The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex
Marine Recon to Millionaire Matchmaker: JD’s Wild Journey to Success
Sat, 01 Feb 2025
In this episode of The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex, we sit down with James Devón Johnson, (JD) a former Marine Force Recon veteran who went from military missions to mastering the dating game. JD shares his raw and unfiltered journey—from overcoming personal struggles to building a thriving coaching business that helps men transform their confidence and dating lives. Discover how he leveraged discipline, strategy, and resilience to create multiple income streams and a life of success. Whether you're into business, self-improvement, or elite dating strategies, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss!Check out JD: https://www.instagram.com/thejamesdevon/?hl=en“Your Network is your NETWORTH!”Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024Youtube: https://jo.my/ytpaulalex2024Linkedin: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur?Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.ATMTogether.comwww.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com
Welcome to the Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Alex. I went from being a cop to an eight-figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day. I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals. Let's win together. Remember, I have your six. Get ready to level up right now. Hey guys, this is Paul Alex.
Welcome back to the Level Up Podcast. I'm here with a special guest. He goes by the name of JD. He is a former Marine, or actually Marine veteran, excuse me. And now he is one of the top of the line dating coaches in the online space right now. JD, how are you doing today? Doing well, man. Hey, thanks for having me on the pod. Dude, welcome to Miami.
Yeah, dude. Miami is the place, man. I've been excited to come back out here. It's been a few months. Yeah. And yeah, every single time it's an adventure. So yeah, thanks for having me on, brother.
Dude, I love it. So you're from Los Angeles. Dude, I saw like the past couple of weeks during the fires that happened. You were out there in the trenches, dude, helping people out. I mean, like for the viewers, our first like learning about you, dude.
that, you know, with that intro, they know you're in the military, they know you're a dating coach, but give us a little bit of background on you, man. And then we'll talk about recent events.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So obviously like people who look me up on Instagram, they kind of see like the front blasted images, you know, like, I still have my old Marine Corps pictures, my profile. So people kind of get that I'm a veteran, but they see more so like the playboy player lifestyle. That's all it's posted. I post some controversial shit too.
I definitely piss people off, especially a lot of women. I'm not necessarily a red pill guy, but some of the things that align with that movement, I could agree with and I'll make some posts about it. So I'm more known as this controversial person.
person in the dating space yeah um but yeah my my real roots come from the marine corps i was a force reconnaissance marine that's one of the special operations components of the marine corps so doing all like the cool high speed like what you see in the navy seal movies yep uh swimming in the ocean at night storming the beaches with the stars and the moon out jumping out of airplanes i did all of that shit for nearly 10 years uh and then you know i went through some hard times as a
Pretty rough transition, but then I became an entrepreneur and eventually got into social media.
Dude, that's awesome. Like the transition from like military to entrepreneurship, you know, I had a couple of guests that were also, um, Marine veterans. One of my COOs, he's actually started his new company. It's called crypto for beginners, but he's also in the same position as, uh, as you were, uh, yeah. Like,
dude was straight ops and which makes sense because he he fits right in to like business you know you take the mentality of planning and being ready and being a leader you know same thing with law enforcement so i always get along with anybody that does either first responder been in the military dude i just know that you're you're able to lead and that's what you need in business so i
From the military, what basically pushed you to entrepreneurship, dude? Because typically, let's keep it real. You're in the military for 10 years and you live a lifestyle that is almost like a monk that most people don't want to live. And then they go out of the military and then they go into law enforcement usually. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Most of the time, military guys transition to law enforcement or some type of first responder. You have similar lifestyles. But for me, like, I couldn't do that. And I'll explain why. So my last three years in the service, I was just promoted to staff sergeant, that's E6. And at the time of my promotion, I was the youngest staff NCO to be promoted in the entire 1st Marine Division.
don't know about the whole marine corps but at least the first marine division so significant achievement i immediately got bumped up like as soon as i got pinned on staff sergeant they bumped me up to an e7 billet so i was actually the company gunnery sergeant for headquarters at first recon battalion for a while uh basically running like manpower training ops all that
I was recovering from a gnarly surgery I had. You can see that scar right there. So as far as like getting out into the field, couldn't quite do that yet. But from a management operations position, I was doing all of that. But I talk about this on my page. I ran into a really interesting situation where my wife at the time, she decided she wanted to divorce me.
