Order of Man - The Terminal List

00:00:00.000 Gentlemen, I've got a bit of a different one lined up for you today is I have a conversation

00:00:04.160 with the very first fictional author that we've ever had on the podcast. His name is Jack Carr,

00:00:09.260 and he's the author of The Terminal List, which is an incredible book. And I don't actually read

00:00:14.320 a whole lot of fiction. And of course, his upcoming book, True Believer as well. Jack

00:00:18.680 is a former Navy SEAL turned fictional writer. And today we talk about his transition from the

00:00:24.160 military, the inspiration for his series of books, an inside look at the writing process,

00:00:29.380 the amount of research that goes into creating this type of work and a whole lot more.

00:00:34.820 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your

00:00:39.700 own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are not easily

00:00:45.680 deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you

00:00:53.220 will become at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:59.380 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder

00:01:03.900 of this podcast, The Order of Man. If you've been with us for any amount of time, you already know

00:01:07.860 that. If you haven't been with us for any amount of time, you're just learning that now. I'm glad

00:01:11.720 you're here. Guys, we need more men in this fight, and I'm honored to be leading the charge in a way

00:01:16.820 and reclaiming and restoring what it means to be a man in a society that seems to want to dismiss and

00:01:23.020 reject the idea altogether. So I'm honored. I'm glad to be standing shoulder to shoulder with you.

00:01:29.380 And we need to share this message. So I'm glad you're here. I don't have a whole lot of

00:01:34.120 announcements today, and I don't want to drag this on too much. I do want to share very quickly

00:01:38.640 our show sponsors and my friends. The first is Origin Maine. Guys, if you aren't familiar with

00:01:43.880 what they're doing, they make things in America. Bottom line, they make things in America. They've

00:01:48.740 got geese and rash guards and lifestyle apparel. They've got a new denim line that's coming out soon.

00:01:52.860 They've got some boots that I got a little bit of an inside peek at that will be coming online.

00:01:58.180 I don't even know if I'm supposed to tell you that, but it doesn't matter. I did. So check that

00:02:02.320 out. But they've also got a nutritional lineup. They've got a Jocko's lineup. So they've got the

00:02:07.120 super krill, the joint warfare discipline, uh, their mulk. I mean so much. And I take most of

00:02:12.800 these things to supplement and it is, it's just a supplement to some of the things that I'm doing

00:02:16.680 regarding my nutrition and diet. And of course, uh, helping me with my, with my fitness regimen.

00:02:22.300 So guys go check it out. Origin, Maine.com. And when you go over there, whether you're

00:02:26.800 picking up the nutritional lineup or any of that lifestyle apparel, uh, use the code order

00:02:32.060 O R D E R at checkout, and you will get a 10% discount. So again, origin, Maine.com code

00:02:38.980 order. In addition to that, it's Sorenex Sorenex equipment. These are also things that are made

00:02:44.880 in America. And specifically we're talking about weightlifting equipment. So you've got racks and you've

00:02:49.880 got the center mass bells, which I've been using. They're a lot like kettlebells. Of course, there's

00:02:54.620 a variance and a little bit of a difference in that you actually stick your hands through the

00:02:58.200 weight. And I actually keep those in my living room. And I work out when the kids are in bed and

00:03:04.720 we're watching a show or winding down for the evening as I'll do some workouts just there in my,

00:03:09.480 in my living room with these center mass bells. They've got everything though. Not just the racks,

00:03:13.940 not just the equipment, not just the bars. They've got the center mass bells. They've got it all.

00:03:17.840 You guys can check it out. Sorenex.com. It's S O R I N E X.com. All right, guys,

00:03:25.860 that's it by way of announcements. I do want to introduce you to my friend and guest. His name

00:03:31.320 is Jack Carr. I know a lot of you guys are familiar with him and we're actually going to be doing some,

00:03:34.840 some book giveaways. So by the way, if you aren't following me on Instagram, make sure that you are

00:03:41.400 because I'm giving away two copies and I believe these are signed. Let me look here. Yes, I believe they

00:03:47.160 are signed copies of the terminal list. So if you're not following me on Instagram, do it at

00:03:52.120 Ryan Mickler, R Y A N last name is M I C H L E R. But with that said, there are, I don't know,

00:03:59.900 just certain people that, you know, when you meet them, you just, you know, you're going to be great

00:04:03.080 friends. And that's how I felt when Jack opened up his home about a month ago to me, we had an

00:04:07.820 incredibly, incredibly powerful conversation. And you're going to hear part of that conversation,

00:04:11.940 but Jack is a former task unit commander in the Navy SEALs with over 20 years of experience leading

00:04:18.500 assault and sniper teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that's part of the reason that his books are

00:04:25.740 so realistic. And as I mentioned before, he left the SEALs and has since gone on to fulfill his

00:04:30.840 second childhood dream of becoming an author. So guys, I hope you enjoy this one a little bit

00:04:36.080 different, but I think you're really, really going to enjoy Jack and his message and the conversation

00:04:40.900 that him and I had. Jack, what's up, man? Glad to be sitting down with you.

00:04:45.720 It is awesome to be here. Thank you so much for coming up.

00:04:48.120 Yeah. It was a quick trip. I wanted to make it up. We were actually going to do this

00:04:50.740 interview three weeks ago, four weeks ago. And I think I called you up and I'm like,

00:04:54.900 nah, let's do this in person. But you left, you went on a trip, right? You were in South Africa?

00:04:59.740 I did. I think it was, was it right after that?

00:05:01.980 I think it was right after we were supposed to initially have a conversation.

00:05:05.120 Yeah. Everything kind of has blended together over the last few months. It's been so busy.

00:05:08.440 So I think that month I was heading down to see the Black Raffle Coffee guys. Then I was coming

00:05:12.980 back and zipping off to Africa for about 10 days. So what were you doing over there? I mean,

00:05:17.480 I know a little bit just from following your Instagram account, but what were you doing over

00:05:20.720 there? Yeah. So I was invited along to assist in the training of an anti-poaching unit over there,

00:05:25.520 focused specifically on saving the rhino. And it's something I'm interested in and it actually ties in

00:05:31.180 to both book number two and book number three. So I jumped at the opportunity to do it.

00:05:35.920 A Marine buddy of mine was setting the whole thing up. So really I just had to show up, but

00:05:40.040 this particular unit was getting their hands on an AR platform for the first time and Glocks

00:05:44.760 for the first time. So both platforms, they know fairly well. So we went out there and introduced

00:05:49.360 them to those weapon systems and spent, I guess, seven days on the range with them. And then,

00:05:54.260 yeah, headed on home.

00:05:57.080 Is that training just in case they run across poachers, they need to defend themselves? Mostly,

00:06:01.460 I imagine what that is, right? Is that what you're doing out there?

00:06:03.740 Exactly. So the rhino horn is worth more than, well, it's the most expensive illicitly traded

00:06:10.100 good. So more than cocaine, more than gold, more than platinum. And it's because in Asia,

00:06:15.740 they are under the impression that it does all sorts of things. So from male enhancement,

00:06:21.020 I guess, to curing cancer and everything else.

00:06:24.980 There's no research or data that suggests any of that.

00:06:28.140 No, it's just a fingernail. It is a fingernail. It's exactly what it is. But there's a supply

00:06:32.760 demand and the supply meets it. So there are these intricate rhino horn trafficking syndicates.

00:06:38.880 There's so much money involved. There's rampant corruption at every single level. And really

00:06:43.180 these poaching units, anti-poaching units are the front lines of this battle to save the rhino.

00:06:47.880 And it's, I mean, I hate to say it, but it doesn't look good. They've got three rhino are killed every

00:06:53.700 day.

00:06:54.640 Three a day.

00:06:55.420 Yep.

00:06:55.860 Oh my goodness.

00:06:56.540 Three a day. And most of those are in South Africa. That's where the majority of rhinos still

00:07:00.960 survive in the wild.

00:07:02.280 And then they're shipped to China from there.

00:07:04.340 China and Thailand primarily, but other places as well. But China is the biggest offender from my

00:07:09.540 research. And they've tried a few different things over there. They've tried to actually

00:07:13.040 farm the horn because it does grow back like a fingernail.

00:07:15.900 So they dart the rhino. Yep. Just like a fingernail.

00:07:18.600 Interesting.

00:07:19.160 And they cut the horn off and save it for a time when maybe rhino horn isn't illegal anymore

00:07:24.480 and you can trade it. And so there are people with stockpiling and rhino do die of natural

00:07:28.000 causes as well. So they cut the horn off then and save it as well. What the poachers started

00:07:33.180 doing is, so they go on to these concessions, go on to these preserves where they're trying

00:07:37.840 to protect the rhino, track a rhino, and then they find it and see that its horn was cut

00:07:43.200 off and kill it anyway so that they wouldn't waste their time tracking a rhino with a horn

00:07:48.380 cut off the next time they come on that concession. It's tough. It's tough. And it doesn't,

00:07:52.900 the future does not look bright for the rhino, but really it's about stemming the tide and

00:07:56.800 stemming that demand from Asia.

00:07:59.100 Yeah. I imagine that's the root of the problem, right? You're putting a bandaid on it essentially

00:08:02.880 by training anti-poachers.

00:08:04.340 Oh yeah. That's the tactical level, not even solution, but it's a bandaid and it can slow

00:08:09.660 that bleed. But really, as long as there's that demand from Asia, it'll continue to be

00:08:14.120 met.

00:08:14.620 Who is funding these anti-poachers? The governments there in South Africa?

00:08:17.900 So there's two. So there are the government concessions, like Kruger National Park.

00:08:21.940 Most people have heard of that one.

00:08:23.100 Yeah, because of the videos and the viral videos and all that.

00:08:25.040 Yep. So there's, that's, I think it might be the biggest one, but regardless, that's government

00:08:28.600 controlled. So they have an anti-poaching unit there, but once again, it's government.

00:08:33.520 It's also Africa, rampant corruption.

00:08:36.600 Oh, I imagine.

00:08:37.540 They have a license plate tracking system to cars going in and out of these concessions

00:08:42.660 and somebody turned off the system. Poachers went in, in a vehicle. They went right to an

00:08:47.360 area where they knew the rhino were. They removed the video camera that was on that particular

00:08:52.020 area, walked right up to it and took it. They didn't know there was a GPS in it. So they

00:08:56.060 were eventually caught in the camera, right? But they walked right up to it. So someone told

00:08:59.280 them exactly where the camera was. Someone turned off the license plate system.

00:09:02.140 Which had to be somebody in the system.

00:09:03.980 So that's the government one. So the private concessions can pay better. And there are people

00:09:08.220 out there that have done very well in other industries that own these private concessions.

00:09:14.100 And it's amazing to me that they are willing to lose money, almost bleed money to help preserve

00:09:18.800 the rhino.

00:09:19.640 What's in their best interest in that? Or is it just, this is a cause that's important to

00:09:23.260 them?

00:09:23.540 Yeah. Well, altruistic because they want to save it for their kids and grandkids and they have

00:09:27.040 enough money to not miss it.

00:09:28.720 Right.

00:09:29.000 Like maybe you and I would.

00:09:30.460 Yeah, sure.

00:09:31.420 But yeah, they want to preserve the rhino. And then, you know, if one day they're allowed

00:09:35.160 to actually sell rhino horn, they can farm it. They can sell it from rhinos that have

00:09:39.340 passed away and they're holding out of the horn. So there's that piece of it. But really

00:09:42.640 from my understanding, the families that own these concessions, they've done so well in

00:09:47.600 banking or whatever else that seems to me to be an altruistic type deal.

00:09:51.700 That's interesting.

00:09:52.900 Yeah.

00:09:53.060 I was down in your old neck of the woods, San Diego, not too long ago at their safari

00:09:57.080 park.

00:09:57.560 Okay.

00:09:57.820 Have you seen their safari park and done that down there?

