Steve Brown, Etc.

Matthew Porter: An intense, ripped-from-the-headlines military thriller from a Christian point of view? Yeah, why not? Let's talk about it with author Chad Robichaux on Steve Brown, Etc. He's an old white guy, an author, broadcaster, and seminary professor who's sick of religion. And he's brought friends. Please welcome Steve Brown, Etc.

Yes, that is the name of the show, Steve Brown, Etc. My name is Matthew Porter. I will be your humble guest host today. Have no fear; Dr. Brown will return next week. We have such a show today. I am so stoked. But first, let's meet the players who are going to make this thing happen. We have Jeremy, our producer, in the little glass booth. Speaking of the military, Jeremy, you did a little stint in the Kiss Army, did you not?

Jeremy: No, but I do have all the action figures.

Matthew Porter: Nice. Our one-man IT department, John Myers, is in the tech bunker. John reminds you that tomorrow is Mother's Day. Nothing says "I love you" like helping her sign back into her Facebook account again.

John Myers: This is a love language. This counts.

Matthew Porter: Dr. George Bingham is the President of Key Life. Just a few days ago, as we're recording this, there was the Kentucky Derby. And yet again, George lost money on this year's Kentucky Derby. Somehow, I don't know how, George bet on the horse from the first act of The Godfather.

George Bingham: Rest in pieces. You know, normally I end up being a long shot, and I missed betting on the long shot.

Matthew Porter: And Cathy Wyatt is the soft, feminine side of the program. Cathy says if you can't think of a gift for your mom, then bake some cookies and that'll give you another 15-20 minutes to think about what to get her for Mother's Day.

Cathy Wyatt: True. They always say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I think you can accomplish the same thing with your mother. It's all of us.

Matthew Porter: Oh, wait, the cookies were for her? Sorry, I ate them already. My, my, awkward. Guys, today we have one of the most interesting folks we've talked to in a long time. His name is Chad Robichaux. He is a former Force Recon Marine and DOD contractor who served on eight deployments to Afghanistan as part of a Joint Special Operations Command, we call that JSOC in the business, special JSOC Task Force.

After overcoming PTSD, he founded Mighty Oaks, a leading nonprofit serving the military and first responder communities. He also holds an MBA, has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and is a best-selling author. His latest book is called *Riptide*. And believe me guys, that's the short, shortest version of the biography. It's going to be great. Chad, thanks for joining us, man.

Chad Robichaux: Thanks for having me on.

Matthew Porter: Absolutely. I'm so excited. We have so much in common. You served our country all over the place. I dropped out of Boy Scouts. So much common ground to explore.

Chad Robichaux: Still suffering from it.

Matthew Porter: Oh yeah, listen man, it goes with the gig. So we're going to talk about a lot of stuff. But first and foremost, obviously we want to talk about your new novel called *Riptide*. Really great authors can do a standalone book, but the greats create not just a great book, but a great character. You think of a Jack Reacher, a Jack Ryan, all the Jacks, a James Bond. I read those as a kid; probably was not a great move, but it was educational. So introduce us to your main character and the world he's in and what he's experiencing in this new novel.

Chad Robichaux: It's really interesting you say that because that was exactly my mindset: not to write a book but to create a character. The character is, just like you said, a Jack Reacher. It's Foster Quinn. Foster Quinn is his real name. As he goes into the undercover capacity that he goes into around the world doing special operations clandestine logistics work and espionage work, he goes under the undercover name of Foster Cottle.

Those two names, Foster and Cottle, are from my friends who died in combat, Foster Harrington and Robert Cottle. So we use those names, and a lot of the characters throughout the book are honored. As you read the names like Seth and these different names, they are honoring real-life special operations warriors that paid the ultimate sacrifice for our nation's freedoms and for defending people around the world who can't defend themselves. There's a lot of heritage and honor to real-life people in the book.