But she also wanted to take some revenge while she was at it because I had cheated on her. Oh, wow. A bunch. Yeah. She is pissed. I mean, rightfully so. But her response to that, definitely uncalled for. Essentially, that resulted in a nearly three year long federal investigation from her making multiple false allegations against me.
And again, you're in this specialized position in the Marine Corps at a top secret security clearance. So you're under a lot more scrutiny than the regular citizen. Absolutely. And coming from a law enforcement background yourself, you could probably understand when you're in that type of position and you're, what would you call it? You're in-house investigation services. AI.
Like internal investigation?
Yeah, like internal investigation. So that'd be like similar to NCIS, CID, right? So they're the feds. I mean, equivalent credentials to FBI agent. But as far as training and knowledge, these guys are buffoons. And they love to take a lead and just absolutely roll with it. And, you know, hopefully some of these CID, NCIS guys are watching. I just want you guys to know you're fat and retarded.
Now that all this is clear and done. So fuck you guys. But my ex-wife calls them up, just lists accusation after accusation. Anything that she could possibly think of. I'm pretty sure she looked up like top 10 felony charges for it. The next thing you know, I'm being investigated for all of this. So I get dragged into the CID office in the middle of the night. I just came from the gym.
I'm drenched in sweat, got my booty shorts on and my sweatshirt just completely soaked. And they're interrogating me. I was being investigated, everything from larceny, drug trafficking, human trafficking, Oh, she accused me of R wording her throughout our marriage. It's in the investigation report. So it is a multitude of things. And they're like interrogating me for hours.
I got detained without charges being pressed against me for three days straight. Wow. In a dungeon, like no blankets, like stained, dirty mattress, no access to hygiene.
And these are the feds.
These are the feds.
That's crazy, bro.
Yeah, without charges ever being filed. And in the civil side, so like civil court, she actually filed for a temporary restraining order, which the judge granted. The judge granted a temporary for an entire year. And for anyone watching who doesn't quite know how the civil or family court system works, getting a temporary restraining order is super easy to get.
Most of the time, all you gotta do is file.
then you don't get a chance to go into court and a judge will grant a temporary until your hearing hello so she got a temporary for over a year and with that allowed her to basically completely drain my bank accounts max out the credit cards i was removed from the home a cop showed up like i didn't even get a chance to pack anything they told me like hey you got five minutes throw some together in a backpack
and i grabbed my dog and i left so i was living homeless yeah as an active duty marine staff sergeant making good money i had side businesses going on at the time too but all of that disappeared practically overnight along with the investigation so living homeless on base i was moving around from my truck to eventually an rv that i grabbed living in parking lots and i started building my side businesses wow so first thing that got me out of the gutter was an only fans agency
what and then eventually a private security contracting firm completely opposite but so so i have so many questions on this man so okay you just went through this gnarly situation with your ex-wife Dude, it got you. And I mean, thank God you took the most important asset in the relationship, which was the dog.
Yes.
My dog is great.
He's a golden doodle. He's got a whole personality. Him and I snuggled through that winter.
Hey, dude, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. You know, man's best friend. But when it comes down to it, dude, what were you thinking the entire time? Like you were going through a situation where you like at any time, did you feel bad for yourself?
Like, did you have that like mindset that most people will have and just crumble and be like, damn, what the fuck am I going to do? Like, or did you, you know, still have that military mentality of like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to go ahead and figure this shit out.
So I actually did crumble.
Now... This is good.
Yeah. No, I crumbled completely. I had the lowest point in my entire life eventually. It was brutal. So like...
one day you know i i'm having a stellar career like the future looks bright making a bunch of money side businesses are doing good you know i got family two kids uh obviously the relationship wasn't good but everything else was great i was about to do a deployment to japan uh we're gonna be working some like strategic operations with a joint special operations task force and like the south china sea is gonna be some badass stuff looking forward to it the next thing you know
Everything stripped away, including my honor, my dignity. Friends didn't want to talk to me because when you're at that position in the military, it's now more political. So none of my peers, none of my mentors wanted to have anything to do with me. I was completely alone. And it got to the point where I almost off myself. I was this close. But by some miracle, God reached down and
He presented something in my life. I'm not going to get into it right now. Yeah, of course. For time's sake. But he presented something to me and that gave me like an epiphany.
