Training and the Winning Mindset with the Legend J.D. Buck Savage aka Lt Dave Smith

Stephen J: (00:12)
Welcome to behind the tin, a podcast that introduces you to the ROIC men and women who wear the Tim while protecting our community and hearing about the extraordinary things they're doing when they're badges luck. I'm Stephen Jay, the good Lieutenant along with Justin and the civilian

Justin: (00:24)
Producer. It's November. My favorite time of year.

Stephen J: (00:27)
You love this weather. Love the fall. I love the beer that comes out in the fall. Your

Justin: (00:32)
October Christmas decorations are up. I'm ready. I'm ready to go.

Stephen J: (00:35)
I love spice. Well today's uh, cocktail conversation sponsor is Becky C Wappinger falls, Becky C. Thank you so much. Once again, we're provided Octoberfest today. Ah, Ooh, very nice by the Hyde park brewing company. Once again, a big sponsor, not only of us, but of all public safety officials. And, uh, we appreciate the high park brewing company along with Becky C for being our cocktail over conversations.

Justin: (00:58)
Well, I would like to thank both of them personally, got

Stephen J: (01:01)
Some other sponsors we need to thank that's those guys, print.com. Those guys for all your custom and apparel needs those guys. print.com along with marketing and service.com, Justin zone, marketing and service podcast.

Justin: (01:13)
Ooh, not, not too shabby. Check it out. Not

Stephen J: (01:15)
Too shabby. Well, Justin, this guy that we, we have on today, I gotta tell you he was doing the things it, I think we wanna do, or definitely you've you've been doing for quite some time, way ahead of the trend way ahead of the technology. I think that was available to really make this thing big. Yeah. And it

Justin: (01:33)
Was big. I didn't know what to expect. You, you told me a little bit of the background here from what you told me. I just, I really didn't know what to expect when you hear about viral videos that were made in the eighties and especially training videos, right? Normally, you know, training videos have their own allure of cheeriness to them. Uh, I really didn't know what to expect. And then when I actually sat down and watched some of these videos, which I encourage you to do so on YouTube, where we found many of them, uh, they really felt like I was watching like night ride, like just really well produced eighties content, like really blew me away. The level of production value for such a, a time where, you know, we live in today and it, we struggle to get video going because we don't have the right tools or the right technology. Uh, but obviously we have everything at our fingertips compared to what we had in 1980.

Stephen J: (02:20)
One of the cool things for me is what, you know, I, I remember these videos and when I reach out to see if this guy would come on our podcast, I went back and watched 'em again, like I, I said to you, go, go take a look at these. And they still fit today as they did back then. But they're still to that pointed direction of they're only like two or three minute videos. Most of them hysterical, hysterical, hysterical. You know, they capture your attention. They're not too long. They're are not too boring. They get the point across for what the training's supposed to be. Yep. You know, and like you said, they're well done. You could tell they're from the eighties, obviously mm-hmm but man, well done, well thought out and you know, I am so happy to have this guy on our podcast. So without further ado, let's introduce Dave Smith also known as JD buck Savage. So Dave, you start in law enforcement back in 19 78, 75, 75. So that was good. A couple years Dave . But what made you get into law enforcement? I mean, was it something that you grew up with, is it, uh, something you aspired to do as a child? How did, how did that happen?

Dave: (03:28)
You know, it's funny because, uh, it was one of those things where, uh, I fought fires in college, on the Coconino and, uh, Flagstaff and my last, uh, year college, uh, during the summer I got sent to the law enforcement school where we would go out and I would be on patrol, driving around, uh, on the Coconino, which is a massive forest. And, uh, you know, you'd inspect camp, uh, camps, you know, make sure the fires are properly set up and all that. Nobody chopped down any trees or anything. And, uh, several high friends had already gone into law enforcement and I thought, well, this is pretty fascinating to me. So, uh, I came back to college, got apps for, uh, several, uh, police agencies and right off the bat there at university of Arizona where I was going in, Tucson, Tucson hired me. So in January of 75, I graduated just two or three weeks before and there I was in the academy and that started for me. And that's been a great adventure ever since.

