Jason Redman - Navy SEAL Talks Near Death Experience and Seeking Redemption | SRS #032

I have been waiting a long time for this one this episode we go deep we had just about every single emotion in the book and man there are a lot of life lessons in here for people doesn't matter if you're going to the military doesn't matter if you're in the military these are just life lessons that everybody can take especially Young Americans everything from how to overcome the worst case scenarios To what happens when you do not keep your ego in check so I hope you all are paying attention this is a real important one

Jason is one hell of a guy who was an honor to do this interview and um thank you all for being here love you guys hope you enjoy the episode please head over to iTunes leave us a review and sign up for our free email newsletter comes out about once a week it's free gives you updates on what's going on and there's exclusive Content in some of those emails that you're not going to get anywhere else so anyways enough about that love you all enjoy the show everybody should get something out of this one cheers

hey everybody one last thing I thought I would share with you today is 6 months that I have not had one drop of booze in my system and if you're thinking about going down that road I would highly suggest it because it feels [ __ ] Amazing to not be a slave to that [ __ ] anymore anyways best of luck to you love you all enjoy the show and I remember laying there and you can hear the gun go off and there's a delay you know there's period of time before the rounds hit the

ground and I remember waiting and waiting and all of a sudden so this crowd followed um the group back to Bam and basically rioted outside the gates they're like trying to Tear the gates down this Taliban leader apparently was friends with car ey so obviously his network of people call and say hey the Americans arrested your buddy are you [ __ ] me they released him released all of them all all 10 guys who were bad this is this is the kind of [ __ ] that makes me wonder what the [ __ ] we

were ever doing there in the first place our medic is coming out of the vegetation he he literally stepped right On an enemy fighter this enemy fighter rolls over and goes to engage him and he shoots him and that started that gunfight the whole world erupted at that point [Music] I guess that's when I caught the round from behind that hit me in the face year traveled through my face you know you and I were talking about death Jay and those guys saw that they saw me fall so they thought I was Dead and then

kind of the world started to open back up and like I could hear the [Music] gunfire uh it's the one all of us have to die I love to talk about my meat and so what I'd like to do right now is show everybody what I'm packing don't get too excited ladies because I'm talking about Good ranchers you see good ranchers has premium meat cuts so how many of you are Tired of going to the grocery store and you look at the meat aisle and it's empty or it just looks like garbage because that's what

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um but now I'm really excited For this interview um it's been a long time coming and I'm just it's an honor to have you sitting across from me so thanks for making the trip down dude glad to be here and it's great having dinner last night learning more about you and the family and uh I like I like seeing any team team gu successful and you know like you and I were talking I love uh I like your interview style you know deep thinking getting deep that's my language I like that well we're going To

get deep today yeah but uh everybody gets a gift almost everybody dude awesome thank you so I uh should I open it now or absolutely hell yeah so you know I had some people I mentioned that I was you know coming on your show and they were like I don't know if there's going to be any gummy bears cuz we already sold out but uh outstanding I appreciate that that's the Private Stock oh and then uh awesome thank you my pleasure I look forward to Robing that so thank my pleasure so just real quick warm

up here we had a good conversation about some of the stuff that you're doing last night and uh I had actually had no idea you were starting to teach courses and you were getting into I didn't know you were a survival instructor and a lot of people a ton of people are worried about where we're at as a Country and the economy everybody feels the rug is about ready to get pulled out from under it to include myself and so when you mentioned your teaching courses on how to prepare for for what a lot of

us think is coming you know I found that really interesting and and I think a lot of people will so what are some things that you're telling people to to get ready for yeah the biggest thing I mean you know goes back to one of the things let's talk About how all this developed um I uh so yes when I was an instructor at Seal Team 4 I taught uh survival evasion resistance Escape Communications basic Warfare I meet people whether it's at events and people will talk to me about you know hey I have this

gun do you have any recommendations hey what would happen if this happened hey if this happened I would just say well this is what I do and more and more people kept saying man If you ran your own course I would sign up for it so um last year um at the very end of the year the second round of covid hit again uh December January I saw a whole bunch of events vanish y so my wife and I were like gosh we kind of need something to fill you know what can we do and

we were like man we've been talking about this course let's see let's see everybody said you know if we did it um you know they they'd come so we threw it out There and sure enough man a lot of people came from my internal coaching group they overcome Army but they said yes I will sign up and we we did a pretty low price point for the first one uh we crammed it into one day but it really was focused on several different things I kept meeting um people across the country who would say hey

man I have a gun but I'm afraid of it or um yeah I've only shot it a few times or I don't keep it loaded I would hear that Frequently yeah I have it next to the bed but I don't keep it loaded that way it's safe um you know which I would say to them that kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a gun you know if you have to go find your bullets or load it when you need it you know things happen very quickly in an emergency situation you know you don't

need to add in an additional step um and then talking about survival I mean I just talked about things that I do for myself so one Is just what level of preparation do you have against um immediate problems like storms you know that's probably going to be the biggest thing you're going to encounter so if a major storm rolled through whether it was a hurricane or a tornado or I don't know a blizzard whatever it is you know how well are you stockpiled to take care of yourself and your family and you look at what's

going on over these last couple of years with you know with covid we saw the you know The the the toilet paper debacle yeah um you know the cleaning supply debacle um you know but that's now transpired into other areas of supply chain problems and things like that so I just said hey what about food you know we live in a day and age where we all rely on grocery stores myself included I don't do all my own hunting or anything like that um I could if I needed to you know but for me that's

a that's a further step down the line um so I just Talked about what are the things that you would have in your house water or at least some type of water purification system uh that's going to be the biggest thing that's going to take you out the quickest uh depending on the time of the year what level of warmth do you have for you and your family if it's winter uh or if you're having to move in a winter environment that's going to kill you the fastest uh you know water those two are going

to be tied close together Food becomes third so what level of food do you have I mean you know you've got a lot of Preppers out there who talk about stockpiling and canned goods and all that kind of stuff and to me that's a lot of time and effort that I don't have time to do there's a lot of good companies now that are creating uh freeze-dried stuff so I have a six- Monon Supply worth of uh containers uh that becomes part of my blowout that you know if if it's a if it's a storm

we Reach decision points and that's some of the things that I talked to people about th all this planning should be done at least a little bit ahead of time yeah um if there is a major storm coming you should already be thinking about hey what is our decision point to leave for most people it needs to be far in advance of when you think it's going to be cuz most time people wait too late and then when they decide to leave it's too late now you're trying to go against The traffic of everybody else

who waited for the last minute to leave um I use the Ukraine example as a good example if you look at Ukraine the Russians masked on that border for five or six weeks before they finally invaded I probably would have been gone in the first two weeks with my family I would not have waited um to be in that situation yeah I would have taken my all my GO bags my guns everything um I even have a vehicle that I have a I have a Z71 off-road Chevy Suburban uh definitely designed that I can get

wherever I need to go um and I know all my stuff will fit in that and and my family and we are gone if we need to get out but it's all about timing it's all about preparation and awareness and then the third point is action you have to take action you can't wait too long uh or else you'll be behind that power curve so it's a lot of the stuff that we're we're teaching in the uh we call it the overcome and Survive uh course and um it's just built on how do I take

the average everyday American and prepare them for worst case scenarios um not teaching you I'm not teaching you to be bear Gillis or John Wick um instead how do I teach you to be to think ahead and be prepared and to be comfortable where you can at least get away and survive or avoid bad situations before they develop into a bad situation 90% of the time there's enough Indicators that something's happening that you should have been making decisions long before it fully became a problem most people wait till it's too late now they're reacting instead

of proactively addressing the problem so these are the things that we talk about in the course so basic Marksmanship I'm not if you've got a lot of gun experience you're going to find my course boring so you are not the person I'm looking at you know if you're Johnny Highspeed that wants to train you know and clear rooms and you know you know running mag change drills and transition drills my course is not for you um my course is for the average everyday person that I want to give very good fundamentals in shooting I want

to teach you how to um properly carry a gun grip you know stance uh you know everything related to effective shooting I want to teach you how to handle a malfunction drill I want to teach you how to do a Magazine change effectively and then if we get to the point I want to teach you how to draw from a holster that's probably the highest level I ever intend to go uh there are other great guys like you know DJ and Cole that are teaching at much higher levels you know hopefully at some point if

you want more I'll I'll just hand you off to guys like that yeah but uh then then survival and then of course uh we want to teach Advanced first aid trauma first aid you know so Many people think that hey if something bad happens to me or my family I'm just going to call 911 well I got to tell you if if the world is collapsing around us one if there's a major storm most of the 911 people are going to be tied up or they're not going to be able to get to you two

if it's a major now let's take it to a Ukrainian scenario if ever God forbid the US folds or Falls um 911 is not showing up for you yeah so You've got to be able to take care of yourself so how do you do the first aid and all that kind of stuff so these are all the things we're teaching what what do you think is some of the most basic things that people Miss for for what may be coming like an like or or maybe not even what's coming what is just some major the

most basic things that people to just completely blow off and look over I mean Super basic stuff is yeah How much water do you have in your house on reserve I mean at a minimum you should have at a minimum a gallon of water per person in your house and and some sort of water purification system so I'm a fan of the pure water pump uh there are other more advanced systems that are out there I'm not I I like the the pure pump because it's simple I know it works I will never forget when

I was a new guy um Seal Team 4 up in the mountains of Virginia at Fort picket um Our our instructor's name was Andy Scott he's no longer with us but Andy took us out into this field this cow pasture and there was this big nasty puddle filled with cow [ __ ] and stunk and Andy was like drop your pure pump in there pump your water he's like now you're going to drink it and man it red and we all drank it and none of us got sick he's like I want you to know

what you're using Works dude to this day like everywhere I go anytime tactically I mean in my go bag I Have a pure pump no [ __ ] yeah no pun intended yeah cuz it doesn't it doesn't matter yeah it works and uh and water will be the big it will be 90% of the time it's going to be the f fastest thing that kills you if you can't get water I mean you can only go a couple of days without it yeah I find two things finances number one I think you know cuz there's

always a progression right and to like an an Economy collapse and and I see you know I think stress is a big try to mitigate as much stress as you can and I I I tell people like you got to get your finances in order like you're drowning in debt right now and they're going to come for you no matter how bad it is if you're not paying you know your debt off and uh I find that to be something that the majority of people Overlook and um and then medical you know I'll get these

guys you know and I don't teach this Stuff anymore but I'll get these guys used to get these guys and they'd have like five you know $3 to $5,000 rifle setup just Immaculate beautiful rifles and but they're 150 lbs overweight yeah you know and and I'm like you know that's great you just showed me $25,000 worth of Hardware do you have an AED you know with the number one killer like you're prepped for all this stuff you know the the the the you know Whatever you want to call it the economic collap apps where pure

chaos takes place but it's like right now the number one killer of human beings in the United States is heart attacks and heart disease you're 150 lbs overweight do you even know what an AED is you know because it's a fraction of the cost of every one of those rifles that you've invested in to save your life yeah well you don't have an AED and that where they're unwilling to invest in a a coach That's what blows me away I watch all these people people who yeah they'll drop all this money on guns and cars

and all this great stuff but they're unwilling to invest in a coach that will help them with Nutrition Fitness be the best physical version so I uh I I touch on it in my survival course that's a lot more in the self- leadership I teach I teach something called The Pentagon a Peak Performance and the base level of the Pentagon is physical Leadership how do you take care of this machine you walk around in because everything Builds on that yeah like and you na it if you are not physically taking care of yourself you know

God forbid the world Goes to Hell in a hand basket now you're already 10 points behind the power curve cuz now you're trying to Lug your fat ass all over the place when the world has collapsed yeah um but bring it back to a basic level when the world's just Normal you know physically taking care of yourself and I I talk about it in three different areas so you should number one Fitness Move Your Body Move Your Body this Ferrari that we all walk around in is amazing and if you take care of it it'll

do amazing things most people don't as we get older you know it starts to break down um it's amazing to me we tend to um as we get busier in life and we have more and more responsibility more and More people push physical leadership to the back burner oh I'll get to that later oh I don't have time for that when in my opinion should be one of the most important things you do because uh if you are physically taking care of yourself your immune system is going to be stronger so you're going to be

able to fight off you know everybody with covid nobody wanted to talk about it which was dumbfounding to me but the majority I don't want to say all they're Definitely I know some healthy people healthy fit people that got covid but the majority of covid people had compromised immune systems they were overweight uh they basically were not talking taking care of themselves which made them at a higher risk for covid well the same is true for almost any other disease out there if you have a weaker immune system you're more susceptible to whatever diseas is

out there the flu cold whatever um so move Your body to build your immune system you're going to have more energy that's a huge thing I mean if you're trying to run your own business if you're trying to do anything in this life we need energy and if you're out of shape where you're just barely getting through the day and now you come home and slump into your chair and you're like I'm so [ __ ] tired I can't even move let me grab a uh you know a microwavable meal and sit on this couch

for a couple of Hours and watch Netflix and then go to bed and do it all over again dude like your Ferrari is breaking down um nutrition like we have probably the worst diet in the entire world uh the Western diet you know and and dude it is sad because in my opinion it's a it's a it's become about money mhm it's so much cheaper and easier to create processed foods so if you look at many of our poor uh they are some of the Most susceptible to poor nutrition poor diets why because cheap because

processed food is very cheap whereas if you go to the grocery store and you want to buy good quality Whole Foods organic foods it's the most expensive stuff in the store if you want to buy um Meats proteins that have not been injected with every [ __ ] uh you know yeah steroid and stuff you want to get organic grass-fed stuff it's the most expensive stuff you're going to buy so There's almost this demographic you know pay wall that exists where we're impacting you know your ability to get that but that's what you should be

putting into your system yeah it's like putting premium gas into a Ferrari you need the premium gas it's designed to run on that and then the last big one sleep and uh I love jao I don't agree with his sleep is the enemy uh it's just not true I'm a huge I uh I've become a huge um fan of Studying sleep and science is more and more we're figuring more out about sleep and how incredible it is I mean up to 20 30 years ago scientists didn't really fully understand sleep and more and more they're

figuring out that your body almost every gain reset um rebalance in your body occurs when you're sleeping at night and your ability to go through that sleep cycle of light sleep into REM sleep into deep sleep and back through that multiple Times in the night is when your body is recalculating and for the average human the average eight hours is what you need uh if you're getting less than that that means you're cutting off those critical the REM and deep sleep which is where most things are happening to rebuild your body and make you feel

the best yeah yet we live in this world where one people it's like a source of Pride to them like I mean people at events that come up to me and they're like Jay like I get by on four hours of sleep at night and I'm like I tell yeah I'm like congrats man like uh you are chronically fatigued and you are nowhere nowhere near your optimal self yeah so are you a day Napper sometimes no [ __ ] if if I really got crushed the night before I because it we we can see it

we prove it I wear a whoop I'm a big fan of Whoop I'm a big fan of technology so what are the things that I can do to track myself to make Sure I'm optimizing what is a whoop so whoop is a company it's uh it's kind of like a Fitbit on steroids so it tracks uh heart rate heart rate variability your um body temperature O2 saturation and uh uh [ __ ] one of the thing but the biggest thing for me is it tracks your sleep okay and it lets you know exactly how much

sleep how much REM how much deep sleep and all of that you know it also tells you how much strain so how much strain did your body take That day um it goes from 0 to 21 most of the time I log in about a 12 is an average day for me an average workout for me is between an 8 and a 10 um I'm training for this Navy SEAL I go swim uh I did a 3.2 Point mile swim uh uh off the coast of Florida last week and it was a it was a

ball buster it was choppy it was windy uh I hit an 18.1 for that workout alone that's pretty high damn but that level of strain impacts your sleep and then your your recovery so it Actually tells you how well your body recovered from The Strain the day prior if you had a great recovery it's in the green and it a hey man your body did a great job recovering so your nutrition your hydration your sleep all played together that you're operating on optimal um I told you last night at dinner I had a rough night

the night before I did not sleep well um so I was in the red so I actually did not work out yesterday I took the day off to and I went to bed early last night and today I'm back in the green nice so I like it it's no different than a car it's no different than a weapon system I mean what are you doing to make sure you're operating it optimally but most people don't talk don't take care of their most the most important weapon system you have yeah well thanks for sharing all that

so with the interview getting into that uh will Go childhood what made you join the teams your career I know you have a lot of lessons learned and um and and all of that then we'll move into you know what you're doing now so let's start with childhood where'd you grow up I'm a mut I was born in Ohio uh place outside of uh Columbus called kakon Ohio small town yeah small town uh my my dad my my family on his side owned a real estate company that Unfortunately kind of fell apart when I was

a young kid collapsed and um um we ended up moving to another town called Madina when I was young and about that same time my parents divorced um so I was about three years old when they divorced and kind of a weird uh doesn't often happen my dad actually got custody of me and my sister and um so you know somewhat unremarkable we were you know probably I Don't know lower middle class family at that point uh but then my dad lost that job and he had ended up remarrying and my stepmom was from a

small town in North Carolina Lumberton North Carolina and they had owned a tobacco farm down there and still owned a decent amount of land so we ended up moving to North Carolina when I was maybe five or six we moved down there and I lived in the in the country at that point um and just kind of grew up down there we were We were pretty poor you know we moved in with my stepmom's uh mom and lived in their house um but I don't know kind of growing up down there um bouncing back and

forth I'd go visit my mom go back to my dad uh I definitely learned a lot of things I mean I was uh nothing remarkable as a kid um you know like I said we didn't have a whole lot we didn't take a lot of vacations um lived on this uh nonworking tobacco form at that point but I kind of Grew up playing outside real big into uh uh GI Joe back then yeah always fat infatuated with the military uh my grandfather my dad's dad who I never got to meet uh was a decorated World

War II pilot he was a B24 pilot uh flew all his missions got shot down uh over Yugoslavia and crash landed the plane with the whole crew in it was a winter and they crash Landed It On into a snowfield and then evaded uh back to Italy and uh and made it back and he got a distinguished flying cross for that and I think he earned maybe seven air medals over his career but uh died of a heart attack um before I was ever born damn so um so I always grew up with this love

of the military and from a young age I said that's what I wanted to do so growing up and Backwoods country in North Carolina I ran around the Woods playing GI Joe and you know saying this what I wanted to do um when I was 11 uh My mom had moved to the Virgin Islands and [ __ ] MH yeah she moved to uh uh St Croy for a period of time we went to St Thomas and then back to St Croy so I left and went and lived with my mom for a while and

lived down in uh lived down there and I mean I'd I'd been going down there with her even before I moved down with her and so I got a big appreciation obviously for the ocean and the water and snorkeling and um got into bodyboarding and you know all that kind Of stuff um so just got real comfortable in the water and um in uh uh 19 90 I would have been um I would have been 10 11 Hurricane Hugo hit uh 90 or 91 I can't remember uh Hurricane Hugo hit St Croy and my mom

we knew the storm was coming you know kind of like we were talking about you see the indicators you got to take action before uh my mom was smart enough that she sent me off the island back to my dad and she Stayed to this day we don't know what happened to my mom our house was destroyed uh totally leveled right off the foundation uh my mom sustained a head injury um she wasn't in the house when it happened she had left and gone someplace else but we don't even know where the National Guard found

her wandering around with this massive head injury um they flew her off the island to Miami and she got to Miami they took her to the doctor and the doctors X-rayed her and were like holy [ __ ] it's a miracle you survived the flight she had a massive brain bleed uh in her head from this blunt force trauma she took damn and uh they did emergency brain surgery and and you know she came out okay my mom's almost 80 now wow but um but I was back in North Carolina at that point um with

my dad and continued to want to go down this road um I probably about 14 um still wanting to Go in the military I was getting interested in Special Operations I was interested in Rangers and Green Berets and um you know snake eyes and Storm Shadow and all that all that [ __ ] and uh my dad when I was about 14 sat me down and said hey my dad was a uh my dad was in the Army he was a um he was a Airborne uh instructor and a rigger at uh jump school and

and at this point he was at Fort Campbell Kentucky at this Point and he said hey we had these guys who came through training with us uh they were called seals and he said you know he said they were tough as Nails he said they jump out of planes they blow [ __ ] up he said really good in the water little crazy he said you should look into that and um and man I was probably the most unlikely candidate ever um you know at this point 14 years old I was the proverbial 90b weakling

um I didn't play Any sports or not not really I mean I think I might have done one little thing or two in in middle school but I didn't play anything you know I didn't work out yeah um and uh I don't know why my dad telling me this I like started I started researching trying to about the SEAL Teams and back then this pre- internet there's nothing I really couldn't find anything the only thing I could find was that the common theme was hardest training in the military and you Know do some of the

most dangerous missions out there you know and as a young kid gii Joe wannabe I was like man that's really romantic you know this romantic nature of warfare and you know probably not really having a clue of what what I was getting myself into but I said that's what I want to do and um started I said okay what do I need to do to get ready for this I guess I need to start doing some physical Things so I went out for the football team um just got my ass kicked right and left but

I'll be honest it was actually a really good thing because it taught me a lot taught me how to be a part of a team um taught me how to um take disappointment taught me how to take a beating because I got my ass kicked a lot um um kind of frequently encountered I was not like this popular kid or anything you know I probably fell more Into the nerd class you know was I was smart I was in a lot of the honors classes but um so on you know the football team I usually

got a lot of [ __ ] when I was this little tiny dude um I wasn't very athletically gifted um so frequently I got a lot of [ __ ] so it also was kind of the first time I encountered you know having to stay involved in something despite people saying hey we don't want you here which I think helped build thick skin for me And just to say well I don't really give a [ __ ] what what you think um so I just kept pushing and grinding I also um my sophomore year I

went out for the wrestling team because i' had some buddies say hey man wrestling's really good and I was like all right well let me try this and was a little better at wrestling uh than football um although when I stepped in I started out at 112 and then I rolled into the 119 class and our 119 pounder was a guy by the name of Vincent Crump uh um Vince is probably still out there he ended up going in the Navy and we crossed pass many years later but he was our state champion in North

Carolina and uh phenomenal wrestler and dude he just used to wipe the [ __ ] floor with me um so that's who I normally wrestled and uh but once again it taught me a lot you know it taught me resilience it taught me how to keep grinding forward despite losses you know um so these were all things that Kind of built me and um and yeah I said I'm GNA be a seal so about 16 I went to the recruiting station in lton North Carolina and I walked in I said hey man I'd like to

be a seal you know probably at 19 16 16 years old I said hey I'd like to be a seal you know I heard I can enlist when I'm 17 will you give me information I'd like to learn about it and uh the lead recruiter was an old crusty bson mate and I mean you know we don't have many People like this in the Navy anymore I mean he was like the post Vietnam era I mean just covered in tattoos just crusty as [ __ ] uh and uh just the the the pirate boats and

mate from the days of old in the Navy and like he took one look at me and was like get the [ __ ] out of here he's like you skinny little run you'd never make it through buds beat it and they chased me out of the office so I came back a couple of times chase me out Every time but something clicked inside me where I was like [ __ ] that guy like I am going to do this um and I kept trying and he kept chasing me away um so at one point

probably um I was uh almost 17 or I might have turned 17 at this point I was uh trying to go back and the army recruiter was kind of watching all this with Amusement their offices were all together he's like hey man I know you're interested in being a seal have You ever thought about being a ranger or Green Beret I was like yeah giving it some thought but I heard the seals you know I just kind of was interested in that and he's like well it doesn't look like you're having much luck with that

so why don't you uh why don't you why don't you come join the army man you're old enough I can send you up to MEPS we can get you slotted and he said you could become an army ranger and go down that path I was like all right you know What my dad was Army why not so I uh I initially went down the road of going into the army as a ranger and when I went to MEPS they did my Airborne physical and uh when I was a kid I ruptured my eardrum so when

the doctor looked in my ear he saw all this scar tissue and he failed me he was like nope fail and uh so I was like what do you mean I failed so I can't go through Airborne school and he was like No And I was like all right well I'm not Joining the Army and uh they were like what do you mean you got you're here at MEPS you have to sign the line you just got to pick something else and I was like no like all or nothing baby like if I can't go

through that then I'm not going to do this and I said besides I know I can equalize I said I've dove in the Virgin Islands I know I can so you're saying I can't but I know I can so I kind of turned into this big [ __ ] show the recruiter from Lumberton had to Drive up to Raleigh and get me he was all mad at me and uh trying to convince me that hey even though you can't go through Airborne school you can still be an Airborne can still be a ranger we have

