The Megyn Kelly Show - Marcus and Morgan Luttrell on the Afghanistan Debacle, Loving America, and Never Quitting

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00:00:30.980 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:33.160 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.720 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:44.660 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:46.340 And it's got to be our most special edition.

00:00:49.240 It really does.

00:00:50.000 I've been looking forward to this for months.

00:00:51.980 I've had viewers and listeners emailing the show, texting, or commenting on our social media,

00:00:58.860 wanting to hear from Marcus Luttrell.

00:01:01.620 Oh, so honored to finally be able to bring him to you, and also a double dose of goodness,

00:01:08.060 his identical twin brother, Morgan Luttrell.

00:01:10.800 These two are going to make you stand up and cheer.

00:01:15.060 They're going to show us how to love America, how to raise little patriots, how to raise tough kids

00:01:19.960 who never quit.

00:01:21.180 They're going to make you understand what it is that has made us feel like we live in a special place

00:01:28.160 for all this time, right?

00:01:29.620 Why do we fall so in love with our military men and women?

00:01:32.400 Just listen to them, and you'll be reminded of all of it.

00:01:35.760 Both guys, raised in Texas, became Navy SEALs, were deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan,

00:01:42.620 serving our country nobly, bravely.

00:01:44.780 Um, and this is their first time speaking about the exit from Afghanistan and how it was handled

00:01:51.600 by Joe Biden and whether it's caused them to think differently about whether it was all worth it.

00:01:57.840 Uh, they have not yet addressed this.

00:01:59.540 They have a podcast, uh, they, they co-host a, a very worth your time podcast called the

00:02:04.060 Never Quit Podcast, and it's super fun.

00:02:06.000 They interviewed their mom once, uh, and many others, and, and, um, they haven't actually

00:02:10.380 gone there on the podcast.

00:02:11.280 So we're honored to have those first remarks for you.

00:02:13.440 I think you'll find them interesting.

00:02:14.880 And they're also right now running something called the Team Never Quit Foundation, which

00:02:19.160 supports veterans and the families of the fallen.

00:02:23.160 They've had a lifetime of service.

00:02:25.000 It continues to this day.

00:02:26.660 They've been through hell, especially Marcus.

00:02:29.280 Morgan too, though.

00:02:31.100 And, um, you know, it's not every day you get to spend an hour and a half with two guys

00:02:36.380 like this in any, in any time of your life.

00:02:38.960 This was a true honor for me.

00:02:40.680 I hope you enjoy it.

00:02:41.660 Thanks for listening in one minute.

00:02:43.620 Here they are.

00:02:49.720 Hey guys, how are you?

00:02:51.440 Miss Megan, how are you?

00:02:53.220 I'm great.

00:02:54.200 All right.

00:02:54.400 So you decided to mess with me by dressing the same.

00:02:57.100 You already look the same.

00:02:57.980 Thank you for the beard differential.

00:02:59.340 That'll help.

00:02:59.920 Yeah, we put a pin on his, on his, uh, I was going to wear a tie, but they told me to be

00:03:04.780 comfortable.

00:03:05.340 So I like it.

00:03:06.780 No, I like it.

00:03:07.300 All right.

00:03:07.500 So just for the audience at home, we've got, we, we've got Marcus on the left and,

00:03:11.340 and Morgan on the right.

00:03:12.400 So, uh, when they're watching this on YouTube, they got you.

00:03:17.040 You know, we'll get to that.

00:03:18.480 Cause I understand you guys are fond of switching it up a little.

00:03:21.620 It has happened a time or three throughout our tenure on this planet.

00:03:25.000 You're going to be blessed with a twin.

00:03:26.280 You might as well utilize it.

00:03:27.220 You have to own it.

00:03:27.960 I can see that.

00:03:28.680 Yeah.

00:03:28.780 How old are you guys now?

00:03:29.600 We're celebrating our 23rd anniversary from being 21 soon, which 45 fixed to be heading

00:03:36.960 to the 46th anniversary.

00:03:38.660 Okay.

00:03:38.880 That makes sense to me.

00:03:39.700 Okay.

00:03:40.420 So let's dive right in on, um, on the week's news, because I've been dying to get your reaction

00:03:44.380 to the events this week in Afghanistan.

00:03:46.960 Let's start with you on that, Marcus.

00:03:48.560 What do you think?

00:03:49.720 It's, it's tough to watch.

00:03:51.460 Obviously we have, uh, all of us have a connection there.

00:03:54.520 So the, the scenario that's unfolding right now with Americans still there waiting, uh,

00:03:59.920 feeling that, that, that lost feeling that sense of hope, not hopelessness, I wouldn't

00:04:04.300 think because we're still here.

00:04:05.300 I I've had that.

00:04:06.320 I mean, literally over there by myself, not knowing what to do.

00:04:09.320 And y'all came and got me.

00:04:10.660 I never forgot that.

00:04:11.740 I spend the rest of my life trying to make my soul bleed showing each American how precious

00:04:17.140 that is to me.

00:04:18.420 And when you get, when something like this happens to you, you have a taste for what America

00:04:22.720 truly is.

00:04:23.520 I mean, I, I wanted to hug the first person I saw and to, it ought to let you know how

00:04:29.240 wonderful this place is.

00:04:30.580 And in America, it is a place, but it's moreover, it's the people.

00:04:33.300 And there are people literally holding onto the outside of our aircrafts trying to get

00:04:36.620 here and falling from the sky just to meet y'all, just, just to hang out here.

00:04:41.100 Cause all they have access to so far is just the people in the military.

00:04:44.220 We're kind of regimental.

00:04:45.220 The true spice of this, of, of America is our people back home and, and people are flooding

00:04:50.300 to get here.

00:04:50.820 We not only have Americans over there that you, we have to get back.

00:04:54.780 Just bottom line, you got to get them back.

00:04:56.200 Now call it cost alone, send in expendables or send in just the rest of the military and

00:05:00.100 put us in there.

00:05:00.640 We'll go do it.

00:05:01.740 Y'all have truly never seen the full weight of what, what we're capable of because you

00:05:06.960 just never had to implement that.

00:05:08.440 But it's, uh, I think the emotion that I'm feeling more over than anything else.

00:05:14.560 And most of the veterans are as a man, there's still people back there.

00:05:17.220 We don't leave anybody behind.

00:05:19.060 I never had PTSD, but I started to get it thinking that there's some of our countrymen

00:05:23.100 stranded somewhere and they need our help.

00:05:24.940 And I know that first hand spring, cause y'all came and got me.

00:05:27.140 So I know it's possible.

00:05:28.240 Y'all sent the entire military in to get me and I was in hell.

00:05:32.180 They're all on the border of it.

00:05:33.340 So it, it's, um, it kind of resonates real, real, uh, real close to home here.

00:05:38.540 Yeah.

00:05:38.620 I would say you, you've got a deep appreciation of what it means to be stranded out in the

00:05:42.760 middle of a country.

00:05:43.900 Somebody come get you trying to kill you.

00:05:45.420 People trying to kill you.

00:05:47.120 Yep.

00:05:47.880 Right.

00:05:48.100 Can't even imagine what it's like when you set foot back here, it looks different, feels

00:05:51.020 different.

00:05:51.800 I mean, we're, we got, we're going through some stuff here in America, but we're a family

00:05:56.160 families do that and we'll get through this.

00:05:58.720 And as I've been, we've gone through it.

00:06:01.260 And I, the way I always look at it is, man, I, nothing will ever change how much I love

00:06:05.360 everybody here for coming to get me and what I try to do to show that.

00:06:10.160 Biden's now saying that we'll go back, we'll get, we'll get the military guys and we'll

00:06:13.740 get the Americans.

00:06:15.060 Um, the promises are less explicit on getting those who helped us, the translators and sort

00:06:20.820 of the Afghan people who were in support roles to our men and women in uniform over there.

00:06:26.060 I wonder what you think about that, Morgan, let me ask you that one, because we heard

00:06:29.860 from a lot of military guys who are upset about that and, you know, knew how much we

00:06:34.340 relied on those helpers when we were over there.

00:06:36.920 You couldn't tell the difference between, um, ourselves and our translators or our support

00:06:40.680 rounds come down rage.

00:06:42.100 They, they, they did not discriminate.

00:06:43.940 And those that, those that were tasked to us fought just as hard as we did.

00:06:49.960 And we've always said, and I, and I always wanted them to have the opportunity to come

00:06:54.660 over and be here because they defended our country just like it was their own.

00:06:59.340 So it's very disheartening to see or hear, excuse me, that that's a possibility that that

00:07:04.720 won't happen.

00:07:05.620 Um, maybe call me eternal optimist that there's enough people surrounding the administration

00:07:10.740 that says, no, they're, they're, they need the opportunity and they must have the opportunity

00:07:15.560 to come.

00:07:15.940 Um, we need to rescue them just like we need to rescue all the Americans that are, that

00:07:19.620 are, that are waiting on us.

00:07:21.520 Period.

00:07:22.060 Let me tell you something.

00:07:23.680 Not only do they serve us over and help us overseas, they were in the front there.

00:07:28.480 We watched those, those terms and, um, especially the ones that assigned to us thousands of missions.

00:07:34.260 We pinned a couple of those guys with sealed tridents.

00:07:36.720 They were such great operators.

00:07:39.140 I mean, they gave it everything they had.

00:07:41.940 Those are the ones you definitely want to bring back.

00:07:45.480 Otherwise, why else would anybody help you?

00:07:47.180 And if they're, if they're willing to help you in the worst situation ever, they'll obviously

00:07:51.700 help us over here when things are good too.

00:07:53.160 And when things are bad.

00:07:54.260 I was actually listening to the New York times podcast, the daily, uh, today, and they

00:07:58.240 were talking about this soldier who had served in Afghanistan.

00:08:01.440 He was talking about the relationship that you develop with the translator.

00:08:04.640 Here he is.

00:08:05.540 His name was, um, Colin Daniels served in the army for six years, 28 years old.

00:08:10.500 Here's just a little bit of that guy.

00:08:12.180 Listen, we would tell the Afghans, whether they were interpreters or civilian or Afghan army,

00:08:20.180 that they could trust us as Americans.

00:08:23.340 You know, I joined the military because I like truly believed that America was the, I, I believed

00:08:36.240 in America.

00:08:36.900 Yeah.

00:08:40.500 And they did too.

00:08:44.760 And, um, and like we, we told them on an individual level, trust us, trust us on this patrol, trust

00:08:52.940 us on this KLE, trust us on, on all this.

00:08:57.080 We have your back because they just were aspiring to be free.

00:09:03.560 And what's more American than that.

00:09:09.120 And, you know, when push comes to shove, like, I don't disagree with having to leave Afghanistan.

00:09:14.680 Like we can't do it forever.

00:09:16.100 But when push comes to shove these people that soldiers and sailors and airmen's Marines told,

00:09:22.320 Hey man, you can trust me.

00:09:27.220 It's a lie now, you know?

00:09:33.560 Excuse me.

00:09:36.960 You can hear that guy's pain.

00:09:38.580 You can, you can hear it.

00:09:40.780 There, there is.

00:09:41.720 We, because the relationships, they're most certainly carved out in, in pain and misery

00:09:47.840 and most certainly blood.

00:09:49.160 But so the fact that you look and it's just as important looking left and right and seeing

00:09:52.800 who's standing there with you, they're there.

00:09:55.400 So I could, I, I can empathize with him knowing that we, we did, we did though.

00:10:02.440 That was always conversations that you had with those individuals that supported us is

00:10:05.980 then, you know, some of them wanted to come blank.

00:10:07.520 Yes.

00:10:07.880 I mean, cause that's how it was always articulated to us.

00:10:10.580 Like, you'll, you'll have that opportunity.

00:10:13.060 I would, I would say the vast majority of Americans still believe that.

00:10:17.940 And I, I won't maybe preface this with saying, I don't think we, we, there was an intentional

00:10:24.000 lie to the individuals that supported us over there from Afghanistan, the locals that supported

00:10:28.200 us and the army and the interpreters.

00:10:30.140 And I don't think we intentionally lied to them.

00:10:31.940 I think once again, if you look at the administration, they, they weren't prepared.

00:10:37.840 And I think their decision-making was not orchestrated properly.

00:10:42.320 And then it just came completely off the rails.

00:10:45.280 What do you make of that?

00:10:46.340 Cause it, cause Biden's out there today saying, um, that it could not have been done better.

00:10:50.760 He says he does not think it could have been handled in any better way.

00:10:54.580 Do you agree with that?

00:10:56.080 No, no, no, no, not at all.

00:10:57.540 I most certainly, I think they absolutely got everything backwards.

00:11:00.880 I think we should have remained in place and started evacuating civilian population.

00:11:07.040 Those are the ones that can defend themselves properly.

00:11:08.860 And then you would come into the interpreters, then you, and then the army and then whomever

00:11:11.800 else.

00:11:12.460 And we're the ones you leave behind.

00:11:13.460 It's, it's systematic.

00:11:14.400 We can handle ourselves.

00:11:15.300 We're, we're, we're designed for that part.

00:11:16.860 You get everybody else.

00:11:18.040 And then we go.

00:11:19.820 I don't know if he's, if he was, I saw the ABC interview and I don't know why he won't,

00:11:23.980 you know, this is something Trump would have done.

00:11:25.680 He's like, I would, cause he's like, he would never answer.

00:11:28.460 Hey, August 31st is at the deadline.

00:11:30.280 Will you, will troops remain in place?

00:11:31.920 And he kept dancing around it.

00:11:33.200 Trump would have been like, we'll stay there until the day I die.

00:11:36.800 Until every American's out of there and every support staff's out of there.

00:11:39.800 Why?

00:11:40.060 I don't understand why that's a problem.

00:11:41.340 Yeah.

00:11:41.560 We're going to stay.

00:11:42.680 If we got to go back, you know, we did this wrong.

00:11:44.860 We, we messed up, we effed up, but I'm going to course correct this.

00:11:48.640 And I'm sending in the Marines and the airborne and we're staying and we're staying to the

00:11:52.940 last person's out.

00:11:53.700 And then we'll put a date.

00:11:54.940 I don't know why that's so hard.

00:11:55.840 We heard a very different message from president Biden.

00:11:58.180 Let me just give the audience a sample of what he said to George Stephanopoulos.

00:12:01.060 So they know what we're talking about, but it was very deflecting.

00:12:03.780 It was not a message of I'm taking responsibility.

00:12:05.900 It was basically reminding me of Kevin Bacon in animal house.

00:12:09.360 All is fine.

00:12:10.060 All is calm.

00:12:10.820 Remain calm.

00:12:11.400 All is fine.

00:12:12.000 All is well.

00:12:12.500 No, no.

00:12:12.720 I got one better than that.

00:12:13.720 Megan.

00:12:14.000 They had one of the spokesmen's out and I, there was a Jim Carrey movie where he works

00:12:19.300 for a global company like Fleming with Dick and Jane.

00:12:22.140 He's on there trying to tell you what a great company it is.

00:12:24.020 And then they have the other, the real life stream going and it's all falling apart and

00:12:28.120 they're doing their level best.

00:12:29.420 I heard him say, we have, we're made, we got communications with Taliban and we let

00:12:33.800 guys coming in and out of the airport.

00:12:35.160 That's probably a gate guard outside the airport saying, yeah, come on, bring him up in here.

00:12:40.900 We don't negotiate with Taliban.

00:12:42.420 They don't negotiate with us.

00:12:43.300 That's, that's the whole point.

00:12:44.920 That's, that's why we can just go in there and get our Americans out.

00:12:47.540 We don't have to ask for permission.

00:12:49.340 There's no stable government and the president bailed, right?

00:12:53.040 Then he grabbed a bunch of coin and hauled butt.

00:12:55.700 America is a lot of things.

00:12:56.780 Do we have our bad part?

00:12:57.700 Yeah, we do.

00:12:58.460 But the only time you have to stand up and be recognized as an American to understand

00:13:03.160 his values is when we say the pledge and when, and that, because if you are stranded

00:13:07.760 somewhere, just one of us, if one of our people is stranded somewhere and needs help,

00:13:11.600 I, we will send the entire country to come get you.

00:13:14.980 That's the blessing to be an American.

00:13:16.900 And the trust level goes, they sleep in the camps with us.

00:13:19.400 Those turps and everything, they, a position of watch.

00:13:22.780 I mean, if, if they can't trust us, if we go over there and we go on the missions and

00:13:25.960 it's like a half, half trust with them.

00:13:27.980 Well, man, that, that doesn't make you feel too safe.

00:13:31.100 Yep.

00:13:31.820 Let's, uh, let, let, let me stand back because I want to get the audience up to speed on

00:13:35.220 Biden.

00:13:35.640 Let's just listen to a sampling of what he said on ABC.

00:13:38.540 When you look at what's happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence,

00:13:42.860 planning, execution, or judgment?

00:13:46.300 Look, I don't think it was a failure.

00:13:47.980 Look, it was a simple choice, George.

00:13:49.380 When the, when the Taliban, uh, let me back and put it another way.

00:13:54.840 When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government getting in a

00:14:02.140 plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse

00:14:07.560 of the, of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment

00:14:14.700 and, and, and taking off.

00:14:16.820 That was, you know, I'm not, this is, that, that's what happened.

00:14:20.800 That's simply what happened.

00:14:21.960 But we've all seen the pictures.

00:14:23.360 We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17.

00:14:26.600 We've seen Afghans falling.

00:14:28.800 That was four days ago, five days ago.

00:14:31.040 What did you think when you first saw those pictures?

00:14:33.100 What I thought was we're, we have to gain control of this.

00:14:35.940 We have to move this more quickly.

00:14:38.460 We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport.

00:14:42.560 And we did.

00:14:43.260 So you don't think this could have been handled?

00:14:45.460 This actually could have been handled better in any way?

