EP 579. Beyond 5 Minutes with Jack Zimmerman

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast, where I’ve got a great story today. Mr. Jack Zimmerman, longtime listeners heard him before. He had been on here before talking about his book Five Minutes, and we’re going to talk about that again today. Look down in the caption for the previous episode. For those of you all that missed it, go back and listen to it, then dig into today’s great episode with Mr. Jack Zimmerman, military, civilian, hunter, and hell of a good guy. Jack, how the heck are you, man?

Jack Zimmerman: Good. So glad to be back on with you. I always enjoy our conversations. During the show times, it’s so hard to even get a minute with you. I feel bad at the shows taking up time for those people that don’t always get a chance to visit with you. So it’s always good catching up, man.

Ramsey Russell: You always catch me at a good time. You’re talking, of course, about either Dallas Safari Club or Safari Club International. I don’t go to DSC anymore, but I always go to SCI. And man, it seems like every time I see you, you come wheeling in when I’m catching a breath. We’re able to visit. I’m always glad to see you, always glad to catch up. Last time we talked, we did solve a lot of world problems. You went in-depth and told us about the most critical five minutes of your life. Just very briefly, let people know just a little bit about your background in that respect.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in Southern Minnesota. As a young kid, I thought I wanted to be an electrician out of the gates, and the wars were going on, and getting electrocuted just wasn’t as exciting as I thought it was going to be. So I decided I was going to join the Army. I didn’t tell anybody, went down to the career station, and I said, I want to go to Iraq or Afghanistan. I want to get there as fast as I can. I want to be on the front lines. How do I do that? And they said, “Don’t move.” And before you know it, I was on my way to basic training. I did all my basic training down at Fort Benning, Georgia, on Sand Hill at the infantry school there. Became an infantryman at the end of 2009. January of 2010, I started jump school at Airborne School there at Fort Benning. I got my five jumps done there, got my airborne wings, and got orders to join the 101st Airborne Division. As soon as I got there, they said, “Don’t unpack your stuff, we’re getting ready to head to Afghanistan.” By June then, from the time I finished jump school at the end of January until June 6, it’s kind of cool, D-Day 2010, that’s the day I deployed to Afghanistan. A pretty historic day to leave for Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne Division on D-Day. Some of those guys were there giving us speeches and getting us motivated to head to Afghanistan. Before you know it, I was on a plane over there. We landed in the Kandahar Province, at Kandahar Airfield, and started acclimatizing there. Spent a couple of weeks acclimatizing. Before long, we were out in our AO, our area of operations. A very hostile area, a lot of Taliban in that area. Somebody in our unit was engaging the enemy day in and day out. We spent nine hard months down there fighting. After those nine months, I found myself in a complex ambush. We were out gun fighting one day, and we were on our way back to our compound. I stepped on an IED out in the middle of a field and felt myself go flipping through the air. Next thing you know, I landed. I felt my shoulder break when I landed. I couldn’t breathe because I had the wind knocked out of me, twice, once on the way up and once on the way down. I couldn’t see anything with all the blood and mud smeared on my glasses. I couldn’t hear anything, having just stepped on a bomb. I remember looking at my left arm and seeing how blown out it was. I knew I needed a tourniquet. I was reaching back with my left arm to try to get a tourniquet, and I couldn’t get it out, my shoulder was broken, and my arm was snapped in half and blown out. I had one of my night vision pouches on my right side. I was trying to reach over to grab it. I couldn’t get my hand over the pouch. I looked over at my arm, every time my heart beat, I could see blood spraying. I knew I was in pretty tough shape, but I had no idea yet that my legs were hurt. Before long, my boy Daniels came sliding in on top of me. Right before he slid on top of me, I could see tracer rounds going over my head. That’s when I knew we were in a complex ambush. That was us shooting back at the enemy. Daniels jumped on top of me and started tourniqueting my arms. The whole time he was doing that, I told him, “Hey man, you gotta get off my boys. You’re pinching my stuff.” I felt like he was kneeling around my boys. What he was doing was putting his knees in my femoral arteries, putting pressure there to slow the bleeding in my legs while tourniqueting my arms. About that time, Doc slid in and cut all my gear off me. I sat up to try to get out of there and realized my right leg was completely torn off, and my left leg from the knee down was pretty much gone. That’s when I knew how tough a shape I was in. I was pretty much, at this time, a quadruple amputee, both arms blown out and both legs gone. Those guys kept working on me under gunfire the entire time. It started out where I could talk. I felt pretty good, considering. I felt like I’d been hit in the boys with a baseball bat. My guts were hurting pretty bad. I was hot and tingly all over, but I was able to communicate and talk. I remember how thirsty my mouth was. My mouth was so dry. I’d do anything for a drink of water. Besides asking if my stuff was okay and begging for water, they just let me talk. After a while, I started to get tired. I didn’t want to talk anymore. But I knew I had to make a conscious effort to stay awake. I remember shaking my head left, right, left, right, like I was marching. I felt like I couldn’t really do anymore. I was getting pretty close to the end of my life. I told the guys working on me to tell everybody back home I loved them. I thought I was at the end. At that moment, something washed over me. I knew whether I lived or died, I was going to be okay. I was going to be saved. That moment strengthened my faith to an unshakable point. As they kept working on me, I started seeing my whole life flashing before my eyes. I really think I was on my way out. It was all my memories growing up. I think that’s what we take with us when we leave here.

Ramsey Russell: And what were some of those memories?

“Why do we get up so early in the morning and jump in a boat and break ice and put our waders on and trudge around in freezing cold water, and train our dogs endlessly all summer long? It’s because we enjoy the people we’re around. We want to have the best experiences. We enjoy the outdoors.”

