Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #0277_Jason Magnavice — Secrets of SEAL Team 6

Transcript

#0277_Jason Magnavice — Secrets of SEAL Team 6 · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Have you seen this show before?
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. I watched it on Abyss.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Your buddies was.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: DJ.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You watched DJs?
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Well, I knew DJ when he was a kid.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw that.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: I did a freaking, I did a platoon with his dad.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: He was my, his dad was actually my platoon chief.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I knew DJ when he was 13 or 14 just
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: to go hang out with his parents. They'd always, you know,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: they have a big deer roast. We'd go hunting and
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: eat some venison, tell stories. His dad was one of
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the most incredible storytellers. Very animated.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Still is, right? You still talk to him?
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: No. No?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Are you buddies with DJ?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: DJ, I shoot him a text every now and then.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I went to Virginia Beach about a year ago to
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: go through a like a workout program there, VHB it's called.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: It's an awesome program. And then we were going to
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: link up then, but our schedules didn't ever seem to.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, right on. To add up. Right on. Let me
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: start you off with an introduction. Ready?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I'm ready. All right.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Jason Magnavice, JMAGS, retired Navy SEAL with over 26 years
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: in the community, eight years at SEAL Team 2, 15
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: years at JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command Dev Group, which
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: led to earning your airline transport pilot certificate and numerous
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: FAA aviation qualifications. Served as a tactical communicator, sniper, lead jumper,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and team leader. Completed four deployments to Operation Enduring Freedom.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Completed four deployments to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Closed out your
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: career as the coordinator for recruiting candidates for Naval Special Warfare.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Senior enlisted advisor for the only enlisted aviation unit in
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the Department of Defense, currently an airline pilot flying a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Gulfstream for a private family holding a 767 type rating
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: at a major freight carrier, raised with a Jehovah Witness
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: mother and a Vietnam vet father. Most importantly, you are
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the father of one daughter and the grandfather of two boys.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: No social media, no book, nothing to sell.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Nothing to sell. Did I write that? I did write that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I found that out. But, well, since you're new to media,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I thought we'd kick it off with something real easy.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Super easy to talk about. Everyday Carry.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I got a 365 Legion AXG. You got a 365 Legion? Yes.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Nice. Nice. What do you carry? What else do you carry?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Actually, I just picked up a Staccato.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Two days ago.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You like it?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: It's a little Gucci, you know what I mean? But
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: it shoots like a dream. It's heavy. It's an XC,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: but it was one made... Our community actually got... It's got, like,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: little bone frog on the side, American flag on it.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: That's kind of why... And it got a pretty good
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: deal for a Staccato.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It's a.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: It's a cool gun.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: So what would you carry... What would you carry when
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: you were a pilot in the development group? Nothing. Nothing?
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: No.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: No, we flew pretty much in the States. That's pretty
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: much it, yeah. Flying our bosses around, geared to and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: from certain places. That's pretty much it. Yeah, we didn't
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: carry no firearms.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Right on. What would you carry if you were doing
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: some blow pro stuff over a dev group? Talk about pistol,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: what's in your go bag, any cool devices you may
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: have had.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: We pretty much carried the 226 back then before they
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: transitioned the big, the H & K, what's it, the
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Mark 21, the 45.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Holy shit, you guys were using those?
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: A couple guys carried them, yeah, just for the suppressed
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: value of some of them. And a Ruger Mark III,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I've got a Mark IV. But we'd carry the one,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: the self-suppressed Ruger, the 22.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Self, with the little hush puppy?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for shooting out street lights and stuff like that.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Nice, nice. Anything else? What kind of medical?
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, just block it.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: We had PJs that did all that stuff.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: What kind of long rifle were you using?
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I had a SR-25K. I liked the 308. It was
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: a shorter SR-25 and 300 Win Mag. was like the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: laser beam back then. And now everybody I know is
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: shooting 6.5 Creedmoor.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: All that other stuff. Yeah. What's your favorite round?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I like. 308 and. 300 Win Mag.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: You like. 308,. 300? Do you like. 300 Blackout?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I got a Daniel Offense PDW. Actually, that's pretty sweet.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: No shit?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: But every time you squeeze off a round, it's like
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: there's five bucks, five bucks, five bucks, five bucks. You
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: know what I mean?
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I got you a present.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: What'd you get me?
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Do you want to see it? Sure. All right. It's
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a bag of gummy bears. Vigilance League gummy bears. See,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I do have shit to sell.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: I like gummy bears.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But that's a bag of Vigilance League gummy bears made
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: in the USA, legal in all 50 states, so you
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: can fly home.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Am I going to pop positive if I take these
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: with anything?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: You might pop positive for sugar and red dye, and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: that's about it. And I did get you one other present, too,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: since we're talking about.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Weapons and guns and everyday carry.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, no way. Yeah, man. Have you seen these? This is...
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Is that a SIG Rattler? No, this came out after
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the Rattler. This is better than the fucking Rattler, in
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: my opinion. But this is the SIG MCX Spear. And
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: so this is... They're replacing all of the... Supposedly, they're
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: replacing all the military rifles with the 6.5.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Excuse me. Yeah, 6-point shit, dog. There's so many rounds
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: coming out, I can't fucking keep track. It's either 6.5
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: or 6.8.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you start talking guns.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But this one, so they got a 5.56 version, a
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: 300 blackout version, and a 6-point whatever version. And they
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: put their new optics on the top of them for you.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: This is like, you can't even get these yet, barely.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And then, are you familiar with Silencer Shop?
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, I just picked up a couple of Huxworks cans,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: a 556 and a 308.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: No shit?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Well, Sig was ecstatic that you were coming on the show.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I told Jason, I've got a buddy over there, Jason.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: He runs a marketing over there.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: It's a great place. They're a great company.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Have you been out there?
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: We went out there for an event for the foundation. Oh, nice.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Like two Octobers ago. Yeah, it was a good time.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: A lot of good people at that place. A lot
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: of good people. Nice.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Well, and then Silencer Shop. There you go. Silencer Shop
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: got word that you were coming on. And, you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess you'd already have experience with them. But,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you know, you put in, once you get signed up
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: with them, they make it super easy. They do all
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the paperwork for you. You go to a gun shop
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: that's got Silencer Shop kiosks in there, and it just
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: makes it super simple. And then the other thing they
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: do is they also fight for, basically, gun rights, you know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: especially obviously suppressors. So fucking awesome company, but told them
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: you were coming on too. And they wanted to throw
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a can on there. So that's yours.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I'm extremely honored.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I will. I will. We got a little, a little
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: place land passes, Texas that we do some blinking at.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Nice. Nice.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Try to eradicate the hog population out there. Cause they
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: get out of control.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I hear that could be pretty challenging.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. But, uh, From a helicopter, it's entertaining.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Nice. Well, maybe we'll break that in later. We've got
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to range out back.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I'm really honored. Thank you.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: You're welcome. And then one more thing to crank out
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: before we get into the real interview. So I have
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: a Patreon account, and it's a community that we've built.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And so they're the reason that I get to be
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: here with you today and do these interviews. So they
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And this is from Rex Herman. What was the moment
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: in your career that changed the way you think about
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: leadership the most?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: The moment when, well, I've worked for some incredible people
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: enlisted guys. And like when I first got to the command,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I'll just call this guy Crazy Horse. He was one
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: of the best leaders I ever worked for. You know,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: a humble guy. that didn't think he knew everything all
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: the time. And if he had any questions, that's like
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: who I wanted to be like. We respected him. He
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: was a hard worker. He led by example, but he
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: wasn't hard headed, right? He was just, hey, if he
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: had a question, he wasn't afraid to ask a question.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: He wasn't afraid to delegate other people that he knew
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: were better at certain things that he wasn't. And that's
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: what really made me respect leadership a lot from him.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Right on.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: And a few other people.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: What year did you get to the command?
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: 2001.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Holy shit.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And you left in 2019. I think you told me
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: before we started. 2016.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: 2016.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Holy shit.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: 15 fucking years over there.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: I went over there for a break too.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I saw that in your outline. You wanted a break
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and then decided to scream for Dev Group pre-9-11. I
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: wanted a break.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: I was tired of doing six-month deployments when I was
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: a little creak. And I did winter warfare platoons, too,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: so it was a long workup. Some of the deployments
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: were over six months, six, seven months. And my daughter
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: was born, what year? 97. I was gone a lot.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: And we weren't really working that much. A little stuff
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: in Bosnia, Kosovo, that's pretty much.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was our work schedule back then. Then I'm like, hey, hon,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to screen for... Because a bunch of my
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: buddies were going over there, too. A whole bunch of
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: my buddies from two were going over there. Like, I'm
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: going to screen, and some of the guys are, you know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: pretty set in their ways that are, like, team two.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Some didn't want to go
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: over there. They didn't want to go through the challenge.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: of the selection process again. And I could get it.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I could understand it. So some of them were trying
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: to talk me out of it, but I'm like, nah, dude,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to be home. You know what I mean?
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I'll be home for three months at a time.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: You thought you would be at home?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: This is... I got out of the selection process, Green Team,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: in September of 2001. Holy shit. I remember walking across
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: the compound when we were talking about the planes hitting
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the towers and And the first thought was, man, ATC
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: must have screwed that up. Then when the second one
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: hit the tower, yeah, they took our whole class into
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: a briefing room. Our skipper came in, gave us the brief,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: and we're like, oh boy, excited. Excited because we knew
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: we were going to be busy. But the families, the
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: families were like, our guys are going to be gone
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: for quite a bit, and we were. Damn, man.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: We were.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Damn.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yep. Well, I know you've had one hell of a career,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: but let's start prior to the career.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Waterbury, Connecticut.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: What were you into?
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I was into bikes, baseball, and football, pretty much.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: That's it?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What about when you were a littler?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Any time in the woods?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, with my grandfather. So that's, yeah, getting back
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: to the, Yeah, by the way, I got a gift
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: for you. We'll get that down the road. But yeah,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: my grandfather, my mom's dad, he was a Korean War guy.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: He from Kentucky, big backwoods guy. He taught me, we'd
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: go hiking all the time where we used to live
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: by a reservoir in Waterbury, Connecticut. Yeah, he'd take me
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: on hikes, point out like poison ivy, poison oak, show
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: me how to make little spears, like with his little
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: folding knife. And then, yeah, we'd climb this mountain. He
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: called it Jason's Mountain. Yeah, it was pretty good upbringing.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Me and my dad also taught me a lot growing up.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: He was kind of a stickler for baseball and football.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Pretty stern when it came to that stuff, too.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, really? Serious?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Right on.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: What did your dad do?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: My dad, he worked, well, when he got out of
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the Navy, he worked for a cargo company as a
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: supervisor for transportation. And then he actually retired from the
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: state of Connecticut, working as a transportation supervisor for the state.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: What about your mom?
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: She's pretty much a stay-at-home mom for most of her life.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I got a sister I'm four years older than and
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: a brother I'm 10 years older than.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you're the oldest. Yes. And your mom was a, is,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: is or was?
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Was.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Jehovah's Witness.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: We have a prior Jehovah's Witness working here.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Great people, aren't they?
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Awesome human being. He's editing the show right now. But, boy,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: he's got some fucking stories.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. It's rough growing up as a kid being
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: a Jehovah's Witness.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: They stole his kid from him.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: They did?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess I can't say they stole
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: his kid from him, but it's a custody battle and, like,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the whole... They're all going against him. It's wild.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: The religion did? The Kingdom Hall didn't?
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm sure I'll tell you about it.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: You had a good experience?