Yeah.
And from that moment forward, from being this close, from pulling the trigger to nothing can fucking stop me. And I never looked back ever since. I just kept pushing forward and was thankful every single day for the struggles that I had to go through.
Yeah.
And now I'm here and I'm so far away from where I want to be. You know, I have some very high aspirations, but I mean, from right now compared to back then, that is eons.
And when did all this occur? Like around what time? Like around what year?
Let's see. This was like beginning of 2022. Okay. Sorry. 2021.
Yes. So around 2021, like literally as we're getting out of COVID, essentially. Getting out of COVID. Yeah, we're getting out of COVID. A lot of places are probably locked down still. A lot of people got dogs during that time. I remember because that's when I moved to San Diego. But dude, that's very inspiring.
And the reason why I say that, JD, is because, you know, I've talked to hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs that want to start a business. But the number one thing that I see the roadblock with entrepreneurs is is personal. It's personal. It's not the money, dude, because we can all find money. If I was to give you a Ferrari and be like, hey, JD, give me $100,000 for this $500,000 Ferrari.
Dude, I'm pretty sure you'll find the money. It's a good deal, yeah. You'll find the money, right? And that's what I tell everybody. It's just like, if you truly want to start something or you truly value something, you'll make time for it. You'll come up with the resources, you know? But
For a majority of people that want to start a business, they want to be an entrepreneur, they have to fix their mindset. So I think that was your breaking point. And, you know, I don't have a similar story like that. Mine was a little bit different, but I love it. I love it. Let's go ahead and jump into this interesting part of the conversation. OnlyFans. Okay. Very, very interesting.
You know, I didn't know that, you know, anyone can run an OnlyFans agency. And I'm talking about basically someone going ahead, managing models, managing, you know, the marketing and all that jazz. How did you get into that? Like, did you have a friend that told you about that or did you do research?
Like how? Okay. So fortunately for me, I've always been a ladies man. Like, you know, I had some side girls when I was still married and it's super, especially when I was homeless and I had like nothing to do, but to be on my phone and think like, I've said that girls, you know, I was still getting laid while being homeless. You don't know how many girls I banged in the parking lot.
You were legit living the bang bus life, bro. I had like bullshit excuses to why I was there. I'm like, oh yeah, no, I'm like temporarily here on orders and I haven't figured out the place to stay. Girls were like, okay, parking lot sounds fun. So I had girls. That's like the most important step is to have girls.
Now, it's better to like get an LLC and, you know, set up all like the back end business side if you're trying to do OnlyFans management. But just to make money, all you need is girls. So that's what I had. And I watched, uh, actually the fresh and fit podcast. I think Andrew Tate came on there and he was talking about his webcam company, how he did it. And I'm like, Oh shit.
I'm in a, you were just like, Oh, I'm like, I'm in a similar situation now. Do I want to do webcam? No, but I'm familiar with like only fans platform. Like a lot of girls that I knew back then were already on only fans. So some of the girls that I was seeing at the time, I convinced them to let me manage them. Wow.
and i only needed a couple hundred bucks to start at llc after a couple weeks and you know registered that with the platform and set up the banking and from there the back end stuff is done so now i just have these girls that i'm already banging yeah doing only fans so you're doing only fans and then you're basically negotiating a portion of their profit
which they give to you to manage what like what what are you doing are you running the logistics are you like almost like a ceo like running operations what what's your portion it's a very small scale we're talking like handful of girls i think at the most i had like a dozen yeah uh so it's much easier than having a large agency where it a large agency is a very like fully functioning business.
You need different department heads to manage different things. Well, starting out small, especially, I got to manage all the chats. So that was super easy for me. I know exactly what guys like to hear. And then I created content and posting schedule for them. So just schedule all their posts. It'd take me like a day, basically.
to schedule the posts, and then the rest of the week was dedicated to creating content for the following week to post and then managing the chats and just letting the money flow in.
