Richard is a Marine veteran who was subject to 4 IED explosions and concussions in Iraq, his best friend being killed next to him, a traumatic brain injury, and post traumatic stress. He came home dealing with a lot and the arts ultimately saved his life. Richard felt called to bring this secret weapon of healing to his fellow veterans and this year alone his nonprofit CreatiVets will serve over 800 veterans!
I only told was able to tell my story through song because I met a guy at a bar who's doing a writer's round and he has nine number one hits. I think he wrote Alan Jackson's first number one here in the Free World. And I said, Hey, I've been trying to tell my story through song for a year and I just can't write. I can't put Luke on a pedestal he needs to be on. If I come to you in Nashville, just drive down there, will you sit with me and help me tell my story? Because there's got to be easier way to do this than me trying on my own. You obviously doing this for a living. And he said yeah to me and nobody from Chicago just like okay, And I didn't know how big of a deal.
That actually was.
Two months later, I come down there and we write a song and a half in like three hours. So the first hour and a half we had a song, and I'm sitting here, I've been trying this for a whole year and you took my words and put it in a song an hour and a half.
This is insane.
So now that experience on top of me graduating and being like I'm almost back to normal. Was like, how do I now just bring veterans to Nashville to tell their story because it absolutely saved my life.
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And the last part, somehow it led to an oscar for the film about our team, it's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather an army of normal folks, US just you and me deciding, hey, maybe I can help. That's what Richard Casper, the voice we just heard is done. Richard is a marine who served in a rock and was subject to four ied explosions and concussions and his best friend being shot and killed literally right next to him. He came home dealing with a lot physically, mentally and emotionally, and art and music helped him heal and ultimately it saved his life. Richard felt called to bring the secret weapon of healing to his fellow veterans and this year alone, his nonprofit Creative Thats will serve over eight hundred veterans and they've helped save countless lives. I cannot wait for you to meet Richard right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Richard Casper, Welcome to Memphis.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Thanks for driving down. Was it raining a little bit?
It wasn't too much?
Yeah, but what three hour drive?
Yeah?
Yeah?
Richard Casper now from Nashville, but originally from a place called Washburn. I feel like that's like a he haw salute.
It's a small I mean, it's eleven hundred people and it's a farming community and it's just we have a highway running through it. But like nobody's ever on the highway. We had one police officer and a lot of times they were off like they just have a shift, Like, hey, we'll be here on the weekends. So if you got into trouble, which we did, they have to call the State ride to come up. And you knew it was gonna be forty five minutes for anybody got there.
What did your dad did?
So he was a truck driver.
When I was born, we lived in East Peoria area, which is obviously bigger, and then they moved out to Washburn. I don't know why, just to get away. We grew up on food stands, very poor family, where my mom was working for like a grocery store, and then finally got into Metamore Woodworking, which is owned by Hallmark. Worked there for twenty five years because she didn't have a degree or anything. My dad didn't have a degree. He was in the Navy prior, but he was just a long haul truck driver. And so we found a really really cheap spot because I have four three siblings and so there's six of us in one little house, three bedroom house with a lot of space, and so they just want to move out to the country. And I don't know how they found Washburn, because I.
Know anybody Washburne, Illinois. I feel like it's like the place with one street light or one four way stop or whatever.
No stop, no stoplights at all, like you legit, it's six churches, two bars.
No.
Well, now we just got a dollar general for that was the first one ever two years ago. But yeah, it was there was nothing. It's one square mile by one. It's one square mile one by one.
So your high school must have been small.
Twenty two kids in my graduating class.
I was prom king they even have a football team.
We had in my sophomore year we had a co op with like five other schools, which was funny story because they put us in a whole nother division that we shouldn't even have been in because it was like they took the calculation of all the schools students, but they didn't take in a calculation that it's five schools and they're getting like two people over here, two people over here. So I was every single kicker and tight end and defensive end on both the defense and offense.
So uh so that's a bunch of kids you didn't go to school.
