The Megyn Kelly Show - Military-Industrial Complex - From Bush to Biden ｜ Shawn Ryan x Megyn Kelly

00:00:00.560 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.760 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.080 On Memorial Day, we remember and honor the men and women who have died while in military service.

00:00:20.220 Every year, we welcome a military veteran here on this show to share their story.

00:00:25.040 And today, I'm very excited to talk to Sean Ryan for the very first time.

00:00:29.600 Sean's a former U.S. Navy SEAL and CIA contractor with 14 years of service, spanning multiple combat operations.

00:00:37.840 He is also the host of the hugely popular The Sean Ryan Show, where he has an audience of millions on YouTube, podcast platforms, and more.

00:00:46.540 This is where he goes in-depth, and I mean in-depth, with a host of guests for fascinating conversations on a whole range of subjects.

00:00:54.480 Sean developed the show to document the untold stories of war, loss, and redemption, and he does that and much, much more.

00:01:02.380 Glad to welcome him here in person for this special episode. Sean, welcome.

00:01:06.420 Thank you for having me.

00:01:07.400 Thank you for your service. To kick it off.

00:01:09.520 Oh, thank you for saying that.

00:01:11.280 Yeah.

00:01:11.580 I appreciate that.

00:01:12.100 No, I appreciate it, too. It's hard on Memorial Day because it's a solemn day, right?

00:01:17.300 But people are out there trying to get their big TV, and I understand that, right?

00:01:22.500 People are like, they work hard, but you got to take a moment or an hour or two just to stop and think about why you have the freedom.

00:01:30.420 Shop where you want and wear what you want and say what you want and do what you want.

00:01:33.220 And that boils down to you guys, you and the friends you've lost.

00:01:36.880 Well, thank you.

00:01:38.320 So let's talk about you and your background and how you wound up a Navy SEAL because it takes a certain kind of person.

00:01:45.240 I know this from my many interviews of SEALs over the years.

00:01:49.760 It's not like you're not normal people. I think that's fair to say. Am I wrong?

00:01:53.920 I think that's fair to say.

00:01:55.180 Okay.

00:01:55.340 And so tell us what you were like as a child because there are always some signs of a future Navy SEAL in there, whether it's a rebellious kid or a leader or obsessive about something.

00:02:07.220 Jocko said his parents wouldn't let him quit anything.

00:02:09.900 Like if he took up knitting, they wouldn't let him quit knitting.

00:02:12.660 So looking back at your own childhood, were there signs of the future you there?

00:02:18.360 There probably were.

00:02:19.680 I was definitely very rebellious, not a great student, not a great listener, very creative, and just not very academic at all.

00:02:34.420 So the teams, the SEAL teams were kind of came on my radar.

00:02:41.220 I don't remember exactly, but I was always infatuated with the military.

00:02:45.000 I was, when I was growing up, the Gulf War was going on and, and I remember picking up all the magazines and all that stuff and just, and just looking at all the pictures, really into GI Joes.

00:02:58.300 And, and it got to the point where, when I got to high school, I just, like I said, I wasn't an academics guy.

00:03:08.060 I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't interested in school and I definitely wasn't going to do well in, in, in college.

00:03:15.080 So, so I decided to look into the military.

00:03:19.480 Alternatives.

00:03:20.200 Did you come from a military family?

00:03:22.720 Not exactly.

00:03:23.780 I mean, my dad did serve.

00:03:25.120 He was a pharmacist, uh, in the army.

00:03:27.720 So definitely a totally different role, you know, different direction.

00:03:32.980 Had no interest in the medical field at all.

00:03:36.060 So, so I started looking at the Marine Corps.

00:03:40.840 I wanted to be a recon guy.

00:03:42.460 They wouldn't let me in.

00:03:43.800 Uh, went to the army, wanted to be a green beret, wouldn't let me in.

00:03:47.920 And, uh, the Navy recruiter kind of stuck his head out and asked if I'd ever heard of the SEAL teams.

00:03:53.780 And I hadn't at the time.

00:03:55.420 So he gave me, you know, endless material to pick through.

00:04:01.280 And so I did that, uh, very fast.

00:04:04.580 And, and when I realized what it was, uh, it just captivated me.

00:04:10.640 So how does a guy who's not, you know, devoted to his academics, which does require the kind of tenacity and hard work you put in to become a SEAL,

00:04:18.060 find it in order to go through BUDS training and actually perform that elite level as soldier?

00:04:25.420 Uh, I mean, I don't, it's just the only thing that caught my interest, you know?

00:04:29.460 And so nothing really in school caught my interest.

00:04:33.020 And, uh, I didn't, I never really felt challenged, I don't think.

00:04:37.380 And so, I mean, there was a multitude of things that I, uh, I wasn't the top performer out of my three siblings, uh, in sports or in academics.

00:04:49.120 Where, where are you in the birth order?

00:04:50.500 I'm first.

00:04:51.340 And where'd you grow up?

00:04:52.440 I grew up, we moved around a lot, but primarily Missouri.

00:04:56.240 Okay.

00:04:56.540 Keep going.

00:04:57.340 And, um, yeah, yeah.

00:04:59.220 First born.

00:04:59.820 And so I got in there and, um, I mean, long, long story short, maybe we'll dive in, but I just wanted to do something.

00:05:11.300 And one, I wanted to serve my country and, uh, I wanted to finally give my parents a reason to be proud of me.

00:05:19.600 And so that kind of carried me through.

00:05:22.560 Uh, and were they, like when you signed up at first, were they, what year would that have been?

00:05:27.000 That would have been 2000, 2000.

00:05:30.820 No, wait.

00:05:31.860 When I signed up, it was 2001.

00:05:33.760 Okay.

00:05:34.120 Right.

00:05:34.340 It was, it was before nine 11.

00:05:35.640 It was right before nine 11.

00:05:36.900 I, I, I went to the Navy to bootcamp in July of 2001.

00:05:42.160 Oh my gosh.

00:05:43.280 Little did you know what was about to happen to the country, the world and you.

00:05:48.140 Yeah.

00:05:48.980 Um, so were your parents proud when you signed up?

00:05:51.620 Were they?

00:05:52.620 Uh, I think they were, they were definitely worried.

00:05:55.060 Uh, it surprised them.

00:05:57.000 It kind of came out of left field.

00:05:58.920 Um, and so, but, but once they wrapped their head around it and saw that I was, I seemed

00:06:05.160 to be serious.

00:06:05.920 They, they, they, they fully supported it.

00:06:08.520 See, that's how I feel.

00:06:09.760 I would love for, I'll be sexist, my boys to serve, but I'd be terrified if they actually

00:06:16.440 said they were going to do it.

00:06:17.440 I'd be in church every day, praying to God, lighting every candle in the, in the church.

00:06:21.900 You know, I, I can see what your parents went through and I'm sure most parents go through

00:06:25.500 that, especially if it's not a lifelong military family.

00:06:28.160 Yeah.

00:06:28.580 Yeah.

00:06:29.040 I would too.

00:06:29.960 I have two little ones now.

00:06:31.300 So yeah, I get it.

00:06:33.540 And you know, especially if you're looking at your kid and so far, he's been kind of

00:06:36.580 a knucklehead.

00:06:37.100 I don't think this kid should have a gun.

00:06:40.540 I don't, I'm not sure how this is going to go.

00:06:42.820 Very true.

00:06:43.360 So there had to be some concerns there.

00:06:44.980 And what, just out of curiosity, what did your siblings wind up doing?

00:06:48.820 My brother is in hospitality and my sister, uh, has her hair salon.

00:06:54.740 Okay.

00:06:55.080 So they did not, they did not, they were not tempted to follow you down this road.

00:06:58.220 No.

00:06:58.700 All right.

00:06:59.160 So you decide to join up for military service and not just any military service, not just

00:07:04.320 like, I don't know, the, the regular infantry, uh, with the army, you decide to go for Navy

00:07:09.420 seals.

00:07:09.720 So inside there's an overachiever just waiting to be born.

00:07:14.320 And did you know anything about how hard that was going to be?

00:07:18.600 I did.

00:07:19.320 Once I started researching it, I just, I didn't care.

00:07:22.700 I was just, I was going to do it.

00:07:25.320 And, uh, I felt great all the way up until I arrived at civil training and, uh, in my mind,

00:07:34.320 I was amazing right up until I started.

00:07:36.160 Exactly.

00:07:36.800 And, uh, I, I mean, when I got there, I was 18 and, you know, barely a man.

00:07:42.880 And when I got there, there were guys that had, there were Olympic athletes.

00:07:48.040 There were guys that had already been to war and come back, uh, guys that had been to Panama,

00:07:54.000 guys that have been to Iraq.

00:07:55.580 It was, it was, uh, championship boxers.

00:07:59.680 And, and I was probably about a buck, buck 30.

00:08:04.320 Wow.

00:08:04.760 So now, is this why I read you got, you got laughed out of the, one of the recruiting offices?

00:08:10.280 Yeah, that would be, that would be the army and the Marine.

00:08:13.460 Yeah.

00:08:13.740 Okay.

00:08:14.020 The Marine Corps told, you know, hard no, this is a common story.

00:08:17.020 I've heard this from a few of our, our Navy sail buds that they got, they got laughed

00:08:20.820 at when they tried to sign up.

00:08:22.360 What's, what is it with the army?

00:08:23.680 Are they, are the Marines just like, I think, uh, I mean, it's just, you know, it's, it's

00:08:29.200 pretty ambitious to walk in and say, Hey, I want to, uh, I want to operate at the top

00:08:33.900 level, uh, right away.

00:08:36.040 Yeah.

00:08:36.320 Right.

00:08:37.000 Right.

00:08:37.160 And, and they're kind of like, okay, guy pump the brakes, maybe do infantry, go the long

00:08:42.920 route.

00:08:43.200 And I just, I had no interest in going the long route.

00:08:46.680 I didn't want to do regular infantry.

00:08:49.060 There's nothing wrong with that, but I, I just wanted, uh, I wanted the challenge.

00:08:53.680 Do you remember back in those early days when you were first starting to train, what

00:08:58.120 jumped out at you amongst the guys who surrounded you?

00:09:02.020 Like, were there commonalities in this pocket of the world that were immediately noticeable

00:09:07.300 as different?

00:09:08.580 Once I got to, to buds or even when you just first signed up and started training?

00:09:12.520 Cause you didn't go right to buds training, right?

00:09:14.000 Don't you do normal training before you do normal training before?

00:09:16.720 I, I mean, I grew up in a town of 6,000 people.

00:09:19.560 So there wasn't, there wasn't, uh, there wasn't that many people that wanted to, that

00:09:24.700 wanted to do this.

00:09:26.340 Um, I remember the first time I met, uh, they called him a seal motivator.

00:09:31.960 He was, he was kind of a guy that would go around, I don't know the country who was a

00:09:37.380 seal.

00:09:37.680 And then now he's, he's teaching you how to swim and, and, and kind of refining some

00:09:44.960 of your techniques with running and swimming and, and some things that you might expect.

00:09:50.080 And, uh, he had, he just carried himself different than, than anybody else I'd been around before.

00:09:58.020 So it, there's, there's definitely a type now, knowing what you know, is that, does that come

00:10:07.200 from combat or just the grueling nature of seal training? Like guys who are going through it

00:10:13.200 today, can they get that without actually going into combat? Like you have?

00:10:17.320 Oh, I think so. I mean, I, I, I do believe that.

00:10:20.700 So the, the Navy will get it into you.

00:10:23.460 They will figure out a way.

00:10:25.460 I I'm thrilled and impressed and want to do it.

00:10:28.500 And a secret version of myself would love to try this.

00:10:30.640 I don't think I can, I can't really even make it through 10 minutes of jumping jacks

00:10:35.420 in my hit class, but in my mind, this could happen for me someday.

00:10:40.860 And, um, we've had lots of tough guys come on here and talk about how the toughest guys

00:10:45.020 they knew didn't make it through training, just couldn't make it through.

00:10:48.740 It's just a mind over matter kind of situation, but you're telling me you didn't have anything

00:10:53.160 in your past that told you, you could, you could put mind over matter and accomplish

00:10:58.380 this.

00:10:58.660 No, I didn't.

00:10:59.580 I didn't.

00:11:00.480 And, um, so it was, I mean, I was an 18 year old kid at Bud's and, uh, I, it was, it was,

00:11:08.420 I mean, it's scary to see who quits, you know?

00:11:12.420 I mean, you're seeing people that you look up to people that, I mean, you're, you're

00:11:17.720 constantly measuring up to somebody else and comparing yourself to somebody else and

00:11:21.900 going, Oh, you know, if that guy, if that guy didn't make it, I, I don't, I don't think

00:11:27.640 I have a chance.

00:11:28.460 And so you just put your head down and drive on and try to make it to the next meal, try

00:11:35.000 to make it to the next day and, and, uh, and just keep driving on.

00:11:38.780 And, and, and it, it, it got to the point where I did, I wanted to quit, but, um, but

00:11:44.900 I, I could not, I could not face calling my parents and tell them that I, I had failed

00:11:52.400 again.

00:11:53.020 Oh, wow.

00:11:53.920 So.

00:11:54.740 Yeah.

00:11:55.180 I've had guys say that there was no way I was going to see my father's name on that hat

00:11:59.080 and ring that bell.

00:12:00.160 Nope.

00:12:00.980 Not me.

00:12:02.480 Hmm.

00:12:03.540 So you, you talked a little bit about your upbringing.

00:12:06.540 Was it a modest upbringing?

00:12:08.560 Like what kind of childhood did you have?

00:12:11.040 Yeah.

00:12:11.340 Uh, I mean, I would say upper middle class, uh, upbringing and small town.

00:12:18.520 We moved around a lot, probably moved over 10 times, um, in my childhood, but we finally

00:12:24.880 settled in Missouri and a small farm town known as Chillicothe, Missouri.

00:12:30.100 And, uh, hadn't been back there in several years, but, but I was, I liked full contact

00:12:36.600 sports, tried football, was too small, couldn't make it, got into wrestling, was a mediocre

00:12:42.160 wrestler, nothing, nothing, uh, no state championships or anything like that.

00:12:47.080 Just kind of an average kid troublemaker, really into booze and partying.

00:12:54.000 And, uh, and, uh, yeah, I mean, that was, that was my childhood.

00:13:00.120 Did you have strict parents?

00:13:01.880 They tried to be strict, but, uh, but, uh,

00:13:05.520 You managed to find ways around it.

00:13:07.020 I would, uh,

00:13:07.860 That was the future CAA contractor.

00:13:09.600 That's the foundation was being laid.

00:13:11.800 Little did they know this is important research for you.

00:13:13.860 Yeah.

00:13:14.160 Good point.

00:13:14.780 Good point.

00:13:15.560 But, um, yeah, I mean, they were definitely against a lot of the things that I was doing.

00:13:20.080 And I was, they were not happy that I was drinking.

00:13:24.280 They were not happy with some of the crowd that I was running around with.

00:13:28.100 They were not happy with my grades.

00:13:30.640 And, um, and, uh, yeah, you know what?

00:13:34.140 Like I said, when it came time to make, make some decisions on what I'm going to do with

00:13:38.820 my future, I did take a hard look.

00:13:41.540 And, and, um, and so I went the military route.

00:13:45.680 Um, I was just talking to Riley Gaines not long ago.

00:13:49.080 She was talking about how, you know, she's this competitive swimmer and now she's an

00:13:52.720 activist on the trans insanity that's happening to women.

