The Megyn Kelly Show - Delta Force Operator John McPhee on Afghan War Stories, Keys to Leadership, and America as a Friend

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00:00:31.000 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.620 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.840 On this Memorial Day, we honor all of the brave men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice

00:00:51.320 to keep the United States of America free and prosperous.

00:00:54.080 As we do every Memorial Day, we are bringing you the story of a remarkable veteran.

00:00:59.100 And what a story this vet has. Joining me today is retired U.S. Army Special Operations Sergeant

00:01:04.780 Major John McPhee, a.k.a. the Sheriff of Baghdad. John served our country for over 20 years,

00:01:11.740 specializing in various special mission units and combat experience across multiple theaters,

00:01:16.060 including Afghanistan and Iraq, where he hunted both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

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00:02:32.020 coming back for more. Again, that's riverbendranch.com, code MEGAN. John, great to have you.

00:02:39.020 Thank you.

00:02:39.540 How are you doing?

00:02:39.880 Uh, pretty good. Pretty good. Quite a lead up there.

00:02:43.160 Well, my God, I mean, you've done a lot.

00:02:45.160 I've tried. I've tried.

00:02:46.500 When I say that, when you hear that intro read, given all the time that you spent, you know,

00:02:50.160 serving the country, what's the one that like you focus on? Like, that's the one thing that

00:02:54.540 really kind of defined the surface in my mind.

00:02:57.260 Um, man, kind of none of that, I guess. You know what I mean? Like, uh, later in the war

00:03:03.480 as leadership, like, that was a challenge. You know what I mean? Those like the battle

00:03:09.760 of Tora Bora, I was a new guy. Like, let's go kill everybody. You know what I mean? And

00:03:14.060 then the war rages on. You learn, you're more experienced. Uh, you just learn as it goes

00:03:22.360 on. You're going to learn different lessons. Everybody's going to do this. Uh, and I think

00:03:25.960 the lessons I learned as a young guy, uh, weren't the lessons I needed.

00:03:32.880 Really? Yeah. Everybody learns, right? Everyone makes mistakes.

00:03:36.620 When I read your bio, I thought the opposite because you had a very rough childhood and

00:03:41.200 I thought it made him one tough SOB.

00:03:44.500 Maybe. Yeah. And, you know, capable of doing what needed to be done in like the darkest

00:03:49.720 days of Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:03:51.640 Yeah. And so I'm a reg, I tell, I tell everyone this, uh, I'm a regular guy. I do everything

00:03:59.460 everyone else does. Uh, I joined the army and I think when, when 9-11 happened, I was too

00:04:08.520 far in to like choose a different life. You know what I mean?

00:04:13.240 Mm-hmm. Let's start back at the young John South side of Chicago.

00:04:17.880 Yeah.

00:04:18.540 Only white kid in the class.

00:04:20.160 Yeah. For a long time.

00:04:21.400 How'd that happen?

00:04:22.420 Uh, I don't know. You get, you get in fights or you go to ding dong, they call it ding

00:04:28.140 dong school. That's where kids that fight all the time. Uh, and you end up there.

00:04:33.220 How did your parents settle in a neighborhood where you would wind up being the only one

00:04:36.760 white kid in the class?

00:04:37.520 That's where we lived to like, it's South Chicago. It's where we lived. You know what

00:04:42.360 I mean? I would say the South Chicago of the seventies, eighties was like a, a different

00:04:49.300 place.

00:04:49.920 Mm-hmm. So I know that you were very badly bullied on the bus every day.

00:04:54.880 I heard you telling our pal Sean Ryan about that. I mean, it was every day they beat

00:04:58.620 you up daily. Well, no till they got me a cab. I mean, it must've been bad for the South

00:05:03.700 side of Chicago school system to get you a cab every day to school.

00:05:06.700 I think, uh, yeah, yeah. It cost, well, it cost them a lot of money cause the police would

00:05:11.880 have to come to the bus on the side of the road. They'd have to break up the fight and

00:05:16.860 then the seats were broke. A window was broke. And then the school's got to pay for all of

00:05:21.360 that. And then by the time we get to school, school would be over.

00:05:23.720 How old were you?

00:05:25.380 Uh, I don't know. Uh, sophomore, freshman, maybe sophomore.

00:05:30.720 That's so sad. I have a freshman and the thought of that happening to him every day is upsetting.

00:05:35.920 I mean, it's heartbreaking. Your parents never intervened. Did they know?

00:05:40.900 Oh, they knew. Yeah.

00:05:42.780 Did they do anything?

00:05:44.520 What are they going to do?

00:05:45.900 Get you out of there.

00:05:47.840 That would have been a good idea. Uh, they probably never thought of that. That's a good

00:05:52.020 idea. So what was the story? Were they just young? Substance abuse?

00:05:56.120 No, I think my parents were young. I think my mom was, I don't know, maybe always kind

00:06:01.420 of maybe just bitter as a lady. You know what I mean? She was like the, like mean divorced

00:06:07.700 lady most of the time. Um, and like, I just think that's how people thought their lives

00:06:14.420 should be. I don't know. Do you have siblings? Yeah. I have a brother. Is he older or younger?

00:06:19.480 Older. So did he go through this too? Yeah. But he's just a little older than me. Yeah.

00:06:23.380 Mm-hmm. But I just can't imagine like a mother allowing this to just keep happening to her child.

00:06:30.040 Um, yeah. Well, here I am. You know what I mean? What are you going to do?

00:06:33.740 Did you like maintain, I know you wound up living in a brothel, which is another interesting

00:06:38.420 story, but did you, did you keep contact with your mom? Like,

00:06:40.860 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was she still around? No, she died. Uh, I don't know, a while ago.

00:06:45.880 So you, did you, were you close? Um, I mean, yeah, as close as you could kind of be with

00:06:51.980 someone that you know is always like mean, bitter. Wow. You know what I mean? What

00:06:57.260 happened in her life that left her there? I don't know. I don't got the energy to like

00:07:01.900 hang on to that much shit. You know what I mean? Yeah. Good. Yeah. So. No, we always joke

00:07:06.740 my, um, husband's brother, they're Presbyterian and he always jokes when you're, when you're

00:07:12.040 thinking about something like that, push it down, push it down. Yeah. He's not wrong. I mean,

00:07:16.860 on some things you gotta let it go. Yeah. Like letting it go is the better way. You know what I

00:07:21.300 mean? But the beatings, that would be tough to let go. I mean, I just feel like, did that create

00:07:26.080 any resentment in you? Um, I don't know. Yes. Uh, I mean, of course it did. It did. It

00:07:37.060 didn't. I mean, look, I look at it this way. I turned out the way I turned out. Um, and

00:07:42.580 I think anybody in, in the situations I was in would come out the same way. And then you

00:07:50.460 have to realize like, uh, you gotta want to choose good. You know, it's easy for people

00:07:55.940 to be bad. And I say this all the time. No one has bad intent, but shit gets fucked up.

00:08:01.700 Oh, can I say that? Yeah, you can. Yeah. I wouldn't have had you on if you couldn't say

00:08:05.140 that word. That's your favorite word. Yeah, I know. Right. Uh, I'm trying to be nice,

00:08:09.120 but shit gets fucked up. So, you know, I don't think my parents have bad intent. I don't think

00:08:15.080 there were bad people. I think they were young. I think they drank, you know, anytime you drink,

00:08:20.040 like, you know, I used to drink a ton. Uh, but, uh, anytime you drink, like, you know,

00:08:26.060 of course there's going to be drama. That's it, it, it takes your filters away. You know

00:08:31.480 what I mean? Like it's probably a better way to deal with and telling someone just, you

00:08:36.180 know? So I think it's just like a product of being young. I don't think anyone had a

00:08:41.120 bad intent. I just think it, it is what it is. And, and I tell you, it's probably, it's

00:08:45.760 generational. I mean, I'm not the only one, you know what I mean? But I would say

00:08:49.140 it's generational and I'd say there's kids in the same neighborhoods living about the

00:08:53.680 same life and their parents were probably in school with me. You know what I mean?

00:08:57.320 Like, and I think that's, uh, just how it works. It's like a cycle.

00:09:01.360 Does it create like a resentment toward black people? If you have black schoolmates beating

00:09:06.460 you up every day? No.

00:09:07.560 How do you get past that? I could see how that would cause some, you know.

00:09:10.700 I was the easy target. Like, you know, uh, later in school, I didn't get beat up every day

00:09:15.740 because I, I realized I learned to fight. I could protect myself and like a lot of the

00:09:22.920 actual gang leaders in that, like they respected that. And, uh, so I didn't really have, I had to

00:09:29.400 earn my way in, I guess. But once I earned my way in, it was fairly easy for me. I mean, uh,

00:09:36.220 and I, I look at it this way is like, you know, look, you could be the victim. Okay, great.

00:09:42.100 And what's next? What's that going to do you? How long are you going to do that for?

00:09:46.480 You know what I'm saying? I'm guessing that, um, given the way you described the school system

00:09:50.300 there, you were not on the college track and you knew that. Yeah. Yeah. Did you know you're

00:09:55.640 going to wind up in the armed forces though? Was that a goal? Um, you know, I knew I wanted to join.

00:10:01.460 I kind of joined late. I was almost 21, but, uh, I wanted to join, but, um, I didn't know like when,

00:10:08.200 you know what I mean? And then one day I was just like, fuck it, let's go. Okay.

00:10:12.380 We'll get to that. But, um, I've got to spend a minute on the brothel since I mentioned it.

00:10:15.840 How does, how did two guys, two kids wind up living? Um, well, um, I don't know. You know,

00:10:22.700 they say hookers have a heart of gold. You know what I mean? Uh, is that what happened? A hooker

00:10:28.700 took you in? Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we weren't the only kids, you know what I mean? But, um,

00:10:33.740 yeah. You weren't? No. Who else was in there? How many kids did they have? She had kids and like,

00:10:38.440 so me and my brother helped raise other kids, stuff like that. Well, what happened to your parents?

00:10:42.100 Um, me and my brother decided we would be better on our own.

00:10:46.540 How old were you here? I don't know. 12, 13, maybe pre high school.

