Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 063: Seattle. Steven Rinella talks with the beautiful and deadly Rorke Denver, along with Ryan Callaghan of First Lite, and Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew.

Transcript

Ep. 063: Seattle. Steven Rinella talks with the beautiful and deadly Rorke Denver, along with Ryan Callaghan of First Lite, and Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew. · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: severely bug bitten in my case underwear listening to Hunt
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Don't Meet e podcast. You can't predict that anything. All right,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We're here with Ryan Callan and Janie Poodles, otherwise known
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: as the honest who tell us and the beautiful and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: deadly Rourke Denver who uh whose lips have never been
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: graced by the taste of alcohol. Correct. I wouldn't mind
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: getting into that for a minute now, Rourke, I'm just
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: gonna give you a brief intro that we're gonna do
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a better intro in a minute. Officer in the Navy
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: transitioned into uh, author writer of books in public speaking,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and Rourke is gonna explain. I'm gonna ask Work a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: lot of questions about why why most people are total pansies,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and Work will explain the psychology. He's gonna explain, among
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: other things, the psychology of panziness. Uh. First, I want
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: there's two things I want to deal with real quick. One. UM,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: we get tons of emails in all time from people
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: who are like are like, man, you guys are talking
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: about eating all this wild game and wild meat. Um,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I don't hunt I'd like to check it out, and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: they're always kind of asking about buying, you know, buying
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: wild game from stores now real quick, when you buy
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: a wild game in stores, not wild game. What it
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: is is when you you can't like buy law you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: can't sell American wild game in stores. And this was
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: like a landmark. You know, the series of laws and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: decisions that led to that are largely um what was
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: responsible for the fact that we pulled out of our
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: our nose dive into the decimation of American wildlife. So
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: we made it that you can't market wild game. Um
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: because market hunters, guys who are shooting game to sell
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to restaurants and into stores in the late eighteen hundreds
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds pretty much wiped game animals off the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: face of the country. And we spent the last a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: hundred plus years digging ourselves out of that hole very successfully.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: But to hold over from that time is a is
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a ban on the sale of game meat. When you
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: buy game meat, you're buying like a wild animal. Okay,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you're buying like deer, elk, whatever, but it's just raised
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: like livestock. You take it elk put in defense, raise
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: it like livestock, and then you know, it's like a
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: privately owned farm animal, UM brought up and sold his meat.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: It's just not even like it's not even the same thing, man,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's like it's like elk that you buying a store, Dear,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: you buying a store has the relationship would be like
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: stealing a car and play a grand theft auto, right
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: like store bought wild game is is just an approximation.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So I never recommend it because the problem is raising
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: wild animals in a livestock situation has caused a lot
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of problems for real wild animals through disease transmission and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: some other issues. And so when people do come, I've
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: often in the past just said to him, man, just
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: like you know, there's a lot of ways to get
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: good meat. I wouldn't suggesting it that way, um. And
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: recently we had started some relationships with a company that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that I would recommend to people who want to go out,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Like if you're going to go buy meat, okay, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you don't have the you don't have that sort of
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: savage spirit to go out and hunt itself, I would
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: like highly recommend the boys that butcher box. We've been
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: talking to Lady they sent me some product to check out.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: It's a very good company where you go in and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you're buying from butcher Box, who delivers to your home
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: hunter percent grass fed beef, organic chicken, pork, you name it,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and they ship out these boxes that come to you,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: all right, and it comes in a whole You can
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: get like a whole assortment of high grade meat delivered
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to you frozen rock solid in a beautifully packaged box,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and you put that in your freezer and you can
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: have that wonderful sense of elation previously known only the hunters,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of a freezer full of super good meat. I was
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: wondering about that. So it came completely from rock Rock
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: in dry ice rocks out. So like each it's a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: subscription thing. Okay, each box comes with seven point five
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to eleven pounds of meat, so it's enough for like
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: twenty individual sized meals in the Ronella household. When we're
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: in our home, we need a pretty uh strict wild
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: game diet. But we did some experiment with our box,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: high grade very good stuff bacon. They got rib E's,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you can you can get like beef bones. Calans over
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: here trying to think if they'll send him a box
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: beef tongues. I don't know, you have to check with
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: them about that. But so when you subscribe, it's a
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: hundred twenty nine dollars a month, all right, and it
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: works out like six dollars and fifty cents a meal.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And like I said, every box comes with enough meat
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: for like twenty individual sized meals. So if you're a
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: dude who lives by yourselfs I have a family of five, right,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: so you figure out and do the math um. Shipping
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is free nationwide. Now they don't ship up to Alaska
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: in Hawaii, but you can get anywhere in the in
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the in the lower forty eight. You always hear people
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: say the continental the US, which gets confusing because we're
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: on the same continent with Alaska, but we're talking about
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the Lower fort And this is free range, grass fed,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: grass finished, no feed lot right, antibiotic free meat. Good
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: ship now, order today and you get a bunch of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: free rib bis in your first box, and you also
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: get ten bucks off. But here's the deal. You gotta
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: do it the way that helps us out because you
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: freeloaders who've been listening to this podcast now that hasn't
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: had an add on it for like eighteen months. You people,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: listen butcher box dot com, butcher box dot com, And
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: here's the catch. You gotta go slash meat Eater and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: it actually if you do that, it helps us out
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and keeping this show coming to you. Butcher box dot com.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Slash meat Eater. Like I said, you get ten bucks
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: off free rib eyes in your first box. Now you
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: guys already got a freezer from the helped me. Just
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: ignore this. But everyone else out there who's trying to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: find a good way to get high quality, healthy meat
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: for you and your family. Butcher box dot com backslash
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: meat Eater, go on there and subscribe. I'm telling you
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it's good, good stuff. Ya. He doesn't know how good
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: it is yet. No, he's gonna find out when he
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: gets his special box. You make so far, dude, I
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: made everything. I just grilled it all. No, there's some
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: pork chops there, and I did the samething I do
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: with like wild pork chops. I brinded them. But everything
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: else that has put on my grill when I'm cooking,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: like if I cook for my kids, Well, you guys
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: just had some of my leftovers, which is gonna like
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: which is gonna contradict what I'm gonna tell you right now.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: We generally eat a lot of like meat is cooked
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: on a grill and then vegetables, salad, vegetables, so like
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I grill a lot. But yeah, yeah, I just gave
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you guys some of my leftovers, which was which is
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: not that you had American google ish, which is made
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: with buck meat, and then uh veal Parmegan made a
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: moose meat. Um. But yeah, that's what I did with
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. It was good. It was good. My wife,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: who like just eats, she doesn't really asked what we're eating,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: she kind of perked up because it was fatty, a
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: little bit of fat on there, which is not something
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you gently run into on mule deer meat. Um. I
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: used the grain finished beef first as grass fed beef
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: as a as a good like example of how why
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the game can be different. If you know how a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: grass grassould beef tastes distinctly different than you know a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: grain finished beef, Like that's kind of the difference for
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a wild game. How I try to explain it. That's good,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: it's good, avenue into it. I remember before you started
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: hearing about grass fed meat, in the U s I'm
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: tiking like ten years ago. I mean, I'm sure it
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: was around. I'm sure as people liked it, but traveling
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: down to Argentina, who would at the time would export
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of beef and it was like this stuff.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: The fact that they didn't finish on feed lots made
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it very popular in certain European markets where they were
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: sending a lot of beef to France and stuff, and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: they kept talking about, oh, yeah, because it's grass finished,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: grass finished, you guys in the US grain finished, And
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I was like, what the hell's the difference, And now
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: it's all you hear about man grass fed. I think
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: one of the things about it, like when people talk
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: about grass fed, why it's sort of the main benefit
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of grass fed is it's when cattle are in the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: feed lots that they're susceptible to a lot of different infections,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and so that's when you're pumping the extra all the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: extra antibiotic in them to keep them healthy in a confined,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: close proximity space. So by finishing things on grass, they're
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: spread out more and that and that's one of the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: aspects besides flavor that people like more. And there's other thing.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot more. You should just check
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: it out and read up on it. I said, I
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: never have paid that much attention to it because the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: fact that I don't eat a whole bunch of it.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: But if I was, I would go on to grass
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: fed side of things, kind of like something that's a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: little more flavorful, a little more chewy. Um, I just
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: like ship that eats grass now never so so yeah,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: every time you tell me it's I kind of forget that.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I re remember. So like you're seventeen, right, Let's say
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you're seventeen eighteen, seeing year year of high school, big
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: party out in the woods, and you just knew then
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: at that impressionable, um hell bent stage in life, the discipline, Yes,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: is it discipline? I think so? I mean it started
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: before seventeen. I mean, I uh, not to air laundry.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: But you know, I come from there's some big lads
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: in my family bloodline that come from Irish descent and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: have more or less grenaded their lives going down that path.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: So I saw that a bunch of as a young man,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I mean very very very very lucky and blessed. Not
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: my dad, not not people in my immediate family. I
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: didn't grow up rough because of that, but some uncles
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and some other family members that I mean truly destroyed themselves.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And then my my parents went up when I was eight. Uh.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: My mom then went on to date, you know a
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: mix of folks that I learned some tremendou this lessons
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: from both good and bad and and and actually the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: one I like the most basically drank himself to death
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: after you know, he and my mom moved on. But
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I mean something that I you know, I cared about was,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you know, on some level father figure at a point
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: when right actually about that point when people start deciding
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: if they're gonna drink or out of those offers come up. Um.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I always loved playing sports, always loved competing. And uh,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean I I should have I guess,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: uh maybe a more potent story than that, but that
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that really is it. My brother did the same thing,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: my younger brothers hat to drop uh, and I think
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: it's been a huge gift. I mean, I look back
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: on it now. I listen, I know, you know, I'm
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: not about to challenge the logic of I and nor
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: am I nor am I saying you are. It's just
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think I realized how it's been an interesting
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: experience and it's actually weird. It's head within the last week,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: which I think is kind of interesting that uh a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: teammate of mine, a fellow seal teammate of mine. It's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: one of my you know, one of my best friends,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: one of my longest uh you know, running friends. He
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: he drinks, but very very little. I mean, I've never
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: seen him out of control of alcohol. You'll see plenty
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of seals out of control with alcohol or just going
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: hard and and and doing that. And I think in particular,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: he's not he's an officer as well. I think the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: fact that we haven't played so hugely on my ability
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to lead. And I'm not talking about not you know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: not being capable behind the wheel. I just never compromise
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: myself in front of the boys in such a way
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that they would have currency over me to where they're
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: be like, well, I we carried you out of the bar,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: sir yesterday. So the fact that you're making us get
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: up at four am like we're gonna skip never had
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that option with me because I didn't do that. I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: didn't compromise that stuff. And I don't think I recognized
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: at the time that the kind of potency of that, uh,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and so that was hugely powerful. And we also have
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: some good good buddies also and enlisted that, UM, I
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: thought to be as emotionally and mentally strong as you
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: can be. And and and they're they're falling apart. I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: mean PTSD and some of the combat trauma that's come
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: out of our experiences, which you know, I try and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: keep halls checks on. I just haven't experience. And I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: sleep well at night. I don't feel bad about anything
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I did, and I'm good. Um. Some of those guys
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that that that are more kind of consistent drinkers, and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I think you've started medicating a little bit with it.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: It's been a bad path for them, for sure. So
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: it's been a gift, man, it's been it's been a
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: good call on top of saving you know, saving some
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: coin and probably staying out of jail. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And tell some of the places you already alluded to
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: your military career and and I don't and you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I know that that's like a part of your life.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: But let's just talk about that for a minute, um.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And then we're gonna get out of some other stuff,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: but walk me through kind of how you went, like
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: what you did in college, what you do with sports,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and then what your military career looked like. Yeah, I mean,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, a lifelong athlete and a lifelong reader. Horrible student, So,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, just no desire to excel in a classroom
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: or or put discipline towards academic rigor. That being my said,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: my dad's probably one of the most well read human
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: beings you've ever been around. And consequently, my brother and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I started reading at a very young age. So I
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: always always tout reading as as as one of the
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: best things you can do for yourself, just as uh uh,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you know, both the enjoyment of it and what it
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: kind of brings to your mind and opens in your mind.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: So so books have been a tremendous path to a
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: lot of the things I've experience. When you say bad student,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: what do you mean like you didn't feel a need
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to impress your teachers? No? No, no, I just did.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I mean I if I look at my report cards
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: like through Actually, when I got to college, I started
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: excelling in the classroom because I started taking it seriously.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would not have gotten into Syracuse University
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: hands down on academic merit. I sent my application to
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Syracuse to the athletic office because I was getting recruited
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: to play lacrosse there. I literally sent my application to
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Syracuse University to the head coach of the lacrosse office,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and I think he basically walked it through, which is
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: not uncommon with athletes. And I think there's some academics
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: that that probably, uh, that irritates them. You know, there's
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: so many athletes that become end up becoming high end leaders,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: performers and get past that because that their team experienced,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: their life experience playing sports has been I think it's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: translated better to life and accomplishment than than knocking out
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: straight a's um. So I what I'm saying is I
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: would not have gotten into college if it were not
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: for sports. And so that's what brought me to Syracuse.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I got recruited to play lacrosse. Why lacrosse? Did you?
