WEBVTT

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Hey guys, it's Jack. I
just wanted to talk to you today about

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go and check us out at patreon
dot com. Slash The Teamhouse, Special

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Operations, cobert Os Spionage, The
Team House with your hosts Jack Murphy and

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David bark. Hey, everyone,
welcome to episode two hundred and seventy eight

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of The Team House. I'm Jack
here with Dave d back there producing somewhere,

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and the guest on tonight's show is
Matt Stevens. Matt served as a

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Navy Seal officer in a number of
different seal teams, ended up as a

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squadron commander and development group, then
went on to a few other assignments,

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and today he is the CEO of
the Honor Foundation, which we'll talk about

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in depth before we jump right into
it with Matt. I just want to

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take a moment to tell people about
our Patreon. There's a link down the

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support the channel. We really appreciate

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all of you guys who have stuck
with us and help us continue what we

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do here, so please check out
the Patreon and the link below. Matt,

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first question, Man, I want
to ask you about your origin story.

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Tell us a little bit about like
where you grew up, what your

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upbringing was like, and how that
took you towards the Navy eventually. Yeah,

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well, thanks for having me on
the show. First of all,

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I grew up started growing up in
upstate New York, bingham near Binghamton,

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New York. Was there until I
was about ten, and parents split up

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when I was maybe eight or nine, and then moved. I lived with

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my dad and my sister and we
moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in the

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fourth grade. So continued in Charlotte
through high school and you know, like

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everybody. There are a lot of
people in our community. Divor's parents,

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Varsus the athlete. I played baseball. Thought I was going to be a

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Major League baseball player. More than
anything. The military doesn't run deep in

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my family. Had one uncle who
was an aircraft mechanic in Vietnam, and

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then he moved. He got his
education, joined the Navy as a maintenance

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officer, and who was a teen
squadron as a maintenance officer right around when

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Top Gun came out, which is
about a year before I graduated from high

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school. And so I went on
one of those Tiger cruises with him where

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they used to take families out,
like it was pretty cool. You go

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on to just for a day free
nine to eleven, standing on the flight

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deck watching the flight ops. Pretty
pretty intense as a you know, fourteen

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fifteen year old kid. And really, but like I said, I really

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wanted to play D one baseball.
In retrospect, I wasn't any good,

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got no scholarship offers, and that
wasn't gonna happen. But along the way,

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a kid a couple of years before
me got a, you know,

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at the end of the year,
an award for getting an appointment to the

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Air Force Academy, and it just
sounded really cool. When they read this

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little thing for him. He's like, hey, this kid's getting like a

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three hundred and fifty thousand dollars scholarship. He's going to go fight jets when

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he's done. And I just didn't
want to do what everybody else did,

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and that kind of interested me,
so I mailed away for Naval Academy catalogs.

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I graduated high school in nineteen eighty
seven, so no internet, nothing

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on TV, no books about Navy
seals or not a lot of them,

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and just started digging into all the
service academies just to do something different.

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All my buddies were going to you
know, UNC Chapel Hill and NC State,

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smart ones were going to Duke and
so I just kept digging in and

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looking at it and worked my ass
off to get into a naval academy.

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And you know, everybody wanted to
fly in my year, but I think

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the year before I got there,
remember the Sunday Sunday magazine, Parade magazine.

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It was like an insert in your
Sunday paper. There was one article

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in there called the Cuffsman Alive.
And then again this is like nineteen eighty

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six, nineteen eighty seven, and
it was about Navy seals. I'm like,

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holy shit, this is pretty cool. I've never heard of this before

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because up till that point, all
the movies were about green berets. Right,

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we're gonna put in. All the
books were about delta force. Uh.

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I just want to say that it's
changed now. But so I was

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like, man, that's that's pretty
cool, and I think that's again,

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not a lot of people want to
do that or know about it. So

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I think I'm gonna go that route. And so I went all in when

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I got to the academy, and
you know, it's just lucky to uh

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persevere and get a billet and then
get the buds. It's uh that like

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a atypical pathway for an officer that
you can In the army, we would

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say branch into there's probably a different
term for naval officers to go straight from

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the academy into the seal pipeline.
No, it's it's that's the way it

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generally is in our community. I
know, you guys have like need to

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be almost a captain to go s
F s fas or anything like that.

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But for us the Naval Academy gets
a certain number of billets where you go

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straight in and we have, you
know, slots for junior officers as the

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assistant officer in charge of a platoon, not the platoon commander, so you

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know, your first pump. You're
kind of the two ice versus the oice.

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So very typical. There are other
pathways where you can go, you

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know, if you get stuck on
a ship or something and you want a

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laterals transfer, you can do that
up until you're a lieutenant and that capsid

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around then O three cool. So
the Navy seal question you always have to

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ask the Seals, was your BUDS
class hard? Yeah, it's hard for

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everybody. Anybody it tells you it's
not hard. I think you're lying.

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I mean, I don't think anybody
max is everything not that I saw.

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So you got to your first team
in nineteen ninety one, Can you tell

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us a little bit about like what
the culture was like and the seal teams

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at that time, Like what what
you guys were training for, what you

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were preparing for. Yeah, so
I actually I went to BUDS in ninety

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one and then I went straight there
from the academy and then we had we

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graduated in January of ninety two,
and then I had to do some temporary

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duty out in San Diego for like
six weeks. So I think I checked

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in the Seal Team four in March
of nineteen ninety two, and so this

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was right after Desert Storm. It
was right after a Tia Airfield and the

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whole Panama invasion, and so me
thinking like, hey, what do we

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want to do. We want to
go to combat. I'm going to go

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to Seal Team four because they were
the guys on Patilla Airfield doing and at

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the time, the Seal teams were
regionally aligned like the SF groups, and

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Seal Team four was Central and South
America. So I put on my wish

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list, you know, Seal Team
four number one, and somehow I got

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it. And you can never chase
conflict, as you probably know, right.

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So all we did was aim,
advise and assist our partner nations in

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the you know in those regions,
really on basic tactics for the current counter

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and Narconics mission. But I'll tell
you a funny story about the day I

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checked in. So you know,
Ands Stevens checks in the Seal Team for

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I'm in my dress uniform. You
know, you get to the we call

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it the main area where you go
is called the quarterdeck, even at the

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seal team, and somebody has to
stand watched, you know, twenty four

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to seven watch and I check in
and there's a petty officer, I think

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second or third or first class in
blues on the quarter deck and he had

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a big frogman mustache. Half of
it was shaved off, and he's got

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grooves shaved into his eyebrows, and
I think I'm not sure if he was

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bald or not, but like,
that's the first guy I see, and

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I'm like, uh, you know, reporting for duties. He's like,

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yeah, man, you gotta go
down to admin and like, well,

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what what the fuck happened to you? And you know, at the time,

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hazing was not an uncommon thing.
And I think he's getting married or

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had a birthday and he got hazed
and they shaved his mustache off, and

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to punish him for not ratting out
his buddies, the command leadership put him

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on watch. Didn't like shame another
half of the mustache look any any way

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presentable. It was. It was
hilarious and that was the like, that

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was my welcome aboard and a few
minutes later I saw, you know,

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a big bad lieutenant and let a
bronze star and he's like, hey,

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new guy, be at you know
this bar at six o'clock. You're buying

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beer for the CEO of the EXO
and the command Master Chief. I'm like,

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okay, I didn't think anything of
it. And the dude called me

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at my home or my apartment like
at six o two and goes, where

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the fuck are you? We're here, you are showing up at buying beer.

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So I drove my ass to the
to the bar and you know,

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bought the commanding Officer and command Master
chief a couple of rounds beer. And

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that was. That was day one
at the team. So the culture was

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like it was, it was pretty
wide open. Uh, work hard,

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play hard, yeah kind of thing. I mean they were great tactically.

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I thought I learned a ton there, but it was like, no matter

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who you are and what rank you
were, you could not escape the wrath

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of you know, the E five
mafia. In fact, a couple of

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weeks later, it was the CEO's
birthday, and I remember we used to

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go to a place called JB's Gallery
of Girls. My Virginia Beach compadres will

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know that it's like a super low
class topless bar and the CEOs, you

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know, on a Friday afternoon spread
eagle being held down by a bunch of

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dudes getting smacked on his belly with
a big ut teeth in. That was

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the culture. When speaking of the
culture, like what year did you go

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through? Buds ninety one? Mostly
a graduated in early ninety two, so

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so Navy Seals had been out for
a little while and it was like kind

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of like the big introduction, right
of mainstream culture to the Navy Seals.

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What was it like in San Diego
as a young frogman to be when you're

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hanging out at the bars telling girls
that you're gonna be a Navy seal?

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Had that was that? Like was
that a big thing for you know because

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like tap gun obviously pilots would never
go out anywhere without their their flight jackets.

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After that, Yeah, well you're
assuming I go to bars and uh

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and would sorry that like number one
until you're a seal, Like it does

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not be hoovey ever say I'm gonna
be a Navy Seal. Yeah. We

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used to go to Miramar, you
know, after seeing the movie we go

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to the Oak Club. Yeah,
whatever night they had a ladies night.

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But you know, I don't think
it was actually that big of a deal.

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Yeah, I don't think beyond the
people like us who thought movies like

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that were gonna be good. Yeah, nobody else on the planet watched that

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movie because it's sucked. Now.
Rob Low's movie Finest Hour. If you

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haven't checked that one out, that's
a real winner. I don't know if

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I've seen that. I'll have to
check it out. Any uh, from

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from that like early nineties time frame, any fun stories from Central or South

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America you'd like to share or or
maybe not one? Uh, you know

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one actually interesting thing. When I
got to Team four, we were we

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were short officers at the four level
in the community, so they put a

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couple extra, you know, junior
officers in there kind of grow the pipeline.

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So we had a few too many
officers and uh, some of the

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teams were putting three officers in a
platoon and the third officer, like guys

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I went to buds with would get
go to sniper school and you know,

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breacher school, I'd get They sent
my my EXO at the time had just

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come from DEV Group and he was
like, hey, you know, there's

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there's something about something important with this
joint operation stuff, and we're aligned with

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seventh Special Forces Group. So he
he made a bunch of us go to

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deployee with seventh Group for you know, I think a three or four month

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deployment cycle. And then he made
a couple of us, a couple of

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guys went to ranger school. They
actually sent me to the whole Special Forces

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Qualification course. So I had to
you know, I did not want to

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do it, and this was nineteen
ninety three. To trust me, it

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was like, all I want to
do is get in a seal platoon after

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you know, getting to the team, doing seal tactle training and all that

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stuff. But it was awesome deploying
with a seventh Group oda to Ecuador doing

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high altitude mountaineering. They were awesome
guys. And then the day I got

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back, you know, of course, we got delayed in Panama for a

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couple of days because the aircraft was
broken. Literally I showed up back at

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Fort Bragg at the time at zero
one hundred on a Monday morning. I

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started the course at seven thirty for
the next six months, which you know,

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again, I was not. I
didn't volunteer to go. I didn't

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want to go. But in retrospect, having gone through with the guys,

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a lot of guys who were then, you know, senior officers, Battalian

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commanders when I deployed Afghanistan, was
like, hey, you remember me,

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and it was just like easy,
you know, handshake, Yeah, whatever,

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that's cool. The same for them. So they had you go through

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the eighteen Alpha course. Yep,
yep, that's interesting. I didn't know

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that seals ever got to do that. So my choice, yeah, well

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my choice rangers. I knew that
they advent sent to Ranger School as punishment,

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but yeah, but I didn't know
that either. About Yeah, there

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were a couple of guys before me, and I think I was the last

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one to go through the whole thing. Yeah, and again great, I

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mean, we spent a lot of
time in the field, all the things

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that you know, you guys did, but it was it was a great,

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great orner experience. And then you
moved over to Seal Team eight.

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Yeah. Yeah, so I wanted
to stay operational as long as possible,

205
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right, So I did an AOI
c at Seal Team four. I went

206
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and asked if I could go to
Seal Team eight and do another AOI CE

207
00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:18.879
job to extend my operational career,
because you know, a lot of guys

208
00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:20.679
would tell us like, hey,
you're gonna do two platoons and then you're

209
00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:24.639
done. And I was like,
well, we'll see what we can do

210
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about that. So I went over
there. I was single, no responsibility

211
00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:35.519
at the time, started another platoon
as an AOI C of a strike platoon.

212
00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.519
We put guys on carriers at the
time, and uh, halfway through

213
00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:45.559
the work up, my boss decided
to get out and I just fleeted up

214
00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:48.960
to the beat the platoon commander,
which, in retrospect, like doing a

215
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.720
second AOI see was probably not the
right call. I was ready, you

216
00:15:54.799 --> 00:15:58.480
know what I mean. It's like, oh yeah, he was a great

217
00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:00.320
guy, but it was like I
would have done it this way, but

218
00:16:00.519 --> 00:16:03.960
I'm still in a C. So
did a full work up, deployed to

219
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:08.399
the med in the Middle East on
a carrier with a carrier air wing,

220
00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:11.000
and that was a lot of fun. You know, we we didn't really

221
00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.480
do anything. Was right after Bosny. I think that the platoon I took

222
00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:22.039
over was on Ready five with the
Marines during the Scotto Grady Rescue from Ugoslabia

223
00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:26.360
back then. But you know,
really nothing went on. It was just

224
00:16:26.440 --> 00:16:30.080
a presence and a lot of exercises
at the time, but great, great

225
00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:37.679
experience working with the fleet and uh, you know, learned to stay off

226
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as many ships as I could.
And so when does the thought process enter?

227
00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:48.399
Oh no, I'm sorry, one
more thing to get to you spent

228
00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:52.440
some time with the STVS also,
yep, again to extend my operational career,

229
00:16:53.080 --> 00:16:59.879
I wanted to to go to SDVS
and try the mini subs and the

230
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explore the undersea world. So I
went over there as a platoon commander and

231
00:17:03.160 --> 00:17:08.839
got a second platoon commander job.
And you know, we did a full

232
00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:12.200
work up. A lot of this
stuff you do with subs is done off

233
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at the time was off of Puerto
Rico because they have really deep water.

234
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But you gotta get qualified, is
you know, first go to STV school,

235
00:17:19.359 --> 00:17:22.759
which at the time was in San
Diego. That was three months,

236
00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:26.200
and back to the team, do
a full work up with all these exercises

237
00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:33.559
with the sub and then we deployed
to the Med and did you know,

238
00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:37.440
again, just a lot of exercises
with our partner nations, but gained a

239
00:17:37.480 --> 00:17:41.200
real appreciation for what clandestine truly is. You know, I used to think

240
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:45.640
that coming across a beach with like
four zodiacs, you know, from ten

241
00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:49.079
miles out, was pretty sexy.
But you know, you can hear them

242
00:17:49.160 --> 00:17:53.240
five miles out, so you know
that's not clandestine. But when you can

243
00:17:53.799 --> 00:17:59.000
launch off the back of a submarine
underwater, go into a harbor or a

244
00:17:59.039 --> 00:18:06.000
beach all underwater, and you can
go over the beach without even surfacing the

245
00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:08.880
STV, you know, all you
see is four dudes or however many guys

246
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:15.599
you have with zero sound. I
mean, that's that's clandestine, and it's

247
00:18:15.599 --> 00:18:18.279
hard work. Like, don't get
me wrong. STV says they're wet or

248
00:18:18.279 --> 00:18:22.880
they were wet at the time,
so it could be an eight to ten

249
00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:30.240
hour dive. But yeah, some
of the guys we've had on here have

250
00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:33.759
like described it as being like really
hilacious that you're just like freezing on those

251
00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:37.839
on the mini sub. Yeah.
Yeah, it's you know, hopefully you're

252
00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:41.960
smart enough to dress appropriately, but
you get cold even if the waters seventy

253
00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:48.160
five eight degrees. The worst thing
for me was, you know, when

254
00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:51.960
we're diving all the time, my
sinuses were pretty jacked up, so I,

255
00:18:52.039 --> 00:18:53.279
you know, it was right when
camel bass came out. I'd put

256
00:18:53.319 --> 00:18:57.680
a camel back on over my dive
gear or under my dive year stuck on

257
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:03.400
that on the insert in and about
halfway through a dive, I had a

258
00:19:03.400 --> 00:19:07.400
little zip loc bag with two extra
suit of head and I'd have to take

259
00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:11.519
those midway through the dive and try
to you know, open the bag up,

260
00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:14.720
grab them before they disintegrated, put
them in my mouth, suck it

261
00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:18.200
down with some fresh water, just
to keep my ears clear for the for

262
00:19:18.279 --> 00:19:22.519
the you know, for the next
couple hours. And that was guys did

263
00:19:22.519 --> 00:19:26.640
it all the time. It was
super boring if you weren't driving or navigating,

264
00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:30.440
like if you were in the back
show four dudes in the back with

265
00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:36.519
all your kit four rucksacks, all
your weapons that and it's not quite like

266
00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:40.480
jockh. Custou where you're seeing like
dolphins and stuff like that. It's probably

267
00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:44.480
just pitch dark, right, Yeah, it's it's pretty dark. A lot

268
00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:47.440
of times we put a chem light
right above us, a green chem light.