00:10:52.340 So you went back with your parents by 15 when the, the bus situation was happening?

00:10:57.040 No, I went to school myself. Okay. Walk me through it. So you're growing up,

00:11:01.380 you're with your parents until around 12 and then you wind up living at a brothel.

00:11:04.760 Me and my brother. Yeah. How'd you get connected with this woman running the brothel? Uh, well,

00:11:08.700 I was living with my, I guess my step-mom anyway, it's a mess, you know, but, uh, I was living with

00:11:15.020 my step-mom and then me and my brother just moved over there and they were nicer to me than anyone

00:11:20.160 else. I knew, you know what I mean? So, and was that what you were there for the duration until

00:11:24.740 you hit 18? Uh, no, I was only there for a little bit. Um, let's see what else happened. Um,

00:11:31.660 I don't know. I didn't live there that long. Like just, I don't know. High school, some,

00:11:36.760 most of my high school years, but that was it. Okay. Yeah. So now you got to find a direction

00:11:41.140 once you hit 18, right? You got to do something. Well, I always worked. I've been working since I

00:11:45.560 was a little kid. I was a welder. I worked on trucks. So that's another thing I did is I always

00:11:50.560 showed up to work on time, put myself to work, like earn money. You had a couple of skills that

00:11:56.300 are completely foreign to me, like being good with an engine and being a good navigator. Yeah.

00:12:02.260 I don't, I think you're born with that. You're not born with that. Am I wrong?

00:12:06.540 I don't know. Maybe. Did you always have that ability, that sense of navigation? Cause you,

00:12:10.800 like you really needed it. It would become very important to you. It would. In your military. I am

00:12:15.500 very good at navigation. Um, I don't know. I guess you're born with it. Cause I would have never

00:12:19.240 thought on, I've never not been good at it. Have you, have you, do you get lost a lot?

00:12:23.400 Never. I've always lost. You don't understand when you don't have this gift. It's so frustrating.

00:12:28.500 I'm at the point when I drive, whatever my instinct is, I know to do the opposite, like a

00:12:32.840 George Costanza situation. Like I just know, do not, whatever my instincts are telling me it's wrong

00:12:37.420 when it comes to directions, I'm missing this chip. You could get a GPS. Well, I do. Thankfully I live

00:12:43.460 in 20. Yeah. Nowadays, like I could get lost nowadays. I'd say that only because like,

00:12:48.800 I just listened to the lady on my phone turn left. Okay. Yes. Uh, so, but no, I have a pretty

00:12:54.780 good sense of direction. I think maybe it's natural. I don't know. So what, during these

00:12:58.860 formative years, before we go off and join the military, are you, do you dating? Is there a

00:13:04.060 special woman in your life? No, not really. Nobody. No, like you hadn't been in love yet.

00:13:10.180 Um, yeah, no, I pretty much avoided people most of my childhood. You know what I mean?

00:13:15.220 Did anything happen in the brothel that would deflower you or? Uh, no comment. Okay. I just

00:13:25.180 saying, it seems like an obvious thing to do. Um, okay. So you originally wanted to join the

00:13:32.700 air force. Why? Yeah. Uh, well I was a mechanic, right. Uh, very mechanically inclined. Uh, I was

00:13:39.320 a welder as well. I fixed a lot of semi trucks, broken frames, um, dump trucks, whole wall collapse

00:13:46.680 stuff. And it'd take me like weeks to rebuild these trucks, but it's kind of what I did.

00:13:50.540 And then, um, and then, yeah, uh, I figured I could do this for the air force. You know what

00:13:56.760 I mean? And then, uh, the biggest thing was like, my hands were like always black, like

00:14:01.960 cracked fingers. Like you're always welding. It's always dirty, uh, greasy, dirty stuff

00:14:09.060 working on these, uh, trucks. Right. And like, honestly, my thought was no girl is ever going

00:14:15.280 to let me put my hand in her pants. If she sees my hand, you know what I mean? There's

00:14:19.560 just, it's not happening. You know what I mean? Does that stuff not come off with the

00:14:22.400 right soap? I don't care how much soap you got. Like when you work like that, like your

00:14:27.420 hands are black. So, uh, yeah. So, uh, I figured I got to do something else. You know what I mean?

00:14:33.100 Like I, I just can't do this forever, you know, only because I was always dirty every day and

00:14:38.460 you couldn't, you couldn't like not be dirty. Like even your days off, you couldn't wash and

00:14:43.700 you weren't clean. You know what I mean? So, uh, I figured, well, maybe now's the time

00:14:48.000 to join the army. And so what happened at the air force? They said, uh, I didn't have

00:14:54.740 high enough skills to, uh, be a mechanic, which I was, uh, they told me, uh, I could be

00:15:01.780 admin and I'm like, okay, what's that? Maybe I'll do this. What's the admin? And, um, he

00:15:06.820 was like, well, you'd type memos, maybe process awards. And I was like, my mom's a secretary.

00:15:12.860 Like, that's what that sounds like. I'm out, you know? Yeah. Talk about misjudging

00:15:17.320 a man. Yeah. And, uh, they're like, son, have you talked to the Marines of the army yet?

00:15:22.240 And I'm like, uh, no, I didn't even think of it, you know? So I went to the army.

00:15:27.100 Why the army? Uh, well, a buddy of mine was an airborne

00:15:30.460 ranger and said how great it was. So I just went down there and told him I wanted to be

00:15:34.200 an airborne ranger. Did they give you a hard time? Oh yeah. They did too? Oh yeah.

00:15:38.160 Yeah. Everyone's giving you a hard time. Oh yeah. Why? Well, I had like a, so first off,

00:15:42.000 I had a mullet, like, okay, but who didn't have a mullet? You know what I mean?

00:15:45.800 What year are we in now? We've got to be like, uh, 90s, 80, no, 90, 89. Yeah. Yeah. You're my age.

00:15:53.360 I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I had a mullet and they're like, you know, guys like, yo, Bob,

00:15:58.360 Hey, this guy wants to be a ranger. And they come out and they like laughed at me.

00:16:03.360 Don't they shave your head anyway? What do they care what your hair looks like?

00:16:05.880 I don't know. But, uh, yeah, I was just like this skinny mullet head kid, you know, and, uh,

00:16:11.100 they didn't believe in me, but I didn't care, you know? Right. You, you might've been used to that

00:16:15.500 feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I figured, I figured, well, Bob was a fat bald guy anyway. So like, you know,

00:16:21.220 Bob, you're not impressive. And the guy I was talking to seemed like a dullard. So it's not like

00:16:26.060 these guys impressed me. I just knew there was more to the army. You know what I mean?

00:16:29.420 So this is all before nine 11, you know, you're, you're signing up, but you don't know exactly

00:16:33.740 what you're signing up for. I assume it's just, I want to be part of the military.

00:16:37.820 Yeah. I had no idea. I didn't know if I was doing like in my day, it was like,

00:16:41.240 you sign up for the college money. You know what I mean? Like people did. Uh, I didn't know why I

00:16:46.660 signed up and I definitely didn't think I needed college money whatsoever. You know what I mean?

00:16:51.680 Um, but I, I joined, uh, all my family, you know, turned out it's like a family business,

00:16:56.620 but my grandpa was both my grandpa's, my great grandpa, world war two. Like, so, uh,

00:17:02.720 it turned out a lot of people in my family were in the service and like, no one really talked about

00:17:08.300 it. You know what I mean? That's pretty cool. Yeah. So you escalated up the ranks. It seems to me

00:17:14.420 pretty quickly. You like, you got moved to from thing to thing, challenge to challenge,

00:17:18.260 some of which were a surprise to you, but it didn't sound like you had a lot of failures as you

00:17:22.620 were making your name. Tons. You did daily, daily failure. Oh yeah. They fail quick. Let's get it

00:17:30.660 over with. Maybe we'll get it right by the end of the day. How did you do in like the military

00:17:34.580 setting? Because I would think with your background, you weren't exactly big on rules.

00:17:38.440 I don't like rules. Yeah. So how'd you, I mean, that that's gotta be a problem in basic training.

00:17:42.740 Um, not really. I mean, it's a game, you know what I mean? And their trash talk was great,

00:17:47.420 man. Basic training. Like you enjoyed that. Oh God. They would like yell at people. And like,

00:17:53.740 I just be, I'd be like not even getting yelled at. And I'd start laughing and they just be like,

00:17:59.080 uh, my drill sergeant called me Maffy and he'd be like, Maffy do pushups. And I just start doing

00:18:04.220 pushups. Cause he'd hear me laughing. Like, oh man, the trash talk was great. Like I loved it.

00:18:09.080 You were born for that. Little did they know it's impossible to upset you.

00:18:13.060 Yeah. Well, they couldn't upset me. Yeah. You know what I mean?

00:18:15.540 Yeah. I feel like at this point in life, is it hard to upset you? You've been through so much

00:18:20.500 military wise and childhood wise. I mean, you know, like we gotta look, if you want stuff,

00:18:27.160 you gotta do it yourself. It's called responsibility. It doesn't matter your age.

00:18:30.960 I call it adulting. I hate it, but I've been doing it for a long time. So if you want something,

00:18:35.840 you gotta put in the work. Does anybody irritate you? Like, do you get irritated?

00:18:39.680 Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't like everybody. You know what I mean? Like, do you like everybody?

00:18:44.780 No, no. It's such a long list of people. I just like, see, there you go.

00:18:47.980 I cover politics for a living. So it's your list is longer than mine. Very long.

00:18:52.540 Okay. So let's go back. So then you meander over to the army. They take you. You're going

00:18:58.180 through basic training. People are getting yelled at and you're enjoying that. And what's the plan?

00:19:02.760 Just like, see what they do with you. Uh, well, yeah. Well, I had a ranger contract,

00:19:07.160 so I go through basic training, airborne school, and then I go to RIP. Explain what ranger is.

00:19:12.660 Uh, uh, the ranger regiment is, uh, it's, it's own unit in the army. They're infantry basically. Um,

00:19:25.240 and, um, nowadays they're tier one unit back in my day. They were just like, uh, specialized

00:19:31.580 infantry or whatever they called them. Right. But, uh, yeah, the ranger regiment is a way of life.

