Episode #171: Feeney Talks with (Ret.) SFC Brian Stackpole

#BeAGoodFriend and check out episode #171 of #FeeneyTalksWithFriends featuring (Ret.) SFC Brian Stackpole.

It was great to talk with my Army buddy and good friend #friend, Stackpole. 

Stackpole retired from the military after serving 28 years. He was a cook, Navy Seabee, Army Rail Instructor, IED Hunter and much more! 

We talked about:
Retired after 28 years (minute 1)
Stackpole’s military career (minute 3)
Sea Bees training (minute 5)
Army Railroad Instructor - 88U (minute 7)
What is a NCO?  (minute 9)
Being an IED Hunter (minute 10)
“Hurt Locker is garbage" -  (minute 13)
Chrissy Jeltema (podcast #76) is a good friend!  (minute 15)
“The Kitchen Club” at AT  (minute 22)
The “Class Cynic” at NCO School (minute 24)
141st Friends: Lefty, Colonel Nieves, Wells, Chandler and Ben Pare (minute 26)
Military Career: First, Last, Best, Worst  (minute 28)
Past podcast guest who served in the military: Paul Bucha and Mike Cabrey (minute 33)
Getting honored at a New York Islanders game (minute 37) 
3 Keys to having a successful military career (minute 41)
Stackpole played football for West Haven HS and CCSU (minute 45)
What makes Coach Jim Vicaro a good friend? (minute 47)
Parades and Parties (minute 52)
Hockey in CT (minute 57)
Favorite restaurants and 4 dinner guests (minute 1.03)
Special guest appearance from  D. Locke, podcast #58 (minute 1.09)
West Haven Trivia (minute 1.14)
Waterbury vs. West Haven (minute 1.18)
D. Locke threw a two point conversion to Feeney (minute 1.23)
Closing remarks (minute 1.25)


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Creators and Guests

Host

Eric Feeney

After teaching for nearly a decade at his alma mater in Waterbury, in 2014, Eric Feeney began teaching at Wolcott Elementary in West Hartford. Shortly following, Sam Sohn, the father of one of his students, passed away suddenly from a heart attack. He left behind four beautiful children and a loving wife, Nancy Wallace-Sohn. Eric saw first-hand the toll this took on the family as they navigated their way through this unthinkable tragedy. The following year, Rashad Collier Sr., another father of a student in Eric’s class, passed away in Hartford as a result of gun violence. Rashad left behind two fantastic children and a loving wife, Denise Villegas. The impact of these tragedies weighed on Eric and motivated him to build an organization that could provide assistance for similar situations. With that, Friends of Feeney was born. In 2019, Friends of Feeney Inc. became an official 501©(3) nonprofit organization, allowing more funds to be raised and expanding the range of services provided to children and families in need. Today, over a decade since Eric’s idea to build a community organization dedicated to supporting our friends in need, Friends of Feeney has burgeoned into a reputable and recognized organization capable of providing financial and resource support to numerous families and individuals across greater Hartford and beyond. Through this work, an incredible community of children and families has been recognized, who care for and appreciate each other’s kindness.

Producer

David Chmielewski

David started his video career in the early 1990s working on video crews as an independent contractor for such companies as Martha Stewart Living, IBM and Xerox. After graduating Southern Connecticut State University with the degree in Corporate Communications, David continued his video production career and accepted a position at WFSB in Hartford, CT. Within a few years the news and production studios became his charge and David designed, installed and maintained the televisions sets for the various programs at the station. At the end of 2013 David founded DirectLine Media, a video production company that specializes in creating memorable and compelling video content for businesses.

Editor

Stefania Sassano

Stefania's acting journey began as early as the fourth grade, where she took on the role of Scarlett O'Hara in a stage production of Gone With the Wind. This early experience sparked a lifelong passion for the arts. With a background in musical theater fueled by her love of music and singing, Stefania stepped into larger roles, such as Fraulein Kost in Cabaret during her sophomore year at the University of New Haven. This performance earned her a nomination for the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival—an honor she would receive again in her junior year.

What is Feeney Talks With Friends?

Eric Feeney talks with #friends! Eric is the founder of the nonprofit organization Friends of Feeney. Their mission is to help children and families who need assistance after heartbreak and tragedy. www.friendsoffeeney.com

All right, all right.

Feeny talks with friends, episode 171.

We're in Branford
with a really good friend.

What's up? Stackpole.

Stackpole. Brian. Stackpole.

How long has it been?

We figure out 28 years
since we've seen each other.

I haven't seen this guy in 28 years,
and he is a good friend.

We go back to the Army
National Guard, who.

One 5141 1/41

Medical Battalion
in New Britain, Connecticut.

Oh, it's going to be great.

We're catching up
with a really good friend.

You're going to hear a lot of military
talk.

You're going to hear some good stories.

We had good times and we had great times.

And then you just retire.

Well, 2024,
you retired from the military 28 years.

You did 28 years. Congratulations.

I really wish I stayed with it.
You know it.

I did eight years. It was really good.

I wish there was more.

I did get some discipline.
Maybe a little bit.

Maybe used a little more, you know.

What do you think? Yeah,

yeah, we made it. What? It.

You know, and one of the reasons
why it got out was because it stopped

being like when you and I were

in, you know, you know,
that we've went through a lot of stuff.

And part of after going to all that stuff
is you having

that camaraderie, that fun,
that you know, that relationship.

And I don't know, I don't
I don't think it's there anymore.

I really don't.

I mean, and I think that's
that was kind of

I don't want to say a major factor,
but it was a factor in why

I decided to leave because I was like,
you know what?

This isn't fun for me anymore.

And you think about back to those days
where, you know, and I

and I realize at the time we were kids,
but, you know, we we really did.

You know,
we went to a lot of stuff together.

But that was the great part about
it was just at the end, having each other

partying and joking around and, you know,

embracing the suck, as they said,
embracing the suck.

Or if it ain't raining,
you ain't training.

Exactly.

You know, and then all the little stuff
that we did that, you know,

even to this day,
we can tell stories about. And.

Excuse me.

You just don't see that anymore.

Yeah.

My trick was, did you ever do this trick?

You put your fingers
under the springs of the bed

and you take a nap,
and if someone comes in, you're like,

oh, I'm just tightening the bed.

No no no no. And how about in the Humvee?

Same thing.

You put your fingers under the hood.

Oh, well, I'm just checking the oil.

Oh. Come on.

I heard the check in the oil
spring thing.

I don't think that.

I'm just tightening.

What? I'm tightening the.

I like a nice tight bunk.

Oh, this is great. Yeah. 171.

My name is Eric Feeney, founder
and president of Friends of Feeney.

Our mission is to help children
and families that need assistance.

After heartbreaker tragedy
and I use this podcast.

Feeney talks with friends
and I talk to a wonderful people

that are doing great things.

And Stackpole has been great.

You just so you retired in 2024,
you were on the rail.

You were instructor in Virginia.

You were a CB.

You were in combat engineer like,
where do you want to start?

What do you want to talk about first?

Well, I mean,
it was going to go to military career.

Obviously we start off with, you know,
you and I, I played college football

and at the time
I was playing for central,

which was a non scholarship school.

So I ended up deciding my
actually my brother was the one

that talked me into it.

Growing up
my father was a marine state cop.

Very.

So the military was going to be too easy
for me.

It's going to be a good fit.

So when my brother suggested that
and I ended up going

in, my original intent
was to pay for school.

And obviously I met, you know,
you and I had such a good time and

and it really did fit for me.

So I ended up going down
finishing my school in Kentucky,

got my degree from Union College,
finished out my guard career there,

and then after about two years,
I missed it.

But I didn't want to do the Army thing
anymore.

So I ended up going into the Navy Seabees

because that was a better fit
due to my Army training.

The CBS big claim to fame as we train,
we fight.

So it's different than the big Navy.

They actually know combat.

They can hold the perimeter so
the Marines can do whatever they could do.

It's a it's a construction battalion.

It's a special unit,
but it's construction.

So I did that.

Well, for our listeners
though, is it the letter CB or is it

the or is it the the waterway a b e e.

Yeah.

And they were so in World War Two.

They were created as a special unit
for a construction.

But like I said, what happened

is they also built for the Marine Corps.

So instead of the Marines
have to holding the perimeter

while you're instruction,
they can go out and do their thing.

And part of your CB
train is combat training,

which obviously already being in the Army,
I was already a fit for.

So I did that for a few years,

and I fell on hard times at home

like everybody else during the
the not depression, but the recession.

I ended up going into active duty army.

At the time they were like, well,
we got combat engineer.

Your job there is basically your,

you're an IED hunter.

You're the tip of the spear.

You know, infantry always likes to say
we're the tip of the spear.

No, you got the infantry.

And then somewhere up above, it's a combat
engineers clearing the way.

So I did that.

By that time, I was
I was way past leaving,

but I knew I didn't
want to get blown up anymore.

I want to do something more cerebral.

Ended up leaving active duty,
wanted to finish out my career,

did the reserve thing and ran into a guy

that was like, hey,
I heard you working for the railroad.

