[Music] Larry Vickers, welcome to the show, man. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. I appreciate you being here. Oh, I couldn't be happier to be here. This is a legendary interview. Well, thanks for saying that. I I'm humbled, bro. Yeah. You know, I mean, I remember I remember getting connected to you. Tom Sadderly texted me and was like, "Hey, do you want to interview Larry Vickers?" And I was like, "Fuck yes, I want to interview Larry Vickers." So, yeah. Fast forward what, maybe 6 months, and here we are. So, I'm really excited, man. Thanks, bro.
I'm too. I've been stoked about this for weeks now. Good. Yeah. Big time. Good. Well, we're going to do a life story on you. Childhood, Army career, what happened afterwards, some of the mixups that you're uh dealing with right now. But um but uh everybody starts off with an Introduction. So here we go. Larry Vickers, retired US Army first SFOD Delta operator, spending 15 years in the unit with over 20 years total in special operations, making you one of the most seasoned warriors of your era. stormed Modello Prison in Panama during Operation Acid Gambit, rescuing
Kurt Muse under heavy fire, earning a Bronze Star with valor for your actions. Survive three helicopter crashes, more than any other operator at the time, and You walked away from every single one of those crashes. You're the mastermind behind the HK416, the rifle that took down Osama bin Laden in a driving force in shaping modern tactical firearms and accessories. Founder of Vicer's Tactical and author of the Vicer's Guide, setting the standard for firearms scholarship, and there's a lot more. We had to we had to cut it down. Cut it down just a little bit because
we'll get Into all the other stuff on on uh in the interview. And then before we start, everybody gets a gift. Even you, Larry. I heard that. So those are legal in all 50 states still until uh until they ban dyes and all the other [ __ ] but it's just Vigilance League gummy bears, man. Made in the USA. They taste amazing. Yeah, they're horrible for you, but I love them. So yeah, I heard about this. Everybody told me, "Hey, you're going to Get a gift." Yeah, man. Everybody gets a gift. Cool. It doesn't beat
yours, though. The Vicor's Guide Heckler. Oh, yeah. The HK. Yeah. Volume three. That is awesome. Actually, volume two, excuse me. Volume two. Yeah. The MP, the submachine gun book. What's volume three? Roller lock guns, meaning G3 and, you know, like the HK21 series. And then volume four is coming out this year, which is all the post roller lock guns at 416, G36, 417, G11, XM8, all That stuff. That's the one I'm really stoked about because of my time with the 416, being involved with that particular gun. I'm really stoked about that one. It's coming out
later this year. What's your I mean, you've been around firearms for a long time. You're an innovator. I made any any firearm in the world. What What's your favorite? The M4. The M4. M4ish. You know what I mean? Semi-automatic, different barrel Lengths. Just kind of throw them all in the M4 bucket. That would be my favorite. Gotcha. Cuz they have so much time with it. And I I put the 416 in with that, too, cuz it's basically an M4 with a different operating system. That's all it is. I love the 416. Thank you. We used
to use those. No, thank you. But well, let's get into the interview. Okay. So, we always start a childhood. Where'd you grow up? Ohio. A real small Town in Ohio called Adams Mills. We know when you have a traffic light. I mean, we're talking about small. Nice. Uh, born in 1963. Classic baby boomer. I was a baby boomer by one year. 1964 is the last year of baby boomers. So I was a baby boomer by one year. Both my parents were involved in World War II. My dad was a World War II vet in North
Africa and Italy. My mom worked on the home front making artillery shells. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. I had at a munitions Factory making artillery shells. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, I kind of grew up from that and then that mindset and the great thing about it was you had maximum freedom. Like I would take off at the beginning of the day, you know, the classic deal you've you've heard about. Take off at the beginning of the day. They wouldn't see me till, you know, time for dinner. You're gone. You're out in the woods. You're taking
a BB gun. As I got older, I'd take a bolt action 22, single shot 22. I'm hunting, you know, rabbits, squirrels, groundhogs, and they, my parents, they'd have no idea where I'm at. They know I'm around and whatnot. And it another thing they would do is, "Hey, it's time to come home. We haven't seen Larry." So, they'd start calling the neighbors, you know what I mean? Real small town. They knew everybody. They knew everybody's phone number. Hey, have you seen Larry? Hey, yeah, he's I Saw him. They sent him home. Dinner's ready. That kind of
a thing. And we'd be w me and my friends, we'd wander miles away. Miles away. And my parents would have no idea where I was at and they were totally cool with it. They never got bent out of shape about why were you down there? Why did you go down by that bridge? Why were you over on top of that hill? They never got bent out of shape about it at all. Maximum freedom. Any brothers and sisters? Yeah, I got a Brother who's older and and a sister who's older as well. Um I was the
baby of the bunch. I used to think what my parents they tried one last chance to have another kid. found out that I was an accident. You know, it wasn't planned at all. I was an accident. My dad was 50 when I was born. My mom was 36. Wow. Yeah. So, they were basically particularly My dad was old enough to be my grandfather. So, he was 50 and my mom was 36 when I was born. Wow. Wow. So, You What did What age did you start on the BB gun? Oh, man. If I had to
guess, I'd say six. No, no, no, no. That's That's not six, seven. Probably about eightish, nineish. Eight. Yeah. I mean, I got a son. He's three. And he's I'm dying. I'm I'm dying to get him. AB gun? No, he doesn't have one yet. I mean, yeah. Airsoft or No, he he has a cork gun. Okay. You know what I'm talking about. The old school. You pull the PVC pipe. Yep. Yeah. I'm trying To teach him weapon safety with that. It just It's He's not having it. He's not having it. He's not dialed in yet. No.
As he gets older and more mature, he'll get it. So eight, you started hunting with BB guns, going around trying to shoot squirrel, stuff like that. How would you What was your relationship like with your parents? Um, good. But, you know, much closer with with my mom and my dad. And I was I've told people this when they ask these kind of Questions. I don't ever remember. I knew my dad loved me, but I don't ever remember him telling me that one time that, "Hey, Larry, I love you." My nickname was Jake, by the way.
They both called me Jake. Still to this day, I have no idea why, but hey, Jake. You know, "Hey, Jake. Hey, Jake." That was my nickname, but I I don't ever remember my dad saying, "Hey, I love you, Jake." I mean, not one time. I knew he did. And honestly, now I'm pinned down. I don't Know if my mom ever said it either. They just kind of Yeah. They just kind of came from that era where it was kind of understood, we're we're putting a roof over your head, we're putting food in your stomach, we're
putting clothes on your back. Of course, we love you. That's that's where my head's at and why they were probably thinking that way to be honest with you. Interesting. Yeah. Not nothing touching feel like it is today. Nothing like that. Yeah. What I Mean what why were you closer with your mom than your dad? because she kind of babyed me, you know what I mean? I just I was just she she did, you know, and the old classic thing. I had my mom kind of wrapped around my finger. If I needed something, I'd go to
her and she would always give in and all. Yeah. So, I you know, I was a mama's boy. About it. Gotcha. What um I mean, what else were you into as a kid? How were you as a student? Good. I was a classic B Student. I could have been an A student with no problem, but to me it was like, I'll put in enough effort to be a B, you know, B student. I really don't want to put in that extra effort to be an A. If I got an A, it was almost by accident.
If I got a C, it was kind of because I was halfassing it, to be honest with you. But I was a classic B student. I like to play sports with my friends. Never really did organized sports very much at school, but I we would play Baseball and football and all. I mean, we'd play tackle football with no pads or any of that crap. Um, I did that all the way through, you know, elementary school, junior, junior high, and high school. We we played tackle football with no pads. To us, it was kind of flag
football and all that was kind of like, seriously, why aren't you playing, you know, tackle football? But say I was into sports and whatnot, but from the point of view of playing with my Friends, not necessarily organized sports at school. Did your dad ever or your mom did they talk a lot about World War II? My dad a little bit. My mom really never did at all. It was only later I kind of asked her, "So, what'd you do?" She goes, "Oh, I worked at a factory, you know, in Kashakton, Ohio, which is where I
was born. Um, probably 15, 20 miles up the road from where I grew up." And she my mom is from there. You know, I worked in art, you know, a Manufacturing facility in Koshakton that made artillery shells. And I didn't find that out till late in the game, you know. And then my dad though would talk about it. He was in North Africa and Italy and he had some PTSD. Really? Oh, yeah. He sure did. How do you know? Because he would, you know, he would kind of relate and start telling some stories about guys
that had died and had been killed that he knew that were friends of his and stuff. And I remember Him talking about that on occasion. Not a lot, but on occasion he would kind of almost ramble in a way and I'd listen to him, but he would Yeah. He had PTSD. I mean, for sure. Absolutely. Did you When did your I guess are your parents still with us? Oh, no. No. My dad died. He was 84. My mom was 77. And that they My god, they died in the early 90s. Yeah. They've been they've been
passed away for quite a while now. Well, I guess the Reason I'm asking is I'm just curious. I mean, did you and your dad ever relate when you became, you know, a Delta operator? A little bit. He they never I mean, he knew about me going in the army obviously. I mean, I went in the army really because of my dad. I mean, you know what I mean? That influence. Mhm. Um I remember my dad one time specifically I went in I went to jump school and all that and he said Jake he goes Jake
I don't he never flew on an Airplane his whole life. Wow. His whole life he never flew on an airplane. Neither did my mom. Neither one of them flew on an airplane. So that was totally alien alien concept. And for me to jump out of an airplane my dad said he goes Jake I don't know how you do that. Goes I don't know how. He goes that that's something I just don't even know how you could do. I remember him telling me that. So, he related to me going in the army. Um, but there were
Some things that I was doing that he just couldn't, you know, he couldn't comprehend. Yeah. Did your uh did your brother or sister go join the service at all? My brother's actually on the autism spectrum pretty severe. Oh, good. My sister, she kind of got married early on. She went on and did some occupational therapy stuff. Neither one of them were really interested in going in the military at all. I was really the only one that you know my son my brother Couldn't. I mean because beyond the spectrum he there's no way he could have
been in the military. My sister could have but had no interest in it. What so was your dad that got you interested in them in the military? Yeah. Solely your dad or was there any other inspiration or mainly my dad but you know there were so many World War II vets in our little town. Almost all the grown men were World War II vets. I can't hardly think of any of them that Weren't that were my dad's age or kind of in that time frame. They were all World War II vets. And my uncle was
World War II and Korea. He'd served in both. Uncle or Uncle Bill R. My uncle was World War II and Korea. So yeah, they were that had an influence on me. All those World War II vets for sure. me playing Army, which was my favorite game of course of all time. Um, was playing Army as a kid, getting helmets and stuff Like that and going around with sticks, you know, a sticks basically for you bent in shape or you're snapped in the shape of a gun. Um, but yeah, it was my mainly my dad's influence
in terms of that's really the number one reason I went in the military. It was my dad's influence. What about I mean the Vietnam War was going on at that time. Did that have any influence? Not really so much. I was still too young for that cuz you know Vietnam ended 70 early7s. I mean I was born in 1963. Yeah. So when it's ending I'm 7 8 years old. So not really not really. If I'd have been older 100%. 100%. How did you I mean, how did you pick the army? Why did you pick My
dad was in the army. So, right off the bat, and you'll love this. This is a great story. I was telling Scott about this on the way up here. Um, my dad always spoke highly of the Rangers. Always be. He really held the Rangers in high esteem, Put them on a pedestal. So, I thought, well, I'm going to go in the army and I'm going to be a Ranger, right? Well, I went down to the army recruiter and got a little pamphlet about combat arms and it, you know, had the first one was infantry and
then artillery, had airborne in there and all that jazz and one rangers. Well, I know I'm reading about the Rangers. That's where I'm going to go. Well, I notice there's one, this is no lie. One more Page. I'm like, hm. I flip it open. Special forces. What's this? I started reading about special forces and then you know at the very end they had me. I mean I was hooked. It said if you don't think you can make it don't even try cuz only the best can wear the green beret. And that was it. Dude, I
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to qualified candidates tomorrow. I'm going be special forces at that Point that their PR department worked on me. I mean it worked like a champ. They they wanted to snag somebody and they snagged me like a big dog 100%. What did What did So you could go straight into it back then? At that time? Yeah. They had what they called in formally we called it the SF baby program and they needed bodies. Mhm. Because this is post Vietnam. They needed people. So yeah, you could go straight in off the street um as right out of
high school and go Through the Q course. A matter of fact, I graduated and I was 18 years old from course. Yeah, I was for about I graduated May 7th, 1982 and I turned 19 June 27th, 1982. Wow. Yeah. I I was a Green Beret for about a month and a half before I turned 19. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. 18 years old. Didn't know anything, dude. I didn't know anything. In hindsight, that SF baby program was stupid. They didn't have it for very long. I think they kind Of realized this is dumb. And then
they put parameters on it. You had to be in the army for a certain amount of time before you could try out for SF and all that kind of stuff, which made perfect sense cuz I got here. I'm on SF team. I'm 19 years old. I didn't know anything. I mean, nothing. I got I you know I'm I'm curious about your thoughts on this cuz I think that I think the didn't the SF baby I think it came back they did they call it active today x-ray Program but you have some pretty st serious parameters
that you got to meet I think you have to now I'm don't hold me to this I could be way off base but I think he one of the things that allows you to go straight in is like two years of college I think you have to be a certain age and whatnot but I think it's called the x-ray program so it did come back where and it was a GWAT thing, I think. Yeah. They wanted people. They needed people. They wanted people. So, It was a GWAT style effort that they brought in to to
get people in the special forces, the X-ray program. As far as I know, it's still in effect. Yeah. I mean, well, when I join, I mean, that's how I became a SIL, cuz I originally wanted to be force recon. They wouldn't take me within Green Beret. My dad was in the army. They wouldn't you couldn't do it. You couldn't get in. And then the the Navy recruiter stuck his head out was like, "Hey, youard of the SEALs?" And I was like, "No." But um and they had the program they had the I can't remember what
the Buds Challenge program or something like that seal challenge program. But I remember being in and I got I I joined signed up at 17, waited till I was 18, shipped out. I did the same thing. I did that sign up at 17 between junior and senior, you know, senior year. Signed up at 17. So, I had that one year where it was still worked In my favor for pay even though no rank. But I did the same thing. I signed up at 17. Well, I'm curious I'm I'm just curious about your thoughts cuz I
go I still think about it. I go back and forth and I remember uh the first time we worked with Green Berets with an SF team. We were in uh Panama and then we went out to Haiti in 2004 when Arist got yanked out. But I remember those guys just giving us all kinds of [ __ ] cuz we were so young and and yes, we were Especially me a total immature [ __ ] knucklehead. But but I was a hard charger and I always like back then I always thought it was dumb to make
people go to conventional units and then to come into special operations because because I think that what am I trying to you know conventional units they don't think like like soft guys don't and sometimes you can get These guys in from a conventional unit, especially in the Navy. Y uh because there's nothing there's no there's nothing else like it, right? And they come in and they bring what we call that fleet mentality and they're very very chain of command, very it's not like a open forum like what special operations is supposed to be. Now, on
the flip side of that, if you don't send them out there, then you do get a bunch of immature [ __ ] Knuckleheads, and that could be hard to I can imagine that would be really hard to deal with. But I'm I mean, so do you you think that people should go to the to a regular MLS before joining special ops? Um, or getting the opportunity to try out for special ops? Yes and no. I tell you, if id had it to do over again, if I was going to do it now, I'd go to
the Ranger Battalion first. Really? Yeah. 100%. 100%. I I found out once I got In, that's really the route I should have went. Why do you say that? Just cuz my where my head was at, you know, SF, Green Berets, they're force multipliers, man. They go overseas, let's face it. They go overseas and take a bunch of people and train them basic training and try to organize them into a fighting unit. I mean, that's really force multiplier, nation building. That's their thing. As soon as I found that out, I was like, "Dude, count me out."
I Had no desire to do that at all. No [ __ ] Oh, no. You didn't think that was cool at all? Not at all. I had no desire. I wanted to be a pipe hitter from day one, bro. You just wanted to be an assaultter. I wanted to be a pipe hitter. And I knew in hindsight that Ranger battalion path before I got in Delta was a better path for me. I knew it. Interesting. Yeah. Cuz I wanted to be a pipe hitter. I had no interest in this nation building thing. Going to A
third world country, training, you know, you know, indigenous people to become a fighting force, nation building. I just had no interest in that at all. Not at all. So for me, Ranger battalion would be was a better path. Coming from conventional army in the soft, that's a tough nut to crack. The good thing about is if you've got a good selection program, you will weed out the people that don't need to be there. Mhm. The people that don't Think right, that aren't out of the box thinkers, you'll weed a bunch of those people out if
you've got the right selection program. It's almost like a reprogramming for some guys, you know. But when you joined, I mean, what what was going on in the world at the time? Were we in any conflicts? No. The big thing was, and it was a big impact on me was Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan and when he came in and The motivation to basically become a, you know, being American was a good thing again. It was bad under Jimmy Carter, bro. It was bad. Things were not good. Akin to Joe Biden. Akin to Joe Biden. If
I had to say two worst presidents that I've been around without question, Biden, or I say I've been alive for, I should say, uh, Biden and Jimmy Carter. It was not a good time in this country under Jimmy Carter. People were It was a depressing time. There was No, you know, pride in being an American. It was just, it was bad, dude. Just like the Biden thing. I mean, case in point. If you want, you know, if you want an analogy or kind of, hey, I I want to be able to relate to that. Just
look at how it was under Joe Biden. Not a good time. Ronald Reagan comes in, turns everything around. All of a sudden, now it's great to be an American. You have pride in the country building up the Military. Ronald Reagan was the my dad of course put the bug in my ear to go in the military but next to that was Ronald Reagan. Your dad put the bug in you. Yeah. Through through his stories or Yeah. through just talking about the Rangers. I mean I mean I My dad being in the military was a big
piece of him who he was as a person. A real big piece. There was no way around it. And I, you know, so I got engulfed in that, so to speak, and him talking about the Rangers, how he held them in such high esteem and I started looking into the Rangers and discovered special forces. Ronald Reagan coming in. So that's what was going on in my world when I went in. Yeah. I graduated 1981 and I went into the army like two weeks later. Dude, I didn't, you know, people were like, "Aren't you going to
hang out for the summer?" I go, "Nope, I'm going in." like 2 weeks after I graduated, I was in the army. What did your dad say when you Told him that you had enlisted? He was all for it. He had no issues at all. He I remember him telling me one time, he said, "Jake, I don't know what we're going to do here cuz I don't have money to send you to college now." And he was always a penny pincher. They kind of had the money, but you know, they grew up during the depression. Mhm.
And one of those things, so major penny pincher, day old bread and one of those deals. So, I Don't have the money to send you to college. But I said, "Nah, don't worry about it. I'm going in the army." But don't I remember this exact conversation. I said, "Don't worry about it. I'm going in the army." So, he was totally cool with it. My mom, not so much. When the recruiter came by to pick me up to take me to the pro in processing station, she was crying. She was not real happy with it. But
my dad had no issues with it at all. What did He say when you told him you were going SF? Only he really knew what it was. I don't I don't think he ever really absorbed what it was because it was such an unconventional concept for him. I don't think he ever really knew. And when I joined Delta, they told us, "You need to tell your family now that you are in a special mission unit. You need they we don't want this to be a surprise to Them." So, I went home and I gave my
mom and dad the bare bones. Hey, I'm in a special mission unit now. very highly specialized, very highly trained and you know because they want you to tell them to let you know, hey, you're at risk for you're much greater risk now of injury, getting killed, being deployed. I mean, you're I mean, you're basically the tip of the spear now in terms of the US Army special operations. So, I kind of told them the bare minimum. I could tell it Just went right over their head. Wow. But I checked the block, you know. I checked
the block. I told my mom and dad about it. I told my, you know, my family, my mom and dad, but yeah, they I don't, my dad, I don't think ever really grasped what SF was all about. Never. No. Does that bother you at all? Oh, no. No, not at all. Were they proud of you? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. 100%. Were they Do they know about Panama? Nah, not really. Why not? I think I might have told him about it, but you know, for the longest time, dude, that the Modella prison thing was real hush- hush.
I mean, big time. We didn't discuss it. It's now decades later, of course. You know, there's been a book written about it. There's in theory a movie coming out, you know, next year or whatever about it. Um, so it's much more open source now, but boy, for the longest time it was not Discussed at all. It was real under the radar. It doesn't bother you that they never really grasped the the magnitude of what you were doing and No, not really. I mean, they were cuz like I said, they by the time I got to
that point, they were old enough to be my grandparents. Yeah. So, I didn't it didn't really didn't really bother me. Never really did. Fair enough. And they were cool with me being in the military. They were proud. But What I really did in the military, they knew I was special. I was in a special unit and that's about it. Gotcha. So, let's talk about leaving home. How was that for you? Leaving going in the army? Yeah. I was all about it. By the time that came around, I was chomping at the bit to get on
with going in the army. Chomping at the bit. I remember other people's parents would say, "Oh, as soon as you're out of high school, you wish you were back in." And I was like, "I've never felt that. I never felt it when I left. I didn't feel it when I, you know, I was in the army." I was like, "Are you kidding me? I don't want to go to high school anymore. I'm done with that. I want to get on with life." So, I was all about it 100%. Didn't, you know, miss my friends. Yeah.