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: No.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: It's hard to explain. So my mom had me when
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: she was, this is a funny story. My dad got drafted.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: He was 20.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Your dad got drafted?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he got drafted. He was supposed to go to PBR.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Then he volunteered for submarines because it was also sub
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: trainings in Connecticut too at the sub base there. So
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: it was convenient. And before he got, yeah. So my
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: parents are married in May. And my mom was a
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: little Miss Goody awesome. I love her to death. Little
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Miss Goody to a shoe. I'm like, Ma, you were
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: born on, say, a certain date in October. And I'm
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: at birthdays two weeks later. So she turned 18, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I was born two weeks later.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: They're still married. Wow.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: They're still married. Yeah, it's cool.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: But when my dad was deployed, you know, on some
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: of the sub trips and stuff like that, Jehovah's Witnesses,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: you know, they go door to door on Saturdays or
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: throughout the week and they kind of pulled her into it.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: And because she was probably pretty easy to influence her
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: to have, you know, like a congregation of people, like-minded,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: and they do got, they're great, they're incredible human beings
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: for the most part. You know, everybody's got their bad apple.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I can't argue that. Everyone I've met, they've been super nice.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But then, you know, going to church three times a
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: week with the Kingdom Hall. That's what they call, you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: the church where they go. Having to wear a suit,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: which I still to this day, I don't like wearing
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: a suit. Get dressed up in a little suit, little tie.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Go to Bible study once a week, like a Tuesday night.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: You go to church Wednesday, Sunday for an hour and
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: a half. Yeah, it was, oh, and, you know, celebrating
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: the holidays.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: That's what I was going to, you don't celebrate birthday, Christmas, anything.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you dig deep into, hey, I'm not
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: promoting them, I'm not saying anything, but they do. Like
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: when you go to a normal church, you have your
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: pastor or priest up there, right? They just talk off
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: the cuff. They just give you, you know, a lot
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: of their knowledge, which I think they gain internally as themselves.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Listen, spring cleaning is here, and before you convince yourself
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: your kitchen's fine, go look at the pan you've been using.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: If it's warped, burnt, or sticking to everything, it's time.
• 16:38
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• 16:44
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• 16:48
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• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Most pans make you choose. Either they cook well, or
• 16:54
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• 16:58
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• 17:01
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• 17:18
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• 17:24
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• 17:30
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• 17:35
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• 17:42
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• 17:45
  Speaker 1: kitchen the smart way with Hexclad. What do you think, Sean?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: We're high. Jehovah's Witnesses, all they do is read from
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the Bible.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: You know, from Genesis to Revelation, their viewpoints are pretty good. Why,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: you know, celebrate certain holidays? Yeah, it makes sense. But
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: it's tough when you're a kid and all your buddies
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: are celebrating Halloween.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Why don't they celebrate?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: How does it make sense? There's a reason in the
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Bible for everybody to start off with Halloween, right? That's
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: obviously a pretty evil holiday.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's satanic.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's satanic. Christmas, Jesus was born December 25th. Historians
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: know that, right? But it's just convenience. I think holidays
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: are convenience. Easter, which I heard... Did you have a
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: conversation with somebody talking about the weird star alignment that's
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: going to be happening in a couple weeks?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What do you, oh, you know what, you know, you,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: how do you know about that? Did you watch that episode?
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I got crazy family members. No, somebody, my mom, my
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: mother-in-law sent me that. I think my mother-in-law sent me that.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: No shit.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Because she's into that. Yeah. She's really like off the
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: cuff stuff. I'm like, ma, you got to calm down
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: with this stuff. She reads some, sends us some stuff.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Here we go. The banks are all going to explode.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: This is going to happen. You know what I mean?
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: That sounds like here. Yeah.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: That's why I try to stay away from it. I
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: just try to do my own thing. You know what
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: I mean? I try to stay busy. But yeah, getting
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: back to the holidays. Yeah, Easter, Christmas. This guy.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Guy, so yeah, what you're talking about, this guy said
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the second coming's happening Easter 2026. So I'm excited.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: We'll see what happens.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: You got to be ready for it.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: About a week away.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Any day. I'm ready. And getting back to that religion,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: getting back to the Jehovah's Witnesses, man, that they believe in,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: you know, Armageddon is going to eventually happen, whatever. outlining revelations,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: all the shit you see going on in the world
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: right now, sorry, God, is like, it's what it says.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? People just take it for granted. Oh,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: just hold on. You know what I mean? It's starting
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: in Iran. Yeah, that's kind of, there's certain signs.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: It's fucking wild, man.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: But you got to have, hey, you got to have faith.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Be ready for it. That's
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: the big thing.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What got your mom out of it? When did
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: she leave?
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: When I joined the military.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I'll get back.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: So I graduated high school at 17 and I couldn't,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't, my parents wouldn't sign a waiver for me.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: My dad wanted me to go in as an officer.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: So he's like, Jay, give me a year of college.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: And I hated school. Like I told, getting back to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: the story, I wanted to be a SEAL since I
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: was 10. Like 1982 when I saw the first Rambo movie.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: But yeah, when I joined the military, she stopped going
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: to the Kingdom Hall, stopped going to church and she
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: kind of let it. And then my sister had kids,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: and then, oh, they started celebrating Christmas and everything.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Is your dad a Christian?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: He was raised Protestant, but, yeah, he believes in God,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: but really non-denominational, I guess.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Gotcha. So he grew up celebrating Christmas?
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And then you guys did not celebrate anything? Yep.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: He just went along for the ride to keep my
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: mom happy, yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Do you celebrate Christmas now?
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. Yes, I do.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Man, that's fucking crazy. That's just weird to me.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: It's weird. And then just, yeah, you know, everybody talking about, yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: it's a weird, Hey, but they have like, Hey, they
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: stand behind their faith. You know what I mean? They really,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: they're really sticklers for it. Go door to door, spreading
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: the word. It's, I've let them in all the time
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: when I was in Virginia beach. I don't see them
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: too much in Austin. I don't see many going door
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: to door there, but yeah, I let them in and
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: talk with them, you know what I mean? and give
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: them my viewpoints. And like when they don't believe in
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: really serving, you know, a particular government or country, they
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: believe you should just serve God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, all that.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: You're making this sound really good. Huh?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: It's no, if there was one true belief, yeah, I
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: think that's one of the truest, because I've been around
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: it all. I've heard it all from Catholicism to, are you,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: any denominations?
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I guess I consider myself Catholic. Yeah, okay. I consider
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: myself Catholic, but I bounce back and forth between that
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and non-denominational. And I'll tell you why. I think that
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the Catholics have the spiritual warfare stuff down better than
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: anybody else. I think they really understand what's going on
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: in the other realm. But I think that the Catholics
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: don't do the best job of teaching about the life
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of Jesus. and the Bible and, uh, non-denominational churches do
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a much, much better job of it. And so, you know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I grew up Catholic and then left right around when
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I joined the SEAL teams, didn't come back to Christianity for, uh,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I guess I found faith about two, three years ago. And, um,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And so really dove into the non-denominational stuff to learn
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: about Christ and the Bible and all that stuff. And
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: then actually through the show, interviewing all these exorcists and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, it kind of got me back into,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I'm really interested in spiritual warfare in that realm.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a whole different, yeah, there's definitely a whole
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: different realm I believe in too, definitely.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: But like my first time going to Italy, like I
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: walked into Vatican, I was like, this place is pretty cool.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: But it's very materialistic, right? Very materialistic, which a lot
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: of stuff in the Bible is.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It sounds a lot like the Pharisees.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm with you. I totally.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: And then how do you, in celibacy, I'm like, does
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: it really say anywhere in the Bible to be, I mean,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: God wouldn't have made a woman for, out of his
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: own image that he created. He wouldn't have made it.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't have brought it even, right? If down the road,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: you got to be, hey. You've got to be celibate.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: You can't procreate. I'm not too sure the real reason
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: behind it. I've heard a bunch of theories about keeping
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: certain sects of the Catholic Church within each other. I'm
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: not too sure where that really came from. I don't
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: know either. But it's just weird. Once again, like you said,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: you've just got to have faith in whatever you believe in.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Because there's some weird stuff going on.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: There's definitely some weird shit going on in the world.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: So you wanted to be a SEAL since 11 years old.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Spent a lot of time out in the woods carving spears,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: making weapons.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Well, my dad, that's why I brought this for you.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: It's a movie prop. But I saw the first Rambo
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: at 10. Jehovah's Witness kid. My dad takes me to
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: see because he heard about this movie at work or something.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: He takes me to see First Blood, rated R movie, 1982, 83,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: it came out, I think 82. And I was like,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: holy cow. I'm like, that is, I mean, that image
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: you get in your head at 10 years old too,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: like just being in the woods, the freaking blade that
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: he had, you know what I mean? The same, the
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Lyle one, Jimmy Lyle made dark. I saw Knife Smith,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: he passed away a while ago, but I was intrigued.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: And my dad's like, yeah, Green Berets, like they say
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: in a movie, or somebody, those guys are real badasses.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: My dad's like, I worked with these guys called the
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: UDTs and SEALs back in the South China Sea in submarines.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: He did a few things with them. And I always
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: loved the water too. And you know that image of
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: coming out of the water with, oh yeah, all kitted up.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: When you're impressionable at that age, it leaves a big
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: mark on your brain. Yeah, when I was in middle school, like, Jay,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: what do you want to do when you grow up?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I said, I want to join the Navy. Nobody knew
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: in the 80s what the freak of SEAL was until, like,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: 1990 when Marcinko wrote the book, Rogue Warrior or whatever.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: And then in 1990 when the SEALs movie came out
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: with Charlie Sheen or whatever. And I thought that was
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: pretty cool. Like, again, I was impressed when I was
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: 17 years old. And, yep, I wanted to be a
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: team guy since I was a young kid.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Damn.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: But I couldn't. I graduated high school. My dad wouldn't
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: sign a waiver for me, like I said. I was 17. No,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: I want you to go and be an officer.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: No, it's not.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I don't like college. I didn't like school at that time.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: And I turned 18 and joined. Back then it was
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: on a delayed entry program. I was talking to my
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: recruiter the whole time. I was in college. And he's
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: like the one recruiter that didn't lie to you, right?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Like they always say, recruiter is bullshit.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: He was a quartermaster, a rating on the submarine. And
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: back then they had the dive fair program, which you
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: join as a non-rate. You go to boot camp, pass
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: a screening test, go to buds. And then if you fail,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: if you make it through, you get a rating. But
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: if you don't make it through buds, it's not like
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: nowadays where you can say, I'm emotionally distraught and they
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: let you out of the Navy. If you didn't go
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: to buds, you're like chipping paint. and swabbing decks as
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: a non-rate in the fleet, which is not good. And
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: my recruiter's like, Jay, the odds of you making it
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: through buds are very small. Because you're going to want
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: to have, if it falls through, you're going to want
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: to have a good rate in the Navy. So I'm
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: a QM. It's a pretty decent rate. And I wanted
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: the shortest A school, the shortest school you go to
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: for the rating. And back then, I think it was
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Singleton was three weeks, QM was six weeks. So I'm like, yep,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: sign me up. And yeah, boot camp, A school in Orlando,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: then straight to buds.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Right on. What did you think of Bud's?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Hold on.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Let me back up. What did your parents think when
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: you got in?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I didn't think they thought that I would make it
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: through Bud's, but that was a great thing when it
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: came to graduation. They weren't happy. They weren't happy, but
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: they knew I wanted to do it. When I turned 18,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: I signed a line.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Right on. They got over it, though.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they did.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: So what did you think of Bud's? You get there.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Well hindsight's always 20-20 when it comes to Bud's, right?
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I got there in a.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You're 18, right?