Dude, that's amazing.
Yeah. That's amazing. I'm out of the business now. I've been out of it for a while because I definitely don't like the OF industry. I think it's bad all around. But hey, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. And that's what I did back then. I mean, you were...
You were in a very, basically, I would call you were a weird vacation, bro. Like, essentially, right? And you had to do what you had to do in order to make money and survive. So from running your only fans agency with a dozen girls to transitioning now into other niches and industries, what was the next move for you?
So the next move was actually a private security brokering firm. So basically, I had some friends. One of them was a LAPD detective. So he's very familiar with law enforcement, security, and all of that. Obviously, with my background, I knew how to essentially run operations. And then our other friend, Chad, I don't know what happened to him. He fell off the face of the earth.
But he's like the ultimate salesman. He's very narcissistic. Yeah. He was like diagnosed with bipolar, but he was like autistically smart. So he did sales and it started off with a Home Depot contract. Now I didn't do the backend side cause I was just operations strictly. So Chad and Zara, they ended up getting a deal from Home Depot.
And the way a brokering works for the audience who may not know, basically you get a contract and it's subcontracted out and you basically try to bid on the contract and then you sub hire the work to fulfill. So you got to calculate the difference. So like Home Depot is offering, I think like $300 an hour for one security guard in one of their Northern California locations.
And they bid it to another company that bid it to another company that bid it to another company. Eventually it got down to us. So we got it at like 55 an hour and then we subcontracted it out for 35 an hour. So that was our first deal in the private security industry. business. That's amazing. Eventually we built that up. We had more contracts.
Eventually I went over to Las Vegas and I was still like, you know, I was out of the gutter, but I didn't have much money at the time. So Zara, he was kind of like the head of the whole operation. You know, he paid for me to go down to Vegas because we got this security contract for a construction site, drove out there, met everybody, closed the deal, set it all up, drove back.
And then from there is just like one after the other.
and eventually it all tanked yeah but i moved on to better things from there so from from doing that which is very interesting man because that just shows you how resilient and how much thought you can go ahead and just create a business like that like i never thought that you could broker a security job from another company and then brokered that. That's amazing.
Just from my connections alone, I've made a, what do you call it? Like a finder's fee. Yeah. So I met someone who needed to fulfill Ralph's locations with blueberries. And I knew a guy, he's actually based in Miami, who was able to get blueberries. So I just made the introduction and I got a finder's fee for making the deal happen. See, money opportunities are absolutely everywhere.
And I've just always had this knack for being able to spot opportunity and somehow financially profit from it.
Yeah, no, that's awesome, man. I love that. I love that. So the big question is, how did you transition from doing those two industries to now going into the dating coach realm? I know you said you've been working on it, but haven't really been putting it out there yet. And now you're going full force. So how exactly did you get into that niche?
Yeah, so that definitely stemmed from the OF management, because working with girls, right? Now, it is a long process to get into the coaching aspect of it all. Basically, my bread and butter right now is running an atmosphere modeling agency. So atmosphere modeling, for those watching who may not know, I know it's huge in Miami.
So like New York, Miami, LA area, biggest industries for atmosphere modeling. It's essentially hot chicks getting paid to show up to parties or private events, whatever. Like it's not like a low key prostitution thing. It's like they show up to hang out and look hot.
Yeah.
It's atmosphere modeling. and there's a lot of money in it. And then I also have a matchmaking agency too, setting up paid platonic dates with sugar daddies.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. So a very similar niche to OnlyFans, right? And eventually I started occurring very wealthy clients. And being in that industry, I'm already in this position where I'm bringing hot chicks to the table to the wealthy clients who want them. Now, initially it's like, You know, we want girls to show up at our private yacht party. Okay, I can make that happen.
Okay, what numbers are we looking at? Figured out. All right, boom. Send me some cash. Here's the girls. And getting to know the clients and talking to them They need help with talking to women themselves. They need help with trying to get a girlfriend. Some of them want to be married. And it's just having conversation. And eventually I ran into this guy. He's like morbidly obese. Very nice dude.
