The Megyn Kelly Show - Military Heroes John McPhee and Jason Redman - Megyn Kelly's ＂Double Feature＂ of Fascinating Interviews

00:00:00.380 I don't know, man. It just seems like you've been off lately.

00:00:04.880 Everything alright?

00:00:07.740 I'm fine.

00:00:15.860 That awkward silence? That's the sound of a missed opportunity.

00:00:19.340 This Men's Mental Health Month, CAMH is empowering you to be the one who helps a man open up.

00:00:23.960 For tips on how to start the conversation with someone you care about, visit toolkit.camh.ca.

00:00:30.000 all right full-time thoughts craig who stood out brazil's lime cheesecake started bright didn't

00:00:35.000 let up nah for me italian cappuccino was to stand out in the box but if we're talking decadent

00:00:39.900 performance that's all france chocolate creme brulee had the richest finishes canadian fireworks

00:00:44.520 really showed up big too and mexico's caramel churro ice cap gave me chills we are of course

00:00:50.060 talking about tim's taste of the globe lineup new globally inspired timbits and ice cap flavors

00:00:54.600 available at tim horton's for a limited time pick some up today and while you're at it check out

00:00:58.680 pretty prime daily. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday

00:01:05.200 at New East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and today's

00:01:15.700 double feature episode. To celebrate July 4th, two of our interviews on the show from the archives

00:01:21.320 with American heroes.

00:01:23.400 First, my conversation with John McPhee,

00:01:27.080 the sheriff of Baghdad.

00:01:28.680 He is a true patriot badass.

00:01:31.680 This guy is amazing.

00:01:33.800 And then my lengthy sit down

00:01:35.300 with the inspirational,

00:01:37.140 oh, Jason Redman, my God.

00:01:39.900 If you're not inspired by Jason Redman,

00:01:41.580 I can't help you.

00:01:42.380 Like, if he doesn't inspire you

00:01:44.120 to be a better, tougher, greater person,

00:01:46.520 no one will.

00:01:48.140 Enjoy.

00:01:48.680 Have a great rest of your weekend.

00:01:50.000 And God bless you and God bless America.

00:01:53.180 And we'll see you tomorrow.

00:01:55.320 We are bringing you the story of a remarkable veteran.

00:01:59.020 And what a story this vet has.

00:02:01.000 Joining me today is retired U.S. Army Special Operations Sergeant Major John McPhee,

00:02:06.320 a.k.a. the Sheriff of Baghdad.

00:02:09.200 John served our country for over 20 years, specializing in various special mission units

00:02:13.280 and combat experience across multiple theaters, including Afghanistan and Iraq,

00:02:16.880 where he hunted both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

00:02:21.700 John, great to have you.

00:02:22.860 Thank you.

00:02:23.400 How are you doing?

00:02:24.440 Pretty good, pretty good.

00:02:25.880 Quite a lead up there.

00:02:27.000 Well, my God, I mean, you've done a lot.

00:02:29.180 I've tried, I've tried.

00:02:30.380 When I say that, when you hear that intro read,

00:02:32.440 given all the time that you spent serving the country,

00:02:34.880 what's the one that you focus on?

00:02:36.880 Like, that's the one thing that really kind of defined the surface in my mind.

00:02:41.060 Um, man, kind of none of that, I guess.

00:02:44.380 You know what I mean?

00:02:44.960 And, like, later in the war, as leadership, like, that was a challenge.

00:02:51.940 You know what I mean?

00:02:52.560 Those, like, the Battle of Tora Bora, I was a new guy.

00:02:55.340 Like, let's go kill everybody.

00:02:57.160 You know what I mean?

00:02:57.780 And then the war rages on.

00:03:00.560 You learn.

00:03:01.180 You're more experienced.

00:03:03.500 You just learn.

00:03:05.500 As it goes on, you're going to learn different lessons.

00:03:07.700 Everybody's going to do this.

00:03:08.640 Uh, and I think the lessons I learned as a young guy, uh, weren't the lessons I needed.

00:03:17.120 Really?

00:03:17.800 Yeah.

00:03:18.140 Everybody learns, right?

00:03:19.160 I thought the opposite.

00:03:19.880 Everyone makes mistakes.

00:03:20.460 When I read your bio, I thought the opposite because you had a very rough childhood.

00:03:24.500 Yeah.

00:03:24.880 And I thought it made him one tough SOB.

00:03:28.360 Maybe.

00:03:28.940 Yeah.

00:03:29.240 And, you know, capable of doing what needed to be done in like the darkest days of Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:03:35.500 Yeah.

00:03:36.280 And.

00:03:37.060 So.

00:03:37.360 I tell everyone this.

00:03:40.600 I'm a regular guy.

00:03:42.420 I do everything everyone else does.

00:03:45.500 I joined the army.

00:03:47.540 And I think when 9-11 happened, I was too far in to choose a different life.

00:03:56.000 You know what I mean?

00:03:57.560 Let's start back at the young John.

00:04:00.560 South side of Chicago?

00:04:01.880 Yeah.

00:04:02.400 Only white kid in the class?

00:04:04.000 Yeah, for a long time.

00:04:05.220 How'd that happen?

00:04:06.520 I don't know.

00:04:07.560 You get in fights.

00:04:09.860 You go to ding-dong.

00:04:11.240 They call it ding-dong school.

00:04:12.880 That's where kids fight all the time.

00:04:15.480 And you end up there.

00:04:17.040 How did your parents settle in a neighborhood

00:04:18.820 where you would wind up being the only white kid in class?

00:04:21.400 That's where we lived.

00:04:23.440 It's South Chicago.

00:04:24.760 It's where we lived.

00:04:25.900 You know what I mean?

00:04:26.480 I would say the South Chicago of the 70s, 80s

00:04:31.300 was like a different place.

00:04:33.620 mm-hmm so i know that you were very badly bullied on the bus every day i heard you telling our pal

00:04:39.940 sean ryan about that i mean it was every day they beat you up daily well no till they got me a cab

00:04:45.180 i mean it must have been bad for the south side of chicago school system to get you a cab every

00:04:49.700 day to school i think uh yeah yeah it cost well cost them a lot of money because the police would

00:04:55.740 have to come to the bus on the side of the road they'd have to break up the fight and then the

00:05:01.140 seats were broke. A window was broke. And then the school's got to pay for all of that. And then

00:05:05.580 by the time we get to school, school will be over. How old were you? I don't know.

00:05:12.040 Sophomore, freshman, maybe sophomore. I'm so sad. I have a freshman and the thought of that

00:05:17.160 happening to him every day is upsetting. I mean, it's heartbreaking. Your parents

00:05:22.220 never intervened. Did they know? Oh, they knew. Yeah. Did they do anything?

00:05:28.320 What are they going to do?

00:05:29.840 Get you out of there.

00:05:31.700 That would have been a good idea.

00:05:33.760 They probably never thought of that.

00:05:35.360 That's a good idea.

00:05:36.620 So what was the story?

00:05:37.500 Were they just young, with substance abuse?

00:05:39.980 No, I think my parents were young.

00:05:41.640 I think my mom was, I don't know, maybe always kind of maybe just bitter as a lady.

00:05:47.860 You know what I mean?

00:05:48.620 She was like the mean divorced lady most of the time.

00:05:52.960 um and like i just think that's how people thought their lives should be i don't know

00:06:00.080 you have siblings yeah i have a brother is he older or younger older so did he go through this

00:06:04.780 too yeah but he's just a little older than me yeah but i just can't imagine like a mother

00:06:09.960 allowing this to just keep happening to her child um yeah well here i am you know what i mean what

00:06:16.840 are you gonna do did you like maintain i know you wound up living in a brothel which is another

00:06:21.840 interesting story, but did you keep contact with your mom? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is she still

00:06:26.140 around? No, she died. Uh, I don't know, a while ago. So you, did you, were you close? Um, I mean,

00:06:33.600 yeah, as close as you could kind of be with someone that you know is always like mean, bitter.

00:06:39.520 Wow. You know what I mean? What happened in her life that left her there? I don't know. I don't

00:06:44.300 got the energy to like hang on to that much shit. You know what I mean? Yeah. Good. Yeah. So no,

00:06:49.980 we always joke my um husband's brother they're presbyterian and he always jokes when you're

00:06:55.280 when you're thinking about something like that push it down push it down yeah he's not wrong

00:07:00.220 i mean on some things you gotta let it go yeah like letting it go is the better way you know

00:07:04.900 what i mean but the beatings that would be tough to let go i mean i just feel like did that create

00:07:09.820 any resentment in you um i don't know yes uh i mean of course it did it did it didn't i mean look

00:07:21.760 i look at it this way i turned out the way i turned out um and i think anybody in in the

00:07:29.860 situations i was in would come out the same way and then you have to realize like uh you gotta

00:07:37.380 want to choose good you know it's easy for people to be bad and i say this all the time no one has

00:07:42.040 bad intent but shit gets fucked up oh can i say that yeah you can yeah i wouldn't have had you

00:07:48.180 on if you couldn't say that word that's your favorite word yeah i know right uh i'm trying

00:07:52.260 to be nice uh but shit gets fucked up so you know i don't think my parents have bad intent i don't

00:07:58.680 think there were bad people i think they were young i think they drank you know anytime you

00:08:03.280 drink like you know i used to drink a ton uh but uh anytime you drink like you know of course

00:08:10.240 there's going to be drama that's it it it takes your filters away you know what i mean like

00:08:15.940 it's probably a better way to deal with than telling someone just you know so i i think it's

00:08:22.060 just like a product of being young i don't think anyone had a bad intent i just think it it is what

00:08:27.260 it is and and i tell you it's probably it's generational i mean i'm not the only one you

00:08:31.660 know what I mean? But I would say it's generational. And I'd say there's kids in the same neighborhoods

00:08:35.740 living about the same life. And their parents were probably in school with me. You know what

00:08:40.740 I mean? Like, and I think that's just how it works. It's like a cycle. Does it create like

00:08:46.280 a resentment toward black people? No, I don't resent anybody. Schoolmates beating you up every

00:08:50.640 day? No. How do you get past that? I could see how that would cause some, you know. I was the easy

00:08:55.160 target like you know uh later in school i didn't get beat up every day because i i realized i

00:09:01.700 learned to fight i could protect myself and like a lot of the actual gang leaders in that like they

00:09:09.520 respected that and uh so i didn't really have i had to earn my way in i guess but once i earned

00:09:15.940 my way in it was fairly easy for me i mean uh and i look at it this way is like you know look

00:09:22.980 you could be the victim okay great what's next what's that gonna do you how long are you gonna

00:09:29.160 do that for you know what i'm saying i'm guessing that um given the way you describe the school

00:09:33.700 system there you were not on the college track and you knew that yeah pretty much did you know

00:09:39.180 you're gonna wind up in the armed forces though was that um you know i knew i wanted to join i

00:09:45.280 kind of joined late i was almost 21 but uh i wanted to join but um i didn't know like when

00:09:51.940 you know what i mean and then one day i was just like fuck it let's go okay we'll get to that but

00:09:56.840 um i gotta spend a minute on the brothel since i mentioned it how does how did two guys two kids

00:10:01.840 wind up living um well um i don't know you know they say hookers have a heart of gold you know

00:10:08.460 what i mean uh is that what happened a hooker took you in yeah yeah and uh we weren't the only kids

00:10:15.980 you know what i mean but um yeah weren't no who else was in there how many kids she had kids and

00:10:21.380 And, like, so me and my brother helped raise other kids, stuff like that.

00:10:24.400 Well, what happened to your parents?

00:10:26.860 Me and my brother decided we would be better on our own.

00:10:30.300 How old were you here?

00:10:32.620 I don't know, 12, 13, maybe pre-high school.

00:10:35.980 So you went back with your parents by 15 when the bus situation was happening?

00:10:40.900 No, I went to school myself.

00:10:43.200 Okay, walk me through it.

00:10:44.140 So you're growing up, you're with your parents until around 12,

00:10:46.700 and then you wind up living at a brothel.

00:10:48.560 Me and my brother, yeah.

00:10:49.400 How did you get connected with this woman running the brothel?

00:10:51.380 Uh, well, I was living with my, I guess my step-mom. Anyway, it's a mess, you know, but, uh, I was living with my step-mom and then me and my brother just moved over there and they were nicer to me than anyone else I knew. You know what I mean? So.

00:11:06.400 And was that, you were there for the duration until you hit 18?

00:11:09.600 Uh, no, I was only there for a little bit. Um, let's see what else happened. Um, I don't know. I didn't live there that long. Like just, I don't know.

00:11:18.580 high school, some, most of my high school years, but that was it. Okay. Yeah. So now you got to

00:11:24.260 find a direction once you hit 18, right? You got to do something. Well, I always worked. I've been

00:11:28.640 working since I was a little kid. I was a welder. I worked on trucks. So that's another thing I did

00:11:33.880 is I always showed up to work on time, put myself to work, like earn money. You had a couple of

00:11:39.640 skills that are completely foreign to me, like being good with an engine and being a good

00:11:44.800 navigator. Yeah. I don't, I think you're born with that. You're not born with that. Am I wrong?

00:11:48.580 i don't know maybe did you always have that ability that sense of navigation because you

00:11:54.420 like you really needed it it would very become very important to you it would in your military

00:11:58.760 i am very good at navigation um i don't know i guess you're born with it because i would have

00:12:02.800 never thought and i've never not been good at have you have you do you get lost a lot never

00:12:07.460 i've always lost you don't understand when you don't have this gift it's so frustrating i'm at

00:12:12.560 the point when i drive whatever my instinct is i know to do the opposite like a george costanza

00:12:17.180 this situation like i just know do not whatever my instincts are telling me it's wrong when it

00:12:21.400 comes to directions i'm missing this chip you could get a gps well i do thankfully i live in

00:12:27.280 2025 yeah nowadays like i could get lost nowadays i'd say that only because like i just listened to

00:12:33.340 the lady on my phone turn left okay yes uh so but no i have a pretty good sense of direction

00:12:39.320 like maybe it's natural i don't know so what during these formative years before we go off

00:12:44.020 and joined the military, are you dating?

00:12:47.360 Is there a special woman in your life?

00:12:49.340 No, not really.

00:12:50.420 Nobody, like you hadn't been in love yet.

00:12:54.360 Yeah, no, I pretty much avoided people

00:12:57.060 most of my childhood, you know what I mean?

00:12:59.820 Did anything happen in the brothel

00:13:01.040 that would deflower you or?

00:13:04.100 No comment.

00:13:05.020 Okay, just saying, it seems like an obvious thing to do.

00:13:14.020 Okay. So you originally wanted to join the Air Force. Why?

00:13:17.400 Yeah. Well, I was a mechanic, right? Very mechanically inclined. I was a welder as well.

00:13:24.180 I fixed a lot of semi-trucks, broken frames, dump trucks, whole wall collapse stuff. And it'd

00:13:31.240 take me like weeks to rebuild these trucks, but it's kind of what I did. And then, yeah,

00:13:37.020 I figured I could do this for the Air Force. You know what I mean? And then the biggest thing was

00:13:42.560 like my hands were like always black like cracked fingers like you're always welding it's always

00:13:49.460 dirty uh greasy dirty stuff working on these uh trucks right and like honestly my thought was

00:13:57.420 no girl is ever gonna let me put my hand in her pants if she sees my hand you know what I mean

00:14:03.060 there's just it's not happening you know what I mean does that stuff not come off with the right

00:14:06.320 soap I don't care how much soap you got like when you work like that like your hands are black so

00:14:12.020 So, yeah, so I figured I got to do something else.

00:14:16.280 You know what I mean?

00:14:16.880 Like, I just can't do this forever, you know,

00:14:19.480 only because I was always dirty every day,

00:14:22.040 and you couldn't, like, not be dirty.

00:14:24.980 Like, even your days off, you couldn't wash,

00:14:27.340 and you weren't clean, you know what I mean?

00:14:28.820 So I figured, well, maybe now's the time to join the Army.

00:14:32.920 And so what happened at the Air Force?

00:14:35.640 They said I didn't have high enough skills to be a mechanic,

00:14:41.620 which I was. They told me I could be admin. And I'm like, okay, what's that? Maybe I'll do this.

00:14:48.660 What's the admin? And he was like, well, you'd type memos, maybe process awards. And I was like,

00:14:55.000 my mom's a secretary. That's what that sounds like. I'm out.

00:14:59.560 Yeah. Talk about misjudging a man.

00:15:01.560 Yeah. And they're like, son, have you talked to the Marines of the army yet? And I'm like,

00:15:06.900 no, I didn't even think of it. So I went to the army.

00:15:10.700 why the army uh well a buddy of mine was an airborne ranger and said how great it was so i

00:15:16.300 just went down there and told him i wanted to be an airborne ranger did they give you a hard time

00:15:19.940 oh yeah they did too oh yeah yeah everybody's giving you a hard time oh yeah like well i had

00:15:24.440 like a so first off i had a mullet like okay but who didn't have a mullet say you know what year

00:15:29.680 are we in now we gotta be like uh 90s 80 no 90 89 yeah you're my age i think yeah yeah so uh i had

00:15:39.000 a mullet and they're like you know guys like yo bob hey this guy wants to be a ranger and they

00:15:44.860 come out and they like laughed at me i mean don't they shave your head anyway what do they care what

00:15:48.980 your hair looks like i don't know but uh yeah i was just like this skinny mullet head kid you know

00:15:54.260 and uh they didn't believe in me but i didn't care you know right you might have been used to

00:15:59.120 that feeling yeah yeah i figured i figured well bob was a fat bald guy anyway so like you know

00:16:04.940 Bob, you're not impressive. And the guy I was talking to seemed like a dullard. So

00:16:08.900 it's not like these guys impressed me. I just knew there was more to the army. You know what

00:16:12.840 I mean? So this is all before 9-11, you know, you're, you're signing up, but you don't know

00:16:17.120 exactly what you're signing up for, I assume. It's just, I want to be part of the military.

00:16:21.660 Yeah. I had no idea. I didn't know if I was doing like in my day, I was like,

00:16:24.980 you sign up for the college money. You know what I mean? Like people did. I didn't know why I signed

00:16:30.700 And I definitely didn't think I needed college money whatsoever.

00:16:34.580 You know what I mean?

00:16:36.120 But yeah, I joined all my family.

00:16:38.580 You know, it turned out it's like a family business.

00:16:40.640 My grandpa was both my grandpas, my great grandpa, World War II.

00:16:44.840 Like, so it turned out a lot of people in my family were in the service and like no one really talked about it.

00:16:52.220 You know what I mean?

00:16:52.960 That's pretty cool.

00:16:53.780 Yeah.

00:16:55.340 So you escalated up the ranks, it seems to me, pretty quickly.

00:16:58.840 You got moved from thing to thing, challenge to challenge,

00:17:02.100 some of which were a surprise to you,

00:17:03.900 but it didn't sound like you had a lot of failures

00:17:05.800 as you were making your name.

00:17:08.460 Tons.

00:17:09.000 You did?

00:17:10.640 Daily.

00:17:11.320 Daily failure.

00:17:12.280 Oh, yeah.

00:17:12.900 They fail quick.

00:17:13.920 Let's get it over with.

00:17:15.000 Maybe we'll get it right by the end of the day.

00:17:16.600 How did you do in the military setting?

00:17:18.840 Because I would think with your background,

00:17:20.000 you weren't exactly big on rules.

00:17:22.360 I don't like rules.

00:17:23.420 Yeah.

00:17:23.880 So how'd you...

00:17:24.440 I mean, that's got to be a problem in basic training.

00:17:26.780 Not really.

00:17:27.480 I mean, it's a game, you know what I mean?

00:17:29.140 And their trash talk was great, man.

00:17:31.500 Basic training.

00:17:32.540 You enjoyed that.

00:17:33.680 Oh, God.

00:17:34.560 They would like yell at people.

00:17:36.660 And like, I'd just be, I'd be like not even getting yelled at.

00:17:40.720 And I'd start laughing.

00:17:41.920 And they'd just be like, my drill sergeant called me Maffy.

00:17:44.900 And he'd be like, Maffy, do push-ups.

00:17:47.140 And I'd just start doing push-ups because he'd hear me laughing.

00:17:49.460 Like, oh, man, the trash talk was great.

00:17:52.220 Like, I loved it.

00:17:52.920 You were born for that.

00:17:54.000 Little did they know.

00:17:54.740 Maybe.

00:17:55.440 It's impossible to upset you.

00:17:56.580 Yeah.

00:17:57.020 Yeah. Well, they couldn't upset me anyway. You know what I mean?

00:17:59.280 Yeah. I feel like at this point in life, is it hard to upset you? You've been through so much

00:18:04.240 military-wise and childhood-wise.

00:18:06.620 I mean, you know, like, you got to, look, if you want stuff, you got to do it yourself. It's

00:18:12.160 called responsibility. It doesn't matter your age. I call it adulting. I hate it, but I've

00:18:16.620 been doing it for a long time. So if you want something, you got to put in the work.

00:18:20.860 Does anybody irritate you? Like, do you get irritated?

00:18:23.460 Oh, yeah.

00:18:24.240 You do? Okay.

00:18:24.760 I don't like everybody.

00:18:26.520 You know what I mean?

00:18:27.260 Like, do you like everybody?

00:18:28.520 No, no.

00:18:28.920 It's such a long list of people I dislike.

00:18:30.860 See, there you go.

00:18:31.840 But I cover politics for a living, so it's obvious.

00:18:34.220 Your list is longer than mine.

00:18:35.560 Very long.

00:18:37.560 Okay, so let's go back.

00:18:38.600 So then you meander over to the army.

00:18:40.620 They take you.

00:18:41.540 You're going through basic training.

00:18:42.820 People are getting yelled at and you're enjoying that.

00:18:44.440 Yep.

00:18:45.120 And what's the plan?

00:18:46.520 Just like see what they do with you?

00:18:48.360 Well, yeah, well, I had a ranger contract.

00:18:51.240 So I go through basic training, airborne school,

00:18:54.080 and then i go to rip explain what ranger is uh the ranger regiment is uh it's its own unit in

00:19:05.060 the army their infantry basically um and um nowadays they're tier one unit back in my day

00:19:12.680 they were just like uh specialized infantry or whatever they called them right but uh yeah the

00:19:19.040 ranger regiment it's a way of life uh and then back in my day was rip is what they called it

00:19:24.980 and like basic training was a joke we'd jog in the morning and sing songs it's like summer camp

00:19:31.700 you know in rip like a some random looking dude just takes off faster than you've ever seen another

00:19:39.260 human being running you're just like holy shit like these guys do this let's go yeah real talk

00:19:47.000 And then like the whole time, like, I mean, I didn't know if I was going to make it or not.

00:19:51.100 I was just doing my best.

00:19:52.400 How long is the training?

00:19:53.420 It was three weeks back then.

00:19:54.860 Okay.

00:19:55.160 But it's intense.

00:19:56.340 Yeah.

00:19:56.520 Back then it was.

00:19:57.340 Yeah.

00:19:57.480 And back then it was more about creating guys that won't quit than it was like training you at your actual job.

00:20:04.580 Now, from there, you joined special forces.

00:20:08.000 How long did that take?

00:20:09.700 I did five years in Ranger Battalion.

