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The Ghost Turd Stories Podcast was born out of a place of grief. Having lost my best friend from the Marine Corps in the early hours of 2023, I realized that this feeling was all too familiar. I wanted to do something, not only for the loss I felt, but for the loss I knew many families were enduring day to day.
We believe that a major way to relieve the stressors of life is to talk, laugh, cry, and share our experiences without fear of offense. We hope to attract veterans and first responders as well as anyone who is interested in knowing more about what itโs like to be in our shoes while we wear or wore those shoes.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Ghost Turd Stories. I'm your host, Troy Gent. Ghost Turd Stories mission is using humorous and challenging stories from veterans and first responders to reduce the burden of families whose veteran or first responder took their own life. Ghost Turd Stories vision is to use humorous and challenging stories to prevent suicide within our ranks.
and reduce the burden of families whose veteran or first responder took their own life. We hope to attract veterans and first responders as well as those interested in knowing more about what it's like to be in our shoes while we wear or wore those shoes.
At Ghost Turd Stories, we tell and write the stories of veterans and first responders for their families and friends. We love storytelling and believe there is nothing more inspiring and nothing that gets people to take action like a great story. Families and friends want to know the sacrifices we made, the services we rendered, and the people we lifted, so they can be inspired and learn about the legacy we left.
Our podcast is the face of our company. But, we want every family, who cares, to know about the experiences their veteran and or first responder went through for them. We interview veterans and first responders, collect pictures, write their stories, and compile them in a book for their families and friends to enjoy.
Often times, it's difficult for us to talk to our loved ones about what we did, saw, and heard. At Ghost Turd Stories, we bridge the gap. For pricing, visit linktr. ee forward slash ghost turd stories and click on the second tab directly under the podcast link called Let Us Write Your Story. That's L I N K E R.
TR E slash G-H-O-S-T-T-U-R-D-S-T-O-R-I-E-S.
All right, welcome back to the Ghost Herd Stories podcast. I'm Rebecca Gents, today's host, and I'm also the editor and publisher of the podcast, as well as Troy Gents daughter. So today we have Troy Gents, and we're going to ask him some more questions about his experience in the Marine Corps, as well as some questions about, um, life outside of his service.
Thanks for doing this again, Rebecca. This will be a lot of fun again. I guess I just want to get started with what are some of the things that frustrated you about the Marine Corps, things that made you go, I don't understand why we do things like this, or this doesn't make any sense to me. I felt trapped morally.
A lot of times I was trying to live a Christian lifestyle, but I was also susceptible to The whims of being a very energetic, rambunctious, kind of a crazy 18 year old, 19 year old kid. The barracks life and then liberty life on the weekends and the evenings. They were very tempting for me So, you know on one hand I thought man, I'd want to stay close to a lifestyle.
That's Healthy morally, but then you got all these guys inviting you to go out drinking or Let's go chase women and that kind of thing. And so there was always a pole in two opposite directions. So that was tough. It took me a while to get used to the sleep deprivation bootcamp. There was a lot, but. We didn't get much sleep in School of Infantry and then I still wasn't used to the sleep deprivation and I always I had this thing in my mind like I have to get eight hours of sleep or not I have to but like I rarely did in the Marine Corps.
That's just, that's just so unrealistic but we flew to Guam for three weeks and then as part of that training we flew to Tinian for a week. So, and Tinian is was the launch point for the The bombers that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan in world war two. And so that's what's significant about the island of Tinian.
We were given the, the order or sorry, the mission to fight against the U S army as insurgents or gorillas in the jungle. And so our platoon commander was a pretty hard charger. He was prior force recon. It was, it was one of the toughest field experiences that I ever had, but it was also. One of the most fun and one of the experiences filled with the most, uh, I'd say chaos and just crazy things happening out of the blue.
And so one night we were tasked with setting up an ambush patrol on this road. We had to truck it through the jungle, our squad. We're gonna set up an ambush on this road so that when the army Platoon hiked by or army company hiked by. We all had blanks, so it was like we had, you know, bop bop bop, it was loud and stuff when you fire.
