cuz this was a big incident and it's affected your life tremendously so you say it started at 7:10 in the morning on November 20th y let's start right there chronological order let's stay focused on this topic it just walk me through the entire day yeah so I my my day-to- day was was going to the Embassy you know and showing face or showing my my face and talking through if there was a meeting there was weekly and bi-weekly um you know different DOD uh briefs and stuff but um there's there was no mission for me
there so I just kind of Tred to look for work and you know there's um there's some ranges and stuff so I was able to like start at least hey you guys want to train like anybody want to train here you know and um and just getting you know trying get that going and cuz I had on my kit my kit stays in my ready kit bag and you know I was able to it's just like a rolling thunder or North Face duffel roller and it's got my basic go to war gear you know my
helmet guns my rifle my pistol my body armor uh my Panos and uh that's you know your basic you know Salter uniform and stuff and um so I got a phone call that morning uh the day of the attack and the phone call went something like this where it was uh the someone at the agency you know wanted to call to notify me about an attack that they had been made aware of that was ongoing and 5 to eight gunmen um shooting up the pl shooting up the the front of the hotel the RIS and
blue um and bakali and explosions um and that's what they and and launched from what appeared to be Embassy uh driver or Embassy um vehicle vehicles um and that was this that was the situation report right and they called me twofold to let me know and then but it's not like it was my job to really I was the nextdoor neighbor of the deputy and they were they couldn't get a hold of them so they're like hey can you also go check on so and so so we can't get a hold of them can you
help us out but when I'm knocking on the door of the the my next door neighbor the deputy chief uh you know he opens the door and he's on the phone and underwear and he's just like picking L out of his belly button and he looks at me he's like oh hold on I'm on the phone I'm like no on there's the attacks going there's an attack going on right now and I I don't know exactly where the hotel is but I know it's close and I can hear gunfire so I'm like that's definitely close
and um it was about 3/4 of a mile or less from my house which are like Town Homes almost um and he's like I'm on the phone yeah I know I got I'm on the phone with some of our guys in the hotel right now like staying there to me it made no sense why that hotel was even on there as a as a as a good place to stay when like looking at it like the reason they chose that that hotel is not only for the D of like like people westerners if your mission
was to just to kill as many westerners as you can you could throw a stone from across the street and hit the the front of the you know huge front glass door windows because it's a it's a soft target in the sense that it doesn't have any standoff it's not in depth like they have all these security apparatuses and mechanisms but like barrier like from a vehicular assault or but doesn't stop people from you know drive by driving by and and kill and you know reaching out and touching someone he's like yeah it kind of
gives me the and I'm like hey man like give me their room numbers their cell phone numbers like he's like why is it because I'm G to go get him and he he goes like record stops like know what do you mean you you do that I'm like yeah I'm going there right now yeah [ __ ] there are Americans that's a start point for me I was was like thank you please now I have room a room number cell phones and now I can get on the horn with them while I'm maneuvering in route
absorbing everything as it's happening and processing to come up with a a plan of action to execute moving to the hotel like drove we kind of drove around and got into the the front instead of driving right past it kind of leap frogged around uh dismounted and then kind of walked up patrolled up what do you what are you carrying what are you wearing my uh I had my just a t-shirt on the civilian t-shirt and like pra cuz they're stretchy pants sometimes men wear stretchy pants um it's a Nacho Libre reference but um and
then just like some [ __ ] kickers dude and like good thing they were pretty sturdy plates helmet yeah so like it my regular like J PC with plates helmet uh HK416 with my normal acutal you know and then uh my surfire rc2 suppressor and stuff like and then my Panos um and but no more like I didn't have breaching tools I didn't have like bangs or I didn't have um all the extra little bits of kit that would have been really nice to have this one American just like called and said that he's trapped
in a room on fire and he's hiding under one of the banquet tables and they're shooting over top of them please come get me come help me um so between those two calls I'm there's a lot of a lot of noise and I'm like just filter through this like which one is the most life that one so threat to life I'm like let's focus on this one real quick we're going in to get this Terry uh the American the first American um in that room the banquet room because it was on fire and they were
imminent life threat right threat to life of Americans I was like all right that's a that's now the the pressing start point for me um and the fact that they knew I wasn't going to go through the front doors they shot the whole [ __ ] place up like going in and um and they chased a bulk of the people into the breakfast room and that's where they ended up focusing their attention to get to get the most from the timing right so like 7:10 in the morning that's breakfast time to the time I entered