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Yep, just getting ready to turn 19. I got there
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: in August, right when a bunch of, we had like
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: 12 officers in our Bud's class, mostly all Academy guys.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: We had two Air Force Academy guys too. It was
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a good group of dudes, hard chargers, you know what
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: I mean? But back then, you're just young and dumb, man.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: You just... Buds pissed me off while I was there. Like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: I never thought about quitting. I was just mad all
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the time going through Buds. Jogging into the compound when
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: we first got there, yelling, getting in step. Everybody getting like, dude,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: shut up. They're going to drop a drop. I told you, stop.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: We got yelled at by not only our own O's,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: but by the instructors of BUDZ like constantly. But it was,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: it's a big mind game. Like they say, like when
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: I was doing the coordinator thing at a San Antonio,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: kids would ask, what's the, I'm like, dude, it's, if
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: you get past the PST and just stay healthy, you know,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: and deal with the mind games and BUDZ, you're going
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: to be fine.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: As you know, it's a big, yeah. A lot of
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: mind games.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Did you have any hang-ups? No.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Nothing? When we got to the... What's that stuff? Guys
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: who get TBI, the side of their knee, whatever.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: That little tendon. I always thought it was bullshit until
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I got to Santa Clara Island, and I could barely
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: bend my leg. I ended up gutting it through, but
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: not TBI. No, I forget what it's called. Yeah, your
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: typical band. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, that was
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the one time I really got freaking pretty much, I
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: guess you'd say hung up.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: That's it though?
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Time runs. A couple of times in the old course. Yep.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: I remember getting hammered once for that, trying to time
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: the rope swing and instructor yelling at me. I said
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: a really bad word to him. And sure enough, he
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: had duty that night in the grinder and like the
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: whole thousand eight count bodybuilders. Um, Just the mental part too,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: just staying healthy was the key, being smart, you know
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: what I mean? And not doing anything like this is
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: stupid or.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, staying healthy was the biggest. Being cold, wet, and
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: sandy all the time. You just gotta get used to it, man.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: You gotta.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: What did your parents think when you hit graduation?
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: They were proud. My parents never fly either. They're homebodies.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: They don't fly anywhere, and they flew out to California,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: to San Diego, came out to Coronado. Yeah, they were proud. Yeah,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I got to find some of those pictures back then
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: before the digital times.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: How did that feel? Totally against you joining the military.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: But then I was happy that they were happy that
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I actually made it through, and I got pretty fortunate
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: with the same class. But then we had to go
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: to jump school right after that. airborne and that was
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: a freaking, you throw in a bunch of gung ho
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: young Navy dudes into a pretty regimented army school in
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Fort Benning. We got in a lot of trouble there.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: We got, a couple guys got sent back to the,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: but back then it was like, all right, we'll send
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: you back in a couple weeks.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: What'd you get sent back for?
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't get sent back, a couple of my buddies
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: did for just, yeah, running in formation. with each of
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: them running around the formation. We'd jump into freaking water
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: before we did a PST. Just being, you know, cocky. Yeah,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: it's kind of, you look back at it now, and
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: it's kind of like, yeah, we were pretty dumb.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we, uh.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: We weren't even that fucking bad, and they just kept
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: picking on us, and you know what I mean? The
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Army cadre just kept picking on us, so... Whoa. So
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: one of our guys, you know, they make you do
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: watch and shit out, you know, the barracks. So a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: really good friend of mine, he's passed away now. His
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: name's Kyle Paulson. His name was Kyle Paulson. He posted
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: all his guys up there. He's like, you go watch
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: that door. You go watch that door. You watch the
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: front door. You watch the back door. I'll be right back.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Went in. to the sergeant major's desk and took a
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: huge shit.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Took a huge shit right on his fucking desk.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: And you know, the watch goes all night. Yep. And
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: so the next morning, like, we're all out there standing.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And you knew you were getting blamed. You knew you
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: were going to get blamed. I know, right? Well, none
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: of us even fucking knew.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: And we're just, he didn't tell, he didn't tell the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: guys that he had posted up on the doors. He
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: didn't tell any of the other guys that were coming
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: in for buds. You know, we're all in the same
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: buds class. And we're standing out there in formation the
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: next morning. And this guy was just a total, it
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: was just like, dude, we're not even doing anything. You're
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: being a fucking asshole to us for no reason. And
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: he comes out.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: He's like, these fucking you fucking seals and we're all
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: like what the hell who's shit on my fucking desk
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: that's me fucking starts his thing starts the buster with
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: who's shit on my fucking desk and uh it was
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: just it was i mean.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Did he ever get caught or did he anybody rat
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: him out no no he told us that night but
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: now none of us wrote that was fucking hilarious so
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: yeah just just the visualization of that dickhead having to
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: scrape shit off of his desk that's freaking disgusting yeah
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: i know.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: It is it's also hilarious so but uh yeah yeah
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: anyways and you knew you were gonna get blamed for
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: it anyway because yeah they always those freaking navy guys
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: because i think we had a couple of yodi guys
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: there too but uh yeah we got blamed for it.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Pretty much you know we you know the 32 foot
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: tower oh yeah well But like the second classes, the E-5s,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: we're in charge of the little hill. You jump off
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the 32-foot tower. You hooked up the little D-rings. You
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: do your four count and get down. We had this big,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: dead Blackbird on top of the, and we thought it
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: was going to go up to our Black Hat. Our
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Black Hat, our instructor was a cool dude. He jumped
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: into Panama, freaking, he had his little freaking mustard stain
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: on his airborne wings. So he was in the 75th
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Ranger Regiment too, so. He had a little bit of
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: animosity from the other instructors looking at him, but he
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: was real cool to us and to the future team
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: guys that just got out of buds. But we thought
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: he was going to be up there, and they switched sides.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: But we took this blackbird, shoved its head. Somehow it
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: died up on the freaking hill. We shoved the head
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: in the D-ring. So when the runners come down, they
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: hook the little rope up in the D-ring, and they're running.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: And this bird, it wasn't small. It was flopping like this.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: So the instructor nonchalantly went, He just yells, everybody drop.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: And it was a different guy. And we got, yeah, they, well,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: tried to hammer us. We were, we just keep doing
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: pushups because that's all we've been doing in our lives. Well,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: up to that point. And yeah, he was, he took
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: everybody off the hill. We had hammered us for a
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: good hour. And the poor other people up on the
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: hill that were just going through airborne were like, they
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: had to pay the price for our stupidity. You know
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, shit, dude.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was interesting times back then. A long time ago, man.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Good times. Good times. Good memories.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: So where do you go from jump school?
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Team two.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Team two. Yep. What was the reputation of team two
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: back then?
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, my team one and team two, man. The SEAL
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: team shoe, they called it. It was, yeah, you don't
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: want to be a new guy hanging around in the
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: locker room in the cage area on a Friday. Put
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: it that way. Yeah, yeah. Hazing was pretty common.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Did you get it?
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Give me a good hazing story. They don't do this
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: shit anymore.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: No.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: When I made third class and got my bird, we
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: were at Fort Pickett in Virginia. Dude, my first platoon,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: we all went to Captain's Mass after deployment for a
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: hazing incident that was actually an accident, but it went
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: to the wrong people. But anyway, yeah, I'm talking... if
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: you try to fight back at all, because I was
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: a pretty good scrapper back then. It's all over when
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: somebody's got your balls in their hand and they're twisting, man,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: and you're getting tied up or zip-tied and getting dragged out,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: freaking shaving your balls, hot-saucing the balls, getting hit with paddles. Yeah,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: it was... It's stupid, right?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: It's all fun and games until you're tied naked to
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: a spine board hanging upside down from an elevator shaft
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and they're shooting fucking simulation rounds at you. And then
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: tape your head up and put a little pinhole in
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: your mouth and throw you in the fucking showers.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like waterboarding.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to team two.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: You're like waterboarding. You get that all the time, man.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Drop a rag on your face while you're hanging upside
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: down and then as soon as you take an inhale,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: somebody's blowing cigar smoke in your face. Yeah, that's not...
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: That's not torture.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: More whiskey down your throat.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. It was stupid. I mean, back then,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: it was just... And then once you actually.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Dude, there were, like, no fucking rules when you were in. Yeah, well,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that's why.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Like, no rules. You were smart. When you got secured
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: on Friday, we would sneak out through the locker room,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: jump the back fence over by STV and get to
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: your car. You parked down the road, so you wouldn't
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: get friggin'... Guys would have... Yeah, keg in the locker room,
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: you know, a Friday and freaking, where are the new
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: guys at? You don't want to be around, man.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Did you carry that forward?
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: No, I did not. No, I can't say that I did.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: I wasn't big into it. I wasn't really big into it. No,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I thought it was stupid when it happened to me,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: so I'm like, well, why would I want to do that?
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: But when you were a new guy and after you
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: got hazed, if somebody else was going to get hazed,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: they made you, like me and my buddy John, When
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: we were the takedown guys, like the most dangerous part
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: of acing somebody that doesn't want to be aced, right?
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: You got to go in and grab them while everybody
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: else tries to control them, tie them up, do whatever.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: And then I just, yeah, it wasn't for me, really.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well, how did it feel checking into Team
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: 2 after Butts?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: A lot of pride. A lot of pride in Team
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: 2 because, you know, they had a reputation. I kind
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: of wanted to go to four because I like South
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: America jungle type stuff, which come to find out the
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: older I got, I really don't like the jungle that much.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of history there, you know what I mean,
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: when you walk across that quarterdeck. But you still got
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: to go through STT and then SEAL tactical training back
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: then before they stopped doing that and made it all
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: go on in Coronado. STT was fun and challenging. I mean,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: the summertime in Virginia at Apia Hill, very hot. And
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: then that's where you try to start building your reputation, too. Mm-hmm.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: because nobody really cares who you are until you get,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: you check into your team and then you start training
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: and that's all, shooting, moving, communicating, really, really big back then.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: It still is, it still is, but now, you know,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: you got a little, a lot more to worry about
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: with drones and stuff like that. Yeah.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually yesterday we brought these, were you involved in,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: were drones big when you left?
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: They were just coming in. They were just BNT and E,
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Now it's one of the deadliest things in the battlefield, obviously.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Dude, holy shit. I did this little... We made a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: piece of content yesterday, and we brought these drone operators
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: from Ukraine down. Oh, that's... Yeah.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Those guys know what they're doing.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Dude, holy shit. So they kind of briefed us up
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: on everything they're doing. I had never... I've never seen
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: it on the... Closest thing to drone warfare I've seen
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: is a fucking Predator overhead. Yep. You know, but none
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: of these like FPV drones or anything. So we go,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: we brought them on, on this properties over a hundred acres.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And they gave us, you know, Hey, this is the,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: this is the drones. These are the capabilities. These are
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: these type of drones. And they're like, all right, go hide.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: We'll give you a head start. And then they're sending
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: the drones after you.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: You can't.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Dude, holy shit. You can't hear where the fuck they're at.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: No.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: You, I mean, like, it sounds like they're right above
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: you and they're over there. It's impossible to get the
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: fuck away from those.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I took some shots at one just for the hell.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to see what the side picture was like.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: And there's no way in hell. I mean, you're basically
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: trying to hit a four inch dot.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: They just came out with a particular ammunition system. I
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: read somewhere for drones that you can shoot out like
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: a 5.56 or whatever too, and it still seems like
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: pretty hokey to me. Because it shoots in a pattern,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: the one round splits into like four little rounds. Yeah.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Even if you try to jam them, you know what
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: I mean? I think they're still already pre-programmed for what
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: they're going to do, where they're going to go, and
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: the tethered ones are a big problem too.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, once you're identified, you're fucked.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Because... I mean, I just had a pistol with me
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, just for the hell
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: of it. I was like, I just want to see,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I just want to put myself in the fucking scenario
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: and actually take it seriously. And, you know, I was
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: like listening to their tactics and shit at the beginning
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: on how they find people and all the different capabilities
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and what the weaknesses are. So I was trying to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: utilize some of that stuff. But once they're on you,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: you're fucked. Like it doesn't, if you, if you shoot
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: one down, there's just going to be a swarm of
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: them coming.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: 20 more of them, yeah.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: And they were even saying that you can have one
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: on station or more than one on station and have
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the same pilot control in multiples. So you could, you know,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: fly 10 damn drones and have nine on station and just, oh,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: that one went down.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Another one.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Switch to the next one. You know what I mean?