But I'd see them when I'd come home on leave and whatnot. But other than that, dude, I was 100%. Like I said, I wanted to be a pipe hitter from day one. You Wanted to go to war. Oh, I I wanted to strap it on. So, we'll breeze through the boot camp stuff. Let's talk about your selection SF brace. You know, we were talking about this earlier. I, you know, kind of had some questions pop up. Honestly, it wasn't very hard. Really? No, it wasn't. You know what? You're going to laugh at this. You know
what the hardest thing was? Was the swim test. What was the swim test? If I remember correctly, 15 m with fatigues and boots, web gear, and a and a rubber duck M16. And see, when I was growing up, I didn't swim very often. I really didn't. We didn't have I mean, I certainly didn't have access to a swimming pool. Um I just didn't swim very often. It just wasn't that big of a thing. And I kind of went into the swim test a little bit nervous but not really understanding what I was getting into. And
when I got in that water and started swimming with fatigues and boots on and that web gear and a weapon, dude, I I I it was scary. I was floundering big time. You could ditch the weapon and still pass. I ditched it immediately. And I was frantically trying to get down to 15 mters. I it it that is without a doubt the hardest thing that I dealt with going through the special forces qualification course. I and I passed the swim test but barely Dude. No [ __ ] So that was probably at the very beginning
too, huh? Oh yeah, it was 100%. What What else did you do in there? Well went to phase one which at that time it cuz they changed it after I went through. It's been it's changed so much over time. That's one of the dings on the special forces qualification course is they haven't had a lot of continuity. But we did, you know, land navigation, we did survival, right? And They had basically they tried to weed out the people who didn't want to be there. You know what I mean? The people that couldn't cut it. So
we had some physical stuff to weed them out. Um we land navigation survival were two big things that we had in phase one. Did some other stuff like repelling some stuff like that. Um, and we did it out at Camp McCall and out in North Carolina near Fort Bragg, famous, you know, famous for special operations or special Forces in particular. Um, weeded out. I used to know how many guys started and how many guys finished, but when special for in, you know, the uh when I went to the Q course, but I do remember this.
There were 13 guys that came from jump school that were SF babies. Only two of us finished. Really? Yeah. 11 guys. Now, I got to caveat that. A couple of them are probably medics who break off for the medic course, which took quite a while Longer, and then they come back in and finish the Q course. So there may have been a couple of them or whatever medics that did in fact pass, but they didn't they didn't finish with me. So I lost situational awareness with them. But out of the guys I knew 13, only
two of us finished or two of us, you know, put on the Green Beret. What happened after phase one? Uh phase two was small arms training cuz I was a light weapon specialist. So we started doing we also Did some heavy weapon stuff, mortars, anti-tank weapons and stuff like that, but it was mainly light weapon stuff was was you know was phase two. I got a good story for you. Before I went in, I knew I was going to be a light weapon specialist. So I I got these books, Combat Arms and Small Arms of
the World, and I would just absorb them looking at pictures, reading about the guns and everything like that. And uh I really would study The designs and the parts on them and all that kind of stuff. Instructor came in. We were doing the the disassembly and assembly classes and we're on break. Came back in. Instructor goes, "Hey, I got a part right here that somebody left out in the uh parking lot. If you can tell me what it is and what it's for, I'll I'll carry a rucks sack on the next rucksack march." And I
saw immediately raised my hand and he What is it? And I go, "Slector switch for a Thompson Submachine gun." He goes, "Wrong." And as soon as he said it, I went, "Dumb ass. I know what it is." And that ain't it. What an idiot. And then a couple other guys g, you know, guessed and everything. I rose my hand again. Raised my hand again and he goes, "Do you already guess?" I go, "No, I know what it is this time." He goes, "What is it?" I go, "Selector switch for an FNFL." Dude, his jaw hit
the floor. How did you know that? Because Keep in mind I'm 18 years old. Yeah. And he goes, "How did you know that?" And I told him the same thing you did. I got these gun books. I studied the pictures, read about them, absorbed them, and sure enough, the dude the next whenever we did the rucksack march again, next day or whenever, he carried my rucks sack. No [ __ ] Oh yeah. I walked alongside him the whole way. Were you the youngest guy in the class? Yeah. One of the youngest. Pretty close. Pretty damn
close. Yeah. I Think I might have been kind of rings a bell that I was in fact the youngest guy in the class, but I know I was certainly one of the youngest for sure. What was your opinion of the of your colleagues that were going through? Oh, you know what's interesting? There was a guy named King that I went he was the other guy who finished with me and he was a dumpy looking dude. If you saw him, you say, "Hey, by the way, he just finished the Q Course and he's now a Green
Beret." You'd be like, "What? Get the hell out of here." So you classic Casey, you cannot judge a book by its cover, bro. And he he came I was in jump school with him, became good friends with him cuz I went all the way through the Q course with him. And he he's the other dude between the 13, me and him. Another guy finished. It was King. Totally unassuming dude. Unassuming dude. I mean, classic case of, you know, don't Underestimate people cuz this guy right here will prove you wrong. I mean, I'm just curious. I
mean, you're one of the youngest guys in the class. You're in a premier unit, you know, at the at the tip of the spear. It's exactly what you wanted. I mean, the advertising said, "Don't try. If you don't think you're going to make it, you won't." I mean, so what what was that like for you being 18 years old going through SFQ course? Well, there was guys I really looked up To that I was in the class with. Majority of them came from Ranger Battalion. Majority of them came from Range Battalion. The guys I really
hit it off with. I mean, I really looked up to them. They were studs. I really really liked them, you know. I really looked up to them. Got along with them great. And they were all guys from the Ranger Battalion. All of them. At what point did you realize you should have gone Ranger? Probably partway through phase three, especially after phase three and I got assigned to a team because phase three was where we're now we're going out and you know interfacing with gorillas and we're going to start training them to become a cohesive fighting
unit and now we're doing that nation building thing and all that jazz. That's where phase three comes in and that's when I kind of started going this isn't really what I signed up For. This is really not what I want to do. And so it been phase three. And then when I got to a team and it became crystal clear um what we're really signed up to do, I was like, "Dude, this isn't at all what I do." Here's another good one. We were in desert training out in we're at Fort Wuka, Arizona. We were
in desert training when Grenada went down and we heard about it and me and a couple of the younger guys were pissed Because they were like, "Wait a minute. We're supposed to be so elite, super elite Green Beretss. Why the hell aren't we down there?" Mhm. And then guys like, well, that's not our mission. That's not what we're all about. And dude, that was that was kind of the final straw for me when that went down because I thought, wait a we're supposed to be so elite, you know, we're this super elite military unit in
the US Army. Why the Hell are we? There there's guys going to combat right now. Why aren't we there? And that did not sit well with me at all. And and other guys in the on the team, too. What was So when you say phase three is nation building, can you walk us through some of that? Um, we jumped in to it. It was we went through Yari. We did it in Yari National Forest, not too far from Fort Bragg, by the way. Um, we jumped in and then we would start uh linking up With
the gorillas, which are generally guys from the 82nd. They would bring out 82nd guys to, you know, act as gorillas for the SF teams. So we'd interface with them. There was bonafites. We had to, you know, hey, this is who we are. This is who you are. yada yada yada. We'd go into their gorilla camp. They'd be very standoffish initially because they don't trust us. That kind of a thing. Then we'd have to Prove ourselves to them. They had one classic scenario where the grill, you know, leader wants to execute one of his guys because
the guy, you know, whatever, got out of line, slept with somebody's wife, what, whatever the scenario was. And the detachment commander had to deal with that and try to talk him out of it. And then never flew, by the way. You know, that was part of the scenario. So the gorilla leader went out, you know, out a little Ways and, you know, fired off a blank and that dude left. And so he was essentially dead for the rest of the exercise. So that was they purposely put the leadership in that kind of a situation to
see how they'd react, the officers, cuz they were held to a much higher standard as you can imagine because they're going to leave and go straight to an A team and now they're the commander on an A team. Yeah. Whereas I go and I'm a junior weapons Sergeant. I'm down here. This guy's a he's a commanding officer. He's the A team leader. So, they would hold him to a much higher standard. So, then we would go through the process with them. We would train with them. I gave them small arms training. Uh they would get
some demolition training, stuff like that. And then we would kind of start to integrate with them and they'd start to trust us and that whole nine yards. About a twoe program out in the field from when we jump in to when we're done. Gotcha. So, you get through phase three, graduate, you go to a you go to a team. I went to a team. Here's the thing. Now, we should have went to language training. It was an option, but it was for guys who volunteered. I didn't volunteer cuz I didn't realize the importance of it.
You know what I mean? Nobody sat me Down and said, "Hey, dude, you need to go to a language course. You got to learn a language. This is this is a critical thing." I went through kind of that postvietnam era where the Q course was like I told you it really wasn't that difficult. It was kind of a [ __ ] little bit of a [ __ ] show, bro. It really was. Nobody sat you down and said, "Hey, look, you need a language skill. You need a language skill set here. You need to go
take a language." You know, whatever it might have been, you know, German, Spanish, whatever the flavor that you know that might have been, but you need to go take a language. Now, I want to say, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty damn sure for the longest time now, language is mandatory. I believe it is. Yeah. You got to go take a language, which is what it should be. So, it's kind of lip service back then. Yeah. You know, they would they'd have what they call these Gabriel detachments or Gabe team. I don't know
if you ever heard of. They'd do these demonstrations about, you know, a special forces a team and they'd have a guy stand up and talk about, "Yeah, I can speak, you know, German." And he he'd the guy would recite a line in German or Russian. I you know I can speak Russian or German. I have a working knowledge of Spanish. It was all [ __ ] It was all smoking mirrors. What team did you wind up going to? Went To 521 in fifth group special forces group which which which was a Halo team. So I
went to Halo school and sniper school and I was 19 years old. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. Yep. I was in the teen. I got there, turned 19. Within that year, I went through sniper school and Halo school both. I was 19 years old and the Halo qualified and went to sniper school. I got a certificate of attendance at sniper school. Only one of us graduated Because we had M21s and the the scope mount sucked. They would take the scopes off, put them in one case to put the rifle in another case, and they'd go
back to the arms room, come back out to to qualify, to shoot, to, you know, to essentially hone your skills with the rifle, take the scope out of the case, bolt it back on, you screw it back on the rifle. Oh, yeah, dude. Straight up. Screw it back on, and you're out there. Of course, the Zero's off. Yeah, it's for [ __ ] Yeah. So I got a certificate of attendance and there was only one guy who actually graduated the course. The rest of us got certificate of attendance. It was because of the marksmanship part
of it. How was Halo? Scary, dude. I was scared. I I mean as time went on I got comfortable, but boy that first jump I was scared and I was I was wet Bread on the first jump. And um the instructor brought me and the other guy who jumped with me over and he goes, "I'm gonna tell you what." It was like a Friday and he goes, "I'm tell you what, next jump was Monday." He goes, "You got one more chance and after that I'm going to have to let you go." And I dude, I
sweated it the whole weekend. Lost sleep, was you know working on my positioning, the whole nine yards. Come Monday, I jumped much better. passed the Other dude. They cut him loose. Damn. Yeah. Yep. So, you get on the team. Yeah. Got on the team. You know, how was that? How is that showing up to an SF team at 19 years old? Well, yeah. But, you know, here's the thing. Once again, post Vietnam, two or three guys on the team smoke marijuana fairly regularly, which really turned me off right off the bat. I was like, are
you serious? What is this all about? You know what I mean? That's before they Clamped down and really cleaned up the military for for any drug use and smoking marijuana. They really cleaned it up. One of the best things they ever did. Huge benefit. Yeah. There's guys on there, you know, smoking dope on a regular basis and stuff. I was like, and you know, kind of that postVietnam era thing. And uh it it was I got along with some of the guys on the team, other guys like the dope smokers. I I never clicked with
those guys at all. I just didn't See where that was coming from. Partially I was a tea totler and coming from my mom. My mom basically read me the ride act one time in the backyard about I don't want to ever hear you smoking, drinking, nothing. I was like, "Okay, mom. Sure will." And I never did. I mean, it seems like there would be a lot of guys to look up to and a [ __ ] ton of experience on the team being post Vietnam like that. Not so much, bro. Really? Yeah. No, not so
much because a Lot of those guys were gone. They'd left. It's kind of almost like some of the guys that stayed behind, they they didn't leave cuz they didn't have anywhere else to go. There just wasn't a lot of like real serious pipe hitters to look up to. No kidding. Yeah. No, it was it was kind of a mess, bro. It that early8s SF thing not real impressive. Interesting. Yeah. So, what did you impressive? Did you wind up deploying with them or No. Matter of fact, never jumped freef fall on the team. The only time
I ever jumped freef fall was in Halo school. Never one time did I jump on the team freef fall. Not one time. Wow. Yeah. That's what I'm telling you. So, what did you guys do? You tell me. How long were you there? Um, I ended up being on the team two, it basically took me a year to get through training. I was on the, you know, Q course and all that, not counting Halo School and sniper school. On the team for two years and then they were open up first group in Fort Lewis and I
got levied to go. They said, "You got to go." I didn't volunteer. And I said, "Hey, I want to go." They said, "You got to go." So, I went up there for a year. I had a four-year stint, more or less a year to get through training, two years on the team, including, you know, sniper school and and Halo school. And then I went up to Fort Lewis for a year. What Sealed the deal for me was when I went up there, they made me the armor, the unit armor. I showed up, went into the
battalion sergeant major's office, and he goes, "Hey, you know, Sergeant Vickers, blah, blah, blah. Nice, you know, for you coming. Nice to meet you, whatever." And he goes, "I'm going to, you know, you probably not want to hear this, but I'm going to make you the unit armor." And I was like, "Well, Sergeant Major, I he has manning board here, the Teams and everything." I go, "You know, I'm Halo qualified. I'm a weapon sergeant who's Halo qualified. And I see you got a guy listed right here who's not Halo qualified on the Halo team, a
weapon sergeant." He goes, "Well, I know. I understand that, but I've already promised him the slot and all that kind of." And right then, I was like, "I'm done." I was watching the clock till I could get out in a year. No [ __ ] Yep. So, so you were on a team for Two years and you guys didn't deploy it into anything? Oh, no. What I mean, what was the what was the lifestyle? I tell you heard a deal about picking up pine cones? No. You ever heard that? No. Oh, yeah. Bro, we would
get detached to go do stuff like stuff on the post like pick up pine cones. Are you [ __ ] I'm serious as cancer and you know 82nd would be doing it. Special Force Green Berets would be doing it, but yeah, it that that yeah Doing uh yeah, Fort Bragg post cleanup and it that that would cycle through you not all the time but you would get that, hey man, we got to go pick up pine cones and you would get on a c what they called a cattle car which was essentially a you know
big open cattle car for lack of a better term and you'd get hauled out somewhere and you'd have to fleece up the range or I swear to God pick up pine cone I mean, that's where the mentality was At. Wow. I mean, we didn't even have vehicles. Like, if you had to go over to the hospital or the dental clinic or something like that, you had to take your personal vehicle. You didn't have you didn't have a team vehicle or anything like that or a vehicle in the company. You in order to to in function,
you had to you didn't it wasn't like you had an option. You had to take your personal vehicle to get over to do stuff like that. Wow. M and nothing changed Over at first. No. No. At first was a mess, too. Hot mess. What'd you do over there? I was armor. The only thing we did, we deployed to Korea once. I deployed as the armor. And we deployed to Korea once. Went into Seoul. Had a good time and all that jazz, but that's all we did. So, this is like miserable for you. Oh, yeah. And
that remember I was telling you about really realized I should have went in the Ranger Battalion. Mhm. It's stuff like this. Wow. Yep. What a disappointment. Oh, totally. Total disappointment. How many years did you spend in SF? Uh, well, I got out. I got out after 4 years. I said, I'm out of here. I got out, went back home, went to college, went to a community college for mechanical engineering to get a mechanical engineering associates degree. cuz my thought process was I'll get into I'll get a mechanical engineering degree and then I'll get in the
firearms industry. I'll go to work for somebody FN, HK, whatever. I was really big in FN at the time. So I really that's kind of what I was I want to get a mechanical engineering degree and I want to go to work for FN. So that's why I got out to do that. You got out the first opportunity you had. Oh yeah. Just four years I'm out, you know. And then I was talking to Scott on the way up here. There was only three options at that time. Get out, Which most guys did. Well, actually
four. And we used to talk about this. You get out, which most guys did. Stay in, which means you're not changing anything. You become part of the problem. You're signing on and become part of the problem. You're not to change anything. You're like, I'm willing to live with this horseshit and stay in. Three, go be a pilot in the military somewhere. Chopper pilot. I know one guy left, went to the Air Force To be a pilot last try out for Delta. So, you knew about Delta? Oh, yeah. Why didn't you try out? You know what?
It's a good question. I'm not worried it would be the same. Well, no. I didn't think I'd make it because that's the option that had the least success rate as you can imagine. Mhm. And I I met numerous guys that tried out. I did not know a single guy that made it. Not one until right at the Very end. I was getting ready to get out of the army. One of the guys went and made it. And dude, you can imagine when he came back, you want to talk about a guy who walked on water.
So I knew one guy they had tried out and everybody talked about how difficult it was. Everybody. So I honestly I didn't think I could do it. But that planted a seed that never went away. I got out, went to college. I was in reserves when I was in college. I Signed up for the reserves. I was in uh 11th group up in Youngstown, Ohio. I'd go up there once a month. Um enjoyed it. We didn't do [ __ ] You know, we never jumped out of an airplane the entire time I was there. Two
years. I had a good time with the guys and everything, but guys in the reserves at that time or National Guard, they really to get away from the wife for the weekend and go hang out with their buddies. That's all it was. They The training and everything was kind of a joke. They didn't really, you know, they didn't really put their heart and soul into it. It was, hey, I want to get away from the wife for a weekend, so I'm going to head out. I'm in the reserves or National Guard. Did you keep in
touch with the guy that made it through? No, I saw him later on. No. Saw him later on when I got into the unit. He was in B squadron. He was an alcoholic and got more than one DUI. And at that time, they let you slide on one or two. Now, as time went on, Yep. that was Yeah. They didn't you didn't slide at all. But they let him slide on one or two and I think when he got another one he's like dude you can't you got to go. Interesting. Yeah. He he was an
alcoholic stud. Dude was an animal. He was an animal in SF. Legendary dude. But he was an alcoholic. Well, Larry, let's take a quick break. Sure. And when we come back, we'll pick Up with you getting back in and going to the unit. All right. Want more from the Shawn Ryan Show? Join our Patreon today for more clips and exclusive content. You'll get an exclusive look behind the scenes where you can watch the guests interact with the team and explore the studio before every episode, plus unlock bonus content like our extra intel segments where we
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I mean, they were that's the ultimate pipe hitters to me. I mean, coming from the army point of view, I Mean, that was it. And I knew it. Could I could I do it? And it just never went away. And I I came to that fork in the road. It's like, okay, I'm going to be done here with my associates degree in mechanical engineering soon. I'm going to have to decide, am I going to stay on this path, get my mechanical and engineering degree, four-year degree, and then go into the firearms industry, or am I
going to go back in and try out for Delta? Now, this is before you could try out from the reserves or National Guard. So, and I got there was a guy, a captain actually, who kind of coached me and gave me some info. He had tried out for Delta. He ended up coming to my reserve unit in Youngstown, Ohio. And he had notes and stuff. He I want to say he even had the address for the the CSM that, you know, or the the sergeant major in charge of selection at Delta. And I wrote a
letter To him and said, "Hey, I'd like to try out. How can I do it? but I'm in the reserves right now. And they wrote back and said, "You're got to, you know, you have to go, you have to enlist in the army. We don't have a mechanism for you to try out from the National Guard or the reserves." So, I remember going, "Oh, man. This is a big deal here, dude. Cuz I'm getting ready if I'm going to do this at one, long shot to make it. Long Shot. Number two, I'm signing up for
another four years back in the SF, which I disliked. So, I remember talking to my friends. I, you know, I said, "Hey, man. This is what I'm thinking about doing." And they were all like, "Oh, dude." They were all like, "Man, I don't know." I said, "You know what, though? I I gota It's just one of those I've got to scratch this itch or it's just never going to go away." So, I Decided, you know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to go back in specifically to try out for Delta Force. That's why
I went back in. How long after you went back in did you get to try out? Um, six months. Six months. Yeah. 6 months after I went back in. So, let me think about when I went in. September. Yeah. 6 months. Six, eight months. For I didn't make it the first time. You didn't? No, I did not. I Overtrained real bad cuz when I was out me and a buddy would lift weights a lot and we got pretty pretty big and I knew all about overtraining bro. I knew all about it and I'd overtrained real
bad. I trained like a madman right up until I left for selection. So I my body was tore down. I I mean you know what I mean? And you ain't going to roll into selection with a tore down body and and think you're going to gut your way through it. I mean, at least I didn't. I I wasn't able to do that. So, I didn't make it the first time. The second time though, I fell back and I went, you know what? I'm going to learn from my mistake. I'm going to two weeks out. I'm
going to rest up. I'm not going to do any PT at all. I'm going to make sure I'm 100% rested up. And I was going to skip, you know, I was going to skip a a a selection. And I went to the spring, didn't make it. I was gonna skip fall and end up going to the next spring, but I got back and I started thinking about, you know, nah, dude. I'm going to the fall. What? I'm just What was it like when you failed the first time? Well, I voluntarily withdrawal. I Yeah, I did.