But Foster Quinn's character, he's a Force Recon Marine, a standout Force Recon Marine. He goes over to augment at SEAL Team 6. He's working at SEAL Team 6 in that capacity and then he gets to the point where he has to decide whether he's going to stay in or out of the military. He's having some family issues with him and his wife and his daughter.

He's trying to make this decision and one of his very close friends, he finds out, was killed in this secret program. He is offered to not only be part of the redemption process and find out who killed his friend, but actually fill his friend's role and position as a contractor at SEAL Team 6. So he leaves active duty, goes as a contractor where he's given a lot more autonomy and freedom.

This is a very real world of special operations that hasn't been talked about. It's the world that I come from, and it hasn't been really exposed as this niche place of special operations doing clandestine logistics and all the creation of access and placement to get the world's best assaulters on target. Somebody has to go ahead of them and build all this. Foster Quinn does this job, and he's going from Africa to Iran. He works undercover as a hunter and leading these hunting expeditions in Iran to find the bad guys and expose the bad guys. Ultimately while he's doing this mission, he exposes who killed his friend.

It comes back into Washington D.C. and dealing with the same kind of corruption we know exists in D.C. and exists around the world. There's a lot of exposure of corruption. As you move out of book one, which is *Silent Horizons*, and move into book two, *Riptide*, his journey continues. We are contracted with Tyndale to do a three-book series, but we know now after we wrote all three books, man, it's just scratching the surface. There is so much that Foster Quinn could continue to do.

All the characters are very eccentric and very exciting. But it's not your typical Tyndale being a Christian publisher. We partnered with Jack Stewart to write this with. Jack is so brilliant. He shares a military background. He was a fighter pilot and also a Top Gun instructor, adversary instructor. His ground time was with JSOC. He worked at JSOC too with his ground time. So we both have that background, and there's a lot of real authenticity. If a guy from Delta Force or SEAL Team 6 reads this book, they're not going to be picking it apart. The accuracy and detail in it are just right.

If a guy that grew up in Iran is like, "That coffee shop is there," it's very detailed and accurate. So we put a lot of work and a lot of pride into doing that. We've had it proofed by our friends in our community from the CIA, from Ground Branch, from Delta Force, from SEAL Team 6, reading it to make sure everything was just right. So if somebody's in the military, they're going to love the detail and accuracy. If somebody's not in the military, they're going to get a glimpse into that accurate portrayal of what these roles are.

And Tyndale being a Christian publisher, we intentionally wanted to do it to a broader audience, a non-Christian audience, and not show just this Christian guy and his Christian life, but this guy who's struggling and battling with his faith throughout real-life conflict. He's having issues with trauma and dealing with post-traumatic stress and loss and grief, and he's battling in his marriage. All these things that he's going through, you see through not just in book one, not this big revelation story of his faith in book one, but all the way through his journey and his faith building through hardships of life, which is what we all face.

Matthew Porter: Yeah, you drop us into the action right away. And like you said, great attention to detail just radiates as told from an authentic kind of place. So a story like this, violence is an inherent part of it. You can't write a story about like this and steer around that somehow. And I really like how you handle it. It doesn't glorify it; it doesn't shy away from it either. Can you talk a little bit about how you decided to approach that aspect of it?

Chad Robichaux: Again, you're dealing with Tyndale as a publisher. They're amazing because they're not just a Christian publisher; Tyndale is actually a ministry. It functions as a ministry. So there had to be some consideration in that we're having a ministry print our book. We're not going to go in like revenge porn of a lot of these books are that, where people get off on the idea of just violent killing.

We didn't want to go that route, but we also wanted to paint a real portrayal and picture. Thankfully for me, I have a lot of experience in doing that because I've talked about war for 15 years now in my primary speaking platform. I'm a public speaker foremost, even above being an author, and I'm speaking in churches. I just got back from Legacy Church, a massive church, incredible church, with Pastor Steve Smothermon in Albuquerque, New Mexico this weekend. I talked about some horrific things in combat in front of their congregation of 35,000 members.