00:13:55.920 And, um, she was talking about how her dad put her in the pool one time and just made

00:13:59.400 her be in that pool for some eight to 10 minutes, freezing cold.

00:14:02.860 It was not a summer pool.

00:14:04.500 He pulled off the cover during the winter, made her get in.

00:14:07.320 And it was an exercise in mental toughness, you know, just to like, you're not cold.

00:14:11.300 You gotta get, that's you guys, you do, you do that every day during SEAL training.

00:14:15.680 When you're a SEAL, it's horrid and it is somewhat tortuous from what I've heard.

00:14:21.240 So when you finally see yourself in those situations, how do you, how do you say I'm not quitting?

00:14:26.900 How do you get through?

00:14:27.560 How do you get from minute 10 to minute 11 to minute 12?

00:14:32.300 I mean, it, you just have to dig deep.

00:14:35.780 I mean, it's not, it's not, it is very physical, but it's more mental.

00:14:41.340 And so everybody, everybody in training is going to break.

00:14:45.600 They're just, it's going to happen.

00:14:47.300 And it just, you get to this point where you go numb.

00:14:54.860 You get to this point where you go numb and, and then it just doesn't matter anymore.

00:15:00.000 Nobody, nobody really quits after, I think Wednesday night is the day where it's very,

00:15:05.200 very rare for anybody to quit, but it's just, it's breaking time down.

00:15:10.900 And, and instead of going, I'm going to make it through this entire six months, it's, I'm

00:15:16.080 going to make it to hell week.

00:15:18.060 And then when you get to hell week, it's, I'm just going to make it to the next meal or

00:15:21.900 I'm going to make it to the next med check.

00:15:24.280 And, and by Wednesday night, I mean, you're, you haven't slept.

00:15:28.960 Remind me of when it starts.

00:15:30.280 It starts, I think it starts on Sunday night and I believe it's done Friday night.

00:15:35.620 Okay.

00:15:35.920 It's five days, um, with minimal sleep, but, but your muscles break down.

00:15:42.880 You get, um, what do they call it?

00:15:47.060 Elephantitis.

00:15:47.640 Your, your ankle starts swelling up.

00:15:49.780 You're.

00:15:50.040 Oh, I had that when I was pregnant.

00:15:51.220 Oh, really?

00:15:51.900 No, I mean, it just happens naturally.

00:15:54.120 Everything swells up.

00:15:55.340 Yeah.

00:15:56.000 But, um, but, uh, it's, it's just, it's, it's doing those little time hacks and just breaking

00:16:01.880 it down and making it to the next meal, making it to the next med check, checking your buddies

00:16:07.460 by Wednesday.

00:16:08.540 You know, it's a pretty tight group.

00:16:10.600 Everybody's pretty much gone.

00:16:12.120 And, and you kind of just go into maybe this flow state, you know, and you're just, you're

00:16:19.300 just moving.

00:16:19.740 So, yeah, it sounds kind of transcendent in a way.

00:16:24.260 So then you have to actually be a Navy SEAL, which is no easier.

00:16:28.540 And especially when you complete your training in July of 2001, all hell breaks loose in

00:16:34.360 the country, in the world.

00:16:35.320 And how many combat deployments did you have?

00:16:40.180 With the SEAL teams, I had two combat deployments.

00:16:43.660 To Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:16:45.000 Yep.

00:16:45.380 Okay.

00:16:46.120 And two different SEAL teams?

00:16:48.940 Yeah.

00:16:49.180 So there was, so when I got into the SEAL teams, it was around 2003 and the first deployment,

00:16:58.020 we went to Germany, which was, uh, a really boring deployment.

00:17:02.380 And then we went to Afghanistan, uh, in the late summer of 05, I believe.

00:17:10.140 And how long were you there?

00:17:14.000 We were only there for three months.

00:17:16.180 So it was, it was right after Red Wings happened.

00:17:19.920 Are you familiar with Red Wings, the lone survivor?

00:17:22.480 Oh yeah, of course.

00:17:23.020 Yes.

00:17:23.320 I've had Marcus on.

00:17:24.420 He's amazing.

00:17:25.080 Yeah.

00:17:25.440 So we relieved them, uh, after that happened, that was the biggest SEAL team, uh, the biggest

00:17:30.300 loss in SEAL team history at the time.

00:17:32.740 And, uh, it was the SOCOM was doing the surge where they want, they needed more guys.

00:17:40.060 And so they sped up the deployment cycle and that's, so I went from SEAL team eight to

00:17:45.640 SEAL team two, uh, did my Afghanistan deployment with SEAL team two.

00:17:50.920 We, we didn't do a whole lot there.

00:17:54.120 There was a lot of, there was a lot of political stuff going on after that operation.

00:17:58.540 And, uh, to be a hundred percent honest, I was really dissatisfied.

00:18:05.060 I, I went to the teams to go to war and to fight for the country.

00:18:09.780 And I, I wasn't getting enough.

00:18:12.240 I think we did one direct action, uh, that entire deployment took a couple of prisoners,

00:18:18.440 uh, no shots fired.

00:18:20.520 And then, and then we got, our Admiral pulled us out of the country.

00:18:25.820 And so at that point I kind of made a decision, um, for me, this, this wasn't what I had expected.

00:18:32.820 And so I told, uh, my leadership, I said, Hey, um, this is going to be my last pump.

00:18:39.960 I'm not doing another one.

00:18:41.820 I'd like to finish my enlistment out on deployment.

00:18:44.880 So, uh, we had a sister platoon that was in Baghdad, uh, that was running a lot of sniper

00:18:50.640 operations.

00:18:51.900 And so I volunteered to go there and they threw my name in the hat and I, I got lucky

00:18:57.600 and went.

00:18:58.620 Volunteered to go to Baghdad.

00:18:59.980 Yeah.

00:19:00.540 In 2000.

00:19:01.640 That would have been 2000 late Oh five or six.

00:19:07.200 I mean, the worst absolute time to be in Baghdad for anybody, you know, who's not ready to fight

00:19:12.900 and kill and risk their life.

00:19:14.120 I mean, that was just a devastating time.

00:19:16.040 I remember just as a journalist covering those years and that's when all the beheading started

00:19:20.880 and it was bad.

00:19:22.480 It was about as bad as it could be.

00:19:25.060 I mean, it's amazing.

00:19:26.800 Again, it being Memorial day, I have to think about guys like you who volunteered to go into

00:19:30.740 it.

00:19:31.480 The guys who volunteered to go into the buildings on nine 11 at great risk to themselves.

00:19:36.120 And then their brothers in arms in a way who volunteered to go into the fire in a different

00:19:40.740 way.

00:19:40.920 A couple of years after that, we all have a lot to be thankful for.

00:19:44.500 So how long were you there?

00:19:46.420 I was in Baghdad for about four months.

00:19:49.740 And so we got there.

00:19:52.180 The operational tempo was pretty slow at first.

00:19:55.140 There was an election going on, if I remember.

00:19:58.280 And, and then we, we were on the hook to do like protection for the, for the Iraqi government

00:20:08.720 officials and, and nothing was happening.

00:20:12.080 So we wound up the Lieutenant through our name in the hat to just help conventional units

00:20:18.960 who were getting blown up on, on their reconnaissance routes, supply routes, whatever the routes

00:20:25.580 were.

00:20:25.920 I mean, there was, they had these bombs called EFPs over there, which were, um, I don't know

00:20:31.620 if you remember, maybe you covered this, but they would basically put them on the side of

00:20:36.640 the road and they could be triggered by IR lasers.

00:20:39.980 So they would pick up heat sensitivity to engine blocks and they had, they had the timing down

00:20:47.360 perfectly to where the projectile would go through the passenger or driver's side door

00:20:52.700 of, of the Humvees and basically would vaporize everything in the vehicle.

00:20:57.940 And you'd just get sucked out of a little hole on the back end.

00:21:02.560 And, um, so that was, that was chewing a lot of our guys up and, uh, we just got tired of

00:21:10.300 seeing these conventional guys just get crushed by these EFPs.

00:21:14.720 And so, so we started attaching ourselves to these conventional units, uh, that didn't

00:21:20.580 have the knowledge or know-how on how to kind of combat this, set up a targeting package

00:21:25.020 to get these guys.

00:21:27.280 And so what we would do is we would, we would get in with them in bed with them, train them

00:21:32.420 for a couple of weeks, uh, bring them out, teach them how to set up sniper hides, teach

00:21:37.200 them how to do a targeting package, teach them how to conduct surveillance, teach them how

00:21:42.780 to start running assets, uh, within the local population to, to try to figure out who's doing

00:21:48.240 this and teach them how to shoot, taught them everything.

00:21:51.800 Um, um, gave them a lot of stuff.

00:21:55.680 We really kind of like took these guys under our wings and then we would take them out on

00:22:00.380 operations.

00:22:01.500 And, um, so we would go out, find all the places they were getting hit and set up sniper

00:22:07.920 teams along all of those different routes, all those, uh, points of interest.

00:22:14.020 And we would take each sniper observation team would take maybe one or two conventional

00:22:20.840 guys with them on the actual operation.

00:22:24.000 And, uh, and we started killing bad guys.

00:22:28.640 Mm-hmm.

00:22:29.100 Mm-hmm.

00:22:29.440 Started to turn things the other way.

00:22:32.160 You must've lost a lot of friends.

00:22:34.380 Uh, every guy who serves does, and you're one of the lucky ones if nothing happens to

00:22:38.340 you, uh, to take a limb or a traumatic brain injury.

00:22:41.900 As you're going through it, there's no time to deal with any of that, right?

00:22:47.380 It's just forward.

00:22:48.480 Like we talked about in the, in the training, just forward.

00:22:50.520 There's no time to think about that stuff, but you're, you're in active combat situations

00:22:55.520 in Iraq and Afghanistan, and eventually that stops, right?

00:22:59.160 Mm-hmm.

00:22:59.820 And at, is it at that point that you have to deal with that or is it later?

00:23:05.340 Because I know then comes a CIA stint.

00:23:08.460 It's, it's a gradual, it just comes on gradual.

00:23:15.760 And, um, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of coping mechanisms, uh, that we use

00:23:23.740 and, uh, you know, in the early days, nobody knew any, any better, you know, uh, that kind

00:23:40.580 of all came crashing down later on for a lot of guys.

00:23:43.720 And that's what we cover on my show, but, um, it took, it took a while, you know, for

00:23:52.120 that stuff to start sinking in probably well into my contracting career at the agency.

00:23:58.760 Mm-hmm.

00:23:59.760 Well, that's the thing.

00:24:00.920 If when you have massive crises, especially repeated and ongoing sustained crises, there's

00:24:06.280 only one way, like you have to compartmentalize.

00:24:08.420 How, how could you possibly function?

00:24:10.000 Yeah.

00:24:10.400 If you were dealing with any of it, you're not, you actually are human despite all appearances

00:24:16.800 of our seals and our rangers and all those guys.

00:24:19.900 So was it right after your service in Iraq that you decided to join the agency?

00:24:24.700 No, honestly, I didn't want to, I never wanted to go back and, uh, I wanted to pursue some

00:24:31.940 type of a career in business.

00:24:33.940 And so I tried a lot of things, uh, civilian life.

00:24:38.080 I just, I wasn't ready for it yet.

00:24:40.820 And, uh, I decided that I'd missed the brotherhood, the camaraderie, the, the obnoxiousness of being

00:24:50.960 on a team.

00:24:52.100 And so I, I decided I would try to get into a fire academy.

00:24:57.500 And, uh, and I did.

00:25:00.520 Wasn't, it wasn't what it wasn't.

00:25:02.800 What do you mean?

00:25:03.180 Fire academy.

00:25:04.140 It's a firefighter.

00:25:05.260 Firefighter.

00:25:05.440 Okay.

00:25:05.660 Yeah.

00:25:06.020 I wanted to be, I just thought, well, that seems like the next best thing to what I was

00:25:10.700 a part of.

00:25:11.680 And, um, it just wasn't going to work for me.

00:25:14.460 A lot of family ties help in the fire service.

00:25:18.420 And I had none.

00:25:19.140 And so I had a friend and, um, that was in Afghanistan with me, another seal.

00:25:25.940 And he said, Hey, uh, I'm working for Blackwater and I think you should come work with us.

00:25:34.000 And I had seen a lot of the Blackwater contractors and heard a lot of the stuff that was going

00:25:38.660 on over there at the time.

00:25:40.460 Some of it was true.

00:25:41.260 Some of it wound up not being true, but, uh, I decided to, while I was over there and I

00:25:46.660 saw how those guys operated, I just, I didn't want to be a part of the contracting career

00:25:50.540 and, uh, especially at Blackwater.

00:25:53.340 And so I'd express that to him and he said, this is different.

00:25:59.220 This is a different project.

00:26:00.980 The qualifications all have to be, um, at least six years at special operations or above.

00:26:09.040 Uh, then there's a month long tryout.

00:26:11.460 I can't tell you who I'm working for.

00:26:13.940 Um, but I think you would really fit in well here.

00:26:16.820 And it's, it's, it's, it's not what you're thinking.

00:26:19.540 It's very high caliber, um, operators working here.

00:26:23.820 So, so I threw my name in the hat and, uh, took about six months to get a call back.

00:26:30.360 And then I did, and it was just an email that said, Hey, be here at this time, bring this

00:26:35.900 year with you.

00:26:37.200 Um, and, uh, it was a vetting course.

00:26:41.660 So that was for Blackwater.

00:26:44.300 So I don't know how familiar you are with Blackwater, but Blackwater is a massive organization

00:26:51.240 and they have, so under Blackwater, they have all these different contracts.

00:26:55.720 They have the department of state contract.

00:26:57.840 They have the DEA contract.

00:27:00.460 They have probably all kinds of government contracts.

00:27:04.740 And then in the very back of the compound, which Blackwater compound was, I don't know

00:27:10.020 how many thousands of acres, uh, is the black, the black sites.

00:27:15.080 And so, uh, you go back there, they don't tell you anything.

00:27:20.100 And, um, you're with, with a group of guys and you start off with a PT test and then you

00:27:27.800 do some shooting qualifications.

00:27:29.240 They don't really tell you what the standards are.

00:27:32.540 They're just, it's just, just, here's the time, do your best.

00:27:38.180 And, um, or sometimes when they won't even give you the time, just hit that target as many

00:27:44.020 times as you can and, uh, as fast as possible.

00:27:48.360 And so you do that and it's, you know, it's really, uh, it's, you don't know the standard

00:27:55.820 and that's the biggest stressor is there's nobody.

00:27:59.160 It's not succeeding.

00:27:59.900 What's failing.

00:28:00.320 Yeah, you don't, you have no idea and, um, you don't even know if you passed at the end

00:28:05.260 of the day or not.

00:28:06.580 And so it's just, I mean, you, you know, you passed if you're showing up the next day to

00:28:13.500 work, to try out.

00:28:15.480 And so we had made it through the shooting qualifications and then you go through a lot

00:28:20.840 of kind of situational stuff.

00:28:22.260 They'll put you in these, in these situations.

00:28:24.380 Uh, and they want to just see how you react, how you can lead a team, how you can integrate

00:28:29.900 him with a team.

00:28:31.540 Um, all kinds of different scenarios, scenarios that you're never going to fight your way

00:28:36.060 out of.

00:28:37.060 Uh, lots of civilians.

00:28:38.480 Uh, they would plant lots of like role players, uh, with simunition rounds, which is basically,

00:28:44.700 uh, kind of like a paintball gun, but more realistic.

