Joyce Brake and Adam Brake

[00:00] JOYCE BRAKE: This is Joyce brake. I am 44 years old. Today is Friday, May 21, 2021. I'm in white Salmon, Washington. My partner's name is Adam Brake and he is my husband.

[00:14] ADAM BRAKE: My name's Adam. It's Friday, May 21, 2021. I'm with my wife in White Salmon, Washington.

[00:25] JOYCE BRAKE: Excellent. So I really wanted to start this is all part of the Military Voices initiative. And so I just kind of wanted to start by you sharing an overview of your experience in the Army. You played so many different roles and so maybe just give us a quick overview of, you know, how you got started and how you evolved over the years.

[00:55] ADAM BRAKE: So I enlisted right out of high school and started in the 82nd Airborne and then went to the 2nd Ranger Battalion in Fort Lewis, Washington. Then I got out to go to school, but kind of missed soldiering. So went back in through the Reserves to the Special Forces. And after a few years of reserve, I wanted to do more. So I re enlisted after being selected for a specialized organization and then stayed in for about six more years and then got out, but continued in the Reserve and ultimately ended up in the National Guard for my last few years when I retired.

[01:49] JOYCE BRAKE: And what role did you play in your, in your final role?

[01:53] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah, my final role was as a JAG officer. So I evolved from infantry and Special Forces to the Judge Advocates Corps while I was in the Reserves. I was in I went to law school and after five years or so of soldiering thought if I'm going to do something with this law degree, I probably should do it before too long. So I applied to and went into the JAG Corps while I was still on active duty in the Army.

[02:27] JOYCE BRAKE: So you started out in the 82nd Airborne. Tell me about that unit. What are they known for?

[02:33] ADAM BRAKE: They are known as America's 911, I think is what they like to call themselves the All American Division there at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And they are classic light infantry. At the time I was there, it was still Cold War era. And our basic job that we trained for was the eventuality of a Soviet invasion across Western Europe. And our job would be in that event too, get on an airplane, fly behind the Russian front line and then disrupt or to fly into Europe and jump in front of where they were quickly create a defensive position and try to slow down their advance. So the training for that boils down to from a granular, mechanical level, spend lots of nights jumping into the woods of digging holes and sitting waiting for.

[03:31] JOYCE BRAKE: Russians to arrive from helicopters or airplanes.

[03:36] ADAM BRAKE: All the above, mostly airplanes, but certainly helicopters, airplanes, whatever they got.

[03:41] JOYCE BRAKE: Will you remind me again, was this the unit that was famous during World War II for flying over?

[03:48] ADAM BRAKE: They were. They conducted Operation Market Garden, which was the part of the airborne invasion into. Into Europe. As a matter of fact, my last few months in the 82nd, I was selected to go as a small group to go to the 82nd Airborne Association. And that was a lot of those guys that actually did that work and jumped into Europe getting together for, like, an annual reunion, which was a super fun party. My regiment was the first of the 504th infantry, and that was a unit that had jumped in to go and capture a specific bridge that the Nazis were trying to use in their salt. And there's a movie called Bridge Too Far, starring Robert Redford. And when I met the guys and sat at the banquet table that night, like, they were all teasing each other about, you know, all the different things that they had done there. And they pointed to one guy like, yeah, he's Robert Redford. Robert Ridford played him in the movie. So. But super fun guys. Like, at that point, they were all in their, I don't know, late 70s or 80s, but still, you know, very, very spunky, full of life, and had a, you know, kind of great sense of humor and great perspective on, you know, what they had done during World War II.

[05:06] JOYCE BRAKE: About how many jumps do you think you had throughout your career?

[05:11] ADAM BRAKE: Oh, you know, I stopped counting after a while because I did both. The normal 82nd Airborne is static line where you jump out and there's a rope connected to the plane that pulls your shoot open for you. But after, in the Special Forces, I did free fall, where you just jump out on your own. And so the both of them combined, maybe 120, 130, something like that, about half and half, maybe free fall in static line.

[05:39] JOYCE BRAKE: So that's. That's one of the things that I've never understood about military career is how time and time again you summoned up the courage to just jump out of a helicopter or an airplane. You did?

[05:56] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah.

[05:57] JOYCE BRAKE: Like, were there mantras that you told yourself? Or what was your. What was your technique?