He goes, you ever tried the
the Army Railroad?

And I go,
I didn't even know it even existed.

He says, yeah, no, at this time
I was in E-7.

So I said to him like, well, I mean, E-7,
I don't think they're going to relax me.

He said, if the Army needs you,
they're going to replace you.

So what ended up happening

is I called up the commander down
in Virginia.

I said, listen, I work for the railroad.

Excuse me. I'm sorry.
I worked for the railroad. And,

you know, here's my resume.

And he's like, yeah, I like it.

Why don't you come down?

I did a what do you call it down there?

You know, just a drill just to see it

ended up
showing what they call an 88. You.

So the way the Army Railroad was, is
it used to be individual jobs.

Then they were like,
okay, we're going to make one super MOS.

So they call it an 88 you,
which is 88 uniform.

So you learn all the jobs of the railroad.

Oh. And then what ended up
happening was at some point

they were like,
what's your railroad experience?

You ever think about being an instructor?

So I said, yeah, I'll do that.

So I ended up going into an instructor
unit getting certified.

And you know, that was
that was my exit out.

And I, I could have probably stayed longer
because really I was just

going down there to teach that was it
and have to do any, anything else.

But like I said, it just lost.

Its lost what it was.

Yeah. How was it being a teacher?

the being the teacher was awesome
because trackwork

nobody else knew really had to do it.

And that was my my forte, so to speak.

So I would go down there for a week.

Yeah, I would go down there for a month,
but I would teach for a week.

Gotcha.

So, you know, the rest of the time I go
there, I would report

9 to 5 job
and then hang out in Virginia Beach.

It was better than me.
Did you make them raise their hand?

Did you give him recess and stuff or what?

Was there a bathroom pass? Did you?

The good thing with me was all my guys
were reclassed, so they were all NCOs.

So, you know, I didn't have to babysit.

And what was nice is every class,

every iteration,
I was able to take them out.

And, you know, like you said,
have that camaraderie

go out, have a few drinks, you know,
because there's no fraternization there.

Yeah. But I think that's also
what I kind of learned.

Like it's different.

This isn't Eric Phoenix of
the world anymore, you know,

and for our listeners, what's an NCO
and a E-7?

Oh, I'm sorry, noncommissioned officer.

Yeah, basically, you know, you're

you're in charge of the training
and the health and welfare of the troops.

What? An officer is more,

you know, for the mission

set and getting what tools you need

and what is going to be the mission
and the directive.

Yeah.

NCO are like the principals, captains

and the brass are like the central office
superintendents, maybe.

Yeah, yeah.

Teacher talk.

And in E-7 you that was your
you say your highest rank.

Were you finished? Yeah.

And that is a major Sergeant major.

No no no.

Certain first class. Sergeant first class.

What's sergeant major E10.

No, that's a E9, E9, I was close.

What's E8.

Oh that's a that's a first sergeant
or a master sergeant.

Gotcha. Gotcha,
man. It's been a long time.

Oh, wow.

We're going backwards.

It has. You had you down here.
That's a 12 B.

Yeah. Which is a combat engineer okay.

So I was at at Fort Lewis, Washington.

And then train
the train has its own. Yeah.

So that so when I was in Fort Lewis,
I was a an IED hunter.

I hunted IEDs.

I mean,
that's basically the way to say it.

I spent a tour over in Afghanistan,
and that was my job.

I looked for IEDs.

No, no pressure, no stress.

I'm not going to lie to you.

I and I don't try to downplay it,
but a monkey could have done my job.

I go down a road and either I find a ID

and if finds me
okay, it's as black and white,

you know,

which is why I said,
you know, like at the end,

when I was deciding to go on
more to the reserves after active duty,

that's why I said, you know,
I don't want to get blown up anymore.

I just, you know, I want to think more
with my mind than my back.

I don't regret it.

You know,

I love the fact that I can say I went over
Afghanistan and I was in the fight.

But they believe in the war.

You didn't believe in the war?

You know, I feel a lot better than that.

Than somebody was just trading coffee
the whole time.

Not that I didn't drink coffee
because I did, but, you know.

But I got lucky.

Did the coffee look like muddy
water and tastes like turpentine?

So. No, but I have a funny story on it.

At the time, I was a, you know,

our our platoon was over there,
and because I was a little bit

older than everybody,
I was big on a coffee and he had this

Nestle coffee

that was like,
you know, it was instant and it was,

you know, almost like,
almost like an MRE for coffee.

That makes sense. Yeah.

So because we would get blown up
all the time, I would make sure

that that box was in everybody's truck
just in case one would get blown.

So everybody
would know, like I didn't even care.

The the other question, I'd be like,
they would just like,

stack,
I got your coffee packed in there, okay?

Because if you get blown up.
I'll go to this

as long as I get my coffee.

Don't want to see me before my coffee.

It was a
it was a game changer as far as morale,

because there's nothing better than nice
hot cup of coffee on a cold morning.

So you did explosives?

Yes. Trenching tools.

Mine detectors? Yes.

Jews. Bridging systems.

We we worked.

We didn't really do.

We did it.

The Charlie bridge.

There's an actual MLS for that there.

12 Charlies.

They were the bridge guys.

But, you know, we learned how to do them.

But like I said, my soul job
in Afghanistan was I was rob clearance.

I looked for this.

Is that the movie
you're going to reference?

Is that the Who's Ralph clearance, bro.

Rock clearance. Oh.

Root clearance.

Yeah.

The guy who plays Hawkeye

played a bomb.

It's a movie.

Do you know the movie?

He had a difficult time
transitioning back to civilian life.

Are you talking about Hurt Locker?
Hurt locker?

Yeah, that's.

That's garbage.

Yeah, yeah.

Not a fan. Well, because

he picks up there's deck cord
and he picks it up with like six,

one, five, five rounds.

You deal with explosives

and there's debt cords
sticking out of the ground.

You don't just go and grab it
and pick it up.

It doesn't work that way.

My job though, so I don't know
if you remember the part in the movie,

but there's a
there's a Mercedes that's laced.

There's something with explosives.

Yeah, he's trying to find the wiring, and
all of a sudden everybody is coming out

and, you know, his lookout
sees these guys on the building and there.

Oh, yeah. Yep, yep.

And he says, let's just call the combat
engineers in here.

And the reason
why is because what we do, the difference

between a combat engineer
and EOD guy is EOD can render it safe.

We'll just blow it up in place. Right.

So we used to have a formula
all the time P for plenty, you know.

So you know, if it was a tree

we turned it into a thousand toothpicks.

That was that was our thing.

But yeah you know so that's what I did.

That's what a 12 Bravo is.

And I was out of I was part of a five 71st

Sapper company, GS chairs.

So happy to talk with you.

It's been a minute.
It's only been 27 years.

Yeah, yeah.

Do we do calculations 2099?

Yeah, yeah.

A long way from what we used to do.

We found our own landmines.

Yeah. We created great.

Yep. We had a common friend on podcast
guest.

That's how it got you on. Right.

Let's talk about that. Yeah. So.

Jill is her kids.

Her daughter and her son play in the same
hockey club that my son plays for.

The funny thing about that
is I live in East Haven.

That club is out of Bolton, Connecticut.

Jeez.

So there was an incident
when we first got there

where a coach walked off the team, and
and we're all in this room and everybody's

talking about it, and I'm looking at her,
I'm looking at her, and I'm godly.

I know her from somewhere
very familiar. So

I'm thinking to myself, did
I go with this girl?

Like, she looks so familiar,
but then I'm like, you know,

because I get like that at airports.

I'll sit in the airport and it's like,
I feel like I seen half the people

walking by.

Yeah.

So I, you know, I don't think much of it

later on, we,
the club used to have a, a thing

where we would play at the Hartford
Civic Center or whatever it's called now.

Don't even know.

And then at night, we go to the Hartford
Wolfpack game,

and one day,
so the kids would get taken down

to the locker room and the parents
would stay up top in the lobby.

So one day
I just happened to be walking by

and she had like an old, like,

digital bag, army bag.

And I looked at it
and I looked at her and it just triggered.

I mean, it had a trigger and I was like,
that's where I know you found.

And, you know, we started talking and,

you know, kind of like anything else,
just like you and I sitting here

just brought everything
back, and, you know, and her, you know,

her husband is one of the coaches,
and he's a great, great guy.

They're a great family, fantastic family.

And then my best friend's daughter
is playing hockey for northeastern.

She or she just graduated.

She's going to be drafted by the P.W..

And I brought her up there one day

for a camp, and Chris's daughter
fell in love with her.

So they came down to watch her
when she played Yale.

So it was cool.

We kind of rekindled this Army stuff.

And, you know,
I got her assigned stick and,

you know, gjelten was like,
oh man, that's awesome.

I said, man,
this is what we do in the army, right?

We look out for each other,
even all these years later.

You know, we look out for each other,
at each other's family.

So, yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah. Small world,
you know? Yeah.

And then obviously seeing her
on your podcast.

Yeah, I'm going to try to pull up
the minute, but I talk about you.

