Transcript

0:00:00 Intro Montage

[...]

0:01:18 Intro

I am the experiment. You can write your own story. Not stop trying and don't give into the fear. Before we get started, make sure you're connected wherever you listen. Follow us on Spotify YouTube. X so you never miss an episode.

0:01:27 Justin McMillen

So, Roman. Welcome.

0:01:34 Roman Koshkin

Thanks, Justin.

0:01:36 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I'm really happy to have you here. What I know of you, you have a pretty amazing life. Really interesting perspective. And probably a lot of really amazing things to share. And I'm just excited to get into it with you.

0:01:42 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me. I'm not sure if I'd call it an amazing life, but I've been very fortunate with some experiences that have happened to me, and I was able to participate and so happy to share whatever you want to delve into.

0:01:59 Justin McMillen

A lot of it is, we got a lot of transitioning military and active duty and veterans that watch this. And I think your life in terms of what you've done in terms of military service is pretty interesting. But let's just start. I wanna get your whole story. So, you are the son of Russian immigrants?

0:02:26 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. Actually, I'm an immigrant myself. So we came over, my parents and I, in 1991. I was 11 at the time, so went directly into sixth grade. Moved to just north, across the bridge from San Francisco. So I grew up in Marin County, Northern California till college, and then was off to the east coast for college.

0:02:47 Justin McMillen

Did you speak English when you came?

0:02:53 Roman Koshkin

I did. I was fortunate in that my father was actually an English professor. So he started me off young. I had the basics. Obviously, there's a little bit of a cultural transition, and some of the nuances of sixth grade English, you know, school English, it's not the same as what you learn in school.

0:03:05 Roman Koshkin

But I had the basics enough to get around. And you remember, that feeling of being the new kid... It was strange. I mean, yeah, it was during the time when we lived in Moscow. So capital city, lots of Western influence at the time. So I thought I kind of had a good perspective on what the West is all about.

0:03:25 Roman Koshkin

But not to the extent of, you know, being kind of thrown in the deep end immediately. We came in April, and then I thought I was going to have the rest of the year off. And a week after I was told I was going to school. So off to the races.

0:03:39 Roman Koshkin

But it was a phenomenal experience. Everybody was super welcoming. It was, as I mentioned, during a time of transition and kind of rapprochement between the two countries. So yeah, super positive experience there.

0:03:50 Justin McMillen

Middle school. So 11 years old. So you're just coming into puberty, right? And you got family? Other siblings?

0:04:00 Roman Koshkin

Nope. Only child.

0:04:02 Justin McMillen

Okay. So that's kind of cool. So it's just your mom and dad? Yep. And son, like, we're in this together?

0:04:10 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, exactly. It was a great adventure for all three of us.

0:04:16 Justin McMillen

Yeah, that's great though. And definitely a different world in San Francisco, for sure.

0:04:22 Justin McMillen

So I got a pretty good buddy who's Russian. You guys have a work ethic like crazy. Is this just a Russian thing? One of my best friends, I used to work at a sawmill with, his wife is from Russia. I met her when she first came over here, and she went from

0:04:42 Justin McMillen

no English coming over here to going to school, getting her master's degree in international business. She now runs a logistics company and does consulting. And she's just one of the most incredible humans and still maintains this, like, work ethic and also just general humility around appreciating everything. And that seems to be across the board with people from Russia.

0:05:09 Justin McMillen

That's my experience anyway. Is that culturally a thing, or do you think — what is that, you think?

0:05:18 Roman Koshkin

You know, I'm not sure if I can apply that like a broad cultural term to it. Just because I came over so young, my break with Russian culture was at a fairly young age. But I think there are certainly pockets, you know, within each culture, that center work ethic as the bedrock of the foundation, whether it's family or small communities. But certainly in the Russian communities in the US, that's definitely a cultural tenet — that everybody gets along, integrates. That's not to say there aren't very distinct pockets of Russian culture in the US.

0:05:53 Roman Koshkin

We were, I guess, fortunate you could say, in not coming directly into the San Francisco Russian pocket, because we were across the bridge. So we were mostly integrated into the American population through the friends my parents developed.

0:06:21 Justin McMillen

Nice, nice.

0:06:23 Roman Koshkin

Yeah.

0:06:25 Justin McMillen

Tough people too. Super tough. Yeah, I think of Alaskans as being really tough. And then Russians — in fact, my buddy that I was referring to, Tony, he was saying he would go back — she was from Siberia, he'd go back and visit — and he said their village, once a year they have this thing where, I don't know if you've heard of this, but he said once a year everybody from the village gets together and they have to squash any beef that they have.

0:06:40 Justin McMillen

And men fight, and it's just vodka and fist fights and they just beat the crap out of each other. But then by the next day, you're not allowed to bring it up anymore. And you have to call out the person that you have the issue with, and it's considered disgraceful if you don't address that specific issue. And I guess they've been doing this and that's how they manage their community for years.

0:07:03 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. So, you know, it sounds like a very old school Russian kind of settlement of grievances.

0:07:10 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Have you ever heard of that before?

0:07:14 Roman Koshkin

I've not, I've not. But it kind of makes sense that that would be the way if it's carried on for a while.

0:07:23 Justin McMillen

Yeah.

0:07:23 Justin McMillen

I think that's kind of like how a lot of Americans see a picture like Rocky, or, you know, like running, training in the snow till exhaustion. I mean, it's definitely a culture. And the people, I think, are used to suffering. So you just grind it out day in, day out, year in, year out.

0:07:42 Roman Koshkin

Is it the cold, maybe?

0:07:42 Roman Koshkin

I think part of it definitely, especially if you look outside of the major metropolitan areas, there's still quite a bit of just, you know, wood heating and outhouses. It's definitely a throwback compared to some of the cultural norms I think we've come to expect.

0:08:02 Justin McMillen

Yeah. That's how Tony's like that. The guy I was just talking about — his wife Tanya, or Tanushka as he calls her — her family... she didn't even ride in a car till she was like 7 or 8. So, I mean, very remote, like super remote. Sure. And then no indoor plumbing and... yeah, definitely a different life. Okay. So I was curious about different cultures, and I think Russian culture, some amazing folks — which is an interesting subject right now. Like much to discuss. Sure. Yeah. Do people know you're from Russia?

0:08:30 Roman Koshkin

Do I regularly share that? Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty open about it. The name kind of gives it away. Yeah. There's not a lot of guys named Roman. So that's one of the first questions. And then I'm aware I still have an accent, you know, despite all these years. So that's a topic of conversation.

0:08:46 Roman Koshkin

I don't make it one, but it just comes up sometimes. Do you ever feel tension around it? People ever question you or... No. Not really. In fact, I think it was more in the mid 90s when there were still a few hang-ups about, you know, the Cold War era. Haven't really noticed since. My last visit there was in the late 90s.

0:09:11 Roman Koshkin

So I'm quite a bit removed from being integrated into that culture. Gotcha. What about your folks? Do your folks get any kind of... are they still around?

0:09:34 Justin McMillen

Yeah.

0:09:34 Roman Koshkin

They are. So they live in Northern Virginia. They split time between there and, they just got a place in Italy. So they're moving back and forth across the Atlantic, living the dream there.

0:09:47 Justin McMillen

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Almost fully retired and enjoying the later years. Late 60s?

0:09:54 Roman Koshkin

60s, yeah. Okay.

0:09:56 Justin McMillen

Nice. Yeah. The reason I'm asking this is, I imagine, you know, we're in a pretty divided place at a time in history. And in your story, it's fascinating to me — being from Russia, being an immigrant, and then your years of military service — you could have a perspective that could be really valuable.

0:10:08 Justin McMillen

I mean, I imagine there are Russian immigrants in this country right now who feel stressed out around the tensions. Do you have any thoughts on that or anything that you think would be valuable to share with people from Russia or China?

0:10:31 Roman Koshkin

Yeah.

0:10:31 Roman Koshkin

I, I got to be honest, yes. And I'm not sure if I'm the right person to speak on it. I think everybody who's an immigrant makes a decision whether the country they left is the right nation for them or the one where they've settled. There are definitely, aside from the questions of allegiance, some cultural and political viewpoints that you kind of have to pick and choose, and they don't always align.

0:10:48 Roman Koshkin

I think it's a little different from somebody immigrating from the UK to the US compared to somebody immigrating from Russia or China. But everybody makes their own decision. And wherever they're more comfortable, that's the place for them.

0:11:12 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Well, I think your history is extraordinary — your family, you coming in and jumping into the military, is really cool.

0:11:18 Justin McMillen

Did you do that right at 18, you go to school for...?

0:11:34 Roman Koshkin

No, no.

0:11:34 Roman Koshkin

I went to college. So I went to high school just outside of San Francisco and then moved to Virginia for college, went to a small liberal arts school. And this is the late 90s, early 2000s. And I always thought that I would do military service at some point, but it came about by happenstance.

0:11:54 Roman Koshkin

I actually wanted to do some grad school in the UK. Was married there. Came back and my wife and I started a family, and then this is in 2003 — it was just one of those things where we decided that maybe we should give this Marine Corps thing a go. And the rest is history, as I say.

0:12:15 Justin McMillen

That's so cool. What... so if I was to meet you in high school, what would you be like? Were you into sports? Were you into art and creative stuff? Were you quiet? Were you social?

0:12:31 Roman Koshkin

I was definitely quiet.

0:12:31 Justin McMillen

For the introverted.

0:12:33 Roman Koshkin

Although I did play football one year or soccer somewhere in there. And then always enjoyed art, but never would say that I'm, you know, artistically talented. Just kind of tried to dabble in things that I enjoyed that made me happy. And then it was kind of a natural — well, I wouldn't say natural, but it was a natural transition to go to a liberal arts school. But I went from the Bay Area to rural Virginia. And still at that time it was quite a bit of a cultural shift. But great. Great four years. Definitely enjoyed it.

0:12:59 Justin McMillen

What was your undergrad?

0:13:13 Roman Koshkin

European history. And then I went on, did a graduate certificate, just short of a thesis-based master's in European history, and did that at St. Andrews in Scotland.

0:13:24 Justin McMillen

Oh, man, that's so cool. I'm a McMillen. So, Scottish. Okay. And it's actually a small part of a mainly Scandinavian, but my name, McMillen...

0:13:32 Justin McMillen

So going back to — so you speak Russian and English. Do you speak other languages?

0:13:46 Roman Koshkin

I'll say that I understand other languages.

0:13:46 Roman Koshkin

So I took French in high school and college, which didn't get me very far. Some on-the-job training, self-taught. A little bit of German when I was over there. And then the Germanic and Slavic languages are fairly easy to understand because there's so much crossover. So traveling in Europe is not simple, but I can get by with, you know, understanding Polish and some Ukrainian and...

0:14:00 Roman Koshkin

And then you know, at the end of the day it's a big mixing pot and I never got to speak English anyway. So whenever you run out of words to say in the local language, you just revert to English.

0:14:13 Justin McMillen

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just kind of mix it up. What about — your dad was an English teacher. Did he speak a lot of languages?

0:14:18 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, he... he taught Cambodian at one point also.

0:14:22 Justin McMillen

Cambodian?

0:14:24 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. But I think those those years along — I'll come back to that. Thank you. Yeah, that covers it.

0:14:26 Justin McMillen

How did he learn Cambodian?

0:14:30 Roman Koshkin

I think he was basically told, you will teach Cambodian. And then so he started self-teaching at the same time that he was instructing his students. But he's linguistically talented. So it kind of — polyglot.

0:14:44 Justin McMillen

Polyglot. Polyglot. Yeah.

0:14:46 Roman Koshkin

That's it. So he's super bright. Yeah.