Rangers who aren't Airborne qualified which isn't really true that's kind of a lie you can go through Rangers well even Ranger school has Airborne in it so is a total lie wait are you saying a recruiter lied to you I know can you believe that he was probably the only One in history yeah yeah so uh so anyways I I went home kind of bummed uh a little bit of disappointment but um my my dad said well why don't we go why don't we go see an EMT he can look at your ear and uh

and you know he can we can get a letter it says you can do this so we did that and about that same time uh the Navy recruiters had switched out and there was a new recruiter by the name of Henry horn if anybody knows Henry horn From Lumberton North Carolina I've never been able to thank this guy I've never been able to find him uh but that guy was awesome like he was like hey man you want to be a seal like let me help you and brought me in they had this video back

in the 80s it was cheesy as [ __ ] called be someone special and uh you know it had like these guys flying in with the you know the old green uniforms and they're jumping out of the helicopter with ues and taking down I Think uh Mass Chief Denny Chalker was one of the guys in that video um who ended up being one of my buds instructors oh really yeah but um but uh man I watch that video all the time and and Henry horn would be like hey man here's what you need to do

so I just focused on training getting myself in shape I knew there was no buds pipeline back then um you just basically went to boot camp and you raised your hand and you said hey I want to try out For the SEAL Teams and you got one shot to try out what year was this uh 92 okay yep so uh so yeah September M 11th 1992 I signed to go in the Navy I was still in high school and I signed in the delayed entry program and uh finished up high school and soon as I

graduated I headed off to uh boot camp down in Orlando Florida and just like Henry said about three or four I don't know maybe the third or fourth week of uh boot camp at the pool you know big seal instructor Walked through and said does anybody want to try out for the seals and I was like yep do and uh you know they were like you you skinny [ __ ] runt you know and I was like yep and there were like 10 of us uh that uh tried out and there was only three of

us that made it so one guy uh did an entire career uh the other guy ended up being kind of one of my swim buddies and roommates and unfortunately he didn't make it through training but um but yeah that kind of Started the path and it just I am the um I don't know my whole life and career I've been the underdog everybody's always said you can't do it frequently I've done it to myself um but you know I think I guess one of my superpowers is just continuing to grind through until I figure it

out yeah it seems to be a commonality uh with a lot of with a lot of seals is kind of got rejected from a lot of the other ones and then slide in there And same same here yeah same you know similar but it's it's a good quality I've also come to realize sometimes as I get older I'm realizing it can also be uh it can be a blessing and a curse you know the the the [ __ ] you I'll do it my own way yeah um as I'm getting older I'm realizing okay that's

not always the best way me and you both yeah so you get to buds how was that what was it like I mean so this was early '90s it was ' 95 Okay so when I uh when I I went so I went in the Navy I went to ISA School in Virginia Beach Virginia and um and then there was a delay uh I had to wait almost a year a little over well it ended up being a year and a half cuz three weeks before I was supposed to head out to buds I wrecked

my motorcycle in Virginia Beach uh right in front of lyh Haven Mall oh [ __ ] yeah wreck my motorcycle broke my shoulder and that gave me an additional 3 or four month DeLay So I I headed out to buds in January of 95 is when I started uh with class 200 and um um you know buds so funny things I um I was really immature uh I was 18 when I headed out the buds and and and for the the first part of my career I was really immature uh and one I think the

teams allowed that somewhat if you will uh because um coming out of the Vietnam era up until 911 there wasn't a whole lot of Combat and we really man we Liv the ethos of work hard you know work hard and play hard or sometimes even work hard and play harder and as a young kid who came from I I I I wasn't in any kind of Click I didn't do much partying when I was in high school I was kind of exposed to the world of partying when I got into the SEAL Teams I was

like this [ __ ] awesome like you know I want to be a rock star this is great yeah and um and probably went way too far down that Path not even probably and buds or when you got to the team all all of the above so it started yeah it started dude I drank every weekend and sometimes nights and I wasn't even of age I wasn't even of age but I had a buddy who was old enough that I would that it's a miracle I made it through training but I think I was hard

I was Dumb and hard and was able to do it like I uh so the buddy of mine who was my roommate who did not end up making it through Training he was he went through Isa school with me we were roommates we trained together we drove across the country together uh ended up partying um the night before we got to San Diego and I ended up drinking so much um that I literally vomited all over myself I think he found me in the bathroom with my head resting on the urinal um just a [

__ ] showell I sprain my ankle somehow to this day I have no clue how uh so I I Roll into buds the following day looking like an absolute [ __ ] sandwich I'm like hobbling across the quarter deck and like one of the instructors was like you ain't going to make it very far like that son and in my mind I was like [ __ ] you I'll show you which you know was kind of my mindset back then which like I said was good it was also bad so um training it was what

I expected I didn't I knew it was going to be hard you know that Wasn't and and you know I don't I wasn't a badass you know I I I don't ever want to convey that um I was just uh I was just a tenacious kid man I had a dream and I was going after that dream um often I talk about I think I probably had a little more romantic view of what Warfare is and I think if I had had a more realistic view of Warfare at a young age I probably would have

not partied as much and probably been much more laser focused on how to be how do I Be the best operator I possib possibly can be which that probably didn't happen till later in my career but as a young kid you know buds um it was tough but it wasn't anything that I didn't expect um I almost quit um the only time I ever thought about quitting was on Thursday night of Hell Week um and there were a couple of reasons for that um one like all of us hell week's to Big Crucible MH um

and uh I remember there are several critical stories um about the The how hard and overwhelming hell week is and like I already had an imprint of this because when I um class 2011 when I was in ptrr waiting to class up the the PTR students support hell week so I was supporting hell week for class 20 uh for class 199 uh before I was waiting for class 200 to class up and I remember um you know one of the students quit Tuesday night or something and it was it it was Cold I mean it's

like this was January and uh this young kid I was assigned to escort him back to his room after he did his medical checks and dude he's in that Navy wool blanket and he's kind of got it over his head he looks like a [ __ ] monk he's not saying a word I walk him back to his room and like I want to know like I'm like blowing up on the inside like dude why' this guy quit you know you know I mean what what was so bad about this so finally as I drop

him off In his room I'm like I couldn't keep it inside anymore and I was like hey man like what was it like I mean why did you quit and he he's standing on the other side of the door like looking at me we're about this far apart maybe a little closer and he goes bro I was so [ __ ] cold that I would have done anything to get warm I would have sucked a big fat dick just so the hot jizz could have hit me in the face so I could be warm and

then he slammed The door in my face damn and I was like I'm an 18-year-old kid I'm like what um must have been cold yeah exactly that's a that's a hell of a statement or maybe it wasn't that cold but um so fast forward to my hell week you know uh roughly two months later in March and I remember I'd asked a friend who had made it through class 199 I said Brian dude you got any tips or tricks and he Said yeah uh he said make it to Wednesday morning he said if you can

make it to Wednesday morning it's all downhill after that I was like okay Roger that so Wednesday morning came sun came up I'm like dude we made it like it's all down hill it gets easier now but it really doesn't you know that's kind of a I think you've crossed that threshold where um you can probably endure anything you'll just go to your death Yeah um and and it doesn't necessarily get easy I've gone back and I've watched H week now things just slow down because when you've gone without sleep for 3 or 4 days

uh you know in your mind you know you look like chariots at fire when the reality is you're you're barely doing a shuffle and um so Thursday night I'm uh I'm in the Smurf crew and the Smurf crew is like losing every race and it got pretty cold that night it dropped probably down into the the 40s That night in San Diego and we were doing stuff at the pool winds blowing off San Diego Bay and you know as you well know pays to be a winner so if you win you know you get to

sit out if you lose you get extracurricular activity well we were losing every [ __ ] race so they um they um you know every race we had some kind of extracurricular activity um so at one point the instructors decided hey this will be fun it's really miserable and cold and windy Let's have these guys go stand up on the 10 m dive platform um you know we're wearing these little nothing TR shorts and stand out there with your arms and legs outstretch and you guys are going to stand out there until a somebody quits

or B you know we decide to bring you down and I'm standing up there just jackhammering man I mean I had no body fat um when I completed hell week I had dropped to 117 lbs are you serious yeah I I'll give you the picture I looked Like I just stepped out of osch uh I mean I was only 135 when I started buts damn so I was 117 when I completed H week um so I'm standing up there just jackhammering and I remember like in my mind like make it a Wednesday morning it gets

easier and I was like [ __ ] this and uh you know the Bell follows you around and I remember looking down at the the deck below you know the the truck was parked right out by the Deon and I was like [ __ ] this man I'm going to go down And quit and thankfully I stopped um I took a breath and was like what are you doing like yeah that this ends your you know if you do that it's all over like you just got to suck it up and endure and uh and

I did I managed and I don't know how much longer we were up there probably wasn't that long seemed like forever but yeah that was the only time I thought about quitting so did anything give you any trouble you After that swis pool comp yeah swims and pool comp so I broke my arm or let me rephrase this I um I uh I got rolled I got double rolled during buds so I was in I made it through hell week with class 200 I made it in a dive phase and I got severe tendonitis in

my feet um it was so bad like I would curl my toes and it sounded like tending like [ __ ] was snapping like from across the room um so the the Medics rolled me and um so I was in PTR waiting and at one point I got Permission to go down to Mexico once again partying and being stupid I was uh down in uh Rosarita I believe me and another team uh not a team guy but a bud student and um I was so drunk and stupid I walked out outside to get some air

from the bar and we were right wherever we were this bar nightclub was right across the street from the beach and there was a uh uh you know the the pier and there were some young kids that were doing flips off this pier wall down onto The sand below it was about a 5 foot drop and in my drunken State I was like I can do that and I totally tried to bust this flip got sideways stuck my arm out and landed on my arm and broke uh both bones damn so had to go back

to San Diego uh I had a Mexican doctor said it which he said it wrong um and started having issues with my hand had to go back to I went to Balboa and the doctors had to rebre my arm which is uh they didn't give me any I think they knew I Was young and stupid and I told him I broke it in Mexico so I think I think the doctor was like I'm going to teach you a lesson young sailor so no pain meds or nothing you know they put my hand up into what's

called a finger trap there's like it's like these Springs that hold onto your hand and they pull and then that doctor just and re-broke it and then pulled it down and set it um but reset it and of course you know I had to go back to Buds and say hey I Broke my arm and and I knew if I told him I broke it drinking that I'd be out of training yeah so I lied and said hey I was down in Mexico and I was rock climbing and fell off this rock and the instructors

I I'll never forget me and they kind of looked at me like rock climbing right mhm sure but they let me stay yeah it let me stay although they told me um class 202 was going to class up in I believe August or something which was only three weeks after I got my cast off and they were like we don't care you're classing up class 202 so you know 3 weeks after your caskets off or not you better do everything you can to be ready so um so it started back up with 202 and the

biggest thing so I was able to run I was able to do you I was doing one arm push-ups and everything but where it really hurt me was in swimming when I got back after you know with this [ __ ] arm uh my swim times were really slow um so thankfully I got part partnered with uh you know Jim Hoy if you're out there man you're stud uh Jimmy was a strong swimmer and he helped me you know so that I I passed so that was the only hard thing and then pool comp was

the other thing that uh that almost got me um gets a lot of people yeah yeah I I I failed the first three attempts uh those first three attempts were on Friday uh so they said okay Monday you guys have one last shot if you don't make it you're out so me and my uh swim buddy at the time we both had failed we spent the entire weekend just doing breath holds in our room it's all we did all weekend long we is that what was getting you the breath hold uh well I think time

was getting me and and probably panic and you know so our mindset was if we can hold our breath longer you have more time to deal with the problem and To stay calm and it did it worked I crushed it on Monday just um the audience that doesn't know what pool comp is pool comp is in a nutshell you do all these procedures underwater you're on open circuit dive equipment and you're at the bottom of a pool you do all these procedures the final one they pretty much beat the hell out of the underwater tie

your hoses up it's a slam you off the botom yeah it's a disaster and then You have to basically get all your equipment back together and uh and there's a series of steps and you have to follow them step by step and if you do one of them out of sequence you fail with no air and the you know they punch you in the gut that's like the first thing they do to make sure you have no air and uh so that I just wanted to paint that picture what it is yeah it's like getting

your ass kicked underwater while you're trying to do calculus yeah That's a good way to put it so you got through it the third time got through it the fourth time the fourth time yeah fourth time on Monday got through it and so and that was the only other that was the only other hiccup I had going through buds other than that you know was good man I you know good glass I like I said I drank all the time which probably set myself down a path when I was a young enlisted guy I mean

I was I I was a good seal I uh probably parted Way too much yeah you know was something I finally had to come to a Reckoning with years later I mean that's kind of part of it you know at least back then it was like that when I was when I showed up too it was it was encouraged it was I was encouraged to do that and if you didn't do it then you were an out you know you were an outsider yep at least at least where I where I went the same same

for us you know so but um so you graduated buds They didn't have seal qualification training then they had stt corre correct what team did you go to and how actually how did they decide what team you were going to so I had been assign so I worked when I was uh stationed on the east coast and I had uh before I went to buds I had that period of time that I was waiting that year and a half so I got assigned a naval special Warfare group 2 the headquarters command for the SEAL Teams

and later got chopped over to Seal Team 4 and ended up working there for I don't know four or six months um which was a cool thing um I got to learn a lot before I went out to Buds and got to meet some of the people um so when I was out at buds I actually really grew to like San Diego so I actually requested West Coast but the warrant officer that I had worked under at Seal Team 4 I guess had said hey bring this guy back to Seal Team 4 which actually was

a blessing I'm glad I went back There so ended up going back to Seal Team 4 Seal Team 4 at that point had a lot of uh uh I think they had had a lot of guys leave so they needed quite a few guys so a big chunk of our class ended up going to Seal Team 4 like probably 20 of us um which the rest of the class kind of got dispersed amongst all the other teams but that created this problem for Team Four because seal tactical training stdt was actually run through the headquarters

Command group two but we had so many bodies that they were like man it's going to take years to get all your guys you know we don't have enough slots to put all your guys through so what happened is SEAL Team 4 ended up running their own St oh okay yeah so they pulled some of the instructors from training they basically created you know a duplicate curriculum and uh and we went through um our own stt up at for pick at Virginia back then when you when you Went to Team Four was that back when

the team still had their areas of operation I think Team Four well I know Team Four was jungle warfare South America right correct so yeah everything we focused on was uh South America counter drug related I learned Spanish um so um which was really cool I love the jungle I love the jungle I love Central and South America uh spent a lot of time in Columbia really I loved Columbia I loved the people um kind of My first introduction to combat occurred in Columbia although funny we did not our idea of combat back then was

you know hey I'm Toe to Toe in a this vicious gunfight um well before we get into that before we get into your first combat experience let's take a quick break many of you probably know by now earlier there this year I did a psychedelic healing journey and that Changed many aspects of my life for the better two of them being I haven't had any alcohol or coffee in over 6 months another aspect that changed of mine is my morning ritual and I want to tell you guys about my new addition to my morning ritual

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take The best [ __ ] of their entire life right here I do how do you do that you go with bubs Naturals collagen protein you rip the thing open you put in your coffee you Stir It Up and you're on your way now if taken the best [ __ ] of your entire life doesn't interest you calogen will also give you beautiful hair great skin and nails to die for so and you'll recover a lot quicker in between workouts if that's your thing so Now that we got the good [ __ ] out of

the way get it let me tell you a little bit about bubs the company bubs is a tribute company to Glenn bubs dhy who is a Navy SEAL and a CIA contractor who died defending American freedom in Benghazi Livia bubs donates 10% of all proceeds to veteran organizations like the Glen dhy Foundation and 100% of all proceeds on Veterans Day let me tell you about Bub's latest product that helps with Energy healthy digestion your immune system and your metabolism bubs Naturals apple cider vinegar gummies which actually tastes so damn good that I ate all 60

of them the first the first night I got them they taste amazing and man I got a lot of energy now anyways go to bubs naturals.com use promo code Shan to take 20% off your order thank you bubs Naturals for being a sponsor of the Shawn Ryan Show all right Jason we're back from the break we're going to Colombia and we're about to get into your first combat experience yeah so Columbia was uh I loved Columbia it was amazing I I really enjoyed the people um we got assigned to um so kind of my first

introductions to combat and also the first introduction to like oh this isn't all Rockstar partying being cool like yeah there's some dangerous parts of this job and um we went down To San Jose del guav which is in southern Columbia uh there was a lot of uh Coco production down there so we had been assigned to go work at uh one of the Special Forces forward bases that were down there and work with them and help them US Special Forces or Colombian Colombian Colombian yeah we were working with the Colombian Special Force and and a

side job we had so one part was helping to train them to execute counter drug missions the Secondary part was to train the conscripts they had at the camp so we're kind of running those two jobs um so uh several things happened on like this six week um you know mini deployment you know we we were launching out of Panama then so it was part of our larger South America deployment but we were living you know literally you were living right on the the San Jose del guav River and um that's way down there yeah

yeah it's it's close we're pretty Close to trace skas okay so um but I remember there were several things like hey heavy far control territory uh for those that don't know the farc was the uh Guerilla outfit that basically wanted to overthrow the Colombian government and what happened is the far frequently would support the cartels and the drug trade provide security and stuff like that they're still active I believe I they're definitely weakened I I didn't know that they were still you Know I've heard I mean Columbia definitely has done a pretty good job from

what I've heard of creating better stability there I mean back then it was a wild west I'll bet um so multiple things happened like like that made me realize hey this is the real deal like um probably one of the first things that happened that I remember um often times when you're overseas and they're Americans someplace people know that the Americans typically we have medical care We have and and we want to project hey Americans were good people we're here to help so often times you would have individual that would hear that and they would

come you know to where you're at and say hey will you help us so a guy brought a little girl probably three years old to the camp and she had been severely burn from like the waist down kind of from her knees to her midsection it was really weird but I mean severe like third degree burns and uh it was Almost like she had been set into a boiling liquid and and the guy that brought her he was kind of squirely he was he was her uncle or something so anyways we wrapped her up and

our medic was like dude this girl is going to die if we don't take her someplace so we loaded her on our boats you know we had the special boat teams down there with us and we headed up the river to the closest little town from there and I Remember us taking her in and dude it reminded me you know everybody wants to right now there's this idea this this narrative that America is such a terrible place which just infuriates me because you and I have both seen how much we've tried to do and help

other countries and other people and also how good we have it in our country yeah um and this was my first introduction to Poverty at a level that I mean I I grew up relatively poor But like nothing like my you know we're talking cardboard Shanty houses and when we went into this medical facility they're literally building houses out of trash yes and living in it they're like hey these trash Fields if they're living in and people like no clothes naked yeah um eating off the street but this medical facility uh facility is like a

stretch of the word it reminded me something out of a horror movie like paints peeling off the walls The lights are flickering um mean we took this little girl and the doctor came to look at her and they ended up uh he was like hey we don't have enough bandages like we're not going to be able to do much so they they kind of irrigated our wounds um and then we gave them the dressings to bandage her and they bandaged her up and um I remember looking at some of their medical tools they were like

rusted I was like holy [ __ ] there was Rust on the yeah damn so um and then then we left and I don't know if she ever survived I I doubt it I mean if they didn't have the I mean I would imagine she probably unfortunately would have gone septic you know with that level of injury right in you know your groin area if they're not changing those dressings on a regular basis so that was kind of my first introduction to dude like this is a hard world uh and there are people who are

really struggling um I think second introduction in Colombia I remember we were planting sensors uh along the river to monitor activity at night and we went back to recover some of those sensors and um my Senior Chief was like you know we pulled up to the river and and or pulled up to the bank and my senor Chief's like red go recover that sensor I'm like okay so I'm starting to go get it and the um Colombian special force guy that was With us was like hey just be aware the far finds anything they booby

trap everything so they're like we're going to pull offshore while you get it so in my mind like dude I'm like walking up to this tree where I knew we had put this sensor and in my mind like every step every Vine every leaf is a [ __ ] booby trap what what were they using for booby traps uh they didn't really say at that time so all you know I'm a young kid and they're just like booby all you hear is Booby traps so I'm I'm in I'm in my mind I'm hearing everything from

I'm going to fall in a puny puny pit uh to you know something that swings along and snaps me in the chest to a pressure plate which you know I wasn't even fully uh aware of all of that back then I just I'm I going to blow up trying to get this yeah uh and it ended up nothing there was nothing there so I got it but I think that was kind of the first time like hey this is for real and the fact That the boat pulled off like hey we don't want to be

close to you in case anything happens so recovered that and that was kind of the second like hey like this is no joke um third thing that happened the Colombians came to us at one point and we're like hey uh one of our guys got shot we need you to treat him so we went over to the other side of the camp and sure enough they had a guy with a a a head wound and he's laying there and He's barely breathing um and we're like what happened and they're like we don't know you know

they're just totally ah we don't know and they were like maybe somebody from outside the camp shot in which did happen sometimes uh but uh there was no we couldn't find an exit wound so looked like a small caliber uh which this is all new to me I mean it's the first time I've ever seen you know gunshot wound so Our Senior Chief who was a medic and our other medic we're like yeah this guy's not going to make it but the Colombians are like fix him and we're like there's not fixing this guy you

know the Senior Chief was like well let's let's at least say face we'll least make it look like yeah so uh they were like let's cke him um and uh so that was kind of the first time um and I I was interested in becoming a medic at that point so they were like Hey red you know you can do it so I learned one this tissue is really thick like it's you know it takes a lot of pressure to cut into you CED him yeah and uh so we we we cracked him and they

let me do that and then you know we took him and yeah he didn't survive he passed away so that was kind of the first dead person I saw and just first gunshot wound I'd ever seen so uh then the last big thing that occurred is we started getting Intel That there was a 400 man far force moving on our camp how many guys did you oh D we were we were a uh we weren't even a platoon I think we were a squad including the Colombians uh no the Colombian probably had I don't know

