#334 Clint Emerson - Inside SEAL Team 6's Spy Unit: Black Squadron

0:00The End Clint Emerson. You doing? Welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. It's cool to be here. Thanks for coming. You got an awesome studio. Well, I appreciate that. It is beautiful inside out. I mean, do people get to see the whole thing? Have you ever shown all of it or? On camera? Yeah. Now we haven't shown all of it. Oh, man, it's not. So that's some secrets in there. Yeah. But I think it's just, they get the gist of it. It's got a spa vibe. Thank you. I can tell. You're a man who loves massages. Oh, man. But, uh, well, yeah, wait, man, I can't believe it's taking this long to get you on here. Yeah. Well, life, you know. But it is good to be here. I was going to tell on your guys that you're like Oprah Ryan. So many, so many tears have fallen on this leather chair. My man, I hope I don't cry while I'm here with you. Hey, same chair since episode one. Is it? Yeah.

1:00Oh, nice. Yeah. History. Same exact position, too. Yeah, make sure. But I'll just smell this chair before I leave. But, uh, but yeah, I'm excited about this. Yeah, I'm really excited. Yeah, it should be fun. Well, let me give you an introduction here. We're going to get more into that, um, towards the end of the interview. But I thought that was a great, uh, great opener. Clint Emerson, you're a retired Navy SEAL who spent more than two decades in Naval Special Warfare. Including time with SEAL Team 6. During your career, you specialized in intelligence collection, surveillance, and high-risk operations, and hostile areas, including missions involving Somali pirates, al-Qaeda leaders, and other covert targets. You're also the best, you're also the best-selling author of 100 deadly skills where you break down the surveillance, surveillance, survival, and trade craft techniques you learned in special operations for, for a civilian audience. The award of the Scott Fitzgerald Award for excellence in writing. Since retiring, you've worked in crisis management and security consulting, helping people and organizations prepare for threats like targeted violence, kidnapping, and other high-risk situations.

2:13You are the only special operator included into the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. Welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks, buddy. So, you know, typically in these things, we started childhood, which we're going to do a little bit today. But, um, we're only going to touch on a small portion of your childhood at the beginning because this is all going to tie back down, back to childhood at the end. So, scary. Kind of the first time we've done something like this. But everybody starts off getting a gift. Oh, of course. You know, I think I tried these, but they came out of somebody else's vigilante gummy bear bag. And they were spectacular, so I will definitely be gobbling these down. Um, I would love to counter you with a gift if this is a good opportunity. Sure. Or we can do that or we can, uh, we could do it later on, whatever you want.

3:14I'm game. I don't know what works best for this whole like I got to get up and get it and give it to you kind of thing. Let's wait till, let's wait till it's appropriate. Okay. Perfect. Probably the second segment. I can't wait. I love gifts. Yeah. So, we'll start with, where did you grow up? Well, I am a born in Texas kid. But at the age of eight, we, uh, my dad got hired by a Ramco and we left the United States, moved to Abkake, Saudi Arabia, where he worked for the oil industry until, I guess I left for high school. So I grew up in Saudi, which was, uh, in the 80s during the height of, well, terrorism has always been going on, hasn't it? But it definitely was going on then, you know, that's back when, uh, TWA was nicknamed, you know, terrorist world airlines, you know, because the hijackings and all the things that were going on during that timeframe. And Saudi with, you know, obviously, there's a very interesting place to grow up as a westerner.

4:17So I could imagine, yeah, not a lot of fun. What age did you say you went there? Eight. Eight years old. Second grade. All the way up to high school. Wow. Yeah. Um, not a lot to do for western kids, you know, you live on a compound that's surrounded by any aircraft guns, Constantina wire. That's probably the first time I actually started paying attention to security because I was like, well, are they trying to keep bad people out or they trying to keep us in, you know, like, why, why do you have all this, you know, gate guards are the AK-47s and the Constantina wire partos is interesting, you know, razor blades at the top of the fence line and the any aircraft guns that you could see out in the distance and, yeah, it was an interesting way to grow up and you had, uh, you had a security force. Then you had the religious Saudi police. A lot of redundancy, you know, and there's always somebody around to see something to ask you what you're doing. I wouldn't say it's a surveillance state because they're not that motivated, you know, there's some of the laziest people on the planet, but, but they definitely had all the resources in place that made you question like, why, why got all this, you know,

5:32and then, um, then you quickly realize as a kid, like, oh, well, there's a lot of terrorism that you heard about in the news outside of Saudi. But there was plenty of events inside, right? Cobar towers was during that time frame and a couple of other events inside the kingdom and then you go, oh, okay. Now you get it. They're keeping their own out and also keeping us in. I don't want you wandering, you know, yeah. Yeah. I bet you do. I know you don't have anything to, you know, bounce it off of it. But did you like it there as a kid? Really? I mean, you, uh, it's a radical Islamic state back then, you know, in B.S. Since then is westernized Saudi and he's really trying hard, you know, he's a 30 something year old, Princess Saudi, and he's doing a good job. I think opening the kingdom up and trying to create new venues, really following Dubai and how it's prospered.

6:32And I think they see themselves as they had gotten behind, you know, and they, they're, their values and their dedication to the religion actually kind of kind of held them back, you know, because they're home of re odd and or of Mecca, sorry, and, you know, there's a lot of weight in that for them. And so I think Saudi felt like it could never actually modernize because of Mecca. You have a lot of respect there still for the elderly and older clerics and those really running Islam. And so I was there during the height of, you know, the most extreme aspects of Saudi religion. And if you look at Saudi as a whole, it was like 27 different tribes or clans, whatever they called themselves all the way up to the 1950s. And the biggest clan or tribe pretty much gained power and it became a kingdom. And ironically enough, the 1950s is when a rampco, you know, was established, which AR is Arabian, AM is American and CEO company.

7:36And started pulling oil out of the ground, right? And very quickly became one of the richest countries in the world, liquid. And but as a kid in the 80s, that was the height of when a majority of Saudis didn't want you there, you know. They didn't want Americans, Brits or Canadians because that's a majority of the folks working for the oil companies, pulling that oil. And you felt it, you know, and there was, there's a lot of privilege there for the Saudis. I remember my dad, he would get just so irate like if you're standing in line at the sook, right, to pay for whatever merchandise we're buying. Saudi citizens had a front line privilege, no matter where you are in that country. If you're a messenger, you're the back of the line. You'll always let a Saudi go first. And I always think like, why aren't we doing that here? I'm just going to bring that up. You imagine like American first in line.

8:39I can't imagine it. No, because America lasts. Yeah. But as a westerner, you're standing in line for an extraordinary long period of time sometimes. And my dad, I remember he just turned red in the face, you know, and it could just hear him under his breath and other fuckers, you know, like just pissed that he had to let these people in front. Part of their protocols, part of a, you know, when you get briefed up in Houston at, you know, at a Ramco headquarters before they put you on a dedicated 747 to Saudi, you know, they tell you, hey, these are the protocols. They give you all these briefs and the culture. So, you know, that was just the beginning. You noticed that, you know, you are second rate, third rate citizens, you know, like even like the Saudis back then treated Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos. They were the slaves of that country, you know, literally.

9:41And even, you know, there was times we even had to get in line behind them. Wow. So it was. Yeah, and if you didn't follow it, you know, it was all kind of like the threats were real, you know, you get deported and heartbeat, you know, for sometimes the simplest things, you know, they don't care. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking care of your own. Right. There was something to learn now being a visitor at Sucks, but now as an adult, I can reflect on a culture and go, damn, man, like. But then there's the other side back then women, you know, we'd go on base, you are, there's a base on compound, they had two restaurants, they had one called the date pit, you know, dates are very good. Grup dates that grow on palm trees is, you know, one of their biggest fruits, if you will, or vegetable, and it's got one seed, right? So what does that make it? One seed is a vegetable. And so it was called the date pit, could play on words, but it was kind of like the fast food, a lot of kids, well, kids would go there hamburgers hot dogs, that kind of thing.

10:48Then they had the dining hall, dining hall was more of a sit down kind of restaurant, but a huge partition down the center. And the women would go to one side, the men would go to the other, right? Really? Yeah, that's where all the women would go, because you even had Saudi employees living on the compound. And so you had to follow a lot of those traditional cultural rules, you know, basically social etiquette and protocol. And yeah, everything was separate, you know, and it was always the women behind these curtains separated from the men, you know, and the kids would always default with the women. And didn't matter where you went, that's how it was, you know, there were a number of times that really made the living there unpleasant was that Saudi younger Saudi men, they're probably in their 20s, you know, and you got to remember, I'm like eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. You know, those age groups, and they'd go out of your way to like kick your ass, you know, and their favorite thing, you know, and I think we kind of joke about going in and out of the Middle East, but they're sandals.

11:56They're sandals are this hard leather. And somewhere in their up green, they learn how to hit you pretty good with the blade of those saddles, those sandals. They take those sandals off or they got really good at throwing these things like a damn Frisbee. And they would, I mean, you know, 20, 30 yards away throw that sandal at you and they hit you in the head every single time. So I was like, damn, man, they're good at this. And those sandals did the blade of them. I mean, it's, it's like getting, you might as well get hit by the edge of a plate, you know, like a, you know, dinner plate. You know, it's, it's hard and it hurts and it sucks. And it's not to say that we probably didn't bring some of those beatings on ourselves just being bored, you know, westerners with nothing to do and cause trouble, you know. So why did you come back to the States? They, they only go up to the eighth grade there. Okay, so a lot of Ramco kids go to Swiss boarding schools at ninth grade, you know, for basically high school.

12:57So at that point, my dad had had enough, you know, once again, he was a Texas kid growing up Texas kind of had that like, I'm not going to let somebody push me around that long. Yeah, you know, I'll go make a decent salary for a little while, see the world. You know, as we all have learned, Saudis are not bashful when it comes to money, you know. So then this is the eighties. They would make you leave the country for 30 days at a time. So they'd give you an 11 month visa. And on the 12th month, they'd give you $5,000 per head in your family and say, leave. So you'd go on a 30 day vacation and go see the world or whatever. And, you know, oh, yeah, by the way, stop and get your visas renewed and then come back to work. So that aspect of it was actually really cool. You got to see all the Europe one year, you go see parts of Asia another year. And pretty much all paid for by the Saudis, you know.

14:03And I always thought it was funny how this kid is, they were Mormons. And so there was like eight kids in that family. So can you imagine they would take the $5,000 per head and then they would just go to Cyprus and hang out for a month. And not spend a dime. That's pretty smart. Just take all that money and put it away. So what got your interest in the seal teams? You came back, went to high school, went to college. Yeah. So a couple of things. As on one of those trips, you know, we were traveling through Frankfurt Airport. And the first thing you want to do when you get out of Saudi is have a Coca-Cola, at least for me. Because all they had was Pepsi. Now, you know, it pronounced the P word in Arabic. So it's bebzy. You're stuck with bebzy Cola the entire time you're in Saudi because a couple of reasons.

15:03At the time Coca-Cola, supposedly, was run by Jews. The can is the colors of the crusaders, red and white. I don't know. But they didn't allow Coke into the country. Okay. So, you know, they got a lot of reasons for a lot of stuff. And so if it's an airplane leaving Saudi, it's not going to have Coca-Cola. So the first place, land in Frankfurt, whatever. And we get to our gate, you know, my mom and dad, my brother, they give us stage themselves. And I'd be line it to the little restaurant bar across from the gate. The first thing I do is get to the bar and ask for a Coke. And there's this guy standing there. He looks kind of like us. You know, he's all tatted up and he's got like, actually, he's got a black collard polo on. Could have been Dick Marchenko himself. I don't know. And I'm a curious kid and I'm kind of looking at his tattoos. I'm like, what's that? He's like, looks down to me and he's like, what? He's like, I said that tattoo right there. He's like, that's a tried it. I'm like, what's a tried it? He's like, it's a symbol represents, you know, military unit.

16:04What military unit? The seals. Like what is seals doing? He's like, kid, where are you from? Like, well, I live in the Saudi. Like, what are you living in Saudi for? Like, well, my dad works for Ramco and, you know, and he's like, all right. Well, do you remember when we bombed Libya? Like, yeah, actually I do. Because, you know, at the time, Vice President George Bush came in country. I was a boy scout, so I'm color guard, holding American flag. And I've got my, I'm proudly wearing my order, the arrow sash. And he stood behind the podium and told all the Americans, hey, you know, in the next coming months, there may be conflict. And if anything happens, we're going to have C-130s and everything set up for you guys, get the Americans out of country. Because you are the closest country for retaliation of some sort, right? So I tell this guy, he's like, yeah, he goes, well, it was B-111s had to come in extra low. And I'm like, oh, yeah, why? He's like, well, so they wouldn't get shot out of the air and it gives me a lot of, I don't know,

17:05if it was even legit, right? He's like me and my buddies though had to sneak in the middle of the night. And we had to take out the anti-aircraft guns. So that these B-111s could roll in, drop bombs and roll out, not worrying about any threats from the ground. I'm like, what do you mean you took them out? Like, when we show up in the middle of the night, we shoot everybody on site and then we put a bunch of explosives on the guns and run away and they blow up. Like, holy shit. Like, that's what I want to do, right? And up till then, this is the 80s, right? I wanted to be a ninja up till then, because it's ninjas, you know, the movie Revenge of the Ninja was like my favorite movie. I was like, I want to be a... My favorite movie. Who's that movie? I want to be a ninja. I want to be a ninja. I meet this guy in a Frankfurt airport and I'm like, okay. All right, I'll switch over to Seal now. You don't want to be a Seal. And of course later you find out, like, well, if you murder people as a ninja, it's called murder. But if you murder people as a Seal, well, then you get labeled a hero. It was like, just a matter of picking the right side of the line in life, right?

18:06It's anyway, I switched from Ninja to Seal and... I switched from Ninja to Seal. And when we got back, I remember going to the library and starting to try and find these Seal books. And it was only, I think there was one. And it was like a picture book. And it was one. I think there was one Seal book that I could find in that library, in the Abkake Library. Wow, I'm surprised. Well, yeah. I've completed it. Yeah. That's actually kind of funny. So now we have a whole section of logic. Yeah. Oh, boy. And so I find one Seal book and I think it was like a picture book. You know, and it just had photos in it. Like, guys coming out of the water or the camouflage face and the jungle hat and different things. And I started digging in and digging in. And interestingly enough, they had this career-oriented MS-DOS computer system at the school.

19:07And you would sit at it during, I don't remember if it was during class or something. You would answer questions. Click, click, click. Green screen asking you a question at ABC or D. You'd be a CD. And as a kid, it felt like 300 questions. It was probably 50. And you answer all of them. And then on the printer, you know, with the green line, green and white line printers, with the holes in the side. And it would tell you, you know, based on your interest, what kind of career path you should take. And sure enough, the top three, the first one was offshore rig scuba diver, welder. Right, based marine biologists. And the third one was UDT. Didn't even say seal yet. It just said underwater demolition to the United States Navy. And I was like, huh. So then that led to looking into scuba. I found out that I had met the minimum age for patty certification, which at the time was like 12 years old.

20:08So I told my dad and he's like, okay, and it happened to be a patty scuba instructor guy. That would do classes at night. He worked for Ramco, but he was also a master diver and had all the instructor calls for patty. And so we go to the local pool and you do all your lessons and deep end and learn all the class. And you take the test and then eventually you go do open water. Right, you go out and this is the Persian Gulf, right, Korea Beach. You know, and going out, walking out through sand, crappy murky water. You know, the Gulf then is the same as it is now. Go to the bottom, do your open water part, get in a circle, structures in the middle, make sure take your mask off. And then you got to clear it and all of the little things. And did all that got my call and my scout master an adult who also was scuba qualified. I was like, once he learned, I was scuba, I was like, hey, do you want to go do tire reef?

21:10I'm like, yeah, I'd heard about this tire reef. It was a reef made of the tires that they use on the big desert vehicles, you know, massive. The tires are the size of this room. And it's a whole reef where they've dumped them, stacked them, you know, and done different things with them that you can go to. So the way you get there is you go out to the end of a pier. We get to the end of the pier and is the biggest swarm of jellyfish I've ever seen in my life. My scout master is like, yeah, don't worry. We're just going to instead of jumping in and giving me the okay. Don't fill up your BC with any air. Just take that leap, we'll jump right through them, sink to the bottom, I'll find you on the bottom. I'm like, okay, this is my very first dive. And so, you know, hold your hands on the mask, take your step off the pier into the jellyfish. You know, of course, it's pens and needles, my face and my hands, everything, right? Pass through the jellyfish, get to the bottom. There he is. It's murky, it's dark, but I see him. Bubbles, okay, okay, okay, give all the hand signals off we go.

22:14And he has this rope. That's along the bottom. And you just start going along the rope. And I'm right behind him. We're just pulling ourselves. And it takes you out to the tire reef. And we get out to the tire reef. You're kind of cruising around, you know, you kind of get up and some of the tires are upright. And you can go up, blow a bunch of bubbles, create a big bubble, go in there for a split second, clear your mask, whatever. Put it back on, do what you're not supposed to do, right? And then we cruise around some more. Well, before you know it, I lose track of this guy. And he loses track of me. And I'm looking out in the distance for bubbles. I don't see bubbles. So I'm like, what the fuck? And I'm all by myself now 12 years old out the tire reef. So I circle this thing a half a dozen times looking in and out of the tires looking around for him. I can't find this dude. And then I'm like, okay, well, maybe I'll just go back. Okay? So now I'm looking for that rope. Well, I didn't pay attention where that rope came in on the, on the reef. So now I'm on the perimeter looking for this damn rope, which I can't find the rope.

23:16And I'm like, well, now I'm starting to panic. And I'm like, what the fuck do I do now? So I'm like, well, there's the surface. And I can figure out my bearings. So I go ahead and start to make the assent, hands up, you know, phone all the textbook rules that I just learned, I get to the top, break the surface, fill up my BC, look around. It's choppy, it's horrible, it's cloudy. And I can't see land. And so I'm circling, circling in a panic. But, you know, I'm only right here. So I'm like, well, kick really, really hard, get myself way up. And I do that bobbing basically 360 boom, sea land. Like, oh, thank God. Fill up my BC, start turtle backing. And it felt like it took an attorney to get back to that beach. I was way down from the pier. I drifted, get to the beach. At 12 years old, you're single, little 180 tank and your BC. It feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. I'm carrying my friends and all my crap and walking back.

