Veterans In Humvees Spilling Coffee Ep. 3 - Deputy Bryan

Hey everybody, it's Cliff again bringing you another episode of Veterans and Humvee Spillin' Coffee. Let's go. All right, back here in East Tennessee, ready to pick up Ryan. Ryan is an Air Force veteran, he was in the security forces before getting out and becoming a police officer in the state of California. Got a couple coffees, gonna try not to spill them, and here we go. There he is right there. What is up, Ryan? What's going on, man? There you go, dude. Try again. There we go. What's up, man? Cliff. Cliff. Ryan. Good to meet you, man. You too. All right, Ryan, thanks for joining us, man, on Veterans and Humvee Spillin' Coffee. Thanks for having me. How's your coffee? It's delicious. It is delicious. I've only had a black rifle out of a drip coffee maker, so this is awesome. You joined the Air Force in what year? 2012. 2012. So the wars are, at least the war in Iraq is kind of wound down, and you joined the Air Force, why? What was the reason why you thought, hey, seems like a good idea? The only reason why I joined the Air Force was because I knew I wanted to be a cop, and I work as a cop in California. I tried to get on with the highway patrol at that time, and I got declined. I went to LAPD, I got declined, so I knew the Air Force offered a good tech school with their security forces, and that would likely land me a job in California. Did you get to drive around in a Humvee much? Yeah, we had like a three weeks, like basically here's our prep course for deployments, three weeks, and we just ambushes, navigation, Humvees, all of it. Wish it was more, but I didn't get sent to a unit where we did too much. When I was in basic, I turned 23, so I didn't plan on making a career out of it. It wasn't a real decision I wanted to do right out of high school. I just got tired of being told I needed life experience, and no, so I went all in. Hold up. The back door flew open, which is a common occurrence. All right, before we were rudely interrupted by the ... Did it go right back? The door's just flying open. All right. Disaster averted. Let's spill some coffee. Part of the show. That's right. Where were we? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so I joined at 23. Joined at 23 years old. Basically, with no intentions of making a career out of it. Yep. Just wanted to get into a job that would help me get into law enforcement afterwards. When did you ultimately get out of the military? 2016, February 13th. I left on Valentine's Day, about my first Valentine's Day. I would've celebrated with my wife, because we just got married. And then I got out right before the next, what, fourth Valentine's Day, fifth Valentine's Day? Yeah. So, my Air Force career, I didn't do a whole lot. I mean, it was probably a typical non-high speed military career. You go in, you do the job and you leave. I didn't go on any deployments. Earned a top secret clearance while I was in. Flew about four, four top secret missions just based on what the strategic command center needed done. And then when I got out is when I had more control and had a lot more fun. So, you entered the sheriff's department, you're 28 years old. Is that typical? Or do you feel like the old guy? When I entered, I felt a little bit older. Nowadays it's kind of average what we're seeing, people coming in about 25 to 28. Do you get treated like a new guy? Oh, yeah. Like, what's that like? Like, I know in the army, in the military, there's always like that new guy, I don't want to call it hazing. Oh, yeah. Initiating. Initiation, you're the new guy. When you get labeled new boot or trainee, it's rare to be called by like your name. So, I was called trainee a lot or deputy in my last name. A lot has changed since you joined the sheriff's department. There's been a lot of, obviously, national events, right, that have put a different type of spotlight on being a law enforcement officer. 2020 was obviously a big deal with the killing of George Floyd and then all the various protests and stuff. What's it been like for you and, you know, what is something that you, I imagine that there's some things that you learned or that you developed in the military that maybe helped you cope with the stress of 2020 and the way the public views law enforcement now. Yeah. I mean, just basically the way they prepare you mentally in the military by constantly being, almost harassing you from the start. Like once you're in basic, you're getting screamed at, screamed at all the way through tech school. You get into our unit, we're being post-checked, streamed on our post. I mean, that whole mentality and figuring out how to stay calm through it is exactly what helped me get through this. I'd get on stops and people would basically call us, oh, you're just, you're murderers. You're a cop, you're a murderer, hiding behind the badge and all this stuff and then just remaining professional, calm and treating them like a person. Most of them would walk away going, wow, I didn't expect that. What would you say to veterans who are getting out of the military, who are considering entering law enforcement? I mean, in my mind, from the outside looking in, obviously, I think to myself, there's no way I would want to be a law enforcement officer right now, especially having served overseas and especially with what is going on in America and the view of some people towards law enforcement. But what would you say if someone's considering that lifestyle or that career change? I'd encourage them. It's a great job. There's a lot of familiarity to it. So if you've already been doing something in the military where you're operating under kind of engaging in enforcement action, it's going to feel pretty similar. I would highly encourage going through the state's academy because you're going to learn so much more because there's things that you can do in the military that you can't do in law enforcement and vice versa. But if you're coming out and you understand that you have rules of engagement and then you go into law enforcement, you have rules of engagement. They're just very strict, very different. You have to operate under a different set of laws, but it's pretty easy to pick up. You already have the mindset for it. You're going to get paid really well. There's chain of command too, right? Yeah, chain of