50 60 people but not many I mean yeah we would have we would have been overrun by a 400 Man force so uh we kept getting updates that They were coming closer and closer and I remember I remember you know the Senior Chief Sitting us down like all right let's go over our ene plan um because yeah the the we were getting word Socom was starting to say hey be prepared you know if this gets any closer we don't want you guys there so I remember for the last couple of nights like it was like

sleep in your cams gun at the ready like we're ready to roll in case anything happens and I Remember you know one night laying in bed and all of a sudden in the middle of the night man the [ __ ] world erupted and uh just gunfire everywhere explosions uh so I jump out of bed and uh just chaos everybody's running in all the different directions so um came out of our we were in his like little metal quanson hut like World War II style Huts um came outside and there was kind of a retaining

you know wall right outside and got down behind that and our Senior Chief was there I'm like hey what's going on he's like I don't know sounds like somebody shot in in the camp they basically opened up on all four perimeters and were just crushing the jungle with 40 Mike Mike and machine gun and he said I'll find out and uh but he he handed me two thermite and was like hey go in there to our radios and if I tell you you're going to destroy our radios and we're going to go on and I

remember you've got to be [ __ ] me Are you serious so went back inside you know made sure all my stuff was ready and he came back a few minutes later and he was like uh he's like I think it's a really it sounds like somebody had shot into the camp so they had just responded with you know just everything everything and uh they sent out a patrol and uh they didn't find anything so that 400 man farc element left after that so what we wonder is did they send some uh skirmishers up to

test the Security and they definitely saw a very robust security posture and said okay we're not going to mess with that and they went on so uh so that was kind of a um an interesting thing it was funny one of the conversations after it happened was hey should we submit for a Combat Action ribbon and we were all like [ __ ] no you know we that wasn't we weren't in combat we weren't directly in a firefight you know somebody shot at us and they shot so um which is funny Though because years later

now when you look at if by the definition to earn a Combat Action ribbon now it would have met that definition yeah I mean now you I think if you're on a ship that fires a missile that's well they that is true but for us it's if you are in enemy territory and you are in high threat of a uh enemy encounter that qualifies for a Combat Action ribon oh okay so cuz for us who Do a lot of missions where we're patrolling in are in that situation where we were pretty deep yeah um deep

in you know dangerous territory and to be you know somewhat engaged so so anyways that was kind of my first introduction to you know combat and realize you know wow this this is for real and and I'd love to say it changed my mindset it did and I was still young and um I mean I don't ever want to say that I didn't train well cuz I I was uh I don't think anybody out there that can say I was not a good seal I trained hard uh I just partied really hard and sometimes I

think uh I look at when I got older that mindset changed I think man you really beat yourself up about that you know I do well because I think it makes a difference it's the it's the foundation of uh a lot of what I talk on now you know what is your primary focus in this life and if there should be a balance in Everything we do I think I was too far out of balance the other way and it ended up it ended up uh hurting damaging me damaged my reputation as a young officer

years later well we'll get into that later but I mean that like I don't know everything but you know that like I said that was that was pretty much par for the course when I came in several years later and um and if you didn't Partake in those festivities then you were ostracized from the platoon you know and that that's I'll probably get some hate for saying that but I don't care that's how the [ __ ] it was when I showed up if you did not do that you were ostracized from the team and

not only that they didn't even trust you you know was you were not trustworthy because you're not partying partying with the team which thankfully I saw after 9/11 that Started that started change because they realized and it's something that I talk to young guys about you know now like all they care about is you are you a good operator you know when they're talking about do they bring somebody into a platoon or a troop you know you know it's usually not like well how well does he drink yeah you know that may come up but

it's going to be like dude he's solid operator [ __ ] yeah across the board guy's a rockstar at Everything he does he doesn't drink all right yeah so what uh but I but yeah when we were younger I will admit and I bought into that the problem is there's a time and place for it as you become a leader and that was my problem I started carrying it with me as I got older and as a young leader I was still running the exact same way I was as a young enlisted guy and that's

what really started to be a problem and I think if I had figured that out a little better It's one thing for you to go out and party it's another thing for you to be a liability if people are having to babysit you if you're showing up to work late because you're [ __ ] up and hung over um you know and and there were too many times that I bled on the other side I 100% agree with you I'm not I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just saying that's that's just I mean even after

911 when I showed up that's how it was and I mean you spend I mean you spend years You know trying to become a seal and then you do it you know what I mean you get there with all the blood guts tears sweat you know all that uh you know internal drive to become that then you get there and that's that's the culture yeah and so of course you're going to buy into it I'm not making an excuse for myself cuz I was right there I was a partying [ __ ] you know me

both it was a great time I loved it man I mean some of The best years of my life my my wife laughs cuz we met later I was an instructor at that point and she was like I'm glad I wasn't around the first part of your career so I'm like babe we would never we probably never would have survived I mean I was I was just I was young and immature and and living I mean what an amazing job I mean as young men you were you were you were given a job where we're

going to we're going to Entrust you with millions of dollars in equipment to go around the world and do you know tactical operational even sometimes creeping up into strategic level things um and and you know patch your ego because you know hey you're one of the best of the best and it's easy to get caught up in that I did as a matter of fact fact it later it started to build into a level of ego and arrogance that That's where it became my downfall oh you couldn't switch it off no gotcha and as a

young officer you know [ __ ] that became a real problem well how many what did you do after that deployment so I did three uh South America deployments um so um three South America deployments was Shield team four and then I went on to become an instructor you did how many deployments three all to Columbia uh I did uh no so multiple so two to Panama and then I did a almost a 4mon Appointment to Peru as part of a uh a counter drug school we were running it was me and one other CL

special forcea team some Coast Guard people but we were working with the Peruvian Special Forces and it was awesome I loved it we were in a ketos Peru um and and just training these guys and just out in the middle of nowhere I mean my my Spanish is so bad now but back then I came back from that trip and I clept the College Spanish test for 12 credit hours I almost aced the dlpt um you know 3-3 back then was the highest you could get I got a two plus three um so uh yeah

I just enjoyed it man I was young I was doing well um so uh when you went to Panama you weren't were you in that that uh platoon that blew the bridge yes you well let's how are you going to Breeze over that we got I know we've had a lot of uh well how do you know that story I don't know I Actually don't know the story but when I was a new guy it seal team8 and I showed up to my platoon I remember one of the guys that was on that op everybody

kept saying there was like the rumor going around amongst one of the rumors going around amongst all the new guys was oh he was on the he was on the op that blew the bridge yeah and I was uh yeah I didn't the bridge in uh you know at the jungle warfare School up at Fort Sherman yeah I I don't know the story so let's What's so Fort Sherman was uh shutting down I mean the panamanians had decided they didn't want the America you know it's panamanians decided they didn't want Americans there anymore this also

happened in Puerto Rico later interestingly enough every single time this has occurred uh years later they're always like God we wish we hadn't let you guys leave because it impacted the economy it impacted all these different things so Um anyways so so we were working up we were doing jungle warfare training up at Fort Sherman which was on the Northern side of Panama and um and it's where the army jungle warfare school was so um pretty cool um they had these old bunker complex and I guess were part of the post World War to uh

they were they were fallback like bomb shelters basically for government leadership and stuff like that so we lived in these old bomb shelters as we were going through Training and uh one of the things that was decided upon is they wanted to destroy this bridge on Fort Sherman and uh so we the the instructors our land Warfare instructors turned it into this big uh FTX you know full mission profile exercise so we uh we um we we we came up with our plan and uh unfortunately young and often with demo with demolitions and C4 you

know really you don't need a whole lot you know if you can strategically put it you can do A lot of damage with a little bit but we they they wanted this bridge destroyed so we were like well when in doubt overload so dude I have a picture of myself we created uh so we figured out okay we're going to take out these support beams on the bridge um and we made like these C4 diamonds that I'm not kidding you were like 4T tall by 3T wide I mean they probably weighed I mean it was

probably 30 lb C4 in this diamond we had it all Rigged up and it was designed that we could put it up against and then tape it on to these support structures so I have a picture I I I I rigged like this harness to carry this thing I looked I look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle you know so we we patrolled in and we put this on and then we um we fell back to what we thought was a safe spot and dude we cranked this thing off and uh there was the first

explosion and after you know the ringing and the sound went Quiet for a minute all of a sudden we started to hear and dude there's like pieces of metal like ripping through the trees it's like raining chunks of metal down all around us we're like holy [ __ ] like get undercover like we're climbing under vehicles and stuff trying to Holy trying to protect ourselves but uh yeah we we vaporized that bridge I mean we probably used hundreds of pounds more of C4 than we really needed but damn yeah well if You get pictures send

them son him I'll throw them in this video yeah I'll have to go back and look at some of the stuff but I definitely I have that picture I know for a fact I have that picture I don't have any pictures after uh the bridge got blown but I had the pictures that were taken before we went out damn so so three three deployments to South America yeah and then then I became a uh instructor so I was uh I was a communicator uh in My um second platoon and then a primary communicator on that

third deployment I was good at you know I mean I was I definitely um I'm a thinker I like understanding how things work so um you know I was pretty good at making comms so that led me to as an instructor getting put into what back then we call Basic Warfare so we were teaching Comm Communications uh Marksmanship survival um evasion resistance and Escape I think that was everything we t But um so I got put into that cell and for the next uh year and a half that's what I focused on so a lot

of times people think oh you were a seal instructor you were out of buds but what a lot of people don't realize is um active duty seals after they've done uh several operational tours we need them to instruct you know training never ends I mean as as you well know but a lot of people don't understand that um typically when guys are put into a Platoon now they go into almost a a long period of training before they get ready to go on deployment well it's um it's experienced seals who run that training who become

the training instructors for the the team um and that's how I was an instructor so and it was fun I learned a lot I learned I like uck I learned um it was fun to put courses together I mean we did everything from basic Marksmanship courses all the way to um I got turned Over from another guy um a really cool course it was my favorite thing we ran it was a long range evasion and um tactical movement course up in the mountains of Virginia where basically we simulated like guys were deep Behind Enemy Lines

and you were having to evade through non-permissive territory non-permissive means it's enemy territory that if people see you they will report you and you'll be captured or Killed so um um we would insert guys and they would be in Twan Pairs and they would be given you know an initial point and they would have to move anywhere from 5 to 10 clicks 20 clicks sometimes um and they would get to a point and usually there would be a friendly agent or there would be something they would have to do you know obviously getting more into

the challenging ply World we'll stay away from that but uh things they would have To do to um you know help them move through whatever pipeline to get out of this uh area and it was a lot of fun we worked with the uh Sheriff's Department up there and a lot of the locals participated in this um and I made a lot of really good friends I I ended up uh my wife and I ended up getting married up there at a bed and breakfast that we worked out of that was kind of our base

headquarters but all the way up into the um up into the uh mountains up into the Blue Ridge Parkway and all the way down into the Lower Side of the valley so I mean it covered you know at least a 20x 20 mile radius so uh and some pretty steep arduous terrain so um there were interesting things that you know funny things that I remember in that course um one of our guys who was ended up being my team team leader uh in in Iraq so you know the story that Jay or DJ Shipley told

um our team leader years before in that course one uh night the platoon had Gotten together and they were laid up the morning came and uh and Jay was a communicator and he stood up in the early morning light and or maybe he was seated let me take this back he was seated and uh a hunter uh 50 cal black powder rifle saw something rustling in the bushes and fired uh not really knowing what it is and dude if it wasn't for Jay's radio 50 cal ball hit that radio which saved Jay's life and all

of a sudden this entire platoon of Dudes with automatic weapons stood up this Hunter shits his pants uh but thankfully they called the sheriff and the sheriff uh arrested this guy for you know how can you shoot if you don't know what you're shooting at yeah um one of the funnier stories and and God Rest his soul he's no longer with us but Colin Thomas uh was one of the newer guys and um they had to move and one of the link up points was up by the main highway highway 33 right by the uh

park Ranger Shack at the entrance to the uh National Park up there and um so they had to link up and then they would have to cross this four-lane highway to get to the other side cuz their point was like five or six clicks down um so ideally you should be doing this at night uh well they ended up being behind so by the time they did their link up it was early morning so they would had to lay Up an entire night and they decided they didn't want to do that so they said screw

it we're going to take our chances and they crossed the highway this four lane Highway at like like 8:00 a.m. in the morning so needless to see people saw them and called So at their next link up point I had the sheriff arrest uh Colin and his his partner and we took him to jail and we interrogated him and we had a lot of fun and and oh my God Colin was so angry man he was so Furious Um we had mug shots guys got a hold of the mug shots and we're putting them all

over the team have you seen these men and uh so I that was that was a good a good story and Colin went on to be an amazing seal I mean he was stud of studs went on served at six and you ended up uh dying on a mission in uh Afghanistan damn so I didn't know him yeah good dude good dude so I learned a lot I learned a lot although I will say this what was kind of happening Is I was good at what I did uh I was good I was I was

always ranked pretty high uh but I was also developing an ego uh I was getting pretty arrogant um it was about that time this is 2000 20 the end of 99 to 2000 and um there wasn't a whole lot going on in the world so I was kind of at a decision point for my career option A was to go over to Dam Neck um and option b was um I had had a lot of people say hey man you should think about putting in a commissioning package or training officer who had been a mentor

for me was really encouraging me to do that I was like well nothing's going on in the world really right now maybe this smart move um I would get my degree um I had just met my wife and we were talking about getting married so I was like maybe this would be a good time to do all that so I put in um my First commissioning package um and I didn't get picked up that was in '99 I didn't get picked up that year I was told uh I I made it I was an alternate

so I said well what do what do I need to do to be more competitive for next year it was a program called Seaman Admiral so at that point they only picked 50 uh members out of the entire Navy oh wow so they said well you need to do this you need to do this we'd like to see some more Awards and stuff like That so I said okay so I talked to my leadership and training and said hey can you give me more responsibility can you give me more opportunities and they said yes um

so applied again the next year the next year the Shield team 4 had decided that the Chiefs wanted input on who became officers which I agree 100% with um although the Chiefs disagreed on me becoming an officer um and and I know this had a lot to do with I was a Partyer I was a partyer I was out there Burning It Down um and and for anybody out there who is a young military member who's like oh God does this mean that if I'm a leader I can't party no doesn't mean that but you

have to be very smart you have to pick and choose and there is a fine balance um when you're leading people and how much you party and unfortunately I was definitely on the I was too far and also I had a chip on my shoulder I Was I was I was I was getting young and arrogant I was you know pretty big in my bridges and uh so when the chief said we don't think you should be an officer you know I was kind of like well [ __ ] you I'll show you um so

I got fortunate that the commanding officer and my training officer both lobbied and said hey well we think this guy should be an officer and they they actually went against the Chiefs which I know that probably made a Lot of the Chiefs not like me um but I got picked up that year I got picked up for a commission so um headed off to school to Old Dominion University r C which at that time was the largest Roc unit on the East Coast um it was called a Consortium so you had Old Dominion University norick

State and Hampton University all three schools had uh one large rooc unit and it was probably the largest unit in the country for um the amount of X enlisted because uh for the Cement Admiral program or the enlisted commissioning program was one of the other programs the Marine had um uh Misa medical enlisted commissioning program so there there were multiple programs that because we were all enlisted and lived in the Hampton Roads area a lot of people came to that so there were almost at that point 320 um midshipman and officer candidates as part of

this unit and uh I reported to it in July 2001 checked out a shield Team 4 um I I want to back up because I want to tell another story about my level of arrogance because you know I think some people are like oh you're really tough on yourself I'm tough on myself but I'm also very honest um and and this final story occurred when I left Seal Team Ford I'm I'm kind of ashamed of it um but it's also I I don't pull any punches on who I am or what I've done and Mistakes

I've made so a a a at the end uh at Shield team 4 when I was in training instructor my commanding officer came to me and said hey risk assessments back then I don't know if you remember um man this probably a little bit before your time risk assessments were this stupid complicated thing that obviously some officer probably with an engineering degree came up with that you know it was like a matrix and you know Like 2.1 is extremely difficult and and uh what was happening is guys were just kind of going through the motions

of doing these risk assessments you know you would have to do them for every evolution but they were so complicated and a pain in the ass that guys would just gun deck it so rco who was one of the best leaders in my opinion I ever work for said we need a better system we need a simple system that just makes guys look at and he said I want it to work in both training and combat but I want something that is just a step-by-step process that guys can analyze what are all the big pitfalls

that things we should think about and say hey we've checked that box we've thought about this so I said red you're a smart guy go think about this and come up with something so ended up coming up with uh something called C Vortex uh and C Vortex was an acronym that basically Covered every aspect of operation training combat environment uh enemy threats whatever it was out there and it was just designed it was a simple uh acronym base um risk assessment tool that you pulled out right before you went out on a training exercise or

a combat Mission and uh you would go through and and you would check these things um then it ended up getting adopted with Seal Team 4 and later it went on I think it's used all throughout Special Operations now which is pretty incredible so I got uh submitted for a Navy Commendation Medal for that I was pretty excited I was like because I was an E6 usually E6 didn't get Navy commodation medals usually got put in for a Navy Achievement medal and uh I was really excited man I man you know I worked hard on

this um you know cool so right as I was leaving I was checking out I was getting that award and they gave me the award and it was a Navy Achievement medal and I was like I didn't say anything at the time I bottled it up and got the award said Thank thank you and I went back into admin to do my final checkouts and the guy behind the counter was kind of a annoying kind of annoying guy and he's like H hey man you know too bad that com got downgraded huh and dude I

snapped and this you know arrogance frustration I I literally had the award in my hand and I [ __ ] slung it at him and was Like [ __ ] you in that award and kind of stormed out of adadmin needless say I got called back in and had to go sit in front of the commanding officer and he was like you know I gave you that award he's like you might might as well have thrown it at me and he's like I'm sorry it didn't come in at what you thought it was going to

but you know this is what it is you know you did a good job you got recognized so and I'd love to say that I you know That it should have been a wake up moment for me like hey bro your ego needs to get back in check like you did a good thing you got recognized for it so what it wasn't at what you thought it was going to be no excuse for that kind of behavior especially as a young leader you're going off to be an officer you can't pull that [ __ ]

uh but I didn't so went to um excelled you know I I got to you and there were certain things one of the Things right off the bat there was there was clubs for each one of the communities but it was kind of built around regular Navy so there was an aviation Club there's submarine Club there surface Warfare club that a medical Club I was like hey man where's the Special Operations club and they were like there isn't one I was like all right well let's fix that let's create a club for Special Operations guys

and we did um which was great was it a oneman Club no no we actually so one there were quite a few uh seals that were there yeah so there were seven of us uh actually there were more than that there were nine of us there were seven of who were uh coming up around the same time uh two of the guys ended up becoming my best friends who are still active duty today um pretty amazing they're both assuming command this year which I'm excited to go to their change commands um but we Created this

club um but I will say over the three years that we created and ran it um no one went on to be um no one went on to a successful career in the SEAL Teams we had one of our guys make it through and the reason being now I look back on it we treated those guys like they were seals and I talked to buddies that actually one of the guys had made through the training um he said yeah your guy's good But he's like he's super arrogant which I'm sure I mean I was arrogant

I'm sure I don't know we didn't treat them like they were students and I think we probably should have I think that was a mistake we made to get them ready for training because I think a lot of these guys showed up thinking they had already made it and then when they got to training if they did have the ability like this one guy the instructors hated him they were like yeah he acts like He's already a seal yeah so lesson learned along the way um I ended up uh I I volunteered for every leadership

position there was I ended up uh ending up as the Battalion commanding officer so the number one position for the entire Battalion got ranked number one out of uh the graduating class um graduated uh sumacum lawed so the highest academic standing you can get and uh stepped back graduated with honors um and came back into the SEAL Teams in May of 2004 um there's a lot more details to that I know you know we're we're going kind of long um obviously 911 happened while I was at school yeah I was that was actually I was

going to ask that yeah that had to be kind of a weird feeling you're now a college student super everybody you know going War it actually happened only a couple of months after I had started school and I went back to Seal Team 4 to My old commanding officer and I said I'd like to get out of this program I'd I'd like to come back to the team and uh and uh he said no and prophetically he said red this war is going to go on for decades he said I guarantee it he said go

back to school finish he said we're going to need good leaders you need to come back and and be ready um although young immature arrogant I was like I don't want to hear that I want to man I want To go I want to go fight um but I did I went back to school and focused and the the war kind of developed kind of slow um you know as you well know cuz you were operating during that time 02 03 04 uh we were seeing combat but it wasn't super heavy combat you know some

places were but really I think things started to ramp up a lot 04 05 06 07 um but I was at school I got commissioned and was ready to come back and You know I graduated first and all these things and you know I think one of the problems with success in young men is it easily if you're not mature enough or you don't have a good background Network or really good mentors success quickly becomes ego and arrogance yeah uh you see it a lot in professional sports um I think you see it in Special

Operations oh yeah um and I know I I I Dr rank Hook Line and Sinker man and I came back thinking I'm going to be God's gift to The SEAL Teams I'm going to be this amazing leader and um and a lot of I kind of stepped back into a perfect storm when I came back so several things had happened the uh the SEAL Teams had fundamentally changed since 911 so prior to 911 we were still operating off a lot of old Vietnam era tactics cuz that was the last time the SEAL Teams had really

seen long sustained combat so even though we've Been into some skirmishes a lot of the lessons learned and a lot of the tactics we were using were still based off years of combat in Vietnam so obviously when guys got into Iraq and Afghanistan we quickly realized hey man a lot of the things we're doing don't work we weren't doing a lot of Mobility Ops so obviously we quickly figured out Mobility needs to become a part of what we're doing um um we need to plus our gu up on Close Quarters combat and urban operations obviously

in Afghanistan we need to get better at the mountain operations so I came back and a lot of the tactics that I had grown up thinking man I'm really smart I've got all this experience was totally different uh not only that you know I was one of the more experienced guys when I left well I came back and now I'm stepping into a platoon where half the guys there have combat experience Yeah and instead of humbling myself and being like hey Sean man you've got experience I I don't I don't really know how to do

this can you work with me and show me my ego wouldn't allow that you know I was like hey man I you know I'm I'm prior listic guy like you know I'm the man like I know how to do this and I didn't I was kind of stepping on my dick frequently making mistakes um which was damaging my Confidence but it was also hurting my credibility and I when I was younger had a bad habit of when I messed up to turn inward instead of outward so that made me look more alof more like you

know a non- team player uh on top of that like we were talking about um when I came into that platoon I originally was part of Seal Team 10 Echo platoon which was Mike McGreevy Mike mcgreevy's platoon who I had know Mike from Team Four phenomenal Shield great Guy man um a lot of the guys that I knew from prior team four days in my days which is a young officer they don't try and do um typically with an officer what they want to do if you were prior enlisted they typically want to move you

to the opposite coast and it's a smart thing to do because you don't know the guys as much so yeah you know I can see how that makes sense and they didn't do that the other thing that they do now that they Didn't do with us is if you're gone for the community more more than two years they have you go back through um an abbreviated sqt you don't have to do all the [ __ ] show stuff that the students are doing but it's at least getting you back up on track with the newest

tactics and stuff um they didn't do that for us either that probably would have been something good um because what happened I stepped back into this Splatoon with all these guys that I knew guys that I'd Been enlisted with that I partied with and what did I started doing started going out and partying with these guys um after a few months I got moved into foxr platoon foxr had a very young OIC and had a more Senior Chief who was a really good seal but he definitely was uh um he could be a bull in

a china shop why did you get moved because of that reason you got moved because of the junior OIC because of the leadership That's what they told me okay um so I got moved in this Sno and me and the chief we buted heads right for the beginning um I uh I think he probably woned an nson that just kept his mouth shut and said Roger that Chief I wasn't that guy um so frequently I didn't always agree with the way he did things so we would butt heads which created tremendous amount of friction uh

and unfortunately it created a lot of dysfunction in the Platoon um the OIC you know try to balance that and but frequently what would happen is the chief would come to him and be like Redmond's a problem I'd come to the OIC and say the chief's problem um but I was also a problem you know I really was uh cuz I was struggling with the tactics [ __ ] drinking like a fish uh kind of ostracizing myself because I'm in my own head on not doing well plus these relationship [ __ ] issues that are

Going on um so all of that was damaging my credibility you know as a young leader yeah um I didn't realize it was as bad as it was um when we got tasked to deploy um we were told hey uh Echo platoon is going to Afghanistan first so we were all bummed about that we wanted to be the first ones into combat and fox St platoon you guys are going to Germany and then you know we were doing what was Called the rip back then rotate in place so one group would do half the combat

tour and then the other group they would rotate so Echo platoon in the middle of deployment would go to Germany and we would rotate into Afghanistan so um I remember when we got chosen to go to um Germany first everybody was upset and we were trying to figure out why and um there were several reasons I won't I Won't sling mud at anybody else but one of the reasons was Redmond's are drunk damn you found that out yeah so that was how did that feel uh it hurt but my ego would not allow it at

that time I was still too arrogant like [ __ ] you you know damn and that's kind of the mindset that I had how did that fact that did did the team know that that was part of it I dude my relationship unfortunately at that point probably wasn't that great uh I think there were a lot of guys that Didn't care for me um I mean come on if to be a good leader you need to step up and be a good leader and if you're not a good leader you well know and the SEAL

