used to take me flying around in. And so as a young kid, I really.
I loved flying and then commercial aviation. When I was six years old, I got my first ride on an American Airlines jet from DCA down to Knoxville. And the flight attendant asked me if I want to go sit in the cockpit. You know, like that movie Airplane. I'm like, yeah. And I sat in the jump seat. They strapped me in the jump seat and kicked me out right before landing.
The door stayed open. I stuck my head in the aisle and watched everything as we came In.
And then after that, it was like, what do you want to do when you grow up? I want to be a pilot.
And then as you get older, you, you know, 13 years old, career day.
They had about two sentences in this little book at the, you know, there's no Google back then.
78. And she had this book and it talked about commercial airline pilot, usually comes from the military. You have to have four year degree, blah, blah, blah.
And I realized really quickly that my parents, my dad was Navy.
There was no way that I could go to a school like Emory Riddle for aviation. I would have to join the military. Well, then I started exploring the different branches. And the Marine Corps is the only branch that has a guaranteed flight contract.
And so because of that, you passed the aviation test. You passed physical, all that stuff. And if you pass all those wickets, then you, you get an aviation contract and they guarantee you a chance at flight school.
So I would take that as a guarantee. Better than signing up, you know, as recruiting duty. You sign up with an open contract and pray you get something.
This was a chance, so I wanted the chance. And that's why, you know, I went Marines, but I grew up around Marines on Little Creek Amphibious Base. So we always had a high respect for the Marine Corps. And my dad would talk about the Marines in Vietnam and, you know, on swift boats, they would take them up river and drop them off and do this stuff. And he's like, marines are tough.
But that's kind of what drove me that direction.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: So I got to ask you, Taco Bell, where did that come from?
[00:07:11] Speaker B: So in 75, Taco Bell came out with a commercial with this beautiful senorita and the full sombrero, the whole outfit. And she had little finger symbols. And she goes, taco, taco, taco, taco, taco, taco, taco, Taco. For like 30 seconds. And at the very end, she steps and goes, Taco Bell.
Well, yeah, I'm 10 years old. What do you think all the kids did at the bus stop?
Taco Taco. Because my last name's Bell. So it just kind of stuck. And then as I got older, I used to tell people that my dad was Glenn Bell, who founded Taco Bell, because his obituary said Glenn Bell was a Marine. He and Martha started their taco shack, blah, blah, blah, after the war. He was a cook and he died and he has two sons. And the obituary never mentioned their names. So I used to go, yeah, my older brother was mistaken. I was afterthought.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: That's too funny. There you go. So what? Early lessons in flight training still influence the way you make decisions today?
[00:08:14] Speaker B: You know, that's a. That's a great question. There was. Tom Hoban was one of my flight instructors back in, in the day. And Tom always said, if there's doubt, there's no doubt. And it just kind of stuck with me.
So I thought about it and I'm like, you know, that applies to everything. If the weather is sketchy, you kind of get that little nagging feeling. If there's doubt, there's no doubt. Don't do it.
You know, maintenance says, oh, yeah, it's fixed.
Yeah, yeah. I just don't really have a good feeling about this. There's usually something that goes with your gut feeling, and it'll help you out in the long run. If you push it, then you'll get screwed. Put it that way.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: So during your training, what was your most memorable, scary experience early on?
[00:09:16] Speaker B: You know, I didn't really have any in training. Training.
Training is really good. It's precise, it's by the book.
It's drills. You constantly are. Drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. All the emergency procedures, all the litany, all that stuff. It wasn't until you only know what you know.
I bought an airplane, and as I was flying it back from Florida to North Carolina, I have 200 hours total flight time. So I'm very dangerous.
But I've. I'm, I'm like full of myself that I'm a military pilot licensed, you know, I've got my gold wings and I'm flying this little ga airplane back.
And the seals. As I got close to New Bern, North Carolina, the seal busted in the bottom of the engine, pissed all the oil out the bottom of the engine.
And so as the oil goes out, of course the engine temperature climbs and spikes and the engines go pow, pow, pow, pow.
Cylinders.
I declared emergency and the guy gave me vectors in. And I knew enough to, you know, if I lose the engine, stay high, and then I can slip to get in, lose altitude that I need. But you can't get altitude back.