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, man, some of the best ones were, I vividly remember, I mean, it was like I was really there. I remember standing at the fence in the dugout, and one of my buddies was up to bat. I remember him hitting the ball and going into the outfield. I just remember all me and my buddies were going nuts in the dugout, cheering for my buddy to run, run, run as he was rounding the bases. Another memory I vividly remember, we were probably a little bit too young to be doing this, but we were riding around in a truck, drinking a few beers with my buddies. We had some good music on, and it was a hot summer night. I just remember the windows were down, and we were riding somewhere, probably to a different party or something like that. I vividly remember that moment. I remember those moments out in the woods, that first deer I harvested, how that all went down. I remember jumping out of the deer stand with the excitement that I had and running up and couldn’t believe I shot a buck. That was by far not even close to the best deer I ever shot, but that was the memory that really came to me the most, that first deer. I remember walking the ditch line with this chocolate Lab of mine that we had. It wasn’t even a purebred. I wrote about this in my new book, we’ll get to that. But I had a rope tied around my waist and tied to the dog because she’d get way out in front, and I could not keep up. She’d run off forever. Looking back, it really wasn’t that bright, taking a dog that never hunted before, tying it around my waist with a shotgun, and going out there trying to find a pheasant. But those are the memories that came back to me. The thing that I realized was it didn’t really matter that me and my buddies weren’t playing baseball in Yankee Stadium. It was the people I was with. Didn’t matter we weren’t riding around in a brand-new Silverado, it was the fact of the guys I was in the truck with. Didn’t matter that I wasn’t hunting the best property in Kansas for whitetails. It was the fact that I was out there doing it on my family’s land. That’s what I kind of realized. And I was like, man, this is a really bad thing to figure out on the way out. I didn’t really know I was going to get off that battlefield alive. And what I really learned was that things don’t really matter so much in life, it’s the people that you’re with. I’ve been to some places where nobody would want to stay for a night, in the middle of Afghanistan, maybe in your truck in the freezing cold because you’re chasing some birds or chasing some deer, and no sense in getting a hotel for a couple hours, we’re going to go right back out to the blind kind of thing. Stayed in some pretty bad places. But in hindsight, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s the people that you’re with and the stuff you’re doing. You’re having a good time. If we were hungry, we’d go to the grocery store. Why do we get up so early in the morning and jump in a boat and break ice and put our waders on and trudge around in freezing cold water, and train our dogs endlessly all summer long? It’s because we enjoy the people we’re around. We want to have the best experiences. We enjoy the outdoors. We enjoy the weekend, hearing the wings over us as we’re throwing decoys out. Those are the things that you’re going to remember when your life flashes before your eyes, those moments. I never had a moment that above me sitting on the couch.

Ramsey Russell: How old were you when your life was flashing before your eyes?

Jack Zimmerman: I had just turned 21.

“But it ain’t. It’s the simplest times. It’s the simplest times that you remember.”

Ramsey Russell: 21 years old. That’s a lot of revelation for a 21-year-old. I mean, when I was 21, I’d have thought that maybe other things would have been what on my deathbed, I’m remembering. Or the, I don’t know, the time your portfolio gets to be a million, or the time you won a Powerball or whatever, something crazy. But it ain’t. It’s the simplest times. It’s the simplest times that you remember. And it’s just those human relationships that almost get lost in the noise of all the distraction of living, you know what I’m saying? Just the simplest times. The human interactions. And your beloved dog that wasn’t worth a crap to nobody else but you. I had a first dog. She wasn’t worth a flip except to me. And she might as well have been made of solid gold. So your life is flashing before your eyes. And last episode, you were telling us that somebody told, you had to get through that 300 seconds?

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. After I got medevaced off the battlefield under fire, I remember them carrying me to the chopper and putting me in the helicopter. The flight med jumped on top of me. As we’re flying to Kandahar, he said, “This is gonna hurt.” And I thought, what can you do to me at this point to hurt me. All four limbs blown off. I can barely breathe. I’m so out of life. I can barely see and focus my eyes. He jumped on top of me and punched this deal right into my sternum and started feeding me fluids. It really brought me back to life and made breathing easier. I could see again. We landed on that tarmac, the helicopter shut off, and they slid me into the back of this truck. I’ll never forget it. My anesthesiologist was on my left. My surgeon was on my right. The anesthesiologist asked me a few questions, if I was allergic to anything and stuff like that. The surgeon looked at me and said, “If you can stay awake for five more minutes, I’ll promise you your life.” And that was a pretty pivotal 300 seconds in my life, staying alive for those five minutes. I had to hold up my end of the deal. I remember backing up to the hospital. They pulled me out of the back of the truck and had me on the operating room table. All of a sudden, I realized, where’s that guy I had the bet with for five minutes? Because everybody looked the same all of a sudden. Everybody had a mask on and glasses on. Everyone had their surgical hats on. I was like, man, I can’t pick out who that guy was anymore. I hope he’s still here. The anesthesiologist came over and was trying to put this mask on me. I began to fight him. He said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I had a bet with a guy that I was going to stay awake for five minutes. I know you’re trying to put me out.” He called the surgeon over, and the surgeon came over and said, “Hey man, your five minutes is up. You can go to sleep.” The guy put that mask on me and told me to count back from 10. I told him to screw off. My last memory on earth wasn’t going to be one. I didn’t know if I was ever going to wake up again. I started thinking about all the best times in my life that flashed before my eyes. And it was just drifting off, never knowing if I was ever going to wake up again, and really believing in my faith that whatever was to come was meant to be. And six days later, about a week later, I woke up in San Antonio from an induced coma. I started putting my life back together. My first book really focuses on that time in the hospital until I got out. I went through 20 operations. I had to skin my whole front, basically my belly, to lay all that skin on my arms. Got my legs closed up. I’m a double amputee now, above the knees. I lost my thumb and finger on my dominant hand. My hand doesn’t really work that well, my right hand, but I still got my arm. And I can hold up a shotgun. That’s really what matters most.

Ramsey Russell: Do you pull the trigger with your middle finger?

Jack Zimmerman: No, I shoot left-handed now.

Ramsey Russell: Okay, wow.

Jack Zimmerman: Switched over. It took me a lot of practice. I give a lot of credit to Dan Carlisle and Mark Fitzsimmons. Dan Carlisle shot on the Olympic team, and I shoot with him quite a bit. He’s got me shooting left-handed. I got invited, I do a lot of motivational speaking, and I got invited down to a fundraiser. The fundraiser was a sporting clays event, and I won the whole dang thing. So I gotta say, I got the hang of it again. That was the second question I asked, though, Mr. Ramsey, when I woke up, how am I ever going to hunt again? How am I going to get back outside? How am I going to do this? Waking up, never knowing what my capabilities were going to be. Not really even knowing what I had left. All I really wanted to know was how I was going to get back out there and into the outdoors.

Ramsey Russell: How old are you now, Jack?

Jack Zimmerman: Thirty-five.

Ramsey Russell: Thirty-five. I’m reminded of an old saying, life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it. Is that a pretty fair statement? I think there’s a lot of truth to that.

“One of my first chapters in my first book is how I react to things, and what I learned early on in that hospital was a good attitude. I could overcome anything. And with a bad attitude, I really couldn’t overcome anything.”