00:14:48.420 No mistakes?

00:14:49.900 No, I, I, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that there, we, we're going

00:14:54.980 to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten

00:15:00.080 out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens.

00:15:04.320 I don't know how that happened.

00:15:05.880 So for you, that was always priced into the decision?

00:15:08.500 Yes.

00:15:09.460 What do you make of that, Marcus?

00:15:10.320 I think it's been a few days now.

00:15:12.960 So my hindsight is what we see what happened.

00:15:16.640 I don't have to say anything.

00:15:18.500 I don't have to suggest something.

00:15:20.520 I don't have to belittle anybody.

00:15:22.120 I don't talk smack about anybody.

00:15:23.480 I don't do that anyways.

00:15:25.140 It's, it's right there in front of your face.

00:15:26.760 I mean, you can literally turn on television and hear and watch it.

00:15:29.720 You don't have to have somebody tell us it's there.

00:15:32.320 Right.

00:15:32.560 I mean, I think every one of his answers was taking a political stance instead of the stance

00:15:37.860 of the commander in chief and a commander in chief would not shift in point, shift blame

00:15:43.340 and point fingers.

00:15:44.080 A commander in chief would stand up and say, mistakes were made.

00:15:47.900 We own it.

00:15:49.340 And this is what we're doing to course correct it.

00:15:52.100 I will say that the only way, the reason, you know, that that's, that that's happened

00:15:56.320 is when someone tries to explain it and any situation that you get into when, when the

00:16:00.620 outcome presents itself, there's no explanation and that's the way it was supposed to go.

00:16:04.220 And even when it snowballs, it continues.

00:16:06.200 People can pick that up.

00:16:07.060 You can see it.

00:16:07.700 If you just constantly happen to defend and try to explain, not defend it, just try to

00:16:12.360 explain it, then that's how, you know, something's gone wrong.

00:16:16.520 Can I, can I, can I offer something from my love, my level?

00:16:20.240 When I say my level, my rank, when I was in the military and we were serving over there

00:16:24.260 and that was at an operator's level on the ground, the day one, week one, when I first

00:16:28.480 stepped foot in Afghanistan in the early two thousands, talking with the villagers, talking

00:16:34.760 with the army, what you're seeing as far as the Taliban coming in and how they've taken

00:16:43.040 back the country, in my opinion, that was always inevitable.

00:16:46.160 It was going to happen.

00:16:47.160 It's happened over millennia.

00:16:49.740 Alexander, the great got stopped there from throughout time.

00:16:53.440 Everybody stops right there.

00:16:54.840 Uh, what was not inevitable was how it happened now.

00:17:03.220 Now we could have done it differently where we wouldn't be in the position of American

00:17:08.960 lives are in jeopardy.

00:17:10.200 That most certainly would have changed in my opinion, in Morgan's opinion.

00:17:14.100 Yeah.

00:17:14.700 But the fact that we've, we fought in that war and the Taliban has come back, they just

00:17:19.840 waited us out like they did everyone else.

00:17:22.180 That was going to happen.

00:17:24.720 And I think you've heard a lot of leadership say that.

00:17:26.940 Well, the amazing, when you see something spread that fast, it means people are allowing

00:17:30.620 it to take that because Afghanistan is a little bit smaller than Texas and to consume it like

00:17:35.640 that would have meant there were the little to no resistance.

00:17:37.900 And when you watch TV and you see all of them, the, the Taliban on the road with those, with

00:17:43.180 our weaponry, the way they're, they're moving and walk in, where they're carrying, carrying

00:17:46.820 themselves just the way they, they carry themselves.

00:17:49.460 You know, we trained them.

00:17:50.760 That's the Afghan army.

00:17:51.680 So they were already, that was our, that whole thing was going on underneath the watch.

00:17:57.880 It spread like a wildfire.

00:17:58.960 I mean, coming from the North down to the South, it could go districts ahead.

00:18:03.260 Hey, the Taliban is moving in.

00:18:04.540 Americans aren't here anymore.

00:18:06.660 I don't have any backside support.

00:18:08.180 I'm Taliban now.

00:18:09.620 That's right.

00:18:10.080 Well, a lot of people, they do have to self preserve, right?

00:18:12.300 They do to save their own lives, to save the lives of their families.

00:18:14.600 They always said that.

00:18:15.860 It's like, what are you, what are we supposed to do when you leave?

00:18:18.380 They're doing it.

00:18:19.260 And we weren't there to stay.

00:18:20.300 That's not, I mean, we didn't go into, to occupy.

00:18:22.980 That's the only way you can truly change it is to get the people to take control or we

00:18:26.060 have to stay.

00:18:27.240 And then you just, you build a society there.

00:18:29.940 And you said it best, Megan, it's self-preservation.

00:18:32.440 If I have to survive and the Taliban is coming through, I need to conform.

00:18:37.720 And so is that a good thing or a bad thing?

00:18:39.200 Or is it just a thing?

00:18:40.820 Surely just a thing.

00:18:41.800 I'm curious how you guys, cause you sound different about it.

00:18:44.120 When I talked to Rob O'Neill, for example, you know, the seal who killed bin Laden, one

00:18:48.440 of the guys who went in on that mission.

00:18:49.780 And the guy who filed, tried the shot and he's pissed off.

00:18:53.560 And he said, um, you know, what, what, what did our guys die for?

00:18:58.060 What was I there for?

00:18:59.080 You know, he's like, I don't like the whole country's now back in the hands of the guys

00:19:02.340 we were sent over there to fight.

00:19:03.680 You know, Al Qaeda is going to get another stronghold there, another foothold there and

00:19:07.360 launch more terror attacks on us.

00:19:09.060 So what did our guys die for?

00:19:10.340 He said, I'm angry.

00:19:11.420 I'm, I'm pissed.

00:19:13.680 Do you, have you talked to anybody like that?

00:19:15.760 Like, what do you think?

00:19:16.440 What do you make of that perspective?

00:19:18.060 Dr.

00:19:18.380 Robbie?

00:19:18.720 I've been, I've been filled in phone calls since this kicked off.

00:19:22.100 And I think I might have a little different response than most people.

00:19:25.300 And I don't mean to anger anybody, but I tried to level this, the situation saying we, we

00:19:30.660 lost our brothers and sisters over there.

00:19:32.840 We, we, we, we went over there and we fought for 20 years and now it is it all for nothing.

00:19:37.260 I always, and I've been saying since all this happened is like, I'm proud to have gone over

00:19:42.960 there and served.

00:19:43.760 And I tell everybody, hold your head high because you did exactly what you were supposed to do

00:19:48.160 that your country asked you to do.

00:19:50.020 And is it tragic that we've lost or the, are the, are the, are the, the loved ones that

00:19:54.620 lost someone, are they hurting and dying?

00:19:56.540 Yes, they are.

00:19:57.080 But their loved ones in my, and I always, and this may not be the case, but I try to, I tell

00:20:00.900 myself this every day, they died doing what they love doing to, to, and because they lost

00:20:06.120 their lives, others lived.

00:20:08.360 And then I tell all the individuals that served with me, it's like, Hey, look, you know what?

00:20:11.620 We did exactly what we were tasked to do.

00:20:13.960 Is it over?

00:20:14.620 Did we, did we lose or did we time out?

00:20:17.020 Because inevitably, if you don't have anybody to surrender to you, there there's really

00:20:21.060 no, there's no end of the quarter.

00:20:23.680 Yeah.

00:20:23.980 There was never going to be a spike, the ball in the end zone moment in Afghanistan.

00:20:27.420 There was, it was.

00:20:28.160 Yeah.

00:20:28.360 So when, when that dude came down to get some milk and cookies and found Rob O'Neill in his

00:20:31.600 kitchen, blasting right in the face, that's, that, that kind of ended that, that was

00:20:35.620 a different war than when we were there.

00:20:37.600 It's been 20 years.

00:20:38.720 I mean, that's generational.

00:20:40.320 What we were there for is completely different of what the troops are there for now.

00:20:43.780 So when we see that, like when you, well, what we had to go through to, to get to the

00:20:47.700 point to where we could leave, that's where the frustration is coming from.

00:20:51.520 Like, Hey man, if you had to have any idea, we had to go through just to get to where

00:20:54.680 we could attempt to leave.

00:20:56.520 You wouldn't want, we didn't want to see it go down like that.

00:20:58.420 Cause we, we weren't never allowed to operate like that.

00:21:01.320 And, uh, yeah, I understand why Rob's manager.

00:21:03.580 I mean, can I ask you looking back, you know, especially given all that you've both gone

00:21:08.860 through, I mean, obviously that's what the, your whole book and the movie about you is

00:21:12.800 about Marcus and Morgan, you've been, you've served multiple times and gone through a lot

00:21:17.700 of physical pain, lost a lot of guys you deeply love when you see the way it ended, you know,

00:21:23.760 now that it's, it's ended, does it change your assessment on whether it was worth it?

00:21:28.820 No, every war ends like this, uh, this is, that's, this is war.

00:21:33.600 I mean, you look back generations and the ones that came before we're from a military

00:21:36.820 family, we were trained up for this.

00:21:38.280 We were ready from Vietnam, Korea, world war two, all the way back.

00:21:42.060 I mean, every, every place that America has been and took it over.

00:21:45.180 It's always gone back to something back to the, who, whose place it was.

00:21:49.300 And that part, if you, you will literally drive yourself crazy thinking about it in that

00:21:52.880 direction.

00:21:53.220 I would never, I would never put, I would never take away any deployment anybody's ever

00:21:58.020 been on by saying, by thinking that way.

00:22:00.640 No way too much knowledge learned.

00:22:02.620 I mean, through the further you travel, the more you learn and the hardships that you take

00:22:06.180 that teaches us something.

00:22:07.260 It's not that we came out of here without anything, even with pulling people out of Afghanistan,

00:22:10.560 we lost 3000 plus people in New York city.

00:22:13.240 And I mean, I had somebody say that to me.

00:22:15.100 He's like, you know how I know I won.

00:22:16.420 Our body count was lower than theirs.

00:22:18.520 Yeah.

00:22:18.940 So, I mean, people will, will rationalize it in their head, however you want it, man.

00:22:21.840 But ultimately we're still standing.

00:22:23.760 And we're still moving.

00:22:25.420 Honestly, it's not, it's not only that, it's the fact that you guys kept us safe here on

00:22:28.160 the homeland for 20 years.

00:22:29.440 You know, we, we did not have another attack that looked like, yes, they, they tried.

00:22:33.360 We had some things in Orlando and elsewhere, but nothing that even came close to the scale

00:22:37.700 of 9-11, which is what they wanted to do.

00:22:39.720 And they weren't able to do it because of guys like you.

00:22:41.940 I agree.

00:22:42.840 Thank you.

00:22:44.220 Up next, exactly how did their Texas mom and dad raise future warriors, Navy SEALs, kids

00:22:50.280 who love America and who never give up?

00:22:52.540 That's one minute away.

00:22:57.800 Let's talk about the Luttrell brothers.

00:23:00.340 Born in Houston, fifth generation Texans, identical twins.

00:23:04.020 Morgan, you're older by how many minutes?

00:23:06.180 Seven, which means I'd have been a king back in the old days.

00:23:08.560 So are you the boss between the two of you?

00:23:11.500 Does that carry weight?

00:23:12.480 Oh, it's still, I'm the big brother.

00:23:13.960 Yeah.

00:23:14.260 It carries weight, even though I'm bigger.

00:23:16.400 It's a, no, that's how our family lives.

00:23:19.580 I'm looking at the background and I heard you interview your mom.

00:23:21.620 She said, neither one of you ever had any fear.

00:23:23.780 You're just fearless boys from the beginning, which explains a lot.

00:23:26.660 You hunted, you fished.

00:23:27.820 What is this I see about wrestling alligators?

00:23:30.980 Is that, is that bullshit?

00:23:33.080 No, no, that's, that's head to toe.

00:23:35.060 Our best friend, Trey Baker.

00:23:37.260 What?

00:23:37.280 He'll do it.

00:23:37.920 Yeah.

00:23:38.240 Our best friend, Trey Baker and, uh, Opie and a few other guys, uh, we'd go out in

00:23:43.400 Trinity river, which is just up there where we in Huntsville, Texas, where we went to

00:23:46.680 college and after work or after some late night frivolities, we would go out and get

00:23:52.900 on the airboat and whoever could bring the biggest, uh, gator to the boat.

00:23:56.480 We didn't, we didn't keep them.

00:23:57.960 We didn't dive into the river on top of them.

00:23:59.440 We were bringing the biggest gator to the boat.

00:24:00.800 One.

00:24:01.420 That's the, that's true statement.

00:24:02.560 We haven't been the pods out here too.

00:24:04.660 Yeah.

00:24:05.100 So everybody, Trey talks.

00:24:06.160 It would get interesting if you jumped on something a little bit bigger than you could

00:24:09.060 handle, but, um, I don't recommend going anything over four feet.

00:24:12.400 Everybody, Trey used to get up to the six and eighters, but four, you can kind of handle

00:24:15.900 it.

00:24:16.080 They'll get you though.

00:24:17.200 You better know what you're doing.

00:24:18.200 What if another one comes along?

00:24:20.200 Yeah.

00:24:20.400 Well, you try to sink them out.

00:24:21.640 We got buddies in the boat.

00:24:23.760 Try to find one that's by himself.

00:24:25.880 That's good thinking, Ms. Megan.

00:24:27.080 The contingencies.

00:24:27.740 We like that.

00:24:28.220 I like where your head's at.

00:24:30.580 Okay.

00:24:30.920 So it's true.

00:24:31.500 You really were set up to, you were born to become Navy SEALs.

00:24:34.460 Um, now you got a long history of, of military service in your family, right?

00:24:38.940 Your dad, who else, sir?

00:24:40.900 Dads, grandfathers, uncles, cousins.

00:24:43.560 It goes way back.

00:24:45.060 Okay.

00:24:45.980 So your mom comes on your show.

00:24:48.220 You got a podcast called never quit.

00:24:50.020 Your mom comes on your show.

00:24:50.960 And I heard an extraordinary moment where it appeared to me, you were learning for the

00:24:55.460 first time on the podcast that she had been married to another man before your dad.

00:24:59.800 Like, I think I learned it while you were learning it.

00:25:02.060 Is, is that, am I crazy or did that happen?

00:25:05.360 You can't believe what we learned about our mother still to this very day.

00:25:08.640 The matriarchal family around here, the women run the show.

00:25:11.440 So we don't ask a lot of questions.

00:25:12.680 And definitely when they go to talk in their business, we leave.

00:25:15.720 So there's a lot of stuff we don't know.

00:25:17.020 Other than the fact she's my mother, she loves me.

00:25:18.540 And I think she might've went in a little more, there might've been some grumblings that

00:25:21.240 we were, we were privy to, but mom has a tendency, you know, she was raised on dirt

00:25:25.340 roads.

00:25:25.720 So she says what she wants to say, no matter what country girl.

00:25:28.560 So where did, we started doing our homework about the young man.

00:25:32.940 She was previously married to.

00:25:36.240 Okay.

00:25:36.600 So I was right.

00:25:37.860 That's what, that happened.

00:25:40.000 That happened.

00:25:40.680 Now she's talking about when she goes to deliver the two of you in the hospital and that's

00:25:43.860 the, you know, back in the seventies, back in a different era, but she finds out while

00:25:48.180 she's about to deliver you, the doctor says, I think there's two.

00:25:51.460 She grabs the guy.

00:25:52.440 She says, she says, two what?

00:25:56.600 Back in the 1900s.

00:25:57.980 Yeah.

00:25:58.320 Back in the 1970s, that was the disco era.

00:26:00.780 So I was a surprise.

00:26:03.720 I came out.

00:26:04.440 Oh, you were right.

00:26:05.100 Exactly.

00:26:05.500 And I was surprised.

00:26:06.240 Yeah.

00:26:06.360 He was a surprise and they thought I was going to be a girl.

00:26:09.020 Is that right?

00:26:10.120 Totally flipped.

00:26:10.840 Yeah.

00:26:11.660 Yeah.

00:26:11.960 Flip the script on them.

00:26:13.700 And then you've been spending the rest of your life trying to make up for that, becoming

00:26:16.100 a Navy.

00:26:16.400 You see, your mom said something interesting.

00:26:18.420 She said, your family and her family, we knew how to raise warriors, good men, good

00:26:23.480 Americans, good people.

00:26:25.320 So how, like you, when you're looking back on your own childhood, how did she do that?

00:26:31.080 Never coddled.

00:26:32.740 But loved us.

00:26:34.560 Loved us very much.

00:26:35.480 She was very, always very proud of us, but, but, but never, there was never an opportunity

00:26:40.840 to be lazy.

00:26:42.000 There was never an opportunity to feel sorry for ourselves.

00:26:44.340 And she, she made sure of that.

00:26:46.140 And she would teach us to do stuff for ourselves.

00:26:48.500 I just, she's like, Hey, look, it's a way to a lady's heart.

00:26:51.120 You learn how to dance, cook for, you know, all kinds of stuff like that.

00:26:54.260 We grew up on a horse ranch.

00:26:55.600 So she's, she, she works the ponies, uh, thoroughbreds and quarter horses.

00:27:00.240 So she raised us like that.

00:27:02.240 And she's like, I know they're tough and it was tough out there.

00:27:04.580 My father, he was just, you know, he's firm hands.

00:27:06.600 So mom kind of did all the raising and keeping us in check.

00:27:09.540 And we'd hope that God had never elevated to our father.

00:27:13.280 He was a little bit abrasive at times.

00:27:16.280 She knew that.

00:27:17.040 But if it was, I mean, it was 20 degrees outside and snowing, we had to get up every

00:27:21.560 morning feeding water to them horses or during the summers when we weren't going to school,

00:27:24.920 we had to get up before the sun came up and do the same thing and then paint the barn.