Stephen J: (04:26)
Yeah. I mean, yeah. You did a, a number of years in law enforcement, uh, before you became a trainer and came up with this idea of JD buck Savage is which, you know, the, the fame that you have, that is where I, you know, I first discovered you, uh, how did that go? I mean, did you do patrol for a number of years and you know, they, they picked you up for training. Was it something that you had in your background? How did you get into the training part of this?

Dave: (04:48)
Yeah, well, the thing it was, uh, I'd gone from Tucson PD to the Arizona department of public safety, the highway patrol. And I was up on the Navajo reservation. Now, one of my, my hobbies was as fitness and wellness and, uh, training in general, I'd coached wrestling, uh, couple seasons when I was a senior and then my rookie year as a cop. Uh, and so I wrote up a fitness program, I thought would be great for the highway patrol. And at that time they were looking for someone to fill a role in fitness, some survival training in Phoenix. And next thing I know, uh, January, 1980, I'm down at, uh, in the headquarters to becoming the fitness and, uh, safety officer. Uh, and then one of the things that I really, uh, used a lot in training was my humor. I really enjoyed humor. I done radio in college, you and I just felt like, uh, we needed to jazz up our training, quarterly, that training put out every year for the whole state. So I said, let's do something humorous. And of course law, enforcement's a huge bureaucracy. And they said, no, cuz that's what beer crop. Uh, that's just how bureaucracies are. They're it's

Stephen J: (06:00)
Just easier to say no, right. It's easier to say no,

Dave: (06:04)
Exactly. Let's not do anything different. You know, I that's a, there's no budget cost, no liability. And no problem, if you just say no, so, uh, use the power of positive and, and next thing I know I'm doing, uh, buck Savage paid off, you know, next thing I I'm doing graduations as buck Savage around the country. I mean, it just took off like wildfire. What,

Justin: (06:29)
What year was this that you started doing? Uh, this training first

Dave: (06:32)
One was 1980 through 83. We did em.

Justin: (06:37)
Wow. Okay. And how, at that point, what kind of medium were you using? Because obviously this was before YouTube and cell phone selfie cams, right? Al

Stephen J: (06:45)
Gore hadn't invented the internet yet, right?

Dave: (06:47)
no, exactly. Al gore had not come and presented that to us. So we, uh, used the three quarter inch, uh, beta and, uh, we, we would create it. Then we would put it on VHS and distribute it. Uh, one of our commanders went up to a grand grand canyon, uh, a training conference. So we offered all the, the, uh, training commanders around the country, uh, a free copy every quarter when we did it. And the next thing I know, uh, like I said, we're, you know, Denver's having a graduation, I'm up there as buck Savage doing that. It just had really taken off. So in 83 caliber press, uh, got ahold of me and I started doing street survivals too.

Justin: (07:32)
Wow. How did you even know back then? Like how, how, what was the distribution method when you're, when you're dealing with beta take and VHS? I mean, how, how, like, did you have some background in that or how did you even know where to go to get that done? No, it,

Dave: (07:45)
You couldn't just go. We had the top video unit in the United States back then and, uh, those guys would make dozens of copies and then put 'em in the mail. And, and one of the problems is there was no way to budget for that. So it really put a burden on the training division.

Justin: (08:01)
That's incredible. Now it's really

Stephen J: (08:03)
Wild. It spread like wildfire, like you said, I mean, here we are in New York in, in, in the late nineties, early two thousands, we're still watching your videos and that's still before the internet, uh, with the YouTube is what it is now where we can find your videos in on JD buck Savage. Right. We search that out. Right. But did you find it amazing that you were getting these calls from all over the country from a three to four minute video you guys were producing in Arizona?