[06:04] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah, I don't know. I never really looked at it in that way of summoning the courage. For me, it was almost kind of opposite. Like, I don't know if you've ever flown in an Air Force, but the first time I did, there was all these exposed wires and rods and things. There was things leaking down onto my lap and all these strange sounds, and all I could think of is like, I want to get out of this thing. Like, I don't care if I have to jump in the middle. You know, I got a parachute. I'll trust that it'll work, but just, I couldn't get out of the airplane fast enough. And then when I started Freefall, you know, the first time they lowered. It was a smaller plane, but the first time they lowered the ramp and you're at 14,000ft looking down at the ground and thinking, like, wow, yeah, I'm just going to jump out of here and, you know, trust the training and the equipment and everything works the way they told me it would. And so, yeah, just. Okay, that's what we're going to do.

[06:58] JOYCE BRAKE: Never experienced that sensation. Nope. Never had the urge to jump like that. So tell me about your soldier identity. I've known you for about 12 years, and you have shared with me several times that you always felt like you were born a soldier. So tell me what that feels like.

[07:24] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah, that's. I don't know. It's. It's not something I think I've ever put words to, so I might stumble a little bit on that. But I don't know. I mean, I think from the time I was a kid, I always just identified with that. That ethic, that ethos. You know, when I was a really small child, you know, I think I started drawing military pictures of guys on castle walls fighting with swords or, you know, airplanes flying into ships. As a matter of fact, when I was a really small kid at one point, I think my. It was probably preschool level, but I remember my art teacher took a picture that I had drawn to my mom because she was really worried about, like, the graphic level of battle depicted with swords and arms cut off and all sorts of other sort of things. So, you know, I don't know. But from a very young age, that was always something that I just had a natural. I don't know, proclivity for, was certainly drawn to. So I don't know. Yeah, And I always felt like when I was in uniform, I was sort of in my own skin, if that makes sense.

[08:40] JOYCE BRAKE: What was your most challenging assignment?

[08:46] ADAM BRAKE: Oh, I don't know. They're all. They're all challenging in their own ways, their own kind of things, you know, like when what I really wanted out of the military was to be challenged to the limit of my ability, whatever that happened to. To be. And, you know, like in the Special Forces Assessment Selection Course, there's a. That is a course that's basically designed to just sort of test you physically, mentally and otherwise. And they come up with all sorts of creative ideas to just push you physically. And one of them was essentially carrying a stretcher that has like a 300 pound sandbag on it. And you and a few other guys basically build a structure out of pipes and canvas and then put this thing on it and then go have to, you know, move that contraption, you know, several miles down a. Down sandy roads and you know, Carolina woods, you know. And there was like one specific time that I very much remember. Like you've got, you know, got tremendous amount of weight on your back. You're holding this thing on your shoulders. And I remember we came to this spot in the road that was like slightly uphill. And I remember like stepping forward and not really like it literally took all the effort I could summon to, to get my foot down, right, to step down. Like I didn't physically know if I was strong enough to take another step but, but you know, like once I did and once I kind of got through that, I was sort of like, yes, like this is what I came for. You got over the hump? Yeah, well, not even over the hump, but just like, you know, just wanting to, wanting to push to that, to that edge. Wanting to push to that limit, you know, and you know, see what's there, See if you can do it.

[10:36] JOYCE BRAKE: So you mentioned the graphic drawing that your elementary school teacher sent home. What were your parents reactions to having that soldier ethos?

[10:52] ADAM BRAKE: That's a good question. I mean I, it's not something I necessarily obsessed over and my dad had served, served in the Navy during the Korean War era. And certainly on my father's side there was a history of military service and my mom's grandfather had served in the cavalry just after World War I when they still were riding horses. So there was some level of, I guess, familiarity there. But yeah, I don't know. I mean ultimately after I graduated from high school, I was home for just a couple of weeks and the phone rang and this voice of the other said, hi, this is Sergeant Carter from the army recruiting office. Your mother called, said you might be interested in joining. And so ultimately she was the one that called the recruiter and said, get my son out of the house. So I have to believe at some level she was supportive.

[11:53] JOYCE BRAKE: Sounds like it. You've had a lot of kind of quirky missions. What would you say was your quirkiest mission in the military?