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. One of my first chapters in my first book is how I react to things, and what I learned early on in that hospital was a good attitude. I could overcome anything. And with a bad attitude, I really couldn’t overcome anything. The first time I did anything was the hardest. I remember going back and just trying to touch my nose for the first time. My elbow being broken and my arm being snapped in half, my shoulder being broken, and my left hand was really my only option to get going at first, to try to do anything for myself. My goal was to touch my nose because if I could do that, I could eat again, I could drink again, I could brush my own teeth, gain a little bit of independence for myself, I guess you could say. Man, I stretched my neck out further than ever, stretched my elbow, but eventually I touched my nose. What I learned through going through that whole experience was the first time we do anything is the hardest. After we accomplished it that first time, it changes something inside of us. We believe we can. We know we can do it because we’ve done it before. It makes it so much harder to give up. Think about how easy it would have been for me to give up laying there, all my limbs blown off. Who to blame? The thought of quitting at that time was a passing and easy win to the Taliban. And that was about the most disgusting thing you guys could think at the time.

Ramsey Russell: Mm. Well, shifting gears. What have you been up to lately? What’s been on your mind? What’s something worth talking about? Has anything simple made you laugh recently?

Jack Zimmerman: Oh man, I was at the Bassmaster Classic this last weekend. I was down there with Matt Robertson and his Autumn booth, hanging out with those guys and the Boss Shot Shell guys. We were just having such a good time. A guy came by the booth there, and I asked him what he hunted, and he said, I hunt anything with legs. I said, well, I guess I got nothing to worry about then. Man, he about peeled over. He was about sick. He’s like, I feel so bad, with me not having legs and everything. That had me laughing pretty good. It was a good reminder that nobody ever means any harm most of the time. What happens in this world nowadays is people are in such a defensive posture, and you can interpret a message many different ways. I could have been offended by that, but I could see that obviously there was nothing malicious behind what he was saying, and we got just a good laugh out of it. A friendship was solidified there through that whole situation where it could have been the exact opposite. What I learned through that whole thing is a reinforce for me, I should say, is we can all be friends if we want to be, and trying to understand the message and intent behind somebody and what they’re saying is what we need to maybe slow down and do a little bit more today.

Ramsey Russell: Amen. Say it again. Nothing is as honest as drunks and children. Children are special. Ask anything. They see a scar or see my messed-up thumb or finger, boy, they gonna ask.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: They don’t mean any harm by it. I’m asking this question because I remember the first time you were ever in our booth. First time we met. We’d sit in there right in the middle of a visit, and there was a mama and her child. Beautiful little girl sitting at me. I guess she was knee-high. How would that be? Three? Four?

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And she asked you, and do you remember that experience? I’m sure it happens quite a bit.

Jack Zimmerman: Oh man, that was one of the most special experiences I ever had in my life. I go back, I tell that story often. We were sitting there chatting it up, and this little girl sitting there, and she asked me what happened. I kind of told her what happened to me. She was kind of checking me out. She saw my badge or my lanyard, which you normally wear around your neck. I just had it hanging on my chair there, and I had a Purple Heart attached to my military Purple Heart. It was hanging from my chair. She pointed out, she said, hey, I got one of those too. I said, what did you get a Purple Heart for? Out of curiosity. That’s when we learned that she had beat cancer and her whole team had signed a big Purple Heart for her to take home. Man, I like to think I’m a big tough guy. You send me anywhere and I could take on the enemy, and you can’t shake me. But man, this little girl had me rattled. I remember taking that Purple Heart off that lanyard then. She had this cute little denim jacket on, and I pinned it on her lapel. I told her that she deserved that more than I did. Still today, this gets me choked up telling that story. I signed up for what I went through, and I’m proud of everything that I did, and I’d do it all again. We did it with honor and courage. There were some of the best guys I ever met in my life, and we all signed up for that. We volunteered to do it willfully. I was 21 years old when I got wounded. I got to be a kid. I got to go play sports. I got to do all the things kids should do. That little girl, she didn’t. She didn’t sign up for that, and to take that thing head-on with grit and toughness is just something I can admire myself.

Ramsey Russell: Amen. I tell you what, that’s dialed on. But the story’s about you, not anybody else. I learned at a tender age, and it helped me cope, that nobody gets out of this life without scars. Nobody is born and dies an old man that gets out of this life intact. We lose. We lose. Sometimes it’s very conspicuous pieces of ourselves.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

“We all know people that are walking around with a real heavy heart, or their heart’s been ripped in half, their soul is gaping wide open because life is brutal, man. It really is about how we react to it.”

Ramsey Russell: And sometimes it ain’t. We all know people that are walking around with a real heavy heart, or their heart’s been ripped in half, their soul is gaping wide open because life is brutal, man. It really is about how we react to it.

Jack Zimmerman: The thing about scars is a scar always has a little story behind it. There’s always a lesson learned with the scar. All the struggle that I went through, I could never put a price tag on that. The learning that I went through, through that whole experience, and being able to shape my perspective in ways that I couldn’t even imagine. The things that I’m grateful for nowadays and thankful for, the list is so long. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I got to jump into that dang wheelchair. Right then and there, when I jump into that wheelchair, I got to check my attitude. I can look at it one of two ways. I can think, poor me, that I gotta crawl into this wheelchair this morning. Or I can think, look at all the stuff that I’ve been through, and I’m still getting up and getting in this thing and getting after it every day. All the stuff that I’ve been through, what can happen to me today to stop me? That’s what I get up and do, and I get rolling. The thing is just to find that momentum and just keep moving. That’s what I’ve done since the day I was wounded. The whole goal was to get back up, get out there, get back out in the woods and try to do it with as many veterans as I possibly can.

Ramsey Russell: Jack, last time we talked, you shared what it was like transitioning out of the military. Looking back, has your perspective on the shift from military to civilian evolved at all? I mean, I would guess just as you get older, maybe it continues to evolve.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, it’s not so much like, so many guys say it’s like a part of it is missing. What I really learned is that we’re not trying to replace anything. It’s just something to build on, right? It’s the foundation. We had all those experiences, and those were all lessons that we learned in life going through all those things. Everything was a lesson. They’re all experiences. But I think what a lot of guys struggle with today when leaving the military is finding that purpose, finding their why. Why am I doing the things that I’m doing nowadays? Why am I getting up? Before, I served the entire country, and now I don’t have a purpose. What guys don’t realize is that you’re not trying to replace what the military gave you. That’s what you were at one time, a soldier. It gave you the best foundation, in my eyes, that you can have. We’ve learned discipline better than anybody else. We can outrun anybody. We can outwork anybody. We know that. So make that your foundation. Don’t try to replace that. Build on that. I think that’s the thing that guys need to learn when they’re transitioning out of the military. What I’ve learned more recently than I did when I first got out was, how am I ever going to be a soldier again? Understanding I’m not. That was my foundation for the rest of my life, and now it’s time for me to go create the best new version of myself.

Ramsey Russell: Heck, yeah. You’re living proof about the power of storytelling and connection. What’s something somebody’s told you? What’s a story you’ve heard recently that sticks with you, that makes you a better person?