But all I could think of was, it's all dark, it's warehouser trees. They have all the big pine trees and such out there. And I'm. I'm looking down out of my airplane. It's pitch black, there's no moon. I thought you dumb. Yeah, you know, you dumb sob you're going to die tonight. The airplane's going to crash. I just pray that, you know, little kids from civil Air patrol come find my body before the coyotes Do I'm going to crash into pine trees. Now, if it was a full moon, different story, probably see some lights, see a road, whatever.
But I ended up getting vectored into this airport. And I landed at the airport, dead stick. The engine quit as I was way up there. And so I'm kind of gliding in and I managed to land the airplane.
And I said a lot of prayers that night, and I taxied off into the grass, off the Runway so the Runway wouldn't be blocked.
And I got out. I remember popping the door, reaching up and hitting the latch. And I'm in the left seat and I climb over, I get in the right seat, and then I get up on the wing. When I stood up, my knees buckled and I fell off the wing of the airplane. And I'm laying there in the grass looking up at the stars, and I'm just like, that grass never felt so good in my life. And I'm like, dear God, thank you so much for letting me live.
And I promised I was, I was going to go to church that Sunday. I, I will go to church. And so I go to. I go to this little Baptist church down the street and brother so and so welcomes me. And then my mechanic. Later, my mechanic, my uncle came up, helped me. We're taking the engine off and we're covered in grease and we're all just worn out and tired. And this big Ford pulls into the driveway and two guys get out in business suits. And my uncle's like, you recognize him? And I'm like, no, I don't. He goes, oh, man, maybe it's the faa. And we put our beers back behind the couch, open the door. The guy was like, are you John Bell? And I'm like, are you from the faa? And he goes, no, I'm brother so and so from Calvary Baptist Church. And I'm like, oh, hey, come on in. You want a beer?
I didn't, I didn't get invited back to the church, but that was crazy.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: All right, you know, after the break, we're going to look at decision making and where there's no room for complacency. We'll be right back.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Five, four, three, two, one.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Hi, it's Rick Chavez. Welcome back to Battle Ready. Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand, anytime you like. Download the Now Media TV app on Roku iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in English and Spanish. If you're on the move, catch the podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv. from business and news to lifestyle, culture, finance, law and beyond. Now, Media TV is streaming around the clock and it's ready and available for you at any time. Now we're back with Mitch Taco Bell, retired Marine officer, aviator and host of Tall Tales and the. And Taco Bell with Taco Bell. And let's talk about some of the habits that make learning dependable when the pressure rises.
Mitch, welcome back.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Hey, how are you, man?
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Amazing. So let's talk about the learning. I mean, so a pilot now you watch all the movies and, and I, for lack of a better word, I'm gonna use the word confident. Pilots are very confident, maybe overly confident. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:14:33] Speaker B: You know, you've got to be, you've got to be confident, but you got to be humble at the same time.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: And you're in, you're in an enclosed aluminum tube and sometimes you have people that are overbearing it, you know, this, this, this, this, and they project the confidence. But then when you catch them on something, their mentality is, oh, I didn't do that, or no, that, that was a mistake, or whatever.
Sure, those, those guys are, are difficult to be with.
But I will tell you, I had a, as a young lieutenant, my instructors were raised and taught by the Vietnam era guys. And there was a lot of, if you can't get this right, you'll just sit there and put the gear handle up and down. I'll let the gunny sit in the seat type thing. The engineer, if you can't talk on the radio and get it right and they'd beat you over the head. And then I flew with this guy, he was the NATOPS officer, the safety guy. And we get in the airplane, he's a major, I'm a first lieutenant, I've had 250 hours maybe. And he goes, taco, do you think I'm a safe pilot? And I'm like, well, yes sir, I'd hope you're a safe pilot. You're the NATOP safety officer. And he goes, yeah, I've got 2,500 hours in the jet, in the, in the airplane.
Makes me safe. And I'm like, yes, sir. He goes, do you know how I slept last night?
No, sir. Do you know if I had a fight with my wife and I slept on the couch and I thought about it all night and I'm like thinking to myself, no, I don't. Did you? And he goes, no, that's not the point. The point is you don't know anything. What's going on in my life.
And if the controller tells us to turn left and I turn right because I'm just lackadaisical or whatever and I drive us into the side of a mountain, well, we all die. No one crashes. Half an airplane lives to talk about it.
