Tom Rowland Podcast episode 1029 is a conversation with Jere Hartman, a retired Army Ranger who left a job at the FBI, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and later rowed a small boat from Monterey, California, to Kauai, Hawaii, with a five-man crew. He talks about the hard transition out of military life, what the trail and the ocean gave back to him, and Corsair Racing, the organization he helped build to get other veterans out on the water.
You can watch the full conversation in the player above, or press play in the player at the top of this page to listen.
Jere Hartman spent 19 years in the Army, including time as an Army Ranger, before retiring and joining the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center in Vienna, Virginia. After two years there he resigned, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and about ten years later answered a Facebook post in the Ranger community from someone looking for an ocean rowing crew. Today he coaches CrossFit in Chattanooga and is part of Corsair Racing, an organization that takes veterans ocean rowing.
Jere says going from a structured military life to a life with no structure hit him hard, and in about two years he put on close to 50 pounds and spent a lot of his time sitting in the dark. Seeing an old photo of a supervisor, and then looking at pictures of himself, made him realize he was not that guy anymore. He resigned at his two-year review and was on the trail about two months later. He tells the full story, including how he earned the trail name Clincher, in the episode.
Jere's five-man crew left Monterey, California, and landed in Kauai, Hawaii, 35 days, 6 hours, and 58 minutes later as part of the World's Toughest Row. There is no resupply on a crossing like this, so the boat carries every bit of food, and drinking water comes from an onboard desalinator. Two of the crew said they would see everyone in 35 days before they left, and they were almost exactly right.
The desalinator broke on day three. The crew rigged a workaround with help from a boat expert they reached over Starlink, but the fix meant running it for 15 minutes and letting it cool for 45, so making water became a full-time job and the crew never had quite enough for the rest of the crossing. They also hit seas of up to 30 feet in the middle of the night around day five. Jere explains how they got through both in the conversation.
Corsair Racing is the veteran organization Jere joined after the Pacific row, and its goal is building community through ocean rowing. The group flies veterans in for weekend rows, usually out of Pensacola, Florida, or Fernandina Beach during hurricane season, and some of those veterans go on to train for a full ocean crossing. Its next crew is preparing to row the Atlantic, about 3,000 miles from La Gomera to Antigua. The organization runs on donations at corsairracing.org.
Jere has had a shoulder redone, a knee replaced, and a back that gives him trouble, and he still trains and coaches CrossFit. His view is that a good coach can scale any workout so you move pain-free and get the same stimulus as everyone else in the class, and that the whole point is to keep you moving into your 70s and 80s. He and I compare notes on training, community, and the Masters age groups in the episode.
A friend of mine recommended Jere after having him on his own podcast, and once I read his story I knew I wanted to hear it firsthand. I have had a couple of other guests row across an ocean, and every one of them was former military like Jere. One of my favorite interviews of all time was with Jessica “Dixie” Mills, who quit an engineering job in an oil field to hike the Appalachian Trail because something about it kept pulling at her. Jere's story sits right between those two, and I wanted to understand what draws people like him to these long, hard efforts. Press play at the top of the page to hear it the way he tells it.
Jere went from the Army to the FBI with about a week off in between, just long enough to move to the D.C. area. On paper that sounds like a smooth transition. He describes it very differently. Without deployments and constant training, he finally had time to look at himself, and he did not like what he saw. What he says about losing that daily connection with people who speak your language is something I think a lot of veterans, and the people who love them, need to hear. He puts it better than I can write it.
Jere first noticed thru-hikers camped by a creek near Dahlonega while he was in Ranger School, beat down after a long mission. That picture stayed with him for years. When he finally got on the trail, he planned to hike without music or earbuds and just deal with himself, and that plan lasted about a week. He talks about trail magic, including six-packs of beer tied up in creeks, about losing his whole trail family for the last month and a half, and about the conversations he had with people who never served. The healing part is worth hearing in his own words.
Jere did not know anyone on his crew until about a year before the race. Three of them came together through that Facebook post, and two more joined from a team that had not raised enough money to race, after the wives got to talking at a farmers market. Before they left, the crew made a pact about how they would handle hard decisions out there, including when to put out the para anchor. I think that pact says a lot about the kind of men they are. Listen to how he explains it and why it mattered on the boat.
Around day five, in the dark, the whitecaps just kept getting higher. Jere says the fear did not really set in until afterward, when the crew looked at each other and wondered how they got through it. Every other boat in the race that year flipped at least once, and his came close twice. There were also stretches of real beauty, including weeks of glowing phosphorescence in every oar stroke and nights full of shooting stars. He describes both sides of the ocean, and I could have listened to him for another hour.
If you only listen to one part of this episode, make it the Pacific crossing. Press play in the player above, or scroll back up to watch.
I did not expect this answer. Jere says the bond from 35 days on that boat is tighter than anything he had in the service. After about 20 days of rowing next to a crewmate who barely talked, he hit a wall and had to ask for a new rowing partner. He talks about how every man broke down at some point, how the others built him back up, and why that is now the whole mission of Corsair Racing. He is also candid about other things that have helped him heal. That part of the conversation is worth hearing directly from him.
Yesterday's conversation with Jere keeps coming back to me because of how plainly he tells it. He failed out of college, joined the Army, served 19 years, hit bottom, and then kept choosing hard things that forced him to face himself. Now he spends his time helping other veterans do the same.
I want to introduce him to my friend Jimmy Armel, who does great work with veterans through fishing, and I am looking forward to having Jere out to the driveway for a workout once the new one is poured.
If you know a veteran who is struggling, send them this episode. Press play in the player at the top of this page to hear the whole conversation, and take a look at corsairracing.org if you want to help.
Jere Hartman, Corsair Racing (corsairracing.org), the World's Toughest Row, the FBI Terrorist Screening Center, the U.S. Army Rangers, Ranger School, the Appalachian Trail, Dahlonega, Jessica “Dixie” Mills, Tim Crockett, Gary Sinise Foundation, Brother's Keepers Foundation, Hard Rock Charlie Foundation, Starlink, RecPak, Strava, Warrior Hikes, Healing Waters, Jimmy Armel, CrossFit, HYROX, Greg Glassman, Rich Froning, Mike Alley, Ross Enamait, Monterey, Kauai, Pensacola, Fernandina Beach, La Gomera, and Antigua.
Jere Hartman is a retired Army veteran who served 19 years, including time as an Army Ranger, before spending two years at the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. He has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail and rowed from Monterey, California, to Kauai, Hawaii, with a five-man crew in the World's Toughest Row. He is part of Corsair Racing, a donation-funded organization that builds community for veterans through ocean rowing, and he coaches CrossFit in Chattanooga.
