00:00Everyone, we are here with Cody Round to talk all things Special Forces.
00:04Now, you made it to the last episode.
00:07Maybe, like you said, maybe not on that podium, but you made it to the end.
00:10I think that's something to be very proud of.
00:13You were very intense and very locked in through this entire process.
00:16Is that kind of how you always are, or did you have to turn it on specifically for this show?
00:20Oh, I'm always intense.
00:22I think that I have a condition, and I have to really fight to focus.
00:27So you see me a lot of times with my eyes really wide.
00:30I mean, I think they compared me to the doctor from Back to the Future, Dr. Emmett Brown.
00:37Like, you know, I was, yeah, I was very intense, tried to be locked in, but I was just trying to hyper-focus.
00:46Now that you've seen the show, I'm wondering, were you aware of how much you got under everyone's skin?
00:51Or was that something that you realized after the fact?
00:54Yeah, that was all, like, after.
00:56I was like, God, it was, not only was it embarrassing, it made me feel bad, you know, because I'm sitting there, I'm being optimistic the entire time.
01:06And I think the optimism was carrying me, and the enthusiasm, kind of a weird place, just the excitement of being there.
01:13Because every time we would accomplish a challenge, if we weren't ridiculed too much after we were done, you'd feel kind of elation, this power of having done something super hard and lived to tell the tell.
01:25And, no, I didn't know I was that irritating, but I guess it's just the way, I mean, like, I'm out there, I'm trying to be optimistic the entire time.
01:38And just, I rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
01:41I think even the DS at one point, they were like, he's like a big person of Chucky.
01:45I was like, first of all, where do you come up with that?
01:47And second of all, what did you feel, how did you feel about hearing that?
01:51Well, I'm having a first-person experience the entire time.
01:54We've got these 18-hour days of just running, running, running, and then I'm watching a third person, and I'm hearing what other people are saying about me.
02:01And in the world that I live in, it is what other people say about you that develops your character, who you are.
02:12And I didn't see myself that way, and it was very, it sucked.
02:19Yeah, to hear them talk about me like somehow or another I was a crazy person that was only successful because I was too nuts to realize I was in pain, I was just optimistic.
02:30In your mirror room, we saw you kind of break down over the state of your relationship with your kids, and you did finally admit to, like, a part that you may have played in that estrangement.
02:40I should have had a stronger relationship with my children.
02:43Okay, now we're getting somewhere.
02:45So what are you going to do about it?
02:46I took all credit for it at the time because in the military, I just don't think you do things half measures.
02:55I can't say, well, I'm partly to blame, and it's very nuanced.
03:00So I'm like, yeah, I could have done better.
03:02Yeah.
03:02As everybody in the situation we were in with the divorce, so my children were victims of a very nasty, multiple-layer divorce.
03:13And they, of course, were closer to their mothers.
03:17I had a close relationship, or I thought a good relationship with all of my children until the divorces.
03:22I was offended by a lot of what they did.
03:25What did they do?
03:25My children, they rejected me.
03:28I see.
03:30I felt like I gave all my kids what I had as long as they were engaging me.
03:34They always got reciprocation.
03:35And then it just started to, there was just this polarization that started to happen, and a lot of blame game and a lot of things that happened.
03:43So there's a lot of water under the bridge.
03:44But it's like I could have done better, and I know that I could have done better.
03:48And, of course, I'm making an effort and have been making an effort to be in contact with my children to go through that hard work of fixing relationships that are really strained.
04:00Yeah, and how is that going?
04:01How has their kind of response been to seeing you talk about this on the show and to these efforts that you've been making?
04:07It's really a tough thing because when you're in reality TV or you're doing podcasting or anything like that, what you say goes on record, and other people start to, like, judge you by that.
04:17So, you know, my opinion of myself won't matter.
04:20Your opinion of me, what you tell the public, is going to matter.
04:23So when you have this happen with your children and your children go, my dad did this or my dad did that, you really have no defense of it because I can't throw my children under the bus or I may have made the mistake of saying something that I shouldn't have about my children, and this hurts relationships.
04:38So reality television can be really hard on relationships.
04:43Special Forces is this type of situation where you're going to trauma bond with each other, but I feel like some of the things were still, like, I mean, in the end, they're pitting us against each other.
04:53You know, like, she says you're creepy, and I'm like, well, I am kind of creepy.
04:56Have you seen my hair?
04:57And I mean, that's, and so, and I think she was just looking for a word to say, like, to protect me.
05:05She's like, he's creepy in order to say I don't know him.
05:09Right.
05:10You know, we're not familiar like you might want to try and tell us we are.
05:13Right.
05:13So you just have to be careful in these environments not to be offended or hurt by what is said.
05:20You just go, okay, this is reality television, and it is a form of a circus, and I was just the circus clown for these episodes.
05:30Well, I'm wondering, have you heard from any of your ex-wives about the show or anything like that?
05:35Not at all.
05:35Heard nothing.
05:36Haven't, haven't, you know, I'm not surfing social media or very much media.
05:41I don't know if they've talked about me.
05:42I don't know if they've said anything.