Dave: (08:27)
Yeah. You know, that was the thing I think, uh, it was just for internal consumption for Arizona and I had no idea how it was gonna be received. You know, the thing is, is that back then guys? Um, I had people confront me saying, there's no place for humor and training . And I was like, well, I don't think that's right. Of course science says, uh, if I can make you laugh or cry or something in my training, I had intensity to it. Emotional intensity tension's much higher. So I just, in the end, a lot of people use humor

Stephen J: (09:02)
Now. Yeah. I mean, I use the same methodology when it comes to teaching criminal debriefing. If I can capture emotion from the person I'm talking to, I got you. I got you. Exactly. And it's the same with when you're teaching, uh, especially law enforcement, half of them, when you're doing a field training or an in-service training, they don't want to necessarily be there. They're happy to get the overtime if that's what they're on. But you know, if you can caption with humor, if you get their emotion. And I think you, you did an amazing job in your career. Now, when you were doing JD buck Savage, were you still working the academy as the instructor? Were you working the road? What was your life like then?

Dave: (09:37)
Yeah, I was in training till I came out, uh, on the, uh, agent list. And then I went over to narcotics. So the ones where you see me with a beard and hair, uh, that was how we did narcotics in the old days. We, everybody, a permanent and a beard. That was it and an earring, but I didn't get the earring.

Stephen J: (10:01)
How'd you? How'd you come up with that name?

Dave: (10:04)
SAV, that's a good story. Cause we sat around the training, uh, unit and we all pitched different names. You know, Lance Sterling, buck Savage, we had a whole list of them. And then we went out to this circle K out there where we filmed the very first one and I had Phoenix PD there as security, cuz obviously we're about to do a little fake robbery as, as, as uh, you know, Buster ke as it was, we still knew that I needed security. So this, uh, first thing there, the officer calls as SAR, you gotta come see this. So when we're setting up and doing rehearsals, we had them, the squad there, we read the names and they picked buck Savage, JD buck Savage. Wow. As the one they liked best. And that became the, the name we chose. Did

Stephen J: (10:52)
You ever reveal that JD stood for

Dave: (10:55)
No, just no good buddy of mine was, uh, lineman for Brigham young and uh, he's a big stud and I thought, uh, that's a cool name, JD. So that was it. I like

Stephen J: (11:10)
It. Nice. So you're, you're doing these films and you're, you're sending them out. And again, I was explaining to Justin, who's not in law enforcement, he's the civilian Purdue for us here. How this thing went viral in a time where you didn't have the internet, you didn't have the sharing mechanisms that we have now. And it was amazing that this went so far, you were able to do that. And then you capitalized on it by creating your own training program outside of the PD. How did they a allow you to do that and transcend to that? Cuz did they own you to a degree?

Dave: (11:43)
You know, it's funny because yes. Uh, anytime I did training in the state of Arizona, it was on the job, but when I would train anywhere else in the country, I would, I, I could train, I could, as a, as a private enterprise buck Savage. Um, my director, when I, uh, was doing the training, he said that when I stopped doing the buck savages, he just came and gave me the character. He just signed it over to me. He said, look, you are buck Savage. And we want to keep it perpetuated. However you do it. You know, of course the internet came along and it just went everywhere again on YouTube. It was amazing. And on our website,

Stephen J: (12:26)
You gotta be so proud that it, that, you know, you've been retired for a number of years in this character and this training and, and I, you know, I rewatched a lot of them. They're still very, you know, real today. You know, I don't think there was any, any of them, uh, saw drunk arrest at same. I'm still reading reports of, of guys that write their reports like that. It's fantastic.

Dave: (12:46)
All right. There's the dog and the Sergeant yelling at, 'em

Stephen J: (12:49)
The good Sergeant over there. I hear mess with

Dave: (12:52)
Her Dave. She yell me the same way.

Stephen J: (12:55)
I think she's nicer to the dogs probably. Right.

Dave: (12:58)
Thank you. Yes. Perception. Very

Stephen J: (13:00)
Good perception. So did I know that obviously law enforcement had a good idea who you were and the character that you had. Did you ever have any instances or have you had any instances since where the public said, wait a second, aren't you that guy, do you get any of those weird interactions?