00:27:29.400 But yeah, we were always painting something, throwing, throwing hay.

00:27:33.500 Just wasn't a lot of tolerance for whiners.

00:27:35.880 No, no, no, no, no opportunity for that.

00:27:37.760 You go and whine, but you had to go out and do it.

00:27:39.540 Yeah, whine while you're doing it.

00:27:41.260 You want to make something out, you want to make a man out of your son, you can have

00:27:44.260 him throw hay in the summer in Texas.

00:27:47.460 I'm sure that's true.

00:27:48.580 So you meet a guy down the road when you guys are 14, who I think it's fair to say would

00:27:54.140 have a major influence on your future military career.

00:27:56.480 And you're jumping into Bud's training as potential SEALs.

00:28:00.020 What was the name of this guy?

00:28:01.100 Because as I hear you talk about him, I read about him.

00:28:03.680 This guy sounds a little crazy in a good way.

00:28:05.880 It was Billy, Billy Soupbone Shelton.

00:28:09.260 And tell us about Billy Soupbone Shelton, what he did to you.

00:28:12.080 He had an understanding, especially back in them days, of what it took to be physically

00:28:16.100 and more importantly, mentally ready.

00:28:19.860 He was around before us.

00:28:21.180 I mean, we knew who he was when we were young.

00:28:22.800 We just kind of stayed away from him, right?

00:28:24.040 Because he's scary.

00:28:25.100 He's scary.

00:28:25.540 Yeah, he's about 5'3", but had an attitude and a will of him as a giant.

00:28:31.700 And even when he'd come in the field house, the football players just take off running

00:28:36.260 because you could hear him when he'd scream, boy, he'd go to yelling at you, man.

00:28:39.520 The first time we ever went into the gym, I'll never forget this.

00:28:43.060 When I walk in, he'd call it dime time.

00:28:44.980 I was the littlest one.

00:28:46.600 He's like, hey, everybody, look, here comes dime time.

00:28:48.700 Because I could only have 10-pound weights.

00:28:50.740 That's all I could lift.

00:28:52.760 Dime time.

00:28:53.440 You remember that?

00:28:53.880 And then we would do the workout, and he'd sit there and cussing this man.

00:28:58.380 And he had laid me down.

00:28:59.880 I was on this bench, and I had one of the curl bars.

00:29:02.900 I was trying to do this exercise.

00:29:04.900 And the problem was he would get down there ahead of us and do it.

00:29:08.580 And he would yell.

00:29:09.260 He's like, I'm 55 years old.

00:29:11.060 I sit down here, and he just bowed.

00:29:13.520 And then I remember laying down there, and he picked the bar up and handed it to me,

00:29:16.800 and it was too heavy, so it fell on me.

00:29:19.580 And I was just kind of laying there.

00:29:20.220 He put two other benches on either side of it, so I couldn't drop the weight.

00:29:23.880 And he walks around.

00:29:25.220 He's training.

00:29:25.600 Everybody comes over.

00:29:26.260 And I'm looking.

00:29:27.420 He stands over at the top of me.

00:29:28.240 He looks at him.

00:29:28.460 He's like, man, what are you doing?

00:29:30.800 I was like, I can't lift the suit, man.

00:29:32.940 Too weak.

00:29:33.480 And he looks down.

00:29:34.020 He's like, man, well, I hope you effing die.

00:29:35.760 And walked off and left me there.

00:29:38.040 Walked off and left me there.

00:29:40.060 And then he would throw me out of the gym, and I'd be out there waiting on everybody to get out.

00:29:43.880 I mean, this would go on for months before I could even get the strength to finish the workout.

00:29:49.800 He'd cuss me.

00:29:50.600 I mean, I was the most worthless thing in his eyes.

00:29:52.400 Well, you have to appreciate what he was doing, because while you were in the moment,

00:29:57.760 either in the gym or he was training us, he was ferocious.

00:30:01.380 But after and before.

00:30:02.800 Oh, I was going to get to that.

00:30:04.260 Okay.

00:30:05.060 Yeah.

00:30:05.300 The minute we'd walk out of there, best father ever.

00:30:07.440 Loving.

00:30:07.880 Just like, hey, we need to eat.

00:30:09.400 You got to do this.

00:30:09.900 You got to get clothes.

00:30:10.480 And tell you why.

00:30:11.600 Yeah.

00:30:12.460 But what he gifted us, unbeknownst to all of just even Mark Snyder and the football team

00:30:18.120 and whomever else he trained, was the mental fortitude that he created.

00:30:22.760 That most certainly is what gets you through training.

00:30:27.180 Yeah.

00:30:27.380 Because most everything that bucks you off of what you're trying to do is something like that.

00:30:30.520 People screaming at you, talking, saying something.

00:30:32.920 Taking you out of your comfort zone.

00:30:33.660 Taking you out of your comfort zone.

00:30:34.540 So if you get used to that, coming from something, from a man like that, you can handle it from anybody.

00:30:38.700 You know, Billy's soup bones.

00:30:41.520 Yeah.

00:30:41.760 So he starts whipping you guys into shape and you decide when you become of age that you

00:30:45.940 really are going to do it.

00:30:46.720 You're going to enlist in the Navy SEALs.

00:30:48.440 You both do it.

00:30:49.740 You don't go through exactly the same training class because it's just different things with

00:30:53.200 your health and your schedules.

00:30:55.000 But you're both doing buds training at or around the same time, I guess.

00:31:00.240 So no, Marcus, I had a really bad leg injury and Marcus went in, went ahead and went in.

00:31:04.660 It took me two years to get back to where I needed to be.

00:31:07.480 So Marcus had actually graduated and then I came in.

00:31:14.580 Okay.

00:31:15.040 So is that, so, so when you came in later, Morgan, is, is it, was it Marcus who came to

00:31:19.280 visit you and did one day in your buds training?

00:31:22.100 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, absolutely not.

00:31:23.120 Negative.

00:31:23.600 I was a SEAL.

00:31:24.480 I already had my trite.

00:31:25.260 I would not go back into buds as a team guy.

00:31:27.480 That was, that was, that was me coming to see him.

00:31:30.280 I would go over and mess with him because I was, that was the thing.

00:31:33.540 And I was a medic, I'd doctor him up after the end of the day, but I was in phase when

00:31:37.940 he came in, he was still in college and he came down.

00:31:40.740 It was a blessing for both of us.

00:31:47.020 Cause I got, I had a broken, I'd broken my femur and I was just at a beat to death.

00:31:51.500 And, and, uh, I had gotten on a buddy pass to come out the scene.

00:31:54.440 Right.

00:31:55.620 And we had come back from weird.

00:31:56.980 Our whole class ran back from child and he was standing on the third deck of the building.

00:32:00.380 He had goatee and his sideburns.

00:32:02.020 Like I said, that's college student.

00:32:03.660 College student.

00:32:05.180 Our class, like, Hey, you know, shave your sideburn.

00:32:06.960 Come on down here.

00:32:07.440 We switched uniforms.

00:32:08.320 He let out.

00:32:08.900 Marcus was late.

00:32:10.260 And, uh, his roommate was like, Hey, look, man, you're going to be dragging that hard.

00:32:13.260 Why don't you just get your brother to go for you?

00:32:14.500 And I mean, we didn't even say anything.

00:32:16.120 He starts taking off the uniform and I started putting it on.

00:32:18.580 Yeah.

00:32:18.860 And they, they dry shaved me on the way down to the grinder.

00:32:22.080 No way.

00:32:23.340 Oh yeah.

00:32:23.680 Did you pass?

00:32:24.920 Oh yeah.

00:32:25.320 Oh yeah.

00:32:25.620 Yeah.

00:32:25.840 Yeah.

00:32:25.980 Yeah.

00:32:26.740 Absolutely.

00:32:27.060 I mean, it was, it was the, the, I don't know the best way to explain it.

00:32:31.360 It's like, imagine being able to do something for a day that you've wanted to do all your

00:32:36.020 entire life.

00:32:36.860 You mean, you just, that's what you, your dreams of being here.

00:32:41.320 And, uh, you know, I just, it just happened on a whimsical.

00:32:46.880 And it wasn't like, I was like, you know, go because it's terrible there.

00:32:52.080 It's hard.

00:32:53.000 You know, we've been in it for a while.

00:32:54.300 I'm sure you appreciated the day off.

00:32:56.640 That scene.

00:32:57.280 So there you go.

00:32:57.820 Great point.

00:32:58.300 And because he never did that for me and every new guy, you're a butt student, man.

00:33:04.500 This is like, if somebody came to me and said, would you like to be Tina Turner's backup

00:33:07.500 dancer for one day?

00:33:08.340 And I would say, hell yes, I do.

00:33:10.060 Oh yeah.

00:33:10.900 But a little different.

00:33:12.180 Okay.

00:33:12.440 So you're, let me ask you this.

00:33:13.940 Cause I, I heard you give a speech Marcus and I heard you talking about the number of

00:33:17.020 guys who came into the class with you and the number of guys who graduated.

00:33:19.880 Can you, can you give us those numbers there about?

00:33:22.720 We started with 168, I think.

00:33:24.820 And then they graduate 10 originals.

00:33:27.320 There's only 10 guys made it through the entire class.

00:33:29.340 How much did you have?

00:33:30.000 Wow.

00:33:30.200 So we started out in doc with two 50 and we graduated with 27 originals.

00:33:34.900 Originals.

00:33:35.800 Wow.

00:33:36.840 It's just a, it's a testament to how hard it is to become a Navy SEAL.

00:33:39.960 And it's, and you tell me how much of it is mental versus physical.

00:33:44.320 90, 10, maybe 95, five mental.

00:33:47.000 Yeah.

00:33:47.500 Certainly.

00:33:48.440 You can always quit.

00:33:49.720 You don't quit.

00:33:50.660 It's the physical part you can get there if you want it bad enough.

00:33:56.140 And it's the, it's the mental piece that most, that that's what gets most people.

00:34:00.480 It's that mental angle, just the grind that every single second of every single day over

00:34:06.260 and over, it's just so repetitive.

00:34:07.420 And then the mental part, everybody breaks down physically over time.

00:34:11.740 You just do, you just, so you can't do, you can, can't do more, any more pushups or

00:34:15.280 pull-ups or sit-ups or run.

00:34:16.300 And you just, you can't, and that's where, you know, our buddy, David Goggins puts it

00:34:20.060 into perspective.

00:34:20.700 He's like, when, when your body starts to shut down, you're only, you're only into your

00:34:23.940 brain.

00:34:24.580 Yeah.

00:34:24.700 That's why throughout life, you hear mind, body, and spirit, your body's conditioned.

00:34:30.240 Your mind is conditioned to anything gets uncomfortable.

00:34:32.440 Your body will haul butt.

00:34:33.400 It'll haul ass out of there so fast.

00:34:34.680 And that's a real thing.

00:34:35.340 Don't even know why.

00:34:36.520 Those are those sympathetic parasympathetic nervous systems.

00:34:39.000 So as it'll wear our body out to where we can't even move.

00:34:42.080 Well, then they'll go to work on our mind.

00:34:43.300 They'll start doing stuff like that.

00:34:44.680 So then the body gets a break conditions that it usually just throw us in the ocean to

00:34:48.060 the, to our mother.

00:34:49.220 Right.

00:34:49.420 And we just freed the death out there.

00:34:50.960 And then as we go through this, you beat your body up, your mind gets stronger, beat

00:34:54.760 your mind up, your body gets stronger.

00:34:55.980 And then when we graduate, your, your spirit comes in because it's things conditioned to

00:35:00.460 hold it.

00:35:01.140 And it's whoever developed program.

00:35:04.680 That's where hell we comes in, man.

00:35:06.380 It's just whatever they, however they came up with that is unbelievable.

00:35:11.380 Anybody get back at it now that we go through all that.

00:35:13.660 And I'm someone's like, Hey, it was just like, man, I wouldn't do that again.

00:35:16.000 If you, well, little, did you know what was actually coming your way?

00:35:20.440 We were going to have quite a few more hell weeks, uh, handed down to you, but this is

00:35:24.100 why they put you through it.

00:35:25.160 Right.

00:35:25.340 So you're going to have not just the physical training and the military training, but

00:35:28.520 the, the spirit training to, to use your term, right.

00:35:31.860 To, to, to be able to handle.

00:35:34.120 We'll, when I was, when they can handle it, that's the spirit.

00:35:37.060 When they pulled Marcus, when they first got, when he was first rescued, uh, there was a,

00:35:41.360 there was a guy with him that gave him a sat phone and he called the house and, uh, I

00:35:47.460 answered.

00:35:48.180 I don't know how that happened.

00:35:48.920 There's like 300 people at the house, but I answered and he's like, Hey, I'm here with

00:35:51.500 you, bro.

00:35:51.740 You want to talk to him?

00:35:52.360 And I was like, you know, of course, no, I'm so fucking losing.

00:35:55.920 Tell him a call when my stories are over.

00:35:57.820 Right.

00:35:58.100 But anyway, uh, so we got into it and he was like, man, had to go through hell week

00:36:03.100 again.

00:36:03.460 I was like, yeah, you did, bro.

00:36:04.620 He's like, I made it.

00:36:07.480 Wow.

00:36:08.300 He's a bit of a fact that you could joke about it, but I know having read Marcus's book,

00:36:11.720 you, you guys use humor to sort of diffuse.

00:36:14.260 You have to have to, yeah.

00:36:16.040 Y'all taught us that.

00:36:16.860 I mean, we, you know, y'all, y'all give us these, that's how we get through everything

00:36:20.420 is humor.

00:36:21.640 Yeah.

00:36:22.580 So you, can I ask you about quitting?

00:36:24.500 Cause I love the Navy seal attitude towards, and I love how it's just, we don't, we just

00:36:28.180 don't quit.

00:36:28.700 We just, you don't, you know, you, it's not part of the Navy seal code.

00:36:32.520 And we've been talking about this on the show about how more and more in our country, we

00:36:35.740 seem to be like, not only seeing more quitting, but celebration of quitting.

00:36:39.900 Like, yes, it's somehow it was strong to quit and we should celebrate the quitting because,

00:36:44.360 you know, we celebrate quote mental health, you know, one took care of oneself and without

00:36:48.840 singling anybody out.

00:36:49.800 But I just feel like to me, it, I object to it because I much rather have my kids have

00:36:55.100 the Marcus and Morgan Luttrell mindset of, no, you, you just don't, it's not an option,

00:37:00.220 not an available option to you.

00:37:01.460 But what do you guys think?

00:37:02.940 That we believe exactly what you just stated.

00:37:05.560 We'll back up a hundred percent.

00:37:07.600 And it's when, so what's happening to us?

00:37:09.080 Why are we doing that?

00:37:10.180 I don't understand it right now.

00:37:11.960 I mean, maybe it's so everybody can be a winner.

00:37:14.620 Yeah.

00:37:15.060 So everybody can be a winner.

00:37:15.800 So you don't have to face adversity and be a loser.

00:37:17.900 I mean, we learn more in losing than we ever did in winning.

00:37:20.860 That's just part of it.

00:37:22.320 It's when, you know, you're making progress because you, if you went into it and you just

00:37:26.020 kept going, you would never know if you, if how hard you trained, if it worked out, those,

00:37:31.160 those, when you hit those resistance marks, that's to let you know how far you went in

00:37:34.840 training.

00:37:35.380 When you hit those big walls, that means you're going past it.

00:37:38.200 So they're there for a reason.

00:37:40.100 So like in our, in our previous community, you win, win, win, win.

00:37:42.980 And when you get your ass handed to you, I mean, there's no quitting.

00:37:45.620 You can't say, Oh, Hey, look, I'm, I'm having a bad day.

00:37:48.480 I'm going back to the house.

00:37:49.680 There's none of that.

00:37:50.560 We all lose together as a team.

00:37:52.420 And then we go back and we figure out why we lost.

00:37:55.020 And then we make ourselves even better because taking your, getting outside your comfort

00:37:59.520 zone and losing, that's not a, that's not a bad thing.

00:38:02.580 You're only a loser by yourself.

00:38:04.680 Period.

00:38:05.740 Otherwise, if the team went down, then that was a collective.

00:38:09.280 That was just what, this way it was supposed to be.

00:38:11.100 Whatever you can only be a loser by yourself.

00:38:13.780 And we don't have the opportunity to have the mental, you know, I was, I was, I started

00:38:19.400 becoming mentally weak.

00:38:20.600 Hell, hell, we get that out of everybody.

00:38:21.940 Yeah, that's, that is, that's true.

00:38:23.200 And you literally cannot be laying down and taking fire and going, I've never been in this

00:38:29.200 position before.

00:38:30.720 I'm going to go home.

00:38:31.680 That has been, you cannot do that.

00:38:33.060 And we don't, we don't, that's not something, that's not something the military community does

00:38:37.320 as a whole.

00:38:38.140 You don't want to see your dad's last name on one of those helmets by that quit bell.

00:38:43.100 No, no, no, that would never happen on the way that help.

00:38:46.940 That helmet would have been under that bell is if our head was in it.

00:38:50.480 Well, that's the other thing.

00:38:51.460 I mean, I think it's because I'm, I'm looking at you two thinking, this is how you build

00:38:54.680 a soldier.

00:38:55.120 This is how you build a seal, right?

00:38:56.720 Like what happened in Luttrell family that led to these two extraordinary men?

00:38:59.860 And it's, it goes back a ways like the military family, um, the never quit attitude, your mom

00:39:05.260 toughening you up, but with love, your dad sort of not tolerating any BS, this guy, Billy's

00:39:10.020 soup bones, who is, you know, adding another level of toughness.

00:39:13.840 And I, and I think we've skipped over an important one, which is love of America.

00:39:17.460 You're, you are a patriotic family and you were taught from an early age to love this

00:39:24.180 country.

