#313 Eric Frohardt - DEVGRU Gold Squadron Sniper and Assaulter

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Welcome to the show, man.

Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. It's good to have you. It's good to be here. Eddie Penny connected us.

Yep. I love Eddie. Yep.

“He's a huge inspiration into my faith journey.”

Wow. Yeah. He's awesome. How long have you guys known each other? So Eddie and I were we were together at Gold for a while.

I didn't know him before he got there, because I came from team five, and he came from... We're gonna say team two. Team two. Yeah.

So I think I got to... I got to Gold a little bit before him, and then he got there, and then I met him and we started working together. Right on, so.

Right on. Good dude. Yeah. I'm... Thrilled to be here, thanks, man.

Throwed to have you. So let me start job with a... Introduction here if we don't mind. Yep. Eric, throw heart.

“You spent nearly 12 years as an AVCIL serving”

with both Seal Team five and Naval Special Warfare Development Group. You deployed around the world specialized as a sniper, point man, and lead climber, and in completed climbs of LCAP-10, Denali, and...

Aconcagua. There it is. You're medically retired as a Seal Operator Chief after combat injuries in a medical condition that cost you a kidney. Since leaving the military, you've built in lead high-performing teams

across multiple industries, and now serve as Chief Standards Officer at Golden Rod Companies. Your leadership speaker, board member, husband, father of four, and a committed follower of Christ. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, bro. Got you, President. You want to see it? Yeah. All right.

All right. Do I make it up for you? No, no, no. Since you are, since you don't have any truck guns. Dude.

Thought maybe you might like one of these. So that is the ultimate. Do you know what that is? Oh, my gosh, bro. That is sweet.

That's the... Six-hour rattleer. So SBR version with the collapse or the foldable stock. Fixed iron sights. That's one of six new red dot optics up there.

It's got a sig flashlight on there with the motivation switch. And then silencer shop. Oh, my gosh. They heard you were coming too.

So the gun is from my friend Jason over at six. Yeah. And then silencer shop or you are coming. So they wanted to throw a can on their suppressor. I love silencer shop because they do all this extra stuff for the segment.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, they were pumped that you were coming on the show. So they wanted to, they wanted to present you with a brand new 300 blackout truck gun. Bro, uh, well, first of all, thank you to you. Uh, thank you, sig and silencer shop.

That is freaking amazing. How does this work? You got to, uh, push the top. Push the top. Just going down.

This thing down? Yeah. Oh, I see it. Dude. That suppressor is illegal in Nebraska, right?

Yeah. Cool. I thought so. Did you use 300 blackout at dev group at all? Uh, they were starting to a little bit. Really?

But then I always ran a 416, um, a P226.

It's before they were switching.

And maybe EOD guys were running the, what was it? Yeah.

“And then when I did Recky work and sniper work, you know, once in a while, uh,”

but was it the 417? But that thing was just big and loud. So most of the time, 416. Right on. Yeah.

Right on.

This is freaking amazing.

Thank you. Maybe you can use these on your, uh, next adventure. Yeah. For sure. These are awesome.

Thank you. We have to leave it all 50 states. Legal and all 50 states. I got to take these back to Nebraska. Get him past the drug dog.

Yeah, you'll be good.

You'll be, I've got him past several times.

But, um, yeah, maybe you can use those on your climb. You're getting ready to live on a climb, right? That's right. That's right. Getting ready to, uh, climb Kilimanjaro.

Um, we're taking off in about, almost 20 days. It's just 21 days. So we are climbing my son and I along with eight other climbers. We're going to go climb Kilimanjaro, um, to help raise money and awareness for, um, global partners and hope,

which is a, uh, it's a nonprofit based in Omaha that does work in West Africa.

Um, specifically they do, um,

they build water wells and, uh, medical treatment facilities. Um, kind of like treatment centers in, uh, kind of underserved, um, French, kind of the French speaking West African area. Right, oh, man.

Um, oddly, I had met the, so I met the CEO and founder of Global Partners in Hope, when I was moving to Nebraska. I emailed my former commanding officer at Dev Group. Um, he was captain more when I left and now he's retired Admiral Scott Moore. And I told him when I was telling a lot of my friends, like,

I'm just, I'm leaving Colorado.

“I'm moving to Omaha, just giving people a heads up, right?”

And I had stayed in touch with my, I had stayed in touch with, um, at the time captain Moore. Anyway, he's like, you got to go meet this guy Ian when you moved to Omaha. He runs a non-profit there. He's connected to everyone. So a few months after I lived there, I go and meet Ian Vickers.

Uh, any who run, he started Global Partners in Hope and is the CEO and executive director. I go and meet him and before he had started that, he was a pastor of a church and built a big church in Omaha. And then before that, he, he mentioned to me that he preached at a, in a very small town in northwest Iowa. And the town was, same town as where one of my aunts and uncles lived.

Am I asked, well, I'm like, do you know my aunt and uncle, Joyce and Alvin? And he's like, oh my gosh, I pastored their church in northwest Iowa. Not only that, he lived with them while his house, while he was trying to move into his house. Wow. So we just kind of, we kind of connected.

He started to introduce me to some people in Omaha. Uh, eventually he asked me to be on his board. So now I'm a board member, um, honored to be on the board of Global Partners in Hope.

“And, um, a couple of, I think it was the end of, maybe the end of, uh,”

twenty twenty five at one of our board meetings. We had heard about a similar nonprofit that was doing a climb in Africa, climbing Kilimanjaro, to raise money and awareness for their cause. And we just, one of us kind of posited the idea of doing it for what we're trying to support. And then before I knew it, uh, we had 10 of us signed up to go climb Kilimanjaro.

So, um, we are going to leave in twenty days. And the money we raise from this climb is going specifically to water wells and medical treatment facility there. And in that part of Africa, like access to clean water is, is so limited. And just having clean water saves so many lives. And not only does it save lives, it gives women and kids more time.

Because kids during the day, they might be sent to fetch water from somewhere that has clean water.

So just a, just a well makes a huge difference.

And the wells that Ian builds and the global partners builds, they are self-sustained. So when we build these wells there, they, we train the locals how to operate them. So when, when money is raised, we don't go back to donors later and say, hey, we need to,

“we need to, that well we put in, it needs to be fixed over and over again, right?”

Like they're self-sustained. And the treatment facilities we build are, are the same way. And we're, like, a little bit goes so far there, like, Ian teaches at a college in Omaha, Creighton.

And I've seen him, like, ask the kids, like, hey, who in here was, you know, born from sea section.

It's a serian section and generally something like, I don't know what the percentage is now, but it could be 10, 20% or whatever it is. I have four kids all born in my sea section, right? And he's like, now put your hands down because you wouldn't be here. Because in places like West Africa, if the mom needs a sea section, like,

the mom dies, the baby dies, right? So, in this little treatment facility there, a couple hundred people, and a couple hundred moms will be alive because of just a new little hospital.

And the crazy thing is, like, the hospital that he's building there, that treatment facility,

it's something like, like, a hundred and eighty thousand dollars, I saw that. Just, you know, even in Omaha where it's very affordable, like you can't, you barely buy a house for that in our country. So, we're climbing Kilimanjaro to raise money to help with the well and a treatment facility. And, you know, we're going to go, whatever, it's 44 miles,

and you start at, like, 12,000 feet, and you finish at 19,400-ish. So, it's 44 miles, and whatever, you know, 7,000 foot of elevation gain, and you're going to spend, we're going to spend seven nights sleeping in a tent, eating dehydrated food, and hiking all day, and, you know, it's hard.

“But, like, we're choosing to do it, you know what I mean?”

And, they're, like, they're, their days are that hard, and they don't get to choose, you know what I mean? Man, that's cool, Missouri, we'll put the link in the description for anybody that wants to. Yeah, Jenna. We have a, a landing page for all the different climbers, and each, each separate climber has their own landing page. And, my son and I have our own, our own page, and I'll give you the link.

I mean, 50 bucks goes a long way. So, yeah, pretty exciting. No, because man, yeah, thank you. So, let's get into your story. Or did you grow up?

I grew up in a very small town in North West Iowa called Saxity Iowa. I was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, it's like 40 minutes away from there. Um, and I was raised in a small town, and grew up mostly working on the farm. So, my mom was a nurse, and my dad was a farmer. And, you know, I spent as much time as I can remember out on that farm.

So, yeah, very small town. What are you guys farming? We raised corn, soybeans, and hogs.

“And, for us, I think at our highest, maybe we had eight hundred acres of corn and soybeans, right?”

But, most of the labor was hogs, because with the corn, you plan it. Same thing with the beans, you know, you plan it, and then it's in the field. And then, you don't really do much to it until harvest time, right? Year-round there was hog work. Um, and we had, like, back then it was Farrow to finish.

So, we had, like, boy hogs and girl hogs, and they had baby hogs. And the way it works now is people generally buy hogs that have been weamed from the moms and finish them out, right? But, we had, you know, we had hogs indoors and outdoors and pretty big operation. So, um, it was, uh, I, I tell people now, like, like, the farm.

Like, it helped me make it through buds.

Um, but, like, hog farming is, like, it's not glamorous. Yeah, I, I'll put that it's not. There's no hog farm version of Yellowstone, right?

“And it's just, and, like, I just remember, like, I hated it, like, really?”

Well, I mean, I liked being on the farm and, like, working, but then it was, like, their days when you're, like, alright, I'm gonna, hard work, um, low pay, and, you know, and just sometimes dirty, nasty work, you know what I mean? Yeah, and, and I've told my dad since, you know, I wouldn't, wouldn't trade it for anything, you know, so. Yeah. Do any brothers and sisters? I do.

Uh, I have two brothers and a sister. So, um, one of my brothers and my sister live in Omaha, and then one of my brothers is in Orlando, right on. Yeah, and we're all very, uh, we're all very close still. So, right on. Yeah, I live about a mile and a half from one of my brothers.

Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. Were you, were you falling the birth order? What's that?

Were you falling the birth order? I'm the oldest. You're the oldest. I am the oldest. Yep.

Right on. What else were you into as a kid?

“So, grew up on the farm, um, you know, it was very work hard, play hard, right?”

Um, get the work done, but we had four wheelers. We had a dirt bike. We had a Honda Odyssey, like the old, like, single seat, dune buggy before they'd renamed a mini van an Odyssey. And, uh, you know, fishing and hunting and just building, like when I was little, like building

Forks, just all that sort of thing on the farm. Tubing, you know, behind the four wheeler in the snow and just, you know, just kind of made your own fun out on the farm. Yeah. Um, but, uh, then as I got into, like, middle school and then in high school, I was, you know,

really loved football and lifting weights. So, uh, you close with your parents? Very, very close. So, I, um, like, I don't, I don't have, like, a sob story, like, some people who, you know, being the military, like, I grew up with very loving parents and, um, who, you know,

we weren't spoiled by any means. We worked hard, but we had, you know, we had a nice home.

We always had amazing meals and we always had, you spent time together and, like, watch TV

together, like, everyone did back then. And, close to my siblings and, you know, all of that. So, um, I learned a lot from, like, learned a lot from my parents, you know. Um, and my mom was just so, so calm and so caring and so loving and she worked so hard for us.

Um, and she was, she was gone a lot because she was a nurse. Um, but she would always still, like, fine time to make our favorite, favorite meals and that sort of thing and she was most of all I remember about my mom was just her calmness.

“And, um, that's something that helped me, like, when I was in the teams, right?”

And I could always kind of just be relatively calm when things were getting, like, wild. And my dad, on the other hand, is not calm. Like, he's just, like, this big ball of energy or, or was. Like, when I graduated high school, my dad was like, I don't know. Like, almost six, five, but three, 40.

And he, he could, like, I was training for football and he could still beat me in a 40 yard dash. Holy shit. You serious? Yeah.

And, like, he, he can't put his index finger through the trigger guard of a galak 19. Like, he's a beast. Whoa. Yeah. I'm, like, I couldn't, like, you know, if, if I, like, mouthed off to him, he could just pick me up with one hand or whatever.

Um, but he, you know, I learned a lot from him too.

Um, we worked hard, but he always played with us.

He always did things with us. Like, kids from other, like, my friends would come out because he would, like, he could work all day and then pull us around on, behind the four wheeler and the snow. Like, he always, he's very playful.

So, like, if you had a job to do on the farm, like, you were responsible for getting it done.

And then accountable for the results. Right. So, if you left, if you left the pen open, then the hogs got out. Like, you better take blame for it and you better go put them back in. Right.

Um, and the thing most of all from him was probably just respective women. So, the, the cardinal offense in our house, like, if mom got upset, like, we were in trouble. And you didn't want to make my dad angry.

“Like, hey, he had a temper, but he's also almost six, five, three, 50, right?”

Like, he could, he could be scary.

Well, but, um, if mom got angry, like, we tried to, you know, but her up before that. Uh-huh. So, anyway, yeah. For this show, the biggest thing is preparation. When you're sitting down for a long-form conversation,

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Get started with Claude today. Claude.ai/sRS. That's Claude.ai/sRS, and check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude.ai/sRS. Were you good at sports? I thought I was, like, in a small town, you kind of get to do everything.

When I was younger, was tea ball, and then little league, and then... I made the all-star team in little league, but it's such a small town. There was a time where in the summer I would be doing baseball and swimming. I was on an all-star baseball team and a all-district swimmer.

“But this is a town of whatever, 1,200 people, right?”

I don't know how big it is now, but it's not huge. I graduated with right around 30.

But I always loved, like, for whatever reason, like, I just loved football.

And I worked... I worked so hard to play football. And so I had played all those sports and basketball. Like, you kind of ran track. You just did it all, right? And back then, people didn't specialize either. And it was a small town. It's small school. You kind of kind of could do it all.

Yeah. If I was in even Omaha now, I probably wouldn't make the team on half those sports in any of those schools, right? So I... But I think it was my... By the time I got to high school, I was just so tired of not having a summer, because it was like... Like, grade school and middle school, I would have swim team practice in the morning, go to the farm all day, and then have baseball practice at night.

Wow. And then, once the practices were kind of over, there was game times, so there were... There were times where I would have two swim meets a week, and two baseball games a week, maybe a tournament on the weekend, and farming every day. Right. So my summers, they were a blink.

Yeah. That was a good. And then, so when I got into high school, I just had this like epiphany, I'm just going to play football.

“And my summers were going to be lifting weights and doing farm work and fishing, right?”

And then maybe some, you know, running and conditioning stuff for football. And then all of a sudden, like, I just had these awesome summers.

Farm all day, work on the farm all day, and then, you know, maybe go fishing or go out or something at night.

And I, like, that was a lot of fun, right? But I was, I was decent at football. And I think my senior year, I was, you know, pretty good thought I was made all state as a linebacker.

“I think it was like, second team all state or whatever, but I'm like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to get, like, and I wanted it really bad, right?”

So I went and tried to play football in college. And my, again, my dad's really big. And my uncles are anywhere from 63 to 64.

And big. I mean, my little brother, he graduated high school at 65 to 75. And my cousins are 63. I mean, my other little brother right now is 63. I'm the, you know, kind of the rent. But I thought, like, oh, I'm going to go to college.

And I'm just going to go to junior college because I'm just going to hit my growth spurt later.

Like I was planning a growth spurt. And I'll go to junior college and I'll get like two years of football, right? I'll get, I'll get on there strength and conditioning program and eat some more. And then I'll get better at football. And like two years later, I'm going to get it like this was my plan.

“I'm going to get a division one scholarship to Iowa State and play, right? Like that's what I, that's what I wanted more than anything, right?”

So graduate high school, I go to a junior college community college in Mason City, Iowa called NYAC. And Northern Iowa area, community college. And I get up there and I'm thinking like, it's just junior college. It's going to be like 13th grade, right? Like it ain't, it's not like I'm going to like back then, like I live in Nebraska now and in the 90s. Nebraska was like the football. So it wasn't like I was going to play division one at Nebraska where I, you know, probably wasn't worthy of carrying water, right?

And I show up, show up at NYAC. And there were a few people like me kind of farm kids, but there was also like division one talent there from other states who were like, like Iowa and like parts of the Midwest, they have a good like junior college feeder program that like feed the main universities. And there's people there that maybe didn't have good enough GPAs or INFACTs, and they're getting their grades up to then go play elsewhere. So we had people on our team like get picked up to go play division one later, and it was a good junior college team. So I get there and wouldn't you know it, I'm like not that good.

Like I, and I had, you know, I had like bulked up a bunch, right? I got above 200 by the time I before I went there, but I was trying to play linebacker and like the linebackers were like 220 and they could run faster than me like I had. And the speed like of alignment, and I was strong, I just couldn't like like I couldn't play, right? So I like to say I wasn't big enough strong enough or fast enough, but like I just wasn't good enough, right? And it was kind of eye opening when you just see that kind of talent, but like the cool thing like,

“like I don't have any regrets because like I like to say like, you know, I never achieved my grid iron goals, but I learned so much like I learned just like football is a hard sport, right?”

So the games are fun when you're good, but practices are hard, right? You're hitting, you're wearing pads. I remember in high school, we were doing two days in Iowa and it's hot, right? So we would have morning practice. And then a late afternoon practice and in between that, instead of going home and playing video games and drinking gatorade like half my friends, I had to go work on the farm between the morning and the afternoon practice, right? And I might be bailing hay and drinking Pepsi, right? Like instead of video games, but back to football football is hard, it can hurt, but you learn like so much about teamwork and commitment and preparation, like every, the more the more time you spend in the weight room or offseason conditioning, the better you'll be, like you just learn all these things and you learn kind of like a team sport.

So I learned a lot from football and I never achieved my goals, but like, like sometimes the person you become in pursuit of a goal is the actual, like you didn't know it at the time, but that's the reward, you know what I mean? And we were, I don't know, we had finished a, finished a year of football, and I mean, you'll get a kick out of this, but we're watching a movie about seals in a dorm room, and I've had like maybe like three year four natural lights, like the cheap version of both lights.