00:09:59.600 I have. It's been a while.

00:10:00.760 Yeah. They were talking about their conservation efforts because, and I don't know the species,

00:10:04.960 but there is a male that had just died. And I don't know if it's the white rhino or what

00:10:09.020 particular species it is that the last male actually died.

00:10:12.480 One in captivity maybe?

00:10:13.900 Maybe. Yeah.

00:10:14.640 There are a few different, I don't know if I'm going to, I might mistakenly call them subspecies,

00:10:18.440 but the ones that most people talk about are the white rhino and the black rhino.

00:10:21.400 Now those aren't the only two. There were some others in one of them. I think it was,

00:10:24.880 anyway, I don't want to get it wrong, but it did go extinct. That particular subspecies

00:10:28.680 of one of those did actually go extinct.

00:10:30.800 Because what they said in this, I found this interesting is through genetics and DNA and

00:10:34.500 all of this, and more than I know about it, they were saving that DNA or sperm in order

00:10:42.640 to impregnate a separate species to deliver this actual species, this subspecies. It's really

00:10:48.760 interesting stuff.

00:10:49.480 Yeah. It's amazing. I think there are 3,000 black rhino left in the world and about 25,000

00:10:54.900 to 27,000 white rhino.

00:10:57.040 Is that right?

00:10:58.160 Yeah.

00:10:58.960 Not that many. And with three of them dying a day, yeah, the future does not look bright.

00:11:03.000 Yeah. So how does that tie in then to your research? Because based on your first book,

00:11:07.160 I can't even begin to see how it would go there.

00:11:09.140 Sure. Sure. So the second novel, I don't want to give too much away, but I think they're already,

00:11:13.520 if you go on Amazon, it already kind of says this, but we find James Reese,

00:11:17.200 the protagonist of the story, we find him learning to live again in Mozambique. So I went to Mozambique

00:11:22.720 in the summer of 2016 before I'd even submitted the book to Simon & Schuster. So I always knew that I

00:11:28.120 would for sure write a second novel. And so I was doing the research and getting ready to,

00:11:31.700 and actually writing it while I was over there. There are just too many instances of authors whose

00:11:36.160 first book don't make it. And if they'd given up after that first attempt, we wouldn't have these

00:11:40.740 great series we have today. John Grisham, case in point, time to kill was his first novel and he

00:11:46.640 couldn't give that thing away. And it's arguably, well, in my opinion, I think it is his, his finest

00:11:50.820 work. And he hit it with his second novel, The Firm. I got to interrupt here. Do you think that

00:11:54.700 first book didn't take off because nobody knew who he was? I mean, it definitely helps to have a

00:11:58.660 platform. I mean, because at the end of the day, like, yeah, you evolve, you grow as an artist and as

00:12:03.520 an author. And there's just something to be said for having a platform or some notoriety that

00:12:08.060 doesn't necessarily change what it is you're doing. People just know about it, right?

00:12:11.500 Exactly. And back then there was no internet, of course, there was no Twitter, there was no

00:12:14.600 Facebook, there was none of that. So I forget what year he wrote that, but it had to be

00:12:18.240 early nineties sometime. Let's just say when The Firm got picked up for a movie and Tom Cruise stars

00:12:23.380 in said movie, you know, it just took off. So that was a way to do it back then. Today,

00:12:28.020 you build a platform, connect with fans, interact with them, build a base.

00:12:31.340 And isn't that amazing? I mean, that's how we got connected. In fact, I don't even know how we got

00:12:34.300 connected. That's the weird thing is because you don't, the people that I've been able to

00:12:37.920 meet, you just don't know how you've been able to connect with these individuals. Cause it's like,

00:12:42.680 did I see on Twitter? Did we connect on Instagram? Like where exactly did we connect?

00:12:46.300 Yeah. But then you feel like you almost know each other ahead of time because you've been

00:12:48.940 looking at each other's pictures. I saw, you know, you see where you're traveling with your

00:12:51.840 family, what you're doing professionally. And all of a sudden you're just, when you meet for the

00:12:55.000 first time, you're asking about those things instead of discovering them for the first time,

00:12:58.520 like you would 10, 15, 20 years ago.

00:13:00.980 Yeah, that's true.

00:13:01.660 So yeah, no, it's super fun. I forget how we got connected as well. I'm sure I listened to a podcast or you

00:13:05.880 were on someone's podcast or vice versa. And then I checked it out and then you...

00:13:09.780 I know that's all it takes. Yeah. And I think we've got a lot of mutual friends in the podcasting

00:13:13.240 community specifically. You know, I know you've been on Evan Hafer's podcast and I think you're

00:13:17.300 talking about going on Jocko's podcast and it's funny. It's a small world.

00:13:21.480 Yeah. You got to train with Jocko?

00:13:23.180 Yeah, I did. I was in Maine in September, I believe it was for Origins Immersion Camp.

00:13:29.240 Nice.

00:13:29.820 And it was amazing.

00:13:31.020 And Jocko came out there for the whole thing or a couple of days?

00:13:32.980 Out there for the full thing.

00:13:34.380 Nice.

00:13:34.520 Yeah. And it was amazing. It was brutal because I'm just getting into jujitsu.

00:13:38.100 Yep. I saw that.

00:13:39.020 And it was a really rough week physically.

00:13:41.640 Yeah.

00:13:41.820 I mean, it was great to be out there, but physically, like my joints were just aching

00:13:45.400 and I was beat down. But to have those guys there was absolutely incredible.

00:13:49.460 Yeah. No, Jocko was great. I learned a ton from him over the years and feel so fortunate that he

00:13:52.940 was in charge of our training detachment while I went through for two of my workups. But yeah,

00:13:57.220 just a great guy. But I think my ground fighting martial skills have plateaued due to,

00:14:02.960 due to age and injury. So luckily I got in fairly early in the early nineties before most people

00:14:07.460 had heard of jujitsu or Brazilian jujitsu anyway. Got to get some good training in before I got to

00:14:11.660 the teams. Of course now people are so good. Even white belts are just so good these days.

00:14:17.460 And it's weird to just get your ass kicked by somebody. Let's be honest. You look at an

00:14:21.140 individual and you size that individual up, right? Oh yeah. And then to size up somebody and

00:14:25.620 you know, you're like, I can take this guy and then him to just run all over the mat with you.

00:14:29.880 Yeah. It's just really disheartening.

00:14:31.900 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great, it's a, I thought martial arts and jujitsu would be a

00:14:36.760 lifelong journey for me, but I feel good with where, where I am. And then now it's time to

00:14:41.880 just stay in good enough shape to do the things I like to do and take care of the family and be

00:14:46.300 able to get in the mountains with the kids. And, you know, I'd like, just like Jocko was fond of

00:14:50.360 saying, prioritize and execute. Prioritizing time these days and picking projects and picking how I'm

00:14:56.140 going to, can you spend that time, but you know, use that time most effectively with my family

00:15:01.840 primarily. And then also building this essentially a business. Yeah. Your business. Yeah. Next phase

00:15:06.820 of life. It is interesting because you hear all these guys, you hear guys like Jocko and it's,

00:15:10.900 you know, discipline and jujitsu and there's so much validity to that. And then you hear guys like

00:15:15.140 Cam Haynes or John Dudley or, you know, it's archery. And of course there's validity to that. And it's

00:15:20.160 like, you've got to find a priority. You've got to find what's going to work for you, right? You've

00:15:25.580 got to create that schedule that's going to work best for you. Oh yeah. Yeah. I was finding that

00:15:28.940 what gives you purpose in life moving forward. So I found as I transitioned out of the military,

00:15:33.280 that was probably, I was fortunate enough to have a couple of years at the end of my military time

00:15:37.660 where I could take a breath and decide one to get out and then to start putting things in place for

00:15:43.820 that transition. What I noticed is that people that were making the transition that didn't

00:15:47.920 have a new mission, didn't have a new sense of purpose, then they had a really hard time

00:15:54.740 transitioning out, finding something that was important to them moving forward. So,

00:15:58.520 you know, for me, that was family, you know, it wasn't that hard to figure out. And I knew what

00:16:01.300 I wanted to do since I was a little kid. I knew I wanted to write fiction in the genre. So I had my

00:16:05.840 purpose both professionally and personally as I left the SEAL teams. And I felt it was also important

00:16:10.840 to make a clean break. I saw a lot of people that couldn't do that and would kept coming back to

00:16:15.780 buds and wanting to give friends tours and going to all these different events and staying in the

00:16:19.500 same area, going to the same bars, the same grocery stores, talking to the same friends.

00:16:23.420 And what are they doing? Are they getting ready for deployment? Are they going out to an island to

00:16:26.460 train and just keeping a foot maybe a little too deep into their past life. So that was just an

00:16:33.820 observation. And I knew for me that it would be more healthy to make a clean break.

00:16:37.600 Why do you think that's a, I don't know if you see it's a mistake necessarily, but why do you think

00:16:42.420 that's an issue?

00:16:43.020 I don't know. I think it's different for everybody. You know, for some people, that's just

00:16:45.400 how they're going to do it. Maybe it is healthy for some people, but I knew it probably wouldn't

00:16:49.160 be healthy for me. That's what I did. And it's always going to be a part of who I am. And obviously

00:16:54.580 it heavily influences what I write and just how I live my life going forward, but it's not who I am.

00:16:59.400 I'm not kind of living back in those 20 years. It just is a part of me as I move forward. So I just

00:17:04.460 kind of looked at it very simply in those terms.

00:17:06.840 That's an interesting point because like you said, is that people get so wrapped up in what they do

00:17:11.520 and it becomes them that all of a sudden that's stripped away, whether it's through injury or

00:17:15.760 some unforeseen life event that changes the whole dynamic. And all of a sudden it just completely

00:17:20.660 ruins them because they can't see themselves outside of a seal or an author or you name it.

00:17:27.620 Yeah. You really see it in professional sports. You see that somebody that has a, has an injury or

00:17:32.860 that thinks they're going to have this career in the NFL or NBA or whatever it is around here,

00:17:36.840 living in park city, you see it with Olympic athletes. You see people that have been so focused.

00:17:40.340 Cause you have to be so focused on that goal from such an early age now that when you are

00:17:45.060 all of a sudden not going to the Olympics anymore, then it's just like transitioning out of special

00:17:49.780 operations, transitioning out of the military, transitioning out of the NFL, very similar type

00:17:53.340 thing. You had a sense of purpose. You had this mission, everything was solely focused on that.

00:17:57.480 And then now you don't have that. So you need to find that next mission in life, find that thing that

00:18:02.820 gives you that sense of purpose and lets you continue on in a positive direction. So yeah, it's not just the

00:18:08.120 military. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So were you writing then when you were in, in service?

00:18:12.460 Nope. I just, I knew since I was a little kid, I wanted to do it since I was seven years old.

00:18:15.580 I wanted to be a seal. And about the same time I knew I wanted to write fiction one day and I just

00:18:19.320 knew the military side would have to come first by default. So while I was in, I just knew, Hey,

00:18:24.220 that is something I'm going to do next, but I didn't think about it. I didn't prep for it.