24:16And he's sitting at a picnic table. Oh, hey, what's up, man? Was that fun or what? And I'm looking at like, what? I was like, you left me. And he's like a ground ass adult, you know? And, but I tell you what, I probably leveraged that experience in how many times and buds, you know, like be high. Anytime you're doing pull comp. Like that moment, I was like, oh, I've already, I've already been lost at sea. And, you know, I'm trying to figure this shit out on my own as a kid, you know? Not that pull comp or anything, that stuff was easy. But, yeah, you definitely leveraged that moment. I don't know how many times. It was like, okay, you've been here. You've kind of done something like this, kind of sorta at least once in your life when you were a kid. So you can definitely handle as an adult, you know? A lot of people get blood work done once. Look at the numbers and then never really follow up. But health is not just one snapshot. The real value is seeing what changes over time, what's improving, what's getting worse,

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27:27Not after before. It's the same grade of protection people with clearance is carried, built by the guys who used to build it for them. And you don't manage it. Open the app once, hit the button, close it. Glacier. Download it today on the App Store. And remember, privacy isn't paranoia. It's protection. What did you go to school for? If you learn that early on, that's what you wanted to do then. Why did you wind up going to college? So good question, man. I always wanted to go to the Navy. I just didn't have the balls to like actually sign up. You know, and I didn't know. You know, back then you didn't. There was no information. There's no internet or anything to leverage to like, okay, well, how do you become a Navy? You know, I ended up going to university Houston of all places. And I ended up meeting a guy, Rick, Rick and Brian, but Rick was the guy I met. And he had been to Buds.

28:28I'm like, and he was like this gold mine of information. And I was like, so tell me all about it. He's like, well, he told me as far as he made it, which was the guy I met. And I was like, what's the name of that guy? I was like, what's the name of that guy? I was like, what's the name of that guy? I was like, well, he told me as far as he made it, which was like Hell week or whatever it was. And he ended up having an injury. And ended it out of the Navy. So he can only give me so much, he gave me enough to know that, okay, you got to be able to push ups, pull ups, this, this and that. You just go to a Navy recruiter and sign up. And I was like, okay. So once I learned the very basics, and I started working out with this guy, and then we pulled in another guy, Brian. And then the three of us were like, Well, I kind of motivated them in a weird way. They're like, well, why don't we just all go in together? I was like, you would go in again? It's like, fuck yeah. So we went to the Navy recruiter and at this point, I had maybe a semester left on my degree. I was like, hell, got to scratch it, right?

29:28So we go to the Navy recruiter, we sign up and I didn't tell anybody, until about, I didn't tell my family or anybody, because my daddy, you know, he's like big on college, finished college, out of the, but I was like screw it, I'm going. We signed the dotted lines and about two weeks from leaving to go to Chicago for boot camp, you know, like told my parents, of course my mom cries, and my dad was kind of like, what? I was like, yeah, it's going to happen. And he's like, all right, you know, off we went, the three of us went to boot camp at Great Lakes, Christmas, left right before Christmas, it was great. Sideways snow, learning how to march, you know, the deal. It's been eight weeks, learning how to march and make your bed. And that's Navy boot camp. Yeah. And then, uh, and then, uh, A school, I picked Cormin. I was going to school for kinesiology. That U.S. Okay. Yeah. So I was going to, I thought, oh, it's like sports medicine, you know, kind of had an interest in medicine from doing my first aid merit badge.

30:29And then I realized, basically, Navy Cormin School basically is the Boy Scout. First aid merit badge. That's really it's three months. You learn really nothing, you know, you learn how to take pulse and count breaths. And we're out of, uh, stop bleeding some sort. And then, uh, and then you show up, San Diego Buds Class 203. 203. What year is this? 95, 95. I think that started in 95, graduate 96. No, started 96, graduate in 96. Fuck, I don't know. 95 to 96, I think. Yeah. What do you think of Buds? Buds is, you've had enough guys. So the only thing unique for me is my true, true name is Smith, right? Everybody has a pen name, right? And, um, so there was, we started with 180 something guys in our class. And there was probably five or six Smiths. Okay.

31:30And as you know, at the end of firt every day of first phase, you go to the first phase classroom and you sign deficiency chits. I was C Smith on the list. So of course, I ended up with every deficiency chit for all the other Smiths, every single day. And what is the one word who are only allowed to say all through Buds? Who ya? So mine always had a question mark at the end, you know, they'd say Smith, push ups. And then they'd pull out another deficiency, pull ups. Another one for, you know, the, oh, course, the swim, the run. And I'd go up there, who ya'll sign every single one of them. There was like, you know, four to six a day. To where eventually a couple of the instructors are like, pull me aside with this other kid Garcia. And they're like, hey, you two, stop. You guys are horrible. I mean, I don't understand why you show up to this course. And you can't do push ups, pull ups, you suck at the, oh, course, you suck at runs,

32:33you suck at swims, you know, remediation. I want you to show up at the first phase office when the day is done every day from here on out. And this was an instructor who was fresh out of seal team six. He had a reputation for being wired a little tight. And he looked exactly like Richard gear. And anybody from my era who hears this knows exactly who I'm talking about. And I remember showing up like, this is going to suck, right? Show up first phase office right next to the bell. Here's staring at that bell. He comes out. He's got a big old dip in. He's spitting. You're on the grinder. Hold on a second. It goes back inside. Grabbs his lawn chair. Folds this thing out. And we're like, I kind of look over at Garcia. And like we're in this for the long haul, man, this is going to suck. And he's like eight count bodybuilders begin.

33:33And we just start going about 30 minutes into it, which is a long time doing eight count bodybuilder. And he's like, go hit the surf. And so we take off like, oh, thank God. And that's a long run to the berm over the berm into the ocean back, you know, get wet and sandy. The whole thing come back. Push ups ready begin. Start to push eight count bodybuilders begin. Pull ups begin. You know, firemen squats, putting him on my shoulders, doing squats, pulling on his shoulders, doing squats. Firemen carry to the surf switch. Come back. You know, so I carry him to the surf. We dump him in the water, get wet and sandy. Now he puts me on his shoulders, go back. And this goes on and it's starting to get dark. And I'm like, dude, they're going to, and while we're, we're whispering to each other. And then definitely while we're hitting the surf like, dude, they're going to try and make his quits. This is going to suck, you know, don't quit. Okay, don't quit. Yeah. And this goes on every day, a first phase for me in Garcia. And we get about, before Hell Week, and Hell Week at that time was the sixth week of buds.

34:39So we're probably week four of getting my ass handed to me after every day. And at this point, a couple of other Smiths had quit finally. I was like, thank God, because these guys are screwing me over every day. And so Garcia, we're doing pushups and he decides to cross his feet. For some reason, instead of at attention, ankles side by side, he crosses, which is what instructors would do, right? They'd cross their foot doing pushups. And the instructor gets out of that lawn chair and tie kicks him so hard and the ankle snaps it. He breaks the kids ankle. No shit. And I'm like, God, just keep doing pushups. Keep doing pushups. Don't look. I didn't see anything. And then there was a hesitation. And the instructor was like, keep going. Get your feet right. And then he couldn't get that ankle to do what he needed to do. Right? And he's like, you know, take him to the surf zone. So I throw him on my shoulders, fire him and carry him to the surf zone, throw him in.

35:40And this kid's borderline crime. He's like, not crime because of pain. He's crying because he knows that he's not going to be able to continue. You know, and he hits him hard. And he's like, he goes, dude, I think he broke my fucking ankle. I'm like, I think I heard something snap, but put some weight on it. He kind of puts weight on it kind of gives. And he's just like, and things start swelling up. I mean, throw him on my shoulders to bring him back. And then instructors like, no, you carry. You're supposed to switch. Couldn't do it. He couldn't even get me on his shoulders. He couldn't even stand. And so the beating stopped at that point. He's like, go put ice on it. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Next day, he goes to medical and never to see him again. I don't even know where that kid went. And that was the end of his career. Crazy part is we get through hell week. We get to die phase. And I remember it was like day one or two of die phase.

36:42The first phase instructors come in with second phase instructors and they're like, everybody drop in the whole room, right? We drop. And we knock out whatever the required push-ups is. What is that in die 40? We get bumped up from 30 to 40 or that I cannot breathe. Whatever it is. So we knock out our push-ups. Now we're still in the lean and rest. And one instructor is like, all right, whoever witnessed instructor so and so, hit a student a couple of weeks ago, stand up. And I'm like, nope, I'm not going to do it. Stay in the front leaner rest. And then they go on and start beating us. And to where the class leaders even like, whoever was, just identify yourself. Nope. I am not going down this path. I just held on to it, man. And they beat us a couple of times during first phase. And I remember one night we got back from one of the first night dives.

37:46We still got the twin 180s on. We still got our rubber on. And it was like, once again, who was the man who saw an instructor in first phase, hit another student. And I was like, I'm not doing it. I'm not giving it up. And so they made us put our friends, you know, one in your left hand, one in your right hand, filled up our masks with water. And then we did the death march with our twin 180s on all the way down to the demo pits, which is, I think it's a mile and a half down there, a mile and a half. So it's three miles. Mm-hmm. Well, you have your hands out, bends out, mask full of water, soft sand, march, twin 180s in rubber. And I still, everybody in that class at that point was basically like, whoever was giving up, give it up, just tell them. Nope. This is the first time actually. I'm kind of like saying it out loud, you know, what's funny is fast forward,

38:5210 plus years, I, um, or the hell was I was in some East Coast locker room. And there he was. And he's a warrant now. Those shit. Structor, yeah. And I went up to him and said, I don't know if you know this, but I'm pretty sure I saved your ass when you were a bud's instructor. And he just kind of looked at me, he's like, oh, yeah, why? I was like, do you remember me? And he's like, looking at me and, I don't know, yeah, you look kind of familiar. We cross paths, you know, overseas, wherever. Like, nope, there's buds. Buds class 203. And it was just this moment. And then he's like, his eyes got a little bigger. And I could see a little bit more of the whites in his eyes. And he's like, holy fuck, yeah. He's like, I almost got a shit can for that shit, man. You were the guy that never came forward. And I was like, yeah, and we kind of laughed, you know, it's like, it's like a big thing, you know, but yeah, full circle.

39:52You know, that was probably the highlight of buds. Other than my trouble, trouble making side, you know, I carried a handicap from first phase all the way through and made a video of our buds class. I snuck that thing around the whole time. Damn, no shit. And then had it edited out in town in San Diego. And they pieced it all together and gave everybody back then. It was cassettes, VHS cassettes. Everyone got one when we graduated. And it had all these moments. I had set the camera once, like in our cage, one of the cage area up on the beach. So I set the camera up there and hit record. And we were just getting our asses handed to us out on the beach. And then there was a time where the instructor has had us in the dip tanks, you know, trying to freeze us. Yeah. You know, and I'd gone and set the camera up while we got our asses handed in. Oh, shit. Do you still have that? I do. I do. I have all the footage somewhere. That's awesome. Yeah. I wish I had something like it. Oh, yeah. It was a thing, you know, and then later we got, I got him, I had it burned to DVD.

40:53And that's what I have left. Now you know, I'm like, where's a DVD player? Yeah. That was buds. Right on. I'm looking for me. Right on. Yeah. Get my ass handed to me. And the beatings after first phase didn't end until then finally, when the last Smith quit, they stopped. No more deficiency chits. Oh, yeah. Brun. Yeah. God. It's crazy. Where did you want to go from there? I always wanted to go to team three. Why? Well, growing up in Saudi and not liking the culture. And that was before force 21, you know. So force 21 is when the community was re-structured so that everybody deployed everywhere. Prior to that, the teams were all regionally focused. So seal team three was the Middle East. And so that little kid in me, right, it was like, I'm going to come back someday and fuck with these people, you know. Right. And so that was that was the driving factor, you know,

41:56that eight-year-old Clint man. It's like you think about how powerful that is when things happen to you when you're a kid. Right. Yeah. So you fast forward to us being a rack. And I remember looking at this kid, probably around eight years old looking at me with evil eyes going out. Guess what I had? I had options. Eight-year-old, I can be a doctor, I can be an attorney, I can do whatever the hell I want. And what did I do? I stuck with that passion that was put there when I was a kid. Interesting. Yeah. Now you look at these kids and you're like, huh. What opportunities they have. It's a tab, good point. Zipping zero, you know. Yeah. Well, those moments of reflection, right? You know, a lot of people want to know, they always want to know, you know, what got you through buds. What was it? Man, in the moment, it was just pure desire to be better than who I was at the time.

43:01Like, I just, I saw myself before I went to the Navy, I was just going down. Even though I was in college, it just felt like a loser. You know. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I had seal on the brain since I was a kid. And so I just felt like I was destined to be a loser. And I was like, man, I'm going to do everything and anything in my power to prevent that. And needed to prove it to myself more than anything. And, you know, and I think like a lot of us that come from like broken homes were just trying to prove to ourselves on a regular basis that were worthy and that we can be better than what we are. And then a minute you achieve it, you're looking for the next thing to be better. Because it only satisfies you for about the 30 seconds you get that tried and punched into your chest. And then you're like, I'm a fucking loser still. I'm a fucking loser. You know, then you can make it to a national agency and be like, I'm still a fucking loser.

44:08And then you can get to a tier one command and be like, oh, I'm still a fucking loser. And that's the drive. And it's sometimes I feel like it's still there today. Just a fucking loser and you're just trying to prove that you're not every single day. You know, are you proving it to yourself or you're proving it to somebody else? Well, I think early on I was probably doing it. I didn't even realize it. You're definitely not doing it for yourself. I think early on I was trying to prove it to family and friends and this and that. And then you get older, you get a little wiser and you start reflecting a little more and you go, okay. Yeah, I'm definitely just trying to fill in your family where you're trying to prove it to. What's that? Who in your family where you're trying to prove it? To think early on I was like, oh, just even for my little brother, give him, like, hey. Him be proud of me kind of thing or my mom or your dad or your friends.

45:11You know, maybe even, you know, who I was engaged to at the time, stuff like that. You know, you're kind of like, but it's not till later you realize, no, I wasn't. I was definitely proven it to myself, but telling myself a different story. You know, yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, I think, you know, that childhood stuff is sticky. Yeah, you know, for all of us, you know, you look at the community. It's what? Some crazy, I don't even know if it's been proved, but you hear it all the time. Like, oh, 95 or 90% are from broken homes and that's special operations as a whole. Yeah. It's interesting. But I mean, I've learned that in here. Would you say almost everybody? Is anybody come from like a normal home? You? I did. Oh, yeah. It's a mom, dad, stayed married, everything's happy. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that isn't anomaly. In Mike, Rilland. Yeah, my parents have been married for 50 years. Yeah. But I know I'm an anomaly, you know, because the majority of you guys have come in here.

46:16It's, uh, child abuse, sexual abuse. Like, it's just, I had no idea how common all those things actually were. Yeah. I started doing this. And, you know, the majority of guys, and women, you know, that have been on the show. They've been through that at some point in their childhood. It's not the entire time. And I think that's one of my, I mean, it sucks to hear it. But it's also, I think it's a beacon of light because I do realize how common it is. That means millions, millions, millions, hundreds of millions of kids are going through right now. Yeah. You know, and they see this and they see, you know, that there is a, there's a way out of that that's that can be a tremendous success. Yeah. And so I think it's a beacon of hope, you know, I hope it is. Right. To a lot of those kids that are going through that.

47:16You don't, yeah, and you don't know any of it at the time. You think that's normal. That is your norm. Whatever your parents are, your priest or whatever it is, it's going on in your life. You think it's the norm until you realize one day that it wasn't, you know. And, but until then, it's like almost like a superpower. It can drive you and you don't even know it, you know. I feel like a loser too. You know, that's, I think that's what got me through. Yeah. But, um, I know that's what got me through. I didn't even give a shit about being a seal after a while. Why? I was just like, I have to do this. Yeah. But, um, but I know you, um, you had a loss right at graduation. Correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, so, you know, it was, we graduated buds and, uh, went to 18 Delta, checked in to, yeah, is that the order?

48:22Yeah. 18 Delta, then jump school, then checked into seal team three. And, uh, checked into seal team three, you know, and as you know, back then, STT was what is now SQT. And it was all handled in house and each seal team had its own training cell. Had gone through STT, was on the tail end of it and just jumped into a platoon. And this is back when your platoon decided when you got your trident. And, um, is the 4th of July demonstration? New guys are usually the ones that get chosen to go do the Frogman version or all the Frogman tasks. So, mine was the Frogman Drager diver, three of us online coming out of the water with our guns and looking cool and walking through the cl- the crowd of people that are there for the rest of the 4th of July demonstration stuff. And it's that morning, my, my mom and dad had come to visit

49:29and they were going to watch the demonstration. And so, oh, actually it was the day before. The 3rd of July. And, um, my dad had gotten up that morning and I lived in, down in a condo in downtown San Diego and so you could like walk down the street and get a newspaper kind of thing. So, he walks down and never comes back. And so, cell phones were still in their infancy then. You know, you had landline. I don't even remember if there was a cell phone involved. Either way, made, you know, communication far difficult than what it is now. And so, he left, he didn't come back, time goes by. I had to go to, I knew I was pressed for time on the rehearsal stuff. But, it got to the point where it was like concerning. You know, I had already driven the neighborhood and looking for them. It's like, he's a very squared way dude. Like, you didn't get lost. You made a guy distracted looking at like architecture homes and stuff because he's an engineer kind of guy. No, that wouldn't be it. You know, and you kind of do this process of elimination,

50:30creating excuses, driving around, starting to stress, stress, stress. And then by the time I get home, somebody had called a landline. It was my dad's brother and says, Hey, your dad is at the hospital. Am I okay? Is he okay? And like, yeah, I heard him in the background. Like, oh, huh. Did he say what happened? No. Okay. So, I drive over to that hospital. And I had also done paramedic school for this. So, um, and so I knew this hospital really well from doing all my paramedic runs. And so, as soon as I walk in, do the name ID thing, they start to walk in back towards the chapel. And I knew that those doors, not as like a whole fuck. And so the rest of the ERs to the right. And I saw, um, I said a close curtains. And so I'd be lying to there. I stopped following the dock that had bad news. And I just went straight over there and I was with my brother. And he was,

51:32he's 11 years younger than me. He kind of followed me. And I didn't even think about it because I was like on a mission. And so I pulled back the curtain. And my dad was already in a body, body bag laying on the table. And he had a ET tube sticking out of his mouth. They leave it all that like that. Prior to the autopsy. And so then it was like, that's when I realized like my brother was looking at the same thing as me. And so, it's like a very emotional thing. And so I've just got my brother out of there because he was too young to be seeing that. And then, uh, yeah. And the part that really was crazy and sucked is that obviously worse and not anything worse than that. But, um, he had brought this motorcycle, 1970s Triumph Trident. And he had rebuilt that whole thing, blacked everything out, crombed anything that could be crombed and then put two trident on the gas tank. You know, it was pretty badass. Thing was made a Harley sound like a Honda. It was so loud because it was a triple

52:37three cylinder Triumph Trident. It was the same motorcycle, evil connevil used to jump buses or whatever, you know, he used to do same kind of same exact making model. And, uh, yeah, I had that thing forever. But that was like his gift to me for finally getting my bird and the whole thing. But it was, uh, that was the kickoff to, you know, showing up to seal team three. Yeah, it was a shitty moment, for sure. And he used to bring me to tears, but I think, you know, his time goes by because that was 1997. He was 46 years old. 46 had a massive heart attack in between two parallel parked cars. So when he dropped in between him, nobody could see him. He was young enough to probably have survived it. And I went into like investigation mode afterwards and went back to that area and I talked to this lady who said she thought she heard somebody yell, but she was had her hair dryer going. She turned