Dave: (13:17)
Uh, usually it's explore former explore law enforcement explorers, or people like that. You know, it's funny though, because, uh, as the generations, the older generations knew me as buck Savage, but then with all my police, one role call, reality training segments I've done for years. Uh, um, I'm walking through, uh, Las Vegas, the other, uh, last year, I think it was a year before last, it all blends together on a way to do some training and, uh, we're changing Concourse. And, uh, two of the officers sitting in the little kiosk there, right. As security yelled at me and came down, they didn't know who buck Savage was, but they sure knew who Smith was. So I had a kind of cognitive dissonance, wait a minute I'm books that wait, I have

Stephen J: (14:01)
. So it's almost like you've become famous twice. two different personas. Right, exactly. Right. So when you were doing narcotics and you were still doing this role, I mean, how did they keep, I mean, so your videos are, and they're on beta discs, so you're handing 'em out. You weren't worried about those discs getting out to the public at all and, and ruining your, your role as an undercover.

Dave: (14:26)
No, no. Uh, that was the thing, uh, the odds of a bad guy recognizing me from the video were Neil and the, and the thing is, is that I change my appearance all the time. You know, I may have that beard in a permanent, but then have straight hair and trim the beard, you know, or be it GOE. You know, the great thing about a beard is you can constantly change your appearance. And, uh, and it was great. I was the admin narcotics agent there in Phoenix. So I was on, I could help any squad and that made it even better adventure for me, you know, it was great. I had a, we had a wonderful Lieutenant, uh, and he would just send me out, I'd get done with my, uh, admin functions and I'm out there on a, uh, undercover assignment or helping the, uh, diversion unit in a pharmacy. And it was just, I got to do it all. It was a ball.

Stephen J: (15:15)
So now, now you're doing the you're winning my training, right. And this comes from where I know you and your wife are both own, own the company and you're out there speaking, but where did that come from? Because the training that you were doing is buck Savage a little bit different than what you're out there doing now. Right.

Dave: (15:31)
Right. Well remember I was the fitness and survival guy, uh, and then I would teach in the academy regularly. And, uh, so I had developed this program for my cadets to give them the right mindset. You know, the, the mental attitude when they graduated. And my focus was officer safety. I obviously traffic stops building searches, uh, frisk arrest, defensive tactics, all these things were in my Bailey way. So I would, uh, develop and, uh, expand on this. And caliber press brought me in, I started doing street survivals and adding my material to their material, sitting there with Chuck Brownsburg. When we, when we were working on the tactic ledge, when he was writing it, you know, I did all the mindset stuff and all that stuff. And that's been, my forte is, is mindset. So, uh, I added that, filled it in. And when I eventually went on my own, I was just doing my own, uh, mindset material, you know, then still teaching cadets. When I be, when I went back to the academy in 84, I was, uh, doing the defensive tactics and all the procedures, drivers training, eventually firearms, the whole smear, you know, it was great, you know, great adventure and, and expanded my I'm going out to training all the time, you know, getting beat up up, and learn and getting certifications and trying to constantly learn more and more and more.

Stephen J: (16:59)
So what year did you actually retire from law enforcement?

Dave: (17:03)
I left in 1990 to go to the law enforcement television network in Dallas. And I became the, I was a director of education. There did, uh, we did live TV. It was essentially a CNN for police. It was amazing. I remember it. And, uh, yeah, I was

Stephen J: (17:19)
Big satellite dish on the roof that we had to have was the only way we could connect.

Dave: (17:23)
You know, what's funny cuz that is, that is a, sometime we should do a show on technology and law enforcement because what happens is we had, we were stuck in what you call the innovator is dilemma. Everybody got a giant expensive dish and satellite was cheap in 1989 when it started. And then satellite got filled up and expensive as heck. And one comes this internet, but nobody we were so fiscally and physically tied into the satellite. Right. We didn't adapt, adapt, and there's no more L E T N today.

