Robert "Cujo" Teschner: Award Winning U.S. Air Force Fighter Pilot, Senior Joint Staff Officer, 2x Bestselling Author

The Team Never Quit podcast is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Partner with Navy Federal Credit Union to pay down credit card debt. Learn more at NavyFederal.org. The biggest honor of my military career was being called to be an instructor at our fighter weapons school. Formally now called the US Air Force Weapons Instructor course, but basically it's the Air Force Top Gun program. I hear 913 at this tower here in San Antonio. All right everybody welcome back to the TNGU podcast. I'm your host Marcus Matrell. Every week it's my job to fire you up, to ignite the legend inside of you, and to push you to your greatness. Join me every week as I take you into my briefing room with some of the most hard-charging people on the planet. They're going to show you how to embrace the stuff of life, teach you the values of working your ass off, and charge through whatever life throws at you. This is the Team Never Quit podcast. Don't buckle up, Flutter Cup. Welcome back to another episode of Team Never Quit podcast. Thank you all for listening, watching, viewing, and subscribing. If you want to stay up to date with what we've got going on, check out our social medias at Team UnderScore Never Quit. All right let's kick it off with our Patreon question of the day, which is what holidays did your family really go all out for when you grew up? And do you still do it for the same holidays today? Well Hunter is our son so he can answer that. Why no 100% Thanksgiving is the craziest holiday for us. Yeah. Always been. We have a squad of friends, family, even people we don't even know coming out to our ranch. We do. Like friends, free friends. It becomes a whole mini city at our ranch. Like we have this kind of big open invite to our friends and family for Thanksgiving and people bringing their people. Like oh it's Thanksgiving, let me bring my family. Which is awesome. We love it. We love getting to meet everybody and thankfully we have the room for it. So it's just, it's such an awesome dynamic. Marcus's favorite is Christmas by far. So we do like Griswold's family Christmas at the house, but it's really just us as like our immediate family. We don't do a big like huge family Christmas since we do the big huge family Thanksgiving. What do you got? So from the team tester standpoint Christmas by far bar none growing up. It meant coming back to St. Louis which is the the global headquarters for our family if you will. And we'd come in from wherever dad was stationed. We'd have the Christmas Eve with his side of the family Christmas day with my mom's side of the family. Those were the happiest of times because it was the one time that I got a chance to be with our family since we were always living someplace other than where all of my cousins were. So happiest memories from back in the day. No, that's fun. I'll let you John. It's gonna be Christmas as well. That's our big blow out. Thanksgiving is kind of the holiday where family members will trade off and go to the end laws. And so not everyone will always be at everything's giving, but Christmas pretty much everybody's always there. We have a big we get up in the morning go to my parents house we kept that traditional life. I take the kids over to my mom's and we open presents there and then we'll open presents with my wife's mom and then we'll go to the big Christmas thing with my mom's family and all that. See we don't like to leave at Christmas. We we want to be in our house. What are the holidays you have to be at the house? Yeah like we don't we don't want to go anywhere and we can invite it and thank you for the invites. But we just don't we just like to Christmas is our time to just really soak it up in our house. Everybody has to be in their onesie you don't clean up the wrapping paper. Yeah all day from October 31st excuse me October 1st through Halloween that's that's Halloween month. You're supposed to watch a scary movie on the TV a different one every day. You know you get your costume all planned out you decorate and then then you have Thanksgiving all month of things. And all month Thanksgiving Thanksgiving movies and getting prepped for that and it's this bill whole build up and then December you have Christmas January is that kind of down and then February I think each month is designed for something like we have basketball and sports throughout the summer football comes online just about the time guys are going crazy through all that you know what I mean. I added as many traditions as I possibly could to the family yeah hoping some of them stick. Yeah he has a traditions book. I mean outside of the kids bedrooms and wrapping papers so the first thing the first person I get is them right they come running out of there that's the best and then I do that so many of the. I'll jump in the pond. That's my Christmas Eve Eve. Yeah a tradition we've done that since I was a boy every Christmas Eve we go jump in the water as a ritual cleanse right and then there's a bunch of stuff. Now I have to say about Thanksgiving for us we actually do a 10 day Thanksgiving it's the the like Friday before and then the whole week and we don't go back until Sunday. Every day is an awesome meal and we have like all of these meals planned out and we do a turkey trot so all of those haters on Thanksgiving turkey trot's it's so much fun. I can promise you I don't think the same thing. I will throw one additional point in all these even turkey trot's. I've tried to impose the tesch to Christmas on my own nuclear family right now and we were leaving New Mexico one year to go back to St. Louis because that's what I know as being the best Christmas ever in our oldest son Michaels and tears. He's like dad how can you do this how Santa Claus gonna find us and it was at that point when I realized that maybe my version of Christmas was a little bit different from what it was that they wanted from us and so we stopped traveling on Christmas specifically for the kids and now it's become although it's a little bit easier now that we're in St. Louis but prior to that it became exactly what it is that you're describing something that was local to us something that we ended up doing because different experience different time frame and so be it. Oh I love it. All right all right so we've got a really great guest for you guys today Robert Koojo Tashner is an award-winning fighter pilot. He's an award-winning writer with two number one best-selling books. He holds advanced degrees in operational art and science and national security strategy an extensive experience in tactical planning and execution organizational leadership. He's also served as a US Air Forces expert in post-mission debriefing. Welcome to the show Robert. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me on. Can I tell you what a joy it is to be here with you today. I appreciate that man. That's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun man. I was going through your file obviously it's extensive. If there's more than one page in here that's when I know I'm dealing with something that's really good at some way. I can do some work so but the way we like to do it is just introducing everybody to you. Like I said we're about to introduce you to our team to make you famous. Awesome. Where do you come from? Yeah so I've always claimed St. Louis's home but St. Louis doesn't really accept me. I wasn't born here. Dad was in the Air Force. Dad served as an intelligence officer in Vietnam and then became a jajavic in general and took us around the world as part of his career which I loved. I love being part of the Air Force family so we've lived all over the place. I'll always gravitate to St. Louis because this is where dad was born and raised. I'll talk about my mother separately. So I mean was grandfather in the military? How far back do y'all go? Yeah so grandfather was in the military. He was able to be a fighter pilot right at the end of World War II so he finished