His name's Tony. And he's like a New York guy. Very thick Italian accent, lives down in San Diego, has a bunch of properties, beautiful mansion down there. And he's just picking my brain at a networking event. And he asked me, like, you know, because I was telling him, like, yeah, I help guys, like, get girls and stuff, too. He's like, how much do you charge? And I just threw a number out.
I'm like, oh, shit. I don't know. I've never thought about this. I said $10,000. And he's like... All right, let's talk. So then I closed on a $10,000 deal to help this guy become the type of dude who could get girls. He ended up losing a lot of weight. Helped him just learn how to have conversation, how to like structure a dating profile.
And he's still single, but he ended up getting some girls rolling through. So it really worked out for him.
Oh, that's phenomenal, man. I mean, you know, if people need a trainer for fitness, why wouldn't they need a trainer for dating or to level themselves up, right? Like their image, their appearance. And sometimes they need that person that has that level of experience, just like you to go ahead and tell them like, Hey dude, you got to drop some weight. You got to go ahead and fix the way you look.
Right. and um man what what's interesting man is i think making the move down here in miami from la it's going to be the perfect perfect opportunity for you especially because there's so much people out here that are looking for those specific things um the other thing is when i was around 18 dude i'm 37 right now but when i was 18 i was actually a nightclub promoter for six years
Yeah. I remember you telling me about that. Yeah, man.
So, so, so I remember like back in my promoting days, you know, as a promoter, obviously we would pack the parties thousand people on a Saturday night. Right. And one of our, I guess, strategies was, hey, let like the first hundred girls in for free, right? And then promote it on the flyers and all that. And it worked. It worked like a gem, dude.
But that would drive all the men to come into, right? Because they see like a line full of girls trying to get in there before 10 p.m. It's just like, dude, that concept. Now you're making money off of promoting and making these restaurants and these places these parties, these nightclubs, just fill them in with hot girls and you get paid for that.
Right. See, that's essentially what it was with my atmosphere modeling industry. It's like private entertainment, right? So instead of promoting for a nightclub, you promote for the client's yacht party or their mansion party. Yeah. And a lot of these clients of mine, they would charge for mail tickets. And we're talking crazy prices. Like they'd be charging dudes like 50 grand. I can imagine.
To come in. Yeah. But the girls are being paid to show up. So it's like an investment for them. Question, man. Yeah, yeah.
Because you're from LA. Did Dan Belzerian do this?
Okay. So I've actually... I'm not sure if I can name drop him. So yeah, I'm not going to name drop him just in case. Cause I know like anyone who talks to Dan has to sign a bunch of NDAs and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, Dan Bilzerian, he has guys that just, that's their full-time job is cycling in and out the girls.
I think he's like changed now, but back in his highlight times of being on Instagram and you see him with.
It'd be insane. He'd had like 50 girls on a jet with him.
Yeah, he had guys like me that would just facilitate it because he's busy running business. He's like, I need girls here. I need to get my dick sucked five times a day by different 10 out of 10 models. And so he'd have guys like me facilitate it for him.
Wow. Wow. That's crazy, man. I can't even imagine that type of life, man. But okay, great. So what is the big plan by the end of 2025 for you, dude? What are you trying to do? What's the next move? Because I know you have your own podcast, The JD Show, which I always listen to it. I tune in, dude. I look at the clips. It's awesome.
But like if for anybody right now that let's say they see this episode and they're like, dude, JD, like I want to get mentored by him, dude. Like how can they find out more about you? How can they go ahead and actually reach out to you to work with you?
Instagram is the best way. We're still working out the many chat auto response feature because I do get a flood of DMs. It's hard to manage. But reach now via DM. Eventually, I'll get back to you or someone on my team will get back to you. And that's how you get in touch with me for coaching services.
but yeah right now i'm closing out my agencies in la so just trying to finish the paperwork to sell sell them off and i'm going to be starting a new agency out here in miami i have some ideas i'm trying to incorporate everything that i do into just one functional unit yep so we're still going to be doing atmosphere modeling so people who want the hot chicks to show up to their private venues yacht parties mansion parties whatever we'll be able to make that happen but the social media aspect
is going to be extremely important too. With the podcast, the JD show, that's kind of like a long term for me. So it does take a while to build a podcast or any media platform, as you already know.