00:39:24.600 Marcus, you put it in your book to die for any woman and fight beside any man without

00:39:28.620 hesitation or hopes of individual achievement to love this country.

00:39:32.960 Your dad taught you and it's people more than you loved yourself.

00:39:38.100 How does, how does he do that?

00:39:39.620 Like, I think a lot of parents out there are saying to themselves, how do I do that right

00:39:42.620 now?

00:39:42.840 You guys are both dads now.

00:39:44.160 How does one teach that?

00:39:45.540 Let them live life.

00:39:47.860 Let them get, get out, get out there and experience it because there is no living unless you have

00:39:51.900 somebody next to you.

00:39:53.020 There is no reality unless there's somebody next to you to base it off of.

00:39:56.900 Otherwise you're just living in open space.

00:40:00.260 So that it's, it's a, it's kind of like a step-by-step process.

00:40:03.200 You only got one day down here tomorrow.

00:40:05.500 You don't have any idea if you're going to see it yesterday is gone.

00:40:07.700 That's why we say the only easy day is yesterday.

00:40:09.740 You wake up in the morning, see what you can do.

00:40:12.020 The further you travel away from your day, the further you're traveling away.

00:40:15.100 Uh, what you're supposed to be doing.

00:40:16.680 And the day is too heavy.

00:40:18.340 It's like fish get carried by the water.

00:40:20.020 The birds get carried by the air.

00:40:21.120 You're actually supposed to get carried by your day.

00:40:23.360 You're meeting some resistance.

00:40:24.560 You're in the wrong spot.

00:40:25.720 And the people in our lives are, we, we're talking like stones and we're blades and they're,

00:40:30.160 they're either going to sharpen you, polish you or dull you out.

00:40:32.620 If your life starts to get dull, look around you.

00:40:35.180 And people who say they don't love this country or they hate this, that's the town or whatever

00:40:39.440 the, the environment they're living in.

00:40:41.820 I heard something like 50 something percent of all people on either the planet or the country

00:40:45.420 don't leave the town they're raised in.

00:40:47.180 So think about that.

00:40:48.980 So just change your environment and everything will change.

00:40:52.120 There is literally somebody out here waiting on you to meet you, to create a life.

00:40:56.840 And our childhood was created.

00:40:59.500 I mean, we love growing up, man.

00:41:01.040 We had, it was hard, but I mean, it wasn't when, when people talk about, when they hear

00:41:05.060 us talk about how things are hard, I say, yeah, it was truly, but it was so worth it

00:41:09.260 because of the time you're having in it.

00:41:12.360 There's a difference between painful and hard.

00:41:15.220 And we just had that.

00:41:16.380 We were blessed with it.

00:41:17.040 And then one thing most certainly is Mark's now, nobody ever believed in us, David,

00:41:22.520 especially when we were telling him we wouldn't be in the teams.

00:41:25.380 We were little bitty guys.

00:41:27.560 And I mean, all the way from, I'll be honest, I'll be truthful.

00:41:31.460 I mean, I was not good in academics.

00:41:33.660 I was not, I was not a smart kid.

00:41:35.980 Most certainly wasn't an athletic kid.

00:41:37.380 We weren't smart.

00:41:38.720 We didn't play college.

00:41:39.580 We didn't play football.

00:41:40.820 Too small.

00:41:41.740 Played tennis.

00:41:42.360 I was in drama.

00:41:43.340 I was in theater.

00:41:44.340 Come on.

00:41:45.080 What's up?

00:41:45.780 Yeah.

00:41:46.180 No, no, no.

00:41:46.580 We were little bitty guys.

00:41:47.200 I don't believe you.

00:41:48.540 Seriously.

00:41:49.220 Yeah, we played tennis.

00:41:50.180 I have a letter.

00:41:51.600 I'm a letterman in theater.

00:41:53.860 What did you star in?

00:41:54.960 Did you, did you have like the lead role?

00:41:56.620 And any particular number?

00:41:59.380 I played the, I played the, I played the, I played the grandmother.

00:42:03.160 I played the grandmother in the picnic.

00:42:06.660 One at clay.

00:42:07.920 But anyway, there came a point in time where I got tired.

00:42:12.680 We got tired of people calling us stupid.

00:42:14.640 Got tired of people calling us weak.

00:42:16.140 And there came a point in time where there would be, there was absolutely nothing.

00:42:23.020 The more miserable we became in training, and especially when we went into the military,

00:42:27.980 the better off we were.

00:42:30.200 And it was strictly a mindset.

00:42:31.860 And you asked about how do we raise our children?

00:42:33.900 I try to give my sons, I have two sons.

00:42:36.440 I try to lend them perspective of the things that I've seen and done.

00:42:40.000 I have, of course, have to break it down to a four-year-old, eight-year-old level.

00:42:42.960 But I give them relative experience.

00:42:44.580 Hey, this is why you don't want to quit.

00:42:46.180 This is why it's okay to fail.

00:42:48.160 You fail forward.

00:42:49.180 You know, this is okay.

00:42:49.980 It's okay to have certain things happen to you because we learn from it.

00:42:53.380 We don't run from it.

00:42:54.560 And that not only builds up their physical fortitude, but also their mental fortitude

00:43:00.400 to know, hey, look, you failed your math test.

00:43:02.460 Hey, we'll just come home.

00:43:03.760 Mom, dad, we'll sit here.

00:43:04.520 We will work harder.

00:43:05.700 Hey, can you ace that?

00:43:06.840 And they ace the next one.

00:43:07.740 Now you understand why it takes work to accomplish something.

00:43:12.140 Nothing's free.

00:43:13.080 Nothing's going to be given to you.

00:43:14.540 And I don't care who you are.

00:43:16.280 If you leave out of, when you get out of high school, when you get out of college,

00:43:19.180 nobody's going to be standing there.

00:43:20.400 Everybody's going to be looking to take you down.

00:43:21.840 And so we, I think we're failing ourselves at the younger levels when they get up out

00:43:27.000 and as younger adults are like, well, everything's supposed to be given to me.

00:43:30.860 It's not supposed to be challenging.

00:43:32.920 Yeah, it is.

00:43:33.720 Most certainly is.

00:43:34.360 That's right.

00:43:34.780 And then you have to leave it to protect your mental health.

00:43:37.180 Our father, he would tell us, he's like, I'm not your friend.

00:43:39.540 I'm not your friend.

00:43:40.080 I'm your father.

00:43:41.000 And reason being is we still have the same crew we had when we were boys and we do stupid

00:43:45.420 things with our friends.

00:43:47.200 Your kids are the one person you can't be friends with.

00:43:50.020 I mean, it talks about that in the Bible.

00:43:51.280 You're not even supposed to like your dad.

00:43:52.460 You got to respect him.

00:43:53.460 He's supposed to keep everything in check.

00:43:54.740 You're loved and beloved by your mom.

00:43:56.840 I thought he would say, you know, my shoes aren't here for you to walk in.

00:43:59.560 You can, or you can step in them every now and again, if you need to.

00:44:02.300 But other than that, I'm going to give you discipline every day of your life.

00:44:05.040 And through discipline, you're going to gain respect, respect for yourself and respect

00:44:08.440 for other people.

00:44:09.320 The only time you ever lose your respect is when you lose your discipline.

00:44:11.800 You're the only one that can throw that away.

00:44:14.140 And think about it.

00:44:14.920 Break it down to one person on one person.

00:44:16.520 If you try to consider yourself one person on life and big, you'll, you'll, you'll break

00:44:20.900 same way with war.

00:44:22.140 If we're standing out on a war on a battlefield, there's a million people standing in front

00:44:25.480 of me and everyone's freaking out.

00:44:26.360 Like, how are we going to beat this number?

00:44:27.440 I was like, I'm going to beat that dude standing right in front of me.

00:44:29.580 And when I'm done with him, I'm going to go to the next one.

00:44:31.040 You get the guy that's, and that's how we worry about it.

00:44:33.480 And as you go through life, you learn from zero to 40, you have an opinion, 40 to 60s

00:44:39.180 perspective.

00:44:39.600 And then wisdom, hopefully she'll show up later.

00:44:41.560 But when, when you go through life, you learn from each experience.

00:44:45.600 Imagine each person that you run into is designed to teach you something about yourself, good,

00:44:49.680 bad, or indifferent.

00:44:51.000 And never look at it as a bad day.

00:44:52.640 It's just either hard or we just keep, and it's training.

00:44:55.580 Imagine all of life is training.

00:44:57.560 The minute you are born, you start dying.

00:44:59.680 You come down here to learn how to live while you're dying.

00:45:02.600 So how are you going to do it?

00:45:05.300 And the coolest part about it is it's only one day.

00:45:08.160 You wake up tired the next day.

00:45:09.600 Well, then that's how you came in and you just keep going.

00:45:13.000 And then you always respect the ones around you because they're the ones that actually

00:45:16.560 give, you know, show you life.

00:45:18.520 Otherwise, it'd be an empty place.

00:45:20.980 Up next, Operation Red Wings, Afghanistan, June 2005, and the battle that would become the

00:45:28.240 subject of a bestselling book of a bestselling movie in which Mark Wahlberg stars as Marcus.

00:45:34.700 And that would change Marcus's and Morgan's life forever.

00:45:38.680 Hearing the one brother talk about what the other brother was going through and vice versa

00:45:42.480 was really extraordinary.

00:45:43.620 And by the way, you should check it out on YouTube because just watching them while the

00:45:47.440 one was speaking was pretty extraordinary.

00:45:49.820 Um, so you can check that out at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

00:45:53.140 But I wanted to read this to you from Marcus's book before we, before we get to it.

00:45:57.660 Okay.

00:45:58.000 Just so you, this is who Marcus is.

00:46:00.160 He writes in his book, I'm a U S Navy SEAL team leader, SDV team one alpha platoon.

00:46:06.020 Like every other SEAL I'm trained in weapons, demolition, and unarmed combat.

00:46:09.720 I'm a sniper and I'm the platoon medic, but most of all, I'm an American.

00:46:14.020 And when the bell sounds, I will come out fighting for my country and for my teammates

00:46:18.400 if necessary to the death.

00:46:20.560 And that's not just because the SEALs trained me to do so.

00:46:23.680 It's because I'm willing to do so.

00:46:25.780 I'm a patriot and I fight with the Lone Star of Texas on my right arm and another Texas flag

00:46:31.060 over my heart.

00:46:32.260 For me, defeat is unthinkable.

00:46:35.520 That's next.

00:46:36.260 It's so fascinating for me to listen to you because I have read your book.

00:46:45.000 I have watched your movie.

00:46:46.360 I've listened to so many interviews you've given speeches you've given.

00:46:49.980 And just, I mean, I know we've spoken before you came on the Kelly file for, um, back in

00:46:54.320 2014, Marcus, but just hearing you talk like this, and it just explains so much, both of

00:46:58.740 you guys, um, about what happened in operation red wings and how you managed to make it through

00:47:03.680 that and how you've managed to find some joy in your life, not withstanding that awful

00:47:08.440 experience and what you witnessed and the loss of your friends.

00:47:11.660 And I know Morgan, your friends died that day too.

00:47:14.720 Um, it wasn't, wasn't just Marcus's friends.

00:47:17.480 Um, but let's, let's talk about it for a bit.

00:47:19.340 Operation red wing.

00:47:20.540 So folks know, um, who haven't seen the movie or read the book.

00:47:23.680 It was in Afghanistan.

00:47:24.840 It was June, 2005.

00:47:26.620 Um, first, can I ask you, Morgan, you were not part of this, but where, where were you

00:47:30.020 when, when this happened?

00:47:31.280 I was in Yuma, Arizona.

00:47:33.800 He and I, I was, he and I did a high five on the tarmac in Afghanistan.

00:47:38.740 And, um, so I was there, he came in and I left and I was in Yuma, Arizona at, um, free

00:47:45.280 fall school.

00:47:45.800 Free fall school.

00:47:46.360 Yeah.

00:47:46.540 Okay.

00:47:46.860 Cause I, I know that you were both deployed at the same time at one point, but this was

00:47:51.160 not that point.

00:47:52.000 This was follow after, after 2006, 2006.

00:47:55.660 Okay.

00:47:56.140 I mean, that's just so crazy after they hear this story, it's like you went back, Morgan went

00:47:59.660 back, um, I mean, Marcus went back and then Morgan went back too.

00:48:02.760 I mean, you guys just kept going back.

00:48:04.080 It's crazy.

00:48:05.060 Um, I mean, it's admirable to somebody like me, a civilian.

00:48:07.380 It's crazy.

00:48:08.140 It's hard to understand how you keep going back and back and back.

00:48:11.100 Um, so the goal of operation red wings, Marcus was to, to basically target this one guy,

00:48:16.980 right?

00:48:17.280 Ahmad Shah.

00:48:18.400 And what were you supposed to do with respect to this guy?

00:48:20.640 Shah.

00:48:21.380 Uh, reconnaissance in the beginning, then it was a capture, kill interrogation, follow on

00:48:25.440 mission.

00:48:26.240 Okay.

00:48:27.180 So you found him pretty easily.

00:48:29.120 You thought you did right.

00:48:30.120 The four of you, it was four of you.

00:48:31.800 There was.

00:48:32.820 Oh, oh yeah.

00:48:33.420 We, we, they, they inserted us and took us over all night into the morning to track down

00:48:38.480 where they were.

00:48:38.980 But we, uh, we got in there and we were on target when the whole thing went down.

00:48:44.160 It's you.

00:48:44.840 Tell us about the, you and the three guys you were with.

00:48:47.220 Uh, Michael Murphy was our officer in charge, Matt Axelson.

00:48:50.100 He was our point man.

00:48:51.200 One of our primary snipers and Danny Dietz was our communicator.

00:48:54.140 And then I was the medic, uh, rear security.

00:48:57.220 That was our, but you had many roles, right?

00:48:59.120 You were medic and you were snipers, right?

00:49:00.620 Just for those of us who are not military people.

00:49:02.960 Correct.

00:49:03.560 Yeah.

00:49:04.460 So Mike Murphy's our officer in charge.

00:49:06.220 Now I was kind of, uh, I was rich security, but I was also the, the LPO of the platoon.

00:49:11.740 So that Danny, Danny actually came from a different seal team and was assigned to us, but seals,

00:49:18.440 we kind of intermingle us all the time.

00:49:20.720 And when I stepped into Afghanistan, like I said, my brother had left.

00:49:23.520 And when we got there, that was our reconnaissance platform.

00:49:26.360 So they would send us in ahead of the main body and we'd stay out there for a week, two

00:49:31.540 weeks, whatever it was, just watching everything.

00:49:32.920 And then the main body would come in.

00:49:35.120 I know you wrote your book that, uh, no seal would ever admit to being scared of anything,

00:49:40.380 whatever we felt that night that you were there.

00:49:42.300 It was not the fear of the enemy.

00:49:43.920 Although I recognize it might've been fear of the unknown because we were really unsure

00:49:46.980 about what we would encounter in the way of terrain.

00:49:49.620 You had terrain and you had weather worries as well.

00:49:52.520 Just set, set the scene for us.

00:49:55.080 That's always the thing with us.

00:49:56.220 When the weather gets bad, the more implement the weather, the, the, the better for us.

00:49:59.760 That's when we're kind of going in this area we had been in.

00:50:03.080 We had to fast rope in, out of the helicopter and it started raining on us halfway through

00:50:08.840 it.

00:50:08.960 And we were up in the snow caps now and it would go from what you think Afghanistan would

00:50:14.420 look like to that shell rock and all that nastiness to look like farmland and beautiful

00:50:18.000 trees.

00:50:18.900 And then you'd be on the side of a mountain and then you'd come around and go down into

00:50:21.920 a valley and you come back up and it just, it kept opening up and dropping down.

00:50:26.240 Um, it was pretty surreal.

00:50:29.180 I remember we all stopped for a little bit to kind of get our, catch our breath.

00:50:32.060 And we were looking around and you never see anything like that out there.

00:50:36.000 It was just, you could see every star and, and it's just, it's just different.

00:50:39.920 And it's tough.

00:50:40.740 It took us eight and a half hours to go four kilometers, four miles, you know, I mean,

00:50:43.900 brutal, but nevertheless, we, we got in, set up shop and started watching the target that

00:50:48.900 morning.

00:50:49.180 And then a couple hours later is when we got overrun.

00:50:52.060 So the, the first sign of trouble was really, you ran, you run into some goat, some goat

00:50:57.100 herders.

00:50:57.700 They're walking the herd and, uh, they, they kind of walked into our perimeter.

00:51:01.500 Uh, a boy actually in the beginning.

00:51:04.320 And, um, and then two adult males.

00:51:07.560 And the question you were faced with was what?

00:51:10.620 What to do with them.

00:51:12.500 What we need to do with them.

00:51:13.360 And we were on target.

00:51:14.260 They, they didn't have any firearms or anything like that, but they, you could tell when people

00:51:18.120 don't, you understand what you're dealing with when you see, it's just like here, when

00:51:21.300 you walk into a different neighborhood or into the store, you know, if there's somebody

00:51:23.580 standing next to you, you can be along with, or they, if they hate you just by the way,

00:51:26.940 things are going.

00:51:27.940 And, uh, we did our, did our thing.

00:51:30.360 And ultimately we, we, we turned them loose.

00:51:32.620 And about an hour later is when we got hit.

00:51:34.940 And it was a real decision because you didn't, you, you suspected they would just run back

00:51:38.760 down and tell Shah and his guys and the Taliban that there's these, you know, these seals

00:51:43.200 are up there.

00:51:44.080 It's pretty self-explanatory.

00:51:45.340 It did.

00:51:45.540 It did happen.

00:51:46.240 That was just the way we thought it would.

00:51:47.180 And it's happened to a couple of other units in the past.