Transcript
Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 1029: Jere Hartman
In this episode: leaving the Army and the FBI, six months on the Appalachian Trail, rowing from Monterey to Kauai in 35 days, Corsair Racing's work with veterans, and why Jere Hartman believes CrossFit is for everyone.
Tom Rowland: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Tom Rowland Podcast, brought to you by Star brite. We're brought to you by Star brite today, as always. Star brite is the maker of an awesome line of products to take care of your boat. That's where I use it most. Whether it's the Salt Off product or any of the boat-cleaning products, Star brite has you covered. Definitely check them out. They're not only a great company for the products that they have, but they also do a tremendous amount in conservation, and that is certainly important to us all.
Jere Hartman: I am Jere Hartman, and this is the Tom Rowland Podcast.
Tom Rowland: All right, Jere, how are you, man?
Jere Hartman: Pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. Just enjoying this nice weather.
Tom Rowland: I know. It cooled down a little bit. That's really great. You were recommended as a guest by one of my friends who also had you on his podcast, and I looked into your story. It's very interesting. There's a couple of different things. Right before we started recording, I told you that I had had a couple of other guests row across an ocean, which is one of the things that we'll talk about today that you did. They were all former military like you. And then one of my favorite interviews of all time was with this lady who was an engineer out of Auburn, and she was working in an oil field, and she quit her job and just decided she was going to go hike the Appalachian Trail. She was drawn to it, and I know that's part of your story. So can you bring us up to speed to that point? You go into the Army, you're a Ranger, and you get out, and you go to the FBI.
Jere Hartman: Yes.
Tom Rowland: And I know that's a very condensed story, but what made you go into the service?
Jere Hartman: True story: I failed out of college.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Jere Hartman: Yeah, failed out of college, lasted about a semester, and it was either work at the local liquor store or join the military. So I chose the military. I have some special operations background in my family's history, so I decided to go down that road and became an Army Ranger. I spent some time there before getting too beat up, went to the regular Army, and finished my career out there. So 19 years total. I retired, and another passion was to continue to serve, so I went to the FBI, and that's kind of where reality hit that I was not in a good place.
Tom Rowland: And so what does that look like when you're not in a good place? Because you seemed to be in a good place when you were a Ranger and you were in service, right?
Jere Hartman: I don't know if I necessarily was, but you don't have the time to slow down to realize...
Tom Rowland: Right.
Jere Hartman: ...that you're not in a good place. Once the deployments and the constant training are over, you really get to look at yourself. And also there's no structure. You're on your own. So you're going from a structured world to no structure. I ended up, I'd say in two years, putting on maybe 50 pounds...
Tom Rowland: Wow.
Jere Hartman: ...and just sitting in the dark, and that was my life.
Tom Rowland: Wow. And that's while working. What kind of work were you doing that you can tell us about at the FBI?
Jere Hartman: It's a smaller unit. It's called the Terrorist Screening Center. It's up in Vienna, Virginia. Basically you screen bad people and get more information on them. That's pretty much it.
Tom Rowland: And how long did you do that?
Jere Hartman: Two years.
Tom Rowland: Okay. So two years. And then one day — it probably wasn't one day, it was probably a culmination of many days — you realized that this isn't what you want to do. What did that look like? How did you know that you didn't want to do it enough that you were going to quit, change your career, and figure out what comes next?
Jere Hartman: It was a few months, I would say, of looking for things on the internet. I would just look, and I finally found the Appalachian Trail. One of my supervisors had a picture of himself when he was in the service, and he was just a jacked guy, and then I would look at him the way he was then, and he wasn't that guy anymore. That's when I had the realization, when I looked at pictures of myself, that I wasn't that guy anymore either, and I was going down a dark road. So it was my two-year review, and I went in, got my review, and then told them, "I'm resigning. I'll give you till Christmas, and then I'm out."
Tom Rowland: Wow.
Jere Hartman: And I resigned from the FBI, bought all my gear for the Appalachian Trail, and started hiking.
Tom Rowland: Did you know that you were going to quit the FBI the morning that you went in there?
Jere Hartman: No. I had thought about it, but I never really got to talk to my supervisor, so I had him in a room. It all just came to a head, and I decided to leave.
Tom Rowland: Was that a big decision for you in your life, or was it a relief?
Jere Hartman: It was a relief. Don't get me wrong, if I had been in a better place in my life, it was a dream job. It was a very rewarding job. But I just wasn't in the right head space to do the job.
Tom Rowland: And how long did it take you to get on the Appalachian Trail?
Jere Hartman: I think two months after that.
Tom Rowland: Okay. And you obviously had a lot of experience outdoors, camping as a Ranger. The story that I was telling you before, Jessica "Dixie" Mills, who became a Triple Crowner actually — after she had become a Triple Crowner, I was asking her about her experience, and she said she had never once been camping before she hit the Appalachian Trail. She said, "You know, the funny thing is, I've only really been camping three times. One was the Appalachian Trail, one was the Continental Divide Trail, and one was the Pacific Crest Trail." She was one of my favorites because she figured out a way to be a professional backpacker, which I think is the most unlikely thing you could ever do. You're literally carrying everything that you own on your back. You have no home. It's like the ultimate dirtbag kind of thing. And she figured out how to make money. People wanted to watch her learn how to do this on YouTube, and she didn't have any experience, which made it even better. People just really liked her, she did a good job with her videos, and she was able to continue doing it. It's a pretty cool story. And it's funny how something like the Appalachian Trail is like a magnet for people. I've heard it from many people, like yourself. What was it about the Appalachian Trail that drew you?
Jere Hartman: Well, I had read an account of — was it John Muir? — whoever made the Appalachian Trail famous, I can't remember his name, back after World War II. He was lost, and he went hiking to find himself. I just thought about going out there with no music, no earbuds, no distractions, and just dealing with what you need to deal with. That didn't last long. A week of trying to deal with myself was a no. I had to listen to podcasts and music. It was a road I didn't want to go down. But it's an amazing experience out there. It's hard to put into words.
Tom Rowland: Did you get a trail name?
Jere Hartman: I did.
Tom Rowland: What was it?
Jere Hartman: Well, the first one was Honey Bun. We had done an 18-mile day, and I came into camp and had a shot of whiskey and crushed two Honey Buns, and I woke up the next morning and my name was Honey Bun. And then the name that served me after that was Clincher.
Tom Rowland: How'd you get that one?