53:40the hair dryer off because she thought she heard something looked at her window. Her window was at an angle where you couldn't see him between the two cars. And then I talked to the paramedics and I knew those guys and, um, yeah, just a shitty way to kind of kick off the the seal team three portion of the career, you know, I was like, man, man. And it's all this stuff that he would love. All of our stories, you know, every dad wants to hear all of that. You know, it's it was like, I always had these moments. I was like, man, my dad would love to hear this or see that or shoot that gun or whatever. But yeah, it was a definitely a shitty way to kick it off. So you still have the bike. I had the bike for a while. And my mom, he's a whole other story. She ended up selling that thing because she needed the money. So some guy in Texas has it. But, uh,

54:42yeah, it'd be kind of nice to get it back. But yeah, she got rid of it a long time ago. She needed cash. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but team three was, you know, you know, the reputation like the West Coast, you have seal team one, which is like Stalin team one, right? Super strict. Then you had team five that was super laid back. There was no team seven back then. Then you had team three that was in the middle. Like probably one of the coolest teams to be at had a little bit of both, you know, strict, but also you could have fun, you know, it wasn't miserable like some of the guys at team one. And, uh, yeah, it was a good place to be. If there's anything you could say to your dad right now, what would it be? Oh, man. Like, I think number one, it'd be thank you for, because I've always looked at any, any man who, see, this is that Oprah Ryan portion you're trying to pull out of me. I'm going to

55:48leave tears on this chair with everyone else. If there was any guy, like any guy that takes on a mom in her three year old, because that's what he did. He wasn't my dad, you know, so any guy that'll take up, he's doing his masters, he's working a full time job and he's taking on my mom and me at age three, that to me is like a pretty honorable, amazing thing, right? So I don't think I got a chance to really go, hey, you know, thanks for taking that big step. That's a huge step for a 20 something year old, whatever age he was. You know, I definitely say thank you, because he was a, he was a rock of sorts, because my mom was not. So, and he did the best he could for sure, you know, filling that roll. So I'd definitely just tell him thank you. Yeah, you almost got me on that one. That's cool,

56:50man. Yeah. Yeah, good dude. Yeah, the stories that he would have loved have heard, you know, it's like, damn, man, you know, that's the only guy you want. You don't care about telling your friends or, or, you know, even other team guys, it's like, you know, if you're going to tell stories, it's the dads that want them and deserve them, you know, not really anybody else. So, yeah, yeah. Would have been cool, but hey, you know, life goes on. Just keep moving forward, right? Compartmentalize it, deep-six it to the bottom of your soul, and deal with it some other day when you do I began. If you met your biological dad, I did. Yeah, you did. Well, how old were you? Just a couple of years ago, I think. Yeah, no. So there was a first time I met him. We came back

57:51from Saudi, met at some park, and I just remember him asking my mom, wow, he's skinny. Do you ever feed him? And that's all I remember of that. No kid. Yeah. And who knows, you know, his story, and then my mom's story, and the truth is somewhere in the middle, right? So, but yeah, kind of, it was really what didn't meet him, because I think I was probably really nervous as a kid and not knowing what the hell to feel or think about that crap, but, um, and then fast forward, how many, how many over years till just recently, you know, met him again, pretty uneventful, kind of asked him, gave it, interrogated him on a couple of things, my mom said, and just was like, hey, so why this, why that? And he had pretty neutral normal answers, and at this point, he's an older guy too. So, you know, but it was, it was interesting, you know, it was shorter than me, and you know, you're just seeing somebody older, probably more frailed than what he used to be, and

58:58so I think I had moments leading up to it where I was like, I'm going to ask this motherfucker, all kinds of questions and put them on the spot and ask them this and that. But once you're there, you realize, you know what, it's already coming gone at this point, it doesn't matter, you know, anything I asked him was just curiosity. You know, most of it was just about my mom, because, you know, it's just a little, she's a little on the crazy side. Did you get anything out of that? I think, I didn't get much out of it, but I think, I think, and I hope it gave him something just weird. I felt like I was kind of doing it, I felt like I wanted to do it for him, because you think, if you put those shoes on, you go, okay, all these years have gone by, I did play a role that reason this kid, I know I kind of thought like, well, maybe he wants to give him something, you know, I thought it would give me something too, but it really, I didn't really notice anything, honestly. No, it knows. Did you feel a sense of guilt from him?

1:00:06I noticed a little bit of nervousness, I think, maybe a tad of him, maybe there's a little bit of embarrassment in there, it's hard to tell, because that's the first time to read him. Yeah, I didn't notice any guilt, but I think he was a little embarrassed. No, he knows his own truth, so once I sensed that, I just kind of kept it simple. Yeah, I didn't give him any stories. That was what I've been kept for, the dad, the guy who actually jumped in those shoes and did that job, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, let's take a break. All right, we'll come back, we'll get into still team three. If you spend any time off road like I do, you already know how easy it is to end up second

1:01:07guessing where you're at, whether you're still on a legal trail or if the route ahead is even worth taking. That's why I've been using on X off road. It's an off road navigation app that shows trails, public and private land boundaries, places to camp and detailed trail info all in one place. And what makes it really useful is the amount of actual trail data. You can check difficulty ratings, terrain details, trail photos, even recent reports from other riders before you head out there. The other big thing is you can download maps ahead of time, because once you lose service out there, your phone is pretty much useless. But with on X off road, everything still works off line. And if you're riding with a group, their location sharing feature lets everybody stay on the same map so nobody gets lost or separated. What I like most about it is it gives me a lot more confidence when I'm exploring somewhere new. I'm not wasting time backtracking accidentally ending up on private land or trying to figure things out once I'm already deep into the trail system.

1:02:12I can plan ahead, know what I'm getting into and spend more time actually enjoying the ride instead of worrying about navigation the whole time. Search on X off road in the app store or Google Play. Again, that's on X off road in the app store or Google Play. Looking for another way to support the Sean Ryan show head to Sean Ryan show.com and check out the latest drops from vigilance elite. We just released new gear including this beautiful moisture wicking VE performance hat and SRS campfire mugs and you guessed it. vigilance elite gummy bears. Oh shit! Every purchase directly supports the show and helps us continue bringing you independent conversations without compromise. Visit SeanRyonshow.com and grab yours today. All right, Clout back from the break. Move it into your time at SIL team three.

1:03:16So this word you and Mike Ritland became buddies, right? Right. Yeah, they just go through buds together. No, here's several classes behind. Oh, okay. So I met him and Glenn and all those guys. They showed up. I think I'd already done it deployment or two when they checked in as new guys. All right, on. Yeah, back when you could haze people, right? I don't know. What do you think? The hazing thing. I always felt like it was such a great thing. You know, like I equate it to you know, you either did it for celebration or correction and it worked either way. You know, if a guy was getting married to haze him, if he was just birthday to haze him, but if he's also really not performing the way that he should and or you know, had a safety violation or something crazy and then you know, you haze him. Yeah, you know, yeah, just seems too bad. I don't know what it's like now. Yeah, I've heard, uh, yeah, I don't either, ultimately,

1:04:21but I heard it's all kind of not that way. The camaraderie is not the way it used to be. I didn't really get hazed. I got the shut knocked out of me. Oh, okay. I didn't really get hazed. Yeah. Yeah. Our guys, when we showed up, they, I guess they had a really bad. And so they made like, uh, they're like, we're not doing that to our guys. And what there was that for you. That was, I think I showed up. It was 02 or 03. I can't remember. It's about when the ethos came out. But now, was it any of that? I mean, it was a rough crowd. There was a lot of bar fighting. There was a lot of bar fighting. Yeah. Um, and I think they kind of more took an approach of will wait till they get cocky. And if they do get cocky, then we'll knock the shit out of it. And that's, that's what happened to me. So a couple times. But, um, but anyways, yeah, any good hazing stores. Yeah. What's your problem? Probably my new guy hazing,

1:05:25you know, because you get one when you check in, right? And it's like, uh, it was a thing. And I feel like a lot of this was leftovers because, you know, you look at the Vietnam guys that were left. There's a couple of them in the 90s when I checked in that they had created the culture. You know, Vietnam, Vietnam era combat vets created the culture of the seal teams, especially during all that time of like, peacetime or not really operating. And, um, so the hazing piece was such a big deal. And I remember we went to Shaw's, new guy. And it's after doing runs in the house all day long. And then we're in the weapons cleaning room, which was like part of a house out there at Shaw's at the time. And, uh, me and one of the new guy kind of realized we're by ourselves. No one else in here cleaning their guns right now. Where did they all go? And, uh, just as we realize it, they roll in this back when you wear flight suits and

1:06:28buy clavas for all your CQB stuff, you know, so they roll in with their flight suits on and their ninja hoods and they systematically, you know, tackle us, take us. And, uh, and it's called at Shaw's. It's like in the 40s at night, 30s maybe. I remember the swimming pool who had a cover on it. Somehow we end up out there. They strip us down but naked and put, it's Justin, I'll just keep his first name. And they put Justin and I in the 69 position. Oh, he'll tape us into the 69 position. And, uh, and then they pull out the many blasting machine. Okay. And they had, I don't know how they pulled it off with, you can do anything with duct tape, but they had somehow got it to where my head is basically shoved into Justin's ass. In his face is shoved into my ass, right? And there's enough flesh exposed on our asses for the,

1:07:35for the lead wires of the many blasting machines. Oh, shit. And puts, they duct tape those leads onto our asses and they have two machines. So once they had them in place and they're like, and then my ass would then clench his face because it sends that electrical current. So it's like pazing your ass, causing your ass to clench. And so interestingly enough, it was like my face kept getting sucked into his ass every time it would clench your lakers. You know, pull me in and pull me in closer, you know, and Justin, you know, he was, he loved squats. So his ass was definitely more powerful than my ass. So he didn't have it as bad. But and then of course it's freezing cold. They pull out the hoses, um, transcend us. And then the part that freaked me out was the swimming pool. They're like, let's just throw them in. Well, it had a cover

1:08:36on it, right? And these guys aren't always thinking, as you know, like the smartest. And this is how people accidentally die. And when there's hazing going on, like it happened out at the, you know, on the east coast, you had the guys that tied the guy. He was on a spine board. And they tied it off to a bridge and then chunked him off and the rope didn't hold. Holy shit. I didn't even know that. He hit the water and it flipped over. And he drowned because he was on the spine board. Wow. I did not know that. Yeah, there was a lot of like stories about shitting gone wrong back in the day. But yeah. So I mean, they were going to chunk us in and that cover would have just wrapped us up like saran wrap and you drowned it out. You know, like you're taped to the 69 position with, you know, your best buddy. But anyway, that was that was the, you know, welcome to the teams hazing how to shawz. Very memorable for sure. It sounds like it. Yeah, that team three early days. This is

1:09:37pre 9-11, you know, your workouts probably in retrospect were more about liberty than it was about training and you did trained and you trained hard. But, you know, when you compare post 9-11 to pre, you realize, wow, we weren't really training that hard, you know. In operationally, you weren't doing much except team three. Team three, we were doing all the ship boardings and enforcing the embargoes against Sudam at the time. So, um, but training wise, it's pretty like, you know, basic when you really reflect on it now compared to, you know, these guys are like run advanced, you know, day one, which you would consider advanced if you were to compare the two eras, right? Um, but probably one of the most memorable and haven't talked about this this much. But one of the most memorable training exercises I was paired up with my platoon chief. And he was a

1:10:38former Marine gone seal. Hard as nails. One of those guys that never takes a break. You know, he never, you know, takes his boots off or lightens up his laces in the middle of a 10-click hump. He always leaves his rock on, never takes it off, you know, during, you know, an infill or an ex-fell. One of those guys, right? Just loves being uncomfortable and never gives himself any grace or opportunity to just take a moment or take a breath. And, uh, so one day they're like, hey, so we get an opportunity to dive against the dolphins. I'm like dolphins. What do you mean dolphins? And they're like, yeah, dolphins. I'm like, what is that? Like some piece of technology or something? I'm like, no, they're real dolphins. What do you mean we're diving against real dolphins? They're like killer dolphins. They're not a kill people. I'm like, and we're gonna dive against them. I'm like, yeah, man, it's gonna be awesome. You know, I'm like, oh, okay. So then it was a 14-man platoon.

1:11:39So seven dive pairs get put out broad daylight, middle of San Diego Bay. And all your toe told is like, yeah, these dolphins will come and, you know, they'll, they'll tap you and that's it. I'm like, I'm like, huh, all right. I don't even know what the hell they're talking about. I mean, this whole thing was like completely foreign to me. And as we're in the zodiacs kind of heading out and our little points that we're gonna drop each other off at, you know, chief was like, all right, we're gonna be near a pier. I'm gonna grab onto one of the structures down below. I'll hold onto it. Kind of bare hug it and pretend to be, you know, a pier structure pile on. And then you, you know, you're on the buddy line. So you just get blown me and just kind of lay down on your stomach and the dirt and the sand down there and just pretend to be the sand. I was like, okay, I don't even, like it's so foreign about what I'm doing. You got a drager, okay, we'll put their draggers on. We go in. It's a beautiful day. Obviously, it's San Diego every day is beautiful. And we go down and get, we kind of make our way over to this pier and, and we knew that there was a time

1:12:42when these, these dolphins were gonna be put in the water. It was either one or two of them. In the dolphin program, obviously it was like super hush, hush then. And now I think there's a discovery channel thing. And I've heard guys talk about them or whatever, but, you know, these things are basically trained to detect combat or enemy divers. And then we'll kill them. And they have a harness that kind of slips over their head that basically gives them, it's like a weapon. And, you know, I'm not sure details, details don't matter for the story, but they are incredible animals. I think we all know, man, well, these things are just as smart as us. And they communicate, we know that as a potter as a team, they can kill a great white, you know, they can get up to whatever it is, 30, 40 miles an hour underwater. And if they hit you, you'll die, right? And so, I'll never forget, man, we're in the water. We get set, go down, he grabbed, I kind of watch him

1:13:48grab on and pretend to be part of the peer structure. I stretch my buddy line out, I get on my belly, and I'm just kind of eating sand, kind of just hanging out on Drager, just taking a moment and kind of thinking to myself, like, what, I don't even know what to expect on this. What the fuck is going on, you know? And then you hear, and you're just like, what the fuck was that? You know, in the water, everything is omnidirectional. You don't know which way it's coming from. And it sounds like it's right here, you know, and you just keep hearing, you know, and then you hear, and you don't know if it's getting closer further where it's at. And then all of a sudden, I feel like this big thump, right in the center of my back, boom, just kind of drives me into the sand a little bit more. I was like, oh, that must have been it. And so I just lay there still. And then now I hear my chief on Drager, and he's yelling through his, you know, through his mouthpiece. And so I roll over and I look

1:14:51and the sun is in the background. It's beautiful. And this dolphin is like just majestic, just hanging out, hovering above in space, right there in the water. And you've got the silhouette of my chief. And these two are taking turns punching each other. Okay. So now chiefs movements in the water are a punch, right? It's like, it's just slow motion. And he kind of hits the side of the dolphin down below its eye, you know, and kind of yelling at it like, get out of here. And then that dolphin would just look at him and go, and then, wow, and just hit him right in the chest, right in the Drager. And then back off and kind of look at chief and chief would look at the dolphin and another big swing in mess or hit. But it was nothing, right? And then the dolphin would look at him and go, and then whack and then hit him again. And then you hear him go, in each time this dolphin is hitting him harder and harder, right in the center of the Drager. And eventually chief,

1:15:58you know, the way they know whether they killed your nod is they have the styrofoam cone on their beak. And it's supposed to pop off after they hit you and go to the surface, right? And all this thing wasn't coming off. And so he eventually gets smart and kind of grabs the styrofoam thing and let's go of it. And they both look at each other. And the dolphin just goes, and then just disappears into the water. But probably one of, I mean, when it comes to like training and something, I mean, it was like funny and beautiful all at the same time. And I had that, I had my buddy line stretched out as far as ago, because I was like, I do not want anything to do. Yeah, if it decides it needs to hit something else, because there was rumors about one dolphin named Jake who had broken a couple of team guys backs, hit them so hard. Oh, roc ribs, they ended up retiring him and supposedly had like kills and some harbor around the world where they deployed them. No kidding. Yeah, right on.

1:16:59Yeah, super cool. Wow. But I mean, so point being is pre 9-11, you had time, you know, to go give, go be the training apparatus for dolphins. Right? Because it was more for more for the dolphins than it was for us. I didn't realize they deployed them. I thought they were all like base defense type stuff. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't, I used to I think know more about forgotten at all, but yeah, I think they had deployed them a couple times on behalf of other harbors and other countries. Kind of thing. Interesting. Yeah. But yeah, other than that, where your, your, or deployments were args, you know, you'd have a couple of tunes that have to sit on a ship and go do the entire ship deployment. I'll bet that was horrible. It was horrible. Did two of those back to back. Actually, that's when, yeah, I met Mike and and Glenn. That was there. So that was my second arc and that was their first. And it was, it was a good cruise. So it made it kind of funny. I

1:18:03mean, Glenn Doherty, Mike Rilland, Shane Hyatt, it's like just the three of them alone is nothing but trouble. So, but yeah, we, I don't know if it was that one, but ship boardings and the Persian Gulf was like the thing before 9-11, like team three was doing them all the time. And we kind of, we're like the pros at it. Why? What was going on? The embargo against Saddam at the time, oil, weapons, anything that was coming out of Iraq. So there's a lot of smuggling going on. So these things would come out of the K.A. completely blacked out. They would ride that international Iranian 12-notical mile line completely no lights. And we would pretend to be fishing boats, kind of hanging out, loitering. Once they pass by, because these are big tankers. And so we would slowly roll in behind them on this, you know, because the superstructure created a natural shadow that the radar couldn't see behind them. I can only see in front. So you'd wait for them to pass

1:19:08by and then you'd kind of slowly roll in and then, you know, crank up the speed and then get up next to these things. Those ribs would get skin to skin, hook, climb, get on board. At the time, it was like this is the ultimate frog man off, you know. 20 knots, crappy sea state, you know, you climb up that ladder. You know, and a caving ladder is what? Six inches wide, a little aluminum with you know, steel, rock, you know, whatever the hell, what other things may know? I have titanium rungs and aluminum wire and up you go, you know, and you climb up, get to the bridge as fast as you can. Half of you go to the bridge, half of you go to lower, you know, lower steering and then take that thing, turn it into international waters and hand it over to NATO forces and they take the oil or they take whatever's on board and then you get off, get back on your boats and do it again, because there was another one coming. How many of you guys doing? You would,

1:20:10God, you would do like between the big tankers and then a whole lot of dals, you'd do a lot of dals, you know, like those things were like 100, the big dals or what, 150 feet long, something like that, you know, you'd do a bunch of those where you're literally pulling up next to it and like leaping, you know, from the rib over to the to the boat. And you know, it kind of depends on the night. There's plenty of nights you're sitting around doing nothing, but in a deployment, you'd definitely get your fair share of hoken climbs right on. Yeah. And team three started like inventing protocols and ladders and, you know, and started actually developing stuff and just to make it go faster, smoother, you know, and yeah, it was kind of the thing and it was the only thing going on. You know, I remember other teams were trying to get, you know, getting in on the Middle East just so they could get that operational experience. But kind of goes back to, I think it was either one of our admirals Olsen, I think, you know, or maybe McCraven,