Yeah, one hundred percent.
And so in my sophomore years when we finally got football, and I was the first time, and I think since then they disbanded it too.
Wow. So rule, yeah, very rule. You know in the forties, that meant church kids around the supper table, eating, a working mom or a working dad, a mom at home mending clothes, and not much money, but you know, kind of a wholesome family upbringing. Somehow in our world that has morphed to communities that have a lot of hopelessness, typically alcoholism and drug use and a lot of loss. The you know, one big manufacturing plant that everybody went to work at. Those don't really exist in a lot of places and have left a vacuum of hope and income. And I'm curious, is that Washburn?
Yeah, I mean we never had that big company come in to Washburn, but it was fifteen minute drive, thirty minute drive to Metamora. Like even my mom, she worked for Hallmark technically under that Metamora woodworking, which took every single cardholder plastics they melt down and turn it into the cardholders that you see in Walmart and everything they made and produce those. But after twenty five years of her working there, they just got rid of her job, and so then she didn't have anything, and so she had to go to a agency where now she's getting paid twelve bucks an hour to work at another factory forty five minutes away just because there's no opportunity there. So it was a very very small, very no opportunities. Nobody gets out. They just stay there and the only way to succeed is to get out.
So coming up, were you surrounded by alcohol and drugs and stuff that seems to permeate our rural communities.
So my dad, he's one of eleven, by the way, every one of them owned a bar, worked at a bar, drank at He was like a long haul truck driver. But then a week and she just goes to the bar. And so like we didn't see him much. There's times where I would like come out for school and his truck would be running and he'd be in the pastor seat just passed out, and I'm like going off to school and I'd see like his side mirrors broken, and I just we didn't know how he made it home, but he made it home from the bar that night. So that ran rampant. Then my three siblings, all older and me, been to prison and jailing, my sister just everything from drug there's there's a lot of that little city thing that kind of it wasn't just our surroundings. But we moved to that town and I was in kindergarten. We moved there and my brother, his name's Elvis, very long hair hair, Elvis Elvis Aaron Presley Marlowe. So he's my half brother. But yeah, they love his dad. His dad loved Elvis a lot, that's all. He was like a one legged Italian man that my mom meant hitch hiking. It was crazy, ended up having Yeah, that's a whole another story.
You didn't have my mom.
On one legged Yeah, Italian loved My mom was hitchhiking and I think when she met him and then but she's.
One legged Italian guy. Yeah, and had a child and named him Elvis Elvis.
Aaron Presley and then his last name was Marlowe, so he kept the marlow name.
And that's your oldest brother.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, but as you can imagine now going to a small town like Washburn, and he was I don't know what he's born in seventy eight. I don't know what grade he was at when we got their second, third, fourth, fifth, whatever it was. He was now like extremely bullied for where he was. We were the outcre We were so poor, like again, grew up food stands. We had trash all over our yard like most poor families do. Like we had all of our stuff. He had a dirt bike too that we could ride around. We had three and a half acres and we lived in town. That's how small it was. And so the community fought against him, and then he fought against them, and that led to a whole dispute with police, and then it went into the drugs and the rebellion and then all three siblings. Because my mom and dad didn't do drugs, my dad heavily drake. My mom is a saint. She cold turkey quit smoking after twenty five years or so. She cold turkey quit alcohol everything when she was starting to have kids. And she knew the smoking bothered me too because I was still small when she was smoking. She quit that and so it was awesome. And my dad never did drugs that I know of, but my siblings got heavily into drugs and just rebellion. And I still remember on my second oldest brother was on house arrest and that was back when he's still in high school. And so they have an automated system call you and be like delaware and you have to say Delaware back, and so because he'd have to go, they had to prove that he's in the house because they have an audio recording. But he'd have me do it sometimes because it worked. He tested out it, because you can do it a.
Few times, you sit here and say.