“Some of the most impactful stories are the ones that have impacted someone else’s life. Today, I’m telling you my story of being wounded. Those guys that dragged me off the battlefield that day, the sacrifices they made so I could be here.”

Jack Zimmerman: I meet so many people, and I get to hear so many stories. Some of the best stories I hear are the ones where people explain how they’ve helped veterans in the past. That’s the best way to explain it. Some of the most impactful stories are the ones that have impacted someone else’s life. Today, I’m telling you my story of being wounded. Those guys that dragged me off the battlefield that day, the sacrifices they made so I could be here. There are so many people metaphorically doing the same thing for others. They’re dragging them off their battlefield, whatever it is in their life, trying to dig deeper and do whatever it takes to get those people to the best position they can be. They can see the potential in them, but trying to get them to that finish line. So many of these stories aren’t so much “what happened to me” stories, but “how I helped somebody else” stories. Those are the ones that just seem to be getting better and better nowadays. Everybody’s trying to be better to everybody else. I really think humans are moving in the right direction. I really do. Maybe it’s because of the position I’m in or whatever it is, but so many good people trying to make other people’s lives better, and it’s awesome.

Ramsey Russell: There’s a lot to be said, if the best way to help yourself is to help others. If you’re having a bad day, make somebody else’s day better.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. It’s pretty easy to give up on stuff on your own. You get these guys that get in these running groups or go to the gym. You miss a couple of days, and all of a sudden that one buddy from the gym is messaging you, “Hey, where you been?” It’s not easy to quit when you’re part of a group. It’s not easy to quit when you’re doing it for somebody else. Go find a reason to do it for somebody else, anything you want to accomplish.

Ramsey Russell: Amen. Jack, were you always like this? I feel like a lot of your conversations you’re having, the things people open up and share about themselves to you, is because you’re open, and you’re having these honest conversations with people. Were you like that before?

Jack Zimmerman: I feel like I’ve always been a pretty positive person. I think early on, I really realized laying there in that bed, I had a lot of these things dawn on me. So many life lessons. When I reacted positively, when I said, “Hey, I’m excited to get these surgeries done. I’m really excited to get out of this hospital. What do I have to do to get out of here? The doctors and surgeons, the way they reacted to me was a lot different than if I didn’t have a good attitude. Confidence builds off each other. If I showed that I had confidence in them, they showed confidence in me, and we could build off each other. That’s kind of the key, just finding that momentum to keep moving forward. I think I’ve always had a good attitude, but really going through this whole experience and just being thankful and grateful for a second opportunity on life has really shaped my perspective and my attitude of who I am today.

Ramsey Russell: Let’s talk about your new book, Jack. In Beyond 5 Minutes, you explore the idea of small interactions holding big meaning. What inspired the title, and what does the word “beyond” look like for Jack Zimmerman?

Jack Zimmerman: My first book was called 5 Minutes: 300 Seconds That Changed My Life, and I really enjoyed the writing process. I really do enjoy writing. Hunting has done so much for me, and that’s the first thing I pretty much did when I got out of the hospital, I got back out in the woods. There are so many lessons learned through that. I thought, man, more people need to hear this. I just wanted to share my story of getting back in the woods and what that looked like. I thought, what would I title this book? The five minutes and that time in the hospital, my recovery, that’s what my first book covers, those lessons. Beyond 5 Minutes is my stories of getting back out in the woods and hunting, and a little bit of my foundation, where my hunting all started for me as a kid around southern Minnesota. I just drove past there two days ago where I did most of my hunting as a kid. It’s a little section of ditch with maybe 40 acres on each side, and my whole life from 14 years old till 20 years old was contained in those two little patches of trees. That was my paradise. I want kids to dream big. I never dreamed of going and hunting pheasants in South Dakota. I was gonna run that same ditch the rest of my life, as far as I knew. I never thought about going and chasing a mountain lion out in Montana. We don’t have mountain lions running around southern Minnesota real often. I never knew that was a possibility because nobody told me I could. I want everybody that reads this book to know that you can go and do anything, hunt anything, anywhere you want, as long as you decide to. You’ve got to make that choice first. Another really big point I wanted to get across in this book was, I never would have been able to hunt again if it wasn’t for somebody to help me. I’m not going back out in the slough throwing out decoys and doing all that stuff. I’ve got to have buddies throw me in a boat or kayak or whatever, and float me out there and put me on a dog platform in the slough. I’m not gonna be able to slide around in a cornfield, park my truck, and get back into my blind. I’ve got to rely on those people. People need to realize that somebody took them hunting for the first time. We need to also look at not just getting guys like me that need help, don’t forget about us, but don’t forget about your grandpa, don’t forget about your uncle, don’t forget about those guys that can’t hunt anymore because it’s just too hard. Maybe you’ve got to give up one of your days every season to get them back out in the woods one more time. Help them get out for one day of deer hunting. Give up one of your days or whatever it may be, because there was a point in time they were probably willing to do it for you.

Ramsey Russell: Was there any moment in any one of your books that was hard to write, but you wrote anyway and had to be told?

Jack Zimmerman: No, not so much. Like you said, I’m pretty open about all the things that I’ve been through and my experiences. The thing that was so hard for me to get in this book, that’s been different than my first book, was at the end of each chapter there’s a little testimonial. At the end of each chapter, from typically somebody that was, there’s a few that aren’t, but all the chapters have a testimonial, essentially from them or their perspective of that last chapter. And the testimony is from somebody that was usually part of that story. The one that first comes to mind is in the introduction. It’s my story of getting wounded. Doc shares his perspective of that day. He’s the other guy who saved my life, and he risked his to save mine. We were under fire the entire time, bullets whizzing in, and they never slowed down once. Doc never wavered. He went above and beyond to save my life. I think about laying on that stretcher that day and him laying on top of me as that helicopter was coming in, to protect me from my wounds and all the wind and debris that the bird was going to kick up. He literally laid on top of me to protect me from that, and the bullets coming in and everything else. He really, you can tell how much he loved me in that moment and wanted me to live. He was willing to do whatever it took to save my life. Hearing his perspective of that day and what he went through and what he has to carry with him the rest of his life, just so I can live, that’s kind of hard to read sometimes. I hear about my friend Kyle Bushman. He was with me when I was the first double amputee to ever kill a mountain lion. He was the one that was pulling me up the mountain that day in my sled, as I was pushing and kicking along as hard as I could with my arms. They never said they were tired. They never complained once. We just kept going up that mountain. I just remember the hounds getting louder and louder and louder. Before you knew it, we were sitting on a mountaintop, sharing a Busch Light and cheering with the American flag over this mountain lion that we got. We said, “We better take a few pictures and get off this mountain because it’s gonna get dark real quick.” Starting to descend down that mountain, and now Kyle’s fighting stage four cancer. To hear that he draws inspiration every day to battle his battles from my story is incredibly humbling. He shares that perspective in this book. Those were the hard things that, maybe not so much to write, but to be a part of the book were hard in a good way.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. It hits you where it hurts.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: The world really is a lot bigger than a ditch bank in your backyard. I keep up with you on social media. You mountain lion to Africa. What are some of the other big hunts you’ve been on recently? And what are you dreaming of doing that you never dreamed before?