1:21:11you know, what used to be the op of the decade back then, you know, after Nilem just became the op of the night, right? Yeah, everybody was, you know, doing something cool every single night. Yeah, but pre-9-11, you're like, it was good to be a team three because you're actually getting to work, you know, that was fun. But it was a good team and then, and then what, 9-11 happened and where were you when 9-11 happened? I was, I had just graduated boot camp. Oh, actually, I just got down to a hernia surgery. What their boot camp? Hernia? Huge hernia. I was scared to tell anybody because I thought they'd kicked me out of the program. Probably. And I, I let her just got so big, I was like, I could get it sold up. I have to do something. And I was like super reluctant. I was like, I don't want to get kicked out of the Buds program. And they're like, yeah, that's how long we've been had this the whole time. Yeah, but yeah, I just got now and then I was

1:22:16supposed to fly home actually for recovery. Oh, yeah, perfect timing. Yeah, before, you know, we did fly home. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was driving across Cornell to bridge to work that day. And at the time, my wife, X, Y, if she calls and is like, the United States is under attack. And I was like, well, shit, you know, what are you talking about? And showed to team three and sure enough at the quarter deck, there was a TV there and everybody was kind of staring at it. And just as I looked over, some guy's shoulder plane two went into tower two like live and watched it. And I was like, holy shit, that doesn't seem like a accident. It's kind of weird. Are these planes just flying into buildings? You know, it's the first you think it's like some air traffic control software glitch, you know, or like a, that's really weird. Then yeah, then it just obviously everything escalated after that. Our, we had platoons ready to never about to deploy and everything

1:23:22shifted. And before you know, we're helping them build their palettes. And they just first place they went was Afghanistan, you know, team three just kind of led the way. And I remember I was like trying to get in on one of them and couldn't, you know, but shortly after that, I rat kicks off. So before you know it now, recovering team three was this still before task force 21. And they said, okay, now all teams and all are deploying everywhere now. Yeah. Before that, it was just, we're all doing the math. Like, how is team three going to maintain a war in Afghanistan and now I rack, you know, and then McCrave and he came up with the whole task force 21 thing, you know, did it the right timing and seemed like they pulled that off overnight. Yeah, because before you know it, we push in Iraq and then team five relieved us and it just became a, it became the cycle, you know, what eventful operations were you on. Like, well, probably the biggest note worthy

1:24:25was the gas oil platform. Okay, because that kicked off the war and it was, we were sitting and quay waiting for that whole thing to happen. I know there was times we didn't think it was going to happen, times we did. So we're just all, you know, basically fucking around. There's a tent city, you know, and we had four, I think we had four to six tents that were ours, you know. And we had two tents across from one another. And I think you've heard this before, we had these cardboard signs on the outside of each tent. One that said lions led by dogs, you know, and then the tent across from it had a cardboard sign that everybody could see that said never before have so few been led by so many because all of a sudden there was, you know, dozens of oh six seals coming out of their reserve desk jobs now wanting to check the box on war.

1:25:28They never got to do it during their tenure in the community. So we had never seen any of these officers before and they literally just reservists came over. And then of course lions led by dogs, you know, that went over well. Now that's funny, as none of them said remove those. And we were like the entryway into the area. So everybody read these big ass signs were written, you know, with Sharpies nice and thick. And then we would just heckle people walking back and forth between our tents, you know, we had built a war garden, we had white picket fences. I mean during the time we were just hanging out waiting for war to start, we just got in trouble. And I was the LPO's and leadership position for that platoon. So of course I had all the leadership coming to me. Can you please tell your guys to just at least wear their uniforms or something? I'm like I'll try. I'll try. But you know, tell me it's not going to work, this is all about morale right now. I'm letting them do whatever because that beats the alternative.

1:26:31Trust me. And they're just like, well, you need to they need to blouse their boots. I said, they're not blouse in their boots. None of that's happening. Not on this wow. You know, it was, yeah, it was an interesting time. But that was leadership that had no combat experience. So they were very risk adverse. It's probably the best way to put it. What a joke. It was it was interesting. Well, so then they're like, all right, you're going to take down the gas oil platform. So we train, train, train to dive in, you know, set up a blow and go line. And then you hook your draggers in to this line at about 10 feet down and you blow and go, you close the valve, weapons up, frogman style to the surface, hook climb onto the, we train that over and over and over again. And then at the last minute, at the time he was Captain Howard or Captain Harwood. The guy who was very popular for wearing a mask on the news, the ball headed. Now he's an admiral,

1:27:34but at the time he was Captain Harwood. And he makes the command decision like, we got to prove the value of these jet boats. And we're like, what do you mean? You're just going to pull up, pull up to that go plat with your jet boat. Why can't we take the jet boats, you know, a nautical mile or two out and dive in, still prove the value? No, no, I'm going to pull right up to that thing. And we're just like, wow, for somebody as a risk adverse, you're putting us in, in this thing was lit up like a Christmas tree, right? It was a huge light bubble around this thing. You see us coming a mile away. And so now is the command decision that we're just going to pull up to the surf deck of this go plat, gas oil platform and take this thing down. And Intel said, hey, there's three bad guys in a hostage or something like that. And like, wow, and even then pulling up,

1:28:37they have obviously the high ground, the bad guys do. And supposedly it's wired to blow up. So, at least for diving in, you got stealth on your side, element of surprise, all this and that. You float in with some boats, that doesn't exactly give us the element of surprise. So, it kind of started to smell and appear like, you know, this total suicide mission, which is one of one of my new guys labeled it, you know, suicide mission. Like, shut up. We're going to have fun with it. Okay. Because we do whatever we're told, you know, so that same new guy ended up actually quitting. He, we, uh, yeah, he was, he ended up saying, hey, this isn't for me. I remember Mike Riddlin told me that when I interviewed him. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I asked him a couple of times because of a certain questions he was asking in the briefs that kind of made you turn your head like, what are you doing, man? Why are you asking that? Like, is this smart? Should we be doing this? Is this our job? You know, he, and I remember confront and asking him like, Hey, man, you, you all right?

1:29:42And he kind of turned around. Wait, are you all right? Are you the one that scared? And I was just like, no, but you kind of ask him some questions that are concerning. Maybe you don't ask those questions anymore in front of a leadership in front of us, you know, like, just stop, you know, and eventually ended up, yeah, gave up his bird, gave up everything. And it was like, I'm out of here. I've never, I mean, wow. Yeah. I mean, to go through all that training and earn your way, it's unfortunate, really, you know, but he had to like stay back and quay. And we, after we took the gas oil platform down, you know, we got in our humvees and drove north on highway one. I don't have really no mission. Just go to, go die rack. It's like, okay, you know, like, we're on our way. With our humvees, we borrowed from the army that had zero armor. We like took the doors off. It was horrible. But, um, yeah, we ended up pulling up to that thing. I was boat one, number one guy

1:30:43jumped off on the first surf deck. Shane was right behind me. We ended up taking those stairs at mock speed, kind of about halfway up the stairs to get to the superstructure and, um, first gun shot. And I was like, holy fuck. And then on comms, I'm like, dynamic dynamic. That was the word for like, okay, the gigs up, just go. And we get to the top. And it's right near birthing where the superstructure is. There's a guy standing in front of us. No gun. We're like, get on the ground, get on the ground. We kind of move up to him. Break looked to our right. And there's like, I don't know. It seemed like a dozen dudes staring at us. And there was only supposed to be three bad guys. And, uh, and a hostage. And I'm like, an hour like, holy fuck. You know, and now everyone else is catching up. And, um, I'm telling all these dudes get on the ground, get on the ground, looking at their hands and it's kind of, there's an overwhelming moment. Because you didn't know who had what. And we're thinking triggering device. And now you got all these dudes. And why are they standing here? And not like,

1:31:45so real time is just one big puzzle and you know, what we do best, right? Just start, you know, stick to your training and start figuring out solutions. So get them all to ground, looking for guns, looking hands, and then start clearing the superstructure of the birthing. That was the priority to look for the triggering device. If there was any, the, if the thing was wired to blow. Anyway, we ended up clearing it. And now you're clearing the entire, this thing was one click long, seven decks. So seven click, seven clicks of 3D environment because the floors aren't floors. They're great. You can see up, you can see down. And it's a horrible environment, you know, when you were like, now or like, wait a minute, it's not three bad guys. There's more. Now we got to go out. Seven clicks of this and clear it. And so we just started clearing it from end to end and deck to deck. And it was a long ass night. I remember we were so dehydrated. Now out of it, we weren't ready for it at all. I mean, if, you know, we're finding shoulder fired weapons, any aircraft guns.

1:32:48And then it was wired to explode all subsurface. So all the explosives were just below the waterline. And find the, found the triggering device. We had some EOD guys with us. So they made everything safe. It took hours. And then, and then we had Marines roll in. They kind of took over. So by the end of it, there was 20, I think 27 bad guys, no hostage. And there was like, 16 of us, right? If they really wanted to man up with all the guns and the shoulder fired rockets and the anti-aircraft gun and, and then the place was wired to explode, I mean, it would have been an interesting, you know, following Saddam's first run. What did he do? He blew everything up and created these environmental disasters that made Bush, you know, the first Bush look dumb, right? And so our whole job was the mission was, hey, prevent environmental disaster by taking the

1:33:51thing down before they could, you know, light themselves off, really. And, um, yeah. So then, uh, we turned it over to the Marines and then we get back and we do a quick debrief and kind of like, all right. What was the first shot fired? And, uh, turns out one of the boat guys, arm in the 50 cowl in the bow, was really nervous. No way. And so his thumb hit the button, launched that AD straight in to the very pipe of oil. That we were there to prevent spilling, you know, into the Persian Gulf. Holy shit. Yeah. And it had choice words for him and put him on a plane back to the US. And I don't even know what happened to that kid. But yeah, who would have thought, right? And so now we take our Sanford and Sun hoopties that we got from the Army,

1:34:57these humvees that had zero armor and we, uh, you know, load them up with MREs, water and fuel. And then we had law rockets and AT4 rockets, zip tied to every horizontal vertical pipe, you know, or, you know, every part of the vehicle and then our guns and comms. And they're like, yeah, just drive up Highway one and, uh, link up with the Marines. Like, oh, okay. Interesting. That was it. And so we start driving up Highway one, Kuwait, across the border. I'll never forget the pride, you know, looking to our left and looking to our right, the lineup of the Marine Corps. Because the Marines had the eastern portion of Iraq and then the Army had the western portion. And that's full on everything. Tanks or artillery, all of the Cobra's, everything you can think of,

1:36:00racked and stacked, heading north. Damn, to just sweep the whole side of that country. And of course, the east had all the big cities for the moat, you know, had, you know, hit Baghdad, or Anasariah Baghdad, some others all the way up to Tikrit, you know, and it was a full push. And we were part of that first wave and it was true like seeing true combat, you know, like, when we got to Anasariah, the Marines were in trenches. It was trench warfare, you know, that's when Jessica Lynn's convoy had just been hit. She was in a hospital that we could see right over there, you know, and we were sleeping under our humvees and they'd put the perimeter around a medical waste site. So it was all nothing but hyperdermic needles sticking out of the ground. And we were laying on them, thinking, wow, why are we getting poked? And you'd look. And in the sunlight, you'd see the glitter and you'd realize the glitter that was shiny on the surface was all hyperdermic needles that they'd been dumping there for foolish. And that's what we

1:37:03were sleeping on every night. Serious. It's crazy, right? And then we kind of get settled in. We had these pop-up tents that we had bought and quate last month, camping tents. I mean, you know, so we're setting up camp and then I remember me and Glenn were like putting up IR netting over our little, we had like, what, 10 tents, little dome tents, like North Face tents. And then putting up a big NIR dome over that for like whatever reason for shade. And thinking, okay, yeah. And then we got our lawn chairs out and we're all sitting around like, oh, this is war. The Marines were working hard. And they had like nothing for us to do at first. And then at the time, Captain, or Colonel, Colonel Kelly, right? Who we later know as General Kelly working for Trump, Captain, or Colonel Kelly, O6 comes out under the battlefield. And he pulls us aside. And he's like,

1:38:03all right, he my seals. We're like, yeah, there's a city called Suckass. It's probably called something else in Arabic, but I don't know it would just call it Suckass. Population 80,000, okay? I want you, you my seals. I want you to go over there and start killing everybody. We're like, wait a minute, huh? He's like, yeah, hunter killer ops. I'm turning it on. Okay, ready to go. And he turns around and walks away. We're just like, look at each other like, well, there's only like 16 of us against 80,000. This ought to work out great. You know, and I believe right after on us, or he was the first Marine Colonel to be awarded General on the battlefield since Korea. Wow. Yeah, I think something like that. Have to look that up. Great guy, hardcore. I mean, the Marines were not fucking around, man. It was like a sight to see. And so, uh, yeah, we'd set up some L.A.M. bushes and we're kind of starting to get our feet

1:39:05under us operationally. Like, what are we going to provide? What are we going to do? You know, our OIC chief and myself started going to all the leadership meetings just outside of Anas Rhea. And really starting to kind of figure out the groove of where, where to special, because they didn't think special operation would play a role. And this is conventional combat, you know, trench warfare up at the front. It's crazy, you know, and artillery going off that were set up behind us and cobra helicopters rolling in regularly, lighting up the plays day and night. You know, it didn't matter. You just constantly boom, boom, boom. It was really incredible to see. Um, and then, uh, then one night, you know, Glen and I got pulled aside and and at, um, Colonel Kelly's direction, we were told like, hey, keep this between you guys. Don't advertise it, but we need you guys that go up to the front line and, you know,

1:40:08start pulling dead Marines. Oh, these trenches. In the room, we're in time, was at the Fettine, where, you know, everyone was so tired. Like, I remember, I've never been that tired. I mean, you didn't sleep days and days and days. There was just no sleeping. And so the same thing applied to these Marines up in these front trenches and supposedly the Fettine, those were the guys with the Bollyclavus and black trench coats. They were sneaking in and like literally cutting throats while Marines were sleeping because they were exhausted. It wasn't because it was their turn to sleep or anything like that. And so we had heard that and we were like, what the fuck? And so we, um, so we went up one night and it was just Glen and I and we had like some Marines that were just kind of providing security and really just started to pull bodies and kind of pull them to the back of the line. And it was probably the most emotionally intense thing that I had faced that point, you know, this is real. And that's why they didn't want anybody

1:41:11knowing because it was all very discreet because they didn't want to fuck with morale. They didn't want to fuck with the push and it made sense, you know, like, hey, let's just get them, get the bodies, get them wrapped up and get them home. And yeah, it was, you know, I'd never even heard about that. Yeah, it was pretty haunting. And it's still haunting to think about because you look at them and their kids, you know, you can look at them in the eyes and you're like, holy fuck, man. But yeah, it was, uh, it was a thing and, um, there was, uh, there was some other, you know, events that we had to help out with with those guys, but, um, you know, on Nasseria was, was messy. You know, I think it was also for the Marine Corps, it's first time for them to kind of get their combat legs under them too. It was like tanks wiped out everywhere. I mean, it was, it was like, holy shit, you know, because you wouldn't think that we didn't hear anything about

1:42:13an actual battles going on. You just thought, hey, the United States military is just kicking ass until you got there. And like, holy fuck, US tanks that are all burned out and fucked up and, you know, a ton of like convoy vehicles that were burned out and, you know, had been attacked and just, you know, surprising to say the least. Um, and some days go by, we kind of got into our rhythm. Um, we had a reservist, uh, commander kind of takeover who was very front-leaning and finally we started kind of like really working and we were doing hunter killer. So we're going to all of your, um, any scud that was pointed in any direction, but most of them were pointed towards Kuwait. We'd go find, we get reports about a scut, a scud rocket or a launching site, roll land, put demo on it, blow them up, keep on moving. And that's kind of what we prove. As the line moved, we were always just a little bit ahead of the line, um, doing reconnaissance and taking out

1:43:17some of these scud sites, clearing buildings, ammo caches, and we did that pretty much all the way to decreat. And then to create was supposed to be this, we meet up with the, the marines, they set up a perimeter. We got into the center. It was the first time like, okay, now guys can take, take a break and sleep. You know, I remember one of the convoys we were part of. Our, our humvee stacked in the front was a ton of like convoy vehicles and behind was a time, we're kind of in the middle. And the sun's coming up. We're all sitting in our seats lined up. And I remember waking up. I look at, Zach to the ride, I look at my OIC, I'm sitting, you know, back seat left or point driver. He's passed out and I step out and I look up the line. The main convoy's already left, but there's vehicles in front of us and I walk up to them, they're all asleep. Now look at the rest of the line. We're talking, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 vehicles,

1:44:22sitting ducks as the sun comes up and everybody is past the fuck out. Could not stay awake. All the drivers are asleep while the front convoy had already left. You know, so I quickly start, we run, start waking everybody up, waking it, you know, down the line, getting everybody awake, getting engines run in and then start moving. I mean, it was, sleep became this, you didn't realize it. You just, it was rare. You just didn't get any sleep at all. Every time you moved, you lay up for the night, you'd go out and do something, you'd lay underneath your humvee to sleep, but you didn't sleep. You just had, I just had crazy nightmares of fetting guys like, cutting our throats in the middle of the night once I heard that story. It's all I thought about. And yeah, and then we make our way to to create, you know, get inside this Marine Court Premier, I'm like, all right, it's time to sleep. And you know, I got told the guys, you know, just lay down, try and get some sleep. And me and LT took the first watch. And then like, right, when everybody's comfortable, all hell breaks loose.

1:45:26There's a explosion, gunfire, fucking shit coming at us. The humvee, our front humvee got hit, got a bunch of bullet holes in it and was take cover and trying to figure out what the hell's going on, because you're inside a perimeter of Marines, which 18 year olds on 50 cows, you don't know which way they're pointing these things, you know. And all hell breaks loose. Get on nods. You can see, oh, I saw this fetting guys in this tree line. So the Marines have basically put the perimeter around some bad guys. And because it was at night, they didn't clear it. And then we ended up inside the perimeter next to the bad guys. So the bad guys are over there and we're over here. We're trying to go to sleep. They're waking up, shooting everybody. And so nods, lasers, probably not even 100 yards away. We engage them. Members first time, like background, background, watch your background, you know. And ended up one of the guys ended up killing him.