00:19:36.820 Uh, and then back in my day was RIP is what they called it. And like basic training was a joke.

00:19:44.100 We jog in the morning and sing songs. It's like summer camp, you know, in RIP, like a, some random

00:19:51.160 looking dude just takes off faster than you've ever seen another human being running. You're just like,

00:19:57.080 holy shit. Like these guys do this. Let's go. Yeah. Real talk, you know? And then, and like the

00:20:04.540 whole time, like, I mean, I didn't know if I was going to make it or not. I was just doing my best.

00:20:08.660 How long is the training? Oh, it was three weeks back then. Okay. But it's intense.

00:20:12.540 Yeah. Back then it was. Yeah. And back then it was more about creating guys that won't quit

00:20:17.360 than it was like training you at your actual job. Now from there you joined special forces. How long

00:20:24.720 did that take? Uh, I did five years in ranger battalion and then like the, the sergeant major at the

00:20:30.660 time was like sending people to like Korea or some random army shit that I wanted nothing to do with.

00:20:37.120 What did you want? I'm not that. Like combat? Not that, you know what I mean? Didn't never

00:20:44.200 wanted to go to Korea. I heard it's cold and like, anyway, never wanted to go there. Sorry. No

00:20:48.880 offense. Where were you in the States? Uh, I was in Savannah, Georgia. Okay. Yeah.

00:20:53.400 See what I'm saying? Yeah. I hear you. Uh, yeah. So especially when you grow up in Chicago,

00:20:56.660 right. Yeah. Yeah. For once. Yes. Uh, so, uh, love Savannah. Right. And I didn't want to go

00:21:02.600 anywhere. So I figured I'd hit special forces selection. At least it would like give me a path

00:21:08.920 where I might control my ending. Can you talk about that? Cause as a civilian, you hear special

00:21:14.420 forces and you think, Oh, it's cool. Something cool is happening. Like he knows shit. Like he's done

00:21:18.840 stuff. Yeah. What, what did it mean to you? Oh, I don't know. I mean like, it's okay. I like special

00:21:26.000 forces. It was a good time. Like when you were back. Oh yeah. Like the lure. I don't know. Like

00:21:31.080 the John Wayne shit when I was a kid, right? Like, yeah. Like Rambo, right? Like that's what I

00:21:37.240 thought. Yeah. Kind of, uh, in the middle nineties, not really what was happening, but, uh, later on it

00:21:44.280 got better more towards a G wad. Everything got better. What do you mean? You thought it would put

00:21:47.960 you in charge of your own? Uh, well, if I went to special forces selection, I know I would go there

00:21:53.780 next versus like coming down on orders for Korea one day. You know what I mean? Just like, Hey,

00:22:00.160 guess what came some paperwork for you? Korea. Holy shit. No fucking way. Right. Yeah. Uh,

00:22:05.700 so I wanted to like avoid that. So how do you get into special forces? Uh, you gotta go to

00:22:10.640 selection. They got selection. Like it's like a tryout. Yeah. What does selection mean? Uh,

00:22:16.420 it's not a lot of stupid shit. You know what I mean? Like it's a one day you show up. Oh no,

00:22:21.160 it's like a run. No. Okay. Special forces selection kind of works like this. It's based

00:22:26.800 off a team and you got to work in a team. Right. And it's 12 guys in a, in a, a team,

00:22:33.000 a special forces, a team. Right. Uh, and then, so you're kind of grouped in 12 guys and then

00:22:39.680 like you do like random stuff. Like you got to build these, they'll give you like one wheel,

00:22:45.780 some pipe and a 500 pound barrel. And it's like, it's got, you got to take it 20 miles that way.

00:22:52.100 Go. It's very MacGyver. Very MacGyver. Right. And then you have the right background for this too,

00:22:57.380 though. Yeah. But I, you're not in charge every day. And then if someone bad's in charge and they

00:23:02.360 talk about, they do stupid shit, you're stuck doing their stupid shit all day long. I was on the worst

00:23:08.040 team ever. I think in selection. Oh no. Some of those guys might be listening to this right now.

00:23:12.260 I don't care. They were pussies. You know what I mean? Like I do not give a shit. You know what

00:23:17.140 I mean? It's probably where that, why they are, where they are now. You know what I mean?

00:23:20.880 They were bringing you down. Trying to hold me back. So you, you made it though. You got selected.

00:23:25.300 So you get selected to then train into special forces. Yep. And then they call it the Q course.

00:23:30.840 And what's that like? The qualification. Uh, a lot of, I was an engineer, so that's the explosives,

00:23:37.060 but, uh, we do a lot of other stuff like building stuff. Like basically you're a general contractor

00:23:43.520 for like houses. They teach you that stuff. Oh, that's useful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Super useful.

00:23:48.900 Right. And then, um, explosives and a lot of explosive stuff. What, what's Delta Force and

00:23:55.000 when did you try out for that? Oh, so yeah. Uh, the mid nineties special forces, you know,

00:24:01.700 the Bill Clinton army kind of sucked, no ammo, no training, no money. Right. So, um, uh, a buddy of

00:24:09.100 mine, I was at his house. Uh, I don't know. I was on leave. Uh, we were drinking, smoking cigars and

00:24:16.940 he just gave me, um, uh, a yellow sticky with a time and place. So I was like, what's this? And it

00:24:24.540 was like this field on post. So he's like, yeah, you're going to be there at six in the morning.

00:24:28.840 It's like, it's like midnight, man. No way. I ain't going nowhere at six in the morning. Right.

00:24:34.200 I went, um, and, uh, he talked me in the go and he was a Mogadishu guy and, um, I went and that's

00:24:41.400 it. I passed. Yeah. So that was you in special forces trying to make it on the Delta force,

00:24:46.740 which is yet another sort of next elite level. But in my day, you didn't know what Delta force

00:24:52.300 was. Like if someone went there is a black hole, you just never seen them again. You didn't even

00:24:56.480 know they were alive. You know what I mean? So why'd you do it? Why'd you show up at 6am?

00:25:01.440 What else was I going to do? Sometimes I do my best work hungover. What's that?

00:25:07.980 How was the, how hard was the tryout or the, uh, Oh, so first off it ain't easy. I'm going to say

00:25:13.960 that, but at the same time, it was fucking great, man. They leave you alone. You walk through the

00:25:18.600 mountains. Like, yeah, yeah. I'm here. You got to go. Like, I don't know. Like you have maps.

00:25:24.740 You ever see like the big four already sweating. That's making me nervous. I know. It's probably

00:25:28.380 the worst thing you want to hear. I would never make it, but like you'd have maps and they're

00:25:32.240 like this big. And like the guy would give you a point and you'd be like, wait, wait. And you're

00:25:38.740 like, you got like five of these. And you're like, I got to go like three of these maps today, man.

00:25:44.320 You know what I mean? And then, yeah. And then you just go and then this, I mean, maybe they knew

00:25:50.200 even before bin Laden knew where you were going to wind up, but that was perfect training for what

00:25:56.340 ultimately would be asked of you. Yeah. 100%. I was ready. Were you in Delta Force when 9-11 happened?

00:26:01.580 Yeah. Okay. So you're doing your training, what? Still down in Savannah? Uh, I was at Brack,

00:26:06.460 Fort Brack. Okay. And then, uh, well, 9-11, I was trying to skydive to go to a free fall jump master

00:26:13.400 school. Teach people to skydive. Of course you were. That's what I do. So what happened on 9-11?

00:26:20.060 Were you, what was your reaction to that day? Well, the first plane, I was like, like, it looked like

00:26:25.500 a little plane crashed in. Yeah. We didn't know. Some drunken idiot in his, in his little plane

00:26:31.440 crashed in. Right. And then the second one was like, oh shit. And then we were grounded and that

00:26:35.900 was it. You know, then you knew it was like something bad. You knew, but unlike the rest of us,

00:26:40.980 you actually are going to have to answer the call. I mean, does that, is that exciting? Is it nerve

00:26:46.940 wracking? Is it everything? Uh, it's a lot of things, but I would say this is, uh, I was too far

00:26:54.200 in not to go. You know what I mean? I was excited, I was nervous, you know, like the whole, I say this

00:27:01.860 all the time. People are going to have a thousands of emotions today, right? Like it's just how people

00:27:06.280 work. You'll have a thousand emotions. Don't let it stop on the bad ones. You know what I mean?

00:27:11.440 I know what you mean, but it's harder to do than actually, you know, it sounds.

00:27:16.740 Maybe. I don't know. You know, people get stuck. They get stuck in sort of obsessive thinking,

00:27:20.500 especially if their life might be on the line. Uh, yeah. People get stuck.

00:27:24.400 So how do you rejigger that if that's you and you get stuck on something?

00:27:27.220 Smack them in the back of the head. Sometimes you need that. You know what I mean? Sometimes I need

00:27:31.280 that. You know what I mean? Snap them out of it. So what, what, what was the first word you had

00:27:36.060 that you were getting deployed and to where? Um, well, there's a lot of things happening

00:27:42.120 between nine 11 and before we deployed. Uh, I think the original plan is we were supposed

00:27:48.640 to save some hostages in Kabul. Uh, and then we ended up doing the Tora Bora thing. So what

00:27:54.180 we trained for and what happened were completely different animals. You know what I mean?

00:27:58.980 Do you know why? That's the way to cookie crumbles. You know what I mean? Like

00:28:04.040 follow what they tell you. Let's go. You know what I mean? You're not in charge. Someone else is

00:28:08.120 making the calls. You just got to do your best when the time comes. Was Tora Bora then the first

00:28:12.580 place you went? Yeah. Tora Bora. Wow. Yeah. All right. Can tell us about that. Tell us what was

00:28:17.600 that? Wow. How did that just describe it? Cause I've heard you talk about it, Sean Ryan. It sounds,

00:28:23.900 I mean like you were looking for bin Laden. Yeah. So yeah, we were looking for bin Laden. Um,

00:28:28.960 the Tora Bora was like a stronghold, uh, for bin Laden, Al Qaeda, whatever they would call themselves.