And I wouldn't have done that if I didn't realize how close because normally they don't let you come back if you voluntarily withdraw. Normally, you're done. I didn't know that. Till I got the exit interview with the uh the selection officer and selection sergeant major and he's like why' you vol voluntarily withdraw and I said I I overtrained real bad and they're like explain that one of those type of things I go well you know my body was tore down I know why I was you know the mistake I made if you know when I
when I come back I'm not going to make it again and they're like Okay. Okay. We'll let you come back. And I was like, whoa. I was that close. Wow. Them saying you ain't coming back. If I had known that, I would have just stuck it in there. How I mean, how long did you go before you voluntarily withdrew? Um, stress day one or two early on. Oh [ __ ] So, right away almost. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I went through the training part, you know, the train up, per se, the land navigation train up,
and then when I got in stress phase, it was early on one day One or day two and I knew I was just tore down, man. Could I have gutted it out and made it? I don't know. I just can't tell you. I could have. Maybe. Maybe. A big maybe. But I said, you know, I just can't do this. And I voluntarily withdraw. And dude, that Oh, man. I I was like, "My god, did I dodge a bullet?" Cuz it was just basically they could have It's almost like flipping a coin and they could have
went either Way. We're like, "Okay, we're going to let you come back." I was like, "Whoa, what do you think?" Cuz I thought it'd be like automatic. Okay, you overtrained. Okay, here you go. We'll see you next time. Yeah, man. That's what I thought. I mean, what is it that you think you have that they wanted to allow you to come back? I I I think on paper because they give you a psychaval, they do, you know, they testing and before you ever Go. Mhm. So, I mean, you I say psychaval, you fill out this
paperwork, they go through this pretty serious process before you ever go. And I think I was they looked at and said, "This guy is a really good candidate for making it." And because I after being in the unit and kind of knowing the process, they have their eye on different people. No [ __ ] Oh yeah. They're like, "Yeah, this guy's a high percentage guy, low percentage." And then they'll start Cutting and chopping. Okay. We're not going to bring him because he's not we're not seeing the indicators. We're not seeing the key things we need
here to bring him up to this category to bring him selection. The the rule of thumb is that I they they bring in 250 applications and they whittle it down to 100. In my case was 88 88 88 dudes out of roughly 250 applications but they're all you know they'll be made some disciplinary stuff. There's going to be Different things on there. Yeah, no, this guy's or you know, a guy's from, you know, we used to talk about it. You know, when you're going to recruit, why are you going to Fort Hood and these different
places where the chances of you finding a guy that's going to make it is almost zero? And they go, well, we're looking for that one guy. And they go, you know, if if we really wanted to get down to it, we'd only go to the SF Groups and range of battes. That's it. That's the only place. This is back in the day before they would recruit from the SEALs or the Marines or whatnot. Um but that was way before that era. Um they go, "Yeah, we would just go to the Ranger battalions and SF groups
and that's it." Cuz that's the your higher percentage guys that are going to make it. Um but we want if that's there's one guy that comes out of Fort Hood, we want him. Like Okay. But yeah, I was that close to not being able to. But that's my call. They, you know, on paper that they were like, "Hey, this guy's a high percentage chance of making it." Gotcha. Yeah, that's my call. And so you go back. Yeah. I go back Germany. I was stationed in Germany at Bad Tolls. I don't know if I told you
that or not, which was a superb place to train for selection. Superb. Because we had some real serious hills behind us. Real serious. And once A month, maybe every once a couple weeks, I would I would ruck march all the way up this. And I I I've long since forgot the name of the hill. It was big. And I would mark m all ruck march all the way up down and back down all the way to the top and then back down. And superb place to try out to to train up for selection with bad
torch, but I mean superb. So I went back decided, you know, I'm not going to skip and there's a good reason. I'm glad I didn't. We'll Get to that here later. Um, but I'm glad I didn't skip that selection and go to the next spring. I'm glad I went to that fall. And they came out and I want to say they came out and did a PT test just for me at Fort at at Bad Toults. Yeah. Actually, I know for a fact that's what they did. I did the PT. They came just because I
was the only guy that said, "Hey, I want to go." And they're like, "Okay." And they came and gave me a PT Test to to try out and they came by themsel or you know I was the only guy at bad tots trying out. What do you remember what the PT test was? Uh it was a standard army PT test. Okay. Yeah. At that time. Gotcha. Yeah. We didn't do a a swim test at that time. That that one that's you did a swim test at selection. Okay. When you got to camp um Camp Dawson
in West Virginia. Um but it wasn't a swim test. It was just a standard Army PT test. you know, Push-up, set up, some two-mile run. You had, you know, had minimum standards you had to pass in order to go. And they were pretty low. I mean, you go, well, they have to be up here. They're, no, you know, we're going to let you pass the, you know, and then it's back on you. You know, you you're the one who has to step up to the plate and get a better PT test score. I mean, that
was the thing about Delta selection is they Always put it back on the individual. They're not going to spoon feed you anything. It's they're just going to put it back on you and see how you deal with it, how you're going to respond, how you're going to adapt, overcome. It's all on you. They all put everything on you. So, what was it like the second time? Dude, I kicked ass. I My head was where it needed to be. Like I said, two weeks Out, you know, I I complet I didn't do any PT for two
weeks, which drove me crazy. I'm not going to lie, it drove me crazy because I was a PT animal, as you can imagine, getting ready for selection. Two weeks out, I completely stopped doing PT. I rested the whole nine yards. I told my team sergeant what I'm doing. He's like, "Okay." And they I didn't have to do PT with the team, nothing like that. I rolled in and dude, I Was I was on my agame and I [ __ ] nailed it. What is it like when you first show up? um first show up you
get into, you know, you bring in, they give you more testing, you get more eval. They're kind of honing it down. If initially it was a big broad brush type of, you know, a a coarse screen, now they're getting you in the smaller. They're going to dial things in where they can get a better handle on what you are like as a person, What you you think they're going to be like as a Delta Force soldier, Delta Force operator, and they're going to dial you in. Then, uh, you do a PT test again. You do
another PT test. Day one, once the things get going, do a PT test, standard army PT test, push-up setup, two-m run. Then you do a swim test, 100 meters, fatigues, and boots. which you can't bluff your way through that. You better know how to swim or you're not going to make it. And I knew That. So I trained up over and over and over and it got to the point where I could I I timed myself. I swam an hour in fatigues and boots because I learned how to do it. Not fight the fatigues and
boots, just go with the flow. You know what I'm talking about. And so did the swim test and then that night 18 mile rucksack march. So, one day, day one, PT test, swim test, 18 milei rucks sack march. Holy [ __ ] And if you don't if you don't make the cut on any of them, You're you're gone. I take that back. They will give you a retest on the PT test. I don't memory serves me correct. no retest on the on the uh swim test and no retest on the 18 mileer, but they will
the very next day they'll give you a retest on the PT test. And you can imagine the I knew one guy that passed that was able to pass it the next day that didn't pass it the day prior, which you kind of go, how is that? But he did. He passed it the second day, but he Didn't pass it the day prior. the average guy, it's it's going to be impossible after you've done it the first day, failed, done the swift swim test, passed and did the 18 mileer and passed. Yeah. You try to make
up the PT test the next day and it ain't going to happen. Is the 18 mileer is that a land navigation thing, too? No, just a the rucks sack march on roads. Okay. Through hilly terrain. Through hilly terrain. Very hilly terrain. How are you treated? Um, totally. I mean, no, no encouragement, no discouragement at all through the whole course. And they did that on purpose to try to get you. Then once again, they put it all back on you. They don't want it like, "Hey man, good job." You know what I mean? Or, "Hey, dude,
you got to pick up the pace." None of that kind of Stuff. It was you could walk in I used to tell people you could walk in with a broken leg and they go color and number and you'd have to have a color and you know they give you at the beginning of the day they'd give you a color and number so you'd have to remember you know chartus 43 chartus 43 show me where you're at and where you came from because it's all land nav based through through serious hilly terrain. It's like a buddy
of mine said, "There Aren't mountains there, but there's some damn big hills." And that's the truth. Camp Dawson is surrounded by damn big hills. So, you're doing land navigation, and it's like, "Show me where you're at. Show me where you came from." And you show them came, you know, I'm here, came from here, and you, you know, you got to show them the right thing on the map. You can't, you know, hey, you if the guy got it wrong, you go over there, Reassess where you came from. Then you got, oh, I came from here,
Sergeant, from right there. Okay. Your next point's underneath that rock. And you'd have a little, you know, laminated piece of, you know, have something laminated. You flip it over and you'd write down where you're at. You plot it on the map and you go up, you know, you said, "Come on up, Chartus 43. Come on up. Show me where you're at. Where you're going. I'm here. I'm going here. Have a good one." And that cycle repeated over and over and over again through and you don't know how long. You don't know how much time you
got to get from point A to point B. And you don't know how many points you're going that day. So each point is timed. Yeah. Oh yeah. Each It's not the full course. No. Each each point the full course is essentially timed, but you don't really know you don't really know where exactly you're going. Nope. You might have four Points one day. You might have six points the next day. And how long does this last? 6 days. And then on the seventh day, you do the 40 mileer. This is stress phase. Mhm. Okay. We talked
about the PT test, swim test, 18 mileer. Now, after that, you get into basically, for lack of a better term, the training phase. They're going to teach you how to do land navigation. And the reason they did that used to be back in the day you just went right into stress phase. Um but they found out this isn't fair because there's guys who would probably make it that don't know how to do they've never had land navigation training. So they would put you through 10 days to two weeksish more or less 10 days of the
best land navigation training in the US Army. Has to be the best land navigation in in the US Military probably in the world. I mean magnificent land navigation training. You had CAD ray living you cadray lead led you know land navigation. It was just magnificent really really good you know map reading you know dead reckoning you know you you know you go around hills mountains all that kind. It was just really really good training. It was superb but it was also kind of grinding you Down. So everybody kind of got to a certain level. You
have a stud or whatever. He's not going to be 100% going into stress because you're you're going through the same hills, rocky terrain, twisting your ankle, that kind of stuff. So it's kind of taking even the studs and grinding them down a bit. So when they get ready to do stress phase, they're not on their A game. If they're lucky, they're on their B minus game. Gotcha. And then you start stress. What's stress? Stress phase is that six days with the seventh day being um a 40 mileer and you stay out in the woods in
a tent in the environment. You're eating MREs. You know, you you get at the end of the day, you'll get in in these trucks or Humvees. At the time I did it, it was trucks and you you don't know where you're going. The guys who don't make it that day go back to Camp Dawson. The guys that make it for that day pass, they go to the base camp. They Put up their tent and you eat your MREs and then you crash out and you they tell you what time you got to be up and
you it's on you. They're not going to wake you up in the morning. You got to be, you know, you got to get yourself up. You got to put away all your gear and you got to be standing by ready to go when the trucks come in to pick you up and take you then they take you back out to another point and they, you know, chart 43 or they're going to give you a Different color and number that day. Vickers, you know, purple one, two, truck number three, you I jump on and I have
to remember purple, you know, one, two, that's my color number for that day. And then you go out, they bring you out purple one, two, your your points over there. You go over the same thing. You take it out. This is where I'm at. This is where I'm going. Map, show me what you got. This is where I'm at. This is where I'm going Going. Have a good one. That's the only encouragement. You're good. Have a good one. That's it. And the 40 mileer process, the 40 mileer. Now, before I get to that, there were
people that didn't finish one day that still made the course. And you're like, how can that be? I My call is, and by the way, this the standards are the holy grail of the unit. There's only a handful of people that have ever known the standards. I mean they are that is The deepest darkest secrets in that organization. I was in the unit for 15 years and I had no idea what the standards were. I could guess but I had no idea. Only when you got to a certain point like the commander or the command
sergeant major or you were the selection commander or selection sergeant major would you be read in on the on you'd be read in on the tea leaves? So there's only really two people that make the determination if you fit the standard. Yes. Really? Yes. Even the cadre that are there don't stand. No. They have no idea. Oh, I have no idea. None. You call in the times, you know, purple 32 vicers. You tell them what time he got here. He, you know, arrived at 12:15. You know, he left at 12:32. So, does that mean it's
solely based off of time? Because that to me that means there's a gray area. What do you mean? I mean you had Mentioned that there are people that didn't maybe make the time but they still got in. Yeah. Here's nobody knows the time. It's be I mean I would I I understand why the the the guys trying out would not understand the time. But for the cadre to not know the time and only two people, it sounds like four out of all of the unit knows the time. Mhm. That there's a gray area there where
they may have identified Somebody that they want that made No, it never did that. It never did that. I know what you're talking about. Never happened. They were Nazis about it, bro. I mean, wouldn't they would only select certain people to be the selection off, you know, selection commander or selection major. There was only certain people that did that. That was not something where they just randomly come down to a squadron. All right, dude. You come on up to, you know, S&T, you're Going to be the No, no, no. You were you were handpicked. Handpicked.
And you're you had a track record in the unit. You'd been in the unit for a long time. No, no, no, no. That's not I'm sorry. That's not what I meant. That's not where I was going. What I meant was for the selection for the guys going through selection. If nobody knows the time, then time is obviously important, but they may identify something in in a what Would you call them? A a trainee. What do you mean? The guy's going through selection. Yeah. Um candidate. A candidate. So they would they may identify a candidate that
doesn't meet the time standard, but they like everything else about it. Oh yeah. No, wouldn't matter if you don't meet the time standard. You could be a rock star and it wouldn't matter. How How would nobody How would nobody This general It's a genuine question. I'm not like Poking holes in it. I'm just trying to understand. How would how would more people not figure out what the time is if you could just go through the times and go that guy, that guy made it, that guy obviously it's under thing is all you had was you
the only information you had as a cadray was your little small vision of the world. You didn't see the whole you didn't see him at this point, this guy At this point, this guy in compartmentalized. Yeah, it was compartmentalized. You always only saw your piece of the puzzle. You didn't see what you know he was doing. You didn't see what he was reporting in. The only guy that got all that was the S&T major who's out there running it. Yep. And running the numbers. I mean, it would be something to the point that you would
go walk you if you had to go up to his truck or something, he'd be like, "Stop." And he would take put everything away, you know, so you couldn't come up and look over his shoulder. Yeah. What do you need? I mean, it was top secret, bro. Top secret. Do you remember your time? 40 mileer. Yeah. 16. Now, according to the book, According to Charlie Beckwood's book, Delta Force, you had 20 hours to do the 40 mileer. Had to do two hours, 2 miles an hour in very hilly terrain. Very hilly train. Some of it
on Roads, some of them on trails, some of them cross country. And you had to do it in 20 hours. I believe that's accurate. I think that's legit. I did it 16 hours, 20 minutes, a 40 mileer. Damn. That's moving. Yeah. Now, dude, I know some guys who did it in unbelievable times. Unbelievable. What was your strategy on the 40 mileer? Yeah. Keep moving. Take the simplest path. Because I knew people that had tried to take Shortcuts and it bit them in the ass. They got they got nailed in mountain whirl and they they completely
lost track of where they're at. They had no idea where they're at. They were trapped and they that was it and they were done. They couldn't get out of it. So I would just take like there's one big hill, gigantic monster hill after you do a river crossing. Um it's about I want to say it's about 25 No. Yeah. about 25 miles in and you got your next point is At the top of the hill. I kept it simple. I basically took I did the the switch back road all the way up. A lot of
other guys just did this number and most of them did not make it because they would get caught in mountain war. Well, number one, it would smoke you to death. Yeah. it the it would be so incredibly difficult to do that 25 miles into a 40 mile rucksack march and you're you know you're going dead reckoning at the top of this hill. I mean I know people that did it but as a general rule it was a kiss of death but I did switch back all the way up till I could see that top road.
I cut over to it and came into the point but I just kept it simple stayed focused. I didn't try to do anything fancy. Kept moving. I stopped one time to have a little bit of an MRE and that was it. I kept moving the whole time. I wasn't worried about running it. I was just trying to stay positive and stay moving The whole time. When do you find out that you passed the 40 mileer? When you get to the last point, they call up and they, you know, purple 12's here, vicers, and they'll run
the numbers and they go, "Okay, you know, send him on up." And you basically, and they go, "Okay, you know, Vicker or purple one, two, your next point is at the top of that, you know, basically it was a power line clearing at the very top, maybe a kilometer, not Very far at all. You're greeted by the um S&T SAR major and the S&T cap or commander. That's who greets you at the top. And if you don't make it, you go over here. If you do make it, you go over here by the fire. And
they're like, you know, Sergeant Vickers, congratulations. You've successfully completed the stress phase of, you know, Delta Force selection and assessment. Damn, dude. I immediately started crying. I mean, I just gushed. I was. And I'm sure I wasn't the only one that did that. Hardest thing I ever did in my life. Barn none. Bar none. Out of 88 people that that tried out that started, 13 made it and 11 got through OTC. So 11 guys made it through OTC cross the hall into one of the saber squadrons out of 88. Damn, dude. There was classes they
had in the hallway outside OTC. They had all the different class Pictures. There's a guy who he was the only dude out of the whole class that finished. No. Ray Feifer. Yeah. Ray Feifer. He's standing there by himself in the picture. Damn. Others three dudes, others two dudes, stuff like that. I remember one I was an S&T instructor and we had five five guys made it through selection. Wow. We had to do OTC class with like nine dudes cuz we had those five guys and then we had four direct support basically medics Commemor they would
go through OTC too. Now they there's certain things they didn't do. They didn't do CQB but they would do everything else. You know what I mean? All the Hilo operations they would do they would do patrolling. They'd do everything else cuz they're going to be augmenting the operators. But they wouldn't do CQB. There's certain things that they didn't do. But yeah, they would go through OTC. So we had nine. One guy broke his ankle. He had to get bumped to the next class. We ended up having eight for an OTC class. Wow. What was the
conversation like at the campfire? Well, they had some glue vine. You ever heard of that stuff? Yeah. German, right? Yeah. I I don't drink alcohol, so I didn't have any. But they have that. You can partake. You don't drink alcohol? No. You never have? No, I never have. Are you? Yeah. Courtesy of my mom. I told you. Remember my mom absolutely do not drink cuz her my mom's my grandfather, who I never met cuz he'd passed away. My mom's dad had passed away before I was born, was an alcoholic. So my mom was like, "Uh-uh.
This is like unheard of in the special ops." Oh yeah. community. By the way, dude, in Delta, there was more than a few people that didn't drink. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That was not uncommon. It was not Uncommon. And more than a couple guys drank when they got there and stopped because they realized if they didn't stop and get it under control, they were going to be booted out. They were going to be shown the door. And I know a couple guys that completely stopped drinking that had come there cuz they knew if if something
went wrong, if they didn't get it under control cuz they came from SF or wherever and and you know the drinking Was a big part of the culture and whatnot. Now they come to Delta and it's not the drinking is not not that the guys don't drink, don't get me wrong, but it's not that big culture thing like we're going to go out and get trashed every Saturday night, that kind of a thing. No. Gotcha. And so what was the conversation like at the fire? You remember it? Basically how difficult it was comparing Notes. Do
you Hey, you remember that? Oh yeah. Did you go there? No. Yeah. Cuz there was one part which they discontinued is you get up to the top of this hill and this was on day one I think stress day one and there's a dude sitting there with a steak dinner. He's in a suit and he's got a a table there, you know, glass of wine or whatever the hell it is and a steak dinner and he's the cadray at the top of the hill. And you're Like, and he goes, you know, color and number, show
me where you're at, where you came from. Your next point's located over there. Okay, color number. Show me where you're at, where you're going. Have a good one. Now, here's the thing, though. Not everybody goes to that point. So guys start doubting each other like I didn't see that. What are you talking about? Yeah, man. There was a guy up there. Don't you remember that? No, I Didn't see it. I didn't. There was no guy with a steak dinner at a table. You know what I mean? That kind of a little bit of a scops
thing. Over time they did away with that cuz they were kind of like what really is this bringing to the table for us? So they did away with it. They moved the um swim test to OTC. And I tell you why they did that. At the time, dude, we didn't that did not go over well in the unit. We're Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop. Time out. What are you doing? Well, their thing is like number one, the guys barely go across any bodies of water in the unit. I mean they're you know in selection in
OT or in selection you know there's one river crossing during the 40 mileer and you get now you go across a bridge they used to have a pontoon boat that take you back and forth and you go across a couple creeks. So having a guy pass a Swim test in order to attend selection doesn't really make much sense because back at his unit he may not have access to a swimming pool where he could practice. So, let's bump it. Let's say let's get the guy through selection. That one or two dudes, whatever that might be.
Let's get him through selection and then an OTC at the very beginning. Now, we'll give him a swim test. And then now he's had, you know, a couple months, whatever to now It's on him. Okay. Now, you've got to find the sources. You got to find a pool. You got to find the ability to go and practice for the swim test. you know what the swim test is and you know you're going to be evaluated on when you get to OTC. As far as I know, there was nobody that failed it. By the time they
got to OTC, they're, you know, when they signed in and they got the swim test, it was no problem. Nobody failed it. And so what Happens the next day after you pass selection? More well chilling. You rest then more eval more psyche vows. Lots of psyche. Oh, dude. Fuzzy famous story. What's that? That's That's the way I always pass them. Think about fuzzy bunnies. Fuzzy bunny. There's a famous story and I don't know if it's true but I don't I don't necessarily doubt it that the unit Sykes had it nailed down so tight on who
Would make selection that they would they put a name list of names in an envelope gave it to like the S&T sergeant major and at the end of the core end of selection they were going to open it up and see what guys finished selection versus the names on the sheet and they nailed it. Wow. Now that's that could be a wives tale. It could be an urban but I they had it really nailed down. I know more than a few guys who um in SF that once They got to a certain point they were
done. They they send because they just they narrowed the the the beam down or whatever you the focus down to the point that they could tell this guy's not going to work out. we, you know, cuz they had they kind of had institutional knowledge per se of different people in the past and psychological profiles and indicators and, you know, little triggers, stuff that they can dial in on and go, "This guy is just not going to Be a good candidate." So, they would actually they would actually pull guys that are making the time just because
they didn't think Well, what would happen is they would go to the board and then they'd get cut. Gotcha. Yeah. They would go to the board and they get cut. That's how it will go. And so when did you start OTC? Um wall selection, finished October, started it right after New Year, signed in the unit in December, got, you know, Got our gear, all that deal. Went on Christmas break and then came back right after New Year and started it. So you had about you had what 3 months? Yeah. Is what was that 3 months?
What' you fill that with? basically went back to bad tools and once again now I'm the guy that walked on water because you go back to that unit. I mean it's you can go your entire army career and never meet one guy who who Made it into Delta real easy. Real easy. And I went back and they were like, "You know, we made it." And they were like, I mean, right then, dude, you I mean, you're like now six inches off the ground. And then you're basically you then have paperwork. You hand your chain of
command and it said, you know, individuals been, you know, selected for a special missions unit. Orders will be coming down. There is no deferment allowed. He will absolutely telling them Reading them the right act. Mhm. you know, you're this guy's going to go to Fort Bragg and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it because he's now you he's been selected at this level. You're at this level. You're not going to stop. And they had to do that because units you're losing some of your best guys. Mhm. This guy's a stud. He's one
of the best guys, you know, on your team or in your battalion, Ranger battalion or whatnot. And now he's leaving now. I'm going to do whatever I can to keep him. Boy, they shut that down. By the time I went through, I'm sure early on that was a real problem. That's why they give you that piece of paper that you hand, you know, you hand to your your chain of command and they by the time I went through there was no issues. Everybody, hey, made Delta, he's gone. So, they would kind of just write you
off. You're kind of on your own doing your own PT, you know, getting ready, packing up, waiting for the official order to come down so you know when you're actually leaving. How was it checking into OC? Overwhelming at first. You're like, "Oh my god, I I'm coming through the gate into the Delta Force." You come in, totally overwhelming. Then you start seeing the guys you that you made it through selection with that are going to be in your OTC class. You get the Initial inbrief from the instructors, different instructors than you saw in West Virginia.
