Easier Said Podcast
Life is tough and talk is cheap. #EasierSaidPodcast emphasizes the importance of resilience and personal aim toward self improvement for people in all walks and stages of life. Join Co-Hosts Brock & Nick to discover valuable and timeless life advice regarding Mental & Physical Health, Marriage, Parenting, Psychology, Emotional Intelligence, Business, Entrepreneurship, Faith & much more through the wisdom of weekly guests. Brock & Nick hope you leave each episode encouraged to put action to words that you may come to realize your potential and the effect you can have on those around you.
Easier Said Podcast
ESP Ep. 42 Lt. Paul Puddington USCG
This week we had the privilege of speaking with Lieutenant Paul Puddington of the United States Coast Guard. This episode is packed with insights into the delicate balance of life, duty, and faith, and serves as a powerful reminder of the incredible sacrifices and challenges faced by those in the military community. Paul's experiences and reflections inspire listeners to consider their own priorities and the greater purpose behind their choices, encouraging them not only to serve others but to lead with integrity, dedication, humility and introspection. If you’re looking for an engaging conversation that will fire up your understanding of service while addressing the real and relatable challenges of responsibility in all areas of your life, be sure to check out this episode with Lieutenant Paul Puddington. Enjoy!
This is Paul Puddington. Lieutenant. Paul Puddington, hi Childhood friend, still friend, big friend. Congratulations on the new baby, thanks.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We set it off air. Yeah, a lot going on for you. Yeah, yeah, we're, we got the.
Nick Kilionski:We got a full house now yeah, three, three, it starts to get away from you.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:My wife is a champ, yeah so from like one of the early ones that I listened of you guys podcasts I listened to a couple a couple weeks ago. The thing that you said I was like, oh my gosh like you actually put into words what I was thinking is the thing that, uh, that dictates, or, when you know it's crazy, is the amount of time it takes you to get out of the house to do something like that is oh my god, I'm having to do it all over again.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:When you have having to do it, yeah, the place you're going, oh my goodness that my goodness gracious, that will really put.
Nick Kilionski:now we're staying home.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yep, that will really like get you to just stay home. It is way easier to have people come over and hang out or even like make food for people at our house.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, it's worth it Than to go somewhere. Yeah, I'd be like I'll host and I'll make food and you guys don't have to worry about it.
Nick Kilionski:Please, God, come to my house.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We have a four-year-old, two-year-old and a two-month-old. Now Eli is four, elias and then Caleb is two. The kid is a little wrecking ball. He's like me as a little kid. I don't know if you remember me?
Brock Roggie:Oh, I do yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:My dad said the other day he's like. You know, I was like, was I like Caleb? He's like's awake. You cannot have anything that's like within reach of him that you don't want to touch buttons. Oh yeah, um, you know, my dad was like the other day. He walked into his office when we got to the house he's like stapler and the stapler pulling out all my dad's drawers, like you know, clearing artifacts off the shelf and stuff like this, like my papa's stuff that's been around, you know, for a hundred years, or whatever you just gotta like put everything above them.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But anyways, my dad was like yeah, you were like that until like seventh grade and then all of a sudden, like something, something like a switch got flipped and all of a sudden you became like this smart, kind of respectful little kid and he was like I don't know what we did different, oh man anyway so caleb is two and uh. And then pj paul. Paul jacob, not a junior, but paul jacob. We wanted to be able to call him pj, that's cool, you're gonna mix it up a little bit.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So he's two months old. He was born in december.
Brock Roggie:Wow, big transition yeah, two to three, especially little yep.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, actually little yep yeah, the theman-to-zone kind of concept, right yeah.
Brock Roggie:We're in man-to-man right now. I don't know what you're in. You're in like prevent defense.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah yeah.
Brock Roggie:It's like one person holds it down while sleeps oh, yeah, take shifts, yeah, kind of.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And so you're saying the coast guard gives you really good paternity leave, which is yes, yeah, yeah, it's been awesome, yeah, then we get civilian paul beard.
Nick Kilionski:So yeah, exactly, yeah, probably. Now you can just like have yeah, well, because I'm not.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, I'm not having a check-in or anything.
Nick Kilionski:Even if I did, I'm not putting a uniform like can you just like have beers nowadays? Is that allowed?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:no, they've talked about it. They about it a lot and they used to be able to. Up until probably 25 years ago, you could have beards and everything. You can have mustaches now, but no beards. But they've talked about it, kind of bringing them back.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, you see a lot of mustaches.
Nick Kilionski:Wait, you can't have a mustache in the Coast Guard specifically.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:No, you can go like a quarter of an inch past the ends of your lip, because it used to be like so you don't like your lip and you look like it was like a mustache.
Brock Roggie:This is like terrible yeah, you get like the curly at the end. That'd be awesome, that'd be gross, yeah, but nasty, a lot of times we'll do like you know.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We'll do like patrol or not patrol, but like seasonal mustaches A lot of guys have mustaches on the boat, okay, but sometimes like when we're in the heat of like. So I'm on a buoy tender icebreaker. Now is what I do. You know, I did law enforcement for the first seven years in the Coast Guard, but then I got to go to the Great Lakes and now I'm on a buoy tender icebreaker. So the busy times for buoys are in the fall and spring. So we usually have like a month and a half or something like that where it's just like you know, you're just hitting it super hard in and out the whole time.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And a lot of times we'll go to like mustaches for that, yeah.
Brock Roggie:Dude, let me pull this up. I've got a picture, see if I can get it hooked up. So how long have you been doing that?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Doing On the Great Lakes A year and a half.
Brock Roggie:Okay, yep, yeah, yeah.
Nick Kilionski:Do you like it? Well, yeah, you said you did law enforcement for seven years.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's good. Yeah, I don't know. Do you want? I don't know how you guys want the conversation to go Do you want me to take you through that? The.
Brock Roggie:Coast Guard time you want to work backwards.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm going to start with boot-tending ice-breaking. I'm going to talk law enforcement stuff first.
Brock Roggie:We did this. Ask you both, didn't we Start?
Nick Kilionski:when you hopped on the bus and went to the academy.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go high school. When did you decide this was an option? Dang it um. We have you for seven hours, so I don't know if you know this or not. Yeah, I asked you earlier.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:you said you didn't have a time limit definitely not right. So, um, yeah, I purposely messed up the clock so you wouldn't know. All right, so let's see here. So high school um, well, well, played football with nick right and, like brock knows this. So the biggest thing, one of my biggest focuses in high school was, was football, right, and I wanted to play college football.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um, you know, my papa was a football, college football coach. My dad was my high school football coach. Um, so I wanted to play college either way. So, um, my dad told me about the Coast Guard Academy, I think when I was probably in 10th grade. He was like you know, you could go. You're not gonna be able to play at Navy or Army, you know, but you can go to the Coast Guard Academy. The Coast Guard has football.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So that's kind of how I got made aware of the Coast Guard Academy. You know, I didn't even really know it was a thing, but Dad told me about it. So I had started looking into it and then, when I got time to start putting in for, you know, colleges and stuff like that, all the schools that I was applying for was with the goal of being able to play football. So I applied to Geneva College in Pennsylvania, wheaton in Illinois and then the Coach Gary Academy. Those are the only three colleges that I applied to and I'd visited all of them and I'd like met all the football coaches right and like had some kind of interaction with the football coaches beforehand, had sent them, like you know, the youtube videos that brandon rogie and I used with like his, uh, his, demo or not demo, what's it called like um?
Brock Roggie:yeah, like a demo reel. Yeah, well, yeah, but it was like a, it was like a downloadable, uh, he's like you can.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You can get this software that creates the video like the uh uh, like the demo for it. Does that make sense? Yeah, so we have like the even, like the overlay of like cause you hadn't actually paid for, like the pro version or like in the bottom or something like that.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, like the watermark, yeah, the watermark exactly, so we just like made a. So you sent out your watermarked highlights.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Watermarked highlight reel. Yeah, so like junior, junior and senior year after both those seasons. Brandon was, like you know, super helpful with that and we just like you know, pull all-nighters Putting together the highlight reel, yeah, and like sending the, I think we I might have sent a couple discs. Anyways, back in the age of sending discs, youtube videos, and those are still on YouTube if you want to go back and watch Paul Puddington.
Nick Kilionski:High School Highlands. I would love to Brain running over the competition.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Hilarious man. Every once in a while I'll reminisce and watch myself in high school and then I'm like, eh, it's not as satisfying.
Nick Kilionski:I don't have to watch them, I can still see it in my head, like taking the ball and just hitting the line. I can still see it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I have vivid memories of a lot of things, but one of my vivid memories of you is, uh, port byron, junior year, rainy right um, nope, not the rainy game. The the the second game that we played, the playoff game. I think it was the sunny game um that we played there, but I have a vivid memory of you playing tight end and going out and doing like a like a 70 yard crossing route and like looking up and just seeing you make like this right before half time boom like overhead and then like taking off down the field.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I was like Holy crap, like that was a.
Nick Kilionski:That was a sweet play Like a design. Play to me Pitching, pitching catching 20 yards. That was like right before the end of the first quarter or something and your dad wanted to get a big chunk of yards yeah yeah, I remember that yeah that was honestly like the throw was a dime. I remember it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, yep, anyways, all right, so high school yeah, high school football, wanted to play college football. Uh, dad told me about the coast guard academy, um, so I applied to all those schools, um, ended up getting accepted, all those schools. But I had determined essentially that if I got accepted to the Coast Guard Academy, that's what I was going to do, you know, because it just made sense. The, you know, the education isn't free per se. It's paid for, you know, by the American taxpayer. But it's not like I'm having to take out college loans and stuff, right, like that's. It's education that's completely covered.
Brock Roggie:You got guaranteed.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Can you come?
Brock Roggie:with a commitment like a job after.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yep, so it's four years of school, so it's a four-year, you know, college program. You get a bachelor's degree in whatever the major is that you did so mine was civil engineering but then you got a five-year commitment in the Coast Guard after that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So, active duty commitment and then a three-year reserve commitment. Um, after that, okay, um, so, uh. So, four, four college, five active, three reserve at least, yep, yeah, um, but it just made sense because you know that was like, uh, um, you knew what you were going to be doing afterwards, you know, and all that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And plus like I come from a you know pretty long line of it just made sense to go in the military, right Like my dad's grandpa was in the Army, my pop flew PBYs in the Korean War in the Navy. Dad was in the Marines, you know, for three, four years active duty there in the early 80s and now I'm in the Coast Guard. So it's like you know, fourth generation. That's cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah, military service.
Brock Roggie:So if one of the kids goes in the Air Force.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We hit all five branches, like in five generations which would be kind of cool.
Brock Roggie:That is kind of awesome. I don't know if I'm going to tell one of them that or not, but like man, air force is cool the air force is pretty yeah, for sure they've got it pretty good so, um, yeah, so you just have to tell them how cool pilots are get them some planes, like some toy planes, like well, actually subliminally eli like I gotta get eli to um.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So we we went and visited. Uh, sorry, we're kind of jumping all over the place here, but we went and we got to see Pat and Whitney and the kids at the EAA AirVenture Air Show in Oshkosh, wisconsin, this past summer Because Pat got I think it might have been right after the podcast with you guys. You know they bought the plane and everything which you guys got to go for a plane ride, super jealous. I'm going to get on that thing at some point with him.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's pretty awesome, but uh did you guys get to take off and land at the farm too. Did you know?
Brock Roggie:but they did have that cleared out, like when we went around.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It was cleared out, ready to land no, we were at duffalo's okay, from duffalo, okay, um, but anyways we got to go see them and uh, eli got to, like you know, crawl on pat's plane and all this stuff. And now, like the kid is super smart, like dinosaurs, airplanes and there's, like you know, one or two other things that he, like he knows a lot about. But you can point to like different parts of the airplane and Eli's like, yeah, like that's the cockpit, those are the ailerons, that's the rudder, that's the elevator.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like he knows all the different parts of the airplanes, Like maybe Eli would be the play guy yeah, the uh, that's how pat was when he was a kid.
Brock Roggie:He was like knew everything about him. Yeah, see, so that was one question we had about you like in high school. Going back was like, did you you already knew that you kind of wanted to be in military, or is that? Yeah?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:okay, I mean I, I think I just kind of had a bent towards that. You know anytime that I was playing as a little kid, you know we moved to that, the house that my parents are in now, when I was probably seven years old, and there's the woods behind the house. Did you ever get up there with us?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:On the rocks, yeah, on the rocks.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So I had bases back there and everything there was a little scout base that overlooked the house and everything my dad had made me toy guns and stuff. He's got these wooden guns.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:He's still got these wooden guns that he brought for the kids like two of them are out at our house now and a bunch of them are from my parents. But he had made, like you know, first it was like a muzzleloader, a hunting rifle. It's actually got like a little bolt action thing and all this so everything was like hunting related at first broke like a Tommy gun with like the handle. He's like I'm going to make this a Tommy gun.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And then he made me a .50 cal like out of 2x4s like stacked together and you know they were like cut out with like the handles and like a broomstick for like the barrel or whatever. So he would like mount that on the playground in the backyard. So, anyways, I towards that, you know, and with dad having been a marine and all that kind of stuff, um, so I was kind of figuring more like the path, yeah, but but I was figuring more like that I try to go to the marines or something you know kind of combat, combat based and everything like that interesting. Um, but then, you know, found out about the coast guard and uh, you realize the coast guard does law enforcement right, so that that was like the best of both worlds is the fact that I can do.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:you know military and law enforcement and I can get into that in a little bit and talk about, you know, the Coast Guard law enforcement stuff that I did.
Nick Kilionski:You remember Boy State, right? Oh yeah, you talked about that in one of your episodes, did I really?
Brock Roggie:It was actually Brock's, because Brock was talking about yeah, I couldn't hack it the boys day time, the first day in formation.
Nick Kilionski:I like hit the ground hard. I locked my knees and passed out. Yeah it was so hot anyway I was saying, did that like, uh like, because that was ran by like marines they bought a couple marine guys did that.
Nick Kilionski:Like was that? Like, oh, this is like they're yelling at me too much. Like, did that sway your opinion at all? No, no, so like. After that, you would have still been like Marine Corps is the way to go, yeah, yeah. So that would have been like no, that would have been like 11th grade. So in 10th grade your dad told you about the Coast Guard. So like what's? When did you decide Coast Guard over Marine Corps?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Because you got to start. That you said you started that process in 10th grade.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, well, I think it was. It was probably getting. Well.
Nick Kilionski:I don't know if I ever really decided that, so I yeah is it 10th grade that you start all that like profile stuff for the military academies? Like you got to start that stuff pretty early, don't you?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:no, there's not like a profile or anything.
Nick Kilionski:Oh okay, I thought you got to start like planning for that, like really early.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:No, okay, I put in for it, the the fall of our senior years, when I did like oh okay, got accepted to Coast Guard Academy, decided to go that route. You know, thinking that I would, I would want to do like law enforcement stuff. But even when I was there I was like man, like I can, I can try to lateral over the Naval Academy and I can be a Navy SEAL still and stuff like that, like.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I was thinking all these things Right and just never really took that seriously and I don't think I maybe that seriously and I don't think I maybe then I would have had the discipline to do it. I don't have the discipline to do that kind of thing now, like in in hindsight, you know um, I think it would have been really it would have been really hard, uh, to actually do something like that, like I don't okay do you?
Nick Kilionski:all right is that the thing? Okay, do you look back and wish that you had try to go to the navy seals something, some kind of special forces, whatever, because like the.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The thing that I've found you know just kind of the, the thread through our whole life and I know that you guys know the same thing is that god has just been, god has been weaving. You know the, the perfect path for us to follow the whole way, and maybe it's not, as you know, super cool or like spectacular as as being a Navy SEAL or whatever.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, but, you can just see, like all the all the things that I've tried to do and kind of where doors have been closed, like it's just been God, you know, kind of guiding us through that thing. Like you know, getting married, having kids, you know trying to these different kids, you know trying to these different, different stages, trying to do different things.
Nick Kilionski:So I don't regret, not, you know, trying to, trying to do that. I didn't know anything about the Coast Guard, like before knowing you and going, you getting into that, but like I honestly feel like the Coast Guard's like the coolest, like the like the boats that you get to go on that was the thing that ended up kind of
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:maybe the more you look into it, the more you realize, like, how cool it is. I guess, um, because you know my dad for the whole time that he was in not the case for pop, right, like pop actually went to combat um and flew in combat, but the whole time my dad was in the marines. He just trained, right, he just trained the whole time. Your dad didn't have that experience. Your dad trained in in combat and stuff like that, like he operated. My dad never operated um and that was a big thing. Actually, back to your point, when I was in high school and making those decisions, dad was like Paul, if you go in the Marine Corps, you're going to hate 70% of it and you're going to love 30% of it. If you join the Coast Guard, it'll at least be 50-50.
Nick Kilionski:You'll love 50% of it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That is exactly what your dad would say Like the most practical.
Nick Kilionski:like honest advice it was very practical.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:He's like you're going to hate more than you love about the Marine Corps, and that will not be the case to the Coast Guard and it hasn't been the case to the Coast Guard, which I'm really thankful for. But anyways, all right. So back on the timeline here. Academy yeah, got accepted to there. I knew that if I got accepted there, that I was going to go there, that was. You know what I was going to do. So went there, played yeah, got to play football for four years. You know, college football, D3 college football. But man, I wouldn't trade that for anything. You know, I ended up playing linebacker and I got to start start like my last two seasons and stuff like that, and we were never like super spectacular, but the defense was pretty good. You know, we had, we had some guys on defense that were, um, just really good athletes and a lot of fun to play with and stuff so was your?
Brock Roggie:is it? Was it your roommate? That was your buddy, my buddy, kyle kyle yeah, kyle's his brother.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:His brother played at the naval academy he was a starting offensive tackle at the naval academy. Yeah, and he's actually uh. So he was like 300, you know 320 pounds at the time, not not kyle his brother but now he's down to, like you know, 250 or whatever. He's the naval flight officer on uh no yeah, the equivalent of like the. What is it? It's the. The pa poseidon, a sub hunterhunter, is what his brother Andrew is on now.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Anyway, so Kyle yeah, kyle was my buddy. He was the smaller of the two, the older brother but the smaller of the two.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, he's huge, but.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Kyle's like 6'2". He probably played at like 225 or something like that.
Brock Roggie:That's some crazy genes.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah.