269
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:51.480
And of course back then the dudes
in the back didn't have good comms.

270
00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:56.720
Nobody had good combs, but you'd
have that heml on a basically on

271
00:19:56.799 --> 00:19:59.440
a on a wire that went to
the front and they had a chemlight on.

272
00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:03.240
So if you like pulled it twice, it means hey, with we're

273
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:04.960
okay. If you pull it like
five times, like you got to get

274
00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:08.920
to the surface. Now, that
was kind of the extent of how good

275
00:20:08.920 --> 00:20:15.839
are concert soup cans? Literally?
Yeah, yeah, No, it was

276
00:20:15.880 --> 00:20:21.400
hard work, but it was like
again appreciation for like the stuff we do

277
00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:25.640
and what it takes to succeed in
the special apps community. It's like,

278
00:20:26.079 --> 00:20:30.319
guys, guys nowadays are I mean, they're doing amazing things from the STVS.

279
00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:33.720
I'll tell you funny story on that. We were doing our final workup

280
00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:38.599
in STV. We were down in
Puerto Rico before we deployed, and we

281
00:20:38.680 --> 00:20:44.880
had a My platoon had a super
long insert into the harbor and then a

282
00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:49.640
super long extract. It was probably
like ten miles each way, and of

283
00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:52.599
course on the way back to the
sub, you know, you got to

284
00:20:52.599 --> 00:20:56.200
figure out this rendezvous underwater kind of
thing which I won't go into, but

285
00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:00.279
put it like this. We were
late and we tried to cut a corner

286
00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:07.240
and you don't cut the corner when
you're you're trying to link up with a

287
00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:11.720
you know, nuclear submarine. Yeah, yeah, he's that periscope depth and

288
00:21:11.920 --> 00:21:15.279
ostensibly you can see him on your
little sonar. And again this is like

289
00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:18.799
nineteen ninety seven, ninety eight,
No, this is ninety eight ninety nine.

290
00:21:19.559 --> 00:21:23.640
They just weren't that good and uh
and they get banged up along the

291
00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:27.039
way, you know, so they
don't always work great. But after like

292
00:21:27.079 --> 00:21:32.000
a ten hour dive, we're coming
back. We're hauling asked for us like

293
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:36.359
six seven knots and we hit the
side of the submarine because we cut the

294
00:21:36.440 --> 00:21:41.039
corners going to like six knots,
which when you're not expecting it is a

295
00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:45.559
lot pretty gallacious. Yeah, And
of course we thought, like what you

296
00:21:45.640 --> 00:21:49.880
know, we knew we hit the
submarine. The question was can we still,

297
00:21:51.119 --> 00:21:53.279
like, can we ballast up if
we need to? So my swim

298
00:21:53.319 --> 00:21:57.119
buddy, I was in the back
with another guy and his door was bent

299
00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:03.279
so he couldn't open his door.
So I opened my door and all I

300
00:22:03.319 --> 00:22:10.200
see is the propeller. It was
it was night, but the visibility was

301
00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:12.680
awesome in Puerto Rico, and I
could just see this thing like getting closer

302
00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:18.519
and closer and closer. I like, you know, we got about five

303
00:22:18.599 --> 00:22:21.920
seconds before we got a bail.
Of course I can't talk to him,

304
00:22:22.599 --> 00:22:25.680
but i'm you know, starting to
grab him. And then we we eventually

305
00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:30.799
surfaced because just to check out the
boat and see if we were like they've

306
00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:33.839
sunk them before out there, and
there's some big trenches where you don't want

307
00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:38.920
to be in a sinking STV even
if you have dagged here on because once

308
00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:44.119
you go below a certain depth,
you're you're you're screwed up for a long

309
00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:48.000
time. So were you able to
eventually get that back into the dry dock

310
00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:52.400
on the sub. Yeah, we
we had to do a uh basically an

311
00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:57.359
emergency crank down where the sub comes
by and kind of does like the Fulton

312
00:22:57.440 --> 00:23:02.519
recovery going like one ny. It's
not sex, not sexy like a C

313
00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:04.759
one thirty or anything, but you
know, they hook you and then they

314
00:23:04.920 --> 00:23:10.279
get the line down to a winch
and they basically just crank your ass down

315
00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:14.160
because you can't there's no way to
get a broken STV onto the back of

316
00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:17.880
a surface submarine. You got to
get it down. And so yeah,

317
00:23:17.880 --> 00:23:22.400
they winched us down and then eventually
you know, got us, got us

318
00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:26.119
into the shelter. I had I
had heard that, particularly in like the

319
00:23:26.119 --> 00:23:30.759
the mid and late nineties, that
the STV teams didn't get a lot of

320
00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:37.359
respect from the regular teams, and
like being sent to an STV team was

321
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:41.720
you know seen as oh, you're
like b team. Has that was that

322
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:45.880
your experience? Experience? Was that
actually going on? And has that changed?

323
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:51.680
I think in some cases it was
like if you were a brand new

324
00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:56.559
seal coming out of Buds, you
generally didn't want to go to sdb's in

325
00:23:56.279 --> 00:24:00.400
my estimation, because they weren't going
to war. Nobody even if the very

326
00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:06.440
few things that were going on back
then there were a couple of high end

327
00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:08.599
things going on that nobody talked about, but you had to have been there

328
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:11.319
for a while. For me,
it was a decision of like how do

329
00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:18.319
I extend my operational career? So
you know, that was you know,

330
00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:21.759
by choice for me and a lot
of second tour guys. You know,

331
00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:25.039
they saw the value of it if
you were really into diving, like you

332
00:24:25.119 --> 00:24:30.640
get all the diving you want there. Nowadays, I don't even think they

333
00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:33.480
take enlist the roarer officers straight out
of buds and you have to scream to

334
00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:37.640
go there, which is a good
thing because number one, it demonstrates who

335
00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:41.599
wants to actually be there and work
hard. And number two, they don't

336
00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:44.440
have to take everybody, So just
because you're a seal doesn't mean you're a

337
00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:49.200
good seal. And they're doing some
amazing work across the world that will never

338
00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:53.160
know about. Do you think that
technology has sort of made that difference that

339
00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:59.000
it's enabled the stvs or do you
think it's just the mission parameters have changed,

340
00:24:59.240 --> 00:25:03.880
which is allowed the stvs to be
like more you know, valued.

341
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:08.279
I'd say yeah, I think it's
both. But I think over the years

342
00:25:08.319 --> 00:25:11.799
a lot of super hard work.
I think our officers and leaders got smarter

343
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:15.200
where like, hey, you know, nobody's going to come and hand us

344
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:19.640
the golden ticket to go on this
like super high speed operation. You have

345
00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:25.920
to demonstrate capability, earn credibility,
and then build trust. And the decision

346
00:25:25.960 --> 00:25:30.599
makers are generally in the Pentagon or
other agencies that have the authority, and

347
00:25:30.960 --> 00:25:36.960
I think we just got way better
at working that system and over time built

348
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:42.240
up the credibility to be asked or
if you demonstrate or offer a solution to

349
00:25:42.279 --> 00:25:45.960
a tough problem that they may not
even know about, because not even in

350
00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:52.079
the Navy especial ops, like most
guys don't know really what a SDV can

351
00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:59.359
do or what an SDV platoon.
So it's a lot of education in different

352
00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:03.039
settings with you know, a different
audience. And now the guys have the

353
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:08.960
dry sub too, so increased range
and not freezing to death. Yeah,

354
00:26:10.039 --> 00:26:12.359
you know, it was always like
I think in the early two thousands,

355
00:26:12.359 --> 00:26:18.799
like you see like an E five
STV guy with a legion a merit and

356
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:23.039
like, how'd you get that?
Like that's normally for six and No.

357
00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:27.119
Seven's, you know and super senior
enlisted d'es Like I can't talk about it.

358
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:30.599
You're like, oh, that's cool. I want to go there.

359
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:36.480
Yeah, it's awesome. That's that's
like one of the capabilities that only only

360
00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:41.319
you guys can do. Nobody else
has that. And I imagine nowadays I

361
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:44.039
don't want to say it's the main
effort, but I mean if we're moving

362
00:26:44.039 --> 00:26:47.480
into a time of you know,
state conflict, I can see a renewed

363
00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:52.400
emphasis on it undred percent. Yeah. It's uh, they're busy. Well,

364
00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:56.599
and what we know about Mission Creep
is it if if, like any

365
00:26:56.640 --> 00:27:00.759
of their successes ever become public,
then pretty soon every other, every other

366
00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:06.319
uniform service special operations unit will have
their own underwater delivery vehicles. They'll all

367
00:27:06.359 --> 00:27:08.200
want to get in on the mission. Yeah. Well, even after being

368
00:27:08.240 --> 00:27:14.440
there, just I realized that,
like most sealed platoons and even other special

369
00:27:14.440 --> 00:27:18.559
mission units, like the diving is
a perishable skill, and like you're not

370
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:22.559
just going to do a two week
training block and then like, hey,

371
00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:25.680
you know, we got the big
miss over wherever. You know, it's

372
00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:27.920
going to be a very focused thing
from people that dive all the time,

373
00:27:29.079 --> 00:27:32.480
right, And really the only people
that do it all the time are the

374
00:27:32.519 --> 00:27:37.920
STV teams. So that's my opinion. It's not doctrine or anything like that.

375
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:41.880
So yeah, and now we're getting
to about the year two thousand.

376
00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:45.119
Tell us about when this idea.
I mean, what I'm sensing is you

377
00:27:45.119 --> 00:27:48.720
want to stay as operational as you
could as long as you could. Is

378
00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:52.400
that how you got the idea to
go and screen for development group? Absolutely?

379
00:27:52.599 --> 00:27:56.039
Yeah, No, I had always
wanted to go. I just had

380
00:27:56.079 --> 00:28:00.599
to pick the you know number one. I I don't think I was mature

381
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:06.119
enough to even apply after my O
Platoon Commander John at Seal teammate and I

382
00:28:06.119 --> 00:28:11.119
got married right after that, so
I wanted to extend it. And you

383
00:28:11.160 --> 00:28:15.359
know, that was the next the
next great step. I think a lot

384
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.720
of us want to go there,
and I'm just super lucky. You worked

385
00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:25.880
hard to get there, and then
yeah, got selected to go through selection

386
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:30.839
assessment training in two thousand, went
to the boat side of it. The

387
00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:38.640
Great Team signed, but we did
a combined selection assessment with assaults and boats

388
00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:41.519
for most of it until we had
to break off and kind of specialize.

389
00:28:41.720 --> 00:28:47.440
But yeah, I went through that
awesome process in the year two thousands.

390
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:53.160
Yeah. Any funny stories from training
with Green Team, they're all funny,

391
00:28:53.319 --> 00:28:56.319
you know. I mean, it's
not funny when you're his audio cut out

392
00:28:57.799 --> 00:29:02.279
here. Yeah, oh, then
it's just me go ahead, go ahead,

393
00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:06.640
sorry, Jack's hearing cut out.
Okay, you guys can continue?

394
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:11.079
Yeah thing, Yeah, sorry about
that? Want me to wait? No,

395
00:29:11.079 --> 00:29:18.680
no, please go He's not more
than yeah, you know, it's

396
00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:26.319
uh, it's a very different environment, very professional for the most part,

397
00:29:26.519 --> 00:29:29.839
where you know, it's not a
lot of yelling and screaming. It's like

398
00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:32.599
the standards at the standards and I
hope you meet him, but if you

399
00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:37.799
don't, you know, see you
later. Yeah, there were a couple

400
00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:40.920
of funny things that I don't think
I should go into them, but you

401
00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:44.599
know, it was it's not funny
when you know you're what happens, you

402
00:29:44.680 --> 00:29:47.799
fuck up and you're you know,
one of the big punishments we had,

403
00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:52.519
especially like c QB is a big
thing for us, and it was you're

404
00:29:52.519 --> 00:29:59.000
either dragging a tire, big heavy
tire long ways or you're climbing a ladder

405
00:29:59.079 --> 00:30:03.200
up a tree. Isn't fun to
do with kit. That happened, you

406
00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:07.160
know, quite a bit. And
you know, I can tell you that,

407
00:30:07.519 --> 00:30:11.640
you know, I probably will never
be asked back to Great Team to

408
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:17.759
be a throttleman on an h shack. I can tell you, you know,

409
00:30:17.920 --> 00:30:21.039
everybody rotates through the three positions on
those boats, or at least back

410
00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:23.680
then we did. You know,
you got the NAV slot in the kind

411
00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:29.079
of the port seat, the middle
dudes the wheelman, and then the starboard

412
00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:33.119
side guys the throttleman. Because it's
so intense, one guy has to concentrate

413
00:30:33.160 --> 00:30:36.279
on just keeping it straight. One
guy's like throttling, and there's a there's

414
00:30:36.279 --> 00:30:40.440
an art and a science to it. I found myself one night we were

415
00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:45.359
going up doing a really easy training
exercise, like going up a river,

416
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:48.680
and I was the throttleman on the
number one boat, so I didn't have

417
00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:52.680
to navigate. It was awesome.
It was just like like wide open,

418
00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:56.359
pin them down, going fifty knots. It's class. You know, there's

419
00:30:56.359 --> 00:31:00.440
a big moon out and they've told
us how to overtake a ship because there's

420
00:31:00.440 --> 00:31:04.960
a big wake. There's like big
cargo ship going into Norfolk Carver and I

421
00:31:04.960 --> 00:31:07.799
couldn't remember exactly what they said.
It's like come off the throttles a little

422
00:31:07.839 --> 00:31:11.160
bit and then gun it, you
know, get over the lip. But

423
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:15.680
you don't want to like go into
the face of the of the wake.

424
00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:19.759
So I did it absolutely backwards and
we were again lead boat. I don't

425
00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:23.319
even think I had my nods on. They were like flipped up and everybody's

426
00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:26.519
maps are not even in a waterproof
thing because it was so nice. And

427
00:31:27.119 --> 00:31:30.400
I came off the throttles, the
nose came down and then I gunned it

428
00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:37.920
and we stuffed right into the back
of thea this wake on a completely calm

429
00:31:37.039 --> 00:31:41.279
night. And you know, if
you've been in a boat that stuffs.

430
00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:47.440
You have this huge green wall of
water that comes over you. I almost

431
00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:49.319
broke my nose. I had this
big hump on my nose from my nods

432
00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:52.480
smashed me in the face. Everything's
wet, and all we could hear when

433
00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:56.559
we came up was everybody in the
other boats laughing at us. I stept

434
00:31:56.640 --> 00:32:01.079
my boat. They were super pissed. So yeah, I have that.