00:20:12.300 and then like the the sergeant major at the time was like sending people to like korea or some

00:20:17.660 random army shit that i wanted nothing to do with what did you want i'm not that like combat not that

00:20:26.660 you know what i mean didn't never wanted to go to korea i heard it's cold and like anyway never

00:20:31.280 wanted to go there sorry no offense where were you in the states here uh i was in savannah georgia

00:20:36.420 okay yeah see what i'm saying yeah i hear you yeah so especially when you grow up in chicago

00:20:40.440 right yeah yeah for once yes yeah uh so uh love savannah right and i didn't want to go anywhere

00:20:46.580 so i figured i'd hit special forces selection at least it would like give me a path where i might

00:20:53.560 control my ending can you talk about that because as a civilian you hear special forces and you

00:20:58.800 think oh it's cool something cool is happening like he knows shit like he's done stuff yeah what

00:21:03.560 what did it mean to you oh i don't know i mean like it's okay i like special forces

00:21:10.120 That's why I do it, like when you were back arranged to consider, what was the lure?

00:21:14.000 I don't know, like the John Wayne shit when I was a kid, right?

00:21:18.200 It's badass.

00:21:18.740 Yeah, like Rambo, right?

00:21:20.320 Like that's what I thought.

00:21:21.320 Kind of in the middle 90s, not really what was happening, but later on it got better, more towards a G-Watt, everything got better.

00:21:30.380 What do you mean you thought it would put you in charge of your own debt?

00:21:33.520 Well, if I went to special forces selection, I know I would go there next versus like coming down on orders for Korea one day.

00:21:42.100 You know what I mean?

00:21:42.780 Just like, hey, guess what came?

00:21:44.600 Some paperwork for you.

00:21:46.000 Korea, holy shit.

00:21:47.400 No fucking way, right?

00:21:48.600 Yeah.

00:21:49.260 So I wanted to like avoid that.

00:21:51.820 So how do you get into special forces?

00:21:53.780 You got to go to selection.

00:21:55.200 They got selection.

00:21:56.100 Like it's like a tryout?

00:21:57.380 Yeah, tryout.

00:21:58.020 What does selection mean?

00:22:00.060 It's not a lot of stupid shit.

00:22:01.980 You know what I mean?

00:22:02.540 like it's a one day you show up oh no it's like a run no okay special forces selection kind of

00:22:08.700 works like this it's based off a team and you got to work in a team right and it's 12 guys in a in a

00:22:15.980 a team a special forces a team right uh and then so you're kind of grouped in 12 guys and then like

00:22:23.740 you do like random stuff like you got to build these they'll give you like one wheel some pipe

00:22:30.380 in a 500 pound barrel and it's like it's you got to take it 20 miles that way go it's very

00:22:36.840 MacGyver-y very MacGyver-y right and then you have the right background for this too though

00:22:41.320 yeah but I you're not in charge every day and then if someone bad's in charge and they talk

00:22:46.400 about they do stupid shit you're stuck doing their stupid shit all day long I was on the

00:22:51.560 worst team ever I think in selection oh no some of those guys might be listening to this right now

00:22:56.000 I don't care.

00:22:56.700 They were pussies.

00:22:57.540 You know what I mean?

00:22:58.180 Like, I do not give a shit.

00:23:00.540 You know what I mean?

00:23:01.220 It's probably why they are where they are now.

00:23:04.180 You know what I mean?

00:23:04.620 They were bringing you down.

00:23:06.200 Trying to hold me back.

00:23:07.500 So you made it, though.

00:23:08.540 So you get selected to then train into Special Forces.

00:23:12.660 Yeah, and then they call it the Q course.

00:23:14.640 And what's that like?

00:23:16.080 The qualification course.

00:23:17.600 I was an engineer, so that's the explosives.

00:23:21.240 But we do a lot of other stuff, like building stuff.

00:23:24.580 Like, basically, you're a general contractor for, like, houses.

00:23:28.460 They teach you that stuff.

00:23:29.620 Oh, that's useful.

00:23:31.140 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:31.980 Super useful, right?

00:23:33.120 And then explosives and a lot of explosive stuff.

00:23:38.640 Everything is on demand these days.

00:23:40.880 Whether it's your favorite show or dinner, why should healthcare feel any different?

00:23:44.880 Meet Maple, Canada's leading on-demand healthcare platform.

00:23:48.300 Download the app, sign up, and connect with a Canadian-licensed doctor or nurse practitioner

00:23:52.740 to text, call, or video chat in minutes.

00:23:55.160 For same-day care, a prescription renewal,

00:23:57.160 or help managing an ongoing condition,

00:23:59.140 Maple's network of providers are ready to help anytime.

00:24:01.680 Health, yeah.

00:24:02.920 Maple.

00:24:03.820 On-demand healthcare, when you demand it.

00:24:06.960 All right, full-time force.

00:24:08.460 Craig, who stood out?

00:24:09.460 Brazil's lime cheesecake started bright, didn't let up.

00:24:11.980 Nah, for me, Italian cappuccino was the standout in the box.

00:24:15.060 But if we're talking decadent performance, that's all France.

00:24:17.880 Chocolate creme brulee had the richest finishes.

00:24:20.260 Canadian fireworks really showed up big, too.

00:24:22.080 And Mexico's Caramel Churro Ice Cap.

00:24:24.620 Gave me chills.

00:24:25.820 We are, of course, talking about Tim's Taste of the Globe Liner.

00:24:28.680 New globally inspired Timbits and Ice Cap flavors available at Tim Hortons for a limited time.

00:24:33.200 Pick some up today.

00:24:34.200 And while you're at it, check out Footy Prime Daily.

00:24:38.920 What's Delta Force?

00:24:40.220 And when did you try out for that?

00:24:42.340 So, yeah, the mid-90s, Special Forces, you know, the Bill Clinton Army kind of sucked.

00:24:48.820 No ammo, no training, no money, right?

00:24:51.580 So a buddy of mine, I was at his house, I don't know, I was on leave.

00:24:59.860 We were drinking, smoking cigars, and he just gave me a yellow sticky with a time and place.

00:25:08.180 So I was like, what's this?

00:25:09.700 And it was like this field on post.

00:25:11.400 So he's like, yeah, you're going to be there at 6 in the morning.

00:25:14.340 It's like midnight, man.

00:25:16.460 No way.

00:25:17.100 I ain't going nowhere at 6 in the morning, right?

00:25:19.220 I went um and uh he talked me in the go and he was a Mogadishu guy and um I went and that's it

00:25:26.920 I passed yeah so that was you in special forces trying to make it under delta force which is yet

00:25:32.460 another sort of next elite level but in my day you didn't know what delta force was like if someone

00:25:38.700 went there is a black hole you just never seen them again you didn't even know they were alive

00:25:42.500 you know what I mean so why'd you do it why'd you show up at 6 a.m what else was I gonna do

00:25:47.980 sometimes i do my best work hungover what's that how was the how hard was the tryout or the uh oh

00:25:56.500 so first off it ain't easy i'm gonna say that but at the same time it's fucking great man they

00:26:02.000 leave you alone you walk through the mountains like yeah yeah i'm here you gotta go like i don't

00:26:08.820 know like you have maps you ever see like the big forest already sweating that's making me

00:26:13.020 i know it's probably the worst thing you want to hear i would never make it but like you'd have

00:26:16.820 maps and they're like this big and like the guy would give you a point and you'd be like wait

00:26:22.320 wait and you're like you got like five of these and you're like i gotta go like three of these

00:26:28.040 maps today man you know what i mean and then yeah and then you just go and then this i mean

00:26:34.540 maybe they knew even before bin laden knew where you were gonna wind up but that was perfect

00:26:40.940 training for what ultimately would be asked of you yeah 100 i was ready were you in delta force

00:26:46.000 when 9-11 happened yeah okay so you're doing your training what still down in savannah uh i was at

00:26:51.220 bragg fort bragg okay and then uh well 9-11 i was trying to skydive to go to a free fall jump master

00:26:58.700 school teach people to skydive of course you were that's what i do so what happened on 9-11 were you

00:27:05.640 what was your reaction to that day well the first plane i was like like it looked like a little

00:27:11.320 plane crashed in you know we didn't know some drunken idiot in his in his little plane crashed

00:27:17.220 in right and then the second was like oh shit and then we were grounded and that was it you know

00:27:21.940 then you knew it was like something bad serious you know you knew but unlike the rest of us you

00:27:26.840 actually were gonna have to answer the call i mean does that is that exciting is it nerve-wracking is

00:27:32.960 it everything uh it's a lot of things but i would say this is uh i was too far in not to go you know

00:27:40.960 what i mean i was excited i was nervous you know like the whole i say this all the time people are

00:27:48.100 gonna have a thousands of emotions today right like it's just how people work you'll have a

00:27:52.280 thousand emotions don't let it stop on the bad ones you know what i mean i know what you mean

00:27:57.660 but it's harder to do than actually you know it sounds maybe i don't know you know people get

00:28:03.540 stuck they get stuck in sort of obsessive thinking especially if their life might be on the line

00:28:08.120 Yeah, people get stuck.

00:28:09.680 So how do you rejigger that if that's you and you get stuck on something?

00:28:12.480 Smack them in the back of the head.

00:28:14.020 Sometimes you need that.

00:28:15.360 You know what I mean?

00:28:15.700 Sometimes I need that.

00:28:16.960 You know what I mean?

00:28:18.100 Snap them out of it.

00:28:18.940 So what was the first word you had that you were getting deployed and to where?

00:28:24.120 Well, there's a lot of things happening between 9-11 and before we deployed.

00:28:31.760 I think the original plan is we were supposed to save some hostages in Kabul.

00:28:36.540 And then we ended up doing the Tora Bora thing.

00:28:38.920 So what we trained for and what happened were completely different animals.

00:28:43.680 You know what I mean?

00:28:44.440 Do you know why?

00:28:46.660 That's the way that cookie crumbles.

00:28:48.360 You know what I mean?

00:28:49.220 Just follow what they tell you.

00:28:50.700 Let's go.

00:28:51.160 You know what I mean?

00:28:51.840 You're not in charge.

00:28:52.780 Someone else is making the calls.

00:28:54.180 You just got to do your best when the time comes.

00:28:56.420 Was Tora Bora then the first place you went?

00:28:59.080 Yeah, Tora Bora.

00:28:59.960 Wow.

00:29:00.460 Yeah.

00:29:00.680 All right.

00:29:01.180 Tell us about that.

00:29:02.240 Tell us what was that.

00:29:03.100 how did that just describe it because i've heard you talk about it sean ryan it sounds i mean like

00:29:09.480 you were looking for bin laden yeah so yeah we were looking for bin laden um the torah borer was

00:29:15.840 like a stronghold uh for bin laden al-qaeda whatever they would call themselves right

00:29:23.040 um and the russians could never get in there right and um i think somebody i don't know who said it

00:29:30.640 But it took 10 of us 10 days.

00:29:34.380 To do what?

00:29:35.480 To get everybody out of those mountains.

00:29:37.780 Either kill them or have them come out and surrender.

00:29:40.260 But it took 10 of us 10 days.

00:29:42.400 The Russians never took it.

00:29:43.820 They had 10,000 soldiers, you know?

00:29:46.100 So how'd we do that?

00:29:47.620 We bombed the shit out of those guys.

00:29:49.500 You know what I mean?

00:29:51.200 Thanks to all your explosives training?

00:29:53.820 No, it was more like Air Force stuff.

00:29:56.080 You know what I mean?

00:29:56.860 Unfortunately, not my...

00:29:58.860 I mean, if I had to blow them up one at a time, like, that would be awesome.

00:30:02.800 But we bombed them.

00:30:04.800 So it was more of an Air Force thing.

00:30:06.360 We had a call on the radio for a bomb.

00:30:08.020 Was that deployment, that moment when you showed up in Tora Bora the first time,

00:30:12.860 you ever killed a man?

00:30:15.020 Yeah.

00:30:15.860 Yeah, war.

00:30:16.600 Like, let's go.

00:30:17.460 We killed hundreds of people on the first day.

00:30:20.140 Like, I can't tell you how many people died or, you know what I mean?

00:30:23.880 They're just everywhere, side of the mountains.

00:30:26.260 And then sometimes guys get blowed up.

00:30:28.160 there's only pieces you know what i mean and and they'd just be on the side of the mountain like

00:30:32.820 what do you do like well how does that does that affect you at all as a you know as a man or is it

00:30:37.800 just no i'm a soldier um i mean you know you come you i'll tell you this you want to come to a gun

00:30:47.820 fight and you end up dead it's your fault you know what i mean they started it well and it's

00:30:55.340 the delta force you're gonna die like it's not gonna be a good look for you you know what i mean

00:31:00.420 so uh yeah i just felt like uh all those guys needed to die like they're evil you know what i

00:31:06.300 mean like it's evil to just like uh you know afghanistan in general it's like biblical times

00:31:14.040 with trucks and cell phones like they do fucked up shit you know what i mean so these i don't

00:31:20.900 there's no doubt in my mind that these guys needed to die you know were they connected to

00:31:26.200 bin laden yeah all his like inner guys you know what i mean yeah so in 10 days you managed to

00:31:33.100 route out this this mountain area that nobody else had gotten to the russians included and then what

00:31:38.860 well bin laden wrote a death letter he wrote a death letter it's on the internet but he wrote

00:31:45.960 a letter he thought he was going to die is this the one where he was this is a different letter

00:31:50.020 from the one that the morons were circulating on tiktok about a year and a half ago saying this is

00:31:53.980 amazing he's so smart he's got such good reasons for attacking us i don't know that happened i don't

00:31:59.660 know yeah i don't know you really wouldn't you should stay off the internet and you should not

00:32:03.360 i do know gen z i don't think you'll be happy i don't do any social media well so what happened

00:32:08.900 because you you didn't find bin laden there but you found all of his henchmen yeah you killed him

00:32:13.280 yeah and then are you like done because bin laden's still out there a fucking ceasefire a

00:32:18.740 fucking ceasefire and someone called a ceasefire and i would also say uh there's a couple helicopters

00:32:25.380 flew over the battlefield which i still to this day don't know who they were oh you think he was

00:32:30.380 escaping i look at it this way um if if the first 10 days of the war 10 guys kill bin laden where's

00:32:42.960 the war on terror at oh this is interesting the checkbook would have never got open oh that's

00:32:49.240 really interesting that's what i think so you're pretty cynical about our military industrial

00:32:54.480 complex i wouldn't say cynical like i mean i enjoyed my time i love grenades you know what i

00:33:02.300 mean uh but uh i do think like the rug was pulled out from under us well i mean it definitely was

00:33:10.500 at the end but we're are you talking about right here right now when you're trying to you don't

00:33:14.920 think that the military brass wanted you to find him they wanted it to go on and on no i think

00:33:19.680 someone else intervened and put him in hiding someone who owned helicopters

00:33:25.520 regular people own helicopters who owns helicopters you know what i mean and then how come i've never

00:33:34.440 heard about this anywhere else i don't know no one wants to talk about this i know right see what i'm

00:33:39.040 saying but i mean are you talking about like i say the military industrial complex like one of

00:33:43.640 these big contractors are you talking about us us us i don't know i mean you can make your own

00:33:49.320 guesses you know what i'm saying but i would say this is like okay where's the story between where

00:33:54.760 he lived in pakistan and tora bora where's that story also by the way i want to know that story

00:33:59.580 do we know i have no i have no idea yeah you ever heard anything no we need this like these jfk files

00:34:05.940 let's go you know what i mean you actually have a shot at it right now with this administration

00:34:09.640 well there you go you talk you know these guys i got a friend over at the pentagon there you go

00:34:14.380 maybe we can get to the bottom of that there you go well that's i mean it's unfortunately and i

00:34:20.280 and totally understandably so many of our veterans are asking these questions now including sean you

00:34:25.620 know i've talked to him at length about his questions about who are the good guys and oh

00:34:31.160 we're not I don't think we are you don't I don't think we're good friends why

00:34:35.900 I think we deal on a short timeline a four-year timeline and I think everyone else has like been

00:34:46.100 in charge for 50 years you know what I mean and they've seen us flip-flop back and forth

00:34:52.040 and we pull we push we tug a war with the rope it never ends out good we're not good friends

00:34:58.700 And then as soon as you don't do what we want, we're going to chuck you under the bus and move the fuck on.

00:35:04.220 You know what I mean?

00:35:04.800 Give me an example.

00:35:07.620 I don't know.

00:35:08.560 Tons of stuff.

00:35:09.640 You know what I mean?

00:35:10.120 I'm giving you an example right now.

00:35:11.660 Where are these helicopters at?

00:35:13.380 Where is the story of bin Laden from Abbottabad?

00:35:18.740 That's where the officers are trained in Pakistan.

00:35:22.400 Interesting, right?

00:35:23.880 And how did he get out of Afghanistan?

00:35:27.080 He's on dialysis.

00:35:27.700 You mean this guy walked over 14,000-foot mountains in the snow with his little woolen blanket and his dialysis machine but left all his people behind?

00:35:41.160 You know what I'm saying?

00:35:42.620 Yeah.

00:35:43.240 But I think George Bush said dead or alive, and I think the Pentagon was risk adverse, and I think that's where the disconnect was at that time.

00:35:56.820 But I think someone else stepped in and took bin Laden into hiding.

00:36:01.500 And when we found him in 2010, in my exact time, it was 20, I think, 11.

00:36:08.600 I was on maternity leave with my daughter.

00:36:09.580 It was an election year.

00:36:11.640 So you think that was by design?

00:36:13.980 Yeah.

00:36:15.040 Yeah.

00:36:15.820 He was more useful.

00:36:17.800 He was more useful dead.

00:36:19.340 Obama needed to get reelected.

00:36:21.260 It's time.

00:36:22.560 And so allowed him to be killed.

00:36:25.440 Yeah.

00:36:26.820 So is that just your gut having been in the army for 20 years or?

00:36:31.000 Hell yeah.

00:36:32.980 I mean, that's like, that's the worst possible, like take on our commander in chief and what they might do.

00:36:40.060 Like in danger, continue a war where guys are getting killed, their limbs blown off.

00:36:45.120 What to improve your, so you can get the election under your belt.

00:36:49.300 It's just so.

00:36:50.960 It's the way it works.

00:36:52.320 Oh my gosh.

00:36:52.920 It's just so horrible to even consider.

00:36:54.100 i mean that's the way it works well if i had been over there and seeing my guys blown up

00:37:00.540 i think i'd be very angry if if i believe this i'd be very fucking pissed off are you angry

00:37:07.900 i mean believing this i mean being angry wouldn't get me a cup of coffee you know what i'm saying

00:37:13.620 i know but either you feel it or you don't if you you know um i look at it this way

00:37:17.300 i had a great time i did everything i could uh i did as much as i could every time i could and i

00:37:27.100 always try to do the right thing uh at the same time like i can't control everything you know

00:37:33.300 what i mean and then uh does it make me mad sure do i hate that like you know uh that uh

00:37:41.120 the politicians disagree on something and it costs your son his life, right?

00:37:49.340 Like ridiculous, right?

00:37:51.480 But at the same time, like I was having the time of my life,

00:37:54.700 so I wasn't questioning shit, you know?

00:37:56.840 Anytime you drink from the bottle of hindsight, everything gets clearer,

00:38:00.600 you know what I mean?

00:38:01.220 But at the time, like I didn't question it.

00:38:03.780 I was on to the next, like war was my life, you know,

00:38:08.660 and I was good at it and I saved lives.

00:38:10.720 I saved a ton of lives in war.

00:38:14.500 All those things combined kept me back, coming back to it,

00:38:18.280 whether it's right, wrong, indifferent.

00:38:21.260 Like these are things that I can't control, so why even dwell on it?

00:38:26.740 You know what I mean?

00:38:27.480 It's almost, and then you'll get stuck in there.

00:38:30.660 It's muddy water.

00:38:31.560 You'll get stuck.

00:38:32.160 It's quicksand.

00:38:32.740 You'll sink in it.

00:38:33.680 Like why this?

00:38:34.860 Why that?

00:38:35.440 Like why ask why?

00:38:37.320 You haven't been through therapy.

00:38:38.520 This is just your own thinking.

00:38:40.720 uh i don't go to therapy no i assume you know a therapist like i do i actually know a really good

00:38:46.560 one but i don't think you need him i don't think you got your head on your on your shoulders i

00:38:50.080 try that's life therapy right there i don't know it's somehow you managed to get like a really

00:38:56.240 clear view on all of this but so many guys i've talked to them come back yeah traumatized well

00:39:01.680 i call it the the last chapter they're stuck in the last chapter you know what i mean like

00:39:08.420 they can't get out of that chapter and whether but what really happens is like the story's not

00:39:14.640 over you know what i mean i mean i was under the age of 40 doing all that stuff well i got a lot

00:39:20.400 more a lot years like so your life never gets better you're never gonna enjoy anything again

00:39:26.040 like get out of that chapter right and write a new chapter is it the in part like the adrenaline

00:39:32.500 rush that you miss? Like it's tough to recreate that in civilian life. Yeah. Uh, it's more than

00:39:39.940 the adrenaline rush. You know what I mean? It's so much more. Um, I mean, when you're really good

00:39:46.220 at something, it's all you want to do. And when you know guys are really good at something,

00:39:52.680 I could, you could save lives by sending guys that are really, really good at this. You know

00:39:57.660 what I mean? So, uh, I think it's just one of those things where it's, it's a calling

00:40:02.240 and it's not really your choice. You know what I mean? But at the same time, it's a choice you

00:40:08.360 got to make. When were you in Tora Bora? Um, I don't know, December of 90 or no, oh one.

00:40:17.060 And then you went back, right? Yeah. I went back to Tora Bora. Yeah. When'd you go back?

00:40:21.020 uh two just a few months later in 2002 i went back and was that your like solo

00:40:28.660 how did you end up solo in tora borra pretty easy i needed pop tarts okay i heard that you

00:40:37.900 mentioned this on shot right i was getting pop tarts so i need to clarify this you wanted the

00:40:42.400 pop tarts and uh there's something else what was the other thing beef jerky beef jerky okay

00:40:46.980 you needed this so you convinced them to send you on some mission back to like the chow hall

00:40:52.040 to get this stuff i just told my boss like hey we doing anything tonight i'll schedule the

00:40:56.460 helicopter and i'll go to the chow hall i'll have their guy fill our truck okay then i got lost

00:41:02.940 what happened like you you never went back with the pop tarts and the beef jerky i did

00:41:07.680 weeks later but it seemed like you got sucked into this unit that had the good food yeah and

00:41:12.420 then you were off to the races well it was where everyone was it was where all the guys were you

00:41:16.560 know i mean okay first off uh the defo when they deploy like they have beef jerky they have the

00:41:24.780 defa the defo what's that delta force delta force the defo defo the defo diva i'm like who was he

00:41:32.420 but anyway like uh you're the highest army unit you have beef jerky you have pop tarts you have

00:41:39.320 you know what i mean like stuff army guys like might see once a month we should be getting every

00:41:44.500 day because like they're serving cappuccinos yeah and then like the food is really good because we

00:41:49.120 have our own cooks and they care about what you eat you know what i mean so it's uh it's good

00:41:53.840 it's it's it's the army system but it's within the army system which makes it a little better

00:41:59.440 right so i was just gonna go get some pop tarts and really it's just a resupply run so i drive

00:42:04.940 my toyota truck on a helicopter they fly me to bagram and then um one of the commanders the guy

00:42:10.700 that wrote kill bin laden was like hey what are you doing and i'm like i'm stealing pop right i'm

00:42:16.940 here for food yeah and uh he was like you want to go on a mission and i was like yeah i was like

00:42:22.640 well you got to call my boss and he's like okay i'll call him and he did and then um i was like

00:42:27.140 what is it you know what i mean they're like we want you to go out alone and i'm like this sounds

00:42:31.460 risky okay just happened like you were just there getting the pop tarts and they were like

00:42:35.000 you know, you're, you'd be good for this. Yeah. Wow. And you, this is what kind of you wanted

00:42:40.240 to do anyway, be on your own, make your own decisions. Oh, I didn't know if I wanted to,

00:42:45.360 like never thought about it before then, but it, it turns out something I do. So what was the

00:42:50.320 mission? Why did you have to go out by yourself? Why couldn't you have others? Well, uh, this goes

00:42:54.520 back to the, the politics of it is the general at the time wouldn't let us to do a, to hit a target

00:43:03.280 in afghanistan we needed us eyes on make sense so how do you get us eyes on you have to send out

00:43:11.560 reconnaissance guys and that's what i did right uh and then um but you can't no one can leave the

00:43:18.340 wire what's the wire the perimeter the base you can't so so that's so the general's like no one

00:43:25.200 can leave the base but you got to launch reconnaissance to get us eyes on someone's

00:43:29.680 gonna have to leave the base someone's gonna have to leave the base and that was you was there

00:43:33.640 another guy or is it just you well the only reason they sent me is they uh they kept me in because i

00:43:38.900 was coming from one base to another and outstation to a major base yeah i was in transit so they just

00:43:44.500 kept me in transit for weeks yeah you're like who knows we have no idea where john basically they

00:43:49.360 had a lie about what i was doing just to make really on a search for that beef jerky right

00:43:55.100 You're not giving up?