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: And they're already hovering on station just waiting for it.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Waiting to bounce.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: That's nuts.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: You're fucked.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: A shotgun, even with a shotgun, you don't even have
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: that many shells to go through, you know what I mean?
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Maybe hit one, but by the time you got one
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: coming behind you, too, it's a whole different battlefield. We
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: always say, getting back to the STT thing, that's where
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: they really teach you the diving and then shoot, move,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: and communicate. And now you got to really stay low,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: move with discretion, and definitely have somebody watching your six
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: or somebody that's going to... Yeah, because the drones are
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: the biggest I mean, from what I'm hearing now and
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: all this stuff, because I've been out of the game
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: for a while, and then talking to people that know
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: a lot about it, it's, yeah, it's a different battlefield, definitely.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: It's pretty wild.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: It's pretty wild.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Because as you said, yeah, back then, in, you know,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: the beginning of OEF and OIF, all we had were, yeah, Predators,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Dracos up there, and now they're kind of outdated. Yeah.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, these things, one of them was, like, that big.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: He said it can go 300 kilometers an hour, I think.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: It's fucking crazy. That's insane. But actually, I could be
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: off on that. But anyways, back to you. Back to me. STT. Yep.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: AP Hill, then the dive-in, and then, yep, got my
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: first platoon.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: How was that?
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: It was actually a pretty good deal because they usually
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: don't give like new guys out of STT back. But
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: like I said, with the winter warfare platoons, right? So
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: we go to Alaska and do telemark skiing. You learn
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: how to live out of a backpack for freaking almost
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: 11 days unsupported. And so I got into a winter
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: warfare platoon and great, great people in there. My first
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: to die buddy was Tommy Valentine, who unfortunately passed away
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: quite a time back in a jumping accident in Arizona.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Or, uh, yeah.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: But, uh, yeah, he was my first swim buddy. He
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: was a freaking stud all in all the time. Awesome.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: Awesome dude. Um, I learned a lot. You're pretty much
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: trying to gather, trying to see, like we talked about earlier, like, Hey,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: who do I want to, who do I want to
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: be like? You know what I mean? And yeah, Val
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: was definitely one of those guys. He led by example, hardcore,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: super incredible combat diver too. And like, We take that
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: shit for granted nowadays, right? How much water's in the desert.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: But yeah, super squared away. Pretty much everything you did.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Where was your deployment?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: We went to our first trip. Well, they moved the command. Well,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: not the command, the unit from Scotland. Yeah, we moved
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: on over to Italy. Brindisi, the heel of the boot.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Because we were staged there just to go over it
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: back and forth. to Bosnia, to Syria, or Kosovo for whatever,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: just to work with other little units over there. We
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: really weren't doing much as far as combat-wise. And a
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: teammate did a couple ship takedowns in the Adriatic around
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: that time to force an embargo. Like I said, this
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: was back in the 90s. And then we went to Norway,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: which was a blast.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I've heard those are awesome.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: We went there for a month, and yeah. The funny
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: thing is, I've raised my whole life thinking I'm Polish
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: and Lithuanian, My first trip to Norway, I get there,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: we're talking to the Marine Yeagers. They're like, they're version
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: of some great, incredible people. They're like, are you Scandinavian?
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Are you like Norwegian? Like, you got a big head.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: You kind of like, you look like us. And I'm like, no, dude,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not. No, I'm like Polish and freaking, I think Lithuanian,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: you know? But back then, sure enough, I get my freaking,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: the 23, whatever the DNA checked on. Comes back, hey,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: you're 80, it's like 78% from, and like in Norway,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: that area, like it's right over there, kind of a
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: little bit to the UK. And my mom is also
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: the same. Like my dad, is he even my dad? No,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: he is. But yeah, he don't have any, like I
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: don't have anything that my dad has in him from
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: his DNA. It's weird, well, like the ethnicity traits or
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: whatever you want to call them. But going back to
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: the first trip to Norway and the, Like, dude, are
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: you Norwegian? I'm like, nah. You look like you could be.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? They were, like I said,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: this was back in 93, 94. I'm like, no. Yep,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: sure enough, I am. But Norway was a blast, man.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: A lot of skiing. Those guys are born with freaking
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: skis on their feet. Jump turning with 80-pound rucks on,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: with tele skis on. You're like, holy cow. We're just
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: too busy picking ourselves up off the snow. You know
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Damn.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Damn.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: What was going on? I mean, I know what was
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: going on, but did you wind up going to Bosnia, Kosovo?
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'd go to Sarajevo, hang out there. Actually, that's
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: where I started. Made a couple of good friends with
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: a couple of CCTs, combat controllers over there. We'd just
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: drive around to various safe houses there, hang out there,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: bring them food and stuff and come back. It was
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of driving around, not too much.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: What was the point? What was the mission? Dude, the mission.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Back then right we it's funny how america goes to
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: one extreme we were protecting muslims from getting killed by
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: christians right the serbs and all that were and i
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: really wasn't clear what the mission was over there i
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: really it was.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Just this sounds like every fucking war Going after... I'm
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: not really sure what the fuck we're doing.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Well, going after Piffwicks and like the person wanted for
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: war crimes or whatever. Like these generals that were in
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: charge of the mass freaking graves and stuff and killing
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: just like towns of people. You know what I mean?
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: But that was very like.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: There's genocide going on.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of genocide.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Humanity can be evil at times, man.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: So what, I'm just curious, I mean, this was, I
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: don't want to relate our experiences, but this sounds similar
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: to when I joined. What was your impression of the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: SEAL teams? Were you fired up? Were you disappointed? I mean,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: you've got, this all came off of Rambo in 1982. Yes,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: it did.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: You're not doing Rambo stuff.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: No, yeah. Not yet. I think I was just along
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: for the ride, like waiting for something to happen. You
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? And, The training was fun, but
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: we made, obviously, you know, we make things that people
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: pay to do for fun suck. Like jumping. Like, dude, oh,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: we'll go skydiving. Like, dude, I don't care if I
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: ever see a rig again. You know, diving. Like, oh,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: it's not that fun. I'm staring at a compass board,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: a freaking depth gauge, and a stopwatch for freaking two
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: hours underwater and freezing your ass off, right? But you
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: learn a lot and you want to be good at it, right?
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: You don't want to be subpar, especially. The biggest thing
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: is not letting your teammates down. I think that was...
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: So the brotherhood, you know, you definitely see from the beginning,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: once you're in, once you get kind of established in
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: your role and you build that trust, but as far
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: as being bored, yeah, it was as far as like
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: not actually doing what you're training to do. I think
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: that's kind of what was going on in the past
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: couple of years too, as well with guys just getting
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: bored and wanting to just, you know, but you gotta
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: be careful what you ask for too. You gotta be
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: careful what you ask for.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: So you, You spent some time, how long were you
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: a team two before you decided?
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Eight years.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Oh. Eight years.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's something, glad you brought that up. Something that's
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: not on that piece of paper right there. So I
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: got out in 98 for eight months. I got out,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: I was going to be a US Marshal. A couple
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: of my buddies from team four already went over and
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: doing it. I went through the whole process. got out,
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: moved to Connecticut, moved back home, because I thought I
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: was going to work out of New Haven. A guy
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I went to high school with.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: He's a marshal.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: He was the head marshal at the time. A guy
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: I went to high school with, his dad's best friend.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: So he's like, come up. Yeah, come up here. You
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: move up here. And I'm waiting to hear back from
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: the marshal service about when I'm going to go to Glencoe,
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: you know, to start a school down here, a fleet seat, whatever.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: And then I get a letter. back then, this was
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: before emails and all that, were sorry to tell you
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: that you're no longer considered for, and I went through
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: the interview, I went through the, like, you're going to,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I interviewed.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: So you left the fucking SEAL teams to become a marshal,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: and then they denied you? But hold, can I rewind
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: for a minute?
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Why did you want to leave the SEAL teams to
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: become a U.S. marshal?
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: My daughter was born. I didn't want to deploy anymore
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: for no reason. Just what we were talking about earlier,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: as far as like, you know, being bored, where it
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: really wasn't anything going on. And I thought it would
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: be cool. You know what I mean? And just talking
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: to other buddies too, like, Hey, it's better than being
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: an FBI agent. Cause you don't get as much red
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: tape to cut if you want to do this is
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: back then, you know? Yeah. And I got the, I said,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: you're no longer being considered for the position. And I
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: called up one of my buddies. He's like, yeah, dude,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: it's a whole, they're doing a whole scrub there. It
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: was at that time. It was kind of like, because
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: I looked the way I am and who I am,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: who I am, I wasn't going through with that class.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I'll just leave it at that. So I'm like, shit,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: what am I going to do? Like, I got a newborn.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: My buddy's like, hey, the federal prison's hiring in Danbury, Connecticut.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, what? Holy shit. Be a freaking CO, right?
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: And so I go interview for that job. I'm 23,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: 24 years old. And I'm like, yeah, I guess I
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: could do it. And it just went from male prison
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: to female prison. Medium security federal correctional institution in Danbury, Connecticut.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: And they're like, dude, you sure you want this job? Like,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I need something, man. Wait, let's start off as a
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: GS-7 or GS-8, whatever. I'm like, I just got out
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: of the Navy. I got, and a buddy of mine,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: who was also in my first platoon, he got out,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: this is where I'm going with this, he moved to
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Florida to be an EMT. And we talked about back
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: and forth, he's like, fuck this, I'm going back in
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: the Navy. And back then, so this is, I don't
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: know where I'm going with this. But anyway, I go
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: to Glencoe for the training down in Florida at Fleet
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: Sea where they train the federal COs. And that was fun.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Only one other dude knew what I did prior. I
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: just kept it on the down low. He was a Marine.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: And we both worked at the same prison, but we
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: both went to training together. And when you're down there,
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: you shoot like a Ruger 9mm, the old freaking AR-15s,
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: and a shotgun, a pump shotgun. And, yeah, it was
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: a good time. It was a pretty.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: The shotgun story, I got to tell it, though. So
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: you line up in like a couple... when you're shooting
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: everything else, you're on line, the shotgun, you're getting like
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: a two lines. Cause I think, I don't know, I
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: wanted to save money for shells or it's just something
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: that it was like a Remington 870, I think a
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: pretty basic pump gun. And there was a lady, a
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: DEA agent that was an instructor there.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: And I'm just having a go. I'm like, dude, I'm like,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: why is this? This is going to be funny. So,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: cause she's like milking everybody through it. Like, Hey, this
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: is what you do. Like you, put one in the
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: chamber this way and then you load it like that.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: And she's like, all right, be careful. It kicks a little, right?
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: And I get up there and I'm like, dude, I'm
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: acting like I'm all nervous and shit. But he was
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: trying not to laugh, right? And she's like, hey, just relax,
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: just relax. And like, dude, John Shaw taught us how
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: to shoot shotguns, you know what I mean? I grabbed
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: the shell, I go put it in backwards, you know,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: the brass face and she's like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: It goes up. I drop it.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: You did this shit on purpose?