That's Cadray out of the squadrons. So like a troop out of one of the squadrons will go up and rotate through every, you know what I mean? B squadron might have it this time, C squadron, and then those are different guys. And you see for the OTC instructors, totally different guys. It's not one and the same. And then you'll get introduced to the instructors And you kind of get your gear together and all that. Just pretty overwhelming. Fortunately, they ease you into it. You know what I mean? And then you're doing PT, but it's their
thing is like now we want to keep you in shape, but we don't want to break you down cuz you've already proven that you you you have what it needs from a what you need from a physical point of view. That's what you just proved in West Virginia. Now, we want to train you. you Know, we we we have assessed you and feel like you are the correct raw material to become a Delta operator. Now, we want to train you and evaluate you to see if in fact you can become a functional member of the
unit, a Delta operator. So, that's the difference there. The PT isn't designed to tear you down. I mean, it's designed to keep you in shape, team building, because now it is, yeah, it's individual, but now it's also can you can you function as a team? How are you treated? Oh, like adults. Yeah. No, no discouragement, no harassment. Yeah. Is there is is there any interaction between the guys going through OTC and the operators? Very very little. Basically, no. And it's discouraged. It's very disc like they hate because a lot of the guys know guys in
the squadrons and they're like you see them in chow hall, you can say hi, but that's It. you don't talk to them and then the guys in the squadrons are told don't interact with the guys in OTC because you don't want to give them hey heads up you know what I mean to my buddy oh by the way watch for this that kind of stuff gotcha so you're basically both sides of the equation the OTC students are told don't interact with the guys in the squadrons the guys in the squadrons are told don't interact With
the guys in OTC can you describe day one of training You know, right off the bat, it was all about shooting. The first two weeks was all about shooting. Dry fire. We did like I want to say at least maybe a n I don't know if it was a week at least like three days of dry fire before we ever made it to the range. At least all day. all day long for the first three days. And I could be wrong in that. It May be longer, but it was all about shooting right from the
start because they realized shooting in CQB is what that unit's all about. I mean, that's the meat and potatoes. That's the very core of what that organization's about is the OP Delta operator being able to do shooting and conduct close quarters combat. And that's everything in that organization revolved around that. Everything everything I mean there was Different stuff you did like VIP protection high-speed driving you know different airborne operations you would do Hilo operations you know you do a variety of things but it all boiled down to what is the meat and potatoes what's the
core of what we're all about shooting so he could be and we started out with marksmanship and then that was a common thread throughout were there qualifications oh yeah what Were some of the tougher for qualls. Well, we'd have accuracy stuff. Bullse eyes at 25 yards. Pistol stuff. What size bullseye? Uh the standard B8, so you're talking a 5 and 1/2 inch black. Damn. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, and then you'd score it and you have different scoring rings on it, a possibility of 100. You have to score to a certain and I don't remember
what they were, but you have to pro, you know, you have to score to a certain amount in order to pass. And then you were evaluated on that on a pretty regular basis. Very accuracyoriented. Delta is famous for that. They're and that's why you see instructors out Delta, they're all accuracy based because under nobody's going to have to tell you, you go, "What about speed?" Well, here's the thing. Nobody's going to have to tell you to shoot faster in a gunfight. I'm in a gunfight. Nobody's going to have to, "Hey, dude, shoot Faster." That's never
going to be a factor. The issue is getting hits on target. So you have to make sure and I have a personal um rule of thumb that I go by is under conditions of stress you the best you will be able to perform is 50% of your normal you know what I mean if I'm shooting at a certain on the range the best the absolute best I can hope to perform under conditions of stress is 50% of that particular standard. So, you have to hold yourself To a high standard because it, you know, I'm only
going to be here when I'm being shot at. What about rifle? What were some of the tougher rifle qualls? We had stuff. We would do basic rifle marksmanship with M14s when I was there initially. Acurized M14 National Match M14s. As time went on, they did away with that and it was full-size M16 A2s and then they eventually went to the M4 And it was, you know, different positions, standing, kneeling, prone, you know, basically different position shootings. Once again, very bullseye oriented and for score and and you're you're evaluated to that stuff and ranked and you
had to meet a certain standard or you would generally give you get remedial training, but after a certain point and we had guys fail it and generally they'd be put out of the unit or they would put They would be put in a support role in unit where they were not an operator where shooting wasn't necessarily you know, not important. It's important for everybody there, but not as important as it is for an operator. Mhm. So, they put him in a support role. Then once you got to that point, the real thing that weeded people
out was CQB. That was really what it boiled down to. That's what weeded people out. is you, you Know, you can take a guy through selection, you can have him shooting, but when you go into a room and there's somebody shooting past you by a matter of inches that there's some people that absolutely cannot handle that. And we saw that with guys, you know, about every class there'd be somebody I remember one guy, everybody liked him. He's a great dude. Every all the instructors liked him. He just could not do it. He couldn't do it.
and he Basically said, "Hey, I can't I can't do this. I can't do it." And he, you know, we let him go. How complicated does it get? Pretty complicated. Um, you know, you know, and you can do it with protective mask on and all that jazz, but, you know, it gets to the point where you're coming in on a you're fast rope in at night, you know, door charges, flashbangs, um, you live people, you have live bad guys, you got to shoot past them. Yeah. And targets. You can even get simunitions going on where you're
being shot at with some munitions, you're shooting back at them with some munitions, that kind of it can very complicated and get really ramped up. And what you see is it really starts separating people. What you see is guys that, you know, if I'm coming into the house and it's during the day and I can see all the targets, then it's one thing. But now I got to come in on a Fast rope and it's in the middle of the night and the hilos are flaring and dropping guys off and there's rotor wash and then
we got to put up door charges and then we got to use flashbangs and there's a team on this side of the hall and there's a team on this side of the hall. We have to make sure we're not doing crossfire. All that stuff starts coming into play. Then some guys really start coming unraveled. How many I mean what what is A does everybody have? CQB experience before they show up from their prior unit. No. No. How many? We have some. We have now a lot more because you get you see Rangers doing it, Green
Berets doing it, that kind of stuff cuz it's trickled down. Cuz let's face it, I mean guys in you know those combat arms they I mean we see in infantry units too. They know they need to know how to do some basic CQB. Mhm. They need to know how to do it because I Mean it's urban combat. You're flowing into a room with bad guys. You need need to you need to know how to be able to do at least a basic level of CQB. Now, they're told right off the bat. How many guys know
how to do CQB here? Nobody puts their hand up and they go, "Yeah, you got the memo, right? There's the right way. There's the wrong way. There's the Delta way. And you don't know [ __ ] about CQB till you show up here and we will teach you the way we do CQB. How long do you spend on CQB? Oh, dude. OTC is basically 6 months. Throughout the six months, I'd say three months of it is CQB. if you you know it's spread out because now you're doing you know you're doing VIP training and you're
doing high-speed you're doing you do a u P training of course towards the end but you're doing different segments of the training of OTC but the constant the common threads are shooting and CQB so If you go away for VIP training when you come back you're going to roll right back into some shooting and roll right back into CQB so I would say the shooting and the CQB portion in OTC 6 to 7month program is probably half of it. I mean CQB just gets so complicated and you know I'm just curious when you when you
show up at OC OTC and you have guys that you know that that that have and it sounds like back then there was a lot of People that had zero exposure to CQB. I mean I had none. people. I what I'm trying to do here is is bring to the audience how complicated this can get, you know, and and so when does it move from, you know, a centerfed door with no windows, no exterior doors, no nothing, just targets in there to to a full building take down where you got to worry about exterior doors.
You're clearing rooms through windows into the next room. You're clearing other you're You know what I'm getting at. I mean it it's not just targets. It's sectors of fire. It's reading off the guy next to you. It's reading it's it's it's green on green stuff. It's shooting through windows. It's clearing rooms before you even enter. I mean how how fast is the pace that gets that's the bottom last third? That's the last two months. Okay. Out of a six-month program, six, sevenmonth program. That's the last two months. How long do you How Long do you
spend on just the basic center, you know, a centerfed doorway into a room with no with nothing exterior to worry about? Oh man, that that basic basic level probably a week. A week. Yeah. And then it just starts going from from there. Okay, we're in this room now. We got to go to that room. And then that kind of evolves. So that that that really basic stuff probably two week two weeks maybe Three and then different structures on the compound. They had multiple structures to do CQB in stairwells. Stairwells hallways. You get used to this
shoot house. Soon as they're used to it now we come over here. How many shoot houses are there? Oh my god. If I had to guess now, when I was there, probably 10. 10 different shootouts. Yeah. Yep. If I had to guess, I'd say 10. How long is it before you start using live Ammunition really soon? I'm let you in on something. There's three things that dialed me into this is the NFL. This is the big leagues. Number one, when I got there and we were using gold medal, federal gold medal ammunition for bright basic
rifle, we weren't using standard ball. We were using federal gold medal, gold medal match for our M14s. Basically a $150 a round ammo for M14s. I knew right Then cuz I knew enough what that ammo how expensive it was. I'm like, whoa. We had MAG 58s instead M60s before the M240 was adopted and the you know Marines were using the M240 or you know what I mean and the Rangers and all we were using them before any of them. I knew right then Head and Shoulders going over the M60 and we had Mag 58s last
one the big one carried live ammo all the time everywhere on Fort Bragg. You saw a guy, a Delta guy out on a four-wheeler, on a ruck march or whatever. He's got live ammo on him on Fort Bragg. Really lowkey. That's something everybody did. Nobody talked about 82nd 82nd Airborne. Didn't know anything about it. Unit MPs. I mean, cuz that's unheard of in the regular army for guys to be walking around with live ammo. You had live ammo on you all the time. Why is that? to get you used to having live ammo and being
Responsible with it. You know what I mean? How to manage the load, manage the weight, knowing when you're I'm handling my weapon, my my weapon's loaded, so I have to be aware of muzzle finger finger off the trigger. I have to be dialed in on what's going on with this weapon cuz it's loaded. It's ready to go. Yeah. Whoever dreamed that up, I got to give them I mean, way back in the day, the OG Delta guys, I got to give them credit. How long has Delta been Around before? 1977 and I got there 1988
so 11 years now 77 when it started but that was very much in its infancy so they really they didn't get ramped up till about 79 and then um desert 1 was a 1980 so really the unit had been up and running about a decadeish by when I got there maybe a little bit less and you talking about some Mac V so pipe hitters Organized that unit and and started it. We're talking about some serious OG pipe hitters got that place going that knew from what it worked and what didn't work in Vietnam and they
made sure that we didn't do the same mistakes when they started Delta. So this is where the Vietnam guys went. Yes. Guys like Dick Meadows, the OG, serious OG pipe hitter. It was a guy that was in on the ground floor. who's retired, but Charlie Beckwith brought Him in to get that organization going and he kind of set the tone, set the standards for the organization, him and others, but you know, MOG legends like Dick Meadows, those are the guys that laid the groundwork. And I'm sure those are the guys that said guys are going
to be carrying live ammo all the time. So you when when you were there, you were probably there with a lot of the plank owners. Do you guys call them plank owners? Yeah. Um, plank owners for the Audience means they are the original guys. Yeah, actually there was quite a few. We would They're OTC1 the guys that were there from that were there from OTC number one and on. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We were there from some of them. What class were you? OTC 23. Yeah. 23. Yeah. When I was there, there was about 200 people
that had been Delta Force Operators. That's it. That's it at that time. I have no idea where they're at now because it's been I've been out of there for 20 years. Yeah. So, I don't know where they're at, but OTC 23 and there have been about 200 guys that have been Delta operators. Wow. And in a decade. What was it like at graduation? Oh, dude. Well, you know, interestingly enough, they didn't make a big deal about it. They you called cross in the Hall. You you'd come in, you'd get an interview, they'd assess how you
did in OTC and you're going a squadron. That's where I went and that was it. You packed up your stuff. Your stuff was already packed up because you were going to be moving that day. They you knew whether you passed or not. Um or you you know you were going to the squadron. You just didn't know what squadron you were going to. And you would take your stuff over and they'd say, "Yeah, you're on F team Or whatever." and you you go in F team and put your stuff in the wall locker. What did they
say at your review? Um I was interestingly enough I was the first guy in West Virginia to go in for the board and I was the first guy at after OTC to go in for the board out of my OTC class. Very first guy in West Virginia that went in for the board. very first guy that went in um to after OTC and people said, "Well, that's nothing to It. [ __ ] that I know for a fact now because I was on the other end of this." they're bringing in a guy that's a no-brainer
that's obviously going to go to the unit or or he's done finished OTC because that warms up that gets the the the guys who are on the board warmed up to the questions and the sequence and the program of how you're going to interview these guys. I remember time well there's no Rhyme or reason to it or I knew at the time I go that doesn't sound right there. You know what I mean? They're going to save the guys are questionable towards the end and they're going to save those guys are questionable towards the end.
The guys that may they may need to grill and I'm not really talking about OTC. They pretty much know you you know whether you're going to go to a squadron or not. That's kind of a given talking about in West Virginia at after selection. They they keep those guys to the end that they may have to grill for 30 minutes and you know cuz they've tracked this guy all the way through. They know what he's done right and what he's done wrong. We've had I had a couple guys that I mean I thought they were
good to go. They got bounced on the board and selected. Wow. Yeah. What did they say at your board? I I made a classic mistake. I Oh my god. I They asked me a question and they go, "Well, why'd you do this?" And I go, "Well, you know, other guys did it, too." Oh, dude. Yeah. I mean, I that's that's the kind of comment I made. And I go, "Well, you know, I'm sure other guys were doing it, too. Oh my god. They were laid into me on that one." And as soon as I said
it, I was like, "Why did I say that?" And then they start talking to you and they Go, "Well, you need to understand something, Sergeant Vickers. Delta Force is part of the army. You know, you know, you have to be part of the army if you're going to be." And then they kind of lead you up to where you're like, "Oh my god, they're going to tell me I didn't make it." And that they purposely do that. And then at the very end, the commander goes, "I want to be the first one to welcome you
to Delta Force." How'd that feel? Oh, unbelievable. I mean, the high of the high. Only one thing was ever higher than that one thing. rescuing Kurt Muse out of Medela prison in my life. Wow. Yep. That's the only thing that is higher than than him shaking my hand and then they all come up to shake your hand. So yeah, they bring in early on they bring in the guy that's a No-brainer. This guy's no-brainer. He's going to unit or he's going to a squadron. No brainer. And that's just to warm the the board staff up.
The guys are on the board because quite a few of them it's the first time they've been on a board. They don't really know the sequence and you know they're coached. Hey, these are the kind of questions you ask. This is the kind of responses you're looking for. But, you know, you got to get them warmed up to being on a Board and they they you know, they do. They early on you're bringing in guys that are no-brainers. Do you remember what they asked why you did whatever it is that you did? No, I don't.
Do you remember any of the specific questions? No, I really don't. I just remember that one response that just opened the door for them that I just realized, oh my god, why did I say that? Well, other guys were doing it, you know, or whatever something. Well, I'm sure other guys were doing it, too. That was stupid. I knew it as soon as it came out of my mouth. But I don't remember exactly what the question was. No, I don't remember exactly what the question was. Where did you go from there? From selection or from
OTC? A squadron. A squadron. Yeah. A squadron. I went to A2 troop F team and I was a junior guy on F team. How did they greet you? Good. Treated as a professional. No, didn't look it down on anybody. you know, a little bit of hazing and stuff, but real minor stuff. Nothing major cuz you know, you respected the guy. You probably already gotten word, hey, this guy is a star. He was one of the best guy. You know what I mean? Or, you know, this guy, he's kind of needs, you know, he's okay, but
you know, he obviously met the standard. He wouldn't be going to the squadron, Right? But you may have already kind of gotten the word on the guy. He may be a guy who thinks he walks on water. we might need to knock him down a couple notches, you know what I mean? Or, hey, this guy's a stud. Mhm. We got word, yay, this dude was an he killed it in OTC. And they're like, really? He goes, yes. The seal, we had Kevin Holland, superstar, came from ST6. We watched him like a Hawk. I put him
Through selection. He was our number one guy. No [ __ ] Oh, dude. He killed it. He absolutely killed it. I remember talking to him and at the end I go, "Dude, do do you know any more guys in the seals like you?" And he goes, "Yeah, we got I go talk to him about coming here." I go, "Cuz we need all the guys like you we can get." He was a rock star. We were watching him like a hawk. Like he's a SEAL, you know? He came from ST6, you know what I mean? Dude,
he the Dude was a rock star. Absolute rockstar. He was the number one guy in his class. Wow. He killed it. Absolutely killed it. By the end of it, any anybody any any of the cadery would have taken him on his team in a New York second when you did show up to a squadron. How do you how do you feel that your proficiency in CQB and and just being an operator in general measured up to the guys that were um you Knew you were at a pretty basic level cuz the guys there had been
doing it many of them for years now. Mhm. You've only done it for a few months now. That being said, I went in I mean could be wise one thing a lot to learn. I I shot at a very high level as soon as I walked across the hall. I was, you know, within probably the top top five guys shooting wise as soon as I walked across the hall and a squadron. Wow. Oh, yeah. I've one thing I've always, you know, I was just had the ability to dial in on combat marksmanship and I did
I I was probably in the top five as soon as I walked across all. Is it competitive? Oh yeah. How so? Um you know on a team you don't want basically you don't want to embarrass yourself. So when you go out shooting you know there's peer pressure. It's not Overt. It's not like in your face or nothing like that. But you know if you don't do real well you beat yourself up. I mean you're in Delta Force and this organization is known for shooting. If you don't hold the standard you're going to beat yourself up.
If it gets bad enough, you're going to get talked to some. Your team sergeant's going to pull you aside and say, "Dude, you got to put in extra time. You know, if I need to work with you, I will. We'll get you in Dialed in with one of the best shooters here." You know what I mean? If it gets bad, pretty rare. That's pretty rare. What's the culture like? I mean, coming from the SF team, which you were really unimpressed with, what's the culture like at Delta? you know, SF team. We've talked about this a
little bit. Kind of a little bit more of the of cohesive partying type. We're going to drink together, you know what I mean? Come over to the house On the weekend. We're going to watch football and drink. That kind of stuff. Delta is much more from when I was there much more fi mission focused really focused about why you're there and and what you're all about camaraderie and whatnot but it's like hey going over to your house on the weekend and and drinking beer with you and watching football that's over here what we're about is
right here and it's so the organization and once I go back To the Dick Meadows piece. I don't know how much you know about the guy. There's fantastic book written about him called Quiet Professional. Um, is that the name of it? I'll think about it. Maybe on break I'll look it up. But, um, and this dude set the standard. Never, he was M. Vogg legend. Never lost a man in combat. Wow. In Mac VOG. 13 PS captured. He captured more enemy combats. He enemy combat not PS, excuse me. Any enemy combatants than Anybody. He's the
guy that went in and got vid he became an officer because of this and eventually became a major. Retired a major. He went in and he got video footage him and his team video footage of the Ho Chi Min Trail to prove that the Ho Chi Min Trail actually existed. No [ __ ] that was sent back to Congress and Congress was shown this is ocere and Dick Meadows is the guy who did it. I mean we're talking about a Mac B Legend and he he set the standard. He was in charge of the assault
force on the Sante raid. So when you went in there, you didn't know it but he you had that Dick Meadows umbrella or standard set. Unbelievable planning. I mean detail planning down to the absolute smallest detail and Delta that's what we were all about. So it was a a serious focused organization in terms of mission focus. Partying at your house on the weekend for and watching football that's not very important. This is what's important. So that's you asked about what's the different culture, what's the different feel. That's it. Delta is all about the mission. SF
and I'm not saying it's not, but it's, you know, you got more of a, you know, it's just more of a, it's just a different feel to it. Like I said, come over to the house, you know, we'll Drink beer over the weekend. We'll have a team party. We'll cook out. That's all cool. We did some of that stuff in Delta, but nothing like you saw it elsewhere. Nothing. It was all about And there were some legendary team team leaders. Some of them were absolute Nazis. Absolute Nazis about stuff like you're supposed to be in
at 8:00 going you on the range. You were firing the first shot when 8:00 hit. Gotcha. Not show up and we're heading to The range at 8. You're on the range pulling the trigger and the first bullets going down range when 8:00 hits. And the dude there were Olympic and you've seen them too. you were in the CLC, you've seen what I'm talking about. Olympic level athletes. I mean, guys were I still can't believe some of the physical accomplishments that they would do. Yeah. And guys who were Olympic level athletes in in organizations, you you've
Seen it. I've seen it. I mean, you're you're a stud to get in that organization to begin with, but guys that are on this level. Wow. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get into some of your operations. Debt doesn't just show up one day. It builds little by little. Credit cards, car loans, medical bills, and suddenly you're juggling payments, feeling stuck. But here's the good news. You're not Stuck. You just need a reset. At American Financing, they help homeowners like you every day. They use your home's equity and roll that highinterest
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These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. All right, Larry, we're back from the break. We covered OC OTC. You're at the unit. You're in a squadron. How long are you there before you go on your first Operation? So, I got there summer of 89 and we ended up doing Panama December of ' 89. So, six months. Six months and you're on your first mission. Yep. And we'd heard scuttlebutt that there was a guy, we heard it was a CIA guy that was held in Panama in a prison
and there was people working on it in in terms of a rescue mission and it followed the squadrons in terms of when you were on Alert cycle, you would work on the mission And and then when you came off alert cycle, it would go to the next squadron, you would hand it off and they would they would develop the plan and and um rehearse and they'd tweak it and then when they came off alert cycle, they'd hand it off to the next next, you know, hey, this is what we got. And we didn't know if
it would ever happen because it was all part of the bigger picture in terms of it was called Blue spoon and eventually became just cause and it was going down to overthrow nor his government is really what it was. The Kurt Muse rescue was a piece of that because one George Bush senior had made it a priority. Hey, we're going to rescue this guy. And we knew he was held in in Mandela Prison, which is the number was the premier prison in Panama City. I mean, it was basically their model prison or whatever you want
to call it. It was the number one prison in the country. And he that's where he was being held. And it was a block away from the Command Dansia, which is essentially the Panameanian Pentagon. So it was basically in right in the heart of the belly of the beast, for lack of a better term. And we knew if we didn't get him at the beginning, he was going to be killed as soon as the the Invasion went off. So the just cause was initiated by the rescue operation to get Kurt Muse out. that started the
sequence of events that became just cause in the whole w countrywide effort to overthrow Noran his government. Can you describe what was going on in Panama at the time? Well, a lot of you know at one time Nora was basically an ally of the United States. Well, that flipped. The guy's corrupt. I mean, he just I mean, he was A [ __ ] bird. And there was a lot of unrest. There was a lot of tension between the Americans and and the Panameanians. And it was escalating. It just over time it just got worse and
worse and worse. And it all came to a head when just before Just Cause kicked off, A Squadron was on our alert cycle. We'd been training for the Medela prison raid cuz we'd had got a Hand off and we were putting our, you know, tweaking it, putting our our, you know, touches to the mission. We'd been rehearsing it. Um, where there was a I want to say a Marine lieutenant that was killed at a checkpoint. I want to say right near the common. They they started harassing a guy. If memory serves me correct, the way
it worked was he was in a a a vehicle with a couple other military, you know, personnel and he kind of they Kind of went through this checkpoint and one of the Panamanians shot at him and hit him and killed him. [ __ ] Killed this Marine lieutenant. I think it was a marine, but I know for a fact it was a US military personnel lieutenant and was killed. I remember hearing about that on the news and I went, "Oo, this is not going to go well." And sure enough, our beeper went off like that.