it was about 7:45 but I entered through a side door I had to basically like break into a side entrance service entrance or whatever and then work my way through all these uh like um conference area you know big huge rooms on that like the outer perimeter of the building or of the hotel and I was able to that opened up into the main forier where it was like if you think about Embassy Suites where it's like an Atrium or almost three-sided Atrium with floors all the way you know it was like seven stories and
you go on the atrium and it's like two spiral glass staircases kind of going all the way up on each side it's like super exposed and I just and it's just like the most like overly stimulating snapshot I'd ever taken because I I was absorbing all of it out front and like everywhere around me because every corner I was the guy up front every like everything was was sensory overload and it was the smells the The Sounds the fire alarms the smoke the haze the smells of death um in western dress it was something that
I just my brain was like what was like short circuiting a little bit cuz I I hadn't I I I had become so desensitized to to to life and death but in you know in certain environments you know and certain dresss and that's just I think that's a part of a like a self-defense mechanism but this my for one I didn't get a chance to prepare my mind body or spirit for violence which is like planning uh contingencies and rehearsals and you do that with each other and a team and uh a troop and and
then you go out and do these things and and they're like incredible but you buy down risk with with a collective experience and rehearsed like plans of action that you just in place in the unknown right and it's uh I was just in reactive mode and um I was fully exposed you know my mind body and spirit was and uh it was just awful to see how many bodies were were you seeing I mean how many people were killed well a couple one first the first few um were just kind of like sporadic in the
forier area and then did you know any of them no no um no they killed 23 people total um westerners uh to include one American citizen Anita thear was her name and I know that name and I'll never forget it her face and uh because she was the last one like and I last one I needed to get confirmation on like I went back to her room probably five times that that whole day and cleared it again and again and um and then was able to confirm that she was one of the killed during the
initial they chased him through the breakfast room people and then they set the that room on fire and then just were stacking front they were trying to burn the place down and then they chased them everyone through the kitchen and that's where Terry got left behind the American that was in that room that I like they had didn't they had set on fire and he wouldn't move he was just like froze in that wherever he was in that room but I kicked the doors in to that room and I mean it like even making it
to that floor to get there was this big I was like you cover 10 to two you 10 to two like anyone I'm like [ __ ] pull security and cover me while I move cuz I'm about to make a a real big movement cuz I had to run out and get in this spiral glass staircase and just mad dash it like to get up to the second floor to hold up and then bring them up and then I went in and just went right into kicking these French doors in and it was like a
cloud the whole room was full of just fire and smoke and I just ran in there and it [ __ ] floored me because I was like I can't breathe imagine that but like this mindset of like it's a self-correcting problem man but like it just kept getting lower and lower to the point where now I'm on my belly like with my gun like low crawling gun light yelling his name and I'm like wait a minute he first of all no one's no one's coming I can't see any further and I now I don't know
which way is the [ __ ] door I just came from because I can't see so I was able to like crawl the [ __ ] back out and then holy [ __ ] I like this isn't this isn't working at that point I was able to for one like know which direction he was it's a huge room and then it lifted enough to where I was able to get deep into there and then like just pull him out by the like he I he just looked like death man like he had talked to death
and he said n hold up and I car like carried him out you know and loaded him up and uh in a car like we did that's where the it was integral for having like the RSO and the relationships they have because they were working the embassy like drivers and stuff like shuttles Kyle what do you need I'm like stand by I'll let you know what I got and then eventually it was like I need my [ __ ] boys I can't do this alone and that empowerment that that that trust is like it was
it allowed me to be effective to be agile to make decisions on the ground and what I talk about is tomorrow problems like I watched happen where the Maro cats were were just being told called every five minutes man on their cell phones like what are you guys doing like you shouldn't be in there you're going to get in trouble like you're going to ruin the the platform for our source operations and I'm like hang the [ __ ] phone up right now I'm like tell that [ __ ] that's a tomorrow problem and I
