Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / The True Story of Navy SEAL Jason Redman: An Unstoppable Journey to Victory

Transcript

The True Story of Navy SEAL Jason Redman: An Unstoppable Journey to Victory · Motivation Mindset Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: The guy said they saw me stand up and turn
0:02
Speaker 1: and run to them when the round hit me from behind.
0:06
Speaker 1: It caught me right in front of the ear and
0:08
Speaker 1: traveled through, so they saw me fall in front of
0:12
Speaker 1: them and thought I was dead. When I finally came to,
0:15
Speaker 1: so I was laying on my back and I was
0:19
Speaker 1: seeing laser beams trafficed over me, which at first I
0:24
Speaker 1: couldn't quite put my thoughts together. I was, you know, man,
0:28
Speaker 1: what happened wrong? Like where am I? And then it
0:31
Speaker 1: dawned on me. I'm like, holy shit, you're in this
0:33
Speaker 1: gunfight and that's tracer fire. I stayed awake to stay alive.
0:38
Speaker 1: That was it. That was my primary focus, and I
0:40
Speaker 1: trusted my teammates to be able to win that fight.
0:45
Speaker 1: I thought that I was going to die. I did
0:49
Speaker 1: think about that. I thought I was going to bleed
0:52
Speaker 1: out and that I would never see my wife and
0:54
Speaker 1: kids again. Like every breath felt like I got a
1:00
Speaker 1: ten thousand pound weight on my chest, Like just to
1:02
Speaker 1: take a breath was incredibly difficult. I remember trying to
1:06
Speaker 1: move my right hand at one point and I couldn't
1:08
Speaker 1: even feel my right hand. I was really cold. It
1:12
Speaker 1: was getting hard to think so like I was like,
1:14
Speaker 1: you're dying, Like you're going through all the physiological components.
1:19
Speaker 1: I'm dying. Or they got me to the outer room.
1:23
Speaker 1: You know, they got to remove all your gear. I
1:26
Speaker 1: remember them cutting all that off and then they put
1:29
Speaker 1: me into the operating room and you know, lots of activity,
1:34
Speaker 1: barking out orders, bright lights, and just thinking to myself
1:36
Speaker 1: like you made it like you can die and they'll
1:39
Speaker 1: save you. And I remember that was kind of my
1:42
Speaker 1: final thought as I drifted off. Yeah, I am Jason Redman.
1:51
Speaker 1: I am a retired Navy seal. I am an author, speaker, coach,
1:56
Speaker 1: and entrepreneur. The military thing was something that came from
2:01
Speaker 1: a very young age. I always had a affinity towards
2:06
Speaker 1: what I call the protector community, the fire, military, law enforcement,
2:10
Speaker 1: all those things. When I was really young, I wanted
2:14
Speaker 1: to be a firefighter. I would say, I want to
2:17
Speaker 1: be a fireman because firemen are brave of heart. I
2:19
Speaker 1: would tell people that, and someone gave me this fire
2:22
Speaker 1: helmet that had a light on it an a siren,
2:26
Speaker 1: and I would like wear that around the house and
2:28
Speaker 1: drive everyone insane. My family had all served, so I
2:33
Speaker 1: grew up with a lot of stories about the military.
2:37
Speaker 1: My dad's father was a B twenty four, a bomber
2:42
Speaker 1: pilot over the European theater during the war, and those
2:46
Speaker 1: guys life inspectancy was not very good. I mean, he
2:50
Speaker 1: flew all twenty five missions, highly decorated. When I was
2:53
Speaker 1: a young kid in the late eighties, you couldn't find
2:57
Speaker 1: anything about the seal teams. Obviously the Internet hadn't been
3:00
Speaker 1: invented yet. God does that make me sound so really
3:07
Speaker 1: it was just trying to find information. It was very
3:11
Speaker 1: hard to find anything. But my dad said, hey, you
3:15
Speaker 1: should check these guys out. You know, they're called Navy seals.
3:18
Speaker 1: You know, they're considered some of the best of the best.
3:21
Speaker 1: They're training is the hardest in the world. And I
3:25
Speaker 1: don't know why that just peaked my interest. So, I mean,
3:31
Speaker 1: the toughest part is steal training is how wek is
3:35
Speaker 1: considered by many to be the hardest block of training
3:38
Speaker 1: in the US military. We definitely have the highest attrition
3:42
Speaker 1: rate of any block of training. Specifically, in that week
3:46
Speaker 1: on average, you'll lose almost eighty percent of the class.