So I've told that line before and know how to do it to where you're taking people to expose them to what's real, but also bringing God's truth into it. So there's a respectful way to do that, but you have to show both sides.

Matthew Porter: That's amazing. This is some intense, realistic, based-on-real-world-action military thriller. And the guy who is bringing it to you knows what it's like. He's seen it; he's been there, and he speaks from experience. The name of the book is *Riptide* by Chad Robichaux. We talked earlier about a Tom Clancy; I grew up reading some of those, but listen, that guy did research. Chad has lived it. And when you read the book, you're going to see what the difference is. Hang out, we'll be right back.

Welcome to the Vault, your home for classic sermons from Steve from the '90s, the '80s, even all the way back to the early '70s. The Vault is a one-of-a-kind online experience where you can explore more than three decades of grace-filled messages. Get the details and check out our free audio sample at keylife.org/vault. That's keylife.org/V-A-U-L-T.

Hi, this is Steve Brown. In case you didn't know, one of the main reasons Key Life exists is to remind believers that God isn't mad at His children. Why am I telling you this? Because our weekly email, Key Life Connection, takes the best of the videos, articles, and puts them right in your inbox. We'd love for you to try it; it's free. Go to keylife.org/subscribe.

Thanks for joining us on Steve Brown, Etc. We are talking to author Chad Robichaux about his new military thriller novel called *Riptide*.

George Bingham: Chad, thank you for your service, by the way. Obviously in reading this book, as Matthew was saying, it comes across just like a Jack Carr type novel and so forth, but that faith dimension is unique in it. From reviews I saw before *Riptide*, in your first novel it was a little more straightforward and in *Riptide* it's a little more subtle. Talk about bringing in that faith element and maybe even the spiritual journey of Foster as since we're talking about developing the character. What's been his faith journey and struggles?

Chad Robichaux: Well, it was important to bring it in because previous to doing *Silent Horizons*, book one, my author work was in the non-fiction space. So I wrote books like *Saving Aziz*, which was about my involvement in the real-life rescue of Aziz, his wife and kids, and 17,000 people from Afghanistan. That was a modern-day miracle. That was a miracle that took place that I got to have a front-row seat at. I'm telling this incredible story of what God did there.

My other book, *An Unfair Advantage* or *Mission Without Borders*, which was the rescue work we did in Ukraine, was just such a profound hand of God through that whole operation. So I built this audience of telling these amazing stories of the work God has done. Now I go back to this somewhat non-evangelical fiction book of this guy who's really just in a kind of agnostic state of his service. We just were really deliberate of how we slowly build that for the audience.

Because everything I do in ministry is, essentially, I don't want to preach to the choir. I'm not a pastor. I want to reach as far beyond the walls and outside the walls of a church as I can. I love speaking in churches, but I also love going down to Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, and speaking in all those young Marines there, going to Marine Corps Boot Camp. I've spoken over half a million active duty troops. So I've really just loved being in those secular environments, those non-Christian environments, and speaking about my faith in a way that's just kind of rough around the edges evangelical.

So we thought with this book that if we start off and introducing that in *Silent Horizons* and then showing the battles and the struggles and the issues that Foster has in his faith, in book three, if we take that kind of big, broader audience all the way through into book three, we're going to reveal his true come-to-his-knees, rock bottom, finally surrender to Jesus moment. But that doesn't happen yet in this book. In this book, we're still in the middle of the journey. So we're not going to see that until book three. That was a very deliberate evangelical angle in this book to reach out to, again, that broader audience.

You can tell right away that Foster's referring back to his mom and how his mom spoke to him when he was a kid and given lessons of faith. A lot of his wisdom, a lot of his intuition, decisions he makes, are based on biblical principles that he was taught as a kid, but not based on his relationship as a follower of Christ. But he's seeing these principles and these little nuggets of wisdom that his mom poured into him in his everyday decision-making on the battlefield. Again, we'll see all that come to fruition as he finds hope and restoration and healing and new purpose in book three.