Teams like we're not going to give you much of the time of day yeah um like I said ego and arrogance so you know the the [ __ ] you I'm going to keep driving attitude is good but sometimes you know sometimes you need to take a step back and say why is this happening yeah I had yet to do that so Um so we um we were gearing up we did our we did our Germany deployment and you know I I contined to just drink like a fish while we were over there and continued

to do [ __ ] that just hurt my reputation um um you know train you know we did you know I still hey man I'm going to try and do the best best I can to train and and do what needs to be done but um so we were getting ready to uh you know we Were only like a week away from you know we had packed everything up and we're only about a week away from rotating into Afghanistan and Ekko was going to come back um just backtracking real quick I'm just curious yeah please

if you don't want to answer that's fine but if you're in a platoon I mean and then and I remember how War like everybody wanted to I mean you don't become a seal to go to Germany yeah you Know you become a seal no matter how much you like the party to go to to [ __ ] war and so to get that explanation of we're not going to Afghanistan first because Redman is a drunk I wasn't the only reason there were there were other reasons I'm not going to sling mud at the other people

okay there there were other reasons why was told that the decision then you go to Germany and you're still Boozing Who Who Are You boozing with because guys in the platoon okay so yeah I had friends okay yeah so you did have yeah I mean I had friends in the platoon I mean I I am hard on myself so it probably wasn't quite as bad sometimes as I make it out to be okay although hindsight's always 2020 and you well know the little things add up to become big things yeah and um and they did

did they totally added up to become a big Thing when the when the axe finally fell but no cuz I think all of us were we wanted to be in Afghanistan you know we all wanted to be in the fight and um you know we were obviously you know staying on tracking what Echo platoon was doing on a regular basis um we did different exercises while we were over there we did training while we were over there uh but a lot of times we were on standby so so what do you do when you're on

standby we allowed to drink did you get any Leadership training before the to talk to me um I didn't listen and believe it or not the chief tried to talk to me a couple of times uh and I sure didn't listen to him you know I had my walls up I was I was uh you know we we had we had you know he he tried to tell me and give me good advice hey man you need to cut back on the drinking if you're going to go out with the boys you should to have

a couple drinks and then you should leave And he's right it's the advice I give to guys now you know if you're a leader if you really want to burn it down you need to go do it in a uh a protected place you know you really you really can't do that in front of you know with the guys unfortunately you know I found that out the hard way running business yeah it is it's true there is a there is no matter how much people say they want their leaders to be friends at the end

of the day they want you to be a leader more Than a friend it doesn't work yeah yeah does not work so um so yeah man it was my own ego arrogance stubbornness all of it you know all of it kind of led me um to to kind of the final Point um so week before we were leaving uh we got word that a helicopter had been shot down and that uh we had not heard anything from any of the guys um we had heard that um you know that the team had been on the

Ground and dude we were waiting just just like anybody else um um I don't know maybe after a day or two or maybe it was a day later um obviously not in the news uh Marcus's survival radio ping um so that was kind of the first news and they started tracking that uh a couple of our guys including our chief flew over there immediately the Rest of us continued to get all our gear together to get ready to go uh cuz now we were accelerating like Hey we're going to be leaving earlier um got word

few days later that um you know everybody on that helicopter had been killed um so Mike McGreevy um the the the guys who were part of our troop was Mike McGreevy Jeff Lucas Jeff fontain um I'm sorry jacqu fonan Jeff Taylor and uh and uh Eric Christianson So who was my troop Commander um so um and they they had recovered Marcus and they had recovered Danny Deets and uh Mike Murphy's bodies and they had flown them back to lawn stool so myself and a couple of other guys drove up to lawn stool um to see

those guys and um a couple of the guys from uh Echo platoon were there and we talked to them just kind of heard um I met Marcus for the first time I saw uh Danny and Mike's Bodies in the plane and we relieved the guys for a while so they could go get some food who were escorting the bodies home and then we drove back from lawn stool that night and I think the next day or day after that we flew to we flew to Afghanistan uh recovery operations were still underway for Axe and uh

um and about that time you know maybe a day or two after we'd been there they found Axe and recovered him brought him back and like the first Thing we did while we were in Afghanistan was the memorial ceremony for all these guys we lost we did the ramp ceremony for ax and then we did the full-blown Memorial ceremony for the 11 seals we lost out of you know all these guys that I had served with um and that that was that was pretty eye opening um like this shit's for real yeah um that was

kind of you know aside from Columbia this was my first introduction to combat and it's burying 11 Um seals yeah 11 seals so um you know started driving forward on that deployment and we we wanted payback all of us we're like man we want to get out into the fight um but we we were really stalled there were political things that were happening in Afghanistan in 2005 um a lot of the senior leadership at the political level things were slowing down a bit and there were Leaders who felt like hey let's not let's not stir

the pot let's not poke The Hornet's Nest let's you know let's try and thing settle um so they didn't really want a lot of um operations occurring so we weren't really allowed to go out one of the turnover Ops we had was for a senior um Taliban leader who had been rocketing the BAM Camp before we go into that would what was that turnover I mean it was tough man those guys like was Anybody still there yeah Echo so so what happened when um when the qrf launch for Red Wings um you had Echo platoon

there but it was also a conglomerate it was also add-ons from stdv Team 1 and STV Team 2 that made up that reconnaissance element that Mike Murphy uh Danny Deets Axe and Marcus were a part of so some of those guys who were there um you know they they wanted to be on that qrf which was um uh Dan Healey James Su um Shane Patton I think that was it the rest of the guys were were ours um so everybody else was on the other helicopter so when they flew in you know sometimes I talk

about the fact that you know one of the Lessons Learned there were a lot of lessons learned that came out Red Wings um but one of the Lessons Learned was The um when the quick reaction force was launched when Mike Murphy finally got that satcom call um you know they were like we got to go immediately like as quickly as possible so um you know and and no you know backseat quarterback whatever who knows what would have or could have happened but I mean fact is the MH 47s The Chins fly faster than the Apaches

and they out flew the Apaches the Gunship escorts um to come in there so that's not sop you know we should you know obviously we want to let the gunships go in first and hopefully clear anything especially after something hot like that happens but I think those guys were like we have to get there as fast as possible so who knows who knows what would have happened but um the rest of echo platoon was in the other helicopter and literally watched out the window as at uh as as that helicopter got shot Down and they

wanted to be put down immediately they were like put us the [ __ ] down and uh headquarters said no absolutely not you know get the [ __ ] out of there so I think that really messed with those guys I mean they they uh they were really struggling needless to say when we got there yeah um I think all of us were you know and we wanted to get back out we wanted to get at it uh and I think our you know the leadership definitely recognize that um but we you Know weren't really

we kept submitting missions and we weren't allowed finally the very first mission we did was going after this senior Taliban commander and um and we submitted to go in nighttime operation fast rope breaching dual compound town and uh finally got approval to do this we'd probably been there a month by the time we finally got approved the very first mission we did so we we flew in landed um uh moved Up to the Target uh first time I ever I think I probably got a a TBI that night um when we breached uh the building

that I was going into was kind of it was kind of this building was this way a te and our building was this way so when that breach went off man they their breach they clacked it off probably a couple of seconds before ours so we got we got the full blast of the breach and I remember I remember making that entry like seeing stars like you know um but we went in um Took down the target the guy ended up being there captured him um we had vehicles that had come from base that came

in after the target was Secure and locked down the target the uh was there any engagements or was it not yet not yet um no it was all pretty quiet um what so one of the political things that was occurring was the local tribes were basically saying hey we don't want the Americans just to come into our village The Village Elders were Saying you need to notify US 24 hours in advance if you're going to come into our village and take down a building which of course okay yeah then gu is going to be gone

so um word spread that we were there obviously and this large crowd started to develop around the building as the sun is rising and we're processing people and um and the village Elder came up and he talked to our EXO the executive officer of Team 10 flew in to Take um Eric christensen's place so rxo was the Ground Force Commander for that mission and he's basically talking to the Village and the village Elders like we should have been notified and um everybody's all up in arms and angry and uh basically things are starting to implode

uh you know we're basically getting enough of a crowd that a Riot's about ready to occur so um they basically said and I was as part of the ssse kind of assistant ssse Commander I Think so um uh basically they said take the prisoners bring the Hilo in Secure that LZ and fly out of here so we loaded them on the helicopter and we flew back to Bam so guys still on the ground were basically eving when gunfire started to erupt and little shootout occurred and they drove away nobody was shot or anything but you

know things were now really tense and hot so this crowd followed um the group back to Bam and Basically rioted outside the gates they like trying to tear the gates down so this leader um this Taliban leader apparently was friends with carai so obviously his network of people call and say hey the Americans arrested your buddy carai is the president of Afghanistan at the time for those who don't know thank you um so you know runs up the flag pole and even though we found uh IED making equipment we found Explosives we found all this

stuff mortar equipment you know you know this guy had been accused of launching mortars into uh bam and we found all this stuff um yeah it went up the chain of command and uh and within 24 hours he was released and on top of that we came to find out are you [ __ ] me they released him released all of them all all 10 guys who were bad this is this is the kind of [ __ ] that makes me wonder what the [ __ ] we were ever doing there In the first place

yep so we risked our life for this mission to have this guy released uh because of political [ __ ] and then on top of that what happened uh unbeknownst to us so the general in charge of uh Afghanistan at that time had apparently put out an order uh a week maybe two weeks prior to this mission that there would be no more uh nighttime breaching fast roping operations without his direct approval And apparently he was on leave and it made it up to chain of command and got approved without his approval well I think

because of the political blowout from this Mission he was Furious and uh and we basically got put in hack you know like um you know our EXO had to go report and got his ass chewed and and we were not allowed to operate we I mean for two months we sat in Afghanistan and every Mission we'd submit was Denied yeah well we relieved you guys and uh same [ __ ] happened to us yeah and uh and then and then we went South that's what we did we left and went down to kahar yeah kahar

was kind of where I got myself in trouble uh was kind of the final nail for me as a young leader and where I started reinvent myself uh we went down to kahar and started conducting operations down there and uh on on September 23rd we ended up doing a uh a a take a large takedown of this Really big valley that every time um American aircraft flew over that Valley they would get fired upon which was pretty unusual most of the time tan were smart enough to like Hey we're not going to fire at aircraft

because you guys will come in and just blow us away but these guys in this Valley for whatever reason were pretty Brazen and we're just like don't come into our Valley so they were like like we want you guys to go in and flush out this Valley so it was us and the Canadians that went in and we basically locked this Valley down we landed uh guys on the the valley ran north south and on the Eastern ridg line and Western ridgel Line kind of high ground that went down in between um probably 2,000 yards

apart between these two Ridge lines probably ran about a mile and then it teed uh and there was a northern Ridgeline wall down there and we put people on that Northern Ridgeline wall and then we Inserted um an assault Troop that basically swept through from the south to the north down through the valley and you know just kind of pushing with us in OverWatch position so I was in charge of an OverWatch team on the Eastern side a sniper team a javelin team and a machine gun team and we inserted early in the morning you

know 4:00 a.m. or so and right off the bat there was some Skirmish gunfire that occurred um and uh and then as the sun rose it got real Quiet there was nothing started seeing all kinds of activity um signs that the enemy had been there we were identifying caves um as the guys continue to push through the valley uh got we had a hard extract time of I don't know right before the sunset or something so they were like you have to be done by this time because the aircraft were all stacked up for brother

Mission so they're like in order for us to pick you up you have to be ready to Go and extracted by this time so it's late in the day it's like 400 p.m we're like all right let's let's finish our push and we're going to have to wrap this up when um the guys on the ground in the valley they had at this point made it right to that T intersection at the north side of the valley um and as they made that turn they ran into Taliban fighters and they started to get into a

pretty good gunfight um they turned and started to push and they Found you know quite a few fighting positions in a rather large Taliban Force um some of the guys had started to fall back towards the extract point so because of the I mean it was probably at least a th000 2,000 ft down in the valley below the ridge line so uh the guys that have moved back no longer had positive Communications with the guys on the ground I was still forward with our team and we had good comms so I'm now Relaying between the

guys on the ground and headquarters which is back behind us which was our EXO and my chief who we did not get along with my Senior Chief at this point so one point guys get into big gunfight and uh the my OIC who was down there basically called back and said hey we need immediate reinforcements so uh this is where ego arrogance and really I wanted to get in the fight MH I mean that's that's the pure truth of the story and that's a Really dangerous thing you know uh if you don't really think through

that I mean it's one thing if you want to get in the fight and everything's lined up and you should be it's another thing if you don't think through it I didn't really think through it I was just like [ __ ] it I'll be the calvary you know let's go uh they need reinforcements I'm the closest one I got comms let's go so I told our machine gunner I said hey you and me we're going down there we're Going to go support these guys uh cuz already our snipers and the the the guys with

the javelin had moved back so it was just him and I forward CU we were doing the coms relay so um I called back and told my Senior Chief what we were doing and he was like [ __ ] no do not do that and I was like [ __ ] you and went um dropped down into that Valley and as soon as we dropped off we lost all comms [ __ ] so here we are moving Down into this steep valley into this unknown position um you know we got guys in a gunfight we're

now an unknown maneuvering force it was a it was a terrible terrible decision on my part and we're Super Lucky we're super lucky that we did not encounter Taliban forces on the way down that didn't smoke check us or you know some cave that I didn't even notice that we get down below and they just could have smoke checked us without us ever even seeing them so We we finally get down to the bottom and I'm you know trying to maneuver and the comms come back up and at this point they're like screaming into the

radio like where the [ __ ] are you I'm like I'm down in the bottom of the valley and they're like we are trying to call in an air strike we don't know where you are get your ass out of the valley right the [ __ ] now so I kind of realized oh I think I [ __ ] up and I I said said hey we got To get out of here so scampered back up the north side of the valley um got up one of the helicopters picked us up in that time that

they recovered us and knew where they were they called in an air strike on this large fighting position that the Taliban were fighting on dropped a whole bunch of bombs on that they had uh one Afghan Commando that had been shot up so they got him metab backed out our guys were okay but they they everybody kind of Recon Ed on North side of the valley at this point but at this point now it's late so we've missed our extract on top of that uh the the on the way the helicopters were in one of

our helicopters got shot down [ __ ] so we lost um one of the hilos on top of this restricted air flow so they were like Hey guys you're there for the next several days holy [ __ ] so we how long had that gunfight been going on all I mean I mean it probably lasted four or five hours I would say so did you guys even have I mean obviously a lot of ammo had been only only the guys down in the valley didn't have ammo the rest of us obviously Recon constitute but I

when I got to the top of that Valley dude like the cold should like guys looked at me like what the [ __ ] is your problem yeah and I think I knew like yeah [ __ ] up but once again you go a Um so when I got up there the XO came to me I was like what the [ __ ] were you doing and I was like what do you mean what am I doing I was running I was running to support guys I went down to support guys guys were in trouble

I went to support them he's like you had no [ __ ] clue we're trying to bring in an air strike and I can't call it in cuz you know we don't know where you are so so yeah three nights we slept on that mountain toop the next day guys went Down and did a BDA we we um you know we had killed quite a few guys uh an interesting story I I was in an OverWatch position I don't think anybody wanted me walking with them um but I was in an OverWatch position as guys

pushed down into the valley to do the BDA and one of the interesting things um the um two things happened which I thought were rather interesting one um one of the bombs 500 lb bombs they dropped was a dud and it it hit the Ground and skipped and a Taliban fighter had been shot and was trying to crawl away and the bomb hit a [ __ ] tree and crushed this tree down on this dude that was trying to trying to crawl away so [ __ ] Karma got him in the end uh anyways uh

and then the other thing they found another wounded guy and we ended up calling in a metac for this wounded Taliban fighter and uh and you know all these people that want To downplay the US and say oh we're such terrible people and I'm like you know what man I watched as we risked major lives I mean this this Blackhawk had to fly down into this Valley dude there were at least 5 600 yards of cliffs on either side anyone with an RPG could have fired it down into that rotor and taking that helicopter out

but we took the time to risk to save this guy you know because that's how we follow the rules of engagement we you know so those Were the two things that kind of occurred aside from me stewing with I think you really [ __ ] up um we got back and my EXO pulled me aside and was like you're [ __ ] out of here I'm sending you back to Bam to meet with the commanding officer holy [ __ ] and that uh is probably I think at that point I realized how much and so

if you think about it ego and arrogance you know we say hey we all drank but all that adds up yeah all that Adds up and if you continue to make poor decisions and you don't fix yourself at some point there's going to be a big one that they say all right no more my big one occurred on that mission and uh the guys were like we don't want to work with him they were calling me Ranger red you know I'm sorry they were calling me uh Ranger red was my name before that they were

calling Rambo red uh Rambo red which uh you know for those who think that's a cool thing it's Not yeah you know uh SEAL Teams are about teamwork and Rambo is not and I basically showed that at that time I really wasn't so um that's [ __ ] tough oh dude well I flew back to bogram and uh I was like I guess my career is over yeah and um had to report to my commanding office officer that night I remember standing in front of him with the command Mass Chief and several other of the

senior leaders who were back at the uh talk the Tactical Operation Center headquarters in bogam and uh it was a uh pretty uh animated conversation I think the guys flew home a couple of days later and then we all met and uh yeah it was an animated conversation like he's dangerous he's going to get [ __ ] people killed um and and finally my C kind of stopped it and was like enough like hey red go back to your room uh they were talking about Trident Review board they're talking about taking my Trident um so

went back to my room in bogam and and and uh um yeah I uh I I pulled my pistol out I I was sitting in my room and I put my pistol in my mouth and I was going to [ __ ] blow my head off cuz I lowest I've ever man I uh none of my friends that I had would talk to me no one uh and uh yeah I mean you know how hard It is to to become a seal in this job to be told you don't measure up to be told you

know you're dangerous to be told you don't earn you don't you you you you don't you don't deserve to wear that emblem that was tough so I um so anyways you know [ __ ] getting ready to shoot myself and um um I don't know something stopped me I uh I had the gun in my mouth and I looked across at the desk and there was a picture of my wife and my kids uh my Son was uh five and my oldest daughter was three and my youngest was one no yeah yeah yeah 531 so

um and like someone was like what are you doing like what are you doing like like what are you doing like what kind of message is this going to send to them so I put my gun away and I went and uh found the Special Operations chaplain on the base and talked to him and uh and he Was a good dude and he was like all right so let me get this straight you [ __ ] up he's like you know you're you're they haven't told you what they're going to do yet you know they're

going to tell you tomorrow morning right I was like yeah he's like but you were going to kill yourself tonight I was like yeah he's like seems a little premature doesn't it I'm like yeah so he's like why don't you wait wait till you find out what they say and then uh And then you can come back and see me so went back the next morning and uh basically my co went you know thankfully kind of Saved My Career you know he basically said hey red you good seal you're arrogant you know you sometimes do

things that make us question you he said uh so here's what's going to happen we're not going to take your try it he said three things are going to happen number one any of the awards you got from this deployment are gone you Won't receive a single award from this deployment said number two we've written this letter A reer man um he said if this was to go in your officer record it would end your career it would be over you'd never make the next rank he said it's not going to go in your record

instead it's going to go in my safe in the commanding officer's office the new commanding officer that turns over will get it he said you're going to do another tour as assistant platoon Commander if you do a great job which I know you will he said this letter gets shredded he said if you don't do a good job this will go into your officer record in ler career and he said uh and he said and we're going to send you to us Army Ranger school he said I think ranger school would be good for you

he said I think you need to be humbled and I said I think it'd be a good opportunity so I left that meeting and I'd like to tell you that I walked out of there like yes I dodged a bullet but I didn't yep I was still bitter I felt like u a victim this why I talk about the victim mindset you know it was like the world was against me like hey I did things right and you guys are just throwing me under the bus if you were that commanding officer looking back what would

you have done I would have [ __ ] gotten rid of me and I I show my career to him um and Then there's another point that I'll tell you even deeper because I contined to dig my hole I Contin to dig my Christ dude dude I'm a I'm a slow learner and dumb and and hard-headed you know and finally kind of grew up so went home I learned uh you know I learned even though so I learned at the very end before we were flying home that the guys had voted on who they wanted

to serve as their next OIC Chief stuff like that and like guys had written on there I do not Want to serve with Redmond um you know which that hurt but I was just kind of like [ __ ] off um got home went home in October and just had a chip on my shoulder and was bitter and just [ __ ] drank myself you know basically I should have been enjoying my time with my family and drank uh scheduled to go to Ranger school in February and so I left in February and checked into

Ranger school Um I had a major chip on my shoulder I was angry about being there and I also underestimated you know I was like hey I'm a seal you know this school will be easy Ranger school is no joke it's not as hard as SEAL training a lot of people want to know that it's not as hard but Ranger school is no joke it's a legit it is a hard school and I checked into it thinking I was going to kick it in the ass and right off the bat I'm like wow this is

No joke this is tough um so on day four of Ranger school you know I think I started February 3rd or 4th so February 7th or 8th um we had the L naav course and I taught L naav when I was an instructor it's part of basic Warfare that was the other thing thing I taught and I prided myself on being a really good Navigator and uh so I'm like this should be easy Um got uh started this course and the instructors were basically like dude it was like freezing it was like 20° and the

instructors are like no jackets no hats you know you're taking all this [ __ ] off you know coming from the teams it's like hey you know Big Boy rules apply and I dude I don't know why I just had such a bad attitude like it just set me off I was [ __ ] furious on top of the fact the ranger instructors didn't Really care for me uh so I got a lot of grief for being there uh all the time you know I was the only seal in the class um so between that

and this you know you know freeze your ass off let's go so they inserted us for this course it's like 4:00 a.m. and I'm like [ __ ] it man I'll wait till the sun rises I'm not going to go run through the dark you know I know that I'm a good enough navigator that I'll I'll knock out all six points in the time I have well sun Rose I finally started navigating I ran out of time I failed so I failed and uh checking in the instructors are totally heckling me like oh you're the

Navy SEAL you know you failed the course it's not surprising you guys can't navigate you guys suck you know if we giving you a boat you probably would have made it and and uh and I lost it I was like [ __ ] you guys you know you can take this course and shove it up your ass and they were Like are you quitting I was like [ __ ] yeah I'm done so they were like Roger that uh so they loaded me in a van and took me back to uh headquarters and they were

like you have to see the ranger Colonel uh before you check out so um turns out I couldn't see the colonel till the next morning so uh um I remember calling my Wife that night and I was like I I I think I think my career is over um I was like I think I [ __ ] up too much so uh I was like yeah there's no way they're going to allow me to stay um you know I mean I said but I guess for the good news I'm coming home I said I'm coming

home I said I'll probably be home tomorrow the next day I said I got to go see the colonel in the morning that night dude I couldn't sleep At all I I was so ashamed of myself like like we don't quit anything you know I was like what the [ __ ] is wrong with you and uh so the next day I went and saw the colonel and uh and I basically laid out this sob story that I was a victim I got thrown under the bus and all this [ __ ] this lies that

I've been telling myself to try and I don't know Pease my ego and make me my myself feel good or whatever it is and the colonel listen his name is KK Chin he went on to become a two- star general and uh retired um I reached I found him and reached out to him and and uh years later but uh he listened and he was like you know he said I think you need to talk to somebody in your community I was like I don't want to talk to anybody like I was so ashamed I

didn't want to tell anybody what I had done like dude just process me out of the military and let me go on my way and uh he said no no no no he said I I've Got a good friend he's a really respected seal leader he's like dialing the phone and uh I think you should talk to him and uh and and uh I won't give his real name I promise him I never would uh but in the book I call him Vince Peterson probably one of the more respected seal leaders that are out there

and uh and if it would have been anyone I wouldn't have talked to anyone else other than him but he was my commanding officer who recommended me For a commission when I was at Team 4 he was my commanding officer who um I went and saw after 911 who said hey stay in this program this war is going to last for decades I would have followed that guy anywhere anywhere and he was the only guy God works in incredible ways this is where I sometimes when I when I struggle with my faith I'm like dude

sometimes things it's imp possible for things to happen this way if it wasn't unless someone was making it happen Because I'm not kidding you there's no one I would have talked to and uh and he handed me that phone and was like Hey you know Captain Vince Peterson and I got the phone and and basically he was like red what are you doing and I was like ah you know I screw screwed up I got thrown under the bus all these different things and he was like have you ever thought about that maybe this is

an opportunity he's like maybe This is an opportunity maybe you can learn something from this down at Ranger school and I was like I don't know he's like I said I feel like I've messed up too much you know I don't know if the guys will ever follow me again and uh and he gave me the leadership advice which has now become the foundational level of everything that I teach in leadership and he said red guys will follow you if you give them a reason to he said that's that's leadership he said So go back

to that course kick it in the ass come back to the SEAL Teams and give the guys a reason to follow you and uh I was like and then he said cuz if you don't he said I'll have you out of the Navy in less than 24 hours and he said and what are you going to do to take care of your family if that occurs he said I know you can do this go back and finish this course so I hung up and I asked the colonel I said hey would you put me back