[12:16] ADAM BRAKE: Oh, yeah, I don't know. As you know, I spent, I spent a few years doing things that I'm not necessarily at liberty to talk about. And some of the quirkiest things were probably in that context. But there's all sorts of different flavors, right? In the Special Forces assessment or the Special Forces qualification course, the last thing you have to do, your sort of culminating graduation exercise, is premised on this idea that you. You go into this country where there's guerrilla rebels in the woods and they're fighting a government that is adversely U.S. interests. And so your job is to go in there, meet the guerrillas, and endear yourselves to them, get invited onto the G base, as we say, and then ultimately find ways to bring their goals and objectives into. In confluence with United States national security objectives and goals. And so in the culmination training exercise, they set up these little camps out in the woods, and you walk through the woods all night, and then finally get to the camp, and then you have to talk your way on and start your mission. And usually as part of that, there's some sort of harassing phase or there's some sort of hazing that they. They do to you. And usually when I did it, they made up some, like, nasty little concoction on crackers, and we had to eat it because that was, like their native delicacy and they were being nice to it. But in fact, it was like just, you know, crackers saturated with Tabasco sauce or something. But it was funny to me because the first actual mission that I did, we went down to Vanuatu, and we were a small team going down there to train their forces. And the first thing that they did was this little welcome ceremony for us all. And the welcome ceremony involved, amongst other things, sort of coming up and toasting, drinking their national drink, which is called kava. And it's made from some very bitter roots that they dig out of the ground and grind up and then strain through water. But ultimately, what it really is just sort of tastes like muddy water that has this sort of very quick numbing effect. So as soon as you start drinking it, your tongue and your mouth and throat and everything starts to go completely numb, and you feel like you're drinking dirty water. And so the first thing we do is, like, in these little coconut bowls, like, cheers. Hi. Thanks for inviting us to come to your country. And then down this little cup of dirty water stuff. And all I could think of was, like, wow, it really does happen like this sometimes. Like, you know, it's a country, not a gorilla base. But I'm still, like, trying to adhere myself to these people. And, yeah, ingesting really nasty things.

[15:09] JOYCE BRAKE: Drink their kava.

[15:10] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[15:16] JOYCE BRAKE: Tell me about a funny moment from your early days, boot camp, or one of your. One of your earliest training missions. Maybe a cultural shock moment.

[15:30] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah, I don't know. Whenever we think about. I always think about basic training, where you're still kind of learning what is this new crazy world I'm in. And I was in those old World War II barracks. They're just a big row of bunk beds and metal wall lockers. And so I had a top bunk. And at night I took the keys to the little padlock and put them on top of the locker next to me, right? So it's in the middle of the night, I hear all of this, like, rattling and crashing. And I wake up and there's some guy standing, like mostly just a shadow, standing at my locker, pulling everything out. And just like this tremendous clatter on the floor. And I jumped out of bed and went, what the. And it was the drill sergeant who had seen my keys there, decided that that was not secure. And the lesson he was going to teach me was to open my locker and rip everything out on the floor. And so as I jumped out and I started to say something, and he, like, put his flashlight in my face and was like, what are you doing? And he's like, get burned. So I'm standing there at attention watching him completely, like, just shred everything. And you know, the locker that you've placed carefully and folded carefully and all that kind of stuff. And then after you got everything out of the locker, the last thing in there was this little box of laundry soap. And he's like, he's shining it at me as if he was done. And then he looks back up and it's almost like, aha. So he grabs the laundry soap, tears it open, and just pours it all over the top of all of my clothes. And it's probably like 3:00 in the morning or something. And he's like, clean this up. Walks out. I was like, huh, that doesn't seem right. But I guess I don't really have a choice here. I guess. I guess I'm going to clean my locker up now at 3:00 in the morning.

[17:14] JOYCE BRAKE: Lesson learned.

[17:15] ADAM BRAKE: Lesson learned. Don't leave your keys where the drill sergeant can find them. Yes.

[17:20] JOYCE BRAKE: So you joined the military in the 80s, is that right?

[17:25] ADAM BRAKE: Right. Yep.

[17:26] JOYCE BRAKE: Right out of high school and post Vietnam era. The uniforms were all a deep green then. They've faded quite a bit since then to be Desert browns.

[17:38] ADAM BRAKE: Right.

[17:38] JOYCE BRAKE: So you've witnessed decades in the US army and I'm sure a lot of changes with that. And you also have this kind of unique policy perspective, having worked on military policy in Congress. And so what would you say is the most positive change that has happened within the military over the since you joined in the 80s?