0:14:52 Justin McMillen

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I was very fortunate to be in a family of very bright, very hardworking parents.

0:14:56 Justin McMillen

Where's mom? What does she do?

0:15:10 Roman Koshkin

So she —

0:15:10 Roman Koshkin

— for a period of time was a florist. She worked as a finance officer at a company in Russia before we moved over. And then since, for the majority of their time in the States since we moved, she handled the finances for my dad's business, which did business intelligence and due diligence work across Europe and South America.

0:15:33 Justin McMillen

Wow.

0:15:33 Justin McMillen

Wow. That's incredible. So... okay. Sorry, we keep going. I feel like I should just, you know... yeah. So.

0:15:40 Justin McMillen

Okay. So Virginia, liberal arts, history, and then you get an opportunity to head over to the UK. You do that, and that's where you meet your wife?

0:15:56 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. We actually met while still undergrads.

0:16:04 Roman Koshkin

And then we went there both as graduate students. Got married, decided to start our family back in the US.

0:16:13 Justin McMillen

Came back. Where's she from?

0:16:16 Roman Koshkin

Milwaukee.

0:16:18 Justin McMillen

Oh, that's the one. That's myself, in Wisconsin. Yeah. Okay, Milwaukee. Born and raised. And that's where you've made your home since then.

0:16:24 Roman Koshkin

Wow. Did you know right away when you met her, she was 100%?

0:16:31 Justin McMillen

Yeah.

0:16:33 Justin McMillen

You guys still together? That's amazing. What's the secret? How do you stay married for so long?

0:16:38 Roman Koshkin

Nothing that I did right. I don't know... to the right... I mean, so obviously every couple, every family has their issues to go through. Being in a program and taking some time, especially post-military transition, is giving me some additional perspective looking back on things that could have been tweaked from my end, significantly at some points.

0:16:47 Roman Koshkin

And obviously there's a lot of deployed time to make up for. But I don't know, I mean, I think some people are just... just right. And then they make it through the struggles and, you know, it's a great adventure.

0:17:00 Justin McMillen

Do you think there's... was it easy to be married to a guy with your career?

0:17:08 Roman Koshkin

No. Honestly, I wouldn't wish that lifestyle on any spouse. But yeah, my wife has been a trooper. It's just been amazing what she's had to do in terms of moving around the country and across the Atlantic with the kids, balancing families, being the interlocutor when I was gone and not able to reach out to family. She was kind of the rock over 20 years now.

0:17:42 Justin McMillen

Wow. I want to come back to that, because I think that's another thing that is really valuable. You know, statistically it's super rare. Absolutely. And there are people out there that would be listening to this that are like, how do I maintain a marriage? How do I find the right woman for me — that will allow me to fulfill my purpose in doing the work I do? Right? And there's a recipe for a man, and there are things that other people can learn from. I'm not suggesting that you had the perfect life, right?

0:18:01 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, I don't... I don't want to challenge that. But it definitely — I think for me, especially taking the last few months for some introspection and looking back — I think there's a huge degree of luck, but more importantly patience. From my wife's part. In how she's handled all that stuff, and how much grace she's given me through the years.

0:18:23 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. And frankly, you're right. The statistics are terrible, especially for folks in the military. In fact, I mentioned this a couple of times — since leaving the service, I've stopped asking my friends how their families are doing, just because so often the response is, you know, he or she left. Yeah. The custody battles are ongoing, or whatever the troubles may be.

0:18:46 Roman Koshkin

It's disheartening. But, you know, I'm very fortunate to associate with really solid people, so there's never judgment. And obviously everybody makes mistakes and errors are involved on both sides. But I have to give huge credit to the Department of Defense — since the start of, all we have in life — it's come a long way in providing services. And actually, instead of just, you know, paying lip service to family stability, they have implemented programs that have put some bedrock under that stability.

0:19:19 Roman Koshkin

It's not perfect, but it's come a long way for sure.

0:19:48 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I think — so I do some work with Warrior Care Coalition, and talking to those guys — are you familiar? Yeah. Some just really beautiful humans involved. And, I mean, they're all different. Every base is different, you know. But I think the realization that the professional sphere of a soldier's life or a marine's life

0:20:06 Justin McMillen

and the personal sphere — that they're interdependent. Meaning when one changes, the other one's going to be affected. You know, you may be the best operator in the world, most capable, but if you go home and you can't maintain your home life, at some point that will bleed into your professional life.

0:20:17 Roman Koshkin

Right.

0:20:17 Justin McMillen

So at the end of the day, it sucks, but I think for all the government it comes down to just retaining people — dollars and cents. You wish it was just because they loved everyone. But they're realizing like, taking care of families is important.

0:20:30 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, you know, and then it's ultimately going to be investing in the future of the warfighter through the family — that's the key to longevity. And yeah, keeping good people around. I mean, I think you have to. It is the investment. And it's not just a number of programs that money is dumped into. It is just like with physical health and mental health. Investing in family stability, ultimately, unless you retain the quality individuals and there's a built-in force, your mission sets are done better.

0:20:55 Roman Koshkin

There are fewer troubles at home. You know, it is exactly that time investment.

0:21:18 Justin McMillen

Yeah.

0:21:18 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I'm super fascinated by that. I think the times I've had a chance to talk to folks that have had a whole career and managed to maintain their families — and it's never perfect, there's a lot of damage usually, especially as guys are transitioning — and they're like, okay, how do I do this now? I love talking to the ones that have managed to stay married, I just think it's such valuable information. And I keep hearing different things. Like I was talking to some women that started — I should know the name of it so I get it right for this — but it was a foundation for the SEAL teams.

0:21:39 Justin McMillen

It pays for scholarships and things for the kids. And they were talking about it, and both of them — it was a religious thing. It was like, it's our faith. It's kept us married. It was our church and our community. Sure. You know, I think different people — different things. I had one guy — his sobriety, right? He became, he actually got involved heavily in AA early, and he never took part in any of the drinking.

0:22:02 Justin McMillen

So he was like, I had to face my head every time I came home. I didn't get to hide in a bottle, and that showed me how to do things in a different way than all the other men I was with.

0:22:20 Justin McMillen

So yeah, I think that's fascinating. And I think we can make a difference by sharing a little bit about what you've learned.

0:22:26 Roman Koshkin

So... patience. Your wife's patient.

0:22:36 Justin McMillen

Yeah, absolutely.

0:22:38 Roman Koshkin

Probably the most patient person I know.

0:22:46 Justin McMillen

Yeah. In school... in school. So you guys fell in love in the UK, came back here, and then you said 2003 you decided to...

0:22:58 Roman Koshkin

2003 is when we made the decision. And so that coincided really with the invasion of Iraq. And then by fall of 2003 I completed officer training in Virginia. We moved to Virginia. And then by fall of 2004 it was back to California, my first assignment — not too far from here — in beautiful 29 Palms, California.

0:23:09 Justin McMillen

Beautiful. Yeah. Middle of nowhere.

0:23:11 Roman Koshkin

Three hours from everywhere.

0:23:13 Justin McMillen

Yeah, it is. You got, I mean, Joshua Tree and it's kind of beautiful out there. But it's a weird spot. It's interesting. It's strange. Like outside the military it's kind of all just a lot of crystal meth and some weirdos and aliens and high desert sort of... yeah. Some odd stuff going on.

0:23:32 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. It's definitely a place unto itself.

0:23:37 Justin McMillen

Why did you choose Marines versus Navy? Or Army? What was it about the Marines that drew you?

0:23:51 Roman Koshkin

To be honest, I don't think it was a very informed decision. And that's not to say that I didn't enjoy my service — I would sure make a different choice. But, the first thing that popped out for me — I actually reached out to an officer selection officer when I was still in college, and that didn't quite work out. I reached out to a Navy recruiter subsequently, that didn't quite work out because at that point the idea was to go into the SEAL program. And then once we were married and looking to start a family, went back to thinking that maybe I would be in academia in some capacity.

0:24:21 Roman Koshkin

And that was just way more schooling than I think we were prepared for at that point as people starting a family. So came back to service, went out, saw the marine recruiter, and next thing I know the papers are signed.

0:24:50 Justin McMillen

And when you say Navy — so you were looking at the SEALs early on?

0:25:04 Roman Koshkin

I was. But this was after 9/11 but before we really got into it in 2003. So I had very little knowledge of it. And then it was also before the expansion of just how involved special operations became across the theaters.

0:25:13 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. And so I would have had that opportunity to grow with it, grow with...

0:25:19 Justin McMillen

Yeah. You were almost there for the entire Global War on Terror, right?

0:25:23 Justin McMillen

So what — you said SEALs. Why? Why would you want to go in that direction? Is there something that draws you? Just seems like getting more difficult?

0:25:36 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, that's... I mean, that presented an appealing challenge. Okay. There's something also about just a smaller, more select unit, an organization that discerns amongst the applicants.

0:25:45 Roman Koshkin

And so the lower percentage of those that make it, the more appealing it is in a way. And that was the same thing I think with the Marine Corps — it's the smallest of the services. So it kind of drew me to itself. And lo and behold, that's where I ended up.

0:25:52 Justin McMillen

Yeah. So you got that competitive... you want to be the best?

0:25:58 Roman Koshkin

I think so. I think it's been suppressed a little bit. But every once in a while it kind of peeks its head and found myself in challenging situations.

0:26:06 Justin McMillen

But you couldn't have done what you've done without that as part of your DNA.

0:26:10 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think it's somewhere in there and it's definitely something that I enjoyed honing. I've kind of become more comfortable with over the years. And I don't know... I don't know all of the details, but MARSOC wasn't set up until... yeah. Right. Right. So 2007 or so. Right? 2006 is when the organization — the bones of it — were being put together.

0:26:29 Roman Koshkin

And I was coming up on the end of my tour here in 29 Palms, and a friend and mentor of mine was one of the plank holders of MARSOC. And he said, why don't you come over? We're looking for Russian speakers. In 2007 we moved to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

0:26:48 Roman Koshkin

And things were getting going. And that's when I did my first tour with Raiders.

0:27:11 Justin McMillen

So you were asked to come over?

0:27:14 Roman Koshkin

I jammed myself in there. So at that point they had reached the numbers they needed for junior officers. And I was fortunate to work for a — now retired — officer who I think saw some potential. And so he asked the command to see if they could make room for me. And I came over as a senior first lieutenant, but really one of the more junior guys to get on one of the teams.

0:27:30 Justin McMillen

What was it like? Because it was so early?

0:27:37 Roman Koshkin

It was lots of growing pains. The Marine Corps, obviously, considers itself — and I think rightly so — to be one of the more elite services. And then within that small contingent, there's this new thing that is told it's going to be the coolest thing in the Marine Corps. And so, between integrating into the SOCOM architecture and also trying to find itself within the larger Marine Corps tradition, I think there was a lot of exploratory learning, which is also an appealing thing for the men and women who joined the organization.

0:28:02 Roman Koshkin

So it was heady days for a couple of years to really hit our stride. But the Marines who came out of the Force Reconnaissance community, who stood up MARSOC — first with 1st and 2nd Battalion and then 3rd Battalion, which is where I went — kind of laid the groundwork for all of us who followed in their footsteps.

0:28:25 Justin McMillen

So Recon gave birth to MARSOC. That was the way it was initially structured. And then the Marine Corps brought those Force Reconnaissance companies back because they still needed the capability. Sure. It's interesting. You think a Marine is just — everything they do is already like special operations. They just — you know what I mean?

0:28:45 Justin McMillen

It's like... I don't know that anyone has explained to me what MARSOC is in a way where I'm like, okay, I get the mission set. Can you give a go? If you were in it long enough to have us? Sure. But I think — what makes you different than everybody else? Let me — I'm going to give you more.