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, so in the last year, I did things and I pushed myself further than I ever did. And it was solely because of the relationships that were formed. Some of them were formed at SCI, where we met. I went over with Bilkey Track and Trail last June, and I was able to harvest a stag. First of all, New Zealand is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The people are some of the kindest I’ve ever met in my life. The hunting was just incredible. To run my hands around that stag and then the beauty of the scenery, it was just one of those things where you’re like, man, how do I ever top this in my life? How does it ever get better than this? I really enjoyed New Zealand and had a great fall. I got to hunt a lot of my normal spots. I went to North Dakota and got to shoot some ducks up there. I was in South Dakota, I got to shoot some ducks up there, I mean pheasants up there. Took my son to Iowa pheasant hunting. We did some hunting around Minnesota, of course. I took my son out to Wisconsin. This was his first year deer hunting. Last day, we were chasing deer around. It was so cold, we’re talking below zero regular temperature, and then wind screaming. I mean screaming. The blind is jumping and popping. We couldn’t even get the fires lit on the Mr. Buddy; the wind was so bad inside the tank. And he stuck it out.Then one day, he looks over at me and says, “Dad, my feet are cold.” And I said, “Well, mine aren’t. What do you want to do? You want to go in or just stay out here?” He toughed it out. I was so dang proud of him. On the last day, we saw this giant. He came in, and it was a little ways out. I said, “If he comes out of that brush, we’re going to have to take a shot at him because that’s a good deer right there.” All night long, all you could see were horns in that brush. You could see him moving around just a little bit back there. More and more deer kept coming out on the field. I’m like, “Hey, buddy, it’s just a matter of time. He’s coming out.” I watched every minute tick by, and he never came out. It was so funny, he says to me when we got back to the truck, “Dang, Dad, I really wish some does would have come out tonight. I would have shot one of those.” I said, “Buddy, there were 15 or 20 does out in that field, right in front of us.” He goes, “Oh, I didn’t even notice them.” He was so focused on the horns of that buck, he didn’t even see the other deer out there. So I didn’t want to give up on him. I brought him down to Tennessee. It was a little bit warmer down there, too. We went down, and he was able to harvest his first buck. To be a part of that with him, oh man, what a special moment that was. To see his excitement, and to take myself back to when I was harvesting my first deer, man, it was just one of the best years I ever had. And I got to go to Africa. That was one of the most incredible experiences. It’s surreal.

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievable.

Jack Zimmerman: Seeing giraffes out there and rhinos. There were no lions or elephants anywhere I was at there, but I was able to harvest all the plains game. I was able to harvest a zebra, mountain zebra. I don’t even know what to say. It’s just phenomenal. Incredible animal and one of the hardest things I’ve ever hunted. I finally got my first shot on one, just got it lined up perfect, and all of a sudden I was like, what the heck, that bullet did not hit. Then I realized, the antenna shook. I cleaned the antenna right off the truck.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Jack Zimmerman: I couldn’t have done that again if I tried. Eventually, I got up to another group of them and got one out of that group.

Ramsey Russell: Jack, question I want to ask just real quickly is, it’s not a wheelchair. It’s way more. What do you call that machine you ride around in? Because I kind of want one.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, Segway. If anybody wants the word, it’s absolutely given me the most independence out of anything in my life. It really gives my hands free. I just literally lean forward to go forward and lean backward to slow down or stop. I have a handle on my right side for my hand that doesn’t necessarily work the best. I can still use my hand to steer with that one, and it gives me a free hand to carry things. It was so important when my kids were little, trying to carry them around and stuff like that. I could push a shopping cart. It really does create a lot of independence for me and gives me the ability to do a lot of things that I wouldn’t be able to do if I hadn’t had it. Anybody who wants to help keep that going, reach out to Segs4Vets and support them.

Ramsey Russell: How fast does that sucker go?

Jack Zimmerman: I always say lean on it. You can get it up to 15. Yeah

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Because I mean, you’ll say, “I’ll see you later,” and you’re gone. I’m like, I couldn’t run and catch up with that thing if I wanted to. It’s fast.

Jack Zimmerman: No, I’m lucky.

Ramsey Russell: Does it get around off pavement pretty good?

Jack Zimmerman: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I hunt on that thing all the time. A few years ago, I was down in Iowa pheasant hunting. I got down there, and I was gonna put my tracker out. The footplate, I don’t even know why it’s even on there, got flipped up, and it was laying up against the battery and shorted it out. The footplate ended up touching both terminals on the battery, shorting it out. My tracker was fried. I was like, oh man, what am I gonna do? I hunted all day pheasant hunting out of this wheelchair. I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t easy. I might’ve ended up out of it a few times. But if there’s anything in life that I’ve gotten good at, it’s getting back up.

Ramsey Russell: Golly, like you’re not gonna try to soup it up where it’ll go even faster, are you?

Jack Zimmerman: I’m out of skin to grab, so I better slow down.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, gosh. Who is the book Beyond Five Minutes for? How would you describe who this book is really for? And I recommend anybody listening to read it because, and I’m gonna say this real quick and I mean this sincerely, Jack, I’ve read your books, and it reads like you’re talking. To me it does. So it goes quick and is very relatable. But who do you write these for? Are you writing your books for vets, for civilians, for people stuck in quiet battles? Who are you thinking of wanting to read that book?

Jack Zimmerman: When I was writing the book, I was thinking about who I would be writing this book to. And I think about, it really, anybody can relate to this book. Just because they’re lessons from a wounded warrior’s life outdoors doesn’t mean you have to be outdoors for these lessons to apply to you. It’s a lot of the same things we’ve been talking about today, but I just learned it from getting back out in the woods. It’s my view on appreciating each other, and I share a little message in there too. If we don’t take care of the young kids, we talked about this earlier, and getting grandpa out hunting one more time or fishing one more time. If we don’t work on the habitat and we don’t work on supporting these organizations that keep the habitat around and defend our sportsman’s rights and our gun rights and all of those things. What’s the point of us being sportsmen? Are we really being true sportsmen if we’re not doing those things? We’re not just out there trying to create the biggest pile pics. We’re out there enjoying our time with the people in the blind and appreciating that and the true beauty around us. So this book really can apply to anybody at any point in time and any stage in life. I think they can really take something away from it, and I think just about anybody would really enjoy it.