1:46:26And then we get online, roll up there, search them. This is when you realize first time, nearly these green tips will zip right through somebody because we knew between us, there was whatever, let's say 12 rounds. There was 12 holes in this guy. But during the whole time, while we're engaging him, it was like he didn't even know he was being shot. And this was 03. And so those, you know, their green tips are just so hot, they just zip and right through people. And he didn't even know it because he just kept on walking with his AK47 like he's sneaking around, you know. And eventually drops and you know, you go up search them and then, and then all the rumors of to create the next morning was going to be a blood bath. And so we went in, we knew we were taken, Saddam's palace. And probably the most every thing is, as we roll in. And there was nobody there. It was like the whole town had left and it was so quiet that

1:47:27that made it even a little more like sketchy, you know. We set up and I guess the Marines had, they did whatever they did, but for us, it was uneventful. And you know, we set up for, I don't know, a couple of days a week. And just, you know, that's the, the gold toilet, you know, seats and you know, the place story been looted. And yeah, you know, the first kind of exposure to one of Saddam's palaces is birth palace, you know, and all this and that. And yeah, that's probably the long version, but it was one big op, you know. This was before operations had names. What, what times did it was it? The whole first couple of months of the war. No shit. Yeah. So you're, yeah, I don't even remember, I mean, it was just constant, you know, just moving, sleeping in the dirt. Oh, I remember while we're hanging out outside on Osiria, it's time for Jessica Lynch to

1:48:27get rescued, right? And we had heard like, oh, damn, Nick's rolling in. And sure enough, they roll in, their hummers had a nickname called hammers, I think, because they had like supercharged motors, and they were armored and they were very Guccied out or whatever, you know. So they, uh, their humvees, I don't know where they were staged, but they were staged for them, because they were staying in a five star in Riyadh, right? And they get in their helicopters and they're starched camis fly to their humvees, get in their humvees and then drive to us. And here we are like covered in dirt and grime and sleeping in the dirt. And it was the first time where you could see like these guys get out of their humvees and they're kind of looking at us like, whoa, like these white side conventional seals kind of living in the dirt and in the combat and this and that. And I knew a couple of them there, you know, from the, you know, from team three guys and touch base

1:49:29with them and everything. And there's that like split second where we felt like, oh, we've got the upper edge on these guys this time, because you know, the competition between the regular teams and seal team six and but they rolled in and fucking annihilated that thing that night. Just, you know, one of my good friends was the gunner, I'm just, you know, weapons free and just took out that entire bottom floor with 50 cows just lit it up and overwhelming firepower than then the assault team went in and floored and something I think came from the roof and got to her grabbed her and got her out of there. It's pretty cool. I'm getting on there. We watched it from afar. Back to feeling like a loser again. I'm still a loser. I'm on a berm and on us, Rhea, Ben here, living under my Humvee and these guys roll in, pull the rescue of the year off and then go back to their five star and re-odd. Yeah, it's pretty funny.

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1:52:48and use code S. R. S. for $50 off. So did you did you engage anybody in those couple months? Yeah during that ambush there was pop shots we would take you know yeah it's a media it's man that you gotta remember the ROEs at the beginning were to really warn any you know once you're like every male of fighting age became kind of like okay that's a bad guy that's a bad guy and you realize in that first couple of months dudes were taking their uniforms off and they're wearing civilian clothes you weren't fighting an army you were fighting what you thought were army guys dressed in civilian clothes you know and but there wasn't a lot of engagement at the beginning for any of those early seal platoons that ambush I definitely was shooting at those guys

1:53:49and then to the right of me I think was the A.O.I.C. and to the left of me was at my comms guys Zach but everyone else was just still trying to figure out what the hell was going on get on nods and kind of get on line by the time they even figured out was over you know and I know our 50 gunner up top on the Humvee was taking shots from time to time at different stuff and but nothing like what was to come you know the future of you know the seal teams in Iraq or Afghanistan I mean holy shit you know yeah it was game on but we were at the beginning when you know you still had leadership that was very like I said a little risk adverse no one's dying on my watch kind of attitude yeah you know of course no one wants to die on your watch but I remember at our debrief at the end and it was yeah it was Captain Harwood and our seal team through head

1:54:51shed and a big portion that was a letdown you know I told him like hey you know when they're like hey you guys have any comments are concerned like yeah you know like this is the pinnacle and could be the only opportunity that a seal has to you know shoot people in the face what he's trained to do and you guys kind of hamstring prevented it like you took you took that away from a bunch of guys you know if it wasn't for some of these reserve commanders we ended up working for the Marine Corps you know probably wouldn't been able to do anything but once those guys kind of didn't have oversight over us it was the only reason we were able to like actually do some fun stuff you know that yeah but obviously it all changed once some more motivated aggressive leadership got in there man then it game was on right so yeah it was an interesting time you know it was awesome I wouldn't take any of it back or change it because everything has to evolve you know it's just the

1:55:57way it is and when you take a bunch of seal teams and say okay now we're going to war and it's been you know 20 30 years since anybody had really done true combat and you start with the training wheels and eventually you know get to the point where guys are just crushing the enemy left and right every night it's interesting you know how you describe a bunch of reserve officers who had never been to war yeah all scurry and out like a bunch of like a bunch of cockroaches oh yeah going to war yeah to prevent everybody to actually fight together war yeah yeah I know a bunch of policies right you know yeah there's a lot of unfortunate moments the leadership and you I mean even I'm probably giving them excuses as we speak but you know that oh well you know we hadn't been to combat we hadn't done this we hadn't done that but the truth is the truth the end of the day for those guys yeah may know who they are so there's a

1:57:00lot of them yeah there's a lot of them yeah so where do we go from here well came back from that trip and that's when I was like I was kind of disgruntled I had my I was a sailor the quarter sailor the year put my officer package together I was at back at team 3 and I was about to do my board I think it was like the day prior I um I took my my my my office my OCS package and just OCS or Seaman Admiral's one of the programs I just threw in the trash right in front of my CEO I was like I'm not doing this I don't want to work with you guys I want to stay with my guys you know so dumped it in the trash and then the next guy in line uh took it I think he's still in actually he's like he's got to be a captain but um yeah totally through that in a

1:58:01trash and was like just didn't want to be part of that you know and uh in plus we both know if you want to operate for the long haul you stay enlisted you know and I wasn't there for the retirement I wasn't even thinking about that you know I knew I was gonna do 20 nothing more nothing less and I didn't care about the retirement so I never never now then I'm calling maybe I should have but you know I wouldn't I still wouldn't change it the enlisted world runs the show and and you uh I got to confirm that once you get to these coasts that enlisted do run the show out there but um yeah I got back through my officer package in the trash and then uh my master chief um you know he told me about a new program and they were doing a screening and selection for it sounded interesting it sounded different I was like sure so I went to work on and it was a new initiative led by Admiral Callan at the time um I walked into this conference room I got like my

1:59:06dress whites on and um sit down it's a bunch of people in civilian clothing I didn't know anybody except for the master chief and he was in civilian clothing I kind of look at him like what's up you sit down they're like hey how you doing like good like uh go ahead and turn around in your chair like okay if I turn around in my chair now they're all at my back and I'm looking at the door I walked in I get handed a piece of paper that's on a clipboard and a pencil like go ahead and uh draw the quarter deck that you walked through two minutes ago I'm like oh shit was I paying attention you know and I started sketching overhead you know I remember okay there's the front desk there's the doors or some doors over here there's an American flag American flag you know do do do do do do do do some chairs and I put my you know cardinal bearing north arrow down at the bottom like this sucks I don't fucking know if this is even right I'm like uh okay and they're like okay turn around go ahead and tell us what

2:00:10you saw I'm like well I think I saw and I kind of describe everything in my drawing I show them the drawing I kind of go over it real quick and and then they're like okay and so then they start asking a series of questions you know like you know where you been what have you done they gave me some scenarios you know you're in a bar overseas you know guy walks in with a slung AK-47 what are you gonna do I'm like watch the guy pay attention make sure I take note of it you know orientate myself properly inside that bar to where this guy's at you know they're like okay and there's a lot of questions like that very scenario driven and then uh and then they um what was it with the they had like a this small little like cup and they had a bunch of broken down writing pens inside all the springs the ink cartridge tops

2:01:12in the bottoms and then they had a stopwatch and they're like okay go ahead and put all those pens together okay so you can dump it and I'm like putting these you know spring cartridge put it down into the bottom put in the top function test okay do the next one they were all different makes and models of pens and it's like that's weird and then they had some math problems so they gave me the math problems I wrote them down they're like okay they tie in it there's like basic algebra stuff something like that did those and then they were like okay turn back around turn back around my chair and like starting from left to right you know everybody and introduce themselves go ahead and tell who each person is I was like oh shit I'm like that's definitely one thing I suck at you know I was like but I'll give it my best try

2:02:12while I'm talking to this door in front of me right I'm like okay so I think the first guy was Frank I know the next guy was Billy because I worked with him next guy I think was you know Phil you know or something I just won't you know I don't even know I didn't know anybody's name I was like fucking fumbling through it and I could hear them kind of laughing a little bit so I was like okay thank god at least they see the humor in my in this and then they're like okay what were the first three questions we asked you like damn it like you asked me to draw the quarterback you asked me to tell him a little bit about myself and then you guys started introducing yourselves you know this thing I say I think it was like an hour interview really odd you know sounds like it had no idea what was going on what it was for and they're like okay thanks

2:03:14like all right walk out as I walk out now there's like probably 20 other seals in their dress whites all standing there waiting I was the for I guess I was the first to go I saw another dude I knew I saw a couple other guys I knew they all were going in for the same interview you know and um go back to the team and a couple of weeks goes by and I'm really even thinking about it anymore and my match chief command match chief team three pulls me in and he's like hey uh you know we're gonna um there was a program I don't know if you know you did your interview and stuff they called and so you know we're gonna send you over there like TAD at first see if they like you and I'm like send me where I like to work on like what am I doing or like oh they'll tell you that stuff and you get there and so I get over there and check in and there's nothing permanent because they just wanted it was me another guy that was in my platune actually like one of my lead comms guys and then it was like two or three other sealed um senior chief and a match chief that

2:04:16I had I didn't really um know that well but I knew of them and uh they sat us down and said all right fine fix finish we're really good at finish as a community we're okay at fix as long as it's like rural-based reconnaissance like you know wrecky team snipers that's about all we know about getting a fix on a target right we know nothing about the urban side of getting a fix someone so what we are tasked to build um with basically unlimited budget and it's a ready-go work as fast as you can is build the fix and the find for the community starting right now and we're like well what the well you know just first time I've ever heard of fine fix finish you know and uh so they kind of explain it to us you know find is really all the ends at the time they're really with their sick aunt and their human now you got a hundred of them you know um we're like uh okay

2:05:16and I'm like what is that you know and it was just uh hey ready go go figure it out and so with the power of the admiral an unlimited budget civilian clothes and basically got blue badge into in to every agency in DC and carte blanche ready go figure it out and um that's what we did and so we went to everyone to figure out well how do you find bad guys and okay now if we're going to build a program what would it look like and uh we had then we put together at the group level group one and group two we put little sales of guys together as force multipliers to start helping on educating the force and determining you know how to do this and this was all pre-G watt and so we got really far really fast and built um the entire ASO program for naval special warfare then built the AFO program so my buddy covered down on ASO but the army was the

2:06:23proponancy for ASO they ran that um and then we became the proponent for AFO and we ran hours and then I eventually got it certified through Socom and it became the first like joint course and uh uh so there's a lot in there because we were yeah we were deploying we'd go overseas work for an embassy not really have a job and come back and say okay I think this is what we need and then go all right build a course let's educate some guys and then send them over to fill that void and then but what we realize is once you have a foothold in an embassy that is the magic in the whole program so it was like all right we need to get guys over there we don't have enough seals okay put an intel kit over there so then we learned oh start grabbing people from the fleet start drawing in we're gonna build this thing out get footholds in the embassies once you have a foothold operationally

2:07:24then everything else comes from there and so it was very very strategic it was very operational and it was very tactical all at the same time so I was learning through a fire hose agency level shit you know uh you know at the national level then at the operational then at the tactical and going okay well how do we put all this together and then you had Admiral Callan and even McCraven because McCraven had started a thing called quantum leap I think prior to all this and I was privy to it when I was trying to learn like well how we build something in light speed so that we can get our guys involved in outside the theaters of war and truly operational prep of the environment which used to be called operational prep of the battle space congress didn't like the word battle space because it intends that we're gonna do something nefarious there so they change it to environment um and we started just mapping it out but McCraven had one thing that was so sticky

2:08:24that I remembered and I still use it to this day and it was if I were to send you Sean to China right now by yourself how would you take out an aircraft carrier by yourself and it's a pretty impossible thing getting into the country the layers of security when you dial in and look at the ports and harbors there you're not getting close to an aircraft carrier in that country but how can you take it out and then the quantum leap aspect of it when you start thinking strategically was well I don't have to get near that I can go 20 piers down to the tugboats that have zero security and if I take out every single tugboat in that harbor that aircraft carrier isn't moving right and then that just that one example just set my creativity and everything we started doing

2:09:26on fire was like wow you know like that's what we need to be doing that's how you get ahead because that is all about how you think and allowing frogman to be as creative as possible tugboat the tugboat theory became dothiri right and so then it was like okay now we can build on that so we started we started with the education and the deployments simultaneously so anytime I wasn't like putting a course together or testing out a course then I was going overseas and it was awesome because you got to wear all these different hats all the time every day and then so then we we partnered with army use a sock for all the ASO billets and then we started contracting you know you had a bunch of army guys get out start companies that taught ASO so then we started using them and then I was running the AFO and defining it like okay what is advanced force operations

2:10:27and mapping it out and really getting into it and what all does it include you know so we break out the doctrine so it included you know joint RSO and I which is reception staging onward integration and movement so RSO and I was like okay what is that at the conventional level it's how the army moves a hundred Apache's to Kuwait right reception staging onward integration into combat if you think about the logistics nightmare what does that mean for me and you me as a singleton it's like how do I get a troop of 22 guys from the beach to the safe site put them on target they annihilate everybody with non-attrib weapons and ammunition back to the safe site sanitize them back out to the ocean and then I go around sanitize everything they did before the sun comes up and start my day job right so that's what became RSO and I for Naval Special Warfare

2:11:30missions like that and we knew there was people out there already doing it but Admiral Cal is like we're taking that from them and we're going to do it through excellence and professionalism and creativity and we started building these programs we started putting people in embassies I mean everything all at once as fast as possible and it became a programmer record and became a big deal for Naval Special Warfare yeah it was a huge deal you guys people that followed ended up learning all the TTL stuff and basic electronics like tricyl like the the FO course I built I mean it was awesome I mean you started with getting your concealed carry classes we had district attorneys and all the major cities buy off on it you got crads you got guns you were packing the whole course and then and then you would go to initially it was TSS technical surveillance science and New Orleans they would teach you basic electronics electricity modification to consumer products lock picking alarms

2:12:31once you got all the tech under your belt tracking all that all that stuff then you would go into physical surveillance mode we had the Brits coming over teaching physical surveillance they were all in my five in my six SIS guys I took that course did you yeah it was awesome did I put you through no it was just that later oh there it was that course Merrill is a contract right yeah yeah we got took we were yeah we were we were going to do the Bosnia thing oh yeah that's like when this first popped up on my radar so I guess it would have been no or I believe yeah for us in it is test and then I got switched and I wanted to go into Afghanistan but I went through the whole course it was it's it's probably the best course I've taken yeah in the teams I had so much pride in that thing man I was surveillance counter surveillance running knobs from Richmond to Virginia Beach yep out of blend and like the show we were talking about this morning yeah I remember they'd take us to

2:13:32they they they they they put us in we'd start walking around them all and then it became a couple of city blocks and then it became all unnorfolk and then it became then they introduced cars and vehicles and then all the way up from Richmond down and yeah get them to top floor a bank of America building and all kinds of shit it was awesome and they put you in uncomfortable they you would have a target to get to follow or whatever they would always take you into the most awkward yeah notorious secret right baby store places we don't belong they'd feel uncomfortable and then they would confront you there and you would have to act you would have to figure out how to act normal or they they'd walk into an elevator and one of the guys on the team would follow them out and they what time is it but it was uh yeah and there was no shooting no explosives no jumping out of planes and that and uh it was my favorite course yeah some guys you had a knack for it and

2:14:33loved it and some had a knack for it and shouldn't never do it just because I was pissed they were gonna take me I guess they were like they had an augment to somewhere in the UK yes and I got selected for it you and love that it was a great bill yeah I was I was pissed yeah and then I got yeah then we went to Afghanistan which you whatever you know what I mean yeah there's all nothing but good deals back then you know it was like every day was a good deal for me running and building and kind of putting that whole thing together um and then also deploying at the same time and testing it you know I remember the first like who offensive technical stuff right I remember Zenjaboodi and our first sales pitch was hey our guys can do source vetting wow how do you guys do source that well when you're vetting somebody and you haven't come to a hotel or whatever we can exploit their car because guys know how to break into cars and we can exploit their briefcase if they have a briefcase you can blah blah blah you know right it was just to sell the technical capability that a guy can do these things right it was very defensive and um but it worked work like a

2:15:40charm you know hey we can set up camera cars for you right take the case officers car rip it apart put cameras outward looking inward looking put it all back together because they learn all this stuff in the course you know and um the B double E portion of the course I feel like whether guys realize and that was the most important aspect especially when you fast forward you know when things started getting more advanced because that basic electronics like electricity package um that's what allowed what later that I would call like a true like back to our roots in naked warrior program if you look at you know world war two whatever the guys with their UDTs and knife in their mouth and fence and a mask and go get it done with a 22 pound haversack and I was like okay well you can take that concept how do you play it now the modern day version of the naked warrior is an operator who's transitioned to operative right operator being a guy who wears

2:16:42body armor camis night vision kicks indoors and shoot people in the face now you've transitioned that same guy with that same experience to an operative where he's business casual flying business class he doesn't have 21 other dudes stacked up behind him all the success all the failure reside solely on him he's got as much cash as he needs he takes off from dollars he goes overseas he gets the job done and comes back right that's the dream job and I was like yeah you know a lot of guys didn't like that no that was what I was I was very drawn to that from the get goes like yeah this shit is cool yeah it is sexy yeah but yeah yeah and did you work putting that together oh yeah no it was awesome and it just just kept evolving it every year and then we solidified it all got rid of all the contractors we housed it at the NSA now you could teach everything in a skiff

2:17:44secure it lock it down and then take it to the next level which is kind of where it where it where it ended up that's where it's home ended up being majority of the course was run out of the NSA and you had all their assets and everything that they brought to bear that made it like a thousand times more professional made it very secure and and then being that close to all the other agencies it became like a reputable you know course of instruction that like I said even so calm signed off on it and instead of work on funding it it became a so calm funded thing and took off so did you take this over to development group too so that's kind of how part of it yeah so I um as you went over there to black swatter right yeah and you but it wasn't you weren't an assulter it wasn't like through green team and all that stuff you went over to black swatter and that's kind of from what I understand this is what they do yeah yeah um I laughed

2:18:48because you know when you're a non green teamer inside that fence line let me tell you oh yeah I've heard especially if you're a deploying you know guy inside of a troop you know it took a couple of years for me to build a trust but um yeah so I had once I built that course and it was kind of like an autopilot um then I moved out to dc I was helping with the course we built a NSW debt dc and it was one billet I sat in it and you were liaison to anybody like I got pulled into so much stuff I can't remember half of it like if you're an enlisted operationally operate sitting in a in a basically a c billet right a deployable billet in dc you'll have every agency coming you hey can you go do this for us how you can you go do that for us I mean it was pretty phenomenal and at the same time so I was attached in a say but representing naval special