00:28:37.340 Right. Um, and the Russians could never get in there. Right. And, um, I think somebody,

00:28:44.520 I don't know who said it, but, uh, it was 10, it took 10 of us 10 days to do what to get everybody

00:28:51.240 out of those mountains, either kill them or have them come out and surrender. But it took 10 of us 10

00:28:56.040 days. The Russians never took it. They had 10,000 soldiers, you know? So how'd we do that?

00:29:02.300 We bombed the shit out of those guys. You know what I mean?

00:29:05.120 Mm-hmm. Thanks to all your explosives training?

00:29:07.760 Mm. Uh, no, there was more like air force stuff. You know what I mean? Unfortunately,

00:29:12.440 not my, I mean, if I had to blow them up one at a time, like that would be awesome. But,

00:29:18.220 uh, we bombed them. So it was more of an air force thing. We had a call on the radio for bomb.

00:29:22.720 Was that deployment, that, that moment when you showed up in Tora Bora the first time you ever

00:29:27.780 killed a man? Um, yeah. Yeah. War. Like, let's go. People, man, we killed hundreds of people on the

00:29:33.900 first day. Like, I can't tell you how many people died or, you know what I mean? They're just

00:29:38.880 everywhere. Side of the mountains. Like, and then sometimes guys get blowed up. There's only pieces,

00:29:43.880 you know what I mean? And, and they'd just be on the side of the mountain. Like, what do you do?

00:29:48.260 Like, well, how does that, does that affect you at all as a, you know, as a man or is it just,

00:29:52.880 no, I'm a soldier? Um, I mean, you know, you come, you, I'll tell you this. You want to come

00:30:02.020 to a gunfight and you end up dead. It's your fault. You know what I mean? They started it.

00:30:08.880 Well, and it's the Delta force. You're going to die. Like, it's not going to be a good look for you.

00:30:14.380 You know what I mean? So, uh, yeah, I just felt like, uh, all those guys needed to die. Like

00:30:19.860 they're evil. You know what I mean? Like it's evil to just like, uh, you know, Afghanistan in

00:30:25.960 generals, it's like biblical times with trucks and cell phones. Like they do fucked up shit.

00:30:33.340 You know what I mean? So the, I don't, there's no doubt in my mind that these guys needed to die.

00:30:38.520 Hmm. You know, were they connected to bin Laden? Yeah. All his like inner guys, you know what I

00:30:44.540 mean? Yeah. So in 10 days you managed to route out this, this mountain area that nobody else had

00:30:51.220 gotten to the Russians included. And then what? Well, bin Laden wrote a death letter. He wrote a

00:30:58.400 death letter. It's on the internet, but he wrote a letter. He thought he was going to die.

00:31:02.460 Is this the one where he was, this is a different letter from the one that the morons were circulating

00:31:06.180 on Tik TOK about a year and a half ago saying, this is amazing. He's so smart. He's got such

00:31:10.480 good reasons for attacking us. That happened. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. You really

00:31:15.800 wouldn't, you should stay off the internet and you should not get to know Gen Z. I don't think

00:31:20.320 you'll be happy. I don't do any social media. Well, so what happened? Cause you, you didn't

00:31:24.320 find bin Laden there, but you found all of his henchmen. Yeah. You killed him. Yeah. And

00:31:28.700 then are you like done? Because bin Laden's still out there. A fucking ceasefire, a fucking

00:31:33.720 ceasefire. And someone called a ceasefire. And I would also say, uh, there's a couple

00:31:39.440 of helicopters flew over the battlefield, which I still to this day don't know who they

00:31:43.680 were. Oh, you think he was escaping? I look at it this way. Um, if, if the first 10 days

00:31:52.920 of the war, 10 guys kill bin Laden, where's the war on terror at? Oh, this is interesting.

00:32:00.360 The checkbook would have never got open. Oh, that's really interesting. That's what I

00:32:05.320 think. So you're pretty cynical about our military industrial complex.

00:32:11.440 I wouldn't say cynical. Like, I mean, I enjoyed my time. I love grenades. You know what I mean?

00:32:17.360 Uh, but, uh, I do think like the rug was pulled out from under us.

00:32:23.520 Well, I mean, it definitely was at the end, but we're, are you talking about right here

00:32:27.120 right now when you're trying to find Bin Laden? You don't think that the military brass wanted

00:32:31.240 you to find him? They wanted it to go on and on. No, I think someone else intervened and put

00:32:36.760 him in hiding. Someone who owned helicopters. Regular people own helicopters. Who owns helicopters?

00:32:46.640 You know what I mean? And then how come I've never heard about this anywhere else?

00:32:50.940 I don't know. No one wants to talk about this.

00:32:52.660 I know. Right. See what I'm saying? But I mean, are you talking about, like I say,

00:32:56.740 the military industrial complex, like one of these big contractors, or are you talking about us, us,

00:33:01.080 us? I don't know. I mean, you can make your own guesses, you know what I'm saying? But I would say

00:33:06.820 this is like, okay, where's the story between where he lived in Pakistan and Tora Bora? Where's

00:33:11.680 that story also, by the way, I want to know that story. Do we know?

00:33:15.320 I have no, I have no idea. Yeah. You ever heard anything?

00:33:17.720 No. We need this, like these JFK files. Let's go. You know what I mean?

00:33:22.300 You actually have a shot at it right now with this administration.

00:33:24.680 Well, there you go. You talk, you know, these guys.

00:33:26.840 I got a friend over at the Pentagon.

00:33:28.620 There you go.

00:33:29.120 Maybe we can get to the bottom of that.

00:33:30.780 There you go.

00:33:32.040 Well, that's, I mean, it's unfortunately and totally understandably, so many of our veterans

00:33:37.580 are asking these questions now, including Sean, you know, and talk to him at length about

00:33:41.540 his questions about who are the good guys. And-

00:33:45.720 Oh, we're not. I don't think we are at all.

00:33:48.060 You don't.

00:33:48.520 I don't think we're good friends.

00:33:50.180 Why?

00:33:53.360 I think we deal on a short timeline, a four-year timeline. And I think everyone else has like

00:34:00.480 been in charge for 50 years. You know what I mean? And they've seen us flip-flop back and forth

00:34:06.740 and we pull, we push, we tug a war with the rope. It never ends out good. We're not good

00:34:12.940 friends. And then as soon as you don't do what we want, we're going to chuck you under

00:34:17.300 the bus and move the fuck on. You know what I mean?

00:34:19.460 Give me an example.

00:34:22.300 I don't know. Tons of stuff. You know what I mean? I'm giving you an example right now.

00:34:26.340 Where are these helicopters at? Where's the story of bin Laden from Abbottabad? That's where

00:34:33.960 the officers are trained in Pakistan. Interesting. Right? And how did he get out of Afghanistan?

00:34:41.740 He's on dialysis. You mean this guy walked over 14,000 foot mountains in the snow with

00:34:48.720 his little woolen blanket and his dialysis machine, but left all his people behind.

00:34:54.620 You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, um, but I, I think there's, uh, I think George Bush said that

00:35:03.500 are alive. And I think the Pentagon was risk adverse. And, and I think that's where the

00:35:10.020 disconnect was at that time. But I think someone else stepped in and took bin Laden into hiding.

00:35:15.620 And when we found him in 2010, in my exact time, it was, it was 20, I think 11. I was on maternity

00:35:23.860 leave with my daughter. It was an election year. So you think that was by design? Yeah. Yeah.

00:35:30.500 They were, he was more useful. He was more useful dead. Obama needed to get reelected. It's time.

00:35:36.800 And so allowed, allowed him to be killed. Yeah. So is that just your gut having been in the army

00:35:44.040 for 20 years or? Hell yeah. I mean, that's like, that's the worst possible, like take on

00:35:51.340 our commander in chief and what they might do. Like in danger, continue a war where guys are

00:35:57.380 going to kill their limbs blown off. What to improve your, so you can get the election under

00:36:03.040 your belt. It's just so. It's the way it works. Oh my gosh. It's just so horrible to even consider.

00:36:10.180 I mean, it's the way it works. Well, if I had been over there and seeing my guys blown up,

00:36:15.400 I think I'd be very angry. If, if I believe this, I'd be very fucking pissed off. Are you angry?

00:36:22.860 I mean, believing this, I mean, being angry, wouldn't get me a cup of coffee. You know what I'm

00:36:28.060 saying? I know, but either you feel it or you don't, if you, you know, um, I look at it this way.

00:36:33.040 I had a great time. I did everything I could. Uh, I did as much as I could every time I could.

00:36:41.560 And I always try to do the right thing. Uh, at the same time, like I can't control everything,

00:36:47.720 you know what I mean? And then, uh, does it make me mad? Sure. Do I hate that? Like,

00:36:52.920 you know, uh, that, uh, uh, the politicians disagree on something and it costs your son,

00:37:02.900 his life. Right. Like ridiculous. Right. But at the same time, like I was having the time of my life,

00:37:09.320 so I wasn't questioning shit. You know, anytime you drink from the bottle of hindsight, everything

00:37:14.360 gets clearer. You know what I mean? But at the time, like I didn't question it. I just want,

00:37:19.160 I was on to the next, like, uh, war was my life, you know, and I was good at it and I saved lives.

00:37:25.500 I saved a ton of lives in war. Um, all those things combined kept me back coming back to it,

00:37:32.940 whether it's right, wrong, indifferent, like, uh, these are things that I can't control. So why even

00:37:40.520 dwell on it? You know what I mean? It's, it's almost, it's, and then you'll get stuck in there.

00:37:45.260 It's muddy water. You'll get Stice quicksand. You'll sink in it. Like why this? Why that? Like,

00:37:50.360 why ask why? You haven't been through therapy. This is just your own thinking. Uh, I don't go

00:37:57.400 to therapy. No, I, you know, a therapist, like I do. I actually know a really good one, but I don't

00:38:01.760 think you need him. I don't think you got your head on your, on your shoulders. I try. That's life

00:38:05.880 therapy right there. I don't know. It's somehow you managed to get like a really clear view on all of

00:38:11.860 this, but so many guys I've talked to them come back traumatized. Well, I call it the,

00:38:17.720 the last chapter they're stuck in the last chapter. You know what I mean? Like they can't

00:38:23.900 get out of that chapter and whether, but what really happens is like the story is not over.

