Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to episode 235 of the team house.
Speaker 1: I'm Jack Murphy. I'm a, is it over here? Oh,
Speaker 1: sorry guys. My phone was on apologies. Uh, so episode
Speaker 1: 235 of the team house. We're here with our guest tonight,
Speaker 1: Brent Tucker. I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park. Brent again. Uh,
Speaker 1: thank you for being on the show tonight. Really appreciate
Speaker 1: you joining us on a Friday evening. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. I truly do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So, again, because I got a little distracted in the beginning,
Speaker 1: Brent is a 20-year veteran of Army Special Operations. He
Speaker 1: served in 20th Special Forces Group, and then he served
Speaker 1: in Delta Force, deploying to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Today,
Speaker 1: he runs the First Responder Coffee Company, and he's also
Speaker 1: the co-host of the Antihero podcast. We're really happy to
Speaker 1: have you here today, Brent. And, you know, I'll kind
Speaker 1: of start it off from the top, asking the same
Speaker 1: question I ask all of our guests about their origin story.
Speaker 1: If you could tell us a little bit about where
Speaker 1: you grew up, what your upbringing was like, and sort
Speaker 1: of how that took you on a path towards the military.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a small town in Florida, Sanford, Florida,
Speaker 2: working in a family business. We own Tucker's Farm and
Speaker 2: Garden Center that my grandfather started. That was... I was
Speaker 2: one of the few people who didn't want to leave
Speaker 2: my small town. Um, and I just wanted to work
Speaker 2: in the family business. Um, you know, my, like my,
Speaker 2: my path in life was, was already set and I
Speaker 2: was more than happy to go down that path. Um,
Speaker 2: I definitely wasn't a, uh, um, an adrenaline junkie as
Speaker 2: a kid. I was a pretty quiet kid. Uh, so
Speaker 2: definitely not someone you would have, uh, you, you would
Speaker 2: have pegged for, for anything in the special operations realm or, uh,
Speaker 2: even leaving town at any point.
Speaker 1: So, so how did that happen? I mean, if you
Speaker 1: were on this track of like going on, taking over
Speaker 1: the family business. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the September 11th happened. I mean, I had, it's,
Speaker 2: it's crazy. September 10th, September 10th, I'm 20 years old,
Speaker 2: you know, still chugging down that, that same path that
Speaker 2: I was on as a, as a little kid. September
Speaker 2: 11th happened and it changed my world the same way
Speaker 2: it changed a lot of people's world. I knew I
Speaker 2: wanted to do something. I made a decision that day
Speaker 2: that I kind of would make time and time again
Speaker 2: throughout my military career when I had to come to
Speaker 2: make a big decision. which was I didn't want to
Speaker 2: live a life with regrets. I didn't want to be
Speaker 2: 70 years old looking back and said, man, when I
Speaker 2: was 20, our country got attacked. Almost 3,000 people died,
Speaker 2: and I felt like I should have done something, but
Speaker 2: I just played it safe and stayed in my small town.
Speaker 2: That honestly is the– I mean, there's the genesis right there.
Speaker 2: That line of thinking started it. I raised my hand.
Speaker 2: It took me until September 27th to actually– signed the paperwork,
Speaker 2: and off I went. And I only meant to do
Speaker 2: a four-year stint and come right back to my small town.
Speaker 2: And as the saying goes, if you want to make
Speaker 2: God laugh, tell him your plans. I couldn't have been
Speaker 2: any more wrong, and I continued to be wrong about
Speaker 2: my career as it progressed.
Speaker 1: So, so what did you enlist as, as far as
Speaker 1: like your MOS, what was kind of like your plan
Speaker 1: going into the military? The one that God laughed at,
Speaker 1: of course.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When, when I, I knew nothing about the military and
Speaker 2: I mean, well, next to nothing. My dad would take
Speaker 2: me to air shows. My dad wanted to be a,
Speaker 2: a fighter pilot so bad, I guess when he was
Speaker 2: in his late teens, then eyesight got him. And so
Speaker 2: he didn't, he didn't get a chance to chase that dream.
Speaker 2: So I definitely grew up in a military friendly family.
Speaker 2: You know, we watched war movies. My dad made us
Speaker 2: watch all the Vietnam documentaries and I loved it. Um,
Speaker 2: so we were, we were a military friendly family, but
Speaker 2: no one was talking about joining and I had no
Speaker 2: idea what I was going to join. So, um, A
Speaker 2: good friend of mine that I went to high school with,
Speaker 2: Jessica Butters, her dad was, all I knew is that
Speaker 2: he was in the military. I knew nothing more than that.
Speaker 2: Come to find out, he was a CW4 at a
Speaker 2: National Guard unit, a National Guard air defense artillery unit
Speaker 2: out of Daytona Beach. So he was the first, he
Speaker 2: was the only person I knew. So I went to
Speaker 2: him and said, hey, You know, a country got attacked.
Speaker 2: I want to do something about it. So I came
Speaker 2: to him. He gave me pretty good advice. He's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm in the National Guard. I think you should do that.
Speaker 2: You'll get a chance to fight. You'll get called up.
Speaker 2: But but, you know, you don't have to go away
Speaker 2: for four years. Sounded like a good plan to me.
Speaker 2: Sounded like I was going to get what I wanted,
Speaker 2: which was to deploy. And so I went to the
Speaker 2: recruiter that he recommended me to go to. And for
Speaker 2: a guy who wanted to join the military and fight,
Speaker 2: I got put in air defense national guard, which may
Speaker 2: not have seen a lot of action. So that was,
Speaker 2: that was, uh, it took me about a year to, to, well,
Speaker 2: probably took, it took, it took less than a year
Speaker 2: for me to figure that out. Um, but yeah, figuring
Speaker 2: it out is one thing, but doing something about it is, is, is,
Speaker 2: is another. So as soon as, uh, as soon as
Speaker 2: I got a basic and AIT, we did get mobilized
Speaker 2: to go to the invasion of Iraq. And we sat
Speaker 2: around for like six months in Fort Bliss. And, um,
Speaker 2: at that point we had a, a sister battery coming
Speaker 2: back from Afghanistan. And so I couldn't wait to talk
Speaker 2: to those guys to see what war was like. And, uh,
Speaker 2: I asked them and, uh, they did like a 14
Speaker 2: month deployment to Afghanistan. Uh, and I found out that
Speaker 2: it was a Patriot missile battery that you were with Brent.
Speaker 1: Sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, so that would have been, um, a part of, of,
Speaker 2: of the unit. I, me in particular, I was in, um,
Speaker 2: short range air defense, which was stinger missile operator.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So we're single.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So shoulder fired stinger missiles, 14 Mike, which eventually became
Speaker 2: 14 Sierra. Cause I had to go to the little
Speaker 2: bit longer course to do the, the Avengers like that,
Speaker 2: that Humvee with the, the, the four missiles on each
Speaker 2: side of the turret. So that's the Avengers. That's, that's
Speaker 2: what I went to school for. But when those guys
Speaker 2: went overseas for 14 months and came back, they just
Speaker 2: guarded the gates. That was all they did. They did
Speaker 2: nothing to guard the gates, which is, was my worst
Speaker 2: fear come true i kind of eventually was slowly figuring
Speaker 2: out i don't think the taliban has a lot of
Speaker 2: helicopters to shoot down and i'm not sure my skill
Speaker 2: set will be utilized in the war on terror um
Speaker 2: so i asked those guys and said hey what uh
Speaker 2: like then who was doing things and uh they they
Speaker 2: told these stories that were probably a little bit true
Speaker 2: but uh a little bit embellished They'd be like, oh man,
Speaker 2: these special forces guys, these green braids would come on to,
Speaker 2: would come to our, come to our gate with blood
Speaker 2: all over their Humvees. And I'd have to be like, hey, Sergeant,
Speaker 2: I need your IDs. And they'd be like, F you,
Speaker 2: just open the gate. And so I was like, so
Speaker 2: what'd you do? It was like, well, I opened the gate.
Speaker 2: What do you, what'd you expect me to do? And
Speaker 2: I was like, man, and a part of me was like,
Speaker 2: those guys kind of sound like assholes. And the other
Speaker 2: part of me was like, those guys sounded really cool.
Speaker 2: So the, uh, um, I eventually found out about 20th
Speaker 2: special forces group, which is a national guard group. Um,
Speaker 2: and that started really my, my, my whole first fight
Speaker 2: trying to, trying to do that. Cause we were, we
Speaker 2: were mobilized at the time getting ready to go. And
Speaker 2: that was the nail in the coffin was like, I don't,
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't want to do this.
Speaker 3: I want to do that.
Speaker 2: Um, And so it's very difficult as a National Guardsman
Speaker 2: who's already mobilized. And we went through the whole mobilization process.
Speaker 2: And what we're supposed to be, even though we didn't
Speaker 2: leave when we were supposed to, they were going to
Speaker 2: just kind of hold us in this limbo as a
Speaker 2: mobilized unit. They could call any time. And so we
Speaker 2: sat there for months at El Paso waiting for a
Speaker 2: call that never came. So I started fighting with my
Speaker 2: my company leadership then telling me, Hey, I want to
Speaker 2: go to special forces. I want to go to national guard, uh,
Speaker 2: to 20th group. Um, they kept saying, no, they, they
Speaker 2: told me all sorts of lies. Like, well, you have
Speaker 2: to be an E five to, to go be a
Speaker 2: green beret. So you'll have to wait a few years. Um, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been, you just talked to a few more people,
Speaker 2: found out that wasn't true. You know, I mean, just
Speaker 2: 20th group when, in a weird way has a lot
Speaker 2: of like, With other National Guard units has a lot
Speaker 2: of myths like surrounding it. And you're like, oh, you
Speaker 2: can't go to 20th group because you have to be,
Speaker 2: you know, a an active duty special forces guy first.
Speaker 2: And when they come out, that's how they go to
Speaker 2: 20th group. I mean, just all sorts of things that
Speaker 2: just weren't true. Um, I eventually found, I don't know
Speaker 2: if you guys remember this, you guys remember the, uh,
Speaker 2: AKO white pages.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's how I found my 20th group recruiter. I went
Speaker 2: to the AKO white pages and I Googled, uh, special
Speaker 2: 20th special for Googled probably went searched 20 Special Forces,
Speaker 2: and I actually found a recruiter number out of Ocala, Florida,
Speaker 2: which would have been the closest one to me. So
Speaker 2: I'm still deployed or mobilized in Texas, and I call him,
Speaker 2: and I still remember the guy who picked up, because
Speaker 2: I ended up, he was a support guy there and
Speaker 2: was a recruiter. He picks up the phone, Sergeant First
Speaker 2: Class Carey, And, uh, and I was like, Hey, I
Speaker 2: just want to introduce myself. Uh, my name is private
Speaker 2: first class Tucker and I, I want to be a
Speaker 2: green beret. And he asked me like two quick questions.
Speaker 3: Uh, like, yeah.
Speaker 2: How long have you been?
Speaker 1: He was like, right.
Speaker 2: First class. Where are you at? I told him, he
Speaker 2: was like, how long have you been in? Um, and
Speaker 2: I told him and he basically goes, uh, call me
Speaker 2: back in like a year and then hangs up the phone.
Speaker 2: And again, I was like, man, these guys are kind
Speaker 2: of dicks.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm a dick, but that's, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: kind of want to like, I love that. Like you're
Speaker 2: not good enough and you have to prove yourself. And
Speaker 2: you know, this, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: Like, you got to come and stand out in front
Speaker 1: of the door and wait, wait your turn.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it's not this, everyone gets a
Speaker 2: trophy mentality. I can't, can't wait to welcome you. You know, I,
Speaker 2: you know, I, I, I enjoyed that. We, we, we
Speaker 2: demobilized a few short months later. Uh, I, I called
Speaker 2: him right back, um, and talk to someone else on
Speaker 2: the phone. who was a little more welcoming and told
Speaker 2: him my sob story. They said, you know what, come
Speaker 2: over here and do a, uh, do a small tryout
Speaker 2: and we'll, and, and we'll see. Um, so I show
Speaker 2: up knowing absolutely nothing to this small tryout. I knew
Speaker 2: they told me to get ready to, to rock and
Speaker 2: do a PT test at least. And so I said, okay.
Speaker 2: And I showed up not knowing anything, but knowing the, Hey,
Speaker 2: like all I know about soldiering is like boots and
Speaker 2: uniform matters. Uh, and I'm not a green beret yet,
Speaker 2: so I better show up with, with polished boots and
Speaker 2: a press uniform. Uh, and I did that and I
Speaker 2: was immediately scolded for it and told to get into
Speaker 2: the PTs and, uh, don't, don't ever wear those around
Speaker 2: here again, unless there's some sort of award ceremony going on.
Speaker 2: And I said, okay, I like this place already. Um,
Speaker 2: I did the, uh, did the PT test and the,
Speaker 2: and the rock and, uh, I did very well on it. Um,
Speaker 2: They said, hey, we want to bring you over to
Speaker 2: our program and send you a selection as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: Go back and tell your unit that you want to
Speaker 2: that you want to transfer over here. And that's where
Speaker 2: the real fight kind of started. You know, they they
Speaker 2: they had already been given me a bunch of, you know,
Speaker 2: slow rolling me. And now they just simply told me, no,
Speaker 2: we're not going to send you. But like before the mobilization,
Speaker 2: we sent a couple of guys over there. They never
Speaker 2: make it, you know. Don't waste our time with the paperwork.
Speaker 2: Don't waste your time. We're just not going to send
Speaker 2: you over there. So I carried that message back to
Speaker 2: 20th group and the sergeant major laughed at it and said,
Speaker 2: hold on, I'll make a phone call. They can't. It's
Speaker 2: I told you to do that, but it's really not
Speaker 2: up to them. So he makes a phone call. I
Speaker 2: go back to work a couple of days later. They're like, well,
Speaker 2: you got what you want. I hope you're happy. We'll
Speaker 2: see you in a couple months when you don't make it,
Speaker 2: which was one of the best things they could have
Speaker 2: done for me because I absolutely trained my ass off.
Speaker 2: I couldn't stand them anymore. I had too much pride
Speaker 2: to fight that hard and then have to swallow it
Speaker 2: and come back and tell them I wasn't good enough.
Speaker 2: I go to selection a few months later.
Speaker 1: I come back.
Speaker 2: I think I had to turn in some gear that
Speaker 2: I still had from them. And for whatever reason, I
Speaker 2: was kind of hoping that they'd be like, hey, we
Speaker 2: were wrong about you. Good job. You're like the only
Speaker 2: guy that's ever that's ever made it. Instead, they're like, well,
Speaker 2: guess what? You haven't made it yet. You know, half
Speaker 2: the guys don't make the Q course, so you'll be
Speaker 2: right back. And that was the last time I saw him.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you how petty I can be. when
Speaker 2: I retired 20 years later after the Delta force, a
Speaker 2: part of me wanted to drive down there and, and
Speaker 2: shove my two 14 on their face and say, see, see,
Speaker 2: see what I did. Uh, but of course I think
Speaker 2: everyone there would have been like, who are you? Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's, that's how, that's how I got to, uh,
Speaker 2: that's how we got the 20th group. Um, I was, uh, unfortunate. No,
Speaker 2: I was unfortunate enough to be smart. Um, which means
Speaker 2: I got to be an 18 echo. Um, I put
Speaker 2: after selection, I put down the forum. Wes is I wanted,
Speaker 2: I put Bravo, Charlie echo Delta. Um, I sure as
Speaker 2: heck didn't want to be a Delta. Uh, They said, congratulations,
Speaker 2: you got your top three, is what the guy told me.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what's that mean? He goes, you're
Speaker 2: an Echo. It was in your top three. It was
Speaker 2: only four choices. It was second to last is what
Speaker 2: I viewed it as. There's two reasons I wasn't real
Speaker 2: happy about being an Echo. It's because at the time,
Speaker 2: they had a longer Q course than Bravo and Charlie.
Speaker 2: And so at that time in 2002, everybody– thinks the
Speaker 2: wars are going to go away if you don't hurry
Speaker 2: up and get over there. So I wanted a short
Speaker 2: MOS Bravo or Charlie, you know, I wanted to try
Speaker 2: to clip out of Spanish and, you know, and, and
Speaker 2: be in Afghanistan and, you know, eight, nine.
Speaker 3: 10 months.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Q course is already long enough with, without,
Speaker 2: without the rest of that. Um, again, my, what I
Speaker 2: wanted never seems to work out and I always have
Speaker 2: to just deal with what I got. So I got echo. Um,
Speaker 2: I stayed there longer. Uh, I, I tried, I tried
Speaker 2: to test out of Spanish. I missed it by like
Speaker 2: two questions. Um, and, uh, of course the, you know,
Speaker 2: the jokes on me, I, I didn't get to miss,
Speaker 2: maybe I missed the deployment. So instead of 13, maybe,
Speaker 2: maybe I'd have had 14 if, uh, if I got
Speaker 2: out of there a little quicker. Um, but yeah, there's,
Speaker 2: there's a, there was a lot of war left and,
Speaker 2: and really I look back at that generation of, of
Speaker 2: Q course guys and, And they were good dudes, man.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, I, I couldn't be, I still talk
Speaker 2: to some of those guys in the Q course to
Speaker 2: this day. Uh, they were such good dudes and they
Speaker 2: went on to do amazing things. And really little did
Speaker 2: we know that era of Q course students was really
Speaker 2: going to see 15 years of war after that, which,
Speaker 2: which really may be the, the, the most amount of combat,
Speaker 2: you know, any other generation was, was going to see.
Speaker 2: And we, we had, we, we had no idea what, what, uh,
Speaker 2: what we were in for.
Speaker 4: Hello everyone. If you're hearing this, uh, you are not
Speaker 4: a member of the Patreon. You can get your hands
Speaker 4: on ad free episodes that come out early and you
Speaker 4: can ask us questions. Maybe we'll answer them. You can
Speaker 4: also watch the team house podcast completely ad free and early,
Speaker 4: and you can also watch it live as we interview
Speaker 4: our guests. Um, And it's the best way to support
Speaker 4: the channel. So if you can, if you're open to it,
Speaker 4: you can go to patreon.com slash the team house. That
Speaker 4: link is in the description. We appreciate the supporters and
Speaker 4: we hope you would consider being one. So it's patreon.com
Speaker 4: slash the team house. Thanks guys.
