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Hey, what's going on? Welcome to software, radio. This is rad. I am your host today, and I have a very special guest, and we're going to have a very cool conversation.

Ricardo Perez, U.S. Army sniper, did to Afghanistan, author, writing a book, has something to talk about with that.

And I want to welcome you to software, radio. Welcome, Ricardo. Welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Thanks for having me, rad. A little bit about myself. Like you said, I was served as a sniper and a striker brigade in the U.S. Army from 2006 to 2010.

And yeah, you know, just did my four and a half years contract, my required time, got out and really just started my academic journey to where I'm at today as a research scientist at the University of Washington, virology, where I work on the end of the team and the NGS sense for next generation sequencing.

So I work on a team that helps sequence COVID for the variants here in Washington state. We do a large portion of of that work. And yeah, I mean, we, you know, get samples from all over study samples from different companies like Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, and, you know, we just work hard with all kind, not just COVID, you know, there's a bunch of different viruses.

There's a big HPV project going on an avian flu or the avian birth flu is going on here in Utah currently. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's going on. They're saying if you have, you know, chickens in your backyard, because there are people around here who do to be cautious of where you're going to get it. Like you're going to a park and there's ducks.

Yeah, I mean, but I'm just blown away, first of all, okay, because not only are you on the front lines as a sniper, you're on the front lines sniping COVID, you're trying to like, yeah, you just, you're pretty strange realizations being at the tip of the spear on kind of different arrows, you know.

But right, I mean, you're just so that seems very selfless. Now let me ask you something. Did your recruiter tell you the truth about joining the military?

No, I didn't get your bonus. I joined in 2006. So this was still with a time when recruiters had quotas. They had to meet. I think the army dropped that in 2009, maybe. So yeah, yeah.

Because there was a lot of there's still fighting to a side because of that stuff. So yeah, no, I'm, well, you know, a lot of guys I served with recruiters, you know, one of them just finished recruiting duty and retired from it.

So yeah, it's definitely some crazy, craziness that they got to deal with. And I couldn't imagine before when you actually had like quotas, you had to meet.

Like you had to like, hey, get us, get us bodies. Now let me ask you regarding, you know, going through sniper training, you have to be airborne, right?

No, I don't think you have to be, I don't think so. You might have to be though.

Or did you go through that? Yeah, I did airborne school as well right after basic training.

Oh, so you went to, did you go 11 Bravo infantry? Is that the course that you selected?

Yeah, I did. It's 11 X rang, you know, you end up 11 or 11 Charlie in basic training and 11 Charlie are the mortar men.

Oh, cool, cool. And so, so yeah, I signed up 11 X ended up 11 Bravo. And mostly because I signed up with Ranger in my contract, because I wanted to go to Ranger school.

You know, it's just trying to be super cool, right? I wanted to sign up and airborne school, Ranger school.

And, and then, you know, eventually try out for special forces.

And, and so when I signed up for Ranger in my contract, I'm thinking Ranger school.

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