And I went, "Oh, I got to go in." And we went in. I saw Elden Bargewell, the squadron commander, MV SOG Legend, and he said, "Blue Spoon's going down two days from now." Like, whoa. And we got on the birds, and we were down. We were the first ones down to Howard Air Force Base before all JOC came down and basically descended and SOCOM. JC and and SOCOM descended on Howard Air Force Base and established that as a you know an HQ for the special operations piece of Just Cause and this had been building up
for a while. We've been doing rehearsals. I had some pretty major rehearsals for it. Basically, like I said, it was called Operation Blue Spoon and then became Just Cause. And by the way, it's called Acid Gambit now or we I never heard during the mission ever heard the the the terms acid gambit. Never did. It was only till later, much later. And I'm not sure why that is. You know what I mean? What were you guys What was the the FTXis for? I mean, did you did you guys have I know what they were for.
Did you guys have a layout of the prison? Did you know where he was? I mean, how Nat's ass was the intelligence coming back from you guys to you guys to plan this? There had been an army doctor who had been allowed to go in and see him. I don't think it was once a week. I Think it was once a month. And he was in there 9 months. I think it was once a month this army doctor was was able to go in and check on his health and welfare and the army doctor was
debriefed extensively every time he came back. So we started getting really good intel on where he was held inside the prison, you know, what condition he was in, the layout of the prison. We were able to get some really good intel from this army doctor. We would do flybys when we were down there initially. We we went down initially b to train up. Um we would do flybys with helicopters and look at the top of the prison from a distance and kind of you know take photos and whatnot and kind of get the layout of
the top of the prison, you know, cuz it was right next to Howard Air Force Base. It was right next to it. So it was totally plausible for Helicopters to be flying near nearby, not right over the prison. Uhhuh. But nearby and we would get visual on the Koopa at the top and the in the door on the Koopa and all that kind of stuff. So we had substantial amount of intel. And would you guys I mean I know that there are certain units that can basically build a damn near an exact mockup of the
target that they're getting ready to hit. Were you guys did you guys have that capability at that Time? Yeah, we did. Um, but we had a great tabletop layout. I think the CIA built it. I'm pretty sure they did. I assume they still have it at the unit was on display, but we had a great tabletop layout, you know, model. There was a big Blue Spoon operation down in Florida and they built a mockup of the prison down there. They built an entire mockup. build an entire mockup. Prison is four stories. Remember serves Me correct.
There's pictures of it online. I'd have to look, but I think the prison's four stories. They were only able to complete three stories before we did the the rehearsal, but they had a re they had a mockup of the prison that built down on uh Eglund Air Force Base, and that's where we did the rehearsal out of. And then we hit the prison. That was a part of the big blue spoon rehearsal. Did They Did they move Muse to different cells every time the doctor would come back? No, they settled I believe initially they they
were moving him around. But he got settled in on the, if memory serves me correct, the second floor. We had to go down two floors to get to him. The second floor they settled him into one spot. He was kind of in the VIP prison cell by himself and yeah, we we'd heard he was kind of in a VIP a little bit bigger Prison cell, whatnot, but he was being held in, you know, we knew where he was at the doctor and he'd been there a while in that in that cell. Wow. And the doctor
That's actually pretty [ __ ] surprising. Yeah. that they wouldn't move him around every single time the doctor came just to, you know, to not have you guys have an exact replica of where he's at. You know, in hindsight, I really don't think they even Visualized us coming into that prison to get him. No kidding. Yeah. I just think that cuz if you look at it from a layman's point of view, we're going to break into a prison and get somebody out. is kind of like seriously how the hell is going to that going to
happen? Well, I'm wondering the same damn thing to be honest with you. So, so you go down to Panama, you you you you guys got a mockup in Florida, you wind up in Panama, you're doing Flybys, you're gathering intel. Let's talk about Muse. Who was he? He was an American good guy, by the way. We're personal friends now. He's he calls all the guys that were on the mission every the anniversary every year. December 20th, he calls him on every single person and thanks him for their for rescuing him. Great guy. American civilian down there.
Kind of involved in the community. Very anti-NOGA. Kind of Started an anti-NOGA cell, so to speak. Cell doing what? You know, disruptive activities towards the regime. Like the most famous one was Noriega was going to give a speech and right in the middle of the speech they cut in with anti-orea propaganda over the over the radio. That's the one that's the most famous one they did. Um exact timeline on that I'm not sure but that Kurt said that's The one that really put them on the radar screen. Mhm. was when they did that, you know,
now General Norie is going to speech or speak. Bam, they cut in and they're giving out their propaganda against him. So, he was a dependent. His wife worked as a school teacher on Howard Air Force Base. So, he was a military civilian dependent. She was a, you know, mil she was civilian, DoD civilian. and he was a Dependent of her. You had mentioned earlier that you had heard that he was a CIA asset or a CIA guy. Was was he I you know he talking to Kurt he said the only support he got from them
was real late in the game. He he met um some agency guys in Miami to get radio equipment to help his cause. That's what Curts told us. I have no reason to believe otherwise. I mean, he's never given me a reason to like, you know, he was an agency guy and he's Kind of operating undercover or whatnot. I've never gotten that from him, so I can't speak to other than what he said is late in the game he got some assistance from them. Well, I think that pretty much paints the picture then. I mean, I
don't think the CIA is just handing out equipment. Good point. valid point. But and so he was disrupting he it was basically propaganda against Noriega. Yep. How many people had he massed? Do You have any idea? You know, I only think a handful because he's obviously stayed in touch with them. Mhm. I think there was a handful of guys and he mentions how he got rolled up was basically Noriega went back to his, you know, basically bribed people, hey, give him up and one of the wives, if memory serves me correct, one of the wives
of his guys, his network gave him up and that's how he got up. Yeah. Through a broad. What were they doing to him in Prison? Anything? No, I don't think they really did much. I think psychological warfare, but I don't think they ever did anything physical like that. I do remember, I don't know if you've ever heard of this or not, there was a coup attempt against Noriega by some Panameanian Defense Force officers and they actually captured and they had Noriega under house arrest. Noriega was able to talk his way out of It. Those officers
got scarfed up. I think they were later executed, but Kurt talked about, if memory serves me correct, talked about one of the um officers being strung up to the basketball goal out in the common area of the prison and being tortured. But I don't think Kurt ever went through any of that. I think he was just psychological warfare. Now, I'm pretty confident he never was physically abused. How prepared for the mission did you feel? More prepared than any other mission I've been involved with, bar none. We rehearsed it, went over it, refined it, rehearsed it,
went over it, refined it to the nth degree. Nth degree. Yeah. We that up to, you know, of my time in the military was the gold standard in terms of preparation for a specific operation. At what point did you guys get the green light? Um, once that lieutenant was killed and you know beeper went off, I went in. I remember seeing Colonel Bargewell squadron commander. I was going in to fill up my cantens and he's going blue spoons going down to you know 24 or 48 hours from now. I was like whoa. And I knew
Blue Spoon going down, which became Just Cause, meant we were going to initiate Modella Prison, you know, right before the actual um Invasion kicked off. I knew that's what that meant. What was the briefing like? Well, everybody knew what they were going to do because we'd been rehearsing it. It was A2. Actually, it was more than just A2 troop. It was a sniper troop as well. A1 troop was on a basically on standby to react to any of Noriega's henchmen that popped up so they could respond and you know scarf them up. Never really Happened
by the way but that's what they were standing by for A1 troop A2 troop was involved in the assault and A3 troop the sniper troop was involved in the operation as well and they basically provided security on top of the prison. So this was legitimately just A2 and some snipers. Yeah, A2 troop and all the sniper troop. How how many guys? 23. I say all, not all. Mo majority. 23 went on The prison. Went on the roof. And with Muse coming out, it's 24. [ __ ] How I mean, how big was this prison? Um,
it's pretty good size. I mean, it's pretty good size. If you research it on the internet, I'm sure you can find some pictures of it. It's pretty big. Yeah. We'll overlay it right now as we're talking on doing our best to try to find the picks. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get them. But I mean, how what were you guys Expecting? Well, we got word somewhere along the line that they ramped up and they expected if we were going to try to rescue him, it was from the ground. So, there was PDF kind of housed on the
ground floor in the prison and an adjacent building. PDF Panameanian Defense Force. Yep. Yep. Panameanian Defense Force. They were housed down there in theory for a rescue Attempt for Kurt Muse and they so they were expecting this. They were expecting it, anticipating it and knew it was a possibility and they expected us to come in on the ground floor. And so what was go time like when you got down there? Well, we knew initially it was going to be I want to say 45 minutes before the invasion kicked, but it ended up being 15 minutes
before the actual invasion kicked Off. Um, we got situated on the B. I remember we were down there. You know, we were down there like I told you before anybody and then all these J-As people come in, SOCOC people and and I remember dude the night before I didn't sleep a wink and I'm sure nobody else did either. Wasn't scared, was just anxious, edge of my seat, going over in my head over and Over and over and over my my role, what I was going to do, my actions, just over and over and over. And
I'm going to tell you what else, too. We started getting briefed by the pilots in terms of, okay, if the chopper goes down and we're injured and you need to shut down the rotors, this is how you do it. And I remember looking around the faces of the other guys and dude everybody had their game face on. I mean it was it was for real. And I remember Colonel Bargewell Mog legend the distinguished service cross MOG. I'd heard scuttlebutt we heard scuttlebutt. He was actually put in for the medal of honor and it was downgraded
to the DSC partially because he was a real rebel in in MOG. That's what we had heard. I don't doubt it. But I remember him talking to us going, you know, I can see you guys. I've seen this face before. I had it when I was in Vietnam. Everything is going to be fine. We're going to get in There and get him. We're going to get out. You guys are going to be good to go. Was it a night op? Oh yeah. 0 0 45 hours 15 minutes before 1 in the morning. And we were
out on the lined up four little birds. Interestingly enough, except for one bird, we had six dudes. Two birds had two pilots, three guys on each pod. Other two birds had Two one pilot and three guys on each side except for one spot for Kurt Muse. And they had skeletonized the bird, taken out everything. One pilot there. He I heard him talking about the other day um had one round in his pistol. He didn't even have a full magazine ammo. We weighed in every day our our kit. I mean I I didn't we didn't even
have a hard Plate. Yeah. On our body armor. We took the hard Yeah. I'm dead serious. Every single day we weighed in to make sure that our weight was exactly where it needed to be every day because the weight was that critical because they wanted as many bodies in there as possible in case things just totally went sideways. You wanted more bodies, more delta operators than less. So it went down that critical and they skeletonized the birds. I'd heard Scuttlebutt and I'm pretty sure this was debunked and I don't think this actually happened. They started
the bird and then took the battery out to save weight. I later heard that was [ __ ] I think that was discussed, but it wasn't actually done. Wow. Yeah. So, it was sass. It was that close in terms of weight. You take off. I mean, this is just I mean, this is your first real world op hostage rescue mission in Panama. That's [ __ ] crazy, man. Well, and what's interesting, I'll never forget it. Guy went through selection with went through selection with him, went through OTC, went to a squadron with him, and now
we're on the mission together. We're on the pods, you know, sitting on the bench seat on the pod. He's right here and he's going to be on the roof with a mag. I actually go into prison. I'm one of the guys that go in. I was actually the first guy to go in through the prison door. Uh, and I'll get to that in a minute. But he looked at me, I looked at him. He stuck his hand out. I shook his hand. No words were said. Nothing need to be said. Never forgot it. I mean,
it was game time. Nothing needed to be said. I'll never forget it. And then we took off. Interestingly enough, I think It's the school that Kurt Muse's wife actually taught at. We flew over a school on Howard Air Force Base. It is a school that we did a rehearsal on. We did a rehearsal on it and one of the little birds had hit a tail rotor and a shnook had to come in before daytime. A shnook had to come in and lift it off and get it off the top of the school. And this was,
you know, a few weeks before, two weeks before, Whatever the case may, but it was a a rehearsal site and we flew right over that school. So, it was kind of like deja vu. Wow. came in. I was on bird number two going in and there was birds behind us. Two birds behind us. We'd gotten word that in the major intersection right going down to the common dansia and in the prisons over here there was a machine gun set up. There was PDF. They had to be dealt with or they were going to fire at
the birds coming by. Well, we had a sniper team that came down. They came down off a hill overlooking the, you know, the intersection. Guy had a bolt gun. Guy had a mag. Guy had a uh three dudes. Guy had an M203. And the theory was they're in position. They're in overwatch. And as soon as they see one of the PDF do this, They're going to light them up. And what I understood happened was the first two birds go over. I was in bird number two. The first two birds go over. There was nobody in
the intersection cuz I remember looking. I was on the right side. I remember looking looking for anybody. There was nobody there. We went over. They heard the birds. Then they come out and then they're going to shoot at the the second set of birds, bird three And four. And they got lit up by the guys in the overwatch position. Interestingly enough, never forget this, Christmas lights on the top of the prison. This is December 20th, 1989. Right before Christmas, there's Christmas lights. I'll never forget it. Wow. And we were off set from the prison. And
then the pilots did this number and then got in line and the line landed right on top of the prison and it peeled off. I got in position by the Koopa. had uh security position looking through the window down the stairs, the coupoop on top and uh and then the second two set of birds came in. They dispersed. Breacher on my team went up to put a charge up and in the process of of pulling the, you know, the time fuse, he knocked the charge down and it fell right in front of me about from
me to you. And I was like, what is that? I didn't even, you know what I mean? It Didn't even dawn on me. It was the charge. Fortunately, when he went to pull it and he didn't ignite it, he did not ignite the time fuse. That probably would have killed me. If memory serves me correct, it was a C6 charge, which was P for plenty, brother. I mean, we were not going to take any chance of getting in that door. It was P for plenty. probably would have killed me cuz I I ended up going
from Being the guy looking through the window. Now I'm going to be the number one guy, you know, going through the door. And uh I was down on the knee and I was like, "What is that?" I couldn't believe it. And I remember my team sergeant came up and goes, "Hey man, get the backup charge ready." Cuz I had a backup charge. And I go, "Why am I going to get the backup charge ready?" Cuz the breacher's right there. Well, then the breacher went back around and he said, "Hey, come." He basically had me come
up for the cover. I covered him on the door. He put the charge back up. We initiated. And dude, it was a boom. I'll never forget it. It was a boom. When I was looking in the Koopa window, the lights were on. I thought the charge knocked out the lights and it was because it was pitch black. What actually had happened, the snipers, the support guys had hit the generator and killed the lights. I Didn't know that till later. They killed the lights in the prison so it was pitch black. I come around. Door is
long gone on the Koopa. I step in. There's no landing. Sean, the Here's the door. The steps go right up to the door. There's no landing like this where you step in and then go down the steps. It goes right up the door like you know out here you guys got. There's none. So I almost by the grace of God I don't know how I didn't trip cuz it's pitch black. I'm Walking into it and by the grace of God somehow I didn't trip. Went down. The guys are following me and people are like why
are you number one man? I was the most expendable guy. It's that simple. I was the new guy on F team. F team and G team were going in. F team secured the inside the route inside the prison stairwell the hallway that kind of stuff. G team was the ones that are going to extract him. They're going to be the team that gets him out. So, you Basically set up a corridor. Yeah, we did. Went down. Basically, me I can't remember who it was. Me and another guy held that first stairwell. G team followed, fled,
you know, went past us. Then I go down to the next stairwell. There was actually a room that we were going to clear. Well, we didn't clear it cuz it was padlocked. We're like, "Okay, not really a threat. Chances are nobody's in there because it's padlocked from the outside." So, we Didn't clear it. And I was standing there on the stairs. And then about then the C130 starts lighting up the common [ __ ] Yeah. Yep. Spectre starts lighting up the common dansia and it was loud and I could see right out the window. I
mean, right there. I'd look right there and I could see the common dansia getting lit up by this by the uh spectre and because they had given us x amount of time. I I don't I'm not sure How much time it was, but not long. Maybe 5 minutes, maybe not. Who knows? I don't even remember. Um, I mean, it was not long at all to get in, get situated, and then they were going to start lighting up comia. So, they started lighting it up. We're holding the stairwell. Somebody, a PDF guy, a guard or whatever,
poked his head around. Um, Gary Herrell was there. He was the troop commander. He shot at him. I think he Missed him. Pretty calm. He claimed later he thought he hit him, but I'm pretty sure he missed him. Not that because the guy took off and then they came out with Muse. They put a C4 charge on his door and blew it blew the door wide open. There was a guard that had told Kurt if there was a rescue attempt, he was going to kill him. Because Kurt, I think, asked him, "Hey, if there's a
rescue attempt for Me, what are you going to do?" And he goes, "I'll kill you." This guy was in the room right across from Kurt. So, the priority was to get down to Kurt as soon as possible to beat this guy, you know, before this guy gets his situational awareness, figures out what's going on, goes over to Kurt's cell and kills him. You guys knew that before you went? Yeah, we knew it. Yep. Was he in the cell across? Yeah, he was. He was in the room across. He was In the room across and they
G team went in and killed him. Yep. He was armed with a pistol. I think the guy I think he was in his shower if memory serves me correct. G team found him in the shower. I think the guy went for his pistol. Already had a pistol in his hand. They killed him. Yep. They got Muse out. They brought in a little, you know, kit aviator kit bag and had body armor and a helmet. You know, a body armor and a a Kevlar helmet. Peeled him out. I remember seeing him go up the stairs. Couple
things. We get up, we tell them, hey, you know, PC secure to get the extraction birds out. The reason the book's called 6 minutes to freedom because from when we touched down to when we called, you know, PC secure called for Xville was 6 minutes. Just not that we were, you know, it's just the way it worked out. Not like we had a set time standard or Anything like that. It just happened. It was six minutes from when we sat down on top of the prison to when we were ready to Xfill with Kurt Muse
was six minutes. Wow. We were at the very top. You know what I mean? Stairwell. I remember I was here. Kurt Muse is here and that door is here. The Dude, I'll never forget this as long as I live. It got quiet for a minute. I don't know how long. Like the C130 maybe was, you know, taking a loop around. didn't have a, you know, clear Field of fire, whatever. Got quiet and you could hear the prisoners screaming. And when you hear somebody screaming who honest to God thinks they're going to die is a it's
a sound you'll never forget. And I'll never forget it. It's nothing like you see in a movie or any of that other [ __ ] These people were convinced they were going to die and they're trapped in these prison Cells. And I'll never forget that sound. Damn. Yep. So, we go up birds land. I was on bird two. They get Muse on bird one. They put him in, you know, inside the bird. He's not on the pods. They put him inside the bird and then they they G team who rescued him and then they're exfilling
with him. I remember I got on the pod. I was like high-fiving. I didn't even bother To hook up, but my the combo guy hooked me up, thank God. But I'm high-fiving. I go, we got him, you know, yada yada yada. Well, the bird lifts up and bird one kind of does this number over the prison wall and goes into the blackness. I mean, it's pitch dark. You can't see them. Go. There was a um cemetery right beside us. We lift up. We go over and I see muzzle flash. Dude shooting at us. And I'm
I didn't get a beat on him, but I put some rounds down At him to get him. And then muzzle flash stopped. I don't I'm pretty confident I did not hit the guy, but I at least got him to duck. So, he's no longer shooting at a bird. Yeah. We lose track of bird one. We go back to Howard Air Force Base. We land. I'm like, awesome. Bird one went down. Bird one with Kurt Muse went down. What happened was they were serious. They had two pilots. They had six dudes with Kurt Muse. They were
seriously overloaded. And the pilot tried to gain speed and kick back up, but he there was power lines. So he was worried about hitting the power lines. So he sets down on a road, a street right on the other side of the cemetery. Well, four guys from G Team jump off and get out. And they're pulling security. The pilot like waves him back. Come on. Cuz he's going to go down. He's Essentially going down the street to gain, you know, air speed and then he's going to lift off. Well, they get back on. Three of
the four guys don't hook back up. So that becomes critical here in a minute. Anyway, they go down. He takes a left on this street and he starts to lift up and they bird gets hit. Crashes. One guy, three of the guys all fell off. One guy was still the team Leader was still he was hooked in so he was good to go. And Muse who's in the back is good to go. And there was a guy from my team. My 2IC assistant team leader was basically with him escorting him. He was fine too. Bird
goes down, breaks the right strut off. The right strut had landed. One of the guys who fell off and landed on his foot. He lost his big toe. I want to say on his right foot. He lost his big toe and never he stayed in the unit, But you can imagine when you lose a big toe, dude. You're never the same. Two of the other guys on the other side got shot. One guy got shot in the leg. One guy got shot at the very bottom of the body armor. They got hit. Bird goes down,
tilts to the side. The pilots are doing their best to to stop the rotors. There's a rotor still going. Muse gets out. My team assistant team leader who's escorting Muse gets out with him. He didn't duck down far enough. my Assistant team leader. He gets clipped upside the head as protek with the rotor. Knocks him out. He goes down, knocks him out. He wakes up. Here's Muse laying down prone and he, you know, he immediately freaks out. Muse, Muse. He thinks Muse is dead. He wasn't. What happened was Muse sees him go down, so he
mimics him. He's, "Oh man, he must have gotten shot. I'm gonna get down prone." So he they both get out of there. They go and they kind of hunker Around the station wagon. If memory serves me correct, there was a station wagon. They hunker around. Team leader hunkers them around. Gets the wounded guys over there. Muse is there. Um my assistant team leader who's, you know, got clipped upside the head whose bell is rung. They, you know, they kind of hole up around this vehicle. They some Panameanians are coming out. Muse tells him Spanish. He
speaks magnificent Spanish. To get the [ __ ] out of there. Um, team leader is on the radio telling him what happened. Elden Bargewell, squadron commander, still on top of the prison. What had happened was one of the guys on bird three or four did not get on the bird. Not sure who it was, but he didn't get on the bird. He missed the Xfill. He was left behind. Elen Bargewell sees this. He jumps off, grabs a machine Gunner with him. Guy armed with an M60, and they set up on top and and Elen Marge
is on the, you know, on the horn. He's on the radio dictating what's going on. Well, he hears Elen Bargewell hears the team leader call, hey, you know, bird one's down. So once again, remember how I told you we rehearsed this thing to the nth degree. We had ground forces coming in basically in APCs that were rolling in and we're Going to basically swarm the area and sure enough they rolled in. We had Delta medics and APC and they rolled up to the guys, peeled them in. Delta medics started working on them on the spot.
