The Military and Social Dancing: An Unexpected Pathway
The Firestone Files: Letters to My Grandchildren — Dr. Chris L. Firestone
April 6, 2026 · Episode 34 · 48:56
https://drchrisfirestone.com/episode/the-military-and-social-dancing-an-unexpected-pathway/

Transcript is auto-generated from YouTube captions and lightly formatted; it may contain errors.

amongst the kids growing up in the house. The way to get ahead or get a oneup on each other. It wasn't by like physically dominating them. It wasn't by um beating them in that way. It was by like verbal combat. It was an intellectual game. And if you wanted to uh so to speak one up your sibling, it was by defeating them intellectually.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Firestone Files. I am Dr. Chris Firestone. Today I have the pleasure of presenting to you an interview of my oldest son, Matthew Firestone, that's coming at you today on the Firestone Files. All right. Right. Well, here we are. I have already interviewed several of my uh kids and today I'm really honored to have with us Matthew Firestone, my oldest son. Well, welcome Matthew to the Firestone Piles.

Yeah. Well, hard to get you here, but it just so happens you had a long weekend and we're still here at Turning Point Prepier and uh you were able to come in and do some teaching on the what we call the military pathway and we got you set up here on the Firestone Files. So, thanks for coming and thanks for your willingness to be interviewed here on the podcast. Yeah, always fun to make it to Dallas Fort Worth. I hope the uh I hope the students got something out of the talk I gave yesterday.

Yeah. Well, you went for a good hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes and it spilled over to a lot of questions and uh so great to see these young people interested in getting their lives in order and um one of the five pathways being the military pathway. So, it looked to me like five or six of them at least were interested in hearing more.

Was that your impression? Uh yeah, I was actually I was shocked to find that uh a number of them had done their own research and they knew a lot more than most kids. Okay. Most kids do about the military pathway. So uh that was encouraging to see and I think a few of them uh are going to continue looking into that path. Excellent. Well, that's fast forwarding quite a lot in the in the interviews with your siblings. Uh, I kind of want to take it back to the earlier days and work our way up to your current vocation if we can do that. If you're okay with that.

Yeah. Okay. Well, um, that's what I want to do. Um, just to make sure we have some continuity between them because as we roll these out, I'd love to see allow people to see who the Firestone kids are and how they perceive the Firestone family and their own experiences growing up from their own perspective. And so that's one of the objectives here today. So we'll try to cover some ground in that regard. Um, okay. Well, let's let's begin there then. People who've been watching the Firestone Files will know that uh we lived in the Chicago area, the north suburbs for most of our lives.

just a year ago, I moved down to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the families kind of dispersed into the various uh various venues of their own choosing. But, uh, back in those early days, we grew up in a small house on Williams Avenue in Deerfield, Illinois. And, uh, that was three-bedroom, one bath house. And the reason I'm asking you about those early years is because you're one of the older kids. Um, I'm going to ask the same question of your oldest, your older sibling, Hannah, when we interview her.

What was it like being a Firestone, particularly in the early years growing up with the Firestone family? Um, well, I'm not sure I can I can capture the entirety of that of the of an answer to that in this in this podcast, but I'll say that house, like you said, was small, right? It was like a three-bedroom house. They were not big bedrooms. Um, by the time we left it, I we all five kids were born. Uh, and then in addition to those kids, there was always daycare kids. I would say one of the defining features of growing up in that house was uh the absolute chaos of having 10 to 12 kids in there at all times.

Um, yeah. I would say the way mom handled that, homeschooled all five of us and dealt with six or seven other kids is one of the most impressive things I think I've seen any woman do. Um, so I would say that that's kind of the atmosphere we grew up in during the day. Um, being homeschooled, being around a lot of kids. um in the evening uh when you would come home I think is where a lot of the uh the kind of other side of that atmosphere was built. You had this game that you would play with us called the question game.

Uh and I did not realize it at the time but that it was a very systematic game that you were playing with us. Um, essentially the way the game works is you we would sit around the table. It was at dinner or sometimes at lunch if you were home for lunch. And you would just you literally ask questions going around to all the kids asking questions, age appropriate questions. Um, and then handing out points for correct answers.