0:29:05 Justin McMillen

So what makes MARSOC like... so you got the SEALs doing their thing. You got Rangers and all that doing their thing. Then you've got you guys. What is it that you do that nobody else does? Is that the best way to ask a question? What do you think?

0:29:25 Roman Koshkin

Sure. I think it really is — to be very frank — that's a question that we, when I was still in uniform, had been asking ourselves for a long time. You know, what is the purpose of MARSOC within the larger structure? Because essentially it was the Secretary of Defense, I think, who said, I want a Marine slice within SOCOM. And so thus it was done.

0:29:48 Roman Koshkin

But there was a lot of soul searching about what it is that we were able to contribute to the organization and the SOF missions writ large. And not to toe the party line — I mean, I think it is a true statement that the Marine Corps brought a piece of itself, the culture of the Marine Corps, into the SOCOM architecture.

0:30:12 Roman Koshkin

And MARSOC has been that. MARSOC is also the smallest, or one of the smaller components within SOCOM. And so that little slice I think was represented disproportionately in the mission sets. But it really was a close-knit — obviously distinct units — but within the organization itself, a close-knit community of men and women who came out with an understanding of what the Marine ethos is and how to implement that into a slightly different mission set.

0:30:47 Roman Koshkin

So very similar in a lot of ways to the other components — the SEALs, obviously the Green Berets, the Ranger battalions — but with a slight twist. And also because we're Marines, we do everything on the cheap, like doing more with less. That was part of the great adventure of standing up the organization and being able to try to replicate the missions that our brothers and sisters were doing, but trying to prove ourselves by doing it faster, better, cheaper.

0:31:19 Justin McMillen

It was one of those great exploratory learning experiences. Yeah. So great.

0:31:40 Roman Koshkin

Yeah.

0:31:40 Justin McMillen

I haven't been able to define clearly what it is I love about Marines so much. But we've been struggling with it over 200 years also, so you're not alone. No, I just — I mean, you guys are just extraordinary people. I might have you met Brandon Fender? Hacksaw?

0:32:06 Roman Koshkin

I did just last week for the first time.

0:32:10 Justin McMillen

Yeah. He's quite a special human being. It seems like high-functioning folks who are just down to get it done. Humble but honorable, not afraid to do the dirty job. Not too proud, but also proud. It's like such a crazy thing. Like I just love Marines just in general. I would hire — you know, to work at Tree House, or — I mean, I specifically look for folks with that background because it's just a different kind of animal.

0:32:26 Justin McMillen

I'm not saying any of the others are bad. It's just... it's pretty extraordinary. I mean, you know this. Marine. You know, my grandfather was a Marine. He had the bulldog on his arm, the cigar. He was a World War II veteran. My dad was military. I've been around it in different ways.

0:32:45 Justin McMillen

But yeah, I'm a big fan of Marines. So that's so cool. So you stood up — you were part of that. You got to see it, you know, find its legs. Right? What is its mission set? What is it doing? And so what did you do? What was your first — can you talk about it?

0:33:04 Roman Koshkin

Sure. Yeah. So I'll say — when were the kids born in there? Because I want to try to track family life as the career grows. And so we had our first — our son was born before I came into the service. He was very young. He had his first birthday after I was commissioned.

0:33:21 Roman Koshkin

So the family in tow moved around with a young child. And then our daughter was born towards the end of our assignment here in 29 Palms. Okay. I was actually deployed. Wasn't able to make it for the birth. Was back within a couple of days, and then the four of us made the move across the country.

0:33:42 Roman Koshkin

And so my first assignment with MARSOC was as an assistant team leader. So I was one of two officers on a team, and we went and did training missions in the former Soviet republics. So being a Russian speaker, it was handy — that instant rapport with our, at that point, Tajik counterparts.

0:34:08 Roman Koshkin

So Tajikistan, circa 2007-2008. Obviously still lots of simmering conflict before the big blowup on the Afghan border. So we were helping the Tajiks control their border with Afghanistan, and really building a partnership there so the US would have a strategic foothold as well.

0:34:38 Roman Koshkin

And then I took over that team, so I was able to do two deployments with them. Did a deployment to Afghanistan, and then came back, and this is before we had a permanent assignment in MARSOC, so... came back to the larger Marine Corps force. And that's when I did my assignment in Milwaukee. So super lucky to get back home.

0:35:02 Roman Koshkin

For three years I worked with a Marine Reserve infantry unit there, and then went back. The kids at this point — that's a lot of math requiring... yes. So both kids were in school. They were fortunate to go to school right next door to where we lived. I want to say this was now 2011 through 14. So we're looking at, the kids being nine and five-ish when we got back to Milwaukee. And then when our oldest hit his teenage years is when I went back, for another stint with MARSOC and a few more deployments.

0:35:25 Justin McMillen

How were you balancing being a dad? And I mean it must have been... that was probably nice, though, those few years.

0:35:40 Roman Koshkin

It was, not without difficulty. I mean, again, it was reintegrating into a normal civilian community, reestablishing a family routine, trying to balance all those things. And the inspector-instructor role that I was filling also has a lot of community engagement. So being involved with retired Marines, being involved with the community in terms of, you know, being a flag bearer at funerals for Marines who have passed, the larger veterans organizations in the metropolitan area — that's super rewarding.

0:36:27 Roman Koshkin

Just a phenomenal experience. But there was always that itch to get back to something a little bit more active. And this was at the halfway point of my career. So we made a conscious decision that at my ten-year mark, we would stay in the service, and then we would keep the family in place in Milwaukee.

0:36:46 Roman Koshkin

And I would go back to the Marine Corps base.

0:37:07 Justin McMillen

Oh, that's — I don't know if you've ever thought about this, Roman, but it's crazy that... so daughter's five, son's nine. And you get three years — daughter five to eight, son nine to twelve. They're all ballpark numbers. Yeah. So you're there. So you're talking about the end of your daughter's formative years... I got four kids, so I've been watching them all grow up in different ways. But you managed to circle back to a home. I mean, you're working, but you're there. As your daughter transitions out of her formative years into starting to have a sense of self. Right? And then you're getting your son prepped for puberty and, in a weird way, that might have been the hugest blessing for your family.

0:37:32 Justin McMillen

Have you ever thought about that? Just how that all laid out? That's kind of crazy.

0:37:58 Roman Koshkin

It was. It was very fortunate. Again, I think there were lots of things I could have and should have done better. I think I didn't take full advantage of the opportunity — I spent more time away, whether it was training for races or doing work on weekends, than I should have.

0:38:20 Justin McMillen

Races. Did you do some ultramarathons?

0:38:37 Roman Koshkin

Yeah.

0:38:37 Roman Koshkin

Not competitively, but just something I got into for... like a hobby, there's not like — Bobby is way faster. And I put together ultra like 50-miler.

0:38:56 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Okay. I've done... I did 48 miles. I don't do it now, but I probably will again. But Ironman and all that stuff.

0:39:01 Justin McMillen

So I'm into all that. Nice.

0:39:09 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. We used to do here just like unsanctioned... just — in fact, one time we had some guys here and I said, we want you to give us the hardest thing physically you could come up with for one of my classes. And I was like, really? So yeah, so okay, drink a lot of water. You're gonna get salt in water in your system — knowing full well their systems are strong from a few months. And yeah, so we graduated in the morning and we did a half Ironman, and it was awesome. It was actually harder than the legit races I've done, because I had to be a cheerleader the whole time.

0:39:25 Justin McMillen

Sure. It's so... your endurance guy.

0:39:43 Roman Koshkin

I like to call it work capacity, because everybody else has more endurance and is faster and stronger. So I just kind of do the 80th percentile thing.

0:39:49 Justin McMillen

I'm the same. Yeah. I'm not — I don't know what it is for you, but what draws me to it is like, I love the idea that there's a pace where you could sustain something forever, almost.

0:39:53 Justin McMillen

And it's like, it's interesting to see how far. And then when you get there, it's like you couldn't have got there any other way than having done what you just did. Right. It's like a headspace thing where you're like...

0:39:59 Roman Koshkin

It definitely is. I mean, I think part of it is definitely conditioning and getting yourself prepared, but there's a mental component to it without which you really can't do it.

0:40:10 Roman Koshkin

And I don't know if it's part masochism, but you know, if I can — I would suffer the guy to my left or right, yeah, I can do one more.

0:40:20 Justin McMillen

Yeah. That's what I... every time I think, oh I'm not doing this again, especially at the beginning of a race or halfway through, then you're like, yeah.

0:40:32 Justin McMillen

Then I get curious almost every time after. I'm like, that's interesting. I found different parts of who I am that I didn't know were there. And in fact, the 48-mile one was so interesting because it wasn't 48 miles straight. It was four miles every four hours for two days straight. Have you heard about this?

0:40:52 Roman Koshkin

No.

0:40:54 Justin McMillen

It sounds terrible. It's stupid. It sounded easy because I was like, I can run four miles over and over and over. But then the four hours — it's every four hours. And you're burning an hour through the run, and start to finish you're showering, and then by the second day you start losing sleep, then you get weird. But yeah, I got so out there that I was having these weird conversations in my head, and part of it was sleep deprivation.

0:41:10 Justin McMillen

But I remember thinking, like, I couldn't have this conversation with myself if I didn't put all this work in. Right? This much sleep deprivation, this much hard work. That's the only way that I could know this part of who I am. And I found a lot of parts that were like, oh, that kind of sucks. Like, I could actually bitch out in this area.

0:41:29 Justin McMillen

You know what I mean? So you sort of make friends with these parts of who you are. And then it's like, well — 100 miles is like... right. Yeah. Who do you meet there? Like, what Roman exists at 90? Yeah. You know, and is he going to be like, dude, you're old, you don't need to do this anymore?

0:41:48 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, yeah. Anyways, that's my...

0:41:54 Justin McMillen

Yeah, I love endurance for that reason. And I'm not built for it right now. I'm like about 20 pounds heavier than I need to be.

0:42:13 Roman Koshkin

So I think we're in the same boat. It was remarkably difficult to try to do a long run this weekend, I think.

0:42:19 Justin McMillen

How long? How far do you go?

0:42:23 Roman Koshkin

I did my first two trail runs that I've done in about a year this past weekend. Short ones, just five miles, with the bike portion on either end. But it felt — it felt like I was getting back to a happy place.

0:42:35 Justin McMillen

Nice. To be able to take yourself out of stressors and kind of focus inwardly and let the thoughts range.

0:42:40 Roman Koshkin

It was yeah. It felt really good.

0:42:57 Justin McMillen

Do you think running is going to be part of your future as you grow old?

0:43:00 Roman Koshkin

I think so, just still trying to get conscious of transitioning — you know, 45 came with a lot of bangs and bruises and bumps that I didn't think I was going to accumulate as quickly as I did. So definitely recovery and longevity are something I try to invest in a little bit more than in earlier years. We'll see, we'll see. I'd like to do the running thing for a while, but sometimes the knees don't want to cooperate in the mornings.

0:43:41 Justin McMillen

Yeah. You're into barefoot?

0:43:44 Roman Koshkin

I did. I used to train barefoot. Haven't done that in a while, but that's my thing.

0:43:53 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I'm into it. Yeah. I feel like that's protected my knees over the years, you know, just learning to kind of prance, for lack of a better way to put it. But yeah, there's a great book — have you read Born to Run?

0:44:00 Roman Koshkin

So good.

0:44:02 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're remarkably great for folks like us with lower back problems. I mean, within a few weeks it completely realigned everything. So you're into it, you know, the whole philosophy. Christopher McDougall's whole thing. Right? Yeah. And there's another one he did called Natural Born Heroes, very nice.