05:43I know that my oldest son, who's talked to me a little bit about it, is watching, and then I watch it with all the children at home.
05:50My oldest son of my wife and I, he comes home to watch it with us.
05:55Oh, nice, nice.
05:56Well, you know, it seemed like a handful of the fellow recruits, even the DS, you know, they were just finding out about your lifestyle and your history and everything like that.
06:06What kind of reaction do you normally get from people when you're like, when you tell them about that?
06:11Well, the problem is, is now all of it's, the polygamy thing is all in my past.
06:16Right.
06:16And the 18 children, of course, is not in my past.
06:19So I used to say, well, I have four wives to introduce myself to people that were strangers that we're going to find out anyway.
06:26Now I, or then I started introducing with the divorces.
06:29I started, oh, I have 18 children.
06:31You know, it's like, because that's kind of a segue into a conversation.
06:36You know, you told your recruits, you know, your wife now is your final wife.
06:40You're done after this.
06:41I'm the only wife I'm ever going to have.
06:42Yes.
06:43Why is that?
06:44Why are we putting it all in the past?
06:46Well, mostly just because I don't feel like there's a spiritual obligation.
06:51Yeah.
06:51Okay, a religious obligation to having more than one wife now, because I've already done it.
06:57I feel like I've fulfilled the law in that sense.
06:59It came out as a failure, you know, in the end, but whatever.
07:03I don't know what to do with it now.
07:04And mostly because, you know, there's a synergy and a trust that her and I have a really good loving relationship.
07:11And I just don't see any value in having another woman be part of that.
07:15I don't want that.
07:16And so it's like, I really just want quality time with you.
07:21This quantity over quality should have never been part of my life.
07:26I should have always been seeking quality.
07:28And I have quality now.
07:30And that's what I want to stick to.
07:31As I move forward with the relationship with all my children, I'm hoping for more quality in that relationship.
07:36But we have to do a lot of work.
07:39All of us have to do a lot of work with regaining trust.
07:42You did make it to the end.
07:43Unfortunately, you failed the final task and you were taken off of the course.
07:47How did you feel about that?
07:48And do you think that Gia and Sean's win was well-deserved?
07:51Oh, I think watching the finale, watching them manage the capture and everything, yeah.
07:59I was like, you know, they struggled in the very beginning.
08:01And from a perspective of being in condition and ready to be there to perform, I was maybe a little bit arrogant.
08:10And I was like, you ladies don't really belong here.
08:13Then they, we had not, not Sean, Sean, but Sean came in shape, I believe.
08:18But here's the thing is they did so well in a place where I couldn't, I was just like, yeah.
08:27So I watched the final episode and I'm like, ha, you guys earned that.
08:31Yeah.
08:32You know, because I, I, in the final, you know, I could run, I could keep up with the pro ballers.
08:37I pulled my hamstring on day three, like I tore it.
08:40Big purple bruise behind my knee.
08:43But I, so I just managed to keep up with those things.
08:46But in the end, I just really lost my head.
08:49And I got to the point where I knew myself, you know, I'm going to talk.
08:53And the first person that's going to talk is going to be me unless I just stopped talking.
08:57So I stopped talking and got in a place where, because I wasn't talking, I couldn't protect anybody or help anybody or serve anybody besides just not talk.
09:08And I was just like, well, what am I, when I opened my mouth, you don't know if I'm going to be,
09:12be valuable or invaluable or destructive.
09:15So I just shut up.
09:17Right.
09:17I didn't know what to do or say.
09:19And those girls managed that really well.
09:22So I thought, and to be fair, I'm disappointed for Brie because she really deserved to be on that podium.
09:30And, and I think she just, the panic hit her finally with the, the, the coffin, like who wants to lay down in a mud coffin.
09:41But, but I think she could have done it.
09:43And I think she deserved to be on the podium.
09:46Well, you know, one last quick question.
09:48We kind of talked a little bit about it before we started rolling, but you had, you were a little surprised about Gia washing her face and the hygiene and everything.
09:55I was going to say, you know, what's something that maybe didn't make it to air that, that you wish did.
09:59But I, but I want to know about this deodorant and, and the hygiene.
10:02You got to tell me about that.
10:04So I went, having watched other shows, I just didn't know we were going to be able to shower.
10:09I was, I was taking supplements that I'd need, be able to, you know, just manage myself.
10:14I took foot care mostly and, and I just didn't know what we were going to have.
10:20So when we're allowed to shower, but I'm the oldest guy and the last one in the shower, the last thing I want to do.
10:25And I take long showers because I'm exhausted and I don't want to get called out by the DS or have, have to go out and get smoked.
10:33So I just didn't shower for a couple of days and Brie LaPaglia is just like, Cody, you stink.
10:38And I'm like, I'm so sorry.
10:39I haven't been showering.
10:40I said, well, why don't you take a shower?
10:41Well, I didn't even bring deodorant because I didn't think we'd be able to shower.
10:44So I take a shower and I, I, I, Andrew East, you know, a great guy, a man's man, Andrew, can another guy use your deodorant?
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