Uh, and it was a fun game at the time, but I did not realize how uh pointed it was until I saw a talk you gave at a Turning Point educator summit uh I think down in Florida uh where you explain the game and how you ran it uh in a very systematized way in which you uh escalated the questions from very like low-level factual questions to much deeper questions that required a lot of thought um and insight.

Um, and then the way you uh manipulated the scoring system, we might say, to keep everyone engaged, it's tricky when you've got like four and five year olds answering questions that are against 10 year olds. Um, you have to have age appropriate questions and you got to make sure those young ones can answer them. Like, how old are you? And they have to think with their fingers, you got it, 10 points. Yeah. Yeah. And then the uh first question for the oldest kid always without fail was a square root question. Uh and if any of you guys think you know the answer in the comments, you can you can guess the square root of we'll say 144.

Uh I guarantee you'll get it wrong. That question got everyone every time. No matter how many times you asked it, we'd answer 12 and go, "Oh, so close. So close. Half credit. Half a point for you. Yeah, you want to knock down the older kids so that the younger ones get the lead and they have to work their way back in the scoring system. So shockingly he that qu every time he'd ask it he the kid would get it wrong or quote unquote half right. Yes. Yes. Well, you can pause this and see if you can come up with an answer and then we can come back and give the answer if you want. Uh the answer of course being plus or minus 12.

Okay. Anyway, moving on. Uh you know, it's always good to keep that competition, that battle going in the in the question game around the dinner table. Yeah. But I think that game, it wasn't the only thing, right? But I think it's a good uh it paints a good picture of the atmosphere that we grew up in. Uh in our house, very intellectual, very academic. I think uh it was Alex Pierce who once who once pointed out to you that um amongst the kids growing up in the house, the way to get ahead or get a oneup on each other, it wasn't by like physically dominating them.

It wasn't by um um beating them in that way. It was by like verbal combat. It was an intellectual game. And if you wanted to uh so to speak one up your sibling, it was by defeating them intellectually. Yes. Um, and I think that really shaped how I think and how all the kids uh came out of the house very academically minded and uh very focused on the life of the mind. Yeah. I Well, you know, you when you're immersed in it, you don't really recognize it. It's when other people come over and they said, "Man, this is a very sort of cranial or academically minded family."

But for us, it was just kind of normal the the way in which we kind of lived together. And so I was impacted as people will know from other podcasts by the turn to the life of the mind um early in my life and that made a huge difference for me and certainly I was uh trying to lean into that in my contribution to the homeschooling which was not anywhere close to your mom's admittedly. So, uh, she was there at that 8 a. m. bell in the morning or, uh, and all the way till the time I would come home, she was pretty engaged in that process. Um, so here at Williams, um, we have this kind of, I don't know, chaos, but controlled chaos, if you will, of lots of young people around.

You grew up with that. Um, we also did other stuff. I don't I mean some journeys that we took together things like I don't know tearing down trees or uh taking bike rides or runs or other things like that. Any anything beyond the life of the mind that uh you recall? Yeah. Yeah. I would say it was kind of a a two-sided coin, right? The atmosphere you grew up in. One was very intellectual, academic, the other one was getting out there in the world and doing things. Um, and that's the other thing that that I think you fostered in in me in particular, but in all of us, uh, you had a very, you could do that attitude about anything, anything we looked at.

And I thought, "Oh, that would that's kind of cool. That's people do that." You, yeah, those people, you're just like them. You can do that. Um, uh, from like the mundane things of of running. I know we would started around 8 years old. you you would always run, right? That was your big uh your big uh physical pastime, especially in the summer. You'd run the big square. All right. These four main roads around our neighborhood. Uh and around 8 years old, I think I think my older sister Hannah and I started biking it with you. Uh and not too many years after that, I started running it with you.

Um so like the mundane day-to-day things, getting out into the world, doing doing things like that, difficult things. Um, but then also always you were looking for the next adventure. It's just your personality. Um, I'm not sure if I was naturally inclined that way, but you definitely instilled it in me and I appreciate that. Um, from the tearing down trees, building sheds, uh, renovating the house, um, all the way to big old backpacking trip we did in the Grand Canyon, uh, right before I went to high school. That was very formative. Yeah. Um, yeah, I would say that that was kind of the flip side of the intellectual coin.