“And I'm sitting there, like, and it's, it's, I'm ashamed to say it was G.I.J., literally watching, and my, one of my friends in college had like, rented G.I.J. from Blockbuster, I got hooked on it.”

And I watched it, I'm like, three or four beers deep, and I just, I don't know, a light bulb goes off, literally, and I go, I'm going to join the Navy and be a seal.

So I'm not going to play football, like, right there. Yeah, I stood up. I said this in the dorm room, and we had one dorm room that was like, no beds in it. It kind of was converted into, had like two couches in a TV, like a party room. Yeah.

And I just said, uh, this light bulb, and I'm like, I'm going to join the Navy and become a seal, and, and someone in the room was like,

“yeah, whatever, you'll never do it, you can't do it, like, you're not big enough, like, it wasn't big enough, but like, I know a guy who was a Marine, he's much tougher, you'll never make it, right?”

And like, in that, like, I just needed someone to say, I couldn't do it, and I enlisted in the Navy the next day. Holy shit, are you on a bed? On a bed, still hung over from the light, literally from GI Jane. Damn, right? Now, I didn't leave the next day. I joined on delayed entry, right? The DEV, it was called, it was just hoping that all your teammates look like Demi Moore. I just thought, like, so I, there was something like, you know, like, we all have a chip on our shoulder that go and do that, we're like going to prove something.

Yeah, right? And I'm like, I'm sitting there in college, I'm like, well, I'm not proven anything here, sitting as the third string outside linebacker, right? I need to go do something different, right?

And I will be the first to say it was a, like, we can get into this later, but it was a selfish pursuit.

After 9/11, that all changes, like, because now I'm, like, oh, I'm serving my country, but I joined the Navy to go prove that I could go do something, which, that's fine, right? Like, it's, it is what it is. I wanted to prove that I could do it. And then I had someone tell me I couldn't do it. I enlisted in the Navy the next day on a bet. And then I was in the delayed entry program. So I finished out my, uh, finished out my one year of college, because I'm like, I might as well finish this year in case I go back or whatever.

“And then that time, I think college got over that year of college gets over and what, like, may something. So from made October, I'm on delayed entry.”

And then I go back, go back to Saxity. And, um, I literally have this, like, period of my life that is, like, one of the most purposeful moment, like, seasons that I've ever had. Because I was, you know, as young, like, 19, um, but I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Like, there was, I was singularly focused, right? I was going to be a Navy seal. I had so much clarity, like, about that and so much purpose. So I would. And I had gotten this dumb little, like, printed PDF from the recruiter was called the warning order back then.

And it's this old school, like, it's like 15 pages of eight and a half by 11 paper that's stapled in the corner that it has the running program, the swimming program, and then the calisthenics program. I'm pushing up the pull-ups, the sit-ups and the dips. And to me, like, I took that home and, you know, I had finished my junior year college, or I'm sorry, my one year of college.

And I show up back in, back at home, and I got this, now I got this path, right? And I literally, like, I'm going to spin the whole summer, just working on the farm and working out.

“So I, like, that whole time, basically, June through October, like, every morning, I would do, I would work up, it worked you up to a two mile swim, right?”

So it had a, it sequentially got longer. So towards the end of that, like, five, like three to five days a week, I'm doing a two mile swim in fins in a pool. Like, it's in a wreck center, all yours. And I remember it was like, I'm going to collapse as a 44. It was 88 lengths, yeah. It was 88 lengths, or 44 laps, and I would, like, sometimes lose count. So it was, like, you know, I'm trying to figure out how to keep my count.

Um, and I would do that every morning, right? Like, anywhere from three to five days a week.

And then the running program, well, I'll go sequentially. Then there was the pushups, the pullups, and the situps, and they had these pyramids. And it was anywhere from three to four days a week, right? And, like, they have so much better shit now from, like, the human performance side, like, and they have peak, like, they have these programs that the seal recruiters give you. This is just an old printed off thing that I got from a Navy recruiter in Basin City, Iowa.

“Yeah, but I'll never forget, like, I didn't even have pull-up bars. So I like, I build a pull-up bar from a rafter in the barn. And then, you know, I had this piece of carpet on the floor in a shop, like a machine shop for pushups and situps.”

Just a piece of old, like, kind of like this, right? That was my PT pad nice, and then I even like built a dip bar in the shop. So it was kind of like rocky for, right? So I do my swim in the morning. I go to the farm all day and I do chores and do the work or whatever I was doing. And throughout the day I would take a break and grab a set of pull-ups, set of pushups, situps, dips, whatever the program called for. And sometimes late afternoon, you know, maybe when the chores were almost done or even, like, we had a farm site that was like three miles away, right, from this one farm site.

So if that day called for a six mile run, like, I would just put on shorts and run in my boots from this farm to that farm, do chores, and then run back. I'm like, farm in all day, I do it like two miles swim every day, farm in all day, and then work up to like five or six mile runs every day. And I'm like super in shape, right? And then I'm sure you experience the same thing. You get in like, you get in this great shape, and then you go to boot camp and get out of shape, at least maybe boot camp. But I, you know, a big part of the story that I'm leaving out was my dad's support.

That was going to ask was your parents' thing. So on the one hand, it was like, so helpful when someone said I couldn't do it. Like, I needed someone to say you couldn't do that. I was going to prove them wrong. And then I came home from college.

“I think it was around Christmas in New Year's, you know, the break, and I told my, I told my folks, like, we were at my grandpa's house and have getting ready to have Christmas dinner.”

Like, I had, I had been meaning to tell him sooner, but I just didn't have the courage because I thought he was going to like, wap me. Really? Like, I mean, just jokingly. Like, you dumbass don't throw you to be a farmer or something. No, but I mean, he wanted us to go to college, but he didn't, he actually, he didn't want us to be farmer. He's like, he doesn't want us to take over the farm. It's, it's, our experience with farming was like, long work, hard hours. We didn't, you know, we didn't make a ton doing it. We didn't have land, you know, he didn't inherit land.

We couldn't buy land at the time. Like, it was, you know, just a lot of work.

For us not, anyway, he never, like, pushed us, he never pushed us to be farmers. I mean, we worked on the farm because that was, that paid for Roman board, right?

But in, in a moment, and he was just, you know, he's so awesome. I, I just go, all right, Dad. Well, I'm not going back to college next year. I'm going to be a Navy SEAL. I said all that and like, one breath, and he just looks at me, you know, looks down on me and he's just like,

Right. And, and, and to have that, like, that encouragement, you know, from your dad was just like, you know, so powerful, yeah.

And just a reminder, like, you know, hopefully someday, like, I'll be aware enough, or someone, if they need that encouragement from me, like, I can mimic that. That makes sense.

“What did you tell them you were going to be before that? Was it when you went to school?”

I was taking ag business and criminal science classes. So I was either going to be a farmer or in the FBI. But I honestly didn't know for that on. And part of it was you go to junior college, a lot of it's general ed. And you might change later anyway. Yeah. You can get your general ed done at Duke junior college community college and then go to university. You might change your mind by then. You know what I mean? So I was not. Wasn't really sure. What about your mom?

My mom. So yeah. She's, she was a nurse. No, I mean, what did you think? Well, she was concerned, right? She didn't really, she didn't know what that was. Like, what a seal was, right? My dad knew because, you know, he'd read even, like, rogue warrior and, like, when I grew up, like, as a little kid, every Friday day, dad would get a tape. We didn't have a blockbuster, but we had a corner store with VCR. Like, we would have to rent a VCR and he would bring an action movie home.

Could be Rambo or Commando or Die Hard or like some 80s action movie. Oh, yeah, man.

And so like Friday night was always like movie night and like that, like really shaped, you know.

“He was aware of what seals were. And one time we did, you know, I think it was like the”

certainly in the 90s, but he brought home the Charlie Sheen seals movie and, like, my brother and I watched that. And like the next day at the farm, we had this swing set. And we turned it into our obstacle course. Yeah. So I was one of those, like, for a while, I was one of those, like, every time I watched a movie, my career path changed. Yeah. Like, if it was back draft, I was going to be a fireman.

If it was G.I. Jane, I was going to be a neighbor. So yeah, anyway, my mom was not just supportive of it, but like, also like back then, like, this is 98, like, it wasn't like she, she didn't know what I was signing up for. You know what I mean? But mom, yeah, she, I would say, you know, fast forward to 2001, and now I'm on deployment. Like, they're,

you know, they're turning into prayer warriors just because of the way things changed. So I made it, um, I don't know, uh, finished my year of college. I had that summer of purpose and trained.

“And I shipped off and went to boot camp in October, right?”

Um, and then boot camp, you know, it's, uh, I'm sure you experience the same thing. Like, you get in really good shape and then you go there and you're just folding clothes and doing dishes. And I mean, it was awful. I mean, it was yours the same. Yeah, I mean, shining, shining your boots, sleeping the floor. I'm not cleaning. Swapping the deck. Swapping the deck. Yeah.

No, boot camp boot camp for me. Basically all the extra motivation you need not to quit bugs.

100% that that's absolutely right. Oh, this is what I'll be doing if I don't make it right. This is fucking horrible. Oh, thanks, bro. Yeah. Yeah. No, so I go to boot camp in October of '98, and it's mostly unadventful. There's two things that stand out about boot camp.

Hey, I met Matt Misnet and I were in sister divisions in boot camp. Oh, no shit. So, um, I meet him in boot camp. We end up going to Buds one class apart. I go a class before him because he had a longer A school.

And we do for two rotations at team five. We are in sister platoons, right? So we're kind of going through all this together. I would have gone to Devdrup the same time he did. We're at not for my kidney thing, which we'll get into. So I've known no one longer in the military than him. Wow. So met Matt in boot camp.

And then it was towards, so towards the end of boot camp. The, and boot camp again. It's so, it's pretty easy. I was in really, really good shape. And be like the work, like the work ethic you learn on a farm, right, which just carried me through. It has carried me through so many things made like boot camp was simple.

“But at the end of boot camp, um, I, I had this like extreme pain in my side, right?”

And like my parents come to be there for graduation. And like you get to go spend like I don't think we got to stay in the hotel with them. But like they could pick you up during the day and like take you out to eat or whatever. And so I've been at boot camp and I had missed my folks, missed my siblings and my brothers and sister. And they're all younger. And I'm like, like, as boot camp approach is you're just so excited to see your family.

It's been like three months. And you're so excited to get out on town and eat real food, not this crap from this childhood.

And they finally get there and boot camp's finally over and I can't do it because I'm in this, like, I just go back to their hotel room.

And I'm curled up in a ball on the bed, right? And I just want to be in a fetal position. And I get like, so I get like, I see the doctors, the boot camp doctors, and they're just like, well, it's probably IBS, Irritual Bell syndrome. And eventually it kind of goes away, right? Or whatever. And this is a pain that would plague me like in boot camp at the end of boot camp. And then once in Buds during hell week, and then once in sniper school, and then once in land warfare for when I was at team five.

And I would later find out, like, it's a kidney stone.

“So I had this pain in that fucking long. Well, they would pass, right?”

And they would, like, somehow the way the doctor explained it to me, like it would get stuck in the, my, the ureder is the tube between your kidney and your bladder. And mine was like, had like scar tissue in it. So there would be times where my kidney wouldn't drain all the way. And then if it would get backed up, it would form a stone, right?

So I find out, never diagnosed, like, I'm diagnosed in boot camp with IBS in constipation.

And it's a blocked kidney. So, and I'll go through that sequentially, but like, so I finished boot camp. And then I go to whatever back then, seal wasn't a rate. So I went to a school, I went to sonar tech, sonar tech a school in point loma.

“So anyway, that was like, I think that's like five weeks, sonar tech, but they don't.”

And they don't send a five week a school graduate into the fleet. They have to go through other training before they're actual sonar techs. And I was the, I was the honor man of my sonar tech a school, and they're going to give me my choice of orders. I'm like, well, I'm going to buzz.

It's somebody else the first choice.

And you had to, as you probably, I don't know, what did you join, but two thousand one, okay, July two thousand one got it right before an element. So like back then, you had to, like, this was called the seal challenge program saying, and you were going to get e4 out of buds if you made it. But you had to pass these, you had to pass the test in boot camp and then in a school, right? And then the first day of buds, as long as you pass those PRTs, you're in it, right? So, you know, the drill.

Yeah, well, let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, we'll see if all of the buds candidates when you showed up look like Demi Moore. Yeah. It's 3 a.m. You hear a noise in the house, and in that moment, you do not want to be fumbling around looking for keys,

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A little flick like that, right? It seems pretty cool. It is pretty cool. Got a silence in. In another lifetime, I did gun reviews for a living. The proprietary magazines, supposedly the best engineering in the world. When that breaks, you're...

And now we're bringing it back. It does look pretty cool. I got it, I got it, met that. All right, Eric, we're back from the break. Yeah. Getting ready to show up to Buds.

“So yeah, what's your first impression? What's it like? Walk it in there?”

Well, I was... You know, my time in the military and in the teeth, like all of it, is marked by steep learning curves. You know, like... Take people off the street, turn them into seals, or in my case, take them off the farm, right? And... First of all, I'm one of the guys dumb enough, like naive enough.

Like, when they're like, who's never been in the ocean before, and I'm like...

Right? Like, thinking it's a badge of honor. Yeah. And then, you know, whatever the proctor, whoever the instructor was at the time, he's like, "Get over here, we got to go catch up." Takes me to the ocean, like, and we're... I'm in, at the time, PTRR or something, you know, before you're faced up.

And he just proceeds to surf torture me until I'm stopped shivering, right? And I'm like... I don't, you know, I hadn't seen the ocean, I guess, technically, because I was in Point Loma for A school, but I never been in it, and like, I didn't realize how cold it was. How cold the Pacific Ocean? Like...

“I watched Baywatch. That's what I thought.”

I watched Baywatch. That was my fucking Baywatch. Well, everyone's running around and swim trunks and, you know, bikini suits. Yeah. And I'm like, "It can't be that bad." Right.

So, long story short, I wasn't expecting the water to be that cold, or taste that gross, you know, that salt, yeah.

But my first impression...

That salt and shit coming up from Tijuana. Yeah. My first impression... I don't know is kind of interesting. You kind of look around, and, you know, you're all kind of, like,

“measure each other, like, you know, is that guy going to be here at the end?”

And measure each other up. Yeah. And I've done it, you know, I've done it recently in a college football, or whatever. Kind of looking around and trying to see where you might fit. And... For me, I don't know...

I'm sure you had the same experience, but... I'm not sure how many people we started with.

And we graduated six months later with 19.

Wow. Damn. 21 total, 19 originals. And if you... 21 total, 19... Holy shit. You only had two rollbacks.

Three. So it's 22. Sorry. Holy shit. And we had...

“If you took, like, just, just say it's 150, or 190, or whatever, it was we started with.”

I wish I could find this out. And you just took this long, like, this big panoramic photo. Sharpie. And I said, "Now, circle, or not you, but if I just gave it to some random person."

Circle the 19 people that are going to make it through based on appearances.

Like, you wouldn't have circled me. Like, let's say all of our shirts are off, or whatever. You wouldn't have circled me, and you wouldn't have circled half the people that made it through. Because you can't really judge someone by their appearance, like, in that role. Yep.

Better example. A better example would be Excel. Take all 190, or whatever, however many candidates there were. And every name is on a row. So it's 190 rows, or again, however many it was. And then every column was a measurable.

“Run time, swim time, obstacle course, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, like, tested.”

And then I just said, "All right, now highlight the 19 people who are going to make it."

Well, you wouldn't have, I wasn't in the top. You wouldn't have chosen me. And you wouldn't have chosen half the people that made it. Or even looking at pedigree. Like, if you just looked at people's, like, resume. And there was, uh,

there was, like, some really good, you know, college athletes, or Olympic alternate, decathlete, or whomever, that were the best runner swimmer. Push-ups, pull-ups, fastest, or, of course, times, like, all of those. Yep. And those people didn't make it. Like, it's so strange.

And then you have, like, the failed junior college football players. And the washed out wrestlers, and, uh, whatever. Like, it, it, it, what now, for sure, there were plenty of, there were plenty of guys that looked like they were going to make it through, and had the measurables and had the pedigree.

Like, there were a few of those, but that was more of the exception than the rule. So it kind of taught me, like, you can't judge by appearances. You can't judge by measurables, and you can't judge by pedigree, at least in that context, yeah. Because, like, there's no quick way to measure, like, a guy's heart,

or what they're, what they're willing and able to do. They're drive, they're determination, they're, they're resilience. And that's just revealed over a period of time, which is six months, they call it buds, right?

“So, to me, like, I think, like, what makes someone make it through that,”

I don't know, obviously there's some grit, there's some determination. There's some stubbornness, all these things, but I think something to prove. There's a, there is that, like, oh, I have something to prove, right? Or a chip on my shoulder. And I'm from a such a small town that, like, when I was going through Hellweek,

there were signs in my town. Like, I had friends that were from these big, big towns in New Jersey in California and everywhere in between, and they're anonymous. Like, I'm not, I'm not anonymous. Yeah, there's a big deal, just to get out from a similar town,

actually about eight times a size of your town at 8,000 people, but still small. Yeah, but yeah, I did just getting out of the, just getting out of a small town as a big fucking deal, right? Yeah, you know? And I mean, go back there today, it's like, welcome back in time.

It's like, holy shit, everybody's still here. Which is awesome. I know, I have nothing against that. I love my small town. And I literally, you know, the bank signs that have the ticker, like the digital.

Yeah. My parents are like, there's, your names on the ticker because you're going through Hellweek.

In this little town.

And so for me, there's also this pressure.

Yeah, I'm not going to quit. Hey, I don't want to let my parents down. And B, I don't want to go back to my hometown with my tail between my legs. Most of all, I had something to prove. You know, I want to go do something hard.

And I think just having, so many factors, but just being very clear on what you want to do. And being willing to do it. Like, every time, and I thought about this a lot. But when I failed at something, it's either I wasn't like crystal clear on what, not just what I wanted to do. But what it would take.