0:44:16 Justin McMillen

So this one's about fascia. And he was studying this — the whole thing is set in World War II, and there was like saving these hostages. You've got to have read it. But he's really fascinated because the only way these guys were able to save these hostages was to scale this insanely high mountain and come down the other side in a really quick amount of time. And he's like, how? How in the hell did they do that?

0:44:23 Justin McMillen

And come to find out that people in this village had been running up and down these hills for years. And he discovered through that, and looking at martial artists and whatnot, that there's a — there's a whole other energy system, and I'm butchering it so anybody who's watching this, you know, look it up — but there's a whole other energy system which is fascia, and it's...

0:44:39 Justin McMillen

And he's saying that it's almost like a spring, and that the tension of fascia — if you think of doing a push-up, like as you're coming down you're actually loading the spring, and then the fascia slams you back up. And he talks about this even with running, and he thinks this is sort of the next frontier of fitness, that we're going to start looking at this more.

0:45:01 Roman Koshkin

Okay. Yeah. I don't know. That's a good book. Yeah. You should check it out. It's written the same way Born to Run is — engaging. Right.

0:45:23 Justin McMillen

So yeah.

0:45:25 Justin McMillen

Okay. So we were on the life story and you were... your kids. You're now going back to Camp Lejeune. Roughly eight and thirteen. Your children. His wife — happy? Frustrated?

0:45:38 Roman Koshkin

Do you remember? I don't think anybody was happy about separation. Yeah. Of course. I think it was one of those — again, it was a conscious decision that we made together. In retrospect that probably through my demeanor was leaning a little bit heavily on leaving and going, doing the next tour.

0:45:59 Roman Koshkin

But it — we had to decide, either at the ten-year mark I was going to leave the service and do something in the private sector, or we're going to continue this and really take it out to the 20-year mark for retirement. So we're solidly on the latter. Went back to North Carolina, deployed to the Middle East for short tours, and then came back and was working at Camp Lejeune, still at the organization, and was fortunate enough — this was 2015 — to be given command of a company.

0:46:21 Roman Koshkin

That's when we went to Germany and our missions focused on Africa. So kind of the best of all worlds. You know, my command element was in Germany. The teams were on the continent in Africa, and I was given free rein to travel as I saw fit and help the guys and gals on the ground do their job.

0:46:46 Roman Koshkin

And also given a lot of leash by my commanders to develop a mission set in accordance with fairly broad guidance. And we did dial that in as best we could.

0:47:02 Justin McMillen

Came back, back to... sorry. No, no, it's okay.

0:47:08 Justin McMillen

So you being in command of such incredible human beings — what was that like? Leading men of that caliber?

0:47:39 Roman Koshkin

It was humbling, for sure.

0:47:39 Roman Koshkin

I think I could have probably stepped away at any point and the organization would have kind of run itself. So not just removing myself and putting everything in the extraordinary, capable hands of the guys on the command team, but also the teams — the way the organization is built, the team is made to operate autonomously. And that's what they did for long periods of time. They would submit their reports and I'd say, you're knocking it out of the park. Keep doing what you're doing.

0:48:06 Roman Koshkin

And the closeness of the organization — not overbearing, and not awkward, but just everybody knew their job, everybody knew what they had to do, everybody knew when to ask for help. Being comfortable with that is one of the more remarkable times in the years that I did in the service.

0:48:26 Justin McMillen

Yeah. It's another rare thing about your life. I mean, being able to be in a leadership position with so many high-caliber humans. What an honor. Yeah.

0:48:45 Roman Koshkin

And a learning experience. Yeah. You know, there are things — just as with being out in the field — that I discovered about myself that I didn't know, good and bad. That experience, being able to learn everything from the tactical perspective to how to operate in an operational space.

0:48:54 Roman Koshkin

And, you know, the larger strategic environment. Interacting with general officers and ambassadors — it was a pretty mind-blowing experience. I don't think I trained for anything... maybe for starting a family, but no, that's a yeah, that's a different thing.

0:49:17 Justin McMillen

Yeah. That's... what do you think? Is there anything about leadership that you feel like you've learned that would be valuable to share?

0:49:25 Roman Koshkin

Wow, that's quite a question. Yeah. That's your job. So I think with the years, what I learned is — it's fun. Right. And we don't do it because it's a chore. We do it because it's really challenging and really fun. It's a lot of responsibility. And I definitely understand now — probably should have understood this many years ago — but why

0:49:43 Roman Koshkin

leaders are rotated in and out of leadership positions, because there is a level of burnout, and then you begin to fail as a leader. You're just not there mentally and physically. You have family problems and long-term problems that start — because ultimately, and this goes back to our other conversation, I think we as a nation have made a conscious decision to have the best force out there. But that comes with a cost. Lots of our allies and partners have very capable forces, but they choose to focus more on family and social integration as opposed to military capability. I think we've gone the other way. So we pay a price for it. But the expectation is that you're 24-7, and you stay on in a leadership position. Whatever is required of you, either for the individual in your command or for the mission, that's what you do. And then you sort things out as you go into your follow-on assignments and then decompress.

0:50:39 Justin McMillen

What about so you're dealing with a bunch of alpha males — how do you deal with people challenging you and how do you maintain respect outside of just, this is my CO and I have to do what I'm supposed to do? Right? You know what I mean? It's like there's a leader who is declared your leader, and there's a leader who you want to be under their wing, right?

0:51:02 Justin McMillen

How do you be the leader where men want to follow your lead? I mean, obviously there are hundreds of books on leadership.

0:51:11 Roman Koshkin

And motivational speakers make a good living off people. How to do leadership well. For me, for that particular assignment, that particular deployment, it was kind of a perfect combination of factors. And I was actually speaking to one of the guys that I served with on the deployment a few weeks ago, and I said, I don't know what it was, but there was some sort of magic ingredient, you know — right place, right mission, right time.

0:51:32 Roman Koshkin

And the right personalities. And everybody meshed. That's not to say that we didn't have conflicts, differences of opinion. But everybody gave each other enough grace and leeway to consider an opposing opinion. And then at one point the decision had to be made, and the person who made the decision knew that it was their responsibility — and ultimately he held not just authority,

0:51:55 Roman Koshkin

but potentially the lives of other people in his hands. So it was a shared task until somebody had to, you know, pull the proverbial trigger. A lot of it was because the pace of our operations were a little bit slower than the combat operations that were going on at the time.

0:52:15 Roman Koshkin

So we had the time and space to think through things, and the luxury of considering each other's opinions and saying yea or nay to this or that. But frankly, for me — this is strictly a personal opinion — I think it just comes down to respect. If your way is just to force your leadership style on people and just direct, it may be effective, but again, it burns out at one point.

0:52:44 Roman Koshkin

You have to know when you have to take a knee and let somebody else drive. You have to know how to ask for help, how to ask for opinions — and not just to pay lip service, but to consider what the validity of that opinion is. Also do the back-checks to make sure that the facts that opinion is based on are in fact, facts.

0:53:06 Roman Koshkin

And then you do your best. And sometimes, you know, it's an 80% solution and sometimes you knock it out of the park. Sure. But nothing's perfect. You know, I think that's the reason that we still have people debating what is the best leadership style. How do we get to the ultimate solution? You know, the perfect way to solve a mission that's put in front of you.

0:53:30 Justin McMillen

That's a very good answer, honestly, Roman. I think that was really well said, and I think incredibly valuable insight. And I'm learning, you know. I think so. I'm in a leadership position — not the same, definitely not the same as what you're talking about. And I'm obsessed with this subject. And yeah, there's a million theories and ideas and, yeah — go ahead.

0:53:56 Roman Koshkin

I was going to bring up the fact that — well, you just said exactly that. I think the continuation of learning, yeah, I think that has to be the hallmark of any great leader. I certainly wouldn't put myself in that category, but I think I try to learn as best I could. You know, one of the great things — that I came across because my wife told me, and this blew my mind —

0:54:19 Roman Koshkin

she said, you know, Robert De Niro still takes classes — like acting classes, community theater. Like, that's incredible. Yeah. To be able to have the humility to still learn after an accomplished career. I think that is what leaders should strive for. To be able to better yourself.

0:54:40 Justin McMillen

You know, you're that guy, right?

0:54:44 Roman Koshkin

I wouldn't say that I'm that guy, but... I like to be that guy.

0:54:48 Justin McMillen

I'll tell you, I have asked that question to other people, and it's interesting to hear the way people respond to you. Some are like, you got to do it like this or you got to do that, you know? And it's like, the fact that you're hesitant to say that you know for sure is probably a big part of why you were very good at what you were doing. Because it shows that you're humble enough and open enough to listen. And I mean, dude, ego — male ego — is the most... I mean, people kill over it. It destroys us. And it can also be our greatest power.

0:55:14 Roman Koshkin

Sure. So here you are managing all of these men who have tamed their ego, probably to some degree — or they wouldn't be in the position they're in. Right? But yeah, I mean, you arguably were leading in a space that would be one of the hardest spaces to lead in, because you're dealing with very powerful, high-functioning people who are selected to be there, who may want to challenge authority or challenge ideas. And knowing the healthy amount, because you want challenge —

0:55:46 Justin McMillen

Sure, you can't be better unless you have people challenging. But then knowing when to listen. So all in all, what you're saying is great. Anybody stand out to you that you led, that was just extraordinary? An extraordinary Marine?

0:56:08 Roman Koshkin

I won't mention names because, of course, I'd have to name all 126 people that were in the company.

0:56:28 Justin McMillen

Sure.

0:56:29 Roman Koshkin

At least somebody... so as I mentioned, I was the late comer to the company. The company had already formed and gone through the pre-deployment cycle. And my boss at the time walked into the office and said, do you want the company? Go start — like, holy smokes. Okay, sure. That was the best. Started me off on a humble foot already.

0:56:56 Roman Koshkin

So I came in, the unit was functioning, firing on all cylinders, and the command element really set the pace. So there was an executive officer, operations chief, an air officer. You guys were responsible for making the top tier work and providing the leadership and the guidance to the team commanders and the team chiefs who were executing the actual tactical actions.

0:57:21 Roman Koshkin

It was just, again, like a great mesh.

0:57:37 Justin McMillen

Where are you at in your life right now?

0:57:41 Roman Koshkin

So, you know, definitely taking some time to reflect and reevaluate, get a broader picture of what are the things you need to fix — if you're honest with yourself. I've kind of been using the analogy for myself of a foam roller. Right? You kind of roll it out, and then you get to a point. It's like, well, that feels uncomfortable. It's like, oh, that's the muscle pressure point — push here.

0:57:57 Roman Koshkin

Sure. So whatever you're going through in a day — like, whatever feels bad or uncomfortable, or like I don't want to do this — that's the thing to address in that moment. Like, I don't feel like talking right now. Like, I'm grumpy. I've got to work through that. I like doing this exercise. That's the one I need to do. Right? Yeah. It's fairly simple, but for me, somebody who very often fails at being disciplined — that's kind of the beauty of it, is that the process is simple.

0:58:26 Justin McMillen

Yeah.

0:58:26 Roman Koshkin

You just got to do it.

0:58:26 Justin McMillen

Yeah, exactly. But... you very often fail — you didn't get into the position you were in in the military by failing at discipline. So how does that make sense?

0:58:51 Roman Koshkin

Somewhere it's probably not super pretty. And a lot of it is like self-criticizing yourself into doing things. Some of it contributed to the baggage that I'm dragging with me and trying to work through right now, because you just stuff a whole bunch of things — whatever emotional thought, you know, historical stuff from through your life — into like this bag of woe. And then at one point you've got to address that stuff. And then I think it goes back to the point we were talking about earlier, where leadership positions do bring you out.

0:59:15 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. You have to take part of yourself out of the equation. Right? There's a mission and a purpose that supersedes whatever you need to focus on for yourself at that point.

