American dream is built on freedom, and that freedom comes at a cost. American Heroes Stories presented by Life Liberty Happiness is a new series honoring the men and women who've sacrificed to protect that dream. We're proud to play a small part in preserving their stories for future generations. Life Liberty Happiness, a Media Squatch podcast, presents American heroes stories. All right, we welcome to the program. Air Force Master Sergeant J. McCoy. Man, that intro was for me. Yeah, I was getting excited, like, man, who we about to hear about it? That's not legit, that's all. Yeah, that's a lot to live up to you right there. But that's brand new. And when Emma goes away, that's what we get. That's what it comes through. And that's what a bumper. What a start in jowitty, Well, welcome to the program. Glad to be here. All right, start us off with your early beginnings. Where's where's home? So home? I guess home will always be South Louisiana. What part of little town you never heard of called Santama, Louisiana? Okay, I guess now where's that near relationship to Baton Rouge? Yeah? It's about for twenty five thirty minutes south of Baton Rouge, about the same to New Orleans as it growth lies. Okay, gosh, I'm trying to think of the name. So if you were to go keep going south, there's one little beach where you can go fishing down there. Did you really think one little bat that was going to describe a. Lot of times out grand Beach? That's it? Yeah, Grande, Yeah, it's not. It's not a beach like you think. I thought. Louisiana has a long coastline. It's all swamp. Yeah, it's got a jacked up coastline because it's right there in the Mississippi Delta. So it's a lot of marsh, not in grand Isle. You know. I I like to say I'm spoiled rotten by beaches now because grand Isle right there at the mouth of the Mississippi. I mean, you've got brackish brown water, you got dead fish everywhere. But that was going to the beach as a kid, that we were pumped about it. Now you take me to you know someone we just me and my family just spent a week at Emerald All, North Carolina. I'm like, this is beautiful yeah, that's where I'm that's where I'm retiring to. I'm going down there. Man. Yeah, that's great, that's awesome. All right. So when you like, last week was deadly hot here, when you walk outside of you like this isn't. Heat, you'd think so. But I've through the military and through my career, I've lived so many places. No, I consider myself a native Virginia at this point as far as the temperature goes. I was stationed in Alaska at one point, and when I came back down south, I went to go visit mom and dad in Louisiana. It was July, and my Dad's like, hey, I need help setting up this deer stand. Come with me. And about thirty minutes in, I went and sat on the four wheeler and I'm like, Dad, you got to take me home. I'm about to pass out. I was joking, and I'm like, no, man, this heat's about to kill me. Awful, you know, I'm a Virginia boy. And I go down there and I'm like, I can't take it. Like there's no air moving, you can't hide from it. It's a wet, hot blanket all summer long, all. Right, So uh you you spend your whole childhood basically there. You graduate high school there, So out of high school, are you going straight into the military at that point? Yeah, straight in the Air Force. I was delayed en listening, so I actually signed my enlistment contract the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. Okay, so as fast as I could get in the military, I went. What was the itch? It's part of me thinks it was a calling. It's it's where I was put on this earth to do. I mean, six years old, I think I saw the Blue Angels fly for the first time and I was hooked. You know. I was born in the eighties, grew up in the early nine and Top Gun, you know, and that was I just I feel like that was action movie culture. It all went back to the military. You know. It was either some former special operator or you know, you had movies like Top Gun and I think it was Iron Eagles. Yes, there was one about helicopters that was super cool. Now, are you picking the Air Force because of the pilot stuff? You know, and that's Navy. But how did you choose the Air Force over over the other branches? Good advice? Okay, Yeah, So early on as a kid, I did want to be a naval aviator and following mavericks footsteps, and then obviously nine to eleven happened, I'm still in school, and that really changed my trajectory. And seeing the war televised, you know, the early parts, the invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq, I really wanted to be on the ground, you know, I was. I was aware enough to know as a as an aviator, well, the Afghan Air Force is non existent, so Dom's Air Force, well, we took care of that for the most part in the Gulf War, and I don't think they recovered very well, but there wasn't a lot of dog fighting going on in the Gat. So I wanted to be a ground guy. And early on, you know, late middle school, high school timeframe, I'd kind of switched and just was infatuated with the Marine Corps and everything that the Marine Corps stood for. But my dad, he was a law enforcement officer for twenty seven years, and obviously in that community he worked with a lot of veterans. He wasn't a veteran himself, but I think half of his crew at any given time were veterans and a lot of combat veterans, and so, you know, between him being a father and wanting to protect his son, and just like I said, good advice from a lot of his co workers. They said, man, have your boys joined the Air Force. You know, they've got the best schools, they've got the best living conditions, they get the best deployments. The Air Force is where he needs to go, you know. So it was really that I think that paternal advice from my dad and his coworkers, and I think the final nail in the coff And I had a really good friend growing up named Anthony Hen and I were like brothers, and he had an uncle that had served in the Air Force and went on to start his own private security company and was doing really well for himself. And he sat me down one day and explained his job as a OSI Special Agent in the Air Force. And I want to say, he was responsible for protecting the program, the classified program around the SR seventy one Blackbird, And I just thought that was super cool. I didn't know, you know, you could do that in the military, and you know, he described it as counterintelligence. And I go back to that movie A Few Good Men and there's a scene in that movie where Jack Nicholson's number two is XO. You know, he kind of goes off the map, and somebody had makes a comment in that movie and they're like, that guy he was he spent x amount of years encounter intelligence, you'll never find it. And that kind of stuck with me, and I was like, oh, maybe that's cool, Maybe that's where I need to go. And