Brock Roggie:What position did he play? Defense too? No, yeah, we both played middle linebackers.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, I think I remember that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Kyle and I were both middle linebackers and there's another buddy of ours, corey, and we actually so for the last three years, really from like our sophomore year on, because one of the guys that was a senior in my sophomore year he got a knee injury pretty bad. So from sophomore year on it was Kyle, corey and myself. We would rotate through the middle linebacker spots like almost every series, two series on and a series off and got to do that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So that's in New London.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Connecticut New London.
Brock Roggie:Connecticut yeah, that's where the academy is for the Coast Guard? Yep. What does it take to be like a college athlete while doing something?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:like the academy. Yeah, yeah, I was doing civil engineering. The academies are very academically rigorous, for sure. Um, and then they're like, they're rigorous in a lot of other ways too. So, um, yes, what does it take to do both?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:it's just, it's a lot of time yeah um, so you, uh, you, you have to wake up, or when I was there anyways, you had to wake up at you know six every morning. You had a a formation at 6 20. Everyone went to breakfast together. There was like an hour of military training time from 7 to 8 the. The academic time was from 8 to 1600, 8 to 4 pm every day. The sports time was from 4 to 6 pm, 1600, 1800 in the afternoon, and then you spent the whole evening after dinner doing homework, and you know that was five days a week. And then Saturday mornings from, like you know, 06 to 1200 was military time, and then the 1200 Saturday afternoons and through Sunday was kind of like the liberty time. Well, there's like varying degrees of liberty that you get as you, you know, went older in class and stuff like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But you're doing homework you know that whole time, or playing games on Saturdays and stuff like that.
Brock Roggie:You said military time. What does that mean? Like drill, drill and training?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, like training time and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, it's so rigorous.
Brock Roggie:It's what people don't understand especially. I can't imagine if you're going to a prestigious school or an academy or something that's like you have to keep your grades up and then to be a full-time athlete too. It's just so many hours.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Kyle played football and baseball. He played both. And then on top of that, he was a naval architecture. Marine engineering was his major Whoa yeah. And then on top of that, he was a naval architecture, marine engineering was his major Whoa yeah, that's pretty good, it was pretty intense, yeah, so anyways, it was just a lot of time I remember when we came and watched that game.
Brock Roggie:Yep, it was so cool because, like in the end zone, they have like all of the you call them cadets. Yep or or like a perfect uniform and they've got like their jackets on and their hats and they're cheering all these cool cheers I'm like this must find it feel like to go to like an army game, right, army versus navy, navy. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like you don't get that atmosphere anywhere else no, I think, like army navy, I get the impression that maybe those students are a little more into it. A lot of the stuff at the Coast Guard Academy was like forced morale, forced morale. The game is mandatory. No one else knows that Smoking beers. But there's a couple of games that are mandatory for the Corps of Cadets to go to when we play the Army DV equivalent for D3 is Coast Guard Merchant Marine.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So we play the Merchant Marine Academy, which is in Kings Point, new York, and they've actually sent, so we used to play that game early in the season. They've moved that game to the end of the season now, so it's usually on Veterans Day weekend in.
Brock Roggie:November. Oh, it's huge.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And it gets big. Espn 3 has picked it up the last several years oh cool. And they broadcast on espn3 and then this next fall, which is super cool. Um, sorry, we're jumping all over the place here, but no, we're doing right, we're doing right okay, good, so this next fall is going to be at uh fenway no, yeah, they're playing all the cool stuff when we leave college at fenway um, am I right?
Brock Roggie:doesn't it feel like that?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Fenway right. That's where the Red Sox play in Boston Fenway Park.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, they're doing the game at the Green.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Monster.
Nick Kilionski:That is insane.
Brock Roggie:That's awesome, I know they do all the cool stuff after we leave, Right right, yeah. When I left my baseball team and then a couple years later they had a media team and they were doing like all cool stuff, I was like yeah, yeah so they get to play a fenway.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:This next year and it'll be like on veterans day, weekend and stuff again, which would be super cool so that's.
Brock Roggie:That's insane. Yeah, it's intense. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure it'd be super cool you know they do a spartan run in fenway no yeah I would love to do that. That's why one of the easy ones, yeah yeah, the sprints, those are the only ones I do one of the easy ones.
Nick Kilionski:These are courses. I don't do the corwin ones.
Brock Roggie:He's like doing 50k or whatever they are up a mountain, oh my gosh. Um, okay, cool, so we're in college, yep, and then football career was good it was good, yeah, yeah, I mean we were never more than 500.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We probably had like a. We had like a five and five year. You know one of them, um, but you know we were never like super good or anything like that, but it was. It was like a five and five year. You know one of them, um, but you know we were never like super good or anything like that, but it was. It's just a blast.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And the other thing is like, you know, having gone through, you know how rigorous it was, like we were talking about to, you know, play football while also doing the academics, and these are guys like you know, when we first got there. So I, you know, I graduated from high school and I left for the Coast Guard Academy two days later, like we graduated on Friday night and my parents and I drove down there the following Sunday, um, and started it was. It was the following Monday was the reporting in day for the swab summer, you know, like eight week boot camp equivalent, you know, leading into the academy. But when I first got there, it was like the Sunday night before. You know, you meet up with like they have like a short coach's time and I remember meeting like on the back patio and you don't know any of these guys at the time right that are going to be in your class. You're going to be playing football with everything.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But the football coach at the time saying, like you know, just take a look around. You know these guys, you're going to spend just about every waking moment with these guys for the next four years. You're going to become best friends with them, and he just like he just jumps right to it. It's like a life thing. He's like these guys are going to be in your wedding someday, Like that's. And you're just like you have no idea, you know, at the time, like I don't know, but like I have a or whatever. Um, you know, not really knowing who he was at the time, but then like, yeah, like Kyle, Kyle was in my wedding. Um, you know a bunch of other guys that you know weren't um well, there's there's other football players that like at my wedding and stuff too.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But then other guys in the academy that you're just like super tight with and then I'm still, you know, really tight with now and everything yeah, um so yeah, there's so many cool.
Brock Roggie:I was at that wedding. There's the. You played guitar in that wedding. You did the music in our wedding.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I was actually I was flipping through the wedding book last night with caleb like, uh, like bedtime stories, like all right man, you're not interested in any of these dr seuss books. You want to look at mom and dad's like wedding photo book.
Nick Kilionski:Does he think he was there? No, that's why he swears he was at our wedding we watched the video.
Brock Roggie:he's like like oh, I remember that no you don't?
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, dude, that was a good time.
Brock Roggie:The cool thing about military weddings is there's so many more traditions that you do.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, the sword arts and all that.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, that's pretty cool, that's cool stuff Everybody's in their sweet uniforms.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The whites yeah, yeah, dude they're just sharp.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, sharp, that's cool. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a. The bond that you would receive is was it a big jump, going from like small town, lewis county, to like a big academy like that?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:no, um, and the reason why is because it's a small school and, like you know, like we were all super tight growing up, like you kind of knew everyone. Like this is a small school too, um, and it was kind of easy like kind of transitioning to something like that. For example, at beaver river I was able to do band, jazz, chorus, chorlears, like all that stuff. And I played football, played basketball for a while indoor track, you know, outdoor track, baseball. You got to do all these things, that a lot of other high schools.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's like you have your one thing that you do and you don't. Oh, I was in marching band, right, like what football player is also in marching band you, you could do that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It'd be river.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, and it was kind of similar to the academy, like it was small enough that there was multiple things you could do like. I was in the glee club for a little while but then it started conflicted football and I kind of had to let the Glee Club go at that time.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Pick your priorities yeah you had to pick priorities a little more, but you still got to be kind of varied in what you could do, and it was kind of the same thing at the Coast Guard Academy. So yeah, I say it wasn't a hard transition maybe in hindsight, but I mean it was. Culture shock but I mean, it was culture shock, it was a shock?
Brock Roggie:yeah, certainly, I mean just just leaving home and getting into that, but the thing was like it wasn't.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like you went somewhere and you're bored you know what I mean. Like you're.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You're drinking through a fire hose right from the get-go. You know um with the, the swap, summer stuff and then diving into the school year and all that, so it uh they had this saying um that, like you know, the days are long, the weeks are short and the months are shorter. Like I remember being in class my the fall of my freshman year and thinking like this is never gonna end, I'm never gonna get to winter break, you know to go home and and you know, see friends at home and you know, hang out with my family and stuff like that and like 12 senior year, you're like well, no, 12 years later, it's like all of a sudden I'm sitting here with you guys Like I can't believe how fast the time has gone.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But then, like yeah, I remember very specifically thinking that fall of my freshman year and then, like I've kind of recalled that over the years as like time has just seemingly gone faster and faster. You know like it ended up going. It went so fast. Twelve years.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, yeah, went so fast. 12 years, um, yeah, yeah, right, 2020, so this summer will be 13 years since I've left, for you know, the coast guard academy will be this this june. Um, which is wild. A lot has happened between then and now, but, uh, yeah yeah, so does it feel like a long time ago?
Nick Kilionski:does it feel like talking about like swap summer in the first year? Does it feel like just forever ago?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:is it weird talking about it, or because like I want to hear about it, but you're right it was so long ago.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, it doesn't feel it's hilarious, like when you get with people that you went through it with and like reminiscing and like, like you know stories and stuff like that. For example, you you get out of swap summer and you know freshman year and all you would talk about was like swap summer just talking about the misery that everyone experienced together or whatever.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:you know kind of the shared the shared experiences, um, but yeah, so swap summer was like uh, you know you, you got there, you did the big reporting in day where there's a bunch of admin and medical stuff and all that, and you get your uniforms, you get your head shaved, you learn how to march very briefly, march out on the parade field, um, you get sworn in and then you get, you know, 10 minutes to say bye to your mom and dad, like you find them in a, you find them in the crowd or whatever, and then you got to say bye to them. And then you, you know, you go, you form back up and then it's like it's go time, you know your parents leave and you get marched back into the barracks and I don't want to interrupt, but I got so many questions, Dude start.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Can you Okay real quick, and then we can get right back into the story.
Nick Kilionski:I'm sorry, I got to know, like, do you feel like, can you share, like what your dad said to you in that 10 minutes? Did he have like something, because you only get 10 minutes? No, I got to know what.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So dad has always been well, you said, pretty practical, but he's had stuff that he's kind of come up with a theme for me for each year. I hope I can remember him right now because he's going to be disappointed if I can't remember.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But my dad came up with a theme to encourage me in for each year that I was at the academy. So his I'm not going to remember his freshman theme now it was do the best you can. I think was really his freshman thing. I'm going to start tearing up like thinking about this. Can't ask these questions, sorry man, no, no, it's okay.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So I think his freshman year was do the best you can and he was just like very encouraging I can, um. And he was just like very encouraging Um. I can't remember exactly what he said in those 10 minutes. I remember being choked up about it and they had, you know, the granola bar and like, uh, this is like the standard advice from, like you know, have something for them to eat real quick, have something for them to drink, just like you know, cause that's the last time they'll get to have something kind of like that for a little bit. Um, and uh, you know, I think I have a picture of me with my parents right before they left and everything and, like you know, I got like watery eyes and everything and I just look miserable, you know and everyone else looked miserable too.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Cause you know, just getting thrown into it, um, but uh yeah. I think we probably prayed together real quick and then that part is a blur. That day is really a blur. I remember snippets of it. I remember staring out of the river on the back patio of the hall where you checked in my company. So I remember checking in with my company and going out there and telling us stand in line, face the river, don't move, don't touch your face all that kind of stuff. You're starting to do that.
Brock Roggie:When they that you're like, I have an itch on my face your face is twitching.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um, yeah, I mean you're, you know that, that kind of similar experience. So we went and, you know, walked down the stairs. They loaded us on buses because they wanted to be kind of like a boot camp bus experience and they just drive you in a loop just real quick around the academy. You go from the lower part, where you checked in, up to the barracks and then that's where. So the way that they do it at the academy is the upper classmen train the lower class. So my freshman year as a swab, right like checking in there was the juniors were the ones doing like the drill instructor, equivalent yelling training, all that stuff. So one of those guys hops on the bus and starts, you know, somebody walks through first and everyone's like you know what's going on and then the other guy comes around.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:He's yelling you got zero, you know zero five seconds to get off my bus, go, go, go.
Brock Roggie:You know they're yelling at you you jump up, grab your bag, you know run out and there's people square this corner.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You're like what do you mean? Square the corner and all this stuff? I mean everyone knows because they've watched the videos at that time or whatever. Like you kind of know what you're getting into a little bit, but they're yelling at you. You run into the quad line up, you get whatever standards to be able to use.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know, knowing now that these juniors have been practicing for the last four weeks or whatever, you know getting ready for this cadre training stuff, cadre that's right yeah and then, uh, yeah, and then, and then kind of dive into that, um, into the rest of that, that day, the reporting day, our day, and then uh, do the videos do any justice to when, like you're in the moment? Yeah, yeah, a little bit you flash back a little bit when you watch stuff like that, yeah, but uh, I got to do the cadre stuff though, so right you know, two years later I'm in the position of being a junior and, uh, you know, getting to, I was the one that like went on the bus.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Second, it was like you know, you've got five seconds to get off my bus and all that stuff yeah three, so so much fun, man like that was that summer was exhausting.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:For like three or four weeks, probably three weeks, that we did that it was exhausting. Um, you know, because, because you thought swap summer was exhausting, well, as a cadre you're up before the swabs and you're going to bed after the swabs and you know you're having to do laundry and all that kind of stuff. Still Like that was exhausting but it was so much fun Like doing the training stuff for you know, for the couple weeks with the new swabs and everything.
Brock Roggie:Did the like when you were first in the bus, though like your freshman year, and you had watched a couple videos like oh, that's what it's gonna be like.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:How different was it from like being in the seat in the bus, from like watching youtube video you can't, you can't, uh, the moment like actually being there is way different, right, like it's actually, it's actually happening to you at that time.
Brock Roggie:So it's not.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's not fun it's kind of a blur, like I was saying, like that day it's kind of a blur, but there's snippets that I remember very clearly and like the bus ride, like I remember the bus ride and getting yelled at you know the first time, like you know, waiting for the guy to come up the bus and like not moving and stuff like that yeah, I remember that.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, for you was it like uh yeah, was it like scary or was it like I know what's going on, like how did it make?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:how did you feel, yeah were you prepared um, it wasn't necessarily scary, but I've always been someone that like wants to do the right thing and like follow the rules, and you know, kind of be, uh, be the best I can be and and whatever it was like I was really wanting to, I guess, impress for lack of a better term, just do the best that I could.
Brock Roggie:High in conscientiousness. That's what you are. Yeah, that's probably a good way to put it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Maybe sometimes a bit of a perfectionist. Yeah. So, when they're on the bus yelling at you.
Nick Kilionski:You're not like crapping your pants.
Brock Roggie:Like, I got this.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:No, but it definitely triggers you. It wasn't like it was a pucker. Yeah, it wasn't. There was nothing about me. That was like I got this You're staring at the back of the head.
Nick Kilionski:It's time to go.
Brock Roggie:Mildly terrified, I can tell you exactly. Mildly terrified is a good yeah. Mildly terrified I can tell you exactly the brick location in the academy that I stared at for like 100 hours. So nobody would look at me. You eyeballing me son.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You eyeballing me son? No, sir, See, I don't have.
Brock Roggie:Like I was telling a couple episodes ago, I don't have experience in law enforcement background like or military. Before I went right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So, like a lot of guys did hit me like, yeah, I was like, but I'm the same way too.
Brock Roggie:I'm like I want to stand out and right right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So in hindsight though, to like your point, like you realize now, looking back at it more, like I think, even as like so a swab, and then as a cadre, I was like this isn't a game like this is, you know, this is real military training and everything has got a purpose, and stuff like that. But, so much of the yelling and all that stuff. It's just a mind game.
Brock Roggie:Which has a purpose.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:At least for the law enforcement side.
Brock Roggie:Well, yeah, the military side? Obviously it does. You need to be able to handle yourself under that pressure. Stress right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Being able to create a stressful environment, and the other thing about stress is that it forces you to be cohesive with the people that you're going through with and all that kind of stuff Like that was really important. But, I guess the part of it that's a mind game is like in hindsight you realize that none of those people that were yelling at you are actually jerks, like he thought that they were.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, exactly, they're all like super cool Right. That's all the game People. They're all like super cool Right that's all the game.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:People that are like we're the same rank now in the Coast Guard. And like if you were to see them, you know somewhere it's obviously first name basis and all that stuff. That hasn't been the case for a lot of people. You know like academy stuff, like there's maybe, especially in the past, like more abusive kind of, you know definitely verbally abusive, and there's like there's people that Hold like uh, there's people that hold grudges.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, hold grudges and stuff like that from you know um you know college or academy training time. Yeah, it's just like you realize that that person was 20 years old when they did that to you, right, and yes, it was very immature, but it's not like who they are right now.
Nick Kilionski:You can get over it, yeah, yeah I really like what you said about the getting up before the cadets and going to bed after them. That's pretty cool, there's a metaphor in there.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Oh yeah, you think you guys are the ones getting in the leadership kind of stuff.
Nick Kilionski:You guys are the ones getting the abuse and the intense training. But they're up before you, they're down after you.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, that's a really cool metaphor yeah, for sure, what an awesome system, so cool.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, I, really cool metaphor. Yeah, yeah, for sure. What an awesome system, so cool. Yeah, I love those systems there's and they're so finely tuned and they run so well. Um, okay, so to finish out like the kind of the college portion, um, besides football, because if I was to ask you what your favorite part was, I'm sure football would be up there yeah, yeah, I think football would, yeah, so what after that? About the, about the academy?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:academy was like yeah, I mean, you guys probably remember this, so we uh well, so there's, you know there's a cohesive aspect, right, like like making friends and stuff again. But you guys probably remember I was only home for three, three weeks out of the summer, during the summers that I was there because they have like training time during the summer, so the summers are really cool. Um, the Coast Guard Academy. You got to do time on. A lot of kids don't like the Eagle, which is like the academy training ship. It's like a, it's a bark, it's a big sailing ship. It looks like a pirate ship, right, like three massive, huge sails that they do. Yeah, you can look up a picture of it.
Nick Kilionski:Do you mean they don't like it?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:because it's like old, it's old and it just gets a bad rap, like you're all crammed in together. But it's one of those things that's like. It's kind of like the mob theory, like one person doesn't like it, so like automatically like you're not cool if you think the eagle is cool. You know what I mean, Right Like or you're buying into the system, or whatever.