0:59:26 Justin McMillen

It's interesting you say that about the bag, because I think there's a really interesting analogy. You know, if you're somebody who can grind and push, you could have a — if you think of the bag slung over your shoulder just piled with shit.

0:59:45 Justin McMillen

If you're somebody who can push, you could carry that thing for a long time. You know, it's like I have that grind in me. Right? So the very thing that you need — which is that ability to face pain and push through — is the thing that's allowing you to hold on to the shit too. It's really weird.

1:00:09 Roman Koshkin

Dynamic. 100%.

1:00:15 Justin McMillen

Oh, so — you were mentioning leadership. It was kind of the perfect scenario. And I asked you if anyone stood out, and you mentioned everybody. You walked into almost like this...

1:00:31 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, it's kind of a lame answer, but it really is true. At least for that portion of my career and life stage.

1:00:42 Roman Koshkin

And really, what's true is it was kind of a perfect storm. Everybody was performing at their top level, everybody knew their job, understood the man to the left and right and the requirements of the mission, and everybody just clicked. I don't think I've had an assignment like that before or since, where things came together at quite that level.

1:00:56 Roman Koshkin

Although, again, I've just been really fortunate for 20 years of having phenomenal people I worked for and with. And if it wasn't 100%, it was pretty close, for the vast majority of the time.

0:01:18 Justin McMillen

Yeah, it was a circle. So you run into — I think other men would say the same thing. You know, you're in an environment with pretty extraordinary people and everybody knows what they're supposed to do.

1:01:36 Justin McMillen

And I mean, if you already think of the excellence of a Marine, and then you just put them on the Raider side, or you know, MARSOC — yeah, I'm sure you're dealing with the best of the best, some of the most incredible people. Everybody in their position, which is a cool feeling.

1:01:56 Roman Koshkin

Right.

1:01:56 Roman Koshkin

It's intoxicating almost when everything's firing perfectly like that. Is that the positive energy that feeds off other positive energies? Yeah, it's kind of a high almost.

1:02:16 Justin McMillen

Yeah, yeah.

1:02:18 Roman Koshkin

And you could be a player on the team, you could be the coach or the captain. Right. Those are all sort of different roles.

1:02:18 Justin McMillen

It's like you're either in it and you know what it's like to feel everything flowing perfectly in the moment, or you're in the moment but you have a position where you need to be in the moment and consciously observe what's happening with everyone else. And then there's the coach, where you're able to watch the beauty of this perfect dance. Right? You know, and you got to be the coach and the captain a little bit.

1:02:41 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:02:41 Justin McMillen

Absolutely.

1:02:41 Roman Koshkin

It does, obviously, shared responsibilities to a certain extent. Yeah. Just really, really fortunate. And I keep saying that, but it's true. You know, it's great. I mean, it's not always good. So it's nice to talk about the good stuff too.

1:03:11 Justin McMillen

And so in Africa — where were you? Are you allowed to say?

1:03:28 Roman Koshkin

No.

1:03:28 Roman Koshkin

So the teams covered North and West Africa. There were a couple of Army elements that were attached to us as well. And we were subordinate to the joint command. But it was mostly Army Special Operations Forces, Special Forces.

1:03:28 Justin McMillen

Nice, nice. And can you say anything about what you were doing or...

1:03:56 Roman Koshkin

No.

1:03:56 Roman Koshkin

It was interesting. We were working very closely with the allies that we had in Africa. Some mission sets were more kinetic than others. Some were fairly mild. But all of that came with challenges. So the teams that weren't going into direct action operations were working very closely with our diplomatic corps. So that presents a whole other set of challenges. You know, when you're a junior officer or a staff noncommissioned officer and you have to go and brief the ambassador or one of the other folks in the embassy, and you're representing the DOD — it's a pretty hefty responsibility that you're bearing.

1:04:29 Roman Koshkin

But again, there was not an incident or a set of circumstances during those seven months where I either cringed or rolled my eyes or second-guessed anybody that I was working with. It was really smooth. A lot of it goes to preparation and the maturity of the force. There's a reason why Marines can't join MARSOC until they do their first assignments elsewhere in the force.

1:05:00 Roman Koshkin

And so that grows the maturity. Develops it. And kind of taking a pause and thinking through things before, you know, you open your mouth. That definitely paid a lot of dividends for us.

1:05:32 Justin McMillen

Gotcha.

1:05:32 Justin McMillen

What's our interest in Northern Africa? I mean, we're everywhere, right? But what are the main things going on in Northern Africa that America is interested in stabilizing? What's our position there?

1:05:38 Roman Koshkin

You don't have to talk about your specific mission, so... yeah, just. Yeah. Well, a lot of it, through that assignment and then my follow-on assignment in Germany, was the grand strategic competition between the US, China, Russia. Africa is obviously full of amazing resources and also strategically positioned for everything from trade to, you know, military considerations and such.

1:06:01 Roman Koshkin

Lots of stabilization attempts for government forces who need some assistance. ISIS and al-Shabaab were pretty active during that time as well. So kind of shepherding the resources and helping our allies, giving them a little bit of space and time to figure themselves out and develop their own capabilities. We took what was the bread and butter of the Green Berets — working by, with, and through

1:06:21 Roman Koshkin

their allied forces — and replicated that mission set as well.

1:06:48 Justin McMillen

There's a lot of civil conflicts and issues going on all over Africa. Right? And yeah, some pretty unstable parts of the world.

1:06:48 Roman Koshkin

Very fluid.

1:06:48 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. Just a different time horizon lens. You kind of have to look at decades-long efforts as opposed to, we'll go in and fix this with a couple of deployments. So lots of patience. Again going back to the maturity of the operator and a team who develops a relationship with a particular person. He may not see the dividends paid from that,

1:07:02 Roman Koshkin

but five rotations down the road, five years down the road, that person whom he mentored is now in a position of influence and can carry, you know, either the American strategic message or our alliance's message forward and reinforce all those values that we stand for.

1:07:19 Justin McMillen

Yeah, yeah.

1:07:19 Justin McMillen

That's crazy. There are some horror stories about Africa too.

1:07:19 Justin McMillen

This is... yeah. And terrible. I think when you get people to the point where they're starving and resources are so limited, it's just — everything shifts. You know. Yeah, absolutely. So I was in Indonesia after Suharto was overthrown, and that was a crazy time. There were starving people. And talk about a completely different animal in terms of the way people act.

1:07:50 Roman Koshkin

You know, it's a different deal.

1:07:50 Roman Koshkin

Absolutely. Yeah. The setup... yeah. Like that had been an interesting experience. How long were you there for?

1:08:15 Justin McMillen

So —

1:08:15 Justin McMillen

The missions continued for a number of deployments. Our deployment was just over six months. So this is 2016, when my company was there. And then we did a number of years afterwards for the teams rotating through the same countries. I got to watch from a distance because I went back and became the battalion operations officer. Still based out of Camp Lejeune, and I assisted those that came in as company commanders afterward and helped them develop their perspective on that same mission.

1:08:40 Justin McMillen

So now — does MARSOC have geographic areas that each...

1:08:42 Roman Koshkin

I may be incorrect because I've been out of the loop for a little bit. During that time it was — each battalion, there were three battalions — regionally focused. So we covered Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and then the Far East, I believe. Since then the missions now switch between deploying companies.

1:09:01 Roman Koshkin

Okay. It's not as much of a regional focus. So I think that was an effort to broaden the perspective and kind of level-set the force so that there'd be a greater understanding of the larger strategic picture amongst the companies and battalions.

1:09:09 Justin McMillen

I'm surprised. So with your Russian-speaking background, did they...

1:09:10 Roman Koshkin

No, no.

1:09:13 Roman Koshkin

I left MARSOC headquarters in 2018 and went to work as the liaison officer in Germany. But didn't we have a presence in Ukraine? In 2015, 2016 — more sorry, we didn't, but US Special Operations Forces were there. And then I believe with the full-scale invasion in '22, the contingent was drawn down, just because I believe there's a restriction on how many US government personnel could be in country.

1:09:40 Roman Koshkin

But those are definitely relationships developed over many, many years. And if not put on ice — or at least, okay, if they are put on hold so that the Ukrainians can address their issues — the US could focus on developing a coherent policy of how to approach that problem.

1:10:08 Justin McMillen

So gotcha. Yeah. Do you think we're going to get to a solution soon between Ukraine and Russia? Do you follow that at all?

1:10:40 Roman Koshkin

I try to follow it fairly closely, but I don't know if a solution is in the cards in the near term. Obviously, there's a lot of historical background, a lot of historical conflict. And the relationship between the two countries is complex, to say the least. And there are lots of shifting perspectives on what's best, between East and West, what's best for Central and Western Europe, what's best for US strategic interests in the region.

1:10:40 Roman Koshkin

At some point a diplomatic solution of some sort is going to have to be hashed out. But I think we're in a pretty interesting transitional period for Europe to reconsider its own security posture. With the US orienting elsewhere and redirecting resources potentially elsewhere, how do Central and Western European nations figure themselves out and address a potential threat to their east?

1:11:08 Justin McMillen

Do you think there is a threat? I don't know — do you think they wouldn't really want to move past Ukraine? I think they'd love to have Ukraine back in totality. But I mean, do you think there's some greater imperial...

1:11:26 Roman Koshkin

I think if we were able to figure that out, that would probably be... what do you think?

1:11:33 Justin McMillen

I mean, what's your guess? Like, I mean, you know European history. You certainly know some stuff about Russia and that part of the world. Do you think — and it's okay, I would kind of want it — but what's your opinion? I mean, do you think... dude, I mean let's go. You cool talking about this?

1:11:45 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. So Ukraine specifically — do you think that Putin's plan all along was that he wanted to get Ukraine? I mean, obviously he has aspirations for that in terms of getting back to the old Russia. Right. Or —

1:12:05 Justin McMillen

But do you think it was really just a strategy around like, hey, you're not saying what you said you were going to do with NATO, so we're going to do this? Or do you think it's genuine that he wants to own the land and have it be part of Russia? What do you think?

1:12:31 Roman Koshkin

I think Putin sees Russia's position versus Europe and the larger West as not ideal right now. So he's trying to advance that. Right? Like a larger geostrategic way to project Russia's influence — a nation that uses many tools at his disposal to advance its influence. And it likes to keep the rest of us a little bit off balance, yeah, so that we don't have the ability to counteract whatever it is that they're doing.

1:12:58 Roman Koshkin

To put our priorities forward quite as effectively.

1:13:32 Justin McMillen

What is the... so most of the American public only knows Putin through what we see — the stories that are told, the narrative. I hate saying that word, but — the public narrative or the media's narrative in the US is that Putin's a monster, that he's a terrible person, a terrible leader.

1:13:33 Justin McMillen

And then that's the only way we'd be able to know unless you speak Russian or you can listen to him, and even then you're like, how much of this is propaganda? I don't know. What are your — is he as bad as people say? And am I moving into territory we shouldn't be talking about maybe?

1:13:56 Roman Koshkin

No, not really. But I'll redirect if we get there. I think the truism that people get the government they deserve still holds true. Right. All the polls show — no matter how manipulative they are — that the majority of Russians still support Putin and the way he's handling both internal and external politics. He's a complicated man, obviously.

1:14:31 Roman Koshkin

Russia's policies are very complicated and complex, and Ukraine is not the only thing on their plate. They're looking east, they're looking to Africa, they're looking at their relationship with India, South America — you know, they are a global power. And I don't think we can necessarily say it's good or bad. They're advancing their own interests. Yeah.