00:51:49.080 When we, when we study our military, uh, our history and, and some of the, uh, the

00:51:52.640 upwards that it's, that's been the case a few times.

00:51:56.680 So when we, we referenced those when we were going through that, uh, and ultimately we,

00:52:00.920 we turned them loose.

00:52:02.400 Because the rules of engagement say you're not supposed to kill civilians.

00:52:06.280 God says that too.

00:52:07.820 We just don't do that.

00:52:08.880 I mean, that's, that's the way it is.

00:52:11.360 We're not murderers, rapists, revenge, and robbery.

00:52:14.020 We don't mess around with that stuff.

00:52:15.440 I mean, we're trained professionals.

00:52:17.020 You spend a lot of money and a lot of time honing our skillset and we, we do it to the

00:52:21.720 best of our ability, sure.

00:52:23.660 You say in your book that, um, that Murphy, uh, Lieutenant Murphy put it up for a vote

00:52:28.280 and that you voted to let them go and said, um, you said it was the stupidest, most Southern

00:52:35.140 fried lame brain decision I ever made in my life.

00:52:37.300 I must've been out of my mind, uh, and that you immediately regretted doing it and thinks

00:52:43.080 that you will regret it for the rest of your life.

00:52:44.940 So how, I mean, I understand what happened after you let them go, but given what you

00:52:50.780 just said about the rules of life, the rules of God, the rules of engagement, how do you

00:52:54.620 square those two?

00:52:56.200 Irony.

00:52:56.600 You don't.

00:52:57.960 That's life.

00:52:59.840 I tried to square that.

00:53:00.940 I'd be thinking about it all the time, man.

00:53:02.340 It'd drive me crazy.

00:53:03.580 I said it out loud.

00:53:04.600 I did it when it happened, you know, then you're like, oh, okay, well then I was, then

00:53:07.820 you just start dealing with it.

00:53:09.180 If it's a problem and you can handle it, then it's not a problem.

00:53:11.720 If it's a problem and you can't handle it, it's not your problem.

00:53:13.860 And everything is good both ways.

00:53:16.900 And then there are times when you will get in situations like this and get tested.

00:53:20.140 And that's just kind of the, well, it was our time.

00:53:22.780 That was our path.

00:53:23.980 Knowing, knowing that they did go give you guys up.

00:53:26.280 And so we think, and Taliban came back and found you.

00:53:31.300 Do you feel like it was the wrong decision?

00:53:33.640 Well, it's splitting hairs, Ms. Megan.

00:53:35.860 I know that's a tough one.

00:53:37.720 Why'd you ask me that?

00:53:39.540 Cause I'm wrestling with it too.

00:53:40.920 The way I answered that was, no, I get your point.

00:53:43.840 That's clever.

00:53:44.520 Wow.

00:53:44.740 That was a good question.

00:53:46.840 That was good.

00:53:47.680 Did you hear that?

00:53:48.260 Of course I did.

00:53:49.000 I'm hanging on every word.

00:53:50.340 Yeah.

00:53:50.860 I don't, I don't, honestly, I, I'm not trying to put myself in my brother's shoes or anything

00:53:54.920 else, but you know, but he wasn't a father back then, you know, as a child.

00:53:59.520 I don't think anybody has the ability or the right to armchair quarterback in this way.

00:54:07.200 One of the most inevitable questions that I always be asked to my brother is like, Hey,

00:54:10.080 look, you know, y'all did this.

00:54:12.060 You said this in your book.

00:54:13.020 How do you think now?

00:54:13.980 And I just think just time changes perspective.

00:54:16.060 But I, you know, if I was ever in that situation and like five years from now, if I, if I, if

00:54:22.940 I was in a situation on the mountainside, knowing what happened to my brother and I was placed,

00:54:27.300 I was put in that same spot.

00:54:29.660 What would I do?

00:54:31.060 No idea because I'm not in that spot right now.

00:54:34.960 You just, yeah, it's tough to go back with, with the knowledge of what happened and try

00:54:39.520 to second guess the decision.

00:54:41.080 We cannot.

00:54:42.080 What if it.

00:54:42.500 Yeah.

00:54:44.340 You raise an interesting point in the book about the media and their influence.

00:54:48.560 I mean, it's weird to think of like the mainstream media at all in your head in that moment,

00:54:51.700 but it, they played a little bit of a role, like the, the shaming that they'd done of soldiers,

00:54:56.820 the worry in, in sort of the heads of some of the seals about what could happen if they

00:55:00.580 made a wrong move.

00:55:01.660 Can you talk about that?

00:55:03.140 It shouldn't be that hard for y'all to think about it because that's y'all are our voice.

00:55:07.040 Y'all are the ones that are supposed to relay the information from one to, to our people.

00:55:10.280 So they get it, so they can have an understanding of what's going on.

00:55:12.940 And when you shift that in a certain way, always pushing the narrative in a certain way,

00:55:19.160 when you're not even out there in the field with us, then yeah, we have to think about

00:55:22.520 it.

00:55:22.800 It doesn't bother us or whatever.

00:55:24.020 No, we just have to deal with it.

00:55:25.300 We have to contend with it.

00:55:26.340 It's not something we think about all the time.

00:55:27.840 It's just like with everything else.

00:55:29.240 Y'all are playing that role.

00:55:30.480 Y'all are the antagonist making everybody mad about what we're doing.

00:55:33.140 So how do we deal with that?

00:55:34.020 We have to, we have to shift when in reality we're over there just to fight a war.

00:55:37.500 But since it shifted like that, we had to contend with, with everything.

00:55:43.840 It's kind of like what's happening to cops right now.

00:55:46.700 Yeah, sure.

00:55:47.700 Everyone's had their, just looking back over the years now, everyone's having their deal.

00:55:52.720 It's turned into a political narrative.

00:55:53.940 Yeah.

00:55:55.040 Right.

00:55:55.400 You shouldn't have had to be dealing with that.

00:55:57.080 I know you said that if you don't think these Taliban knew, you know, certain behavior

00:56:01.680 to wind them up on the cover of some, you know, liberal media magazine or newspaper in

00:56:06.480 a way that would make the troops look bad, you know, they were aware of it too.

00:56:09.480 It just raised interesting questions for me about the media covering, whether it's cops

00:56:12.920 or soldiers and like a higher responsibility to be careful.

00:56:17.440 Oh, certainly.

00:56:18.380 I think you're going to be covering the police officers and however you're reporting on it,

00:56:22.760 put a badge on for a little while.

00:56:23.960 Yeah.

00:56:24.060 You got to run with them.

00:56:25.480 If you're going to be reporting from what they're doing.

00:56:27.840 No, I mean, literally put a badge.

00:56:29.000 Don't go in there as a reporter, put a badge on and walk them out on our shoes or their

00:56:33.800 shoes and see how challenging it is.

00:56:36.520 Or before you can report on it, you actually had to do that job for a few years.

00:56:39.840 I understand it.

00:56:40.860 The press is not a courageous group as a rule.

00:56:44.820 That would never happen.

00:56:46.240 That's funny because every time I turn the television on, man, y'all act like y'all the

00:56:49.320 baddest things walking around.

00:56:50.800 All y'all do is make fun of people, pick on people and stir up fights.

00:56:54.700 Well, sadly, that's true.

00:56:56.100 Although I am.

00:56:57.440 Let me note my objection to the term y'all in this context.

00:57:01.920 So let's talk about it.

00:57:03.420 I don't want to get too deep into it.

00:57:04.680 I don't mean I don't want to make you relive this whole thing, Marcus.

00:57:07.180 I just I just want the audience to understand, you know, sort of what you went through.

00:57:10.120 I don't have to relive it.

00:57:10.840 I lived it.

00:57:11.320 It's good.

00:57:11.740 It's always with me.

00:57:12.400 I'm fine.

00:57:12.860 Come on with it.

00:57:14.520 All right.

00:57:14.960 Okay.

00:57:15.340 Well, you tell me.

00:57:15.980 That'll harden.

00:57:17.520 I got whipped.

00:57:18.280 Yeah.

00:57:18.620 But over time, I healed up.

00:57:20.860 And the biggest thing they that ultimately what happened to me was I got my confidence

00:57:24.460 whipped out of me.

00:57:25.440 They whipped me till I was naked and killed everything around me.

00:57:28.360 And as I grew up, I came back, got around my brothers, my friends.

00:57:31.040 I slowly got it back.

00:57:32.740 And so I learned from that.

00:57:35.140 And it made me stronger, not weaker.

00:57:36.740 So you can ask me anything you want.

00:57:38.740 Well, so can you describe it?

00:57:40.200 Let's talk about Murph.

00:57:41.480 Let's talk about Danny.

00:57:42.560 Let's talk about Axe.

00:57:43.960 Because you guys are out there thick as thieves, just brothers, brothers in arms, like family.

00:57:48.100 Right.

00:57:48.320 Just like family.

00:57:49.920 And how long did the gun battle last?

00:57:52.680 Like from the moment that you let those goat herders go to, like you say, an hour later,

00:57:56.400 the bad guys showed up.

00:57:57.620 It was from the initial shot to around it, to the lulls and the fires of over three hours.

00:58:03.920 The entire time I was out there was about five, six days.

00:58:07.780 I was missing, had me in this hole for three days.

00:58:13.560 Because it started in the morning.

00:58:15.220 And then I thought about this in a while.

00:58:17.480 As they so systematically picked us apart, I was unconscious for a long time.

00:58:21.960 And then when I came to, I was upside down.

00:58:23.580 And I crawled into this crevice and buried myself till the sun went down.

00:58:28.080 And then I just started crawling.

00:58:29.800 And then that lasted all day into the next night.

00:58:32.860 You were outnumbered.

00:58:35.040 What, how many, how many bad guys were there?

00:58:37.380 So Intel reported anywhere from 80 to 200 before we went into the field.

00:58:41.000 My best estimation above me was, was initial was a dozen above our head.

00:58:45.580 And then a dozen or so running down each side.

00:58:47.640 You could see them filling in.

00:58:48.940 And then about halfway through the gunfight, reinforcements came up from the village we were watching.

00:58:54.540 They figured out what was going on.

00:58:55.340 And you know right away, you know right away, this is not one, you know, we're going to need to get out of here or to get air support ASAP.

00:59:02.280 No, we, we realized that immediately.

00:59:04.540 And we were trying the whole time.

00:59:05.740 Problem was we were in that, in that valley, in that canyon.

00:59:08.260 So it was in a gunfight.

00:59:11.280 So the only thing in a gunfight is gun or fire, excuse me, bullets back down range.

00:59:16.180 And then you deal with everything.

00:59:17.920 And, um, there was just never a lull to where we could get that.

00:59:22.440 And we tried to make, um, it wouldn't go out.

00:59:24.200 Perfect storm kind of thing.

00:59:25.860 What it was.

00:59:26.640 Yeah.

00:59:27.560 You couldn't get your comms up.

00:59:29.300 And so you couldn't, couldn't get the backup.

00:59:31.120 Not even until the next day.

00:59:33.320 The, the, the hard part was, as I was crawling through the night, I would, I would ping my, my emergency radio.

00:59:38.320 I didn't know this until years later, but they were actually.

00:59:43.120 Y'all the military was actually seeing that.

00:59:45.180 But by the time they got there, I'd already crawled off because they'd, I'd been walked

00:59:49.520 on and they almost found me.

00:59:50.520 So I just kept going.

00:59:52.300 I got to save myself a lot of pain if I stayed in one spot, but I didn't just get moving.

00:59:56.540 Right.

00:59:57.820 Well, the, the, the account of, of the heroics of the guys who you were with and of yourself

01:00:04.000 are heart rending.

01:00:06.360 I mean, you write about Lieutenant Michael Murphy or Murph, as you say, command control.

01:00:10.940 And, and you say, if they built a memorial to him as high as the empire state building,

01:00:14.780 it would never be high enough for me.

01:00:17.540 This guy was shot up.

01:00:19.020 He knew the risk.

01:00:19.940 He understood what was going to happen to him.

01:00:22.160 If he put himself out from, from undercover, but he had to do it to try to get that phone

01:00:27.220 call, right.

01:00:27.780 To get, try to get that phone call to get the backup.

01:00:30.160 Can you talk about that moment?

01:00:31.200 Marcus, the best way to put it into perspective, when, when y'all get to see war, you watch

01:00:35.520 it on TV.

01:00:36.100 And even when you're watching war on TV, you get excited.

01:00:38.900 And when we win, you get excited.

01:00:40.320 It's just like you're watching any other thing on, on, on television.

01:00:43.260 And especially when you know them and you can relate to them.

01:00:46.540 And, and when you, when you, there's levels of when men start to killing each other, the

01:00:51.800 more intense it gets, the more violent it gets.

01:00:53.960 And, uh, there was a point in time when things start, when everything starts shedding off,

01:01:00.380 you're like, how are we getting to this point, to this point, to this point?

01:01:02.520 And through every military engagement, when you, when you hear about it, like, man, how

01:01:06.560 did you guys live through that?

01:01:07.460 Like, I don't know how we got through that.

01:01:10.500 It's like your body takes just over that muscle memory.

01:01:14.180 And that's kind of the way we're trained.

01:01:15.320 It's just that muscle memory, move, shoot, communicate, keep going, keep going.

01:01:18.200 And then you see something like that, knowing when we get separated and sitting here today,

01:01:23.600 that's, that's the whole reason I got out of there.

01:01:26.860 It's because he did that whole reason.

01:01:28.820 All of us got out of there.

01:01:29.980 I wouldn't have known about it.

01:01:31.160 I'm so thankful that he did that.

01:01:32.860 I, I, I make sure I get out and live my life the best I can every day with a smile on my

01:01:37.020 face, not to begrudge the fact that that went down like that.

01:01:40.580 Cause that's what we were there for.

01:01:41.860 We talked about that.

01:01:42.720 You understand that it's like with anything else in your profession, when you go in to do

01:01:46.100 it, you're going to do it.

01:01:46.800 Well, don't, don't be mad or, or be upset.

01:01:49.340 The fact that we did that, the loss is one thing.

01:01:52.020 Yeah.

01:01:52.200 So all y'all know that when we go into that and to, to, to even come off of that kind

01:01:59.800 of motivation, an inch with me, what would, it would tear me down.

01:02:03.660 So on mine, it's always the, the, the best, the positive, the, the, what, what we were

01:02:07.820 there for never, it's like, ah, I can't, can't do it.

01:02:11.160 There's no, there's no, there's no way he didn't know what was going to happen to him.

01:02:15.180 If he, if he got, went out and into the open like that to make that call.

01:02:18.820 He was, he was shot up anyway, it's before he went out there.

01:02:22.620 Yeah.

01:02:23.820 I mean, I, not to get too graphic, they didn't put all that in the movie, how bad it really

01:02:28.640 was.

01:02:29.420 We left that out for the families, but.

01:02:32.740 Yeah.

01:02:33.700 That's all I have to say about that.

01:02:34.860 I guess.

01:02:36.060 Well, I know you described it as an act of supreme valor.

01:02:38.700 Um, he, he did that for all of you and to try to save your lives and, and his life.

01:02:45.340 And, but he knew what was going to happen and ultimately might do something so magnificent.

01:02:49.780 You're like, wow, like jaw dropping in the middle of a moment, like in the middle of all

01:02:53.580 that, you see some stuff go down.

01:02:54.800 You're like, wow, that was awesome.

01:02:55.640 I hope I remember that.

01:02:57.120 Is that right?

01:02:57.820 Did you, did you have that feeling in the moment?

01:03:00.780 There's a, there's elevation moments.

01:03:03.500 Okay.

01:03:04.080 You know, when they have, I mean, ask anybody when they're out there, you fight long enough.

01:03:07.800 You have them.

01:03:08.700 And I guess it's the mind's way of breaking that.

01:03:11.580 So you don't break.

01:03:13.200 And I, you know, I can't say that I was trained for it or anything like that.

01:03:16.340 I would just pick it up.

01:03:17.900 And a lot of the guys see that, you know, they, they, they, what's crazy.

01:03:21.240 What's crazy about it is when you read the story, it seems like each one of you guys

01:03:25.300 had one of these moments, you know, I mean, I don't know these guys, you, I didn't know

01:03:28.820 them, but I read about Danny Dietz and you talk about how he'd been providing the covering

01:03:33.280 fire all afternoon.

01:03:34.820 He was desperately wounded.

01:03:36.240 He kept firing no matter what happened.

01:03:38.540 No matter how many bullets they fired into him, he just, he just never stopped firing

01:03:43.340 and trying to protect you guys until he, until he was dead.

01:03:47.160 I think he was so upset.

01:03:48.540 They shot his thumb off his hand.

01:03:50.240 Uh, he was a community that calm guy had a radio in his hand and they, he got, I mean,

01:03:54.100 that was the first injury I had to, I treated out there.

01:03:56.940 He was the first one.

01:03:58.480 I remember he came up and the fight had been on for a little while.

01:04:00.900 I didn't know he was shot.

01:04:02.500 He's just mad.

01:04:04.960 You know, he kind of had that look on his face.

01:04:06.300 I was like, what's up, bro?

01:04:07.020 He put it, he had put his hand up and I was like, whoa, I'm sorry.

01:04:10.860 I don't mean to laugh.

01:04:11.580 It's like, uh, I was like, how'd that happen?

01:04:14.800 You know, in the middle of a gunfight, I know how it happened, but I mean, you know,

01:04:18.180 you ask for a little detailed things.

01:04:19.580 You're like, man, I was just sitting there.

01:04:20.740 And that, in that moment, there's a little, well, you know, all right, here.

01:04:24.420 And then we, we, we kept moving.

01:04:27.020 And then I'm just like, uh, I forgot about that.

01:04:31.040 I mean, you talk about how he died in your arms.

01:04:34.960 Your heart broke.

01:04:36.820 Yeah.

01:04:37.260 And you left him with God.