George Bingham: I assume in the kind of situations that you have been in and he has been in, it is split-second decision-making where you're bringing a lot of violence. Are there ever situations that you hesitate or suddenly in an ethical dilemma or something like that when your training would say go forward, but maybe there's a question in your mind? Do those kind of situations ever come up?

Chad Robichaux: Our military and our men and women who are around the world right now, we participate in just acts. I believe in a just war theory, and I believe that the same violence that we have to impose on our enemies and bad people around the world to defend our nation, defend our sons and daughters and our family members and our neighbors and even our friends around the world who are victims of great atrocities, I believe that the United States military, despite all the politics and all the indecision, the United States military service member is always acting with a heart of righteousness and justice. I've always believed that as a Christian and not as a Christian, that I was the good guy.

I think with that, especially when you become a Christian, you understand the fight for justice and morality and that the Bible doesn't ever speak about passivity. In fact, if you want to read a book way better than this one about violence and good people extinguishing evil, then dig into the Old Testament. Chapter after chapter, that's your action thriller, a military action thriller.

I have never really dealt with that moral conflict of bringing violence onto the bad guys. I just never have. And honestly, most of the people I've served with haven't. When you talk about things like PTSD, like guilt, and all this stuff, you're rarely dealing with someone who is feeling guilty for killing bad guys. What you're dealing with is the hardships of cumulative stress trauma from years of exposure in combat, the loss of friends, second-guessing decisions, but it's never... I've rarely seen what we would call moral injury unless someone feels like they made a mistake.

Now, the battlefield is just like everyday life; you could make criminal acts on a battlefield just like you make them here. So some people do engage in that, but for the most part, no. I never did. I don't really see Foster the character dealing with that. I feel just like he's on a mission of righteousness and he's going after bad people who do bad things and taking them out for the sake of righteousness.

Matthew Porter: Okay, so one of the challenges that Foster deals with is PTSD as you just mentioned, and that draws from a real place for you, does it not?

Chad Robichaux: Yeah, whether it be for PTSD, which would usually be tied to an event, right? But cumulative stress, just numerous deployments back to back, losing friends, living undercover in a place to where you're by yourself, no gun, no one knows who you are. If you get compromised, you're getting captured, arrested, killed, tortured, all these things just weighing on you 24/7. It creates a lot of stress, and he's having to live through that.

Matthew Porter: Yeah, there's a scene of that. It just... I don't have any experience with it, but I was reading it and I'm like, "Wow, that is so vivid of putting it into prose what experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder is like." It really kind of made me empathetic to people who are experiencing that, military and non-military. We're talking to author Chad Robichaux. His new military thriller novel is called *Riptide*. As you can hear, as interesting as the book is, Chad's experiences are even more interesting and there's so much to learn from it. On the other side of the break, I want to ask Chad about the dedication in his book that deals with a real-life military incident not so long ago that many remember but some are forgetting. And so that's why I kind of want to make sure we touch on it. You're listening to Steve Brown, Etc., and we will be right back.

Hey, thanks for listening to Steve Brown, Etc. And if you're enjoying the show, would you help us let others know about it? You can share a link, click subscribe on our YouTube channel, or drop us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks much.

Hi, this is Steve Brown, and I'm excited to tell you about a new offer from Key Life called *Living with Steve*. Let me tell you the way it works. I travel with you wherever you go. If you need an entertaining conversation or even a sermon, there I am. That's the good news. The bad news is that it costs a million bucks. But wait, there's good news. You can get everything I've just described with the Key Life app. And for a limited time, it's not a million dollars; it's free. Try it now at keylife.org/app.

Thanks for joining us on Steve Brown, Etc. We are talking to author Chad Robichaux about his new military thriller novel called *Riptide*. Keep up with him at chadrobichaux.com. You know how to spell it, but I'm going to spell it: R-O-B-I-C-H-A-U-X.com. And on social, just type in "Chad Robichaux official." You'll probably find him.