00:18:27.980 And it was just by happenstance that a lot of the things I did in the military, both experientially,

00:18:32.720 and then the things that I studied, getting ready to go down range, studying the enemy, studying

00:18:36.680 where we were going, what we were doing, lessons learned from those places, all that really

00:18:41.120 studying terrorism, anti-terrorism, concern, insurgencies, counterinsurgencies, Islam,

00:18:45.300 whatever else. Then that just really gave me some background for writing these books in a

00:18:49.540 fictional sense. It gives me a lot of things that I research to confirm rather than learn for the

00:18:54.860 first time. But also people expect me to get the weapon stuff, right. They expect me to get all the

00:18:59.260 terrorism stuff, right. The insurgency stuff, right. So I do a ton of research to confirm the

00:19:04.340 things that I already studied for the last 20 years, just because I know there'll be that

00:19:07.600 microscope on what I write. Well, there is. And I think everybody's so analytical and some of it

00:19:11.640 is qualified. And a lot of it, frankly, isn't, you know, they're looking at a microscope and yet

00:19:15.200 they're not qualified to look through that microscope. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. I knew that was

00:19:18.320 coming. So I couldn't, uh, typically others make some egregious errors, like taking the safety off the

00:19:23.260 Glock or, you know, shooting the fully automatic revolver or, you know, something like that. When I read books

00:19:28.820 like that, I try not to let it take away from the story, take away from the text. You know, a lot of

00:19:32.520 people do. I think there's a point where it just becomes, you know, just try to enjoy it for what

00:19:36.360 it is. My wife actually gets after me because in movies, I try to figure it out, right. I'm like,

00:19:40.720 Oh, it's going to happen. She's like, just shut up and watch the movie and enjoy the movie. I'm like,

00:19:44.300 no, I want to figure it out. And then we'll leave the movie. She's like, what'd you think? I'm like,

00:19:47.360 predictable. You know, that's like, if it was predictable, it wasn't that enjoyable for me. So

00:19:51.840 the team guys are the worst to watch movies with it's like, Oh, that would never happen. Oh, he didn't do.

00:19:56.600 You can't talk on that radio inside. That's like, okay, just work with it. Try to enjoy it. Don't

00:20:03.420 ruin it for everyone. Try to enjoy them for what they are. Yeah. Well, I mean, from what I read,

00:20:08.720 and like I said, I'm not the one who's necessarily qualified to look at it and say, Oh yes, he got

00:20:13.000 this right. But from what I read, it was very well researched. Obviously it's information you know all

00:20:17.620 about. And man, the terminal list was just a real, I can't tell you when the last time or the last

00:20:23.560 fiction book I read was, I don't even think I can tell you what, maybe old man in the sea when I was

00:20:29.360 in high school. No kidding. Yeah. I mean, I just don't read fiction. My daughter's reading that

00:20:32.300 right now. Oh, she is. That's a great book. She's like, it's so boring, dad. No, I love that.

00:20:36.300 Maybe I thought that in high school too, but now, yeah, yeah. It's like all self-help stuff,

00:20:42.040 all nonfiction stuff. I think there's a lot of great lessons that can be learned from the book itself and

00:20:47.660 you bringing this real world application and training into this fictional work makes it

00:20:53.920 something that I think resonated with me and I'm sure would resonate with a lot of other people as

00:20:57.100 well. Yeah. And I think that is what really resonated with Simon & Schuster. So it's Simon & Schuster,

00:21:02.780 Atria Books, Emily Bessler Books, and Emily Bessler, she is behind Brad Thor, Vince Flynn. So

00:21:09.340 the guys in this genre that are just the masters essentially. So, I mean, I didn't know what I was

00:21:13.960 doing. I was getting out. So I sent the book directly to her and luckily someone had introduced

00:21:18.400 me to Brad Thor ahead of time and we talked and I guess I passed his test as far as why I was

00:21:24.160 running to write and all that stuff. And he'd heard some things that I did in the SEAL teams from a

00:21:28.320 mutual friend. So he said, hey, if you actually write a book, I will essentially open the door

00:21:33.580 to New York for you. I'll let them know it's coming. He's like, I can't promise you that they'll

00:21:37.740 read it. I can't promise you to open the package. I 100% can't guarantee they'll like it,

00:21:42.160 but because of what you did, I would like to open that door for you. And so I will forever be

00:21:46.620 indebted to him. So I skipped the agent process. Most people try to get an agent to read it first

00:21:51.080 and then that agent has to take it and shop it around at different publishing houses. So I went

00:21:55.840 around all of that and got it right to Emily Bessler and she's just absolutely incredible.

00:22:00.840 It's an amazing publisher, amazing editor, and a great friend.

00:22:04.180 I want to wrap my head on why they would take a risk on you. You don't have the background. You don't

00:22:08.220 have anything that would necessarily prove that you can put out a book that people would resonate

00:22:13.200 with.

00:22:13.680 Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's where I was going with that. So I think it is because even though it's total

00:22:18.100 fiction, the emotions that the protagonist feels are emotions that I felt some point over the last

00:22:22.800 20 years, particularly in combat. So I took those experiences and didn't write about the experiences,

00:22:28.140 but I took the emotions from those experiences and applied them to a fictional narrative. So even though

00:22:33.480 it's 100% fiction, when people read it, it feels like the protagonist is actually feeling these

00:22:39.100 things because they're actual real feelings that I experienced. So what I noticed myself doing was

00:22:44.860 what would I do if I were in this situation? You know, how would I respond and how would I act?

00:22:50.280 And would I be adequately trained to, you know, prepare myself or take care of my family or whatever

00:22:54.800 it may be. So I think we put ourselves in the role of James Reese.

00:22:58.940 Yeah. Yeah. And when I started to write, so I did start to write that last year in the military

00:23:02.340 to jump back to that question. And I did that because when you drop your papers in the military,

00:23:07.300 particularly, I guess as an officer, because I was enlisted first and then became an officer later

00:23:11.580 and drop your papers, it's like, you just go off the radar. Your new job for me anyway,

00:23:16.280 it was just to get out of the military. It was just to go through all the TAPS classes and the medical

00:23:19.940 stuff. And in the military, as you know, everybody changes jobs every two years, two to three years.

00:23:24.280 So I'd walk into these offices and, you know, you get someone who's in their second week

00:23:28.900 because they just got there for their next two year stint. And you're like the third person

00:23:32.900 that's come in and they still don't know what's going on. So that it's like, I felt like I was

00:23:36.620 the first person to ever try to get out of the military. So point being, I had a little time

00:23:40.200 on my hands during that last eight months, whatever. I started writing and I wrote about

00:23:45.040 six or seven different ideas down for stories. And then I chose the one that I thought would be

00:23:49.860 the most visceral, the most hard hitting, the most primal. And that was the story of revenge

00:23:54.220 because growing up, I loved reading these books that had that age old theme of revenge. And I

00:23:58.460 love movies that had that same theme as well. So I picked that one and then started writing

00:24:02.960 heavily influenced by guys that wrote these things in the eighties, like David Murrell.

00:24:07.520 He created the character Rambo back in 1973. And then we're a great series called started with

00:24:12.180 Brotherhood of the Rose and went on to Fraternity of the Stone, League of Night and Fog, but just

00:24:17.740 incredible series of books. And he mentions seals for the first time in a fictional sense.

00:24:22.580 I think Clive Custler had done it in the late seventies, but I didn't read that until later

00:24:25.780 in Raise the Titanic. But David Murrell wrote about seals just in one line in Brotherhood of

00:24:30.480 the Rose. And I was like, wow, I seen this movie called The Frogman. It was really intriguing. I've

00:24:35.220 done some research with my mom at the library on what seals were. And back in the early eighties,

00:24:38.560 there was hardly anything written about seals. So I just got everything I could. And then I see

00:24:42.820 David Murrell writing about it in a fictional sense. And I was just cemented along my path because of

00:24:48.080 that. So that's interesting. And also because of that book, I knew that one day I'd want to write

00:24:51.800 books, similar theme to those ones. And I just love that age old theme of revenge. But it's also

00:24:56.860 been done a lot. Most stories, every story, someone told me, I think they said, hey, every story is

00:25:02.420 man goes on a journey, stranger comes to town. That's it. So as somebody going on a journey,

00:25:09.040 I wanted him to not just be the guy with quote unquote, nothing left to lose. I wanted to figure

00:25:13.580 out, hey, how do I have this guy that goes into battle essentially like an ancient samurai,

00:25:17.760 thinking they're already dead because they thought that made them more effective and efficient

00:25:20.660 warriors on the battlefield. So how do I bring that into this modern context? And that's where

00:25:24.760 the whole conspiracy with testings of drugs on our nation's most elite soldiers came into it.

00:25:28.980 And the church hearings in the late seventies, how I brought that in. And that's how I had him

00:25:33.140 thinking that he's really dying as he essentially becomes the insurgent that he's been fighting for

00:25:37.700 the last, in the book, the last 16 years of war.

00:25:40.360 Yeah, man, this is, we go so many directions with, I want to go back to you wanting to be a seal.

00:25:46.380 I remember growing up, there was one maybe that wasn't confirmed seal in our community.

00:25:54.600 Right.

00:25:54.740 And every time somebody talked about it, I was like, oh yeah, he's a Navy seal.

00:25:57.980 Like, and that's all there was, except now every corner, somebody's talking about this seal or

00:26:02.860 being a seal or whatever it may be. And so it is interesting because you and I both grew up in

00:26:07.660 an era where it wasn't really talked about, right? It wasn't really addressed and it wasn't really

00:26:11.260 mentioned all that much.

00:26:12.800 There was no way to, unless in your local paper or semi-local type paper, like for a larger region,

00:26:19.060 they had reason to interview the former seal for something like Veterans Day or something like

00:26:23.920 that. There's really no way to search for that stuff. There's going to the library and figuring

00:26:28.360 out the Dewey Decibel system, asking the librarian, hey, are there books on seals? And then she'd probably

00:26:32.300 show you something about the animals. And then you'd say, no, I mean, something military stuff. And then

00:26:36.700 you look into like special forces and then you find out that's army. And then you're trying to,

00:26:40.600 so it was just harder to do this today. You just type it in and off you go. There's just so many

00:26:45.360 other ways to connect with people than obviously that you couldn't not that long ago. So yeah,

00:26:50.580 exactly. If I had known a seal growing up, oh my gosh, I would have pestered him.

00:26:53.700 Oh yeah.

00:26:54.240 There was one guy at my camp I went to, and it was only one summer, two-week camp,

00:26:58.320 and he had a survival class and he was army special forces, Vietnam vet. And I just looked up to him

00:27:04.240 like you wouldn't believe. And he was the only person I knew. And I'm like, yeah, I was in fourth

00:27:08.580 grade maybe at the time or something. But I'm looking back, like maybe he was, maybe he wasn't.

00:27:12.520 You just, you couldn't check on that stuff back then. Yeah. To me, I'd like to believe that he

00:27:16.200 actually was. So, you know, you like just had to make fire and, you know, whatever else. And

00:27:20.480 it was just really cool to be around somebody like that. That's like the only guy up until college.

00:27:26.140 So I remember this guy in our community and he must've been hit up a hundred different times

00:27:30.720 in Boy Scouts. You know, we had to do our citizenship in the community merit badge or whatever. And

00:27:35.280 you had to interview somebody, right? I imagine he got hit up just all the time. Well, what do you

00:27:40.640 think about, I mean, now where the SEAL community is very prevalent, it's very visible to the media.

00:27:46.780 I mean, what are your thoughts about that? Because we have this idea of the silent professional,

00:27:51.240 right? And then you have this community that has basically come out and really made themselves

00:27:54.820 known, I would say over the past five years, I would say maybe. Is that fair?

00:27:59.860 So let's go back to the eighties, not that much written about SEALs, seventies,

00:28:04.240 maybe even a little more in the seventies than the eighties, because Vietnam was going on and

00:28:08.120 there were a couple of newspaper articles that you could find about that. So there's a history

00:28:12.060 that goes all the way back to World War II, frogmen and underwater demolition teams and

00:28:16.240 naval combat demolition units. And then the UDTs switched it over to SEAL teams in the early

00:28:20.120 sixties and President Kennedy on January 1st commissioned SEAL team one and SEAL team two.

00:28:24.680 And so there is a history there and you could find it more as more and more people went through

00:28:29.020 the program. And we went from a hundred people to 500 people to a thousand people to 2,500 people.

