Chris Fettes - A SEAL Team 6 Sniper’s Worst Nightmare | SRS #156

[Music] Chris fetus welcome to the show man thank you for having me it's an honor to have you here honor to be here really I've been waiting a long time for this man a really long time and uh and uh we got a lot to cover I think it's going to be a really heavy episode and uh I think it's going to impact thousands of if not millions of Lives and uh so I'm really excited about this and and um you know we had a conversation on the phone about a operation you were on and

uh sounds like it was maybe probably one definitely one of the most significant events uh of your life and and uh that really uh impacted me as well the way you described it and and um I actually I was hoping you wouldn't get pissed me but I brought it up uh in the Jordan Peterson podcast and um because It was very real very heavy and uh and um and I pray for you a lot so but um but anyways I'm I'm uh it's going to be a fantastic interview and once again man I'm I'm honored

to have you here so thank you I'm I'm not pissed at all I'm grateful and I I need to go catch up and and I didn't catch that but now I need to go all good all good I thought maybe uh somebody would hear it be like he's talking about Chris but uh yeah but Everybody starts with an introduction Chris fetus you're a former Navy SEAL and member of Seal Team 6 officially known as Naval special Warfare Development Group nswdg you were deployed around the world to fight America's enemies and defend freedom on your last

m mission you were involved in a hostage rescue mission that changed your life forever you credited with a 900 yard sniper shot on an enemy in a mountainous region of Somalia incredible uh you are a contractor for the sensitive activities division of the defense threat reduction Agency for 6 years you were responsible for assessing planning and executing sensitive capabilities to support Special Operation Forces operations globally post military became the founder and CEO of be free ice cream where the meaning came from a discovery that true personal freedom comes only from the clarification of one's mind

to Realize happiness is a choice incredible and most importantly you are a father to two sons and a husband and um and uh I hope we talk a lot about fatherhood too I'd love to so um I got a patreon account uh those are our top supporters of the Sha Ryan show a lot of them have been here since the very beginning when I was doing this in my attic and um and uh one of the things I do uh is I give them the opportunity To ask each guest a question and man you had

some really really good questions come up so I picked two of them uh first one is from a a fellow soft guy and uh his name is Paul so after almost 30 years on active duty 20 years in soft I honestly don't know how I'll handle working in a civilian Workforce can you tell us three things that surprised you maybe that you simply did not expect about your transition Back into the world and how you handled those things absolutely one thing that surprised me was how much about myself I did not even know or understand

like to the core with my identity as special forces guy seal and how much effort it was going to take for me to learn that that's one what did you what did when did you realize that you didn't really know who You were I think that I realized it you know that's hard to put a finger on because it was almost like a collective knowing all of a sudden but it only came the day that I was almost at rock bottom that I was at rock bottom and I realized holy [ __ ] I can

just make a decision right now right and just the collective memory of the first couple of years of being out just like knowing that I wasn't what I was Supposed to be right and that I was not even close to to to figuring that out like it just felt like it was getting worse over time and it was um so there wasn't really like a pinpoint moment but you know there was things I was doing there was you know in my in my marriage in my with my kids and the addictions that I had just

you know compounded on each other you know it has a compounding effect that I think that once You sense that you've lost your purpose of what you were you can feel those a lot more now because there's not some outlet for it at work anymore and that's when it got bad um so I'd say with the first year or two the first two years because I was focused on my new job and what I was doing um and I was really confused about that to be honest with you too Um I learned learned pretty quickly

that that job and and just it wasn't that job specifically I have anything against it was just that I knew I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing and that's a really shitty feeling um and trying to go you just feel lost so what am I supposed to be doing you know what I think man after interviewing I don't know how many of uh us types but having gone through it myself and and in talking to gents like You I think what happens is you change as a human and it's almost like you're

under a [ __ ] spell when you're in when you're in a unit like that I mean I know you probably don't want to talk about this but I'm going to but the hate that comes from the community I mean that's not when you're out you know that's not like normal you know have those type of feelings and and it's just a glimpse into like how how dark it can be in the community And and when you and then and then when you're in it with the with the you know with the depression and the

anxiety and the like just all this [ __ ] you know what I mean and and and when you come out if you make it out unfortunately we have to say it like that cuz so many of our friends are are killing themselves it's it's like it's like this transition to morph back into yourself what you were who you truly are what you're supposed to be and I think I think for The guys that do make it back and and find their way back to themselves of what they were before they went in it's it's

it's a it's a stronger it's just I don't even want to say hardened because if you find self a lot of that falls away that hardness and uh that's what I think it is that morphing back into yourself I think what I've learned is that the consequences of doing that are Going to make people M mad and angry because you now it's almost seen as a a false betrayal in my opinion like you're betraying the code mhm and I've moved past this so I don't I don't dwell on it too much anymore but it used

to bother me a lot because I really think that that dark dark side of this Brotherhood which is a beautiful thing but also has this MH is um connected to the veteran suicide problem because I maybe we'll get into this but I remember the thought the very specific thoughts that I was having in my moment right and going it's very it's a lot simpler than I think that we really think um the actual specific thoughts that are going through our head at that moment and whatever the buildup was to get to that moment it's different

for everybody we have different addictions we have different coping Mechanisms for what we feel um but what I know is that for most of us there's no betrayal going on mhm most of us we doing our lives especially the guys that figure this out and turn and make a decision the right path right and don't don't give up um are doing it respectfully not disrespectfully the programming we get In the code is that once you're done living your life by that code you can't I couldn't conceive that any seal or guys in a in a

unit could then go out in the world and live their life by any other code but that and then we we sort of connect it to Integrity or like whatever the words might be but that code and has to be that way for it to work right and but it's like a little bubble of a reality in this whole world of infinite real realityy and and The paths you can go on and the the things you can do and that little bubble of reality is also part of the whole overarching story so how do you

tell if you want to and then there's the Judgment of that in the first place well why does you have to tell I know why you know I've done a lot of work to figure out why I need to do anything and not enough time to explain to every single person still within that code on why and it might be a waste of Time because won't understand right mhm um some of them might but um that's what it is in my opinion and I think about the solutions towards that and and it's it's really Solutions

are more conceptual to me it's just finding some way which is happening actually so I'm very grateful where no change happens until a leader can validate that the the change is acceptable right so some guy some Captain Whatever until they decide hey I got to do my FIT RS I got to make I got to become become an admiral someday and go this is a big problem that this veteran suicide thing that for sure this code in this place is is part of that story of what gets to that so what can we do that's

not going to they so afraid of doing anything because they're so afraid that it's going to sap bandwidth from the mission right or the Operating but I think that the hate stuff actually uses more manpower and bandwidth than the solution which would just be in my mind some we figure out some really hard problems at that place it's a damn good point I've not thought of that the band what then yeah we figure out like scheduling and things like um scheduling in some things or or just even infusing some level of acceptability for these for

For what guys are going to do when they're done right and maybe even some kind of rule set besides just it being this free floating sort of nonacceptance thing like that if you do or say anything that anybody knows about like what what are we supposed to do go to some ranch and live yeah the quiet professional thing is what they attach it to but you're a quiet professional there you have to be Right when I'm now in my life I'm not that doing that anymore have other things to do you know and it's not

a disrespect thing it's just it doesn't apply anymore right respectfully not I promise you no guy you talk to their intention is to go like [ __ ] them and I'm going to go do this because of them like they're not they're just trying their best they just do their best it's a fight for survival But those experiences yes are those experiences are are very they're profound experiences to each person like the special part of Special Force to me is our little hearts inside of each one of our guys each one of like the individuality

of the guy next to you we always say that you know the capabilities the cool stuff the night vision goggles the guns the support the money all the stuff is Cool and I don't don't want to make anybody mad but the special part of Special Forces is the op is the guys the the individual person right like not the call sign part the once we light cigarettes on a quiet Target we start calling each other by our names part you know and we know a little bit about you know the closest guys anyways where they

grew up from what their childhood was like what and they're all similar stories yeah you Know the thing they I know that they've studied with psychologists at different units um and they've been doing this for a while probably I mean at least since I was there over a decade ago um 20 years too I think that they started to we trying to figure out what is that thing what's the thread that's in common between us guys that causes us to get through those selections without quitting right and just keep driving Through all the suffering and

have that it's not just this oh it's mental fortitude you know is that we all experience some sort of adverse childhood thing some trauma some some hardship some thing right that instead of some people would go become drug addicts or you know some level of coping for that whatever was missing you know and I could go through a whole list of that stuff instead decided to just go do [ __ ] And never quit right um and my opinion about that is that it has a little connection into validation as well right because our reputation

is that's all it is y we just need constant validation from each other to in order for our reputation to be good right and we fall outside of that that's the most stressful thing that's even more stressful if you ever get labeled you know that that it's worse than if I'm getting Shot at by a PKM you know um that guy yeah so and you need you have little moments where you [ __ ] something up and for a little while you might be that guy and you're like that's the worst feeling ever I got

to get out of this you know at any cost you know I'll do anything for validation to be out of this and be in the good in the green even though I'm excited for the new Administration there's a lot of tension in the world Russia Ukraine the Border inflation who knows what could happen next me I'm not waiting around to find out and I don't think you should either look it's simple I want you to go to shaikes gold.com you'll learn about my partners over at goldco they're a great precious metals company that I trust

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future it's it's all related to that and then that's a long answer to that question but when you get out what you don't have that there anymore where do you get the validation from you've got to figure out how to self validate you got to go clear all of The reasons why you needed that in the first place you have to reinvent yeah that's what you have to do you have to reinvent for me going back to myself like you said was all the way back to my seven-year-old self before things start to happen before

you you know start to realize that it's hard or traumatic or whatever the whatever the memories that you know each one of us knows are in there that have been causing us all of This um stress through our lives it's a good answer uh one more Stephen Casey what advice do you have for exiting military members whose skill set SL area of military service diverges widely from their passion and which may take time to develop suggestions on what to do if your skill set is way outside of your passion yeah do the skill set You

gota you got to do what's available to you when you get you got to have a job you know you got to work that I experience this you know start making moves towards the thing that you're passionate about you know you got to stop wasting time and so some some people are going to get angry about this but I I I don't I didn't have time anymore to watch four hours of a football game and memorize all the statistics about some player in What college they went to so that when we're all gathered around for

Fantasy Football you're like man that guy really knows his [ __ ] one day I realized he knows his [ __ ] and it's a waste of time for me because I got to be making ice cream flavors and giving it to people to taste it and tell me what they think and that was the moves I was making in the background you know going to ice Cream school at Penn State before I ever started my job I didn't know why I didn't even I think my wife was probably pissed you're going to spend how

much to go to this [ __ ] school and you haven't even started your job yet so but I'm glad I did but my point is start making moves towards the thing you're passionate about yeah and if you don't know what that is you know instead of wasting time going out drinking or like whatever The things are that you know you're wasting time you just know what you just know what they are um a lot of times they're related to your addictions you know um and start figuring out what you like to really do it

could be very simple yeah that's I mean I didn't know what the [ __ ] I like to do you know I did all kinds of [ __ ] I sure as hell didn't think I was going to like sitting down talking to people for 6 hours cuz I don't like talking to people outside of the show anyways I'm just a I'm an introvert and uh you know but I mean I think I I think you just got to one one you got to close that [ __ ] door that's what I think you have

to close that door because you are leaving a community that doesn't want you to leave and that you're passionate about like nobody in sof probably even in the military especially in combat arms is Not passionate about their what the what they're doing and the people that they're with and when that's over you have to shut that door and tune that out it's done you're never going back it's not going to happen you know and and if you're like me and I'm sure you and a lot of the other uh gents that have been in here

I mean that's all you had time for man is to pour your heart and soul into your unit into war fighting Into building that camaraderie and culture and and and and just being a [ __ ] Warrior and so you don't know what you like to do because that's been 100 % of your dedication and mindset and everything goes into that and so when you get out you got to try everything man you got to I mean you just have to have to keep bouncing around until until you feel good and then when you feel

good you're probably on to something you know That's right and it becomes when you find something and it becomes your new most important thing in life other than your family that's it so dive in yeah it doesn't matter how much you have to do it you know that's you got it you know because there's people I've heard go oh man I like to make these duck collar things and but then I started selling them and I didn't like it anymore because I had to do work and I'm like do You really love it though yeah

you know get through a couple years until you can get somebody to help make those things will you love it then and think in the future you know there's going to be a day where i'm not running this ice cream machine all day you know and once you get there it's like y worth it it's only to me it's a couple years you know could commit to a couple two three years or something did you have deep and meaningful conversations with Teammates on deployments ever with guys you knew yeah like some in-depth ones to like

you remember some details about some of your teammates yeah yeah and then just remember there's always wasn't there always a guy playing a guitar around the fire yeah or there was one guy I had an EOD guy that soon as we got back from the mission we do our you do team family movie time we go watch bner Brothers together I'd get some ice cream but he would always be in his Hooch with a beat maker making little beats you know yeah and that's what they love doing so then when they get out and they

go what do I do wasn't there something you did good point you know good point some people it's Maybe not maybe we're playing video games every every waking moment between or whatever but there was probably something you know whatever it was went On long runs or even after a long Mission I knew guys are like you're still going on miles of a run you love running you know um maybe you designed some shoes or something yeah you know U for that I don't know but um that's that's my point is start making moves towards that

figuring out what you like like doing and then imagining yourself because know longest time you can't your ego with that team connection is like I can't Imagine I did all this stuff I'm you know I can't imagine sitting in a little ice cream truck going hey you know ding D ding ding ding give but start to you know until you can imagine yourself doing that you know great advice man well let's get into the interview first one last thing everybody gets a gift even you Chris so I guess we're going to be competitors in the

sweets business yeah I'm going to put these in some ice Cream see what happens hell yeah do it do it vigilance League gummy bears legal in all 50 states made in the USA you're not going to get any weird feelings if you have any yeah so I'm very curious on how you got these made and they're really good I've had them before oh thank you I'll tell you offline but um but Chris I want to get into I want to get into your story and let's do I know we have a lot of rabbit holes

to go down and I want to hit every One of them so but um let's start at childhood where did you grow up so I was born in Austin Texas um My real father was Mexican my mother is half Japanese and half Irish Caucasian oh [ __ ] I'm a quarter Japanese too I know man cool I didn't know that yeah cool um I used to be embarrassed about it a little bit trying to fit into school um and I looked a lot more Asian when I was a kid than I think I do now

Now I'm very proud of it very very proud of it my grandmother immigrated here my grandfather met her um while he was on tour uh for Vietnam and he was in Okinawa and they've been the core of the whole family right and we moved around a lot so my real father was an abusive alcoholic physically abusive alcoholic to my mother um did you see any of that so What I realized is with children and and even pertaining to some of the stuff that's going on with children these days is that you remember everything it's imprinted

right up to a certain you know like age I don't think I remember much from like three or four maybe but I didn't think I remember much from four or five and then I realized one day that I do right so I've got imprints in my memory of My Real father his face and for sure his energy and what it looked and what it felt like to me um that I've only been able to to get to actually recently like in the last you know decade of my life but because you you block them right

if it doesn't feel good so um you know memories of violence of him beating my mom and you know she was working three jobs to support us she was A seamist for a long time and just remembering the the faces of just different women that were not my mom you know coming over damn like I remember that [ __ ] right so when we when we are going about our the environment we create for our kids and whatever all these parents are doing is like I think there might be a little bit of an assumption

that like oh they're just not going to remember all of this cuz they're kids you know but It's all in there so that you know realizing that that was my real father and then in the future seeing some of those things coming on me was a big kind of Awakening moment right to realize what age did he leave so my Mom finally divorced him you know I try to talk to her about it I think it's a traumatizing thing for Her as well obviously and my grandfather's a really strong man he passed away a couple

years ago in my mom's home I was there during his hospice he was an orphan himself so he experienced a really tough childhood him and his brother were orphans their parents abandoned them um and then they grew up with you know a couple different uh foster parents but they both became very successful they both you know he he spent a long career in the in the Army He was he retired as a colonel did two tours to Vietnam and then when he got out he started uh worked his way up through a company called airframe

that uh manufactured and sold airplane parts and components to to Japanese companies and he became fluent in Japanese so when that was all going on with my mom I I I believe that there was some influence from him to go you I need need you to leave this this guy right and Almost I don't know if there was ever an ultimatum but she finally made it made the right decision and divorced him how old were you I'm not quite sure I think I was about five almost six years old maybe [ __ ] so you

you do have memories back to that young yes absolutely and they they're very specific little memories you know like what's your first memory you know what I mean That's hard for people to to think right in the moment but if you sit down you meditate maybe you think about it you can you can go back like oh yeah and and you know you know there's a memory I had from when I was probably 5 years old or four years old that I slipped on like a slippery concrete bunk in my head and I must have

gotten knocked out because the next thing I saw was my mom's face I remember that you know and there's Another memory before that where I was getting like I was playing an ant pile I might have been four years old during this time and I got covered in fire ants and I was screaming and you know my mom grabbed me and threw me in a bathtub to drown all the ants and you know those get imprinted because they're Sensational memories you know um outside of your everyday playing as a kid but I also have those

memories about my father and him the way he grabbed me to talk to Me to like you know I just have memories of him sitting next to me you know he had a thick mustache and the energy that I remember was not good you know um that biological connection between a father and son I felt I don't think was there right because when you're drowned in your addictions when you're you know when you're that it's it's blocking you you know um and then I saw this in a You know with different I kind of correlate

it together because I go how and it even relates to the story is how some fathers don't have that for some reason whatever it is whether it's the ideology that they're practicing you know where we know in that some in some of that terrorist culture some of that Taliban you know and different types of those you know Extremist cultures like what I witnessed was and from talking and eating with Afghans is that the the the the the wife and the son are or any children are servants to the men and that's their role you know

um not like here in a in a healthy father son relationship where you go they're not my servants I respect them you know they're people with choices and and just you know I've made a decision to try my best to create the best Environment for them and even that's not going to be perfect there's going to be some resentment about something you know but you just try your best and so I think that goes missing in today's society sometimes to go to realize like you do what I say cuz I told you so or any

level past that but um do you do you have siblings yeah I have two sisters one's my half sister from my stepfather who the next part of my childhood is that my mother met him and Remarried and thank God because he's a good man and I didn't know that growing up we were at ends um you know I said and did things like you're not my father when I got angry as a teenager and I go back to that now and like I want to apologize I have apologized for that because everything that he did

he's a very quiet guy very stoic he grew up on a farm also with a very difficult childhood but At least was able to make a decision you know how do you take I have so much more respect for stepfathers that that actually take on or adopt you know someone's kids that aren't theirs for the woman that they love CU that's a hard thing to do to be a father without that biological connection you know is but you know to teach them how to write a bike to teach them so I didn't realize until I

Became really out of the ceiling teams that I received all of that even if it seemed like I wasn't listening you know cuz I was a little [ __ ] I was a rebellious little [ __ ] and um but I'm so grateful because it all went in there yeah man that's I don't think much about that but I mean actually I do my little my little brother um has a a a stepson and he does a he's A [ __ ] amazing dad and uh I see him doing all that stuff you know with

he's he as his biological son and then I commend him all the time man you are changing that kid's life for the better and like I don't know if I could ever rise that occasion but hard to do especially when they're pushing back on it all when it doesn't seem like they're they're getting it you know he can definitely be a challenge But um but uh I want to go back what what about your other sister she biological yes and so% or yeah my biological sister Courtney she was an amazing person one of the most

kind souls and you know one memory I have is my mother being pregnant with her so I must have been you know we're only a couple years apart so two 3 years old I remember some about her getting hurt while she was pregnant with with Her and then asking the you I ask my mother these questions later in childhood you'll start to ask you know she told me you started to ask these questions you know because I didn't know my stepfather was not my father for a while until you get to seven eight whatever age

maybe before that and start to go hey you know is that you know you start asking questions because I remember some else you know but yeah he my My real father Kicked her down the stairs one one day in an argument while she was pregnant with my sister and she fell down a flight of like went down a flight of stairs in front of the apartment and so and I think about my mother like if I could just go back as myself now to that and and [ __ ] you know my future self just

go grab that [ __ ] you know because what happens when we trauma Turns us into something that we aren't really any of us ever are to start with when we're children now you go so far you know you still can always come back it's never too late in my opinion doesn't matter like how far it goes the deepest darkest serial killers pedophiles all these [ __ ] people going on can still make a choice but in this life you still whatever boundaries and lines you cross you still have to live with and deal With

the consequences of what you did right and I didn't felt like he ever got to do that you know maybe part of the consequence of it was the suffering that that people like that have every day you know the self-hate the just the muck is part of it because they're not happy you know some of these politicians some of these people they're not you can just see it you can just see the bags in their eyes you know you like look at this George Soros dude and you're like just committed to evil right and and

some of them it shows you know it doesn't look like a healthy 80-year-old whatever he is Dude Looks Like A demon MH and then there's others that appear or look healthy and that's the most Sinister of them this show was sponsored by better help what do you want your 2025 story to be every January brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled in 2025 maybe you're ready for a plot twist or maybe There's part of your story you've been wanting to revise life isn't about resolutions that fade by February it's about becoming the author