You're in a picture shirt off.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah.

That was funny. Episode 76.

I think we were in New Britain
in, like, a park.

Yes, yes, that was after an at

hanging out Belle Lopez.

Yeah, that was after
maybe that was after four Indian Town Gap.

I got one picture.

I don't know if you didn't.

Wasn't really the crew.

I don't know why we're hanging out.
It's like a mixed bunch.

That was probably a family day picnic
or usually after training stag poll.

Stackpole was my guy. Bill
Kane was my guy.

Naugatuck Guy Lopez.

Mendez I don't know who that guy is
in the middle.

Not sure.

Not sure.

I think that was Noelle Brown.

No. Well, she ended up becoming
a nurse down in like DC or something,

I think was was a teacher.

She. Yes.

And New Britain, I want to say. Yep.

I don't know, a long time ago,
a long time ago, we had a lot of fun.

Such a good crew, such a good crew.

And then you wrote it.
You even wrote a comment.

You were like,
hey, thanks for the shout out.

You're like, great to see you guys.

Well, I was trying to look so the

the hockey club were a part of does a
we before me

and it takes a lot of the

disadvantage youth and especially like

in the black community
because there's not a big show in hockey.

Right.

So what they do is they,

you know,
give them a chance to get on the ice.

Very low cost, if not anything.

You know, people donate.

And she's a big part of that.

And I was trying to look for it
for some reason.

I can't even remember why.

So I was trying to put up her name
because she was on a,

she was part of,
you know, like one of those

major channels, like channel three,
they were interviewing or something.

And so I was like, let me put up her name
because she used to be the spokesman

for the state police.
So I knew she would come up.

And then I saw her sitting there in a uni,
and I saw your name.

And I was like,
I was like, what's going on here?

So I started watching it, you know,
just laughing.

And I was like, oh my God, I haven't even.

My wife was like, man, she's like,
I remember him and you know.

And then you gave the shout out.

I was like, oh, so I showed my son
that he thought that was pretty.

That was two years ago, almost,
maybe even more.

But you're here.

The funny thing is, is
I don't even think at that point,

like I was talking to him,
you know what I'm saying?

I think that was right
when I realized who she was.

Yeah, it's almost 100 episodes ago.

94 episodes in the state police.

She's retired. Yeah. She retired.

Yeah.

And you know what's great, too, is that.

And again,
you can't do this in the Army anymore.

But even our sense of humor
hasn't changed.

I can still say stuff to her that, you
know, most people might be offended by.

And she laughed and vice versa, which is
just like when you and I went through it.

And again, that stuff is kind of feel
like a lot of things.

Military is changing.

The education system is changing.

The world is changing. Yeah, yeah.

Are we getting old?

Like back in my day
I don't know, I don't I,

I think a little bit of both.

I mean I think there's things
that you probably,

you realize that your parents
complained about, that you sit there

and you go, oh my God, I'm like parents.

But also, you know, let's face it,
it has changed.

And things that we didn't worry about,
people worry about.

And I do believe and I saw it firsthand,

I do believe, you know, we there's

not that you have to make fun of people.

I'm not saying that
not that you have to drink alcohol.

I'm not advocating that.

But those kind of things that we all did,
you know, you just they don't do anymore.

But I thought it was
what brought us closer.

You know, you went to 80 and,
you know, like, how do you remember

we were down in Jersey.

They remember where we were, Fort Dix.

Yeah. It was like 104 degrees. Yeah, 40.

We started the little club in the,

You remember that? Yes.

The kitchen club.

Yes. Yes, but invite only. Yeah.

Special invite. There's like a code.

You had the we had the, the flashlights.

You could slide a red or a blue.

Get that going. Yeah.

And they never said anything to me
because I would still be up at three

in the morning, do what I got to do.

But, you know, you that that stuff's over.

They don't do anything like that anymore.

And again, I'm not saying
you got to do the things we did,

but that's what made it far.

And then after we all sat around
and we all met up somewhere and we all had

beers and we, we joked around
how bad it sucked, but it was our sock.

And we laughed about it
and it brought us closer.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Well, the officers club or something.

NCO club at like 80.

Yeah.

And that, that stuff happens
IL clubs anymore in the military

because Gonzo you feel like you're safer

outside of that fence line
and you do inside.

And that was never the case.

You know, you used to be able to get in
trouble and call somebody and, you know,

you might have got a tongue lashing
or punished for it, but then it was over.

Now it's like double jeopardy.

You get punished out
there. You get punished in there.

So yeah, it just

it's sad.

But like I said, I, you know, it's funny
not to get off subject,

but I was in an NCO school at one time
and the sergeant

major was talking, and this is when I knew
it was time was changed.

And he looks at me and he goes, oh,
he goes, you must be the class cynic.

He goes, go ahead, soldier.

Stand up and say what you have to say.

So I did, and at first started

a major kind of looked at me like,
did you just lose your mind, kid?

But then he realized where I was coming
from, and everybody else that was in

the thing was a little bit older too,
and one guy said it,

the best of me came out and he goes,
hey, stack.

He said, what happened to the dinosaurs?

I said, I don't know what happened.

He goes, they went extinct, he says,
and right now we're the dinosaurs.

Oh, so I say, you know what? I get it.

And I think that was kind of the beginning
of the end for me as far as, okay,

this has passed me by, you know? So

if you had, who was your top three?

Let's reminisce on the one for one.

You know, for sense of humor.

Lefty, that was your
you were like Batman and Robin, right?

You and lefty were just.

Yeah, yeah, we understood

he was. You guys were both the cooks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
we understood each other.

It was.

There was definitely a mutual.

What's the respect there?

You know, I didn't step in his role.

He didn't step in mind.

But we just made it happen
between the both of us.

Yeah. And,

Oh, captain. What?

I don't know, she's a colonel now.

Colonel Nieves cat. She was our captain.

She she also.

She knew I wanted to be a teacher once,
you know, kind of got in trouble.

She made me write an essay.

There's tough love and then there's love.

She was an amazing person.

She worked for DCF. She.

She knew, like, how to how to reach me.

So she met me where I was.

And I always loved her
and respected her for that.

But then you had guys like,
who just gave me the tough love like Walls

or Chandler or, you know,

oh, Chandler is also
part of the hockey club.

Come on, I don't know of.

I recognized him right away.

I don't know if I told you that,

but he's up there, too,
talking about a small world.

That's crazy. Right? I just ran into.

Oh, we're going to show Ben.

Pair, pair. Boom. Ran into him at the

Farmington at Iran's run.

And we just again catched caught up.

He was like,
Feeny, you got in trouble a lot.

So much.
But I really like what you're doing now.

He's like, I'm impressed.

I was like,
that means a lot, Ben, coming from you.

So it was good to see. It's good always.

I do that, too.

When you see someone, you're like,
I go, are you from Waterbury?

Are you a teacher?
Where are you? In the Army National Guard.

Like I know you from somewhere.
Yeah, yeah.

And they're like,
they're either one of the three. Yeah.

So I'll get them.

But I do recognize a lot of faces.

Yeah, I'm the same.

I just can't put the name to it, you know.

But I've also, like I said, 28 years.

I've crossed a lot of faces military wise.

Yeah.

You know, so I even get people now
will come up to me and I'll look at them

and I'll know who they are
as far as like, oh, I recognize you,

but then you feel kind of like a jerk
because they remember who you are.

You don't remember who they are,
and not because you know

you're better than anybody.

It's just you're like,
oh man, there's just so many faces.

Especially you're an NCO.

You had all those soldiers on you there.

You're one person.

You got to remember all
those people. Yeah. You know.

Cool.

Let's do a game.

Your army career or your military career.

Because you did Navy as well.

It's called first, last, best, worst.

Okay.

Your best activity deployment.

Your worst one.

Your first one and your last one okay.

So best worst first last.

Any order you want okay.

You just talking about military career.

Yeah I would say probably my,

my worst experience in the military was,

and I never had good luck with this.

I basically went through
three basic trainings.

The first one,
obviously my first basic training ever.

Then when I was in the Navy,
I went to there a school.

I didn't go to a basic training,
but because those kids were still kind of

in the training mode,
I was already prior service

and we thought we were going to be treated
like prior service.

And they were like,
well, kind of like in the Navy

with the CBS,
you always wore a different uniform.

You wore like the old school wood line
uniform with a big navy war like the blue.

Right.

And I got where they were coming from.

They're like, you know, you're
kind of walking here and just wear it.

These kids got to earn it.

So that sucked because it's like

you already been to all the service,
but you got to play this game.

Same thing when I, when I went
into active duty army for the combat

engineers, there was a couple
I think there was three of us.

So we just thought,
okay, we're a prior service.

Like,
you know, we get a little bit of benefit.

They didn't know what to do with us.

So what did they do now?

Combat engineers is what they call
training, right?

It's one station in the training.

So it's just one big basic
training from basic training to your MLS.

So what did they do
if they put us in what?

All kids.

Oh, boy. So that sucked.

So I'm like, yo, this is like the third
basic training, right?

I had to be like the

you think at that point I'm like the most
disciplined soldier, right?