435
00:32:01.839 --> 00:32:06.200
So it's it's it sounds like it's
basically like when you're in a when you're

436
00:32:06.200 --> 00:32:10.079
speeding in a car and going over
like a bump, like the breaking to

437
00:32:10.079 --> 00:32:14.799
put the pressure on the front.
So it's basically the same concept for you

438
00:32:14.839 --> 00:32:19.960
guys. It's interesting, it is, yeah, and you know again,

439
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:24.440
you know, we all rotated through, but I wasn't ever very good at

440
00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:31.039
it. And uh like this selection
and training for the boats, Like the

441
00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:34.880
first couple of times you go out, it looks really cool. When you

442
00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:37.880
launch off wave you count like one
one thousand and two one thousand, and

443
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:42.240
you're still in the air because when
you come down, you know it's gonna

444
00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:45.119
hurt, especially if you're you know, anting a little bit and everybody gets

445
00:32:45.119 --> 00:32:49.799
smashed to the side. I've seen
guys get really fucked up, not through

446
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:53.119
anybody's fault, but just like it's
it's a dangerous business. Yeah. Yeah,

447
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:58.799
and this is all pre nine to
eleven. So your your first assignment

448
00:32:58.839 --> 00:33:04.960
was over to Bosnia. Yeah,
the first cool thing I got to do

449
00:33:05.039 --> 00:33:08.559
is go to Bosnia for for for
a mission we had over there, and

450
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:12.440
it was, uh, it was
great, you know, first first kind

451
00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:19.119
of real thing that we were doing. But yeah, I uh had a

452
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:24.440
short tenure in Bostnia. We had
uh some guys who enjoyed the bottle and

453
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:30.519
and ship rolls uphill and uh I
I promptly got kicked out of Bosnia with

454
00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:34.839
my senior list of leaders uh after
about a month. So it was a

455
00:33:34.839 --> 00:33:38.000
low point in my career. I
thought I was completely done. This was

456
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:43.160
like May June of two thousand and
one. You know when it when a

457
00:33:43.200 --> 00:33:47.039
two star conventional army guy who owns
the base tells you to go home,

458
00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:52.720
like get on a plane now you
dip ship. It's pretty humbling as a

459
00:33:52.720 --> 00:33:58.400
as a young guy, yeah who
thinks he's pretty hot ship, but uh,

460
00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:00.920
it was. It was a pretty
good lesson for were for me to

461
00:34:00.839 --> 00:34:07.799
you know, how we are perceived
matters and how we will be employed.

462
00:34:07.199 --> 00:34:14.760
Right. If you can't earn respect
and keep respect and credibility from those that

463
00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:16.840
you work for, even if you're
just a tenant on their base and not

464
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:22.159
actually working for them, it's a
it doesn't go well, Matt. This

465
00:34:22.199 --> 00:34:29.159
is a discussion we've had a lot
on our show about about officers and what

466
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:31.719
they are and are not responsible for. Like, you know, if if

467
00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:36.840
your Joe goes out and gets drunk
and makes an ask of themselves on a

468
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:39.559
Friday night, you know, and
then the officer is getting relieved. It's

469
00:34:39.599 --> 00:34:44.239
like it puts a lot of pressure
on officers to maybe cover things up or

470
00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:49.320
you know, or whatever. But
also officers have a tendency to influence culture

471
00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:52.159
a lot of times, so there
is some responsibility or there should be some

472
00:34:52.199 --> 00:34:57.840
responsibility for certain things like and you
suffered because of what some of your guys

473
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:02.400
did. Where for you? Like
where is that line for what an officer

474
00:35:02.440 --> 00:35:07.599
should and shouldn't be held accounted before? And like when is it detrimental to

475
00:35:07.639 --> 00:35:12.000
hold an officer accountable for everything the
guys or people under their command do.

476
00:35:13.719 --> 00:35:20.199
Yeah, you're exactly right. If
that hadn't that wasn't the first incident from

477
00:35:20.199 --> 00:35:23.920
our group, and so then it
becomes a pattern. And you know,

478
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:30.400
I can although I didn't agree with
the decision, I can I can see

479
00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:32.960
where they came from. Right,
I'm not a fan of like, hey,

480
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:37.039
Joe Schmuckntelli goes out and gets the
dui. Therefore we're going to lock

481
00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:43.679
everybody's livery down. Not at all. But that was kind of an operational

482
00:35:43.760 --> 00:35:47.440
role. It wasn't back in Conus, and it was you know, our

483
00:35:47.519 --> 00:35:52.559
credibility as an organization was online.
And you know, I I one hundred

484
00:35:52.559 --> 00:35:57.639
percent believe that. You know,
if you're the O c R commander,

485
00:35:58.039 --> 00:36:02.280
then you have ultimate ability and accountability. You know, that's why commanding officers

486
00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:07.880
of ships in the Navy maybe it's
a little more draconian in the Navy when

487
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:12.159
you have that kind of autonomy,
when you're like Ford deployed and all that

488
00:36:12.159 --> 00:36:16.199
stuff. This this wasn't that.
But still as a commander of the small

489
00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:22.039
unit, it was my responsibility to
influence, if not direct, people to

490
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:29.400
you know, be smart about things. And we weren't seat totalers by any

491
00:36:29.440 --> 00:36:34.119
stretch, but you know, that
was what happened across the line and put

492
00:36:34.920 --> 00:36:37.679
some things at risk, and it
was it was not unacceptable, So I

493
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:40.920
was like, yeah, I'm not
sure that. So so the second part

494
00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:44.159
of that question, then, I
guess, is you know, you have

495
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:47.119
your big army or your bigger your
bigger military, like you say, like

496
00:36:47.159 --> 00:36:52.760
a ship or you know, an
infantry, a battalion or whatever. But

497
00:36:52.480 --> 00:36:59.239
when you are the officer in a
more mature, a smaller and more mature

498
00:36:59.320 --> 00:37:05.280
element, how do you influence you
know, like these E six's, E

499
00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:08.800
seven's without them just saying go fuck
yourself. For adults, you don't like,

500
00:37:09.039 --> 00:37:15.239
we can we can handle our own
business. Yeah, I mean that

501
00:37:15.480 --> 00:37:21.119
is probably the million dollar question that
everybody wants to know the secret sauce to.

502
00:37:21.199 --> 00:37:27.519
And I think it's number one being
tactically technically proficient incompetent. Right,

503
00:37:27.519 --> 00:37:30.760
you don't have to be the best
shooter, guver, everything, but you

504
00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:34.239
got to be pretty good. So
you got to earn respect. And I

505
00:37:34.239 --> 00:37:37.400
think most guys like honestly know,
like, hey, you're you're in that

506
00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:43.119
position, right, it's and they're
going to do their best to also succeed,

507
00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:45.360
not to make you succeed, but
they want the unit to succeed,

508
00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:50.239
right, So they want you to
be good at what you do, which

509
00:37:50.280 --> 00:37:52.480
is not generally being the number one
man in the door, right, And

510
00:37:52.519 --> 00:37:59.000
so if you respect the expertise around
you, you know, and build camaraderie

511
00:37:59.079 --> 00:38:04.880
and in over time earn respect,
then it should sort itself out as long

512
00:38:04.880 --> 00:38:10.599
as you're not a bumbling idiot where
you know. So again where some guys

513
00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:15.159
get sideways as they I think they
try to come in and be g I

514
00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:17.519
Joe and take like I got to
make all the tactical calls. You No,

515
00:38:17.599 --> 00:38:21.280
you don't, like you have these
guys who've probably been there for a

516
00:38:21.400 --> 00:38:25.159
decade longer than you like. You
gotta let certain things flow and then make

517
00:38:25.239 --> 00:38:30.679
adjustments to the flow versus being indirective, you know what I mean. Like

518
00:38:30.760 --> 00:38:37.639
the guys are so good at certain
units that you know, you gotta let

519
00:38:37.639 --> 00:38:42.360
it. You gotta trust, uh
And if you don't trust other guys there,

520
00:38:42.440 --> 00:38:46.840
then you got to take action and
hold them accountable for for not performing

521
00:38:46.840 --> 00:38:53.280
it, which which we you know
we did. So it's uh yeah,

522
00:38:53.480 --> 00:38:57.599
I mean my opinion is like at
the end of the day, there's there's

523
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:00.800
gotta be one dude in charge,
right, just stay called warfare and how

524
00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:05.400
to do what's been going on for
several thousand years, and generally there's one

525
00:39:05.480 --> 00:39:09.800
dude in charge, and you know, like it or not, that's generally

526
00:39:09.800 --> 00:39:15.280
an inexperienced officer. Maybe it's not
an officer like you got the squadron commander,

527
00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:19.039
the troop commander, and team leaders. That's that's kind of changing plan.

528
00:39:19.159 --> 00:39:22.639
But you got troop chiefs and squadron
master chiefs in there too. If

529
00:39:22.679 --> 00:39:25.760
you're not listening to those guys,
you're an idiot. Yeah, I mean,

530
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:31.280
so it's a it's a fine a
fine balance. But yeah, there's

531
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:36.280
no easy answer. Yeah, it's
earned respect, it's not given, Yeah,

532
00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:38.920
for sure. And then you were
in the unit when nine to eleven

533
00:39:39.079 --> 00:39:43.920
happened. Can you tell us a
little bit if you want about, you

534
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:46.159
know, what that experience was,
like, how things changed in the unit

535
00:39:46.239 --> 00:39:51.079
and sort of where you ended up. You know, where was the next

536
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:54.960
place that you touched down at.
Yeah? Yeah, So I was actually

537
00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:00.119
briefing the commanding officer at the time
of the first plane strike on a training

538
00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:04.440
exercise we had coming on, you
know, when the first plane hit and

539
00:40:05.760 --> 00:40:07.199
I think somebody came in and said
something, and the second one hit and

540
00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:12.039
like, all right, this is
done, you know, let's get on

541
00:40:12.079 --> 00:40:19.400
the horn. And so what we
thought was that we were we were potentially

542
00:40:19.440 --> 00:40:22.800
gonna go like something needed to happen, right once we figured out, hey,

543
00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:27.320
this was a terrorist act al Qaida, We're gonna go find these guys,

544
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:29.679
hunt them down and kill them and
it's gonna be over in about a

545
00:40:29.719 --> 00:40:32.239
month. So we need to fight
to get on the first mission, like

546
00:40:32.280 --> 00:40:36.480
one hundred percent. That's like everybody's
like there were fistfights going on in the

547
00:40:36.519 --> 00:40:37.880
locker room, like hey, motherfuckers, we're going. You know, it's

548
00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:40.639
like nope, we're going, like
we're on alert. Yeah, we're not

549
00:40:40.679 --> 00:40:44.440
on alert, so we're gonna you
know, you got to stay on alert.

550
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:47.599
You know, there's all these like
angles being the well, honestly,

551
00:40:47.639 --> 00:40:54.559
we thought we were gonna go on
this like worldwide hunting spree and just you

552
00:40:54.599 --> 00:41:00.360
know, try to do what we
could to root out al Qaida, and

553
00:41:00.400 --> 00:41:06.639
it was gonna be easy and done
quick, obviously, you know when I

554
00:41:06.679 --> 00:41:10.320
was lucky that I got on the
first the first appointment, but it wasn't

555
00:41:10.360 --> 00:41:15.119
done quick right in it, you
know, the first one was we were

556
00:41:15.159 --> 00:41:21.880
pretty kinetic, but it was you
know, in and out and mostly we

557
00:41:21.880 --> 00:41:25.280
were on the giving and and then
the guys that relieved us, you know,

558
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:30.960
we had a guy step on the
land an anti pank mine, uh,

559
00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:35.920
and then some other guys get hurt, and some things happened very quickly,

560
00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:39.960
and it became like, Okay,
this is not gonna be an easy

561
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:45.000
fight. This is the longer term
slog, you know. And I went

562
00:41:45.079 --> 00:41:49.000
back, like within a year I
was, I mean, within nine months

563
00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:52.480
I was back in the theater doing
other stuff. And it's like, okay,

564
00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:55.480
you know, this is the new
normal. Like three months on,

565
00:41:57.519 --> 00:42:00.119
you know, or four months on
and six months off and you're off your

566
00:42:00.639 --> 00:42:07.440
your training. And it elevated the
seriousness of like the training trips that we

567
00:42:07.480 --> 00:42:13.320
took, and and while you were
at home really getting focused on some of

568
00:42:13.320 --> 00:42:17.079
the mission profiles that we had signed
up for, which we're pretty intense.

569
00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:22.719
Right. I love jumping. I
love free falling, or I used to.

570
00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:27.679
I'd never in a million years thought
we would, you know, use

571
00:42:27.760 --> 00:42:30.159
free fall on an op, and
we used a ship out of it.

572
00:42:30.159 --> 00:42:35.119
In fact, on our first real
op, uh, we had a one

573
00:42:35.159 --> 00:42:40.760
of our troops ad a halo unmarked
unknown DZ at night with nods, you

574
00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:45.639
know, and we're like, holy
shit, we used to go jump all

575
00:42:45.679 --> 00:42:50.920
the time, but here we are
like, yeah, we get paid paid

576
00:42:50.920 --> 00:42:53.719
for and yeah, and you better
fucking pay attention to it because it's it's

577
00:42:53.920 --> 00:42:57.880
it can go wrong really quick.
Can you tell us a bit more about

578
00:42:57.920 --> 00:43:00.079
that initial push that you guys didn't
taft stand what that was, like,

579
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:07.679
you know what you experienced. Yeah, so, you know, we were

580
00:43:07.719 --> 00:43:13.559
with some our Army sister units and
they actually did the first real operations and

581
00:43:13.639 --> 00:43:19.280
I don't know if you guys the
Rangers did the big jump Omar's House right,

582
00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:25.559
Well, they jumped into a dry
lake bed hunting grounds. But yeah,

583
00:43:25.719 --> 00:43:32.519
and and we were on a ship
at the time, and we watched

584
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:36.679
everybody fly away and come back and
it was pretty humbling. And we were

585
00:43:36.679 --> 00:43:39.079
supposed to go cock recock for a
mission the next night and it was canceled.

586
00:43:39.679 --> 00:43:43.400
We're like, all right, we
need to be creative then and figure

587
00:43:43.400 --> 00:43:46.360
out what we can do. And
we all went to a land based location

588
00:43:47.400 --> 00:43:53.079
and started conjuring up, like how
can we affect the situation on the ground,

589
00:43:53.199 --> 00:43:55.519
right, what are the rules of
engagement? And you know, you

590
00:43:55.599 --> 00:44:01.000
had the big ring road and at
the time, anything coming into condohr with

591
00:44:01.559 --> 00:44:07.320
fuel or anybody in with a gun
going in was probably a bad guy.

592
00:44:08.039 --> 00:44:10.920
And so we we said, hey, we can do an armed reconnaissance to

593
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:17.400
the west of Conda hor So you
know, we didn't have vehicles there.

594
00:44:17.440 --> 00:44:20.639
We had boats. You know,
again I thought we were We're we're the

595
00:44:20.639 --> 00:44:22.719
maritime guys. We of course we
were. We brought boats on this operation

596
00:44:23.679 --> 00:44:29.360
to Afghanistan on the ship and they're
like, okay. So we went up

597
00:44:30.039 --> 00:44:32.920
and uh like, we need some
of these desert mobility humbi's that are in

598
00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:37.199
the war stock up in Kuwait.
So sent some guys up there, got

599
00:44:37.199 --> 00:44:42.599
a bunch of vehicles we had ATVs
with us for some reason, and figured

600
00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:45.280
that we could get in and do
an armed reconnaissance for a couple of days

601
00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:49.320
with you know, uh, you
know, a rat patrol kind of thing.