training. War ended didn't get a chance to participate but my grandfather on my mother's side was in World War II as a member of the Croatian resistance. So mom was born in Zagreb Croatia and she was a war refugee and her story of how it is that she comes to the United States ought to be turned into a movie. It's a very very inspirational story. It's a story of maintaining hope when there was none and continuing to fight to get to where it is that you need to be. So that's something I'd be happy to share with you but ultimately there's different ways of serving in the Teshner household and then our generation. My brothers and I we all joined the military as well. How many siblings do you have? Two. Anthony is my middle brother John's my youngest brother Anthony was Navy John was Army. Nice work. Yeah. So we have across the board in my family too. I got a cousin lives across the street she was an Apache pilot and then I mean just it makes for interesting family reunions if you have it does right. It does. All the time interesting because there's always something going on with with the military whether it's sports or whether we're fighting or whether just it's anything in between. That's cool. We pick on each other constantly which I absolutely love. Military makes you good at that. It does. It holds those skills very accurately. Man I'm so you get me fired up. I'm not even on point man. Yeah it does that for sure. So when did you decide you were going to serve? As soon as dad decided actually I'll take it back. Okay Star Wars 1977 when Luke Skywalker wants to go join some academy and then go join the rebellion that resonated with me for whatever reason. I heard that. Yeah that was a big deal and then fast forward 1986 Top Gun comes out and I saw it twice. First time was in a German movie theater which was all dubbed in German which was weird and then the second time was at Spangdollum Air Base with a bunch of Air Force fighter pilots which didn't matter. At the end of that movie at the base theater everybody stood up afterwards and just started screaming like Hooten-Holler had just fired up and that's where I knew as a young kid I had to go do this. Thank you Tom Cruise for saving America. That's right. That's exactly right. I remember being kujo and I were saying thanks for saving America Tom. Yeah and when dad retired I was so disappointed because I really felt like the military was my family. I grew up around it. I'll talk about that. I've never heard anybody say that. Yeah. Yeah as a kid I felt like the military was my family. It's what I knew. I knew that I identified with the other kids that were being uprooted in three-year increments and so when we'd show up at a new place I knew that those people were going through the same thing that I was. I also knew that it was a bit of an adventure. You know some people were upset about the moves. I thought it was an adventure. I loved going someplace new. Some of them were harder than others but all of the time it was an adventure and then I felt like you knew that your family was going to take care of you when you arrived at the next place and so it struck me that no matter where we were on the planet somehow we were always welcome. It was a special experience and and that kind of stuck with me when dad announced that he was retiring I was a little bit depressed. I was like no you can't do this this is our family and so I announced the day that he retired I announced that I'm getting it that's how it went. Man how old were you? Oh gosh I was a sophomore sophomore in high school yeah sophomore in high school. So nobody ever talks about them and I've never seen a movie or read a book about them or anything but the brats because a lot of the guys will get it and some of the brats will go in afterwards but then a lot of them don't. They just kind of hang out and go their own ways and you'll catch it in conversation they normally don't bring it up but they're their own little fraternity that's right the brats man. It's so interesting and that's such a good outlook that you have like that it was an adventure. Is that something that you your parents kind of whispered in your ear at a young age like this is this is going to be fun and as a way of like encouragement getting over the fear or you just naturally had that. I think I naturally had it you know and I had a globe trotting family to begin with again mom was a war refugee lived in Germany as the GIs were taking care of the war refugees handing out chocolate handing out little trinkets trying to help these kids who were displaced had no you know clear future ahead of them everything was kind of downtrodden you know she grew up in that ended up in Brazil learned you know multiple different languages along the way trying to get over here so it wasn't it didn't feel like it was anything that unnatural but the the part that was most interesting to me was was that I thought it was always cool to hop on an airplane to go someplace new to be in a different different situation to meet new people along the way especially internationally and I got so much from it and it became so ingrained in who I was that I couldn't really see it not happen. In fact I felt bad for those who didn't get that experience. You know I even felt a little bit bad I mean my cousins I mean I have plenty of cousins who have grown up in St. Louis have never really left St. Louis traveled around a little bit but haven't experienced anything other than that I've always felt like they're missing a little bit you know there's something about learning international culture and understanding how we all interrelate as human beings that I think is really important. Yeah that's so neat. Oh it's a it's a great skill set to have. I don't want to grow up and have that Jason Bourne kind of James Bond life mentality that's how you have to get that. That's right. People teach you that and if you can survive and you hear about the young ones they'll throw a backpack on and go across and do the walks and the the hustles and stuff like that. That takes some stones. It does. That builds personality that there's something to that. Hey man and and what I found is is that with our family though you know the oldest said hey don't don't uproot me for Christmas dad because Santa Claus is not going to find me he was probably four when he had that had that realization. I just had a conversation with Michael yesterday so we've got five children he's the oldest he's 17 and he said dad you know this is the longest we've ever lived anywhere and if you if you decided that we needed to move someplace else I'm all in because it just it's it's part of who I am he says to me so even this generation of cash nurses has gotten that ingrained which I think is is pretty neat you know we lived as a family in Greece we lived as a family in Germany we've got friends and multiple different countries with experienced places that you don't typically you know in a course of a lifetime experience and what a rich what a wonderful background that is for the for the children. Oh they don't even know what they don't know they don't know that's right that's way I could say that because if you get your butt out there and to me when as soon as we step off the plane I can smell it the air smells different to me I know immediately when I'm outside the country and then when those realities you can actually go back in time I mean that that's what's a beautiful thing about it what I saw and that's why it feels differently when you travel around in a time change because you can travel back to a village that was stuck back in the 19th it's still there it is absolutely still there and you can talk to the people and you can understand kind of how if you not at a young age you can't appreciate that I think it takes some reflecting time to put all that together as well. Life does that to you but man what a blessing it is to travel. It is totally and I'm very very grateful that my family which is was into that I was I was fortunate to have that piece of the branch of the family to be the