That was probably the worst.

Probably the best is my tour
in Afghanistan, because doing what we did,

everybody came home
and I I'm really proud of that.

I'm really proud
how we took care of the soldiers.

And, you know, truth be told,
some of them didn't do really well after.

So there was a lot of impact after.

And so I was proud of that.

But that kind of came at a cost.

What was the first and last,

first and last?

I mean, give me a little more to play with
on that one.

Like the first thing you have ever done
in the military and the last thing

you ever done in the military,
your first is probably basic training.

Did you go to Fort Lost in the woods,
Missouri?

No, I went to, that's
where my eight school was for the CVS.

And that's also where they had
Navy stuff there.

They. Oh, right.

That was also my Ozark

training,
but I actually went to Fort Jackson

for basic training, and I would say
my last it's my retirement.

You know, it's in, you know, even
that was a hassle.

I mean, the,

Yeah, my military career is.

You said it was a long and windy one.

That was struggle.
It was a really struggle.

There was
there was a lot of stuff that just,

for whatever
reason, didn't work out for me.

And I don't know why.

Yeah, I kind of screwed up my, my rank
a little bit because I jumped around.

I think if I just stayed one course,
maybe I would have did higher, but

I didn't really care about that.

I mean, I had opportunities,
you know, I enjoyed it.

You know, like I said, being raised away,
I was raised it fit like a glove for me.

I loved our time together.

I loved I loved it all
the way up into the air and till the end.

And then and then, like I said,
it started getting to

the point of this ain't me anymore.

Yeah, yeah.
Your dad was a cop. Yeah, yeah.

And he was. He was a marine.
He was all about.

He was old school. Old school.

That's why I said it would go in the face
of training

and people talking about,
you know, all men.

The first time that drills trucker
was yelling in my face and was,

you know, passed out. I'm like,
are you kidding me?

You guys even reached the smile.

He's just talking loud.

I was like,
my dad hit me with that when I was ten.

Oh that's great.

I always had I always had pots and pans.

So I was always in the in the back room
washing pots and pans.

They don't.
I don't even think they do KP duty.

They don't.

Oh long, long time ago
because it was like a punishment or what.

Because again I don't,
I don't know, I did it,

they just always assigned I was a toe
walker so marching wasn't my thing.

So they gave me KP three days in a row,
180 degree water hands like lobsters.

Yeah.

They just looked at me like, you know,
like, hey, you look like, wash some pants.

But I didn't mind it
because they never fed.

So when the food came in from the field,
you were like a crackhead.

You were, like,
eating chicken behind the wall.

You know,

I love it.

No shout out.

Do you like Yukon?

You know, there's a super fan, little Red.
He was in the Navy.

He was. Podcast episode 168.
Go check it out.

He's in the Navy.

He did? I think he did 8 to 10 years. So.

And then I had a colonel on

he did 30 years.

Then I had d lock on gel tima
military podcasts.

Oh. Paul Buca.

Medal of honor recipient. Oh, wow.

Yeah. He just recently passed away.

He outranks. Even though he was a captain.

He outranks the Colonel
because he got the Medal of Honor.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, I met one in my life in Washington,

and there was in Washington.

I actually lived on this Olympia
Lacey line, and it was a bar.

It was called The Bar,
and it was on my way home.

And, you know, you would love this.

In true R fashion,

they you had a blue book

you had to carry around,
which was the rules of the base.

And then your captain gave memos
on their expectations.

Well, one of the memos was basically,
you can drink alcohol

as long as it was
like a 60, 40 bar restaurant.

So it was like 60% food, 40%.

You couldn't just walk in there
if it was strictly alcohol

and you couldn't do that if you had duty.

So if you were on call or whatever.

And so I used to carry that around me.

I swear to God.

Used to carry it around
and I used to go to this bar.

So on a Friday night when they ate, this
missed you and they said, okay,

you know, everybody's dismissed.
Have a good weekend.

I used to go there in uniform
and I would sit there and have some bars,

I mean, some beers.

And of course there's all like, retired,

you know, Army guys.

And it was a, it was a military bar.

But it was cool because one Christmas
they had this guy

come in and again,
he was an older gentleman like you said.

He sent passed away
and he had a medal of honor.

And of course, they made a huge deal bomb,

which I thought
was the coolest thing in the world,

because the people
making a bigger deal about them was more

the civilians,
like the people that work there.

That was the only guy I met.

But the reason why I'm bringing up
this story is

it was like my two weeks
before I eat. Yes.

So I go in there on a Friday night.

That was my routine.

And only one time I ever been in there,
somebody questioned me

about drinking in uniform,
and I had that thing locked.

Then I just pull out the memo that now

where it is, you know,
I remember one one guy looked at it.

He was like, I've never seen this before.

No, no, no, that's from my captain.

Signed, sealed, delivered.

So I step in there
and some guy is in there and he's like,

you know, the, you know, Army

police, you shouldn't be drinking.

I said, no, I said, I'm, I'm allowed to.

He's like, well, he goes, you know, it's
not a part.

I said, it's part of the Blue Book I got.

And I said, an
I got a memo from my captain.

Oh. And he's like, well, he goes,
they came out with a new blue book.

I don't know who this guy is.

I got a couple of weeks
left. I'm not going to argue with him.

So I drank there so much
and he knew me so much, I cast out.

I never forget this.

The owner,
who's a lady, comes walking over

and she sees the lady cash out
and she goes.

I hear the conversation.

She goes.

And she goes, what's going on?

He goes, oh, he's cashing out.

She goes seasick.

So I so I told the lady,
I go, look, this guy's busting my balls.

I don't know who he is.

He could be a sergeant major.

I got two weeks left. I don't need this.

Even though, like, a retired colonel is.
Like what?

He's like, this is stupid.

So she paid for my drink, and I leave
and I won't come.

I want to say I'll go back there
a week later.

And the coolest thing about these people
were I walked back in there

and I see the bartender, and she was like,
yeah.

She goes, man,
she goes, I'm sorry, missed you.

Last Friday. She goes, that guy.

She said, we kicked him out.

She said he's not allowed back. Yes.

Oh man, that is awesome. Wow.

Because again,
I was not bothering anybody.

And I,
you know, I would have 5 or 6 beers.

Wasn't getting obnoxious,
you know, and I would go home, you know,

I'd have like a, you know,
ham and cheese sandwich, whatever it was.

So, I mean,

this guy just came out of nowhere,

but I just thought
that was the coolest thing ever.

That's awesome.

You know. No. It's good. I'm
so glad I served.

And I love talking military and meeting
people and hearing their stories.

And that's good stuff, man.

Yeah.

Retirement.

So you're an Islanders fan? Yes.

Yeah. Well, happen. Cool there.

Yeah.

So, a buddy of mine,

I used to have season tickets
at a bridge, port Islanders

and a friend at work.

My foreman said, hey, man,
I signed you up for something,

so I'm thinking it's work related, and I'm
now I'm like, I got mad.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

So he goes, he says, no, man.

He goes, I didn't want to tell you, but
like, your wife has to be involved in it.

And he told me, he says, you know,
I put you in.

So they honor military veterans
and they do a whole thing.

So she actually had to go down
the Long Island and go in a room like this

and get recorded and speak,
and they put her on a big screen.

So, yeah, they selected me.

And, you know, they gave me a, you know,
they brought you down,

they put the camera on, you gave me
a, an official jersey with my name on it.

And oh, cool thing was, is, you know,
they give you the number for the year,

but that was the year I retired.

So, you know, it really meant a lot to me.

And Stackpole 24.

Yeah, yeah.

Where is it right now. That jersey.

It's hanging I'm going to put it in.

You know, somebody was like,
oh, you should wear it.

I get no, I'm not going to spill a thing
on this.

That thing's going in the shadow,
you know.

Yeah.

I mean, it was
it was a great honor, you know?

Jeez. Yeah, I was I was down in,

Richmond.

I don't
mean to keep going off on a tangent, but,

I was down in Richmond, Virginia,
and Islanders are in the playoffs,

and this guy got me good.

I'm looking for the Islanders
playoff game.

And of course, down there
they don't care about hockey.

And you know,

you go in a lot of these sports bars
and I really don't understand it.

No one knows how to work the TV.

You're
a sports have no idea what sports are on.

It just doesn't make sense.

But anyway, so I'm asking.

But they were nice enough
to try to figure it out.

This goes on for a few minutes
and they're looking.

They're looking. They find it finally.

And this guy next to me, he goes,

the bartender comes down,
he goes, excuse me, can you put on,

you know, soccer on this one in my head
whipped around

and he started laughing and I said,
oh man, you got me good.

I said, we were about to find out.

I said, after all that,
I'm gonna find out.

They were like the head of the Canadian
fencing team,

which was weird,
but I saw the guy in the Olympics.

Love it.

Yeah. All right, let me shout out
some sponsors.

We're here.

And Brantford, this is 11 Sycamore Way.

This is Direct Line Media.

Check it out. It's a beautiful building,
beautiful office.

Thanks to my friends Dave and Stefania.