Very life of the mind focused, a high value on uh um the intellect and thinking purposefully and deeply. Uh but then also going out into the world and doing things. So I think the whole academia and adventure Yes. uh mantra was kind of what we what we had. Yeah. It seemed like your mother was the spiritual center every day teaching Bible in the morning, memorizing, singing songs and and then my role was the two-pronged intellectual physical side. Now that I think about I didn't think of it in those terms till you just mentioned it, but that seemed a way things fell into place over time. Is that fair? Yeah. No, that's that's definitely fair.

Uh mom was uh religious so to speak with the uh Bible study in the morning uh and spiritual formation. Um getting us getting us all ready to go to church in the morning, getting us to uh to do the uh extracurricular church activities that that build that part of our lives. Yeah. In some ways, I felt like even my role in the church as elder and so forth was promoted by her in her place within the church. Yeah. She encouraged her men to to Yeah. I don't think you're uh I don't think you're really one to to seek out uh like positions of of great authority or or things like that.

And I think but yeah, I do think that her encouraging you uh to fulfill the uh the request of the church that you that you join the elder board eventually and I think you chaired it at least once, right? Yeah. I ended up being an elder for nine years and I shared it I think something somewhere between four and six years out of that. So maybe about half of that time. Yeah. And I don't think that that had a really like direct day-to-day impact on us as kids. But I know like having that as uh as one of your roles and looking up to you in that way as a as a leader within the church um definitely had an impact on me and uh something to aspire to.

Yeah. Well, do you recall the pivot moment like getting too big for the Williams house and then the transition to a house that was literally a hundred yards away, but it was almost an eternity away because of the train tracks that ran between our homes. Do you remember any of that sort of transition stuff? Um, I can't say that I was aware enough to see the writing on the wall that we had to leave the Williams house. I was getting a little too too cramped in there with the kids getting older, the homeschooling become more becoming more intensive and then all the the daycare kids getting older as well.

Um I do remember the uh in the market downturn in 2008. Um I I obviously wasn't aware of the downturn, but I knew that you and Barb Barb Marorrow were started looking around at houses at that point. You saw an opportunity. Um there's a lot of prayer in the family. Uh and that whole process, it took a couple years, right? We will they won't they? Yeah. Well, the market was so rough then that our not a real low ball, but a low ball offer for a foreclosed house because there are a lot of those in the neighborhood was was not accepted.

We were kind of number two and but we felt strongly and we're going to tell this story on the Firestone Files at some point maybe when I interview Barb Maro who was really older lady in the church that ended up moving in with us at the new house and partnering with us for many years. We'll tell that story at some point, but we were able to uh to by God's grace um find a house that was had been over $600,000 in the old market was in the mid3s in the new market and still we couldn't afford it. And so we lowballed on that even and uh yeah, there's a lot of prayer going into that.

It was under contract to somebody else and came back at us. And uh that was really quite a family moment where we had to move out of Williams and into the into the new house. Before I jump to the new house, uh there's one element of this. You know, I was a professor at Trinity College, which was part of Trinity International University. Um somewhere along the way, I'll tell the story about those many years at Trinity and how it how its decline eventually led to its closure. But that was part of your uh homeschool education, was it not? Did you take some classes there? Uh, I think I only took one class there.

I took logic with Professor Cliff Williams. Okay. Who, I think you've mentioned before on the podcast. He's a an interesting philosopher. Taking logic with him was very interesting. Um, yeah, you being a professor there, it did open up a lot of opportunity for the kids to take classes there. I think my older sister took advantage of that much more than I did. Okay. Okay. She's uh definitely more of a a diligent student than I was. Um but one of the traditions we had in homeschooling was I think I think in sixth or seventh grade uh my mom would start each of us on a logic curriculum.

A uh I forget what it was called. It was a great curriculum. Um hopefully we can find the name of that because it's definitely worth was that it or no possibly possibly. But regardless, we would do a logic curriculum um at home school under my mom's toutelage and then the following uh semester or year, we would take logic at Trinity. Um and I think because we had taken that uh that uh logic under my mom beforehand, I think all of us ended up being the top student in that logic class. I probably also hope that it was our only class. Uh but yeah, that was formal logic was was a foundational part of of my education.