one that I grew up in and it it affected my brothers and I it tremendously in a good way all positive. College then talk about that. Yeah so again going back to Luke Skywalker he wanted to go to some mysterious academy that he never had a chance to go to and for whatever reason that stuck with me and then when we again stationed at Spangdollum Air Base in Germany I remember one day being someplace on base and dad saying hey look over there those two gentlemen there at the Air Force Academy they're cadets and so that that kind of reinforced Luke Skywalker thing and then just practically speaking when I'm coming into hey it's time to join the service time frame we're shifting strategy like we're about to have a totally different dynamic the Soviet Union's crumbling the military's downsizing we don't need as many people in the service any longer or so say you know the leaders and so the Air Force is kind of not really that keen on building new pilots and so I figured if you're going to become if you want to be a fighter pilot the best place to go would be the Air Force Academy and so I made that my all-in push because I knew that that was the thing that I wanted to do I wanted to fly fighter aircraft dad was in the Air Force it just made sense and so I applied for the Air Force Academy and was promptly rejected so that's how you know you're supposed to be there yeah yeah that was a bit of a that was a bit of a bummer most people knew where the Air Force Academy was everyone would try to get in that place is so cool man it's a beautiful piece of real estate it's not the funnest of places to go to school but it's a fantastic piece of real estate yeah yeah I got I got denied I got you anything out of you Air Force when it comes badass schools right it's not far you can give me right now I mean good point always no one's audience kujo no your audience bro I got a bunch of wings in the background Marcus always tells like young many and women that want to join the service they always you know I want to be a Navy SEAL want to be an Army Ranger whatever and he's like you need to go in the Air Force join the frick they have the best bases they have the bet they take care of their people I didn't know anything about y'all this that y'all were the had the wings I get that and went out of space that's all I thought man I thought you had the coolest rides and that was the best job of the way outside of my pay grade kind of kind of deal my wheelhouse yeah well it was always it was always out of my pay grade too because my letter the one that says hey thanks for applying never said try again it didn't even give me the option that was written in the bottom dude we wrote it on the road don't don't ever ever you're not getting in so did you just go straight into the Air Force then no I'm the tail and Charlie for my class like I got a I got a call from the senator's office a couple of weeks prior to basic training saying hey congrats and what that basically means is a bunch of other people had to had to turn down their appointments so I am I am the last person I think or bro they could have traded places you and had a bet like there's no way this dude's gonna make it yeah maybe you have to be the best guy we got going through yeah yeah so it all works out in the end and actually it was a good it was a good strategic play because halfway through freshman year the chief staff the Air Force came there and said I know I know I told you or we told you that if you were pilot qualified on graduation you were gonna fly airplanes but that's no longer the case so they they significantly reduced the number of pilot slots which fortunately you know for me I still had three years to get my act together to try to compete for one of those things the seniors the juniors many of them were out of luck which was very unfortunate wow what year was that graduated 95 so this was 91 to 1995 that I was in beautiful Colorado Springs Colorado nice an outstanding location for a service academy it was a 90s how great were they sometimes they shift man they shift up and down when it's like hey we don't have enough we need we got too many kind of deal ebbs and flows that's right it's weird that's why they say you can never chase it it's kind of land yeah that's right timing is everything so what's next after yeah so I got one of one of the pilot slots I got my dream I got to go to pilot training went to Texas so I was just up the road and which tough falls shepherd air force base learn how to fly airplanes realize that I was built for this even though I think most people when looking at me would have said there's no way that you can make this I was 145 pounds soppin wet when I graduated the academy I was a stick figure did not I was not an athlete I was none of the things you'd expect for somebody that was doing that and yet I knew in my heart of hearts that this is what I was made to do and so the more people told me that it wasn't going to happen the more committed I was to proving them wrong and then went to pilot training everything clicked it was one of the best years of my life like when you think if you could go back in time and relive something you know what would that be I would 100% relive pilot training I loved it loved it loved it went to an international pilot training school we had with German students in the class Italian students we had some Turkish students early on for Chigiz whatever from the NATO Alliance that you know at the time they were all going through school there and it was such a wonderful experience loved it loved every minute of it miss it would love to go back and do it that's awesome I've run across a couple people that I think that's unique like the people say hey man whatever it is you're wrapped in if you don't look the part but then there's inside like hey I don't know why I know this but I know my ass has to go do that yeah I just know that like everything in my life directs me into this path not only that if I hear somebody tell me that I'm probably not the right person for the job not not like if I get in there and screw up that's different but like if you just showed up and someone tells you that then that's how you know you're in the right spot kind of deal I'm friendly believe it it's funny how that works out and when you say it clicks it does come in that stuff just clicks yep it's like I don't know I don't know what that is it's almost like the program's already in there you just have to flip the breakers right you got you got to get in there and and work it a little bit and then it'll it'll open up for you it's part of it it's like that feeling when people work out all the time like how do you get to that it's like well there's something that comes with that I mean at a certain point there's a feeling that that locks in you know as well you know talk about bro them guys there's a feeling that comes with that and you 100% you kind of want to stay in that yes and I think that's the way it is with most things in it we we do down here if you put a little bit of effort into it man it'll give you that it feeds you something to the point where you know these days and I think we're very privileged our generation is that so many folks that thank you for your service thank you for what you've done I have a hard time accepting that on a number of levels one of the levels is is I got a chance to do what I knew was inside of me yeah so like that that's a good point great point I know exactly what you're talking about yep makes it very weird right it's very weird doing it like well this is actually what I do yes that's right right they don't ever see is I get that yeah I get that part it's weird I don't know what that is either but what did you start off flying so at the at the Air Force Academy the first thing that I flew was a sail plane between freshman and sophomore year so it's a glider you know going out there trying to figure out that that was that was fascinating because I didn't launch yeah I want to hear about that I had never flown an airplane before I went to the Air Force Academy and now I'm