Yeah, he tested it first time. Just make sure because if you say it wrong or in different where if someone else gets on there, it usually catches it and it says can you repeat that? But I tried a few times and it worked. It was bad technology back then, and he'd just go out and he'd be like, hey, can you pick up this phone.
But they're also dealers and stuff.
So at seven years old, I was holding like a pound of marijuana like in her basement, just like, oh.
This is cool.
And they're trying to push me to become a dealer because they knew I didn't smoke or anything like that. So if you make more money if you do this because you don't actually use the product.
How in the world did you not end up in that?
That's crazy?
I mean, I would say looking back, I was so aware at such a young age, like as we were growing up and I see see my siblings not graduating high school, I see my family not being successful, especially out of my dad's side. All eleven never they even joined Most of the men joined the military, came back and still never did anything with their life. And I was like, well, there's one trait that they all have is they drink alcohol or they do drugs. So I was like, I'm not ever going to drink alcohol, and to this day, I've never even taste of beer.
And it was around that. It wasn't a religious reason.
It was just because I was like, maybe if I don't do what they're doing, I'll be successful. And that was just a gamble I took and it seemed to pay off, you know.
Kind Of an interesting side commentary is if people were seeing you, they would see the six foot three or four, probably five, who's six foot five dude who looked like it looks like you jumped off of a Norman Rockwell family portrait. You got the nice cropped hair, the little swoopover, good looking guy, big smile. But your story is not at all dissimilar from many stories, or your upbringing is not at all dissimilar from many stories we talk about coming from urban black communities. And I think the interesting narrative is it serves as a really important reminder to us that drugs and problems with it and everything else is not a racial issue. It's a socioeconomic issue. And you've said how poor you were on food stamps, and unfortunately the truth is poverty and dysfunction lead to jail and problems in people's lives, regardless of if you're white. From Washburnilla Moy which I assume is a pretty much all white area. Oh yeah, to some urban area in Chicago or Memphis.
Yeah, one Sicilian family, one Mexican family, then all white. And that's where growing up too, I was like, man, it was it was all the poor people. That was kind of like getting into it and getting and then it's a back and forth too, because police can take advantage of that too, because they know you're not you don't have a big time family lawyer or something that's gonna stop you from doing stuff. Like my sister got pulled over in the middle of the town. She ended up losing her job because the cop said he thought she was speeding, But then he had the dogs come in to sniffer vehicle because they knew, you know, my family had drug issues, at least my siblings did, my older brothers, and so they came with the dog. Took like fifty minutes to get there, forty five or so it stepped and now she got fired from work because she couldn't get to work on time, all because they thought she was driving and there was many of that happening. I watched my brother get peppers rate in our house from a cop double handcuffing for no reason.
It just like dis abuse.
Honestly, Once again an interesting reminder and commentary on it really isn't a racial thing. It's a socioeconomic thing, including poor police work and the things that we are struggling with in our culture today. Oh yeah, and you live that as a kid, as a sober kid watching your family.
Yeah, well, even understanding money back then too, Like I understand my dad was. I still love it and everything, but he's trying to like buy my love. So if he was gone for a week truck driving in the bar, he'd come over and be like, here's ten bucks. But I knew we were poor, so I never wanted to take the money. And there was times too where my mom would forget to put out money for lunch at school, and I remember like being across from another kid, like imagining what would be like to have food because I was so hungry, Like I remember, how.
Do you learn in that kind of environment?
I mean I was, I didn't really learn. I mean I learned a lot about life through process, But talk about education, it wasn't good, Like I didn't have a respect for education either, because even I took I remember taking a college ish English class where if I just paid like fifty bucks, i'd get college credits. I was like, I'm not going to college, Like I'm never going to do that, Like that's stupid.
Why would I go to college?
Like nobody around me went to college. I figured I was just going to a military for twenty years and get out. That was my only only route to it. And I started rebel a little bit too, not rebelling in a way that was anti like you know, police and everything. It was more comedy. I would do some stupid crap. That's why I was class clown and everything, and just I loved making people happy and entertaining people. But I didn't really put anything on education. And when I talk now, it's funny because I was last in my class.
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I'd be a good reverse motivational speaker, be like, look what you can do, be last in your class and still I know.
And because I didn't put anything on education.
On learning, I mean, nine to eleven also happened when I was in high school, so we had to grow up a lot faster than most people. Being like a junior in high school. When that happened, you had to start learning history and what's about to happen. But other than that, I didn't respect education and I didn't get a very good education.
It's interesting, and I think, just as a side note, looking at you and hearing your story, frankly, is no different than listening to stories of many people were interviewed from a completely different area of the world, but saying the exact same things, which speaks to the work we need to do socioeconomically with poverty if we're ever gonna break the quote cycle.
Yeah, I mean, and honestly, it almost starts with a good breakfast. I think about that all the time, like if I would, because they talk about how just a really good healthy breakfast, we'll set your tone for the rest of your day. You can learn better, you have like better mood and everything. In most of these economic places, it's either your mom's working like two or three jobs and she's like my mom did, I think third shifts for a long time too, And so you're waking up fitting for yourself and you're just kind of like, I'm not gonna cook anything or I'm gonna eat crap, and then you just go to school. And that's a part of the problem, and maybe not even exactly. And imagine if just the world has just fed a really good, healthy breakfast every morning and then they went out, because at least you still have all your issues, but you're going into it with a healthy mind and able to actually retain some of that.
But that's established. So now you're graduating high school and what's that barely barely? Now they're giving you a diploma to get out of high school. And I think it was your sophomore junior. You graduate in two thousand and three, so your sophomore junior was not eleven. And that's really probably the only thing that happened for you in high school that was an awakening, I guess, is that right?
So, I mean, I knew after my dad served, I knew that just to get out of the town and we didn't have money, I'm going to join the military. But I also had this deep like need to serve the military. It wasn't just because it was a way out. It was I just had this I want to serve my fellow people. I want to serve my country. So for the longest time, I just didn't know what I wanted to be in the military and didn't know what job I wanted to do, and I just kind of like, Okay, I'm gonna be military. But when nine to eleven hit and I started asking people and what what was happening and how do I get over there? First it all led back to Marine Corps, Infantry. Hey, their first one's in, they settle, they go it through there, the Army takes over, they come back out, and so I was like, sweet, I'm gonna go Marine Corps. And when I went to the recruiter again, I was still military dumb. I thought all everyone is army, you know, they always talk about it. People say soldiers and they think it's everyone.
Really it's army is a general term for the military. So people say, I'm going to the army, and that could be a force.
Yeah, but then when you're in the military, it's so far different that you don't You wouldn't tell me I'm in the army, and I'd be super mad if you did.
And soldiers are.
Army, Marines or Marines, airmen or Air Force squids or Navy. No, yea, there's a lot of different names for different branches, and we're very much like But I didn't know who sit what jobs.
I didn't know who did.
What, And so when I went to the Marine Corps recruiter, they were just like, you know, for one, you're seventeen, so you have to have your parents sign this. And imagine in two thousand two trying to get your parents to sign something two thousand and one.
Actually you're going the military. You're probably going to a rock Afghanis And.
So my moms were like, nah, my mom and dad knew that, and they told me at first they wouldn't sign early. And so I became a good negotiator and I said, well, if you sign now, I get a whole year of training with the debt program that the Marine Corps does, And so I'll do every month I go there, we train, we run, we learn everything. If you don't sign when I'm eighteen, I'm signing now. You want me to go to the Marine Corps of War like without knowing anything. So they thought it was smarter to sign me up now so I could like get the training ahead of time, and and so I went in there and said that and they said okay, they signed signed it.
And then when I was.
Looking for my job, I was just based off the recruiters were like, hey, you want to be a combat engineer.
I was like, what do they do?