2:19:52warfare inside the beltway um and so I got pulled into countless things I did a lot of cool deployments that was where the initial one of the deployments that kind of led me becoming more you know independent and doing the singleton stuff was um bin Laden's boats right bin Laden had 27 vessels and they had like a three-ring binder of these vessels and pictures and stuff and they're like man we need to get these things like tagged you know and um I think the initial idea was like the third deck at Fort Mead having this Tom Clancy room with all these screens and being able to see you know all 27 vessels on a on a global screen you know I think that was the idea but um so the first little gig was you know hey we got this boat called the well it was called the Jamil and the smaller metal um tanker not really that big and it was supposedly sitting in the

2:21:00Djibouti port and harbor right and so it was like all right let's go put a fucking tracking device on this thing and so uh that was like kind of like the first like you know trial run and I was working a lot with all of your TTL companies did you do it creatively yeah yeah we pulled it off how did you do it literally went in there and put it on there so this is where covered and all that kind of stuff right we were kind of still learning but the duty free shop inside well inside the Djibouti port and harbor is a duty free shop and a lot of times if you're a Westerner you can get away with going in there and uh buy and cigarettes buy an alcohol whatever right and so there was a lot of wreckies involved we built uh camera car you know took a car breaking apart outward looking cameras put it all back together and then drive through there and it took some time to actually find it but it was its color scheme it was green with a white superstructure and so

2:22:04we knew okay gotta get that and um and then once we IDed it they had literally taken paint and painted over jameal and like had some other name written on the side of it you know and in the nautical world every like like like aviation um everything's English right so you gotta so it makes it a little more bearable to figure things out and it had some other name and um but we knew which boat it was and um and so once we kind of figured out the port the the pattern of life of the port harbor at night and different times a day and then also the guys at the front gate you realize okay they're lax they're not like security they're just guys checking vehicles coming in just management of the flow of people coming in and out and then uh uh yeah once we figured out we like okay it was me and another team guy and like let's go ahead and see if we can pull this off tonight oh there was one other piece of this so the uh I think it

2:23:07was the agency had someone who had access who worked in the port and armor and so we built first generation camera with RF antenna um into a pack of cigarettes with a little pinhole and you know this was back when we're using these Sony X-View cameras you could buy on the line you know put it all together in this cheesy little RF device and it would push back and that was it was video so you wouldn't push very far and we put it in the kids backpack it had a mesh exterior pocket so we put the cigarettes down there made sure that the everything lined up just right glued it all in place made this kid wear this backpack and then he went on board it was able to film the inside and it filmed locally but it also pushed of course once you got into skin it went static and then we were able to collect the wristwood once came out so we knew like oh okay now we know the inside of this thing we knew the outside um and then went over there one night they had a

2:24:12ladder going up you know to the side of the boat no different than any other navy vessel from the deck of the ladder and just kind of dressed like they dress acted like we owned it walked up and we're able to drop the device there was uh there was like wood paneling and wood deck on a portion of this thing and any device it has to be able to just see the sky that's the most important thing and make sure that it's not behind metal right it can be high fiberglass wood can be pretty much behind anything but it has to be able to get it has to be able to see satellites so the device knows exactly where it's at and it also has to be able to communicate with us or whatever device it's talking to early on they had what was called matte tags multi-act access tags and so that was it can communicate through sem cards it can communicate through satellite it can communicate RF if I do a drive-by and collect the information off of it literally dropped it in there it's nothing sexy

2:25:16and then got out of that damn harbors quick as we could and uh Fred the team guy with me was driving get back in the car which were driving and he was so fucking paranoid like what we have followed and we we ended up creating our own little like crazy on the on the fly sdr back to where we're staying and you know I don't think anybody was following us but it felt like someone was following us you know and it was probably just you know I think in those uh a bit at least in my experience you you just you've been paranoid yes you know you always feel like somebody's following you or watching you in those situations for sure and we were fumble fucking through it you know we didn't know what we're doing and then you come back and you go okay where did I fail on that and it's like msdr's trade craft you know just taking the risk of a harbour that was okay lit but we were fortunate that that one happened to be in dark you know and we got lucky with a lot of the environmental that just didn't think to take into consideration or just

2:26:20kind of like fuck it let's just do it you know you have any cover no I think there's nothing and things get and then we just advanced it from there everything we advanced the tags these companies were working at building tags and um I mean it just kind of grew from there we had another bin Laden boat um another run this one was the uh it was called the Hamour it's named after Persian Gulf has these huge fish big black fish they're like bass of the sea and massive and they're not scared of humans but they're called I think they're called the Hamour this thing was named after it now one was anchored and they're like yeah go out there and tag it and there's like okay well we weren't advanced enough for that yet you know you had turtle high turtle low systems remember those you train with it's like a magnet like just we thought about doing that but those things can be seen if they pull into a port or harbor so but yeah that was the kind of the

2:27:22kickoff first like vessel and I think uh by the end of the run I was the only guy who tagged vehicles vessels and even like a shoe sold like sold the shoe how'd you tag that oh man um so so the the lead negotiator and leader of the Somali pirates um was standing on the side of the road in Basaso Somalia one day broad daylight on his phone and some of our guys when I say are the piss which is the point land intelligent service which is a bunch of Somalis that I've been in a bunch of times and train these guys and there's some crazy stories associated that but teaching them surveillance and uh they like see these guys they rolled them up I wasn't there I'd

2:28:23just come in like a couple days later so they see them on the side of the road go go go go go go go go go and so they square the block come back and grab them and throw them in the back of their truck right and take them to the safe site and um there was and at this point this is you fast forward we had now have in a w guys part of the very program that I had kind of belt the essay you know that I don't know if remember they have these special activity teams that have been given a bunch of different names what is basically a command of team guys that now sitting in these houses in different areas now is like wow this thing is advanced you know um so they're holding on to this guy and so we roll land and they're like so here's a deal there's this whole like political issue you got the three main clans in Somalia and the elderly's have to kind of buy off on like this guy going away this is the guy that was on the radio talking to Jonas and those other

2:29:24gold squatter and guys and different people for uh or red red hybrid you had Jonas though um kill saw who's on you know extortion 17 guy um who was like on the radio and doing all the creative talking back and forth with the Somali pirate leader negotiator so when you're watching the movie captain Phillips there's the voice on the radio this is that guy okay these guys just roll because they seem standing on the side of the road no shit yeah and he is you know a rock star in Somalia and he is broad I mean he brought in the biggest part of their economy they're Somalia imports everything and it only exports one thing can you guess what that is it's the largest exporter of camels caught well they import caught they import caught from Ethiopia yeah those

2:30:27cop planes come in landed about 11 a.m. caught trucks go out to the cot stands all over Somalia all the cot stands have caught by about 1 p.m. and then by about three or four the entire country cheeks are full of caught and they're high and they're just wandering around like zombies with literally two they got their cheeks full and two cigarettes hanging out their mouths so you can count on them all being high and you can get away with a lot during that time obviously when you you know just like we always do you just use the culture against them but um should have been a shorter story but they wrap the guy up gives you context to who he is and uh then there's a it's a thing we couldn't just just snag him if we wanted to maintain support with the little support we had in Somalia so all of those like the piss you know the the putland intelligence service we had the kind of the same version other places and so they all had to kind of agree right they're like hey you

2:31:32gonna take this guy who's the biggest part of our economy all his ransom money was funding that country right millions and millions of dollars right so it was political they're like we want to pull them so there was this back and forth and then there was this point when they're like hey we got to let them go we're like what and I'm there at that point and I happen to have always really carried all these different tags with me everywhere I went and um and I had a a black squadron tack with me and they were like oh hey so how do we we're told hey like make sure you tag him like tag him you know so you know they had stripped him down and put him in like some you know their own clothes and kind of took his own clothes and we created this whole storyline on how to get his clothes and his shoes and everything and then we're like he one thing about Somalis is they always are interestingly they're always dress nice they got slacks on

2:32:34long sleeve shirts untucked somewhat clean and shaven they're always kind of moving with a purpose going from point A to point B and always like leather dress shoes with the old school wooden souls and so we took a shoes pulled out the insoles had a dremel put the tag in there put it back we put his shoes on walked around him making sure it didn't feel different than the other made sure it's heavily concealed everything glued back in place and then we're like all right here's the test you know it was the data release him and so you know they gave him his clothes and he got dressed put his shoes on he didn't act any different kind of watching him let him out the front door went or went dropped him off but basically let him go knowing that okay we got to potentially grab this dude if he runs or whatever clan leaders you know don't come to a decision on the sky so some I feel like a week or so went by and everybody agreed and then

2:33:44yeah they ended up lighting up that area so that his tag would reflect back it worked kept track of him the whole time it's really cool and then eventually rolled him up they basically ran a rendition package on him you know we're moving from jet to jet he doesn't touch sovereign territory so he can't you know pull any bullshit with the attorneys and then he showed up in New York one day and put on trial and he's sitting in prison in New York wow all those crimes against you know US companies citizens all that yeah shit yeah that's pretty bad yeah who would have thought though you know the guys just wrote the room in the back of the truck you know you stand on the side of the road I mean you know it's kind of sometimes you get lucky damn yeah and here's another interesting you know that particular tag was invented and created by no other than Mitch Bradley

2:34:48so everyone knows who Admiral Mitch Bradley has been in the news a lot because of the strikes against drug boats and oh shit South America he's our current Z Southcom or whatever I know idea um I guess he would be right but when he was uh I don't know when he was an oh four and oh five he's at JSOC and I don't know where he worked in like science and technology or something but he he created this tag it's fucking smart right on them yeah what were you doing you Yemen um we were always in and out there primarily uh those were during the AAA days and war all olochi and war was controversial because he was an American citizen um he was the guy that was on back in the day YouTube allowed everything

2:35:49and censored nothing believe it or not and so back then you had people in orange pajamas getting their heads chopped off by al-Qaeda you had you had everything on there man and uh one of the most prominent propaganda guys for al-Qaeda was a guy named anor al-Qaeda we nickname AAA and he uh US educated US citizen but from Yemen his dad is a wealthy guy in Senna um um he uh but he was their lead propaganda guy he had a magazine called Inspire to inspire people to radicalize it it had a lot of radical Islam articles in it but it all the biggest thing is it always provided it was a true magazine printed and published it had diagrams to how to build bombs s-vests uh myde's uh vehicle ID I mean you name it and it was

2:36:49uh everywhere and um then he had his YouTube channel where he radicalized probably more people than bin law never did you know if you look at the two Boston Marathon bombers they're radicalized by anwar's videos if you look at the Fort Hood shooter radicalized by AAA um most and there's plenty the shoe bomber the reason we're taking our shoes off at TSA for so long it's because of AAA um the underwear bomber right luckily we didn't have to take our underwear off at TSA but i'm sure i'm sure they thought about it no underwear allowed um but he was he influenced more people and radicalized more young americans and young muslims and anyone else of al-Aqaeda and so he's basically considered i think number two once the command killed number one

2:37:50you know then he became number one and he was in Yemen and so a lot of our trips in and out there it was just really targeting him uh the CIA on drone strikes had missed him like two or three times in a row um he would come in the senna from time to time and they'd always try to hit him on the highway going back out to wherever he lived out in the middle of nowhere and it didn't work and uh so then eventually you know once we had a foothold at that embassy you know i think the agency was like hey what can you guys do and so i went over and it was to tag his vehicle i was like all right this is cool you know and um he had a driver that would always park outside of a 24-7 convenience store and he would park that damn car right in front of the glass and the cashier inside conveniently

2:38:51pointed outward towards cars parked right there and over there you know the deal they like park up on the sidewalk you know so he would put this thing like danger clothes to bumper to the glass i mean there's barely any room to actually walk on the sidewalk and it was you know you could tell it was with purpose his driver did this on purpose keep his keep keep that vehicle under watch 24-7 or at least when it was parked there and in across street it was like this hotel shideas hotel of sorts and so once we kind of figured that out we would roll in and set up um reky cars, camera cars, parkum leave them collect go back drive them away see what we could collect on the driver get ID quality this was all spread out over time but eventually we got ID quality the driver figured out what's kind of car then we go out in town, procure and or comedy or the exact same car bring net back to our place break the car down rehearse figure out how we're gonna do it this and that and then

2:39:53my uh my task force SCA is like hey you know you can be creative as you want on that so like okay what do you mean? it's like we know if you got like steel a van or steel something you know and you know come up with some creative so that you can park right next to it and knock it out real quick and i was like uh okay so took his hat like start looking around like okay can we just steal a van now you know it's like yeah i'm looking forward to commenting on a vehicle for covert operations you know and um believe it or not the closest van for these army guys like us guys so i like kind of ask discreetly hey can we just steal air van? he's like yeah i can do whatever the fuck you want i'm like yeah so now i'm stealing these guys van that they bought and i'm just like well hell that's the best way to do it take a van known people put it up steal it from them at least don't tell them about just borrow it so we borrow it and then i have

2:40:54one of the attacks go out in town by like a thermite torch and we cut a hellhole into this floor of the van right and uh and turn it into this hatch and then we buckled down a spare tire to it so that if under inspection it looked you know if you opened up the back of the van you just saw a spare tire that you know it was locked down to the floor and you know he just kid did a great job i mean you did a good job buddy give yourself a bronze star after this deployment you know like everyone else you know and um so the idea was you know hey we're gonna pull up next to this thing and um and with that guy sitting inside at his little cash register you can have guys in the back open up the trap door drop down to the street roll from underneath the van to underneath the target vehicle and do your thing and so um we had one guy i think he was a blue squadron guy

2:41:56pulled the wrecky he was out on the street he was our overwatch and then uh uh i was team leader for this whole team of guys and so i ran team lead and full disguise i had my imanese mask on and my man and my man dress and imanese like to wear their uh like a blazer it's kind of something that sets him apart and they wear their head head dress set up on their head they wear it kind of over their blazer and um so i was looking me throughout everything drove the vehicle happened to be a parking spot got lucky right next to the target vehicle and uh parked next to it kind of looking at this guy get my light up a cigarette start letting my mass smoke crack the window look like i'm just gonna hang out that's nothing unusual for that environment um and then as soon as i saw him look away we went back behind the curtain he's all blacked out kind of kind of kind of had our own concealment built into the back of this

2:42:57van that didn't look anything weird or could pass inspection open up the door hit the deck roll under the vehicle um so had a new a brand new tracking it had double satellite hockey pucks it had double cell phone antennas which are like look like black thumb depressors or a tongue depressors you know on a wire bottom line is you had like four or five things you had to conceal um rehearsals basically a piece of cardboard on your chest once you're underneath this thing and you're mixing these like super potent epoxy and you squeeze it out of the tube squeeze it on the mix it around and then you start fucking you know start fucking glowing shit everywhere double zip tie did everything you know make it look right back into the vehicle

2:43:58um get back to the front seat when the guy wasn't looking and then uh yeah no big deal the overwatch cleared us everything was good to go pull out there leave boom got a tracking device on an anwar a lockies car go back we're all proud and happy pull it up tracking's good pingin on all four channels this is awesome so next day things starts moving moving around sena this and that goes and does some things log in we're able to kind of bounce all this information off other people and um and then uh write it like around the 24 hour mark drops nothing one thing double cell phone dropped double satellite dropped and i'm like the fuck just happened to this thing what do you you know go get an oil change

2:45:02and the guy you know there's a risk to all this you go get an oil change got me puts it on the rack and they see something right and then find something leads to everything else you know it's there's risk and we're like holy fuck you know it was a huge success you know and uh now it's not you're like and that's the thing about that that world as you know it's like all the success all the failure resides solely on you sometimes or you and you're you know if you got a couple of texts with you or whatever fucker man so then i'm like leveraging everything i have fort mead or in a say dialing in on yim and he's phone network trying to figure out if we're lost in this and that and pulling all these resources you know and their uh switchboards to uh figure out what happened couldn't figure it out time goes by time goes by valuable time valuable time now we're back to pulling surveillance on the hotel now you know two or three nights later he's not parking there anymore we're

2:46:04oh burned possibly burned i think about seven day mark and i'm already stressed out can't eat you know this is one of those things where you just don't want to go that way and uh what were you guys gonna do drone strike it uh there was a lot of courses of action you can imagine like this was uh uh um at the time you know macraven was uh was j-sock and so very aggressive um Mitch Bradley same admiral it's been in the news lately was my boss um so yeah there was a lot of courses of action because drones hadn't worked it was like let's do it differently you know what that was who knows um and so turns out seven day mark after every phone call i was talking to tracking companies agencies all of the tech components of everything this isn't gonna surprise you but j-sock

2:47:13stop paying the bill on all of the communication components of that particular device yeah yeah uh and for me i was like oh thank god you know because i'm running that off it's mine and of course one minute you're the rock star next minute you it's that whole hero to zero thing you know and definitely felt it in that moment and uh and then it was like oh so then we know the problem you could fire it back up this point that thing i think a week later started pinging out in the middle nowhere they'd just gone back out to where they lived and um but it gave valuable information it gave a pattern alive that then was used later to eventually killed a guy yeah yeah i think we were there i spent a lot of time in Yemen we probably crossed paths glenn my favorite india lenn do you know that coffee shop that was supposedly owned by the American

2:48:13couple they lived and it was kind of it was over by the embassy it was walled in it was outdoor and so i say in sena yeah supposedly owned by this month's rock american near the storm spot yeah owned by an american company like what's american couple own a fucking coffee shop in sena you know handle kinds of antennas on top of it because they live there too so i remember i was going in and glenn was coming out we've like literally bump into each other and like oh hey american american yeah speak angl- yeah you want to get a coffee with me sure you know we're kind of putting on the act i'm just thinking somebody's watching go back inside get coffee this fucking last time i saw the guy too that was it that was his trip to Yemen he came back home i didn't get to see him and then going over to relieve tie was the next trip but yeah it's pretty uh kind of such a small world in that world yeah there was you know you'd run into them the same dudes you know i was like are we the only ones like doing this shit around the globe

2:49:17because that's kind of scary if it's true everyone's gonna recognize us at some point you know well shit i mean today you can't even do it no with all the facial recognition and all that stuff i've been i've heard that they you can't even you can't even get fake passports anymore you can't you can't really do any undercuts no yeah when i was leaving everything i think was going you know back to true the agency was leading the way but yeah you couldn't and even with masks you know with you i have a my my Arab mask and i have my Somali and it even got to the point where there's um certain thermal that you if that's running you can see it so you have to assume like once there's a piece of technology out there that can burn it that particular piece of equipment and you know you can't uh you can't ever use it you can't trust it won't be seen or seen through or whatever yeah you know but it was powerful disguise

2:50:20was very powerful there for a while you know like uh deception point of view and we were the only ones really using it offensively Jeff and I you know the agencies always use disguise is kind of like go meet a source you never met before or when you're shitting in your own backyard kind of stuff but we were the only ones kind of hard those are hard those are hard plays to hide to even with the local garm yeah because it's so tribal there um i mean we would do we would walk these assets and you know through the whole city and clean them you know welcome through metal detectors and malls and whatever yeah you know to clean them before they finally got to us and yeah we would even win it you know the uh actually it was with it we just we get burned every time not even realize that until the assets and the car he's like was that was that your guys on the hotel you know what I mean and we're like how did you know that you know the guys were in the thing on the wrong side or he's doing this or he's doing that