need you here right now because what they're doing and what they did was cast seeds of Doubt into any of the decisions that they were making and if all those decisions were resting on the fact that they trusted me and I wasn't in their command but the moment someone from their command 12 hours away mind you yeah says well you guys shouldn't be seen running around in full body armor that's kind of like oh you're going to ruin this platform I'm like first of all you can go [ __ ] yourself second of all that's
a tomorrow problem you you will deal with it but there's lives like that can still be saved like where where the [ __ ] what planet are you in or on you know but they just casting those seeds and planting seeds into yeah somebody that I needed to be switched stay switched on and and with me like with me in this moment and as much as I tried to like say [ __ ] that we'll deal with that later step started stepping F like steps and steps become an arms distance away become so then I
was just like holy [ __ ] I feel like I'm like flat out alone in here even though you're moving with me you're not where you you're not here you're not with you're you're too far behind and then here check right the [ __ ] out I was able to form a a list where I have which I wanted to show you but um I started forming a list on just some scratch paper I found on the ground cuz I didn't have a pen and paper on me like a good soldier I had everything else
but I just found a piece of paper and I can you hand me that bag I do want to show you this because it's important um yeah so I uh I grabbed a a scratch piece of paper from the street and then like started um you know writing down like um names and room numbers in my excellent handwriting and uh somehow it survived like it's like super barely hanging on you know but this is the list that I started to form and it started to kind of you know these are room numbers and names of
Americans that they were unaccounted for and I um you can see that Anita theara was was on that list pretty early and um I was able to get to her room pretty quick but she wasn't there and then the scratch names off after I I rescued him um like going to the room and confirming that they are that person and I think I kicked in like 54 Hotel doors man no [ __ ] yeah it was like um I you know the master key right here I'll give the seals that man that whole like uh
mule kick that's where it's at works it does saves so much energy it was like comical watching people trying to even with breaching tools I like what are you doing what is that thing the French when they came I was like um like step aside please I got really tired some of them are like tying bed sheets together on like the sixth floor like this my man had like three sheets tied together and he had a good 30 40 ft of just drop before it didn't even touch the ground and I was like first of
all don't do that I'm like like hand and arm you know because I don't know if you're going like I I said it in English but I don't speak French and who knows if you know what languages they they understood or spoke but the pointy you know like me saying no you know and then having people like relay it but I'm like don't do that for one that's not going to hold up and uh I was like just barricade yourself in your room and don't answer the door for anyone I was like all right if
I find the closest stairwell to this Bank of runs I'm just going to go right up this stairwell because there wasn't no outside there wasn't an outside fire escape or roof access cuz I wanted to get down and work my way from the top down but I I did a whole sweep around the whole hotel and there was no fire escapes so I was like I guess I'm going I didn't want to go up the spiral stair staircase so I went to like the fire the fire uh stairwell fire red stairwells and went to the
lower floor like so if it was 731 you know 26 and and 18 I I went to the stairwell that was going to get me closest to it when I popped out on that floor if that makes sense yeah so I did that and then when I got to the seventh floor I couldn't get in the door from the inside cuz it was a a crash bar you know emergency exit so I didn't have the tool or anything to like pop it from the inside so I actually went down a couple floors and then went
over and then that led me into this like outside area of the hotel but to me I was just still in the hotel but at that point I had went around to the backside of it where uh I went up that stairwell and this whole wing of the hotel wasn't even on it was like additions that they made and it wasn't even on like the emergency exit plan or anything like and which I took with me for to capture that how [ __ ] up this hotel was for one like this is what you have
briefing on the wall here like there's parts of the hotel that aren't even on this like additions the whole wings and um just so chaotic and uh as I'm going up that other stairwell in between the third and fourth floor is when uh like I'm about here in the clearance uh on the stairs and you know like running upstairs and then like trying to clear and then the the the gunmen are like coming down the stairs and they're on the landing and then we we we like lock eyes and I stare down his muzzle from
5T away like the that close yeah yeah he's like right here and I just go well [ __ ] and but I look through his like beyond the muzzle and into his eyes I saw a change and his his demeanor I saw a shift because he was not expecting to see me big American flag Panos on my head he's like holy [ __ ] without saying it um and this is all like very rapidly and but the next thing through my mind was well that's me I'm [ __ ] dead and uh he cracks the