01:04:38.660 And that I'm, I can't imagine because I know in the book and the movie make clear,

01:04:43.600 no matter who died, no matter who stopped fighting because of the bullets, you kept

01:04:47.780 trying to go back to get them.

01:04:49.180 Like that's one of the things that stood out to me.

01:04:51.340 You kept trying to go back to get them.

01:04:52.540 Even when you, you, you must've known there was no hope.

01:04:57.140 Always hope.

01:04:58.780 Always.

01:05:01.540 And it's more of a thing.

01:05:02.520 I'm trying to get back with them.

01:05:03.560 Cause it's like a safety blanket.

01:05:06.460 You're looking at it from the wrong lens.

01:05:08.060 You need to look at it from as I get the back together.

01:05:10.400 We're stronger.

01:05:12.060 It's not like trying to get them out of there too.

01:05:13.720 That, that, that, that obviously happened, but there there's a, it's, it's hard to explain.

01:05:17.680 You got anything on that, bro.

01:05:18.540 I mean, it's kind of like a, Hey, no, I wasn't there and I would never try to.

01:05:22.160 No, I didn't mean it like that.

01:05:23.760 Thanks for the backup.

01:05:24.720 To me, it speaks to not only the bond between the seals, but like you guys tell me as twin

01:05:28.860 brothers who love each other so deeply, how does that, how does the bond compare?

01:05:33.700 Right.

01:05:34.060 When you go out there and you're fighting this to these guys, how does that bond compare to

01:05:37.400 the one you share as actual family brothers?

01:05:39.900 Exactly the same.

01:05:41.760 That words don't even do it justice.

01:05:43.480 I mean, what they put us through and what we come out on the other side is completely

01:05:47.280 different than anything else walking around here.

01:05:51.180 That's why we always call ourselves brothers.

01:05:52.940 Yeah, man.

01:05:53.220 It's a, that's just a word we have to use.

01:05:54.740 So y'all will know, but it's, I don't think there's a, I don't think there's a word that

01:05:58.480 you could articulate.

01:05:59.180 I'm not going into hell for, yeah, all the time.

01:06:04.880 Well, and you and you, Morgan, during all of this, so you, you find out that this has

01:06:10.040 gone down.

01:06:10.520 There's been some sort of a fight and that they can't find Marcus.

01:06:14.000 I, I, I would be remiss not to mention.

01:06:17.380 I was literally freaking out the whole time he was going to do something dumb.

01:06:20.980 You want to know what happened?

01:06:22.160 Worked up was that my brother, I was, I remember when they, when the village found me too, I

01:06:25.160 was like, Hey bro, I am right here.

01:06:27.260 But right.

01:06:28.640 Cause your family didn't know that you, you were alive.

01:06:31.440 Axe was also killed who I understand was your, one of your best friends.

01:06:35.480 You too, Morgan, Morgan's best friend.

01:06:37.800 And, and, uh, and so you were obviously the lone survivor, hence the name of the movie

01:06:42.040 and the book and so on.

01:06:43.180 You wound up getting found by, by a villager.

01:06:46.200 He, he helped give you shelter.

01:06:48.840 You got word back to the military base and, um, and amazingly they came back and got you.

01:06:53.480 I, of course a helicopter had gone down and an attempt to rescue you as well.

01:06:57.260 And, uh, seal team six, eight seals, eight army special ops were killed as well.

01:07:02.060 One of the many tragedies about this story, but while it's all going down and while Marcus

01:07:06.800 is missing, what are you being told?

01:07:09.320 Morgan Morgan, you, you were already back at the ranch in Texas.

01:07:12.360 I was, I was, uh, I, so when the 20th on the, on the actual, on the 28th, I was still at freefall

01:07:20.120 school and we were two days out of graduation, I think two days from graduation.

01:07:24.680 And I had not been reached out to from the command, David Goggins, who was at, who was

01:07:30.040 with me at, at, at jump school.

01:07:33.360 He came in, he came in, he's like, Hey, there's, there's something happening in Afghanistan.

01:07:37.700 Have you heard anything?

01:07:40.020 I was like, no, I haven't.

01:07:41.080 And then the next day he comes in, he's like, Hey, there's a, there's a helicopter that went

01:07:44.100 down and there's seals that were killed.

01:07:47.140 How have you heard anything about your brother?

01:07:48.540 I was like, I was exactly what I said to him.

01:07:50.440 I was like, and I don't feel anything.

01:07:51.940 So he's fine.

01:07:54.060 And we graduated shortly thereafter.

01:07:57.100 And I, and I got in, in my rental car and I was headed back to San Diego to get on a

01:08:00.760 flight to go back to Hawaii.

01:08:02.060 There's no cell phone service out in, out in Yuma.

01:08:04.420 And when I got into range where my phone just started voicemail after voicemail.

01:08:09.800 And then the first one was a buddy of ours.

01:08:13.300 And, uh, he's like, hang up and call me what he said.

01:08:17.320 So I did.

01:08:18.840 And he went into the story of, Hey, this is what's going down.

01:08:22.880 I was like, what about bro?

01:08:24.040 And he's like, well, he's MIA presumed KIA.

01:08:25.880 And that's two, a two hour plus drive from Yuma to San Diego.

01:08:28.860 It was a pretty long drive by myself.

01:08:30.220 I can't believe I didn't get pulled over.

01:08:31.280 I do about 110.

01:08:31.820 And, and so when I got to the command, they, they had, everybody was there.

01:08:40.240 I mean, everybody knew everything.

01:08:41.480 It was as much as they could know at this particular time.

01:08:43.360 So they rounded me up and I called the house.

01:08:46.280 And when my father answered the phone, he's like, am I, will I be expecting, uh, someone

01:08:50.260 to show up on the doorstep in a uniform?

01:08:52.080 And I was like, if anybody shows up, dad, it'll be me.

01:08:54.280 And, uh, unfortunately I had to show up that night.

01:08:56.020 We got there about two, three o'clock in the morning, if I remember correctly.

01:08:58.580 And from there it was, what, what was the news at that point that KIA or MIA, but did

01:09:06.620 they, did they know that, that Danny and, and no, that particular point, they only knew

01:09:11.780 about the helicopter.

01:09:12.620 They didn't know we were on the ground.

01:09:14.160 Yeah.

01:09:14.480 That was, that was the problem.

01:09:15.800 The only one I knew about was the helicopter and they had, they, the only, the only individuals

01:09:21.380 that knew about the boots on the ground were of course myself and all my teammates that

01:09:26.400 ended up coming out there with me at the ranch and in the, in the, in the community, but not

01:09:31.280 the civilian population per se.

01:09:33.060 And then that started to trickle out.

01:09:35.240 Well, so for how many days were you at the ranch with your mom and with, you know, your

01:09:39.460 neighbors waiting for word?

01:09:40.740 So the 29th and we got the word on July 3rd, if I remember correctly, and we had had a secured

01:09:51.060 line brought out to the house the day that we showed up so we could get reports from higher

01:09:57.800 on or updates.

01:09:59.720 And it was twice a day and it was a rollercoaster ride because day into night and as days went

01:10:05.160 on more and more and then they, they found, they found Mikey and they found Danny and I had people

01:10:14.640 coming in and telling me, Hey, look, you know, by myself, they're like, Hey, look, we, the, the

01:10:19.920 words out, you know, brother didn't make it not.

01:10:22.740 And I whole time I was like, look, my brother's out there.

01:10:25.140 You better, you either get y'all send somebody to find him or I'm gonna go myself.

01:10:28.640 Cause I was always trying to get back over there.

01:10:30.000 I was like, I know I can find my bro.

01:10:31.340 I know exactly where he'll be.

01:10:32.400 I know what he'll be doing.

01:10:33.180 Of course that didn't work out.

01:10:34.600 Well, like now you gotta stay here with your family.

01:10:35.980 I was like, okay.

01:10:36.460 So, um, at any given time there was anywhere from 60 to 300 people at our ranch and those

01:10:42.040 phone calls were just devastating and they were good and bad, right?

01:10:46.200 No, no news is good news is something they kept saying.

01:10:49.700 And then if I'm fairly certain it was the morning call and a master chief, master chief

01:10:58.780 Gothro was out there and he's the one that would answer the phone.

01:11:00.880 And by this time there's anywhere, there's about 40 seals out there and we would all

01:11:05.300 pile into my father's bedroom, which was little bitty and shoulder to shoulder and

01:11:09.840 master chief's on the phone.

01:11:11.060 He's like, yes, sir.

01:11:11.760 Roger that.

01:11:12.220 Understood.

01:11:13.100 Roger that.

01:11:13.640 Yes, sir.

01:11:14.160 And he dropped his head.

01:11:16.700 And I mean, we lost it.

01:11:18.900 Right.

01:11:19.200 We was like, oh my God, you know, the worst case scenario.

01:11:21.800 And I'm sitting there staring at him.

01:11:22.780 Everybody was crying around.

01:11:23.900 I was in there staring at him.

01:11:24.780 And he, he, he, he gives us a thumbs up and oh yeah.

01:11:30.360 What a son of a bitch.

01:11:31.460 I know.

01:11:31.800 Right.

01:11:33.740 And everything.

01:11:34.620 So everybody in the room is crying.

01:11:37.140 Which this guy's great though, by the way.

01:11:38.820 Oh yeah.

01:11:39.400 No, no.

01:11:39.680 He's awesome.

01:11:40.660 Yeah.

01:11:40.860 He's large.

01:11:42.180 Yeah.

01:11:42.340 He's just, uh, anyhow, my parents came walking in and then some of my best friends came walking

01:11:49.420 in and they saw everybody else crying.

01:11:50.680 Mom loses it.

01:11:51.480 Dad loses it.

01:11:52.000 They're like, no, no, no.

01:11:52.800 Like they, they, they found him.

01:11:53.860 He's rescued.

01:11:55.100 So, um, I mean, I don't remember who it was.

01:11:57.860 Walked out to the crowd and said they found him.

01:12:00.500 And I mean, it sounded like the Superbowl.

01:12:02.120 Like I could hear it from Afghanistan.

01:12:03.360 So all the, but the problem with that was all the, all my friends and family were celebrating

01:12:08.880 the fact that we found my brother, but all the seals that were out there and all

01:12:11.840 the other, and there were some Marines and army and everybody just started to come

01:12:15.720 out and spend time with us.

01:12:16.980 We were still very stoic because we're down, we're down men, you know?

01:12:21.780 So we kind of, we huddled up and everybody was celebrating that they found Marcus, but

01:12:26.660 the rest of us were, you know, Hey, look, we're, we're still down.

01:12:29.220 So we're, we're, we're praying and we're doing what we need to do to stay on, stay on target,

01:12:34.020 if you will.

01:12:35.220 And then it was a few days later that they, um, obviously they found X.

01:12:40.680 I don't remember exactly how many.

01:12:42.680 And that was weeks later.

01:12:43.740 I thought it was, it was, well, if it was, anyways, it was a, it was a stretch and that

01:12:49.300 was really hard because we just, you know, we were still trying to get the reports up,

01:12:53.020 down, up, down until the last man was out.

01:12:55.840 But, uh, it was good to go back in there and get them.

01:12:57.800 It was good to know that, that my brother had been rescued.

01:13:00.660 Can you, can you tell me Morgan?

01:13:03.560 Um, I, I read in, in Marcus's book that, that, that you guys, um, saying God bless America.

01:13:12.280 Oh yeah.

01:13:13.380 Oh, so the pastors were coming out.

01:13:16.440 I mean, there was, uh, so we had a chaplain that, that stayed with us from day one.

01:13:19.960 I had a chaplain that, that flew with me out to, um, out to the ranch.

01:13:26.840 Vaughn, right?

01:13:27.580 Amongst us.

01:13:28.200 A lot of folks.

01:13:28.840 Mo?

01:13:29.020 Maybe 10 acres with a push mower.

01:13:33.520 Anyway, there's my, there's mom for you right there.

01:13:35.560 So we're very spiritual.

01:13:36.960 Yeah.

01:13:37.140 We're very spiritual, spiritual, patriotic family.

01:13:39.240 And my mother was very good about keeping us front sight focused on other things besides

01:13:43.720 what was going on.

01:13:45.080 And yeah, so there was prayers.

01:13:47.020 There were singing.

01:13:48.040 There was a lot going on.

01:13:50.200 Matter of fact, a funny story.

01:13:51.500 I don't know if this has been out.

01:13:52.280 Um, maybe day three, my mom's first thing, son's coming up and she's barking orders at all

01:13:57.920 the team guys and everyone else that's around and sleeping in the yard, sleeping in their

01:14:00.920 trucks.

01:14:01.240 Y'all boys get up.

01:14:02.160 We gotta, you know, we gotta, we gotta mend these fences.

01:14:04.920 We gotta cut that.

01:14:05.840 Y'all we're out here.

01:14:06.440 We'll put you to work.

01:14:07.560 And she was kind of getting a little aggressive with everybody.

01:14:09.560 And I'm standing on the porch with four or five of my teammates beside me.

01:14:12.500 And I said, mama, why don't you calm down a little bit?

01:14:16.300 And she slapped me in the face in front of everybody.

01:14:19.400 Yeah.

01:14:20.660 She's like, I'm your mother.

01:14:21.620 Don't you ever talk to me like that?

01:14:22.640 And I was like, yes, ma'am.

01:14:23.600 The looks on him, so much his face stand next to me.

01:14:25.780 I tell you what.

01:14:26.340 I was 32 years old.

01:14:27.940 Oh, no, no.

01:14:28.400 I was 29 years old.

01:14:29.640 I was 29 years old.

01:14:30.680 Combat veteran.

01:14:31.520 Combat veteran.

01:14:32.640 And she slapped me in front of everybody.

01:14:33.980 I'm jerking nodding her ass so fast.

01:14:34.740 She don't you ever talk to me like that?

01:14:35.960 I was like, yes, ma'am.

01:14:36.680 I apologize.

01:14:37.820 And I think what everybody went to work.

01:14:39.840 Yeah, yeah.

01:14:40.140 But that was her way.

01:14:41.100 She was the rock out there.

01:14:43.500 Well, you never, she never cried except for when she walked in with that phone call.

01:14:47.720 But she was very, yeah, very stern, very stoic, very, yeah, a matriarch that she kept her mind

01:14:57.240 busy by putting all the her other sons to work, if you will.

01:15:00.300 That's how she looked at everybody.

01:15:01.820 And that boy, they bought it by that.

01:15:03.360 And I have to tell you, I love that because this is from your book.

01:15:07.380 It really got me.

01:15:08.660 And you say immediately, this is after they gave him the good news.

01:15:13.040 Immediately, they raised the flag and the stars and stripes fluttered in the hot breeze.

01:15:16.920 And then the seals linked arms with my family and my friends.

01:15:19.880 Oh, I'm getting emotional.

01:15:21.680 And my neighbors, people who they might never see again, but to whom they were now irrevocably

01:15:26.980 joined for all the days of their lives.

01:15:29.280 I was alive.

01:15:30.080 I guess that's all it took.

01:15:31.640 And all these amazing guys with hearts as wide as the Texas prairies burst suddenly into

01:15:36.260 song.

01:15:37.120 God bless America, land that I love.

01:15:39.900 I just, it's such a moment.

01:15:43.080 I don't know, Marcus, when you heard about that.

01:15:45.820 So they wrote me letters.

01:15:47.580 They would write me letters.

01:15:48.640 And I got, when I was in the hospital, I got to read them.

01:15:51.200 When he was talking about, then you could hear them screaming from Afghanistan and people

01:15:54.160 sleeping in horse trailers.

01:15:55.500 Like two of our buddies, all they did was work the barbecue pit, slipped in and gave it.

01:16:00.180 Yeah.

01:16:00.340 The tallest brother, Jason Tullis.

01:16:01.740 I just slept in those old school lawn chairs, right?

01:16:04.980 Hot.

01:16:06.380 Right.

01:16:06.820 Hot.

01:16:07.260 It's June in Texas.

01:16:08.740 June, July.

01:16:09.780 Yeah.

01:16:10.100 June, July.

01:16:11.220 Into, yeah.

01:16:12.260 Into when he came.

01:16:13.280 They did not leave.

01:16:13.940 Yeah.

01:16:14.080 I was away for a while.

01:16:14.940 I was in the hospital.

01:16:15.600 So I didn't get home for a while.

01:16:17.160 Oh yeah.

01:16:17.580 So, so can we get to that?

01:16:18.960 Cause that, that's actually something that's really amazing about your story too.

01:16:22.080 You, we, I, we got to talk about this.

01:16:24.240 Cause this is like, I'm picking the things that really made me like feel something, something other

01:16:28.520 than total despair.

01:16:30.600 And it was, first of all, you come off, you get off at, at Bagram, you get back to, back

01:16:35.660 to Bagram and you see the nurse, the nurse gets a look at you who had seen you before

01:16:40.300 you went off.

01:16:41.740 And she takes one look at you and just describe the condition you were in and what the nurse

01:16:47.560 did.

01:16:47.820 And I guess I was, there was this one lady when they transferred me from the, the helo

01:16:52.780 to this, to a C one 30 fixed wing aircraft on, on a different base.

01:16:56.440 I think it was J bag.

01:16:57.520 They laid me down.

01:16:59.220 It was just an open plane.

01:17:00.460 There was a gurney laid down on the ground.

01:17:02.300 And, and I was like, sweet, my own plane.

01:17:05.880 First class.

01:17:07.020 And I remember laying down and, um, this doc, an angel straight from heaven.

01:17:13.800 She leaned over top of me.

01:17:14.880 She's like, baby, are you a pain?

01:17:17.200 And then my first reaction was like, no ma'am, I'm strong.

01:17:22.460 And I was like a little bit.

01:17:23.620 And she juiced me up.

01:17:24.620 I'd never touched anything before.