Like, I wasn't 100% clear on what I'm doing and what it will take to succeed. Or I wasn't willing. Like, and there's, it's great to know. Like, if there's something like to succeed, let's say to succeed as a, whatever. Stock broker named the thing.

A race car driver to very weirdly different roles.

“But like, you have to know what it takes.”

And then you have to be willing to do what it takes to succeed. And if you don't, if you're not willing, that's fine. Don't do that. So for me, when I, as I look back and I look at different things since with the benefit of hindsight, like clarity and willingness are, like, very important, right?

And I think in Buds, too, I mean, there's so many different character traits. But like, just resilience, like the ability to bounce back up. Because no matter how good of an athlete you are, you will fall and you will fail, right? Or you will, you will be brought low. And just the ability to return to baseline, I think.

Like, kind of, I think that's a huge part of making it through. Yeah. But not enough people talk. I mean, when you're bringing up, washed up wrestlers and all that kind of shit, these are all people. These are all kids that have learned how to lose, you know what I mean?

And if gotten back up and tried it again and again and again and again, you know what I mean? And I think, you know, when you're talking about the best athletes. Because it's a big, it's the big mystery, right? Like, how the fuck do we learn who the hell is going to make it through these programs? Well, that's a question since, at least since I came along, which was 20 something years ago.

You know, and, yeah, I think that's a big component is people that did. It's resiliency, right? It's learning how to lose, pick your shit up and get back after it. How to get, how to get, just get back up. Some people learn that through broken homes.

“So I think that's why there's a lot of people that come from a broken home that make it in there.”

And you, you just really, it's a mixed bag of nuts when you get out, you know? You got rich kids, poor kids, totally used kids. But they all, I think that seems to be a common denominator. Well, that's why, like I said, like I've heard, you know, the Navy, the Navy spent millions of dollars to try to figure this out, because they want a higher attrition rate.

So they're trying to get better, more qualified people into it, but they can't. They still can't figure it out. The army is done the same thing with their special programs.

And the answer is, like, there is no quick test.

It's revealed over the selection, right? And the recipe is different, like the recipe that made me get through that. My resilience came from the farm, right? And the toughness that I learned from my parents and playing some football. And, you know, I didn't have the classic sob story.

But I mean, I, I had days and buds that were easier than days on the farm. Like I had farm days that were harder than seal training. Yeah. And that's where I learned that, right? So I think you're right.

I mean, there is, like, you just look at a picture of, like, a buds graduation photo. And you know them also well. And you think about their stories, like New Jersey, California,

“Florida, my swim buddy from Washington State, right?”

I mean, I was, he was my swim buddy the entire time, like, first second and third base.

Wow, we both made it through together. And like you just hear their stories.

And like there is, yeah, there is no one, there's no one story, but there's common denominators. Like people who knew how to, I guess, get back up, right, from falling and failing. What, what did you find? What did you find the most challenging? About buds.

So I was oddly, so I was oddly one of the, there's two of us in our class that never failed one thing.

The first time every time. So I never won the time to run, but I was always in the top five. I never won a swim, but I was always towards the beginning.

“No shit, so what did they had never been in the ocean before?”

My swim buddy was the top swim buddy. My swim buddy was really good at guiding. And I literally just like followed his run on, you know? And I was good at swim, like I could fin all day, right? Because of my two miles in the pool five days a week, right?

So nothing was, I mean, it was all, I should say, it's all hard, right? But nothing stood out. I wasn't the most, I wasn't the strongest on pushups and pullups and situps, but I was in the top 10% and I was actually quite good at the O course. Just like I have long arms, big hands, and I had grip from the farm.

“Like so because so much of the O course was like kind of grip stuff, you know what I mean?”

And I somehow like passed dive physics and pool comp and weapons practice,

all those things like the first time, right? Like I just whatever.

But the hardest part about Buds was for me was Hellweek and that same side pain that I had had in boot camp. Revisited me, right? And it was Wednesday or whatever the steel pier night was. So the, you know, the steel pier, where, which I think is like the hardest part of Hellweek. And that's my recollection of it is the water temperature determines how long you can be in the water.

And then when you get out of like they have to take you out of the water so that you don't get past hyperthermia or whatever. And it's based on the water temp. And that's based on average weight. So there's a lot of fluctuation and you know, we all know we don't know how the same body fat. So they, the Buds instructors have a timetable where they're allowed to keep you in the water and it's based on the water temp. But on steel pier, they make the whole thing miserable by when you get out of the water.

You're laying on a pier about this wide and it's metal and then they hose you off with a garden hose. Right? So it's colder than the water. And like that's the night I had another like side pain attack. So I'm sitting there just wanting to curl up into a ball. And but I'm laying on that pier and just getting like, you know, kind of jack hammering.

And again, like at the time I wasn't diagnosed with anything other than IBS with constant there like, oh, it's IBS with constipation. So now they give me a laxative. Well now I have diarrhea and essentially. And it's healthy, right? And you don't get to stop and go to the bathroom. I don't know. That's not a very glamorous story. But I am at the time I'm not. So I wasn't diagnosed wrong with them.

I don't know, give them some lex because I'm like, holy curl up in a ball.

“And I went to and I didn't even get to stop then. I went to sick call the next morning and they're like, what's the matter with you?”

I got this terrible pain in my side. I can't stop curling up in a ball and it really, really hurts. And they're just like, probably constipation, IBS giving some laxative. Shit. You're just like, oh my god, hell week, bro. So you went through hell week with a fucking kidney stall that they were giving you laxative. I have to stipulate because I know a lot of people will see this. That was not diagnosed, right? I only know this with 99% certainty because a few years later.

And I had this pain revisited me a few years later. I had the pain again and I was finally properly diagnosed with a kidney stone.

I'll get into later. I'm trying to stay chronological here. So long story long, 99% sure that not only was, you know, hell week hell, like it was full benefit for me, like having this. Not only having what I'm 99% sure is a kidney stone, but also having diarrhea. Damn. Yeah. Wow. So that was, I mean, that's my answer to your question. What was the hardest part about bud? Probably that. I mean, how the fuck are you going through, like, around the world, like all this, like the longest mile with laxatives?

“What's that, that's what Thursday morning and then I just ran its course in about 12 hours.”

And I'm just like, like thankfully, you're wet all the time.

So you're always in the ocean to rinse off.

It still hurts. Here's some more laxatives. Yeah. Drink water. Talk about your fun, man. All-time misdiagnosis. Oh, man. That's fucked up, dude. Wow. Yeah. Save.

So he was pretty time for your, for your audience, the term full benefit. Yeah. That's just, that just means like when it sucks extra hard, like I had full benefit. And then, like, to make, like, the funny thing is like, so here I graduate hell week. They secure hell week on Friday afternoon and then right after that, you all go in. They see you at the, at the medical thing before you walk back to your barracks.

“And I go into medical on, like, well, my toes kind of hurt.”

Well, both my big toenails were ingrown and they yanked out my big toenails. Oh, my God. Here I have this one. Kidney's no hurts.

Kidney's stone diarrhea and it's finally over and like, oh, as a parting gift,

we're just going to take out your big toe. Oh, shit. And you get like, you know, you get like a week off the next week, walking week, but there's not much of a break. Like, after that, you're back into it and like, you know, I still don't have my big toenails. Like, well, shit. Wow, full benefit.

It's definitely full benefit. Holy shit. And somehow I'm like, and as I tell people that, I'm like, and I even like, in my mind, I'm like, how would you not quit? Like, that is two, but like, I don't know if I didn't know any better or I was just dumb or I wanted it that much. I don't, you know, if that happens to me now, I'm quitting.

Like, I'm just like a major lawsuit nowadays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What the fuck? Damn. Holy shit. So you made it through hell week.

Made it through hell week. I graduated. But it's class two, two, five. How did that feel? How did it feel to tell your parents your siblings, your friends back home, you get you made it?

Well, as you know, like, A, I made it through training. But then they're like, oh, so you're a seal. Well, then you have that period of time because you can't even, like, it, it's kind of anti climatic, right? Because you're not a seal yet, but like you graduated buds.

I was beyond, you know, I'm very proud, right, of my accomplishment. I'd done something that I'd set out to do, right? I worked hard and I achieved it.

“And I had gone through a little bit of, you know, had an obstacle, right?”

So it, I felt amazing, right?

But then, and, and it's very short lived. Because then you check in to a, you know, back then we went to, we went to Jump School and Benning, right? And then you show up at a team and then it's kind of like, pretty humbling, right?

Because now you're a new guy, and not only are you a new guy, but you're a new guy out of team without a try to, right? And, so, uh, checked in to team five and, yeah, kind of, you feel like he started all over. Did you want to go to the West Coast?

No, as you do. You do. Like, and I'm like, in it up loving it, right? I mean, I loved, kind of pre 9/11, every team had its own kind of like personality, right?

and like, everyone thought I would, like, I didn't, you know,

“I looked like a surfer now, I've never surfed, I don't surf, right?”

But, um, I've chose, like, literally, two, four and eight. When you do the dream sheet, yeah, I got one of the go to the East Coast. Like, I wanted to go to the East Coast, and I wanted to go to Dev Group. Like, that was, you already knew about Dev Group. I got in trouble in third phase, because we had buzz instructors

talking to us about the different teams. And I literally, yeah, and so I'm not even graduated yet. I'm like, and I go, well, what does it take to go to Dev Group? None of them had gone there. Well, then, like, two of them beat me, because like,

you haven't even made it through this yet, dumbass, you know what I mean?

Right? So it was always on my radar.

Um, but I wanted to go to the East Coast. Um, so I went to, uh, seal team five, and I had, had the best time. So, like, it was just, uh, so different than the East Coast. And it was so different than just growing up on a farm in Iowa, you know? Um, but I met, um, I met some, you know, awesome, awesome people.

That's some awesome teammates there, some awesome experiences. Um, pretty good hazing stories. We, you know, the hazing was, and it didn't happen. These are not my stories, these are things I've witnessed. Like, we had guys that would get, um, you know,

taped up naked to a spine board, you know, with basically, we would call it rigor state, but for people that don't know, it's basically duct tape, um, or just get covered in spray glue.

“Um, I think one of the, one of the worst ones I heard about was a friend of mine got,”

like, hey, he got, like, taped up to a spine board, like head to toe with duct tape to a plastic spine board. And they taped a funnel into his mouth and poured vodka down it. And then they put him in a closet and they taped an alarm clock to his head. And it was just ringing.

So he couldn't pass out. And then they left him there for like eight hours to chew his way out or whatever. And he had, like, pissed and shit himself in the tape. Oh, man, I'm not heard the alarm clock one. We did the happy hat.

The happy hat was common. Oh, fuck. That's the, the happy hats where they, for the audience, where they tape a handle on the top of your head. Wrap your whole head and duct tape.

And then they tape a handle on the top of your head.

“So anybody that wants to walk by grab the handle and, yeah,”

shake your head around and there's not a damn thing you're going to do about it.

So these were always like horror stories.

So when you're a new guy, like, showing up at a team back then you kind of walked around like just waiting for your number to get called. Right. And I've heard other kind of, you know, I've heard, I've heard wild ones like this, like, someone they threw, they put him in a cruise box and threw him in the San Diego Bay with a,

can't see a can of spare air. I haven't heard that. And then they had them on like a, you know, he's like 30, 50 feet down. And they had them on like one inch nylon and pulled him back up. Oh, you're pretty lucky that didn't go bad.

Yeah, no kidding. Sam. I didn't witness that.

That's the second hand one that I've heard.

But yeah, it was pretty epic back then. Wow. Wow. Yeah. But the alarm clock one is pretty sinister.

Like not only did just get taped to a spine board. And then to get your stomach filled with vodka. But then to tape another one. That's a good one. I do.

It's just awful. I kind of want to do that to somebody now. Got any new guys on staff. We do. We do.

Wow. So what, how was it? I mean, we'll share impression and team five when he showed up. So team five. It was so, I loved it.

Like, and. So we're going. I'm, I am there for a couple of weeks before I went through STT back then. It was sealed tactical training. And that's all the recent budget.

One, three and five. There was no seven. Okay. So teams.

“All of us that were out of buzz and jump school.”

And we were not yet seals and not yet in a platoon.

We went through a class called STT. And. Among that class. Like, and that's three months. It's like 90 days.

And in that class, there's people that are going to go to one. And then three. And then five. Right. And at the time, like.

One was the hardcore like no fun one. Yeah. Right. And.

Three was kind of in the middle.

And team five was like totally the more relaxed. Like, surf team five. Um. And then midway like early on in STT. We had a.

“A new commanding officer at seal team five.”

Tom Dietz. And he had he had come out with a policy. And at the time, this was like. Ground breaking. He said no more mandatory PT.

Your adults work out on your own. We'll have one group PT a week on Fridays. And we'll chase it. It was kind of a monster mash PT. So for the audience, that's like a run.

Swim. Oh, course. Ruck kind of combo adventure. And like back then, every Friday at seal team five. You had a long PT and it could it could be running or swimming or a combo and

Rucking or obstacle course or combine all of those.

But it was always over at noon.

You've shoured and changed. And there were two kegs on the grinder. Nice. And it was kegs on the grinder by grinder is like a asphalt like black top area. And maybe some hot dogs and some burgers and two kegs.

And that was like the kickoff to the weekend. And team five, it was like, it was very interesting because. There was also a volleyball net there. So people are like, you guys had a volleyball net. Oh, dude, they're playing volleyball for like training or.

Or everyone had like, look like skateboards. So they're moving around the weapons containers in like long board skateboards. Nice. It definitely was this kind of surf like team. And we finished STT showed up at team five.

And I could just train how I wanted to. And then every Friday, we had to do a workout together. Awesome, right versus like having this regimented like run day swim day gym day or whatever. They kind of let you do what you want it, which was pretty cool. Yeah.

“I think, you know, eventually they all got more like that, right.”

But my impression of team five was like, I didn't want to go there. And I ended up being glad they did right on. Yeah, right on one how long was it before we put him up. So finished. Finished STT and I was supposed to go into.

A platoon a few months after that. Sorry, I'll rewind. I finished STT then I finished my total of six months probation. Oh, okay. Took the trident board.

Earned my trident. Every team had their own trident board. That one team five for his lacks as it was as a as a culture. We had a very hard trident board. So it was like an eight or 10 hour day.

And you went from diving to marops to land war and you had to do all these different things. And had written tests and then like a performance test. And like it was a long day. Yeah, it was like almost 10 hours. Holy shit.

And you had like you were in your canmies. They made you put on face paint and you were carrying a rock. Between stations and taking apart weapons. Writing out a dive chart. Right, putting on a static line rig and getting inspected.

And fixing a zodiac like all these things. You had like a 90 minutes or whatever. Percession.

Okay. Earned my trident. Finally.

And now I'm like now I was like a seal.

And I was supposed to platoon up. I forget the time.

“But it was going to be in like echo or fox trot.”

Platoon. But then Charlie and Delta. Platoon's did a. They did a nighttime combat equipment, static line. And like three people got hurt.

And two of them were going to be out of the platoon. So they grabbed two new guys. And I got to be one of them. So I platooned up early. Oh, right on. So yeah.

I forget the exact time. You know, that's so long ago. But so I ended up getting into a platoon at team five. And then.

They had already done more than half their work up though.

So now. And they had done like marops and some of the suck like. Back then like. Special reconnaissance. Some of the sucky blocks of training.

So now I'm a new guy in a platoon.

“That's already done half the hard stuff.”

Well, they didn't all really love that. You know what I mean? But I had an awesome time in that in that platoon. I think. We had like.

We went into they had finished marops. So we went right into a combat swimmer. Right. And that's like whatever three weeks back then. And then.

Finish that and pretty soon.

We were doing. Seekyby and a shaw's trip. So it's great. Right. Right.

Where are you guys heading to? We ended up going to Guam. Guam. Yep. That's a pretty 9/11 Guam deployment.

And. So we're there. We deployed like mid to late August. Oh, one. Oh, shit.

So right before. Yeah. Right before 9/11. And. My.

So my birthday September 7th. And I call my mom on my birthday from Guam.

“And she's like, well, what do you want for your birthday?”

And I'm like, you know, I'm some dumb whatever. 21 or 22 22. And I'm just like, mom, I just want to war to fight. Shit. Right.

And you know. Done. The the stuff that. Dumb young warriors want. So.

Anyway, we started in Guam and then we got sent to the Middle East. You went to the Middle East from there. Yeah. But we was up. We was September 11th light for you.

Well, I will. You know, obviously, I like it's so memorable just because. So I remember not long before that having a big birthday party out in town. You know, I mean, I'm turning 22 on deployment. Right.

I think it was that. And. Then I don't know like my. So my wife was going to college classes. And she would wake up early in the morning.

At the time, sorry, girlfriend. And. I call her and she. She just says, I think I think someone. Bombed the world trades center.

Or and then she's like, no, maybe a plane hit it. And I go, what? Like, and I remember this. Like, we didn't have laptops in our rooms and stuff like that. There was in this we stayed in a not even a barracks in Guam.

It was a kind of a. A B age kind of like hotel. Right. So there's a hall. It's almost like a college dorm.

There's a hallway. Everyone gets their own little dorm room. We chat our own room. And that's where we were staging because we originally went to Guam. In August.

And we were supposed to travel to like go and do joint training with like Australia. And then go to the Philippines and maybe Thailand and Malay.

But you have these rooms in Guam or they did. And we didn't even have a TV. I didn't have a TV in my room. But at the end of the hallway, they had one of those old like. Three foot thick big screens.

Remember those.

“And I just remember her saying something about the World Trade Center.”

You should get in front of a TV. And I like just kind of like she doesn't know what she's talking about. And I walk to the end of the into the hallway. And there's already people around the TV. And I'm just like.

Like I get there in time to watch the second plane hit it.

You know. And it's like. And from that moment like. Pageers started to go off. No one knew right away who did it.

And. But that night, you know, we were getting different intel briefs. And then pretty soon we're getting more and more briefs. And. You know, instead of worrying about like where are we going to go out tonight.