It was a simulation, but we set up this ambush on this road. We're thinking we don't know when the army unit's gonna walk by, but it might be a couple hours. So the object of an ambush patrol is to patrol and then set up an ambush, but you just a lot of times you don't know when. Or if the enemy is going to come by.
And so it's all based off of intelligence and some speculation. And so we were sitting there, I'm thinking, man, this might take a couple hours to do this because once you do it, then you run like you fire really hard, really heavy, and then you take off running and get back in the jungle. So the enemy can't find you.
I'm sitting there and I'm like, man, I want to go to sleep. And I go to my team leader and I say, Hey, corporal. I was like, I want to go to sleep. He's like, you want to go to sleep? He's like, we're an ambush patrol. What are you talking about? And this guy, he was really, really nice guy. And he wasn't, you know, most corporals would have been like, no, you can't go to sleep because the ambush patrol suck it up, man.
I guess he was a little bit of a people pleaser. And he's like, ah, he's like, yeah, I guess, I guess you can go to sleep. So, you know, in the Marine Corps, especially in the infantry, the Sleep has to come second, like a mission has to come first. So, well, sleep has to come like 10th, you know, not second, but like 10th, right?
Sleep is like one of the least important things in the Marine Corps infantry. But anyway, so that was frustrating to me. And I think soon thereafter I got used to, you know what? I need to get over this cause it's causing me, it was causing me a lot of problems. Just being frustrated and stressed out and so as soon as I learned to stop being stressed out about sleep my situation improved because I just wasn't I just put it out of my mind you know so I just I remember that like so stupid I was so concerned about getting a little bit of sleep and an ambush patrol when it really didn't mean anything it was all based off of my own created torment Of why I needed a certain amount of sleep every night, so.
Before you move on, finish that story, because I, I know the end of the story, but I have a question to ask you about it. Okay, so it has to do with sleep, so I might as well finish it. So the army unit walks by, we light them up with blank ammunition. We have 12 marines just firing at a cyclic rate, so just, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba, just lighting them up, right?
And we do this for I don't know, maybe 30 seconds to a minute. We're just doing this on a cyclic rate, just blowing through as much ammunition as possible on this army unit. Right. And so, and then we just, the squad leader gives a signal. It was a preplanned signal, like a word, maybe like Eagle, Eagle, Eagle, or something like that.
And that tells everybody we're egressing. We're going to get the hell out of there basically. So the code word was given. We all take off. We, uh, we disappear back into the jungle on our way back to our platoons patrol base. We get lost and we can't find our way back. And our squad leader, squad leader says, all right, we're going to, we're going to settle down here until we can get some light.
Cause this is, you know, this is like two in the morning. So it was dark. And, uh, we're going to set up a squad patrol base here. Someone's going to be up on fire watch at all times. We're going to do half hour fire watches each, until we get to the point where we can see and we'll start patrolling back. I think we're going to wake up at 06 or something, that's what time the sun was supposed to, or the nautical twilight, so you can see, you can start seeing where you're walking basically.
The radio operator was actually Jeff Holt, my good friend that took his own life and why this podcast got started. for listening. And our squad leader said, okay, me and me and Holt are going to go on a little recon patrol. You guys set up in this patrol base and we'll be back soon. Crazy hot and the humidity's awful.
So we fall asleep. I'm expecting to be awakened. At some point for Firewatch. And everybody's just crazy blasted tired. We've been in the jungle all week and everything. So we're exhausted, but Next thing I know, the sun's like beating over our heads and I'm like waking up from this Slime of sweat that I've made because I'm, but I was so tired.
I just laid down in the jungle without pulling nothing out. Like we didn't have sleeping bags or nothing. I just laid down and I crashed like that's how tired we were. I laid down dirty, filthy, wet, sweaty on my back, on the jungle floor. And I just crashed immediately. And so the next thing I know, I'm, I'm waking up, the sun's beaten down on me over my head.