I really enjoyed taking it. Yes, I put into a systemized format a lot of the uh intuitive uh notions I had had been building up over years of homeschooling under mom. Yes. And thinking about things under your questions game. Yeah, I remember you took that with uh with Dr. Williams, Cliff Williams, and uh he gave a letter to me of your passing w with an A, I believe, in the course, but you were auditing it, but he wanted to say that you had completed all the work for it and that it was deserving of an A. Then a few years later, you actually took it with me.

Um, but you didn't really show up because we had this letter from Cliff and you got credit for it that way, which was uh kind of a neat thing to be able to do. We still have that letter from Cliff. Um, u recognizing that that was interesting that you had taken it from him because he rarely taught it anymore. Once I came on board, I taught it almost every year, but the year you wanted to take it, it was Cliff Williams jumping back in on logic. So, that was fascinating. and uh yeah, I think he appreciated you guys in the in that course and then of course other times as well.

So, all right. Well, you had some Trinity experience and you finally made this transition. I'm trying to think of it's 2009 now. That puts you at what age? Uh about Yeah, about 10 years old. Okay. Somewhere in there. We moved to this new house and this is a vast place compared to the one we were in. Um, homeschool continued. You weren't yet into high school.

What was it like moving into this new place? And and what did life change at all for the Fire Stones? Um, I'm honestly not sure that life changed that much. I remember going to visit the house before we moved in, thinking it was an absolute mansion. This uh four bedroomedroom, what was it? four bedroomedroom, five bedroom, fivebedroom, three bath house, which over the years I think we turned into like a six or sevenbedroom, five bath house uh through various projects. Uh not all of which we were fully qualified to do.

I I don't think uh yeah, I remember running around that house when it was completely empty, poking my head into all the rooms trying to claim one for me and my brother Andrew as quickly as possible. Um, yeah, I don't remember that it it really changed my life all that much. Um, I don't think I was quite self-aware enough at the time to understand like what it meant for the family, how much easier it made life for you and mom. Um, and then having Barb move in with us. Uh, yeah, just helping out even more, being able to help out with the kids.

So at this period of time, you're moving kind of into eighth grade and making that transition out of homeschool into high school. And I remember many years of you for example, I mean you were very interested in athletics as part of your portfolio and we had done baseball together for many years. This was pre high school and then you went into high school. What what was what was the feeling academically and athletically there in high school for you? What were you thinking at that point?

Um, academically, so I'm not the greatest student. All right. Um, in homeschool, I I Hannah was always, my older sister, Hannah, she was much more diligent than I, I think, slightly smarter than me. Um, she went to high school, really thrived, taking all the honors classes and everything. Uh when I went to high school, I started off in just a normal track. I did not test well going into high school um in my placement tests. Um but being in school with all these all these kids who had been in public school, it did open my eyes to the rich academic world in which I had been raised compared to what these kids were doing.

Um, and I was I was able to move up as I went went into my junior and senior year into higher level classes. Um, I think I became a slightly better student in that time. Um, I would say socially the transition was was was a little bit more difficult for me. A lot of my siblings are much better people people than I am. Um, uh, if you've ever met me, you know I'm not great at talking to people. Uh, so I would say that was probably the hardest part for me. Um, athletically, yeah, I did baseball and basketball when I was younger for a lot of years. Um, I was shockingly bad at them. Just surprisingly bad. You wouldn't expect it. Um, and I was self-aware enough to know that and to be fine with it. I enjoyed playing regardless.

Um, when I went to high school, I tried I tried wrestling. All right. I tried wrestling my first couple years there. And I I did gymnastics for one for one year just just to try it, just to have some fun doing it. Um, not too long before I went to high school, I had discovered figure skating through my sisters and mom. Um, and that's the only sport where I was not not completely awful. I was all right at it. Um, and as I went deeper into high school, I got more serious into figure skating and I had to I had to end up quitting all my other high school sports to focus on on it my junior and senior year.

Um, yeah, all those sports were fun. Was not great at almost any of them, but uh, yeah, but you found your niche there in the ice dancing or um, figure skating and uh, that became a real source of joy for you and for us to go see you do that. Nobody sort of expected that. I mean, it was like a land of opportunity from what I recall. Um, if those who are unfamiliar with the ice dancing world, there are a lot of females in it, not a lot of males. And your competence in there made you rise up more quickly than you otherwise would have in that field.