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Did you surf as a kid? I surfed a little
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: bit as a kid. I mostly learned to serve post
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: college and a lot of fishing, steelhead fishing, trout fishing,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: fly fishing. Since before I can remember cold rivers, you know,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: northern California and Oregon, and um, like how did you
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: hit on lacrosse? Did anybody play the cross back? No? No,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: California was an unknown at that point. I mean, I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: don't think there's a day I went to practice where
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: somebody didn't yell out of car driving by what is that,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you know, holding the lacrosse stick. I mean just not
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: knowing you know what what you had in your hand
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: kind of things. But that, but lacrosse. It originated with
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: like the Native Americans on the St. Lawrence on a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: dog and tribes all around the St. Lawrence River and
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the Northeastern seaboard. Exactly who's the artists us do those
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: amazing illustrations you know and Tom Lout of like like
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: outside the the old military forts. Yes, no, I know
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: who you're talking about. And they do these illustrations of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: like uh the not the Iroquoire, right, Iroquois and very
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: very special game, very very special game. It's it's not
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: a game to them, it's a um it's a religion really,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean a younger Iroquois is born with
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: a little mini lacrosse deck to given to him, and
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: then they'll take that into the grave. It was bad
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of game. They played it compatively, but it also was
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: what was called a medicine game. So if somebody was
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: dealing with something family wise, they almost the tribal shaman
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and stuff would would actually organize a game almost as
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a healing process to kind of um. I think they
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: thought you'd be a gift to the from the creator
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: seeing them play and kind of revel in the sport
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that that was given to them. It's a very very
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: neat tradition. And playing at Syracuse was neat because you're
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: right in the we went, We went played pregames on
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the on a dog in nation and I mean you
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: you cross over onto the nation and you guys know
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: you're not on us territory now you're on their sovereign land,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: which is cool, and uh so it's a it's it's
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: a neat connection there and usually every few years a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: couple of folks from the reservation play for play for Syracuse.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Some of our greatest players have come from there. You know.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a story. Maybe you know it.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: If not, you should go find out and learn it
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: better than I know it. Because it combined, it will
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: combine your love of uh military operations and kind of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: like dirty pool type military and lacrosse. There's a there's
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a situation that I can't remember whose fort it was.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: It was in the Upper Great Lakes area where the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: European colonizers would like to as spectator. They would like
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to have the Indians come play lacrosse, and it was
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a way for them outside the borders of the fort
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to get a like a ton of young men. They're
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: under a situation it would seem normal. So they had
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a lacrosse game and they got hundreds of young men
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: out in front of the doors playing the cross. But
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: not because the minute that door cracked open, they slaughtered.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Were able to rush through the gates and slaughter everyone
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: in the fort ye like a trojan horse. Yeah, I
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: was thinking it was gonna go the other way. Yeah,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: They're like, I got an idea. Let's act like we're
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: playing the cross that way. There could be like three
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of a standing out front, but not Yeah, where they
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: running and clothe their heads open. I can't remember any
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: of the details. Yeah, I'll look it up. I'll look
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: it up. So that so that brought me there in
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the spring of my senior and it was great. I mean,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: we we were a national powerhouse the whole time I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was there. We won two national championships. Um, I got
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: to captain that team my senior year and then my
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: senior year. My dad had sent me a copy of
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Winston Churchill's My Early Life and autobiography. He wrote, uh
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: kind of in the twilight of his life, but kind
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of cat uh catalog his first thirty years. You know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: being a war correspondent, being in the Boer wars in
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Africa is nor war escape from war, uh, frontier wars
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: on you know what's now in and around Pakistan, Afghanistan.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Just these unbelievable adventures on top of you know, if
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you're a reader, you'll you'll you'll happen upon those few
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: writers where it just feels like they're talking to you, right,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: like every every line is gold. And Churchill is one
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of those guys, which is not a small statement. Most
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: what happened to those kind of politicians, man, I mean
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: that the saddest thing about that is he he wouldn't
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: survive in today's climate, right, twenty four hour reporting cycle
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and and Facebook and and somebody using their cell phone.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: You know, he'd make some off color comment or be
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: seen smoking a scar drinking whiskey and never get the job.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It's a shame. We're gonna kill ourselves with that anyway
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I read that's like but like just that kind of
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: sort of pedigree man, nothing like it. There's no yeah,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: there's definitely like no flies at McCain, you know, but
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: there's a lot like Yeah, it's just like he used
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to hear about that with him, I mean he's like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: exemplary even outside of that, like no one has his background.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: It's pretty phenomenal. Nor his vision. I mean he he
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: predicted so many things. I mean he predicted, he could
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: see the things taking place and in Europe that led
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: to World War Two. He he you know, the iron
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: curtain is his phrase. He saw that the Soviets, the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Soviets would you know, draw that curtain and even though
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: that their allies and that fight, that they were gonna
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: be the next big power. He was a piece of work.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: But go back to your earlier thoughts, like how far
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: down that road would you have even gotten? Because he
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: had like terrible money management. Loved he like he like
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to pull a court, pull a court, probably stepping out
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: on the old Mrs quite off. It's precisely what I mean.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I feel like in today's climate, person like that will
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: not get to the front office or get any close
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to it because they'll get nuke before that. But he
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: was the man for the time. Yeah, we'd be we'd
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: be in a very different world if it wasn't. It
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't for him, So no doubt about it. So there
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you are. You're in college. Ye read it all right?
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: You told me this, I'm gonna I don't want to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: mess you story. I want you to continue telling, of course,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: But let me back up. I know where this is going.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: What was your plan before this book fell into your lap?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: No plan? Okay. I mean most most of the guys
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: that graduate, you're going to play professional l across as well.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: There is professional across. It's not something that people make
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a lip, you know. I mean there's a couple of
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: guys that that make a living off at now because
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it's grown and they have you know, they have gear
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: doors and endorsements things like that. But no, most of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the guys that play even currently, they've got a real
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: job and they and they played pro ball because that's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the level they play at UM. But no, I did
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: not have a plan. I was a fine Arts major.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, yeah, what was that all about.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I just enjoyed art and literature much more than math
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and science. And it was a place I found a
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: footing visual art, yeah yeah, and and architecture and history
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and and you you could fold kind of anything in
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the fine arts, which was nice. Uh. And I took
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: my cursory, you know, freshman class of biology and and
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the things I need to take. And then from that
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: point on I got to pick and choose, which is
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: why I think I actually end up getting good grades.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: And you know, I was on the Dean list because
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: something I wanted to study and enjoyed. Yeah yeah, yeah.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And then I I mean I I put that book
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: down an absolutely new military service is the right place
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: to kind of cut my teeth and keep playing rough.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, lacrosse has a combative sport. I like playing
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: rob mount drink, but I like like scrapping, so uh,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: you know, for me, it just was, you know, I
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: thought I thought being in the military would be a
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: great place, being an officer, because I like, I like
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: being in charge. I mean, I don't think there's ever
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a team. I didn't end up being the captain of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and I think people gravitate towards leader leadership positions. So
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: um I walked into a Navy recruiting office in Syracuse,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: New York, and said, well, I knew I wanted to
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: be an officer in the military. I read a bunch
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of things on special Forces and Marines and all these different,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of elite teams because I felt like
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that's where I wanted to be. And I found something
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: that I just probably the same thing on sports. You know,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I could have gone and played at a different school
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: of Syracuse and probably been a starter as a freshman
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and played all four years and been a high impact
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: player right from the get go. Going to Syracuse from California,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't gonna cracked the starting lineup for
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: a while. But I like being in that end of
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the pool. It just doesn't appeal to me. Yeah. So
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I remember, I wish I knew the name of the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: book that I was reading, But I found a book
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: that was like a compilation of short stories of all
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Special Forces, Green Berets, Air Force, so guys in Vietnam.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And there's one chapter. I need to try and find
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: this book because I'd love to read it now because
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: it was one of those things that became, you know,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the fuel or the spark that kind of got me
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: going on seals. But I had seen all right, I
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: read in this book, how you know of the guys
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that show up seal training don't make it, and you
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: know you're this commando that came from the water and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you could sneak up on people, attack ships and land time.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: It was just like, come on, this is exactly where
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I need to be. So that that that's what so
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I knew I want to be an officer. That's what
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: led towards seal teams. And then I I walked into
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: recruiter's office in Syracuse, New York, so I want to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: be an officer and I want to be a I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: want to be a seal. And after the laughter died
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: down simply because they've never had anyone recruited out of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: there and actually make it or go, we drew up
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the paperwork and and um, they weren't wrong. It took
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: me to two years and two applications to get accepted
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: because it's just so competitive as an officer to get
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a spot. Like when you say that, I went in
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and I said I want to be an officer. Like
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: you know, there's two tracks in the military. You're you're
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: either gonna enlist, you know, in the Navy or the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Marines or that the Army um which are you know,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the bulk of the military are enlisted folks that do
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the you know, the kind of day to day job
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: of of a grunt or an aviation technician or hell
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: technician whatever that might be. All the different jobs you
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: can find the military. And then the officers come from
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: three tracks. Basically, you have the academies. You know, you
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: went to West Point or Annapolis, and therefore you're an
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: officer when you when you graduate r OTC Reserve Officer
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Training Corps, which is through a regular college but doing
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: some military service to build towards a commission, being commissioned
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: as an officer or my pool was what's called o
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: CS or officer can at school, so four year degree
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: which you have to have UM and then once you
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: finish your bachelor's degree, you can apply direct. It was
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: perfect for me because I got a normal college life,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I got to be with my buddies,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: play sports. There's no military connection to my time. Um,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you know, in college and then you applied OCS. If
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you get accepted, you go to When I went through
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: was in Pensacola, it's now in in Newport, Rhode Island.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Thirteen weeks of you know how to stand tall, polish
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: your shoes, and learned naval history and leadership, and then
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: you're an officer just as much as the person that
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: you know grounded out in four years the academy just
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: as much. There's no penalty, no difference, no difference. But
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: then he still had to go and do all the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: elimination ship for for yeah, yeah, no, that's just again
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that's the beginning to answer you honest questions. Not like
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a boot camp. Part boot camp for officers is either
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: the academy. And you know the thing that was fun
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: about o CS is you've got the kind of if
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: you ever saw that movie an officer and a gentleman
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: with you know, those Marine Corps Drinal instructors with the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: you know, the smokey bear helmet, you know, screaming at
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: you and lighten you up. That's there. That's fun. I mean,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. You know, there's some I don't want
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be his auditions to say there's
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: some parallels in our story because like the inspiration, like
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the book that provided the inspiration, Like I didn't have
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: any of that ship. But when I was in high school,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: when I was a junior in high school, I started
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I had in my head that I wanted to go
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: into the Green Bray's Okay, So I started meeting with
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: an army recruiter and they started calling the home and
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I went and took the test. So I took the test,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and they started recruiting very aggressively, where they would even
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: come to my home. Okay. Um. And my old man
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: who served, okay, he was in the army, fought in
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: World War Two. He kind of like caught wind of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: this a little bit and he was like, why in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the world would join you don't join the militator's no war?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? Because he signed up like
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: you know, Japs bound Pearl Harbor as he tells it,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and you go down. Everyone joins the army, and then
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you fight the war, and the war ends and everyone
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: quits the army. And that's like that's sort of his
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: view of military service. And he told these guys, He's like,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: don't call, don't come over. You know, and that was
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: this thing like he'd be wasting your time, there's no
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: one to fight. Yeah, now that was kind of your
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: situation though, but it wi not becoming very different. It
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: became very different. Yeah, So we walked in during peacetime service.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I did, and I would recommend it to anybody. Well,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know when we're gonna see that again. Um,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I think we may be a country semi permanently at
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: war like the Romans. Yeah, we might. We might be
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: like that until long after year and my kids grow
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: grow old. I think that's very very reasonable to think
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that could be the case. So I feel blessed that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I was actually in pre nine eleven military, no no
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: real combat engagement in that atmosphere. I did. I did,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: which is fascinating because I finished my active duty career
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: running the training for Seals, both basic and advanced out
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: in California. And it was interesting because when I went
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: through training, the Vietnam era guys that were long in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the tooth and kind of leaving. Couple of guys left
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: usually at the teams, but all the lessons had come
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: out of the Vietnam guys. That's where that's where the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Seals kind of made their name in the Mekon Delta
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and coming out of those riverine areas of Vietnam and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: scaring the hell out of the Vietcong. And and really
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: it was it was there coming out party, are coming
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: out party for how lethal and capable and creative those
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: operators could be. But by the time I went through training,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: you know, not none of the guys that were running
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the day day training, like you know, kicking your ascid
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: seal training were combat vets. There just wasn't a bad
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: guy to go fight. But they'd give the speech, you know,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like don't screw this up, or you're gonna get your
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: whole platoon killed, or you're gonna you're gonna die, and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you just but it wasn't it wasn't coming from so
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: you're taking at face value and you sort weren't gonna
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: give m a hard time and call their call their
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: card on it. But then when I ran training, you know,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: when one of my instructors told a young lion, hey,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: don't do that, because and they could see that guy
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: had like a silver star and like two purple hearts
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and knew what the hell he was talking about. It
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: was pretty potent as very very cool. So but that's
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I want to get to that because I want to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: get to your experiences as a trainer and in focus
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: on that, because that's that's the thing that I and
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you do the not very huge leap
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: of talking about that and how it kind of applies
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: to what a lot of people that that that listen
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to this do recreationally as like hunters and fishermen and
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: things about perseverance and focus and um being real tough.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: But I want to build more groundwork here before before
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: we get to that. Uh So, we got you up.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: You go through your officer part ye, but there's still
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a big hurdle left. There is the hurdle. The hurdle
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: like breakdown the hurdle. So the hurdle is called Bud's
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Basic Underwater Demolition Seal Training and that's the you know,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: mythic course course of instruction that takes place on Coronado Island,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: San Diego. You know, you if you visit San Diego,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you're gonna walk onto that island and be like, what
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: do you mean they're training like hardcore commandos here. I
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: mean it's just beautiful weather and and and you know
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: this idealic southern California town, which you don't realize unless
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you hop in the water, is that the Pacific Current
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: runs through there, and so it's about fifty degree water
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: most mostly year in Sandy Ago, which is what I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: always tell people when it comes at eight percent of
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the people that quit training about those do so because
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of the cold water. I mean, if they move seal
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: training to Hawaii or Florida, you get a lot more graduates,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: for sure. But we put these young lions and I