I'm like, this isn't right. Because the sun's up almost directly over us and I'm looking around and there's everybody's asleep in the same Position. No one else is awake and I'm like, what's going on? So I start waking everybody up and it's nine o'clock in the morning, right? There's no sign of our squad leader or Jeff We're like, oh crap.
Where's Where's Jeff and worse? Where's the squad leader? So we made our way back to the patrol base And we find the platoon commander and the platoon sergeant, and we're like, Hey, we don't know where, we don't know where the squad leader is and the radio operator, Jeff. We don't know where they're at. And like, oh, yeah, we got a call saying they had been captured and they're being held as POWs by the U.
S. Army. And so, they were held in captivity for a couple more days, I think, until the field operation was over with, or at least another 24 hours or something. So when I've heard that story in the past, I've always wondered if there was some sort of consequence for falling asleep in Tinian, and letting your, part of your squad get captured.
There was no one there to hold us accountable, and the first team leader, I think it was one of the team leaders that actually fell asleep, so I don't, I don't think. You know what, now that I think about it, I think it was one of the, The, uh, machine gunners that was attached to us. So we have a weapons platoon with heavy machine gun, heavier machine guns.
And I think they were like, they were as senior as the team leaders that were with us were. So they were corporals and stuff. And so the members of our squad, our actual squad had been doing what we were supposed to be doing, but then the machine gunner fell asleep. And so it was kind of like the squad leader said he'd be back.
He didn't come back. I guess we appreciate the extra sleep. So let's just make our way back to the platoon. No one asked any questions about the sleep situation. It was all about what happened to him and Jeff. When we got back, we said, Oh yeah, they said they went on a recon patrol. Cause we were lost. And then they got captured and so it was kind of like, oh, we'll just kind of let this float by and no one asked any questions.
Okay. What has been your experience with the VA? I hear a lot of veterans complain about the VA. What has been your personal experience with it? Yeah, I have as little contact with them as possible. I, I go in once in a while to get my checkups and stuff. They call and schedule checkups and things, and I do that.
But I don't take any prescription medications. I don't have any sort of mental health challenges, so I don't need the VA for things like that. The disability rating that I do have is based on a whole bunch of small stuff, and so I don't have I've got some back issues, But I maintain a healthy, as healthy as possible lifestyle as I can.
So my back was stretching and lifting weights and stuff. And so even though I've got those back problems and some knee problems, I stretch a lot and I get massaged as well. And that really helps. So I don't have to go and get anything from the VA necessarily for those things. So I guess I probably wouldn't be, uh, a very accurate judge based on the amount that I go there, but I do have a couple stories in relation to the VA One of my disability ratings is 10 percent for my left nipple.
The reason that is because I had a lump under my nipple when I was enlisted The only leave that I could get is For my honeymoon in the year 2000 when I married your mother was convalescent leave and that's basically leave they give you for some sort of medical condition and my whole battalion was out in the field and I managed to schedule the surgery to get this lump removed from underneath my left nipple.
It was a gynomastia or something like that, and it's basically a little bit of estrogen buildup. Creates a pointy nipple. Kind of had a man boob there for a little while. A little man boob, but So I managed to schedule that, that surgery. It was two days after we got married. So we got married, had a Sunday in St.
George, and then Monday morning They put me under, they cut the nipple out and then that's, I got 10 days of leave. That's how I got my honeymoon. But so I got the man boob cut out and then the doctor said, Oh yeah, that's going to heal up. You'll never be able to see the scar or nothing. Well, I have a permanent scar underneath my left nipple.
And so when I was in the Marine Corps, they tell you document everything that happens to you because you never know if something comes up out later in life and it's documented, then basically the VA will, will pay you for that. So I documented the nipple, documented a whole bunch of other stuff. So when I was getting out of the Marine Corps the second time, I claimed everything that I documented.