602
00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:53.559
So we we did. But you
know, a dumbbe desert mobility humby

603
00:44:54.400 --> 00:44:59.440
fits on a MH forty seven with
that one inch on either side. And

604
00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:02.000
they don't really like that. I'm
told, like, if there's not more

605
00:45:02.079 --> 00:45:07.280
rooms, did you actually squeeze by? Because your fucked. If if you

606
00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:08.800
have a hard landing or something gets
cock guyed you know, it's just like

607
00:45:08.840 --> 00:45:14.320
you don't want to sit on the
hl Z doing the ten thousand point turns.

608
00:45:14.400 --> 00:45:17.400
So we we conjured up in an
opera. One troop was going to

609
00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:22.599
free fall in do a survey of
a dry lake bed, set up a

610
00:45:23.679 --> 00:45:29.679
desert landing site where we bring in
two MC one thirties land and then my

611
00:45:29.920 --> 00:45:34.280
troop would roll off go do this
arm reconnaissance for as long as it took,

612
00:45:34.679 --> 00:45:37.519
ended up being about ten days.
And uh so we had a sniper

613
00:45:37.559 --> 00:45:42.719
element with us. They were on
ATVs and we had my troop which was

614
00:45:43.400 --> 00:45:46.360
on the four Humbies, and we
just you know, found the best location

615
00:45:46.440 --> 00:45:51.920
to set up ops and drop bombs
on bad guys and then uh you know,

616
00:45:52.840 --> 00:46:00.800
hunt for targets of opportunity if I
R came up with any any potential

617
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:06.000
longer sites for bad guys. So
we took advantage of that. And at

618
00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:09.079
the time I thought it would be
this is like late October early I think

619
00:46:09.119 --> 00:46:12.880
it was November of two thousand and
one. You know, I thought it

620
00:46:12.920 --> 00:46:16.079
was gonna be like a you know, exercises and okay, there's bad guys

621
00:46:16.119 --> 00:46:21.760
here. I got to send up
a you know, conop of course,

622
00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:24.880
all we had at the time was
like really crappy HPW like dot com you

623
00:46:24.920 --> 00:46:31.039
can send like just words, and
I remember sending up the first one.

624
00:46:31.039 --> 00:46:34.840
It is just like quick five paragraphs, you know, who, what,

625
00:46:34.920 --> 00:46:37.079
where, why? And when it's
like, hey, we want to hit

626
00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:40.760
this target at you know, twenty
two hundred. We're gonna take four vehicles

627
00:46:42.519 --> 00:46:46.320
and this is it, and like
it was approved within thirty seconds, We're

628
00:46:46.360 --> 00:46:50.440
like all right, we scratched it
out in the dirt and we went and

629
00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:55.440
did a classic you know, ambush
on on a target that was the first

630
00:46:55.440 --> 00:47:00.880
real one, and then the snipers
were doing their thing, wrapping bombs on

631
00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:06.559
bad guys. So it was it
was fulfilling, ye say, the least

632
00:47:06.800 --> 00:47:10.800
were you How was that for you
guys in terms of I know that your

633
00:47:10.840 --> 00:47:15.039
training covered a lot of things,
and you guys tried to remain proficient across

634
00:47:15.159 --> 00:47:20.679
a number of fields. But out
here you're out there doing desert mobility ops

635
00:47:20.719 --> 00:47:23.039
in vehicles. Are you saying kind
of the old lap patrol type of stuff,

636
00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:30.679
probably working in larger teams than normal
I imagine, or no, slightly

637
00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:36.280
larger, But I mean, honestly, we we in the uh the mobility

638
00:47:36.320 --> 00:47:39.280
side of it had trained to do
exactly that, just like weeks prior,

639
00:47:39.480 --> 00:47:44.400
yeah to nine to eleven, and
it's like we didn't have to train,

640
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:46.280
but it's like, hey, this
is this fire maneuver, fire movement.

641
00:47:46.559 --> 00:47:52.280
Yeah. Yeah, bigger platforms,
bigger guns, slower than us on on

642
00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:54.719
ground. It's the same tactics to
use on the water, quite frankly,

643
00:47:55.159 --> 00:47:59.239
and it was like we had just
done it, and so that brought some

644
00:47:59.320 --> 00:48:01.320
credibility to to us, like yeah, of course we can do this,

645
00:48:01.760 --> 00:48:05.639
uh and we can. You know, we were being sneaky and at the

646
00:48:05.639 --> 00:48:10.320
time, like we didn't have any
flear systems on on vehicles or anything like

647
00:48:10.360 --> 00:48:14.280
that. So we took the one
we had from our boat, stuck it

648
00:48:14.360 --> 00:48:17.239
on to a hum V and it
worked great. Yeah you know, we

649
00:48:17.320 --> 00:48:23.639
had three sixty rotating gimbal yeah you
know. Yeah, eventually became standard on

650
00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:28.000
the vehicles because you guys did it. It was Yeah. So it was

651
00:48:28.039 --> 00:48:31.840
just like creative dudes in the in
the troop, like hey, fly to

652
00:48:31.880 --> 00:48:37.079
Kuwait and figure out how to get
these vehicles from some army. The Schiff

653
00:48:37.159 --> 00:48:42.760
six dude like you know, of
course he had the backing of of the

654
00:48:43.199 --> 00:48:45.159
task force behind him, but you
know, bring them back here, figure

655
00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:49.840
out the air, and then what
do we need on those things? Like

656
00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:52.880
we pulled out the windshields, pulled
off the doors. You know, we're

657
00:48:52.880 --> 00:48:58.239
welding like machine gun turrets to passenger
side. You know, so I had

658
00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:01.400
M sixty in front of them I
face the whole time. It's like,

659
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:05.480
awesome, Yeah, it's cool.
You know. Of course it smacked me

660
00:49:05.519 --> 00:49:07.960
in the face a bunch, but
they'll talk about that. You know,

661
00:49:08.480 --> 00:49:14.280
you mentioned this when you're talking about
STBs, about you know, sort of

662
00:49:14.320 --> 00:49:17.920
advocating for yourself and educating people.
Did you find that to be the case

663
00:49:19.480 --> 00:49:22.599
here too, where you guys wanted
to find a way to make yourselves useful,

664
00:49:22.679 --> 00:49:28.119
you kind of created these use cases
and then sold them. Yeah,

665
00:49:28.159 --> 00:49:31.800
well there's so much work to go
around at the time that it wasn't hard,

666
00:49:32.400 --> 00:49:36.360
but certainly there were some whisperings like
why are these guys doing this like

667
00:49:36.559 --> 00:49:45.079
water locked country? But we were
you know, special mission unit, and

668
00:49:45.159 --> 00:49:51.320
we trained to that and then the
basic task that we trained to for other

669
00:49:51.960 --> 00:49:57.039
missions led and allowed themselves to be
used one hundred percent for this. So

670
00:49:58.039 --> 00:50:00.679
I mean for us, it was
like yeah. You know, SEAL stands

671
00:50:00.679 --> 00:50:04.039
for it's an acronym for sea,
air and land. You know what.

672
00:50:04.159 --> 00:50:07.199
The three lightning bolts on a s
F patch are sea, air and land,

673
00:50:07.559 --> 00:50:10.880
right, and so it goes both
ways. And you know, frankly,

674
00:50:10.920 --> 00:50:17.760
it just it didn't last that long. There might have been a little

675
00:50:17.760 --> 00:50:22.519
more consternation between us and the Rangers
because you know, there's always there was

676
00:50:22.519 --> 00:50:29.840
always that kind of you know,
difference of opinion. Right, the Rangers

677
00:50:29.840 --> 00:50:36.239
are the premiere light infantry guys of
the army, and they're pretty, they're

678
00:50:36.519 --> 00:50:42.079
really good. Are they the same
as who we were? Like? No,

679
00:50:42.119 --> 00:50:45.840
the different missions, different age groups, right, but everybody has their

680
00:50:45.960 --> 00:50:51.519
roles, and frankly I used to
get really sick of it. And some

681
00:50:51.559 --> 00:50:55.159
other things happened later that can talk
about, but it was, you know,

682
00:50:55.480 --> 00:50:59.159
the more after that, I think
when I heard that kind of stuff

683
00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:02.960
is like, yeah, yeah you
are. You're a closed minded dipshit go

684
00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:07.320
over there and you know, playing
to somebody else because we're here to get

685
00:51:07.360 --> 00:51:09.519
work done. Yeah. I mean, what I really took from that from

686
00:51:09.559 --> 00:51:17.480
what you just said is is the
Seals and SF go both ways. It's

687
00:51:17.519 --> 00:51:23.320
not gay if you're underwet. Everyone
knows that. No, no, but

688
00:51:23.800 --> 00:51:29.000
it is interesting because really obviously,
you know, with with seals, you

689
00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:32.880
have the swimming aspect as part of
the selection, you know, with you

690
00:51:32.920 --> 00:51:37.519
know, with other with army units, you have a lot of the land

691
00:51:37.559 --> 00:51:39.960
based movements as But at the end
of the day, they're really the same

692
00:51:40.039 --> 00:51:46.559
guys and their training may be focused
in different arenas. And obviously the SMUs

693
00:51:46.639 --> 00:51:50.119
do probably get a level of training, well they do. They get a

694
00:51:50.199 --> 00:51:53.360
level of training and funding that you
know, the Rangers and s F M

695
00:51:53.519 --> 00:52:00.079
not good or whatever. But they're
the same guys. Couldn't it be with

696
00:52:00.119 --> 00:52:05.280
anymore? I mean we are all
up from the same cloth, and you

697
00:52:05.320 --> 00:52:08.000
know, you might have a different
colored cloth, but you know we are

698
00:52:08.760 --> 00:52:14.480
we are the same, and yeah, that is It's pretty awesome actually when

699
00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:16.079
you think about the community that we
come from, right, yeah, we

700
00:52:16.119 --> 00:52:20.639
all want to like everybody has a
little click of I'm a seal, right,

701
00:52:20.679 --> 00:52:22.639
so if given a choice, I'm
probably gonna hang out with seals.

702
00:52:22.639 --> 00:52:27.199
But you know what, if given
the choice for me to hang out with

703
00:52:27.239 --> 00:52:30.840
a you know, Ranger, SF
or somebody else in the Navy, I'm

704
00:52:30.880 --> 00:52:34.280
hanging out with lakes special ops guys. You know, so the circle is

705
00:52:34.320 --> 00:52:38.000
concentric and you know, my much
better friends you know, who are in

706
00:52:38.039 --> 00:52:40.760
the Army than some of the teams, right, And I'm sure it's the

707
00:52:40.760 --> 00:52:45.039
same way going. Yeah, the
way it's about the person, not not

708
00:52:45.119 --> 00:52:50.960
what you're wearing on your sleeve or
anything like that. No, I was

709
00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:54.079
just going to ask how was it
for you guys learning, you know,

710
00:52:54.239 --> 00:53:00.199
because Big Army obviously controlled a lot
of the battle spaces. Big arm me

711
00:53:00.360 --> 00:53:02.760
you know, is used to you
know, working working out that chain of

712
00:53:02.760 --> 00:53:06.079
command in there and there. And
I know that you guys probably went to

713
00:53:06.239 --> 00:53:08.639
like the j r x's and things
like that where you were used to that

714
00:53:08.679 --> 00:53:14.440
also, But but how was that
for you, like learning to work in

715
00:53:14.519 --> 00:53:21.880
like with conventional forces in those battle
spaces and things like that. It was

716
00:53:22.840 --> 00:53:28.840
I think it was generally good,
you know, as long as you didn't

717
00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:31.679
approach it from a perspective like,
hey, I'm a I'm an operator,

718
00:53:32.079 --> 00:53:35.960
you're just like guarding the gate kind
of thing. Like we all have those

719
00:53:35.960 --> 00:53:39.400
guys in our units who are just
dicksed no matter what. They typically didn't

720
00:53:39.440 --> 00:53:44.239
get a lot done. But if
you respected their mission and where they were

721
00:53:44.280 --> 00:53:45.800
coming from like, hey, you
know what, you just killed the mula.

722
00:53:46.360 --> 00:53:49.800
I know you didn't. Like we
worked for a different chain of command.

723
00:53:49.880 --> 00:53:52.480
We had to coordinate with the battle
space owners, but we didn't have

724
00:53:52.519 --> 00:53:55.840
to get permission from them, right, and that was a tough tool for

725
00:53:55.880 --> 00:54:00.440
them to swallow. So in some
cases, but if you took the time

726
00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:05.079
to like go visit them since you
got in country and like shake their hand

727
00:54:05.159 --> 00:54:07.760
and yeah, like hey, here's
who I am, this is what we're

728
00:54:07.800 --> 00:54:10.159
about. We'll always try to coordinate. Okay, we might need a q

729
00:54:10.400 --> 00:54:14.320
r F from you guys or somebody
on standby, and if, by the

730
00:54:14.320 --> 00:54:16.079
way, if you need anything,
let me know because I might be able

731
00:54:16.119 --> 00:54:22.960
to get something for you. You
know, they were generally awesome to work

732
00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:23.960
with. In my opinion, there
were a couple of guys who were just

733
00:54:24.480 --> 00:54:30.760
so conventional that they're just like,
you know, the assholes are standing on

734
00:54:30.840 --> 00:54:35.559
both sides of the fence quite frankly, and I can understand their perspective.

735
00:54:36.119 --> 00:54:42.920
I couldn't agree with sometimes decisions just
based on doctrine and you know, this

736
00:54:42.960 --> 00:54:45.800
is the way we do it in
the army or by you know, infantry

737
00:54:45.840 --> 00:54:49.920
doctrine where it's like, well,
that's not the way we do it.

738
00:54:51.280 --> 00:54:53.519
Just what I'm telling you, what
we're doing as a courtesy, you know,

739
00:54:53.559 --> 00:54:57.920
if that's what it really comes down
to. But I'm not asking your

740
00:54:57.960 --> 00:55:01.760
permission, so not stepping on them
and not trying to make their lives harder,

741
00:55:01.800 --> 00:55:06.679
but trying to work and come to
an understanding. And generally it worked

742
00:55:06.679 --> 00:55:10.159
out really well. Yeah, like
that, and after that, pumped to

743
00:55:10.159 --> 00:55:15.159
Afghanistan, you then got sucked into
some of the more like clandestine work that

744
00:55:15.199 --> 00:55:19.960
the unit does. So what are
you able to say about that? Yeah,

745
00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.599
I mean we just had smaller groups
a raid in different places, trying

746
00:55:24.639 --> 00:55:30.039
to actually develop the intelligence picture.
You know, this is early two thousand

747
00:55:30.079 --> 00:55:35.519
and one, two thousand and two, which you know became a bigger thing

748
00:55:35.599 --> 00:55:40.679
later, and it was super important
work. But you know, I think

749
00:55:40.719 --> 00:55:47.480
we all learned early on, like
hey, the big target intelligence package isn't

750
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:52.360
going to be delivered to your desk
with a bow on it and be like

751
00:55:52.360 --> 00:55:57.119
accurate. You have to actually go
figure out what's going on on the ground,

752
00:55:57.559 --> 00:56:00.800
working with other agencies. And so
we were doing a lot of that

753
00:56:00.880 --> 00:56:06.599
kind of stuff, you know,
partnered with very small units other government agencies,

754
00:56:06.800 --> 00:56:09.440
just trying to be the eyes and
ears and then reporting back up what

755
00:56:09.480 --> 00:56:15.039
we were seeing. So you know, that's that was great, great learning

756
00:56:15.079 --> 00:56:23.599
experience. And then that led into
working in the Jaysox staff with General Miller.