Stefania is an Islanders
fan, right, Stefania.

Yeah, yeah.

Go, Islanders.

Where was I?

Oh, direct Line Media is our sponsor.

Maximum beverage Luna pizza

fix IV, float 41, people's Bank,

American eagle financial credit Union

Brook golf law Group, the JCC,

people's Bank, Keating Agency, insurance,
Sally and Bob's.

We got so many sponsors.

And then we have West Hartford Lock.

So with West Hartford Lock,
what are three keys

to having a successful military career?

If you say right uniform.

Right place, right time okay, okay.

Right uniform.

Did it have to be pressed, you know. No.

After again that was another thing.

And Shining Boots is out too.

Oh, yeah. That was going a long time ago.
Geez.

These kids
don't know what they're missing.

No shining boots. No KP.

It's that little attention to detail
that's lost.

Yeah, you had to be a quarter the the.

We had a triangular
like olive branch for Connecticut.

Had to be a quarter distance one inch.

If you if you need to know at home
a quarter is one inch.

So you didn't have to get a ruler out.

Quarter patch. Boom. Yeah. Yeah.

I got in trouble

because the BD used back in the day,
they were a spring one and a winter one.

And like one of them had the patch
and one of them did it.

And I'm like every drill.

They're like Feeny. It's been six months.

Can we get the patch on there?

I'm like, I'm on it, I'm on it.

And then I square my sideburns.
Yeah, yeah.

But when I was in the Army,
I liked the point.

And that that was also got heat.

I remember he needs this

square, the point, the sideburns.

I'm like,
does that make or break a military?

But it does. It does. Right.
You know what it is.

Go on. Its paying attention to detail.

Attention to detail.

Small things equal to big things.

Yep. And see,
that's the thing you had appointed.

What do you call
which then related to you.

You're not wearing the right uniform
because you didn't even have the patch.

Yeah. Oh, it was strike one.

Strike two, all downhill.

You mess up on one,
you're going to mess up on all.

You know, they did a study on that.

So so we were garrison soldiers

and we were there
because it wasn't really a war going on.

And then when the war started with Iraq

and Afghanistan, you know, it was more
about just turning soldiers out.

So a lot of that detail stuff was gone.

And it's because they were more worried
about teaching your MOS.

So they did a study on it, because
when a lot of these soldiers came back,

there was no discipline there,

you know, because when you get deployed,
it's different, right?

You're not so much worried.

There's a little more,

a little
more relaxed, a little more personable.

Just because you're with these guys
every single and you have a job to do,

you have a job to do, not just sit around
and wait and look busy and.

Yeah, and it's not like,
hurry up and wait.

Yeah, I hated that war out in the field.

Or, you know, we're looking out for IEDs,
and we've been out there for four days.

Yeah, sign me up for that.
That sounds fun.

You know, I'm not sitting there talking.

We're talking like you and I are talking
now, whether I'm an NCO or not.

Like, there's a little more of.

It's not just like I'm here and you're the
the subordinate that makes it.

Yeah, yeah. No, there's a bond for sure.

My guy, what's his first unit?

His first day I was I was his mentor.

We may have got in trouble that day,
but I mentored him.

And we're friends ever since, you know.

And great friend.

Oh, what did I just see?
I saw someone to.

She's a West Hartford cop.

I saw some guy at the gym.

It was like you just.
I guess they're everywhere.

Yeah.

If you served in the army,
you'll see someone.

Yeah. Oh, but,
I mean, that's the thing, though.

He always did your job.

Wasn't like, yeah, we had our fun,
but you had to make the most of it.

I couldn't find our picture of you
flexing all jacked up.

But I did find my basic training
with my drill sergeant.

This guy didn't smile,
and I tried not to smile, but.

Can't beat it.

Love it, Army National Guard I'm so glad.

Again allowed me to go to school.

GI Bill went to southern
Connecticut State.

Yeah.

You played football at Central and West
Haven, right?

Ross Haven high school running back.

What are some career
highlights on the football field?

I mean,

my freshman year in central,
I played both ways.

So, yeah, college level I did.

I played both cornerback and running back.

You know, I was more of a out of the
backfield, but, you know, punt returns.

They played all special teams,

like a Darren Sproles. Yeah. Yeah.

Kind of like a little bit
of a utility guy.

So that was always a thing.

And then,
you know, in West Haven, I was there,

when we beat Welby. No.

Okay. But you.

But there was also something else, right?

Actually, you want to know the true story,
and this is will be Waterbury.

I set the running record for West Haven.

Against. Will be, How many yards?

244. Well, but then it got beat later on.

What year?

What year was that? In 1993?

Okay. Yeah.

I wasn't there when you guys upset him.

Oh, but you know who I was in school
when that happened?

I coached with Small World again
for Carro.

Oh, come on.

And I are very good friends. Stop.

Yes, yes.

Wow. De lock has some funny

gym. Will be grabbing his.

Come on, lock him and I coach the guy.

Come on. Yeah, yeah, he was at Willoughby.

Great guy.

Yeah. Old school.

Yes. Loved him, loved them.
We've had theirs.

We drank together. We.

We've coached together, him and I.

He's on my Facebook.

Oh come on. So our motto.

Be a good friend.

Hold the door.
Pick up trash. Be charitable.

You know, be a good friend.

What makes a good friend?

That's for you.

Well, his dedication to the youth.

Yeah.

I mean, his dedication to,
the student athlete.

You know, I, I would say, you know, he.

I mean, it's
not just his love for football, but

how many, how many years did
he put in an administration?

How many years did he play?

I mean, not play,
but how many years did he coached?

Yeah.

You know, and even,

you know, one of the things I have to say
with him would be a good friend.

Was he at a time I wasn't there yet.

I was there the next year, I guess.

Apparently,

East Haven's
program was going to go with the funk.

They had a problem with the old coach,
and he's the one that kept it together.

No way.

Otherwise, what year was that?

It's a great question.

I was I want to say
he was like a guidance counselor

or a principal at Willoughby, too.

Or vice principal. Yes.

And and his wife had something to do with.

I think she was like a principal
of Cheshire or something like that.

She was also involved
in educational field.

But yeah.

No, they were actually I want to say to
kids they fired like the coach mid-season.

I think the kids were just going
to give up on it and he held it together.

So I mean, kudos to him.

Where do you live?

What was his connection there?

He lived in Hampton.

I don't know what his connection.

I don't know if he was just helping coach
being assistant coach,

or maybe he had something to do
with the school system,

because I know,
I guess when you get to that level,

you're kind of a free agent
type of a thing where

you might not be working anymore,
but you could fill in.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, all years
it will be, you know, you're in East Haven

and all of a sudden
your assistant administration

has to go on leave for, you know,
I don't know, pregnancy or sickness.

Yeah.

You know, he's the type of guy
they can call up and be like, hey, man,

we need to fill in
because he's already got the credentials.

Yep yep yep. No,
no, that happens all the time. Yeah. Okay.

Like he's, When's the last time
you saw him or talked to him?

He moved to Florida.

I haven't talked to him in a while.

Like I said, he's still on my Facebook.

He moved to Florida. I want to say,

Jupiter.

Ju ju juniper.

Jupiter is where all the golfers are.

Yeah, I know, somewhere down there,
because I remember, if I remember

correctly, at the time
he lived by Bill Parcells or somewhere,

and I had this big floppy here,
and I tried to get a green headband

that I could get my hair
to fit on the helmet.

I'm putting it on freshman
nervous, scared.

First time there.

I just want to get the hair
out of my face.

He's like, what the hell is that?

What do you think? You're Deon Sanders?

I can take that shit off.

We don't wear that.

And I was like, Sorry, sir.

And I shaved my head to like, a crew cut
like yours so I would get the helmet on.

But yeah, he was a great guy.

I mean, I don't know how
he was as a coach to you guys, but,

I learned a lot from him, and we just.

Again, he was one of those guys
I connected with off the bat.

I don't know if it just because
I have more of an old school mentality.

So he was kind of like, you know,
because obviously he's much older than I.

And we used to talk football
all the time.

Yeah.

And I don't know, maybe he was impressed
with my football in the house.

Hopefully.

But no, I'm
very glad I crossed paths with him.

He was an amazing person.

Will be high school, represent coach

and coach

Chesky and then Coach krill,
two of my favorite.

And Coach Parisi.

Like three of the most important people
in my life, right.

Crouch krill was my chemistry teacher
and my freshman coach.

When Chesky was like my neighbor,
my family friend and my coach.

And Mr.

Price was like an older gentleman
that volunteered

and just has been at the program
for 60 years with a huge heart.

And then vicarius
was like the head honcho,

and they kind of worked under him
and are football.

Football does good things.

Yeah. Wish I stuck it out, you know.

But the funny thing is with you
is you have a world of discipline and.

You were for punishment.

Got yelled at in the army.

Oh, yeah.

I got thick skinned

kids. Say something to me.

I'm like, well, you think that bothers me?

I had coach, I was in the Army.

My dad, of course, was rough, too.

Oh it's great.

Oh. What's up?