[18:08] ADAM BRAKE: Oh, clearly the public perception of the military, you know, when I was first going in or just, you know, trying to deciding where I wanted to go and I was talking to everybody I could think of in terms of trying to figure out number where I wanted to go but what I wanted to do. And so many of the people that I talked to were kind of shocked that I would be going into the military voluntarily because, you know, their mentality was, you know, that that's kind of where the riffraff of society go. That's kind of where people who don't have, you know, options in their life go. And the general perception kind of was the military service was on something significantly less than honorable. And I certainly knew and served with plenty of people who wouldn't want to get on an airplane in a uniform or wouldn't want to go out on the street in military uniform because the reputation was still that sort of baby killer high school teacher who, you know, used to talk about Vietnam veterans in a broad, sweeping prejudice, oh, they're all baby killers kind of way. So the, Yeah, I think the, you know, the evolution of the social perception, society's perception of the military now couldn't be more different. Right. And so, you know, everything from the, you know, kind of routine, thank you for your service, you know, to the, you know, veterans, veterans preference and you know, a number of different settings is almost, you know, complete when any change. And so that, that's been really great to see.

[20:04] JOYCE BRAKE: And how did that happen? How do you think that evolved to.

[20:10] ADAM BRAKE: I'm pretty sure 911 was the major pivot point, right. When you know, Americans are generally pretty isolated, spoiled people to begin with. And you know, we are one of the few countries in history that's never been invaded by a foreign army and had to worry about the safety of our homes and families and kids from foreign troops and soldiers. And So I think 9 11, British civil, British war aside, but 911 was clearly in our modern history, right. The one time when people like, oh, like maybe we're not invincible. Maybe we're not, you know, completely isolated from the world. Maybe we actually. How would you say? Yeah, I guess maybe, you know, maybe we actually do need, you know, soldiers to protect us. And so I think I mean that's from my memory at least. That's when all of the thank you for your service started. Right? That's when people really started to show a significant level of appreciation for troops in uniform.

[21:26] JOYCE BRAKE: And how did 911 change your career in the military?

[21:33] ADAM BRAKE: I don't necessarily know that it did. I was in the military on active duty when 911 happened. And the organization I was with, the people that I was working with were already pre dialed into Al Qaeda and that whole network. And we had already been doing exercises and training focused specifically on that problem set. And so I remember the morning that it happened. I was in a, I was in somebody's office checking on some routine personnel thing. And as I was walking back to my team room past the television set where they, the second plane had just hit and you know, a call came out for like immediate 100% accountability. Get everybody here together. And my sergeant major had, was down at a nearby river conducting some, you know, some water operation stuff. And so I, you know, I got, somebody told me like, hey, you know, get, get down there and get, you know, get Sergeant major, tell them, you know, get ready back here. So I drove down there and I got out of the truck and you know, he was out on the water. But I flagged him down. You know, he came in. I, you know, I told him, you know, news is showing two planes just hit the two planes had just hit the, you know, hit these planes. First words out of his mouth, ubl like ubl man. And so ublad. Right. And so while, and it was funny to me because so many other people that like on the news that day and even in some of the so called days were like, who could this be? What could this be done? But you know, our, you know, my sergeant major absolutely, you know, and I think most of the people in our organization absolutely, you know, knew right away exactly what had happened and who was behind it.

[23:41] JOYCE BRAKE: So do you. Are you able to talk about all of your different deployments or some of them at least?

[23:51] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah, sure, some of them. I mean, yeah, certainly not all, but yeah, I mean, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, some other places in the Arabian Peninsula, Central America, South America.

[24:12] JOYCE BRAKE: What was your most memorable deployment?

[24:16] ADAM BRAKE: Oh, I don't know that I would say there's ever one sort of. I mean they're all so unique. Right. As I mentioned, like going down to Vanuatu, you know, even that was, even though that was a training deployment, you know, that was still pretty fun and you know, memorable because the history of that country and that island is sort of known in that vicinity as one of the places where that was where cannibals were populated. And, you know, when I left, one of the soldiers gave me a club, and he said, you know, this is a club like my grandfather used to kill his enemies. He was a warrior, and you're a warrior, too. And that was obviously memorable. But then also being in, you know, in places like Iraq and working in Baghdad with the Iraqis and sitting at a table where, you know, you'd have different personalities around, some were super eager to work with us and talk with us, and some, like, there was an older guy that was one organization that I was working with on a regular basis where we meet once a week, and this older guy would, like, look right at us and go, you stinking invaders. Like, you invaded us. And while he wasn't outright hostile, he was certainly, you know, very blunt about the fact that, you know, we were in his country, we weren't invited. And as far as he was concerned, like, the sooner we leave, the better, you know. But then you go to, like, you know, places like in Afghanistan, the guys we were working there with, you know, who were, you know, super grateful and never wanted us to leave, you know, and so you have, you know, they were really hoping that Afghanistan would turn out something like Germany, where us would have a, you know, enduring presence for a long time, not based on fighting in war, but just based on, you know, mutual cooperation and cooperative security arrangements and those sorts of things. So there's always a super broad spectrum in that sense. And, yeah, every trip has its own special set of memories and moments.