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: was put into that water. Um. I mean, I just
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: don't remember not being wet for six months. You're just
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: wet and miserable and sandy all the time. And cold,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and I mean cold to the point. I mean people
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: listen to this show are gonna know cold because they
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: sit in cold places and rugged climates. But I think
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: short of hunters and you know, outdoorsman, I think very
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: few people would appreciate the type of cold we experience,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and hunters and fishermen will also know. There is a
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: tectonic difference between dry cold and wet cold, and wet
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: cold falls into the worst category, no doubt about it. Right, Like,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: when you're wet and cold, you're going to find out
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: how tough you are. You said any wants, Um, it's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: probably annoying to keep to have someone keep reminding the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: things you told them. But you said to me once
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: about the cold You're like, like, we used the cold
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: water to achieve your kind of paraphrase. And you're like,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: we used cold water to get to something. There's other
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: ways to get there, and you're like, the Rangers use starvation. Okay,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: let's talk about that, Like what what you're you know,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: what they're getting at and the tools that you use
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to get there. Yeah. I mean, I think military organizations
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: have figured out this real elemental building block, the first
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: of which is we get rid of the individual. So
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: everybody has their head shaved. You put on the same
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: T shirt, pants and boots, so we all look the same.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, all four of us look different sitting at
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: this table, but start shaving everybody's head, put a T
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: shirt and boots and pants on. We kind of look
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the same at a distance. But it's it's like a
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: socio economic leveler. Yeah, and that's thehing. Oh, I'll say
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: right now, whenever I talk to somebody about the military,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the gift of the military that I think our country
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: benefit from, which is why in my you know, my
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: most recent book, I talk about the idea of universal
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: service in the country. And I don't just mean military.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I think that'd be a great way, but some type
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: of required mandatory service for young people would be a
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: gift to this country because I don't think people leave
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: their silos. Right. You grow up in this part of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the world, and and a lot of our country is
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: real homogeneous in the different spots you come from. But
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: in the military, you show up day one of training.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: You got a kid from the South side of Chicago,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and you got a kid that went to private school
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: in Connecticut, and then a kid that was breaking you know,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: horses in Texas. And then you're all together working it
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: out and figuring out how to how to perform and
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: achieve and and really in the end take care of
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: one another on the battlefield. But um, but all the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: all the services figured that out. So you break people
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: down to kind of the most you know, basic building
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: block you can you know, you don't have this personal
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: identity or they sure don't. We don't care about it
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: when you show up. We don't care about any gift
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: you're bringing to the seal teams as a new person.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: We'll get that out of you eventually. But that's not
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: what we're looking for, and that's not what any military
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: un it's looking forward's looking for subjugation. And I don't
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: say that as a negative. I say that as a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: positive of getting rid of that individual desire and what
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: you need to be happy and good and be thinking
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: about the team and the collective and the greater good.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And so all the units use a different system to
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: figure out how to break somebody down to kind of
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the bone marrow. And you know, I went to I
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: went to seal training. I was sent to Army Ranger
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: School when I showed up my first seal team. So
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I'm already at a seal team. I made it through
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: seal training and that whole crucible. My commanding officer was
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: was a member what's called Jaysack Joint Special Operations, and
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: so he wanted all his junior officers to kind of
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: speak army. He's like, I want you to go get
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: a little Army indoctrination, because at that point in our history,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: the Army really ruled the roost. They ran all the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: all the you know, all of special operations. It was
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: all Army generals basically that ran special operations at that
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: point because the steals seals were still just very new
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: um to that organization. So UM would explained buds before
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: you talk about because that's the thing. I think it's
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: fasting and you had to go through all that buds bullshit. Yeah,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and then turn around and go through the arms version
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: of the same damn thing, almost as like a side trip.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: It was. It was I have a quick question about
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the buds. When you're breaking people down with the cold water, Um,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: can you fail because of your like, uh, physical limitations
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: or if you always let's just say, because obviously guys
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: must just pass out and their body just quits themselves
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: without them mentally quitting, right, They're just going, They're going going,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: and then they fall over. If you if you wake up,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: let me feel that in a way that it's gonna
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: prompt you to say. Another thing is you spoke to
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: me about that too, as you said, we lost good
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: guys that would have been great. Accidentally, Yeah, it's it's
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: it's it's rare. But the biggest fear of somebody that
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: would otherwise make it is getting injured or having their
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: body kind of betray them, So guys got stress fractures
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: or some over use injury, or they couldn't kind of thermoregulate.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Like there's like we'd have elite level swimmers. That's a
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: good example. So we'd have elite level swimmers that you
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: would think obviously would make good seals right where aquatic
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: maritime operators. If you're a you know, sub Olympic swimmer,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you're the perfect guy. The problem is, I think a
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: lot of those guys athletically have been training in like
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: an ambient aquatic temperature of whatever pool is sixty sixty
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: degrees right, And so we get them on land, they'd
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: start running. Their body just didn't know how to regulate
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: itself when it started getting hot. So we'd have actually
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: more this This is I want to make sure I'm
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: not statistically wrong, but I think we have as many,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: if not more heat related injuries at seal training as
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: we do hypothermic related injuries at seal training. So every
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: once while, somebody's body would betray them and they couldn't
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: get through. And the worst thing was you would see
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: this is a story I probably told you, is you'd
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: see some kid that look like Michelangelo, chiseled him out
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: of steel. He's got every attribute you could want to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: be a top performer, and he was just weak, just
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: a weak mental person. He'd hit that cold water and quit.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And you have this little kid that he has got
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: baby fat on him. Taught himself to swim two weeks
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: before came from like you know, the flyover States. You're like,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I wish I could rip the heart out of that
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: guy slamming into that guy and we'd have something, you know,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: because unfortunately that guy was just soft. Now there, I mean,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: there's no exceptions, right, It's like everybody crosses this line.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Everybody has to cross the same line, and if you don't,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: for any reason, you're out. That's accurate. What what I'll
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: say is we just don't drop that many people at
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: steal training. Very few guys go out because we say
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: you're not the right guy or you failed in performance
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: levels to to leave. I mean, we'll lose guys for that.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: There's guys that can't handle the stress of the underwater tests.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And if they make it all the way training where
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: they're shooting and we're working with demolition, and they're just
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: not They're just a rock. They're not bright enough to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: get it. We're like, I don't think you need to
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: be dealing with explosive ordinance or shooting next to the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: rest of us. You're out of here. Very few of
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: that happens. Almost everybody leaves that training program with their
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: own volition. They just got ring a bell. Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: So there's a l on the grinder, which is kind
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: of where we do our pt you know, push ups,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: calistenics and all that stuff, right in the middle of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the training compound. A bunch of famous signs around there.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's you know, it's kind of mecca for
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: for seal training. That's like the heartbeat right there. And
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: that bell. Bells in the Navy are a long standing
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: tradition from the Brits and and the British Royal Navy
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: where you'd be using bells to pass information on on
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: back to wooden ship days, where you know, three bells
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: means this, two bells means that, and so we adopted
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that as big Navy. I mean, if you go on
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: a Navy ship today, I mean a nuclear aircraft carrier launching,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: you know, the most state of the art equipment on
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the face of the Earth or submarine you're gonna hear
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: bells that that will pass information on time and what's
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: taking place. It's a long stand tradition. So at seal
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: training there's a bell sitting there that's omnipresent. Um. And
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: if you quit and you go up to instructor and
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: like I've had enough, I'm out of here, you gotta
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: go out and ring that bell three times. You take
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: your helmet off, which is kind of like your I
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: D Card to Seal train. You put it down. This
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: long graveyard of helmets, lines, lines, the grinder of people.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Bit of how many guys go in to the class.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's it's uh, if it's limited.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Right now, when I was running training, we actually limited
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: to a hundred fifties starting a class might start with
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: more of that. Around a hundred eight hundred ninety guys
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: started my comedy helmets laying there at the bell. We
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: graduated two out of Yeah. That bells ringing, nonstops. It's
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the soundtrack of seal training. That bell ringing. And before oh,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: let me tell you this, because I almost forgot this
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: right before Hell Week, which is our most you know,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: kind of famous week of training where you basically you
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: start training on a Sunday night. It ends on Friday afternoon,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: and you get about three hours sleep in that entire
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: period of time with a nap on I think your
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: first nap comes on Wednesday for like an hour and
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: a half. You get a nap on Thursday for an
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: hour and a half, and then you hopefully see the
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: finish line but leave the week before Hell Week, the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: senior classes that have made it through will be playing
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: a C. D C Hell's bells like on a loop.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: You'll just hear the bell you know, from that a
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: C d C saw like just cranking all the time.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's a twisted place. But you know the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: people that the people that are made to get through
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: that place, they really know they're in the rights. Are
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the instructors the same instructors the whole way through? Like
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, are they maintaining the same paste during that
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: hill week? Are they up the whole three it's three
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: shifts of instructors. So they take a you know a shift,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: uh from you know, day shift, half the night shift,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: half the night shift in the morning, and you split up. No,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: we keep our instructors. I mean, you're still smoked. As
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: an instructor doing one third of a day for the week.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: But those guys can be out with their wife eating
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: dinner at night. Yeah, and you're like, it's stuck in
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: this weird like hell that you don't even know what
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: is super strange. You mamagine clocking in for that saying
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: by the like the biggest like emotional psychological battle they'll
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: ever being. There's a good story. You're telling your first book.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Damn few what's the subtitle, making of them? Making Making
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the Modern Civil Warrior? Yeah, you have a lengthy like
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: anyone who's curious to hear about, just like what goes
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: on in the buds class? The is it fair to
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: say like the seal elimination class? Yeah? Yeah, how do
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you guys describe like if you had to do buds
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: in a second, Like, what is it? Like? What do
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: you mean? Like, how do you like if someone says,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: what's buds? Yeah, I mean it's it's it's basically three
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: phases of training. First phase. First phase is selection training,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: which includes hell week. By by the end of first phase,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: most of the people that have quit have quit, I
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: mean most of guys. That's seven weeks. Oh, so that
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty people that quit quit during a seven
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: week period, I would say they probably have the stat
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: but call it sixty quit right. And there then you
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: go on to second phase, which is dive phase, where
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: you learn to do all the underwater stuff dry, you know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: dive a rebreather, closed loop oxygen system, so we can
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: step up, sneak up on ships and blow them, blow
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: them up, or sneak ashore without somebody knowing it. Uh.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: We lose probably the rest of the guys in that
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: phase because we do tests underwater where you know, if
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: cal was the student, I was the instructor, he'd have
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: a two hose regulator, a twin set of eighty um
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you know, scuba tanks on his back and these these
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: hoses that come in our rubbery and I basically shove
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: him onto the bottom of the pool deck, pull that
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: out of his mouth and start tying knots in that
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: behind his back and then shove them. Then you got
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: to figure it out, and some people freak out and
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: can't can't handle the stress of the underwater stuff that
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: they would put you at night with no light underwater
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: to swim out in the ocean, but with shipping containers
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: laying on the bottom that are open on one end
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: that's in the that's the East coast. So that that's
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: kind of an insider story. And I don't want to
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: give it away because somebody's no, somebody's gonna run into it.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: But there there is a shipping container. I'm not gonna
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: say where, but in a in a harbor in in
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Virginia beach, Virginia. And one of my buddies on a
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: dive is just following a nav course and I'm sure
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the instructor is like intended hoping somebody would go in
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and basically gets inside the shipping container. Now is his
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: compass is like spinning around underwater? And you know he's
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: just swam into a box with one small opening the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: under water in the dark, and and it took quite
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: a while to figure out what he was doing to
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: get out of there. God, it's funny, good times. The
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: thing you tell I think you tell damn few that
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: I like, is is it? You guys are laying in
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the water right, everybody's freezing her half but you can
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: like And they incentivize ringing the bell with coffee and donuts. Yea.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: So the so the bell which sits on the grinder
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: every day of the year other than when Hell weeks
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: going on. They can detach the bell and we have
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: built this like welded a rig arm, a boom arm
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: on the back of the trucks. Of the bell travels
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: with the class because they don't want to be too
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: far away should you decide to leave, so you can
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: just kind of see it the whole time. And then yeah,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I've seen instructors with, you know, a twenty four pack
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: of crispy cream, doughnuts and pizzas and coffee and just
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: like all I gotta do is come on up, you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: and they get it too, like if you quit at
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that point, you're eating donuts and you're on you're on
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: your way. And when when a hell week always like
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: this is your book too, when hell weekends, right, so
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: you've lost all these you know, there's a horrible attrition.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: There's twenties and left and what they I think you're saying.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: You get a medium pepperoni pizza and the pot of
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: gatorade and then you slept for thirty six hours. The
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: class that's gonna go in next, they like prep. First
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: of all, you're in a white T shirt with your
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: name on it leading up to Hell Week, and if
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you finish Hell Week, you transition from a white T
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: shirt to a brown military T shirt. And you would
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: have thought somebody gave you like the Cup of Christ.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: When you get that brown T shirt, I mean, it
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: is like the best thing you've ever experienced. But yeah,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: they buy you a pizza, pizza in like a sixty
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: four ounce gatorade. I remember Wolf and that whole pizza
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: down during that gatorade. And then that you have your
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: your barracks is actually set up um for you to
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: go in there and go to sleep, and and you
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: have a twenty four hour medical watch. The doctors and
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: other students are walking around your Your body is so
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: toxic from me. I mean you think about when you sleep,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: that's your body's you know, system and time to kind
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: of redistribute everything and take a break, right, And you
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: don't do that for an entire week. So all this,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: you know, lactic acid and name the the alchemy of
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: of junk that's in your system from surviving being that
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: cold and miserable and wet and going that hard physically
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: when you lay down and if you're laying down your
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: bed and your arm fell off the bed. I mean
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: it could just go septic to the point where you'd
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: be in real danger of damaging that arm. So I
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: mean you're you're being observed the whole time, and they
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: give you some pointers on how to sleep. Yeah, they
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: you set up the beds so you know, your legs
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: are up high so you can kind of get that
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: stuff draining out of your legs. And hell, and I'm
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: telling you, when you wake up from that first block
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: of sleep, you think you're gonna feel good, and it's
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: it's almost worse. I mean, it's just like you've crushed
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: yourself so bad that you wake up and uh, you know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: you keep a gatorade bottle next to your bed so
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: you don't even have to walk to the bathroom should
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: you have to, should you have to pee, right, I mean,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: it's just it's misery. But but within days you're you're
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: back up and running. But it's it's eat to see
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the guys at the end of that walk and they
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: they look like they just finished the batamda march. I mean,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: it's it's something to see because all that chafe and