Speaker 3: Brent, I want to ask you a little bit about
Speaker 3: how 19th and 20th group are structured because we know
Speaker 3: that the different SF groups are generally have, you know,
Speaker 3: are assigned an area and, and aligned to a particular area. How, like,
Speaker 3: how did they choose your language? How are 19th and
Speaker 3: 20th group, the guard units aligned?
Speaker 2: Yeah. At, at, at the time, uh, a battalion aligned
Speaker 2: with the group. So third battalion, 20th group aligned with seventh, uh,
Speaker 2: special forces group. So I, I got Spanish because our,
Speaker 2: our battalion was aligned with seventh. Okay.
Speaker 1: That's yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, the well which which really kind of gets me
Speaker 2: into to my days with with 20 special forces group
Speaker 2: as a green beret um i i was uh i
Speaker 2: spent my whole guard time as a you know as
Speaker 2: a as a single guy just being a guard bum
Speaker 2: i just went from set of orders from school to
Speaker 2: school to deployment to deployment uh and just stayed active
Speaker 2: the the whole time and i loved it i absolutely
Speaker 2: loved it um as soon as I graduated the Q course,
Speaker 2: I was on a C one 30 down to, down
Speaker 2: to Bolivia for, uh, for, for a month. Um, I,
Speaker 2: I had only, I'd only got to see the different
Speaker 2: ODAs in the company a few times. And I saw these, uh,
Speaker 2: I saw these guys on the dive team who were just,
Speaker 2: who were just better than everyone else. And we're more
Speaker 2: than happy to prove it. And, um, I, My senior
Speaker 2: Echo on my first ODA was going was going to
Speaker 2: dive school cause he wanted to go to the, to
Speaker 2: the dive team. And, uh, and by, by the second
Speaker 2: or third time, you know, we, we'd done some training together.
Speaker 2: He looked at me and goes, Hey, you should go
Speaker 2: to dive school too. Um, and so I was like,
Speaker 2: I'd love to go to dive school. He goes, yeah, it's,
Speaker 2: it's easy. Just, you know, raise your hand. There's always slots.
Speaker 2: Go to dive school. So I'm getting ready to go
Speaker 2: down to South America. And just like he said, you know,
Speaker 2: all you had to do was say you wanted to
Speaker 2: go to dive school and they'll put you.
Speaker 3: In a slot.
Speaker 2: So I go down to South America. I start training
Speaker 2: for dive school before South America. As soon as I
Speaker 2: get to South America, I get an email back to
Speaker 2: AKO again. I get an AKO email saying that funding
Speaker 2: fell through and don't worry about, don't worry about dive school.
Speaker 2: And so I said, okay. So the next three weeks,
Speaker 2: I went on a very different training regime and partied
Speaker 2: my ass off and had a great time. We trained hard.
Speaker 2: We partied hard. It was a great first experience. In fact,
Speaker 2: that team I went down there with had their bravo
Speaker 2: on their team. Went to the unit before me. Their
Speaker 2: 18 Delta on the team, uh, went to the unit
Speaker 2: as a, as a medic before me. It was a,
Speaker 2: it was a stacked team, um, of, of great dudes, uh,
Speaker 2: that were seasoned guys. You know, they, they'd all, they'd
Speaker 2: all been to Afghanistan already and multiple trips and they'd
Speaker 2: all been on the team for like five, six, seven years.
Speaker 2: So it was a great, great first trip learning. I
Speaker 2: was the only echo on the team. So, Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it was a great experience as a new guy to
Speaker 2: have all the combo to fall on me. It was
Speaker 2: a real cool experience going to hotels and setting up a,
Speaker 2: you know, satcom, you know, PSC five and, you know,
Speaker 2: shooting out, uh, reports, you know, from a hotel room, uh,
Speaker 2: in different cities and Bolivia, just kind of a, in
Speaker 2: civilian clothes as, as you're traveling around. So just, uh, just,
Speaker 2: you know, definitely a cool experience in that part. Um,
Speaker 2: it's a couple of days before dive school is supposed
Speaker 2: to start. And I'm at a roadside cafe in Bolivia
Speaker 2: and I get an email. Uh, it's an ATAR is
Speaker 2: notification saying, uh, giving me, you know, details of checking
Speaker 2: into dive school. Um, so I went to the, I
Speaker 2: went to the warrant officer on the team and, uh,
Speaker 2: I said, Hey, this is probably nothing, but I, I,
Speaker 2: I did get this ATAR is notification. And he's like, well,
Speaker 2: if you have an ATAR slot, you're, you're going, you
Speaker 2: need to get on a plane right now and go
Speaker 2: to Key West. Um, I, I was both excited to
Speaker 2: hear that. And also, uh, you know, it, it like
Speaker 2: a getting punched in the gut going, I, I'm not
Speaker 2: ready for this. Let's hope by, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of things you can do when
Speaker 2: you're 24 that, uh, that you can't do later on
Speaker 2: in life. So I, uh, you know, not to make
Speaker 2: these stories long, but you know, just kind of, you know, I,
Speaker 2: I get in a, a, uh, a, a one-way rental
Speaker 2: car and we drive like me and one other guy
Speaker 2: that was going to go back with me, drive like
Speaker 2: nine hours straight. And there's these massive unrest going on
Speaker 2: because of the, uh, the elections just happened and no
Speaker 2: one's happy with the, the, the, the election and there's
Speaker 2: roadblocks everywhere. Our Spanish actually wasn't too bad, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't enough to be by ourselves negotiating roadblocks. We just
Speaker 2: randomly gave people money, just kept on giving them money
Speaker 2: until they seemed to be less angry with us and
Speaker 2: they let us go. We get to the airport and
Speaker 2: we landed on a military base dirt runway in the
Speaker 2: middle of the night, unloaded and left. So I didn't
Speaker 2: get my passport stamped. When I get to the airport,
Speaker 2: we're trying to load up. And the guy's like, hey,
Speaker 2: something's weird. You don't have a stamp on your passport.
Speaker 2: How did you get in the country? And I remember
Speaker 2: the last thing my warrant officer told me was, hey,
Speaker 2: if you get in any trouble, here's the number to
Speaker 2: the embassy. Call this guy. He's our fixer. And so
Speaker 2: I didn't give him an answer about how we got
Speaker 2: in here. I just said, hey, you should probably call
Speaker 2: this guy first. And the guy told me, goes, I
Speaker 2: don't care who that guy is. How did you get
Speaker 2: in on our country? And you can go ahead and
Speaker 2: start looking at other flights because you're not getting on
Speaker 2: this one. And I was like, you know, OK, that
Speaker 2: that sucks. But, you know, call this guy. He walks
Speaker 2: away 30 seconds later. He looks at me with disgust.
Speaker 2: He just takes my passport and he stamps it and
Speaker 2: he says, get out of here to this day. I
Speaker 2: don't know who that guy was. I don't know what
Speaker 2: he told him. Uh, but you know, just that it
Speaker 2: was at the end of the, it was a very
Speaker 2: cool non-combat first experience of, of, of being a green
Speaker 2: beret and just, you know, doing things that really is
Speaker 2: really unique to, uh, to green berets. Um, I end up,
Speaker 2: I get a, I fly right to Miami, um, and
Speaker 2: check into die school and proceed to have the worst
Speaker 2: six weeks of my life. Um, whole week was absolutely horrible. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I quit doing breath holds. I was not
Speaker 2: ready for it. Um, I was, I got dragged out
Speaker 2: of the pool, you know, almost every day and asked why,
Speaker 2: why I suck so much. Um, and I just, I
Speaker 2: remember calling my dad. at one point and saying, uh,
Speaker 2: Hey dad, we have, you know, the Q course has
Speaker 2: been a lot, you know, just went on a trip
Speaker 2: down South. Now I'm in, now I'm in die school. Um,
Speaker 2: it's just, it's really tough right now. Uh, I think,
Speaker 2: I think I just need to come home for a
Speaker 2: little bit. And, and, but my dad is not the, the, uh,
Speaker 2: the guy to, to cry on his shoulder. Uh, he's,
Speaker 2: he's just a very hard man, but, uh, but I
Speaker 2: also never complained to my dad about anything. Uh, so
Speaker 2: I think my dad knew if I was calling him
Speaker 2: to tell him things were pretty tough right now, he
Speaker 2: just said, dude, you got to do some. And I said, okay, I'll, I'll,
Speaker 2: I'll call you tomorrow and let you know. And, uh,
Speaker 2: every day I showed up to the pool and had
Speaker 2: to fake motivation. Like I wanted to be there when
Speaker 2: it was everything I didn't want to do. And, uh,
Speaker 2: I never called my dad back and told him that
Speaker 2: I wasn't coming or was coming. My dad said he,
Speaker 2: he figured that when I didn't call back, he, he
Speaker 2: knew and, Again, my dad's just a hardcore guy, so
Speaker 2: it's not like he's going to call me and ask
Speaker 2: what's wrong. That was just the odd random conversation we had.
Speaker 2: It was a fleeting moment of weakness. I'll come back
Speaker 2: to that story here in a little bit because I
Speaker 2: tell on myself later in my career saying, hey, this
Speaker 2: is the hardest thing I've ever done. And I'll tell
Speaker 2: you the one particular time that It was like the
Speaker 2: end of pool week and you're just, you know, you're
Speaker 2: just physically exhausted. And they they put us in. And again,
Speaker 2: and part of why it was so hard is because
Speaker 2: I I wasn't ready for it. So, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying it would have been easy otherwise, but I
Speaker 2: definitely didn't help myself out. They put us in the
Speaker 2: pool and they're going to have us do these.
Speaker 1: Sprints.
Speaker 2: And they said, hey, and they told us, hey, bring
Speaker 2: bring two shirts to the pool this day. Um, and
Speaker 2: so at the very end of the day, they, uh,
Speaker 2: they said, Hey, get, get one shirt wet, take your,
Speaker 2: take your Brown shirt off, put them in both your hands.
Speaker 2: And that's what you're going to swim in to get
Speaker 2: to the other side of the pool, these two soggy shirts. And, uh,
Speaker 2: they said, pays to be a winner. First one to
Speaker 2: the other side of the pool gets to get out. And, um,
Speaker 2: and so everyone swam as hard as they could to
Speaker 2: get to the other side of the pool. And, uh,
Speaker 2: they didn't let anyone out of the pool. They're like, Hey,
Speaker 2: but that's not this round. they send us back and forth,
Speaker 2: back and forth, like 15 times. No one gets out
Speaker 2: of the pool. And it sounds dramatic, but it's just true.
Speaker 2: Like guys are getting fished out of the pool because yeah, they're, they're,
Speaker 2: they're cramping up and they're giving it their all. And
Speaker 2: they're just, and I remember thinking, you know, look into
Speaker 2: the guy beside me on the gunwale and, and we
Speaker 2: didn't say it, but we both looked at each other
Speaker 2: and just, you know, I've said, this sucks. Yeah. That, that,
Speaker 2: that look at that empty look at another guy's eyes
Speaker 2: when he's, when he's just giving it his all. And yeah,
Speaker 2: we've all, we've all been there. And I remember thinking
Speaker 2: to myself, I got one more in me. And if,
Speaker 2: if they don't get us out of the pool, I'm quitting.
Speaker 2: Cause I'll end up at the bottom of this pool
Speaker 2: if they send me again. So they send us again.
Speaker 2: I get to the other side of the pool and
Speaker 2: I'm talking, I'm, I'm, Coaxing myself up. Well, this is
Speaker 2: it's time. It's time to quit. It's time to quit.
Speaker 2: And me and that guy look at each other one
Speaker 2: more time. And we both kind of shake our heads
Speaker 2: like this sucks. And and he goes, F it. I
Speaker 2: quit and gets out of the pool. And I remember
Speaker 2: looking at him getting out of the pool and thinking,
Speaker 2: you quitter. I can't believe what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2: Knowing that I was just as big as I if
Speaker 2: he wanted to beat me to it, I probably, I
Speaker 2: probably would have quit. And, uh, and just like, do
Speaker 2: you remember watching him quit? Just disgusted me. And, uh,
Speaker 2: I stayed in the pool. We went back and forth
Speaker 2: or six or seven times, but I guess maybe he,
Speaker 2: he left me some of his energy on, on, uh,
Speaker 2: on the way out. Uh, super glad I got die
Speaker 2: school out, uh, out of the way early in my career. Uh, Like,
Speaker 2: insert joke here, but like most divers, I'm a proud
Speaker 2: diver and really proud of that accomplishment. And it got
Speaker 2: me to work on the best ODA I ever worked with,
Speaker 2: best group of guys. Honestly, I ended up having one
Speaker 2: of my best deployments in my military career. was a
Speaker 2: 20th group deployment with that dive team running the commandos
Speaker 2: out of Afghanistan. We just, you know, just when a
Speaker 2: group of, of really good friends deploy together, have the
Speaker 2: same mindset, uh, and just wanted to get after it. Um, to,
Speaker 2: to this day, one, one of my, one of my,
Speaker 2: one of my best experiences in the military and, and
Speaker 2: dive school is what kind of afforded me that, uh,
Speaker 2: that possibility. I, you know, it's interesting cause I want
Speaker 2: to paint sort of a picture for people who may
Speaker 2: not understand.
Speaker 3: Earlier when you're talking about going to dive school or,
Speaker 3: you know, the chance to go to combat diver school,
Speaker 3: you know, you said the, the senior echo said there
Speaker 3: are always billets available. There's always slots open. And, and
Speaker 3: the reason for that is because combat diver is such
Speaker 3: a notoriously hard school that people don't sign up for
Speaker 3: it in general. Like it is, it's one of those
Speaker 3: schools that somebody has to generally be really motivated to
Speaker 3: to go to because it is such like a dick dragger.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd have gone back.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I mean, thankfully I didn't have
Speaker 2: to make that decision. I'd like to think that, uh,
Speaker 2: with a little bit of rest and, you know, I'd have,
Speaker 2: I'd have, I'd have got back on there. Um, I
Speaker 2: was really lucky in, uh, in my career to, to,
Speaker 2: to have not have recycled, uh, to not, uh, we'll
Speaker 2: get to it a little bit. There's one thing I recycled, but,
Speaker 2: but SF didn't, didn't hand that to me. Um, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying the Q course was easy. By no means
Speaker 2: was the Q course easy. The Q course had really
Speaker 2: tough days in it, but for just an absolute smoke session,
Speaker 2: day in, day out, running red line the whole time,
Speaker 2: dive school, without a doubt, was the hardest military school
Speaker 2: I went to.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about that deployment that it led you
Speaker 1: into with the Kandak commandos.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. So we, um, I had, uh, I had,
Speaker 2: I'd been selected, uh, for, for the unit. Um, actually, uh, I, I,
Speaker 2: I got selected and I told him to, Hey, we're
Speaker 2: on the verge of a, of another deployment. And I,
Speaker 2: and I want to go back to this, uh, um, well,
Speaker 2: I should say my second time at selection, I get
Speaker 2: selected and, and we're going, uh, I want to do this,
Speaker 2: this deployment with, with, with, with our guys. It's one
Speaker 2: last hurrah, if you will. And I told him that. And,
Speaker 2: and they, they were like, absolutely. You just not going anywhere. Go,
Speaker 2: you know, go, go, go fight with your guys. I
Speaker 2: think they, they respected that. Um, so I go to,
Speaker 2: so that was really cool in a weird way, kind
Speaker 2: of being a made man and 20th group as a
Speaker 2: guy already selected to go to the unit. Um, and, uh, it,
Speaker 2: it was such a great mission. Um, so we didn't
Speaker 2: have any air assets dedicated to us, you know, we didn't,
Speaker 2: but we got a lot of aviation assets given to
Speaker 2: us by the battle space owner and how those deals
Speaker 2: usually worked was of course, we're, you know, you know, we're, uh,
Speaker 2: we had plenty of direct action targets that we collected
Speaker 2: the Intel for. And we, you know, we, uh, here's a,
Speaker 2: here's a blast from the past. If you remember terms
Speaker 2: like JPL targets, um, So we had our list of
Speaker 2: J-PALs to go after, but most of them required, to
Speaker 2: do it properly, aviation assets. And the Battlespace owner was
Speaker 2: interested in giving us aviation assets, but the Battlespace owner
Speaker 2: was actually a really good dude. And he also wanted
Speaker 2: work out of us, and smartly so. He would give
Speaker 2: us assets if we would do missions for him. And
Speaker 2: what he wanted from us was to take our commandos
Speaker 2: and do valley clearing operations for his conventional forces, which
Speaker 2: is a great opportunity really for us too. And he's
Speaker 2: absolutely right. The commandos should have been at the very
Speaker 2: forward edge of those valley clearing operations, taking bullets so
Speaker 2: Americans don't have to. It's their country. they're a motivated unit.
Speaker 2: They were more than happy to do it. Um, they
Speaker 2: had a short shelf life. So if it wasn't, you know,
Speaker 2: if I can't remember the exact hours, it's 48 or 72. And, uh,
Speaker 2: trust me, they, they knew what the shelf life was.
Speaker 2: It's even, it's in their charter. And I want to
Speaker 2: say it's 72. So if, you know, if 72 hours
Speaker 2: is about to come up there, they'll let you know, Hey,
Speaker 2: we're our, our work's done here. This is, this is,
Speaker 2: this is as much as we're allowed to suck. And,
Speaker 2: and on more than one occasion for a unit that
Speaker 2: can't logistically do anything on their own. If they're on
Speaker 2: an operation, a value clearing operation, the longer than 72 hours, they'll,
Speaker 2: they will find taxis to come pick them up in
Speaker 2: the middle of the woods. All of a sudden they're
Speaker 2: logistical masters and can find their way back to base.