[26:19] JOYCE BRAKE: So you returned from Afghanistan a little over a year ago, and we're coming up on another nine, 11 and a pull out.

[26:32] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah.

[26:33] JOYCE BRAKE: And I'm wondering, over the past 20 plus years, what have we. What have we accomplished there?

[26:49] ADAM BRAKE: Very complicated question. Right. In the. In the sense of. In the list of goods, what we have accomplished. You know, many things. Advances in human rights, opening up many people's perspective there to what. What's happening in the broader world. Many. You talk about women's rights and children's education and women's education. Huge amounts of accomplishments there. And, you know, that's often overshadowed by the, you know, the problems that persist there. And certainly from an overall overarching kind of national security construct, if you ask the question, what do we accomplish there that furthers the security of the United States of America? That's, you know, that. That's a. That's a very good question. And I think the jury's still Out, Right. Are we going to see a rinse and repeat of what happened, you know, in the late 80s, post Soviet invasion, where all the crazies are going to come back in and, you know, set up, you know, crazy camps in terror, terror central, or, you know, are the people that we worked with that understood and appreciated and respected the kind of values that we talked to them about and worked with them to achieve, are they going to be, you know, able to protect their society and defend them? I mean, there's very clearly a large swath of their population that would like to. But they're up against a very brutal enemy that fights with under very different rules and doesn't follow the same code of morality. And so that's a very difficult equation.

[28:37] JOYCE BRAKE: We've both studied international relations, and I know when I studied it in college, there was a big debate going on about Cold War versus post Cold War and which era was more dangerous and more threatening to our national security. You know, Cold War politics versus, you know, the fear of terrorism worldwide. As we reach this 20 years past 911 Mark, what do you think is this new era in terms of national security?

[29:29] ADAM BRAKE: I think it continues to be nonlinear. It continues to be difficult for us to really understand, you know, where the bad guys are, right, where the people who are actively working against our interests are going. The complicating factor now is we've got, you know, larger animosity with China, with Russia, you know, with more established powers who will actively be working by proxy or otherwise, to undermine us and to try to fundamentally restructure and change the world order to their benefit and away from ours. So it's going to be, I think, kind of a combination, right, of the nonlinear, disparate threat that we faced in the post Cold War era combined with a little bit of that Cold War era where you do actually have very established great powers who are actively working to manipulate as many different pieces on the chessboard as they can.

[30:38] JOYCE BRAKE: So that was pretty heavy. I want to lighten it up a little bit and ask about one of your just a favorite or two personalities from your either deployment days or service days. I've met so many of your military friends and have liked most of them, the great majority of them. What, who, who is, you know, your funniest friend or your favorite friend?

[31:12] ADAM BRAKE: Yeah. Oh, I mean, there's, there's, there's so many, you know, and it's funny because there, there are so many moments you can think back to where, like, you know, you couldn't get it any better if you went to central casting and asked for an archetype and asked them to do, like, a specific thing. You know, like, when I was a young. Still a young private, I had a first sergeant in the 82nd who. He was a former Ranger Battalion guy, and he was, you know, always pushed us really hard. He always wanted us to be the hardest, toughest, you know, company in the 82nd and, you know, and was one of those great leaders that just sort of naturally led by example. But he was straight out of central casting, hard bitten and, you know, kind of, you know, very chiseled cut, lean features. And there was. There was this one day where we were standing in the doorway of the barracks, and it was after work, and it was just doing that classic Carolina. Raining like crazy outside. Like, just buckets of, you know, the kind of rain that's so hard you can't even hear somebody talking to you. And we were standing there, and I think a few people were getting ready to try to make a run for their cars. And first Sergeant walks out and he's smoking a cigarette, and he looks around and is like, what are you all waiting for? And, like, what, you're waiting for the rain to let first sergeant? And he's like, ain't nothing but a thing. And he slowly walks out into the rain, and he tries to take another drag of a cigarette, and instantly it's like, completely wet and saturated and goes out. But he just continues slowly, pretending to smoke his cigarette, and slowly, like an exaggerated form walking down the sidewalk, out into the street. And it was just one of those, like, classic scenes where all the young soldiers were like, wow, he's so cool, right? And he clearly, like, must. Obviously he was, you know, everything was, like, almost exaggerated in slow motion. And so he clearly knew what he was doing. But it was just classic. Like, it was. It was one of those things, like, I want to be like him when I grow up. Ain't nothing but a thing Ain't nothing but a thing.

