Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:00    Thanks for tuning in to a Drive On Podcast where we’re focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community, whether you’re a Veteran, Active Duty, Guard, Reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.  Hi  

Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:22    everybody today, my guest is Mark Mhley. Mark is a retired Naval officer and aviator. After leaving the military, Mark founded Reformed, which provides a place for Veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs to connect with the community and business services that they can trust.  So welcome to the show Mark.  Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?  

Mark Mhley:    00:00:45    Yeah. Hey, thanks Scott. No worries.  Pausing when you get to my last name is a pretty common occurrence in my life. I know with a name like DeLuzio, you get the same, but no worries. So yeah, I was a Naval aviator in my adult life. In fact, my call sign was, and if you ask my Navy friends, it is fun, which coincidentally stands for FDIC name. So I’ve grown up with that. I was a Naval Academy graduate back in 1996, became a Naval aviator, flew the F 14 Tomcat.  I had the privilege of being a top gun instructor through the beginning days of the Iraq war, made five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, like all of us have and then made a transition to work for J sock for a couple of years as an operational planner. After that, I came up here where I live now to Annapolis, Maryland to instruct at the Naval Academy to corrupt young minds. I mean to create officers and Marine Corps officers and to teach in the political science department . I retired in late 2017 and today after a struggle filled that first year as an entrepreneur. In 2018 my business pivoted to support what you said, Veterans, military spouses, and new to us elite athletes help that community launch and grow their businesses.  

Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:21    Awesome. Yeah. So when we were emailing back and forth to get you on the show a few weeks ago, you had mentioned that you deployed on the USS Teddy Roosevelt back in 2009, 2010 time period. I think we probably had some overlap on that deployment because I got to Afghanistan in the early part of 2010. You had mentioned that this deployment had changed the trajectory of your life. And I’m interested in hearing more about this deployment and what took place during that deployment for you?  

Mark Mhley:    00:02:55    Yeah, Scott, what a great, well, loaded question like you encounter somebody else from whatever their service you said, Hey, I was in Afghanistan as well in 2009 and 10. Let’s talk about it, boy, what a time. Yeah, that was a time in my life as it was in a lot of our lives.  The troop surge, this was year eight, nine of operation enduring freedom.  War had matured, yet so much was stagnant and yet, it was such a bloody conflict in which we were trying to win hearts and minds. I recall, this was General McChrystal, who was the ICF commander at the time and under the rules of engagement and we’re undergoing a trend and appear to transition trying to return to the idea that we are not ever going to win this war, if we don’t win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and you don’t do that by blowing up every building that has a suspected insurgent inside it.  

Mark Mhley:    00:04:03    Well, so that was the period we were in was that phase of the conflict and with tears going on there was also, you know, escalation of attack on American f...