01:17:25.900 I never messed up.

01:17:26.940 And then I, I was like, she's my new favorite person.

01:17:29.760 And she started just talking to me.

01:17:31.900 Like I never, I hadn't heard English.

01:17:33.360 I was like, man.

01:17:34.400 And she started, she's like, I'm, I'm, I'm here to take the pain away.

01:17:37.600 I was like, okay.

01:17:40.100 There was this other guy.

01:17:41.100 He was great.

01:17:42.120 I didn't even get his name.

01:17:42.880 He had a, he had a, all I remember is I still have this.

01:17:44.880 It had an American flag on it.

01:17:46.360 And he took it off his head and put it on mine.

01:17:47.760 He's like, you earned that.

01:17:48.760 I was like, thank you.

01:17:49.680 Well, they went to cutting my clothes off of me.

01:17:52.760 And the only thing that really made it was this, this is a random story, but I had these

01:17:56.820 underarm tri shorts on.

01:17:58.740 And that was a big deal when we got issued those.

01:18:01.620 And they cut those off of me.

01:18:03.060 And I, and this happened to another buddy of mine as well.

01:18:05.200 So when I started, when the plane landed in the ramps, I was like, how do you want to

01:18:08.420 leave out?

01:18:08.700 Are you wants to gurney out here?

01:18:09.660 I was like, nah, man, just help me.

01:18:10.860 Just pick me up.

01:18:11.420 Let me kind of help walk said IV bags on my neck.

01:18:14.520 I remember that.

01:18:15.260 And they were kind of strutting me down and I look kind of off the corner and there was

01:18:19.040 this, I remember this one lady, she, she started, she just covered her face and walk away.

01:18:23.860 I guess I looked worse than I thought.

01:18:25.280 I thought I looked pretty good.

01:18:26.380 But, uh, um, man, they've broken a lot of bones, broke your back.

01:18:33.200 Yes, ma'am.

01:18:33.720 I'm shot.

01:18:34.880 But, um, uh, they took care of me.

01:18:37.600 Yeah, man.

01:18:37.820 They put me back together.

01:18:38.960 So good.

01:18:39.380 Oh yeah.

01:18:40.420 I got a cheeseburger for Burger King.

01:18:42.480 We were driving back and they're like, you want anything?

01:18:43.680 I was like, man, I love a cheeseburger.

01:18:45.380 And I got one bite out of that and I got sick.

01:18:47.260 I remember cause I hadn't eaten anything in forever.

01:18:48.880 And it was just, I was so sick on the inside.

01:18:51.340 I caught all this stuff.

01:18:53.120 I was laying on the ground bleeding and there was bacteria got inside of me.

01:18:56.860 But, uh, uh, I mean, amazingly, you know, for whatever reason that you, you made it out

01:19:03.600 of there, you know, you, you, you weren't shot to death in that gun battle and you did

01:19:08.420 get the help of this, this Afghan guy named Mohammed Gulab Khan, who helped you and gave

01:19:14.920 you a place to stay and took care of you for a few days.

01:19:17.480 Well, until our guys could come get you, he got a note to them and they came back to

01:19:21.360 get you.

01:19:22.440 I don't know, Marcus, I'm sure you've given some thought to this, but do you ever, do

01:19:25.360 you ever think like, why, why, why did I live?

01:19:28.280 Like, why me?

01:19:29.600 What does it mean?

01:19:30.520 What am I meant to do now?

01:19:32.580 Absolutely.

01:19:33.020 I mean, you go through those.

01:19:33.900 Okay.

01:19:34.600 Um, you should ask yourself that question.

01:19:36.900 I was like, why, why?

01:19:38.340 And then I started looking and I just started doing the best I could earning the right.

01:19:44.040 I have to be alive was granted to me by y'all.

01:19:46.620 Y'all came and got me.

01:19:48.040 And I remember that I kind of go borrow time thing, but with, with incentive, every time

01:19:54.600 we would go out and, you know, and we would get busted up, no matter how hard we broke

01:19:57.460 our body, both of them, if you did a helicopter crash, helicopters crash around me, I fall

01:20:01.540 down mountains, you know, he drowns, whatever.

01:20:03.920 But every time y'all bring us back to life and put us back together, we go back out happier

01:20:07.800 and stronger with those memories to remind us of, of how, how, how, where we come from.

01:20:14.540 Y'all never gave up on me, on us.

01:20:16.500 Y'all never did never gave up ever.

01:20:19.180 And I, it just, every single day, it just gets stronger and stronger.

01:20:23.980 That appetite we have for going out and doing more really does.

01:20:27.300 Your brother did it too.

01:20:28.520 I mean, you're, you, you were in a helicopter that went down, right, Morgan?

01:20:32.560 That was back stateside on a, on a, on a training mission, as I understand it.

01:20:36.800 And you, you also, typical twin.

01:20:39.100 I was in the hospital in that.

01:20:41.000 I mean, it's so crazy.

01:20:42.180 I hear these stories.

01:20:43.020 I'm like, you're a poor mom.

01:20:44.760 Yes, exactly.

01:20:45.460 Same thing.

01:20:46.300 It's funny.

01:20:46.900 Cause that, I broke, I broke the exact same vertebrae he did.

01:20:51.640 Oh, come on.

01:20:53.160 Yeah.

01:20:53.500 Oh yeah.

01:20:54.140 T9, 10, 11, 12, L3 and four.

01:20:56.880 I sat up in bed tonight.

01:20:58.040 I was like, what?

01:20:59.240 And they were like, Hey, you got to get up.

01:21:00.720 Brothers in a helicopter crash.

01:21:01.880 Oh yeah.

01:21:02.760 Absolutely.

01:21:03.680 So that, is that true for you guys?

01:21:05.180 Like you can feel when something's going on with the other one.

01:21:07.420 Oh yeah.

01:21:08.000 That's been a thing for us for a long time.

01:21:10.360 Wow.

01:21:10.900 And they were like, Hey, you got to get up here.

01:21:12.020 And I co I finally made it up there.

01:21:13.380 I could run it down.

01:21:14.020 He was in that.

01:21:14.820 He was had, they put him in the MRI tube.

01:21:17.380 So I walked down there to be with him, but he couldn't get the tube.

01:21:20.420 Cause he had the hiccups.

01:21:21.260 They had given him pain meds.

01:21:22.180 They gave him hiccups.

01:21:22.780 You might have allergic to opioids.

01:21:25.460 Thank God.

01:21:26.180 It broke a pelvis.

01:21:27.840 And then, so they gave him hiccups for that.

01:21:29.700 And then they, so he couldn't get into the MRI tube.

01:21:31.960 So we're both sitting in the, in the lobby in the basement of this hospital.

01:21:35.320 Excuse me.

01:21:35.700 Just, that was a pretty somber moment.

01:21:38.340 I think we had a blast though.

01:21:40.380 I understand it now talking to you guys, how much you love being seals and how much

01:21:45.800 you, you love serving the country.

01:21:47.540 This is like what you were born to do, but it's, it's to the outside person.

01:21:51.140 Just amazing.

01:21:51.920 And, and I, it leads me to tell me, Marcus, is this a seal credo?

01:21:56.180 Um, it's in your book, the seal philosophy.

01:21:59.460 I will never quit the sort of the paragraph and I will never quit.

01:22:02.560 Is that, does every seal take like an oath to that extent?

01:22:07.360 Do you know that?

01:22:08.620 Can you like, do you know it by heart?

01:22:09.960 One of them deals where that, that the guys who we actually know the guys who wrote that

01:22:14.580 and the, the, the powers that be, they kind of had like a, like a round table and they

01:22:20.620 brought one, I think the one rank, right?

01:22:22.420 It's one rank, one person from each rank and then some master chiefs and some officers

01:22:27.140 and they all sat down and wrote that.

01:22:28.700 And, um, it sums it up our life.

01:22:31.220 I thrive on adversity.

01:22:32.180 When knocked down, I'll get back up every time, you know, never out of the fight country

01:22:36.060 expects me to be mentally tougher and harder than everybody else.

01:22:39.880 Then my enemy, I thrive on adversity.

01:22:42.780 I mean, so many parts of that, when it comes into it, you just like at any given time, it

01:22:47.620 reminds you, it's also a reminder of what y'all gave to us.

01:22:50.580 You, you'd said that you see how much fun we have and just the, the joy we have in being

01:22:54.800 Navy SEALs and serving the country.

01:22:56.060 It is, I mean, boil it down to if this is one big high school or one big house, y'all

01:23:02.100 let us go do that.

01:23:03.440 We get to have that kind of travel the world and see everything.

01:23:06.000 That's why it's so hard to get in.

01:23:07.600 And that's why we die.

01:23:09.420 But the life y'all grant us is something, I mean, it was, thank you.

01:23:15.900 I guess.

01:23:16.320 You know what?

01:23:16.780 But it's amazing that you say that you, you spoke at the Republican national convention

01:23:21.200 in 16 and I, I listened and I was like, listen to what he's saying.

01:23:24.660 This American hero, you said America will always be worth fighting for.

01:23:29.540 And it was my greatest honor to fight for her every day of my adult life.

01:23:32.580 I wanted to come up here and thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart

01:23:37.760 for allowing me to serve you for 20 years.

01:23:40.920 You went on to say you were going to spend the rest of your life trying to make it up

01:23:45.420 to America.

01:23:45.920 Like I, I, that mindset of service, of gratitude, of love of country, Marcus, it's the reason

01:23:53.140 everybody loves you and you too, Morgan.

01:23:55.200 It's that is inspirational.

01:23:57.620 That's the kind of thing we want our kids to wake up thinking every day that, that you're

01:24:02.900 thanking us.

01:24:03.680 What are you thanking us for?

01:24:05.220 We're the ones who need to thank you.

01:24:06.840 We're the ones who have nothing but gratitude for you, how much fun we have.

01:24:11.980 And it's hell.

01:24:13.220 I mean, it's hell getting this respect from y'all.

01:24:15.300 Imagine that if y'all the most, the most respected nation, the most, the strongest, most powerful

01:24:19.600 thing to ever be down here.

01:24:22.360 I mean, take away the countries.

01:24:24.100 We're all earthlings.

01:24:25.260 You know what I mean?

01:24:26.000 Everybody fighting and going back and forth with this, but then this place exists to give

01:24:29.740 us a life like this.

01:24:30.680 And every day we get into it, it just keeps getting better and better.

01:24:32.840 And, you know, I think brother has a perspective that most, and I wouldn't wish what happened

01:24:38.800 to him on anybody, but maybe the perspective of that he had all that taken away from it.

01:24:42.260 I mean, alone and just when, yeah, you have some, you don't have anything, nothing, zero

01:24:49.300 and everyone around you is trying to kill you and your country comes back and get you.

01:24:54.800 Those are those Rangers that came out and saved him and brought him back, you know, and then

01:24:58.320 everybody was so welcoming when he got home.

01:25:00.160 And hell yeah, he's going to say what he says.

01:25:03.740 I mean, we all should.

01:25:05.020 I don't even go out of the house very much because people try to do something for me.

01:25:08.880 I'm like, I have a brother step into the breach now.

01:25:12.500 This is the best part.

01:25:13.160 Now that we're twins, we're going to have fun with this.

01:25:18.360 Don't leave me now.

01:25:19.280 We got more coming up in 60 seconds.

01:25:25.040 You got your brother.

01:25:26.140 You got your mom.

01:25:27.140 You got your wife.

01:25:28.080 Can we spend a minute on Melanie?

01:25:30.160 How lucky are you?

01:25:31.400 Pretty lucky.

01:25:32.060 Oh, I'm extremely lucky.

01:25:36.120 She's just having a bad day or something.

01:25:37.620 I come stumbling in there.

01:25:38.660 I actually tell people because my brother met his wife at our wedding.

01:25:42.460 He married her best friend.

01:25:44.160 Yeah.

01:25:44.420 Oh, no way.

01:25:45.260 I didn't realize that.

01:25:46.300 Oh, yeah.

01:25:46.800 They live right across.

01:25:48.280 Leslie.

01:25:48.880 They're best friends.

01:25:50.760 And I tell people, hey, we're not the seals.

01:25:53.620 They are.

01:25:53.980 My brother and I had to go through every ounce of pain and everything we had to go through

01:25:58.180 just to earn the right to stand next to them because of whatever, however special they

01:26:01.580 are.

01:26:01.900 And they are.

01:26:02.860 They had to have one of us.

01:26:04.680 And that's how I always look at it.

01:26:06.640 She's.

01:26:07.640 Why?

01:26:08.480 They are very, very tolerant women.

01:26:11.180 Oh, I told her that last time.

01:26:12.860 Tolerant.

01:26:13.620 Thank you so much for understanding.

01:26:15.540 Can I tell you?

01:26:16.120 So I I've spoken with Melanie a bit.

01:26:18.460 I know her a bit and I'm in awe.

01:26:21.340 The kind of woman who is strong enough and sensitive enough and smart enough to protect

01:26:26.440 and be a partner to a man like Marcus Luttrell is the kind of woman I aspire to be.

01:26:33.560 I'm.

01:26:34.700 It's no accident you found each other.

01:26:36.360 That's how I feel talking to both of you.

01:26:38.340 Do you feel that way?

01:26:39.940 You ever met on a blind date?

01:26:40.880 I asked her to marry me that night.

01:26:42.220 I knew she was the one.

01:26:43.700 Yep.

01:26:44.780 We were zero to 40.

01:26:46.060 No wife, no kids.

01:26:46.900 We were married to y'all, to that life.

01:26:49.140 And we had a lot of fun settling down with one.

01:26:52.480 But when I saw her, I knew something shifted in me.

01:26:55.600 And I tell people this to you young bucks.

01:26:58.220 Pay attention.

01:26:59.100 When you meet a woman for a first time, she's going to drag one or two guys out of you.

01:27:02.520 You're either going to want to go out and show off and show your buddies.

01:27:05.080 Like, look at this.

01:27:05.600 Are you going to want to go home and watch the notebook and just be the room?

01:27:10.000 If both of those emotions show up when you meet her, then that's the one.

01:27:14.900 And I was like, she's my complete opposite.

01:27:16.980 And she can control those vibes.

01:27:18.780 And I'm not even the alpha.

01:27:20.080 My brother's the alpha.

01:27:20.800 You talk about a saint.

01:27:21.680 My brother's wife.

01:27:22.320 And there's a reason why those two grew up together, apparently, because they had to deal with us.

01:27:28.820 Yeah.

01:27:28.940 Little did they know what the future held.

01:27:31.340 Yeah.

01:27:31.600 That's a lot.

01:27:33.540 I've heard it's a lot.

01:27:34.380 We were, we were, I was in the ready.

01:27:35.880 I was deployed and a buddy of mine, one of my teammates who has proximity to the family.

01:27:41.760 We were jocking up, walking out.

01:27:43.540 And he was like, Hey man, I heard your brother got married.

01:27:45.800 I'll never forget this.

01:27:47.340 I said, what?

01:27:48.100 Neither were Melanie.

01:27:49.480 What?

01:27:50.460 He's like, yeah, I heard your brother got married.

01:27:51.960 Congratulations.

01:27:52.480 I ran fully jocked up, ready to roll.

01:27:55.480 I was like, everybody, hold on.

01:27:56.940 I ran across.

01:27:57.480 Stop the op.

01:27:58.860 We hadn't left yet.

01:28:00.760 I ran across base to grab the sat phone and called him.

01:28:04.800 And most certainly it was, I was on send.

01:28:08.280 He was overseas.

01:28:09.000 It was a one week conversation.

01:28:10.160 And I was like, only words I want to hear out of your mouth are yes or no.

01:28:13.480 And he's like, no.

01:28:14.720 And I was like, and I hung up.

01:28:16.500 I was at the, I was at the, that was the truth.

01:28:19.340 No, no, no.

01:28:20.120 I wasn't married yet.

01:28:20.880 Oh, okay.

01:28:21.660 Ask him to marry.

01:28:22.460 I wasn't allowed to get married until he got home.

01:28:25.240 Yeah.

01:28:25.520 There's a, there's a, there's a gauntlet that you have to go through.

01:28:28.160 The girlfriends have to go just to, um, like I, I actually walked Melanie over to Marcus

01:28:34.500 and I didn't propose.

01:28:36.360 I was just on the knee.

01:28:37.080 He did all the time.

01:28:37.640 And here's the ring.

01:28:39.400 Well, yeah, it's a big deal.

01:28:40.400 It's a big deal for us.

01:28:41.740 We made that very clear when we were young that, that this was going to be, I was on

01:28:46.660 the tee box and Melanie answered my phone.

01:28:49.380 It was him.

01:28:50.080 And she's like, put my brother on the phone.

01:28:52.960 Oh man.

01:28:53.600 She's like, I think something happened.

01:28:55.580 And, uh, I'm standing with my rifle, my armor, helmet, rifle, everything.

01:29:00.160 The first time they met was at the white house was a Gulab was there.

01:29:03.740 Uh, Oh yeah.

01:29:05.680 Yeah.

01:29:05.780 Yeah.

01:29:06.300 Is this when you went Marcus, when you were, when you were given the cross just for

01:29:10.900 while we were, while we were there, I don't even remember while we were there, but we

01:29:15.280 were in the white house for some reason.

01:29:16.220 And, and, uh, that's, that's what they meant.

01:29:18.820 I had just gotten back from deployment.

01:29:20.400 Yeah.

01:29:20.680 She wouldn't come out of her hotel room.

01:29:22.160 Yeah.

01:29:22.420 She was scared to death.

01:29:23.540 And I said, why was that?

01:29:25.460 She was scared of me.

01:29:27.720 And, uh, I was knocking on the door.

01:29:29.000 I was like, the only way this is going to go forward.

01:29:30.540 Cause she wanted to be, she wanted to be happy about the fact that I was going to be

01:29:34.940 married.