00:43:56.680 No.

00:43:57.080 The guys back at the original place were probably like,

00:43:59.260 where the hell are the Pop-Tarts?

00:44:00.980 They were in my truck.

00:44:02.760 They get them later.

00:44:04.060 So then how long is this solo mission back through Tora Bora?

00:44:08.180 Probably took me 10 days-ish.

00:44:10.660 Why are you going back there when we already blew up the people?

00:44:13.340 Well, the last guy to supposedly help bin Laden out of the valley

00:44:18.420 just came back from Pakistan with him and his sons.

00:44:23.060 With bin Laden and his sons or with his own?

00:44:24.980 No, his own sons.

00:44:27.080 Supposedly during the Battle of Tora Bora, because he lived near there,

00:44:32.560 he was the facilitator of getting people in and out of there.

00:44:36.820 Okay.

00:44:37.280 So we wanted to kill him or we wanted to capture him?

00:44:39.240 We wanted to capture him because we thought maybe he brought bin Laden out of there.

00:44:45.000 Okay.

00:44:45.880 So the last lead for bin Laden was this guy because we have everybody else,

00:44:50.840 all his people his bodyguard his cook his everybody so do they tell you where you're going

00:44:55.740 and then it's just up to you to get yourself there yeah like do they show you that spot on

00:45:00.620 the map and you're like i gotta figure this out yeah oh yeah all right so they they're like we

00:45:04.880 believe we know where he is yeah now good luck to you yeah go find him and it how pretty simple

00:45:12.600 like he's it's only one valley like and there's only you know what i mean there's only i had

00:45:17.140 already been there that's one of the things is right so i kind of knew the area i knew the terrain

00:45:21.860 right and it's like are there bad guys trying to kill you everywhere everywhere yeah so how do you

00:45:26.760 yeah get past them bad guys like in checkpoints yeah uh you act like a retard like an american

00:45:34.160 though right they knew you were an american no they thought you were one of them yeah what yeah

00:45:38.960 how's that possible you're just pasty as i am i have a big because of russians rape people people

00:45:44.900 look like me in afghanistan lots of them oh wow i didn't think of that yeah so you would act like

00:45:51.280 a local and like a nutcase and they'd let you walk right by mm-hmm all the time what would

00:45:57.620 acting like a nutcase look like uh well the so like this guy the first time happened i mean this

00:46:03.400 guy like jams his ak in my chest and it's like like i'm supposed to say something and i just

00:46:11.280 figured if i speak american right now i'm dead that's it you know what i mean so i figured well

00:46:17.740 i'll act like a retard uh and uh i figured okay how would a retarded guy sound first off it'd be

00:46:26.420 volume 11 yes right so loud you don't even want to listen and then it'd be mongoloid stuff so i

00:46:33.300 was just kind of like and the guy's like move along yeah i got the did you have your ak yeah

00:46:41.940 did he know that yeah oh so he knew like it's not unusual to be armed there even if you're not

00:46:46.820 everybody everybody's okay yeah everyone's that's incredible yeah so you find the destination and

00:46:53.260 did you get eyes on the guy yeah videotaped too i recorded and that's that was the mission not

00:46:57.740 don't take him out don't try to kidnap him just tell us if he in fact is there

00:47:01.420 so now you got the evidence was that a moment like when you saw him you're like holy shit did

00:47:06.880 you know it was him first of all or you just could it could be some rando well when i was um

00:47:11.460 i was in a truck i said with a bunch of people no one knows i'm american i had as we drove by

00:47:18.780 i put my video camera under my arm and i video camera the house and like dude was on the front

00:47:26.300 porch luckily so you got a good shot of him all of it yeah all of it got everything i needed

00:47:31.160 are you sure because i would imagine in the moment i've been sort of not in this circumstance but i've

00:47:35.500 not long ago did this undercover video of somebody and i was like i hope i got the shot

00:47:39.660 you don't know until you can go check it later but this is a very important shot to get dude

00:47:43.820 was on the porch it was perfect you knew you had it yeah did you recognize him uh no i didn't know

00:47:51.240 okay i didn't know you found out later that you did in fact get the guy yeah correct so then did

00:47:55.700 we get him yeah okay and do you think it was instrumental in getting us to bin laden

00:48:00.860 uh no it wasn't it was not madam cia analyst whose name we still don't know was not using

00:48:10.080 that particular information and figuring out where bin laden was i don't know what any of

00:48:16.040 that means but uh uh it did not help he had no idea okay all right so what does that mean for

00:48:24.160 you anything does that make you feel disappointed about it or like well i always thought well i

00:48:27.940 thought at the time like a they were gonna find out he was like dead in a cave later you know what

00:48:34.040 i mean i just figured we boom the smithereens it might be hard to find the parts you know what i

00:48:39.920 mean uh so and then i figured one day the truth will come out i kind of always knew that so well

00:48:46.100 when you heard about the raid and yeah you saw barack obama on television that night yeah what

00:48:50.980 was your reaction i thought it was great you did yeah i thought it was great i mean i mean for

00:48:56.560 whatever reason Obama had, I thought it was great. And then I can tell you this, if I was

00:49:01.660 commander in chief, the minute I heard that, I'd be like, go smoke that fool now. You know what I

00:49:07.560 mean? Yep. End of discussion.

00:49:14.600 Everything is on demand these days, whether it's your favorite show or dinner. Why should healthcare

00:49:19.460 feel any different? Meet Maple, Canada's leading on-demand healthcare platform. Download the app,

00:49:24.920 sign up, and connect with a Canadian licensed doctor or nurse practitioner to text, call,

00:49:29.760 or video chat in minutes. For same-day care, a prescription renewal, or help managing an

00:49:34.060 ongoing condition, Maple's network of providers are ready to help anytime. Health, yeah. Maple,

00:49:39.740 on-demand healthcare when you demand it. All right, full-time thoughts. Craig, who stood out?

00:49:45.360 Brazil's lime cheesecake started great, didn't let up. Nah, for me, Italian cappuccino was the

00:49:49.860 standout in the box. But if we're talking decadent performance, that's all France.

00:49:53.660 Chocolate creme brulee had the richest finishes.

00:49:56.220 Canadian fireworks really showed up big too.

00:49:58.200 And Mexico's caramel churro ice cap gave me chills.

00:50:01.740 We are, of course, talking about Tim's taste of the globe lineup.

00:50:04.640 New globally inspired Timbits and ice cap flavors available at Tim Horton's for a limited time.

00:50:09.120 Pick some up today and while you're at it, check out Footy Prime Daily.

00:50:12.820 Rob O'Neill was our first Memorial Day in-depth interview back when we launched the show.

00:50:18.660 We didn't even have video yet.

00:50:19.880 It would have been Memorial Day of 2021 right after the show launched.

00:50:24.880 And that story was just unbelievable just to hear it told firsthand.

00:50:27.860 He's controversial now.

00:50:29.000 Some people don't think he should have said it was him, blah, blah, blah.

00:50:31.640 What do you think?

00:50:33.340 Seals, you know what I mean?

00:50:34.540 It's always fucking drama with those guys.

00:50:37.660 You know what I'm saying?

00:50:39.020 I adore him.

00:50:40.140 I really admire him so deeply.

00:50:42.260 Yeah, I'm not buying into any of that drama.

00:50:44.900 All right, so now he wasn't done.

00:50:47.420 Like you're not done.

00:50:48.460 The war is still going on.

00:50:49.280 And then you wind up going to Iraq.

00:50:50.900 Yeah.

00:50:52.060 And I think that was like the, you know, they were gearing up.

00:50:56.700 You know what I mean?

00:50:57.420 We're trying to do this.

00:50:58.800 They were gearing up for Iraq.

00:51:00.560 I mean, that's a nightmare.

00:51:02.080 Like when you look back on that one, what do you think?

00:51:05.020 Iraq?

00:51:05.580 Yeah.

00:51:05.840 I loved Iraq.

00:51:06.800 What?

00:51:07.200 No one says that.

00:51:08.620 Why?

00:51:09.140 I don't know.

00:51:10.400 You're out of their mind.

00:51:11.680 You have an interesting take on it.

00:51:12.840 And I love to hear your take on Saddam Hussein because you're making some good points I hadn't considered.

00:51:17.900 Saddam, man.

00:51:18.600 like we should have left him we should have killed his bastard sons and told him play along or you're

00:51:25.000 next yeah them dudes needed to go but he was kind of a fan of the christians he was he was his inner

00:51:32.620 circle was all christians uh the people that touched his food washed his butt like all christian

00:51:39.520 all inner circle and it's because of the martyr thing you know if you're a muslim you kill yourself

00:51:45.460 you're a martyr you go to heaven you know what i mean uh as a christian you kill yourself you go

00:51:50.360 to hell so he surrounded himself and put up with the christians that's why iraq was actually pretty

00:51:57.180 western even back then because he allowed christians to have their own areas do their

00:52:02.460 own things right and then you know isis allows none of that you know what i mean yep and then

00:52:07.940 we had to mess with it so did you you did go on a mission where you you got you tried to get him

00:52:15.300 Tell me again what it was.

00:52:16.560 It was like a woman, his affair partner's husband.

00:52:19.240 Yeah.

00:52:21.460 Yeah.

00:52:22.460 We rolled up everybody that met Saddam.

00:52:25.500 You know what I mean?

00:52:26.100 And then we used to say, look, we're in the army, like, you know, in the, you know, our

00:52:30.720 intelligence agencies, they give polygraphs and they determine their rating as sources.

00:52:36.660 And like, they'd be like, this is an unreliable source.

00:52:40.060 You know what I'm saying?

00:52:40.760 And we'd be like, I'm in the army.

00:52:42.520 I'm pulling every thread.

00:52:44.040 Let's go.

00:52:44.540 i don't care and we go check it out anyway most of the time they were wrong um yeah uh go what a

00:52:50.520 shock yeah go figure uh but yeah uh saddam had like a favorite sex lady i never even heard of

00:52:59.240 this i heard you saying she was not hot yeah like like i don't know what they got going but like

00:53:05.420 who knows what she was doing behind closed doors yeah there's no talent she must have been a real

00:53:09.800 pro you know what i mean that's all i could think she had to know something about

00:53:14.520 something but uh like you would think like i don't know like you would just assume she would

00:53:20.600 be attractive i don't know i didn't know what to assume everyone pictures the affair partner as

00:53:24.580 somebody who's very hot the wife could maybe or maybe not none of that happened in here i mean

00:53:29.680 maybe had some hot ones i didn't see them yeah different taste maybe she had a routine we have

00:53:34.100 no idea she obviously had something okay so but it wasn't her you were looking for it was her

00:53:40.760 husband because she was married we were we couldn't get to her because it's hard to get to

00:53:45.560 women in iraq so we had to get to the husband see what i'm saying and what what information could we

00:53:51.100 get from the husband i don't know maybe saddam kind of you know was honey potted a little bit

00:53:57.420 he told his favorite honey pot i don't know something you know and as a as an army guy not

00:54:04.080 an intel guy i'm like let's go yeah let's look into this i'll do it yeah i don't care and do

00:54:08.620 we get him yeah we got him yeah did he know anything yeah they didn't know shit you know

00:54:14.260 what i mean like they didn't know shit uh but we did get him and uh yeah it was okay this is this

00:54:20.320 is kind of legendary but um i was across the street in a minivan and i was kind of watching

00:54:27.780 this shop um i had two iraqi guys that i would use um and then i had the assault force kind of

00:54:37.140 park on the corner close to the shop and then uh enough time went by we were just waiting and

00:54:44.640 waiting i told my guys to start fighting in front of the store if too much time went by so they start

00:54:50.880 a fist fight in front of the store uh and then people come out like what's going on out front

00:54:56.160 of the store and the dude came out and literally put his back to like the van door the assault

00:55:01.840 force and i'm like yo open the door it's that dude right there and they grabbed him and then

00:55:07.680 it was over and people were like looking for him no one even knew he was everyone had been

00:55:12.580 watching the fight wow and then later my boss was like man we're so lucky that dude started

00:55:18.480 the fight i was like i was like that was our guys i what is luck i was trying to speed this

00:55:23.500 up a little bit you know what i mean yeah it's hot in the back of the van so you don't have to

00:55:27.200 do the interrogation or you do um i've done a lot of them okay they don't always send in like the

00:55:33.300 dark arts guys from the cia to do that crap like that's that's us too uh those guys are chump change

00:55:39.800 you know what i mean they're to gitmo only yeah okay yeah so how do you make a guy like that talk

00:55:46.080 and by the way easy how do you communicate with one another you have a translator there yeah you

00:55:50.640 gotta have a terp people to speak the language but uh yeah what do you mean easy how is it easy

00:55:55.900 Everybody talks.

00:55:57.140 They do?

00:55:58.020 Are you kidding me?

00:55:58.820 You torture them?

00:55:59.480 What do you do?

00:56:00.080 You don't got to do shit.

00:56:01.100 It's easy.

00:56:01.800 What?

00:56:02.500 Yeah, fear and common sense is a powerful tool.

00:56:05.400 You know what I mean?

00:56:06.320 Most of the time, like, okay, think about this.

00:56:10.540 Okay, this is every human being.

00:56:12.040 This is me.

00:56:12.520 This is you.

00:56:13.000 Look, there's stuff that you're going to die with that you ain't telling no one about.

00:56:18.520 Everybody does that.

00:56:20.520 Right?

00:56:21.000 Does that make sense to you?

00:56:22.080 I don't know.

00:56:22.940 I'm kind of an open book, but okay, yes.

00:56:24.560 i am too but there's secrets people keep to their grave right that's basically what i'm saying

00:56:30.060 right uh and then there's other shit like what's your cousin's car look like that you just ain't

00:56:36.020 holding it ain't worth like getting beat over it ain't worth fighting over like uh it's a little

00:56:44.360 white car like this is a small point of order but did he know that the wife was having an affair

00:56:48.460 with saddam hussein the entire time he did what do you do was he was he okay with it or just kind

00:56:54.300 of curious what the sex dynamic i would imagine he felt lucky to be alive every day right you know

00:57:00.420 what i'm saying yeah he'd be a very easy guy to get rid of and then you could have the side piece

00:57:04.720 whenever you wanted it but i guess he could anyway so what's the point of killing the husband

00:57:09.440 i don't know so he gave up whatever info and did we find saddam hussein after that uh shortly after

00:57:17.020 that yeah we were uh look we had to run all the look manhunting is like a sweater when like you

00:57:23.760 have a yarn on a sweater you pull it right one of those threads is gonna the arm's gonna come off

00:57:29.480 one of those threads you pull it out forever it doesn't do nothing you know what i mean so

00:57:33.720 we're gonna pull every thread this is the process yeah so when you was that the biggest thing that

00:57:39.780 you did one while you were in iraq would you say like the most no serious thing no no what else

00:57:44.500 did you do zarkawi was serious days oh my god that was dark that was the dark stuff you were

00:57:50.300 there with all the beheadings and all that? Oh my God. I mean, does that scare you? You're only a

00:57:55.360 man. You're a man. I mean, I don't know. I wasn't really scared, but, uh, I did get a sword off a

00:58:02.260 Zarkawi truck that was like a Roman short sword. And I'm like, there's pictures of me. I got my

00:58:07.100 shirt off. I'm like, uh, I don't know if you've ever seen this, but, uh, I wanted to, I would

00:58:12.480 have cut one of their heads off. You know what I mean? Like, but, um, no, it didn't scare me.

00:58:17.700 You know, Zarqawi was a bully and he liked to pick on the weak.

00:58:22.100 He didn't want to pick on us.

00:58:24.140 You know what I mean?

00:58:25.200 And then, you know, yeah, the Zarqawi days were great.

00:58:29.700 Foreign fighters was great.

00:58:31.200 I mean, I don't know.

00:58:32.600 I loved it all.

00:58:33.380 But like the foreign fighters, like you just show up in front of the house,

00:58:37.320 have my guy get on the bullhorn.

00:58:39.160 They'd start shooting.

00:58:40.340 We'd level the house, you know, like those days were great.

00:58:43.820 I mean, uh, I think those days were great because that's when the military finally let

00:58:51.000 us take the gloves off and be like, okay, you guys do this your way.

00:58:54.780 You know what I mean?

00:58:55.060 What year is this now?

00:58:55.920 Oh, six, seven?

00:58:57.540 Uh, yeah.

00:58:58.420 Zarqawi was six.

00:58:59.620 You know what I mean?

00:59:00.560 But they'd finally start to let the gloves come off.

00:59:03.520 You know, I think like, I think we were, we were throttled, uh, a lot through a lot of

00:59:09.560 stuff, but I feel like through the Zarqawi days, no one gave a shit how we were getting

00:59:13.800 it done you know what i mean so how long were you over there or how many deployments do you have

00:59:18.480 uh i think i got 10 and then like i got a bunch of like the surge and the stay late and shit like

00:59:24.540 went back and back yeah 10 deployments yeah and then uh as a sergeant major i i spent a lot of

00:59:31.500 time there but it didn't really count as a deployment i was back and forth oh wow so then

00:59:36.420 what like how does it end for you i don't know like they just send you back home before the

00:59:43.160 fight is done or did you fight all the way to the end of the uh no i was a sar major i retired in

00:59:48.220 11 you're getting older yeah they don't let you serve forever really right oh man you're only

00:59:52.820 young so long you know but i'll tell you what with stem cells and shit i could have stayed another 10

00:59:58.240 years if modern science was it's so interesting to talk to you and hear you talk about how fun

01:00:03.340 it was because it seems like the hell of war and the trauma that guys have the ptsd but there's

01:00:09.560 something about like what is it is it working with your comrades in arms is it like doing the

01:00:14.180 thing that you've been told to do and you're really good at it you love that is it all like

01:00:18.120 what is that what is fun i mean uh why be ashamed of trying your best no matter what that is i think

01:00:31.320 right uh and i think that's really what it boils down to i mean yeah i could be ashamed did a lot

01:00:37.400 of people die yeah a lot of people died did there would you be ashamed some of the wrong people die

01:00:41.860 sure you know what i mean did innocent people die sure but like this is war and essentially war is

01:00:47.520 you kill the bad guy and break his shit so he can't use that shit against you if i was told to

01:00:53.740 go do that why am i the bad guy in this i'm not you know what i mean i'm just doing my best on a

01:00:59.860 daily basis you know and then at the end of the day i always seen it as i'm in the army i take

01:01:04.520 orders let's go and a lot of times i like those orders you know what i mean what was the what was

01:01:09.900 the brotherhood dynamic oh uh man you would think it's kind of interesting you would think the

01:01:17.620 brotherhood would have been strong um but like the war like builds bonds you can't you can't

01:01:26.840 get anywhere else i guess you know what i mean like uh you'd think like there's always a brotherhood

01:01:33.100 right well we talk about the brotherhood but we just joked about seal drama you know what i'm

01:01:37.180 saying uh so having said that uh i think there's like guys that i'm like i was in combat with that

01:01:44.940 we have a bond um i think there's certain people i have bonds with over different stuff but i think

01:01:51.600 that bond the brotherhood is is just you know the experiencing uh the best and worst of humanity at

01:02:00.280 the same time you know and when your life is on the line it just adds i don't know so much more

01:02:06.160 to it i would think like you're risking it all together and yeah any one of you might not be

01:02:12.180 there the next night yeah i mean i always say like i i always say well i said this to my guys too but

01:02:18.420 i we all gave uncle sam a blank check get ready don't be mad if it gets cash but don't be mad

01:02:25.660 for somebody when their check is cash

01:02:27.840 because they died doing what they loved.

01:02:30.260 Can't be mad at that either.

01:02:32.280 Were there any women

01:02:33.520 in your unit?

01:02:37.640 Maybe.

01:02:38.500 You're not allowed to tell me?

01:02:39.960 I don't know. Can women be rangers?

01:02:42.760 I don't know.

01:02:43.640 That's a good question. I think so these days.

01:02:45.520 I don't know. I don't know how it works.

01:02:47.820 Did you ever have to deal with that dynamic

01:02:49.380 out in the field?

01:02:51.320 Like men and women serving together?

01:02:53.240 It just seems so weird to me. I don't know.

01:02:55.080 i know nothing i think women have a very niche roles and can have very niche roles

01:03:03.740 uh i've worked with women i've had women partners they were great um but i think there's a role for

01:03:12.420 them and they're not like the one you send uh you know get zarkawi right there's other stuff they do

01:03:19.220 So, uh, yes, we have, we have women always have women like, uh, and yeah, I mean, it's, I think there's more women on the planet than men. I don't know why this shows up.

01:03:28.260 Well, I'm just, I'm curious about, I'm just back to your dating life now. Like, can you meet a woman somehow? Or you're like, how do you fall in love? How do you like?

01:03:35.960 Oh, man, I'll tell you this is I started out married at 9-11.

01:03:40.680 I've been divorced several times.

01:03:42.880 It's a hard life.

01:03:43.900 I think it's a hard life because no one understands your level of commitment.

01:03:52.400 And I say that in a way like you're choosing something that might cause your death over and over.

01:04:01.440 People don't see that as rational, but they don't understand.

01:04:05.960 You know what I mean?

01:04:07.140 So I would say, I always say this is like being married was like being in prison.

01:04:11.920 You could call home and you ain't going there anytime soon.

01:04:15.960 You know what I mean?

01:04:16.660 That's just how it works.

01:04:17.780 What do you mean?

01:04:18.400 I don't think I get it.

01:04:19.540 I don't get it.

01:04:20.040 That's how marriage works in the army.

01:04:22.480 Like when you deploy to war, you could call home.

01:04:25.180 You get your one phone call.

01:04:26.600 I mean, actually call home.

01:04:27.220 Yeah.

01:04:27.380 Call home like once a week or something.

01:04:28.820 You're not going to be together a whole lot.

01:04:30.080 Yeah, but you ain't going home.

01:04:32.200 Yeah.

01:04:32.740 You know what I mean?

01:04:33.400 And that's tough on anybody.

01:04:34.420 I would say this.

01:04:35.960 only guys that had perfect relationships,

01:04:40.820 their marriages survived the war.

01:04:43.080 You know what I mean?

01:04:43.640 And I'd say the bulk of guys end up divorced.

01:04:45.900 Do you have kids?

01:04:46.780 I do.

01:04:47.680 How old are they?

01:04:49.320 I stopped keeping track when they turned over 21.