Brock Roggie:So you were a hard-o.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I thought Eagle was cool man. I enjoyed learning all you had to learn the names of all the sails yeah, you got a picture of it. So the names of all the sails, all the lines that controlled everything on all the sails, all the pin reels where all the lines and everything the ropes were tied to.
Brock Roggie:You had to learn all that stuff um and it was. It was really cool that's cool. Yeah, I have a picture of you. Yeah, I'll, I'll overlex for some reason I can't, I can't, uh, I can't screen mirror to my. Yeah, so anyways.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:so my, my, what's called the third class year, my sophomore summer, so the summer after we did, uh, you know, swap summer. Um, I did five weeks on the Eagle and we got to sail from New London to St Martin right in the Caribbean, oh yeah, the Windward Islands of the eastern.
Brock Roggie:Caribbean.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yep, that'd be like St Lucia, St Vincent, yes, so like it's southeast of, like the US and British Virgin Islands, it's on what's called the Windward Islands.
Brock Roggie:The Windward Islands, yep, the far eastern part of the US and British Virgin Islands. It's on what's called the Windward Islands.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, the far eastern part of the Caribbean. So we sailed there and then from there we sailed to Aruba. So we got to go to Aruba for, you know, a couple days, spend some time in Aruba. And then we sailed from Aruba up to yeah, from Aruba up to Guantanamo Bay. We were in Guantanamo Bay for a handful of days, played golf in Gitmo. You guys have probably never been in Gitmo, but there's a golf course on the Navy base there.
Brock Roggie:Never say never, it's a desert man.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So this golf course is hilarious. Actually, I have pictures of me and Kyle playing golf at this place and it's like the biggest iguanas you've ever seen. Iguanas like the size of alligators, like four or five foot iguanas, but you tee off from the tee box or whatever it's turf. And you tee off into the sand and the rocks and stuff and then you drive your golf cart out there. You take your little square of turf from the back of your golf cart, you put it on the ground, put your ball on top of it.
Nick Kilionski:And then you get off of that every, every stroke. So one stroke penalty. Yeah, yeah, your ball.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, that was fun, you know, did that, got to see guantanamo bay, um, which is neat, and then, uh, we sailed up to um, st pete, florida, and then in st pete my sophomore year is halfway through the sophomore summer I got off at eaglin, st Pete, and actually got to walk right down the pier to 110-foot.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It was called Island Class Patrol Cutters, 110-foot patrol boat, and I was on that for five weeks and I had asked you know. So at this point, like thinking forward, I knew that I wanted to do law enforcement in the Coast Guard, like when I eventually graduated and got into the Coast Guard. So I had asked to be able to do something in the Florida Straits that was doing some kind of Coast Guard law enforcement. So I got on a 110-foot cutter in St Pete and all that boat did was, yep, nope, that's a 210, 270, maybe that's a bigger one Google, island class, island class, island class coast guard cutter or 110-foot coast guard cutter. And so I did that for five or six weeks and that was really cool. So we were doing at that time it was. We might not have time to get into all this stuff, but yep, that's sweet.
Nick Kilionski:That kind of looks like the first one. Yeah, I had no idea Actually.
Brock Roggie:I'm just testing you. You passed. If I were to test Nick, he'd be like that's the same boat.
Nick Kilionski:Nice try, you can't get me yeah, Dude, get into it man. Yeah, absolutely so at that time.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We're here for it. At that time it was wet foot, dry foot was in effect. So that was a policy that was in effect from the Cold War era Cuba stuff where basically if Cuban migrants were able to make landfall in the US, they got to stay Like automatically.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You'd get like a little bit of a you'd get like a little bit of a, a little bit of money and you'd actually get like some kind of legal status where you could like stay and work and stuff like that. So there's huge incentive for Cuban migrants to try to make landfall in the US. So the migrant interdiction mission between Cuba and the Florida Keys was huge. So all that 110 foot cutter did was during its operational times it would sail from st pete down to key west, refuel, restocking key west and we go do migrant, migrant interdictions in the florida straits. So I did that for six weeks. Um, as a cadet I got pepper sprayed. I remember we talked about your pepper spray story and I got pepper sprayed in key west.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Thank god it was a cloudy day, but it was still like 100 degrees um, and I got pepper sprayed in the, uh, the, the switch grass or the bluegrass or whatever that stuff is down there. It's like super just gnarly grass um super hot, and it was just absolutely miserable. Don't need to get into that too much, but yeah, I got it oh yeah, like okay wait wait, we have to get into it.
Brock Roggie:Was it like OC spray? Yeah, Was it like and then it just boom, boom right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, oc, oc, so it was yeah. So, the way they did. It is right, like you get a little bit of training on it, you hold your eyes open. No, they don't hold your eyes. Take a deep breath and then OC, oc, oc, oc, open your eyes. You open your eyes and all of a sudden it's like, oh, this isn't so bad.
Brock Roggie:Boom right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's like getting hit with I think you described it like burning shards of glass, burning shards of glass times 100.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, it's just horrible.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But anyways. So you've got a gun belt with a non-gun. Somebody comes at you with a pad. Gun belt with a non-gun. Somebody comes at you with a pad. Yeah, you got to fend them off. You know, keep your, keep your weapon back. Um, you know, partner, partner, I've been sprayed. Come help. Partner, I've been sprayed. Oc, I've been sprayed. You know, get back all this stuff. Like you try to use the. You got to try to use the approved techniques that you know they taught you for 10 minutes before getting sprayed and everything um, keep the guy back, and then they're.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know, once the instructor is satisfied that you've sufficiently kind of held him off, protected your weapon, say, draw down on him. You draw down your non-gun, get on the ground, and then you've got to circle around behind him, break, and then your helper can come get you.
Nick Kilionski:I couldn't do all that with a bad contact lens on. Yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You definitely take your contact lens off.
Nick Kilionski:Oh, my eyes are burning. Get this thing out of here. Yeah, you definitely take your coccyx off. My coccyx is out. Oh, my eyes are burning. Oh, get this thing out of here. Yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That was pretty bad, luckily. I don't know if anyone told you this, I don't remember.
Brock Roggie:You've ever endured? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah, you've had something.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Absolutely. But, I was able to pick the crystals out of my eyelashes, like afterwards, like right after it. You, you do a bunch of water. Try not to get it on the rest of your body, do a bunch of water and then you're just like I remember. I remember standing with my face in the fan the key west, the base key west gym for like two or three hours after there's like people coming in and out.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:They're working out, but I'm just like yeah I've got a picture of me somewhere, like you know, holding my eyes open, letting it dry, and then I was able to, like, pick the crystals out of my eyelashes so that when I went to wash later I had the crystals out of my eyelashes still and, like I try to, you know, keep the rest of my you know we don't need to talk about the rest of our body, that you don't want to get it on, but I was able to minimize the reflash by you know having to take the crystals off and like kind of brush your face a little bit.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And try to get like some of that stuff off Smart they tell you not to like shave that morning and stuff like that.
Brock Roggie:So you know, you've got like little cuts and whatnot on your face. Did you guys train right before? So was it another cadet that sprayed you or was it a instructor?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:No, it was the guy that was the law enforcement instructor on the on the cutter that I was on, yeah, and you know ever all the crews that are watching everything. It's kind of like a rite of passage. Oh, yeah, for sure. But yeah, tasing was the same way like everybody's in the room watching you.
Brock Roggie:Yes, the uh yeah, oc spray dude, the only thing that we did before that, because, for whatever reason, we sprayed each other.
Nick Kilionski:I mean obviously there's an instructor behind the guy and instructor, with the guy getting sprayed right.
Brock Roggie:But like that way we knew how to administer. Yeah, right, and so did I tell this story when we were before about when we were all lined up and we had, like our partner across from us and he had like the inert, you're supposed to have like a nerd and he's like now make sure yours doesn't have a red cap. And he's pointing it right at me. I see a red cap.
Brock Roggie:I'm like oh, my god, I probably would have gotten off easy, and then you're going to miss and I would have been like I'm done, I'm done. I was like that's rad anyway, dude. Yeah, that's hilarious. Did you have to go?
Nick Kilionski:through the tase too. No, the Coast Guard doesn't carry tasers water and tasers doesn't go together.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Well, that's a good point. We doesn't carry tasers. Water and tasers doesn't go together well. That's a good point we don't carry tasers. There's other marine units and stuff, like probably your police marine units and I think, amo, customs and Border Protection Air Marine Operations. We work with them extensively in Florida, so that's kind of like the Border Patrol equivalent. It's the same kind of sub-branch, but air marine operations. They I think they carry tasers and stuff, but the coast guard just they don't they, we don't salt water and electricity don't go well together.
Nick Kilionski:You mean yeah? So I have a good question uh, so you guys are running around trying to catch these guys? Yeah, cubans right, but if they make it job well done like for them. Like, yeah, what a weird. Yeah, it was weird so it's gone.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Actually, now, the wet foot, dry foot thing there's been kind of various stages of incentive and stuff like that, for you know, we could talk about mass maritime migration for hours, I'm sure. Um, but uh, anyways, yeah, there's been like various stages of kind of incentives and stuff like that, but that incentive actually went away. It's kind of a weird thing. It was obama's last day in office. It was one of those last minute presidential things that obama did where, like all of a sudden, he canceled wet foot, dry foot and I'm not sure why that didn't get done beforehand. I'm sure there's like some kind of political motive, you know motivation for that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm not really sure what that was, but it was his last day in office and what foot drive went away. So this was 26, 2017, right, like right before trump's first term, yeah, and it was like overnight dude cuban migration dries up like that. Like there's there's, all of a sudden, there's like 10 of the cubans trying to make it illegally across the floor just from a policy change from a policy change like a piece of paper, like an executive order.
Brock Roggie:You makefall.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's no longer guaranteed you get to stay in the US. You're going to get detained, processed and eventually deported.
Brock Roggie:The incentive's gone. The risk-reward doesn't calculate.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It didn't calculate anymore Again we're jumping all over the place here. We can get into that more. The perception again, we're jumping all over the place here, but we get into that more like the the perception. I'm not minimizing in any way conditions in cuba or haiti. They are like it almost makes you cry thinking about it, especially haiti, because I did so coast guard career, right, I did, uh, cadet national security cutter to counter drug stuff, which we can get into a little bit.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I did an 87-foot troll boat in Florida Straits more migrant interdiction and then I did a staff job for three years. So our last three years in Miami was doing a staff job in the enforcement division in Coast Guard District 7 in Miami. The time that I was there was the most recent kind of occurrence of being on the cusp of illegal mass migration that the US has had in recent years and the combination of just horrendous conditions in Haiti. So there was the president had gotten assassinated. I don't know if you guys remember that about four years ago there was an earthquake in Haiti. At the time, you know, conditions in Cuba have always just been, you know, like really bad. So there was the push factors there, but then the perceived like whether or not whether or not you know depending on who you talk to immigration policy actually changed with Biden in office or not. That doesn't matter. The perception is what matters right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Sure yeah so the perception was that the US is going to be more lenient towards people that are trying to immigrate legally or illegally whatever into the US. Whether or not policy actually changed or it was just like enforcement change and stuff like that, it was really more of an enforcement stance. But Biden gets into office, assassination of the president in Haiti, earthquakes and all of a sudden it's like the floodgates are getting ready to open again from from Haiti and Cuba, and it got really really hot for about a year, year and a half, when I was at district seven enforcement um that's in Miami with in Miami, with attempted illegal maritime migration from Haiti and Cuba to the US.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So yeah, it'd be cool if we could look at a map of the Caribbean southeastern US. I could kind of show all this stuff you don't have to. I'll pull it if you don't want. I can try to describe it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But basically across the Florida Straits.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Right, you have people that are coming in what we call chugs from Cuba.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So this is what I was doing, trying to loop these things together. So my sophomore year, when I'm in St Pete, florida, on this 110 foot cutter for you know, for six weeks, whatever doing training, we're trying to interdict people coming from Cuba on these just ridiculously poorly made like homemade rafts, trying to make it the 90 miles from Cuba across to Key West or hitting somewhere in the Florida Keys, because if they made it at the time then they would get to stay. So there was that, and then people would try to come from Haiti in what are called sail freighters, what we call them kind of colloquially sail freighters, which are anywhere from, like you know, 60 to 150, 200, probably, anywhere from 60 to 150 foot, uh, sailboats like wooden sailboats, the cuban chugs, for the most part like 15 to 20 people, these haitian sail freighters, the most that I ever saw on one of them uh, like numbers wise that were interdicted, was like 250 people on like 125 foot boat you have no idea like how dangerous that is.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Right, like this is more than like, uh, more than like an enforcement mission, like, yeah, like the, the enforcement and like the border security stuff was really important and that's what what we were trying to do, but more than that, it was a humanitarian like you gotta, you gotta know when these people are trying to leave, because you got to get a boat to them asap, because if, if they capsize, all those people are drowning and there is like unknown numbers of you know, attempted migration ventures that have capsized, where you know all these people have drowned and we have no idea like how many have actually, yeah, you never hear about it and it hasn't really been.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It wasn't really in the news too much.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know the last, the last couple years, when that was really really hot, um, but the numbers just absolutely spiked for a couple years when I was, when I was there and, uh, they were pulling a lot of assets down, um, to kind of address all that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know the increased flow and whatnot, um, and that was a very like I was I wasn't even like on cutters at the time right, like I'm like doing all the coordination from like the, from a staff perspective, but I was still like taking duty calls and whatnot and we were actually like fairly tactical. We probably shouldn't have been at the level that we were at, like at a district. You know, underneath the district there's like sectors and then the sectors have like the boats that are actually doing the interdictions, like theoretically we're more like logistics and strategic. But we ended up being very tactical and a lot of that is because I think, like you know, cutter men, guys that have worked on cutters in the past, all the captains that are there and whatnot, like they want to be in the action you know it's like we just end up being very tactical and so we have like a duty, a duty rotation, where you're taking calls and I kid you not like the most stressful time that I've had in the coach guard was at.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That was supposed to be a staff job in district seven where you would be on duty for a week at a time and when it was super hot with the immigration stuff, but then also taking drug cases in like the caribbean and stuff. I got like calls for that and the coordination for all that stuff. You would get no less than 200 calls a week, you know from the watch floor and stuff like that. And you know sometimes when you had cases it'd be like 15 calls a night like you didn't sleep the nights that you're on duty and stuff like that. It was way worse than having an infant.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, so was that? Did you get what you asked for when it came to desiring a law enforcement career? Or like what was it like? Were you like, man, this is not what I expected it to be? Or was it like, yeah, were you like, uh, because that you're saying that's the staff job, versus when you were out in? The action like, so the action more what you had in mind, yeah, so getting into like the actual what I've actually done.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Let's see here, let's backtrack again cadet summers right, did all the cadet summer stuff and just skip to graduation, graduated commission. So now the 01 and sending the coast guard. Um went to the cutter. Stratton was a national security cutter in alameda, california, uh, 418 foot cutter um, you know, relatively state-of-the like the newest, the newest big cutter that the Coast Guard has and they've got like a bunch of cool, like kind of intel collection capability, integration with the Navy and stuff like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So when I was in California for my first tour this is getting into the time I was like all right, cool, like you know, it's go time for me to do like high speed, low drag Coast Guard law enforcement stuff. So we did a lot of patrols from there down in the East Pacific, which is off of the coast of South and Central America, and there is a huge flow of cocaine that comes from South America via boat, like smaller boats, 30, 40 foot, what we call go fast boats um, and they're trying to make it from like colombia and ecuador out in the east pacific near the galapagos islands and they're trying to go. It's usually like a thousand fifteen hundred mile trip, but they have, like you know, anywhere from 600 to 1500 kilograms of cocaine and they're trying to hit, um, southern mexico. Then when it gets to southern mexico it gets broken into smaller chunks and then it goes into containers, it goes to coyotes, it goes to you know, boats, again it goes into sailboats, um, you know, it all gets kind of broken into smaller amounts and then smuggled across the border into the us and canada and all that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So what I I was doing when I was on Stratton was kind of the first line of defense against, you know, this narcotics flow You're trying to hit, like the bulk flow from South America to Mexico. So the interdictions that we were doing were, you know, pretty cool. You know you're 500, 800 miles offshore, you know well, into international waters, and there's just a whole, there's a whole slew of interagency partners that are working to, you know, combat the flow of narcotics at like this kind of primary vector, and so there's actually DOD involvement from aircrafts like surveillance aircraft, there's Coast Guard aircraft that fly for it, there's Customs and Border Protection aircraft that fly for it, and they're all trying to find these guys. A lot of it's intel-driven too, and basically you find these boats that are trying to make these runs and there's a bunch of Coast Guard cutters down there that are chasing them around and trying to essentially like catch as much as you can. So I got to do a lot.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Actually I was talking about with the video earlier. It's like somewhere, if I like, look for this, I there's a video on the internet of, like my gopro footage of me, like in the middle of the night, jumping off of a coast guard, you know pursuit boat onto a go fast, you know putting a guy in handcuffs and stuff like that, what, and that's on youtube. Uh, it's somewhere on the internet. Yeah, I don't know if it's on youtube, I'd have to find it. But if you like google, like coast guard, drug interdictions, like you see, you know there's videos of guys, um, there's one that was really famous, probably four or five years ago, of one of the semi-submersibles that are usually loaded with, like you know, three thousand four thousand keys of cocaine, um, and there was a guy that I graduated with.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:This is a guy that's like yelling at him and like broken Spanish to like stop and everything, um, and that was like on you know the all the big news sources and whatnot, um, but anyways, so like that was that kind of you know, scratched the itch of like the high speed, high speed law enforcement stuff. Um, for the two years that I did that and then we got to do a couple of alaska patrols too which is also really neat getting up to alaska in that boat um, we did some like fisheries law enforcement stuff and then some other national security missions which I won't get into too much, but proximity to russia and whatnot. You know, like we're kind of doing, like is that?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:because it's classified there's I mean there's classified stuff that they do um.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I was never really too privy to it but, like I said, there's like a lot of integration that you know those those ships can have with like navy and kind of bigger picture, um, bigger picture national security interests and whatnot. So like the arctic is a big thing for like national national security stuff, especially nowadays and the proximity to russia. So those boats are like involved in that and you'll see, like you can look this up on the news. You know, coast guard district 17 is all of alaska and the d17 admiral is always talking about, like you know, um, russian fishing vessels and chinese fishing vessels getting to the us exclusive economic zone and the coast guard having to chase them off and, like you know, russian warships and Russian planes and US airspace and all this stuff is happening in Alaska all the time.