Like build stuff and blow it up. I was like, yeah, let's do that. And then I'm sitting next to these other two kids and I'm like, what do you guys doing. They're like infantry and I'm like what's that and they're like, that's wheally kicking in the doors. I was like, no, sign me up for this. This is what I I signed up for, Like I want to go. I want to do this. I wanted like the best chance to go serve my country, and I remember we when not of them first happened, I didn't know who did it. Nobody really knew what was happening. And so I was already writing reports on Saddam husaying on how evil of a person he was. So I was like, okay, if it was Saddam, like, why can't I be the one who catches him? Like I knew I wasn't going to be, but I feel like optimism is a superpower these days, and so I just said, if I could believe that I could be the one, I'm going to be a lot more successful. And so I was like, how do how would I do that? If I wanted to be that? Okay, Marine Corps infantry be the first one overseas. So that's that's kind of how I started my journey in the Marine Corps.
You're preparing to go kick indoors and collect Saddam Hussein for your country. Yeah, and then they start testing.
This was something I didn't know existed. I go to boot camp and.
By the way, until I read your story, I didn't know it existed. It's interesting. Yeah, I can't wait to share this with our listeners.
So I, well, I was always told by other old Marines like, you don't want to be on a list in boot camp, Like just go there, keep your head down and just do it.
Don't You don't want to be on a list a list.
Yeah, you don't want to. You don't want the drum stection. You know your name.
There's like eighty marines in there, like, don't don't volunteer first. This is like a smart It wasn't like the normal marine who's like, yeah, you should be guide, you should be squad.
Leader, and they're like okay.
Then you go there and you know, it's just straight punishment for being that in those roles that don't lead to anything. And he was he was like, don't be on your list, don't like sign up.
For anything, your head down.
Hopefully three months goes by they don't know your name, like that'd be perfect case scenario. And so within like two weeks they come out and they're like Casper, and I'm like, ah, crap, I'm on a list.
And then.
And it's uh and they call me a special tester.
And so if you think that meant you were quote special.
Oh my gosh, yes, because in high school I didn't treat Again, I didn't treat treat academics like there were anything. And I knew, I knew I wasn't going to college. So when this date standardized tests was put in front of me, I was just seeing how fast I can get done with it. So I was like ce cee cee cee CEECs. Just filled in the legits and I'm done and just sit there and watch everyone else work or the class gig.
While the class was going.
And had a guy. We had a guy in our class. He literally Chris. He literally made Christmas trees out of the bubble sheets and he also somehow figured out how to make a penis on the bubble sheet and that was the standardized test. And before he turned it in, of course there wasn't phones back then now weak, but he was like showing it to people and everybody was just down laughing in the proctress and kim me that, yeah, he worse than Christmas treated he penised it.
Yeah, And that's what I That's what I did because I didn't treat it like it was anything. And then but I did one test I treated like a test, and that was the ASVAP to get into military. And so then that's why I ended up on this certain list, a special testers list, and so there's oh, you know how many in boot camp. There's like companies and each one so each one starts, like our start date was June nine, two thousand and three, and so a week later another company would start, and a week later another company of recruits would start, and so there was like three thousand and one was a whole platoon, three thousand and two was a platoon.
I was three thousand and seven. That's my platoon.
So there's eighty people. I'm not going to math eighty people in each platoon. That's how many Marines are in one thing. And then they took everyone who was in boot camp at that time, and so I don't know. I always say a number, but I don't know if it's actually true. But as anywhere between probably one hundred and four hundred marines that were on that first sheet of special testers.
And we just go.
They just pull us out every once in a while, and there's probably like twelve from my my platoon specifically, they just pull us out. We go meet with like a bunch of people, just random people like are you an apple or you orange? Kind of people like where you fill out a questionnaire and they're like, hey, this is your kind of thing. But then asking questions like do you talk in your sleep? Do your parents ever go out of the country. It was always super weird. And so then we just go back to normal training like that never happened. And then all of a sudden we get I'd call back Rich You're Casper, like you're going to this thing again, and I'd go, and it's less and less marines each time. And I always joke when I get my big talks, I'm like, what's that happened to already killing them? Like they get taken them there, like getting rid of some of them, pulling them back like in my own a survival game.
Uh.
And then ends up we do this transition from MCRD, which is the Marine Recruit Depot in San Diego, and we do four weeks at Camp Pendleton, like on the actual base for training. And I still remember we were up there. I'm like, thank you for being in the special tester thing because we're about to go up on this huge mountain and you dig in It was a whole like thing you had to do during boot camp to dig a fighting hole.
They teach you how to dig a fighting hole.
But it was in like that bed rock mountain and they only give you those small e tools and it's you and a buddy who are just like digging this thing out. You have to be able to sit in there. You have to have a shock, a grenade something there. It's just a horrible like nobody's looking forward to it. And on the way up and we start digging and they pulled me off the mountain. I'm like, sorry, buddy, good luck, got to go do some test, dude.
I get to go answer about my favorite cap YEP.
And so we go down there, and this time it was a one on one interview with a gunnery sergeant or first sergeant. And at this level, being like a recruit, you see them as like the President of United States, vice president. You're you think like, oh my gosh, I had to go in there and talk to them, like every my whole career rides on this, and you didn't know at first what you're a pitching tour. So they brought us all the room. There's only twenty of us left, roughly twenty of us left. And that's where before they tell it first, they tell us you're gonna you have to do an interview with these people. But here's what you're interviewing for. You guys are either gonna guard you're gonna guard the President of the United States, either at Camp David or Bowing Air Force Base for uh, what do they call it. It's Camp David or White House Communications. And we were just like, what, like, this is the actual job. And now they put us in. So if we weren't nervous enough to do like the whole six inches from the table, go in their salute and say, you know, good morning, good sergeant, blah blah, and they ask you a bunch of questions while you're in parade rest. It's like, we're already nervous. Now they're like, oh, and you're this this job's on the line. You don't have it yet. Here's the job. Now go talk with them and see if you get the job. And so talk about just like a crazy time.
And so we go in there.
I don't wrong way from Washburn.
Yeah, and I blacked out during the cow I don't know what I said.
I don't really remember it.
I just came out of it and like, I'm probably not gonna get that.
We'll be right back.
And then later on they said I was selected for I got. I got Yankee. They call it Yankee white, and it sounds so fake when I tell people. When I first started telling people, I was like, yeah, Yankee white security clearance, Like who made who wrote that down? Is like a good idea for security clearance. But if you google it, go to Wikipedia, it's Yankee Yankee white category one. It's like the president, Yankee white. Category two is a bunch of other people, Yankee white category three, and then top secret like those are three above.
So I was Yankee white.
Category two because I could hold a loaded weapon next to the President, and so I.
Had to go that's clearance.
Yeah, And so I had to go through that problems. And so once I was selected, I was like, there's no way I'm gonna actually get it because you're not promised the spot there.
You still have to do.
It's anywhere from like it could be five months all the way up to like you're never going to get your clearance because they get to go back to your hometown to Washburn and start talking to people. And so I was like, oh crab, Oh well we'll see what happens. Like put in God's hands, I'll just go. So two thousand and three November, I'm going to the School of Infantry, which every Marine has to do. And so if you remember, in two thousand and three was the first push on Fallujah two. So I'm in the School of Infantry. My last name is Casper, so like the ghost, no relation c aspr. So I have Cartwright, who's right here, car, I have Cherry who's over here, Horn who's down here. Like they just do it alphabetically, and so these are like my my s y mates. Everyone has to learn infantry. If your infantry, you go to two months of this and then from there they decide where you go out to. And so we knew that we were the boot class, like the ones who were going to be in that purse first push for Fallujah, and we knew there's gonna be a lot of death, but I just didn't know how much death. But like everyone I just mentioned died because they were the first ones over there. And they always put the boots to and I say boots because it's like the new that's what we call our new new guys, new recruits as boots fresh suede. And so they're kicking in the door. So's the first one in the door, so so many ever, there'd be phone calls like, hey, Longoria just died, Hey Horn just died.