Stephen J: (18:00)
No, but there's a lot of other mechanisms where we can get the information police won, um, police magazine, caliber pres still puts out there their stuff. So I think you guys are still doing a great job, uh, of putting it out there, you know, cause I, I get a lot of periodicals and it cracks me up that we're still doing magazines in the, the day of the internet, but might I get a lot more emails now with the links of videos and things like that. And it's, and it's great, you know, because especially, you know, I'm, I'm in law enforcement over 20 years now. Um, these younger guys coming on, they're not used to reading a book. They're used to putting a laptop in front of them and watching a two minute video, which kind of was what JD buck Savage was. He was, he was a quick video to the point and it captured him and, and it it's still, again, I, I, I say it and I'm repeating myself, but having the same work then that works now is, is an amazing feat. It really is. It's something that is timeless and that's that's, to me, it's amazing.

Dave: (18:51)
Well, you're right. And, and the thing is, is again, I still believe in humor when I first started writing for police magazine years ago. I still write the back page for that, like you said, but I get far more coverage on the internet edition than I do on the hard copy edition, you know, peak. Well, it's amazing to me, you know, but I, I used to write humor all the time, but in these current times I read a lot more serious stuff recently, you know, writing for the national police association, uh, trying to cover their issues as well. You know, uh, you still cops will read it, but not just that, I think, uh, leadership eats a lot and I think that's important too, to try to affect, uh, the leadership would

Justin: (19:35)
The, uh, current climate in law enforcement, have you had to shift or change your curriculum over time or have you kept it fairly consistent?

Dave: (19:45)
Well, you know, the, the thing is, is the verbiage may change because we're always dancing on a fine line because, you know, we're law enforcement we're highly judged, you know, but the thing is mindsets a mindset, the same principles that we would use on the cadets in 1980 are still valid today. You know, what is your belief system? What is your, uh, uh, you know, are you optimistic? Are you pessimistic? You know, optimism is one of the keys, but not hallmark card optimism. It's a real optimism, you know, where you believe you control your own destiny, your own life. And again, politics is constantly intervening and we have to adapt

Justin: (20:26)
That's for sure. And are you still creating current content?

Dave: (20:30)
Oh yeah. You know, that's the thing is I just left, uh, Indiana, the Emerson society, which is a, like a think tank where all these law enforcement trainers and leaders get together and share ideas about where the future is. You know, that's one of my big bugga boos is that we can't let ourself become rigid, even though my material, uh, I can go all the way back and say, okay, here's where I got this original idea. Or this is the class I took our graduate class. I took, there's the things that kind of, you gotta stay on top of it. You gotta keep learning, keep growing, you know, and is your material it's gotta evolve.

Stephen J: (21:08)
What was the number one, uh, issue that they saw in law enforcement today? Was it retention or recruitment?

Dave: (21:15)
It it's both, you know, and it's not just that it's, uh, the liability it's harder and hard. You know, the Supreme court just did a ruling, uh, in a 10th circuit case where the officer, uh, had approached a guy in the, in the garage and had to kill him. And the Supreme court, uh, reversed the 10th circuit who had said that the officers were liable because on advancing on the subject, they instigated the shooting. He attacked them with a hammer. And this is the problem. You, you have these courts that are, that are taking totally atypical or untraditional approaches to the law. And thank goodness the Supreme court reversed it because they said, no, you can't, you can't just create, essentially. They said you can't create whole law, new, uh, new court doctrine. And there was no pres. And the only precedent they really said was the 10th own precedence. You know? And thank goodness, because I'm gonna tell you, I don't know how you do your job. If you have to judge your actions that may instigate what the heck.

Stephen J: (22:17)
Yeah, thank God. They, they did uphold qualified immunity there for at least for now. Uh, I know there's a lot of jurisdictions that are worried about that. A lot of states are already looking to cut that back and thank God they, that

Dave: (22:29)
I, I wasn. There's an absurdity to it, you know? And it all stands. Every, it stands logic on its head because I, I can't tell what my action's gonna do to a suspect when I'm trying to gain control. I don't control the suspect. And nothing's more unpredictable than a human being. And the court was an essence saying, temper, your movements, your actions, and your control and commands. Uh, so you don't instigate a bad guy. Well, you know, that's ridiculous.