I actually have a, an 80 percent VA rating right now, but I get paid 10 percent for that scar underneath the left nipple and I call it the most profitable nipple in history. And when I tell people, yeah, I think when I told mom that for the first time, she says, well, she says it might be, but I don't know, there might be other nipples out there that are more profitable talking about, you know, strippers and stuff.
And the, uh, this is how much I, I care about actually going to the VA. I think it was like a year ago, a year and a half ago, I go to the VA center here. I was supposed to go in there for a checkup or something. I had scheduled a checkup and I see on the window, uh, you're required to wear a mask. And I thought, you've got to be kidding me.
This is 2023 and I still have to wear a mask at the VA. So I walk inside and they say, you have to put on a mask. And I said, I'm not putting on a mask. I am done with the masking. See you later. I said, I'll call back and check in, in the future to see if you're still requiring masks. I'm not coming back until you guys are done with this nonsense.
Then I walked out. So I think, you know, six months later, they weren't using masks anymore, but now I really actually appreciate the VA. I, I'm really grateful for it. And, uh, I have really no complaints about it other than that mask incident. What was raising a family like on base? Uh, it was fun. I mean, we always had pools, really nice pools to go to.
We had a giant theater we could go to movies to for like a dollar a piece. We had a bowling alley. So even though it was 29 Palms, not in the middle of, of the desert, the base itself had plenty of amenities that, Provided activities for us. There's always act different activities going on Easter egg hunts and you know Little League baseball and different things like that.
And so T ball, I remember you played t ball. It was a lot of fun to watch you do that, but the song Jump by von halen. Mm hmm. That song will always remind me of The pool on base. I just I don't know why but I have this memory and it's so vivid of that song Just playing at the pool on base so I always that song and Everybody wants to rule the world will always just take me right back to life on base I have those things too early morning when it's still dark Reminds me of bass.
Certain smells, it'll just shoot me back to bass. It's crazy. A couple situations with Um, with the swimming pools. I think we got kicked out of three swimming pools. Oh yeah. Yeah. The one time I was, I was teaching Emma to swim and she was swimming across the pool and stuff and she kept swallowing pool water and at one point she swam to me and I pulled her up out of the water.
She goes, just burps right in my face, you know, she had swallowed so much pool water and she was. I guess she was two. She was over two years old. And she burps really loud and then she vomits into the pool, right? I'm like, okay. And then I'm like, hey, my daughter vomited in the pool. The pool's closed. They closed the pool down.
๐ I think two other times she pooped in the pool. So they had to, they had to close the pools down. So three times we were the, we were the cause of closing the pools down in the middle of the summer. So, I've been using Isagenix since 2017. These products have made a world of difference in my quality of life, health, energy, muscle definition, strength, and endurance. My bread and butter products have been the Daily Essentials multivitamins with Isagenesis, which is a telomere support supplement, the Isolene meal replacement shake, the tri release protein shake, the collagen, the green drink, and the Cleanse for Life support system.
However, Isagenix has many products and can cater to your unique lifestyle and goals. Click the link in the show notes or visit nmp. isagenix. com. Besides just using the products, there is an option to partner with me and the company to build your own business with no capital up front. You can do as little as pay for your products and as much as making a full time income. I love these products and will use them the rest of my life. For more information, you can email me at ghostturdstories at gmail dot com.
I was asleep one night on base. Mom's sister and her sister's friend were visiting us, and they were downstairs watching TV.
Me and Mom were asleep, you girls were asleep. And Copper starts barking. And he was just having like a dream or something. But I jumped up out of my sleep. I'm like, Let's get him Copper! Let's get him! And I, I started running down the stairs with Copper. Go get him Copper! Go get him! And I'm yelling and Rachel and her friend are sitting there on the couch like, What in the heck is happening right now?