Boom. took them up to Xville to get Xfield to uh Kazvak station on Howard Air Force Base. Damn. Yep. We had all that wired for sound. In case a bird goes down, we have to Xville. Birds can't come in to get us out. We got to Xville off the side of The prison via fast rope. How are we going to do that? So, we had this whole Xville procedure down and work like a champ. contingency program, contingency plan. I remember hearing later the uh because it was conventional forces that were doing this, the APC guys,
right? I mean, it wasn't us operating it. It was the So, we got it. They got attached to us. And I remember hearing some of them go, "Oh, I mean, one guy goes, "Dude, I knew it Wasn't going to be good." When I saw these guys show up in Protex and black body armor, I knew this wasn't going to be good. Yeah, he showed up in black body armor and protex and man, I go, I just knew this wasn't be going to be good. But yeah, they uh, you know, moved in. Good thing they did
cuz a good friend of mine was shot in the leg. Really good guy. Um, probably would have bled to death almost certainly if he Hadn't gotten medical treatment that quick. Damn. Yeah, he probably would have bled to death. But they were on him in no time. scarfed them up in the APCs and took off. Then uh Blackhawk came in and got Elden Bargewell, machine gunner, and the other guy out of there. It took a lot of fire. And then what happened was if your bird was out of action, you were out of action for the
oper for the the entire mission. Just cause you were done. So that bird went back. It hovered over the prison. It took fire from the common dansy area, it took hits and uh when it by the time he got back to Howard Air Force Base, the bird was done. That was it. Deadline for the rest of the mission. So that pilot and that bird was out of the fight after that. How did Kurt get back? Um Kurt went in, landed basically with the APCs cuz they Lifted off. What happened was the APCs went up to
this top of this hill adjacent to where those guy remember the dudes I told you the Overwatch team they came down from that hill. They went up to the top of that got on Blackhawk and then they took off and went back to Howard Air Force Base before he left Howard Air Force Base going back to the United States. He asked to go see the guys that were wounded in the Kazak hospital and he Did. He went in and said, "Hi, thank you for rescuing me, you know, saving my life." That whole thing. And then
he went on a bird and he was back to the States in no time. Did you meet him? No, not then. No, I didn't. Didn't meet him till actually quite a bit later when he came to Aquadron. came to the unit a squadron and briefed his side of, you know, of the mission leading up to it, all that. What did he have to say? Well, he kind Of laid out very articulate guy, very articulate, well spoken. Um, he kind of laid out everything that happened from his point of view. you know, how it led up
to it, how he got captured, you know, his time in the prison, his perspective for the rescue, that whole nine yards. He laid out all that stuff from his point of view, his his timeline and his his perspective on how the whole thing went Down. What was that like to meet him? It was pretty cool. I We all dug it. We had, you know, I was telling Scott about this on the way up here. Um, we had a picture. The damn guy who took the photo, the whole thing was out of focus. All the guys
that were on the mission got a picture with in a squadron classroom. Got a picture with uh Muse. The whole goddamn thing was out of focus. Everything was Blurry. And instead of taking multiple, you know what? It was one of those. Got it. Yeah. Instead of taking multiple pictures, I mean, it's like, come on, dude. So it was useless. Picture was useless. But yeah, it was pretty cool meeting him. I'll bet getting him out of there. So that was the only thing that's trumped me making selection was rescuing him out of in Modella prison. I
mean, what was it like with the team After that mission? Very tight. Tight-knit. The guy who got hit in the head, um, my 2IC never really recovered. He had the injuries. I mean, he's basically never really recovered from that. He had major headaches, that kind of stuff. Bad thing is about 6 months later we are back down in Panama doing Jungle Train and we got on we were about ready to do an impromptu mission on a suspected drug um site, you know, Basically, you know, jungle drug operation and Elden Bargewell kind of set it up.
It was an impromptu mission. We were going to go hit it. We lift off in the Blackhawk. All of a sudden, we hear these pops. Oh, almost like the bird had been shot. It wasn't. It was one of the engines that went out. So, we start crashing down in the jungle, right? He's sitting on an ammo box. Him and a couple other guys are sitting on an ammo box and the bird Comes down, hits, and it it compacts his spine and he basically never walked again. Same guy who got clipped in the head by 2IC.
never walked again. He was wheelchair bound after that. Damn. Yeah. Bird come. I was on the bird. Just so happened I was sitting by a guy. We were looking to Ford looking through the the windshield of the bird and the pilots are doing this stuff to try to keep the bird under control coming down through the jungle. And Um laid my first of three Hilo crashes. Um and he laid back like this and I just so happened to lay back. So when we hit Am I was laying flat against the against the floor of the
bird like that. The only thing I was looking forward and my head bounced off the floor and knocked me out temporarily. [ __ ] My teammate who was beside me, he remained conscious. There was a fire. The bird had caught on fire. Everybody else was knocked out out Of action. He got up, got a um fire extinguisher and put the fire out. Basically saved everybody's life. Never got a single award for that. Never got a sing. He should have got a soldiers medal for that. Never got [ __ ] Damn. And Delta is real bad
about that. Um and I'm sure they are to this day. the old analogy that um I think it was Skooacher used commander General Colonel Skumacher said um firemen don't Get awards for going to fires. That's was his quote. You signed up for this organization. You're expected to do these things and when you do those things, you're not going to get awards for it. We got bronze stars. The guys in the mission all got bronze stars with Vice. the exception of the team leader that rallied the guy his team around the with Muse, he got a
silver star. Melvin Barwell told us we were in We were in a classroom or whatever. He goes, "If this had been Vietnam, in Vietnam, you guys would have all gotten silver stars, which means that team leader would have got DSC. If this had been Vietnam, you all would have got silver stars." And I remember at the time going, "Uh, and sure enough, he at looking at it back on hindsight, he's right. That's exactly what would have happened." Wow. Yeah, they that guy who put the fire out Didn't get anything. Nothing. Didn't get a solders's medal.
Didn't you know barely got a thank you. It's like for real. Damn. And their units was real bad about that. And I'm sure they still are. Like you know that pain got the metal honor out of the unit. I'm going to tell you what, for that guy to get the Medal of Honor and still be alive out of Delta Force, I can only imagine what that guy had to do to get that award. I we're talking about superhuman [ __ ] out of That organization to get the Medal of Honor because the other two guys
that ever got it went in Somalia, Randy Schugart and Gary Gordon. What they did, of course, cost them their lives. But what they did was so far above and beyond in order to get that medal, it wasn't even close. It was a I remember um General Downey came over and he goes, "You guys need to put put those guys in for the Medal of Honor." Wow. in Somalia. So for him to get the Medal of Honor, I've never met Payne. I'd love to meet him, but for him to get the Medal of Honor and be
alive out of Delta Force, dude, he probably earned it three or four times over. And the unit, like I told you, the unit has been real bad about that. Really bad when I was in. Really bad. What was it like when you guys got back to the States? Beldon Bargewell had a talk with us, you know, and this is a guy M vog legend. We All just And I remember I said something the other day. I am glad Elen Bargewell was on that roof. There was one other officer, Gary Gary Herrell was there. Um he
was the troop commander. Elen Barwell was there. I am glad he was there because of his experience. The guy had seen I mean Zach Mog legend. He had a big talk with us and he said, "Look, I want you guys to understand something. You're coming back here. You're going to go home. You're Going to be with your family, your wives. You guys have done something. That's as high as it gets. Need to understand they haven't. So you have to come in and adapt to them. They don't need to adapt to you. what you've done for
your country. They, you know, your country can't ask for more. But you need to understand they haven't done that. They haven't been through what you've been through. And You need to you need to go home and adapt to that. They don't need to adapt to you. You need to adapt to them. Remember he had that talk with us. I always hung on every word he'd ever say. I mean, literally, he would get us together and talk to us in the squadron classroom about whatever it might be. And I would I would pay attention to every
single word that guy said. Like I told you, he's the guy Before the mission that said, "I'm looking at you guys. I I recognize, you know, everything's going to be okay. You guys are going to be fine. We're going to get him out of there. Some of your and I remember him saying, "Some of your buddies may get hurt, but they're going to be okay. Man, that's pretty [ __ ] incredible, man. Six minutes. 6 minutes. Yeah. From when we landed at Call Xville. Wow. In a prison. In a Prison. Yep. There's a lot of
people along the way like that doctor that contributed stuff. It's hard to measure how important that was. That intel that that doctor gave us. It's hard to measure that because we had this, okay, if he's not in that cell, where's he at? We got to start searching the prison for this guy. So for him to go in there and give us that solid intel, you know, in intelligence on where he's at, what status is, you know, what kind of mental, you know, what kind of mind frame he's at physically, what's he like? That kind of
stuff was in, you know, was off the chart. We talked to him, too. He came back to the unit one time and briefed us. Damn, man. That's impressive. Yeah, dude. I'll never forget it. I can Tell. Yeah, I get pretty choked up over it as you can tell. It's kind of hard to fight back the, you know, the emotions because there's a few things along there that really bring them out. That's just crazy, too. You know, the apex of your career right off the bat. Oh, I know, dude. You know, a little over a year
after, you know, finishing selection and finished at October of, you know, 88 months. Well, OTC 6 months. selection 88 October of 88 And then to follow you know fast forward a year two months December 20th ' 89 damn 6 months right now here's the thing remember I told you it was become critical thank god I went to selection that fall because if I waited the spring I'd have missed the whole thing about that remember I told you how that became critical that's why because I you know initially My head was, I'll wait a year. And
then I just said, "No, no, no. I'm Going to go in the fall. I'm going to do it." Damn. Damn. And everything just fell into place. Where do you go from there? Well, we went hunting Scuds in Iraq. I mean, which in itself was awesome, but never to the point of Modella Prison. How were you guys doing that? Well, once again, Elden Bargewell saw how things were schooling up in Kuwait because that developed over A period of time. He had the the foresight to go, you know, we need to be doing desert mobility operations, you
know, we need to be doing that. So, we went on training. God, where did we go? Was it Yuma? No, I think it was 29 Palms. went to 29 Palms and did desert mobility operations training up just in case there we had no mission set. We had no this is what you're getting ready for. He just said he had the foresight to go You know what we may get in a situation with what's going on over there. We may need to do desert mobility operations to operate behind enemy lines. We need to go train on
this. And we went out had a major exercise training, you know, basically sorting out a lot of bugs, shaking a lot of the bugs out, you know, getting things sorted out so we knew what the hell we were doing cuz we' done some of nothing like what we needed to be in order to go over and execute in a Combat zone. So we went out, shook over and went to 29 Palms. If memory serves me correct, that's where we went. Um, and I could be wrong on that, but regardless, we went into a area out
west and worked on desert mobility. He had the foresight to do that. He was the only squadron commander that did. B squadron and C squadron, didn't see that coming. Schwarzoff, who ended, of course, being in charge of the coalition For Desert Storm, very anti- special ops. Did you know that? I didn't. Yeah. very anti based on his experience in Vietnam. Kind of saw him as cowboys was not a fan of SF. What flipped the script for him was we had the Delta operators were his VIP protection detail. Now he had a AIC he had a
who was an Air Force I think officer but all the guys in in the detail other than that were all Delta Force operators and He was so impressed with them and their professionalism that that left an impression on him in terms of what Delta was all about. Then that was one piece of the puzzle. The last piece of the puzzle is when the Iraqis started launching Scuds in Israel and the Israelis were I've been told this and I was this has been confirmed. I asked some people about this and he said, "Yeah, this is absolutely
what happened. The Israelis Were on the airfields ready to launch into Iraq, which would would have blown the coalition to pieces and they said, "You guys can stand down. we have our best people going in there to deal with these Scuds. And they said, "Who's that?" And they go, "Delta Force." They said, and the Israelis stood down. I I'd heard that and I went and I asked some people in the Department of Defense, you know, up the Food chain said, "Oh yeah, that's absolutely 100% what happened." So combine our preparation visav bargewell saying we need
to get ready for desert mobility Schwarzoff's impression of Delta based on you know the VIP protection he had and then the decision from the command authority national command authority to send in Delta to hunt for these Scuds that all lined up and A squadron was back in the you know Back in the lead again. How were you guys hunting Scots? Went in um got there in in Saudi Arabia way up close to the border or real really close to the border. Got our ducks in a row, went in via helicopter way deep into Iraq up
by the MSR main supply route. And the theory was they were bringing these Scuds down the MSR. They would branch off the MSR, set up, and then launch into Israel. So what we did, we went up there, find some places to hide, which was a [Music] [ __ ] cuz most of the train up there is as flat as a pool table. Mhm. So we went up, laid down, laid low during the day. And when we go down, you know, we would pull down south of the MSR, lay low down in some, you know, gullies
and whatnot. And then when it turned dark, We would go back up to the MSR, drop off sniper teams. We'd withdraw back a little piece just before sunlight, we go back up, get the sniper teams, and come back down to our hide positions. And we did that night after night after night. Did you get any scuds? Yeah, we did. at the very end. At the very end, um there's a lot of intel after the fact that some of the Scuds we saw were actually decoys, but at the very end towards the, You know, at the
end of our tuition, we were out there 19 days. The the group out there for 19 days 19 days doing it. Yeah. We're before the ground invasion ever happened. We were out there for days before the ground invasion swept in. Um towards the very end we got in a position where we're moving up the MSR. We saw these vehicles kind of coming towards our position at an angle. We stopped kind of set ourselves up. Did One of these numbers got on binos and whatnot. We go this is some Iraqis. We think this is these guys
are coming in with Scuds getting ready to set up. Sure enough they were. Got on the horn of the Air Force. They started bringing in F-16s, the whole nine yards and started hammering their ass. And they were they were there for hours hammering them hours. And finally we went, we need to get out of Here because we just stirred up a hornets nest. We need to split. So we took off, went back out into our hide spot. We were hoping to get a a BDA, bomb damage assessment, so we go back up and see the
debris and what happened. Well, we never got it because the war basically came to an end. Wow. Yep. So, that happened right at the very end of our time there and then u the war ended and basically everything was on a Freeze. We were just waiting to get Xfilled. Damn. How long was that after Panama? Oh man, it was 91. So 90 89. So a year and a halfish. I'd have to look at the dates, but I'm going to say year and a half. Maybe not quite two years. What are you doing in the intro?
Training. Yeah, training. I remember I went to Philippines for a little bit. Did some VIP protection stuff over there. Training and whatnot. Doing the normal cycle, you know what I mean? The training cycle in the unit. type of thing. What happens after Iraq? Come back normal training cycle and then next thing was Somalia 93. Fast forward couple years. Big event. What's that? Big event. Oh yeah. Well, we had gotten this mission to go over there and hunt for a deeds in his henchmen like Sea Squadron did. And we Got it and we was going to
be a troop mission, I think. And we we had a [ __ ] bird commander in A squadron. I don't want to mention his name, but he was a [ __ ] bird. And he gave away the mission to C squadron. And it for whatever reason, God only knows why he gave away the mission to Ca Squadron. And I think his theory was, well, it's a troop mission now. If it bumps up to a squadron level mission, We'll get it back. Obviously, he was off his meds because like that's ever going to happen. Well, sure
enough, C Squadron gets it. They start rehearsing and they go, "Wait a minute. That troop's not big enough for this. What the hell?" and they bump it up to a squadron size mission and they end up deploying over to Somalia. I remember people were pretty buttthurt over that. I go, "Let me Explain something to you." That was actually fortunate. They What do you mean? I go, "Just think about October 3rd with our leadership and how bad that would have went." And they went, "Oh, yeah, you're right." I go, Squadron's leadership at the time much more
dialed in, much more squared away than we were at the upper. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, you know, troop level, team level. I Know what you're talking about. Just the leadership. Yeah. We're talking about this leadership up here that we had losers and I just said, you know, it would have been much worse. So, did you get over there after that had happened? Yeah, we went over after that to reinforce. [ __ ] man. Yeah, we went over after to reinforce. We got there two, three days later. Wasn't long when October 3rd went
down. We got spun up and went over. I mean, quick and we Were there just it was just a few days later. Yeah, we rolled in to reinforce. got a debrief on what happened, you know, on the third, the whole nine yards. Um, we were there actually for Yeah. the the the ceremony of the of the guys who were killed. We had Do you know those men? Yeah, I knew all the unit guys. Knew them all. Didn't know the Rangers or the Task Force 160 guys. Didn't know them, but I knew all the unit guys.
Absolutely. 100%. How was that? I mean, it was pretty spooky. Yeah, it was pretty somber. It was real somber, actually. Yeah, it was real somber cuz it was it was a pretty horrific event. Yeah. And there's I know you talked to Tom and whatnot. There's layers upon layers upon layers upon layers of stories that go along with that mission in terms of heroism that Probably should have got to Medal of Honor. Guys who honestly should have performed better, not really in the unit, but in the Ranger side. You may have heard some of that. I
don't know. Um there's a lot of nuances to that to what happened that day. A lot of nuances. What's happened over time is some of that's been forgotten. But when I was there, it was all fresh. And I got it from the guys Who were on the ground and they gave me a lot of information of stuff that went right and went wrong. A lot of lessons learned. found out that they were basically running those Hilos doing they were running them as if they were doing them in low light at night, but instead of looking
at it from, hey, wait a minute, we're up here in daylight. They can easily see where we're at and what we're doing. We need To we need to we need to change our tactics in terms of the Hilo operations to better reflect what's happening during the day. But they were doing it like as if it was at night. Damn. There was a lot of lessons learned out of that. It was a pretty I wouldn't say pretty. It was a very horrific event. Yeah. I did a very extensive interview with Tom Sadderly who's a really good
friend of mine now. And um like his account was Just Yep. I mean just [ __ ] insane. Yeah. I mean I I mean you know the deal. I mean you talked to Tom at length about it. I mean, it it was horrific. And uh it's it's hard to really grasp the magnitude or the level of what actually happened at that time and the impact it had on not only the unit, but the Ranger battalion. And I mean, it was really kind of hard to at this point Because we're so far down the road now,
you know, we decades now down the road. during that time it was, you know, it really made the organization, I'm assuming the same with the Rangers, but certainly Delta really had to take a hard look in the mirror and what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. Stuff as simple as why are we wearing Protek helmets? Why are we not wearing, you know, Kevlar helmets? Why are we not Wearing helmets that are protected? There was a guy um in C squar was killed off a ricochet. I don't know if you knew that or not.