Speaker 2: They can't find their way to a mission to save
Speaker 2: their life. That's, I know I just said they were
Speaker 2: a great partner force, but that was a reality of them.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, I feel like the more experience I
Speaker 2: got in SF, the more Robin Sage was real. I
Speaker 2: remember Robin Sage going, I have to show up and
Speaker 2: beg these fake Gs to let me in their camp
Speaker 2: and to fight with me. We're And the real world
Speaker 2: where Americans with, with, you know, with bombers and suitcases
Speaker 2: full of money, no one's, you know, I don't have to,
Speaker 2: I don't have to beg anyone to come fight with us. Uh,
Speaker 2: and there I am in Afghanistan begging our commandos not
Speaker 2: to leave us going. I, am I in Robin Sage
Speaker 2: right now? This is, this is crazy. Um, but sure
Speaker 2: enough happened on more than one occasion. Um, but those
Speaker 2: valid clearing operations were great. Uh, they, they did suck.
Speaker 2: I mean, everyone prefers to, to get on a helicopter,
Speaker 2: hit a target in the middle night and not miss
Speaker 2: a meal or a workout. Um, they, they could be trying,
Speaker 2: you know, even, even those, you know, even, and they're
Speaker 2: still considered short duration missions at three and four days. Um, I'm,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's some conventional guy listening to me whining
Speaker 2: about being out for three or four days. Um, but they, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, when it was cold, it was freezing cold.
Speaker 2: When it was hot, it was miserably hot. And, uh,
Speaker 2: They would reserve the commando unit to go down the
Speaker 2: worst parts of the valley. Again, rightfully so. And that's
Speaker 2: exactly where we wanted to be. But, you know, we
Speaker 2: did those valley clearing operations. You know, if they teed
Speaker 2: it up for us and they teed it up for
Speaker 2: us right, then they put us right in the thick
Speaker 2: of things. We got to do a lot of good work.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of really cool stories that actually come
Speaker 2: from that particular mission, that deployment. We were the, and
Speaker 2: I don't know who keeps track of these stats. I
Speaker 2: remember them telling me, but, you know, adding up our,
Speaker 2: you know, the various kills you get as an ODA,
Speaker 2: and they, you know, they give you your CAS, you know,
Speaker 2: kills and your small arms kills. And, you know, we
Speaker 2: were up in the, you know, high couple hundredths. And, uh,
Speaker 2: and they said that we, uh, we were the, you know, the,
Speaker 2: the leading ODA in country, uh, and kills, which really
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been hard. It's not in, although we were
Speaker 2: a really good ODA, it's not because we were amazing. We,
Speaker 2: we thought we were, um, but they put us, they
Speaker 2: put us in a good area with the commando. So we, we,
Speaker 2: we operated in all of the East into KL. Um,
Speaker 2: I used to be able to tell you what into
Speaker 2: KLS did for, I could probably get most of the, uh,
Speaker 2: most of the acronyms, um, And it was just a
Speaker 2: hotspot at that time. So we, we had the, we
Speaker 2: had the right partner force and the hottest area of
Speaker 2: the country. One mission was a, a fair, you're not,
Speaker 2: it was a great mission. It's not necessarily the one
Speaker 2: you want to get woken up for. Yeah. I told
Speaker 2: you that battalion commander was, was a great dude. He
Speaker 2: calls our, our team leader and our team Sergeant into
Speaker 2: the office. He was like, Hey, I need you guys.
Speaker 2: And I guess he's teared up, asking for this help.
Speaker 2: My team sergeant, Rick Spear, he goes, what do you need?
Speaker 2: He's always given us aircraft. He's always been real good
Speaker 2: to us. He goes, what's wrong, boss? He goes, my
Speaker 2: boys are hemmed up. My boys are hemmed up in
Speaker 2: a bad way. We got double digits dead and double
Speaker 2: digits wounded. And those numbers are climbing if we don't
Speaker 2: if we don't get someone there like right now and, uh,
Speaker 2: came back, got the ODA said, Hey, the, you know,
Speaker 2: blades are spinning. We, we got to get there. Um, we, uh,
Speaker 2: if I remember right, this is called operation bulldog bite, um,
Speaker 2: We were going to insert to the South of their
Speaker 2: location because they were still in a firefight. So they
Speaker 2: didn't want us to insert there. We're going to insert
Speaker 2: South their location and the Rangers were coming in. We're
Speaker 2: going to insert to the North and we were going to,
Speaker 2: and we were basically, it was really good. We were
Speaker 2: supposed to meet them there together, but everyone, everyone knew
Speaker 2: it was going to be a race to, to try
Speaker 2: to get to them first and, and, and, uh, and
Speaker 2: help those guys out. Well, when we inserted the Ranger, uh,
Speaker 2: 47 had mechanical failures. And they didn't insert. So it
Speaker 2: was just us. When we got there, we got there
Speaker 2: right as first light was there. We got there a
Speaker 2: little bit later. We were supposed to insert in darkness.
Speaker 2: It was just first light. AC-130 got there early to
Speaker 2: try to make sure that everything was going to be
Speaker 2: kosher for us. And As soon as the AC-130 got
Speaker 2: on station, it started lighting off. And it didn't stop shooting.
Speaker 2: It was shooting while we landed. And daylight, when the
Speaker 2: 47s took off, it was still firing. And I remember
Speaker 2: looking at one of our guys and being like, isn't
Speaker 2: that weird? He's like, what's that? He's like, I've never
Speaker 2: seen an AC-130 in the daylight. He's like, yeah, that
Speaker 2: is kind of weird. Come to find out. Uh, and
Speaker 2: heck one of you guys may know, but it had
Speaker 2: to go up to like two or three star level
Speaker 2: approval to keep, to keep specter flying, uh, daylight that low.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Agent targets.
Speaker 3: I was going to say that almost, almost always, uh, AC, uh,
Speaker 3: specter would be like denied daylight ops because it flies
Speaker 3: so low. You can see it. And they were worried
Speaker 3: that would have present a target for man portables and stuff.
Speaker 3: But to have a, a AC one 30 during the
Speaker 3: day is exceptionally rare. And like, and like you said,
Speaker 3: probably had to be elevated because the, the in-country commanders
Speaker 3: like the air force, they, they did not allow that
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm telling you, it was a weird sight seeing it,
Speaker 2: you know? Yeah. You know, you, you get to hear
Speaker 2: it a lot, you know, what's up there, you know, on,
Speaker 2: you know, on multiple, multiple nighttime operations. But when you
Speaker 2: actually see it during the day, just, it just stuck out.
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, that's really weird. Um, and, and we confirmed,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously that, you know, it got told to
Speaker 2: us that they had to get special approval to stay
Speaker 2: on station and it took us. And of course we get,
Speaker 2: we get, uh, inserted a little, uh, a little bit, um,
Speaker 2: a little bit further than we wanted to be inserted.
Speaker 2: And so it's going to take even longer. It's going
Speaker 2: to take all day for us to get up there. Um,
Speaker 2: We get into, you know, there's a couple villages between
Speaker 2: us and them. We get into a little bit of contact,
Speaker 2: but the right call was made. Like, you know, this,
Speaker 2: you know, engaging it, killing an enemy right now isn't
Speaker 2: really our mission. Our mission is to get these guys
Speaker 2: as fast as we can. And, again, I'm the only
Speaker 2: commo guy on this mission. I was the only commo
Speaker 2: guy for the most part during that deployment. And... As
Speaker 2: we're traveling at night, we know we should be getting
Speaker 2: close to these guys. Uh, and it goes back to, again,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm in the Q course. Like at
Speaker 2: the times you feel like the Q course is so
Speaker 2: basic and things they tell you in the Q course,
Speaker 2: they do, they, they come back, um, to, to, to
Speaker 2: ring true in operations. And I remember an SUT being said, uh,
Speaker 2: being told that the most, and then let me know
Speaker 2: if you, if you remember this, you know, especially in
Speaker 2: small unit tactics, What is the most dangerous part of
Speaker 2: any mission when you leave and come back from the wire?
Speaker 2: You want to take a guess at it?
Speaker 1: I mean, oftentimes it's right as you clear the objective, right?
Speaker 1: Because everyone's tired and you're chilling on security.
Speaker 2: The 7-8 answer for that will be re-entry of friendly lines.
Speaker 1: Oh, geez.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So you're waking up with friendly forces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Reentry of, of friendly lines. And, uh,
Speaker 2: I always thought that was, uh, you know, uh, a
Speaker 2: little bit, uh, a little bit over the top. Like,
Speaker 2: don't you think most dangerous thing is, you know, getting
Speaker 2: out here and, you know, and, and get it on
Speaker 2: an ambush line and mix it up with the enemy. Um,
Speaker 2: But here I am at 2 a.m. in Afghanistan. And
Speaker 2: there is this, you know, there's these young 11 Bravos that,
Speaker 2: you know, that are burying their brothers and watching their
Speaker 2: other brothers maybe, you know, slowly bleed out. And there's
Speaker 2: these guys trumping through the woods, trying to link up
Speaker 2: with them. And I cannot raise them on the radio.
Speaker 2: And I was walking point at the time to go on. well,
Speaker 2: this is about fitting, you know, it's my, it's my fault,
Speaker 2: I guess, why we can't make commos. So I guess
Speaker 2: I should be eating these rounds. Um, I, I did
Speaker 2: everything that I was supposed to do before leaving. You know,
Speaker 2: I did, you know, I, I, you know, I got
Speaker 2: their fills, I got their frequencies. I, uh, I did
Speaker 2: radio checks with their guys in the ground. Why I
Speaker 2: couldn't make commo at that time is, is just, is the,
Speaker 2: is the bane of every Echo's existence. Um, and you know, when,
Speaker 2: when you need to come with the most, I couldn't
Speaker 2: make commo. And I just remember walking with my butthole
Speaker 2: puckers going every step. I'm afraid these, you know, these,
Speaker 2: these bushes are going to light up. Um, we never
Speaker 2: made comma. We never made a, a radio contact with them.
Speaker 2: And luckily for me, uh, they, you know, they, they, they,
Speaker 2: they heard things in the bushes. We lit up them. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, they, they yelled from a distance, Hey, who
Speaker 2: is there? We got, we got to, um, you know,
Speaker 2: speak English and they, they knew it was us. Uh,
Speaker 2: and they knew that there was an American force, uh, coming,
Speaker 2: you know, to link up with them. And luckily that
Speaker 2: got disseminated all the way to, to the outskirts. Um,
Speaker 2: but I'll, I'll never forget how, you know, um, just how,
Speaker 2: how dangerous, uh, that something that, that, really seems like
Speaker 2: the least amount of dangerous thing that you would do. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, there was really, there's no enemy at the time.
Speaker 2: There's so much other dangerous stuff I've done in my,
Speaker 2: in my military career. Yet that to me, when I
Speaker 2: tell that story, I can still feel the, you know,
Speaker 2: the hair stick up the back of my neck, walking
Speaker 2: through those woods, you know, wait, waiting to get lit.
Speaker 1: Up with a VS 17 panel.
Speaker 3: But it's nighttime. Right. So yeah. Yeah. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's nighttime. I have nods. I don't even know
Speaker 2: if they got nods or if all their guys have
Speaker 2: nods or if they're still rocking seven deltas on a
Speaker 2: low loom night, which makes them almost just as dangerous
Speaker 2: with them as without them. I'll tell you this war
Speaker 2: story real quick. I'll rewind it and tell you how
Speaker 2: they got into this position and what will blow your
Speaker 2: mind what we talked about after we met up with them.
Speaker 2: So it's really a sad story about, about the bureaucracy
Speaker 2: of our military and the inability for people to make decisions.
Speaker 2: This was one of their very last valley clearing operations. It's,
Speaker 2: it had been a very quiet deployment for those guys
Speaker 2: and they just hadn't seen a lot of action. So they,
Speaker 2: you know, they, They started, in my mind, a little
Speaker 2: bit to lose respect for the battlefield. I mean, people
Speaker 2: don't understand that there's a lot of lull to war. Yes,
Speaker 2: we lost a lot of guys in Afghanistan, but there's
Speaker 2: plenty of guys who went and deployed and never fired
Speaker 2: their gun, and they never saw anything bad, and they
Speaker 2: just woke up every day, went to bed every day,
Speaker 2: and eventually went home. And it's not a sexy story
Speaker 2: to tell your friends, but that's the truth for really
Speaker 2: a lot of soldiers in Afghanistan. Um, these guys hadn't
Speaker 2: seen much, much combat at all. Uh, they come across this, uh,
Speaker 2: this house and this house is completely full of IEDs,
Speaker 2: full of IEDs. And so the company commander says, Hey, um,
Speaker 2: we're not going to touch this stuff. There's way too much.
Speaker 2: None of it. I don't feel that we're competent enough to,
Speaker 2: to move this stuff where we should anyway. I'm just
Speaker 2: going to call a strike on this house. So they
Speaker 2: get into a long haul and they start the process
Speaker 2: of trying to get someone to authorize dropping on this house.
Speaker 2: No one wants to make the call. The, you know,
Speaker 2: the battalion commander doesn't want to make the call, the
Speaker 2: brigade commander. And in fact, it's probably worse than that.
Speaker 2: Not to drag out the story, but the, you know,
Speaker 2: the opso didn't want to make the call who eventually
Speaker 2: made it to the XO and eventually made it to
Speaker 2: the battalion commander. Like all of these thresholds and levels
Speaker 2: and everyone just passing the buck up, passing the buck up,
Speaker 2: passing the buck up. Well, they've been here for like
Speaker 2: four hours just waiting for someone to give them any
Speaker 2: sort of guidance of what, of what they should do. Well,
Speaker 2: it's human nature. I'd probably do it too. But what
Speaker 2: does Joe do after four hours of being in the hospital?
Speaker 2: sun after not seeing any app? Joe does what Joe does. And, uh,
Speaker 2: and I say that, like I said, I, I'm not
Speaker 2: a robot. I, I, I do the same things. Um,
Speaker 2: and it allowed me to get up within very close
Speaker 2: proximities and, and lob of volley of RPGs and machine
Speaker 2: gun fire and just absolutely lay waste to these guys.
Speaker 2: And they really didn't have a solid fighting chance at it.
Speaker 2: They overwhelmed them pretty quick and hurt them pretty bad.
Speaker 2: And that's when we got the call. So the fact
Speaker 2: that at the end of the day, it was just
Speaker 2: indecision on anyone wanting, and of course, it's collateral damage
Speaker 2: is the reason they don't.
Speaker 1: Want to um, destroy a building.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Destroy. Yeah. Destroy that building or, and there was another
Speaker 2: building close, like fairly close to it. So they were
Speaker 2: concerned about that building rather than being concerned for their
Speaker 2: safety and wellbeing of our soldiers. They cared more about
Speaker 2: mud buildings and we sent guys home and body bags
Speaker 2: for it. It'll always be wrong. Um, and that's how,
Speaker 2: so that's, that's how we got there. Now I'll get,
Speaker 2: now we'll fast forward. We're here. We're talking to these guys. Um, the, uh,
Speaker 2: we're going to go, uh, you know, we're going to
Speaker 2: go up and get a little bit of shut eye
Speaker 2: because we're, they're going to go come pick them up
Speaker 2: in daylight the next day. And so we tell them,
Speaker 2: and of course they're still in the, they're in the Valley.
Speaker 2: Like this house is, is in the Valley. Um, they're
Speaker 2: still in this house or in this compound. And we said, Hey,
Speaker 2: we're going to go up to that high ground over there. And,
Speaker 2: and get the tactical advantage. And I suggest you guys
Speaker 2: come with us. And, uh, and even then they're like, no,
Speaker 2: like you guys got it up there. Like you guys
Speaker 2: can protect us from up there. Right. And like, kind
Speaker 2: of like, I don't like what would be, what would
Speaker 2: be a better bet would just to be up there
Speaker 2: with us. Like that's, that's where you want to be,
Speaker 2: but not down here in this Valley. But, um, but
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not going to be too hard on them.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, obviously they're, they, they were dealing
Speaker 2: with a lot beat down pretty hard. Um, and, uh,
Speaker 2: maybe they just needed him. They're more than willing to
Speaker 2: have someone come save him and help him out. But
Speaker 2: that's that, that. And I'll tell you one more after this,
Speaker 2: but we'll let you guys ask questions or talk about
Speaker 2: it a little more if you want to. Do you
Speaker 2: remember the rank? That was one of our better missions.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 2: But I don't mean that. Guys lost their lives. Sure.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of a good word to use
Speaker 2: where I say better missions.
Speaker 1: It's one of the more significant actions. And you guys
Speaker 1: went in there and helped out fellow American soldiers. That's right.
Speaker 1: It makes it meaningful.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah. I mean, the... the feeling it's only
Speaker 2: happened probably two more times in my career. Um, like,
Speaker 2: you know, to, to get there and face to face
Speaker 2: and strangers, just absolute strangers look at you and want
Speaker 2: to hug you because you, cause you showed up and they, they,
Speaker 2: you know, they needed someone with guns to show up and,
Speaker 2: you know, they, they're just, you know, they, they're sitting
Speaker 2: there waiting, waiting to die. And, um, I mean, if
Speaker 2: they knew us, we were as big as jackasses as
Speaker 2: anyone else. We're definitely not at times to be put
Speaker 2: up on a pedestal. But at the end of the day, hey,
Speaker 2: when the Green Berets show up and the guys with
Speaker 2: beards show up, you're expected to fill that role. We
Speaker 2: were more than happy to fill that role for them,
Speaker 2: and we were more than happy to protect those guys
Speaker 2: and get those guys out of there.
Speaker 3: Out of curiosity, do you remember the size of that
Speaker 3: element that you guys went in to relieve or to salvage?
Speaker 2: I want to say in the, in the twenties.
Speaker 3: And then do you, do you recall like what the,
Speaker 3: was it, was it a captain? Was it like a,
Speaker 3: a PL or a lieutenant?
Speaker 2: I know I'd have to, we there's, there's, I don't
Speaker 2: know if a few guys have one like this. I
Speaker 2: would need a lifeline. And our medic, Mark DeMeo, remembers everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Everything. I can call Mark right now. He can tell
Speaker 2: you exactly how many guys are there, the rake of
Speaker 2: that dude, and the area that we were operating in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just curious if the officer, the ground force commander,
Speaker 3: was the one making the call not to like evac
Speaker 3: with you guys up the, up the hill. Or if,
Speaker 3: if he was getting from higher that no, like stay
Speaker 3: in place until we resolve what we're going to do
Speaker 3: with this, these IEDs.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just, I just remember that being, you know, the,
Speaker 2: the answer to the, to the conversation, obviously the, the,
Speaker 2: the team sergeant had that, had that conversation with whoever's
Speaker 2: in charge and, and it'd be in the combo guy.