We run between them and the TV. I run out the back door. I'm like, Get him! Get him! Get him! And Copper's like, Burr! Burr! Burr! He's barking. He's running around in circles outside barking. And I'm like, Get him! He's, he's barking at nothing, right? And then I walk back in the house with Copper, and Rachel's just looking at me, and, what are you doing?
I'm like, I, I don't know, and I walked back upstairs and went to sleep. Weird. I don't know what, what was going on there, and then every week on base, living in base housing, there was trash pickup. Everywhere in America, there's trash pickup once a week. And the benefit of trash pickup day is we knew they came at like 10 o'clock or something.
And so you either had the evening before when everybody had already putting out all their trash or the morning before 10, basically we just go on a walk or go on a drive. And then if we saw something that we like, and we weren't the only ones that did this, there was a lot of people that did this, but if we saw something that we, we liked, we would stop, take it out of their trash pile and put it in the back of the car, the van, or carry it home.
And that was one of our favorite things to do is just go find trash. And it's funny because it's transitioned to, I have a business where I clean up trash from people's houses now. So anyway, the most memorable item that What I can remember that we found was a TV. It was like a 10 inch or a 12 inch TV box TV and the screen was crooked.
I do remember that. Yeah. And so you plug it in, you turn it on a VHS on the bottom of it. So that's the TV that you girls had in your room. And so you would watch crooked TV, you'd watch crooked movies and stuff.
It was, uh, I don't know, crooked at the point where it. I guess it would have been, let's see, if it's a normal TV, you're looking, it was crooked to the right, about half the screen of the TV, and so I guess that's what. About a 60 degree angle is what the picture came in on. Like the picture or the movie was still like, it was still a rectangle, but it was like at a diagonal.
So part of the screen was just like the fuzz that you see when the TV isn't connected or there isn't signal. So part of the TV is like just this fuzziness and then the rest is like this slanted rectangle. Yeah. And then. We had that thing forever. I don't know how long, we must have had that TV for years.
We kept that thing, but sometimes you would, you would lay crooked so that it looked like you were actually looking at it straight on. Kind of a thing, you know? You'll like this story because it has to do with you, but Yeah, one time we were all downstairs, me, you, Emma, and Mom, and we were doing something and you started acting up and throwing a fit and I I said, Rebecca, you need to go to your room.
And, uh, you started running upstairs, really angry. And you, you look back at me and you said, dad, you're an ugly man. And then you ran upstairs and then you slam the door behind you. I thought, wow, I was, I was insulted, but I didn't feel insulted. I just felt, uh, Surprised like wow I came out of my five year old daughter.
That was interesting. You probably didn't mean it Oh, yeah in the moment you did, but that's okay Cookie was our cat In virginia, I got used to making these mre heater bombs before I went back in the marine corps but we lived in an apartment complex in uh Safford virginia, it was about 10 miles from the base in quantico, virginia And I don't know if it was a weeknight or a weekend, but for some reason I got this idea that I wanted to make an MRA heater bomb.
It wasn't outta place for me, it was just, it was a stupid idea. 'cause we're lived in an apartment complex with a bunch of Marines anyway, and in U things in Utah, you can do things in Utah that you can't do in, or you know, in Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, just, I call 'em the free states, but. You can do things here.
You can be basically shoot your rifle right outside your back door. And a lot of places, things are just lacks here. An MRA heater bomb. Really doesn't hurt anybody. It's just loud. So basically in every MRE There's a heater that you have to add water to that creates a chemical reaction that creates heat and then you have your MRE Meal inside or on it and it heats it up.
So when you put the the chemicals inside a water bottle And then you put a little water with it, put the top on it, shake it up, it starts to expand the water bottle until the water bottle blows up. And it creates a really loud bang. And so, I got this idea, I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make an MRE heater bomb, girls, you wanna see it?
And you girls were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. You were four, Emma was one, you know, and you're all excited. So we didn't realize a cat was out on the on the patio and so I made the MRE heater bomb I shook it up put it on the table that was out there And then I shut the door and we can watch through this big window that we have we can watch it expand And so we're watching this thing expand and the girls are getting excited.