Ramsey Russell: We’ve talked about just a lot of identities that Jack Zimmerman’s had in a short amount of time. You’ve been military, you’ve been a hunter, you’ve been an advocate, you’ve been a writer, you’ve been a speaker.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Which one do you feel most grounded in right now? Or have any of them surprised you?

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, I mean, they’ve all played their own roles. As a speaker, it’s more of an emotional role. As a writer, it’s more of an internal reflection role. And they both play different roles. I really think speaking is my true passion. I like to go out there, and I like to be in front of crowds. I go speak to companies, I go speak to schools, I go speak to dinners, DU banquets or Pheasants Forever, things like that. I go speak to those places and those groups, and I share my message. Sometimes I only get to speak for 15 minutes, and sometimes I speak for an hour. When I get up there and get an opportunity to speak and share my story, it makes me feel alive. It makes my sacrifices feel worth it. We all sacrifice something in our lives. If we don’t share what we learn going through those sacrifices, and that’s when most and the best lessons are learned, through sacrifice, if we don’t share those, then they’re just a waste. We’re not doing what we were meant to do here, which is to help the next generation and teach them through our own hardships so they don’t have to face them themselves. Or when they do, they can go at them much easier, and hopefully they can move through them more swiftly and elegantly than we were able to. Every time I go out and speak, that’s why I enjoy it. I feel so alive being able to connect with those people. I really feel like I connect with the audience when I’m speaking and sharing my story. Whenever I go on to share my story, I always say the difference between an inspirational speaker and a motivational speaker is a call to action. The call to action whenever I’m speaking, and I always leave this with people, is, I want you to build your attitude and shape your perspective so one day when your life does flash before your eyes, it’s worth watching. That’s my call to action to them, go out there and live, and build your attitude. Having a good attitude doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s something you continually work on, finding the best in things and shaping your perspective, going out there and realizing that someone else does have it worse than you. My best friend, he was killed over there, Corporal Brett Land, his daughter was two weeks old. I’m grateful to be alive every day, and I wear a reminder of him and his sacrifice on my wrist every day. I always say, he’ll never be forgotten. When I get to go out there and share my story, it’s a testament to the guys that dragged me off the battlefield that day. If I didn’t get up and live the best life I can every single day, it’d be a slap in the face to them. That’s truly what gets me up and is that taser in the back every morning that keeps me living.

Ramsey Russell: Jack, did your insights, I mean, that’s a lot you just covered right there, did those insights of how you relate to family and strangers and yourself and others, were those born from your injuries? Or were they born from the process of writing and then getting out there and speaking it? I’m saying, we were talking about how you continually evolve and grow as a human being. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Jack Zimmerman: I think a lot of it comes from not having very good hunting spots and me sitting in the deer blind, doing a lot of self-reflecting with nothing to look at but just the world going on around me. I spent a lot of time after I got wounded sitting out in the woods, sitting in a duck blind, having conversations with other wounded warriors, having conversations with veterans that fought in different era wars than I did. Sometimes in life, you need to go sit in a deer blind and be alone and think about these things and work through them and truly try to understand what you learned going through that experience and how you’re going to apply it to your life going forward. And sometimes I need to be sitting in the duck blind with a couple of my buddies and sharing with them that, man, I’m going through this right now. I just can’t shake why. I don’t know what this, whatever your problem is, you can spout it off to your buddies when you’re looking for a little bit of help, and your buddy will say, hey, have you tried doing this? Or have you tried doing that? Or you need to go talk to so and so. Or, hey, you need to go get help. Whatever it may be, finding those places in life where you can self-reflect and figure out those lessons in life and the person you want to be, and then go be that person. If you want to be happy, then go be happy. Find things that make you happy and do things that make you happy. And no, I think it was definitely after I got wounded that I learned a lot of this stuff.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Jack, you talk a whole lot about your military experience and your unit. Are you still in touch with a lot of them boys? Do you all ever hunt together?

Jack Zimmerman: Oh, yeah, we still get together. We hunt.

Ramsey Russell: What do you all hunt?

Jack Zimmerman: As much as we can. It’s hard. We don’t, maybe pheasants or come up here and hunt pheasants. A couple of my buddies got together this last week when I was down in Dallas. I had a buddy, one of my first team leaders, he lives down there. I got to go see him. It gets hard. We’re kind of at a weird age right now, all of us. Generally, we all have real young families yet. So we’re all able to stay in touch enough through social media and always having a phone in your hand and everything else. We probably don’t stay in touch as much as we’d like to, but a lot of us still stay in touch. And I think very soon in life, once these kids grow up a little bit more and they move down the road to college and things like that, I foresee a lot of time spent with these guys. One thing I hunted this year that I really fell in love with, that I never really put as much effort into, that I could see anybody enjoying and I look forward to hunting with a lot of my friends going forward, is doves. I think it’s one of the best hunts in the world. I’d never really done it a whole ton before this last year, and there are so many different ways to do it. The pressure is, if you miss your shot, don’t worry, there’s more coming. At the end of the day, if you’ve got a pile of birds sitting there, you’re not going, man, we’ve got a lot of birds to clean. We’re in trouble. Cleaning doves is nothing. It’s such an easy way to learn for guys that haven’t hunted before.

Ramsey Russell: And they’re so delicious.

Jack Zimmerman: I think it’s such a perfect sport to get a bunch of these guys here in a few years all involved in.

Ramsey Russell: How old are your children, if you don’t mind? And are you raising them up to hunt?

Jack Zimmerman: Oh, yeah. So my youngest, Benjamin, he’s 10. And my oldest, he’ll be 12 here in the spring, in May. My oldest loves hunting. Can’t get enough of it. He’s been out hunting with me a ton, and it’s been just a blessing to have him in these hunting situations with me and watching him grow and evolve into this young hunter. But at the same time, it scares me. I don’t know how these dads do it. You got any advice, send it my way. How do you let your kid, at 14 or 15 years old like my dad did, just go jump in a truck with your buddies and go hunt the river bottom and shoot? It scares the life out of me thinking of these guys going out there without me, hunting and not watching over them. But at some point, you’ve got to trust them, I guess. And then my youngest, he’s just absolutely obsessed with fishing. He just can’t get enough of it. That’s all he does, that’s all he wants to think about. Maybe someday he’ll start hunting too. But trying to get him to set a fishing pole down long enough to pick up a gun to go hunt something is going to be the biggest challenge I think.