Speaker 2: I was probably right next to the commander sitting up,
Speaker 2: sit reps.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so was there something else with that? You want
Speaker 1: to talk about how that operation wound down or if
Speaker 1: it sounded like maybe there was something else you wanted
Speaker 1: to say about it?
Speaker 2: No, not about that one. I'll talk about one more. That's,
Speaker 2: you know, that's kind of similar happened the same trip,
Speaker 2: but I'll tell you one of the weirdest things. One
Speaker 2: of the weirdest things that ever happened was at the
Speaker 2: end of that operation. And by the time we actually
Speaker 2: got helos in there, it was actually, it was actually
Speaker 2: at nighttime. So we actually, stayed all day during the day,
Speaker 2: got all the wounded out, and whoever could walk to
Speaker 2: this next LZ, we were all going to walk to
Speaker 2: that HLZ and get out of there with a 47.
Speaker 2: So it's nighttime. We're in PZ posture, and our interpreter
Speaker 2: comes up to me and goes, hey, one of the
Speaker 2: guys found a goat, and he really wants to keep it.
Speaker 2: And my initial reaction was like, no, you can't bring
Speaker 2: a goat on a 47. But, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Another part was like, you know what?
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he can have the goat. So I, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: authorized this guy to have a goat on the 47.
Speaker 2: And and he's just holding this goat the whole time.
Speaker 2: He's holding it. And we're we're on this. um, like
Speaker 2: steep ledge. So here on this, the top of this
Speaker 2: plateau is where it's going to land. And we're at
Speaker 2: the very edge of, of this really steep ledge. So
Speaker 2: when the 47 comes in tailgate this way, um, I
Speaker 2: look at him and I told October to, Hey, hold
Speaker 2: onto that goat tight. We're, we're, we're getting ready to go. And, um,
Speaker 2: and I'm just watching them, uh, where, I'm just watching
Speaker 2: with nods, and it looks like he does this, and
Speaker 2: then just throws the goat off the ledge to its
Speaker 2: little goat death. And I'm like, those, they're so weird.
Speaker 2: You know, Afghans just do weird things, you know? Just
Speaker 2: shaking my head like, I thought you wanted that goat.
Speaker 2: Why would you throw that goat off? And so... This
Speaker 2: question is boggling my mind the whole ride over. So
Speaker 2: as soon as the wheels land down in Jalalabad and
Speaker 2: we get away from the rotor wash, I go grab
Speaker 2: the interpreter. I'm like, hey, why did he kill that goat?
Speaker 2: I thought he wanted that goat. And he said, and
Speaker 2: apparently he says the 47 scared the goat and the
Speaker 2: goat back legs launched off of his chest and he
Speaker 2: tried to grab it. But from my angle, it looked
Speaker 2: like he threw the goat off. So the poor goat
Speaker 2: jumped to its death. But it was the weirdest thing
Speaker 2: in the world to witness not knowing what's going on.
Speaker 2: And I really feel like that sums up my experience.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, you're lucky it was just one goat
Speaker 3: because that could have started if there had been like
Speaker 3: a flock or herd of goats out there, whatever it is,
Speaker 3: like everybody would have wanted a goat. And you would
Speaker 3: add a 47 full goat shit.
Speaker 2: We would have started a horrible, a horrible precedence, uh,
Speaker 2: of them based probably stealing goats and taking them on
Speaker 2: the 47th. Yeah. And I'm sure, I'm sure that would
Speaker 2: have been a, uh, a theater wide email at, uh,
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 3: Pretty soon you're up to donkeys. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You would, you would have been the Dr. Doolittle of Afghanistan, uh,
Speaker 1: shepherding goats around on 47th. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The, uh, that, that same trip, um, I'm in civilian clothes.
Speaker 2: I'm getting ready to go on the ring route and
Speaker 2: I have to go down to Bagram. I don't even,
Speaker 2: either for op fund or for crypto. There's some reason
Speaker 2: I had to go down to Bagram. So I'm in Jalalabad.
Speaker 2: I'm in Jabad waiting for the ring flight. And this like,
Speaker 2: this E5 or E6 guy comes up to me and goes,
Speaker 2: and me, there's another guy with me on my team.
Speaker 2: Can't remember who was with me. But he goes, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys special forces? And, I mean, I'm wearing civilian clothes.
Speaker 2: I mean, could have been a contractor, but, you know,
Speaker 2: lucky guess. I'm like, yeah, we're special forces. And he's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I've I've been looking for you guys. I've been, I've
Speaker 2: been trying to call you guys, been trying to email
Speaker 2: you guys. I'm really trying to get ahold of you guys.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad I got to see you. And I'm thinking, what,
Speaker 2: what email are you using? Like this whole thing starting
Speaker 2: out weird already. And then he gets like, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, real emotional. And he's like, Hey, man i'm
Speaker 2: we're out at cotton to jill he goes it's uh
Speaker 2: it's you know the next province over it's a really
Speaker 2: small base he goes we're just waiting to die he
Speaker 2: goes we're there's nothing we can do about it we're
Speaker 2: just waiting to die i you know i have to
Speaker 2: sit there and tell my guys that they're going to
Speaker 2: be okay you know help is coming you know it's
Speaker 2: not it's it's not that bad when i know it's
Speaker 2: that bad and i'm like man that is that was
Speaker 2: a horrible story um i was like look give give
Speaker 2: me uh Give me your red line number and, um, we'll, uh,
Speaker 2: we'll see what we can do. Okay. And he was like,
Speaker 2: all right. And so he leaves. I canceled my ring
Speaker 2: flight trip and I go back to, to the, uh,
Speaker 2: to the team house, you know, and I go to the,
Speaker 2: you know, the team leader on the team sergeant, like, Hey, like,
Speaker 2: you know, tell them the same story. I was like, uh,
Speaker 2: you mind if I look into this? And I'm like, no.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sounds, sounds like something you should look into. And again, that's,
Speaker 2: what's really cool. And that'll always miss about, you know,
Speaker 2: being on, being a green beret. is the autonomy to
Speaker 2: do whatever you want. It's a lot of work, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: to collect your own intel and to create your own
Speaker 2: con ops, execute your own missions with only 12 guys
Speaker 2: and a partner force. But it's all worth it at
Speaker 2: times when you get to do things like this. And
Speaker 2: so I call the guys up. I talk to their
Speaker 2: first sergeant. It's a company-sized element out there, Comigil. And, uh,
Speaker 2: without trying to throw that guy under the bus, trying
Speaker 2: to feel out what's going on. And the first time
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, it's pretty bad out here. If can,
Speaker 2: can you guys come out here? And I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I will, we'll come out and look. And, um, so
Speaker 2: me and my team sergeant get on a black Hawk
Speaker 2: and we, we fly out there to common jail to
Speaker 2: see what's going on. And it's a. gosh, I wish
Speaker 2: I could remember the state. I want to say it's
Speaker 2: like an Illinois national guard unit, um, out there. And, uh,
Speaker 2: they start telling me everything that's wrong. And I remember
Speaker 2: thinking myself, uh, they're, they're screwing this up somehow. Like they're,
Speaker 2: you know, they're, they're, they're being cowards or, you know,
Speaker 2: this is what happens when you're not aggressive towards the enemy. And, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously that was like deep in the back
Speaker 2: of my, in my mind, but yeah, I thought it.
Speaker 2: And so I'm listening to these guys story and I'm,
Speaker 2: and so I'm like, so, So you know the point
Speaker 2: of origin where it's always coming from? They're like, well,
Speaker 2: there's only three points of origin. I said, all right,
Speaker 2: we'll send out an SR team and set up on
Speaker 2: all three points of origin. There's nine, 10, 12 guys.
Speaker 2: I know you're a company, but that's easily doable. They're like,
Speaker 2: can't do that. We can't go out, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to screw up the number a little bit, but we
Speaker 2: can't go out with less than 12 people on a patrol.
Speaker 2: He goes, and so with 12 people on a patrol,
Speaker 2: if I'm to go put three people on those points
Speaker 2: of origin, three teams of those points of origin, that's
Speaker 2: 36 people right there. that already puts us at full
Speaker 2: strength for running operations because that means half the guys
Speaker 2: are sleeping while the other half are out. And as
Speaker 2: soon as those guys come back, those guys go out
Speaker 2: on operations. And the only thing we've done is run
Speaker 2: 24-hour ops on three different point of origins, and we're
Speaker 2: not even living. We're not doing– like you can't run
Speaker 2: operations like that.
Speaker 3: Right, right, right.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I was like 12 guys delete these points
Speaker 2: of these poos, if you will, are like 1200 meters away.
Speaker 2: Like they're not that far. Like you have to 12
Speaker 2: guys to go a click outside the wire. And he's like, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And just, they couldn't, they couldn't drive. They couldn't drive
Speaker 2: down to the next village, which was only four or
Speaker 2: 500 meters outside their gate. without getting completely riddled and
Speaker 2: have to turn back around. They couldn't get air support.
Speaker 2: They asked for guys to do valley clearing operations. And
Speaker 2: just the more I sat there with those guys, the
Speaker 2: more the first sergeant, again, he was a National Guard
Speaker 2: infantry first sergeant. He was a good dude. He was
Speaker 2: just a solid guy. He had a lot of answers
Speaker 2: and a lot of things he tried. But in the day,
Speaker 2: they just weren't capable of solving this problem. And so
Speaker 2: we went back and we did something that we rarely,
Speaker 2: rarely do. We put the, I'm going to forget words now,
Speaker 2: but the Kandak was broken up into three elements. Like
Speaker 2: Kandak is already a battalion. So whatever, companies, yeah, sorry, companies.
Speaker 2: So they're broken up into three companies and we were
Speaker 2: going to bring two companies of commandos to clear this valley.
Speaker 2: Which we've never done because they're on a red, orange,
Speaker 2: and green training cycle. So they're always in third. So
Speaker 2: to bring two companies forward was a big deal. The
Speaker 2: SOTIF headquarters gave us a bunch of pushback. And they
Speaker 2: were like, I don't know what you guys are talking about.
Speaker 2: We've put SIGINT birds around there. We've asked our human mentors.
Speaker 2: We're not getting anything in that area. They're asking us
Speaker 2: to please go do something else. And we're like, no,
Speaker 2: we've been on the ground. These guys are hurting. This
Speaker 2: valley needs to be cleared. We set off on what
Speaker 2: we called Operation Rockstar. That was back in the day
Speaker 2: when ODAs could still name their own naming conventions before
Speaker 2: people probably took some free speech liberties with naming their operations.
Speaker 1: Operation Penthouse, you know, get approved. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I love it. And everyone got behind it, like
Speaker 2: all the aviation support called all the HLZs, like Ringo
Speaker 2: and HLZ Bon Jovi and everything. We inserted that night
Speaker 2: and the helos, it was a long valley. And the
Speaker 2: cop was at the very base of the valley. So
Speaker 2: we were going to insert at the very Northern part
Speaker 2: and then kind of like a hammer and anvil operation. So,
Speaker 2: so the, so the base only had to basically be
Speaker 2: the anvil of it. We would push them all down, uh,
Speaker 2: all down the Valley, um, or at least contain them
Speaker 2: in the Valley. We, we get, uh, we come into
Speaker 2: fire as heavy fire as soon as, as soon as we,
Speaker 2: as soon as we land. And, uh, and we're thinking.
Speaker 2: And the SOTIF didn't even want to see it. Here
Speaker 2: we are taking massive, you know, RPK fire from PKM
Speaker 2: fire from the, from the mountainsides. And you told us
Speaker 2: there was no one here. And that was just a bunch,
Speaker 2: you know, a couple, basically a couple of low level crooks,
Speaker 2: lobbing RPGs in the base every now and again. The,
Speaker 2: our team leader immediately called, called Cass. That's a whole
Speaker 2: nother story, but I'll touch it on it for just
Speaker 2: a second. At the time, you had to have battalion-level
Speaker 2: approval to call CAFs. We had a great team leader
Speaker 2: who knew the rules, and there is a caveat to that.
Speaker 2: During the infill of an operation, when they know you're vulnerable,
Speaker 2: you do not have to call battalion for approval, and
Speaker 2: you could immediately call CAFs from the ground. That's exactly
Speaker 2: what he did. If he wouldn't have done that, we'd
Speaker 2: have had a bunch of shot-up birds that night. So
Speaker 2: he does that. we quell that. There's just these pockets
Speaker 2: as we move, pockets and pockets and pockets. And most
Speaker 2: of them were really from the sides of the mountain.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't a whole lot of like close, you know,
Speaker 2: personal type combat. But the type of combat that is,
Speaker 2: it's great and it's great for numbers because really just
Speaker 2: by you being in the valley is what stirs them up,
Speaker 2: you know, on these mountain sides and there's air support
Speaker 2: comes in and crushes them. Well, the very first one
Speaker 2: that we called air support on was way up there.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't on it, but we asked a couple
Speaker 2: guys to go up there and do a BDA on that.
Speaker 2: It took them hours to crawl up this mountain to
Speaker 2: get to that BDA site. But when they did, what
Speaker 2: we found were guys in ACUs and they were foreign fighters.
Speaker 1: Holy shit.
Speaker 2: And we found them all through the valley. Long story short,
Speaker 2: by the time we get done with this valley and
Speaker 2: get home, the guys who didn't want us even going
Speaker 2: on the mission were giving us all sorts of kudos
Speaker 2: and praises for one of the, for the, you know, the,
Speaker 2: the biggest noble operations, you know, that, that we took
Speaker 2: on and they didn't even want us to go. Um, our,
Speaker 2: our captain, as soon as we get home, gets home, uh, gets, gets, um, uh,
Speaker 2: where do I want to like, um, Temporarily fired or
Speaker 2: we'll see if he's fired because the siege of sort
Speaker 2: of commander wanted him on his on the carpet like
Speaker 2: now because he heard that he didn't use the right
Speaker 2: protocol for calling in Cass and he called in Cass.
Speaker 2: without a battalion level approval and he sat there in
Speaker 2: Bagram for like a week and then he sees the
Speaker 2: Siege Assault of Commander tells the story and goes oh
Speaker 2: I didn't know it was during infill you're good and
Speaker 2: sends him back to the team while Fortunately for us,
Speaker 2: while we're running amok for another solid week without our
Speaker 2: team leader, I'm going on some great missions. But they
Speaker 2: didn't deserve that. And again, that deployment was really one
Speaker 2: of the moments that truly spurred me to say, and
Speaker 2: as great as that deployment was, we got to save
Speaker 2: those guys. When we got back to their camp, they
Speaker 2: all gave us the biggest hug. And they're like, man,
Speaker 2: thank you for saving our lives. We don't think we
Speaker 2: were going home without you. Like you really feel like
Speaker 2: you did something worthwhile. But there was a reoccurring theme
Speaker 2: that deployment, which was this. Con ops had gotten crazy
Speaker 2: to 20 and 30 pages. It was getting increasingly harder
Speaker 2: to fight. You feel like you're fighting the enemy and
Speaker 2: the SOTIF and Siege of SOTIF trying to get out
Speaker 2: the door. if the enemy could move, as long as
Speaker 2: the enemy moved every night, then he was moving faster than, than,
Speaker 2: than we could keep up with because that con up
Speaker 2: that was approved was, was for this location. Um, it got,
Speaker 2: it got really disheartening.
Speaker 1: I mean, what a, what a ridiculous, what a, what
Speaker 1: a ridiculous situation that you have soldiers on the ground
Speaker 1: there who are telling you, Hey, we're getting hit every night,
Speaker 1: but higher is saying, well, we don't have it on SIGINT.
Speaker 1: So I guess it's not happening.
Speaker 2: It, The whole thing at a battalion and higher level,
Speaker 2: not just within SF and within the military, really just
Speaker 2: kind of started to disgust me. And if we weren't
Speaker 2: there with such a solid team of good dudes who
Speaker 2: were just willing to do whatever it took to get
Speaker 2: out the wire, they really didn't have a good attitude,
Speaker 2: generally speaking. They're like, okay, fine. You want 20 pages?
Speaker 2: If that's what it takes to get out of the wire,
Speaker 2: I'll give you 20 pages. You want 30 pages? Then
Speaker 2: we'll get really efficient at writing 30 pages and we'll
Speaker 2: get out of the wire. They were just a really
Speaker 2: good team when it came to that that really could
Speaker 2: have crushed other teams and did. And it did. What
Speaker 2: year was this?
Speaker 3: Do you remember? Roughly?
Speaker 2: 2009. 2009?
Speaker 1: This is about McChrystal years.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Because I remember talking to, um, 10 or 10, 2009, 2010.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember talking to, uh, an SF soldier sometime in
Speaker 3: like in the Oh eight to Oh nine timeframe. And
Speaker 3: he said that if they were on target and they
Speaker 3: fired their weapon, there would be a fifth. They had
Speaker 3: to fill out a 15, six dash six. Like the,
Speaker 3: that it just got so ridiculous for a while. Um, yeah.
Speaker 2: And, and, I don't mind if the war warrants that.
Speaker 2: If we're making results and we just don't need American
Speaker 2: cowboys going on target just to spike the football every night,
Speaker 2: I get that. As a younger soldier, I would have
Speaker 2: never said that. I'd be like, as long as we're here,
Speaker 2: we need to be out on target. I did get
Speaker 2: a little bit older and wiser, but we weren't there yet.
Speaker 2: I think the biggest... problem that i saw was ground
Speaker 2: guys were reporting ground truth right i saw it firsthand
Speaker 2: that those reports we had these like green yellow and
Speaker 2: red reports about how they're doing planning wise how they're
Speaker 2: doing logistically how they're how you know how their uh
Speaker 2: how their training is going And we generally gave him
Speaker 2: yellows and reds across the board, yet when you see
Speaker 2: a polished product later up at a Siege of Sotus
Speaker 2: level looking like everything's rosy, well, that's not what we said.