3:49
Speaker 1: We'll quit during how weak and it is the pruning
3:54
Speaker 1: if you will, it is probably the biggest training device used.
4:00
Speaker 1: Seal training to weed out the people who don't have
4:03
Speaker 1: the mental fortitude to endure massive discomfort and pain to
4:09
Speaker 1: want to be there because they apply it in a
4:12
Speaker 1: myriad of really hard ways. Number one physically demanding activity
4:19
Speaker 1: for hell week last a week almost a week. I
4:22
Speaker 1: mean it's about five and a half days, so a
4:24
Speaker 1: work week if you will. During that week, you get
4:28
Speaker 1: almost new sleep. You'll average about three hours of sleep,
4:32
Speaker 1: so probably seventy two hours in you're starting to hallucinate.
4:37
Speaker 1: I remember multiple times I was hallucinating during hell week.
4:42
Speaker 1: You're ninety percent of the time you are wet, cold,
4:50
Speaker 1: and coated in sand. So what's happening is you're chafing holes.
4:56
Speaker 1: A lot of guys chaf holes on the inside of
4:58
Speaker 1: their legs and their growing area. Your armpits, on your neck,
5:02
Speaker 1: on top of your head. Not uncommon for guys toenails
5:07
Speaker 1: and fingernails to fall off or pop off from just
5:10
Speaker 1: being wet. You're you're shivering all the time. So what
5:14
Speaker 1: starts to happen. Your muscles are locking up from shivering.
5:18
Speaker 1: So now you're like locking up in pain from shivering.
5:23
Speaker 1: You literally become primal. It almost becomes like I just
5:26
Speaker 1: have to survive this, but you also have to think
5:32
Speaker 1: and you still have to exist as a team. You
5:34
Speaker 1: have to get through the evolutions because it's not like
5:38
Speaker 1: it's not like mindless activity. Everything is. You're you're accomplishing
5:43
Speaker 1: different things from problem solving to uh navigating the obstacle
5:49
Speaker 1: course to doing a time run to doing sp whatever
5:54
Speaker 1: it is. You're doing all these different things, but now
5:57
Speaker 1: you're doing it with the highest levels of stress, pressure, pain,
6:03
Speaker 1: and lack of sleep. I think for a lot of
6:06
Speaker 1: guys that go out to training for whatever reason, they're
6:10
Speaker 1: not prepared for the level of shock that training does
6:18
Speaker 1: to you. I mean it is designed to be mentally,
6:21
Speaker 1: physically and emotionally overwhelming. I mean it's purposely designed to
6:25
Speaker 1: be that way. It's purposely designed to be unfair, and
6:29
Speaker 1: a lot of guys just cannot wrap their head around that.
6:31
Speaker 1: Like and they're they're really good. They tee it up
6:34
Speaker 1: slowly before day one and training starts, so in the
6:38
Speaker 1: indoc phase for like a month, you're kind of learning
6:41
Speaker 1: what training is and they kind of act like it's hard,
6:43
Speaker 1: and it is hard, but not like when day one hits.
6:49
Speaker 1: It's like they hit you with a sledgehammer, and man,
6:51
Speaker 1: there's a mass exodus of people that quit within the
6:53
Speaker 1: first couple of days, just right out the gates. And
6:56
Speaker 1: I think those are the people that haven't been able
6:58
Speaker 1: to wrap their heads around like this is going to
7:00
Speaker 1: be really hard. And so for me that was no shock.
7:04
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, this what we expected, so let's go.
7:10
Speaker 1: Hell Week was amazing. I mean, to know that I
7:12
Speaker 1: had finished it. I mean, Hell Week is the biggest
7:14
Speaker 1: crucible of seal training, and there's still some other ones,
7:16
Speaker 1: but and Hell Week is what bonds every seal. Fast
7:20
Speaker 1: forward to the end of training and training from Hell Week,
7:23
Speaker 1: you still have four months of training before you graduate.
7:28
Speaker 1: Hell Week's actually in the beginning, well, you graduate, and
7:32
Speaker 1: then the other thing with that is when you graduate,
7:35
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you're a seal. That just means you've
7:39
Speaker 1: made it through the first phase basic underwater demolition. Seal
7:44
Speaker 1: training is kind of like high school, and then you
7:46
Speaker 1: have to go to college and then they assign you
7:50
Speaker 1: to a platoon and almost if you look at it
7:52
Speaker 1: from like a medical thing, you know, you got to
7:54
Speaker 1: do residency before you're actually officially you know, a doctor,
7:58
Speaker 1: a practicing doctor. That pipeline is kind of similar to us.