Yeah. Yeah. I was able to find a partner uh who was great. We skated together up through high school. Uh I also I think my sophomore year maybe I started teaching classes at the rink. Uh like just beginner classes for kids and and adults. Um and that was a lot of fun. I think that's the first place I started teaching things. Um and I guess through that I learned I learned to really enjoy teaching. I ended up taking up a little bit of tutoring later in high school, tutoring some subjects. Um, and then I didn't realize it when I was getting into the army, but one of the things I've ended up doing in the army is a lot of teaching.

And I think that figure skating is kind of where that started. Discovering that I really enjoy teaching. That's fascinating. So toward the end of high school, you're you're beginning to get consciously aware that figure skating is not going to last forever. Uh, and you start looking for new opportunities. And that's where being from a academically minded family with a dad who has some say tuition advantages for you at certain colleges, you start looking into the academic pathway. Yeah.

Uh yeah, college was the obvious choice. Uh in my mind it was it was the path to take. Uh college had been very good to you, right? you uh like your whole pathway through life is all driven by your academic pursuits. Um my older sister who paved the way for all of us, she went to school at Ammerst and she did extremely well there. Um so college was the obvious choice for me and I was looking around ended up settling on Calvin College uh where I was going to study computer science which I discovered in high school and really enjoyed. Um, and I didn't really give it a lot of thought, honestly, going into school.

Um, it just seemed like the thing to do. Yes. And that's how I ended up there studying programming. Yes. Now, I just heard much of this story here at Prep Year as you were telling uh our young people about the decision to drop out of college and to join the military. Maybe you can sort of review that for us. What's going through your mind? You're a year into college. apparently doing fine from what we could tell, but then something started stirring for you. Yeah, I would say uh my freshman year went fine. Um diligent with my academics, like all my classes went fine. I would say like near the end of my freshman year, I started feeling some restlessness. Maybe this isn't where I'm supposed to be. maybe this isn't what I want to be doing right now in my life and setting myself up to do this programming job day in and day out for the next 40 years.

Um, but that all ended with the summer. Summer came, summer break back in Chicago. Had a good old time. Um, when I went back for my sophomore year that fall semester, that's when I really started feeling uh real stuck. Like I was spinning my wheels. um not progressing in life in the ways that I wanted to, not setting myself up to do the things in life that I wanted to do. Uh I felt like I wasn't leveraging a lot of my strengths. I felt that um really like I was I was putting in a lot of work and not going anywhere that I wanted to go.

And it got so bad I started having I started having nightmares. I was having this reoccurring dream where I basically had this weight tied to my leg and it was invisible and all my friends and family were trying to get me to go out and do things with them and I was like I can't I can't walk and none of them could see it. Um and I didn't I didn't put the piece together at the time but I really think that was about being stuck stuck in life at college. Uh not where I was supposed to be. Yes. Um yeah, that December, I think right before I came home from school, I got a fateful email from a Marine recruiter.

Um which not immediately and reading it, but very quickly within the next week of going back and rereading it, looking into it really rocked my world. I kind of opened up my mind to a whole new pathway in life that I never had considered. Um, and that's when I started looking into the military. Didn't end up joining the Marines, ended up going Army, uh, which has been very good to me. Um, but yeah, that the process of getting from that email to joining the army was was a struggle in and of itself. Yes. Now, I only know this because I heard your talk here a couple of days ago, but you had a mentor that you leaned into for information and so forth. Who was that?

Yeah. Uh, there's a gentleman named Brandon Sers. uh who had served in the army for a number of years. He was a youth leader of mine at church when I was in high school. Um I think he had moved away actually by the time I started looking into all this. Uh but I had a couple phone calls with him, long phone calls on the phone talking about uh my reasons for wanting to enlist or join in some way. Um, and then once he was convinced that I uh was serious and was a good candidate, so to speak, for someone who might take this path in life.

Um, he gave me a lot of a lot of recommendations on different ways to join. Uh, and he's the one who actually turned me on to a program called the 18 X-ray program, uh, which is the path I ended up taking. uh which go to infantry basic, go to airborne school and then go to special forces assessment and selection right after that. So he was instrumental not in not only in contextualizing and identifying you as a candidate but also in identifying the specific pathway you ended up choosing. Yeah. Yeah. He had a number of a number of recommendations he gave me. One of them was the X-ray recommendation.