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that you know some of my family on that side he actually died early somehow in 2009 and my mom found out about it and I asked him questions you know how'd he die you know I still don't not very clear I think it was some medical issue with his leg or something like some weird thing but my side of the family the Mexican Side of the family tried to contact me after and I I just because of that what I just said um I had just didn't have any interest and my real father was my

father right so it would have been a disservice in my mind to go explore that and I just didn't have the Intuition or the the the need to go explore that and my Japanese side of the family my grandparents and my father is I had everything I needed Right and so the energy of that them contacting me just didn't feel right my intuition was kicking off like there's some reason behind this whether it's money or something they've heard about me I did you know I've been a seal for a while and so I just pushed

it you I just didn't do it you know do you do you believe in generational trauma yes absolutely because and I I don't think That it's as genetically predisposed as we might think it is addictive traits and things like that you know maybe a little bit what I think is that generational trauma is the because the traumatized you have kids now you're responsible for the environment you create for them and if you haven't healed that [ __ ] and you haven't returned to what you really are you're real you know the soul that's inside of

all of Us when we're children and back to the [ __ ] George Soros thing you like he was just a 5-year-old kid once and no matter what his environment was he was just playing just doing his job as a kid wholesome innocent whatever the environments were to then make him what he is now he's he hasn't made a decision to change that for his own kids right and I guarantee you now they're all [ __ ] up too so that's a that's a choice that any One person can make but you got to like

you can't see through the the veil of that conflict and Trauma and and [ __ ] I call it [ __ ] it's just the the easiest way for me to explain it is stuff and it's just piled on top of us over time to where that Soul right here and here is just covered in [ __ ] and you can't how do you see through you got to it's like being stuck in mud or quicksand and the decision is it's like A shovel you got to do work every day to get it down at

least to where you can see something you know doesn't have to be perfect what kind of work I know what you're talking about but a lot of people aren't going to know what you're talking about so what kind of work are you talking about to find a way and there's different ways I've experience plant medicines for sure work for Me um there's other ways Native Americans do sweat lodges you know um ancient people did different things writes of passages to becoming a man you know but the point being some way for you to just stop

and realize I feel like I'm full of [ __ ] right and for me when I got out of the military it was like I couldn't figure it out when I talked to my wife you know when I was [ __ ] things up constantly It was like I just crying with her like I just feel this creature inside of me right just this like little dark creature and you know that's just how I visualized it but one identifying that and then going what what caused this because I I think that every one of us

in the world you know from the very healthy of us all the way to you know the the bent over fitel addict you know in San Diego the memory the very specific Memory of what somebody did to you or what happened to you whether it was a collective over time or very specific thing or a whole bunch of very specific things but you know like you know what it is you know and you just you don't want to admit to yourself you know that it's that that started it whatever the trauma is whatever the things

you know what I mean um and it's different for everybody but Going then to that thing and spending time like looking at it we don't want to but just [ __ ] something to put your head in place to then not just look at it but go like all around it and go figure out like yeah that memory that's it you know for for me for example there was one and like sexual stuff's embarrassing for everybody to talk about that's why it's one of the most Sinister addictions in my opinion compared to like you can

say All day long like I'm a drug addict I'm like alcoholic I beat my wife I do this really hard for people but it's also ironic because there's so much sexuality [ __ ] going on right now it's all focused on that all the time of like constantly having to prove or portray or you know explain your sexualities and even now gone to the the the extent of just displaying it openly in in in an effort to make it feel normal because you're Subconscious your ego is like you know already it's it's it's inappropriate you

know some of these things you see like I can't and I have no judgment against anybody's sexualities but from California I can't take my kids to San Francisco during gay pride month because and it's not because of the sexuality it's because of all the traumatic sexual [ __ ] they're going to see you know out in public and it's just not okay but it's Also not going like anything against your sexuality it's just you know um but for me just as a because it's hard to talk about I'm going to use it as an example

one of my earliest traumas was you know my mom was working a lot my dad so that's part of the childhood story my dad was in the Air Force so then when she remarried I became a military kid so I'll go back to that we moved around a lot and that became another kind of trauma super cool but also a little bit Of a trauma big a big trauma and but back to that thing you know I had a good childhood after my mom got married I really feel overall like man I had a great

childhood but there was these little things because they were just doing their best he was working she was working and I had freedom around the neighborhood we lived in Japan at the time got stationed there super cool we lived there for four years but I had free floating rain around the Whole neighborhood as a six-year-old right so I was friends with this other six-year-old and there was a specific few days where we ended up in his house down the road but he had older siblings 12 13 14 whose parents were all o gone all the

time and they were watching porn in the living room so now I go here I'm a six-year-old and they you know how you know I see it with kids now they influence each other they go Hey they think it's a good idea to take the six-year-old and go like look at this and you're like and I'm sitting there looking at this scene but I remember the very this is what I'm saying with you know what it is I remember the very specific things that I was watching in that scene not knowing what the [ __

] they were to go I don't know what it is but it's fascinating in some way it's like this like something of yeah you know and then All of a sudden you're a six-year-old kid trauma right affects the rest of the path of your life with this sexual [ __ ] right did you saw too soon because you don't even need to be thinking about it until your body matures into that which was the original purpose yeah for sex in the first place is to reproduce and like you know yeah feels good whatever we figure

that out that's an intimacy thing but not as six-year-old you're supposed To be playing you know you're supposed to be looking at bugs and um coloring you know so in one of my plant medicine experiences I was able to go back to this very closely and like almost float around it like a spirit and go holy [ __ ] I'm looking at my face I'm going around looking at my reaction to it and crying for myself to go what like I you know just want to pull him out of there and [ __ ] stop

It right so but it went on for a couple of different days we're in there and that became a porn addiction for later okay um and I'm not embarrassed to say really because I know how many [ __ ] people in America are addicted to porn if you watch it every day or even every week you got some sort of some level of addiction you know there's a spectrum for different addictions and now when I think think about I go [ __ ] one of the worst things We could have ever done as a society

and it just gradually happened just like everything else does just like AI just all the things the internet we create it can't figure out or agree to how to use it the right way or how to kind of regulate it health so it's healthy right and then it just explodes into this infinite realm of deviant dark [ __ ] we all know what's in there and we can be embarrassed to say like oh I can say what's in there and you go like wow you Watching you know right because if you look at any of

those [ __ ] videos and like any of them there's millions of views you know um more than the Shawn Ryan show you know so I know it's a it's a collective and it's Global at this point you can just go in there and click yeah I'm 18 some 10-year-old can do that how how soon do they get these things now they have them when they're children I I know everybody's not going in there And being responsible to like block that stuff promise you they're looking at it and creating these little traumas that they don't

even realize and now we have exploded into this generation these generations of sexually addicted people and dude some of the most brave people I've ever seen doing some [ __ ] are like ex porn stars this this one guy I don't remember his name but he's now an advocate against it and how ter how toxic and terrible it is No kidding I don't know a big Christian I can't remember his name right now but he was a very famous horn star and now imagine the that that that's all record it's all in there you can

always go back to that so talk about you know you do clear some [ __ ] you do heal you do find a way to move forward and but it's recorded it's still it's it talk about like your past coming back to haunt you it's it's every day for that guy but he's still is telling the truth and God That that must be it would be so interesting interesting to talk to him I'll find him he's he goes yeah he's a he's a he's a he's a big Christian his family is looks amazing and healthy

he's made a decision you know but my point back to that is uh that was one of my traumas and and I always knew it was there and what it was I just always avoided that it was connected to anything that I was doing habits wise or addictions wise or you Know and then we go into a culture like the teams and you know we almost we don't encourage addictions but it's like hey man it's it's okay like we're all um it's a safe environment sometimes you know I would say we encourage addictions yeah I

think that comes look maybe things have changed I remember being shamed for not drinking I don't want to drink I remember being told if you don't drink we're not going to trust you I remember Being handed sleeping pills and Aderall and opiates and all the [ __ ] you know what I mean I think that addiction is very much encouraged within the teams it's just under the radar yeah it's a secret code thing and you know they'll blast you for those addictions and they'll punish you for those addictions yeah then you get a DUI and

you're like and they'll go and do the exact same [ __ ] thing yeah so it's a toxic Loop part of the thing you asked me Earlier is is what's the solution I'm like how do you change culture you know shaming and guilting is not not going to change it so if you have a commander somebody that's like you know zero zero tolerance [ __ ] doesn't work you know um it's just some level of acceptability for the guys that do want to fit in desperately want to fit in they have to that don't want

to participate you know have you have you have you thought about how the Culture changeed T change changes a lot yeah um changes with the es and flow of like operation Tempo and combat I think feels like it's getting it gets more toxic when you're not busy mhm you know because in between all that [ __ ] you've got camaraderie you guys are out having to trust each other every night you know so I talked about this the other day with my kids baseball team we just merged two travel baseball Teams from two teams and

we had this like separation of parents and kids going like we're better they're better we should play they should and finally I was like God damn it we're all on the same team and we're all trying our best you know and it's it's that you know concept of acceptability you know um and just stopping with the [ __ ] so much like we're supposed to be focusing on a mission and we have get this we do all This [ __ ] stuff like you know the the fitting in part and the reputation bars is really

really really hard and and and hard thing to change but I think that it's happening naturally because you can't deny how good it works to optimize guys and they're starting to do it you know there's like this this program called Virginia um Human Performance where they actually can now go do this once a year And it's a whole collection of modalities and providers and things to sort of set you back on the path of health and optimization which doesn't include alcohol and cheating on your wife and [ __ ] porn and whatever the [ __

] else you do get off all that [ __ ] for four weeks you go back you're optimized that's awesome you integrate that I'm like that's a good one that's within the that's within the teams yeah oh that's great to hear so so they are Making steps good yeah but I can imagine how hard it was for them to accept that guys are going to go spend four weeks to do this and then teammates not judge them and go well he's going to go you know like he's going to go ride horses in Montana for

[ __ ] 5 days instead of go to sha for the 25th time like he doesn't know the drills you can just go to the kill house all day and get you know yeah for a week and and do those so I think it's starting to happen Where the acceptability part of it is happening so you're like you're not shaming the guys that are drinking or doing those things but they're being more okay with you not participating to go hey we just jumped all day it's stressful as [ __ ] you want to release all

that stress but you go out drinking all all night you're going to feel like [ __ ] the next morning and then just compounds over the trip and then you're like oh when I get home I I'll [ __ ] You know I'll catch up when I get home but you never do cuz you get home got to be in the kill house all day you're breaching never catches up till you're done with your career and your testosterone is zero and you're just addictions have destroyed your body you know so I'm happy to see that

that's starting to happen man that's great to hear when did that get implemented I think it's been pretty recent like the last uh few years um I just got into it It's been eight years I've always been meaning to go and I just been on my path of self-discovery nice so I finally got in I'm doing it right now actually um oh really yeah good for you on my second week I had to um you know get my food and my workouts for this couple of days while I'm here and right on man it's awesome

right on yeah I feel like it's uh it has to be attraction rather than promotion yeah can't be shoving it down People's throat you just have to get solid solid solid guys that that the rest look up to to just just be the example without promoting it just just be people start following suit absolutely but they see people they look up to you know being optimized like [ __ ] I got to do that too yeah back to your childhood yeah so my father was in the Air Force and we started moving around every two

to four Years that was awesome lots of cool different experiences but then I developed this problem with validation one because my stepfather doing the best he could but it's not the same as he not quite the same he's doing the best he he could you know but he's also a very stoic guy right so maybe part of the trauma was I resented like boys boys especially got two boys I don't know have experience with Daughters so I can't speak to it much but aside from nurturing for Mom they need validation from dad every day right

so there's a bucket to fill every day and it doesn't mean like oh I got to be at the baseball games every single one of them and the bucket that's not what does it it's not time around where you know cuz if I could be at those things and I could just be doing this and he does something and he looks over to see if I saw it and I miss It the bucket goes down your dad's not really there but now what's happening is that I'm paying attention right and maybe between stuff I do

some work [ __ ] or whatever make my my ice cream posts but they do something and there for that Split Second they look over and you're like it's just a signal you know I saw you know and their bucket fills all the way up for that day it just took that Split Second so if I'm consistent with that I can feel it in them that they're okay week to week you know and when I start to be unbalanced because of my own addictions because my habits or whatever comes back during stress then I that's

the sign you know time to balance myself back because I just [ __ ] missed this week and he's acting up now he's talking back he's not listening to Mom you know and I can just you just can see how it works So the decision to get out of the Navy was right for me and it was because of them which I can get to that after the childhood but [ __ ] I'm so grateful to myself just five six you know eight years ago to one make the decision to get out but then working

towards understanding that for the next few years you know I'm so thankful that I decided to do that how Was this is interesting cuz I moved around a lot as a kid too every two to three years I can't even count how many different places I lived in yeah but you consider that trauma yeah because I never thought about the constant validation because you have to reestablish yourself every time you that's right so I show up and I got so tired of I'm I'm the new kid you go into the classroom I remember all Those

memories of you know either the new kids spitballs come flying your way you know or the teacher goes welcome Chris fetus whatever they're like make fun of your name whatever all the little things kids do and they don't you know what I mean it's not bullying it's just kids you know but when you do that over and over again and then you do whatever you got to do to fit in you Mom can you buy me these clothes can I do my hair this way you know what I Mean can I do this can I

do that you make some friends and then boom you got to go you cry you leave your friends you work so hard to fit in with get to the next school new kid again same same thing so now I think back like dude how many times did I change and conform myself to go fit into and it was so different every time it was Japan to South Carolina to South Carolina and then when you show up they're going to make fun of What you look like because of where you just came from they're not used

to seeing it they not unaccustomed and then you got to change that to be more normal right so you know in South Carolina I got made fun of a lot for the Asian [ __ ] like you know was just remember memories of kids like you know and it's so funny now I wish I could go back to some of those yeah people and go where are you at now what are you doing man you know and um that's [ __ ] crazy man I got the exact same [ __ ] they called me a

[ __ ] all the time I'm like [ __ ] Japanese [ __ ] off yeah yeah these words like thanks thank you for that yeah you know and doing that then it was you know North Carolina and then it was um we got to California then by the time we got to California montere beautiful place um I loved it there because my Grandparents were there you know my Grand my father found a way to get stationed there as a recruiter and just kept extending it because my mom just just we were happy there you

know he didn't want to do that but sacrifice so he was teaching me a lesson about sacrifice without even teaching me anything he just did it you know I was like I knew he loved being an F-16 mechanic but he was doing this recruiting job so we could stay there and visit I was always at my Grandparents house in Pebble Beach the best memories but then I was also in this school with different crowds of people and gangs and different stuff going on and same thing trying to fit in with somebody you know now you're

a teenager and it gets even harsher right trying to fit in and um so you know I made some friends got one of those friends I still keep in touch with Filipino guy um good friend of Mine he's we don't talk too often but he's off living his life life but I think about him a lot and uh yeah then I I sort of started to attach where I'm from to there so when people say where you're from I don't have time to explain all that other stuff I go I went to high school there

I graduated there you know um I'm from Monterey California and it was my favorite memory my favorite place right so you know my dad used to have tickets For recruits to go watch Giants games in San Francisco and they never took him up on it so we were always going to watch games so that's how I became a Giants fan those games were awesome I love going and eating popcorn and ice cream watching baseball games um but I realized later after my whole career was over that the original reason 911 happened so my parents moved

one more time after That it was their last station before they retired and they ended up in um back to North Carolina so I stayed when they moved I tried to live off on my own I was bouncing around people's houses you know trying to knock out some Community College classes but really I was just [ __ ] around I was going to parties I was going to Raves I was like trying to fit in you know um I had a girlfriend that was really bad cheating on me all the time So I was learning

that lesson too like that's normal in a relationship and just a pretty toxic lifestyle with no purpose and so you know my grandparents sensed that in me and and and and my grandmother really cried for me one day and was like you're not good here you know and I was getting sick all the time and she was taking care of me so uh she said you should go back home for a Couple years and I was like okay so went back to North Carolina for a couple years felt better cuz I was living at home

again you know um and then 9911 happened when I was about 19 so I was randomly working like at a bank as a teller and bouncing around different jobs watching this thing on TV while I was Working um people coming in just distraught going like what the hell is happening that's where I was at I remember thinking I don't know why I feel this but I want to go join the military because now I know there was no way for me to have any more validation I wasn't in school anymore I was like just doing

random things and I was like man when we were Teenagers I remember this group of friends we were always talking about Navy Seals I didn't know what what it was never saw Navy Seals the movie never read a book I just went I remember we talked about that one time so I'm going to go to the office so I ended up moving back to California first just to go explore you know just to move out again you know same thing I was living with some Friends um and I started training just running and doing push-ups

and all the things I then I started to read like what did it what I need to do to get in um that book Warrior Elite came out and that's the one thing I read and so I just went for it I went to the office hey I want to be a seal they laughed at me they're like you need to pick a job too you know it's like cool whatever that one you know they're like you sure That's what you're going to be doing you know and uh dude every selection so far has been

that you sure like you're not going to make it you know you want to start a business it's going to be hard you're not going to I don't think you know what you're getting into you know and it just happens over and over again I actually enjoy it now so hey I'm going to have an actual actual ice cream brand in store someday you know I love those reactions So so I get this sealed contract I go to buds um get through now I'm in the SEAL Teams and then realize later after my career holy

[ __ ] I didn't go to serve my country it developed into that for sure now for sure you know I served my country I served the guys next to me me service of others is part of my purpose but I realized that the truth was I did that for validation I wanted to go be part of something that I knew was like the the most the highest level Of validation if you can get through and and and it was like this there was always this concept like this conceptual dream to go if I make

it I made it you know now I'm in this world of validation I'm accepted for good you know I don't have to keep doing it over and over again well that's not true you do have to keep doing it yeah but it but but it worked you know I found my place in the SEAL Teams you know I kind of figured out you know what I was good at I I I'm Grateful that um and I don't mean this in any kind of arrogance or ego way but I was never the best guy but I

was able to make it through every hard course every selection SEAL Team Six selection all that stuff on the first try damn so I'm proud of that and um then now I know I originally did it but now I can also you know appreciate all of my experiences and even the bad ones I'm not coping with them anymore and like trying to forget Them I actually can remember more about them now after having found a way to just clear all that [ __ ] you know off before we go into your career as an operator

I want to rewind mind and he had said something you'd said something about when you found out that your stepdad wasn't your real dad how did you what was that conversation Like I think it was I don't really remember what age but I just I think it was like a six or seven just having that conversation with my mom and her sort of breaking it to us like this is not your real father right um and this is not you know my my younger sister was born then she's your half sister and and having to

explain that truth must have been really hard for her but um you know if you ever talk to your kids when they're younger too They kind of like it's hard to go too in depth because they're they just kind of listen and go yeah yeah you know um it's hard to go how do you really feel about it though you know like I don't know you know I can I go play and um it was kind of like that I think so it develops over time into more of an understanding of what what was going

on you know and knowing now that my mom just tried her was just Trying her best she was just doing her best so any resentments I had afterwards like oh you know I got accepted into some colleges I couldn't go we didn't have enough money um you know the validation thing oh my dad wasn't my real dad but I didn't get enough like validation from a father that I needed um all those resentments went away once I realized myself again and That they were just doing the best they could and they were good parents you

know just it's a it's a dilemma that I have not explored on the show before and so I'm I'm I'm very curious and I think there's a lot of good pieces of advice that could come out of this for kids and in stepdads you know and so I mean it sounds like you regret you know all the times that you kind of threw that in in your dad's face not being your biological dad I Mean what what do you have to say to kids cuz I mean divorce is higher than ever now divor especially in

our own Community yeah so common so traumatic so hard what do you have to say to kids that are that are in that situation that use that I think that the best thing I can say is just it's hard but if you even sense that your parents are Doing the right thing so like you want to go do this thing this you want to go to this party and your dad's like no there's danger there and he tries to stop you you get mad you know if you I I want I wish that they could

just kind of sit down and go are my parents good people if they're good people that's all it takes now it's like you're going to go through hardships you're going to fight you're going to battle but at least know that they're just Doing their best with what they have right because there's always even with Healthy Families you know oh you know my sister was always the favorite of the family she could do no wrong you know and just realizing that like that might not be true it's just you have a a defense mechanism and it

it might be true you know there's some parents that seem healthy in some families that seem Healthy and even some in my own family that I've recognized uh my in-laws family and my familyes that a you could still you could be seemingly a good father and go hey if if I am making my two sons or either one of them and not the other especially comp compete or like they have to prove something to they have to earn my love that's not that's going to turn into something right especially if You're not telling them that

they they have it or they you know I'm trying my best to tell mine what I've realized is like you know we're struggling with baseball things you know hey be aggressive you know and then I have my other son who's overly aggressive and I'm like relax a little and it's awesome they're so good both of them but I got to tell them in between cuz I get amped up I'm like God don't you know it's like I can't tell him like Don't be a [ __ ] but I'm like here's how you're aggressive you can

use dark thought sometimes you can pretend you know and I'm like I just we've gotten to that where I'm like how do I get him to be aggressive like pretend like the dog he's got a French Bulldog that sleeps on him pretend somebody's going to like take him and the only way to save him is for you to like throw the pitch as hard as you can just go for it and not care and now he is he's like throwing faster Now let that go because those are dark thoughts but that's what you're supposed to

use that part of your ego for for good like to help to protect you know um but being careful to go as often as possible no matter what we do you my love for you is infinite and it's already there like you already get that just from being born you're born into it you know it's like nepotism for love not money you're born into not yet but the love is just it's just there I Love you it's infinite you don't have to ever earn that [ __ ] you know you're everything I need you to

be whether you become a janitor or a major league baseball player it's there I feel like that's working a little bit good um good so that's that would be my advice to to those kids is like you know and if you're not if you don't feel that that's true from your parents maybe don't be afraid to ask Them hey Dad do you love me already you know or do I got to do this [ __ ] do I got to become a lawyer and a doctor like my brother or like do I got to become

an athlete a tennis player whatever to get that love you know so makes a lot of sense what about what about and I know you know the roles were kind of reverse but you know how would your how would your dad react when you would when you would say those things my Dad when I apologized and I went through this you know this was after my my first ivain experience that just worked for me to to open up my heart to go look at all this stuff right meditation now works for me um there's other

ways therapy works for people you know um different things but when I went and had that conversation with him was the first time he ever cried really hard first time you ever cried that I remember you know and it Was over the phone so I could even I couldn't even tell he was crying but I could hear in his voice like he said you know I appreciate that son and it was in his voice so I know I know it was the right thing to do to to make him understand that how would he react

when you would say that I mean how would he react kid yeah oh how could if he have reacted I think if I asked him as a kid he would have Answered me and said I think he would have said yes think he would have said not I'm talking about my stepfather father that's what I'm talking about too my um what what I'm ask is how would your stepdad react when you would throw it in his face that it was that he wasn't when I threw it in his face I think that it was super

anger it was very those were bad fights you know like trying his best not to get physical with me and you know um really anger you Know and understandably because he was trying his best and here I am entitled to it going like if he wasn't there who knows what the [ __ ] would have happened to me you know where I'd be yeah um they say addictive personalities but I don't think there's addictive personalities I think it's based on your environment and what what you the amount or like the the level of of [

__ ] you have to cope with so that it becomes your default um it becomes your default in The future for when you have problems or stress you go to an addiction course let's take a break and then uh when we come back we'll we'll get into the military career so it's a new year 2025 and you're thinking I'm ready to see if I can turn this business idea I've been kicking around into a reality but I don't know how to make it happen or where to start Shopify is how you're going to make it

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meetfabric docomond that's meetfabric docomond policies issued by Western Southern life insurance company not Available in certain States prices subject to underwriting and health questions all right Chris we're back from the break we're getting into your military career 9911 just happened and um you went to the recruiter going to buds yep I went to the recruiter you know those guys I don't know if they ever take anybody seriously but for sure was rough going through there you know hey trying to convince me otherwise but So I took a you know back then it was like you

if you make it through buds you get $2,000 so you know and I was broke so I was like yeah yes you know that's another that was another motivation for it I want that $2,000 then I would have had $4,000 in my bank account because um I did because after I finished there was a guy who got orders to the east coast that really wanted to be with his brother on the west coast and he traded me and I was Like is it worth $22,000 and he's like yeah and uh yeah we swapped orders nice

yeah so yeah I went to um boot camp in Virginia Beach um so the other side of you know the base from Dev group and did some training we were waking up early in the mornings doing some of that training you know with the guys that were going to go to the program then I get over to buds I check In and it's just game time from there so my mental state really was just just I knew it wasn't going to quit anything because I needed that needed that acceptance and that validation so bad that

I would [ __ ] I would you know die for it right it's that strong who who were you this is it's just strange because we have a lot of similarities and uh that's the only reason I made it through was validation for my dad and uh from my dad But but who who were you seeking validation from from my imagination of just any somebody important your ego yeah absolutely 100% ego yeah absolutely okay yeah and you know maybe so in my authentic self that I just didn't understand yet then too because I was lacking

that right I didn't understand that at the time I just knew for some reason I know I'm not going to quit I don't know how I know just Know um I didn't read into to what was coming up each day I didn't know I wanted to I I I prefer just minimizing the anxiety about some hard thing I have to do even now today you know and just do as much preparation as I can for it right but not anticipate it so much like man that 50 meter underwater Swim's coming up in 5 weeks now

I got five weeks of stress and anxiety to think about right I know some time coming so I'm just going to Just going to practice it when we're supposed to be right so that's kind of how I operated in Buds and it did me pretty pretty well you know like all those hard things they're scary you know standing with your back to the pool hearing guys going getting yelled at to get in get in do that underwater flip and just start cruising across hoping you get you know you get to the back to the side