8:03
Speaker 1: So you get assigned to a team after you've gone
8:08
Speaker 1: through some advanced training our college, and then you have
8:13
Speaker 1: to prove yourself, you know, kind of like a residency phase,
8:17
Speaker 1: if you will. Back in the day, it was a
8:22
Speaker 1: huge right of passage. The entire team would line up,
8:27
Speaker 1: the commanding officer would have all the new guys who
8:30
Speaker 1: were getting their tridents. And back then we used to
8:35
Speaker 1: wear camouflage uniforms and we had black tridents that the older,
8:41
Speaker 1: you know, the other guys wore in their uniforms, but
8:44
Speaker 1: on your dress uniform it was a gold trident and
8:49
Speaker 1: they would present you with that. But then they would
8:51
Speaker 1: they would tack in your black trident and they would
8:54
Speaker 1: punch it into your chest. And man, it was an
8:57
Speaker 1: amazing right of passage. I mean, yes, here, there's a
8:59
Speaker 1: picture in my book where my chest is all bruised
9:02
Speaker 1: from having two hundred teammates you know, punch my tride
9:06
Speaker 1: in it. But it's such an amazing rite of passage,
9:10
Speaker 1: and you just feel amazing, like I'm in part of
9:12
Speaker 1: this community, this warrior community, and I've done all these
9:14
Speaker 1: things to reach this level. So probably one week before
9:25
Speaker 1: we were going home, we got tasked to go after
9:30
Speaker 1: a high level Al Qaida leader guy. He was the
9:35
Speaker 1: number one leader for the Ambar province of Iraq. Launched
9:38
Speaker 1: on that mission, took down on the initial target. Nobody
9:42
Speaker 1: was there. We thought it was going to be a
9:44
Speaker 1: quiet night. Basically, we found all kinds of weapons and
9:47
Speaker 1: ID making components and we were going to blow that
9:51
Speaker 1: in place. It was about three am in the morning
9:53
Speaker 1: at this point, and we thought, okay, that'll be it.
9:55
Speaker 1: We blow this, you know, we we blow up the
9:59
Speaker 1: ID and explod and then we're out of here. Extract
10:03
Speaker 1: and that'll be up for tonight. And while we were
10:06
Speaker 1: waiting on that, we saw a bunch of activity on
10:09
Speaker 1: another house about one hundred and fifty yards away. Saw
10:13
Speaker 1: some individuals run out of that house run into some
10:16
Speaker 1: vegetation across the street. And my boss came up to
10:20
Speaker 1: me and said, hey, you know, we just saw this.
10:23
Speaker 1: We had seen it before. We had seen individuals run
10:25
Speaker 1: and hide and vegetation and things like that. You know,
10:30
Speaker 1: they not realizing, you know, we have snipers with eyes
10:33
Speaker 1: and things like this or watching and and he said,
10:37
Speaker 1: let's let's wrap these guys up. You know, typically good
10:40
Speaker 1: people don't run out of buildings in the middle of
10:43
Speaker 1: the night and hide unless they have a reason too.