[33:23] JOYCE BRAKE: Oh, I always love your stories about the Southerners, the best. They are near and dear to my heart, the Southerners. What about your. So you went through a lot of, you know, active duty to reserve duty to serving in Congress. And so what was your toughest transition to civilian life?

[33:50] ADAM BRAKE: Definitely the toughest was to go from the military deployed setting to the congressional policy setting. So I was in Afghanistan. I was working, amongst other things. I was the officer in charge of detainee for my battalion. And that's when I was a JAG officer for a Special Forces Battalion. And so I helped to oversee when the detainees were taken from the battlefields by the teams. The very limited amounts of time and very strict legal guidelines on how long you can keep them, thresholds of evidence to be able to continue to keep them, the transfer to our level, a little bit more time to develop more evidence, but all very strictly regulated. So a very heavy role for the legal advisor for the unit. And within the context of that, you know, we also understood that there was this, you know, huge political turmoil coming, you know, raging about detainees and treatment and all that stuff happening back in D.C. and so it so happened that I left Afghanistan, I went back to Fort Bragg, and for a variety of different reasons, I ended up in a job interview for a US Senator and then was offered a job to go and work for him on policy that was related to all of that, and so managed to arrange things such that I was literally, just, within a few weeks, went from sitting at Bragg watching senators drill senior officers in a committee room, to being in D.C. and sitting behind one of those senators watching them grill senior officers. And I think the really, the toughest transition was just the level of disparity, right? I mean, we were sort of at the forefront of some of that policy, and we were in very heated debates with the White House and, you know, late night meetings with White House staffers. And, you know, my boss used to like to, you know, introduce me and call me out as somebody who, you know, had just sort of come from working all of those issues, you know, you know, sort of, you know, in the trenches, so to speak. And as you look around the room that you've got a bunch of sort of, you know, kind of policymakers that have never been in uniform, that have never been downrange, and yet people who had no real, you know, sort of practical experience, but had all kinds of, you know, opinions and ideas and the degree to which they were listening to their own uniformed officers, to their own uniformed services, to, you know, people who had much more pragmatic experience. And the disconnect between the political agendas and the pragmatic realities, I found very hard to. To reconcile and to work in, frankly. I mean, I think that one of the. As much as there's marble corridors and big fancy cars and leather couches on jets and all that other kind of stuff, that was probably, in some ways the most, I don't know, unsettling job I've had in terms of being in that sort of proverbial ivory tower while people were still out on the front lines still doing all of that kind of work. Right. And as you know, within a year of that, I transferred to the reserves and then got called up and had to go back. Right. And the day that I touched down and put my feet on the ground in Baghdad, I was like, yes, like, you know, I'm back where at least people will be more honest.

[37:50] JOYCE BRAKE: We've got a little less than two minutes left. And so, quick question. What part of this recording is for our kids? What do you want them to know about your military service? Or what message do you want to convey to them about your 27 years in the Army?

[38:16] ADAM BRAKE: That it was fun. It was a great adventure. It was. Yeah, it was. It was all worth doing. I don't know that I would ever push our kids to go into the military service unless they felt, you know, internally drawn and compelled to. But I would certainly want them to sort of know and understand the importance of that role in society overall and that we collectively did our part by serving. And to go back to you and the families at home are just as much a part of that effort as the people that leave the country to go and do it. As I've said a number of times before, I think you have the harder job. We get to go out and have all kinds of great adventures. You have to stay here and make sandwiches and get dinner on the table, and that's without any support, and I think that's significantly harder. So thank you for your service.

[39:24] JOYCE BRAKE: Thank you for yours. We got to see you have those fun adventures. And as I always said, every time I saw you on video chat, you were on fire and lit up. So I loved seeing that in you.

[39:37] ADAM BRAKE: Thank you.

[39:38] JOYCE BRAKE: Thank you so much for the interview and for sharing.

[39:42] ADAM BRAKE: You're welcome. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.