2:51:22I think it's impossible for you know a western art to really to get it down perfectly of course glance it's great but yeah to actually do it no way and we had we've had assets get killed because of it I mean it's it's a tough place to blend yeah I would say almost every all of the places we went you know Somalia my mask probably there and you know you got gloves that go up to your armpits to make you a black guy but it only works because you know they're high on caught and I'm doing it at night you know like yeah yeah yeah for CMOE which is what you know your initial question getting pulled out of NSA it was because I ran a course for the four or five E9s at damn neck it's like a two-week course they came up and I kind of put them through it and they realized wow like you know what you're talking about and you've actually done this stuff why don't you come work

2:52:23for us and I was like okay so I you know did the screening for damn neck you know the interviews and the psych tests and I actually said hey all right good idea I go through green team they're like nope and these E9s at the time are like legends and so what they said went there's no argument with them you know and so when once I got there and got into a black squadron you know my job really didn't have anything to do with green team but it's nice to check that box because it's selection and if you're a seal you want to be a selected guy but I put in like five different chits and they return down every time so there's a point when you just go okay and they just you're not here for that yeah actually you're not here for that you're not here for that you're here for CMOE I'm sorry Roger that but CMOE is Clandess in Methods of Entry so we built the pro I built the program there which is basically lock and alarms getting in

2:53:25leaving zero attribution United States government zero forensics and so Jeff and I had like a god we had like a ten million dollar budget which is nothing compared to what guys have now but the time we're like well shit just the two of us and that was to build the capability so we went to the 22 SES capability went to SRR while we're in England they had a great small CMOE capability very experienced get the IRA back in the day went to FBI toss their whole there's as a hundred million dollar CMOE program right went to Pag which is the agencies that's another hundred million dollar fucking you know entry program and we're like well we got to build something in the middle so we're just a two-man shop and yeah you know we got educated at the highest levels and we're able to get you know ultimately the goal for anything is you know you want the squadron to be able to own the target so

2:54:28our main job was to provide reliable repeatable means of reentry so that means make a key so that's a school and that's all we did is roam around the planet breaking into shit and most of the time there's only two reasons i'm gonna be in your house in your car on your boat and that is either tactical or technical and you probably rather it be technical and then tactical because if I'm there that means 22 guys are gonna show up after me and fuck you up for the rest of your life or make you disappear at sea it's technical well you get to live a little longer and we're just gonna listen to you watch you and see where you go you know but it was definitely I mean like you couldn't ask for a better job singleton world you know like I said I wasn't as deep in as you were but that was uh it's my favorite stuff yeah it was just I don't know I can't even really

2:55:30describe why it's just I don't know it's just cool to be on your own doing that kind of shit yeah that's it it's the it's the old of love do of done TFO yeah I um did classes for them I get pulled up there really yeah I got to help out with their selection and they've got a great history I mean that's the closest selection to OSS selection that there is in history to this day yeah super cool but I would help them out out in Nevada fucking phenomenal course I um it was aspects of that that I put in dollars because I was able to go see it and these guys are onto something well that's really cool man yeah now know that you were the one that pretty much built that entire program at least at the beginning of time you know beginning of time beginning of it's time yeah um it's like very cool 20 plus years ago at this point so yeah it's

2:56:33old now all old news I can't even imagine what they're doing these days but it's pretty damn cool yeah that it is but I wanted to take quick break sure I'm always listening to something on the road working out walking around the house traveling whatever it is and what I like about Amazon music is it puts music podcasts and audio books all in one app so now with Amazon music unlimited you're not just getting music and podcasts your subscription also includes access to audio books which makes it easy to keep something good going no matter what you're doing I've been listening to project Hail Mary and that's the kind of audio book that really works in this format hearing the story and the narrator's voice pulls you in differently you get the pacing the tension the personality of the characters and it makes it easy to stay locked in whether you're driving training or knocking things out around the house with Amazon music you get music podcast and audio books all in one app

2:57:39try it today the internet wasn't built with your privacy in mind but glacier was open the app tap connect done you're protected remember privacy isn't paranoia it's protection take your privacy back download glacier today all right Clint we're back from the break I think we've covered a lot of the singleton stuff and everything you're doing or is there more to go into I think that's plenty right I mean people get the idea it's really about hey you're taking seasoned operators turn them into operatives and going and getting shit done outside the theaters of war and you know creative way of taking out bad guys it's really super cool stuff and yeah I mean so what's some of the stuff that you carried back then or carried now let's do a quick everyday carry pocket down back then it's

2:58:42gonna sound weird I mean I always had a couple of tracking devices I had my lock equipment smart jammers for alarm systems and stuff like that um reckey stuff urban recu like cameras and hide materials and video um you know and notice the first thing I mentioned is like oh an mp7 you know some kind of whatever pistol but you know your tools as you know back then or for that kind of stuff is you know it's it's commercial level stuff that you can explain away you know um and so it's really it's not about guns and all that it's it's about having a great storyline if you ever get pulled and have something you gotta have a story you know that matches what you have on you and then that story also has to match the environment that you happen to get rolled up in that's all you're thinking about the whole time right because the layers of your cover come off as you get

2:59:46closer and closer to a target to the point where if I'm on my knee making a lock key to a lock I really can't explain that away so that's why time on target so important you want it as minimal as possible so that you can get your layers back on because the further you get away from that target the better um you know my you know disguises you know obviously those masks come in handy one of them was actually on display at the International Spy Museum in DC and then I guess some agency attorneys went through there after it had been on display for like four or five years you know the agency purposely unclassified the sky stuff so that someone can like you can throw it in the trash because before then if you throw it in the trash oh you threw away classified material so the unclassify all this crap you know and I didn't what am I going to do with a mask that's built to my face you know so I just donated it and uh far the former deputy of black squadern

3:00:46was actually the director of the spy museum when I donated it so he was good with it and was like okay well if he's good or whether then but they came through and took it you know stuck it in their my their new museum at headquarters I suppose I don't know well they threw it in the trash you know you know but um it's actually there's a yeah there's a funny story this whole disguise thing like at the time uh pvh you know or the the CEO of seal team six pull Jeff and I and he's like you guys are uh my disguise guys my uh I wouldn't call us disguise guys we just wear them from time to time okay so there's a nanny cam you know and he's like yeah whatever here's a deal can you disguise a troupe of guys like you know with masks and stuff and he's like well whatever I'm like well now probably not the mask because it takes takes six months to build those things you know or whatever it is I said we could probably use uh you know

3:01:49some melt some LA guys and he's like yeah okay figure it out I want you to take 22 guys and get them disguised like as what like I don't know Afghanis or something I'm like okay so I call up uh the first guy I call it was the um stew seagull okay stew seagull productions he uh we used him in the afo course and he is a producer that was in LA he decided to open up his own production studios in sandiego and um he had sats and he had an Afghan village that looked real realistic and we can run scenarios there with actors and everything and really get guys squared away on blending in or building rapport right for some of the things that require communication and um and so I call him up and he's famous for all the 80s cheesy tv shows so Pensacola uh Buffy the vampire slayer remember renegade yeah um hunter uh silk stocking

3:02:57murders right he produced all those in sandiego um his claim to fame though was Jeremy the hedgehog he started in porn so stew was a was a porn producer and made Jeremy the hedge is that his name Jeremy the hedgehog famous you know the ugly little guy with the big talking about yeah got a lot of meat on that guy kind of guy but um never seen it though uh and so then he switched out of porn and started the all those tv shows has his own set and stuff and then at the same time I was like well who can do like really good uh the yeager brothers now the yeager brothers got their fame early on in the special effects world with Freddie Krueger and they got all kinds of awards and stuff I guess back in the day and they became like the top special effects uh place in la and so they could make really cool masks um super detailed but they're faster so I was just like okay I can leverage all my resources and figure out who can knock this out the quickest and stew of course like I got you we can knock this out and so if you know

3:04:03stew he's like a big barrel chested bearded he should be a teen guy but he's you know he's a Hollywood producer and um so we fly these guys out there the afghan village dress them all up you know they put prosthetic noses and bushy eyebrows and you know and beards and this and that and and uh all these tanning ointments and got them looking all you know put gay make a 47s and then had him run around in this village and we filmed it because the the special instruction was hey film it with cell phones film it with handy cams film it with all kinds of just average crap right like average technology you know all you're at it go ahead and use some high-end security cameras as well and we'll just see how these guys look do it a day do it at night kind of did it all thing and um you know I'm like what's this for you know and so we come back and kind of present it to the CEO and he looks at he's like okay it was really all right thanks and that was it

3:05:04well like what the because we jumped through our ass to make this happen so did the it was a it was a troop out of silver squadron and so we're just like what the fuck was that for well fast forward turns out one of the courses of action for uh the bin Laden raid was to let everyone do it in disguise and then let Pakistan take credit for it and so this was like to see how they looked if they happen to get captured on cell phone or cameras or whatever this thing is like oh okay that's kind of cool that's my big claim to fame and the bin Laden operation controversial bin Laden boy how that would have changed the latest drama huh yeah what is what is it right now with the with the latest you know what I mean who's is it yeah I kind of lost track honestly like is it who's it I don't know drag either who's who's winning I don't know is there anybody winning winning like is this the who shot bin Laden oh yeah I don't know is that the current I don't know

3:06:08it's what were you talking that's that's what I'm talking about okay I mean it's been kind of like the ongoing the ongoing thing right yeah it's like it had that to happen how would a change of uh no one can say anything and I think maybe you know that's why the course of action just was never looked at seriously but these guys are gonna keep that secret I swear it got it was me I'm the one with the big nose oh man yeah that was a weird yeah yeah yep so why did you leave well boy that's an interesting question did you just threw out there well I was rolling up on my 20 to begin with and so let's see that was 2000 so you know the deal with retirement you can put your retirement paperwork out 24 months out two years out as soon as you do that it's supposed to

3:07:10kind of take you off the bench and you can take that last two years and kind of just do whatever you want concentrate on your new future at that command it doesn't do that you know I put my paperwork in but kept working and still got pulled into stuff here and there and plus you're addicted so you don't really say no to anything anyway you want to be part of anything and then uh but the way out ended up actually getting having you know some drama attached to it unfortunately and it actually hinges on what we just joked about so um they're basically I'm sitting at home one morning and I get a call from my ops chief who I had gone through buds with and he's like like that don't come in man they've got your picture at all the checkpoints oh my what you fucking with me right now no I am serious as a heart attack they have your head shot at all the checkpoints and I was like uh okay he's like I'll call you back once I need to have more information

3:08:16what checkpoints to get on base to get to the command okay right so I'm like still thinking maybe he's fucking with me like why would they put picture of me oh you mean there's a picture posted a picture posted I thought you meant pictures of you going through the checkpoints no what no yeah picture of me like if you see this guy bring a man tight yeah yeah something and I was like uh all right so that was kind of like obviously nerve-racking talk and I'm like so I'm sitting at home now the shit really comes a nandy what's that now all these masks really come yeah so I'm sitting there and I'm kind of like what the fuck could this be you know like there's nothing like I've lived a pretty clean career and you know I'm sitting there going if I done something wrong could I say something wrong could I you know and anyway a day turns in today's and I'm starting to call people and nobody knows anything and as you know or I always

3:09:18kind of compare like to that itty Gallagher moment like knowing what it's like to have no control over your future right and I didn't I got a fraction of what he got but I had that feeling like oh you know what does this mean you know you start thinking it's the 800 pound gorilla sitting on your chest right now it's the United States government it's this it's that your mind just starts taking off in all different directions and um you know I'm just sitting at home and uh didn't know uh didn't know what was going on nobody gave me any word and then I think about a week went by and then finally my off chief same guy he calls me up and he's like hey uh you know I hope you're doing okay it's still real blurrier around here I have no idea what's going on so just hang tight and I'm like I've been hanging tight like what the fuck is going on and uh he was like I'm sorry I just don't have any answer for you and I was like what the fuck you

3:10:22know um and then a couple more days goes by he calls he's like hey meet me at the uh you know it's Harris teeter grocery store it's like meet me in the parking lot I was like okay and so I it's after work for him so once he gets meet him over there in the evening it's pouring rain um he's like hey do you have your uh access badges and all your stuff I'm like yeah so yeah I've been told to take it I'm like holy fuck you know like you're handing over you know all your NSW I got a ton of them on there too because they give me access to places in DC and this and that and I hand it over to him and uh um I mean he's like sorry dude he goes I still have no idea I was just told to come get this from you he's like just hang tight we'll figure it out well I great so now I go home when that happened now I start to branch out and call other folks

3:11:23and so the first person jumped in my mind um was one of my buddies at I think he was at teammate and teammate was the one where they handed over a CIA source or what asked whatever it was remember this teammate guy's hand him over he's alive and then when the agency got a hold of him he magically died do you remember this I don't there was a bunch of team guys at eight or wherever that we're getting they're getting like court martial and it was some crazy drama and I'm I talked to one of them and they're like call Louis free because you know he he ended up walking into the courtroom the judge knew who he was everybody knew who he was Louis basically looked at said you know this is like a cane group court this is ridiculous let these guys go they didn't do anything wrong and you know it and so the military judge respected and knew who Louis was point where he basically let those guys go because it was a total sham deal or whatever the drama I don't remember the

3:12:27details anymore but so they're like just call him you know I and I remember there was a trip I took to Yemen and one of the houses there was a kid named Justin free and I was like oh I've met Louis son he's an officer team guy so I hit him up and said hey I've been told probably hit your dad up what do you think he's like yeah call him get him on your side now and get it over with you know that way you're you know you're good and I was like okay and if you don't know who Louis free is he's he's a former federal judge former director of the FBI and he owns probably one of the most reputable law firms in the country he his law firm took down San Dusky right all this was at like sex crime sexual stuff at one of the universities it took down the BP oil spell and the golf you know when that thing was dumping you know millions of barrels oil per day but great American and he's a kind of an American icon actually he's kind of

3:13:33checked all the big boxes in the legal world and so I called him up and said hey I have no idea what's going on but you know I had all my badges pulled I've been basically sitting at home for a couple weeks and you know here's this guy I don't even know and he's like don't worry it's gonna be okay like if you can't think of anything that you've done it's that wrong and it can't be that bad and either way I'll take care of it you know and it was like wow and it was the first time in that couple weeks feel like all right now I got somebody on my side and it's not just somebody you know he's got horsepower and in fact on that first phone call he's like do you want me to call 60 minutes we can we can light this up in a heartbeat man I was like no not yet I said if it comes to something like that sure and this is a long story but to shorten it fast forward they do this full investigation that I don't know what it is I just know there's an investigation going on they're not really talking to me I kept Louie up to up to speed but I never told anybody

3:14:36that I had him in my court and had him on standby to just start you know destroying people if it was necessary and and then one day I get called in you know I had to go to the visitor center they took me to the MWR building which is like you know you couldn't work for you know somebody who's been at the command for whatever at that point seven years something like that you know it's like dude you're treating me like like a maintenance guy coming to fix something right and they pull me into the MWR and you know and seal warrant who was in charge of the investigation or whatever sits down in front of me pulls out this big binder and I'm looking at the binder I kind of see like it's it's like printoffs from my website okay and so he's flipping through it and he's like do you do you have a company called escape the wolf like yeah are you actively making any money

3:15:40right now like no like do you have some product that you're offering yep any of you is there a conflict of interest with this product I haven't sold any product not enough so he's got this you know he's got all these questions they have to do with my my retirement company and uh and then he's like so Matt Bissonette and then I'm looking at like yeah he's like are you aware that there's a book that came out I was like I don't think so no he's like hmm so are you friends with Matt I was like acquaintances I think I went over to his he had a company called element five or something like that I can't remember anyway I was like yeah I've talked to him a couple times that's about it it's like uh huh like staring at this guy and he's like well a lot of what you've got going on

3:16:40right now you know looks and smells kind of like what he did I'm like well what did he do he's like well he he had uh wrote a book and he had sold rights you know to a publisher and collected that money while he was on active duty here at this command so what outside income are you collecting while you're here at this command and I'm like none and uh he's like hmm well you've got a lot of infrastructure set up online you know and it's part of the reason why you're sitting here and um you know some people or whatever has some issues with all this and I was like uh do are you aware that I put in my retirement paperwork already he's like no like yeah so I've already put in for retirement how old the investigation you get going on and then he's like uh okay and I said are you aware that I also filled out a chit respectfully requesting to start my

3:17:45retirement company called escape the wolf gotta be shit me and I have five signatures of my entire chain of command and all the paperwork is sitting in the Jags office and he's like you have do you have copies of this I'm like yeah at home you better believe it he's like oh so this is like two or three months later okay and I had stressed out how's down to like the 160 pounds thinking I know what to think and it's them targeting there's about 20 of us that they targeted you know to figure out who had outside sources of income because they were comparing it to the likes of what Matt did with his book and wanted to they didn't have control of Matt the CEO at the time was putting pressure on the DOJ DOJ within was coming after Matt but it was a dotted line rather you know it wasn't it wasn't enough so when the CEO's job was threatened

3:18:47by the joint chief of staff that you know hey why do you have the your guys getting out writing books about covert operations um that same CEO saw his career pass in front of him you know his grandfather was an admiral his dad was an admiral and now I think he saw it is like oh well now I'm not going to make admiral because of this kid's this person's book well so I'm gonna have to take it out on take it out on his own people then I just happened to get wrapped up into that 20 guys and we all got tried and boarded and treated like criminals they still did it they still tried and boarded you in order the well the new in order to close any case in naval special warfare it's the tried and board that closes the case so keeping your tried in but we got to finish the board so in the board is when the true colors came out and I'm sitting across from a master chief

3:19:48who boarded yourself for being a fucking dumbass right I mean it was what was all king grew court you know knee jerk reaction to try and burn a bunch of guys that they had control over because some other guy you know did something they didn't like that's what you know and so did the proper channels I did board the other 19 didn't fare so well but they still were like hey yeah we got a board you to close this thing out so I sat down from a master chief who had an investigation on him that was ongoing right and and I knew about it I don't even know if he knew he had an investigation going on on him and he's like so Matt Bisonette I'm like uh-huh uh-huh it's like why didn't you disclose that uh you bought your house from him when you moved to Virginia Beach what the hell did this and I'm like what are you talking about like yeah I bought my house but Matt's out of town I'm out of town my wife and his wife basically made the deal like I

3:20:54said I knew I was buying a house from a team guy but I didn't you know that's it like what do you mean and what's here's what's interesting that I knew is the same master chief had sold that same house to Matt when Matt moved to Virginia Beach and so I was like didn't you own this house at one time and he was like that's not the point I was like okay and then uh then it was over they did their little kangaroo court okay you get to keep your trade in I was like well good because I'm like retiring next month thank god but I mean that was my exit out you know out of the mayvus it's fucking horrible and stressful and in the juice yeah yeah wow some of the other guys man they were sweeping the quarter deck for like a year they got their tritons pulled sweeping the quarter deck told that after that year punishment will give you your bird back some of them once the year went by they can get their bird back just let them yeah see ya it's crazy these were