757
00:56:25.920 --> 00:56:30.280
Yeah you guys, yah, yeah, yeah, you're freezing up a

758
00:56:30.320 --> 00:56:34.519
little bit. It's okay, Yeah, your signal is kind of going down

759
00:56:34.559 --> 00:56:37.960
a bit. I think my kids
are probably on the internet. I'll text

760
00:56:37.039 --> 00:56:44.199
them to get off. But yeah, I was sent to the staff again,

761
00:56:44.960 --> 00:56:49.519
one of those things that I didn't
ask to do, but I was

762
00:56:49.599 --> 00:56:54.079
told I was going to the staff
for a couple of years, and it

763
00:56:54.360 --> 00:56:58.840
was a great learning experience. You
know. I was supposed to go to

764
00:56:58.880 --> 00:57:01.920
the the JA three and just you
know, be one of the the main

765
00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:08.599
planners, but I got sucked into
some stuff General or at the time,

766
00:57:08.639 --> 00:57:15.000
Lieutenant Colonel Scott Noer was doing,
but you know, kind of on that

767
00:57:15.679 --> 00:57:21.760
operational preparation of the battlefield line of
effort. And so worked for him for

768
00:57:21.800 --> 00:57:23.280
two or he was there for I
think for a year, but stayed in

769
00:57:23.280 --> 00:57:30.480
that that entity for for about two
years. So I went back and it

770
00:57:30.639 --> 00:57:37.440
was it was great. I mean
it was hard because I was gone probably

771
00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:43.400
more there. Then I was you
know, well not more but just as

772
00:57:43.480 --> 00:57:47.719
much. Moved the family down to
Fort Bragg and uh and then you know,

773
00:57:47.960 --> 00:57:53.480
certainly the there were a couple of
blowouts where you know, the pager

774
00:57:53.519 --> 00:57:57.400
goes off and I didn't come home
for three months. You know, that's

775
00:57:57.400 --> 00:58:00.440
the real thing. But I learned
a ton, gained a huge amount of

776
00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:06.320
respect for our partners in the Army, worked with them quite a bit as

777
00:58:06.360 --> 00:58:09.760
well as well as the great people
who run the staff like it is.

778
00:58:10.920 --> 00:58:15.000
Again, I didn't want to be
there. I never went to school again.

779
00:58:15.039 --> 00:58:16.920
I had I had not gone to
school up until this point, so

780
00:58:17.159 --> 00:58:23.639
I'm hitting like fourteen years of you
know, I stayed pretty operational, and

781
00:58:24.760 --> 00:58:30.000
you know, the army officers just
running circles around me in particular about like

782
00:58:30.039 --> 00:58:32.920
hey, like how do you how
do you plan something and then run it

783
00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:39.360
up the chain of command and speak
the staff language that army majors know how

784
00:58:39.400 --> 00:58:43.559
to speak, right, and then
of course the colonels know like that was

785
00:58:43.880 --> 00:58:47.880
that was a huge learning curve.
So going to the staff at Jason actually

786
00:58:47.920 --> 00:58:52.039
helped with that. Like okay,
I gotta I gotta up my game because

787
00:58:52.079 --> 00:58:55.039
that's the language everybody speaks. And
back to that credibility thing. If I

788
00:58:55.079 --> 00:59:01.159
want to have credibility in my next
job and continue to get our unit employment,

789
00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:05.519
then you need to be able to
speak that language. So learn the

790
00:59:05.599 --> 00:59:10.559
language and learn how they talk and
still kind of work your your angle into

791
00:59:10.599 --> 00:59:15.480
it. So it was it was
great in that regard, But I also

792
00:59:15.559 --> 00:59:22.199
got a lot of good I mean
operational time even while on the staff,

793
00:59:22.239 --> 00:59:25.039
working with with that crew of guys. Yeah, and the teams we had,

794
00:59:25.320 --> 00:59:30.239
were there any of those uh you
know, uh counter terrorism's aworts or

795
00:59:30.239 --> 00:59:40.400
anything that you're able to talk about
that were interesting experiences. I'll tell you

796
00:59:40.440 --> 00:59:45.480
one funny story. I mean,
during the invasion of Iraq. It wasn't

797
00:59:45.519 --> 00:59:50.079
necessarily a blowout, but you know, I remember going. I was the

798
00:59:50.480 --> 00:59:54.119
first guy from our office to go, and it was like it wasn't on

799
00:59:54.239 --> 00:59:58.840
the invasion, but it was right
after it. And again our role was

800
00:59:58.880 --> 01:00:04.119
to do the U you know,
Ope. Nobody was interested in OPE.

801
01:00:04.239 --> 01:00:07.360
So I remember talking to the J
three and giving him a brief, uh

802
01:00:07.639 --> 01:00:13.159
while I'm over there, got a
table side brief at the an undisclosed location

803
01:00:13.280 --> 01:00:17.760
about what I'm supposed to do.
And he's he's the J three and he's

804
01:00:17.800 --> 01:00:22.079
an O six and I'm an O
four. I think maybe an now I

805
01:00:22.159 --> 01:00:28.719
was an four. But he's just
he's throwing the brief on the floor and

806
01:00:28.719 --> 01:00:32.000
the guy hadn't probably slept in three
months. He's got probably a whole can

807
01:00:32.039 --> 01:00:37.960
of Copenhagen in his mouth and he's
yelling at me, well FlexAID Copenhagen,

808
01:00:37.079 --> 01:00:42.719
getting you know, hitting me in
the eye, and he throws the entire

809
01:00:42.760 --> 01:00:45.480
brief and the get the fuck out
of here. You're not doing any that

810
01:00:45.800 --> 01:00:51.599
you're doing this and he completely retasked
me to do something completely different, which

811
01:00:51.639 --> 01:00:54.840
was great. Happy to do it, yes, sir, and uh called

812
01:00:54.840 --> 01:01:00.119
my boss back like, hey,
uh, he didn't go. So I

813
01:01:00.119 --> 01:01:04.119
don't think we're doing what you want
me to do, at least not for

814
01:01:04.159 --> 01:01:07.119
a couple of weeks. Maybe you
should give them a call and see the

815
01:01:07.239 --> 01:01:10.599
good retasked to go do something else, which was you know, it was

816
01:01:10.639 --> 01:01:15.800
fine, but it was you know, it's just different priorities for different people,

817
01:01:15.840 --> 01:01:17.920
and so that whole it was all
pretty new at the time for what

818
01:01:17.920 --> 01:01:22.280
we were trying to do, and
it was not well understood and not well

819
01:01:22.280 --> 01:01:24.320
accepted, and you know, that
was on us to educate people, and

820
01:01:24.360 --> 01:01:30.719
we ultimately did. But yeah,
it was a flaring. Did you see

821
01:01:30.719 --> 01:01:34.440
that capability grow throughout you know,
your career and some of these assignments you

822
01:01:34.480 --> 01:01:36.920
had, because I mean, I
don't know how in depth you want to

823
01:01:36.960 --> 01:01:38.880
get with the OPE stuff, but
as I understand it, that has a

824
01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:43.400
lot to do with sort of like
moving the puzzle pieces or moving the chess

825
01:01:43.400 --> 01:01:49.280
pieces into the right place to enable
operations. Yeah, I'm no expert at

826
01:01:49.320 --> 01:01:51.880
this, like, trust me,
I'm the wrong guy to go deep on

827
01:01:51.960 --> 01:01:55.199
this, but it was. I
mean, we saw several commands with enable

828
01:01:55.280 --> 01:02:00.960
special warfare stand up to do this. We saw and teas within the ranger

829
01:02:00.039 --> 01:02:06.239
units. We saw fourth battalions in
Special Forces get stood up all to do

830
01:02:06.280 --> 01:02:09.840
this kind of stuff, and it
was so I think it was and there

831
01:02:09.840 --> 01:02:15.320
were other units that were way better
at it doing it already on a higher

832
01:02:15.400 --> 01:02:19.280
level. But we're trying to kind
of, you know, bridge the gap

833
01:02:19.320 --> 01:02:23.679
between no ship, what's going on
in the battlefields and what what the tactical

834
01:02:23.679 --> 01:02:29.920
intel is not strategic level intel,
but how do we affect tomorrow or the

835
01:02:29.960 --> 01:02:34.199
next day versus the big strategic piece
of you know, China, Russia and

836
01:02:34.280 --> 01:02:38.239
this and that. So it certainly
it was satisfying in that regard, and

837
01:02:38.320 --> 01:02:43.119
I think we we played a role
probably by what we did wrong and the

838
01:02:43.239 --> 01:02:52.360
lessons learned that then kind of you
know, led to the good thinking and

839
01:02:52.440 --> 01:02:55.840
design of what a unit that does
this at the top door the level should

840
01:02:55.880 --> 01:03:01.400
really look like. And so it
was it was super interesting. Was it

841
01:03:01.519 --> 01:03:06.199
challenging for you guys in the beginning
as you're developing this capability? Could because

842
01:03:06.320 --> 01:03:08.559
I imagine that in a way,
like you're serving many masters, right,

843
01:03:08.920 --> 01:03:13.920
You've got Jasock, You've got Inscom, You've got State, You've got you've

844
01:03:13.920 --> 01:03:16.119
got all these people out there who
want to have the final say. I

845
01:03:16.119 --> 01:03:21.519
imagine it was that what you experienced
or is that not quite accurate? Not

846
01:03:21.639 --> 01:03:23.239
at the level I was at?
Okay, and I was I was way

847
01:03:23.280 --> 01:03:28.880
lower than than I mean. Certainly, we had battlespace owners that you talked

848
01:03:28.880 --> 01:03:34.519
about, We had foreign partners,
we had you know, white side soft

849
01:03:34.599 --> 01:03:40.559
units that we were aligned with other
agencies. But you know, it was

850
01:03:42.239 --> 01:03:45.639
generally on the ground. It's like
if you were a good dude, you

851
01:03:45.679 --> 01:03:47.400
were just trying to do the right
thing. It worked out really well,

852
01:03:47.639 --> 01:03:52.800
yeah, there were a couple of
people that showed up that you know,

853
01:03:52.840 --> 01:03:55.639
we weren't. We weren't in the
in the main bases with the you know,

854
01:03:55.679 --> 01:04:00.159
the green Bean Coffee or whatever that
place was. Uh, we were

855
01:04:00.199 --> 01:04:04.679
getting massages from the the ladies on
uh Bargra Mara base, going to that

856
01:04:04.679 --> 01:04:10.559
burger king. We were in austere
environments where you know, hey, if

857
01:04:10.559 --> 01:04:14.840
you got like some fresh food once
once every so often, it was it

858
01:04:14.920 --> 01:04:17.159
was a great thing if you could
score a goat, you know. So

859
01:04:17.679 --> 01:04:24.639
on the ground you built tight relationships
pretty quick by sharing and just being authentic.

860
01:04:25.679 --> 01:04:30.519
But occasionally we we or the other
entities would send me completely wrong person

861
01:04:30.559 --> 01:04:34.760
there, you know, yeah,
maybe somebody who's used to the job in

862
01:04:34.840 --> 01:04:41.440
Paris or something like that. Yeah, but there were massages at There were

863
01:04:41.480 --> 01:04:45.960
massages at one point. I had
no idea. It was pretty early on.

864
01:04:46.039 --> 01:04:53.239
I think, yeah, I love
it. So I've been told I've

865
01:04:53.280 --> 01:04:57.760
never been there, but I've been
told that around that two thousand and four

866
01:04:58.400 --> 01:05:01.920
five time frame that there was some
sort of tie massage parlor. Yes,

867
01:05:02.840 --> 01:05:06.199
friends of mine may have gone.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard about it

868
01:05:06.239 --> 01:05:11.400
too. You must have done a
good job, though, with some of

869
01:05:11.400 --> 01:05:14.760
these assignments, even if things didn't
go the way as they were planned,

870
01:05:14.880 --> 01:05:19.360
because so your next assignment, you
got to become a squadron commander in Development

871
01:05:19.360 --> 01:05:23.000
Group. I mean, I must, I mean that's a huge achievement.

872
01:05:24.400 --> 01:05:29.039
Yeah, I mean I was lucky
to lucky to have gotten there and certainly

873
01:05:29.159 --> 01:05:32.679
honored to do it. But yeah, you know, came back and in

874
01:05:32.719 --> 01:05:38.360
typical fashion, you know, I
was my boss is down at the headquarters,

875
01:05:38.440 --> 01:05:41.159
were going to give me a couple
of months to do some turnover in

876
01:05:41.199 --> 01:05:44.440
my last couple of months actually there. So I was actually back at the

877
01:05:45.079 --> 01:05:49.920
back at the beach doing a turnover
like underway training. I remember, I

878
01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:54.199
was all jocked up. It was
probably March, so the water was still

879
01:05:54.199 --> 01:05:58.199
pretty cold, getting ready to head
out and just to get back into it

880
01:05:58.440 --> 01:06:01.239
and get a call from the quarters
like, hey, we need you on

881
01:06:01.280 --> 01:06:05.199
a plane tomorrow morning. It's leaving
out of Hope. You're gonna go be

882
01:06:05.280 --> 01:06:09.880
our len o, our first len
o to the first Marine Division. I

883
01:06:09.920 --> 01:06:13.320
was like, you guys, don't
get it. I'm I'm going out here.

884
01:06:13.360 --> 01:06:16.960
I'm prepping for you know, taking
this over and like yeah, playing

885
01:06:17.119 --> 01:06:19.880
planes wheels up at you know,
nine am so fed back. It was

886
01:06:19.880 --> 01:06:25.760
like seven o'clock pm. I'm at
the beach like okay, so I d

887
01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:29.760
jack drive home for four hours,
pack all my stuff, get to the

888
01:06:29.800 --> 01:06:32.559
airplane, and sure enough, like
I get sent over to be the the

889
01:06:32.719 --> 01:06:38.360
len o from our headquarters to the
first Marine Division out in Ramadi, which

890
01:06:38.440 --> 01:06:40.760
was you know, again I didn't
want to be there, you know,

891
01:06:41.159 --> 01:06:45.079
but again they're not called a request, they're called orders. But the cool

892
01:06:45.119 --> 01:06:48.119
thing was like it was General Mattis
is the division commander. General Kelly I

893
01:06:48.119 --> 01:06:53.599
think was the deputy in Dunford was
the chief staff. Like that was their

894
01:06:53.679 --> 01:06:56.639
leadership line up. In Eric Smith, who is now the commandant, was

895
01:06:56.840 --> 01:06:59.719
like current offs officer. He's just
been shot in the leg and he's in

896
01:06:59.719 --> 01:07:02.760
the you know, with his leg
up, losing blood and he wouldn't go

897
01:07:02.800 --> 01:07:06.000
home. So working with those guys
for a couple of months was actually pretty

898
01:07:06.000 --> 01:07:11.800
cool because you know, that's you
know, what works when you're with guys

899
01:07:11.840 --> 01:07:13.920
like that, we're true pros and
they're like, hey, we need a

900
01:07:14.000 --> 01:07:15.199
QRF. Here's the con op.
And I like, we don't need to

901
01:07:15.199 --> 01:07:18.039
see the con op. Just tell
us where and wind to be we got

902
01:07:18.079 --> 01:07:20.360
it. You got it. It's
like, wow, this is great.

903
01:07:20.679 --> 01:07:26.039
So there was mutual respect there.
But yeah, then I so I did

904
01:07:26.039 --> 01:07:29.840
that, and then of course I
get back to the beach like on July

905
01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:34.320
first, and we deployed on July
fourth, so there was zero turnover and

906
01:07:34.519 --> 01:07:39.039
it was straight straight back into it, which was which was fine, you

907
01:07:39.039 --> 01:07:43.840
know, but it was at that
time we had you know, there were

908
01:07:43.920 --> 01:07:51.719
multiple theaters now and we were in
Afghanistan. But yeah, it was I

909
01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:56.480
mean, it was great. And
this was the time. You know,

910
01:07:56.519 --> 01:08:00.320
you're the squadron commander. You had
told me earlier when the Operation Red Wings

911
01:08:00.360 --> 01:08:05.480
happened, and you were the ground
force commander, uh for for the squadron

912
01:08:05.519 --> 01:08:09.960
when that happened. Yeah, in
one of the deppoyments, we were over

913
01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:15.119
there and again we you know in
the in the as you guys know,

914
01:08:15.159 --> 01:08:18.680
but there were multiple change of command, right the whiteside guys worked for Siejasota,

915
01:08:18.720 --> 01:08:24.399
who worked for the two star or
three star Army guy that was you

916
01:08:24.439 --> 01:08:28.000
know, the overall battlespace on our
we worked for a different chain of command.