So if you see something, say something, speak up. Okay, even though my ranks is major and you're a lieutenant, I want you to be able to go ahead and tell me that I'm screwing up in a tactful way. And I got, okay, sir, that was great. And it really opened it up.
And so as a senior pilot now and commercial airliner, I'm an instructor, what they call a check pilot.
And a lot of people get really nervous, they're flying around, check pilot or whatnot.
And I always show them my badge that says check pilot. And I go, you know what this is, right? And they're like, yeah, check pilot. I go, do you know what that means?
And they're kind of like thinking, I'm sure, like, well, you know, you got picked because this. And you know, you're the best of the best type thing. No, this, this little tag and $5 gets me a cup of coffee at Starbucks, same price it cost you. It means nothing.
So if you see me messing up, you say it. I'm marine, I'm thick skinned. So if I screw up, please let me know so I can be better.
And I think the guys appreciate that a lot and it opens up the conversation so it's not just one way or you feel subservient, you know, So I bring them back up onto an even level with me because we all make mistakes in life and you have to have somebody be able to give you that observation that hey, you need to do this. If you did this, you probably would have done better on, on that approach or whatnot. Does that make sense?
[00:18:02] Speaker A: No. You know what, it's. There's two things I want that, that comes to mind. Like, and I really like the story, but your, what your instructor said to you because you. I told you I was in director of HR and I used to tell, in some of my classes, I used to open it up telling them, guys, you need to be kind and professional to everybody because you do not know what happened to them before they took that left or that right into the parking lot. Goes back to what you said. They could be having financial problems, they could be having problems with their spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. So anything could set somebody up or, or allow somebody to not pay attention to what they're doing.
So you have to be very coherent of what's going on. So I think that's a great, That's a great story, and that's a great fact for everybody. And the other thing that you said, when you describe the thing about the coffee. This will buy you coffee. That'll buy you coffee. One of the things I like to share with everybody is when somebody's talking to you, you know, be very careful with saying the words. I, I know that.
And they asked me, what do you mean by that? I said, well, because you do not know what they're going to say. You may know it, you may not. They may put a spin on it that you never thought about, or you may fail the opportunity to learn something new. Because in today's world, you know, young people are just, they're smart. Older people have lots of knowledge. So when the two collide, sometimes I know that stops people from learning.
You know what I mean?
[00:19:37] Speaker B: True, true.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: You know, so those are good.
Go ahead.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, some of the best. Like, I had a mentor in Okinawa in 94. I was a captain, he was a major. He was my boss, operations officer. I was the assistant, and I was killing myself, Ricky. I had a squadron up in Iwakuni and a squadron down in Okinawa.
And so I'm working with my compadres, equal rank captains that were the assistant operations guys. And I'm trying to help them out as best I can because we're all kind of type A.
And my boss one day calls me into the office and says, hey, come here.
And he pulls out this tattered Xerox copy of an article. It was about five pages. And he said, take the staple out, go make a photocopy of this, staple it back, give it back to me. I want you to read it and then come back in here and talk to me. And I'm like, okay. The article was Harvard Business Review, 1975, who's got the monkey? I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but it's a great five, five page article.
And I read it and all of a sudden it was like an epiphany of, oh, my God, the equated problems as monkeys. So you're the manager and somebody comes to you and says, hey, Ricky, I got a problem with the other rs, the other recruiting station over in Fort Worth. Those guys are jerking me around on this kid. And you go, oh, I know the nco. I see you over there, I'll give him a call.
Well, now, that problem from your soldier just jumped that Monkey jumped to your shoulder, and now he's no longer your subordinate.
He's over you. Because he can walk by, knock on the door and go, hey, Ricky, do you have a chance to call so and so? Because I can't move forward until that's fixed. And you're like, you've got your thing. Oh, man, I totally forgot because I had the ops meeting this morning. Da da da da da. And so once you realize that all these problems from subordinate units are monkeys, you just do the Wonder Woman deflection belts, you know, zinging the bullets off. And the guy will call me up and go, hey, Taco, hey, I need some help with this, blah, blah, blah. And I go, well, that sounds really interesting. I'll tell you what.
I pull my pen out, I pull my little green lieutenant's book out, and I go, okay, let's see. I open it up and I go, I am free on.