00:28:47.500 And it will put you in all these scenarios to see if you can keep your cool, uh, under

00:28:54.320 pressure, not shooting any innocent civilians.

00:28:59.320 Uh, it was a protection type gig as, as well.

00:29:02.740 So a lot of times they would have like some type of an asset that you're, you have to go

00:29:07.340 in and extract.

00:29:09.180 And, um, I made it through that.

00:29:12.980 And then at the very end, uh, they, there was also driving surveillance, all kinds of

00:29:17.860 stuff, uh, that they wanted to just kind of see how you were in, in all these different

00:29:23.340 scenarios.

00:29:23.720 And at the end, they, they, they give you the brief and say, Hey, you know, this is

00:29:27.920 the OGA, other government agency, CIA contract.

00:29:32.680 And, uh, they started looking for dates to, to go overseas.

00:29:36.580 Yes.

00:29:36.780 But you don't know for what?

00:29:38.460 No, you never know.

00:29:39.800 You just know that you've been selected as this elite kind of service member and whatever

00:29:46.300 it is is going to be very high level and complicated and complex, right?

00:29:50.780 So you're in, but you don't know what you're in for.

00:29:53.640 Yeah.

00:29:54.160 Well, that's disconcerting.

00:29:55.540 Just listening to yours.

00:29:56.820 You are cool.

00:29:57.580 You are calm.

00:29:58.340 Like that, that probably really helped you.

00:30:00.900 I mean, I was just thinking, who do I know?

00:30:03.700 Who's kind of more on the hysterical end?

00:30:05.960 I don't know her, but she's the only one who came to mind.

00:30:08.080 Somebody like a Bethany Frankel, the former real housewife.

00:30:11.460 I know that's a bizarre compare, but I mean, she's tightly wound, Sean.

00:30:14.640 She's like, oh, he's like, everything is up here.

00:30:16.780 Right.

00:30:17.260 And you're just the opposite of it.

00:30:18.920 I just kind of have a cool cat, like a low blood pressure kind of guy.

00:30:22.260 Well, I mean, when you're in a job like that, and I'm sure you can relate being on TV and,

00:30:27.640 and with the career that you've had, but I mean, it's so, it is, it gets to be so high

00:30:32.420 stress every day you're being judged.

00:30:36.320 You're being graded.

00:30:38.080 It's, do you have what it takes to be a part of this team?

00:30:40.960 You know, from the, from, from SEAL training through the, through the teams, the six years

00:30:45.920 that I was there to CIA or Blackwater training for the subcontract of CIA contractor.

00:30:52.920 I mean, it's just, you have to get to the point where you can, you know, blow that stuff

00:30:58.580 off.

00:30:58.940 And, and that, that came to me in the teams.

00:31:02.700 It, it, I was constantly just, it was just stress all the time.

00:31:08.740 Do I deserve to be here?

00:31:10.060 Am I going to get kicked out this week?

00:31:12.000 Um, you know, what does my team think of me?

00:31:14.640 I'm a new guy and you have to, and, and that stuff can hinder your performance.

00:31:19.620 And so, you know, the most, the most stressful thing you can do, at least for me as an operator

00:31:27.760 is when you're doing the kill house, which is, which is entering buildings, saving hostages,

00:31:34.020 killing bad guys, all in your face, clearing houses, basically.

00:31:38.000 And we're talking about real life now or the training.

00:31:39.760 We're talking about training and real life, but, but primarily, I guess, primarily training.

00:31:45.760 And it's, it, it gets to the point where if you let this stuff get to you, every, every

00:31:50.380 house, we call them a house run, where you, you go through the doors, maybe you blow the

00:31:54.460 doors, maybe you're climbing in a window, maybe you're coming in from the rooftop, doesn't

00:31:58.300 matter.

00:31:58.820 But once you enter that house and training, every, every move you make is critiqued and it

00:32:08.760 can make it seem like, and purposely that, that they're picking on you, that you're not

00:32:13.220 any good, that, that they don't want you there.

00:32:16.880 And you just have to get to the point where you can't let that stuff affect you.

00:32:21.660 It just got to the point in the teams where I, I, I, I had hit this mental switch where

00:32:28.580 I don't care anymore.

00:32:31.180 I had like tricked myself into thinking, I don't care how this run, this house run ends.

00:32:38.200 I don't care what these guys think of me.

00:32:40.700 I'm just going to do the best I can do.

00:32:42.360 And that's, that's all I can do.

00:32:43.920 Do you know the, the free solo movie and that the story about that mountain climber who refused

00:32:49.100 to use any lines and supports and he wound up dying, but they talk about these guys who

00:32:54.200 climb these mountains and they're, they're nuts.

00:32:56.560 They do it with no support.

00:32:57.860 You know, there's, there's nothing to, you know, and a lot of them do die.

00:33:01.420 Uh, but they identify with a lot of these guys that they've lost their ability to get an

00:33:06.860 adrenaline search and that's actually one of the reasons why they do it the way they

00:33:10.600 do it without all the belts and suspenders.

00:33:14.960 Can you relate to that at all?

00:33:16.200 Oh yeah.

00:33:16.720 Do you, do you lose adrenaline?

00:33:18.800 Yeah.

00:33:19.260 And then maybe crossing over to it's gone.

00:33:21.980 Like, where is it?

00:33:22.620 How can I get it again?

00:33:23.520 Yeah.

00:33:25.380 You find it through, I mean, that's why so many guys honestly wind back up in the, in

00:33:31.100 the contracting arena is especially like these guys, you know, that, that spend 30 plus years

00:33:37.480 at the seal teams or a SF team or Delta or wherever, Rangers, Marsock.

00:33:47.000 You can't, you, it, it, it's never enough.

00:33:49.740 I mean, it's like, it's like a heroin addiction, you know, you're constantly looking for the fix

00:33:55.280 and then it gets so bad that, that even on your off time, you know, you're looking for it.

00:34:01.240 It's not, you can't take six months and not feel that it is.

00:34:07.880 It's the pinnacle of your existence at the time.

00:34:11.080 I can't imagine, you know, just the other night I was at a dinner party at a friend's

00:34:16.140 house in Connecticut and it was absolutely lovely.

00:34:18.120 The hostess knew all the right things to do.

00:34:21.100 We had a lovely cocktail hour.

00:34:22.320 We sat down for dinner.

00:34:23.380 There was even some dancing after the fact, which was a successful cocktail party, a dinner

00:34:27.080 party by any measure.

00:34:28.500 I can't imagine a Sean Ryan having lived the life you've lived, right?

00:34:34.980 Coming back from all of that and even participating in such.

00:34:38.780 I mean, I just feel like your whole life must, must have been, you know, when this was done,

00:34:43.800 like, what is this?

00:34:46.220 Who are these people?

00:34:47.980 What is, does, this is just absolute drivel around me everywhere.

00:34:52.660 None of this matters.

00:34:54.260 Did you go through that?

00:34:55.620 Oh yeah.

00:34:56.940 It created a lot of anxiety.

00:34:59.520 A lot of anxiety.

00:35:00.460 I had really bad social anxiety when I, when I left the agency.

00:35:03.920 And, uh, I just, I mean, you are thrown into a world that you thought you knew and

00:35:16.200 it's just, it's, it's hard.

00:35:21.220 I mean, it's really hard to relate to anybody who has not lived the kind of life that you've

00:35:27.420 lived.

00:35:27.900 Yeah.

00:35:28.020 It takes a long time, you know, and it, it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of self-work.

00:35:32.900 It's like you were on Mars for 14 years.

00:35:35.040 Pretty much.

00:35:35.760 Yeah.

00:35:36.020 That's a good way to put it.

00:35:37.100 Right.

00:35:37.560 And you come back and earth has changed a lot.

00:35:39.760 You know, now there's an internet, internet, GPS and iPhones and social media.

00:35:44.060 So it's just like the dramatic changes.

00:35:46.260 And a lot of different opinions on what we're doing over there.

00:35:49.360 So can you help me understand, because we talked about leaving seal, the seals and going

00:35:52.920 to Blackwater and then, but that, and that, do you count that as CIA time?

00:35:57.660 I don't totally understand.

00:35:58.860 So, so, so I spent a very brief time at Blackwater as well.

00:36:02.560 So I did two deployments, I think with Blackwater and, but you're under, so basically if you're

00:36:12.340 going to get your housework done, right, you're going to use a general contractor and then

00:36:16.440 he's going to subcontract out the plumbing, the drywall, the air conditioning.

00:36:21.300 So think of like, think of Blackwater as the general contractor for the U.S. government.

00:36:28.680 And so then Department of State is, says, hey, we need 500 guys to, in Baghdad to protect all of

00:36:37.820 our state diplomats.

00:36:40.500 Okay.

00:36:40.960 So Blackwater goes and they, what do you, what kind of guys do you want?

00:36:44.240 What do you want to pay?

00:36:45.740 You know, what qualifications are you looking for?

00:36:48.020 And then they go find those type of people, train them up, put them through a vetting

00:36:51.920 course, and then here's your 500 guys.

00:36:54.380 And so CIA does the same thing.

00:36:56.220 It's, hey, we need, we have this very particular set of skills we're looking for.

00:37:01.080 This is the job description.

00:37:03.120 You guys, you, Blackwater, go find these guys for us.

00:37:07.300 So we're basically subcontractors for the agency.

00:37:11.000 Okay.

00:37:11.320 Does that make sense?

00:37:11.940 Yeah.

00:37:12.300 Why?

00:37:12.840 I don't understand Blackwater that well, but why would they not just go tap the seals or,

00:37:18.920 you know, the Green Berets or why would they go to Blackwater for any of this?

00:37:24.020 That's a great question.

00:37:25.100 I wish I could answer that.

00:37:26.700 And they do, they do go direct.

00:37:28.640 And so later on in my career, after Blackwater, I wound up, they, I, I had taken a break from

00:37:34.160 Blackwater.

00:37:34.700 Then I went to a company called SOC, uh, did a couple of appointments with them, got kind

00:37:41.120 of tired of the agency stuff for a little bit.

00:37:43.080 So then I jumped on an anti-piracy gig, um, back, do you remember the Marisk, Alabama?

00:37:49.040 Yeah.

00:37:49.180 So after that happened, um, all these contracts spun up and it was, all right, we need, we

00:37:55.740 need seals on ships to kill pirates that are trying to, you know, kidnap the crew and

00:38:01.560 take over the ship.

00:38:02.380 It's just another day at work.

00:38:03.420 Yeah.

00:38:03.800 And ransom.

00:38:04.700 No, that's like Rob O'Neill.

00:38:05.840 I told him he's like the Waldo of, you know, servicemen.

00:38:08.980 He's everywhere.

00:38:09.880 Yeah.

00:38:10.300 Every movie that's ever been made, Rob O'Neill had a role in it.

00:38:12.640 He's been on all of the ops, right?

00:38:14.200 But, um, yeah, but, uh, so I did that for two deployments and then, and then, uh, the

00:38:20.400 agency got back in touch with me and then they, they wanted me to come work direct for

00:38:24.560 them, uh, as a contractor, but not through any companies.

00:38:27.760 Okay.

00:38:28.360 And so now you're actually earning some money.

00:38:30.480 Yeah.

00:38:31.040 So that's good.

00:38:31.820 Yeah.

00:38:32.240 I mean, more so than you ever got paid by the, by the Navy.

00:38:35.540 Way more than I got paid for.

00:38:37.220 But can you get rich doing that or not really?

00:38:39.940 Uh, I mean, I guess it depends on how you invest your money.

00:38:43.500 I mean, at that time, a good rate was about a thousand dollars a day.

00:38:48.260 Um, so that would be a really, that would be a good rate.

00:38:53.080 Um, some guys, a low rate would be about 550 a day.

00:38:57.380 And so, um, yeah, I mean, it depends on how much you want to deploy.

00:39:03.080 Where are you sitting in between, in between deployments?

00:39:05.820 Are you back here?

00:39:06.800 Like going to the movies and Starbucks?

00:39:10.680 I spent a lot of time.

00:39:14.620 Well, I mean, it was 14 agency was about.

00:39:18.260 A little shy of nine years.

00:39:20.040 And so I would, man, I would go all over.

00:39:26.060 But, uh, towards the end, I started going to Columbia, South America.

00:39:31.820 This was not a good period in your life.

00:39:34.020 You know about this.

00:39:35.480 Nothing good happens in Columbia.

00:39:36.720 Nothing good does happen in Columbia.

00:39:39.800 Now I do know a little bit about your troubles.

00:39:42.740 And that was a rough period for you.

00:39:44.600 Explain why and why Columbia?

00:39:47.000 Well, um, originally I went to Columbia because when I joined the SEAL teams, I had always wanted

00:39:54.520 to go to team four because I wanted to do the counter drug ops.

00:39:57.720 Well, then, you know, 9-11 kicked off, obviously.

00:40:01.540 And, uh, that wasn't a focus at all.

00:40:04.540 And so, um, when I was in the agency, I'd broken up with, uh, with a girlfriend.

00:40:10.580 And so I decided I wanted to travel.

00:40:13.220 And I'd always, I was just in fact, I mean, those were all the documentaries I was watching

00:40:17.520 when I went to the recruiter.

00:40:18.720 It was, that was the only thing going on at the time was Panama and kind of the, the, the

00:40:24.220 counter drug situation down in South America, which a lot of that was in Columbia.

00:40:29.180 Since documented in shows like Narcos.

00:40:31.820 Yeah.

00:40:32.440 Yeah.

00:40:32.780 And, um, and, uh, so I decided I wanted to go check it out down there.

00:40:38.020 And, um, so I, I mean, that's crazy talk just, just like as a pin in this car.

00:40:43.400 That's crazy talk.

00:40:44.680 Nobody looks at a show like Narcos or Panama and says, yes, I want to go there.

00:40:50.180 That's you.

00:40:51.780 All normal people are like, thank God that's down there.

00:40:54.960 Yeah.

00:40:55.240 Well, I mean, I want, it was for a number, I wanted to see, I just, I wanted to be in

00:41:01.420 a jungle environment.

00:41:02.880 And, uh, so I went to check it out, had a, a great time.

00:41:07.460 And, uh, and so I kept, I just kept going back, kept going back, kept going back all

00:41:12.880 the way past my time at the agency.

00:41:15.080 But, uh, then it turned into, we had just kind of spoken about addiction to adrenaline.

00:41:21.980 And so I was going down there doing a lot of stuff that I shouldn't be doing, cocaine.

00:41:30.300 And, and, and then once I left, uh, the agency, I kind of started building a network down there.

00:41:39.340 And, um, it just, it was exciting to me.

00:41:42.900 I was in overseas building my own network, kind of felt like I was kind of running my own

00:41:51.780 operations, what kind of operations, uh, drug networks.

00:41:56.340 And so I wanted to see how deep into the kind of narcos network I could get myself.

00:42:05.360 And, but this was not for crime fighting.

00:42:08.000 No, this was for crime committee.

00:42:11.040 Pretty much.

00:42:11.980 Yeah.

00:42:12.220 And, um, so I kind of started at street level and built a network out and went to clubs and

00:42:19.740 met people and, and, and, and found my guys and started testing cocaine and finding the

00:42:28.060 best stuff.

00:42:28.640 And, and, and I found it and, um, and that lasted for, for a couple of years.

00:42:35.180 And I would bounce, I would just bounce.

00:42:37.160 I mean, it was really, I got a lot of satisfaction out of the adrenaline and seeing, and just seeing

00:42:45.260 how much I could have been my embed myself into these different cultures.