first round off and a blackout for a split second I mean I got knocked out like I thought I was in heaven or hell and I and I just like it's all like a fog and Haze but like I'm like stumbling down the stairs and it's like almost like things are moving in slow motion and I'm like shooting shooting back and and uh he shoots like five more times and they all hit like just in this concrete steer wheell right around like Po like right like like Samuel Jackson man whole fiction and so for for
me the divine intervention piece like I just couldn't see it for what it was and uh I I just saw red and I I went running back up the stairs and yelled and I actually cussed him out called him a bunch of basic ass [ __ ] and I don't know where that came from but I screamed it the top of my lungs and then he yells Allah Akbar at me and [ __ ] pops the primer on a on a grenade and I hear that it's very audible you know time delay pop like a
Russian style grenade the pineapple looking one and I've heard it a ton in Afghanistan and I know so I was able to yell a grenade and get out of the way relative cover and uh and that thing just bed the [ __ ] [ __ ] out of me and somehow I I was still there's moments of of blacking out right there for a second or knock like unconsciousness but then coming back too and it's just I could my like my teeth were just [ __ ] like loose and dangling you know and but I
was just I was just you know holding them in place CU I was like I'm the only only person that could stop these [ __ ] right now and uh you when they threw they threw another Grenade on me I was like [ __ ] I can't I don't have I don't have what I need to deal with like to to deal with this I can't they have the position of tactical advantage in this stairwell I was like go get any Molly and security forces that you can find now and get them up here and
I said that very calmly just now I was yelling it and uh you know basically whoever they could muster up there I was like I was just going up and down the line like this is your [ __ ] country these [ __ ] are right here I was just going straight up patent speech on them like and I was like you you're a [ __ ] chill they don't speak English and I'm just like English [ __ ] screaming and like they're they're like we we we I'm like uh you understand this you know
and I was just so [ __ ] for one I was like was hurting so I just used overwhelming violence of action to to to mask any of that any of the pain I was feeling right in that moment you take this shield and go over there and I basically like hand like place this dude I'm like go over there and and like he got to the base of the stairwell and like they took one shot popped the shield from up here and he drops it and takes it to the house he's like I served
my country see you later like he was gone and this was aalan uh all right next you know like get the [ __ ] over here and then this guy shows up with a gas mask on his head and a pistol and he's like I got you he didn't say that but he gave me the look and I was like all right don't let them [ __ ] move and then I cleared the rest of that Wing you know kicking in every door I could and freeing not just Americans but anyone at that point I'm
like this is now I've locked them into a position they couldn't go any like higher because it was a condo that they they were trying to find what I found out later they had some pocket that are they were sterile like they didn't have like comps they had comps but they they were burner phones and like they had some pocket litter um that had the uh room numbers of like in the six series like 600 whatever a bank and that was where the Air France crew was staying so like they flew Air France would fly
in Daily there so their flight Crews would stay in a certain Wing every time and they were trying to get over just like I was to the certain Wing or Bank of rooms and you know our our our paths crossed very early in this process and and they were no longer able to it went from you know killing and making as much of a impact as they they wanted to or could to survival and barricaded themselves a French came from the assault force from Burkina fasu the neighboring country and one of my old teammates that
was embedded with them helping them you know you know Target and do things and he hopped on a bird with them there's like 12 of them and but when they showed up at it was like almost 1: p.m. holy [ __ ] I ran into the stairwell with them at like like 6 hours later yeah it was like was like8 something I kicked in one door in that in that wing and there was a there was a a dude in western dress just like with his shot right through his head like and I was like
look back at the door I was like there holes in the door like how the [ __ ] did he get hit and after I cleared the room I was like there's no one in here and um yeah cuz when I kicked it in like the the dead bull and the throw latch both broke off the door so like I I cleared all of it right and cleared it out of the the door frame and I was like it really like bothered me not just the fact that he was like obviously you know one of
the killed one one of the West one of the people that were killed innoc since the people that were killed but like even in that like from a I was like this doesn't make sense like why you know from a physics perspective I was like put in it and I I found out you know because I went back with the FBI almost in an unhealthy manner of times to do my own sensitive sight exploitation but really trying to make sense of it all we put a suit on and went back in there like every day