50 m yeah yeah That was one of the scarier ones right did you know any of the evolutions that I mean before you went in yeah because as we started to go through our Indo and PR you know preparing for first phase guys are talking so what were you worried about you read the warrior Elite too yeah yeah Des book yeah I read that but I wasn't going back to it each day got you know I had I just didn't have anything so Yeah I just remember going through it I had to stay in the

barracks for the first three two or three weeks before first phase actually started and they move you into the main side to to where the bud students live and it was all surrounded by the guys who quit so they're all going out every night they're all talking about it you know like and they're playing that whole game of like hey welcome to the barracks new guy and you're like but these guys all Quit you know what are they making me scared and nervous about this the [ __ ] they quit they quit for so they

actually fueled me a little bit it's like that's how I knew I was coming you know and I was like well I'm just not going to quit so um yeah then I we got moved over got into my class um yeah honestly it I remember it it was a good memory up until third phase and third phe I struggled cuz I I I had this Little [ __ ] up and it almost caused me to fail out what was it you know when you're doing the push-ups or the pull-ups to go into the chow hall

to eat you got to do 50 push-ups you got to do a bunch of pull-ups with weight and those rubber magazines well one of the days I was the last dude and um to be honest with you I so I didn't have any magazines in the pouches so I was light nice so I go man do I go stop somebody And I don't want to honestly I didn't want to go feel oh [ __ ] it was an accident yeah I didn't want to go feel the embarrassment and get yelled at for breaking away to

go hey guys cuz I was the last year everybody ran inside now it's just three instructors waiting for me to do my damn strict pull-ups and I didn't want in that moment to go hey guys I didn't let me I need some magazines and then them all all break out to what the [ __ ] and just send me to The ocean and all the [ __ ] you're going to have to do for anything so I just went [ __ ] I'm just going to get up there and do them and hope they don't

you know and so I went up and instructor know exactly who he was is like fetus stop and I'm like stopped hanging [ __ ] how many magazines you got in your pouch and then in that moment I made the wrong decision instead of saying I have none I was like I got six you know and He was like get off the bars and I'm like [ __ ] show me I show them they're not there and he's like you [ __ ] [ __ ] you're [ __ ] you know and it turned into

a nightmare for a couple weeks while I was the dude oh man you know carrying the giant Trident in the huge helmet thing you know and sleeping on the beach you know and you're already smoked and so I started to [ __ ] up other things cuz I was smoked you know there Was another guy that was with me but he ended up getting you know dropped he just cuz he just he wasn't going to quit but he just could not perform close to good enough so they eventually like we just got to let him

go stop [ __ ] with him so I had all that fear like [ __ ] I'm going to be I'm there now you know so every day the extra [ __ ] I had to do I was like I just remember how low energy like dude I had nothing you know on some of those days And so we had big things to do on some of those days that I that I had that going on like uh this monster mesh kind of thing around the island you remember where like do the oor rck around

the island go to a shooting range shoot I was like so smoked I didn't remember the brief I was probably doing this during the brief and they're like hey when you get to the range pick a number that's the lane you shoot in so when I got there I was like [ __ ] I don't know which Lane I'm supposed to shoot in so I go okay God please let me pick the right one I just lay down start shooting ends up being somebody else's Lane so he had double shots on his Target so we

get through the whole thing I finish it I get a decent time for how smoked I was and then we go back to the brief and they're going through the shots and now we're sitting in class and they're like hey something weird happened and I'm like God I know it's me you know oh man And they're like mechling why did you shoot six shots on your thing instead of three and it was like what you know I didn't you know and I'm like that was me you know I and they're like Fus you know what

the [ __ ] you can't get it together dude you know and I'm like dude I'm just not going to make it you know so I just I tried my best to keep plugging away I think what happened was they finally let me out of that where you know to rest up With the other guys a little bit and kind of give me the talk like hey you need to show us something this next week because you know we're keeping you because we talk to everybody and there was only like 13 guys from my original

hell week finishing they were in that class still and we had like 45 dudes they all rolled into our class so they kind of took over our class and there were some really good Dudes like really high- performing dudes right um so I like used to get first on the oor all the time and I went to third you know and things like that but um they talk to I think the specifically the 13 guys said hey what do you guys think about this guy and they were all my Bros and we all went through

hell week together you know and they looked out for me nice so they came through and they're like you got to keep this guy so They kept me and then I and then I finished damn it was hard it was a rough time how'd it feel when you graduated I felt pretty guilty I didn't know if I belonged there I feel a little bit of impostor syndrome but one of the instructors who I honestly didn't think liked me very much anyways um was like Hey I just want to say this everybody that finished this [

__ ] deserves to be here and so that kind of Cleared it for me you know um because I had some guys for sure in that class that were like hey this [ __ ] guy doesn't deserve to be here you know that rolled in or whatever but all 13 of those guys that I originally started with didn't think that so that's all I needed you know that's cool man we started calling ourselves the pure Bloods after that nice so we still have that the guy I ended up working my Contracting job For was one

of those 13 guys that started his business after his um enlistments in the as a seal and we were at Team 10 together so I ended up working for him as a contractor nice so he's still running that very successful where did you head to after that what team I went to team 10 after switching orders and getting my couple of grand and um I don't know why I wanted to be on The East Coast I just just did you know I had I was just over bouncing around California you know um I had some

inkling that Deb root was a thing I didn't know much about it but selection was in my mind and I was like if this selection is going to be anything harder than buds I I want to make it as like I just struggled through this [ __ ] third phase I want to make it as comfortable as possible not have to be like living In a barracks and stuff you know and so I was like maybe I'll get a house I can afford soon you know you were thinking that right out of buds yeah I

knew I wanted a family wow you know so you were thinking about a family going into the SEAL Teams yeah and I didn't know when or I just wasn't like a a very specific thing just like I know I want to have a family for sure you know and so it just seemed like the East Coast environment was better suited for for that so I was Just thinking in the future gotta um and that worked out it was the right decision for sure so um you know with all the stuff that happened to between TW

it still worked out you know we we're really happy we've got everything we need to be happy I've got my business there now yeah you know so it's it was the right decision and then it actually it did make uh selection for De group great you know there a couple minutes well 30 minutes I had to commute across town but I was there and I saw how hard it was for those guys from the west coast to you know be living in Barracks just you know for that time it's so hard going through that wow

you were really looking ahead I wasn't looking that far ahead but uh I still am but um so you go to Team 10 what year what year is this roughly I got to team 10 in 2000 the end of 2005 and then we Started that I had a whole full workup there was a lot of challenges there so you showed up pretty much right after Red Wings correct those guys were on their way back from that um when I was at the team doing new guys stuff waiting and yeah and my first platoon and my

first deployment was one of the most intense and profound deployments I ever had with a really great You know two platoon of guys and what I believe to be the best seal leader and operator that I ever was anywhere around some of the things that he was and did specifically for me too um he might have saved my career I got in trouble right off the bat doing too much trying to be validation by acting up you know and he must have seen seen something the way he described it to me was like Hey I'm

going to I'm pulling You out of this jail sale right and you owe the man but there's something you got that that's what I want you to do and not this [ __ ] what did you do um one of the first trips we went on was diving in um first we had a jump trip in Dustin Florida and I got arrested right off the bat from in a bar fight for just nothing except for guys looking at us from across the bar you know um that night that football player from the Cowboys Jason Whitten

it Was his birthday and he was celebrating with with people same night and so we were drinking with them and having fun and then it ended up in this barf fight thing where one of my buddies looked out for me I was going to get sucker punched he ended up going to jail so now and he was a new guy all the new guys are now in trouble right on the first trip because of me so platoon Chief he's the guy I'm talking About best best seal I've ever ever known um I was like you

guys are now in the spotlight so you better do the training and not even a single you guys do anything else you're [ __ ] right so we okay and I did the wrong thing they asked me like hey how'd this happen I didn't take the blame for I didn't say hey it all started because of my fault it was like oh hey we got into a bar fight and then you know my buddy came across and knock this guy out that was Gonna Sucker Punch me so it just it wasn't it was not the

right level of accountability it wasn't it wasn't enough accountability it wasn't the right accountability for that right off the bat so I had problems already so we go to the next place Key West or diving I'm out at the bar with another new guy um that guy ended up quitting after this because it this the the The Hazing and The [ __ ] we had to deal with just got so bad he he quit turned in yeah he turned in the bird holy [ __ ] I don't think I've ever even heard of that and

then I went through Captain's mask by myself you know first thing you know as a new guy and so we're there in a bar fight I'm hanging out with him we're getting we getting a fight about some girls and we decide to run and try to get to the water and swim around to the Barracks and dude cops were chasing in us around Key West for like over an hour jumping fences and you know trying to block us on streets and it was like a full-blown Chase and locking down of Key West Florida so One

Cop like one of those fences that sticks up with the with the sharp wire like jabbed it into his leg trying to trying to catch me flying over a fence Eventually we got rolled up and I'm in jail so it was it was terrible um so I'm sitting there like oh my God I'm done this is done I did I just did too much I I didn't you know I was just like acting out too much glad I changed that um especially for selection for Team Six which was a lot smoother um so I wish

that would change To meditate optimize your per performance breathe you know what I mean um optimize you know be the best operator you can possibly be right y so platoon Chief comes in he's like hey that's what I was talk talking about hey I'm gonna I'm gonna get you out of here we know these guys but you're you're going to have a hard workup we got a long workup still we still got is this in jail yeah he's talking to me in jail While you're in the cell yeah incredible there he comes into my cell

and he has this talk with me come to Jesus and he's like anybody else would be losing their Bird right now right this is not this is unheard of to get in trouble like this this fast he's like but we know the the police chief and they they've had this he's like this is the worst one they've had for a while and some grown ass men for the next foreseen future and other Teams two are not going to be able to go out after work and I'm and they're like they're not going to be happy

with you because they're going to know why that you're the guy who who caused that so for what I understand like a year guys couldn't go out in Key West um after work so needless to say my platoon hated me yeah so so it was the opposite effect what that happened for me though was that I kicked in I had to go to [ __ ] captain's mass it was terrible it was embarrassing the other guy quit turned in his bird and they like all right new guy you better show us something this next 13

months so we go to land Warfare we start going on trips I'm getting rolled up in the middle of the night taped up you know and having to figure my way out of it get back try to sleep at all usually not and then going to do work all day Right but what that did for me was it kicked me into kic kicked me into gear kicked me into something like dude I got to perform I got to do twice as much as anybody else and so I did I started waking up earlier I just

wouldn't go to sleep getting stuff ready helping everybody and every Department out with anything I could doing the training just [ __ ] everything I could Think of you know and you know know that 13 months when by over time guys started to trust me again um I would go out with them and stuff but I wasn't I wasn't messing around you know um they started to accept me back into the circle how long did that take it's about 13 months it took 13 months yeah just all the trips you go on through through work

through workups um that's a long [ __ ] time to Be hating your guts yeah yeah it was a long time to be trying my best to do twice as much effort you know than other guys but that's not to say that I outperformed anybody we had some really good dudes like other new guys I was with were just amazing guys still best friends with a couple of them um so we go on deployment and that's where I really make up for it what do you think that they saw on You I don't know um

my wife told me this before I have a way of connecting with people sometimes I don't even realize it and maybe those guys felt how important uh they were to me or at least their validation well for me it was the validation I needed from them right and maybe they felt something I don't know you never asked them no I don't think I ever I never asked them um yeah I never asked Him maybe something I need to go do but uh yeah know we went on deployment and I really I was a jtech and

we had a lot of really hairy operations a lot a couple of times I went you know we winchestered an ac130 and you know lots of different Winchester means out of ammunition for for the civilians listening and could you describe what a j attack is joint terminal air control so you're essentially we don't have Air Force guys And ccts combat controllers in the teams right so we are the jtx organically so on missions we control the aircraft right to include the the surveillance like everything they can see with their their pods um and then you

got to know all of the weapons you got in every stack and how to order those guys in an efficient way so that when something goes south you can get um you know you can get guns down on bad guys as quickly as Possible so that we can either get out of there or or continue the mission so that that became my specialty during that time um I ended up going to sniper school after that but for that deployment you know I was like a roof team guy like our version of a wrecky team for

the first quarter of the deployment and then got switched on to be the jtech and I just I feel like I had this talent for It that they trusted because I I I stayed that and I got a lot of experience doing it um and I and I enjoyed it you know might have been like one of those communication things like I enjoy communication now um so I got a braon star for um couple like I it was for really the collective uh operating as a jtech that I got that for my first Bron Star

um so the guys used to make fun of me the gun case that I had been issued whoever had it before me in the teams was named Billy so it was on there and you know you don't get to the new guy's name so quickly so everybody assumed that was my name for a while and there's still some guys out there that still just know me as Braun star Billy so it was kind of a joke that actually uh Nick Czech started who ended up you know he was on That deployment often the um the

navigator in rhve in the front seat while I was the jtac in the back seat and then fast forward in the future heend we ended up at De together in different team teames but uh during that time he's the guy who nicknamed me that so we came back from that deployment I came back as Braun star Billy and I kind of recovered my reputation and was validated for the indefinite future and it was like really One of the best feelings I ever had in the teams nice you know and some really hard things happened on

that deployment too we lost Jason Lewis in an IED I was the jtac for that I performed the metac that actually ties into a story that I meant to talk about with this Hilo pilot dude just one of the most incredible Heroes of of anything I've experienced in my operating that night um You didn't tell us where you deployed to yeah so this Was Baghdad and all around so we were almost exclusively operating in solder City really hairy um nightly operations every night sometimes 6 night a week and then occasionally we'd go out to other

areas like bakaba or alamara um for operations but um we're pretty focused on that during that deployment what kind of operations counterterrorist operations just going out after Da sniper all da all Das so my First appointment was just purely uh Das every night we had the luxury of being able able to utilize the 160th Hilo Squadron with some of the Dead group guys that were down the street um for task for 17 they kind of opened it up uh to the teams because there was just so many bad guys in the networks and so much

to do I think that there's they kind of trusted the teams the East Coast teams um at that time to conduct da you know using their assets and stuff For that deployment so it was like a it was a special deployment for us um yeah let's talk about your let's just talk about what it was like for you on your first kinetic operation kinetic being a jtech or kinetic shooting just any whichever came first yeah so the very first night was kinetic we went out out on our first op after turning over and Uh at

that point I was in the back of a humy I'm an assaulter and we go out for a guy and I end up switching into the driver's seat after the op so the the op was pretty quiet but lots of there's always shooting on the way in and the way out just both for the bad guys to sort of wrecky where we at so they would uh you know shoot up in the air just to kind of like identify where we're at in the town Right to each other so that was an experience like oh

shoot you know they're not shooting at us but they are um you know they're shooting and it's the first time sort of hearing it so yeah and there that that Target was pretty quiet but on the way out we for sure caught some shots off of roof towards the hum and stuff and like oh [ __ ] you know and then by the third night you know on our way in we're Driving really fast and on those infills you know there's a couple IEDs going off that just miss and I'm like oh [ __ ]

so now every time we're driving I'm looking at trash I'm looking at everything going like man any of this [ __ ] can explode at any time you're just kind of sitting in there going like let [ __ ] get there hopefully we don't blow up and it's just a really strange feeling as a new guy on my first you know you know when we land that plane to get on deployment you come Off that airplane that air is just so pungent filled with just smoke and whatever the smells are and the the the humidity

of it the heat of it and you're like wow I'm in a whole different world right now you know and so that's that only took two three missions to just kind of get used to to that you know kind of a a little bit of a shock you know to go all right we're in it you know um cuz when you're go through Training and all that you're just visualizing it you're just imagining it mhm and then you get there and you're in it and you're like wow okay I'm in it just there's nothing else

to do just try to focus on what you're doing you know so it was only a matter of time before we got hit by an ID I think collectively we had a little bit of an ego as a team like oh hey these [ __ ] keep missing they can't get a little bit of Arrogance going on you know and that that got shut down real quick when we uh caught a flat tire on the way back uh one night and you know instead of you can go back and forth with the man in the

arena stuff and arm share quarterbacking but we instead of pulling off holding security and trying to fix that thing we just rolled with it but we were so slow we're rolling so slow so the vehicle in front of me made a turn right turn onto One of the main streets to get back to uh you know the little sort of Highway going back you know out of solder City and uh an efp blew up an explosively formed penetrator copper plate which they had started using recently um it sort of blasts this shape charge towards you

so it's not like a blast from underneath like a traditional IED but it it forms these the the copper breaks up and it's so hot they turn into little Plasma bullets and it just melts through everything like swiss cheese you know even vehicle armor and people so they caught that um four guys in the back of the hum got killed including Jason Lewis was a seal ended up naming Camp Lewis after him combat cameraman and sorry three guys comrat cameraman and a uh tsse guy technical surveillance Guy and then one turp was back there but

he survived everything so the turret Gunner his his gun got completely sheared off the barrel and a chunk of the barrel um I think went essentially either a piece of plasma or that chunk went through Jason Lewis's chest and so one of my first experiences Doing this medac was assessing what was going on and that was that was hard seeing those guys so um Bobby the comat cameraman was still alive essentially but he was bent over because his face was just sped open with blood coming out to him trying to breathe so we eventually got

the Medevac he he didn't make it on the 20 or 25 minute ride back to bop to the Medics on our medac um so those were the he was the Him and those guys were the first to go on the first load because the driver of that vehicle got a piece of that plasma lodged into his leg like right onto a nerve and I think that it cariz a nerve so his leg actually survived for a while after that but he badass just continued to drive he didn't swap out he said [ __ ] it

I'm driving right so we get off the X I'm dropping you know 40 Mike miks and 105s on bad guys shooting at us from rooftops On our way out and I start working at Medevac um we've got two Apaches overhead we get to this little Marine Outpost in the middle of solder City that just like dude I can't even imagine their experience daily just getting rockets and just all kinds of [ __ ] at them and they're just hunkered down holding this Manning this post right and we get inside of that and uh my platoon

Chief's calling out what's Going on got Nick check up up in my vehicle navigating us you know to to get there um with the you know the down vehicle sort of hobbling right and we get in there everybody gets out we get the guys laid out I'm I'm getting a Medevac ready um it lands gets those guys and I'm looking I see you know I can see Jason Lewis there and I can see the dirt on the other side of his chest right just this big hole Um and I'm just trying my best to get

a nine line going like hey we've got two that are done and one guy still alive critical right so he's the priority and the second bird gets the other two guys now the incredible thing is we still got one guy [ __ ] up with that thing Lodge in his in his leg and and like we're so nervous like if it moves and he bleeds out of the artery you know so trying to keep him stable and then we Got to wait for the birds right and we're taking fire we're shooting we got [ __

] RPGs people are seeing and so there's a fight going on while we're doing this medac so these two Apaches come over and I just remember thinking [ __ ] I don't know if this is doable or anything but I start calling hey guys we got one guy who needs to get out of here before this thing he might you might save his his leg and his life right can you guys and I just remember my platoon Chief was like super into helicopters so you always said like hey study them you know they might have

capabilities you don't think of often so hey what are the chances you guys can get the co-pilot out on the wing to clip in and get him inside in the seat and medac him to byop right now and they're like apach yeah in Apache and they're like oh [ __ ] hey we could do that so they're like all Right cool we're we're going to try to call out [ __ ] if we see anything you know like one of y'all one of you guys you know do a tight Circle so you can [ __

] put guns on anybody while the other one's Landing right and we got an ac32 and let's do this so you start getting it ready and they they go hey we need a second to go call this and get get you know an approval so he was like okay cool I'm waiting e Go's Off a few seconds later comes back on the horn he's like they're saying we can't you saying we can't do it and I'm like [ __ ] okay okay so few more seconds goes by he comes back on the horn calls me

hey [ __ ] it we're going to do it I was like okay all right let's do it so we do it the first attempt goes bad because somebody calls out an RPG so they come down RPG and they peel off I'm like [ __ ] [ __ ] all right it was a false alarm somebody Thought um there was an RPG because there had been some um flying around so cool come back around they come back around they get down they do it they get him in there and they fly him back holy [

__ ] are you and they save his leg and his life so they [ __ ] Land open the hatch the co-pilot gets out this dude climbs in there with some [ __ ] stuck in his leg and then he Clips in and sits on the wing and he he sat on the wing yeah do you have any pictures of this Video anything no and actually probably should go back and look I don't even know if there's a step there like there you know like a little bird or anything I think he just sat on

the [ __ ] Wing um whoa yeah and so I wish I kept in touch with these guys I didn't if they're out there but what happened was he got reprimanded after that for disobeying the order right and so ordination so now we're like hey they call us we go through the rest of the Next couple nights cuz we got well the next night we got to stay there and we got to get all these trucks back so we leave we're going to leave the next day snipers are making sure our route is clear no

so we're doing watches making sure nobody's putting down IEDs there was actually a couple guys um I can't remember if they got shot or not or engaged but we get back safe you know we're you can imagine during watch Raw down there we just lost all these guys It was one of the more difficult moments looking in each other's faces trying to figure out what we're supposed to be doing how we're supposed to be feeling and really just like sitting there you know waiting so snipers are doing OverWatch um gets quiet we get out of

there the next night we get home go into the the talk and find out these guys are getting reprimanded so we're like God damn it Dude that sucks you know I think some of our leadership probably did some work on that I'm not sure but what ended up happening was somebody on their end of their chain of command said what the [ __ ] these guys are heroes right and these big Awards you got a silver star for it nice so in these big Awards you end up getting a silver star from what I understand

these big Awards like those are the moments that those happen in but if it goes wrong then it's Like well way you [ __ ] up you know so but it takes certain people to make that decision in those moments and that's where those those things happen I think so I believe you it get a silver star one something tells me that uh you're going to hear from those guys after this and two riding on the wing of an Apache out of battles that's got to be like riding a [ __ ] unicorn with wings

out of B Like what yeah but um wow how did I'm curious how did the how did you deal with the loss how did the team deal with the loss very hard uh very hard you know I got this huge tattoo on my back for ended up becoming like the the emblem sort of the symbol of our platoon of our troop and a bunch of a couple some of the other guys one of the platoon commanders even guys on the next rotation after that deployment you know getting that in his memory so that Symbol's still

there um everyone knows what year and what operation it came from and who it was for so there was some Legacy there on that and um I'm happy about that so but it was it was tough for a few years it still is tough for a couple of the guys that I know were a lot closer to him than I was as a new guy I was too busy focusing on getting myself out of trouble to to sort of um get close to to guys you know I was just yeah um So you know I

didn't have the uh as deep of a connection with him as some of the guys did um still affected me especially seeing him seeing him there like that and uh you know he was a mentor he was a great guy to all he was one of the guys that was really great with all the new guys and uh his kids are grown now I I see them around you know really yeah um I see his wife around I know his wife do you interact with them yeah yeah not the Kids as much um but for

sure his wife I see her you know I see her around um I'm still in that in that Community there with my business and everything so um yeah so my one of my first that was the first deployment jeez it's heavy yeah wow how long was it after the how long was it after that operation that you guys went back out yeah like a couple couple nights they gave us a night off hey you guys Take a night off of course we're all doing heavy drinking you know Shenanigans around the camp one of the new

guys I'm friends with still thought it would be a good idea to do these like baked bean mortars on the officer's doors because they thought we could get away with it in that moment and we did so they set up these little poles and we had these [ __ ] endless baked beans I Don't know why they kept coming but like dude we couldn't eat enough baked beans and turn them and sort of get them on the duct tape them into the poles and then get you know from the campfire like a little torch and

just create pressure behind the can to the point that they exploded and then blasted onto the little Hooch doors of the the Head Shed the [Laughter] [ __ ] yeah so the next day like all right Guys you're not going to get away with this [ __ ] anymore we had to spray those doors off but there was just baked beans blasted on everybody's [ __ ] doors you know like let them get it out you know wow nice yeah so I think the next night after the baked beans we were out again you know

damn anything else significant on that deployment that you want to talk about Yeah the last mission on that deployment I was doing a turnover with some team two guys one guy ended up being in uh their jtac ended up being in silver and and at in my team at De with me and it was a hairy night we were just walking our way into Target and there was this tree line this big thick tree line this is supposed to be sort of an easier Target you know hey easier Target it's going to be pretty easy

of course it wasn't so we go and they had a sniper Nest somewhere around those trees and we're just walking we can't see anything I'm I'm talking you know I can't can't see anything in the trees hey check those trees out you know cuz we got to get we got to go through those trees to get to the Target right on the other side where the town was so we're out in the open and all of a sudden a crack right a crack and we're like like what was that everyone kind of takes a knee

and Someone comes over the radio and he like hey I don't remember his call sign we're like Ben just got shot in the chest um but actually I think it wasn't the first shot there was a couple shots and then like a pause and then another shot and that's when it came over because we had all gotten down after the first couple so he had gotten down and wherever it was coming from we're facing it his plates are here and a shot comes in and goes like at this angle over top Of the plates as

he's laying down and goes out the back so he's shot in the chest and one of my best friends now I was the best man at his wedding was the was a guy next to him he was a Corman and he starts reporting immediately like [ __ ] we got to we got to get a metac now so we start it and then we just start getting lit up from the trees from all over like multiple spots and it's just like dude and so now we're on the ground Like my head sideways cuz I can

just you know when the rounds are going off you can hear gunfire but with some experience you know if they're close to you or not and whether you need to get down or not and they're snapping over our heads you can hear that snap and so you know they're hitting right you can now we're now they're hitting the ground like [ __ ] now it's really hairy it's it's hitting the ground all around everybody between Between our steps and so we're on the ground and they're like get some fires down so I'm like [ __