917
01:08:28.119 --> 01:08:31.720
So we were kind of watched the
planning going on for for Red Wings

918
01:08:32.520 --> 01:08:38.359
and they needed some helicopters. So
they came over and you know, requested

919
01:08:38.560 --> 01:08:41.680
permission to use the helicopter. So
I kind of watched the planning going on,

920
01:08:41.760 --> 01:08:45.800
but we weren't directly involved, so
you know, we had zero skin

921
01:08:45.880 --> 01:08:51.359
in the game besides you know,
giving them advice on where not to go,

922
01:08:51.720 --> 01:08:56.159
what not to do, which is
what they did. But like they

923
01:08:57.199 --> 01:09:02.199
so we watched the planning and I
remember, you know, they like I

924
01:09:02.239 --> 01:09:05.640
didn't think of it, anything of
it. And we were working nights,

925
01:09:05.760 --> 01:09:13.840
so we'd wake up around lunchtime.
And uh remember the day June twenty eighth,

926
01:09:14.279 --> 01:09:16.039
two thousand and five, Like our
bee, we were still using pagers.

927
01:09:16.479 --> 01:09:20.199
Beepers went off, you know,
right before lunch, like hey,

928
01:09:20.239 --> 01:09:25.560
you know, report to the jock
immediately, and we mustering the jock and

929
01:09:26.920 --> 01:09:30.920
like what's going on? Like they
a bird has just been shot down one

930
01:09:30.920 --> 01:09:36.680
of our assassts, like but like
not tracking any of it, Like holy

931
01:09:36.720 --> 01:09:42.439
shit, like how does that happen? You know? And come to realize

932
01:09:42.439 --> 01:09:46.159
that they had inserted the night before
they got compromised. Big firefight. And

933
01:09:46.199 --> 01:09:49.760
this is the four four man Reki
team, which is a pretty light wreki

934
01:09:49.840 --> 01:09:55.279
team, and uh and then they
had launched a QRF in the middle of

935
01:09:55.319 --> 01:10:00.760
the day, and uh, that's
when we kind of got notified because although

936
01:10:00.800 --> 01:10:04.880
we were all one task force,
you know that the aviators were tracking what

937
01:10:04.960 --> 01:10:10.800
was going on, but the C
two was over at Siege of Soda and

938
01:10:10.880 --> 01:10:16.119
so like we just weren't tracking.
So then it became, okay, we

939
01:10:16.159 --> 01:10:21.199
need to send a QRF up there. And it became a a fairly interesting

940
01:10:24.920 --> 01:10:31.600
thing to watch for me because we
could have gone right away, but after

941
01:10:31.680 --> 01:10:35.720
having a siege of soota of QRF
launched in the middle of the day and

942
01:10:35.720 --> 01:10:42.000
get shot down, nobody was really
keen on sending anybody else right back in

943
01:10:42.039 --> 01:10:45.840
there, especially during the day,
and so we waited a long time.

944
01:10:46.520 --> 01:10:50.560
So the seat in time, the
task Force and Seed of Soda were both

945
01:10:50.600 --> 01:10:56.039
those sixes, and then you went
straight to the you know, either sentcom

946
01:10:56.119 --> 01:11:01.239
or or the conventional battlespace owner,
and so there was a lot of fighting

947
01:11:01.319 --> 01:11:06.560
and politicking going on there. We
waited around for quite a while and finally

948
01:11:06.560 --> 01:11:11.000
my boss said, hey, how
long we'll it take for you guys to

949
01:11:11.000 --> 01:11:15.720
get up there. And we had
pre positioned them an entity up closer earlier

950
01:11:15.760 --> 01:11:17.359
in the day and It's like,
wait, we can be air born in

951
01:11:17.399 --> 01:11:23.119
forty five minutes. It's like Roger
that you're you're now the ground force commander,

952
01:11:23.880 --> 01:11:29.840
go and so are really what we
wanted to do the first night was

953
01:11:29.960 --> 01:11:34.079
just get a smaller element of rangers. So we had this joint Strikeforce Enstein.

954
01:11:34.159 --> 01:11:43.720
It was most of my squadron and
a company minus of rangers from two

955
01:11:43.800 --> 01:11:45.520
seven to five. And so Mike, you know, I had a troop

956
01:11:45.600 --> 01:11:53.960
basically plus company commander with most of
his company whatever birds we needed, and

957
01:11:54.279 --> 01:11:59.840
you know, pre stage get closer
and get to the craft site. And

958
01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:03.279
it was pretty cool because you know, we talk about operating with commanders and

959
01:12:03.359 --> 01:12:11.640
tent like. The mission brief was
they rescue any survivors, recover any remains,

960
01:12:11.760 --> 01:12:15.399
and kill as many bad guy as
you can. Any questions, No,

961
01:12:15.520 --> 01:12:17.159
Sarah, we can work with that. So you know, we flew

962
01:12:17.239 --> 01:12:26.279
up to Jabad and sent the first
guys up got weathered out so they had

963
01:12:26.279 --> 01:12:29.079
to come back. So now we're
on the ground, like what do we

964
01:12:29.079 --> 01:12:32.079
do? But we had everybody coming
out of the woodwork. We had assets

965
01:12:32.079 --> 01:12:36.159
along the border, other guys hats
assets. We basically said hey, can

966
01:12:36.880 --> 01:12:48.600
anybody get there on foot and so
you know it was you know, where

967
01:12:48.640 --> 01:12:54.760
the crash site was was in a
valley. But to get there, like

968
01:12:55.279 --> 01:12:59.880
if we drove north from Jabad to
a Sadabad to get to the crash site,

969
01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:03.199
we have to cross like two ridge
lines. So it wasn't an easy

970
01:13:04.119 --> 01:13:08.920
traverse. And so but we we
said, hey, we're gonna we got

971
01:13:08.920 --> 01:13:12.680
to figure this out, like hedge
our bets. So we will send entities

972
01:13:12.960 --> 01:13:15.239
to walk, uh, and then
we will fly in the next night.

973
01:13:16.279 --> 01:13:19.439
And so they started the journey.
A lot of guys had to turn back

974
01:13:20.600 --> 01:13:23.920
because it was so mankey. They
all ran out of a bunch of them

975
01:13:24.000 --> 01:13:28.239
ran out of water. And then
we flew in the next day about five

976
01:13:28.279 --> 01:13:30.800
clicks south, uh, you know, kind of back into the same area,

977
01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:34.560
but not the exact area. And
we had I don't know, we

978
01:13:34.600 --> 01:13:42.079
had about sixty guys seventy guys combined
force of rangers and seals, and we

979
01:13:42.159 --> 01:13:45.319
had brought a couple of the guys
from the troop, the White Side troop

980
01:13:45.600 --> 01:13:49.359
with us because they were pitching to
get into the fight and we needed some

981
01:13:49.399 --> 01:13:53.920
more manpower. So we had about
a ninety foot fast trope. You know,

982
01:13:54.159 --> 01:13:59.760
I think it was I I think
sire Sierra Nevada's you know, I

983
01:14:00.119 --> 01:14:05.119
tall pine trees, beautiful country,
but probably some people with some nerves.

984
01:14:05.159 --> 01:14:10.079
Like it was the highest rope I've
ever done in my life. Yeah,

985
01:14:10.279 --> 01:14:12.479
and I just remember, like,
you know, I was up near the

986
01:14:12.479 --> 01:14:15.760
cockpit talking to the pilots, and
so I'm the second to last guy had

987
01:14:15.800 --> 01:14:17.680
to come out of the bird.
I had a dog guy behind me.

988
01:14:17.880 --> 01:14:21.039
You know, it was faster with
his dog, and man, it just

989
01:14:21.119 --> 01:14:25.960
kept going and going and going,
just going faster, faster and faster.

990
01:14:26.359 --> 01:14:30.479
I remember hitting like the sack of
shit and just like a little days remembering,

991
01:14:30.640 --> 01:14:32.800
oh god, the dog guys right
behind me. So I rolling out

992
01:14:32.840 --> 01:14:36.840
of the way and he comes fucking
flowing in and then we had to you

993
01:14:36.880 --> 01:14:41.640
know, walk about. We kind
of linked up everybody did this monster patrol

994
01:14:42.239 --> 01:14:48.319
up to the crash site and sent
the the pj's and some other guys from

995
01:14:48.319 --> 01:14:51.960
the Ranger entity down there to secure
the crash site. We set up C

996
01:14:53.079 --> 01:14:57.680
two No. And started looking for
survivors, and you know, they they

997
01:14:57.720 --> 01:15:03.359
did a really good job, and
it was really significant terrain and steep and

998
01:15:03.399 --> 01:15:09.560
so we probably set up our CT
note around probably nine thousand feet when the

999
01:15:09.600 --> 01:15:13.520
crash site was probably a thousand feet
below us, because I think the way

1000
01:15:13.560 --> 01:15:15.079
it happened, the RPG had hit
the back of it and it kind of

1001
01:15:15.159 --> 01:15:20.279
rolled down this this hill that didn't
look like much on video, but when

1002
01:15:20.279 --> 01:15:24.560
you get there, you're like,
oh my god, Like just getting there

1003
01:15:24.720 --> 01:15:30.039
and back is going to be significant. But if the guys got down there

1004
01:15:30.880 --> 01:15:34.119
to the crash site while we were
sending out patrols trying to find the REKI

1005
01:15:34.199 --> 01:15:39.520
team because at the time we had
no idea where they were, you know,

1006
01:15:39.600 --> 01:15:43.600
kind of doing the forensic analysis of
like, okay, a firefight happened

1007
01:15:43.600 --> 01:15:46.720
here. We can see all those
shells from both sides. Which way did

1008
01:15:46.720 --> 01:15:51.079
they go, but couldn't really determine
that, And a lot of singing and

1009
01:15:51.199 --> 01:15:56.399
other things are coming in indicating that
maybe they were over in Pakistan at the

1010
01:15:56.399 --> 01:16:01.560
time, because several of the radios
had from the had been taken some people.

1011
01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:05.319
What I think happened is people are
like clicking the mic and things like

1012
01:16:05.359 --> 01:16:10.119
that, and we weren't exactly sure
where it was coming from. But you

1013
01:16:10.119 --> 01:16:13.600
know, first order of business,
get the guys. Unfortunately, there were

1014
01:16:13.640 --> 01:16:18.119
no survivors from the helicopter. You
know, sixteen of the there were eight

1015
01:16:18.199 --> 01:16:27.079
crewmen in eight seals had perished.
We couldn't determine one guy because his remains

1016
01:16:27.119 --> 01:16:31.479
were pretty burned and mangled. There
was a fire down at the crash site,

1017
01:16:32.119 --> 01:16:38.880
but got all their remains, had
to blow an HLZ so they could

1018
01:16:38.880 --> 01:16:43.800
come in. So you know,
we had had to get resupplied. It

1019
01:16:43.920 --> 01:16:48.600
was another issue. So we fast
roped in with like minimal kit because we

1020
01:16:48.600 --> 01:16:50.880
thought we were kind of get going
to get into it, and we were

1021
01:16:50.880 --> 01:16:57.880
at nine thousand feet, so you
weigh mobility versus like security, and if

1022
01:16:57.880 --> 01:17:00.680
you were kitted down with body armor
and things like that, you would you

1023
01:17:00.680 --> 01:17:03.520
would have been spent before he even
got there. So we most of us

1024
01:17:03.520 --> 01:17:08.239
didn't have body armor on fact,
some of the guys. It was pretty

1025
01:17:08.239 --> 01:17:12.039
funny on the rope, thought they
were going to do a typical like pen

1026
01:17:12.119 --> 01:17:15.119
foot rope onto the you know,
a roof of a building, and when

1027
01:17:15.119 --> 01:17:18.560
they did a ninety foot rope,
were just like flight gloves or batter's gloves.

1028
01:17:19.560 --> 01:17:25.279
I saw a young ranger his entire
hand was double the size the next

1029
01:17:25.359 --> 01:17:31.399
day and it was just a blister, and but he pressed on another kid

1030
01:17:31.439 --> 01:17:34.640
had a broken arm. He you
know, hit real hard. He pressed

1031
01:17:34.640 --> 01:17:39.199
on. Nobody nobody asked to get
meta act, not that they could have

1032
01:17:39.199 --> 01:17:45.159
anyways, But we got everybody out, I think all the remains out the

1033
01:17:45.199 --> 01:17:51.720
next day and continued looking for you
know that whoever was you know, still

1034
01:17:51.760 --> 01:17:55.279
a lot. We didn't know if
any of them were alive, of the

1035
01:17:55.319 --> 01:18:01.439
four Rekie elements, and we did
know where they were, so we looked

1036
01:18:01.479 --> 01:18:06.760
and looked and looked and going on
wild goose chases for several days. And

1037
01:18:06.800 --> 01:18:15.319
then you probably read the story that
a guy who was housing Marcus chev walked

1038
01:18:15.439 --> 01:18:21.039
to a Sadabad and basically said,
hey, I have this American in my

1039
01:18:21.119 --> 01:18:26.119
home in whatever village it was.
And so you know, that was like

1040
01:18:26.319 --> 01:18:31.600
day seven or eight, I forget
exactly what it was, and uh,

1041
01:18:33.039 --> 01:18:36.800
and that lined up with some other
intel that we were receiving, and so

1042
01:18:36.960 --> 01:18:41.840
then we had a pretty good idea
that yeah, he's probably there and we

1043
01:18:41.960 --> 01:18:45.600
need to go rescue him now.
And again we don't know what's going on.

1044
01:18:45.920 --> 01:18:50.000
We had seen goat herters, you
know, and not a lot of

1045
01:18:50.319 --> 01:18:54.520
enemy contacts, some harassing fire things
like that that we would just kind of

1046
01:18:55.119 --> 01:19:02.039
suppressed with acy Win thirties or mortars
and and so we launched a rescue and

1047
01:19:02.119 --> 01:19:06.720
it was a little interesting. The
way it went down is we had a

1048
01:19:06.760 --> 01:19:14.119
small small team of SF guys in
Afghans had it in the area a couple

1049
01:19:14.119 --> 01:19:17.479
of clicks away, like, hey, this is the grid of where we

1050
01:19:17.560 --> 01:19:21.680
need to go. Can you go
do this? And they said no,

1051
01:19:21.960 --> 01:19:27.319
Like, we have five Americans and
five Afghanians who were wearing like four frams

1052
01:19:27.359 --> 01:19:31.000
and you know, you know,
pajamas and they have one magazine piece like

1053
01:19:32.560 --> 01:19:38.640
okay, And so we took a
pause, sent a ranger element up there.

1054
01:19:40.159 --> 01:19:43.600
They went up, took charge,
and led the rescue into the ground

1055
01:19:43.640 --> 01:19:47.640
while we kind of set up a
suppression of enemy air defense, you know,

1056
01:19:47.720 --> 01:19:53.439
kind of planned to precede the rescue
helicopter that came in there. So

1057
01:19:53.479 --> 01:19:56.159
they went in there, they secured
Marcus, we knew he was there.