Jere Hartman: I did not like pooping in the woods. So I would just hold it until I found a privy. So Clincher became my name.
Tom Rowland: The Clincher. Okay, I like that. And did you see any trail magic on there? Dixie was telling us about trail magic and what that was, and it would be great if you would explain what that is to people that don't know.
Jere Hartman: Trail magic's an amazing thing. It's people that just want to give back to the hiking community. It can be anything from a cooler of Coke that might be left at the trailhead, and a hiker's welcome to it. There is actually a gentleman — I can't remember his name right now — but he has a van, and every hiking season he just goes down the trail and cooks breakfast for all the hikers. He'll find a group and just keep meeting up with them and cook them breakfast every day. That's what he does. That's his healing. It's pretty neat. A lot of people give back just for that good feeling that they get.
Tom Rowland: And you could just... somebody might leave a candy bar on a rock somewhere. Something as simple as that.
Jere Hartman: Yep.
Tom Rowland: That's super cool.
Jere Hartman: And sometimes they're hard. Sometimes there are places where you're like, "How did they get this here?" It's in the middle of nowhere. They would truck it out there, because they know it might be after a horrible climb, and you get to the top of that climb and there's a cold beer waiting for you. That was my favorite. There'd be random six-packs of beer in creeks tied up with ropes, and you would just grab a beer, sit down, enjoy it, throw the empty in your backpack, and keep going.
Tom Rowland: How long did it take you to hike the whole trail?
Jere Hartman: About six months.
Tom Rowland: Were you in any hurry, or were you just enjoying yourself?
Jere Hartman: I was enjoying it.
Tom Rowland: And what about the hard times? Were there some hard times on the trail?
Jere Hartman: There were. You get what's called a trail family. Basically those are people you usually meet off the bat, when everyone's kind of scared and not really knowing what you're getting into, so you bond. And then someone might run out of money. Someone might have to go back to school. So eventually my whole trail family, for one reason or another, got off trail, and for the last month and a half I was kind of by myself. Scary is not the right word, but it was sad, going from having this huge group of people to rely on to hiking by yourself. It definitely changed my hike. Eventually I met more people. It wasn't the same as the original trail family, but more people that I continued to hike with. A few veterans that we still talk to to this day, actually. A lot of vets out there.
Tom Rowland: Do you think it was good for you? Healing? In what way?
Jere Hartman: Yes. Honestly, connecting with — I don't like the word normal — but people who have never served. A lot of them don't have that weight that we carry. So just seeing people expressing themselves, having feelings that we might have pushed down for so long, having conversations I wouldn't normally have — things like that were really nice. And the nature itself is healing. Getting out there on a hill with a beautiful view and just reflecting on life, it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. It's one of the greatest things we have in this country, and we have three of them, or maybe more. I don't know. But there's at least three where you can hike basically across the whole country. The Appalachian Trail doesn't go across the whole country, but it goes across a good part of it. It's really an incredible thing.
Tom Rowland: When you got out of the military, did you go straight into the FBI? Did you have a transition period, or did you kind of go straight into more structure?
Jere Hartman: Straight. Maybe a week off. I think that was it, just to move to D.C., and then right to work.
Tom Rowland: That's not necessarily the story that you hear from a lot of people that have trouble transitioning out of the military. I think it might be because of what you alluded to earlier, that you go from structure, from a place where you have this group of people, and then all of a sudden you're on your own with no structure. That seems to be very hard for people.
Jere Hartman: I think so. And also there's a lot of things you can talk about with military people that I wouldn't want to talk about with someone who hasn't experienced that kind of trauma before. So I think you lose that, too. You might lose that daily connection of being able to just speak our language with people.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. On the vets — did you have any vets in your trail family?
Jere Hartman: Later on I did. A Marine and an Apache pilot.
Tom Rowland: And everybody's out there kind of for the same thing. They need a little time to reset. And also it's really an incredible situation to be able to do that — just take a little time off and just walk. Just go for an incredible walk. It draws so many people. It's crazy, that Appalachian Trail. You don't even hear about it that much until you know somebody that's doing it, or until you're kind of in the group. But some people will hear about it, like Jessica. She had this crazy story where she went there as a young girl with her grandmother, and they pulled into this parking lot and were going to make a picnic on the tailgate. And all of a sudden these strange-looking people come out of the woods, and she's like, "Grandma, what are they doing?" And her grandmother said, "Oh, well, they're walking on the trail. You can get on that trail right there, and you can go all the way to Maine." That just stuck in her brain her whole life, and she didn't even think about it. But then she finds herself in this oil field in Oklahoma, and she says, "I'm done with this. I'm not doing it anymore." She starts driving back, and she says, "I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail." It just drew her there. It's wild. Did you ever hear anybody else you met on the Appalachian Trail say things like that?
Jere Hartman: Quite a few people. They said that with their family they would go camping on the Appalachian Trail and run into people. My first experience actually was — I mean, I grew up in Maryland, and we would go camping up in that area, but the first real experience I had, I was in Ranger School. Dahlonega, where you do your mountain phase — the trail goes right through it. I remember we were coming off this long mission, and we're all just beat down, and you see these people camping by a creek. That's when I found out what the Appalachian Trail was. So just like she said, it was embedded in her head, and eventually it was embedded in my head, and I knew it would come back and I would conquer it.
Tom Rowland: So that's one big thing that you've done. How do you get from hiking the Appalachian Trail to rowing across the ocean?
Jere Hartman: A Facebook post.
Tom Rowland: Oh, really? Whose great idea was this?
Jere Hartman: It was in the Ranger community. Some guy said he was looking for a team to row across the ocean. It was actually about 10 years after I did the AT, so I was kind of itching for something. I just replied back, "I'm in." And in the little community, people started saying — my last name's Hartman — they're like, "Hartman's a good dude. Don't worry about him." So I had a call with him, I think, later that week, and then I was on the team. And then about a year later, we did the ocean.
Tom Rowland: And you did the Pacific Ocean, right?
Jere Hartman: Yes.
Tom Rowland: So where do you leave and where do you land?
Jere Hartman: Leave Monterey, California, land in Kauai, Hawaii.
Tom Rowland: Wow. What was that like?
Jere Hartman: It's funny. You know, I knew I was going to cross the ocean, until the day it was time to leave. And then it hit me: "What in the heck have I gotten into?" In all of our faces, you could just see this fear of the unknown. It was pretty intense. And then we just rowed out, and 35 days, I think it was, 6 hours and 58 minutes later we landed in Hawaii.
Tom Rowland: 35 days. There's no resupply at all, right?
Jere Hartman: Nope.