And I guess my first my first piece of advice to anyone, it was my first piece of advice to the students and anyone listening who's thinking about maybe joining the military is to seek out mentors. Uh people who you trust, who have been there, done that, who have a little bit of insight into that world because it is its own world. Um and ideally who know you personally, who know what you might be cut out for. Yes. Now that seems to have made a huge difference. Now that pathway, although a good one, had a number of hurdles along the way, things you encountered that could have really put a stop to your success in that field.

I mean, do you have any of them that come to mind that I mean, immediately at boot camp, for example, you had a hurdle and then other hurdles along the way? I mean, what what kind of what what do you need to do to prepare for this? Then how do you make it through it when you encounter those kinds of things? Um, in terms of preparation, uh, specifically with the with the program I chose, physical preparation is is the biggest key, right? Um, after I made the decision after a whole bunch of agony and talks with family, uh, and all these things, um, I left school, I was able to come back, live at home with you guys for two months. And during those two months, all I did was train. I did twice a day, sometimes three times a days, uh, six days a week.

I Yeah, it was January, February in Chicago, so all my running and rucking was done out in the snow. U, but all I did was eat, sleep, and train. And that was absolutely key for getting through everything. That pathway, it's just a series of hurdles, right? It's one challenge after another. Um, some of them are extremely difficult, some of them are not as difficult, and some of them are person dependent. Some of the things that were hard for me were not hard for others. Some of the things that were difficult for others were not that difficult for me. Um, but ultimately the thing that gets that got me through and that gets anyone through is one being physically prepared and then two having a reason.

There were long periods of time that absolutely sucked and were incredibly difficult and oppressively challenging and the job on the other end of it um at least in my mind at the time I don't think was actually I'm I'm not sure if it's worth the pain. Uh but what is worth the pain is uh my devotion to getting it done. Uh my belief that I was doing something meaningful. uh my belief that um I'd said I was going to do it and I was not going to quit. Um and I think those those three things are like the mental side of it is what really gets you through as long as you've got the physical side locked down. There are plenty of people far more physically capable than I who did not make it through.

Yes. Well, I I remember the the hurdles. They seem to come every six months or so. There's something where you're calling for prayer, you're calling for help thinking something through because you're facing something rather extraordinary. Now, you know, we can dive into some of that if we want, but I I want to circle back to the beginning of that again with the Fire Stones and so forth. You coming back out of college telling us you wanted to leave the academic pathway and join this military pathway. And I had it in my mind that we had this sitdown with about 20 people, family and friends around a circle where we tried to grill you to see whether or not you were serious about it.

But all of that stuff, if I'm if I'm hearing you correctly, built a kind of network or rationale or resolve in you to say, "This is clear. This is the way I should go." And when you got into those hard times, you had a kind of clarity because of you had to make it through the Firestone Gauntlet first of all trying to figure out whether or not you were really set to do this thing. Um, I had remembered one time when I heard you tell the story the other day, you said it was like three weeks in a row you came in to town. Yeah, I can't remember.

I think it was either two or three different weekends. Um, and yeah, everyone was a uh was a a pow-wow of everyone I I knew and loved. Uh, coming up with all their reasons that that I need to think about that maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should finish school first. Um, do I really want to do this? And being put through that, being forced to to really think through my reasons for doing it, I do think was instrumental in me having Yes. uh the drive to get through everything.

Well, it was instrumental for us as well because after that third one, you know, mom and I had been thinking about it, talking about, praying about it, and then I said, "Okay, I guess we're going to take him to the recruiter tomorrow." And so, I think it was the next day you and I drove off after that third pow-wow to uh to meet the recruiter.

That was a journey in itself because the building had closed down where he was at. We ended up going out to another location further out, but we did find him and you did get into the X-ray X-ray program. Mhm. Um if only just because there were only a few spots left by the time you know you had gotten ready to make that decision. But uh but off you went. And so that was an interesting I hadn't thought of it this way until just this very moment. But that that time that we needed to process in, you needed to have confirmation.