Nick Kilionski:Okay, I was going to ask do you remember a few months ago when, like that, video went around of the American pilots interacting with a Russian pilot that had come?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:into American airspace I don't know if I remember the one recently, but it happens all the time Because they made it seem like whoa, this is a big deal.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah In the news, yeah, yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There's varying levels of like it probably will happen, like there's a bunch of occurrences and then there's a gap and then it'll happen again or something. But it's all a political kind of you know power game of you know.
Brock Roggie:Information.
Nick Kilionski:It's been a while since we've flown over there, Go do that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Freedom of the air like you know, flying in other countries' airspace, all that kind of stuff.
Brock Roggie:It's all kind of a gray area, or is it just kind of like pushing buttons, yeah, pushing buttons.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's pushing buttons, yeah okay. So some of it is gray area. A lot of what the Coast Guard does, freedom of navigation well, it's not really a gray area it's black and white to us and it's black and white to China.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So China builds all these islands on reefs and stuff in the South China Sea and they say this is now Chinese sovereign territory so China's territorial seas extends out to this ridiculous section of the South China Sea, and the US is like negative, we're going to sail a thousand yards from your little fake island that you've made and show that these, this is international waters. You can't just like create land yeah, you know right extend your border, yeah.
Nick Kilionski:Extend your border, yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So there's coast guard cutters that do that a lot. The navy does that a little bit, but I think the coast guard does it because it's like it's less aggressive having a big white boat that's like uh. So back to your point about the Coast Guard primary humanitarian service. There's so much more than just like a defense mission that the Coast Guard does, which is really attractive about the Coast Guard for me, but anyways, having them do like freedom of navigation stuff is much less aggressive yeah than a battleship yeah than a grey daunting behemoth, because the Bering St straights like what 50 miles like between Alaska At the closest point Alaska and Russia.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, it's, it's very close, yep, yeah.
Nick Kilionski:People don't know that. No, yeah, cause the map doesn't show it. The map doesn't show the map.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's like close so but yeah, so when I was on the national security cutter, we got to go up there and do do some pretty cool stuff. Um, actually got like north of alaska, like into the arctic ocean, um, like we were north of alaska, um, and got over like the border with canada and stuff like that it was.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It was pretty cool. We actually almost got stuck by behind some ice when we were there. We had to, like, pick our way through some ice to get back down, which is kind of fun not an icebreakerbreaker, by the way.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You're not supposed to hit ice with that thing.
Nick Kilionski:I hope the whole would have happened if your efforts were unsuccessful. We were to figure something out. What's the book?
Brock Roggie:No Shackleton's Journey or Endurance, or Ernest Shackleton.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:No, they all made it.
Nick Kilionski:There was one where they all died.
Brock Roggie:They were chopping off fingers and stuff.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I don't know Probably a lot of them where they all died Probably most. But Shackleton, yeah, they all made it. That is an incredible story. Yeah, that's insane.
Nick Kilionski:What's that? It's basically you guys. No, not at all. Shackleton did that on a wooden sailing ship.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And then wooden sailing ship and then, like his guys, like, uh, yeah, they took like five or six guys and hiked over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles of arctic ice, dragging a boat across the ice, launched the boat somehow got to, you know, the nearest whaling island. That was like another hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away, landed on that island, climbed over the mountain of the island to the whaling town, and then they're like, hey, uh, a year ago we got stuck in the ice and theoretically, all of my guys are still stuck on the ice down in antarctica somewhere and they were able to go and rescue them all. Like that, that's the incredible.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, it's just absolutely.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That is nothing, isn't the boat was the boat's name endurance. Yes, okay, I.
Brock Roggie:Okay.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I think so. Yeah, if I remember correctly.
Brock Roggie:Plus like hypothermia.
Nick Kilionski:And what is it when your hands Frostbite, frostbite, yeah, all that stuff Like dude. Yeah, was there a sense of urgency in that situation, or was it like there was?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:yeah, because we had a Limited resources, we'd be watching the ice every day, like every day, like you know, um, national oceanic and atmospheric administration, noah, like they have, you know, satellites for weather and all that kind of stuff and they track the ice and they're like, hey, like you know, here's, here's the ice forecast for today, or here's like where the ice flow is at. And we were like, actually at the time, uh, crystal serenity, it was a cruise ship that was doing the first trip, uh, like a passenger cruise ship for hire, from seattle through the northwest passage, right like north of alaska, through the arctic ocean, over to boston.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:This is in 2016, the fall of 2016 so we actually like yeah yeah, we actually followed the crystal serenity at like 100 nautical miles that they didn't know. They knew we were there but we weren't trying to like set a precedent of, like you know, every commercial, uh cruise ship that's going to try to do this trip gets a Coast Guard escort.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But we were like this is the first you know boat for hire that's trying to do this, so we wanted to be able to respond in a timely manner or something went sideways. So we kind of tailed them and then that's why we were north of Canada. We tailed them all the way to the US-Canadian border, north of Alaska, and then we kind of handed it off to the Canadian Coast Guard at that time. And that's when we turned around and were like, oh crap, like the ice flow has come down, and then we had to pick our way back through to get back into like the Bering.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Straits and the Gulf of or not Gulf of Alaska, Bering Straits and the shoot. Where did the dude deadliest catch? Gulf of Alaska is south.
Brock Roggie:The.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Bering Sea. Is it the bering sea? Is the bering sea? Yeah, the back into the bering sea and then through the aleutian islands, into the gulf alaska and home yeah, I've been to dutch harbor. Dutch harbor, if you guys ever see deadliest catch I've been to dutch harbor a couple times, yep um, so that's pretty cool getting probably.
Brock Roggie:I'm sure the coast guard's been highlighted on that show before.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Oh yeah, many times so when we were there, we did um.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Uh, the second time that we did alaska patrol that was more for like uh, that wasn't for national security stuff, as much as like, the cutter that was supposed to be up there broke and so we got my last patrol on stratton. It was like we were in the east pacific. I was like this is my last chance to you know, get some major drug busts and stuff like that. So we were all stoked about that. We're all, we're down in the east pacific and then, uh, we were chasing after a go fast and we were heading south and then all of a sudden I like I walk into that combat information center and all of a sudden we're like driving north at like 25 knots and I'm like why are we going north? I asked my brother, why are we going north? He's like I'm not supposed to tell you this right now. But uh, we're going to alaska. I was like what, we're getting diverted 2,000 miles north to Alaska.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Just like yeah, well because the cutter that was up there at the time broke really bad and there's a coverage requirement in Alaska for things like search and rescue fisheries enforcement you know, like stuff with Russia, if there's Russian incursion and stuff like that. So there had to be, like you mean you had to be a presence there. We had to have a Coast Guard presence there. Yeah, and we were the one that made the most sense, so we got diverted from our, you know, high-speed Coast Guard law enforcement, you know counter-drug patrol, up to.
Brock Roggie:Alaska. Totally different, yeah, totally different. And like, does all the crew know that or are they just kind of like, all right, we had a?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:big meeting on the Mestec and the CEO was like so you?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:know Pretty much yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I remember having a bad attitude about that at the time, but really kind of learning from that in hindsight, like it was actually really cool getting to go to Alaska again and if you've never been there before, it is absolutely gorgeous. Like highly recommend getting to Alaska at some point for everyone. It is just absolutely beautiful. Definitely would like to getting to Alaska at some point for everyone. It is just absolutely beautiful. Definitely would like to get back there at some point.
Brock Roggie:The deadliest catch. Why did? I always used to think that was like off New England somewhere, I don't know, it's off the West Coast.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's in Alaska, yeah. So a lot of those boats in the wintertime they come down to Seattle and they get a bunch of work done in Seattle, like at dry docks and stuff in.
Brock Roggie:Seattle.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:A lot of the crews I think are like Seattle-based.
Brock Roggie:Those guys are nuts.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Oh yeah.
Nick Kilionski:They're crazy, they seem a little like Like I'm not surprised that the Coast Guard's been on the show, like they seem a little.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah Well, so when we were there, right, the second time especially, we had a MH-65 Dolphin. It's a helicopter that was with us for the patrol and is for search and rescue purposes, right, like these fishing boats, all the time will have guys get injured, They'll have guys overdose on you know some kind of drug, um, whatever the case is, and they're 800 miles offshore and you need to have you know like a presence to be able to get them medevaced off in a timely manner, so we did like several of those.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, the show makes it sound like they're never out in like good conditions at all too or is that just how it is?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:it's rarely good conditions, is that how it is? Yeah, yeah, so like what you guys would have been sailing through is kind of like that just how it is out there.
Nick Kilionski:It's rarely good conditions, is that how it is? Yeah, yeah, so like what you guys would have been sailing through is kind of like that too.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There is, we saw some gnarly, yeah, some pretty gnarly stuff. Yeah, Now granted, we're on like a much bigger boat than what those guys are on.
Nick Kilionski:It has an effect on it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Do people get seasick? A lot elliot was talking about in his episode. The reason I remember this, oh yeah, because I just listened to it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um you know they were so where elliot was actually uh, fishing with those guys off of uh el salvador or whatever, whatever central american country that was like.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's like, if you go 600 miles further west, that's where we were patrolling during like the counter drug patrols in the central, the central um pacific or the east pacific and stuff like that um but you were talking about like tyler uh, tyler's there getting like whatever. Like there's a lot of people that would get seasick.
Nick Kilionski:So yeah, everyone's getting seasick. You don't like getting used to that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You do after a while, yeah so my wife, meredith meredith, is in the coast guard as well. Um, we both went to the the coast guard academy, um, and so that's where we met and everything, and, uh, she was on the polar star, which is a icebreaker, um, and she got to go to antarctica twice on that. Yeah, so she actually has been to mcmurdo station and stuff like that yeah, mcmurdo, uh, mcmurdo, yeah, um but uh the uh, the shape of the ice breaking hall is like a football right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So in order to be able to, like you know, more efficiently break the ice.
Nick Kilionski:Dimensionally break the ice?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:yeah, it's like it's, you know, rounded in the front and like rounded in the back, but like when it's. When it's in open water. The analogy is it's like a football in a bathtub right, it's just like it's, it's not. Yeah, it's so bad. And, mayor, when they got underway, she would be seasick for a week. She'd just be puking for a week, absolutely miserable, and then your body would like adjust to it and she'd be fine for the rest of it.
Nick Kilionski:Do they let you like take any medicine for that?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, there's like patches and all kinds of stuff.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, I've never like. Personally, I've never understood motion sickness, I've never experienced it I remember like in eighth grade we went on like the uncle sam boat tour for school and like everyone around me was throwing up over the side of the boat and I was like what's the matter with you guys? Like try to have some fun it affects different people different ways.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But yeah, it's, I've definitely terrible usually my, and it affects different people differently I I've thrown up once, but I think I also had like a bit of a stomach bug when I when I actually puked. But my seasickness is like, uh, I just get a wicked headache and get super tired. Yeah, it's yeah, but I usually don't, usually don't throw up.
Nick Kilionski:But so there's always like it's like you have to adjust again. If you take a break from it, then you go back out and you have to adjust again or do you kind of get used to it?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:you kind of get used to it over the long term. Yeah, yeah, but I would imagine that would be a pretty big problem logistically.
Nick Kilionski:If your entire staff is constantly getting seasick. Do they make them? Just? How do they handle that? Do you have to work through it?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, a lot of times, yeah, oh, that sounds brutal.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, it sucks, okay, so I wanted to get your career timeline, just so we can have it on record A little more. Okay, so you got the graduated from the academy. What degree?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yep, all right. So I graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 2016.
Brock Roggie:Yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The great class 2016. Shout out, shout out 2016,. You're listening to this podcast. I'm guaranteed I'll be the only one. Well, my wife Meredith. Meredith 2016,. Right.
Brock Roggie:Share it to them right to them.
Nick Kilionski:So yeah, Do you have a Facebook page? Does your Coast Guard Academy have a Facebook?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:page. You can share it to the Facebook page, please, please, please. There probably is a class Facebook page Coast Guard Academy does not have a graduation Facebook page.
Nick Kilionski:It's the freaking Coast Guard Academy Beaver.
Brock Roggie:River Central School Something community college.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Okay, go, I think our class probably has a Facebook page. Nice, I think.
Nick Kilionski:Facebook's for losers yeah, the older folks. You should edit that out.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm not a huge. I'm not real big on social media now.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's good. For you it's kind of a time suck for me. It's the right choice.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Anyways, 2016,. Civil engineering was my major.
Brock Roggie:Never used it, probably never will, but it was. It was really cool in the club yeah, yeah, right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So my undergrads in civil engineering, um, and then so graduated commission 2016, may of 2016. I did, uh, man, so I did like a six week program, uh, saratoga fellows graduate uh, it's kind of like a graduate study style program, for it did like a six-week program. Saratoga Fellows graduate. It's kind of like a graduate study style program.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It was like the Coast Guard actually let me do this which is really cool. It was a Christian-based program for junior officers. About eight of us went and lived in a community together for six weeks and we got to study like just war theory, philosophy, ethics, um and american history and like all this stuff, like as it pertains to um, like principled, faith-based leadership, specifically for the military.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:They do programs for other college students as well, like a fellowship program, but this is a six-week fellowship program specifically for um new uh, newly commissioned officers in the us military. Okay, so that was.
Brock Roggie:That was super cool because when you come out of the academy you're commissioned newly commissioned officers in the US military. So that was super cool, Because when you come out of the academy you're a commissioned officer. Then at that point.
Nick Kilionski:Yes, so when you?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:graduate, you get your yes different. So when you graduate, you get your degree for your academic stuff, and then you get your commission, which is the military side of it. So your graduation day is also your commissioning day. They happen on the, on the you know.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:At the same time, you get your degree from the dean of academics and then you get your commission from, usually, whatever you know, whatever major speaker is there. So, like for me, it was Jay Johnson, who's the department, the secretary of department of home security at the time, and then Emma's was Kamala Harris when she was VP when Emma graduated. So I got to give Emma her commission and shake Vice President Harris' hand and everything which is pretty cool, we got pictures, oh yeah.
Nick Kilionski:You telling me or her oh yeah, nice firm handshake, she's got that going.
Brock Roggie:She had a good handshake, Paul not so much yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Do this wrong and get tackled off the stage in my waist yeah right, but anyways that would have been a YouTube.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That would have been a YouTube.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So I graduated from the Academy in 2016, degree in civil engineering, did that program for six weeks, reported in August of 2016 to the stratton um. So from 2016 to the summer of 2018, I was on the cutter stratton uh, national security cutter alameda, california, doing counter drug law enforcement and some patrols in alaska doing search and rescue kind of stuff. Um, deck watch officer is my kind of specialty, so I drive chips. Um, it's kind of like. So I drive ships. It's kind of like when the Coast Guard looks at me, what's your specialty? I'm a cutterman. Actually, yeah, I'm a permanent cutterman now, which means that I've done over five years of sea time on Coast Guard cutters.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So ship driver, I got to drive that thing, which is super cool. You know, big, big ship getting to do ship handling and driving that in and out of ports and stuff like that. Um, so I did that for two years. Uh, 2018, I moved to miami, florida. I was a commanding officer on an 87 foot patrol boat in miami beach, florida. Um, for two years, the mighty coast guard cutter, cachito cachito yeah, that's the coolest thing ever.
Brock Roggie:Why does the military know how to name things perfectly?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:yeah, so the cachito is like a 40 pound dolphin, endangered dolphin that lives like, only in, like the gulf of san diego or the gulf southern california of san diego. There's like 40 in the world or something like that. The cachitos, that's sweet.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um so the coaching crew cachito so you were commanding officer then yep, a ceo, uh, so it was, uh, 12 person crew including myself. Um, you know, 87 feet, not not huge, but that was really really really cool experience, you know, having the, the commanding, commanding officer, kind of ultimate authority, responsibility stuff as far as your unit goes. It's kind of wild how much you know trust and responsibility the Coast Guard is willing to put in an o2 right. I was a lieutenant, junior grade at the time. Uh, two years under my belt of actual active duty experience, and I'm a commanding officer of you know, these people that are, um, you know it's just just wild that the coast guard does that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Really cool in terms of like learning and everything but like in hindsight I guess like maybe at the time I thought maybe I was somewhat prepared, in hindsight I had no business. You know, being the ceo of a, of a of my own unit, um, but just super cool that the coast guard lets you do that um and kind of puts that confidence in you. I, uh, I didn't crash. No one got killed, you know, during my my times never hit the dock parking it uh, not hard anyways, not hard, um, but that thing drives really easy, it's not.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's not like driving the, you know the big, the 418 foot cutter yeah, I've driven a big 84.
Brock Roggie:He's like, yeah, 87, tiny little boat, yeah, okay, yeah well the response time, right like on the throttles, is pretty good it's, it's way better than uh thruster on that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:No, not on the 87 no, but it's, it's twin screws, so you can just you split the throttles oh, yeah, and just like, right, you, just you turn on the spot, it's.
Brock Roggie:It's super easy to drive, you guys could do it after a day of messing around with it honestly messing around with it hitting a lot of boats. Yeah, yeah, um, that's cool, but uh yeah, so.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I was a CEO on 87, uh 87 and Florida streets, so there we were doing um drug and migrant patrols between the Bahamas and uh, florida, south Florida and the North Florida streets, um. So a lot of folks don't know this, but 40 nautical miles from Miami to Bimini, bahamas, and it's only like 60 or 70 nautical miles from West Palm Beach, florida, to the west end of I can't remember the name of the island right now though, but it's one of the bigger islands in the Bahamas. So the Bahamas are really close to South Florida. So that's like a major staging point for a lot of smuggling operations maritime smuggling operations into the US. So a lot of times you get migrants that would travel to the bahamas from cuba, haiti, dominican republic or really anywhere in the world. We get chinese migrants, uh, we get migrants from other other.
Brock Roggie:you know points uh and uh it's like a way to get out. Yeah, they all come to that spot, right well because there's something like there.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There's some ridiculous amount like 150 countries that you can travel to the Bahamas without needing a visa, or something like that.
Brock Roggie:Seems like an easy fix.