In my class and he was like no nope he's like absolutely not he said once you're out of your class you're out of your class he said so you're going to go sit in Ranger school Jail uh for the next month he said no I'll I'll let you get back into the next class but for the next month won't you think about everything so for a month that next month man I was locked down at Fort Benning and I walked around Fort Benning with a stick and a bag and I Picked up trash [ __

] 13ear seal 28 years old combat picking up trash and uh but it was what I needed CU for the first time in my life I finally came to grips with dude why are you here because of you all of this has been you it's been poor decision making it's been not acting like a leader um yeah you know you want to make yourself a victim yeah it's [ __ ] you did this to Yourself so for the first time I think I started to really come to grips over that next month man I started

reading a lot all the books I could find on leadership I started focusing on hey man you are going to have to crush this course uh and this is going to be a hard road and it was and uh so it became my goal to become the honor man of that Ranger school class and um and came into it that next time around man just Gang Busters um I had an awesome ranger buddy He was a Sergeant First Class and uh funny and [ __ ] and we really connected and I told him my whole

story how I got myself in trouble so frequently when we'd be going through hard Evolutions I'd be like why am I here he'd be like cuz you [ __ ] up and I'd be like Roger that so uh but we would we would just grind man and and uh I'll be honest I actually enjoyed it I actually enjoyed it because I I I grew up finally and I think finally you know I mean nothing's perfect no Road's ever perfect but you know it ups and downs but figured it out um I didn't I I learned

about three quarters of the way in the course that if you get rolled you can't be honor man um so you can you can only be honor man if you go through one shot so I I graduated high um I don't know if I would have been honor man or noted I don't know but uh but still finished strong and came back to the SEAL Teams and uh um stepped in knowing It was going to be a big uphill battle like I walked in I got assigned to a new troop I remember the first day

I walked in man the guys were sitting there and dude the second I walked in man it went silent and dude just guys were looking at me like get the [ __ ] out and uh I felt like um I felt like the you know the forest go seeing when he gets on the bus seats taken Dam um but thankfully um my OIC was an Exon listic guy awesome seal awesome leader And he sat me down that first day and he said red heard about what happened in Afghanistan I don't care he said all I

care about is where you go from here he said I'm going to help you he said you know I'm going to need you to to I'm going to give you opportunities to lead and sometimes you're going to follow he said you know just continue stay with me watch my lead he said I'm going to help you be successful and he was right dude he was awesome everything that I hadn't Been as a young leader um super humble uh very balanced just a really good leader a great mentor frequently and and I think he was really

astute he was he was like your confidence is [ __ ] up and obviously the confidence of the guys is [ __ ] up in you so let me figure out ways to fix that so he would look for opportunities for me to lead um that he knew would build my confidence and I just focused On every day how do I show up and try and do the best I can uh cut back on my drinking um you know I won't say I didn't drink at all but I didn't I didn't drink myself unconscious anymore

were you out with the boys yeah but I was much more balanced much more balanced started to heed a lot of the advice I'd been given earlier um just watch my OIC and took his lead and frequently he'd be like all right man let's go Roger that whereas before I Would have been like yeah I'm good man leave me alone so um he he was so good that frequently at times we would be doing stuff where there'd be a really complicated training Evolution where it was really designed for the OIC to run but he having

been prior enlisted having been an instructor he saw the opportunity and would be like you know what and he'd tell the training instructors I'm going to step out I don't need to do this red you're in Charge and we go through this really complicated Evolution which you know I would do well um and you know I think guys were like okay so took a while you know probably uh probably after eight months to a year definitely some of the guys started to warm up with me and I started hanging out with more of the guys

in the platoon and then um um you know by the time we deployed definitely a lot more and and I'll tell it was probably the best troop I've ever been With my entire my my entire career best camaraderie best talent pool um just amazing group of dudes um you know our that entire troop so you know your picture out there from those are the guys from Bravo yeah and uh I loved it it was awesome and uh basically we got word in early spring um hey you guys are going to Iraq and Iraq was imploding

uh 0607 was just a [ __ ] show well before we go to Iraq let's take a quick break Okay a brutal Massacre of Chinese students and other protesters by the Chinese Army the death count goes on tonight and it is at least in the hundreds it may go as a high as a thousand or more and the fighting is not yet over my uncle generation goes to visit this torture side where he saw his mother tortured to death by RS and apologized to say Mom I was 16 I Did not know I'm sorry heartbroken

and I feel sorry for those people who Del love their families China is one of the freest Societies in the world we go there to acknowledge the status quo is what our policy is I've heard you mention organ harvesting as well how common is organ harvesting I could not trust anybody so you're not allowed to be proud of Yourself no I was told by my teacher we are a collective Society everybody should fit in everybody should be the same what's going on [Music] patreon join me on vigilance Elite patreon for a live video teleconference all

right Jason we're back from the break That I I had to take a minute to process some of the stuff you were telling me and um that takes a lot of courage to just even show back up to a platoon after everything that had happened and and um man that's a lot of shame to carry around yeah a lot of shame to carry around and and um wow that's that's uh that's a tough spot To be in yeah a lot of people today uh almost always people will say oh man when you were wounded and

everything you went through that must be the hardest thing you ever did [ __ ] no making those mistakes and and being told you don't you don't measure up like you don't deserve to wear that emblem and and slowly earning back that trust and credibility uh by far by far is the Toughest row as a matter of fact once again you know God works in interesting ways I I think I sailed out of my injuries because you know I mean not immediately I mean it probably took 7 to 10 days where finally I was like

hey man you've been through worse like let's go and definitely look back on that road that I had been through so I mean to have your have your guys you know tell You I don't want to work with him you know I don't want to work with you that's the [ __ ] night nightmare that's the nightmare of the special operator right across the [ __ ] board you know is is to hear that said about you and uh I don't think a lot of people would have made that made it through that when we

were in bam before we flew home after I you know after I'd been told you know so by the time we got home I think we Left right at the very beginning of October so it was about a two- we period from the time I flew back from bam and the time we flew home and you know I had been you know gotten in trouble and ostracize I guess um like I said nobody really talked to me um during that that time we had a checkout board on the uh you know uh on the wall

before you left where our bar you know where our rooms were you know you had your name and hey I went to CIA or I'm at the gym or Whatever it is and uh somebody wrote next to my name why don't you go kill yourself um and I'll I'll never forget reading that like really um I just erased it but damn dude so you know teams are a uh we're a tough Place yeah you know and hey rightfully so it's a tough job yeah you know you you got to be able to step up but

uh uh definitely some hard Lessons Learned and the biggest Lessons Learned were about me and really at the end the day that's what I tell people if you can conquer yourself Nothing Else Matters nothing else matters you know this this is the most dangerous Battlefield you'll ever walk on yeah well let's get back into it so you're in a new platoon you're doing your workup did you show up at the beginning of the work workup no because I made uh I made my awesome decision With the L AV cour to you know try and quit

Ranger school it knocked me back so I actually showed up right in the middle of uh um might have been Mobility out Nevada for the listeners that don't know what a workup is so in the SEAL Teams there's a cycle and if I remember correctly it's about a year and a half of training with the guys that you're going to deploy with or go to combat with and so that 18mon cycle then A 6-month deployment so it's basically a 2-year cycle so how far into the 18 months training we so I went to Ranger school

during um the first part so we hadn't really started guys were doing individual training guys were doing you know so sniper breacher stuff like that and when I was at Ranger school I just added a month you know with my you know Hiatus in Ranger jail okay um before I came back so the work up so the the the actual you know we kind of call it the Workup the actual part where you're working together and you're going through all your training together so I think it was probably only a couple of weeks in so

I showed up a couple of weeks late to start the workup what team is this team 10 still team 10 still so you I mean you you [ __ ] up really bad several times and then it's almost sounds weird especially to the audience but it's almost like they Reward you because you're going back into a platoon that's going to Iraq which at this time I would say what 05 to ' 08 was ex was a was a I mean that was a real [ __ ] hot time it was you know and we would

not have been no different than we weren't selected to go to Afghanistan because of some of the issues we had in our platoon and some of the personality the first time we were Selected to go to Iraq because we were Front Runners so I had recovered myself and and really had stepped back up and and and came to learn I mean I don't want to say I was this great officer there's plenty of much better officers and operators than me out there um but that troop we just jelled we just yelled man the leadership was

phenomenal we had amazing pipe hitters like DJ uh and we're just good it was just a great great troop and I think the team Saw it and said you guys are going to uh you guys are going out out west you guys are going to fuia and then another another one of the troops ended up going to Baghdad well let's dive in where do you want to pick up yeah so um yeah kind of got everything back on course like we said and we found out we were going to Iraq and I got to tell

you for me it was a um it was a huge thing cuz I knew that um I knew I Could do well in training or I was doing well in training but I knew until we got back into combat that was the final test because you know I mean you know you can train all you want but until you're in the in The Crucible of combat that's when things really matter and that's when you truly prove that you have the ability to do this job so I kind of knew that was like the final box

I needed to check if you will but instead of when I was younger I was like man I want to get Into a fight it was much more of how do I best support the guys how do I best fit into whatever we're doing and um and I just kind of what I had done all along I'm just going to focus on one Mission at a time one day at a time and um so interesting setback um we were a month out from oh even less a couple weeks out from deploying and my wife and

I the long-haired Admiral decided to go back Up to uh the place where we got married up in the Shen andoa and we were going to stay at the bed and breakfast and just relax for the weekend before I came home spent a few more days with the kids before I deployed and we're driving up there and I'm I'm in all this pain like all this pain in my side and uh I'm just like ah you know I don't know what this is you know hopefully it'll go away we get up there we go visit

with a buddy of mine that's The sheriff he was the sheriff uh well he was the uh he wasn't the sheriff yet when I used to run the course but he later went on to be the sheriff so now he's the sheriff up there we go visit with him and I'm like oh my God I'm in all this pain and he was he was building his house up there when we went to visit so we went to see his that he's building and uh and I'm like dying at this point I'm like oh my God

I in so much pain I'm like sweating and uh he's like oh well Our next door neighbor is like this doctor let me call her over so he calls this doctor over and literally it's like dark he's got lamps up and he's got a door laying on saw horses and she has me like lay on this door and starts poking and prodding she's like yeah she's like I think you might have uh appendicitis she's like you know you need to you need to get home uh you either need to go directly to the hospital before

it ruptures or you know and I said I can't Do that I need to go home you know I can't go to a hospital here and I was like do you think I can do the drive home and she was like yes but you need to leave now and you guys need to go straight to the emergency room so we we drove straight home 3 hours and I'm like just sweating bullets and we go straight to the emergency room and they're like hey uh cuz you're active duty we need to send you over to Portsmouth

so they sent me to Portsmouth And uh turns out I did not have appendicitis I had uh infectious colitis um which to this day they don't know how I got it or what it is um but I was [ __ ] up so they had to keep me in the hospital for a few days put me on these heavy antibiotics well I'll never forget they came in the room and they were like hey uh so you're not going to be able to deploy um you know into until we do a colonoscopy that makes sure you're

good To go and I was like oh no that's not happening I was like I'm leaving you weren't excited I was not as a matter of fact I threw uh it was the the head resident that came in and told me this and the poor guy I basically threw him out of the room and said go get me a real doctor um which now I understand the medical profession a lot better no offense to anybody out there you're a real doctor when you're a resident Um so the head doctor came in and was like you

know Lieutenant I know you're not happy but you're not deploying you know you're the you know we have to make sure that your um you know infectious colitis and the infection of your intestines and he said when they get infected and inflamed they can easily perforate he said which now creates much bigger problems so he said we have to make sure that all that is gone away Before I can let you deploy so so here I am I'm thinking oh my God like I need to like I finally I'm getting my career back on track

I'm getting things on course if I don't deploy what's going to happen so went back and talked to my OIC he was like look red got to get well no big deal he said we'll get over there we're going to get settled you're going to be back here just you know we'll be talking every day and uh so he said I'll be I'm probably Going to be telling you stuff we need so that's kind of what I did over that next you know 3 weeks or so I just was stockpiling stuff for us that we

realized hey we need this we need that we need this for the Iraqi Scouts we're working with um I was stockpiling Copenhagen obviously um so I wanted to be able to take care of the boys and uh then finally got you know 30 32 years old got my first colonoscopy and uh got a clean bill of Health and uh jumped on a flight and headed over there and met the guys and joined so uh landed and they were like dude [ __ ] is hot and heavy like we're going out almost every night sometimes twice

a night and um the way they were doing it was um one platoon would run Mobility uh so they would run the vehicles and the other platoon would run the assault and and it was just it was everything you ever dreamed of doing as a seal like it was P it was nothing but Direct action Target taking Downs virtually every night you know capture kill um here's your target set here's a Target you're going to go in you're going to lock it down take this building down capture or kill and uh so um amazing I

uh I stepped in and and they said okay hey red um we're going to let you you're going to run either as a Mobility Force Commander so meaning I'm in charge of all the mobility Vehicles so are external security all these Things when we're running Mobility Ops or you'll be running as an assault Force Commander meaning you'll be in charge of an actual Target takedown so these are the two jobs you're going to be doing but these are working simultaneously uh like is the are the vehicles correct Mobility is that a blocking Force squirter control

all that kind of [ __ ] correct do you want to explain what that means so when you if we were doing a Mobility Operation meaning we were coming into a Target by vehicles um the mobility Force Commander's job along with our pointman reconnaissance guys along with our EOD uh explosive ordinance spos our guys that diffuse bombs we looked at our routes and we looked at okay what's going to be the best way to get there what's going to be the lowest IED threat um how do we get in what's going to be our Egress

um all these different things we looked at once we got to the Target we then looked at how do we lock this thing down how do we create a perimeter around this target so that now the assault force will leave the vehicles and go in and take down that Target um and we were that blocking Force to prevent external people from coming in to take down the target um so myself and another one of the junior officers rotated back and forth so on one Mission he would be the Mobility Force Commander and I would be

an assault Force Commander and then we would flip-flop and we basically the way we ran it throughout the entire deployment is you know our platoon would run assault one week the other platoon would run mobility and we'd flip-flop now if it was a helicopter insertion then everybody was on the assault uh and and it would play out a little different in how we would do that so um I stepped in and um you know Typically the way we do things is you'll run alongside a guy that's doing that job so you're not necessarily you don't

just jump in and do that job you get it you know overseas and in the combat zone in this case Iraq and you'll run with that individual so um and this guy was our third we got assigned a third officer in our platoon so I was running with him he was doing a great job and he was showing me the ropes so um I stepped in the first Night to do my turned to be the mobility Force Commander and I kind I learned a valuable lesson and I and I screwed up a little um but

it it it shook my confidence a little but I I recovered very quickly so we were doing a take down in the um in the western part of fujia called Jolan which was a really dangerous area it was a real Al-Qaeda hotbed area some of the most fierce fighting and the battles of 2004 kind of Occurred in that area and we had a Target there and so we had our Mobility plan and we were driving in and um I'll just say that uh I won't get into the details uh because I don't want to talk

about equipment but the bottom line our navigation system kind of fritzed out um for a specific reason but I'll leave that alone so it put me uh a little bit behind because there was a delay in the system because it wasn't working so it put me Behind on my turns so lesson learned for me from that point forward I always had multiple not only did I have the computer I had turn by turn I had massive amounts of imagery with me so that I didn't care if I had a computer or not I could navigate

to the Target but it was my first stop and we ended up taking a wrong turn took a wrong turn which became another Wrong Turn which ended up us right in front of a Blackwater Bridge um which which was The bridge in fuia that in 2004 um the Blackwater contractors were ambushed and hung on the bridge uh Scott Helston former seal was one of the guys there um and and the road that led out to the front of Blackwater Bridge was like four or five story buildings on both sides super channelized really bad place to

be and yeah so the guys are all chirping on the radio get us the [ __ ] out of here where you know what is this uh and and it was just it Was a bad situation we had to kind of navigate around and get back on course but for a short period of time we were in I mean it was an ambush Haven I mean anyone with an RPG could have just fired straight down into our vehicles um so so yeah I got a little bit of grief about that not not good for the

very first mission I ran um thankfully you know so there was a lot of chirping because obviously there was still a little bit of resentment from Some people like hey Red's a problem and uh so there was a little bit of chirping and the debrief and I don't remember who it was roic or somebody was like hey anybody could have made that Pro anybody could have made that mistake he said here's what happened he said I guarantee that won't happen again and uh so he kind of stepped in and I was like Roger that that

will definitely never happen again so You Know lesson learned for me but um yeah we we were just running I Mean almost every night um started to get into you know Skirmish gunfights nothing nothing really big yet but quite a few gun fights throughout that uh and then right at the very beginning of the to deployment on the turnover op uh I was not there yet I was still recovering you know from my colitis um for the first time the guys had gone into Karma Iraq which is northeast of fuia and uh Al Karma um

first battle of fua in 2004 Second Battle in 2006 a lot of um a lot of al-Qaeda and the Insurgency got pushed out of fujia and they were really heavy in the karma area and um the Marines are out there were like dude you know they were getting into gunfights all the time and the ID threat out there was like off the chain so we tried not to drive out there that often the very first mission they did was a turnover op between 10 and four and that was the op that some People have seen

out there that Mike day got all shot up on um we lost Petty Officer Clark swedler um he was he was with uh with uh Team Four uh but it was part of that turnover op one of our guys got shot uh on that mission and Mike obviously got all shot up so that was going after the number one leader for Al-Qaeda in the ambar province and that was kind of the first time our guys had crossed pth with him so he was somebody that we were kind of Tracking our whole deployment like all right

when do we find this guy again but we started going back into Karma um probably the first month or so I was there we just kind of stayed in and around fuia but then we started branching out more and uh um started doing you know targets there and it seemed like almost every time we were going into Karma like things were happening on June 22nd we went into karma for a a multi-target takedown it Was a um it's kind of a compound with three groups of buildings and um we had broken it up into three

Target sets so you had um you know you had assault team one two and three and I was in charge of assault team 2 and um uh DJ talked about this gunfight when he was here um there was a lot of activity we were we were patrolling up it was late at night now it's 2 a.m. in the morning and we're just being told There's all kinds of activity on this Target and that's unusual um you usually don't see that most the time people are sleeping you know unless they're bad so we're we're listening and

we're moving up closer we got to our final set point um which is about 60 70 yards there's a house and then there's kind of this little structure before the main house were taken down so as we're going as we're patrolling by this last house we noticed that there are several sleepers Outside so um I uh said either our team leader or whoever it was I said hey kick a couple guys off let's wrap these sleep ERS up um you know so we know that they're not going to be a problem so he grabbed a

couple of the Iraqis said hey wrap these guys up and we moved up to the final set point got to the set point and coordinated and we moved in to uh to the door um as we're getting ready to go in uh you know our guys uh DJ being one of them says open Open open so front door was open so they start going in but as we're going in we notice off to the left in the courtyard there's like 11 women and children sleeping there so right as the guys make entrance we say hey

kick kick some people grab these women and children it was right about that time that a couple of grenades were dropped off the roof and all of a sudden gunfire starts uh erupting um from all around so grenades go off um a couple of guys get fragged Our interpreter really gets fragged he takes the brunt of it up the side of his body takes a big big piece in his neck he's screaming on the porch um we're trying to shuffle all these women and children in who are now screaming in chaos um pushed them into

the house I went in started making entries started making entries um that was kind of the time that DJ and them went up on the roof and as soon as they made entrance on the roof uh three Fighters one Directly engages DJ they smoke check him and they fall come back down the stairs but they realized hey you know we got a embedded you know we got a machine gun on the roof that that machine gun was lighting off now on the two other buildings we also started taking fire from another building about I don't

know 75 yards behind this house so um for me as a as a the assault Force Commander like chaos like you know screaming women and children I got a guy That's bleeding out uh guys that are all you know seals that are hurt but not bad just minor frag um but still checking on them making sure they're okay um you know DJ and them come down the stairs are like hey man we got this embedded machine gunner um and we're taking fire from the back so my first thought is okay we need to let let's

let's kill these guys behind us so we had some uh helicopter gunships so I said okay I need a full I Need a full head count first so it's kind of chaotic uh our medic I said hey casualty collection Point let me know what you can do and I started moving around the target to kind of make sure I got a account to see where everybody was so some of our guys were still outside pinned down that were laying down fire um came around the corner at the rear of the building and like three of

our guys are like so there's kind of the back porch is like right here and this is Like a brick wall that you could stand behind and the three of them are like in a one two three like just out in the open like like like shoot out at the OK Corral and I'm like hey like dudes get some cover like you know you ain't going to stop bullets and uh so they they they got back behind the wall and at this point dude like it keeps raining grenades like these dudes on the roof just

keep dropping grenades down on us um So I finish coming around the building to try and get this full head count and I'm down one every single time and I'm like dude where is this other guy so I'm like like this is problem I can't call in this fire mission until I figure out where this guy is so talking to the Ground Force Commander I'm like hey man I'm navigating this out he's like hey man we're ready we'll release this fire mission I'm like I'm down a guy like you Gotta wait um so suddenly it