I didn't. Yeah, he was killed off a ricochet off the wall off of you know they're moving down the street and sure enough he he got killed and went right through his protect. If he'd have been wearing uh you know a Kevlar helmet or something protective probably would have saved his life. Damn. Running around with black body armor. What's that all about? You're in desert fatigues with black body armor on. So, the unit had to take a real hard look in the mirror and there was some real serious lessons learned out of that. Some real
PTSD out of that. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. I mean, some major PTSD. Yeah. Pretty. That was a horrific event. Very horrific. And then I told You I got over there just in time to talk to a real good friend of mine who kind of gave me his data dump of what happened. And then I I said, "Hey, I'll see you tomorrow." I never saw him again. He was killed that night. How was it killed? More that mortar round landed right behind him. He was outside the hanger and I remember hearing a
boom cuz we were in a separate hanger, you know, very close, but you Know, separate A squadron. And then uh C squadron and the Rangers were still in this primary hanger where they'd been. and he was outside talking to guys. Um, and a mortar round just landed right behind him. And they'd been launching mortar rounds throughout the time they were there, but they'd always landed down by the beach way over. They'd never really be able to ve vector it in where where they'd hit in and around the hangers till that night and a round Landed
right behind him. and a whole like all the guys as far as I know all the guys he was talking to all got you know seriously injured like seriously injured but they all survived and he was killed immediately this was a good friend of yours Oh yeah really good friend of mine really good friend of mine is that the first friend you lost no 6 months prior to that our mutual friend we used to shoot competition together pistol competition Me, him, and another guy. Our mutual friend 6 months prior got killed uh in a parachute
accident. Dab. And then 6 months later, fast forward and my other buddy's killed. I've never gotten over that. How do you deal with loss? Uh just, you know, internalize it, compartmentalize it, compartmentalize it. And sometimes it just really comes to the surface. You just saw a few minutes ago when the Medela prison talk. Yeah. Um it's just hard to keep it suppressed. But yeah, that was a I'll never forget that year, 1993. I'll never forget it. Lost two of my good friends in a matter of six six month span. never forget, you know, and I
wish I'd have been there on October 3rd to help those guys out. There's no doubt we'd have made a difference with with C Squadron. No doubt. Cuz here's what happened. We got over There and we said there was a lesson learned having the Rangers out on outer perimeter on the roadblocks. And you know, I don't want to rain on the Rangers too much. That's a time for and somebody else to talk, you know, somebody else for you to interview. But as soon as we landed, C squadron's like, "Okay, Rangers, you guys are out. A squadron's
going to be on the outer perimeter." The what you guys were doing in in terms of security now, A Squadron's doing it. That like as soon as we hit the ground, that was decided. And then because at that point it was all about getting Mike Durant who was being held, you know, hostage by the Somali. It was all about getting him. And we were, Dude, you want to talk about ready to ready to hammer people? We would fly over at night and we were Begging begging for somebody to shoot at us cuz we'd have come
down on them like the pouring rain. I can imagine. Oh man, dude. you want to talk about out for blood and I I've heard scuttlebutt it was the ambassador or the the assistant ambassador or whatever went and talked to Adid's people about Mike Durant and they ended up giving him up as you know they they let him go but he I think he told him he said you think October 3rd was bad cuz The smallies got hammered I mean they lost a lot of people they sea squadron and Rangers and Task Force 160. They dude,
they went through them. I mean, they hammered them big time. I've heard 45 to1 kill ratio. Wow. That's That's what I've heard for every 45 to1. That's what I heard cuz it's interesting. Sad, but interesting. Delta, including my buddy, he was killed. Including him. Delta lost six operators. Rangers lost six Rangers. Task Force 160 lost six guys. Six, six, and six were killed over there. But I want to say it was either the ambassador or the assistant ambassador was negotiating with the deed's people and said, "You need to give him up because the next time
they come in here, it's going to make October 3rd look like a walk in the park. Cuz it would have been I mean it would have been brutal. Yeah. Cuz we were out For blood and sure enough they gave him up. I remember them I remember seeing him carry him on to the bird. I remember that we were lined up and they had carry him on a stretcher onto the bird for him to get Xfilled back to the States. Where did you go after Somalia? Back home. Um, I'm trying to remember what I did. I
went over and did a stent as an OTC instructor and I think it wasn't that Long after. Pretty sure Well, I take that back now. Bosnia. Yeah, Bosnia. That's where I went. What were you guys doing over there? VIP protection. Commander of S4. Commander of S4. Who was Shinski? I don't know if you knew who that is or not. General Shinski. Vietnam vet, kind of an Asian guy, lost part of his foot from a mine in Vietnam. We liked him. We got along with the guy Great. We really liked working for him. He was a
really, really good guy to work for. Fast forward, he was hooked in with the Democrats. I remember Joe Biden when he was still a senator came over and had a sit down and went out to dinner with Shinski because from what I understand Shinsseki's daughter and I could be off base on this but Shinski's daughter was an intern in his office. So he was tight with the Democrats. Fast forward Obama gets in office. Biden's his VP. They put Shinski in charge of the VA. Then all that [ __ ] comes out where, you know, soldiers
and whatnot are not getting treated the way they should and Shinski gets shown the door. And I remember, you know, people asking me about I said, "You know what? We love working for the guy, but he's he was ass clown for hooking up with the Democrats." And I haven't heard anything From since, but he was a great guy to work for. We really liked him. Yeah, we went over and uh did VIP protection for 90 days. I did. It was we rotated, you know what I mean? Other guys from the unit did it, but I
went over, my team went over, we had two or three teams doing it, but we did VIP protection for Sinski. Where were your other Hilo crashes? All right, so the first one was Panama that 6 months after Just Cause that was the worst. Second one was we were doing desert mobility training and we were in a air force Hilo before they did away with them. Air Force I want to say shortly after that just completely got out of the Hilo business. Thank God. But we were in the back. We had our vehicle Pensgower in the
back of the bird and it was you know tied down. the crew chiefs had tied it down and we did a landing in the desert and for whatever reason for the life of me I don't know Why the guy did it the pilots did a rolling landing in the desert instead of just sitting it down and stopping dropping the you know the ramp and letting us get out of there they sat down and they were doing a rolling landing well sure enough I mean it's a desert bro it hits a gully or hits a you
know and pull it and jams the nose wheel right back up in the bird. So now all of a sudden everybody gets jerked to the Front. Thank god nobody was standing behind the pens scour our vehicle because it got slammed up against the bulkhead because the crew chiefs had strapped it down wrong. They strapped it down where you know it would it was limited to go that way but not that way. And it smacked right up against the bulkhead. If somebody We were all sitting down, thank God. If somebody would happen to been Standing behind
it, they'd have been crushed. Damn. And that one was a crash, but it really wasn't. I mean, it technically checks the block for a crash, you know, but the first one and the third one could have been fatal like that. Third one, task force 160 is down and we're training on Fort Bragg. Little birds, Blackhawks, a squadron. We're hitting the mount site On Bragg. I think we hit a site out somewhere else and we had a following mission to the mount site on Fort Bragg, which me and everybody in a squad knew like the back
of our hands. I could probably drive a schematic to this day. I mean, we just knew it by the back of our hands. Some of the TF-160 pilots didn't know it as well as us. So, I was on a little bird. We're coming Down kind of let's say the east side of the mouse site, right? We're coming down to land, right? Well, we were actually supposed to come in and take a left down the street and sit down. Well, the bird I was on overshot the street. Well, instead of just sitting down, he starts to
peel off like this right underneath Blackhawks. They're coming Down, right? And I'm there. And I knew it. And I was the right front on the pod. Fourman team. I was the right front on the pod. And the bird's doing this. So, I'm the closest to the ground. I knew immediately what was going on as soon as he started to do that. I knew I knew where we were at on the mount side. I knew where we were supposed to be and I knew where the the Blackhawks were going to be Landing. And as soon as
he did that, I immediately right up there and I saw that bird coming down and I was like, and it it's one of those things that happens. I mean, what are you going to do? Yeah. And the rotor wash hits us. If he'd have kept that attitude, we' have went right in the ground and I was I would have I would have I was right in the front of the bird. I would have been the first thing that hit the ground without question. Would have been fatal without question. To his credit, he leveled the bird
out and we plowed into the ground flat. He that rotor wash kicked us down. I talked to those guys later. They saw us doing that and they were like, "Whoa." And that bird kicked up. The Blackhawk kicked up. Rotor Wash kicked us down. And to his credit, he he flattened out and we hit this we hit the ground or the sand cuz it's a real sandy area right outside the mountite. We hit The sand flat. Yeah. And uh when we got off, the pods were level with the ground. The bench seats that we were sitting
on were level with the ground. The struts were completely buried in the ground. Damn. And I remember by that time it was my third crash and I was kind of like for real. Don't fly with Larry Victor. Oh yeah. And it became a joke in the unit, dude. Became a joke. And I Remember uh guy was my um behind me. I can't remember who it was and I was a team leader was behind me and he started to get up and I stopped him because the broers were still going. I said I stopped him. I
pulled him down and stopped him from getting up till the rotor stopped. We got up, got on the other side. The other guys were fine. Shook up. I said, "Let's go. Let's go to the target building." And I remember one of the guys said, "Later, dude." He Goes, "I was done. I was admin. I didn't want to do." I go, "No, dude. We're going to the Target building." We came in and you got in late that damn building was cleared and all that [ __ ] And they they they didn't know where we went. They
lost track. They were like, "You where's G team at?" We show up and I said, "Yeah, we went down. We crashed." They're like, "Whoa." And then we came back to the the compound and went back in the A squadron classroom and then the pilots all came in and we just had a big hot wash on what happened. So, the first one by the grace of God wasn't fatal and the third one by the grace of God wasn't fatal. Very easily both of them could have been fatal just like that. Man, so then you go to
OTC. Yeah, OTC instructor. How was that for you? I loved it because the analogy I had made Is maybe not a good analogy, but it was kind of like being a made man. Mhm. If you are at a standard that they want you to go train the new guys coming out of organization, that is that's like you're a made man. That's I I to me that was a big deal. And I'm sure all the guys who ever did it would agree. Tom, anybody who's ever been an OTC instructor would agree. I mean, you're in Delta
Force. you Have established yourself of such a caliber and such a performer. They want you to go train the new guys coming in out of selection that I really, that to me was a big deal. I, you know, really, really high on that. I wore that as a badge of honor. I mean, how would you treat them? Oh, going through the students. Yeah. Or the cand totally professional. totally professional. I wasn't a [ __ ] to him, but I didn't cut him any slack Either. 100% professional all the time. All the time. I wasn't a
Nazi or anything, but I didn't cut them any slack cuz I knew firsthand what was needed in that squadron. When they go across the hall, I knew firsthand what was needed, what we needed out of these guys. So if it they weren't cutting the mustard or they didn't have the right attitude or whatever, I mean I I didn't cut any slack, but at the same time I wasn't a [ __ ] to them either. What's the instructor student ratio? Well, it varies because the OTC class. Remember the one class we had nine. We probably had
a dozen instructors. So we had more than one instructor per student. You know what I mean? It really varies depending on the OTC class that comes out of selection. Gotcha. Gotcha. Is this where you wrap up your career? Well, I went back to a squadron as team Leader. Nothing super eventful. Um, I end up what the problem is for me what ended up happening was all these injuries, all that stuff really added up. Mhm. And it took a major physical toll on me by the time I became a troop sergeant. Um because I was a
team leader twice after coming out of OT before I went to OTC as a team leader as an instructor and I come back after being an OTC instructor. I was a team leader And then I'm coming up to be a troop sergeant. A1 troop sergeant and I was A1 troop sergeant for a little while. Physically though I I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I wasn't I knew I wasn't cutting it. I just couldn't do it because of the toll that all this stuff had taken on me. Turns out had two bone spurs
in my lower back pushing on my spinal cord. And we finally got to and I just knew I I I didn't I knew I wasn't Right. And we finally got to the point where we're going to be doing some stuff with the SAS and we were going to have to go up um caving ladders. You got it. Caving ladder. And I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. I knew it. And that's when I went to the chain of command, squadron chain of command. I said, "I I got to I'm going to have to
step down." Damn. I bet that was [ __ ] hard. Oh, dude. It sucked. It sucked cuz the sky was the Limit for me in that organization. I could have eventually been CSM for sure. No question about it. Been a squadron major. No question. No question. That would have happened without question. I bet you got a ton of respect over there, too. Oh, yeah. I Yeah, I that was a tough real tough call. What did they say? They said, "We understand." I said, "I just can't I know I'm not right. I know I'm not right.
I just know." And I I said, I I can't in good conscience stay in this position as a troop sergeant major knowing I can't do the job physically. I can't do it. So I I did it. Normally it's a two-year stint. I did it for a year and I stepped down. I stepped down. Is that when you retired? No, I went up to weapons R&D, which is where the HK416 story comes about. Perfect. Let's take a quick break and then we'll get into that. When your metabolism is working properly, you can feel the benefits in
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force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find Some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Shan Ryan Show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign superb bad. She's made two different appearances here on the Shawn Ryan show. And
some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind-blowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's going to be all things terrorists, how terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different Terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part. The newsletter is actually free. We're not going to spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two
shows. The only other thing that's going to be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up. Links in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter. All right, Larry, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to get into the 416, but I just reviewed my notes real quick, and I just saw a little blurb that says, "Naked in a hotel." Oh, yeah. What the hell is this? Okay, so this is
when at the very end of my career, I did my time up in R&D, weapons R&D, 416. We'll get to that. I ended up going back down to OTC to be another OTC Instructor actually for my second time. This is a I want to say when me and Tom were instructors together and this is right at the end before I get out of the army and uh we're up at Quantico using the FBI FBI HRT shoot house because our shoot house this is OTC students we're up there with our shoot house is down for maintenance.
They're rebuilding it. So we go up there. Well, I'm going to go back before The the rest of the cadery and the students head back. I'm going to go back to start out processing, you know? I mean, I'm putting in my paperwork, all that jazz. So, I get up, we have our hotel room. Each one of us has our room to ourselves, the instructors. I'm pretty sure the students were to room, but I get up naked, right? And I go to the door and it's the day I'm checking out. And I'm Used to a USA
Today. This is all pre- internet, you know, pre iPhones. A USA Today right in front of my door. And uh I open up the door and they they used to do one of those deals the day you're checking out, you wouldn't get a ho or you wouldn't get a newspaper. You know, up till the day you're checking out, you'd get a newspaper. But the actual day you're checking out, you wouldn't get a Newspaper, which was [ __ ] Well, I'm half awake. All right. I open up the door. I notice there's no um USA Today,
but right next to me and the door right in front of this door over here, there is. So, I go to reach over and grab it. Cha-chink. Door closes. And dude, I went from half awake to full awake like that. And I was like, "Oh my god, I am out in this hallway and I'm Naked." And dude, my heart's racing. I'm like, "What in the what am I going to do?" So I do one of these scans. I look down the end of the hall and I see curtain, right? You know, there's a window at
the end of the hall, curtain. go. Okay, I I'm going to go down, which is idiotic in and of itself, but I'm going to go down, pull a curtain down, wrap it around my body, and then I'll go down to the front desk and get a new Key. Yeah, I know. Well, I go down there and I go to grab that curtain, and dude, that curtain's on there, homes, there is no pulling that thing down. That's completely out of the question. So, right beside me is the stairs. So, I go down to the stairs. I
think I was third floor or second floor, I can't remember. But I went down to this bottom of the stairs and I can see through the, you know, window at the bottom, the door at The bottom. I'm like, right there is the gym, the hotel gym, and there's towels. Like, awesome. What didn't dawn on me till later, I would have needed a key to get in the gym anyway. So, you know what I mean? But here's the problem. That didn't matter. That was trumped by the fact that right there was the gym with towels that
I could have covered myself up with. Right here was the continental breakfast Area. Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah. That's got people in it. So, I went, well, I recognize one of the guys I work with, Bruce Goss, is in there. He's back to he's eating breakfast and whatnot. And I open up the door. I go, "Bruce, Bruce." Bruce and he's like one of these deals. I go, "Bruce." He turns around. I go, he comes over. I go, "Dude, I locked myself out of my room and I'm Naked." And he's like, "Whoa." And I said, "Yeah." And
he goes, "What room you in?" And I go, "Whatever, 204 or whatever." He goes, "Here, take my key. I'm in room 315. Go to my room. I'll go to the front desk and get you a new key and then I'll meet you in my room." I go, "Cool." So, I go up to that hall, you know, I go up to the room and or the hallway he's on or whatever it was, you know, second, third floor, and I run down to his room and go in. Nobody saw Me. Amazingly, cuz this is breakfast time, dude.
Yeah. So, I go down there, I'm hanging out. Sure enough, he comes in, he's got my key, and he said, "Yeah." I I went up to the front desk and said, "Hey, I I need a key for room 204." Why? Well, trust me, I need a key for room 204 to the gal at the desk. And she's like, "Oh, okay. Here you go." He gives me the key. I grab a towel, wrap it around myself. I walk down with a towel rack down to the uh Elevator. There's I open up, get on the elevator. There's
a dude on the elevator standing there, a business guy with his briefcase. I'm standing there. I look up at him and I go, "Yeah, dude. It's pretty much what you think it is." And then he didn't say a word. He was just looking at me weird. And I got out and went down to my room. Amazingly, nobody actually physically saw me naked. Nice. Nice. Oh [ __ ] Yeah. Good stuff, man. Larry Vicker's naked in another hotel room. And I, you know, that story's been told so many times. And it's it's like, you know, we
all have those nightmares about being caught in public naked and I've actually lived it. Yep. Yep. All right. 416. Okay. So, I go up to weapons R&D research and development. I got small arms on my plate. You know, I got a guy who's doing long guns, sniper, you know, whatnot. And I'm doing assault weapons. I'm doing pistols, assault Rifles, whatnot. First thing I kick off with is a new pistol, um, a new service pistol replace our 1911s. And I had the idea, you know, I need to talk to HK about this because I'd had enough
interaction with HK to know, you know, how they build guns, how they test them. They're without pier. And I thought, you know, I need to talk to them about building us a new service pistol, building us an HK1911. So I line up a trip go to Germany and I meet with them and I meet with the CEO and I go, "Hey, this is, you know, what we got in mind and yada yada yada." and they're like, "I don't know. Maybe we'll look at it." You know what I mean? They weren't they were on the bubble.
Well, I happened to be in the CEO's office, Erns Malc, and I looked up on the wall and he had a schematic of an M4 with a G36 style gas system. And I go, "What's that?" And he said, "Oh, that's a concept that we're Kicking around the idea on is putting a G36 gas system in M4." And I go, "Really? Why is that? And he goes, "Well, we've read about the crane report. I don't know if you've ever heard it or not. Crane report where some SEALs had issues with high round counts on M4s and
we feel like that we can address it with a different gas system." I went, "Huh?" Well, I knew in the unit we had the Requirement for a reduced size M4 carbine style rifle because for CQB close quarters battle, the M4 at times is too long. It's just simply too big. We cut our teeth on the MP5, which is a real easy gun to maneuver. Everybody loves for CQB. Problem is, it's basically a big 9mm pistol. So if I step outside and I shoot at somebody down, you know, down a street or whatever, I'm shooting at
them with a big 9mm pistol. So, you know, we want to We want to be bringing the 5.56 into into combat. We want to bring it to the battle. That means the M4 carbine, which means a gun that's a certain size, which means in certain confined spaces, it's just simply too big. And they looked at different guns. They looked at the G36C, which is a compact G36. The Sig 552 Delta was looking at these and none of them really cut the mustard. Also looked at smaller M4 variants, shorter barrels and whatnot. They had fleas in
Terms of the gas system was just not applicable. If the barrel length shorter than 14 1/2 in, it's just not a good mix has fleas. I knew enough about what we needed and I knew enough about weapons design to know this is very possibly the answer. So I said, Ernst, what would it take for for that gun to become a real reality? He goes, we need a partner. We need an enduser partner that's willing to partner up with us and give us feedback for what We're doing right and doing wrong and what we can bring
to the, you know, bring to the market. I said, "Okay, what's that consist of?" He goes, "We would need some basically guinea gu and I'm using this term guinea pig guns to work on." So I go back to the unit. Three squadron star majors are in there. I go, "Okay, here's the deal. HK is looking at doing an improved M4 style rifle with a different gas system. The what that's going to do for us is That's going to give us a gun that's significantly smaller but still very reliable. And they go, "Okay." And I they
go, "What do they want?" I said, "All they want is basically guns to modify and work on to to test this theory." And that's it. They don't want any money. I go, "No, they don't want any money at all. They just need guns that we give to them on loan. They're going to give them back. They're going to modify them, test them, and basically Give them back to us for us to use them and give them feedback. And the squadron sergeant majors are like, "There's no downside to this." Yeah, 100%. So, we run it up
the chain. We're going to give them x amount of guns. I can't remember what it was. It wasn't that many, but it wasn't that. All of a sudden, SOCOM goes, "Stop. We don't know if legally we can loan these guns to them. And right then I thought, "Oh man, We're screwed. This is over. That the so-cal lawyers are going to kill this." I thought, "We're done." Sure enough, they come back and go, "Good to go." I was blown away. I couldn't believe it. Now, you can do that cuz they're US government property. You can legally
do it. Basically, transfer it to them and they'll transfer it back. I I still to this day can't believe it. Damn. So, we sent him the guns, they modify them with The G36 style gas system, send them back to the unit, and guns run like a champ. I mean, from day one, a 416 ran like a champ. They needed input though on the on the handguard rail system. They need just, you know, it needed some refinement. So we send them back um give them you know and then they they finally start making their own guns
from scratch. Not just modifying our guns that we supply them. They start making guns from from scratch. Prototypes still Pre-production prototypes. The last nut to crack was the rail system. Cuz the way the G36 gas system works, you really can't take it out the front. You have to take it out the back. Which means in order to get to the gas system to maintain it, you have to take the handguard off. Well, we needed a free float handguard that we could take on and off and retain zero for rail-mounted lasers. That was like the stumbling
Block. We're like, dude, this could be a problem. How are you going to do this rail that you can, you know, unbolt, take off, maintain the gas system, put it back on, and the laser maintains zero? Yeah. And I was like, man, I don't know if they're going to be able to do this. This might be too much. Sure enough, it's HK. I mean, these are the people, Remember, the Germans got us to the moon. Sure enough, they come up with the rail system and we tested it out at uh Gunsite. As a matter of
fact, they came out with desert testing. We did desert testing out there. We came and and did the attended the testing with them and tested the rail coming on and off and retaining zero with a laser. No [ __ ] Yep. And now that rail system obviously has been hugely successful in the 416. the other people like Guesley's copied It in terms of the how his rail goes on and is attached. Yeah. I mean I use the 416 a lot. Love that weapon. Yeah. And it's been a huge success now. Really. It was a big
shot in the arm for HK. Big shot in the arm. Now the German military is using a variant of them. It's now their current and replace the G36 or is replacing the G36, a variant of the HK416 huge success. Huge success as far as I Know, and I could be wrong, but it's yet to lose a trial anywhere in the world. Wow. The French adopted it, the Norwegians adopted it, now the Germans. It's It's yet to lose any kind of a service rifle trial anywhere in the world, as far as I know. Wow. That's pretty
badass, man. Yeah, huge success. I did not know you were behind that. Yeah, really. It was a partnership with me and Erns Malc. You take either one of us out of The equation and the gun wouldn't exist. We were the parents of the 416. Erns Malc on HK's side and me on the end user side. That is badass. That's badass. I love that weapon. Awesome. Yeah, it's a great gun. Fantastic weapon. So when did you get out? I got out really end of 03. Technically beginning 04, but I was on terminal leave. Mhm. So you
might as well say, you know, very beginning of 04. I got out. Got out from 04. I went to work for HK for a while and then I left. I went back to the unit as a uh as a contract instructor, OTC instructor for about a year and then I went and worked for another government agency and then I went on my own with Vicers Tactical. What government agency? TOSA. I don't know if you ever heard or not. They were Yeah, they were technical operations support activity and it was a GWAT spin-off thing where They
were just throwing money. You remember, you know, during GWAT, they were just throwing money like there was no tomorrow. What were you doing there? Uh, just helping set up testing and stuff. Okay. Didn't like it. No, it was pretty weak. And then you started Vicor's Tactical. I started Vicor's Tactical. Created an entire tactical empire. Yeah. I mean, holy [ __ ] man. Yeah. Yeah. It's went pretty well until recently. Well, What let's let's before we get to recently, let's I mean, where did you start it? What was what was the premise at the very beginning?