command. So similar. The camaraderie has got to be, I'm guessing, pretty similar. You're spending a lot of time with people in close confines like this. What's the most impactful story? Let's hear it. Yeah. Because everybody kind of looks at, I think the military and law enforcement as like super like high speed stuff. But the majority of the time that's like in my job, that's maybe, maybe one to 10% of the time we're doing something like that. But the other 90 to 99, we're just contacting people. And I got sent to this call of a, not really law enforcement, but a mom called in because she was in an argument with her daughter and she didn't know what to do. So I show up and the daughter was like trying to leave for high school, definitely not dressed like a high schooler. Her dress was like way too short, way too high of heels, way too much makeup on. And I don't know if that's what the mom was yelling at, but they're in a full on argument and the daughter's like, I don't want to go back inside. So I broke. So somebody called and said there's an argument? I broke them up and I said, Hey, how about I solve this? Like I'll take your daughter to school, her high school's down the street. And how about you change your clothes more appropriate for school and we'll, I'll, I'll drive her. You don't have to deal with her. Maybe that eight hour break will cool you off. Mom was cool with it. I drive her to high school, I drop her off. And, uh, I had a, another veteran who's been on, like, he's probably got 10 years on me and I was a year, year and a half in. And he just, one thing he told me when I started early on was anytime we deal with juveniles, write paper, just cut a report on it, even if it's an information report, just so you were out with the juvenile, like someone knows about it. Yep. So I just wrote a quick report on what happened and just dropped her off and I left. I got cycled into working in the courts for a rotation like two or three years later and I worked in family law just so that was the only spot that would open me up for my days to go train with the SWAT team. I could leave the courts. And this girl's name comes across on an adoption day and I was like, Oh, I knew a girl who had this name. And in walks this girl. I'm like, she looks like a 14 year old girl. The girl I dealt with looked like she was 18 and I was like, there's no way this was her. And I knew she was 14. So I went up and I talked to her and she recognized me and she said, yeah, that day I got in an argument with my mom. I got home from school and she had packed up the whole house and left and I was on my own. But because you wrote a report of what happened, CPS was able to contact her, get in touch with her and she's being adopted that day and she was being adopted by an awesome family and she was like, I didn't know how to get ahold of you, but she was like, I got everybody here involved with my adoption and you were the only person that wasn't involved, that was involved with it, but I didn't know how to get ahold of and now you're here. Wow. So you get to watch me get adopted and I wanted to just get a photograph of everybody. She was like, so I'm super glad you're here and it's probably like the most impactful thing that's happened to me. That's awesome, man. That's a good story. Yeah, I'll have a little report on an argument that we can deal with them all the time. Yeah. Who would have thought that mom would have just left? Yeah. Just ghosted. So Brian, thank you for flying out from California to join us here in the beautiful state of Tennessee on a beautiful day in spring. I'm glad you had me and I hope that something resonates with someone if they want to switch from the military to law enforcement. Yeah, I think the idea is this, is that veterans need to be aware there's a ton of options out there for us. Yeah. Right? You can get involved in marketing, law enforcement, sales, and a lot of veterans feel lost or hopeless and I think from your story, what people can take away from it is you had a plan, right? And because you had a plan, your transition went seamlessly, right? So if you're listening to this and you're wondering what are you going to do when you get out or maybe your transition's a couple years from now, start developing a plan. Start thinking about the interest. Start asking questions, doing informational interviews with people. Go find somebody in sales if that's what you want to be in or you're thinking that maybe that might be an interesting career path. Go find a law enforcement officer who may have been a military veteran and just start thinking about, all right, what am I going to do? Doing nothing is an option, right? But doing nothing I think is probably the least healthy option. Yeah. And it's nerve wracking changing, going from something you've known for so long to something new, but it's going to be that way for anything. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you had nerves getting out. Oh, yeah. And I had nerves where am I going to make it through the program? You come out of the military and you're a veteran, you feel pretty good about the things you've accomplished, but it's something totally new. Yeah. People wash out of programs all the time. Yeah. But that's where, like you said, getting out with a plan, finding an officer if that's what you want to do and just sitting down, pick their brain, ask them what goes into being a cop? How much time is it going to take? What should I start preparing for? What should I prep for? There's written tests. There's interviews. There's all this stuff where you actually have a lot of prep work to do. And it's not just like you can really walk out and walk right into a job. You've got to put in quite a bit of effort. Yeah. But you've got to be prepared for it. Yeah, man. Well, I appreciate you sharing your insight and knowledge on the subject. And we're almost to the end of this drive. We've got some goodies to give you from Black Rifle Coffee. All right, Brian. Thanks for joining us, man. Thanks for having me. We've got some stuff from Black Rifle Coffee for you. Let's see what we've got here. Got you a nice hat. Sweet. Some coffee. I think we've got some coffee mugs in here. But you know what? We've also got here a couple cold ones, man. Yeah. Awesome. I didn't expect this. Thank you. Cheers. Thanks for having me.