Tom Rowland: So you've got to carry 35 days of food. Are you making your water somehow?
Jere Hartman: Yeah, we have a desalinator on board.
Tom Rowland: And that provided enough water for everybody?
Jere Hartman: It's supposed to, yes.
Tom Rowland: Those things have gotten a lot better.
Jere Hartman: They have. They are amazing.
Tom Rowland: Did you get in any problem with that?
Jere Hartman: Yeah, ours broke day three.
Tom Rowland: Oh, man.
Jere Hartman: So we had to do some rigging. You're supposed to be able to run it whenever you want. We had to bypass the cooling system on it, so basically it was 15 minutes of making water, 45 minutes of letting it cool down. Making water turned into a full-time job. From day three on, we did not have enough water. It was a struggle.
Tom Rowland: Holy cow. So you take something that's already going to be very difficult and you make it even more difficult because you're not getting water. Who was the handyman, the engineer that figured out how to do this? Because that could have been it right there.
Jere Hartman: It could've been it. It would've been horrible. JT. And we have a guy, a former Marine who just knows everything about these boats, named Alan. We called him in the middle of the ocean, and between him and JT, they figured out how to rig it up and make it work for us. So we got very lucky.
Tom Rowland: So you do have communication. What type of communication did you have on this little boat?
Jere Hartman: We were lucky enough, we brought a Starlink, and that kind of saved us for the phone calls. Otherwise you have a Range Global, which I think you can make phone calls with, but it's more just for sending texts and things like that. The Starlink out there was amazing. It's a lifesaver.
Tom Rowland: Wow. And do you have a computer too, or are you using just phones?
Jere Hartman: Just phones for communication. We have one iPad, but mainly just phones. And then we have the VHF radio, and a bunch of emergency equipment that we can communicate on if need be.
Tom Rowland: The first guy we had that rowed solo across the Atlantic, his name was Tim Crockett, and he showed me his boat. They're kind of enclosed on the ends, open in the middle, and you can get out of the weather, right?
Jere Hartman: Yes.
Tom Rowland: And I think the thing can roll.
Jere Hartman: Yeah, they roll.
Tom Rowland: Tell me about the boat.
Jere Hartman: Ours is an RX45. The one we rowed across the Pacific was an older boat that weighed about 2,000 pounds. It has three rowing positions, so three can row at a time. And like you were saying, there's a cabin in the front and the back. The neat thing about these boats is they have so many little compartments that are essentially airtight that if that thing got sawed in half, you would just have two shitty boats that don't move, but they're not sinking. So they're a really amazing piece of equipment, and they're designed to self-right. If you do flip, for the most part they'll flip right back over. You might have to coax it a little bit by standing on the rudder, but essentially they flip right back over.
Tom Rowland: Did you guys try that out before you went?
Jere Hartman: We did not. We're going to with the boat we have now, but with the one then, we did not. We just decided to chance it. And luckily we did not flip.
Tom Rowland: So how many people went with you?
Jere Hartman: There were five of us on that crew.
Tom Rowland: Did you know any of these people beforehand?
Jere Hartman: No. Just the year prior, we became a team.
Tom Rowland: And everyone just kind of joins out of that Facebook post?
Jere Hartman: Three joined out of that Facebook post, and then another team that didn't raise enough money to row that year ran into some of our guys at a farmers market. They weren't going to talk to our team, because we're like the enemy. We're competing against them. So the wives went into action and started talking, and within, I think, a week, these two guys joined our team. We had a guy who got injured and couldn't row — he got a hernia — so we were looking for someone, and we just decided to join forces.
Tom Rowland: And were you raising money for something? What event was this?
Jere Hartman: We were. It's called the World's Toughest Row. To do that race, you need to raise money for a charity. We were raising money that year for the Gary Sinise Foundation, Brother's Keepers Foundation, and Hard Rock Charlie Foundation, which are all veteran foundations that, on different levels, help out with different care and different needs for veterans.
Tom Rowland: And how did you choose those?
Jere Hartman: We all picked a few we wanted and then just had meetings about it until we narrowed it down to ones we all felt comfortable donating to.
Tom Rowland: And did you expect that it was going to take as long as it did?
Jere Hartman: The day we left, two of us said, "We'll see you in 35 days." So we were pretty much spot on.
Tom Rowland: Dead on.
Tom Rowland: So how did you plan the food? We talked about the water, but there's still electrolytes and other things you probably need if you're going to be drinking desalinated water. That removes everything out of it, right?
Jere Hartman: Everything. So you have to supplement with electrolytes.
Tom Rowland: And there's five people for 35 days. That's a massive amount of food.
Jere Hartman: Yeah. Unfortunately, I decided to volunteer myself to do the food prep. I live in a 1,300-square-foot cottage in Chattanooga, and my spare bedroom and living room for about four months was nothing but food. It was a nightmare. I had to pack 6,000 calories a day per person, and that was a mixture of ramen, camping meals, and snacks.
Tom Rowland: And at 6,000 calories a day, does everybody still lose a tremendous amount of weight?
Jere Hartman: Yeah. The thing is, out there it's so hot, and with the way the shifts work, you don't want to eat. So you really have to force yourself, and every free second you have to be shoving food into your belly. Otherwise — we had a few guys who lost close to 30 pounds. I lost maybe eight pounds, and the other guy lost maybe 10 to 15 pounds. If you let the heat and everything take over and just don't eat, it can really wear on you.
Tom Rowland: Some of that stuff you were talking about, ramen and that kind of stuff, requires cooking. Is it too rough to cook at some point?
Jere Hartman: Some days are. And then we had this company called RecPak. It's amazing. It's a powder protein drink with 800 calories. Just put water in it, shake it up, and you can down it. Those things were lifesavers, especially the first 10 days. You're in anywhere from 10 to 30-foot seas, so cooking is pretty impossible during that time.
Tom Rowland: Wow. 30-foot seas?
Jere Hartman: Yeah, 30-foot seas.
Tom Rowland: I mean, man, 30-foot seas in the dark in a rowboat.
Jere Hartman: And that's when we hit them the first time. You're supposed to hit the 30-foot seas within the first day. We didn't hit them until, I think, day five is when it got real rough for us, and it was the middle of the night. Usually you could see the whitecaps in the distance, and then you would notice that the whitecaps were getting higher and higher. And that went on for a few days.
Tom Rowland: That can be so scary.
Jere Hartman: It really was.
Tom Rowland: And you're out in a rowboat. What was the scariest moment?