Ramsey Russell: That sounds like my two sons at that age. One was big on hunting, but they both hunted, they both fished. But if they had their druthers, one would rather be a hunter, and one would rather be a fisherman. To this day, my youngest, the fisherman, he’ll still run trot lines and jugs and get things going out there on the lake while he’s duck hunting. I mean, he’s all over those fish.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, they get caught with this bug, I guess. I guess it’s kind of like me and you with anything that flies.

Ramsey Russell: Has your past influenced maybe some of the life lessons you teach them, whether you mean to or not, that your parents didn’t teach you? I mean, I find myself sometimes maybe being a hard-ass, maybe not being empathetic enough with my kids. It’s like trying to prepare them to go through what I went through. Because, like we talked about earlier, nobody gets out without a scratch. Did that influence the way, I mean, you let them be kids, you let them go out duck hunting, you raise them to be hunters and happy. You don’t want kids thinking about all that stuff because they need to have a childhood. But has it given your parenting a different approach?

Jack Zimmerman: Oh, absolutely. I always thought that, I was gonna have this drill sergeant approach. I’ll tell you what, I’m blessed. They’re super good kids already. I don’t have to get on them too bad about too much. And I’m onto my oldest’s tricks, he’s exactly the same person I was. The idea for me is, I’m not trying to fix them by any means. I’m trying to guide them. I want them to be the person they want to become, and I want them to be the person that I want them to become. If I can be there to kind of guide them and encourage them to get up when they fall. Like I said earlier, I’ve gotten pretty good at getting back up. I think that’s something everybody’s got to learn in life, because we’re all going to get knocked down at some point. We don’t know how hard we’re going to get knocked down, but the main thing is you’re going to have to get back up. That’s right, trying to guide them and give them the tools they need to be as successful as possible. And I want them to get in some of those situations now, when they don’t hurt as bad and before there are too many consequences to them, and learn those lessons. Like I said, guide them, not fix them.

Ramsey Russell: That reminds me, talking about your son’s tricks, all these kids got tricks like they invented it or something. I remember back in the day, folks had these little rubber bracelets that said WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? Great reminder. And being a dad, I always kind of wished for WWAD, What Would Andy Do? I don’t remember seeing this episode of Mayberry where Opie pulled this stunt. How would Andy react, rather than just go out there and whoop their butts with a belt or something? But I’ve actually told all my kids, now they’re grown, they’re much older than yours, I’ve told them, “Do you really think you invented this?”

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: I hate to tell you, kid, there are things your dad did that you all ain’t even thought of. And I ain’t giving you no hints. I don’t want you all thinking of this stuff. But really, do you think you invented this kind of stuff?

Jack Zimmerman: The thing is though, they got new tools we never knew. This technology now, they’re better with it than we are. I’m not trying to sound like an old guy, I understand technology and stuff like that, and I’m pretty handy with it. But kids these days, man, they’re real good with it. They’re real good.

Ramsey Russell: Well, since before the touchscreen, even back when they had just the, you had to touch each key on the phone three times to get the letters, I mean, them kids could dial in their pocket without even looking at it. They could send each other text messages in the classrooms. But still, human nature, it’s like I asked an old game warden one time, were kids today, or young people today, poachers and people hunters the same as they were back in his day, 20, 30 years ago? To which he answered, the 15-year-old kids still spin out dad’s truck. And I’m like, yeah, I guess they do. He said people don’t change. People are people. But I don’t know. I think that was very interesting talking about your military folks, your buddies from back in the military service. What is it that a lot of us civilians don’t get about unit cohesion and being in the military that you all probably end up missing a lot after you all leave the service?

Jack Zimmerman: There’s a bond that’s created in combat that can’t be forged anywhere else in any other arena. You can get a taste of it, maybe you see guys playing football, or guys that have been working on a construction site together for many years. You see it. But when you do those jobs, you’re never taking an oath to be willing to lay down your life for the guy next to you. Having those relationships and the way they’re forged, it’s just something else. It’s too hard to even put into words. Imagine the closest person you know in your life and multiply it several times over. There isn’t anything you wouldn’t do for these guys or anything you wouldn’t share with these guys. Like I said, those guys risked their lives and laid on top of me to get me off the battlefield that day. Not too many people are willing to do that for anybody else. We all go over there with the mission of whatever Congress tells us to do, but at the end of the day, most times when stuff gets real bad, the reason you’re fighting is, you look to your left and you look to your right. That’s who you’re fighting for and that’s family you know.

Ramsey Russell: And they’re fighting for you.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. 100%. You do everything in your will to make sure at the end of the day, we’re all back together or somebody’s getting the help that they need.

Ramsey Russell: A little while ago, Jack, you were talking about conservation.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Again the world is bigger than a ditch bank in your backyard you were walking up pheasants on as a child. In the past five or ten years, as your world has grown and you’ve been around the world and your hunting horizons have expanded, what are you seeing in the world of conservation, wildlife conservation, habitat conservation, that needs to be addressed more? Or hunting advocacy, for that matter?

Jack Zimmerman: I would start with toxic shot. I think we just need to eliminate toxic shot, period. There’s really no reason for it anymore. I don’t know why we need to be doing that. That’s step one. I think we need to implement technology better into conservation. I think we need to start tracking numbers better for guys that are willing to do that. Why can’t I have an electronic passport? I can have my HIP on there, my federal duck stamp, all my stamps, my pheasant stamp in Minnesota, Arkansas duck stamp, Texas waterfowl license. Why can’t I have it all in one app? Something that would track all our hunting apps and make it simpler to draw in areas that you want to draw in. You shouldn’t have to study for years to get involved in a point system in some state you want to hunt. This stuff needs to be simplified. With the technology we have today, it’s ridiculous that I can’t buy a fishing license on my phone and go fish right in the backyard in whatever state I’m in. It should all be in one place.

Ramsey Russell: I agree. But boy, those big wheels turn slow on all that kind of stuff, don’t they? The more you travel to different states, it’s like, if everybody’s web page was the same, where I could click the same buttons and do the same thing, but some of these state websites are just, I give up. I just give up.

Jack Zimmerman: If a guy wants to go try to draw an elk out west, you almost gotta have a calculus degree to figure out how to get in the points draw system, where to buy it. My Colorado license showed up today and I’m like, oh, wow, cool. Did I get drawn already? Well, no, I gotta buy a habitat, small game license, and this and that, just to get into the draw.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Jack Zimmerman: Why do we have to play these games? Just charge me a little bit more for the draw if that’s what it takes, and let me buy my small game license if that’s what I want. I think we can simplify these things, make it easier, make it more user-friendly. Because the more laws we add, there are more laws today than when I first started hunting. Now my kid, day one, has to learn a heck of a lot more to get out there and be an ethical hunter, besides just trying to make sure he’s not breaking the law. We’re always trying to be the most ethical hunters we can be, but there are so many laws out there now, just making sure you’re doing it right.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, you ain’t lying. And when you start getting into international import, export, and things of that nature, you almost need to have an international attorney on retainer.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Everything going good, are there any hunting experiences that are on the horizon? I mean, what’s Jack Zimmerman planning on hunting next that he hasn’t hunted?