On Tuesday at 1500. So I need you to come back with three COAS courses of action for me on Tuesday at 1500. I'll decide which direction you go.
And they're like, can now put the ball back in their court. Never came to me.
In leadership, you try to develop your subordinates. And that right there was the biggest eye opener I ever had in terms of developing and molding your subordinates to be better Marines, better soldiers, better people.
Because that gives them the initiative to go back and try to figure out, hey, what's the best course of action? How can I do this?
And it gives them initiative and try to figure the problem out instead of now you doing it for them.
And that's my favorite.
That changed my life right there. That one article that in the book, how to Win Friends and Influence People. That is the best book I've ever read.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: So I need you to tell me the article again because, I mean, I have this. My eyes just kind of got bug eyed when you said that. What an amazing leadership tool. You know what I mean?
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: I've never heard of that article. I wish I'd read it a long time ago, but what is it?
[00:23:26] Speaker B: It's called who's Got the Monkey? By Bill Okinokin. And it's a Harvard Business Journal.
19.
Harvard Business Journal, 1975.
And so it's.
I've got it. I have it on my phone. I usually give it to.
To people.
I give them a copy of how to Win Friends and Influence People. And also this.
So it's called who's Got the Monkey? I highly recommend if you're in a Position leadership. You're a manager.
You need to read this because it'll change your perspective on how things need to be done. And it's not being lazy. It's now keeping your position as a director and you are orchestrating your people to now think outside the box and do and come back with different ideas. Because my idea might be totally different from what you come up with with Bob around the water cooler, you know, so, yeah, it's. It's a great leadership tool. Highly recommend.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: I'm going to definitely keep that in my bang bucket because, I mean, that was eye opening. I wish somebody had put that in front of me. And I definitely am going to share that with my wife because she's like the 911 of her organization on her side and which never. Which causes her not to get all her work done because she's so busy helping everybody else solve their problems.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Oh, my God. When she reads it, she's helping them in a different way, you know, as leaders. And I'm sure she's doing the same thing. She's like, oh, I know that person over in that other organization. I'll give them a call and try to smooth things out or help. Help do whatever. No, you know, have your subordinate who's working on that project actually do it and fix it.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: She's gonna love that, you know, Coming up, we're gonna talk about how storytelling keeps experiences alive and turns lessons into something others can use. We'll be right back with Battle Ready.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Mitch four. Yeah. Three, two, one.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: And welcome back to Battle Ready. I'm still here with Mitch Taco Bell, whose tall Tales with Taco Bell conversation brings together veterans, aviators, and people with remarkable experiences. Hey, welcome back, Mitch.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Hey, thanks so much, man. This is a lot of fun.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: So, you know, we were talking a little bit during the break and, you know, I mean, you have that aha moment. I'm sure you have it when you're talking with all those, you know, prior, you know, former veterans that are. That are. That you bring on and they share their stories. And I just had that aha moment with you when you talked about the, the book about the monkeys.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Right?
[00:26:24] Speaker A: I mean, that's all I'm thinking about right now. But in your, in your, in your show, you know, when you're meeting these aviators and these former veterans, tell me about your experience. I mean, how do you feel? I mean, when you're talking to these guys?
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Well, first of all, I love it. It started during COVID We're stuck at home, and it was VJ Day. And so I called up a guy I knew from Iwo Jima. He's since passed, and I talked to him on the phone. And Facebook Live had just come out, like 2021 or 2020, I can't remember.
And I had Facebook Live going, and I'm sitting there on the counter with Facebook Live and talking to a phone on speaker, and people were loving it. And so I was watching some of the questions people had, and then I was asking the vet. And then I called a guy from Market Garden, did the same thing. And then people were like, hey, you need to start a podcast.
Well, I didn't know anything about a podcast, except Joe Rogan had one.
A friend of mine had a professional podcast, Rich Ryerson. He got me onto Streamyard, and then from there, I use that, and I built my studio. And then I just started. I've got a Rolodex full of interesting people. So I start calling them up, going, hey, would you be on the show? And then it's gone from.
I mean, I've had Medal of Honor recipients on the show to.
Do you see the movie Taking Chance?
Mike Strobel, he's a buddy of mine, so I had him on the show.
You know, a lot of aviators, everyone from astronauts to SR71 pilots, U2 pilots, F14 pilots, F4 in Vietnam, all these different guys. But I think the.
