Hi, my name is Eric Ez.

I initially started in the Marine Corps and then ended up retiring in the Army.

In the Marine Corps, I was with, uh, eighth Tow Company, fourth Anglo, and, uh, 3 23 State to Toon.

And in the Army I actually spent, uh, only in two units.

I was, uh, seven Special Forces Group and an Army Special Missions unit under United States Special Operations Command.

Yeah, I went to, uh, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, and then, uh, in the G Watt did Afghanistan, Iraq.

Um, in several other countries throughout Asia and the Middle East that unfortunately can't disclose.

I came in in, uh, 1991 and retired in October, 2020.

So I'm actually a student, so I'm a, uh, PhD student.

And, uh, I just got back into, uh, cybersecurity computer role.

Yeah, my PhD is in, uh, cyber psychology.

So I'm actually, uh, studying the cognitive impacts of high assurance.

Work, for example, cyber operations, uh, and intelligence professionals.

Yeah, my family didn't have much of service.

All I knew is that, uh, my biological father in Cuba served in the, in the police.

And then my ultimately became like a father figure.

He had served, uh, in the government, uh, and in the military.

I joined 'cause I wanted to give back to the country that, uh, welcomed my family from Cuba with open arms.

And so I wanted to transition from my family into a new family.

And that's what the Marine Corps, um, presented to me.

I think what I would've thought that I would've gotten out of the service was the discipline.

The, the becoming part of something bigger.

Uh, and in particular joining the Marine Corps.

Um, the way I was recruited and the way that they were recruiting in Miami, that was very influential.

I needed to get off the streets of Miami.

Um, 'cause at that time it was few options and I didn't like those options.

So, uh, I wanted to serve.

It taught me humility and that you got to continuously work on, uh, on those skills you learned in training.

Um, you know, you can take all the courses you want, but if you don't stay on top of it, it doesn't mean anything.

And in particular when you need to access, uh, that training in that experience, uh, that that's what that's meant to me.

I thought about taking a life, uh, and particularly it was interesting.

Uh, when I served as a marine sniper in the mid 1990s, right, this, there wasn't the global War on terrorism, and I was supporting what's called Joint Task Force six.

It's a counter drug operation in the mountains of California.

And remembering having to look through my sniper rifle, uh, while protecting police officers or law enforcement officers that were getting ready to raid, um, a, a site.

And so that feeling of what that would be like, um, was pretty daunting at that time.

I never wanna say it's part of the job.

Right.

Um, and, and in particular, I think the hardest one is more of that mixture mixed in with the intelligence side.

Uh, and sometimes it's either pulling the trigger or you the one that ordered eyes on the kinetic strike.

And unfortunately, a, a kinetic strike that takes out several houses.

Um, for a group of hts there's collateral damage and that's the hardest thing to process.

Uh, it's one thing taking salmon life with your hands or, or with your own rifle.

Um, than to to order, than kinetic a kinetic strike.

That's, uh, that's harder.

But that then was the part about killing or the defending yourself and it just kind of faded into all of it.

And two days later you're just, you're back to work.

Um, it's taken 15, 16 years later to actually start to unpack that.

You reflect more on them when you see movies, right?

So you see either the drone operators or you see, uh, four tomahawks, you know, uh, leaving, being launched from a sub.

Um, and once you see that and you replay back that, you were that person that developed that target package you had eyes on and you ordered it, you saw it, and you just then left the area.

Uh, and you, when you went on to the next mission, that never really leaves you.

'cause it isn't a video game.

Um, it is the reality of what you ordered.

Um, and for all intents and purposes, um, you gather the intelligence, you processed it, someone else made the final decision, but you were the catalyst that took those lives.

Yeah, actually the funniest one was my mother-in-law.

They just asked, Hey.

Have you killed anybody?

Uh, you could kind of sum it up to loss in translation.

Uh, mother-in-laws from Brazil.

So that one stumped me.

That was probably the, the one time I didn't have a straight answer.

At least 10 times I thought I was gonna die.

The most impactful event was, uh, being a singleton, um, operating for a, a couple of weeks, uh, in the Middle East.

Where there was an emerging threat, uh, in particular on Americans, and the lights went off in the city and that was, uh, I thought I was done.

Um, and that's led to.

Fears that I've had into the future of, of staying in a hotel, um, having to sleep with a pistol at, at my site.

But you know what, that was early on.

It wasn't a combat zone.

It just was something that we stumbled across.

And small scrimmage, I think the harder ones were when, you know, you, you're going into danger.

When you're going into these, uh, these non permissive environments, you are working at a different level than in uniform.

And the risks are higher, not only for your health, uh, but politically, right.

What happens if you get captured?

Those are the harder ones because that's when the mind doesn't stop worrying about getting compromised, which sometimes.

You know, you, you rather, you rather unfortunately, almost die than, than get compromised and, uh, and fell in a mission.

Yeah.

The way I processed it, the, the combat ones were essentially easier because, you know, you're there, you know, you're patrolling on the streets of Ramadi or you're in, in Kabul and you're in a, in a dangerous situation.