1058
01:19:56.199 --> 01:20:00.239
Then we launched everybody else in to
get him and did that whole uh suppress

1059
01:20:00.520 --> 01:20:05.720
suppressive fire, which was pretty pretty
cool. And they could only take out

1060
01:20:05.760 --> 01:20:11.039
like two people, you know,
Marcus and like one other because we wanted

1061
01:20:11.079 --> 01:20:14.640
to bring the guy's family that they
were going to get killed and they're like,

1062
01:20:14.720 --> 01:20:16.199
sorry, you can't do it,
but you can walk out with with

1063
01:20:16.319 --> 01:20:21.760
our our elements. So once Marcus
got back in you know, debrief,

1064
01:20:23.439 --> 01:20:26.640
then we started figuring out, hey, this is what happened, here's where

1065
01:20:26.680 --> 01:20:30.159
we were. And right away we
went out and found two of the other

1066
01:20:30.199 --> 01:20:36.880
guys Murphy and uh Danny Death,
but we couldn't find the last of the

1067
01:20:36.880 --> 01:20:41.920
reky element I think is Matt Axelson. So we actually had been up there

1068
01:20:41.960 --> 01:20:45.439
for eight or nine days, uh, and we're supposed to go home,

1069
01:20:46.039 --> 01:20:49.479
Not that that is going to drive
anything, but we did a relief in

1070
01:20:49.560 --> 01:20:55.119
place because we could not find the
last of that four men recky element.

1071
01:20:55.159 --> 01:20:58.079
So we did a relief in place
with another squadron and some other rangers came

1072
01:20:58.119 --> 01:21:00.880
in, and by that time we
had some other conventional forces helping us out

1073
01:21:00.920 --> 01:21:05.119
too. So uh, they found
him I think two days later and then

1074
01:21:05.600 --> 01:21:12.319
Xfield and we were mission complete,
and uh yeah, it was a I'll

1075
01:21:12.319 --> 01:21:17.159
tell you what. A couple of
the guys that walked in, like from

1076
01:21:17.239 --> 01:21:23.600
from the Balian Reconnaissance Detachment of two
seventy five, like those guys or some

1077
01:21:23.680 --> 01:21:27.359
tough, tough dudes, and we
had a lot of people quit on that

1078
01:21:27.439 --> 01:21:30.960
hump, including some of you know, some some some people from my community.

1079
01:21:31.520 --> 01:21:35.520
A lot of the Afghans quit.
But those guys showed up. I

1080
01:21:35.560 --> 01:21:39.560
think like two days after we were
there, out of water, out of

1081
01:21:39.560 --> 01:21:44.239
food, stumbling in. I'm like, oh my god, you guys are

1082
01:21:44.279 --> 01:21:46.000
the biggest bad asses on the planet. It was. It was pretty cool,

1083
01:21:46.000 --> 01:21:49.920
and I gained a lot of respect
or you know, again, there

1084
01:21:49.920 --> 01:21:56.479
was always this stupid kind of rivalry
even when we were working together, like

1085
01:21:56.680 --> 01:22:00.920
mutual respect. But you know,
after that, it's like we truly are

1086
01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:02.960
the same, Like these guys are
awesome. Yeah, yeah, guys are

1087
01:22:03.000 --> 01:22:06.239
awesome. It's also one of those
moments where it was all these different units

1088
01:22:06.239 --> 01:22:13.239
working together, working together to repatriate
Americans, you know, I mean,

1089
01:22:13.520 --> 01:22:16.439
it's kind of an incredible moment in
that sense. It was, you know,

1090
01:22:16.479 --> 01:22:19.720
there were some things early on that
like when I got to JBAT,

1091
01:22:19.720 --> 01:22:23.960
I had a I was you know, I didn't wear any ranks at the

1092
01:22:23.960 --> 01:22:27.560
time, but I was only an
O four and I had some Lieutenant Colonel

1093
01:22:27.720 --> 01:22:30.640
s F guy kind of come into
my jocks and tell me that he was

1094
01:22:30.680 --> 01:22:36.800
in charge. It's like like,
I don't why don't we just get this

1095
01:22:36.880 --> 01:22:40.399
job done. Like we have guys
out there, like, we don't need

1096
01:22:40.439 --> 01:22:43.279
to fight about who's in charge,
right. I told him to get the

1097
01:22:43.279 --> 01:22:45.479
fuck out of my jock and go
talk to his boss, and I would

1098
01:22:45.479 --> 01:22:48.840
talk to my boss just to make
sure I was clear who was who was

1099
01:22:48.880 --> 01:22:53.359
in charge, not not that I
cared. Uh. He came back a

1100
01:22:53.399 --> 01:22:55.840
little while later like, Okay,
you're in charge, but you know those

1101
01:22:55.840 --> 01:22:59.399
are my guys up there. It
was like, come on, man like

1102
01:22:59.399 --> 01:23:03.000
like things like that happened early on
and we had a battle Space owner come

1103
01:23:03.079 --> 01:23:06.800
up onto the mountain to check on
his guys, you know, because we

1104
01:23:06.840 --> 01:23:10.800
had some hundred and first guys working
with us and they were they were really

1105
01:23:10.840 --> 01:23:18.239
good soldiers, and you know,
he came up there like for a battlefield

1106
01:23:18.279 --> 01:23:21.680
circulation visit, you know, in
the middle of this operation, because at

1107
01:23:21.680 --> 01:23:26.840
that point where you kind of get
resupplied, and he told his dudes to

1108
01:23:26.880 --> 01:23:30.720
put on like the old style body
armor, like the Vietnam stuff. Yeah,

1109
01:23:30.840 --> 01:23:33.439
black jackets. I mean it probably
weighs twenty five pounds. Yeah,

1110
01:23:34.039 --> 01:23:36.520
you guys are going to be immobile. And sure enough, the next day,

1111
01:23:36.680 --> 01:23:40.760
like one of the guys got heat
exhausted and wanted a metovact in the

1112
01:23:40.800 --> 01:23:43.359
middle of the day. I'm like, hey, dude, drink water.

1113
01:23:43.439 --> 01:23:45.239
We're not We're not metavacting you in
the middle of the day. Like You've

1114
01:23:45.239 --> 01:23:48.159
got to figure this out. Like, yeah, I don't know why the

1115
01:23:48.159 --> 01:23:51.279
fuck, you know, you would
even put that body armor on. But

1116
01:23:51.960 --> 01:23:58.800
you know, he subsequently wrote some
nasty articles about the seat two and you

1117
01:23:58.840 --> 01:24:01.399
know, the way we did raw
and things like that, like just stuff.

1118
01:24:01.439 --> 01:24:03.840
I mean, good, good to
look at the lessons learned, for

1119
01:24:03.880 --> 01:24:09.439
sure, but you know, like
again, this is not a conventional fight,

1120
01:24:09.560 --> 01:24:13.279
so ye have a little flexibility.
Yeah, And so after this,

1121
01:24:13.600 --> 01:24:17.319
you're you finally went to school.
You went to Marine Staff College. Yep,

1122
01:24:17.479 --> 01:24:21.600
I was, Uh, I was
pretty smoked. I got I got

1123
01:24:21.600 --> 01:24:27.600
to stay for a couple extra months
and be the the J three of the

1124
01:24:27.640 --> 01:24:31.159
task force after this, while all
my boys went home and uh, it

1125
01:24:31.279 --> 01:24:34.479
was kind of a change of command
anyways, like and they didn't have anybody.

1126
01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:39.159
So I got back and you know, stayed for the J three and

1127
01:24:39.199 --> 01:24:43.000
then by that point I was like, I did one more pump and then

1128
01:24:44.119 --> 01:24:47.319
I was you know, I think
that was eight deployments for me since nine

1129
01:24:47.359 --> 01:24:53.279
eleven maybe nine, and that was
like I was, I was completely smoked.

1130
01:24:53.720 --> 01:24:58.960
Yeah. I went to the Command
of Staff College for what is it

1131
01:24:59.000 --> 01:25:04.239
ten months or months and that was
It was great, great school. It's

1132
01:25:04.279 --> 01:25:10.199
where I learned that the Marine Corps
single handedly won every battle that the Americans

1133
01:25:10.199 --> 01:25:14.680
have ever thought. A marine invented
peanut butter, the cotton gin and and

1134
01:25:14.800 --> 01:25:18.039
uh an internal combustion engine. I
mean they pay pay credit for almost everything

1135
01:25:18.359 --> 01:25:23.880
that ever happened in American history.
But it was a great school. What

1136
01:25:23.880 --> 01:25:30.000
what what is the school and what
benefit is it to two officers to go

1137
01:25:30.039 --> 01:25:35.760
to it? Yeah, I went
to the intermediate level education, you know

1138
01:25:35.840 --> 01:25:41.319
for fours and uh it's what I
should have done probably before I went to

1139
01:25:41.359 --> 01:25:45.880
the Staff. It's where most like
the Army has CGSC uh, the Navy

1140
01:25:45.960 --> 01:25:49.800
has the Naval War College. You
know that they have two levels the four

1141
01:25:49.840 --> 01:25:53.800
to one and then the five O
six one at every school. The Air

1142
01:25:53.840 --> 01:25:57.319
Force has maxwell or forced face racing
guys and so what it is, it's

1143
01:25:57.640 --> 01:26:02.840
it's where you kind of combine the
art and science of theory and planning in

1144
01:26:02.960 --> 01:26:08.199
warfare. So you do a lot
of historical studies, you have a small

1145
01:26:08.199 --> 01:26:15.439
group like ten people conference groups.
Sorry, Seria just took over, but

1146
01:26:15.479 --> 01:26:19.039
it's a it's a good reset to
think about, you know, what you've

1147
01:26:19.079 --> 01:26:24.119
been doing and how you can do
better and you can get a master's out

1148
01:26:24.119 --> 01:26:26.880
of it if you do some extra
work and write a thesis. And they

1149
01:26:26.880 --> 01:26:30.880
were very good about allowing us to
pick any topic you wanted. Some guys,

1150
01:26:30.880 --> 01:26:35.319
did you know the French and Indian
wars? I did pro dev you

1151
01:26:35.359 --> 01:26:39.720
know, for the for the Seal
officer community because I had none up to

1152
01:26:39.760 --> 01:26:43.039
that point, and I was like, I'm like, it was great,

1153
01:26:43.119 --> 01:26:45.600
but maybe sprinkling in a little bit
of pro dev would have been prior to

1154
01:26:45.600 --> 01:26:50.039
that. So that's that's the theory. And at the time, this is

1155
01:26:50.279 --> 01:26:54.560
six to seven, you know,
we had just I think in Iraq,

1156
01:26:54.600 --> 01:26:59.000
we had just kind of done the
surge Marines. You know, it was

1157
01:26:59.119 --> 01:27:00.840
joint, but a lot of Marines
in there, a lot of those guys

1158
01:27:00.880 --> 01:27:04.560
were they were beat down and just
they've been getting crushed and tired. So

1159
01:27:04.600 --> 01:27:09.640
it's a good break as well,
yeah, for sure. And from there

1160
01:27:09.920 --> 01:27:13.680
you uh served on the staff with
the Sealed Teams, did some time in

1161
01:27:13.800 --> 01:27:17.279
Bahrain and then kind of coming full
circle. It sounds like boat team commander.

1162
01:27:18.800 --> 01:27:26.039
Yeah, I came. My final
real deal was NABLE Special Warfare Group

1163
01:27:26.079 --> 01:27:31.399
four, which is the surface maritime
mobility component of Naval Special Warfare the boat

1164
01:27:31.439 --> 01:27:35.960
teams. So in charge of all
the boat teams, and it was an

1165
01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:44.880
awesome tour working with Swicks Special Warfare
Combatant craft crewmen and doing really taking some

1166
01:27:44.960 --> 01:27:49.199
of the like getting them into the
some of the stuff that stvs were doing

1167
01:27:49.199 --> 01:27:54.640
previously with some of the platforms they
had. Was a lot of fun and

1168
01:27:54.680 --> 01:28:00.479
in a long time overdue. It's
really cool. Yeah. And then you

1169
01:28:00.479 --> 01:28:04.600
know you're coming up on retirement.
Tell us about that experience run off to

1170
01:28:04.640 --> 01:28:09.079
your retirement and then transitioning out of
the military. What was that like for

1171
01:28:09.159 --> 01:28:13.319
you? Yeah, So I was
when I was in command. You know,

1172
01:28:13.319 --> 01:28:16.159
we often had to do speaking engagements, and I was in Virginia Beach

1173
01:28:16.199 --> 01:28:20.520
and I think everybody else was out
of town. So I got told to

1174
01:28:20.560 --> 01:28:27.119
speak at something for the Honor Foundation, which is a transition institute. When

1175
01:28:27.119 --> 01:28:30.000
they started in San Diego, but
they were coming to Virginia Beach. I

1176
01:28:30.000 --> 01:28:32.479
didn't know anything about it. I
asked them to come talk to me,

1177
01:28:32.760 --> 01:28:35.600
like, tell me what the deal
was, what I was speaking about,

1178
01:28:35.920 --> 01:28:40.079
and my role was to talk about
the state of affairs of the community,

1179
01:28:40.399 --> 01:28:44.039
not about anything else. So they
gave us good brief. I was like,

1180
01:28:44.119 --> 01:28:46.520
wow, that sounds too good to
be true. And you know,

1181
01:28:46.560 --> 01:28:50.880
I was in the middle of command, but shortly thereafter decided that I was

1182
01:28:50.920 --> 01:28:57.479
going to transition out after my command
tour, and so I decided to go

1183
01:28:57.520 --> 01:29:00.640
through this Honor Foundation program. This
was a four month program at the time.

1184
01:29:00.680 --> 01:29:04.119
It's not three months, but it's
all about transition, right, how

1185
01:29:05.479 --> 01:29:10.359
what are the tools you need?
And my mindset was I'm going to audit

1186
01:29:10.359 --> 01:29:14.600
this course and see if it's worth
the shit, because again, the brief

1187
01:29:14.680 --> 01:29:17.920
sounded really too good to be true. And I went through it, you

1188
01:29:17.960 --> 01:29:21.920
know, just with a mindset of
learning because I hadn't thought about me or

1189
01:29:21.920 --> 01:29:26.800
my family really in twenty five years
at that point. So and it was

1190
01:29:26.840 --> 01:29:32.520
game changing, right. It was
phenomenal program and I'm happy to tell you

1191
01:29:32.520 --> 01:29:38.239
about it what it's morphed into.
But you know what, did a lot

1192
01:29:38.279 --> 01:29:42.520
of introspective work on who I was
as a human, what was going to

1193
01:29:42.560 --> 01:29:45.800
make me happy? You know,
what my purpose on the planet was.

1194
01:29:45.840 --> 01:29:50.680
When I no longer am a seal, and then exposed me to a lot

1195
01:29:50.720 --> 01:29:55.880
of what's out there where I might
fit in, gave me tactical tools and

1196
01:29:56.119 --> 01:29:58.560
yeah. So I went through it. Figured I wanted to be in the

1197
01:29:58.600 --> 01:30:01.600
tech startup world. My family wanted
to stay in Virginia Beach, which was

1198
01:30:01.600 --> 01:30:08.199
fine because I had two kids in
high school at the time and that doesn't

1199
01:30:08.239 --> 01:30:12.920
really align super well because I didn't
have the million dollar idea. But found

1200
01:30:12.960 --> 01:30:17.800
a really cool tech startup up in
Boston making drones and worked for them for

1201
01:30:17.800 --> 01:30:20.720
about eighteen months. I didn't have
to move up there. I just commuted

1202
01:30:21.119 --> 01:30:26.119
a couple of times a month and
it was great. Meanwhile, it stayed

1203
01:30:26.159 --> 01:30:32.159
stayed involved with the Honor Foundation,
was on the board of directors, and

1204
01:30:32.159 --> 01:30:36.760
and about eighteen months after I got
out, the founder of the Honor Foundation,

1205
01:30:38.880 --> 01:30:41.920
who'd been at it for hard five
years, decided he was going to

1206
01:30:42.000 --> 01:30:46.399
move on, and I threw my
name in the hat to see if I

1207
01:30:46.399 --> 01:30:49.840
could help out. All the good
guys were gone, so they chose me.