The story that sticks out in my mind the most was a guy named John Stanberry.
And John's from Fort Worth, Marine in World War II, comes back to Texas, gets married. After the war, his buddy talks him into joining the Army Reserve. Hey, you make extra money. He joins the Army.
Two weeks later, he gets, hey, guess what? You just got reactivated. You're going to this place called Korea. And they jumped on a train, went to California, got on the ship. All these green kids are in the holds, and. And the older vets like John are telling them what battle is going to be like and how to function in combat. They get to Korea, things go to crap.
He's part of the retreat.
And they ended up sending John and a team in a truck back up the mountain. The Chinese and the North Koreans are chasing them down the hill, shooting at him, the whole nine yards. His job was to spike the barrels of the leftover artillery pieces that got left on the side of the road. And when I say it was a mass routing, it was. It was a really bad retreat.
And as he's driving down the road, John sees a body, prostate, curled up on the side of the road, dead body. And he tells the driver to stop. I'm going to get that guy. And he goes out there to pick him up. And he goes, we can't stop. They're behind us. And, I mean, bullets are whizzing off of him. He goes, I don't give a crap.
I'm not leaving this guy behind for the. For the Koreans to cut his head off and put it on the. The turn signal of their tank.
And so he jumps out, he grabs the body when he picks the guy up, thinking he's going to throw him over the hood and strap him down. The guy goes, ugh. He realizes he's alive, so he throws him in the truck. He's holding this guy, and go, go, go. So they're racing down the hill. He's talking to the guy. Hang with me. I got you. Stay with me. Stay with me.
They get down to the bottom. They get back to friendly lines. They go to the mash. Mash unit. Dr. Comes out, says, this guy's too far gone. Put him over there. He goes, I'm not going to leave him. Where's the next mass unit? He goes, well, you got to drive through enemy territory now to get to the next one. He looks at his guys and goes, are you with me? And they're like, yes, Arch, we're with you. So they drive through, have a run and gun fight to get through that sector to get to the next mass unit.
They get up there, and the doctor goes, no, he's too far gone. He goes, doc, you don't know what I've gone through to get this guy here to you.
So what can I do to make you operate on this guy? And he goes, well, first of all, we're out of blood. He goes, one second. He sees a troop replacement truck, opens up the back flap. There's, you know, 25 guys back there. Hey, which one of you guys got, oh, positive blood? And all these guys raise their hand. He says, get your butts out here. So they get out. He goes, there's your blood blood bank, doc. Now we operate on him. He goes, yeah. So he sends the guys over to go get the blood drawn.
And the doctor goes, what's your name? And he goes, sir, I'm John Stanberry. I'm from Fort Worth, Texas. And the doctor goes, I'll remember that. And he leaves. Now, mind you, John goes back to battle. He's doing his stuff. A couple months later, his dad is. He gets a Rick Cross message, and he's the only son. So he Gets to fly back from combat to be with his dad before he dies. Buries his father.
He's got to fly back to combat. So he goes.
He goes back over, and he lands in Tokyo. And the guy doing personnel stuff is like, next guy comes up. Name gets the order stamped. You're on the 1530 flight. Name, John Stanberry.
And the guy stops, and he looks up at him and goes, are you okay, Sergeant? You look like you've seen a ghost. And he goes, no, I'm looking at an angel.
He kind of looks at him, goes, hey, you're that guy I found on the side of the road. He's like, yeah, you made it. He's like, yeah, I made it. And they get up, and he gives him a big hug, and he thanks him profusely. And then he goes, hey, Captain, come here. Remember that guy that saved my life?
That's. This is him.
And so when the captain's like, I thought that story was BS and leaves, the guy looks at him, says, do you really want to go back to your unit? And John says, you know, I know I feel like I got to go back, but I'll be honest. After the Pacific and World War II and what I've been through, I've had a belly full. I'm about done. He says, okay. And he assigned him to headquarters, staff, intel office, and that's. He spent two months there and then finally rotated back to the States. But it's all, you know, you never know in life, God points. Who you're going to meet that changes your life. Right?
Good story. I really love that one.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: You know what?
