Hi, everybody. Welcome to Smarter News. And before we jump into this conversation today that I'm super excited about, I just want to give you a little bit of background as to how this all came together. As a journalist, sometimes you stumble into interviews, you know, through really heavy investigative reporting and research.

And other times, you're just doom scrolling on Instagram, which is exactly what I was doing just a few days ago.

When I came across something really cool, it's a new weighted vest for women.

And it was created by this company, Go Rockuck, and we're going to dig into all

this, I promise. But let me just untangle this little part. So this new weighted vest for women,

that's part of this company that really was the pioneer for bringing rucking to the mainstream,

it's called the Spy Ruck. And it's called the Spy R ruck because one of the co-founders of the company

is a spy she's our guest today i'm not going to keep it a secret and her other uh co-founder

happens to be her husband who also served this country and so this is a veteran's own company and there's so of this story. And I thought, man, this is going to be such a great interview. I've got to reach out to Emily and get a little bit of her background as a spy, learn a little bit about this weighted vest because it's totally in vogue right now. And I'm excited about it. And you know what? Maybe we can do this interview, air this interview around around Veterans Day, right? That sounds good, right? It's Veterans Own Company. Veterans Day. Jason McCarthy, the co-founder of the company, served as the U.S. Army Special Forces Green Bray, and Emily McCarthy, the other co-founder, was a spy. And then I thought to myself, wait a minute,

if for Veterans Day, if you serve the country as a spy, are you included under the umbrella

of Veterans Day? And I found out you're not, which intellectually makes sense, right? Veterans Day is

for the military. But somehow, I just have felt this is unfair. And that's why even more, I wanted Emily McCarthy, the co-founder of Go Rock, a former spy, mom of three, innovator, founder, wife to come and talk to us, particularly on this week, because it only seems fair, Emily.

I felt there was injustice with that. I thought you could serve as a spy in West Africa

and you don't get your own day, Emily, like, that doesn't seem fair. I know you didn't do it for

the recognition, but I was surprised.

Right.

I get that a lot, and I get some people on the side being like, thank you for your service

when that they comes up.

But when it comes down to it, the difference I think is that someone like Jason or your husband or other

veterans, they couldn't have walked away from that contract that contract that contract that

they made. And if they did, they're being AWOL. And I, I, they make it hard to leave when you're in

the agency and other places in the intel community, but it's not impossible.

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