So essentially you're in the, you're in the red, right?

So your adrenaline's going, you know, you're, you're, you're situationally aware.

The more dangerous one are the non permissive environments.

I think it was, unfortunately, you, you, you know, it was part of the job, uh, it was part of the cycle and at some point I lost track of, of what that meant.

Um, with all of these years of in and out coming home, you know, that fight flight syndrome and never reset.

So I was always.

In the fight until I retired, and then I started to process what those events were and what my life was like and how it impacted my family.

Yeah, so I'd say with regards to post-traumatic stress and, uh, I don't use the D word 'cause I don't think it's a, it's a disorder.

Um, for me, the most impactful ones with my post-traumatic stress was doing singleton operations, where I thought.

I was gonna get compromised, um, by myself.

Um, that has led to in years learning to stay in a hotel to, um, and that was really hard, right?

And, and, and that was also associated, um, with drinking yourself to sleep and not realizing that.

Operationally, I was so round up, so worried about being compromised and continuing to do the mission, um, that that would impact me and my family for a decade to come.

And so when it comes to post-traumatic stress, sort of an injury, um, they're healable.

And so Pandora's boxers for me was essentially, you know, it's a vanilla folder where when you came back from a trip.

Especially in the military, you have to fill out a travel voucher, right?

You fill out your travel voucher, uh, you put all your documents.

Um, but for me, and for many, you put all the emotions, the fear, um, that came with that operation, and you put it in a folder and you put it back in the safe and essentially you build this Pandora's box, right?

For me, it was going to therapy at the National Intrepid Center of for traumatic brain injury, where I had to start talking about.

20 years of operations that were all always packaged into these little folders into my Pandora's box.

And obviously when you start to open, then comes all those feelings that you would neatly tuck away and put away after a mission.

But at the end, after the, my two friends died by suicide, that box opened quickly and all of those feelings and fears came out.

It is taken roughly about three years to get the post-traumatic stress on the control.

But the last two years have been nothing but working on it con, continuously, uh, and maintaining therapy to the point where I can go back to all of the triggers and go have, how do I feel about them?

How will I process them, and more importantly, how have I shared them with my spouse to understand.

Um, what was in these Pandora boxes and how it affected us every time I came home.

I think it'll always be part of my life, but it will not be a shaping factor in my life.

It's helping define my purpose so others don't suffer.

I've been very fortunate, um, to be very resilient as a child and as a, just a, as an individual.

So once I learned what post-traumatic stress was.

How to understand it, how to process it, how to talk about it.

All it would be is just another experience in my life, um, that I've used to gain insight and that now I can share with others.

Time away from home and deployments and training, um, is not as bad as it even was with where my mind was, where my focus was.

So I probably spent out of every year, maybe half the year.

Physically gone.

I submitted and finally understood that I really came home on TDY and I went forward to go home.

That was my last 20 years.

Um, was.

Always gone.

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Some of you may be struggling with things today that weren't there before you deployed, or maybe you're noticing this in a loved one, a spouse, a son, a daughter who went down range and came back.

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And now back to this episode, how present was I when I was home?

I will tell you, my wife would probably say that I.

I really wasn't, that became really impactful.

Um, once I started to go through photos and I would look at those photos, uh, of me, of my dog, me of my, my wife and kid.

And at that moment I probably knew what I was thinking about.

I knew I was trying to solve a problem or I was preparing for the next deployment, or I would go on a road trip or go to dinner and I'm still doing an SDR in my mind, right?

Uh, you, it never stopped.

This actually leads to some of the work that I'm doing with cognitive fatigue, right?

It isn't only the physical damages, but it's also the mental, the, you know, the cognitive workload that we were constantly involved in.

Unfortunately, you know, as human beings, we can only process so much, and what we don't realize, especially in the last 20 years of the global war on tourism between post-traumatic stress.

Um, traumatic brain injuries, physical injuries, you start losing cognitive bandwidth and who actually takes the toll is your family.

'cause unfortunately, as service members, we prioritize our service before even ourselves are a family.

And that's a reality you really don't understand till you retire.

And then you have those long conversations with your family about where were you these last 20 years?

Not on deployments, but where were you when you were home?

Secondly, it is a way to and somewhat leave a piece of history, not only mine, but those that I served with and the organization I came from.

Um, and lastly, you know, as a, as a, uh, as an immigrant who came to this country, uh, showcasing that what we can do, um, when we put our minds into it and we come and we serve, um, that we have those opportunities.

I mean, I joined from Hialeah, Miami, Florida.

I just knew about Cuban.

Right.

And Cuban Americans.

And when I went into the military, I met people from all walks of life.

Um, and in 1991, you know, they all had different reasons for joining.

And I missed that.

I missed understanding why people joined, why they served, where they came from, um, what was their backgrounds.

Uh, that's, that's one of the key things that I miss, is the people.

Uh, and when you first meet 'em and you just understand, wow, you know.

Where'd you come from?

And, and, and I love the reason why you served.