It was. Hey, we need to. We brought all these guns with us from Coronado. Not only do we need to make sure they're sighted in, but like let's get a few more yard lines or whatever. We got very serious.

Like that that that that switch from.

You know, pre 9/11 and just kind of. You know, it was a silk platoon was a rock band. It was like, hey, we, you know, we had all this fun. We're ready to do this stuff. But mostly it's like a.

Deployed a party, you know what I mean. But it got real serious. So. What did you guys figure? What did you guys hear?

You're going to the Middle East. So we originally. We thought we were going to go to. I have to get a stand and obviously we didn't. We ended up.

And we're constantly getting these briefs. But it probably was.

“I think it ended up being like three weeks later.”

That we got shipped to the middle of the Middle East. And. We ended up. We ended up replacing a team three platoon that was doing. Underways or VBSS in Kuwait.

And they got to go to Afghanistan. Gotcha. But along the way. I want to say we stopped in like Oman or something like the refuel. I forget exactly where.

But there were. There was like dev group guys there and dealt the guys there. Getting all ramped up for Afghanistan. And we were just like whoa. And we thought that's like, oh, we're in the right spot.

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Like, so my first rotation of my first deployment.

End up doing it in Kuwait, right? Post night like right when 9/11 happens.

“But in hindsight, I think I got to do, you know, 20 plus real world.”

It's a non-compliant shipboarding.

And it was kind of like, obviously in post 9/11 that doesn't seem like that big a deal. But I'm like, hey, that was better than what they were doing before. Right? And we were ostensibly, hey, there was the, you know, the Iranian oil embargo. But then there was also this idea that Al Qaeda terrorists were going to be like funneling out on these ships.

“And that's how they motivated us to do it.”

But, you know, the gravity was still real. And people were still drowning doing that. So it was as real as it gets. And a lot of bullets flying, but, you know, still pretty, could be scary. You know, under way shipboarding is like dicey, especially at night,

especially in, you know, in these waters and with stuff like that.

You want to describe the first one?

Huh? Do you want to describe the first one? The one that anyone that's of significant. So there's two that are very memorable. And I was like, so I was a new guy.

I was a jack of all trades. One night, I'm a lead climber, one night, I'm a breacher. Go figure. And there was one. And it is pitch black.

We have nods on.

“And we have, like, back then we're still running MP5s.”

You know. And so the pole man had put the pole up. And then the ladder man was unroll in the ladder. You know, on the bottle. And the original lead climber went to climb.

And his handgun, the handle on his sig got stuck in the run. And he was climbing against it. And he didn't like realize. And it was partially the fall of the ladder man because it was all unspooled. And he was sitting there and like, just couldn't go.

Right. And then after like maybe a minute or less, he like,

let's go and he tapped me because I was the second lead climber.

He's like, bro, you're up. Go. And I'm just like, oh. And now I'm going to be the lead climber up this under way ship.

“That's like steaming into my Iranian waters.”

And it's a 20 foot 20 plus foot climb on a caving ladder that doesn't have a runner on top. I'm the one that's going to climb it and set the runner. So I shimmy up that thing like like so quickly and. And by the way, it's like oddly like climbing the. A small ladder on the side of a grain bin or a grain silo in Iowa.

And so I shimmy up this thing. And I get to the top. You know, and the hook, the grappling hook is just. It's not on anything bomber. It's just on the lip.

And I just climb this thing on a hook that's just weighted on a lip. You know what I mean? Yep. And I get up there. I clear the thing with my pistol.

I look at that. I'm like, oh crap. I got to get off this ladder. Right. And there wasn't anything there immediately to like hook it to safer.

So I pop up over the over the thing over the lifeline.

And then the first thing I do is, you know, everything is clear around me.

And I'm up there alone. And I take that. I take that grappling hook. I hook it on something more solid. And then I take my safety runner out.

And I run that around something more solid. So now it's hooked on something solid. And it's on and the runner is on something solid. And then back then we were using like that little. Like the Kim light, right, that with the tape on it.

And I put the Kim light over like, okay, the ladder is now on something more bomber. Sorry, more solid. And then there's a runner on it. And then the rest of the team came up. And like that was, you know, a lead climb on a non-compliant shipboarding.

And my first, you know, my first deployment. So it was, it was memorable. And then there was another night where we had this shipboarding was like a step over freeboard. So that ship had been so laden that you didn't have to climb. The rib could pull up next to it.

And you could step over onto it. Oh, wow. Was that full of oil? And it was steaming, it knew we couldn't go into Iranian waters.

And, and that night I was, I was carrying, remember the torch.

Yeah. Like oxygen torch or whatever it was. And I have a torch on my back. And I step over the, so I step off the rib over, over onto this tanker, straddle over the lifeline, right?

And we're like, we're standing, there's like water ankle deep. It's like that laden, right? And I'm standing there and they had put, they had put like heavy steel up, going into the superstructure. And some of it had angle iron behind it.

And so we have to try it.

“Yeah, you have to either take down like whatever the engine room or the bridge, right?”

To stop the ship. Mm-hmm.

And they had protected the bridge so well with the extra steel in the angle iron.

And I bust out that like that torch, you know, had that rod. And I started and I used an entire tank on half of the diamond cut. Look, because the steel was so thick and it was reinforced behind it. So I didn't run out of rods. I didn't run out of battery.

We ran out of oxygen just trying to get like, you know, obviously I'm a new guy. I'm probably not as proficient as I should be on this. I tried. But at some point, like it didn't matter, I get halfway a half diamond cut. And we get a call like, hey, you guys are almost in Iranian waters.

You get off in the next five minutes where you have to jump, right? Off a boat that's moving with huge screws and all that, right?

So the ribs are pulling back up to pick us up.

And like, all of a sudden, like, we're standing in more water. It's almost like the ship we were on was either taking on water or whatever. But like we started and it was like this deep and now all of a sudden just on the deck, right? It's like needy water. And there's like a big battery on this torch that you used to start it.

And I am sitting there as when I when I grab the lifeline to straddle it and go back on to the rib. I'm just starting to get, I'm getting some voltage. And I'm like, and like pretty soon I'm like halfway stuck there. I'm like, I can't, like, and my buddy's like, I think it's the battery. He's trying to unhook me and like, I'm standing in water.

I get this big battery on. I grab the metal lifeline.

“And it's like, oh, I think I'm just catching a little voltage here, right?”

Oh, yeah. And then like that very same night. That very same night. We had to get off this ship that was like going into Iranian waters. I had half cut this diamond.

And I, you know, was getting like not electrocuted that would be an exaggeration. But I'm feeling something like I grew up on a hog farm. And we used to have fights with cattle prods. It felt like that like where you're getting hit by a cattle prod. And like to top it all off a teammate of mine as we ended up.

So we back then we had ribs and marked fires. You probably remember marked fires. And we would do longer transits in the marked fires. And then when it was time to do the climb. Get on the rib.

So the rib picks us up off this boat. The ship.

“And then we're going to transit back onto the mark five.”

And like, I don't know how. But for like, even with all these climbs and stuff. No one ever fell overboard, right? One time we had a guy fall upside down on the ladder. And have to get pulled up from the ladder.

We're just scary. But no one really fell overboard until. One night we're like the night of that when I was getting. Shocked by this torch. We're stepping from the ribs back onto the marked fires.

And teammate of mine, who's the radio. And he's got a big radio. And it's pitch black and the boats are they're kind of moving. He steps slips and hits the drink in the Northern Arabian Gulf. Turns on his strobe.

And he's got this big radio on. And we're, it's like an overboard, right? Like, and we could, you know, we had nods. We could see his strobe and everything.

The guy.

Oh, no, he's got the author, right?

You're still still still close with. But he's written those books.

“And one of them is the Amazon show terminal list.”

So right up. It's memorable to me for that. But wow. So then you come, you guys come home. Yeah, we finished that deployment.

And come home. And I was, I had met my now wife. Leah, right before, not long before that deployment.

And then so the first year of us dating,

I had, I did a six month deployment. So really only six months dating, right? And back then it's like, you know, now you can face time from deployment. Like, but back then it's like calling cards. Yeah.

And, you know, these phone banks and, little bit tougher dial up emails. And that sort of thing. So I come home from that deployment. And my post deployment leave, I get like three days off.

And my post deployment leave is sniper school, which is not in any way stretch. Anyway, shape or form that relaxing, right? And at the time, like, there was an east coast and a west coast sniper school. It wasn't all centralized under the whatever it is now, the center.

And I, so I go through my, I show up at sniper school. Instead of getting a, you know, a nice long post deployment vacation. And I, I forget all the details. But at the time, they, they said one NSW sniper school, one, which, which starts with like 30 people.

Expends more ammunition than the Marine Corps sniper school does in a year. Wow. The amount of, and that's just the, and I'm not saying they're better or whatever. I'm just saying we had that much more money to spend on ammo. So you are spending, and sniper has evolved so much with

“radicals and ballistic coefficients and all that. But like back then, hours and hours and hours were spent on yard lines, right?”

So there was a marksmanship portion, which was a couple of weeks at Camp Pendleton. And you had to qualify, you know, expert with irons before you could move on, right? And then it was, there we got shipped to not ship, but we went up to Kolinga, Northern California. And that's where we spent most of the, most of the marksmanship part of sniper school, school was spending Kolinga.

And we would, basically, you're living in a tent there.

There wasn't even birthing. It's something like six weeks. And something like that. And there's a couple of weeks where you, you know, it's in 14. And then you move to your, like, your 308.

And then you're 300. And then at the end, you do the 50 cow, right? Like, it's a couple of weeks with each one. I think the 50 cow is just one week or whatever it is. Like, I forget exactly, but it's, it's five or six weeks and you're in a tent. And then all day long, you're just, you're either prone on yard lines,

or you're in the, behind the berm. We call it the butts, right? Those target butts going up and down, and your mark and targets, right? And these are like long hot days. Well, back to kind of like full benefit.

I have another side pain. Oh, shit. In sniper school.

“And I end up going, I think it's Lenore, you know, where we did.”

Do you remember haps high altitude, where they put you in a chamber before you can go to parachute stuff? So they had a chamber there where we did haps. But then I had to go there back because, you know, because I had this side pain. And they're like, well, we don't know what it is.

But we can tell you're in a lot of pain. They gave me bucket in, right? So I spent, I spent the night in this level. That is a lot of accidents, way better. It's way better.

And so I spent the, again, at this, I should be clear. I'm not at this point diagnosed with a kidney stone.

that did get diagnosed.

And I end up losing a kidney, right?

So I know what it's like. So I spend the night in this hospital. I think it's Lenore. I might not be pronouncing that right.

“But I'm all hopped up on vaikoden because it's painful.”

They drive me back to the, my tent where sniper school is the next morning. And the next day we have our UKD test, unknown distance test. And on a UKD test, you're kind of, you're like here. And then they have like four targets at this yard line. And maybe four targets here and four targets here, whatever, right?

Like unknown. It's not like an even yard line.

It's not like a hundred or two hundred.

But they're, and they're not on the yard lines. You have to guess how far they are. You have to mill them. The height with your milled up. And then dial and then you get four, you get one shot per target.

And there's either a five targets per spot or four. But there's a total of a hundred points on the test.

“And you either, you have to like hit the thing.”

It's like a miss or a hit, right? Um, and I am still on like high from bike it in. And I asked the, so I asked the instructor. I'm like man, I just went to night in the hospital. Do you think I could retake this test some other time?

And like back then, like they treated sniper school as they wanted attrition. Like it was a badge of honor. If like more than half of our, well, I would say half of my sniper school did not make it. And they didn't, like they didn't feel like it was their job to make more snipers. They feel it was their job to protect like how hard sniper school was, right?

And so he tells me he says take the test or go home.

You can always come back next year.

I mean, I'm a seal. I've just done a deployment. I am here on post deployment. This is my post deployment leave.

“You should want to make more snipers, right?”

We, the, the, the, the teams need them, right? So I'm like, I, I get what, what do I have to lose? I'm going to take the test. And the only problem is, so I'm sitting there. I'm, I'm high. I'm confused by my radical.

Or I'm sorry, by my, my, uh, elevation turret. So they did let my spotter help me dial. I had to squeeze the trigger. But I was so relaxed that I got the top score. Now he was dialing my scope.

He was, and so I'm sitting there shining like, oh, you know what I mean? Like wake up 30 minutes later. And I would just, I did it. Dude, I was like, man, my trigger squeeze is so smooth.

Like, because I was still on this, like, I mean, again, someone might get in trouble if you're like taking a sniper test on bike it in nowadays. Yeah. So, again, pass that.

I finished, finished sniper school. And not, not, not, I finished the, uh, marksmanship part of it. And then we had to go do the stalking. That's where more people fail out is stalking. And, um, I made it through stalking, but I got, like,

all of a sudden I started losing a lot of weight. And, like, I got down to, like, below 170. And I'm like, and there was a couple of us that were, like, getting really, really sick. Well, unbeknownst to us, like, a few of us got valley fever,

which is Mike Ritland got it. He was not in my sniper school, but he got, he got medically retired from it. Oh, shit. He lost a lung from this, or portion of a lung.

And I forgot about that. So that is the reason that the seal team's no longer go to Colinga. Apparently, there is, like, a fungus in the dust. That's, like, prehistoric or whatever. And if you're, like, in that dust all day and the winds blowing

and you breathe it, the spores can, like, form in your lungs.

And I was one of, like, I was fortunate enough

to be one of the people who got it, but I never,

“I got it and beat it and never lost any lung function, right?”

So I actually have, like, they say you have it forever, but you beat it or whatever. Like, you, you have the antibody or whatever it is. Someone would, is probably watching this now and watching me on that, but I got Valley fever not to the point

where I lost lung function, but I got really, really sick. Lost a ton of weight. My face started to, like, just my eyes sunk in. But one person from my sniper school, like, like, he got medically retired from it.

Shit. And then Mike, you know, ended up getting it really bad. He lost part of a lung. So, like, kind of back to the full benefit theme. I'm, like, finishing my shit.

It's been a sniper school with a kidney stone and Valley fever. Been a rough go for you. Been a rough go. Yeah.

But no, it was good. I actually finished sniper school.

And at that point, my, my second platoon, right,

had already started. I joined them. How did you meet your life in Guam? I met her before deployment. Are you guys still together?

We are still together. Wow. So we homily. We met in San Diego before my first deployment. Okay.

Um, her being from Omaha and maybe from Iowa. Like, we, we connected, like, closely right away, just because of the kind of shared Midwestern background. And, like, she's, I mean, my wife, the greatest.

She, we dated through the first deployment. We got married right before the second. And then all the other ones that, you know, it dev group that she went through and the stuff she's gone through. And we are, you know,

24 years married, 14, 14, 16, 18, and 20 year old kid. Damn, congratulations, man. How many years married, 24? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, people say I don't look old enough to be married that long. And I have a 20 year old kid, but I'm like, my MRI looks old. Right.

“And all the, all, actually, my med records pretty thick, right?”

Yeah. So long story short. Like, I can't, you know, anyone who tries to give me credit,

I always, like, don't give me much credit.

I had so much fun, but like, whatever Lea put up is ten time put up with as much harder. So how did you guys meet? So we meet at a bar in downtown San Diego. And we had just finished, so I'm in my first platoon.

And we had just finished, we finished a month. The month of January in Kodiak, Alaska, which is as cold as it sounds. Good times. Doing over the beach with dry suits. And land now in the snow, right?

Now I, I should say, like, remember how I said the farm made things a little easier. Like, that Christmas break I went to Iowa for Christmas. And I was there for, like, a week around Christmas in New Year's. And it got to, like, 60, maybe 65 below with the windshield.

Like, at one point, I remember getting to 20 below and it was like, man, I didn't even need the loves now, right? Because it had been so cold. And I'm spending my entire Christmas leave. I'm helping my dad keep the hogs alive outside.

So you're outside for a little bit, you're melting the waters. They have these outdoor waters.

“You're feeding them or you're running straw and hated their sheds, right?”

Just to try to keep these poor pigs alive. And, like, when it gets to, like, 50 below, like, the amount of time you can spend outside is limited. So you'd go out for a little bit and come in and warm up. I'm doing this for, like, a week.

And then we go to, uh, I get back to San Diego. I'm like, huh. It's so nice. And now we fly to, we fly to Anchory, right? Sorry, sorry.

We fly to Codiac. And we're going to spend the entire month of January on Codiac Island. And we get up there and it's like 20 degrees. I'm like, it's warm. After Iowa, right?

So back to Leah, I spend a month training on Codiac Island. We get back and I had just spent a month with these guys.

“Like, if we weren't out in the field, we were at a little bar in Codiac, right?”

Or we were in the barracks. And we're all going out that night to Maloney's downtown. I'm like, I don't want to go out. I just spend a month with you guys. I want to stay in my apartment and relax, right?

And it was, you know, I'm a new guy. So it's mandatory, right? It wasn't like I could say no, right? I just didn't want to. I'm like, shoot.

So I go out and that's the night I meet my wife, right? And she was supposed to go watch her dad play in the Pebble Beach, up in whatever by Pebble Beach at Pebble Beach. And she didn't want to do that. So she wasn't supposed to be there either.

And we meet at a bar in downtown San Diego. And she walks up to me and she's like, Do you have a girlfriend? Like, I'm like sitting there at, I'm like, I'm sitting at a bar. I have like a course light and a yogurt.

Like, 'cause back then it was like, you always get like a light beer and a yogurt shot.

And I'm getting ready to take my shot a yogurt and you know, chase it with a course light. And she's like, this girl just elbows me and is like, Do you have a girlfriend? I'm like, no, like, and so we talk for a while.

And oddly, you know, Matt is there. He was there the night I met her. And we talked for a while and she finds out I'm in the Navy. She didn't even know what a seal was. Which I thought was a bonus.

And so she kind of like, well, I don't really, like, I don't want to marry someone who's in the military by. Like, she goes away. Well, she comes back later and we sit there talking for another half hour. And then she looks at me and she's like, I'm gonna marry you.