I also love those. Those kind of stories. I mean, you never know what's going to happen and when you're going to reconnect or when you're going to be someplace. But just to actually meet the person that saved your life after all that, that. That. I bet you that was pretty good thing for you to. To walk through with him. And I. I can imagine it was probably an older gentleman. Just the emotions he had telling the story, right? That in itself. Oh, yeah, it was pretty cool. Hey, so what do you. What do you learn by listening to the veterans and aviators, you know, about their stories? You know?
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Well, you learn so much. I mean, you find humor in a lot of bad situations.
Do you remember watching Chips as a kid?
[00:33:55] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Okay. So Officer Baker, he was a Marine in Vietnam for 13 months as a young enlisted kid.
And I. I had a great conversation with him.
He goes, yeah, I'll give you 45 minutes. So I get him on the deal. And he said, yeah, I'll give you 45. An hour and 50 minutes later, I'm trying to figure out a way to kindly get him off the show because it was gonna shut down on me at two hours. But it was, it was awesome. And learning all of the stories and the behind the scene things that he experienced as a Marine in Vietnam for 13 months was amazing. And then he ended up coming back to the States, he got into acting, he got all these shows, and then he ended up being on chips. So kind of neat. He was my idol as a kid. We all wanted to ride motorcycles after him.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Right.
Hey, so has a guest ever shared a story that kind of changed how you understood a familiar part of military history?
[00:35:09] Speaker B: EB Sledge, who wrote with the Old Breed. His son is a friend of mine and his son has some great behind the scenes stories of what his father was like as a kid growing up watching his dad, watching his dad write the book, all the stories that got cut out of the manuscript he has.
And so to, to kind of hear those stories, it further enhanced how brutal that combat was that with the Old Breed Sledgehammer, what he went through as a young Marine on Peleliu and Okinawa. Yeah, yeah, those things were intense.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: So how do you balance a great story with respect for the people and the experiences behind it?
[00:36:02] Speaker B: When, when the guys start talking, I just let them, let them talk. But it's. It's so hard as a host because sometimes I might have a story to add to jump in there.
That, that is the hardest part because sometimes I do. Sure, I'll get on there and I'll. I'm listening to it, I'm like, oh my God. I had this, a similar experience with blah blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, until a little side story, little vignette.
It's. It's hard. That's the hardest thing is trying to remain quiet.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: You know, it's funny because during the break I think you mentioned to me like, why am I talking too much? And as. As being a host myself, you know, you say some things that I want to think and pop into too, but I totally get it. I mean, honestly, we do this to share our guests experiences and it's just so. Always so amazing. Right?
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah, you want to make it native. You want to make it free flowing.
A friend of mine was on Joe Rogan show and he chased the ufo, the Tic Tac.
And so Dave Fraver, they call him Sex. Sex forever. So sex was on his show. And I said, did Joe, the night before you guys went out to dinner, did he ask you about chasing the ufo? Do you guys talk about it? He goes, we didn't talk about anything but comedy and some of the people that he had worked with and that came to his shop. And the next morning, he rolls in with a cup of coffee, sits down, and just starts asking me questions. We never prepped anything. He didn't give me a list of questions that he was going to ask. And so over the years, I've had people go, hey, would you send me a list of questions?
Kind of a senior dude, he was a general. And I'm like, okay, sir. So I typed up these questions. I didn't ask a single one of them. And he still had a good time later.
So it's kind of fun.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: You know, that's. That's I think, about what we. With what we do. It's always kind of. Kind of the direction of. Of the show, the stories. You know, it's kind of. You never know what direction is going to go.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: All right, after this breakdown.
Yeah, no, 100%. So after the break, we'll get connected about the stories in the next chapter and how leadership has played a big part in Mitch's life. We'll talk to you in a minute.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: 3, 2, 1.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Welcome back to battle. Ready.
Stay connected to this show or any show like this on NOW Media.
Anytime you want. You can download it on Roku or iOS, or you can download the Now Media TV app at www.nowmedia.tv. this way, you can get bilingual programming in English and Spanish. Or if you're on the move, you can contact us or see the podcast version.
And from business and news, lifestyle, culture and finance long beyond now, Media TV is streaming around the clock for you anytime you want.
Now let's talk a little bit about. We're back with Mitch. Mitch, you here?
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Yep. Hey, how are you?
[00:39:19] Speaker A: All right. We talked about your life. So Lieutenant Marine Corps pilot in the Marine Corps pilot for American Airlines.