Stephen J: (23:00)
Well, there's, there's the reason that we're told we're people of authority. It's because you have to listen, you know, within reason you have to listen, if there's no one in authority and there's no leadership in community community's gonna fall apart. Yeah. Civilization's just gonna die because we're gonna have no leadership. And law enforcement is the first level of leadership in a community. And some people just don't like that

Dave: (23:20)
And not to be too. But, uh, you know, when you look at the values of, uh, third world, uh, backward, all those values, which are value based are going, are the direction we're headed toward looking backward in time, sub subverting law, to authority all these things. When you go through these lists that, uh, you studied an anthropology about the difference between a progressive advancing, not progressive liberal ideas, but progressive modernizing society, which is forward thinking authorities subjugated by the law. You know, you have a common standard we can trust and you're right. We are ones and trust to preserve that law. That's right now you have prosecutors that stand the whole thing on their head and the bad guys, the hero. And that's ridiculous.

Justin: (24:14)
What, what do you tell a cadet today when you talk about mindset, uh, going into law enforcement and I, and I don't think it's, I don't think it's specific to law enforcement. I think we see in the whole country, we're in the middle of this great resignation. Uh, I think 3% of the workforce has quit their job. Uh, over the last 30 days I just read, uh, and people, they, they either don't feel supported. They don't feel respected, uh, the values, their personal values don't match that of their employer. Uh, so when you talk about mindset today, going into a, a day dangerous job, like law enforcement and one that, uh, usually is not going to, uh, be a millionaire career, right? Uh, what do you tell those cadets mindset to keep them inspired and keep them motivated and, uh, maintain that level of respect and comradery?

Dave: (25:03)
You know, the thing that Justin, you know, this is a, a self selective profession, no one gets drafted into law enforcement. So what it does, it attracts a certain personality. It, it, it, it attracts someone who wants an adventure. It attracts someone who likes to make a difference in people's lives and believe me, you do in law enforcement. And I don't mean just arresting people, helping people, you know, a it's one of those, uh, you know, uh, when you go to an accident scene, you're not, you're just there to take a report. You're there to help the victims of that accident, go to a domestic, you're there to help the victims of that violence, not just arrest the guy or gal that initiated that violence. And that's something that is that politicians specific now, uh, verbally assault. It seems like without understanding that, uh, the men and women who go into this profession have very strong value based.

Dave: (25:56)
And our very, uh, you know, you hear this well, I want servant leadership. These people are warriorship is, uh, selfless service. That's the foundational of warriorship, you know, duty on or loyalty, uh, courage, but selfless service as, uh, you know, Stephen Presfield says in his book, warrior ethos, if you don't have that selflessness, you're just a tribal member. And that's a very important thing. And kids are still drawn to that. Miraculously, the key is to keep them to believe in their mission. And that's one of the problems. You know, one of the key preventatives of post traumatic stress in leading to post traumatic growth is faith in your mission, faith, that the, what you went through matters that you made a difference that, you know, we always tell like, officer, look, if you hadn't gone there, no one would've who was gonna go, but you and yeah, you saw terrible things. You had to deal with horror, but you saved the day because you went, you know, that sense of mission finding meaning, uh, in the trauma finding meaning, uh, and also comradery. And, you know, you're sitting there now in a society that we're vaccinated versus UN vaccinated, uh, races, sexes everything's being put in opposition. And that's a very unhealthy thing for a Republic,

Justin: (27:17)
Right? That's yeah. That's why I asked that, you know, it's gotta be, it's gotta be wearing for a young person gay into this career with the passion they have going into it and having it kind of whittled away with the, with

Stephen J: (27:28)
The current climate of things. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I always say, and I'm sure people have listened to this podcast, I've heard me say it already, Dave. I, I tell people your superheroes, your real life superheroes, uh, there's not many jobs in the world that people will call when they need help and exp respect response. And there's not many people in the world that are willing to do that, to go help a complete stranger, to put their life in a line with. And you sit back and you actually think about what these guys and girls do every day they're superheroes. And they don't like being called. Cause most people are very humble when, when they get into this profession, but that's exactly what they are. And when you can inspire people, when you can get them in the right mindset to let them know they're truly helping people, they have no idea. They may never even see the results of what they're doing. It's really amazing. It really is. It is.