] Pop That Thing Up and I'm like Hey we're already ready I'm already preset on those because I just felt weird about that tree line and they're like I'm like hey the fastest way to do this is you you see where we're at with the strobes can you confirm that yes all right now I got a laser hey they're coming from all over there they're like yeah we're already on It we're ready to shoot we're ready to shoot I'm like all right just confirm you confirm the Bad Guys by sparkling them right now so that's

where they Flash that IR light I'm like all right you're on the right spot clear hot and they just the ac130 just starts droping just smoking these guys um and we're like all right as soon as they start Landing we're bounding back so now the teams start bounding their guys back and then the same time I Got um metac hilos coming in from the other direction I'm talking to and that Corman is now running off to the side of the firefight where we're all sort of bounding back right in front of the tree line just

directly back so I'm going I'm feeding off of my he actually was the rxo at the time great awesome guy and he's like he knows I'm talking so he's like I can't pay attention to the gunshots and I'm just going off of him he's like we're up and I follow him We're up we run he's like when he goes down I go down and I'm dropping dropping dropping now we got the Apaches involved they're like hey there's more there's more nest over here to the north that we can see those guys are moving around now

they're they're like setting up and they're moving we can fire on them right now Rockets I'm like cool Sparkle clear hot right and I'm just controlling trying to visualize the best I can this whole situation and it's clean we're we We smoked all those guys wow and we finally get back there's like this ditch and we kind of get back in the ditch now we're calling the xfill at the same time as the medac the medac comes during that firefight and they don't know what's going on they start flying right through where all this shit's

coming down and so that was one moment where I was like hey everyone abort everybody stop we stop all Fires for a few seconds like go you guys need a turn just take a 90 just Take a a 30 degree right turn so they do and then they fly out of it over to the guy's Buzz saw Buzz saw is that Kim light where we're spinning it around right and they land perfectly on that they get on those two were gone to the hospital and now we're back at the ditch calling for xville and we

get out of there everybody's fine after that um he ends up being fine you know he had some complications with his chest for a few years but he he healed up Pretty good I think and he's still kicking around Virginia Beach but a deal you know I haven't seen him in some years but we're we're still I know we're still friends you know yeah um and that was the last so that was the last one we get back to the hooches and I talk to their jtac guy who ends up being later one of my

teammates in the team all right that's the turnover bro holy [ __ ] that's a hell of a turnover op wow yeah yeah Um had you had you shot anybody had you killed anybody with a rifle or with that uh one on the roof team um for a teammate of mine he was climbing up and these guys woke up start pointing their guns around I had to shoot that guy um was that your first kill yeah yeah that was um actually it wasn't a kill I actually that was a hard time for me um besides

the jtac ones that guy Ended up like just he ended up being paralyzed and then later he did I I believe he died later like sometime later like I don't know when you know um like I don't even know if it was during that deployment I was kind of using one of our translators to kind of update me but he was found some way to find out like this guy wasn't dead so we had to we ended up [ __ ] taking him with us after that because he was still Breathing so we dropped him

at the buy up hospital and they I think they essentially recovered him so it was just a a guy on target that woke up and started pointing towards one of our roof Team guys uh that guy ended up passing away in the future um he went to De R alsoo and he passed away from a brain tumor unfortunately which I've got my opinions about that stuff too on how why so many young guys are developing brain tumors After that and I think it's just I think it's talking with EOD guys and understanding the the levels

of of radiation out of those Jammers that we were sitting next to for all those hours all the time in order to block those signals was just vi just vibrating through our brains right and the ones that I trust the most believe that it has something to do with it so I hope that you know somebody can Look into a little more these days because there shouldn't be 30 and 40y old dudes popping brain tumor suddenly and and passing away another guy in my team that happened to and within a year of of finding out

once when he was clear before that passed passed away so um damn it hurts a lot to to to think about those guys with with brain tumors yeah yeah that um and uh that stuff scares the hell out of me yeah yeah I was like was the juice ever Worse the squeeze for how many preventative stuff and I think about it now with the active Shooters you know things and and the hesitancy to uh prepare or or prevent especially when it comes to money we're like we got to spend how much on you know a

couple of guards or you know some some ballistic capability that you know or something just whatever training for sure training um act active shooter training all these good things All these these these guys out are doing these companies that that but there's hesitancy to fund it because if you prevent something there's no evidence that you prevented it just nothing happens MH so it's just a hard thing to prove to people so it's just it's a similar thing is like did those Jammers how many IEDs did they actually stop we don't know Because if it was

a preventative measure that worked then just nothing happened you know and then trying our best to prove that it did work you know um but there's so many of these brain tumors from guys that know he was a turret Gunner that antenna was right there you know the rest of us inside might have been a little bit more protected but that thing's like if you can see the diagrams for the the frequencies and and and radiation these Things put out it's [ __ ] not good to sit next to for hours every night I've not

heard that one but it makes a hell of a lot of sense damn well Chris where I was going with this is is I just want to ask you the difference you know I want to ask you the difference of what it feels like to kill via communication with an Apache or C130 Or whatever versus pulling the trigger it's completely different in my opinion it's um it's not the same as doing it up close and personal but all you know the times that I did do it and I got a lot more at Dev group

than I than I did in my in the team um uh I didn't think about that so much and so when guys you know talk about this Question you know I understand when they say I didn't think much about it you know because we we intentionally are desensitized to it we're were more attune with the actual identification of the Target and who it is like is it a man you know male is he armed is he not armed whatever than taking the life itself because to be honest with you the taking it the life itself

thing is another it It it falls it aligns again with that validation thing it did for me anyways where it was like I didn't think too much about it because if I was the guy that got the kill that night it was like felt good it's like your buddies are like cool this guy we can trust this guy to do his job you know and not be affected by it too much and the same sort of theme comes out of it the more guys that I study and the more guys that I think about and

and Look at you know I think about these things now that I have the space to do it that's now where it it kind of comes back to go those moments I can now go back to just the same way I did with my childhood memories and now go sort of analyze it just try my best to see the truth in every one of those moments you know for what it for what it was and then um with no other goal than just understanding it the best that I could for Me do you remember all

of them some of them were a blur especially if it was during like a firefight um but the ones that were close up you know I've got some sniper ones [Music] um I think about them sometimes um but you know in war you know they're trying to kill you and you're trying to kill them and so I think less about It than I do with this the last mission that I did and who I killed that's the one that I think about the ones with men were men were Fighters you know they're May or may

not be some mutual respect as Fighters for sure these ones that are going on like these Hamas guys in Palestine and Israel like man the whole world is on fire about Israel right now because of the collateral damages and like how do you fight a war how would You fight a war if the bad guys just say it was in your neighborhood or community in the future or something some War they're there to kill you and instead of fighting from what we do in the military an outpost a Planning Center or whatever you go there

you put your uniform on you go fight put your uniform on so we can tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys And civilians and you assume that the the good guys or the bad guys may you know they have some level of moral compass right that we don't train to kill anybody other than the bad guy that we're after collateral damage is just it's a it's a hellish thing that's part of War but now pretend that the enemy or even pretend that you are the one doing it that you go I'm

going To take advantage of the the the moral compass of of of those guys and I'm just going to go I'm going to shoot the rockets and missiles from my backyard and then go inside where my family is and then go we're good [ __ ] them because they have morals and they're not going to they're not going to they're not going to kill me here because I got my wife and my kids and my family and then then it just you can even escalate it to go now I can even go do Atrocities now

you know we can go do an attack in their territory and go door too like they did you know raping and pillaging and just the horrific things that everybody wants to deny actually happen take the hostages all this stuff and then bring them back over and we're good again cuz we built all these tunnels under the hospital and Hospital's functioning that's fine we want that to be that way because it's a deterrence for us it's a it's a Capability and then now when you know your your enemy who you see as your enemy is now

attacking you and killing you and and having all this collateral damage is like you're you're choosing the Battleground there you know and it's such a hard problem to think about you know and I I hope there's some better solution some thing that they can figure out but we're not there experiencing that [ __ ] you know And they're having to make decisions on some of these high level Hamas guys that are using intentionally using civilians as cover as a capability a deterrent capability on purpose right and then it's just a terrible way to fight War

you know and that you know extremist Al-Qaeda does it terrorists tend to do it you know it's not even in my opinion Guerilla Warfare really you know it's kind of a a newer Concept maybe I'm not even sure if that happened to Vietnam or not I need to read more but it's happening right now and we've faced it too and we try our best and we change our Roe to the point where now we're in danger because as the the war evolved um and we lost the ability to the point where it became hey you

guys aren't even going to do any shooting until somebody's already shooting at you and you're like that means some of us can Get killed before we even yeah uh engage that's a hard problem to have especially if that's happened yeah you know now there's families out there that like they couldn't engage those guys because they weren't allowed to until they were getting a shot at so tough just hard things to to think about outside of more than just Pro Palestine you know Israel and You know the things that we attach to sensationalism we see it

on the screen you know and some of those people that are attaching to those causes I think is more related to their own validation like they might be lacking something in their own life that goes further than just this thing and then every time something happens people in their environment are now attached to these protests and these things and they they You everybody wants to feel like they are part of something important so they go demonstrate they go do it without even really understanding what it's about or what they're doing they just go yeah like

and validation from all the other people that are doing it in their environment so it's like whatever's the most accessible thing in your environment to attach to you as a cause doesn't matter if it's bad or toxic or terrible or evil Or good you go do it I think for some of the same reasons that I talking about with this this lack of purpose and validation that we all need yeah that's a good point you know the the Israel stuff it's a it's extremely complicated you know but there are I I don't know if you

know this but I have uh some friends that were there and they one of which we I'm pretty sure we Both know probably very well but they they were actually going to flood those tunnels did you know about this not yet no they were going to pump some massive like ship pump they were going to not sh [ __ ] ship like ship um [ __ ] pump would suck yeah that would have been better but they were going to flood all those tunnels and drown those amas guys that would be more Of a they

wouldn't do it they wouldn't do it why wouldn't they do it I don't know because see it's at least it's at least T they're to know that they're at least mindful I think and truly believe that that the Israeli are doing their best to think of ways to Target the bad guys without the collateral damage and then sometimes they have to make hard decisions mhm but at least that is more direct towards the Enemy than going through whatever's on top that they that they're fighting under the hospital or the school or the house or whatever

you know I mean do you know how many of those bad guys that would have drowned out I can imagine it must to be like an ant farm down there would have been would have been perfect targeting yeah and they didn't do it and sometimes that makes me wonder you know why like why wouldn't why wouldn't you do that Sometimes it's such a simple plan too yeah like what gets in between the decision and this is where it gets difficult in war when social opinions and the the energy of the social environment affects leaders decision-

making on what they do or not we we've seen it we see it every time you know Vietnam and you know touchy touchy touchy subject and uh complicated War as if any Any war is not complicated but but um so you come back to the States come back to the States you know you just reminded me with the [ __ ] tunnel thing though if I can interject a quick story that's actually more on the lighter side I saved somebody's life on that deployment in a way that you wouldn't think you'll know too so we're

coming back from one of those Targets this is like later on in the deployment too and This is one of my buddies he's got like sensitive skin you know he's gets like rashes easy or whatever I don't know and we're walking back from a Target in Iraq and out there in the open I don't know if you ever experienced this but those like uh ditches sort of carved out that go from the [ __ ] hole of every house in the whole town they all go out somewhere Out into the open to the main ship

and then they collect into a big pool right and there's we were walking through one of these Collections and there's like different ones and we're just navigating our way through but you don't know because over time like at night especially on night vision goggles they collect they crust over and they just look like regular dirt so at this point quiet Target we're Walking out to the hilos a lot of distance between each guy cuz you know they're just spaced out the guys in front of them would have never known that this happened but I'm the

guy behind him so I I was there he just he just steps into one of these pools of just [ __ ] quicksand and then like goes oh oh shoot and then no big deal but then it's like he's in it and it's now rapidly go you know oh it's no big deal now I can get out but then As I approach I can hear his breathing is so loud like and it's like like water coming up you know and he's starting to freak out now because he can't get out and I'm going oh [

__ ] this is like kind of serious so I like [ __ ] run up there I'm like like hey you all right dude and he's like I'm you know and I'm like [ __ ] are you sinking yeah so I just I grab my Hilo lanyard and I kind of just go and like grab it you know and I'm I'm Pulling him through this sludge you know this nasty and it's just black all the way down oh man it's [ __ ] nice and he I get him crawled out and I'm like oh my

God that sucks dude he's like oh thank you thought I was going underneath that [ __ ] and oh my God yeah and we get up he's got now this long walk and I'm like all right just I'm going to stay closer to you but you know get behind me cuz you smell you [Music] Know so we Patrol back he's got to get on the Hilo right all the way back it's a long ride it's just and he's just had this like full body nasty skin rash for like some weeks after that yeah but then

it was funny because did your nickname him hepatitis yeah did did dog I think holy [ __ ] something like that so I ended up in the team with him at Dev group 2 nice we're still still friends but it was funny because we'll joke with our wives and stuff like hey You saved you saved Dave he saved his life one time you know I'm like I did save somebody's life oh man yeah so fast forward to the um you know after that deployment did you do another deployment yeah I did a an augment was

an augment jtac for Dev group that was a great deployment um a lot of operations happened a lot of jtac work and the guy that I was with was such a great guy such a such a legend of a dude in my Opinion that um you know he was like you know you should come over should screen so I I I didn't have any intention then to do it but we got back and then I I screened so between that screening it's about a year process or whatever you you screen you know you get then

either yes or no to go to the actual selection you know a year or so later or whatever your timing is and then between that I had a deployment second one was to Europe and I was you know doing training exercises For uh different types of units uh partner forces in all over Africa to include a uh lead vehicle type uh security detail for the Secret Service for Obama's visit to Ghana when he became president so that that was actually pretty cool really yeah um he was bouncing around different places doing speeches and talks and

uh coincidentally you I didn't mean my wife we were dating that we weren't Married yet years later one of uh our family members my you know one of her cousins husband is a secret retired Secret Service guy was on that detail and we realized way we were working together there and I'm like how do I recognize you at the Christmas the family Christmas that's your wife's brother my my wife's cousin's husband so my cousin-in-law and I ended up staying with them for a while when I was doing my Contracting Work I had to stay up

in DC for a little while so they housed me but it was just funny because I was at this Christmas party for my wife who wasn't my wife yet we're just girlfriend and boyfriend and go how do I recognize you dude a couple years ago I was on a security detail that you guys you seals came along and he was the guy in charge of you know organizing like their Convoy you know that was just a crazy coincidence it um but that was a Good that was a good time on that on that deployment was

kind of the highlight of that deployment I just didn't you know we were training so yeah um you know one thing cool that happened was I've googled this since then because I wasn't sure um does was Obama a smoker and it's all over the Internet he was he he self- admitted you know like I had to get rid of that addiction you know but for Stress but cuz it was kind of a shock to see that when we were in the hotel we're in the same hotel as these guys were hanging out he's coming down

with his detail going out to the balcony like every five minutes to smoke you know like he was a chain smoker no [ __ ] yeah I didn't know that I didn't know that yeah so um so that was that deployment so you so you met your wife at Team 10 yeah I came back from that first deployment I met her right after that How'd you guys meet you were mutual friend that just randomly invited me out I was living in my own condo by myself and invited me out to dinner I think it was

sort of a little bit of a matchmaking kind of thing but I showed up not ready I didn't shave I didn't get dressed up nothing didn't really know she was going to be there hey she goes to the restroom I said hey you didn't tell me this beautiful woman was going to be here and he was like well she said The same thing about you when you went to the restroom so probably should exchange number so we did we started dating and she became my soulmate she was already that but she became my wife what

what was uh what caught you what was it just I don't know her the energy about her she's just like a clean soul she's just so pure and wholesome and just amazing I don't she just I just knew I Don't know um so you guys were together for the for the duration of your career yeah you know and just like anyone have gone through a lot of hard times a lot of things everything and that's strength when they don't just like when we don't quit we don't give up and they don't on us and they

see something you know just the same way I think that like you asked me what the guys felt maybe my platoon Chief was Like dude you just sometimes feel something about somebody and she she did that and she held she she she stuck with that for a really long time a really long time and I'm I'm grateful I'm so you know I'm so grateful cuz here we are you know how long have you guys been married going on 13 years nice congrats congratulations thank you not too many people make it out of the teams without

a divorce it's hard you you know it's Hard and it's just like anything else it's like takes a lot of work don't give up don't quit you know did you have kids when you were in the teams or did you wait till after we had our kids right as I was um I was a I was a new guy in at Dev group when we had our first no kidding yeah and uh so they they live through some of it too yeah that's they're the reason I got out yeah so how long did you guys

date Before he got married about three is years how'd you propose to her I I took her to this spot in Pebble Beach um just off my grandfather's house you could walk over to Spanish Bay on Pebble Beach where he retired and she loves doing fun things you know she's she's all about that so hey we got to get up early one morning like 6:00 a.m. and but she's not a morning person so she was like H like like we have to Because we got to go see the whales there the whales migrate through can

see their spouts and like it's awesome right and that was my only excuse to get to go over there so it had to be in the morning because that was the only time I knew that you you can catch him you know so I convince her we go over there and like around like 7 or 7 or 8 a.m. I proposed to her at at the my little spot just Overlooking it's called the uh the never- ending sea or the the Endless Sea um or waves kind of Crash from all different directions into one spot

and it's just just crazy spot um you know that that tourist can kind of go look at and stuff and a little ways down from that there's this little quiet old bench um that I used to just go sit at you know Growing Up So took her there and that's where where I did it she said yes so nice that was good nice Well we haven't got to it yet but I'm sure you you and your wife have been through a whole slew of of downward Spirals and and all the things that come with being

in the teams but but you made it and uh so I want to ask you what what do you think the secret to a successful marriage is dude just collectively I think about the whole story and it's just keep it's so hard even now when we get disconnected We have you know understanding each other's love language for sure and then if it's not the same one um just learning how to be okay with doing things for the person towards towards of what they need that you know like for her it's like acts of service so

the more chores I do the more getting the kids where they need to be all that stuff she loves that you know for me it's like affection and and Connection and intimacy you know so you go through times where it's so busy you're like man we're so busy it's so chaotic and we don't put any effort towards giving them what they need you start to blame each other to go oh I don't feel I feel disconnected and it's and well I feel disconnected is you haven't been doing these things and you're like all right well

we got to reset that and then try our best to sustain it over time but there's always Going to be times where it gets off balance you just got to just like your soul you got to bring it back you know you start doing start getting stressed out cuz it's what I want it's what I'm asking for I want the business you know I want my kids to thrive they're busy they're not sitting around they're always busy and that's dress so you want that but that means you got to put in work in between that

with each Other also as much as you can and especially when you start to feel that you know when you know when it's going on you know it's like H I'm starting to feel like resentment or anger even just a little bit you're like hey and being able to talk straightforward about it like here's why I feel this and it's and you know trying your best not to just like blame the other person we definitely figured out nighttime is not the best time to do That you're tired you know you just want to go to

sleep you're exhausted the morning is a lot better for that great advice well Chris Let's uh we'll take a break when we come back we'll we'll get into your time at Dev group all right perfect join me and my special guest for the next behindth scenes experience exclusively available on vigilance Elite patreon the behind thes scenes footage is raw and uncut this is as close to the Set as you can possibly get you can expect anything from off topic conversations Studio tours the final moments before the interview starts and everything in between the behind the-scenes

content is constantly evolving and will continue to bring you more as we grow you can gain access for just $15 a month exclusively at vigilance Elite patreon all right Chris we're back from the Break just met your wife and uh got their backstory with her at least how you get has met and so now we're moving into your journey over to Development Group right so come back from that deployment it's time to go right into selection prep so right around that time the human performance sort of aspect of um sort of concept started to come

about so I was lucky enough to get into some programming where we Could get prepared for for the selection and then sort of be rested you know for a week or so and then peing a couple weeks into the selection so I'm grateful for that because the guys that did that with me from from Team 10 we all we all did pretty well through the physical test and all the first week type physical stuff right performance- wise overall selection for me was it was a much smoother ride than buds was especially because that stuff That

happened but um you know same thing lucky enough I got through it was really hard honestly difficult in totally different ways than buds you know the physical part is there you're doing some crazy things I mean there was one day we we did this you run seven miles at a seven minute pace you know with one of the Cadre to the Mississippi River swim across that [ __ ] with logs and just current crazy with a swim buddy and Wow get across having drifted down like a mile or so run back up do it again

on the way back and you know I think they stopped doing it after that I got I got one of the last ones it's one of those sounds like an to happen yeah it's it's it's not it's not very safe they've got safety boats and things too but it was it as safe as they could make it just like swimming around the island in shark territory yeah you know Yeah just you got to find the balance with hard enough things you know yeah and somebody not getting eaten alive by a great white shark so yeah

so then seven miles back so that was probably the hardest the hardest day for me that's when I started I was so depleted that day my legs started cramping and I got to a point where like guys in my team were carrying me back to the house cuz they I couldn't even I couldn't even stand up they were so cramped you know It was super painful so you a couple of the were having fun with me they're carrying me fireman carrying me you know what I mean it was a good time so um you know