00:42:49.760 And so then I started flying all over the, all over South America.

00:42:53.240 I started going to Peru and starting to build network there and Dominican Republic and Panama,

00:43:00.780 all over Columbia, um, all over the country and, uh, Costa Rica.

00:43:07.440 And then I started looking up the most dangerous places you could go in the world.

00:43:11.000 And at the time it was San Pedro, Sula, Honduras.

00:43:15.260 So I went there and started, uh, I didn't get very far there, but, uh, but, um, that was,

00:43:23.120 that was my life for several years.

00:43:26.700 Wow.

00:43:27.200 And the, the part was cocaine and you would find what like would be dealers, people to

00:43:31.580 distribute it.

00:43:32.420 I would find dealers and then I would find their dealers and then I would find where their

00:43:37.660 dealers get their stuff and, and I got to a pretty high level.

00:43:42.760 It's a miracle you weren't killed.

00:43:44.220 It is a miracle.

00:43:44.920 It was, I mean, I was, I mean, this is what I do for a living though, you know?

00:43:49.980 And so.

00:43:50.480 That's true.

00:43:50.780 You had some pretty superior training.

00:43:52.300 I was, I was pretty good at it and pretty fearless at the time.

00:43:57.660 So when you're talking to your old Navy SEAL buds or, you know, Blackwater buds and you're

00:44:03.900 down there and they're saying, what are you up to?

00:44:05.840 What were you saying?

00:44:07.620 I would just tell them.

00:44:09.180 I've crossed over to the other side.

00:44:10.900 I wouldn't tell them exactly what I'm doing, but I would, I mean, they knew everybody kind

00:44:15.660 of knew, you know, I mean, it just, I started losing friends.

00:44:21.820 Uh, I know the conversations were like, oh yeah, I mean, he's down in Columbia and nobody

00:44:27.060 really hears from him anymore.

00:44:28.920 And, uh, I would resurface every once in a while.

00:44:31.660 Sometimes guys would come down to see me.

00:44:33.680 They wouldn't last very long.

00:44:34.800 They'd head back out, um, immediately.

00:44:37.820 And, um, and, uh, it just, it got to be very dark.

00:44:44.080 And, uh, you know, I, I OD'd down there a couple of times.

00:44:52.420 And, uh, and I remember one time I woke up and, uh, it was like, it was mother's day.

00:45:06.580 And, uh, I remember, uh, I remember calling my mom and I was all, uh, junked out.

00:45:16.860 And, uh, I remember after that conversation that it, it just hit me like a ton of bricks

00:45:22.720 and, uh, and, uh, I knew I needed to pull myself out of that.

00:45:28.900 And it kind of like went right back to the time when, you know, I told you the only reason

00:45:34.200 I made it through buds was I didn't want to let my parents down.

00:45:36.780 And I sure as hell didn't want my parents to get a notice weeks later that their son had

00:45:44.660 OD'd on cocaine in a penthouse in Columbia.

00:45:47.760 And who knows how long that would take to even get to them.

00:45:50.780 And, and, uh, so it had, it had painted this picture in my head and, uh, I, I started seeking

00:45:59.960 help kind of.

00:46:01.720 It's a big moment.

00:46:02.840 Yeah.

00:46:04.720 Before you begin that path to redemption.

00:46:08.320 Yeah.

00:46:10.060 What got you there?

00:46:11.480 What made you establish residency in Columbia and go all over these countries, these, the

00:46:18.140 most dangerous countries on earth to mess with other people's drug rings.

00:46:21.780 My God, right.

00:46:22.920 It's like playing with plutonium for a living.

00:46:24.880 Yeah.

00:46:26.200 And be so reckless with your life and your wellbeing.

00:46:32.060 Uh, you know, I just, I just didn't value life anymore.

00:46:37.380 I didn't, I didn't care.

00:46:38.900 I mean, I had, I had expected to, I had expected to die down there.

00:46:44.080 Um, and, uh, and then when I got close, uh, I realized, uh, there's a lot more to life

00:46:51.700 than this.

00:46:52.360 And so, so I cleaned it up and, uh, truth be told, I mean, that was kind of an awakening,

00:46:58.300 but I wasn't a hundred percent ready to shut it down.

00:47:01.600 And then I had, you know, I had built quite the network down there and I got tipped off

00:47:08.940 that the federal police in Columbia were surveilling me and, uh, and people that I was with.

00:47:17.760 And, um, so I hid, I E and E'd out of the country.

00:47:23.880 What's E and E'd?

00:47:24.780 I mean, I just, I abruptly left and, uh, I did kind of a, um, we call them an SDR, but, uh,

00:47:33.460 surveillance detection route.

00:47:34.640 And I wanted to see if they were surveilling me, uh, if I was walking around town and,

00:47:40.020 um, so I got rid of everything, cleaned everything up and, uh, went to an internet cafe, booked

00:47:47.640 myself some tickets, uh, to a couple of different places, jumped on one and, and, uh, and left

00:47:55.560 the country.

00:47:56.180 Came back stateside?

00:47:57.000 Yeah.

00:47:57.620 Do we extradite to Columbia?

00:48:00.820 Just asking for a friend.

00:48:02.360 Yeah.

00:48:03.020 Yeah.

00:48:03.920 Um, but, uh, but yeah, no, I got out of there and, uh, went home, went home to Missouri,

00:48:13.140 talked to my parents.

00:48:14.580 They knew some, you told them was really wrong.

00:48:17.140 Tell them everything.

00:48:17.520 Yeah.

00:48:17.640 I don't remember telling them anything and, uh, woke up the next day after telling them with

00:48:23.120 a hangover.

00:48:23.700 And my dad, uh, was, I could just tell by the look on his face, um, that I must've spilled

00:48:32.720 probably just about everything.

00:48:35.360 What did the look say?

00:48:37.020 Very concerned.

00:48:38.460 Yeah.

00:48:38.840 And worried.

00:48:39.480 I didn't take it seriously.

00:48:40.980 I didn't think I needed any help.

00:48:42.700 And, um, I just kept at it.

00:48:45.780 Uh, what do you mean?

00:48:46.820 Kept at what?

00:48:47.560 I kept at, uh, I wouldn't put the bottle down.

00:48:50.080 Um, uh, wasn't ready to do that.

00:48:52.060 I don't think I could have done that.

00:48:53.440 And then, you know, through the career, I mean, you just, you know, I, I had mentioned,

00:48:59.300 you know, numbing it out and, and numbing it out becomes, uh, it's not even a cycle.

00:49:05.220 It's just this, it's just pills after pills.

00:49:08.560 It's a way of life.

00:49:09.100 It's, you know, it's volumes, Xanax, lorazepam, ambient, hydrocoating, oxy, tramadol, what kind

00:49:16.940 of whatever you can just wash down, uh, to shut the brain down and, and, and get some

00:49:22.680 rest.

00:49:23.700 And, uh, so I wasn't doing that.

00:49:26.500 I wasn't ready to clean that up.

00:49:29.020 I had, I had kind of weaned myself off the, off the Coke and, um, and then things just

00:49:40.740 weren't getting better.

00:49:41.560 My life wasn't developing afterwards.

00:49:43.320 And so I started going to therapy and, uh, and, uh, which was talk therapy.

00:49:51.260 Yeah.

00:49:51.580 I started going to talk therapy.

00:49:53.360 It extremely hesitant.

00:49:54.940 And I was, I thought, well, I need to go to somebody, I have to go to somebody that's

00:49:59.020 experienced what I've experienced.

00:50:00.380 I need like a Vietnam vet or, or somebody that has seen action and, uh, I couldn't find

00:50:10.540 anybody.

00:50:11.280 And, um, so I just Googled, I just Googled therapist, talked to two or three of them and walked into

00:50:20.180 one, uh, which was very, it was, uh, interesting because this was kind of before, before anybody

00:50:28.880 really knew about the suicide epidemic before PTSD and traumatic brain injury and operator

00:50:34.680 syndrome or whatever they're calling it this week, um, kind of started getting out there

00:50:39.240 and man, it was, uh, it took me a while to warm up, but it was, I love it.

00:50:48.520 Male or female?

00:50:49.260 Female.

00:50:50.660 Nice.

00:50:51.620 Yeah.

00:50:52.220 I love a female therapist.

00:50:53.300 Mine currently is male, but there was a woman who I Googled, uh, when I was leaving my first

00:50:57.960 husband before there was Doug, there was Dan with whom I'm still friends, but we did get

00:51:02.200 a divorce and, uh, same thing.

00:51:04.420 I Googled this woman and she totally changed my life.

00:51:06.700 You never know.

00:51:07.820 I mean, you can, you can strike gold and then there are yellow pages or Google pages as it

00:51:14.020 is now.

00:51:14.460 And I can relate to doing that and having it be a life changer.

00:51:19.780 Yeah.

00:51:20.740 It, uh, good for you.

00:51:22.760 I'm happy for you.

00:51:23.560 Oh, thank you.

00:51:24.200 Um, so yeah, interesting enough.

00:51:26.640 She had never talked, ever talked to a combat vet and wound up, I did my own research and,

00:51:35.540 uh, wound up being a, a pretty staunch liberal, uh, which I probably wouldn't have gone to

00:51:42.760 her.

00:51:43.000 So you were more conservative going in.

00:51:44.720 I know you lean right now, but back then you were too.

00:51:48.080 Yes.

00:51:48.380 Okay.

00:51:48.640 Definitely.

00:51:49.400 Probably more so.

00:51:51.060 But, um, but I gotta be honest, you know, that woman is like an angel and, uh, I don't,

00:51:59.440 I don't care what her political beliefs are.

00:52:02.820 That woman has saved more special ops guys, uh, from suicide than anybody, anybody.

00:52:13.000 Than anybody saved in combat than anybody I know.

00:52:16.120 And, uh, and, uh, she can, she still does it to this day.

00:52:20.140 And that was back in probably 20, 2015, 2016 timeframe.

00:52:25.440 And, uh, it was, it was me.

00:52:29.400 And when I, when I left the agency, I was also, uh, trying to save my best friend's life

00:52:34.680 who had a terrible heroin addiction.

00:52:36.920 And I talked him into going in to, to, to meet her.

00:52:40.840 And, and then I just started telling everybody.

00:52:44.720 And I remember, uh, my best friend's name was Gabe and we gave her a, a, uh, a seal team

00:52:52.140 plaque just to say, thank you.

00:52:56.060 And, uh, cause she was helping us out, uh, with, she had dubbed her prices down and, and,

00:53:02.480 uh, just, uh, uh, uh, an amazing woman.

00:53:06.160 And now you go in there and her entire office is just plaque after plaque after plaque.

00:53:14.040 Pretty soon you're going to see a Trump banner.

00:53:16.260 She's going to be wearing the MAGA hat.

00:53:17.480 Yeah, but, uh, that would be a sight to see.

00:53:22.440 But, um, but, um, but I mean, it, it, you know, the reason I say that is because there

00:53:28.960 are some things that can, that can, you know, political agendas don't, yeah, they don't get

00:53:35.460 in the way.

00:53:36.220 Transcend to politics.

00:53:37.080 You don't see that very often these days.

00:53:38.940 And I think that's important.

00:53:40.780 I love that you said that.

00:53:41.840 I feel the same.

00:53:42.740 I have very strong political views on a number of issues, but pretty much 80% of the people

00:53:49.300 around me who I love in my life, the woman who raised me, all my best friends, my best

00:53:54.780 friends growing up are liberal.

00:53:57.260 They're not woke, but they're liberal.

00:54:00.040 They're Democrats.

00:54:01.000 So I have tons of love in my heart for all of them, even though they don't vote the way

00:54:06.200 I vote and they don't feel the way I do about the issues that are really important to me,

00:54:10.700 but I don't care.

00:54:11.340 I, I, those don't have to be the stakes of the relationship.

00:54:14.340 Yeah.

00:54:15.140 It takes a strong person to, to overcome that these days.

00:54:18.380 Um, but they're out there.

00:54:20.840 Yeah.

00:54:21.520 Uh, do you say her name or at least her, her first name?

00:54:24.340 Her first name's Amy.

00:54:25.720 My lady was named Amy.

00:54:27.660 What area of the country was this?

00:54:29.020 The Missouri?

00:54:30.340 Well, no, no, that was, uh, that's, uh, South Florida.

00:54:34.520 Okay.

00:54:35.100 Yeah.

00:54:35.560 My lady was in the Virginia area, Northern Virginia.

00:54:38.320 Interesting.

00:54:38.980 Well, we'll talk after specifics.

00:54:41.500 But same thing.

00:54:43.260 Um, and I, when you were telling me that story, it reminded me, so, you know, we, we have military

00:54:48.900 guys on all the times.

00:54:50.100 I just absolutely respect the hell out of you guys and what you do.

00:54:53.140 And as I said, I would love to raise two little soldiers, but don't really want to for the

00:54:59.780 reasons discussed.

00:55:00.980 And, uh, we interviewed Dakota Meyer.

00:55:04.180 Oh.

00:55:04.620 And of course his story is just, it's incredible medal of honor.

00:55:08.940 Talked about how he was drunk up there when president Bush is pinning the medal on him

00:55:12.500 and, or was Obama.

00:55:13.960 And, um, he talked very openly about how difficult it was for him to come back and miss the guys

00:55:22.180 and miss the adrenaline and just dealing with the trauma of everything he'd seen and done.

00:55:27.300 And he talked about his own moment of super low and being rescued by an angel.

00:55:36.420 And we pulled the soundbite.

00:55:38.900 So take a watch.

00:55:39.720 I felt like where I was at in life at that point that, that, you know, that I just couldn't

00:55:47.160 get my stuff together and, and, and I just, I, I should fix it.

00:55:52.240 Right.

00:55:52.780 Like the fear I could see in people's eyes, you know, with me, like I was a monster.

00:55:57.220 It's just like drinking and just, you know, you know, the thing is, is that people don't

00:56:02.500 talk about this much, you know, you don't fight evil with nice people.

00:56:10.600 And I just, I remember driving home and I pulled off this highway at my buddy's shop

00:56:17.200 because I knew, you know, I didn't want anybody worried about me.

00:56:19.800 Right.

00:56:20.160 So I pulled in and I knew that he would be in cause he comes into work every morning.

00:56:25.620 And I just, yeah, I mean, I was, I was going to do it right there.

00:56:28.920 I stuck it to my head and I squeezed the trigger and it just like, it went click and there was

00:56:33.160 no round in it.

00:56:34.060 And I don't know if, you know, I, I, I feel like I know who did it.

00:56:38.100 I don't, I don't, I don't truly know though.

00:56:41.620 But he said he does believe he knows a friend had removed the bullets from the gun.

00:56:47.340 Wow.

00:56:48.300 He thinks it was a friend.

00:56:49.660 Yeah.

00:56:50.320 Does he know who it was?

00:56:51.480 He said he thinks he does, but that's an angel.

00:56:55.620 That's a real life God's angel on this earth.

00:57:00.080 Yeah.

00:57:00.660 Looking out for him, you know, she saved him.

00:57:04.040 And I believe, you know, Amy may have saved you and maybe my Amy saved me.

00:57:09.160 It's like, yes, you kind of have to be a willing participant, but I know you've found faith.

00:57:15.240 And I, I'm also a person of faith.

00:57:17.060 And I do think like, if you're just open eyed, you can see these angels like often all around us.

00:57:24.400 Yeah.

00:57:24.800 And they look like mere mortals, but they, they were sent here for a purpose that, that

00:57:29.180 your therapist goes home at night.