So, Chad, you dedicated this book to those who were lost in the Afghanistan conflict, particularly those who were lost in the withdrawal in August of 2021. And it seems like when a certain administration has so many scandals, things like this can kind of get lost in the pile of, "I think I remember something about that. I don't know; I don't really." And it really can't. We can't forget moments like that. Refresh us, if somebody is watching this episode on YouTube ten years from now, refresh us on what happened and what your perspective on that sequence was.

Chad Robichaux: Well, the American people were lied to to instigate the withdrawal. The American people were told by the mainstream media and by the White House that we were in a 20-year war, we were in endless war, and that American sons and daughters needed to stop dying and we needed to remove the 2,500 troops that we had there. Which is completely ridiculous because of the fact that the war was long over.

In fact, I believe President Trump made a mistake when he should have declared a victory in that war and continued to support an advisory mission, which is actually what we were doing. We had ended the conventional war under President Trump in 2018. Our troops had stopped conventional fighting, stopped dying, and our troops were only doing a support and advisory role to the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.

The international community was working together, and it was actually very effective to keep the global jihadists and terrorism at bay. At the time of the withdrawal, we only had two Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Now I know we have over 60 Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. And so this lie perpetuated to the American people, people believed it. People were like, "Oh yeah, we don't want to stay in an endless war." And you get told that enough, it's real easy to say that makes sense.

But on a global perspective, 2,500 troops in Afghanistan? I could have named you 2,500 places where we had 2,500 troops all around the world. But why Afghanistan? In fact, let's look at a bigger number: 80,000 troops in Japan since World War II, 40,000 troops in Germany since World War II, 35,000 troops in South Korea protecting the 38th parallel, keeping the North Koreans from coming across that 38th parallel to attack the South Koreans and creating a global conflict. American troops in these places don't keep us in war; they prevent wars. These contingencies are there for a reason.

And Bagram Air Force Base at the time of the withdrawal is the most strategic place on the globe between Iraq, Iran, Russia, and China. What you're seeing going on right now in the Middle East and in Iran would not be happening if the US military and the international community had possession of Bagram Air Force Base. But no, the Chinese have possession of Bagram Air Force Base. So when this started taking place, I'm like, "What's the motivation?" Well, the motivation was, and I was called a conspiracy theorist for saying this on Fox News, but it ended up being true: China wanted the mineral rights in Hindu Kush mountains, which they could not obtain with the US military being there.

We left in August, on August 31st, but the first week of September, China had the mineral rights of the Hindu Kush mountains, which was worth trillions of dollars. It's worth an unlimited amount of dollars. China wanted to get sanctioned oil from Iran. How do they move sanctioned oil from Iran? They have to take it across Afghanistan by ground, and they couldn't do that with the US military there.

So all the interest pointed to China. China wanted Bagram Air Force Base; they have that now. Just three things that China wanted that they got by the US moving out. So was the motivation really to end a 20-year war? Was it really to protect American sons and daughters who were not dying, by the way, or was it for the interest of a foreign nation? Everything points to me, you look at motivation and intent, to the interest of a foreign nation, which is China, and not the best interest of America, which would have been to keep that contingent there and keep global security intact and be a partner.

Our allied nations, we didn't even inform our allied partners. Not only did we not inform Afghanistan and the Afghan government, we didn't inform our long-standing allies like Britain and France and all these other people that were part of the international coalition there. We didn't inform anyone. The only people informed were the Taliban, our enemy of 20 years. So that in itself is an atrocity.