they were knocking on doors and then if anyone that would answer into their door they would just like even just through the PE not people but the the Thor lat still engaged the hotel right so it like shuts it on itself and once you let it go I mean they would knock lightly and this one guy he answered the door but just stuck his head you know through the crack he he was like looking through the crack and they just smoked him right there through the through the the crack in the door and when that
that troop came from the ban Faso like I finally was just like all right let's [ __ ] go like and I was like hey here's the deal like I went over there and was like to the the commander I'm like who's [ __ ] charge here who's in charge here I'm like here's the thing like they're right here we got them I got them pined down like I can take you right to it they were like oh yeah you come with us but just stay in the back I'm like Roger that I've been up
front all [ __ ] day I'll stay in the back you with you boys let's go and uh then I'm like you know doing all what the [ __ ] going on this taking so long like it's all this commotion up front and I'm you know now I'm like there's no they shouldn't be like there's gunshots and I'm like who the [ __ ] are they fighting with right now and uh it was one of them moling like security Force dudes like shot one of the [ __ ] French like in the top of his
helmet that was scary as [ __ ] like they're down and assaulter and they're like oh you guys want to intermingle in the teams now and I'm like Roger that and uh I just kept getting further then then I'm like like in the team team um just flowing with them and and that's that's a testament to like the ability to to not be so like indoctrinated and and and just it took me two rooms to to to kind of like adapt to their techniques and not get in the way because at that point it's like
I could sure I could like fall on my sword here you guys are doing this all [ __ ] wrong if I wanted but not that they were I I was just extremely grateful to be a part of of any sort of like competent assault Force when my boys were like they were getting spun up in North Carolina and the guys in Germany were like loading in the C130 like but they were 10 12 hours away 18 hours away the American that was killed was was in a service elevator area that if they a group
of them like 15 of them like they if they would have just kept going went right like a turn and and then Freedom down the hallway exit Freedom they went through that kitchen into this service elevator and there's bodies in the elevator in in between the doors like closed on them and then outside of it just all executed from like Point Blank Range and you cannot see that the smell I gave it all I had to hide in that stairwell how did the day end when they got to the barricade we uh I mean we
got we killed them eventually it like we had to we end up like one bounding around and coming in through like a rooftop thing and then crawling down into this condo and locking him down from underneath and then below and I mean I think the French threw everything they had like FL flashbang and like concussive grenades but it was just flying right past them and they had this Corridor where they could just like just spray down this hallway and then they had the stairwell so they had them locked down and um so we couldn't come
up from underneath like we had to the dude that was the French dud was holding the shield guy that was his job like you're the [ __ ] Shield dude and I was like and he was like this young prob 20 something year old kid and I know and I remember this because like he got shot I think through his like broke his hand and then maybe got like shot through his like the The Superficial part of his arm or whatever so bandaged him up but I was like he got within a foot of this
corner where the barricaded guys were in this storage closet just to get close enough but took took like seven rounds in this [ __ ] shield from a foot away and was [ __ ] was balling after that and the guys weren't dead they thw and cuz the guy behind him was able to get close enough to throw on an actual like offensive like frag grenade on top of these cats which was this huge fauxx PA of like you don't bring frags on a hostage rescue man and I'm like well what about in this case
so I know that we came back and I was able to train I came back and was able to like bring the Tactical Lessons Learned to change the way we think and train I me that's my legacy there it's not like to make an impact on that type of organization I think is is massive and and it's not like oh look at look at me it's just like we evolve as a fighting force and that's why it's so so capable but as a collective I still stayed in the hotel for another 3 hours clearing the
rest of the hotel like room by room and and I didn't I didn't say it was like 6 6 p.m. when I called you know Ive secure one one c one American killed confirmed you know her body cuz I got a um a a physical description from the from the country team and she was one um Anita thear was one of the ones that were initially killed in that uh service elevator area the country teams there just like waiting for me to brief them all circled up and I'm like What's Up like tell us all
about it like I'm like okay people just looked at me differently after that you know and I was like what the [ __ ] did you think this was there's not very many of us my operator number is 965 since 1978 that's not me bragging that's me just to conceptualize how small we are hey everybody I'm Shawn Ryan click here to subscribe to the Shawn 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
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