behind I got this little stick trying to fly an airplane with no motor and you're trying to figure out how to get this thing from wherever the toe plane drops you off to the piece of landing strip over here off to your right doesn't they have wheels on it or it's just a flight it does it's got it's got one wheel on the front maybe some like glider things and then on the on the wings they've got some stuff because at some point the airplane tips over and you know in order to not destroy the wings they've got something on the edges there but that's it it's a very very basic thing and it's stunning how quiet it is when there's no motor it's also stunning how peaceful it is when there's no motor and it's amazing to me how quickly you can become accustomed to not having a motor figuring out how to land this thing effectively and you know it wasn't but a few rides in that you solo you solo you're a 17 18 year old kid and you're flying this thing solo and it's so empowering it's just an awesome experience there's something spiritual about it and it it really resonated with me like that was the yep I'm in the right place everything here is worth it so how if it's doesn't have a motor how's it I'm sorry I'm very naive to this real lion it's light it's really light very light it's got the wings generate a lot of lift the reason why Charles Lindbergh picked the Colorado Springs location for the Academy is it's great flying weather and you've got a lot of funky things coming off the rocky mountains over there which help you to be able I mean people who know how to soar how to fly these sailplanes they can stay airborne for hours just riding riding the different currents of air and figuring out you know how to optimize things so you have a you have a tow aircraft that pulls you up at some point you release of the rope that's been pulling you and then boom you're on your own and it's a it's a very unique experience something that I it further incentivize me like stay with this you know you're onto something here this is cool don't get to do this in most walks of life harness this and so we went from that the next airplane was a single engine Cessna you know propeller driven airplane when you go out I want to people because I mean there's some people that forget how you know as well as I do you pop that cord off there's no putting that sucker back I guess that's what eliminates that and I hate you you only got one option once you pull that you've only got one option if you can figure out how to ride the waves and stay airborne forever I suppose but at some point you do have to come back down right and so you know the first couple of flights you've got somebody in the in the back you know an instructor it's a fellow student by the way it's another cadet and that person is there to make sure that you do things the right way but whenever he or she says you're clear to solo it's go time and and there you are so but it works the program works have been doing it for decades and it works brilliantly and then and then when you get into pilot training that you're flying jets so everything's happening a lot faster so it's basically like flying a paper airplane yeah the first one is like sitting in a paper airplane with the ability to control the paper airplane if you like doing the paper airplane you would love that's not it you should try on a scale it is kind of it is kind of but I mean most of the things that we do are kind of nuts right I mean the this military service thing involves doing a lot of things that are kind of nuts at the age we're at and you can't appreciate that till we get all this like man the guys driving the aircraft carrier 17 18 year old kid right that the men in charge are in their 30s yeah that's right and then the boss is there the house that's a 40 thing everyone thinks that you're ancient dead i was like i really started living when i got in my 40s exactly isn't that stunning how fast we accelerate leadership how fast we accelerate somebody to realize their potential how about that i guess because you got somebody coming up behind i'm kicking them in the ass and then you know you always trying to do better or just do your job because somebody else that's right it's a brilliant way to live life it is if you could smash that military concept without telling everybody they're in the military into life because everyone's trying to help you get into medical and dental not only do you have to you have to go and they take care of your ass and get you back on it's the best you get fed i mean americans wouldn't adopt that whole concept we like having it around but i don't know how you could it was fun i mean i had a blad i never thought i was in the military i got lucky like that i just never i enjoyed all of it you know i i have to say that i enjoyed it the most uh when i was younger and when i was actually doing the missions when i was when i was uh at the tip of the spear that was the part that was that's the part that was fun you know knowing that you look what we had to do i mean we had to badass man that's right you came in right at the frickin and you had rank on you so you that's why i but see rank wasn't a privilege when it came to executing the mission the further up you got in the chain the further away you were from actually tactically executing the mission and i think i think that as i as i reflect back on my time if i if there's a time period that i could freeze it would be first lieutenant through captain because that's when i was out there doing the mission and the and the nice thing about about the fighter world was was that we were the ones that were out there doing the mission so that that to me that was the purest time in my professional career and that's the time that i gravitate back to those are the happiest memories that i have first year bar none um and that was that was where it was just pure that's the best that's the best way we have that too it's almost because you know what your job is and everyone else knows what your routine is like you get to work out sleep eat and and feed and fight and you're being paid to be ready to fight and that was the part that was that was inspiring to me because when you have downtime your ass better be doing your downtime you didn't go find anything else to do you knew what was what that's the same way it was for us in the mafia at e5 guys like hey you know your jobs if and if it's time to watch tv that's what you do you sleep and then and but the fight was always different that was what kept it real you're right that's right so speaking of your you're in pre 9 11 so let's talk about once 9 11 hits and you realize you're actually going to war yeah so the the interesting thing for for my side of this and i was i gave a presentation once to a group and they had a vietnam veteran as their as their side of principle and this vietnam veteran had flown almost 200 missions in vietnam okay so when i finished speaking the crowd uh the game is standing ovation and i said i cannot accept your standing ovation like i am not worthy of your standing ovation because the guy that brought me in here he's an actual legitimate hero like he's done the job my generation did not have that same kind of fight not in the fighter forces he came back and he said hey kujo appreciate where you're coming from but actually you can't pick your war you did what you were called to do in your time frame i did what i was called to do in my time frame and you would have done the same thing that i did had you been born in my time frame and i came back and i said i appreciate what you're saying here but what you're saying is a is an assumption or a supposition what you did was a fact i'd like to believe that i would have been you but we'll never know because i was never called to do that we all know though that you are who you are and you deserve all the accolades my generation and my you know in the world that i come from f 15 f 22 we were doing no flies on enforcement missions over southern and northern iraq and it was a totally different experience now where was