You know, there, there was definitely a balance between ultimately being a Marine, uh, focused in infantry, moving into the army.

Um, and then right away going into military intelligence, of which it was a position I really wanted to do.

I liked intelligence and, and I wanted to carry it on forward.

So the balance was that at the end I knew I was an intelligence professional, even though I ended up becoming.

A special operator.

But, uh, there was a lot about intelligence that I loved.

I loved the clandestine operations.

I loved, I started off as a, a signals intelligence, moved on to do human intelligence, then ended up, you know, specializing in computer network operations.

So intelligence was always what I did and I never forgot about it.

Um, even though I did have a role as a special operator, but it was focused on leveraging, uh, and harnessing, uh, intelligence.

So one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do is prosecute or, or work, um, a target set for, for over a year.

Um, and that was, um, mixed in with other events that were going on.

And so that was just continuously trying to work.

Uh, the problem from state side.

And then working it, um, in country.

And they worked it on the ground for months till we achieved the goal all the way till the cell where you're still trying to get more information.

Um, that was, that was, uh, that was tough.

So one of the most courageous things that I, uh, I've seen someone do is, um, is go into some really bad environments by themselves.

Right.

Um.

They identified, and this is with regards to hostage rescues, someone that determined that they can get close to what, where we needed them to be and got the approval and went into some really hairy situations just to be knowing that what they were gonna do was in hopes, um, that we can get closer to rescuing, um, Americans that had been, uh, captured.

It's a unique tribe based on your experiences, your trust, um, what you've been prepared to do.

The mindset, um, and in particular the folks that I worked with, right?

The, um, those veterans, we shared a life.

We've seen losses of friends, we've seen, uh, marriages go bad.

Uh, we've seen folks deal with, um, alcohol and drug abuse.

Um, I think that's what that veteran.

Connection is about is you went through the sock together, you were essentially ready to, you know, give your life for them.

And it's maintaining that connection, uh, even post uh, service.

Oh wow.

I've had so many, so many interesting, fun times.

I think it's just 'cause we always have a sense of humor.

Training, some of the trade craft training.

It's just some of the stuff that you do and you turn a corner and boom, there's the person you were surveilling.

You're like, Hey, how's it going?

Right?

Like you're like, you can't make that crap up.

Or some of the other things that are, again, you know, to the level of the mistakes that we made.

While you're doing some of these super cool things and you just kind of laugh it out, fix it up, and you keep on going and you go back and you're like, dude, you almost screwed the whole mission up.

Right?

But I think that's the sense of humor of all of it.

So that was one of the neat things and aspects of sort of the, the line of work that I did is, um, that ability to really, uh, simulate, uh, the cultures and the language all the way from, uh, the food, the music, the dress.

Um, so I ate what the locals ate, right?

So one in Rome be like the Romans from chicken and rice and uh, you know, the mountains of, of Afghanistan.

Uh, to funky stuff that you ate in Africa?

Um, I've had to eat it, um, sometimes because you.

Had to go to a certain restaurant because that was advantageous.

And so when you're there, you need to eat the local food or you didn't speak it.

So eating was always interesting.

Uh, what kind of food you ate?

Um, I always looked for a Cuban restaurant everywhere I went, but sometimes I couldn't find them.

Uh, so I've eaten things that I don't even want to think about.

I don't think I ever ate an MRE when I was in the, in the army necessarily, but it was in the Marines and it was always a shitty environment.

All of a sudden, I'm eating this.

Stuff in a package, and again, it was always cold, it was always frozen.

I never got, I never really figured out how to eat 'em, uh, because then you would compromise your position, so you had to eat it cold.

Uh, I think my best one was probably the spaghetti.

Uh, but beyond that, uh, yeah, those things sucked.

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And now back to this episode at the point of my life right now, post three decades in the military.

And in my age, I'm actually counting backwards and this is kind of morbid to when I potentially would die.

And that's the time that I have right now, um, for my son and my, and my family and my wife to work backwards because I never thought about time in death while I was in combat.

I think about that more now because the ti it's the time that I have left and with the scars and injuries from my time in service and how do I heal and grow.

In order to spend every single minute in time, um, with my family, um, and continue to be a veteran advocate, we have the response that we would go back because of the reason we joined, we wanted to serve right?

For many reasons.

I think today, many of us would say, I'd say, you know, I would take my lessons learned, um, and apply 'em from the beginning.

So I can be much more efficient.

I can last longer, I can take care of my family.

I can avoid as best as possible, those suicides, combat losses, that's different.

But with regards to as an individual, the family, and then unfortunately the suicides associated with that service.

But I would absolutely go back.

Um, but with those lessons learned discipline, right?

So from time in service, I learned, uh, discipline commitment.

Appreciate, uh, those that I've worked with, that, that, that brotherhood.

Uh, but that's something that's been really important to me and which I'm doing now, right?

I joined the military.

I continue to focus on education and I'm doing that today, um, which is what we do as military people.

That's why we have lessons learned.

We learn from our mistakes.

We are going to make mistakes.

We take those mistakes, and then we adjust and we keep on going forward.