Hey this, And I'm just sitting here. And I didn't know you.
Could have survivor guilt without even going to war, because you know, you go over there, you come back, and then friends die and you have survivor guilt. I was having survivor guilt before I even went, because all the friends I thought, I was going on this you're going to war trajectory. And when I graduated shy, I went Camp David Route, I went to North Carolina to do security for school training while I was waiting for my clearance, and then i'd go to Washington, d C. At eighth and I had to wait for my clearance again and just stand posts until they told me I could go to Camp David or the White House. And throughout that whole eleven month process, it was like this person died, this person died. I just didn't want to didn't want to hear it anymore.
You just feel like you were letting down your your guys, your comrades, oh, because they were over there kicking indoors, fighting, don sweat and bleeding and you're hanging around d C. I mean that's what the goat was about.
Yeah, well, I thought I was letting down myself too, Like didn't I make the right show? I could have probably if I've really fought not went to Camp David and had this cushy job and maybe my trajectory was to go die in war.
And she felt like you were losing credibility as a marine that.
Too, And because when the process came to I now am in d C and eleven months goes by after just sitting there on security forever, which has its own bunch of funny stories. When you're on post for twelve hours straight with other Marines, it's crazy.
But that's a whole other podcast.
When it finally came down and I chose Camp David because it's in the country, I was just like, this is awesome. I feel like it's more like you're more around the president. It's like more intimate. I went to Camp David and there was a process and we could talk about Camp David, but there's a fourteen months hit and they're like, Okay, you can stay up here now if you want the rest of your Marine Corps career. You don't have to leave, but we'll give you the option. Because we're short on marines up here, and I had to choose to leave. I just said there's no way because I had so much guilt that I should be going over there.
And I found the president.
Yeah there was probably was it Bush George w And so I got to meet his dad and him, and so there's a lot of They don't want you to be seen while you're up there, but during church and other services, you're in church with him. Because there's only one church there. They don't not make you, let you not go to church because of it. And so you'd interact with him every once in a while. And then on Christmas though, he'd bring up his whole family, so his dad, his brother's, every like her family, his family camp.
They spent Christmas at Camp.
Every Christmas because they didn't want a lot of things was they didn't want to spend all that money going other places. And then they said, well, you know, the base is already secured, we don't have to. They wanted their Secret Service to have off. They wanted to have a lot of people have off for Christmas, and they knew the base was guarded by marines, and so that if.
They selfless, so a guy could go anywhere he wants to.
Yeah, every single Christmas. And what he did too was took photos with every single person on base, no matter what branch you were, whether you're just someone that had to come up there every once.
In a while.
He'd spend the whole day him and Laura. I have like five photos with him only because at Christmas time he'd just sit there in the chow hall, small chow hal. Every single person on base would get photos with him, and they sent Christmas cards with the photos.
Would you address him, mister president?
Oh, I know, but you're No, you're but you're the squared away marine charged with protecting him. You had to be a little bit.
Well, we were protecting the base. And so when I say Garden the President, it was actually Garden Camp David and so him when he was there.
Sure a marine from Washburnollo, NOI And all of a sudden, now you're with the president on Christmas. I mean, I guess what I'm saying is what was that like?
I don't know kind of it was.
I tried to reflect back then on how I felt. I thought it was a really cool cool job to have, and I thought it was a cool story to tell my kids one day, but I didn't.
I don't know.
I don't hold a lot of people at a higher even now in the music industry, like the people I could just hit up and call and talk to you. I don't feel like they're above me or below me. I just feel like they're humans and that I could relate to him. So I love I love that the status that he was at, but I didn't really treat it as if like, oh my god, it's it's the president. And I've never really felt that way with anybody, and so it was just.
More of like that way with Alex the producer, just yeah, yeah, yeah, only Alex.
Yeah.
But it was just it was awesome experience and to be up there. But there was a funny time during two times. One time for Christmas, I was the bell ringer, So there's only one marine that gets to do it. You dress up in your dress blues, and that means you're guaranteed to interact with the president his family because I made my dress blues. And when he's coming into church, I get to ring the bell as a president comes in and be like, you know, Merry Christmas President.
And then since his father was there too.
Then it's like, you know, Mery Christmas President twice and I'm just gonna meet the whole family. They thank me and they walk in because other than that, you're supposed to be in church before the president arrives. And this is so not around Christmas. And this is back in the day too, where phones didn't have camera. A lot of Pune some phones had cameras, but you weren't even allowed as a marine to have a camera on base. Nobody was, and so nobody knows the public wasn't allowed in. No cameras were allowed in. These are like you're meeting them who they are intimately, what type of people they are. And so when we're in church and we look up and there there's Gida there with his little kid, and.
He's like, look at the marine's back.
There no dancing with him. What he liked when nobody's watching, was he really affable?
And yeah, like he'd come in there. Yeah.
And there's another time where they were like, you have to and this is when I first got to Camp David. You had to be seated before he got in there. And so every marine goes up early. We set up a little bit higher in the back, and me and my buddy were running so late and we come in there and the Major of the base, who's the highest ranking person up there, and then the president were right there. We're like, we ran in, we thought we're gonna be in time, we weren't, and we're just and we just kind of froze. And then the major just like because he knew weren'tupposed to be there, he's like, come on, guys, we're like, oh, mer Christmas president or it wasn't Christmas time. He's like he if it's a president, it was like right upstairs, like.
We're gonna get in trouble or something.
By the way, while I was up there in there, this is this is time. I never really told anybody outside of there because it just I remember being the spot. So you know how they have they have bibles at church and you can take the Bibles with you and all that. So Camp Dave was no no doubt. They always stocked books and bibles there she could take with you. And I like, I grab mine and I open it up and it says property of William Clinton. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna take this bible. I got that bible, but it was broke Clinton's from Camp David.
But you stole I did not.
I took this because it's it's a bible at church. You're allowed to take bibles at church, and it was back there. Reset It's the same as every other bible. So it was like it was made for him while he was president. Obviously, so I think George Obama, everyone has a Bible that's made for them, whether they use it or not. They most likely have their own. So, but it was the one that just had the little placard. It didn't have a signature that it legitimately just says like President Bill Clinton or so.
Have you gone through every page of that? You might find Monel and whisk He's phone number scribbled in it somewhere. You never know. I'll shake out. Yeah, I want to check it out.
What you get?
Okay?
I wanted people to know you could take bibles from church.
So you're having this incredible experience at Camp David, but you also are really fighting survivors guilt and guilt about not serving. And when they ask you to stay, you say, thank you, mister President, thank you, mister major thank you United States. I'm going to serve.
Yeah.
It was my first sergeant who was like, just gave me that option, just like hey, by the way, we let my other buddy cow and like I think it was counting.
Did you know you were leaving one of the coolest jobs in the world to go risk your life.
I mean that's yeah, because this is you're living at Camp David at President's Retreat. Although it wasn't our living standards weren't joy nervous. We still had roommates in very small rooms, one shower, and like it wasn't the best of the best, but it was still a great community.
But I just had to get out of there. It was that what we go back to.
When you asked if I felt guilty about not serving or however you you've said that about myself. I was like, I now know I'm not going twenty years. I'm only going four years, but I need to serve.
And that concludes part one of my conversations with Richard Casper, and you do not want to miss part too, that's now available to listen to. Richard was already serving, I mean he was protecting the president, but he means serving overseas in a Rock. We'll continue with that story and how he's now serving his band of brothers here at home in Part two. Together, guys, we can change his country, but it'll start with you. I'll see you in Part two.