Nick Kilionski:So the Bahamas is a major Stacey point for Come on, Bahamas, help us out.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, for drug and migrant smuggling and trafficking and stuff like that. So we did in my time as the CEO on the 87, we probably did 160 boardings of boats that were. You know, we're looking for anything westbound because the thing there is like the illicit traffic, the illicit traffic on the national security cutter, easy to spot right. This 40 foot boat with a tarp covering the bow and two outboards and three fishermen has no business being 800 nautical miles offshore and heading towards Mexico. All fishermen. Has no business being 800 nautical miles offshore and heading towards mexico all, right, like.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know what they're there for and the florida straits. There is so much money there, um, and so many people that have boats that they're able to like. Let's just take a weekend trip to the bahamas, so on sundays there's all these boats that's legitimate recreational traffic coming from the bahamas back into the south, uh, you know, southern florida and all the illicit traffic just blends in with that, and a lot of these guys too that have like these really nice boats, like they might be taking five keys of cocaine. You know, just stuff somewhere that you're never going to find because you don't have rs to rip into.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know, sure, reasonable suspicion, sorry, right like you don't have reasonable suspicion to rip into whatever open, whatever compartment on their boat that they have this. So like finding the drugs that come from the Bahamas is super hard without like having, you know, good intel and then being able to build the reasonable suspicion based on observations and not on intel right to be able to dig into these spaces. So I never got a drug bust. The whole time that you know, in 160 boardings or whatever we did of westbound boats from the Bahamas to Florida, never got a drug bust. Had one interdiction though. That was really cool, which is kind of my claim to fame as a time as a ceo. Uh, as far as like the le stuff, we also did a lot of uh, security operations. So trump's first term, mar-a-lagos in west palm beach. So we would spend days at a time sitting 100 yards off mar-a-lago beach you.
Nick Kilionski:You know what's only worth $16 million Sounds like a nice tax cut.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, like the outhouse is worth $16 million.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's cool, mar-a-lago, getting our butts handed to us over Christmas or whatever. The C-State is just absolutely miserable. But you're supporting the Secret Service with a security mission or or whatever, so we're just getting our butts handed to us you know holding station 100 yards off of mar-a-lago for like three days because it's like over christmas, because the c-state was so bad yeah, normally we wouldn't stay out of that, but you know, based on the fact that, like he was, there we're supporting the security op and everything, so that that was uh, fun times, fun times anyways, um the le stuff.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So the one kind of claim to fame for law enforcement stuff when I was a ceo was, uh, we had a big cabin cruiser that was coming in from the bahamas into hull over inlet, which, if you ever, if you ever look at a qualified captain or whatever youtube channel um of boats trying to get out of inlets with like an east wind, east wind with an ebbing current and all over inlet right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like the current's coming out, the wind's blowing in, the waves go like this, uh, and like there's so many videos on youtube my father-in-law watches some.
Brock Roggie:There's some dock or something yes, Miami, I think yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:so that's Black Point Marina. Yeah yeah, With guys trying to back their boats in right.
Brock Roggie:Oh yeah, is that what you're talking about? Oh no, okay. No, I'm talking about when they're going in and out.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, in and out. That's it. So that's all over inlet right. Other inlets on the south coast of Florida get that way, but they're like there's intercoastal waterways. There's so much water inside the chain of islands and then when the current is, they're coming in or going out right. If it's ebbing current, the current can flow out of those inlets back into the ocean at like four or five knots and when the wind is blowing in like this, it just stacks it up.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So when guys are trying to go in or out on their boats, um, it's just, it's hilarious yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brock Roggie:No, I can't remember the guy's youtube channel there. He sits there all day and just videos people going in and out. There's people falling off.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:They're falling off these boats and all this stuff and it's hilarious.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Anyways haul over in that. So that's also a major point, because that's a little sketchier area of Miami like North Miami Beach.
Nick Kilionski:Miami boat ramps. Yeah, I think Miami boat ramps, stuff like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, so every idiot in South Florida has a boat.
Brock Roggie:So there's also.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There's also videos of people trying to back their trailers in at at boat ramps and stuff like that. If you've never watched those, you need to watch this Cause, this is like this is like 80,000 pickup $80,000. Pickup trucks like sliding backwards into the oh my gosh they have no idea what they're doing, or jackknifing, and it's hilarious like family guys. There's guys getting out yeah there's guys getting out and they're yelling at people that are recording. It was like dude, this is a public boat you are parked up with like picnic chairs.
Brock Roggie:I'm well within my rights yeah that's a saturday.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Pastime in south florida is watching people launch and recover at these ramps it's hilarious, it's so dangerous man. So we had a boat for a little while and, like you know, I actually, when I first bought it, I took it in like the walmart parking lot and like practiced for like 30 minutes of backing up yeah before taking it to the ramp side. Look at this coast guard uh commanding officer such a bad look oh my goodness yeah, it was just yeah, anyways, yeah, so all over inlet uh right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So, uh, what are we on? 87? Um, we did a boarding on a boat that was, at nighttime, trying to get into hull over inlet. Almost didn't board it, except for the fact that we'd been looking at this boat on the fleer. Um, our, our camera, it's a forward looking infrared, right, so you use the infrared at night. We were looking at it, we were, we were dark and, uh, like dark and shipping the out for the law enforcement mission, and we could see two guys on there hit them up on the radio. You know, turn on the lights, turn on the blue light. Hey, uh, you know there's Coast Guard, channel 16, switch to whatever channel. Ask him what he's doing, how many people you got on board.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Oh, it's just me and we're like, yeah right, we saw the other guy with you.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So right away we know that he's not being truthful, so we hop on board and send two of the guys over to do a boarding the guys not letting them into some of the spaces that we need to get into there's like locked cabin doors and stuff like that. So I called my boss. I was like, hey, something's sketchy here. I don't have the manpower to be able to send more boarding team members over because I think we were only underway with like nine or ten guys at that time guys and gals. And so we worked through. My boss got air marine operations CBP to me just at the dock, brought the boat into the dock and they got into those spaces and stuff.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And it was like 14 Chinese migrants that were trying to get into know, get into the US illegally. Some of them were actually being trafficked and they didn't know that they were being trafficked. And there was a guy the guy that was actually the operator had ties to, like, the Italian mob in Miami and stuff like that. Like he had a rap sheet for you know all kinds of smuggling and whatnot. And then there was another guy that was a Bahamian smuggler. That was on board as well. So it ended up being, you know, a great interdiction of some folks that were ultimately being trafficked.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:They didn't realize they were being trafficked but they were going to be, like you know, forced into some type of you know equivalent of a slavery kind of thing, and they ended up getting an. Amo ripped into that boat a couple weeks later and they found like $200,000 in cash or something like that too. So that was a really cool interdiction Like oh hey, you know, 160 boardings that we've done over the two years actually had some kind of impact. We were able to get a really cool interdiction during the time that I was there.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So that was 18 to 20.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We got married when we were in Miami. So Mero is at the Civil Engineering Unit in Miami and so we got married 2018 when we were there. And then 18 and 20, ceo on the cutter. And 2020, I went to, just, you know, across the city to District 7, which was the staff job in Miami, because Mayor had another year. So that's actually, you know, getting back to what we were talking about earlier.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like you know, in hindsight you can see where I tried to do all these things. But you know, god was just like kind of weaving the thread of life and you know, whatever his plan was. So when I was leaving the cutter, I was trying to go to DC to do a congressional affairs Coast Guard like congressional affairs job where I would have worked with like a congressman and stuff like that Pretty high profile job. I actually went up to DC and like interviewed for it and everything and it would have been really cool to have done and like I really wanted to do it at the time. Right, it was like this is like what you do for kind of your high speed. You know your high speed next tour.
Brock Roggie:This really sets you up for success.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, To do like these other high profile jobs and stuff. But I was going to what we call a geo batch. I was going to be a geo batch so I was going to go up there for a year when Mary was still in Miami and finishing her time in the civil engineering unit, which I was like, oh, it's fine, like you know we'll be fine and all that and I'll do this. Didn't end up getting that, you know. Got through the final process, didn't end up getting it for you know, for whatever reason. But you can see like in hindsight how that's just, that's not what.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:God had for us right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like, ended up going to D7 State in Miami. We had Eli a year later or whatever, so we ended up having our first kid. It's just not what the Lord had for us, which, in hindsight, you can see that, in hindsight, too, that would have been absolutely miserable, because I don't know if you guys remember what happened in the winter of 2020.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:covid in dc would have been awful, yeah, awful, right, and I also would have been there during, like, uh, um, I also would have been there during, like, the january 6th stuff and all that right like yeah right in the vicinity of all that stuff and, just like you know, political, the political environment, as everyone knows, in the last eight years is just not something that in hindsight I would have wanted to deal with. So I'm so thankful to the Lord that he didn't, you know, allow that to come to pass. So, anyways, stayed in Miami, did the staff job at District 7 Enforcement, which District 7, so the Coast Guard right there's the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard right there's the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is broken up into Atlantic area and Pacific area. The areas are broken up into districts, so District 7 is all of the southeastern United States and the Caribbean region, and then the districts are broken up into sectors and then the sectors have stations. So that's how, like, the whole world really is broken up into areas of responsibility for what, you know, the US Coast Guard is responsible for as far as coast guard stuff is concerned.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So I worked at district 7, which is the southeastern us 34, you know sovereign nations and territories and stuff like that that we kind of worked with and the whole caribbean ocean. So that's when I was doing the um. You know the stuff I was talking about with the mass migration, recent mass migration from, like, haiti and cuba, a lot of counter-drug enforcement stuff in the central Caribbean, because there's a lot of drugs that also, you know, like in the East back that flow through the Caribbean from Columbia up to Dominican Republic to Haiti, straight into Puerto Rico from Columbia and stuff like that through the Caribbean. So we were working to combat all that stuff. So that was 2020 to 2023, during that time.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So another thing that I was trying to do that, you know, the Lord closed the door on. So I was working with a lot of Homeland Security investigations guys when I was in District 7. So HSI, which is the DHS's investigative arm, so Department of Justice, the FBI is to DOJ as HSI is to DHS, so HSI is the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, and I was really trying to do HSI. I thought that I wanted to do that keep going with law enforcement.
Brock Roggie:What year was that?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:2021, 2022 is when I was going through the application stuff for all that.
Brock Roggie:So I remember having a conversation with you at one point you were talking more about about moving into that like law enforcement specific.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, yeah um, I probably started that in 2021 and a lot of that was like I was kind of fed up with coast guard law enforcement at the time, because the coast guard law enforcement is just like uh, not to bash on the coast guard too much, but so inefficient. Um, it's just like and and the way that there's a lot of really cool leeway and authorities, especially for like the interdictions and international water stuff that you get to do, but then there's also a ridiculous amount of like red tape and bureaucracy that you have to go through to take any kind of action, whereas, like the HSI guys and the Air Marine Operations guys, like they have the authority in and of themselves uh, you know, make arrests and like do all these things. Like, if you're on a coast guard uh, coast guard small boat and you want to use uh force to stop a non-compliant vessel, you have to get like the admiral's authorization at the time so it's like it's like 30 or 45 minutes worth of phone calls, as you're like chasing this boat, like you know.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Stop, please stop. I can't shoot you yet, so you need to stop your boat. Whereas like amo can just roll up and they'd be like stop your boat no, no okay, boom, boom, warning shots, right like didn't work.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Pepper ball pop, pop, pop. You know you're shooting with a paintball gun. That's got little powdered uh, powdered oc is oc and pepper or in powder form um, that doesn't work. And then they're shooting engines out. Those guys can get through those steps in a matter of five minutes. It takes the Coast Guard an hour to get to that stuff.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's just an example of some of the inefficiency. There's also a lot of bureaucracy working at that kind of staff-level headquarters job. All that to say, I was kind of fed up with Coast Guard law enforcement and I wanted to get out and do something else. So I went through a year and a half worth of hiring process, you know, application on USA jobs. Three different phases of applications like taking tests online, taking in-person tests, doing like Zoom interviews with HSI agents from you know around the country. I got a conditional offer for HSI, you know thought I was going to be good, paid my own way to go to Dallas to take the polygraph and do all that Um, like somehow pass a polygraph. Um, that was just miserable. I know you talked about the polygraph.
Brock Roggie:I hated the polygraph is just it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:yeah, did not like that, but somehow passed it Um, because the guy told me, kept telling me I was lying um almost like that's kind of like the norm, what you do.
Brock Roggie:I was trying to be doing a lie.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:See, that's the thing is. Like, conscientious is the word you used from earlier. Right, like I'm super conscientious, like super self-conscious, like I want to make sure that I'm telling you I'm not that I'm not trying to hide something, but I'm also like super hard on myself, like they're like are you someone who follows policy? Yes, it's like I know there's signs that are broken policy.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, and like I try to like spill my guts as much as possible, but I still like, in the back of my mind, I'm like I know that there's, there's times where I've been like I'm like this, this policy or whatever is stupid, like I've and I've not followed that, and I don't think I necessarily have a propensity to do that, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking like I have a propensity to maybe not follow policy when I think it's stupid which they don't want to hear right, like they want you to say like yes or no.
Nick Kilionski:So yes or yes. Yeah, there's no nuance.
Brock Roggie:Like there's not supposed to be any nuance so I think that's what was tripping me up on the polygraph.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Somehow I passed it um wait, let's just.
Brock Roggie:Let's just talk about that for one second. Talk about the most like, first of all, very manipulative that's the whole point of it. That's why they're not admissible in court. Right um is to get you to be like have you ever?
Brock Roggie:oh, you're showing deception here is there anything you tell me, they're like oh yeah, well, this fail, right you know? And instead of just like sticking to your guns, right? I'm also very conscientious, 99th percentile, actually. Um, and one of the things for me was like I'm gonna tell you exactly the truth. That's not good enough for you, that's fine, and then when you told me I was lying.
Brock Roggie:I was actually like offended yeah, oh, yeah, yeah I was like dude this is my, I was like this is my number one fear is to come in here and you tell me that I'm lying when I'm not lying right he's like all right, we'll try it again. Oh you passed yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Then later I figured out like what the polygraph actually was, because we had our own unit developed. At that point I was like okay.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, yeah, somehow I passed it. Not a fan of doing the polygraph.
Brock Roggie:You sit on a sensor and around your chest yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:At one point before, like I'm nervous to start it right, and I go, I take a deep breath. The guy goes you do that again, you're gonna fail. Yeah, yeah, you're not allowed to like the chest harness monitors your breathing.
Brock Roggie:You've got sweat and your pulse and all that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So he's like purposely being a jerk well, no, he, because you're not allowed to try to like monitor your, you're not allowed to try to use techniques that would regulate your heart rate or make you less stressed.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, and the worst is the worst part of the whole thing was one point. He said you're controlling your breathing and I was like.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'll try to breathe more, not breathy, but then the whole rest of the time.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm just like how do I not focus on my breathing anyway, so I did the polygraph, passed the polygraph, and then I'm getting to the point. Well, no, so this is yeah. I don't know how much you guys like to talk about politics and what not in here but, we're uncensored here.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Man, I'm a big fan of maybe not Elon Musk, but I'm a big fan of the idea of the doge, like government efficiency. The government sucks in terms of efficiency and I work for the government and I don't care who works for the government. That's hearing me say this, but the government is inefficient. Oh yeah, um, it's not, it's not new news to anybody, right?
Brock Roggie:yeah?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:but so I'm a big fan of anything that can be done to like make the government more efficient. Like that's should have been done a long time ago by the people, for the people. The first government is for the people. It's not. It's not the self-licking ice cream cone that it's become.
Brock Roggie:I've never heard that before.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The hiring process for HSI just highlighted government inefficiency for me. I'm like look, you're telling me that you guys are trying to hire all the people that you can, that you need qualified candidates. I have seven years of Coast Guard law enforcement experience doing exactly what you guys are going to be asking me to investigate and do. I'm like, you know without trying to sound prideful for this like I am the ideal candidate for this and the first thing I did was, uh, the first time I went through the hiring process because I went through two iterations of it was, uh, internal solicitation on usa jobs. There's like it's d's DHS only, it's internal to DHS, only all the HSI agents that I knew and that I had been working with they're like dude, you got to put in for this one. It's going to be so much more streamlined and all this.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So I'm like, cool, I put in for it, I get through the whole process, get the conditional offer and then, like an hour later, it's like we're sorry, you have not. It's because it was for DHS civilians only. The Coast Guard didn't count for it because I wasn't being paid on the GS pay scale. I was on the military pay scale. So even though the Coast Guards in DHS were on the military pay scale. Somehow it didn't correlate that I was able to put in for the DHS internal solicitation they're only looking for civilians in DHS, so I put in for it again after that and by they're only looking for civilians in dhs, so I put in for it again after that. And by that time I'm like are you kidding me?
Brock Roggie:like I just I've done this for the last 10 months and now you put up your own money and your own time and yeah, well so that was, that was before the, the polygraph.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But I'm getting ready to like, uh, this, you know, I'm getting ready to drop letters for the coast guard and stuff like on the coast guard I'm getting out and whatnot, which if you actually send that letter to headquarters and then you pull it back, you incur a year of obligation oh yeah, so like if I'm about to send this letter like I need to.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I need to know that I've got something. I'm going to do this. Um, yeah, uh, so, uh, anyway. So that that didn't didn't apply to me, the dhs internal solicitation. So I put in for an open solicitation that's open for anyone and by this time I'm like kind of starting to be like, oh man, like do I really want to do this? But I got funneled through all of the phases again because I had passed them within the previous year already. So I was kept getting automatic emails Like you've been, you know, accepted for this. Oh, you've made it through phase one, you've made it through phase two. I haven't actually done anything again, but since I did it within the last year, it just like automatically got me all the way through it. And then I got the unc or the, the conditional offer again, and then that's when I had to go and do like the medical. I had to go and do the, you know pay my own way to go, do the polygraph in dallas, um, and all that stuff. So I went and did all that. Why dallas?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:that um, that's nowhere closer that's where they do it or do. Do they only have their people?
Brock Roggie:Yeah got it?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, because there's polygraph people everywhere, all the different agencies, so all the federal agencies they only have themselves do it. Fbi does their own, hsi does their own, border Patrol does their own AMO does their own.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:They all do their own polygraphs because there's different standards that each of those agencies has too on the polygraph. However that scale works. There's different standards of whatever, um. So anyways, I got through that whole thing. Now it's getting to february and I'm about to get orders. Like I'd already put in picture the coast guard, because I got like I'm I'm working parallel efforts here right to see what's gonna happen, because I got to keep my doors open for the coast guard. I already put in for picture the coast guard and I hit up the hiring the HR office with HSI. I'm like, hey, the Coast Guard's about to call me with orders here and you guys haven't gotten back to me in the last four months. Like I need to know what's going on. Am I going to get a job with HSI or not? Because you know the Coast Guard's about to call me with my next set of orders and I've got to figure this out.