00:57:32.460 And when she looks back at her day to say, what did I do today?

00:57:35.880 That really mattered.

00:57:36.740 My God.

00:57:37.780 Yeah.

00:57:38.200 Does anybody have a better roster?

00:57:40.680 Probably not.

00:57:42.780 Probably not.

00:57:43.640 She's, she's amazing.

00:57:44.880 And now you're doing it.

00:57:45.880 I mean, that's kind of how you make your living now.

00:57:48.460 There's talking to guys who probably aren't that used to talking about this stuff in like

00:57:54.660 a safe place, right?

00:57:55.640 Somebody who gets it.

00:57:57.040 It's kind of a form of talk therapy just to sort of be able to speak about it.

00:58:01.180 At least it's a step.

00:58:03.040 Well, it is.

00:58:04.480 And, uh, you know, I think, um, you know, my podcast is, is done well.

00:58:09.900 And, uh, well, you're being humble and, uh, but I give, I give Amy a lot of credit to

00:58:17.500 how I interview because I, I realized, you know, I realized in therapy and she really

00:58:24.520 didn't say a whole lot.

00:58:26.360 And a lot of times you just start figuring things out yourself by just getting it out.

00:58:31.480 And, and, um, and so I realized, you know, and I, I realized that if you just let somebody

00:58:40.100 talk, then they'll, they're just going to keep going nine times out of 10.

00:58:45.480 And, um, and, um, yeah, so, so being in therapy twice a week for three and a half years really

00:58:52.500 helped me as an interviewer.

00:58:54.380 Yeah.

00:58:54.900 Right.

00:58:55.220 As an interviewer too, right.

00:58:56.620 Just to let people talk and to listen, to listen, it's helpful too, as opposed to be

00:59:00.840 thinking about your next question.

00:59:02.480 So when did you find love?

00:59:04.980 Because that seems relatively recent, right?

00:59:08.380 You got engaged, you got married.

00:59:09.760 Now you have two kids and including a new daughter.

00:59:11.920 Congrats.

00:59:12.440 Thank you.

00:59:13.040 Thank you.

00:59:13.440 So what did you find your wife, your future wife during all of the Amy time or when?

00:59:19.400 Yep.

00:59:19.980 Right in the middle of it.

00:59:21.180 Uh, I had a, I met my wife on a gun range at a, uh, sporting club in Florida.

00:59:27.560 That's beautiful.

00:59:27.960 That's amazing.

00:59:28.800 I know.

00:59:29.180 Right.

00:59:29.380 And, uh, my, my best friend, uh, still to this day, David Rutherford, uh, had a new sniper

00:59:38.100 rifle that he wanted to sight in.

00:59:40.500 And he knew, he knew somebody that had access to a thousand yard range.

00:59:46.960 And so we went out there, her dad met us.

00:59:50.220 And, uh, my wife's name is Katie.

00:59:52.000 She jumped out of the truck.

00:59:53.300 And, uh, and that was, that was that we, we, we shot some guns.

00:59:59.380 We went to the, uh, the club restaurant.

01:00:02.720 She gave me some tots.

01:00:04.000 And that was, that was the.

01:00:05.820 What's tots?

01:00:06.780 Tater tots.

01:00:09.800 Big fan.

01:00:10.920 Yeah, me too.

01:00:12.460 Also because I haven't had a French fry in three years.

01:00:15.680 What?

01:00:15.980 Yes.

01:00:16.420 It was a personal mission.

01:00:17.660 I'm basically a Navy SEAL too in my strength and my ability to say no to the, to the things

01:00:24.060 that are bad for me.

01:00:24.700 Um, no, I decided in June of 2021, they were becoming a problem for me and that I need

01:00:33.740 to swear off.

01:00:34.340 And so I decided to go a year and now I'm, I'm almost three years clean.

01:00:38.660 Well, congratulations.

01:00:39.840 But the tot is a back door to the fried potato.

01:00:44.300 And I may not pass like a drug test of potato.

01:00:50.740 Right on.

01:00:51.600 But it's not even called the same thing.

01:00:53.460 It's called a tater tot.

01:00:54.640 It's not even a French fry.

01:00:55.720 Anyway, big fan.

01:00:56.660 Cause they, they allow me to still have my.

01:00:58.720 They're amazing.

01:00:59.540 But I'm not as addicted as the French fry.

01:01:01.580 They don't have the same down the rabbit hole quality for me.

01:01:04.540 Yeah.

01:01:05.040 You know, French fries are, it's like a conveyor belt for ketchup.

01:01:08.960 Yes.

01:01:09.820 Totally agree.

01:01:10.980 The only purpose of the tot is to deliver the ketchup.

01:01:15.600 Right?

01:01:16.240 I know.

01:01:16.920 And then somebody will buy like the whole foods ketchup and you're like, ew, what is this?

01:01:21.420 It just ruins the entire meal.

01:01:23.040 Right?

01:01:23.460 You need the sugar, the preservatives, whatever Heinz does.

01:01:28.020 That's what we need.

01:01:28.880 That's right.

01:01:29.500 That's right.

01:01:30.240 All right.

01:01:30.560 So I never realized it could be an aphrodisiac, but I like how Katie rolls.

01:01:36.020 So she lures you in with the tots and the guns.

01:01:39.020 And you were like, I'm home.

01:01:40.900 When am I, when are we getting married?

01:01:42.140 That's right.

01:01:42.900 So how long thereafter were you married?

01:01:44.900 Oh man, I think it was, I think it was about a year and a half.

01:01:50.680 So we were in Boca Raton, Florida.

01:01:54.860 I was definitely a fish out of water in that town.

01:01:58.220 Why?

01:01:59.020 And, and, you know, there's a lot of, I grew up in the Midwest in a town of 6,000 people

01:02:06.080 and a farm town.

01:02:07.240 And now I'm in Boca Raton, Florida, lots of money, lots of flash.

01:02:12.600 Okay.

01:02:13.100 Lots of that.

01:02:14.700 And, and, um, so when me and Katie got serious, it didn't take long.

01:02:20.040 And, and, uh, you know, Katie has been sober for 15 years now and I was on a path to get

01:02:30.500 it, it was on my radar.

01:02:33.200 And so I had asked her and a couple of questions that really resonated with me.

01:02:39.900 And, uh, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, fake people in South Florida,

01:02:46.420 at least in my experience.

01:02:47.640 And so with Katie, I remember asking her a question and it was something along the lines

01:02:55.300 of, you know, now that, you know, how do you find real hobbies once you're sober?

01:03:02.540 Because I, I don't, I had zero hobbies other than, than boozing.

01:03:08.100 Um, and, um, she had a real answer and it was just, that's a great question.

01:03:16.020 It, it, it, it just takes time.

01:03:18.460 And, uh, but she was engaged in that conversation.

01:03:21.940 And so I knew I was like, this is a good one.

01:03:25.960 And, uh, she's real.

01:03:28.120 And I had not been around a real woman in a long time.

01:03:33.820 And, uh, and that was, I still remember where it was.

01:03:37.480 It was at a Thai restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.

01:03:40.060 And she had told me that.

01:03:41.500 And I was like, the conversation just got it, it, it, uh, I couldn't talk to anybody like

01:03:49.160 that other than my therapist and, um, or anybody that had been through something like that,

01:03:54.640 like, like what I was in the middle of.

01:03:56.380 And, um, so anyways, uh, we, we got closer and I knew we were going to get married.

01:04:06.300 I know I was going to marry her.

01:04:07.760 And, uh, I just, I said, I don't want to, I don't want to raise my family in South Florida.

01:04:14.300 So we're going to have to leave.

01:04:15.980 And, um, and, uh, so yeah, we wound up in, in Tennessee.

01:04:19.840 Does she have any roots there or was it just the flocking to Tennessee that so many conservatives

01:04:24.460 did?

01:04:25.400 We, no roots, no roots.

01:04:27.880 We just packed up and, and, and, and, and went to Franklin.

01:04:32.060 At least you went from the one state with no state income tax to another state.

01:04:36.020 That's right.

01:04:36.360 No state income tax.

01:04:37.480 New Hampshire is suddenly amongst the crew.

01:04:40.120 That's nice to see here in the Northeast.

01:04:41.820 Yeah, I know.

01:04:42.500 I was, it looks like it's blown up.

01:04:43.980 We were looking there for a little bit.

01:04:45.320 Let's go Connecticut.

01:04:46.380 That's right.

01:04:47.040 It's not going to happen.

01:04:48.260 It's far too blue.

01:04:50.140 That's all good.

01:04:51.040 On the hobby front.

01:04:51.920 Have you considered needle point or as my good friend describes it, a high class finger

01:04:57.060 sport?

01:04:57.800 Interesting.

01:04:58.700 I have not.

01:04:59.700 No.

01:05:00.240 Are you into needle point?

01:05:01.260 Hell no.

01:05:01.760 I said, we are too young to be doing that.

01:05:03.660 Get off of the beach immediately with that monstrosity in your hand.

01:05:07.200 I refuse to sit with you.

01:05:10.440 So did you find whatever, a hobby?

01:05:12.840 Uh, business.

01:05:13.860 Yeah, I was going to say, it's this, it involves this microphone, right?

01:05:16.140 I found business and, uh, and that's my hobby.

01:05:19.000 So yeah, my hobbies, I mean, I don't have time for them.

01:05:22.680 I don't have hobbies either.

01:05:23.620 If it makes you feel any better.

01:05:24.700 I love being in my business.

01:05:26.700 And now you have two kids.

01:05:27.720 And I love being with my kids.

01:05:29.220 And so anything outside of that, there's just not much time for.

01:05:32.380 Yeah.

01:05:32.600 No, there really isn't.

01:05:33.560 I mean, I remember when we had kids, a good friend of mine said, you should tell your

01:05:36.100 friends, you just had your kids and that you won't be seeing them for about 10 years.

01:05:40.140 That's right.

01:05:40.600 And he's like, the true friends will still be there for you when you get there.

01:05:43.900 And the ones who aren't really your true friends, good riddance.

01:05:46.800 We're figuring that out.

01:05:48.340 We are definitely figuring that out.

01:05:49.800 It's, it's interesting how fast your taste in friends changes.

01:05:54.560 Yeah.

01:05:55.040 You know, especially, I don't know how old your kids are, but, uh.

01:05:58.820 14, 13, and 10.

01:06:00.660 Oh, okay.

01:06:01.800 Nice.

01:06:02.740 I'm, I'm looking forward to those ages.

01:06:04.380 They're great ages.

01:06:06.300 Highly recommend this period of parenthood.

01:06:09.440 It's awesome.

01:06:10.660 Really?

01:06:11.040 They're so easy and they're so fun and they have the best personalities and they still

01:06:15.480 love us.

01:06:16.580 I just, I think we're in the sweet spot of parenting right now when they're little.

01:06:20.420 I know you've got two littles.

01:06:21.680 It's hard.

01:06:22.620 They're adorable, but it is hard labor.

01:06:25.880 Yeah.

01:06:26.100 We're in potty training right now, but I love every minute of it.

01:06:30.380 You know, I just, it's, it's, it's a tough balance, you know, uh, between work

01:06:35.480 and, and, and family, but, uh, I always lean more towards family and, and, uh, man, it

01:06:42.620 just goes so fast.

01:06:44.440 I'm already realizing that and I don't want to, you know, I'm glad that I waited until

01:06:50.320 after service for kids because, um, it sounds like you've listened to at least a couple of

01:06:55.060 my interviews and man, you know, I'm just, I'm glad that I never had to put my, I will

01:07:02.760 never have to put my kids through what that was like, what, what it turned to be into

01:07:08.020 being gone all the time.

01:07:10.260 And, uh, I'm a lot better now than, than, than back then.

01:07:14.680 And you don't have to live with the regret of having missed it.

01:07:17.460 Yeah.

01:07:18.360 Even for a good cause, you know, it's hard to miss it.

01:07:22.560 I've talked to enough people who've made a different choice.

01:07:24.940 You can just hear the regret in their voice and see it on their face.

01:07:28.320 And it's not recapturable once it's gone.

01:07:32.200 Very true.

01:07:33.220 Very true.

01:07:34.280 But, um, you know, I think in Tennessee, you'll do better in instilling values into your kids

01:07:40.960 that reflect your own, right?

01:07:42.280 That's one of the challenges here in the Northeast.

01:07:44.720 It's really, well, yeah.

01:07:45.840 I mean, these woke schools, we fled our New York city schools because of that here in Connecticut.

01:07:50.520 We got it made.

01:07:51.580 We did our homework this time since we were fleeing and, um, we found two great ones, but

01:07:57.420 it's important, right?

01:07:58.760 Because you'll find out when you're, how old is your oldest, your boy?

01:08:02.180 Two and a half.

01:08:02.800 Yeah.

01:08:03.060 So you'll find out when they start to go to school that the schools are, they're your

01:08:06.800 partners.

01:08:07.580 I mean, you need to find a partner.

01:08:09.820 They're the ones who are going to spend the most waking hours with your kids every day.

01:08:13.580 Yeah.

01:08:14.300 So if you're not on the same page about how we're raising a boy or how we're raising a girl,

01:08:18.940 how we're creating a good human being and future citizen, you know, current citizen,

01:08:24.180 but like, you know, responsible citizen, things can go South quickly.

01:08:29.720 That is a constant topic of discussion at our house is how we're going to do that.

01:08:34.920 Are we going to homeschool?

01:08:36.280 We're going to do private school.

01:08:38.760 What are we going to do?

01:08:39.900 And, uh, turns out we live in a, like a homeschool Mecca.

01:08:43.480 That's good.

01:08:44.380 Yeah.

01:08:44.640 So we're looking into possibly doing that.

01:08:48.180 I love the homeschooling communities.

01:08:49.740 I have a dear friend who's doing that swears by it.

01:08:52.800 So what does life look like now?

01:08:54.900 You do the podcast like 25 hours a day.

01:08:57.740 Honestly, how do you do these five hour podcasts?

01:09:00.240 Man, I just, I just listen, you know, and, and, uh, you know, I'm, I get people to open

01:09:08.680 up about things they've never talked about before and go to places that they probably

01:09:14.060 have not been in their mind in, in years.

01:09:18.740 And, um, and you can't do that on a time, on a timeline.

01:09:25.220 You can't, you can't do that in a condensed timeline.

01:09:28.120 And so, you know, my longest one, I think is nine hours.

01:09:34.020 Is that right?

01:09:34.740 Yeah.

01:09:34.920 Who is that with?

01:09:35.600 This, this guy, Cody Alford, he was a Marsau guy, but, um, Marine, but, um, and so, you

01:09:44.080 know, in, in, I think the first one I did was right about two hours.

01:09:48.300 And, um, but then I kept getting longer and I noticed the more time I spend on the more

01:09:55.300 time I give them, the more they open up.

01:09:57.080 And, and, and what it kind of developed into is, is I remember, I don't remember who the

01:10:04.120 first guy was.

01:10:05.140 It might've been this guy, prime hall, but do you have any idea how many people have been

01:10:10.300 through like child trauma, sexual trauma, abusive, uh, parents, whatever it is.

01:10:17.220 And it's like everybody.

01:10:20.300 And so the first time that happened, I, I was like, all right, I got to start diving more

01:10:25.580 into childhood.

01:10:26.300 And, and I'll bet 75% of the people that come on, uh, have experienced some type of abuse

01:10:36.560 as a child.

01:10:37.760 And, and I dig into kind of what's happening today with trafficking and pedophilia and, and,

01:10:45.680 and all of that kind of stuff.