01:04:53.660 How many kids do you have?

01:04:54.880 I have two.

01:04:56.040 Are they good?

01:04:57.100 Yeah, they're good.

01:04:57.740 They're good people.

01:04:59.240 Are they going into the military at all?

01:05:02.200 My son was in the army and works for the army now.

01:05:04.820 Okay.

01:05:05.100 Okay. So when it all winds, when it ends, you know, Iraq eventually ends,

01:05:10.280 Afghanistan ended disastrously and recently.

01:05:13.500 Yeah.

01:05:15.460 Is that a moment for reflection on what it meant?

01:05:18.040 What role you played, whether it was worth it, like, or no, is it just,

01:05:21.560 I'm a soldier, I did my job, next chapter?

01:05:23.600 Well, it wasn't worth it. I mean, everyone can see that, right?

01:05:26.840 It's not just me. I don't think it was worth it at all.

01:05:28.660 I had a great time.

01:05:29.780 i would say none of it was really worth it in a strategic sense in a tactical sense you know

01:05:38.300 what i mean like honestly but the reality is is like oh man i had the time of my life and i i would

01:05:45.900 want anyone to know like people people like to thank me for my service and it's like i did

01:05:51.880 whatever the fuck i wanted i don't actually need anything so you know what i mean like a kid who

01:05:56.860 was like a cook getting mortared in fucking wherever in iraq nightly that kid needs to be

01:06:02.680 thanked like i was just i was just doing what i do well how do you reconcile it with stories like

01:06:10.780 you know marcus luttrell and what happened to him and he's definitely got some lasting

01:06:14.820 ptsd from that it's been a rough ride back home uh yeah i don't even get that i was out alone all

01:06:22.780 the time like i was out alone in afghanistan i don't get out being the lone survivor i just don't

01:06:28.720 understand that story only because i was out alone all the time it didn't happen to me you know what

01:06:34.600 i mean because the decisions i make on the ground well you're not blaming him i'm not blaming him

01:06:39.820 i'm just saying it's so that's so foreign to me i don't even understand it because i can tell you

01:06:44.940 this the taliban could come after me there'd be a whole lot of dead bodies for sure and i'm just

01:06:52.880 one person i believe that imagine if there was two or three of me bring them i mean that's one

01:06:58.080 of the worst stories of the war and what what he went through is it's awful and i it's not just him

01:07:03.760 you know i was it last year no it was two years ago we talked to dakota meyer he's doing great

01:07:08.800 now um but you know he came back he won the was awarded the medal of honor and wanted to kill

01:07:15.400 himself like he there are tough tough guys not these are not weak men who they they don't process

01:07:24.140 it the way you do i think if you could somehow teach this it would be extremely valuable right

01:07:29.780 i could teach anybody this i i feel like anybody could use this people who have different traumas

01:07:34.800 It would start by me locking you in a room and beating you first.

01:07:38.200 Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

01:07:40.740 I know exactly.

01:07:41.960 I might sign up for that.

01:07:43.820 I think people would.

01:07:44.680 Don't touch the moneymaker.

01:07:45.840 No, of course, of course.

01:07:46.880 No bruises, no marks.

01:07:48.660 I'm a pro.

01:07:49.520 Like, I've done a bunch of interrogations.

01:07:51.120 I got this.

01:07:52.160 I mean, like, is there some sort of toughen you up, John Camp?

01:07:57.040 Oh, no.

01:07:57.700 There isn't.

01:07:58.160 I mean, the shirt, what does it read?

01:08:00.000 Team SOB.

01:08:00.860 Yeah.

01:08:01.560 I called you tough SOB.

01:08:03.340 Same thing.

01:08:04.200 Thank you.

01:08:04.420 So this is not something I can sign up for or I can go learn skills?

01:08:07.100 I don't have any classes like this.

01:08:08.820 Oh, that's too bad.

01:08:09.500 Maybe I should.

01:08:10.300 You're missing an opportunity.

01:08:11.760 Leadership, right?

01:08:13.120 Leadership.

01:08:13.740 Can it be taught?

01:08:15.320 I think so.

01:08:16.200 I think so.

01:08:19.000 Most of my guys, if my guys killed somebody, I brought them all in a room.

01:08:23.920 I made everyone have a drink.

01:08:25.400 I made sure I told them they did exactly right.

01:08:27.980 This was expected of them, right?

01:08:29.920 This is your job.

01:08:32.720 Someone should thank you.

01:08:33.940 And I think if all that happens on the spot, you're less likely to carry the guilt with you later.

01:08:39.700 So I believe a lot of this is framed up poorly a long time ago.

01:08:46.840 And then I believe guys ride the hall pass for a long time.

01:08:50.840 And I call the hall pass booze.

01:08:53.360 But some people do drugs.

01:08:54.780 Some people do.

01:08:55.600 I don't know what people do.

01:08:56.620 But for me, my hall pass was booze.

01:08:59.820 You know what I mean?

01:09:00.960 Still drink or no more?

01:09:02.500 Well, I'm training for Worlds right now, so I am currently not drinking.

01:09:07.800 Worlds in what?

01:09:08.860 Jiu-jitsu.

01:09:09.680 Oh, wow.

01:09:10.340 All you ex-military guys do jiu-jitsu.

01:09:13.120 Why is that?

01:09:15.780 I don't know.

01:09:16.640 Jiu-jitsu, it's an hour of my day where I don't have to look at the phone.

01:09:22.400 Sometimes there's minutes where someone's actually choking the living shit out of me.

01:09:27.680 So I hear.

01:09:28.200 And the stubborn side of me is like, I'm not giving it to them.

01:09:31.180 You know what I mean?

01:09:31.800 isn't it involuntary no what well no when they choke you out no yeah no it's not involuntary

01:09:38.580 okay i gotta learn those moves if you are if you make me give it to you i'll give it to you

01:09:43.760 otherwise you could choke the shit out of me and i'll just ride it you know but uh when i'm in real

01:09:48.980 survival mode someone puts me in trouble i gotta think about what's next my leverage my everything

01:09:55.560 control my breathing, my heart rate. I call that real survival mode. Like that's, I'm so thankful

01:10:02.940 for that. It's a, it's a clarity of some time. You know what I mean? So it's like, you know,

01:10:08.760 like people talk about runners high, like, you know, I do cardio. It doesn't make me high ever.

01:10:15.020 I've always hated it. But like jujitsu is, I don't know, sometimes when I'm in real survival,

01:10:20.920 I don't got to think about my phone. I don't got to think about my life.

01:10:23.720 Are you always going against somebody who knows what they're doing?

01:10:26.360 Is it usually an instructor or another participant in the class?

01:10:31.220 Well, because I travel, I hit, I think, 28, 30 different dojos a year.

01:10:36.460 I just walk in and-

01:10:38.320 Why do you worry about outmatching somebody to the point where you're going to hurt them

01:10:42.100 and get sued or-

01:10:43.340 No, I'm not going to hurt anybody.

01:10:44.240 Cause permanent damage.

01:10:45.580 No.

01:10:45.920 I'm a recovering lawyer.

01:10:47.100 This is how I think about these things.

01:10:48.320 Oh, no, not at all.

01:10:50.160 It's jujitsu.

01:10:51.180 Like, look, this is unarmed-

01:10:52.460 There's no hurting somebody?

01:10:53.420 there's not there's hurting somebody i'm not gonna well yeah but you stop is it like yeah as you get

01:10:58.160 better at it right like this is the point of submission if you thought i was gonna hurt you

01:11:03.500 you could tap okay so that's your escape button that's like the the safe gesture don't don't hurt

01:11:11.720 me anymore please i've had enough yeah you just tap so what are you doing now i'm training for

01:11:17.400 worlds cutting weight right now oh i teach people to shoot yeah okay oh yeah because you're a sniper

01:11:23.300 i was we didn't even get we didn't even go over that no no no yeah yeah how many guns do you own

01:11:29.920 seriously i couldn't count more or less than jd vance's mamaw had in her house when she

01:11:37.720 i don't even know how many i think it was 19 oh yeah uh i don't want to admit to anything

01:11:43.800 you know what i mean where are you living uh i live in raleigh north carolina no where

01:11:48.060 specifically give us the street ad no i'm only kidding i'm only kidding so you settled in the

01:11:52.580 warmth uh well i live near fort bragg still okay you know what i mean and you you work with them

01:11:58.160 and do you do anything i don't do anything at fort bragg i try not to what do you do for fun

01:12:04.180 like how do you let your hair down uh i do jujitsu uh i off-road with my buddies i got one of them

01:12:10.900 side-by-side off-road vehicles yeah i do that because this guy who goes in the side one put

01:12:16.900 on a little white scarf and a little leather helmet he'll get it muddy you know what i mean

01:12:21.300 I wouldn't bring light on these trips.

01:12:24.220 But yeah, we normally off-road in the Arizona mountains yearly.

01:12:28.660 Yeah, we go to this place, Crown King, oldest bar.

01:12:31.900 There's no dirt.

01:12:32.640 It's all dirt roads, no pavement.

01:12:34.880 Stay up there in cabins.

01:12:36.260 And it's kind of like, I don't know.

01:12:38.600 We off-road, we drive.

01:12:40.520 I eat cheeseburgers and I drink whiskey.

01:12:43.940 Sounds right on brand.

01:12:45.480 I do that all weekend.

01:12:47.180 I don't shower either.

01:12:48.380 I don't even care.

01:12:49.460 ever let's go we're four wheeling okay so you shower just not on this particular trip yeah but

01:12:56.100 um i four wheel uh man i you know and then i just i love teaching people to shoot it's kind of like

01:13:03.160 the thing i'm really good at wow yeah um what do you think i know you're not you don't really

01:13:08.700 watch the news do you follow politics at all like what do you think of trump what do you think of

01:13:13.060 pete headseth is the top guy at pentagon yeah well first off talk to pete i need one of these

01:13:18.160 pentagon jobs tell me i shouldn't be i will the deputy of special operations is that what you

01:13:24.040 would like hell yeah let's go i'll make a call oh man uh but uh look i like trump uh i like vance i

01:13:31.900 like pete uh i like what they're doing um and like what can i say like i think they make good

01:13:42.160 inherent decisions like for long term which we're not really used to here you know what i mean

01:13:48.040 But I think they're all good.

01:13:49.660 I don't watch the news or nothing, but I think they're good so far.

01:13:52.520 I thought Trump made great policies last time.

01:13:56.760 You know what I mean?

01:13:57.800 Have you seen enough of Pete to know what you like about him?

01:14:01.400 Oh, man, I got a ton of buddies that know Pete.

01:14:04.040 Like, everybody loves Pete.

01:14:05.460 You know what I mean?

01:14:06.220 Like, that's all I needed to hear.

01:14:08.280 And, you know, like the Pentagon.

01:14:12.860 We ain't won a war lately.

01:14:14.220 and you know these generals will be like oh well he was just lower enlisted saying that but like

01:14:20.460 yo i watched you guys every day make bucked up decisions i try to tell you and you'd be mad at

01:14:26.620 me you know what i mean like not that i was always right but like sometimes you're wrong also and

01:14:33.420 it's the i think it's the hubris of the pentagon that needs to be taken down a few notches you

01:14:38.000 know what i mean yeah and like uh anyway yeah uh so i would happily serve this country and make

01:14:45.760 everything better you know what i mean that's awesome and we need we need guys like you raising

01:14:50.240 your hands thanks well i love that you came in to tell us your story it's you're such an

01:14:55.220 interesting man i love you i love everything about you what a character you are thank you

01:14:59.460 i hope we can find a way to get you back serving let's go let's go let's call pete pete where you

01:15:04.540 at let's call let's call djt and see he's got something calling right now get him on the line

01:15:09.440 i'm in i whether you want to hear or not thank you for your service you're welcome it's a pleasure

01:15:14.720 to meet you oh thank you yeah all the best to you oh didn't i tell you he's unbelievable what a guy

01:15:20.960 john mcphee thank you once again um you know it's just incredible the stuff that our troops go

01:15:26.000 through and the different mindsets that they develop along the way right it's our honor to

01:15:29.720 talk to him. It's our honor to talk to all of our troops who have served in battle. And if you're

01:15:35.040 into what you heard today, you should go back and listen to the earlier Memorial Day shows that

01:15:38.560 we've done since we launched. The first one was in 2021, and that was Rob O'Neill. We've done

01:15:44.420 Marcus Luttrell. We've done Dakota Meyer, recipient of the Medal of Honor. It's just,

01:15:50.400 these guys are, they're living life around us. They're kind of back to normal to the extent one

01:15:55.340 can be with having these incredible backgrounds so it's well worth our time to take a moment to

01:16:01.060 learn from them and remember what they and our other troops have done for us while we've been

01:16:05.760 sitting at home in our air conditioning right so that's what today is all about especially

01:16:09.060 honoring the fallen we do that here thank them and their families for their service

01:16:13.600 everything is on demand these days whether it's your favorite show or dinner why should health

01:16:20.340 care feel any different meet maple canada's leading on-demand health care platform download

01:16:25.440 the app sign up and connect with a canadian licensed doctor or nurse practitioner to text

01:16:30.340 call or video chat in minutes for same-day care a prescription renewal or help managing an ongoing

01:16:35.300 condition maple's network of providers are ready to help anytime health yeah maple on-demand

01:16:41.300 healthcare when you demand it. We want to bring you the story of a remarkable veteran who stared

01:16:50.480 death in the face and lived to share his incredible lessons on leadership, bravery, and how to overcome

01:16:58.480 any obstacle, no matter how devastating it may feel in the moment. Lieutenant Jason C. Redmond

01:17:06.380 joins us now. Jay, welcome to the show. Megan, honored to be on. Happy Memorial Day, everyone.

01:17:18.220 Oh gosh, to you too. It's so great to talk to you and to see you again. Do you remember when we met?

01:17:25.220 Absolutely. Navy SEAL Foundation dinner in New York many years ago when you were still working

01:17:29.820 with Bill Hammer. Exactly right. And I never forgot you. I've talked about you to basically

01:17:35.420 every Navy SEAL who's come on this show and talked about you with Leif Babin and his wife,

01:17:41.700 Jenna Lee, and all these people, and just have been thinking about you because your story was

01:17:46.300 so incredible. And back then, it was still pretty close in time to when you first were injured.

01:17:52.660 You know, that was, what, like 2010? I'm trying to think of the year.

01:17:57.700 2007. So I think I was still active duty. I think I still was trying to get back operational when I

01:18:05.020 went to that dinner because I didn't retire until 2013. Yeah, I remember that. And it was like just

01:18:11.220 your whole story was so incredible. And of course, I've met so many people over the years and I've

01:18:15.220 met a lot of vets too, veterans in active duty. And honestly, I can count on one hand the number

01:18:20.200 of people who really stand out to me where I'm like, you've got to hear this story and you're

01:18:24.740 one of them. So I'm truly honored to have you on here and to be having this discussion with you

01:18:29.360 today. Great to see you. Likewise. Thank you. Ah, okay. So you grow up, you, from a very early

01:18:36.740 age, I think it's fair to say, I mean, like well before you actually signed up for the Navy at age

01:18:40.900 17, had your eye, was it on the Navy in particular or just the military? It was both. The Navy kind

01:18:50.680 of came about a little bit later. I mean, still young. I think it was about 15. I mean, from a

01:18:54.940 very young age i mean my parents tell me when i was about three years old i always just talked

01:18:59.980 about service-based and and what i like to call in american society protectors uh and i was always

01:19:07.900 interested in you know that protector mindset when i was three years old i wanted to be a firefighter

01:19:13.500 uh that as i got a little bit older my grandfather was a decorated uh b-24 pilot um you know i had

01:19:20.380 I'd learned about him and my great uncle, along with my grandfather on both sides, served in World War II.

01:19:27.480 My dad had been an Army veteran serving during the Vietnam War and had been a paratrooper and jump master and rigger.

01:19:36.360 And that's where he had encountered SEALs for the first time and started learning more about special operations, started learning more.

01:19:46.240 You know, I was kind of of the G.I. Joe era.

01:19:48.340 So G.I. Joe was cool to me and definitely the the special operations guys within the G.I. Joe universe.

01:19:57.440 And it was about the time when I was maybe 14 that my dad said, hey, you should look into the Navy SEALs.

01:20:03.820 Having spent some time in the Virgin Islands, I was pretty strong in the water.

01:20:07.220 And he said, hey, these guys are tough.

01:20:09.600 They're some of the best.

01:20:10.600 He said, you know how to swim.

01:20:12.260 He said, you're a little crazy.

01:20:13.960 You should check them out.

01:20:14.980 They'd be perfect for you.

01:20:16.020 And he was right.

01:20:18.340 Uh, I don't know what it was and I'm not the, I'm not probably the likely candidate that most people, um, would think of, you know, I think when people think of Navy SEALs, you know, they, they see a picture of Jocko and Jocko looks like he's chiseled out of granite, you know, and he is the Hollywood version of a steel.

01:20:36.260 and I like to joke, but I'm not, I was like five foot, nothing, especially at that age. I was,

01:20:42.360 I was probably, I don't even think I had hit five foot back then. I was probably 95 pounds when I

01:20:47.940 decided that's what I want to do. And everybody was like, there's no way you'll ever make it.

01:20:53.440 And I don't know, that just created fuel to my fire. And I just said, this is what I'm going to

01:20:58.600 do and set my sights on it and started training. And, you know, the rest obviously leading up to

01:21:04.780 joining the Navy when I was 17 on, amazingly enough, coincidentally, September 11th, 1992

01:21:12.420 is the day I joined the Navy when I was still a senior in high school.

01:21:16.540 You are the guy who says, say, I can't say, I can't like, there's no better fuel for your fire

01:21:22.980 than those, than, than those, than that message.

01:21:27.640 It's a fact. And, and, you know, and that's a good thing. I've come to learn as I get older,

01:21:31.900 there's a balance there. You've got to balance reality with where we're at. Because when I was

01:21:36.640 younger, man, that was the catalyst. I would do just about anything if you told me, hey,

01:21:41.360 you can't do that. I mean, I just had to prove. And I think some of that, who knows, had to do

01:21:45.480 maybe out of that was a smaller guy. So I felt like I had to prove that I was big enough or

01:21:50.600 whatever to do it. But I tell you, back then, it was definitely a fuel that enabled me to make it

01:21:57.140 through training and to overcome a lot of the impossible odds. As a matter of fact,

01:22:02.780 I was told right from the very beginning, when I went to the recruiting station in Lumberton,

01:22:06.960 North Carolina, where I was living at the time, and I walked in that door, probably the first time

01:22:13.100 I might've been 15, probably 15 and a half, basically. And I walked in that door and I said,

01:22:18.880 hey, I want to join the Navy and I want to be a SEAL. And boy, they took one look at me,

01:22:22.980 this five foot nothing, you know, runt. And they were like, you'll never make it as a seal. And

01:22:29.240 they basically, the recruiter chased me out of the office. And, uh, of course that didn't deter me.

01:22:35.460 I came back and, um, he would chase me out again. And multiple times that happened. Um,

01:22:44.000 uh, funny story. I almost went and joined the army because I got frustrated that they wouldn't

01:22:48.100 let me you know that this guy wouldn't even give me the time of day so i almost joined the army to

01:22:53.820 become a ranger and uh i ended up failing the the um airborne physical because they said oh you can't

01:23:01.600 equalize because i had ruptured my eardrum when i was a kid and when i uh and you know thankfully

01:23:07.840 my dad had been in the military said well why don't we go send you to a specialist and they can

01:23:12.360 because i knew i could equalize i had dove i had done all these things and uh sure enough i went to

01:23:17.960 a specialist. By the time that it all transpired, I try and explain to everybody, you know,

01:23:22.160 everything happens for a reason. And by the time this had transpired, there was a new recruiter

01:23:28.960 in the recruiting office in Lumberton, North Carolina, Henry Horn, who I got to link up with

01:23:33.400 last year after all this time and thank him in person. But Henry Horn was the new recruiter and

01:23:39.420 he said, hey, you want to be a SEAL? Come on, man. And he helped me get into the Navy. He put me on

01:23:45.420 the path to become a SEAL. And I got to give a lot of credit to Henry for that. He must be so proud

01:23:51.560 of being that guy in your life and the life of the service industry in our country. Can I ask you

01:23:58.540 how, so when you actually did sign up, because I understand you officially were allowed to join

01:24:02.660 when you were 17. So what was your physical stature then? Because it's interesting to me,

01:24:06.860 you always do think of these guys being bigger and you do picture like a jocko going in there

01:24:12.300 and them being like, right this way, sir.

01:24:14.240 Yes, duh, of course we belong together.

01:24:17.500 So I probably hit somewhat of a growth spurt

01:24:20.520 in my junior, senior year,

01:24:23.700 but I was definitely not that big.

01:24:26.120 I mean, even today, I'm 5'8 and about 170 pounds.

01:24:29.960 So I'm on the average SEAL.

01:24:31.560 A lot of people don't know though,

01:24:32.540 the average SEAL is only about 5'10 and 180 pounds.

01:24:37.640 This Hollywood version of the Arnold Schwarzenegger type

01:24:40.600 just is not necessarily the case i mean seals typically are lean muscled and and you know

01:24:47.500 usually they'll have uh you know a larger upper body because they have strong muscular endurance

01:24:53.620 strength from the from the gear we have to carry and our ability to have to do a lot of activities

01:24:59.940 with our body weight and gear so your ability to pull yourself up a ladder your ability to pull

01:25:04.940 yourself up onto a rooftop. Any of these different things are marked by what we have to do,

01:25:11.460 especially when you're going through training. So yeah, when I went through training, I think I was

01:25:17.820 probably 5'7". I might have grown one more inch. And I started training at 18. So I was 18 years

01:25:23.140 old. I was 5'7". And I think I checked into BUDS at about 135. So I was one of the lightest guys

01:25:29.120 in the class. That's inspirational, though. There are probably a lot of guys out there

01:25:33.200 thinking, Oh my gosh, maybe I, maybe I too could be a seal. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. And I'm

01:25:38.620 not one of the smallest. I mean, believe it or not, like I said, I'm on the smaller end of the

01:25:41.900 spectrum, but we've had seals. I think the smallest I ever heard was about five, two.

01:25:47.120 Um, and I, obviously we've had great big, huge guys. Um, there it's, it's not normal. The big

01:25:55.200 guys really have a hard time making it through training. The amount of pounding on their joints

01:25:58.940 ends up breaking them for the hundreds and hundreds of miles that you run and the amount

01:26:03.560 of body weight strength you have, endurance you have to have to be able to do 20, 30 pull-ups,

01:26:09.320 to be able to do 50 dips, to be able to do hundreds and hundreds of push-ups.

01:26:13.000 It's really hard on big guys' joints.

01:26:16.080 My little guy, my nine-year-old was listening to me prepare for you.

01:26:21.040 And we were talking all about the SEALs and training.

01:26:23.240 And he wanted to know if they make you do one-handed push-ups.

01:26:26.440 Do they make you do any of those?