Nick Kilionski:And that's a commitment, that's another how many?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:yeah, If you take orders you gotta do. You gotta do a year of those orders before you could get out. Um. So, um, they emailed me back and they were like you have been found ineligible because of a medical issue. So I have a herniated disc in my lower back that I had, like three years ago now probably. That came out in like the medical exam which I've been able to, like you know, work through and everything.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um, but for whatever reason, like that was a hangup for HSI and they're like but dot, dot, dot, let's see if we can string you on a little further. You can put in for the waiver for this If you get all these letters of recommendation and all this stuff. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like I stuff. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like I gotta go through all this again. And that night my buddy, who is the detailer at the time um, well, the detailer just happened to be a guy that I graduated with called me. He's like hey, like you know, you're gonna get your number one pick on your orders with the coast guard, which was to go and do the icebreaker booty tender in surgeon bay, wisconsin, which is where we are now. So that was the lord telling me. Like you know, it's just I that's not.
Brock Roggie:That's not the path. There's doors. Closing that that door is too many doors. Maybe that's just not where you're supposed to be yep, that door is going to close.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So, uh, yeah, so I've gotten out of out of law enforcement since. You know, now we're in surgeon bay, wisconsin. I'm on a? Uh, now on 140 foot, uh, what's called a bay class ice breaking tug, um, so 140 feet, um, and one of only two of the 140s that has a 120-foot-8 navigation barge. So it's a barge that we tie onto the front of the tug and we push that around for spring, summer, fall months to work buoys. So it's got a crane on it. So we, you know, go up to buoys and essentially use the crane to grab them, you know, bring them on board, either swap it, do whatever chain work we need. You pull the sinker up, check the sinker, all that kind of stuff, and then put it back out. So that's what we do in the spring, summer, fall, and then we detach from the barge and we break ice in the wintertime for maritime traffic flowing through the Great Lakes during the ice season.
Nick Kilionski:You keep the roads clear for trade and whatnot. Is that what you mean? The lakes Like trade routes and whatnot, yeah, or for your own folks, trade routes? No, it's for merchant marine vessels.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's not really Trade routes is kind of Like are there common paths?
Nick Kilionski:that they are traveling, that you're keeping clear. Okay, yeah, absolutely okay.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So, like the, beginning of ice season. We'll keep green bay open for a while. They're getting the last, like petroleum and salt and other dry bulk goods into green bay and then they close. Uh, green bay for the? Uh, yep, that's it. So if you, if you search coast guard cutter mobile, bay mobile, yeah, that's, and it'll have a picture of the barge too. Um, so, uh, yeah, so we keep green bay open the beginning of the year and then, um, if you're familiar with, like great lakes, uh, hydrography, I guess 100 geography of the great lakes that's your actual boat, that's the actual ship.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, that's awesome um, sorry, that's the actual ship. Yeah, that's awesome Ship. Sorry, wait, when is the distinction between boat to ship Like when you're like?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:65 feet is how the Coast Guard defines it. You're like a boat expert.
Brock Roggie:Anything is Well. You know he is. You know, are you like a boat? Are you an?
Nick Kilionski:expert. Would you call yourself an expert?
Brock Roggie:I don't think I'm an expert. Who doesn't think he's an expert?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:what an expert exactly yeah, no, I, I, there's guys that know way, way, way, way more about you know coast guard cutters and boats and stuff yeah than I do so but to answer your question, like we call it, ship and boat interchangeably, it's, you know, kind of a again colloquial term. Feel eugene using the term colloquial colloquialism you don't like it.
Nick Kilionski:You don't like it, you're not given a hard time for calling it a boat. No, no, we call it a boat all the time.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, everybody snickers at you behind there, it's 65 feet Like you just call it a boat.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:When it goes to 65 feet is when it becomes a cutter and it needs to have an officer in charge or a commanding officer and not a coxswain to drive a coxswain strive boats.
Nick Kilionski:So that's probably what I would have done.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:What's interesting?
Nick Kilionski:to me is that, like the I don't know why, this is just the way that. I think it's interesting to me that the job that you're doing in Wisconsin is not like a private job, like the government. Yeah, that's a, that's an interesting, interesting point Right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like a tug ferry yeah if you get into what the Coast Guard or the government should and should not be doing. That's a big question there, right, like how much more of AIDS navigation could be privatized, how much more of icebreaking could be privatized. I will tell you, a lot of the icebreaking stuff, especially like in the harbors and whatnot, is handled by private tug companies. So a lot of the ice breaking stuff, especially like in the harbors and whatnot, is handled by private tug companies. Um, so a lot of the ice breaking, like in in the port of green bay, we don't actually go into the port, like into the river where green bay is. That's all the tug companies do that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Okay, but the major shipping channels that are used by, like multiple of your um, like shipping companies and stuff like that, they're called uh. So all the waterways are broken into tiers. It's like tier one through four. Tier one is like the highest priority um for, like the government, to make sure that it stays open for all kinds of traffic, mostly, mostly, um, you know, like, uh, merchant traffic to be able to flow through. So green bay is a tier one, what we call tier one waterway, the straitsits of Mackinac, when I was talking about, like Great Lakes geography. The Straits of Mackinac is what connects Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. It's like a narrow, straight ice gets jammed into there, but that's like the only way that you know boats from Green Bay, milwaukee, chicago, calumetet, which is in, uh, it's like just east of chicago. Um, you know like, uh uh, gary, indiana. A lot, a lot of you know steel and stuff like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The only way that any of the boats that are going to that area is getting back into the rest of the great lakes is through the straits of mackinac in the wintertime, so that's like a two-year-one waterway high priority. You got to keep that free for for merchant traffic to be able to flow through that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So yeah um, but in terms of, like you know, private companies doing stuff like that, I think that there there would be a way to be able to maybe privatize some of that work. Uh, it would take a lot. Yeah, contracts, and I don't actually know if it would be more efficient in terms of money to have it be contracted to private companies and something it.
Nick Kilionski:Probably someone's got to pay for it. Pretty expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like the steel company.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That makes sense to get through, there has to be paying some kind of right but, there's, there's a balance there's a balance somewhere in there, right, like I was talking about earlier, like government for the people, by the people, like I'm more of a small government guy, but government's got to be there for the people, right. So keeping those shipping lanes open for the merchant traffic and stuff that is serving the people, I think that that is reasonable, that the government is responsible for keeping a lot of that stuff open and maintaining the AIDS navigation and stuff like that for the traffic. But it's something like 5% of the US GDP flows through the Great Lakes via maritime means, unlike some of those Great Lakes merchant mariner vessels.
Brock Roggie:So it's pretty important what the icebreaker is Interstate and international from Canada oh yeah, not just Canada.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There's what we call salties that come in from all points international.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:How ironic.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That actually come into the St Lawrence Seaway and Lake Ontario, through the Welland Canal, into Lake Erie, over, you know, to Detroit and St Mary sorry, st Clair Rivers, up into Lake Huron, and they can I mean theoretically, you can go again. This is why I said like it'd be great to have a mapper, you know church relish or this stuff.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But theoretically you can get you know via boat from duluth, minnesota, all the way through lake superior, through the um, you know, through the sulox, down the saint mary's river into lake huron, down the st clair and detroit rivers, through lake erie, up the welland canal, lake ontario, out to st lauren coa, into the ocean and wherever the heck you want to go, you know yeah, I don't.
Brock Roggie:I think that I wouldn't you think like the great lakes would be kind of like isolated, but they're not. They're connected to the rest of the world do you?
Nick Kilionski:uh, just hearing you talk about straits of this and straits of that and bay this and like do you love oceanography, or whatever this is called? Like do you love maritime? Not, not?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:really, you know, I mean I, I I enjoy what I do um because you sound like an expert yeah, I'm like, well, it's just because this is. It's my job, right. Um, this is, this is good, because I feel like now we're gonna be able to get into like a part of like our discussion where it's actually like not just my life, you know what we could talk about, like you know, kind of more, more stuff that yeah is uh, I don't know if heady's the word for it, but like purpose of life stuff if you will right Like the Coast Guard is not the Coast Guard is.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's a means to an end, to glorify God and make him known. It's the way that I think about it, right, Like the Coast Guard itself, and being like on boats is not a. It's not like I'm passionate about it and I enjoy it, but the thing that I enjoy about it is more so.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I used to be like you know, this is so cool, like I'm out here in the middle of the night when all my friends are in bed and my family's in bed, and like I'm protecting the coast and you know all this kind kind of stuff, but more so now, it's less of like uh. It's less of like uh um adventure and more of like uh. It's a mission field, if, if that makes sense. I love the guys that I work with um I. I have just been blessed to have some of the coolest um people on the cruise that I've been in, and even when I was at the staff job, like some of the folks that I was able to meet and work with there, you know it was just really, really special.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But talk about just a unique opportunity that a lot of people don't get to. Constantly be meeting different people and trying to as much as possible, you know, pour into them with. You know, trying to be a light. I can be really hard on myself with like you know to what level I'm actually being a light and you know, proclaiming the truth about Christ and stuff like that. But I also think that there is something to be said about you know, the whole proclaim the gospel wherever you go and use words if necessary, like that's.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I don't agree with that phrase in itself because I think a lot of people can use that as an excuse to say, like I don't need to talk about my faith, I can just live it out. Like I think living out your faith is talking about it, but there's also absolutely aspects where you know it's word and deed right, so you can't be just a deed person and just you know being a quote, good person and shining your light that way. Like you've got to talk about it at some point. But there's absolutely something to be said about just being diligent in your work, working really hard and people will, you know, seeing something different in you than from other people. Like I think that everyone that I work with on the crew knows that I'm a Christian, um, but I've never necessarily talked to like all of the guys about my faith. You know what I mean.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But I think that like guys just kind of know that, I think, and I've definitely had more pointed conversations with the guys on board and stuff like that, and that's actually something that I want to have more of. I always want to be better about that. But to get back to your question, though, I enjoy being in the Coast Guard, but it is I don't know what my passion is really at this point in my life.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I feel like I hit a point in my life about, it would have been when I left the 87. So what was that? 2020, four or five years ago? So five years ago I ran out of planned life goals, if that makes sense. Like I did a poor job of like continuing to set goals for myself when I was in high school and we did our senior portfolio portfolios. You remember those and we had to like set all our goals and stuff like that. Like my goals were to go to college, play football, um start, uh start on the football team, start my junior year to be a captain and then to um command my own Coast Guard ship. Like I set all those goals when I was a senior in high school and you know the Lord was faithful to help me achieve all those goals right, like I got to yeah, I got to.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know, I got to start. I was a captain my senior year of the football team. I got to be a CEO of a patrol boat, like all these really cool things, but then, um, somewhere in there, I stopped setting goals for myself of, like you know what do I want?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:to do in terms of, like, achievements, um, and that's been kind of hard for me, but I realized now that, like, I think I just got to kind of lean into the Lord for that stuff, because there's, you know, I've gotten married, um, my wife you know she might listen to this podcast, but I'll try to say this without tearing up my wife is the most wonderful woman in the world. You know, she's absolutely, absolutely incredible. If not for the Coast Guard, I wouldn't have met Meredith. You know, we went to the academy together and then just having our three little guys over the last four years, right, like that's just, that's my life goal. Now, I guess, right and I know it's the same thing for you guys too is providing for my family, which is what the Coast Guard does for them in that regard. Right, like that's our source of income and kind of provision. That's how I, you know, seek to provide for them. But then also creating and leading a godly household for my wife and for, you know, for myself and for my wife, to continue to grow closer to the Lord, closer together, but then also discipling our three little kids and if, if we happen to have more kids, um, you know, if the Lord blesses us with that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like that's like our, our primary mission field now in Sotheby's, but then also the Coast Guard is like kind of the secondary, the secondary mission field. So to circle back to it again, I'm not like super passionate about the Coast Guard. I don't know what I'm super passionate about. I think that maybe, like there's a lot of so like hobbies-wise, I've gotten really into bow hunting the last couple years, like since I was in Miami, started bow hunting with a buddy in Miami. I was a big hunter growing up but football always, always, kind of always, was competing with that in the fall. But got really into bow hunting the last couple years. But that's another thing you know, kind of highlights some other stuff and you're gonna have to do a lot editing.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:you know this because I'm jumping around again no, but um I refuse um so something that I, that I've struggled with over the years has been like an idolatry kind of mindset right, like where I look at things in my life to fill the God, the God void, without really and I think I've realized it and I've tried to kind of combat that. But you know, all through like maybe high school and college there was, there was kind of a two or three things there where it was like you know, having a relationship with some girl like a girl is gonna fill this void or desire or whatever, so having a relationship and then also playing football, and then I'm not gonna get into the whole relationship fiasco stuff of my life through college and all that. But thank God eventually he brought me back to Meredith and that all ended up working out. We were able to get married a couple years after graduating from the academy. But again, I'm not going to get into all that stuff right now.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But you know, got into the Coast Guard and really kind of started idolizing law enforcement right, like I'm going to do this high-speed stuff like high-speed pursuits on the high seas. You know guns blazing Like you know guns blazing, like you know we're going to go shoot out engines. You know I got to multiple times in the middle of the night, super cool, roll up on, go fast. That the helicopter just shot the engines out, guns drawn. You know lights, um, you know flashlights, blue lights, going everything middle of nowhere, east Pacific right Like 800 miles from the nearest shore, hopping on board putting these guys in cuffs. You know, seizing thousands of kilograms of cocaine right, like, super cool. But just like I know, I thought that would fill the void. Didn't, didn't fill the void, right, and then we're getting ready to go to Miami. I'm like, oh, cool, like you know, maybe being a CEO of my own boat. But then also I'm going to, I'm going to get my own boat, right, like I'm going to have a little 20 foot center console when I'm in Miami.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And then I got in a back country saltwater fishing man in Florida. Talk about, like, talk about fun. You know, getting to go fishing in the in, like the Florida Keys. But then you also get down into, like, the Everglades National Park A lot of people don't know this, but the Southern point of the peninsula of Florida, right, there's like, do it for the camera. Here there's the like the peninsula of Florida. And then there's like the Keys. Right, there's like, do it for the camera here there's the like the peninsula of Florida, and then there's like the keys, right On the Southern part of that peninsula is where Everglades National Park is. It's a huge like, maybe millions of acres, certainly hundreds of thousands of acres, of South Florida. The peninsula is Everglades National Park.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You can drive through one road that goes out to this place called Flamingo and you can launch boats down there in the park and go out and you can fish the backwater stuff of the back uh, it's called backcountry fishing of south florida, where saltwater meets where the everglades, fresh water is flowing out and it is just the most um, like archaic wild sharks. Everywhere there's saltwater crocodiles, dolphins, like I would be fishing down there. I saw dolphins at low tide. You're like swimming up and diving into mud banks to like digging crabs out of mud banks and stuff like that, just like the most wild stuff, and you're catching monster fish back there and it's it's freaking awesome.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So when are we?
Brock Roggie:going but yeah, no, seriously so elliot and I went.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The first is the first summer fall that we went down there. We just the boat, and it was right before our wedding. Elliot came down because he was going to do the drive off to Virginia with me for the wedding. And we took the boat out and I didn't know what I was doing. So we caught, like you know, one little, you know drum or something like that, like some piddly little fish. But I wish you know we could have had more of you guys down to do that stuff and whatnot.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:One of my buddies. Actually, if you guys ever go to shout out Legacy Charters, his name is Paul Mnookian. He has a guide service pretty small time right now in South Florida, but he has fished the backcountry waters like his whole life and he has a guide service now. He takes guys out and fishing and whatnot. So if you're trying to go to South Florida and you want to do backcountry fishing, look up Legacy Charters, paul Mnookin, captain Paul Mnookin, and he'll take you out, like you know, super reasonable price and it's just absolutely wild getting into that stuff.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Anyways, where I was going with that is, like you know that was my next idol was backcountry fishing in miami. Um, you know when, when we had that boat and that was like these are things that just like would consume my thoughts, right, like I'm I'm just thinking about fishing all the time and like when's the next time that I can get down there to go fishing? Um and uh and stuff like that. So that was, like you know, kind of my idol then and then, like I was saying, like I got into bow hunting, right. So I think the last couple of years probably the last three, four years, like my my struggle with some kind of idol. That, like, has consumed a lot of my time and energy and stuff like that has been like bow hunting right and and and trying to, you know, get in the woods and shoot the biggest buck I can, and stuff like that. So that's been a.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's definitely been a struggle for me over the years and something that I've tried to kind of uh, you know, be more and more aware of and try to make sure that those things are in their rightful place, cause I think all those things have a place right, like recreation has a place, um, and and and rest, and you know being able to spend time with friends and you know family, obviously, and all that kind of stuff. Like it has its, it has its place, but it can't be like it can't be God's in a section over here and then fishing and then work, and then you know hunting or whatever it's gotta be God permeating absolutely every part of your life. So you know God in your family, god in your work, god in your recreation and all that kind of stuff, and I think if you can get that priority right, then you're doing it right. I think that that is what the Lord calls us and how the Lord calls us to live in that way, if that makes sense.
Nick Kilionski:I can't remember how we got on the topic of being like. So that's interesting. I have quite a few military friends and they not for who's right and who's wrong. Obviously, I agree with you, but not to cast judgment on anybody else. But that's not the priority. Like the military, is the number one thing in their life.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It is the goal, it is achievement, it is what's the next path that's going to get me the next place High priority, high profile jobs, exactly the career path which is what I wanted to do, right, like if we go, if we, if we go back, and what I was talking about, like trying to do that congressional affairs job, leaving Miami, like I was going to geo batch for a year in DC and, like you know, leave Mary in Miami because I wanted to chase this high-profile job and I was going to do, like you know, congressional affairs and then I was going to get C over another cutter and then I'm going to be an admiral's aide and like all these like high-profile military jobs.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That was all that would all been for myself, right, like trying to glorify myself and whatnot. And I have taken a path, uh, uh, or the the Lord rather has led us in a path in the Coast Guard that has been less high profile but more opportunities to, I guess, not like try to not focus on myself and to hopefully be able to focus on other other people that are in the Coast Guard you know and like what I was saying earlier, like seeing the Coast Guard as a mission field, um, is kind of the mind, the mindset that we have so and then actually, so, this next, uh, next tour, we're getting ready to move again this summer.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um, I think I was, I was telling you guys a little bit about this, maybe, but I'm actually going back to the Coast Guard Academy this summer. I don't know if I told you that, yeah yeah, that's cool so I got picked up for a um graduate school program with the coast guard. I'm going to go to the university of new haven uh, starting this summer unh yep unh, I'm going to get a master's, master's degree in industrial organizational psychology.