00:38:29.720 You know what I mean? I mean, I was under the age of 40 doing all that stuff. Well, I got a lot more

00:38:35.340 years. Like, so your life never gets better. You're never going to enjoy anything again. Like

00:38:41.120 get out of that chapter. Right. And write a new chapter. Is it the, in part like the adrenaline

00:38:47.180 rush that you miss? Like it's tough to recreate that in civilian life. Yeah. Uh, it's more than

00:38:54.620 the adrenaline rush. You know what I mean? It's so much more. Um, I mean, when you're really good at

00:39:01.080 something, it's all you want to do. And when, you know, guys are really good at something I could,

00:39:08.120 you could save lives by sending guys that are really, really good at this. You know what I mean?

00:39:12.740 So, uh, I think it's just one of those things where it's, it's a calling and it's not really

00:39:19.420 your choice. You know what I mean? But at the same time, it's a choice you got to make.

00:39:23.620 When were you in Tora Bora? Um, I don't know. December of 90 or no. Oh, one. And then you

00:39:32.220 went back, right? Yeah. I went back to Tora Bora. Yeah. When'd you go back? Uh, two, just a few

00:39:38.980 months later in 2002, I went back. And was that your like solo? How did you wind up solo in Tora Bora?

00:39:46.440 Pretty easy. I needed pop tarts. Okay. I heard that you mentioned this on Sean. Yeah. I was

00:39:54.120 getting pop tarts. So I need to clarify this. You wanted the pop tarts and, uh, there's something

00:39:59.340 else. What was the other thing? Beef jerky? Beef jerky. Okay. You needed this. So you convinced

00:40:03.920 them to send you on some mission back to like the chow hall to get this stuff? I just told my boss,

00:40:08.680 like, Hey, we doing anything tonight? I'll schedule the helicopter and I'll go to the chow hall. I'll have

00:40:14.460 our guy fill our truck. Okay. Then I got lost. What happened? Like you, you never went back with

00:40:20.460 the pop tarts and the beef jerky? I did. Weeks later. But it seemed like you got sucked into this

00:40:25.200 unit that had the good food. Yeah. And then you were off to the races. Well, it was where everyone

00:40:29.280 was. It was where all the guys were, you know what I mean? Okay. First off, uh, the defo, when they

00:40:35.780 deployed, like they have beef jerky, they have the defo, the defo. What's that? Delta force. Delta force.

00:40:43.460 The defo. Diva. I'm like, who was he? But anyway, like, uh, you're the highest army unit. You have

00:40:51.640 beef jerky, you have pop tarts, you have, you know what I mean? Like stuff army guys like might see

00:40:57.160 once a month. We should be getting every day. Cause like they're serving cappuccinos. Yeah. And then

00:41:01.780 like the food is really good because we have our own cooks and they care about what you eat. You know

00:41:07.040 what I mean? So it's, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's the army system, but it's within the army system,

00:41:13.220 which makes it a little better. Right. So I was just going to go get some pop tarts and really

00:41:17.500 it's just a resupply run. So I drive my Toyota truck on a helicopter. They fly me to Bagram. And

00:41:23.520 then, um, one of the commanders, the guy that wrote kill bin Laden was like, Hey, what are you doing?

00:41:28.680 And I'm like, I'm stealing pop. Yeah. And, uh, he was like, you want to go on a mission? And I was

00:41:35.860 like, yeah, I was like, well, you got to call my boss. And he's like, okay, I'll call him. And he

00:41:39.700 did. And then, um, I was like, what is it? You know what I mean? They're like, we want you to go

00:41:44.060 out alone. And I'm like, this sounds risky. Okay. Just happened. Like you were just there getting the

00:41:48.800 pop tarts and they were like, you know, you're, you'd be good for this. Yeah. Wow. And you, this is what

00:41:54.360 kind of you wanted to do anyway, be on your own, make your own decisions. Oh, I didn't

00:41:58.660 know if I wanted to like, never thought about it before then, but it, it turns out something

00:42:04.140 I do. So what was the mission? Why did you have to go out by yourself? Why couldn't you

00:42:06.980 have others? Well, uh, this goes back to the, the politics of it is the general at the time

00:42:13.580 wouldn't let us to do a, to hit a target in Afghanistan. We needed U S eyes on make sense.

00:42:23.180 So how do you get U S eyes on? You have to send out reconnaissance guys. And that's what I

00:42:27.840 did. Right. Uh, and then, um, but it can't, no one can leave the wire. What's the wire,

00:42:35.000 the perimeter, the base. You can't. So, so that's, so the general's like, no one can leave

00:42:40.220 the base, but you got to launch reconnaissance to get U S eyes on. Someone's going to have

00:42:44.660 to leave the base. Someone's going to have to leave the base. And that was you. Was there

00:42:48.320 another guy or is it just you? Well, the only reason they sent me is they, uh, they kept me

00:42:52.660 in because I was coming from one base to another and outstation to a major base. Yeah. I was

00:42:57.960 in transit. So they just kept me in transit for weeks. Yeah. You're like, who knows? We

00:43:02.440 have no idea where John is. Basically they had a lie about what I was doing to make the

00:43:07.360 first mission. You're just really on a search for that beef jerky. Right. You're not giving

00:43:10.600 up. No. The guys back at the original place were probably like, where the hell are the pop

00:43:15.160 tarts? They were in my truck. So, okay. They get them later. So then how long is this solo

00:43:20.860 mission to back through Tora Bora? Probably took me 10 days ish. Why are you going back

00:43:25.960 there when we already blew up the people? Uh, well, the last guy to supposedly help bin

00:43:31.840 Laden out of the Valley just came back from Pakistan with him and his sons. With bin Laden

00:43:38.460 and his sons or with his own? No, his own sons. Supposedly during the battle of Tora Bora, because

00:43:44.680 he lived near there, uh, there was, he was the facilitator of getting people in and out

00:43:50.980 of there. Okay. So we wanted to kill him or we wanted to capture? We wanted to capture

00:43:54.940 him because we thought maybe he brought bin Laden out of there. Okay. So the last lead for

00:44:02.200 bin Laden was this guy because we have everybody else, all his people, his bodyguard, his cook,

00:44:07.660 his everybody. So do they tell you where you're going and then it's just up to you to get yourself

00:44:12.320 there? Yeah. Like, did they show you that spot on the map and you're like, I got to figure this

00:44:16.940 out. Yeah. Oh yeah. All right. So they, they're like, we believe we know where he is. Yeah. Now

00:44:21.560 good luck to you. Yeah. Go find him. I did. How? Pretty simple. Like he's, it's only one Valley,

00:44:29.240 like, and there's only, you know what I mean? There's only, I had already been there. That's

00:44:32.900 one of the things. So I kind of knew the area. I knew the terrain. Right. And it's like,

00:44:37.380 are there bad guys trying to kill you everywhere? Everywhere. Yeah. So how do you get past them?

00:44:43.540 Bad guys? Like in checkpoints? Yeah. Uh, you act like a retard. Well, like an American though,

00:44:49.100 right? They knew you were an American? No. They thought you were one of them? Yeah. What? Yeah.

00:44:54.120 How's that possible? You're just pasty as I am. I have a big, because of Russians rape people,

00:44:59.260 people look like me in Afghanistan. Lots of them. Oh, wow. I didn't think of that. Yeah. So you would

00:45:05.560 act like a local and like a nutcase and they'd let you walk right by? All the time. What would

00:45:12.300 acting like a nutcase look like? Uh, well, the, so like this guy, the first time it happened to me,

00:45:17.820 this guy like jams his AK in my chest and it's like, like I'm supposed to say something. And I just

00:45:25.960 figured if I speak American right now, I'm dead. That's it. You know what I mean? So I figured,

00:45:32.060 well, I'll act like a retard. Uh, and, uh, I figured, okay, how would a retarded guy sound?

00:45:40.180 First off it'd be volume 11, right? So loud. You don't even want to listen. And then it'd be

00:45:46.300 mongoloid stuff. So I was just kind of like, and the guy's like, uh, move along. Yeah. I got the move.

00:45:55.200 Did you have your AK? Yeah. Did he know that? Yeah. Oh, so he knew like, it's not unusual to be

00:46:00.520 armed there. Even if you're not everybody, everybody's there. Okay. That's incredible.

00:46:04.940 Yeah. So you find the destination and did you get eyes on the guy? Yeah. Videotaped too.

00:46:11.040 And that's, that was the mission that don't take him out. Don't try to kidnap him. Just tell us if

00:46:15.120 he in fact is there. So now you got the evidence. Was that a moment? Like when you saw him, you're

00:46:20.760 like, Holy shit. Did you know it was him first of all, or were you just could, it could be some

00:46:23.680 rando? Well, when I was, um, I was in a truck, I was in with a bunch of people. No one knows. I'm

00:46:30.100 American. I had, as we drove by, I put my video camera under my arm and I video camera the house

00:46:38.820 and like, dude was on the front porch. Luckily. So you got a good shot of him. All of it. Yeah.

00:46:44.200 All of it. Got everything I needed. Are you sure? Cause I would imagine in the moment I've been

00:46:48.560 sort of not in this circumstance, but I've not long ago did this undercover video of somebody. And I was

00:46:53.260 like, Oh, I hope I got the shot. You don't know until you can go check it later. But this is a

00:46:57.100 very important shot to get. Dude was on the porch. It was perfect. You knew you had it. Yeah. Did you

00:47:01.920 recognize him? Uh, no, I didn't know. Okay. I didn't know. You found out later that you did in fact

00:47:08.240 get the guy. Yeah, correct. So then did we get him? Yeah. Okay. And do you think it was instrumental

00:47:14.280 in getting us to bin Laden? Uh, no, it wasn't. It was not. Madam CIA analyst whose name

00:47:23.200 we still don't know was not using that particular information and figuring out where bin Laden was.