Dawns on me how many guys stepped off for those sleepers at that other house 60 yards away so cuz I was counting them I was counting two um so I'm like dude I need somebody to go like check this and then I'm like who the [ __ ] going to do that like we're in the middle of this gunfight so finally I was like I guess it'll be me so came out the door told uh my team leader I'm like hey man I'll be right back I'm going to this other house To get this head

count and and um I we had two guys that were kind of out next to this little building this concrete building that they were behind laying down fire one of them a machine gunner and I said hey I'm going to that other house 60 yards away I need you to lay down fire on that rooftop and uh which they did and dude uh I don't I don't know what it was like I felt like my gear weighed 500 lb uh I feel like that's the longest run I've ever done in my life um I don't

know if cuz there was all this gunfire but I was just like I felt like I was running in slow motion but and I was expecting to get shot at any minute um but I finally uh got to the other house sure as [ __ ] three guys and not two had my full head count ran back and uh we released the first fire mission uh on the house behind us I get back still chaotic our medic's trying to and he's like hey dude you know the our tur's Going to bleed out if we can't

get them out of here soon so uh guys on the rooftop still dropping grenades and firing in all directions so I'm like hey we got to take these guys out on the roof and uh uh Mark Weiss who no longer is with us uh Mark ended up crazy drowning in a diving Mission or in a diving he was on vacation and drowned diving uh on leave several years later but good [ __ ] dude um so Mark was one of the more Experienced guys on the target I come back in I was like Mark we

got to take these dudes out on the roof and he's like yeah I agree I was like we need to send guys up there and take them out and uh and DJ talked about we sent this um when we started to take the when we started try to take the roof the second time um we grabbed uh uh I don't know this this 15 16 year old kid and we were like do you know who's on the roof and he was Like yeah you know it's so and so we're like you need to go up

there and tell them that if they don't stop firing you know we're going to we're going to come up there and kill them and uh and he was like okay okay and we're like all right go up there so you know how in a lot of the Iraqi house you have the stairwell that comes up there kind of a landing and then it comes back up onto the roof y so we were standing down at the bottom of the stairwell he went up to the Landing and literally I'm standing from here I mean maybe a

little further than where you are and he went up to that landing and took two steps up and man they unloaded on him with that machine gun and literally cut that kid in half um so he drops we uh we back up at this point and uh I'm like Mark we dude like we go to we got to take this these guys out and uh he was like no man that's a suicide mission yeah and I was Like okay yeah you're right so I thought then I said okay here's what we're going to do I

said we are going to get everybody out of this house and we are going to fall back to the house that's 60 yards away because we already got our Iraqis over there holding it um and I said and then we're going to crush you know we're going to we're going to crush uh we're going to drop this house with a fire mission so but we had all these women and children and like you know Couldn't leave them on the Tet Target so I said here's what's going to happen everybody's going to grab a woman and

child you guys that are out there when I tell you you're going to lay down you're just going to [ __ ] rain hell on that rooftop and uh so all of us grabbed these women and children we started basically you know bounding back laying on fire just crushing this rooftop so got back to that other house and uh got inside and got up on the roof and you Know at that point called in the uh gunship that just just hammered hammered this rooftop and we got a whole bunch of secondary explosions so we had

been told these guys uh so I don't know if that was we were joking did they have a giant duffel bag full of grenades cuz yeah they kept they dropped a lot of grenades on us Dam so we don't know if it was a bag of grenades or if it was suicide vests we had been told that these guys had suicide vests so but we had kind of A big secondary explosion and uh and that took that Target out so everything went calm and but that that night was probably the most chaotic night we'd had

on that deployment so we extracted uh went to um I flew myself in the OIC and I think our chief went to uh flua medical took our two guys that have been fragged and our turp who they worked on and we stayed there and then you know before we came back but that was kind of my uh guys Were like dude red did a good job and I was going to ask that yeah and dude that was uh it was pretty awesome for me like it was kind of the full circle to finally say hey

man you got this like you can do this how did it feel to you not not from the acceptance yet but how how did it feel to you to finally I mean it I it obviously had clicked and you had pulled yourself from the platoon as a leader you know and instead of You know you're Leading Men you know you're actually [ __ ] Leading Men now you're not trying to do their job because you want to get in the fight you're leading [ __ ] men how did that feel did it click for you

that you haded into a leader at this point uh yes but I think the implications I I think before that that had come into place I think this was kind of the final like hey man this is how this works and I think such a great point was I think the old Jason Redmond young immature Jason Redmond when he said hey man we got to take that stairwell and you know the guy had said no man that's a suicide mission hey [ __ ] that get off the stairwell you know but it was a it

was totally a good goal it was right goal I mean we would have got guys killed trying to send guys back up that stairwell so you know kudos to Mark uh he was 100% right I mean just trying to process all this information I'm like Yes so um and and you know it wasn't you know the thing I tell people leadership is not like this perfect Road you're going to [ __ ] up I don't care who you are I don't care that's a lot of [ __ ] going on I mean you got women

and children you got a seal been shot in the chest DJ you know who's okay you got [ __ ] a missing head count two people at another house he got a [ __ ] fire mission waiting on you yeah and you got an A turb [ __ ] Bleeding out of his neck y I mean that's a lot of uh [ __ ] to process and an ongoing threat on the roof yeah but it was good man the guys did an amazing job I mean it just further showed me what an amazing group of

guys we had to work with um yeah but that was kind of the most chaotic night we had in the night that I kind of felt like the Tipping Point had occurred um So we saw a lot more we had quite a few more engagements we had a lot of close calls on that deployment I don't I don't know we um we made entry into a house one night um outskirts of fuia someplace where um we went in we we had made entry into the target uh and uh and we noticed that the carpet and

everything had been pushed up against the walls and um House born IEDs were becoming a very big thing so uh a house Born improvised explosive devices where guys are rigging houses with explosives to blow up the house when when friendly forces you know us other allies get into the house so as we're going through our EOD guy noticed it immediately and quickly looked over and sure enough there was a command wire that was running out the back of the house off into the field so immediately yelled out our call for get the [ __ ]

out of the Target and and uh and I won't use the Word but that word got yelled and man it made your heart freeze and dude all of us like you know 100 yard dash man as fast as you [ __ ] could cuz I mean we didn't know if the house were going to blow up any second um some of the guys from Dam Neck um got caught in a in a house born IED a few years earlier and it killed the EOD guy um and and [ __ ] some dudes up so we

got away from the house um I don't know if nobody was on the end of the command Meire the guy was asleep but the house never blew but we ended up calling in uh two 500 Pounders and huge actually it was Kyle milikin who called in that air strike that night and uh uh who's no longer with us but uh big big secondary explosions damn so we had that we um we took down some other really complicated targets that uh just very hairy but guys are done well we had a night another real close call

so we were we were going to take down a Target it Was a Mobility op so we were in we were in our Humvees getting ready to leave base and we were racking our weapons getting everything ready and the 50 cal uh something broke on the 50 in the lead vehicle and um we were like hey you know all right well we got to fix this so they were like yeah we got repair stuff in one of the rear Vehicles we need to go get it we need some time okay Roger that so we pulled

Over on the side waiting for them to repair this um as we're waiting a Marine Core convo drives up next to us and uh the platoon Commander talks to me and says hey man where are you guys going we're like Hey we're heading uh we're heading uh West and uh I'm sorry East and he said okay Roger that so are we I said okay just be advised you know we're going to be leaving we're going to be coming up behind you guys you know at some point He's like okay no problem so they were brand

new in country like they had only been there like a week or something so they went out and turned down uh Michigan and started heading same path we were going to go get our gun back up 10 minutes have gone by and we leave we're heading down the road and uh you know we've been driving maybe 10 or 15 minutes and big explosion down the road in front of us so the Marines hit an IED like so if our gun had not gone down That would have been us uh and we we came up behind

them and the kid in the rear vehicle all amped up [ __ ] shot at us with a 50 uh which thank God he he missed he went wide uh but he skipped rounds under uh our humb my humb the number one uh so so we had just had all these crazy close calls um leading up to the the end of the deployment um um but for me it was awesome it was an amazing deployment like I had gotten Everything back on track um I was up for orders in my next position so I had

a couple of choices one of those choices was uh to screen and go over to damneck and I I I requested I said hey I'd really like to do this and I didn't know if they'd give me the thumbs up after screwing up but I got a positive thumbs up across board so I was approved to come back and Screen um you know which is you know it's first step but even just to get the CEO to say hey I'm going To let you do this is a big deal so uh so I had that

uh I had a couple other leadership positions that were my secondary choices and we were just kind of working on wrapping things up um I also we were waiting for um our next level of missions we had kind of shelf some of the missions so that we had turnover Ops with the next team that was coming in uh which I believe was two and uh So um my boss came up to me and said hey red this next mission you're going to run as the GFC as Ground Force Commander so um I've had been running

as assult Force Commander Mobility Force Commander your next position which is the senior position leadership position on the ground as Ground Force Commander so which is a big deal I mean they're they they were grooming me for that next level leadership so I was like wow man this is awesome like I finally like I Did it like you got your career back on track you did The Impossible um all my marks were really high um we were working on Awards we were working on flow to get guys back home everything was good and uh literally

we were we were we were one week from sending the first wave guys home um and I was on the last bird which is fine cuz that had come late anyways um so we were just you know everything was good but we we got word that the um the leader the al-Qaeda Leader who they had gotten into the big gunfight at the beginning who had you know killed Clark schwedler uh was going to be in karma as a matter of fact not far from where we had gotten into that big gunfight in June it was

only a couple hundred yards away which was wasn't far from where Mike day got shot up also so um there was a lot of um interesting they would put the top guy in an area Where you guys have been [ __ ] up you know what I mean not [ __ ] up but bringing it to them it's just interesting that an area where there's so much seal activity you know going after bad guys and killing them that they would put the leader right in that same vicinity well well I don't think he stayed there

regularly I think he came in for a meeting okay is what it was so was because it was a time sensitive Target We got word that he was going to be there for a small period of time so I did not think that mission was going to go uh there was a lot of amplifying info that is classified that I'll leave uh but I just didn't think that mission was going to go so um it was I think we first heard about it around 400 p.m. in the afternoon and you know right about time we

woke up and we're starting to gear up you know cuz we slept during the day and then Just worked at night so um got um you know kind of heard the Rumblings and the murmurings and and because of some of the things in the background it had to go all the way up to chain of command um the Iraqi chain of command you know senior leadership chain in command in order to get approved um I also thought maybe another unit may take Mission so that's why I just thought this probably is not happening so I

went to the gym and was working out um when one of the Guys came in like 8:00 or so and he's like hey man like this mission's a go so went back we started Mission planning and uh about midnight we launched and it was a pure uh helicopter insertion uh and we were going to land right on the X right on the target itself um so I was uh I was the assault Force Commander so originally I was supposed to be the Ground Force Commander but my boss came to me and he's like red like

I don't know he's like this could be a very Hairy Mission uh you know cuz we were told this guy ran with a pretty heavy security detail we were told they wore suicide vests that they had been trained to Clack themselves off if we got too close to him he was like I know you're up for the GFC but why don't you uh he said I'm going to take GFC he said you'll be the assault Force Commander for the Target take down I said okay Roger that no no issues uh so we we flew in

and we ended up having three groups We had the assault team we had an external security team and we had the headquarters team and um we had briefed that the assault team um that we were going to come in and we were going to land directly across from the gate and we had stacked our our breachers and our you know initial entry team and uh our appoint men all on the left side door of the helicopter so that they can land the pilots got turned around somehow and we ended up coming in the Opposite way

so uh instead of all our you know initial entry team it's myself my team leader and our Communicator sitting in the door on the opposite side of the Hilo but you know you don't have time you know it's not like oh reck reck it was like [ __ ] go time um so already my team leader was I mean at about 4T he was already out of the bird running uh I jumped out after him and we're running to the door look back the guys are all behind us um he is number One I Am

Number Two uh so I start prepping a crash um uh flash crash grenade is a grenade designed to stun uh create a bright light and a loud bang to stun people inside of a room so I had the crash in my hand he gets up tests the door doors open I I crash it and he and I uh go to make entry with the other guys behind us and I uh um I didn't you know I'd probably done I don't know 100 combat entries at this point but uh I think that's Probably the first one

where like literally my ass was puckered so tight it was probably up in my chest uh I just I don't know something in me was like you're about to get shot the [ __ ] up uh and and we entered and fully expected to to be riddled as soon as we made that entry and nothing happened uh entered into a very large room uh you know we called a few more guys in um ended up clearing the entire building and no one was there uh we Could tell someone had been there recently there was a

lot of activity you know uh cigarettes had still had a little burn um things like that that let us new somebody had been there uh but a lot of anti-coalition propaganda and stuff like that but that was it so called the target secure and started our search and we started finding uh weapons buried in the walls we started finding explosives ID making stuff so we're like okay we missed the guy but obviously This is probably the place where you know he would be someone's here with him so it's probably 2 am in the morning at

that point our EOD guys are grabbing all this there was a car parked outside we put all that stuff in the trunk and we were going to blow it in place and that was going to be it we going to call it it was going to be a quiet night you know so myself and the team are waiting for EOD to finish and then we were going to Get off Target and that was going to be it so we're just sitting there waiting and um my boss comes up to me and says hey man um

snipers are watching and we just watch Five Guys run out of a house about 150 yards away and run out of the house and run across the street into some vegetation so I want you to take your team and go up there let's wrap these guys up and find out who they are cuz that's unusual you know if you just flew in on Helicopters and took down a Target uh people aren't moving at night like that yeah uh especially if they're running and hiding and we had seen that before uh we had seen that on

other targets so I got our guys online there were nine of us uh DJ being one of them and we pushed up from the south going north towards his house and there was where our house was there was a road and it kind of made a s Um the target house was kind of here at the first Bend and underneath that curve was kind of this large vegetated field and on the North side was nothing but thousands of yards of desert so we're we're pushing through the vegetation we pushed uh we had a gunship um

overhead as a matter of fact things had gotten so hairy we had been getting into so many engagements and had so many close calls the gunship became a go noo criteria for us at the end of That deployment like if we didn't have a gunship we weren't going so we had the gunship overhead and we're um you know I was talking to them hey what do you see uh we just see some guys that are laying there so any movement any guns no we're not seeing anything okay Roger that so we pushed into this vegetation

and dude it was so [ __ ] thick um loud crackly um s it was almost it reminded me of like a bamboo Grove um but it was so dense like your night vision didn't work At all you couldn't see [ __ ] you just had this green blob uh and we're trying to crack through this stuff so my Spidey Sense is like going bonkers and um and this is I tell a lot of people now and I try and tell young leaders man listen to your six sense um I wrongly chocked it up as

fear I was like it's just fear this a hairy situation you know this just fear this how we this our tactics you know continue to push through and you know everybody's online we're good You know gunship doesn't see anything but uh but I didn't listen to that I should have hindsight being 2020 I would have grabbed my team leader and said hey man my Spidey sense's going nuts how's yours what's going on um and maybe he would have said hey bro I think it's just fear let's drive forward or he would have said yeah dude

let's maybe we should approach this a different way so we kind of kept pushing forward as we're driving through the Gunship comes over and says hey you're going to miss those guys you need to turn to the Northeast said Roger that so we we make this turn on our left we two new guys and our EOD guy um so apparently uh those guys weren't monitoring the right freak so they didn't hear the call to make that turn so when we made that turn they kept going straight so as we're pushing we realize you know it

was the The Interpreter was off to my left and he Said red hey the guys aren't with us anymore I'm like what so we stopped took a knee and we're waiting can't really hear them um at this point we had moved up to the Northeast and um I don't know who was on the far right flank but they they were like hey I'm on the edge of a field why don't we push out let's get out of this vegetation and then we can push up to the north uh at that point our EOD guy came

up and said hey yeah we we Missed you guys somehow he said I can push out to the West I said yeah do that let's you know cuz now you know all I'm thinking about is we have two maneuvering elements and an unknown enemy Force so I'm like Roger that we're pushing out to the east you guys push out to the West let's move up in the open area let's reconnect and then we'll we'll go in and wrap these guys up from the north so as we're pushing out that Corner um I I was now

closer to the front myself and The Interpreter um DJ our medic uh one of the other guys Matt is behind me uh and our team leader and uh it was about that time I'm now out in the open myself and The Interpreter and push to the left to start moving down you know to the West to link up with those three guys um and right as our medic is coming out of the vegetation he he literally stepped right on an enemy Fighter um this enemy fighter rolls over And goes to engage him and he shoots

him um so at this point now I'm out front the interpreter's out front there's at least one other guy with us that's out front and what we didn't realize is we were we were directly in the Kill Zone you [ __ ] who stepped on him our medic stepped on an enemy on an enemy fighter yep so what we what we didn't know uh so what the the gunship saw was only a few guys what actually was there was almost a what we estimate to be a 12 to 15 man Element that had a Ambush

line set up about five yards back in that vegetation facing north um so um what we think probably happened was the leader had been in the building we took down earlier and then moved up to this house you know 100 yards away to the north to sleep for the night and probably had his security detail set up so that if Vehicles came in because our vehicles would had to pull right in front of that vegetation or if Helicopters landed in that open field either way they would have been in perfect position to engage us we

ended up coming up from the south um very disciplined Force because man we were cracking all kinds of brush behind them and they didn't they didn't engage us from the south they waited until we were in The Kill Zone so um yeah uh Luke engaged that guy and that started that gunfight the whole world erupted at that point um uh Luke was the first one shot Took around right below the knee uh he had a um a compound fracture uh uh bone came out and and anchored him right into the ground uh he's screaming pinned

down um that's when Maddie ran forward grabbed him the only thing behind us was this uh large John Deere tractor tire in that tree that I guess DJ got behind um I was out front I'm I'm laying down fire and I'll be honest um what happened next was I started yelling out ceasefire ceasefire Because I knew the angle we were at like we were in this corner and those other guys were off uh to the to the West so I'm thinking dude we are [ __ ] totally going to shoot each other um so I

was initially yelling ceas fire which I quickly realized okay we're in the middle of a gunfight like we can't cease fire so then I started yelling make sure you know who you're shooting at um but yeah at this point we're getting all shot up um Maddie had been stitched Up the L leg and in the in the arm he he still managed to get Luke back behind that tire um I guess by yelling and shooting I attracted a lot of attention because at this point I had both machine guns turned on me and uh I

was stitched across the body armor two rounds in the left elbow I took rounds off my gun um rounds off my helmet had my left night vision tube shot off um holy [ __ ] um turn turned to try and move back to the tire at this point and I guess that's When I caught the round from behind that hit me in the face so it caught me right in front of the ear traveled through my face blew took off most of my nose um vaporized my orbital floor broke all the bones above my eye

shattered the head of the head of my broke the head of my jaw and shattered my jaw down to my chin and and knocked me out and and Jay and those guys saw that they saw me fall so they thought I was dead um so I'm unconscious at this point um not aware of that um And and this gunfight is now raging like they're behind the tire and the tree and they're just you know raging gunfight uh about I don't know 15 20 yards 15 yards I me it was pretty close apart apart yeah from

where the tire and the tree was to this vegetation where these guys are but we can't see them all you can see is muzzle flashes um so I come to at whatever Point uh the the gunfight we know lasted 30 to 40 minutes you 35 to 40 minutes um I don't know how long I was unconscious maybe 10 minutes um so I come to at this point and uh and I was I knew I was way [ __ ] up like when I got shot in the arm like that that [ __ ] hurt um

a lot as a matter of fact I thought my arm was shot off um after I'd been shot in the face when I came to I really wasn't feeling any pain um I just was [ __ ] up I was trying to like okay where am I what's happening and then kind of the world Started to open back up and like I could hear the gunfire uh ala started to notice um rounds traveling over me the the Tracer fire literally traveling over me I was at this point I was laying flat on my back and

uh I'm like okay holy [ __ ] like you're still in this gunfight and that's Tracer fire like Do not sit up um at uh at one point and I don't know why um I took my helmet off I'm laying there and unclip my helmet and Took my helmet off and that's when uh at some point I heard it uh I took that round through my helmet that now is drawn in my skull so right through the forehead of my helmet uh I took another round while I was laying on the ground off my right

side plate uh and the interesting thing about side plates is I normally didn't wear them I uh the only reason I wore side plates at night one a little boy before that mission was like wear your side plates I was like I don't Normally wear my side plates I you know I want to be lighter um I normally only wore them on Mobility Ops to give me more protection against IEDs but I I know little boy like wear your side plates so I wore my side plates and I took around right off the right side

plate um so [ __ ] show chaos shooting and um I remember there was a lan fire and I called out to my team leader and was like how long till the metac and he was Like red you're still alive I was like yeah how long do the metac and he was like five minutes um so like focused on you got to stay awake stay alive like like um yeah you got to make it to the metac like if you're going to get out of here alive so um I tried to get I knew my

arm had been [ __ ] up I tried to get my tourniquet on my arm and uh I'll be honest I'd lost so much blood I couldn't even break the rubber bands on my Tourniquet oh my God so which is a lesson learned I use three of those really thick uh rigging rubber bands we use for our parachutes that's what I used to use yeah well lesson learned when you're really weak I couldn't break them I couldn't I couldn't get enough leverage with my good arm to break them so I'm laying there bleeding out this

gunfight continues to rage and um more time goes by and I ask um our team leader again hey how long to the metac He's like five more minutes I'm like like you said that last time so um were you by yourself over there yeah I'm out I'm literally pin down about 10 yards 15 yards in front of the guys so um and and what I realized though is dude you know there's nothing they can do you know they they've got to win this fight they can't run out and get you they're going to get all

shot up so you just got to be patient uh which is a Hard thing to do yeah you know when realize you're you're bleeding out [ __ ] man um so uh at what point um Jay you know calls me or yells out hey so well let me back up for a second he asked for a fire mission and the gunship is like absolutely not he's like you guys are so close we'll [ __ ] kill you like we were we were well within danger close parameters so um they're like you have have to Figure

out a way to fall back from these guys and Jay's like dude there's no place for us to go it's like thousands of yards of empty desert it's like not only that you know I got two dudes all shot up one you know super shot up and you know we can't even get to him and uh they're like you got to figure something out because we can't bring this fire mission in we'll kill you guys so period of time goes by he calls back again they're like no absolutely not so the Third time he calls

back and he's like look like and I don't know how long this has been this have been probably 25 minutes at this point in a very intense gunfight he's like we are running out of ammo he's like nobody's going to be left if you don't bring this fire mission in so finally they said okay well uh what's your jtac number so jtacs in the military are guys who've been officially trained to it's called a joint taac to air controller so that means they have Been blessed by special operation to have the skills to bring in

gunfire from aircraft and uh and they have to know all the different parameters and all these things so that we don't mistakenly kill friendly forces which we have done with fire missions from the sky so um they they say to Jay what's your jtac number because they wanted to put the onus on him that if they accidentally killed us it would be Jay's fault and not the gunships fault and I mean I Respect that I don't know sometime anyway um so he gave it to him and I remember him yelling out to me hey incoming

and I remember laying there and and you can hear the gun go off and you know there's a there's a delay you know there's period of time before the rounds hit the ground I mean decent amount and I remember waiting and waiting and all of a sudden boom that it was 40 mic mic and it literally hit the ground directly in Front of me and well you know in front of me and enough that it blew up and I felt the conus blast and the dust and debris and uh immediately the machine gun in front

of me went cold and I heard the guy yelling out allahar and I was like Roger that stand by bro cuz here he comes and sure enough they called in the next couple of fire missions so in between those fire missions Jay ran forward and got me and Dragged me back to the tire um so there was they were stilling engaging and fighting so some of the things I don't remember to this day I found this out years later uh we were all hanging out one night and our medic was like hey man do you

remember when you yelled at me for throwing that grenade I was like what no and he's like yeah like we're in you know we were back you were by the tire you were totally [ __ ] unconscious and I said hey I'm going to Throw a grenade and dude you sat straight up and we're like put that [ __ ] grenade away before you kill us all um and the reason being is because we were I I guess it's a training lesson from Seal Team 4 back in the day you don't throw grenades into vegetation

because it'll bounce off vegetation and come back at you um so um I don't know but he was like yeah man like like dude I I didn't he was like Dude you like bark Thunder and then you laid back down and went back unconscious so I don't know I don't I don't remember that story at all I mean I don't remember anything about that um but um finally called in additional fire missions got the that took the enemy out and uh they called in the metac and the metac landed about 75 yards from us and

um my team leader started to drag me and it was at that point I suddenly felt all the pain I was like holy [ __ ] this hurts So I stopped him and I said no hey stop let me let me up and uh I still belied my arm had been shot off and I had taken my helmet off so I was like Jay grab my arm and grab my helmet and I'm going to the helicopter and uh so I I walked to the helicopter and I remember um like I was walking like this and

literally blood's just pouring out of my face all over my buddy armor I mean I still in my mind can see it like just blood pouring out of my face as I as I walked to the Helicopter and I remember getting to the Hilo and and grabbing on to you know that metal handle yeah on the 60 door I remember like just vividly grabbing that handle and um and the the flight Medics it was a 160th bird the flight Medics like helping me to get up into the helicopter um and then they loaded uh Matt

and uh Maddie and uh and our medic oned the helicopter and um I don't so there are parts of this story I learned later uh And then there are parts of this story that I what I remember it was just being in the helicopter like stay awake stay alive uh there there there um there was a miracle moment that I tell people that occurred and you know you and I last night we were talking a little bit about faith and struggles in faith and um I have always struggled at times with my faith and uh

and I'd love to tell Everybody at this moment on the battlefield like you know Rock Solid Faith forever but um I still struggle sometimes but right before that second fire mission I I was dying like no doubt in my mind like I was laying there this gunfights going on like you know we learn all the aspects of uh uh trauma you learn you know hey man this is what happens when you go into uh shock you know and I all the signs were there like you know U I Was losing feeling I was getting cold