00:28:37.160 And it just grew over time at the same time that these other platforms are becoming available as

00:28:42.060 and it just kind of compounded on each other. So say there's one article that generates some

00:28:46.480 interest. Now there's a book with a chapter that generates a little more interest. Now you have an

00:28:50.380 entire book, more interest. Now you have an internet, more interest. Now you have a global war on terror,

00:28:56.660 for lack of a better term, that kicks off where special operations forces kind of are a lot more

00:29:02.200 articles, I'm saying. And so it just kind of compounds on each other and grows. So it's not

00:29:06.000 going to get smaller, especially if wars continue to go on and it just becomes a part of people's

00:29:11.020 background. And so as they go forward doing things, not just in the military, but they go on to law

00:29:15.900 school or go become doctors or go into business and finance or whatever else, they bring this 5,

00:29:21.440 10, 15, 20, 30 years of experience in the military with them. And it's in bios and it's part of them

00:29:29.240 passing on what they learned to the next generation. It just kind of compounds on itself. Now for us,

00:29:34.040 particularly in the SEAL teams, or specifically in the SEAL teams, in the height of the war,

00:29:38.980 the government decided we need more SEALs. How do we do that? And that's when they greenlit the movie

00:29:43.340 Act of Valor. So that kind of opened some floodgates. We had active duty SEALs playing SEALs in a

00:29:49.200 major Hollywood film. From there, I think some of our senior level leaders said, oh, wait, did we

00:29:54.200 just kind of open the curtain too much here? What example did we set? Is this what we want?

00:29:58.240 Right. Because you basically opened those floodgates.

00:30:00.680 Yeah. The genie's out. Yeah. Genie's out of the bottle. And they're essentially setting that example

00:30:05.220 for the junior guy who now sees these other books, sees our senior level leaders giving tours to buds

00:30:11.860 of famous people and celebrities and all that stuff as they're going through training.

00:30:16.860 Interesting.

00:30:17.400 So, you know, and then when you try to stuff that genie back in the bottle, it doesn't work

00:30:23.020 so well. So it's a little difficult. But, you know, I think that today kids need heroes. And I would

00:30:30.340 much rather have my kids be reading some of these books that the guys have written since they've

00:30:34.820 gotten out, the nonfiction ones I'm talking about, because there's really, there's not that these

00:30:39.540 days. They have influences like the Kardashians or whatever else. So I'd much rather my kids be

00:30:45.060 reading No Easy Day or Lone Survivor or something rather than an autobiography of one of the

00:30:50.740 Kardashians.

00:30:51.500 Right. That's a good point. Yeah. That's a really good point. And I think it is good in a lot of

00:30:55.600 ways. From my experience where I sit, I can't see anybody like yourself who's gone through the level

00:31:00.600 of training and, you know, just the rigorous duties and roles and response just for notoriety. If that's

00:31:07.140 what you were in it for, you would have phased out long ago. You wouldn't even made it past the

00:31:11.300 barriers that are in place that get you to where you are today.

00:31:14.840 Yeah. So it's a tough one to answer because obviously I wanted to do it from the early 80s

00:31:19.680 up until when I came in in 96. And there was no internet. There was not much notoriety except for,

00:31:25.720 you know, onesie, twosies, books here and there. But now there is an entire generation that's growing

00:31:31.880 up, looking up to people that are on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, that have books that are

00:31:40.160 propelled more into the limelight than they were in the 80s and 90s because of all these platforms

00:31:44.480 that are out there. Podcasts. There's so many different mechanisms for people to talk and interact

00:31:52.060 with former military guys. So does that mean that the guy coming in has now grown up on Call of Duty

00:31:58.860 and Instagram, Facebook? Those are the norms today. None of them existed for, lack of a better term,

00:32:05.360 my generation in the SEAL teams. So I don't know how to answer that question. It is possible

00:32:10.440 that one, it could be a good recruiting tool. That's true. Could also be recruiting the wrong

00:32:14.900 type of person. Yeah. So I just don't know. What makes me feel better about all that is that

00:32:20.340 the attrition rate has stayed, hovered around 80% regardless of what we have done as a community to

00:32:27.060 get more guys out the backside. So no matter how much money they've spent figuring out, hey,

00:32:32.340 what are the attributes we're looking for to get somebody in the front door to get more guys out

00:32:36.000 the back door, it still hovers around 80%. And a while there, I think in 2000, I'm going to get

00:32:40.800 this date wrong, but 2005, 2006, 2007 timeframe somewhere, they started to put everybody going

00:32:46.380 to bootcamp into one group going through. And then they'd stay at bootcamp for another month or two,

00:32:51.780 I forget exactly what it is, where they would learn about nutrition. They would do the CLPTs.

00:32:56.620 They would learn how to carry the logs and climb ropes and talk to people about mindset.

00:33:01.320 So we had the most well-prepared person coming in the front door at Buds. And what we found was

00:33:09.840 that we still had 80% attrition. And that's because up to that point, there had been no

00:33:15.080 crucible for most people. So that crucible of hell week is really what separates people that really

00:33:21.820 want to be there for the right reasons from those that don't. So I think that'll remain true.

00:33:25.640 Yeah, because if you don't have a good reason, I can't imagine going through that type of suffering

00:33:29.760 if you don't have a reason that's propelling you through that.

00:33:31.920 Oh yeah. I mean, you have to want it more than anything else in the world. And you have to,

00:33:35.440 the only other option to not making it through is to die. That's the mindset that you need to have.

00:33:40.020 So what was it for you?

00:33:41.520 I told people that I was going to be a SEAL since I was seven years old. So there was no way

00:33:44.800 I was going back home, not having made it through that program. Either kill me or I'm going to make

00:33:50.360 it through this thing. And that was my mindset going through the entire time.

00:33:53.200 That's interesting. And I've heard statistics that have said that it's harder recently to get

00:33:58.520 qualified candidates into the military in general, let alone special operations community. I don't

00:34:03.100 know if you've seen that or if that's been your experience.

00:34:04.940 I don't know. And I was involved in that for my last couple of years and I was the operations

00:34:08.120 officer at Bud's. So I was on the other side of that for the first time. And it was interesting

00:34:13.020 because when I was in going through Bud's and going through hell week, when somebody quit,

00:34:17.760 it was, and I feel bad about even saying this, but I liked when people quit as a student because

00:34:23.260 it showed me that, Hey, this is working.

00:34:26.180 That's true. That's a good point.

00:34:27.400 And it was one of those things like, Hey, that person doesn't deserve to be here. And there

00:34:29.880 were some people in the class that would say, Oh, come back, come back and try to talk them back

00:34:32.920 in as they're leaving the surf zone to ring the bell, which we put in the trailer hitch of a truck

00:34:36.740 for hell week. So you can see it the entire time to make it even easier to quit. I never said a word.

00:34:42.060 It wasn't because I was being mean. It was because I'm like, this is the program working. And if I get up and go

00:34:46.600 ring that thing, I don't deserve to be here. And that's the program working. Now on the other side

00:34:50.740 of that, when I was the operations officer, when it's not hell week, the bell is right outside of

00:34:54.340 the first phase office, which is right next to my office. So anybody that's been in the military

00:34:58.720 knows that air conditioning and heating go on based on dates, not based on the environment around you.

00:35:03.860 So my door was pretty much wide open all the time, just to get a little fresh air going through

00:35:07.560 there. So I could see that bell from my desk at all times. And I saw the people that would come up,

00:35:13.040 take their helmet off, put it down and ring that bell three times. And I felt so horrible

00:35:17.860 for them. So I didn't feel that when I was in the program, I liked it when they quit then.

00:35:22.420 But on the other side of that, I was just like, oh, it's so hard to see. Cause you see there's

00:35:26.480 these faces, they're totally dejected and they could have wanted to do that their entire life,

00:35:30.400 just like I did. And for whatever reason, they self-selected out of the program.

00:35:34.380 Does somebody who self-selects like that ever get another chance to go back into the program?

00:35:39.480 I think officers do not. And enlisted, I think they go away for two years and then they can

00:35:45.080 reapply. I think.

00:35:46.780 Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the visibility of special operations communities and books and

00:35:51.980 things like that has done to or for or against, I could say, operational security?

00:35:58.400 That's a tough one right there. Cause obviously the enemy, just like we do is studying us.

00:36:02.340 They're adapting to us. So if I was the enemy, I'd be reading these books,

00:36:06.120 just like I'm reading books about the enemy. So I would think that they're probably doing that

00:36:10.680 at certain levels. So we have to expect that whether they are or aren't, we have to assume

00:36:15.100 that they are. That's tough because in the eighties, I think, I forget what the first,

00:36:19.840 one of the first movies was to do it right, to do an actual gunfight semi-right. I think it might've

00:36:24.100 been heat. So you had guys changing magazines for the first time. You have guys not shooting from

00:36:28.180 the hip. I believe that what we saw following movies getting more authentic were shootings

00:36:36.800 getting more effective because people now are not shooting from the hip. Like they,

00:36:42.040 that's their only training is what they see in movies. Now they're seeing guys bring the rifles

00:36:45.880 up to their shoulders. They're seeing guys bring that pistol up into their line of sight and press

00:36:50.160 that trigger. And so there is a danger in that, but it's one of those things, Hey, going to happen.

00:36:55.900 And whether it's movies, whether it's video games, whether it's TV shows, whether it's books,

00:37:00.360 whether it's magazines, there have been things out there from early times, passing down stories

00:37:04.980 orally to magazines and books and newspapers, and now into internet aid of information. So

00:37:10.060 there's information that's out there and the enemy is probably studying it, I would guess.

00:37:13.860 I wouldn't say it's helpful necessarily, but you know, everybody levels up, right? Any organization

00:37:17.700 should be leveling up, you know? And so you're going to be learning new tactics, new techniques,

00:37:22.040 new strategies, new ways of approaching scenarios above and beyond what they were doing 10 years

00:37:26.920 ago or 20 or 30 years ago. Wait, like you should be leveling up. You should be learning and enhancing

00:37:31.640 your tactics and your strategies. It's a game of constant adaptation. And typically the enemy has

00:37:36.460 adapted to us faster than we've adapted to them because they don't have a gigantic bureaucracy to go

00:37:41.480 through to make these changes. So even in a small world of special operations, we can make those

00:37:45.340 changes a little faster. And some of the, at the low tactical level, we can make it very fast,

00:37:49.420 but someone for the most part still has to approve that. Right. So these other organizations out

00:37:54.240 there, the enemy ones, they typically don't have those command and control structures in place with

00:37:58.380 so much bureaucracy and so much red tape that they have adapted to us a little quicker than we have to

00:38:02.980 them. But I will say that as a military and for how big we are, we have adapted fairly quickly and

00:38:09.420 in special operations, we've done it as quickly as we possibly could. It's, it's one of those things

00:38:14.060 you have to constantly do it because once you stagnate, the enemy is going to make a change and

00:38:18.360 you're going to get hurt. Well, and not to mention, we have rules of engagement and standard

00:38:21.560 operating procedures and different moral codes that we adhere to, right? That I think at times

00:38:27.860 could potentially put us at a disadvantage as opposed to the advantage. So yeah, it's an

00:38:32.300 interesting, that's an interesting point. So that's separate, obviously, than adaptation.

00:38:35.460 There are a few things that separate us from our enemy on a moral ground, if we sink to their

00:38:41.560 level. And I don't know if I'm articulating that quite right, but the one thing we hold

00:38:44.720 high ground wise is the moral high ground. So we do not intentionally attack civilians.