10:45
Speaker 1: So so yeah, I took my team. We navigated through
10:50
Speaker 1: this vegetation, you know, coming up from the south to
10:53
Speaker 1: the north where these guys were hiding, and we did
10:57
Speaker 1: not know it, but they were the last part of
11:01
Speaker 1: a ambush line that they had put into that vegetation,
11:05
Speaker 1: so they had fighting positions built in there. They had
11:08
Speaker 1: multiple machine guns and AK forty seven's and we came
11:14
Speaker 1: up behind them. But what ended up happening is we
11:18
Speaker 1: got separated in the vegetation. That's a really dangerous situation
11:23
Speaker 1: to be We call it a blue on blue, you know,
11:26
Speaker 1: we're friendly forces or both shooting at each other with
11:29
Speaker 1: the enemy in the middle. So we made the call, like, hey,
11:33
Speaker 1: push out of the vegetation. We'll push out of the
11:36
Speaker 1: vegetation on this side and then we'll get to the
11:38
Speaker 1: north and we'll link back up. We were not aware
11:41
Speaker 1: we were asking at this point. We had a AC
11:45
Speaker 1: one to thirty gun ship. It's kind of an aircraft
11:49
Speaker 1: that has weapons and high level targeting equipment to be
11:53
Speaker 1: able to see things happening on the ground. Even at
11:55
Speaker 1: night and I was talking to them and I said, hey,
11:59
Speaker 1: can you see anything He's seen a movement. No, we're
12:01
Speaker 1: not seeing anything, or we've seen any weapons. No, we're
12:03
Speaker 1: not seeing any weapons. So we just said, okay, we're
12:05
Speaker 1: going to push up to the north. We're going to
12:07
Speaker 1: link back up, and then we'll go into the vegetation
12:09
Speaker 1: or wrapping these guys up. Yeah, we walked right into
12:13
Speaker 1: their ambush. So when we went up to the north,
12:15
Speaker 1: we walked right into what we call the kill zone,
12:18
Speaker 1: so all the weapons are pointed this way, and literally
12:21
Speaker 1: they opened up on us. So my medic was initially hit,
12:26
Speaker 1: took around right below the knee, severed both bones, which
12:30
Speaker 1: dropped him into the ground. One of our other guys
12:33
Speaker 1: ran forward and started to drag him back, and he
12:37
Speaker 1: was shot three times up the body still a strong
12:41
Speaker 1: and big enough guy to drag himself in the medic
12:44
Speaker 1: back to It was like a tractor tire behind us.
12:50
Speaker 1: DJ was with us. He bounded back and the only
12:54
Speaker 1: points of cover meaning something that will stop bullets where
12:56
Speaker 1: the tractor tire was kind of like this large John
12:59
Speaker 1: Deere style and like one tree and DJ fell back
13:03
Speaker 1: behind the tree. The rest of the guys fell behind
13:07
Speaker 1: the tire and I was still out front. At this point,
13:09
Speaker 1: I was laying down fire when I initially got shot.
13:14
Speaker 1: So I got shot across the body armor and U
13:18
Speaker 1: and took the round in the arm. I thought my
13:21
Speaker 1: arm got shot off in the moment it I'd never
13:26
Speaker 1: been shot before, and it was with a PKM machine gun,
13:30
Speaker 1: so it's a big belt fed weapon that shoots pretty
13:32
Speaker 1: big bullet seven six two fifty four. And when it
13:36
Speaker 1: hit me in the arm, I lost all feeling and
13:40
Speaker 1: it actually felt like I mean, I've I've often described
13:42
Speaker 1: it like if you bang your if you bang your
13:44
Speaker 1: funny bone. It's kind of like that, only by like
13:47
Speaker 1: amplify that by a thousand. It literally felt like a
13:51
Speaker 1: like a lightning bolt struck me in the arm and
13:54
Speaker 1: traveled up my up my arm and like spiked me
13:57
Speaker 1: in the back of the head. And then I had
13:59
Speaker 1: no feeling. So I think my arm kind of caught
14:02
Speaker 1: on my gear, you know, because now it's nighttime. It's
14:05
Speaker 1: like three thirty in the morning. So when I reached over,
14:07
Speaker 1: I didn't feel my arm, and my initial thought was,
14:09
Speaker 1: holy shit, I just got my arm shot off. I
14:13
Speaker 1: tried to shoot again. I think I dropped down and
14:17
Speaker 1: then I was taking a lot of fire. At this
14:22
Speaker 1: point I was I took a round off my gun,
14:27
Speaker 1: I took my left night vision tube shot off. I
14:32
Speaker 1: was taking really a lot of fire. So I decided
14:34
Speaker 1: I was going to try and move back to the tire.
14:39
Speaker 1: So the guy said they saw me stand up and
14:42
Speaker 1: turn and run to them when the round hit me
14:45
Speaker 1: from behind. It caught me right in front of the
14:47
Speaker 1: ear and traveled through, so they saw me fall in
14:52
Speaker 1: front of them and thought I was dead. We don't
14:56
Speaker 1: know how long. By ten minutes, I was on content.
15:00
Speaker 1: The total gunfight lasted probably forty minutes, but they were
15:06
Speaker 1: engaging in the enemy. I'm unconscious and literally this firefight
15:11
Speaker 1: is happening directly above me. When I finally came to,
15:15
Speaker 1: I basically woke up, and what I remember was I
15:19
Speaker 1: was laying on my back and I was seeing laser
15:24
Speaker 1: beams traffled over me, which at first I couldn't quite
15:28
Speaker 1: put my thoughts together. You know, it was super cloudy.