01:26:28.940 Uh, yes. And I actually, when I, uh, I broke my arm in training and I had to do a lot of one arm

01:26:35.120 pushups because just because I had broken my arm did not mean that I, uh, that I wasn't still

01:26:41.420 getting yelled at and dropped to do pushups and do things. Wow. Wow. Wow. It's so that's so good,

01:26:47.220 you know, but I think you tell me, but it seems like whatever the height, whatever the stature,

01:26:51.440 the number one thing, the reason you made it as a seal was that attitude. It's that attitude like

01:26:55.840 that just never say die. I will not quit. There's something different in the guys who make it

01:27:01.580 through as SEALs versus everybody else, because they have that thing that just, it will not let

01:27:07.460 them quit. That's right. I think there are two things that enable individuals into special

01:27:13.900 operations. Number one, that we like to call it the no quit gene. I mean, the Navy has spent

01:27:19.040 millions and millions of dollars trying to figure out how do they increase the number of graduates

01:27:24.620 from SEAL training. And all these things they've done going all the way back to World War II when

01:27:30.220 they started training, really the attrition rate has stayed roughly the same. It has been around

01:27:37.680 75%. So 75% of the people that start training do not graduate. We often talk about it's the

01:27:46.080 no-quit gene. Everybody gets pushed to the point. Everyone has a breaking point. And in SEAL

01:27:51.800 training they push you to that point and they teach you how to grind through it and keep going

01:27:56.820 your brain will tell you you have to stop your brain will tell you if i don't keep going i'm

01:28:01.240 going to die but the reality is your body can keep going almost 10 times further beyond that

01:28:06.040 and um so it's the ability to endure or that gets you through training but the other thing that i

01:28:13.340 think special operations guys they have the ability to process massive amounts of information

01:28:18.700 in a very chaotic environment and and make rapid decisions and there's a lot of people that can't

01:28:24.560 do that i mean when we send guys into you know a um imagine a hostage rescue scenario where they're

01:28:31.320 now having to make entry into a room where there are bad guys in the room that are shooting that

01:28:35.860 shoe you very quickly have to assess that situation identify who's bad who's good who do i need to

01:28:42.360 shoot who do i not need to shoot who do i need to protect and all of that's happening in milliseconds

01:28:46.780 and uh there are definitely guys that make it through training unfortunately they don't have

01:28:51.940 the ability to to process that information at that rate and sometimes they end up going away

01:28:57.300 just because of that so it's those two things that i think truly make uh excellent special

01:29:02.580 operations you know people they make great seals you know kind of reminds me of um i was talking

01:29:08.320 one time to the coach the head coach of the minnesota vikings and he was saying when he

01:29:14.100 recruits quarterbacks. He does need, you know, an agile, you know, guy who can actually complete

01:29:19.880 the plays and knows how to throw the football and has sort of a physics, a basic knowledge of

01:29:23.160 physics, an instinctual knowledge of physics. But he was saying some of the guys can't remember

01:29:29.060 the playbook. They don't remember everything that's in there and when to call which play,

01:29:34.160 depending on how the guys line up in the field. Far less dangerous, obviously, than what you do.

01:29:38.520 But it was kind of a similar thing where it's not enough to have the physical capabilities.

01:29:42.260 there has to be this mental thing that you either have or you don't have.

01:29:46.620 And if you don't have it, it's as much of a deal breaker as not having the physical strength.

01:29:52.760 Absolutely. And sometimes it will become the deal breaker. I mean, you know,

01:29:56.400 there are a lot of guys out there that are strong. I mean, I mean, a lot of individuals

01:30:00.060 who will say to me, Oh, you know, they're, they're anywhere from professional athletes to,

01:30:05.080 believe it or not, I meet a lot of high level business individuals in the financial market

01:30:10.760 that will say to me, I definitely could have been a SEAL. And, you know, I laugh at, A, the arrogance

01:30:15.840 of that statement, but, and maybe, maybe they do have a little bit of the financial, I mean,

01:30:21.540 the physical ability, but do you have the ability to process information and continue to execute

01:30:27.320 when you're in the middle of a firefighter after you've, you know, flown in, taken fire, maybe

01:30:31.720 you've jumped in and now you're patrolling long ways. Maybe you've been in a firefighter, you

01:30:36.600 people are you even get to the target building now you're in the target you you know you're in

01:30:40.380 a firefight you have people that are wounded now you're trying to move people out you know now

01:30:44.360 you've got civilians you're trying to take care of along with your wounded uh while things are

01:30:49.820 still blowing up around you and you still got to process all this um i mean that was all stuff that

01:30:55.140 i experienced in my career and there are some people that can do that and unfortunately there's

01:31:00.820 a lot more that can't they just high pressure environments they shut down professional sports

01:31:06.800 is the same you put people they often talk about the you know the high level games um you know

01:31:12.160 like the super bowl or the ncaa championship games and how some of the players just can't

01:31:18.100 manage that stress and that overwhelming pressure yeah you can see it when people choke i mean in

01:31:24.700 sports we have an opportunity to see it in a way we don't in military where you can see who's a

01:31:29.380 choker and who's not? Who performs at that high level in the most stressful of circumstances and

01:31:33.960 who doesn't? Now, wait, this is a stupid question, but I have to ask it. So are you telling me that

01:31:39.500 even in my own exercise life, which I will grant you is more limited than it ought to be, when I

01:31:44.940 am doing the jumping jacks and I am so burned and my legs are on fire and I'm like, I've got to take

01:31:50.700 the next eight out and I've just got to like bend down for the next eight. I'll come back after an

01:31:55.300 eight beep pause. Are you telling me I can just keep going? Are you telling me that like,

01:31:59.480 if I would just get mentally tougher, I can do it straight through. Just keep freaking pushing.

01:32:06.920 Absolutely. Believe it or not, most people could, if you had the fortitude and the ability to endure

01:32:17.140 the pain and the discomfort, you could probably push yourself right to death. You could jumping

01:32:22.060 inject yourself to death. It would take a long time. There'd be all kinds of alarm bells going

01:32:29.920 off in your brain probably days before you got there. But it is amazing the resiliency of

01:32:37.640 this amazing machine we walk around in. And unfortunately, in this day and age, we are not

01:32:46.600 we're not building that much in our people we are not um we're getting softer as a generation and

01:32:53.080 you know every monday i put out a leadership and resilience video i call it monday muster and this

01:32:58.500 last monday it was exactly about that i just finished reading this book called kingdom of

01:33:02.840 ice by hampton sides and it is about the trek to the north pole in uh i believe 1779 um and

01:33:11.040 absolutely amazing. I read that story and the level of heroism and the level of pain and discomfort

01:33:17.760 and frozen temperatures all the time that those guys had to deal with. I consider myself a fairly

01:33:24.580 tough guy. And I remember reading it thinking, man, how would I have fared in this? So fast

01:33:30.520 forward to today, we don't have to do a lot of things that really push us. People have to do

01:33:37.060 hard things in order to build grit and resilience. So I really encourage those of you that may be

01:33:42.200 watching, you've got to push your kids to do hard things. You have to do hard things. You have to

01:33:46.780 encourage your family to do hard things. Otherwise, we just get softer and softer and we'll just,

01:33:52.100 you know, it's human nature. We want to be comfortable, everybody, including me. I mean,

01:33:55.760 we all want to be comfortable, but grit and I like to tell people the overcome mindset is not

01:34:00.500 something you can just flip a switch and say, oh, I have to be tough right now. So let me throw my

01:34:04.780 little switch and now it'll be tough. It's built to do hard things. And if you don't do hard things,

01:34:10.940 you will never be able to throw that switch when you really need to.

01:34:15.120 It reminds me, your story about your book reminds me of one time I was skiing at this very posh

01:34:19.960 ski resort with my husband and my brother-in-law, some others, and just like a downpour of snow

01:34:27.020 came right on top of us, just this huge snowstorm dumped on us. And it came fast. And so before we

01:34:33.440 knew it, the snow was up above our knees. You could barely see in front of you. And I said to

01:34:38.700 my brother-in-law, Ken, uh, I feel like Shackleton. And he said, except with no hardship.

01:34:46.400 Yeah. That's exactly right. Where they've got the ski butlers who are going to take off the

01:34:52.780 boots when you get back to the resort. Oh, poor me. And they warm your boots. I mean,

01:34:58.520 I love the resorts like that. We love to ski. So anything like that I'm all about, but yeah,

01:35:02.800 i hate the cold now and um that expedition i mean you are you are in seal training it is the one

01:35:10.600 common thing you are wet cold covered in sand so i despise the cold um and i just think about these

01:35:18.820 guys these guys were literally cutting frostbite um out of their feet i mean that's how insane the

01:35:27.900 conditions were and how hard and and then continuing to go i mean there are other people

01:35:32.280 that'd be like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm now an invalid. There's no way I can afford, but literally it

01:35:37.640 wasn't until like bones were exposed where they weren't able to walk at all. Um, I was just

01:35:43.820 fascinated with this story and the level of grit and resilience and, and society, we may never get

01:35:50.000 back to that. I mean, thankfully, or hopefully we live in a, we are, we are things to people like

01:35:56.220 you. This is, this is what our children need to be watching and listening to guys like you with

01:36:01.940 that same messaging. You know, I'd like to say it's still the military writ large, notwithstanding

01:36:06.960 Millie and some of these other guys and the messaging from them. But that's what I have my

01:36:12.200 kids listen to. I don't want them listening to your weak, lean into your weaknesses. Everyone's

01:36:17.420 sick. Everyone's depressed. Everyone's near suicidal. You know, here's another poll to

01:36:21.860 confirm all that. Here, go back on social media to make yourself feel better slash worse. They

01:36:26.220 need to be watching your Insta, Jocko's, all these guys who have been through about just grit and

01:36:31.400 mental toughness because it is a skill. Like you were saying, it's a skill and you have to practice

01:36:35.240 it. Yeah, absolutely. And that's what a lot of people don't. I love the fact when people read

01:36:41.900 my book and they don't really know my story, what's out there is, hey, this guy got all shot up

01:36:46.580 and he wrote that sign on the door and he's this top seal. What they don't realize is there's a

01:36:51.520 huge part of the story that most people don't know until they read my book. And that's that I

01:36:55.420 failed as a young leader. And I'll be honest, it was that journey building myself back up

01:37:01.160 against really hard odds that really built the overcome mindset and all the leadership things

01:37:06.780 that I talk about today. And, you know, Megan, you nailed it. Right now in this country,

01:37:13.340 you know, I joke with people about, you know, we're still in the midst of a pandemic. And

01:37:19.920 And people will go, COVID?

01:37:22.020 And I'm like, no, the pandemic is the victim mindset.

01:37:26.120 There is a large swath of society that is being convinced you are a victim.

01:37:30.740 You know, there are, you know, political leaders that want to convince you, regardless of your race, creed, color, demographic, gender, gender persuasion, religion, religious affiliation.

01:37:42.440 I don't care what it is.

01:37:44.060 They want to convince you you're a victim.

01:37:45.800 And that there's no way you can save yourself, only someone else have to save you, or oftentimes it's only the government can save you, which is scary and a dangerous thought in itself.

01:37:58.080 Everything I teach on is on self-leadership.

01:38:01.140 You have the power to drive forward and create change in your life.

01:38:05.760 And it is the exact opposite of this victim mindset, but it is pervasive.

01:38:10.940 It is pervasive across social media.

01:38:13.260 it is pervasive oftentimes in the media uh and we've got to break this i mean america was built

01:38:19.580 on these on foundations of um resilience and grit and and self-leadership you know these

01:38:27.580 individuals that came across here to this country and said hey we're gonna we're gonna figure out

01:38:32.140 how to overcome and we're gonna figure out how to make our way and uh right now we're not there

01:38:36.780 everything even in the military right now there's this idea about individualism and i believe in

01:38:42.240 self-leadership but you have to be part of something bigger you know a military unit is

01:38:46.980 working together it's a whole bunch of leaders who create this unified organism if you will that

01:38:53.020 does incredible things so fascinating to watch and a little sad i hope that we can wake up um

01:39:00.540 you know there there is uh you know i learned the hard way about individualism because when i was

01:39:06.740 when I got myself in trouble as a leader, it was about me.

01:39:11.020 I was selfish and I was focused on me and I wasn't focused outward.

01:39:15.220 And I think there's a lot of that going on in our country right now.

01:39:17.920 You got to take care of yourself.

01:39:19.500 But how does that impact?

01:39:20.680 How do you set the example for your staff, your employees, your children, your spouse,

01:39:25.860 your family, your community?

01:39:28.220 You know, we need more leadership and we need more grit.

01:39:33.500 Everything is on demand these days.

01:39:35.360 Whether it's your favourite show or dinner, why should healthcare feel any different?

01:39:39.680 Meet Maple, Canada's leading on-demand healthcare platform.

01:39:43.100 Download the app, sign up, and connect with a Canadian-licensed doctor or nurse practitioner to text, call, or video chat in minutes.

01:39:49.940 For same-day care, a prescription renewal, or help managing an ongoing condition, Maple's network of providers are ready to help anytime.

01:39:56.460 Health, yeah. Maple. On-demand healthcare, when you demand it.

01:40:01.060 how do we even still have a military given this mindset amongst the gen zers do they do you think

01:40:10.920 today's guys are coming into the military with this victim mentality and then it gets sort of

01:40:16.140 beaten out of them or do you think it just naturally attracts the minority amongst that

01:40:23.000 generation that doesn't have the victim mentality and that's what they're doing there i think

01:40:28.500 there's still a lot of individuals that are coming in the military who have that grit and

01:40:31.620 resiliency and want to be part of specific units and certain things. I think the problem is there

01:40:37.820 are parts of the military that are becoming a little bit of a social experiment. Like, hey,

01:40:42.400 you know, I'm conservative, but I probably have a little more liberal views when it comes to

01:40:51.580 social norms. Like, I don't care if you're gay. But in the military, there's no room for

01:40:59.920 individualism. You're in the military. We all have to fight together. Race, creed, color,

01:41:07.380 Democrat, gender, gender persuading, none of that matters in the military. If you want to do that

01:41:11.500 in your off time, that's fine. You can embrace that. But as a military, we are a unit that must

01:41:17.400 work together and there is not time or, or all of that's going to distract if we're so focused on

01:41:24.960 a certain segment or demographic of society that we need to, I don't know, highlight or promote

01:41:30.700 everybody in the military. When I was in, we all wore the same uniform. We didn't highlight anyone.

01:41:37.180 And, uh, and it was amazing to me. And just, you know, the guys across the different platoons that

01:41:43.300 I worked. There were different race creeds, some were religious, some were Christians, some were

01:41:47.780 atheists. You know, few other religions that were out there, but it didn't matter. What mattered was

01:41:55.520 our ability to execute the mission and you could depend on that person. And I think the military

01:42:00.180 deeply needs to get back to understanding that and understand that the purpose of the military

01:42:05.120 is to protect our country, to protect and defend the United States of America,

01:42:12.680 which should be the same mission for any country that's out there.

01:42:16.240 And it's not on highlighting whatever is going on in society out there.

01:42:21.580 Those are political aims.

01:42:25.300 The military should always be apolitical with a singularity of focus,

01:42:29.340 which is to protect and defend our nation against all enemies.

01:42:35.120 You know, this is, you correct me if I'm wrong, but this is why the focus by Millie on having

01:42:42.480 you guys learn about white rage or Austin defending, handing out Kendi to the troops

01:42:49.660 is so problematic. It's not just a distraction from what you need to be focusing on, which

01:42:55.420 I believe it is. It's divisive. It's kind of sending exactly the opposite of the message

01:43:02.080 you need to ingrain in order to be an effective soldier, right? Or frog, like you, frog man,

01:43:10.140 you, all the messaging is forget that stuff. That stuff is not relevant to us here.

01:43:17.480 No, a thousand percent. And I mean, it's the same thing in the military as it's happening

01:43:22.180 in our country. I've talked about this. A lot of political leaders are doing things that are

01:43:27.640 just abiding us as a nation. And they want to focus on specific segments of time. Slavery

01:43:33.360 happened. It was a terrible thing. But there is no country in the past 250 years that has made

01:43:40.640 more advances in trying to create equality. I mean, it has been a slow process, obviously.

01:43:47.760 But there have been leaders who saw this is wrong. We need to fix this. And this idea suddenly that

01:43:55.740 you know, these different initiatives that are out there, you know, that focus on America was

01:44:00.900 built on racism. Uh, I don't think this is true. We're throwing the baby out with the bathwater

01:44:06.820 and, and there's a lot of incredible things that have occurred. And when we start to talk about

01:44:11.540 the level of success of the American dream, it has been all race, creed, and colors. It's been

01:44:17.180 there. There are more millionaires in the world that have come out of the United States of America

01:44:22.100 than any other nation on earth. And they're all race, creed, color, and genders. You know,

01:44:27.760 and there are some people that would try and say, well, white males are the majority. Well,

01:44:33.400 maybe that's true right now. But instead of trying to create division, why are we not looking for

01:44:40.560 ways, you know, two wrongs don't make a right. To continue to create division, especially in the

01:44:46.200 military, you're creating individuals now, you're creating separation, you're creating a line of

01:44:50.760 distrust, you're creating potentially even a level of hatred, which is not going to further

01:44:55.660 that unit. It's all about culture. It's all about trust. It's all about respect for each other,

01:44:59.860 that we are equal warriors that are trying to get out there and make something happen.

01:45:03.680 It should be the same in this country. So it's disheartening to me. And it's crazy to me because

01:45:08.940 I think back to Martin Luther King's speech when he said, you know, I had a dream that one day

01:45:13.180 men will be judged by the content of their character, not by the caliber of their skin.

01:45:17.220 And yet our political messaging right now is we want to judge individuals by the color of their skin.

01:45:23.580 That's terrible, man. We're all human. We need that. We are, in my opinion, moving backwards.

01:45:28.380 We're moving backwards both in the military and both as a nation.

01:45:31.760 And that's sad to me because I have worked with everyone, you know, everyone.

01:45:38.220 When I when I lived in the Virgin Islands, I was the only white kid in my class.

01:45:44.440 But I didn't notice that. I didn't care. They were all my friends. And we're becoming this society that wants to focus so much on race. I hate the fact that every single form I fill out today is like, well, what race are you? We should eradicate that. And it should just say, are you an American? If you're an American, if you're an American citizen, that's what you are.

01:46:07.620 You know, I think the only things that maybe they still have that on is potentially medical documents, because there is some linkage, of course, to race and nationality, and hopefully they can help prevent that.

01:46:19.480 Anything else that should go away, because it's just used as a method to divide us.

01:46:24.900 And that should not be the case, man.

01:46:26.720 Our leadership should be looking at how to unite us.

01:46:29.780 And right now, all I see is political leadership who's continuing to divide us.

01:46:33.640 And it's happening in the military, too, which is super, super dangerous.

01:46:42.920 All right, let's talk about your experience and sort of get the audience through what it was like for you.

01:46:49.440 So you, as I understand it, September 11th, 1992, joined the Navy.

01:46:54.440 Is that right? September 11th, 1992.

01:46:56.620 That's right.

01:46:57.100 little, little did you know, I mean, you know, what, nine years later, what was going to be

01:47:02.280 happening in this country for guys in the military in particular. So you go to boot camp, you do

01:47:08.380 BUDS training. That was January of 1995. I know that this is like small ball for SEALs guys to

01:47:14.460 talk about BUDS training, but everybody else loves hearing about it. So can you just give us a couple

01:47:18.180 of examples? I was, you know, just listening to these guys talk about like your friend Leif and

01:47:22.660 Jocko, they were on a podcast talking about how like, it's bullshit to talk about BUDS, like talk

01:47:26.600 about combat. The only people who want to talk about BUDS are people who never actually went

01:47:30.540 to combat after BUDS, and that's the highlight of their Navy career. But give me a minute on it,

01:47:35.980 because I think my sons will enjoy it, and I think a lot of people love hearing about just

01:47:39.060 what we put you guys through in order to call yourself a SEAL.

01:47:43.380 Yeah, training is hard. I mean, there's no doubt about it, but at the flip side of that coin,

01:47:48.560 I kind of knew what I was getting myself into. I had researched. I actually served with one of

01:47:53.040 the East Coast SEAL units before I went out to BUDS. I had a pretty good idea of what I was

01:47:58.260 getting myself into. And it is unequivocally hard. Training's broken into three different parts.

01:48:05.140 First phase is designed to weed people out. It is designed to be as hard as possible,

01:48:11.460 physically hard as possible. And so it's massive amounts of physical exercises and evolutions

01:48:19.300 that are pushing you out of your comfort zone into that zone of discomfort and pain

01:48:27.000 and forcing you to come to grips with your brain is telling you you have to stop,

01:48:31.420 but your body can keep going.

01:48:34.260 That culminates with Hell Week, and Hell Week is probably considered to be

01:48:38.480 one of the toughest blocks of training in the U.S. military,

01:48:42.880 some say in a lot of our even global military units, and Hell Week is exactly that.

01:48:48.560 It's a week long, goes from Sunday to Friday.

01:48:52.280 And during that week, you will get maybe on average two to three hours of sleep.

01:48:56.580 You are constantly wet, coated in sand.

01:48:58.760 You're carrying the boat around on top of your head everywhere you go.

01:49:01.780 It's not uncommon for guys to chafe holes inside their legs or inside their armpits

01:49:08.560 or to rub the hair off their head.

01:49:10.000 It's not uncommon for your toenails and fingernails to fall off during hell week.

01:49:15.680 It's also not uncommon to hallucinate.

01:49:18.560 during hell week. I remember, um, when I went through hell week, um, a couple of things that

01:49:24.580 stand out. Um, I remember, um, one, I was in the, I was boat crews go by height. So the,

01:49:34.680 the tallest boat crews are in boat crew one. Uh, those are the studs. And, and, uh, in our class,

01:49:41.100 I remember boat crew one, one, everything leading up to hell week. They were the beasts.