But the fact that we moved our military, closed our base before evacuating Americans and our allies, was just so grotesque, and it put our military in such a difficult position that we forfeited a base and went to a civilian airfield and the White House took the NEO operation, noncombatant evacuation operation, away from our military and gave it to the State Department and put our troops around that airport like embassy guards. It resulted in 13 of our US service members dying and paying the price for that. And it never needs to be forgotten. Those 13 service members did not have to die. They died by the negligence and corruption of the White House. And the reason that it should be known, that's why it's in this book, is so we as a people do not allow that to go unnoticed and unsaid and unchecked and happen again. These politicians in D.C. that make these decisions while they're supposed to be representing us should be held accountable. And right now an investigation is just ending at the Pentagon on the Afghanistan withdrawal review, and the things I'm saying are not my theory; they're in the investigation, they're 100% accurate. That happened.

Matthew Porter: Important event and one that can't be forgotten, and you are doing your part by keeping that story alive. You dedicate the book to it and to the lives of those lost, a very fitting and moving tribute to those folks who gave the ultimate price. We are talking to Chad Robichaux. His new military thriller book is called *Riptide*.

I know for me, my reading usually consists of nerdy business books or self-help. It's fine; it all has a place. But you know what? Don't forget, reading is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be good, and if it's been a while since you've just dove into a really fun, engaging, intense thriller, this is the one. Because it is fiction, but only a little bit fiction, as we're learning from Chad. We are going to step aside for just a moment, but then we will be right back.

Hello, this is Pastor Jerry Kupperys again, and I'd like to take a moment to ask you to pray for and give to Key Life. When you pray, ask for wisdom and blessings and that Key Life will continue to spread the message of God's grace for many, many years to come. And if you can give, please give as generously as you are able. And you know that we will be faithful with every gift, big or small. Thank you.

When Christ promised we could live life to the full, He didn't just mean eventually in heaven. Because Jesus didn't come to save us from our humanity, but to restore it. Life with a capital L, find it now at keylife.org/store.

What if you could start your day by hanging out in God's Word and with some of the most significant theologians, authors, and pastors ever? That's the idea behind the one-year devotional, *God With Us*. Find it now at keylife.org/store.

Thanks for spending time with us here on Steve Brown, Etc. By the way, we have a weekly email that goes out every Monday, 9:00, 9:30. I should know which one that is; I put it together. It's called Key Life Connection. It has great articles from Steve and other voices of Key Life. If you just need a Monday morning reminder that God loves you, His grace is sufficient, and it's going to be okay, check it out. Go to keylife.org/subscribe. It's a free email, and I think you'll like it a lot.

Cathy Wyatt: Chad, I would like for you to tell us about Mighty Oaks Foundation, which I think is really, really important for people to know about. But just a brief before you do that, just really briefly, I have a family member who recently, a young man, 18 years old, who decided to enlist. And his older brother was so impressed by the fact that his younger brother did this that he turned around two months later and enlisted as well. What do you say to young men and women at this point in time who are considering possibly serving?

Matthew Porter: And if I can tag onto that, what do you say to them and what do you say to their parents?

Chad Robichaux: Well, we just came out of the lowest morale I've ever seen in 30 years under the Biden-Harris administration. What Obama did to our military during the social experiments, it just crushed the morale. COVID destroyed the focus of our military and a focus on what Pete Hegseth says, lethality and mission.

So the military was so... the morale was so bad that we lost all of our 20-year Global War on Terror wartime fighters. The retention was terrible. The recruiting was the lowest since Vietnam. In two years with the new Commander in Chief being President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, whom I'm friends with, coming in and focusing on morale, recruitment, and retention, it's turned it around to probably the highest morale I've ever seen.

I can say that personally. I have a family that's served from World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, myself in Afghanistan, my son in Afghanistan, both my sons in the Marine Corps. Both my sons are right now looking at re-enlisting in the Marine Corps. They had got out; they were Marines and they got out because of what's going on in the military right now. So I can say that very personally.

We have the highest recruitment in 15 years and the most retention in 15 years. What that does is it drives up the entry-level standards. So now you're getting the best and brightest. The recruiters aren't... the standards aren't lower where they're having to pick from the bottom of the barrel because no one wants to go. You're getting the best and brightest our nation has serving our military. There's no better time than right now to serve.