15:33
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've ever been knocked out, you know
15:35
Speaker 1: it kind of takes a little bit to get your
15:37
Speaker 1: brain working and figure out where you are and things
15:40
Speaker 1: to come back to play. So I was, you know, man,
15:44
Speaker 1: what happened wrong? Like where am I? You know, hearing
15:47
Speaker 1: the gunfire, seeing the laser games, and then it dawned
15:50
Speaker 1: on me. I'm like, holy shit, you're in this gunfight
15:53
Speaker 1: and that's tracer fire. So every fifth round of a
15:58
Speaker 1: machine gun has phosphorus in the gunpowder, so it looks
16:02
Speaker 1: like laser beating through the air. That's how machine gunners
16:05
Speaker 1: cite their weapon. That's what you know, people often see
16:08
Speaker 1: the movies and things like that. So I remember like
16:12
Speaker 1: that was my first thought, like holy shit, like literally
16:14
Speaker 1: that's right above me. Like if you sit up, you're dead.
16:18
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, you know, I quickly realized, like man,
16:22
Speaker 1: I am out of the fight. I tried to get
16:23
Speaker 1: my turniqit on. We had been trained. I knew I'd
16:27
Speaker 1: been shot in the arm. I remember that. I think
16:29
Speaker 1: at some point I remember reaching up to my face
16:31
Speaker 1: and realizing, holy shit, like there's a giant hole in
16:34
Speaker 1: my face, like I've been shot in the face. And
16:39
Speaker 1: I was like, I got to get a turnikit on,
16:41
Speaker 1: like you know, because I still thought my arm had
16:43
Speaker 1: been shot off. Interesting. I used to carry my turniquit
16:49
Speaker 1: either on the top or I think I carry on
16:51
Speaker 1: the bottom of my body armor and I use these
16:53
Speaker 1: really thick rubber bands, which for a healthy, strong individual
16:59
Speaker 1: and no big deal. But when I tried to break them,
17:02
Speaker 1: I'd already lost so much blood. I was so weak
17:05
Speaker 1: I could not I couldn't get my TURNI quit. I
17:08
Speaker 1: was like, holy shit, you know I'm gonna bleed out
17:10
Speaker 1: because I can't even get my own TURNI kit on them.
17:13
Speaker 1: So there was a lull Empire and I remember calling out,
17:20
Speaker 1: or I might even gone on the radio. I'm not sure,
17:23
Speaker 1: but I called out to my team leader and he said, red,
17:26
Speaker 1: you're still alive. I was like, yes, how long to
17:29
Speaker 1: the metavac because I knew I couldn't last that long.
17:33
Speaker 1: So I was like, and reality is I should have realized,
17:36
Speaker 1: you know, hey, ma, we got to win the gunfight
17:38
Speaker 1: before we can bring in the METAVAC. But I trusted
17:41
Speaker 1: them to do that. They said five minutes, so I
17:44
Speaker 1: think that was probably fifteen twenty minutes, you know a
17:46
Speaker 1: period of time. I think when they realized that they
17:51
Speaker 1: requested a fire mission. The gunship said we're so close,
17:56
Speaker 1: we we'll kill you guys. You guys are way too close.
17:59
Speaker 1: You were in extreme danger close situation, meaning if we
18:03
Speaker 1: bring in the rounds, they're going to kill you. The
18:07
Speaker 1: same time we killed the enemy because of the fragmentation
18:11
Speaker 1: of blast radius. So they wanted us to move back somehow,
18:17
Speaker 1: and my team leader was like, there's no way, there's
18:19
Speaker 1: no place for us to go. You know, redspinned down
18:23
Speaker 1: out front ten yards. We can't run into this gunfire.
18:27
Speaker 1: So he asked again, probably five minutes later, they said no.
18:31
Speaker 1: The third time, probably five minutes later, he said, look, no,
18:33
Speaker 1: one's going to be left. He's like, we're going to
18:37
Speaker 1: be out of AMMO and these guys are going to
18:38
Speaker 1: bleed out and die before we can get out of here.
18:42
Speaker 1: So he's like, you have to bring in this fire mission.
18:44
Speaker 1: So at that point they basically said the responsibilities on you.
18:49
Speaker 1: You are accepting responsibility for the fact that we may
18:52
Speaker 1: kill you, and he had to give his we call
18:57
Speaker 1: it a Joint Tactical air Controller Specific designator j TACK,
19:01
Speaker 1: which basically means he is trained and qualified to call
19:05
Speaker 1: in rounds from an aircraft. But by them making him
19:08
Speaker 1: give his j TACK designator, if we had been killed,
19:12
Speaker 1: it basically relieved the aircraft from the responsibility. It said, hey,
19:16
Speaker 1: we are going to kill you, like you have to
19:18
Speaker 1: accept this. So so he called out to me and said, hey, incoming.