And I'm just like, dang, like, that's a little forward, right? Well, like, we ended up. We date for whatever. We date for like less than a year and a half.

And then we get married before my second deployment.

And she, and that was at Team Five. And then she went through all the stuff at Dev Group. And then, yeah, so she's been through the ringer. Been my rock. Man.

So what's the secret to a successful marriage? Man, I mean, it definitely takes to. You know, I think, like, we've been, been very, you know, fortunate.

“And I think there's obviously, you have to love each other.”

And there's, you know, selflessness that goes into it. And honestly, our faith has helped us a lot. You know, we didn't start. Like, when we were early married and in San Diego, certainly we didn't go to church all the time. But we got, like, we got into church big time in Virginia Beach, especially as, you know, things started to get scarier.

And then we've always gone to church together since.

That's a big part of it. And I would, I would also say, like, I think people think of marriage as a, it's a 50, 50. Like, if there's this much to do, I'm going to, you know, it's a 50 50 split. Like, we're going to, you know, I'm going to clean half the kitchen.

You're going to clean half the kitchen, right? Like a zero sum game. But I've heard this, I've heard it said this way. And I wish I could remember who said it. So I could attribute it properly.

But that's the problem. It's not 50 50. It's 100 100. Like, you both give all of yourself, right? And I think that's good advice.

It's a great way to put it. So, and it, you know, doesn't, doesn't hurt to pick the right wife the first time.

“So, I mean, obviously there's, you know, there's some luck, there's some whatever, right?”

I just feel very blessed. So, that's cool, man. She's, yeah, we beat the odds for sure.

Like, we would have like a Thanksgiving party or just a summer pool party,

which like, teammates.

“And like, we could have a Thanksgiving party there because a lot of people didn't have family there, right?”

So you'd have a friends giving kind of thing. And I look at, my wife is good about, let's get a photo, let's get a photo. And like, we would take a, there might be like, four to six couples in a photo. And like, now, I mean, I look back on them and there's some of those photos, where either all the husbands are dead or they're divorced.

You know what I mean? Yeah, so anyway, I feel very blessed, very fortunate. And we got, let's see, we got engaged. We got engaged in October of 02. And we thought that, we thought we'd get married next summer, like so summer of 03.

But then I found out about the, that we were going to deploy early because of the Iraq invasion. And we were going to be deploying in like January.

So we're engaged in October.

I'm going to be deploying in January. And I just, we just decided to get married before I deploy it. So we had like a six week engagement. And we didn't have, so some people thought she was pregnant because it was like, that seemed a little rushed.

“But I was like, babe, don't you want to be able to shop at, you know, the PX?”

Or don't you want that insurance, right? And it just made sense. So we just, we got married and bail on Pearl Harbor Day. I was in my Navy uniform. It's probably some beautiful.

So, and, and, to, to, I guess, take a quick rewind. Get a simple water as I get. Right before that, I lost my kidney. Right boat. Yeah, okay.

Right. Right after sniper school. Right after sniper school. And during, excuse me. Um, land warfare.

We went to Fort Chaffey. And we had, you know, a team five.

The first platoon we went to Nyland for land warfare like everyone does.

“For some reason, we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.”

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.

“And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare.”

And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we went to Fort Chaffey for land warfare. And we also put a stint in there, which is like a tube. Between the, and I was out, I was out during that.

But like I woke up, and I had, I was kind of black and blue here. Like it does feel like you're getting like punched of it. Like just from the sound waves. And I had, you know, gotten rid of the pieces of the stone. And I had a tube between my bladder and here.

And they're like, well, maybe you shouldn't finish land warfare. Let's go back to Belboa. So I flew back to Belboa. And under the premise that they were going to like,

fix my uriter. Like get rid of the scar tissue. And then they went in to go do that. Like a week or whatever later. And then when they got in there, they just looked at my,

“the kidney at that point was just a water balloon.”

Like it was not working. So like it was like an eight hour surgery. Because it was so full. They didn't want it to break. Because it's, you know, it would go septic sepsis.

And normally you can take a kidney out. Like if they had someone donate their, it was like a small, whatever. And I have a scar from like, almost from like 12 o'clock to nine o'clock.

Wow. Because it was this. And the doctor's like, yeah, we almost had to take a rip out. Like because it was just this descended,

this descended like water balloon. Right. So I wake up, you know, eight hours later. My poor fiance at the time had just spent eight hours in Belboa.

Thinking I was going to have a 90 minutes surgery. Yeah. And she's like engaged to me.

“And I just remember like all of a sudden,”

I wake up. And they explained to me what happened. I'm like, well, you lost a kidney. And I'm like, well, what does that mean?

Basically it means you're out of the military.

Everything's waveable, but like in the in soft, like that's kind of one they don't like to wave. Right. And the Carmen, one of the Carmen from like the Med Department at team five,

like did some research shows up at the hospital and gives me a waiver. They find a waiver I can sign to stay in the military. And I am like high on morphine. But I don't even read this thing.

He's like, if you sign this, you can stay in the military. If you don't, you're going to get like medically discharged. And I had done one deployment. And I had done all this work and finished.

Basically finished my second work up. And I wanted to deploy again. I didn't want to get out. Right. I didn't care that I would get a medical retire.

I wanted to deploy. Right. So I signed my waiver.

And never had one of those attacks again.

Right. Because I had kidney was gone. That yeartor was gone. And I was engaged when the surgery happened. I healed.

We had our wedding in December. And then I think I deployed it. Like a couple weeks later, either in the middle of January or the end of January. Yeah. For nine and a half months.

Shit. What did you deploy to? So for that one, we went to Okinawa. Which I was so upset. Like I wanted to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

We ended up going like we ended up going to Oki. And we were going to split. Like we were going to start there and then swap someone out in Iraq. Because of the optempo. And then something to do with air fair and not air fair.

But like air flow. Getting people in and out. And just stay. But on that deployment, I had a lot of, I mean, we had a, it was a great group of guys. And we had a lot of fun.

And I got to finally, you know, I went to.

I would get my share of Iraq and Afghanistan later. So it was nice to, I went to, like we went to Thailand.

And got to do, you know, some of that stuff.

Were you, were you on a squaster tour?

“Were you actually able to enjoy that knowing what was going on in Afghanistan?”

And I arrived. Now as much as I otherwise would have, because I had that FOMO. And I, I didn't know that I would get my fill of that later. Right. I was just like this.

I'm not here for that. I'm here for that. So no, no, answer your question. No. But I mean.

In hindsight, you know, Australia was awesome. I, I don't need to go back to Thailand. But I would go to Australia. Um, it, it was, it was, it was, it was great. And I had good time with the guys.

Um, and I stayed late on that deployment. The reason I got home late was. The, the platoon that was relieving us was down a sniper.

“And one of us needed to stay and I volunteered to stay.”

So I ended up doing about a month extra with, um, thing was hotel platoon. And, you know, I got, I became close with like, Bill Molder and Scotty Words and Jaymo and some other guys. Sounded on.

Um, anyway. Wasn't, uh, wasn't quite as cool as I was hoping, but, you know, yeah, what happened for a reason. And so what happened? You come back and screened for a development group.

So I, I had missed screening for the, what would have been. Oh, four. Because I, I could have gone, I would have had time to go to. Oh, four. But screening was, went, that screening was during my surgery.

Gotcha. It was like a week after my surgery. And I was cut from here to here.

“I couldn't do anything, let alone the sit-ups.”

You know, my abs are still growing back together.

So yes, I ended up coming home from my second.

Second, platoon. I did the, you know, the screening. Um, there wasn't going to be enough time to do another full workup in deployment. So I went to trade it.

Gotcha. And. Trade it as the training cell for naval special warfare for those listed. Mm-hmm.

And it was awesome. Like, it really was cool. Like, I had. So I actually did not yet have my orders. But I, they gave me a.

They let me go to trade at assaults, which was great. Like, I'm getting to help teach CQB. And, you know, getting to go on trips where we are meeting with the, the East Coast trade at and some. Dev group guys to de-conflict the, how, how CQBs being taught.

And then, um, I got, like, in a year and a half, I went to Shah's, like, seven times. Sure. So that didn't hurt for when I did go to, I'll bet, you know, I'll bet selection.

So, um, I would have, I mean, I would have loved to have gone sooner, but like, I had a great time. I had a great time going to, going to trade it. And doing, like, the Shaw's trips and then a mount trip to Fort Knox. And then we were doing back then even go-plats, gas and oil platforms.

Um, you know, oil rigs, taking those down. We were teaching, we would teach the West Coast platoons, how to take down an oil rig. And I have spent weeks living in the Gulf of Thailand, like taking down oil rigs on my previous deployment.

And then we were teaching, um, VBSS still, right, or, like, under way ship boarding. And like, I was one of the two people in the whole trade it, that had ever climbed a ship on a real ship boarding. Right on.

So it was cool, right? I enjoyed it. Um, no, no regrets about that. It was fun. Right.

And the travel, you know? And, like, my wife and I, like, it was kind of good for me to go to a, like, get, like, some technically, some short ooty, before going to dev group, um,

and getting on all, you know, getting on that up tempo.

Um, and it was hard, like, our first year of marriage,

like, I was deployed nine and a half months. I said it was crazy.

That's the secret. That's the secret.

Set a low bar of the first year.

Right on. On that note, let's take a break. Let's do it. When we come back, we'll pick up a development group. I need you to stop what you're doing for a second and really listen.

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How many deployments do you have with them? Plus count. Now, it wasn't like that many. I'm just trying to make sure I'm counting them correctly. Four.

Right on. Yep.

“And I had so two at Team 5, one of which was like nine and a half months.”

And I went through my training. I finished, you know, after after trade at. Went to the East Coast went to Dev group. Went to Gold Squadron. They had just renamed it from Gold Team to Squadron.

Oh, that was an official thing. Yeah. They didn't realize it used to be teams. Then they became. Official Navy commands and they renamed them Squadrons.

Right on. And that's when that happened when I got there. And which is the funny. So now I have a. I am by no means a.

Plank owner, but I have a big. Big huge. Um. Certificate and plaque framed plaque with the. The coins as a gold squadron plank owner.

Oh, right. Because I was. I was there when they became went from teams to squadrons. That's cool. That's cool.

Um. Obviously, it, you know, it was long. It was around well before me and. We'll be around long after, but. Yeah.

And I. Let's see. Move out there. Technically. What were some of the.

First. First things you noticed that were. Different between. And that was a. Well, first starters, I mean, you're starting all over again, right?

It's still team five. I showed up at. It's a team five. You're a brand new guy. Mm-hmm.

And now. I've done two platoons. You know, I may.

And now I'm going to leave all that to go start all over.

Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of similarities. There was, but there was definitely something very different about it. Um, I mean, fuck man, I've been there.

I've just walking in the damn compound. It's like. Oh, we shit. Well, as much gets your own fucking shooting range. You got a gym that takes you up to altitude.

It's like. Everything you could possibly fucking imagine. Yeah.

“Where is everybody else's travel on all over the country?”

And I know you guys are too, but it's appeared to me. It's like, well, I don't know why the fuck these guys are traveling all the damn time. It's all literally everything is right here. They have a climbing wall, the altitude simulator. They have all, you know.

You know, it was very interesting. Like once, you know, once you're there and you're kind of through training and whatever, you just keep my guns in my cage. Like I didn't have to go sign, like get the ordinance rep to sign them out of the armory to go train with them and turn them right away in.

I could keep my guns in my cage. I could take them. I could go to the range anytime I wanted. I could shoot. I clean my own guns.

“Once a month or whatever when they did, they had to do an official weapons inventory.”

Then it had to go back in the cage. They would get eyes on. Then you could take it back and just go, like keep all your gear in your cage and go train with it. Nice.

It was interesting though, like when I first got probably doesn't mean shit to anybody else.

But it's like deal. But it is a fucking big deal. It's a big deal. Like it was like when I was at sealed team five was so hard to go train. Like if you got to go to a range, it was on a trip.

You weren't doing it there, right? So for starters, the, like the first thing that stood out to me and this was like, like when I got there and like I moved there and no four and started to like hang out and it was going to go through training in 05. And like, like guys are a little older because they've done at least two rotations. Obviously there was the grooming standards. You know, back then, like back then it was a significant difference.

Like long hair, beer is everything. And you couldn't have that at, you know, team five or other teams. And just, yeah, the, the command itself, like was this kind of death star type.

“Area, like with all these buildings and all these training facilities and like these, like just the, the meeting rooms just everything was, you just had more, right?”

And you had, like way more gear, the amount of gear that you get. It even as a even even when you get your gear for like to reen team. It's just like, well, this is way nicer than the stuff I had at team five. And this is what they're giving me for training, you know, and then you just kept getting more. You kept getting more, it's just insane, right?

The amount of just the gear and the other thing. And I, I don't know, haven't really rehearsed what to say about this, but. You got to be there at dev group, like, you're going to have to be there five plus years. More, probably more than that. And have done multiple, you know, five plus deployments.

Probably more. Before you're in charge of a six-man team. No shit. That's generally how it works.

I've never heard anybody say it.

So you, like, it is so, like, and when you go through your selection, let's be able to eat five or eat sixes. And then all of a sudden, you're on a six-man assault team of one E six with a bunch of E sevens. Like, it's just more senior, right? And it's just more mature. It's just been around longer.

So yeah, it's, it's just, and there's just this different kind of attitude. You know, you can just, I don't know, more certainly in some ways more mature, you know,

I would say a couple of things that really stood out to me. So when I was new at a team, sealed team by, like, I knew that, well, I felt, like, if I wanted, I wanted to be the best team man I could be. And so part of that meant being as good at my craft as possible. Like, how good can, just being a good shooter.

You know, being able to shoot, move, communicate.

“Doing all the, all the component skills of being an operator, right?”

But then also being a good teammate, right? And helping people out and, you know, helping other departments out.

Like, I've always believed it's, it's not good enough to be good at your job.

Like, do you make other people better? And I, I learned that in, I learned that in football. I, it got emphasized at team five, right? And it, you know, something I watched other people do it at depth group, right? So as good as, as good as you can be at your, at your craft.

That is how you make the team better. But it's also not good enough just to be really good. You have to, like, help other people. And that's being a teammate, being selfless, being humble. And then being a better leader, right?

And that starts by, like, being a really good follower.

Because you can't expect other people to follow you someday.

“If you haven't, if you weren't willing to, like, follow what your boss told you to do, right?”

And I found that the skills were all very similar. You just had to do them like sharper. Maybe a little faster, a little better. Like, you had to do everything a little bit better, right? As it can be shooting or parachuting or whatever.

Higher, higher expectation. And I would also say that at the command, at, at, at dev group, like, you don't buy a spot there. You rent it.

And that rent is due daily.

If that makes sense. Makes sense. So it's kind of like, we've all heard I will earn my tried in every day. Like, true to an extent. But there specifically, like, they are having a new group come up every year with a draft, essentially.

And there's people that want your spot. And people that make it there, they get kicked out every year. Just, you know, shooting a hostage and training or whatever. Like, not, I don't know. Like, there's a, like, safety violations or kill house violations or whatever.

People that make it there are regularly booted for performance. Or usually it's safety if that makes sense. So, and I found that, honestly, like, like, the really the best of the best were both, like, they're obviously competent at their job. But they're humble and obsessed.

So humble enough to not rely on my, on the fact that I just shot this six plate drill. Faster than anyone else. Like, humble enough to realize, like, I need to still get better, right? Or humble enough to know that, no matter how good I am at this. Like, like, even though the bad guy doesn't train as hard as me, he could still get lucky.

One RPG hits a helicopter. When you're saying the best of the best, I mean, you are the best of the best. When you get over there, you're saying the best of the best at that particular command. Yeah, like, like, I would look around and, like, you know, you would just see, like, the people that I looked up the most to as operators.

Like, they were humble and obsessed at the same time. Like, we had a strong belief that you don't rise to the occasion. You fall to your level of preparation. And I feel like humility precedes that level of preparation.

“Like, you have to be humble to realize you still need to keep training.”

The person who's not humble thinks they've made it. They don't need to train. Or another way to think about it.

Not only to not think, like, oh, I'm not any better, so I need to train. But also, I'm not any better than my teammate, so I'm going to go, like, it's time to, like, whatever, clean the high bay or take out the trash, like that level of selflessness, like, humility, the humility enough to, like, help each other out. Gotcha.

And then obsessed with the, the craft, I guess you'd say. Did you notice these things immediately? Um, I don't think I was mature enough to notice them immediately. How old were you when you got over there? Yeah.

When you got in, it was 21.

About your 20 second, 20 second birth there in your first opponent.

So I'm going to be in 25? 25. I mean, not. I think it was 26. So it's still pretty young.

Is that right? 25. So, um, still pretty young. But like, you know, I didn't have the charity now that I have now, you know. Um, and I would just look back and I can look back with the benefit of hindsight, like,

at the, the good operators were humble and obsessed, right? And always prepared.

Always helping other people, right?

And having, like, seasoned operators help you out as a new guy there or whatever the case may be. Um, so. I mean, it's the same job. It's just doing it to a different level, maybe. So a level of humility and obsession with just being really, really good at it.

You know what I mean? Which is that obsession? I did.

“Uh, and it, you know, it gets, you have to, you have to really.”

Obsession is a double edged sword. Like, if you obsess over everything, then pretty soon you will run out of bandwidth, right? Or as obsessed with, you know, how you make your morning coffee with as how you, I don't know, clean your gun or sharpen your blade or whatever. Like pretty soon you're going to run out of energy.

So you had to be super careful. It's like beware of how much of the things you obsess over because it'll, you only have so much bandwidth, right? And it was, it was very hard for, so we had a, we had a kid.

Um, in our first, first kid we had, well,

I was going through training there and, um, my son. And then had him in September, then I'd finish training and deployed right away. Holy shit.

“Um, and my wife, I swear, like, I think I was gone on average 300 days a year.”

There, something like 280 to 300. And we saw a lot of time. We may, my, my poor wife was pregnant or nursing the whole time we were there. We had three kids. Right, while I was there.

Um, from essentially we had moved there in the end of 04, left there the end of 09, beginning of 2010. Uh, we had three kids. And it was, my kids were young enough to where they don't remember me being gone for birthdays. Like, on deployments or work trips.

So, and I, you know, since had, you know, a lot of friends who, you know, had kids at the same time that ended up staying there longer. And like, their kids would for sure have memories of them being gone over Christmas and stuff like that. So, uh, it got, it definitely, I, I saw it getting harder and harder to be, uh, you know, to be a good husband and father and a seal at the same time.

Uh-huh. Now, I, I think you can.

“And I think I did a pretty good job of balancing that at that time.”

Um, like, when I was, when I was home from being on a trip, like, work hard, get my work done, but like, I wasn't going out on week nights in Virginia Beach.

Um, and then when we'd go on the road, I would go out with guys, right?

But I would not let that in any way, like, effect how hard I worked at at work or how hard I trained. Like, I trained as hard as, I trained as hard as anyone. Like, we, a friend of mine and I, like, we would, we would do these, like, Friday morning workouts, like, where we had this rule. Like, you had to be, like, completely fasted.

And this was before people were really fasting for, like, longevity and stuff like that. But we would do, like, a really long, ruck on the soft sand. Followed by, like, some sort of body armor, like, push-up pull-up sit-up thing. Um, followed by, like, an operator standards, handgun and rifle test. Nice.

Followed literally by, like, chess, just to, like, you're so depleted after all that.

“The only thing you were allowed was, like, electrolytes, right?”

And so we would, like, do stuff like that, maybe some grappling, you know, stuff like that. So, right on. Um, but I can also say, like, my wife and I have now been married, uh, 24 years. And I also got medically retired from that command that, you know, a lot of people do get divorced from. So, you know, maybe that was God's plan, like that I would get, you know, that I would get hurt and combat.

And the kidney thing would come back to bite me, and I would get kicked out of the Navy. So, like, that's kind of the way I kind of think about it. Interesting. Yeah. Um, let's get into some deployment stuff.

Yeah.

Where was your first deployment, too?

Iraq. There, when I was there. I would say, mostly went to Iraq. I did go to Afghanistan.

“Um, two good, two good more stories for you.”

One, one takes place on Super Bowl Sunday, um, 2008. So, I'd been there for a little while. And this is in Iraq. Um, we didn't think we'd have a mission that night. Because it was Super Bowl Sunday.

And our pilots, TF160 said the helicopters were down for maintenance.

They also wanted to watch the Super Bowl.

Um, but then we found out there's an HVT in our AOR. Sorry, I value target area of responsibility. And we had to go out and do capture kill mission. So we go out on this mission and we're going to. This guy is easy in one of three buildings.

So we split the the troop into three, you know, small assault teams. Um, to go. Assault three different buildings simultaneously. So you keep the element of surprise, right? Because they're all like 100 yards apart.

And as Eddie and Dom's unit is getting close to their building.

“So I'm already, I'm already in front of the building that I will soon be leading a team through the door, right?”

And I got my, I got my gun on that door, right? It's pitch black. We're going to be taking this building. Eddie and Dom's team goes past us and they're going to go set up on this building. And on there, I think they barely get there or they're almost there.

And somehow they get made. And it was, there was a little moon out that night, but somehow someone saw them. And people started like running out of that building. Trying to get close to them and blow themselves up. They had suicide this.

Now, Intel had told us there'd be suicide vests on this whole target set. But I mean, there isn't being like 15 people wearing suicide vests. Holy shit. They were legitimately running it where they did nighting themselves. Yeah.

So they were running at the other element. The other assault team. Because they knew the gig was up. So they were just trying to get as close as possible to them. And they were all running back then.

The initiators were on the shoulders. So if they went like this, they could still blow themselves up. Right? They knew that. Because they knew that we would have.

And then they could reach like almost like a rip cord right there.

Does that make sense? So they would run out of this building at Eddie and Dom's group. And something like three or four of them just blew up. Right? And so I'm sitting there holding this door.

I'm holding this door. And I just hear. Gunfire. Boom. More gunfire.

Boom. More gunfire. Like it's three or four times, right? And it's shaken the ground. Like these are like big S.S.

And across, you know, the that team leader comes across the radio.

And he's like shots fired, shots fired, suicide best be careful.

“And like I remember like I literally before that moment,”

I literally had thought like we had got into position early. Most of the time the mission goes as planned. Like you go in, you capture, you kill whatever it is. You get home and like we're going to be back for half time. And obviously we weren't.

So they didn't. They end up eventually taking that target down. And now, you know, I'm holding on a door. Like maybe from here to that engine block. And then a guy comes out of that door.

And he's, he's got a suicide best and he's got an AK. He can't see me. But I'm like this far away.

Like obviously I have to engage him.

He's already too close. And there's another teammate in mine right there. Like that's even closer. Like if he blows himself, like we could just die right now. Especially if he had trapped him on it.

Even worse would be to let him go back in there. Because we have to go in there and find the leader. And that could be him. But like as you know, like a suicide best inside is much worse than a suicide best outside. Just because of the reverberation or the concussion factor.

“So I and how could you tell he was born a suicide best?”

He had a big best on. And four people had just blown themselves up. So I assumed. I assumed it was an S best. And and like we were told like we were briefed.

Like we knew that the target line that we were chasing was like. Mostly foreigners like not obviously not Iraqis at all. They're from all over. Like but they'd come together under the al Qaeda banner to fight. And fight Americans there in Iraq.

And this group in particular was known like. They were not going to surrender and they were not going to get taken alive. So they wore suicide best and they all had AKs right. And so he had what to me. And we found out after I shot him it was a suicide best.

But I'm like well, it is a best. And they just blew themselves up. It could be.

“I was just trying to get you to describe what it looks like for the audience.”

Oh yeah. So he had not questioning. Yeah, yeah. No, he had like his man jammies on. And then it didn't look like an assault best.

You know what I mean? It had like that. And it's not like you can see the wires on the thing from your. But it looks different than it's not like a. Obdate myself here like in a blackhawk assault vest.

Remember those? Oh yeah. Which we bought with our own money. No, so I ended up. And we were, you know, at that time it was like, hey.

If suicide vests are even on the menu, it's all headshots. Because you don't want it to. You know, blow up just by. So I got him. And then at this point, you know, they've heard us in that building.

They've heard me shoot this guy. They're still another target to prosecute. We still have to take my building down. And we're like, hey, like, as you know, we need speed surprise violence of action. So we needed some momentum.

But so I was standing over like behind a wall. I jumped that wall and I'm like, hey, we're assaulting this target. Run into that. And I kind of, and he's in the doorway. So I have to straddle him.

Right. And he's wearing an exploded suicide best. And I'm straddling him and like, pying the,

So I'm pying that room.

And I don't see anyone in there.

And I'm from the corner. I'm like, I'm good. I'm going to get, I'm going to get through this room. All the other bad guys are probably like in the main room. Right.

And I had, I could clear most of that. I mean, you can clear most of this room from that door. Right. Corner fed room. And I clear it.

But I couldn't see all the way down this wall, you know. And, and I didn't realize so there was someone in there. And he was barricaded. Oh, shit. So I sneak, and I'm still like, they know we're around.

But I wasn't going to just take it dynamically. At this point, we're not doing a hostage rescue.

So I kind of sneak through the doorway and my first step in that doorway.

All hell breaks loose. And I am, you know, three yards away from four yards away from a guy who's behind a barricade, and he's spraying me. And I'm in the doorway. Right.

Shit. And it felt like, you know, it felt like minutes, obviously it wasn't.

“But I do remember having this feeling like,”

how did I, like, how did I get here? Like, I'm going to die and I rack on Super Bowl Sunday. Like, I should be, I literally had this, like, thought, like, I should be at home watching Super Bowl with cold hot pizza and cold beer. You know what I mean?

And now I'm here and I rack doing this. But then I also had this, like, moment where I heard

the first three or four shots.

But then I didn't hear anything. Like, it's like my hearing shut off. And all I saw was the muzzle flash. And like, I've later read about when people get put in those circumstances. Like, they will lose one or two of their senses to, like, focus all their energy on another sense.

Like, maybe their sense of touch. Right. I felt like I lost my sense of hearing. And my adrenaline was like, like, all of that was focused into my fine motor skill. Like, of running down my wall and shooting back.

And like, that's all I did. Random my wall and shot back. And he missed me and I got him. Right. And I got, you know, I've said it before.

We don't rise to the occasion. We fall to our level of training. And before, you know, we had before that point had been in gun fights. But nothing like that close and personal. And that consequential where it's, you know, it's almost me to you.

“And he's, he's got the first three or four shots with an AK, right?”

And we found out later that before that happened, he tried blowing his suicide best up, but it failed. Yeah. His cap failed. So not only does his cap fail and that best not blow up when I walk through the door.

He misses me. I'm run and I'm, I mean, I'm telling you, I'm running pretty fast down my wall. And I got him. So I ran down my wall. I shot him while moving, you know, in this region, not here.

To not blow up his best. And, you know, it's better to be lucky than good. And, you know, that's a very hard shot to make. But that, that's like table stakes when you're at deaf group. You know what I mean, being able to move down a wall and quickly shoot someone in the head.

Well, with nods, right? So that's what I did. And I come out of that, like, I come out of that room and I come out of that room.

“And I just remember, like, you know, you're always kind of patting yourself for a bullet hole,”

because you might not feel it in the moment. So I come out of that room and I'm like, "This, I'm crushing my legs." And I literally go, like, "And my buddy sees me do this on nods. I totally forget doing it." But I'm like, "This, safe."

And my, my buddy sees me on nods. Because, you know, we have such a sick sense of humor, right?

He's like, "Bro, I can't believe you did that."

“And I didn't even, it didn't even dawn on me, right?”

So that was like, I mean, I was elated. Obviously, I was happy to still be alive. But like, "Oh, I got that guy. He didn't get me." Like, you get that kind of adrenaline. And then probably, I don't know, less than five minutes later,

Mike and Nate get shot. Well, four other guys get shot. Two of them die. Mike Coke gets shot through the earhole. Nate, under the armpit, right through the heart. And they were in a similar room with a sandbag shooter,

but there were two of them, or more. And, you know, two guys got shot in the courtyard.

Mike and Nate got shot going through the door.

And now we have, whatever, four guys shot. Sorry, I heard buzz. We have four guys shot. And, you know, two are, we don't know they're dead right away. But I spent, you know, I, like that night,

like I shot all my, all the bullets I had remaining just trying to help, you know, we were recovering bodies, and Mike and Nate's, and remember putting, like, putting Mike into the bag and zipping it up, putting along the helicopter. And then, you know, we came back.

We went back to our base, and they were obviously dead. And we were going to have met a little Irish wake that morning.

“And that next night, I think Eddie may have mentioned this,”

like three nights later, when the building blew up. Well, between, between when Mike and Nate died we survived died, there was a point where Louie came up to me. And Louie, he kind of knew, he knew I was a Christian. He knew I was a believer.

And, you know, I would say things like blessing and things like that. And I would, I would say that I went to church and things like that. But I wasn't like, truly living out my faith. You know, like, walking the walk as I should. And, and he was just asking me, he was kind of like beating around the bush,

just asking me what I believed and why. And it was more discussions. Huh?

I always think those are the best discussions.

And I, like, I was not at that moment. It wasn't, like, I wasn't ashamed. But I was, I was afraid. And I was afraid because, like, the Bible says,

“to always be able to, you know, give a reason for the hope that you have, right?”

And what you believe in why? But I was, like, so worried about sharing my faith, because I didn't have all the answers, right? I wanted to be an act. Like, I was overthinking it.

I wanted to be an expert. Well, what about this? And what about that? And what, like, know the Bible before I would share it. You know what I mean?

Like, overthinking it. And I didn't, I kind of just changed the subject, because I didn't have all the answers. And I've, you know, I've had a pastor since tell me, like, in those instances,

we don't need to be lawyers. We need to be witnesses. Like, which is a really good way of thinking about it. We don't need to be experts. We are experts on our own lives.

And if we are, if we have a relationship with Jesus, and how things have changed because of that, we are experts on how that has helped us, or whatever. And I didn't want to share it, because I didn't, like, you know, I didn't have, I think I had the words.

You know what I mean? I was thinking I needed to be an expert, not just a witness. And I didn't have the courage to just talk about my faith, like I do now.

And here he is kind of searching, like being around the bush. Really was going to ask me, is like, well, why do good people like Mike and Nate die? And like the bed, people not,

which I still don't have the answer for, right? But I'm sitting there, and, you know, of all the regrets I have, like today, these, now, every morning, I spend time praying, reading the Bible, and journaling.

And I've been doing that for whatever,

It makes everyday better. It doesn't make everyday easier. There's still plenty of hard things. It just makes me handle hard things better. It makes me sharper at work,

no matter what I'm doing. It helps my workouts. It helps every aspect of my life. I spend an hour a day in the morning,

in the morning first thing, giving God the first hour of my day.

Time in prayer, time in the word, and time journaling, and stillness, and solitude, and silence. Like, from five to six, or six to whatever it is. And I've literally found it helps every aspect of my life.

In fact, if anyone is like, well, what would you do, like, do that for a month and get back to me? And you don't have to do a full hour, right? I swear if I would have done that in the teams, and I've talked to my teammates about some teammates about this.

Like, man, if we would have done that,

“like, I swear I would have been a better seal, right?”

I would have been, like, just because I feel like things are just more clear to me. I have more, I have more energy from it. You feel like you're losing an hour of sleep, but that period of time, we're just waiting on the Lord each morning, like, gives you this strength, long story short.

Like, I, at that age of my life, I was, I wasn't afraid to run into a room full of Al Qaeda for the flag that I wore on my shoulder, but I was afraid to share my faith for that cross. I wore underneath my body armor.

That's interesting, you know, and I get it. I know what you mean, but, a couple of things, first been, I mean, now that you're deeper in your faith, this isn't a weird that that's how we,

you know, when the discussion happens, and I still think about it, and I still, I still, you know, my mind switches and goes back to this too, but because we don't know anything else,

but, you know, this world. But if you're a true believer, I mean, that's the ultimate goal, right?

To cross over, and we always,

we always talk about it as if it's a tradition. If it's a tragedy, if it's a tragedy, because that's what we see. We see fucking tragedy, we see fatherless kids, you know, gold star wives,

and it's a mess. But, you know, the reality of it is it's that, that's the reward, that's the ultimate goal, that's where we go, that's home, you know,

and it's, I mean, just looking around at people, you know, and everybody's got their shit, everybody's suffering. I think there's very few people that are genuinely happy.

It's just fucking, it's interesting, you know, how we perceive it. And, you know, it's funny, I was just talking to our mutual friend who protects my family,

“and I think we're talking about it this morning.”

And, I don't even know why I came up, but I was just like, man, I just, I was like, it's so weird now, man.

Like, I never gave a shit about dying.

I never, never really, I mean, I didn't want to die. It's not like I don't death wish, but it just didn't really bother me that much, but it didn't have kids. I didn't have a wife.

Yeah. And even when I did get married, I mean, it wasn't until I had kids that now I'm scared. I'm fucking scared to death to die,

and leave them here in this fucked up world. You know what I mean? You're not afraid of death for your own sake. You're just afraid of leaving them behind. That's it, man.

That's it. That's the only, I get that. That's my only tie. Yeah. What about you?

I mean, you know, but you had kids. And... And have kids. I did.

I was doing this. I had kids.

“So, the day that happened, I had two kids.”

Um, I had kids in my whole time at that group. I had to get that on fucking crazy. I had... I called my wife.

I mean, this was a few years before that. I was in Afghanistan. I called my wife on a sat phone. She was just going to get an ultrasound with a friend because I wasn't there

to find out the sex and a baby that we were having. I get her on the sat phone. She's like, "We're having a girl."

Over the sat phone right there.

[laughs] It's a girl. We're going to name her Daisy. But she just graduated high school. Anyway.

That night, we go on a mission. And I am...

“Between three different teleband compounds”

and I had, like, I had to help lead a group into this area. And we get pinned down from three buildings, and we're in the middle of this in, like, the Helman Province.

It's like a bowling alley. It's flat. And I cannot... I can't figure out... I'm towards the front.

I'm, like, well... Which one of these buildings is shooting at us? And I'm... You know, there's three of them. And, like, we found out later it's all of them.

But I'm trying to help coordinate an air strike because they're, like, shooting here and here and there. And so I get up on my knee to, like, get a better view. And a bullet whizzes by my hair, my head, and cuts off a chunk of hair.

I had longer hair than fuck outta here. Are you serious? I had longer hair than this. It's sticking out of my helmet.

“I lose a chunk of hair from, like, an AK round.”

Right? And I had just, like, not five hours before that. I'd been on a sad phone with my wife, and I were having a girl. Like, I almost didn't even meet her.

Right? And I was, like, that night on that helicopter right home. I was a little bit, like, almost nauseous. Like, dry heaving a little bit, like, because I almost... I mean, that was close.

I weren't like, "Oh, I'd bother fucker, not the hair." [laughs] Don't hear this. Don't hear it. But I almost, like, you know, I'm, like,

I'm inches away from, you know, that or whatever. And there was, you know, other close calls I had. Like, there was also a time, like, I would sit there. I would sit there on an helicopter flight.

And I would... I would always say...

If we had a 60 minute flight, I'd say a 40 minute prayer. And then I would then I would rehearse the op in my head. Kind of, like, Michael Jordan rehearsing a game in his head. Like, I did that on every helicopter flight. And I would say, like, I did say, "God, I, like, if there's any...

I know there's non-believers on my team, and if there are, like, I would happily die instead of them. I would just want them to, you know, I live longer to find their faith. But I still wasn't always, like, sharing my faith with them.

I mean, I had a... There were two nights in Iraq where I volunteered to go into a... Instead of sending a full team in, like, I went in with an just an EOD guy to clear a building that we thought was rigged to explode. I had two kids.

But I was comfortable with it because I knew where I was going if something would happen. And I didn't know if other people did. Now, that's very selfish. Like, I don't...

Babe, if you're watching this, I'm sorry.

“So that I did, I think I did that twice in Iraq.”

But that was after... And that was after the building blew up when Louie died. So it was possible. But I didn't... I don't know.

I don't know what to answer your question. Now, I'm kind of rambling. I do fear leaving them behind. I just hope, you know, now they're old enough that... You know, I've, like, either taught them or showed them enough.

You know what I mean?

But they'll never be enough time.

You know what I mean? I do. I think, uh... I know what struck up the conversation this morning. Um, Uncle just died a couple days ago.

Oh, I'm sorry. But my parents' 50th is hooding anniversary. I'm sorry for that, man. Thank you. But he, um...

He died on a fishing trip with his son. And, uh... You know, my brother. And... Yeah.

And, uh... And he, he was... He was, like, on my brother's ass. To get that fishing charter going. Hmm.

And seeing each other at a long time. The whole family was there except me, unfortunately. Oh, man. And, um... He...

And died right there in the water.

Peaceful death. With a son who had been struggling for a long time. Finally got it together. They're getting along. And, um...

Sad. But at the same time, I fucking hope I go like that. Yeah. You know what I mean?

No. Uh... We just don't know how long we get. You don't. And...

But I, I think, you know... I just hope I can see my kids flourishing and not worry. And just know, like, they're going to be all right. And if that happens, I'm good. Yeah.

Those are lofty goals. Basic ones. Simple ones. Um...

God having a good time with a son on a fishing trip.

Mm-hmm. You know, I... I say, like, I think God every morning.

“Like, I think God for everything I have.”

But I start by thanking him for the fact that I woke up. My God, I don't deserve a day you give me. Thank you for this one. Show me what to do and show me how to do it. And...

And/or strengthen me for whatever BS is coming my way. Because I can't do it alone. Um... And I think that, I mean, I believe that's so true. So...

We just, you know, we don't know. Yeah. You know, I tell you another thing that kind of... It always catches my... Gold team.

Like, I don't know, like, what the... What the... What the... The culture of each team is within development group. Yeah.

But just something that I've picked up from the outside is meant like, the gold team has... A lot of righteous warriors for Christ coming out of there. A lot more than any of the other teams that I've noticed. And what's really fucking odd...

Is it's a cross? A crusader? You know? It's... It's...

And I've talked about this. I've talked about it. I think with Eddie Da... I don't know who all I've talked about it with. Every time I bring it up to like...

I've never thought of that.

“And I'm like, how the fuck did you not think of that, man?”

Yeah. Like... I saw a strong faith coming out of that squadron. And I think there's... You know, I have friends from all of them.

And I have met friends in all of them that have... As strong a faith. Um... And all of us though, from my vintage, we would all agree. Like, we just wish we were all in that time a little more open about it.

Even to the point of having like Bible studies and stuff together. Versus like... And now we're... You know, now we're definitely more... Now we're all...

You know, more open about it. But... It's my only regret that. You know, I... Back to Louis...

I was... Like, I didn't share my faith with him. Or just having like what I believed in why and like why I have hope for the future. Just because like no matter how bad all of this goes. Like...

Even if I get a hundred years, right? Get a eternity in heaven. Like, and it's gonna be... Is better than I can imagine. Um...

Even if I would say something like that, right? Because I believe in Jesus. I didn't... And he liked I'd two nights later. And two nights later, I was standing...

Like, I had just led our team up to a window. Sorry, up to a building. And... I was again the lead... Got the point, man.

So I was gonna lead us through that door. And I stopped because there was a window here. And I had to pan through that window. And then there were guys in there waiting for us. So I engaged him through the window.

The rest of the team goes past. Or they were already past. And they're setting up on the door. And I'm like, you know, ten feet from the door at this point.

“And then I just remember, like, and Eddie wasn't even supposed to be there.”

He's supposed to be back over there, getting ready to support with EOD. But then at the last minute, he kind of bumped up. And... Not Eddie, I'm sorry. Louis.

Um... And then all of a sudden, the whole...

I literally thought our...

“Our breacher threw like some top secret grenade in there.”

Because the whole building blew up. And I was like, what kind of grenade was that? Because the last thing I remember before passing out, because I was by the window, which saved me. I...

The overpressure of being next to the window, blew me, you know, whatever, 30 feet away from the building, or however far. But it blew me enough to where I bounced off the next building. Like, or the wall, right?

So blew me away from that window. I bounced off this compound wall over here. And then when I came to, all of that assault team, my assault team, had been, you know, crushed. And that's when Louis died.

Like, he got basically where he was.

There was a thick concrete roof, like a car port. Like, they have over there that whole thing fell on him. Shit. And then other people, like our dog handler, he had like double compound femur fracture.

Two thigh bones sticking out.

“We had another guy who had like a full pelvic fracture.”

And then a couple of broken arms and a broken leg. Like, they were all. And like, I'm the only one who didn't get hurt. But, I mean, I got a concussion. I got blown away from the building.

Because of the... And I was the first guy. I would be the first guy in. But I stopped. And I was engaging other bad guys through a window.

And then I got blown away from the window. And that's... That's like two nights, three nights after, you know, the Super Bowl Sunday.

And I'll just never, like...

So I get met of act. Because I was so... My bell was run so hard that I couldn't stand up. Like, I had that much of a concussion. And I had played high school football in one year of college football.

So I knew I know concussions, right?

“But I was like, "Man, and I was nauseous."”

So I get met of act. I have to get a cat scan. They say I'm fine. And I feel fine. But like, now my entire salt team gets sent home.

Like, from one house born IED, and then Eddie dies. Sorry, not Eddie. I keep saying that. Louie.

Forgive me, Eddie.

I did not mean your name.

But Louie dies. And... It was just nights after, you know, Mike and Nate. So... How are you?

And all of that. At the time, you know, I didn't... At the time, I just... You know, like... Compartmentalized it.

Yeah. Predator. I don't got time to bleed. Type deal. And then, um...

Honestly, like... That whole deployment was so busy. Like, it was... Like, a couple nights later, we're operating again. They'd flown in guys to replace the rest of my team.

And we're out back in... Back in the ground, you know, chasing bad guys. Didn't have... Time to deal with it, really. Um...

And... It wasn't until later when I just realized, like, the thing that I... And... I will say, I don't have this... I mean, we all have whatever PTSD or whatever they call it now.

I... I hear about people that struggle to fall asleep and, you know, have brain fog and all the operator syndrome stuff. And I have none of it. Like, I don't even have nightmares about what I saw or what I did.

And I attribute that to my faith. Like, I have none of that. I only have regrets of, like, not being willing to share my faith. Right? Um...

And certainly, I know there... You know, I have my share of medical issues. Right? And I probably have, you know, brain issues from not just that one. I mean, I was I need three times.

That was the one big one. But then there's all the grenades and just, you know, shooting a little gun inside of a kill house. All of those things add up. Um...

I found out later that even, um... You can get, like, brain issues from too many parachute jumps.

Right? Yeah. Especially like the...

“The parachutes we had, which for, like, for higher altitude.”

So they have less porosity.

So they can open quicker at altitude. Um... That means if you prep when you train lower, they open harder. That makes any sense. Um...

So just... All those things can lead the different brain, whatever, lesions, or whatever they get now. Um... But I don't like... I saw really bad things.

Um... I was put in situations where I had to, you know, it was me or them. Um... And I...

I don't know. I sleep fine. I fall asleep. Like... The only time I don't sleep fine is when I have, like,

stuff going on at work and I wake up at two in the morning, take a leak. And then my brain starts to roll. Right? And I'm sure we all get that.

But I am...

“You know, when I got out of the military,”

I tried, you know, I never did a lot.

I'd never did drugs or anything. But I, you know, I lost myself in work. I lost myself in, um... hobbies. Uh, or working out, or the outdoors.

Um... Even, you know, I drank quite a bit. Um... But never, like... You know, I always... I could never drink more than two nights in a row.

It gives me headache. Um... But nothing ever, like, fills the... like fills the god-sized hole, or the god-shaped hole that you have,

other than, like... Like that time spent in, uh, prayer, and in reading the Bible and journaling. And I... The tribute that to my relatively well, you know,

adapt, being adapted from all the things I got to see and do. So, um... I don't know. And... Maybe that's not the case.

But that's what I believe. So... And then I had a... Do you ever think about why you were spared those two times in a row?

And I'm sure there's a lot of others.

“I think you're doing the thing that you need to be doing.”

I think about that all the time. Yeah, it made to... I wonder... I kind of wonder, like, was I spared to have the...

the next kid, I think so that... Or am I, was I spared to go, like... Am I... Am I fulfilling my calling in purpose?

That's always the...

That's always a question.

Yeah, you know what I mean? And that's something I ask God every day. So, um... I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, I think it's a good...

Like, it's a good question to ask all the time and keeps you kind of... At least, like, having something to aim at, you know what I mean? Yeah. Um...

And I had... Like, I had a great... Like, the Navy... As hard as the Navy is, and certainly the hard as it is to be at that team.

Like that team has been just... Described as like a burning paris wheel. Like you get on it, you know it's on fire. And it's... You're going to get burnt,

and you're going to get ground out and spit out the other end. But you still want it on it, you know what I mean? But as hard as the Navy was, and like all the things that happened to me in the Navy, like it gave me more than it took.

You know, like... So I don't have any... Like, I don't regret doing that. Um... What did you want to believe in?

So... I... I've got medically retired because of... ...my kidney. And...

So I had lost... If we can rewind back to '02 when I lost my kidney, and I'm on a hospital bed, and I signed a waiver to stay in the military. I didn't know that there was a non-deployable waiver.

Are you fucking serious? I immediately deployed right after it. Wow. And then I did four more at... Dev Group.

Um... And it wasn't until I got hurt in combat that the Bureau of Navy medicine found out. Because they had to sign off on my purple heart. And they showed up at the command.

The Bureau of Navy Medicine shows up at... Dev Group at the command and says, "Where is this? Forohart?" And my boss.

He's like, "Well, what do you mean? Why?"

and he is being awarded a purple heart.

How was that possible? He's like, "Well, what do you mean? He was over there and he got... He got blown up in a 90." And the Bureau of Navy Medicine...

How's this possible? You're at fucking Dev Group, Dev Shed. Yeah. How do you think it's possible? Bureau of Navy Medicine...

Bureau of Navy Medicine goes,

“"Well, he signed a waiver to stay in the military back in 02,”

and he wasn't supposed to deploy." Since that. And it... That's how... The wires get crossed, and bureaucracies have no idea.

Can you imagine? Wow. So, I signed a waiver to stay in under the caveat that I couldn't deploy. And then I just... I didn't know that.

I was also high on morphine when I signed this waiver.

And no one... Like, I never read it. Like, never... And I just kept going. Wow.

Wow. It got up with me. Five deployments later they tell you. Yeah. No more, huh?

Wow. Wow. Repost. So... I was upset.

Like, I was like... I actually fought it for a little bit, and then I had to go get a med board.

“And the med board came back and said, "Yeah, you...”

Like, you can't keep going." They said, "You could have short duty." And they actually even offered... Let me stay at the command. Like, I could work, you know, in a training role with the...

Like the sniper guys or whatever. Um... I would have taken that offer if I had 15 in. And I only needed like five more. But at this point, I almost liked to 12 years.

And I didn't want to do 10 years teaching people and not going. Like, if I can't go and go at the highest level, then I went out. And... I got out.

I had six months. They gave me six months. Like, 'cause that was my E-A-O-N. Six months. E-A-O-S was six months.

So I got out. Like, I got catapulted, not only out of the Navy, but like, I was... Up to that point. Like, by the time my med board finished,

“I was training with the squadron getting ready to deploy.”

I found out... Holy shit. I found out weeks before our deployment. I was not going to be allowed to go. And then...

I had... And I had planned on... You know how it works. I was going to go on that deployment and re-enlist. 'Cause then I get...

My re-enlistment bonus... Uh, tax-free. And instead of re-enlisting in December of '09, like, that was my E-A-O-S, and it just...

It expired. So I found out in July of '06 that... Like, I found out before that about that... They weren't going to let me.

But that's when my med board finalized. And then by just sitting on July of '06, but... Sorry, '09. And then by December of '09, I was out of the Navy. So I had a no-shore duty.

No transition time. You know how you... Sometimes get a... A sure duty job or a... But you can go network and find your next thing.

So now I'm just... But I knew I needed to... Like, if I'm getting out, I needed to leave for Junior Beach. So we left for Junior Beach. And you left that fast.

And it was... As hard as it was to join the Navy and become a seal. It was like... Harder than leave... Oh, I see.

Oh, I see. What you're going to do. So it was the hardest period of my life. You know, and I've had kidney stones in hell week, and I've been in hospitals from getting blown up,

and I've lost teammates and all... Like, all those things. But that period of time,

was first couple years post-Navy, where...

Like, you get out and... Like, I didn't know... Like, I didn't know my purpose anymore. I didn't have a way to make a living. Like, I couldn't find a job.

So I had to, like, just start one. Like... I didn't have my team around me. The camaraderie with my teammates. And then most of all, like...

I, like... In correctly, my identity was wrapped up in that tried-in.

Like, my... I was singularly focused on one thing, and that was being a Navy seal. And that was taken from me. And that is how I defined myself.

Like, I was a seal first.

Then it has been a father and a Christian, and all these other monickers, right? But, like, I was...

“myself worth came from my profession, you know what I mean?”

And then... And I used to be able to say, like, "Oh, what do you do for living? I'm a Navy seal." And that meant something. And then all of a sudden, I'm just...

You know, another dad had target-by-and-ipers. So, I lost all those things, and it was super, super hard. But then I just kind of found, like, you know, I got to...

My purpose now is to be a good husband and father. How long did that take you to find? Took a couple years. How did you find it? Most people never do.

Back to my... I met some guys in Denver, and they... Like, it was this... faith-based business networking group,

very similar to, like, WIPO, or WIEO. And this group... be all... We had these forums of, like, six or whatever, guys. And, you know, there was this phrase called "abiding,"

which is, like, remaining close.

And we were always, like,

talking about, like, "Well, how much time did you spend abiding today?" And for us, that was, like, made tactical as in... reading the Bible, praying, and, like,

writing down some thoughts, right? And I... That was the way for me. So, it was... within...

I want to say, in, like, 11 or probably 2012,

“and I had gotten out at the beginning of 2010, right?”

And starting in 2012, I started... Like, read the Bible, and, well, pray, and read the Bible. And just write a few thoughts in my journal, like, get...

shit out of my head, and on to paper. And then... Just trying it for a month. I did it for a month. A month became two.

Two months became a year. And I've been doing it ever since. Wow. And, as I was telling the other guy earlier on, like, I have...

I want to say it was 2012.

It was the first year I read the Bible cover to cover,

and now I've done it probably every year since. Just reading the Bible all the way through. Now, there was a year... One year where I just did the Old Testament, and one year where I just did the New Testament,

and went a little, like, deeper on it.

“But for the most part, that's what has helped me the most.”

That time that I spend in the Word, and spend praying and journaling. And then when I finish that, then I do my morning workout, part of which is a walk, and I pray half of that walk. So...

How do you pray? Yep. What's that? How do you pray? Oh.

I have, like, a... Like you're talking? Yeah. Just in my conversation. Why atleast in my head?

Like, you know, I... Like, I have a prayer that I do early, like, you know, about faith, and hope, and love, and trusting God, and, you know, thanking Him for things, and then asking for forgiveness,

and then embracing my weakness, my brokenness, and my neediness. Like, I do all that. And then when I go on a walking prayer, I call it. I just start by thanking Him for all the things.

So it starts... I'm like God, thank you for my relationship with you. Please help make me a better Christian. Help me grow closer with you. Then I go, you know, in order, Leah, the kids.

My parents and siblings, my in-laws, my extended family, my friends, my co-workers. My teammates pass them present. I think God for, you know, our country, and I ask, you know, and I'm thanking and asking for help, right?

And start with, start by thanking, and then I ask for help. So that I will be better in all these, all these ways. And then, I even, you know, I thank Him for the church, and then asked me to, like, help me to be, you know, better, better, better of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

You know, I pray that more people would know and love you,

“and have a relationship with you, and then be with our leaders,”

give them wisdom and discernment. I have this whole, it would take a while. And then I thank Him for my help. And then for work. And then I ask Him, like, to show me what you would have me do.

Thank Him for every dollar He's given me for our house. Just help me to be a better steward of that money, and a better steward of our house. And then even, like, hobbies and fitness. And I just kind of go, like, while I'm walking,

we're rucking or whatever. And I just, like, I don't know. I leave those things, and I'm like, I go to work, and I have so much energy until, like, two or three p.m.

I stop when I have a snack. And then I, like, I have energy all day and tell about, you know, seven o'clock, have dinner, and then I finally wind down. But it gives, I would say, like, to anyone watching this,

like, it sounds like a lot, but it is, uh, if it takes an hour to do that, it's worth seven hours of energy, right? It, the, whatever you think the sacrifice is, if I only can give them, let's say, it's ten minutes.

“I believe that the payoff is more than three times”

what I put towards it, if that makes sense. So, yeah, it makes sense.

I've never thought of it like that.

It feels like a sacrifice at the time, but it is, the energy you put forth, it pails in comparison to, you know, the energy and the strength you get from it.

That's interesting. I'm going to have to try that. Yeah. Please do. I will.

Give it a month. Tell me how it goes. I will. Let's take a quick break. [Music]

[Music] See you later. [Music] Let's saw this building. We looked on.

We're high. [Music] [Music] [Music] The football player is there.

Now he is the midfielder, mid-Jubel and so on.

Click on the banner and he will be the leader of the team for the first time in the game of the Rive App.

Winner of your team is the leader of the team, the strongest leader of all time. And he will be the leader of the team with the highest score. So as the chance of the team, he will be a prize. So, now he is the leader of the team for the Rive App. Only at 18.7.