the hardest part of that selection being the first six weeks of assault all CQB based stuff is really intense and very very detail oriented you know with the goal of figuring out you know pliability and trainability you know like here's the Rule set for this day with all of the stressors and then the next day it all changes and you got you still no matter what only have a chance or two to make the same mistake you know and if you make the same mistake over consecutive days you know that Friday that they're doing their

assessments you're out you know and if the mistake is too bad on any given day you're out so high stress um but I really I did enjoy that I made some really good friends during that Time that we you know we all change through the team you know and that lifestyle and the intensity of those that mission set and the time commitment it takes um you start to wear you a lot of guys that have interviewed from a lot of your guys that I've interviewed say that that that green team is is harder than buds

was tougher than buds would you would you agree with that statement uh it's it's harder and totally Different ways they're both really hard and I also don't want to take away from you know how hard buds is you know that people have gone through it's really profound experience but um I say is harder only because there's such a smaller spectrum of mistakes before you can get out right so you're always within that tiny little little sliver of a of a mistake Spectrum before you're you're you're out you're done you know And so with all the

stressors involved and your life and everything going on it's like really hard to stay inside of that it's like there's a tiny Ball moving back and forth you're like it's it's like a level it feels like it feels like it's a level and if it gets where the bubble gets outside you're you're out there's no other more chance gotta so um the mistake Spectrum I think in in buds is a a little more lenient cuz you don't know anything yet you're just you Just got to not quit it's really hard physically and um but even

third phase when we're learning our skills I had a hard time so it's not to take anything away from that it's just that's that that level is very fine with selection in Green Team it has to be that way yeah um yeah but I'm I'm grateful I got through what's the retention like and training uh I think it's comparatively a little higher retention for that because you know you Start with less guys so we started with around 60 guys or so and you finish with 20 something or no [ __ ] it's that it's that

much you lose that many dudes yeah yeah for sure and and and it's also hard because you're competing with other seals that are experienced you know um what are the phases there's no phased at numbers but it's you know assault is all CQB the first that's the first part and our bre And butter is that so if bread and butter for like the Delta guys is a land Warfare navigation stuff and all the stressors that go with that um that's ours and then couple locations for that um you know Mississippi being one and middle of

the summer that shit's hard you know sleeping with brown brown Rec recluses nice in the in the in the barracks you know yeah trying not to get bit by spiders I had my roommate and was Like a sleepwalker so that was a little stressor for me too because he'd wake up in the middle of the night sometimes with full-blown sentences you know and one night he woke up in the middle night he must have been thinking about spiders and he was like ah there's a spider there's a spider and he's like eyes closed but sitting

straight up and he ended up going to a red Squadron but um and then I woke up startled like where The [ __ ] is it where the [ __ ] is it and only to like [ __ ] now he's just sitting they're quiet to realize that he's not even awake they go [ __ ] dude go back to sleep you know every spider trap in that house was full of it's just legs everywhere oh damn they were full of brown recluse spiders there's a there's a you know I hope they fix that problem

damn I don't know how many People have been bit but um so anyways uh you lose the majority of the guys in in in theault in that first six weeks that's that's like the the kind of hell week per se of of selection is there any diving uh no diving no diving not at least when I was there um you kind of do that with your team um you know but then we have our land Warfare which is all you know a lot of Hilo based work getting used getting used to all different types of

hilos and All the etiquette and procedures that go with getting all of that stuff to to a lot finer detail than than than than ever before really you know um you know all kinds of scenarios with those things on different types of terrain and buildings and different things uh and jumping after that that's probably the first or second most challenging in my opinion because it's just so dangerous there's so Much Focus you know all the way from getting your [ __ ] on knowing the plan getting on and it's just one after the other after

the other after the other after the other and trying to stay on point all day with that not make not just small mistakes but you know how jumping goes major man I don't know I've not done I've not done anything like that I've yeah I've jumped out of planes but not to the extent that you have so like can you go into the little more Detail on like why that's so challenging it's just you know I ended up being a tandem bundle guy later so I became an heir so subject matter expert also on top

of my wrecky sniper um specialty which is my primary um but the detail of the gear everything from your handles to your like malfunction procedures you know you got to memorize what to do in every little thing that could go wrong with a Parachute right it could mean that the difference between life and death in those moment moments and so it's just it's at night the jumps are you know most of them or at least a good majority of them are on night vision goggles and so I hadn't experienced that much before not at all

I haven't done any night vision jumps before that a lot harder when you can't see the other guys you know until the very end you know we're jumping through weather and sometimes It's like dude I don't even know if I'm in the right place and then right before you land you kind of see oh there they are or you're in it you know and do your best to land together so are you navigating up there yeah you're navigating you got your attack board you know um what's it look like just a little plastic hard plastic

plate that goes into the velcro and ties in and then flat part that goes Out like look like a little breakfast table and it's got you know a compass and whatever device whether it's a GPS or you know we use our phone devices or whatever tablets on there and Kim light and uh that's it you're driving with this thing and using your your eyes too and all your senses and just it's just like it just takes a lot of focus for a really long amount of time so it's it's just pretty draining when you're doing

it over and over and over again every Day you know starting from before the sun comes up to the sun goes down it's just it's taxing but also you get so good at it so by the time we get out of that you're just just really good at it um just from all the repetition of it you know and you know jumping like that on on real world missions is just it's so difficult already you've got environmentals you got wind you got weather you know and so everybody's Skill set has to be at least to

a baseline level in order to trust you know that we're going to succeed on the mission somebody's not going to fly off and the [ __ ] still happens how like how much how much air time is it dude I don't know it's got to be a lot of hours like hours and hours I mean let's I don't mean uh like all together I mean like when you jump out and you're navigating into a Target like yeah it just depends on what's the Longest one you've been on in the air from out of the plane

to Landing I mean we've done some really high high high ones in training but real world typically it's going to be just a few minutes you know how high 15 15,000 ft you know something something like that um and there's some other higher capabilities but um that's a different got it sort of capability so you've jumped in on a on a on a real world op I did so you go through all that and then The story of that op was Prett pretty it's it's it's kind of funny how I ended up being there I

wasn't supposed to be there but is the last thing and you know so I had the opportunity to to to do uh a tandem jump into a a hostage rescue so it was pretty it's pretty epic you know but it also changed my life y well we'll get there we'll get there so you made it through Green Team first time Y correct you know I had a rough time in assault For a little while but I I pulled it together um it's kind of that it's part of it you know hey no matter how good

you are if you're the top or bottom guy there's going to be stressors that they put on there just to see what what happens see how you react and if you snowball you're you're not going to make it you know if you can bring yourself back you know enough then that's what they want you know it's just and then the ability the Adaptability piece to be able to change to different tactics that we come up with based on things that happen and that can be very immediate you know we come back from a deployment or

even during the deployment go man this is happening how do we what do we do change it you know you don't have to wait for some approval you know and then if we write it into doctrine that trickles down into the into the teams and becomes doctorine you know so that's the that's The Glorious and cool part of Development Group in my opinion how do you how do you get mean how do you know what's Squadron you're going to is it is it a is it a dream sheet like coming out of buds or is

it it's it's a draft like a true draft a a list of names with performance evaluations on it and then each team gets an order of the draft based off of the previous year um just like in sports and there's also you know some Influences on who knows the guy you know he might be sort of a known at least you know reputation Wise by other guys maybe even guys that preceded him you know from their previous team like that's what happened with me I ended up in a team where had a bunch of guys

from Team 10 it was awesome right on do you know what do people know what round they got picked I think you can find that out later I don't ever remember caring much about that I was Just happy enough to get you know to finish and get on a good team but I I mean I think you can go dig and find into that but it's kind of like you know I don't know if it's unnecessary but it's like yeah you know just just wasn't something I thought about I mean I think you can probably

you can go if you know anybody that was Cadre or you go back to like hey where did I rank you know um it's not hard to see those rankings is it True that they put a list of names or a photo of every guy that's screening up and they do a yes no yes no yeah yeah there's like a picture mhm and then you kind of vote okay you get you can put a vote and you know once you you know are an operator in vetted into the team you you know you do that

every year as well what do you think about that and I don't know I think that there's certain things there That need to be the way that they are CU they work you know and then there's other things that I've you know I've obviously learned through my my life that I I hope change or continue to change and that's more culture related but those kind of things I think that's you know why change what what works yeah so you know and if I didn't know a guy or anything about him I just you don't have

to vote just go you don't have to say good or bad just go move on To the next guy you know do they want an explanation for why somebody would say yes or no yeah I think that that's invited if you've got an explanation about something you should put it in there okay and there's been some occasions where that was a little detrimental in the future to not do that and you know not necessarily guys that slip through their cracks per se but a little couple you know some red flags that should have Been at

least talked about you know um to work on with you know things that you can develop in a guy just you know you don't have to be Legends when we come through selection you have some space to develop just like the G league in the NBA or whatever it's called you know um I think that's legit you know you reach a baseline you know in in selection that's it's enough to get you through and then of course you have guys that are well Beyond that um and that's that's where you go you know where did

you go I think I was somewhere I've always been in the middle I mean Squadron wise excuse me uh silver silver yeah what was the light check then to silver silver silver was new right it was new new yeah it was only got commissioned only a few years before I before I got There yeah so it was great I knew a lot of guys in there because they were my my my mentors and peers from Team 10 and you know felt very welcoming that the personality of that team was the right team for me I

felt were they I mean describe well let me go back for just a second what what's it like graduating Green Team it's it's awesome I mean it's like it's it's just such a release of energy you know and some of the later things That you do were sort of gentleman courses you're start you know you're learning some cool things you're doing some surveillance stuff and you know a little bit more of the trips are a little bit more fun and and not so taxing um so you get you know a little bit of a phase

to kind of get ready to go check in and do all your things cuz that can be intense you got so much stuff to do got all kinds of gear to get got [ __ ] and you got to start and you Get in and you start running immediately so and it's fast you know you get there and it's get in the kill house and it's fast you're like holy [ __ ] you know and it's just must it must feel like what an athlete feels like going to a pro team you know that that

has some a little bit of development to do and it's like it happens quick because you got to keep up yeah and it's fast were they welcoming yeah Definitely um different kind of vibe than going to the teams where it's like okay new guy you know like yeah you're a new guy but it's a little like I don't know how to explain it but they're just a little bit more maturity about it like less of a thing being a new guy over there more bring in and get him get him up to speed yes you

kind of already know but it's just more important to get him up to speed cool yeah to get them integrated and functioning in the team Immediately so the goal is not to humiliate you no that's I didn't experience I think it was just that part of it is just non-existent in my opinion there there no time for that that's cool that's cool so what did you I know you're a sniper when did that you're on the wcky team correct yeah so typically you got to spend a couple rotations as an assaulter before the wcky team

selects you in is the way that I experienced it um so After my first uh deployment with them um I was interested in that and I had some really good experienced snipers that were cool with it so they brought me in and that became my my specialty let's talk about let's talk about your first deployment with uh with silver how long were you there before the deployment um it's a lot quicker rotation so it's probably About 8 months from what I remember it's it's a little bit of a blur was about eight months you know

um I won't get too much into the details of the the the cycle but it's like a lot quicker what we used to call prodev and cidex all the predeployment stuff um is only like really like four Monon increment so it's a year instead of 18 months it's not nearly as long um and wherever you fall into that timing So um yep and then deployment was Afghanistan how did the how was the deploy employment was it it was good it was a good steady pace of operations by that time we started to have to use

some of the trained up partner forces a little bit more you know um you know that whole thing started with you know like the eru and Iraq you know training them not necessarily having having to bring them on operations to gradually over time the Whole Afghanistan war Evolution was like all right we're going to start turning this over over to them to fight for their own country and you guys got to start taking these guys so we ended up having to work a few of them in and you know just navigate around that whole problem

of bringing guys that aren't at your level trying to teach them or whatever um oh [ __ ] you guys were running around I didn't real I did Not know that um that was happening over there yeah we would put them in different orders of Patrol and you know over the years this is not my first deployment but maybe by like my third you know we're going like hey all right certain targets they're going to go try to do it got just but it that was just such a messy thing you know because your operations

are so precise and you're now like it's like you know we're We're say we're on a high level not high level but we're on a a grown-up an adult basketball team and now they're like hey you got to actually try to win the championship but you got to bring these kids your kids and try to figure out you know like all right guys we got two kids how do we win this Championship but maybe that's a bad analogy but it just got frustrating over time as the war evolved to go guys this is like it

makes you less sufficient I get it yeah I get It one and there's more danger involved with it and they don't understand when [ __ ] happens who's to blame when bad [ __ ] happens and you're like dude we're trying our best to follow these rules and and play by these guys start to get frustrated over time and go like man this is [ __ ] and you know the the Roes over time got so restricted you know because of the political climate around the war that they were like hey it's when hearts and

Minds time and Officers actually you know pretending to believe all of that and even over there and convince us yeah everybody I think experienced that I did not I didn't know that yeah um so over time it just became that you know I knew quite a few guys that got out cuz they were like I just don't want to operate like that and then other guys you stay stay more positive and you're like just do the best you can and um I want to say that from that Second deployment or so for me around 2012

every deployment after that was partner Force you got to bring them you got to you know and it's not easy to operate like that um not because we didn't want to we want to you know do our best but you're like God it's hard to do your job when you got to bring these other guys that are just not even close you know and also kind of sort of report on it to go hey we want to Make ourselves look good you know to everybody that's looking at us and so we go hey how the

guys doing they're great they're they're you know they're close to being seals [ __ ] like they're not close they [ __ ] put their they don't even use their night vision goggles because they're uncomfortable they don't understand this the and just drilling with them and spending all this time it distracts you from operating from from training Yourself you know and yeah it helps you know to to go be a Cadre in selection you're actually you become better probably from instructing other you know highlevel guys but now you go down levels and you're you're going

to lose you're losing something from just sort of bringing your level down to go train these guys on on Basics that we're actually going to go operate with it's like being on a it's like being on a [ __ ] Ducati And then going back to training wheels in a yeah not like I don't mean it in an ego arrogant kind of way but yeah it feels like that it's like man got to go on the you know teach them how to ride ride a bicycle when we're on Ducatis yeah it doesn't make sense to

me I we just talked about your Green Team and how rigorous it was and how like you know how the level you know you described it like a level the bubble gets out and you're gone and then and Then you deploy and you got these guys that I mean they probably wouldn't even be seals yeah that's tough to go back and think about that too and not hold resentment for how the whole thing with Afghanistan evolved and then we saw what happened with everything and the whole xfill of Afghanistan [ __ ] show and then

just going like man were there how long were their Intentions you know to restrict how we operate in order to to get this done and then not you know feel like the force was misused and this and that and you don't have time to think about it when you're doing it you're like there's a mission and we do the mission it's my job so you don't really I didn't really have time to think about any of that until I was done and then now I go back and think about it and just try my best

not To to hold anger and resist meant for it but when I see some of these stories especially with the xville and guys like you know you had on here Andrew I'm like [ __ ] dude you got so many guys coming on here shows like this and other awesome shows just to want to just tell the truth and things was like we as a as a society I'm like [ __ ] we moved so far away from being okay with the truth right to a point that like everything just feels Like there's [ __

] piled on top of it and we just want to see just the Baseline of Truth so we can make decisions on how to do things better you know and get better and go man that happened but next War can we learn from it this time it didn't work in Vietnam didn't work and other Wars didn't work in Iraq didn't work in Afghanistan are we going to do it again where we have some conflict that we don't just when you commit to War you know War yes war is hell and so if they're committing to

it with this willy-nilly kind of we're going to going to go to war you know but we're pretty quickly not going to finish the job and and it's going to turn into something else you know especially driven by societal pressure and politics and everything it's like dude once that happens now used to start thinking about all the lives of 2000 or so guys and the situations you know and Thinking back to Buddies you lost and things that happened you know and the way that they exfilled to go [ __ ] man did they really and

then they stand up sometimes and go we love our military and like do do you really think about it in depth you know or is it just a game you know and if it's war is not a game so if you commit to it like [ __ ] let's just finish the job as quickly as possible to minimize now death on both sides for an extended Amount of time in the future right but that's what people don't understand too and they go ah ceasefire and this and that and and no war you're like well there's

a reason for why do you think that was why what was why do you think that war went the way it did I mean it was [ __ ] balls to the wall at the beginning yeah and then finish you saw the Roe start changing and then it got to the point where it's like what why Are we even here you're chopping these guys legs out and you're essenti you're essentially giving you not essenti you are 100% giving the enemy an advantage by slapping these Roes on us mhm now you're playing around yeah you're like

hey here's an advantage we're going to show up and see how it goes do you have any theories I don't know yeah I've got different theories but it's almost just overarching where It's like the the country as a whole when we have attachments to we have so many distracting attachments from the truth and reality and things you know everything [Music] from just pressure in your in your in like a normal average person's life just the pressure right to go to school work you know now you got a family you got whatever all your Responsibilities it

get stressful you you know you might feel [ __ ] you might be coping with [ __ ] we were talking about trauma you've got your things and you feel it's [ __ ] hard and then now we've got so many other distractions on top of that the attachment to celebrity is a thing that that is is a thing for me so now we have celebrities with opinions and sounds like an excuse or or something small but I think it's actually having a way bigger effect than Any of us want to admit where we go

this celebrity doesn't like the war and they start to speak out again now this the societal pressure the buildup of of social opinion now starts to affect highlevel leaders and politicians to now go hey killing them good like we're we're getting this this war we're getting this job done like effectively but it's too effective so let's let's still do it but you know you know cut you know Dy it Down a little bit you like take it easier on the bad guys you're like we're talking about [ __ ] War what do you mean take

it easier on the bad guys how well this is how we're gonna we're going to start making the Roes stricter to the point of absurdity actually over time to where now it's like okay now the mission is just win hearts and minds and you're like oh my god well how do we how do we now we got to pretend to Believe in that and do our jobs at the same time and mitigate risk guys still get killed because of the mitigating of the risk and just gets watered down and Warf Fighters you know if you

if that's your role if you do that if you're a warrior just [ __ ] doesn't work that way well you know and it's hard to say and hard for people understand it like the best way for war is as quickly and as Efficiently as possible with the intention of minimizing collateral damage yeah um it's a very specific ancient thing you know that you want to [ __ ] draw it out and then now everybody perceives that we lost like we didn't [ __ ] lose man I don't like yeah maybe we you can the

perspective could be that we lost but I don't dude I saw what we're like did more enemy get killed or good than good Guys a lot more I think so I don't know what the metric is for that but however disillusion we might get I refuse to believe that we lost any [ __ ] War we just we did it to our do it to ourselves with just how we extended you know I don't know man I got some uh little bit different opinion on that than than you but yeah that's okay I just uh

me I guess you can't really from a war Fighter's perspective yeah is sort Of an overarching Force you know I'm really scared what's coming you know I mean because we had a handle on it and in in in my opinion I I don't think we can say that we won that War I think yes no I don't think we won the war we definitely killed more bad guys than they did of us and um but you know the thing is is I mean [ __ ] man we left being that it's it's worse off now

than we ever Started that's kind of what I'm getting at the fact that sorry the fact that it's worse off it is worse off now than when we entered and the fact that now there are 21 different terrorist organizations all convoluting together growing yeah you know and coming up through our [ __ ] Southern border that we're funding we are funding I mean that is a that's pretty devastating I mean they have definitely strengthened in a very Short amount of time and we're going to [ __ ] feel it here we are going to feel

it in this country you know we're being forced because we didn't finish the job yeah yeah and we're being forced to I how don't explain that it's like we're being forced to just like be okay with you're being forced to to live our lives on a fouryear cycle M because it's all election based two and foure cycle so every decision I see being made for some Of these things is based off of whatever effect you know government and politicians think thinks thinks they're going to have within the next two to four years and nothing beyond

that you like think further than that with just my [ __ ] ice cream you know and the consequences are just piling up rapidly right and they just just more more more more [ __ ] piling up so that you can we you know we can win something in two or 4 years that That that pile of bullshit's going to take decades to to to fix even if we could at least reach a level of enough [ __ ] being cleared away to actually agree to talk about any of it can't even discuss at this

point yeah you know like like an argument between two people what are we arguing about we got to at least agree to the thing we're arguing about a little bit and a little bit of the truth behind it whatever the topic is before we can even get close to Making a decision on how to get better you know while satisfying both of our needs it's we just we're so far from that and it just in the meantime all the danger and all the [ __ ] is just keep stacking up Y and and then we're

going to see it you know with some attack or some [ __ ] and everyone's going to be all surprised we already saw it we saw it in Israel we saw it at that Russian Mall we've seen it happen here before you Know they they came out with a report do you know who Sarah Adams is by chance yeah oh yeah C Target say again scari media yes that's her woman yeah yeah a lot of stuff she talked about there's this there's this book that came out it's almost more like a report I wish I