i on september 11th of 2001 i was in south irabia i was in f 15 pilot i was actually the mission commander for all u.s. forces flying over southern iraq the next day so i was in charge of navy coming out of the gulf army on call and kawaii u.s. air force is coming out of south irabia but we were doing no flies on enforcement so totally different kind of mission and it was um it was just a different experience i mean my my experience was you know making sure that like coming out of that man did they pull the reins off y'all and let you just arm that sucker up no because ultimately we were already armed to enforce the no fly zone right so that so we that was a daily mission but the mission didn't change we were just a status quo we were a status quo element and we continued to do that mission as things start to kick off in other places yeah so it was just it was a different experience it was a completely different um you know flying in hostile territory experience yeah and i mean our biggest our biggest issue was making sure that we didn't make the commander and chief's job anymore difficult than it already was like let's maintain the status quo essentially was our was our approach because he's got enough on his plate right now oh and you don't think about that's that's good i've never thought about it like that but when we get in and something like that happens like a fight then all the guys want to do is go and whip somebody's ass and then you got the boss trying to figure out what's going on and how are they and is it getting barked at from both sides so if you got a good commander in chief man he'll sit down look listen feel examine before he goes in and does all that yep so what does an f-15 do yeah so there's two different versions of f-15s there's the air-to-air primary like almost exclusive version and then there's the one that does both air-to-air and air-to-ground so i flew the air-to-air version so our job was to maintain air superiority make sure that no enemy aircraft affects any of of us okay and air superiority has been very effective for in the United States we've maintained it consistently since 1953 so since the end of the korean war essentially but that also means that if there is no enemy air force or if there's if there's no threat to us then you know you may not have very much going on and it's our ambition always to be part of things but again if there's if there's no enemy aircraft to have to defend against or to attack then there may not be very much for us to do right not a lot of action but you're making sure there's not a lot of action that's right i mean it would deter a force for sure but i mean we trained to do the action we're in our training missions we're going out there you know treating each other like like the threat pola nine times the force of gravity ready to do all of the things we're supposed to do um just waiting for for the call and there's a lot of waiting for the call in my experience hurry up and wait yeah that's right always you know always hear that you never know what it means to get in and there's situations that present itself and then those square-away chiefs will always throw that line out thanks i already that's right and it's funny how our society rolls sometimes it'll the the violence of action will come in and then they'll want to see it to reaffirm them that they have it and then they'll be it then they'll say well hey yeah lock it down we don't want to see any of that yeah yeah what i'm talking about is like oh we're too strong or we're too lax which one because there's going to be something that happens on both sides of that and that's just that's life man you know it's funny that you mentioned that i reflect back you know when i was at the academy one of the things and i'm a big my dad introduced me to a book called once an eagle a long time ago written by Anton Meyer traces two people as they're going through coming up through the ranks one is a true warrior one is a sort of politician warrior so like not warrior like total politician and they're making their way through world war one world war two and then vietnam and it's interesting in times of peace it strikes mean it always has that folks will you know how do you all do you when you all get the i mean to cut you off but i mean when you all get those guys in there you all have them too right oh yeah that's and and that's that we got we have i've seen a couple of them and they rise when there's not much going on what what you need is you need to have the folks who are the the warriors coming up through the ranks and ready to go out there it's like crossing the streams man them dudes don't like and the gals they don't like doing that and that's it's it's a weird dynamic it's it's an unfortunate dynamic actually it's weird but what what we what we what we need is is a constant stream of warriors who are ready to go forth and do and that's one of the things that there's a lull you kind of tend to maybe lose a little bit of that like the kind of fades away just a little bit them and they're there but um but the benefit of of having something a mission constantly is that you keep the warfighters at the forefront and that's what we as a nation need in order to be able to remain safe sure that's where those crusty ass master chiefs sergeant man them dudes don't like anybody they you know they're just always grumpy and their job is at a younger age you send them because nothing's ever right right and it just keeps you in that stuck in this level to when you when you do get to see the reality of what it is there is a calmness in it but at a certain age and I supposed to see it it keeps you sharp I mean if you don't stay I agree with that I just that's a one valuable lesson people always ask me like hey would you learn the military what valuable lessons man most of them the good ones I don't ever talk about that's one of them I mean certain guys for certain positions because certain people at certain times you talked about that man it's like hey you had to have those guys that's right so we see in your file from 2004 to 2006 you served doing post-mission briefing did you actually get to like in war time in afghanistan and iraq did you is that what you were briefing on or what was that about no so um probably the the biggest honor of my military career was being called to be an instructor at our fighter weapons school formally now called the us Air Force weapons instructor course but basically it's the Air Force top gun program and when I showed up as a young cop do you about that y'all do don't you I mean because those of course we of course we argue about that I mean I just wanted to bring that to light if y'all were wondering hell yeah they do man these guys can argue about some crap you got it's hilarious oh yeah there is no doubt why do they stop calling it the top gun that's maybe oh but but here's the thing I mean ultimate respect in both in both directions as well sure yeah absolutely right so of course we're going to give you the grief but ultimate respect and so when I came back as an instructor which for me apex of the career like that's where you go to really really become well-versed in teaching I got there at a time when we needed somebody to teach the post-mission debrief course the way that we practice accountability for our missions and of all the sexy topics that you could teach at a weapons school kind of a program that was the least sexy so I was not excited about it at all but I was also you know smart enough to salute smartly and do as I was told and that ends up being one of the best things that happens to me because since I was responsible for building how it is that we teach doing this then I had an impact across the force and it also shaped what it would be that I would eventually do later on in my life I didn't know it at the time but it was it was a tremendous blessing for me it taught me a skill set that we do not practice very well across the globe how do we practice accountability in a way that helps us to do better on the next mission and inspire our