um it was getting harder and harder to breathe it was getting harder and harder to think and I was like dude you're you're getting ready to check out like this it this where you go and um and that was uh that was hard uh I'll be honest at first I was kind of angry like I was angry that I had allowed us to get into this position I also was um Angry that the enemy would have the victory of killing me Um and then I started thinking more about my family and uh that I was

never going to see my you know my kids again and uh and I talked to a lot of people about this that hey man you know we worry so much about stuff in this life and I got to tell you when I was laying there dying I didn't think about any of my stuff I didn't care about that all I cared about was you know my my my wife and my kids and just saying hey I love you one more Time um so it was in that moment that I I don't know I called out

to God I said I need your help I need strength to go home and like that like I had it I just suddenly felt this surge of strength so pretty amazing to go from I couldn't move a muscle however many minutes before that I got up and I walked to that helicopter and got on um on that ride back all I focused on stay awake stay alive stay awake stay alive how the [ __ ] were you Breathing I was leaning forward they had me set up they had me in the helicopter they had me

up against the wall and and I was leaning forward like this um and I learned later so I um so it was a tf60 at metabat crew so years later I tracked down uh that crew cuz I want to thank them I also managed to track down a lot of people that were in the O that saved my life um but a friend of mine who actually lives in this area now uh retired 160 a pilot helped me track down And found the crew that flew that mission that night um so um I didn't get

to meet the pilot but I talked to him on the phone and he was like you know man I've flown like 200 met backs he's like never once have I had somebody track me down and say thank you I was like well I am I said I'm I'm thanking you man me and my family so um and and uh so then later I actually got to meet the crew Chiefs um and the flight medic so um and we were hanging out and they were telling me things about that night like they told me that uh

they were not rigged for three wounded they were only rigged for two so they weren't able to shut the doors uh with the door so and dude they flew the rotors off that helicopter and we're all I mean you know I mean I've been shot multiple times Matty been shot multiple times you know Luke almost had his leg severed so We're bleeding everywhere and uh he told me by the time they landed uh they got us off the helicopter they didn't know if we survived he said that they had me the flight medic had me

in the helicopter I was I was leaning I was next to uh the crew chief door gunner and what they did is they had me put my thumb on my chest I don't remember this at all but uh if I slumped they he the medic said hey hit him wake him up and I'd come to and put my thumb back on my Chest um so that's how you know part of the way that he was keeping an eye on me and he come over and try and keep my air very clear uh while he was

working on the other guys uh could you see I could see uh even though I could see out of this eye I don't I don't yeah I mean uh this was all [ __ ] up but um they said when they landed they they got us out of the helicopter I remember I was too weak I didn't I didn't climb Out of the helicopter on my own they offloaded me and put me on a um stretcher car and I remember but it's weird what your mind remembers like I remember uh driving and I remember we

went over we went under like this this wooden bridge uh and there was a there was a guy up on top smoking looking down at me I remember that I remember um getting into the outer area uh where they take all your gear off and I remember them Tugging on all that gear and like starting to cut everything off uh body armor and weapons and all that stuff so they got me into the operating room and I was like all right dude you made it like you you can die and uh and they'll save you

um I remember watching like bag Bagdad I think was the show and uh there was a statistic on that show that if you made it um if you showed up at the combat support Hospital the emergency room There with a pulse like the doctors had a 90% chance of saving you so I was like I'm good man like I can let go and you know they'll jump start me or do whatever they got to do but like I'm good man 90% I'll take those odds all day and uh so I I let go um because

man it that everything in me to stay awake like everything in me wanted to let go it was like it was like swimming with 100 lb weights tied to my ankles like everything said just let go just go to Sleep and uh like I knew like if you go to sleep dude you'll never wake up again yeah um so you know we were talking about that last night I fought like hell to stay alive um so they get into the operating room and uh and uh all these doctors and nurses come come in and they're

barking out orders and um and I'm like drifting into nothingness and there was a nurse on my left side so on my first line gear I used to carry a grenade in a pouch right here and I Guess they missed that grenade when they were cutting all my gear off so this nurse finds it and she yells out hey he still got a bomb on him and like instantly like everybody runs out of the operating room like I guess that was their uh you know their uh emergency action plan like clear the operating room so

I'm laying there and I'm like oh my God you've got to be [ __ ] me I'm like I'm dying here and uh that's like you know I remember Thinking like oh my God what a bad day uh and then that's like the last thing I remember so obviously they came back can and somebody got that grenade and um I've actually met that nurse and connected with her and uh she remembered that night but uh yeah that started a whole new road yeah bet whole new road so um when I uh when I came to

um I remember waking up and my uh commanding officer and CMC were there And um we were in we were in uh Baghdad which that was where our headquarters element was so I remember and I first thing I did is I tried to say something and I could I saw nothing air and uh the nurse was like uh you know Lieutenant you've been you've been shot in the face she's like you're traed uh you're not going to be able to talk so uh I was like okay give me give me something to write with and

I don't know my first thought was I Was just ecstatic to still be alive I'll be honest um I also uh remember looking down and being like holy [ __ ] I still have my arm uh cuz I didn't I thought my arm had been shot off um so I asked for a pen and paper and um I wrote down three things to them I said um I said are the guys okay and they said yeah uh you know Maddie and Luke are out of surgery they're good they're going to be fine I said okay

I said has my wife been notified and the Co said yes um how she got notified it's kind of an interesting story but uh he's like yes I talked to her and uh I don't know why I wrote this but I said okay do I still look pretty and uh they were like no no this will probably be an improvement so so how did your wife get notified so my uh yeah my wife is a trooper and uh that's one of the great things about the Trident is I get to tell our whole story from

the very Beginning from the day we met to you know throughout my career and you know a lot of a lot of Special Operation spouses don't get a lot of credit and uh it's a huge uh it takes a unique breed of of woman uh to be married to soft guys um we're we're a tough group of people to in we're pain in the ass and she was a rock star all through our relationship so um so uh my wife had left her phone that morning and had Taken the kids to go someplace and got

home around noon and noticed that on the answer machine was US Government US Government US Government US Government all these you know like 25 Miss calls and she's like that's weird but you know technology was a little better I mean if we weren't running missions I would call her and it would be a US Government number so she's like oh that's weird that Jay tried to call me so many times you know but we're weak from coming home So she's like maybe you want to you know coordinate our vacation or something like that so she

didn't think anything of it so then the phone rings again she answers it and it's my you know commanding officer Gus and uh he says Erica it's Gus and immediately the call drops and like at this point like her heart sank in her chest and she's like oh my God like 25 Miss calls why is the CEO calling me and uh she's like now she's like in panic mode cuz she's like Well if he was dead they'd be at the door but what if they came here this morning and they I wasn't here and I

forgot my phone what if they've already shown up so she's like panicking so he dials back in takes about 10 minutes to get through again Erica good Gus drops again second time oh my God so now she's like beside herself um so she tries to step outside so she's not freaking out in front of the kids and uh finally on the third call he gets through and I was Still in surgery so he said he said Erica I she said your husband's the luckiest guy I know he said he he's been all shot up uh

you know he's been shot in the arm and he said he's been shot in the face and uh he said we don't know what is we don't know he's not out of surgery yet so she didn't know what my mental faculties were yeah um so she's trying to process this she's got you know my kids were young my kids were three and five and she also had some of Our neighbors or our uh teammates kids over she's got these kids running around she told them they were going to take them to the park so she's

trying to deal with these screaming kids while she's processing all this information and um so uh so she immediately starts coordinating and like hey what's next and basically started planning for people to um come over her family to come in take care of the kids so that She could head up to Bethesda uh to be there when I arrived I mean they said hey ja be here and uh believe it or not from the day I was shot to the day I was in Bethesda was only four days wow so um when I got to

Germany um they did some more stabilizing surgeries and it was at that point that um one of the guys that flew home with me I said hey man can we call my wife and he was like yeah yeah and I said okay well obviously I can't talk so You're going to have to talk for me like okay so I got Erica on the phone and um I think one of the first things I told her was hey babe I got all shot up but my Wang's okay cuz cuz that was like that was like a

running joke like that's the Weir the worst thing like you know what if you get your you know your dick blown off and uh but for her she was like it was like the greatest thing I could hear because she was like and he was like so Funny because when I wrote it he was like I'm not reading that I was like come on man you got to read it and uh she was like it's what I needed to hear cuz she's like I knew your sense of humor was still there yeah so let's take

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comes up we're coming up so you're home now not yet you're on your way home you're writing in the you're writing on the board board your buddies you just told your wife that your Wang is okay my wang is okay it's still intact so uh they They flew us home on the medac bird and um and that was a miserable flight um I have so much respect for people out there that have been traed you know often times people are like a what was the worst part of your injuries wearing a tra for seven months

and two days sucked um TRS are uh nasty um you know they they because you have damage to your breathing structure in your face they insert a plastic tube into a hole in your throat uh that Basically goes down right above your you know your trachea hence a tracheotomy um what you don't know about it is your body sees it as a foreign object and oozes all this mucus uh to fight against it so it gets totally nasty and it gets plugged up and you constantly have to clean it and if you're not constantly cleaning

it you can suffocate or suck a big piece of mucus Into your lungs um so on the flight home I'm trying to deal with this trick and the nurse is dealing I me we had a lot of [ __ ] up guys so you had the ambulatory wounded guys who basically sat in the seats and then you had those of us that were like in the ICU uh who were like in beds with all the beeping everything and um and the other problem I had was I was wired shut so they had a pair of

Scissors because if I vomited With your wired shut you also can aspirate so nasty messy situation but she was trying to deal with everybody else and I was really having problems breathing so just a measurable flight home and thankfully I I kept feeling like I was going to I was going to die on that flight home but got home and uh I remember Landing it was at night and they unloaded us and they put us on like These school buses uh they were blue and uh they um they had racks inside that they hooked your

your bed onto and I remember them driving I don't know where we would have flown into to I guess do would have made sense close to Bethesda but I remember driving and and man all these all these people out here that bash the United States um like the second just to be on the road and to look at how clean our country is compared to third world countries you And I have been to um the infrastructure we've built not do knock any other country that's out there but like I don't know it made me feel

good like just to be home like I'm home and um so I remember driving to the hospital but the um I had this growing fear um there was a fear growing inside me probably the most I've ever been afraid in my life and it was uh I knew my wife was at the hospital and I was really terrified how she was going to handle I Had not seen myself in a mirror I'll be honest I was terrified to to see what I was going to see um I knew that my nose was pretty much gone

they had um they had these orange tubes sticking out of what was left of my nose um I obviously I'm wired shut um I had the tra um I um my I had no use of my left arm so I I can't remember if they had put the external fixators in yet or not but That's the metal hardware that sticks out of your body when they're replacing severely damaged bones so I can't remember if I had that or not but I'm just I'm a [ __ ] mess and I in my mind I felt like

a monster like like what's going to happen when she walks in the room and sees me like you know this is what you married and now you're going to have to live with this disfigured freak uh so I was I was afraid uh I was afraid of how she was going to React um I had definitely I read a lot of stories about Vietnam and I'd read about uh Wives coming to the exact same H Hospital Bethesda walking into the room and seeing guys who had been blown up or burned and like taking off the

ring and putting it on the end of the bed and walking out and we had a strong relationship but I don't know man that's that's a hell of a test and uh yeah it is I don't know if I was carrying the scars Of uh you know what had happened years before when you know you were told hey when I was told hey you don't measure up you know we're going to kick you out I don't know I don't know what was going on in my mind but I was [ __ ] terrified and they

they brought me into the hospital and they took me up to my room and the nurse started you know uh trying to clean me up a little bit and I don't know at some point I Realized like I still had blood caked in my hair and I was like you got to clean me up like I mean like it would have made a [ __ ] difference I mean I'm you know I'm hooked up to breathing devices and everything else um but I was like you you got to like clean me up and they're like

well I know you know your wife's outside the room you know are you ready for her to come in and I was like No And like you're like look I'm a [ __ ] Navy SEAL and we all have Perfect hair yes yeah this this Blood doesn't work like hair gel all right you got to like I need some good [ __ ] um but I was like [ __ ] terrified and uh she's like your wife's outside and I'm like yeah I'm not ready yet so I kind of kept stalling and finally she's like

you need to let your wife in and I was like okay so uh so yeah finally I was like okay I don't know how Long that was but my wife was like she was beside herself it felt like ours outside the room so finally they let her in man and dude my wife is such a saint cuz man she walked right into that room dude she did not pause she did not like you know like any everything that I was expecting like you know uh dude she walked straight in walked right up to me she

like pushed the [ __ ] tubes and [ __ ] out of the way kissed me right on the lips and was like we're going to be Okay and uh uh dude like I needed that yeah um I needed that a lot yeah cuz uh I I literally in my mind I was like dude you're going to be disfigured forever um so anyways man my my wife she came into that place and she definitely earned her name the long-haired Admiral after that cuz dude she like took that place over like you know she was Tracking

everything and and um because of all my injuries I had an entire team of doctors and there was a there was a lot of amazing things that happened um one of probably the most amazing things that I get to give TR tribute to is my arm was destroyed so I took a uh so I took a PKM around right here which blew out the entire back of my humorous and and shattered a huge Shard of uh took out a huge chunk of of my humorous uh and then I took a round On the inside which

blew everything out the back so uh it effectively destroyed both Bones the heads of both bones all their radius I mean the doctor said like you couldn't have done a better job destroying your elbow if like you tried um it damaged my nerves to where I had no use of my left hand and it was so bad that the orthopedic team was like we should amputate his arm like there's nothing we can do you know massive nerve Damage elbow totally destroyed um the head surgeon at Bethesda at the time A guy by the name of

Dan Valic was a former seal from Seal Team 2 and he was uh the head of Orthopedics and even though his team was l like hey we should take this guy's arm Dan was like no I'm going to work to save this guy's arm and he came into the room and told me that he's like you know my team is saying that we can't save your arm he said I'm going to save your Arm I don't think if it been a team guy would have done that yeah so another amazing God fate moment like hey

man I mean I there's a lot I can't do with this horm but I have an arm like I can type I mean I can ride a motorcycle you know you know I can hug people yeah so uh so that that occurred and um but just a really um the start of a a a hard Road and um I'll be honest in the beginning I Really struggled uh for the first week I was in the hospital I'll be honest I uh I was angry what were you angry about I was angry because I had worked

so hard to get my career back on track and uh and like that hit it you know come in you know and um so I was I was angry about that and uh I also was kind of kicking myself like you know you made a bad call like this is what put you in this Situation um so I was kicking myself about that I kept saying man if you would move left or if You' moved right or if you had if you had done this or if you had done that and um finally at one

point I was like stop it you can't change what's happened what's happened is happened all you can do is change what what happens from this point forward and I I asked myself I said did you do everything according to How you'd been trained and the answer was yes you know we the seal teams have changed how we're doing things things now because of that mission but we didn't do any we did things according to our Sops uh there are definitely heavy Lessons Learned out of that operation which gladly we've changed um but up to that

point we did things based off our Sops so I told myself dude you did you executed that mission how you were trained um stop kicking yourself and Then I also found solace I told myself you know you're the worst wounded and and I'll be honest that gave me um like if Maddie or Luke had been the ones that were all shot up like I was I mean they were shot up but like if they were it would it would have bothered me like or if we had lost someone and I said everybody came home you're

the most wounded like let's go and I started thinking about all the Leadership Lessons that I had learned over those last two years hey man you got to gind forward you know lead yourself lead others lead all voice like you can't sit here and feel sorry for yourself like [ __ ] is that accomplishing so I'm kind of grinding through all those things in my mind and um it was around that time like I said about seven days into the hospital that I had some people come into the room and um and they were like

Um they they were having a conversation off to themselves and I had been talking to them and I guess started to drift off so but I was in that in between phase of Consciousness and totally asleep where you can still hear things going on but you're not really totally engaged and they started having conversation about the hospital and how hard the hospital was and you know what a shame all these young men and women that are all blown up and battered and they're never going To be the same they're never going to be able to

have a great life you know what a shame we send all these young people off to war and they come home broken and uh I was hearing all that and they left and like it was stewing inside me like you know what um I'll be honest I think it's what I needed uh because it was kind of like you know what I'm not going to feel sorry for myself and I'm not going to let anybody else come in here and feel sorry for me anymore like Guess what like you need to you need to get

up and go like maybe not getting out of this bed but mentally you need to get up and go and when my wife came back in I told her I said hey nobody's allowed into my room ever again if they're going to come in here feeling sorry for me because I said from this point forward I will not feel sorry for myself and that's when I wrote out that sign and the sign said attention all who enter here if you're coming in this room With sadness sorrow don't bother the wounds that I received I got

a job that I love doing it for people I love defending the freedom of a country that I deeply love I'll make a full recovery what is full that's the absolute utmost physically I have the ability to recover and I'm going to push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity this room you're about to enter is a room of fun optimism and intense rapid regrowth if You're not prepared for that go elsewhere and uh we signed it the management so I don't know why but um Sig of the management I said hey babe put

this on my door and like nobody's allowed in this room until they read it and uh originally it was on a uh 8 and 1/2 11 piece of printer paper cuz that's what I was writing on I have an entire ream like 500 sheets of conversations from the you know eight weeks I was in the hospital and I couldn't talk and it Was originally on that she put it on the door and I said hey um a couple days later I had somebody else come in the room and they were definitely beside themselves a lot

of pity and I said okay I need this sign we need something bigger and she went to The Exchange and found a big bright orange piece of poster paper and we transcribed it word for word on that paper I said put that on the door no one's allowed in until they read that and they need to Understand it so um it it it kind of took on a life of its own uh probably the day or maybe two days after it went up a team guy came to visit and as he was leaving he read

the sign he took his tried it off and put it tacked it into the bottom of the door now I got to be honest man that was a huge thing for me too yeah um because after I G after I'd done this crazy journey of failure and Redemption and now I'm kind of face with his my career over um to have a fellow Team guy say this is what being a team guy is about tacked it in the door and uh it took on a life of its own um a New York fire firefighter had

come to the hospital John Bano who I later became really good friends with John was a legend in the New York fire department he was a marine he lost both sons on 911 one was cop one was firefighter and John started coming to the hospital after that to visit with Wounded Warriors and Came to my room and visited and saw the sign on the door took a picture and wrote A Blog about it and it went viral it went everywhere uh national news was uh doing stories about it blogs started getting written about it um

and we started to get a little too much attention so and my name wasn't out there yet and I was like no I'm not doing interviews cuz in my mind I was still I'm coming back operational yeah so um but the sign kind of took on a Life of its own um so over the next six weeks you know they continue to put me back together you know I had a surgery probably every other day I probably had 20 surgeries in the first um two months I was there and then I was released and they

sent me home and that started all the outpatient surgeries so over the next four years I had uh about 40 surgeries um and um you know what a lot of people don't realize is when you get Wounded it's not a clear path uh Battlefield injuries are super dirty so uh a lot of guys I mean I'm really fortunate that they didn't amputate my arm there's a lot of guys that come back that have injuries and they may still have their limb but infection sets in and they end up having to amputate to try and stop

the infection so um and I ended up getting infection in my face uh which became a major issue um this the nose that I have Is the third nose they built me uh the first two totally failed and at one point when the second one failed because of the amount of necrotic tissue and infection they ended up cutting everything out so I literally just had this hole in my face I felt like Skeletor um I and I just I wore like this gauze patch over my face um during that time and dude that was a

hard road to ride you know I mean our faces as humans are you know it's what we look at It's how we communicate and so I attracted a lot of attention which uh was tough um and and you know some of my [ __ ] it mindset worked and sometimes it didn't um but um you know just um continuing to grind and drive forward as all of this got puted back together there was another fortunate thing that occurred and that is at Bethesda they were talking about how to put my face back together and uh

I want to give a shout out to all the amazing doctors And nurses in the military most of them are incredible the moral maxillo facial team at Bethesda at that time um we did not get along very well and uh I kept trying to bring together all the different teams of doctors from ENT to I to oral Maxell facial to Plastics to Orthopedics to everybody that was working because we had a Air Force Special Operations guy medical guy who was assigned over our case from Socom and he basically said from the beginning hey man make

sure everybody's on the same page he's like it's just like a mission everybody needs to be read in so they understand all the different parts I was like okay so I kept trying to get the omfs team in and they were like no we don't need to do that we're good we know what our part is and I'm like hey man like I need you to be talking to Plastics I need you to be talking to Everyone so that everybody knows how their part fits together and um and and they wouldn't do it so finally

it started getting a little hostile you know I'm like look man like you guys want to do things like I don't trust you to do them like you need to show me pictures of people you've put back together you know cuz I'm beginning not to trust you and uh so it kind of got more and more hostile so finally I had caught wind They had told me after the put me back together they were going to send me to Chicago to get my um to um send me to this doctor who was like one of

the world best on nasal reconstruction a civilian doctor and um so one day in the hospital I called him I I found his number and I called him and I said hey you know I'm a Navy SEAL I got shot in the face my nose got blown off uh I've got some massive facial damage this is what these or Oral maxillo Facial Doctors are telling me what would you do and he was like why don't you come to Chicago and see me so I called you know the command uh or I called Naval special Warfare

and I said hey can I get permission and orders to go to Chicago to see this doctor and they were like yes so I went and met him and he was like no what they're talking about is old technology medical technology I want to connect you to uh my partner who I work with in Chicago who I went and met With and that guy said you know what he said you're more comp licated than most cases he said I want to send you to Baltimore there's a doctor there who is probably one of the best

in the world for facial reconstruction so flew to Baltimore probably a month later and met this guy Dr um Eduardo Rodriguez and as soon as I met him dude I walked into the room like I showed you my no bad days well the skull so this was taken off the acrylic Model of my skull which I ended up carrying around everywhere I went to meet doctors as they figured out how to put me back together and uh I remember walking into Dr Rodriguez's office and the entire office was lined with skulls that looked like mine

and right off the bat he was like Hey man like you know I worked on a couple Delta guys and he pulled up pictures and was showing me guys that have been shot in the face and he's like this is what I did for them I Was like dude I need you so he ended up doing all my facial reconstruction uh and then later I went back to the uh nose guy Dr Robert Walton who did all my nasal reconstruction but Ed Rodriguez is probably I mean so I'm really fortunate I got out of the

military medical system and I mean I've had a miraculous outcome I mean to take a high caliber machine gun round to the face yeah and and and look like this now is incredible and uh doc Rodriguez is Probably in my opinion and I think most people would agree probably the best facial reconstruction due on the planet I don't know if you remember probably 10 years ago the woman that got her face bit off by a baboon and they did the first facial transplant damn so Dr Rodriguez LED that surgery wow so so just fortunate as

things unfolded um I hung on to getting back operational and um I um ended up uh Finishing my time at Seal Team 10 and I when I was coming back you know from being wounded I was screening to try and go over to um the development group so I uh got permission and they allowed me to go over there um to be able to serve there and I worked in Opera or I worked in Ops I worked some special projects and things like that and um and my goal was hopefully to get back operational though

so that I could Finish my career over there um unfortunately uh that didn't really ever happen um you know so originally my arm was totally fused so I couldn't bend it at all um I finally got you know through a lot of rehab uh I still have some nerve damage with my owner nerve um but I kept trying to find doctors who could give me more movement um found a doctor at um John's Hopkins uh Andy Egle Setter who was one of the Premier hand and arm guys out There and he went in and rebuilt

my elbow and uh got me so I can bend this much and I can extend this much and uh and he was like that's the best you're ever going to have um which after I recovered I quickly realized doesn't work um you know it's really hard to grab things on your side I mean it's even pretty difficult to clip my helmet or do things like that so I I you know the command was great about helping me the medical Department there was incredible and we kept searching across the country to try and find somebody better

and I would I would meet literally some of the best hand and arm guys anywhere and uh and you know orthopedic surgeons and high level surgeons it can be an arrogant bunch and yeah I'd meet them and they'd be like oh yeah I can definitely fix your arm and I'd throw that x-ray up dude and it'd be like they had the wind taken out of their sails it'd be like oh And be like yeah man I'm sorry there's nothing I can do for this they're like we don't even know how we don't even know how

your elbow's functioning wow so I uh called back Andy aegle set her and I said hey man I need I need more movement I need like at least 10 more degrees and he was like not only no but hell no he's like going into your elbow was like going into hell he he's like he's like no he's like it's amazing the outcome you have he's like I'm he's like Not only that he said if you allow someone to go back in there he's like there's a high chance you'll have a negative outcome he's like you

could be in chronic pain and you know your arm may not work right he's like so I sure as hell I'm not going back in there and I'd recommend you not either you not have anybody do it either so once again stubborn didn't listen to that kept looking kept looking I finally probably the 10th doctor was uh a really Esteemed guy out of Duke University and um this was probably two years after my injuries at this point and had gotten myself back in some kind of shape um and uh you know was I was like

man this the last thing if I can get my arm right you know I can go back and be operational you know hopefully qualify go through Green Team and um yeah he sat me down and he was like listen he's like you have an amazing outcome he's Like what you can do with this arm is incredible he said I don't think there's anyone on this planet that can do any better than what you have and he said that other guy that told you you're going to have a negative outcome I agree he said if you

were my son I would not let you get this surgery he said and I highly advise you not to look anymore so I remember walking out of that and I had gone down there by myself my my wife had not gone on that trip and I remember Walking out of there it was late in the afternoon like the sun was setting and I remember I don't know I think for a while reality had started to set in like I kind of knew uh that uh I don't know that that chapter was closing so I kind

of came to grips with it and was like all right man this it you know that that that story's over so came back and uh and uh I asked the command I said hey I I want to so I I Was at probably what 17 18 years at that point and I said I want to finish my career I want to do 20 years I came in to do 20 years and I said okay Roger that so I uh stayed like I said I got to work Ops I got to work special projects I got

to work on some other unique things which was cool for me to be able to play a part and that command even though I wasn't operational and then uh and then we started the process of uh medical Retirement about 19 years which took two years to go through that whole process um so I retired uh 20 year 21 years August 30th uh 2013 and uh I probably would have cutt going if I could have um although what I started to realize was so in the SEAL Teams we we have no like the Army has administrative

leadership POS positions in the SEAL Teams we don't like you have to fill operational billets to make the next ranks um so I could have made Lieutenant commander but I never would have make Commander because I had to I would have had to fill an operational Billet in order to make that next rank so I don't know uh and several things were starting to happen in the background I'd launched our nonprofit and I was working with Wounded Warriors on our nonprofit um that was starting to take more time um I had started to write um

although I never intended to write a the Trident I never intended to write a book what what happened how the Trident came to be was during all those surgeries um when I couldn't talk people would be like what happened so I wrote out the entire firefight and and then I like to write so it started to become like this cathartic thing where after surgeries I would just write um and I started writing about Afghanistan I started writing about all my leadership mistakes I had made in Afghanistan and about the missions and about growing up and

learning so by the time I was done I had like 200 pages and um uh books are as you well know a double-edged sword in our community and I was at the Development Group um and uh went to one of my master Chiefs who had been my master chief at 10 and now was mass Chief command Mass Chief over there it's super super I respect the hell out of that guy and I went to him and I just Said hey I've been working on this I said I wouldn't do anything without the community's permission um

but I've written this um would you read it and let me know your thoughts he said yes so he got back to me and he was like red this is great he said it's humble you write about your mistakes he's like this isn't good he's like let's send it up to warcom let's let them decide so sent it up to warcom and warcom blessed it and said hey no this Is good we give you the thumbs up so at that point uh you know Marcus connected me to his agent and you know negotiated with uh