19:27
Speaker 1: And I remember laying there and the machine gun was
19:29
Speaker 1: still and hearing the rounds go off from the gun.
19:34
Speaker 1: The gun aircraft flies at a pretty high altitude. You
19:37
Speaker 1: can't see it in the dark, but you can hear
19:40
Speaker 1: the gun go off. Forty millimeter fires a round that's
19:44
Speaker 1: about this big and about this long, and it's explosive,
19:48
Speaker 1: has about a sixty meters blast radius, And I remember
19:53
Speaker 1: hearing it go off boom boom, boom, boom boom, and
19:57
Speaker 1: like waiting with those and then all of a sudden,
20:02
Speaker 1: boom boo boo boom boom boom in front of us,
20:04
Speaker 1: and all this dirt and shit blew up over me
20:08
Speaker 1: and uh, and the gun went cold, and I remember
20:11
Speaker 1: hearing the uh, the guy on the gun crying out
20:15
Speaker 1: in pain Allah allah car, you know, calling out to
20:19
Speaker 1: his god if they could stand by, And next rounds
20:24
Speaker 1: came in, boom boom boom. At that point, my team
20:27
Speaker 1: leader ran forward and got me and dragged me back
20:30
Speaker 1: to the tire and got a turn kit on my arm.
20:33
Speaker 1: So saved my life. The guys were also back there.
20:35
Speaker 1: They packed my face. We ended up calling in several
20:40
Speaker 1: more fire missions to take out the rest of the enemy,
20:43
Speaker 1: and then finally we called in the metabac. But that
20:48
Speaker 1: fire mission was the closest fire mission ever executed the
20:52
Speaker 1: entire Iraq. We literally calling rounds directly on our position.
20:59
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here. It's nothing heroic, nothing amazing, you know.
21:02
Speaker 1: I'm you know, not this incredible warrior. I mean, the
21:05
Speaker 1: only thing that happened for me that night is I
21:08
Speaker 1: I stayed away to stay a love. That was it.
21:11
Speaker 1: That was my primary focus, and I trusted my teammates
21:14
Speaker 1: to be able to win that fight, and they did.
21:16
Speaker 1: And I owe my life to my teammates. I owe
21:18
Speaker 1: my life to that gunship that was up overhead. And
21:23
Speaker 1: then shortly later, I would owe my life to all
21:26
Speaker 1: the incredible medical doctors and nurses who you know, saved
21:30
Speaker 1: my life in that operating room, you know, a few
21:33
Speaker 1: an hour later. So the next thing I remember, I
21:39
Speaker 1: was in Germany. So I remember being in Ballade in
21:42
Speaker 1: the ICU. There are parts of that I remember. And
21:45
Speaker 1: then the next thing I remember, I'm in Germany. And
21:48
Speaker 1: then I remember the flight home to UH from lawnstool
21:53
Speaker 1: to America. I was too weak to get out of bed.
22:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I was the blood loss. I couldn't even
22:10
Speaker 1: I wasn't even strong enough to go to the bathroom
22:12
Speaker 1: on my own. I had to have nurses helped me
22:14
Speaker 1: to use the bathroom. I had eight blood transfusions over
22:18
Speaker 1: the ninety six hour period from the time I was
22:20
Speaker 1: wounded to the time I got to Bethesda, so just
22:25
Speaker 1: you know, crushed my strength, you know, And I'm by
22:32
Speaker 1: now four days later. Like I have a picture from
22:36
Speaker 1: only a few days after the hospital. My head is
22:38
Speaker 1: swollen out like this, like both eyes were bloodshot. I mean,
22:44
Speaker 1: you couldn't even see, I mean just red. I looked
22:46
Speaker 1: like an alien. All the stitches are protruding out from
22:51
Speaker 1: the swelling. There's nothing left in my nose. I just
22:55
Speaker 1: have these orange tubes where what was left of my nose.
23:01
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm drake, I'm wired shot. They're feeding
23:05
Speaker 1: me through a stomach tube. You know, I'm on the ventilator.