teammates to want to try again that's something that is a you want to talk secret sauce like that's that is a key enabler to our success on the battlefield I tell you what I when I go talk to the the corporations like you're you're going to that's the one thing they asked me about and it was the much I didn't get this when I was young my chief always kind of hammered this he's like the most important thing we do is that after action debrief it was the most fun we had because you're all the guys are in course we do it a little differently than the civilians might but we have a little more fun with it but that's when you come at each other that's when you're like hey this is what happened he's like what were you thinking when you did this and and I mean it really all what it really does is opens up conversation it because that you you find your gaps and then people have answers for it and that's that's all that is don't that there should be nothing personal in in the after action because that's what it was for that's what you found out what it was all about is in there that's exactly right and the thing that differentiates the high performance team world that you and I come from is you have if this after action debrief thing is done correctly a bunch of people that are arguing over who's more at fault things didn't go well and you contrast that with our society today and you know this this notion that I'm you know I'm always going to point the finger someplace else you know I can excuse or justify my performance behavior whatever else it's not my fault it's it's 180 out from the way that your teams used to take a look at post-mission what it was that was what's happening and what I thought was most amazing about being in a fighter squadron was that in our debriefs we'd have people that were arguing with each other over who was more to blame when things didn't go well not trying to you know say hey I'm I'll take all the credit over here when things went well like that was a separate conversation and it also went differently but when things didn't go well you got a bunch of people saying this is my fault this is my fault this is my fault this is my fault and the leader the leader stepped step it up and saying no actually I own it I'm the leader I ultimately own this and that is so special yeah right it's the best stories too because gals will come out the way they say it like you know I was right here and then and then what and they're like what I'm like oh I ran out of talent all right let me say something anything to throw off the dynamic and you're kind of like well that's brilliant I didn't you can't fault him for it I mean thank you. You know. Bear be like hey look man I just ran out of damn talent right there in the door and in that what you're for that kind of thing and guys just you're not making for you just learn I don't know what that is how that happens man but we do it and guys you're great and I miss that so much that's the one thing I miss a frickin after action do you know. So is that I mean I'm completely a little background on me Robert I have no military background at all and I learn something new every time I sit and listen to y'all speak do you do it like a a post mission oh every time every time every single time is that like a week after or right after okay you got you can drop your kid off you can drop your kid off hit the head and then you're in there so that's right fresh I mean we in there we're talking a little bit with each other we joke around a little bit but then the boss comes in and kind of everyone squares it away and then he immediately you know you have what the job was what you're supposed to do what happened and then we kind of throw those together man it has to be if it doesn't happen immediately after we're gonna forget things or misremember stuff we cannot afford to do that right especially when you think about how emotionally charged some of these things I imagine losing somebody on a mission if you don't immediately debrief it which I think is counter to what most people in a you know typical business setting would would think like hey we need to give ourselves some time to like you know throttle back and emotionally come to grips with what not no no no no if you do that you're gonna forget and you're gonna misremember and if you forget or misremember then you're not going to draw the right conclusions and that means that you're potentially carrying risk forward into the next mission which for us is unacceptable so it happens immediately and at the weapons school where I was teaching this we would have 2021 22-hour debriefs depending on the phase of instruction we were in and those were painful because whoever's leading it's standing the entire time and yet because of how much value you're trying to extract out of every mission and we a weapons school mission may last an hour of which 35 minutes was tactical execution we'll debrief that for almost a day so what's some of the the best life lessons that you can take out of your post mission briefs debriefs whatever that you've implemented into daily life or into your book or your speeches or whatever you're doing now yeah here's the first one don't ever do a 24-hour debrief like that's the stupid like like well you only do that in a school you know what I mean hey here's here's another one I I had a I flew a training mission a million years ago with an instructor who was brilliant just an absolutely brilliant fighter pilot one of the best fighter pilots I've ever learned from and so the way that it works when you're coming up through the ranks kind of learning how to do this stuff you go and you lead all of these things you lead the pre-mission planning you give the pre-mission briefing you lead the tactical execution you lead the post mission debrief I had done all of that my version of the debrief was a three and a half hour we all suck conversation I mean and all I did is emphasize how much we sucked he came up after I was done and he flipped it around and he taught me something really important that day he goes how we frame this conversation really matters and he goes you know you can beat people up and tell them how much they suck and they can learn from that and that might work in certain circumstances but another alternative might be hey kujo we were two decisions from victory today and if you take a look at this we had done this and this differently we could have won this thing and I remember coming off of his version of the same debrief going hey I actually believe in my abilities right now and I think that we actually have what it takes to be able to come back and bounce back from this thing he actually taught me how to be resilient on the heels of the massive failure and that was a wonderful approach like how we frame the discussion like you mentioned Marcus the importance of humor the importance of being able to be you know like have levity it's ever times that are potentially dark it's like that's a that's a special art for that's a skill set you know and there's no training for that you just experience it and that becomes part of the culture right yeah I learned that that's another key takeaway and I try to apply that with my kids because if you think about it I mean we live in a really negative world right now we're gonna be we're feeding fed negativity negativity negativity they're getting negativity all over the place and I could continue to perpetuate that or I could tell my children that you know hey look look you did this right to do this right you did this other thing right imagine how much better today could have gone can you do that you know better tomorrow they tend to they tend to perk up and so that's I think that's a really important skill set it also shows that the after action debrief imagine you plan your whole mission out your day out and you know where the buildings are you know what's in there but there's stuff you can't see right there's variables that you can't see that's what you find out when you go in there and that's what we talk about and like oh that's