So you like tuna sandwiches or parades?

That was great.

That all the stuff
you and I used to get into a lot of stuff,

but I think I was just
a little smarter with it.

And you just kind of came out
with the stuff, and they were like, oh,

they always kind of knew

I was somewhere involved
and just never could connect me to it.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That time we were on We All, you and
I wanted to go drinking and being drilled.

I had the best line for that.

Don't worry about it. We got food.

We both can't make it.

Oh, because at the time,
we lived by each other.

Yeah.

Because you lived in New Haven,
right on our Grasso Boulevard.

Yeah, yeah, and I was I lived in West
Haven right around off of route 34.

Yeah, we were close. We were really close.

I was on Brownell off of right
by the village pub,

Westville Pizza. The Dunkin Donuts.

Like it was a hot spot. Yeah.

Oh, you would come over?

I don't know if if the if the.

I don't know if they would have been more
mad about us missing drill

or the fact that we used our rucksacks
to carry out their.

And we think we had green on already.

They were green.

We're at the Saint Patrick's Day parade.

Yeah, we had our hats on and we had like

30 packs in the damn rucksack.

You know, that was before the,
Campbell packs came out,

because we were definitely
filled that up with their,

the good old days.

Yeah.

Then I remember Chapel Street
a couple nights with you.

Yeah, I remember
you used to have some parties there.

Parties at the house.

All the National Guard people came over
and there was a party.

Yeah, well, I said, you know,

it's kind of sad because I don't think

a lot of the kids
see that anymore, you know?

And even like you were saying, you know,

you got in trouble,
but it was more like school fun stuff.

It wasn't like you were doing anything
crazy.

It was just like,
hey, Phoebe, don't go down that road.

And then you walk down that road
and everybody laughing.

Yeah.

In reflection, I was 17, you know.

17. Well,
I joined a 17 and I did eight years.

So, you know, as a male,
my brain didn't fully develop till 25.

You know, at least I tell myself that.

But a lot of learning took place.

Listen, you can't learn without a mistake.

True fail is called
first attempt in learning.

That's why pencils have erasers.

You know, mistakes are

expected, inspected and respected.

And I made a lot of them.

Is that what you tell your story?

Yeah, well, you can make a mistake
as long as you learn from it.

Yeah, yeah, I knew all the tricks.

I knew all the tricks in the teaching.

I know all the tricks and the guard.

Well, that's my thing for your students,
because they're to think

they're getting away with something.

And you're like, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. I mean, it's not like,
you know, like

I always say that
my parents were growing up.

They just they just didn't.

Not that they didn't get mischief,

but their mischief was different
than my mischief.

Yeah.

So they just didn't do a lot of stuff.
Yeah.

So now it's like, you know, with my kids,

you're like, no, no, no, no, like

you, there's a little more of a struggle
on your end on this one.

You know, my dad, my daughter is like,
you have so much law.

Like, I'll just drop a random story. Like

I got all.

Did you?

You didn't know I got beat up
by a guy with no arms and no legs.

They're like, what?

He didn't know.

Like that's the dad law.

How old are your kids now? They're 17.

I have twin girls off
to UConn and Quinnipiac.

Oh, nice. So yep.

Very happy and excited.

Law at UConn PA program at Quinnipiac.

Oh, wow.

So yeah, we'll have to go to some games.

Hockey in Quinnipiac.

Yeah absolutely.

Let me know. We'll meet.

And then basketball at UConn
of course in hockey.

And their hockey is legit too.

You're right you're right.

They beat Quinnipiac this year.

I've been up there a couple of times

because like I said, my best friend's
daughter played for northeastern and

I was just actually up there
for the hockey championship.

So I got up there quite a few times.

More women's hockey obviously.

But yeah, I know there are hockey teams
legit though.

Don't sell them short on a hockey,
that's for sure.

I forgot about that. You're right.

You're up and coming and their baseball
teams even go to baseball.

UConn's. Yeah.

Listen, I'll tell you one thing
about hockey in this state.

You know, Connecticut doesn't
get a lot of credit for it.

But, you know,
we got four Division one schools. And,

you know, it's not only

do we have four Division one schools, but,
you know, they all have new facilities.

Yale's is. Yeah. What?

Yale. Quinnipiac. UConn.

Okay. Gotcha.

And Sacred Hearts facility is beautiful.

Yeah.

So, you know, people don't think
because we're such a small state.

But for it to be decided a state
we have 41 programs.

That's good.

You know.

And they play they play great too,
like they do the frozen been or something.

Right.

So you have what you have
is the beam pot in Boston okay.

Which is therefore which is BC
bu Northeastern and Harvard okay.

But doesn't connect.

Yeah. Can I. Yeah.
So they wanted to kind of start that.

And I think at first it was called
the Connecticut Ice.

I don't know what it's called now.

And they were having it
the mortgage arena in Bridgeport.

But now they kind of because it didn't
really draw that much of attention.

And I think a lot of that
had more to do with advertisement.

Now they they're doing it
more of home and away type of thing.

And I think in the beginning
and I don't quote me on this,

I think the reason why they really
couldn't put it together for a long time

was Yale's being in the Ivy League
something to do with their schedule?

So but it's cool, you know?

I mean, like I said, I think hockey gets
kind of, the short end of the stick here.

But, you know,

to have a small as the state,
it is to have four Division one schools.

We got some pretty good damn hockey. Yeah.

Konrad High School in West Hartford,

they won, I think, two years in a row,
maybe three years in a row. So.

So think about Connor and Hall. Yep.

The program that showed them
and my sons played for that hockey club.

25% of their players go to their.

Those teams are.

It was originally
a club that was out of West Hartford.

So and they go to Bolton.

Yeah. Now they do. Yes.

Crazy.

But things you do for your kids, anything.

You know, they like tennis.

You buy a bunch of tennis balls
and a racket.

My daughter does rifle.

I used to drive her to Wallingford
seven in the morning every Saturday

for four years.

It was great.

Wow. Yeah. And you couldn't chew?

Yeah.

I wish it was for my military career
expert.

No, doc was an expert marksman.

I was just a marksman.

Yeah, and I didn't really mean anything.

Yeah, no, you're right.

You know, it's kind of my

my agreement with my kids.

You know,
you give me 110% and have fun doing it.

I'll find the time.

I'll spend the money, and you stop
giving me 110% and have fun doing it.

I work too hard for my money.

You can play that down the street
somewhere.

I like it so. But they do, you know.

And you know, I don't have any issues,
you know,

keep them busy, keep them off the phone.

That's it, that's it.

Let me shout out some upcoming events.

We have our coming up.

What do we have here?

We have June 14th
Bristol Blues baseball, college kids.

It's like the Cape Cod League in Bristol.

Muzzy field. Babe Ruth played there.

Grape spot.

So June 14th
all you can eat, all you can drink.

Come by to Sunday, May 11th.

It's going to be Hartford Athletic Soccer,
so it's a good time.

1130.

Oh hey. Said that out of the time.

I can't believe I do that.
That's like the fifth time I did that.

July 11th.

July 11th.

I just said that yesterday.
They were correcting me.

I can't be May 11th.

Here I go saying it again.

Mistakes are okay.

Yes. July 11th people

July 18th bus trip to Saratoga.

You ever go to the racetrack?

You should go. I think I went with you.

You've been a bus trip.

Yeah.

Come on.

Remember
we used to put the beer in the ginger ale?

Yeah.

Yes. You were there

because they would check the coolers.

They were like.

The cops were like,
that's a lot of ginger ale.

Yeah, it's only seven, seven coolers

with five, three liters of ginger
ale each.

That's it.
You know, we like our ginger ale outside.

Remember?
We sat outside and watched the race.

Yeah I know,
what do you call it? Oh, yeah. You went.

No way. Yeah, I was there.

We're doing it again.

There you go, Saratoga.

We're bringing it back.

Oh, that's so funny.
You did the race. Yeah.

You know the ginger ale trick? Yeah.

No, the year before, it was BYOB.

Bring bring your own.

But I think my crew may have had a reason
that they changed that rule.

So we brought ginger ale the next year.

Yeah,
they were going to check the coolers.

Yeah. And we had a slip inside with baby.

Well, and the cop came over and goes,
oh, you don't want me to come over

and have to pour out your ginger
ale, do you?

I was like, no, sir.

We'll behave.

Yeah.

Oh that's classic. But anyway, July 18th,

August 14th yard goats game.

You ever been to a Hartford Yard goats?

Oh. They're great.

I was just saying that the other day.
I would love to go to one.

Yeah, there are lots of fun. And then.

Do you golf?

I don't, but I mean,
you know, depends on what it is.

Yeah. It's a scramble.
You could volunteer, hang out.

September 12th.

Fifth annual golf tournament.

We're trying to break records, raise
a lot of money.

It's at Tunks in Farmington. Okay.

Do you have a.

Do you have any buddies
that owned businesses or want a sponsor?

Yeah, I mean, I definitely yeah,
I could ask around for that.

That's that's not that's too easy.

All right. Cool.