00:47:29.400 I don't, I don't know what any of that means, but, uh, uh, it did not help. He had no idea.

00:47:35.500 Okay. All right. So what does that mean for you? Anything? Does that make you feel disappointed

00:47:40.280 about it or like, well, I always thought, well, I thought at the time, like a, they were going to

00:47:45.460 find out he was like dead in a cave later. You know what I mean? I just figured we blew him the

00:47:51.200 smithereens. It might be hard to find the parts, you know what I mean? Uh, so, and then I figured

00:47:56.840 one day the truth will come out and I kind of always knew that. So. Well, when you heard about

00:48:01.600 the raid and you saw Barack Obama on television that night, what was your reaction? I thought it

00:48:06.920 was great. You did. Yeah. I thought it was great. I mean, I mean, for whatever reason Obama had,

00:48:13.140 I thought it was great. And then I can tell you this, if I was commander in chief, the minute I heard

00:48:18.720 that I'd be like, go smoke that fool now. You know what I mean? Yep. And the discussion

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00:50:50.140 apply.

00:50:56.760 Rob O'Neill was our first Memorial Day in-depth interview back in when we launched the show.

00:51:02.220 We didn't even have a video yet. It would have been Memorial Day of 2021 right after the show

00:51:07.220 launched. And that story was just unbelievable just to hear it told firsthand. He's controversial

00:51:12.100 now. Some people don't think he should have said it was him, blah, blah, blah. What do you think?

00:51:15.820 Seals. You know what I mean? It's always fucking drama with those guys.

00:51:21.220 You know what I'm saying?

00:51:22.160 I adore him. I really admire him so deeply. I, yeah, I'm not buying into any of that drama.

00:51:28.360 All right. So now it wasn't done. Like you're, you're not done. The war is still going on. And

00:51:32.980 then you wind up going to Iraq.

00:51:34.460 Yeah. And I, and I think that was like the, you know, we're, they were gearing up,

00:51:40.060 you know what I mean? We're, we're trying to do this. They're gearing up for Iraq.

00:51:43.680 I mean, that's a nightmare. Like when you look back on that one, what do you think?

00:51:48.580 Iraq? Yeah. I loved Iraq.

00:51:50.340 What? No one says that.

00:51:52.180 Why?

00:51:52.700 I don't know. I mean, you have an interesting take on it. And I, I love to hear your take

00:51:57.740 on Saddam Hussein because you were making some good points. I hadn't considered.

00:52:01.460 Saddam, man. Like we should have left him. We should have killed his bastard sons and told

00:52:07.100 him play along or you're next.

00:52:09.180 Uday and Kusey.

00:52:09.780 Yeah. Them dudes needed to go.

00:52:11.760 But he was kind of a fan of the Christians.

00:52:14.380 He was, he was, his inner circle was all Christians. Uh, the people that touched his food, washed

00:52:21.120 his butt, like all Christian, all inner circle. And it's because of the martyr thing. You know,

00:52:26.940 if you're a Muslim, you kill yourself. You're a martyr. You go to heaven. You know what I mean?

00:52:32.080 Uh, as a Christian, you kill yourself, you go to hell. So he surrounded himself and put up

00:52:36.600 with the Christians. That's why Iraq was actually pretty Western even back then. Cause he allowed

00:52:43.720 Christians to have their own areas, do their own things. Right. And then, you know, ISIS allows

00:52:49.420 none of that. You know what I mean?

00:52:50.940 Yep. And then we had to mess with it.

00:52:52.200 So did you, you did go on a mission where you, you got, you tried to get him. I tell me again

00:52:59.660 what it was. It was like a woman, his affair partner's husband.

00:53:02.740 Yeah. Uh, is, yeah. Uh, we rolled up everybody that met Saddam, you know what I mean? And then

00:53:09.960 we used to say, look, we're in the army, like, you know, in the, you know, our intelligence agencies,

00:53:15.660 they give polygraphs and they determine their rating as sources. And like, they'd be like,

00:53:21.720 this is an unreliable source. You know what I'm saying? And we'd be like, I'm in the army. I'm

00:53:26.240 pulling every thread. Let's go. I don't care. And we go check it out anyway. Most of the time they

00:53:30.900 were wrong. Uh, yeah. Uh, go for a shock. Yeah. Go figure. Uh, but yeah. Uh, Saddam had like a

00:53:39.640 favorite sex lady. I never even heard of this.

00:53:43.060 I heard you saying she was not hot. Yeah. Like, like, I don't know what they got going,

00:53:48.700 but like, who knows what she was doing when closed doors. Yeah. There's no talent. She

00:53:52.700 must've been a real pro. You know what I mean? That's all I could think. She had to know something

00:53:57.700 about something, but, uh, like you would think like, I don't know, like you would just assume

00:54:03.840 she would be attractive. I don't know. I didn't know what to assume. Everyone pictures the affair

00:54:07.660 partner as somebody who's very hot. The wife could maybe, or maybe not. None of that happening

00:54:12.500 here. I mean, maybe had some hot ones. I didn't see them. Yeah. Different taste. Maybe she had a

00:54:16.720 routine. We have no idea. She obviously had something. Okay. So, but it wasn't her you were

00:54:22.380 looking for. It was her husband. She was married. We were, we couldn't get to her because it's hard

00:54:28.560 to get to women in Iraq. So we had to get to the husband. See what I'm saying? And what, what

00:54:33.960 information could we get from the husband? I don't know. Maybe, maybe Saddam kind of, you know,

00:54:39.440 was honey potted a little bit. He told his favorite honey pot, I don't know, something,

00:54:44.620 you know? And as a, as an army guy, not an Intel guy, I'm like, let's go. Let's look into this.

00:54:50.660 I'll do it. Yeah. I don't care. And do we get him? Yeah, we got him. Yeah. Did he know anything?

00:54:56.180 Yeah. They didn't know shit. You know what I mean? Like they didn't know shit. Uh, but we did get

00:55:00.920 him. And, uh, yeah, it was okay. This is, this is kind of legendary, but, um, I was across the street

00:55:08.540 in a minivan and I was kind of watching this shop. Um, I had two Iraqi guys that I would use.

00:55:16.900 Um, and then I had the assault force kind of park on the corner close to the shop. And then, uh,

00:55:25.060 enough time went by. We were just waiting and waiting. I told my guys to start fighting in

00:55:31.160 front of the store if too much time went by. So they start a fist fight in front of the store.

00:55:36.120 Uh, and then people come out like what's going on out front of the store. And the dude came out

00:55:41.640 and literally put his back to like the van door, the assault force. And I'm like, yo, open the door.

00:55:47.700 It's that dude right there. And they grabbed him. And then it was over and people were like looking for

00:55:54.240 him. No one even knew he was. Everyone had been watching the fight. Wow. And then later my boss

00:55:59.420 was like, man, we're so lucky that dude started the fight. I was like, I was like, that was our

00:56:03.940 guys. I was trying to speed this up a little bit. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's hot in the back of

00:56:09.880 the van. So you don't have to do the interrogation or you do? Um, I've done a lot of them. Okay.

00:56:15.520 They don't always send in like the dark arts guys from the CIA to do that crap. Like that's,

00:56:19.700 that's us too. Uh, those guys are chump change. You know what I mean?

00:56:24.660 They're to Gitmo only. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So how do you make a guy like that talk? And by the way,

00:56:31.180 easy. How do you communicate with one another? You have a translator there?

00:56:33.720 Yeah. You gotta have a turp. People speak the language. But, uh, yeah.

00:56:37.380 What do you mean easy? How is it easy? Uh, everybody talks.

00:56:40.700 They do? Oh, are you kidding me?

00:56:42.380 You torture them? What do you do?

00:56:43.640 You don't gotta do shit. It's easy.

00:56:45.340 What?

00:56:45.500 Like, yeah. Fear and common sense is a powerful tool. You know what I mean? Most of the time,

00:56:50.620 like what? Okay. Think about this. Okay. This is every human being. This is me. This is you. Look,

00:56:57.340 there's stuff that you're going to die with that you ain't telling no one about. Everybody does that.

00:57:03.900 Right. Does that make sense to you?

00:57:05.620 I don't know. I'm kind of an open book, but okay. Yes, I am too.

00:57:09.120 But there's secrets people keep to their grave, right? That's basically what I'm saying. Right.

00:57:13.980 Uh, and then there's other shit. Like what's your cousin's car look like that you just ain't

00:57:19.600 holding. It ain't worth like getting beat over. It ain't worth fighting over. Like, uh, it's a

00:57:27.720 little white car. Like this is a small point of order, but did he know that the wife was having

00:57:31.680 an affair with Saddam Hussein the entire time he did? What do you do? Was he, was he okay with it?

00:57:37.600 I'm just kind of curious what the sex dynamic.

00:57:39.100 I would imagine he felt lucky to be alive every day. Right. You know what I'm saying?

00:57:44.400 Yeah. He'd be a very easy guy to get rid of. And then you could have the side piece whenever

00:57:48.800 you wanted it, but I guess he could anyway. So what's the point of killing the husband?

00:57:53.700 I don't know.

00:57:54.560 So he gave up whatever info and did we find Saddam Hussein after that?

00:57:59.400 Uh, shortly after that. Yeah, we were, uh, look, we had to run all the, look,

00:58:03.960 manhunting is like a sweater. When like you have a yarn on a sweater, you pull it right. One of those

00:58:10.960 threads is going to, the arm's going to come off. One of those threads, you pull it out forever.

00:58:15.380 It doesn't do nothing. You know what I mean? So we're going to pull every thread.

00:58:18.900 This is the process.

00:58:19.960 Yeah.

00:58:20.960 So when you, was that the biggest thing that you did while you were in Iraq? Would you say like the

00:58:25.080 most serious thing?

00:58:26.780 No.

00:58:27.220 No. What else did you do?

00:58:28.660 Zarqawi was serious days.

00:58:30.140 Oh my God. That was dark. That was the dark stuff. You were over there with all the beheadings

00:58:34.840 and all that. Oh my God. Does it, I mean, does that scare you? You're only a man. You're a man.