1:14:53 Roman Koshkin

Just as the US is, using different means. And I think our purposes are more benign, for the most part. Historically. But that's just the way the world works culturally. I think the larger rhetoric that we hear is generally true in the sense that our interests just don't align. Right. And she — he uses methods, I think, or those within his administration in the larger political structure, that we would find unfathomable.

1:15:34 Roman Koshkin

How could you possibly do that? But he has the support of the majority of Russia's population. And ultimately, even if he were no longer the head of state, most likely it would be somebody who would administer things internally and externally in a similar way. And I think that's just the reality that we have to deal with through multiple administrations in the future.

1:15:57 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I'm glad you said that about is it good, is it bad? It's like, that's really the wrong way to put it. In order to even establish good or bad, you have to put your stakes in the ground in terms of what the ideal outcome of anything is, you know. And yeah, I think Russia has their interests. I think what you're saying makes sense.

1:16:20 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Did you watch the... Oliver Stone interview? I did one on it — the interesting to hear your take on that.

1:16:39 Roman Koshkin

I listened to it because I was like, this guy is supposed to be the scariest man on the planet. Like, it should be worth listening to, to understand how it works. You know? And so I listened to the whole thing. He does this whole bit over the beginning of him going through Russian history. He's obsessed with it.

1:16:59 Justin McMillen

Yeah. This is what we, you know, who we are. And it's crazy — I just got this weird feeling that being Russian is directly tied to the land. And it's way bigger than just the time period of your life. Like, there's this greater obligation. And I wasn't sure if that was just Putin or if that's like a Russian thing culturally.

1:17:19 Roman Koshkin

I think it is. I think in modern Russia yeah, you're kind of looking at the broader perspective, the longer historical perspective. I mean, I think he's as much a student of history — maybe selectively — as he is a student of power. Yeah. But he has found a way to stay in power for a very, very long time. And again, he's not being removed from office. Right. So there's a significant amount of support for his policies and his worldview amongst the population.

1:17:48 Justin McMillen

To the credit of the interviewer — and I mean, a lot of people, hey, Tucker — I know he's a contentious character, so I'm not saying good or bad things about him. But to his credit, he mentioned — no, actually it's not Tucker. I'm not even thinking of Tucker Carlson. I'm thinking of Oliver Stone. Oliver Stone, I watched both, but Oliver Stone did a four-part series on him.

1:18:09 Justin McMillen

But he brought up several times — he's like, do you ever wonder if nobody's really giving you any kind of objective information because they're afraid of you, or you've been in power so long that you can't really see things objectively? And he just rolled right over it, you know, rising — when you look at it — which I thought was fascinating. I was like, that's one of the beautiful things about the US. Its problem is also kind of its strength — this two-term, four-year deal.

1:18:36 Justin McMillen

It's like, that allows us to have this constant revitalization. Yeah. Or shift change. The downside is that long-term objectives — it's hard to get things done. Sure. Having, you know... so but yeah, it's people, I guess it's like getting to the point where you believe your own bullshit. And I think he's probably got a lot of that going on.

1:19:00 Roman Koshkin

So yeah. Yeah.

1:19:02 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then yeah, we operate on different cycles. And I think the larger historical perspective is, you know, everything is cyclical. We tend to focus on what's going on now or what's going to be going on at the next, you know, whatever conference is taking place. And the reality is, even within our own political planning, we have annual budgets.

1:19:26 Roman Koshkin

Things are forecasted for quite a ways out. And so changing course on a dime is not possible for us, just like it's not for any major power. I think we see this again with Europe scrambling to reevaluate their security posture. What percentage of GDP they're going to be spending on defense. To me, watching international politics is fascinating, but sometimes you kind of walk into the only surprising thing that is surprising anybody.

1:20:00 Roman Koshkin

Right? And then all of a sudden people are scrambling like, oh my God, how do we do this? Where did this come from? You know, the writing was kind of on the wall.

1:20:17 Justin McMillen

Yep. Yeah. It gets a little overwhelming. I don't know if we're supposed to, as people, know so much about what's going on. I mean, I feel it's like — when you say, I don't know if it's good or bad — in order to have an opinion, I think that's valuable. If I ask people, what is the right way or the wrong way, you have to sort of establish what you think this greater idea is supposed to be.

1:20:36 Justin McMillen

So you have to have an opinion about the global economy or how countries are supposed to... and then even further — like, how are these places supposed to interact? And what's ideal? Is it all just American supremacy? Is that what we should all want because we're Americans? Or is it about the ideals that America brings? Is it about everybody leaving each other alone?

1:20:59 Justin McMillen

Is there some basic human rights that all humans should have, and if that's violated it automatically makes something good or bad? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Heavy, it was their way of questioning. Jesse. Yeah. Well, dude, it's yeah, it's interesting. I mean, but you get to — whatever subject you work within the framework of what you're dealing with, right?

1:21:21 Justin McMillen

So it's like, for example, you know, people — the Ukrainian war right now with Russia. So diplomacy — Putin's the evil monster, we can't negotiate. But it's like, well, people die. There's a lot of people dying. Okay. So the immediate thing in this framework is — human lives need to be spared. Doesn't matter, you know, it doesn't matter.

1:21:45 Justin McMillen

We just got to stop this from happening. So, you know, figure it out as we go. You know? So yeah, it's an interesting subject. So okay, so when did you — so, Africa, Europe. So families lived in Germany. So your kids were raised in Germany partly?

1:22:15 Roman Koshkin

So 2018, I was still in North Carolina. The family was still in Milwaukee. Okay. I got an assignment to move to Germany in 2018. I went there, and in 2019 the family joined me in Germany. And the way we're thinking is we're just going to kind of lay low, settle in, and then we'll explore Europe. Have a great adventure here.

1:22:37 Roman Koshkin

But that coincided with Covid.

1:22:37 Roman Koshkin

Oh, and so the great European Covid shutdown essentially stranded us in our beautiful home in Stuttgart for a couple of years. Wow. And then how old were the kids? So, like ten and... and then my wife was doing a phenomenal job of homeschooling the kids. So our oldest at that point was able to take essentially a gap year in between finishing the high school curriculum and applying to college.

1:23:12 Roman Koshkin

So there was a little bit of European exploration. But a lot of the time we just kind of moved in a ten-mile radius around our neighborhood. And then I did one short deployment during that time out of Germany to Africa. And then we wrapped things up and moved back to the States in 2021.

1:23:35 Justin McMillen

You know, just things were opening up. So family moved there during Covid... was it similar? Like would you have known you were in Covid if you were here?

1:24:03 Roman Koshkin

Yeah.

1:24:03 Roman Koshkin

I think I visited the US only a couple of times. It was restrictive. Definitely. It was, I think, a cultural shift for the Europeans as well, because they're used to much closer proximity, physical and cultural — very closely tied into communities. And everything was put on pause. You know, I think it was a struggle for everybody. I can't speak to what it was like in the US other than through phone conversations, speaking to family and friends here. I imagine it was fairly similar.

1:24:25 Roman Koshkin

Germany actually had a lot of pushback against Covid control measures that I didn't expect. You know, we always think of Germans as rule followers. Yeah. Very disciplined. And there was definitely some unrest. But on the news it was like protests, you know? Yeah. I think Italy suffered greatly. Germany had some issues. Italy suffered mainly because of their elderly population. Right.

1:24:48 Justin McMillen

It was so many. You remember at the beginning I was like, yeah. I think that area was really, really hit hard.

1:24:55 Roman Koshkin

I think Germany — again, not to minimize Germany — got off fairly lightly in terms of the death toll from Covid. But it was, I mean, everybody suffered obviously.

1:25:13 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Yeah.

1:25:13 Roman Koshkin

It was difficult. And so yeah, I deployed kind of during the height of Covid to East Africa for a couple of months. Came back and it was really time to pack things up and get everybody back.

1:25:37 Justin McMillen

Can you say where in East Africa?

1:25:39 Roman Koshkin

So I was in Djibouti. But it was — at that time, we were repositioning our forces in Eastern Africa. It was towards the end of the first Trump administration. And so there were, again, a lot of adjustments geopolitically in terms of where America's strategic focus was going to be.

1:26:02 Roman Koshkin

I think it was decided that East Africa was not going to be on our priority list. And so there were some intense adjustments to what we were doing at that time and the investments that we had.

1:26:13 Justin McMillen

Gotcha. Yeah. That's interesting. Did you get the African bug in terms of wanting to go back there and see it through a different lens, or...

1:26:22 Roman Koshkin

No. You know, I wouldn't say I got the bug. I'm just like a super, super addicted to travel. So I love going to see different places. And it's just such a different world from what we're used to, especially having spent a couple of years in Western Europe.

1:26:41 Roman Koshkin

At that time, there were stints where I would go from, you know, going to the US Embassy in Paris and staying in a four-star hotel, and then the next flight landing in Ouagadougou, and staying at a team house and walking past a dead camel or, you know, whatever the case may be.

1:27:09 Roman Koshkin

It was very interesting. Again, I was privileged to be able to be safe, and to be taken care of by the teams that were on the ground. They were doing the work day in and day out, and I was just kind of a traveler passing through, building my own perspective on how things were working out and engaging with just a ton of hugely interesting people who were living lives completely different from mine.

1:27:34 Roman Koshkin

But just going about their business and doing the best for their countries. Great, great experience.

1:27:54 Justin McMillen

And in all that travel and seeing different cultures, have you found that there's some basic human universal truths? No matter who you are, is there stuff that has popped out that has helped you see the reality of humanity? Is there stuff you've learned?

1:28:08 Roman Koshkin

I think it's all the basic stuff that we probably just don't acknowledge because we get so caught up in our daily routines. But everybody wants to be safe and happy and, you know, be a contributing member of society. And sometimes to be left alone, and sometimes to be engaged.

1:28:18 Roman Koshkin

I mean, I think people just want to be happy and live well. Sometimes it doesn't work out for generations in any particular place, but I think people just strive to do their best. That's not an earth-shattering truth. It's just, you know, just being human. And yeah.

1:28:42 Justin McMillen

But the way you put that, I really like it. I think it is that simple.

1:28:47 Roman Koshkin

And you can't know that unless you've done it and been to the places that you've been. And it looks different for different people at different times. Right? I mean, there are cultural nuances, there are traditions, there are different ways families and societies are structured. There should never be judgment — one is wrong and one is right.

1:29:11 Roman Koshkin

But certainly there should be some common sense. I think the unspoken rules about how we all interact as humans — whether it's nation to nation or traveler to traveler. Yeah. I feel pretty good about what America was built on. The ideals, and what we're attempting to do around that subject. Specifically, I think at its best, the ideal of the founding fathers of our country — I think it was like the greatest expression of humanity possible. And it's like a big test. You know, and they all assumed that humans were inherently good. And that's still on the table for debate.

1:29:41 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I mean, they set a pretty high bar, and as they should. Something to live up to and strive towards. Never easy, but it's better than having set a low bar.

1:30:05 Roman Koshkin

And then what do you do now? Yeah, well, you just said it perfectly. I think someone said — I can't remember where I heard it — but they were talking about how it's all an ideal, and it's not something... the whole idea is just a constant striving for this ideal. You never get there. Which is — that's the bar. It's like it's always being raised. It's like, what is the perfect expression of humanity? And figuring out how to get there. And then of course, can our systems, can we set up frameworks that allow for that to happen?

1:30:35 Justin McMillen

And yeah, it's weird growing up here. You can get really stuck in just thinking that's how the whole world is. Then you go other places and you see that people don't have the same thing. And it's interesting. But yeah, you think — I don't know how existential of a dude you are, but do you — through all of this and your time overseas — have you got any sense of what the purpose of all this is?

1:31:04 Justin McMillen

Birth to death. What's a good life look like?

1:31:26 Roman Koshkin

Oh, I don't know.