Brock Roggie:What, yeah, so it's like uh, so you'll be living there, so we're going to move to new london.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We're going to try to buy a house in new London commute for a year to new Haven and then the following tour is three years as a company officer at the Coast Guard Academy. Um, so a company officer does like leadership and professional and military development and training stuff for the, for the cadets. So I'm going to be, um, you know, kind of responsible for a company of probably about 100, 120 cadets or something like that and have a lot of input and responsibility in their military training and leadership development stuff, which I am super stoked about because a big part of Mayer's and mine's story at the academy was being involved in the Offic Christian fellowship group or program. It's kind of like your, you know, campus crusade for Christ or other college. You know ministry groups that's the equivalent of what they have, their OCF, and we are really looking forward to getting involved in the ministry side of OCF with the cadets and mentoring and discipling cadets and hopefully pouring into some of those kids' lives, just like people poured into our lives.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:When we were there, my wife got saved at the academy from the lady who the couple that was the OCF couple. They were the head of OCF at the academy, the OCF couple. They were, you know, the head of OCF at the Academy. She just like you know, meredith was uh, uh, at some function and swap summer and this lady, betsy Tuton, just like kind of better, and she's like hey would you like to, you know, meet during the school year and she just started like, witnessing to Meredith and pointing at her and discipling her and that's how, you know, mary got uh saved and and, uh, you know, mary got uh saved and and, uh, you know, is where she's at today, um, and her walk with the Lord is through OCF, um. So all that to say, we're really excited about getting back there and hopefully getting involved in that ministry.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's gonna be tough like, uh, you know, with three little kids and all that like we'll see, like what the time permits, like because the other thing I really want to do is I really want to coach football. So the guy that was my linebackers coach is the head coach now and I already emailed him. I was like, hey, coach, like you know, we're we're coming back.
Nick Kilionski:That was one of my questions. When you say that football was one of the best, was one of your, your favorite experience at college, like that's to me. Like I grew up, I played football since I was five. The last was 18. So for however many years like football was life, yeah, and like a lot of times you don't necessarily like it because it's like one of the harder sports practices generally aren't super fun, right. So to hear you say that football at like a high level, where it's even more grueling and serious, where the fun can easily get taken out of it, uh, to hear you say it was your favorite experience still that you love it that much?
Nick Kilionski:yeah, I was going to ask do you have coaching aspirations there? Oh yeah, that's awesome, I do. You must.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:In terms of priorities, though, man, I would back to the you're kind of circling back to the idolatry thing. I would love to prioritize that. I would love that, like I said earlier, come from a come from a long, long line of kind of military family. I've come from a long line of football coaches too, right, so same people. My pop was the head coach at Kent State for a couple of years. Recruited Nick Saban to play at Kent.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:State. I don't know if you guys knew that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So, dave Puddington, my dad's dad recruited Nick Saban to play at Kent State, never actually coached him because he got fired the year that now I say what's coming as a freshman but he recruited him to go there um and uh.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And then my dad was obviously, you know, high school football coach at beaver river for a lot of years yeah, they go just retire. Maybe not the winningest coach, certainly not the winningest coach of all time. Maybe I actually at beaver river, he might have the most wins of any coach at beaver river just because he was there the longest? I'm not really sure actually longevity matters.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Matt leidnicker's done really, really well lately.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:He might actually have that already, because he's been the head coach for a number of years.
Brock Roggie:Now they've done really good, that's right, you're consistent. Assistant coach fairly consistent.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:He was an assistant coach for a while and then he's the head coach for a while. Yeah, and then just recently he was assistant coach again when matt was the right has been the head coach and that was just like the lineman coach and that was more of like uh uh, just to be there.
Brock Roggie:Moral support yeah doing too much coaching, you know he's kind of getting to stand on the sideline and still be with the kids and stuff like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um, but not as I think he's enjoyed that more. The head coaching job, I think, for dad was a lot of pressure. Yeah, um and uh. I'm sure he'll probably listen to this. Nothing against my dad, but maybe it wasn't the best play caller and stuff like, as Nick will probably but we're not going to get into that and I've had to like multiple times. I've had to forgive my dad.
Brock Roggie:Don't worry, we're going to have him on. Hopefully he'll come on soon. He'll say the opposite. Multiple times in the last couple of years I played the right calls.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:My players.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I still hold grudges against my dad for a lot of things that I've tried to forgive him for over the years.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But yeah, the two-point conversion play call against Dalgiro is the quarterfinal version of the year.
Nick Kilionski:What would have been a better option there Kicking it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You think going for two is the right option.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I think going for two is the right choice. Not that I don't trust your leg and stuff like that or didn't trust your leg, but, to rehash this, I think we should have just done super run right, just run into the line, instead of super special run left Trying to do some trickery. I got annihilated. Yeah, just put it in the lineman's hand and the blockers and try to punch him.
Nick Kilionski:We had run that. I mean that play, I mean that formation had been run most of the game.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The other thing which would have been better would have been some kind of two-point play that we had planned and saved for your two-point conversion that you got to have.
Nick Kilionski:I don't think that we should have ran out of that formation at all.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like super run, right, start running. That way you leak out to the flat and you're standing by yourself in the end zone.
Nick Kilionski:That would have been the right play call. The entire team blitzed for context.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That was.
Nick Kilionski:They knew exactly what was coming.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Super that was. They knew exactly what was coming. Super special run left. And uh, I'll be. Dad was super flustered because he was trying to draw him. He was trying to get us to draw them off sides and we didn't know what he was doing. Um, so then dad came out. He's like you guys are idiots, he didn't say that, but he's like and I was trying to draw them off sides, all right, super special run left and we're like uh, you know line up, and then there's a whole team, like there's, like there's like three linebackers
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:standing right there and I'm about to get the ball with evan leindecker and isaiah ricky, but you got like a couple of running backs blocking for you. So it's like nick isaiah and evan leindecker about to try to block for me against the whole defense and I just got annihilated anyways, sorry dad you know it's I, I forgive you, it really it doesn't it's whatever man, it's so funny because it's so hurt you hold against your dad.
Brock Roggie:It's like a call on the football game. It wouldn't hurt, it wouldn't be like something way more serious.
Nick Kilionski:It wouldn't have been so bad if, like we could have gotten annihilated that game, they were like the way better team, like remember how like they came out, they hit harder, they were bigger we came back and then, yeah, they were 20 to probably 20 to zero, and then we scored. That game was hopeless most of the game is the. Is the the real reason why it hurt so bad? Yeah we came back, we clawed back and still lost yeah that's awesome.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, well, it's good that you have that, that passion, that you might be able to then use that, yeah, in the future to coach.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But that's the other thing is like right, like you're talking about ocf and coaching. Um, in terms of mission fields, right, like the academy doing ocf would be a great mission field. The football team, as a coach in the football team, would be a great mission field, so like man what do I want to?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm going to have limited time and unlimited aspirations of what I could, you know, spend my time with. I still gotta spend time with my kids and my wife right and doing all that stuff, like when I'm there. But, man, I would love to be able to pour into OCF, be able to pour into coaching football, pour into those kids the way that people poured into me when I was there.
Nick Kilionski:Like it is so valuable. Is the football environment there like something where you could have your boys around, or is it pretty buttoned up?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Potentially, yeah, is around or is it pretty buttoned up? Potentially, yeah, potentially. I know people have in the past and if that's what it took to be able to, you know, be involved, I think that coach grant would be okay with that. I haven't talked to him about that, um, but I think that there would be room to be able to have. You know, like eli and cale brown and they would love that when my dad was a football coach and a track coach, growing up like, I always went to practice as my dad and that was that was kind of fun.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's cool, um, so yeah, dude, I'm excited about you being in connecticut again I know, dude, we're gonna be five hours away, like we're gonna be so close to here yeah, I'm in connecticut all the time, man.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, I'm in new haven. Yeah, all the time, like I stay in new haven sweet.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So that's the other thing about being the coach guy. That's been cool that other people don't necessarily get to have the experience to be like.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know I'm in California and running into people like Elliot when he was doing his motorcycle trip, he didn't mention that he visited me in California on the podcast but Elliot stopped on his motorcycle trip and visited me when I was in California for like a couple of days, so that was super cool, getting to see him out there. When we were in Miami, Pat would come and do his recurrent like his currency stuff for a flight instructor in West Palm beach. So every time Pat was in South Florida we would get together. Like I saw Pat probably probably four or five times when we were in Miami. Over the five years in Miami I saw Pat four or five times in South Florida.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We get together and either get dinner and go for a quick hike in one of the you know one of the swamps or something like that, Just get to see some different stuff and just get to catch up with Pat. You know, Um, so like wherever we've been, like we've been able to run into people that we've known, you know from the Coast Guard, from our time at the Coast Guard Academy, um, friends from growing up and stuff like that. But uh, that's just, that's been so special and I'm really, really excited to be so close again because we'll have such easy access to get back up here for thanksgiving and plus, it won't be a cutter schedule, it'll be, uh, you know, the academy schedule yeah, yeah, so like administrative every thanksgiving right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like we can come up here for at least five days and hang out for thanksgiving. Um, you know we'll see what we do for christmas. Usually we do that with mayor's parents and stuff like that, but we'll be able to get up here so much more than what we have recently and get the kids around some late-season hunting and stuff and whatnot. Yeah, maybe late-season up here. Thanksgiving with a rifle and whatnot. So yeah, we'll see.
Brock Roggie:So from your experience. You've been a leader since you were a captain in high school football, even in your friend group in a lot of ways, but then into your professional career like a leader, leader, and you might not think that that translate to expertise, but I certainly think it does, especially if you can do it at a high level and do it well right. So there must be something there yeah um when lives are at stake when, yeah, when, the when it matters the most, yeah let me caveat before we start talking about leadership.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I am not an expert in leadership. I've got a decent amount of experience in it, right just by the nature of my job, I'm not an expert in it, right like I've tried to read a lot of books, done a lot of classes, um, but I'm not an expert. Well, anything that I'll say isn't like super academically, you know like like maybe grounded or rigorous or something like that, but I can.
Brock Roggie:I can talk like experiences and ideas and stuff like that. So from your experience, do you feel like there was, like other leaders in your life, that kind of you? You fed off somewhat because not everybody's a leader.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We know that right um yeah, you mean like mentors or like role models and stuff like that, or yeah, I mean I can think of a lot of people that have influenced me and like taught me things. Obviously my dad, um is is probably one of the uh, one of the biggest ones in terms of just like influencing my mannerisms and my you know the way that I think about life and stuff like that, um, and being a coach and a teacher, teacher and stuff like that um, so my dad, definitely some other folks that I um, have really been influential. Hank tuton so the lady who I said led married to the Lord.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Betsy.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Betsy, Hank and Betsy, so they were the OCF couple when we were at the Academy. Betsy actually passed away from cancer when we were juniors at the Academy, which is really sad, Um, but we stayed close with Hank over the years. I haven't gotten to talk to him a lot over the last couple of years cause he's doing a lot of different things. Obviously our lives have gotten busy. But he officiated our wedding.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You guys might remember Hank is the guy who officiated our wedding, so he was a big influence during the time that we were at OCF. Another guy that I talk to a lot now I've tried to especially since I've been on like the paternity leave trying to be more consistent with meeting with him via like Zoom. His name is Larry Simpson. Larry's a retired colonel, a retired Air Force colonel, who now works for OCF. So OCF Officers Christian Fellowship is a bigger organization that does ministry to military families and they have a chapter at the Coast Guard Academy, which is the ministry that hopefully we'll be able to get involved with. Larry does OCF ministry in the Pacific Northwest and is responsible for doing OCF ministry stuff like the state of Washington, the greater Seattle area, but then he also hits like California, alaska, guam, japan, Like he. He does OCF stuff in all those places, kind of in like the Pacific Northwest region, right Like of of the world.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um, so I uh, how do we even meet larry? So we met him and his wife. Um, um, bobby and larry sounds like bob and larry right from uh, but bobby's yeah, yeah, like from veggie tales, yeah so bobby is, uh, his wife and then, uh, larry.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So meredith got um connected with them somehow when she was stationed in seattle on the polar star, on the, on the big icebreaker there.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I got to know Larry and somehow we just like we just clicked, and he's been an awesome mentor for me over the years. He actually was at our wedding as well. It was kind of funny, we were talking about our wedding my and. Mary's wedding an awful lot.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:One more thing about your wedding.
Brock Roggie:I drove right from your wedding to my first date With Stephanie.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:No way.
Brock Roggie:Same day I drove eight hours, or whatever it was, from there back to Connecticut and went to dinner that night.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's awesome, you were at the reception.
Brock Roggie:The reception wasn't too late. Maybe we stayed over that night and then the next day I drove. That would make sense. I drove, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That would make sense. Yep, I hear that reception. Well, the reception was fun. The after party, I hear, was wild which we obviously weren't at the after party.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We were having our own after party, yeah right, but yeah, except for but I heard that the fun, I was married at that point, so the best western yeah and you brought me by.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Oh yeah, that's right, man. Um, where were we going with that uh wedding? Uh, bobby and larry yes, bobby and larry did the uh, the the court of three strands um thing. So they had done, they did our marriage counseling with us before we got married, um, and then they did our court of three strands at our wedding. And then I've talked to Larry over the last, the last several years. He's, he's been a major mentor for me, just a solid, solid guy and somebody that I aspire to be like in terms of his walk and his um, his ministry and everything. Let's see, here's some other, some other role models and mentors. I mean, I guess, like, if you want to like talk about, like academically, like people I've read about and whatnot, like George Washington, it was an incredible, absolutely incredible guy.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know, kind of depending on who you talk to or what you read he was a super devout Christian or he actually he actually wasn't he was just like you know, just, you know, culturally religious, religious like everyone else at the time, I don't know, I I'd like to think that he was a pretty uh, he's a pretty squared away guy. I mean, he certainly seems to have been based on everything that that I've read and what I've studied about him, um, uh, so he would be like a historical figure that you know, I'd probably say my favorite historical figure especially regarding leadership.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, that's what my father-in-law said on his episode Big George Washington fan.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, Um first president.
Nick Kilionski:I didn't know that. Nice Nick there you go.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Uh, there's a couple other guys that are active duty now that I kind of keep in touch with a little bit. Commander Justin Vanden Heuvel is actually so my coffee mug ad notice, per notice.
Nick Kilionski:That sounds so cool.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Which is by sailors for sailors. It's the Coast Guard Command Cadre School at the Coast Guard Academy. It's part of the Leadership Development Center. He's the chief there now for the Coast Guard Command Cadre Afloat School. He was a warrant officer. He had a ton of Coast Guard experience. He's got 30-plus years in the Coast Guard now but he was a warrant officer when we were at the Coast Guard Academy. He was stationed there at the Chief Warrant Officer Professional Development School so he and his wife were involved in OCF there.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:When I was in California he was the CO on the 225-foot buoy tender that was in Buena Vista Island, which is right in San Francisco Bay. So we got to meet up with them and he and his wife also were kind of mentors for Mare, I like, during the time that we were dating and getting married. And then I've gone to his class at the coastguard command cadre school. When I was getting ready to come and do this executive officer ride, which is what I'm, what I'm on right now um, I got to go and, and you know, sit with him for two weeks worth of classes.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:He's just an absolutely stellar like. You want to talk about a guy who is the most like just devout, you know, all in for Christ. Christian guy that is also just like my goodness, just the most, just the most competent Coast Guard officer and competent Coast Guardsman. I mean, he's got the experience right, like 30 plus years, but he knows there is nothing the guy doesn't know about the Coast Guard. So you want to talk about a guy that is able to be a light and minister through the diligence of his work and be a light for Christ, like through how good he is at his job.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like he didn't get picked up for a captain for 06 because he doesn't have a bachelor's degree degree. So he's one of the few that was able to actually like become an officer without a bachelor's degree because he did you know, he had like so many credits or whatever but he was able to get up to 05. So he's no five without even a four-year degree. He doesn't have a master's degree either, but he got passed over for captain because you know he probably doesn't have the piece of paper right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I is why he got past the road. Six. That's my impression um. Coast guards lost, hands down coast guards lost right like he's gonna. He's gonna retire um this this summer or maybe next summer. I think it's this summer that he's retiring um. Absolutely the coast guards lost and not not making that guy in 06 and giving him a national security cutter as a ceo. Uh, because he is just one of the most incredible coast guard guys that I that I know um and one of the most incredible christian men that I know. So, in terms of like influence and someone to aspire to be like, he's the guy to commander justin van and hoover. So yeah um.
Brock Roggie:Moving to your, you know, do you have like a leadership?
Nick Kilionski:philosophy.
Brock Roggie:Philosophy generally speaking yeah, or is it, or is there something that you've learned from your time leading men and women that you could, yeah, expound, yeah, yeah definitely so.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There's lots of leadership, um, theories and philosophies, right. There's lots of different ways that you know people have written about it. So many books, obviously, um, and and lots of different kinds of theories, um, one of the things that I learned about at a school that I did was called the leadership challenge, and they have like kind of five steps of of, uh, or five things that a leader has to do. It's a model of the way inspire shared vision, challenge the process, um, and enable others to act and encourage the heart. So M-I-C-E-E M-I-C-E is the way that you remember that. So that's a great model to just like kind of think about, and I would encourage you to read the book the Leadership Challenge. It's a really good book and something good to learn about.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So that's been something that I've kind of tried to latch onto a little bit, but more so is this idea of servant leadership, right, like I tell the guys this whenever I do check-in meetings with guys that are reporting newly to the boat, I'm the XO on board now.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm not the CEO, so I'm not the primary shot caller. My job as the XO is to make sure that everything runs as smooth as possible, and so what I tell the guys is, my job is to make sure that you're taken care of, which means that your family is also taken care of, right, like my job is to try and make sure everything runs smooth so that you're ready to do the job that we're entrusted with and that we're charged with by the American people to, you know, to keep the waterways open and safe for commerce, for recreation, all that kind of stuff. So this idea of servant leadership is really probably the biggest one that I've tried to latch onto, and the idea of service, like the purpose of what we do in the Coast Guard, and this has been lost. We were talking earlier a little bit about generational stuff. This has been lost on the current generation of service members is the fact that, like hello, the word is service.
