#20 | Jason Wood | Football, Iraq and Ultra Marathons

Veteran and endurance athlete Jason Wood on college football, serving in Iraq, mental health, the VA, and running ultra marathons. We first met online during the Covid pandemic and offered each other some support then via a series of Covid Calls, a prequel to my eventual podcast, but now that we are free to travel and Jason was in Los Angeles we had to get a face to face conversation in the books. This broad conversation covers college football, the military, Iraq, mental health, the Veterans Association, suicide, endurance training, and ultra marathons. Chapters 0:00 Welcome Jason Wood 2:33 Why face to face matters 5:05 Growing up with young parents 7:36 Childhood in Virginia and DC 10:11 Seeing places for yourself 12:44 Hemingway's influence 15:20 Choosing football over baseball 17:55 Sport as a way out 20:33 The college football reality check 23:10 Family history in the military 25:44 Sebastian Junger and Tribe 28:19 One salary, one family home 30:49 Ryan's memory of 9/11 in Toronto 33:19 How 9/11 changed his path 35:49 Teammates and the military 38:24 Officer training and leading soldiers 40:58 Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan 43:35 Why wars are fought 46:09 Strong borders and going to war 48:41 Raising a daughter in America today 51:16 The media and a divided country 53:52 The Super Bowl party 56:30 Critical thinking and shouting matches 59:05 A friendship from the 2008 China earthquake 1:01:41 Watching US politics as an outsider 1:04:15 Blissful ignorance 1:06:49 Arriving at Camp Anaconda 1:09:25 Getting used to mortar fire 1:11:57 Convoys from Kuwait 1:14:31 Nerves on the first deployment 1:17:05 Inside and outside the wire 1:19:38 Home between deployments 1:22:11 Daily attacks in Iraq 1:24:46 Finding an identity after service 1:27:19 Leaving the army at 30 1:29:55 The backlash to a military photo 1:32:33 Reaching out for help 1:35:06 The danger of idle time 1:37:37 Time to decompress 1:40:12 How veterans are treated 1:42:45 Struggling outside work 1:45:22 A turning point for his daughter 1:47:52 Spartan races 1:50:30 Never miss a session 1:53:07 Setting an example 1:55:44 A dog and a routine through Covid 1:58:16 Working from home 2:00:51 101 miles in 24 hours 2:03:24 False summits on Kilimanjaro 2:05:57 Altitude and oxygen 2:08:28 Lockdown in Istanbul 2:11:04 Lonely miles 2:13:40 Two hours without phones 2:16:10 Bothered by everything 2:18:42 K9s For Warriors and a 48-hour treadmill run 2:21:15 Knowing the triggers The Ryan Pyle Podcast is ad-free by choice. If you enjoy these conversations, you can buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/ryanpyle Ryan's TV series are streaming around the world. Follow the Podcast X: https://x.com/RyanPylePodcast Facebook: https://facebook.com/ryanpylepodcast Follow Ryan Pyle YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ryanjpyle Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryanpyle X: https://x.com/RyanPyle Facebook: https://facebook.com/ryanpyle https://www.ryanpyle.com