It's gonna blow up It's gonna blow up any second any second and then Cookie, our cat, emerges out of nowhere. Cause, cause the MRE heater bomb's making a noise already. Cause when the plastic is expanding, it's like pop, pop, pop, right? And so Cookie's getting curious of what's going on. So she gets up on the table and we're like, Oh no, the cat!
And, and mom goes, you got to go get the cat. I was like, it's too late. It's too late. And cookie is literally has her nose sniffing the top of this water bottle and the thing blows up.
And she does like three flips backwards in the air. I don't know if she, like, jumped off the balcony or, I don't know what she did. But, we had a friend downstairs, and I felt, this is, I felt awful about this, because I wasn't even thinking about the impact it would have on other marines in the complex. He runs upstairs, and he's like, Is everything okay?
Everything okay? He, He had been to combat already and he actually ended up going as a platoon commander with another unit to Afghanistan. And they, they had like 25 Marines killed in action in their unit while they were on in Afghanistan. And it was, it was catastrophic for him, but you know, like 300, 300 amputees and things, they just got a bad, bad deal when they went to Afghanistan.
But anyway, He's like, are you okay? You okay? Like what happened? I heard a gunshot. I'm like, oh, I started laughing. I was laughing I was like, oh, yeah Cruz. It was it's fine, man I just made this MRA heater bomb and he was so pissed he was mad and he's like do you have any idea what that did to me and I didn't I didn't until he said that and I felt terrible and he had actually called the police And the police came and we're looking around.
And then when they talked to him, cause he had talked to me before the police got there, he's like, all right, I'm just going to tell the police. There was some kids sitting on firecrackers or something. And so, which saved my butt because I probably would have gotten a lot of trouble. So he, he just told the police to go, Hey, you know, I think I saw some kids running off.
I think they were playing with fireworks and stuff. So the police, they left. So I really appreciate him doing that for me, but when I didn't deserve it, but you know, I felt terrible about that. But the whole. Fiasco with the cat is, oh my gosh, couldn't have worked out any better. Cat was fine. See, I remember that, like I have a memory of that, but it's only of the cat flipping.
Yeah. So. Ha ha ha. So you can't, you don't remember the MRI heater bomb or anything? All I remember of it was like, it was like this mini bomb that you had made. And it was like, you know, safe enough to use on our balcony at the apartment. But I don't remember the buildup or anything. I just remember the cat freaking out.
Marines did it all the time. It wasn't like it was anything out of the ordinary. But some Marines would put the Tabasco sauce that comes in MREs. They would put that in with the water. And so when the water bottle explodes, there's this intense hot pepper smell that envelops people's nostrils and it makes them cough and choke and stuff.
And so there's been stories of Marines that will make these MR heater bombs and throw them in the middle of like a rival squad's bivouac and so it blows up. Then the Marines jump up and they're like choking like, because they got all this Tabasco sauce in their nostrils and stuff. So it's kind of like just a practical joke that, Marines play on each other.
It's a lot of fun, harmless fun. Uh, you know, I guess if you're not done with any post traumatic stress, but we moved to, after I graduated from officer candidate school, I moved the family to across country to Virginia. The most memorable part about moving across country. On that trip was the ice storm that we got caught in, and I'd never been in an ice storm before, I'd heard about them.
But it was just amazing that everything, everything, trees, buildings, cars, everything was covered in like half an inch of ice. And it was like, it looked like the cars were frozen to the ground. I mean, it was cause the ice enveloped the car all the way to the ground. So it looked like they, every car looked like a car sickle.
It was crazy and everything was that way. And so the power went out, we were stuck in this ice storm. I think it was, I guess it was Kansas. Anyway. We couldn't go anywhere. You couldn't travel because the roads were so bad. All the power was out in the area we were in. We had to try to find a hotel. We didn't have any, any hotels that we had booked or anything like that.