00:58:40.340 I mean, I don't know. I wasn't really scared, but, uh, I did get a sword off a Zarqawi truck.

00:58:46.900 That was like a Roman short sword. And I'm like, there's pictures. I mean, I got my shirt off.

00:58:51.200 I'm like, uh, I don't know if you've ever seen those, but, uh, I wanted to, I would have cut one

00:58:56.480 of their heads off. You know what I mean? Like, but, um, no, it didn't scare me. You

00:59:01.460 know, uh, Zarqawi was a bully and he liked to pick on the weak. He didn't want to pick

00:59:06.320 on us. You know what I mean? And then, you know, um, yeah, the Zarqawi days were great.

00:59:13.220 Foreign fighters was great. I mean, I don't know. I loved it all, but, uh, like the foreign

00:59:17.980 fighters, like you just show up in front of the house, had my guy get on the bullhorn.

00:59:22.560 They'd start shooting. We'd level the house, you know, like those days were great. I mean,

00:59:28.260 uh, I think those days were great because that's when the military finally let us take

00:59:34.980 the gloves off and be like, okay, you guys do this your way. You know what I mean?

00:59:38.600 What year is this now? Oh, six, seven. Uh, yeah. Zarqawi was six. You know what I mean?

00:59:44.100 But they'd finally start to let the gloves come off. You know, I think like, I think we were,

00:59:48.980 we were throttled, uh, a lot through a lot of stuff, but I feel like through the Zarqawi

00:59:55.100 days, no one gave a shit how we were getting it done. You know what I mean?

00:59:59.600 So how long were you over there or how many deployments do you have?

01:00:02.140 Uh, I think I got 10 and then like, I got a bunch of like the surge and the stay

01:00:06.720 late and shit like that. You went back and back?

01:00:09.480 Yeah. 10 deployments?

01:00:11.000 Yeah. And then, uh, as a SARM major, I, I spent a lot of time there, but it didn't really

01:00:16.120 count as a deployment. I was back and forth. Oh, wow. So then what, like, how does it end

01:00:21.240 for you? I don't know. I don't know.

01:00:25.420 They just send you back home before the fight is done or did you fight all the way to the end of

01:00:28.620 the? Uh, no, I was a SARM major. I retired in 11.

01:00:32.280 You're getting older. Yeah. They don't let you serve forever. Really? Right. Oh man. You're only

01:00:36.340 young so long, you know, but I'll tell you what, with stem cells and shit, I could have stayed

01:00:41.120 another 10 years if modern science was hitting. It's so interesting to talk to you and hear you

01:00:45.880 talk about how fun it was. Cause it seems like the hell of war and the trauma that guys have the PTSD,

01:00:51.700 but there's something about like, what is it? Is it working with your comrades in arms? Is it like

01:00:57.200 doing the thing that you've been told to do and you're really good at it? You love that. Is it all

01:01:01.460 like, what is that? What is fun? I mean, uh, why be ashamed of trying your best no matter what that

01:01:13.900 is, I think. Right. Uh, and I think that's really what it boils down to. I mean, yeah, I could be

01:01:20.080 ashamed. Did a lot of people die? Yeah. A lot of people died. Did you be ashamed? Some of the wrong

01:01:24.720 people die? Sure. You know what I mean? That innocent people die? Sure. But like, this is war and

01:01:29.920 essentially war is you kill the bad guy and break his shit. So we can't use that shit against you.

01:01:36.160 If I was told to go do that, why am I the bad guy in this? I'm not, you know what I mean? I'm just

01:01:41.780 doing my best on a daily basis, you know? And then at the end of the day, I always seen it as I'm in

01:01:47.160 the army. I take orders. Let's go. And a lot of times I liked those orders. You know what I mean?

01:01:51.900 What was the, what was the brotherhood dynamic? Oh, uh, man, you would think it's kind of

01:01:59.880 interesting. You would think the brotherhood would have been strong. Um, but like the war,

01:02:05.160 like builds bonds. You can't, you can't get anywhere else, I guess. You know what I mean?

01:02:12.680 Like, uh, you'd think like, there's always a brotherhood, right? Well, we talk about the

01:02:18.000 brotherhood, but we just joked about seal drama, you know what I'm saying? Uh, so having said that,

01:02:23.800 uh, I think there's like guys that I'm like, I was in combat with that we have a bond. Um,

01:02:30.480 I think there's certain people I have bonds with over different stuff, but I think that bond,

01:02:35.960 the brotherhood is, is just, you know, the experiencing, uh, the best and worst of humanity

01:02:43.580 at the same time. And when your life is on the line, it just adds, I don't know, so much more

01:02:49.700 to it. I would think like you're risking it all together and any one of you might not be there the

01:02:56.020 next night. Yeah. I mean, I always say like, I, I always say, well, I said this to my guys too,

01:03:01.860 but I, we all gave uncle Sam a blank check. Get ready. Don't be mad if it gets cash, but don't be

01:03:08.840 mad for somebody when their check is cash because they died doing what they loved. Can't be mad at

01:03:14.680 that either. Were there any women in your unit? Um, maybe you're not allowed to tell me. I don't

01:03:23.840 know. Can women be Rangers? Uh, I don't know. That's a good question. I think so these days.

01:03:29.080 I don't know. Like, I don't know how it works. Did you ever have to deal with that dynamic out in

01:03:33.200 the field? Uh, like men and women serving together. Yeah. It just seems so weird to me. I don't know.

01:03:38.660 I know nothing. I think women have a very niche roles and can have very niche roles. Uh, I've worked

01:03:49.460 with women. I've had women partners. They were great. Um, but I think there's a role for them

01:03:56.380 and they're not like the one you send, uh, you know, get Zarkawi, right? There's other stuff they

01:04:02.640 do. So, uh, yes, we have, we have women always have women like, uh, and yeah, I mean, it's,

01:04:09.260 I think there's more women on the planet than men. I don't know why. Well, I'm just, I'm curious

01:04:13.020 about, I'm just back to your dating life now. Like, can you meet a woman somehow? Or you're

01:04:17.860 like, how do you fall in love? How do you like, man, I'll tell you this is I started out married

01:04:22.780 at nine 11. I've been divorced several times. It's a hard life. You know, I don't think,

01:04:28.580 I think it's a hard life because no one understands like your level of commitment.

01:04:35.600 And I, I say that in a way, like you're choosing something that might cause your death over and

01:04:44.180 over. People don't see that as rational, but they don't understand, you know what I mean? But, uh,

01:04:50.900 so I would say, I always say this is like being married was like being in prison. You could call home

01:04:56.720 and you ain't going there anytime soon. You know what I mean? Like, that's just how it works.

01:05:01.320 What do you mean? I don't think I get it. Like that's how marriage works in the army. Like when

01:05:06.380 you deployed a war, you could call home, you get your one phone call. Yeah. Call home like once a

01:05:12.220 week or something. Not going to be together a whole lot. Yeah. But you ain't come, you ain't going home.

01:05:15.740 Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's tough on anybody. I would, I would say this

01:05:18.980 only guys that had perfect relationships, their marriages survived the war. You know what I mean?

01:05:27.160 And I'd say the bulk of guys end up divorced. Do you have kids? I do. How old are they? Uh,

01:05:33.120 I stopped keeping track when they turned over 21. Okay. How many kids do you have? I have two.

01:05:39.120 Okay. Yeah. Are they good? Yeah, they're good. They're good. They're good people. Are they going

01:05:44.220 into the military at all? My son was in the army and works for the army now. Okay. So when it all,

01:05:51.480 when it ends, you know, Iraq eventually ends and Afghanistan ended disastrously and recently.

01:05:57.060 Yeah. Is that a moment for reflection on what it meant? What role you played, whether it was worth

01:06:03.500 it? Like, or no, is it just, I'm a soldier. I did my job next chapter. Well, it wasn't worth it.

01:06:08.720 I mean, everyone can see that, right? It's not just me. I don't think it was worth it at all. I had a

01:06:12.760 great time. I would say none of it was really worth it in a strategic sense, in a tactical sense.

01:06:21.640 You know what I mean? Like, honestly, but the reality is, is like, uh, man, I had the time of

01:06:26.700 my life and I, I would want anyone to know, like people, people like to thank me for my service.

01:06:34.500 And it's like, I did whatever the fuck I wanted. I don't actually need any thanks. You know what I

01:06:39.100 mean? Like a kid who was like a cook getting mortared in fucking wherever in Iraq nightly,

01:06:45.200 that kid needs to be thanked. Like I was just, I was just doing what I do.

01:06:52.420 Well, how do you reconcile it with stories like, you know, Marcus Luttrell and what happened to him?

01:06:56.980 And he's definitely got some lasting PTSD from that. It's been a rough ride back home.

01:07:01.720 Uh, yeah, I don't even get that. I was out alone all the time. Like I was out alone in Afghanistan.

01:07:08.740 I don't get how being the lone survivor. I just don't understand that story only because I was

01:07:14.660 out alone all the time. It didn't happen to me. You know what I mean? Cause the decisions I make

01:07:19.820 on the ground. Well, you're not blaming him. I'm not blaming him. I'm just saying it's so,

01:07:25.020 that's so foreign to me. I don't even understand it. Cause I can tell you this, the Taliban could come

01:07:29.940 after me. There'd be a whole lot of dead bodies for sure. And I'm just one person. I believe that.

01:07:37.640 Imagine if there was two or three of me. Bring them. I mean, that's one of the worst stories of

01:07:42.800 the war and what, what he went through is, it's awful. And I, it's not just him. You know, I was

01:07:48.480 at last year. No, it was two years ago. We talked to Dakota Meyer. He's doing great now. Um, but

01:07:54.060 you know, he came back, he won the, was awarded the medal of honor and wanted to kill himself.

01:07:59.260 Like he, there are tough, tough guys. Not, these are not weak men who they, they don't process it

01:08:07.880 the way you do. I think if you could somehow teach this, it would be extremely valuable.

01:08:12.940 I could teach anybody this. I feel like anybody could use this. People who have different traumas.