23:17
Speaker 1: When I was in the hospital, there were some people
23:19
Speaker 1: that came in to the room and they were just
23:24
Speaker 1: a lot of pity, you know, over what had happened,
23:27
Speaker 1: and the yeah, And I think that happens a lot
23:35
Speaker 1: in this life. You know, people feel sorry for you
23:37
Speaker 1: when bad things happen. In the hospital, the military hospital,
23:42
Speaker 1: war was pretty hard place to be a lot of
23:46
Speaker 1: a lot of young, young kids that are blown apart.
23:50
Speaker 1: You know, war wounds are really bad case in point.
23:55
Speaker 1: So anyways, they were I think overwhelmed. They were in
23:58
Speaker 1: my room. They were talking about what a shame and
24:01
Speaker 1: what a pity, how sad it was, and all these
24:04
Speaker 1: kids were blown apart and we were never going to
24:06
Speaker 1: be the same, we would never recover. And then they
24:12
Speaker 1: left and I, you know, I overheard part of this conversation.
24:15
Speaker 1: They were speaking to themselves and like the nurse was
24:17
Speaker 1: in the room or something, and they left, the nurse left.
24:20
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just kind of remember laying in bed, like, man,
24:23
Speaker 1: is that like me? Is that my future? You know?
24:27
Speaker 1: And be thankful for the hard times, because if you're
24:31
Speaker 1: willing to navigate through them, they actually set you up
24:33
Speaker 1: for better success. That's what builds an overcome mindset, That's
24:36
Speaker 1: what builds resilience. If you've never ever been through anything hard,
24:39
Speaker 1: it's hard to turn on an overcome mindset when something
24:42
Speaker 1: bad happens to you. So anyways, that's how the sign
24:45
Speaker 1: came to be. It was just it was a choice.
24:47
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not gonna feel sorry for myself. So yeah,
24:53
Speaker 1: I wrote out that sign and one shot. I didn't
24:56
Speaker 1: really give it a lot of thought. The original sign
24:59
Speaker 1: was written on a piece of like printer paper, That's
25:02
Speaker 1: what I was using to communicate, and then several days
25:07
Speaker 1: later we transcribed it onto the It was larger. It
25:10
Speaker 1: was probably the eleven by seventeen was the actual real sign,
25:15
Speaker 1: which now hangs up at the Wounding board at Walter reed,
25:18
Speaker 1: So I got an imitation of the White House to
25:21
Speaker 1: meet President Bush and he signed it, and it now
25:24
Speaker 1: hangs near at the wounded board that Walter read.
25:28
Speaker 2: Wow, attention to all who enter here. If you're coming
25:35
Speaker 2: in this room with sorrow to feel sorry for my wounds,
25:38
Speaker 2: go elsewhere the wounds I received.
25:41
Speaker 1: I got a job. I love doing it for people.
25:43
Speaker 1: I love supporting the freedom of a country that I
25:45
Speaker 1: deeply loved. I am incredibly tough and will make a
25:48
Speaker 1: full recovery. What is full that is the absolute utmost
25:51
Speaker 1: physically my body has the ability to recover it and
25:54
Speaker 1: I want to push that about twenty percent further through
25:56
Speaker 1: sheer mental tenacity. This room you're about to enter, there
26:00
Speaker 1: is room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If
26:04
Speaker 1: you were not prepared for that, go elsewhere, and we
26:10
Speaker 1: signed it from the management. I'll be honest. In the beginning,
26:18
Speaker 1: I think I was just elated to still be alive,
26:24
Speaker 1: and there was just this relentless push to get better.
26:28
Speaker 1: So I'd say for the first year, although don't get
26:30
Speaker 1: me wrong, in the very beginning it was very difficult
26:32
Speaker 1: to kind of come to grips with man. I am
26:35
Speaker 1: severely disfigured. I mean, in the beginning they were telling
26:37
Speaker 1: me they were going to amputate my arm. The amount
26:40
Speaker 1: of damage I had. I had no function of my hand,
26:45
Speaker 1: so I had this nerve damage that they didn't know
26:48
Speaker 1: if it was going to get better. My elbow was
26:49
Speaker 1: totally destroyed, so the doctor's initial recommendation was to amputate
26:56
Speaker 1: above the elbow. The only reason I still have an
26:59
Speaker 1: arm is fate, serendipity, luck, God, whatever you want to
27:05
Speaker 1: call it. Uh. But the head orthopedic surgeon ATPATESDA at
27:09
Speaker 1: that time was a former seal by the name of
27:11
Speaker 1: Dan the lank and Dan said, we're not taking his arm.