1:31:28 Roman Koshkin

I think it would be super disappointing if I were to all of a sudden discover it. You know, it's kind of hard. But yeah, what I do with my hands now... No, I mean, again — to say something super lame — I think it's just to be good to each other and to do your best.

1:31:35 Roman Koshkin

You know, we've moved past tribalism and tribal societies. I think for the majority of the world's population who live, whether it's in cities or in connected rural communities, you know, we have to interact with billions of people in the world to some certain extent. And yeah, just — I think to try to be happy without taking happiness away from somebody else.

1:31:53 Roman Koshkin

Whether again you're head of state or, you know, just an average guy like me trying to get a job and do the best for his family.

1:32:03 Justin McMillen

I don't think that's lame at all. I think people make things complicated because they don't have an opinion, or they just think they're supposed to, or they're lost on some path. I think it all comes down to really simple stuff at the end of the day. So that's great. So, Covid ends, you end up back — Milwaukee. Family goes back to Milwaukee?

1:32:28 Roman Koshkin

I actually go to the Washington DC area. Okay. I was supposed to train to be the Marine attaché to go to Rome, Italy, and decided that was not going to be the best fit because it would take me away from any real physical communication with the family for a couple of years, because they would be in the US and I'd be back in Europe.

1:32:53 Justin McMillen

Would it be like working at the embassy? Kind of a thing?

1:33:00 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. So I'm... very okay, I got it. Yeah. So obviously it's Western Europe, so it's not exactly a hardship tour, but to be able to get home only a couple of times a year — that was not something I was looking forward to. It was kind of the capstone of my career.

1:33:13 Roman Koshkin

So how old was I at that point? So this is 2022. So, 42. Yeah. And then I was within two years of eligibility for retirement. So I decided to work in the Pentagon. I was able to work out a deal where I would spend my last couple of years at the Pentagon and I was working at Headquarters Marine Corps for a little bit.

1:33:43 Roman Koshkin

And then — I think it was about a year — following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I had the opportunity to work on a project in the Pentagon that dealt with that situation. So I was able to put my Russian language skills to use, and some of the connections I had in Western Europe — some travel back to Germany and Poland.

1:34:16 Justin McMillen

The Pentagon — is it like a think tank? How would you describe the work?

1:34:44 Roman Koshkin

It was actual technical reserve comment. Okay. Understood. Yeah. No problem.

1:34:50 Justin McMillen

That's interesting. So you were right there connected to... so I didn't realize that when we started this conversation.

1:34:54 Roman Koshkin

So it was my last year in uniform, looking pretty closely at the war that was taking place at that point. And then I kind of rushed things. I had established — I actually moved my retirement date up by six months to be able to do that project. And then it came super quickly. So January of 2024 is when I was running around getting all my medical readiness checked out, and I had the retirement party date set.

1:35:15 Roman Koshkin

And then it was there. It was time to go face the real world. After just over 20 years.

1:35:42 Justin McMillen

Oh, man. So the entire — I mean, you were pretty much there for our entire Global War on Terror.

1:35:45 Roman Koshkin

Pretty close to it. Yeah.

1:35:53 Justin McMillen

So you and then in your... it's '24. So you're right in this transition year, smack dab in the middle of it. I mean, it's been a year, but it's not really been that long. A year's not very long to go from full active duty to civilian.

1:36:14 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. Hi. Is it... are you... how are you doing? So I had some former commanders, people who I call mentors, who came and told me that it'll take about 12 to 18 months to become a normal human again. My reaction was like, I got this. You know, I'm good. You know, I'd never lived in military housing. We were always integrated into the community. I thought I was super normal, trying to minimize the impact of military life on my personal life. And so, April 1st, 2024, I was officially a civilian. I had started a consulting job with a firm through a connection, a family friend, focused on Ukraine again.

1:36:51 Roman Koshkin

And so I thought it was just a natural flow of things to go from the uniform side of things to the civilian world. And it really wasn't until a few months after that, where I started getting into a really negative headspace. And I didn't really understand what was going on — why there was always kind of an itchy feeling, and I was not balanced.

1:37:18 Roman Koshkin

I couldn't relate to people the way I thought I was going to be able to. And I don't recall now where I found the podcast, but I started listening to other men who were talking about losing their identity when they left the service because they didn't invest the time. Yeah.

1:37:40 Roman Koshkin

Sean Ryan was one. Didn't invest the time into conducting a transition. And so those months that my mentors told me to take — to really think through things and how life evolves and how you're cautiously leaving one thing that dominated your life for two decades to start a new chapter that requires other skills and other approaches and more understanding and empathy — I skipped over that entire step with predictable results.

1:38:12 Roman Koshkin

Right. So a little bit of the world crashing down around my ears there. And it took a while to fully understand the impact — not just on me, but on the people around me who were bearing the brunt of that kind of dysfunctional me at that point.

1:38:36 Justin McMillen

How much of it do you think is because — this is one of the things that's definitely lacking in the civilian world, that you guys have on the military side — the ability to climb and work through systems of elevation. Right? So you're able to make these moves, and that's how you experience success. Right? Sure. Then you get out and it's like — we have a couple of measuring sticks. Money. You can climb the corporate ladder.

1:38:59 Justin McMillen

But at 45 it's... that's not where your head's at. Right. You're not trying to jump into... so. So yeah, I think that could be a big challenge. How do you go from this environment where it was constant elevation through pushing, and you have systems of respect and trust and order, and then I mean everything is gone.

1:39:26 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. It's gone. You know, it was super difficult. Then again, I just didn't realize what I was in the middle of. Because I went from — as much of a unique organization at that point of my career — I had just left, you know, it was very structured. And I just wasn't conscious of the structure that I'd become used to.

1:39:49 Roman Koshkin

And I jumped with both feet into no structure. So I was working remotely. I was given all the leash that I could handle to travel and engage with folks in Europe, set my own schedule and develop my own set of projects. And the measuring stick — it just wasn't even there to give me any sort of guidance. So that became difficult to handle.

1:40:17 Roman Koshkin

And so I found myself in a constant chase of — I guess you could boil it down to — validation, or at least benchmarks that I should have been able to hit and gauge my own progress. But those weren't there. And so I kind of outpaced my own ability to work those projects, to deliver to people what I was trying to get to — it became an unmanageable situation, frankly.

1:40:52 Justin McMillen

It makes sense. Yeah, yeah. I can see it. And I've had the experience of working with a ton of guys transitioning. And it's not just military. I've worked with guys like, professional athletes that have — you know, one guy — I'm actually, I can't say too much, but somebody I'm talking to now. It's the best in the world — like, you would know who he is if you saw him.

1:41:20 Justin McMillen

And, and it's... but he's not anymore. So he's getting older, and it's a different time. Sure it is. How do I have another chapter in my life? Yeah. Where it's so different? And, and to — do I want to reinvent myself? I was already the best at what I did.

1:41:42 Justin McMillen

Is the goal to continue to be good? You know. And it... every time it gets down to these incredibly existential conversations. Like, what is the meaning of all of this? Yeah, it really does. I also work with — I've worked with billionaires who can do anything they want. And after they've already messed around mostly destroying themselves.

1:42:10 Justin McMillen

It's like, well, what's the point? Right. You know, and it's crazy. But that's where it all comes down. Like, what is the point? What's a good life look like? You know. And I don't know — I'm not working with you so I don't know. But I imagine your situation, you know, it's like, what is it, what do I do now?

1:42:30 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. You know, I mean, even with your job as a contractor — that's what you do, you're good at it, but is that it? What is this about? Yeah. I mean, I think definitely skipping over the transition and decompression process put me in a place where I never took the time to identify what it is that I would be able to do — not just for myself, but for others — in a meaningful way.

1:42:57 Justin McMillen

And yeah, exactly. What does that next chapter look like and what is its purpose? Because I think we're all looking for that. What is the purpose and the objective here? Just moving from one short-term goal to the next — that's not it. Not so... I think that the best piece of advice I probably ever got was in a completely random situation.

1:43:19 Roman Koshkin

I showed up in a new military facility with a whole bunch of people I had never met before, and I had just a random question. And I approached a noncommissioned officer and asked him, you know, First Sergeant, like, do I do this or do I do that?

1:43:41 Roman Koshkin

He just looked at me and said, do what you think is right. Like, okay. I think I blew it off at the time because it seemed like a non-answer. But every time I reach a quandary — it's like, do what you think is right. And I think there's more to it than just the words. It's pretty, pretty deep because it challenges you to think —

1:44:02 Roman Koshkin

what is right in this moment? What's the larger impact of it? Yeah. What's the purpose of it all?

1:44:20 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I think I keep seeing this theme in the way that you interact with the world, which is like these boil down to these very simple — and I think they're elegant, you say lame — but I think they're elegant ways of looking at the world. And I mean, even the fact that that had an impact on you. Yeah. I don't know what the meaning of life is, Roman, but I think it seems like people that have a lot of meaning in their life are happier.

1:44:42 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. It seems like that's a fuller life. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think you're absolutely correct. We tend to overcomplicate things, and then we just kind of get lost in the noise. Yeah, yeah. There's just so many things. We could talk about anything and you could run and it's like, well, what lens are you looking through?

1:45:01 Justin McMillen

What — not everyone thinks that way, but I like, well, maybe, you know, if you're looking at it through that lens, how are we looking at this? And then you've got to understand the framework, and it's like, okay, I see why that's bad. It's only bad if it's not achieving what you're intending for — whatever the idea is supposed to achieve. You know?

1:45:21 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. Where I've landed anymore.

1:45:24 Roman Koshkin

You know, at one point I was chasing — and every young person does — I wanted to see the world and experience everything and know everything and everybody wants to... there's ego wanting to be special and different. And then there's a lot of, for me, there was a lot of humility. And then, I'm a decently smart dude.

1:45:50 Roman Koshkin

I've learned a lot of stuff, traveled a ton. But then I got to a point where things fell apart for me personally, and I had to figure out how to pull them back together, which was a huge gift. Because it was like suddenly realizing that, you know, as much as you think your life is meant for one thing, it may not be. You might end up just dead, and then just another story — or not even a story — and nobody cares.

1:46:18 Justin McMillen

Those are things to think about. Oh man, life is short. You know, we're tiny little blips in the whole thing. And yeah, so then that sucks. But then, you know, then I got involved in the work I do which brings me tremendous amounts of meaning. And then my children — I'm super blessed to have amazing kids.

1:46:39 Justin McMillen

And that's bringing me meaning. And I don't trust feelings anymore so much because I go through waves. I get depressed and happy and sad. So I don't put any stock in it — it's like, not trying to be happy, that's not the goal. Right? So I just have to have a sense of meaning. Like when I wake up, there has to be

1:46:58 Justin McMillen

something that's pulling me out of bed even when I feel shitty. Right? You know, so I don't know if that's... that's where I'm at right now. I'm in a different place. But right now it's like, as long as there's meaning and there's a reason and I can imagine... so thinking about what you said coming...

1:47:15 Roman Koshkin

So the Marine Corps — you're in this giant ball of meaning. Right? Because the whole thing has a meaning, has a purpose. And you adopt the meaning or the purpose of the whole organization. And now you're outside of that. And so what is the meaning?

1:47:37 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

1:47:38 Roman Koshkin

What's your new mission? You know, that is a great question. I don't know. I mean, I think I'm enjoying the process of working through and discovering what that could possibly be. Again, I think starting slow and starting someplace is probably the best way to approach it. It's enough — it's a quest that any of us will ever get to the end of. But I think if you have the capability to make a positive impact in other people's lives — as you were saying, for the people you work with and your children — I think it's a responsibility that becomes incredibly rewarding.