Scott man told me about it in his interview that we just released so anybody listening they can go back to get that but they are they are Predicting Al-Qaeda terrorist networks are are predicting they're saying that the casualties that we will feel will be 50 to 60,000 50 to 60,000 casualties when they decide to make their move in in our home front to large scale um and we all sound like Cs and conspiracy theorists until it happens in and it's like well prevention there's a lot of [ __ ] being prevented it's not cooks and

conspiracy theorists we are Funding Taliban yeah he proven it we we we proved it on the show 911 was a $500,000 budget government already came out after we broke the news right here in this [ __ ] room that they accidentally accidentally sent $239 million to the [ __ ] Taliban and and but we know it's more like close to a billion a year you know that's going through these Nos and being funneled back to The and we know that they're producing passports I've talked about this a million times but we know they're producing passports

send them into South Central America they're funneling up through the southern border like it's it all circles back to the same truth and doesn't matter the more and more people you have that are experts with some real world experience in these things like actual part of their life whether it's their job or whatever they do coming on To stuff like this with the courage to to to talk about it and people still you know some people want to go that's not the truth that screen with with the CNN and fox and that stuff's that's the

truth and you know the movie I saw it says based on a true story why don't they make that about that if it's true you're like I've I've I've I witnessed this in my life righto the stuff you're talking about being true is like a movie based on a True story like that's not even close to the truth that's exaggerated for entertainment like dude that's why now finally the good thing is they're starting to realize how stupid it is and go on like the Washington Post or something I saw the other day shows like the

sea Ryan show or now people are turning to those for their information you know instead of mainstream media and you're like thank God they're waking up to it but you know It's like right at the last minute before this election yeah yeah but well Chris let's move into let's move into your final op are you ready yeah yeah I'm ready I know this is heavy for you thank you so it started actually kind of a cool story um wasn't supposed to be there so I made a decision to get out when I was in the

middle of my my uh previous deployment In Somalia I was a team leader at this out station and we were pretty remote out there we're doing some cool [ __ ] we stayed up in this mountain for 22 days that's where the 900 yard uh shot happened on a on a big Ambush yeah tell that we got to hear that one sorry we got to hear that one first we it was outside of our normal operation deck but these Isis Somalia SL ALS shabab terrorists um Had gone up into this little Oasis of a village

up in the mountain it was like had it was nice it had a waterfall date trees it was really green you know just in the middle of a desert with nothing else and so you know some some people have been living in this Village for for decades and this place since has become sort of a safe haven for bad guys to go almost like like a vacation spot or Something um because it's nice up there so these these guys decided to just go take it over so they go up and essentially kill all the villagers

and you know you know move them out of their essentially take over the spot of like cool it's ours now we're going to relax here and it was such a found sort of wrongdoing that we got approve to go up there and clear them out so we go through we go up there it's a long planning process to get it all I Mean we we were getting like Humes from dermo and re and repurposing them and getting them ready and going up there and training you know for a long time and we we we went

up there and you know we've had partner Force vehicles in front of us and uh you know we anticipated an ambush and then there was this big Ambush to get up there was on these like really tight switchbacks so they they're Taking a lot of time and so you know IEDs were placed up there and you know one of the partner Force trucks got blown up and flipped over um so we've got now our team Corman and Medics and stuff over there working on those guys and we're stuck on this Switchback just getting lit up

from RPGs and PKM and AK from somewhere and some of them were like where are these coming from so we but we you know we had some turret guns we had some 40 mic mic guns Up on the Humes that were just super powerful you know weapons so we were able to suppress that you know pretty comfortably but while that was all going on we're still getting all these pop shots on the trucks from somewhere and gu like where is this from so I'm like [ __ ] I hop out of my we're stuck we're

not moving right now so I guys are just staying inside because you can see him landing around us so I I and there's this big Mount there's this Big um like Ridge off to my left side and we're we're driving up around the switchbacks so I go man I go and I just happen to always carry my 300 wind mag and I used to get made fun of for carrying it up in in the mountains because it's just huge so other buddies of mine like God damn it that [ __ ] thing seems bonking me

in the helmet and [ __ ] I'm like well walk away from me somewhere you know you know I'm carrying this thing cuz I and I and actually There was another op where I used it and you know we were we we we killed some some bad guys that were launching mortars on us you know four of them and I'm like I'm the guy who got to go do that cuz I had the the long gun you know so it was always worth it to me hucking that thing around it's my favorite gun 300 wi

mag and uh so I pull that thing out of the back of the truck I get it kind of set up I had a big pouch full of rounds and I go get under the hood of The thing and I got my we got a turr gunner up there another guy that passed away from a brain tumor after I got out um and so but at that time he was uh up there on the turret and we had suppress a fire there wasn't much going on anymore except for these guys shooting pop shots and I

thought it might be from up there 900 yards up on this uh ledge so I get out and go hey dude Zach Can you spot me you know I'm going to shoot I'm going to look up there so I look up there I go there is six guys up there I can see their little heads and they're like shooting AKs over at us not very effective though it's still landing around us but it's 900 yards away our AKs you know and uh I'm like all right dude I'm going to start shooting back so I start

loading rounds and I'm like if I miss over the top it's just a little just little you know heads And so I'm like and they're going to snap over and those they're going to go off right I'm like that's fine maybe that'll work but instead I start like I'm going to take my first shot and intentionally kind of miss a little bit low so I can mark it on the rocks and by the way that wind the wind was blowing towards them that they might not have heard that you know so so that's what I

did and then I would kind of zero it in and then shoot at one of them and then They' all duck back and I'd be like you know hey did I get him you know he's like no I don't think so so I kind of was like all right well that's suppressed they're good but then every time they came back and started shooting more um so so I just keep doing my best and you know then eventually he's like you you got that dude you know you got that dude you know and um you I

don't like I don't like the Language sometimes out of out of ego to go like the pink you know mist or whatever but that was the the sort of he thought he saw that he like okay well [ __ ] I'm looking are they coming back he's like no they're not coming back this time so they and they so they stopped so I didn't know we didn't know really so I put the gun away we start get everybody kind of wrapped up those guys survived in that truck so the the the ID was in this

plastic jug and it Went low order so it didn't explode all the way um so we get back in we move into the camp we take it over take over some buildings make it our jock and then we spend the next 22 days doing little operations like sniper op Ops up there trying to get the bad guys who having mortar fights and stuff like that and then eventually get enough of them to where hey now we're going to introduce those villagers back up into there and so we start doing that that was an Awesome time

they were like so happy they kind of started moving back in and then the partner Force kind of took over that spot uh for the next few years I think I heard that eventually got taken back over but I'm not sure about that so we did some good for a short amount of time at least nice um and we came back down there and and that was that deployment so the way that that was confirmed was that uh you know you can you can capture with your ISR like some Of their chatter on radios and

they're chattering about hey there's a sniper when we're in the firefight shooting at us later on that night we're listening to TPS like hey I've been listening and they're talking about going up there and getting what's his name that sniper shot you know like so we're watching them they they go up there and they get this guy and they drag him down and that's kind of a confirmation damn you know and so you know had a really awesome uh Platoon Chief then was like dude I'm going to write this up you know it's pretty it's

pretty cool so I'm going to write it up so he did that um and that's how I got that one [ __ ] a man that's cool yeah it was was one of the cooler experiences um so yeah where were we before that story we're moving into your last stop yeah so we move in I'm at that in between those Missions at that out station and my kids are three and four my two Boys and I'm having a hard time getting them to FaceTime with me because my wife says hey bradic my older son he's

starting to understand what's going on like you're not here and you want to talk to him but he's mad and he doesn't want to talk to you until you're back oh man and so how's that feel dude it broke my heart and I couldn't get him on unless he was crying so he tried a couple times I'm like dude I don't he's so mad he was C you know I Don't want to talk to you until you're here you know like with me oh man so yeah that broke my heart and I realized what I

was going to be missing you know cuz I was only 14 I was only 12 13 years in um with the intention to go all the way to 20 which meant I was going to be working my way all the way up through the team you know and by that time it was my it was my turn to be a team leader which is really kind of A not the Pinnacle but a really big milestone as an operator in my opinion to get to and I always wanted to get to that so I stopped telling

her hey just don't just don't get him on there you know and I'm gonna get out she's like you're gonna get out I'm like yeah [ __ ] it I'm gon get out um so I kind of started thinking about that decision wasn't too serious about it still had a few more weeks left at the out station and then I started doing Some research in my off time about fatherhood and then it became pretty apparent to me and I don't even know where I got this from but it just seemed like I was reading it

over and over again that as a father to son's the most important time to imprint those validation things that we're talking about and and and dad being there essentially is between the ages of 8 and 12 so I was like all right I can get out and I can I can make that still you know so that was really my deciding factor and then it's I kind of got closer to that decision started to announce the team like hey guys I'm I'm going be getting out and it was like I know it's bad timing I'm

supposed to be a team leader right when we get back and and we had some great leadership then and then our Master Chief was like Hey dude there's never a Good time so you know we're going to take care of you and you know he got me into the Niko clinic and stuff sort of organized and then we came back from deployment that next three months over the summer was my terminal leave so we got back I started my termin to leave I started turning my things in I don't know what oh I did one

more trip just to stay current just in case and it was a jump trip because I was a jump guy and one thing about being A jump guy I was never great at it I I ended up going to the tandem bundle school because when my first son was being born we were short that qual and I was so like the whole validation thing was like man they're going on deployment and there's an opportunity to jump in this course it's it's was the hardest course outside inside of any selection for me it was anyways cuz

my son was supposed to be due at any point during that 3 weeks and it's intense so I was [ __ ] [ __ ] up I was distracted I was thinking about my son being born and I had this instructor there was a legend of a dude you know and I was in the green course so it was the Delta course and I was the only Dev grew guy and you know the whole thing from him was like you're going to be the best dude in this course and I was like okay you know

and then I was the I was the worst guy in the course you know but that's where I made some really lifelong uh Delta buddy Delta friends one guy specifically he really pushed me through that course and I'm I'm eternally grateful for it because I I got through and I probably shouldn't have you know they were really patient with me and uh you know since then after that I practiced a lot and got good at it you know um so then I started to enjoy it right a little bit at least um so we Fast

forward now to this I go on the trip I go do my ts my bundles stay current you know my last hurah with the team and we get right back from that trip I start turning all my [ __ ] in except for all my stuff for going to do you know cuz now we're on standby we're on our we're responsible for for the hostage rescues if if any if anything comes about so I leave those I just take them home instead of my my locker and to turn Everything in except for my my primary

guns and my my night vision my favorite night vision goggles out of all the ones that we get and that was it and I was like cool um just in the team room doing emails and wrapping my [ __ ] up you know trying to get a resume together trying to like I had a job opportunity so I was going to go for that just in Contracting with my my buddy's company I mentioned earlier and just chilling now and one Day I'm in there they spin up and I'm like [ __ ] of course you

know the day I decided to get out you know and I miss the hostage rescue you know so I'm in there but because of some different circumstances you know there was no clue that there was going to be anything and we had guys doing some different kind of cool training stuff they had to get done a lot of the wcky guys and planners for you know when we have that we're Typically the guys that plan you know routes and jumps and different things like that right so I had a really um had a platoon chief

that you know like not everybody liked but I had some kind of connection with him I thought he was a really intelligent dude uh I think his intelligence was underrated um and so He I was like hey I'm gonna um I'm G to head out and go for a run around my neighborhood I'm kind of also like depressed because I don't get to go do this thing you know he's like okay so I go running get done running get back to my house look at my phone there's a bunch of texts from him I'm like

oh [ __ ] so I call him hey what's going on he's like hey we got some guys in different places trying to get back but we could really Use you know some planning help if you want to help plan this thing I was like yeah and then just kind of joking around you know I'm like hey if I plan do I get to go just I'm on terminal leave of course I don't get to go you know but he goes hey uh yeah hold on a second so puts the phone down for a second

couple minutes comes back he's like yeah you can go like holy [ __ ] all right uh how long do I have to get there you got all your [ __ ] ready Yeah you probably better get here in like 45 minutes you know if you're going to make this bird so I'm like oh [ __ ] so that's how how much time I had to throw all my [ __ ] in the truck and tell my wife hey I'm going to go do this thing are you okay with it she's like holy [ __

] you we got through all of this yeah I'm not going to stop you from doing this one thing but it's kind of that whole like Team America they like just don't die you know so I'm like okay it Won't you know um try my best and love you you know and and squeeze the boys and go and so now that's how I ended up on the mission so we fly over there and you can find this in the news and [ __ ] um there was a hiccup with the staff for Obama informing him

that we were in the air ready to jump when we got there and so we got pushed 24 hours because he was asleep in Martha's Vineyard from what I understand um I don't know the details of that I know there's a bunch of [ __ ] that I probably have no [ __ ] clue how works you know and we come down we push to the next night and then we go so I'm up there I got a tandem medic on me and I'm the point man for the for the op you know and I've

got three other guys too usually a team before and up in the point anyways So everything goes well we jump great landing we get on this target um it's for this is the news too uh two professors that were kidnapped from the University of Cabell days before one was Australian was American Kevin King and Timothy weeks and found out that they're here right probably being moved around different compounds on their way to across the border in Pakistan and you know The network of dudes that do you know the most deviant [ __ ] with the

Taliban it's those guys right suicide bombers you know you know just all the all the worst [ __ ] you can think of that happened you know chopping off heads and whatever other kind of [ __ ] I think that honestly actually was more in Iraq but I don't know um so it's those guys right right and so we're expecting some we're expecting a Hard fight maybe um and we all know if you have any experience with these guys in Afghanistan with all the suicide bombs the house born iates all the [ __ ] we

like go really deliberate with when we go to these compounds we're looking for I mean it's slow CQB we're looking in we're looking at every threshold for wires for different you know there's even started using you know motion sensors and you know you know light Sensor like um photosensitive bulbs you know and pillows and [ __ ] like that to just blow right and there's so many Ops where that happens right so it's it's high tension and we're expecting this [ __ ] and we get down and they're at a they're at a compound right

got a long walk in everything goes well and then we get to you know we see some some movement around some guys that seem to have RPGs motorcycles moving Around and then what I believe was going on based off of what what happened was that that was just normal [ __ ] going on because we were able to get all the way up to the Target sneaking up and get up on top and and get ready without anybody knowing anything right but there were a couple of noises you know that we made the way that

I go back to thinking about What actually happened on this op have a lot to do with you know Kevin King never spoke much about it after maybe he's super traumatized by maybe he's living his life whatever but Timothy weeks did speak up on it a bunch in a bunch of different interviews and news outlets and you know I was in my Contracting work after this op and eventually they they were cut a deal to be turned over and and traded and with the release of an asak Which is you know the leader mhm and

a couple of other guys and once that happened pretty quickly it went around even in the news like a little write up that he had of like what he thought happened on those different ops cuz there was a couple attempts couple of failed attempts and I pieced it together over time what I thought really happened right and So different Roes or a hostage rescue totally different and every operator really understands like pretty in depth like what those are you have to right you really talk about it because the mission is the hostages and on a

hostage rescue it's so hard to talk about especially with people that don't understand war and those things because one of only a couple things is going to happen they're going to kill Hostages if they know that you're you're there which has happened and that's a really hard thing for for for operators to deal with after and or you're going to rescue the hostages and kill all the bad guys great you know or the good guys might accidentally kill the hostage while they're on the doing the operation that's happened before too that's Hard so as an

operator you go through your decision-making Matrix to go you're like hey my decision- making has to be very precise here right and this is where even more so than any other time or like there's no room for the soul I think in those and that's a sacrifice that Warriors have to make in my opinion to do what they do sometimes and that's where the Detachment from that is so hard afterwards to come back to cuz you just moments of Detachment from that for So long over time you know and in history some have been able

to to fear that to stay attached and connected to to that Soul while they're doing it but uh that just wasn't the case for what I where I was at right and what guys around me were at and why it's so hard right now guys coming out so we get up I'm the first guy to touch the Target I I climb up sneak up to the roof my spot and my job is to to protect the assaulters right and see what they can't see so we have another team coming around other side a little delayed

because they went a different way um we weren't sure if we had been you know compromised at all yet my opinion is we still weren't um and so they climb up they get set They get ready and in the meantime I'm looking over down here and there's five people sleeping in the courtyard we knew that um and on the way trying to figure out who they are what they are making sure none of them are the hostages right and that there's a lot that goes into that identification you know hair color skin color you know

what do they look like is there any chance that they're they used to dress them up like in Buras you know so that We'd think that they were women right so there there wasn't any of that they're all males and through a process of that you know getting to 100% Clarity that like none of them are the hostages but at the same time you know going hey the Roe the the the Intel is is saying that who these guys are and what what what networks they're part Of when they know we're here they might blow

up the whole [ __ ] thing in themselves they're willing to do that right and all of us and we've experienced that before or they're going to [ __ ] spray something from under you know from their little sleeping nest and and my job yeah we're on a mission the hostages are the most important but if I hesitate in a decision dude I've gone through This so much and I'm going to try my best here because I've went through a whole process for years of a of of making sure I'm not justifying but justifying and

like going back and forth with my ego just just trying to understand this thing but also for for so many years I I was just coping with it with addictions and drinking my face off and just being lost with that new trauma Right and figuring out if the decision I made was the right one because the decision we I made was we're going to kill these these these five males right and eliminate any risk to those assaulters because if one gets hit because I hesitated on that decision then I know their wives I know a

bunch of them I know you know they're all around our community you know and [ __ ] that's my that's my job right so then I started to eventually separate this in to a duty decision and a in a Soul Decision right um so when the breach goes off I I'm eliminating those five so I and I did right thinking back now there were some things that happened outside that there were some loud noises some things some some mistakes that I think may have spooked those guys into Stomping those hostages down into a tunnel system

down below because when a couple years later when they got turned over that reading that he the thing that he wrote was like Hey the first time I woke up in the middle of the night and to getting kicked down a [ __ ] hidden tunnel and was like knocked out and came back to to and then as soon as I came back to there was a loud explosion which is the breach from what I I think Um and so it wasn't like hours or days it was it could have been seconds that we missed

those guys right mhm maybe maybe not uh so the breach goes off the assaulters come in they get into a fight with a couple of uh couple of guys eliminate them and we're waiting to hear that got them you know in that room the beds are still warm there's still food from whenever before you know exercise bike whatever And hey they're not here and that's when essentially like okay we're going to clear this whole village now which we did and got other compounds we're looking at to you know to go look at to go do

and as I'm doing my job hopping from roof to roof covering my eyes I'm going like this Rush of just sort of stress comes over me because now it's Soul Time right CU what I didn't know what I don't what I think I didn't Know I still go through this to go did I know did I not know in that moment that two out of the five males were kids so in the moment it doesn't affect me too much it's my job um you know we wrap up that Target we get back it's a failed

hostage rescue the team discusses like we always do we go hey anybody have any issues with everything that went down tonight raise Your hand no even the guy who I I told you the platoon she was like man I'm well I brought it up because I didn't you know like hey I don't know I think I you know I I know I did the right thing Duty wise but something here is [ __ ] [ __ ] me up right now right and I'm you know I'm good he's like you good I'm I'm good but

I don't know what to say what I what I feel is like hey you did the right Thing with that you know when you breach in Afghanistan it's a blind assault there's [ __ ] dust like they're that those guys' clearance was like you can't even see your hand in front of you so imagine that you know hey feeling your way into bad guys you know and making sure they're not the hostage so that was that the last I ever talked about it with anybody the craziest thing was those Guys got extended for a month

to do more operations around this Rangers get involved other guys get involved and uh like all right guys I got to go start my job in a [ __ ] week and get back in time for it so I fly back and no [ __ ] like two days later I'm up in DC in this office at ditra with a [ __ ] suit and a tie thinking about these kids and and just trying to figure the [ __ ] out but Not understanding how um and I'm in this [ __ ] office I'm supposed

to be getting readons and badges and [ __ ] and I've got this there's this [ __ ] you know guy who's the boss or whatever the program manager and he's like [ __ ] eating twinkies and [ __ ] all over his desk and I'm like Hey sir what am I supposed to be what do I need to do here and he's like [ __ ] what the what are you talking about get your ass over to the [ __ ] brief you're supposed to be in and I'm like okay you know [ __

] dick you know and I go do my best to figure out what the [ __ ] I'm supposed to be doing in that in that job the first couple of weeks you know just feeling lost like the [ __ ] am I you know and you know over time I got into the swing of it and it was really actually a really good experience doing that work it's Just you know as I processed through this and and and went through this whole phase of just these years of just [ __ ] figuring myself out

just getting the [ __ ] shoveling the [ __ ] out as much as I could while still adding more not not being able to figure out why I couldn't get it off and you know one day I had the I begin experience that cleared that that helped me understand a little bit better and Some other things that I did as well and then like [ __ ] finally I figured out how to start leveling it out to a point where I had enough Clarity in my own self to go back to that moment and

now look at it instead of [ __ ] hiding from it which I was doing for years and every time I wanted to think about it I would just go [ __ ] get drunk you know and I got to this point just a few years ago I'm eight I'm eight years out now and maybe four years Ago was Rock Bottom where this thing plus the childhood and all the [ __ ] I was doing outside of what I what I really wanted to be right which was just good I [ __ ] you know

I had this friend in my neighborhood take his own life just in the little Lake across from my front porch and just to go to that spot just cuz it made me feel good I just like take a paddle board over there and I'll just kind of lay there where he took his Life and go [ __ ] I like feel something here and then every time I leave this spot I don't feel anything and because of that you know eventually I started to just took about a year of this seed being planted and growing

in my head to we like man I can just [ __ ] I'm a burden on everybody I'm yelling at my kids I'm a horrible husband I'm addicted to everything I can't figure this [ __ ] out With these kids so you know one day I found myself uh just playing slack sight squeeze you know the drill when you're [ __ ] dry firing um but with one in the tube and then that was the moment I'm like what the I didn't even really realize I was doing it I was just thinking and and then

I now think back to go thank God I wasn't drinking a bunch there because I think that in Those moments in that in that critical moment which is the the veter the veteran suicide like critical moment that I think about a lot is a lot simpler than what what I think we all think it is because there's very specific thoughts going on in that moment right this guy you know this couple of guys or my team thinks I'm a [ __ ] or something like I had another friend take His own life and I he

was at that out station with me and he got sent home because he was came a really bad alcoholic then he he was a great operator before and then he turned into this and he started getting bounced around teams but you know they they got it to where he could like survive through it and he got to retire and then right after he retired and took his own life and for him it was a little different it was like dude that whole [ __ ] of like if if a guy is not performing for whatever

the reason is in that moment when you guys start to when we start to jump on it and be like that's a [ __ ] to do the [ __ ] bag and you just betray him after everything all the good he was in those hard moments like that's the [ __ ] guys are thinking about right so there's a much better way to do that [ __ ] and I even participated In some of it with a different guy we got rid of it's like we're hard [ __ ] but we don't have to

play that game when when it gets to that we can get rid of a dude for not performing or put him somewhere where he can get a little bit better right take a break or whatever it is without going H he's and [ __ ] jump on that and be like [ __ ] you know because once that label happens that's a betrayal and fast forward to later that critical Moment those little memories like those are what they're thinking about what we're thinking about in my what I think so that was a rock bottom moment

the only thing that uh made me [ __ ] stop in that [ __ ] moment and paddle board back to my house was it was at night time I knew my family was eating dinner and I started thinking about my son and the whole reason why I got out was for Them and that brought me back a little bit to go like [ __ ] even if I'm a [ __ ] father like they still believe there's something in me that thing that some people can feel or see like my wife did she was

still doing it in that moment even though it wasn't me she knew they [ __ ] know there's something more right and there's a chance to get back to that before they give Up I went back and a couple days later um the wife of my friend that took his life there just randomly called me and she was like how you doing you know and I was like [ __ ] that not good and she goes oh [ __ ] let me come over and talk to you and I was like yeah that'd be awesome

you know cuz I knew what she must what she had gone through with her husband's taking his life and how that was a whole process she figured Something out because she was not she was something better after that after some years and so she's the one who introduced me into the the medicine so I went I was like dude I'll do anything I don't care what it is I'll go and um yeah I was scared but I was like willing to do to try anything and so I went that we can go through that hole

is a whole another discussion but it just Completely opened up my heart to seeing through all this [ __ ] that was on top to go [ __ ] you can just make a choice so I made a choice and pretty quickly I was able to get rid of all that [ __ ] just shoveling it out to where was like pretty much empty and now I was just in full clarity to now go back to that to that night and go [ __ ] why did that happen how did that happen so then I

was able to go pick it apart and go hey I I I did what I think is the right thing in Duty right because I know how the universe works if I didn't do that we would have all gotten blown up or somebody would have gotten shot and now I'd be dealing with that right we're not here and but also saying maybe that wouldn't have happened because that's a little bit of a justification for for it then then fine but you know how the universe works you know um and so now Going to separate Duty

completely from it to go for my soul it was it was not the right answer so I know that right so now what I do is I've spent so much time now instead of forgetting about those kids thinking about them and trying to place myself in their child Hood reality where it's doesn't matter what your environment is if you're the children of a a terrorist in Your role as as a servant to the father or maybe he wasn't in that I don't [ __ ] know but your job is to just is to play you

know and learn and absorb everything so it it it makes me it forces me to to attach it to what's happening with children now and all the [ __ ] [ __ ] of that and like just trying to I want to just shake some people up to go look you're your own stuff right that you're you're now you Know you want people to think you're a good person right we all do most of us some people have gotten to a point where they don't give a [ __ ] right I want you to think