Regardless of what people think about... I trust the Commander in Chief and I trust the Secretary of where our troops are being deployed, how they're being used, and that we're not going to be in any endless long, pointless wars. They're going to be supported when they go to actually have a plan and strategy to win and then exit, come home.

Cathy Wyatt: Okay, so tell us about Mighty Oaks.

Chad Robichaux: So Mighty Oaks, like most great ministries, came out of the personal story of someone, and that's me. I'm the first person to go through it. I fell on my face, and someone lifted me up, led me to encounter Jesus after I came home and dealt with debilitating panic attacks, anxiety, depression, a suicide attempt. I had this radical encounter with Jesus. My life was transformed, and not only did I find hope and restoration, but God gave me a new purpose.

That purpose manifested in a deep burden in my heart to pay that forward. So I fell down, I got back up, I helped the next guy, and that guy helped the next guy, and that guy helped the next guy. On and on it's gone for the last 15 years. We've served over half a million active duty service members, veterans, and first responders. We do recovery programs for people dealing with life issues such as PTSD, suicide ideation, all these different problems that our military and first responder communities deal with.

We've had about 7,000 people go through our recovery programs and about 600,000 actually through our resiliency programs. We even have a lot of our alumni get involved in our international operations. We do a lot of advocacy in D.C. President Trump had appointed me to be a Chairman of the White House's Faith-Based Coalition for Veteran Affairs. All this is taking place through Mighty Oaks.

We do about $8 million a year in programming, 100% free to all of our warriors. So it's a great thing to support if people want to support a great faith-based 501(c)(3) program for veterans and first responders. Look, I deal a lot with the VA. The VA can heal the body and they can heal the mind, but until you heal someone's soul, they're never truly going to be well. We know that to be the answer, and the government's not going to do that. And so we are.

If any veteran or first responder is listening, go on Mighty Oaks' website, mightyoaksprograms.org, and take the step to get the help that you not only need but deserve. That message to them is you're not alone, and you don't need to be alone. There are people there that love you and care for you, especially in this country. Our nation loves you. That's what we do at Mighty Oaks.

Through Mighty Oaks, we've done tons of the Afghanistan rescue operation, *Saving Aziz*, where God did a miracle and rescued 17,000 people. I work with an organization called Heroes for Humanity where we just do rescues and all kinds of stuff around the world. It launched the speaking and these books and other great things, my podcast, *The Resilience Show*. It tells a lot of these stories. So the birth of Mighty Oaks created opportunities for all these other just amazing things that not only me but some amazing other warriors that have found that same hope and redemption have used to just pay it forward to not only our own community but the world around us.

Matthew Porter: That's good stuff. You know, it's funny, we all have times where we're just down and just kind of in a fetal position and need help and need to ask somebody for help. But I imagine it's a slightly unique situation for military and first responders whose whole mentality and makeup is helping other people, for them to be able to get to a point of, "Hey, I need help, and I need to be okay with asking for help." That feels like it could be a potential hurdle to get over, and you're helping them do that.

Chad Robichaux: It is. And that's why it's really done well on a peer-to-peer level. All of our instructors, most of the people involved in our program, all of our instructors are alumni. We've brought them to a place of healing and then discipled them through our leadership process to be a team leader in our program. It's very much a discipleship program. It's been amazing to see them not only get well, but be in a position to help others.

That's what we're called to do, right? We're not just called to get well. When we do, we have to turn around and pay it forward. That's why the program has grown so quickly and so powerfully because you're creating ambassadors through the process itself. We tell them right when they get there, "Good job coming here, taking that step to come. But you're not just in a position to get well; you need to be in a position to turn around and pay it forward. You need to get well so that you can be part of helping your own community." Right away they latch onto that. They're mission-oriented people, and they want to serve. They just need to get back in a position to serve.