00:38:52.280 There is collateral damage that happens in war and it's horrible, but we do not intentionally

00:38:56.480 use that as a tool on the battlefield for a political end where our enemy does. In fact,

00:39:01.860 that's one of the main things that they do, right? So that is the one thing we have to maintain. We have

00:39:06.920 to hold that moral high ground and it does come with some strings attached. It does make it more

00:39:12.160 difficult at the tactical level for the guy, for that last decision maker, the last decision maker

00:39:16.380 from policy at the executive presidential level, all the way down to that E1 on the battlefield that

00:39:22.020 is standing guard at a checkpoint that has a car coming up to him that brings that rifle to his

00:39:26.280 shoulder, takes that weapon off safe and puts his finger on the trigger. He's the last decision maker

00:39:30.380 in that chain of command. And it all comes down to the decision that he makes right there. And it's a

00:39:35.700 tough one. It's a tough one. And it's hard because you have individuals who aren't in the situation,

00:39:42.920 ultimately dictating somebody like that, their potential future. Oh yeah. Which could be a very,

00:39:48.380 well, somebody would have to live with the rest of their life. Oh, sure. Sure. And you see,

00:39:52.120 I mean, you see it today with everything going on with the police shootings and the armchair

00:39:55.840 quarterbacking of things. I mean, it's tough and it's just one of those things that's going to happen,

00:39:59.520 but now there's just so much more technology, obviously. Cell phones are out there recording

00:40:04.660 everything. Things are taken out of context and some in context. Sure. And then somebody

00:40:08.500 somewhere along the line has to wade through all that, has to wade through witness statements with,

00:40:12.940 which are notoriously not accurate, which is crazy to think of when you learn about it and study it and

00:40:19.480 ask five people what they saw, what color jacket that guy was wearing from red to blue to gray to green,

00:40:24.180 they get different answers. It's funny, me and my son, and I was telling you this before we started

00:40:28.080 that we just got back from a hunt and we were sitting in the blind the last day and we saw an

00:40:33.100 animal. Both of us saw an animal. It was an animal. I saw a gray animal. He saw a gray animal too. And

00:40:37.800 I'm like, well, that's, that's a, it looks like a pig. He's like, no, it looks like a puma or

00:40:41.100 something, you know? And we couldn't come to a conclusive agreement as to what that animal was

00:40:47.040 when we were sitting right next to each other. We were looking at the same thing. It was 30 yards away

00:40:52.420 from us. And yet we couldn't come to a mutually conclusive decision as to what this animal was.

00:40:58.440 Right. It was really interesting.

00:40:59.940 Somebody has to sift through those and figure out why right from wrong. And then you have

00:41:02.780 a system, which growing up watching shows like Law and Order or whatever else you watch growing up,

00:41:09.360 you think that the system is built around doing what's right. And then you become a part of that

00:41:15.100 system and you realize that, Hey, everyone in here has a different career path going. They all want to

00:41:21.100 make it to the next level. And very little of it is about doing what's right. And a lot of it is

00:41:26.240 about getting the win because the win lets you promote and move on through that system. So it's

00:41:32.000 a little disheartening, but that's what you have to know. And that's what police officers know when

00:41:35.200 they, when they press that trigger and that's what citizens know. And if they're going to be involved

00:41:38.460 in a self-defense type shooting is that they're going to be part of that system. That's not looking

00:41:42.280 for what they did right, but is looking for what they did wrong so that a prosecutor or someone

00:41:47.100 can get the win and move forward. And it's similar in the military sense as well down range.

00:41:52.560 Yeah, that's interesting. I was listening to a podcast on the way up and they were talking

00:41:55.560 about the differences between bureaucracy and politics versus leading, right? And, and a leader

00:42:01.060 has to develop a certain set of skills that enhances the mission that, that ensures that the mission

00:42:05.580 will be completed and the final objective will be secured versus you look at what skill sets a

00:42:11.680 bureaucrat has to develop, which is mainly, Hey, I have to take care of myself and politic and weasel

00:42:17.420 my way, if you will, through these little scenarios and things. And it's looking after what's in my

00:42:21.480 best interest versus a leader who has their team and the objective in mind.

00:42:26.100 No, that's exactly it. And there's a book that I gave to my junior officers and senior enlisted guys

00:42:29.680 in the SEAL teams. And it's called Once an Eagle by Anton Meyer. It was written in 1968.

00:42:34.460 And it's historical fiction that follows two guys from right before world war one,

00:42:38.880 all the way up to Vietnam. And one of the guys is an officer the whole time. And he's a political

00:42:44.280 animal. The other guy starts enlisted, gets a battlefield commission in world war one and

00:42:49.680 becomes an officer. So he is just a little bit behind that other political officer as they move

00:42:54.680 their way through the system, as they get ready for world war two, world war two happens, they make

00:42:58.720 go through that war and then then on into Korea and Vietnam. But it's an interesting case study in

00:43:03.960 leadership, even though it is fiction, but it describes exactly what you're talking about right there.

00:43:08.440 One person is that political animal that learns how to live and survive within that bureaucracy.

00:43:13.780 And the other one is doing what's right for the guys doing what's right for the mission,

00:43:18.080 who's training, getting ready for that next fight, getting ready for the next call.

00:43:21.300 And his men love him. And he leads them effectively on the battlefield. The other guy,

00:43:27.260 not so much. So it's a, uh, I would give that gift and I'd have a letter in the front that I'd

00:43:32.300 write to whoever I was giving it to. And then I'd say at the end of that, Hey, there's another

00:43:36.360 letter that's sealed. That's at the end of the book. So once you make it all the way through,

00:43:40.620 you can open that. And that's my take on what you just read. My take on leadership.

00:43:44.380 My most gifted book, I would say is once an eagle, once an eagle by Anton Meyer.

00:43:49.000 Yeah. I'll check that out. That sounds interesting. Do you find that in the sealed teams you have,

00:43:53.200 like, what are the ratios? Is it mostly leaders? Is it bureaucrats? Is it a combination of both? I mean,

00:43:59.200 from the outside looking in, it seems like, and I think because again, this comes back to the publicity

00:44:04.180 is that you see more leaders than you do necessarily bureaucrats, but I imagine they're

00:44:08.560 there. Yep. No, it's, it's part of a big bureaucratic system, which is the U S government

00:44:12.840 as a whole, and then the military, then the Navy, and then SOCOM. And then from there Naval

00:44:19.340 Special Warfare, and then each individual team essentially. So it is part of a larger bureaucracy.

00:44:24.900 I would say for the most part in my experience anyway, is that most of the people that I encountered

00:44:29.460 were meat eaters. Most of the people were focused on the guys focused on the mission. And I was

00:44:34.020 very fortunate to have some very, very good leadership. And I had some bad leadership also,

00:44:37.120 which is the reason I became an officer. I would say that for the most part, people are not thinking

00:44:42.080 about their time in the sealed teams as a career. And I certainly didn't. And I like equating that to

00:44:48.400 the profession of arms. It's not the career of arms for a reason. It's the profession of arms.

00:44:53.260 And you get someone that thinks about it as a career. Well, that's the political animal that you

00:44:57.480 really want nothing to do with. You might have to deal with as you go through your time,

00:45:01.220 but there's definitely a difference between someone that's a careerist and someone that

00:45:05.180 is in it because it's a profession and it's a calling. And that's all they ever wanted to do,

00:45:09.680 serve their country in uniform. And that's their profession. I kind of look at writing the same

00:45:14.220 way. I don't look at it as a career. I look at it as a profession. Certainly a difference there.

00:45:18.480 I would say for the most part, especially at the tactical level, most guys are just in it to get

00:45:23.160 after it. They want to get to war. They want to serve their country. They want to test themselves,

00:45:26.420 do the right thing for their team. Yeah. That is an interesting distinction.

00:45:31.080 I hadn't really considered that. So you became an officer. You were enlisted at first initially,

00:45:34.740 and then you became an officer after you became a SEAL. Is that right?

00:45:38.280 Yep. Went to BUDS, went to my first SEAL team, did two platoons. My second one,

00:45:42.020 about a week or two into it was September 11th. So we zipped over to the Middle East and did

00:45:46.560 shipboardings. We didn't go right to Afghanistan. Team three went and did that, took over their mission,

00:45:51.560 which was shipboarding operations to help enforce the UN embargo. So when I got back from that,

00:45:57.000 that's when I went to OCS and went to team two. And the rest of the time was as an officer.

00:46:02.280 So you already had a degree. And so you-

00:46:04.700 Yep. I already had that, a little experience. And I always wanted to

00:46:07.000 start because the few things that were out there in the eighties all suggested that I should become

00:46:14.220 an enlisted guy first. Officers typically aren't snipers. And this is how popular media,

00:46:19.120 which we just talked about earlier, can influence a young mind. So all those Vietnam movies that I

00:46:24.260 watched in the eighties, they always had that brand new officer that was a little butter bar

00:46:28.620 that would show up in Vietnam, no experience, and tell all the guys to shave and get haircuts

00:46:33.020 that had been there for months on end, a couple of tours, and then he'd lead them right into an

00:46:36.360 ambush. Like that is every Vietnam movie that I saw growing up. And I said, I do not want to be

00:46:40.640 that guy. If I ever become an officer one day, I'm not going to be him. I think with Marcinko's book,

00:46:44.600 Rogue Warrior talked about being enlisted first. And I was like, Oh, look at that. You can be an

00:46:47.900 enlisted guy first and then decide. So that's what I did. I wanted to essentially start in the mail

00:46:51.760 room, work my way up, learn the trade, establish reputation, become a sniper. And then I did those

00:46:56.420 things and submitted a package for OCS in the spring of 2001. So before September 11th,

00:47:02.040 but after September 11th, I probably would have stayed enlisted just to keep getting after it.

00:47:05.120 But for timing wise, as an officer, it worked out about as well.

00:47:07.980 How does that change? How did the responsibilities obviously are more probably in the leadership and

00:47:11.880 strategy type position. What else, what else changes between the two?

00:47:15.600 You have to go at some point as an officer and do things that you didn't come into the military to

00:47:19.620 do. So you need to sit on a staff somewhere at some point. And I was very lucky that I really

00:47:24.180 didn't have to do that very much until the very end was I was getting out anyway. So it actually

00:47:28.500 worked out well for me, but knowing what was ahead as an officer, looking at it from the enlisted level,

00:47:34.140 I would have chosen after September 11th to stay enlisted because I could stay at that tactical level

00:47:39.760 and not have to go and sit back and some office somewhere behind a computer while other guys

00:47:45.240 were going out to fight. So it just happened to work out well for me that I went right back to

00:47:49.280 the SEAL teams as a junior officer. And it was right when we were pushing ahead and really deploying a

00:47:53.640 lot. So it worked out about as well as it could.

00:47:56.720 Yeah. Because I imagine for a warrior, there's a lot of, a lot of guilt, you know, associated with

00:48:01.780 that where you're sitting behind a desk and pushing papers and strategy, and you're actually sending

00:48:05.120 these people to do a task that you've created, right? Or that you've at least thought out and

00:48:10.200 planned. And so that can, I imagine that creates a lot of guilt.

00:48:13.580 Yeah. And it was just something I didn't want to, didn't, didn't come in to do that. Come in to,

00:48:16.880 to lead men in battle and go get after it. And of course, when I came in, in 96, what I thought,

00:48:21.200 I'd show up my first SEAL team and I'd immediately go on all these secret missions. I'd get a pager and I'd

00:48:25.740 get all this awesome gear and I'd be at the bar and the pager would beep and off I'd go. And then I'd come

00:48:30.820 back the next night, back to the bar. That was not how it was. So in 96, 96,

00:48:35.120 seven, when you show up at your first team, well, I think they handed me like a paintbrush

00:48:38.260 and said, Hey kid, paint that wall, change that light bulb, clean that bathroom. So you're a new

00:48:42.120 guy doing new guy stuff.

00:48:43.240 Treated like a new year back in 96, 97, 98 timeframe was not the best. So a lot of us made

00:48:49.080 our own gear, bought our own gear. And after September 11th, that changed drastically.

00:48:54.280 A lot more funding.

00:48:55.320 Floodgates opened. Yeah. A lot more funding, more research, and then being able to actually test

00:49:00.080 the gear and equipment that's been developed in actual combat and build on it.

00:49:05.120 And see what works, what doesn't. And so it just became a whole, whole different animal.

00:49:11.500 Man, let me just hit the pause button real quick on the conversation. I do not want 2019

00:49:16.120 to be just another year for you. I want it to be the best year of your entire life.

00:49:21.520 And if that's going to be the case, I would encourage you to find a way to build in some

00:49:25.220 accountability into your life. And it doesn't really matter if that accountability comes from

00:49:29.720 your family or your friends or coworkers, whoever it may be. It just matters that you have some level

00:49:35.340 of accountability. And I know since implementing a system of accountability for myself, my results

00:49:40.320 drastically improved in every area of life, marriage, business, health, again, every single

00:49:45.720 area of life. But that said, I know that there's a lot of men because I have conversations with these

00:49:50.220 guys who don't have that accountability and they don't quite know where to start when it comes

00:49:55.720 to building these systems in. And that's where our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council comes in

00:50:00.520 because we've built in and programmed a level of accountability to other men who want the same

00:50:07.180 things for themselves. So they're going to hold you accountable to do the things for yourself.

00:50:11.080 So if you want to be pushed and you want to be held accountable, and that's certainly not for

00:50:15.420 everyone, not everybody falls into that camp, but if you do want to be pushed and you do want to be

00:50:19.620 held accountable and you do want to figure out ways to expand what life is going to look like for you,

00:50:25.460 and making 2019 the best year of your life, then you need to join our brotherhood, the iron

00:50:30.220 council. You can do that. You can learn more. You can check it all out. See what we're all about.

00:50:33.720 See what, what features and benefits come with being a brother inside the iron council. And you

00:50:38.440 can do all of that at order of man.com slash iron council. Again, order of man.com slash iron

00:50:44.320 council guys do that after the show for now, let's get back to my conversation with Jack.

00:50:49.700 I'm going to go back to what we were talking about with bureaucrats versus leaders. Cause I think you

00:50:53.120 did a good job articulating this pattern in the book itself, right? Between who's a leader,

00:50:58.040 obviously our main character. And then you have these bureaucrats that are actually working against

00:51:02.500 his best interest and the best interest of the people that they pretend to serve.

00:51:07.680 So, yeah, that's part of the, the, uh, fiction that comes from real world experience. So I wanted to

00:51:14.620 portray some of those political animals as I see them and, uh, how I feel about them. So those feelings,

00:51:21.360 uh, and descriptions made it into the pages of, uh, the first novel and the second novel coming

00:51:26.020 out. So I think that's going to be a theme going forward here is, uh, writing about those bureaucrats

00:51:31.040 the way they deserve to be written about. I mean, have you ever thought about getting into politics

00:51:34.820 yourself? I've been asked a couple of times and my answer is, and will forever be no. I feel that the

00:51:41.320 time I spent serving my country was the last 20 years and moving forward, it's about taking care of

00:51:46.300 my family. So that's, uh, yeah, that's kind of what I've, I'm always curious about that because

00:51:50.680 I, you know, my knee jerk reaction, and I feel a lot of the same way that you do is that you can't

00:51:55.380 be, that's going to sound bad, but it's, it's the way I feel at times. You can't be a decent human

00:52:00.440 being and want to be a politician at the same time. And I know that sounds harsh. Common sense tells me

00:52:05.460 that there's people who actually believe they can go in and make some significant difference and go

00:52:09.480 in for the right reason. It's a challenging thing for me to look at.

00:52:13.400 Oh, it's tough, especially once you get in there and then being able to see from the inside how

00:52:17.860 that machine works and seeing if you want to be effective, or if you want to move the needle a

00:52:22.940 tiny bit one way or the other, what you have to compromise and what you have to do just because

00:52:26.660 it is politics. Right. Um, so for some people, some people love that. Some people hate it and

00:52:32.300 they're going to go and do their time and do a couple of years and then head back and do something

00:52:36.140 else. Actually, there's a character in book number three that I'm writing about that does that exact

00:52:39.400 thing. He, uh, he goes to Washington for the right reasons and he's made a lot of money elsewhere,

00:52:44.020 sees it from the inside and gets right out of there, goes back to the private sector. And that's,

00:52:49.180 uh, that's somebody coming up in book three. Awesome. What can you tell us about book two?

00:52:52.880 Book two, book two. So it starts in, uh, in Mozambique where our main character, James Reese is

00:52:58.480 trying to live again, still thinks that he's dying. And he becomes part of an anti-poaching unit

00:53:04.800 over there, which is why I was over there this last time to confirm a few details in Africa about

00:53:09.240 anti-poaching. Well, something happened to me in Iraq in 2006, that was the impetus behind the

00:53:15.220 story. Of course, I fictionalized the whole thing to make it a lot more interesting for book number

00:53:18.940 two, but essentially the government needs to track our protagonist down and he needs to go find an

00:53:23.000 Iraqi that has moved from Iraq to Syria into Europe and is being run by a shadowy terrorist

00:53:29.600 organization. They are using the things that the U S military and the CIA taught him in Iraq

00:53:34.080 to hit targets in Europe. So they need to find Reese who is his friend in Iraq as they work together

00:53:40.700 for the military and the agency. And now he has to go reestablish comms with that guy in Europe,

00:53:46.300 track him down for actually another mission, but I want to. Right. We don't, don't, don't give away

00:53:50.920 too much. We don't want to give away too much. I'm really excited. I was telling you, I don't think

00:53:54.640 we mentioned this on the podcast yet, but, uh, I was running and I don't enjoy running at all. It's

00:53:59.480 about one of the most miserable things I could possibly do. And I went, I'm like, I'll run two

00:54:04.000 miles today. And I knew we were going to have this conversation. So I threw the book in and on

00:54:07.760 audible and I got two miles. I'm like, I feel pretty good. I'm gonna go run another mile. So I ran

00:54:12.780 another mile. I'm like, I feel pretty good. I ended up running just about eight miles that day

00:54:16.500 to the book. Nice. So I got to tell you guys, like, and like I said, I don't read a lot of fiction

00:54:21.980 hardly ever, but, uh, it did the trick. It got me through running, doing something that I love to hear that.

00:54:28.540 Oh, absolutely. Love it. I can't wait for round two, man. That's going to, that's, it's going to

00:54:32.360 be cool. And it's called a true believer. True believer. Yeah. That's good. What was the writing

00:54:36.260 process like for you? Because a lot of the guys that are listening to the podcast know that I wrote

00:54:40.180 a book earlier in the year and I did it on a very, very short timeframe. 90 days was my goal. And so I

00:54:45.900 wrote a minimum of 1000 words every single day to get to that point. And I imagine your writing

00:54:51.720 schedule was a little different than that. It was. And I wish I could tell you that I was very

00:54:57.440 disciplined in my approach and that I had a certain time set aside each day, three hours

00:55:01.800 in the morning or whatever, where I would turn everything off and just write. But with everything

00:55:05.820 that we're juggling both personally and professionally, that, uh, did not prove to be the

00:55:10.320 case. And going forward, I would like it to be the case, but I definitely need to, to work on

00:55:15.020 scheduling, work on saying no, instead of saying yes all the time. And I need to block off that three

00:55:20.140 or four hours where I just write and don't do anything else. So it was sporadic. So what I was,

00:55:24.760 I did most of the writing in Coronado, California, which is a very loud place to lay all the base

00:55:29.500 traffic going to and from all the time. You have weed whackers and lawnmowers and everything going

00:55:35.460 off. UPS person coming, you have a family with three kids and everything that entails. So

00:55:39.760 complete chaos essentially. So I wrote most of it from 10 at night to three in the morning,

00:55:44.480 the only time that it is quiet in our household. Um, so a lot of it was written then, but I would like

00:55:50.360 to going forward, spend three hours a day locked down in a library, in an office somewhere and just

00:55:56.300 write and do that thousand words a day. But I find that I get writing and very, most of the time I

00:56:01.260 write a lot more than a thousand. I can't stop. I don't want to stop. I'm so excited. I love every

00:56:06.240 part of the process. I'm, I love coming up with, uh, with the storyline, I love coming up with the

00:56:10.780 outline, the synopsis, the title, theme, quote, that's kind of like a guide, guide how the story arc,

00:56:17.340 the three parts coming up with those and what's in each one. Then the editing process going back

00:56:21.960 and forth with Emily Bessler at Simon and Schuster, getting the galley copy out there and getting those

00:56:26.460 out there to other authors and influencers that then give you blurbs for your book and making the

00:56:30.500 other tiny adjustments along the way to get that final product as good as it can possibly be for

00:56:34.660 publication day. So I love every part of that process to include the publicity part because I'm

00:56:39.700 learning new things. And we, like we talked about earlier, I'm inherently, I am more of a private

00:56:44.440 person. And I would love to be that author that just lives in a cabin on a mountain and no one

00:56:48.880 ever has seen his picture. And no one even knows, uh, all you get is a book that comes out once a

00:56:54.460 year. I wonder if that's even possible today. That is tough, especially in this genre. Uh, so you

00:57:00.580 really, to be commercially successful today, you have to be out there. You have to be building a

00:57:05.560 business. Essentially. I look at it as I'm, I'm an entrepreneur in this space and I'm bringing my

00:57:10.000 past experience to it and I'm looking at it and I'm adapting and I'm trying to figure out

00:57:13.280 what's been done traditionally and how can I do it better. And I'm learning all about social media

00:57:17.320 and all that, and just how to connect with people. And, and I do like the fact that I can say thank

00:57:21.700 you. So I really enjoy all the time that I've spent learning how Twitter works, how Instagram

00:57:27.120 works. And what I like about it is that I can say thank you to people that purchased the book and to

00:57:32.580 people that reach out to me and tell me that they liked it. So I do enjoy that part of it, but I would

00:57:38.560 prefer the hermit on the mountain in the cabin. I don't blame you. You're kind of getting there with

00:57:42.400 your move up here. Yeah. We're looking out the window right now. We're looking at a mountainside

00:57:46.140 right now. So I'm getting closer. You were talking about a moose coming up and eating off

00:57:50.080 your Traeger grill. Yeah. Yeah. We since put in a gate, but yeah, a moose on the deck, you have

00:57:56.000 mule deer coming by all the time and it's a, there's mountain lion up here. There's elk around. So

00:58:00.700 it's a pretty special place. I feel very fortunate to be here. And my wife and I always wanted to raise

00:58:04.780 our kids in a mountain town. So as we were getting out, we decided it's time to leave San Diego behind

00:58:09.280 and make a physical and psychological break with the military and get up to the mountains.

00:58:14.000 How's it been for you, this transition and your family? Has the transition been difficult? I mean,

00:58:18.820 you're around obviously more, which is good and probably challenging in some ways.

00:58:23.140 Well, it's different. Yeah. Cause before there was this larger mission and it was the country

00:58:28.220 and you knew that a seven month, six, seven month deployment was coming up and you knew a month

00:58:32.660 trip was coming up here and two weeks there. And you knew that things were going to change and

00:58:37.100 you're probably going to have to deploy earlier. You're going to have to stay on another trip that

00:58:40.240 gets thrown in at the last second. And you expect that as part of the life. Now here,

00:58:44.600 when we expected to have more time building this business and building, going along this writing

00:58:49.180 path, you have to be out there, book signings, and then you'd be talking to people and doing all

00:58:53.660 this. I've been away quite a bit, a little more than I thought, but that's okay. You know,

00:58:58.260 I'm in a very fortunate position and we had a transition that went about as well as it could have.

00:59:03.820 I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing in the exact place where I want to be doing it. So

00:59:08.160 I feel like I am exceptionally fortunate on all fronts.

00:59:13.580 Do you feel like your expectation of transitioning out of the military was different than what it

00:59:19.100 has actually been for you? Or did you even have an expectation of what it would look like?

00:59:22.740 What is this transition like?

00:59:24.200 I feel terrible even to say this, but it happened exactly the way I wanted it to.

00:59:29.020 Why do you feel bad saying that?

00:59:30.420 A lot of people struggle with that transition. And I got to, I've seen a lot of people struggle

00:59:34.580 with that transition. And for me, I just wanted to make that clean break. And I knew exactly what

00:59:40.240 I wanted to do. I had my next mission in life. So I didn't spend a lot of time kind of wavering

00:59:45.960 around or trying different things out. And one didn't work maybe, or one wasn't what I expected it to

00:59:50.980 be, which is what I typically saw because people have an expectation when they come out, let's just use

00:59:55.000 law as an example. Well, maybe they talked to an attorney a couple of times and their expectation

01:00:00.920 of what it is, is really what they've seen in popular media. So in books and on TV and in movies,

01:00:08.900 and then they take the bar, they go to law school, they get to their first firm, they're a new guy,

01:00:14.340 and maybe it's not what they thought it was going to be. And they think, well, maybe I should have

01:00:17.660 stayed in the military or what did I really want to do? Because I always want to be a lawyer growing up

01:00:21.420 or where did this come from? And so there's a lot of that that goes on. So I think that before

01:00:26.880 somebody gets out of the military or anything, NFL, it can be Olympic, any transition in life

01:00:32.120 is to identify those things that are important to them before they make the transition. So they can

01:00:37.040 essentially know the answers to the questions and know what to say yes and no to before the questions

01:00:42.280 and those opportunities even arise. So example being, so for me, it was freedom. That was the most

01:00:47.120 important thing for me. Enter that umbrella of freedom. There's a financial aspect to that.

01:00:52.700 And then there was the schedule side of that. And so if I got an opportunity arose where it was great

01:00:58.780 financially, but I was going to be in an office at a certain time and I was going to be there all day

01:01:03.900 late into the night, slaving away. My family wasn't going to see me. I'm working for somebody else.

01:01:09.000 Then it was a no, no matter how much the money was. It didn't matter because it didn't fit

01:01:12.920 that other part of my paradigm, didn't fit that other part of the model, being able to control

01:01:16.900 my schedule. So anything that came along, I could very easily say yes or no to based on that

01:01:22.680 criteria. So I didn't have to do a lot of research. So say an opportunity comes along,

01:01:26.380 great money. Where is it? Okay. It's in Seattle. Okay. What's in Seattle? Should we move there? Do we

01:01:31.080 know anybody there? What is the job? What is what I'll be doing? And they do all this bandwidth

01:01:35.240 focused on figuring out whether you need to say yes or no, or take advantage of this opportunity,

01:01:40.180 where if you identified early on what was important to you, instant no. And now you're

01:01:45.500 bandwidth, boom, back to writing. So I think identifying those things, and that's the advice

01:01:49.940 I give people that are getting ready to get out. If they've identified it, wonderful. If they haven't,

01:01:54.720 then better get that stuff. Exactly. Work that part out right now. What's important to you? What's

01:01:58.100 important to your family as a team moving forward? And then say yes and no to those opportunities that

01:02:03.660 come along based on your criteria. I want to go back to what you were talking about, where you,

01:02:08.540 you had turned in your paperwork and you knew you're going to get out. How did that change for

01:02:12.560 you with members of your teams and everything else? I mean, how were you treated? Was that

01:02:16.920 well-received? Was it not? What did that actually look like? So typically people play their cards pretty

01:02:21.760 close in the military in case they decide to change tact. Because once you articulate that you're

01:02:28.160 getting out, things do change. I imagine. So, you know, I was focused on the mission at hand up until

01:02:34.660 my last, through my last Iraq deployment. And then when I got back, I still had another four years

01:02:38.800 in that looked like, looked like I wouldn't be leading guys in battle anymore. It looked like

01:02:42.940 an operations job at Bud's where you are not deploying. And then an XO job at a team where I

01:02:48.680 was also not deploying. And so I was very honest with everybody when I got back from Iraq. When I sat

01:02:54.440 down, took a breath, looked forward and decided to get out. And I surprised a lot of people by being

01:02:59.660 honest and telling them, no, I'm getting out in three years or whatever it was. And almost to

01:03:04.380 the point where they wouldn't believe me. Like, oh, yeah, you're not, okay. You're not getting

01:03:08.960 out. No one says they're getting out like that. But I never thought about it while I was in leading

01:03:13.340 guys downrange, while I was getting ready to take guys downrange. I was solely focused on that task

01:03:17.700 at hand because I felt that's what I owed the guys. That's what I owed their families. That's what I

01:03:21.420 owed the mission, the country. So I was solely focused on that. And any spare time I had was spent

01:03:26.400 studying the enemy, studying where we were going, trying to make myself better as an operator,

01:03:30.280 as a leader. So I didn't have any outside distractions. And the family felt that for

01:03:36.060 sure. Because you have to decide that you are all in for the teams when you're in. That pendulum

01:03:42.140 swung back once I got back from Iraq and got into the operations job at Bud's and saw people doing

01:03:47.940 push-ups and pull-ups and realizing, okay, this system's going. I'm not responsible for taking guys

01:03:53.500 downrange anymore. So I got to take a breath and I feel very fortunate that I was able to do so.

01:03:58.600 While I was doing it, it was all about the team, all about the mission, all about the guys.

01:04:02.440 But once I got back and I was honest with people, hey, I'm going to get out here in a couple of years

01:04:07.180 and move on to the private sector. But I wouldn't say exactly what I was going to do, even though I

01:04:10.960 knew I wanted to write. Why were you reserved about that? Because once you say write or book in the

01:04:16.040 SEAL teams, they immediately go to nonfiction, no matter what. A book is a book is a book.

01:04:21.980 Which is because that's what a lot of people do, right?

01:04:25.100 Yeah. So that's okay. And plus it's a personal thing and it's a risk.

01:04:29.780 Yeah.

01:04:30.420 That last year, last six months or a couple months, whatever, as I was getting out,

01:04:33.900 when I told people I wanted to write fiction in the genre, I got the same looks that I got when

01:04:38.860 I told people I wanted to be a SEAL growing up. It was like, that's nice. That's wonderful. That'll

01:04:43.880 never happen. You lot grow it. I could tell. I could tell. That's what you see. I just never paid

01:04:48.440 attention to that. So I never paid attention to those odds. I don't even know what the, I got the

01:04:52.220 question a lot. Hey, do you know the odds of getting one, one becoming a SEAL and then two,

01:04:56.580 writing a book of fiction in this genre? And I say that I have no idea what the odds are because I

01:05:02.100 didn't spend one second thinking about those odds. I spent all my time just focused on making it

01:05:06.780 happen and doing it, not worried about if it was going to work out or not, or what are the odds?

01:05:10.880 I need to hedge my bets. What else do I need to do? Now I did have contingency plans and I have

01:05:14.820 other things that I'm involved with that fit my model, fit my paradigm, but they all have to fit

01:05:19.820 that and allow me the time to write. I love every part of this process, but I did keep the writing

01:05:24.640 close hold until I was out. Yeah. Well, I can tell you love it, man. I mean,

01:05:28.500 you just seem happy and fulfilled and content with what you're doing. What is next beyond writing? Have

01:05:33.940 you thought much about that? I mean, not necessarily that you're not going to write. What comes next?

01:05:38.160 Yeah. So I want to get better with each novel. I want to improve as a writer. I want to continue to

01:05:43.980 build platforms that maybe make other people say, Hey, look at this guy did it. He just did it.

01:05:49.220 I can do it too. Like that sort of those authors that inspired me growing up, like David Morrell and

01:05:53.440 Nelson DeMille and Stephen Hunter and guys that I now am fortunate enough to call friends that were

01:05:58.340 in this industry together in this publishing world together. And they've all been so nice. They all

01:06:02.560 welcomed me with open arms. I want to say that too, because I thought getting out of the military,

01:06:06.660 I thought that, Oh, I'm going to be the new guy and people are going to keep me at an arm's length

01:06:11.700 because I'm a competition. Cause then we think of things in competition all the time, whether

01:06:15.540 you're on the range and you're about ready to do a course of fire, whatever it is, everything's a

01:06:18.880 competition. And I realized first, when I talked to Brad Thor and then everyone I've interacted with

01:06:22.780 since from Lee Child, Stephen Hunter, all these guys that were my heroes growing up reading in the,

01:06:27.640 in the eighties, they all welcome you with open arms and none of them gave even the slightest

01:06:32.880 inkling that I was competition. They all have wanted to help, which is absolutely amazing.

01:06:38.100 I didn't expect that. I expected it to be the exact opposite of what my experience has been.

01:06:43.080 I mean, I found that to be pretty true with anybody who's confident enough where they are,

01:06:46.820 right? That seems like an insecure thing when you start to look at it, like, Oh, competition,

01:06:50.720 we've got to block this out. But those who have had any levels of success, I think for the most part

01:06:55.120 are that way. Yeah. No, these guys all wanted to give back and help me along and get blurbs for the

01:07:00.320 book. And it's been so cool to be able to interact with them. And, you know, now I feel,

01:07:04.840 you know, going forward that I'll hopefully one day I'll be in that same position to help somebody

01:07:08.360 else along and get a, get a foothold in this industry. Yeah. That's cool. How does,

01:07:12.680 how does hunting all tie into the equation? Cause I know that you are an avid hunter. I think you've

01:07:16.940 got a ranch, some property in a couple of different places. Yeah. So tell me about that.

01:07:22.040 Hunting was always something that fascinated me growing up tracking and hunting and,

01:07:26.060 and I didn't do it though. Our family shot, we went to the range and we shot, but we didn't hunt

01:07:30.780 for whatever reason. I always ask my dad to take me, but he, uh, he was just wasn't into it. So my

01:07:35.640 first hunt was at, uh, sniper sustainment training at a place up in Washington state.

01:07:40.120 In the military. In the military. Military funded thing, right? So I finally, yep. And I won't say

01:07:43.660 the name of the place because I don't know if they advertise it or not, but my first hunt was up there

01:07:47.640 in 2000. So right after sniper school and they wanted us to be able to put a round into something

01:07:54.100 that was living and breathing before we had to do it for real on the battlefield. So we went up to this

01:07:59.340 place and I got my first deer up there and absolutely loved it. And just loved the whole

01:08:04.760 process. Just, uh, getting ready and, and figuring out what are you hunting and why bringing that meat

01:08:10.300 back. So putting up the deer in the tree after I got my first one and then just slicing off pieces

01:08:15.300 of that meat, searing it on the grill up there. I'll never, I'll never forget that experience in 2000.

01:08:19.760 And then 2001 happened and we kicked off the war and things got pretty busy then for the next,

01:08:26.160 uh, 10, 12 years, whatever it was. So a different, different kind of hunting, which actually has a

01:08:30.660 lot of parallels, but we don't have to, we don't have to talk about that, but there are parallels

01:08:34.280 there, but it was a different type of, of, uh, of manhunting, uh, both tactically and operationally

01:08:39.100 really. Um, but so I didn't get a chance to revisit hunting until my last couple platoons when I

01:08:46.340 jumped back into that sniper sustainment piece again and got to go out there. So it was, was part of the

01:08:50.940 job, but it was, we were hunting to get ready to go to war. And then I got back from Iraq and my

01:08:56.400 daughter took a natural interest in hunting without any sort of prompting for me. She just

01:09:02.220 wanted to come out. So we walked the field for the first time and she froze her feet off in these

01:09:06.020 little, uh, rubber boots from Nordstrom with no insulation. And so that was in California.

01:09:11.180 Yep. And that was, uh, an event put on by the Navy SEAL foundation or family foundation or one of those

01:09:16.880 types of things. But she walked the field with me and she froze her feet off and she was in and she

01:09:20.980 just, she went hunting with me for the first time when she was seven. That was a pheasant hunt.

01:09:24.920 Okay. Which is awesome.

01:09:25.660 She got her first deer when she was seven.

01:09:27.240 Really?

01:09:27.660 Essentially since that time, we have only eaten wild game in this house. Yeah. So we just started

01:09:32.000 filling the freezers and in Coronado, I had three freezers in the garage full. So we give a bunch of

01:09:37.980 stuff out and, um, and it's great being able to bring things to people that whether they hunt or don't,

01:09:42.960 but bring that as a, as a gift and, you know, break bread over something that you put your

01:09:46.860 heart and soul into getting and bringing back. And then the kids know that, Hey, this, this doesn't

01:09:51.300 magically just appear in the grocery store. A lot of work goes into this and a lot of preparation

01:09:57.000 goes into this and it's important to be prepared and it's important to, to train and to, to be

01:10:01.900 able to go to the animal to train and be able to take it down with one shot and give thanks for that

01:10:06.920 meat and then share it with, with family and friends back here at the house. So it's just something

01:10:11.420 that, uh, is very natural thing to do. I think it's providing for the tribe, like providing

01:10:16.720 for the defense of the tribe, providing food. Uh, it's just something that's hardwired into our

01:10:20.800 DNA. So it became an integral part of our lives. And I'm involved in a partner in a hunting operation

01:10:26.700 out in Lanai, Hawaii for access deer and mouflon sheep. And we're on a couple, uh, leases and that

01:10:31.800 sort of thing. So it's a big part of our, of our life. That's cool. Those mouflon are amazing.

01:10:35.620 I was in Hawaii earlier this year. I was in the big Island hunting on the big Island, uh, black Hawaiian

01:10:40.920 sheep, but we saw some mouflon out there and they are incredible animals. They are really cool.

01:10:45.760 Yeah. They came over from North Africa in the 1850s. Yeah. People say they were a gift to the

01:10:50.100 King, but I think they were really purchased by the King. And then they, uh, took hold on a few

01:10:54.560 of the, for the islands out there, but on Lanai and it's access to your mouflon out there. And

01:10:59.080 it's a pretty unique hunting experience and obviously great for the whole family. Cause

01:11:02.460 you're on a Hawaiian Island and there are other things to do besides, besides hunt. There's a nice

01:11:06.500 spa and a nice beach and pool and no boo for dinner or whatever, um, where they actually serve

01:11:12.640 access. Is that right? Yeah. It's like a, it's, it's pretty incredible. Yeah. So when

01:11:16.880 did you pick up a bow? So I grew up shooting a bow. Oh, you did. Okay. Target shooting.

01:11:21.320 All right. Ranged in my backyard. Didn't really know what I was doing. I was taught at camp and

01:11:25.140 then self-taught. Right. So I was probably doing everything wrong. You had to relearn everything.

01:11:28.840 I love shooting a bow. There's something once again, primal about it. When I graduated buds,

01:11:32.800 my gift to myself was a bow. Is that right? And yeah, it's right in the back room here. I still

01:11:37.260 have it. So I got a bow and a surfboard. The surfboard never saw saltwater because, uh, yeah,

01:11:43.280 I finally thought he in 2000. And so it's been a couple of years. It's been sitting there. I've

01:11:46.360 never, never got on it. Cause I grew up around the ocean. I had never surfed. So I'm like,

01:11:50.040 I'm going to finally learn to surf. I love it. I love surfing movies. I love watching what these

01:11:53.100 guys do. I'm a seal. Now I should surf my second platoon. I had some amazing to look world-class

01:11:58.380 surfers and they'd go down to Mexico. I forget what the Island is in Mexico where guys go down off

01:12:01.980 Baja to surf. And anyway, they go down there on the weekends and they were amazing surfers. So I thought,

01:12:06.840 okay, we're going to Guam. I'm going to bring this board. I'm going to finally learn how to surf

01:12:10.120 two weeks into it. September 11th happened. It stayed in my room in Guam in the corner for the

01:12:14.960 entire deployment. We picked it back up on the way back through Guam. We sold it right before we

01:12:19.300 came out here. Is that right? It never saw the saltwater in San Diego. We're lucky. We have a

01:12:23.960 couple of amazing places where we can shoot out there. And of course, guy got busy with, uh, with the

01:12:29.320 teams and being focused really solely on that. So I didn't do a lot of the things that I loved to do

01:12:34.100 growing up from the rock climbing and all the other stuff. I just solely focused on the task at

01:12:39.840 hand, but, but yeah, I was still in the back here. So I grew up doing that and then got back into it

01:12:44.120 a few years ago. So once again, when I got back from, from Iraq, started exploring, getting more

01:12:48.460 into more into hunting and picked up the bow. And now, uh, of course, John Dudley is a, an amazing

01:12:54.140 instructor. What a great guy. And now I have friends that are into it and Trevor's into it. Here's who,

01:12:59.500 uh, who surprised us and came in here during this podcast. We're going to get him on here,

01:13:02.780 get him on here in a minute. Yep. Uh, Andy Stumpf. And now Jocko's got one. And so there's

01:13:07.160 this whole army of archers out there, Evan. Yeah. Hey, for from Black Rifle Coffee. So, uh,

01:13:13.660 yeah, Matt Best. So I got this whole crew of bow hunters out there and it's, uh, you know,

01:13:18.480 something, one, there's something therapeutic about it. It's almost like a sniper rifle. You want to do

01:13:22.360 the same thing every time and have a process that you go through each time to make sure your shot

01:13:28.300 goes exactly where you want it to go. So same thing with the rifle, same thing with a, with a

01:13:32.260 bow, different process, but, but there are some similarities. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I bet. It's the

01:13:36.060 same way for me. I mean, it's, it's been pretty incredible over the past year. I went on my first

01:13:40.780 hunt last year, around the same time last year. It was a bow and a rifle hunt. So I, I, um, harvested

01:13:46.220 both a deer with both and I definitely like the bow better. I do. I like the bow better. Do your kids

01:13:53.000 bow hunt as well? Yep. So my daughter has a, has one deer with a bow. My wife got a bow for my

01:13:57.320 retirement and when somebody got her a retirement gift, uh, and it was a nice bow. Yeah. She's got

01:14:03.980 a couple other things too. I got her a couple other things. So she didn't just get a bow. I

01:14:07.260 might be in trouble if that was the case, but, uh, for anybody listening out there. Yeah, exactly.

01:14:11.820 That's almost like getting up. That's one step above getting in the vacuum. Yeah. Not to be done.

01:14:16.280 Don't do that. Yeah. So, uh, so yeah, we have a family of, uh, family of archers here.

01:14:21.620 That's awesome. Love it. Very cool. Well, how do the guys connect with you? Obviously they

01:14:27.040 can pick up the book on, uh, Amazon, but how do they connect with you, follow you and figure

01:14:31.760 out what all the things you've got going on? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm new to all this, but I do

01:14:35.000 have a website official Jack car, J A C K C A R R.com. And that goes a little deeper into

01:14:41.540 some of the things that, uh, if anybody's interested in, uh, weapons, the sniper weapon

01:14:45.420 systems, uh, M four or the knives or some of the other things used in the book, I go a little

01:14:49.940 deeper on the website about that sort of thing. And then I'm going to get all the different

01:14:53.340 podcasts I've been on up there and the newsletter that you can sign up for. So I just sent a

01:14:57.500 newsletter out that talked about the things that I did in Africa, put together a little

01:15:00.760 video. So the things that I'm reading or they're doing this fall winter. So, uh, they can sign

01:15:06.140 up for that there. And on social media, I am Jack car USA on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook,

01:15:13.280 but I don't really do anything on Facebook, but put some ads and stuff up there and copy some

01:15:16.880 things on there. But two platforms was almost too much for me. So Twitter and Instagram, oh my gosh,

01:15:23.320 yeah. Twitter and Instagram are the ones that I, that I, uh, decided to focus on. That's where I

01:15:27.660 interact with people. Cause yeah, I couldn't handle, couldn't handle three. She's a little

01:15:31.280 overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a thing we just put together. You can text 44222 and write

01:15:37.060 Jack car in the message. And then it'll allow you to sign up for the newsletter through there. And,

01:15:41.940 uh, I won't bombard anybody if it's just once every month or two months or whatever,

01:15:45.260 I'll send something out just to let people know what's going on. Right on. We'll sync it all up.

01:15:50.220 I was going to ask you this question because I've asked all of my guests this,

01:15:53.040 but I didn't prepare you for it, but I think you can handle it. And the question is,

01:15:56.320 what does it mean to be a man? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great question that a lot of people are

01:16:01.600 probably asking themselves today because they don't grow up in a society that, that necessitates

01:16:06.280 that they do some of the things that I think make somebody a man, but it's really providing

01:16:10.540 for your family, not just financially, but emotionally and being prepared to defend them

01:16:17.980 and raise those kids to be good citizens. So if I could encapsulate it in just a couple few words,

01:16:25.140 that would be it.

01:16:26.540 Right on. Definitely something I agree with. Well, I've really enjoyed this conversation and

01:16:30.160 getting to know you. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better. Obviously the book was great.

01:16:33.900 Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'm looking forward to the others so I can run a few

01:16:37.400 more miles and, uh, just appreciate what you've done. Appreciate your service. Appreciate the way you're

01:16:42.020 showing up. Hey, thanks so much for coming up. Gentlemen, there it is. The powerful conversation

01:16:48.520 with Mr. Jack Carr. I told you it was a little bit different. Uh, him and I sat down in person. I'm,

01:16:53.780 I'm liking doing these interviews face to face and rolling into the new year. I'm going to do a lot more

01:16:58.840 in-person interviews, including an upcoming podcast with the one and only David Goggins. But, uh, guys,

01:17:05.240 if you liked what Jack and I talked about today, I would highly, highly encourage you to go out and pick

01:17:11.060 up a copy of the terminal list. And he's also got a new book coming out, which is called true believer.

01:17:16.560 So depending on when you're listening to this podcast, uh, you can pick up one or both of those

01:17:21.280 books. And I would be very, very surprised if this series doesn't turn into a movie. In fact, it likely

01:17:27.900 will. So do that. You can head to order of man.com slash one nine seven as an episode 197. Uh, and you

01:17:37.940 can get a link to the terminal list. So you can pick it up there. Uh, you can go wherever books

01:17:43.120 are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever you're doing that thing. And then also I am giving away

01:17:47.160 two signed copies of the terminal list to sign copies. And here's what you need to do. You need

01:17:51.840 to head over to Instagram right now today, as quickly as you can, if you're not following me,

01:17:57.940 you need to be following me at Ryan Michler, R Y A N M I C H L E R. I'm going to give the instructions

01:18:05.780 on how I'm going to give these books away, whether you have a book or you want to give

01:18:09.340 it as a gift. These are two signed copies of a very, very good book that helped me get

01:18:13.880 through a lot of running over the past month or so. Anyways, guys, go check it out. Go

01:18:18.800 follow Jack. Let me know what you thought. Let him know what you thought about the conversation

01:18:22.220 and we'll go from there. I appreciate you guys as always being on this, uh, this journey

01:18:26.640 with us. We need more men in this fight. I'm honored. I'm proud to stand shoulder to shoulder

01:18:31.400 with you and reclaiming and restoring what it means to be a man. Please share this podcast,

01:18:36.240 leave a rating review, let others know what we're doing here and list others in the battle

01:18:40.600 and in the fight. I couldn't be more grateful for you and all the things that you are doing.

01:18:45.480 It inspires me to be a better man as well. So I'll let you get going for the day guys.

01:18:49.580 Make sure you tune back in for tomorrow's ask me anything where Kip Sorensen and I field

01:18:54.480 questions from you and answer those questions to the best of our ability. Get a lot of those

01:18:58.900 things right, get a lot of those things wrong, but, uh, it's entertaining nonetheless. All right,

01:19:03.200 guys, go out there, take action, become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to

01:19:09.040 the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you

01:19:13.860 were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - December 24, 2018

The Terminal List ｜ JACK CARR

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