what actually goes in that missing spot we didn't cover down on so if you could run it three or four times which we try to do in our heads I mean always think about something three or four times before you go do it no matter what it is that way your mind's already thinking about it that way when you get in there it's like a fight or anything else you've already done it so many times it's like a repetitive thing you you've blotted out the mistakes that you normally would have made on the first advance that's why we do that and yes most people don't it's no we I mean great point about harnessing the power of simulation man we go into and we simulate simulate simulate simulate so that when you actually go out there and execute not only are you well rehearsed on what to expect but you're so comfortable in the environment that you're ready for the pop-ups like you're so like your status quo is I'm ready for something else to come at me because I've experienced so much about this scenario already that I'm that I can maintain my calm and composure when something that I didn't plan for arrives over here and I think about the application into other domains I mean most of the businesses where I teach this to that we don't do a lot of simulations which I think is unfortunate because it brings everybody's anxiety down it allows us to have situational awareness we're calm cool and collected as we make decisions and pivots real time it's a wonderful approach basically I'm like if you play any sport imagine walking onto the tennis court and just start trying to play tennis against somebody who's been playing a set already right or anything they do if that machine's already moving I don't care if it's smaller than you and it's already spinning and that sucker's worked up anything that's worked up and and going you can't stop it if you step in front of it run right over your ass I mean to make you look foolish yeah and by the time when we go out that door I've got this so jacked up and ready to go and if they're you know they got that that voice in that head or that music or whatever's flowing with it you can't bring them suckers down that's right that's so interesting so after your military career you you wrote a book can you tell us about that yeah I wrote I wrote a couple books debrief to win was the first one I got out of the military at a time that was not of my choosing I colorectal cancer when I was when I was living in Europe right before I came back to flying F-22s again so that led to a early retirement and I was in a really funky place in life because if you think back to since I was four years old I knew that I existed to be a fighter pilot right I have a hard time accepting people's thanks because I got a chance to live what it was that I knew was me and then all of a sudden that was ripped away and I spent some time struggling with like who am I now what what purpose do I serve here when I can't do what it is that I know that I was created to do it occurred to me that one of the huge blessings of my life was being part of teams that mattered being part of teams where it was very much a family being part of teams that knew how to get the mission done being part of teams that were incredibly resilient being part of teams that kind of said all right disruption come on we're ready for you and we're going to find a way to dominate and so I I made it a mission teach that out in the world and I figured I'd probably be more legitimate as a potential trainer speaker if I had a book and so I wrote a book about the art of the debrief how it is we practice those post-mission debriefs and it's been very very well received and it's it's helped me to be able to get the message out and how to build a team that matters how to build a team that can win that's awesome somebody said one to my to me that imagine if all everyone in the military we have we all live in the same neighborhood and when you walked out the front door in the morning like his house has a jet parked in the driveway and your neighbor had a tank or something like that and we all lived in the same spot you can't believe how we yeah it would be right how much we go at each other but I mean it's it's in a completely different dynamic than you see civilians doing it like when they say it to hurt and we do too sometimes but I mean it's it's it's it's also a reminder that's weird I don't know how we do that but man that was a blessing to get that out and and and earn that you got to earn that that's right you know everybody I've seen just with all of Marcus's friends and everything when people when they get out of the military they do lose this sense of purpose and the sense of of teammate and all of that but that's what family is for too not just the workplace but I mean that's like Marcus and I are our swim buddies now like we are the team now and our kids and you know like our parents we are that team and we have to be able to rely on each other and respect each other and it took us a while to kind of figure that out but once we did it really clicked and she had to say it to me like that she's like you went away to the military to to get trained to come to me to do this wise words I mean when she said like that I was like why are you with that yeah I thought I had to be a husband and he can't raise them all day and all that something like oh that's your freaking assignment yeah the boys back at warcom and in the military that's your ass and that's why they separate us they sit us back into our towns to assimilate to try and train everyone else around us you that's why we walk the walk don't talk to talk walk the walk back your wife up raise the kids get them in school is it fun some time no yeah like that's a damn job when there's there's things we do in the military all the time the cool stuff was we got to play with the planes and you know all that and when a fight broke off yeah we were the ones that go whip everybody's ass we come back and then now we're back undercover well and if you think about it like even just the post mission debrief like bringing that in to just family life for our listeners like that's what husband and wife's can do something yeah yeah yeah like yeah I know like oh we need to talk about it and let's just speak my language you know let's figure out what we you know what can we do to avoid that situation in the future instead of like harping on it and getting angry or whatever and letting that boil like let's just move on figure out how we can avoid that in the future and move on and just never do that again these are the wisest words spoken on this particular interview by far and I tell you as a slow learner like the person that needs that kind of guidance and counsel in my life to be able to be focused on the right things I was 100 percent skewed towards hey team stuff is stuff that you do at work I taught team stuff at work I did not teach team stuff at home until I got cancer and it was after I kind of reviewed how it was that I allowed myself to get cancer I had a preventable form of cancer that turned into a you know crushing I'll never get away from this it's always a reminder don't have a lower colon anymore turns out I wasn't teaming well at home and my wife and I made a firm resolution that everything that I used to live and teach applies at home first why it's the most important team that I've ever been on and I owe it to the team to make sure that we're as tight as we can possibly be and the neat thing is is that I'd say our our family team got a whole heck of a lot better as a result of my failure with cancer that caused us to focus where it is that we needed to and I'm I'm eternally grateful for it in fact I wouldn't I wouldn't rewind the tapes and and play it any other way I think everything happened the way that it needed to and I'm very fortunate that my bride had the compassion the grace the patience to deal with me so that together we could learn how to become the family team that we want to be yeah oh it always takes something yeah I believe what they're made of until we go into because there's