Brock Roggie:You're in the service.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You are not there for yourself. You are there to serve the country. Like the primary role of what you're doing is you're making some kind of sacrifice for the good of other people, for the good of what the country needs you to do. That's why it's called the service.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So when you hear so many people complain, about, like you know um, the benefits not being enough, having to move so much, the pay not being good enough. I make way more money for the amount of work that I do than I should, than someone does in the private sector. I will I will say that right here and I please don't edit that out that that's an example of, like you know, again, government inefficiency. I make way more money than I should for like the amount of work I do, like I try to put effort in work time, all that kind of stuff. But people complain about that kind of stuff. Is my point Right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And they're they're losing the, the, uh, we've lost the mindset of a service, a service mindset on like the kind of the newer generation, I think, and just like, uh, the, the people that are, you know, joining the service and stuff like that in our country. So one of the biggest things, um that, uh, that I've kind of um, especially in these last two years, tried to hang on to for, um, my leadership kind of inspiration, there's this thing, it's called the coast guardsman's creed and we and we had to memorize this. This is one of the indoctrination things we had to memorize when we were in Suave Summer and sadly it's not taught anymore in boot camp or the Coast Guard Academy. And do you know why it's not taught anymore? At least this is my idea and I'm 99% sure it's right. It's because the last line of the Coast Guardsman's Creed says that, with God's help, I shall endeavor to be one of his noblest works, the United States Coast Guardsman. The fact that it says God in there is not acceptable to the modern mindset.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Anything that says God in it, we're not going to teach it anymore, which is just absurd. Give me one second, so God in it. Like we're not going to teach it anymore, which is just absurd. But give me one second. So yeah, servant leadership the Coast Guardsman Creed says that I'm a Coast Guardsman. I revere that long line of expert seamen who, by their devotion to duty and sacrifice of self sacrifice of self being the key term there, devotion to duty and and sacrifice of self have made it possible for me to be a member of a service honored and respected in peace and war throughout the world. Do you have it pulled up right now? I never, by word or deed, will great now that you're looking at it. I never, by word or deed, will bring reproach upon the fair name of my service, nor permit others to do so unchallenged others to do so unchallenged.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I will cheerfully and willfully obey all lawful orders. I'll always be on time to relieve and shall endeavor to do more rather than less than my share.
Brock Roggie:This is like firing me up, right here.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:What's the next line? Let's see how far I can go.
Brock Roggie:Well, it doesn't matter.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I used to have it memorized. I've got parts of it memorized. I shall endeavor to be a model citizen in the community in which I live.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Uh, you know, so far as I am able to bring to my seniors um solutions, not problems, it goes through all this stuff right, that's like uh, like kind of uh I shall sell self I shall sell life dearly to an end of my, or I shall sell life dearly to an enemy of my country, but give it free freely to rescue those in peril or those in need, or something like that right?
Brock Roggie:Yeah, it's not taught anymore, right? No kidding, there's stuff that's kind of like it.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:that's taught, but it's all watered down. It's all woke now, man, it's just terrible.
Brock Roggie:I'm going to go join the Coast Guard. That last line was pretty hard.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The last line you know, being that, with God's help, I shall endeavor to be one of his noblest works. United States Coast Guardsmen Like I have that as the background of my computer. Now, this sounds super corny. Everyone's going to think like Hardo.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, hardo, yeah, that's a good reminder.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's the background on my Coast Guard computer. I have it that framed and put up in my office at the academy. It would be a great thing to have and a great thing to remind cadets of the first line of that man. I am a Coast Guardsman. I revere that long line of expert seamen who, by their devotion to duty and sacrifice of self, have made it possible for me to be a member of a service respected and peace award throughout the world. Uh, the idea of um devotion to duty and sacrifice of self, that's, that's completely lost right, like, like, like, like sacrifice of self. Nobody wants to do that anymore. They want to get as much money as you possibly can, all the benefits. Oh, like I'm in the coast guard, you're not giving me enough to do this service thing yeah you're not you.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You do not have a service mindset. That's one of the biggest things that I am, that I want to try to pour into the cadets that you know I'm going to be, like training and stuff like that is this idea of you are here to serve other people, you are not here for yourself. The Coast Guard is going to take care of you, right, like, you're going to get a lot of money, you're going to get a lot of benefits. Yeah, you're going to get a lot of money, you're going to get a lot of benefits. Yeah, you're going to have to move a little bit and that sucks. That sucks with your family, and I'm not a big fan of that, you know.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I think a lot of the times I was talking about, you know, wanting to get out of the Coast Guard to do other things, like I've thrown that idea around so much because the only thing that I knew growing up I grew up in Lewis County, same know still friends with you guys. I've known Brock since I was four years old or whatever Like I would love my kids to have that experience, but that's just not what the Lord has called us to, you know, and I think that's kind of dawned on me in the last couple months here, as I've, you know, kind of accepted the orders already for this grad school. And then the academy thing. I'm going to be 20 years in the Coast Guard, 20 years in the Coast Guard. So we're going to bounce around until Eli's 15 at least, right, so he's not going to have the childhood that I had, but that's okay.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There's a lot of families that do that. Are you okay with that? No, not really.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm working on being okay with it, right, and that's going to be a challenge. It's definitely going to be a challenge, but I think it'll be good. I want to get I'd love to get the kids kind of connected back here a little bit like, especially during the summer times, to get like together with, like your guys, kids and stuff like that go to the fair go to the fair but like with elliot's kids and whatnot, like elliot and I have already talked about this when, when eli's getting older, be like 12 and stuff like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Um, I want to, I want to come back here, I want to try to consistent come back here for like youth turkey weekend or whatever, and like get out on the Martin's farm with Elliot and Ollie or something like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:And so that you know he can, eli can try to connect with Ollie and, like you know, some other guys and stuff like that. That are consistent friends, like maybe they won't see each other very often but that can be kind of a consistent source of friendship and stuff like that and like other other kids that I know that are, you know, being raised in godly homes.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Another one is, like probably, probably my best friend. Um, I would say he's just been my most consistent best friend over the last nine years. His name is townsend hearst. He's a coast guard pilot. He flies uh m860 jayhawks for the coast guard. Um, he's an instructor right now at uh aviation training center in uh petaluma mobile. Uh, yeah, rescue swimmers go on both the the 60s and 65s and he's had some cool like when he's doing operational pilots. So he's had some really cool rescues, um, but anyway, so, uh, townsend, he's got a son that's like right around eli's age too and we try to do like annual vacations with them, so, like, hopefully, eli and Caleb will have, you know, some kind of consistent friendship and godly friends that they're growing up with in that regard.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But it's definitely gonna be a challenge bouncing around so much. But this is what the Lord has called us to and I'm realizing that now. Right, like it. Just it's gonna make sense when I'm at, by sense, when I'm at. By the time I'm up with these, uh, or finished with this next commitment, it'll be a 13 years. It doesn't make sense to balance at that point, like if we get to 20, we'll get you know the, the um, uh, health insurance for life, we'll start getting a pension and stuff like that. Like I can retire at 20 years and I'll do some other job or we'll get into some other ministry or something like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But it's looking like the Coast Guard is going to be here for 20 years and like I'll say it again, like that's it's the mission field, right. Like that's the mission field that God has called us to and that's the way that Mary and I kind of want to think about that. And the servant leadership stuff I think goes a lot into that. Like the purpose of my job isn't to be there for myself, it's to serve the guys and the girls that I work with and that work for me. They don't work for me, they work for the American people. Right, like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a supervisor and a leader of those people, but my job is to facilitate their wellbeing and their um, competence and training and their ability to do their jobs in service of their country and the most important aspect of that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:You know you get back to. Somebody asked about leadership philosophy, one of the tenets of my leader, my command philosophy, when I was a CEO in the 87, so I had like three words. You know, every leader has, like you know, three words. Like you know that they are their buzzwords or whatever Mine were. I did them all as P's Somehow.
Brock Roggie:I just ended up like that Because your name is Paul Puddington. Paul Puddington, yeah, so it was people, purpose and pride.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But like people being the first, the first tenant of that command philosophy, I would probably change it if I get command again. You know, just based on other experiences, stuff like that. But people is from a Christian standpoint, from a Christ-centered worldview people are all that matters, right? Like people are the only people or are the only things with souls and that will last for eternity. Right. So like service to people, taking care of people, pouring into people's lives and hearts and into their souls, like that's the only thing that matters, man, and that's gotta be, that's gotta be just at the forefront of your mind every day and everything that you do is the fact that there's a soul behind behind that person. That is, you know, either you know working under you or working beside you, or that you're working for right. Like um, uh, my, my CEO right now he probably won't listen to this, I don't think um, but he's uh yeah.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I don't think that he's, you know, walking with the Lord and I really want him to be right, like I want to somehow just be able to witness to him so that you know, and I try to pray for him as much as I think to that the Lord would just get a hold of his heart and you know, and bring him to himself and that's all that really matters, like that's, at the end of the day, keeping the waterways open so that commerce can flow and the US can prosper and we can get more money. All that's doing is distracting us more and more from God, from Jesus, and the fact that all this is going to go away. Man, the world and its desires will pass away, but the man who does the will of God, that's what lasts forever. I just completely botched that.
Nick Kilionski:That's a pretty good debate.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I wouldn't have known that the world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God, that's what lasts forever. It's in 1 John. It gets quoted by Brad Pitt in Fury too. I've never actually seen that all last forever it's. It's in first john, it's uh gets quoted by brad brad pitt and uh, fury too.
Brock Roggie:I've never actually seen that all the way through it's pretty good movie.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I think I've only watched it once or twice, but I remember I've seen the clip of where he's like the send me part.
Brock Roggie:You know, with the shot is it shyly, shyly buff chad buff maybe. Yeah, I know he's like he quotes the things like send me yeah, it's send me.
Nick Kilionski:Oh yeah, it's that military movie. Yeah, heart-wrenching the tank movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, dang dude, that's super inspiring and enlightening.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, you went on like a few, one of your next tenants, if you're ever a CEO. That was amazing.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's actually one of the things I was really excited about coming and talking to you guys is I feel like I didn't even plan on getting into leadership stuff and if there's other stuff you guys want to like, I said I got some time today. I'm on vacation right now visiting mom and dad. There's other stuff you guys want to talk about, but the thing that I was really excited about coming and talking to you guys about is that talking about these kind of things helps you process priorities and like where your mind's actually out with things. So like I think I've thought a lot of those things about leadership and maybe I haven't verbalized them or kind of like putting them into words as much as maybe would be good. But you know, talking about it with other people, hopefully it kind of brings out and it makes it more real for myself, like my passion for that, like you know, making Christ known through what I'm doing, trying to instill in these, these young people that are coming to the Coast Guard, this sense of this sense of service and service above self and sacrifice of self and stuff like that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:That's just been lost. You know we are. The purpose of the Coast Guard is not again to use the term. It's not a self-licking ice cream cone, and it's gotten to be that way. The government has gotten to be a self-licking ice cream cone. It's, it's gotta be for the people that we're serving. That that's what the Coast Guard, the whole purpose of the Coast Guard, is to do that, and that mindset has been lost. So I think that needs to be focused on and reinstilled in people. And the other thing is a huge issue for the Coast Guard and the other services the last several years has been recruitment and retention.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:People are just like the rate of folks getting out is just yeah, it's absurd, and that's one of the reasons why they well maybe I won't say that, it's just been a struggle for all the for all the services, recruiting and retention and um a big aspect of that is like they're. The coast guard and the other services are focusing so much on the extrinsic motivation for you to be in the service, the benefits we'll try to keep you.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:We'll try to keep you geographically stable for seven years, 10 years, like that is unheard of in the Coast Guard or the military of you know 10 years ago, like being geographically stable for seven, 10 years or whatever. But they're like bending over backwards to try to make, like all this extrinsic motivation bonuses, like to stay in to do certain jobs, you know opportunities. A lot of it is monetary and geographic stability.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I mean in education.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:The benefits are just absurd to be in the Coast Guard, Like the amount of free stuff that you get, you know, and the pay and the benefits. It's absurd. And the fact that there's such a big turnover rate.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I think because the intrinsic, the intrinsic side, the intrinsic motivation of being in a job, that is, it's taxing right, like it's hard, it's hard moving around and stuff like that um, but the coast guard is so much focused on the extrinsic motivation monetary benefits, geographic stability and they're losing that idea of like this creed the bigger purpose, the creed, it's lost yeah the idea of a service mindset which is what, like, that is what, uh, that's what, that's what's keeping me around, I think and the people, like I said, right, um, but like this, this service mindset, and I think that the coach guard needs to put some serious, serious thought into how are we getting?
Nick Kilionski:back to our roots.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:How are we intrinsically motivating our people to want to serve and get back to this Coast Guard core values of honor, respect, devotion to duty. Devotion to duty is an intrinsic thing.
Brock Roggie:It's got to come from inside of you, your values and fabric, an intrinsic thing, right? Yeah, it's got to come from, yeah, from inside, using fabric, yeah. So the guess, the bigger question, would be where, whose feet does that core problem lay at the feet of? Is it cultural? Is it, uh, parental, like, because a lot of people who are going into the services anyways have that sense of duty, for the most part, that are actually there for the right reasons, let's say.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's getting less and less that way though.
Brock Roggie:I think Right, and so how do we combat that? At a bigger level, messages like this yeah, I don't know, man, that's a heavy question.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:There's so many ways you could go with that right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like the nuclear family.
Brock Roggie:My word canceled.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Thanks Awesome, it was great so, from like a fundamental and like a societal standpoint, you know the, the it's, it's a responsibility of parents to raise kids, all that kind of stuff. Um, but the coast guard has no control over that.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:They have control over the people that are coming into the service, you know, based on interviews, resumes, whatever the case is, whatever it is that recruiters look at. You know skill sets and stuff like that. But the only place or the first place that the Coast Guard gets to then start reshaping those people is at those session points right, session points, right Boot camp for enlisted folks, the academy, officer candidate school or direct commissions for you know whatever other commissioning avenues for officers, and that's like the first point where you know the coach car gets to start having the influence on that. And I think that it needs to. It needs to start getting hammered at boot camp, it needs to start getting hammered at the academy, and maybe it still does get hammered, like I think they hammered it pretty hard when I was there.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:But the problem is there's this, there's so much other stuff going on right, like that, the academic rigor you got, sports, you got, like all this stuff, like I said, drinking through a fire hose and it's hard to retain a lot of the leadership kind of more philosophical stuff that you know they're they're trying to um, that they're trying to ingrain in you up front, um, but I think it needs to. It needs to continue to be talked about and it's just like. The other thing is individual leaders right, like I think we need individual leaders that are leading crews and units and stuff like that, that are more focused on instilling a service mindset in the crews and stuff like that too, and that would go with. I mean, there's far-reaching applications for that mindset too, you know, beyond just the Coast Guard and leadership and, um, you know, the, the government or service or whatever there there's business implications for that and all that kind of stuff too, obviously. So, yeah, yeah.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, I think that's well said like have conversations, deal, deal with what you can in your own home. Um, yeah, how do we, how do we combat some of that stuff with some counter popular culture, I guess, yeah, yeah, but you're right. I mean, it's everywhere, everywhere in these kinds of fields law enforcement same problem yeah, like they.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Right, you, you were talking about that like new kids coming into the academy. I forgot like, but it's not about entitlement or whatever sense of duty.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:It's not a sense of um service or any service.
Brock Roggie:We talked about sense of duty with sean harney a couple episodes ago and then um two with the wilbur sarah with the state department and, like it's just a, I haven't listened to wilbur's. Yeah, I'm excited about that, yeah, actually as you were talking especially about moving around, I'm like, yeah, wait till you get to that one, because he's yeah, he's like, uh, a time such as this, this is where I'm supposed to be and I'm gonna do this.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, yeah, esther, yep, but yeah um yeah, I mean nick, you got what else? You got anything else?
Nick Kilionski:yeah, I mean we could be here for 12 hours, so no question, that's the thing, yeah um, let's talk about parenting at some point.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I don't need to get into that right now, but at some point we talk parenting doesn't need to be now, though.
Nick Kilionski:100 would you change? Well, yeah, would you come back?
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:oh, yeah, yeah, I would yeah if you guys wanted to.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, yeah I'll be five hours away in the summer.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:So if you guys, if you, guys keep this going for a while. Yeah, I would love to come back. There's a lot of other things I would like to uh, or, like I said, it's helpful to like process and whatnot for things. So, um, yeah, we talked a lot about the coast guard yeah but, that's my family, yeah, but that's all right.
Brock Roggie:Yeah, awesome the um, what? What makes up a man? It's a lot of the stuff that you've been talking about for the last you know a couple hours the sense of duty, the sense of purpose, what it means to lead others, what it means to lead your home like this.
Nick Kilionski:Yeah, this stuff we could talk about for yeah for melody yeah, hours, and hours, yep and, uh, I think there's a big infusion of humility. Yeah, I think it's kind of what you're getting at, right.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, like that sense of duty, um is the military way of putting it, um right humans need him at a human level, like we need humility to do that yes, yeah and I don't see a ton of humility out there yeah, I think humility is something we all struggle with, right like we all we all want to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. But yeah, it's definitely something that I struggle with. It's something that I try to pray for. Yeah, it sounds really prideful to tell everyone that I try to pray for humility.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:I'm like a Pharisee you're saying Lord make me humble thank you that I'm not like this other guy over here. That's super prideful but yeah. I need it, man.
Brock Roggie:I need it so bad well, I can't thank you enough for being so like, generous with your time and hanging out with us.
Nick Kilionski:You don't have much time, so like thank you for spending it. This has been awesome.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Like I said, I've been looking forward to this for the last three months.
Brock Roggie:We've been looking forward to it since we started this.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, literally. I mean, if you guys wanted to have me back at some point, I would love to come back, yeah and you just let us masculinity all these kinds of like hot button issues we love talking about and conversations are important.
Lt. Paul Puddington USCG:Yeah, so cool Sounds good Cool.
Nick Kilionski:Thanks man, yeah, appreciate it. Yep, all right.
Brock Roggie:We'll see you next time.