3:22:01season that didn't it doesn't surprise season to other areas right operators and they these were like troop chief level guys you get you up and spit you out like you're a piece of shit I see a time and time and time yeah I'm again yeah in here yeah all the time yeah every unit yeah it's what they do well they say you know it's a fence line of sharks and eventually you get bit so got bet it's kind of like they say well you can't make chief until you get in trouble you know it's like that kind of holds true a little bit yeah the hypocrisy is just like yeah not that I've ever seen it had left a bad taste in my mouth for a really long time and then eventually you just like well whatever man like I didn't do anything wrong and I was glad I was the only one that filled out the right paperwork because you know us naval special nobody fills out paperwork and then it's w in the only reason I filled out that paperwork is because my deputy and black squadron who was an

3:23:03army guy was like yeah you should probably fill out a chip just cover your ass just in case I was like oh good call on that yeah an army guy because they're all about the admin stuff you know wow but yeah I listen to him and it paid off yeah fun fun right so we covered the escape to wolf stuff yeah so let's talk about I began oh boy I began how'd that go for you huh um I think I'd benefit it far more than I know um I feel like I went into it pretty ready compared to a lot of guys I feel like a lot of guys I don't know about you but the sign up they go down and they really hadn't done a lot of prep work you know so I had I'd been through therapist after therapist after there's and I finally found um Scott um out of florida and this guy is basically like

3:24:14part therapist part Yoda part poet and has this very um he just has an ability about him you can vomit all over his desk and he will take all of that and turn it into just gold bars of windstom or wisdom where you're sitting they're going yeah exactly you know if you tell like how you feel or what you're thinking I don't know how many times with this guy I would say exactly that's exactly what I'm thinking that's exactly what I'm feeling you know two years straight are working with him and uh prior to I began and was able to just uncover the why to a lot of my own personal issues you know is this the childhood stuff that we're coming back to yeah yeah I thought this was coming after I would get I'm sorry no it's it was all during the that I began was like the grand finale for me don't you yeah and so he made me dig and um you know and he uh there's one exercise

3:25:15he had me do that was so powerful that it kind of unlocked a lot of compartmentalized stuff from childhood and um he said you know before I grew up in before I moved to Saudi I was in Dallas and I had this memory of standing in the bathroom doorway as like a four or five year old leaning against the frame of the door my mom sitting on the toilet right she's got a cigarette hanging over mouth and she's like ah Clinty you know your dad uh huh yeah you know he's not your real dad right and I'm just like I mean she just kind of left it at that you know and in retrospect and through therapy you learn like a boy's identity is through his father you know trust is through the mom and you know a whole lot of other things that carried a lot of weight in that moment and then she stacked a whole bunch of other stuff on over time right things that I

3:26:21remembered you know when when I was learning to walk and talk she was teaching me how to lie cheat and steal all at the same time I remember I was going to grocery stores and she would always stage me in the toy section be like stay here I'm gonna go get our stuff and uh you know I'd stand there and look at all the toys or whatever and then when she filled up her basket she'd roll by and be like okay pick something out that you want okay I'm taking you know whatever GI Joe grab a GI Joe thing and then we just walk right out the door we never went to the cash registers almost every single time we go grocery shopping never paid for anything and I just thought that was normal you know I never was like oh maybe I didn't even I don't even know if at that age it crosses your mind that you didn't pay for anything like everyone else you know and at the groceries and the grocery basket aren't like all bags separately you know it's all just

3:27:24in there and um you know and I didn't I didn't know any of this stuff and um you know and then anytime she was lying in front of me I always remember her looking at me and telling me in German don't say anything and uh I always look at her like anyway you know as a kid so she knew she's bold face lying to somebody and then look down at me and you know like zagased or whatever it was she said that bent you know don't say anything in German and so I just watched her for a lot of the childhood do all her things lie cheat and steal like crazy and uh but I didn't know any of that until Scott was like hey here's an exercise you're gonna figure out what apartment you lived in in Dallas and uh go find it and so I look up my elementary school and Google Earth and then I kind of knew that I knew that okay that was the school and I could remember fragments uh I remembered with that that swimming pool at that apartment complex look like and so I was able to

3:28:29go okay that's the complex then I so now it's time to go do this experience and um he told me he's like all right once you drive there you know anchor yourself to the pool and then walk the path to the apartment you lived in when you were that little boy I was like all right and so get there pull in it is a shithole like shithole shithole Dallas apartment complex and I even felt kind of like oh I'm glad I'm packing heat you know and go to the pool get on that path make my way and uh and I remember it was the bottom floor apartment they were two story and I'm standing right there and it was like this overarching feeling of insecurity came over me standing there staring at that damn door and he's like all right now you're just gonna imagine you know close your eyes whatever you need now you're gonna walk through that door I want you to picture it and describe it to me and I'm like okay living room is to the left kitchen is or living

3:29:35room is to the right kitchen is to the left you go through the dining room or the living room and off to the left down there is a set of stairs set of stairs go up to your bedroom okay take those stairs go up and then the door first door to the right was my bedroom and open up the door look in he's like okay so you know what do you see I see myself it's like five four or five year old clan what are you doing I'm on my stomach I'm by myself and it was interesting you walk into the room and it for me visualizing I could feel the feelings of that kid his fear loneliness sadness depression fucking crazy and he's like okay what you know walk over and then just lean down put your hand on his back what is he doing he always you know doing Superman coloring book or whatever and you know he's like okay you know let the kid let him let let let little client know

3:30:40that you're there and you know and let him know I'm there and you know and then he turns and looks up and man it was like so powerful I lost my shit like right there like even talking about it right now and and it was all about like hey you're gonna you know get little clent get him to stand up you're down at eye level with them you know give him a big hug and hold on to him and yeah I just remember you're hugging this little version of yourself at that age and um yeah you can feel all the feelings during that moment even right now like replaying it and uh yeah wow

3:31:42so you hug this little kid and you tell him hey everything's gonna be okay if you want to get out of here you know little kids like yeah you know little cleanse like let's get out of here you hold his hand walk him down the stairs back through that living room this point you meet yourself standing outside now you've you know you got the you know you got your little version of yourself with you and be lying into the car literally opened up the passenger door and visualized putting him in there closing the door going around getting in the driver's seat and driving away and leaving that place you know in the rearview mirror and then uh never forget I went to this coffee shop that was nearby that I already kind of pre-located he had me kind of said hey you know when you get done find a safe place and like you know give me a call and so then I get there get on the phone with Scott and uh fucking lost my shit and it just unpacked and didn't unpack it um it decompartmalyzed a big portion of

3:32:52they're just the bad things during childhood not just up to that moment in that apartment but it allowed all that compartmentalization to start just bust and open even post uh apartment like moving to Saudi and things in Saudi and um you know all of them unraveling and unraveled everything and um you know when you know then that was just the beginning you know and in that the two years with him he was able to you get to like just whatever I don't know maybe six months ago he was able I was I got kind of you know like we all do with any therapist you get kind of frustrated with some of them like okay tell me what's going on like fix me you know and uh you know and you got to find the right one I'll tell you Scott's the one for a lot of I feel like for a lot of us um and so he was uh I got to kind of a frustration point when I was like all right come on what the fuck what's going on with all this and he was able to take that red

3:33:56thread and sew it from when I was five all the way to that moment in time and um um and I sat there and listened to him and I was just blown away because he took every single like even these fragmented things I would say in our discussions he had made note of it you know things you don't think are anything important you know and um he had made note of all these things over two years I was able to just tie it all together all the abandonment all the trust issues all the control issues I mean you name it I had deep seeded issues that you know were I think in some cases like the most deep seeded in the worst heat ever kind of dealt with or tried to dig up out of somebody you know so your sign or symptom at the surface could be drugs could be alcohol could be

3:34:57women um but that's just a sign or symptom of something much much larger and what in the therapist world will call your 10% right that's just the 10 when somebody cries over spilt milk it's just 10% it's not the spilt milk it's not the drug addiction it's not the alcohol you know it's not the womanizing it's the 10% is those are just signs and symptoms when you actually take time and find the right therapist now you can excavate down into your core into your soul and find the 90 and that should be everybody's goal is go okay I got to go find my 90 because that 90% is the why you have signs and symptoms and when you never go figure out your why well then you can't really solve the problem and uh so for me having those two years and getting to the why when you show up to something like

3:36:03I began where they tell you hey intention is everything right your intention is going in your intentions coming out you got to make sure those intentions you know are real and anchored ideally to your why so I showed up known exactly like okay I got these abandonment issues from my mother you know trust issues from her Nat led to trust issues and abandonment issues with women which then you know the control issues trust I mean it's all connected but if you don't know that it was all connected or unravel all of that crap from your past well then you can't really solve the problem you can go to I began and go face your demons if you will but still if you don't know the why then you may not benefit as much from it so anytime I'm talking to people now I'm like dude figure out the why first so that you can show up with the intentions that are connected to it right so if your intention going under the mask I don't know if you were doing it but I was like

3:37:08saying them to myself okay you know trust abandonment all the hey thrown out with the old in with the new right even when you do the fire fire ceremony you know you're burning the old so that you can bring in the new and so mine were all trust abandonment issued intentions and getting rid of them so that you can now finally kind of live free of all of it and live a normal productive life and get rid of all the bad habits you know and go find a guy like that or gal who gets you who connects with you who sees you and then knows how to interpolate you know I used to go you used to go these marriage therapists I'm like you go to a marriage counselor who's never been divorced you know it's like they're they're not the one you know if you're going to be a marriage counselor you probably should have been divorced a couple times and seen both sides of at the good bad ugly and now you can talk to it I think you know counseling across the board should

3:38:14be handled that way if you're going to be if you're dealing with addicts okay well hopefully you were an addict you know because that's where you benefit the most makes sense yeah what did you piece together well we're the missing component um I mean for me knowing the abandonment piece the trust and how it was all anchored to my mom I'm like I had no idea honestly you know plus the I began what it did is allowed my conscious to come back to the surface you know probably the first time on the post I began where it was nothing but every bad feeling for about 40 or 45 days straight you know grief um Shane guilt there wasn't one good feeling for about 40 plus days every day I opened my eye knowing that this is going to suck you know I'd wake up and go oh god

3:39:21there it is now just feel it in the random crying you know you'd be driving down the road start crying could be at the grocery store start crying I mean it's just like it consumes you or consumed me for you know 40 plus days and then there was the one morning where you finally wake up you open your eye you're kind of like oh maybe I'm back to neutral right right everything's not as bad you kind of feel normal one more again you know but man um but ultimately yeah brought my conscious back kind of reset my moral compass probably you know and uh made feelings um yeah made me feel again pretty interesting and powerful right I'd also say you know with some of this psychedelic stuff

3:40:25like I also noticed too and I'm sure you've seen it it's I think they need to be careful with a lot of it you know I think it's um you know calling it medicine and you know and uh uh capital capitalism is starting to get its hands on it and I feel like when that happens better be careful you know because before you know it'll be readily available and it won't cost so much and you won't need a non-profit or you won't need this you won't need that and I think it just they need to be careful how they yeah I don't know what to think anymore well me and you I mean that's the first song I met you randomly yeah hotel yeah ready to go down you want to a different house and I don't I am uh

3:41:30I don't know what I think about it anymore this was your second time right so did you have all the bad feelings like I did yeah and still creeps in there if you let it yeah me too like it's weird I can almost as if imagine the mask is off and right now I could do like almost like a thousand meter stare and good doesn't creep in it's like a bad feeling that starts to come over me is that what you kind of if you just let silence hang out a little too long and think about it do you believe them God I do yeah I uh I didn't always but even in the eye beginning I asked you know you can get to about like whatever they tell you like around seven or eight hours you

3:42:30start asking and I began questions and so I remember saying hey show me God and like a film strip coming down from the top of my mask in there in cursive white writing it said show me God exactly what I was thinking and then it kind of kept going there's like a very like a movie real almost right then the very next thing that started to come down was this black medallion it's like look like it was probably this big when you're under the mask right and it had cutouts in it and as you know you try to focus on anything in there it goes blurry on you right and so I was using my peripherals trying to make out what the cutouts had but they're kind of the the eerie part of the whole thing was it was backlit by a raging fire

3:43:33so the only reason I could see the cutouts on this medallion or coin was because it was backlit by this fire that was burning and it slowed I could try to keep it there but it just kept on moving down down and disappeared out of the bottom of my mask it's really odd you what about me what do you you ask do I believe in God oh yeah something on the second run that there was I mean I believe I mean are you a Christian when I say God I mean yeah do you believe in Christ yes I don't know because I'm not really don't know about the Christ part oh no I'm 100% sure oh God I'm dying to gain part yeah

3:44:36there's been a lot of good that's come from it I am now ready to share everything that I've been through yet and that I'm going to continue to go through yeah but I will say I think there's a possibility that that is a problem that we as humanity should not have access to yeah I think that a lot of deception can happen in that I think we have a veil over us I mean I did I'm very I feel very

3:45:40in tune with the spiritual realm right now all the shit that's going on around us that we can't see and I think that you know we can't see frequencies we can't see certain lights we can't see really anything really have you know five senses but doing that kind of proves that there's a lot more going on and I think there's a possibility that the God put that veil over us because we are not ready for that you could see that yeah especially as more and more people get into this whole DMT be on drip hanging out in different realms for hours at a time sure you've had people on here you've

3:46:46heard about that yeah I've done that to do it nope I'm good they're talking about talking to entities mm-hmm and that just seems like something that I don't really want to mess around with no and yeah I don't think yeah I've been a huge proponent of it and sometimes I feel like maybe that was a mistake and maybe I'd fall let a lot of people in the wrong direction but at the same time I'm not sure and I'm not yeah I'm not really a hundred percent ready to go there yet because I'm still trying to figure out what it all meant and what it does mean and but that's kind of where I'm at right now yeah I'm with you I think people just need to be neutral on it don't get don't become a huge don't get on to a lot of people

3:47:46get into that and then that becomes their God that well it becomes their new addiction it's there it's talking to the medicine yeah you know I think just we've got to be careful with some of the language but you know the whole like God made it it's natural to the earth and I'm like well you know so rattlesnakes and crude oil I'm not drinking it every morning with my breakfast you know yeah you just got to I think there's a lot of good that it's done and can do and I think they just need to keep it from getting capitalized upon because I think that's where once you know it starts going to market in any other way than how it is right now I feel like that's when things go south just maintain the control over it and do it right you know yeah but yeah where's my gummy bears you know since you gave me these start here so I appreciate you

3:48:56giving me these though really because I want now I want to give you something in return if you're okay with that oh that's okay so I'm gonna get up for a second you guys need about EDC but I got to take a moment here and you know you know you're gummy bears with at least a shadow systems okay all the components all the components built made in Texas okay it's a veteran owned company he's a West Point guy don't hold it against him Trevor Row West Point Combat Bet this is the MR920 and it's kind of under Flagship Compact it's already set up OpticsReady obviously that's number one that's for you

3:49:57okay shadow obviously better known Texas company that yeah tell me how that feels that's nice yeah now it's been around it's actually being carried by a whole bunch of law enforcement agencies and then you are getting the first ever those things that he did this is the new shadow shadow systems you 526 this thing is ready this is serial number 0005 dude and then they did not compromise on this thing this thing dry is only 6.2 pounds didn't compromise on the barrel it's twisted it's chrome lined beautiful it's got user adjusted safety switch you can put it

3:50:58to your 60 degrees or or you can put it at 30 or 90 right on there's a lot of other perks to this it's not your typical you know 556 rifle and then we put the or they put the EOTEC 2.0 have you shot through the 2.0 yet no so it has 2 dots inside the top dot 0 50 to 200 and then the bottom dot is 200 out no shit all you do is change the focus of top dot or bottom dot and and obviously a magnifier there for you thank you yeah man and I was hoping I was the first to yeah see that is it I don't know if it's on holy shit so that's the other piece I forgot it's a two two stage three pound trigger on that thing so you distinct first stage and that yep and then the

3:52:06second three pounds on that the barrel the stock here this is this is nice yeah I hope you like it I love it I was hoping I was the first yeah counter your gunny gummy bears with with a weapon you you are good that's all matters and well I got something for you too oh yeah we're at that point in our relationship we are dude this is damn thank you yeah I hope you get get out back and tell me tell me how it does I think you'll dig it dude maybe we can do that real quick before you leave but I know we're pressed for time here so I just do it so I'm not gonna say I'm raised your gift it's funny how these things are all we're going into MP7 territory oh shit damn

3:53:08we're going into MP7 territory when you did the EDC but you actually made fun so I was like oh shit but yeah so this is a six hour rattler 300 blackout I got a buddy over its sig his name's Jason everybody knows him now but yeah I was I was looking for a new bedside god and I wanted 300 blackout because the penetration power yeah and it's like just flies through everything as you mentioned especially with green tip yeah and uh which we found out to kind of funny that you found out two years before we did yeah for whatever reason that board just didn't travel but um yeah so sig rattler 300 blackout SPR with the new sig optics got a sig flashlight on it's got a sig suppressor on it folding buttstock nothing's the heat super quiet

3:54:11that's pretty but uh yeah and you know sig's an awesome top yeah uh so quick story about sig if you don't mind we um there's a sheriff's department that that the county over from here and I got a friend the work sir very poor county not a big budget huge meth problem and he told me the shit that they're running over there yeah and it is like 25 year old ARs mixed matched stuff unreliable damn and all the time and uh and like I said he's a good friend of mine and I know it just I was like this is crazy man that you guys I have to rely on this shit yeah you know especially in that county with what you're dealing with and so I uh I just I was I was like how many he he runs a SWAT team now

3:55:12and I was like how many guys are over there I said about 30 so I just I wanted to buy him 30 rifles that they're good to go and I called Jason up at sig and I said hey you guys have any old stock laying around that I can just buy a cost and give to these guys and uh he said well give me a couple days and uh it's like look I don't I'm not asking for you to give him or I'll pay for him you know just be cool if you give him to me at cost so he gets back to me and he says hey yeah we got the perfect we're gonna give him these I think they're the it's a 556 SBR he goes we're also gonna outfoot him with optics we're also gonna outfoot him with flashlights and we're also gonna outfoot him with suppressors and I don't need you to pay for any of it we're just gonna get it right to him and I was like dude that is that shit's awesome yeah you know what I mean so it's got American right there good company yeah they make great shit no yeah can't beat it

3:56:16rattle or 300 blackout just sounds cool yeah awesome man this is beautiful thank you well clad that was an awesome story man thank you for sharing all of that and uh it was an honor to interview no back at you it's great to just be here with you finally and uh appreciate the voice probably the only one I'm gonna do for all the rest of my existence so this is podcast interview last one done all right oh man yeah thank you for having me man appreciate it thank you for coming yeah plus yeah i do too no matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from if you get anything out of this at all anything please like comment and subscribe and most importantly share this everywhere you

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