01:10:47.280 And so I think it's really important to dive into the, to the childhood stuff because it

01:10:53.080 gives people that have been abused that are trying to process that still into their adult

01:10:58.000 life and kids that are going through right now.

01:11:00.100 I mean, it, it shows them like, man, no, no matter what I'm going through right now, like

01:11:05.980 I can still find success and, and, and find happiness in life.

01:11:12.460 And, and, you know, there's just not a lot of people doing that right now.

01:11:15.940 And so when somebody goes into their childhood experience and, on, uh, and they're gonna,

01:11:21.160 they're gonna get descriptive about it, you know, that when they're done and we're, we're

01:11:25.840 done with that section, I always ask, you know, for, for a kid that's in your position right

01:11:31.780 now, you know, looking back, what, what could you have done or what would you advise, you

01:11:37.120 know, other kids that are in your position or word are there, you know what I'm trying

01:11:42.440 to say, what, what advice do you have for them?

01:11:44.680 And, and I mean, it's helping, you know, it's really helping.

01:11:48.820 And then, and then we get into the military stuff and it's super descriptive and, you know,

01:11:54.680 and, and I want it to be, I don't want a condensed format because when I started doing this, I

01:11:58.820 wanted to do it because these guys weren't getting a voice in the media at all.

01:12:06.080 Yeah. And, um, and when they did, it was a 30 second blurb and, you know, so why are we having

01:12:14.180 talking heads in the media documenting what happened over there, uh, with a bunch of people

01:12:21.020 that weren't there that thought they knew. And so I wanted to, it kind of started with, I wanted to

01:12:27.820 just document history the way it actually happened, uh, with people that were at the events. And so now

01:12:34.100 we've got, you know, just about every major operation that has happened. Uh, we got,

01:12:39.620 I heard the one with, um, forgive me, I don't remember his name, but the gentleman who

01:12:43.660 he lost his arm and his leg in the Afghanistan withdrawal.

01:12:46.960 Tyler Vargas. Oh my God. And that just, his whole life had been rough with the dad who was a child

01:12:54.580 molester. And it was just, there was a lot in there and those stories are, they're infuriating,

01:13:00.980 right? Because they're recent and we lived them and we still have those same leaders who have yet

01:13:05.900 to make any apology for what happened to guys like Tyler, nothing. Yeah. It's, uh, very discouraging.

01:13:13.160 I mean, he's a perfect example though. You know, he, he, he interviewed with good morning America

01:13:18.560 for seven hours. Did he really? And they released, I believe he said five seconds of that interview

01:13:25.520 because it made POTUS look so bad. And, and so I had reached out to him. I wanted to give him the

01:13:36.080 opportunity to get his story out. And he had testified in front of Congress and no, no. I mean,

01:13:40.920 none of us were getting the actual boots on the ground version of what the hell happened during

01:13:45.200 that withdrawal. And so he came on, we got it out. They tried to censor us and, and he had all kinds

01:13:53.680 of, of actual footage of what was going on. And they kept dinging us. Oh, you can't have that in

01:13:59.380 there. You can't have that in there. And it's like, YouTube, you know, and it's like, guys,

01:14:04.780 like this happened, like, how dare you censor what happened to a U S Marine? Yeah. It's, it's like,

01:14:12.480 this is actual footage. This is a lot of this footage has been, some of it had been in the media

01:14:17.960 and it's like, guys, you can't like, this is, this is what happened. So we yanked all the footage

01:14:23.160 and then put it behind, um, put, put the real version behind a paywall. Cause the most important

01:14:29.220 thing was just to get his story out. And we wound up, it wound up, we wound up getting it,

01:14:34.500 getting it out, you know, after several attempts, but, um, not for nothing. I know this isn't

01:14:39.860 at all why you do this, but in any sane world, you'd be getting an award for that kind of coverage

01:14:44.920 in any sane world, somebody like you would get recognized with a Peabody for something like that.

01:14:50.600 Not the nonsense that now gets rewarded with Pulitzers and other awards like the Cronkite or like

01:14:55.760 that's actual journalism, actually getting the story and being unafraid to tell it no matter

01:15:00.320 where it takes you. Thank you. We actually pulled a soundbite from that, uh, interview. Here he is,

01:15:06.100 uh, Tyler Vargas Andrews talking about what happened during the attack as we withdrew from Afghanistan.

01:15:14.680 Like 10 minutes goes by and just flash and just get hit with this massive wave of pressure. And then

01:15:21.340 I'm like, my eyes, my eyes are closed. My vision is black. And I'm like slowly coming to

01:15:26.520 my right ear is just like super high pitched ringing. My left ear is muffled and I can just

01:15:32.640 hear people screaming in the distance. And I'm just like struggling to open my eyes. Finally can open

01:15:38.140 my eyes. And it was someone else's fucking body part, just like laying in front of me. And the people

01:15:42.960 on the other side of the canal just immediately in front of me just got fucking evaporated.

01:15:47.380 I kept trying to stand up. I'm like, fuck, like, why can't I stand up? And we started taking

01:15:51.340 fucking shots from the neighborhood. And I'm like almost immediately after the blast. I tried my

01:15:57.100 fucking hardest to crawl backwards. All I could do was like put my left arm on the ground. And I'm

01:16:01.840 just like, fuck, like, why is my right arm not working? And I remember lifting it up. It's there,

01:16:06.620 but it's just like fucking shredded up at the elbow and bloodied. And I'm, I'm just fucking red

01:16:12.600 everywhere.

01:16:17.560 Pretty horrific.

01:16:19.360 We just got into this recently because President Biden's former press secretary, Jen Psaki, wrote a

01:16:25.660 book trying to say it's not true. He looked at his watch when the bodies came home to Dover.

01:16:33.060 It's a lie. He looked at his watch several times. She's still running cover for him in her job as a

01:16:39.160 so-called journalist. It's on tape. You can see it repeatedly. There he is in the ceremony over and

01:16:44.360 over trying to sneak in glances. And some of the parents of the fallen are very angry still about

01:16:50.820 that. And now about the lies to whitewash it. But this is no, no one ever got fired for any of it.

01:16:56.840 Yeah.

01:16:57.240 So how are these guys, you know, like Tyler feeling about, about that and about the administration,

01:17:04.520 how it was handled?

01:17:06.220 I mean, they're, they're enraged. We're all enraged. I mean, do you know that we're sending

01:17:10.960 $40 million a week to the Taliban now?

01:17:13.600 Right.

01:17:14.720 It's actually like 43 to 87 million a week.

01:17:19.280 The Taliban.

01:17:20.440 Yep.

01:17:20.700 The same people that we fought for, what, 20, 20 plus years?

01:17:26.280 Mm-hmm.

01:17:27.000 Who are now not allowing girls to go to school, dressing them in full burkas, marrying them

01:17:33.400 off at age 12. That, those people.

01:17:35.880 Yeah. Cutting people's heads off, assassinating all of our allies over there, lining them up,

01:17:43.160 shooting them in the back of the head. I mean, it's, it's, uh, pretty.

01:17:50.700 Um, I just don't know how anybody can support that.

01:17:54.000 Why are we doing that? Why are we, why are we doing that? Why are we giving Iran money,

01:17:58.140 you know, or we're up until 10, seven?

01:18:01.520 I don't, you know, I wish I could answer that. I don't, I just don't know. I, I, it doesn't,

01:18:09.700 you know, what's up is down now and what's left is right. What's black is white. And, and, uh,

01:18:14.660 it's, it's the deconstruction of America.

01:18:23.320 Well, what do you, I mean, it's gotta be directly related to the recruiting rates. No, like guys

01:18:29.120 are looking at this saying, why am I, why would I join up for that? Why there's no responsibility.

01:18:35.160 Our lives are taken for granted. No one, no one gets fired. No one says, sorry. We continue to

01:18:42.220 funnel money to our enemies who, how much blood and treasure was lost in Afghanistan fighting the

01:18:46.900 same group, which we're now funding. I just like, I know people say that's not it. No,

01:18:50.880 I think that's it. We looked at the surveys as to why guys are not signing up anymore.

01:18:54.080 And like the top, the top item was fear of death, which is okay. Yes. Normal, but for centuries

01:19:02.780 and guys have been getting past that and signing up anyway, but, but they're not. So what, what is it?

01:19:09.440 I mean, I think it has to do with a lot of things. I think, I think it had to do with the

01:19:14.200 forced vaxes. I think it has to do with the woke agenda. I mean, nobody, I mean, talk about

01:19:21.120 miscalculating your, your, your, your body of work. I mean, it is not liberal Democrat families

01:19:31.560 that sign up for the military. It is middle-class to low-class conservative families. And you just

01:19:38.580 alienated your entire base. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to go to become a seal, to be

01:19:46.680 go into gender ideology, crash courses and, and pronoun training or whatever the hell else they're

01:19:55.480 doing in there. How not to be a right wing extremist. And I mean, deal with your white rage.

01:20:00.200 Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and I mean, it, I, I think it's that, I think it's the way the war's ended. I

01:20:07.820 think it's, it's, it's the new advertising that they do for recruitment. She's a lesbian.

01:20:14.200 Yeah. Her mothers are LGBTQ. It's, it's everything, every, everything about

01:20:20.360 what the messaging they're putting out is, is who are they going to get? Right.

01:20:30.140 I mean, the numbers are at record lows and we are precariously perched on possible conflict.

01:20:37.980 God forbid in Ukraine, the United States doesn't want any part of that. God forbid the middle East.

01:20:45.000 And they're still talking about Taiwan. Like it's like, I don't like, we might actually get involved

01:20:49.780 over there. I was talking to a former Navy sail, whose name you would know. And he was like,

01:20:55.520 we're not going to win the Taiwan thing. Like they're going to take it. China's going to take it.

01:21:00.900 And there's not much we're going to be able to do about it without actually getting involved

01:21:04.940 militarily boots on the ground. And the American people are going to want that. Like if, if China

01:21:09.480 takes it, his analysis was, we're going to have to let him take it. I mean, we'll probably provoke

01:21:13.840 them to take it just to start another war, just to spin up the military industrial complex more than

01:21:20.020 it already is. And, and I mean, that's seems to be what we do is we provoke, you know, and then

01:21:26.340 capitalize. And, uh, can you zoom out on that, Sean, do that? Like explain that to me. Cause I

01:21:32.760 understand people throw that term around military industrial complex, but you, you understand it

01:21:37.700 better than most. Yeah. So the military, I mean, let's, let's take it back to the Iraq war. I don't

01:21:45.720 think we should have been there at the time. I think, yeah, it was great. It was great. I got action.

01:21:49.960 I got to do what I signed up to do. We got to kill a bunch of bad guys. Now that I'm older and I'm out,

01:21:56.340 and I see a bigger picture. I mean, I just think it's kind of weird that Dick Cheney was the CEO

01:22:01.080 Halliburton. Halliburton was the biggest logistics, not the biggest, probably the only logistics company

01:22:08.940 in both wars. And so everywhere you went, it was Halliburton did the laundry. Halliburton did the

01:22:17.440 gas. Halliburton built the barracks. Halliburton built the chow hall. Halliburton cooked the food.

01:22:23.040 Halliburton did, they did everything, the mail, everything. It was KBR Halliburton.

01:22:30.200 He was the CEO of that. So all, all infrastructure in the entire Iraq war was Halliburton,

01:22:37.920 who is the former CEO is the press is the vice president of the United States.

01:22:47.200 That's what we're getting at. You know, there's, then there's, there's, you know, there's Boeing,

01:22:54.400 Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and all of these, they make a lot of the tech and the

01:23:01.800 missiles and the planes and all of these sorts of things, guns, communications equipment,

01:23:10.060 everything that's, everything that, that, that is new, that's being developed is, it's not the

01:23:15.320 government developing it. It's these companies that, that, that get paid ungodly amounts of, of,

01:23:22.880 of, of money to fund, to, to, to, to develop things you would use in war.

01:23:30.140 And then they put people like Nikki Haley on their boards.

01:23:32.800 Exactly.

01:23:34.360 I mean, she's not only was on the, on the Boeing board, but she has a husband who's making military

01:23:39.900 vehicles right now. That's his side business where he's making the vehicles that'll be used in war,

01:23:46.100 which they profit off of.

01:23:47.360 Yeah.

01:23:48.300 This is what you're talking about. And then she, you know, in, in her world was about to step into

01:23:52.840 the presidency and what have, have zero conflicts.

01:23:56.620 Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, like Ukraine, I mean, we send all of our stuff over all of our missiles,

01:24:03.460 our tanks, our UAVs, our javelins, whatever you fill in the blank. And so now we have to replenish all

01:24:10.660 those stockpiles and which is making these company, it's given the company's work to make more money

01:24:17.200 and, and that's what this, I'm convinced that that's what this is all about.

01:24:22.540 The saber rattling. And the reason the politicians do it is because these are big donors.

01:24:29.100 Yeah. I mean, I can't be, you know, you would probably know more about that than I do, but

01:24:34.580 yeah. I mean, lobbying organizations, uh, Hey, we look at all the people that are, that are supporting

01:24:44.000 what's going on in Ukraine and, and Russia and, and still, yeah, it's just, it's in, why were we,

01:24:51.140 I mean, why were we in Afghanistan for 20 plus years just to completely abandon it? Yeah.

01:24:57.420 I mean, there were, there was so many things we could have used there. We gave up Bob, Bob

01:25:01.600 Ram air force base, uh, one of the most strategic air force bases of the world. Afghanistan has

01:25:09.580 endless amounts of lithium that we could utilize for our green initiative. Right. But we'll just

01:25:16.800 give those over to China and let them sell us the lithium, even though we had built all the

01:25:21.340 infrastructure there and they're already mining it. Why, why would we do that? Why would we give it up?

01:25:26.600 Yeah. Cause we had made a decision to cut and run. And that was the decision we were going to live

01:25:31.440 by. I guess, I mean, I, I mean, I can't, I can't find any logic. I mean, the problem is on that one,

01:25:38.780 both parties are to blame, right? I mean, Trump came up with a plan and then Biden executed it

01:25:43.280 terribly. Yeah. But I mean, Trump too, wanted to pull us out of there and not keep anything. I mean,

01:25:48.140 I realized we were over a war and I mean, the forever wars are a real thing and people who grew up,

01:25:55.300 I mean, I'm a little older than you are, but both of us grew up in a time where in the beginnings,

01:26:00.120 we thought these are just wars and we're serving a worthy cause here. And we understand why the United

01:26:06.660 States is doing it. And it's only having sort of been in the midst of this like belief and then

01:26:13.020 seeing it all crashed down and then seeing the aftermath that you realize I was sold a bag of

01:26:16.920 goods. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. If you can take yourself out of the, you know,

01:26:22.180 the politics and, and, and your emotional state and look at these things from like a

01:26:28.860 30,000 foot view and it might paint a different perspective and, you know, maybe, maybe we aren't

01:26:37.040 the good guys. What do you think will happen with Ukraine? I mean, at what point does the United States

01:26:42.400 say, they're not, they can't win. This is throwing good money after bad and get more aggressive about

01:26:50.780 forcing some sort of compromised end to this thing. Man, what do I think will happen in Ukraine? I

01:26:56.260 think, I mean, I think a change in the presidency could possibly end it. Ours or Ukraine's? Ours.