And so, we finally found a hotel and we said, Hey, you got a room? We have, we have the suite, the suites left. That's all we got in the top of the hotel, right? So, okay, we'll take it. But the power was out and so, it was a little bit of a cold night inside the hotel. But we had somewhere to stay and be, and it was a refuge for us.
And it was like a hardship that I was able to suffer with my family, but also be a comfort and a, and a rock to them at the same time, or me and mom were able to be that safe Haven for you girls. And it was really quite a unique and special experience because we just kind of huddled together and we were reminded of the most important things in life and that situation.
So that was a pretty neat experience. We had a dog, Salton, and after we got to Virginia, we got to Virginia as a family in December. And in June, we put him to sleep, because he had gotten really, really bad cancer, was retaining water really bad, and so he was just, he was at his end, and the vet said he couldn't really do anything for him.
So we had to put Salton down, he was our favorite dog, and well, He was me and mom's favorite dog through our lives. So he was the first dog we'd gotten together and he became actually our favorite dog. So we're trying to get a new dog. For some reason I want to think that we We're able to like rent dogs kind of a thing.
We're like, Oh yeah, we don't want this dog or foster the dog. I guess you can do that.
So I think we fostered a rent.
Rent. New business idea. Yeah. I think we fostered a couple different dogs, but the one that stands out, the only one I can remember that we fostered was a dog named Sammy. And Sammy was way too insecure to live with someone like me, right? And so, she, I don't think she liked me from the second she saw me.
Like, she was like, I do not like you. And I didn't like her at all. But mom really liked her and wanted to try it, you know, keep her and she, I mean, she was crazy reactive too. So she would just spaz out and, and claw and scratch to try to get outside or get away from something. Right. So I don't necessarily remember what happened.
We were in our apartment. Something happened. I think she scratched your girls or something. She was freaking out. I think I smacked her butt a few times. I got angry with her. And I was yelling at her, and I put her out on the same porch that, you know, Cookie got the MRE heater bomb blown up in her face. I put her on that porch, and it was a second story, but it was a really tall second story.
Like, I don't know, close to 20 feet, kind of a second story. Plus we had about a five foot wall that prevents things from falling over off of our balcony. So I put her out there and my mom was gone and I think I was putting you girls to bed and I heard this. I heard this. Yipe. What was that? And then I went and checked and Sammy wasn't on the porch anymore.
And I looked down below. She was, Oh, that's what happened. And so I think I saw her trying to like limp away somewhere and I was like, Sammy! And I yelled at her and I ran downstairs to go get her and she just trucked it. She like trucked it into the forest. I'm out of here. I'm never coming back kind of a thing, right?
So I'm like, I'm not chasing after her. Plus I can't even get close enough to her to grab her anyway. She's just, she's so Terrified of me that she doesn't want anything to do with me, so she's gonna keep her distance. I'm not gonna catch her I let it go when mom got home. I told her I think she went out and called for and then the next morning I think she called for again and found her somehow we found Sammy But she had she had a broken foot because when she she jumped off that balcony and broke her foot in the process But a couple days later mom had brought you girls and Sammy on bass to see me for lunch.
And I was really having a hard time, uh, with my temper and stuff. And at one point Sammy jumped over the seat and just started clawing a living crud out of Emma while Emma was stuck in her, her car seat. And I got angry and I started, started smacking Sammy and yelling at her and. And she took off into the forest again, and that was that.
That's the last time we saw her. She was like, I'm outta here, so Good old Sammy. She'll always have a place in I wouldn't say a place in my heart, but a place in my mind, I guess. ๐ Yeah, she'll always be a memory. She'll always be a memory. Well, I say that we continue this conversation. I'd like to ask you some more questions about Your business outside of the service and then things that you've applied from the Marine Corps into your civilian life. Thank you for listening. Please tell your friends and family so that we can bring more joy and awareness to those struggling with suicide ideation and the families who desperately need help after the loss of someone they love to suicide.