Tom, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate you. Love it. Thank you for having me.

So now you have a what do you call it, pro shop, retail side of equals and angels and southern ponds, right?

Yep. We open up a retail shop right down southern ponds on Pennsylvania and broad. So it's it's no

kidding, probably the very center of downtown southern ponds. You're retired out of that area and then

you set up shop and I noticed there's like obviously two kinds of people. One who I'm like out like I'm

done with the military. I don't want to be around it. I don't want to be Joe. I was kind of a

similar boat, but I finished my time in 10th group and 19th group and was on the west coast. But you

settled and set up shop in your backyard. I mean, that's where you probably were probably in the same

house. Yeah. So so when I retired out of the building, I went and actually moved to a rally for

about a year just because of what you just said. It's like, okay, I want to disconnect from that.

And I was traveling a lot. So I was closer to an airport and I was doing consulting and I was with

a company that wanted me to travel. So I'm like, all right, let me let me go to rally. Let me kind of

get away from the backyard, if you will. That didn't work out so well for me because I missed

the people, the conversations, right? Because once I went to rally, it was such a disconnect. They

didn't military to them was, I don't want to say nothing. It's just there's no one to talk

super fun. And at the same time, you're trying to do your civilian now. So what kind of conversations

am I going to have with these folks that they would truly understand, especially in 2008?

Yeah. Hiring then and going, these guys are like, oh, the war, the war is so fresh to a lot of people.

So after a year and I moved back and I stayed in Southern Pines. Yeah. Let's talk about your,

before we get to Eagles and Angels, which is a prime piece of the conversation because I want people

to be educated and understand the love and attention that you put into it. Let's talk about your

upbringing and military history. Where'd you grow up and then what was the kind of segue or the

...