Those became strengths for you over the next three next year, next couple of years as we were empowered then to visit and to try to pour into, you know, getting out there to see you at key moments because we knew the difficulties, but we knew that you were right for that for that that pathway that you chosen. And that was pretty cool. Do you have any remembrances of Firestones connecting with you along the way? Um uh yeah, I mean in basic training, I got I got a number of letters from you guys. Those are always encouraging. Um I had one day pass in the middle of basic training down in Georgia. Uh and I know mom and and Hannah came down to see me just for that one day. It's a long drive for them. Um that was extremely encouraging. everyone coming down for my graduation, the whole family coming. Um, yeah, all those things were encouraging.

You guys basically coming along for the journey. Uh, constantly being in your guys' prayer. I think all these things helped uh help me stay grounded right in the uh in the world in which I came from. Uh because it is easy to get lost in in the army.

Yes. Well, it was it was a joy every time that we were able to connect with you because we a we didn't see you that often, but b we knew you were going through a lot to get where you wanted to go, but uh just I mean the family pride just kept rising and rising as you jumped each level uh and continued to meet your objectives and that was just the grace of God and uh a lot of hard work on your part. So, uh, that was super cool and I think kind of uplifting to the family as a whole. Um, you know, I'm thinking about the, uh, you know, that journey.

If I recall right, I thought you were in like either logistics or communications or computers or something. But you kind of surprised us when you said you're going to go into some kind of medical side of your what they call that, MOS. Is that what that is? Yeah, military occupational specialty. Um, I had this kind of uh this uh philosophy like my approach to life and it had never really been explicit but it became more explicit as I as I got through the army and and if there's something difficult that I don't want to do. I am extremely skeptical skeptical that maybe it's a thing I should be doing. That's why I went the X-ray route instead of some of the other the other pathways into the military. Um, and it worked out. It worked out on on that account. And so I figured I I should probably try the medicine route. Um, and I got no regrets there. The medical route's been very good to me.

And so you got to see a bit of the world. I think I heard in your last talk that was it Cree that you were in at one point? You Kuwait at one at one point. Uh, I was in Kuwait for a little bit. Um yeah, bulk of your time is in Iraq and Syria. Um so we were always concerned of course for the threat, you know, parents back at home and friends and family. The threat of war seemed to be pretty high, but the actual uh combat wasn't what it had formerly been if I'm if I'm hearing you correctly. Uh yeah. Yeah. the environments are are fairly permissive in particular in Iraq which is at this point a fairly developed nation.

So you have made it back you know from your second uh deployment. I think you bought a house down in the Clarksville area and um are looking to establish roots there at this point. Um, and this is where you you you made a transition from ice dancing to actually country swing dancing. Now, this always intrigues me because you have this this tough guy image for anybody who's in that field. How does how does one make that move? Uh, well, if I'm not sure I quite live up to the uh the tough guy image, I do my best, but you know, I think I make too many jokes.

Um, I I swing dancing is something I've like just dance in general, something I've had an interest in, wanted to get into. Being in the army, being in training for three years, then deployed, uh, moving around a lot for the army has never been in one spot for long enough, I'd say, to really get into it. Um, but after I got back from Iraq a couple months in, um, I had a pretty stable time, uh, being in Tennessee for a while, and I took a swing dancing class at a studio called Turn Their Head Studio, uh, with Rick and Nicole there, great instructors. Um, and I dove head first into it.

Uh, I don't really like to dabble in things. All right? right? If I'm doing something, I like to progress in it and become competent at it. Uh, and I fully took on that philosophy with swing dancing. Took as many classes and lessons as I could. Eventually, I started I started just volunteering at that studio to help out teach their lower level classes.

Um, and I've really been in that world ever since. So, I came back from Syria a little rusty, but was able to to knock the rust off pretty quick, and I've I've been trying to do as much teaching as I can ever since. Okay. Well, so it sounds to me like this is going to be a big part of your life, at least in the near term, but maybe even in the longer term. Um, as far as I know, you haven't signed an additional contract, neither have you declined an additional contract. So, but it would be part of any kind of transition plan for you, I guess.

Um, would be the country swing dancing. Uh, and I, if I recall, you're also thinking about physical therapy as another possibility. How are you looking at life uh going forward? Um, yeah, I will likely be transitioned out of the military. Uh when I got in, I was hoping to be in for 5 years, the length of my original contract and hopefully get two deployments in and then get out. Uh it took a little bit longer than that, all right, to get through all that extra medical training and then get those two deployments in. Uh but at this point, I've thankfully been able to do that and I'll be getting out.