And then we got a birdies for charity

fundraising initiative, which I like to
thank you for your generosity

and your thoughtfulness.
You made a nice donation.

So thank you for donating to birdies
I appreciate you.

You're a good friend.

So that's upcoming events.

What about some oh, Louise
lunch was a podcast guest.

165 New Haven.

What your thoughts on Luis lunch?

You said I only been there one time.

You know,

I mean, I know the nostalgic of it, but
I'm not a steamed hamburger type of dude.

But I get I get the whole, you know,
some people swear by it, you know?

What's your favorite restaurant?

Oh. That's tough.

I mean,

you know, I can't really say that because
it all depends on what I want to eat.

Yeah.

You know, every restaurant adds
a little different being in that area.

Obviously, most
you got so many in restaurants, but

to have a favorite restaurant
would be tough to say.

You know,
there's a lot of them that I go to.

I just haven't had a bad meal yet.

You know, I shout out
West Haven, just growing up there,

you know, Oak Beach Duffy's
you know, being being jetties.

So those are a few that you know, I enjoy.

You know, even East
Haven living in the East Haven.

You know,
we go to the Mediterranean Bistro.

Eli's on the hill, which is more bar food,
American Americano,

but so nice.

Were you at one of those spots
you could eat

with four guests
anywhere in the world, dead or alive. Who?

Ye. And went.

Wow. Well,
I'm going to go with obviously the the

you know, that's a great question.

I guess Jesus would be one of them,
obviously.

Elvis, Jesus and Elvis.

Ben Franklin okay.

And.

Boy, it's I would say,

well, it's a it's a great question.

Now I'm going to stick American.

I'll see George Washington,
George Washington, Ben Franklin,

Jesus and Elvis. That's it.

That's pretty American. Yeah.

That's it, that's it.

Got to stay with the American.

They're all for on on money.

Yeah.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

You got any recommendation?
Books, podcasts.

Oh, you talked hockey.
And I want to mention that shirt.

Let's talk about the shirt.

Because you also have
the sticker on your car.

When I pulled up the truck.

This is the hockey club my son belongs to.

Yeah.

And, and again, it's, What's great about
it is most kid is in that too. Yes.

Gotcha. Chandler's kid too?

Yes. Jeez.

What?

What's different
for this particular program

is it's solely based on development.

You know, it's not about outcomes.

You know,
not that those aren't important.

Not that they don't want to teach
winning and losing.

Oh, but this is more about,
you know, getting your kid to be

the best player they could be,
whatever that is, setting that foundation.

And, you know, having them
play at a level when it counts.

And when I say it counts, meaning, you
know, people get caught up all the time.

And a lot of these.

Programs

with in hockey, they use letters or tears
and they get caught up

in these programs where Mike and son
needs to play at this level.

Oh yeah, and that's not necessarily
the case.

And like one of the funniest things
I've seen on our website, which I love,

which basically says,
you know, you being the best player

at ten years old is like being
the smartest person on a community bus.

Nobody cares. Right?

Because it really at that point, it,
you know,

you should just be out there
having fun learning.

And really, that's
that's what I love about the program

the most is that these kids are out there.

They practice two hours,
which is unheard of in hockey.

And they do that because the philosophy
is, how are you going to get better,

more time you're on ice, more time
you're touching upon.

Yeah, you're in a game, you know,
you think about it.

You're in a tournament.

Let's just say

your shifts are a minute.

The hockey game is 15 minute periods.

Maybe.

Maybe you play five minutes out of that
15 minutes.

I'll even give you six minutes.

Right? Six times three is 18.

So you play for 18 minutes
and then 18 minutes.

You played on the ice.

You might have touched the puck
collectively too.

As soon as you get the puck,
usually you're passing it.

Yeah.

Where's the learning in that?

There is not.

You're on the ice for two hours
and you're constantly touching the puck.

That's where you learn. Oh, I like that.

So, you know,
and it keeps getting validated

every time I listen to a podcast

with hockey, every time I listen to a pro
speak or somebody

that's been down there,
they all say the same thing.

So that's time on task. Yeah, yeah.

And I'll tell you what.

You gotta do something 10,000 times
to master it or something crazy like that.

Now and then.

The other thing too, is one thing they
also preach is go play something else.

Don't do hockey all year long.

So and I believe that you want to be
a better player or anything, be a better.

After I shout out relevant.

I just saw this kid. He's the 10th grade.

He was my third grader. Parker.

And my dude, I'm going to show a picture
right here.

I said, Parker, I'll come to your game,
but you promise me three goals.

I go to his game at Veterans Memorial
in West Hartford.

He gives me three goals.

We give up the three sign and third grade.

And I just saw him
for a biology assignment the other day.

We gave up the three.
So I'm going to show those pictures.

My guy Parker.

And then speaking of my guy, you.

Come on baby.

What's up brother.

Holy cow.

How you doing D lock
you either the hair glasses don't.

That's how we do it these days.

Oh, man.

So good. Yo, my dude, how's everything?

Great to see you.

Yeah. No.

I saw you on the podcast.
I was trying to.

Are you still in that band?

So I'm still playing music.

I'm not active with the band

or anything, but I'm working on a set
and everything start playing out again.

I was looking, I was looking for it, and
I was like, oh, man, I'll come see you.

Yeah, there's gonna be some stuff.
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna probably do
some Instagram stuff and post.

Yeah, yeah.

Awesome. Yeah.

And we're back.

Yo de Loc, episode 58

A thousand a thousand views.

He said he's going to beat you.
All right. Do it. Yeah.

All right.

I seen you got somebody else.

Might have beat me already, I know.

Yes, she did, but I'll get it back. Susan?

Susan. Avernus 139.

2000 and counting.

She's crushing.

Shout out Susan. She's a good friend.

Coach, author, teacher, professor.

Amazing person. Susan.

She can cartwheel and she does flips.

She coaches cheerleading.

It's tough to beat. Yeah,
it is tough to beat.

You think singing and playing a guitar
gets you some views.

I got practice coaching,
teaching, wrote a book, two

books, the fabric
amazing book and another coaching book.

So shout out Trinity.

The guitar, though, still still gets you.

Yeah. Where's the guitar, man?

You singing chocolate or what?

No, no, no, I wasn't ready for all that.

We're just happy you're here.

We're sharing memories quickly.

You got some good Stackpole
memories, dude.

He went on a bus trip. That's right.

Which one was that one.

When we snuck in the bear
with the ginger ale,

I want to say that was Belmont.

It was.

What else did you do?

Oh, and we just discovered a small world.

It is close of who I coast with.

Vaccaro vicariate.

Yeah. Coach. Vic? Yeah. No way.
Yeah, coach.

No way. Tell him I said yeah. Yeah.

Is he still in him?
No, he's down in Florida.

Oh, well, there you go. That's great.

Yeah. No,
I coached with him for a couple of years.

And you know, we we we kicked it off
and then come to find out.

I mean, I obviously

I knew you guys already played for Wilby,
but I haven't talked to you in 27 years.

Yeah.

No, he said to me one time

murder was legal.

I would shoot you in the face
nine times or something like that.

I was like, I knew he was, but I was like,
all right, all right, I got I got it.

You can't say that.

No you didn't.

What's wrong with the world
when you can't sell the kid?

That when you can't tell a kid
that we were just talking about.

I said he grabbed your mask.
I forgot what he said.

That was normal.

That's what we were saying about,
you know,

the even with the army today,
you know, you just, you know.

Oh, drill sergeant, sort of best man.

They were amazing.

They were some of the funniest people
I've ever seen in my life.

Oh, yeah.

I remember a guy looked at me in a Feeny.

Me and you were going to be best friends,
and I was like.

And I was like,
oh, that kind of hurt, I felt it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't good

because I was laughing.

My guy was doing push ups,
you know, whole traffic.

He had the vest, and when he got up,
the vest went over his head.

So I'm like, drill sergeant
got right in my face.

Oh, you think it's funny?

Kind of like cheesy.

And I was like, dude, me
and you were going to be best friends.

What else you got for us?

I know you said you had some trivia.

Oh, West Haven trivia.

How's your West Haven trivia?

What's West Haven's nickname?

As far as the what's Haven
is known as that?

Even though it's
the first settled in 1961,

its nickname is Connecticut's first city.

Close, youngest city.

You've heard that before?

Yeah, because they even though
they're been around,

they didn't be incorporated
to like 1939 or something.

That's right.

What was it originally called? West Farms.

Hey, he's killing you, dude.

What was the amusement park? Yo,

what?

College is in West Haven?

He's crushing.

Oh, who attacked

and burned parts of west West
Haven during the Revolutionary War?

Campbell? No.

Campbell is the one that saved the priest.

The British thing. But.

Yeah. Oh, no.

The rumor was always we have Campbell
Avenue, and the rumor was always

that it's the only only street in America

named after the an enemy general.

So supposedly, when they were burning,
you know, the guy

General Campbell saved like the priest?

Yeah, like
that was always like your daughter says.

That was always the war. Lower.

Gotta do the lower.

What are the beaches called in West Haven?

The beaches? Yeah. There's two.