Jere Hartman: Since it was nighttime and you couldn't really see the magnitude of it, I don't think the fear really set in then. It was more afterwards. We were like, "How did we get through that?" We also got lucky. We would ride the waves up perfectly, and then once the boat can't climb anymore, it'll turn and just ride down the wave. It did that a lot. And when the waves would collapse over, we just had a spot where it collapsed late, so we would ride over the wave. We came close to flipping twice, but we did not flip. Every other boat that year — there were four other boats — they all flipped at least once. We just did not. So we kind of got lucky.
Tom Rowland: And are you keeping in contact with the other boats? Are you in sight of them, or once you leave, you never see anybody else?
Jere Hartman: Never see them. To see another boat during the race is very rare. You get separated so quickly. Actually, boats in general — I think we saw one cruise ship and two or three freighters the whole time.
Tom Rowland: So that even adds to the deal that the only way you're getting out of this is to make it to Hawaii.
Jere Hartman: Pretty much.
Tom Rowland: There's no exit, there's no door, there's no plan B. You have to go.
Jere Hartman: Yep.
Tom Rowland: Did you have any kind of moments where the crew has to come together and understand that? Or when everybody stepped on the boat, did they all understand that? I mean, you're all operators.
Jere Hartman: Yeah. But we also made the agreement that, bottom line, if someone's scared, we're going to respect that. It doesn't matter what the rest of us think. If there's someone who doesn't want to go with the decision, we're going to at least talk about it. We never got to that point, but I think it was great that everyone agreed on that. Because when you're out in a situation like that, if you're going to make a decision that one person's not comfortable with, that's really not fair to that one individual. So we all made a pact beforehand that it's either 100 percent or we don't make that decision.
Tom Rowland: What kind of decisions are you having to make?
Jere Hartman: The most serious would be — which we never had to do — abandoning ship. But then also, when you're tight in the race, or if the storms are getting too rough, whether you're going to hunker down and put out the para anchor. That was basically our main decision, which we never got to. If we're all going to keep rowing and someone's too scared to row and they're going to be in the cabin, it's not fair for us, but it's also not fair for that person, because it's not their fault. Who knows how you're going to take the situation? You don't want that person feeling bad about the decision they made. So if one person decided that they want to hunker down, we'll all hunker down. We'll pull out the para anchor and do it as a team.
Tom Rowland: Now, the para anchor — can you explain how that works for people that might not know what that is?
Jere Hartman: Yes. Ours is 12 feet, so it's a 12-foot parachute, and instead of putting it out in the air, you let it out into the water, and it inflates in the water and keeps you going against the current — I think I'm saying that right. So basically, if the waves are crashing, they're going to crash over the front of your boat instead of the side of your boat. Or if you put it out at the rear of the boat, they'd be crashing over the rear. It keeps you in the safest direction for the storm.
Tom Rowland: And you're going to use that when you're going to take a break, when you're not going to be rowing? Would you use that for sleeping too?
Jere Hartman: We don't. That one individual you mentioned who did the solo row would probably use the para anchor quite a bit for short intervals — put it out for a few hours so he can catch a nap. We never stopped rowing, so we never lost ground. The only time we would put that out is if it was a major storm that we weren't comfortable rowing in.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Now, Tim told me that one of the things he had the hardest time with was chafing. He got to where he just felt like he had to row naked because he was chafing all the time. When you're in the water a lot — people who've been surfing a lot get chafed on a surfboard, and the salt gets in there, the sand gets in there, and it gets worse and worse. It doesn't seem like it's going to get better unless you get out of the water for a little while. That's what he ran into. Did you run into that, or any other issues that you didn't think about?
Jere Hartman: We luckily did not. We found these seats — they're called KN seats, I believe. They're very expensive, but so worth it. We got no butt sores, nothing like that. And the first part of our journey was so cold, we were always in foul weather gear, so we never really got wet enough to get chafed until the second part of the journey. The last 15 days we started getting chafed, but we could take a shower, we could wash, and we had all the creams. If we had to do a full row in the heat, like on the Atlantic, I'm sure we would've been very chafed. But the Pacific was a little bit different.
Tom Rowland: Did you anticipate that you were going to be in foul weather gear most of the time?
Jere Hartman: Yes.
Tom Rowland: Did you train that way?
Jere Hartman: That's a good question. We did not. All our training was in the summer. We trained in December, but it still wasn't that cold. We would put it on at night, but that was about it.
Tom Rowland: Wow, that's interesting, because if that stuff doesn't fit right... You're going to be in it constantly.
Jere Hartman: We definitely knew it fit, but that's a good point. I'd say maybe 12 hours was the most we had spent in it up to the race itself.
Tom Rowland: So what do you do to train for this race, and how do you get five people to where everybody has confidence in one another? What's the land-based training, and how much do you do in the water before you tackle something like this?
Jere Hartman: For the World's Toughest Row, I think the requirement's 140 hours together. I could be wrong on that number, but it's a good amount. For next year's race, we're going to do 300 total hours on the water with the crew on our own. We were confident in one another, but we felt like we needed to be more confident the next go-around.
Tom Rowland: On the water — is that any water, or are you going specifically to the ocean?
Jere Hartman: To the ocean. You can do a certain amount on a lake or a river, which is really good just to get confidence in the boat, but most of your training has to be on the ocean. I think the minimum you have to do is 72 hours straight, so you get day and nighttime included in that.
Tom Rowland: Do you have to log all this and tell them that you're doing it? Without that, they won't even let you participate?
Jere Hartman: Nope. You have to have a captain's log, and we also log on Strava. We just send them the link to it, and that's pretty much it. And there are tons of courses you have to do, of course. There are safety courses and meetings and courses you have to do through the World's Toughest Row itself.
Tom Rowland: Some of your Strava records are going to be the least popular on Strava. I can't imagine that somebody's done this eight-mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean very many times in a rowboat. You go to some of these hills in town, and there's 50,000 entries on Strava. You look at yours, and it's one entry.
Jere Hartman: It's my entry.
Tom Rowland: Nobody has ever been here before. That's wild, man.
Tom Rowland: And so you're setting up to do it again?
Jere Hartman: Yep.
Tom Rowland: You just loved it so much.
Jere Hartman: We did. Well, it changed us. Each one of us changed and healed, which was pretty amazing. When we got done, I joined an organization. So instead of giving money to other charities, we created an organization where we take veterans out on weekend rows, and then eventually we find veterans that are crazy enough to do an ocean row, and that's where we're at right now. About a month and a half ago, we picked our crew, and now we're starting to train them.
Tom Rowland: And what's your organization called?