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: I drop it, and then I load up, and she's like, okay,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: be careful. It kicks a little. The way they're showing
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: how to shoot was like, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: I give it back to her. She called me a
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: fucking asshole. The guy behind me was laughing. I'm like, dude,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to have fun with it. One of
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: our instructors, he started laughing his freaking ass off. Because
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: it was a pretty, the way it went down, you
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: had to be there to see it.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: It was pretty fucking obvious.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: She was like, be careful. I'm like, yeah, no, I'm
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: a little nervous.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I did that for eight months. I found
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: out my buddy went back in the Navy. And I'm like, dude,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: I can't do this anymore. So I called up, I'll
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: call him Mad Dog. A lot of people are going
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: to know who he is. And he was working, another
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: great guy, another great role model. Growing up, taught me
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: how to ski, actually. Well, growing up in the teams.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, hey, are you taking... I'm like, can
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: I go back? And he goes, I know you'll be
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: calling back. I know you'll be calling back. I'm like,
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: are they taking... He's like, yeah, you got to go
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: see your recruiter.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what?
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: I just can't... He goes, yeah, you got to go
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: see your recruiter. This was before S.O. was actually a rate.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I was still a quartermaster. So I went to the
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: same recruiting office. I went in freaking, dude, 10 years
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: ago when I first started talking to him when I
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: was in high school. And obviously, the same recruiters aren't
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: in there. And I'm like, hey, I want to go
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: back to the Navy. But they called it a NAVVET. Like,
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: I'm a NAVVET. I want to go back. And I'm like, well,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: what did you do? I was like, I'm a quartermaster.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I think I was second class. And he gets up.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: He calls a detailer. He's like, no, they're not. No,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: they're not taking you back. I said, my NDC is 5326.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: And dude, I'm wearing Tevas, torn shorts, and like freaking
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: a beat up t-shirt. And he's like, you're a fucking SEAL?
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: He goes, oh yeah, they're taking you guys back. And
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: that was another little journey. So I had to go
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: back to the MEPS, the Military Entrance Processing Station, up
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: in Springfield, the same one I went to before. And
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: my recruiter drove me up there, well, the recruiter I
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: was working with. He drove, I had to do the
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: duck walk, go through the whole physical again to get
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: in there. And then when we were standing there swearing,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like talking to this kid, hey, what are you
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: going to the Navy for? He goes, I think I'm
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: going to go to Bud's, you know, I want to
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: be a SEAL. I'm like, I heard that's tough as shit, man.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Like it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty hard, you know,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: line of work to choose. And my recruiter's like, Jay,
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: leave him alone. Like, don't be it. And I said, hey,
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: we'll talk, we'll talk about it afterwards. So it was
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: going through the whole recruiting thing again, going through the
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: whole freaking, yep. I came in two weeks later. I
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: was in a platoon with DJ's dad, my platoon chief. Yep.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: How was that?
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: It was good. It was a fun, it was a
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: good time. It was good just getting back in. It
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: was good getting back in, man. It was just good getting,
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: being around, you know, going to work. I'm not saying,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: going to work at FCI for like eight months and
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: then having that broken service and then realizing, you know,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: how much you do miss. Like the biggest thing you
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: miss when you leave are the guys, right? The boys.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: So getting back in, right into another Winter Warfare platoon. Yeah.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Right on.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: It was... And then, yeah, two years later, I screened for...
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: Damn Neck for Dev Group.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Well, before we dive into Dev Group, let's take a
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: quick break.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Perfect. If you've ever hired somebody like I'm in the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: middle of doing right now, you know this can be
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: extremely overwhelming. You put a job posting out, and the
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: next thing you know, you have 2,000 resumes, all wanting
• 59:43
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• 59:54
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• 59:59
  Speaker 1: And today, You can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: slash SRS. What I really like is it cuts through
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• 1:00:10
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• 1:00:21
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• 1:00:24
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• 1:00:27
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• 1:00:33
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• 1:00:47
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• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Sarah Adams, the host of Vigilance Elite's The
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: Watch Floor, where we highlight what matters. It became a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: permissive state. Explain to you why it matters, and then
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: aim to leave you feeling better informed than you were
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: before you hit play. Terrorists, hostile intelligence agencies, organized crime,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: not everything is urgent. But this show will focus on
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: what is neat to know, not just what is nice
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: to know.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: All right, Jason, we're back from the break. We left
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: off at. You took a quick you took a you
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: took another break from the SEAL teams, became a correctional officer,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: went back to team two. for about another two years.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: And now you're, sounds like you're getting ready to scream
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: for Development Group, also known as SEAL Team Six.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Yes. I wanted to go over there to take a break.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: You wanted to go over there to take a break? Yes.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Did you tell them that in your screening?
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: No. I wanted to go over there to stop Because
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: my daughter, once again, was young. I was never home.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: Just wanted to stop with the six-month deployments. And I'm like,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: go over there. A bunch of my buddies went over there.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: And they're like, it's great. You hang around for three months.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: Just carrying a beeper on you back then. And then
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: you train. You do some very specialized training. You know,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: for another three months, you get to go to schools.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: You want to go to civilian schools, great shooting schools, lockpicking,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: all that stuff. And At a very high level. And
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: then you train with your team back then, or squadron now,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: for another three months. So you're home quite a bit,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: except for when you're picking and choosing what training you
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: want to go do.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: This is what you were told?
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: This is pre-9-11. Yeah.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: And I finished a training program there in September of 2001.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: And yeah.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Well, hold on. Let's talk about the screening.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: The green team. Yeah. It's definitely more cerebral than you
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: would say than Bud's is as far as the shoot
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: and move and communicating part of it. I mean, when you.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Got in, when you went through green team, I mean,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not a fucking dev group guy, so I can't
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: talk shit. But I know what I saw when I
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: was in. And I got out in 2006. And they
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: went from running one green team a year to running
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: two green team a years. And it seemed like The
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: majority made it through green team. I think it was
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: a completely different scenario when you got in because there
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: was nothing going on. Retention was probably really good.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Guys weren't dying, so there wasn't really much to fill.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: So it was really, really fucking hard to get in there.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Harder... But.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I should shut my mouth because I'm not one of them.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: No, no, but I get your point. Even when I
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: went over here to screen, when I said... I was like...
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: I wasn't impressed by the attitudes of some of the
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: guys over there, you know what I mean? They're like
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: more high and mighty than you were, you know what
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I mean? We have guys coming over there that have
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: done real-world shipboardings, you know what I mean? Real-world operations,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: either Bosnia, Kosovo. And we knew that the guys at
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: the command really weren't doing anything except hanging around to
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: maybe go grab a person wanted for crime, and that
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: was the big thing, or take down a ship that
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: gets hijacked or whatever. And I wasn't impressed by the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: attitude because they were like, oh, look at this fucking
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: new guy. You wear your blues when you go over
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: to their screen and do your interview and all that stuff.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: And it was just like they're arrogant dudes, pompous and arrogant.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: And then even after Green Team, you could kind of
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: see why they are because you do get some pretty
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: good training, like really good training. But as you said,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: once again, there wasn't much going on. And then 9-11 happened.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: They weren't taking anybody though, were they? I mean, they
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: were taking like very few people before September 11th.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a good old boy network. You know what
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: I mean? They go around, they ask everybody you work
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: with and you've done platoons with and if you don't
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: like somebody, I just give a reason why. Because there
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: are a lot of great guys that don't come over
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: to the command because they just don't want to deal
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: with the bullshit. You know what I mean? Back then.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: And then when we got busy... and started growing, yeah,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: that's when they were, because we were gone, I mean,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: quite a bit.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: The three-caller teams were, yeah, four months, four months, four months,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: you know, and then you rotate every four months.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: How was green team?
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: It was challenging. Safety's a big thing there, and doing
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: things at a very high level, you know, being able
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: to shoot well, it's a big thing. Safety violations, I said,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: is the biggest thing that gets people shaking from there.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Not being able to think, shooting an unknown instead of
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: what you're supposed to do in the house. That was,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: I think, the most challenging part for people going through
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: the training. Jumping, they take it at a very high level, too.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Can't go one degree off heading. When you exit the plane,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: you got to be able to fly a tight formation
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: under canopy. and everything the diving it was pretty you
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: know at a high level because you're not just in
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: peers anymore you dive in as a whole group so.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Oh no shit yeah.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: With a little pull yeah right.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Right on so you get through green team where do
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: you go from there.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: Um I went right into a squadron and then well
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: a team back then and then we We punched out
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: to Afghanistan.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: Which squadron?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Red.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Red squadron. Is that where you met Biss?
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: I met him a few years after that when he
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: came there, yes.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Red squadron. And you graduated Green Team.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: It was Red Team back then, and then they started
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: calling them squadrons made up with our Army counterparts at CAG.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Gotcha.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: Because they were squadrons, so they're like, hey, we're not
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: a team anymore. Right.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: Gotcha.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: We're just making squadrons for the higher-ups at JSOC to
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: make it easier for them.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: And so you graduated Green Team right before September 11th?
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Right during.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: Right during.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: We were walking across the compound when the first plane hit.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: And I remember one of my buddies comes out of
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: the locker room. He's like, dude, did you hear what happened?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: And that's when we had just— Well, like, phones weren't
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: that big back then either. We were just watching the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: news inside the team room or inside our training room.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: And then another plane hit. Then our skippers, like, called
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: a meeting for all the cadre and all the class
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: and kind of gave a lowdown on what's going down.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: And that's when he said there's another plane they're tracking
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: down right now after one hit the Pentagon. And, yeah,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: it was kind of exciting. It was an exciting time,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: I think. But then it was, you know, this is
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: shit's about ready to get real.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: What's your wife think?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: She was worried, obviously.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: All the wives were.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that first deployment wasn't really good for the wife network.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: When we first punched out over there.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on. So you get done with green team,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: and then you go right to red team, right to Afghanistan? Yes. Yep.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: Well, we had a few weeks in between and we
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: were working on stuff that we might be doing over
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: there as far as insertion techniques, like jumping, how we're
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: going to work, free getting our gear set up. Because
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: it was a first move for, I mean, going to Afghanistan, right?
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: It just kicked off and we wanted to be sure.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: Were you the first squadron to go?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: No, no, second.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: What were you guys doing? What was the mission going
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: to be?
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Hunting down the bottom was the big one. Obviously, when
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: we first got over there, looking for him all over
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: his network of people and, yeah, just trying to find him.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: And that was our big mission when we first went
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: over there.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about flying in there. I mean, you
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: just had, what, roughly a 10-year career at SEAL Team 2? Yeah, yep, eight.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Eight years at SEAL Team 2 with an eight-month break.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: You.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: joined the SEAL teams because of Rambo in 1982. Yep.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: And now you're stepping foot in a country that just,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: where a terrorist cell is that just fucking hit the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: Twin Towers, the Pentagon.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we flew over there. That was freaking entertaining too.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: The crew that I was with, the team, the boat crew,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: like a little squad you call it in the teams,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: we moved around. We call ourselves the orphans. We moved
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: around from... We landed, we got in Kandahar, and then
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: we went to a couple other small towns. We were
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: living out of a backpack eating MREs for almost four months.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: Holy shit.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, just standing by, trying to get, develop
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: intelligence to actually track down people in this network. And
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: then we, they had a big, a big military offensive,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: Operation Anaconda. It happened during our first pump over there
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: where we lost Neil Roberts, Fifi, Chappie. the controller, and yeah,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: that was.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: You were there for that?
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: I was one, we were on the other bridge. Yeah.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Holy shit. Let's go into that.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: Well, getting into that was even funny because my chief,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: my boat crew leader, which we call him Crazy Horse,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: he's like, Jay, are you still up on your JTAC stuff?