01:29:35.140 You know, that whole thing.

01:29:35.700 Not that he's mean.

01:29:36.360 We don't.

01:29:36.560 She wanted his approval.

01:29:37.700 Yeah.

01:29:38.040 Cause Mark was like, Hey, this is the one, it's the one I've been waiting for.

01:29:40.420 I was like, well, we'll see about that.

01:29:41.780 Yeah.

01:29:43.080 Do you think, did you feel like you had a veto, right?

01:29:45.060 Morgan?

01:29:45.980 Absolutely.

01:29:46.500 Oh man.

01:29:46.900 Always have every girlfriend and everyone by the wayside.

01:29:49.960 Absolutely.

01:29:50.440 Always have.

01:29:50.980 But that goes both ways.

01:29:52.800 But was, did any, did soup bones approve?

01:29:56.560 Everybody did.

01:29:57.380 Everybody from the moment they, all you have to do is meet.

01:29:59.740 You think I'm bad.

01:30:00.520 Our mother, boy, she's hard.

01:30:02.180 Yeah.

01:30:02.500 She's hard on the ladies.

01:30:03.800 And then, um, there's, there's a few of the aunts and the godmothers that were real

01:30:08.040 overbearing, were protective of us.

01:30:09.960 And we have, so we have a couple of young ladies that we grew up with our whole lives

01:30:12.660 that had, they, um, you know, they had something to say about that.

01:30:16.260 Had to make sure that Leslie were worthy.

01:30:20.220 You know, till, till like, Hey, I'm getting married.

01:30:21.780 And they're like, Whoa, we'll just see about that.

01:30:24.520 Hang on.

01:30:25.100 So to both bust down.

01:30:27.040 So wait, listen, I can't let this wrap without asking you about what you're doing right

01:30:30.460 now, Morgan, because you're taking all this wisdom, right?

01:30:33.380 Or let's say perspective.

01:30:34.500 Cause you're still in the 40 to 60 mark.

01:30:36.200 If we go by Marcus's phases of life.

01:30:38.040 You're taking all this perspective and you're going to do something that we all need you

01:30:44.420 to do.

01:30:44.880 And frankly, Marcus, you should do it too.

01:30:47.160 Um, and that is, you're running for office.

01:30:49.300 You're trying to get a seat.

01:30:50.520 For some reason you want to be what AOC is, even though you're 10 times the person she

01:30:55.660 is.

01:30:56.300 Um, but for the rest of us, uh, y'all, I speak on behalf of y'all.

01:31:00.260 We thank you.

01:31:01.020 So what's making you throw your hat, your hat into the congressional, the politics ring.

01:31:04.500 Um, uh, yes, ma'am.

01:31:06.220 Uh, most certainly out of necessity more than I don't want to, I'll be brutally honest.

01:31:12.960 I, I, I, I'd never wanted to run for congressional seat and most certainly probably still don't.

01:31:19.600 I don't want to, you know, if you ask me why that would be, and if I could break it down

01:31:23.180 and peel the onion back, cause I don't want to expose my, I don't expose the family to

01:31:26.380 this, my kids, the, the, the link that I'll have to be away.

01:31:29.220 And then my wife and I and Marcus and the family came together and like, this is most

01:31:34.980 certainly a move out of necessity to bring perspective to Congress and try to bring our

01:31:42.540 country back to center.

01:31:43.680 You know, it breaks my heart, the divisiveness after serving over overseas and multiple countries

01:31:48.280 and come home to that.

01:31:49.760 I don't want to come home to that.

01:31:50.980 And the things that are happening in our country right now, I I've seen before.

01:31:54.560 And I, I want to be a part of the problem solving machine.

01:32:00.100 And then I think my, my background and my pedigree and my resume, if you will, lends perspective

01:32:05.400 to something that we can, that I can use to, to do just that.

01:32:09.860 That's such a, that's so, can I ask you, cause that's so well put.

01:32:13.240 And I, when I, before I talked to you, I was like, well, I know he's a Republican and I just

01:32:17.340 assumed you'd be, you know, firmly on the right.

01:32:21.040 Um, is that how you would describe yourself?

01:32:23.900 You sound more conciliatory toward, you know, working across the aisle.

01:32:27.780 I don't know.

01:32:28.420 You describe it.

01:32:29.120 No, ma'am.

01:32:29.420 I'm very much a conservative Republican.

01:32:31.200 I am through and through wholeheartedly.

01:32:33.580 Um, but that doesn't mean that, that there can't be a sweet spot between the two that

01:32:38.900 we can't coalesce right now.

01:32:40.500 I think every, every time you see our, our elected leaders on either media or in public,

01:32:47.740 they're just, they're so far apart.

01:32:51.460 Yeah.

01:32:52.000 And I try to put it into perspective, like, uh, uh, army Rangers, I just, they make my

01:32:57.120 skin crawl.

01:32:57.760 I can't say an army Rangers.

01:32:59.780 I just, it's a thing.

01:33:00.960 They're just so opposite of what team guys are.

01:33:03.340 Army Rangers saved my brother's life and I love them to death wholeheartedly.

01:33:06.980 And I respect everything they do.

01:33:08.480 I respect their perspective.

01:33:09.860 And no, I am, I am a very conservative man.

01:33:14.520 I'm very, and I'm proud to be a Republican and most certainly proud to be a Texan.

01:33:18.820 But at the end of the day, Rangers tactics, techniques, and procedures are different than

01:33:22.580 mine as a frog man.

01:33:24.140 But at the end of the day, when we're out on the battlefield together, there's only one

01:33:28.220 mission and the success of that mission.

01:33:33.680 It has to come from both sides.

01:33:36.020 And America is my mission now.

01:33:37.880 And I have to, you have to understand it.

01:33:40.140 And if we just keep going off the rails on both sides, we'll never bring this country

01:33:44.640 back to what it needs to be and supposed to be.

01:33:47.100 And that's someplace that everybody can live in harmony and agree to disagree.

01:33:52.520 It's almost as if nobody in politics has, is married.

01:33:56.380 I don't agree with my wife a lot, but we live and coalesce very, very well.

01:34:03.660 I mean, it's, it's ultimately with him at service.

01:34:06.900 I mean, you boil that down.

01:34:08.500 Those guys that don't want to go, we didn't want to go to war, but when we go in, we're

01:34:10.840 going to do it effectively and to the best of our ability.

01:34:14.220 And when back in the day, when George, when this country was founded, George Washington

01:34:16.760 said, it's not supposed to be any political parties because parties play out.

01:34:20.240 It's like going to a house party.

01:34:21.500 You can go to it and go to it, but eventually, man, you're going to get tired of it.

01:34:24.320 People get mean.

01:34:25.260 My grandma used to call it being ugly.

01:34:26.640 And the best way I try to describe it is like, imagine if the United States, one big

01:34:31.080 house president and the first lady, that's mom and dad, senators, aunts and uncles, and

01:34:35.340 we're the cousins, everybody else running out here.

01:34:37.480 You're ever hung out with anybody who's a child of divorce.

01:34:40.360 Like one parent likes to throw a lot of money at you, keep you quiet.

01:34:43.820 And then the other one tries to get you to follow the rules and do some stuff.

01:34:46.420 We're going to be doing it.

01:34:47.100 That's kind of what you see up there.

01:34:48.400 Like every time we shift from a D to a R, it's like throw it in drive, haul ass, throw

01:34:52.220 it in reverse and then stop or whatever.

01:34:55.040 And then it's to the point now where I didn't get anything done, man.

01:34:58.400 We live in the same house.

01:35:00.520 I don't get along with some of my uncles, but I love seeing them on the holidays because

01:35:04.040 they're just different and weird.

01:35:05.620 And that's, that's the spice of this place.

01:35:08.260 That's why it was 50 states, 50 different states of people.

01:35:10.760 And we all had to learn to live together.

01:35:12.820 And the worst thing that I, I see, man, for whatever reason, the baby boomers do not like

01:35:17.060 each other, man.

01:35:18.140 They're war, they're just all that, man.

01:35:19.740 They're always just yelling at each other and they say this and you got to know anything

01:35:23.320 coming out of there is the worst scenario possible for both sides with us, man.

01:35:27.720 We cut through all that.

01:35:29.220 I don't have time to deal with that.

01:35:30.860 If you're a popular politician, you and the wrong business, man, they're supposed to hate you

01:35:34.520 guys.

01:35:34.860 Cause y'all talk about the stuff.

01:35:35.880 Nobody, you got to get it done.

01:35:37.000 There used to be a neutral zone.

01:35:39.540 Like we won't talk about that because it upsets everybody.

01:35:41.780 That's what you get elected for to send him up there.

01:35:43.800 Cause he can actually not only talk like a tough guy or walk the walk.

01:35:48.660 I mean, been in combat, you know, and sees how things work and how they also, how they

01:35:52.800 work outside of this country.

01:35:54.460 And the last thing we want to do, man, we're supposed to leave this place better than we

01:35:57.020 found it for the next generation.

01:35:58.400 And that's not happening right now.

01:35:59.880 Let me ask you a quick question about that because I feel your love of country and your need

01:36:03.660 for service and I respect it and I admire it.

01:36:06.500 I do want to ask you, how do you feel when people are kneeling at our, at our national

01:36:11.560 anthem are disrespecting our flag, turning their back on it.

01:36:15.020 I mean, I didn't do anything like what you guys have done.

01:36:17.600 And it, it, it upsets me.

01:36:19.520 It burns.

01:36:20.520 I had somebody, I had somebody asked me if I'd ever kneel for the flag and I was like,

01:36:23.740 last time I kneeled down for the flag, there was a body attached to it.

01:36:26.320 Yeah.

01:36:27.040 Or I'll be face down.

01:36:28.440 You know, we don't kneel.

01:36:29.120 You can't fight from your knees.

01:36:30.140 You know, you know.

01:36:31.560 Any problems we got, you got to get on your feet to solve them.

01:36:33.940 Honestly, Ms.

01:36:34.520 Megan, I would, I would be hypocritical if, if I said, don't do that to somebody who, you

01:36:40.300 know, we fought for our right and our constitutional right in the constitution of the United States

01:36:44.760 to do those things.

01:36:45.940 If that's, if that, I don't do that.

01:36:48.340 I stand.

01:36:49.240 I put my hand on my heart.

01:36:49.800 Switch that.

01:36:50.280 We can say that we fought for our right, not yours, but we, what'd you do for your

01:36:54.320 right?

01:36:54.660 Collective whole.

01:36:55.420 Yeah.

01:36:55.840 You know, it hurts in the Olympics.

01:36:59.980 You know, I just, I totally disagree with our American athletes that are representing

01:37:04.800 the United States of America to take a knee.

01:37:06.460 I don't think that is the, I don't think that's the proper way to get your point across

01:37:09.940 while you're representing the country as a whole.

01:37:11.680 Cause I don't feel that way.

01:37:12.920 And you're in the Olympics.

01:37:13.600 You're representing a country.

01:37:15.080 I don't know.

01:37:15.640 But as far as an individual exercising their right.

01:37:18.780 The freedom of speech and emotion, that's your right.

01:37:25.640 I, it, I believe wholeheartedly that you're right to do that.

01:37:29.380 I, but I don't disagree.

01:37:30.280 I don't agree with that.

01:37:31.440 What'd you make of Drew Brees being so apologetic for defending his willingness to stand?

01:37:37.440 Remember that?

01:37:38.360 I love Drew.

01:37:39.580 He's a great man.

01:37:40.480 But that was BS.

01:37:41.660 He was like such a groveler when they were like, Hey, why, what do you mean?

01:37:45.060 Why would you stand?

01:37:46.260 Why would you defend standing?

01:37:48.380 I think, I think maybe, you know, I can't answer that.

01:37:51.140 Cause I'm not, I'm not Mr.

01:37:52.220 Brees and I wasn't there.

01:37:53.520 I think sometimes people get caught up at the moment and their emotions play out in different

01:37:58.240 ways.

01:37:58.760 And if they have the opportunity, I also think a lot of our, our public elected officials

01:38:04.260 and our, and our, our, the people that we look up to, whether or not that that's an actor

01:38:09.480 or whatever, they, um, you know, they're scared of what other people that I could give two shits

01:38:15.800 less.

01:38:17.020 But that's right.

01:38:18.700 You know, I just, as your mom said, you guys are not scared of that.

01:38:21.240 We spent the first part of our adult life over in different countries.

01:38:23.760 They're trying to kill us every day.

01:38:24.960 That's all they did was talk about us.

01:38:26.340 I don't care how many people like me on social media.

01:38:28.900 I mean, I have platforms, but I don't, that doesn't, they're the underpinning is more important

01:38:33.140 to me than.

01:38:34.260 I mean, if you got something that much to say, man, we'll, we'll eventually our paths will

01:38:37.140 cross and say it to our face, but like plugging into the, it's like plugging into a video

01:38:40.640 game.

01:38:41.640 If you're not good at playing that game, you can get beaten, thrown out of there quick.

01:38:44.520 Like, I mean, it's just, uh, our technology is, is wonderful.

01:38:47.840 And then sometimes it can't be, and it's, you know, you can, people can be mean just

01:38:51.820 to, just to do it.

01:38:53.200 Yeah.

01:38:53.720 So Morgan, well, how do you like your chances?

01:38:56.120 How are the polls looking for you?

01:38:57.680 I mean, I know we're a ways out.

01:38:59.220 Well, yes, man.

01:39:00.120 We're, we're over a year and a half or a year and some change out.

01:39:03.360 They're looking very strong with Q2 reportings.

01:39:05.280 We were up front.

01:39:06.040 We're doing very well.

01:39:07.000 I'm a home.

01:39:07.480 So it's my district where we were born and raised.

01:39:09.740 Um, our, our Congressman, Congressman Kevin Brady has decided to retire as another reason

01:39:15.540 why I was come to, to run, but it's, it's, we're doing very well.

01:39:20.140 We're doing, and I'm, I'm comfortable.

01:39:21.860 We, we have nine counties and I've, I've touched every single one of them, either in school,

01:39:26.480 hunting or fishing, or we have family or land.

01:39:28.680 So I think I represent my base very well.

01:39:31.560 So I think he does great.

01:39:32.880 I'm sorry, but I would just love to see, I would just love, love, love to see you in

01:39:37.000 a debate with somebody like AOC, who's always trying to tell us how she's been traumatized

01:39:40.460 at every turn.

01:39:41.080 Everything she's done is traumatized or across from a Navy SEAL, like you with your history,

01:39:47.040 Morgan, please make that happen.

01:39:48.820 Looking forward to it.

01:39:50.200 Yeah, me too.

01:39:51.720 Me too.

01:39:52.520 All right, let me leave it with this.

01:39:53.500 We're not going to lose.

01:39:55.020 That's the way it is.

01:39:55.520 Let me leave it with this, with the brotherhood, right?

01:39:58.160 And you say that the bond amongst the SEAL team is the same as the bond amongst the brothers.

01:40:02.780 This is the final message in Morgan's, in, in Marcus's book.

01:40:06.740 It's to you, Morgan.

01:40:08.520 It says, finally, my fellow SEAL and twin brother, Morgan, who came storming into the

01:40:13.380 ranch within hours of the battle for Murphy's Ridge, swore to God I was alive and never stopped

01:40:19.000 encouraging everyone.

01:40:20.920 Devastated by the death of his great friend, Matthew Axelson, still too upset to talk about

01:40:25.180 it, he was nonetheless there for me, helping to correct and improve the manuscript, still

01:40:30.820 with me, as he's always been, and I hope always will be.

01:40:34.560 Just like we say, bro, from the womb to the tomb, and no one's ever going to change that.

01:40:40.240 Your love for each other, your love for the country inspires us all.

01:40:46.340 Thank you so much for your service, for helping keep us safe, for helping show us how to love

01:40:50.780 our country, and God bless you guys.

01:40:53.140 Yes, ma'am.

01:40:53.500 Thank you for the time.

01:40:54.240 God bless you.

01:40:54.800 God bless.

01:41:00.360 Wow.

01:41:01.540 Wow.

01:41:02.400 How about those guys, right?

01:41:03.740 I'm sure you're feeling what I'm feeling.

01:41:07.200 For those of you who want to hear it in full, the Navy SEAL philosophy is as follows.

01:41:13.560 I will never quit.

01:41:15.540 My nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies.

01:41:20.320 If knocked down, I will get back up every time.

01:41:23.740 I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates.

01:41:28.580 I am never out of the fight.

01:41:33.680 Those words Marcus wrote in his book are ingrained on the soul of every Navy SEAL.

01:41:38.580 And maybe someday on the soul of every American citizen, I will never quit, try to be physically

01:41:47.960 harder, try to be mentally stronger.

01:41:49.600 If knocked down, I will get back up every time.

01:41:54.320 I am never out of the fight.

01:41:55.320 I am never out of the fight.

01:41:57.060 Wow.

01:41:58.060 What a privilege spending time with them.

01:41:59.880 Listen, have a great weekend.

01:42:02.060 I hope you listen to it over and over.

01:42:03.520 I know I'm going to.

01:42:04.800 And don't miss our show on Monday because we've got Wesley Yang.

01:42:08.000 So smart.

01:42:08.920 The guy who coined that phrase, the successor ideology.

01:42:13.040 That's sort of where we're going as a country now, now that we've seemed to abandon small L

01:42:18.600 liberalism, free speech, due process, and so on.

01:42:21.820 And he's got his finger on the pulse of where we're likely to go next as a country.

01:42:27.060 Thanks for spending the time.

01:42:28.440 We'll talk to you next time.

01:42:30.640 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:42:33.040 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:42:37.620 The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.

01:42:51.820 The Megyn Kelly Show.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - August 20, 2021

Marcus and Morgan Luttrell on the Afghanistan Debacle, Loving America, and Never Quitting ｜ Ep. 149

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