01:49:46.600 and uh we got into hell week and on tuesday night i was in the shortest boat crew by the way which

01:49:52.840 is called the smurf crew so for those of you that enjoy that complete with a little smurf on the

01:49:57.560 front of your boat so uh and uh i remember like the boat crew one were like gods you know we were

01:50:06.420 like those guys win everything you know they just dominated and on tuesday night of hell week which

01:50:11.680 is one of the hardest evolutions that culminates on tuesday night everybody in boat crew one quit

01:50:17.720 that night except one guy and it made me realize they're human too every single person out there

01:50:24.300 that is like oh that guy's got it all figured out like they never have any doubts that's bs

01:50:30.100 everyone has doubts everyone has you know their hang-ups and issues the difference between

01:50:35.800 successful people is they continue to drive forward uh besides those doubts and man when

01:50:41.120 those guys quit I was like I got this and kept driving forward um why'd they quit

01:50:47.960 it's hard it's miserable it's you have to dig deep within yourself and the evolution we were

01:50:56.740 doing is something called steel piers um and what they do is um you know they have a like a fire

01:51:04.860 hose that they're misting you it's it's at night in San Diego Bay I went through hell week of

01:51:09.960 march so the temperature was probably in uh low 50s um the water temp i would imagine was probably

01:51:16.940 in um maybe high 50s and uh uh and it was a large floating steel pier and uh you you were forced to

01:51:26.780 remove all your clothing and fold it up you were just wearing a small pair of shorts that was it

01:51:31.320 and they would you were with your swim buddy in these little metal i don't know they were probably

01:51:36.840 like three by three foot squares and the whole class is spread out with their swim buddy and

01:51:40.940 you would have to fold your clothes up and the instructors would say place your you know pants

01:51:45.880 folded up in the northwest corner and none of us had a compass and you've already been awake for

01:51:51.060 like 48 hours so you're like it's nighttime so you're like which way is northwest so everybody

01:51:57.020 would try and figure out which way was northwest and the class would come to a conclusion this is

01:52:01.460 northwest and and you know you'd mess it up and then you'd get yelled at and they'd force you to

01:52:07.580 lay down on the cold steel and they'd spray you with water until you were shaken enough and at

01:52:11.800 some point they'd scream at you to get up and jump in the water and uh and i remember we'd all run

01:52:17.640 over to the edge and it was like your body was telling you to go but your brain would like slam

01:52:23.000 on the brakes and it was so funny you'd watch everybody i remember this in my mind everybody

01:52:27.440 would get up to the edge of the pier and like come to this stop and be like and then you just

01:52:32.400 have to force yourself into the water and the instructors would like throw your clothes and

01:52:38.120 your boots into the water which you know you're in you're in the bay so now you're having to dive

01:52:42.540 down in the darkness and find your stuff and and this went on for hours probably four or five hours

01:52:47.580 um and and um i remember when guys quit they they the steel pier was down below the

01:52:57.440 concrete pier which was up above where the vans were parked up there um and and there's all

01:53:04.360 there's a method to the madness i mean a lot of what um seal training special operations training

01:53:10.260 is it's psychological um you know seal training is not you don't accomplish seal training through

01:53:16.960 this it's accomplished through this and through this your ability to find it within your heart

01:53:21.980 and to think through the problems so when guys would quit they would be given a blanket

01:53:26.360 and a hot cup of coffee or cocoa and they would go sit in the van that was uh had the heater on

01:53:33.460 and you would see them up there sitting in that van drinking with their blanket on all warm

01:53:38.360 looking down on you while you're getting your butt kicked and uh it was so easy to say man all

01:53:44.540 i have to do is say i quit and i can go sit in that warmth and that's man that's like life how

01:53:50.720 often do we find these moments like man all i have to do is get a little further and i try to

01:53:56.000 explain to people keep pushing you never know it's always darkest before the dawn and um so anyways

01:54:01.360 that's what happened to boat crew one all of them i think got caught up in it and uh and they quit

01:54:07.980 during that evolution so wow i remember on thursday or on wednesday night i was hallucinating

01:54:14.840 we were doing an evolution called around the world where you row your boats around uh cornado island

01:54:21.020 and um so now you've been awake for what 96 hours at least and it's very common for guys

01:54:28.980 start hallucinating and i was i was seeing fences chain link fences out in the middle of the ocean

01:54:35.820 and i'd tell the guys we got a turn we're gonna hit this fence uh i was seeing concrete walls

01:54:41.140 that i was trying to steer around um i was hearing voices out in the middle my buddy

01:54:46.520 he was telling me he saw a witch standing out in the water and like he told himself like okay

01:54:53.360 that that's not there so I'm just going to look away and when I look back it's going to be gone

01:54:57.780 when he looked back she was still there so he was like guys we got to row faster this witch is going

01:55:04.140 to get us is it just from lack of sleep is that what's causing the hallucinations yeah yeah lack

01:55:12.120 because sleep, man, it is amazing. People really underestimate sleep and how good sleep is for you

01:55:19.780 and how bad it is for you when you don't sleep, how bad your brain starts to break down and your

01:55:24.700 decision-making becomes poor. And yeah, even in the point you're starting to hallucinate.

01:55:29.520 I was just talking to a doctor about this and we were talking about how, you know, some people,

01:55:33.300 they get up at the crack of dawn, pre-crack of dawn to work out. And that's fine as long as

01:55:38.840 you've built in enough sleep prior to that point

01:55:41.320 that you've gotten a good night.

01:55:42.700 You know, did you get your seven hours

01:55:43.860 or did you get four hours

01:55:44.920 so that you could get up at 4 a.m.?

01:55:46.400 And he was saying they're completely missing the point

01:55:48.840 because sleep is as important as exercise and nutrition

01:55:53.120 to your overall wellness, your mental wellness,

01:55:56.180 your brain function, your heart function, all of it.

01:55:58.600 And so unless you can get the seven hours

01:56:00.820 before you get up at four,

01:56:02.500 it doesn't make much sense to do that

01:56:04.240 just so you can work out.

01:56:05.420 You need both.

01:56:06.580 You need sleep.

01:56:08.840 A thousand percent. And this is something that I really had to come to grips with. I mean, I teach, you know, something called the Pentagon at peak performance and the base level is physical leadership. And sleep is a big component of that. My whole life, I've gotten up early, but I wasn't getting the, I need, I know my body, I need a minimum six hours. Seven is ideal for me to optimize.

01:56:33.240 and uh i wasn't getting that i was running you know i gotta get up at 5 30 every single morning

01:56:38.980 um and and in the last year uh my cortisol levels were high i was having you know some of these

01:56:46.260 health issues and i i said okay i'm gonna force myself to get more sleep and it has reset a lot

01:56:51.740 of things people just underestimate the power of sleep especially i mean people in the business

01:56:56.500 world or guys who think they're really tough and they'll say to me hey i uh you know i get by on

01:57:01.560 four hours sleep a night. And I'm like, awesome, man. Congratulations. You are chronically fatigued

01:57:06.040 and nowhere near the optimal self you could be. And you'll be dead soon. I mean, really it

01:57:11.300 shortens lifespan. So it's really, you can't sacrifice sleep, but work out and eat healthy.

01:57:17.140 That's just dumb, dumb strategy. All right. So you're in the Navy. 9-11 happens. You are

01:57:25.300 deployed in Afghanistan, right? In Afghanistan as an officer in 2004. Is that correct?

01:57:34.760 I commissioned in 2004. We went to Afghanistan in 2005.

01:57:39.820 Okay. And this is where you, I think it's fair to say, would face this major leadership challenge

01:57:45.560 that you referenced earlier in which you feel you fell down on the job. So tell us what happened.

01:57:50.720 there's a little bit of a perfect storm um so i came into the navy in 1992 into a peacetime

01:58:00.140 military and there's a you know there's a big difference in a peacetime military and a wartime

01:58:04.420 military um i try to you know you nailed it when you said when you signed up on 9-11 you had no

01:58:09.800 clue what was coming and that is a fact and i try and explain that to younger guys and gals in the

01:58:14.600 military. You never know when something's going to happen. None of us saw 9-11 happening. We went

01:58:22.240 from total peacetime to total wartime. Within, I think, two or three years, all of the SEAL teams

01:58:28.340 were 100% combat experienced. And that was one of the goals, obviously. So I actually started school

01:58:36.500 in the summer of 2001. And 9-11 happened, obviously, in September. Myself and a couple

01:58:43.760 of my teammates that were at school together tried to get out of the program like hey we know we're

01:58:47.880 going to war get us out you know let us go back to a platoon and one of our most respected leaders

01:58:53.540 who had helped me get commissioned i remember prophetically said red this war is going to go

01:58:59.060 on for decades he's like go back to school you will get your chance um so while i was at school

01:59:05.560 the the community obviously was going off to war in both iraq and afghanistan and one of the things

01:59:12.580 that occurred was typically the military base's tactics and strategies off the last sustained

01:59:22.260 combat. And the SEAL team based a lot of our tactics off Vietnam. That was the last time we

01:59:27.600 had seen years of combat. Well, when we got over to Iraq and Afghanistan, we quickly realized a lot

01:59:33.200 of those old tactics used in the jungles and the Mekong Delta and the swamps in Vietnam

01:59:38.200 didn't necessarily apply quite as well in the mountains, in the urban and desert environments,

01:59:44.500 not only technology, but vehicles. So the bottom line, our tactics changed

01:59:50.120 pretty drastically. So here I was, this ex-enlisted guy who thought I was like

01:59:55.200 God's gift to leadership. Ego and arrogance kind of got the best of me. And I came back

02:00:00.740 when I got commissioned in 2004 thinking, man, I'm the man. I know everything. I'm going to step

02:00:06.240 back i'm going to be like patent reincarnated or something and uh that really wasn't the case

02:00:11.880 i stepped back in and and technically i was probably one of the more inexperienced guys

02:00:17.280 because i didn't have combat experience and probably um 60 of our platoon at that point

02:00:23.200 definitely did and instead of humbling myself and saying and not only that all our tactics had

02:00:29.100 changed so instead of humbling myself and saying to the guys young younger guys who might have been

02:00:34.480 more experienced. Hey, man, I don't know how to do this. I made the mistake as a young leader

02:00:38.600 saying, oh, I'm a leader. It's a sign of weakness if I say I don't know how to do this, which is

02:00:43.960 a fallacy. It's wrong. But in doing that, I started to damage my credibility as a leader.

02:00:53.860 Well, that was hurting me. And I recognized it was hurting me. So then what was the next thing

02:01:00.920 I did. Well, I started, I recognized that I was damaging my credibility. I was stepping on my

02:01:05.240 toes, uh, not keeping up like I should be. And I started drinking away my stress. Um,

02:01:14.380 so then I became known as a drunk on top of everything else. Um, fast forward,

02:01:20.280 deployed Afghanistan in 2005 and the very first mission, um, we were getting ready to transition

02:01:29.640 over so operation red wings uh was our troop um lieutenant commander eric christensen was my boss

02:01:36.720 a lot of the guys that you will read about that were shot down on the helicopter and that red

02:01:41.440 wings is the the lone survivor story for those that may be familiar with that if you've seen

02:01:46.280 that movie or watched or read marcus's book we had him on the show last last august with his brother

02:01:53.160 and it was just an incredibly compelling episode so they know the story okay so um so i was a part

02:02:00.480 of the troop um our sister platoon was a platoon that was on the helicopter for red wing that was

02:02:07.020 shot down we were getting ready to um fly to afghanistan to turn over with those guys uh that

02:02:13.740 following week i think we were set to fly like right after the fourth of july and of course on

02:02:19.240 june 28th the helicopter was shot down so this was our first introduction to combat um that's

02:02:25.480 when i first i met marcus at the hospital in longstool germany uh we stood watch on uh mike

02:02:31.540 murphy and danny deets his bodies they had not recovered uh matt axelson yet um flew to afghanistan

02:02:38.760 and the recovery was underway and that's how our deployment started so here i was this knucklehead

02:02:45.440 young officer um who was stepping on his toes who now you know got to got to combat and i wanted to

02:02:52.520 prove myself you know hey red wings happen you know we want payback which is okay that's fine uh

02:02:59.560 but there is a balance as a leader we have to you know it should be the the the mission then the men

02:03:07.800 or the team that you're working with and you're last on the equation unfortunately i inverted that

02:03:12.100 And, you know, how do I make myself look like, you know, a great leader and a great hero?

02:03:18.380 And I mean, I continue to make mistakes culminating with a bad call on a mission in September of that deployment.

02:03:28.520 Everything is on demand these days, whether it's your favorite show or dinner.

02:03:32.840 Why should health care feel any different?

02:03:34.780 Meet Maple, Canada's leading on-demand health care platform.

02:03:38.180 Download the app, sign up, and connect with a Canadian-licensed doctor or nurse practitioner

02:03:42.620 to text, call, or video chat in minutes.

02:03:45.040 For same-day care, a prescription renewal, or help managing an ongoing condition,

02:03:49.020 Maple's network of providers are ready to help anytime.

02:03:51.560 Health, yeah.

02:03:52.840 Maple. On-demand healthcare. When you demand it.

02:04:00.140 That call really did damage to my reputation.

02:04:06.940 I am very fortunate that no one was injured or killed because of that call.

02:04:13.800 But what it did kill was my professional reputation.

02:04:16.500 By the time I got back out of that valley, the guys were like, get rid of that guy.

02:04:21.040 They were calling me Rambo Red, which that is not a compliment.

02:04:25.260 For those who think Rambo is really cool, it's a cool movie.

02:04:29.020 It doesn't apply in the military.

02:04:30.360 It's kind of what we talked about before.

02:04:31.680 There's no room for individualism, especially a leader who is made decisions based on his glory.

02:04:40.280 And that was I saw I wanted to get in the fight and I saw an opportunity.

02:04:43.680 I took it. And I am very fortunate that no one was killed because of my decision making.

02:04:49.120 So that that started a whole new journey because there were guys who said, kick that guy out.

02:04:55.460 And and it was the lowest point I've ever hit in my life.

02:04:59.900 I went and had to stand in front of my commanding officer and explain my actions.

02:05:05.660 And I'll never forget, there were guys in that room that were like, get rid of this guy.

02:05:10.220 He's going to get people killed.

02:05:12.760 And my commanding officer told me to go back to my room, and he would let me know the next morning what his decision was.

02:05:22.380 And I went back to my room, and I almost killed myself.

02:05:26.580 I put a gun in my mouth and I started to pull the trigger.

02:05:30.480 But fortunately, I think God intervened.

02:05:33.540 I looked, I just, right about the time I did it, I looked across at the desk and there was a picture of my wife and kids.

02:05:41.640 And, you know, just this voice was like, what are you doing?

02:05:45.040 You know, what are you doing?

02:05:46.100 What, what, what impact are you going to leave behind on them?

02:05:50.460 And I remember I put my gun away.

02:05:53.540 I went and sought out special operations chaplain and talked to him.

02:05:56.580 And we talked a lot and he said, no matter what happens, you know, if they take your

02:06:00.800 trident or if they kick you out, then, you know, you've got to figure out what the path

02:06:04.800 forward is.

02:06:05.360 But never forget, for every DN moment in your life, there becomes a new beginning.

02:06:08.960 It's up to you what you do with that new beginning.

02:06:11.120 This is a big part of what I talk on.

02:06:13.120 It's a part of my TED talk that I talk on.

02:06:16.520 It's a part of what I speak on.

02:06:18.380 And he was absolutely right.

02:06:19.760 And thankfully, you know, credit to my commanding officer who did not kick me out, even though

02:06:25.320 he absolutely could have as a matter of fact i'm actually surprised he didn't i mean here's a guy

02:06:30.540 who's grieving from the loss of 11 teammates only a couple months earlier he didn't get to go home

02:06:36.320 he didn't get to go to the memorial ceremony we had to stay and continue the mission so and now

02:06:42.120 he's got this knucklehead ensign who's making bad calls i mean i think it would have been super easy

02:06:46.600 for him to say i don't have time to deal with this nor do i nor do i have the emotional

02:06:50.380 capacity to deal with this, but he didn't. He said, you know what, Red, you've done some good

02:06:57.560 things. I believe in you. I'm going to give you a second chance. And he, he did. I mean,

02:07:02.820 there was some, uh, there was some punishment that came along with it. They, uh, any awards

02:07:06.780 I was supposed to get, they retracted. Um, I had to sign an unofficial letter of reprimand that

02:07:12.480 was held in a commanding officer safe. And if I had, uh, if I had messed up again, that letter

02:07:18.560 would have gone into my permanent officer record, which would ended my career. And, uh, and I got

02:07:23.160 sent to U S army ranger school, which, um, is probably one of the best things that could have

02:07:28.520 happened to me. I mean, it's pretty cool. I mean, to learn how to be a ranger and develop all those

02:07:33.680 skills too, but you emerged out of that with a whole new set of leadership skills. I did, uh,

02:07:40.760 ranger school. Uh, I'd love to tell people that when I walked out of the office in Afghanistan,

02:07:47.040 And after getting that second chance, I was immediately like, yes, I'm going to I'm going to, you know, recreate myself.

02:07:54.540 But, you know, sometimes in this life, our new beginnings take time.

02:07:59.120 And and, you know, I talk about this victim mindset.

02:08:02.320 I had a little bit of the victim mindset.

02:08:04.340 I was seeing myself as a victim that the guys threw me under the bus and I hadn't come to grips yet with, you know, the only person that put himself there was me.

02:08:13.080 my poor decision making and really selfishly viewing, looking more at myself and not outward

02:08:19.100 at the team and the mission and the impacts of that. And thankfully, it was at Ranger School

02:08:23.800 that I really started to figure that out. Kind of an interesting side note, in Ranger School,

02:08:31.800 I screwed up. I failed to land that test. And SEALs are a little bit of anomaly. We don't go

02:08:38.320 through Ranger School that often. And there's that great professional rivalry between the

02:08:42.940 army and the navy and um and a lot of the rangers i don't think liked me very much so they they let

02:08:49.260 me know it and gave me a lot of grief about being there and when i failed the land nav course man

02:08:55.280 they laid into me they i'm sorry land navigation this is uh orienting with a compass to figure out

02:09:01.320 where you're going in the woods in the dark and all that and um and the ranger school land nav

02:09:06.780 course is pretty long you start in the middle of the night and i had taught land nav once again

02:09:11.700 ego and arrogance. I thought I'll cross this course. And I didn't, I failed it. I missed a

02:09:17.100 point. Um, and the instructors were totally heckling me. And in the moment I allowed my

02:09:22.260 emotions to get the best of me. And I basically told those instructors what I thought of them.

02:09:27.160 And they said, are you quitting? And I said, yeah, I'm out of here. Um, it's the only thing

02:09:31.960 I've ever quit in my life. Um, and, um, so I had to go meet with the Ranger Colonel and, uh,

02:09:38.860 And the Ranger colonel listened and he said, I think you should talk to one of your SEAL

02:09:43.040 teammates.

02:09:43.580 And I'll be honest, I was utterly ashamed and embarrassed.

02:09:47.240 And I was like, I don't want to talk to anyone.

02:09:49.120 You know, I just want to crawl under a rock.

02:09:50.740 And like, I guess this is the end of my military career.

02:09:54.200 And he said, hey, I'm friends with a, uh, the guy's name is Colonel.

02:09:58.200 He was Colonel KK Chin back then.

02:10:00.960 He retired a two-star general and I had become friends with him because he really amazing

02:10:06.020 guy, amazing leader.

02:10:07.040 He saved my career.

02:10:07.840 and he ended up calling one of our most respected, uh, seal leaders who happened to be a mentor of

02:10:14.160 mine who had helped me get commissioned. And he put me on the phone with him. And I remember

02:10:18.560 telling him this whole story, how, you know, I ended up there and he said, red, I know all about

02:10:23.120 what happened with you. Did you ever think that you're, you're seeing this as punishment? He said,

02:10:28.140 did you ever think you might learn something from this? And I said, no. Um, and, and then I told him,

02:10:35.560 I said, but sir, no one's ever going to follow me again. I've made too many mistakes. I don't

02:10:40.640 think I can recover from this. And he gave me the foundational level of everything that I teach in

02:10:45.160 leadership now. He said, Red, people will follow you if you give them a reason to. That's it. That's

02:10:49.300 all leadership is. He said, I don't care how bad you've messed up. It's human nature that if someone

02:10:54.320 is on the winning team, if someone is leading a team, a community, a company to success, and

02:11:00.500 they're a pretty good person, you know, despite any mistakes they made in their past, it's human

02:11:04.260 nature we're going to follow him we want we all want to be on the winning team he said so go back

02:11:08.560 to ranger school crush it come back and give the guys a reason to follow you and uh i was like

02:11:14.900 roger that i hung up the phone and i i looked at the ranger colonel and i said will you put me back

02:11:19.220 in my class and he said no you quit you get to go sit in ranger school jail for a month and you'll

02:11:24.320 class up with the next class so for a month i walked around fort benning picking up trash

02:11:29.840 uh and it was probably the best thing that ever could have happened to me because it finally

02:11:34.480 humbled me and it gave me a lot of time to think about i was the problem i was the problem and it

02:11:40.200 was my lack of my own self-leadership selfish leadership that put me there and it really

02:11:46.740 changed uh everything i created a new you know my three rules of leadership that i now teach

02:11:52.820 and uh and that enabled me to drive forward graduate ranger school and slowly over the

02:11:59.060 next couple of years, build back my credibility as a leader. This is what is so extraordinary

02:12:04.360 about our military and some of the leaders who are in it. They somehow know when it's time to

02:12:10.860 temper that extreme discipline and harsh, unforgiving training with mercy and inspiration

02:12:18.880 and encouragement. The best leaders do. I mean, that's just a gift when you have a guy like that

02:12:25.800 above you who knows you and knows what you need in the moment, whether it's a kick in the pants

02:12:31.420 or a lift. I love that story. And I love knowing that there are guys like that out there training

02:12:37.740 the next generation of warriors and that you're out there using these same skills to help civilians

02:12:42.680 to try to get through just life with some of these lessons they apply. And our military. I

02:12:49.060 mean, I frequently speak to the military. I've been fortunate enough to speak almost all the

02:12:53.380 Service Academies, West Point, all you have to do is call me. I will come speak for you guys

02:12:58.000 anytime. Yes. And it's amazing. It's so beautiful there. You should go.

02:13:01.620 I know. I want to. I mean, I speak Army. I wear the Ranger tab. I speak Army.

02:13:06.920 Yeah, exactly right. Well, thank you for sharing that with me. That's like with all of us. That's

02:13:11.540 a very moving story. That could be the most moving story of the exchange we have. I feel

02:13:15.940 like I learned so much already and we haven't even gotten to the apex of everything that you've

02:13:20.840 gone through. I do, before we get to your injury and what happened, can we just spend a minute on

02:13:26.080 Erica? Because she's a huge part of your story. And we kind of glanced by, oh, my wife and my kids.

02:13:32.340 By the way, when you told me about that moment when you were feeling like you might take your

02:13:36.340 own life and, you know, God stepped in and stopped you, I completely believe that was an angel. That

02:13:41.480 was an angel was sent to you to stop you in the same way I talked to Dakota Meyer last Memorial

02:13:46.980 day. And he talked about the same thing. It was back when he got stateside again now for him.

02:13:52.000 And he actually tried, he pulled the trigger. He, he had the gun, pulled the trigger and an angel

02:13:57.180 had taken the bullets out of the, out of the gun. He thought it was loaded, which is, I feel like so

02:14:02.440 many of you guys go through these massive travails and emotional traumas, whether it's while you're

02:14:07.660 serving or the buildup to the serving, or just you're so hard on yourself and you're so used to

02:14:12.600 being able to do everything at a high level, right? And then when you have a failure,

02:14:17.140 that's when you really get tested. And I just think every once in a while, you need an angel

02:14:21.340 to come help you. And I agree with you that God plays a role. So I'm glad you had your faith to

02:14:28.460 get you through. All right. So Erica, just to rewind now, because we're in 2005, I think,

02:14:33.380 when you did Army Ranger School and you had all that happen to you. But five years earlier,

02:14:38.760 You'd been out on the town.

02:14:40.840 What town were you in?

02:14:41.780 This is back stateside, right?

02:14:43.960 Louisville, Kentucky.

02:14:45.840 Louisville, Kentucky.

02:14:47.560 And you guys were out, a bunch of you,

02:14:49.140 and you decided that night, for whatever reason,

02:14:50.500 you're going to pretend that you were all there as boxers,

02:14:52.920 that you were there for some big boxing match.

02:14:55.640 And you see this stunning blonde with a thousand-watt smile from across the room.

02:15:02.120 And, I mean, man, did you woo her.

02:15:03.680 Your lines, I mean, they will live in infamy.

02:15:08.080 but I just. So tell us how you managed to woo this amazing woman into having a drink with you.

02:15:15.160 Well, she ditched me at first. So once again, you know, tell me I can't do something. And

02:15:20.740 I hung out with the guys a little more. And it was a great big place for any of you that are

02:15:24.720 familiar with Louisville, Kentucky. It was the Phoenix Hill Tavern, which is a, you know,

02:15:28.840 it's a huge warehouse type bar. I had like, I don't know, three levels, six or seven bars in it.

02:15:34.080 I'd gone upstairs at some point and I looked across the, uh, the upstairs bar area and she was kind of across the room standing on top of this, I don't know, elevated structure. And there was a guy talking to her and she, she just looked miserable. Like, I wish this guy would leave. And I was like, yes, here's my chance.