01:27:05.080 I don't think theirs will ever. I mean, why would you? Not now. Yeah. Why would you? So much,

01:27:11.520 they're getting so much out of this, but, um, I'm just saying that like, I don't know that the

01:27:14.860 Ukrainian people are as insane as Zelensky seems with his, you know, no compromise. We're going to

01:27:19.160 see it through to the end. All your people will be dead. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think,

01:27:24.780 uh, I think this BRICS thing has a lot. I think that things will get interesting when China starts

01:27:35.700 making more moves. That's what I think. I don't think any of these wars are going anywhere. Should

01:27:41.520 we have nothing to do with that? With, with Taiwan, China? Man, you're asking some tough questions. Um,

01:27:50.160 that's one I think we would probably need to step in on. Actually step in though. I mean,

01:27:59.680 do you agree boots on the ground will be required? How are we going to fight that one from drones?

01:28:07.120 How are we going to fight that? I think that

01:28:09.980 I don't know.

01:28:17.620 Definitely

01:28:17.980 a lot of Navy.

01:28:22.940 Mm-hmm. That's right. We don't have enough ships.

01:28:26.200 A lot of Navy.

01:28:28.800 And I think all of our allies would need to come together to, to, to, I mean, I think that,

01:28:35.480 I mean, I personally think we're on the brink of, of World War III.

01:28:38.660 With China.

01:28:39.500 Yeah.

01:28:40.420 Over Taiwan.

01:28:42.880 I mean, look at all the angles they have on us. You know, they,

01:28:45.900 they are behind the fentanyl crisis. They're sending in all the supplies. They're trading

01:28:50.660 the cartels, uh, how to make the world's most potent fentanyl. Actually now, now they're teaching

01:28:58.560 them how to make Nidacin, which, so it went from what heroin to fentanyl to Nidacin. They're behind,

01:29:05.800 they're behind that. They're buying all our farmland. They're capturing all of our elites,

01:29:11.260 politicians, and just tech gurus. I mean, um...

01:29:16.020 Not to mention the spying.

01:29:17.800 The spying. Yeah. I mean, we have our, I mean, yeah, that's, that's out there, right? What's

01:29:22.280 his name was sleeping with a Chinese spy.

01:29:24.320 Eric Swalwell, right? Is that, I get, I get my far left Democrats confused.

01:29:29.940 I can't remember his name, but...

01:29:31.760 Yeah, that's who it was.

01:29:32.340 But, uh, I mean, they, they have, they have so, I mean, look at California. From what I understand,

01:29:38.260 all the real estate signs now are all in Chinese. And I've always wondered, I mean, you see this

01:29:44.280 massive migration happening all across the country with red states being inundated with people fleeing

01:29:53.680 California, New York, Chicago. And, uh, I always, I always wondered, you know, who's buying all this

01:30:00.240 real estate over there? If everybody's leaving, who's buying all this real estate? They're selling

01:30:05.540 it to China. We rolled out the red carpet for them when it came to visit.

01:30:10.060 Their takeover of Hollywood.

01:30:12.780 Yeah.

01:30:13.500 The NBA.

01:30:14.720 Yeah.

01:30:15.200 They have more money than God when it comes to buying things that are American or American-owned.

01:30:20.900 You know, their own people can suffer.

01:30:22.340 Mm-hmm.

01:30:22.660 But they're very interested in spending tons of money buying up our industries and our land.

01:30:28.740 And, and we're just suckers for the dollar. So we say, yes, you know, that's why, that's why the

01:30:35.360 NBA said, sure, we'll, we'll do whatever you want and we won't criticize you. That's why Hollywood

01:30:40.940 takes anything they find offensive out of its films so they can make money over in China on,

01:30:47.300 you know, the sales there. We've bent the knee, you know, to our Chinese masters. So you're right.

01:30:52.160 It's happening in more and more. People just aren't paying attention. They're living their lives,

01:30:54.960 not paying attention to, I mean, a little bit more here and there, but they're not.

01:30:57.720 It's happening all over the world. I mean, look what they're doing in Africa. You know,

01:31:00.820 they're settling Africa. They've, they've, they have, they are the influence in Afghanistan now.

01:31:06.460 I mean, they have.

01:31:07.140 They go in with their money and they make these countries dependent on them. And that used to be

01:31:11.700 us. That used to be the United States being the leader of the free world and being out there,

01:31:15.540 helping the third world countries and, in creating some loyalty and some allyship.

01:31:22.520 We're not doing that anymore, but China is.

01:31:26.860 You're exactly right. And then it's just,

01:31:30.880 I mean, that right there alone shows how many angles they have. And I know there's more, I'm just,

01:31:36.720 I'm put on the spot, but,

01:31:37.620 it's scary to think about it is, you know, it's very scary. And, and I don't think people,

01:31:45.100 I don't think people understand, you know, how, how pertinent it is that we need to start

01:31:50.220 addressing this stuff like immediate, like yesterday.

01:31:53.380 I mean, the one thing we have going for us is their economy is not strong.

01:31:56.740 That's what I keep hearing. Like I, but I hear both sides, you know, and, and I don't, I mean,

01:32:04.220 they have so much influence across the world now and, and their version, I mean,

01:32:13.340 the, the, the BRICS initiative, you're aware of the BRICS initiative, you know,

01:32:19.080 and devaluing our currency. And I think the last time I checked, there's like 22 countries on board

01:32:23.520 that now.

01:32:25.440 There's, and there's, it's a sketchy crew, but they have a lot of money.

01:32:28.720 Yeah.

01:32:29.000 So now more than ever, we need new up and coming, the next generation of Sean Ryans.

01:32:36.340 Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

01:32:37.840 So what do you do? Trump's got to win and people have to see America as strong again,

01:32:43.500 and maybe you'll be a little afraid of us. You know, I mean, that's the New York times just did

01:32:48.300 a poll showing that Trump's beating Biden in five out of the six swing States, same as it was in

01:32:54.720 November by a healthy margin in most of them. And, um, they were so befuddled by their own poll.

01:33:00.600 They went back to their, to the people who responded to say like, why, why again, what is it?

01:33:06.380 Really? The orange man. He's so bad. How could you insurrectionist? And in particular, it was

01:33:11.860 interesting because they went to some black voters saying, we don't get it. Why are your numbers

01:33:15.220 surging? And they said, Oh, you know, we don't, we don't love Trump. He's got a big mouth. He says

01:33:19.700 some stuff we don't like, but he's strong. And I think the country's going to be a little safer

01:33:24.000 with him in there. It keeps people off balance. And then others said the economy, I don't need

01:33:30.180 to like him. I need my wallet to be a little fatter. And it was, they just did some look back

01:33:35.400 in the economy was like definably 16% more was going into people's average paychecks under Trump

01:33:41.320 than it is now. Um, so yeah, we need a strong leader. There's a chance we won't get one.

01:33:48.740 Um, it's not a lock. Trump wins. Robert Kennedy, also anti-military industrial complex. Could you

01:33:56.540 ever vote for him? I think I could vote for him. Could you? Yeah, I definitely could vote for him.

01:34:01.820 He's too left for me on many, many issues, but I'm not as hardcore conservative as like a lot of my

01:34:07.820 audience. Um, I love that he's kind of anti-establishment, anti-military industrial

01:34:13.080 complex, anti-big pharma, that he's a environmental lawyer. I'm actually, I'm kind of green. I like

01:34:19.660 the green agenda, not the green new deal or any of that nonsense, but like I, I as a mother, you

01:34:23.820 know, I would like to see us be a little bit more realistic about climate change. You know, that's,

01:34:27.520 that's something I love talking about this, you know, because you, you do something positive for

01:34:32.760 the planet and conservatives like throw a shit fit. And it's like, Hey man, we live here.

01:34:38.400 Right. In case you haven't noticed, everybody's dying of cancer, cancer from shit in our foods,

01:34:46.320 cancer from shit in the air, cancer from cancer from everything. It might be, you know, might be

01:34:51.880 good for us to improve the planet a little bit, but that's just my take. What if we had a RFKJ in

01:34:58.140 there saying, don't eat that, don't do that. That's not getting a blessing anymore. This is a problem over

01:35:03.180 here that he spent his whole life filing lawsuits against people who are polluting our environment

01:35:08.880 in one way, shape or form. I love that. I realize, I mean, he, he said he would allow abortion till

01:35:15.340 the ninth month. Then he walked it back. He's not good on my issue, which is women's rights against

01:35:21.380 the crazy trans lobby, but I have more issues than just that. So I definitely could vote for RFKJ.

01:35:27.500 I just asked him about the full-term abortion thing. I just interviewed him last week and he,

01:35:33.720 he told me that the only reason that he would go full-term would be for the mother if she was going

01:35:40.180 to die. If she, if she, if there was a life threatening. So he's arrived at that a little

01:35:44.880 late. Yeah. He told Sage Steele, it's up to the mom. Okay. Whatever she wants all the way through

01:35:50.360 ninth month. And then Sage, who's amazing, was like, a lot of us get uncomfortable when you

01:35:57.360 say it's okay for a mother just based on her own desire to abort a baby at full term. And he

01:36:02.220 answered it again, saying, well, I would. Oh, really? But then all the shit storm came and he

01:36:06.880 walked it back. It was like, Oh, nevermind. Gotcha. I mean, I understand if that's your biggest issue

01:36:12.660 and it is for a lot of, you know, deeply faithful people in particular, he's out. Yeah. But anyway,

01:36:19.960 it all depends on your hierarchy of, you know, principles. And I just, I love how anti-establishment

01:36:26.040 he is. Me too, man. Me too. So speaking of faith, you are, you've had a bit of a metamorphosis

01:36:34.260 in your own life. I have. Is that because of Katie or is that your own journey?

01:36:41.340 That's my own journey. And, um, do you want me to go into it? Yeah. Okay. Um, well,

01:36:48.160 so I interviewed some really, I have some really heavy interviews. Uh, Tyler Andrew Vargas was one

01:36:57.640 of them. And, uh, I mean, I, it's been a long time since I'd seen that and to see a 24 year old,

01:37:05.380 you know, my studios on the second floor and to watch him hobble up there with one leg, one arm,

01:37:12.740 um, you know, it's just, it's, it got to me. And the, the day before I interviewed him, I interviewed

01:37:21.540 a, a hacker who had hacked into all these websites and kind of in pedophilia websites

01:37:29.440 and downloaded all the user list, got it to the FBI. The FBI did nothing with it until I interviewed

01:37:37.400 him and, um, super dark interview. Uh, the re the reality is, I mean, we, we pulled, we caught a child

01:37:49.120 predator in five seconds. Cause I didn't realize, I was like, you hear about this stuff, right? And

01:37:55.060 how, how common it is, but you don't, I don't, I didn't see it. And so he's in there and we're doing

01:38:01.860 the interview. And I said, Hey, you got your laptop, pull it out, get in any, I don't care what it is,

01:38:06.580 Instagram, Tik TOK, whatever teen chat room you want. I just want to see how long this takes.

01:38:12.840 He made the screen name, Ashley 13, New Jersey, literally five seconds. It's on camera. We

01:38:20.880 scream record until he was in like a room where five seconds before a 40 something year old bam was

01:38:26.740 wanting to meet a 13 year old girl at a wherever sick. Yeah. And so, so that's, that, that's what,

01:38:35.760 I mean, this is the stuff that I cover. And, um, so me and my wife were going on vacation. I just,

01:38:42.020 I just finished up those two interviews, the, especially the one with, with Ryan Montgomery,

01:38:46.420 who's the hacker that, that just really got to me, you know, the kids stuff really gets to me.

01:38:52.440 The guys who work in that industry, shutting those down.

01:38:55.280 Yeah. It's a very hard life. Yeah. And, um, and so we went to Sedona and there was also what else was

01:39:04.720 happening? The Chinese spy balloon just flew over. Um, the, I saw, I think it was, was it Reba came out

01:39:15.380 saying, no, I think it's freedom of speech that, that, uh, drag Queens should be able to, you know,

01:39:21.900 show up at your town library kids. And I'm just, I, and it, I got to this point where I was like,

01:39:27.540 man, am I the only person that like gives a shit about this stuff that actually cares about kids

01:39:33.580 and like why we just abandoned our allies in Afghanistan. And why is there a 24 year old that

01:39:40.100 was blown up unnecessarily? I mean, they had the guy PID in his sights. They could have killed that

01:39:45.860 bomber, you know, and, and now all of his friends are dead. And he's in, so these are all the things

01:39:52.600 that are going through my head. And, and I had, uh, I had hit this point. I was having a conversation in

01:40:00.820 my head and I'd, I'd hit this point where it was, it was like, why do you even talk about this stuff

01:40:05.800 anymore? Nobody cares. You know, about the maps thing, minor attracted persons. Yes. They're trying

01:40:11.780 to redefine pedophilia into this minor attracted person, normal, just like, just like a fetish,

01:40:17.740 you know, like you have some people have a foot fetish. Some people have a toddler fetish and we're

01:40:22.100 supposed to accept this. Yeah. And, uh, you know, and so I'm, I'm just seeing all these things and I'm,

01:40:27.480 I'm like, how, how can, like, how, I, how can anybody like buy into this shit? And I have, I

01:40:34.300 have, I have family that like votes left, you know, and, and, uh, it's, it's, it is, it gets to

01:40:44.400 me. It makes my skin crawl. Like I can't, I don't understand how anybody can support any of the,

01:40:50.880 of what I just list rattled off. And, uh, so it, it got to me and I got to this point where I was

01:40:57.420 like, I'm not, I can't like, I can't live like this anymore. Like I can't, if nobody gives a shit,

01:41:03.620 maybe I'm, maybe I am the one that is, maybe I'm the one that has something wrong with it. You know,

01:41:08.920 maybe, maybe this is all acceptable and I just, I'm not, my brain isn't switching. Maybe I'm the

01:41:14.480 problem. And, uh, I shouldn't be fighting this anymore. I need to, I need to be happy. And it

01:41:21.240 basically felt like I was surrendering to evil and, uh, and I was trying to convince myself to be fine

01:41:31.200 with it. So we're staying in this nice resort in Sedona. Uh, they got a, uh, guarded gate and I pay

01:41:40.280 attention to that kind of stuff because of my background. And, uh, a lot of the guys knew me

01:41:45.300 that worked in there for, from, from my podcast and, and wanted to talk. Well, this, we were there

01:41:50.600 for a week, the last day I walked through and it's this old, uh, old man in there. And he's wanted to

01:41:58.900 talk to me and me and my wife had gone up to a hike. Cause I was like, I just, I gotta get the hell

01:42:02.560 out of here. Maybe a hike will make me feel better. Walk back down. And, and this guy starts trying to

01:42:09.100 talk to me. It's dark at this point. I had already kind of surrendered. Like I'm done. I didn't feel

01:42:13.940 good, but I'd kind of made my decision. Like I'm not doing this anymore. And, um, I'm kind of looking

01:42:20.520 at him over the shoulder, like, and I'm, I'm, I'm not in the mood to like strike up a conversation.

01:42:26.380 And, but my wife starts talking to him and I'm like, shit, I just want to go to my room. So I turn

01:42:34.020 around and this guy, this guy read my mind from front to back. And I mean, like, I've never had

01:42:46.500 that happen. It wasn't, it, it, I mean, it was descriptive. It was, it scared the shit out of me

01:42:53.040 because I was like, how are you, how, how are you in my head? And, uh, he started rattling off all

01:43:00.120 these thoughts that I was having on that entire hike. And he's like, this stuff that's going on

01:43:04.340 in China, that's not your fight anymore. And this stuff that's going on with the kids,

01:43:10.220 that's not your fight either. And this stuff that's going on with the trans community,

01:43:14.420 that's not your fight. And, and I, my, I had shut down. I was like, well, how was this guy

01:43:21.100 in my head right now? So freaked me out. We're walking back to, to our bungalow. We were in a place

01:43:28.460 where it was like, kind of like a duplex and, um, we're on one side, somebody else on another side.