I'm a good person so bad that I'll I'll seek validation you know I'll do virtual signaling so to show you how good I am which now I'll use my children to show you look especially the sexuality thing it's it's it's So dangerously evil underneath at all and I but I don't also want to shame and guilt those kind of parents that are doing that right because they might not [ __ ] even when you're not clear you're not even aware of your own behavior sometimes right so they don't even [ __ ] know they think

it's the right thing to go look we let them you know I don't want to get into it too much but Like a boy maybe he wants to be a girl and we kind of push that a little bit or vice versa because we need to show that we're good inclusive diversive people and the truth of what I know is the truth what I know is if if I teach my kids kindness that shit's all included in in kindness you know inclusion there are all these things right it's all underneath kindness but you also teach

them boundaries to protect themselves And when children they don't have boundaries they don't know what that means so they're going to absorb and sponge and take everything because guess what they just want your validation so you might be like hey children what do you think about this or that Topic in front of another adult and like they're going to say what you want them to because they want their goal is your validation and nurturing from Mom and they're going to Do whatever they need to do to get that no matter how wrong or evil or

anything it might be right so I just go through all of that over time it's always connected to these kids to the point where I don't want to forget them and I don't know how best to explain this but I actually find myself thinking about it So much that it's like a little it's like a it's it's some form of love for them you know like and what is there dude this is the hardest thing what you know I believe that this is an experience and just like if you're religious I'm not even religious but

I see all these themes through every every religious text that I've ever read I try to read all of them um Um this is a body right that contains a soul and death is just a transition into the next experience whatever it might be but that's the thing we're always fussing about and arguing about like uh you know what what uh what is reincarnation what is all you know and literally fighting Wars with each other about our different beliefs about about something we can't know here yet you know and um so I find myself thinking

About where they're at you know same thing same way I think about my grandfather before he passed away some of the last words he said to me I was able to sit by him next to the to the bed and and talk I was like dude I want Grandpa want to say things but I don't know how he's like you can say whatever you want you know and I was like well here's what I want to say you've been such a mentor to me everything I've Done you've given me the validation you've been so proud

of me you know he was so proud that I made it to Seal Team Six and I was I was I wanted to do this ice cream thing next so he could see didn't happened in time but I the thing I wanted to say I was like whatever you're feeling you're like I I I can imagine that you're you must be going through your whole life as an experience and even to include things You might not have resolved with some of your sons because there were some tensions there's some things going on you know family

things that always exist I was like but what I think is that deep down inside you what to the core of your soul what you really are is just little boy Jack seven-year-old that's the what I visualize as the most authentic the most real version of me that I ever was before anything happened to me before Any of those traumas those conflicts those things and so going into myself was like a hostage rescue to grab that little boy and bring him back through all that [ __ ] [ __ ] so those kids now I

think about and I I don't want to forget them damn chis you know when we spoke the first time um you had mentioned dreams can you talk about those Dreams yeah so for a long time you like I said like coping we talk about PTSD you know in the teams and soft I like to use that word because just like other words Society we attach too much stigma to those words so it's like PTSD is like this thing no one wants to have cuz we know if you're labeled with it or attached to it no

matter how many how how how Anonymous they make the reporting system of it or Whatever you do with a psychologist or whatever you're not going to I'm not going to because I want to be operational that's my mission so I like to call it coping instead we all cope with it in different ways that we in in our culture we make just like in society we make certain things socially acceptable anything but you know encourage each other to change our lifestyles do something healthy you know Because it doesn't fit in the culture and that's the

the thing like like culture is such a powerful thing so my coping with it was I was like trying my best to forget it and then I was having these [ __ ] night non-stop nightmares and it was it was tough for my wife because it'd be like I'd be stuck in the dream and making these strange noises because I knew I was in a dream and I was trying to get out of it so because I didn't want to Look at that these kids and like the hardest part is like I I know the

image of what it looked like like even even one of them kind of like got up a little bit and like there's bullets through them and then like laid back down and this [ __ ] tormented me in the dreams that every time he got up it was like my younger for some reason my younger son's face so then I developed this [ __ ] belief that if anything Traumatic happens to either one of them through their lives it's because of me and I was like that's the message I was getting that I was like

doing I was like essentially shooting my own it and I think the reason it was him is because he's a little bit more of the adventurous like he's he just he just goes for it it's it's actually awesome now like he just he probably has fear but he doesn't care about the fear you know and Then my older son is more analytical thinks things out a little bit more and there's going to be good things and bad things for for those both of those traits but I love both of them equally as much but for

some reason was him because he's probably more likely to get into danger faster like if any like I don't even want to say this because I don't want them to become seals but he'll be the one if you know I think So after the abigan those went away and so the migraines do you think those kids have ever tried to make contact with you talking about the ones here no they're all like you talking about on the operation yeah no I those they're I oh I see what you're saying sorry no haven't that's a good

point I might need to pay more attention you think you're opened up enough for that Maybe you know one thing I think about is um sorry I misunderstood that for a second I haven't gotten to a lot of the other War stuff much and I don't know sometimes I go oh it just didn't affect me much I don't think so I think that there's a psychological toll on everything that happens every little thing now if you choose if you're a guy that chooses to go hey I'm good doesn't didn't bother me much and you hold

it And you don't talk about it and you go on your you know it's like be with my grandfather I wish he told me more but he just doesn't talk about it you're like okay that's just how Grandpa is that's okay you know but then there's us guys that want to I want to I want to tell them I want them to I want them to feel you know something like they want to I think they you know my kids they my boys I think they they' want to So I decide now to go to

it instead of the effects that that shit's having on me when I try to forget it um but you know as far as the you know I meditate a lot I've gone through some really intense meditation training and I've got some more to do um some teachers get a lot of uh Visions out of those when you get far enough and deep enough um and I might not have been paying Attention to what you just asked you know so maybe the next time I do that or even some uh you know plan medicine ceremony or

something that uh maybe I'll lay that down as an intention to go hey if there's anything for me to receive from them I'm I'm open did you know Gabe bardi no I don't think so he was a team 10 no I didn't know him but um I've told this before but I'm going to tell you Because I know that [ __ ] contacts me all the time and I'll tell you uh one example that's his flag up there but um the Redwing yep like he uh well that was Josh Harris's flag but Gabe was Josh's

best friend and uh Gabe cared about three things he was he became um really bad heroin addict and um when he knew things were getting super dicey he would give me that Flag those rounds and I told you where those came from and his dad his Grandpa's firefighter helmet because uh that's just the only three things he [ __ ] cared about and uh he passed away several years ago but I've had a lot of encounters with him and uh I'll tell you the last one that I had was you know I've never told anybody

this or I have not said this on the show But those rounds are from the Red Wings birds that went down and um well I'm honored for you to tell me a ranger that was on the recovery op at the crash site gave those rounds to him and said that uh those were the only things that didn't burn up in the crash site so he snapped off around for every guy that died on that op and um brought him home and he just had him in a little [ __ ] shave kit and um and

he would Give to me if he thought he was going to check out I I'll probably give him to a uh Museum or something when I feel the time's right but before he died he would come over to my house all the time and tell me that that uh he was going to start a Wounded Warriors Hockey team sponsored by the NHL completely junked out and you've seen what that looks like and a lot of people listening have seen what That looks like it's not a [ __ ] pretty sight and uh you know I

I I dedicated a several years of my life to to getting trying to make him better and uh had some successes But ultimately um it didn't work out obviously but but he would tell me I'm going to yeah the the Florida p Panthers NHL team they're going to sponsor me and I'd be like okay Gabe I hope you're right man and um and when they found him when he Died the Florida Panthers NHL team decided they were going to sponsor him and so they went to his house to tell him that they were going to

fund his team and be the sponsor and uh he was uh he had overdosed and was on the floor fast forward they still stood the team up they still funded the team his names on all the jerseys and uh I got one of the first jerseys ever made and they won the [ __ ] national championships the very first year and then I told you I went to Vienna and I did that massud interview yeah and um we were the first ones to report that and I got super [ __ ] paranoid um for protection

and and I and I uh got a little too far in front of my skis and and uh started hiring personal protection for my family and [ __ ] talibans called me out on X several times because of because we're we're [ __ ] with our funding and um we came home from that Vienna trip and I had that Jersey framed it's the first thing you see when you walk in the door right next to the American flag huge probably weighs 30 lbs it's been hanging there ever since I got this studio which has been

about 3 years now and we got back and that that frame was uh it had Fallen off the wall and it was on the ground it should have broke because of how heavy it is not a crack in the glass not a not the frame still nothing perfect condition and we walk in this is the day after we got back from Vienna and um I'm like nobody here could have taken it cuz the whole team went to Vienna with me except except my Assistant and she wouldn't have done it but I asked her I said

they did you what's this and um she like like that when I came in nobody else was here like I said and so like all day that was in my mind as I'm here working and then the team left and then everybody in the buildings left and I was the last car in the parking lot and I'm pacing around and I just I just thought cuz like I said Gabe had made contact several times before and I'm like pacing around and I'm like [ __ ] man like what what are you trying to tell me

man and um do I need to like [ __ ] move do I need what do I need to hire more protection like what do I need to do what are you telling me and um I go home and I tell my wife Katie I'm like man the weirdest [ __ ] thing like that that frame's been up There it's been on the wall for 3 years never taken it off like and then I come home from Vienna I'm super paranoid and the frame's down and I feel like Gabe's trying to tell me something and

Katie goes the hockey jersey and I'm like yeah and she goes Sean the Florida Panthers just won the [ __ ] Stanley Cup and I was like what she's like the Florida Panthers just won the Stanley Cup and I was like holy [ __ ] and then I looked at my watch and the date was June 28th yeah the DAT June 28th is the anniversary of the Red Wings which was a massive part of gab's life cuz those were his guys that was his platoon that is and I just [ __ ] lost it but

that's too many coincidences to to be anything else and then and I thought that [ __ ] isn't trying to warn Me anything he's just going he's celebrating no you [ __ ] idiot I'm not trying to warn you of anything you're not that damn important the [ __ ] Panthers won the Stanley compan is June 28th and I'm just want your attention and uh but there's signs man there's always signs there's some coinci but there's also a lot of not coincidences you've had enough experts on here that that do things you know that Um

dude I me might I to believe there's there's not something dude over time it's it's just it's in every text every Bible we're more than this what's in front of us and signals and messages you know can get through from here to there to wherever we exist you know out outside of or inside of what what we what this is you know so really My opinion is that um it's it's it's it's like a low it's it's I don't want to offend anybody but it's a low intelligence it's of low intelligence for me for for

somebody I think like an atheist or something or somebody that just doesn't believe there's anything else but this um because there's just too much evidence like the evidence is are is is you It's got to be harder to it's got to be harder to not believe than it is to believe I think so like but the only reason I'm kind of bringing this up right now man is for me I think life is all about love and forgiveness and those kids souls are somewhere and I can see it all over you that that you want

to know that you've been forgiven and you love those Kids and I mean you can see there that you're so genuine about it I maybe they will make contact maybe they're trying to and maybe think they are me you know I think maybe that's the we're all connected the sign that you need to know but they're good with it but thanks for sharing that thank you for That you want to take a break yeah be good let's take a break I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it

comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us and I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source it's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world and so one thing we've done Here at Shan Ryan Show is we are developing our newsletter and the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman former CIA targeter some of you may know her as Sarah Adams call sign

super bad she made two different appearances here on the Shawn Ryan Show and some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mindblowing and so I've asked her if she Would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief so it's going to be all things terrorists how terrorists are coming up through the southern border how they're entering the country how they're traveling what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to and here's the best part the newsletter is actually free we're not going to

spam you it's about one newsletter a week maybe two if we release two shows the Only other thing that's going to be in there besides the Intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that but like I said it's a free CIA intelligence brief sign up links in the description or in the comments we'll see you in the newsletter all right Chris we're back from the break we're going to lighten it up a little bit but um I do man thank you for for toughing it out with that And um and

uh just from our discussion downstairs I'm um I'm glad that was therapeutic for you yeah I appreciate it I'm grateful for for for the moment but um let's move into we covered a little bit of kind of what it was like getting out I think at the very beginning actually but but uh I did want to you know ask about I mean how when did you tell your wife about that Stuff I don't you know it's kind of a blur I don't think I really talked still haven't talked much you know she knows that that

was one of the things really you know affecting me um but we never really got into the deep details of it um but I think it might have been a couple of years after it took years I think it was a couple of years um yeah I think it was a couple of years can I ask how she received It I think she received it the best she could you know um she's really good about receiving those things but I know that you know people it's it's sometimes how you know they're thinking about how do

I react to it you know and you're like you don't have to to react to it you know but um I think that she took it and and and really deeply cares about me you know and I can feel that and I can also know she doesn't have to say anything you Know I can feel how much she cares when I tell her those things even in silence you know you can see it in her eyes so I think she just worried you know she wanted her goal and intention was she wanted me back you

know or she wanted all of me maybe even you know feeling like she hadn't ever had all of me you know a full presence of of me and who I am you know minus all that [ __ ] and so uh it was a really glorious moment to to finally Reach reach that that person that I wanted to become for her for myself you know for everything for the business you know that wasn't going to work until I became the person that I needed to become to to to deserve to walk through those doors do

you think your kids will watch this yeah I think they'll watch it and you know it's a one I'm I'm grateful for more than just you know you calling me up to come On the show I mean it's also to me it feels like this opportunity from God certain moments in your life that you get and for me it's like I I think into the future uh is I can imagine them when I'm older you know if I get there looking back to this and going man this is a marker for how I feel right

now you know while this stuff is all still fresh and I'm still you know a little young in there you know to to they're still young you know they're Still boys and so it's uh technology is cool in some ways like that yeah you know so now they they have it so I mean mean it's do you think you'll watch it with them yeah yeah have they ever heard any of this no what do you think they'll reaction what do you think their reaction will be I don't know I think that I'm clear enough and

honest with him enough about as much as I possibly can that I can go Hey you guys don't you don't have to react to this but you can tell me how you feel you know and and I know that that's going to evolve and change as they grow so now it'll be interesting for me to see how it how it evolves with them I love these man it's like a legacy piece you know family will watch this for generations and uh it's really it's really cool and uh it's I don't know it's just I think

for a lot of the guys that Come in here that do a life story like that and it's and they they get vulnerable and deep and open doors that don't rarely get opened I mean I just uh I'm thankful to be able to do it and and and uh I I just man it's just it's important man it's I always wonder what it's like you know to watch watch something like this as a family when it's about you and uh but but what are um you know what what was it like for You to get

home and cuz you you decided to leave cuz of your sons yeah and uh and your wife and so how did that reintegration go it was hard you know took me some time doing that job and trying to figure out why not only did I not feel better but increasingly worse over time um and so you know once I finally figured out that that is correlated to understanding your purpose you know and Sometimes when I say finding your purpose a lot of people I think they don't know like what does that mean your purpose you

know and you might not figure it out until you just start doing [ __ ] you know until you start being like dude I don't like what I'm doing right now so how do I get out of this how do I start making moves towards something that I know that I like and then the more you do it you know it starts to build and grow and then you can kind of Start figuring out like well my purpose isn't to make ice cream you know it's not your job or where you live because guys will

get out I'm just going to move to some beautiful Ranch in Montana and everything's going to be fine and like no you know unless you have something you're going to you know it's not just what you're going to do it's if I make ice cream that's just my medium it's I part of my purpose is to serve to serve others once I figured out How to serve myself so that I can be more available to serve others it's not a narcissistic or selfish thing it's a it's a generous thing in that in that way to

serve others you know I did it something inclined me to go do that in the military and I didn't even know why you know um so it wasn't just for validation it because part of my purpose is to serve right so now I just I just get to feed people ice cream and watch them Smile and it's [ __ ] there's no toxicity there's no ulterior motives No Agenda or anything behind it it's just [ __ ] ice cream want to make you feel good you know for a short amount of time you know or

it your purpose might be to create dude the paintings the you know I've got a creative mind too so part of my purpose is to create you know a mother's purpose is to create you and just those kinds of words so hard with words CU so much behind everything we Try to just I try to find the best combination of words to describe to you know what I'm what you feel which is everything if what we are and what we feel is is every grain of sand on earth right even under the ocean then words

is like a Sprinkle of sand in your hand and you're trying to use those to tell everybody about all of the sand you know so it's hard um some people are really good at it with their vocabul you know the vocabulary is better you know Than others and so you just try your best but that's what I'm saying with purpose it's like it's more aligned with not your [ __ ] title your your you know I am a mother with ADHD that you know is a teacher and does and all this stack of and my

sexuality is this this this I'm not saying anything about sexuality they're fine I'm saying that that's not what you are yeah know that's Just one tiny little aspect of part of what you are you know so the purpose thing is it's a it's a more literal thing like what do you do and why you know what do you want to do I want to paint well maybe your purpose is to create go do something and see if you love it you know and and make some move towards that or you know maybe it's to teach

and you're if you're a teacher and you love you have you ever seen a teacher that loves being a teacher no Matter how stressful it is MHM you ever had one of those teachers and like that was a good one I remember she cared I could feel that she cared about us all and that shit's stressful because there's other teachers that hate it and they might be convincing themselves that that's their purpose my purpose is to te and they force it force it force it but why are you so miserable doing it it might not

be you know and then you're afraid to let that Go you know and move into something else that might be more aligned with your purpose so it's that I think a big hurdle for a lot of people too not just guys getting out his limitations and uh you know I don't believe there are limitations anymore no I used to think there were limitations and then and then I realized when you do find your passion there's literally no [ __ ] limitations the only limitations There are are the limitations that you that you put on yourself

and what I notice is that most people look for the limitations as an excuse to not Excel and succeed not even realizing that they're [ __ ] doing it yeah and you might have to do some [ __ ] in the meantime that's not a limitation that's just what you got to do you got to have some money got to put food on the table you do those things and you Just [ __ ] get through it but if you can commit couple years you know it's worth it yeah yeah you know in usually we

go pretty in depth on the transition but uh it got so heavy there I think we need to we need to pull out of uh pull out of the darkness but I do want to ask you another thing and uh I know you already said it and I feel the same way but you know with everything that you've been through and everything You've experienced and and everything that you thought the sealed teams was going to be you've been through the transition we've both lost I've lost more people than I can count to Suicide way more

to Suicide than I have in combat and um you know with everything that you know now and your sons are going to look in your career eventually if they haven't already and they're going to Probably want to do something like that to impress you what would you want your kids your sons in the SEAL Teams I don't want them and I've I've told them this and my wife um because there's just there were so many close calls and it's just now I'm a father now I know there's danger I'm okay with danger this brings me

back too to so many every time somebody was lost it's Like I go back now to those memories where I wasn't really paying close enough attention to the fathers now that I'm a father or even in the mothers too of how overwhelming that feels when that happens to them it's like it's just it's like the toad it's like the toad but worse more overwhelming than the toad you know what if you've ever experienced 5mt I think that losing a child as a as a parent might be more overwhelming than that or Equally um [ __

] now I think about their faces and I missed some of that you know in those moments but now I think back and go [ __ ] I was it's no small thing and so I I don't want to feel that but but if they are going to go I got to support them so that now the support is at least they're going to be as saf as possible because they have that validation have that support you know where I'm not I don't want them Thinking about you know tension with with Dad or or their

validation for anything if they're going to do that you know I want them to optimize and and and just make the smartest decisions possible and and hopefully a little luck in there with from God too you got into some uh sounds like you got into some interesting contract work yeah I did it was it was interesting I didn't enjoy it much but it was Interesting what's the Extraterrestrial stuff I'm dying here I didn't work on anything with extraterrestrials but you know you've got access to lots of programs and different email systems and different things and

for sure there was a a Time where some traffic went around um with regarding you know uh you they've talked about this plenty too and and it's out there you can look this right Up that there's a task force you know um there's a there's a a task force responsible for collecting the data around all the UFOs that Pilots are seeing right you can you have pilot buddies I got a lot of them there's a there's an air base there oceanana lots of F18 friends they see the [ __ ] all the time do they

really yeah what are they seeing anything in particular yeah the same little the Tic Tac thing shiny shape That zips around in these different you know experiences with their with their pods or just with their eyes and it all you know it seems to be that same shape you know over and over again as people have seen it off of ships off of naval ships um in their pods and out of their windows and it's not you don't it's now it's at the point where there no it's no longer like hey you know don't speak

up about anything Because you're going feeling you know we're going to embarrass you like H you saw something you know like no now it's been enough that they're like yeah I saw a couple today oh [ __ ] yeah saw one last week you know damn and just trying to keep you know you know record them snapshots or whatever and and entered into this you know into the database of of uh evidence of of uh uaps so you know they're having hearings about it Congressional hearings and different Talks about it and like it's it's it's

just true at this point there's no conspiracy theory around it there's there's things going on including and that's that's just one of them what do you think it is you think about this stuff I do and it's tough to talk about because um when I say I think into the future I also go into the far future and the far past and and and go all the way into you know physics and I've read a couple of um Stephen Hawkings books and Things and um you different folks like that and astrophysicists I just like love

watching that stuff and I love like all of the you know Ancient Aliens and everything on on the stuff I watch if I do watch something and it's just too apparent that one physics and all of these researchers and scientists are telling us that time is not linear out there it's based on gravity so if time's not linear then in different places the past present and future could all be Existing at the same time or you know and in spirituality I think that a lot of monks a lot of people that that that practice meditation

spirituality believe that too which means your childhood and and being an old man is happening already right now you're just only can experience this moment in this in this time right but 5 seconds from now if I move this bottle that's the future and if I make that decision right now then I can see the Future it's going to move right nothing's going to change that maybe some you know boom that moment exists at the same time as I was just saying that in 5 Second that's going to move so I do think about it

and if that's the case you know I also think about technology and AI I just we're battling about how to use it what to use it and I think that it's inevitable that We're going to we're already starting to integrate AI Consciousness into our Consciousness in different ways whether it's a chip or whe like if it's going to start with your iPhone is just now implanted you don't have to do anything you just go you know and do [ __ ] and it it'll it'll evolve from there and into the point where now we can

access artificial intelligence in combination with our own intelligence and maybe that becomes the next species of humans cuz It's going to evolve we've already had several species of humans it just makes sense based off of the evidence that already exists that we're going to evolve into another type of human we're going to unless we destroy ourselves you know but so just just like if you ask me if I believe in aliens or extraterrestrials or any wording or language around that to me it's a it's it's unintelligent to to think otherwise Because I can only base

it off of my own experience so far which is being alive so there's no there's no belief that I can have there's no evidence to prove otherwise that there is life cuz I'm alive I've never experienced nothing you know so when Stephen Hawkings is like a you know he's a genius with with what he was doing with with physics and the theories um but he's not an idiot but sometimes like He's also kind of an idiot because he was an atheist so how do you do all that and then believe once we die here there's

just nothing a lot of a lot of those guys believe that yeah it doesn't make sense based off of the evidence I don't think so either with the AI thing I just interviewed uh do you know who Andrew hubman is Yeah by chance I just interviewed him uh two days ago oh that's awesome and I asked him if he knew anything super cool guy and uh Like way cool and um no I was asking him about neuralink I was like do you know cuz he's a neuroscientist I was like do you know anything about neurolink

and so do you know that this do you know that's going to help blind people see that's incredible so here's how there's I'm going to totally [ __ ] this up and I apologize but we're Layman's trying to exp basically yeah here's how I describe it but uh so basically whatever they implant Something to your eye and it goes to a chip and then the chip goes to your brain or something and so basically it's a it's a what did he call it he said it's um oh it's a digital it gives a a digital