Uh training um people are reaching out to me for training. Hey, will you come do this class? Will you come do that class? And it was growing. And I thought, you know, this could go take off. And I had other people saying, hey, dude, you need to make a go of this. And the what kept what really gave Me the ability to do it is my military retirement. I knew I had my mortgage covered from my military retirement. Mhm. And that's if I didn't have that, I I don't know that I would have had the
balls to do it, but I knew my military retirement covered the mortgage and then some and that that gave me the initiative and the balls to do it. What was it like for you training civilians after coming out of the the premier soft unit? Well, that's the the unit Delta is So unique in that regard. It's really hard to compare that. You just you have to set them aside. Yeah. I mean, you really were you were able to do that though? A lot of there's a lot of guys that get into the training game. I
mean, after after after service, I mean, I was one of them. And I mean, it's it's hard to It is hard switch your mindset. It took me a while. I was pretty rough around the edges, As you can imagine. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I do. I was pretty rough around the edges. I had to really adjust my train of thought. It got to the point though as I did it the more I liked training civilians because couple reasons. One because they were paying for it in many cases they were much better students.
They would pay attention and apply themselves much better because they were the ones writing the check versus mille Somebody else you know taxpayers writing their check and are like with exceptions. I mean, you get some mille guys who are some rock stars. Yeah, I know what you're saying. You know what I'm saying? They You know what I found? If you don't mind if I mean if I share a little bit. What I found was um you know, I've really liked doing these all women's courses. Really? Yeah. Because the ego is [ __ ] gone. I
mean, you get, you know, you get guys coming in And they're like, "Oh, I've been shooting since I was eight." It's like, cool. You're probably shooting wrong since you were eight. And and I saw like a lot of people that it's like they regret not going to war. Oh yeah. You know, and and instead of just learning, they have to they have to throw their ego into it and and compensate for whatever they feel like they're missing out on in life. And I started doing these all women's Courses. And what I found was like there
was a lot of like battered women who had been raped and sexually abused and beat on by their husbands or their boyfriends or whatever. And they would come in and I mean just like terrified just to rack a pistol slide. And I mean I got them pretty damn proficient in one day. I mean, shooting good groups at 10, 15 yards and no and to watch a woman that has been through Any type of abuse that I just listed off, you know, very, very shy, very timid, scared, and then to watch him leave with that empowerment
like I know how to work this [ __ ] gun and I know how to use it. And that was very rewarding for me. That was the most rewarding uh experiences that I had in the in the firearms industry was watching women leave those courses knowing that that's not going to happen again to them. Cool. But and and like I said, I think and they were great students because they didn't have any egos. They were just they were just there to learn to to learn firearms proficiency specifically in pistols. And it's really like it's really
a [ __ ] cool rewarding experience to to see that empowerment. But but so you who were you trained? Oh man, everybody. I mean across the spectrum. Some women's classes, not Many. Mhm. I'd have women sprinkled in my classes, but by and large it was men. a lot of civilians, some mill sprinkled and a fair amount of LE. Um, not so much LE agencies, but individual LE officers in my classes. Two, three here, one or two, you know what I mean? So, really kind of across the spectrum. Mainly pistol, also carbine, but really it boiled
down to mainly pistol. That's really where it ultimately boiled down to mainly pistol training. And you know, One thing, I'm kind of known in the 1911 world, um, building 1911s and teaching people how to build them and all that jazz, but one of my specialty classes became the 1911 class. Became a 1911 specific class, teaching people how to use them, how to detail, disassemble them, how to maintain them, how to troubleshoot them. And that man, I did that class more than I times more than I can count. Man, I remember watching it when I was
Getting started and I was just like, "Fuck, man. I hope one day, maybe one day I can get to that level and you know, I never did, but it I mean it was it was truly inspiring. I mean, thanks." What was your first product that you developed other than the 416? The sling with Blue Force gear. That's what I use, man. I use I have that on all my AR. Oh, God bless you. Yeah, that's I'm not bullshitting you. Like, I [ __ ] love that sling. Yeah, I That's been was my first product. Uh
absolute grand slam home run. Scale 1 to 10, it's a 15. It's been a huge success for me and Blue Force Gear. Close personal friends with the owner Ashley Burnside. I mean, that was the first product and just set the standard. Set the standard. Um second would be the Glock Tango Down parts. Um Jeff Khil at Tangle Down, personal friend of mine. Way back in the day, I started Seeing different things that was needed for the Glock. And one's a enhanced magazine release and that was the first Glock part I came out with. Slightly extended
with rounded edges. No [ __ ] That was you. Yep. That particular one. Now there's other ones on the market, but the Vicor's Tactical Tangled Down one. Yeah. Came from me and we molded, you know, we set up the mold and did it. Now we got I don't even know how many SKs now. Slide stop, slide racker, base Plates, a lot of different SKs for the Glock. That's been another Grand Slam home run. We've been doing those for quite a while. We've expanded out into other pistols, but the Glock rules the world. Yeah, Glocks rule
the world. So that's been by far our biggest seller. Um, next been really good friends with Paul Buffon of Rival Company. been a brand ambassador for him. He sponsored my YouTube channel for years. Product development with him. Still on board With him. Great, great guy. One of the best people in the tire firearms industry. Fast forward and I hooked up with James Rupley with Vicor's Guide and that's been another grand slam home run. We kicked it off 2015 and now we got Scott was asking me now I think about 11 titles somewhere in there. Wow.
Yeah. Wow. You know what I mean? It's it's been a home run with James. He does the photography and he's co- co-author with me as well. Lives here in Nashville. No [ __ ] Yeah, sure does. Man, you got to link me in with the Bravo Company guy. Those damn things. I can't find them. Where the hell do you even get them? I can't find them. What do you need? Do you need a gun or I need an AR? Oh, yeah. I got you. I mean, I got a lot of ARs, but I don't have
a Bravo AR. Okay, that's I'll hook you up. Yeah, man. I'll tie you in. Cool. Please do. I'm being serious. Yeah. No, no worries. I got you covered. I'll I'll hook you in. But man, you have really crushed that game. Yeah. I mean, you are like the guy when it comes to all of that stuff. I appreciate it. How how long did it take you to grow it into what it is? 15 years. 15 years. Yeah. How long has the company been alive? 05 to to now. But to get it really 20 years now, but
to get it really where it was hitting on it all cylinders, 15 years. What's your favorite part about it? Is it innovating or is it training? Both equally. I would say both equally. Yeah, I would I'd say 50/50 mix. How many people do you think you've trained? Uh, I did a math on it a few years ago and it was over 5,000. Holy [ __ ] Yeah, over 5,000. I did the math. I sat down and conservatively, you know, I was conservative. Uhhuh. I didn't, you know, blow it out of proportion, but okay. X number
of classes over X number of years, X number of students, let me you know yada yada yada and five 5,000 Students to Wow, that is a lot of people, man. Mainly civilians, bro. Mainly civilians. Yeah. And then some of those civilians multiple times. Some of them will come back for the same class. Yeah. Over and over. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. And so now you're in now you're in a little bit of hot water. Oh yeah. My can't talk a lot about it, but I I want to talk about how it came about. Okay. Cuz it's
still ongoing. Like a lot of legal. You know the deal. Oh, I know the deal. Yeah. So it came about be it my greatest asset became my greatest weakness. meaning my ability to hyperfocus on firearms, really delve in, really just absorb everything, you know, it that comes with firearms allowed me, it led me down a pretty dangerous path. like I started, you know, Violating rules, laws, regulations, and whatnot, knowingly doing so in order to feed this demon over here. I started doing stuff over here that I shouldn't have been doing and knew it. But you
know what? Felt like I'd never get caught. Felt like I'd never get caught. And sure enough, August 2021, I got caught. What happened? ATF rolled in the house in you know uh North Carolina Huntersville North Carolina rolled in And seized my guns and it was a trickle down effect from somebody else and it's like I said it's still ongoing still a sticky mess so I can't really go into details but it wasn't me specifically it was a trickle down and I was down the food chain and they rolled in on me and had me dead
to the rights. Damn. So, I ended up um I remember reading about this [ __ ] I thought it was all I was like, "Ah, it's probably just some [ __ ] internet." No, it was real. It was real. Unfortunately, too real. Damn. Um October 23, I plead guilty. Two counts. Um counts of what? Um ille illegal importation of a firearm and violating an Obama executive um order. Um and both of them are ongoing. I mean, both of them, you're talking October 23. My attorney said, "You most likely will not be sentenced in 2024." I
go, "Really?" He goes, "I'm serious." Now he's saying, "You may not be Sentenced till 2026 or even 2027." Holy [ __ ] Yeah. So now really what boils down to is I talked to him at length as you can imagine and I could have fought it. almost certainly would have lost. Almost certainly. He said, "Larry, it's going to it would cost you a tremendous amount of money. A tremendous amount of money. Might even bankrupt Me. And and it would just drag my family through hell. Even more hell than they've already been through." So, I went
ahead and I went ahead and pled couple things. We're actively pursuing a pardon and we're also actively pursuing getting my gun rights back because you probably heard a little bit about that. Have you heard about it? The AG Pam Bondi. You heard about that stuff? No, I haven't. She's came out recently. I'm talking within in the last couple weeks And I'm paraphrasing here. My attorney would be, you know, better able to relay this. saying that if you're a nonviolent felon on a case-bycase basis, you can get your gun rights back and you appeal directly to
the AG's office to do so. Have you done that? And we're in the process of doing it right now. Getting our paperwork. It'll be done. What's that? When will it be done? The paperwork soon because it's really not that extensive. Uh I got to get three Letters. I got my three letters lined up. One's from Kurt Muse. Um, and I So I've got a couple other guys lined up, officers I was in Delta with. So I got those three letters and then we're going to combine the package together and send it in. We're trying to
I'm really casting the net out and I was telling Scott on the way trying to, you know, find anybody that might be able to get us in because what we don't want is we submit it and just goes into a black Hole. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's what we're that's what we're worried about. We're trying to prevent that. If there's any way to at least get it, we know it's going to get in front of the AG or get where it needs to go, that's what we're trying to do. Pardon paperwork, same thing.
That's much more extensive. The pardon paperwork is it's no joke. Yeah, it's much more extensive. So, we're working on that. We've tabled it temporarily to get the gun rights Paperwork done, get it sent off, and then we're going to get back on the pardon paperwork. And then we're same thing casting out, you know, fishing lines, whatever to try to get it in front of the president. So that's that's where we're at. Hoping that my service to the country is going to buy the goodwill to evade, you know, hopefully get a pardon. I got somebody I
want to connect you With or try to connect you with. Okay. That might be able to help. I appreciate it, dude. More than I can say. All I can do is ask. Oh, yeah. For sure. I don't want to say his name on here, but Yeah, no problem. But, uh, he's he's pretty high up there and, uh, he's definitely got a lead in there. So, yeah, that's it in a nutshell. I It's on me. I have to take it. You know, it's I'm to blame. What are you potentially facing? You know, we don't know. I
mean, Potentially five years, a million dollar fine or whatever, but there's so many variables to it. I've asked my attorney that countless times. Um, Jerry Rutder is my attorney. Jerry with a G, Rutder with a T out of Baltimore. Um, but he he I've asked him, he goes, Larry, there are way too many variables to deal with here to be able to accurately tell you that. So, I I'm preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. So, the worst would be five years and a million dollars Million fine ish. You know what I mean? Yeah.
I I don't know. I I've really thought it through and God only knows and and and he just legitimately tells me. He goes because I've asked him more than once, Jerry, what do you really think I'm facing here? He goes, "I'm telling you, Larry, there's just so many variables. We really cannot get a handle on where where this is going to go for you." Damn, man. So, I mean, he he was right before he said, "You my guess is you will not be sentenced in 2024. It'll be 2025 before you're sentenced." Damn. And now Trump
getting in office. That throws everything up in the air cuz now the people that would probably be coming after me from the Biden administration or the Biden appointees are gone. Yeah. So now, you know, Trump getting in just changes everything. brings a pardon on the table. Brings uh getting my gun Rights on the table. What did you import? Did you say that already? Uh illegal importation of a firearm. What was it? Um basically I doctorred, for lack of a better term, I I I conspired with people to doctor up paper. Now, I'm just being, you
know, I'm kind of winging it here. I get it. Doctorred up paperwork to bring in different guns for my collection. It wasn't for, you know, just sell them to the cartel or MS-13 or nothing. It was For my collection. It's like I told you, I fed this demon over here. Addicted to guns. Addicted to guns. Well, how many guns did you have? Oh, at the peak 700 or excuse me, 650. 650. Yeah. Where the hell do you put them all? Oh, dude. You just got stacks of them. I had two rooms this size full. Holy
[ __ ] man. 650. Do you hear them all? No. What was your most prized FG42? What is that? Um, World War II German paratrooper rifle. Damn. Yeah. Falor Gir 42. FG42. Yeah, that was my most prized. Made approximately 6,000 of them during the war. Uber rare. Wow. Uber rare. Worth the price of a, you know, nice house. Damn. Yeah. FG42. I had a type one and a type two. There are two different types. Wow. Had a type one and a type two FG42. Now sold off a lot of the collection after I got Cancer.
My wife said, "Hey, what if you die from cancer and all this stuff gets dumped in my lap? What am I going to do?" And I went, "You know what? She's got a point." Because like my buddy Ken Hackthornne said, you will always get more for your guns when you're alive than when you're dead. Uh, you know, I took that to heart. So, I sold off Oh, man. 80% N 75%, you know, 60 75% of my collection. I sold it off in order to put money in the bank for the family in case I died
from cancer. Where'd you get cancer? I'm confident from the unit when I have time in the army. I'm confident. Can't prove it. But I there's been so many guys from the unit that have had cancer, died from cancer. Yeah. A lot. Scares the hell out of me, man. It's like every day, you Know, I got another buddy or a friend of a friend or it's just every day, man. somebody else is getting cancer and and with with war vets. I mean, it's just you don't even know where the [ __ ] comes from. It's just
all these weird cancers keep popping up. I I interviewed a friend of mine, Chris Fettis, and he was saying that he thinks that, not that he thinks, there's been some studies that say that it came from the jammers, the uh you know, for for jamming frequencies For the IEDs and [ __ ] And I mean it's just I just got the screening uh couple weeks ago. Oh yeah. Scared the [ __ ] out of me. I'm cancer free right now. But um but yeah, the anticipation for that was So what did you get? Felicular lymphoma.
What is that? Basically a blood disease. And honestly though, it's like a friend of mine said, if you're gonna he had leukemia, but he said if you're going to have a cancer, you you got one that you, you know, to have. Obviously, you don't Want cancer, needless to say, but if you're going to have a cancer, you got one of the ones I very treatable. Very treatable. You good now? Oh, yeah. In remission. Um like my doc said fantastic cancer doc. Fant in Charlotte. Fantastic. Um you know, Novant Healthc Care Services. I mean, just fantastic
care. Um, and he told me, "The the lymphoma you have is treatable, not curable." He goes, "It will eventually come back." He goes, "But if it does, we Treat it again." And he goes, "It it might be 5 years. It might be 20 years. You never know. You may it may never come back. You may, you know, you may end up taking it to the grave." But he said it's very treatable. It's not curable. It's treatable. And he he said it's like cockroaches. He goes, "Now you you have cockroaches, you turn on the light in
the room, they start to scatter. You might kill a bunch of them, But you're not going to kill them all." And he goes, "And that's what it's like with follicular lymphoma." Well, I'm happy to hear you're doing better, man. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Total, you know, remission. You know, I had stem cell transplant. And here's the great thing. It completely wipes out your immune system. I mean, completely. As if you're a newborn baby. I had to have all my immunizations from when I was a little Baby up till now. Had them. Yes. I Dude, I got
over my needle phobia. I remember having six shots in one day. I mean, you name it. Measles, mumps, the whole nine yards. Did you go out of country for this stem cell? No, it was here. Yeah, it was in Charlotte at the Novant um facility. No mount cancer facility. Stuff's working wonders for people, man. Oh, dude. Magic. I really my cancer wasn't that big of a deal. I had I got nauseous. Um really Not that I mean I lost weight, fatigue, but it really there wasn't really any pain. I mean I mean I hate to
say it, but it really just wasn't that big of a deal. Well, that's a good thing, you know. And you're married? Yeah, man. I didn't see uh I didn't want to I've been the world's worst dad, the world's worst husband. I mean, I straight up. Why do you say that? I just neglected the wife. Should have never I mean, I've just done her wrong. I really have. I've just been I haven't been a good father to my son. My My dad was very standoffish. I've been the same way to my son. I just haven't been
a good To be brutally honest. Brutally honest, I have not been a good husband or a good or a good uh father. Are you improving? I'm trying to. How old your son? 22. And he's had some real struggles and, you know, not all my fault, but definitely I've contributed to that. So, I'm trying to improve and Be better. But if I had to, you know, big [ __ ] in the armor is I have not been the husband or the father I should have been. I can't sit here and lie to you. I'm not going
to lie to you. That's why we brought up the legal stuff. I'm not going to [ __ ] you. You know what I mean? What would you say to your son right now? I love him and I really want him to do better. He's more on the right track now than he's been for a long time. He's had some real personal Struggles, but he's on the right track now, finishing college and whatnot. Just tell him I love him and I want him to continue on the same path he's on now and keep the faith. Oh,
yeah. Yeah, he's a good kid. He's real smart. Real smart. He just had some real struggles. And like I said, not all my fault, but I've definitely contributed to it. Not by it, by not being the dad I should have been. I, you know, I should be. And you're still married? Yeah, still married. It's been real rocky. You got anything you want to say to your wife? Yeah, I love her and I apologize for being the, you know, the improper shitty husband that I, you know, I should have been. I She deserved a hundred times
better than what I've been for sure. I provided her a good lifestyle. She lives very well, but you know, that doesn't compensate for for not being there emotionally, not being There supporting her from that point of view. So, yeah, she lives very well, drives nice cars, lives in a nice house, but you know, there's a big void on the other end of that that I've I've not filled. How you don't wear a ring? Um, we're kind of on the outs right now. Sorry to hear that, man. Well, I appreciate it. Yeah, we're kind of on
the outs and I'm not a big ring guy. I've never been a big ring. I didn't even when we were getting along, I Didn't always wear it. I just never, you know, that's why I wear this unit ring. But God knows when I'll wear it again. What's the story behind the unit ring? Well, if you're in the unit and you basically have served, you know, honorably, you get the opportunity to buy your own ring. If I remember correctly, it was 300 bucks. I could be way off. Um, but yeah, you can say, "Hey, you can
go buy your own unit ring." And then you set the the stone Color and then you know platinum or whatever you want. You get gold and there's a few different flavors. It's the kind of like a um you know a high school ring or a college ring is really what it is. And then you set your dates in terms of when you came in and when you left. Mine's 88 to03. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And uber rare. Uber rare. I we me and Scott, my buddy who came up here with me, were trying to find
it on the internet and you can't Even find a picture of one. That's cool. They're that rare. Your guys got a pick. Your crew got a pick of it. Oh, yeah. They're They uh they love time pieces and and and sentimental stuff, man. They love that stuff. Everybody does. Oh, yeah. Everybody's uh I never envisioned you to be a ring knocker. No, I'm not. Just kidding, man. That's the academy, guys. Now, Tom would didn't have one. Or did he not bring one, I guess? Or did you say he didn't? Man, he may have had One,
but he didn't he didn't tell me what it was. I don't I don't know. I wasn't I wasn't paying attention. But I purposely wore it so you could check it out cuz I knew you'd appreciate it. I do. I purposely wore it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Larry. We're wrapping up the interview, but I got one thing and I wanted to I wanted to wait until the end to ask this, okay? But um I've got a Patreon account and Patreon's it's a subscription service that we Have. I started at the very beginning when I
was doing firearms training and it's grown into like this really [ __ ] amazing community. And um they're the reason I'm here and the reason you're here. And uh so one of the things I do is I um offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. Yeah. And so this is from Eric Alger. What do you want the next generation of war fighters to learn from Your story? Oh man, that's a good question. Um, I would say if anything, try to always think outside the box and we didn't necessarily hit directly
on that in our interview, but there was a lot of elements of that that we talked about. Try to always don't get set. And I learned that from Elden Bargewell. Um, I've learned that from other guys. Don't get set in your ways to the point where you no longer think Out of the box. And Delta, to their credit, that's kind of a motto they've always lived by. Yeah. You know, don't, you know, you know, try not to get locked into one particular thing. Try to always think out of the box. Man, that's the way I
live my life. not just in that type of community, but just throughout my entire life and business and everything is not only think outside of the box, but what [ __ ] box? Yeah, there is no box. That's right. What box? But and if you don't mind, I'd like to add something, man. Yeah. Um because when I think of your stories and your experiences in Delta, contingency planning, boy, ain't that the truth. Contingency, contingency, contingencies. And um you could never have too many of them. So, no, you can't anticipate the worst because it's probably going
to happen. Well, Larry, I wish you the best of luck In in your law stuff. I appreciate it. And uh I hope I hope I'll be praying for you, man. Thanks, man. I definitely appreciate it. And probably even more importantly than that, I just wish you the best of luck with your family. I hope everything works out. Yeah. Thanks a lot. And I hope you realize I need I need to come clean on that. I could have just sat here and Oh, yeah. Everything's fine. And but I'm not going to do that. I mean, you
brought me up here as a guest. I greatly appreciate it. Uh, I've had a great time talking to you. Fantastic time. Last thing I'm going to do is [ __ ] you and lie to your face. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Larry. It was an honor to interview you, man. Hey, thank you, bro. I greatly appreciate it. Fantastic time. Fantastic. Cheers. Thanks, brother. Thank you. [Music] No matter where you're watching Shawn Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this, please like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And
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