Or not, there are around 2,013. We are ready for the challenge. The biggest advantage of the choppy fight for me is that we don't need a technical advantage for the team. We can all defend the back end and the front end of the game. And so it was like in the fight against the online shop.

If you are ready for the fight for the fight, then you will be the player of the team. They are simply the main team. Our whole team is ready for the fight. Now we are going to the last test of the choppy fight. So we are transitioning into your civilian life, coming from dev group.

But one thing that we forgot to cover is lead climber. Yeah. And how you got into that. So, I mentioned, like in the mill, like on a seal team, as you know, and for your audience's sake, everyone does a little bit of everything.

We all cross train, we can shoot, you know, we all know how to navigate. We all know medicine, we all know how to use a radio, like, and then there are specialties.

“We all can breach a door, but there are breachers, right?”

And a couple of different things, like there was a time I was a point man, which is like a lead navigator, slash, you know, you had to be able to navigate the team to a thing,

And a lead climber would just be someone who would, you know, as I mentioned on the boat,

like on those shiportings, I would be the first guy up a ladder.

I could set the ladder better and then get everyone else up it. And I reckon Afghanistan, it might be a compound wall or something like that.

“Honestly, it's not that, you know, it's not quite that epic.”

But I showed up at, when I got into finish my training, and I was at, you know, gold team, squadron, and me and the other new guy in my little assault team, like my team leader looked at us, and the other guy was bigger, and he said, "You're going to be a breacher," and then he looked at me, and he said, "How many pull-ups can you do?" And I was like, I don't know, like, 30 or whatever it was.

He's like, "Well, then you're going to be a climber."

And I had never climbed in my, like, besides the, the lead climbing I had done, it sealed

team five on the side of the ship. And so, long story short, I get volunteered into being a lead climber, and we do a climbing trip to red rocks, which is outside of Las Vegas. So I get four days of climbing on real rock at red rocks, followed by four days of climbing real rock somewhere else.

So now I have imagined this. I have eight days of rock climbing under my experience on, like, in a harness on real rock,

“like, not counting like a trip to a rock climbing wall, right?”

Like, real rock.

And, like, the group of lead climbers, the one guy to sides, we're going to go climb

L-CAP, right, which is a 2,500 foot wall, holy shit. And, and I'm like, like, what, and so long story short, I end up, yeah, I find my myself in, um, you're simity, national park, and we're going to climb L-CAP. So the ninth time in my life that I've ever even worn a sit harness is a training day on L-CAP.

Holy shit. The tenth time in my life that I wear it on real rock is day one on L-CAP, day one. Wow. I'm climbing it in three days, spending two nights on portal edges on the side of it. The last night on the top, um, finished the climb off the back side.

You kind of walk, then repel, walk. There's like a down climb with a couple, a couple of hundred foot repels, and, like, L-CAP, the way we did it, because we're not, like, able to climb it all in one day. So we have, like, hall bags with portal edges, which are cuts that you sleep on, interesting. Two gallons of water a day, all your ropes, all your food, your mountain house meals, and,

like, you're carrying each of us had a hundred pounds of gear to start. So you, and you're not climbing with all that, that's on an anchor, but you would climb, and then you build an anchor, and you pulle that stuff up. And so you climb a few pitches each day, you make it as far as you can, then you, you get as far as you safely can get with the light still, you know, with the sun still out.

And then you bust out this portal edge, which is a caught that you put together and strap it to the side of the rock.

“And the first night on the L-CAP, I think it was like 800 feet off the ground or something”

like that. Also six, it was steeper than vertical. So I was six foot away from the wall. So it was at a spot where there's an overhang and my, the rope hangs down and my caught is like, so I'm like 800 feet off the ground and six feet away from the wall and it's

just spinning in the wind, and I'm sleeping on this thing. And we finished that climb and come around the backside, and sure, like, and I didn't know who this guy was at the time, but in the meadow, I think it's called towalami meadows or whatever, there's a young Alex Hanhold looking up at L-CAP.

I was, I was not a climbing dork. Like, I didn't have the rock climbing magazines and all that junk and they're like,

“that's Alex Hanhold, he's the next big deal, right?”

Like, we would have never known he was going to climb L-CAP without a rope, you know, a few

years later, well, many years later. But anyway, I went from no rock climbing to a couple of rock climbing trips. This was like, so I found out I was going to be a rock climber in 2006, and we climbed dork cap in '07, so anyway, it was a pretty steep curve. That's a steep learning curve, but we finished that, and you know, one of the lead climbers

guy named Heath Robinson, who died in extortion, and I obviously knew all of those guys really well.

Heath mentioned, like, he was the driving force behind L-CAP, and we finished that climb,

“and he's like, I'm not going to do, you know, we're not doing any more walls, we're going”

to go do mountains. So then we went and did Denali, which no one said we would ever get it done, but he sold the trip and made it happen. So we did Denali, and then, like, the next one, he handed it over to Rob, Rob Reeves, who also died in extortion, and he led the trip for Ock and Cagua.

So Denali being the highest peak in North America, Ock and Cagua, the highest peak in South America, and that just kind of brings it full circle to, you know, now climbing Kilimanjaro for a different reason, but one of the seven summits. Yeah, I'm not as cool, man. Yeah, it was, it was, volunteered into being a lead climber.

Right on, damn, that is cool. I can't imagine sleeping on a cot that's fucking spinning around in the wind, it, whatever thousands of feet you are at. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just, it's so, like, to me, like, climbing L cap of wall like that, like,

that's scarier than jumping out of an airplane for me, like I don't know why, like, it just, you had the one rope, and your world is that one rope, and everything you do

“is that, like, bubble, like, it's so consequential, you know what I mean?”

I'll, I'll happily go do another, like, mountain climbing thing, like, mountaineering. I don't, I don't see myself climbing another 2,000 foot block wall, oh, yeah. Not after all the close calls, damn, so. How are you back to kind of your transition? How are you integrating in with the family after that pace?

Well, it's, so, I had gotten good at changing quickly from, you know, warrior to husband and father, really, right? I could, I could reintegrate very quickly, and it was because, like, you had to, like, at the command, I would go, there were no decompression stops back then. You would come home, like, I, in '06, I did a mission on the last night of a deployment,

finished that mission, we had gotten in a gunfight on that mission. Finish that mission, came back to the base, I didn't have time to wash my camis through everything in a bag, didn't have time to clean my gunner, anything through my clothes in a bag, my gun in a box, we flew out of that base, you know, without being too specific, refueled and romstein, and I was in Virginia Beach at a panera holding my kid 36 hours later.

Wow, after literally after a gunfight, and it was just kind of, like, it was kind of a trip, right?

I was like, but the hardest part was when I never got to go back.

Like, when I never got to turn on Warrior Mode again, and then it was like as far as reintegrating into the family, I just, you know, had to, you know, have my quiet time in the morning, you know, my time in prayer, my time in the work, a little bit of journaling, and you

Probably, you know, one and a half to two years after I got out, and then, but the other

thing is when I immediately got out, like, I also went 18 months without having a paycheck. So I just didn't have time to think, like it was like this consulting, or this doing matter, like teaching this class, or I briefly did like adjunct instructor with mid-South, or security consulting, or whatever, eventually we, you know, bought a gun range, but like,

“I just didn't have time to wallow, you know what I mean?”

And now I, like, sometimes we have time to think and overthink and like, um, just kind of, I guess, wallows the word, you know, brewed on something and not just like, go out there and do it. And I didn't have that luxury, like I, like I got out, no college degree, didn't have a job lined up, and, you know, had three kids and groceries to buy.

And then, you know, then we had a fourth kid, because we're smart, but then you became an entrepreneur. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

So, at first, did, uh, just some security consulting, and that led us to do in some

corporate presentations, um, in that kind of segue into, you know, we were teaching this guy how to shoot, and we took him to a gun range in Denver, and they wouldn't let us rapid fire, and they wouldn't let us draw from a holster. And as you and I know, like, if you're going to, if you're going to shoot a gun for

“self-defense, you need to know how to draw from a holster, and you might need to shoot”

more than one shot every five seconds. So we're like, this is no way to train, and he was just like, very wealthy guy and awesome business mentor of ours from from Denver ended up being one of our investors. He just said, well, why don't you guys raise money in by a gun range? Like, if this, if you can't train correctly here, and at the time, Denver had like two, maybe

three gun ranges, they all sucked. Um, he's like, why don't you just either build one or make one? So, you know, there was a, there was a problem to solve, and he helped us find an answer. So we actually found some people. We raised money, bought a gun range, and owned and ran a gun range, and it was, you know,

firearms training, and then a gun store, and then lanes for rent, kind of a three-legged stool, right, and I did that. We did that for a while together, you know, business partner, and after a few years, down from the day-to-day, and then I went and ran a fitness organization called Strong

First, most notably known for their like kettlebell training, and this was Pavel's company.

And he's the guy who brought, who introduced the kettlebell to the West, so he's the reason there's a kettlebell in every gym now, so I had met him at Dev Group, because when you're at Dev Group, you bring in the experts for everything, and we brought him in to teach us how to kettlebell once. And I stayed in touch with him, and I had used, I had used the kettlebell to help get me

ready for like deployments, and for Denali and I can cog one, like everything, right? I can buy in like kettlebell with a little bit of body weight and cardio, I still do it to the state, right, and so I'm a believer of it. And then he was asking me to help him find his next CEO, and I was in that, at that point, I was in that like habit of, you know, reading the Bible praying, and then taking up,

then I had added a lunchtime walk with a little quick prayer.

“So I'm on my lunchtime walk with a prayer, and like I just heard God say, well, you should”

apply for the job working for a problem. And then I went into that for about three years, and I got to, that was a great job, and I was, you know, really blessing to work with and for a problem, and I had, you know, the gun range I had, we had anywhere from 40 to 50 employees at the peak.

one captain, that that ship needed one captain, and then also I just felt like I'm always

“trapped to this facility, like I can't, like if I go on vacation, I can't work from vacation,”

you know what I mean. And then I started working for strong first, and I was working remotely back in 2014 before that was a thing, because our, our team, our US team was everywhere from Pittsburgh to Venice Beach and everywhere in between. And then our global team, we had instructors in 30 some countries. We were doing events in, we had 4,000 instructors in 30 some countries, doing events on almost, almost every continent, not Antarctica. And basically I worked at the,

I, I led the headquarters group, and like a senior group of instructors, and we were having

“licensing the material to be taught in other countries and continents and stuff like that.”

So, and I was, there was no zoom back then. It was called go to meeting, and there was, you know, obviously cell phones, but like very early, like, you know, very good experience for me kind of leading a geographically distributed team. Did that for three years? And then I went, I went to work for, I had helped the NRA rewrite some of its concealed carry curriculum. Just as a one of my side gigs, and in so doing, I was talking to one of the leaders there,

and he basically hired me to run NRA's education and training. So I left the fitness organization,

“and then went to work for NRA headquarters. And I was living in Denver, but like I had to commute”

to, you know, to Fairfax, be a dullest. Oh, shit. Yeah. So, that was going, I did that for three years. Was going okay. I mean, it wasn't without its drama, right? Just the politics of it all. And I was working on the opposite side, like it's training. It should be free from, bureaucracy. Not free from, but free from politics. Yeah. But like there is a lot of

politics there, just because it attracts politicians. You know what I mean? Also, I was like never going to,

I was never going to play the game the way I needed. I was only going to do the job, not play the game. So I was kind of doomed. And if I was going to like, to do the job the way it needed to be done, like at some point I needed to move there. And we were living in Denver, and I wasn't going to move my family to Virginia. Like, yeah, we, I didn't want to go back, right? And I loved Denver, up until COVID. But I, I loved what I, you know, I loved that job. I enjoyed it. But, you know,

it was time to move on. So I did that until 2020. And then in 2020, I just started to do consulting. And that kind of bows me around a little bit. Again, like when you get out, you just find a way or you make one. And we're good at, you know, hustling and learning and problem solving and communicating and all those, all those skills. And I have since, you know, I worked at a beverage company for a while. I saw that. We had a CBD dummy. We had a CBD drink. We had a bottle of water. We had an

energy drink. Then I was a consultant. I worked at an energy company that does like natural gas fired plants and like solar and even battery plants, just helping with, like, culture and ops. And then I was even helping some of the developers there, just as a, like, not a lead developer. But I would help lead developers. It's not like the resume. It's just, well, it's just like, you know,

find a way or make. Yeah, right. Which is, you know, eventually, I had also always been doing a lot of

speaking. It's always been a passion of mine. And I started doing that in 2012. And there have been years where I've done like 10 or 12 events and there's years when I've done like two or three.

14 or more on now, 15 out. Yeah. Um, and I kind of merged the, hey, this worked in the teams. Doesn't work out here. I've seen, I have seen how different they are and not everything is the same. Right. And I found ways to, like, kind of tie in things that work in the teams in the

“sealed teams and work on the outside. And mostly that's what I, what I talk about when I speak.”

And it's typically like elite teams, um, aspects of an elite team or how a small team or an

outnumbered team can get big results or it's basically leadership or teamwork. And that's on the

corporate side. And then once in a while, I get an opportunity to go to speak with a sports team or a couple of weeks ago, like a big men's ministry group. So that's kind of the, the side gig now. Right on, men's ministry group. That's the side gig? No, speaking. Speaking side gig. Day job. I have a, a great job working for, uh, it's called golden rod companies. And they're a real estate. Um, I would say real estate development and investment organization company in Omaha.

They have offices. Let's see. We have offices in Atlanta and Dallas and Omaha. And then, um,

“I think some in Tulsa and opening new spots. But he basically, it's a founder, led organization.”

He has a family office, which we would call it a headquarters group in, in our vernacular. So under his headquarters group, there are, let's say, six portfolio companies, separate companies, all do in different things. Uh, but they all fit within the real estate, you know, world. Right. Um, and I don't know much about real estate investment or development or legal or finance or insurance or, like, even has construction companies. Those, all those things are happening. I'm just helping

standardize operations and culture. So I don't do any of the things they do. Right. I just help standardize the culture and the ops, you know, think of that as a horizontal going across those verticals right on. So which is a good fit when you have a side gig of also doing speaking gigs, because you're talking mostly about culture and teamwork and building like building those things. Yeah. Um, so fits pretty nicely. What do I mean, as you know, a lot of guys struggle

with finding the next purpose, the next thing, you know, what, what, what kind of advice do you have for the next generation who's separating right now, getting out, look at for the next thing, thinking that nothing's going to measure up to what they did before? Yeah.

“The first thing I would say is, I think it's so if you have the, and I didn't have this, I didn't have”

this luxury. But if you have, like, it is, if you can take a beat, take a minute and just get that could be a month, could be two months, like, just have a little bit of time to, like, unwrap, right? Uh, I didn't get that. Um, but then the next thing I would say is, like,

your first job getting out of the military might not be your ultimate thing, like, just take a

base hit. You can't, like, it's a good get the, get the base hit. And, you know, Jordan Peterson had this, had this thing about having an aim, right, where you have an aim, you have something you're aiming at. And it might be on top of this hill. And you're walking towards that. But as you, as you get higher towards it, like, your aperture opens and like, you see more and you're, or you realize, like, oh, I don't, that's not my goal anymore. But because you took a step, like, you're moving

towards it, if you had an move towards it, you would have been down here still planning about it. Yep. Right. And I think, like, too many people are stuck down here planning about, like, what to do next. Like, find that, like, base hit. It does not have to be, like, the end all be all. No. But you're on, on your way towards it. Like, A, you either get there and realize that's not

like, like, the, my job now, I went and met with the founder of this company and the CFO.

“And I was just going there to think I was interviewing to do another speaking gig.”

Are he, and then he just asked, well, would you come help us with our, you know, our culture and our operations? You just don't know, right? And I enjoy doing that sort of thing. It fits well with, like, it fits well for me with doing my, you know, the speaking that I do about teamwork and leadership and elite performance and all that. So, you know, you just, you just, you just don't know.

I would say to like, to keep it simple, like, take a break. That's fine. Don't make it too long,

and then get a base hit. You're a vice. Yeah. Good advice. You know, at the beginning of the interview, you had mentioned something about, I don't know a better way to say, but you had mentioned something about that the service, the service, your time in the SIL teams, your time at development group was for selfish reasons. Yeah. Yep. And that you wanted to circle back on that. I was curious,

“where you were going with that. I think I know, but I'm curious. Yeah, at all, like, so I joined,”

you know, chip on my shoulder. I'm going to prove people wrong. I can do it. You know, we all,

and we all kind of had that. I'm assuming, like, I want to go prove, you know, this is, like, that's one of the reasons I did it. It's supposed to be the hardest training in the military, right? And then, you know, 9/11 happened, and I found myself, you know, in a position to, you know, do something about it, right? Or just to be in a position to serve my country. So it changed from that selfish pursuit to that more, like, pursuit of service and sacrifice.

“Which I think happens a lot. Yep. Yeah. Well, Eric, we're wrapping up the interview. Cool.”

You want to add this thing with a prayer? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. God, I just thank you for this opportunity today. I pray that you continue to watch over and bless Sean and his family and his team and all of the Sean Ryan show. Continue to help make help them make the impact they are. Not just for their guests, but for all of the people that get

to watch this show, Lord, and I pray that I pray that the things said here in this building that you have blessed would be pleasing to you and would make an impact for your kingdom in Jesus and we pray Amen. Good. It was an honor, man. Yeah, no. Thank you, bro. Thank you. Hopefully it was a rambling too long. No, it was awesome. It was awesome. Let's go blow some shit up. Yeah. 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. In most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can and if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcast and Spotify and leave us a review. 100th of January 2013. We're on the right path. The biggest advantage of Shopify for me is that we're going to need a technical advantage for the whole world. We can all go back to the background and the front end and so it was like to go to the online shop. If you're shopping for a driver, then you're

going to get the platform, the own real driver. You're just a really big team and your whole business is going to be a great success. Let's go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.