02:15:56.080 so i uh i went up and i i kind of jumped up on the platform with her and uh she seemed rather

02:16:04.140 shocked and the guy seemed rather perturbed but i just kind of ignored him and finally he got the

02:16:09.960 message and left and and i don't know we just hit it off there was kind of a natural chemistry that

02:16:14.900 uh we we talked from that point forward through the rest of the night uh and ended up linking up

02:16:21.420 with her the next day for a barbecue um which is kind of a funny story because uh she didn't

02:16:28.620 mention that she had a a young son he was four months old um um or six months old at that time

02:16:38.120 and literally we opened the door and she like hands him to me here hold awesome and um

02:16:44.300 and and then she's like hey by the way we have a new grill so can you put the grill together

02:16:52.220 so uh so yeah that was kind of our first date i put this grill together for a barbecue get him

02:16:57.600 trained early i like this girl like this is how it's gonna be you're gonna help me with my son

02:17:01.400 you're gonna put my grill together and uh i'm gonna do things for you too so yeah i remember

02:17:06.200 I read from your book, your opening line was, um, hi, I'm Jay. How are you doing? Can I buy you a

02:17:14.320 drink? I cringed at my lack of wit and charm and the weakest pickup line ever. What the hell?

02:17:20.000 That's the best I've got. Well, you know what? That's really all it takes. Any like faux attempt

02:17:24.860 to be overly clever is usually seen right through. So I think, you know, you did the right thing,

02:17:29.880 obviously, because it all worked out. So you wound up getting married, you married Erica,

02:17:33.840 and you had two additional children, two daughters.

02:17:37.700 So those are the three kids and the wife and the family

02:17:41.400 that you referenced when the times were tough.

02:17:44.760 And she's still with us.

02:17:46.540 I mean, she's still with you and we'll get to all of that.

02:17:48.800 But I love the story of Erica.

02:17:50.880 So now we're post-Ranger school

02:17:53.200 and you got to go back out there.

02:17:55.000 And is this, it was what, it was May of 2007

02:17:58.460 that you were deployed to Fallujah, Iraq.

02:18:02.060 And oh my God, can I tell you, Jay,

02:18:03.340 whenever I even hear Fallujah, I brace myself. It's just like all the stories are awful. They're

02:18:11.340 just all awful. They're terrible. Just so many bad things happened there. And it just seems like

02:18:17.060 it went so poorly and it was so incredibly violent and dark. And our guys were just

02:18:22.660 overwhelmed time after time and kept fighting and the sacrificing. So it's already a trigger,

02:18:28.900 I think for a lot of people who covered the news, you know, as I was doing at that time,

02:18:33.480 nevermind the guys who actually lived it. So you knew going over there at that point,

02:18:38.500 high, high levels of danger here. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, the, the, um,

02:18:47.380 Jocko's deployment was, uh, 2006 prior to us operating out of Ramadi and a lot of the guys

02:18:55.060 that were operating prior to us, all Fallujah, Ramadi, and Havana are the big cities in the

02:19:00.020 Ambar province. And, um, a lot of the fighting had intensified in 06 and 07, um, really heavily,

02:19:09.480 um, the second big battle, uh, you know, a large battle occurred in Fallujah in 06,

02:19:16.740 the Ambar awakening had occurred. So a lot of the local tribal shakes had finally, I think,

02:19:22.140 had enough. And whereas before they weren't really cooperating much with the coalition forces,

02:19:29.540 the American government, and the American military machine, I think finally they said,

02:19:34.280 if we don't cooperate with them, we're never going to be able to get our country back.

02:19:37.320 So what started to happen was in 06 and 07, they started feeding us real intelligence,

02:19:43.280 which enabled us to really start going after al-Qaeda and insurgent leadership. So I will say

02:19:49.760 as SEALs, even though we knew it was, you know, a high level of danger, it also was everything we

02:19:56.000 had ever trained to. You know, at the pinnacle of special operations is direct action missions to

02:20:03.560 take out, you know, mid-level and high-level enemy leaders, and then probably hostage rescue type

02:20:09.120 operations. And, you know, we got exposed to a lot of direct action going to those leaders,

02:20:15.640 but also even at one point, um, trying to rescue, uh, uh, an army, uh, an army soldier and a Marine.

02:20:23.660 And I just, those moments stood out in my mind, like how amazing it was that I was part of a unit

02:20:29.980 that had trained to the level that these were the things that we could do. So we had a lot of close

02:20:34.980 calls on that deployment, but it also, I was with one of the best troops I've ever been a part of.

02:20:40.920 It gave me an opportunity to grow as a leader and learn and really put a lot of the new leadership things that I had incorporated in my life, starting in Ranger School on this very intense combat deployment.

02:20:55.100 You were second in command?

02:20:57.960 Yes.

02:20:59.260 Okay.

02:21:00.320 And you'd been over there for quite a few months when I think it was September rolled around.

02:21:06.200 And you were out on such a mission, as you just described, trying to take down this relatively high level leader and been given some intel about where you could find him.

02:21:18.040 And you guys moved in to do exactly that.

02:21:21.420 And what happened?

02:21:24.640 To make a long story short, we walked into a very well executed ambush.

02:21:28.660 the the initial building we took down they were not there but we found a lot of signs that someone

02:21:37.180 had recently been there while we were collecting intelligence and we had found IED making

02:21:43.360 components and we were going to blow all that stuff up our snipers saw a bunch of activity

02:21:48.860 on another building about 150 yards away so my boss had me take about nine members of my team

02:21:57.100 myself and eight other members uh seven seals and our interpreter and uh and move on uh this

02:22:06.040 other building where we had seen individuals come out of the front door and run across street into

02:22:10.820 this vegetation um what we didn't know was our number one al-qaeda leader for the ambar province

02:22:18.960 he had been in our original building we were in and he had moved to that building and he had

02:22:25.400 And he had about a 15-man security detail that had set up an ambush line in the vegetation across the street.

02:22:32.620 And those individuals we saw go out the door were the last part of his security detail that were part of that ambush line.

02:22:40.080 And my team and I walked, unfortunately, right into that ambush.

02:22:44.840 I mean, we knew that there was enemy.

02:22:48.980 We had air assets overhead.

02:22:50.840 We had the Air Force AC-130 gunship that we were talking to.

02:22:55.040 and hey can you see weapons they couldn't see anything um so you know and and we had seen this

02:23:01.560 before we weren't just walking blindly i mean we had we had seen cases where the enemy would hide

02:23:07.180 not recognizing you know that you know technology and things like that um so unfortunately yeah we

02:23:14.880 walked into a very well executed ambush uh my my medic was initially hit taken around directly

02:23:21.160 below the knee um and then uh one of our other guys maddie ran forward grabbed our medic started

02:23:28.320 to drag him back maddie was shot up the right side two rounds in his leg one in his arms still

02:23:33.660 managed strong enough to pull himself and uh and loop back to back to the tire behind us there was

02:23:41.420 like a large tractor tire nothing but thousands of yards of empty iraqi desert and there was kind

02:23:46.620 of a large john deere style tractor tire and then there was a tree maybe i don't know 10 yards away

02:23:53.220 from that tractor tire and dj fell back to the tree everybody else was behind the tractor i was

02:23:59.520 still out front at this point i was trying to lay down fire when uh both machine guns turned on me

02:24:06.520 and i was uh stitched across the body armor i took two rounds in the left elbow which i thought

02:24:12.740 shot my arm off in the moment i took rounds off my gun rounds off my helmet i had my left night

02:24:19.080 vision tube shot off i took rounds off my right side plate um turned to try and move back to the

02:24:25.060 guys and it was at this point that i caught around in the face it hit me right in front of the ear

02:24:29.420 traveled through my face exited the right side of my nose took off most of my nose blew out my right

02:24:35.680 cheekbone what was left in the cheek broke and kicked out to the right um the bullet traveled

02:24:40.700 right under my eye vaporized my orbital floor it broke all the bones above my eye i fell in this

02:24:46.600 newfound hole in my face it broke the head of my jaw and shattered my jaw to my chin and uh and it

02:24:52.640 knocked me out um the the guys saw me fall and initially thought i was dead um thankfully um

02:25:01.580 you know a tribute to the seal teams and how we train we don't leave anybody behind and they could

02:25:07.080 have easily said red's dead let's continue to try and fall back or whatever we can do

02:25:11.720 but i was you know pinned down probably 15 yards in front of them while this literal gunfight was

02:25:17.620 happening directly over me um when i came to i realized i was still in this gunfight i realized

02:25:24.180 that i was totally unable to do anything and thankfully my team lead um jay uh who combat

02:25:32.500 experienced SEAL, what we call a JTAC. He is trained to coordinate airstrikes from

02:25:39.460 aircraft to the ground. And Jay coordinated and said, Hey, to the AC-130, we need an immediate,

02:25:47.540 we need an immediate fire mission. And unfortunately, we were so close. I was only

02:25:52.420 45 feet from the machine gun that had me pinned down. And that's well, well, well within danger,

02:25:58.580 close parameters and the gunship said no way we can bring this we're going to kill you guys if we

02:26:04.460 do and um so they said hey you need to figure out a way to fall back so gunfight went on for another

02:26:11.520 five minutes or so the entire gunfight lasted about 35 to 40 minutes um jay called for another

02:26:19.740 one they said no on the third attempt probably after 15 minutes he basically said hey look

02:26:25.500 you know if you don't bring in this fire mission there's not going to be anybody left you know i

02:26:30.380 got people critically wounded uh we're running out of ammo like you have to bring in this fire

02:26:35.640 mission it was at that point they basically put the onus on him they made him give his jtac

02:26:41.080 designator number meaning the training that our joint tactical air control controllers go through

02:26:46.500 that basically say they have the ability to do this job they understand all the ordinance they

02:26:51.380 understand all the danger close parameters and they made him read off his his jtac number or

02:26:58.220 give his jtac number that basically said you're acknowledging that we may potentially kill you if

02:27:03.700 we bring this strike in and um and jay did an amazing job coordinating that um i remember him

02:27:11.260 calling out to me incoming and um the aircraft flies at a pretty high altitude you can hear the

02:27:17.980 gun go off and then there's a delay probably five or six seconds before the rounds hit the ground

02:27:22.660 and i remember hearing the you know of the gun up overhead and the enemy was still firing so

02:27:29.180 machine guns turning away and all of a sudden you know explosions incurred in front of us and blew

02:27:35.520 up over us and all of a sudden that that gun went cold that machine gun in front of me that had me

02:27:40.840 pinned down went cold and i heard the enemy like crying out um to Allah Allah Akbar and i remember

02:27:48.620 thinking to myself stand by man like here he comes and sure enough next rounds came in uh which took

02:27:54.660 him out took other enemy out um jay came forward at this point grabbed me got me back to the tire

02:28:01.640 got a tourniquet on me i owe my life to him uh and we ended up calling in i think eight or nine

02:28:08.400 more fire missions before we were able to bring in the medevac, um, you know, to, to get us out

02:28:15.660 of there. Oh my God. What's Jay's full name? Um, I think it's okay for it to be out there. So Jay

02:28:26.400 Ali Austin, I was with him this weekend and this was a conversation we had. So this is kind of the

02:28:31.260 first time, but he told me he's okay with being out there more before I had not, we had not talked

02:28:37.220 value or i have not given his name but i mean what it was i i owe my life to him i i love that man

02:28:44.580 uh and all my teammates i owe my life to my teammates and that gunship i mean you know

02:28:49.500 people want to say oh you're so tough you know maybe but i wouldn't be here if it wasn't for

02:28:54.860 those guys i wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that gunship up overhead and that's what

02:28:59.720 frustrates me with the military right now with this focus on individualism like it is the team

02:29:05.980 effort it is um all different you know it's it's all of us together from different backgrounds

02:29:13.180 and different demographics and different race and creeds and all these different things

02:29:18.240 that that come together for a very unified mission in this case that mission was to make

02:29:23.640 sure that we all came home alive or at a minimum you know if i had died they would have brought

02:29:28.940 you know hopefully my body home to to erica and the kids but thankfully you know i i was able to

02:29:35.600 hang on and they did a great job fighting in that gunship. So, um, rightfully so, um, the gunship

02:29:42.800 was decorated. I don't feel like our guys were decorated enough. I am going to come back around.

02:29:48.180 It's something I've been talking about with them about resubmitting them for, um, uh, award reviews,

02:29:54.980 but, um, but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those guys.

02:29:58.560 we took some hits obviously but we didn't lose a single guy and the other guys did

02:30:05.580 there was there was no one the enemy leader got away he got away long before this gunfight ever

02:30:13.200 occurred they came out in the ambush he managed to sneak out the back of the house but everybody

02:30:17.860 that engaged us uh there was no one left to go home and talk about it he got away but not for

02:30:24.120 long. Not for long. Another team ended up about four months later finishing the job. Good. We got

02:30:33.280 him. We got him eventually. So you, what, next thing you know, you wake up where? They take you

02:30:38.780 to the hospital. And it's an incredible story, you sort of coming back to consciousness and

02:30:45.300 starting to process what's happened to you. Yeah. So they initially normally had injuries,

02:30:54.120 go to Balad, but I was so critical. They flew me directly to Baghdad, got to Baghdad. And I'll be

02:31:00.760 honest, I don't think I thought I was going to make it. But thankfully, and this is a shout out

02:31:08.700 to the amazing military medical teams and the trauma surgeons. A lot of people don't know that

02:31:14.140 the greatest advances in trauma medicine are made in war. And it's incredible. There are a lot of

02:31:19.520 civilian trauma doctors and orthopedic surgeons and all kinds of anesthesiologists that volunteer

02:31:24.300 to go over to the war zone in these dangerous places. And literally some of the best and the

02:31:29.500 brightest doctors in the world end up coming and helping to save our wounded. And they're so good.

02:31:37.480 I knew that if you made it to the hospital with a pulse, you had a 90% chance of making it home

02:31:44.660 alive. And I hung on to that fact like a lifeline as I flew that medevac helicopter and drifted in

02:31:51.700 and out of consciousness. So I got there, they saved me. I remember waking up and I was so elated

02:31:57.540 to know that I was still alive. I also was fascinated because I thought my arm had been

02:32:03.820 shot off. And I remember learning that I still had an arm, gravely damaged. Later, they would

02:32:10.460 talk about amputating it and they would keep it. But in the beginning, I was, I was happy for that.

02:32:16.740 And I remember my commanding officer and my command mass chief were there in the hospital

02:32:21.740 as I woke up. And I remember going to talk and I couldn't talk. And the nurse said, Hey,

02:32:28.600 you know, Lieutenant, you're, you're, you're traked, you know, you're, you're messed up,

02:32:33.020 your wire's shut and you're traked. You're not going to be able to talk. So I said, okay,

02:32:36.380 give me a piece of paper and i wrote down three questions i said um i said are my guys okay

02:32:42.220 and they told me that uh that luke and and matt were out of surgery and that they were going to

02:32:49.080 be okay and i said okay has my wife been notified and uh that's a that's a funny story or a kind of

02:32:55.820 crazy story in itself but um at this point she had been notified um although my commanding officer

02:33:03.260 did not know my mental state and that was a real concern of theirs with this head injury

02:33:07.660 they didn't know the angle of the bullet they only knew i had been shot in the face so they

02:33:11.620 didn't know if i did survive what level of mental um did i have a major traumatic brain injury or

02:33:18.600 anything like that so uh he would later call her after this and let her know i was doing okay so

02:33:24.500 that was second question and the third question i don't know why i asked this i said do i still

02:33:28.660 look pretty and uh and they told me no they told me no that getting shot in the face would probably

02:33:35.440 be an improvement and it actually was uh i used to have like a big old tom cruise nose so two facts

02:33:41.760 jay and i were actually joking about this that i had a big old tom cruise nose that i had broken

02:33:46.860 and uh i had a deviated septum that right before that deployment i had gone to see about surgery

02:33:52.080 to fix it and they told me i would be down for like two months i was like i'll wait till after

02:33:56.840 deployment. And then obviously they shot my nose off. So I got a brand new nose. Thanks.

02:34:05.680 So if you've ever wondered about where your tax dollars go, this one made a difference.

02:34:11.640 I have to tell you, I've been looking at you and I've been looking at your before pictures

02:34:15.660 and you actually are better looking now. Your nose is obviously a little crooked,

02:34:20.000 but you just look like a little bit more grizzly. I don't like the long hair and the beard.

02:34:26.840 And like the eyebrows, something's working about it.

02:34:29.080 You looked a little bit more clean cut before.

02:34:30.880 And this look is a little bit better for like the Navy SEAL who served the car.

02:34:35.000 I'm digging it.

02:34:35.860 So I think, I'm sure Erica backs me up on this, but I think you look amazing.

02:34:40.160 She likes the longer hair and the beard.

02:34:42.600 Thank you, Megan Kelly.

02:34:43.560 I appreciate that.

02:34:44.700 Yeah, it's working for you.

02:34:45.640 It's working for you.

02:34:46.320 I mean, there were easier ways of getting there, but yeah, you managed to find your way through.

02:34:51.040 So can we talk about the time you talked, the first thing you said to Erica when you talked to her,

02:34:55.020 because it's sort of to, it evidences your mental state.

02:34:58.620 And while some people thought it was a little surprising,

02:35:01.240 it's a great story about how you telegraphed to her.

02:35:04.100 You were fine.

02:35:05.680 Yeah, so I went from Baghdad,

02:35:09.060 where they stabilized and saved my life, to Balad.

02:35:12.500 And then they moved me to Germany.

02:35:14.000 It was in Germany, I had some more stabilization surgeries

02:35:16.480 and one of my teammates flew with me.

02:35:18.280 And obviously I could not talk.

02:35:20.420 So Erica and I had not talked at all.

02:35:22.700 she was trying to get everything taken care of with the kids and and she knew um they had told

02:35:29.800 her approximately when i would get to bethesda so she was trying to get ready for that and um so my

02:35:36.380 my teammate um who was there with me was like do you want to call erica and i said yes let's do

02:35:44.260 this i said you know you talk to her i'll write down what to say to her and uh so i don't remember

02:35:49.840 the first couple of things might've been, Hey, babe, I, I got, I'm sure you've heard, I got all

02:35:54.600 banged up. Uh, and the second thing I said, but my Wang's okay. And, uh, and, you know, and

02:36:03.400 military members will fully understand this because, you know, as service members, unfortunately

02:36:08.640 with IEDs and everything else, I mean, that is a fear, um, you know, obviously. And, uh, and it was

02:36:15.780 kind of a running joke. So when I told her that, it let her know immediately that he's okay. His

02:36:23.160 sense of humor is still intact. So. As is the Wang. So good news on multiple fronts.

02:36:31.980 Absolutely. I love this too. This is from your book. When you were talking to Gil, who was

02:36:37.980 the one who was answering the questions for you, your wife has been notified. I spoke to her myself.

02:36:42.960 I try to not, I want to thank him, but the trach and my wire job preclude that.

02:36:46.740 Gil then adds, in response to your third question, and the guys wanted me to tell you,

02:36:50.880 you never look pretty. It's great. It feels good to be insulted at certain low points in your life.

02:36:58.060 It's actually a pick-me-up. It's one of the things I miss the most now that I'm out of the

02:37:04.620 military, especially this day and age where we've created, once again, the victim mindset. Oh my

02:37:11.080 god if you say this about me i must be insulted even though half the time people say things that

02:37:16.280 are unjust oh my god how dare you joke about i don't know anything today uh and in the seal

02:37:23.380 teams there's nothing off limits i mean we would poke fun at anything and everything including

02:37:27.560 when i was injured i got i mean one of the guys showed up in the hospital i'm wired shut with my

02:37:31.560 face blown out and he showed up with beef jerky

02:37:34.140 so i mean that's the type of humor and i mean you know this life is too short to take yourself that

02:37:43.440 seriously and that's i've missed that the most um yeah yeah i can see why so you i mean we're

02:37:51.280 not going to go through it all but you did you what 39 surgeries

02:37:55.860 yeah 40 when it's all said and done although erica also known as the long-haired admiral

02:38:03.300 tells me that the last two don't count because they were kidney stone surgeries. But I'm like,

02:38:08.040 I've had 40 surgeries since I was wounded. I mean, was that, not to ask like another dumb

02:38:15.380 question, but like, was that traumatic? Like a surgery of any kind, I haven't just had C-sections,

02:38:21.740 but I mean, it's traumatic. And just that alone, nevermind after a massive injury on a battlefield

02:38:27.760 and, you know, the emotional trauma of all that, like, how did you handle that many times in and

02:38:33.800 under the knife? So it's interesting. I mean, you know, I tell people, once again, a lot of people

02:38:40.880 assume that my battlefield injuries were like the worst thing that ever happened to me. But

02:38:44.820 that failure as a leader, you know, God works in mysterious ways. It prepared me to deal with all

02:38:52.400 this adversity, that journey back, having to take small incremental steps to build back my

02:38:57.900 credibility and reputation, the leadership lessons that I had built in myself. And when I was in the

02:39:03.340 hospital, I told myself, hey, man, this is no different from that journey. Now it's a medical

02:39:07.880 journey. I said, this is medical BUDS, which BUDS is the acronym for SEAL training, Basic

02:39:13.000 Underwater Demolition SEAL training. I said, this is medical BUDS. You don't have to like it,

02:39:17.820 but you have to do it and we have to go. And I wanted to be operational again. So I knew I had

02:39:24.960 to go through all these surgeries if I even remotely had a chance at doing that. So every

02:39:31.300 surgery, the doctors used to laugh because literally I would be in the post-op. And one

02:39:37.500 of my very first questions after they would tell me how the surgery went would be, I'd write out,

02:39:42.380 when can we schedule the next one let's get it on the schedule now um because i wanted to just

02:39:48.420 you know churn and burn i wanted to try and recover as quickly as i could

02:39:53.080 which ended up taking you know battlefield injuries are really dirty i had a lot of

02:39:57.820 infection problems there were a lot of setbacks i mean it ended up taking almost

02:40:01.440 four years to put me back together well i've gotten ahead of myself because

02:40:07.680 immediately post the massive injury

02:40:11.040 before the 39, 40 surgeries,

02:40:13.580 I'm kind of with Erica.

02:40:14.380 I don't think we can call them.

02:40:15.740 I don't think we can count the stones.

02:40:18.140 You posted the infamous sign,

02:40:21.540 the sign, the famous sign, not infamous.

02:40:23.720 That connotes something bad.

02:40:25.800 And that's how you came to be so memorable

02:40:28.680 in my own life.

02:40:29.880 Hearing that story after meeting you

02:40:32.560 when your face was still pretty banged up

02:40:34.660 was just incredible.

02:40:36.360 I mean, it was a true inspiration to me as a human, and it's inspired countless numbers of others since then.

02:40:43.920 So just set the stage for, we're going to read it, but just set the stage for where you were and what made you realize you needed to post a sign like the one we're going to discuss.

02:40:57.460 So I'd probably only been in the hospital about a week, seven days, give or take.

02:41:02.880 And I will admit I struggled a little bit in the beginning.

02:41:05.520 I think there's this big spike of elation, like I survived.

02:41:10.400 And then the reality kind of set in that I am really messed up.

02:41:14.980 Doctors were telling me it was going to be months to put at a minimum, or let me rephrase

02:41:21.200 that.

02:41:21.440 Doctors were telling me it was going to be years to put me back together, whereas I thought

02:41:24.800 it'd only take a few months.

02:41:27.440 The prognosis was not good.

02:41:29.580 My elbow was totally destroyed.

02:41:31.880 I had no use in my left hand.

02:41:33.440 There was massive nerve damage.