27:16
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save his arm, and I think his entire
27:18
Speaker 1: team disagreed with him. But I mean, man, I mean, man,
27:23
Speaker 1: you guys. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not great, but
27:27
Speaker 1: I can do a lot. You know, I try and
27:29
Speaker 1: do more than the average person out there with what
27:31
Speaker 1: I've got, and I'm just thankful for that. And I
27:33
Speaker 1: wouldn't have an arm if it wasn't for Dan. But
27:38
Speaker 1: there were hard times. I won't lie, you know, I
27:43
Speaker 1: felt like I was.
27:44
Speaker 3: To be.
27:46
Speaker 1: Facially disfigured is really hard. You go out in public,
27:51
Speaker 1: we all look at each other's faces, and even today,
27:54
Speaker 1: I get a lot of attracts, and you know, people
27:55
Speaker 1: look at me. Kids stare at me a lot because
27:58
Speaker 1: my face looks different, there's something wrong with it. They
28:01
Speaker 1: can tell their scars, my eyes a little off. But
28:07
Speaker 1: go back to the beginning, I looked really rough. So
28:12
Speaker 1: that was hard going out in public and dealing with that.
28:16
Speaker 1: I got frustrated. After a period of time I've been
28:20
Speaker 1: What started happening is after my eight weeks impatient, I
28:23
Speaker 1: started doing outpatient and they they, you know, thanks to
28:27
Speaker 1: the to the sealed teams and connections we have and
28:29
Speaker 1: a little bit of my own endeavors. I ended up
28:32
Speaker 1: connecting to one of the best, some of the best
28:35
Speaker 1: surgeons in the world to rebuild my face and nose
28:38
Speaker 1: and and uh and uh. But that required a lot
28:42
Speaker 1: of travel. I was you know, fly, go have a surgery,
28:46
Speaker 1: you know, fly pre op, come back, fly surgery, two
28:50
Speaker 1: or three week recovery, come home, recover, and then repeat
28:54
Speaker 1: the process for multiple years. A lot of setbacks. Battlefield
29:01
Speaker 1: injuries are really dirty, so frequently infection sets in and
29:05
Speaker 1: I had all kinds of infection problems with my face.
29:08
Speaker 1: So this this nose they built me is actually the
29:13
Speaker 1: third nose. The first two failed and they totally had
29:16
Speaker 1: to cut it out and start over. And that was
29:20
Speaker 1: really hard. I mean at a certain period, like literally
29:22
Speaker 1: I just had a hole in my face and and
29:25
Speaker 1: you know, I used to go around with a piece
29:27
Speaker 1: of gauze. I often joke I look like Skeletor, And
29:33
Speaker 1: you know that's no wonder. Skeletor is so damn angry, right,
29:39
Speaker 1: But you know, finally we gained traction. But no, man,
29:45
Speaker 1: there were a lot of dark, hard moments. I won't
29:48
Speaker 1: lie now, I often speak on it the victor versus
29:51
Speaker 1: victim mindset. You know, I think when bad things happened
29:54
Speaker 1: to us, we have a tendency and even I've done it, man,
29:57
Speaker 1: I've had that bigdom mindset where, oh my god, this
30:00
Speaker 1: bad thing happened to me. You know, the world hates me,
30:03
Speaker 1: or these people hate me, or you know, I'm never
30:06
Speaker 1: gonna be able to overcome this. And yeah, it was
30:09
Speaker 1: just like, that's not going to be me.
30:12
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for watching the amazing Jason Redmond.
30:15
Speaker 3: His story has inspired so many people from around the
30:19
Speaker 3: world and we wouldn't have been able to make this
30:21
Speaker 3: documentary if it wasn't for our sponsors supporting us. Shule
30:25
Speaker 3: Shuell has been absolutely amazing to us and they have
30:27
Speaker 3: been fueling my performance for the last two years now,
30:30
Speaker 3: from the world record at Las Stone to the new
30:32
Speaker 3: world record I'm working on at the moment where I
30:34
Speaker 3: do the world's heaviest marathon one hundred kilos for twenty
30:37
Speaker 3: six point two miles or two hundred and twenty pounds
30:40
Speaker 3: for twenty six point two miles, followed up by an
30:42
Speaker 3: ultramarathon every day with sixty pounds on my back. Yes,
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31:05
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Speaker 3: much more. Thank you for watching, have a blessed and
31:29
Speaker 3: productive day, and I will see you in the next one.
31:31
Speaker 3: Peace