Uh one of the big benefits of the army is is the educational benefits. Uh so when I get out I will have the GI bill uh which will essentially pay for school and give me a little bit of housing money on the side uh to allow me to go back to school uh complete some degrees. Um and then yeah, I'll continue the continue the swing dancing. We'll see how far that takes me. Uh but definitely while I'm in school, it's a great great part-time job.

Okay. See if it ever transitions to full-time. Well, cool. There is one question that has come to my mind before I let you go here um that I've asked your siblings that I haven't really asked you yet. This may be a bit of a curveball and well, you're good. You've learned to live with these questions around the table. Curveball questions. Um, when you think of your siblings in the Firestone family, um, I typically think of them being kind of Hannah and Matthew, Andrew and Becca, and then Emma sort of in the middle in terms of how they have played out. I think of a boy, girl, boy, girl at the end, and you got Emma in the middle.

But they have all come up with different ways of conceiving how their siblings and the Fire Stones relate to each other. How do you look at uh the five of you in terms of your relationship to each other and uh the Firestone family? Um I'd say Hannah and I really grew up together. Uh so that pairing I think is is accurate. Um, yeah. I think being the oldest, uh, we had a lot more awareness of what was going on while the other kids were still kind of, uh, uh, uh, childishly unaware of of everything going on in life. Um, so we grew up together in that sense.

Um, I don't think I have as much insight into the younger kids and how they uh would specifically say they relate to one another. Uh, but as you get older, these like these dynamics change significantly, right? Uh, I mean, when I when I was in high school, Andrew was he was still single digits, right? So, he was still a kid. I was taking care of him a lot. Uh but at this point, Andrew's he's now 18 years old, right? He's he just turned 19 actually. That's right. Um so there's this transition happening, right, where he was he was a child and I was an adult and now like he's becoming my peer uh doing much better than I did in college, by the way.

Um so that's been fun. I've having him in Nashville with me has given me the opportunity to try and develop that relationship more. Um, yeah. I I I guess that's probably the answer that I have. Well, that it's been super cool with you and Hannah at the top because you guys are includers. You guys go the extra mile to get siblings together. I know you guys had a trip that mom and dad didn't know about where everybody ended up in Nashville, I guess, for a weekend and stuff like that. And that's just super cool for parents to see because we no longer have much control over what happens.

I mean, maybe at Christmas or Thanksgiving or something, we still have a little bit of say, but uh that the organic way in which kids relate to each other really depends upon a willingness on their part. And so, it's been super cool to see both you and Hannah going out of your way to include them in things. And of course, now they're old enough where they can take the lead on these things themselves. So, that's been super cool to see. Um, well, uh, here we are. We're in uh Dallas Fort Worth.

I want to thank you for coming out and teaching on the military pathway, which was really cool to see for these young people because a lot of them are in the academic trajectory, but they're considering other pathways. And you were a person who actually did it, who moved from one pathway to another. And I think that was super cool for them to see. And your willingness to come out here in a long weekend to do that was was was great. I appreciate the opportunity. It's Texas a fun place. Uh and it's you got a great group of students. So yeah. Well, they certainly seem to appreciate you and your contribution. Well, again, thanks for coming out.

Thanks for joining me on the Firestone Files. For those of you who are watching, he's also the producer of the Firestone Files. So, whatever way this is edited is on him, as it turns out. I can cut that out later. All right. Well, that's it for now. Thank you again for coming and that's it for this edition of the Firestone Files. Look forward to uh coming at you next time with another interview maybe of uh one one of the Firestone siblings or just something else. So, super excited. Thank you for joining us and uh bye for now. Thanks for stopping by to spend some time with me here on the Firestone Files.

I hope today's reflections offered you some new insights and perspective on life. If you enjoyed the episode or found it valuable, I'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment to like, subscribe, and share it with someone you care about. I'd also love to hear your thoughts. What resonated with you? What challenged you? Or what would you like to hear more about in future episodes? Drop a comment below or send in your suggestions to the email in the description. Your input helps shape where we go next. This has been Dr. Chris Firestone. Until next time, keep asking the big questions and remember the kingdom journey is always best with your friends. Further up and further in. Bye for now.