a form of human being that a military deal turned into sometimes boys aren't around and the wife's I don't know yeah I think y'all that's the hardest job they don't get enough for payment I mean I don't hey man amen 100 agree 100 agree we ought to be standing for the for the military family members and celebrating them yeah well I I met Marcus after he medically retired but I his twin was still in so I still like lived the deployments and all of that and worse version of me broke busted just separated from the boys off the line me just thought you want to talk about throwing her a wild cat you know what I mean had no she had no idea when she was out there slumming for a bad boy which one she picked up let's go out for all the beat pass she was when she came across my ass bro because I was gooder can't wild I believe it man I mean now here we are I tamed him there's a freaking chest ball good well done yeah well thank you for coming on and just sharing that perspective because we never talk about that and I don't think we've ever talked about it on our podcast which is most important yeah is that it was like the detail part this is what they're talking about it's impossible to bring out usually yeah but it really does it and it's something that's not just something that's very important in the military but it can it's every household should implement that every household should implement like teamwork and compassion and figuring out what doesn't work and make it work well they I think the problem is you tell guys that we get out like I started telling all the guys like y'all never get out you never take that uniform off get to somebody else you're gonna put the name on it but your ass is into till we die and guess what in this movie we all die yeah yeah so just suck it up we got we got work to do man you know that kind of thing yep no I get it I get it but I tell you what one of the one of the best four star bosses I've ever worked for he he would come in every month and and ask us on the on the staff he's like hey what are you doing for the home team like because yet at some point you're gonna be done here whether you get out early whether you retire or whatever you're gonna you're gonna be done what are you doing to make sure that there's a home team to come back to and if you're not prioritizing that you're doing something wrong yeah I couldn't believe it four star general saying that to me you know it really it kind of starts to hit home and you start thinking about where your priorities are and anyway I'm again fortunate that I married up and then I've got a wife who understood and was able to live through me like until I until I arrived at where I needed to be matured enough to be the the husband and father that I hope to be and I'm still working on becoming yeah that's good stuff yeah amen that's that's perfectly put yeah so kitty let's talk about what you've got going on now or you started a business um the vmax group can you just that's right let's tell our let's talk about that we we basically we teach how to build real teams that win we take the principles that we lived and we apply them into typically the business domain non-profit domain wherever it is we've got teams that comply at home as well harnessing the upside of of real teamwork to build what it is that our country desperately needs right now and that is to have people of hope and optimism and a better tomorrow people that understand how to get the best out of their teammates people who understand how it is that we make here special and if we can do that if we can spread that message around at a time when there's so much negativity then we're doing something good and that's what we focus on I think you just nailed the difference like all the the business is back and you kind of see things going in in in a certain way and it's like because there is a building an awesome team but you also need a component you need an individual who can get it out of them like a battery or a plug see I mean there that's a real person you can you can throw all the best people at one room and but if you don't have the person in there they can ignite them some guns man it won't work that's a that's a real thing and most of them left when the war is kicked off and and even if they did come back or got discharged and most of us did at ones and twos we didn't come back together that was the weirdest thing that we did on this one we didn't get to come back together it's like a hodgepodge but we're back now and everyone's here now so you're seeing what's happening like while we were waiting to get back together buddy got into charities because like every most everybody got into charities to create stuff for the boys and girls who are still in and now once that's done because charity hurts and it lasts but then then you guys like all right what do you want to do now I don't care if our boys and girls got started on a on a snow cone stand and wanted to make it an empire or create anything if they put their mind to it they can do it exactly I mean that's just the way it is then go yep I'm just so just know about how we develop that as kids we took down Babylon we went back over to Babylon took that sucker down and then Afghanistan and everything in between and now we're back here we're in our mids you know what do we want to do shit whatever you want do whatever you want that's right right so how do people find you our listeners how can a business hire you to come on or buy your book or whatever there's two places probably the easiest place is Robert teshener.com last name's T-E-S-C-H-N-E-R the other one is VMAX group LLC.com and VMAX groups is our company so we've got several of us former fighter pilots right now to go out there and teach these principles and workshops and keynotes and make it an impact making an impact building real teams that win. Are you on social media? I am LinkedIn is the best place for me there although we're building the Facebook presence right now as well. Awesome well thank you for coming on we appreciate you. Yeah. Hey we don't know if we got in that and ask you this man tell me about your call sign where'd kujo come from oh yeah we need a win-win answer on that yeah okay um someone unsatisfying takes about six months until you get calls. I know it's real if you started it like that well the only reason I say it is is that it's the tribe that names you they tell stories about you they they ask you for inputs the stories have to be 10% true by the way that are told about you at your naming ceremony right there might be some adult beverages involved and if you can avoid weighing in on you know every time they're asking hey is that how it went is that what you if you can avoid saying anything you might waltz out of there with a cool call sign if you try to influence it it's gonna be a bad one sure sure that all I can tell you is I can't tell you any of the stories that were told about why they named me kujo but the tribe picked it they voted on it I did not sit there and offer anything other than here's to the 58th fighter squadron and until the day that I die I prefer to be known as kujo over Robert Charles my mom never understood that but it is always good stories behind it sure there there are brilliant stories behind it. I don't know I don't know how I mean do you hear some of these how they come up with that I'm like how I don't know how we came up with half of the the material and the rules and regulations the unwritten ones that we have to get certain things is unbelievable yes I don't watch scary movies but Marcus told me yesterday that kujo is some dog that kills women and children or something like that yeah is that right let me just say do not fear I'm more of a Benji these days all right most most most cool in this section I'm more of a Benji but when you needed me to be a kujo I was a kujo all right all right thank you so much God bless you being tough thank you all bless you too thank you so much for having me you bet man bye thank you all for listening to another episode we'll see you next week you ♪♪♪♪