Now you're. What did you call a check pilot.
[00:39:32] Speaker B: Right. So, yeah, check pilot. So a lot of times, the new
[00:39:37] Speaker A: pilots kind of intimidated. Right.
The one thing I liked about it is the fact that you said that although, you know, you get on and everybody's intimidated you, you got to put them at ease, letting them know that you're human like everybody else.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: And then we talked a little bit about your podcast and the tales and all the experience you have with all these different people. What is your favorite thing about hold on, before I ask you that, one of the other things I know about you is you get old military vehicles and refurbish them, right?
[00:40:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a hobby. I was into antique airplanes. I had a 1929 biplane for years, and then I sold that before I went to Afghanistan on the ground tour. And I thought, you know, if I get wounded, I don't want to see her and I can't fly, and if I die, I don't want my wife to have to deal with selling her. So I sold her. My wife, in turn, later bought me an armored scout car to rebuild, and I spent eight months in my garage restoring that with my best friend, Michael Costanza. And then from there I got a Fox, which is a bigger three man, eight ton vehicle with a 30 millimeter cannon on it. And over the years I've owned five Ferrets and armored scout cars. And now I'm getting too old. You always have to have two people to work on them. So now I'm into Humvees because it's a lot easier to work on and the parts are a lot more readily available.
So that's my hobby, keeps me out of the box.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: So out of all these different things, I mean, you keep reinventing yourself, redoing these things, what is your favorite thing? Is that a hard question?
[00:41:24] Speaker B: The kids. My favorite thing, you know, everything else that I do, whether it's the podcast or it's the taking the vehicles to shows or, you know, try to get them in. Landman is my ultimate goal.
TV series.
Oh, yeah, the, the. The fun thing is little different things that you can do to keep you busy. Right? The person that stagnates and sits on the couch, those are the guys that have a heart attack and diet 65 once they retire.
You got to always be busy. You always have to have a mission in life, something that keeps you busy, whether it's one of the hobbies that I've had in the past is flying around the country and returning lost Purple Hearts that were found through a buddy of mine, Zach Fike, incredible army officer, started Purple Hearts reunited, and I'll go fly around and do a return and give a medal back to somebody that was lost and found.
So that's kind of a neat hobby. Another one I'm currently trying to make some time for is helping some. I have cousins in Australia, so I'm trying to help my. My friend down in Australia trying to find some hidden tunnels on the Brisbane line and I'll have to do some research up in D.C. right. Help them out. So it's kind of fun. I'm looking at doing that because believe it or not, the US military buried tons of equipment in northern Australia in the anticipation that the Japanese would attack, come down through the north and move their way south. They could drop paratroopers in who would uncover these hidden caves, pull the tanks, the jeeps, the ammo. They have everything they need in these caves to go attack the Japanese from behind.
And those caves were sealed. All the documents were taken back to the States. So now I got to go up to the archives and do some research for these guys and try to find some of the hidden caves. I like stuff like that. It's kind of neat, Keep you busy.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: You know what that's here again is like you said in the last segment, you know, when you're talking about things, and I never heard about that, about all the stuff that I hit, but I did guard Misau. You know where me sow is in Germany, right. With the cantonment area back in the Cold War, you know, as a. As a young infantryman. And that was all in case somebody comes over. We're going to be ready, right?
But just, there's just so many amazing adventures that you can go on and with just with history, right?
[00:44:11] Speaker B: History.
I lived in Okinawa for a year, so I would go caving. We would go find dead Japanese soldiers in these buried caves.
The entrances were blown up, but the inside were still complete. And once you got through and dug through a couple feet into the cave, then you would find their bones and we would return the bodies to the Japanese. The Japanese had a different mentality.
They would let their fingernails grow for 30 days, their hair grow, beard, mustache. And then at the end of it, they would shave all that off, clip their fingernails, and they would mail that package home to their parents so that if they were missing in action, their parents still had something of their son to bury.
And so, you know, religion, it's just they don't actively go look for the dead bodies like Americans do. You know, we are still recovering lost soldiers, sailors, marines from World War II and bring them back to Hawaii and then from Hawaii and bring them back to the States and intern them with their relatives.
So it's kind of amazing.
How did you just always get into that?