Speaker 3: Right. It's always– and not to disparage military intelligence because–
Speaker 3: there are a lot of two shops or a lot
Speaker 3: of human, like there's a lot of good work in
Speaker 3: the Intel, but there's also a lot of bureaucracy, bureaucracy
Speaker 3: there where when guys like, like you were talking about
Speaker 3: these guys, but when guys are on the ground are
Speaker 3: reporting what's going on and then you have, you know,
Speaker 3: two shops, you know, Intel shops going, no, we don't
Speaker 3: have any intelligence to support us. Like, well, there's your
Speaker 3: fucking intelligence. Like, why do you think your product is,
Speaker 3: supersedes what these guys on the ground are telling you.
Speaker 2: And that's part of unit history right there. There's been
Speaker 2: a disconnect for a while. You can go all the
Speaker 2: way back to... I'll get close, but Operation Anaconda in 2003?
Speaker 2: Someone help me out on that, but it's got to
Speaker 2: be close to that. Early war, where... These ground units
Speaker 2: are saying, hey, there's a major collection of enemy personnel
Speaker 2: in this area. And higher-ups going, nope, we sent over
Speaker 2: ISR over there. Didn't see anything. And go, no, they're there.
Speaker 2: And say, nope, we sent ISR over again. There's nothing there.
Speaker 2: And then it took unit AFO troops to go up
Speaker 2: there in twos and threes and live on the side
Speaker 2: of a mountain for a few days and go– Holy crap.
Speaker 2: This place is crawling with people. And, and even then,
Speaker 2: like them kind of be like, well, we don't really
Speaker 2: see it on, on ISR. That's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: Operation Anaconda was such a debacle over relying on, on,
Speaker 2: on ISR and not guiding the ground.
Speaker 1: We, we jumped forward a little bit. You had talked
Speaker 1: about that before this deployment, you had also, you'd gone
Speaker 1: to selection beforehand and, Can you talk to us a
Speaker 1: little bit about, um, when the idea of going to
Speaker 1: trying out for the unit came about into your mind
Speaker 1: and then like going to selection?
Speaker 2: Uh, no, because I failed selection the first time. I
Speaker 2: don't talk about my failures. Uh, the, uh, going to
Speaker 2: selection the, uh, the, the first time, um, goes, goes
Speaker 2: back to the, you know, the adage of, I didn't
Speaker 2: want to, I didn't want to be done with my
Speaker 2: military career. Not that I was thinking of retiring or
Speaker 2: being done at any time real soon at that point.
Speaker 2: But at this point in my career, I felt like,
Speaker 2: you know, I went into the military, you know, check. I,
Speaker 2: you know, I became a green beret because, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, being in the regular military was, wasn't enough.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, Hey, There was a small
Speaker 2: group of guys within SF that I thought were even better.
Speaker 2: And going to a dive team, check. I continued to
Speaker 2: push myself and make it. I wanted to go to
Speaker 2: war real bad. I went to war several times and
Speaker 2: I felt like I was really good at it. Check.
Speaker 2: I'm continuing to look for challenges, meet them. And there's
Speaker 2: a couple of things going on. One, I wanted to
Speaker 2: see how far I could go. I didn't think I
Speaker 2: was the best guy on my team. And that's why
Speaker 2: I needed to go to selection because you can't soar
Speaker 2: with eagles when you're hanging around buzzards. It was nothing
Speaker 2: like that. And in fact, I was probably the third
Speaker 2: best guy on my team. I wasn't even the best
Speaker 2: guy on my ODA. But I was the only guy
Speaker 2: that went to selection and I, I did, I never
Speaker 2: told anyone this, but I did get tired of hearing
Speaker 2: a lot of people train up for selection and, you know,
Speaker 2: going to sniper school, you know, and going to this
Speaker 2: school and, you know, uh, like, um, and always like, uh,
Speaker 2: collecting this, this, this perfect packet to go to selection with.
Speaker 2: Cause they're, cause they're going to go to CAG, but they,
Speaker 2: they forgot that. the most important part of the process,
Speaker 2: which was going to selection. And so it's had a
Speaker 2: lot of people talk about it, but never do it.
Speaker 2: And so there's a lot of, and I knew even
Speaker 2: before that deployment, handwriting was on the wall, deployments are
Speaker 2: going to go away. Iraq was already starting to go
Speaker 2: away at that time. You know, there were rumors of,
Speaker 2: you know, of Afghanistan combat operations beginning to get questioned
Speaker 2: and put into halt. and I wasn't done deploying and
Speaker 2: I knew I could go to one other place and,
Speaker 2: and hopefully, you know, continue to deploy and maybe even
Speaker 2: deploy the rest of my career. So you kind of
Speaker 2: take that, that whole, you know, that whole mound of evidence.
Speaker 2: And that's what, that's what drove me to go to selection.
Speaker 1: So took two shots, which is not abnormal at all.
Speaker 2: Right. And in fact, I don't like, I like calling
Speaker 2: the first one a recce. So the first one, the
Speaker 2: first one was a recce. Um, and I made it
Speaker 2: really far. Like I made it, uh, like the only
Speaker 2: thing I didn't do was the 40 miler. And it
Speaker 2: was definitely one of those things where you show up,
Speaker 2: you know, and even though, um, you know, as an ODA,
Speaker 2: you don't have this, like, yeah, I never felt this weird, uh, oh,
Speaker 2: we're just 20th group. You know, like our ODAs always thought,
Speaker 2: you know, had a, had, had nothing but, knew they
Speaker 2: were good. And if you questioned it, we're more than
Speaker 2: willing to prove it to you. So I'd never really
Speaker 2: had this in my career, this, Oh, I'm just 20th
Speaker 2: group until I showed up to selection. And I don't know,
Speaker 2: it was just a bunch of really big guys and
Speaker 2: you know, guys telling all these crazy stories and like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe, you know, maybe, maybe I am
Speaker 2: out of, out of my league a little bit. And
Speaker 2: then just slowly, you know, the days go by and
Speaker 2: the days go by and the class gets smaller and
Speaker 2: smaller and you're still here. And all those big loudmouth guys,
Speaker 2: you know, didn't make time standard this day and that day.
Speaker 2: And really by the end of it, it's probably a
Speaker 2: dramatic way to say it. But you kind of know,
Speaker 2: you know, on 300, like they get to the end
Speaker 2: of it and they're like, we actually might win this thing.
Speaker 2: You know, they kind of thought it was a suicide
Speaker 2: mission and then they think they actually could pull it off. Um,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like how I started the field. Like
Speaker 2: actually I, you know, I'm looking at everyone around me
Speaker 2: and I'm just as good as, as, as anyone here. Um,
Speaker 2: I can, I can make this thing. Um, and as
Speaker 2: soon as I, about as time I started feeling like that, uh,
Speaker 2: I got cut. Um, and, uh, which was the very
Speaker 2: end of it. And I remember going to the, um,
Speaker 2: I won't talk about the, uh, we'll, we'll just, I got,
Speaker 2: we'll just say this. I got interviewed at, at, at
Speaker 2: the end. And, uh, the, the interviewer was like, um, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just, just not gonna, no, I'm not gonna talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Did, did you, did you get good feedback as, in
Speaker 3: terms of what you could improve if you came back?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Uh, I, I, um, I'll, I'll try, I, I do,
Speaker 2: I don't mind coming on podcasts and I don't mind,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, you know, talk about the unit and stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, Uh, selection, you know, selection is sacred.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We get it.
Speaker 2: There's, and there's some things I will talk about. Um,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I, I was, yeah, I was able to
Speaker 2: talk to him at the end. He did ask me
Speaker 2: some questions. Um, I'm afraid if I go into it,
Speaker 2: I'll end up giving someone some answers.
Speaker 1: But they, but they did welcome you to come back again,
Speaker 1: try out again.
Speaker 2: Yes. He, he, he asked me, he asked me how
Speaker 2: I did. I told him I thought I did. Um,
Speaker 2: I thought I did pretty well. And then he, he
Speaker 2: laughed at me because he said, well, you're, you're sitting here.
Speaker 2: You must not have done that well. And I was like, ouch.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's pretty much true. We, we had a, uh, we
Speaker 2: had a lively conversation after that. And, uh, I must've
Speaker 2: said something right to, uh, to let them have pity
Speaker 2: on me and, uh, bring me back for a second try.
Speaker 2: And so, uh, I went, went deployed, uh, came, came back,
Speaker 2: came back again and was, uh, was, was just, and
Speaker 2: I truly mean this. I got just lucky enough to, to,
Speaker 2: to get through the process. Yes. I trained for a
Speaker 2: lot of guys did, you know, I was, I was
Speaker 2: in the top third, you know, of the class whenever
Speaker 2: we did anything, you know, I mean, I know physically
Speaker 2: I deserve to be there. So, you know, why do
Speaker 2: I feel lucky? because there are guys that were way
Speaker 2: ahead of me and always ahead of me and, and
Speaker 2: didn't make it. You know, it's just, it's a weird, it's,
Speaker 2: it's a weird process that has, that has a, a
Speaker 2: weird way of working, of working things out. And there's,
Speaker 2: there's a saying that didn't make a whole lot of
Speaker 2: sense at the beginning. And, and they'd say, Hey, we're
Speaker 2: not looking for the best guy. We're looking for the
Speaker 2: right guy. And I remember thinking to myself, wouldn't the
Speaker 2: best guy be the right guy? Kind of doesn't make
Speaker 2: a whole lot of sense. And again, just the longer
Speaker 2: I was there, the truer that saying rang out was,
Speaker 2: it's not the best guy, it's the right guy. So
Speaker 2: I was just, again, lucky enough to be the right guy.
Speaker 1: So you get picked up and then off to OTC.
Speaker 1: And I mean, what was that experience like for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, did you enjoy the training there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell you, I will tell you this about
Speaker 2: selection because it'll roll into OTC as well. Selection, bar none,
Speaker 2: I don't care where you've been, what you've done is
Speaker 2: the most professional thing you will ever witness. And, you know,
Speaker 2: I wish I could kind of go into detail and
Speaker 2: tell you like what, you know, how professional it is
Speaker 2: and how it'll blow your mind. But I'll just leave
Speaker 2: it at that. It is, it is the most professional
Speaker 2: thing you'll, you'll ever experienced. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: you ever, you know, ever had this experience where you
Speaker 2: go to a military school and things are there, they're run. Okay.
Speaker 2: But the list little discombobulated and, you know, it makes
Speaker 2: you feel at one point, like, is this your guy's
Speaker 2: first time ever running this course?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Are you just making this up as you go along?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You got to have this figured out by now
Speaker 2: that happens zero times ever in West Virginia. It is
Speaker 2: the most professional thing you will ever. It's so professional.
Speaker 2: We've had guys quit before because they saw the level
Speaker 2: of professionalism in a course and just said, I'm not
Speaker 2: that professional. I can't be this professional and I can't
Speaker 2: meet this standard and select themselves off the professionalism of it.
Speaker 2: So I'll absolutely say that the unit and selection deserves
Speaker 2: that credit. And to be known for that. And OTC
Speaker 2: was still professional. I say not as professionals. You know,
Speaker 2: they it you messing up an OTC on a CQB
Speaker 2: run and there will be a large muscular man yelling
Speaker 2: at you from the catwalk, you know, letting you know
Speaker 2: how much you suck and how much you probably don't
Speaker 2: deserve to be here. And, you know, it is up
Speaker 2: to you to deal with that information and react accordingly.
Speaker 2: The two things that they gave me were this. I
Speaker 2: felt challenged and I felt like the, you know, the
Speaker 2: skill set that I was acquiring and the resources required to,
Speaker 2: you know, needed to develop this type of skill set we're,
Speaker 2: we're finally there. Like, um, it just, it's, it's like,
Speaker 2: it's like being in a tactical Disney world. I mean,
Speaker 2: just everything's at, at your fingertips. If you need it,
Speaker 2: you'll get it. Um, it's without a doubt, the most
Speaker 2: amazing place I've ever worked. And I almost feel bad
Speaker 2: sometimes telling people like, how great I had it because
Speaker 2: even though special operations and as a whole, generally speaking,
Speaker 2: you know, have, have money and they have equipment, but
Speaker 2: very few people really know what it's like to never
Speaker 2: want for anything.
Speaker 1: So what was it like, what was it like when
Speaker 1: you graduated and showed up to your team and walk
Speaker 1: into their team room that first day?
Speaker 2: Um, I, I knew this, I knew when, um, when
Speaker 2: I graduated OTC, it's one of the few times in
Speaker 2: life where I feel like I took a moment and
Speaker 2: thought to myself, hey, remember this. This may be the
Speaker 2: greatest accomplishment of your life. I know maybe that even
Speaker 2: sounds dramatic, but at least I felt aware enough to
Speaker 2: know that this is something few people actually get to do.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, even if you make
Speaker 2: selection but you don't make OTC, You did something great
Speaker 2: that still very few people do, but it's not, you
Speaker 2: don't feel good about not making it. Um, uh, and I,
Speaker 2: but I knew at that point, even if they fired
Speaker 2: me in six months, I was an operator and I,
Speaker 2: you know, and I did, you know, I did this,
Speaker 2: I accomplished this. I was good enough. I, you know, and,
Speaker 2: and one of the very, uh, I'm in a part
Speaker 2: of one of the smallest brotherhoods and all of the military.
Speaker 2: And I enjoyed that moment. And then, of course, when
Speaker 2: the realization of getting into your team room and that
Speaker 2: what you thought was pretty good CQB, my first team
Speaker 2: leader who did not hand out compliments ever to anyone, um,
Speaker 2: kind of let it slip that I graduated number one
Speaker 2: in CQB, which I knew I, I knew I was
Speaker 2: doing pretty good at this EQB, but he was letting
Speaker 2: me know, he goes, uh, so you think, you think
Speaker 2: you're good just because you graduated number one in CQB? What's,
Speaker 2: it's not going to be fast enough here. And, uh,
Speaker 2: and I looked at him and go, So I graduated
Speaker 2: number one in CQB. I remember going like, no, that's
Speaker 2: not what this is about. Forget that. That's not a compliment.
Speaker 2: It's nothing.
Speaker 3: I heard it.
Speaker 2: I heard you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Number one in CQB.
Speaker 3: No big deal.
Speaker 2: But he was absolutely. but yeah but uh he was
Speaker 2: absolutely right man you you get over there and those
Speaker 2: and they and they'll tell you this is usually a
Speaker 2: pretty similar experience they'll go to the the shoot house
Speaker 2: for the first the first couple you know the first
Speaker 2: couple days and at least the first day the first
Speaker 2: couple runs they'll tell you hey just hang out in
Speaker 2: the back and don't try to shoot anything and that's
Speaker 2: and uh and those and I'll always remember those first
Speaker 2: few runs going, Ooh, yeah, that's, that's going to be
Speaker 2: tough to keep up with. You know, uh, I, I
Speaker 2: didn't feel like I didn't belong, but I knew that
Speaker 2: I was about to get challenged again. And it, and
Speaker 2: it was just, it was just another good feeling knowing that,
Speaker 2: because it happens sometimes in our careers in special operations
Speaker 2: where you make it to something and you're like, no,
Speaker 2: it's good. And it's, I mean, it's really good, but
Speaker 2: it's not exactly everything I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2: You know, you have those moments. Um, and you know
Speaker 2: that the, the unit just never really gave me that moment.
Speaker 2: I was, yeah, it is what you think it is.
Speaker 1: It must be like on one hand as a new guy,
Speaker 1: a little intimidating, but at the same time, you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm with like the absolute top notch guys. I mean,
Speaker 1: it must be awesome to be around that kind of talent.
Speaker 2: It, um, That particular team leader loved his team to
Speaker 2: have a lot of confidence, but to back it up
Speaker 2: as well. I remember my first deployment going over there
Speaker 2: with those guys. I have more than enough experience underneath
Speaker 2: my belt of combat experience, but There's always this, when
Speaker 2: you're on the white side, again, it's kind of like
Speaker 2: National Guard and 20th Group. You know guys that went there,
Speaker 2: but once they go over there, they go into a
Speaker 2: black hole and you never talk to them again. You
Speaker 2: hear rumors of what goes on over there, but no
Speaker 2: one really knows. You hear that their target sets are
Speaker 2: so much livelier. And, you know, when they go on target,
Speaker 2: you know, it's always, it's always, uh, it's always a
Speaker 2: lively night and you just hear these, these stories. And so, um,
Speaker 2: you know, I was a little bit, you know, didn't
Speaker 2: know what to think of the unknown, you know, on,
Speaker 2: on my first deployment, but I do remember, you know,
Speaker 2: being next to those guys and after, you know, running
Speaker 2: through the shoe house with them and, um, watching them
Speaker 2: in mission planning and decision-making and just how they carried
Speaker 2: themselves day in and day out and how well they
Speaker 2: knew their job. I remember getting on a helicopter going,
Speaker 2: I'm good. I'm with these guys. I'm good. And still
Speaker 2: feeling like I can contribute with these guys, but still
Speaker 2: knowing these guys are going to take us home.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's what they did. And man, that's what they did. Those, those,
Speaker 2: those guys were exactly who I thought they were. Uh,
Speaker 2: as soon as we got into combat, they were great.
Speaker 2: Just can't say enough good things about them.
Speaker 1: And so at this point, I mean, you're, you're off
Speaker 1: to the races. You did another, another eight deployments to
Speaker 1: the middle East. Um, and I mean, what, what would, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what, what you're comfortable talking about.
Speaker 1: I mean, are there any particular operations that stand out
Speaker 1: in your mind or any particular experiences that you think are, uh,
Speaker 1: significant either to you personally or, or maybe to the
Speaker 1: history of, of special operations, frankly.
Speaker 2: I could have done without getting shot.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 2: Stands out. I was, I was running pretty clean there for, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, probably going into almost double digit deployments and, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, everyone on my team had a purple heart. And, uh,
Speaker 2: but then I, I do remember, uh, Um, I'll, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll say this about the night I got, I got shot.