John bruny to help me write and we finished putting it all together um the deal with the Navy was I had to retire before the book was out so all of that kind of led me to decide that it was time to go so um so yeah nonprofit book and starting to realize hey man being a seal that chapter's closed So what's next you know how can you help people and that was also what I was beginning to see um the sign on the door uh really motivated and was inspiring all these other people and

that message behind it of this mindset of overcoming this mindset of driving forward despite adversity this mindset of not being a victim and not having pity for yourself um that was gaining a lot of traction um you know we we um the sign We had it framed President Bush signed it and uh and it hangs in the wounded Ward at Bethesda so I was getting this traction being asked to come out and speak and share my story both in military units nonprofits um and I I was learning man I think there's power in this like

I've got a unique story and most people are afraid to talk about failure they don't want to talk about their failures they only want to talk about Their successes and I mean that book it's about failure it's about failing it's about Crash and Burn [ __ ] torch on the rails bottom of the barrel failure and uh and I'm living proof that it's not too late to come back from any failure you're ever in um so many of us buy into those lies and this where guys end up killing themselves because they think there's nothing

left I almost did and I'm living proof that that's not true that that's a [ __ ] Lie uh that you're being told so I was like well how do I get out and I help other people with this how do I help other people overcome failure and tragedy and you know adversity and all these things that all of us are struggling with so um so yeah retired and got out and continued to work the nonprofit um learned a lot uh learned a lot uh about business uh both negative and positive um and uh slowly

started to Grow you know our speaking company how long did it take for you to start to be able to talk again uh 7 months in two days s months you were writing [ __ ] down yeah that's how you communicating they could uh they could cap my tra so I could talk but I wore that tra for seven months and two days I would have to you know we would put it on for me to talk and then I would take the cap off how long did it take for you to look at yourself

in the Mirror so that was uh so it kind happened by accident in the hospital about 2 weeks after I was there um I don't know if I was ready my wife would ask me you know and I like no I don't I don't need to see myself yet um so one day uh actually interestingly enough it was the day they did the they figured out how to do the acrylic model for my skull and they put you into this machine that does this 362 scam scan so when they put me into this machine um

And I was still really weak from all the blood loss and everything um so it took a lot in me to just get up so it took everything in me to get up into this machine and yeah as soon as I got in there was a mirror directly across and my wife was [ __ ] livid cuz yeah it was the first time I saw myself and I looked rough man you know I 10 12 days my um my face was so [ __ ] swollen um like all the way out to here like everything

like I had just the stitches Looked like they were ready to bust you know almost no nose you know just these tubes sticking out of my nose um I had scars all the way down to my lip my lip was all pulled up like this um what was your what was your thought when you saw yourself I look like a freak but I also I guess the good news was I was on the flip side yeah I was on the flip side of this hey whatever happens I'm going to be positive and drive forward like

they'll figure out How to put me back together there was another amazing moment that occurred um right around that time and uh it might have even happened before this cuz I was pretty positive about like hey I look like a freak but I know there's light at the end of the tunnel so there's a wounded warrior out there by the name of clay South um shout out much love to you clay if you hear this clay was a marine who got shot in the face in fuia in 2004 he made entry Into a room and

literally on the other side of the door was a terrorist with an AK clay stepped directly into the line of fire and the guy pulled the trigger probably only six inches from Clay's face uh like he was so close he had powder Burns all over his face um the round hit him right in the lower jaw destroyed his entire jaw and the bullet lodged in in his throat he drops and uh the rest of the guys come into the room uh a huge gunfight breaks out They think Clay's dead um uh one of the guys

frags the room so clay now gets blown up and fragged and when they come back in they realize holy [ __ ] he's still alive they call in the medic the medic one of the first things he does young inexperienced medic is uses quick clot you don't use Quick lot on yeah so you know now his throats burning um but they they saved clay and rebuilt his face so 2004 so this three years later so um I got connected to Clay and um I remember my wife had pushed me outside and you know somebody somebody

said hey Clay's going to come visit you today I was sitting outside in the courtyard at Bethesda and I'll be honest I was kind of struggling that day and I remember from across Courtyard seeing him he's a pretty big guy pretty big Jack guy and uh he was walking across Courtyard he's probably I don't know 50 yards from me and you know I only had the one good eye to see with it This you know this eye was kind of messed up still and I remember thinking man look at that that look at that young

buck got his whole life in front of him and you know here I am I'm sitting in this wheelchair all [ __ ] up and uh and he he walks up to me and I can see as he gets closer he's got a lot of facial scars but he look good he's like what's up man clay South and I was like holy [ __ ] like Okay like I know what happened to him so I know I'm going to be okay so sometimes just need to see somebody on the other side to realize okay man

I can I can walk this walk yeah so did you care about what anybody thought other than I mean your family uh not really yeah you know like I was was worried about my kids uh that was one of the things and a lot of people ask about that um I would not let the kids see me for the first several Weeks and my wife and I both agreed on that for a lot of reasons but I also think this was something that set them up for success and my kids are amazing now um there

were a lot of things I I looked really rough in the beginning like when I saw myself in that mirror I looked rough yeah uh that would have been very scary for them I also was too weak to get up and walk I didn't want to see them in the ICU I didn't want them to see me in the ICU where I'm hooked up to all this wires and everything I couldn't get out of bed I still look bad so I said I want to wait I want I want to be able to walk into

the room where the kids are when I see them and I want some time for the doctors to do some work to hopefully make this look a little better so I think I saw him for the first time like 3 weeks later and um and there's a little family room in Bethesda and you know there was I don't know four or five Rooms down from my room and uh and yeah carried my little IV pool and walked in the room for the first time and you know that was uh my wife had gone out and

bought like toys for the kids that they wanted my son would have been eight uh my younger daughter my middle daughter would have been five and the youngest was two almost three so I think it was a baby doll think it was like a medical kit and she got my son a Nintendo DS so she gave these for me to give the Kids and um and I was kind of afraid how the kids would handle me and yeah they were they seem happy to see me my my middle was like Daddy looks funny but he's

good so um you know and that's um that Journey with my kids became um you truly learn what unconditional love is with children um kids haven't let all the [ __ ] bias of the world get into them they don't care about the color of skin They don't care about scars they don't care that somebody's different cuz they're missing or or they have a disease or they're whatever like kids just see the world for what it is hey Sean you know maybe you're all burned but hey Sean's a fun guy let's go play together and

uh and you see that you know I saw that with my kids you know they they didn't care that's awesome you know that that's Dad Dad come play with me Dad read me in This book dad play the Nintendo DS with me and that was probably one of the biggest things that that helped heal me also um to grow and learn U and yeah I think I got to a point man I got an amazing beautiful wife who she still loves me she she was such a saint uh and that was the other thing as

we moved forward I mean you know almost 40 surgeries over four years I mean she was my biggest nurse especially in the first year when they Sent me home I mean they sent me home in a wheelchair they sent me home with all this external hardware sticking out of my body I was still traed I was still traed I'm eaten out of a stomach tube I'm wired shut my wife was literally grinding meds in a mortar and petol to to feed them to me through my stomach tube I mean that's above and beyond she was

cleaning my tra I mean that's way that's that's a heavy lift yeah for anyone um and dude she never she never Ever complain man and that that would have crushed me you know if my wife wife had ever said how could you have done this to us you know you and your stupid career uh that would have crushed me yeah and I don't know if she ever felt it but she sure never said it man my wife was just positive and awesome so that's that's uh that's amazing I mean you got a strong family yeah

that's blessed man that's [ __ ] beautiful yep so uh yeah man and we're we're uh We're blessed I mean hard to believe you know the the it's been um 15 years this will be 15 years now so um and we've we've got an amazing life you know we're um I'm now um ran the nonprofit for 10 years uh with my wife grew it to almost a $3 million organization and um ran into some [ __ ] show along the way learned a lot um finally decided to phase it down for several reasons but one

of the biggest One is we did not focus on Mental Health uh and we were losing too many Wounded Warriors and I was losing too many friends suicide Y and I think the final um we had created a leadership program for wound is called the overcome Academy it was a very expensive program so it was really hard to raise the funding for that um and I had gotten a friend of mine Ron condre was an EOD guy who really was struggling with Demons um and I convinced Ron hey he wanted to go through the overcome

Academy this leadership program I said not hey man yes but I think you should do some other stuff first so we ended up doing other things he called me up after he graduated one of these programs like man I'm so excited to come to your overcome Academy um that course was supposed to run in October he got out of that other program like the end of September like two days later he killed Himself in front of his wife and uh that that kind of made me realize like um dude until we can figure out how

to fix this like nothing else really matters I mean there's a lot of groups that are out there that are trying to figure out how to give guys jobs and they want to take guys fishing and all that and all that stuff's great man and kudos to any organization that's doing that but um I Said okay we don't need another nonprofit you know what I was doing there's 43,000 nonprofits like like I developed a little bit of a name I said I'm going to phase mine down and I'm going to go find organizations that are

helping on the mental health side and on the traumatic brain injury side yeah um so that's how I got involved with concussion Legacy Foundation um supporting project headstrong another Group that's doing mental health um I work with the Gary sise foundation and recently I got involved with um with uh uh seal Future Foundation he's doing a lot of really good stuff for for our guys any of our guys so uh so yeah man it's been kind of an incredible Road um you know now speaking wrote a couple more books how' the book do Trident became

a New York Times bestseller um which is pretty amazing um that's a whole another story uh in that uh the Agent who's no longer with us he ended P up passing away did not like the book uh we buted heads quite a bit uh it almost didn't get published because he didn't want me to tell the failure story he was like just he's like write more combat he's like that's what people want and I was like that's you know what man there's plenty of guys have written that story yeah I was like that's not my

story I was like this is my story you know this is the Story of a guy who failed and managed to come back and like and I said and I'm proud of that and I think it'll resonate and he didn't he didn't believe in it he didn't like it um so because of that I don't think it got a lot of the love and attention that it could have although what's interesting is it continues to sell after all these years and it I didn't even know it made the New York Times bestseller list I found

out when we were working on Overcome um the publisher for overcome was like Hey you know do you want us to write New York Times bestseller on overcome and I was like how you found out yeah I was like no that's not true and she's like what do you mean it's not true yes it's true I was like I'm not I we never made the list and she's like yeah you did you made it on this State like a year and two months after it came out no [ __ ] so um it's been it's

been pretty amazing Um um overcome Trident is the story and there's a lot of Leadership Lessons and people really like it I mean John brunin and I got to give him a hand he really uh people that read it the greatest thing I always hear is wow that wasn't what I expect it it was so much better cuz I think what people are expecting is like this hardcore combat rah rah rah book book and that's in there but it's much more a story of leadership and Growing up and it's a love story and it's you

know it's all these things that are much more human than somebody who just wants you know the hardcore Warrior shits out there yeah i' I mean there's a lot of that [ __ ] out there and you know it's interesting but I find just with the I mean you're I've only done 30 interviews you know in in two and a half years But so my knowledge is limited but all of the all of the episodes that seem to do the best you know um our failures insecurities overcoming things you know it's not I've never had

a chess pounder you know what I mean on on here and um and all of them do really well but the ones that really really take off are the are the the men that come in here and women soon that you know that come in Here and they and they talk about failures they talk about insecurities they talk about overcoming obstacles and and that's what that's what resonates you know I mean everybody has this idea of what a seal is or what a special operations guy or badass business guy and what it does is it's

it's the ones that really humanize themselves that resonate because you know people [ __ ] relate to that [ __ ] cuz we're All human yep you know I've met people who are like oh man you know seals are super human no we're not nope we're we're just like everybody else yeah we have we have our we have outs and we have you know I think the only thing that makes us different is I think the one common theme we can endure pain and discomfort longer than the average person yeah probably I would say at

the higher level you can process information faster Than the average person that's probably the other thing that really makes I see what break you know what makes a difference between a guy making it through training or not yeah well I'm going to link both of those in the description and and um hopefully they pick up again yeah hey man but um which I'm sure they will so what are you doing with the coaching and you got into speaking and you got a lot going on I do probably Too much um but you learn you know

you learn where you and I were talking a lot about that you you throw a lot at the wall you figure out what works you figure out what you like you figure out what you don't like um I like coaching coaching super time consuming that's the only thing for oneon-one coaching so I'm probably scaling that back I have a coaching group I I'm I relate to the underdog so there are a lot of people who are really targeting high level I Want to do this high level Executive coaching and sure I'd like to do that

that's one it pays well but um bigger than that I want to connect to the average person because the average person can't afford highlevel Executive coaching so I created a group called the overcome Army and it is for the average everyday person who's struggling to overcome uh who wants to be the best version of themselves like how do I how do I set goals and accomplish goals how Do I create more discipline in my life how do I come to grips that I'm [ __ ] up but that's okay and I can still drive forward

and be successful and not buy into the lies that I'm [ __ ] up and I'll never be successful and it's been pretty neat man we have about a 100 people $39.99 a month I've got other coaches and and and um just helping people overcome trauma and really themselves I mean like we talked about earlier I mean man overcoming yourself That's the greatest Victory you'll ever have you know if you can come to grips with yourself and and despite the doubts you have still drive forward Victory um so overcome Army that's doing well speaking is

really doing well I mean um like you said I pride myself on being relatable to any audience um I think the seal thing is nice it's a shiny thing um but that's not what connects people what connects people is a story of leadership And failure it is a story of resilience it's a story of how I figured out how to create balance in my life as a leader it's sharing my insecurities and my problems and the you know sharing that story of sitting in that chair and putting a gun in my mouth thinking it was

the end and and coming to learn that it really became a new beginning a better me um teaching people how to get off the X um with the you know the ex me and the point of attack incident the the Lies in your head that everybody gets told and it it's been cool man it's been neat to see people who relate and say I needed that like I I I was stuck you know I bought into those lies that I was a failure that would never be worth anything again so uh that's rewarding that um

I you know you and I were talking about death and uh uh it's the one all of us have to die um so I think the only goal You can have in this life is how do you make the biggest impact with the gifts you have and we've lost a lot of friends I mean in this room there are people that you and I knew who are no longer longer here and I I I try to live my life no bad days like the idea behind no bad days is dude if you're still alive then

guess what man it's a good day you have the opportunity to make something of your life to make an impact do something positive for someone because You're still alive because the alternative is those days are gone like like our buddies who are no longer here they would give anything to still be here they're families would give anything for them to still be here so you know these people that squander their lives yeah they would want you to have your best day exactly every day and I think it's up to us to live for that yeah

you know we're we're buried in negativity out in this world today [ __ ] social media and the media so I don't watch it yeah I don't uh uh I use social media just to put content out and I try to engage with the people that follow me but I try not to scroll very much because usually it's nothing but negative you know negative information yeah so if I'm still here it's a good day you know so that those are all the things that I'm speaking on I'm uh just trying to get out there and

spread that Message um got the um a lot of people have been asking me hey man when can I come hear you speak and most of the stuff I've done has all been private so the uh very first ticketed event I am doing is up in Chicago September 1st through 3rd called the Roger up event and pretty excited we got some highlevel people uh nick kumalat uh a fellow seal will brandom uh myself we're going to be doing it's a Personal development and um and we're we're throwing in Jiu-Jitsu some of some of the top

Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in the world are going to be some of the instructors and some people may say well dude I'm not Jiu-Jitsu guy but at the end of the day getting out of your comfort zone is one of the biggest things you can do for personal development so even if you're not into Jiu-Jitsu come get on the mat it's going to get you out of your comfort zone and Uh and then we're going to be talking on leadership we're going to be talking on emotional leadership we're going to be talking on uh how do you

build good structure and discipline in your life to be successful um and we just got word fingers crossed that a super highlevel very prominent former special operations guy uh may join us so I can't say his name because we're not there yet but so it's going to be an amazing event people can go to Roger up uh Roger up event.com To learn more about it and then um I'm doing the um I'm doing the overcome and survive defense Workshop you and I were talking about that that uh I um there's a lot of guys out

there um that are doing amazing highlevel Tactical training for government law enforcement and even individuals who are looking for super high level you know room clearance you know vehicle eress all kinds of stuff like that the average person doesn't really need that um what I Started seeing was I kept meeting every average everyday Americans who were like hey the world is burning down around us like the major cities are imploding this defund police movement um how do I protect myself and my family I have this gone but I'm afraid of it yeah I don't keep

it loaded um cuz they're they don't know it well enough so we created the overcome and survive Workshop to a how do I teach you to be a a base level Um functional and safe with a weapon where you understand uh grip firing back stop malfunction Magazine change if you need to do that um those things so that you can be comfortable in defending yourself in your home um we teach survival what are things that you can do to make sure a you could survive at the basic level of storm B God forbid that you

know a city imploded to where there was mass violence that was occurring Anarchy that you know now Hopefully you're seeing these things and you have the things in place to be able to survive and take care of your family food Water Shelter you know things like that uh first a you know if the world implodes uh you're going to be hard pressed to find a paramedic to show up to help you if something happens so you should know how to do that you know so I've got former Special Operations Medics and uh 20-year licensed firefighters

who are teaching that and Then we've partnered with a super highlevel U personal defense martial arts sefue Allen Baker uh Allen's like a black Bel in 25 different martial arts um and he has developed a custom program at the beginning it's much more about situational awareness and how do we deconflict a situation because I think there's a lot of people who wrongly teach hey man I'm going to teach you to be a badass you know if this guy comes At you I'm going to teach you to kick his ass well I was a seal for

21 years I don't consider myself a badass the smarter move is try and avoid the situation altogether yeah now if I get pushed into a situation at that point then have to decide how am I going to escalate it and how am I going to attack but I'm not going to take the average person off the street and teach them how to be John Wick in a weekend or even in a year Instead how do we teach them how to see what's happening and hopefully a avoid it B deescalate it C last case scenario we

give you the tools to hopefully be able to defend yourself to the best you can so so that's our overcome and survive Workshop I think that's awesome that you're doing that you know I I used to to be in the Tactical game you know and uh the and I trained John Wick yes you did and uh the most fulfilling thing That I and you got thrown under the bus for doing it yeah whatever another who cares but um the the the the most fulfilling students that I had were I used to teach all women's course

and to see and a lot of those women had been sexually abused or raped and and when that happens to a woman a lot of them carry themselves in a in a uh a different way yeah and to see the empowerment that they get when they Start to get the weapons down you know and they start to build their fundamentals in that in that toolbox with just basic skill I mean it's just it's really it's it's it's the best feeling in the world to empower somebody you know who is weak you know who's weak because

they've they've been abused and and and then they you start to see that empowerment build in them and it's just one of the best feelings in the World man and and you don't get that training [ __ ] John Wick or people that want to learn how to clear a stairwell or you know you don't get get that [ __ ] with that that's that's fantasy [ __ ] you know what I mean there's very few people on the [ __ ] planet that need to know how to do that but everybody needs to know

how to defend themselves and their family and and uh I think it's [ __ ] cool man that you're doing that it's a Big that's a big need that needs to be filled I I I hope to do more um like I said I like it how do how do we this this world right now is AIS it's dangerous yeah you know that you look at the mass shootings that are occurring you know I mean there's a lot of people that want to point at the guns but it's not it's not a gun problem it's

a people problem yeah it's a lack of accountability there's a mental health crisis in this country we're Desensitizing young people to death through video games massive violence and uh movies and everything else um so yeah how do you counter that there's a lot of different things but I know for me I want to make sure that my family and hopefully my friends would feel comfortable to defend themselves if they had to God forbid yeah you know but so I don't know hopefully we can do do uh hopefully we can do more of that yeah I'm

sure you Will but well Jason I'm just [ __ ] Blown Away by the last 5 hours or however long we've been sitting here but um yeah I just there's a lot I wasn't expecting and um I just that's it can be tough to share that kind of you know that kind of stuff and and and man I you just what a phenomenal interview man it's been a real honor it really has and I just wish you the best Of luck brother thank you um I'll challenge anybody to get out there and share share your

Darkness you'll learn so many people are ashamed of trauma mistakes failure but uh and they let it own them yeah and when you when you uh when you get comfortable sharing it you begin to learn you have power over it and how much of a difference it makes to other people so but uh but thank you thank you Cheers [Music] Cheers hey everybody I'm Shawn Ryan click here to subscribe to the Sha Ryan Show YouTube channel for the hottest and most compelling interviews that you will not see anywhere else I've also made a playlist of

all the previous SRS episodes so they're easy to find you can find that right here