The beaches.

Like West Shore? No. The beaches.

I see a BP beach and a

Bradley Point beach.

Yeah, but that's I don't
I don't want to call it.

That's that's an actual point.

Oh, gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha.

What body of water borders? West Haven.

Long Island sound.

Too easy to easy.

What popular bagel spot?

Started shipping them. Frozen.

Damn.

Yeah, he's connected with that.

What's the connection there?

No, I'm saying I played.

I played Babe Ruth.

That was my team lenders bank.

I actually did some work on their house.

Oh, really?

One of the brothers houses in Woodbridge.

Yeah. I like those bagels. Dope house.

You don't say real artwork
like massive sculptures in the backyard

is great. Oh,

who hosts the oldest Memorial Day parade
in southern Connecticut?

West haven.

Ding ding ding ding.

Got one.

Oh. That's cool. Yeah.

How was your Memorial Day boys?

Play that.

Spectators once you remember spike. Yeah.

You had the biggest deck in town.

It's still.

I think it's something else now.

Yeah, but it's not a scoreboards.

Okay. Yeah, but it's not.

Yeah, that's not the biggest Italian.

Actually, what was pretty cool

is they just built
this new place called Rivas.

And the old chicks remember chicks?

Yeah.

So they knocked that down.

They built this new place, Riva.
And what was.

What's cool
is it really has a beachy feel.

There's an outside.

They got a big bar outside.

They actually.

And might be something
you might want to look into at some point.

They actually have a,

theater,

not a theater,
but, you know, like a place for a band.

Like any theater like you could play.

And then they got like an inside huge TV.

But, you know, you finally sit there
and growing up there.

All my life, West Haven really didn't
have an identity, right?

Back in the day, when Savin Rock
was there, it was a destination, right?

But growing up,
it wasn't a beach town, really.

Because even though it has the longest
stretch of beach in Connecticut,

no one really went there for that
unless you were, like, local.

And even that, you only went

to like three parts of the beach,
you know, one by Bradley Point.

But like I said, Bradley
Point is an actual like Jenny A rocks.

It's not a beach.

There was like the

South Street
and then there was like in between,

but there's like a whole coastline
that doesn't get touched.

So, you know, for them
to actually finally build something.

It's like overlooking the water.

And you can actually sit there
on a Saturday on a beautiful day,

like, say, today,

and just sit there in a chair and like,
look at the water and forget

you're in West Haven and just think like,
wow, this is like Florida esque.

Yeah.

You know, so
they finally are building stuff like that.

But for a long time growing up,
you didn't have that.

You had Jimmy Weapons galley.

Yeah.

Oh, Jimmy's I know Jimmy's. Yeah.

And that's been knocked down for us. Yeah.

You know. Yeah.

I feel like I know more
about Waterbury than you know.

Oh, is a talented.

Yeah. Waterbury.

Every podcast 176 podcast.

We mentioned Waterbury,

the Brass city, the Brass City.

They had brass on the Titanic.

Did they?

Yeah, they had brass on George
Washington's uniform, the buttons,

brass city dime bags
and a chicken wing box.

Yeah, I believe that's called project.

You get 40 at Shorty's.

I went there

one time to watch the Bronx Tale at.

Oh, yeah. Theater.

No, no, there's a smaller one.

Seven angels.

No, but what's there?

The main point is Palace Palace Theater.

And, you know, I.

You know, I think about this stuff,
and I don't know why.

Because I'm an idiot.

But, you know, like,
I look at it and I'm like, man, you know,

stuff like this, like, say, for the town
of Waterbury, like the parking stinks.

There's really no good
restaurants in the area.

And I'm like,
you got this old school theater and,

you know, but it almost makes it

on, you
know, like, you don't even want to go,

and it's like you got something like this
build around it.

I went to the palace recently.

I saw the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra,
played with Andrew Bird.

It was phenomenal.

Yeah, they were known as having the best

sound for, like, people that host music.

Like my dad hung out in the street
when rolling Stone,

you probably have stories

like the sound was so good,
the acoustics, you heard it from

the street,
people were partying in the streets.

And this was when, you know, like,
what's his name?

Who's the kid? That one.

Nick Friday.

He was, like, playing like,

one of those, and.

But like I said, it's like,

man, you got this beautiful theater
and you guys are doing nothing with it.

And I say, you guys, I mean Waterbury.

Yeah. And, you know, and then you.

And it's like,
why wouldn't you try to revitalize this

with all the other nonsense
in The Peripheral?

And, you know,
they had nothing, and the parking

stinks like,
you know, the traffic is just disgusting.

Yeah.

You know, like, I mean, you know,
I guess when it was built,

maybe Waterbury wasn't what Waterbury was,
but still, you know.

Yeah. Tell us how you really feel.

No, no, no.

So, seriously,
which one's better? Waterbury?

What's what's haven?
Let's do a Venn diagram.

Similarities. Differences. Ready? Go.

And then we gotta wrap it up.

I would I couldn't speak for West

Haven today,
but I could say when I was growing up.

West Haven. Hands down, kid
audience. Right.

Get out of here.

False. And I and I see that.

What regards, though.

I don't know, we don't know. Okay, okay.

Just proud just because of,
it was more community oriented,

you know, like, there was a pride in West
Haven that you can almost, touch.

Right? It was tangible.

There was generation after generation,
and people took a lot of pride in it.

I know it's a lot different. It's.

Waterbury is a bigger town. Yeah.

So who won that football game?

Dylan, remember? West Haven beat us? No.

Didn't we? Will we beat them?

Yeah, that was when I was not playing
sophomores under freshman.

Oh, so he was part of the 5214 beat
that probably.

Yeah.

If he was quarterback.

Definitely.

I'm kidding I think you were quarterback.

No no I wasn't that one.

I was that one.

I was on the sidelines.

I saw the film with the one
that we one coach like that one.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well we had that conversation.

Coach V talks about that forever.

Well it's also because at the time
but a well deserved.

Yeah. Winningest coach.

And you know, if you were able to coach

like be a coach like he is and know
football, it was pretty easy to beat him.

People don't realize that we just had a
we had enough athletes to make it right.

So you can call the long play, but
if I'm faster than you around the corner.

Yeah.

All of a sudden it looks right. Yeah.

This guy looks like a genius. No.

Not really.

It's just that, you know,
we got a guy that runs a 42.

You got to run a five flat running around.

Exactly. I was talking about feeding. Oh,

I ran a five flat for sure.

Yeah,
it wasn't much better. What position was.

Yo, doc, tell him how you done
the two point conversion.

Tell him d tell him
I scored a two point conversion.

Yeah, I held that ball.

Coach Chesky, we mentioned earlier Kennedy

High School field by Chase Park isn't it.

Was like three quarters. Yeah it was.

Well I actually rained on my parade,
caught this touchdown,

ran to the sideline like they were going
to put it in the bin like Emmitt Smith.

And keep it for me.

Coach
Chesky goes Feeney what are you doing.

They got to kick off with that. Get
get out of here.

I was like this

I was like
it was the greatest moment of my life.

I was going to say it was freshman game.

Who are you guys playing?

Basic Kennedy will be Kennedy. Kennedy.

Well, yeah. Yeah.

Let's
get a quick selfie with the crew here.

Vlog.

Put it right here.

Bam. Selfie.

Was that was that your guys rival
or Crosby.

Sacred heart sacred
heart was the Thanksgiving day.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And then that closed down, right?

That's no longer. Yep.

And you guys are old,

I remember that.

So good. We gotta wrap it up.

So we talked military, caught up
my guy de lock.

Check out episode 58.

What do you think about deal?
What do you think?

Is he going to beat your views or what?

I mean, I'm already beat,
so put my numbers.

Let's go.

Stackpole is amazing to catch up with you.

27 years and we caught up like day one.

Like we like right where we left off.

That's what being a good friend is about.

We talk about being a good friend
and that military bond stay as true.

And I can't thank you guys enough.

And he closing remarks.

Yeah, man, I feel like I caught
a two point conversion today.

That good.

I'm going
to throw this one in the bin buddy.

Yeah they ain't kicking this one off.

That's right. That was very cool.

And thank you
for what you do with the kids.

And this is awesome.

You know it's awesome
all the stuff you do.

And hopefully
that could be a bigger part of it.

Besides the donation. Yeah.

Make one of your you know, I would love to
do the Argos game, but hey, you know,

golf is never out of the question,
especially since there's drinks involved.

Yeah. Playing.

Yeah.
Well yeah I got displayed every year.

Unfortunately you cannot.

Unfortunately, it's the wrong word.

My sons plays hockey, so I try not to.

You only get this time around once,
so I try not to miss the games

if I don't have to.

I mean, obviously, for something
like this, it's for a great cause.

It's not just to hang out, but,
you know, like I said,

you know, as soon as it's going to be over
and I'm never going to be

at that time back.

So I'm with you.
I'm with you now. So good.

So good to talk with you.
This is Feeney Talks with friends.

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My guys a good friend on three
we're going to say be a good friend one,

two three be a good friend.

friends.

A free day.

Hey!