01:08:18.400 It would start by me locking you in a room and beating you first. Yeah. I know exactly what you

01:08:23.620 mean. I know exactly. I, I might sign up for that, but people would don't touch the moneymaker.

01:08:29.400 No, of course, of course. No bruises, no marks. I'm a pro. Like I, I've done a bunch of interrogations.

01:08:34.680 I got this. I mean, like, is there some sort of toughen you up, John camp?

01:08:39.620 No, there isn't. I mean, the shirt, what does it read? Team SOB. Yeah. I called you tough SOB. Same

01:08:47.080 thing. So this is not something I can sign up for. So, or I can go learn. I don't have any

01:08:51.300 classes like this. You're missing an opportunity. Leadership, right? Leadership. Can it be taught?

01:08:57.880 I think so. I think so. Like, um, most of my guys, if my guys killed somebody, I brought them all in a

01:09:07.000 room. I made everyone have a drink. I made sure I told them they did exactly right. You know, this

01:09:11.900 was expected of them, right? Like, this is your job. Like someone should thank you. And I think if

01:09:18.160 all that happens on the spot, you're less likely to carry the guilt with you later. So I believe a lot

01:09:24.980 of this is, uh, framed up poorly a long time ago. And then I believe guys ride the hall pass for a

01:09:33.560 long time. And I call the hall pass, uh, booze, but some people do drugs. Some people do, I don't

01:09:39.360 know what people do, but, uh, for me, my hall pass was booze. You know what I mean? And then

01:09:44.740 still drink or no, no more. Uh, well, I'm training for worlds right now. So I am currently not drinking

01:09:51.240 worlds in what jujitsu. Oh, wow. All you ex-military guys do jujitsu. Why is that?

01:09:59.420 I don't know. Jujitsu. It's an hour of my day where I don't have to look at the phone. It's a,

01:10:05.960 sometimes there's minutes where someone's actually like choking the living shit out of me and the

01:10:12.060 stubborn side of me is like, I'm not giving it to them. You know what I mean? Isn't it

01:10:16.160 involuntary? No. What? No. When they choke you out? No. Yeah. No. It's not involuntary.

01:10:22.120 Uh-uh. Okay. I gotta learn those moves. If you are, if you make me give it to you, I'll give it to

01:10:27.220 you. Otherwise you could choke the shit out of me and I'll just ride it, you know? But, uh, when I'm

01:10:32.020 in real survival mode, someone puts me in trouble. I got to think about what's next. My leverage, my

01:10:38.560 everything, control my breathing, my heart rate. I call that real survival mode. Like that's, um,

01:10:45.220 I'm so thankful for that. It's a, it's a clarity of some time. You know what I mean? So it's like,

01:10:52.000 you know, like people talk about runners high, like, you know, I do cardio. It doesn't make me

01:10:57.600 high ever. I've always hated it. But like jujitsu is, uh, I don't know. Sometimes when I'm in real

01:11:04.060 survival, I don't got to think about my phone. I don't got to think about my life. Are you always

01:11:07.820 going against somebody who knows what they're doing? Is it, is it usually an instructor or another

01:11:11.640 like, um, well participant? Cause I, cause I travel, I hit, I think 28, 30 different dojos

01:11:19.360 a year. I just walk in and I do worry about like out matching somebody to the point where you're

01:11:25.120 going to hurt them and get sued or I'm not going to hurt any cause permanent damage. No,

01:11:29.460 I'm a recovering lawyer. This is how I think about these things. Oh, uh, no, not at all. It's

01:11:33.800 jujitsu. Like, look, this is hurting somebody. There's not, there's hurting somebody. I'm not

01:11:38.700 going to, well, yeah, but as you get better at it, right? Like this is the point of submission.

01:11:45.180 If you thought I was going to hurt you, you could tap. Okay. So that's your escape button.

01:11:51.160 That's like the, the safe gesture. Don't, don't hurt me anymore, please. I've had enough.

01:11:57.700 Yeah. You just tap. So what are you doing now? I'm training for worlds. Cutting weight right now.

01:12:03.580 Oh, I teach people to shoot. Oh yeah. Cause you were a sniper. We didn't even get, we didn't even go

01:12:09.120 over that. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. How many guns do you own? Seriously? I couldn't count more or

01:12:18.400 less than JD Vance's mamaw had in her house when she, I don't even know how many that is. I think

01:12:23.480 it was 19. Oh yeah. Uh, I don't want to admit to anything. You know what I mean? Where are you

01:12:28.460 living? Uh, I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. No, where specifically? Give us the street ad. No,

01:12:33.060 I'm, I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. So you settled in the warmth. Uh, well I live near Fort

01:12:38.740 Bragg still. Okay. You know what I mean? And you, you work with them and do you do anything?

01:12:43.080 I don't do anything at Fort Bragg. Try not to. What do you do for fun? Like how do you let your

01:12:48.640 hair down? Uh, I do jujitsu. Uh, I off-road with my buddies. I got one of them side by side off-road

01:12:56.360 vehicles. Yeah. I do that. Cause this guy who goes in the side one, put on a little white scarf

01:13:01.580 and a little leather helmet. He'll get it muddy. I wouldn't bring light on these trips. Uh, but

01:13:08.120 yeah, we, we normally off-road in the Arizona mountains yearly. Uh, yeah, we go to this place,

01:13:13.580 crown King oldest bar. There's no dirt. It's all dirt roads, no pavement, stay up there in cabins.

01:13:19.760 And it's kind of like, I don't know. Uh, we off-road, we drive, I eat cheeseburgers and I drink whiskey

01:13:26.840 and then sounds right on brand. I do that all weekend. I don't shower either. I don't even

01:13:32.680 care. Let's go. We're four wheeling. Okay. So you shower, just not on this particular trip.

01:13:39.040 Yeah. But, um, I four wheel, uh, man, I, you know, and then I just, I love teaching people to

01:13:45.300 shoot. It's kind of like the thing I'm really good at. Wow. Yeah. Um, what do you think? I know you're

01:13:51.700 not, you don't really watch the news. Do you follow politics at all? Like, what do you think of

01:13:55.800 Trump? What do you think of Pete Hickseth as the top guy at Pentagon? Yeah. Well, first off,

01:14:00.100 talk to Pete. I need one of these Pentagon jobs. Tell me I shouldn't be the deputy of special

01:14:06.360 operations. Is that what you would like? Hell yeah. Let's go. I'll make a call. Oh man. Uh,

01:14:11.560 but, uh, look, I like Trump. Uh, I like Vance. I like Pete. Uh, I like what they're doing. Um,

01:14:21.300 and like, what can I say? Like, I think they make good inherent decisions like for long term,

01:14:28.600 which we're not really used to here. You know what I mean? But, uh, I think they're all good.

01:14:33.200 I don't watch the news or nothing, but I think they're good so far. I think I thought Trump made

01:14:37.740 great policies last time. You know what I mean? What have you seen enough of Pete to know what

01:14:43.300 you like about him? Uh, oh man, I got a ton of buddies that know Pete and like everybody loves

01:14:48.520 Pete. You know what I mean? Like that's all I needed to hear. And you know, like the,

01:14:53.140 look, the Pentagon, uh, we ain't won a war lately. And you know, these generals will be like,

01:15:00.740 oh, well, he was just lower enlisted saying that, but like, yo, I watched you guys every day,

01:15:06.700 make fucked up decisions. I try to tell you and you'd be mad at me. You know what I mean? Like,

01:15:12.000 not that I was always right, but like sometimes you're wrong also. And it's the,

01:15:17.460 I think it's the hubris of the Pentagon that needs to be taken down a few notches. You know

01:15:21.640 what I mean? Yeah. And like, uh, anyway, yeah. Uh, so I would happily serve this country and make

01:15:29.300 everything better. You know what I mean? That's awesome. Oh, we need, we need guys like you

01:15:33.500 raising your hands. Thanks. Well, I love that you came in to tell us your story. It's such an

01:15:38.760 interesting man. I love you. I love everything about you. What a character you are. Thank you. I hope

01:15:43.480 we can find a way to get you back serving. Let's go. Let's go. Let's call Pete. Pete,

01:15:47.780 where are you at? Let's call DJT and see if he's got something. Call him right now. Get him on the

01:15:52.740 line. I'm in. I, whether you want to hear it or not. Thank you for your service. Oh, you're welcome.

01:15:57.880 It's a pleasure to meet you. Oh, thank you. Yeah. All the best to you.

01:16:01.760 Oh, didn't I tell you he's unbelievable. What a guy, John McPhee. Thank you. Once again. Um,

01:16:08.600 you know, it's just incredible that the stuff that our troops go through and the different mindsets

01:16:11.660 that they develop along the way. Right. It's our honor to talk to him. It's our honor to talk to

01:16:15.980 all of our troops who have served in battle. And if you, if you're into what you heard today,

01:16:20.600 you should go back and listen to the earlier Memorial Day shows that we've done since we

01:16:23.820 launched. Uh, the first one was in 2021 and that was Rob O'Neill. Um, we've done, uh, Marcus Luttrell.

01:16:30.620 We've done Dakota Meyer, uh, recipient of the medal of honor. It's just, these guys are,

01:16:35.760 they're living life around us. They're kind of back to normal in to the extent one can be

01:16:40.420 with having these incredible backgrounds. So it's well worth our time to take a moment to learn

01:16:45.800 from them and remember what they and our other troops have done for us, uh, while we've been

01:16:50.340 sitting at home in our air conditioning. Right. So that's what today is all about, especially

01:16:53.640 honoring, honoring the fallen. We do that here. Thank them and their families for their service.

01:16:58.740 In the meantime, I hope you have a great day with your families and I hope you have some time off.

01:17:02.360 You can think about what matters and I hope you'll tune in tomorrow when we have a live show

01:17:07.180 and a special Kelly's court. Everybody loves Kelly's court and we are bringing it to you,

01:17:13.120 uh, tomorrow. So don't miss that. We'll see you soon.

01:17:18.800 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - May 26, 2025

Delta Force Operator John McPhee on Afghan War Stories, Keys to Leadership, and America as a Friend ｜ Ep. 1080

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