In 2019, September, I was coming back from a trip from Milan with a client.

And it was probably like, I don't know, four to five months previously, I had a little bit of a pain in my hip. I was like, ah, that's nothing. It's probably a sports injury. I was doing Jitsu every day. I was like, 230 pounds. I was lifting all the time. I was like, really fit. And I was like, I probably tore something in my labor. because a lot of my friends from the early days in Iraq have been getting sick, you know,

I got an MRI out of pocket. I was like, I probably tore something in my labrum. Because a lot of my friends from the early days in Iraq, I've been getting sick.

You know, I got an MRI out of pocket.

And the radiologist called me within a half an hour.

He's like, hey, bro, I've been doing this 25 to 30 years.

I have never seen this before.

Yeah. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be. You know, one night, John goes on the business trip, he goes to, I think it was Sofax.

It's a special operation exhibition where defense companies come in in Amon, jordan and they showcase their wares for military groups from around the world it's a very big show

and this is 2011 it's 2010 okay so it was like may i think it was so he'd been over there for a day or two, and we had other guys in our company.

It was called Indigent Armor.

We had several people that I had worked with in the past, some from GRS.

We had some guys from the SEAL community, and they're all very reliable people.

So my phone rings about 3 o'clock in the morning and i pick it up and it was another uh business owner and uh he was p patched around on i said

hey what's going on bro it's like 3 30 in the morning i knew it was bad and he's's like, you got to hold on for the private equity guys. They want to be on the call. And I was like, what the fuck, dude? Like, we've known each other for, you know, been overseas and all this stuff. What do you mean? Like, you call me a 3.30 in the morning. I want to know what's up because I just, I just kind of knew. I knew. And anyway, he comes on and he goes, yeah, John's dead. And I'm like, what the fuck do you mean? He's dead. I just talked to him yesterday. And I didn't really put a lot of, because we had situations in the past where we had work with a guy named Tex

that was his call sign. We all had call signs. And, you know, one time, I think I was working

with him, I think, but somebody called back to Texas and to his wife and was like, hey, sorry,

Texas is dead. Well, it turned out to be another text. So our rat network is so fast that it's mind-blowing. And that's how information was relayed back in the day. It was kind of like there wasn't a fifth. The official channels took forever. So you're always getting it from somebody that knows you. So I'm like, are you sure? Are you 100% that he's deceased, man?

What happened?

So, you know, what happened was he, long story short, he fell 40 feet to his death.

I mean, that's what happened.

But so I get the call and he's like, yes.

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