Dave: (28:15)
And the frustrating thing to me is the false witness being beared against law enforcement constantly. And you know, that used to be a sin. Now it's a political set. These people use and it's ridiculous. You know, uh, no law enforcement officer gets up in the morning saying, yeah, I hope I get to shoot somebody today. You dread that day. And that hasn't been going on for 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, my whole career, whenever there's a shooting, you ask a series of questions to see how serious it's gonna be, how aggravated the situ, how is the media gonna play it? How are politicians gonna play it? And now it's worse than it's ever been before.

Stephen J: (28:52)
It sure is. Dave, do you have any stories or any, any instances in your career that you'd like to share and just say, Hey man, this is a time in my life that really made a difference. And this is a lesson that I learned or something that really could help people who might be listening to this podcast.

Dave: (29:08)
Well, you know, there's so many, you know, like I said, you, you make a difference. You do, you do things, you know, the, the person, you know, I drive up on what I look, but it looks to me like a fatal right off the bat. I mean, a vehicle's torn in half a, woman's totally twisted around like a pretzel in the, in the wreckage jam. You know, you go and you get her out and you get her breathing again. And then you see her in, in the trial for the suspect that hit her, uh, uh, you know, eight months later. And, uh, that's, that's a powerful thing. You see those things, you know, you say you, but I would say this too, that the pathos, when you don't succeed in saving someone, uh, is still part of a life experience that no one, you know, people don't understand a police officer in, in just a couple years experience is far more attention, more tragedy, more joy, more intensity citizens will ever know a building search where you catch the burglary, the, the, the lost child.

Dave: (30:07)
When you drive around the corner and you see the lost child, you know, that's, those are wonderful moments, you know, and the joy of the family, you bring the kid home, you know, um, these are all things that, that they, anything, so many times I I've had it, you know, I've hit a cow on the Navajo reservation when I was a patrol officer up there, you know, and I think back, you know, that I walked into the, the port of entry the next day. And the guy who was working a port of entry was a shaman, or what you, I call a singer or whatever in the, in, and the Navajo religion. And he just said, well, you had, uh, that, that a curse had been put on you because you have goodness you, the, you weren't injured, you know? Um, and that's kind of cool things, you know, when you, when you living this adventure, you know, that law enforcement is

Stephen J: (30:59)
Dave. You had a long, an illustrious career, both in enforcement and in the instruction part of, of your life now, what are you most proud of?

Dave: (31:09)
Oh man. You know how things are. Um, so many things I've had, um, so many officers tell me, you know, I was in the middle of a gun fight and I heard your voice. Uh, I was shot and I heard your, you know, uh, cause I, one of the things I say, look, you're not dead until you're dead, never give up, keep fighting. The vast majority of officers shot will survive. And you've got to keep fighting. If you just give up you, your odds of survival go way down and you have to believe that, you know, and that's one of the things that, uh, over my years I've had. So I, I honestly our phone calls where a guy says, Hey, you know, I had to kill a guy last night. I just want to tell you how much your salmon arm, and I want to talk to you about it, you know, and those are just, uh, phenomenal moments in my life.

Dave: (31:56)
You know, there's so many of 'em. Um, and I've been so fortunate, you know, I've interviewed literally hundreds, if not thousands of officers who won arm confrontations. And the thing is, is that I, I, you know, I thrive off their heroic and, uh, it gives me so much joy and the fact that I was able to share so many of these in our profession, you know, that's part of mindset, you know, it's having a model, you know, and I've tried to do that and it's been great for me cuz uh, you know, I'm always inspired too. You know, it's been a, my life's been a wonderful adventure.