Speaker 2: I was, I was getting more, um, more aggressive and
Speaker 2: more aggressive, you know, and things that, that I, I probably,
Speaker 2: I knew they weren't like flagrant, but I knew that
Speaker 2: I probably shouldn't have been doing business that way and
Speaker 2: that there was probably a smarter way to do business. But,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not like I just, you know, turned
Speaker 2: into like an aggressive retard. Like I just, I'd slowly
Speaker 2: continue to go down this, you know, this, this path
Speaker 2: and got away with it and then got away with it,
Speaker 2: you know, and even, you know, a couple of times, like,
Speaker 2: you know, got to kill, you know, some people that I,
Speaker 2: that I wouldn't have been in a good position to
Speaker 2: kill otherwise. And so it, you know, kind of reinforces that, Hey,
Speaker 2: just the most aggressive guy, the fastest guy wins and
Speaker 2: always wins. And that's just how it is. Um, And
Speaker 2: that is true 99% of the times. And you, you,
Speaker 2: you play like that long enough. You, you will roll
Speaker 2: snake eyes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, and, and, and I rolled snake eyes one night,
Speaker 2: way too close, way too far, you know, on squatter patrol,
Speaker 2: squatter control, you know, a click away out from the
Speaker 2: rest of the assault element, continuing to engage a guy,
Speaker 2: engage guys and get drawn further and further out. And
Speaker 2: even knowing that and being like, Hey, we're, you know, there's,
Speaker 2: you know, we just got away with that last one
Speaker 2: and there's, there's more people, you know, behind, you know,
Speaker 2: in this next group, I probably shouldn't go that far
Speaker 2: and I should probably, you know, plus up another operator
Speaker 2: or two, you know, if, if we're going to do that, uh,
Speaker 2: and then just going, nah, we got this. Uh, and, uh, and, and,
Speaker 2: and we did not. So I got shot. Our combo
Speaker 2: guy that was with us got shot. I got hit
Speaker 2: by a grenade about five seconds later after getting shot.
Speaker 2: Another round skipped off and shot my nods in half.
Speaker 2: So my panos were dangling on my face. Just shot
Speaker 2: up and in a really bad way and really lucky
Speaker 2: to get out of there. But we did. And it, it,
Speaker 2: it didn't, it didn't change me to, to, um, to
Speaker 2: being like hesitant or scared. Uh, I truly think it, it,
Speaker 2: it reset me to exactly where, where I needed to be. Right. Um, I,
Speaker 2: I don't think I would have ever operated scared. It's
Speaker 2: just not who I am. I, if, if I think
Speaker 2: I couldn't have got out of that, I don't, I
Speaker 2: don't just medically retired at that point. I just, you know,
Speaker 2: that's just not. how I'm cut. So I either just
Speaker 2: would have been like, well, I lost it and it's
Speaker 2: not for me. But, uh, you know, the whole time
Speaker 2: that I was in rehab, I could not wait to
Speaker 2: get back on the battlefield. I couldn't wait. Um, I don't,
Speaker 2: I know it sounds maybe weird to some people, but
Speaker 2: I couldn't wait to kill someone again and to prove like, Hey,
Speaker 2: that's not how my career ends. There's no way that,
Speaker 2: you know, I felt like my career would ended on
Speaker 2: a mistake. So I worked As hard as I possibly
Speaker 2: could to get back out there and then to, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, validate myself still. I don't know the
Speaker 2: right way to kind of describe it. But that small reset,
Speaker 2: if I would have continued on that path, I would
Speaker 2: have died in Syria.
Speaker 3: 100%.
Speaker 2: That Syria was such a different game. You think you
Speaker 2: know IEDs, you know, in Afghanistan. Yeah. you don't, you
Speaker 2: don't know what it's like until ISIS retreats from a
Speaker 2: village and leaves about 3000 IEDs everywhere on every road,
Speaker 2: on every courtyard, in the walls of houses, puts them
Speaker 2: on timers, puts them on IR trip devices, just an
Speaker 2: absolute IED debacle. Um, and, and they were more than,
Speaker 2: and they were smart. Like they were, they were more
Speaker 2: than willing to, uh, to, um, use your grip, your
Speaker 2: aggressiveness against you and pull you into situations, uh, only to,
Speaker 2: only to find out too late. Uh, yeah, we may have,
Speaker 2: that that's, that's what they wanted us to do.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Um, this really was, uh, a formidable enemy and, and
Speaker 2: some aspects, um, and in other aspects, they're, they're just
Speaker 2: dumb terrorists like the rest of them. So they're, they're
Speaker 2: definitely a dynamic there with ISIS, but I hate, man,
Speaker 2: I really did. I, I really hated ISIS. on a,
Speaker 2: on a level that at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I kind of respected the Taliban after operating in Iraq,
Speaker 2: guys in Iraq were just so quick to, to surrender,
Speaker 2: you know, at times and just, and just take their,
Speaker 2: take their chances with the judicial system. At least in,
Speaker 2: at least in Afghanistan, generally speaking, they were willing to
Speaker 2: fight it out with you. And it was almost more
Speaker 2: like a tribal war as well. Like, I don't know, again,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to sit here and give too much,
Speaker 2: too much respect and credence to the Taliban as if
Speaker 2: there's some sort of legitimate government, you know, fighting for
Speaker 2: their existence and they're, they're, they're horrible people, but compared
Speaker 2: to ISIS, uh, they, you know, I, I can, I
Speaker 2: view them in two, two different categories.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Taliban wasn't so much into like the flagrant war
Speaker 1: crimes and stuff like that, that ISIS was.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, they, they had it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: They were, they were capable of it, but they, they, the,
Speaker 2: the amount when ISIS was willing to do it, they
Speaker 2: were willing to do it often and do it on
Speaker 2: a very large scale.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: And, uh, and they were, and they were willing to
Speaker 2: do it, you know, to kids as, as much as anyone.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They were, they were just, they were just a different
Speaker 2: breed of evil. And I, I, I remember, you know, seeing,
Speaker 2: You know, seeing ISIS dead bodies, just looking down on
Speaker 2: them with absolutely no remorse or no, you know, in
Speaker 2: struggle going, man, that was someone's son. You know, that
Speaker 2: was someone's father. But just looking at them and absolutely
Speaker 2: not caring and being like, that's just a two-legged dog.
Speaker 2: You know, wish there were more next to him. I
Speaker 2: just really disliked them on another level.
Speaker 1: Could we talk a little bit more about Assyria? Because
Speaker 1: you mentioned that that was like a totally different environment.
Speaker 1: And you guys presumably working with the SDF. And was
Speaker 1: it more of like a UW environment than some of
Speaker 1: the other deployments?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell you, that was an SF mission all
Speaker 2: day long. That was an SF mission. We had... way
Speaker 2: too few guys doing way too much. Um, you know,
Speaker 2: and for people who really aren't set up to partner with, with,
Speaker 2: with other units, um, it, and I will tell you
Speaker 2: why SF didn't get that mission and they wanted it.
Speaker 2: Fifth group wanted it so bad. In fact, there was
Speaker 2: a plan to give it over to them. Uh, when
Speaker 2: we got to Raka, we were going to hand it
Speaker 2: over to them. Um, and then cooler minds prevailed. So
Speaker 2: I was like, it's a horrible idea. Like that's like,
Speaker 2: It's like handing it over at halftime. They either take
Speaker 2: it over now or they don't take it at all.
Speaker 2: Don't turn it over to them right as they're getting
Speaker 2: to the climax and you need to be a well-oiled
Speaker 2: machine fighting their capital at the most and then give
Speaker 2: it to a new guy to figure out all their
Speaker 2: initial problems. The reason... SF didn't get it is because SF,
Speaker 2: the same reason I started to not like SF at
Speaker 2: the end, they quit trusting their ground guys. They required
Speaker 2: too much, um, oversight and that, that war was going
Speaker 2: too fast. If you, if to slow them down with
Speaker 2: the protocols that, that they would inevitably do. Um, so, uh,
Speaker 2: the unit does a great job at trusting their ground
Speaker 2: guys that, you know, they, you know, I never, never
Speaker 2: had an issue, uh, you know, being questioned or asking
Speaker 2: why am I doing this or why do I need that?
Speaker 2: I just tell them what I'm doing and I tell
Speaker 2: them what I need. And, uh, you know, and, and
Speaker 2: if you don't give them a reason, you know, to, to, uh,
Speaker 2: to question you, they, they, they, they never will. Um,
Speaker 2: and so the, my first trip was very, was very
Speaker 2: unique because it was, it was still, I wouldn't even
Speaker 2: call it UW. Like it was, it was, it was
Speaker 2: closer to, to World War II. Like, you know, we had,
Speaker 2: you had friendly lines, you had enemy lines and there was,
Speaker 2: there was, there was, there was no in between, you know, and,
Speaker 2: and even weirder than that at times, it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, we called it a banker's war. Like no one,
Speaker 2: no one fought at night. They didn't, they didn't have
Speaker 2: night vision, you know? So, you know, when the sun
Speaker 2: came up and everyone woke up and, and, and ate
Speaker 2: some breakfast, they started lobbing mortars, you know, and right
Speaker 2: before dinnertime, when everyone got hungry, they, you know, they,
Speaker 2: they packed it up and, and, uh, you know, and,
Speaker 2: and waited for the sun to come back up. Um, that's, yes,
Speaker 2: that's a little bit of a, you know, satire way to,
Speaker 2: to describe it. Cause it was very unlike that at times,
Speaker 2: but there is, there, there is a lot of truth, uh,
Speaker 2: to that as well. Um, there were times, you know,
Speaker 2: if you were to, you know, have a fire or,
Speaker 2: or even allow generator, like it would, it would, it
Speaker 2: would get you some, some mortar rounds at night. I mean, they,
Speaker 2: they would come out and play at night if you
Speaker 2: gave them a reason to, but generally speaking, if you
Speaker 2: didn't give them a reason to, um, they were just,
Speaker 2: it was just a very much a, um, this was
Speaker 2: a good side. This was the bad side. They're in
Speaker 2: this village. We're in this village. There's, two cliques of
Speaker 2: open ground between the two villages, and we're going to
Speaker 2: fight it out to see who's either going to lose
Speaker 2: this village or gain this village. And for us as
Speaker 2: a sniper, it really pushed us to lean heavily into
Speaker 2: what we started to call at the time ELR, extreme
Speaker 2: long range, because everything at the time was 800 meters
Speaker 2: and in, 800 meters if you're lucky with a. 308. Well,
Speaker 2: 308 wasn't going to do anything from 2,000 meters away,
Speaker 2: but that's where our engagements are. And so now we've
Speaker 2: always had 338s, but we never really dusted them off
Speaker 2: and used them with a lot of, you know, extremely
Speaker 2: at these engagements. And now, you know, we're finding out,
Speaker 2: you know, the way we use our, yeah, I would
Speaker 2: have a tripod that, and a, you know, and a
Speaker 2: pillow for my, uh, for my laser range finder, like
Speaker 2: things that I've never had to do before, but, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I would, I would have a $ 3, 000 really
Speaker 2: right stuff tripod just, just for my laser range finder
Speaker 2: because comes to find out, you know, at 2,200 meters away,
Speaker 2: if I'm just a little bit off, uh, and I
Speaker 2: lays the, you know, the building in front of the
Speaker 2: building I'm, I'm, you know, I'm trying to get, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm off, you know, I'm off by, by 50 meters
Speaker 2: and that 50 meters. Now my elevation is drastically different
Speaker 2: and I'm never going to hit my target at 2000 meters,
Speaker 2: even though that, you know, that three through eight is
Speaker 2: more than capable of making a 2000 meter shot. So, um,
Speaker 2: I either just excited some of your nerdy shooter audience,
Speaker 2: or I just put to sleep some of the guys
Speaker 2: who just like direct action. We learned a lot about
Speaker 2: our equipment and about our guns in Syria. It was
Speaker 2: a very, very different war.
Speaker 1: Do you find the. 338, once you guys dialed it in,
Speaker 1: that you guys were pretty effective using that weapons platform
Speaker 1: at those ranges?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that. 338. trade was great. It was, uh, the,
Speaker 2: the one thing that we w we would go back
Speaker 2: and forth is when you get over 2000 meters, the
Speaker 2: problem we'd run into is spotting your misses. Even though
Speaker 2: you think the 338 is, is a, is a large
Speaker 2: round and man, it, it, it is. Um, but you
Speaker 2: can easily not see a miss at 2000 meters. Um,
Speaker 2: and if you can't see your minutes, then you can
Speaker 2: keep throwing all you want, but now you're just, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to get lucky. And even though the 50 cal
Speaker 2: is not as accurate as a three, three, eight, at
Speaker 2: least you can see your misses. And it's, you know,
Speaker 2: especially if you put like a roughest round, you know,
Speaker 2: inside there, you can, you know, you can seeing your,
Speaker 2: your misses in that environment becomes a lot easier. And
Speaker 2: even though it's not as accurate, you know, I, I
Speaker 2: at least can, you know, can make a, an informed
Speaker 2: decision on, on a correction, which I just couldn't with
Speaker 2: a three, three, eight. Right. And did the really change
Speaker 2: the way we operated a lot from long distance?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did the reliance on the sniper platforms have to do
Speaker 1: with the air support not being as quick as it
Speaker 1: was in Afghanistan or Iraq?
Speaker 2: No, we we we were the only game in town,
Speaker 2: so we always we always got kind of got what
Speaker 2: we wanted. It has more to do with guys hanging
Speaker 2: out in windows or hanging out or being underneath structures
Speaker 2: that an aerial platform isn't really going to be able
Speaker 2: to see as well as someone from a ground level.
Speaker 3: Now, did you guys.
Speaker 2: And if I called in an airstrike, I really have
Speaker 2: a hard time saying that's my kill. So I'm at
Speaker 2: least going to try to couple throw rounds at it
Speaker 2: before I call in an airstrike. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, between the 338 and the 50, did you guys
Speaker 3: experiment at all with like the 300 Win Mags or
Speaker 3: anything like that, you know, for that sort of medium
Speaker 3: range type of?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the 300 Win Mag just wasn't a platform we
Speaker 2: used and no particular reason. You know, the SF groups,
Speaker 2: to my knowledge, I think are the only ones that
Speaker 2: use that 300 Win Mag. And it's a great round.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a laser round. The ballistics of that
Speaker 2: round is absolutely great. It doesn't have a great barrel
Speaker 2: life to it. And unfortunately, the SF groups purchased that
Speaker 2: and they didn't do a good job of having a
Speaker 2: kind of a barrel replacement plan. They probably had one
Speaker 2: of the great medium range or one of the best
Speaker 2: medium range long guns in the arsenal for anyone. but with, uh,
Speaker 2: most of the barrels were shot out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ended up not as, as, as great as they should
Speaker 2: have been.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Cause I know some, that's something that seals use
Speaker 3: quite a bit and, and they seem to be very
Speaker 3: happy with it.
Speaker 2: Uh, do they use a 300 as well?
Speaker 3: Uh, I, I believe so. They, they use it in
Speaker 3: their sniper school.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: So, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We didn't even, we didn't even, the only thing we
Speaker 2: even use, I went to group SOTIC and, um, uh,
Speaker 2: and level one SOTIC, um, Gosh, I got to think
Speaker 2: what's SIFSIC or SIFSIC, if you will, special forces sniper course.
Speaker 2: And we only use 308s, you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah 308 yeah not 338 308 yeah oh i said.
Speaker 1: So as uh as these deploy you know you're you're
Speaker 1: going back and forth from syria i mean how did
Speaker 1: you see the the campaign evolve over time.
Speaker 2: The the campaign was was pretty straightforward really you know
Speaker 2: even though we handed off to other squadrons you know
Speaker 2: they it was they really you know um encountered the
Speaker 2: same things we did and, and, you know, worked very similarly.
Speaker 2: So really it was just like, you know, when you
Speaker 2: come in and out, it was just, it's just picking
Speaker 2: back up where you left off. Um, I, and between,
Speaker 2: and between rotations, um, I missed the, the, uh, the fall,
Speaker 2: the fall of Raka. So I'm sure that would have
Speaker 2: been a lot different. And I'll tell you why I
Speaker 2: feel like it's a lot, it was a lot different. Um,
Speaker 2: Because when I showed up to Rocko very shortly after
Speaker 2: the fall of Rocko, I remember driving around that place
Speaker 2: at night feeling like I was at the opening of
Speaker 2: Terminator when there's just bombed out buildings just everywhere in
Speaker 2: this dark, smoky atmosphere. I've never seen damage at that
Speaker 2: scale to a city the way we leveled Rocko. We
Speaker 2: absolutely leveled Raqqa, and rightfully so.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I have to ask, too, while we have you here,
Speaker 1: I mean, did you have any involvement in the Baghdadi raid?
Speaker 2: No, that was the very first deployment I missed.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. So hit Raqqa, and what happened from there? I mean,
Speaker 1: you said that you actually went into the city at
Speaker 1: one point?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Well, from, um, uh, from there we went
Speaker 2: back into a more, uh, traditional, um, uh, high value
Speaker 2: target hunting. So the, the, the war, the traditional war
Speaker 2: is over. Um, and then that, that kicked off a
Speaker 2: much more fun part of, of Syria, uh, where we
Speaker 2: went back into quick strikes and a lot of them
Speaker 2: and had a great time. That was probably my most
Speaker 2: enjoyable trip would have been after the fall of that. And,
Speaker 2: you know, some of those guys pretending like they can
Speaker 2: just put down their guns and melt back into the
Speaker 2: population and the Kurds will just forget about them. Nope,
Speaker 2: the Kurds didn't forget about you. And they told us
Speaker 2: where we were at.
Speaker 1: And these are the, from the outside looking in, the
Speaker 1: occasional like CENTCOM press reports that somebody flew in in
Speaker 1: black helicopters in the night and hashed out business with
Speaker 1: the bad guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It happened a lot more than.
Speaker 1: The press releases.
Speaker 2: There was no need for the press to get wind
Speaker 2: of any of it.
Speaker 3: What was that like for you and, you know, your
Speaker 3: fellow soldiers in the sense of, There was, you know,
Speaker 3: the press might report on it occasionally. Like, we had
Speaker 3: just had these two very long wars, right, that were
Speaker 3: in and out of the media, but there was a
Speaker 3: national awareness about it. But then Syria comes, and it's
Speaker 3: not in the national consciousness the way these other wars are,
Speaker 3: but we have troops that are fighting, same as we
Speaker 3: do in parts of Africa and stuff. But what was
Speaker 3: that like for you guys?
Speaker 2: I welcomed it. Well, I shouldn't say I welcomed it.