1208
01:30:51.520 --> 01:30:56.079
Well, you've been there for five
years and it sounds like the program's

1209
01:30:56.159 --> 01:30:59.800
going really well, so you're doing
something right. Tell us about you know,

1210
01:31:00.279 --> 01:31:02.359
what it has morphed into over the
last five years. What is it

1211
01:31:02.439 --> 01:31:05.640
changed into? What do you guys
do? How can people get in touch

1212
01:31:05.680 --> 01:31:13.359
and get involved? Yeah, so
we exist really because what DoD offers you

1213
01:31:13.439 --> 01:31:15.399
in any service, whether it's you
know, Army, Navy, Air Force,

1214
01:31:15.479 --> 01:31:19.439
Marines, it's I don't know called
a week long transition assistance program,

1215
01:31:19.640 --> 01:31:25.840
Soldier for Life, whatever it is. But they all are equally mediocre and

1216
01:31:25.880 --> 01:31:30.600
frankly doesn't meet the mark for the
men and women in the special ops community.

1217
01:31:30.119 --> 01:31:34.039
And it's kind of kind of intuitive, but you know, you would

1218
01:31:34.039 --> 01:31:40.159
think that guys who've gone through selection
assessment training once or twice, volunteer,

1219
01:31:40.239 --> 01:31:45.439
three time volunteers, would have easy
transitions. But what happens sometimes is identity

1220
01:31:45.479 --> 01:31:48.880
and purpose are so tied into what
you do. I am a seal,

1221
01:31:49.000 --> 01:31:53.920
I am a Green Beret, I
am a arranger, that it becomes almost

1222
01:31:54.000 --> 01:31:59.000
harder to transition effectively out. That's
why we exist and that's what we get

1223
01:31:59.039 --> 01:32:04.199
after. So when I came in, we had San Diego. It kind

1224
01:32:04.199 --> 01:32:09.840
of started with naval special warfare really
in San Diego. Then we grew to

1225
01:32:10.359 --> 01:32:15.279
Virginia Beach, all covering on naval
special Warfare. Some of the Marine Raiders

1226
01:32:15.279 --> 01:32:19.039
from Pendleton were coming down to the
San Diego class and the Marine Raider Foundation

1227
01:32:19.159 --> 01:32:24.680
asked us to stand up a campus
in camp was June, so we did

1228
01:32:24.680 --> 01:32:28.600
that, and that's about when I
came on. The Navy Seal Foundation really

1229
01:32:28.640 --> 01:32:31.039
was helping us out for the Naval
special warfare community, and they're awesome,

1230
01:32:32.800 --> 01:32:38.279
but I really wanted to see what
we could do to give it to anybody

1231
01:32:38.359 --> 01:32:42.960
in the special ops community who wanted
it or needed it. And so you

1232
01:32:43.079 --> 01:32:48.680
think about the Joint Force and where
the predominance of force is right it's Fort

1233
01:32:48.720 --> 01:32:55.159
Bragg, now, Liberty, Fort
Campbell, JBLM, Pampa, EGGLN for

1234
01:32:55.279 --> 01:32:59.079
av SoC, a couple other places, and so we've grown. We started

1235
01:32:59.079 --> 01:33:03.199
a virtual program first for anybody not
located where one of our physical campuses are.

1236
01:33:03.840 --> 01:33:09.600
We grew to Fort Bragg and then
we the next year we grew to

1237
01:33:10.039 --> 01:33:14.800
Eglin and Tampa all in one year. Last year we expanded to JBLM and

1238
01:33:14.840 --> 01:33:19.000
Campbell and we have a second virtual
program running now, so eight total programs

1239
01:33:19.560 --> 01:33:26.560
and it's about a three month executive
education program. We encourage folks to come

1240
01:33:26.600 --> 01:33:30.319
about a year to eighteen months before
they get out so that they can they

1241
01:33:30.359 --> 01:33:33.840
can do the work themselves. Right, nobody's going to hand you a job,

1242
01:33:34.920 --> 01:33:38.000
but if they do it that far
out, then they can put the

1243
01:33:39.159 --> 01:33:43.359
tools into practice and have a great
transition as long as they want to work

1244
01:33:43.399 --> 01:33:48.239
at it. And yeah, so
it's really grown. We you know,

1245
01:33:48.279 --> 01:33:54.439
we will never degrade quality just to
grow numbers, like I don't really care

1246
01:33:54.479 --> 01:33:58.880
about that. But it's been pretty
a fun, fun thing to do and

1247
01:33:59.319 --> 01:34:02.640
really great to get back to the
community and continue to serve them quite frankly,

1248
01:34:02.680 --> 01:34:06.039
because you know, everybody's going to
have a transition at some point.

1249
01:34:06.600 --> 01:34:11.640
And so now we have those served
about seven hundred and one people last year

1250
01:34:11.680 --> 01:34:15.439
through this full thing, probably do
eight hundred this year. We do one

1251
01:34:15.520 --> 01:34:21.000
day seminars all over the planet.
And we realize that spouse's played a big

1252
01:34:21.079 --> 01:34:28.479
role in this too, so we
actually started a workshop for spouses to come

1253
01:34:28.520 --> 01:34:31.960
through as well. And you know, it's all about communications, and so

1254
01:34:32.000 --> 01:34:36.279
we do spouses by themselves, then
we pair them with the service members and

1255
01:34:36.720 --> 01:34:42.479
incluies them together. It's it's pretty
cool to see that. So that's kind

1256
01:34:42.479 --> 01:34:45.279
of where we're at now. A
couple more places to go probably you know

1257
01:34:45.319 --> 01:34:47.680
you can. You can figure it
out where where we need to grow to

1258
01:34:48.159 --> 01:34:51.720
names. I didn't mention locations,
but that's the goal, be able to

1259
01:34:51.760 --> 01:34:59.920
serve anybody in the Special Operations umbrella
who wants our services. I just want

1260
01:35:00.079 --> 01:35:02.439
to add, also, you guys
have one hundred percent rating on Charity Navigator,

1261
01:35:02.479 --> 01:35:08.239
which if you look at a lot
of the veteran organizations or veteran you

1262
01:35:08.279 --> 01:35:13.680
know charities, they don't you guys
get you've had like one hundred percent transparency

1263
01:35:13.880 --> 01:35:16.640
rating for like the last three years. Like if you if anybody listening to

1264
01:35:16.640 --> 01:35:23.680
this wants to volunteer, or if
you have a few extra bucks to throw

1265
01:35:23.720 --> 01:35:28.079
their way, it's it's you guys
are like a very legit and very worthy

1266
01:35:28.560 --> 01:35:31.960
cause. And yeah, thanks thanks
for pointing that out. Yeah, we

1267
01:35:32.239 --> 01:35:41.680
we work hard to be transparent on
how we're spending the money. And yeah,

1268
01:35:41.840 --> 01:35:44.479
you can call ask a questions.
Check out our website on a dot

1269
01:35:44.560 --> 01:35:47.680
org if you want to learn more. But we we operate. We we

1270
01:35:47.800 --> 01:35:51.920
kind of like the Special Operations.
Guys like me don't teach everything. We'll

1271
01:35:51.920 --> 01:35:55.720
go out and find the best person
to teach X, Y or Z.

1272
01:35:56.239 --> 01:35:59.720
We pay them. We fly them
in and that's kind of the program costs.

1273
01:36:00.560 --> 01:36:03.640
We feed the guys and gals on
class nights so they don't have to

1274
01:36:03.640 --> 01:36:08.000
get a you know, a gas
station burrito. But it also serves the

1275
01:36:08.039 --> 01:36:12.520
purpose of breaking bread together. Yeah, and we do this over three months

1276
01:36:12.720 --> 01:36:15.880
intentionally, you know, we don't
cram it into a weekend because you know,

1277
01:36:16.520 --> 01:36:18.920
we could do probably do it in
a week, but you you wouldn't

1278
01:36:18.920 --> 01:36:24.680
retain ninety five percent of it and
indeed time to marinate on a lot of

1279
01:36:24.680 --> 01:36:29.800
the things we throw at people.
So yeah, yeah, for what we

1280
01:36:29.800 --> 01:36:32.199
say we're going to do. Yeah, any of the veterans out there who

1281
01:36:32.439 --> 01:36:35.359
would like to go through your program, where can they find you? What's

1282
01:36:35.399 --> 01:36:41.199
the process for them to like get
the ball rolling on enrollment into your program?

1283
01:36:41.560 --> 01:36:45.159
Yeah, so right now, like
we don't have the capacity to do

1284
01:36:45.359 --> 01:36:49.680
everybody, so we're focused on the
special ops folks, right And if you

1285
01:36:49.720 --> 01:36:54.319
were an operator in special operations,
you can come through at any point.

1286
01:36:54.640 --> 01:37:00.279
If you're a combat support combat service
support while transitioning under the so CAM umbrella,

1287
01:37:00.479 --> 01:37:04.840
then you can come through. But
the website is Honor dot org and

1288
01:37:06.000 --> 01:37:10.199
you can apply right online there.
You can hit our info line, like,

1289
01:37:10.239 --> 01:37:15.279
we do look for great Americans to
help us coach, to be mentors,

1290
01:37:15.640 --> 01:37:17.920
to help with some of the other
things, you know, resume reviews

1291
01:37:18.039 --> 01:37:23.279
and mock interviews and things like that. So we're always looking for great people

1292
01:37:23.279 --> 01:37:28.479
who have some experience to help them
seut. So I think we have some

1293
01:37:28.600 --> 01:37:33.479
viewer questions for you before we let
you go here. Matt. We got

1294
01:37:33.479 --> 01:37:39.640
one question from JB. He asks
how often did you interact with Delta's squadron

1295
01:37:39.640 --> 01:37:45.439
commanders. Was there any notable difference
between the thought processes, any notable differences

1296
01:37:45.680 --> 01:37:49.720
between you and them or same old, same old. Yeah, we interacted

1297
01:37:49.760 --> 01:37:59.239
all the time, and I would
say they are phenomenal leaders. I think

1298
01:37:59.279 --> 01:38:01.479
they do a great job but selecting
assessing who they're going to bring in,

1299
01:38:02.720 --> 01:38:10.239
like we talked about earlier from the
same cloth and UH. At the time,

1300
01:38:10.479 --> 01:38:13.279
I was a squadron commander, I
was an four. I was the

1301
01:38:13.359 --> 01:38:17.279
last four squadron commander. UH.
We have since in our community bumped them

1302
01:38:17.359 --> 01:38:23.119
up to oh fives, like most
commanders are. UH. And and so

1303
01:38:23.560 --> 01:38:28.640
maybe you know, they were a
little more experienced than we were at the

1304
01:38:28.680 --> 01:38:35.039
time, but by and large,
you know, it was pretty great relationship.

1305
01:38:38.520 --> 01:38:43.079
Yeah, we've got one. It's
from JB. Thank you very much.

1306
01:38:43.760 --> 01:38:45.680
I just want to say thank you
Jack and Day for all you guys

1307
01:38:45.720 --> 01:38:51.159
do. I guess this is about
us, so give us just a second

1308
01:38:51.159 --> 01:38:56.880
here, sir. Uh, there's
nobody that that does what you guys do.

1309
01:38:56.960 --> 01:38:59.960
I finally got some money to spurge
on you guys can't wait for days

1310
01:39:00.039 --> 01:39:02.680
with the five o'clock shadow. Thank
you very much, and we'd appreciate it

1311
01:39:02.720 --> 01:39:10.319
if you split some of that slurging
between us and Honor dot org. If

1312
01:39:10.319 --> 01:39:14.439
you got something to splurge like,
will always happily gladly for sure. You

1313
01:39:14.439 --> 01:39:17.000
know the veteran community. It was
gonna say, buy some whiskey, but

1314
01:39:18.359 --> 01:39:23.680
yeah, links in the description,
but Honor dot org is the place for

1315
01:39:23.760 --> 01:39:29.039
that. So yeah, thanks JB. We really appreciate your support. And

1316
01:39:29.159 --> 01:39:31.600
Matt, thank you for coming on
the show on a Tuesday evening and sharing

1317
01:39:31.640 --> 01:39:35.640
your life and experience with us as
well as you know, uh, letting

1318
01:39:35.640 --> 01:39:40.439
people know about the Honor Foundation.
Any final thoughts, anything you want to

1319
01:39:40.439 --> 01:39:44.960
put out there before we get going
tonight. Yeah, well, thank you.

1320
01:39:45.000 --> 01:39:49.000
I'm sitting here drinking some on your
sixth bourbon, which is a relatively

1321
01:39:49.039 --> 01:39:53.960
new one. A couple of my
buddies are involved with that, so we'll

1322
01:39:54.000 --> 01:39:58.119
have to look for that. Yeah, it's uh, it's pretty cool.

1323
01:39:58.319 --> 01:40:02.520
It's so I love that dog tag. That's very cool. Yep. Anyways,

1324
01:40:04.960 --> 01:40:12.359
as I kind of finish off with
transition, I once her to senor

1325
01:40:12.399 --> 01:40:14.880
officers, say, hey, you
know, your last act in the military

1326
01:40:15.399 --> 01:40:19.119
is going to be one of rejection. No matter how you leave, whether

1327
01:40:19.159 --> 01:40:24.640
you get killed in action, whether
you decide to leave on your own terms,

1328
01:40:25.159 --> 01:40:27.880
or whether the military tells you to
hang up at cletes. It's time

1329
01:40:27.920 --> 01:40:30.640
to go, whether after a couple
of years or after forty years, but

1330
01:40:30.680 --> 01:40:34.920
it's gonna be one of rejection and
it's coming for everybody. So you know,

1331
01:40:34.960 --> 01:40:39.960
I just encourage people who are transitioning
out to do the hard introspective work

1332
01:40:40.319 --> 01:40:43.520
figure out what's up here before you
just go chase money or a job,

1333
01:40:44.319 --> 01:40:46.720
because you want to be happy and
you deserve to be happy in the next

1334
01:40:46.800 --> 01:40:50.479
chapter. So if it's our program, if there's there's lots of great ones

1335
01:40:50.479 --> 01:40:54.039
out there that can help people,
you know, do the hard work,

1336
01:40:54.079 --> 01:40:59.239
because this is transitioning out is probably
going to be your biggest transition in life,

1337
01:40:59.399 --> 01:41:02.279
you know, besides getting in,
this is your next biggest one and

1338
01:41:02.800 --> 01:41:04.640
you got to do it well.
But you got to put in the work,

1339
01:41:04.640 --> 01:41:08.720
and you've got to treat it like
a combat operation, and you know,

1340
01:41:08.920 --> 01:41:13.560
plan it and and work on it. It's not easy, but it's

1341
01:41:13.640 --> 01:41:16.720
absolutely doable, and there's tons of
opportunities out there. So you know,

1342
01:41:17.399 --> 01:41:23.000
I hope everybody goes out there and
crushes it. And we will be back

1343
01:41:23.039 --> 01:41:28.159
on Friday with war journalist Robert Young
Pelton, so we'll see all you guys

1344
01:41:28.199 --> 01:41:31.600
then, Matt again, thank you. Check out the Honor Foundation. There's

1345
01:41:31.600 --> 01:41:35.520
a link down the description for you
guys who are listening to this podcast or

1346
01:41:35.600 --> 01:41:39.600
watching it on YouTube. Yeah,
Matt, thanks for joining us. We

1347
01:41:39.680 --> 01:41:43.920
really appreciate it. Yeah, my
pleasure. It was fun, all right,

1348
01:41:44.000 --> 01:41:45.039
have a nice night everyone,