So there was this. There was this Major, I'll say, Major Fitzgerald, he's from Boston. He talked just like he was, you know, at the Harvard Yard type guy. And we're at the club one night, and I'm a captain, I'm with My buddy Tom, and he's like, hey, Skipper, what are you guys doing tomorrow?
Not doing anything, sir. He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be out in the parking lot at 4:30 in the morning. We're driving down Naha. We're gonna go look for dead Japanese. Bring an e tool, have a hat, boonie hat. Put a bandana, tape it with duct tape to the back so the spiders don't drop on your neck. You know, all this stuff, and it sounded like an adventure, so we went and did it, and then we got hooked on it. And then I spent two weeks on Iwo Jima. So I was a history major in college education history.
And I really liked the battle of Iwo Jima and studying that. And so I was kind of the unit historian. I would take the squadron out there and I gave them an entire tour of the island and a background on the battle where all the units landed and how many guys died and the heroic things that happened and whatnot. But I spent two weeks there for the 50th anniversary, and I got to go caving on my own. We had no supervision at all. So I was. The Japanese didn't seem to care what we did.
So I just started going through caves. But you had to be really careful because the caves were about 105 degrees because of the heat from. It's still an active volcano, believe it or not. Iwo Jima, Mount Suribachi. So when you go down in the caves, the caves get 105, you know, 110 degrees. And if you don't have enough water, you can dehydrate and then get loopy and get lost. And so, you know, literally I had string I would mark with a spray can, marks, so that I could find my way back through the tunnel system.
Because you had lights on and all that stuff. Yeah, it's kind of fun, you know,
[00:47:25] Speaker A: it sounds fun, you know, being a military brat. I lived in Battholtz, Germany, at the base of the Alps.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: The 10 special forces was there. But one of the things we did as kids. And now you're talking about it, I didn't just realize it, but we used to find the old bunkers, and we used to clean them out and hang out in them.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: And they were just like our little forts, and we didn't think anything of it because we're military brats. And that's just what we did.
Right.
So, I mean, now it's probably more meaning.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it was more meaningful now as an adult. But back then, I did the same Thing I grew up on Little Creek Amphibious Base. We would build tree forts and stuff out in the woods. We would go dumpster dive through all of the special forces of Seal Team 2.
I have 30 LAW rockets. I came home with 30 LAW rockets. They're expended but you know, you pull the tube out and the little sights flip up. You see them in the movies all the time. I had all of those, right. Give them out to all my friends. I still have two left.
All the crap that you used to find in the dumpsters was just amazing. Yeah, that was a great time as a kid. I thought everybody experienced that.
[00:48:37] Speaker A: How does somebody find you or get a hold of you, want to continue a conversation or, or may maybe have somebody for you to interview.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: How would they do that, Mitch? Taco bellgmail.com Mitchell. Mitchell. M I T C H E L L taco bellgmail.com or they could look up tall tales with Taco Bell on YouTube and in the about section I've got my email in there and they can reach me there.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: All right.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: All right.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Yeah. If you go, if you go back up.
If you go back up to live over there on Live and.
And then if you go down you can see like there's Chuck Lindbergh interviewed him. He was the. Well, I didn't interview him. Talked about him. He was the first flight last marine alive at the time who was raise the flag. The first flag raising on Iwo jima. There are two. Nobody really talks about that, but there were two. And Chuck was. I met him at the 50th anniversary.
Neat guy. But Heater Heatley, absolutely one of my favorite interviews. Unfortunately, Heater is dying of cancer because of being stationed at Area 51, Flying Secret Migs. He was in a very top secret program that we would adversarial.
We stole MIGs from different countries and they would fight against our fighters and they would teach guys what it was like to go up against a MiG. 21, MiG 15, stuff like that. But the area is so contaminated with radiation he's now suffering from the cancer from being in that secret project. Kind of. It's horrible. But neat guy. He's that guy that basically was the genesis of Top Gun.
Wow, the movie.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: You know. Mitch, thanks for sharing your experiences and, and reminding us that readiness is. Is not a habit. It's leadership. It's responsibility. And his stories and a way for us to pass the history down from one person to another. This is Ricky Chavez with Battle Ready. Thank you for joining us, Mitch. Have an amazing day, and we'll talk to you guys soon.
[00:50:53] Speaker B: You bet. Thanks, man.