that's what happened. All right, So you're you've joined. Now where is where is uh? Where's boot camp at? Where's where do you get sent for that? Yeah? So everybody in the Air Force, at least in my generation, goes through Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Okay, all right, So was there ever a time when you get off the plane whatever or bus you go all right, this was the wrong decision or you felt the whole time you were that's where I needed to be. I was grinning from ear to ear and listen, Like I said, I tell people, I fell for the government's long term recruitment strategy. It wasn't just the movies, you know, But then because of the movies and my desire to join, I was active in scouting all the way up to high school. Our high school had a junior ROTC program, so I was active in that all the way until I left. So I feel like my early childhood years and and my formative years were spent preparing for the military. Okay, so when I finally got to step foot on a military base, I guarantee I was grinning ear to ear. So most of the people we've had on were Marine Corps, Army. Uh it, So what's the Air Force boot camp? Like? I mean, how is it different than the other branches of the military for me? You know? And I kept in touch with a lot of my buddies who went to various branches. The biggest difference was mine was short. I think they've extended Air Force basic training at the time, but mine was only I think six weeks long, whereas my buddies and Marine Corps were there for double that twelve weeks. But as far as the environment, and I know that the military branches we like to pick at each other and know, you know, there's always these memes going around some guy with a silver platter and a suit on bringing you your lobster for dinner and Air Force basic training, but it's just not the case, I think the military as a whole, the Department of Defense knows how to conduct basic training and knows what it takes to break somebody down and build them back up as an airman, soldier, sailor marine, whatever, and the process looks the same across the board. I don't think it was that much different. So what was after basic training? What's after that? Yeah? So for for us we call it tech school. Other branches would call it a school. But that's that's you know, you get assigned your job either before you leave or while you're in basic, and so very shortly after that you go to your tech school. And that's how you got os I. Was that So I started off. As as an enlisted airman. You can't go straight into os I, so you have to you have to start somewhere in the Air Force. And my first job was Security Forces. There was kind of a longer route to get there. I came in with a guaranteed contract to be a seer specialist, which is a stance for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. You teach pilots and special operators and folks going to some high risk environments. You teach them survival skills and like I said, I had a guaranteed contract for that job. But once I started to learn a little bit about it still in basic training, I decided that wasn't the job I wanted to do and found myself volunteering to go in a secure forces. And I didn't think that the law enforcement aspect is what I was really going to be into, but I found a love for law enforcement there that that continued on. So that was it was very fortunate. So what does security what what does security forces do? Like? What do you what is your job job? Yeah? So security forces in the Air Force, it's kind of dual had it between military police and and security, right, but that's your that's your ground force element, uh in the Air Force because we don't have an infantry, So who who protects air bases? It's security forces. But then you also do the law enforcement mission as well. And because of that, there's a lot of great opportunities in that job. I've got buddies who gone to Army Airborne School because there are certain bases who are dedicated as air Base Defense Groups and their mission is you know, if if things were to pop off tomorrow with Iran, you know, after some air battles. One of the first things that would probably happen if we're putting bots on the ground as the Army rangers are going to go and see some airfields. Well, once they've gotten under control the Army, the eighty second Airborne whatever, eventually a bunch of security forces guys are going to roll into that air base. They're gonna build a perimeter and they're gonna hold that perimeter so that the Army can then project outwards and do their job. You know, that's really interesting you say that because one of the things that Brian and I love about this segment that we've been doing is learning so much because he and I hadn't served, and I learned something each time. And so your pictures that came through, you know, we did the promotion for the show, I was like, who in the Air Force has that much weaponry on them? And you know, I never thought about it. You have to secure your own place and ye have your own military police. I hadn't thought about that being that part of the Air Force. You know, it's kind of cool. So where is where'd you end up doing your tech school? That's also at Lackland Air Force Base. Okay, And then after that, where's your first. First duty station was Holoman Air Force Base? New Mexico was that different? It was very different. I mean I grew up in the Land of the Pines, you know, flat Texas wasn't that much different, you know, And for the most part, through basic and Tech school, you're kind of can find to San Antonio. So it's a city, but you know, it's still hot whatever. I get to New Mexico and it's there's mountains there and I've never seen mountains before. Oh wow, that was new. But then it was it's high desert, you know. Yeah, very different, but I learned to love it. Okay. Yeah, and uh that's where you're learning your skills that you're gonna use in the Air Force. Well, so you learn all your skills at Texas Tech School. So and when they push you out to your first duty station, you're you're considered mission ray. You're a three level airman, so you know, you have someone doing some on the job training with you. You've got some more upgrade training, but you're handed a gun and you're securing stuff. Day one. You got a job. Now you've got a job. Now, Yeah, okay, I'm learning this like when I was Trent and I worked together years ago at a place where we did a lot of government facilities and Bowling Air Force Base was the That's probably the only air force space I've ever been on. But now that's a totally different Yeah. Up in the Navy yard. Yeah, it's a little cocoon of Department of Defense and everything else. It's like in that whole area. Yeah, that was definitely a learning experience. Now you mentioned that you were in high school and you'd already heard about you know, Iraq and Afghanistan. We've had nine to eleven happen and you're in the police force. Are you thinking that eventually I'm going to go to Afghanistan? You end up going to Afghanistan? Right? Is that I did? Yeah? And for security forces, it was it was a guarantee unless so my wife, her and I actually met in tech school. We've been married seventeen years now. But her first duty station was Mounstrom Air Force Base, Montana, out in the nuke fields. So she had to get a special clearance in special additional training to guard nuclear warheads. And those people weren't deploying much because it took it took a special person to do that job. But if if you weren't in the missile field, you were almost guaranteed you were getting a deployment within your first two three years in stour. Yeah, so I hit the ground. I think I got to New Mexico. I think it was like March of eight, and hell, probably by October I had already had I was already slotted to go to Iraq. And I wound up missing that deployment because my wife was exiting the Air Force and she was pregnant with our first child. We moved quickly if you did, if you know that one. But I told my chain of command, like, hey, my fiance's moving here, she's pregnant. Babies do and and they were gracious enough to let me miss that first deployment and see the birth of my oldest and and because of that, I never made it to Iraq. All on my deployments were Afghanistan or elsewhere. But I completely missed out on the Iraq theater or war. That's not not that I'm sad about it. Sure Iraq sucks, right. But yeah, yeah, all right, So you're you're getting your deployment to Afghanistan, Are you aware of what you're going to be doing like or is it just they bring you in and this is life. I mean, yeah, I'd say I had a really good awareness and and the Air Force again during the heigh of the war and during my time, the Air Force had a really unique way of deploying troops because I think most most people think of the Army or maybe the Marine Corps when you think about combat deployments, and you know, for the most part, the Army, you know, if you're first Battalion, five h third Airborne, whatever, you and all your buddies are going together, you know what I mean, the whole the whole unit deploys, whereas in the Air Force they kind of pick and choose. So they'll they'll send a tasker to a wing for us in New Mexico's a forty ninth wing, forty ninth Security Forces squadron. They'll send a tasker and they say, hey, we need thirteen bodies, and you pick thirteen bodies from within the squadron and you build them into a package. And then when you go down range, you're joined by thirteen bodies from this base and thirteen bodies from this base. And it's you know, because the Air Force is a smaller and leaner force. And you know, whereas Fort Bragg, for example, if you're talking about the eighty second Airborne, you've got a bunch of different infantry units on that base. So if one leaves, you still got guys left behind to guard the base and respond to contingencies or whatever. If you wiped out the entire forty nine Security Forces, there's no more Security Forces members on Holloman Air Force Base. We are all they got, So they would they would call them these I think Air Expeditionary Forces, and AEF is what they would build out of all these different bases. So the tasker would come down and they'd say, hey, here's what you're going to be doing on this deployment, whether it was Gardener prison or convoy operation. My first deployment, I hit the jackpot. I got to do what was called a flyway security team. So in security force is one of those cool opportunities you have is the Phoenix Raven program. And you go through this school, you learn some combatives, you learn how to deal with all these different situations, and you become like an in flight security body. You wear a flight suit, you're considered aircrew and you fly all over the world transporting cargo, troops, whatever. But the whole idea behind it is anytime a plane, an air Force asset lands outside of an established perimeter, you've got security guys. So I got to do what I call Phoenix raven light or diet Phoenix raven and do flyway security. So my first deployment, I wore a flight suit with a armored vest, carried it in four and got to fly basically every country that touches Afghanistan and every air base in Afghanistan to some extent, I got to visit. And so does this include like high ups in the military that are going to different places, so they'll typically have generals or anything. Yeah, like the Secretary of the Air Force has his own personal security details cos agents in theater. Sometimes we would get some of those guys on our planes. But the goal for us was we might fly to Cobble International Airport, be able to get off the plane there, you know, because that's it's it's a big military base on one side, get off the plane, aircrafts and child and then the next place that plane was stopping was the middle of nowhere desert in Afghanistan to resupply the third Special Forces Group who are out there living in caves or whatever, you know what I mean. So when you're landing out in the middle of the desert, there is no security. So me and my partner would be the first ones off the plane. We'd hold security. They could do whatever they were doing, whether it was cargo, passengers, whatever the mission was, the aircrews could do that. We had security. The bad part about the job is if the Taliban were attacked that airplane while we're on the ground, the protocols for the plane to leave and we're we're sitting there on the ground. Wow. Yeah, And I've got some funny stories about that kind of stuff if y'all want to hear it. Yeah, of course, that's awesome. That's why we're here. Yeah, So it didn't sound funny, but go ahead. Yeah, so there was, you know, and I'll start with I'll start with with a you know, a real word, I don't know, kind of not not an intense story, but for me at the times, an eighteen year old kid in Afghanistan, first deployment, you know, it almost got pretty real. But me and my partner, we had parked at this one little strip and there was a fence next to where the planes parked, and there was an Afghan village right there, and we'd been there. Hell, i'd probably been there thirty times in the in the seven eight months that I was in Afghanistan. But on this one mission, we could see this guy. There was this green like tarp laid over the fence and we could see this guy squatting down behind it and he had this huge metal bowlt when he was messing with something. So trying to you know, not be suspicious, but get an eye on what this guy's doing. We're going up to the flight deck of the aircraft trying to look over the fence and we can't see. And finally my partner, Corey, he says, hey, I think that guy is building an explosive. And I went up, you know, I was I was the team leader for that mission. So I go up and I talk to the aircraft commander and I tell him what we think's going on, and he's like, what do we do? And I said, well, like, here's the protocol. You guys take off, leave us on the ground, and we'll see what happens. And sure enough, you know, when when the plane starts to take off, and then we see this guy start to get active and he's peeking and he sees us still on the ground, and finally me and Corey turned and we put our guns on him and we just started yelling at him probably, hey, what do you do? And he doesn't understand us anyway, but we're yelling at him, and this dude takes off running. So plane's gone. We get we get on the radio. We contacted the army because they did have patrols in the area, and they said they were gonna just at somebody out, you know. Eventually we got another plane to come in and pick us up, and we found out the next day that they did. They recovered an ied. Wow, so it's our guest. This guy was just waiting for the plane to take off, and he was going to try to throw it, you know, over the fence and try to damage the plane while we were on takeoff or whatever. It was amazing about that story. First off, when we talk about this is one of the things I've also learned in the show, how much responsibility an eighteen year old kid has. Oh I tell you know, I'm fifty five now and thinking about how much responsibility you just had to to diagnose something, go to the pilot of a plane and then tell him what he should do, and then what the protocol is, and then go engauge. I mean, wow, yeah, I know. There's times my wife I can't unload the dishwasher, and you know, you're you're freaking letting a plane leave while you're standing there. Holy cow. And you don't You don't realize it in the moment. Yeah, you don't. You don't realize the value of the training you get in the military, even that young. We had another incident, this one and we flew into an old Russian airstrip. It was in Konduce, Afghanistan, and I always this one always sticks out in my head every time i'd fly there because it reminded me of that scene from the movie Gladiator where he's walking through the fields. Well it's just golden. There was these golden fields all around. I mean, it was absolutely beautiful. I tell you. If it wasn't for you know, the Taliban, Afghanistan would be great. Oh wow, it's so beautiful there. The first person i've I know, that's first time I've ever heard that. Oh, I mean, I see pictures of other like I know y'all heard seen pictures of Iran in the nineteen sixties. Yep, it's I mean. It's a beautiful place and everybody's enjoying life. And Cobble Afghanistan was the same way in the sixties. I mean you if you put up a picture of Kabble in New York broad Street or Broadway or whatever in the sixties, and you'd see, like the way the women were dressed, the guys the cars are driving, you wouldn't know which was which. Yeah, it's crazy. So uh so, Yes, we rolled in the Kundu So and we landed on the ground there and we've been there a couple of times. This time was different. This time there was an old, blown out, rushing air traffic control tower and at the top of this tower they had some sandbag set up and there were two snipers up there, and I'm like, what this is new? And plane the engines are still running. I get off the plane and me and my partner and we're doing our thing and this guy comes walking out of a hole in the side of this building. He's got a beard down to here, great long hair he's got. You could tell his full sleeve tattoos, flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, and some five eleven pants and I'm like, this dude's an operator. So I'm already excited. And he comes walking over and he's like, you were raving and I was like, yeah, I wasn't, but you know, in the moment, I got to say no. And he's like right, arm man. He's like I was Security forces too, and I'm like, oh man, what are you doing now? He's like State Department. I'm like, all right, not tracking. And he's like, you know what you're doing here today? And I said no, and he's like, you're we're yelling over the engine plane or the plane engines. But he's like, you're picking up the ambassador Afghanistan. And I'm like this is cool. Suddenly one of the snipers cracks off around and I'm alert and I see popping over this hill this f two fifty three to fifty duly truck and there's a guy standing in the back Mexican Federale style with a with a machine gun mounted to this cage. And this this diesel truck takes off over this hill and they start going down and I hear this mini gun opening up and guys come running out of the hole in this bill and they've got the ambassador between two of his State Department diplomatic security agents and they're running kind of heads down, and I'm like, we're under attack, you know, I'm amped up, but I don't see any threats. And they're like, come on, get on the plane, Get on the plane. So we rush onto this dang plane and we do a hot takeoff. I mean, we're it's kind of like when you're hot breaking, but in a C one thirty. The whole plane is rattling. They've got the engine spooled up, and when they take the break off, you fly sideways in your seat and you're up in the and no time. And I'm I'm amped. And this guy sitting next to me, so I take my head set off and a leader. I'm like, what's going on? And he leans over, cool as a cucumber and he goes cows and I said, what cows? There's cows on the runway. We're having to clear them off so the Ambo doesn't miss his next meeting. They were using sniper fire machine guns to scare away cows. And I mean, if you want to talk about going from. You tew you were in there. I thought we were about to get some the Talaban was coming for us. This guy say cows. And that's all. Honestly, guys, that's in my experience. That's that's combat, that's employments. You know, it's it's it's levels, it's highs and lows, chaos, and sometimes you're all jacked up and you're ready to get after it, and then it's just cows on the runway. Wow. Yeah. How long were you in afghan Afghanistan? So that deployment was typically the Air Force does six month rotations. We got extended a little bit, so around seven and a half eight months from my first deployment. Oh so you've been you've been multiple times? Yes, okay, yeah. Second time better, worse, same. They progressively got worse. Yeah. So second deployment it was to Saudi Arabia and we've got a little or I don't know if we still have it or not, but it was it was too a compound for American service members that were helping to train the Saudis. You know, so the Saudis buy a lot of military equipment from US fighter jets, tanks, whatever, and whenever they do that it comes with a package, and I said, well, you know we're gonna sell Let's say it's a tank, We'll sell you the tank, but we're also going to sell you, you know, training from a couple of tank drivers and then some tank mechanics and some the guys who fuel it up, and they spend time over there teaching the Saudis or whatever military we're working with on how to use that stuff. So there was a compound there that they lived on, and I was really mad when I got sent there because in my mind again it's I'm going I'm going here to babysit these families that live on this compound in Saudi Arabia. There's men and women dying in Afghanistan every day, and here I am. You know, we had a pool, you could go to a local restaurant and have a couple of drinks and get a steak dinner. But it was actually pretty cool. There was so when I first got there. You know, before you deploy, actually you go through that pre deployment training where you're getting trained up. You know, my first deployment, I went to the Ravens School and I learned all that stuff. This when I went down an Egglin Air Force Base in Florida. We had a program down there at the time called Brave Defender, and you'd live in austere locate environment. You know, it's out in the woods. You're living in huts and you're just war gaming. You're clearing buildings, you're doing patrols, you're doing all this combat related stuff that falls within the Security Forces mission, and you're getting trained up. So there was a tech sergeant there who I guess I had impressed, and when we got on the ground, like the second day we were there, I got pulled and they said, Hey, you're going to be the NSUIC of this gate complex. You're gonna have twenty three airmen you know, working for you, and you're responsible for all the foot traffic that comes through, all of the vehicle traffic, and then our main search pit for anyone driving on in the base, they come through you and you got to search the vehicles. So we I was on shift one day and I get a call down in the search pit, Hey, Sara McCoy, we think we got something. And it turned out there was a vehicle trying to get on base with an IED, So you know, we had to evacuate that area, court on off the area, called the EOD texts to come in, and I got a medal for you know, for that operation. So you know, it was it was hard towards the end to say I didn't do anything or you know, I didn't contribute, because there was a real threat there. And there was another kind of a turning point for my career, you know, because you wanted to make rank, because you wanted to pay, but you never wanted the responsibility, especially me. You know, I liked I liked being responsible for for myself and doing the job. And here I am thrust into this this mantle of leadership. Not that big of a deal. But anyway, uh, I think it was an F sixteen had gone down in Afghanistan. I remember a plane had crashed and somehow the tasker came to us in Saudi Arabia and they said, hey, we were gonna put together a team of guys to go forward to sit on this plane and secure it until you know, the Air Wars can get a crash recovery crew out there, you know. But there's you know, when it comes to our fighter jets, there's there's sensitive equipment in there and the avionics or the way it works, all this stuff. Uh. So they were gonna they were gonna send a group of guys forward to sit on this thing so the Iranians couldn't get it, I'm guessing. And so I got picked for that mission. I got to do all the mission planning for it and get everything approved. Never wound up going. They decided. I think they just probably dropped a bomb on the thing. But you know, up until you know, the the hour before we were supposed to go, I was in charge. I planned it, I picked my team, and it really gave me an opportunity to do some mission planning and see what that would be like. And I and I enjoyed it, and I thought, you know, this is something that I could do. Because everybody in the military can relate. You've got good bosses and bad bosses, and eventually there comes a time where you just got to say, man, I could do this better myself, and if it means me doing it or working for that guy, I'm gonna do it. Yeah. So yeah, so that was that was an interesting opportunity. All right, So did you re up after your first four years? I guess I sure did, Okay, I think, yeah, in between those two deployments, I had to re up a little bit early because in security forces, Uh, there's there's two different uh you call them shred outs, and it's like changing jobs. You got to go to a whole different school, but they still fall into that security forces umbrella. So one of those shreds, your Alpha shred is your canine handlers, So think of a military working dog or a police working dog. You can specialize in that and do that for your career. Uh. Then we have a B shred which is called combat Arms, and that job is responsible for all of the weapons training and weapons maintenance across the Air Force. So I got to be a full time firearms instructor for three years. Uh, and that that was my role. When I first went to Saudi Arabia, I got pulled out of probably working in an armory. But yeah, so in conjunction with that that cross train, I needed more retainability in the service. So I think I didn't even make it to the end of my first initial four year contract and I had already re upped because the goal for me was always twenty years in the Air Force. Oh wow, yeah, okay, so did you pull the whole twenty. No, I'm actually in the reserves right now. Okay, So I did twelve years active and then switched over to the reserves. Gotcha, I'm at eighteen right now. But I just re upped again at Monument Terrace for three more years. I'll retire with twenty one years of service. Did you do it in the ceremony at Monument Terras? I did? Yeahude, man, that is freaking awesome. They loved it. Yeah. How cool is that? I wish i'd have seen that. How long ago would you do that? That was three weeks ago now? For Yeah, congratulations, Probably that's cool. It might have been the weekend the week after you and I had met Trent. Oh, that's really cool. Hey, let me ask you this, and that's you know, and you don't have to answer this at all. And I could be completely wrong. When we left Afghanistan, that famous picture of the guys trying to hold onto the plane, the cargo ship that was leaving. I don't know if you have familiarity with that type of flight and that type of plane, But wasn't that an air Force plane that was leaving? Am I wrong on that? It was? Yeah? It was an air Force. I believe those were Air Force C seventeens. Yeah, so would you have been on something like that and what would you have done with people trying to hang on, hang on and come on? What would you have done in that situation? Right? So that that is, you know, part of that role that I talked about. Those Phoenix ravens within the Air Force, they fly around on SEE seventeens. My plane in my first tour was the SEE one thirty, which has the propellers. Yeah. So SEE seventeens a little bigger than SEE one thirty. It's got jet engines. But yeah, so they may have had ravens on that plane securing it. Yeah, you know, and if and if there's guys hanging on, I mean, the biggest thing is keeping people from rushing inside the plane and causing harm. Obviously the rules on the ground at that time, I'm not sure what directives they had because they were obviously transporting people out. I mean I've seen pictures of those those planes filled with with refugees. Yeah, but as far as people hanging on the outside, I mean I think once the plane is buttoned up, yeah, it is what it is. Uh, And if you're going to hang on to the side of an airplane that's taken off and yeah, and think you're gonna make it. You know, that's unfortunate. But what that always reminded me of somebody is willing to do that then stay. Yeah, I mean, that's all you really need to know about their lifestyle and what they have. They'd rather do that than stay where they were. That's just amazing to me. Take me through when you're you've done your tours or whatever and you're finished with your I guess full time and now you're in reserves, right, So what is that? I mean, can you explain what that looks like as opposed to. Like when you step away from active duty into the reserve role because you're going to go get a regular civilian job and start your family or build your family a little more that kind of thing. Is it similar to what we think national guards is your only. Can be can be? So the reserve program, and you know, the Air National Guard exists as well. There's different programs that are neat there, you know, and I'll start with you have the AGR positions, which is an air Guard reserve I'm sorry, active guard reserve. So you could be a full time employee of the Air National Guard or the Air Force Reserves and work three hundred and six five days a year, just like an active duty member. But you fall underneath that component, so some people do that. Then you have, in my case, your traditional reservist, which would be you know, when you hear the news on the radio, all it is is one week in a month and two weeks in the summer. Yeah, and that's essentially what a traditional reservist is. My program that I fall fall under is called the IMA program, So that's the individual Mobilization Augmentee in our program. Versus being assigned to an Air Reserve base or an Air Reserve unit, I'm assigned to an active duty billet. So somewhere in the Air Force is an active duty guy sitting in a chair and on paper, I'm the ghost that sits behind it, and if he were to get activated and go forward to deploy, I would then get activated to do his job statesidea. So the IMA program for me, it's great because it's very flexible. I do have basically twenty four individual reservist days to complete a year, so to me, that equates to essentially a week in a month and then I do have a two week annual tour over summer, where you know, I'm activated for that two weeks and I go to a base here in the United States and do my job for two weeks. But I could I could choose if I want to do a week in a month or if I wanted to knock out all twenty four of those days in one stretch. So where is that? Is it in Virginia somewhere? No? Right now, I'm assigned to a base in Alabama. Okay, Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. So how do you get into Lynchburg? How did you go from Texas, New Mexico to Afghanistan? Where did you call because you said your wife was pregnant? Yeah? So where is home? I'll lay it out real quick. So sure, first TWU station is Holomon Air Force Base. Deployed to Afghanistan. Out of there, became a firearms destructor, and they moved me to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Okay. Second deployment happens out of there, the one of Saudi Arabia. And then I find the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. So now I have the time and service I've built up my resume, because really, when OSI is recruiting, especially enlisted airman, they're looking for the best of the best. So you've got to work on your resume, you've got to have some deployments, and you've got to be a tip performer to get in. But I was recruited, went through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glencoe, Georgia, and became an OSI Special Agent. During that process, I got new orders. So this time it was to Elmandorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, and I remember calling my wife from the Law Enforcement Training Center and telling her, Hey, babe, we're going to alast and she just broke Oh, that's awful. Yeah, it was my favorite assignment and she she ended up loving it. At the end of our three years there, we were trying to extend for another three CAS was just incredible, but you know, and we had talked about moving back there when I left the Air Force, but the winners were just a little bit too long for her. But I think me and the kids all would have went back in a heartbeat. So from Elmendorf, Alaska, I got my third deployment, this one this time back to Afghanistan. And this was my first deployment as an OSI agent. So there we're doing counterintelligence and counter terrorism and we're protecting the base and the whole mission. You know, there's a lot of different missions in OSI, just like anything, but our mission at a task force level for OSI Special agents is what we called keeping the airfield green. If the airfield is in a green status, and that means planes can take off in land, that means bombs can go where they need to go, troops can go where they needed to go, supplies, et cetera. Whenever the Taliban would shoot rockets at our base or you know, a ground attack was happening something like that, planes couldn't take off, all movements stopped, people had to shelter and take cover. So our job was to proactively seek out the terrorists who were trying to launch rockets, plan attacks, plan IED's all that stuff, and go ahead and get them. During that deployment, I lost six of my teammates to a motorcycle borne ID. Oh my gosh, and that really that really affected me. So came home, you know, dealt with PTSD and that kind of change the trajectory of where I was going and what I want to do. With my life. But from that assignment, I also I got forwarded to Pope Air Force Base or Pope Army Airfield and Fatfield, North Carolina, and then co located with a unit on Fort Bragg. So I got to do a lot of really cool stuff that last assignment. It was underneath the Joint Special Operations Command umbrella, so one of those one of those units that we don't really talk about, right, but I got to work with the best our country has to offer, the best our Air Force has to offer. You know, my teammates are guys who uh there's been books written, in movies made about stuff that that some of my teammates have done. Uh. So for me, it was like stepping into this world where I was an aunt amongst giants. You know, I just yeah, constantly impressed and blessed to be able to stand amongst them and do some of the work we did. But also the imposters injury was real for me. It was like how did I get here and I don't belong here type of thing. But ultimately I saw that as like the pinnacle of my career. It's doing a lot of really cool stuff and the thought of going back to the regular Air Force after being in special Operations just was not appealing. And because of where I was and the type of work we do, we got a lot of exposure to the FBI's hostage Rescue Team, which is, you know, it's a full time tactical team and I think it's the best in the country as far as their operators go. And you get a lot of guys that come from really high level unit seal teams, high level Army units, the Air Force, and they joined the FBI to go to that team. So I had met some of the guys there and they convinced me, hey, you know, you've got a background as a special agent already, you do the counter intel stuff. Why don't you join the FBI and you know, make your way over to us. And so I did part of that. I decided to leave active duty in twenty nineteen. I'm ets or you know, my final day on ACTI duty was in June. Middle of June. By the middle of July, I was in Quantico at the FBI Academy and that is what sent me here to Lynchburg and ultimately what kept me from going to the FBI's hostage rescue teams. Once we landed here, got integrated in this community. You know, me and the family designed we never want to leave. This area is such a special, special place. Well, Quantaqua was. Still a couple hours away. How do you is it an office or the FBI. Yeah, so the FBI's main office that covers most of Virginia's Richmond Field Office, and then underneath the Richmond Field Office, you've got satellite offices in multiple cities. So we had an office here in Lynchburg that I was assigned to. Yeah, and we just loved it. I never want to leave. People don't realize. It's just like you were talking about with the military, with different things that responsibilities that people don't think about. Like when you know we're doing background checks and stuff, an FBI agent does that. So they're located in different regional There's just so many different duties. You don't think like I do. I think of FBI. Oh, you know you're doing some special investigator. But that's about everybody, right. You think people know about the New York Field Office and you think DC. But the amount of people I actually had had a buddy I worked with, I think I'll get this story right. He was he was down and I think Pittsylvania County and he had knocked on this this lady's door. I think she was being defrauded by somebody, so he was there to let her know, Hey, that's not your boyfriend, that's some guy sitting in Jamaica and he's stealing all your money type of thing. He knocked on the door and he showed her his badge, says, hey, you know, I'm such and such with the FBI, and she said, I'll be right back. She closed the door. Next thing he knows two Pittsylvania County sheriff' step and he's pulled up behind him and they're like, oh hey, buddy, she said, somebody who was out here and personating the FBI. Oh wow, And she could not wrap her mind around the FBI being in pitt County. H you know what I mean out in ville of nowhere? They really do, you know, you can go everywhere. So yeah, that became my career for the next five and a half years. You know, I'm proud to say I was a part of the FBI and proud of the work that I did there, but ultimately not wanting to move. Stress of being in law enforcement for eighteen years, or at that time, sixteen years, seventeen years. There was a lot of things that I just I woke up one morning and said, I don't want to do this anymore. Sure, and I've had this side project growing since twenty nineteen. So I'm wearing my shirt now, but index archery, and I'll go back to the training that we talked about early on, because you know, the military does a great job, especially the Air Force. They do a great job giving you the skills you need to do your job. But then there's all this other training you get, and you do it every year, and a lot of times you roll your eyes and one of those trainings is about mental health and resiliency and suicide awareness and all this stuff, and you're like, oh this again. But when I got home from the that third deployment to Afghanistan and dealing with the loss of my team, I started the things from that training started popping up, and I realized that I was in a bad place and I needed to get some help. And ultimately, you know, it's a much longer story, but ultimately that help started with a bow and arrow, and that bow and arrow made me acknowledge that I was having this problem. It made me go tell my commander, It made me walk into the mental health group on base and talked to a counselor for the first time, and it led to all these good things and all this growth. So in twenty nineteen, you know, as soon as I graduated Quantico, I decided to launch Index Archery and with the goal of just letting people know, hey, this worked for me and it could work for you too, and very quickly introducing people to archery and then watching them spend upwards of two three thousand dollars on a plead archery set up made me feel like crap. So I turned it into a nonprofit. And now what we do is we pay for one hundred percent of the equipment that heroes need to get started. So we work with veterans, law enforcement, first responders, and people struggling post traumatic stress. You know, because they're a hero to us because of what they did for their country. But they're also a hero because they're willing to face their demons and face that storm and do something about their mental health. So it doesn't have to be a service member. It could be an extraordinary civilian who's ready to take their mental health into their own hands, but we pay for all of the equipment they need to get started. We mentor them, and we help them get fully integrated into their local archery community. So that could be you know, bo hunting, but it could also be a three D league and indoor league with the goal of just one. It's your mental health, it's your physical health. We get them outdoors, we get them moving, get them doing something, and then it's the social wellness aspect too. They find a community and that for a lot of service members, when they leave, they miss that camaraderie, you know, and they miss you know, every now and then. Every now and then you got to have that buddy who calls you an a hole and you laugh about it exactly, and when you're shooting archery, you find. Yeah, he's been calling for thirty years. So for me, the archery community is just this amazing, supportive, mind blowing community. And that's the biggest gift that I give these guys. They think the bow's cool, the bow's just to start. When I let you know that this community's out there and you get integrated into it, that's the best thing that I can give. Something. I was fortunate when I was a kid, young teenager. My brother and I my dad introduced us to archery. I don't hunt with it anymore, but as a young kid, it taught me so much. And we were part of the Isaac Walton League. We would go to twenty yards shoots every Saturday night and we would target practice competition and we would do that. It was It's funner than bowling. It was just it was so much and you just learned so many skills about concentration and focus and confidence in yourself. It was a huge thing as a teenager to be able to do that. Ye admirable man. So are you doing this do you help nationally? Is it a local group that you're doing this with? Is so, we have what I call ambassadors in multiple states, but and right now, a lot of the work we do is one on one. The majority of it happens right here around Lynchburg, Virginia. But our long term goal over the next four years now, I hope to build a wellness center here in central Virginia, and the goal would be my ambassadors wherever in the country identify heroes and mean they send them to us for a five day intensive retreat. It's going to be archery eccentric, but our goal is to introduce them to as many wellness modalities as we can during that five day period. And then when you send them back home, they've got a bow in one hand, they've got a couple of other tools in this hand, and then the ambassador works them into their local community at that point. And I stole the idea, we've got a we've got a great psychologist working with us now, doctor Leeah Kaylor. But I'd met her through the FBI and through a process that I went through. So anytime you're involved in a shooting or a mass casualty event or something like that, in the FBI, they sing you through a similar program. For me, I went out to Florida and stayed in this really nice hotel and they had booked out like the conference center, and for four days, it was just that, you know, you started seven in the morning and it's thirty minute or hour long blocks where they're introducing you to all these new things and you're getting time with a therapist, and at the end of the day on the last two days, you kind of choose your own adventure. Right, It's hey, we've got tai chi in this room. And we've got grief counseling over here, and we've got yoga here and massages, and you know, pick a couple things you're interested in, but also pick a couple of things you're not interested in, so you get the exposure because you never know. And some of those things, for me, one of them was art therapy. I had no interest in art therapy, but man, was it a game changer for me because I've been able to take art therapy and translate that into arrow building. So in archery, you know, building your arrows, and now there's these companies that make these these fancy wraps that you can put on the end of it. So a military veteran, Dustin Adams, he's got a business called Adams Precision Archery. He does all these custom builds and they're beautiful and some of them are funky and wacky and you can really express yourself. But he supplies us with the materials, and I can have a veteran, you know whatever, speaking to them in the moment, you know, focus on some of that trauma, those negative experiences, and pick out your vein color, pick out your rap color. Let's build this arrow, and now let's go excuse me. Let's go shoot it at a steel buck, a target made out of steel. It's gonna blow that sucker up. And it's that release, right is you pour your that negative energy into that arrow and you build it and then you go destroy it and you get a release from that. That's amazing, man, that's awesome. How long you've been doing that? Sorry? So start it. Mentoring in twenty nineteen, official nonprofit in twenty twenty two. How do you get your funding? It's all donor driven right now? Oh well, I can't say that. This year we won our first grant from Virginia Wildlife. Okay, so we did win a grant this year, but uh yeah, for it's it's always been donor driven and we're one hundred percent volunteers. But we are looking for corporate sponsorships. We're looking for more grant opportunities and building this wellness centers and ambitious goal. It's going to take a lot, but hopefully, you know, Coca Cola or somebody will get behind us. Or hydrogen water maybe yeah, maybe you look even better healthier than you did when we started. Yes, all right, so how does somebody get in touch with you? What's the best way for them to reach out. Yeah, so our website there's a contact block. So that's e n D e X archery dot org, Index archery dot org. And that's a that's a military phrase that stands for end of exercise end x archery dot org. You can also find us on social media Instagram, Facebook, you can shoot us at DM. You know we're still small enough that you know I'm answering every DM. I get cool. All right, you're listening, Life, Liberty, Happiness. We've been talking with Air Force Master Sergeant Jay McCoy. Thank you for being with us today. Before you leave, we always ask one last question. If you could spend twenty four hour period with one person, who would it be? And where? Anybody in history doesn't matter, but where would you spend with them and who would it be? Gotta go Jesus. It's a it's a favorite get answer. Yeah, yeah, I think twenty four hours is with Jesus and Capernaum or Jerusalem or wherever. So cool, Yeah, that'd be. It'd be something awesome. We have a drama segment that we get into after you leave here, and that's actually on my list. He's gotten me hooked into starting to watch chosen. Oh, it's so good. I'm I'm in this season right now and today we had lunch. You guess, don't tell me anything that's going on. Yeah, that's awesome. Man. Well appreciate you being on the show, and good luck to you and thanks for all the information. Terrific. Oh man, it was fantastic, And I liked saying this to others that have done this that come talk about helping others. You served our country and you're still serving our country. Man, I appreciate everything you're doing. Thanks cool, It's an honor. Yeah, awesome, good stuff. Good to have you meet Insurance in Bedford. I'm David Honeker, local State Farm agent. Whether it's home, auto, or life insurance, You've got you covered with personalized service and great rates. Let us help you protect what matters most with the reliability and trust of State Farm. Call us today at five four zero five eight six eight one ninety four, or visit our office that is conveniently located at one two three two East Lynchburg Salem Turnpike in Bedford, right beside the Walmart. 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