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: Because he comes out of a meeting, right? And we're
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: just messing with our gear. Like I said, we were
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: moving everywhere. And he wanted to know if I was still,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: could you, because I was a communicator too, as well
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: in my platoons I've done. And I'm like, yeah, he goes, dude,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: you know how to use like 117 Foxtrot? Yeah, dude.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: I'm like, why? We had no idea what was going on.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: He goes, I'm trying to get us some work. We
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: were an assault team. We weren't a recce team, but
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: they wanted to put up, they're like, well, we got
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: snipers in here. We get with 10 inch barrels too.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: It was stupid, but it was two hours. You got
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: two hours. Go do your radio checks. Meet up with Al,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: who was our freaking, our comm support guy. Not a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: team guy, but a very smart guy, incredible guy. And
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: get a DMC-125 satellite antenna, the donkey dick, UHF.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, two hours?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: And then we got to pack out rucks for, I
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: think we're going to be out there seven to ten days.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: And guys weren't really sure how to pack out a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: winter ruck because it was freaking cold and we were
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: at 10,000 feet, between 9 and 10,000 feet. So, yeah,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: I'm doing radio checks as we're getting on to freaking
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: 47 to go in. Holy shit. So, wait a second.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: They're sending a fucking assault team in to do sniper
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: work with two hours of prep time?
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: Yes. It was one of those things, hey, it's better.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: Let's go do something instead of not doing anything, right? And, yeah,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: we inserted up on this point. It was jump off
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: the rapid ass, set up our freaking OP site. As
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: TF Mountain, it was the 82nd, 101st Airborne, as they
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: were moving to clear out this valley, and we just
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: called in cast for a week. And then one night
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: that March 4th anniversary just passed, that was, yeah, when
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: Neil and his team with Slabby and a couple other guys,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: that's when they inserted and got lit up and where
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: Fifi fell off and ended up dying.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: I just interviewed Pete Blaber about this.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think he wrote, he was, yeah, he was
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: out there as part of, didn't he write a book?
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: He did. Yeah. He did.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: He was with the Delta unit that was there before. Mm-hmm.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that now?
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: I thought it was, we helped out a lot. We did,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, we supported, you know, the big movement with
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: TF Mountain or whatever, the 100, yeah, those guys. And
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: it was a, I didn't feel good when we found
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: out that Fifi passed away. All of our cast went
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: to them and then we kind of, yeah, we took
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: it out on the Taliban the next day, put it
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: that way, just with more cast. Yeah.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Were you the one calling the cast then? Yes. How
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: did that feel? I mean, you're on your first operation
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: that's gone kinetic, I'm assuming.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: Well, big time kinetic, yeah.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was a fucking huge operation of cut your
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: teeth on it.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we had B-52s, B-1s, 18s, 15s. Do you remember the.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: First cast you called where you killed somebody?
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was right there with B-52s on a discus site, actually.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: Can you describe it? We had shorty rifles too, which was, yeah,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: our post-op debrief on that was, all right, we do
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: this again, we got to do it a lot better.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Can you describe your first gasp?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: It was pretty, it was actually, I mean, pretty dramatic.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, as far as what would a B-52 could drop,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And pretty accurate too. I mean,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: describe everything.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: What were you hitting?
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: It was a discus position in the town that was
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: a good maybe 2,000, 3,000 meters from us. But we'd
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: see these guys come up, start lighting up the 101st, 82nd.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: We had them all graded out already. And we were
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: doing this with a GPS and a range finder back
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: and forth. There's a lot better ways to do it nowadays.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: But it was super accurate. As soon as you give
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: the modified nine line to the pilot or the controller
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: up there in the B-52, they They programmed where the
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: JDM was going to go and yeah, took it out.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: Then freaking four hours later, another guy would come out
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: of the, there was a big cave system. It was
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: called the whale. And yeah, the guys would just come
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: out of that and just like refill the role and
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: just keep doing it. They were like little ants, you
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: know what I mean?
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: How did it feel for your first cast?
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: I felt successful. It felt good. It was just work,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? just pretty much what it's about.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: That's it. How many bombs do you think you dropped?
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. That was a long time ago.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: A lot.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: That's all I know.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: A lot.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to read the post that we did.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: It was, yeah, a pretty good amount of munitions.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: I'll bet. Yep. What was the sentiment like after Neil died?
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, revenge, I think. You know what I mean? And, uh, Yeah,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: that whole thing. Yeah, it was. I mean, it was tough, too,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: because the guys that I was with, the other four
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: dudes that knew him really well, I knew him from two.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: Then he came over to the command before I did.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: And the two guys I was with were really good
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: buddies of him. And when his call sign came back,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: that's who fell off the helicopter. They were like, shit.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: And at this time, getting back to the wives being home,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: at this time, we didn't even talk. Yeah, we haven't
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: talked to anybody for like almost a month from home.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: So they were kind of worried. And then that hit
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: the news and our command did not know how to
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: deal with that. They were hearing about Neil before the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: command told anybody. And when we got out of the field,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: I'll never forget Al, like I said, our comm guy,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: we get out and we're going to the Gardez mud pit.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: And he's throwing his two Iridium phones. He's like, call home. Like,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: call home now. The wife network is losing their freaking mind.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: So that was a big. Lesson learned, too, for the
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: command after Fifi passed.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: What came after that deployment?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Well, during that deployment, we did another good little Wolverine,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: which was a good little operation. It ended up working
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: out perfectly. We were going after Zawa Harry and his bodyguards,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: and that was perfect L-shape. Once again, the orphans had
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: to run around with a perfect good L-shaped ambush set
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: up with two 47s. And Zawahiri wasn't there, but yeah,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: we got the mission accomplished as far as dealing with
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: the detail.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: What was that mission about?
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: Going after.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: Going after their bodyguards.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: Bin Laden's, we thought he was going to be with
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: them too, and the intel wasn't that great.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: Where was that at?
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: Right outside Gardez.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Do you want to describe it? What was your role
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: in that?
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: I was an assaulter, yeah. It was, we rolled up on,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: in the 47s, and like an L-shaped ambush. They said
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: they had squirters. Oh, this is a funny story. Well,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: not funny. They said they had squirters up on another
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: ridge line and like somebody that they thought was fleeing
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: from part of that motorcade that we ambushed.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: And we- Wait, you ambushed a motorcade?
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: How'd you do that?
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: It was a motorcade, 247s.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: We caught them right when they were doing the little traverse.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: The timing in the TF160 guys are freaking awesome, man. They're, yeah.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: The way it was set up too in the LZs,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: the landing zones they put them on, it just happened
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: to be perfect. And the guys that we were going
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: after didn't even, I don't even think they knew what,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: they started shooting and bailing out of the vehicle, but
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: the vehicles, there was three of them, but after that
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: it was over. Then we went after squatters and It
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: was just a farmer in the field. I was the
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: first one off the ramp. I got my two buddies
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: standing next to me in the skies. We get back
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: into 47, take off. We go land. We're right next
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: to where the crew chief's yelling at us where this
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: guy's at. I get off. I look at him, and
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: he's got his hands in. So I'm thinking, okay, maybe
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: he's got a suicide vest on. That's fast. And he
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: keeps walking towards us. And my buddy next to me,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: he's like, dude, I'm like, dude, don't. Once again, that's
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: where you got to be a thinker, right? You just
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: don't like blast somebody to freaking do it. So I
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: let three rounds rip by his feet and he falls
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: over on his back like a freaking upside down turtle.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: Hands in the air, we go zip tie him and
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: my buddy was just getting ready to drill him. He
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: was just a farmer out there, a goat herder, you
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? And we took him down, dropped
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: him off after we found out who he was. But
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: that made me feel really good, you know what I mean?
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: Not because it could have gone another way, which would
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: have been, hey, That's the fog of war. But yeah,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: that was something I remember really good about. I mean,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: specifically about that, that I was comfortable with at that time.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: Right on. When I was first growing the business, I
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  Speaker 1: was literally boxing up gummy bear orders myself, packing bags,
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• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: Code SRS. You guys are busy.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was a lot of sitting around, waiting,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like waiting to do something,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: getting approval to do something. And then, yeah, we went
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: through it three times. Wasn't really that busy. I was
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: going to go to the training cell until one of
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: my chiefs said, dude, you want to go to Iraq?
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, yes, I want to go to Iraq.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: Because I've heard the stories from Green. It's everything a
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: team guy wants to do. and get up at night,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: eat dinner for breakfast, and then walk out to the birds,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: go do your work, come back, and do it again,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: maybe all night. But yeah, at RAC was, I think
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: what every team guy at that time, the type of
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: operations they wanted to do, just going out and getting busy.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: No shit.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: What year was this?
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: 2003 and four. Same squadron? Yeah.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we sent a couple other guys. We would do
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: the crossbreeding. We sent a couple guys from our, I
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: think even this did it, from the newer guys, actually,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: to go work with CAG, with Delta Force guys. And
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: we'd do it back and forth. And we took a
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: lot of lessons learned and brought that into our training
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: and our SOPs, the way we operated, coming from each side.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: You ever remember doing a hot hallway in training?
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: Right, that's one of the stupidest things you could do, right?
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: Just run on the way down there instead of, you know,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: maybe crashing or throwing a grenade. And we learned that
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: lesson the hard way from a couple of squadron guys
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: in the army.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: No shit. So did you augment over there?
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: No. No?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: No, no.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: You went over there with Dev? Yes, yep. How was it?
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: Was it what it was cracked up to be?
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, it was, yeah, we were busy. you know, but,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: but it was everything, like I said earlier, that you
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: kind of want. Yeah, man, you just load up, come
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: up with a game plan. It got to the point,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: like the first couple of times when you're planning to go,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: you know, go to work, it's, you overthink things a
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: little bit too much until you get like a little
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: bit nervous. And, but then when you, once you keep
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: doing it more and more and more, it's, it just
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: becomes second nature. Like you could go, all right, we
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: got to go take this down and free, Our officers
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: wouldn't even come in there. They let the team leaders
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: figure out, okay, yeah, I got the white side, you
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: got the green side, blue side, whatever, boom, just go
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: to work. But it was great. And then walk out
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: to the Little Birds or 60s or 47s, and the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: targets would change all the time, depending on the intel
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: and what we had going on over there.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: Just going after- What were you guys going after?
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: Just going after bad guys. Just going after, yeah, just
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: bad dudes. shit that were coming over from different places
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: to different countries, not only just in Iraq itself.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: How many targets are you guys heading tonight?
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: It would depend on the follow-ons. Some nights one, some
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: nights five. It just depended on what we got off
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: one target, if we even landed on the right building
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: or if they moved somewhere else. That's where the ISR
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: assets were great too, helping us out. and getting back
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: to where we're talking about the drone war now, with
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: drone warfare, it'd probably be so much easier to actually
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: pinpoint and not mistakenly hit targets, you know what I mean? Yeah.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: What did you.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: So now you're doing close quarters combat.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: Lots of action. You got a wife and a kid
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: at home. Mm-hmm. what's going through your head during all this?
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: You don't even think about them. You can't let that
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: distraction get in your way. That's where people make mistakes.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: Like when you leave home, it's all right, as soon
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: as that gate closes, you walk in, they're like, yeah,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: if you think about that, you're gonna let your boys down,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean?
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: Compartmentalize it.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: Yep, you compartmentalize it, just like you do losing a teammate.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: You gotta compartmentalize it and put it in the cupboard
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: and try not to let it peek itself out.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: Keep the cover closed. What about the cadence? Cadence of ops.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: Are you keeping up?
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: You feel good about it?
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, back in that time, it was what
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: we wanted to do, like what we were trained to do.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: But the cadence was there, definitely, yeah.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: Do you remember your first kill?