01:43:34.340 We got there. We got, when we got to Sedona, uh, my best friend that I was referring to earlier,

01:43:41.360 his name's Gabe. He, he died of a, of a heroin overdose, uh, later on. But, uh, Gabe was a seal.

01:43:49.920 Gabe was a pro hockey player. Gabe was a fighter. Uh, we was into MMA. Gabe was at the agency with me.

01:43:56.540 And no matter where Gabe was, Gabe was always, always known as a protector. Like no matter what

01:44:03.540 unit he was in, no matter what, who he was with could be the, the, the, the manliest of all men.

01:44:10.840 Like everybody knows Gabe has got you. And, and he was my best friend. Well, we get there and we see

01:44:19.440 this guy and he looks identical. He could be Gabe's identical twin. I mean, you could see differences,

01:44:24.360 but same brow line, same jawline, same build, same walk, same three-day shadow, same everything,

01:44:31.580 uh, muscular. And me and my wife were both like, man, that looks exactly like Gabe.

01:44:38.220 And everywhere we would go, this guy was at, if we were at the pool, this guy was at the pool.

01:44:43.740 If we were going on a hike, this guy was coming back from a hike. If we were out in town, getting

01:44:47.400 dinner, he was out in town, getting dinner. And, and we had, we had always thought it was weird

01:44:53.860 because I'd, I'd kind of had a breakdown on the plane, uh, to Sedona. And so I was in a vulnerable

01:45:01.420 spot. My wife knew it. I was in a vulnerable spot. I knew it. Uh, I was with my buddy Dave and he knew

01:45:08.480 it. And it was just odd that Gabe, who's always known as a protector is like every, this guy that looks

01:45:14.340 identical to him is, is everywhere. Well, it turns out right from that gate, we walked to

01:45:20.460 our bungalow and it turns out this guy and his family is staying right across the, the thing from

01:45:28.300 us. And we hadn't seen him all week. And I'm like, that was weird. And on the way back, I'm telling

01:45:33.740 Katie, I'm like, Holy shit. Like, I think, I think that was God that was reading my mind. And she's like,

01:45:40.220 yeah, Sean, that was God. And I'm like, I can't believe this. Like, how is this happening? And,

01:45:47.000 and she's like, Sean, God's always been around you. You just don't make time for him. And, uh,

01:45:54.200 I knew that to be true. So we get to the bungalow, Gabe staying across the way or the, the lookalike,

01:46:00.740 whatever, uh, you want to call it. He's, we find out he's staying right across. This is all within

01:46:05.700 like 10, 15 minutes. Then we go in and I, I am, I'm crying. And I'm like, I can't believe this is

01:46:11.300 happening. And right before, also right before we went to Zona, uh, a good friend of mine, uh,

01:46:18.660 his name was Dan Cirillo died. Uh, he was kind of the only, he was a seal, uh, and a businessman

01:46:25.700 and he lived in Franklin. And I don't have a lot of people that I can relate to, uh,

01:46:32.260 where I live now in Franklin. And Dan is one of those guys that, that he's very successful.

01:46:41.580 He owned a couple of hospitals. He owned a, a, a big security business. And he's like one of the

01:46:47.840 few people that I can sit down with and talk business and talk friends. And he doesn't need

01:46:51.860 anything from me and I don't need anything from him. And those, you know, those relationships get

01:46:56.380 hard to come by. And, uh, so we hit it off really fast. And then he died on a hunting trip with his

01:47:02.860 son, had a heart attack. And, um, and, uh, but Hey, I mean that if there's a way to go,

01:47:10.300 good on him. But, uh, anyways, his daughter who I had never met, I'm having this breakdown in the,

01:47:18.240 in the hotel. And, uh, his daughter, I heard my phone go, go off while I was talking to Katie.

01:47:26.820 And as soon as we kind of finished what we were talking about, about what was going on,

01:47:31.260 I checked my phone and it's from his daughter and, and, uh, it's this text. I'd never even met her

01:47:42.060 before. And, uh, she says, she must've got my number from her dad's phone. And, and, uh, she said,

01:47:50.400 hey, Sean, um, this is Taylor, Dan's daughter. And I just walked into my dad's gun room for the first

01:47:58.620 time since he had passed away. And he grabbed me by the arm and told me that I needed to contact you

01:48:08.080 because you knew a side of him that nobody else knew. And that he wanted me to tell you that he

01:48:14.620 loves you just the way that you are and that you're doing exactly what you should be doing.

01:48:20.320 And then, uh, I'm trying not to lose it right now, but, um, but, uh, so that was like the third

01:48:29.700 thing all within, like I said, 10, 15 minutes. And I was like, holy shit, like there's no denying this

01:48:38.060 one. And, uh, and, uh, low brick wall. Yeah. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic and never really took

01:48:47.820 church seriously. Uh, I never did. And then when I left home, I never really went back and, and it

01:48:55.740 kind of lost faith. And, uh, I'm not saying I wasn't a believer. I just didn't really care. And I didn't

01:49:00.940 think about it. And, uh, I had definitely no time for, for God. And so I took that as a, I mean, that

01:49:09.480 was like a slap in the face and I, I decided I needed to get serious about faith and at least look

01:49:14.980 into it. And so I started looking into it and, and it's, and it's been great. And, and, you know,

01:49:20.860 to be honest, it's the only thing I can find that makes any damn sense anymore. And it's all, it's all

01:49:26.120 in that book. Everything we're seeing happening right now is in that book. Is that how you started

01:49:30.220 just reading the Bible? I did. I did. I started trying to read it from front to back and, and,

01:49:35.520 uh, I wasn't really getting anywhere. And then shocking stuff in that old Testament.

01:49:40.360 Yeah. If you go that way. Yeah. And, um, but then turns out, uh, as it turns out my entire team,

01:49:47.940 I'm really close with my team, uh, my podcast team, the guys that, that work for me and, and make it

01:49:55.320 what, what it is. And, uh, turns out one guy's was raised Southern Baptist, super well-versed

01:50:01.860 in the Bible. My editor, Darren, uh, grew up a Jehovah's witness and, uh, escaped, escaped

01:50:09.360 it. But, but knows, I mean, knows that book from front to back. Um, um, my IT guy, Adam,

01:50:17.940 uh, devout Catholic knows it all everything. Elijah, my production manager, he's the Southern

01:50:25.320 Baptist guy. And they kind of started pouring into me and, and a lot of my buddies that were

01:50:33.040 in the seal teams, uh, Eddie Penny really kind of paved the way for all of this. I think,

01:50:38.940 uh, Eddie Penny was, uh, we were a team two together and then he went on to dev group and,

01:50:45.860 uh, just like, Oh mom, like, I mean, not who you would expect to come to faith, but he was

01:50:54.700 my Christmas episode, uh, a couple of years ago. And ever since he came on and gave his

01:51:02.320 testimony of how he came to everybody that's been on the show has brought it up. And,

01:51:08.940 um, and he became kind of a mentor of mine. So I called Eddie and told him, and I said,

01:51:14.980 Hey, this is what happened. I don't really know where to start. I don't really know what

01:51:19.680 this means. Uh, and we had a conversation and, uh, he goes, he was like, Oh man, he's

01:51:28.380 like a lot of us have been praying for this to happen. Wow. And that kind of freaked me.

01:51:33.180 I was like, well, what do you mean? And, uh, he's like, we've been waiting for this. He's

01:51:37.840 like, you have a big voice and, and this needs to happen. And so that was at about midnight.

01:51:46.160 Um, now I'm getting into some other kind of weird synchronicity, uh, coincidences. And

01:51:51.560 so about 12 hours later, I had a meeting that Adam, uh, my T guy had scheduled with me at noon

01:51:58.640 and Eddie was telling, Eddie was telling me during the conversation, he was, he was talking

01:52:06.080 about guardian angels and all this other stuff that was spiritual warfare stuff that I know

01:52:10.520 like nothing about. Well, fast forward 12 hours, I'm talking to Adam. I didn't know what this meeting

01:52:16.580 I thought it was about email marketing or something. And, uh, he wanted to talk to me

01:52:21.780 about spiritual warfare and guardian angels. Wow. And I was like, it was literally like almost

01:52:29.660 the exact same conversation as I had had with Eddie Penny. You're like, that's not on the

01:52:33.820 dropdown menu of message manager. I know. And they're not friends. I mean, Adam is with all

01:52:40.520 due respect. They hadn't coordinated those two guys. Eddie is a built like a shit brick

01:52:46.160 house, a dev group operator. And Adam is a it computer nerd who I love to death. And, uh,

01:52:54.300 so no, they don't, they don't, there's no cross pollination. They're not friends. I've never

01:52:58.820 spoken exact same conversation at noon, come home for lunch from my studio to, uh, to be with

01:53:05.040 the wife and kids and, um, Adam. Uh, and, and anyways, I go back to work. I look at my clock

01:53:14.040 in my truck and it says it's 444. I look at the odometer says 444 miles left to E and this is four

01:53:22.760 hours and 44 minutes after my conversation with Adam about guardian angels. So I look up the meaning

01:53:29.440 of 444 and it is your guardian angels want you to know that they have got you. And I'm just,

01:53:40.960 I'm like, holy shit, man. Like we just had two conversations about guardian angels and now I'm

01:53:47.540 saying 444 everywhere within Gabe. Yeah. And, and, and it's in the meaning of it supposedly according

01:53:56.700 to Google is your guardian angels want you to know that they've got you. And, um, and so I've been

01:54:03.160 in it ever since and, and, uh, I've had some great mentors and started going to church that didn't last

01:54:10.340 very long. And, uh, and, uh, now we have, we have a group of, there's four families, including us,

01:54:18.000 uh, a lot of trust, very close, uh, friends of ours. And we, we just have a discussion every week,

01:54:25.220 every, every Tuesday. So when I get home today, that's, that's, that's what we're doing. And,

01:54:31.680 uh, it's cool. You get to ask the tough questions. You can't, you don't need to be embarrassed. You're

01:54:37.060 not going to offend anybody. You don't feel judged. Like you're going to church every, you know, I always

01:54:42.120 feel like I'm being judged. Oh, hello. We're Catholic. Yeah. Built in. And, uh, and there's none of that.

01:54:49.040 And, um, man, you know, when you, when you kind of take all of the BS, the religion kind of injects

01:54:56.540 into end of your journey of building relationship with, with the creator and Jesus,

01:55:05.040 it's really interesting and it can be a lot of fun.

01:55:09.140 I know what you're saying. I, my audience knows I've been having a

01:55:12.300 not unrelated struggle on that exact score. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I'm, um, I'm Catholic lifelong

01:55:20.120 Catholic. And I started the process of having my first marriage annulled and instead of like

01:55:27.400 bringing me closer to God or setting me in a path that I thought would land well, it really has kind

01:55:32.080 of alienated me. And, um, it's caused a bit of a crisis of faith, you know, like who are these

01:55:38.820 middlemen I have to go through in order to have a clean relationship with God. That doesn't make

01:55:43.480 any sense to me. I think God loves me and God sees me in a loving marriage with three wonderful kids

01:55:50.120 who have two great parents who are in love and he's thrilled. And he will accept me into his kingdom

01:55:58.640 when it's all said and done. And if he doesn't, it's certainly not going to be because I didn't get

01:56:03.200 a paper, I got a paper divorce from Dan, but I didn't get an annulment from a priest.

01:56:08.820 You know, and then Mary dug in a Catholic church. It doesn't make any sense to me.

01:56:14.480 So that's sort of where I am right now. I'm still wrestling with it. I got tons of great

01:56:18.220 feedback, by the way, thank you to my audience. Cause so many thoughtful emails on it, you know,

01:56:22.720 from Catholic, um, listeners, but also just Christian listeners who don't believe in that,

01:56:28.600 you know, middleman thing either. I haven't resolved it.

01:56:32.440 Well, I'll keep my opinion to myself, but

01:56:36.760 the middleman is a lie.

01:56:43.100 There are no middlemen.

01:56:44.400 It's just about you and your relationship. And that's a, no way you know that.

01:56:53.700 And when you think like that, I mean, it's a, it, it gives me a sense of peace, you know?

01:56:58.860 And then you start looking at all the stuff that's going on, like trans visibility day

01:57:03.540 being declared on Easter Sunday. Like you can't, like, you can't tell me these aren't

01:57:08.300 signs, you know? And this is all, like I said, this is all in there. I'm still reading through

01:57:13.180 it. I'm not through it all yet. I don't claim to be an expert, but, but you know, I see things.

01:57:19.260 I have a team to lean on who's well-versed in this stuff and very fortunate. And, uh, and it's

01:57:26.680 everything we're seeing happen is in that book. And when you can, when you come to that realization,

01:57:36.340 it's really odd, but all the stuff that like, all the stuff that was bothering me and it still

01:57:42.720 does bother me, but at the same time, it makes me stronger because up, that was supposed to happen.

01:57:52.480 You know, up, that's in that book. Up, like really like trans visibility day, a confusion of genders

01:58:00.500 on Easter Sunday, making a mockery of the resurrection. Like that was in there. Yep. And, uh, and, uh, so,

01:58:10.740 so how do you feel now? Do you feel a difference physically, emotionally now versus during the

01:58:17.960 Chinese trial balloon period, which was dark? Definitely. I mean, I'm at, uh, I'm at peace

01:58:23.400 with it. I mean, I'm still going to fight the good fight and I'm still going to bring truth and

01:58:28.020 uncover corruption and tell these stories. And I'm not going to bend a knee to anything. And, and, uh,

01:58:33.260 and, but you know, it, it, but seeing it all happen, it's, it is actually making me stronger

01:58:42.560 because I found something in a world of nothing that makes any sense at all. Not a damn bit of

01:58:49.320 sense. This makes all the sense in the world. It's, it aligns with the values that I've always had,

01:58:55.240 or maybe I align with its values, you know, but, um, but it, yeah, it's helped me. And, uh, and then

01:59:03.120 you start learning about, you know, maybe forgiveness is for you and not for the people that

01:59:10.820 did something bad to you that was unjust. You know, it's, it's, it's for your sense of peace,

01:59:19.480 opt for theirs. You know, you can, you can go on and waste all that bad energy, hating somebody and

01:59:25.360 talking shit about them and, you know, complaining, you know, I got screwed over and I'm a victim and

01:59:31.000 but the minute you forgive them, that's off your plate. And it just, it, it's, it's, it's like a

01:59:37.640 cleanse. Amen.

01:59:39.380 God bless you. Thank you so much for coming on and telling your story and all these personal

01:59:50.540 details about your life. What a pleasure. What a, what an honor to know you.

01:59:54.960 Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. And, uh, like I said, I was really excited to meet you and,

02:00:00.940 and, uh, just happy to be here.

02:00:02.660 I'm honored. Honestly, God bless you. Thank you for your service. Thanks to all of our military

02:00:07.720 members, active duty and retired and those we've lost in the service and sacrifice.

02:00:12.940 Appreciate it. God bless you too. I hope this is a first of many, Sean. Me too.

02:00:21.360 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

02:00:37.720 What a hell.

02:00:56.340 What?

The Megyn Kelly Show - June 21, 2024

Military-Industrial Complex - From Bush to Biden ｜ Shawn Ryan x Megyn Kelly - The FULL Interview

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