Jere Hartman: It's called Corsair Racing.
Tom Rowland: And what would you say the mission statement or the goal is?
Jere Hartman: The goal is building community. Basically building community through ocean rowing, and then finding ways for these guys to heal. Like the Appalachian Trail, the ocean's an amazing way to heal. When you're completely beat down rowing for 35 days, you have no choice but to face what you need to face. And everyone out there is so understanding, because we're all in it, you know what I mean? So you're going to open up. Eventually someone's going to open up, and then everyone's going to open up. And it forms a brotherhood that there's no comparison to, in my opinion.
Tom Rowland: Not even to the military?
Jere Hartman: No, it's tighter.
Tom Rowland: Why do you think it becomes tighter than the military?
Jere Hartman: I think it's a smaller mission set. Our mission set is to go from point A to point B. You're going to be with that person for 35 days straight. Even in the military, there's some freedom to be by yourself. Here, it's not. You learn every bit about that person. So it's just a very tight brotherhood.
Tom Rowland: So when you're talking about people healing, you're doing this through what I would call a physical endurance event. Maybe the weekend rows aren't entirely what the big rows are, but certainly the big row is an endurance event. You are getting beat down. You are calorically deficient. Your electrolytes are probably all off. You are beat down completely, and that seems to be a really good time to evaluate yourself — to be completely wiped out, a total depletion event where you have nothing left. It seems like a lot of people seek these types of things out for healing, and obviously it works, because it's worked for you and it worked for your group. You said you became even tighter than you did with people in the military, and you always hear that the military is the tightest bond anybody has. Do you think there are other ways that people are having success healing after getting out of the military? I have a friend, Jimmy Armel, who's doing a lot of work with veterans and making some progress. He does it through fishing and other means. Ibogaine and other things have been very successful for him, and he's helped a lot of people. I just wonder what you're noticing outside of the endurance events. Are you seeing any other ways that are very effective?
Jere Hartman: I do. Personally, I do ketamine therapy at a clinic, and that saved my life, I truly believe. I've heard incredible things about ibogaine. I haven't gone down that road. I have a bunch of veteran friends who are into the psychedelics, and they're taking veterans on trips for those. I think there are so many resources out there, like Warrior Hikes. I don't know if you're familiar with them.
Tom Rowland: I'm not.
Jere Hartman: They do the Appalachian Trail — I think they do all three trails — and they've even gotten into river trips, like Grand Canyon trips and things like that. That's a pretty good one. I think anything where you can get veterans out of their comfort zone. We do breathwork, we do yoga, and a lot of these guys have never done things like that before. So we do a lot of things to get them out of their comfort zone and let them see there are alternatives to what we were taught in the military. I think if any veteran's brave enough to try something that's out of the ordinary, even if it is one of these fishing trips — I don't remember what it's called, but there's a fly fishing one all throughout here where they take veterans fly fishing.
Tom Rowland: Healing Waters?
Jere Hartman: Yes, that is it.
Tom Rowland: We did a show with them a long time ago where we took some people fishing, and it's a great organization. Really great.
Jere Hartman: I agree. I just think getting out of your comfort zone, especially when it comes to...
Tom Rowland: How important do you think it is to have the community?
Jere Hartman: I think it's important. The right community.
Tom Rowland: Like a community of other people that are struggling with the same kind of thing, and you get them together in a shared experience. For some people it seems to help if it's physical, like what you're doing.
Jere Hartman: Yes.
Tom Rowland: I don't know of any other way that bonds people together like physical exhaustion and humor. It's an outstanding way to make friends.
Tom Rowland: That's really cool. So the next one you're doing — is it going to be the same course, or are you going somewhere else?
Jere Hartman: We're doing the Atlantic.
Tom Rowland: Where does that take y'all?
Jere Hartman: La Gomera, off the coast of northern Africa in the Spanish colonies, down to Antigua. It's about 3,000 miles, and that one should take about 35 days also, we're hoping.
Tom Rowland: Do you ever fish while you're out there?
Jere Hartman: No. Last time we almost took a hand line with some artificial squid. I think we're definitely doing that this time.
Tom Rowland: You're out there so long — did you see stuff starting to collect around your boat? I would imagine you become the structure. You are the flotsam that they like to get around. I would imagine you'd have mahi and all kinds of stuff around you.
Jere Hartman: It was funny. It was so rough, and even when it wasn't rough, it was so windy that it was just a constant chop, so we could never see underneath the boat. We cleaned it once, and there was definitely a barnacle buildup. We saw a few sharks, some sunfish, and turtles, but we never got to see if there was a community underneath the boat. On the Atlantic, I heard it's a different story. On the Atlantic you see everything.
Tom Rowland: I don't know about that part of the ocean, but there's a lot of stuff everywhere. When you spend that much time out there, that's what the fish are looking for. They're looking for any sort of structure, and you're it. I would imagine you would collect all kinds of stuff on a hand line. That's all you need, one of the yo-yos, and just make sure nothing rips it out of your hand, because there's some big stuff out there. That would be cool. Then it's got to be calm enough for you to fillet it and eat it. But that would be a nice break from the dehydrated ramen, I would think. And the mental reward of that would be outstanding.
Jere Hartman: Yeah. That'd be a morale booster.
Tom Rowland: Oh, heck yeah, it would be.
Tom Rowland: Did you ever have to have a morale booster? Were there some times when you or anybody else got down on that trip — 30 days in rough seas? I would imagine there's plenty of opportunity for that.
Jere Hartman: Everyone got down a little bit. I won't talk about anyone else. Mine was, the guy I was rowing with just didn't talk. Two guys had to sleep together, and the other three got to sleep by themselves. So I would sleep by myself and then row in silence. After about 20 days, I lost it. I was like, "I need to row with someone else. I need human connection." So we shifted up the shifts a little bit so that there was someone more talkative I could row with. And everyone had something. No one had that story, but everyone had a different story where they broke down a little bit or lost it a little bit. I think everyone else building you back up after you lose it is part of the reward — that it's okay to be weak, that it's okay to break down, and your brothers are going to build you back up.
Tom Rowland: Was there a time when you all came together, an event or anything that brought you together out there?
Jere Hartman: I would say halfway through, we had a pint of rum. And believe it or not, a pint of rum can get five guys drunk if you are that dehydrated. That was definitely a morale booster. One day — it was closer to the end of the trip, but we hadn't seen any wildlife in weeks — there were hundreds of dolphins in the waves. Everyone was on the cabin, just like little kids staring out, so happy and giddy. That was a big morale booster. And then, you usually get six to eight miles per shift, which is a two-hour shift, and one of the guys and the guy he was rowing with got a 10-mile, two-hour shift. I know it doesn't sound like much, but everyone was pretty geeked about that.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, I bet.