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was on a rooftop. I mean, I don't
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: want to talk about that, but yeah, it was... Yeah,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: it was because we were a recce team. We climb
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: up buildings and yeah, I don't know if that was
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: my first one. Once again, you compartmentalize that too. But yeah,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: a guy with a gun on the roof. Sneaking over
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: the side as our assault team was coming up. Yeah,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: we'd like to climb buildings there, the recce guys.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: Did the killing bother you?
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: No, no. I mean, it's... Of course it's gonna bother
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: you if you sit back and like think about it, right?
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: But no, I mean, it was just, that's work. And
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: you're doing it to save, if you put it in
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: their mindset and like, hey, I'm protecting my guys right now.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: And that's pretty much what we did a lot of
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: as a recce team. I'm covering my guys, protecting them.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: And that's, you don't, you just don't think about, yeah.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: the actual action that you just did.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: Anything else you want to talk about on that deployment?
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: They all kind of blend together. Oh, getting to, yeah,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about one good buddy of mine.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: Like I say, his name, he'll know. One of the
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: best operators I ever worked with. And we were on
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: the roof. This is actually a pretty funny story. I
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: told you he was carrying an SR-25K. And this was
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: supposed to be like a can and like a little,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: it was going to be almost like a dog and
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: pony op because we were doing a turnover with another
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: color team coming in. This was like our last stop
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: before we went back to the States. And it was
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: going to be super easy, right? Walk in, once again,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: we climb a building. There's no cover in the building.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: It's a flat mud roof. Stupid idea, right? Stupid idea
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: to climb this building. We've got rangers coming down the
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: other side of this canal covered in elephant grass that
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: we're going to take out. We'll take out a tent
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: close by, not take it out, just go in there
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: and see who the heck was in there. So we
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: climb up the building. We're laying there. Then we start
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: getting lit up by a building that come to find
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: out was 300 yards away. We start getting lit up
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: from a PKM on top of a freaking car. It
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: looked like it was like a black Mercedes. Then a
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: guy comes out of a house behind us and starts
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: lighting us up. And we're like, what the, this was
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: supposed to be easier than this. And we're on a roof,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: like sucking mud. My buddy's standing up and looking through
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: his nods. I'm like, dude, what are you doing, man?
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: Fearless.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: And he worked with CAG for a little bit too.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: They love them over there. I'm like, get the fuck down, man.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: And he's like, dude, is that a, what is that? Meanwhile,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: I'm fishing for my inline for my scope, my night
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: vision for the scope I was carrying. He's still standing up.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: He's looking. And I put the inline. He thought I
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: had my 5.56, my Recce M4 when I had the 308.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: And I couldn't see behind. I couldn't really pick out
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: what was going on because there's a big light. behind
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: the car where the guy was shooting with PKM. And
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I wonder how far that is. And
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: I carry the rifle doped in at 300. So I
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: know my holds for 100 to 500. It's a short build, 308.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: Take the shot. The light goes poof. And I'm like, oh,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: this happened in seconds. Like, dude, they're at 300 yards.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: Right as I'm transitioning down to the guy shooting at PKM,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: who I hit in the shoulder, by the way. I'm
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: not too proud about it. Because all I saw was
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: flip-flops that come to find out. They all ducked behind
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: the car and I'm like, oh, I carry a mag
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: of AP rounds right here too and they're ducking behind
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: the car. So a fishtail, it's got a big ass
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: piece of breaker tape on it. I put it in
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: my first round, hits like 20 yards in front of
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: the car. It was, but then I worked it up
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: to the car and then yeah, we took care of business.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: Come to find out the next day, after our turnover,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: the next night, the people we were turning over with
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: blew They went in and said, yeah, they're like, how
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: do you guys see that well at nighttime shooting and
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: all that? And yeah, we did a pretty good job.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: But that mission was supposed to be like freaking just
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: go in, gather some intel and leave. And that's not
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: the way it worked out.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: Damn. Damn. How many times did you go over there? Four.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: Four times?
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: And I left.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: Then we started working out of Ramadi. We started doing,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: you know, transitioning a lot more around instead of being an.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: LSI.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: We moved all over the place. Then we went to,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: when it really started getting entertaining, when we brought our
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: forces up just north of Baghdad to Bakuba. And the
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: bad guys weren't used to having people come in at
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: night and do operations up there. And that's right when
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: I got the call to get back to the beach
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: to start flight training for the aviation unit that we have.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: No shit. So what is the aviation unit? And how
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: did that pop on your radar?
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: A bunch of my buddies went over to fly over there.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: And well, I got a funny story about that. So
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: my first time back from my first pump in OEF,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: back home, you know, basket leave for two weeks. And
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: my chief, my bokeh leader, he's like, Jay, you got
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: to escort the weapons out to Shaw's, the gun box.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, whatever. How do I do that?
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: I'm still a new guy. We just got back from
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: our first trip, our first deployment, when we talked about
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: it earlier. And he's like, go over to the airport,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: to Norfolk International, on the other side of the airport.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: This is back in 2002, 2003, right? And you're going
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: to see a gate. Go up to that gate, ring
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: the buzzer, whatever. So I drive there, Govey pickup truck,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: weapons in the back, and I see this big dude
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: wearing a polo shirt, khaki pants. He's waving me up.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: Back up. Throw the guns in the caravan, C208, little turboprop,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: for a four-hour flight to Memphis. So we take off,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: and this dude's asking me all kinds of questions about
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 2: the deployment. Like, hey, about Roberts Ridge, what's going on?
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: And I think he's just like some normal dude, right?
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: And total oblivious. I'm like, dude, are you a fucking
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: team guy? He's like, fuck, yeah, I am. And he
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: ended up down the road. He was a master chief
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: on freaking Neptune Spirit and had been lighting up. He's
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: always trying to get back to freaking big guy. I'm
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: trying to get back to the blue, you know what
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: I mean? And I can't right now. And I'm like, dude, wait,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: you're freaking flying an airplane? Like you're a team guide
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: pilot right now flying me to freaking Memphis. So that's
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: when I'm like, well, this is pretty freaking cool. Kind
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: of scary, but pretty cool, you know? And yeah, come
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: to find out that program was developed back in the
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: beginning just to learn how to steal airplanes if you
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: had to do it.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: Man, I remember hearing about that shit. I didn't know
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: it was still going on.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: I had no clue at the time either. Apparently. Yeah,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about it. And then come find out, yeah,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: it's kind of where they sent people that they really
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: didn't want to. It wasn't a good thing to go to,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: but it was a great trade, a great skill to have, right?
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: They send you to civilian flight school. You get all
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: your pilot licenses, even CFI flight instructor licenses, and then
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: you just pass it on.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: Why do you say it's not a good place to go?
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: Well, back then it wasn't because we were at war,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: and you don't want to be a team guy flying
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: around the United States while your buddies are off doing
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: work overseas.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: So is that what you do?
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I was burnt. That was the first time. Oh,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: you're talking about flying around in the States. Yeah, you
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: don't deploy at that time. Oh, shit.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: Well, they just spend a bunch of money for you
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: to go to school, and they do utilize you to
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: a certain extent pretty well.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: How do they utilize you?
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: Flying gear, flying equipment around. It makes the process of
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: moving weapons from one place to another place easy. And
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: there's one little special program we have for our bigger
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: plane that we have there, the 1900, which is used
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: for a lot of special stuff. But in the United States,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: nothing crazy.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: Interesting. I mean, is it still like that?
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: I think so. I haven't been back there in a
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: little bit. It's been a couple years.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: How many people were involved in that? Eight. That's it?
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: Eight to ten. Yeah, it's a good, it's a close-knit unit, too.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know much. We're talking about it, but.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: What, I mean, we talked about you wanted a break
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: to be with your daughter. How old is your daughter
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: at this point?
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: That's 2013.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: 13 years old. Was that the big reason you wanted
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: to do it?
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just get a break from, yeah, just kind
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: of getting, you know, the same routine, those normal, every
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: four months, every eight months, you know, yeah. And also
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: building that skill. Because when I went over there, they're like, hey,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: you're never going to, you're not going to make Master
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: Chief if you don't, you know, take a certain leadership
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: position as a troop chief. And I'm like, no, I'd
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: rather get my pilot trade, you know, than have to
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: worry about making E-9. So it turned out to be
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: a smart move. And also being home a little bit more.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: But you do go to flight school for like almost
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: eight months in Florida. So it's a lot of back
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: and forth.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: How did it feel being home after all that? It
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: felt good.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: It felt good. And we got divorced, of course.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: You did get divorced.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yep.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we were separated for like three or four years
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: and then tried it again and then, nope, it just
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: didn't work out.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: Sorry to hear that.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: Typical story about teen guys.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: 90% success rate at getting divorced.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: Are you close with your daughter?
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. I try to be closer. We had our little
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: problems when she was like a younger, in her teens,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And when me and her
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: mom were separated, it was kind of, She could pick
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: and choose who she wanted to see. Me and her
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: mom really didn't have an ugly divorce at all. We'd
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: just say, hey, what do you want? But when she
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: was going through that age, yeah, she was a typical
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: teenage girl. And plus I was flying a lot. I
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: was just learning to fly. And yeah, but I'm pretty
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: close to her. Yeah, she lives in Virginia Beach right now.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: So you got divorced after the break?
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: What led to that, do you think?
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: Me being gone, I think. And then also just, yeah, just...
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: My wife, she said that when I got back from
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: my first trip to Afghanistan, something changed.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: I'll bet it did.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: And blame, I'm still me, you know what I mean?
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: Because we compartmentalized. No, there's something different. I'm like, no,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: I'm good. You know what I mean? You know how
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: we are, our community. We just ignore it and just
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: keep rolling. And some of the people close to you
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: actually see the changes that you experienced choose to ignore happening,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: I think. And I think that's what led to pretty much, yeah,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: she was just, yeah.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: Is there anything you would change?
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: Anything I would change?
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: Nothing? Nothing.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't change anything.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: How long after you took the break did you wind
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: up getting divorced? Or not took a break?
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: Well, we were separated for three years anyway. And then,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: so it was probably five, six years. We got divorced... Yeah,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: like in 2015, yeah.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: Did you feel different when you were coming home from Iraq?
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: No, I was just worn out.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: Did you notice any changes?
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: I didn't notice. She might have noticed, yeah.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: Looking back, do you notice any changes?
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: Well, hindsight's always 20-20, right? So I think, yeah, there probably... Yeah,
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: maybe I was a little more cold when I got home,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? More, I sound like a
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: psychiatrist now, but I wouldn't say not as caring, but
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: not as emotional, I guess. So that's, I guess that's
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: a side of me she saw that changed pretty much.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: So you, do you feel like that you had any, PTSD, TBI.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: No, I did have TBI and I had to go
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: through that with the FAA too. That's another story. But no,
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: not really any PTSD. I think we're good at compartmentalizing,
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: you know, the certain days like March 4th, like we
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: talked about, August 6th, Extortion 17. Yeah, there's certain times
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: where you're like, shit, has it been that long? You know,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: and like you miss those dudes too. So it's kind of,
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: but then you just move on, right? Because if you
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: dwell on it, it does you no good at all.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: You're staring at the bottom of a freaking vodka bottle
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: or something, you know what I mean?
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: How do you deal with it now?
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: Just compartmentalize it, stay busy, stay busy. I like shooting,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? I'm in a car, it's motorcycle.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: That's what I do. When I would come back from
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: my deployments, I rebuilt a 93 Mustang in my garage.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: That was the way I dealt with it. I got
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: back from my first pump in Afghanistan, go out in
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: the garage, work in a car, in motorcycles. I like
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: motorcycles a lot. That's how I deal with it. Keep
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: busy because a stagnant mind is not something that's good.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What kind of motorcycle do you have?
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: Ducati.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: No shit? Not a Harley? Mm-mm.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: It's a V4, actually. Right on, man. Knock an A.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: No Harley. Italiano. It's Italian.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: Right on. So what did you think of the aviation unit?
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: It was good, it was monotonous, you know what I mean?
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: But it was, you learned a lot. A lot of
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: times you're on call, like I remember the night Adam Brown,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: I was flying when Adam Brown was killed and we
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: were on standby then and my wife knew his wife
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: from doing, she would do her hair actually. And then
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: I got a phone call from our command at like
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: 11 o'clock, hey, you gotta fly to Arkansas, Hot Springs.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: My wife heard it on the phone and she's, what?
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, no, I don't know. She goes, that's
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: where so-and-so lives. And at times like that, that's hard too.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: Flying a Keiko team out to tell the family. And
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: this was like shoot right before the year before extortion.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: But other than that, yeah, the aviation unit was, It
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: was a learning experience, put it that way, and it
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: sets you up for the future, too, if you want
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: to stay with the flying part. And you did. Yeah,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: until I went to... When I did my last three
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: years at the recruiting district, I wasn't flying much at
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: all there. But when I got out, I had an
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: opportunity to freaking jump right back into it again.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: How was the recruiting duty?
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. Dealing with recruiters was.
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know how the fuck you did that.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: It was... When I first went in there, I told
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: them I had very little respect for anybody that could
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: sit behind a desk in the military for a career
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: and have a rating of a Navy counselor. And I
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: think it should be a civilian position personally because they
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: want– like our job there is to give them quality.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: All they care about is quantity, right? And you're screwing
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: with young kids' futures and lives. Yeah. I was glad
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: I went there with the rank that I had as
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: a senior chief, because I don't see how like a
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: second class E5 could go do that job because they
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: would just get stepped on as far as, hey, keep
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: giving us bodies. You know what I mean? We're like,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: we're not going to just sign somebody off. That's how
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: that job got created in our community. When they made
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: SO an actual job, SEAL, EOD, diver, rescue swimmer, and SWCC, they,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: recruiters would just, You know, Pencil whipped their PST scores
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: and then they sent them up to boot camp where
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: they already spent money on getting this guy up there
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: going through boot camp and they bombed the PST. Like,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: why are you sending these guys to us? You know,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: and that's where they put in the shit screen at
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: the recruiting level. So they would have more qualified candidates
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: go up there. And it was cool, like, going out
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: the way I came in, you know, talking to kids,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: answering their silly little questions about buds and training. all
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: the book writers books that I may have read one
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: or two. Do you know about this guy? But it
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: was a rewarding job.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: It was rewarding.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: Even though I think like maybe five kids, I said
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: they made it through buds, but in three years.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: Right on. So why did you, what led from the
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: aviation unit to the recruiting?
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: I wanted to move to Texas.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: Why did you want to move to Texas?
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: I used to like it when we trained down there
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: in the 90s. We'd train at Fort Hood and go
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: visit Austin back when it was a nice, sleepy college town.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: It's not anymore, but I just like the weather there.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: It does get hot, the people, the culture, when I
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: was there. And it worked out. I didn't even know
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: that job was a job. I called up my detailer, and, um,
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: He told me that there's a recruiting job in San Antonio,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: like working there. And I'm like, I don't want to
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: be a recruiter. He goes, no, no, it's a coordinator.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: I never even heard about it before, once again. And
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: you work with a civilian counterpart that worked for Academy.
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: He's like a contractor. So there's two of you. And
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: I had no, zero shore duty. As far as every
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: command I was at, I was always on like sea duty.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: You could deploy whatever I want. He's like, dude, I'll
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: hook you up with this job. And that's what made
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: me go to Texas. So I'm like anywhere, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: and it covers a humongous district in Texas, San Antonio,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: all the way up to the Northwest, all the way
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: down to the Southeast. It's huge, a lot of driving.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: But like I said, it was rewarding. It was rewarding.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, what was it like for you to just
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: totally punch out of that command, out of SEAL Team?
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, that was kind of relieving.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: No shit?
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: It was kind of relieving. Yeah. It was good just to,
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: you move on and think about the next chapter.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: You were done.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: It was, yeah, and things started to slow down too
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 2: a little bit. But, and losing friends, and like when
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: Extortion 17 got shot down, man, I was sitting, I
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: actually flew up to Boston to pick guys up that
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: were training up there. And I'm sitting behind a home
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: plate at Fenway Park because I was only one of
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: the top Red Sox and Patriot fans that everybody knew
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: that was up there. They had tickets. So I'm sitting
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: behind a home plate And my phone, it was actually this.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: My phone vibrates. I'm like, he's a two-troop. And I'm like, who?
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: He's like, two-troop. It's not syncing in. And that was when,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: that was August 6th when freaking Extortion 17 got shot
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: down with quite a few of our friends on there.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: But then, yeah, and that was right around the time
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: I was like, I just wanted to, you know, move
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: on and do a more cushier job.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: You were ready.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: And a divorce. Just wanted to get away from, you know,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: the area, Hampton Roads area, and start out new. And
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: I had a new girlfriend, too, who's now my wife.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: Well, congratulations.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: How'd you meet her? That is.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: Another interesting story. So before all the book writers, right,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: at our command, we'd have people come down. We knew
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: people in the aviation. This is when I was flying.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: We knew people in the aviation community, like higher-ups, like
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: some of the guys that founded NetJets, just through doing
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: our recurrent training in LaGuardia Airport. So we'd bring them
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: down for visits. They'd visit the command. I'll never forget
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: one time we're walking around the command, give them a
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: tour of a room, kind of like, you know, the
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: team room, and then going downstairs, showing this monument we're
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 2: getting built. And one of the head guys of United Technologies,
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: Pratt & Whitney, he's like, well, when's it going to
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: be done? And we're like, well, we don't know. We
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: need like 25,000, whatever operations guys is telling them this.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: And he turns around to his assistant and whipped out
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: one of those big like notebook checkbooks and writes it
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: and here it's covered so through that he was good
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: buddies with my current wife's best friend's dad so we
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: met up through that meeting right there and then it
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: just kind of a long story short my wife's gonna
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: be pissed but um her best friend died and then
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: we I called her just to say hey I'm sorry
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: about it and then we linked up that way.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 2: But through that meeting that happened at the command, of course,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: it was, they got to shoot like freaking 50 cals,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: they got to shoot grenade launchers. They had a blast.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: And now they don't do that anymore. I can't even
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: get on the command anymore because of the notoriety. But
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: they were very happy. And yeah, it was a pretty
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: cool the way that went down with, you know, taking
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: care of the memorial that they were building for command
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: just as one guy writing a check it was pretty
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: it impressed me too and they were happy with their
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: experience there right on.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: What was it like for you separating out of the
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: navy you're right i mean it sounds like you're 100.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: Ready yeah yep well i was offered a job to
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: actually fly by a great company out of california solaris
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: aviation and I thought they were rolling the dice with
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: me too as well because it's flying a jet and
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: all I have been flying is turbo props, twin turbo props.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: It's like a jet with a prop on it anyway.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: So the CEO there gave me the opportunity to, he's like, dude,
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 2: I'll give you a job right now in Van Nuys
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: or Teterboro. I'm like, no, I'm not leaving Texas. If
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: something pops up in Texas, let me know. Like two
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: weeks before I retired, a Gulfstream job popped up and
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: I got to freaking go to initial training for it.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 2: And it was, It was a little bit easier than
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: flying a prop. Things just move a little bit quicker.
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 2: And then I rolled right into that.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: You like flying a Gulfstream?
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a gorgeous airplane. It's a gorgeous plane. All
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: the Gulfstreams are. We fly a 550, though. It's a
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: beautiful airplane.
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: Right on, man.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: And then I started, yep, I did that. And then
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: I flew for another guy to Austin, a single turboprop. PC-12,
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: which is a gorgeous plane. They're incredible. And the guy
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: was one of the best guys I ever flew for
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: in my life. Then I got hired by a big
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: freight company and did that for a little bit and
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 2: kind of taking a break and just working with my
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: buddy out of North Carolina.
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: Right on, man. How do you, I mean, so you
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: got out in 2019?
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, I retired.
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: Do you miss it?
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: I miss the boys. I miss the fellas. You know
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: But when I think back, do I really miss it
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: that much? Not really. I mean, I miss some of
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: the cool things we did, you know, but I was
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: ready at that time. I have a replaced shoulder, my knee,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: my back's jacked up. Freaking, yeah, it took a toll.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And mentally, it takes a
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: toll on you.
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: It takes a toll.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: Especially with the FAA, it takes a toll. What do
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: you mean by that? We went to Isle of Man.
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: I got back, and I'm trying to help other people
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: out with this, right? I got back from Isle of
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: Man going through the mail. We went there for the
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 2: TT races, the motorcycle races there. It's a freaking incredible
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: experience in itself. But I'm going through the mail, and
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: I go, oh, I never get a letter from the FAA.
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 2: Open it up. I'm like, hey, we see you're a
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: disabled vet. I'm like, yeah. And you got to tell
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: us everything that's on your VA letter. And I'm like, well,
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: when I take my physical every six months, I check
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: off like the stuff that bothered, I didn't even know
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: about half the stuff that was on my VA letter.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: And I read it like, oh, oh, oh, because it's
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: kind of like a blanket one we had. Yeah, it's
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: a long story. So I go through Everything that's on there,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: you got TBI, PTSD, sleep apnea, all this other stuff.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: And I got to go get it taken care of.
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: So I see a great doctor in Savannah, Georgia. He
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: has me go through everything. I go through all the testing,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 2: smoke it. I mean, my brain is like fried going
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: through the neuropsych testing. And then I end up answering
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 2: questions to a bunch of other guys. that are disabled vets,
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: that are pilots that are going through the same thing.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: But a lot of these guys, they keep trying to
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: push for more disability, right? But they don't report it
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: to the FAA. We check everything off every six months
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: when we get our flight physicals through our docs, and
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 2: there's a box in there, are you disabled? Boom, you
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 2: check it, and you get filled out, you put in
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: everything you have, and you're good to go. Some guys
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: are lying, they got in trouble, they got caught. And
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: what's weird is they're worried about some of the veterans, right,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: that are at around there and you can walk around
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: the flight operations area and see like a five foot four,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: 350 pound man pilot walking around. Like I'd be worried
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 2: about that guy more than I'd be worried about, you know,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 2: having a vet flying an airplane.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What do you think they're worried about vets flying airplanes?
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, disabled vets.
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: Well, some, I mean, There are some crazy people out there,
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 2: not even vets, you know what I mean? That do
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: stupid shit, so. Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: So you're a grandpa now?
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: How's that?
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: I don't see them that often, but when I do,
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: it's cool. The one, the littlest one, Braxton, he's a terror.
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: And yeah, Topher's, they're both good kids. They're good kids.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: They're crazy. They're good.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: Right on.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was weird. I wasn't playing either. So, yeah.
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: Right on.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're good kids. I spoil them when I see them,
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? That's pretty much what you get.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to getting them out in Texas, do
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: some shooting. I already bought them like a little. 22,
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: a little Tomcat, whatever. Nice. The little can on it, yeah.
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to that.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe you can get them behind that. 300 Black out there.
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a couple more years. I don't want to
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: give it to Braxton. He might turn around and shoot
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: me with it.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, man. You want to go break that thing in?
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: Well, before we do... What do you got coming up next? Anything?
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: Anything exciting? No, this was a big step for me,
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you that, coming in here and talking to you.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: Thanks for the opportunity.
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: My pleasure. Jason?
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 2: I got recurrent training next week, so that's my next
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: big step.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 3: Right on, man.
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I wish you the best of luck.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you, man.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 3: Cheers. Thanks.
• 1:56:13
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• 1:56:16
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• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this
• 1:56:27
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• 1:56:33
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