SEAL Turned Author Jack Carr Hopes People Learn Self-Reliance from Pandemic

How fortuitous is it that you're writing about infectious diseases and then this shit goes down? I mean, if there's ever a person who got a gift by a tragedy. It's crazy because I'd done all that research in the fall and into the early part of the year. Did you go to Galveston, the CDC? No, no, I talked to doctors that have been involved in infectious diseases and with the weaponization of infectious diseases. And then I read, there's some books out there. A lot of stuff online, with the online stuff you have to be really careful about and check with other people that really know what they're doing, even though it's fiction. So I'd done all that part of it ahead of time. So what really changed for me as far as what I'm doing now and what I'm incorporating from this is what our response has been to COVID-19 because it's put obviously our economy into a tailspin. So what's the enemy doing? The enemy is looking at that and realizing, look, this invisible virus has done to the United States, what the Soviet Union couldn't do in 40 plus years of trying. So how do we incorporate that into future battle plans? Can we have a strategy even of failure? What if there's a threat of a bio attack? What if there is a failed bio attack somewhere? It's still going to affect that economy, especially right now with us being so gun shy about all these sorts of things. So what are they taking from that and what are they learning to apply going forward? So for my fourth novel, I'm taking those lessons of what the enemy is learning from this and how I think they're going to apply it going forward and incorporating that into a fictional narrative. So in that sense, I'm trying to always learning. It's always important to learn and apply it going forward. And you're also in the middle of writing this story, but you're also living a life of a person that actually has to deal with this coronavirus pandemic where the whole world is kind of shut down. As a human being, when you're dealing with this, what's frustrating for you about how everything is going down? I think it's what we just talked about as far as people not taking these lessons seriously going forward and making this a stronger country because of this. So you get knocked down, you get back up, you're stronger for it. You've learned something. Like we talked about in Jiu-Jitsu, it's either your win or you learn. And so what are we going to learn from that? And are we going to apply that going forward? Like the whole thing with the Iran crisis, the hostage situation. We learned from that. We applied those lessons and we were more prepared for 9-11 as a special operations force because of it. So for this, I worry just like you said, are people going to go back to their old ways after this? They can't wait to. They can't wait to slide back into their old ways. Yeah. So are we going to be a stronger citizenry? Maybe a certain percentage take these lessons to heart. I don't know. So I think that's probably the... It's knowing that people expect the government to take care of them. And that's the expectation. You don't have to take care of yourself or your family. The government's going to do it. They're looking for a daddy. Yeah. How do I get that? What? 1200. Whatever money they handed out. Oh, great. Well, you know what's even better? You being strong, self-reliant, self-sufficient and having your kids look up and see how you're handling this and say, well, mom and dad are either in the kitchen talking about how much they're worried about paying that rent or that mortgage, or they're in that kitchen maybe talking about it, even if they are worried in a way like, hey, how do we do this better next time? What are the things we can prepare as on the other side of this? And what are the things we can do now to get better prepared if this happens two months from now, a year from now, five years from now? And the kids can see that too. Or they see mom and dad in the kitchen talking about, hey, we are so lucky that we prepared for this. We were prepared financially. We had a little food here, whatever it is. And so the kids will take those lessons on, take those to heart because they're very impressionable right now, especially as we have 14, 12, and 9. And they're definitely processing this. And they're catching things on the news. And they're talking to friends on social media. They're texting back and forth, all that sort of thing. So this can either make them stronger citizens going forward, or they can see mom and dad relied on government. We came out the other side of this. We got this check and nothing really changed. So oh, what lesson are they going to take going forward from that? So it's a very important time, not just for how you deal with this, but how you get through it and how you move forward better for it, but because of the lessons that we're teaching our kids, whether we mean to or not. It doesn't have to be a conscious thing. Like they're going to take lessons. And as parents, it's up to us to figure out what those lessons are going to be. And we can morph it and make them stronger, more self-reliant going forward. Like our daughter sees our freezers full of elk and moose. And she, we pull that out, we frost it. And she's, she's a part of it because she knows she got this elk in Colorado last year. Now she's feeding our family. How old is your daughter? She's 14. Wow. She shot her first elk at 14. She shot her first elk at 10. Whoa. New Mexico. Yeah. No kidding. Damn. A tag in New Mexico at 10. Yeah. So somebody, it was a retirement gift, a great guy. And I said, you know, she gave me two, one for me and one for my wife, or one for me and one for my daughter. And I was like, you know what? I got an elk last year in New Mexico, public land. It was crazy, crazy. But I was like, you know, can I transfer that to my wife and have my wife and daughter go do this together? And I'm with them also on a family experience. And he was like, yeah, absolutely. That's let's do it. And so she was 10. Yeah. Standing off sticks, 300 some yards. One shot and the guide was, he said miss. And she'd been hunting before. She's been hunting since she was seven. And she is good. And I was like, oh, you know, it was a tough shot. Hey, it's okay. How'd you feel about that shot? She's like, I felt good. I'm like, oh, it's just a 10 year old saying that because they don't want to kind of lose face in front of the guide and mom's there and dad's there. And I'm like, well, it's okay. You know, it's okay to miss. Everybody misses. Let's learn from it, move forward. She's like, I didn't miss. And so you go up there. There's no blood. There's no anything. We think we're tracking it. We walk up, but I guess she, you know, she missed and we walk back down and there's just little tiny, just rivet in the ground and there it was 20 yards away. Wow. Yeah. Amazing. I'll show you a picture after. So the guide feels stupid. Cause he's like miss, but it really just went all the way through and he saw, he saw an impact behind, you know, one shot. And, uh, but, uh, yeah, that's the problem, right? They see the dust kick up behind the animal and they think that it's a miss. Yeah. So yeah, but you, so we have that meat from this last year in Colorado. That's amazing. Talk about it with the family. And she's like, she knows that she provided that for all of us. And we've been really, very exciting and rewarding for her. And then a little guy, he's a, he got his first animal in Africa this last year. Whoa. Yeah. So I went back to the crazy place to get your first animal. So crazy. So, uh, I'd been over there doing some more research. I went to South Africa to help train up an anti-poaching unit, uh, cause they hadn't used Glocks, hadn't used M4s. I have a little bit of experience with both those weapon systems. Uh, and I want to do some research in the art and science of man tracking. So went to South Africa, helped train up the San side poaching unit. It was amazing experience. And then they asked me to come back as a thank you to, uh, with my family, uh, over the, over the summer. So, uh, I came back with my, with my family and our little guy got his first animal there, they put the blood on his cheeks, I have this amazing picture here in the back of the Land Cruiser on the way back is he's never had a haircut at age nine, so he's blonde hair blowing in the wind. It's awesome. Uh, and then we use every piece of it. That's what's great about over there is they see you use much more than we use over here. I mean, stomach linings, like everything gets used in Africa. Which is cool for them to see. Cause they think we're using it all here. They see us taking that rib meat and that neck meat and all the rest of it. But over there, they see everything get used, uh, which is a pretty cool thing for them to experience at that, uh, at that young age. So, yeah, that is, that is a very amazing thing for them. So it helps them be self-reliant to it. And they see the people out there working on the Land Cruisers. They see all everything you have to do in Africa that you can just call someone to fix the plumbing or call someone cause the electricity is out or whatever. You know, you fix it yourself. Uh, cause you have to.