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you think of the sand and grit and all this
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: stuff that's getting in your pants and like the chafing
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: just on your belt line. I'm built like a linebacker,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: so my legs rubbed together. I mean it was like
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: put a put like a meat grinder in between your
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: legs and walk around with that. You should have material
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: about it, because we just got back from Mexico and
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: try running around for a week and a swim diaper
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of sand packed into exact same thing
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: dude was looking rough about. Really exact same thing that
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: happens at that training that should make people wear swim
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: diapers and see how they like that. I'm still blowing
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: with it, just I can't figure out how I would
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: handle like checking in and out of my job and
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: seeing all these kids like they have to look like
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: they're in a far away planet mentally, and how you
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: like you check out, you have dinner, like Steve was
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: saying with the fam and then being like, probably the
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: same way that you know a brain surgeon is doing
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: something that intense and doing that and then goes and
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: lead using gets a you know, gets a Starbucks. I mean,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I think all the guys that are instructors are seals.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: They all went through that training, then they went onto
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the combat assault teams then have come back to run
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the train. So everybody's hugely invested in the moment. So
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I I it's interesting. I've never really thought
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: about it. Mean, it wasn't like I had a hard
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: time separating from the two are coming back and and
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: during hell week, you just know the job is to
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: is to make it that rough. So the right guys
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: are at the finish line. Yeah, so walk through. There's
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: a couple of moments in your career. I want you
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: to touch on, uh, walk through real quick when you
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: get out, when you when you finish all your training,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: what your impression of life was going to be like? Yeah,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: like when you enter like the Special Operations world. Yeah.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: So I mean this is pre nine elevens. This is
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: like when I finished Seal training, I show up at
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Seal Team four on the East Coast. Um, you know,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: you're a brand new guy. Back then, you didn't have
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: your trident. The trident is that gold eagle that seals
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: wear on their uniform. Um, guys that go through training
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: now go all the way through for almost a year,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: they earn their tried and which means they're a seal,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: and then they go to their first Seal team when
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I showed up, you you finished buds and then you
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: went to your Seal team. You're on probation for six
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: eight months for them to kind of evaluate you, put
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you through a bunch of advanced training and tests to
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: find out if you're worthy of the tried. So I
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: mean you're you're let me talk about fraternity hazing. It's
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: like the worst thing ever showing up a Seal team.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: No tried, And so that that's the way I showed
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: up in my first team. Um, but I remember thinking
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: to myself, you know, I was gonna show up at
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Seal Team four. There'd be a laser retina scan, you know,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: the CEO would pull up or the match you pull
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: up in like a James Bond card, and then I'd
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: get inside and I'd see all the guns we didn't
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: know existed, and guys will be launched that night to
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: attack targets you know, uh, you know, domestic and abroad,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: and and it's, uh, it's it's much less sexy than
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: that when you first show up. You know, you show
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: up and it's it's actually kind of an old Navy
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: building with cool history and it Now I'd give anything
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: to go back to that team. But um, but it's
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: much more utilitarian and then kind of um, you know,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: learning to learn the skills of a warrior. I mean
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: you learn this kind of cursory cursory level of it
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: at at Seal Training. It's gotten much better now. The
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: guys that are leaving Seal Training they're they're they're kind
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: of ready to go. It's pretty unbelievable. But then you
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: still do a tremendous amount of advanced training that team
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to become a capable operator on the battlefield. It's just
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: less it's less high speed than you think. I think
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: it gets better all the time because you know, funding
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: has built new new new training grounds and new um,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: you know, new locations. But it's pretty spartan when I
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: when I showed up, and less less high speed than
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: I thought. That being said, the operators are just um
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: are just otherworldly. The guys you get through there, the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: guys you show up with at the team, UM, it's
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: just kind of that peer group that I feel like
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: I was meant to go be a part of and
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and and be connected to. It was the friendships are
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: just sublime that you make in that in that organization.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Then then you throw throw in you know, now approaching
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: twenty years of sustained combat, and it goes to a
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: pretty intense that's interesting thing I thought about, man is
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I got invited down to
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Fort Brant to give a talk in front of a
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: bunch of the guys with the third Special Forces Group.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: And so it's a class of Green Bray's generally a
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: little bit younger than me. Some of the officers are
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: about my age, and like, I actually kind of had
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: like a a when I left there. I fell into
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: kind of like a minor depression for a few days
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: because something kind of like struck me in a in
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: a really profound way that made me feel just like
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: like fortunate and selfish I am, or that we're allowed
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: to be because here I am like sort of my contemporaries, right.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: And I got out of high school, okay, and I
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: went and had like this very you know, self focused
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: college career and then went out to go to graduate
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: school and and like get an m f A. And
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I memori was in the middle of graduate school and
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: waking up one day and like hole ship eleven and
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: just being like catatonic about that. But it was sort
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: of you know, just this thing we all experienced collectively
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and then went on to have this like really selfish
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: life for you know, have like this beautiful wedding and
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: and have this kind of like romance with my wife.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: We get married, have children, I spend you know, I
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: travel for work, which my work is like kind of
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: a luxury and it's very nice, and spend all this
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: time with my kids. Right, and I go and meet
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: these guys who have during that whole when all of
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: that super good ship, all that super good selfish it
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: was happening to me. All they had done for the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: previous thirteen at the time, the previous thirteen or fourteen
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: years is all they had done is go back and
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: forth between Afghanistan and Iraq. That's all they had known.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: And these are guys that went in just prior to
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: mostly a lot of guys that went into just prior
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: to and just after, and that had been like all
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: they've done. I mean, they tried to squeeze in marriages
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: and ship. Right. And he one day, as an antegot,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: he says, he know what, let's he opens up the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Yellow Pages that shows me the divorceitory section in Fort Bright.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: All that fucking book is his divorce. It's otherworldly how
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: much stress it puts on families and and and the families,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: the ones that pay the price, you know, as as
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: a as a warrior. And I don't know if I've
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: talked about this with you or not, but I make
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: a distinction a little bit between a soldier and a warrior.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: And I don't I don't mean this disrespect. No, Please,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: we've talked about this, you should tell it. I think
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: there's people that that go into military, and I respect
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: every single person that serves in the military since sincerely. Um,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: But there's plenty of people, if not most of the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: people in military are not going to be in a
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: combat unit that's going through I mean, there's just a
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: lot of jobs in the military. You can be a cook,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: you can be an engineer, you can be there's all
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: these different jobs. There's only so many. It's not it's
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: not most won't be in combat. Most actually have been
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: into the combat theater. There's only so many units that
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: are gonna be The guys are like, we are going
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: to chase the worst dragons we can find, Like we
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: want to go slay the top of the top and
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: just go hunt bad guys. That's Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, Marine,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: aggressive combat units. I mean, it's it's the infantry units
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: that are going to do that. And there's there's folks
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: that fall into this category. In my mind, I know
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: for a fact, it's it's just what my spirit is
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: made up of, and that is a warrior, somebody that
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: wants to go turn those stones over on the battlefield
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: and see what it's like to um, you know, lay
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: it all out there and compete at the highest level,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: like the tradition of like Hector and Achilles, and so
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: those are the guys that gravitate towards our units. Like
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: our guys. None of our guys are like not wanting
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: to go fight. I see young guys going through Seals
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: training right now, and they'll come up to me like
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: my generation that they know have just been nothing but
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: banging heads with bad guys, are like, God, I hope
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: we didn't miss it. Do we miss it? I'm like,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: you didn't miss it. There's plenty of fighting left. But
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: they want it, you know, our guys want that, which
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: is a big distinction between those between those two talk
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: about the interesting mix of emotions you had eleven if if,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: if you, if you're comfortable talking about that, Yeah, it
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: was Uh No, I talked about a lot when I
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: talked to kind of corporate America. I talk a little
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: bit about it in the sense that, um, yeah, because
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: because just explain that one of the several things to
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: do besides working on your books, is you talk about leadership. Yes,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: you do lectures on leadership to a variety of audiences,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: including corporate audience. Yeah, a lot of a lot of
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of businesses, coaching executives and kind of working
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: with with both mid range to very very senior executive
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: level leaders on on leadership and and the principles of
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: that and how my my experience in in combat leadership
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: translates very much to leadership. In my mind, is leadership.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're in charge of a boy Scout
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: troop or a seal team, the basic elements of it
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: remain the same. The consequence can be very very different.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: But I think leadership in itself is very much, um
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: the same, if you're gonna do it well. But but
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: when nine eleven happened, my team was deployed, so we're
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: actually overseas. My team was in charge of central and
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: South America at the time, the Seals at that point
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: in their history had a regional responsibility, and my team
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: was a Central and South America team. So anything goes
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: wrong in Central and South America, a platoon or assault
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: team from Seal Team four is the one that's gonna
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: respond to that. And so I remember I was on
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: a run, uh, just getting my morning workout in. I
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: come walking into this location where all my guys were
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: hold up and and um, I arrived on that scene
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: right as that second plane was crashing into town. That's
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: when I showed up kind of in that moment. And
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: I love language, I love literature and the power of words.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: It was just strange. I can't come up with a
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: better word than that, because on one side of the coin,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: we were very, very aware of the horror that was
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: unfolding in front of our eyes. Right by the time
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: that second plane hit, you knew that wasn't an accident.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: People were making you know, people have just lost their
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: life instantly on the planes and where the plane struck,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: and now people are trying to get out of that building.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: People are making decisions of whether they're gonna burn to
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: death or jump to their death. I mean, you just
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: talk about the savagery of that moment, and then all
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: these first responders that were coming to the families that
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get the worst new as they were ever
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: going to hear in their lives, were very sensitive to that. Right,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: we're aware of that as we watch it and that
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: we've been attacked. The reason it was strange is on
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the other side of that coin, we're a little bit excited,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit excited and and and bear with me.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: So I don't sound like a sociopath when I say that.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think you should be. Yeah, I like, if
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: someone can't understand what you're you're getting at, they're just
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: not gonna understand. Yeah, they're not. And I'm gonna I'll
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: equate it to sports. You know, imagine you practice every
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: day of your life to perform at a high level
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of sport, but you never got to play a game.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: You'd be a crazy person, right. You know. You're not
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: in a position where you're gonna like profit. No, no, no,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: we're not. We didn't go to You're in a position
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: where like this could very well mean my life, This
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: could very well mean my death. Yeah, I think I
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: think you could talk about the mixed feelings. I asked
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: you if you were comfortable with because I can picture
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: in your mind how someone might take what you're saying
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the wrong way. Yeah, no, no, for sure, and so
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: and so we were excited because we knew our phone
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: was gonna be ringing, we were going to get to
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: go respond. And I think it's it's interesting to reflect
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: on that moment now, because that excitement was real and
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: we knew we were going to get to go do
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: to the job. It's amazing to think how little we
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: knew how long we're going to be in this fight.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, no way could anybody have predicted we'd be
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: approaching two decades of of of combat, you know now,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: that being said, just a tremendous gift for me. I mean,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: I I think if I had gone my entire like
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: the guys that were post Vietnam, pre nine eleven, that
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: had those full careers, thirty year careers, in their twenty
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: five year careers, that never got to fire a shot
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: at a bad guy, and mean, I feeling like you'd
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: be a lunatic if it. Yeah, grenadea Panama, a couple
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: little events, and they're short of that. There was no
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: bad guy, a little little little events. So I mean,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: for me, I feel like if I'd gotten through that
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: whole thing and N eleven nine eleven hadn't happened, I
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: would have had to sign up with, like, I don't know,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: somebody that was hunting rhino poachers in Zimbabwe or something
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: like that, and just like I gotta go get in
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: a gunfight with somebody. Man, this is this is what
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: I came to do. I would have had to seek
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: it out. Now. Now I've turned over every stone I
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: wanted to want to turn in my experience, so so
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: we got I think this maybe the surprise people. Maybe
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't we feel lucky? I mean seals in particular special
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: operators that wanted to go to the fight. You know,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: we we knew our number was gonna get called and
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and it has been ever since. But it had a
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: big toll, tremendous toll. But I mean, you know, I'm lucky.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: I'm on the lucky end of it, you know, I mean,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: I made out of there safe. I think, both physically
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: and spiritually and emotionally, I married the right gal who's
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: tough as nails and can run our family without me
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: um and we're crazy about each other, and we have
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: a I mean just an absolutely I think enviable marriage
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: compared to a lot of folks I know, but that
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: comes from a very tough gal that can do that
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: without me and her knowing full well she she signed
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: on to Mary. I mean, I was a seal when
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: she married me, so she knew she was signing onto
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: something where I might not come home from one of
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: those times I leave the Uh we no, no, we were.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah after Night eleven, we did yeah, uh not long
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: about a year after not she knew what she was
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: gonna be the she knew, she knew, she knew if
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: you ask her. Attrition for you, guys, as high as
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: it seems, it seems like helicopter crashes, helicopter crashes are
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: the are the bitch of the battlefield. You take three
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: or four helicopter Chris crashes that were connected to seals,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: the number even with those, the numbers we've lost based
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: on the mission sets and how far into bad guy
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: country we've pushed it and sustained combat. It does not
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: make sense how few people we've lost. If you take
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: those helicopter crashed out of it, two hundred years from now,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: they'll start talking about like this is otherworldly with the
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: that group accomplished in the damage they inflicted on the
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: enemy and how few casualties they took in the fight. Yeah,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: because some of them. I remember one of the helicopter
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: crash carried off eighteen. Oh yeah, we've had twenty plus guys,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: twenty three guys killed in a single helicopter crash twelve
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: and another four in a helicopter. You take those crashes away,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: our numbers would be I mean mythical. Just real quick,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: because I've never never really asked, you know, I always
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable like talking to guys that are in the
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: military because I feel like the time when they're talking
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: to me, they don't want to talk about that stuff, right,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: they want to talk about wool. But um, what would
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you mind, just real quick, like the numbers, Like what
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: does Seal Team four have a specialty as opposed to
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: and I know there's odd and even numbers. That's East coast,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: West coast. Yeah, just a super simple term. Seal Team
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: one and Seal Team two were the first commission seal
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: teams then Navy. This was then the sixties. Seal Team
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: one just happened beyond the west Coast. Seal Team two
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: was on the East coast. Every team that was born
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: after that Seal Team one, three, five, and seven are
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: all in the West UH two, four, eight, And now
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: we weren't supposed to even be able to talk about this,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: but now Team Sex has become, you know, normal conversation,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: all on the East coast. So East Coast teams are
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: even number of teams. West Coast teams are odd number teams.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Pre nine eleven, we were connected to a geographic region
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: of the world, so the entire team was responsible for
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Central and South America, Africa, Middle East. He did post
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: nine eleven. There was so much fight, there was so much,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: so many bad guys go chase that we just reorganized
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the deck and said, you know what, instead of sending
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: one platoon to a geographic region in case something happens,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: we know where everything's happening, let's just send everybody. So
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: now entire teams deployed to a region the team behind him,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Like if Stial Team three is deployed UH in Iraq
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: and Afghanistan. Right now, still Team five is on deck.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: They're getting ready and trained up in the final end
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: of their train to kind of go relieve Team three,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Team three comes home, takes a break, Team seven is
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: in the mix getting ready, and we just cycle like
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: that too. Watch. So now we have a little bit
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: more of a focus where we deploy for purpose as
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: opposed to deploy for presidence. We still have a presence
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: all over the world, more countries than you could believe.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: We have folks kind of sneaking around and taking a
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: look to see what the next next fight could be,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: and be in president in case something happens. But most
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: of the time are our teams are now deploying for
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: specific purpose as opposed to just being a geographic region. Um,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: there's a term you use. Maybe you can give you
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: some background on where it comes from. And you bring
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: this up. I can't really tell me this you you
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: bring it up in damn you, but you were I'm
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: gonna tell you what you said. And then within that
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: is the term you used. You were saying that you
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: said to me, if I fell. Yeah, And that's why
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I want you to talk about. You said if I felt.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Your primary worry was that your mother would turn that
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: into anger with her country too, So talk about that,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: but talk about why the word fell. I heard you
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: say that so many times. I don't know. Maybe it's
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: just like a language thing from literature or writing or
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: or you know. I think people talk about and I've
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: written a little bit of as like the kind of
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: concept of the romance of war, the you know, and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I assure you there's nothing romantic about being in war.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Upon on reflection, when I think of some of the
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: things my teammates did, which were absolutely um, just the
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: stuff of legend. I mean, watching what some of my
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: teammates did. Uh, I'm sure they'd say the same about
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: some of the things I did. But you just can't
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: think that way. As a war you're just hoping to
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: not fail your teammate. But you know, falling in combat
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: being killed in combat. So when I say fell, it means,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: you know, being being taken down, and it's not a euphemism.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: It's not a euphemism. Is that meant to sort of
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: like make it seem less. I guess I could say
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: if I were killed in combat. I just don't think
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: I ever thought about that way. It's just said, Yeah,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: a couple of times you said fell, and I'm like,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: why did why that word? Yeah? Maybe that's why, because
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: it's I think it sounds better than just the real killed. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: but talking about that feeling about your explain, you know,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: it's too full. With my parents, I mean, I got
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: I got a younger brother, and we're best friends, have
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: been since the day he's he was born. He's a
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: paramedic and firefighter ye and um and a writer and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: a musician, just a I mean, a pure renaissance man
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: and tough. Anyone I've ever met my life, he would
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: have been a phenomenal seal phenomenal seal um. But he uh,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously I knew it would have broke his
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: back and heart if I had, if I had, if
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: I had fell in combat, But my parents, in particular,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: I was worried about, and I was worried about. I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: was probably least worried about my bride than anybody on
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: the list, just because she's tough and not not because
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: it would have been obviously it would have been crushing,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: and you know, worst case scenario in her life. That said, yeah,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: but you said, she uh, she shied away, She stayed
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: away from the teams. And then no idea that three
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: of my teammates have been killed on my last deployment
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: until I got home and told her. That's how that's
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: how much she like isolated herself from that, which was
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: very healthy for her. And you're saying too, she waited
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: a long long time to ask you, like, did you
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: ever have to kill anybody? Years later, years later at
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: the dinner. I'll never forget it when she asked you, yeah, yeah,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: because I think she knew, but I mean, it's not
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: something we'd come back and say, hey, you know, here's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: the notches on the gun belt. This is not something.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: But she didn't want to hear like, oh, plane went on,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: helicopter went down. Let's all wait around to see who
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: they because look they're there are wives on the wives
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: network that would be connected to the team kind of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: leadership back home. And you know when it gets announced,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I mean you you, you, you guys have experienced this
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: when when somebody gets announced he three service members were
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: killed in Afghanistan last night, it's not Billy, Jimmy and
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: Johnny were killing. Takes days because you want to make
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: sure the families here in first, so it takes time.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: So in two days. The thing it always gives me,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: man is like especially with guys, and like the more senior,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: more elite people tend to be a little bit older,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: and when I see those, I'll always see it and
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: then you get the story about who they were and never, never, no,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: it's always the first single guy. So I was like, oh,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: he had four one year old and five year old
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: and nine year olds like fun, it's unbelievable. But anyway,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: my mom is just a special a special lady, but
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: a very emotional lady. And she I just was aware
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: that I feel like if I if I had not
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: come back, if I had been killed combat, that that
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: she would have just just grenaded and just would you know,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: blame the country, been pissed and just I don't know this.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: I mean I've never I don't think I've ever talked
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: to her about it, but I just felt like I
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: remember having a conversation with my brother being like, Hey,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: if I fall, don't let mom like just descend into
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: chaos and hate this country. Make sure she knows I
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: believed in what I was doing. I was with the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: people I wanted to be with. There'ld frankly be no
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: better way for me to transition into the next life
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: than than in combat. I mean, that's you know, I
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: don't think you can die better than that. I hope
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: I lived to be very old and gray and smoking
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: a cigar on my porch and watching my great grandchildren
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: run around. But the guys that get killed in combat,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: you're like, look, that's that's a gunfighter's life right there.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: That's that's about as good a death as you can have.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: So there's a real that And that's when I talk
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: about a warrior. That's a different concept than I think
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: most soldiers. I think a warrior sees his teammate with
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: that flag draped over that coffin, is like that, dude's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: a lucky one man. He went out better than any
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: of us are ever going to go out, for sure.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: So I was worried about that for my mom. And
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: then my dad's dad was killed in the Pacific it
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: or World War two. So in my mind, I was
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: real worried that, like what, like what could be the
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: worst case scenario in someone's life to have your life
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: book ended by having your dad killed in combat and
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: then have your son, probably a gazillion times worst killed combat.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: So I thought more about that than my own I
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: feel like mortality or or or you know what, what
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: could have happened on the battlefield that that that occupied
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: some actual emotional currency, talk about talk about fishing with
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: your dad when you guys a fish, and and uh
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: and and the idea of complaining. So you know, nobody
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: that's ever fished for steelheader has done it for any
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: any more than one season. I mean, if you fish
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: one time for steelhead on a bluebird day, you don't
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. Most people that have fished
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: for steelhead or salmon would know how cold it is
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: to sit in a drift boat or weighed into a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: cold river in the Pacific Northwest and just be freezing
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: your butt off, wet, cold and miserable all day. And
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: I remember being then those those beautiful drift boats, you know,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: my dad, brother and I sitting in the front and
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: a guide, you know, rowing us down the Smith or
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the Trinity or some some great you know Western trout
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: stream or Steelhead stream. And I remember, you know, you're
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: up at three in the morning, four in the morning,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: putting the boat in. It's freezing cold. Then it starts
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: raining on you. And I remember looking up at my
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: dad midway through. I think it was an oregon A
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: fishing trip, and just being so cold. I don't think
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: I was that cold again until I went to steal training,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: being wet, my hands shaking, just sitting there hold and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I remember looking up at my dad and there was
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: no discussion about whether we were gonna, you know, go
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: ashore early or take a break. It was just like,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: this is fishing, and we don't complain and that's who
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: we are. And I was like, I guess that's who
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: we are. We just don't complain. And so my brother
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: and I have just always been tough. And I think
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: it was those little those little lessons watching that and
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: how you mimic that, and um, I think a lot
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: of people have those experiences, particularly outdoorsmen and people like
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: that that they saw, you know, their dad or their
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: mentor out in a spot like that kind of sucking
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: up and you're like, okay, I want to be that.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: But that suggests to me that you feel of it
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: that like physical mental toughness. Well, okay, this I'm gonna
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: stack two questions together. That suggests to me that you
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: feel that physical and mental toughness are learned and not
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: in eate. So speak to that and also speak to
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: how how what is the relationship after all the things
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: you've seen, And let's just I want to jump ahead
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: real quick. You were on to run buts okay, So
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: you have your old set of experiences from going through it,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: then you have your set of experiences watching how many
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: classes go through I mean keep ball, Oh yeah, I
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: mean I was there for about three years all told,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: and six classes go through a year. So you've seen
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of people ringing the thousands of yeah.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: So ye, physical mental toughness one are they related to?
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Is it learned or innate? I don't want to give
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a cop out answer, but I feel like it's impossible
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: for you to answer that honestly without somewhat doing it.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I do think it's a little bit of both. I mean,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: I think I think that everything. I have three kids,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of learn ship. And that's
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: a parent knows this for a fact that your kids,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: in my mind, are who they are from the day
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: they were born. I mean, I think the best parents
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: will help their kid become the best version of who
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: they are. But me trying to get one of my
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: two daughters be different than who they are, I mean,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: I'd rather sooner hold back the tide than get my
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: girls to be something different than they are on kind
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: of an elemental level. That being said, I know they're
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: looking at me and looking at their mama as to
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: how to behave and who we are and what we
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: believe in and how we just function in a daily life.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: So my my sense will be is that I don't
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: think my kids will probably complain a lot and and
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: um because they will see that and hopefully model that.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: Uh So, when I think it comes to being tough,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think I do think there's some predisposed
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: genetic stuff in there that you know, you see some
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: kids that fall down and they cry and go screaming
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: a mom and lose their mind. And there's some kids
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: that get like bonk with a two by four and
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: just kind of suck it up and power on. I mean,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: so I think there's some part of that that that's
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: maybe genetic. And I think there's a lot of what
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: you model and see and and and you know how
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: you learn that stuff. So I do think it's both.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: I think it's both. I think leaders are the same way.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: When I talk to leaders about leadership and my book,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: there's all these xs and os I can teach you
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: about how to do things right in leadership, how do
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: things wrong. There's things that obviously fall into those two categories,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: and I think you could learn the good stuff and
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: execute that as best you can. I think you can
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: do that, though, And if you don't have some certain
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: level of X factor that's connected to that something where
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: people gravitate towards you as a leader, you're you're probably
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: gonna have a lot more trouble than those folks that
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: have it. And so I so I think it is
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: a combination. I think it is a combination. What about
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: the physical and mental stuff? So I think it uh
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: again the same. I mean, I think I think, like
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Janice asked earlier, my body never broke down the Seals train.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: It hasn't really broke down to this point. I mean,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: I've had one shoulder surgery. Other than that, my body
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: can take a pretty phenomenal amount abuse and keep going on.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not the fastest guy. I'm not the quickest guy.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not the strongest guy or any of those things.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: But my body is like kind of like a diesel
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: pickup truck. It will just keep going. And there's guys
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: that are very elite performers that almost performed like a Ferrari,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: but they're high tuned like a Ferrari and broke down more.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: And so I think my body on just like a
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: metabolic you know, physical way it can withstand a tremendous
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: amount of abuse. Now, so that was a gift for sure.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: But along with that, there's there's your mental attitude going
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: into the training or going into combat that that has
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: to be the strongest, because I think as your mind
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: and kind of spirit goes, so goes the rest of
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: your body. I mean, you know, I think that's what
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: seal training offers up. We we break everybody down to
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: a point where you you definitely have a legitimate reason
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: to quit. You have a legitimate reason. And seal train.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: No one has ever gone through training and been like
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: this is a good day. I'm I'm happy with every
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: single day that went through. None of that was hard
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Everybody will hit some point where they could
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: easily quit and nobody would frankly fault, and they don't.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: And that's what lives up in between your ears and
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: and maybe in your heart probably connection between your heart
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: and your your heart and your mind. But you knew,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: like you you told me. I think you told me
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: you knew going and you would not quit, no doubt
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: about it. And I don't mean that I don't know
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: people going into are like, maybe I'll quit. I think
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of people look out of the out of that.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: This is one thing I share, and I always kind
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: of find it funny because I think I'm right when
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: I say this. We had like a hund eight nine
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: guys start, twenty two guys finished. I bet one guy
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: at graduation one out of twenty two probably was sitting
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: at graduation day going, holy sh it, I made it.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I saw the finish line like one
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I bet surprised himself, but that the rest of them
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: were just sitting there, steely eyed killers, ready to go.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: I knew they were gonna get through because most of
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: the guys I know that I showed up at the
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: team with we're just that way. If you made that
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: program twice as hard, if their body didn't break down,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: they would have made it. And if you made it
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: half again as easy, I think most of the guys
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: that quit would have quit as well. So I really
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: think it does come down to you know your upbringing,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: your you know your mentors, whether that was a coach,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: a pastor, a parent, that kind of gave you the
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: we don't give up or you developed that through sports.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, athletes do really well there because I think
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: athletes are used to suffering to work towards a goal
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: and want to compete and win, and so I think
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: they developed this like hunters probably do the same. I
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: would think good hunters probably do the same thing, where
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: even when they feel like they're out of the fight
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: and and things have gone south on a hunt, they're like,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep working. I'm gonna keep working and
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: see it through the end. And so I feel like
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: my voice going through seal train was just like I
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: can do this, and instructor would get in my ear
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: and try and make fun of my family and my
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: bloodline and my performance that moment I'd just be like,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: after you, dude, and there's nothing you're gonna do to
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: stop me. And probably all the guys that quit, we're
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: hearing that voice or hearing their own voice being like
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: you're not good enough, you can't do it, and that's
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: got to be toxic as anything out there. It's the
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: thing I see all the time with hunting and fishing
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: is just like some people who there's like this attitude
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: that they're like, it's not gonna work. I tried. I
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: fished that hole in that hole. Why would I go
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: down and look for another guy? Damn hole. We already
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen. Here's one of the best. You know.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's just a it's like a it's
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: an attitude. But I'm not even trying. I hope you
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: don't think I'm anybody trying to equate that ship with
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: what you've been through. No, no, no, but I think
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: that I don't think that. I don't think that like
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: hunting and fishing would inform your experiences, But I think
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: that your experiences could inform hunting and fishing, no doubt
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: about it. And and we'll get that. The one story
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: I'll share that I think was really potent for my
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Seal Traine. I wrote about this in my first book.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: I did this little like two page about it, and
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: it was this, uh, it's this phrase, I this is mine.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: I kind of coined this when I was running training,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: because I didn't recognize it until I ran training, but
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: we had something that I would call I kind of
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: coined it random acts of instructor violence, random acts of
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: instructor violence. And this is the way that would work
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: if if if I was the lead instructor, and let's
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: say you, you know, Stephen Andell are in charge of
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the class, and I said to you, like on a Tuesday, Hey,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: Wednesday morning, you're in charge of class. I need you
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: to be at the pool deck at six am on
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: the dot, No, no later than six am. You need
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: to have your fins, you know, your dive fins at
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: a forty five degree angle. I want your mask to
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: be mirror clear. I want your knife to be sharp.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: And we're gonna start training at six am. Got it,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: Beat it, and then you go and take off. If
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: you showed up at Seal training, which just savage from
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: the day it begins till it ends, and you showed
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: up at six o four, you could pretty much guarantee
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: what your day is going to be as a class,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Like forget getting in the pool. We're just gonna crush
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: you for the next eighteen hours because you left up
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: a simple directive that I said be there at six
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: and so we beat the class mercilessly if they if
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: they showed up late. But every once in a while
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: the class would show up, they'd beat ten minutes early.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: We'd come walking in as instructors and you could even
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: see them smiling. I mean, everybody's fins are in the
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: right place, their mask is mirrors, their knife sharp, they raised.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: You can even see the students kind of like a
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: little shit eating grin and be like, yeah, we got it.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: We're here already. And we'd beat them worse than the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: day they failed, twice as bad. And I remember a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: lot of guys would quit in those moments, like guys
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: going through and be like, this is unfair. I'm out
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: of here. You go ring the belt. And the lesson
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: is you can do everything absolutely right, particularly on the battlefield,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: and it can go catastrophically wrong, and you can do
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: everything wrong. I mean, I saw guys do the stupidest
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: things you can imagine and walk out of their unscathed.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: And I saw guys do things perfectly and get blown
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: out of their boots and lose it. Everyone in combat,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: every one of those guys in the Hellcape Copter, the
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: best operators in the world, with the best pilots in
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: the world, and it just went wrong that way. They
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: didn't do anything wrong, They're doing it right. It just
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: went wrong and so you gotta be comfortable with doing
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: everything right and have it going wrong. I think hunting
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: is very much the same way. You can do everything
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: perfectly right by everything we've all amassed in a knowledge
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: base of how you go pursue an animal, do it
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: everything perfect, and just come up goose goose eggs right, nothing.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: And you can have a guy come from you know,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna beat up any state. Somebody comes from
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: New Jersey, is fifty pounds overweight, never carried a gun
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: in his life, sited in the day before, walks one
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: step off the trail and takes a six six like
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: half hour into hunting light, no skill, no nothing, just
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: bom it, walks right back to New Jersey and puts
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: a trophy on as well. Didn't do anything, no, no
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: like talent to get to that point whatsoever. So I
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: feel like as a hunter, you gotta be okay with both.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: You know, the fact that you can work your tail
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: off and and and have it go wrong and nothing,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: nothing happened. You can every once in a while you're
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: gonna walk out and you're gonna get hooked up. In
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: the case you're talking about beating people for doing everything right,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: like when you do that, are you trying to Are
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: you looking for the guy that already gets it, or
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: you're trying to Actually, uh, you're more to be honest,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: you're more so looking for the person that's gonna quit
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: in that scenario. You're looking for the guy that's gonna
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: say this is untried to find the guy this is unfair,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: who would feel outrage over unfairness. Exactly right. It's time
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: for you to go because you're not in the wrong,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: you're not in the right line of work. But the
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: guys that are, you know, the guys that like when
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: we had a couple of those initial aircraft go down,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: those helicopters go down, like like during you know, the
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: Loan Survive Ever event and then Extortion Won seven was
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: went down. We lost twenty people. I'm telling you right now,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: people were in almost fist fights to be on the
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: next helicopter going in. And that level of kind of
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: cultural resilience that it's like it's gonna go wrong, and
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: yet we still want you to press forward and go
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: do it. That that that is taught through lessons like that,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and that's what that's what you need from your operators.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: We can't have guys who are like, Oh, it's gonna
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: go wrong. I'm out of here. I'm gonna quit today.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: We don't. We don't deal on that. We don't deal
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: on that. You, Um, you took a long, long like
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: you grew up fishing with your dad and spent a
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: lot of time outdoors, and then he took a long
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: long break, uh for your service and didn't do really
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: anything recreationally, started a family and served and didn't do
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: anything kind of fun. I'm sure you had moments of
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: fun moments, but not like dedicated days that No. I mean,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: we fished multiple times a year since before I can remember,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: and I joined the Navy in ninety nine. The next
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: time my dad brother I want to fish and trip
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: was two thousand six. Yeah. When now that that, how
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: do you look at like, how do you see hunting
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: and fishing now that you're done? Uh? It has become
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: just an otherworldly kind of pillar in my life at
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: this point. And I'm still a complete rookie to like,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: you know, big game hunting for sure. I mean, I
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: I feel like I jumped to the head of the
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: class because I got to go home my first big
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: gay hump, big big game hunt with you guys. So
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: I mean I got to jump jump and do an
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: Alaska you know, float plane trip to go after bear
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: from my very first big hand point out cried the
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: whole time to quit, kept trying to quit. But I mean,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: so I jumped. I jumped the line. Um. But I
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: feel like there's these there's these these choices you can
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: make in life about what you're gonna do with your time, right,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: like what you can do with your leisure time. And
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I've seen this written before, this is in mind. But
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: like how you see somebody like you evalue what they
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: do with their leisure time, you can kind of take
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: the measure of a man. And I think there's a
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: couple of things that are much bigger than a hobby, right,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: and hunting resolutely falls into that category. Surfing is another one.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, surfing is one of those things that people
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: get bit by it. It becomes a path, It becomes
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: this like journey whose destination you might not even know
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: where it's gonna go, but you are just constantly it's
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: a pursuit. You're just constantly pursuing some level of that experience,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: whether it's the perfect wave or the perfect moment or
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: your skill set, and I think hunting is the same.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: I think anybody that takes hunting seriously, not not not
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: the guy that goes out once or twice I don't,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: or maybe gets a kick and shoot hunt or something
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: with somebody's because they wanted at an auction. But I
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: mean people that made hunting a big part of their life.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: It's it's um, it's far far bigger than than just
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: going to pursue an animal, at least it is for me.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: So I mean the thing I found when we went
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: on that first hunt that was so such a gift
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: and why it was an instant love affair and something
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: that I will never not be doing until somehow I
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: can't do it anymore. Is I remember, is sending me
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: a gear list? Right? So just emailed me a gear
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: list and what I do And now all of a
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: sudden in my garage laying out all my kit, my
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: gear and getting it ready, which is exactly what we
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: did when we prepared for a deployment or a mission.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: And he's like this, we're gonna be going. So now
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: I'm doing a map study and taking a look at
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: the terrain, what the weather will be, which is exactly
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: what we did we went on a mission, and then
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: I show up and meet you guys at you know,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: ce Tack, and then we fly up into what you know,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: we land an anchorage and kind of get ready and
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're hopping in the floatplane and
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: you know, packing gear, we're testing weight, we know how
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: much weights in that aircraft. That's very familiar. Then we
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: land in this remote location and and at that point
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: it still hadn't struck me. The moment that struck me,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: and it's even on the episode is when we first
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: put that backpack on. I've got a heavy pack, you know,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: capable boots and gear, and and a rifle on my shoulder.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: And I remember we wave by the buck and start
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: walking off into the country and I could see big
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: mountains that I was like, well, this is pretty familiar,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: like rocking around with a heavy pack and a gun,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: and then we're gonna go like chase something. So I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: tell anyone that's a veteran that isn't hunting is doing
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: themselves a disservice, particularly if they're in a combat unit,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: because it is an unbelievably healthy transition from what we
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: did in our last life. I mean now now I
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: get to go walk around rugged terrain and what I kill.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: Instead of being a two legged animal, it's a four
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: legged animal that I can bring home and eat and
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: provide good food for my family and still get off
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: in these beautiful, remote um places and and suffer a
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: little bit, which I I think. Um, I think one
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: of the biggest mistakes we're making as a country is
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: not suffering. You know, we we just established these very
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: comfortable lives. I think sufferings where all the growth is men.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: There's the thing I talked about and I've written about
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: it is um. It's the thing that's important to me
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: with my kids. It's a slow process, but like learning
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: to be comfortable, being uncomfortable, no doubt we even had.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: There's so many ways to achieve it. There's a guy
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: we work with, Rick Smith. He's been doing yoga for
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: a million years and UM. He talks about you know,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: like hot yoga. Right where you going to room, it's
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: a hundred four degrees and you're gonna hold these very
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: uncomfortab bowling. He says. You walk in there and you
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: get into an uncomfortable position. It's a hundred four degrees
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: and some part of your body is like, get out
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: of here, right, And he's like you're okay, Yeah, you're okay.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: It's hot, but you're okay. We're gonna concentrate, We're gonna
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: be in this real, this space and hold an uncomfortable
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: pose and we're okay. And then you learn later you
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: know what I was Okay, No, it is. Those are
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: the big building blocks for sure. I mean I remember
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: when my kids were first I'm just even trying to
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: zip up a jacket. I mean, you go to any playground,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: USA and you see some kid like struggling to zip
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: a jack, You'll see like seven moms rush in to
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: try and help them get their Jacket'm like, get the
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: f away from my kid. My kids gotta learn to
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: put her jacket on. So she's just gonna wrestle with
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: that zipper for a little while. Could become the child
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: be in a situation where they would have to zip
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: their own jacket. It's possible. It's possible. So no, no,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: I'm four it so so, I mean hunting has just
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: become I mean I spent an inordinate amount of time
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: thinking about it now. But it's a tranquility to it.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: Though it's very different than what you experienced serving overseas
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: and combast situation of course, of course, I mean you know,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: how do you view that? I mean there's a you know,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: like like I know, you feel it like a like
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: a physical beauty of peacefulness. And from your perspective, there
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: has been an element of like this is my space
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: that I that I fought for, Like I think you
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: mentioned me one time, doubt is you mentioned to me
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: that like that, that that coming up as a leader,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: coming up as an American citizen, as someone who is
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: going to have opinions about how we were in the country,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: how we should Behave you said something about that you
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: always felt that you wanted to earn your seat at
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: the table, right, so now here you are and imagine
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: you have to look at a lot of these places
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: and have sort of a refined sense of ownership. I
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: think I enjoy it about the natural world, no doubt
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: about it. I think I enjoyed. And when you look
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: at like the great writers and even the eight readers
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: this country, I mean Teddy Rose about and some of
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: these folks, I mean everyone knows. I mean, I know
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: they've studied this in detail. That time and wild places
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: out of doors is just good for you, and so
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: few people are doing it, but all of us know it,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: like like it's like a Dick and Jane book. Well,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: of course, go out into some beautiful spot, breathe that
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: air and and and do something worthwhile, you know, out
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: of the confines of what now is just uh. Cal
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: and I were joking about in the airport. I mean
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: it's like if you don't really think the zombie apocalypse
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: has actually already arrived, when you look at cell phones
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: and everybody just staring at that phone as soon as
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: a plane lands or in a Starbucks, I mean, it's
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: it's here. The zombie apocalypse is here. If you live
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: in cyberspace and on your phone, you have you have
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: achieved the zombie lifestyle. And and when you get away
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: from that and you're off off the grid, it's just uh,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just think it. It just feeds some part.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: It definitely feeds like the the conscious part of you,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: but you also know it's feeding someplace inside you that
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: comes from a very primal, primal place. And and I
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: think when you do it for the purpose of of
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: taking game and then providing food, you're even more connected
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: to this thing that we've been doing a lot longer
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: than we haven't. Right, Like, as a species, it's much
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: more natural to go out and do that than it
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: is unnatural. And I think warriors kind of know that too.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: I think we believe people fighting and fighting for what
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: they believe in and who they are is probably more
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: natural than it is unnatural. Like the folks that don't
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: understand combat and want to put their head in the
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: sand and believe the world's a happy place. We're all
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: going to get along. It just it just isn't, you know.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: And I think if you have any sense of history,
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: you will recognize that there have not been large pieces
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: of time when that's not the case. But no hunting,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's uh, it's just become an otherworldly part
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: of my life and and um uh dominates a lot
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: of my time for all healthy good reasons. UM give
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: me the quick. Tell people your two books kind of
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: the the what's what with them? Yeah? The first books
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: called Damn Few Making the Modern Seal War, that's what.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: That one's more autobiographical with kind of how I grew up. Um,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: not not so much. I II in the book I
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: try not to do there's a lot of there's a
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of seal books that are
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: I killed this many people, I killed this person, and
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: I got I got. I'm not I'm not trying to
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: beat those guys up. It's much more this is what
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: led me to this level of service and and and
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: pursuing some of those things that I wanted to experience
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: in service, and then why we do it, what we
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: do it for? And then a little bit outward looking
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: on on maybe what the how the country can see, um,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: you know what what combat and what fighting and being
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: prepared to fight anyway does you know for our position
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: in the world. My second book is called Worth Dying
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: for a Navy Seals Call to a Nation, And this
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: one's a little much more forward looking and kind of
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: again it covers some of the higher ideals I learned
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: and seal training that that applied to leadership and um,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: you know, managing your life. And it's also real outward
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: looking on how I think we can make the country
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: a stronger place. Like I talked about universal service, um
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: and how potent I think that would be, and military
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: service could be one way. I also think it could
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: be you know, your kid finishes high school and they
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: gotta go give just and there's plenty of you know,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: some Eastern European Israel where military services compulsory. I think
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: that would satisfy that public service. But I think everybody
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: should do service. Military is not for everybody. And so,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: you know, a year out of high school, I think
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: you should go out of your hometown and give back,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: Like you just gotta go work for either an NGO
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: or a government program or something that kind of gives
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: back on a subsistence wage. Suffer a little bit, don't
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: be comfortable and really think of somebody other than yourself
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: for a block of time. And I just think it
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: would be a game changer, um for our country because
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: I think we are so self looking and self centered
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: on on kind of our desires and we want things
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: to be to be that that I think thinking of
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: others and kind of think of the collective would be
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: a good thing. Yeah, what are you gonna? Um? Oh?
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: Do you mind tell people quick about your your the
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: movie you worked on active? Yeah? Yeah, I mean the
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: funny thing about this. Yeah, so two thousand and twelve,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: Act of Valor came out as a major motion picture. Yeah,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: I hadn't, I hadn't hung out with you so everyone
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: in the mill, everyone in that movie that's in the
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: military was actually in the military doing their job. So
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: we were actually put on Navy orders, which I have
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: kept in case there's every like a congressional inquiry as
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: to you know, why we did this movie. But the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: Navy put on us us on a set of orders
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: saying to make this movie act of valor, which you
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: get called in and said here's what you're gonna do. Well,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: we got called in to get interviewed by these filmmakers
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: that had been green lit to make a movie about seals.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: So we got called in really just do interviews with
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: those directors so they could learn about seals. Their plan
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: was to go back to Hollywood and cast you know,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: Vin Diesel or something like that to be a seal.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: And they got done with those interviews and went back
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: up to Hollywood started think about, I think it's gonna
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: be easier to teach seals to act than actors to
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: be seals if we want to get this right and
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: make it authentic, And then um and the Pentagon was
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: cool with it as promotion. It was like a promos
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: all the way through. It was totally cool until it
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: came out and like when it came out and all
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, there's like commercials on the Super Bowl
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: and it becomes the number one movie in America. People
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: started flipping out the front office. Yes, I think some
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: heads rolled, not not ours, but um no, I mean
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: everybody that got asked to do it, because I mean
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: it is, you know, kind of taboo to try to
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: turn and buck off of this stuff. And and and
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: that all was pretty clean. We didn't get paid to
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: make the movie. I mean I didn't make a dime
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: off being an active valor you know in that that's expense. Yeah,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: I got your normal three seals a day and Navy
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: squares a day and in my regular ways. Yeah, so
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: um no, we didn't. We didn't profit. But that was
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: the rub as they thought, Wait a minute, why are
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: we pushing assets or actual military person l and material
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: to help make a movie? Like once people at a
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: certain level looked at it. Yeah, yeah, it's a fun
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: it's a fun movie. Watch. Yeah, it's like inspiring and fun.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: One thing that a lot of people will realize the
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: reason it's called Act of Valor is every big moment
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: that happens that movie is something from actual seal history.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: Like one of our chiefs was shot twenty seven times.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: He killed like the four bad guys in the room
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: and walked to the helicopter and survived. And one of
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: my teammates in two thousand six jumped under grenade to
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: protect his teammates and and you know, pay the ultimate
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: price for that. Uh, and we capture that. You know,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: another guy was hit by I mean, everything that takes
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: place in that movie is out of our actual history,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: actual history. Yeah, without giving a playbook to al Qaeda.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: I mean that was the big thing about doing the
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: movie is we we look at footage and say, you
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: know what, let's cut this one. You know, the way
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: we wrapped around this corner with a gun. You don't
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: need to show that it wasn't something like crazy advanced tactic.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: But we're like, we don't want to give the the
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: enemy of playbook based on watching this movie. So we're
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: here's what it'll look like and feel like if you
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: get rated exactly. No, okay, so what like what are
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: you gonna do now? I mean, right, for thirteen years,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: you know what you're doing. I mean now that you
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: don't know what you're doing now, But like, what's the
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: I mean you have a ten year plan. No, I'm
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: not a great strategic thinker admittedly, Like I'm not like
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: when somebody's like, where do you want to be in
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: five years? I just don't do that. I'm not going
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: to continue to do books. Yeah, but I don't want
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: to write them just to write them. I feel like
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: you feel the same, Like I'm not. I could. I
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: could write twenty five leadership books starting tomorrow with building
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: you know, a system of books that that that I
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: could make very commercial. Um, I just want to write
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: them if I have something to write about. And I
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: think I'm I'm circling. I'm circling in on what the
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: next one will be. So I think I'm gonna start
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: grinding on that soon. I do a lot of consulting
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: on leadership and for high performance teams. I'm really looking consulting, yeah,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: not just not just speaking, do just speaking, And and
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: now I'm starting to offer up you know, executive kind
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: of coaching sessions and leadership and talking to teams with
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: like new folks and organization, how those new folks and
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: organization can perform and kind of think of the organization
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: above and beyond themselves, which I think I can speak
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: to and, um, hey have you, uh, have you watched
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: I've actually recommended this movie. Um, have you watched some
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: kind of monster? This movie and melt your This movie
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: could melt your brain in in a bad way. But
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: it's about it's a documentary about the band Metallica, where
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: like into it they're grown ups with families and ship
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: and uh, they can't get along anymore. And they hire
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: a consultant who's kind of like half shrink half consultant
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: who's who specializes in helping teams, oftentimes athletic teams, helping
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: teams like find a way to work, especially big personalities,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: find a way to like work together on a goal.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: But he takes it very soft approach. Um, it's a
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: fascinating movie. I'll check it my brother, he said. The
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: problem the Metallica is haven't isn't enter personal. It's just
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: that they suck now and they used to be good.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: But um no, it's an interesting movie. If you were
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: in that role, I feel like you would have walked
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: in and beat the ship out of all of them
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: and then said, well let's start now, now, let's get
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: up and start. I mean I do, I do talk
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: about this a lot when when organizations ask me, you know,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: for some advice on how to make themselves stronger. I
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: do think you gotta figure out a way to suffer
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: a little bit and and do it as a group.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like if you do that, I
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: don't care it's even just going out on a height,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: but do a height for the group that most people
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: will be uncomfortable with. And when you get to the
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: top of the mountain, have a little have a little talk,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: and then come back down then debrief it over the
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: next couple of days. It's just again, everybody's so comfortable
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: all the time. And the reason I have those unreal
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: relationships with the guys I have from the Seal teams
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: is because of that shared like misery, like when you
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: suffer with somebody in our miserable doing something like I mean,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: the hunts that you two guys have had will make
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: you better friends. And most people will ever be friends
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: with somebody because of going to do that. I don't
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: think that just happens at a coffin. No, there's something
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: that clicks, man, There's something that clicks, like a little
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: bit of just dealing with something. Yep, it does you know?
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: It does it? Makes you really really love someone or
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: makes you not like them at all. I mean, that's
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: the thing. That's the thing I like about is crucial
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: talking about the camp cancer. Yeah, and you take it
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: so serious, right, Like the people you're actually gonna go
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: hunting with, that's a small list of folks that you're
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: gonna want to like, spend that cherished time with. If
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: somebody's not on that list or like black balls up,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: I know you're not inviting them to another huh call
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: it OTC out of the club for sure, you know,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: Like I think Steve and I and UH have talked
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: about it in the past. It's like it makes you
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: really think hard, not for necessarily having a bad time
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: in the short term with a new hunting partner, but
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: being like, I may never look at D the same again,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: because chances are it's not gonna go that great. You
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: can ruin. You can ruin by going on a on
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: a difficult hunting, your fishing trip. You can ruin what
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: might have otherwise been a fine ten year friendship. Absolutely,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, if we hadn't have done that for
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: three days, I might have drank beer with you, not
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: I might have drank tea with them. I would have
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: drank tea with them for ten years, but now I can't.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: I can't look at them. I think because it does go,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: it does run very much parallel, like like I said
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: to military service, where it's it gets to those like
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: primal things when you go hunting, like whether it's just well,
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: it's just showing up on time, right, Like if if
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: somebody tells me, hey, let's meet at six am and
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: they show up at five forty five, they're pretty much
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: off like my list, They're like O T C. I'm like,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: I was there at because you said be there at six.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: That's just what I do. Like, you been there at
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: six fifteen is unacceptable to me. And then you know
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: where you're gonna set up camp. Are you cold? Are
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: you gonna complain about being cold? Are you gonna do
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: you're part of the workload within camp? Are you just
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: gonna be a leech? Like? All those things are big
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: things in my mind about the character of someone. So
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: when you go on a hunt, you're you do like
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: a one or two day hunt, You're probably gonna have
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: the complete like character breakdown of who that person is.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: And it might be false, but it sure feels real. Yeah,
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: it might be that you pushed it too hard, too fast,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: but it feels real enough where you can't undo the damage.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: There's probably a danger there because you might be like, yeah,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: maybe it would have been better had we just maybe
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: I should just forget that and then have the ten
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: year beer drinking friendship. Um, are you gonna go into politics?
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: I've been asked a lot about it. Why do people
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: ask you that? Be Well, my hope is my hope
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: is that they think there's a big gap in the
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: folks that are leading this country and probably want the
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: right people to be doing it. And I'm not sure
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: if I'm that person. I know I could do that job.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: I mean I I know how to lead. I know
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: how I would do that. The two thousand eighteen UH
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: governorship is open right now in Colorado, but it's just
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: too early. I think I think I'd probably be miserable.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think I'd probably be miserable. I also
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: very you like challenges, I think because the construct of
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: that is so I think a governorship would be interesting
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: because you do get to run a smaller version of
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: the greater, you know, kind of country system in a
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: little more insulated environment. You know and and kind of
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: get real tangible results like, Okay, if I implement this,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: let's see what happens, and you're probably gonna see pretty
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: quick what you what you can do and can't do.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know, the jury's out a little bit. I
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: mean I still have this sense again, it's very much
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: akin to Churchill. I mean, he went into combat and
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: and kind of got all that out of his system.
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: And then the end of that book worth uh, my
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: early life, which is that book I read that led
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: me to military service. That book ends about the time
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: he entered parliament started his political service, and he saw
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: that as yet another vehicle through which he felt like
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: he was earning his seat at the table. Now he
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: had family history with that obviously was the right man
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: for that season in world history, and and and one
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: the day. Um, I don't know, we'll see not now.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: I mean what I I can definitely say is I
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: have a lot of adventures to get on before that happens.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: I think I'd be better at it down the road.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: I don't want my kiddos to experience that social calendar
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: and the scrutiny that goes into that. I mean, I
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: I you're not gonna find skeletons in my closet. That
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: that's why I feel like you should like it, because
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: um uh, I think a lot of people have to
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: aggonize about their infidelities, about how they used to get
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: too wasted. No, I wouldn't be worried about this, but like, yeah,
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: if you go dig into like Rourke Denver over the years,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna like start finding all kinds of weird ship. No.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: I do pretty good, There's no doubt day by day basis,
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: I think that becomes the scary thing is I feel
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: like we're watching the political climate right now and a
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: lot of that I think it's just driven so much
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: by media and social media and what people how people
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: are digesting their information. But I think everyone can agree
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: that far from the most talented people in this country
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: are running this country. Far from it. Whereas it was
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: absolutely the inverse at the beginning. I mean, when you
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: start talking about the Founding Fathers, you were talking about
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: some of the most talented, intelligent, capable human beings that
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: have ever walk the earth. Yeah, but even now there's
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: this bad habit of uh, there's this bad habit of
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: dissecting them relative to social norms at the time relative
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: to social norms at the time. That would have been
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: like it would have been unfathomable that there would be
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: another path, but nobviously sort of like take like contemporary
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: senses of morality and social justice and hold them up
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: to that lens and be like, oh, can you believe
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: it's like okay, it would have been like you might
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: as well have gone and talk to him, you know,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: about concepts of outer space and infinity and see what
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: he thinks about that, because he wouldn't know about that either. Yeah. No, no,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: for sure, But I guess I think we're we are
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: just yeah, you're I think that. Yeah, yeah, with those
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: guys visionaries visionaries and they spent The other thing too,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: is I think this is another thing about hunting that
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: that appeals is hunting gives you these big swaths of silence,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: of time to kind of be quiet. I mean, it's
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: a tactical imperative right to actually be quiet and not
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: scare your quarry away. I think being silent and having
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: that time to think, it's just not something that a
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: lot of people do. They're just filling that time with
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: either drugs, alcohol, social media, watching TV, and and and
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: so you kind of avoid these things that that folks
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: from that era couldn't avoid. I mean, god, you know,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: guys like our founding fathers, they were at study like
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: nine hours a day on top of like founding this country.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how many people that aren't actually
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: in school study much anymore. All the friends I know
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: that I like to talk to our readers and that's
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: where they're digesting information, taking this thing in. But the
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: the pure silence that you get to experience hunting is
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: another gift. I think you give yourself hands down, and
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: even being silent with a buddy, you know, like being
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: silent with the person you even like spending time and
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: like talking to a campfire round. That's one of those
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: unique things. I mean, I feel like if if you
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: sat silently next to like somebody in a Starbucks without
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: watching your cell phones at the same time, they think
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: you are an f and lunatic, you know, whereas like
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: you go with a hunting buddy, you could be quiet
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: for four days and then just kind of like, well, okay,
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: let's debrief now that we're out out of here. When
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: I'm on an airplane, um, I will judge in a
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: very negative way. Someone who sits down in their seat
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: and reads the in flight magazine. Because I think, so
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: you like you knew you were getting out a plane, right,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: you had no plan? You're like, I will I want
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: to fill my brain. I have such low levels of discretion.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna fill my brain with some product that's been
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: placed here in anticipation of some dumb son of a
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: bitch like me picking it up and looking at it
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: like that's sort of how I envisioned my time. But
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: a guy that could sit next to me, a person
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: sits next to me in quiet contemplation of the plane ride.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: I look at him, I'm like, god, it, man, I wish,
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: I wish I could like find that. It can't you
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: ed with like I need to be. If I see
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: a guy played the video game, I judge him negatively too.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: But but a guy that just is like being, I'm like,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: what is that? Yeah? No, My bride showed me this
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: Facebook post the other day. That was just most of
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: my Facebook I get from somebody else showing me something,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: but it was it was one of those that was
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: like this. This girl was saying I'm gonna butcher it.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: But she says, I'm like I watched this guy walk
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: into Starbucks today, orders coffee, sit down and just rank
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: it like a fucking lunatic, because like you can't imagine
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: what what what it would be like nobody's just sitting
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: there drinking coffee, like thinking in themselves, sitting at baggage claim. Yeah, man,
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: you used to sit at bagger's claim and just wait
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: for your bags. Fun that now no one sits at
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: baggage claiming. You think it was like, yeah, you get
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: your bag, you get the baggage claim, you pull on
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: your phone. Yeah, you feel every second security security is
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: gonna come get you. I think it was like a
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: psychopath drank his coffee like a psychopath, like not saying
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: anything because it's true. It's true. Yeah, And that that
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: same quality is something that we find very valuable up
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: on the mountain, right, Yeah, six words exchange the entire day.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: I think. I think also to hunting in in the
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: military and combat, it is very much the same. It's
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: not inappropriate to like draw tremendous parallels because the other
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: thing too about that silence is it's it's not just
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: silence because you don't have any to say. It's a
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: choice that you know, the language of what you're doing
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: out there, so you don't need to say. I mean,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: the best thing about me getting around seal teammates in
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: mind is is there's just there's actually a little that
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: needs to be said. With those guys, we know, like
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: we know, we just know what we're thinking. I know
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: what my buddy Sonny is thinking before he says something.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: And if and if some I mean, if we're at
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: a barbecue joint in you know, Louisiana and something went down,
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: I know exactly what Sonny he's gonna do. He knows
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. We know how we're gonna survive
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: that moment. If he did something I didn't expect, I'd
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: probably know why that was coming around, how to react
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: to that. And that's the same thing with with with
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: hunting and with hunting buddies and and and kind of
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: teammates out there is is the same thing. You know,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: and you watch, you know, you watch you guys on
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: the show or you watch you watch folks that know
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: what they're doing, and they can kind of, you know,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: even through just like mind melding, like okay, I'm going
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: this way. And sometimes it's some hand singles, but in
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: general I bet if cal went around the corner, you'd
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: have a pretty good sense. We do. But it's awesome
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: the way, like a yeah, the way when you host
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: them a lot, they kind of veer off. You're like, oh,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: he's yeah, I know he's he's gonna wander back up
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: this way, like I know what he's doing. You know,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: there's a gem. There's kind of a gem of a
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: moment hidden in the movie Read Dawn, which is a
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: very influential movie for us as kids, where one of
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: the guys goes among the other guys and he's just
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: sitting on a mountain like surveying the landscape. Ok, this
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: is Swazy Red Dog, and it's just this beautiful mountain.