Matthew Porter: That's good stuff. Well, we've been talking to Chad Robichaux about his book, but about a whole bunch of things. I feel like we could fill another hour easily. The name of the book, just to take care of housekeeping, is called *Riptide*. It's a gripping and fact-based military thriller. You're going to love it; you're going to love Foster Quinn. Check out the book that came before this, *Silent Horizons*. That's the one before this, correct?

Chad Robichaux: That's right.

Matthew Porter: Okay. And then be on the lookout; Chad has broken the news here already: the third one is already written. So dive into this series. But also, check out chadrobichaux.com. So many great authors we talk to, but the work he's doing is really making a difference in literally thousands and tens of thousands of lives. Chad, we sure appreciate you being with us, man.

Chad Robichaux: I will say one more thing. The audiobook, Ray Porter is the best audiobook reader in this space, and we just won Audio Award for book one. So check out the audiobook too.

Matthew Porter: You got to respect another Porter. So check it out. Guys, we have one more segment still to go, and I hope you'll stick around with us. You are listening to Steve Brown, Etc., and we will be right back.

This is Pete Alvinson, and if you're a guy, I want to show you how to recover and reclaim an intimate, growing relationship with your heavenly Father. Check out *Like Father, Like Son: How Knowing God as Father Changes Men*. Available now at keylife.org/store.

Believer, I want you to remember that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. And you will run out of sin before God runs out of grace. Grace, the real good news of the Gospel, find it now on keylife.org/store.

And thanks for spending an hour with us here on Steve Brown, Etc. Hey, and just in case you didn't know, the Key Life print magazine is now out and available. And what's the price? Cathy, guess the price.

Cathy Wyatt: Free.

Matthew Porter: You got it.

George Bingham: I was going to guess ten bucks at least.

Matthew Porter: Easily worth $10. Free, it will even cover postage. So a lot of great articles in here by Steve and other voices of Key Life. Go to keylife.org/freemagazine to get in on that. How about Chad, right? I feel like mentally, for me as a man, he does all these great things, I need another shoe to drop. I need to hear like, "Oh, you talked to Chad Robichaux. I don't know if you know this, but on Fridays he wears a tiara and makes everybody call him Wanda." I'm like, "Oh, well, okay. I guess we're pretty much on the... that washes; we're the same." No, that's not the case. He does so many things.

Cathy Wyatt: You've never really gotten over flunking out of Boy Scouts, have you?

Matthew Porter: I tell you what, dude, I need to talk to somebody, get this ironed out mentally. Maybe there's an equivalent Mighty Oaks for, you know, former Boy Scouts. "Yeah, this is our division that handles underachievers. Gifted kids who never really made good on their potential." How about, though, so many different areas that he's in?

George Bingham: You ask him about what's your opinion on this, and he says, "Well, I was there when..." and "I saw it first hand," and "I was involved with..." It's an amazing, amazing story.

Matthew Porter: Yeah, we were talking off air about different political views and getting into politics. And there's room for a spectrum of different political views. But when he weighs in, you're like, "Oh, I completely disagree." "Cool, cool, cool. Tell me a little bit about where you're coming from on this," because I'll tell you where he came from. He got the dirt on his shoes from being there. Good stuff. Check it out; Chad Robichaux, the novel is *Riptide*. Cathy, who do we have next week?

Cathy Wyatt: Next week, our friend Scott McKnight, who's been with us before, and he also has a co-writer, Adrienne Gibson. And here we go with another of the world's longest book titles: *Traumatized Church: What Paul's Relationship with the Corinthian Church Teaches Us About Helping Those Who Are Hurting*. End of title.

Matthew Porter: Wow. Cathy, I don't know if a walker helped, but we have a back... yeah, we're going to need a longer program next week. Tune in for that; that's going to be really interesting. Thanks for joining us today, and we'll see you next week. Until then, remember: be safe, stay dangerous.