Jack Zimmerman: I’m hopefully going to go to Saskatchewan bird hunting this year, so I’m excited about that. This year is going to be a lot about Canada, I guess. I’m going up to northwest British Columbia to try to get a moose this year. That should be a difficult hunt. I’m going to hunt a coastal bear in North Carolina, big old bear down there.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a fun hunt.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, I’ve heard they’ve been killing bears well over 600 pounds. Then I’ll do all my main bird hunting, from North Dakota on down and end up in Texas doing my dove hunting like I always do. I always find time in between all the trips to go shoot a deer here and a deer there. This year I think I’m going to get down to Colorado and try to get my first mule deer hunt with Josh Bourne down there. I’m going to head up to Wyoming, and I should draw an archery tag there. Hopefully, we can get on one up there.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, well, you got a big season planned.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, I’m just fortunate. I’m lucky. I’m grateful that so many people are out there willing to help me and give me the opportunities. I always joke, people, be careful inviting me, because I’ll show up.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. Jack, are there any questions you wish people would ask more often, not just on podcasts, but in life in general?

Jack Zimmerman: The question I get asked the most is, how do you have such a positive attitude all the time? People say, I don’t know if I could ever do that. Thing is, I don’t think people really realize how tough they are. I don’t think they realize how resilient they are. You’ve got to go out there and push yourself and challenge yourself as often as you can. You’ve got to have that growth, because if you don’t challenge yourself, if you don’t have a little bit of struggle, you’re never going to grow. You’re never going to figure out what the best new version of yourself is. And I’m just as guilty of that. I didn’t travel internationally to hunt at all since my injuries up until this last year. I had all these fears, and I thought to myself, hey, I’m Mr. Motivational Speaker, I’m Mr. Take It Head On, I’m Mr. Grab It by the Horns, why am I letting this flight, why am I letting that stop me from doing what I want to do? I had to find the right people that believed in me and that I believed in them. That’s a lot of times in life. That surgeon believed in me. On the tarmac, there were people that believed in me. When I woke up in the hospital, my surgeons, my team, my family. Still to this day, I have so many people that believe in me and are willing to give me opportunities to push myself and to grow. And, man, it’s dangerous when you pull off something you’ve wanted to overcome for a long time, because now you’re like, all right, what’s next?

Ramsey Russell: I know, that’s the truth. If you could hand your book to one person, someone you’ll never meet beyond five minutes, who would you hope to hand it to?

Jack Zimmerman: I really hope that every kid that’s ever going through a firearm safety course somewhere, thinking about, dreaming about hunting. I mean, I remember I was an awful student, and you put me in firearm safety, I was the best, thanks to, I applied myself. These kids that have dreams of getting out there and hunting someday, I really hope it ends up in their hands. I’m such a legacy guy. We have to protect this because if we don’t, if you look at my generation and what I’ve watched just happen in my 20 years, I can’t imagine what you’ve seen over your years. The sloughs that have been drained and tiled out and planted with corn, and the trees that have been cut down to build subdivisions. I’m not saying that we don’t need to do some of those things because people have to have a place to live, but we’ve got to really watch what we’re doing and still think about the habitat and the game that we have. And if we’re not careful, we won’t have any of it.

Ramsey Russell: You’re talking about being the best version of yourself. You gotta have struggle. You gotta be pushed. You gotta climb that, you gotta make that climb and push yourself to be the best version of yourself. And you’ve been very open about the highs and lows of your life. What anchors you on a hard day?

Jack Zimmerman: It’s definitely my faith. I always go back to that faith on those hard days. I remember laying there, bleeding out on the battlefield and feeling that wash over me, whether I lived or died, I knew I was going to be okay, and just trusting in His plan and everything that He has for me. I’m just thankful for the opportunities that He’s given me and the little bit of time that I’ve had here to have these two beautiful boys. I’m very fortunate for that. And when I’m done being grateful and thankful, even on those hard days, for everything that I do have left, my Lord, the one thing that really keeps me anchored is I think about my best friend that was killed over there and the sacrifice that he made for this country. And yeah, that’s really what keeps me anchored, remembering how grateful I am to still have this life that I do.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, I told you it was going to be a good conversation, didn’t you. You all been listening to my buddy, Mr. Jack Zimmerman. And Jack, you know, I’m reminded, both times you’ve been on my podcast, you might come through SEI convention, and we just get to talk for three to five minutes, just at a glance, because it’s so busy. But I always feel better having talked to you. You’ve got such great optimism. It’s just contagious. And I always, no matter what kind of day I’m having, every single time I talk to you, I feel better. And thank you very much. Thank you for this book.

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, Mr. Ramsey, it’s always humbling to be able to get to share a conversation with you. I look up to you and admire you so much, and I appreciate everything that you do for the sport, everything you do for the habitat and the conservation, the animals and everything in between, and everything you’ve done for myself. I appreciate you more than you ever know, and I have so much respect for you.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Jack. Tell everybody, the links to your books are below in the caption. The links to our last episode are in the caption. But tell the listeners how they can connect with you if they just need to reach out, want to engage you, or want to get you in front of a crowd for a speaking engagement or for anything else. How can they connect with you, Jack?

Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, if you’re looking to purchase one of my books, the best place to do that is to go to jackzimmermanmn.com, that definitely supports me in the best way. If that doesn’t work for you, you can always get it off Amazon. And then, if you’re looking to connect with me on social media, if you’re looking for me to come to one of your events, like your company, one of your kids’ schools, dinners, anything like that, you can also reach out to me there on my website. Click “Contact Us,” and that email goes directly to me. That’s the best way to get in touch with me. Or you can go onto my social media, JackZimmerman23 on Instagram or Jack Zimmerman on Facebook, and find me there, connect with me there. I share a lot of my hunting stuff on there, where I’m going and what I’m doing. And man, the world’s caught up to me a little bit. I’ve maybe lacked a little bit in the last month, get caught up on some posts. If you see some photo dumps coming here real soon.

“Thank you, Jack. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for everything you are. I appreciate you as usual.”

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Jack. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for everything you are. I appreciate you as usual.

Jack Zimmerman: Thank you. Appreciate you so much.

Ramsey Russell: And folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today we’ve got some real good insights on being the best version of ourselves. See you next time.