1:48:19 Justin McMillen

Yeah. It's great to, you know, live in a fairly simple world where you have material possessions that make you happy or, you know, it's always sunny outside. Long term, is that going to give you happiness? I don't know. I know, I've known too many people who have found success and they just fall apart, right?

1:48:43 Justin McMillen

I don't think it's even hard to become quote unquote successful. I think it's hard to stay successful. And I think it's hard to hold on to any kind of peace. Most people just deconstruct before they're even declared successful — they start making money and they fall apart. It's like yeah... I don't, yeah, I think doing something good for the world is good.

1:49:09 Justin McMillen

I think being good at what you do is good too, man. And you — your whole history, the fact that you can work as a consultant and bring what you can bring — that's awesome. Having 20 years of honing your skills in certain areas to bring to the table.

1:49:36 Roman Koshkin

Sure.

1:49:36 Roman Koshkin

I mean, ideally I can apply that, you know, either in the same field or in something where it's not wasted effort. Right? Because again, we can pick whatever hobby we think we're going to enjoy. And if it's not making a positive difference in our own lives long term, or for somebody else, is there really a point to it? Yeah. Finding that perfect fit — or maybe if it's not perfect, if it's 80% that works for somebody else and to our own benefit too — maybe that's kind of the secret to happiness.

1:50:02 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. I don't know if there's... you said the Marine Corps career was purposeful and purpose-filled. It was also, for all the sometimes lack of comfort of it, a comfortable bubble to exist in. Because things were fairly simple. You're within parameters of right or wrong. You knew what the mission was. You knew what was allowed and not allowed.

1:50:29 Roman Koshkin

And then jumping into something completely different takes preparation, I think. That's the kind of hard lesson that I learned and didn't invest in. But now I know for the next time I do that, maybe I'll take some time to think through things.

1:50:51 Justin McMillen

Yeah. It's good community too. You know, there's some stuff that I think — we have some basic evolutionary needs as human beings. There's some stuff we just have to do. We have to feed our DNA. And I think humans need to be necessary. And I don't think that's like a philosophical subject. I think it's — we're literally built that way. Through human evolution, the reason we're here as a species is because we collaborated. Right? So we were all necessary for each other. And I think if we don't feel necessary, we have system failure — like a kind of genetic-level expression change, chemistry change. And so I think anybody going from an environment where you're deeply necessary, where you know exactly what your job is down to the very details, and then you move out into the civilian world —

1:51:35 Justin McMillen

you have to find a way to be necessary. You have to know what you bring and what you need. And you know, this is how it's always been for all humans, from the dawn of man. So we don't get to escape that, right? It's like a genetic truth. So as far as I can tell, that's an important piece.

1:51:50 Justin McMillen

And I think another one is you've got to have the hardware. Right. So I think our bodies — which equates to our brains also being healthy — we have to keep our physicality. Get those things right, and I think a lot of the other stuff kind of starts to fall in line.

1:52:13 Roman Koshkin

Yeah, that's really interesting. So you're not even a year out.

1:52:18 Justin McMillen

And you're trying to figure it out. You are figuring it out, and you're on a path, I think.

1:52:25 Roman Koshkin

So I think at least I have a little bit more capacity now to think through those things. What are the things that I realistically could be good at, and where can I make a positive difference,

1:52:37 Roman Koshkin

without rushing into things. So I think the next chapter is fairly undefined, but again, just super fortunate to still associate with really high quality people who are kind and have good energy and want to do well, who have stayed in contact with me. And to think about things that previously didn't carry a lot of appeal — because I just wanted to go from one assignment to the next, you know, whatever the high-speed thing is out there —

1:53:11 Roman Koshkin

those boxes are checked. So now things that I would have kind of scoffed at previously are starting to have more appeal. Like, wow. So we'll see. My outlook changes, I think, on a daily basis. So everything from going back to school, to maybe going back to some sort of government role, to — I had a friend who reached out and said she wants to start a company in the European security space. I don't know.

1:53:40 Roman Koshkin

I think, again, the importance of taking time and considering the options, with a broader perspective but just a little bit more maturity and not rushing into things, just opens up all those other possibilities.

1:54:07 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Sometimes just not doing anything for a little bit is super helpful. Yeah, it's good to see things trickle in. I tell guys I work with, it's completely okay to schedule time to ponder. Especially in today's society where our attention is getting pulled so heavily in different directions. We have these little boxes in our pockets, right, that take us away. And it's like, it's okay — in fact, some of the best ideas come from just letting the mind wander.

1:54:35 Justin McMillen

It's almost like a daily wake dream state where your brain can kind of work through stuff, and perhaps you'll start to see what you need to do. But if you don't create that space — and people are scared to do that. Yeah. You know, like scared to let their brain just absolutely go. But what's wrong with going for a long run with no headphones?

1:54:55 Justin McMillen

Yeah. And listening to what's going on in Roman's head today. Yeah. And what's your gut telling you? You know, I heard this really cool thing about humans having a supercomputer of sorts behind our logical mind. And it speaks to intuition. I heard it from this person — she was a case officer. Yeah. One of the youngest ones ever.

1:55:16 Justin McMillen

She did a TED Talk. Her name is Amaryllis Fox. Do you know who that is? And she's a Kennedy now — she married one of the Kennedys. There's a million of them, right? But she basically explained intuition in the most incredible way. Because, you know, people think intuition and they think like crystal balls and all this esoteric stuff. And she was like, no — it's we have a supercomputer in our brain.

1:55:43 Justin McMillen

It's very... almost — the way she made it sound — it sort of existed even before our language. And it's calculating things at a level that's like super computation we can't match. It's algorithmic. You'll never get the math for it. And because it's outside of time and even cause-and-effect logic that our frontal lobe can do, it can't communicate through that.

1:56:10 Justin McMillen

And so you can have this gut feeling. Right. And it only communicates through... it's almost like you feel it through a feeling, a pull in the stomach in one direction. Because that's its language. And when you try to make sense of it, you're literally trying to create the math for something that you'll never be able to create the math for, you know?

1:56:31 Justin McMillen

And I think, as far as I can tell, if you take time to ponder that, you get to play with that part of yourself a little bit. Like, sure, that's my gut telling me — yeah, yeah. It's like, oh shit, I think I should go this way. That makes no sense. And, you know, try to do the math.

1:56:49 Justin McMillen

And it's like, well, but that's where it's pulling me. And yeah, you know what I mean?

1:57:17 Roman Koshkin

I do.

1:57:18 Roman Koshkin

I actually read something recently that speaks to exactly that. I'm blanking on the name of the book, but it's by Dr. DiMarzio, who is just up the street at USC. And the book is about the evolution of the nervous system. And she talks about the importance of the gut feeling and how that was essentially the 1.0 of the nervous system — the first model — and how it's still there.

1:57:39 Roman Koshkin

And we should probably listen to it sometimes, instead of, you know, doing the checklist — like, this is the next move I make — and let's take a pause.

1:57:39 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I'm really fascinated by that subject. So my business partner — my brother came in and he's an engineer, and I'm more of a creative type thinker. And he wants a reason for everything.

1:57:57 Justin McMillen

And I should... he used to drive me nuts, because I could move quickly through just intuition. Right. And he's like, no, we have to stop. What's the math? What's the math? Right. But what that's done is it's forced me to get really good at explaining things through visuals. And you know, one of these painful things — it's actually been, I mean, this fist-fight-type relationship literally between him and me — it's actually been the greatest gift. Because I've just gotten better and better at trying to explain, and the best way is almost always visual.

1:58:18 Justin McMillen

It's not words. Which is interesting. But where was I going with that? I think maybe that's how all of the advancements in humanity have even happened. Right? Because you've got these feelings, and then humans trying to understand them through words and symbols and communication. And so then we're continuing to — it might even be how invention happens.

1:58:45 Justin McMillen

So it's like the creative process is like a feeling. And then that verbal expression of the feeling forces shaping. And then shaping creates everything from the lights in the studio to... yeah, yeah. I love that stuff. I just got a book. Sorry, I'm rambling here. I just got a book on creativity in the brain, and I'm —

1:59:04 Justin McMillen

I'm going to have a doctor on this podcast. He's a world-renowned radiologist. So he studies — he's done these — he's got all these patents and he's really into the creative process, and he's published a ton of papers on creativity in the brain. But I'm interested in that. Like, how are ideas born?

1:59:25 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. Sure. So yeah.

1:59:32 Roman Koshkin

Oh, especially — what a great combination to have with siblings, right? The one oriented in gut feeling and intuition, and one who is very much technically oriented. But it's a great balance, because I think if you have that in the same person, one side would always win out. And here you have a trade-off — yeah, one comes up with the idea and the other explains it, though the vice versa has been a challenge that Roman has shared too.

1:59:53 Justin McMillen

But I'm so proud. I was telling my parents just the other day — just how... they've been there on the sidelines where we've had months where we didn't talk to each other. You know, we both work at the same place. And, you know, there were literally fist fights. Like, he's my brother. I mean, he's my little brother.

2:00:08 Justin McMillen

So two — that's how we both are. We're both pretty dominant characters. And, but man, 13 years into our work together and I am so proud of the relationship forged in fire. I mean, it's very cool. We have learned to work with each other, and I love him so much and respect him. And he drives me crazy.

2:00:29 Justin McMillen

And I think I drive him crazy. But it's like, just like what I was saying about, you know, I'm sober. Right? So my sobriety — it's like the... it's like you just continue to show up and work through the difficulty of managing your own head. I continue to show up to the relationship with my brother. Didn't give up. And the rewards of sticking to it over a long period and learning that dance, even though it's complicated and hard, there's nothing like it.

2:00:57 Roman Koshkin

Yeah. Nothing like it.

2:01:00 Justin McMillen

So yeah, that sounds amazing. So, we'll end with this. I'm curious. You had mentioned, you know, in hindsight you wish you would have taken more time to think about your transition. And I think there are definitely going to be people listening to this that are making that transition, or even a couple of years out and still trying to figure out how to do it.

2:01:23 Justin McMillen

Now that you've had time to reflect and you've been out for a minute — what would you tell somebody? What is it that you wish you would have heard, or would have listened to, when you were making the transition?

2:01:38 Roman Koshkin

What message? I guess I would keep it simple because every situation is different. So I would — I don't want to generalize — but I wish I had listened to the people who told me to just take a pause. I think for men and women leaving really any government service, but especially the military, there's a need to immediately jump into something that matches or outpaces your previous expectations and performance.

2:02:11 Roman Koshkin

It's an addictive thing, right? I think you have to force yourself to take that pause that we talked about. It's difficult. And I think you have to identify your priorities — I'll say your new priorities — because those may not match with your previous priorities through a career of government service or military. I think it's hard.

2:02:35 Roman Koshkin

I think you have to force yourself to listen to other people who may have been watching you from the sidelines and have formed an opinion, or have advice that you hadn't considered before. But there's nothing like time. And that 2-to-4 month investment into just taking things slow and considering what's out there could be, you know, the difference between years of happiness or unhappiness.

2:03:03 Roman Koshkin

I think it's one of the few things that I would say I wish I could have a do-over on. You know, go back a year to early 2024, take that time, settle myself, talk to the people who are dear to me in my life, see what they have to offer in terms of advice. Consider it and not just kind of be dismissive about it.

2:03:27 Roman Koshkin

And then take, yeah, a more balanced approach to things instead of just chasing after whatever the next highest-speed thing is. Actually implement a little bit more maturity instead of saying, I got this, you know, whatever, I'll make it work.

2:03:44 Justin McMillen

Well said.

2:03:46 Roman Koshkin

Thank you. Thank you, Justin. Appreciate this conversation.

2:03:50 Justin McMillen

Roman Koshkin. Likewise. Thank you very much.