Jo Ellis Served Her Country. Then They Made Her A Target.
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. There's an old joke on the internet that says every day there's a trending topic on Twitter. And your goal is to never be that topic, right? You might think you want everyone to be talking about you. You might think you want the whole eyes of the world on you. But if they are, it's almost certainly because something really bad has happened. Or you screwed up in some huge way. Or things are about to get real bad, real fast. Like, imagine going to sleep and you wake up and you're trending nationwide.
But it's because everyone thinks you're dead. People are total strangers or posting your photo. They're tying you to this tragedy. They're politicizing you and your identity. They're telling stories and lies about you that aren't true. They're incredibly angry. Imagine it's so extreme, so crazy that you have to record a proof of life video just to make sure the world knows you're still alive. And in the process, try desperately to defend your name. And that actually happened to the person that I'm talking to today. Jo Ellis is a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. She was in the Virginia Army National Guard for many, many years when she was suddenly... falsely accused in January of 2025 of being responsible when that tragic, terrible airliner crash happened over Washington, D.C., right?
A Black Hawk helicopter crashed into a commercial airliner over D.C. and 67 people lost their lives. And shortly after this happened, Ellis, who is transgender, was accused of being that pilot. And she was accused of this for no other reason than bigotry and sort of rage profiteering. People wanted to somehow take this tragedy and lay it at the feet of a minority and then specifically at the feet of a person, a veteran. hardworking member of our armed forces. They wanted to put it on that person to score internet points, to prove a point. I don't know. But anyways, this rumor spreads all over the internet. She becomes this trending topic. She starts getting hate messages and death threats. Imagine you get death threats after you are falsely accused of being dead.
There's a whole bunch more to the story as we're going to get into the episode. This is not really about this current event. It's about this incredible and fascinating woman who was also forced out of the armed forces as a result of what happened. But that's only a facet of this fascinating life. She sort of goes into hiding, handles a bunch of stuff in her personal life, but then reemerges as a stand-up comic. Lo and behold, it turns out She's hilarious. If you saw her on Kill Tony, my intro is getting long, so I won't play it. But it was really, really funny. And you should definitely check it out. I'll link to it in today's show notes. So in this episode, Joe and I are talking about this crazy experience.
I was fascinated to ask her a bunch of questions about SEER training. That's Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape. which is the training that Stockdale went through, which I'm writing in my book right now, what it means to come to your breaking point, how you come to a realization about your identity. We talk about our experience being a trans person, being a trans person in the military. What happens when you're Private life becomes a public debate and what service means when you are suddenly a headline. I think you're going to really like this episode. You can follow her on Instagram at Joe Ellis. Really go see her perform stand up. Enjoy this episode and follow Joe. She's a fascinating person to be tracking.
So did you always want to be a helicopter pilot?
Yes, I wanted to be a pilot. I wasn't sure about helicopters, but definitely when I was little, looking up at the sky, seeing planes fly over, very much wanted to be involved in flight. What took you to helicopters then? Black Hawk Down, the film. So the Ridley Scott film was just...
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–11:53
2
What challenges did Jo face during her SEER training?
11:53–15:34
3
What motivated Jo Ellis to become a helicopter pilot?
15:34–18:42
4
How did Jo's military career evolve from mechanic to pilot?
18:42–48:20
5
How did Jo experience gender dysphoria and its impact on her life?
48:20–1:17:27
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Daily Stoic
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