Tom Rowland: So what about the stars? I would imagine the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with no other ships and no other lights around, has to be the best place on the entire planet to look at the stars.
Jere Hartman: Yes. Amazing. I would honestly row half the time with my head back, just staring up. You didn't really need to do that, though. You could just look straight forward, and it was a shooting star show most nights. It was great. Surprisingly, though, we had the glowing algae...
Tom Rowland: Oh, yeah, the phosphorescence.
Jere Hartman: Yes. Probably for three weeks.
Tom Rowland: Really?
Jere Hartman: Yep. Every night it would just come out.
Tom Rowland: That's a bizarre thing. And I would think it would make it even more bizarre that you have oars in the water disturbing it, making it do that every single time.
Jere Hartman: Every stroke.
Tom Rowland: Because when I see phosphorescence, maybe the fishing lure comes through and disturbs it, but we're not rowing. That would seem surreal.
Jere Hartman: It was magical. There are little holes on the side of the boat, little gunnels where the water comes in and out, and they would even come in through those after they were agitated. So we actually got to pick them up and see them, and they're about the size of your pinky nail. They're just these little things, and you just put them back in the water. They were fascinating. Every whitecap would break with the illumination. And there'd be disturbances where things were definitely getting chased — when fins would break the water, you'd see streaks of it. It was pretty fascinating. I'd say about three weeks straight, almost every night.
Tom Rowland: That's incredible.
Tom Rowland: And now you're coaching CrossFit? How'd you get started with that?
Jere Hartman: I started in, I think, 2009 doing CrossFit. They came through the military and did a little train-the-trainer type thing, so I learned about it then and kept doing it, and finally got certified to coach maybe six years ago. I've been coaching ever since.
Tom Rowland: What do you like about coaching?
Jere Hartman: The structure. I love it when someone comes into the gym and you can tell they're intimidated, and just making them feel welcome. Then if they stick with it, eventually that light will turn on, and they'll come in standing tall and confident. That positive change that I get to have on someone is really what keeps me going back to do it every day.
Tom Rowland: That's super cool. Do you coach one class a day or more?
Jere Hartman: Three days a week I coach three, and the rest of the week I coach one.
Tom Rowland: And the three — what hours are those?
Jere Hartman: 9:00 a.m., and then 4:30 and 5:30 p.m.
Tom Rowland: Awesome. That's a good gym over there. How old are you?
Jere Hartman: 50.
Tom Rowland: 50? Okay. We're not in the same age group. I'm 58. I just turned 58 this year. But the thing about CrossFit — I've been competing in CrossFit for a while — is that it makes you want to get older, because not until 55 do the weights drop. So I was so looking forward to being 55, and when I turned 55, I really went for it. I got some different coaches, and I was like, "If I'm ever going to make the Games, this is going to be the year," because I'm at the bottom of the age group. The weights have dropped a significant amount, and I feel like I might have a shot. It was a great run. I really liked it, and I learned a lot. But what I liked the most is that it got slightly easier. Because at 54, you're doing the same thing that Rich Froning is doing in the Games. It's like, come on, man, when's the break happening? And it happened at 55, and it is nice.
Jere Hartman: That's awesome. I unfortunately am not that lucky. I've had a shoulder redone, a knee replacement already, a screwed-up back. So if I can RX one workout a month, it's heaven on Earth. Besides that, everything is scaled now. I'm just a beat-up dude.
Tom Rowland: Well, a lot of people that listen to this show have heard me talk about CrossFit, but some people haven't. And some people look at CrossFit as being for young people, or if you're injured you can't do it, or it only causes injuries. You're saying you have a lot of issues and you're not doing RX workouts. An RX workout would be as prescribed — whatever's written on the board, however the workout was created, that's the weight you're supposed to do. So maybe it says 135 pounds for a clean and jerk, and then it might say 95 pounds for women. A scaled workout would be anything less than that 135 or 95, and you could scale it back to whatever you want, or you could change other movements in it. Can you give your idea of why you like it, even if you have certain things that are bothering you right now?
Jere Hartman: I believe CrossFit is for everyone. To what you were saying, when CrossFit first came out, you did RX until you died. There was no substitution. You would just keep going till you fell out. Which is an awesome modality, but it's not sustainable for some people. As coaches have become more experienced — there are some amazing coaches out there, and I like to say that I am one of them — you come into my gym, and I can have you moving with everyone else. It might not be exactly what they're doing, but you're going to be moving pain-free, and you're going to be getting the same stimulus, which in my opinion is the most important part of that workout. Ideally it's to keep you moving. CrossFit's whole modality is to keep you moving until you're 70 or 80 years old. Honestly, it's picking the groceries up off the floor, or picking your grandkids up and throwing them over your head. That's what CrossFit is. So you just find a great coach who will work with you, and you can do any of the workouts that anyone else does in the gym. They might just look a little bit different.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, and that's the thing, too. When you step into one of those classes — and this is the way it's always been, with Greg Glassman at the very beginning — he was like, "Look, you've got a Navy SEAL in there and you've got a grandmother, and they're right next to one another. They're doing the same workouts." The Navy SEAL doesn't look down on the grandmother like, "Why are you lifting a broomstick?" It's like, "You're here."
Jere Hartman: That's it.
Tom Rowland: That's what I've always liked about it, the community. The only thing anybody ever cares about is if you're lying about your reps. Like if you say, "Oh, I beat you in that workout," and it's, "Not really. I was counting. There's no way you did 21 of something." But if somebody's like, "Look, I didn't feel it today, and I scaled back the whole thing," good effort. Everybody's like, "Great." It's the ethical violations...
Jere Hartman: Yeah, rep shaving.
Tom Rowland: ...where you say you did something and you didn't do it. That's the only place I ever see anybody get hassled. But it's a great thing.
Tom Rowland: It's in a funny state right now, don't you think, CrossFit?
Jere Hartman: It really is.
Tom Rowland: When I was going hard for the Games, they were like, "We're not even going to do the Masters anymore. We're just going to let the Legends competition do it." And I was like, "Well, that's not what I was hoping for." I actually qualified for the Legends and for another one that was in Oklahoma. There were three Masters competitions kind of battling it out for which one was going to be considered the biggest and the best. CrossFit just kind of lost their way there, I think, with all the different transitions and changes in leadership and sponsors and everything. But it does feel like they're kind of getting it back a little bit.