Speaker 2: at the time I didn't know about it. I mean,
Speaker 2: really like, you know, when you're in that world, like
Speaker 2: I don't, if I don't know what the news is
Speaker 2: reporting on or what they're not reporting on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I live in a very, I lived in a, in
Speaker 2: a very, uh, almost in a bubble, you know, do
Speaker 2: your job, go home. You're right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do your job, go home. And when I'm home, I'm,
Speaker 2: I'm training for my next job, you know? So I don't,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't have time to listen to see what,
Speaker 2: you know, to see if the, what the news is
Speaker 2: reporting about Syria. I, you know, I, I live it
Speaker 2: in Syria. I don't, you know, the only time I
Speaker 2: would see anything on the news is someone like, you know,
Speaker 2: showed it to us and say, Hey, this is, this
Speaker 2: is what they're talking about. Um, or if something got leaked,
Speaker 2: you know, if something got leaked, we'd always, you know,
Speaker 2: we'd always know it. You know, they, they'd always, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, show it to us that something got leaked
Speaker 2: and try to, um, so like those are, those are
Speaker 2: far and few between.
Speaker 3: Would they try to like, like, scare you guys straight,
Speaker 3: find out who did it.
Speaker 2: Like, no, most, uh, most of the time, uh, those,
Speaker 2: those leaks would, uh, would have come from, um, a
Speaker 2: partner force or, um, you know, someone, um, someone at a,
Speaker 2: at a much higher level in the military that, that they,
Speaker 2: you know, they knew was way.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's not somebody in the three X or. That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's not even somewhat JSOC related. Yeah. Like it's someone
Speaker 2: that's at a theater like sitcom level that has a
Speaker 2: relationship with Fox News and leaked it. That's usually where
Speaker 2: something along those lines.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So from that time period, is there any other like
Speaker 1: significant missions that kind of stand out for you?
Speaker 2: I won't go into... great detail about it. And I
Speaker 2: don't mean to do that as a teaser, but I'll, I'll,
Speaker 2: I'll say this more or less to kind of set
Speaker 2: the record straight on it. Um, it's another thing that it's,
Speaker 2: it's funny what, what does get news traction, what doesn't
Speaker 2: get news traction. Um, what should have been a, a
Speaker 2: much bigger story and was it, and I'll talk about it.
Speaker 2: Cause like I said, you, you can Google it. Um,
Speaker 2: you know, John Dunbar, you know, dying in Syria. Um, and, uh,
Speaker 2: and Matt Tonroe, which was a British SAS guy, which
Speaker 2: was right next to him when he died, should, should
Speaker 2: have been a huge news story. You know, if you
Speaker 2: think about it, I mean, you got a Delta force
Speaker 2: guy and a British SAS guy dying on the, on
Speaker 2: the same target. When has that ever happened? You know, that's, that's, um, that, that's, uh,
Speaker 2: that was crazy. That's never happened in the history of,
Speaker 2: of either one of our, uh, of our existence yet
Speaker 2: in Syria, that was without a doubt a first. Um,
Speaker 2: But that ended up being a bigger news story in Syria,
Speaker 2: I mean, in England, because we had told our people
Speaker 2: that we obviously have ground troops and combat operations happening
Speaker 2: in Syria. They weren't as forthcoming with it, with the SAS.
Speaker 2: And so when the news hit that an SAS guy
Speaker 2: died in Syria, a lot of the public was like, whoa,
Speaker 2: what's going on here?
Speaker 3: You guys.
Speaker 2: said that we were kind of there in a support role.
Speaker 2: That doesn't seem like a support role. One of the
Speaker 2: worst misconceptions of that mission is that newspapers reported that
Speaker 2: it was fratricide that killed him.
Speaker 3: I do remember something about that.
Speaker 1: But it was an IED, wasn't it?
Speaker 2: And there is a problem with it. You use terms
Speaker 2: like IED, which you're right, but people assume like roadside
Speaker 2: bomb IEDs. Because that's what, you know, when you talk
Speaker 2: about IEDs, it's what it almost always is. We were
Speaker 2: dismounted at the time, really close to target, to a
Speaker 2: bomb maker's target. He had early warning and his... like
Speaker 2: an IED makeshift Claymore went off and John took the
Speaker 2: brunt of that, but it set off his wall charge.
Speaker 2: And his wall charge is what, is what killed Matt.
Speaker 2: And that is, and that story, you know, that story
Speaker 2: is out there, but generally speaking, it'll say, Hey, it
Speaker 2: was a fratricide and, you know, he died due to
Speaker 2: a friendly explosion. they'll, they'll say it in ways that,
Speaker 2: that are, that kind of really, um.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a sympathetic explosion.
Speaker 2: It's not jump around the truth.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like the way they say that. Cause it's, so let's,
Speaker 2: it would be like writing a story and saying, um,
Speaker 2: you know, Sergeant first class Smith died in Afghanistan due
Speaker 2: to a fuel, a gas tank explosion in his Humvee. Well,
Speaker 2: did the IED set off the gas tank explosion? Right.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: Well, but the gas tank killed him. Like that makes,
Speaker 2: you know, nowhere in the history do, do we ever,
Speaker 2: do we ever say that? I don't know the, why,
Speaker 2: why we do it here. Um, it was the direct
Speaker 2: cause of, you know, of, of direct contact with the
Speaker 2: newspaper stories were written.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's so differently that, that, that painted it insinuated differently.
Speaker 3: I just, it, it's sort of the way fact checkers
Speaker 3: work sometimes, right? Is, is they, they, I mean, technically
Speaker 3: what they're saying that it was an American explosive that
Speaker 3: killed them is true, but they're missing, but, but they're
Speaker 3: leaving out really how it all went down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's like, that's one way.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's sort of like saying that somebody who died from,
Speaker 3: you know, from enemy fire died from blood boss. It's like, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they did die from blood loss. right right yeah but
Speaker 3: that's that's so true but they didn't just start bleeding.
Speaker 2: And i could and you know the the uh i
Speaker 2: don't remember which newspaper but you know the the um
Speaker 2: In England, they did a whole investigation on it and
Speaker 2: then wrote a report saying this is the official report
Speaker 2: off of it and sent it out as official record.
Speaker 2: And again, it's technically true, but I feel like it's
Speaker 2: wildly misleading and doesn't do justice, honestly, to either one
Speaker 2: of the guys who were warriors. I mean, they were both. Truly,
Speaker 2: truly good men. I'll tell you a story just real
Speaker 2: quick about Matt Tunray was an SAS guy. That guy
Speaker 2: would he'd have to go on a helicopter every now
Speaker 2: and again and go, you know, and go visit other
Speaker 2: places where they were at. And if he found out
Speaker 2: that we were we were going on a on a
Speaker 2: mission that night. he would do everything in his power
Speaker 2: to get his helo to come in sooner or see
Speaker 2: if we would push the mission later. Cause he didn't
Speaker 2: want to miss a single target. He was absolutely addicted
Speaker 2: to going on missions. And I love that about him.
Speaker 2: Cause you know, that's, that's, that's the way you want every,
Speaker 2: every one of your guys to, you know, to be.
Speaker 2: And so just, it's very unfortunate that you know, that
Speaker 2: he lost his life in Syria and in that manner.
Speaker 2: Because he absolutely represented his unit. You couldn't do a
Speaker 2: better job of representing those guys.
Speaker 1: And so how did this start to wind down for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like you really rode this wave
Speaker 1: throughout your career, did some amazing things. and you had
Speaker 1: a great, you know, 20 years in the military. I mean, what,
Speaker 1: what was it sort of like for you? Like you,
Speaker 1: you must have some inkling that like, this is coming.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be able to be an operator forever.
Speaker 1: I mean, what was that transition like for you? Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was, I was deep in my thirties and,
Speaker 2: you know, almost, you know, a decade at the time on,
Speaker 2: on a team, um, you know, which my team time was,
Speaker 2: was coming to an end. Um, the, uh, what, what really,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of did it for me was, you know,
Speaker 2: after that, after that Syria trip, we had, we had been, uh,
Speaker 2: we were, we were doing training the way we always
Speaker 2: do training. Um, and, uh, I, I was just unfortunate
Speaker 2: enough to be close to a couple of really big
Speaker 2: kind of training explosions that, that, that just really, they,
Speaker 2: they really rocked me. Um, And unlike earlier, you know, there's,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd been near those, those size explosions before,
Speaker 2: but for whatever reason, you know, at this point in
Speaker 2: my life, you know, maybe it just finally shook something loose. Um,
Speaker 2: I was, I was having some, some, some real, some
Speaker 2: real issues. Uh, so we'd, we'd get, and, and what
Speaker 2: would happen is almost every time we'd go back to,
Speaker 2: to do an explosive training, like these, these mental issues would, would,
Speaker 2: would rear back up almost like, like, like, like a
Speaker 2: re-injury of it. Um, it would get to a point
Speaker 2: where like just simple stuff. Like I, you know, I'd
Speaker 2: have to, I would, I would write notes in my,
Speaker 2: in my locker to tell, to tell me where I
Speaker 2: parked my car because I would just go wandering out
Speaker 2: in the parking lot and looking for it. And it's
Speaker 2: a massive parking lot. And I feel like the first
Speaker 2: time it really felt odd to me because usually when
Speaker 2: you see your car, you're like, Oh, that's right. That's,
Speaker 2: that's right. That's where I parked my car. But like
Speaker 2: to see the car for the first time, be like,
Speaker 2: that's not, did someone move my car? And literally going
Speaker 2: in there and starting to accuse, you know, Hey, who
Speaker 2: moved my car? Like I was parked, you know, at
Speaker 2: the right. And like, Brent, no one moved your car.
Speaker 2: I parked right next to you. That's where you parked
Speaker 2: this morning. I'm like, Oh yeah, that's right. Um, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to play it off and, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I go on and on and on, but one of the,
Speaker 2: you know, the weirder stories is, you know, go, you know,
Speaker 2: taking the, taking the wife and kids to church and
Speaker 2: just driving. And at some point, having your wife put
Speaker 2: her hand on your hand and be like, do you
Speaker 2: know where we're going? I'm like, no. No, I don't
Speaker 2: know where we're going right now. We're all dressed up
Speaker 2: kind of nice, and so I'm going to guess we're
Speaker 2: going to church. But no, I don't know what day
Speaker 2: it is. I don't know where we're going. And I
Speaker 2: was with my wife, like, here. you're going to go
Speaker 2: talk to someone Monday or, or I will. And, uh, um,
Speaker 2: and my, my team time was, was, I was within, yeah,
Speaker 2: I had one more deployment left, you know, really. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was, um, so it was, it, it, it felt right. Yeah. And, um,
Speaker 2: I felt, I felt complete with my career. I mean,
Speaker 2: really Syria was great, man. I love Syria. Um, but
Speaker 2: when I got home from that last trip, I, I don't,
Speaker 2: you know, just something clicked. I was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: every trip I couldn't wait for the next one. And
Speaker 2: it's not that I didn't have the hunger, didn't want
Speaker 2: to deploy again, but there was a feeling of completion
Speaker 2: there that had just never been there before. So when
Speaker 2: it was all said and done, it wasn't the hardest transition.
Speaker 2: It was at first, realizing it's time. But as we
Speaker 2: started making steps towards that, I was kind of excited
Speaker 2: about the next chapter in life.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Do we have questions for Brent?
Speaker 3: We do. I just wanted to say also that air tags.
Speaker 3: I put an air tag in my car. It works wonders.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Let's see here. Jackson, thank you very much. Was attending
Speaker 3: selection for the unit more challenging than coming from guard
Speaker 3: SF is guard SF well represented in the, and also
Speaker 3: how often do you see Marines airmen and sailors at
Speaker 3: the unit?
Speaker 2: That's a good question. Um, I, I was surprised at
Speaker 2: how many other 20th group guys were there. Um, there,
Speaker 2: there was a, there was a period of time where the,
Speaker 2: the highest, uh, um, It was a short period of time,
Speaker 2: but it fluctuates. That 20th group had the best success
Speaker 2: rate at selection. So, yeah, there's definitely no shortage of,
Speaker 2: or at least at that time, you know, of guard guys.
Speaker 2: And there's, you know, there's an eclectic mix of guys
Speaker 2: in the unit. At the end of the day, it'll
Speaker 2: always be heavy with Green Berets and Rangers, but there
Speaker 2: is someone from everyone there.
Speaker 1: I'll just, you know.
Speaker 2: Leave it at that. I won't necessarily talk about the
Speaker 2: percentages of all of them, but they're all there. And
Speaker 2: they definitely all show up to selection.
Speaker 3: And Jackson, thank you very much. How different are the
Speaker 3: cultures between the squadrons?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's another good question, actually. When I first got there,
Speaker 2: the cultures were... I wouldn't say drastically different because the,
Speaker 2: the truth is if you went back a little bit
Speaker 2: further when I was there, some people would say they
Speaker 2: were drastically different. Uh, when, you know, uh, when I
Speaker 2: got there, there was, there was still, um, very, very different.
Speaker 2: They all had their, their, uh, their own personalities, uh, and,
Speaker 2: and sometimes for better or worse. Um, and, uh, by the,
Speaker 2: by the, really by the time of, uh, by the
Speaker 2: time I got to the end of my career, a
Speaker 2: lot of those, uh, I would probably say more on
Speaker 2: those negative type cultures just had pretty much all but disappeared.
Speaker 2: And even though there are still slight differences between the squadrons,
Speaker 2: it wasn't as much as it used to be.
Speaker 3: And then how did you feel about Dev Group and
Speaker 3: HRT when you were in?
Speaker 2: I didn't feel about them.
Speaker 3: Uh, Joe, who are they?
Speaker 1: I think I read a book about the second one.
Speaker 2: Um, the, uh, we had, uh, we had a lot
Speaker 2: of interaction with, uh, with the dev group guys. And, um, yeah, I've,
Speaker 2: I've done, you know, I've done, you know, large scale
Speaker 2: training exercises with them. They've, you know, they've come over
Speaker 2: and had large trail, you know, you know, send onesie
Speaker 2: onesie Tuesday guys or, or a team over to do
Speaker 2: large scale training operations to get that, uh, that crossover. Um,
Speaker 2: and we'll just say in various places around the world, I've,
Speaker 2: I've had, uh, one or two of their guys, uh,
Speaker 2: attached to us. Um, so they could get, you know,
Speaker 2: experience of where we're at. Um, and they were always
Speaker 2: good guys. They really were. They were always good guys. Um, HRT, no, no, never,
Speaker 2: never saw them. They just, you know, completely different mission set.
Speaker 2: They're generally speaking, they're CONUS, we're OCONUS. Um, There was
Speaker 2: a time we had HRT guys kind of attached to us,
Speaker 2: but when they were attached to us, they were just
Speaker 2: evidence collectors. They weren't shooters by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2: And nor could they be. They haven't gone through our
Speaker 2: level of training.
Speaker 3: Uh joe's got you thank you very much uh did
Speaker 3: you work a lot with 22 sas while deployed i
Speaker 3: think we got that yeah i think we kind of
Speaker 3: got that uh dog.
Speaker 2: Point and there there's a there's another one and i'll
Speaker 2: just tell you just a a quick story of how
Speaker 2: much respect we have with, with, uh, with the SAS,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously we were modeled after those guys. Um, they,
Speaker 2: they helped us out a lot with our tactics in
Speaker 2: the beginning. By the beginning, I mean, talking like 1977,
Speaker 2: you know, Charlie Beck with, uh, founder days and that
Speaker 2: type of, uh, relationship has, has maintained for, for 40
Speaker 2: plus years. So, um, I mean, I'll make up this,
Speaker 2: you know, this fictional scenario, but it's, but it's absolutely true.
Speaker 2: if I was in Syria and some, you know, and
Speaker 2: heck I'll make it close to him, a green beret,
Speaker 2: a green beret comes and knocks on my door and like, Hey,
Speaker 2: heard who you guys are. Just want to come over
Speaker 2: and say hi. I'd be like, uh, go walk 40
Speaker 2: miles and you can come back and say hi. You know,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, I'd say it nicer, but yeah, but generally,
Speaker 2: generally speaking, that's turn it around, bring a foreigner to
Speaker 2: my door, a guy who's not even American, but make
Speaker 2: it an SAS guy come and knock on my door
Speaker 2: and say, Hey, Yeah. Hey mate. Yeah. I'm, I'm with
Speaker 2: the two, two. I was told to come say hi.
Speaker 2: I'd open that door as fast as I could and
Speaker 2: bring them right on in.
Speaker 3: Invite him for a spot of tea. That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The, the, the relationship that the two units have are, are, are,
Speaker 2: are great. And I'll, I still talk to some of
Speaker 2: those guys. Great, great guys.
Speaker 3: Um, dog point. Thank you. Uh, what'd you like about
Speaker 3: your squadron? What was the vibe? Like any funny stories?
Speaker 2: Um, uh, there's, there's always, it doesn't matter what part
Speaker 2: of this business you're in, you know, you work with
Speaker 2: the funniest guys you've, you've ever been around, you know,
Speaker 2: and I don't care if you're a seal green beret rage,
Speaker 2: I care what you did. You're just hanging out with
Speaker 2: the funniest guys you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll ever work with. Um,
Speaker 2: The vibe in my squadron, I think, was a good
Speaker 2: middle-of-the-road vibe. We were very professional when needed to be
Speaker 2: and could kick back and relax when needed to be.
Speaker 2: I think other squadrons at times were too professional and
Speaker 2: weren't very fun to be around. Some of them were
Speaker 2: a little bit more I don't want to say cowboyish,
Speaker 2: but I don't mean to say that in a bad light.
Speaker 2: But I think we had a good balance of both.
Speaker 2: And so I really enjoyed the culture of the squadron
Speaker 2: I was in.
Speaker 3: So Goldilocks would find you guys just right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Nick TCH. Well, this is actually for Jack. Will Mike
Speaker 3: Perry ever return? Maybe.
Speaker 1: If he wants to, sure. We'd love to have him back.
Speaker 3: Mike Perry? Yeah.
Speaker 1: First group, Mike Perry.
Speaker 2: Oh, no. The bare knuckle fighter, Mike Perry.
