That's your attention now, don't I?

This is the Black Rifle Coffee podcast.

Prepare to get caffeinated.

All right. Welcome to another episode of Free Range American. Have someone I've been trying to hunt down for quite a few years, actually. Mr. Dan Schilling. Thanks for having me, J.T. Good to be here. Combat controller. Yep. We'll get into that. Your son has worked for us for a long time. Yeah, actually, he's been with you guys for a while.

He does your coding. He's a back-in guy, and he runs a lot of that stuff. He loves working there.

Built a few of the sets, done a lot of engineering when it comes to audio and kind of wiring podcasts and stuff like that.

And he's worked for some of your other indictable convicts like Jeff Kirkham

and doing stuff like that for, you know, Ready Man, some of those other places that it all swirls

around each other in my experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's kick it off right in the beginning. When,

when did you come in the Air Force and why did you pick the Air Force? Let's let's start there.

I picked the Air Force because I was stupid. And the reason I was stupid was I joined the Army first. So I was a paratrooper grant. Most people don't know that that's how I started my career, humping a 60 and a ruck. And I dug it. I was in a Pathfinder platoon. It was cool. What unit? It was a 79th Infantry. it was a pathbinder platoon. Oh, okay. But I went TDIWI with some combat controllers. And this is in the 80s. I'd never seen night vision goggles. They were landing blackout planes from the eighth SOS out in the mountains. And they were talking about, hey, we're Halo and Scooba. I'm like, what the hell are you guys?

And this guy, Pete Neal, he's dead now, but he's got me into comic control. He's like, well, we get Halo Pay, Scuba Pay and we get Pro Pay. I was like, Pro Pay. I'm a corporal in the Army. I'm like, what is pro pay? And he said, that's cool guy pay. And I went, Halo Scuba and I want Cool Guy Pay. I need to be that guy.

I need to be paid for being cool.

And so I actually ended up getting out of the Army and got into the Air Force and Halo scuba and I like cool guy pay. I need to be that guy. I need to be paid for being cool.

And so I actually ended up getting out of the Army and got into the Air Force and the rest of history.

I became a combat controller and loved my job.

What was the process like then?

You doing a branch transfer?

Do you have to exit the Army or did they let you?

So what I did was, I was in the Army contract. I went and found an Air Force recruiter and I talked about combat control. And this is at the time, you couldn't even enlist for combat control. Here's how you get in to the Air Force. Same thing. When I came in, you still couldn't get a contract for these things. No, you just had to try out. And then if you didn't make it, you're going to be a cook or something else.

And or Molan's, whatever the Air Force needs. you still couldn't get a contract for these things. No, you just have to try out. And then if you didn't make it, you're going to be a cook or something else.

Or Molans, whatever the Air Force needs.

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