Jere Hartman: I think so. All these fads come along, like HYROX, which is great, but I think CrossFit might be trying to incorporate that to stay relevant. I'm not sure. All I can say is, to what you were asking earlier — what drew me to CrossFit was the community. It was kind of the closest to the military I had found. Like you're saying, you could be the 70-year-old grandma and come in, and you're still going to all the events. If the guys are going out to dinner, she's going out to dinner. The community is amazing. I haven't found a community that's so open to everyone like CrossFit is.
Tom Rowland: I agree. I could care less how popular it is or what people think of it. That's the way I've been training since about 2005 or '06, when I found CrossFit and just started training like that. I was running marathons and doing a lot of running beforehand, and I was kind of bored with that. Actually, I found something before CrossFit — Ross Enamait. You ever heard of him? He's got something called rosstraining.com, and he's a boxing trainer. You would look at his stuff and be like, "That's straight-up CrossFit." But he'd been doing it even before that. Who knows, maybe CrossFit stole a bunch of his stuff. It doesn't even matter. He was the first person that told me what work capacity was and how you improve your work capacity. He was on the same path as the beginnings of CrossFit. I liked his stuff, but I ended up liking the CrossFit stuff better, because you could compete in the comments on the website. Somebody would say, "I did this in 15:07," and you're like, "15:07? That took me 35 minutes. How in the world did that happen?" And then the internet got a little bit better, and they'd put a video up there, or a link to a YouTube video, and you'd see, "Oh, I wasn't doing it like that. I'm doing it all wrong." They had such a good media department for so long. When they got rid of their media department, I feel like that was a change. I had Mike Alley come over to my driveway one time...
Jere Hartman: I've heard about the driveway.
Tom Rowland: ...and we did a thing for CrossFit here, where they brought a couple of their athletes, and Mike and I are in the same age group, so we were competing that day. It was awesome. I love those days.
Jere Hartman: Who won?
Tom Rowland: I think he did that day. I really do. That day. We've been able to compete a couple of days, but that day, I think he won. It's a good time, because we're in the same age group, and that guy kicks my butt in most things.
Jere Hartman: I'll come over there and work out with you guys someday.
Tom Rowland: He's a very good athlete.
Tom Rowland: So what's next? After the next row, what are your plans with Corsair Racing, and how are you going to help more people?
Jere Hartman: We want to keep it grassroots, so we're definitely going to stay involved. We don't want to get too big for our britches. Right now we have one boat. We would love to get maybe five boats. Right now, the max we can help in a weekend is five veterans, and multiplying that by four more would be amazing.
Tom Rowland: When you're doing these weekends, you're going to a location? Could be on the Atlantic or the Gulf — you're centrally located, so you could probably go either place.
Jere Hartman: Usually it's Pensacola. If it's hurricane season, we go to Fernandina Beach, down by Jacksonville. But mainly Pensacola. We have a good community there. We have a yogi who will do yoga for us, and we're building an awesome community there. And it's easy enough for me to drive down, instead of having to fly all the way across the U.S. to make this happen. Basically, we'll find veterans wherever in the U.S., we fly them in, they're Airbnb-ing it all weekend with the other guys, and then we start teaching them about the boat, and we take them out based on how they're feeling, either for a two-day row or a few days. Usually we get them addicted and they come back for a week-long row, and then we'll pop the question and see if they want to row an ocean.
Tom Rowland: So when you do a two-day row, you're going to spend the night on the boat?
Jere Hartman: Yep.
Tom Rowland: And how far off the coast do you get?
Jere Hartman: It really depends on the veterans. If we can tell they're confident, we'll take them six or seven, just so the coast is out of sight, because that's a completely different experience. If you can't see the land, it's completely different. So we'll take them out where they can't see it, and then we might go down to Destin and have our pickup truck come and pick us up from there. It really depends on what they want to do. We want to make it where they're running the show, and we just make it happen for them.
Tom Rowland: That's super cool. And do you keep the boat down there? You have one boat, right?
Jere Hartman: We have one boat right now. We did keep it down there, but now it's in Kentucky. One of our guys lives out that way, so we have it stored there right now.
Tom Rowland: And how do you get more boats? You said you want to increase to five. How do you plan on doing that?
Jere Hartman: We're basically donation-based. We get paid nothing. This is all for the five of us — it's just love. So it's all the money we make in donations, and we're in the process of some grants, hopefully. That's how we get more veterans out and get more of the equipment that we need.
Tom Rowland: Where do people donate?
Jere Hartman: At corsairracing.org.
Tom Rowland: Have you ever gotten a grant before?
Jere Hartman: We have not. We're in the final process of a yes or no right now. We'll find out in a few weeks.
Tom Rowland: Good. There are probably some people over at Get Built that know a lot about grant writing, I would imagine. That could be helpful. Good luck with that.
Tom Rowland: Well, you're doing a lot of really cool things — not just rowing across oceans and hiking across countries, but you're helping a lot of people, and certainly the veterans need it. I want to hook you up with my friend Jimmy Armel, who's also doing a lot of veteran work. He's helping a lot of people. I think you guys would have a lot to talk about.
Jere Hartman: Awesome.
Tom Rowland: And then maybe you can go catch a great white shark with him. That's what he does. That's his bag. He takes veterans out, and he has a tagging permit where he fishes for great white sharks and tags them. Star brite, the title sponsor of this podcast, is very into conservation and really likes veterans activities like this, so they have sponsored him to get these tags. The tags are kind of expensive. They'll satellite tag the sharks and regular tag the sharks, and then they'll name them after one of the fallen comrades of the veterans. So he's tagged a bunch of sharks, and they're named after people that one of the veterans served with.
Jere Hartman: Wow. That's pretty powerful.
Tom Rowland: It's pretty awesome. And then you have that giant wild creature, a great white shark, there also. He's doing good work. So I'll introduce you to him. Anything else you want to leave us with?
Jere Hartman: Support veterans, man. That's it. However you can, support veterans. Anything anyone can do to help a veteran is an amazing thing.
Tom Rowland: That's great. Well, it's cliché, but thank you for your service. I really appreciate it, and I really appreciate what you're doing for all the other veterans. We'll have to get together and work out one of these days.
Jere Hartman: Yeah, I'm down to come out to the driveway and see what's up out there.
Tom Rowland: Well, I'm getting a new driveway right now. You just wait. Give me about two weeks, and then it'll be something special. But you're always invited.
Jere Hartman: Awesome.
Tom Rowland: All right. Thanks, Jere. Appreciate it.
Jere Hartman: Yeah. Thank you.
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