Speaker 1: Not that Mike Perry.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Dan O'Naughton, Lions Den.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Delta Leaves the Way, Big PP, 82nd, Pugin Dragons. It
Speaker 3: was just a comment. Yeah. Okay. And then, so Joe's
Speaker 3: got you. Thank you very much. You can talk or
Speaker 3: not talk about this, obviously. Was your squadron involved at
Speaker 3: all with the battle of Kasham in 2018 against Wagner Group?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in Dar Azhar. It was a good time. Uh, there's,
Speaker 2: there's a news article about it. You can read it.
Speaker 3: Uh, dog point. Uh, thank you very much. When you
Speaker 3: went back to HVT rates at zero, was it business
Speaker 3: as usual or did you have to change it up?
Speaker 2: Ooh, um, more or less business as usual. Um, you know, the,
Speaker 2: you know, all the IDs was definitely more of a
Speaker 2: thing on, um, uh, you know, that type of, you know,
Speaker 2: gaining ground, conventional forces, they're pulling back, you know, laying
Speaker 2: them all in. They still kept, you know, the knowledge
Speaker 2: of that and some of the TTPs. But generally speaking,
Speaker 2: it was back to business as usual.
Speaker 3: And I believe that is it. So tell us about
Speaker 3: FRCC and some of the things that you're involved in now. Uh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, when, when I got out of the, uh, the military,
Speaker 2: I had to figure out what I want to do
Speaker 2: when I grow up. Um, had no real, you know,
Speaker 2: solid plans that, you know, I did a couple like, uh,
Speaker 2: 1099 gigs contracting, but all Kona stuff. I knew I
Speaker 2: didn't want to go overseas and contract, um, nothing against
Speaker 2: any of those guys who do, you know, I just,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not something that I was looking to do. Um,
Speaker 2: Had a couple of former unit guys start calling me
Speaker 2: up and be like, hey, we're training a SWAT team here.
Speaker 2: I need an extra instructor. You want to come out?
Speaker 2: I was like, that sounds, yeah, I'd love to go
Speaker 2: hang out with SWAT teams and try to transfer some
Speaker 2: of this knowledge that's really kind of very uniquely to
Speaker 2: us and kind of uniquely to SWAT teams because they
Speaker 2: deal with barricaded shooters, active shooters, things like that that
Speaker 2: would happen on our targets. And I really enjoyed sharing
Speaker 2: information with those guys. Like I really did. Like I
Speaker 2: got up, you know, I felt like I, you know,
Speaker 2: every time I went and taught those guys that I,
Speaker 2: I truly gave them the tools needed to be just
Speaker 2: as effective, if not more effective and to do business
Speaker 2: smarter to make sure that they can go home at night.
Speaker 2: And I'll never teach someone tactics where we're, we're, we're,
Speaker 2: safety is somehow in the lead of a reason for
Speaker 2: teaching a tactic, never, never, never has safety ever played
Speaker 2: a part on that's why we do this tactic. But
Speaker 2: if the effectiveness can stay 100% the same and there
Speaker 2: is the same end result that this guy dies, yet
Speaker 2: I can increase your survivability.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We'll, we'll, we'll talk about that. Um, and so, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I got to, I got to basically show
Speaker 2: those guys the lessons that we learned in blood. Like I,
Speaker 2: I really wish I could say that we're so much
Speaker 2: smarter at the unit than everyone else. And that's why
Speaker 2: our tactics are so much better. Um, we're, we're kind
Speaker 2: of smart. Um, but the unfortunate truth is we just
Speaker 2: get to see a lot more targets and we had
Speaker 2: to learn it the hard way, like everyone else does.
Speaker 2: So we just got, we just get a lot more
Speaker 2: exposure to mistakes and to, and to doing things wrong.
Speaker 2: And some of those things, to be honest with you,
Speaker 2: it took us way too long to, to, to change
Speaker 2: the way we do, we do business. So I'm really
Speaker 2: glad to be able to share that with those guys.
Speaker 2: That's something that eventually turned into me and a SEAL
Speaker 2: team six buddy and were going to start or did
Speaker 2: start the beginning of a nonprofit to raise money for
Speaker 2: police officer training. Budget is such a big deal to
Speaker 2: those guys. They have no budget. They want to train,
Speaker 2: and sometimes they can get equipment budgets, and sometimes they
Speaker 2: have more equipment than you think that they would have
Speaker 2: because of certain grants, but training doesn't come along with it. Um,
Speaker 2: and some departments don't have the necessarily equipment either. Um,
Speaker 2: so it's a, it's really a diverse, you know, um,
Speaker 2: group of people you run into in SWAT teams. Um,
Speaker 2: and I'm not talking about your, your wokeness term of, of, uh,
Speaker 2: of diverse, you know, I'm talking about just the different, um,
Speaker 2: the different experience levels, the different training, the different equipment it's,
Speaker 2: it's all over the place. So we were going to
Speaker 2: start a nonprofit. Come to find out, I don't like
Speaker 2: asking people for money. And that is a integral part
Speaker 2: of being a nonprofit. It's a key component. It's a
Speaker 2: key component to a nonprofit. So I ended up starting,
Speaker 2: you know, starting First Responders Coffee Company first. You know,
Speaker 2: I'd much rather, you know, sell things, have an exchange for,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, uh, you know, value for a product
Speaker 2: and then, you know, take, take the money we raised
Speaker 2: from that and, uh, and put it towards first responders.
Speaker 2: So we started with the coffee company. We started November
Speaker 2: of last year. We've, uh, we've donated back a little
Speaker 2: over $ 20, 000, uh, in, in less than a year. Uh, and,
Speaker 2: and the, and the truth is, uh, I love saying
Speaker 2: that number because it kind of sounds like a big
Speaker 2: number for a small business, but, uh, We get more
Speaker 2: requests than I could ever fill right now. So we
Speaker 2: won't be happy until we can stop telling departments that
Speaker 2: here what we're doing and asking for help until we
Speaker 2: can fulfill all those requests. We will never be satisfied.
Speaker 2: And so that comes into the next part of the business. Um,
Speaker 2: you know, we could add another coffee line, which would
Speaker 2: take a lot of work and maybe add a little
Speaker 2: bit of revenue. Um, but, uh, we, we decided on, Hey,
Speaker 2: if we added a whole new product, we can get
Speaker 2: into a whole new, um, you know, group of, uh,
Speaker 2: of purchasers. And so, uh, we started first responder cigar company.
Speaker 2: and hopes of, of, of garnering a wider audience. And
Speaker 2: that's been great. That's been a, I'm a little bit
Speaker 2: of a selfish pleasure because I smoke two to three
Speaker 2: of my own stash every day. And so I needed
Speaker 2: that at wholesale pricing. But, but besides that, you know,
Speaker 2: if you think half, you know, half of the country
Speaker 2: drinks coffee, but it, but it is a very, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of convoluted market. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: people fighting in that space.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Even though I don't argue within first responders, there's a,
Speaker 2: there's a, you know, a multi-million, you know, a person
Speaker 2: audience that, you know, that, that doesn't have a, a product,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of like ours catering to them. So,
Speaker 2: you know, we do have a nice niche cut out
Speaker 2: in that area, but a small percentage of people smoke cigars,
Speaker 2: but we're the only cigar, you know, we're the only
Speaker 2: one of the very, very few American disabled veteran own,
Speaker 2: you know, cigar lines. And then, of course, the only
Speaker 2: one doing anything for first responders. Our cigar sales will
Speaker 2: probably take over our coffee sales in the next couple
Speaker 2: of months.
Speaker 1: I'll check you guys out, Brent, because we smoke cigars
Speaker 1: on the show. We have our humidor here. So I'll
Speaker 1: definitely check out.
Speaker 2: You got a box coming at you.
Speaker 1: Well, we're happy to support the cause.
Speaker 3: And we encourage everybody else to support the cause, whether
Speaker 3: it's for coffee or cigars, or I guess you said whiskey,
Speaker 3: but I guess cognac would go better, right? First.
Speaker 2: Oh, there you go. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I kind of have this FRCC, you know, thing going.
Speaker 1: Coffee, cognac, cigars, that works.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Company. We'll, we'll work with it.
Speaker 2: We'll massage that.
Speaker 3: Um, but you guys can, can find them at F
Speaker 3: R C, uh, coffee.com. That's Foxtrot, Romeo, Charlie, coffee.com. Check
Speaker 3: them out. And it's going to be in the link. Uh,
Speaker 3: it's going to be in the show description also, um,
Speaker 3: down below. Um, and then also, uh, you started out
Speaker 3: as a guest on the anti-hero podcast, right. And then
Speaker 3: kind of work your way up just through sheer talent
Speaker 3: and charisma.
Speaker 2: Um, he needed a coach with a small vocabulary and
Speaker 2: I was the clear choice.
Speaker 3: Uh, and you guys, yeah, uh, you can find the
Speaker 3: anti-hero podcast on YouTube and also, um, on podcast platforms, right. Your,
Speaker 3: your favorite podcast. So tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really coincides with the first responder coffee company story.
Speaker 2: I think if I remember right, a local news channel
Speaker 2: picked up a story about us, and I just got
Speaker 2: a random email from a small podcast saying, hey, I'd
Speaker 2: love to have you on the show. I'm an Orange
Speaker 2: County deputy, which is the county I live in. So
Speaker 2: I was like, well, absolutely, I'll do a podcast with you.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're in my own backyard. Went over there,
Speaker 2: did a podcast with him. Really enjoyed it. It was
Speaker 2: a good time. He's a really good dude and a
Speaker 2: first responder. It was an easy conversation to have with him.
Speaker 2: He had me back on, you know, a couple more times. And,
Speaker 2: you know, the times I was on was always the,
Speaker 2: you know, his bigger shows. And, you know, not to
Speaker 2: be edgy, but it's just true. And it happened. You know,
Speaker 2: I ended up. I ended up saying something on a
Speaker 2: 30-second snippet on a podcast. Ended up into a much
Speaker 2: bigger ordeal. I'll try to make it real quick. He
Speaker 2: asked me some off-the-wall question on a first responder topic interview.
Speaker 2: And he goes, hey, are there any secrets you want
Speaker 2: to tell me about Black Ops? I was like, no,
Speaker 2: I don't really have any. Because to be honest with you,
Speaker 2: most things get leaked. So you probably know them all anyway.
Speaker 2: And then he randomly goes, did Rob O'Neill kill Osama
Speaker 2: bin Laden? And I just, I answered the way I
Speaker 2: kind of do in a team room. And I go,
Speaker 2: Rob O'Neill didn't kill bin Laden. It's the worst kept
Speaker 2: secret in all special operations. and he cut that as
Speaker 2: a snippet and posted it as the promo, although it
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with the, uh, with the, with
Speaker 2: the episode and it, and it goes viral.
Speaker 1: Brent, you rabble rouser.
Speaker 3: Did he actually respond to that? Or, uh, so for
Speaker 3: anybody who's curious, you do have to check out like
Speaker 3: the full episode where you go into the weeds with it,
Speaker 3: which was episode 37, 37.
Speaker 2: So the, The problem with that was it was cut
Speaker 2: as a teaser, an unintentional teaser. It wasn't a teaser
Speaker 2: that was going to go into something more. That was it.
Speaker 2: That was just my comment about it. It goes viral
Speaker 2: and has, I don't know, between all of them, a
Speaker 2: million views. A lot of people were upset. They're like,
Speaker 2: you can't just say something like that and not back
Speaker 2: it up. There was a lot of that. A lot
Speaker 2: of people were just upset that I would make such
Speaker 2: a claim without any you can't call someone a liar
Speaker 2: and have no, you know, um, you know, evidence to it. Um,
Speaker 2: so it took me a little bit. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know what? They're right. So I came back out
Speaker 2: with a two and a half hour podcast talking about
Speaker 2: this exact subject, taking open source information from, from Matt
Speaker 2: Bissonette to, uh, to your guys's podcast, uh, to, you know, to, um, not,
Speaker 2: not my normal star witness, but, uh, um, Osama bin
Speaker 2: Laden's wife who was also in the room actually makes
Speaker 2: a statement about what happened that night hate to hate
Speaker 2: to ruin a surprise ending but everyone's story are all
Speaker 2: the same except for one.
Speaker 3: So everybody's lying but Rob.
Speaker 2: Everyone's no Rob is the only outlier in here everyone
Speaker 2: else has the same exact story about what happened that
Speaker 2: night Uh, except, except for the guy making millions off
Speaker 2: of it. I mean, words like stolen valor being thrown around,
Speaker 2: but I don't know. You can use your own words.
Speaker 1: So yeah. And I, people should go check out that,
Speaker 1: that podcast, the deep dive that you guys did.
Speaker 3: Well, in the podcast in general, because you guys cover
Speaker 3: a lot of really cool topics because you talk about,
Speaker 3: I mean, a lot of, uh, first responder stuff. I mean,
Speaker 3: and you guys, you guys call out bullshit where you
Speaker 3: see bullshit too.
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 2: But I told him, although my co-host Tyler really he has,
Speaker 2: you know, very like of, you know, he loves punk
Speaker 2: rock and he has that. He likes that culture and
Speaker 2: he doesn't he doesn't mind mixing it up a little bit. Although,
Speaker 2: ironically enough, you know, that that comment makes it looks
Speaker 2: like I'm more than happy to stir things up. But
Speaker 2: the truth is, you know, I stepped in it and
Speaker 2: then I had to own it. And I told, you know,
Speaker 2: the anti-hero podcast when I came on at the end
Speaker 2: of the day. I really want this to be a
Speaker 2: platform where we can tell the stories of first responders
Speaker 2: that I just don't think get told. And, and, and,
Speaker 2: and there's always going to be the, and we'll have
Speaker 2: those stories on. In fact, we have one coming tomorrow
Speaker 2: with a cop that got that, that took around and,
Speaker 2: you know, got shot in the line of duty. Um,
Speaker 2: you know, that's very, you know, very unique to any profession.
Speaker 2: You know, there's cops getting shot all over this country
Speaker 2: and it's a, it's an epidemic and it's, it's, it's horrible. Um,
Speaker 2: But those stories are out there. There are stories out
Speaker 2: there that paramedics and ambulance riders can tell you that
Speaker 2: never get a voice, never get to tell their side
Speaker 2: of the story. They say some of the worst stuff
Speaker 2: day in and day out. Kids and moms getting mangled
Speaker 2: in a car wreck, you know, on the way to,
Speaker 2: you know, on the way to school, just things that are,
Speaker 2: that are horrible. But, you know, they, you know, I,
Speaker 2: I just want to make, I want to get a,
Speaker 2: a platform out there to where all first responders.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: You know, can tell their stories. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, like it's weird that the reporting
Speaker 3: on police shootings, police being shot, like it's gone way down,
Speaker 3: but police are like getting shot. a lot out there
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: Two police officers in Orlando just got shot a couple
Speaker 2: weeks ago. And here's what's a really cool story. Usually
Speaker 2: when that happens, however it's how it seems, is uh,
Speaker 2: you know, the suspect flees into a, a County or,
Speaker 2: you know, or an area outside the SWAT team's jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: So it just, just, just the way it happens. Not, not, not, not,
Speaker 2: not often enough does the local SWAT team whose brother
Speaker 2: and sister you just shot get to go take care
Speaker 2: of it. But that's exactly what happened in Orlando. This
Speaker 2: guy holds up in a, in a hotel still within
Speaker 2: the Orlando city limits and the SWAT guys go to work. And, uh,
Speaker 2: That guy got the good news that night. I guess
Speaker 2: I'm assuming he resisted arrest or had a. had a,
Speaker 2: had a gun he shouldn't have. And, um, you know,
Speaker 2: and the good news is he doesn't have to go
Speaker 2: through the court system. Um, he's already, he's already, uh,
Speaker 2: he's already got a sentence. And, uh, I got to
Speaker 2: send those guys a whole box of cigars with a
Speaker 2: handwritten letter. And I said, Hey, you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: enjoy this, you know, not, Taking human life is obviously
Speaker 2: something you should never be taken lightly. But that being said,
Speaker 2: not everyone here deserves this life. And I gave him
Speaker 2: just a long, heartfelt letter that said, I've gone through doors.
Speaker 2: It worked out well tonight, but I know what it
Speaker 2: feels like to not know how tonight's going to work
Speaker 2: out right before that door opens. Some real kind of
Speaker 2: intimate stuff about it. And they loved it. They framed it.
Speaker 2: They smoked my cigars. And they're back at it, removing
Speaker 2: bad guys from the streets every other night. And I
Speaker 2: love that about SWAT teams.
Speaker 1: Brent, again, man, thank you for doing this tonight. And
Speaker 1: I just want to let people know we'll be back
Speaker 1: Monday with William Osgood, who's Special Forces in Vietnam. And
Speaker 1: then next Friday, we're going to have Robin Horsfall on
Speaker 1: the show, who was in SAS. Um, so we're really
Speaker 1: looking forward to talking to those two guys this upcoming week. Uh, Brent,
Speaker 1: any final thoughts before we wrap up tonight?
Speaker 2: No, I just, uh, again, I, I couldn't be any
Speaker 2: more humbled. You guys have me on here and, and,
Speaker 2: and thinking that, uh, my story is interesting enough to,
Speaker 2: to listen to me run my rap, my, my run
Speaker 2: my trap for a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: You were great, man. It was really fascinating. Uh, and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we deeply appreciate your time. Are you on social
Speaker 3: media much? Can people follow you if they're interested?
Speaker 2: Some habits I didn't want to break. The only social
Speaker 2: media I have is the business, and I keep it there.
Speaker 2: I didn't even want to learn that part of social media,
Speaker 2: but I had to.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: That's cool. People can go check that out.
Speaker 3: So definitely check out FRCC, First Responder Coffee Company, Cigar Company,
Speaker 3: and soon to be Cognac Company. Or Cerveza Company. You'll
Speaker 3: figure something out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll figure something out.
Speaker 3: And check Brent out on the Antihero podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, like I said, hit us up
Speaker 1: when you're coming through New York sometime. You want to
Speaker 1: light up some stogies, we'll be around. And everyone else
Speaker 1: out there, have a nice weekend and we will see
Speaker 1: you on Monday.
Speaker 3: Yep. And RS, thank you. Thank you. Just saw your donation.
Speaker 3: Thank you.