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: And one of the guys comes up to the other
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: one and the ones whispering. You're guys, like, why are
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: you whispering? It's just kind of like why do you feel?
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: Like why do some people know that you whisper on
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: a mountain and some people don't. My brother took his
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: little daughter caribou hunting, and um, yeah, I think she
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: was ten when she went took a caribou hunting. And
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: he gets back, I'm like, how'd it go? He goes.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting, uh, knowing that you whisper when
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: there's an animal real close. Apparently it's not like innate.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: Apparently that's a learned thing. Because a caribou rolled up
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: and she was like, hey Dad, He's like, whoa, it's
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: whispers So cal you got any uh what's on your mind?
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: Concluders picture little picture? Well, I think it would be
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: important just this conversation has been so much about like
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: high high level, elite performing folks. But you know, I
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: definitely think a lot on on the physical mental things,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: like it can always be learned. I I think and
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: I think about that hunt that we did with Helen
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: and Brittany. You know, when Helen and I fished earlier
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: that year, she couldn't hardly walk across the river rocks
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: to the point where I was like, is there something
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: physically wrong here? She's like, listen, you do this all
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: the time. I walk on pavement all the time, right,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: And that was it. But then a couple of months later,
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: you know, they put up with the lot of mental ship.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: You know, that was a mentally tough, tough hunt as
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: well as being physically way out of the you know,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: your normal stuff. That you're exposed to every day, and
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: you know, we saw some major, major growth and real
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: toughness and that week, right, But then you're coming with
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: people who are already you know, stellar individuals. You know,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: like if I had questions about them, you know, about
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: their like what makes them up, what was in their heart?
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't wanted to get into that situation. Not that
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: I haven't, but in that's that I guess, not that
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: I have done that. I have had questions about what
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: people are made of and then brought them into situations
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: where you could anticipate them failing and watch that happen.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: But with those guys, it's like, you know, they were
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: like kinda hungry and ready for a challenge. Yeah, but
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: it was it's just you watch it happen. You also
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: watch you go like, should I start complaining now or not?
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: Because it's fun to complain. Oh, absolutely, everybody likes that's
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: that's commiserating. Some guys are good at it and it's funny.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: Some guys do it and you're like, shut the fun
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: You're like, hey, bud, take a look around. Everybody's wet.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: Okay you honest, um, I was gonna ask for your
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: time about like getting your spot at the table. Um,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: do you have any thoughts on the whole like public
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: lands thing, like if you are you up to speed
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: on that whole like the possible Yeah, I mean I don't.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: I definitely will not speak to it on the level
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: that I feel like you guys understand it. But I
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: mean my sense is giving public lands or federal lands
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: back to state sounds like about the worst idea we've
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: come up with and forever, because in general, you have like,
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: do you have a pretty good outlook on just like
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: how like the federal government run and like not just
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: what you were involved in, but the whole country, because
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, well, how can you
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: let the Feds run your land in Montana? You know,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: the way I look at the government is is the
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: least amount they can do, the better. So there's very
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: little I want from the government. But there are a
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: couple you know, non negotiables that I think they do
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: exceeding the welst security running the military security, yeah, running
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: security in the military, and monetary policy that goes worldwide
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: and how that you know affects your daily you know,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: bank accounting and ability to pursue um, excellence. It strikes
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: me that the system of them, you know, holding on
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: those lands to where if I, if I understand it right,
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: if if states all of a sudden own those things
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: and it goes onto their balance sheet, and now all
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: of a sudden they're running their state like a business
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: and you can sell that to China to keep yourself good.
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: That's that's bad business. But I can't talk into in
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: a great, great detail, but I'll listen to you guys
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: and what you have to say about it. You know,
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: one thing that we didn't talk about that I've forgotten.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like we should have talked perfect um is
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: you know, like I feel like you're supposed to like
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: do a synopsis of what you said, But I'll broach
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: just a subject that I think apply so much from military,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: particularly in what we do in the seals and to hunting.
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: You feel it right now, you're supposed to do a synopsis,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: know when you finish like what you're saying that, like
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: you come up with some like this is what we
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: talked about, okay, perfect Yeah, you talk about whatever you
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: want about your favorite kind of pop yep I love,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: okay um is the idea of training and when it
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: comes to hunting, how much I'm realized again when I'm
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: talking to people that are all on the microphone right now,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: this doesn't apply because you guys realize the training should
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: be purposeful and it should be realistic, authentic to what
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: you're gonna go do. I think there are a lot
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: of people in hunting that don't realize you should be
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: training in a very purposeful way for what you're gonna
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: go do. You know, for me, like when we the
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: very first time I got into a gunfight, the very
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: first time I shot a bad guy. And I won't
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: talk about the details of how many people have shot
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: how it works, but like the very first time a
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: bad guy popped up with an a K forty seven
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: started shooting at me, and I shot at him and
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: won that engaged engagement. It was very mechanical and as
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: if I had done it a thousand times, because I'd
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: done it about fifty thousand times in training. They the
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: training we do in the Seal teams is so visceral
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: and real that we make it like we don't shoot
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: a big circle targets. We shoot at human silhouettes because
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna see on the battlefield, so you
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: have a lot of practice and identifying your target and
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: making that very real. And you know, before we run
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: into a house and blow the doors off at hinges,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: well everybody will do like fifty burpees or fifty push
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: ups in some squads. So your heart rate is going
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: through the roof. Now get the door and go in,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: because you're gonna shoot differently when your heart's pounding compared
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: to when you're sitting on a bench rest taking a shot.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: So my recommendation to hunters in particular, no matter what
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: they're hunting with, what weapons is, and whatever it is,
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: make your training purposeful. You know, you can be at arrange.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: It's it's nothing to go out and do ten squats,
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: do ten burpies, get your heart rate going. Now get
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: back on the gun and look how different that optic
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: now looks when when you're rested and comfortable. Because when
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: you happen to be in the Grand Titons or like
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: you know, somewhere running around in Idaho or the Rocky
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: Mountains in particular, like when you came from sea level
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: and you go shooting up a little draw to find
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: that trophy, You're not gonna be a bench rest situation
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: in that moment and practice shooting shringing it up, because
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: when I'm shooting, like a lot of my shooting comes
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: down to me trying to shrink from a bench, trying
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: to like shrink that that five shot group. Yep, down, down, down,
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: No now. But I haven't live a life. I get
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: to do a lot of real world hunting, so I
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: kind of like I practice by doing. But yeah, I
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: think that if you we're just in the head, like, yeah,
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go hunt. So I'm gonna go sit at
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: a bench and just shoot ship loads around at a
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: paper target and just in my and just get that
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: group showing down. It really has like you know, I've
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: seen a lot of game Get. I've seen a lot
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: of game Fall. I've seen a lot of game Get shot,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: and it's typically not like that. That's right, different angles,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: high angle, low angle, different ways you're gonna hold that rifle,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: different angles, you're gonna be up on that optic, you know,
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: how you get that that gun level exactly, exactly exactly
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: all that stuff, um, you know, and be ready. I
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: mean the hunting partner I have back in Colorado, he's
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: you know, he's he's like a Billy goat. He can run.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: He's he's fitter than I am, and I like that
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: because we can go hard. But I'm like, I'm gonna
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: take my diet seriously this summer. So we go running
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: up into the rocky mountains. Man, I can crank, you know,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: And so you gotta. If you don't take that seriously,
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: I think you're being disrespectful to yourself and you're also
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: gonna just degrade your ability to have success. Whereas the
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: guys I think could put again end gals that put
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: in the training to make it real so that when
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: they show up that moment, it's not the first time,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: they're prepped for it and and can be like, Okay,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: I know I actually where I'm setting. I can use
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: my foot to balance, you know, the mother of this
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: gun because there's not a perfect V and a sage
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: brush here. I need that to get this shot off.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: You do yourself a huge service doing so. Yeah, you
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: gotta talks a lot about walk through the woods shooting
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: stumps with his bow. The stump shooting, you know, which
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: is different than when I shoot my boat was just
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: generally like in my yard, flinging arrows, like between the
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: house and the fence. Well yeah, stump shooting just jump
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: in real quick is I think quite valuable because it
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: forces you to pick a spot whereas amorphous blob. Yeah,
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: and on a target, there's so many spots like right
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: there for you. Um yeah, yeah, because that's the thing.
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: Man was like, Uh in reviewing, you know, I've messed
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: up a lot of bow shots. But as much as
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: you go to shoot at elk with your bow. Uh,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: And then you review the not the not the not
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: footage like where we're thinking of when we talk about filming,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: you review your mental picture. Sometimes you don't have a
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: clear mental you don't have a clear recollection of what
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: just occurred. But sometimes you're like gifted this, Like I
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: remember exactly what I was thinking and what I was
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: looking at, And what I remember is all I saw
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: was elk and I don't let the arrow fly right.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: And you're not going like, oh, a little tough to hair.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: I like that little tough to hair right there. You know,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: you're just like ribs shoot yea, and then bad stuff occurs.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: Bad stuff occurs because the same way you might miss
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: that little tough to hair. Uh, if it's just the
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: whole ribs, you might just miss the whole ribs and
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: you learn your gear too. You know a lot of
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: people own gear. They spend a ton of money on
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: a beautiful optic and they don't know how to use it.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: They just haven't putting that time. They're like they don't
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: know what that turret does. They don't know what you know,
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: the different systems on there, and like you can't be
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: wanting for that in the moment when things are happening
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: fast and you don't know what to come off safe
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: right now, you don't know to be like I mean,
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: it's just that's all stuff to be practicing in almost
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: exhaustive repetition. So when you are fired up and see elk,
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: like you said, you can zero in and do what
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: it takes to you know, take that home. I would
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: say that's like very complicated end of the gear spectrum.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: Like there are so many people I see that literally
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: don't know how their boots really work, Like, oh, well,
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: that thing really pinches my lass, So I just skipped
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: that one, you know, Like it's it amazes man. So
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: many folks are there. They let kind of the bravado
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: or the excitement lead the way before they slow down
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: and go boy, I should probably figure probably should have
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: figured out this pack before a couple hundred pounds of
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: meat on the ground. You always gotta be aware of
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: the dude that like is getting at the trail head
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: tearing tags off his stuff. Well, how's the sigwork? Uh?
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: That's that was another great I don't think we actually
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: named it as a parallel, but it is a good parallel,
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: is the Uh you said that one guy's chiseled like
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: Michael Angelo drew him, and then you got that kind
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: of pudgy kid from the farm and he outperforms that guy.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of that going on that we see.
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: The dude just rolls in. You're like, man, that's a
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: good look at something right there. But he can't hike.
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: You know what. I remember this cartoon. I played paintball
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit when I was in high school, and
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: paintball was like first kind of coming out. My mom
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: thought for sure, like paintball was gonna lead me to
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: like become a mascular So she stopped it and I
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: was like, well, you didn't see the you didn't see
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: the finish line because I actually ended up, you know,
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: going the full Monty with this uh you know, force
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: on Force competition. But I remember a buddy of mine
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: like gave me like that a paintball magazine. It's one
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: of my favorite cartoons I ever saw drawn. But everyone
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: that's a hunter will know exactly what I'm talking about.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: The magazine had a cartoon that showed a paintballer, right
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: and like the the progression of a paint ball So
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: it had the beginner and the beginners and like a
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: pair of jeans, you know, decent pair of boots and
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: like a T shirt and like you know, a paintball
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: gun but just kind of looks like a rookie. And
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: then the you know, the the intermediate has like a
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of like cooler stuff, a better upgraded gun and
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: like a little more cammy than the advanced or expert
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: was like just ninja it out right, full gilly suit,
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: the like best high pressure gun there is. And then
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: it said master. It was the same picture as the
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: beginning because he just doesn't need all that extra stuff,
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: you know, He's just like got the goods. And it
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: was totally true. And I remembered that as like when
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: I went into the Seals, I was like, yeah, I
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: don't need all the ninja out stuff my skills right exactly. Yeah,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: like he went through everything, came up ther side and
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: blue jeans and like some tennis shoes. It was walking
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: around up there. It's awesome, yeah for sure. Alright, man, K,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: thank you very much. Thanks for having they hit the hit.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: The book titles one mort uh uh damn Few, Making
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: the modern Civil Warrior and worth dying for Navy Seals.
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: Call to a nation, or call Rourke for some consultant.
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: Boom you do, marriage, marriage consulting my bride and I've
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: been talking about that a little bit. All right, thanks man,
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks brother,