02:41:35.520 obviously the massive amount of, of damage to my face. Um, and I just, um, I was kind of

02:41:45.040 struggling. I felt like a monster. Um, you know, I was really scared before I saw Erica the first

02:41:51.940 time I was really scared. She is a rock star. That's how she earned her name. The long haired

02:41:56.320 Admiral. I mean, she didn't bat an eye. So I had her, but I was kind of struggling with where do I

02:42:01.380 go from here? How do I overcome this? Um, you know, pain and, and I'm disfigured. I felt like

02:42:08.500 I'd be a monster for the rest of my life. And, uh, and I had some individuals that came into the

02:42:15.760 room and we, we had a short conversation and then I guess I maybe was drifting off and they were

02:42:21.720 talking amongst themselves. And if any of you have been in that, you know, that in between awake

02:42:27.260 and you're not quite asleep. You can still hear the sounds, the TVs. Yeah. And I caught bits and

02:42:34.060 pieces of their conversation. And I don't fault them. There are some people that are like, how

02:42:41.720 rude, how could they have that conversation in your room? Military hospital is a really hard

02:42:46.360 place to be during a time of war. There are young men and women that are blown apart, missing limbs,

02:42:51.900 traumatic brain injuries it is very overwhelming to see this many young people and i and they were

02:42:57.020 there and i think they were caught up in this and they started having a conversation about what a

02:43:01.780 shame what a pity we send these young men and women out to war and they come home broken and

02:43:05.640 battered they'll never be the same and then they left and uh erica had gone down to get a cup of

02:43:12.040 coffee or something so i was in my room by myself just thinking about this it kind of woke me up and

02:43:16.440 And I was I was both angry and like, is that going to be me?

02:43:21.700 Am I going to be this broken veteran, you know, that is never successful again?

02:43:31.340 Am I going to be like Lieutenant Dan from the movie Forrest Gump?

02:43:34.320 You know, the beginning of the movie, hookers and booze, Lieutenant Dan, not not you've got new legs, Lieutenant Dan.

02:43:41.200 And I just I wrestled with it for a few minutes.

02:43:45.300 And then I went back to everything that I had been through.

02:43:49.180 And what I try to explain to people is that the victim mindset focuses on all the negativity.

02:43:57.020 It focuses on it's unfair, you know, I'm never going to be better.

02:44:01.380 We focus on the immediate here and now, not recognizing that the greatest gift you have

02:44:06.600 in this life is you have a choice.

02:44:09.160 No one forces you to lay there and feel sorry for yourself.

02:44:12.340 I don't care what situation you're in.

02:44:14.420 as long as your brain is still working, you have free will and you have the ability to decide how

02:44:20.420 you're going to handle this situation, no matter how bad and uncomfortable and unpleasant it may

02:44:24.840 be. And it was in that moment when Erica walked back into the room, I said, never again, that is

02:44:29.400 never going to happen again. From this point forward, I will never feel sorry for myself

02:44:34.300 again. And I will not allow anybody else to come in this room and feel sorry for me.

02:44:38.540 and i asked her for my pen and paper and i wrote out this sign and it said attention to all who

02:44:44.820 enter here if you're coming in this room with sadness or sorrow go elsewhere the wounds i

02:44:49.720 received i got in a job that i love doing it for people that i love defending the freedom of a

02:44:53.280 country i deeply love i will make a full recovery what is full that's the absolute utmost physically

02:44:59.100 i have the ability to recover and i'm going to push that about 20 further through sheer mental

02:45:03.700 tenacity this room you're about to enter is room of fun optimism and intense rapid regroup if you

02:45:09.440 are not prepared for that and we signed it the management and uh and the original sign was put

02:45:15.820 on a regular piece of paper that i've been writing on uh but later erica went and bought a large that

02:45:21.960 large orange red piece of poster paper and we transcribed it word for word put it on the door

02:45:27.500 a teammate tact has tried an end to it and um and a new york firefighter wrote a blog about it and

02:45:33.900 it went viral it went all over the place it was all over the news um to date you know it has been

02:45:39.640 written about in multiple books secretary robert gates wrote about it uh first lady michelle obama

02:45:44.800 wrote about it twice in her book uh becoming michelle sent me a handwritten note on how much

02:45:50.220 it moved her and it is now um it earned me an invitation to the white house to meet president

02:45:56.600 bush who signed it and we had it framed and dedicated i didn't feel like it was mine i felt

02:46:02.100 like it belonged to the hospital and the other wounded warriors and it now hangs in um in walter

02:46:08.040 reed in the middle of the wounded ward and continues to motivate and inspire other wounded

02:46:12.400 warriors and now it's been amazing i mean i don't know hundreds of thousands of people who have

02:46:16.740 written me and said hey i put your sign on the door i have cancer i've been injured or my kid

02:46:21.840 has been injured or my kid has cancer, you know, thank you. So you just never know the power of

02:46:27.260 positivity and choosing to drive forward despite the hardship and adversity we face. And that's

02:46:32.880 what that sign is. People will follow if you give them something to follow. Like who knew,

02:46:41.140 who knew that maybe your most important role in these conflicts would be helping severely wounded

02:46:48.260 guys coming back with no hope understand that there was a way out. And it began with attitude

02:46:55.440 and the decisions about how you'd handle what happened to you and who would have access to you

02:47:00.640 in this, your most vulnerable time, right? I mean, I'm sure we have no idea the number of

02:47:06.520 people you've helped, even outside the military, as you point out, people in cancer wards,

02:47:10.780 who read that message and remind themselves, I have a choice here. And the choice I make

02:47:17.560 really could be the difference between life and death it really could

02:47:20.880 well and to lift up those around you that was one of my big goals like i wanted to set the

02:47:29.100 example for my kids i wanted to set the example for erica i wanted to set the example for other

02:47:33.920 wounded warriors around me um and i think that's such a powerful thing because you can't we may

02:47:40.000 not be able to change the situation we're in um you know we've got to navigate through that we've

02:47:45.960 got to navigate through the pain and the misery and all the things that work but we we definitely

02:47:49.940 can change we can be what i like to say it's one of the shirts we created be the light in the

02:47:55.940 darkness be the light you know in those dark times um so many people are waiting for someone

02:48:01.720 else to come save them or someone else to help them well you do it you know you do it you be

02:48:06.460 the light man and it'll help it helps with your mindset you know you start pouring some positivity

02:48:11.820 into yourself, it's amazing how much it makes an impact. I try to explain to people that's part of

02:48:17.260 the overcome mindset. And you may not be able to get back what you've lost. I meet so many people

02:48:22.920 who that's what their focus is. Like I want back my health or I want back my relationship or I want

02:48:28.620 back my business or whatever it is I've lost. And that may not be the case, but a willingness to

02:48:33.820 drive forward, you're going to take that the end moment and create a new beginning.

02:48:41.820 i read in your book about how it was when you saw erica for the first time post-injury

02:48:50.980 and it was actually kind of shocking because you were writing about how unfortunately there are a

02:48:55.180 lot of cases where the wife or the girlfriend comes in and sees the severely injured soldier

02:48:59.480 and pieces right out of there i mean that's horrifying so there was you know in the back

02:49:05.480 of your head some concern you know given how badly injured you were in the face and so on and

02:49:11.320 obviously what was going to be ahead of you guys. Is she going to stick with me? And Erica was

02:49:15.780 solid. The long-haired admiral came through. She came through huge. It wasn't a thing. Huge.

02:49:21.320 But I know you were worried about, you said, don't bring the kids right away. Like, I don't

02:49:25.760 want them to see me like this. So how was it? Because obviously when you first saw your kids,

02:49:30.400 you didn't look like you look now. You definitely looked closer to right after the injuries.

02:49:35.620 So how did they handle that?

02:49:39.260 Good.

02:49:39.800 And a lot of that I got to attribute to, you know, Eric and I were really locked on.

02:49:44.420 I mean, I think that's one of the, as a couple, your ability to be unified in your decision

02:49:51.640 making and, you know, her and I discussed how would we handle this?

02:49:57.020 You know, it's been something that's been a common theme throughout our marriage, so

02:50:01.560 much so 99 of first off seals have almost a 90 divorce rate special operations pretty close

02:50:09.520 uh guys who are wounded have almost a 99 it's just very hard on families to um to sustain these

02:50:20.120 type of injuries and eric and i talked okay well how are we going to manage this one of the things

02:50:26.480 we said and we were fortunate enough to have family to help we weren't going to change the

02:50:30.100 kids' schedules. The kids' schedules were going to stay the same. We had family that came in. If

02:50:34.600 they had dance and soccer in school, they were going to be there. So they would be home. Erica

02:50:40.420 stayed up at the hospital on the weekends. Family would bring, not in the beginning. I didn't see

02:50:45.760 the kids for probably three weeks. And there were several things that I told, I said I wanted.

02:50:51.880 One, I was really, some of the original pictures are not out there. I think if you dig deep enough,

02:50:59.480 there's some surgical journals that have pictures of me in it, but my head swelled almost to like

02:51:06.080 the size of a basketball. Um, I looked pretty grotesque, um, you know, stitches just stretched

02:51:14.000 on my face. And I told Erica, I didn't want the kids to see me until they had done some more

02:51:19.300 surgeries and some of the swelling had gone down. And I was in, you know, ICU at the beginning.

02:51:24.060 I also did not want them to come into the room. I wanted to walk into the room where the kids

02:51:31.640 were. I wanted it to be like a family room and I wanted to walk in. So that was my goal

02:51:36.100 to get well enough and strong enough that I could get up and walk into the room. So

02:51:41.440 that took about three weeks. And then the other thing, Erica was super smart.

02:51:47.220 She knew the kids wanted different toys that they had talked about. I mean, it's

02:51:53.040 now september so she went and uh you know normally they would have had to wait till christmas but she

02:51:59.320 went and bought my son wanted a um a nintendo ds uh one of the girls wanted a baby doll um i can't

02:52:08.540 remember what the other what uh sierra wanted but um but um erica went and bought those things for

02:52:16.780 them and that had me give them to them in the room that I walked into with them. So, and I tell you

02:52:24.020 what, that I learned over the next couple of years, people often talk about unconditional love. And I

02:52:30.100 think you can build unconditional love with your spouse, but you learn what unconditional love is

02:52:37.300 through your children. Your children have unconditional love for their parents, especially

02:52:42.980 when they're young, you are their world. And even though I looked messed up, my kids love me. And

02:52:50.520 there was a lot of healing that occurred over those couple of years, especially with my youngest

02:52:54.920 daughter, because my, my middle daughter and my son, they went back to school by the time I got

02:53:00.640 home. But my youngest, she was only three. So she was home with me. And she became and I had not

02:53:06.040 been around her whole life. And she became my little buddy, she would climb into bed with me

02:53:10.640 as i recovered and we'd watch cartoons and um and man i think that was very healing for me

02:53:18.180 i needed that because i was so worried about would my kids be afraid of me and the way i look

02:53:23.880 and you know they just i'll never forget i went to pick my kids up at school one day and my

02:53:29.540 daughter was like five she's in kindergarten so he's like what happened to your dad and my daughter

02:53:35.380 Matter of fact, it's like, he got shot off.

02:53:37.400 He got all shot off.

02:53:38.460 He's fine, though.

02:53:40.200 You know, I mean, just the tender of a five-year-old.

02:53:45.040 You know, especially when they're young, they have that healing power.

02:53:50.000 And there is something almost angelic about them in moments.

02:53:53.100 And I really believe it's like, someone said it to me this way, and it made sense.

02:53:57.080 They're closer to the other side than we are.

02:54:00.160 They're still closer to the other side.

02:54:01.720 And I think they still have that sort of halo effect

02:54:05.380 around them and on us.

02:54:07.800 There is something sort of magical

02:54:09.740 about really young kids when you're down,

02:54:12.920 you're blue, you're struggling.

02:54:15.300 And I'm so glad that was,

02:54:17.200 you're so lucky to have your three-year-old

02:54:18.880 with you during those moments.

02:54:19.940 I'm sure she was a healing balm.

02:54:23.480 The rock star Erica too,

02:54:25.400 those are all great stories about her.

02:54:27.080 And I'm so glad, thank God this doesn't end with,

02:54:29.860 and she just left.

02:54:31.020 you're still together you're still right the family's still intact yeah I mean I got it I

02:54:36.860 mean and such a credit to her you know she became my best nurse even though I had nurse in-home

02:54:44.300 nurses in between surgeries you know for the first eight or nine months I was a mess I'm in a

02:54:49.820 wheelchair I've got metal hardware coming out of my arm what's called an external fixator I was

02:54:54.560 traped for seven months and two days they were feeding me through a stomach tube Erica was doing

02:54:59.700 those things. She was helping to clean my trach. She's grinding up meds and grinding up food so

02:55:04.660 that I could eat. And, and I, I recognize the burden. I mean, I became like a fourth child to

02:55:10.840 her, um, to take care of me. And I, and I'm just so thankful how strong she was because never once

02:55:17.400 did she ever say, why did you do this to us? Why did you pick this job that made me, you know,

02:55:23.340 that this happened? Cause that would have been devastating. Um, and if she thought it,

02:55:28.000 she never said it. Um, so man, she is a leader in herself and we're an amazing team. Um,

02:55:35.500 really excited right now we are working on, um, uh, we're almost done with a relationship book

02:55:40.880 called invincible marriage, uh, because it's a question so many people have, how did you do it?

02:55:45.660 You guys made it to a special operations career. You made it through wounding. We've run a business

02:55:50.400 together. We've had business failures together. We have three amazing kids. Um, you know, so

02:55:56.420 yeah, I'm really excited to get that book out there and hopefully help others, you know,

02:56:00.440 build a strong, invincible marriage also. Oh my gosh. You both are welcome on the show

02:56:05.700 when it hits. I would love to help you promote that. I feel like everybody will buy that. That's

02:56:10.420 such a great, I mean, think of how we tell ourselves, we outside of your marriage tell

02:56:14.080 ourselves, Oh, this was really hard. Oh, he didn't empty the dishwasher. Oh, it's annoying. You know,

02:56:19.000 he didn't show me enough emotional availability. This is what, you know, you hear my God,

02:56:22.680 that you don't even understand what the challenges are.

02:56:25.640 I had no idea about the divorce rate amongst the wounded.

02:56:29.100 I want to ask you in the time we have left,

02:56:31.940 I would be remiss if I skipped

02:56:33.820 the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan

02:56:36.280 because everyone who served there, like yourself,

02:56:40.160 had some thoughts on it

02:56:41.460 and some had some real trauma when it happened

02:56:45.320 and just sort of the abandonment of it,

02:56:47.700 of the translators.

02:56:48.600 You mentioned that was one of the guys with you in Iraq

02:56:50.260 when you got hurt.

02:56:51.540 How did you process that whole thing?

02:56:55.700 Well, I got involved as much as I could.

02:56:58.800 I think that's going to be viewed, and in my opinion, probably one of the greatest failures.

02:57:05.700 I think the way we withdrew from Iraq was poorly done, which, in my opinion, directly led to the creation of ISIS in Iraq.

02:57:14.700 um and then we repeated the exact same thing except at a exponential scale in afghanistan and

02:57:24.260 in afghanistan i think we had done so much of a better job you know helping the people there

02:57:29.700 were so many people that had embraced this newfound freedom uh apart from the rule of the

02:57:36.060 taliban i mean there were women in leadership position there were women in political positions

02:57:40.020 There were women leaders in the military. Commerce was starting to grow and thrive in Afghanistan again. And we had basically convinced these people like, hey, a free democratic Afghanistan is a is a real thing.

02:57:55.420 And, yeah, when we pulled out of there in the way that we did, I mean, just I don't understand.

02:58:07.200 I don't know. I mean, you can't tell me that there weren't senior political leaders who are saying this is not going to end well.

02:58:15.860 Why we didn't maintain forces in Bagram. We knew Bagram. Bagram was protected.

02:58:21.900 How did we ever agree to allow the Taliban to provide some level of security?

02:58:27.280 How did we ever, you know, who in their right mind allowed this to occur with, you know, American citizens that were left behind?

02:58:36.600 I mean, trying to get people in the Karzai airport.

02:58:39.700 That's how I got involved.

02:58:40.840 Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann had created a group to try and help.

02:58:45.640 He wanted to get his interpreter out.

02:58:47.280 and there were a lot of special operations guys, Chad Robichaw, Tim Kennedy, a lot of these guys

02:58:51.740 did amazing things. I ended up working with Scott and we were trying to get people out of Afghanistan

02:58:56.980 and we saw firsthand the chaos and the disorganization and the mass confusion by the

02:59:03.660 U.S. government. You know, the focus began and became, we're just going to get the military out

02:59:09.240 and ignoring all these U.S. citizens. And most importantly, the individuals who had been

02:59:15.920 processed, Afghans who had sacrificed their lives to protect us and work with us, who

02:59:25.160 had lost family members and risked their lives, who had been told, you're going to get a special

02:59:29.540 immigrant visa and you're going to be able to come to the United States when all of this

02:59:34.060 was transpiring, that the Taliban was going to take back over, which I had issues with

02:59:38.000 in the first place.

02:59:39.080 Why did we turn the country back over to the exact same terrorist group that we were fighting

02:59:43.420 against for 20 years?

02:59:45.380 I mean, it's mind blowing, mind blowing.

02:59:48.460 It's infuriating.

02:59:49.220 And I think it will impact our national security selection abilities for decades to come.

02:59:57.180 Because who in their right mind is going to want to work with America and risk their lives to help us collect intelligence when they're going to go, I'm not going to work with you guys.

03:00:05.920 If anything goes wrong, you're just going to sell me out to dry and I'm going to be killed.

03:00:10.500 We sent such a negative message across the world.

03:00:14.360 I think it was such a poor display of leadership.

03:00:17.820 I think it was just straight up anti-American.

03:00:22.840 It was traumatic for so many guys who served.

03:00:25.600 Like, what was I there for?

03:00:26.800 What did my friends die for?

03:00:28.480 What, you know, what did I, I mean, you were in Iraq, but same, similar question.

03:00:32.360 Like, what did I get blown up for?

03:00:33.600 What, you know, what?

03:00:34.700 We just tucked tail and ran at the end.

03:00:37.180 I don't know.

03:00:37.940 I still think the way I process it from over here, you guys kept us safe for 20 years.

03:00:42.440 you know remember how afraid we were after 9-11 we were going to get attacked again

03:00:46.460 kept us safe for 20 years and we're still safe we're still safe because what you did over there

03:00:50.760 it was not all for naught though it was terribly terribly handled and even before the withdrawal

03:00:56.800 there was a lot of criticism to be leveled but that the withdrawal was just a stain it was just

03:01:01.980 a stain on on our on our leadership not on our guys um no and I would say the same I mean I

03:01:08.660 never once have ever thought oh my god what a waste i mean you know the mission that we did was

03:01:14.160 you know we we helped a lot of people we definitely got rid a lot of very bad people

03:01:19.640 who given the opportunity would gladly do bad things here in our own country and even in other

03:01:24.700 countries abroad so yeah i definitely tell fellow veterans don't ever think that what we did

03:01:29.540 absolutely made a difference it's unfortunate the way it ended but you know i'm proud of the time

03:01:35.700 that I had to serve over there

03:01:37.520 and hopefully make a small difference

03:01:40.460 in Afghanistan and Iraq.

03:01:42.500 And beyond, beyond.

03:01:44.320 So now how old are you?

03:01:47.520 I turn 48 next week.

03:01:51.240 Oh, you're still a spring chicken.

03:01:53.380 You're a young guy.

03:01:56.440 You got Erica, you got your three kids.

03:01:58.920 Yeah.

03:02:00.120 And your career is as a motivational speaker,

03:02:03.200 as an author.

03:02:04.960 How's that going?

03:02:05.820 Are you paying the bills with that?

03:02:06.940 You feel like things are going well?

03:02:10.040 They are.

03:02:10.760 I mean, the demand is high.

03:02:11.920 I mean, you know, I think the message I deliver is very needed.

03:02:18.880 And I think companies recognize that.

03:02:20.640 I mean, a combination of coming out of the COVID era and also into just society as a

03:02:27.100 whole, my message is on self-leadership.

03:02:29.680 How do we lead ourselves to be successful?

03:02:32.140 How do we build better teams?

03:02:33.480 How do we build more positive culture within companies?

03:02:36.480 And then how do we find balance in this crazy world that we're living in?

03:02:41.000 And then all about the resilience and grit.

03:02:43.360 I teach something called Getting Off the X.

03:02:45.120 It's one of the foundational principles in my Overcome book.

03:02:49.160 I'm now teaching the Point Man for Life program, which is a structured process of building

03:02:54.440 long-term goal setting and understanding based on your values, what your mission or purpose

03:02:59.660 is in this life with kind of a special operations twist.

03:03:03.480 And then, of course, we have the relationship book coming. And then something I've started working on, we just concluded our most recent Overcome and Survive workshop. A lot of my teammates have a lot of experience and they are training law enforcement and national organization, military organizations and tactical abilities.

03:03:25.360 But I keep meeting average everyday Americans who are like, I'm scared for the future.

03:03:30.100 Like, I wish I knew how to better defend myself in this dangerous world where every time we turn around, there's a mass shooting or God forbid something happened to my family.

03:03:39.080 How do I how do I, you know, save them?

03:03:41.640 How do I know basic first aid or, you know, God forbid society, you know, collapsed or at least we lost power.

03:03:47.080 If I take this course, you're not going to throw me in the ocean and hose me down with a hose and tell me to find Northwest.

03:03:53.040 no no there's not as a matter of fact it was funny right people signing up for the course i had to

03:03:58.520 put it right on the website uh overcome and survive.com we do not yell at you you're not

03:04:03.240 we want to take the average everyday american and make them better that's it and to give them a

03:04:08.580 basic level of preparation so that they can overcome and survive if something bad happens

03:04:15.280 and uh and i've really enjoyed that i've met people from all across this country have come

03:04:19.920 to these courses and I'm, and I'm doing it with some of my former teammates with Jay and some of

03:04:24.840 the guys that were in the gunfight with me. Uh, and it's pretty neat to be able to say, you know,

03:04:28.760 out of this, we're able to teach you this so that hopefully you can protect your family.

03:04:35.540 It keeps the brotherhood connected. That's so important for you guys. I know there's such a

03:04:39.700 unique bond and if you don't nurture it, maybe you lose it and it just becomes a memory, which is

03:04:43.920 not okay. I want to tell our audience that the book that talks about Jay's experience is called

03:04:50.380 The Trident. And then you heard him reference his second book, which is called Overcome,

03:04:54.920 Crush Adversity with Leadership Techniques of America's Toughest Warriors. And we will look

03:05:00.420 forward to the third book, which is the relationship one. And we'll have you back on for that.

03:05:05.560 Lieutenant Jason Redman, I'm moved. I'm inspired. I'm excited for what comes next in your life and

03:05:12.720 to read your next writing.

03:05:14.340 And I just wish all my best to you and your family.

03:05:16.800 I know my audience is joining me right now

03:05:18.500 in thanking you, thanking you, thanking you

03:05:20.660 so much for your service,

03:05:22.220 your sacrifice, that of your family as well.

03:05:24.440 They do the same in their own ways

03:05:26.040 and we appreciate you.

03:05:27.420 God bless you.

03:05:29.660 My honor.

03:05:30.660 Thank you.

03:05:31.600 Oh, such an inspiring guest.

03:05:34.540 He's amazing, isn't he?

03:05:36.340 Go to jasonredman.com

03:05:40.240 to find out much, much more about Jason,

03:05:42.500 about his books, about his courses, everything, everything Jason Redman. Well worth your time.

03:05:48.000 Today, I join you in remembering all of the men and women who have served our country

03:05:52.380 and also thinking of and thanking our current military members serving today.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 05, 2026

Military Heroes John McPhee and Jason Redman - Megyn Kelly's ＂Double Feature＂ of Fascinating Interviews

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript