The Megyn Kelly Show - Shawn Ryan on the Physical and Emotional Toll of War, the Military-Industrial Complex, and Real Life Angels

00:00:00.600 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.

00:00:15.020 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.

00:00:25.020 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 in much, much more.

00:01:02.020 Glad to welcome him here in person for this special episode. Sean, welcome.

00:01:08.660 Thank you for having me.

00:01:09.640 Thank you for your service. To kick it off.

00:01:12.000 Oh, thank you for saying that.

00:01:13.480 Yeah.

00:01:13.820 I appreciate that.

00:01:14.300 Yeah, I appreciate it too. It's hard on Memorial Day because it's a solemn day, right?

00:01:19.440 But people are out there trying to get their big TV, and I understand that, right?

00:01:24.740 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.

00:01:32.620 Shop where you want and wear what you want and say what you want and do what you want, and that boils down to you guys, you and the friends you've lost.

00:01:39.100 Well, thank you.

00:01:39.680 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.

00:01:47.480 I know this from my many interviews of SEALs over the years. It's not like you're not normal people. I think that's fair to say. Am I wrong?

00:01:56.140 I think that's fair to say.

00:01:57.400 Okay. And so, tell us what you were like as a child, because there are always some signs of a future Navy SEAL in there,

00:02:04.540 whether it's a rebellious kid or a leader or obsessive about something. Jocko said his parents wouldn't let him quit anything.

00:02:12.120 Like, if he took up knitting, they wouldn't let him quit knitting.

00:02:14.880 So, looking back at your own childhood, were there signs of the future you there?

00:02:20.620 There probably were. I was definitely very rebellious, not a great student, not a great listener, very creative,

00:02:29.860 and just not very academic at all. So, the SEAL teams kind of came on my radar. I don't remember exactly,

00:02:45.080 but I was always infatuated with the military. When I was growing up, the Gulf War was going on,

00:02:50.540 and I remember picking up all the magazines and all that stuff and just looking at all the pictures.

00:02:57.840 I was really into GI Joes, and it got to the point where, when I got to high school, I just, like I said,

00:03:08.700 I wasn't an academics guy. I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't interested in school, and I definitely wasn't

00:03:14.560 going to do well in college. So, I decided to look into the military.

00:03:21.660 Alternatives. Did you come from a military family?

00:03:23.760 Not exactly. I mean, my dad did serve. He was a pharmacist in the Army. So, definitely a totally

00:03:32.860 different role, you know, different direction. Had no interest in the medical field at all.

00:03:38.280 So, I started looking at the Marine Corps. I wanted to be a recon guy. They wouldn't let me in.

00:03:46.120 Went to the Army, wanted to be a Green Beret, wouldn't let me in. And the Navy recruiter kind of

00:03:52.680 stuck his head out and asked if I'd ever heard of the SEAL teams, and I hadn't at the time. So,

00:03:59.060 he gave me, you know, endless material to pick through. And so, I did that very fast. And when I

00:04:08.680 realized what it was, it just captivated me.

00:04:12.560 So, how does a guy who's not, you know, devoted to his academics, which does require the kind of

00:04:17.940 tenacity and hard work you put in to become a SEAL, find it in order to go through BUDS training and

00:04:23.760 actually perform that elite level as a soldier?

00:04:27.660 I mean, I don't, it's just the only thing that caught my interest, you know? And so,

00:04:32.820 nothing really in school caught my interest. And I didn't, I never really felt challenged,

00:04:38.720 I don't think. And so, I mean, there was a multitude of things. I wasn't the top performer

00:04:46.640 out of my three siblings in sports or in academics.

00:04:51.240 Where were you in the birth order?

00:04:52.720 I'm first.

00:04:53.580 And where'd you grow up?

00:04:54.800 I grew up, we moved around a lot, but primarily Missouri.

00:04:58.500 Okay, keep going. You're first.

00:05:00.020 Yeah. Yeah. First born. And so, I got in there and, I mean, long story short, maybe we'll dive in,

00:05:11.300 but I just wanted to do something. One, I wanted to serve my country and I wanted to finally

00:05:17.940 give my parents a reason to be proud of me. And so, that kind of carried me through.

00:05:25.080 And were they, like when you signed up at first, were they, what year would that have been?

00:05:29.200 That would have been 2000, 2000. No, wait. When I signed up, it was 2001.

00:05:36.000 Okay. Right. It was before 9-11.

00:05:37.860 It was right before 9-11. I went to the Navy to bootcamp in July of 2001.

00:05:44.380 Oh my gosh. Little did you know what was about to happen to the country, the world, and you.

00:05:50.360 Yeah.

00:05:51.740 So, were your parents proud when you signed up? Were they?

00:05:54.120 Uh, I think they were, they were definitely worried. Uh, it surprised them. It kind of came

00:05:59.820 out of left field. Um, and so, but, but once they wrapped their head around it and saw that I was,

00:06:06.460 I seemed to be serious, they, they, they, they fully supported it.

00:06:10.500 See, that's how I feel. I would love for, I'll be sexist, my boys to serve, but I'd be terrified

00:06:17.780 if they actually said they were going to do it. I'd be in church every day, praying to God,

00:06:21.840 lighting every candle in the, in the church. You know, I, I can see what your parents went through

00:06:26.240 and I'm sure most parents go through that, especially if it's not a lifelong military family.

00:06:30.140 Yeah. Yeah. I would too. I have two little ones now, so, uh, I get it.

00:06:35.740 And, you know, especially if you're looking at your kid and so far, he's been kind of a knucklehead.

00:06:40.740 I don't think this kid should have a gun. I don't, I'm not sure how this is going to go.

00:06:44.860 Very true.

00:06:45.580 So there had to be some concerns there. And what, just out of curiosity, what did your,

00:06:49.120 uh, siblings wind up doing?

00:06:51.060 My brother is in hospitality and my sister, uh, has her hair salon.

00:06:56.620 Okay. So they did not, they did not, they were not tempted to follow you down this road.

00:07:00.460 No.

00:07:00.920 All right. So you decide to join up for military service and not just any military service,

00:07:06.140 not just like, I don't know, the, the regular infantry, uh, with the army, you decide to go

00:07:11.240 for Navy SEALs. So inside there's an overachiever just waiting to be born. And did you know anything

00:07:18.480 about how hard that was going to be?

00:07:20.820 I did. Once I started researching it, I just, I didn't care. I was just,

00:07:25.800 I was going to do it. And, uh, and I felt great all the way up until I arrived at super training.

00:07:34.420 And, uh, in my mind, I was amazing right up until I started.

00:07:38.420 Exactly. And, uh, I, I mean, when I got there, I was 18 and, you know, barely a man. And when I

00:07:46.420 got there, there were guys that had, there were Olympic athletes. There were guys that had already

00:07:52.200 been to war and come back, uh, guys that had been to Panama, guys that have been to Iraq. It was,

00:07:58.100 it was, uh, championship boxers. And, and I was probably about a buck, buck 30.

00:08:06.560 Wow.

00:08:06.980 And what? So now, is this why I read you got, you got laughed out of the, one of the recruiting

00:08:11.520 offices?

00:08:12.520 Yeah, that would be, that would be the army and the Marine.

00:08:15.680 Yeah. Okay. The Marine Corps told, you know, hard to know. This is a common story. I've heard this

00:08:19.700 from a few of our, our Navy sail buds that they got, they got laughed at when they tried to sign

00:08:23.980 up. What, what is it with the army? Are they, are the Marines just like,

00:08:27.800 I think, uh, I mean, it's just, you know, it's, it's pretty ambitious to walk in and say, Hey,

00:08:33.480 I want to, uh, I want to operate at the top level, uh, right away. Right. And, and they're kind of

00:08:40.400 like, okay, guy pump the brakes, maybe do infantry, go the long route. And I just, I had no interest in

00:08:47.580 go in the long route. I didn't want to do regular infantry. There's nothing wrong with that, but I

00:08:52.800 just wanted, uh, I wanted the challenge. Do you remember back in those early days when you were

00:08:58.460 first starting to train, what jumped out at you amongst the guys who surrounded you? Like,

00:09:04.520 were there commonalities in this pocket of the world that were immediately noticeable as different?

00:09:10.820 Once I got to, to buds or even when you just first signed up and started training? Cause you

00:09:15.060 didn't go right to buds training, right? Don't you do normal training before you do normal

00:09:18.200 training before? I, I mean, I grew up in a town of 6,000 people, so there wasn't, there wasn't,

00:09:23.360 uh, there wasn't that many people that wanted to, that wanted to do this. Um, I remember the first

00:09:30.140 time I met, uh, they called him a seal motivator. He was, he was kind of a guy that would go around,

00:09:37.480 I don't know the country who was a seal. And then now he's, he's teaching you how to swim.

00:09:44.920 And, and, and, and kind of refining some of your techniques with running and swimming and,

00:09:49.560 and some things that you might expect. And, uh, he had, he just carried himself different than,

00:09:57.740 than anybody else I'd been around before. So there's, there's definitely a type.

00:10:04.300 Mm-hmm. Now knowing what you know, is that, does that come from combat or just the grueling nature

00:10:13.020 of seal training? Like guys who are going through it today, can they get that without actually going

00:10:17.820 into combat like you have? Oh, I think so. I mean, I, I, I do believe that.

00:10:22.820 So the, the Navy will get it into you. They will figure out a way.

00:10:27.700 I I'm thrilled and impressed and want to do it. And a secret version of myself would love to try

00:10:32.560 this. I don't think I can, I can't really even make it through 10 minutes of jumping jacks in

00:10:37.740 my hit class, but in my mind, this could happen for me someday. And, um, we've had lots of tough

00:10:44.980 guys come on here and talk about how the toughest guys they knew didn't make it through training,

00:10:49.000 just couldn't make it through. It's just a mind over matter kind of situation, but you're telling me

00:10:54.640 you didn't have anything in your past that told you, you could, you could put mind over matter

00:10:59.760 and accomplish this. No, I didn't. I didn't. And, um, so it was, I mean, I was an 18 year old kid

00:11:06.160 at Bud's and, uh, I, I, it was, it was, I mean, it's scary to see who quits, you know? I mean,

00:11:14.920 you're seeing people that you look up to people that, I mean, you're, you're constantly measuring

00:11:20.900 up to somebody else and comparing yourself to somebody else and going, Oh, you know, if that

00:11:25.660 guy, if that guy didn't make it, I, I don't, I don't think I have a chance. And so you just put

00:11:33.240 your head down and drive on and try to make it to the next meal, try to make it to the next day and,

00:11:38.600 and, uh, and just keep driving on. And, and, and it, it, it got to the point where I did,

00:11:44.320 I wanted to quit, but, um, but I, I could not, I could not face calling my parents and tell them

00:11:52.380 that I, I had failed again. Oh, wow. So, yeah, I've had guys say that there was no way I was

00:11:59.340 going to see my father's name on that hat and ring that bell. Nope, not me.

00:12:05.620 So you, you talked a little bit about your upbringing. Was it a modest upbringing? Like

00:12:10.920 what kind of childhood did you have? Yeah. Uh, I mean, I would say upper middle class,

00:12:16.700 uh, upbringing and small town. We moved around a lot, probably moved over 10 times, um, in my

00:12:25.000 childhood, but we finally settled in Missouri in a small farm town known as Chillicothe, Missouri,

00:12:32.320 and, uh, hadn't been back there in several years, but, but I was, I liked full contact sports,

00:12:39.480 tried football, was too small, couldn't make it, got into wrestling, was a mediocre wrestler,

00:12:45.320 nothing, nothing, uh, no state championships or anything like that. Just kind of an average

00:12:50.440 kid, troublemaker, really into booze and partying. And, uh, and, uh, yeah, I mean, that was,

00:13:00.760 that was my childhood. Did you have strict parents? They tried to be strict, but, uh,

00:13:06.480 you managed to find ways around it. I would, uh, that was the future CAA contractor. That's

00:13:12.240 the foundation was being laid. Little did they know this is important research for you.

00:13:16.160 Yeah. Good point. Good point. But, um, yeah, I mean, they were definitely against a lot of the

00:13:21.420 things that I was doing. I was, they were not happy that I was drinking. They were not happy with

00:13:28.340 some of the crowd that I was running around with. They were not happy with my grades and, um,

00:13:33.760 and, uh, yeah, you know, what, like I said, when it came time to make, make some decisions on what

00:13:40.500 I'm going to do with my future, I had to take a hard look and, and, um, and so I went the military

00:13:46.480 route. Um, I was just talking to Riley Gaines not long ago. She was talking about how, you know,

00:13:52.680 she's this competitive swimmer and now she's an activist on the trans insanity that's happening to

00:13:57.520 women. And, um, she was talking about how her dad put her in the pool one time and just made her

00:14:01.800 be in that pool for some eight to 10 minutes, freezing cold. It was not a summer pool. He

00:14:07.040 pulled off the cover during the winter, made her get in. And it was an exercise in mental toughness,

00:14:11.640 you know, just to like, you're not cold. You gotta get, that's you guys, you do, you do that every

00:14:16.320 day during SEAL training. When you're a SEAL, it's horrid and it is somewhat tortuous from what I've

00:14:22.620 heard. So when you finally see yourself in those situations, how do you, how do you say I'm not

00:14:28.840 quitting? How do you get through? How do you get from minute 10 to minute 11 to minute 12?

00:14:34.520 I mean, it, you just have to dig deep. I mean, it's not, it's not, it is very physical,

00:14:41.340 but it's more mental. And so everybody, everybody in training is going to break.

00:14:47.640 They're just, it's going to happen. And it just, you get to this point where you go numb. You get to

00:14:58.160 this point where you go numb and, and then it just doesn't matter anymore. Nobody, nobody really quits

00:15:04.020 after, I think Wednesday night is the day where it's very, very rare for anybody to quit, but

00:15:09.280 it's just, it's breaking time down. And, and instead of going, I'm going to make it through

00:15:15.380 this entire six months, it's, I'm going to make it to hell week. And then when you get to hell week,

00:15:21.660 it's, I'm just going to make it to the next meal or I'm going to make it to the next med check.

00:15:26.560 And, and by Wednesday night, I mean, you're, you haven't slept.

00:15:30.960 Remind me of when it starts.

00:15:32.560 It starts, I think it starts on Sunday night and I believe it's done Friday night. It's five days

00:15:38.980 with minimal sleep, but, but your muscles break down, you get, what do they call it? Elephantitis,

00:15:49.840 your, your ankle starts swelling up.

00:15:52.060 Oh, I had that when I was pregnant.

00:15:53.580 Oh, really?

00:15:54.160 No, I mean, it just happens naturally. Everything swells up.

00:15:57.260 Yeah. But, but it's, it's just, it's, it's doing those little time hacks and just breaking it down

00:16:04.520 and making it to the next meal, making it to the next med check, checking your buddies by Wednesday.

00:16:10.780 You know, it's a pretty tight group. Everybody's pretty much gone. And, and you kind of just go into

00:16:16.980 maybe this flow state, you know, and you're just, you're just moving. So.

00:16:22.880 Yeah. It sounds kind of transcendent in a way. So then you have to actually be a Navy SEAL,

00:16:29.040 which is no easier. And especially when you complete your training in July of 2001,

00:16:34.940 all hell breaks loose in the country, in the world. And how many combat deployments did you have?

00:16:42.420 With the SEAL teams, I had two combat deployments.

00:16:45.880 To Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:16:47.220 Yep.

00:16:47.420 Okay. And two different SEAL teams.

00:16:51.160 Yeah. So there was, so when I got into the SEAL teams, it was around 2003.

00:16:58.220 And the first deployment, we went to Germany, which was a really boring deployment.

00:17:04.680 And then we went to Afghanistan in the late summer of 05, I believe.

00:17:12.360 Hmm. And how long were you there?

00:17:16.180 We were only there for three months. So it was, it was right after Red Wings happened. Are you

00:17:22.320 familiar with Red Wings, the lone survivor?

00:17:24.520 Oh yeah, of course. Yes. I've had Marcus on. He's amazing.

00:17:27.320 Yeah. So we relieved them after that happened. That was the biggest SEAL team,

00:17:31.920 the biggest loss in SEAL team history at the time. And it was the, SOCOM was doing the surge

00:17:40.420 where they want, they needed more guys. And so they sped up the deployment cycle. And that's,

00:17:46.380 so I went from SEAL teammate to SEAL team two, did my Afghanistan deployment with SEAL team two.

00:17:53.160 We, we didn't do a whole lot there. There was a lot of, there was a lot of political stuff going on

00:17:58.940 after that operation. And to be a hundred percent honest, I was really dissatisfied. I went to the

00:18:08.240 teams to go to war and to fight for the country. And I, I wasn't getting enough. I think we did one

00:18:15.700 direct action. That entire deployment took a couple of prisoners, no shots fired. And then,

00:18:23.700 and then we got our Admiral pulled us out of the country. And so at that point, I kind of made a

00:18:30.920 decision. For me, this, this wasn't what I had expected. And so I told my leadership, I said, Hey,

00:18:39.180 this is going to be my last pump. I'm not doing another one. I'd like to finish my enlistment out

00:18:45.660 on deployment. So we had a sister platoon that was in Baghdad that was running a lot of sniper

00:18:52.880 operations. And so I volunteered to go there and they threw my name in the hat and I, I got lucky

00:18:59.840 and went. Volunteered to go to Baghdad. Yeah. In 2000. That would have been 2000 late Oh five or

00:19:08.440 six. I mean the worst absolute time to be in Baghdad for anybody, you know, who's not ready to

00:19:14.740 fight and kill and risk their life. I mean, that was just a devastating time. I remember just as a

00:19:19.360 journalist covering those years and that's when all the beheading started and it was bad. It was

00:19:24.960 about as bad as it could be. I mean, it's amazing. Again, it being Memorial Day, I have to think about

00:19:31.200 guys like you who volunteered to go into it. The guys who volunteered to go into the buildings on 9-11

00:19:36.620 at great risk to themselves. And then their brothers in arms in a way who volunteered to go into

00:19:41.700 the fire in a different way. A couple of years after that, we all have a lot to be thankful for.

00:19:46.160 So how long were you there? I was in Baghdad for about four months. And so we got there.

00:19:54.200 The operational tempo was pretty slow at first. There was an election going on, if I remember.

00:20:00.060 And, and then we, we were on the hook to do like protection for the, for the Iraqi

00:20:09.040 government officials and, and nothing was happening. So we wound up the Lieutenant through our name in

00:20:18.620 the hat to just help conventional units who were getting blown up on, on their reconnaissance routes,

00:20:26.200 supply routes, whatever the routes were. I mean, there was, they had these bombs called EFPs over

00:20:31.720 there, which were, um, I don't know if you remember, maybe you covered this, but they would

00:20:36.220 basically put them on the side of the road and they could be triggered by IR lasers. So they would

00:20:42.760 pick up heat sensitivity to engine blocks. And they had, they had the timing down perfectly to where the

00:20:50.840 projectile would go through the passenger or driver's side door of, of the Humvees. And basically

00:20:58.140 would vaporize everything in the vehicle and you'd just get sucked out of a little hole on the back

00:21:03.480 end. And, um, so that was, that was chewing a lot of our guys up. And, uh, we just got tired of

00:21:12.520 seeing these conventional guys just get crushed by these EFPs. And so, so we started attaching

00:21:19.820 ourselves to these conventional units, uh, that didn't have the knowledge or know-how on how to kind of

00:21:25.260 combat this, set up a targeting package to get these guys. And so what we would do is we would,

00:21:31.560 we would get in with them in bed with them, train them for a couple of weeks, uh, bring them out,

00:21:37.420 teach them how to set up sniper hides, teach them how to do a targeting package, teach them how to conduct

00:21:43.120 surveillance, teach them how to start running assets, uh, within the local population to, to try to

00:21:49.760 figure out who's doing this and teach them how to shoot, taught them everything. Um, um, gave them a

00:21:57.280 lot of stuff. We really kind of like took these guys under our wings and then we would take them

00:22:02.240 out on operations. And, um, so we would go out, find all the places they were getting hit and set up

00:22:09.840 sniper teams along all of those different routes, all those, uh, points of interest. And we would take

00:22:18.140 each sniper observation team would take maybe one or two conventional guys with them on the actual

00:22:24.920 operation. And, uh, and we started killing bad guys. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Starting to turn things the

00:22:32.640 other way. You must've lost a lot of friends. Uh, every guy who serves does, and you're one of the

00:22:39.160 lucky ones if nothing happens to you, uh, to take a limb or a traumatic brain injury.

00:22:44.140 As you're going through it, there's no time to deal with any of that, right? It's just forward.

00:22:50.700 Like we talked about in the, in the training, just forward. There's no time to think about that stuff,

00:22:54.280 but you're, you're in active combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and eventually that stops,

00:23:00.880 right? And is it at that point that you have to deal with that or is it later? Cause I know then

00:23:08.240 comes a CIA stint. It's, it's a gradual, it just comes on gradual. And, um, I mean, there's a lot of,

00:23:21.440 there's a lot of coping mechanisms, uh, that we use and that numbs it out. Booze, pills, sleeping pills,

00:23:32.240 whatever you can kind of do to numb it out. And, uh, you know, in the early days, nobody knew any,

00:23:39.380 any better, you know, uh, that kind of all came crashing down later on for a lot of guys.

00:23:46.100 And that's what we cover on my show. But, um, it took, it took a while, you know, for that stuff to

00:23:55.300 start sinking in probably well into my contracting career at the agency.

00:24:02.080 Well, that's the thing. If when you have massive crises, especially repeated and ongoing sustained

00:24:06.860 crises, there's only one way, like you have to compartmentalize how, how could you possibly

00:24:11.600 function if you were dealing with any of it? You're not, you actually are human despite all

00:24:18.580 appearances of our seals and our Rangers and all those guys. So was it right after your service in

00:24:24.940 Iraq that you decided to join the agency? No, honestly, I didn't want to, I never wanted to

00:24:30.240 go back and, uh, I wanted to pursue some type of a career in business. And so I tried a, a lot of

00:24:38.560 things, uh, civilian life. I just, I wasn't ready for it yet. And, uh, I decided that I'd missed the

00:24:46.960 brotherhood, the camaraderie, the, the obnoxiousness of being on a team. And so I, I decided I would try

00:24:57.140 to get into a fire Academy and, uh, and I did wasn't, it wasn't what it wasn't. What do you mean?

00:25:05.380 Fire Academy is a firefighter. Okay. Yeah. I wanted to be, I just thought, well, that seems like the next

00:25:11.880 best thing to what I was a part of. And, um, it just wasn't going to work for me. Uh, a lot of family

00:25:17.960 ties help and the fire service. And I had none. So I had a friend and, um, that was in Afghanistan

00:25:26.520 with me, another seal. And he said, Hey, uh, I'm working for Blackwater and I think you should come

00:25:35.460 work with us. And I had seen a lot of the Blackwater contractors and heard a lot of the

00:25:40.200 stuff that was going on over there at the time. Some of it was true. Some of it wound up not being

00:25:44.640 true, but, uh, I decided to, while I was over there and I saw how those guys operated, I just,

00:25:50.640 I didn't want to be a part of the contracting career and, uh, especially at Blackwater. And so

00:25:56.620 I'd express that to him and he said, this is different. This is a different project. The qualifications

00:26:04.280 all have to be, um, at least six years at special operations or above, uh, then there's a month long

00:26:12.860 tryout. I can't tell you who I'm working for. Um, but I think you would really fit in well here.

00:26:19.040 And it's, it's, it's, it's not what you're thinking. It's very high caliber, um, operators

00:26:25.300 working here. So, so I threw my name in the hat and, uh, took about six months to get a call back.

00:26:32.120 And then I did, and it was just an email that said, Hey, be here at this time, bring this year

00:26:38.480 with you. Um, and, uh, it was a vetting course. So that was for Blackwater. So I don't know how

00:26:48.460 familiar you are with Blackwater, but Blackwater is a massive organization and they have, so under

00:26:55.980 Blackwater, they have all these different contracts. They have the department of state contract. They have

00:27:00.440 the DEA contract. They have probably all kinds of government contracts. And then the very back

00:27:08.680 of the compound, which Blackwater compound was, I don't know how many thousands of acres, uh, is the

00:27:15.060 black, the black sites. And so, uh, you go back there, they don't tell you anything. And, um, you're with,

00:27:24.600 with a group of guys and you start off with a PT test and then you do some shooting qualifications.

00:27:31.460 They don't really tell you what the standards are. They're just, it's just, just, here's the time

00:27:37.760 do your best. And, um, or sometimes when they won't even give you the time, just hit that target

00:27:45.760 as many times as you can and, uh, as fast as possible. And so you do that and it's, you know,

00:27:53.360 it's really, uh, it's, you don't know the standard and that's the biggest stressor is there's nobody.

00:28:01.400 It's not succeeding. What's failing. Yeah. You don't, you have no idea. And, um, you don't even

00:28:06.420 know if you passed at the end of the day or not. And so it's just, I mean, you, you know,

00:28:13.040 you passed if you're showing up the next day to work, to try out. And so we had made it through

00:28:19.560 the shooting qualifications. And then you go through a lot of kind of situational stuff.

00:28:24.480 They'll put you in these, in these situations. Uh, and they want to just see how you react,

00:28:29.220 how you can lead a team, how you can integrate him with a team. Um, all kinds of different scenarios,

00:28:36.300 scenarios that you're never going to fight your way out of, uh, lots of civilians. Uh, they would plant lots of,

00:28:43.040 like role players, uh, with simunition rounds, which is basically, uh, kind of like a paintball

00:28:48.680 gun, but more realistic. And they will put you in all these scenarios to see if you can keep your cool,

00:28:55.320 uh, under pressure, not shooting any innocent civilians. Uh, it was a protection type gig as,

00:29:04.340 as well. So a lot of times they would have like some type of an asset that you're,

00:29:08.560 you have to go in and extract. And, um, I made it through that. And then at the very end,

00:29:16.520 uh, they, there was also driving surveillance, all kinds of stuff, uh, that they wanted to just kind

00:29:21.880 of see how you were in, in all these different scenarios. And at the end, they, they, they give

00:29:27.640 you the brief and say, Hey, you know, this is the OGA, other government agency, CIA contract.

00:29:34.280 And, uh, they started looking for dates to, to go overseas.

00:29:38.740 Yes. But you don't know for what?

00:29:40.700 No, you never know.

00:29:42.120 You just know that you've been selected as this elite kind of service member and whatever it is

00:29:48.900 is going to be very high level and complicated and complex. Right. So you're in, but you don't

00:29:54.740 know what you're in for.

00:29:55.620 Yeah.

00:29:55.980 Well, that's disconcerting. Just listening to yours. You are cool. You are calm like that.

00:30:01.620 That probably really helped you. I mean, I was just thinking, who do I know? Who's kind of more

00:30:06.920 on the hysterical end? I don't know her, but she's the only one who came to mind. Somebody like a

00:30:10.900 Bethany Frankel, the former real housewife. I know that's a bizarre compare, but I mean,

00:30:15.360 she's tightly wound Sean. She's like, always like everything is up here. Right. And you're just the

00:30:20.500 opposite of that. Just kind of a cool cat, like a low blood pressure kind of guy.

00:30:24.340 Well, I mean, when you're in a job like that, and I'm sure you can relate being on TV and with the

00:30:30.620 career that you've had, but I mean, it's so, it gets to be so high stress every day. You're being

00:30:37.960 judged. You're being graded. It's, do you have what it takes to be a part of this team? You know,

00:30:43.600 from the, from, from SEAL training through the, through the teams, the six years that I was there

00:30:49.040 to CIA or Blackwater training for the subcontract of CIA contractor. I mean, it's just,

00:30:56.460 you have to get to the point where you can, you know, blow that stuff off. And, and that,

00:31:02.660 that came to me in the teams. It, it, I was constantly just, it was just stress all the time.

00:31:10.980 Do I deserve to be here? Am I going to get kicked out this week? Um, you know,

00:31:15.620 what does my team think of me? I'm a new guy and you have to, and, and that stuff can hinder your

00:31:21.360 performance. And so, you know, the most, the most stressful thing you can do, at least for me as an

00:31:29.600 operator is when you're doing the kill house, which is, which is entering buildings, saving

00:31:34.860 hostages, killing bad guys, all in your face, clearing houses, basically. And we're talking about

00:31:40.800 real life now or the training? We're talking about training and real life, but, but primarily,

00:31:46.580 I guess, primarily training. And it's, it, it gets to the point where if you let this stuff get to

00:31:51.520 you, every, every house, we call them a house run, where you, you go through the doors, maybe you blow

00:31:56.500 the doors, maybe you're climbing in a window, maybe you're coming in from the rooftop, doesn't matter.

00:32:00.860 But once you enter that house and training, every, every move you make is critiqued and it can make

00:32:11.520 it seem like, and purposely that, that they're picking on you, that you're not any good, that,

00:32:16.380 that they don't want you there. And you just have to get to the point where you can't let that stuff

00:32:23.300 affect you. It just got to the point in the teams where I, I, I, I had made hit this mental switch

00:32:30.440 where I, I don't care anymore. I, I had like tricked myself into thinking, I don't care how

00:32:38.520 this run, this house run ends. I don't care what these guys think of me. I'm just going to do the

00:32:43.820 best I can do. And that's, that's all I can do. Do you know the, the free solo movie and that the

00:32:48.460 story about that mountain climber who refused to use any lines and supports and he wound up dying?

00:32:54.500 No. But they talk about these guys who climb these mountains and they're, they're nuts. They do it

00:32:59.100 with no support. You know, there's, there's nothing to, you know, and a lot of them do die.

00:33:03.560 Uh, but they identify with a lot of these guys that they've lost their ability to get an adrenaline

00:33:09.420 surge. And that's actually one of the reasons why they do it the way they do it without all the

00:33:14.580 belts and suspenders. Can you relate to that at all? I mean, do you, do you lose adrenaline? Yeah.

00:33:21.320 And then maybe crossing over to it's gone. Like, where is it? How can I get it again? Yeah.

00:33:26.280 You find it through, I mean, that's why so many guys honestly wind back up in the, in the contracting

00:33:34.040 arena is especially like these guys, you know, that, that spend 30 plus years at the seal teams or a

00:33:43.220 SF team or Delta or wherever, Rangers, Marsoc. Uh, you can't, you, it, it, it's never enough. I mean,

00:33:52.480 it's like, it's like a heroin addiction, you know, you're constantly looking for the fix and then it

00:33:57.940 gets so bad that, that even on your off time, you know, you're looking for it. It's not, you can't

00:34:04.800 take six months and not feel that it is. It's the pinnacle of your existence at the time.

00:34:12.720 I can't imagine, you know, just the other night I was at a dinner party at a friend's house in

00:34:21.780 Connecticut and it was absolutely lovely. Hostess knew all the right things to do. We had a lovely

00:34:26.940 cocktail hour. We sat down for dinner. There was even some dancing after the fact, which is a

00:34:31.020 successful cocktail party, a dinner party by any measure. I can't imagine a Sean Ryan having lived

00:34:38.520 the life you've lived, right. Coming back from all of that and even participating in such. I mean,

00:34:44.300 I just feel like your whole life must, must've been, you know, when this was done, like, what is

00:34:50.860 this? Who are these people? What is, does, this is just absolute drivel around me everywhere.

00:34:57.980 None of this matters. Did you go through that? Oh yeah. It created a lot of anxiety,

00:35:04.460 a lot of anxiety. I had really bad social anxiety when I, when I left the agency. And, uh, I just,

00:35:11.920 I mean, you are thrown into a world that you thought you knew and it's just, it's, it's hard. I mean,

00:35:26.760 it's really hard to relate to anybody who has not lived the kind of life that you've lived.

00:35:33.040 It takes a long time, you know, and it, it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of self-work.

00:35:38.220 It's like you were on Mars for 14 years.

00:35:40.280 Pretty much. Yeah. That's a good way to put it.

00:35:42.420 Right. And then you come back and earth has changed a lot. You know, now there's an internet,

00:35:46.400 internet, GPS and iPhones and social media. So it's just like the dramatic changes.

00:35:51.520 And a lot of different opinions on what we're doing over there.

00:35:54.680 So can you help me understand, because we talked about leaving seal,

00:35:57.540 the seals and going to Blackwater and then, but that, and that, do you count that as CIA time?

00:36:03.040 I don't totally understand.

00:36:03.840 Yeah. So, so, so I spent a very brief time at Blackwater as well. So I did two deployments,

00:36:10.220 I think with Blackwater and, um, but you're under, so basically if you're going to get your

00:36:18.100 housework done, right, you're going to use a general contractor and then he's going to subcontract

00:36:23.000 out the plumbing, the drywall, the air conditioning. So think of like, think of Blackwater as the

00:36:31.100 general contractor for the U S government. And so then department of state is says, Hey, we need

00:36:37.380 500 guys to in Baghdad to protect all of our state diplomats. Okay. So Blackwater goes and they,

00:36:47.720 what do you, what kind of guys do you want? What do you want to pay? You know, what qualifications

00:36:52.200 are you looking for? And then they go find those types of people, train them up, put them through

00:36:56.900 a vetting course, and then here's your 500 guys. And so CIA does the same thing. It's, Hey, we need,

00:37:02.720 we have this very particular set of skills we're looking for. This is the job description. You guys,

00:37:10.240 you Blackwater go find these guys for us. So we're basically subcontractors for the agency.

00:37:16.240 Does that make sense? Yeah. Why? I don't understand Blackwater that well, but why would

00:37:20.880 they not just go tap the seals or, you know, the green berets or why would they go to Blackwater for

00:37:28.320 any of this? That's a great question. I wish I could answer that. And they do, they do go direct.

00:37:34.220 And so later on in my career after Blackwater, I wound up, they, I, I had taken a break from

00:37:39.480 Blackwater. Then I went to a company called sock, uh, did a couple of appointments with them,

00:37:45.620 got kind of tired of the agency stuff for a little bit. So then I jumped on an anti-piracy gig, um,

00:37:51.720 back, do you remember the Marisk, Alabama? Yeah. So after that happened, um, all these contracts

00:37:57.760 spun up and it was, all right, we need, we need seals on ships to kill pirates that are trying to,

00:38:05.380 you know, kidnap the crew and take over the ship. Just another day at work. Yeah. And ransom.

00:38:10.020 No, that's like Rob O'Neill. I told him he's like the Waldo of, you know, servicemen. He's

00:38:14.560 everywhere. Yeah. Every movie that's ever been made, Rob O'Neill had a role in it.

00:38:17.960 He's been on all of the ops, right? But, um, yeah, but, uh, so I did that for two deployments and

00:38:23.980 then, and then, uh, the agency got back in touch with me and then they, they wanted me to come work

00:38:29.260 direct for them, uh, as a contractor, but not through any companies. Okay. And so now you're

00:38:34.680 actually earning some money. Yeah. So that's good. Yeah. I mean, more so than he ever got paid by the,

00:38:39.800 by the Navy. Way more than I got paid for. But can you get rich doing that or not really?

00:38:45.220 Uh, I mean, I guess it depends on how you invest your money. I mean, at that time,

00:38:50.460 a good rate was about a thousand dollars a day. Um, so that would be a really, that would be a good rate.

00:38:57.760 Um, some guys, a low rate would be about 550 a day. And so, um, yeah, I mean, it depends on how

00:39:07.220 much you want to deploy. Where are you sitting in between, in between deployments? Are you back

00:39:11.800 here? Like going to the movies and Starbucks? I spent a lot of time. Well, I mean, it was 14

00:39:21.700 agency was about a little shy of nine years. And so I would, man, I would go all over, but,

00:39:31.760 uh, towards the end, I started going to Columbia, South America.

00:39:37.200 This was not a good period in your life.

00:39:39.340 You know about this.

00:39:40.800 Nothing good happens in Columbia.

00:39:42.740 Nothing good does happen in Columbia.

00:39:44.600 Now I do know a little bit about your troubles and that was a rough period for you. Explain

00:39:50.220 why and why Columbia?

00:39:52.340 Well, um, originally I went to Columbia because when I joined the SEAL teams, I had always wanted

00:39:59.840 to go to team four because I wanted to do the counter drug ops. Well then, you know, 9-11 kicked

00:40:05.940 off obviously. And, uh, that wasn't a focus at all. And so, um, when I was in the agency,

00:40:13.380 I'd broken up with, uh, with a girlfriend. And so I decided I wanted to travel and I'd

00:40:18.740 always, I was just in fact, I mean, those were all the documentaries I was watching when

00:40:23.020 I went to the recruiter. It was, that was the only thing going on at the time was Panama

00:40:27.500 and kind of the, the, the counter drug situation down in South America, which a lot of that was

00:40:33.660 in Columbia since documented in shows like Narcos. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and, uh, so I decided

00:40:41.340 I wanted to go check it out down there. And, um, so I, I mean, that's crazy talk just out,

00:40:47.260 just like as a pin in this car, that's crazy talk. Nobody looks at a show like Narcos or

00:40:52.140 Panama and says, yes, I want to go there. That's all normal people are like, thank God that's

00:40:59.520 down there. Yeah. Well, I mean, I want, it was for a number I wanted to see, I just, I

00:41:05.080 wanted to be in a jungle environment. And, uh, so I went to check it out, had a, a great

00:41:11.840 time. And, uh, and so I kept, I just kept going back, kept going back, kept going back

00:41:18.000 all the way past my time at the agency. But, uh, then it turned into, we had just kind of

00:41:25.860 spoken about addiction to adrenaline. And so I was going down there doing a lot of stuff

00:41:32.900 that I shouldn't be doing cocaine. And, and, and then once I left, uh, the agency, I kind

00:41:41.560 of started building a network down there. And, um, it just, it was exciting to me. I was

00:41:48.780 in, uh, overseas building my own network, kind of felt like I was kind of running my own operations.

00:41:57.900 What kind of operations? Uh, drug networks. And so I wanted to see how deep into the kind

00:42:05.800 of narcos network I could get myself. And, but this was not for crime fighting. No, this

00:42:14.480 was for crime committee pretty much. Yeah. And, um, so I kind of started at street level

00:42:22.660 and built a network out and went to clubs and met people and, and, and found my guys

00:42:30.260 and started testing cocaine and finding the best stuff. And, and, and I found it. And,

00:42:36.720 um, and that lasted for, for a couple of years and I would bounce, I would just bounce. I mean,

00:42:43.100 it was really, I got a lot of satisfaction out of the adrenaline and seeing, and just seeing

00:42:50.580 how much I could have been my embed myself into these different cultures. And so then

00:42:55.360 I started flying all over the, all over South America. I started going to Peru and starting

00:43:02.600 to build network there and Dominican Republic and Panama, all over Columbia, um, all over

00:43:09.200 the country and, uh, Costa Rica. And then I started looking up the most dangerous places

00:43:15.380 you could go in the world. And at the time it was San Pedro, Sula, Honduras. So I went

00:43:21.200 there and started, uh, I didn't get very far there, but, uh, but, um, that was, that was

00:43:29.580 my life for several years. Wow. And the, the part was cocaine and you would find what like

00:43:35.580 would be dealers, people to distribute it. I would find dealers and then I would find

00:43:40.180 their dealers and then I would find where their dealers get their stuff. And, and I got

00:43:45.920 to a pretty high level. It's a miracle. You weren't killed. It is a miracle. It was, I

00:43:52.020 mean, I was, I mean, this is what I do for a living though, you know? And so that's true.

00:43:56.100 You had some pretty superior training. I was, I was pretty good at it and pretty fearless at

00:44:02.260 the time. So when you're talking to your old Navy seal buds or blackwater buds and you're

00:44:09.220 down there and they're saying, what are you up to? What were you saying? I would just tell them

00:44:14.060 I've crossed over to the other side. I wouldn't tell them exactly what I'm doing, but I would,

00:44:19.080 I mean, they knew everybody kind of knew, you know, I mean, it just, I started losing friends.

00:44:27.180 Uh, I know the conversations were like, oh yeah, I mean, he's down in Columbia and nobody really

00:44:32.680 hears from him anymore. And, uh, I would resurface every once in a while. Sometimes guys would come

00:44:38.080 down to see me, they wouldn't last very long. They'd head back out, um, immediately. And,

00:44:43.620 um, and, uh, it just, it got to be very dark and, uh, you know, I, I OD'd down there a couple

00:44:57.120 of times and, and, and I remember one time I woke up and, uh, it was like, it was mother's day.

00:45:13.960 And, uh, I remember, I remember calling my mom and I was all, uh, jumped out. And, uh,

00:45:23.120 I remember after that conversation, uh, it, it just hit me like a ton of bricks and,

00:45:28.600 and, uh, I knew I needed to pull myself out of that. And it kind of like went right back to the

00:45:36.800 time when, you know, I told you the only reason I made it through buds was I didn't want to let my

00:45:41.420 parents down. And I sure as hell didn't want my parents to get a notice weeks later that their son

00:45:49.580 had OD'd on cocaine and a penthouse in Columbia. And who knows how long that would take to even get

00:45:55.620 to them. And, and, uh, so it had, it had painted this picture in my head and, uh, I, I started

00:46:04.300 seeking help kind of. It's a big moment. Yeah. Before you begin that path to redemption. Yeah.

00:46:14.120 What got you there? What made you establish residency in Columbia and go all over these

00:46:22.460 countries, these, the most dangerous countries on earth to mess with other people's drug rings?

00:46:27.100 My God, right. It's like playing with plutonium for a living. Yeah. And be so reckless with your

00:46:34.740 life and your wellbeing. Uh, you know, I just, I just didn't value life anymore. I didn't,

00:46:43.400 I didn't care. I mean, I had, I had expected to, I had expected to die down there. And, uh,

00:46:50.700 and then when I got close, uh, I realized, uh, there's a lot more to life than this. And so,

00:46:58.580 so I cleaned it up and, uh, truth be told, I mean, that was kind of an awakening, but I wasn't

00:47:04.640 a hundred percent ready to shut it down. And then I had, you know, I had built quite the network down

00:47:11.500 there and, uh, and I got tipped off that the federal police in Columbia were surveilling

00:47:17.960 me and, uh, and people that I was with. And, um, so I hid, I E and E'd out of the country.

00:47:28.960 What's E and E'd?

00:47:30.100 I mean, I just, I abruptly left. And, uh, I did kind of a, um, we call them an SDR,

00:47:37.840 but, uh, surveillance detection route. And I wanted to see if they were surveilling me,

00:47:41.940 uh, if I was walking around town. And, um, so I got rid of everything, cleaned everything up

00:47:49.300 and, uh, went to an internet cafe, booked myself some tickets, uh, to a couple of different places,

00:47:56.380 jumped on one and, and, uh, and left the country.

00:48:01.520 Came back stateside?

00:48:02.080 Yeah.

00:48:02.880 Do we extradite to Columbia?

00:48:06.160 Just asking for a friend.

00:48:07.940 Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, uh, but yeah, no, I got out of there and, uh,

00:48:14.500 went home, went home to Missouri, talked to my parents. They knew some,

00:48:20.820 you told them was really everything.

00:48:22.880 Yeah. I don't remember telling them anything and, uh, woke up the next day after telling

00:48:28.140 them with a hangover. And my dad, uh, was, I could just tell by the look on his face,

00:48:35.100 um, that I must've spilled probably just about everything.

00:48:40.680 What did the look say?

00:48:42.320 Very concerned.

00:48:43.780 Yeah.

00:48:44.160 And worried.

00:48:48.580 I didn't take it seriously. I didn't think I needed any help. And, um, I just kept at it.

00:48:54.760 Uh, what do you mean? Kept at what I kept at, uh, I wouldn't put the bottle down.

00:48:59.720 Uh, wasn't ready to do that. I don't think I could have done that. And then,

00:49:03.300 you know, through the career, I mean, you just, you know, I, I had mentioned,

00:49:08.580 you know, numbing it out and, and numbing it out becomes, it's not even a cycle.

00:49:14.520 It's just this, it's just pills after pills.

00:49:17.740 It's a way of life, you know, it's volume Xanax, lorazepam, ambient, hydrocodone,

00:49:24.100 oxytramidol, what kind of, whatever you can just wash down, uh, to shut the brain

00:49:30.160 down and, and, and get some rest. And, uh, so I wasn't doing that. I w I wasn't

00:49:37.060 ready to clean that up. I had, I had kind of weaned myself off the, off the Coke.

00:49:42.460 And, um, and then things just weren't getting better. My life wasn't developing

00:49:52.120 afterwards. And so I started going to therapy and, uh, and, uh, which was talk therapy.

00:50:00.520 Yeah. I started going to talk therapy. It extremely hesitant. I was, I thought, well,

00:50:05.960 I need to go to somebody. I have to go to somebody that's experienced what I've experienced. I need

00:50:10.140 like a Vietnam vet or, or somebody that has seen action. And, uh, I couldn't find anybody.

00:50:20.560 And, um, so I just Googled, I just Googled therapist, talked to two or three of them and

00:50:28.480 walked into one, uh, which was very, it was, uh, interesting because this was kind of before,

00:50:36.580 before anybody really knew about the suicide epidemic, before PTSD and traumatic brain injury

00:50:43.340 and operator syndrome or whatever they're calling it this week, um, kind of started getting out there

00:50:48.640 and man, it was, uh, it took me a while to warm up, but it was, I love it.

00:50:57.820 Male or female?

00:50:58.820 Female.

00:50:59.980 Nice.

00:51:00.340 Yeah.

00:51:01.520 I love a female therapist. Mine currently is male, but there was a woman who I Googled, uh,

00:51:06.360 when I was leaving my first husband before there was Doug, there was Dan with whom I'm still friends,

00:51:10.540 but we did get a divorce. And, uh, same thing. I Googled this woman and she totally changed my life.

00:51:15.900 You never know. I mean, you can, you can strike gold and then their yellow pages or Google pages

00:51:22.700 as it is now. And I can relate to doing that and having it be a life changer.

00:51:28.580 Yeah. It, uh, good for you. I'm happy for you.

00:51:32.840 Oh, thank you.

00:51:33.700 Um, so yeah, interesting enough. She had never talked, ever talked to a combat vet and wound up,

00:51:42.740 I did my own research and, uh, wound up being a, a pretty staunch liberal, uh, which I probably

00:51:51.100 wouldn't have gone to her.

00:51:52.420 So you were more conservative going in. I know you lean right now, but back then you were too.

00:51:57.020 Yes. Okay. Definitely. Probably more so. But, um, but I gotta be honest, you know,

00:52:03.020 that woman is like an angel and, uh, I don't, I don't care what her political beliefs are.

00:52:12.060 That woman has saved more special ops guys, uh, from suicide than anybody, anybody,

00:52:22.200 than anybody saved in combat than anybody I know. And, uh, and, uh, she can, she still does it to

00:52:28.960 this day. And that was back in probably 20, 2015, 2016 timeframe. And, uh, it was, it was me. And

00:52:39.100 when I, when I left the agency, I was also, uh, trying to save my best friend's life who had a,

00:52:44.420 a terrible heroin addiction and I talked him into going in to, to, to meet her. And,

00:52:51.360 and then I just started telling everybody. And I remember, uh, my best friend's name was Gabe

00:52:56.980 and we gave her a, a, uh, a seal team plaque just to say, thank you. And, uh, cause she was helping us

00:53:07.100 out, uh, uh, with she had dubbed her prices down and, and, uh, just, uh, uh, an amazing woman.

00:53:15.460 And now you go in there and her entire office is just plaque after plaque after plaque.

00:53:23.340 Pretty soon you're going to see a Trump banner. She's going to be wearing the MAGA hat.

00:53:28.860 Yeah. But, uh, that would be a sight to see. But, um, but, um, but I mean, it, it, you know,

00:53:36.680 the reason I say that is because there are some things that can, that can, you know,

00:53:40.600 political agendas don't, they don't get in the way. You don't see that very often these days.

00:53:48.240 And I think that's important. I love that you said that. I feel the same. I have very strong

00:53:53.060 political views on a number of issues, but pretty much 80% of the people around me who I love in my

00:54:00.300 life, the woman who raised me, all my best friends, my best friends growing up are liberal.

00:54:06.040 They're not woke, but they're liberal. They're Democrats. So I have tons of love in my heart for

00:54:13.480 all of them, even though they don't vote the way I vote and they don't feel the way I do about

00:54:18.040 the issues that are really important to me, but I don't care. I, those don't have to be the stakes

00:54:22.520 of the relationship. Yeah. It takes a strong person to overcome that these days. Um, but they're out

00:54:29.780 there. Yeah. Uh, do you say her name or at least her first name? Her first name's Amy.

00:54:34.660 Amy. My lady was named Amy. What area of the country was this? The Missouri?

00:54:39.720 Well, no, no, that was, uh, that's, uh, South Florida. Okay. Yeah. My lady was in the Virginia

00:54:46.420 area, Northern Virginia. Interesting. We'll talk after specifics, but same thing. Um, and I,

00:54:54.160 when you were telling me that story, it reminded me, so, you know, we, we have military guys on all

00:54:58.880 the times. I just absolutely respect the hell out of you guys and what you do. And as I said,

00:55:04.720 I would love to raise two little soldiers, but don't really want to for the reasons discussed.

00:55:10.300 And, uh, we interviewed Dakota Meyer. Oh, and of course his story is just, it's incredible

00:55:17.140 medal of honor. It talked about how he was drunk up there when president Bush is pinning the medal on

00:55:21.560 him and, or was Obama. And, um, he talked very openly about how difficult it was for him to come

00:55:28.760 back and miss the guys and miss the adrenaline and just dealing with the trauma of everything he'd seen

00:55:35.360 and done. And he talked about his own moment of super low and being rescued by an angel. And we

00:55:46.880 pulled the soundbite. So take a watch. I felt like where I was at in life at that point that,

00:55:52.800 that, you know, that I just couldn't get my stuff together and, and, and I just, I, I should fix it.

00:56:01.540 Right. Like the fear I could see in people's eyes, you know, with me, like I was a monster. It's just

00:56:06.980 like drinking and just, you know, you know, the thing is, is, and people don't talk about this much,

00:56:12.760 you know, you don't fight evil with nice people. And I just, I remember driving home and I pulled

00:56:22.720 off this highway at my buddy's shop because I knew, you know, I didn't want anybody worried about me.

00:56:29.100 Right. So I pulled in and I knew that he would be in cause he comes into work every morning

00:56:33.640 and I just, yeah, I mean, I was, I was going to do it right there. I stuck it to my head and I

00:56:39.720 squeezed the trigger and it just like, it went click and there was no round in it. And I don't

00:56:43.740 know if, you know, I, I, I feel like I know who did it. I don't, I don't, I don't truly know though.

00:56:50.940 But he said he does believe he knows a friend had removed the bullets from the gun.

00:56:56.660 Wow. He thinks it was a friend.

00:56:58.960 Yeah.

00:56:59.620 Does he know who it was?

00:57:00.620 He said he thinks he does, but that's an angel. That's a real life. God's angel on this earth.

00:57:08.940 Yeah.

00:57:09.960 Looking out for him. You know, she saved him and I believe, you know, Amy may have saved

00:57:16.260 you and maybe my Amy saved me. It's like, yes, you kind of have to be a willing participant,

00:57:22.200 but I know you've found faith and I, I'm also a person of faith. And I do think like, if you're

00:57:27.760 just open eyed, you can see these angels like often all around us. Yeah. And they look like

00:57:34.820 mere mortals, but they, they were sent here for a purpose that, that your therapist goes

00:57:40.380 home at night. And when she looks back at her day to say, what did I do today? That really

00:57:45.600 mattered. My God.

00:57:47.080 Yeah.

00:57:47.400 Does anybody have a better roster?

00:57:50.060 Probably not. Probably not. She's, she's amazing.

00:57:54.180 And now you're doing it. I mean, that's kind of how you make your living now. Just talking

00:57:58.540 to guys who probably aren't that used to talking about this stuff in like a safe place, right?

00:58:04.940 Somebody who gets it. It's kind of a form of talk therapy just to sort of be able to speak

00:58:10.120 about it. At least it's a step. Well, it is. And, uh, you know, I think, um, you know,

00:58:17.220 my podcast is, is done well and, uh, you're being humble. And, uh, but I give, I give Amy a lot of

00:58:25.700 credit to how I interview because I, I realized, you know, I realized in therapy and she really didn't

00:58:34.200 say a whole lot. And a lot of times you just start figuring things out yourself by just getting it

00:58:40.420 out. And, and, um, and so I realized, you know, and I, I realized that if you just let somebody talk,

00:58:50.360 them, they'll, they're just going to keep going nine times out of 10. And, um, and, um, yeah. So,

00:58:58.460 so being in therapy twice a week for three and a half years really helped me as an interviewer.

00:59:03.300 Yeah. Right. As an interviewer too. Right. Just to let people talk and to listen to listen. It's

00:59:08.860 helpful too, as opposed to be thinking about your next question. So when did you find love? Because

00:59:14.660 that seems relatively recent, right? You got engaged, you got married. Now you have two kids

00:59:19.880 and including a new daughter. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. So what did you find your wife,

00:59:24.860 your future wife during all of the Amy time or when? Yep. Right in the middle of it. Uh, I had a,

00:59:31.760 I met my wife on a gun range at a, uh, nice club in Florida. That's amazing. I know. Right. And, uh,

00:59:40.040 my, my best friend, uh, still to this day, David Rutherford, uh, had a new sniper rifle that he

00:59:48.380 wanted to side in. And he knew, he knew somebody that had access to a thousand yard range. And so we

00:59:57.080 went out there, her dad met us and, uh, my wife's name is Katie. She jumped out of the truck and, uh,

01:00:04.140 and that was, that was that we, we, we shot some guns. We went to the, the, the club restaurant.

01:00:11.760 She gave me some tots and that was, that was the, what's tots? Tater tots.

01:00:19.120 Big fan. Yeah, me too. Also because I haven't had a French fry in three years. What? Yes. It was a

01:00:26.200 personal mission. I'm basically a Navy SEAL too in my strength and my ability to say no to the,

01:00:31.760 to the things that are bad for me. Um, no, I decided in June of 2021,

01:00:38.140 they were becoming a problem for me. And then I need to swear off. And so I decided to go a year

01:00:44.780 and now I'm, I'm almost three years clean. Well, congratulations, but the tot is the back door

01:00:51.300 to the fried potato. I may not pass like a drug test of potato, but it's not even called the same

01:01:02.480 thing. It's called a tater tot. It's not even a French fry. Anyway, big fan. Cause they,

01:01:06.280 they allow me to still have my, they're amazing, but I'm not as addicted as the French fry. They

01:01:10.920 don't have the same down the rabbit hole quality for me. Yeah. You know, French fries are, it's

01:01:16.500 like a conveyor belt for ketchup. Yes, totally agree. The only purpose of the tot is to deliver

01:01:22.600 the ketchup, right? I know. And then somebody will buy like the whole foods ketchup and you're like,

01:01:29.560 what is this? It just ruins the entire meal, right? You need the sugar, the preservatives,

01:01:35.800 whatever Heinz does. That's what we need. That's right. That's right. All right. So I never realized

01:01:41.040 it could be an aphrodisiac, but I like how Katie rolls. So she lures you in with the tots and the

01:01:47.920 guns. And you were like, I'm home. When am I, when are we getting married? That's right.

01:01:51.940 So how long thereafter were you married? Oh man, I think it was, I think it was about a year and a

01:01:59.680 half. So we were in Boca Raton, Florida. Uh, I was definitely a fish out of water in that town.

01:02:07.580 And, and, you know, there's a lot of, I grew up in the Midwest in a town of 6,000 people in a farm

01:02:16.200 town. Now I'm in Boca Raton, Florida, lots of money, lots of flash. Okay. Lots of that. And, um,

01:02:25.460 so when me and Katie got serious, it didn't take long. And, and, uh, you know, Katie has been sober

01:02:33.220 for 15 years now and I was on a path to get, it was on my radar. And so I had asked her and

01:02:45.140 a couple of questions that really resonated with me. And, uh, you know, there's a lot of,

01:02:51.300 there's a lot of, uh, fake people in South Florida, at least in my experience. And so with

01:02:58.240 Katie, I remember asking her a question and it was something along the lines of, you know,

01:03:06.020 now that, you know, how do you find real hobbies? Once you're sober, because I, I don't,

01:03:13.140 I had zero hobbies other than, than boozing. And, um, she had a real answer and it was just,

01:03:22.820 that's a great question. It, it, it, it just takes time. And, uh, but she was engaged in that

01:03:30.580 conversation. And so I knew I was like, this is a good one. And, uh, she's real. And I had not been

01:03:38.660 around a real woman in a long time. And, uh, and that was, I still remember where it was. It was

01:03:46.980 at a Thai restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. And she had told me that. And I was like,

01:03:51.540 the conversation just got it, it, it, uh, I couldn't talk to anybody like that other than my

01:03:59.280 therapist and, um, or anybody that had been through something like that, like, like what I was in the

01:04:05.220 middle of. And, um, so anyways, uh, we, we got closer and I knew we were going to get married.

01:04:15.440 I know I was going to marry her. And, uh, I just, I said, I don't want to, I don't want to raise my

01:04:20.980 family in South Florida. So we're going to have to leave. And, um, and, uh, so yeah, we wound up in,

01:04:28.400 in Tennessee. Does she have any roots there or was it just the flocking to Tennessee that so many

01:04:33.340 conservatives did? We, no roots, no roots. We just packed up and, and, and, and, and went to

01:04:41.200 at least you went from the one state with no state income tax to another state. New Hampshire is

01:04:47.680 suddenly amongst the crew. That's nice to see here in the Northeast. Yeah, I know. I was like,

01:04:52.500 it's blown up. We were looking there for a little bit. Let's go Connecticut. That's right. It's not

01:04:56.560 going to happen. It's far too blue. That's all good. On the hobby front. Have you considered

01:05:01.980 needlepoint or as my good friend describes it, a high class finger sport? Interesting. I have not.

01:05:09.000 No. Are you into needlepoint? Hell no. I said, we are too young to be doing that. Get off of the

01:05:13.560 beach immediately with that monstrosity in your hand. I refuse to sit with you. So did you find

01:05:20.660 whatever a hobby? Uh, business. Yeah. I was going to say it's this, it involves this microphone. I found

01:05:25.640 business and, uh, and that's my hobby. So yeah, my hobbies. I mean, I don't have time for them.

01:05:31.980 I don't have hobbies either. If it makes you feel any better. I love being in my business

01:05:35.540 and now you have two kids and I love being with my kids. And so anything outside of that,

01:05:40.260 there's just not much time for. Yeah. No, there really isn't. I mean,

01:05:43.060 I remember when we had kids, a good friend of mine said, you should tell your friends,

01:05:45.820 you just had your kids and that you won't be seeing them for about 10 years. That's right.

01:05:49.920 And he's like, the true friends will still be there for you when you get there. And the ones who

01:05:53.900 aren't really your true friends, good riddance. We're figuring that out. We are definitely figuring

01:05:58.740 that out. It's, it's, it's interesting how fast your taste in friends changes. Yeah. You know,

01:06:04.820 especially, I don't know how old your kids are, but, uh, 14, 13 and 10. Oh, okay. Nice. I'm,

01:06:12.300 I'm looking forward to those ages. They're great ages. Highly recommend this period of parenthood.

01:06:18.680 It's awesome. Really? They're so easy and they're so fun and they have the best personalities and they

01:06:24.480 still love us. I just, I think we're in the sweet spot of parenting right now when they're little,

01:06:29.700 I know you've got two littles. It's hard. They're adorable, but it is hard labor. Yeah. We're in

01:06:35.800 potty training right now, but I love every minute of it. You know, I just, it's, it's, it's a tough

01:06:42.500 balance, you know, uh, between work and, and, and family, but, uh, I always lean more towards family and,

01:06:49.940 and, uh, man, it just goes so fast. I'm already realizing that. And I don't want to, you know,

01:06:57.480 I'm glad that I waited until after service for kids because, um, it sounds like you've listened

01:07:03.360 to at least a couple of my interviews and man, you know, I'm just, I'm glad that I never had to put

01:07:10.200 my, I will never have to put my kids through what that was like, what, what it turned to be into

01:07:17.320 being gone all the time. And, um, I'm a lot better now than, than, than back then.

01:07:23.980 And you don't have to live with the regret of having missed it. Yeah. Even for a good cause,

01:07:29.360 you know, it's hard to miss it. I've talked to enough people who have made a different choice.

01:07:34.480 You can just hear the regret in their voice and see it on their face. And it's

01:07:38.040 not recapturable once it's gone. Very true. Very true. But, um, you know,

01:07:45.140 I think in Tennessee, you'll do better in instilling values into your kids that reflect

01:07:50.760 your own, right? That's one of the challenges here in the Northeast. It's really, well, yeah.

01:07:55.140 I mean, these woke schools, we fled our New York city schools because of that here in Connecticut,

01:07:59.820 we got it made. We did our homework this time since we were fleeing and, um, we found two great

01:08:06.060 ones, but it's important, right? Because you'll find out when you're, how old is your oldest,

01:08:10.680 your boy? Two and a half. Yeah. So you'll find out when they start to go to school that the schools

01:08:14.900 are, they're your partners. I mean, you need to find a partner. They're the ones who are going to

01:08:20.020 spend the most waking hours with your kids every day. Yeah. So if you're not on the same page about

01:08:25.720 how we're raising a boy or how we're raising a girl, how we're creating a good human being and

01:08:31.300 future citizen, you know, current citizen, but like, you know, responsible citizen, things can go

01:08:37.360 south quickly. That is a constant topic of discussion at our house is how we're going to do that. Are we

01:08:44.380 going to homeschool? We're going to do private school. What are we going to do? And, uh, turns

01:08:50.280 out we live in a, like a homeschool Mecca. That's good. Yeah. So we're looking into possibly

01:08:56.540 doing that. I love the homeschooling communities. I have a dear friend who's doing that swears

01:09:00.980 by it. So what does life look like now? You do the podcast like 25 hours a day. Honestly,

01:09:07.320 how do you do these five hour podcasts, man? I just, I just listen, you know, and, uh, you

01:09:14.740 know, like I'm, I get people to open up about things they've never talked about before and

01:09:21.620 go to places that they probably have not been in their mind in, in years. And, um, and you

01:09:30.560 can't do that on a time, on a timeline, you can't, you can't do that in a condensed timeline.

01:09:37.440 And so, you know, my longest one, I think is nine hours. Is that right? Yeah. Who was

01:09:44.500 that with? This guy, Cody Alford, he was a Marsau guy, but, um, Marine, but, um, and so,

01:09:52.680 you know, and, and I think the first one I did was right about two hours and, um, but

01:09:59.680 then I kept getting longer and I noticed the more time I spend on the more time I give them,

01:10:05.340 the more they open up. And, and what it kind of developed into is, is I remember, I don't

01:10:12.800 remember who the first guy was. It might've been this guy, prime hall, but do you have any

01:10:18.020 idea how many people have been through like child trauma, sexual trauma, abusive, uh, parents,

01:10:25.420 whatever it is? And it's like everybody. And so the first time that happened, I, I was like,

01:10:33.300 all right, I got to start diving more into childhood. And, and I'll bet 75% of the people

01:10:41.960 have come on, uh, have experienced some type of abuse as a child. And, and I dig into kind

01:10:50.060 of what's happening today with trafficking and pedophilia and, and, and all of that kind

01:10:56.140 of stuff. And so I think it's really important to dive into the, to the childhood stuff because

01:11:01.980 it gives people that have been abused that are trying to process that still into their adult

01:11:07.300 life and kids that are going through right now. I mean, it, it shows them like, man, no,

01:11:12.940 no matter what I'm going through right now, like I can still find success and, and, and find

01:11:20.620 happiness in life. And, and, you know, there's just not a lot of people doing that right now.

01:11:25.240 And so when somebody goes into their childhood experience and, on, uh, and they're gonna, they're

01:11:31.200 gonna get descriptive about it, you know, that when they're done and we're, we're done with

01:11:35.480 that section, I always ask, you know, for, for a kid that's in your position right now,

01:11:41.740 you know, looking back, what could, what could you have done or what would you advise, you

01:11:46.420 know, other kids that are in your position or word are there, you know what I'm trying

01:11:51.740 to say? What, what advice do you have for them? And, and I mean, it's helping, you know,

01:11:57.320 it's really helping. And then, and then we get into the military stuff and it's super descriptive

01:12:02.800 and, you know, and, and I want it to be, I don't want a condensed format because when

01:12:07.020 I started doing this, I wanted to do it because these guys weren't getting a voice in the media

01:12:14.640 at all. And, um, and when they did, it was a 30 second blurb. And, you know, so why are

01:12:23.000 we having talking heads in the media documenting what happened over there, uh, with a bunch of

01:12:30.140 people that weren't there that thought they knew. And so I wanted to, it kind of started

01:12:36.020 with, I wanted to just document history, the way it actually happened, uh, with people that were

01:12:42.020 at the events. And so now we've got, you know, just about every major operation that has happened.

01:12:48.040 Uh, we got, I heard the one with, um, forgive me, I don't remember his name, but the gentleman who

01:12:52.960 he lost his arm and his leg in the Afghanistan withdrawal, Tyler Vargas.

01:12:57.900 Oh my God. And that it was just, his whole life had been rough with the dad who was a child

01:13:03.880 molester. And it was just, there was a lot in there and those stories are, they're infuriating,

01:13:10.280 right? Because they're recent and we lived them and we still have those same leaders who have yet

01:13:15.200 to make any apology for what happened to guys like Tyler, nothing. Yeah. It's, uh, very discouraging.

01:13:22.480 I mean, he's a perfect example though. You know, he, he, he interviewed with good morning America for

01:13:28.220 seven hours. Did he really? And they released, I believe he said five seconds of that interview

01:13:34.820 because it made POTUS look so bad. And, and so I had reached out to him. I wanted to give him the

01:13:45.380 opportunity to get his story out. And he had testified in front of Congress and no, no. I mean,

01:13:50.200 none of us were getting the actual boots on the ground version of what the hell happened during

01:13:54.480 that withdrawal. And so he came on, we got it out. They tried to censor us and, and he had all kinds

01:14:02.980 of, of actual footage of what was going on. And they kept dinging us. Oh, you can't have that in

01:14:08.660 there. You can't have that in there. And it was YouTube, you know, and it's like, guys, like this

01:14:14.780 happened, like, how dare you censor what happened to a U S Marine? Yeah. It's, it's like, this is

01:14:22.160 actual footage. This is a lot of this footage has been, some of it had been in the media and it's

01:14:27.640 like, guys, you can't like, this is, this is what happened. So we yanked all the footage and then put

01:14:33.020 it behind, um, put, put the real version behind a paywall. Cause the most important thing was just to

01:14:39.360 get his story out. And we wound up, it wound up, we wound up getting it, getting it out, you know,

01:14:44.780 after several attempts, but, um, not for nothing. I know this isn't at all why you do this, but in

01:14:51.720 any sane world, you'd be getting an award for that kind of coverage in any sane world, somebody like

01:14:56.480 you would get recognized with a Peabody or something like that. Not the nonsense that now

01:15:01.340 gets rewarded with Pulitzers and other awards like the Cronkite or that's actual journalism,

01:15:06.880 actually getting the story and being unafraid to tell it no matter where it takes you.

01:15:10.280 Thank you. We actually pulled a soundbite from that, uh, interview. Here he is, uh, Tyler Vargas

01:15:16.840 Andrews talking about what happened during the attack as we withdrew from Afghanistan.

01:15:23.760 Like 10 minutes goes by and just flash and just get hit with this massive wave of pressure. And then

01:15:30.640 I'm like, my eyes, my eyes are closed. My vision is black and I'm like slowly coming to

01:15:35.840 my right ear is just like super high pitched ringing. My left ear is muffled and I can just

01:15:41.920 hear people screaming in the distance. And I'm just like struggling to open my eyes. Finally can

01:15:47.240 open my eyes. And it was someone else's fucking body part just like laying in front of me and the

01:15:52.040 people on the other side of the canal just immediately in front of me just got fucking

01:15:55.640 evaporated. I kept trying to stand up and I'm like, fuck, like, why can't I stand up? And we

01:16:00.220 start taking fucking shots from the neighborhood and I'm like almost immediately after the blast.

01:16:05.340 I tried my fucking hardest to crawl backwards and all I could do was like put my left arm

01:16:10.460 on the ground and I'm just like, fuck, like, why is my right arm not working? And I remember lifting

01:16:14.460 it up. It's there, but it's just like fucking shredded up at the elbow and bloodied. And I'm,

01:16:20.700 I'm just fucking red everywhere. Pretty horrific. We just got into this recently because

01:16:31.080 President Biden's former press secretary Jen Psaki wrote a book trying to say it's not true. He

01:16:37.700 looked at his watch when the bodies came home to Dover. It's a lie. He looked at his watch several

01:16:44.620 times. She's still running cover for him in her job as a so-called journalist. It's on tape. You

01:16:50.780 can see it repeatedly. There he is in the ceremony over and over trying to sneak in glances. And some

01:16:56.260 of the parents of the fallen are very angry still about that. And now about the lies to whitewash it.

01:17:03.100 But this is no, no one ever got fired for any of it. Yeah. So how are these guys, you know,

01:17:08.920 like Tyler feeling about, about that and about the administration, how it was handled?

01:17:14.620 I mean, they're, they're enraged. We're all enraged. I mean, do you know that we're sending

01:17:20.260 $40 million a week to the Taliban now? Right. It's actually like 43 to 87 million a week.

01:17:28.460 The Taliban. Yep. The same people that we fought for what, 20, 20 plus years.

01:17:36.140 Who are now not allowing girls to go to school, dressing them in full burqas,

01:17:41.400 marrying them off at age 12. That those people. Yeah. Cutting people's heads off,

01:17:48.320 assassinating all of our allies over there, lining them up, shooting them in the back of the head.

01:17:53.520 And I mean, it's, it's, uh, pretty.

01:18:00.720 I just don't know how anybody can support that.

01:18:03.480 Why are we doing that? Why are we, why are we doing that? Why are we giving Iran money,

01:18:07.440 you know, or we're up until 10, seven.

01:18:09.780 I don't, you know, I wish I could answer that. I don't, I just don't know. I, I, it doesn't,

01:18:19.000 you know, what's up is down now and what's left is right. What's black is white. And, and, uh,

01:18:24.060 it's, it's the deconstruction of America.

01:18:31.620 So what do you, I mean, it's gotta be directly related to the recruiting rates. No, like guys

01:18:38.420 are looking at this saying, why am I, why would I join up for that? But there's no responsibility.

01:18:44.460 Our lives are taken for granted. No one, no one gets fired. No one says, sorry. We continue to

01:18:51.520 funnel money to our enemies who, how much blood and treasure was lost in Afghanistan fighting the

01:18:56.200 same group, which we're now funding. I just like, I know people say that's not it. No, I think that's

01:19:00.660 it. We looked at the surveys as to why guys are not signing up anymore. And like the top,

01:19:05.440 the top item was fear of death, which is okay. Yes. Normal, but for centuries and guys have been

01:19:14.240 getting past that and signing up anyway, but, but they're not. So what, what is it? I mean,

01:19:19.280 I think it has to do with a lot of things. I think, I think it had to do with the forced vaxes. I think

01:19:25.560 it has to do with the woke agenda. I mean, nobody, I mean, talk about miscalculating your,

01:19:31.840 your, your, your body of work. I mean, it is not liberal Democrat families that sign up for the

01:19:41.900 military. It is middle-class to low-class conservative families. And you just alienated

01:19:48.620 your entire base. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to go to become a seal, to be going to

01:19:57.180 gender ideology, crash courses and, and pronoun training or whatever the hell else they're doing

01:20:05.020 in there, how not to be a right wing extremist. And I mean, deal with your white rage. Yeah. Yeah.

01:20:10.620 And, and, and I mean, it, I, I think it's that, I think it's the way the war's ended. I think it's,

01:20:18.000 it's, it's the new advertising that they do for recruitment. She's a lesbian. Yeah. Her

01:20:24.260 mothers are LGBTQ. It's, it's everything, every, everything about what the messaging they're putting

01:20:33.000 out is, is who are they going to get? Right. I mean, the numbers are at record lows and we are

01:20:43.040 precariously perched on possible conflict. God forbid in Ukraine, the United States doesn't

01:20:50.480 want any part of that. God forbid the Middle East. And they're still talking about Taiwan. Like it's

01:20:56.280 like, I don't like, we might actually get involved over there. I was talking to a former Navy sail,

01:21:02.060 whose name you would know. And he was like, we're not going to win the Taiwan thing. Like

01:21:07.440 they're going to take it. China's going to take it. And there's not much we're going to be able

01:21:11.740 to do about it without actually getting involved militarily boots on the ground. And the American

01:21:16.880 people aren't going to want that. Like if, if China takes it, his analysis was we're going to have to

01:21:20.900 let him take it. I mean, we'll probably provoke them to take it just to start another war, just to

01:21:26.660 spin up the military industrial complex more than it already is. And, and I mean, that's seems to be

01:21:32.800 what we do is we provoke, you know, and then capitalize. And, uh, can you zoom out on that,

01:21:39.600 Sean, do that? Like explain that to me. Cause I understand people throw that term around military

01:21:43.980 industrial complex, but you, you understand it better than most. Yeah. So the military, I mean,

01:21:50.060 let's, let's take it back to the Iraq war. I don't think we should have been there at the time. I

01:21:56.760 think, yeah, it was great. It was great. I got action. I got to do what I signed up to do. We got

01:22:01.760 to kill a bunch of bad guys. Now that I'm older and I'm out and I see a bigger picture. I mean,

01:22:07.680 I just think it's kind of weird that Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton was the

01:22:12.140 biggest logistics, not the biggest, probably the only logistics company in both wars.

01:22:20.060 And so everywhere you went, it was Halliburton did laundry. Halliburton did the gas. Halliburton

01:22:27.700 built the barracks. Halliburton built the chow hall. Halliburton cooked the food. Halliburton did,

01:22:34.420 they did everything, the mail, everything. It was KBR Halliburton. He was the CEO of that. So all,

01:22:41.820 all infrastructure in the entire Iraq war was Halliburton, who is the former CEO is the press

01:22:52.240 is the vice president of the United States. That's what we're getting at. You know, there's,

01:23:00.440 then there's, there's, you know, there's Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman,

01:23:08.080 and all of these, they make a lot of the tech and the missiles and the planes and all of these sorts

01:23:14.180 of things, guns, communications equipment, everything that's, everything that, that,

01:23:21.640 that is new, that's being developed is, it's not the government developing it. It's these companies

01:23:26.700 that, that, that get paid ungodly amounts of, of, of, of money to fund, to, to, to, to develop

01:23:37.160 things you would use in war. And then they put people like Nikki Haley on their boards.

01:23:42.120 Exactly. I mean, she's not only was on the, on the Boeing board, but she has a husband who's

01:23:48.480 making military vehicles right now. That's his side business where he's making the vehicles that

01:23:54.340 will be used in war, which they profit off of. Yeah. This is what you're talking about. And then she,

01:23:59.720 you know, in, in her world was about to step into the presidency and what have, have zero conflicts.

01:24:05.660 Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, like Ukraine, I mean, we send all of our stuff over all of our missiles,

01:24:12.780 our tanks, our UAVs, our javelins, whatever you fill in the blank. And so now we have to replenish

01:24:19.780 all those stockpiles and which is banking these company, it's given the company's work to make more

01:24:26.200 money. And, and that's what this I'm convinced that that's what this is all about. The saber rattling

01:24:32.980 and the reason the politicians do it is because these are big donors.

01:24:38.380 Yeah. I mean, I can't be, you know, you would probably know more about that than I do, but

01:24:43.860 yeah, I mean, lobbying organizations, uh, Hey, we look at all the people that are,

01:24:51.620 like that are supporting what's going on in Ukraine and, and Russia and, and still,

01:24:57.160 yeah, it's just, it's in, why were we, I mean, why were we in Afghanistan for 20 plus years just to

01:25:04.680 completely abandon it? You know, there was so many things we could have used there. We gave up

01:25:10.140 Bagram Air Force Base, uh, one of the most strategic air force bases of the world. Afghanistan has endless

01:25:19.380 amounts of lithium that we could utilize for our green initiative. Right. But we'll just give those

01:25:26.620 over to China and let them sell us lithium, even though we had built all the infrastructure there

01:25:31.580 and they're already mining it. Why, why would we do that? Why would we give it up? Yeah.

01:25:37.520 Because we had made a decision to cut and run. And that was the decision we were going to live by.

01:25:42.240 I guess, I mean, I, I mean, I can't, I can't find any logic. I mean, the problem is on that one,

01:25:48.060 both parties are to blame, right? I mean, Trump came up with a plan and then Biden executed it terribly.

01:25:52.960 Yeah. But I mean, Trump too, wanted to pull us out of there and not keep anything. I mean,

01:25:57.260 I realized we were over a war and I mean, the forever wars are a real thing and people who grew

01:26:04.420 up, I mean, I'm a little older than you are, but both of us grew up in a time where in the

01:26:09.080 beginnings we thought these are just wars and we're serving a worthy cause here. And we understand why

01:26:15.540 the United States is doing it. And it's only having sort of been in the midst of this like belief and

01:26:22.180 seeing it all crashed down and then seeing the aftermath that you realize I was sold a bag of

01:26:26.220 goods. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting if you can take yourself out of the, you know,

01:26:31.680 the politics and, and, and your emotional state and look at these things from like a 30,000 foot view

01:26:39.740 and it might paint a different perspective. And, you know, maybe, maybe we aren't the good guys.

01:26:47.040 I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest,

01:26:53.960 and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal,

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01:27:50.340 What do you think will happen with Ukraine? I mean, at what point does the United States say

01:27:55.000 they're not, they can't win. This is throwing good money after bad

01:28:00.060 and get more aggressive about forcing some sort of compromised end to this thing.

01:28:06.440 Man, what do I think will happen in Ukraine? I think,

01:28:09.040 I mean, I think a change in the presidency could possibly end it.

01:28:15.260 Ours or Ukraine's?

01:28:16.880 Ours. I don't think theirs will ever. I mean, why would you?

01:28:20.340 Not now.

01:28:21.020 Yeah. Why would you? So much, they're getting so much out of this, but-

01:28:25.780 I'm just saying, like, I don't know that the Ukrainian people are as insane as Zelensky

01:28:28.900 seems with his, you know, no compromise. We're going to see it through to the end. All your

01:28:32.500 people will be dead.

01:28:33.540 Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think,

01:28:36.960 I think this BRICS thing has a lot. I think that things will get interesting when China starts

01:28:47.840 making more moves. That's what I think. I don't think any of these wars are going anywhere.

01:28:53.560 Should we have nothing to do with that? With, with-

01:28:56.020 Taiwan, China.

01:28:59.400 Man, you're asking some tough questions.

01:29:06.800 That's one I think we would probably need to step in on.

01:29:10.480 Actually step in though. I mean, do you agree boots on the ground will be required? How are we

01:29:14.040 going to fight that one from the drones? How are we going to fight that? I think that,

01:29:22.140 I don't know. Definitely

01:29:30.140 a lot of Navy.

01:29:35.360 That's right. We don't have enough ships.

01:29:38.340 A lot of Navy.

01:29:39.020 And I think all of our allies would need to come together to, to, to, I mean, I think that,

01:29:47.620 I mean, I personally think we're on the brink of, of World War three.

01:29:50.980 With China.

01:29:51.520 Yeah.

01:29:52.540 Over Taiwan.

01:29:55.000 I mean, look at all the angles they have on us. You know, they, they are behind the fentanyl crisis.

01:30:00.440 They're sending in all the supplies. They're trading the cartels, uh, how to make the world's most

01:30:06.780 potent fentanyl. Actually now, now they're teaching them how to make Nidacin, which, so it went from

01:30:14.100 what heroin to fentanyl to Nidacin. They're behind, they're behind that. They're buying all our farmland.

01:30:21.240 They're capturing all of our elites, politicians, and just tech gurus. I mean, um,

01:30:28.180 I have to mention the spying this, yeah, this, I mean, we have our, I mean, yeah, that's, that's out

01:30:33.800 there, right? What's his name was sleeping with a Chinese spy. Eric's, uh, Swalwell, right? Is

01:30:38.960 that, I get, I get my far left Democrats confused. I can't remember his name, but that's who it was.

01:30:44.700 But, uh, I mean, they, they have, they have so, I mean, look at California from what I understand,

01:30:50.400 all the real estate signs now are all in Chinese. And I've always wondered, I mean,

01:30:55.200 you see this massive migration happening all across the country with red states being inundated

01:31:04.580 with people fleeing California, New York, Chicago. And, uh, I've always, I've always wondered,

01:31:11.220 you know, who's buying all this real estate over there? If everybody's leaving, who's buying all

01:31:16.520 this real estate? They're selling it to China. We rolled out the red carpet for them when it came

01:31:21.420 to visit their takeover of Hollywood. Yeah. The NBA. Yeah. They have more money than God when it

01:31:29.880 comes to buying things that are American or American owned, you know, their own people can

01:31:33.860 suffer, but they're very interested in spending tons of money buying up our industries and our land.

01:31:40.900 And we're just suckers for the dollar. So we say, yes. Yeah. You know, that's why,

01:31:46.880 that's why the NBA said, sure, we'll, we'll do whatever you want and we won't criticize you.

01:31:52.240 That's why Hollywood takes anything they find offensive out of its films so they can make money

01:31:57.340 over in China on, you know, the sales there we've bent the knee, you know, to our Chinese master.

01:32:03.800 So you're right. It's happening in more and more people just aren't paying attention. They're living

01:32:06.700 their lives, not paying attention to a little bit more here and there, but they're not.

01:32:09.900 It's happening all over the world. I mean, look what they're doing in Africa. You know,

01:32:12.960 they're settling Africa. They've, they've, they have, they are the influence in Afghanistan now.

01:32:18.620 I mean, they have, they go in with their money and they make these countries dependent on them.

01:32:22.920 And that used to be us. That used to be the United States being the leader of the free world and being

01:32:27.400 out there helping the third world countries and, in creating some loyalty and some allyship.

01:32:35.340 We're not doing that anymore, but China is.

01:32:37.760 Yeah. You're exactly right. And then it's just,

01:32:42.720 I mean, that right there alone shows how many angles they have. And I know there's more, I'm just,

01:32:48.860 I'm a put on the spot, but, um, it's scary to think about.

01:32:53.180 It is, you know, it's very scary. And, and I don't think people, I don't think people understand,

01:32:58.640 you know, how, how pertinent it is that we need to start addressing this stuff like

01:33:03.620 immediate, like yesterday.

01:33:05.520 I mean, the one thing we have going for us is their economy is not strong.

01:33:08.880 That's what I keep hearing. Like I, but I hear both sides, you know, and, and, uh,

01:33:14.920 I, I don't, I mean,

01:33:16.520 they have so much influence across the world now and, and their version, I mean,

01:33:25.500 the, the, the, the BRICS initiative, you're aware of the BRICS initiative, you know,

01:33:30.820 and devaluing our currency. And I think the last time I checked, there's like 22 countries on board

01:33:35.680 that now.

01:33:37.600 There's, and there's, it's a sketchy crew, but they have a lot of money.

01:33:40.880 Yeah.

01:33:41.140 So now more than ever, we need new up and coming, the next generation of Sean Ryans.

01:33:48.500 Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

01:33:49.980 So what do you do? Trump's got to win and people have to see America as strong again,

01:33:55.660 and maybe you'll be a little afraid of us. You know, I mean, that's, um, the New York times just

01:34:00.340 did a poll showing that Trump's beating Biden in five out of the six swing States, same as it was in

01:34:06.860 November by a healthy margin in most of them. And, um, they were so befuddled by their own poll.

01:34:12.760 They went back to their, to the people who responded to say like, why, why again? What is it

01:34:17.880 really? The orange man, he's so bad. How could you insurrectionist? And in particular, it was

01:34:24.020 interesting because they went to some black voters saying, we don't get it. Why are your numbers

01:34:27.380 searching? And they said, Oh, you know, we don't, we don't love Trump. He's got a big mouth. He says

01:34:31.860 some stuff we don't like, but he's strong. And I think the country's going to be a little safer

01:34:36.140 with him in there. It keeps people off balance. And then others said the economy, I don't need

01:34:42.340 to like him. I need my wallet to be a little fatter. And it was, they just did some look back

01:34:47.560 in the economy was like definably 16%, uh, more was going into people's average paychecks under

01:34:53.220 Trump than it is now. Um, so yeah, we need a strong leader. There's a chance we won't get one.

01:35:00.900 It's not a lock. Trump wins. Robert Kennedy, also anti-military industrial complex. Could you ever

01:35:08.820 vote for him? I think I could vote for him. Could you? Yeah, I definitely could vote for him. He's

01:35:14.180 too left for me on many, many issues, but I'm not as hardcore conservative as like a lot of my audience.

01:35:21.160 Um, I love that he's kind of anti-establishment, anti-military industrial complex,

01:35:25.820 anti-big pharma, that he's a environmental lawyer. I'm actually, I'm kind of green. I like the green

01:35:32.180 agenda, not the green new deal or any of that nonsense, but like I, I as a mother, you know,

01:35:36.060 I would like to see us be a little bit more realistic about climate change. You know, that's,

01:35:39.680 that's something I love talking about this, you know, because you, you do something positive for

01:35:44.900 the planet and conservatives like throw a shit fit. And it's like, Hey man, we live here.

01:35:50.560 Right. In case you haven't noticed, everybody's dying of cancer, cancer from shit in our foods,

01:35:58.480 cancer from shit in the air, cancer from cancer from everything. It might be, you know, might be

01:36:04.020 good for us to improve the planet a little bit, but that's just my take. What if we had a RFKJ in

01:36:10.300 there saying, don't eat that, don't do that. That's not getting a blessing anymore. This is a problem over

01:36:15.340 here that he spent his whole life filing lawsuits against people who are polluting our environment

01:36:21.020 in one way, shape or form. I love that. I realize, I mean, he, he said he would allow abortion until

01:36:27.480 the ninth month. Then he walked it back. He's not good on my issue, which is women's rights against

01:36:33.520 the crazy trans lobby, but I have more issues than just that. So I definitely could vote for RFKJ.

01:36:39.660 I just asked him about the full-term abortion thing. I just interviewed him last week and he,

01:36:45.900 he told me that the only reason that he would go full-term would be for the mother if she was

01:36:52.180 going to die. If she, if she, if there was a life threatening. So he's arrived at that a little

01:36:57.020 late. Yeah. He told Sage Steele, it's up to the mom. Okay. Whatever she wants all the way through

01:37:02.520 ninth month. And then Sage, who's amazing, was like, a lot of us get uncomfortable when you say,

01:37:09.640 it's okay for a mother just based on her own desire to abort a baby at full term. And he

01:37:14.380 answered it again, saying, well, I would. Oh, really? But then all the shit storm came and he

01:37:19.040 walked it back. It was like, nevermind. Gotcha. I mean, I understand if that's your biggest issue

01:37:24.800 and it is for a lot of, you know, deeply faithful people in particular, he's out. Yeah. But anyway,

01:37:32.100 it all depends on your hierarchy of, you know, principles. And I just, I love how anti-establishment

01:37:38.180 he is. Me too, man. Me too. So speaking of faith, you are, you've had a bit of a metamorphosis

01:37:46.360 in your own life. I have. Is that because of Katie or is that your own journey?

01:37:52.640 That's my own journey. And, um, do you want me to go into it? Yeah. Okay. Um, well,

01:38:00.540 so I interviewed some really, I have some really heavy interviews. Uh, Tyler Andrew Vargas was one

01:38:09.800 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,

01:38:17.520 you know, my studio is on a second floor and to watch him hobble up there with one leg, one arm,

01:38:24.880 you know, it's just, it's, it got to me. And the, the day before I interviewed him, I interviewed a,

01:38:34.240 a hacker who had hacked into all these websites and kind of, and pedophilia websites and downloaded

01:38:42.680 all the user list, got it to the FBI. The FBI did nothing with it until I interviewed him and, um,

01:38:52.220 super dark interview. Uh, the re the reality is, I mean, we, we pulled, we caught a child predator

01:39:01.720 in five seconds. Cause I didn't realize I was like, you hear about this stuff, right? And how,

01:39:07.700 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 the

01:39:14.180 interview. And I said, Hey, you got your laptop, pull it out, get in any, I don't care what it is,

01:39:18.780 Instagram, TikTok, whatever teen chat room you want. I just want to see how long this takes.

01:39:24.720 He made the screen name, Ashley 13, New Jersey,

01:39:29.500 literally five seconds. It's on camera. We scream record until he was in like a room where five

01:39:36.460 seconds before a 40 something year old bam was wanting to meet a 13 year old girl at a wherever

01:39:41.520 sick. Yeah. And so, so that's, that, that's what I, I mean, this is the stuff that I cover. And, um,

01:39:50.740 um, so me and my wife were going on vacation. I just, I just finished up those two interviews,

01:39:56.080 the, especially the one with, with Ryan Montgomery, who's the hacker that, that just really got to me,

01:40:02.180 you know, the kids stuff really gets to me. The guys who work in that industry,

01:40:06.420 shutting those down. Yeah. It's a very hard life. Yeah. And, um, and so we went to Sedona and

01:40:14.940 there was also, what else was happening? The Chinese spy balloon just flew over. Um, the,

01:40:22.180 I saw, I think it was, was it Reba came out saying, Oh, I think it's freedom of speech that,

01:40:30.220 that, uh, drag Queens should be able to, you know, kids. And I'm just, and it, I got to this point

01:40:39.060 where I was like, man, am I the only person that like gives a shit about this stuff that actually

01:40:44.540 cares about kids and like why we just abandoned our allies in Afghanistan. And why is there a 24

01:40:51.520 year old that was blown up unnecessarily? I mean, they had the guy P ID'd in his sights. They could

01:40:57.380 have killed that bomber, you know, and, and now all of his friends are dead and he's in. So these are

01:41:04.280 all the things that are going through my head. And, and I had, uh, I had hit this point.

01:41:10.320 I was having a conversation in my head and I'd, I'd hit this point where it was, it was like,

01:41:15.700 why do you even talk about this stuff anymore? Nobody cares. You know, about the maps thing,

01:41:21.600 minor attracted persons.

01:41:23.340 They're trying to redefine pedophilia into this minor attracted person, normal, just like,

01:41:28.840 just like a fetish, you know, like you have some people have a foot fetish. Some people have a

01:41:32.820 toddler fetish and we're supposed to accept this. Yeah. And, uh, you know, and so I'm,

01:41:37.880 I'm just seeing all these things and I'm, I'm like, how, how can, like, how, I, how can anybody

01:41:43.380 like buy into this shit? I have, I have, I have family that like votes left, you know, and, and,

01:41:53.480 uh, it's, it's, it's, it gets to me. It makes my skin crawl. Like I can't, I don't understand how

01:42:01.260 anybody can support any of the, what I just list rattled off. And, uh, so it, it got to me and I,

01:42:08.360 I got to this point where I was like, I'm not, I can't like, I can't live like this anymore.

01:42:13.040 Like I can't, if nobody gives a shit, maybe I'm, maybe I am the one that is, maybe I'm the one

01:42:19.520 that has something wrong with it. You know, maybe, maybe this is all acceptable. And I just, I'm not,

01:42:24.460 my brain isn't switching. I'm maybe I'm the problem and, uh, I shouldn't be fighting this

01:42:29.900 anymore. I need to, I need to be happy. And it basically felt like I was surrendering to evil

01:42:39.000 and, uh, and I was trying to convince myself to be fine with it. So we're staying in this nice

01:42:47.840 resort in Sedona. Uh, we got a, uh, guarded gate and I pay attention to that kind of stuff

01:42:53.500 because of my background. And, uh, a lot of the guys knew me that worked in there for the,

01:42:58.780 from, from my podcast and, and wanted to talk. Well, this, we were there for a week. The last day

01:43:04.000 I walked through and it's this old, uh, old man in there. And he's wanting to talk to me and me and

01:43:11.760 my wife had gone up to a hike. Cause I was like, I just, I gotta get the hell out of here. Maybe a

01:43:15.580 hike will make me feel better. Walk back down. And, and this guy starts trying to talk to me. It's dark

01:43:22.060 at this point. I had already kind of surrendered. Like I'm done. I didn't feel good, but I'd kind of

01:43:27.040 made my decision. Like I'm not doing this anymore. And, um, I'm kind of looking at him over the

01:43:33.320 shoulder, like, and I'm, I'm, I'm not in the mood to like strike up a conversation. And, but my wife

01:43:40.140 starts talking to him and I'm like, shit, I just want to go to my room. So I turn around and this guy,

01:43:48.440 this guy read my mind from front to back. And I mean, like, I've never had that happen. It wasn't,

01:43:59.800 it, it, I mean, it was descriptive. It was, it scared the shit out of me because I was like,

01:44:06.400 how are you, how, how are you in my head? And, uh, he started rattling off all these thoughts that

01:44:12.980 I was having on that entire hike. And he's like, this stuff that's going on in China,

01:44:17.120 that's not your fight anymore. And this stuff that's going on with the kids, that's not your

01:44:23.220 fight either. And this stuff that's going on with the trans community, that's not your fight.

01:44:27.860 And, and I, my, I had shut down. I was like, well, how was this guy in my head right now?

01:44:34.960 So freaked me out. We're walking back to, to our bungalow. We were in a place where it was like,

01:44:41.220 kind of like a duplex and, um, we're on one side, somebody else on another side, we got there.

01:44:47.620 We got, when we got to Sedona, uh, my best friend that I was referring to earlier, his name's Gabe. He,

01:44:54.540 he died of a, of a heroin overdose, uh, later on. But, uh, Gabe was a seal. Gabe was a pro hockey

01:45:03.320 player. Gabe was a fighter. Uh, we was into MMA. Gabe was at the agency with me. And no matter where

01:45:10.140 Gabe was, Gabe was always, always known as a protector. Like no matter what unit he was in,

01:45:16.700 no matter what, who he was with could be the, the, the, the manliest of all men. Like everybody

01:45:23.940 knows Gabe has got you. And, and he was my best friend. Well, we get there and we see this guy and

01:45:32.060 he looks identical. He could be Gabe's identical twin. I mean, you could see differences, but same

01:45:37.380 brow line, same jawline, same build, same walk, same three day shadow, same everything, uh, muscular.

01:45:44.980 And me and my wife were both like, man, that looks exactly like Gabe. And everywhere we would go,

01:45:52.480 this guy was at, if we were at the pool, this guy was at the pool. If we were going on a hike,

01:45:56.940 this guy was coming back from a hike. If we were out in town getting dinner, he was out in town getting

01:46:01.320 dinner. And, and we, we had always thought it was weird because I'd, I'd kind of had a breakdown on

01:46:08.080 the plane, uh, to Sedona. And so I was in a vulnerable spot. My wife knew it. I was in a

01:46:15.320 vulnerable spot. I knew it. Uh, I was with my buddy, Dave and he knew it. And it was just odd that Gabe,

01:46:23.000 who's always known as a protector is like every, this guy that looks identical to him is, is everywhere.

01:46:28.200 Well, it turns out right from that gate, we walked to our bungalow and it turns out this guy and his

01:46:36.920 family is staying right across the, the thing from us. And we hadn't seen him all week. And I'm like,

01:46:43.880 that was weird. And on the way back, I'm telling Katie, I'm like, Holy shit. Like, I think,

01:46:48.200 I think that was God that was reading my mind. And she's like, yeah, Sean, that was God. And I'm like,

01:46:55.860 I can't believe this. Like, how is this happening? And, and she's like, Sean, God's always been around

01:47:01.640 you. You just don't make time for him. And, uh, I knew that to be true. So we get to the bungalow,

01:47:09.860 Gabe staying across the way or the, the lookalike, whatever, uh, you want to call it. He's, we find out

01:47:16.000 he's staying right across. This is all within like 10, 15 minutes. Then we go in and I, I am,

01:47:20.620 I'm crying and I'm like, I can't believe this is happening. And right before also right before we

01:47:26.880 went to Zona, uh, a good friend of mine, uh, his name was Dan Cirillo died. Uh, he was kind of the

01:47:34.480 only, he was a seal, uh, and a businessman and he lived in Franklin. And I don't have a lot of people

01:47:42.380 that I can relate to, uh, where I live now in Franklin. And Dan is one of those guys that,

01:47:50.620 that he's very successful. He owned a couple of hospitals. He owned a, a, a big security business.

01:47:58.760 And he's like one of the few people that I can sit down with and talk business and talk friends.

01:48:03.280 And he doesn't need anything from me and I don't need anything from him. And those,

01:48:06.620 you know, those relationships get hard to come by. And, uh, so we hit it off really fast. And then

01:48:13.460 he died on a hunting trip with his son, had a heart attack and, um, and, uh, but Hey, I mean that if

01:48:20.800 there's a way to go, good on him. But, uh, anyways, his daughter who I had never met, I'm having this

01:48:29.560 breakdown in the, in the hotel and, uh, his daughter, I heard my phone go, go awful. I was

01:48:37.600 talking to Katie. And as soon as we kind of finished what we were talking about, about what

01:48:42.640 was going on, I checked my phone and it's from his daughter and, and, uh, it's this text. I'd never

01:48:53.620 even met her before. And, uh, she says she must've got my number from her dad's phone. And, and, uh,

01:49:02.080 she said, Hey, Sean, um, this is Taylor, Dan's daughter. And I just walked into my dad's gun

01:49:09.920 room for the first time since he had passed away. And he grabbed me by the arm and told

01:49:17.760 me that I needed to contact you because you knew a side of them that nobody else knew.

01:49:23.620 And that he wanted me to tell you that he loves you just the way that you are and that

01:49:30.660 you're doing exactly what you should be doing. And then, uh, I'm trying not to lose it right

01:49:37.460 now, but, um, but, uh, so that was like the third thing all within, like I said, 10, 15

01:49:45.220 minutes. And I was like, Holy shit. Like there's no denying this one. And, uh, and, uh,

01:49:53.300 Hello brick wall. Yeah. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic and never really took church

01:50:00.640 seriously. Uh, I never did. And then when I left home, I never really went back and, and

01:50:07.560 it kind of lost faith. And, uh, I'm not saying I wasn't a believer. I just didn't really care.

01:50:12.560 I didn't think about it. And, uh, I had definitely no time for, for God. And so I took that as

01:50:20.840 a, I mean, that was like a slap in the face and I, I decided I needed to get serious about

01:50:26.160 faith and at least look into it. And, and so I started looking into it and, and it's, and

01:50:31.200 it's been great. And, and, you know, to be honest, it's the only thing I can find that

01:50:35.040 makes any damn sense anymore. And it's all, it's all in that book. Everything we're seeing

01:50:39.940 happening right now. Isn't that how you started just reading the Bible? I did. I did. I started

01:50:45.020 trying to read it from front to back and, and, uh, I wasn't really getting anywhere. And then

01:50:50.480 shocking stuff in that old Testament. If you go that way. Yeah. And, um, but then turns out,

01:50:57.700 uh, as it turns out my entire team, I'm really close with my team, uh, my podcast team, the guys

01:51:04.120 that, that work for me and, and make it what, what it is. And, uh, turns out one guy's was

01:51:11.360 raised Southern Baptist, super well-versed in the Bible. My editor, Darren, uh, grew up

01:51:17.960 a Jehovah's witness and, uh, escaped, escaped it, but, but knows, I mean, knows that book from

01:51:24.760 front to back. Um, um, um, my it guy, Adam, uh, devout Catholic knows it all, everything.

01:51:34.880 Elijah, my production manager, he's the Southern Baptist guy. And they kind of started pouring

01:51:41.000 into me and, and a lot of my buddies that were in the seal teams, uh, Eddie Penny really

01:51:47.800 kind of paved the way for all of this. I think, uh, Eddie Penny was, uh, we were a team two

01:51:53.820 together and then he went on to dev group and, uh, just like, oh, mom, like, I mean, not who

01:52:03.200 you would expect to come to faith, but he was my Christmas episode, uh, a couple of years

01:52:09.680 ago. And ever since he came on and gave his testimony of how he came to everybody that's

01:52:18.500 been on the show has brought it up. And, um, and he became kind of a mentor of mine. So

01:52:24.220 I called Eddie and told him and I said, Hey, this is what happened. I don't really know where

01:52:30.240 to start. I don't really know what this means. Uh, and we had a conversation and, uh, he goes,

01:52:37.920 he was like, Oh man, he's like, a lot of us have been praying for this to happen.

01:52:43.380 Wow. And that kind of freaked me. I was like, well, what do you mean? And, uh, he's like,

01:52:48.520 we've been waiting for this. He's like, you have a big voice and, and this needs to happen.

01:52:55.540 And so that was at about midnight. I'm now I'm getting into some other kind of weird

01:53:00.400 synchronicity, uh, coincidences. And so about 12 hours later, I had a meeting that

01:53:07.760 Adam, uh, my T guy had scheduled with me at noon and Eddie was telling, Eddie was telling

01:53:16.200 me during the conversation, he was, he was talking about guardian angels and all this

01:53:19.940 other stuff that was spiritual warfare, stuff that I know like nothing about. Well, fast

01:53:25.080 forward 12 hours, I'm talking to Adam. I didn't know what this meeting was. I thought

01:53:29.080 it was about email marketing or something. And, uh, he wanted to talk to me about spiritual

01:53:35.200 warfare and guardian angels. And I was like, it was literally like almost the exact same

01:53:42.680 conversation as I had had with Eddie Penny. You're like, that's not on the dropdown menu

01:53:46.800 of message manager. I know. And they're not friends. I mean, Adam is with all due respect.

01:53:53.080 They hadn't coordinated those two guys. Eddie is a built like a shit brick house, a dev group

01:53:59.380 operator. And Adam is a IT computer nerd who I love to death. And, uh, so no, they don't,

01:54:07.600 they don't, there's no cross pollination. They're not friends. I've never spoken exact same conversation

01:54:13.120 at noon, come home for lunch from my studio to, uh, to be with the wife and kids and, um, Adam,

01:54:20.560 uh, and, and anyways, I go back to work. I look at my clock in my truck and it says it's 444.

01:54:29.100 I look at the odometer says 444 miles left to E and this is four hours and 44 minutes after my

01:54:36.800 conversation with Adam about guardian angels. So I look up the meaning of 444 and it is your guardian

01:54:45.420 angels want you to know that they have got you. And I'm just, I'm like, holy shit, man. Like we just

01:54:56.420 had two conversations about guardian angels and now I'm saying 444 everywhere within Gabe. Yeah. And,

01:55:03.700 and, and it's in the meaning of it. Supposedly, according to Google is your guardian angels want

01:55:11.740 you to know that they've got you. And, um, and so I've been in it ever since and, and, uh, I've had

01:55:17.780 some great mentors and started going to church that didn't last very long. And, uh, and, uh, now we

01:55:25.260 have, we have a group of, there's four families, including us, a lot of trust, very close, uh, friends

01:55:34.280 of ours. And we, we just have a discussion every week, every, every Tuesday. So when I get home today,

01:55:40.860 that's, that's, that's what we're doing. And, uh, it's cool. You get to ask the tough questions.

01:55:47.420 You can't, you don't need to be embarrassed. You're not going to offend anybody. You don't feel

01:55:50.860 judged. Like you're going to church every, you know, I always feel like I'm being judged. Oh,

01:55:55.980 hello, we're Catholic. Yeah. Built in. And, uh, and there's none of that. And, um, man, you know,

01:56:03.980 when you, when you kind of take all of the BS that religion kind of injects into,

01:56:09.820 end of your journey of building relationship with, with the creator and Jesus,

01:56:18.700 it's really interesting and it can be a lot of fun.

01:56:20.940 Yeah. I know what you're saying. I, my audience knows I've been having a

01:56:25.260 not unrelated struggle on that exact score. Really?

01:56:29.100 Yeah. Yeah. I'm, um, I'm Catholic, lifelong Catholic. And I started the process of having

01:56:35.340 my first marriage annulled. And instead of like bringing me closer to God or setting me in a path

01:56:41.900 that I thought would land well, it really has kind of alienated me. And, um, it's caused a bit of a

01:56:48.380 crisis of faith, you know, like who are these middlemen I have to go through in order to have a clean

01:56:53.260 relationship with God. That doesn't make any sense to me. I think God loves me and God sees

01:56:59.340 me in a loving marriage with three wonderful kids who have two great parents who are in love

01:57:05.980 and he's thrilled and he will accept me into his kingdom when it's all said and done. And if he

01:57:13.340 doesn't, it's certainly not going to be because I didn't get a paper. I got a paper divorce from Dan,

01:57:17.340 but I didn't get an annulment from a priest, you know, and then Mary dug in a Catholic

01:57:23.180 church. It doesn't make any sense to me. So that's sort of where I am right now. I'm still

01:57:29.020 wrestling with it. I got tons of great feedback, by the way, thank you to my audience. Cause so many

01:57:32.540 thoughtful emails on it, you know, from Catholic, um, listeners, but also just Christian listeners

01:57:39.500 who don't believe in that, you know, middleman thing either. I haven't resolved it.

01:57:44.460 Well, I'll keep my opinion to myself, but the middleman is a lie.

01:57:55.420 There are no middlemen. It's just about you and your relationship. And that's it.

01:58:01.420 I'll let you know that. And when you think like that, I mean, it's a, it, it gives me a sense of

01:58:09.740 peace, you know? And then you start looking at all the stuff that's going on like trans visibility day

01:58:15.660 being declared on Easter Sunday. Like you can't, like, you can't tell me these aren't signs, you

01:58:21.660 know? And this is all, like I said, this is all in there. I'm still reading through it. I'm not through

01:58:25.980 it all yet. I don't claim to be an expert, but, but you know, I see things I have a team to lean on

01:58:33.180 who's well-versed in this stuff and very fortunate. And, uh, and it's everything we're seeing happen

01:58:41.900 is in that book. And when you can, when you come to that realization, it's really odd, but all the

01:58:51.180 stuff that like all the stuff that was bothering me and it still does bother me, but at the same

01:58:57.340 time, it makes me stronger because up that was supposed to happen, you know, up that's in that

01:59:05.980 book up like really like trans visibility day, a confusion of genders on Easter Sunday,

01:59:14.220 making a mockery of the resurrection. Like that was in there. Yep. And, uh, and, um, so,

01:59:22.860 so how do you feel now? Do you feel a difference physically, but you know, emotionally now versus

01:59:29.580 during the Chinese trial balloon period, which was dark. Definitely. I mean, I'm at, uh,

01:59:34.860 I'm at peace with it. I mean, I'm still gonna fight the good fight and I'm still gonna bring truth

01:59:39.980 and uncover corruption and tell these stories and I'm not going to bend a knee to anything. And,

01:59:44.460 and, uh, and, but you know, it, it, but seeing it all happen, it's, it is actually making me stronger

01:59:55.260 because I found something in a world of nothing that makes any sense at all, not a damn bit of sense.

02:00:02.540 This makes all the sense in the world. It's, it aligns with the values that I've always had,

02:00:07.740 or maybe I align with its values, you know, but, um, but it, yeah, it's helped me. And, uh,

02:00:14.860 and then you start learning about, you know, maybe forgiveness is for you and not for the people that

02:00:25.900 did something bad to you that was unjust, you know, it's, it's, it's for your sense of peace,

02:00:31.660 not for theirs. You know, you can, you can go on and waste all that bad energy, hating somebody and

02:00:37.420 talking shit about them and, you know, complaining, you know, I got screwed over and I'm a victim and

02:00:43.020 dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But the minute you forgive them, that's off your plate. And it just,

02:00:47.260 it's, it's, it's, it's like a cleanse. Amen.

02:00:55.980 God bless you. Thank you so much for coming on and telling your story and all these personal

02:01:02.700 details about your life. What a pleasure. What a, what an honor to know you.

02:01:06.780 Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. And, uh, like I said, I was really excited to meet you

02:01:12.860 and, and, uh, just happy to be here. I'm honored. And honestly, God bless you. Thank you for your

02:01:17.820 service. Thanks to all of our military members, active duty and retired and those we've lost

02:01:23.580 for the service and sacrifice. We appreciate it. God bless you too. I hope this is a first of many,

02:01:28.540 Sean. Me too.

02:01:29.500 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 27, 2024

Shawn Ryan on the Physical and Emotional Toll of War, the Military-Industrial Complex, and Real Life Angels ｜ Ep. 802

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