So that's like something I'm just going to be doing throughout the week, but promoting what I already do at the same time, especially with dating coaching, helping guys pick up chicks and stuff like that. You know, we talk about it on the podcast, right? So that's just a way to promote. And overall, build...
everything into a funnel, get more clients from whether they need atmosphere modeling, whether they need coaching, also different things too. I've done some fitness coaching. I've helped some personal friends of mine with health, setting up a diet plan and all that. So eventually I'm going to start charging for that shit too. But yeah, it's going to be awesome.
Just everything right here in Miami, one big business and saying goodbye to California.
Oh, I love that. I love that. And what's your primary reason for leaving California? I mean, you know, for me, man, it was number one, the politics out there, but then also the state income tax. And, you know, now I'm making the move to Puerto Rico. But for you, is it the same reason or you're just like different environment, different people? Like, what's your reason to move to Miami?
Yeah, so I... There is a few reasons. Now, everything you just said, slap that on there for me as well. But I have a lot of trauma out there too. Everything that happened with me with the ex-wife, the investigations, all that's behind me now.
Right.
name clear and everything but some of the areas you know looking around it's like a lot of negative energy yeah and even though i'm in a great position now i've been stagnant for a while you know like a lot of people are fine just being stagnant like that comfortable spot but i'm trying to shoot up like when you open your crypto app and you see you got a big green candle like that's what i'm looking for in life yeah
And I think changing my environment drastically, coming out to Miami is going to be the place for that. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
And then the fires was like the final nail in the coffin too.
the fires, man. I, I mean, I was checking out your, your, your post and you were out there helping people, providing water. Um, I know that, you know, the law enforcement, they told you out there, you're on your own basically. Um, that, which, which is awesome and inspiring, man.
It's, it's, it's one of the things that I love about, you know, anybody that was in the military, anybody that was in law enforcement and then just for first responders in general, um, Um, but like, dude, I also heard in the news that there was like a ton of like looters. Is that right?
Yeah. No, it was an absolute war zone out there. Like the first week government had zero control whatsoever. It was just a free for all. It was like something out of a apocalyptic movie.
Yeah.
And I have a lot of friends who live in the Palisades area, a lot of wealthy people, clients, and I'm in all these different WhatsApp group chats. So I just came down from a ski trip in Big Bear, like you're starting to hear about the fires on the news. And then that night that it went from zero to a hundred, like it was like contained out in the brush. There's a few houses getting hit.
And eventually just neighborhoods were getting wiped out. In moments. And my WhatsApp chats are blowing up. People are like, can't get a hold of first responders. Like, we're pumping our pool water out right now, trying to keep the fire away from the house. Like, does anyone know anybody who can help? And I'm like, I'm chilling at the Ritz Carlton down at Dana Point with my dad.
Like, we're having some drinks and dinner and stuff like that. I'm having a great time. And I'm like...
shit i could i could help yeah and i actually had a non-profit too uh california certified 501c3 veterans for humanity and i had to let go of it because we just didn't have enough funding to keep it going but the non-profit was still active and in a disaster zone non-profits that are structured like mine are legally allowed to go help out yeah so i'm like
OK, well, you know, liability wise, I can go out there. I know my capabilities. So I started hitting up my WhatsApp chats like, hey, who wants to help instantaneously? Some guys from the Sean Kelly chat, actually. Yeah, you're in that one, too, right? Yeah, yeah. I posted on there like, hey, I'm rallying up a group of volunteers. You know, we're going to need some funding.
We're going to need boots on the ground. Instantaneously, people are like, what's your cash app? I'm like, oh, shit. Okay, well, I got other people's money now, so this is real. Yeah. And I took some of my own as well and went to Home Depot, bought a whole bunch of PPE, proper masks, goggles, fire retardant shit.
And I also had my own emergency supplies, like I'm sure you do too, being law enforcement background. You keep the go bag.
You have to, bro. You have to.