Stephen J: (32:34)
Did we ask every guest, uh, this question, what do you define a hero as

Dave: (32:40)
The hero, you know, is on the, I'm a big believer in the, in the traditions of the hero, as someone who goes in, uh, to the, you know, they choose or are chosen to do some quest, some, some adventure, if you will, you know, the Joseph Campbell, you know, the hero, the thousand faces, I'm a big believer in Campbell. I know, uh, that, you know, he inspired me reading his material decades ago because you know, the, the hero goes in, whether they have, you know, heroes are not unafraid, but heroes go through with, uh, the stress, the danger, the risk, regardless of their fear. In fact, the more fear you have and you continue, that's, that's almost literally the definition of courage and bravery. Um, you know, the hero goes into the belly of the whale biblically, you know, and comes out stronger, better. Uh, and, and, you know, I, I met heroes where been shot, uh, kept fighting. Um, and you listen to their story and you're like, this is an amazing human being. And uh, many of 'em suffered tremendously for years afterward and they just put their head down and keep going. And you're like, dang. You know, that is, that is the heroic. That is the powerful and, uh, know hero is kinda like one of those things, you know, you know it when you see it. Yeah.

Stephen J: (34:05)
Well, Dave, I know when I see it and, and you have been a hero to many people, you know, you're a guy that, that left law enforcement to go and actually instruct more law enforcement to make a bigger difference wider than Arizona now wider than United States. And you've continued to do it, you your entire career. And to me, a person that puts the safety of others and is able to share the knowledge that you've gained and the network that you've put together to me, Dave, that you you're a true hero to many people in law enforcement and those phone calls are true. I'm, I'm one of those survivors that have been been through those incidents. You're, you're making a huge difference. You continue to make, and your legacy from what you've put together is going to live way past you, man. And, and to me, that's a definition of a hero and I want to thank you.

Dave: (34:50)
Well, thank you. I tell you that means a lot to

Justin: (34:53)
Me. Yeah. Thank you so much for your service. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Stephen J: (35:03)
Once again, just blown away by everything this guy's doing. He gets outta law enforcement, but really continues to influence, educate, and really, you know, share what he's learned doing the training videos far beyond Arizona.

Justin: (35:19)
Yeah. I all over the place was really cool. And I think I might be more excited for you having gotten to meet this guy that played such a big part of your life in law enforcement, uh, than I was to actually interview him. But it was very cool,

Stephen J: (35:30)
Very fun. It was just, you know, he is one of those characters, you know, and very few people you meet in law enforcement are characters and this guy made this character and that's why it was interesting to see that Arizona let him keep the character after he left the apartment. Right. Right. And now he's got, you know, JD bucks, savage.com. That's where you gotta go. You gotta see that you'll learn about the winning mindset and the programs that he's doing now and traveling around. Uh, I, I'm still hoping there's a chance for t-shirt, but there they're, telling us there's mugs coming. Don't I can't wait to get that.

Justin: (35:58)
I don't think Vince McMan would've let him keep that name. If he had worked for,

Stephen J: (36:01)
Uh, WW. I completely agree with you. well, thank you for listening to behind the 10 and hearing about how our heroes, our heroes with the 10 on and off, be sure to like follow, share, subscribe to us on our social media on Facebook, go to our website behind the ten.com. If you know someone that should be on the, or you have a great idea for someone that should be on, send us an email behind the tin gmail.com.

Justin: (36:22)
Should we mention the new thing on our website, please do Justin. So the new thing that we have, that we're very excited to roll out. You can leave us a voice message with your phone. If you go to behind the tin.com, there'll be a little icon at the bottom. You can click it and leave us a voice message. If you've got something fun to say or a question, we will put it on the podcast.

Stephen J: (36:43)
That's a crazy idea. And I can't imagine what we're gonna end up doing now. also leave us a review. There's a nice, easy way to leave us a review. Now we're always trying to update this. Uh, we, we appreciate everybody listening. Appreciate your feedback. Once again, look out for one another and stay safe.