signal to the chip and then the chip turns it into an electrical signal that goes to the brain and and just people are starting to be able to see like shapes and different shades of of gray and that it will eventually Be just like what me and you are sitting here looking at yeah know and um and he got into this discussion and he I was like I said so he started going on and that it would be it will soon be possible that you can you can kind of uh like stimulate different sections of

the brain when it comes to touch and all these all the senses and so I asked him I said so are you telling me that it's possible to Project 100% false reality into somebody's brain and them not even realizing if we can if we can experience touch Vision taste everything emotion you know through these [ __ ] chips I mean there's like layers of matrixes you that could be that could mean that we're in a simulation right now right now now and that simulation is a Sim it's it's never ending and um but to not

be able to speculate about it because of people Want to be ignorant about it and shut it down with conspiracy the whatever is like that now we don't even get a chance to have fun and even talk about it how to not believe in it to be honest with you is boring yeah like how [ __ ] boring so but you know people ask you think there's aliens you know and stigma attached to that word too because of Hollywood has [ __ ] it up you know yeah but everything we've created in Hollywood is based

off of something we saw here a dragon is a lizard and a bird you know and you just I go into it and think dude we're just accustomed to everything you become accustomed to everything so an octopus looks like crazy but we're just accustomed to it it's been here ever since I was born and I learned what it is you know or giraffe has this [ __ ] if I saw that if we didn't know what that was and we weren't accustomed to it And we saw it on Saturn we'd be like [ __ ]

there's these creatures with these necks that reach up so they can eat [ __ ] that's high up you know and they have spots like [ __ ] alien and why is it so Out Of Reach like we're so fixated on what it might look like and like just like humans once you realize in yourself that it doesn't [ __ ] matter what I look like you're have like so much more freedom in your life and and you now you can be done With all the costume [ __ ] all the time you know and

yeah have a little personal style or whatever but it's like same thing with aliens is I I don't give a [ __ ] what they look like I just want to know if it's what it feels and you know how it communicates and it's and it's like it's its level of awareness and Consciousness you know it's more interesting to me than just shutting it down or arguing about what it would look like what do you think it is How how how deep do you think into this stuff pretty deep you know and I actually you

know I enjoy my my my medicine ceremonies too when I I might now I'm at the point now where they're just fun beautiful I I have some intentions for it the trauma dark [ __ ] is I've gone through all that it's it's usually not that you know anymore I've gone through so many repetitions of that now it's like hey my intention now is just just feel gratitude you know and You know have a have a good experience and and and it always is that and then at the same time then I go hey I

want to receive some signals to help me understand what what Consciousness might be like you know elsewhere because the the what I always get in those is that we're all connected in Consciousness and then we might all be from the same source of Consciousness whatever that is if it's God to me if God then and not even in a religious way it's just you Know there is something more than what's in front of us and whatever it is including vacuums of nothingness you know or whatever we were before the Big Bang Theory is also part

of it you know any of those periods of nothingness or voids is also part of God so it's it it's everything God is everything right so God love right different words for that you know Joy pure joy are are are here are up here in this in the spectrum of consciousness and suffering Evil dark You know [ __ ] Satan is down here in the bottom part of the spectrum and that's infinite and everything in between is where we all EX choose to exist and it's just an infinite Circle Of Consciousness with with those things

being on on on the outer spectrum of it do you think we have a collective Consciousness yeah or is it specific to the individual Collective and we and we're all just little branches of the same consciousness of God in my in my opinion Um and that evolves over time my understanding of it so hard to explain with words I really want to improve my vocabulary do you think that do you think UFOs extraterrestrials could be some kind of a projection of a collective Consciousness yeah I mean maybe maybe a spiritual entity I spiritual entities that's

that's hard to explain because just the different variations of Spirituality Vice science that people want to separate right but in a lot of ways it's it's very similar language around the same Concepts right and if it's inevitable that I believe that we're going to integrate and become another species of humans right um then inevitably we're going to figure out how to harness gravity and maybe we've already done that because out there where we where You can heartness gravity and we learn that time's not linear now we can sort of bounce around and probe ourselves so

maybe we're probing ourselves with these little things um that's an interesting perspective I've not thought of yeah and maybe we found now we can expand that's what Elon Musk is doing he's he's he's an Explorer his purpose is to explore So in the meantime he's down here being Batman thank God we got a guy like that you know that's not [ __ ] an evil billionaire you know like Soros he's like the arch enemy of Batman you know musk yeah and God I I I want I hope we get more of them you know um

but his purpose I think is to explore is doing it saw the [ __ ] thing Landing the Chopsticks the other day [ __ ] amazing and as we Evolve um we're going to reach places outside our solar system eventually and we're going to find something and then we're going to meet them and find out that their Consciousness is from the same source as our Consciousness and but we just look different and then we're going to become accustomed to each other and then the next thing you know it's going to be [ __ ] Star

Wars bar why isn't everybody freaking out about each other cuz they are accustomed to each Other yeah you know I don't know I love thinking about this [ __ ] it's you know I mean we could go on all day about this and it'll turn into a whole another episode but let's get to um let's get to ice cream where did the passion for ice cream come from that came from childhood so we went through all that but you know from the point that my stepfather came about I had a great childhood still you know

I still perceive that I had a wonderful Childhood my mom you know she's she's Heaven of a mom you know and um you know she did everything they did everything they could you provided everything they could and one year I got a um you know I was I was always in the kitchen with my grandmother and my mom so I cook a lot you know I have the creative mind and I you know I love to like make wons and different stuff when friends come over and it's been great For the cafe so now the

the ice cream cafe is more than that now now it's a legitimate Bakery I've Got Two Chefs they're wonderful they're just they're my heroes with this and we're going to go so far with this and they're going to reach all their dreams too you know pastry chef and Chef couple and they they're awesome it's a couple yeah they're a couple no kid yeah they met in culinary school and damn that's cool when I was selling ice cream out of My garage struggling to make brownies and [ __ ] cuz I didn't I'm not good at

baking they had just moved here recently from up north to get out of the kind of hustle and bustle of that stuff started working down here at some restaurants and they hit me up they saw my earlier Instagram said hey are you looking you need some help with baked goods I was like absolutely and once I started sourcing it from them I started realizing oh holy [ __ ] she can do Anything and she can she can it's so so it's just it's it's amazing so now fast forward everything that goes in the ice cream

plus now we've got the bakery part of it with all the pastries we got a it's a bakery uh Creamery where we I do all the formulas he does all the the spinning and flavoring and coffee shop coffee house with some really good Baristas and it's been working out really well nice um but it all started back in childhood when I was just Cooking you know playing around and ice cream was just my favorite my favorite thing so fascinated with ice cream became fascinated with How It's Made um you know fast forward on only one

or two of my deployments I took a machine and messed around with making ice cream out there but I didn't know how to formulate or anything so it was kind of a mess but it was fun um I honestly my creative Outlet I sort of suppressed a little bit out of you know That need for validation going this isn't cool man this is going to be you know they're going to perceive this as you know weird or strange so I kind of like just wasn't creative for all those years you know I just kind of

like hid it away you know so once I got out I had that job but a year not a year but as soon as I decided to get out I started looking into how do I learn how to make formulas for ice cream CU I know there's something with that that I want To do um so I started making moves before I was even ever out right when I was at that out station making that decision you know um there's this 150 year old ice cream school at Penn State that's been there that's pretty renowned

for like Ben and Jerry's I think went there a couple other big big company Founders to learn how to make ice cream and uh so I went there I signed up for it my wife's like you're going to spend this much money on what and I'm like I'm Going go to college so it's a short course it's a food Sciences course there you get full semester of credits for this this thing you go around the dairies you you you formulate ice cream you do tests you got to do it on paper just like sniper school

and pass the test you got to pass you know you don't just get through and uh and also learning the business side of things they've got all kinds of cool keynote speakers and people coming in From big companies and small shops and it's for everybody from the beginner to somebody that's building a [ __ ] ice cream factory so great experience um and then I went right into my job and kind of forgot about it for a while so as I evolved through that that transition and sort of self transformation I started to feel good

enough to go man I can visualize myself doing something with ice cream so and then Co happened that's where I really started making ice cream In the kitchen I kind of converted our kids baby playroom into a night little ice cream lab started testing out samples um created my chocolate FL flavor that my wife loves and it's still that formula and eventually Co cleared up I had time then to get on YouTube start learning how to make a business plan and it's it was a joke at first you know but you'd laugh at it if

I showed you my hey Chris's idea and and all the things I went through you know with the whole branding of it and the naming and everything you still have it yeah still have it nice Definitely I I I've shown it to a couple people and you know I'm like see you I told you you laugh you know and can we put it up on screen yeah you could let's do it send us a picture we'll put it up yeah I'll send you I I'll pull it up um it's funny it just looks like a

little cheesy power power point and you Know now it's a thing I can pitch to to any bank to anywhere you know and it's it's nice um it's a full model for the next three five 10 years that that you know is modular we can pull things out of it and go hey what's the next shop look like what's the warehouse for pints to go in a store look like when it's time for that you know you know I'm going to need some logistics for when it's time to start getting a ice cream you know

into a store and stuff like That um so right now we're just focused on the headquarters and getting everything we can possibly do out of there and then you know sometime after next summer probably start looking at the next location nice and you brought some yeah I brought some I'm always ready for ice cream man see hopefully they're softened up a little bit we'll see if not we all right dark matter it's my wife's favorite chocolate of all time might Need to wait a little bit it's pretty pretty right all right oh sorry let's switch

this one I want you to try see all the salt that I'll do that one all right then I got a little fun flavor my chef came up with everything everything bagel cream cheese with crunchy croissant pieces that was yours is pretty hard holy [ __ ] that one's probably the best seller one of the best sellers dude Tim you got to try this [ __ ] this is amazing you want some yeah all right then Tim you got to tell me what you think about this everything bagel flavor I mean it's really weird but

it's really good Tim you can't block the Cameras this is going on this is going on what is that everything bagel yeah it's like we were messing around with it one day and we're like hey let's do a let's try some Savory things and you know dude I did a a hot riye steak with this and I've been put a scoop right on the hot ribon it just like melted into it like a butter and it was delicious but it's also just good to it's kind of like a I don't know how to explain you

won't Crush this you know for movie time on the couch but you can eat a scoop of it after dinner and it's delicious let me try try this one let me try that you put this on a steak Yeah I mean it's kind of like it's kind of like butter it's Dairy but just now that you have everything bagel C cant with cream cheese flavor with scallion cream cheese flavor in your mind now try this dang that is right on the Money oh my gosh whoa yeah dude it tastes just like it like identical it's

interesting right I love it what else you got Dark Matter here this is my wife's crack when I'll be at the shop working she'll always you know she'll always make me bring her home a scoop of this it's a Dutch Cocoa a Dutch processed dark chocolate ice cream with with dark chocolate chips that we we grind up how many flavors do you guys have I think that doing the drops that we were doing before we had the cafe we probably got a couple hundred and uh but it's gotten now to a point where dude when

I first started making I was like man what flavors I'm going to do I don't know it was strawberry season so I got some strawberries from the Farms right down The road and that was my first ice cream drop just hey I announced it on Instagram I hype it up I make it you know however many I thought I could sell like 50 pints and schedule pickups through DMs and that's how I was doing it for like a year or so and people were coming to my house to pick it up and it got pretty

popular um I figured out I was pretty good with the social media part of it which is fun for me And that's kind of how the story develops fast forward to the chefs coming on board they I started Outsourcing it so it got easier and I would go pick up the baked goods from her chop it up throw it in the flavors come up with flavors just based off of how I felt and moods and it started to flow and then fast forward a year and a half for so I said hey guys I want

to get this more serious let's move this Into um you know a commercial kitchen so we did and we we struggled through finding the right one we had to move in and out of one um that was hard and then we found one that worked really well for another year or so and then I intended on us we we'd meet up a couple times a week make up to 150 200 pints of Ice Cream Drop it sometimes they'd sell out sometimes they wouldn't so we then we' put the some of Them in in freezers in

different locations and we had multiple pickup locations to cover different towns and so it kind of grew and started having a business and um I I found a better Software System for um organizing those I didn't have to use a spreadsheet for pickups all the time it just kind of um uh did it for me and people were picking up ice cream I love these stories man so you literally started this out of your garage and now yeah seen pictures of Your place it looks beautiful thank you it looks like the nicest ice cream store

I've ever seen in my entire life but uh it it's not even a joke I'm being serious we'll put uh overlay photos up right now while we're talking but yeah but I love these stories man I just love organically grown business it's just pure entrepreneurship creativity and you develop something out of thin air it's amazing yeah but um what do you think what do you think your Hang-Ups Are going to be um you know cost right now you start doing business so you know I found you know I thought we were going to be doing

this for a couple more years and then an opportunity for this the space popped up and I just knew it was the right spot everything about it was right I could afford it and and the area that it's in is not typical there and this landlord he gave me a Chance um so he gave me chance my my best friend in Chicago helped me he's a business guy that's huge um because he's in logistics business so nice knowing the long-term goal he he was like you know hey he committed to jumping in and that's not

easy to do you know he's already busy as [ __ ] so our families are friends we're tight he's my best friend we um built this thing last year and it was hard um a lot of things a lot of delays happened a lot of struggles got Through it open the doors and it was like before I open the doors it was just nightmares of like total failure and everything I've committed up to that all of our money our home equity you know to make this beautiful shop that I had in my mind for years

D everything into it yeah that's awesome yeah and so uh then we open the doors and it just it hit right from day one and I was on my knees at home just just thanking God you know hey it's working and then it kept Working you know and the cold months slow down you know certain days Monday Wednesday that's typical for everybody but now we're we're going to start having some lunch menu items my Che the chef is just a genius back there he just I don't even he we don't have to meet about things

to make they just and it that was the the beauty of working with with them too for two whole years is like the trust and everything was already there For that that part of it you know but they came along they had to trust me to get this thing open I had to trust them that they were G to you know be committed to the dream which is going to lead to more dreams for them you know and you know them knowing my full intentions is to is to help them to that through me and

it's just it's it's working out there's hard things you know going on um the hardest struggle is probably the culture of it all you know Assuring that the customer experience when I'm not there is similar to when I'm there M and you know you can't get anybody to care about as much as you but for sure they do you know but now it's everybody else my manager you know does and now it's the the teenagers and they're awesome they're all kicking ass nice and it's just keeping all of us aligned into that culture and brand

of like of what you know what it needs to feel like for us and for the customers And so that's the that's the challenge I learned immediately and then of course like costs are expensive when you get going and you got to find ways really quickly to to to bring those down yeah so that's what we're doing um but I think we'll you know get those things fixed pretty quickly and we still got more things to add I still got to get Merch online I got a lot of cool ideas for that coming t-shirts hats

all kinds of cool [ __ ] nice shipping the ice cream You know so we'll get back into these drops where we go hype up special flavor you know like once a month um limited supplies you know sells out sells out we're not making that flavor again you know and uh start shipping it at least regionally you know probably East Coast at first um this was a good test to get to get this year don't forget to put Tennessee on that list yeah where are you guys going to be in I mean what do You

what do you see this developing into do you you think you'll franchise or you going to keep it I don't know about franchising but for sure I'm already looking at I'm already looking at the next location for I want to we know we need to get the data for a full spring and summer that's the best months for ice cream stuff but you know the stuff the chefs are doing for the cold months with pastries and our coffee is great too you know so we didn't just add those Things to make more money like you

know I really got the right people and and we're we're we're doing our best at all of those things at the same time and it seems to be working I think customer especially locally dud we have such a good local following of people that have been buying it since day one you know and also now regulars and people just coming in and um our community and and that so Virginia Beach area is like it's just been God it's like the best that's Awesome so I think within 5 years we'll have multiple stores is my plan

and we'll be ready to start looking at um you know building a warehouse in a continuous freezer system or something to start getting uh some pints and a couple other ideas I have into a store like a local distribution yeah like a public start locally you know pitch it in my my partner will probably activate for that cuz he's a logistics guy and then we'll start figuring out how to get Ice cream in in stores that's the goal and that's the the longer 10e sort of goal well there's going to be potentially millions of people

listening to this or watching is there anything you want to throw out into the world that you might need to help accelerate your business or anything at all just curious you never know who's listening man yeah you never know you know I've Met some cool people but I'm I'm I'm just the thing about ice cream too people always say is like hey there's so much ice cream around how you going to there's so much doubt so much doubt you know how do you going to make money in ice cream there's so much there's so many

brand I'm like that's with anything that you do in a business you can't I had to not think about that and go no one can do it the way you're going to do it you know you got your style there's So many coffee shops they're all going to be a little different rations dude yeah I don't create limitations just try to break through those and so um you know I've met met some really cool people already but my opin like I respect everybody's ice cream so anybody that wants to give me any advice from any

of those companies or any of those you know CEOs and owners about stuff to based off of what I just said like hey here's something they learned or Something that would be super valuable but also you know like I said we're we are going to start we're going to become a brand of ice cream right so you know I'm going to need I'm going to need some distribution you know and and some logistics for that so um it' probably be good to start talking to some of those people soon right on man well I mean

I got a hand it to you dude uh you're you're creative your branding you're creative your page like it's just Everything your marketing adver it's all topnotch the ice cream is a level above all of that so least stuff that I've tasted so uh I mean I think you're going to be very success uccessful and and I I hope you are than you already [Laughter] are but Dam that's good now it's Sal well Chris winding up the show here but I know you had a a specific ending that You wanted to to end with Yeah

question a little gift a little gift of mine it's very simple there's so much [ __ ] going on and having to figure out each one of us how to how to how do you how do you do it like how do you dayto day there's so much you know so many boundaries being broken from you know you know from there it's the battle the never- ending ancient battle between good and evil going on right now you can feel it this election's coming up it's Like dude the information so in job there's a lot of

I didn't like it because it was all based on Military deception information operations I know how that [ __ ] works you know it's an operation and it's working against people so you know it's a machine you you you you hate this guy you hate Trump right can you really explain why can anyone really explain why they're going to say things that they've been getting fed for years and years and years and You say [ __ ] through the screens so often we know from research that people will start to believe that right and vice

versa same thing you know it's it's not an operation I think in defense of it but you start finding you know the good guys start doing the same kind of thing like hey here's some information about you know the Harris campaign or whatever it's like dude just outside of all the [ __ ] really it is the battle between good and evil so you know what's Good and you know it's evil and you might be sort of attached to like one little topic one thing you know abortion or the transgender issue or like the Border

like whatever it is but dude if you if we can just see past that stuff's all important but right now it's all underneath a grander importance of Good and Evil going on and it's happened over and over again over time right some of the same patterns um so my opinion is that understanding and misund like Misunderstanding is like at a Max right now and if people change their minds to to the good side the right thing to do is not go I told you so you know what I mean h [ __ ] all that

time in shame and guilt it's like just let that [ __ ] go and welcome welcome to the good side the side of good you know forgiven for the side of evil depending on what you did too you got to you know deal with the consequences of certain [ __ ] and certain actions but welcome to the the Good guy side it's okay that you change your mind you know yeah but the only way to change people's mind is not this [ __ ] constant just not going to work right so this is something I

learned in in meditation training it's called a tent exercise probably take three minutes 3 four five minutes it's a meditation and it's my uh way of sort of proving what might work for for changing your changing your mind as a as a little gift Because I know you're you're into that a little bit little meditation stuff bringing the nervous system down um which is the goal of my shop part of the brand come inside don't care who you are don't care what you did right now [ __ ] bring your nervous system down get some

sweets get some ice cream get some good [ __ ] bring it down enjoy yourself chill right and then when you're ready go back out into the [ __ ] of the World like that's the brand of the cafe that's cool man um so I'm just going to talk you through it just close your eyes and breathe that's all you got to do just just focus on breathing breath in breath out as you're breathing just imagine the perfect Beach for yourself could be one that you've been to before maybe you Haven't whatever it is it's

a perfect day on this beach the temperature of the air is perfect you start walking down towards the water from my beach it's a dune I come down through The Cattails feeling those Cattails between my fingers walking down the sand feel the the grains of the sand between my toes start making my way into the Water the water is the perfect temperature as I continue down into the water I'm breathing I get waste deep and when I start to get stomach deep I stop there and breathe and as I feel the es and flow of

the Waves against my body and the ocean supporting my weight I look out into the distance it's a beautiful sky It's a beautiful Horizon I notice where the color of the water meets the color of the sky and I just breathe now I'm going to slowly turn towards the O uh towards the beach and I'm looking at a beach and there's somebody there this is somebody that you love somebody that you really love could be yourself could be your mother your son just somebody you really love Deeply for me it's myself my 7-year-old self and

I'm just there playing just watching myself play now as I take the next few breaths when I inhale I'm going to inhale all of the stuff all of the suffering all of the bad experiences any trauma any ignorance and I'm just going to breathe it in in the form of black smoke through the air into my Lungs going to sacrifice myself for just a moment to absorb all of this dark smoke and then as I exhale going to breathe it out through my fingertips out all of my pores and into the ocean Mother Earth is

just there to absorb all that [ __ ] from us I'm just going to do this for the next couple breaths now when I'm ready I'm going to turn Back towards the horizon I'm just going to breathe a couple of breaths look at the Horizon again and I'm going to turn back to the beach again this time there's somebody there that you spies you might even hate them maybe they hate you somebody right now on your life that you despise and that despises You same thing every breath in you're going to breathe in in the

form of black smoke all of the ignorance out of them all all of the what you know has caused all of that ignorance all of the trauma back to their own childhood all the things all the [ __ ] that they just can't understand how to cut through right now right and they're taking it out on everybody else around them and themselves you're just going to breathe All that [ __ ] in I'm just going to breathe it out into the ocean as you know this is the only way that you have any chance of

changing anybody's mind they feel some validation for why they ended up that way somehow whether it's your energy whenever you communicate this person or not it's a choice they have to make Then when you're ready turn back to the Horizon and you're going to look at the beautiful Horizon again now you slowly turn back to the beach now every person every person on the planet Every Creature every animal is there on the beach and you're going to do the same thing breathe all that black smoke out of everybody through yourself out into the Ocean now

when you're ready and start making your way back into the beach there's nobody there now it's just you and your perfect Beach you feel the water lower as you walk out you feel the warm sun hit you start to warm your body immediately make your way back up the sand back up the [Music] Dune now you're walking off into your life back into a normal day and when you're ready you can open your eyes and come out that's it so hard to do so hard to do when we're doing this every day all the time

but it's not to say that you can't have boundaries right but if the more that I think that the easier it is to deal with the [ __ ] people's [ __ ] and hope that more people can change their mind and not feel some kind of Shame and guilt about it and not change their mind just because they've been they've been doing it for so long like man I voted for them I did this I can't I'm going to look dumb you know it's okay just change your mind right so that was awesome thank

you and um damn Chris that was uh um I was a hell of an interview Man been through a lot and yeah had a good time man that's good and uh I I just got to like to see it pull through all that I mean that's that's Americal man and um I just want to say it was an honor to interview you and um keep an eye out for those signals yes sir yep I'm grateful thank you thank you for the moments to to be able to do that thank you brother I wish you the

best of luck thank you God bless God bless [Music] [Music] you no matter where you're watching Shan Ryan Show from if you get anything out of this please like comment subscribe and most importantly share this everywhere you possibly can and if you're feeling extra generous please leave us review on Apple and Spotify podcasts