Yeah. So I grabbed that shit, load up my truck and I meet one buddy. He's from Beverly Hills. So he met me over like in south Malibu, just outside of the boundary area.
Yeah.
And we had a whole team at this point. We had people facilitating, like bringing in more supplies and then other people coming in to be on foot to to help out. So for 48 hours straight, we go out there like No information. We just know it's complete chaos. We know law enforcement, firefighters don't have anything in control. And we're like, where should we go? What's safe? Nobody knew.
We stopped at the command post. We made the introductions. Like, hey, I'm representing Veterans for Humanity. I just formed Task Force Blue, which is what we called it. Just shot that name out of my ass, honestly. But this is what we're here to do.
We got all these supplies and we got some addresses for homeowners who are actively defending their houses, putting out fires, who need medical attention, assistance with putting out the fires, other supplies. They even have masks and they're breathing in all this smoke. Families with children and stuff. And the command post, no one was in charge, because I kept asking, who's in charge?
They're like, try that trailer. No, try that trailer. Eventually, we got into the comms trailer. They're like, yeah, I mean, shit, go ahead. You're fine. Go check in with the checkpoint before you head up Sunset Boulevard, which was insane.
power lines down like you saw on the news how all the cars were just abandoned like piled up in the middle of the street the sidewalks so the plows had actually just cleared a path for the fire trucks to move out so everything was still like smoking and stuff and power lines were down they didn't have that under control buildings were collapsing and we stopped at the checkpoint pitch dark just thick smoke everywhere it looked like a nuclear bomb just dropped
And talk to the cops like, hey, we just got cleared by the command post. Go up. This is what we're going to be doing. Do you have any information for us? Nobody knows.
Yeah.
You're clear to go up. But if you get into any trouble, no one's coming to help.
Wow.
So in my own nice ass pickup truck. Yeah. Thank God I got those method wheels and the thick tires. We went up there through the plowed cars, buildings collapsing, the fire still popping up. And eventually we got to the people who needed our help. So we provided all the aid they needed. And we did that for 48 hours straight.
Just we got lead after lead, like, OK, next neighborhood, next neighborhood. And yeah, there's a lot of looters to cartels like organized gangs down there. It was it was scary, dude. Like we saw straight up killers organizing massive heists like these houses that burnt to the ground. People were like harvesting burnt out safes and stuff like that.
I saw these two dudes carrying out a cabinet and trying to load it into their tiny sedan. Obviously, they weren't from there just based on their looks. Yeah.
very dressed down and this is a multi-million dollar neighborhood so it wasn't their trunk they're out looting uh but yeah people crying and tears whole entire families just absolutely devastated like zero access to anything of value that they had so like if they're relying on cash or whatever or if they had a hard wallet in crypto dude they lost all of that
That's horrible, man. That's horrible. But, um, good thing you went out there, man. I mean, it shows a lot shows what type of person you are, dude. You're still willing to, you know, help the community. And, uh, obviously that comes back from your background and dude, I'm the same way. I'm the same way, dude. If it was to go down here and you know, we would have to war here.
Hey dude, I've strapped my MP5 and get ready to go.
You still got that law enforcement badge or the ID, the former one, right?
So you have multiple ones when you go into law enforcement. So you can make the flat badges. That is not the main one that you wear your uniform. So I still have my flat badge.
Right, right. Yeah. So that gets you in places. Yeah.
But, dude, I haven't thrown on anything in such a long time. I still go to the range from time to time, though. I love my guns. But, dude, I'm glad you're moving down here. It's going to be awesome. We definitely got to connect when you're down here. Now, for anyone that is viewing right here, where can they actually see more of your content? Where can they check out your show?
And drop all your social media handles, dude. So they can, so they can know where to find you.
Yeah, absolutely. So guys, the JD show official on Instagram, no underscores, no special characters, just the JD show official on Instagram and the James Devon on Instagram as well. We got the links posted in our bio for everything else that you could possibly check out.
there you guys have it this is paul alex with the level of podcast jd from um military veteran to dating coach entrepreneur and dude i know you're gonna kill it here in miami let's get it absolutely man thanks for having me on see you guys next one Thanks for listening up to Level Up Podcast.
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